Abstract Background Baloxavir acid (BXA), an active form of orally available prodrug baloxavir marboxil (BXM, formerly S-033188), is a novel small molecule inhibitor of cap-dependent endonuclease (CEN) of influenza A and B virus, and was recently launched for the treatment of acute and uncomplicated influenza with single dosing of BXM (the trade name XOFLUZA™) in Japan in March 2018. Here, we evaluated the prophylactic efficacy of BXA in mice lethally infected with influenza A virus. Methods T1/2 of BXA in human is more than 10 times longer than that in mice. Therefore, suspension of BXA was subcutaneously administered at 0.8 or 1.6 mg/kg in mice to maintain the plasma concentration of BXA as seen in humans, and then mice were intranasally inoculated with a lethal dose of A/PR/8/34 strain at 48, 72, or 96 hours after the administration of BXA. Survival time and body weight change were then monitored through a 28-day period after virus infection. Mice were euthanized and regarded as dead if their body weights were lower than 70% of the initial body weights according to humane endpoints. Results Single dosing of BXA (1.6 mg/kg) completely eliminated mortality in mice, when the mice were administrated the drug at 48, 72, or 96 hours before virus infection (Figure 1). BXA treatment also significantly prevented body weight loss, consistent with the prolonged survival. Conclusion Prophylactic dosing of BXA exhibited significant protective efficacy against mortality and body weight loss in mice following a lethal infection with influenza A virus. The significant prophylactic efficacy observed in our mouse model suggests the potential utility of BXM for the prophylaxis of influenza in human. Disclosures S. Shano, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. K. Fukao, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. T. Noshi, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. K. Sato, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. M. Sakuramoto, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. K. Baba, Shionogi TechnoAdvance Research & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. T. Shishido, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary. A. Naito, Shionogi & Co., Ltd.: Employee, Salary.


ABSTRACT In this paper, we propose two path-based MAXBAND models for solving signal synchronization problems for coordinated traffic signalization systems. In the first proposed model (RM1), we relax the assumptions that the lengths of the common cycle, as well as the green splits, are fixed in the base path-based MAXBAND model. These two factors are considered as decision variables in RM1, which leads us to a generalized offset optimization problem. In the second model (RM2), we further relax the free-flow speed assumption used for estimating the link travel times in the coordinated system. Since the free-flow speed can only be reached in rare occasions, we, instead, adopt the Robertson's dispersion module for this purpose. Proposed methodologies are applied to solving a real-world application in that a pure-traffic arterial system in Chubei city, Taiwan, is analyzed for performance evaluations. Numerical results suggest significant improvements from the proposed models, compared to plans suggested by the governmental authority and the literature. From path-wise perspective, model RM1 and RM2 are nip-and-tuck alternatives. From an aggregate perspective, model RM2 has the best performance among all alternatives, with overall improvements around .


Bacteria are capable of producing and secreting a rich diversity of specialized metabolites. Yet, much of their exometabolome remains hidden due to challenges associated with eliciting specialized metabolite production, labor-intensive sample preparation, and time-consuming analysis techniques. ABSTRACT The bacterial exometabolome consists of a vast array of specialized metabolites, many of which are only produced in response to specific environmental stimuli. For this reason, it is desirable to control the extracellular environment with a defined growth medium composed of pure ingredients. However, complex (undefined) media are expected to support the robust growth of a greater variety of microorganisms than defined media. Here, we investigate the trade-offs inherent to a range of complex and defined solid media for the growth of soil microorganisms, production of specialized metabolites, and detection of these compounds using direct infusion mass spectrometry. We find that complex media support growth of more soil microorganisms, as well as allowing for the detection of more previously discovered natural products as a fraction of total m/z features detected in each sample. However, the use of complex media often caused mass spectrometer injection failures and poor-quality mass spectra, which in some cases resulted in over a quarter of samples being removed from analysis. Defined media, while more limiting in growth, generated higher quality spectra and yielded more m/z features after background subtraction. These results inform future exometabolomic experiments requiring a medium that supports the robust growth of many soil microorganisms. IMPORTANCE Bacteria are capable of producing and secreting a rich diversity of specialized metabolites. Yet, much of their exometabolome remains hidden due to challenges associated with eliciting specialized metabolite production, labor-intensive sample preparation, and time-consuming analysis techniques. Using our versatile three-dimensional (3D)-printed culturing platform, SubTap, we demonstrate that rapid exometabolomic data collection from a diverse set of environmental bacteria is feasible. We optimized our platform by surveying Streptomyces isolated from soil on a variety of media types to assess viability, degree of specialized metabolite production, and compatibility with downstream LESA-DIMS analysis. Ultimately, this will enable data-rich experimentation, allowing for a better understanding of bacterial exometabolomes.


We present eecient representations and algorithms for exact boundary computation on low degree sculptured CSG solids using exact arithmetic. Most of the previous work using exact arithmetic has been restricted to polyhedral models. In this paper, we generalize it to higher order objects, whose boundaries are composed of rational parametric surfaces. We present the underlying representations necessary in our approach, and provide an overview of the boundary computation algorithm, which is described in more detail in a followup paper.


: Changes in the BDNF content in brain structures--hippocampus, hypothalamus, striatum, and frontal cortex--were determined in mice of different emotional-stress reaction phenotypes, which were subjected to emotional stress and treated by the selective anxiolytic afobazole. The changes were different in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. Afobazole exhibited a significant protector action against a decrease in the brain BDNF level caused by emotional stress in BALB/c mice.


Abstract NBA team managers and owners try to acquire high-performing players. An important consideration in these decisions is how well the new players will perform in combination with their teammates. Our objective is to identify elite five-person lineups, which we define as those having a positive plus-minus per minute (PMM). Using individual player order statistics, our model can identify an elite lineup even if the five players in the lineup have never played together, which can inform player acquisition decisions, salary negotiations, and real-time coaching decisions. We combine seven classification tools into a unanimous consent classifier (all-or-nothing classifier, or ANC) in which a lineup is predicted to be elite only if all seven classifiers predict it to be elite. In this way, we achieve high positive predictive value (i.e., precision), the likelihood that a lineup classified as elite will indeed have a positive PMM. We train and test the model on individual player and lineup data from the 2017–18 season and use the model to predict the performance of lineups drawn from all 30 NBA teams' 2018–19 regular season rosters. Although the ANC is conservative and misses some high-performing lineups, it achieves high precision and recommends positionally balanced lineups.


The Armington procedure has become increasingly popular in agricultural trade analyses. However, some arguments have arisen concerning the relevance of using the procedure for agricultural trade analyses. This study examines the assumptions commonly made when using the Armington procedure. The results of this research on rice trade suggest that the Armington procedure needs some modification in modelling agricultural trade and that the assumptions of the single constant elasticity of substitution and homotheticity, in particular, may not be appropriate for analyzing agricultural trade. Further, results of a modified Armington procedure indicate that rice exports are highly competitive and that change in market shares of individual exporters are not independent of change in budget expenditure allocated to imports.


Background In recent years, there has been increased use of plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF-Endoret) which is extracted from the patient's blood in order to treat ocular surface diseases. PRGF is a promising tool in ocular surface diseases due to its potential to stimulate and accelerate tissue healing. It contains more platelets and growth factors and it does not include leukocytes. Purpose To describe the use of a new therapy based on PRGF eye drops and the baseline and pathological characteristics of the participants with ocular surface disease. Material and methods A retrospective observational study was carried out from September 2016 to 2017 in a tertiary hospital. We included patients who were treated with PRGF and collected it at the Outpatient Pharmaceutical Care unit of the hospital pharmacy. The PRGF eye drops was manufactured in the pharmacy service with a commercial kit. The demographics and clinical parameters were collected from the medical history: age, sex, number of patients, and the pathology and the efficacy of the treatment. Results The 76% of patients treated with PRGF (n=14)were evaluated (17 eyes). The mean age was 66 years (53–81). Forty-five per cent of the patients were females (n=5). The most frequent pathology was corneal epithelial disruption (73%, n=8) followed by Sjogren syndrome (18%, n=2) and keratopathy and keratitis (9%, n=1). A total of 10 patients were treated previously with autologous serum eye drops without success. After the beginning of treatment with PRGF, 81% of patients showed a resolution of their ocular surface disease. Only two patients did not show an improvement in their clinical symptoms. The average treatment duration with PRGF was 5.7 months. Concerning security, in this period no adverse event related to the PRGF eye drops were detected. The burden of care for the Pharmacy Department resulted in 21 dispensations (two dispensations on average per patient) and a total of 651 PRGF single-dose eye drops prepared and dispensed to patients. Nursing staff took about 2 hours to prepare each dispensation. Conclusion The study showed that the use of PRGF eye drops is effective in treating ocular surface diseases. Regarding tolerance for PRGF, it seems safe for the patients. In addition, preparing and dispensing this treatment resulted in an increase in workload in the Pharmacy Department. References and/or Acknowledgements To my workmate. Thank you. No conflict of interest


Abstract Objectives: To explore the clinical and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) outcomes in children/adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who required a therapy switch from immediate-release (IR) methylphenidate (MPH) and were initiated on Osmotic Release Oral System (OROS®) MPH. Methods: Prospective, noninterventional study including patients (aged 6–18 years) with a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD who transitioned from IR MPH to OROS® MPH based on medical needs. Patients were transitioned to OROS® MPH and were followed for 12 weeks. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, functional outcomes, HRQoL, and tolerability were assessed throughout the study. Results: 598 patients entered the intention-to-treat analysis. The mean OROS® MPH starting dose was 29.5 ± 12.0 mg/day, increasing slightly to 33.5 ± 13.2 mg/day at final visit. Compared with baseline, there were significant (all P < 0.0001) symptomatic, functional, and HRQoL improvements after transitioning from IR MPH to OROS® MPH as assessed by the Conners' Parent Rating Scale (from 29.0 ± 10.5 to 19.5 ± 11.1), Children's Global Assessment Scale (by 11.0 ± 13.3), and Inventory for Assessing Quality of Life (ILC) LQ0–28 scores (parents' rating from 17.2 ± 3.9 to 19.4 ± 4.0; patients' rating from 18.7 ± 4.0 to 20.5 ± 3.9). Overall, no significant changes in quality of sleep or appetite were observed. More than 70% of parents and physicians rated the effectiveness of OROS® MPH as at least "good" and were at least "satisfied" with OROS® MPH. The most common treatment-emergent adverse events were insomnia and anorexia. No clinically relevant changes in body weight or vital signs were observed. Conclusions: In this naturalistic setting, transitioning from IR MPH to OROS® MPH, in patients who showed previously insufficient response and/or poor tolerability, was successful. Patients' and parents' HRQoL as well as burden of disease showed a clinically relevant improvement. OROS® MPH was generally safe and well tolerated.


