The paper treats theoretical aspects of the applied strategic operational analysis based on the balanced scorecard operational element developed by the author and its likely application to research strategic organization operational activity aspects. The methodology of the research is the balanced scorecard concept of Kaplan R.S., and Norton D.P. as well as the author's applied strategic analysis concept. The applied strategic operational analysis is assumed to encompass comparative assessment, variances diagnostics and forecast of the balanced scorecard operational element within the strategic operational goals. Due goods delivery, manufacturing cost and products quality compliance with customer's demand are to be analyzed. The applied strategic operational analysis commences from the comparative assessment of the outcome due goods delivery indicators and is completed with the forecast of the products quality compliance with customers' demand indicators. The results can be applied for long-, middle- and short-term managerial decisions development in the field of an operational organization activity. The applied strategic operational analysis technique comprises methods of absolute, relative and average values, comparison, grouping, graphical and table methods, correlation-regression analysis, factoring analysis, cluster analysis, as well as expert evaluation method. The conclusion is drawn that the applied strategic operational analysis is a new and sufficiently effective tool to research strategic aspects of the organization operational activity and to form an analytical support for the strategic operational management in the present-day economic environment.


We present a method for semantically transferring the visual appearance of one natural image to another. Specifically, our goal is to generate an image in which objects in a source structure image are "painted" with the visual appearance of their semantically related objects in a target appearance image. To integrate semantic information into our framework, our key idea is to leverage a pre-trained and fixed Vision Transformer (ViT) model. Specifically, we derive novel disentangled representations of structure and appearance extracted from deep ViT features. We then establish an objective function that splices the desired structure and appearance representations, interweaving them together in the space of ViT features. Based on our objective function, we propose two frameworks of semantic appearance transfer – "Splice", which works by training a generator on a
 single and arbitrary
 pair of structure-appearance images, and "SpliceNet", a
 feed-forward
 real-time appearance transfer model trained on a
 dataset
 of images from a
 specific domain
 . Our frameworks do not involve adversarial training, nor do they require any additional input information such as semantic segmentation or correspondences. We demonstrate high-resolution results on a variety of in-the-wild image pairs, under significant variations in the number of objects, pose, and appearance. Code and supplementary material are available in our project page: splice-vit.github.io.


Homozygous mutant embryonic stem (ES) cell lines have proven very useful in studying gene and protein function, and there are several reasons why this system might be preferred. Because many genes express their phenotype at the level of individual cells, using these cell lines eliminates the time and expense of producing a mutant animal. They can be isolated directly from a heterozygous mutant cell line without rederiving a cell line or using primary tissues from a mutant animal. In some cases, analysis of the phenotype of homozygous mutant cells can be performed more easily in culture. In addition, homozygous mutant ES cell lines may be produced even when a homozygous mutation is lethal to the animal. Finally, microinjection of homozygous mutant ES cells into blastocysts may allow investigation of the developmental potential of cells with such lethal mutations. This unit was moved from Chapter 9 to reflect a more appropriate placement, and has been updated and revised.


The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening adolescent patients for drug and alcohol use following a standardized process and utilizing a developmentally appropriate screening tool. The purpose of the evidence based project was to identify adolescents at risk for substance use disorders; addiction beginning in adolescence is a predictor of addictive disorders in adulthood and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality in teens. This project involved an evidence based intervention for 12 to 18-year-olds to improve identification of adolescent patients at risk for substance use disorders, using the screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment process and the CRAFFT screening tool over a three-month period at a pediatric primary care clinic. The project used a quasi-experimental, two group, prospective design with convenience sampling for the intervention group and retrospective chart reviews for the baseline group. The sample size was 70 with 35 patients from the baseline group and 35 patients who presented for preventative care at the pediatric clinic in a community health center in Missouri. The CRAFFT screening tool was given to eligible patients to complete before being seen by a provider. Patients scoring greater than or equal to two on the six-item questionnaire were considered high risk for substance use disorders and were appropriately referred. The number of patients referred for substance use disorders pre-intervention was compared to the number referred post-intervention. Results showed a marginal improvement in substance abuse identification between the intervention and baseline group. Using a standardized process and screening tool to identify teens who have experimented with drugs and alcohol allows providers to intervene before serious addiction occurs.


This paper describes the dynamics and impact model of a wheel with various radius rim. The dynamics is expressed by a rst order linear ordinary dierential equation with respect to the absolute orientation of the wheel, and an analytic solution is derived. Poincare map is also derived analytically. Stability and basin of attraction (BoA) of the Poincare map are discussed. Finally, the analysis is validated through some numerical simulations. As a result, the rim radius aects the stability and broadens its BoA. The analysis helps understanding of not only a geometric tracking control but also many underactuated control methods for bipeds.


Background: LY96 has been reported to be relevant with kidney inflammatory injury but the function of this gene in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) remains unknown.Methods: Various online tools were applied to analyze the roles of LY96 in KIRC using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas. Differential LY96 expression and overall survival (OS) based on different expression levels were analyzed through Oncomine and GEPIA tools. The alterations, related genes, Gene Ontology, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways of LY96 were explored via cBioPortal and STRING database. LinkedOmics and Cistrome DB Toolkit were utilized to identify targets of kinase, miRNAs, and transcription factors. The relationship between LY96 and some associated genes or regulatory factors was displayed via GeneMANIA and TIMER tool. TISIDB revealed correlations between LY96 expression and immune-associated factors in the tumor microenvironment. Results: High LY96 expression level was observed in KIRC and associated with poor prognosis and diverse clinical characteristics. LY96 often amplified in KIRC and was mostly linked to the inflammatory response. Several highly correlated genes, kinase targets, transcription factors, and DNA methyltransferase that may interact with LY96 were all identified. Our study also demonstrated that various immune-related factors were relevant to LY96 in KIRC. Conclusions: Our study has shown the complex relationships between LY96 and KIRC from diverse angles. High LY96 expression had an adverse effect on the prognosis of KIRC. To find effective demethylation agents and transcription factors inhibitors targeting LY96 may have beneficial effects on the survival of KIRC patients.


