Common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) are a species of concern in southeastern Montana and some southern states; however, they are invasive to the Crown of the Continent ecosystem. Although raccoons and foxes destroy over 90% of the eggs, the few remaining survivors that reach adulthood are enough to raise serious concern as they prey upon many native species and have no natural predators. According to the Montana Natural Heritage Program, there have been only three documented reports of snapping turtles in the Flathead Valley, yet we have observed an additional 19 unreported individuals. We tested a previously developed environmental DNA (eDNA) marker for common snapping turtles to help determine their distribution in the Flathead Valley. We extracted DNA from snapping turtle tissue samples collected in the Flathead Valley to verify marker effectiveness. We hypothesized McGilvray Lake and a nearby small pond would be positive for snapping turtle DNA, while Spencer Lake would be negative. Painted turtles (Chrysemys picta belli) were visually detected in all of the waterbodies while snapping turtles have not been observed in Spencer Lake. We collected eDNA samples via water filtration in December 2016. All of the eDNA samples were negative for snapping turtle DNA. We believe our analysis produced negative results because during the winter the turtles bury themselves in the mud and the DNA can degrade or that we did not capture enough DNA. We plan to sample in the summer when the turtles are more active to increase our probability of detection.


p53 is one of the most frequently mutated human tumour suppressor genes. Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and exposure to aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) induces p53 mutations in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue. The aims of present study are to investigate the p53 mutation spectrum in HBV‐ and AFB1‐related hepatocarcinogenesis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Guangxi, China.


Recent technological developments have clear potential to support paradigm shift from corrective maintenance towards risk‐based/predictive maintenance through data‐informed decision‐making. The most promising developments are already taken up by local communities. Acknowledging that successful development, rollout and implementation of standardisation is only possible with thorough understanding of the full context, the H2020 CSA IM‐SAFE project evaluated the main barriers and opportunities that need to be overcome to enable well‐functioning monitoring and maintenance of transport infrastructure. As the European countries have different political, economic and social situations, the analyses have been performed on the national level, and the outcomes have been aggregated to identify main barriers at EU level. This paper presents the outcomes of the analysis of PEST barriers and SWOT analyses and discusses the connection between the barriers and the limitations in the existing EU monitoring standards and opportunities for the national implementation. Finally, the article highlights the importance to consider different scenarios and their potential environmental constraints in order to ensure that the exploitation opportunities are successful and sustainable in the long‐term.


Abstract We study the effect of trust on debt contracting. We find that, after the revelation of option backdating, borrowers that likely backdated their previous option grants pay higher interest rates on loans. This adverse effect is mitigated by CEO replacements. Results are similar for public debt, but only if a third party identified the backdaters. After the backdating revelation, firms that engaged in backdating increase their reliance on public debt, and those without access to the public debt market experience capital constraints.


Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR), of energy >10 EeV, arrive at the Earth regularly, but their sources, acceleration mechanisms, details of propagation through the universe, and particle composition remain mysteries. In addition, their interactions with the atmosphere show an unexpectedly high muon flux compared to simulations. To address these issues, the Pierre Auger Observatory, a hybrid 3000 square km ground based cosmic ray detector, is being upgraded, notably adding a completely new detection layer to measure the radio frequency emission of extensive air showers. This Radio Detector extends the vertical shower techniques developed in earlier radio arrays, such as the Auger Engineering Radio Array, to horizontal showers, with a precision that is expected to be similar to existing ground array techniques. It will provide a novel measurement for inclined showers, complementary to the other techniques. Details of the detection technique, the design and production of the full 1660 station Radio Detector and the expected reach in addressing the open questions in UHECR astroparticle physics are presented.


Looseness is a defect found in leather that reduces its quality by causing a wrinkly appearance in the finished product, resulting in a reduction in its value. Earlier studies on loose leather using microscopy and Raman spectroscopy reported a change in the collagen structure of loose leather. In this study, proteomics was used to investigate the possible molecular causes of looseness in the raw material, the first time such a study has been carried out. Proteins extracted from two regions of raw hide using two different methods were analysed; those taken from the distal axilla, an area prone to looseness, and those taken from the backbone which is less prone to looseness. Analyses using 1DE-LC-MS/MS showed that although the overall collagen concentration was similar in both areas of the hide, the distribution of the different types of collagen differed.  Specifically, concentrations of type I collagen, and the collagen-associated proteoglycan decorin were lower in samples taken from the distal axilla, symptomatic of a collagen network with excess space seen for these samples using confocal microscopy. This study suggests a possible link between the molecular components of raw cattle hide and looseness and more importantly between the molecular components of skin and skin defects. There is therefore potential to develop biomarkers for looseness which will enable early preventative action.


Purpose
This paper aim to analyse the motives behind the commitment of nurses to their profession despite their intense job duties during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach
The empirical sample comprises of 35 semi-structured interviews with public sector hospital nurses in under-researched contexts of Egypt and Peru.

Findings
Three types of motives were found to play a critical role in nurses' commitment to their profession despite the difficulties associated with extreme work conditions. These factors include cultural (religious values, governmental coercion), contextual (limited education, organisational support) and personal (good nurse identity, submissive nature) dimensions.

Originality/value
This paper is one of the pioneering works to link existing literature streams on career commitment, extreme jobs, extreme context and management under disruptions (particularly COVID-19) by analysing these aspects in the under-researched Peruvian and Egyptian contexts.


When data mining occurs on distributed data, privacy of parties becomes great concerns. This paper considers the problem of mining quantitative association rules without revealing the private information of parties who compute jointly and share distributed data. The issue is an area of privacy preserving data mining (PPDM) research. Some researchers have considered the case of mining Boolean association rules; however, this method cannot be easily applied to quantitative rules mining. A new secure set union algorithm is proposed in this paper, which unifies the input sets of parties without revealing any element's owner and has lower time cost than existing algorithms. The new algorithm takes the advantages of both in privacy-preserving Boolean association rules mining and in privacy-preserving quantitative association mining. This paper also presents an algorithm for privacy-preserving quantitative association rules mining over horizontally portioned data, based on CF tree and secure sum algorithm. Besides, the analysis of the correctness, the security and the complexity of our algorithms are provided


The importance of involving users during user interface (UI) design activities is widely recognised
however the nature of this involvement may vary significantly. This study investigated the benefits
and challenges of applying Participatory Design (PD) during the development of helicopter UI.
During the first phase, four helicopter design professionals were interviewed in order to understand
their views on user involvement and current approaches. The second phase involved three
helicopter test pilots and three human factors specialists participating in a PD workshop (based on
design thinking) focussed on a helicopter UI design case study (the Automatic Flight Control
System within a Royal Navy Merlin Mark 2). There was strong agreement from all the participants
that user involvement is important and current approaches were described as mainly consultative.
Benefits identified included a better understanding of the problem and context of use and therefore
closer alignment of the design with user needs. The approach encouraged divergent thinking and
benefitted from being multidisciplinary. Minor changes to the workshop format should be
considered in order to minimise the risk of bias and make the best use of the participants' time. This
study developed a valuable approach to PD which is likely to be generalizable to other domains.


[From Introduction]Inherent in our constitutional right to a jury trial in criminal cases—for offences where imprisonment for five years or more is a possible sentence— is the right to have jurors who are our "peers" and "equals." This right can be traced back to 1215 when King John signed the Magna Carta to make peace with the wealthy men of England.The route from the Magna Carta to Canadian criminal law in the early twenty-first century is long and convoluted, and extra twists and turns are added when we consider the use of juries in Canada's North. Here, where the effects of colonialism are still felt on a daily basis, and where communities from which a jury might be drawn sometimes number only a few hundred persons, the ability to obtain a jury comprised of "the peers" of our clients, who are usually Indigenous, can be challenging and sometimes difficult. In this article I offer my perspective, as a practising criminal defence lawyer in the Northwest Territories, on the challenges we face in trying to obtain juries that truly represent the communities from which our clients originate. ... ...More


The article is devoted to the problem of developing the mountainous areas of the North Caucasus, which is the development of the campaign launched in the last century to develop previously uninhabited areas of the earth's surface. Architectural and construction tasks in the construction of mountain objects in a complex mountainous terrain are complicated by seismic phenomena due to the proximity of Elbrus and Kazbek. The construction of mountain objects is hampered by natural and technogenic phenomena, equivalent to catastrophes. In the history of the development of the mountainous areas of the North Caucasus, the role of mining facilities is important, which, by mining, increases stresses and strains to a critical state with the destruction of rock massifs. The movement of mountain masses and the change in the basis of erosion determine the vectors of exomorphodynamic processes in the region. The probability of disasters in complex terrain conditions is determined by the number and quality of damaging factors and explains the need to optimize the forms and means of architectural support for the development of mountain areas. The problems of urban planning are solved through comprehensive research, one of which is the architectural support of projects, the purpose of which is to combine the principles of designing the architecture of objects and the state of the environment. Architectural support of construction in mountain regions provides, inter alia, an organic combination of the development of small settlements in the region with the prospect of agricultural and industrial production with their social challenges and demands. The effectiveness of the development of mountain areas with the implementation of the recommendations of architectural support is evaluated by the criterion in the form of an increase in the total income of the developed territory, which is a product of taking into account technological, economic and environmental factors of production in developed mountain regions. A promising direction of increasing the economic efficiency of the replacement of scarce binders with alternative substances, for example, fly ash with an increase in their activity in the apparatus and other innovations in the construction and technological areas.