This paper describes a system that allows engineers to monitor and control a reservoir simulation run during its execution. The system consists of a 3D, three-phase black-oil reservoir simulator running simultaneously with an interactive graphics pre- and postprocessor. Previous authors have described systems that allow monitoring of job execution with simultaneous graphics displays; the system described here is unique in that the engineer can modify simulator and well-control parameters during the execution. While the system will be helpful in detection and correction of time-dependent data problems, it will be very useful in optimizing reservoir management decisions in future performance projections. The system is implemented on an IBM-compatible 486 microcomputer with commercially available multitasking software, although it can be implemented easily on any microcomputer or workstation capable of multitasking. The authors show that implementation of the system required only a moderate amount of modification of the pre- and postprocessor and even less modification of the reservoir simulator.


In all organisms, the ribosome synthesizes and folds full length polypeptide chains into active three-dimensional conformations. The nascent protein goes through two major interactions, first with the ribosome which synthesizes the polypeptide chain and holds it for a considerable length of time, and then with the chaperones. Some of the chaperones are found in solution as well as associated to the ribosome. A number of in vitro and in vivo experiments revealed that the nascent protein folds through specific interactions of some amino acids with the nucleotides in the peptidyl transferase center (PTC) in the large ribosomal subunit. The mechanism of this folding differs from self-folding. In this article, we highlight the folding of nascent proteins on the ribosome and the influence of chaperones etc. on protein folding.


Tachyon condensation on a bosonic D-brane was recently demonstrated numerically in Witten's open string field theory with level truncation approximation. This non-perturbative vacuum, which is obtained by solving the equation of motion, has to satisfy furthermore the requirement of BRST invariance. This is indispensable in order for the theory around the non-perturbative vacuum to be consistent. We carry out the numerical analysis of the BRST invariance of the solution and find that it holds to a good accuracy. We also mention the zero-norm property of the solution. The observations in this paper are expected to give clues to the analytic expression of the vacuum solution. firstname.lastname@example.com email@example.com


Grief is our emotional response to the deaths of intimates, and so like many other emotional conditions, it can be appraised in terms of its rationality. A philosophical account of grief's rationality should satisfy a contingency constraint, wherein grief is neither intrinsically rational nor intrinsically irrational. Here I provide an account of grief and its rationality that satisfies this constraint, while also being faithful to the phenomenology of grief experience. I begin by arguing against the best known account of grief's rationality, Gustafson's strategic or forward-looking account, according to which the practical rationality of grief depends on the internal coherence of the component attitudes that explain the behaviors caused by grief, and more exactly, on how these attitudes enable the individual to realize states of affairs that she desires. While I do not deny that episodes of grief can be appraised in terms of their strategic rationality, I deny that strategic rationality is the essential or fundamental basis on which grief's rationality should be appraised. In contrast, the heart of grief's rationality is backward-looking. That is, what primarily makes an episode of grief rational qua grief is the fittingness of the attitudes individuals take toward the experience of a lost relationship, attitudes which in turn generate the desires and behaviors that constitute bereavement. Grief thus derives its essential rationality from the objects it responds to, not from the attitudes causally downstream from that response, and is necessarily irrational when the behaviors that constitute an individual's grieving are inappropriate to the object of that grief. So while the strategic rationality of an episode of grief contributes to whether it is on the whole rational, no episode of grief can be rational unless the actions that constitute grieving accurately gauge the change in a person's normative situation wrought by the loss of her relationship with the deceased.


The paper develops holonic architecture for reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS), which are capable of adapting to unpredictable changes in demands. RMS are designed to produce various products grouped into families in a short time at low cost. A holonic structure reflecting basic holons for RMS is developed and then linked to an analytical network process (ANP) model, as a multi-criteria approach, to evaluate system performance. The proposed generic model provides flexibility for holons and facilitates evaluation of RMS considering economical and operational aspects as the main performance objectives. Moreover, new requirements such as functionality and capacity for process reconfigurability along with reconfiguration time/cost are taken into account. By allowing interactions among all the ANP clusters and their relevant elements in terms of outer and inner dependencies, the critical factors affecting the system performance are explored and evaluated through a case study. In particular, the criticality of the elements affecting the system performance will be assessed with respect to planning horizons, economical/operational aspects, and process reconfigurability based on available capacity and feasible functionality.


The article is dedicated to the Russian bishop of the XIX century, Bishop Jeremiah (Soloviev) (1799-1884) as the compiler of akathists, who wrote an akathist to the Monks Anthony and Theodosius and other Kiev Pechersk wonder-workers in the 60-70s of the XIX century, as well as an akathist to the Guardian Angel. These texts preserved in several manuscripts were never published and did not become the subject of special scientific study. The author attempts to look at the social aspect of the phenomenon of the Orthodox Russian akathist of the 18th and early 20th centuries using the example of the life of one of the authors of the akathists. The research is aimed at elucidating the motives behind the writing of akathists, at finding the place of Bishop Jeremiah among other akathistographers, studying akathists in the context of the entire literary work of the spiritual writer and tracing the functioning of his texts. On the basis of archival materials, the facts of the life of Bishop Jeremiah, which influenced his akathist work, connections and relations with other representatives of the circle of compilers of akathists, are reconstructed, and hymns belonging to him are analysed. The akathist work of Bishop Jeremiah is a vivid example of the hymnography of the "Learned Monasticism", in which more and more often a place was given to akathist writing in the Modern Times. The exclusive motivation for compiling akathists for Jeremiah was personal piety and veneration of individual saints, like most of Jeremiah's prayers, they were intended for personal use and a narrow circle of close people, but not for general church use. The stories about the traditions of composing and using akathists testify to the development of akathist culture in the Russian Church during the Synodal era.


Wickerols A and B are diterpene natural products that have a novel fused 6-5-6-6 ring framework and exhibit potent antiviral activity against the H1N1 type A influenza virus. Herein we report a divergent synthesis of wickerols A and B in 16 and 15 steps, respectively, from commercial sitolactone. The key reactions of the synthesis are a SmI2-mediated intramolecular ketone-allylic acetate reductive cyclization, a Claisen rearrangement, and an intramolecular alkylation/aldol reaction that rapidly assembled the compact tetracyclic core framework in a stereocontrolled manner. The work described herein allowed us to confirm the absolute configurations of wickerols A and B.


Changing some of the parameters of the engine structure affects the emission of harmful components in the exhaust gases This primarily concerns damage in the cargo exchange system as well as in the fuel system and engine boost system. Changes in emissions of harmful compounds are often ambiguous, depending largely on the parameters that shape the combustion process. An additional problem is that often simple but undesired interactions occur with the interaction of these parameters. It is therefore possible to speak of different diagnostic parameters' sensitivity to the same extractions from the engine structure, but implemented in other load states. In cases where the set of parameters is numerous and the values of these parameters are similar, there is a real problem with their proper classification, often based on the discretion of the researcher. In the paper the authors propose a methodology for classification of acquired diagnostic parameters. In previous papers [4, 5], Hellwig's method of information capacity index was proposed as a measure of diagnostic parameter sensitivity. This method can be used to build a diagnostic parameter ranking that divides the set of diagnostic variables into stimulators, destimulators and nominators. This normalization of the set seems to be helpful in making a diagnostic decision not influenced by the discretion of the researcher. The zero unitary method can also be helpful in creating diagnostic tests.


Multilevel converters rely on plurality of DC capacitors switched in specific patterns to obtain the necessary output voltage level. Modular multilevel converter, flying capacitor converter (FLC) and neutral point clamped (NPC) converters require complex control to balance the capacitors' voltages. Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) converters require plurality of isolated DC sources to energise the capacitors. This study presents a three-level PN cell that modulates the common-mode voltage between the output and input port while simultaneously mirroring the input DC voltage on the output port. Cell's capacitor voltage is naturally balanced and a three-phase multilevel converter requires only one DC power source. The output voltage of a multilevel converter can be higher than the input DC voltage. As a consequence, a single low-voltage DC power source can directly interface a three-phase MV grid.