We undertook a descriptive, observational study to determine the prevalence of the discoid lateral menisci. The relation between the lateral meniscal shapes and the incidence of meniscal tears were studied, and the gender differences in discoid lateral menisci and the similarities of the lateral meniscal shapes in bilateral knees were examined. A total of 602 knees from 306 cadavers were macroscopically analyzed. Altogether, 577 lateral menisci were classified into the following three types: normal type (NM); incomplete discoid type (ICDM); and complete discoid type (CDM). Each lateral meniscus was examined for meniscal tears. The prevalence of a discoid lateral meniscus and gender differences in its prevalence were examined, as were the presence of a meniscal tear for the three types of lateral meniscus. In all, there were 21 (3. 6%) CDM cases and 171 ICDM cases (29.6%). The prevalence of discoid lateral meniscus, including ICDM and CDM, in the female cadavers was significantly higher than that in the male cadavers, but there was no significant gender difference in the prevalence of CDM. It was found that the shape of the lateral meniscus was similar bilaterally. The incidence of meniscal tears for ICDM was significantly higher than that for NM.


We have studied the effects of hypertension and aging on the concentration-response curves for alpha 1-adrenoceptor-mediated vasoconstriction and methacholine-induced endothelium-dependent relaxation. The experiments were performed in aortic rings and in perfused mesenteric vascular bed preparations taken from WKY rats, from SHR of 16-18, 28-30, and 58-60 weeks, and from 16- to 18-week-old SHRSP rats, respectively. The influence of aging and/or hypertension caused no alterations of the alpha 1-agonist response provoked by phenylephrine in aortic rings. Mesenteric vascular bed preparations showed an increase in maximal response to methoxamine when taken from hypertensive animals. Age per se did not change the contraction in the mesenteric arteries. Hypertension in combination with age caused a decrease in endothelium-dependent vasodilation induced by methacholine in aortic rings, but not in mesenteric arteries. However, the sensitivity to methacholine decreased age-dependently in the mesenteric vascular bed preparation taken from the WKY and SHR. The endothelium-independent relaxation induced by sodium nitroprusside showed a decrease in sensitivity in aortic rings taken from 58- to 60-week-old SHR when compared with the age-matched WKY. These findings suggest that the mechanisms beyond the endothelium involved in vasodilation are not responsible for the decreased methacholine-induced relaxation in aortic rings. It is concluded that (1) the responsiveness of resistance arteries to adrenoceptor stimulation only changes with elevated blood pressure and (2) hypertension in combination with aging induces an endothelial dysfunction in conduit arteries but not in resistance vessels.


As die product of a 2008 symposium at Dumbarton Oaks that brought together scholars studying various types of writing and recording systems from both Mesoamerica and the Andes, this edited volume lays the groundwork for a methodological approach that respects the uniqueness of cultural tradition but also recognizes important common patterns that can help to enhance our ability to decipher and understand these diverse systems.


The major objective of the FleetNet project [5, 2] was to develop a platform for inter-vehicle communication based on the principles of ad-hoc communication. In its process, unicast datagram routing served as one of the research focuses to identify and conquer the challenges of data forwarding in vehicular scenarios. Among others, car movement on highways was a scenario we paid attention to. To serve as a basis for network simulation, DaimlerChrysler provided realistic highway movement traces resulting from their own vehicular movement research [3]. This document is the complement to the Technical Report [4] where we describe the work done on the DaimlerChrysler traces in order to: a) model bidirectional scenarios, b) obtain Tcl scenarios compatible with the ns-2 simulator, and c) understand the vehicle distribution and movement of the resulting scenarios from a connectivity point of view. This report consists of the whole statistical evaluation of the basic set of scenarios listed in [4] and available to the VANET (Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network) community at [1]. We highly recommend the reading of [4], which describes the structure of this document and all parameters being analyzed.


The cover of a transport, social, or communication network is a computationally complex problem. To deal with it, this paper introduces a special class of simple games in which the set of minimal winning coalitions coincides with the set of least covers. A distinctive feature of such a game is that it has a weighted form, in which weights and quota are sets rather than real numbers. This game class is termed set-weighted games. A real-life network has a large number of least covers, therefore this paper develops methods for analyzing set-weighted games in which the weighted form is taken into account. The necessary and sufficient conditions for a simple game to be a set-weighted game were found. The vertex cover game (Gusev, 2020) was shown to belong to the set-weighted game class, and its weighted form was found. The set-weighted game class has proven to be closed under operations of union and intersection, which is not the case for weighted games. The sample object is the transport network of a district in Petrozavodsk, Russia. A method is suggested for efficiently deploying surveillance cameras at crossroads so that all transport network covers are taken into account.


MapReduce is currently the most popular programming model for big data processing, and Hadoop is a well-known MapReduce implementation platform. However, Hadoop jobs suffer from imbalanced workloads during the reduce phase and inefficiently utilize the available computing and network resources. In some cases, these problems lead to serious performance degradation in MapReduce jobs. To resolve these problems, in this paper, we propose two algorithms, the Locality-Based Balanced Schedule (LBBS) and Overlapping-Based Resource Utilization (OBRU), that optimize the Locality-Enhanced Load Balance (LELB) and the Map, Local reduce, Shuffle, and final Reduce (MLSR) phases. The LBBS collects partition information from input data during the map phase and generates balanced schedule plans for the reduce phase. OBRU is responsible for using computing and network resources efficiently by overlapping the local reduce, shuffle, and final reduce phases. Experimental results show that the LBBS and OBRU algorithms yield significant improvements in load balancing. When LBBS and OBRU are applied, job performance increases by 15% from that of models using LELB and MLSR.


