Symbolic execution is a popular program analysis technique that allows seeking for bugs by reasoning over multiple alternative execution states at once. As the number of states to explore may grow exponentially, a symbolic executor may quickly run out of space. For instance, a memory access to a symbolic address may potentially reference the entire address space, leading to a combinatorial explosion of the possible resulting execution states. To cope with this issue, state-of-the-art executors concretize symbolic addresses that span memory intervals larger than some threshold. Unfortunately, this could result in missing interesting execution states, e.g., where a bug arises. In this paper we introduce MemSight, a new approach to symbolic memory that reduces the need for concretization, hence offering the opportunity for broader state explorations and more precise pointer reasoning. Rather than mapping address instances to data as previous tools do, our technique maps symbolic address expressions to data, maintaining the possible alternative states resulting from the memory referenced by a symbolic address in a compact, implicit form. A preliminary experimental investigation on prominent benchmarks from the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge shows that MemSight enables the exploration of states unreachable by previous techniques.


The orthogonal cutting tests were carried out on an ultra precision fly-cutting machine at various depths of cut from 3 μm down to 0.0015 μm (1.5 nm). The cutting force, thickness of chip and contact length between the chip and the rake face of tool were measured in the experiments. The effect of the depth of cut on the cutting force, the shear angle, the tool-chip contact length and the cutting heat were presented and compared with the results of conventional orthogonal cutting process. The compatibility and the limitation of application of basic orthogonal cutting model to ultra-precision cutting was investigated. The experimental data obtained by ultra-precision diamond cutting have a good agreement with the shear angle equations based on basic orthogonal cutting model under the conditions of depth of cut more than 0.2 μm but not at depths of cut smaller than 0.2 μm due to the rounded edge of tool.


Motivated by the bond market's important role as the single largest source of financing for U.S. firms, this study investigates bondholders' assessment of the value of investments in information technology (IT) by examining the association between IT investment and initial bond ratings and bond yields. The results indicate that the impact of IT on the cost of debt is different across industries. Bondholders appear to view IT investments in automate and informate industries more favorably than those in transform industries. These findings from the bond markets differ from equity-based prior findings which report higher returns to IT investments in transform industries. Additional analyses indicate that IT investments are associated with higher returns as well as higher risks in transform industries than in automate or informate industries. Overall, these findings suggest that bondholders and shareholders have different perspectives toward IT investments likely due to bondholders' greater aversion to the riskiness and the lack of collateralizability of IT investments.


Human arterial endothelial cells (HAECs) regulate their phenotype by integrating signals encoded in the frictional forces exerted by flowing blood, fluid shear stress (FSS). High laminar FSS promotes establishment of adaptive HAEC phenotype protective against atherosclerosis, whereas low or disturbed FSS cause HAECs to adopt athero-prone phenotypes. A vascular endothelial cadherin (VE cadherin)-based mechanosensory complex allows HAECs to regulate barrier function, cell morphology and gene expression in response to FSS. Previously, we reported that this mechanosensor integrated exchange protein activated by cAMP (EPAC1) and a PDE4D gene derived cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE), but had not identified the PDE4D variant involved. Our hypothesis here was that only one of the two ~100 kDa PDE4D variants expressed in HAECs coordinated these responses. Now, we show one unique PDE4D splice variant, PDE4D7, controls transcriptional responses of HAECs to FSS while another, PDE4D5, does not. Adaptive transcriptional responses of HAECs subjected to laminar FSS in vitro were blunted in cells in which PDE4D7 was silenced, but unaffected in cells with silenced PDE4D5. This work identifies a specific therapeutic target for the treatment or prevention of atherosclerosis and improves our understanding of the role of cAMP-signaling in modulating mechanosensory signal transduction in the vascular endothelium.


We define the group of almost periodic diffeomorphisms on $\mathbb{R}^n$ and on an arbitrary Lie group. We then study the properties of its Riemannian and Lie group exponential maps and provide applications to fluid equations. In particular, we show that there exists a geodesic of a weak Riemannian metric on the group of almost periodic diffeomorphisms of the line that consists entirely of conjugate points.


The goal of this article is to discuss a theory of reference for hallucinatory experiences. Firstly, my paper will be concerned with the theory of perception underlying common definition of hallucination. Secondly, I will present three main theories of reference for experiences given in different kinds of altered states of consciousness. These three theories are: neuroscientific, supranaturalistic and psychoanalytical. Consecutively I will present arguments for maintaining that classical theories are examples of semiotic reductionism. In the main part of this paper I will present an anti-reductionist framework for a reference of hallucinatory experience, based on a phenomenological analysis of particular kind of experience not caused by external stimulus, that is, mystical experience. This anti-reductionistic theory will claim that a proper reference of certain kinds of altered states of consciousness is a true symbol.


The evolution of group living requires that individuals limit the inherent risks of parasite infection. To this end, group living insects have developed a unique capability of mounting collective anti-parasite defences, such as allogrooming and corpse removal from the nest. Over the last 20 years, this phenomenon (called social immunity) was mostly studied in eusocial insects, with results emphasizing its importance in derived social systems. However, the role of social immunity in the early evolution of group living remains unclear. Here, I investigate this topic by first presenting the definitions of social immunity and discussing their applications across social systems. I then provide an up-to-date appraisal of the collective and individual mechanisms of social immunity described in eusocial insects and show that they have counterparts in non-eusocial species and even solitary species. Finally, I review evidence demonstrating that the increased risks of parasite infection in group living species may both decrease and increase the level of personal immunity, and discuss how the expression of social immunity could drive these opposite effects. By highlighting similarities and differences of social immunity across social systems, this review emphasizes the potential importance of this phenomenon in the early evolution of the multiple forms of group living in insects.


We present results of a dc magnetization study which show interesting thermomagnetic history effects across the antiferromagnetic-to-ferromagnetic transition in Ce(Fe0.96Al0.04)2 pseudobinary alloy. Specifically, we observe (i) the degree of ZFC/FC irreversibility rising with increasing field; (ii) the virgin curve lying outside the envelope M-H curve. Some of the key results are supported by magneto-transport measurements. We argue that these effects are quite different from the characteristics seen in spin glasses or in hard ferromagnets. They can be understood in terms of kinetic arrest of a first-order transition.


The Abstract is your opportunity to present a mini-version of the full paper. The Abstract is presented as a single paragraph. Realize that many readers will not read past the Title, and those that do may not read past the Abstract. The Abstract should state some context for the research, what was done, what was found, and the 'so what'.


Academic freedom in higher education institutions (HEIs) entails not only the protection of the rights of faculty to teach and of students to learn, but also the freedom to create and disseminate knowledge. The literature, especially in Africa, mainly portrays the violation of academic freedom due to external interference into universities' autonomous functioning. This article, by focusing on academic publications and the peer review process, how- ever, suggests that the internal governance of HEIs also has equally serious implications on academic freedom. By analyzing data collected from editors, reviewers and authors of three research institutions that publish journals at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, this article reveals that peer review mecha- nisms in academic institutions constrain the production of knowledge and hence undermine academic freedom.


This paper provides evidence that highly skilled migrants continue to remain connected with and deeply committed to their home country. These connections challenge the notion of knowledge and skills loss from high-skilled migration. Highly skilled migrants are also involved in remittance giving, which, although of the noneconomic type, offers new possibilities for building wealth. These are the so-called 'knowledge transfers' which consist of the flows of knowledge, skills and ideas to the home country. This paper analyses these knowledge transfers through the highly skilled Filipino migrants in New Zealand and Australia.


The studies of Puck and his coworkers (1) have made possible the growth of single mammalian cells by a procedure comparable to the plating technique of microbiology. Knowledge of the growth requirements peculiar to single cells (2) or small numbers of cells, however, is essentially lacking. Although the mutually advantageous interaction of cells growing close together was indicated by Sanford et al. 0), and was later ingeniously exploited with "feeder" layers (1), the exact nature of the cellular interplay has not been determined. During growth studies with mammalian cells in various serum-free media (4), the unexplained rapid death of the inoculum was often encountered, particularly when small numbers of cells were used. While serum was protective, it was effective only in relatively huge concentrations. Examination of various biologic materials revealed that liver extracts, on a protein basis, were several hundredfold more potent than serum. The active material in liver required for the survival of small numbers of cells, but not for "mass" inocula, has been identified as catalase. Thus, it would appear that prevention of peroxide formation or assistance in its removal is one of the important benefits of proximal growth and one of the functions of the "feeder" layer. With added catalase, growth of relatively small numbers of cells is now consistently obtained in serum-free medium. The purpose of this report is to describe the protective effect of catalase preparations and to present the evidence for the identity of the protective agent with the enzyme catalase. Materials.--The cell cultures used were as follows :--a


ABSTRACT Coalbed methane (CBM) has emerged as one of India's important unconventional natural gas sources in the past decade. A number of environmental questions flank the commercial development of CBM and its holistic success, one of which is coproduced water management. Present work aims at assessing the geochemistry of co-produced water samples collected from CBM wells in Jharia coalfield, India. It is found that pH is within accepted limits and the bacterial contamination is minimal. The major ions present in the water samples are sodium and bicarbonate. It is observed that the produced water is generally influenced by a mix of evaporite dissolution and silicate weathering and the samples are oversaturated with respect to calcite and dolomite. Subsequently, an assessment of the energy requirements of membrane-based technologies (such as reverse osmosis and nanofiltration) has been performed. The estimated energy consumption is 0.45–1.40 kWh per cubic meter of water, for differing levels of sodium desired in treated water. Membrane-based methods seem to be effective for treatment of CBM co-produced water, and the selection of membranes can be based on the geochemistry and also the level of treatment desired.