Abstract Prostate cancer (PCa) remains the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men, with an estimated 1.1 million diagnoses worldwide in 2012, accounting for 15% of all cancers diagnosed. In many cases, successful treatment of prostate cancer is difficult due to late detection and rate of metastasis. Importantly, the tumours of many patients with prostate cancer become refractory to androgen therapy and progress to metastatic castration-resistant disease. An effective treatment course of prostate cancer patients requires predictive biomarkers in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that support individual treatment. Different risk classification tools have been developed to distinguish patients with early PCa according to the prognosis, including the D'Amico classification system, the Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment score, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network risk groups classification. Unfortunately, there is still no single, universal, cheap, non-invasive, early prostate cancer diagnostic tool, as serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) has not approved expectations and is not implemented in standardised prostate cancer screening. The aim of this review was to provide current state of art knowledge of prostate cancer screening, diagnosis, staging and future perspectives and directions.


With the rapid development of information technology, intelligent university course selection system is indispensable. Based on the user and the mixed model of collaborative filtering recommendation system to explore a set of suitable for the intelligent course selection recommendation system in universities. This system is conducive to further improve the quality of college education services.


The paper is devoted to the problems of demographic development of the rural population of the Left-Bank Ukraine in early modern times. The main attention is paid to the characterization of the family and the network of family ties of the inhabitants of the village of Kharkivtsi of Pyryatyn company of Lubny regiment (from 1781 – Pyriatyn county of Kyiv vicegerency) in the second half of the XVIII century, which was one of the typical Ukrainian villages of that time. On the basis of the records of confessional registers, the rates of general and average population of households have been analyzed; the number of families and members of the families has been determined; the generational composition and the structure of family formations of different groups of rural society: clergy, Cossacks, peasants, and servants have been considered.
The research is based on the most common in modern historical demography classification of family households of the British historian Peter Laslett. Typological analysis of the structure of families has shown that in Kharkivtsi during the second half of the XVIII century there were much more complex forms of family organization than simple nuclear families. While most of the Kharkivtsi families belonged to the multifocal type, single persons and unstructured families were not detected at all.
The results of the research confirm the opinion of the majority of contemporary social historians that for the Ukrainian society in the preindustrial period a large patriarchal family, united several marital couples, was typical. Such form of family organization implied the joint residence of a large number of other close or distant relatives (parents, married children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews, sons and daughters) or even not relatives, such as servants or other families along with a nuclear family (husband, wife, children) in one household. In traditional society, the determining factor was not the degree of consanguinity between the inhabitants of the household, but the possibility of joint housekeeping activity. Therefore, not only the internal structure of the family but also the concept of it in that time agrarian society, differed greatly from the modern one.


The education of character's building is a rising brand new innovation to incrase moral degradation who are facing by teenagers now adays. Spiritual and mental adding value are very necessary to support the process of character's building education. The education process which concentrates in its spiritual and mentality has been found in the concept of Hinduism called the teachings of Yoga Specifically, it is about concept Astangga Yoga such as: yama=control, nyama=morality, asana=body posture, pranayama=breathe management, pratyahara=sensual with drawal, dharana=attention, dhyana=meditation, sadism=concentration. At Denpasar Nasional Middle School, they have carried out the teaching process of Astangga yoga as a reinforcement of character education. The existence of ekstrakulikular Yoga as a stage of phsycal training for student/student and the process of concentration and control of emotions (emotions), has been carried out at the beginning of the learning process in the classroom during the study of Hinduism dab Manners.


Policy makers are often interested in how values for an environmental asset may be disaggregated into component pieces and transferred from one site to another. This issue can be described in relation to environmental values for the Fitzroy Basin in Central Queensland. The Basin comprises several smaller catchments that share similar development opportunities, environmental issues and water resource constraints. This paper describes the application of Choice Modelling to estimate environmental and social values for the Basin as a whole and two of its component sub-catchments. The results of the application provide an understanding of how the values estimated at different scales may be related. If there are no significant differences in values estimated at different scales, it implies that benefit transfer may be undertaken for different sites at different scales without adjustment. Various experiments using scale and quantity variances are reported to allow comparison of the estimates.


PURPOSE
Short initial light curing or "tack curing" is used to create a semi-gel state in luting cements for easier excess material cleanup. The effect of tack curing on the final cure of luting cements was measured in terms of hardness.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Three cement types were tested: two dual-curing composite cements (RelyX Unicem 2; Maxcem Elite); three light-curing veneer cements (Choice 2; Variolink Esthetic LC; RelyX Veneer); and two self-curing resin-modified glass-ionomer (RMGI) luting cements (RelyX Luting Plus; Nexus RMGI). Cements were placed in 1.5 × 2 × 8 mm plaster slots covered with orange glass during curing and were cured from one end. Tack curing was performed for 2 to 5 s using an LED curing light, followed 2 min later by 10-40 s final light curing or self-curing, as per manufacturer instructions (n = 10). Control groups received only final light curing or self-curing. After 24 h storage (37°C, 100% humidity), Vickers hardness was measured in 0.5-mm depth increments. Results were analyzed using two-way ANOVA and pairwise comparisons (α = 0.05).

RESULTS
The hardness of dual-curing and light-curing cements significantly decreased with increasing depth (p = 0.0001). Tack curing of dual-curing and light-curing cements tended to increase hardness at all depths, except near the surface for light-curing veneer cements. Self-curing cements showed no hardness reduction with depth and no effect from tack curing.

CONCLUSION
Although a slight surface hardness reduction may occur in light-curing veneer cements, the overall effect on three luting cement types was insignificant or resulted in only a slight increase in depth-of-cure.


This paper mainly introduces a device that can be used for device, we can obtain stereo synchronous shooting and measure underground objects. During working process, from the ground. Greatly improve work efficiency ,at the same time to avoid the underground toxis gas damage to people. content of this paper includes three parts: hardware design, software development and test production.


This study examines thickness changes in web-core sandwich panels under edgewise compressive loading. Both undamaged and damaged panels were examined. Three-dimensional full-field digital image correlation systems were used to determine deflections on both sides of loaded panels. The change in thickness at any given point in the panel was obtained as the difference between the two displacement fields. It was observed that the thickness was reduced in the post-buckling regime. Damage introduced into the corrugated core by lateral compression proved to significantly reduce the load-carrying capability panels and elevate the thickness reduction of the panels.


The hypoxic nature of tumors results in treatment resistance and poor prognosis. To spare limited oxygen for more crucial pathways, hypoxic cancerous cells suppress mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and promote glycolysis for energy production. Thereby, inhibition of glycolysis has the potential to overcome treatment resistance of hypoxic tumors. Here, EPR imaging was used to evaluate oxygen dependent efficacy on hypoxia‐sensitive drug. The small molecule 3‐bromopyruvate blocks glycolysis pathway by inhibiting hypoxia inducible enzymes and enhanced cytotoxicity of 3‐bromopyruvate under hypoxic conditions has been reported in vitro. However, the efficacy of 3‐bromopyruvate was substantially attenuated in hypoxic tumor regions (pO2 < 10 mmHg) in vivo using squamous cell carcinoma (SCCVII)‐bearing mouse model. Metabolic MRI studies using hyperpolarized 13C‐labeled pyruvate showed that monocarboxylate transporter‐1 is the major transporter for pyruvate and the analog 3‐bromopyruvate in SCCVII tumor. The discrepant results between in vitro and in vivo data were attributed to biphasic oxygen dependent expression of monocarboxylate transporter‐1 in vivo. Expression of monocarboxylate transporter‐1 was enhanced in moderately hypoxic (8–15 mmHg) tumor regions but down regulated in severely hypoxic (<5 mmHg) tumor regions. These results emphasize the importance of noninvasive imaging biomarkers to confirm the action of hypoxia‐activated drugs. Magn Reson Med, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


In this work, we consider a source coding model with feed-forward. We analyze a system with a noiseless, feed-forward link where the decoder has knowledge of all previous source samples while reconstructing the present sample. The rate-distortion function for an arbitrary source with feed-forward is derived in terms of directed information, a variant of mutual information. We further investigate the nature of the rate-distortion function with feed-forward for two common types of sources- discrete memory- less sources and Gaussian sources. We then characterize the error exponent for a general source with feed-forward. The results are then extended to feed-forward with an arbitrary delay larger than the block length.


Although mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) play pivotal supportive roles in hematopoiesis, how they interact with hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is not well understood. We investigated the interaction between HSCs and surrogate MSCs (C3H10T1/2 stromal cells), focusing on the molecular events induced by cell contact of these bipartite populations. C3H10T1/2 is a mesenchymal stromal cell line that can be induced to differentiate into preadipocytes (A54) and myoblasts (M1601). The stromal cell derivatives were cocultured with murine HSCs (Lineage-Sca1+), and gene expression profiles in stromal cells and HSCs were compared before and after the coculture. HSCs gave rise to cobblestone areas only on A54 cells, with ninefold more progenitors than on M1601 or undifferentiated C3H10T1/2 cells. Microarray-based screening and a quantitative reverse transcriptase directed-polymerase chain reaction showed that the levels of Notch ligands (Jagged1 and Delta-like 3) were increased in A54 cells upon interaction with HSCs. On the other hand, the expression of Notch1 and Hes1 was upregulated in the HSCs cocultured with A54 cells. A transwell assay revealed that the reciprocal upregulation was dependent on cell-to-cell contact. The result suggested that in the hematopoietic niche, HSCs help MSCs to produce Notch ligands, and in turn, MSCs help HSCs to express Notch receptor. Such a reciprocal upregulation would reinforce the downstream signaling to determine the fate of hematopoietic cell lineage. Clarification of the initiating events on cell contact should lead to the identification of specific molecular targets to facilitate HSC engraftment in transplantation therapy.