The Russian Federation is inhabited by about 150 thousand species of animals and this figure accounts for 9% of the world's fauna. Guided by the logic of the utilitarian economic and legal approach called rational use of natural resources, this number includes a set of living organisms of all types of wild animals that permanently or temporarily inhabit the territory of the Russian Federation and are in a state of natural freedom, as well as related to the natural resources of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone of Russia, which are only part of the subject of the emerging complex branch of faunal law, together with wild animals in captivity, service animals, domestic animals, agricultural animals, and living organisms obtained as a result of the use of genetic engineering technologies. Higher mammals are sentient beings, that is, they are capable of experiencing suffering, pain, emotions, and the development of intelligence is confirmed by solving the most complex natural problems and puzzles, which allows us to consider them as individuals of non-human nature and non-human origin, and therefore it is incorrect to associate some of the objects of the animal world belonging to higher mammals with objects of property rights, that is, things. Commercial, amateur and sports hunting are types of hunting in Russia, carried out by trapping or shooting, expressed in the killing of hunting resources, that is, objects of the animal world that can be used for hunting. Hunting in the domestic legislation is a form of leisure, recreation and economic activity that ignores the natural rights of higher animals, including the right to life. A characteristic feature of the Law "On Responsible Treatment of Animals" is that its norms and principles for the treatment of animals do not apply to objects of the animal world, marine and aquatic mammals, animals classified as hunting resources, agricultural animals, living organisms created as a result of genetic engineering activities, which significantly reduces its humanistic significance.


The increase in the culinary industry certainly must be balanced with the packaging waste generated. The waste from aluminum foil is one of the wastes produced. Over 8 tons of aluminum foil waste are generated each month in East Java. Waste that has been piled up is only given to third parties. It takes about 400 years for aluminum foil to breakdown and decompose in the soil. Aluminum foil waste can generate environmental pollution. As waste pollution increases, alternatives are needed to convert waste into use ful materials. Aluminum foil can be utilized as a raw material for the production of potassium aluminum sulfate due to its high aluminum content. The objective of this study is to utilize aluminum waste into potassium aluminum sulfate. The concentrations of KOH and H2SO4 are the two variables combined. In this study, the yield value, pH analysis, melting point, and Al 2O3 content of alum will be determined. The results showed that 2 M KOH and 4.5 M H2SO4 had the highest yield of 88.3580, pH 3,08; melting point 92 °C; and Al2O3 concentration 15,5%. Potassium aluminum sulfate performed physical analysis, including analyses of pH, melting point, and Al 2O3 concentration. Alum has a pH of about 3, and its melting point is between 92 and 93 °C, while the Al2O3 content ranges between 9 and 11%. Kalium alumnium sulfate meets the SNI 0032:2011 standards for physical pH and melting point analysis. However, the Al2O3 content does not meet to SNI 0032:2011.


Malignant mesothelioma (MM) has a poor prognosis because of its resistance towards different drugs. Extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) family is known to have important roles in tumorigenesis and drug resistance. Here we show that Doxorubicin (Dox) treatment activates ERK1/2 in different MM lines. Activated ERK1/2 play a significant role in cell survival as inhibition of ERK1/2 by U0126 in the presence of Dox results in significantly enhanced cell killing. We show here using small molecule inhibitor and RNA silencing approaches that ERK1/2 inhibition sensitizes human MM cells to Dox treatment. ERK1/2 inhibition by U0126 significantly inhibited certain important drug resistance and proapoptotic genes in human MM cells as measured by PCR Array using human drug resistance and metabolism template. MM cell lines stably transfected with shERK1 or shERK2 exhibited significant increases in the accumulation of Dox and decreases in the cell viability when treated with Dox as compared to shCon line. Microarray analysis performed on stable shERK1 and shERK2 lines showed more than 2 fold inhibitions in selected ATP binding cassette genes, which may be responsible in part for increased Dox accumulation and sensitivity. Finally, subcutaneous injection of stable human MM lines inhibited for ERK1 or ERK2 into SCID mice showed that inhibition of ERK1/2 sensitizes in vivo tumors to Dox. These studies demonstrate a key role of ERK1/2 in MM tumor drug resistance. This work is supported by National Cancer Institute grant P01CA114047 and VCC/LCCRO grant. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 347.


To the Editor.— We report two recent cases that suggest that the clinical presentation of Lyme disease may simulate bacterial arthritis in children and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of children thought to have septic arthritis. In one patient the Lyme spirochete was demonstrated in tissue obtained by needle biopsy of bone; this patient also had iritis, another possibly septic manifestation of Lyme disease. Report of Cases.— Case1.—A 6-year-old boy was admitted to Babies Hospital because of increasing pain and swelling in the left knee over a two-week period following "minor injury." Aspiration by an orthopedist several days earlier revealed sterile fluid with a white blood cell count of 48 000/mm3(48×109/L) (95% [0.95] polymorphonuclear leukocytes). He became febrile with a temperature of 38°C (101°F) one day prior to admission; his erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was 90 mm/ h. Repeated joint fluid examination yielded


IN THE temperate zones otologic practice can be divided generally into two distinct seasonal phases. One is the summer phase, during which conditions are essentially the same both indoors and out as regards temperature and humidity. During the second, or winter, phase people live in different environments, the dry, warm indoors and the variable, cold outdoors. During this phase the human economy is subject to great fluctuations of temperature and humidity over relatively short periods. As a result, people have fall, winter and spring colds, with the ensuing complications, not the least of which are otogenic infections, such as otitis media and mastoiditis. During the summer phase otologists see relatively few infections of this type but a greatly increased number of external otogenic infections. In addition, they frequently encounter exacerbations of chronic otogenic infections, which have been artificially activated by swimming, excessive sweating and bathing, with consequent pathologic aural changes.