This paper examines the integration of Turkish labour migrant children in four countries across Europe in terms of their educational performance. By looking at the PISA 2003 (Programme for International Student Assessment) data pertaining to mathematics achievement of 15‐year‐olds, it explores the effects of ethnicity, gender and family background, on the one hand, and institutional factors (such as kindergarten attendance, grading and tracking), on the other, to offer a better understanding of the large immigrant–native gaps in educational performance. As a result, the author argues that institutional factors can have an impact on school‐related integration, in addition to the effects associated with individual factors, thus adding another layer of disadvantage on the children of immigrants.


The study examines the capital structure of the Western Balkan banking industry across the period 2015 - 2020. Forty-seven of the total Western Balkan-based commercial banks were included in the study. By constructing a balanced panel, this study uses pooled ordinary least squares fixed and random effects regressions to examine the relationship between bank book leverage as the dependent variable and bank-specific explanatory variables that include profitability, leverage ratio, bank size, earnings volatility, collateral, growth opportunities, and liquidity. These reports are examined using linear regression analysis. The study shows a significant positive relationship between profitability and book leverage for the period studied. In contrast, leverage ratio, earnings volatility, collateral, growth, and liquidity significantly negatively impact the book leverage of Western Balkan banks.
The findings have practical implications for bank executives. They will assist them in identifying the bank-specific factors that influence the capital structure and selecting values that promote optimal capital structure. The findings of this study can help regulators develop an effective prudential framework. This study opens up new avenues for further research in this area for academics, researchers, and analysts.


We have investigated the fluxon dynamical behaviour in a one-dimensional parallel array of small Josephson junctions in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. In the case of high damping, the system is in stable states. On the contrary, in the case of low damping, bifurcation and chaotic phenomena have been observed. Control of chaos is achieved by a delayed feedback mechanism, which drives the chaotic system into a selected unstable periodic orbit embedded within the associated strange attractor. It is attractive to control chaos to a periodic state, rather than operating always outside the device parameter space where chaos dominates.


Background Two methods that are commonly used in most clinical trials for evaluating the effect of treatment on hot flashes are frequency only and severity score methods. However, in these crude methods, composite recurrent hot flash data on a patient are reduced to a one-dimensional summary measure, an approach which may not be optimal. In addition, the duration of a hot flash event provides additional information, which is not accounted for in the two methods mentioned above. Purpose We propose two new methods in the analysis of hot flash data in this paper. Methods The first method utilizes a generalization of the continuation ratio model to model the severity of a hot flash event. The model accounts for individual random effects and dependence of recurrent events within an individual. The other method that accounts for the duration of a hot flash event is a 3-Dimensional (3D) score method, which incorporates hot flash information on frequency, severity, and duration. Results Simulation studies were conducted to evaluate the properties of our proposed methods. The results indicate that our proposed generalized continuation ratio model has appreciably high power in detecting small treatment effects on severity compared with the two commonly used methods. The proposed 3D score, on the other hand, is sensitive in detecting treatment effects on both frequency and duration, but has low power in detecting treatment effects on severity alone. Conclusions Our proposed generalized continuation ratio model approach provides a valuable and powerful alternative to the two commonly used methods in the analysis of treatment effects on hot flash severity. Our proposed 3D score method incorporates the additional information hot flash duration provides, and is another analysis option for the practitioners to employ.


Service integration is an important issue in service-oriented computing. As an infrastructure for service-oriented architectures, the enterprise service bus (ESB) has been regarded as a promising way to support dynamic and agile service integration in distributed heterogeneous environments. The authors' ESB framework for large-scale service integration, JTangSynergy, adopts several mechanisms for providing effective and efficient dependability. It enables automated recovery from component failures and robust execution of composite services by checking service compatibility. The authors tested JTangSynergy in the Chinese Healthcare Service Integration project.


The current pronunciation scoring based on Goodness of Pronunciation (GOP) uses posterior probabilities of the Acoustic Models. Such algorithms suffer from generalization since they are utilized to determine a score metric for each phoneme rather than on the completeness or comparison with the ideal utterance of the words. This paper proposes a novel method to overcome such limitations by using combined scores of prosodic, fluency, completeness, and accuracy. This is achieved using context-aware GOP in conjugation with dynamic time warping (DTW) matching of the pitch contours of a weighted average of the context tokens found in the audio file that is rich in mispronounced phonemes. The proposed work gives flexibility in tuning the results according to different speech aspects based on a single hyperparameter. The results achieved are encouraging and have been validated on the speechocean762 dataset, where Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) model has been trained on the Librispeech dataset. The resultant mean error of the proposed approach is 3.38% and the value of the correlation coefficient achieved is 0.652.


Natural language dialogue is a continuous, unified phenomenon. Speakers use their conversational context to simplify individual utterances through a number of linguistic devices, including ellipsis and definite references. Yet most computational systems for using natural language treat individual utterances as separate entities, and have distinctly separate processes for handling ellipsis, definite references, and other dialogue phenomena.
The computational system presented here, Psli3, uses the uniform framework of a production system architecture to carry out natural language understanding and generation in a well-integrated way. This is demonstrated primarily using intersentential ellipsis resolution, in addition to examples of definite reference resolution and interactive error correction. The system's conversational context arises naturally as the result of the persistence of the internal representations of previous utterances in working memory. Natural language input is interpreted within this framework using a modification of the syntactic technique of chart parsing, extended to include semantics, and adapted to the production system architecture. It provides a graceful way of handling ambiguity within this architecture, and allows separate knowledge sources to interact smoothly across different utterances in a highly integrated fashion.
The design of this system demonstrates how flexible and natural user interactions can be carried out using a system with a naturally flexible control structure. A processing-based taxonomy for ellipsis resolution that we developed is used to analyze our coverage of intersentential ellipsis. The semantic chart parser is further extended to allow several closely related sentences to be treated in a single chart. This allows the relationship between the sentences to be used in a simple way to select between competing alternative interpretations, and provides a natural means of resolving complex elliptical utterances.
We describe this system in detail, and include a number of extensive examples of the system's processing during user interactions.


Experience with the MAIPA assay for the diagnosis of platelet-reactive antibodies has shown that high-titered antibodies falsify the test results. We here demonstrate 2 cases: i) A serum with high-titered HLA antibodies (100% panel reactivity in the LCT, titer between 4,000 and 12,000), and ii) Serum with a high-titered anti-HPA-1a (titer in the MAIPA assay 1,000). In both cases, it can be demonstrated that these antibodies led to unspecific reactions. In the 1st case, they interfered with the diagnosis of additional platelet-specific antibodies. Only the use of HLA-compatible platelets allowed a correct identification. On the other hand, in the high-titered anti-HPA-1a unspecific reactions were seen with the glycoproteins Ib/IX, Ia/IIa, and beta 2-microglobulin, leading to misinterpretations. These examples demonstrate that, in the test conditions as described, a correct diagnosis of high-titered sera might only be achieved by using compatible HLA or HPA cells.


The aim of the study was to assess the role of altered autonomic regulation on changes in the QT interval. Fifty-three diabetic patients, comprising 32 men and 21 women with a mean age of 49.4 +/- 15.9 years (range 13-73 years), underwent sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulatory tests (changes in heart rate between clino- and orthostatism, lying to standing, while deep breathing, Valsalva's manoeuvre, changes of arterial pressure related to posture) to study cardiovascular reflexes. Patients who were positive for at least two of the tests were considered to be affected by autonomic neuropathy. Ten non-diabetic age-matched subjects (44.8 +/- 14.8 years) with no cardiovascular diseases were included in the study as a control group. The QTc interval was measured in basal conditions and during sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulatory tests, in clino- and orthostatism, during deep breathing and Valsalva's manoeuvre. A significantly greater QTc interval (p less than 0.05) was found in neuropathic patients compared to controls and non-neuropathic patients both in basal conditions and following stimulatory tests at the lowest heart rate (phase IV of Valsalva's manoeuvre and slow exhalation during deep breathing), while at a higher heart rate (orthostatism, L-S, deep inhalation during deep breathing, phase II of Valsalva's manoeuvre) there was no difference in QTc between controls, and neuropathic and non-neuropathic patients due to a lesser extension of the QTc in neuropathic patients. This difference appears to be the expression of autonomic dysregulation in neuropathic patients, given the lack of correlation with diabetes or duration of disease, and is only conditioned by the presence or absence of autonomopathic damage. Among other causes, the observed extension of the QT interval might therefore justify the increased frequency of sudden death in diabetic patients with cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy.


Problem of the personal activity is one of the most important in personology. There is wide variety of the points of view on principles, content and mechanisms of the personal activity in different psychological schools and approaches. The principle of dialectical conglomeration declared in the article is one of the possible approaches of analysis of the selective activity of personality in ontogenesis. The content of the suggested principle lets us to represent periodization of the formation of the selective activity of personality in a new way.


Is the WTO big enough for two economic superpowers? China's explosion onto the world economic stage has allowed new and unexpected challenges to emerge, most significantly, which path globalization should be guided down. For 70 years, the western world has approached globalization from a liberalist perspective, seeing it as a corollary to democracy and rules-based economic growth. Yet China, which benefited enormously from globalization, has exceled in the absence of democracy, challenging the idea that the liberal world order is necessary or even desirable.

With the WTO teetering on irrelevance, this is a moment to lift the hood and examine the engine of economic growth we have relied upon for decades. Though both China and the United States have the economic power to unilaterally pursue trade advantages (think NAFTA or the Belt and Road Initiative), it is not in the interest of either party to abandon the constraints imposed by the rules-based WTO system. The WTO provides an avenue to resolve disputes peacefully without the need for unilateral actions, which tend to escalate rather than resolve trade disputes. The WTO also enshrines the ideals of liberal trade by denouncing trade barriers of all kinds and pursuing open exchange. And the WTO establishes, by consensus, the rules of the road that allow countries large and small to compete in a mostly fair and equitable environment. These are public international rules that neither China nor the United States could establish and enforce on their own.