Wars have long been important literary subjects. The war depicted in this work dealt with the historical transition of Korea in terms of its significant and overall influence on politics, economics, and culture. War experiences have been major literary topics throughout pre-modern and modern Korean literature. The Sword-monk Story, written by Shin Kwang-soo (1712-1775) is a work of war literature that deals with reminiscences by two Japanese survivors of a defeated army that had participated in the Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592-1598. The work describes the humane relationship between a Korean sword-monk and two Japanese soldiers who once fought against the monk in the war. The characters attempt to overcome hostility, establish amity, and reach peaceful harmony. Despite their attempts, however, they fail to overcome all of their conflicts, and the residual conflicts lead to a tragic result in the end. The writer, Shin, describes how war can destroy people's lives and their divine character as well. Shin tells of the Korean sword master who makes an attempt to establish mutual understanding beyond national barriers between himself and the Japanese soldiers, who agree to serve him as master and live humane lives. The story can be understood as a significant work of war literature in that mutual understanding and humane affection are depicted as ways of overcoming the calamity of war and moving forward to a better future.


The p+12C elastic and inelastic scattering angular distributions of the 2+ state (4.44 MeV) at Ep=46.8 MeV were calculated with the recently proposed RIA optical potential of Clark et al. (1984). It is found that this potential, which has a repulsive real component, gives as reasonable an account of the existing 10 degrees -60 degrees data as the type-D potential considered recently by several authors. Only at large angles, for which there are no available data, is there an important qualitative difference.


This essay presents the findings of a long-term empirical investigation into the history of soliloquies. The investigation is based on the bedrock distinction between dialogue in the sense of a speech directed at the hearing of one or more other characters and soliloquy in the sense of a speech not directed at the hearing of any other character. Many soliloquies so defined are short; many are guarded in asides from the hearing of other characters; many are unguarded in the presence of other characters. Scholars have ignored these categories and so have underestimated the vast extent of Shakespeare's employment of the convention and the contexts in which soliloquies occur. The present essay presents for the first time a comprehensive account of all 1185 soliloquies in the canon by indicating the number of soliloquies in each play, the number of characters who soliloquize in each play, the gender distribution of soliloquizers, etc. The essay also presents new evidence that soliloquies in Shakespeare's plays represented self-addressed speeches as a matter of convention (rather than audience addressed speeches or interior monologues). What emerges from this survey is a new appreciation of Shakespeare's daring inventiveness in employing the convention that governed soliloquies in his plays.


Objective Bupivacaine hydrochloride (BH) and ketorolac tromethamine (KT) are commonly used in parenteral admixtures to manage postoperative pain. However, stability and compatibility data for these admixtures applicable to current practice are limited, posing the patient to potential risk. Methods The stability of BH/KT admixtures in commonly used parenteral fluids was studied in Eppendorf tubes and glass vials at ambient room temperature using a newly developed and validated stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method capable of the simultaneous quantification of both drugs. The chemical compatibility of BH/KT was assessed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermal analysis. Additionally, the validity of the developed HPLC method for the quantification of BH/KT in human plasma was evaluated. Results BH and KT demonstrated <10% loss of their initial concentrations when prepared in Ringer, normal saline or dextrose solution at ambient temperature for up to 4 weeks. FTIR and thermal analysis demonstrated mild intermolecular interactions between BH and KT in solution, with no evidence of incompatibility. The developed HPLC method demonstrated satisfactory accuracy and precision for the simultaneous quantification of BH and KT in human plasma over the range of 0.2–3.2 µg·mL-1. Conclusion BH/KT parenteral admixtures are chemically stable for a period of 4 weeks when stored at room temperature. The stability-indicating HPLC method is valid for BH/KT simultaneous determination in human plasma, facilitating pharmacokinetics studies.


Pervasive computing systems including smart phones, home computing systems, or intelligent home appliances collect and store more and more information about users. The amount of information that is constantly being accumulated for each user is enormous. Collected information comprises the user's digital data like messages, online social network connections, or tweets and the user's physical context data like user location, physical proximity to other people, or physical activities. Increasingly powerful content analysis and physical context inference technologies enable the extraction of relationships among places, people, and events, and use the resulting context to construct a personal semantic network (PSN) of the contextual relationships across one's digital and physical interactions. Entities representing locations, people, events, activities etc. serve as pivotal elements empowering the user to navigate their PSN. This paper will discuss and detail both the construction and navigation of a PSN integrating a user's physical and digital content.


Background: Objective measurement of airflow limitation by spirometry is an essential part of the diagnosis of asthma and COPD. Both diseases are responsible for increasing hospitalization rates in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil. Telehealth, a Brazilian Health Ministry program, launched RespiraNet, a pilot project being undertaken in RS and the 1st Brazilian spirometric telediagnosis service for respiratory diseases. Objectives: To determine the contribution and the utility of spirometries performed by the RespiraNet program to confirm asthma and COPD diagnosis from September 2013 to September 2014. Methods: Spirometries were performed by previously trained technicians using a WinDX Revelation – Creative BioMedics Inc. equipment in 3 different cities in RS and then sent through the Internet to be analyzed. After being interpreted by an expert Pulmonologist, the reports were sent back. Results: 474 spirometries were performed, 95% of them technically adequate. Most patients were female (264) and had a positive smoking history (265, 51% of which were still smokers). Average age of patients was 53 years old. Spirometric diagnosis were: asthma (215 - 45%), COPD (211 - 44%), no diagnosis (48 - 11%). 267 patients (56%) had airflow limitation, 31% of which a severe one. 302 (64%) were using medication, but only 31% were adequately treated. Conclusions: Like Bonavia (2009), we found that tele-spirometry can be a useful alternative in the betterment of management of chronic respiratory illness, which is why it is important that both the technicians and Pulmonologists are well educated and trained. Tele-spirometry is a very useful tool to help reduce over and underdiagnosis of obstructive lung diseases.


This paper presents a review of the literature on lean leadership practices. We begin with a brief review of the literature on lean origins and history, followed by a quick introduction to lean principles, building blocks, and prominent implementation frameworks in the literature, and conclude by reviewing the scarce literature on the focused subject of lean leadership in terms of tools, practices, attributes, and frameworks. A critical gap has been identified in the literature with regards to a holistic and practical leadership model for companies that are willing to make a changeover to a lean business system. This review reveals the need for a meticulously developed leadership model based on empirical evidence. It also discusses the necessity of developing new lean tools for leadership or adapting the existing lean tools to leadership tasks.


A novel core-shell luminol-based SiO2 nanoparticle was synthesized by two step micro-emulsion method. While these nanoparticles were used as electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) reagent, the electrochemical (EC) reaction as well as the subsequent chemiluminescence (CL) reaction not only could be separated spatially, but also presented high efficiency for analytical purpose. In this case, the core-shell luminol-based SiO2 nanoparticles offered more potential to avoid the contradiction between the EC and the CL reaction conditions. A new ECL method based on the nanoparticle was developed, and isoniazid was selected as a model analyte to illustrate the characteristics of this new ECL method. Under the selected conditions, the proposed ECL response to isoniazid concentration was linear in the range of 1.0×10−10 to 1.0×10−6 g/mL with 2×10−11 g/mL detection limit.


The present work is aimed at assessing the water quality index (WQI) for the groundwater of Tumkur taluk. This has been determined by collecting groundwater samples and subjecting the samples to a comprehensive physicochemical analysis. For calculating the WQI, the following 12 parameters have been considered: pH, total hardness, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, chloride, nitrate, sulphate, total dissolved solids, iron, manganese and fluorides. The WQI for these samples ranges from 89.21 to 660.56. The high value of WQI has been found to be mainly from the higher values of iron, nitrate, total dissolved solids, hardness, fluorides, bicarbonate and manganese in the groundwater. The results of analyses have been used to suggest models for predicting water quality. The analysis reveals that the groundwater of the area needs some degree of treatment before consumption, and it also needs to be protected from the perils of contamination


This study aimed to determine the extent to which Jordanian journalists in digital newspapers are aware about artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in journalistic practices and to identify the most important applications, difficulties, and motives for employing AI from the perspectives of 59 journalists in Jordanian digital newspapers. An online questionnaire was used. The results were as follows: the weak reality of employing AI techniques in journalistic practices; few journalists know about the technologies sufficiently; and the most used systems in journalistic practices are photo and video verification techniques, followed by breaking news tracking techniques. The findings revealed that economic factors and the absence of technological infrastructure in press institutions are among the most important factors affecting the adoption of AI techniques in Jordanian digital newspapers. This study had some limitations that should be addressed in future studies.


Our research has the objective of finding quicker, more efficient numerical methods (computer algorithms) for solving large, sparse linear systems. Yet, in the development and discovery of new methods, we have been relying on auxiliary software packages.


This study was carried out at Hanyang Cyber University (HYCU) in the Republic of Korea. The main purpose of this study was to explore Hanyang Cyber University's experience in the use of ICT in Distance Education (DE) so as to learn best practices that can be adapted by the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) in Tanzania. Specifically, the study explored on how HYCU uses ICT in DE and the challenges that they encounter in the course of using ICT in DE. Both structured and unstructured interviews were used for data collection. Findings showed that HYCU use various ICTs such as Learning Management System and online interaction assessment methods to enhance DE. Challenges such as difficulties in meeting online teaching and learning requirements and lack of human and material resource to undertake DE courses were identified to constrain effective use of ICTs in DE at HYCU. It is recommended that IAE should consider contextualization of the Learning Management System that is currently used at HYCU when establishing online study programme to ensure quality DE in the Institute.