A high frequency and high gain amplifier using standard 65 nm TSMC technology is presented in this paper. A gain of the proposed amplifier was boosted by inserting on-chip transformer which inverts amplifier's output phase to neutralize gain limiting parasitic capacitors. To control stability issue of the transformer induced positive feedback amplifier under the environments of process variations, variable neutralizer capacitors with variable capacitor value by body node biasing are suggested. The theory, simulation and measurement are shown in this paper. An implementation prototype is evaluated using on-wafer proving. The amplifier showed peak gain of 30 dB and noise figure of 4.6 dB under 8.9 mW power consumption with 1V power supply condition. The measured IIP3 was -26 dBm.


Image analysis is a very complex process; many of the relationships are difficult to categorize, much less to program into a computer. The selection of features is the most challenging problem of image analysis, process discovery or sensor fusion. The features must be a data representation that will discriminate the information of interest from the rest of the image. A neural network can be a tool for rapid processing of data. Auto-associative neural networks (AANNs) are a form of self-organizing maps which can be used to reduce the dimension of the input data in a self-organizing fashion. Dimension reduction is closely related to feature extraction. Features are those datum that efficiently capture the information contained in the entire data set. The data set, has a "superficial" dimensionality of n, and the reduced space of the features that contain all the information about the data has an "intrinsic" dimension of m, where n>m. With this property, an AANN can be used to reduce an n-dimensional space to something more intrinsic to the actual data.


Optical subcarriers can be used for several different important applications in optical networks. This paper explores the implementation of optical subcarriers for control, monitoring, routing, and transmission in networks. Additionally, we discuss the limitations imposed on subcarriers by the optical fiber itself, such as RF fading caused by chromatic dispersion and polarization-mode dispersion.


The science of information security has become a concern of many researchers, whose efforts are trying to come up with solutions and technologies that ensure the transfer of information in a more secure manner through the network, especially the Internet, without any penetration of that information, given the risk of digital data being sent between the two parties through an insecure channel. This paper includes two data protection techniques. The first technique is cryptography by using Menezes Vanstone elliptic curve ciphering system, which depends on public key technologies. Then, the encoded data is randomly included in the frame, depending on the seed used. The experimental results, using a PSNR within average of 65 and MSE within average of 85, indicate that the proposed method has proven successful in its ability to efficiently embedding data.


Different detailed finite element model alternatives are developed to come up with the most reliable finite element model of the sandwich panel, with the actual honeycomb core geometry, to evaluate the existing equivalent continuum models of aluminum honeycomb cores. Finite element models of sandwich panels with effective elastic constants of the honeycomb core are generated based on the existing continuum models of the honeycomb core. The evaluation of the effective elastic constants of honeycomb cores is based on the comparison of the total reaction forces, calculated by both finite element models, on the supported faces of sandwich panels due to different in-plane and out-of-plane uniform input displacements applied to the faces of the panels. The results show that the reliability of the individual in-plane and out-of-plane effective elastic constants of the existing continuum models of the honeycomb cores can be successfully evaluated based on the comparative study.


An important part of governmental industrial policy is to support entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses through various programmes. These are often organized at regional or local level by support organizations such as innovation centres (at universities), regional development funds and science parks. Earlier studies of business support structures have focused mainly on the 'demand' side; that is, on participants' perceptions of the usefulness of taking part in different support programmes. These studies have shown that there is a mismatch between the supply and demand side in business support activities. This paper deals with the supply side's view of organizing support activities for entrepreneurs and new businesses. The author analyses the responses to a questionnaire survey of business support organizations in Sweden. The results show that the support organizations are well aware of the problems the participants have – relating to, among other things, time, educational methods, finance, priorities, and access to information. At the same time, the support organizations disagree with suggestions that they are too theoretical in their teaching, lack experience in the problems of small businesses, offer inflexible programmes, have problems communicating, or lack teaching expertise (in, for example, training programmes). This paper discusses the gap in perception between the suppliers and their market and addresses the policy issues it raises. The implications for training for entrepreneurship and new businesses are also addressed.


Background: Quadriceps loading of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) may play a role in the noncontact mechanism of ACL injury. Musculoskeletal modeling techniques are used to estimate the intrinsic force of the quadriceps acting at the knee joint. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this paper was to develop a novel musculoskeletal model of in vivo quadriceps force during dynamic activity. We used the model to estimate quadriceps force in relation to ACL strain during a single-leg jump. We hypothesized that quadriceps loading of the ACL would reach a local maximum before initial ground contact with the knee positioned in extension. Study Design: Descriptive laboratory study. Methods: Six male participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging in addition to high-speed biplanar radiography during a single-leg jump. Three-dimensional models of the knee joint, including the femur, tibia, patellofemoral cartilage surfaces, and attachment-site footprints of the patellar tendon, quadriceps tendon, and ACL, were created from the magnetic resonance imaging scans. The bone models were registered to the biplanar radiographs, thereby reproducing the positions of the knee joint at the time of radiographic imaging. The magnitude of quadriceps force was determined for each knee position based on a 3-dimensional balance of the forces and moments of the patellar tendon and the patellofemoral cartilage contact acting on the patella. Knee kinematics and ACL strain were determined for each knee position. Results: A local maximum in average quadriceps force of approximately 6500 N (8.4× body weight) occurred before initial ground contact. ACL strain increased concurrently with quadriceps force when the knee was positioned in extension. Conclusion: This novel participant-specific modeling technique provides estimates of in vivo quadriceps force during physiologic dynamic loading. A local maximum in quadriceps force before initial ground contact may tension the ACL when the knee is positioned in extension. Clinical Relevance: These data contribute to understanding noncontact ACL injury mechanisms and the potential role of quadriceps activation in these injuries.