The kallikreins are a multigene family of serine proteases that act on a diverse number of substrates, including several growth factors and extracellular matrix (ECM) glycoproteins and proteinases. Recently, this family has been implicated in the process of early development and embryo implantation. In this study, we used reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction with gene-specific primers and Southern hybridization to elucidate the temporal and tissue-specific expression patterns of the mouse kallikreins Klk1, Klk3, Klk5, Klk9, and Klk21 during early development in the embryo, uterus, and decidua. We observed the expression of Klk1 (tissue kallikrein), Klk3 (gamma-nerve growth factor), Klk9 (epidermal growth factor-binding protein), and Klk21 in the early conceptus (until the 2-cell stage). Only Klk21 continued to be expressed in the blastocyst until Day 7.5 of pregnancy. Expression of Klk9 reappeared at Day 7.5 and was consistently detected until Day 11, the last day studied; Klk1 was again expressed in the embryo from Day 9.5, with decreased levels by Day 11. In contrast, in the uterus or decidua, there was no expression of Klk1 until Day 7.5, when mRNA transcripts were abundant; transcripts then decreased in the Day 9.5 and Day 11 uterus. Expression of Klk21 in the uterus and decidua displayed a similar pattern but was detected at much lower levels. Interestingly, a novel Klk21-like mRNA was also detected in uterine tissue samples but not in embryonic samples; Klk3, Klk5, and Klk9 were not consistently expressed in the uterus or decidua over this time. This is the first report of the expression of specific kallikreins during early development. The distinct gene- and tissue-specific expression patterns presented in this study, in conjunction with the well-characterized roles of kallikreins in regulation of protein activation, ECM degradation, and proliferative events, suggests the involvement of the kallikrein gene family during early development.


Background: Surgical site infections (SSI) are a common type of health care associated infections. The emergence of multidrug resistant (MDR) nosocomial pathogens represents a major health burden. This study was conducted to determine the frequency of isolation and patterns of antimicrobial resistance of nosocomial pathogens causing SSI in Zagazig University Hospitals Methods: Samples obtained from the infected surgical wounds were subjected to microbiological identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing. The role of extended spectrum beta lactamase (ESBL) and carbapenemase in bacterial resistance to some antibiotic were evaluated. Results: The most frequently isolated species were S. aureus (31%) followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae ( K. pneumonia) (22%), Escherichia coli ( E. coli) (15%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) (11%), Coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNs) (8%), Proteus spp (7%) and Acinetobacter spp (6%). Methicillin resistance was detected in 38 (97 %) and 8(80 %) of S. aureus and CoNs isolates, respectively. Among Gram-negative organisms, 65.8% of isolates were ESBL producers, of which 60% were Carbapenem resistant. Metallo-β-lactamase was detected in 30% of Gram-negative isolates. Multi-drug resistance was observed in 50 isolates (68.5%), whereas extensively drug resistance (XDR) occurred in 23(31.5%) of Gram-negative isolates. Conclusions: Most of Gram-negative isolates were MDR or XDR. Antibiotic therapy of SSI must be guided by microbiological culture and antibiotic sensitivity testing. Infection prevention and control practice needs more improvement. Rationalization of antibiotic prescription must be carried out. Post discharge surveillance of SSI needs to be considered.


Based on dilatonic dark energy model, we consider two cases: dilaton field with positive kinetic energy(coupled quintessence) and with negative kinetic energy(phantom). In the two cases, we investigate the existence of attractor solutions which correspond to an equation of state parameter ω = −1 and a cosmic density parameter Ωσ = 1. We find that the coupled term between matter and dilaton can't affect the existence of attractor solutions. In the Mexican hat potential, the attractor behaviors, the evolution of state parameter ω and cosmic density parameter Ω, are shown mathematically. Finally, we show the effect of coupling term on the evolution of X( σ σ0 ) and Y ( σ̇ σ 0 ) with respect to N(lna) nu-


Electron-withdrawing substituents are introduced onto the phenothiazine core to raise its oxidation potential for use as a redox shuttle in high-voltage lithium-ion batteries. A perfluorinated derivative oxidizes at 4.3 V vs. Li+/0, and functions for ca. 500 h of 100% overcharge in LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2/graphite coin cells at a charging rate of C/10.


ABSTRACT Obesity is a global health challenge. It is a multifactorial, complex, and progressive disease associated with various health complications and increased mortality. Lifestyle modifications are central to weight management but may be insufficient to maintain clinically meaningful weight loss. Pharmacotherapies are recommended as an adjunct to lifestyle interventions to induce and sustain clinically meaningful weight loss and reduce the risk of comorbidities in appropriate patients. Glucagon-like peptide-1 is an incretin metabolic hormone responsible for a range of physiological effects, including glucose and appetite regulation. Several glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) have been approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes since 2005 including exenatide (short- and extended-release), lixisenatide, liraglutide, dulaglutide, albiglutide, and semaglutide. Of these, semaglutide (subcutaneous) and liraglutide are currently US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved for chronic weight management in patients with or without diabetes. The phase 3 Semaglutide Treatment Effect in People with obesity (STEP) program was designed to investigate the effect of semaglutide versus placebo on weight loss, safety, and tolerability in adults with overweight or obesity. Following the submission of the results of the STEP 1–4 trials, the FDA approved once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide 2.4 mg for chronic weight management in people with overweight or obesity in April 2021. Data from the program demonstrated that semaglutide (2.4 mg once weekly) achieved significant and sustained weight loss, together with improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors compared with placebo, and was generally well tolerated, with a safety profile consistent with other GLP-1RAs. The most common adverse events reported in STEP 1–5 were gastrointestinal events, which were transient, mild-to-moderate in severity, and typically resolved without permanent treatment discontinuation. This article reviews the data from STEP 1–5 and highlights clinically relevant findings for primary care providers.


Chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in bone marrow allograft recipients is frequently preceded by a cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. To elucidate whether an immune reaction of transplanted donor cells against CMV was involved in the pathogenesis of chronic GvHD, the effect of donor pretransplant CMV immune status on chronic GvHD incidence was analyzed. In 43 bone marrow recipients at risk, the 2-yr cumulative chronic GvHD probability was 55% when the donor was immune, in contrast to 16.5% when the donor was non-immune (p less than 0.002). No correlation between recipient pretransplant CMV immunity and chronic GvHD was observed. Donor CMV immunity did not correlate with acute GvHD or posttranplant CMV infection and seemed to predispose for chronic GvHD regardless of donor and recipient age. However, the proportion of CMV immune donors increased with increasing donor and recipient age. This may account for the higher incidence of chronic GvHD in older patients. The present study suggests that chronic GvHD may be mediated by a reaction of immune donor cells against CMV infected recipient cells.


In this paper, we test an innovative numerical scheme for the simulation of the guiding-center model, of interest in the domain of plasma physics, namely for fusion devices. We propose a 1D Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretization, whose basis are the Lagrange polynomials interpolating the Gauss points inside each cell, coupled to a conservative semi-Lagrangian (SL) strategy. Then, we pass to the 2D setting by means of a second-order Strangsplitting strategy. In order to solve the 2D Poisson equation on the DG discretization, we adapt the spectral strategy used for equally-spaced meshes to our Gauss-point-based basis. The 1D solver is validated on a standard benchmark for the nonlinear advection; then, the 2D solver is tested against the swirling deformation ow test case; nally, we pass to the simulation of the guiding-center model, and compare our numerical results to those given by the Backward Semi-Lagrangian method.


Multilocular cystic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is an uncommon renal neoplasm composed of thin fibrous septa lining multiple cystic spaces and associated with an excellent prognosis. Clear cells with generally low-grade nuclear features line the cystic spaces and may be present within the fibrous septa, although solid mass-forming areas are by definition absent. Despite the excellent prognosis, molecular-genetic alterations are similar to those of clear cell RCC. Immunohistochemical staining characteristics, however, have not been well elucidated. We studied 24 cases of multilocular cystic RCC, classified according to the 2004 World Health Organization System. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed using an automated immunostainer for CD10, cytokeratin 7 (CK7), &agr;-methylacyl-CoA-racemase, epithelial membrane antigen (EMA), cytokeratin CAM 5.2, carbonic anhydrase IX (CA-IX), estrogen/progesterone receptors, smooth muscle actin, PAX-2, and vimentin. Twenty-four cases of grade 1 to 2 clear cell RCC were stained for comparison. Multilocular cystic RCC and control cases of clear cell RCC showed the following results, respectively: CD10 (63%, 96%), CK7 (92%, 38%), &agr;-methylacyl-CoA-racemase (21%, 67%), vimentin (58%, 33%), estrogen receptor (8%, 8%), CAM 5.2 (100%, 96%), EMA, CA-IX, PAX-2 (all 100%), and progesterone receptor (0%). Smooth muscle actin highlighted myofibroblastic cells within the septa of multilocular cystic RCC and the fine capillary vascular network of clear cell RCC. In summary, multilocular cystic RCC showed expression of common clear cell RCC markers CA-IX, EMA, and PAX-2, supporting the hypothesis that multilocular cystic RCC is a subtype of clear cell RCC. In contrast to clear cell RCC, tumors less frequently expressed CD10 (63% and often focal vs. 96% and diffuse) and more frequently expressed CK7 (92%), often diffusely (63%). Coexpression of CA-IX and CK7 represents a point of overlap with the recently described clear cell papillary RCC, which also may show a prominent cystic architecture. However, the latter lacks mutation of the VHL gene and deletion of chromosome 3p by molecular methodologies.