The p-type cuprous-oxide (Cu2O) thin films were fabricated by using the reactive sputtering method. As-deposited p-type Cu2O thin films were post-annealed in argon gas ambient. The as-deposited p-type Cu2O thin films exhibited Cu2O (111), Cu2O (220), and Cu2O (200) X-ray diffraction peaks. Increasing the post-annealing temperature in Ar gas resulted in a shifting of the Cu2O (111) and the Cu2O (200) diffraction peaks towards lower and higher angles, respectively. At an annealing temperature of 550 °C, the Cu2O (200) diffraction peaks was strongest. The resistivity, hole concentration and mobility of the p-type Cu2O thin film with an annealing temperature of 550 °C were 179.7 Ω· cm, 1.994 × 1015 cm−3 and 17.43 cm2/V·s, respectively.


Phase matching the stimulated four-photon mixing process on single-mode fibers reveals information about the dispersion properties of the fiber, in particular, the zero-dispersion wavelength. Examples of the expected frequency-shift behavior around the zero-dispersion wavelength are given for multiply clad silica glass single-mode fibers designed for minimum dispersion operation in the 1.55-microm region.


Usage of 3th dimension information obtained from depth sensors in human action recognition has gained importance in the recent years. In this study, basic human actions are tried to recognize on a human model derived from RGBD sensor. Joint angles and joint displacements used as time series and feature extraction from times series is applied to recognize actions. Actions are classified with the random forest and support vector machine approaches and classification accuracy is measured on MSRAction-3D and MSRC-12 datasets.


Monitoring learners' mental states via a passive Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) allows to continuously estimate current abilities, available cognitive resources, and motivation. It bears the great potential to adapt educational contents, learning speed, and format to the learner's needs via an intelligent tutoring system. We present a neurophysiological-based approach to continuously monitor learners' current affective-emotional and cognitive states by measuring and decoding brain activity via a passive BCI. In two studies (N = 8 and N = 7), we investigate whether we can a) predict learners' affective and cognitive states during a learning or training session, b) provide continuous feedback of recognized states to the learner and, thereby, c) increase performance and intrinsic motivation. Oscillatory power measures in the alpha (8 – 12 Hz) and theta (4 – 7 Hz) frequency band served as features for the prediction and visualization. Our results reveal that machine learning algorithms can distinguish different states of cognitive workload and affect. The approach contributes to the development of closed-loop neuro-adaptive tutoring systems which allow to monitor learners' states, provide feedback, and adapt their parameters for an optimal learner-training fit and effective and positive learning experience.


Learning or classifying under uncertainty and using the results of learning in subsequent deductive inference are discussed. The relationship between information theoretic techniques and validation techniques is an important component of this investigation. The specific focus is on developing the framework for a general learning paradigm and presenting techniques for uncertainty representations in clustering within this framework. A probabilistic inference network is used to reason with the results of the clustering and classification on a given data set and possibly some a priori information. The properties of appropriate uncertainty representations are developed to define specific requirements for the uncertainty measures in cluster analysis. This approach selects the distribution which uses the information provided by the cluster analysis without imposing any further bias on class assignment.<<ETX>>


The oral cavity is frequently involved in conditions that affect the skin or other multiorgan diseases. Sarcoidosis is a multisystem non-caseating, granulomatous condition of unknown etiology, most commonly presenting in young adults. Pulmonary and lymph node involvement are common and although oral lesions can occur, these are rare. This is a case report of a female aged 26 who presented with a sublingual swelling. Oral lesions may constitute the first sign of systemic sarcoidosis and for this reason the oral mucous membrane needs to be explored when there is a suspicion of sarcoidosis, and systemic sarcoidosis must be included in the differential diagnosis of oral granulomatous lesions. We emphasize the role of angiotensin converting enzyme level, special bacterial stain and proper systemic evaluation in diagnosis of this rare presentation.


Of the seven base units of the international system of units, only the kilogram is still defined in terms of a material artifact. One of the experimental approaches opening the way to a new definition of the kilogram is the watt balance. To improve the performance of the NPL watt balance, we need to quantify and reduce hysteresis effects in the balance knives. In this paper, we discuss the mechanical characteristics of the knife edges used in the NPL watt balance. The hysteresis mechanism is analyzed using the finite element method. It is found that the cause of hysteresis is not normal stress but shear, and the deformation of the flat, rather than the knife, is an important factor in the hysteresis mechanism. The study presented here, using finite element analysis, suggests that parameters such as material property, tip radius and knife straightness can be more important than others, such as friction coefficient, tip angle, etc.


Because of the production of males, sexual populations are expected to incur a 50% cost in potential growth rate. However, theory predicts that sexual competition between males can compensate for this cost by decreasing the mutation load of sexual populations. To test this hypothesis, I induced mutations in male bulb mites with ionizing radiation and subjected their progeny (F1) to two selective regimes differing in opportunity for sexual selection. Mutations which were not removed by selection acting on the F1 decreased embryonic viability in the F2. Viability was significantly higher in the treatment in which there was an opportunity for sexual selection than in the treatment in which sexual selection was experimentally eliminated. The results indicate that sexual selection can increase population fitness and, at least partly, compensate for the cost of sex.


The Cytosensor microphysiometer uses silicon chip technology to correlate changes in extracellular acidification rates with quantitative changes in cellular metabolism in response to ligand binding to surface receptors. This functional measure of physiology makes the Cytosensor a valuable tool in drug discovery research by allowing application of the instrument to screening of prospective pharmacologically active agents, characterizations of dose responses and structure-activity relationships, and investigation of mechanisms of action.


Although the promoter/enhancer of the IL-2 gene mediates inducible reporter gene expression in vitro, it cannot drive consistent expression in transgenic mice. The location and existence of any regulatory elements that could open the IL-2 locus in vivo have remained unknown, preventing analysis of IL-2 regulation in developmental contexts. In this study, we report the identification of such a regulatory region, marked by novel DNase-hypersensitive sites upstream of the murine IL-2 promoter in unstimulated and stimulated T cells. Inclusion of most of these sites in an 8.4-kb IL-2 promoter green fluorescent protein transgene gives locus control region-like activity. Expression is efficient, tissue specific, and position independent. This transgene is expressed not only in peripheral T cells, but also in immature thymocytes and thymocytes undergoing positive selection, in agreement with endogenous IL-2 expression. In contrast, a 2-kb promoter green fluorescent protein transgene, lacking the new hypersensitive sites, is expressed in only a few founder lines, and expression is dysregulated in CD8+ cells. Thus, the 6.4 kb of additional upstream IL-2 sequence contains regulatory elements that provide integration site independence and differential regulation of transgene expression in CD8 vs CD4 cells.


This paper was written to share the experience acquired in the specification of surge suppressors (snubbers) for protection against switching transients' overvoltage resulting primarily in dry-type transformers failures in some plants in Brazil and North America. This paper will also explain about the snubber ratings (damping resistor, surge capacitor and surge arrester), the assembly special cares, system modeling and simulations using the software ATP-Alternative Transient Program.


This article explores the history of the establishment of a Tujia-Hmong Autonomous Prefecture, an ethnic autonomous administrative division in Hunan province. The article highlights some significant characteristics of the Chinese institution of ethnic regional autonomy, which fundamentally departs from both the Austrian Marxist and liberal-nationalist prescriptions for solving the so-called national question. It argues that the Chinese design is neither a leftist "ethnic cultural autonomy" nor a rightist "devolved government." It appreciates the cultural psychology of ethnic groups, but also addresses issues beyond cultural affairs. The institution has administrative boundaries like any devolved government, but the ethnic group that forms the majority of the region's population cannot monopolize the local government. Local government cannot become a "nationalized" apparatus dominated by cadres and intellectuals of a particular ethnic minority. The Xiang Xi Tujia-Hmong Autonomous Prefecture is a legal arrangement that balances the interests of all the resident groups, thus providing the possibility of a true "people's government." The Tujia case does not represent a universal solution inasmuch as the characteristics of China's ethnic autonomous regions vary. However, it may still enrich our understanding of the history.This article is in English.本文研究了成立湘西土家族苗族自治州的历史过程,在与奥地利马克思主义和自由民族主义等学说的比较中,揭示了中国民族区域自治制度的一些特征。中国的民族区域自治并非"民族文化自治"或者"高度自治地方政府":它照顾少数民族的文化心理意识,但并不是处理民族文化事务的专门机构;它划分出拥有一定自治权力的地方行政区域,但不能依照简单的少数服从多数原则由当地占有人口优势的某一个民族垄断自治权力,不能形成由民族干部、知识分子控制的所谓"民族化"政权机关。只有认识到中国民族区域自治制度的独特性,才能正确推动它继续发展。


BACKGROUND
Bevacizumab is an agent with a tolerable safety profile which was described to be effective in recurrent ovarian cancer in recent phase I and phase II trials. But it remains unclear if these characteristics can translate to the very special collective of heavily pre-treated ovarian cancer patients. The present analysis was conducted to answer questions regarding safety and efficacy for the use of bevacizumab in these patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A single-center, retrospective chart review was performed including all patients with histologically confirmed ovarian cancer and treatment with bevacizumab between 1981 and 2008. Data documentation was performed with an internet-based documentation tool (Alcedis Med, Alcedis, Gießen, Germany). All data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

RESULTS
Overall, 15 patients who were treated with bevacizumab outside of a clinical study were identified. A total of 134 cycles of bevacizumab were applied, with a median of 8.9 cycles per patient. All 15 patients had platinum-resistant disease at the time of treatment, with a median of 5.4 prior lines of chemotherapy (range 1-7). The best response under treatment with bevacizumab was classified as partial response in 2 patients (13.3%). Stable disease was found in 6 (40%) and progressive disease in 7 (46.7%) patients. The median time to progression was 6.6 months and the median overall survival was 15.0 months from the first cycle of bevacizumab. At the time of analysis 3 patients were still alive and 1 patient had been lost to follow-up. No gastrointestinal perforations or treatment related deaths were observed. Severe adverse events included 3 fistulas (20%), 1 impaired wound healing (6.6%) and 1 severe blood pressure crisis (6.6 %).