We report a new Föster resonance energy transfer (FRET) system that uses a special dye, thioflavin T (ThT), as an energy acceptor and a water-soluble conjugated polymer (CP) with high fluorescence as an energy donor. A simple, label-free, and sensitive strategy for the detection of thrombin in buffer and in diluted serum was designed based on this new system using ThT as an efficient inducer of the G-quadruplex. The difference between the blank and the positive samples was amplified due to distinctive FRET signals because thrombin has little effect on the intercalation of ThT into the G-quadruplex. In the absence of the target, ThT induces the aptamer to form a G-quadruplex and intercalates into it with strong fluorescence. The electrostatic attractions between the negatively charged G-quadruplex and positively charged CP allow a short donor-acceptor distance, resulting in a high FRET signal. However, in the presence of the target, the aptamer forms a G-quadruplex-thrombin complex first, followed by the intercalation of ThT into the G-quadruplex. A long distance exists between the donor and acceptor due to the strong steric hindrance from the large-sized thrombin, which leads to a low FRET signal. Compared with previously reported strategies based on the FRET between the CP and dye, our strategy is label-free, and the sensitivity was improved by an order of magnitude. Our strategy also shows the advantages of being simple, rapid (about 50 min), sensitive, label-free, and low-cost in comparison to strategies based on the FRET between quantum dots and dyes.


One of the basic economic and social problems of Europe is its aging population. Quality of life in old age is one of the most frequently mentioned themes in present. Public policy seeks to ensure appropriate conditions for lifestyle, health and social care. Public policy issues is question whether individual countries are able to secure suitable and quality social services for seniors, in addition financially acceptable and sufficient range. One of the tools of social services is domiciliary service day care, which is used by most of seniors. Due to the problem with aging population, the issue of public services is much discussed, and most of all at the local level. The aim of this paper is to assess what problems public service providers encounter on a municipal level - for example domiciliary services.


The digital transformation of the economy leads to dramatic changes in business and society and requires the reconfiguration of all socio-economic institutions. Such radical changes include economic science and management, challenging the traditional economic laws and management tools that were formed in the "digital era". The purpose of the study is to identify the key challenges of the digital transformation of the economy for economic science, management and business, as well as the main directions of development of crisis management of companies in the era of the digital economy.The study identified the main factors of digital transformation of the economy that affect the methods and conditions of doing business, and the challenges of digitalization for business. The necessity of developing a new crisis toolkit for companies of the "digital" and "non-digital" eras is substantiated, for which a comparative analysis of the characteristics of such companies and key indicators of their financial and economic status is carried out. In addition author defined several economic paradoxes that the author called the "scissor effect" (a gap in the dynamics of the capitalization of digital and non-digital companies) and the "paradox of profitability" (growth in the capitalization of digital companies against the backdrop of chronic loss-making activities).Author used various methods of scientific research: deduction and induction when conducting an empirical analysis of the activities of digital and non-digital companies, analytical methods and historical analysis.The results of the study will contribute to the development of the theory of management and crisis management in the era of the digital economy, and also will determine the future directions of theoretical and practical development of these scientific disciplines.


Although malignant glioblastoma (GBM) treatment has significantly improved in the past few decades, the prognosis of GBM remains unsatisfactory. MicroRNA (miR)-138-5p has been reported as a tumor suppressor in several types of human cancer; however, little is known about the function of miR-138-5p in GBM. The present study aimed to investigate the role of miR-138-5p in GBM as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms. The present study performed bioinformatics analysis, reverse transcription-quantitative (RT-q)PCR, western blotting, cell viability assays, colony formation assays, invasion assays and cell cycle analysis to investigate the biological function of miR-138-5p in both patient tissues and cell lines. In addition, miR-138-5p targets in GBM were predicted using Gene Expression Omnibus website and further validated by a dual luciferase reporter gene assay. The results revealed that miR-138-5p expression levels in patients with GBM from a Gene Expression Omnibus dataset were significantly downregulated. RT-qPCR analysis of miR-138-5p expression levels also revealed similar results in GBM tissues and cell lines. The upregulation of miR-138-5p expression levels using a mimic significantly inhibited the cell viability, colony formation and the G0/G1 to S progression in GBM cell lines, suggesting that miR-138-5p may be a tumor suppressor. Moreover, miR-138-5p was discovered to directly target cyclin D3 (CCND3), a protein that serves an important role in the cell cycle, and inhibited its expression. Finally, silencing CCND3 using small interfering RNA suppressed the viability of GBM cells. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggested that miR-138-5p may function as a tumor suppressor in GBM by targeting CCND3, indicating that miR-138-5p may be a novel therapeutic target for patients with GBM.


When President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law on February 8 1996, it was heralded as the dawning of a new age that would bring innovative technology, more and better services, and lower prices. Ten months later, however, this new age has not even begun to dawn, and it may not do so for quite a while. In fact, it is unclear what the Telecommunications Act's long term effects will be and whether the law will fulfil its promise. Under any circumstances, it looks as though consumers should not look for the large scale development, introduction, and deployment of new technologies in the near future. This will be the case partially because many telecommunications companies will be busy in the near future pursuing lawsuits, looking for partners, and figuring out what they need to do to cope with the Telecommunications Act.


E-commerce shop owners often want to attract user attention to a specific product to enhance the chances of sales, to cross-sell, or up-sell. The way of presenting a recommended item is as important as the recommendation algorithms are to gain that attention. In this study, we examined the following types of highlights: background, shadow, animation, and border, as well as the position of the item in a 5 × 2 grid in a furniture online store, and their relationships with user fixations and user interest. We wanted to verify the effects highlighting had on attracting user attention. Various levels of intensity were considered for each highlight: low, medium, and strong. Methods used for data collection were both implicit and explicit: eye tracking, tracking cart's contents, and a supplementary survey. Experimental results showed that a low-intensity background highlight should be the first-choice solution to best attract user attention in the presented shopping scenario, resulting in the best fixation times and most users' selections. However, in the case of the highest-intensity animations, highlighting seemed to have negative effects; despite successful attempts to attract eyesight and a long fixation time, users did not add the highlighted products to cart.