Electrical engineering students at the University of South Australia have worked on an energy efficient 10 kVA 3 phase switchable distribution transformer system as their final year project in their undergraduate degree. Past research has shown that transformer efficiency gains can be made by switching between series and parallel winding configurations. A dsPIC33FJ256GP710 microcontroller is utilized to acquire transformer performance data from voltage and current sensors and perform waveform analysis (RMS magnitude and phase) using DSP techniques. In addition the microcontroller coordinates the switching of the winding configurations using solid state relays to obtain the optimum efficiency of the transformation of electrical power.


ABSTRACT Based on observations from all three tropical continents, there is good reason to believe that poor service providers can broadly gain access to payment for environmental services (PES) schemes, and generally become better off from that participation, in both income and non-income terms. However, poverty effects need to be analysed in a conceptual framework looking not only at poor service providers, but also at poor service users and non-participants. Effects on service users are positive if environmental goals are achieved, while those on non-participants can be positive or negative. The various participation filters of a PES scheme contain both pro-poor and anti-poor selection biases. Quantitative welfare effects are bound to remain small-scale, compared to national poverty-alleviation goals. Some pro-poor interventions are possible, but increasing regulations excessively could curb PES efficiency and implementation scale, which could eventually harm the poor. Prime focus of PES should thus remain on the environment, not on poverty.


ABSTRACT Purpose To assess the effect of axial length (AL) on the quantification of superficial vessel density of both macular and disc region using swept source optical coherence tomography angiography (SSOCTA). Methods This is a cross-sectional clinical study. Seventy-five eyes from 75 Chinese healthy participants (56 females) with a mean age of 26.6 ± 6.8 (range 19–50) years were included in this study. All eyes were imaged with SSOCTA, using a 3 × 3mm scan pattern centered on the macular and optic disc, respectively, and the superficial layer was used for evaluation. The image size was corrected with AL using Bennett formula. Outcome measurements included perfusion density (PD), vessel length density (VLD) in parafoveal and disc regions, averaged peripapillary large vessel diameter and area of foveal avascular zone (FAZ). Image processing and measurements was performed using Image J software. Multivariate regression analysis adjusting for age and signal strength was used to assess the influence of AL on the metrics. Results AL was the only predictive factor for parafoveal PD (β = −0.273, P = .047) and VLD (β = −0.396, P = .003). There was no correlation between AL and area of FAZ, large vessel diameter, or the vessel density on any location in disc region. Age was the only predictor for PD (β = −0.287, P = .024) and VLD (β = −0.289, P = .023) on optic nerve head. Conclusions AL was negatively correlated with superficial parafoveal microvasculature, but not correlated with peripapillary capillaries, suggesting that the inner retina stretches more in the distal end of the disc with increased AL.


Abstract Turbulent velocity spectra measured beneath wind waves show a large enhancement about the central wave frequency. A "5/3" frequency dependence can be seen both above and below the central peak, but with an apparent increase in spectral density at high Frequencies. We show that these features can be understood via a generation of Taylor's hypothesis to the case in which frozen, isotropic, homogeneous turbulence is bodily convected past a fixed probe by a combination of drift and wave orbital motions. In a monochromatic wave field turbulent energy is aliased into harmonics of the wave frequency fp. We show qualitatively how drift currents or a random wave field broaden these lines into a continuous spectrum, and present the results of direct calculations which demonstrate clearly the transition from "line-like" to a smooth "5/3" spectrum. We calculate the leading asymptotic behavior in the limit of large and small frequencies for an arbitrary wave-height spectrum. For wave orbital velocities larger...


Are the books preferred and most enjoyed by children harder than other books they read? Are non-fiction books read and understood at the same level of difficulty as fiction books? The Accelerated Reader software offers computerized comprehension quizzes of real books individually chosen by children, giving children (and teachers, librarians, and parents) feedback on performance. Children can also express preferences for books they enjoy. Quizzes taken by 150,220 children in 967 schools are reported. Considering highly preferred books, children were reading very difficult books with a high degree of success. Non-fiction books were not read or understood as carefully as fiction books. Implications for future research and practice are outlined.


The research aimed at finding the link between the governance structures and the coordination in Brazilian beef alliances. The paper provides a review of the literature on the coordination of the Brazilian and International beef agribusiness system that shows the importance of adequate governance to the system's players. The theoretical analysis is based upon the transaction cost economics in order to identify the transactions' dimensions and on the concepts of relative scope and embeddedness to find the density of relations among agents. The analytical model makes use of the transactions cost dimensions – asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency in order to explain the choice for the alliance hybrid governance structure. The governance specificities of each alliance that arise from the leadership profile – cattle producers, breed association, pack industry, retailer – are explained by the combined analysis of members' relative scope and embeddedness. The research methodology was based on multiple case studies with data obtained through interviews with alliances' managers. The study found evidence that agents' coordination is strengthened in same basis by cattle producers' leadership in a horizontal network of dense relations, and also through retailer vertical control.


The case of a young woman presenting with fever, abdominal distention, and diarrhea is presented. While hospitalized, she developed peritonitis, and a laparotomy was performed emergently. Intraoperative and pathologic examinations are highly suggestive of Salmonella typhi as an etiology for her symptoms and eventual perforation. Salmonella enteritis can be a difficult diagnosis to make, but in most cases it is a self-limited disease process. In a minority of cases, multidrug antibiotic therapy may be required secondary to an increasing prevalence of resistant strains. Patients who perforate require prompt operation to limit morbidity and mortality. Outcome is significantly improved in those patients by directed resection of the affected segment of bowel and by aggressive perioperative care.


The internal organisation of the cell depends on tethers at destination organelles to selectively capture incoming transport vesicles to facilitate SNARE-mediated fusion. The golgin long coiled-coil proteins function as tethers that contributes to this specificity at the Golgi (1). Golgin-97, golgin-245 and GCC88 golgins of the trans-Golgi capture vesicles derived from endosomes, which serve to recycle the critical Golgi machinery required to deliver lysosomal hydrolases and to maintain exocytosis. Retrograde trafficking from endosomes to the trans-Golgi network (TGN) is a complex process that involves the sorting of transmembrane cargo proteins into distinct transport vesicles by adaptors from multiple pathways. The content of these distinct vesicles, which golgin they target and the factors that mediate this targeting are not well understood. The major challenges that have limited advances in these areas is the transient nature of vesicle tethering, and the redundancies in their mechanisms that confound experimental dissection. To gain better insight into these problems, we performed organelle proteomics using the Localisation of Organelle Proteins by Isotope Tagging after Differential ultraCentrifugation (LOPIT-DC) method on a system in which an ectopic golgin causes vesicles to accumulate in a tethered state (2). By incorporating Bayesian statistical modelling into our analysis (3), we determined that over 45 transmembrane proteins and 51 peripheral membrane proteins of the endosomal network are on vesicles captured by golgin-97, including known cargo and components of the clathrin/AP-1, retromer-dependent and -independent transport pathways. We also determined a distinct class of vesicles shared by golgin-97, golgin-245 and GCC88 that is enriched in TMEM87A, a multi-pass transmembrane protein of unknown function that has previously been implicated in endosome-to-Golgi retrograde transport (4). Finally, we categorically demonstrate that the vesicles that these golgins capture are retrograde transport vesicles based on the lack of enrichment of lysosomal hydrolases in our LOPIT-DC data, and from correlative light electron tomography images of spherical vesicles captured by golgin-97. Together, our study demonstrates the power of combining LOPIT-DC with Bayesian statistical analysis in interrogating the dynamic spatial movement of proteins in transport vesicles.


Pilot urban landscape integrated pest management (IPM) projects have suggested standards, or guidelines, believed useful to commercial arboricultural firms contemplating offering IPM services. They are (1) acknowledgment that pesticides are not the best solution to every pest problem, (2) retention of a properly trained IPM manager, (3) ability and willingness to develop and maintain IPM-related records, and (4) a communications effort to sell IPM. These pilot projects indicate that a firm offering IPM should be a full-service company, but that every client need not subscribe to the firm's IPM services. The two tactics that distinguish arboricultural IPM programs from traditional spray programs are (1) regular monitoring and (2) spot spraying.


and Implications Since December 1998 when swine influenza virus (SIV) with H3N2 was first identified in Iowa swine, prospective and retrospective studies were conducted to monitor and evaluate H3N2 SIV infections in swine population in Iowa until February 2000. A serological survey revealed that H3 SIV had been widely spread in Iowa swine within first 6 months after initial identification and that both H1 and H3 SIV coexited. Many herds tested had the evidence that animals were exposed to both subtypes of SIV. In some cases, both subtypes were isolated from the same animal. All circumstantial evidences strongly suggested the emergence of new subtype due to reassortment of H1N1 and H3N2 strains; however, no evidence of new reassortant was yet found in Iowa during this study period. A one-way hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay on banked field isolates of H3N2 SIV demonstrated that the majority of field isolates were antigenically conserve. These observations suggest that diagnostic assays using an initial Midwest H3N2 SIV isolate should be reliable for diagnosing infection of H3N2 SIV. This observation also suggests that a vaccine using an initial Midwest H3N2 SIV may provide reliable cross protection against a variety of H3N2 strains. However, a few isolates were found resistant to HI activity conferred by antiserum raised against a H3N2 Midwest isolate, warranting a continuous surveillance for antigenic drift among isolates.