Year-round monitoring of the upper-ocean temperature variability in Drake Passage has been undertaken since September 1996 through repeat expendable bathythermograph (XBT) surveys. The closely spaced measurements (6‐ 15 km apart) provide the e rst multi-year time series for examining seasonal to interannual variability in this Southern Ocean choke point. While the temperature sections reveal the seasonal variability in water mass formation of the upper layer, there was no seasonal signal evident below 200 m. Similarly, there was little seasonal cycle evident in the position of the Subantarctic Front, the Polar Front and the Southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front associated with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) in Drake Passage. Mesoscale eddy features are readily identie able in the XBT sections and in some sparse salinity sections, as distinct alternating bands separated by near-vertical isotherms of cold and warm core temperatures. The eddies can also be tracked in concurrent maps of altimetric sea surface height, with time scales of ;35 days and diameters of 50‐ 100 km, following a north to north-east trajectory with the main path of ACC e ow through Drake Passage. Both the XBT and the altimetric data suggest the eddies are mainly cone ned to the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone. To determine transport, an empirical relationship is derived between upper ocean XBT temperature and a baroclinic mass transport function from historical CTD casts collected in the Drake Passage. While in the temporal mean the strongest eastward transport is associated with the three major fronts in the ACC, the individual cruises strongly suggest a banded nature to the e ow through the passage. Some, although not all, of the eastward and westward bands of transport can be attributed to the presence of eddies. The high spatial resolution of the XBT measurements is more capable of distinguishing these countere ows than the typical 50 km resolution of historical hydrographic sections across Drake Passage. Commensurate with the position of the fronts, no real seasonal signal in Drake Passage transport is discernible, although there is substantial variability on interannual time scales. The Drake Passage XBT transport time series is strongly correlated to both zonal wind stress and wind stress curl in the southeast Pacie c Ocean.


Wireless communication consumes a significant amount of energy in wireless networks. Most multi-hop wireless routing protocols are adopted from wired network routing protocols and use pre-selected single or multiple minimum cost paths to forward data packets. However unlike wired networks, a wireless network has unique characteristics such as unreliable wireless links and multiple receivers associated with a single packet transmission. These particular characteristics of wireless network make it energy inefficient by using preselected paths to forward data packets. In this paper we propose a scalable, opportunistic, and energy efficient routing protocol (E2R) that uses an opportunistic forwarding scheme to deliver control messages and data packets in a multi-hop wireless network. To further reduce the overhead of control message, we introduce a novel greedy forwarding algorithm and an efficient self-suppression scheme. Extensive analysis and simulations show that E2R can provide high packet delivery ratio and effectively reduce redundant packet transmissions which results in less energy consumption.


ABSTRACT
 There is a rich body of literature examining the contribution of Holocaust museums to the Holocaust memorial culture by focusing on their educative, awareness-raising, and memorializing functions. In this context, ample attention has been devoted to these museums' exhibitions, educatory activities, reenactment practices, digital strategies, as well as their historical and architectural narratives. This article brings a novel perspective to the literature by giving an account of how Holocaust museums act as a medium through which individuals contribute to the Holocaust memorial culture from a Constructivist perspective. It argues that Holocaust museums do not treat individuals as passive recipients of the Holocaust memorial culture, but actors who could exercise agential capacities in relation to the Holocaust memorial culture. This argument is illustrated by case studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the Berlin Jewish Museum, and the Anne Frank House. It is shown that these museums offer platforms through which individuals actively contribute to the Holocaust memorial culture by encouraging them to conduct and share their Holocaust-related research, donating Holocaust-related objects, and engaging in social activities to diffuse related norms and messages.


A comprehensive control of a wind generator system connected to a plant is looked at in this paper, where a formula has really been developed allowing a control framework that utilizes a four-leg inverter connected to the grid side to infuse the supplied power, in addition to function as an energetic power filter alleviating lots existing disturbances as well as boosting power top quality. A 4 wire system is considered with three-phase as well as additionally singlephase straight as well as also nonlinear whole lots. Throughout the link of the wind generator, the utility-side controller is created to make up the disruptions set off in exposure of receptive, nonlinear, and/or out of balance solitary as well as additionally intra-phase loads, in addition to providing energetic as well as receptive power as required. When there is no wind power provided, the controller is suggested to increase the power top-notch making use of the dc-link capacitor with the power converter connected to the grid. The main difference of the recommended approach about others in the compositions is that the advised control framework is based upon the traditional power concept fragmentations. This option uses decoupled power as well as additionally existing referrals for the inverter control, using really functional, critical, as well as effective capacities.


An 88-year-old woman with aortic stenosis, who had demonstrated fever for several preceding days, complained of angina and orthopnea. Although the symptoms were suggestive of acute myocardial infarction, coronary angiography failed to demonstrate coronary artery stenosis. Dual SPECT with Tc-99m pyrophosphate and Tl-201 demonstrated an abnormal accumulation of the former tracer throughout the inner layers of the left ventricle, indicating circumfer- ential subendocardial infarction. Confirmation of this diagnosis is often difficult, and there have been only a few documented cases. However, the present images clearly depicted this unusual view of infarction in a patient with aortic stenosis but without coronary artery stenosis.


This article describes two power mobility training protocols used with seniors and compares posttraining driving performance. Twelve users of power mobility were consecutively recruited from two residential facilities in Toronto, Canada. The aim of training at both sites was to make clients comfortable with and safe at driving power mobility devices. The content of training was similar, but training protocols differed significantly in terms of the number of sessions (means of 3.43 vs. 9.80; p ≤ .05) and the time frame over which the sessions were offered (means of 1.57 vs. 5.10 weeks; p ≤ .01). Participants at the two sites differed significantly in terms of overall driving performance (p ≤ .05), gender (p ≤ .01), and type of device used (p ≤ .05). Overall, driving performance was significantly associated with facility, gender, type of device used, and training duration (p ≤ .05). When these variables were entered into an exploratory hierarchical regression, facility accounted for 64% of the variance in driving performance. When facility was controlled for, the correlations between device and duration of training with driving performance were no longer significant. The determinants of driving performance are difficult to clearly specify as the variable facility encompasses gender as well as all other differences between the two training protocols. Nevertheless, these data provide direction for future research in this area.


In the presence of 1,5-diazabicyclo[4.3.0]non-5-ene (DBN)(0.5 mol equiv.) and deuterium oxide, methyl benzylpenicillinate 1,1-dioxide (1a) was converted into its 3,6-dideuteriated derivative (3a), its 3,6-dideuteriated 6-epimer (3b), and (2R,3S)-1-(1-methoxycarbonyl-2-methylprop-1-enyl)-4-oxo-3-phenylacetamido[3-2H]azetidine-2-sulphinic acid (2b). Under similar conditions, methyl penicillanate 1,1-dioxide (1c) afforded its 3-deuteriated derivative (3c) which was then transformed into (2R)-(1-methoxycarbonyl-2-methylprop-1-enyl)-4-oxoazetidine-2-sulphinic acid (2c). The aforementioned results indicate that the β-elimination reactions occur by E1cB pathways, in which C-3 anionic intermediates, i.e.(4a) and (4b), are formed reversibly.Methyl benzyl[2β-methyl-2H3]penicillinate 1,1-dioxide (7a) and methyl [2β-methyl-2H3]penicillanate 1,1-dioxide (7b) were transformed by DBN into the corresponding sulphinic acids, in which the deuterium label was located exclusively in the methyl group anti with respect to the methoxycarbonyl moiety, i.e. compounds (12a) and (12b). These findings suggest that the carbanionic intermediates (4a) and (4b) undergo the β-elimination reactions by way of the conformers (5a) and (5b).
 p-Nitrobenzyl penicillanate 1,1-dioxide (13b) was converted into [3-2H]penicillanic acid 1,1-dioxide (18a) by deuterium-exchange and hydrogenolysis steps. The last mentioned compound was comparable to sulbactam (17a) in its ability to synergise the antibacterial activity of ampicillin against β-lactamase-producing bacteria.


Despite the widespread establishment of logistics service providers, the largest integrated logistics service providers (ILSPs) cannot offer customers a fully customised supply chain without outsourcing some logistics functions, not their strengths, to local companies or specialised service providers. Accordingly, this study investigates the outsourcing of functional logistics activities from logistics integrators, or ILSPs, by focusing on the selection process for functional logistics service providers (FLSPs), especially on the attributes that affect the selection decision. This study uses the hybrid multiple criteria decision-making approach, the AHP-DEMATEL integrated model. The findings include the characterisation of eight main factors affecting the FLSPs' selection decision, regarding their degree of particular importance and their reciprocal influence inside the decision-making system, from the ILSPs' perspective. Additionally, the dominance of cost factors is emphasised through a double-analysis using the AHP and DEMATEL methods, while the importance of the remaining factors is also indicated. The final analysis results are discussed with conclusions for detailed insights. Through this study, decision-makers of ILSPs enable the review of the selection process and its standards.


An 800k-pixel active pixel device has been developed for use in a digital still camera application. A mode of operation has been developed to cancel the problems of fixed patterned noise and dark current inherent to this type of CMOS imaging array. A time multiplexed read-out mechanism allows the device to operate at 5 Mpix/s and still settle to within 0.1 percent. The device, with a full well of approximately 100K electrons, is capable of delivering a S/N of 66dB, and a sensitivity of approximately 50mV/lux at 50mS exposure. The sensor is covered with a color mosaic to allow an accurate recovery of a color image. This sensor makes new in-roads for CMOS imaging into areas traditionally occupied by CCDs.


Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a heritable systemic connective tissue disease with important cardiovascular involvement, including aortic root dilatation and mitral valve prolapse. Life expectancy in patients with MFS is mainly determined by cardiovascular complications, among which aortic dissection or rupture are most dreaded. In recent years, heart failure and ventricular arrhythmia have drawn attention as extra-aortic cardiovascular manifestations and as additional reported causes of death. Imaging studies have provided data supporting a primary myocardial impairment in the absence of valvular disease or cardiovascular surgery, while studies using ambulatory ECG have demonstrated an increased susceptibility to ventricular arrhythmia. In this paper, current literature was reviewed in order to provide insights in characteristics, pathophysiology and evolution of myocardial function, heart failure and ventricular arrhythmia in MFS.