DISCUSSION
Despite previous experience of a high rate of bowel perforations in patients with ovarian cancer treated with bevacizumab, no perforation was observed in this analysis despite the fact that this collective was a heavily pretreated and platinum resistant subgroup. The most severe possible side effect in this group was the occurrence of fistula, which might suggest that bevacizumab is a therapy option with an acceptable safety profile, even though the rate of fistulas is higher than reported in previous studies. This might again be related to the nature of this very special subgroup of heavily pretreated patients.

CONCLUSION
The results of this analysis suggest that bevacizumab might be an efficient therapy option in the setting of heavily pre-treated ovarian cancer with a tolerable safety profile even in this very special collective.


Anopheles darlingi is the major vector of malaria in South America. In French Guiana, malaria transmission occurs inland and along the rivers with a particular reemergence in the lower Oyapock area. Control against malaria vector is performed using deltamethrin indoor residual spraying and long lasting impregnated bednets. For four years, the level of resistance to pyrethroids was monitored using CDC bottle tests in An. darlingi populations. Resistance built-up was suspected in a mosquito population in malaria endemic area but did not sustained, supposably due to the reintroduction of susceptible alleles. No mutation on the insecticide target genes was found, metabolic resistance is then suspected.


In Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, dopamine replacement therapy requires days to reach maximal effects, and the return of symptoms without treatment is similarly delayed. We previously postulated that these phenomena are mediated by plasticity of coritcostriatal synapses. As dopamine depletion is expected to promote aberrant potentiation of the cortical inputs onto indirect pathway neurons, we reasoned that induction of LTD here could reduce motor deficits in a PD model. Optogenetic cortical stimulation combined with a D2 receptor agonist, quinpirole, induces robust optical LTD (oLTD) in brain slices from 6-OHDA lesioned mice. When lesioned mice were subjected to corticostriatal oLTD treatment over 5 days, motor performance was improved for >3 weeks. Consistent with LTD induction, oLTD-treated mice had reduced VGLUT1 expression in striatum and greater excitability of D2 neurons. These findings suggest that reversing aberrant corticostriatal synaptic plasticity in the indirect pathway may lead to persistent relief of PD motor symptoms.


This research work is aimed at modeling an agent based scheduler that is optimized for handling job scheduling in a way that ensures efficient and profitable manufacturing automation. An alternative view on job shop scheduling problem (JSP) was adopted in this research work where each machine is equipped with adaptive agent that independent of other agents, makes job dispatching decision based on its local view of the plant. A combination of Markovian process and agent oriented analysis are used in the analysis of the proposed agent based model (ABM) for the industrial machine operations. The model optimization was carried out using simulated annealing technique. It provides a general framework of aggregation in agent based and related computational models by making use of Markov chain aggregation and lumpability theory in order to link the micro and the macro level of observation. Keywords—Markov chain, ABM, Optimization, Operation, Scheduling, Dispatching.


The urban riots that took place in French suburbs between October 27th and November 17th 2005 highlighted the circumstances of minors and young majors in problem areas in a spectacular way. The difficulties these encounter in becoming socialised, their sense of "social desperation", the segregation and discrimination they are victims of, are part of nowadays debate on social policy. The republican model can no longer be applied rigidly and society can no longer be represented in class struggle terms only because such approaches have broadly led to underestimate other dimensions: the significance of the question of migrations, the time lag between "cultural" integration which is quite swift and "structural" integration, far slower for immigrants and their children, the existing gaps between different generations of immigrants' children living in housing estates. The times and current difficulties undoubtedly call for the recourse to other approaches in addition to traditional ones as the latter point out "vertical" phenomena – the role of genealogical and legal dimensions, of family or institutions handing down some legacywhile assuming that everybody lives in one and the same world. These new approaches are, on the one hand, an approach that is fuelled by observation of current events and underlines gaps between contemporaries as well as between cultures, thinking patterns, fundamental principles; on the other hand, a "horizontal" point of view that stresses peer effect and the role played by urban environment. At his 2002 Senate Board of Enquiry hearing on delinquency in young people, Thierry Baranger, President of the French Association of Magistrates for youth and family said: "It is no coincidence that a large pro* This paper was presented at the International Conference "Law and Society in the 21st. Century", Berlin 25-28 July, 2007. Versão integral disponível em digitalis.uc.pt


A roller device is provided with a roller main body, a shaft member which is inserted through the roller main body, a flange through which the shaft member is inserted and which is provided so as to be in contact with the both ends of the roller main body, and a position regulation member which is fixed to the shaft member on the side of the end portion of the shaft member with respect to the flange and regulates the position of the flange in a shaft direction. Further, the roller device is provided with a plate shaped member which is disposed between the position regulation member and the flange and the movement of which is regulated to the side of the end portion in the shaft direction by the position regulation member, a biasing member which is provided on the side of the flange of the plate shaped member and biases the flange to the center side in the shaft direction, and a fixing member which is provided on the side of the end portion of the shaft member with respect to the plate shaped member and is engaged with the position regulation member.


Two patients with manifestations of cerebral ischemia were found to have a circulating coagulation inhibitor. This immunoglobulin, termed lupus anticoagulant, results in a prolonged partial thromboplastin time. Paradoxically, it is usually associated with a thrombotic tendency rather than a bleeding diathesis. It is most commonly found in systemic lupus erythematosus, which our patients did not have. These two patients represent the interesting phenomenon of cerebral ischemia in the presence of an endogenous inhibitor of coagulation.


A small air-conditioner or chiller for a constant temperature bath normally uses a constant speed compressor. The constant speed compressor is relatively inexpensive, but it uses on/off control for capacity modulation. The on/off control has several disadvantages, specifically energy loss and large temperature fluctuation. Continuous operation with a bypass system can be an alternative to on/off control, for capacity modulation. In this study, a heat pump system having a hot-gas bypass and a liquid bypass was adopted. The performance of the bypass-type heat pump was measured, by varying the bypass valve opening. The differences of the COP between the hot-gas bypass and the liquid bypass, in the cooling and heating operations, were within 2% and 1%, respectively. The liquid bypass showed a wider range of capacity control in the cooling operation but the hot-gas bypass showed a wider range of capacity control in the heating operation.


The design of military posture is an exercise in confronting potential enemies' capabilities within the context of geographic, technological, temporal, political and economic constraints. No formal model is capable of encapsulating the essentials of so complex an environment for closed or simulated analysis, but it is useful to have an informal framework within which to reason interactively within these dimensions. This paper presents such a scaffolding, patterned on the notion of a military posture as the output of an economic process whose structure reflects important determinants of the characteristics and extents of weaponry and expenditures that are appropriate to the environment within the feasibility set determined by the constraints. The analysis remains at an abstract level, but it does highlight the important shifts toward preparation for littoral warfare, greater reliance on reserve rather than active forces, and necessary changes in missions among military departments.


The study of pricing microdata is emerging in the literature as an important method for understanding actual pricing conduct. Studies of the large price datasets used to compile consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index (PPI) measures have been undertaken in a number of countries, including Israel (Baharad et al. 2004), Spain (Alvarez et al. 2004), France (Baudry et al. 2007), the United States (US) (Bils and Klenow 2005), Portugal (Dias et al. 2007), Germany (Stahl 2005), Luxemburg (Lunnemann 2005), Austria (Baumgartner et al. 2005), Sierra Leone (Kovanen 2006), Italy (Sabbatini et al. 2006), Denmark (Hansen et al. 2006), Brazil (Gouvea 2007), France (Gautier 2008), Finland (Kurri 2007), the euro area (Alvarez et al. 2008), Colombia (Julio and Zarate 2008) and Slovakia (Coricelli and Horvath 2010).


Adolescence is a period of transition between childhood and adulthood, experiencing changes in mental, emotional, social, physical, and sexual maturity. If there is no supervision, direction, guidance from the closest person such as parents, family, educators, there might be unexpected sexual deviations such as; pregnancy and premarital sex. The aim of the study was to find out the relationship between the role of educators and parents on the attitudes of adolescents in preventing premarital sex in Balikpapan in 2017. The survey research method was a cross-sectional design. Study sample 119 students of Balikpapan Health Vocational School aged 14-18 years, taking techniques using Random Sampling. Data research techniques using questionnaires with a Likert scale. Data analysis used univariate analysis with frequency distribution, bivariate analysis with chi-square (x2) statistical test and multivariate logistic regression test with significance p <0.05. The results of the study: the role of educators supports 68 (57.1%), the role of parents supports 72 (60.5%), and positive teen attitudes 62 (52.1%) there is a relationship between the role of educators in adolescent attitudes with a value (OR = 2.504, 95% CI (1.19 - 5.27) p-value = 0.024), there is no relationship between the role of parents on adolescent attitudes with values (OR = 2.185, 95% CI (1.03-4.62) and p-value = 0.061 Strength regression test the relationship between the role of parents OR = (0.74) and the role of educators OR = (0.57). the role of people old there is no relationship but the more dominant influence on changes in adolescent attitudes compared to the role of educators, it needs to be a concern of all parties because adolescents are a time to seek self-identity so that the environment is easily influenced. Suggestion: parents, educators and other parties (religion, government) pay more attention to adolescents to avoid premarital sex deviations.