Background: Caudal analgesia is the most popular regional anesthesia technique in pediatric population for intraoperative and postoperative analgesia. Clonidine, an α2agonist, prolongs analgesia without causing significant respiratory depression after systemic or neuraxial administration. However, the most beneficial route of its administration is still controversial. Thus, we compared the effects of caudal and intravenous (i.v) clonidine on postoperative analgesia produced by caudal levobupivacaine in children undergoing infraumbilical surgery. Methods: A comparative three group study was carried out in seventy-five pediatric patients who underwent elective surgery for infraumbilical procedures, under general anesthesia with caudal block. Group A (n = 25) received levobupivacaine 0.25% 1 mL/kg caudally and 5 mL of normal saline i.v, Group B (n = 25) received levobupivacaine 0.25% 1 mL/kg with 1 μg/kg clonidine caudally and 5 mL of normal saline i.v, and Group C (n = 25) received levobupivacaine 0.25% 1 mL/kg caudally and 1 μg/kg clonidine in 5 mL normal saline i.v. Postoperative pain was assessed for 24 h using the Children and Infants Postoperative Pain Scale Score. Ramsay sedation scale and modified Bromage scale were assessed at predetermined time intervals for sedation and motor blockade, respectively. Results: The mean duration of postoperative analgesia was significantly longer in Group B (16.68 ± 4.7 h) than in Group A (4.24 ± 1.42) and Group C (9.44 ± 3.88 h): P < 0.001. The number of patients not requiring rescue analgesia in Group B was 5, which was significantly higher than in Group C (one patient) and Group A (zero patient): P < 0.001. No motor blockade or sedation was observed in any of the groups. Conclusions: Clonidine in a dose of 1 μg/kg added to 0.25% levobupivacaine for caudal analgesia significantly prolongs the duration of analgesia, without any side effects.


Fundamental physical properties, such as the intrinsic recoil of the lung, are governed by the extracellular matrix. The prototypical roles of the matrix proteins, collagen and elastin, in pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema have long been recognized, and much research effort has been devoted to understanding mechanisms of extracellular matrix synthesis and turnover in the lung. Yet, despite extensive knowledge of the biochemical properties of collagen and elastin, none of the present clinical strategies for treating COPD directly target the extracellular matrix. From a matrix perspective, therapeutic interventions that limit elastic fiber destruction and/or restore function to damaged alveolar units merit particular consideration as clinical strategies for treating the emphysema component of COPD. Effective treatment of the bronchiolar component of COPD requires a better understanding of the relationship between airway fibrosis and airflow obstruction. Translating basic knowledge of extracellular matrix biology into the clinical venue will be essential in the development of new approaches to COPD treatment.


Principal component analysis is used in the study of 24 raw materials for the production of Chinese greenware porcelains, known as Yue ware, Longquan ware, Southern Song Guan ware, Ge ware, Ru ware, Linru ware, Jun ware, and Yaozhou ware. The results of this study give reasonably good indications of the possible raw materials used in the production of these greenwares.


A case of probable Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is reported. A 70-year-old Japanese woman was admitted with a complaint of amnesia. She initially developed Klüver-Bucy syndrome, hypergraphia, and later showed myoclonus and startle response. She developed akinetic mutism within nine months from the onset. Prion protein gene codon 180 point mutation (Met/Ile) was detected and we diagnosed her as CJD. Serial MRI studies revealed abnormal T2 elongation and thickening limited to the cerebral cortices, which started at bilateral temporal lobes and later extended to frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes with relative sparing of hippocampi and central gyri. Serial EEG did not show periodic synchronous discharge (PSD). Three cases of CJD with a point mutation of codon 180 were reported in the past. There are several common features in the past cases and the present case, i.e. 1) negative familial history, 2) late onset, 3) T2 high intensity at cerebral cortices on MRI, and 4) negative PSD. These may be characteristic features of CJD with a point mutation of codon 180.


Abstract The aim of paper is to analyze household consumption in EU countries in the 21st century. The two hypotheses posited have been confirmed. The start of the 21st century saw an increase in consumer spending in EU households and reduction in the disparities between households of different countries. At the end of the first decade there was a stabilization in consumer spending. The differences in consumption between households can be considered as a) the effect of freedom of choice, and b) a consequence of specific restrictions that do not allow for an appropriate level of funds to meet household needs. Households with the most favourable situation are located in the United Kingdom and Austria. The most unfavourable situation can be observed in the households of Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.


In a meta-analysis of ds, the utility of converting d to a point-biserial correlation (rpb), correcting rpb for study artifacts, and then converting rpb back to d depends on how accurately the d to rpb-rpb to d (dr-rd) method reproduces the original uncorrected ds. This study compared test ds (dt) converted to dr-rd ds to control ds (dc) to determine the dr-rd formula combinations with the least bias, defined as the difference between dr-rd ds and dc. dt were calculated with available conversion and rpb correction formulas at various base rates and SD ratios, whereas dc were calculated without conversion formulas at base rate .50 and SD ratio 1.00. Results showed that the lowest bias formula combinations reproduced dc at SD ratio 1.00, bias increased as SD ratio decreased, and formula combinations that produced the lowest bias values were, on average, more accurate than formula combinations that produced the next to lowest bias values. Findings provide the lowest bias dr-rd formula combinations for artifact-corrected meta-analyses of studies using the two independent-groups design.