Zika virus disease is of growing concern to all clinicians. There is a growing concern with regards to the neurologic sequela of the virus, particularly for infants born to women infected while pregnant. The continued spread of this virus throughout North and South America requires all anesthesiologists to maintain vigilance on this issue. This article addresses some of the key issues that pertain to anesthesiologists with regards to the Zika virus including the risks of perioperative management of patients with Zika virus. A discussion of the risks of transfusion and current blood management practices also is included in this review.


Chitosan scaffolds have gained much attention in tissue engineering. However, brittleness and low biodegradability limit scaffolds application, especially in use as guided tissue regeneration membranes (GTRm) in surgical operations. The first objective of this work is to improve the brittleness of the chitosan membrane, which is not desired for use via adding polyethylene glycol (PEG) to chitosan, and the second objective is to accelerate the degradation rate by blending gelatin with the binary chitosan-PEG mixture. The addition of PEG softened the blend membrane in vision and in touch. The tensile compliant increased from 7.87 × 10−3 (MPa−1) for chitosan membrane to 3.63 × 10−1 (MPa−1) for chitosan-PEG-gelatin (CPG) membrane. Degradation results in vitro indicated that CPG membrane degraded faster and weight loss increased more significantly than chitosan membrane and the lowest tensile strength of CPG membrane could meet the requirement of the application. CPG membrane showed significant improvement in degradation and flexibility in comparison with the chitosan membrane. Cell adhesion, viability, and proliferation onto the external surface of CPG membrane with C2C12 cell had been evaluated in vitro and quantified by a methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) reduction assay. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009


This paper describes a wearable stimulating system to investigate the effects of epidural spinal cord stimulation (ESCS) on the improvement of locomotion performance in rats with incomplete spinal cord injury (ISO). The preliminary experiment was conducted in a 240 g Sprague Dawley rat. With different spinal cord stimulation intensities, the EMG signal was recorded from hindlimb using needle recording electrode in rats under anesthesia. It is shown that the proposed stimulating system is available for the chronic stimulation in the ISCI rodent model to investigate the mechanism of ESCS on the improvement of locomotion performance for ISCI patients.


In the encoder of the National Television System Committee (NTSC) system, a composite video burst signal (CVBS) is generated using the luminance (Y) signal and the quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) modulated chrominance (C) signal. In the decoder, it is important that the CVBS be accurately separated into luminance and chrominance signals by a Y/C separation filter. Otherwise, various artifacts, such as dot crawl, rainbow effect, and color bleeding, appear in a decoded video, degrading the quality of the decoded video. In addition, modern high-definition television (HDTV) system suffers from outdated analog decoding artifacts when HDTV compression techniques were applied to the not ideally decoded former standard-definition format video images. This paper proposes artifact reduction methods of dot crawl and rainbow effect using the characteristics of the CVBS video. The proposed artifact reduction algorithms use two successive frames, in which the decoded video images are divided into not moving (stationary) and moving regions. The stationary regions are filtered by a temporal filter, whereas the moving regions are further classified into three subdivided regions of different types of artifacts to apply them into temporal or spatial filters because inappropriately temporally filtered moving region delivers jitters on the edge. In the proposed algorithms, considering characteristics of the NTSC decoded image, a block matching algorithm based on 4x4 non-overlapping blocks is used for motion estimation and compensation. Computer simulations with various simulated and real videos containing NTSC artifacts show the effectiveness of the proposed artifact reduction methods.


BACKGROUND
Glucose-regulated protein (GRP78), also known as immunoglobulin heavy chain binding protein and as heat shock 70 kDa protein 5, is present in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane. GRP78 is generally expressed at low concentrations, but is increased by physiological stress. GRP78 is thought to protect against tissue or organ damage under pathological conditions, such as neurotoxic stress, myocardial infarction, or arteriosclerosis. In addition, in tumors, GRP78 expression is much higher than in normal tissues. Furthermore, high levels of GRP78 expression have been shown to increase the risk of malignancy and metastasis in prostate and colon cancer. Because both anticancer drugs and down-regulation of GRP78 expression inhibit cancer progression and growth, we hypothesized that down-regulation of GRP78 expression might lead to enhanced susceptibility of cancer cells to cytotoxic action of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
GRP78 expression was suppressed in LoVo colon cancer cells by utilizing small-interfering RNA (si-GRP78), and the cells were subsequently used to study the antiproliferative and anticancer effects of 5-FU treatment. The signaling pathways responsible for the increase of LoVo cell susceptibility to 5-FU treatment after exposure to GRP78 siRNA were determined by western blot.

RESULTS
GRP78 silencing significantly inhibited cell viability and increased apoptosis of LoVo cells. Furthermore, combined treatment with 5-FU and GRP78 siRNA for 12 h reduced cell viability, and increased apoptosis and generation reactive oxygen species more strongly than either of the two treatments applied separately. In order to examine the role of ER stress in increased susceptibility of LoVo cells to 5-FU after pretreatment with GRP78 siRNA, we analyzed expression levels of ER stress marker proteins, such as phosphorylated protein kinase-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK), phosphorylated eukaryotic initiation factor 2 alpha (eIF2α), activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), phosphorylated inositol-requiring enzyme 1 alpha (IRE1α), phosphorylated p38, and C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP). Treatment with 5-FU alone increased the expression of ER stress marker proteins, whereas combined exposure to both 5-FU and GRP78 siRNA led to an even stronger effect on these markers. Similar to the pattern of modulation of ER stress protein expression, the levels of apoptosis-related proteins were also more strongly affected by combined exposure to 5-FU and GRP78 siRNA than by single treatments. In particular, expression of Bcl-2-associated X protein (BAX), cleaved caspase-3, and cleaved poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) were increased, whereas the expression of B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL2) was reduced by these treatments.

CONCLUSION
GRP78 silencing and incubation with 5-FU have synergistic effects on the inhibition of LoVo colon cancer cell growth via the induction of ER stress-dependent apoptosis.


A cross-sectional study was conducted on bovine hydatidosis from November 2010 to March 2011 with the aims of investigating its occurrence, risk factors and economic losses in Dire Dawa municipality abattoir. The study revealed 20.05% occurrence of hydatidosis based on the postmortem examination of1536 cattle. Age related infection was significant as older animals were more infected (P<0.05, x2 = 27.496).Among the lungs, liver, heart, spleen and kidneys examined in each carcass, the cysts were distributed in the lungs and livers only. Out of 1852 cysts, 1340 (72.3%) were found in liver while512 (27.7%) in lungs. Five hundred and twenty (53.94%) of 964 hydatid cysts were small, while268 (27.80%) medium and 176 (18.25%) large. These cysts were further characterized as fertile (80.08.7%), sterile (17.3%) and calcified (2.85%) and 53.7% of fertile cysts were viable. Based on the study, the direct economic loss was estimated to be 23,876 Ethiopian Birrs. Presence of hydatid cysts in edible organs has great public health significance as consumption of undercooked/raw meat is still in practice in many parts of Ethiopia. Keywords : Abattoir, Bovine, Carcass, Cysts, Hydatidosis, Eastern Ethiopia.


Oil and gas, water and electric power—all of these essential services rely on SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), protection, and monitoring systems that use communications networks. The use of communications networks makes these systems potentially vulnerable to cyberattack. Over the past decade, faced with an increase in computer hacking and the recognition of the importance of these services to health and welfare, economic stability, and national security, the United States federal government has been increasingly involved in efforts to assist utilities in improving their security posture. Smart grid has become synonymous with asynchronous, nonmission-critical information exchange applications. Smart grid infrastructure describes the existing, yet largely unrecognized, mission-critical control applications that enable generation and delivery of power. Smart grid infrastructure applications require deterministic and synchronous message exchange, including automation and teleprotection. Today, utilities are faced with a confusing array of cybersecurity guidance, standards, and regulatory requirements. Electric utilities operating bulk power system assets must comply with eight NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) CIP (Critical Infrastructure Protection) standards that are in the process of being revised. Federal entities are required by the FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002) to comply with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) standards. Under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Congress gave NIST the task of developing a framework of interoperability and cybersecurity for smart grid applications. To date, the framework has been primarily focused on smart grid information exchange applications that use asynchronous data flow, including metering, demand response, and the near realtime elements of substation and distribution automation. These automation elements and other smart grid infrastructure applications that require deterministic synchronous data exchange, including teleprotection and synchrophasor state measurement, remain a future endeavor. This paper discusses various cybersecurity requirements and presents a clear picture of work being done by NIST to explain what is required and recommended and what utilities should expect to see in the near future as NERC and NIST work continues.


In this work we use a technique of spectroscopy adapted for measuring the amplitude and phase of photon echo signals [7] produced by diffraction of a fs pulse on a spectral hologram. We also improved the technique in terms of spectral resolution in order to measure photon echoes delayed by a few tens of picoseconds. Our study is focused on measuring the coherence time of the sample using a photon echo experiment in the photochemically accumulated regime and on demonstrating the pulse-shaping and time-reversal potentialities of our photo-sensitive material. Spectral holograms are formed through persistent spectral hole burning using a sequence of 2 pump pulses separated by a time delay, in a collinear geometry. The sample is a free base naphtalocyanine embedded in polyvinylbutyral (H2NPc/PVB). The absorption peaks at 783 nm and is 20 nm large (FWHM). Our laser source is a 15-fs, 100MHz, Ti:S oscillator.