Abstract Background Fibromyalgia (FM) is characterized by musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep and memory disturbance. There is no definitive cure yet for FM-related health problems. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor's (PPAR's) activation is associated with insulin sensitisation and improved glucose metabolism. PPAR-γ was reported to alleviate FM allodynia. Limited data are discussing its effect on motor disorders. Objective To investigate the potential effect of PPAR-γ agonists (pioglitazone, as one member of thiazolidinediones (TZD)) on motor dysfunction in reserpine-induced FM in a rat model. Materials and methods Thirty-six male Wistar rats were divided into negative control (n = 9) and reserpine-induced FM (n = 27) groups. The latter was subdivided into three equal subgroups (n = 9), positive control (untreated FM model), pioglitazone-treated and GW9662-treated. We evaluated muscle functions and activity of chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, superoxide dismutase, malondialdehyde, and serum levels of interleukin-8 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1. Results Pioglitazone significantly relieved fatigue, improved muscle performance, reduced inflammatory cytokines and enhanced antioxidant's activity, while GW9662, a known PPAR-γ antagonist, aggravated the FM manifestations in the rat model. Conclusion PPAR-γ agonists show a promising role against FM-associated motor dysfunctions.


An amperometric lysine biosensor was fabricated by immobilizing lysine oxidase onto core shell magnetic nanoparticles (Core– shell MNPs)/multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) layer deposited on Au electrode via carbodiimide linkage. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for core–shell MNPs, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Fourier transform impedance spectroscopy (FTIR) studies were used to characterize the modified electrode. Sensor showed optimal response within 2s at 30oC in 0.05 M sodium phosphate buffer pH 6.0 when polarized at +0.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl. Linear working range of the biosensor was determined by 0.05 -700 μM with a detection limit of 0.05 μM. A good correlation (r = 0.98) was obtained between serum lysine levels measured by the standard HPLC method (y) and the present method (x). A number of serum substances had practically no interference. The sensor was used in 150 assays and had a storage life of 180 days at 4 o C. This nanohybrid biosensor will be useful for detection of lysine in food and pharmaceutical industries. Copyright © 2015 VBRI press.


A novel scheme for detecting diffractive surface scattering of H atoms is proposed. This scheme is composed of three techniques: the laser photolysis of hydrogen-halide molecules to produce a monoenergetic H beam, the resonant detection of H atoms by multiphoton-ionization and the imaging of the diffractive scattering. A preliminary experiment, which recorded the image of H atoms generated from the HBr photolysis at 243 nm, determined the speed width to be 5.6%. The analysis of the results in terms of the speed distribution and the beam intensity assured the feasibility of the scheme.


Existing efforts on teaching software maintenance have focussed on constructing adequate codebases that students with limited knowledge could maintain, with little focus on the learning outcomes of such exercises and of the approaches that students employ while performing maintenance. An analysis of the code understanding strategies employed by novice students as they perform software maintenance exercises is fundamental for the effective teaching of software maintenance. In this paper, we analyze the strategies employed by second year students in a maintenance exercise over a large codebase. We analyze student reflections on their code understanding, maintenance process and the use of tools. We show that students are generally capable of working with large codebases. Our study also finds that the majority of students follow a systematic approach to code understanding, but that their approach can be significantly improved through the use of tools and a better understanding of reverse engineering approaches.


OBJECTIVE
To determine if shock wave therapy (SWT) after tibial plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO) has a beneficial effect on patellar ligament inflammation assessed by thickening of the ligament and ligament fiber disruption.

STUDY DESIGN
Prospective, randomized, controlled clinical trial.

ANIMALS
Dogs (n = 30).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Dogs that had TPLO (July 1, 2009 to June 1, 2010) were enrolled. The affected stifle was examined by radiographs and ultrasonography preoperatively and 4, 6, and 8 weeks after TPLO. At 4 and 6 weeks, dogs in the treatment group were briefly anesthetized and treated with SWT. Patellar ligament thickness on a lateral radiographic projection was measured at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 of the distance from origin to insertion. Ultrasound images were evaluated for patellar ligament disruption and periligament edema.

RESULTS
There was significant difference in thickness (P = .0264) only at the distal point; therefore, only this point was used to measure difference between the control and treatment groups. A significant difference between groups was reached at 6 and 8 weeks (P = .0059 and P = .0095, respectively) postoperatively. No significant ultrasonographic differences were found.

CONCLUSION
Based on these results, SWT decreases the radiographic signs of patellar ligament desmitis.


Hadronic decays of heavy particles with momenta much larger than their mass result in their decay products being reconstructable as a single large-radius jet. The study of the substructure of these jets allows the separation of these boosted decays with respect to more common jets from light-quarks and gluons. Several techniques have been developed by the phenomenology and experimental community to identify jets coming from hadronic decays of boosted top quarks, W, Z and Higgs bosons. The performance of several such techniques has been studied in ATLAS using fully-simulated Monte Carlo events, and validated on data using pure samples of top quarks, W bosons from top decays and dijet events. Results of these studies will be presented for Run 1 as well as Run 2 of the LHC.


Colorectal foreign bodies (FB) are challenging issues for the endoscopist especially if the mostly used methods (polypectomy snare, biopsy forceps or wire-guided 40 mm dilation balloon) failed. We report a case of a 31-year-old man who was admitted in the emergency department for the impaction of a 60 cm long and large-size FB in the sigmoid colon. We failed to remove the FB using several different standard technique because of the rigidity, the smoothness and the size of the object. After all these attempts, we built up a 'home-made' device inserting a 0.035 inch non-hydrophilic guidewire (Metro WireGuide, Cook Medical) doubled into an 8.5 Fr stent-pusher-catheter (Cook Medical) serving as an outer sheet in order to create a noose and we finally succeeded in the endoscopic extraction of the device. We suggest this new technique as a valid option to remove large FBs from the colon and rectum when standard endoscopic methods for FB's extraction fail.


An ab initio SCF-MO procedure has been used to compute the structures, bond orders, and isodesmic reaction energies of various NH2 and NO2 derivatives of triprismane and some azatriprismanes. Each of these substituents, individually, is found to have a weakening influence upon one or more bonds. The presence of aza nitrogens in the molecular framework enhances this tendency for the NH2 group but essentially eliminates it for NO2. No reinforcement ('push-pull" effect) is observed when the two substituents are present simultaneously on adjacent carbons. The NH2 group is found to diminish the strain energies of these molecules; however the effect of the NO2 appears to depend upon the number of aza nitrogens.


We aimed to investigate the prevalence of sarcopenia using new diagnostic criteria and association of sarcopenia with cardiopulmonary function and physical activity (PA) in preoperative lung cancer patients. The data of 614 patients were obtained from the CATCH-LUNG cohort study. Patients were classified into three groups—normal (n = 520), pre-sarcopenia (n = 60, low skeletal muscle mass index only), and sarcopenia (n = 34, low SMI and strength). Cardiopulmonary function was measured using the 6-min walk test (6MWT), and PA was objectively measured using a wearable device. The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for a <400-m distance in 6MWT was 3.52 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.34–9.21) and 6.63 (95% CI 2.25–19.60) in the pre-sarcopenia and sarcopenia groups, respectively, compared to that in the normal group. The aOR (95% CI) for <5000 steps/day was 1.64 (0.65–4.16) and 4.20 (1.55–11.38) in the pre-sarcopenia and sarcopenia groups, respectively, compared to that in the normal group. In conclusion, the prevalence of pre-sarcopenia and sarcopenia was 9.8% and 5.5%, respectively, among preoperative lung cancer patients. Cardiopulmonary function and physical activity were significantly lower in the pre-sarcopenia and sarcopenia groups than in the normal group. Patients with sarcopenia had more robust findings, suggesting the importance of muscle strength and mass.


Experimental tests were performed at Virginia Tech to investigate transverse panel-to-panel connections and horizontal shear connector block-outs for full-depth precast concrete bridge deck panels. The connections were designed for a deck replacement project for a rural three-span continuous steel beam bridge in Virginia. Two reinforced and four post-tensioned connections were designed and tested in cyclical loading. Each connection was tested on a full-scale, two-beam setup in negative bending with a simulated HS-20 vehicle. The block-outs for the horizontal shear connections were also scrutinized during construction and testing. Several surface treatments were investigated to determine the best strategy to limit cracking and leakage at the grout-concrete interface. The strain profile, cracking patterns, and ponding results are presented for all specimens. The reinforced connections and two post-tensioned connections with 167 psi initial stress experienced cracking and leaked water by the end of the cyclic loading regime. In two connections post-tensioned with an initial compressive stress of 340 psi, the tensile stress in the deck under full live load remained below approximately 3√(f'c). These transverse connections did not leak water, did not have full-depth cracking, and maintained a nearly linear strain distribution throughout the design life. Full-depth deck panels may be effectively used on continuous bridges if post-tensioning force is applied to the transverse connections to keep the total tensile stress (remaining prestress minus live load stress) below 3√(f'c). The block-outs with a sand-blasted surface or an epoxy primer combined with a grout that met the requirements recommended by Scholz et al. (2007) had only slight water leakage, and had smaller cracks at the grout-concrete interface than the control samples. These surface treatments are recommended for best long-term performance.