Cosmic polarization rotation, which may result from parity-violating new physics or the presence of primordial magnetic fields, converts E-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) into B-mode polarization. Anisotropic cosmic polarization rotation leads to statistical anisotropy in CMB polarization and can be reconstructed with quadratic estimator techniques similar to those designed for gravitational lensing of the CMB. At the sensitivity of upcoming CMB surveys, lensing-induced B-mode polarization will act as a limiting factor in the search for anisotropic cosmic polarization rotation, meaning that an analysis which incorporates some form of delensing will be required to improve constraints on the effect with future surveys. In this paper we extend the ResUNet-CMB convolutional neural network to reconstruct anisotropic cosmic polarization rotation in the presence of gravitational lensing and patchy reionization, and we show that the network simultaneously reconstructs all three effects with variance that is lower than that from the standard quadratic estimator nearly matching the performance of an iterative reconstruction method.


Maternal neuronal signaling has been reported to program adaptive changes in offspring physiology in diverse organisms [1, 2]. However, the mechanisms for the inheritance of adaptive maternal effects through the germline are largely unknown. In the nematode Auanema freiburgensis, stress-resistance and sex of the offspring depend on environmental cues experienced by the mother. Maternal sensing of high population densities results in the production of stress-resistant larvae (dauers) that develop into hermaphrodites. Ablation of the maternal ASH chemosensory neurons results only in non-dauer offspring that develop into males or females. High population densities correlate with changes in the methylation status of H3K4 and H3K9 in the maternal germline. Inhibition of JMJD histone demethylases prevents mothers from producing dauers and hermaphrodite offspring in high-density conditions. Our results demonstrate a case of soma-to-germline transmission of environmental information that influences the phenotype of the following generation through changes in histone modifications of the maternal germline. Highlights High population density leads to the production of hermaphrodite offspring. The ASH neuron in the hermaphrodite mother senses population density. Histone modifications in the maternal germline correlate with the sex of offspring. Inhibition of histone demethylases results in female offspring in all conditions.


Abstract : The purpose of this research is to characterize the factors controlling the expression of c-myc and other genes that are commonly mis-regulated in transformed cells, Genomic DNA exists in the form of chromatin, which generally renders the DNA inaccessible to factors that promote gene expression. Here we report characterization of a cellular protein complex, hSW1/SNF, that can alter chromatin structure and facilitate the interaction of transcription factors with chromatin. The results indicate that the change in chromatin structure induced by hSW1/SNF is stable and not transient in nature, that hSW1/SNF activity requires ATP hydrolysis, that the hydrolysis of ATP is likely utilized to alter the chromatin structure as opposed to modifying or altering the conformation of hSW1/SNF, and that the increased ability of transcription factors to bind to chromatin is not dependent on concurrent hSW1/SNF activity, which indicates that hS1/SNF facilitated binding of transcription factors to nucleosomal DNA is a multi-step process. The results also show that hSWI/SNF can increase transcriptional elongation in vitro on a reconstituted nucleosomal human hsp7O promoter, a promoter that, like c-myc, is regulated at the level of transcription initiation and transcription elongation.


This study aimed to investigated the factors relating to stress and burnout in Thai postgraduate student context by utilizing exploratory, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling technique. The sample was derived from postgraduate students in Thailand and simple random sampling was applied. There were 2 studies in this research. The first study analyzed a factor structure by using exploratory factor analysis. Self-developed 14 items rating scale questionnaires relating to stress, exhaustion and cynicism were distributed and clean 256 samples were analyzed. All 14 items were classified into 3 factors-5 items for stress, 6 items for exhaustion and 3 items for cynicism. Then newly classified 14 items with 3 factors rating scale questionnaires were distributed for the second study and clean 255 samples were analyzed. The confirmatory factor analysis results showed that 3 factors were reliable and valid. Moreover, indirect effect of stress to exhaustion through cynicism was significant as was direct effect of stress on exhaustion. This inferred that cynicism played a partial mediation role in the relationship between stress and exhaustion. Besides, the total effect of the model was significant. As per the results, even in this context, stress and cynicism could lead to exhaustion. Therefore, any educational-related workers should focus on these factors and find countermeasures to mitigate risks. Future studies should extend the results of this study by further analyzing the multi-group confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation model to test an invariance among different groups to generalize the result into a broader context. © 2022 Kasetsart University. Article Info Article history: Received 18 November 2020 Revised 22 January 2021 Accepted 15 February 2021 Available online 31 January 2022


Abstract:  We propose that the remodeling process that occurs in localized areas on endosteal bone surfaces and in Haversian canals shares many features in common with the mammalian hair cycle. In both, there are phases of resorption or regeneration, a transition phase, and then a phase of growth, termed anagen in the hair follicle, and formation in the bone remodeling cycle. Furthermore, we suggest that these processes both use the same molecular mechanisms, and specifically the Hedgehog–BMP–Wnt signal transduction cascades. We have found that proteasome inhibitors, which enhance bone formation by effects on these cascades, also stimulate anagen induction and hair growth in the murine and human hair follicle, and propose they do so by effects on similar or identical molecular targets.


A 44-year-old male had paraparesis which had began at age 20 years; a cleft spinal cord (diastematomyelia) was discovered at cervicodorsal level. The patient had nevus and hypertrichosis in the skin overlying the dysraphic spinal cord malformation. Both computer-assisted myelography and magnetic resonance scan showed the spinal cord segmentation and other associated disorders: bone spicula projecting between the 2 cordal halves, vertebral fusion defect and syringomyelic cavity. We emphasize the rarity of this abnormality in a so high spinal cord level and the onset of symptoms at adult age.


South African anaesthesiologists have embraced the requirement for authentic informed consent, but there is no consensus regarding the comprehensiveness and specificity requirements with regard to the information that needs to be supplied to the patient, and upon which decisions will be based. Anaesthesiology is an unusual specialty. The scope of knowledge and expertise that practitioners require is wide-ranging, from the basic and applied biomedical sciences and technology, clinical knowledge and experience, through to hands-on operating room experience and expertise, feeding into the requirement to inform. Contemporary practice environments limit contact time with patients. Societal ethos demands recognition of basic human rights, amongst others the right to personal autonomy. The South African Health Professions Council has published a series of booklets describing guidelines to ethical medical practice, one of which is on informed consent. This article discusses the information requirements for valid informed consent from both a moral and regulatory perspective. The practical implications for anaesthesiologists of the HPCSA guidelines on informed consent are discussed, a model interview is proposed, and a number of illustrative cases are discussed. The aim is to answer the question: What should I as anaesthesiologist tell my patient?


ABSTRACT
Abdian, Farah Lies, 2016. "The Meaning of Strctural In Collection of Poetry By Kobayashi Issa", Thesis, Japanese Literature, Diponegoro University, Semarang. The first advisor Laura Andri R. M, S.S., MA.The second advisor Nur Hastuti, S.S., M. Hum.
 Formal object of this research is the study of structural contained in the work of Kobayashi Issa haiku. This research material object is a collection of haiku work Kobayashi IssaIssa contained in Haikushuu (Maruyama 2010). Objects haiku selected based on seven themes that exist as well as interesting and powerful meaning when analyzed using structural methods. This is because the author wants to reveal the meaning of structural and symbols found on some poems by Kobayashi Issa.
 The method used to analyze the meaning of the poem Kobayashi Issa is a structural method. Abrams structural methods based on the theory used to determine the overall meaning that the physical structure and the inner structure. The physical structure is composed of diction, figure of speech and imagery. Inner structure consists of a theme, taste, tone and atmosphere, as well as the mandate and objectives. After the authors reveal the symbol consisting of a blank symbol, natural symbol and symbol to check your private meanings contained in the sign of poetry.
 Results to be achieved in this research is to know the building blocks that make up the work of Kobayashi Issa haiku is the physical structure and the inner structure. Knowing the symbols contained in Issa haiku is blank symbol, and a private symbol natural symbol. Reveal the meaning and discourse on Issa haiku so it can find implicit message contained in haiku studied.

Keywords : physical structure, inner structure, haiku, Kobayashi Issa.


The challenge offered by patients presenting roentgenographic features (Fig. 1) of diffuse bilateral fibronodular disease often has been a particularly frustrating experience for many clinicians. The symptom complex usually encountered in this group of patients is the syndrome of alveolar-capillary block. 2 That a wide variety of etiologic factors can produce this clinical defect and pulmonary pattern has been well documented. 1,2,5,6 It is apparent that an accurate diagnosis of these lesions is essential for rational therapy, careful prognosis, and recovery of the patient. This is often possible only by histologic examination of the pulmonary lesion. This report is based on the results of pulmonary biopsy in thirty-four patients who presented a picture of alveolar-capillary block syndrome and thoracic roentgenograms demonstrating bilateral, diffuse, fibronodular disease. In none of the patients had the diagnosis been confirmed by any means except pulmonary biopsy. Those patients in whomdiagnoses were made by bacteriologic,


Now that the famous Greenhill quarries have been closed, not to be re-opened for a long time, if ever, it seems opportune for me to make a few remarks on their past history, and the reasons why such an interest was taken in them by geologists and palæontologists in bygone years. The sandstone which has been quarried here for many years is a fine-grained rock, lying near the base of the Kilmarnock coal-field. Though always wrought on the farm of Greenhill, it was better known throughout North Ayrshire as the "Wud'll Sanstane" (Woodhill Sandstone), but the workings became still more widely famed from the fossils found in them, each of the two quarries having its distinctive forms. The Old Quarry of Greenhill, Kilmaurs. The older quarry, north of the G. & S.-W. Railway, and higher up the Carmel than the other and newer quarry, became celebrated as far back as 1815, when remains of the Mammoth and the Reindeer were first found in it, as well as Arctic shells, though, so far as is known, there is no existing record of these discoveries. In the well-known monograph by Mr. (now Sir) Archibald Geikie, "On the Glacial Drift of Scotland," which was published by the Society in 1863,* the first detailed account of the various finds in Greenhill Old Quarry was given, but was hardly satisfactory, from the want of sufficient information. Dr. Scouler had told the author that from 1817 to 1825, in which latter year the This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract


Robotic software is now one of essential part of robotic system development, therefore software control architecture design methods and concepts, often inspired by engineering software field, are necessary within a robotic project to enhance evolution, modularity and re-usability, and to avoid redesign costs [1]. Control software architecture design approaches are usually classified into three main categories: Reactive architectures are built by gathering several modules called behaviors. Each behavior reacts continuously to the situation sensed by the perception system [4]. Actuators control values are obtained from a weighted summation of all commands generated by these modules. The complexity of this method lies in weights adjustment allowing a good reaction and keeping global objective [5][8]. Deliberative architectures are built in several levels, usually three. Decisions are taken in the higher level; the intermediate level is in charge of controlling and supervising. The low level deals with all periodical treatment related to the instrumentation, such actuator control or measuring instrument management [3]. Hybrid architectures are a mixed of two previous ones. Usually these are structured in three layers: the deliberative layer, based on planning, the control execution layer and a functional reactive layer [6][7][9][11].