Recently, the rapid progress of Internet technology has triggered the widespread development of web-based learning environments in the educational world. As compared with conventional CAI systems, web-based learning environments are able to accumulate a huge amount of learning data. As a result, there is an urgent need for analyzing methods of discovering useful knowledge from the huge log database for improving instructional/learning performance. In this chapter, I will present some models and methods of analyzing the browsing log data to construct a browsing behavioral model that is helpful in supporting e-learning applications. For example, teachers can investigate the model to identify some interesting or unexpected learning patterns in student's browsing behavior, which might therefore provide knowledge for teachers to reorganize their content structure in a more effective manner. Alternatively, another model can be used as a reference model by which personalized content recommendation could be made. To serve these purposes, a set of tools based on data mining techniques such as clustering, and association mining, combined with collaborative filtering techniques, are developed. The effectiveness of these methods is investigated on a real database collected from web-based courses. Through the case studies, some revelations are presented and some future research directions are discussed.


Problem-based learning (PBL) sessions for students were recently incorporated into the third-year Internal Medicine Clerkship at the University of Kentucky. It was of interest to know how this addition would affect the educational experience of the house staff. Therefore, in February 1994, 53 Internal Medicine housestaff were surveyed on their attitudes towards the PBL-oriented Internal Medicine Clerkship. It was found that housestaff perceived the clerkship change negatively. Housestaff believed that the new curriculum interfered with student participation on the ward team and with their ability to teach students. Housestaff strongly believed that students learn clinical medicine best on ward teams seeing patients rather than through PBL.


Adjuvant chemotherapy might be indicated in some canine mammary cancer cases due to metastatic potential. In this regard, studies to determine adverse events following chemotherapy protocols are valuable. The purpose of this prospective clinical trial was to evaluate the safety and tolerability of gemcitabine and carboplatin combination in dogs with malignant mammary tumors. For this prospective clinical trial, 21 female dogs mastectomized due to malignant mammary neoplasia underwent adjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine (3 mg/kg, 60-minute IV infusion) and carboplatin (10 mg/kg, 20-minute IV infusion) based protocol every 21 days for three cycles. They were monitored periodically for treatment-related adverse events by clinical and laboratory evaluations. A total of 17 (80.9%) dogs developed leukopenia, 10 (47.6%) neutropenia, and 15 (71.4%) thrombocytopenia at least once along with the three chemotherapy cycles. All these hematologic toxicities were grade 1, 2, or 3. Two (9.5%) animals had evidence of gastrointestinal toxicity; however, clinical signs were mild to moderate (grades 1 and 2). No dog had life-threatening adverse events (grade 4) or even died (grade 5) of treatment-related complications. The adjuvant chemotherapy protocol with gemcitabine and carboplatin was well-tolerated and safe in female dogs for mammary cancer treatment with self-limiting hematological and gastrointestinal adverse events.


Glutathione transferases (GSTs) have been shown to be overexpressed in a number of tumor cell lines selected for resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs and have been implicated in some studies of clinical specimens. In tumor cell lines selected for resistance to chemicals that alkylate DNA, the isoform most frequently overexpressed is GST‐Yc, a member of the α class GSTs. To date, two variations of the cDNA designated Yc1 with subtle differences have been described, and Yc2 is shown to be clearly distinct. Transfection of a Yc1 cDNA constitutively expressed in rat liver into rat mammary cancer cells confers resistance to alkylators, however, to a lesser extent than is observed in the cells selected for resistance. It has therefore been widely suggested that the GST that is overexpressed in selected resistant cells represents a distinct and novel isoform. We have previously described a rat mammary carcinoma cell line (MLNr) that is resistant to alkylating agents, and overexpresses a GST with characteristics similar to GST‐Yc1 and not Yc2. It has many features common to the several other GST‐Yc overexpressing alkylator resistant cell lines. We have cloned the specific Yc cDNA overexpressed in MLNr and analyzed it in detail and found that it is identical to one of the previously reported Yc1 cDNAs, suggesting that there is no additional Yc gene specifically induced by nitrogen mustards. Another hypothesis to explain the difference in the level of resistance in selected versus GST‐Yc transfected cells is the lack of concurrent increased glutathione (GSH) in the transfectants, which is a common feature in the selected resistant cells. Experiments in which we modulated GSH levels suggest that this is not likely. These studies add to our speculation that other mechanisms may be involved in alkylator resistance. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Biochem Toxicol 12: 11–17, 1998


BACKGROUND Intradural spinal arachnoid cysts (SACs) are a rare cause of spinal cord compression. Treatment is centered on decompression of the spinal cord via laminectomy or laminoplasty followed by resection or fenestration of the cyst. Although laminectomy or laminoplasty access may be needed to achieve the desired result, either procedure can be associated with more extensive surgical dissections and long-term spinal stability concerns, including postsurgical kyphosis. OBSERVATIONS The authors present a case of a cervical intradural SAC in a 4-month-old girl presenting with symptomatic compression. The patient was treated by laminotomy and endoscopic fenestration of the SAC with resolution of symptoms and no disease progression 10 months postoperatively, when the patient was 14 months old. LESSONS Microsurgical endoscopic fenestration of an intradural SAC can provide a less invasive means of treatment while avoiding the risks associated with more invasive approaches.


To understand the communicative interactions that come up in the relationships of students in a virtual learning environment, the project "Communicative interactions in a virtual learning environment" was developed within a comprehensive research framework that refers to the structure of epistemological and methodological decisions and acts that allows a person to comprehensively access to the sense of life practices. Departing from an etnomethodological focus, the data obtaining, the analysis route and the ethical aspects are introduced. The research was made at Universidad de Medellin with students of the elective subject "TIC" under the blended method in the first semester of 2009-1.


The correct choice of the devices used in the health sector is great importance for reduction of the workforce, improving quality and saving time. Therefore, selection of medical company that devices will be provided is an important decision problem. In this study, AHP and fuzzy VIKOR methods were utilized for selection of DNA-RNA-protein isolation device which will be used in a laboratory that conducts scientific research in the Ataturk University Faculty of Medicine. As a result of surveys conducted by responsible experts for the medical selection, 7 criteria were determined and pairwise comparison matrix has been established. Then, weights of criteria determined by AHP and 4 different alternatives were listed by fuzzy VIKOR. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study on the selection of suppliers in the field of health in the literature. It is aimed to contribute to the literature in this respect. Keywords : Medical Company Selection, AHP, Fuzzy VIKOR DOI : 10.7176/JSTR/5-4-09


Computer mediated communication (CMC) is a new form of communication that is increasingly being used in academic discourse. This research examines such key issues as how literacy is affected by the use of CMC, how computers can be used to teach collaboratively and the role of CMC in developing written argument. A shift from print-based literacy to interactive electronic-based literacy has the potential to transform the nature of both literacy and pedagogy.

This project employs a Socio-cultural and Discourse Analysis perspective and investigates the use of CMC in post-graduate education and its effect on academic literacy. It also examines how computer mediated collaboration can effectively aid the process of induction into communities of discursive practice.

This study will investigate the dialogical nature of academic discourse and the relationship of CMC to collaborative learning.


Today therapy dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) service people more than ever and different categories of work places use therapy dogs to help their caretakers. Many studies have been made on the positive effects in patients when they are given contact with a dog, but very little have been done on how the dog experience its situation and what kind of behaviour a therapy dog shows during its working days.

This work was made to investigate the behaviours that educated therapy dogs in Sweden showed when they were in contact with a caretaker and to find out if the dogs showed any signs of stress or some other kind of discomfort. To do this a survey was sent out to 17 educated therapy dog handlers in Sweden that together had 18 educated therapy dogs. The survey contained 39 questions about the daily work of the therapy dogs when they were together with caretakers and some questions about the therapy dogs spare time. A question about what kind of dog breed the therapy dog handlers had were also in the survey to investigate if some breeds were more usual as therapy dogs. All of the handlers answered the survey and the results could then be compiled.

The results showed that 50 % of the dogs were either pure bred retrievers or mixed breeds with retriever involved. Most of the therapy dog handlers worked with their dogs in the eldery care and most of the therapy dog teams worked two days a week. Four of the therapy dogs had tried to get away from a caretaker and eight of the dogs had been mistreated by a caretaker. Some of the dogs had shown behaviours that could be signs of stress or discomfort. Most of the therapy dogs got a time-out during their work once an hour and most of them also got a time-out between two sessions with caretakers. In the time-outs the therapy dogs were often relaxed and asleep. These results leads to the conclusions that the most common breeds (in this survey) were retrievers, some of the therapy dogs had been through unpleasant experiences and some of the therapy dogs had shown signs of stress and discomfort. Most of the dogs got time-outs quite often during their work. To get a better overview of the behaviours that therapy dogs show when they are given contact with a caretaker more studies, with a bigger number of dogs have to be made.


Geo cast routing in vehicular ad hoc networks plays an important role as the basis of applications such as traffic information sharing, emergency alarming, and geographic advertisement. It is quite challenging, however, to geo cast packets through multi-hop relay vehicles because of the highly dynamic network topology, large scale city road system and fast moving vehicles. Our idea is to measure vehicles' coverage capability and forward packets to those vehicles with higher probability to successfully deliver the packets. The idea is rooted in the widely accepted concept that vehicular trajectories improve packet routing and the fact that vehicular trajectories are nowadays available through widely used navigation system. To accomplish the idea, the difficulty is to measure the coverage capability of a vehicle over a specific region with only partially available vehicular trajectories without accurate timing information. We propose a novel coverage graph to maintain collected trajectories of all the encountered vehicles and their most update timing information so that the extended coverage capability of each vehicle can be estimated. The coverage graph is constructed in a distributed way based on locally shared information and the packet forwarding decisions can be adaptively made to meet different routing objectives.