. This study involved implementing a fuzzy controller approach to create a ground-based control model for an autonomous robot in a stable environment. In addition, a classical control method was developed and tested within the results. With the fuzzy controller approach, it was studied that the robot moves easily in the test environment and goes to desired targets. An autonomous mobile robot aims to minimize the energy consumption of the robot with a fuzzy controller algorithm. The energy consumption for processing time and data error between the coordinates where the robot should go and the coordinates it goes after the operations are completed are calculated separately. By utilizing a fuzzy controller algorithm, the mobile robot is capable of operating in a flexible manner. It was observed that the fuzzy approach performs 10 times faster and more accurately compared to the traditional method. In terms of being open to development and modular, the flying mobile robot fulfilled the functions envisaged in this work. In the future, the direction of a flying robot can be determined using a digital electronic compass to reach longer distances with external sensors.


Adorno, Arendt, Badiou, Derrida, Heidegger and Rorty have variously called for radically new conceptions of philosophy, but none has made a case for turning from the historical and genealogical past to the anthropological present. Taking the view that thought cannot escape the impress of a thinker's immediate situation, this article invokes the phenomenological notions of lifeworld and lebensphilosophie to explore the social spaces where thought arises and transpires. Beginning with Hannah Arendt's conception of thinking as grounded in the vita activa rather than the vita contemplativa, it is suggested that ethnographic method provides a compelling way of realizing her vision of thought as inextricably political and tied to events — expressions of the power relations between human subjects, and between private and public realms.


Learn how to research the history of your house or a prominent Melbourne building using the Library's collection of architectural drawings, maps and online tools.


Computational social science studies often contextualize content analysis within standard demographics. Since demographics are unavailable on many social media platforms (e.g. Twitter), numerous studies have inferred demographics automatically. Despite many studies presenting proof-of-concept inference of race and ethnicity, training of practical systems remains elusive since there are few annotated datasets. Existing datasets are small, inaccurate, or fail to cover the four most common racial and ethnic groups in the United States. We present a method to identify self-reports of race and ethnicity from Twitter profile descriptions. Despite the noise of automated supervision, our self-report datasets enable improvements in classification performance on gold standard self-report survey data. The result is a reproducible method for creating large-scale training resources for race and ethnicity.


Objective This paper presents findings on the effect a first aid training on first aid knowledge and skills of university drivers. Methods Quasi-experimental study was conducted among 176 drivers allocated into intervention (98) and control groups (78) using a cluster sampling technique. The intervention comprised a 2-day training on first aid for accident victims and a training on HIV/AIDS and the workplace for control drivers. First aid knowledge and skills were measured at baseline and immediately post-intervention. First aid knowledge was assessed using a multiple-item questionnaire and aggregate scores computed giving minimum and maximum obtainable scores of 0 and 25. The drivers participated in simulated accident scenarios during which their first aid skills were assessed and scored giving minimum and maximum obtainable scores of 0 and 24 respectively. Results The mean age of respondents from the intervention group was 51.75.8 years compared to 50.65.8 years among controls(p = 0.236). Median first aid knowledge scores before and after the intervention were 12 (5 20) and 15 (8 23) (p<0.001) for intervention and 12 (7 19) and 14 (5 18) for control drivers (p>0.05). Median first aid skills scores were 11 (2 15) and 15 (7 20) (p<0.001) for intervention drivers and 9 (2 18) and 8 (1 16) (p > 0.05) for controls. Conclusion The intervention resulted in meaningful improvement in first aid knowledge and skills of the intervention drivers. It is recommended that they be given first aid training to enable them provide this service to crash victims.


Opportunities and specifics of application of the Person-Centered Approach (PCA) to the organizational relations and development are discussed in article. The article represents compilation of the program articles "Differences" and "The Strategic Future of the PCA" and descriptions of four person-centered skills. A careful analysis of differences between the Client-Centered psychotherapy, as a private model of the constructive helping relationships, and the Person-Centered Approach, as a general model for all everyday relationships, is carried out. It is emphasized, that in the everyday relationships the Person-Centered skills are used on the basis of a free choice in interests of the Self; the Person-Centered skills are a tool set, not a set of values, obligatory/imperative for use. It is specified that application of this approach to the organizational relations and development brings essential effect in the form of growth of productivity of the organization ("any work is carried out by means of the relations") and in satisfactions with the relationships of employees. It is claimed that as soon as business is the dominating institution of modern civilization, creating significant social changes, there is an opportunity to influence these changes through application of the Person-Centered approach to organizational development. It is informed that 'Pajaro Group' is created - the international group of the specialists applying PCA in organizations, which pursues the aim of introduction of critical mass of PCA in business for such influence. It is strategically important in information age, which is characterized by «high tech" and "high touch". In the provided descriptions of the Person-Centered skills their purposes, nuances of application and effects are specified, and also the algorithm of their application in everyday -- including - business -- relations is described.


The dependency of complex embedded Safety-Critical Systems across Avionics and Aerospace domains on their underlying software and hardware components has gradually increased with progression in time. Such application domain systems are developed based on a complex integrated architecture, which is modular in nature. Engineering practices assured with system safety standards to manage the failure, faulty, and unsafe operational conditions are very much necessary. System safety analyses involve the analysis of complex software architecture of the system, a major aspect in leading to fatal consequences in the behaviour of Safety-Critical Systems, and provide high reliability and dependability factors during their development. In this paper, we propose an architecture fault modeling and the safety analyses approach that will aid in identifying and eliminating the design flaws. The formal foundations of SAE Architecture Analysis & Design Language (AADL) augmented with the Error Model Annex (EMV) are discussed. The fault propagation, failure behaviour, and the composite behaviour of the design flaws/failures are considered for architecture safety analysis. The illustration of the proposed approach is validated by implementing the Speed Control Unit of Power-Boat Autopilot (PBA) system. The Error Model Annex (EMV) is guided with the pattern of consideration and inclusion of probable failure scenarios and propagation of fault conditions in the Speed Control Unit of Power-Boat Autopilot (PBA). This helps in validating the system architecture with the detection of the error event in the model and its impact in the operational environment. This also provides an insight of the certification impact that these exceptional conditions pose at various criticality levels and design assurance levels and its implications in verifying and validating the designs.


One of the most important goals in Cardiology is to identify, noninvasively, the normal as well as pathological changes in structure and function of myocardial tissue in order to recognize their etiology and severity. Ultrasonic Tissue Characterization is an approach to define the physical state of the heart by the analysis of the pathological changes that modify cardiac tissue physical properties, therefore generating an ultrasonic signal alteration. Among the most practical types of analysis of this data is the acoustic parameters measurement, and measurements based on integrated backscatter have been utilized the most. Backscatter is the ultrasonic quantification reflected back to the transducer, therefore emanating from myocardial structures or "scatterers". This method has been used to study many patients with hypertrophy, cardiomyopathies, cardiac allograft rejection. But is the investigation of myocardial ischemia-viability one of the most clinically relevant applications because of the importance of selecting, non-invasively, and at a relatively low cost those patients with coronary artery disease in whom myocardial asynergy is noted by conventional echocardiography and/or angiography. The magnitude of alterations in backscatter measurements such as the cyclic variation of integrated backscatter are markers of myocardial viability and could better identify patients who stand to benefit the most revascularization procedures.


In this paper, we propose the fingerprint-based DIFFERENCE-MEANS algorithm (FBDMA) to improve the processing speed and the positioning accuracy in an indoor wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) environment. We have applied three design philosophies in the proposed algorithm: the consideration of volume of reference point (RP) in building up signals map, the increase of positioning accuracy by minimum Wi-Fi AP usage, and the increase of positioning accuracy in real-time processing. The architecture of the proposed algorithm consists of two steps: the fingerprint learning step and the indoor positioning step. The main performance metrics in the proposed algorithm are defined as the ratio of successful positioning, the error distances, and the measuring time. The results of the proposed algorithm are summarized as follows: 1) The average ratio of successful positioning in all 24 RPs in the proposed positioning algorithm is measured to 95.8%. This is higher than the 92.7% accuracy achieved by the fingerprint-based algorithm (FBA) and the 80.2% by the fingerprint-based Gaussian-distribution algorithm (FBGA). 2) The average distance of measured errors of the proposed FBDMA is 0.95m; it is less than FBA's 1.52m and 1.63m of FBGA. 3) The average measuring time of the proposed algorithm is reduced by over 52.3% when compared with FBA and FBGA. In the future, we will upgrade the proposed algorithm that estimates the user trajectory moving continuously in the RPs of a more extended indoor environment, based on this paper, and confirm the predefined performance metrics.


In this paper, a code acquisition system using pseudo-ternary maximum-length shift register sequences (pseudo-ternary M-sequence) is proposed. The pseudo-ternary M-sequence is based on the M-sequence and generated by simple methods. Furthermore, the delay-locked loop (DLL) using the pseudo-ternary M-sequence can improve a tracking error performance by comparison with the DLL using the {−1, +1}-valued M-sequence. In the proposed acquisition system, a rectified pseudo-ternary M-sequence and the {−1, +1}-valued M-sequence are used. Because of the rectification, the proposed system realizes an acquisition scheme that is independent of the polarity of a received sequence. Moreover, a cross-correlation function of the rectified pseudo-ternary M-sequence and the {−1, +1}-valued M-sequence shows a pseudo-orthogonal relationship. In this paper, the detection probability and the false-alarm probability of the code acquisition system using the pseudo-ternary M-sequence are evaluated.