OBJECTIVE
The primary objective of this study was to decrease the late effects of prophylactic radiation without reducing survival in standard-risk childhood medulloblastoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Inclusion criteria were as follows: children between the ages of 3 and 18 years with total or subtotal tumor resection, no metastasis, and negative postoperative lumbar puncture CSF cytology. Two courses of eight drugs in 1 day followed by two courses of etoposide plus carboplatin (500 and 800 mg/m(2) per course, respectively) were administered after surgery. Radiation therapy had to begin 90 days after surgery. Delivered doses were 55 Gy to the posterior fossa and 25 Gy to the brain and spinal canal.

RESULTS
Between November 1991 and June 1998, 136 patients (median age, 8 years; median follow-up, 6.5 years) were included. The overall survival rate and 5-year recurrence-free survival rate were 73.8% +/- 7.6% and 64.8% +/- 8.1%, respectively. Radiologic review showed that 4% of patients were wrongly included. Review of radiotherapy technical files demonstrated a correlation between the presence of a major protocol deviation and treatment failure. The 5-year recurrence-free survival rate of patients included in this study with all optimal quality controls of histology, radiology, and radiotherapy was 71.8% +/- 10.5%. In terms of sequelae, 31% of patients required growth hormone replacement therapy and 25% required special schooling.

CONCLUSION
Reduced-dose craniospinal radiation therapy can be proposed in standard-risk medulloblastoma provided staging and radiation therapy are performed under optimal conditions.


Antibiotics are chemical or biological substances that have the ability to kill pathogens selectively. Currently, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is used routinely in the detection of antibiotics. However, the cost of analysis and running time are bottlenecks for HPLC to be used for routine tests to detect antibiotics. Alternative methods need to be developed to overcome this issue. In this study, the development of a penicillin G specific biosensor by using a DNA aptamer and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was done. Optimal aptasensor conditions were achieved with the concentrations of NaCl and aptamer at 0.25 M and 2 μM, respectively. An aptasensor of this type showed LOD for penicillin G at 3 mg/L and was able to detect penicillin G in the range of 3 to 27 mg/L. The established aptasensor showed specific sensitivity toward penicillin G after testing with several antibiotics, i.e., ampicillin, kanamycin, chloramphenicol, and erythromycin. The aptasensor could detect the presence of penicillin G from culture medium of wild-type, ultraviolet irradiation mutant, gamma irradiation mutant, and ultraviolet irradiation and gamma irradiation mutant strains of P. chrysogenum, at detection concentrations of 9.75 ± 0.004; 25.25 ± 0.005; 37.5 ± 0.005; and 45 ± 0.004 mg/L, respectively.


I respond to criticisms by David Mackie in PQ, 49 (1999), pp. 369–76, of my previous paper on animalism and Lockeanism. I argue that the 'transplant intuition', that a person goes where his brain (or cerebrum) goes, is compatible both with animalism and Lockeanism. I give three arguments for this conclusion, two of them developing lines of thought in Parfit's work. However, I accept that animalism and Lockeanism are incompatible, and I go on to consider the difficulties for Lockeanism that this raises. The principal difficulty, concerning the reference of 'I', can be met by distinguishing the thinker of an 'I'-thought from the reference of an 'I'-thought. The reference is always the person thinking the thought, but when the thought is simultaneously that of an animal coincident but non-identical with that person, there is not a unique thinker. Mackie's criticisms of this view are ineffective.


Most academic disciplines that are considered Humanities use the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. This guide will offer tips, advice, and tutorials on using MLA format when writing papers.


Inhibition of gastric acid secretion by the combined use of cimetidine and pirenzepin has been studied in 5 cases of Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. In 4 acute cases i.v. cimetidine and i.m. pirenzepin were administered together as a treatment and were successful in 3 out of the 4 cases as judged by the disappearance of clinical symptoms and healing of the gastroduodenal and jejunal mucosal ulcerations. Secretory measurements indicated that addition of pirenzepin to cimetidine resulted in larger and more prolonged inhibition of acid secretion in these patients. The continuous record of intragastric pH in the 5th patient, over 24-hour periods, confirmed the above findings. Despite the use of large doses of pirenzepin, no significant side effects were noticed.


We thank Asrani and Kamath for their insightful editorial on our study which adds to the growing evidence that neutrophil dysfunction in cirrhosis mirrors worsening severity of disease and predicts poor outcome. 2 Neutrophils show divergent responses in terms of phagocytosis of microorganisms and production of reactive oxygen species, thus neutrophils contribute both to susceptibility to infection and endothelial activation which is a prerequisite to the development of organ dysfunction. The difficulty, however, is determining whether this dysfunction is merely a surrogate marker of advancing disease or a consequence of chronic endotoxaemia and immune exhaustion. The supposition being that chronic low-grade endotoxaemia resulting from bacterial translocation across a leaky gut induces a pro-inflammatory plasma milieu leading to changes in neutrophil behaviour. Our study aimed to characterise the impact of cirrhosis on neutrophil function by prospectively monitoring function indices, but due to the heterogeneity of the cirrhotic population, low number of septic events and the number of subjects who underwent transplantation during follow-up, this led to confounders prohibitive to performing instructive sub-group analysis. Studying a highly selected group not listed for transplantation will thus give clues to the natural history of immune dysfunction in advancing cirrhosis. In addition, interventional studies interrogating the effect of therapies such as albumin, antibiotics modulating gut microbiota, immunosuppression and plasmapheresis are warranted. The exact causality of neutrophil dysfunction remains unclear, and while there is association with pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, there is no consistency. Neutrophil malfunction following exposure to ammonia in vivo and ex vivo does however, seem to be a consistent finding and may explain why neutrophil function deteriorates with advancing disease. Nevertheless, determining the cellular changes and role of inflammosome proteins and pathways appears likely to identify novel targets to modulate neutrophil function and may offer a potential strategy to improve outcomes in patients with cirrhosis.


Crime stories, particularly homicide, are extremely prevalent in the media. The current study builds on previous literature by examining a nearly homogenous victim population (N = 223) to identify salient predictors of newsworthiness, particularly celebrated coverage, using The Baltimore Sun, the city's largest newspaper. Contrary to prior research, in this analysis, neither race nor gender were found to be consistent significant factors in receiving media coverage. Various factors, including females, older victims, White victims, and homicides by stabbings, asphyxiation, or other circumstances, were found to be indicators of several types of celebrated coverage.


We study the theoretical nexus between inflation and trade openness in the presence of a non-linear Phillips curve. Phillips curve explains the inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation; however, the open economy macroeconomic models usually propose that the slope of the trade-off should be related to the extent of trade openness. The role of openness as a check on inflation has recently attracted attention of many [1]. The parallelism between the recent globalization wave and the fall in inflation has led to a perception that the determinants of the slowdown in inflation were not only the domestic ones but could partly be due to increased trade openness. This study describes this relationship considering a non-linear Phillips curve. Using the conventional Phillips curve approximated by Cobb-Douglas model we confirm the earlier observations regarding the existence of a significant impact of openness on inflation. The interesting contribution of this study is not only to establish the trade-openness and inflation nexus but also to identify the relevant channels through which openness impacts inflation. Our model predicts that in the current scenario of increased openness a non-linear symmetric loss function may still prevail, but for the policy purposes it necessitates to consider domestic and foreign propensities to import and the exchange rate sensitivity to inflation. In addition, the integration of the international markets would result into an even more important role of exchange rate dynamics as a response to the rising international trade. We find that in the presence of a convex Phillips curve any upward variation in the foreigners' propensity to import would place a downward pressure on domestic inflation, provided that the current and the lagged rate of unemployment are less than minimum unemployment rate. Our model, while assessing the short run dynamics, also suggests that increased openness results into a complex divide among different economies, due to their sizes and structures. Investigating such a relationship as an extension of this study for different economic groups could reveal further interesting facts.


Nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI), an environmentally benign material, has been used to remove heavy metals and metalloids from the aqueous phase because of its high reactivity and abundant reactive sites. To improve the stability of nZVI, nanoscale zero-valent iron supported by amino-modified biochar (ZVIA-BC) was prepared and characterized. Its ability to remove heavy metals and metalloid was investigated. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analyses showed that the amino group was chemically bound to the functional groups of biochar. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction revealed that zero-valent iron was loaded on the biochar surface. High-resolution transmission electron microscope images showed that the particle size of iron was ∼50 nm and the particles consisted of roughly spherical cores covered with a shell that was uniformly 2- to 3-nm thick. Furthermore, measuring the zeta potentials at various pH values indicated that the iso-electric points occurred within the pH range of 7.50 to 7.56. Additionally, heavy metals and metalloids, including Cd(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Cr(VI) and As(V) adsorption isotherms, on ZVIA-BC were significantly nonlinear, and ZVIA-BC exhibited a superior ability to remove these heavy metals and metalloids, especially for Cr(VI) and As(V). Characterization with high-resolution XPS revealed that reduction of heavy metals and metalloids occurred on the surface of ZVIA-BC. The main mechanisms for removal were reduction, complexation, co-precipitation, and electrostatic interaction.


A method was developed to measure mercury methylation and demethylation rate constants simultaneously in aquatic samples. Solutions containing stable isotope tracers of 199Hg2+ and CH3202Hg+ were spiked into lake sediments at subambient concentrations. The formation of CH3199Hg+ and the decrease in CH3202Hg+ were measured simultaneously in time series experiments using gas chromatographic separation and isotope‐specific detection by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Specific rate constants for the two processes were calculated and compared to rate constants obtained by monitoring changes in concentration of the ambient methylmercury in the same sample. The inorganic mercury tracer 199Hg2+ was methylated at a faster rate compared with the ambient inorganic Hg2+, which indicates that the added tracer Hg2+ is more available for transformation reaction than the ambient Hg2+. The degradation of tracer and ambient methylmercury proceeded at a similar rate, showing no significant differences between added tracer and ambient methylmercury. The calculated half‐life for methylmercury in sediments was 1.7 d, suggesting a rapid turnover and low persistence of methylmercury in lake sediments. Different Hg species were investigated regarding their availability for methylation reactions. Compared to Hg(NO3)2, Hg‐fulvate showed reduced availability and freshly precipitated HgS was hardly available.


The main objective of this work is to present a numerical modeling of crack propagation path in isotropic functionally graded materials (FGMs) under mixed-mode loadings. The displacement extrapolation technique (DET) and the maximum circumferential stress (MCS) criterion are investigated in the context of crack growth in functionally graded beam subject to three and four bending conditions. Using the Ansys Parametric Design Language (APDL), the variation continues of the material properties are incorporated by specifying the material parameters at the centroid of each finite element (FE) and the crack direction angle is evaluated as a function of stress intensity factors (SIFs) at each increment of crack extension. In this paper, two applications are investigated using an initial crack perpendicular and parallel to material gradient, respectively. The developed approach is validated using available numerical and experimental results reported in the literature.


One of the general hurdles limiting the application and development of traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) is their occasional poor or inconsistent quality. Being multi-component mixtures, however, assuring the quality of such preparations is a challenging task. In recent years significant analytical advancements and innovations were made in relation to this particular problem among others. This review summarizes respective reports within the last five years, and reflects the multitude of current methods the analyst can choose from. Besides established techniques, such as HPLC or CE, analytical methods also include more "exotic" ones like HSCCC, CEC, biologically based assays, and the use of IR spectroscopy. Fingerprinting techniques, which are especially popular for analyzing TCM remedies, are also mentioned. Selected examples for currently observable trends will be presented and briefly discussed so that the current status of TCM analysis is clearly visualized.


This article investigates the entropy generation rate in shell and tube heat exchanger with porous medium inserted inside the tubes. Three different waste metal chips made of copper, aluminum, and mild steel are used as porous medium. There is a trade-off between the heat transfer and pressure drop in the design of enhanced heat exchangers. In porous flow if Reynolds number increases the rate of heat transfer will also increase at the expense of reasonable pressure drop. Due to turbulent energy dissipation at high Reynolds number, this pressure drop will increase further, resulting in high entropy generation. The empirical correlations are developed and used for the entropy generation minimization of the actual heat exchanger. The conclusions are derived on the basis of the behavior of the entropy generation number NS as a function of the Reynolds number. On the basis of the entropy generation minimization the upper limit of Reynolds number was found to be 1450, beyond which irreversibility increases.


Introduction: Medicinal plants are considered to be safer, non-toxic and less harmful as compared to synthetic based drugs that are available. In this study, we focused on aqueous leaves extract of Calotropis gigantea for determining its antimicrobial activity in infected (dengue) human whole blood samples using flow cytometry.Methods: Infected dengue human blood samples (n = 5; confirmed on the basis of NS1 antigen to dengue virus;) were collected from pathology lab and evaluated its blood counts (lymphocytes, monocytes and granulocytes count); forward scatter (FSC) and side scatter (SSC) including CD14 monocyte surface marker following the use of variable doses of aqueous leaves extract of C. gigantea.Results: In this study, the results showed that aqueous leaves extract of C. gigantea caused enhancement in case of granulocytes FSC (shape and size) and SSC (granularity) counts but this aqueous extract inhibited CD14 monocyte surface marker population at higher doses. In contrast, dengue infected human blood samples used as control showed sudden decline in granulocytes count but there was enhancement in CD14 monocyte surface marker as compared to control group.Conclusion: Overall, C. gigantea in the form of aqueous leaves extract showed anti-dengue activity in infected human whole blood samples.


This paper deals with mappings of the type f : Ai → Ai+1, i = 1, 2, · · ·, p + 1, with Ap+1 = Ap, where the contractive assumptions are restricted to pairs (x, y) ∈ Ai×Ai+1. Extensions of Banach's theorem are considered as well as an extension of Caristi's theorem. The paper concludes with a result about nonexpansive mappings in a Banach space setting.


We have developed a humanoid robot HRP-1S that is capable of simultaneous whole body motion control. In phase one of the Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP) of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, Honda R&D Co. Ltd has produced humanoid robot HRP-1 as a humanoid research platform to ease the development of good applications for humanoid robots in phase two of HRP. However, HRP-1 controls its legs and arms separately, and is not suitable for some applications. We modified the control hardware of HRP-1 and implemented our own control software. The modified robot was designated HRP-1S. The motion controller of HRP-1S is built in accordance with the plug-in architecture. We have developed some plug-ins including a real-time walking pattern generator (KWALK plug-in) and a reflex controller (STABILIZER plug-in) to maintain the dynamic balance of HRP-1S. In this paper, we present the system architecture of the control system of HRP-1S and several experimental results.


The aim of the study was to modify the surface free energy (SFE) of meta- (mAr) and para-aramid (pAr) yarns by their activation in low-pressure air radio frequency (RF) (40 kHz) plasma and assessment of its impact on the properties of the yarns. After 10 and 90 min of activation, the SFE value increased, respectively, by 14% and 37% for mAr, and by 10% and 37% for pAr. The value of the polar component increased, respectively by 22% and 57% for mAr and 20% and 62% for pAr. The value of the dispersion component for mAr and pAr increased respectively by 9% and 25%. The weight loss decreased from 49% to 46% for mAr and 62% to 50% for pAr after 90 min of activation. After 90 min, the specific strength for mAr did not change and for pAr it decreased by 40%. For both yarns, the 10 min activation in plasma is sufficient to prepare their surface for planned nanomodification.


The study indicated how Vietnam Bank for Social Policies's microfinance activities with Village Savings & Loan Associations model have contributed to the development of social capital in the community. After surveying 356 associations' members (questionnaire and in-depth interviews), the result showed there has been an increase in social capital; and with it, relationships between members have improved, as evidenced by the formation of self-help groups, increased participation in social organizations, and members' ability to establish relationships and business connections using the human resources acquired via the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies in community. One of the unique and significant findings is the diversity in how the members developed said capacity and how much they have accomplished. This result brings great meaning by demonstrating the effective social impact of the social welfare policies to its beneficiaries. The study also proposed solutions to promote the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies activities and social capital toward a sustainable community development.


Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to report research carried out by the Mixed Economy Group of colleges into the student experience of part time (PT) higher education (HE) delivered in English further education (FE) colleges.

Design/methodology/approach

– An online survey was completed by 352 PT students. Their responses, including free comments, formed the basis of the report. The authors provide a context for the work by referring to research carried out by other national agencies.

Findings

– The research illustrates the strengths of college-based HE, which largely derives from delivery by staff who are qualified teachers and, often, professionally active in their field of expertise. Whilst valuing this, students also seek recognition of the demands of work and family on their study time, as well as an identity as HE students within the greater FE environment.

Social implications

– PT HE can drive regional economic growth. By addressing the issues raised by students in the research, local colleges, partner universities, employers and national government can re-build local skill bases. Promoting PT HE develops a vocational ladder to HE, thus widening participation.

Originality/value

– Relatively little publically available research exists into the experiences of students pursuing PT HE in colleges. This primary research begins an evidence-based debate about how colleges can improve their offer but also reminds Government of the need to give equal weight to the needs of PT students in future changes to the delivery of HE.


1. In the treatment of differential geometry from the modern invariantive standpoint it is usually unnecessary that the coordinates and the functions which define the structure of the space under consideration be real quantities. Adopting the more general hypothesis of complex coordinates and structure functions we arrive at the concept of generalized spaces of complex character. This procedure has the advantage that it serves to distinguish the purely formal aspects of the theory which are identical under the real or complex hypothesis from non-trivial questions of reality arising in the transition from the complex to the corresponding real space. Let S be a complex generalized space and denote by F1 and F2 systems of polynomials in the structure functions of S and their derivatives to a certain order, the coefficients of these polynomials being definitely specified constants. We shall say that the conditions


Abstract: Within academia, wireless sensor networks have witnessed a tremendous upsurge in the last decade, which is mainly attributed to their unprecedented operating conditions and hence unlimited research challenges. Within industry, the projected business opportunities are huge with, e.g. according to Frost & Sullivan, an expected market size of approximately $2b by 2012 at a compound annual growth rate of 41.9%, therefore causing the interest in this technology to augment dramatically. Due to the unique design constraints, however, none of the grand communities – such as computing, telecommunications, physics, biology, etc. – can make such systems work efficiently on their own. The largest cross-community design exercise to-date is hence well underway which is well reflected in the nature of the intellectual property pools created in the past years. The aim of this paper is to expose and discuss a few early milestone as well as latest IT and telecommunications patents in this vibrant area.


BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES
We have established a severity grading score (SGS) system for predicting the fatality in Crimean - Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) for the first time.

METHODS
This SGS has been set up by using several variables which were assumed to be associated with mortality according to the literature and also were considered to have clinical importance.

RESULTS
In all, 237 patients who had symptoms of CCHF for <5 days were included. The patients were grouped into three categories according to the mortality risk by using SGS as follows : low or no risk, intermediate and high risk groups. A SGS <5 showed no association with mortality (there were 158 cases in this group and all survived). This group constituted 66.7% of all the patients with CCHF. A SGS 6-10 showed moderate risk of mortality (10%) and seven out of 70 patients in this group died. SGS >11 means high risk for mortality (67%) and six out of 9 patients in this group died (p = 0.001). The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value for >11 points of SGS were 67, 100, 98, 100, and 98%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
This scoring system may help the clinicians to decide which patient to refer to a tertiary step hospital which may also decrease the cost and improve the functionality of healthcare staff.


Background. Success and obtaining the highest results are one of the most important phenomena in modern society. Self-eff ectiveness directly infl uences the indicators that are the most topical in the context of maximal achievement, namely in professional sport. Scientists have earlier found positive correlation between physical activity and self-effi - cacy. However, the question on the place of athletic identity in connection between physical activity and self-effi cacy remains unsolved. Objective. Th e study of correlation between physical activity, athletic identity and self-effi cacy. Design. 200 participants with diff erent levels of involvement into physical activity and sport took part in our study. In ourstudy B.W. Brewer's "Athletic identity measurement scale" and R. Schwarzer and M. Jerusalem's "General self-effi cacy scale" were used. Results. We statistically proved that there is positive correlation between physical activity level, athletic identity and self-effi cacy. Conclusion. Athletic identity is a predictor of self-effi cacy among people who are involved in sport and physical activity and the higher is the level of athletic identity the higher is self-effi cacy. Correlation of these phenomena among people who are uninvolved into physical activity is not found.


Abstract The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of intra-articular Hylan G-F 20 treatment for pain and disability caused by primary knee osteoarthritis. A randomized, controlled trial was carried out. A total of 60 patients (120 knees) were included in the study. The patients were separated into two groups. Group 1 (n = 60 knees) followed daily physical therapy programs for a period of 15 days, and intra-articular Hylan G-F 20 was injected 3 times once a week. Group 2 (n = 60 knees) followed only daily physical therapy programs in the same period. Pain was evaluated by visual analog scale (VAS). Pain, stiffness and functional capacity were measured by WOMAC osteoarthritis index at baseline, and after 3 and 12 weeks. After 3 and 12 weeks, a significant improvement of VAS, and WOMAC were observed in both groups. After the 12th week, improvement of VAS and WOMAC were significantly better in Group 1 than in Group 2. We conclude that at early stages of primary knee osteoarthritis, intra-articular ...


An efficient one-pot asymmetric synthesis of pyrazoles bearing a chiral quaternary stereocenter has been developed. Quinine-derived thiourea catalyzed the enantioselective addition of pyrazolones to isatin-derived ketimines, providing the corresponding acetylated pyrazoles after in situ treatment with Ac2 O/Et3 N. The corresponding pyrazoles were afforded in high yields and excellent enantioselectivities.


Abstract The dynamics of quantised vorticity in neutron star interiors is at the heart of most pulsar glitch models. However, the large number of vortices (up to ≈1013) involved in a glitch and the huge disparity in scales between the femtometre scale of vortex cores and the kilometre scale of the star makes quantum dynamical simulations of the problem computationally intractable. In this paper, we take a first step towards developing a mean field prescription to include the dynamics of vortices in large-scale hydrodynamical simulations of superfluid neutron stars. We consider a one-dimensional setup and show that vortex accumulation and differential rotation in the neutron superfluid lead to propagating waves, or 'avalanches', as solutions for the equations of motion for the superfluid velocities. We introduce an additional variable, the fraction of free vortices, and test different prescriptions for its advection with the superfluid flow. We find that the new terms lead to solutions with a linear component in the rise of a glitch, and that, in specific setups, they can give rise to glitch precursors and even to decreases in frequency, or 'anti-glitches'.


The effect of charge current density on the growth of CNx films by electrolysis of a methanol-urea solution is investigated experimentally. It is seen that the C-C3N4 phase grains in the films are about 200–300 nm for a density of 55 mA/cm2 and dendrite growth takes place with grains as large as 7 μm formed when density is about 70 mA/cm2.


Heart is the most essential or crucial portion of our body. Heart is used to maintain and conjugate blood in our body. There are a lot of cases in the world related to heart diseases. People are leading to death due to heart disease. Various symptoms like chest pain, fasting of heartbeat and so on are mentioned. The health care industries found a large amount of data. This paper gives the idea of predicting heart disease using machine learning algorithms. Here, we will use various machine learning algorithms such as support vector classifier, random forest, knn, naïve bayes, decision tree and logistic regression. The algorithms are used on the basis of features and for predicting the heart disease. This paper uses different machine learning algorithms for comparing the accuracy among them.


Abstract This paper presents the results of a national project investigating Australian local government (LG) attempts to deliver beneficial environmental outcomes. It briefly describes the extensive environmental planning, management and protection roles played by Australian LGs. It notes that these roles are poorly documented within the academic literature, and makes a case for fundamental research to better understand LGs and their work from the inside. It describes this project's use of grounded theory methods in gathering and analysing 34 case studies of Australian LG environmental initiatives. The inside perspectives represented by the papers show that Australian LG environmental work: extends beyond its statutory requirements;is novel and creative;endures by balancing ecological, social and economic values;demonstrates different patterns depending on its planning, management or protection focus; andusually involves environmental strategists with long-term, passionate commitments to local environmen...


The authors show that gA/gV receives contributions only from fields contributing to the helicity of the nucleon. This implies smallness of centre-of-mass/recoil corrections to gA/gV as well as a strong surface dependence of gA/gV. This helicity argument sheds new light on the modelling of the hadrons in terms of (hybrid) Skyrmions. It is demonstrated for chiral soliton models that rather drastic changes of the scalar sigma field are unavoidable if one wants gA to be correctly predicted at the mean field level. While these changes affect the sigma field in the surface region they do not spoil low energy properties of the nucleon.


This paper presents an analytical method for improving the optimal design of electromagnetic devices obtained analytically. This method extracts the significant parameters by using the gradient of difference between the outputs of the analytical model and those obtained with a finite-element method. These parameters are then employed to build a response surface in a reduced dimension space by using the moving least square method. To assess its viability, we compared our method to another recent approach in the optimal design of a permanent-magnet synchronous motor. The results show our method's superiority in terms of improvement of the solution and approximation of the real objective function .


Kirchhoff data mapping (KDM) is a procedure for transforming data from a given input source/receiver configuration and background earth model to data corresponding to a different output source/receiver configuration and background model. The generalization of NMO/DMO, datuming and offset continuation are three examples of KDM applications. This paper describes a 'platform' for KDM for scalar wavefields. The word, platform, indicates that no calculations are carried out in this paper that would adapt the derived formula to any one of a list of KDMs that are presented in the text. Platform formulae are presented in 3D and in 2.5D. For the latter, the validity of the platform equation is verified — within the constraints of high‐frequency asymptotics — by applying it to a Kirchhoff approximate representation of the upward scattered data from a single reflector and for an arbitrary source/receiver configuration. The KDM formalism is shown to map this Kirchhoff model data in the input source/receiver configuration to Kirchhoff data in the output source/receiver configuration, with one exception. The method does not map the reflection coefficient. Thus, we verify that, asymptotically, the ray theoretical geometrical spreading effects due to propagation and reflection (including reflector curvature) are mapped by this formalism, consistent with the input and output modelling parameters, while the input reflection coefficient is preserved. In this sense, this is a 'true‐amplitude' formalism. As with earlier Kirchhoff inversion, a slight modification of the kernel of KDM provides alternative integral operators for estimating the specular reflection angle, both in the input configuration and in the output configuration, thereby providing a basis for amplitude‐versus‐angle analysis of the data.


Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the main cause of death of around 17.9 million across the globe every year. Different heart ailments or conditions exist that lead to death. Early detection of heart disease can help in preventing death rate. Data driven approaches with Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations are being used for Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS). From the literature, it is found that most of the algorithms are based on supervised learning that need training set for learning process. Often supervised learning have revealed limitations as they wholly depend on the quality of training data. Feature selection has been around for leveraging supervised machine learning techniques. However, there is inadequate research on the unsupervised learning methods such as clustering. Nevertheless, they around round to group objects with similarities and thus have inherent knowledge that can add value to features extracted. Provided this fact, in this research, we proposed a framework known as Hybrid Machine Learning for Heart Disease Prediction (HML-HDP). The framework has provision for unsupervised learning followed by supervised learning. In other words, the unsupervised learning could lead to features that complement feature selection method for improving accuracy of heart disease prediction. A prototype application is built in order to evaluate the framework. The empirical results are compared with the methods in state of the art. SVM with DBSCAN showed Highest performance with precision 0.96, recall 0.93 and F-Measure 0.9447. The results revealed that the proposed hybrid framework performs better than existing methods.