Background: Rett syndrome (RTT) is a rare neurological disorder that primarily affects the females. Most cases of RTT are caused by a de novo mutation in the MECP2 gene located on the X chromosome. About 1000 MECP2 mutations have been found to be associated with RTT. Objective: The present study is aimed at the mutation screening of MECP2 gene in the RTT patients belonging to the south Indian state of Kerala. Materials and Methods: In total 22 girls with a clinical suspicion of RTT were recruited for the study. Exons 2, 3, and 4 of MECP2 were amplified and sequenced. Results: MECP2 mutations were observed in 12 patients. While 7 mutations were pathogenic, 4 were benign. All of the mutations were located in exons 3 and 4 of MECP2, spanning the methyl-CpG DNA binding domain (MBD), transcription repression domain (TRD), and C-terminal domain (CTD) domains of the MECP2 protein. Four novel mutations were identified. There were no mutations in the MECP2 gene of 10 patients with a clinical suspicion of RTT. Conclusions: A recommended screening strategy for RTT is to first look for mutations in exons 3 and 4 of MECP2, followed by exons 1 and 2, testing for large deletions in MECP2, and screening for mutations in genes, such as CDKL5 and FOXG1 that are reported to cause a Rett-like phenotype.


Granulation is an important characteristic of sludges used in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors. As the UASB technology is rapidly spreading, there is a need of granular sludge for inoculation of new reactors, particularly in those countries where anaerobic technologies have been just recently accepted.

Alternative sources of inocula are digested sludge, digested manure, septic tank sludges and pond sediments. Raw waste activated sludges have also been identified as a convenient material for reactor seeding, with previous treatment.

In this work, anaerobic flocculant sludge obtained from raw waste activated sludge has been granulated with hydraulic stress, in a lab-scale column under different upflow velocities (1 to 50 m h−1). A methodology is proposed for enhancing the quality of non granular anaerobic sludges in batch treatments of less than 8 hours. The granular sludge produced was used as inoculum for a UASB lab scale reactor. The seed sludge improved all its characteristics and maintained the granulation, in spite of the low velocity (0.08 m h−1) applied.


The study investigates the influence of some psychosocial factors on the psychological wellbeing of postgraduate students in the University of Ibadan. Four hundred postgraduate students constituted the study's sample. Both the independent and dependent variables were measured with relevant standardized instruments and the data obtained was analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression statistical method. The instruments used were psychological wellbeing, emotional maturity, self-esteem and school connectedness scale. Three research questions were answered in the study. The result showed that there was significant relationship between the three independent variables (emotional maturity, self-esteem, school connectedness) on postgraduate students' psychological wellbeing and that the independent variables both jointly and relatively contributed significantly to the prediction of psychological wellbeing. The study recommended that counselling psychologists should develop psychological intervention that will focus on self-esteem skills of students, since is the most potent factor in determining psychological wellbeing.


The reversible cleavage of indole-3-glycerol by the α-subunit of tryptophan synthase has been proposed to be catalyzed by αGlu49 and αAsp60. Although previous x-ray crystallographic structures of the tryptophan synthase α2β2 complex showed an interaction between the carboxylate of αAsp60 and the bound inhibitor indole-3-propanol phosphate, the carboxylate of αGlu49 was too distant to play its proposed role. To clarify the structural and functional roles of αGlu49, we have determined crystal structures of a mutant (αD60N) α2β2 complex in the presence and absence of the true substrate, indole-3-glycerol phosphate. The enzyme in the crystal cleaves indole-3-glycerol phosphate very slowly at room temperature but not under cryo-conditions of 95 K. The structure of the complex with the true substrate obtained by cryo-crystallography reveals that indole-3-glycerol phosphate and indole-3-propanol phosphate have similar binding modes but different torsion angles. Most importantly, the side chain of αGlu49 interacts with 3-hydroxyl group of indole-3-glycerol phosphate as proposed. The movement of the side chain of αGlu49 into an extended conformation upon binding the true substrate provides evidence for an induced fit mechanism. Our results demonstrate how cryo-crystallography and mutagenesis can provide insight into enzyme mechanism.


The theory ofS2( ) family of probability distributions is used to give a derivation of the functional equation of the Riemann xi function. The deformation of the xi function is formulated in terms of theS2( ) distribution and shown to satisfy Riemann's functional equation. Criteria for simplicity of roots of the xi function and for its simple roots to satisfy the Riemann hypothesis are formulated in terms of a differentiability property of the S2( ) family. For application, the values of the Riemann zeta function at the integers and of the Riemann xi function in the complex plane are represented as integrals involving the Laplace transform of S2:


In this paper, we report on an experiment in transnational exchange and cooperation between Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia USA and Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi around the design of an introductory course in biomedical engineering delivered using problem-driven learning (PDL). Although the core of the PDL problems and scaffolding approach were adopted from GT, as well as the general course structure, the open-ended, ill-structured problems were specifically designed to "custom–fit" the KU and the UAE culture. In the process, the authors explored the design of an exportable system for PDL transfer across cultures. The main hypothesis lies in the successful globalization of PDL, through the design of a system for cross-cultural transfer based on the development of generic core problems with cultural-specific skins that address interdisciplinary skills unique to BME.


Business analytics has the potential to deliver performance gains and competitive advantage. However, a theoretically grounded model identifying the factors and processes involved in realizing those performance gains has not been clearly articulated in the literature. This paper draws on the literature on dynamic capabilities to develop such a theoretical framework. It identifies the critical roles of organizational routines and organization-wide capabilities for identifying, resourcing and implementing business analytics-based competitive actions in delivering performance gains and competitive advantage. A theoretical framework and propositions for future research are developed.