The impacts of climate driven change on ecosystem processes and biodiversity are pervasive and still not fully understood. Biodiversity loss, range shifts, and phenological mismatches are all issues associated with a changing climate that are having significant impacts on individuals and ecosystems alike. Investigating and identifying effective management strategies that can conserve vulnerable species should be the focus of current and future climate change research. We investigated thermal properties of habitat for an imperiled grouse (Greater Prairie-chicken; Tympanuchus cupido) in tallgrass prairie characterized by heterogeneous fire and grazing (the fire-grazing interaction). We examined operative temperature at varying scales relevant to grouse and used historic and forecasted climate data to estimate thermal stress during nesting activities. We found that heterogeneous grasslands have high thermal variability with operative temperature ranging as much as 23°C across the landscape. Grouse exhibited strong selection for cooler thermal environments as nest sites were as much as 8°C cooler than the surrounding landscape, and fine-scale differences in thermal environments were nearly 4°C cooler than sites within 2 m of nests. Additionally, forecasted climate scenarios indicate grouse will experience 2–4 times the number of hours above thermal stress thresholds, emphasizing the need for informed conservation management. Overall, these data provide evidence that variation in grassland structure resulting from the fire-grazing interaction may be important in moderating thermal environments and highlights the complex and interactive effects of restored ecological processes on ecosystems.


Kondo lattice models are widely used to describe systems where local magnetic moments couple to itinerant electrons. We construct a novel large S expansion scheme for an ordered Kondo lattice, starting from the eigenstates of the Kondo coupling on a single site, and paying particular attention to the special case of two sites sharing a single electron, which we solve exactly. The expansion scheme which we introduce is shown to reproduce all features of this exact solution, to O(1/S2), and to offer a better physical starting point than previous approaches for calculating the properties of systems on a lattice in the `double exchange' limit of strong Hund's rule coupling.


A novel Monte Carlo (MC) approach is proposed for the simulation of wind speed samples to assess the wind energy production potential of a site. The Monte Carlo approach is based on historical wind speed data and reserves the effect of autocorrelation and seasonality in wind speed observations. No distributional assumptions are made, and this approach is relatively simple in comparison to simulation methods that aim at including the autocorrelation and seasonal effects. Annual energy production (AEP) is simulated by transforming the simulated wind speed values via the power curve of the wind turbine at the site. The proposed Monte Carlo approach is generic and is applicable for all sites provided that a sufficient amount of wind speed data and information on the power curve are available. The simulated AEP values based on the Monte Carlo approach are compared to both actual AEP and to simulated AEP values based on a modified Weibull approach for wind speed simulation using data from the Burfell site in Iceland. The comparison reveals that the simulated AEP values based on the proposed Monte Carlo approach have a distribution that is in close agreement with actual AEP from two test wind turbines at the Burfell site, while the simulated AEP of the Weibull approach is such that the P50 and the scale are substantially lower and the P90 is higher. Thus, the Weibull approach yields AEP that is not in line with the actual variability in AEP, while the Monte Carlo approach gives a realistic estimate of the distribution of AEP.


Technologists and engineers endeavor to design and propose leading edge concepts, but the development of these concepts ultimately depends on obtaining funds justified by a business case. This tutorial provides technologists with the business-case methods and tools to calculate the value of projects involving risky new technology or markets but potentially offer higher returns in the long run. These straightforward methods and tools have been adopted from sophisticated techniques used in the options markets, where investments in risky securities are routinely traded. We first present an example scenario for a new product and review a typical business case using net present value analysis. Next we develop a "what-if" multi-scenario business case model using Monte Carlo simulation. An introduction to real options is then provided. A real option, an option investment in "real" physical assets such as a technology or project, is based on the same concept as financial options. Finally, we determine a risk-averse investment decision using real options calculated with an intuitive and transparent algorithmic tool. Two classic option-value techniques are introduced: the Nobel Prize winning Black-Scholes formula and a graphical approach called the binomial lattice model. Finally, we introduce a new real option value algorithm, the Datar-Mathews Method that is both intuitive and transparent. In conclusion we show Business Engineering is a new approach that provides engineers with investment and risk modeling tools and methods that can be incorporated alongside standard systems engineering design modeling techniques to justify the targeting of project investment dollars to manage risk, shape value outcomes, and make better strategic decisions.


Carcinoembryonic antigen and vascular endothelial growth factors are among the most important prognostic markers of colorectal cancer. Testing for these markers independently has been of limited value in screening for this tumor. The aim of this study is to determine the importance of simultaneous blood CEA and VEGF level determinations in diagnosis of colorectal cancer. Thirty-six patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer along with eight healthy controls were tested by ELISA for CEA and VEGF levels in serum and plasma, respectively. The positive predictive value of these markers was 95.4% for CEA and 89.5% for VEGF, and for combined CEA and VEGF was also high at 88%. Combined CEA and VEGF blood level assay constitutes a useful panel in detecting patients with colorectal cancer. Positive results allow selection of a subgroup of patients with a high tumor risk; therefore, such tests comprise valuable tumor diagnostic tests to add to current detection methods.


Traditional teaching methods rely on written exercises, books, oral lectures and blackboards as the primary vehicles to spread knowledge. Nevertheless, technological process brought new opportunities to teach and educate, such as using video games that spiced up curiosity and fired reviews amongst many educators and researchers. Research shows that video games have a great potential to improve the learning experience and learning outcomes. These facts among others led to this research.


A length of abdominal aorta was excised, and volume pulses were made at different pressure values by volume injections. The expected diameter changes were calculated from a static stretch curve made from a ring cut from the vessel. External diameter changes were recorded by a transformer coil. The two sets of data could be compared only after calculating the expected changes in wall thickness. Agreement was good enough to conclude that both techniques could measure wall extensibility. When the vessel was elongated to the in situ length, the external diameter showed an appreciable decrease. If wall volume was constant, this could be accounted for by a wall thinning. With such elongation, circumferential extensibility was clearly decreased. The vessel wall was almost isotropic at pressure values above 50 mm Hg, but at lower pressures it showed evidence of an architectural nonhomogeneity in its stretch behavior.


(1) Background: Three-dimensional printing is progressing rapidly and is applied in many fields of dentistry. Tooth autotransplantation offers a viable biological approach to tooth replacement in children and adolescents. Restoring or reshaping the transplanted tooth to the anterior maxilla should be done as soon as possible for psychological and aesthetic reasons. However, to avoid interfering with the natural healing process, reshaping of transplanted teeth is usually delayed three to four months after transplantation. This delay creates a need for simple indirect temporary aesthetic restoration for autotransplanted teeth. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a digital solution for temporary restoration of autotransplanted teeth using 3D printing. (2) Methods: Four dry human skulls and four dry human mandibles were scanned using cone beam computed tomography to create 3D models for 15 premolars. Digital impression of the maxillary arch of one of the skulls was captured by intra oral scanner. The digital work flow for the design and fabrication of temporary veneers is presented. The seating and adaptation of the 3D printed veneers were evaluated using stereomicroscopy and micro-computed tomography. (3) Results: Evaluation of the veneer seating using stereomicroscopy showed that the mean marginal gap at all of the sides was below the cut-off value of 200 µm. The overall mean marginal gap was 99.9 ± 50.7 µm (median: 87.8 (IQR 64.2–133 µm)). The internal adaptation evaluation using micro-computed tomography showed an average median gap thickness of 152.5 ± 47.7 (IQR 129–149.3 µm). (4) Conclusions: The present concept of using temporary veneers that are designed and fabricated with CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) technology using a DLP (digital light processing) printer may present a viable treatment option for restoration of autotransplanted teeth.


To achieve satisfying user experiences of diverse applications, quality of service (QoS) guaranteed mechanisms such as per-flow queuing are required in routers. However, deployment of per-flow queuing in high-speed routers is considered as a great challenge since its industrial brute-force implementation is not scalable with the increase of the number of flows. In this study, the authors propose a dynamic queue sharing (DQS) mechanism to enable scalable per-flow queuing. DQS keeps isolation of each concurrent active flow by sharing a small number of queues instead of maintaining a dedicated queue for each in-progress flow, which is novel compared to the existing methods. According to DQS, a physical queue is created and assigned to an active flow upon the arrival of its first packet, and is destroyed upon the departure of the last packet in the queue. The authors combine hash method with binary sorting tree to construct and manage the dynamic mapping between active flows and physical queues, which significantly reduces the number of required physical queues from millions to hundreds and makes per-flow queuing feasible for high-performance routers.


By travelling vast distances, migratory birds take advantage of earth's seasonality. Afro-Palearctic migrants can profit from lush spring conditions in temperate regions for chick rearing, but must also gain sufficient energy reserves to cross the Sahara. Rainfall during the dry season in Africa may influence the food available to birds to accumulate reserves. Conflicts of interests in resource exploitation at locations thousands of kilometres apart may occur if migrants encounter poor food conditions during these migratory preparations. Studying how wild birds adjust their fuelling and migration decisions to dynamic environments allows us to understand how flexible migrants can be, which is particularly important in an era of rapid change. We performed supplemental feeding prior to migration in individual Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca wintering territories in Ivory Coast and remotely monitored their body mass change until they started their spring migration flight over the Sahara. We tested how access to extra food causally affects fuelling, departure mass and departure date. Seasonal fluctuations in natural arthropod availability prior to migration were monitored in two years, to explore how natural resource dynamics alters fuel accumulation. Birds that fully accessed extra food in March–April put on weight earlier and faster than birds without extra food supply, and departed 12 days earlier. Birds accumulated fuel loads that were higher than required for the Sahara-crossing, regardless of their access to extra food. Fuelling rates fluctuated in synchrony with natural conditions, as non-supplemented birds achieved the highest body mass gains at the time that natural arthropod availability peaked in the study area. Fuelling rates were lower in 2020, i.e. the year when the first rains after the dry season started late, than in 2019. Our study showed that Pied Flycatchers modulated fuelling rates – but not departure fuel loads – to food dynamics in West Africa, causing flexibility in the timing of departure. This strategy probably enhances a safe Sahara crossing, but may limit the possibilities of migrants to anticipate advancing spring conditions at breeding sites.