Archean surface crystalline rocks of the Canadian Shield differ chemically from those of Proterozoic age. The younger rocks are higher in K2O, TiO2, U, and Th and lower in Na2O, Cr, Ni, and possibly MgO and CaO. This may be a secondary result of vertical chemical zoning of the crust as a result of metamorphism accompanied by anatectic melting. The erosion of a zoned crust would result in the enrichment of elements such as K, Na, Si, U, and Th in younger sedimentary basins. The crystalline crust subsequently evolved from the sediments of these basins would be enriched in these elements relative to older rocks exposed as a result of erosion. The secular chemical evolution of the shield may also reflect a progressive, though irregular, shift in the composition of new sial being added to the crust. Evidence for this progressive change is found in the increase in the abundance of potassium of successive dike swarms that were feeders of new sial to the upper part of the crust.


Abstract. A theory, graphical notation, mathematical calculus and implementation for finding whether two given expressions can, at execution time, denote references attached to the same object. Intended as the basis for a comprehensive solution to the "frame problem" and as an alternative (for the specific issue of determining aliases) to separation logic, shape analysis, ownership types and dynamic frames.


This practice report provides an overview of a podcast series designed to support first-year student transition to university and promote wellbeing and belonging. The podcast was established in 2017 in a compulsory first year law subject (Legal Institutions and Methods) at La Trobe University, Australia. The podcasts record interviews with students who have recently completed the subject and are designed to (a) give interviewees an opportunity to reflect on their experiences and (b) provide advice to future commencing law students (i.e., their peers). The podcast is a form of peer-to-peer mentoring that requires a relatively small investment of resources and provides on-demand support to students as they commence their law studies. The concept is readily adaptable to other disciplines.


Induction motors are thee starting point to design an electrical drivee system which is widely used in many industrial applications. Inn modern control theory, different mathematical models describe induction motor according to thee employed control methods. Vector control strategy can bee applied to this electrical motor type inn symmetrical three phase version or in unsymmetrical two phase version. The operation of the induction motor can be analyzed similar to a DC motor through this control method. With the Joint progress of thee power electronics and numerical electronics it is possible today to deal with thee axis control with variable speed inn low power applications. With these technological projections, various command approaches have been developed by the scientific community to master inn real time, thee flux and thee torque of thee electrical machines, thee indirect vector control (IVC) scheme being one of the most recent steps in this direction. This scheme provides excellent properties of regulation without rotational speed feedback. Inn this control scheme thee electromagnetic torque and stator flux magnitude are estimated with only stator voltages and currents and this estimation does not depend on motor parameters except for thee stator resistance.
Inn this dissertation report conventional IVC scheme has been described. Induction motor has been simulated inn stationary d-q reference frame and its free acceleration characteristics are drawn. Conventional IVC scheme has been simulated with a 50 HP, 460V, 50Hz induction motor. Literature review has been done to study the recent improvements inn IVC scheme which somehow is abe to overcome the drawbacks of conventional one.
Thee space vector modulation technique (SVPWM) is applied to 2 level inverter control inn thee vector control based induction motor drivee system, thereby dramatically reducing thee torque ripple. Later inn this project space vector PWM technique will be applied to IVC drivee system to reduce thee torque ripple.


Carrier-mediated transport in membranes as a globally nonreactive process is distinguished from film theory with chemical reaction and other facilitated diffusion phenomena. With the concept of stoichiometric and system invariants, an approach is developed for the analysis of carriermediated transport with multiple permeants involving multiple reactions in the membrane. Approximate solutions of the requisite differential equations according to the relative importance of diffusion and reaction rates are reviewed, as well as typical experimental studies. Criteria for evaluating whether a membrane is in the diffusion or equilibrium regime are given, and, in the latter case, the effects of some system parameters are given, for example, binding constants, competitive permeants. JEROME S. SCHULTZ JOE D. GODDARD SHYAM R. SUCHDEO


Institute of Transportation Studies University of California at Berkeley PROGRAM ON ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY FOR THE HIGHWAY Longitudinal Control of a Platoon of Vehicles I: Linear Model Shahab Sheikholeslam Charles A. Desoer PATH Research Report UCB-ITS-PRR-89-3 Prepared in cooperation with the State of California, Business and Transportation Agency, Department of Transportation. The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the State of California. This report does not con- stitute a standard, specification, or regulation. August 18, 1989 Electronics Research Laboratory Memorandum UCB/ERL MS91106


The density-wave theory of galactic spiral-arm structure makes a striking prediction that the pitch angle of spiral arms should vary with the wavelength of the galaxy's image. The reason is that stars are born in the density wave but move out of it as they age. They move ahead of the density wave inside the co-rotation radius, and fall behind outside of it, resulting in a tighter pitch angle at wavelengths that image stars (optical and near-infrared) than those that are associated with star formation (far-infrared and ultraviolet). In this study we combined large sample size with wide range of wavelengths, from the ultraviolet to the infrared to investigate this issue. For each galaxy we used an optical wavelength image (B-band: 445 nm) and images from the Spitzer Space Telescope at two infrared wavelengths (infrared: 3.6 and 8.0 μm) and we measured the pitch angle with the 2DFFT and Spirality codes. We find that the B-band and 3.6 μm images have smaller pitch angles than the infrared 8.0 μm image in all cases, in agreement with the prediction of density-wave theory. We also used images in the ultraviolet from Galaxy Evolution Explorer, whose pitch angles agreed with the measurements made at 8 μm.


This paper compares two different approaches for teaching complex programming concepts in lab sessions. The first approach is based on the widely held assumption that the programming knowledge and skills which the student obtains are predominantly acquired from classroom activities undertaken at the instigation of the teacher. This automatically implies that the student must attend a minimum number of lab sessions. The second approach is to motivate student learning via a full‐term activity based on the implementation of computer games from scratch. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 237–244, 2013


Some simple lower bounds for the probability of error for band-restricted digital communication are presented. The bounds revolve two values of the complementary error function, the system SNR, the peak value, second moment, and sometimes, the fourth moment of the intersymbol interference. Contrary to other available lower bounds, no parameter searches or infinite series computations are required. The bounds hold when the system "eye" is open and in some cases when the source symbols are correlated.


The present study examines how different chronic illnesses and mental illness comorbidity (chronic illness with complexity [CIC]) associate with components of advance care planning (ACP). We also explore the role self-perceived burden plays in the relationship between illness and ACP. Data were gathered from a cross-sectional survey of 305 elderly participants from the New Jersey End-of-Life study. Participants with diabetes and those with cardiovascular disease (CVD) are less likely, while participants with CIC are more likely, to plan for the end-of-life. Participants with diabetes are less likely to make formal plans, whereas those with CVD are less likely to hold informal discussions. CIC is associated with increased odds of having an advance directive, but no other form of ACP. Self-perceived burden did not appear to be the gateway by which illness groups differentially engaged in ACP. Future research should investigate what aspects of illnesses drive ACP.


Alkaline water electrolysis is currently the most promising approach to produce hydrogen. However, a main limitation for large-scale application originates from the significant energy loss caused by the coverage of bubbles on the electrode surface. Here, pore-graded Ni electrodes with a positive and negative gradient porous structure that boosts the desorption and release of gas bubble are reported, resulting in a greatly advanced mass transference. The electrodes are obtained from a blend of Ni and Al via high-pressure cold spray. The gradient porosity is realized by varying the addition of Al and chemical etching. As-sprayed electrodes are annealed to eliminate the residual stress and strengthen the adhesion of layers, hence improving their durability. As a result, the electrode with a positive pore-graded structure exhibits a better HER/OER performance when tested with a carbon rob counter electrode. Notably, when tested with an annulus counter electrode of Nickel foam, the electrode with a negative pore-graded structure achieves minimal HER/OER overpotential, outperforming other porous electrodes. This is benefited from improved bubble removal and mass transference capability. All prepared electrodes showed an excellent stability that after 500 cycles of HER/OER test without a large potential fluctuation.


In this letter, system capacity and error probability of orthogonal space-time block coding (STBC) is considered for PAM/PSK/QAM modulation in correlated Nakagami fading channels. The approach is based on an equivalent scalar AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) channel with a channel gain proportional to the Frobenius norm of the matrix channel for the STBC. Closed form capacity and error probability expressions are derived for Nakagami fading channels. Numerical results are given to illustrate the theory


3D object detectors usually rely on hand-crafted proxies, e.g., anchors or centers, and translate well-studied 2D frameworks to 3D. Thus, sparse voxel features need to be densified and processed by dense prediction heads, which inevitably costs extra computation. In this paper, we instead propose VoxelNext for fully sparse 3D object detection. Our core insight is to predict objects directly based on sparse voxel features, without relying on hand-crafted proxies. Our strong sparse convolutional network VoxelNeXt detects and tracks 3D objects through voxel features entirely. It is an elegant and efficient framework, with no need for sparse-to-dense conversion or NMS post-processing. Our method achieves a better speed-accuracy trade-off than other mainframe detectors on the nuScenes dataset. For the first time, we show that a fully sparse voxel-based representation works decently for LIDAR 3D object detection and tracking. Extensive experiments on nuScenes, Waymo, and Argoverse2 benchmarks validate the effectiveness of our approach. Without bells and whistles, our model outperforms all existing LIDAR methods on the nuScenes tracking test benchmark. Code and models are available at github.com/dvlab-research/VoxelNeXt.