This paper examines the most popular advances in the FDTD algorithm development, as applied to electromagnetic wave propagation in linearly dispersive media. Several methodologies are presented, and comparisons are made in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches. In particular, direct-integration and recursive-convolution schemes, associated with wave propagation in a cold plasma, Debye dielectrics, and Lorentz materials, are considered.


Information on cyber incidents and threats are currently collected and processed with a strong technical focus. Threat and vulnerability information alone are not a solid base for effective, affordable or actionable security advice for decision makers. They need more than a small technical cut of a bigger situational picture to combat and not only to mitigate the cyber threat. We first give a short overview over the related work that can be found in the literature. We found that the approaches mostly analysed "what" has been done, instead of looking more generically beyond the technical aspects for the tactics, techniques and procedures to identify the "how" it was done, by whom and why. We examine then, what information categories and data already exist to answer the question for an adversary's capabilities and objectives. As traditional intelligence tries to serve a better understanding of adversaries' capabilities, actions, and intent, the same is feasible in the cyber space with cyber intelligence. Thus, we identify information sources in the military and civil environment, before we propose to link that traditional information with the technical data for a better situational picture. We give examples of information that can be collected from traditional intelligence for correlation with technical data. Thus, the same intelligence operational picture for the cyber sphere could be developed like the one that is traditionally fed from conventional intelligence disciplines. Finally we propose a way of including intelligence processing in cyber analysis. We finally outline requirements that are key for a successful exchange of information and intelligence between military/civil information providers.


A retrospective study of 533 eyes, which underwent complete pre-operative evaluation for refractive surgery, was done. Regression Analysis was performed to find the correlation between corneal thickness and level of myopia and between corneal thickness and corneal curvature. There was statistically significant correlation between corneal thickness and level of myopia (p = 0.039) and also in corneal thickness and corneal curvature (p = 0.04). No clinical correlation was demonstrated (R2 = 0.014 and R2 = 0.0153, respectively). There was no clinical correlation between corneal thickness and level of myopia and also between corneal thickness and corneal curvature.


Abstract With the CISK hypothesis (Convective Instability of the Second Kind), Charney and Eliassen (1964) and Ooyama (1964) introduced a simple means of handling the interaction between cumulus convection and a larger scale flow. The author has shown that a wave-CISK model (i.e., the larger scale flow resembles a gravity wave) can be used to predict the motion of severe convective storms. The purpose of this paper is to show that the above model explains the structure and rapid development of these disturbances. It is found that flow patterns characteristic of such systems can evolve explosively from an initially weak, structureless region of low-level convergence in less than 1 h. The present model does not include the effects of environmental rotation. This limitation apparently prevents the model from properly simulating the tornado cyclone.


This paper studies how a Covid-19 lockdown affected residential lease payments. Survey data on 1511 Israeli renter households show nearly one in eight households not paying full rent during the lockdown, with these households holding back, on average, a third of their contractually due rent. Financially fragile households with greater income cuts, and households with leases lacking provisions that effectively provide for damages upon non-payment pay a lower share of contract rent. So do households with more frequent encounters with their landlord, or longer tenure in the apartment. Bargaining and relational contracts theories help explain these results.


OBJECTIVE
Dyadic coping is a process of coping within couples that is intended not only to support the patient with chronic pain but also to maintain equilibrium in the relationship. This study aims to investigate the effect of patient-perceived and spouse-reported dyadic coping on both the patient and their partner's relationship quality and anxiety, stress, and depression over time.

METHODS
One hundred thirty-nine couples, with one partner experiencing chronic pain, participated in this study. Spanning three measurements over six months, couples reported on their anxiety, stress, depression, relationship quality, and dyadic coping.

RESULTS
Patient-perceived supportive dyadic coping was positively associated with both partners' relationship quality but was negatively associated with spouses' stress over time. Patient-perceived negative dyadic coping was negatively associated with both partners' relationship quality and positively associated with patients' depression and spouses' depression and stress over time. Spouse-reported supportive dyadic coping showed a positive association with their own relationship quality and a negative association with spouses' depression at baseline and patients' depression at three-month follow-up. Spouse-reported negative dyadic coping was negatively associated with their relationship quality at baseline and positively associated with their partner's anxiety and stress at six-month and three-month follow-up, respectively. Similar inference was observed from the findings of growth curve model.

CONCLUSIONS
As compared with spouse report, patient perception of dyadic coping is a better predictor of both partners' relationship quality and psychological outcomes over time. Both partners may benefit from early psychosocial intervention to improve their dyadic coping, relationship quality, and psychological outcomes.


Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. And radical synchronized chemoradiotherapy has become an important treatment measures for this disease. It is necessary to define the therapeutic target zone based on computer tomography(CT)-images for precise radiotherapy. Therefore, we retrospectively analyzed the regularity of lymph node metastasis in lower cervical section of thoracic esophageal cancer based on CT-images and discussed the range of radiotherapy in supraclavicular zone. The lower cervical lymphatic drainage area was divided into cervical tracheoesophageal groove (CTG), medial supraclavicular zone (MSC zone) and lateral supraclavicular zone (LSC zone) based on CT-images. We found that the rate of lymph node metastasis to medial CTG and MSC zone was relatively high. And rate of lymph node metastasis to the above two zones from middle thoracic section was on an increasing trend with the progress of T stage. Patients at stage T3 and T4 with lymph node metastasis in tracheoesophageal groove in middle thoracic section showed a higher rate of lymph node metastasis in MSC zone. These results demonstrated that the CTG and MSC zone should be clinically included in the supraclavicular target zone for radical radiotherapy, and the T-stage and tumor location should be considered simultaneously.


We consider the $M$-ary classification problem via crowdsourcing, where crowd workers respond to simple binary questions and the answers are aggregated via decision fusion. The workers have a reject option to skip answering a question when they do not have the expertise, or when the confidence of answering that question correctly is low. We further consider that there are spammers in the crowd who respond to the questions with random guesses. Under the payment mechanism that encourages the reject option, we study the behavior of honest workers and spammers, whose objectives are to maximize their monetary rewards. To accurately characterize human behavioral aspects, we employ prospect theory to model the rationality of the crowd workers, whose perception of costs and probabilities are distorted based on some value and weight functions, respectively. Moreover, we estimate the number of spammers and employ a weighted majority voting decision rule, where we assign an optimal weight for every worker to maximize the system performance. The probability of correct classification and asymptotic system performance are derived. We also provide simulation results to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.


Aims Cardiac and renal functions are major independent predictors of outcomes in both ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). As B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) seems to be a major mediator in the cross-talk between heart and kidneys, we aimed at evaluating its capacity to reflect cardiac and renal function in patients with STEMI and NSTEMI. Methods We measured BNP plasma levels at hospital admission in 619 patients with STEMI (n = 346) and NSTEMI (n = 273), grouped according to left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF; > or ⩽40%) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; > or ⩽ 60 ml/min/1.73 m2). Results Median BNP values were 82 (38–186), 121 (40–342), 219 (80–685), and 474 (124–1263) pg/ml in patients with normal LVEF and eGFR (n = 347), with LVEF 40% or less and eGFR higher than 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 (n = 120), with LVEF higher than 40% and eGFR 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 or less (n = 86), and with combined LVEF and eGFR reductions (n = 66), respectively (P < 0.0001). At general linear model, both LVEF higher than 40% (P < 0.0001) and eGFR 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 or less (P < 0.0001) independently predicted BNP values. At multivariable analysis, BNP, LVEF 40% or less, and eGFR 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 or less were found to be independent predictors of the combined end point of in-hospital death, cardiogenic shock, need for renal replacement therapy, or mechanical ventilation (P = 0.003; P < 0.0001; P = 0.01, respectively). Conclusion BNP plasma levels are closely related to LVEF and eGFR at hospital admission, in both STEMI and NSTEMI patients. Future studies should investigate whether BNP levels can summarize in a single parameter the prognostic information provided separately by cardiac and renal dysfunction.


Within the Flexnode Plus project the long-term degradation characteristics of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer (5.5 kW, AC, 1 Nm3/h H2) and fuel cell (1.0 kW, DC, 0.9 Nm3/h) was experimentally tested. The electrolyzer unit was operated at various loads and pressures for approximately 750 hours in total, while the fuel cell was operated at a constant load of 1 Ω resistance for approximately 1120 hours in total. The efficiency of the hydrogen production in the electrolyzer and the electricity production in the fuel cell was expressed using the hourly average system efficiency and average cell efficiency. In order to predict the state of health and remaining lifetime of the electrolyzer cell and fuel cell, the decay of the cell voltage over time was monitored and the direct mapping from aging data method was used. The electrolyzer cell showed a stable cell voltage and cell efficiency in the studied time period, with an average cell voltage decay rate of 0.5 μV/h. The average cell voltage of the fuel cell dropped with a rate of 2 μV/h during the studied time period.


textabstractUnlike the Anglo-Saxon model, whereby ownership of publicly
traded companies is typically in the hands of dispersed
shareholders, in continental Europe ownership often lies in
the hands of what are known as 'blockholders'. But how does
this affect corporate governance, especially when employees,
protected by strong labour institutions, are also powerful?


The eye lens is a transparent organ that refracts and focuses light to form a clear image on the retina. In humans, ciliary muscles contract to deform the lens, leading to an increase in the lens' optical power to focus on nearby objects, a process known as accommodation. Age-related changes in lens stiffness have been linked to presbyopia, a reduction in the lens' ability to accommodate, and, by extension, the need for reading glasses. Even though mouse lenses do not accommodate or develop presbyopia, mouse models can provide an invaluable genetic tool for understanding lens pathologies, and the accelerated aging observed in mice enables the study of age-related changes in the lens. This protocol demonstrates a simple, precise, and cost-effective method for determining mouse lens stiffness, using glass coverslips to apply sequentially increasing compressive loads onto the lens. Representative data confirm that mouse lenses become stiffer with age, like human lenses. This method is highly reproducible and can potentially be scaled up to mechanically test lenses from larger animals.


Objective Individuals suffering an injury or illness may be eligible to receive financial compensation based on their level of impairment and an independent medical evaluation (IME) often guides this determination. Our objectives are to determine the issues authors have addressed and their viewpoints, establish where evidence allows for recommendations regarding the best practices for IMEs, identify important gaps, and provide guidance on priorities for future research. Methods We conducted a systematic review of all literature regarding IMEs conducted in a North American setting. Results We identified 4667 potentially eligible studies; we retrieved 129 studies in full text and 88 proved eligible. We located another 22 eligible articles from bibliography searches. The chance-independent between-reviewer agreement (phi) on full text eligibility was 0.84. The majority of studies (81%; 89 of 110) were narrative reviews. We found that authors of narrative reviews are much more likely to express favourable views if they perform IMEs, work for a company that arranges these assessments, or work in an area in which IMEs disputing patient's reported level of impairment are likely to be helpful (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.70, p < 0.001). The 8 reasons provided for which IMEs are arranged were establishing restrictions and limitations, adjudication, establishing causation, optimising treatment, determining maximum medical recovery, providing a diagnosis, establishing a prognosis, and delaying claim payment. A number of important limitations to the current approach to IMEs were identified, including lack of specific training or accreditation for clinicians performing these assessments, lack of standards for assessment reports, and the potential for considerable conflict of interest in that referral sources select clinicians that are well paid to provide reports, and sent more referrals if their reports are valued. Conclusions Our review provides guidance on priorities for future research regarding the conduct, use, and interpretation of IMEs.


The goal of speech enhancement algorithms is to provide an estimate of clean speech starting from noisy observations. In general, the estimate is obtained by minimizing a chosen distortion metric. The often-employed cost is the mean-square error (MSE), which results in a Wiener-filter solution. Since the ground truth is not available in practice, the practical utility of the optimal estimators is limited. Alternative, one can optimize an unbiased estimate of the MSE. This is the key idea behind Stein's unbiased risk estimation (SURE) principle. Within this framework, we derive SURE solutions for the MSE and Itakura-Saito (IS) distortion measures. We also propose parametric versions of the corresponding SURE estimators, which give additional flexibility in controlling the attenuation characteristics for maximum signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) gain. We compare the performance of the two distortion measures in terms of attenuation profiles, average segmental SNR, global SNR, and spectrograms. We also include a comparison with the standard power spectral subtraction technique. The results show that the IS distortion consistently gives better performance gain in all respects. The perceived quality of the enhanced speech is also better in case of the IS metric.


BACKGROUND
Nutrition is an important aspect of chronic disease prevention and management by primary health professionals, including GPs, dietitians, practice nurses, diabetes educators and exercise professionals. In order to better understand how to improve the delivery of nutrition care, it is important to have valid and reliable tools to measure self-perceived competence.

OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to develop a valid, structured, questionnaire that measures the self-perceived competence of primary health professionals to provide nutrition care to patients with chronic disease.

METHODS
The development of the questionnaire was carried out in four stages (1): preparation of scope and structure, through a literature review and consultation with an expert reference group (2); development of questionnaire items, which were refined through feedback from the reference group and 18 primary health professionals (3); investigation of internal consistency and concurrent validity through a pilot study on 118 primary health professionals (4) and investigation of test-retest reliability through a pilot study on 33 primary health professionals who completed the questionnaire twice, 2-3 weeks apart.

RESULTS
Stages 1 and 2 resulted in four constructs and 35 questions in the questionnaire. Stage 3 confirmed internal consistency, with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.88 to 0.98 for each construct and 0.98 for all items combined. Dietitians scored significantly higher than speech pathologists (P < 0.05) in each construct, confirming concurrent validity. Stage 4 confirmed test-retest reliability, with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.89 to 0.94 for each construct and 0.95 for all items combined.

CONCLUSION
The NUTrition COMPetence (NUTCOMP) questionnaire is a valid, reliable and suitable tool that can be used to directly inform professional development and identify opportunities to support safe and effective practice.


: Aim to the computational study is to present different approach for numerical modeling of airfoil dynamic stall as the airfoil is pitched at a constant rate from zero incidences to a high angle of attack. An application of the Detached-Eddy Simulation model on a NACA 0012 airfoil is presented. The DES model is a method for predicting turbulence in CFD computations, which combines a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method in the boundary layer with a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) in the free shear flow. (DES) turbulence model gives a good accuracy of the flow field because its solves an additional equation for turbulent Reynolds number in a shear stress transport version (SST), which solves a first equation for the turbulent energy K and a second equation for the specific turbulent dissipation rate w . The approach using DES turbulence model is effective because it gives better visualization of flow field, the unsteady separation flow and vortex shedding. Consequently the suggested approach is suitable and it can be used in prediction of dynamic stall phenomenon in the stage of helicopter rotors, wind turbine rotors and aircraft wings design purposes.


Background Instead of testing predefined hypotheses, the goal of exploratory data analysis (EDA) is to find what data can tell us. Following this strategy, we re-analyzed a large body of genomic data to investigate how the early mouse embryos develop from fertilized eggs through a complex, poorly understood process. Results Starting with a single-cell RNA-seq dataset of 259 mouse embryonic cells from zygote to blastocyst stages, we reconstructed the temporal and spatial dynamics of gene expression. Our analyses revealed similarities in the expression patterns of regular genes and those of retrotransposons, and the enrichment of transposable elements in the promoters of corresponding genes. Long Terminal Repeats (LTRs) are associated with transient, strong induction of many nearby genes at the 2-4 cell stages, probably by providing binding sites for Obox and other homeobox factors. The presence of B1 and B2 SINEs (Short Interspersed Nuclear Elements) in promoters is highly correlated with broad upregulation of intracellular genes in a dosage-and distance-dependent manner. Such enhancer-like effects are also found for human Alu and bovine tRNA SINEs. Promoters for genes specifically expressed in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are rich in B1 and B2 SINEs, but low in CpG islands. Conclusions Our results provide evidence that transposable elements may play a significant role in establishing the expression landscape in early embryos and stem cells. This study also demonstrates that open-ended, exploratory analysis aimed at a broad understanding of a complex process can pinpoint specific mechanisms for further study. Major finding Single-cell RNA-seq data enables estimation of retrotransposon expression during PD Similar expression dynamics of retrotransposons and regular genes during PD Long terminal repeats may be essential for the 1st wave of gene expression Obox homeobox factors are possible regulators of PD, upstream of Zscan4 SINE repeats predict expression of nearby genes in murine, human and bovine embryos Exploratory analysis of large single-cell data pinpoints developmental pathways


A packet-switching computer network used in the C/sup 3/ system is introduced. This network analyzes packet delays in channels with various data rates, and optimum channel capacity is given in various packet input rates. The result obtained from a simulated testing system is the same as that of the theoretical analysis. It proves that the analysis is universally applicable.<<ETX>>


This work is motivated by the need in overcoming the electricity crisis in Gaza, which is initiated due to political reasons and the spread of COVID‐19. Building quarantine centers is one of the most important means used in combating the COVID‐19, but connecting these centers to the electricity distribution network at the appropriate time is not always possible and increases the burden on the local utility company. This article proposed a hybrid off‐grid energy system (HES) to effectively energize the quarantine COVID‐19 center in Gaza economically and environmentally. To achieve this aim, the estimated load profile of the quarantine center is fed to the HOMER‐Pro program. In addition, the various systems components are introduced to the program, then modeled, and optimized. The developed approach was tested using a real case study considering realistic input data. HOMER‐Pro program is used to simulate and optimize the system design. The results revealed the potential of the HES to provide environment‐friendly, cost‐effective, and affordable electricity for the studied quarantine center, as compared to just the diesel generators system. For the considered case study, it is found that the PV‐wind‐diesel generators HES can cover the connected load with the lowest cost ($ 0.348/kWh) in comparison to other possible HES structures. Taking into consideration the price of harmful emissions, the wining system shows a reduction of 54.89% of the cost of energy (CoE) compared to other systems. For the considered case study, it is found that a combination of 150 kW PV, 200 kW wind, and two diesel generators with capacities of 500 and 250 kW can hold 100% of the electrical load required to keep the quarantine COVID‐19 center in operation. The initial capital cost of this HES is $510,576 where the share of wind energy, solar PV, inverter, and diesel‐electric generators are $320,000, $83,076, $25,000, and $82,500, respectively. The replacemen cost ($55,918) is due to diesel generators. The total operation and maintainance cost (O&M) is $268,737, that is, 25.6% for wind turbines, 1.2% for inverters, and 70.7% for diesel electric generators. The PV/wind/diesel generators HES generate 1,659,038 kWh of electricity. The total energy requirement of 1,442,553 kWh, which means a surplus of 212,553 kWh of energy/year. The total energy (kWh) is an integration of energy sources which are 427,276 (25.8%), 274,500 (16.5%), and 857,263 (57.7%), due to wind, solar and diesel generators respectively. The cost of yearly consumed fuel is $437,828.769. The payback period for the winning system is 1.8 years. Finally, it is proved that the developed approach gives a reasonable solution to the decision‐makers to find a fast, economic and reliable solution to energize the quarantine centers.