The specific role of central bank independence in determining the overall credibility of monetary policy is addressed in this paper. It is argued that the credibility of delegating monetary policy to an independent central bank is endogenous to the credibility of the inflation target because a conservative inflation target may not be compatible with the fiscal policy stance. Also, lack of transparency in designing the institutional set-up is shown to be welfare-reducing.


abstract:This article explores how occult and medical epistemologies intersected in late Victorian and Edwardian courtroom narratives in the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court. Rather than delineating the preternatural, I argue that this meeting of the occult and medical science resulted in a blurring of the boundaries between external and internal influences, between notions of prisoner and patient, the psychical and the insane. Considering the role of the accused, victims, medical authorities, lawyers, and jurors, I examine how this epistemological shift developed and how it was presented, manipulated, or hindered. Through investigating this attempt by medical "experts" to pathologize the occult, I offer fresh insights into how medical testimony interpreted and employed accounts of witchcraft, mesmerism, and hypnotism in courtroom narratives. I conclude by briefly drawing attention to the resonances between the operation of occult, legal, and medical influences over the mind and body in the late nineteenth-century courtroom.


A registry of ultrasound procedures spanning nearly 5 years was searched retrospectively to discover cases of endometrial cavity fluid collections in postmenopausal women. Twenty cases were identified; all medical records were available for review. One patient was lost to follow-up. Seventeen patients had surgical procedures: 11 had only a D&C, and six had a primary evaluation of laparotomy with removal of the uterus and adnexa. Five women had cancer (two ovarian, one tubal, one endometrial, and one cervical); eight women had benign gynecologic conditions, including uterine fibroids (five), ovarian serous cystadenoma (two), and cervical dysplasia (one). There were two cases of apparent subclinical pyometra. Five women had endometrial pathology consistent with prescribed hormone therapy for breast cancer (four) or endometrial hyperplasia (one).


In modern society, dairy products have become increasingly important in our diet because of changes in consumption patterns due to urbanization. However, Chinese residents' dairy consumption remains at a relatively low level, with great potential for growth. Exploring the main determinants of dairy consumption and their effect mechanisms not only helps to improve the health status of residents, but also has important policy implications for the development of China's dairy industry. Based on the data of China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1989 to 2011, this study empirically analyzes the impact of urbanization on residents' dairy consumption. The results indicate that urbanization could significantly promote residents' consumption of dairy products and the effect is higher in areas with low urbanization levels and in midwestern regions than in areas with high urbanization levels and in midwestern regions. From the perspective of effect mechanism, income growth, employment structure transition and the rise of modern markets are three important mediating paths. Additionally, the results imply that in areas with low urbanization levels, income growth and the rise of modern markets are the main significant mediators; while in areas with high urbanization levels, employment structure transition is a significant mediator. Moreover, in midwestern regions, income growth is a significant mediator, and employment structure transition is a significant mediator in all regions. These findings have practical implications for understanding the relationship between urbanization and residents' food consumption and for further promoting residents' dairy consumption and the development of China's dairy industry.


- We have generated plasma in Al, Cu, and Ti by using two lasers of Nd:YAG, and CO 2 in the laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technique. The Nd:YAG laser pulse at 1064 nm and energy of 77mJ with pulse duration of 15 ns and CO 2 laser at 10.6 micrometer and energy of 800mJ with pulse duration of 200ns have been used. We have designed time delayed circuit for our lasers and have obtained the spectra of these elements and have compared them with each others. We have concluded that increasing the laser energy and decreasing the time delayed improves increased signal to noise ratio.


The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography. Edited by Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. Pp. xxiv, 632. $65.00.) Liturgy frequently figures in scripture and sacred literature as a heavenly banquet or royal feast. Margot Fassler and Rebecca Baltzer have brought to the festal board a cornucopia full of rich and varied offerings. This book presents twenty-three essays by internationally renowned medievalists and liturgical musicologists on the liturgy of the hours in the medieval Latin West. The essays are arranged as chapters under six general headings: a methodological introduction, the pre-Carolingian office, manuscript studies, regional developments from the Carolingian era to the later Middle Ages, hagiography, and the use of computers in research on the divine office. The intended readers, or rather invited guests, range from the novice in liturgical studies to the adept in the more specialized fields of musical palaeography and the performance of Latin verse. In other words, there is something for everyone at this bountiful table. As a prelude to the feast, Lila Collamore welcomes the reader to the study and arrangement of the liturgy of the hours as the means par excellence of sanctifying time with scriptural prayer over the course of the day, the night, the week, the year. Margot Fassler then lays out the common source materials for the study of the office and its history, using Advent as a test case for dealing with the various tools and indices available to today's liturgical scholar. Laszlo Dobszay explains how to read an office book. Leading the second section, on the pre-Carolingian office, James MacKinnon (d. 1999) lays out the origins of the western office. Joseph Dyer comments on the office in the Rule of the Master. Peter Jeffery identifies eastern and western elements in the Irish monastic hours. The third section contains four chapters on manuscript studies. Ritva Jacobsson discusses the office of St. Andrew in the oldest extant Latin office book, the Antiphoner of Compiegne (ca. 870). James Grier treats the office at St.-Martial in the early eleventh century. Michel Huglo examines the Cluniac Processional of Solesmes. Susan Rankin studies the presence of non-liturgical songs in some liturgical offices. The fourth and largest section, on regional development from the early ninth century to the later Middle Ages, includes a treatment by Terence Bailey on the development and chronology of the Ambrosian sanctorale. Wulf Arlt presents the clerics' office for the feast of the Circumcision from Le Puy. Craig Wright describes the Palm Sunday procession in medieval Chartres. The fifth part, devoted to hagiography, explores offices of particular saints. Gunilla Iversen shows how the office of King Olav of Norway transformed a viking into a saint. Janka Szendrei examines the prose historia of St. Augustine, whose liturgical cult enjoyed surprisingly limited and uneven currency in the Middle Ages. David Hiley explores the music of the office of St. Julian of Le Mans, identifying nontraditional and nonstandard turns of phrase in Letald of Micy's historia of the saint. Rebecca A. Baltzer shows how the little office of the Blessed Virgin, performed by clerics for clerics in the renowned cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, renewed the sense of mission and Marian devotion of those who celebrated it on a regular basis. James John Boyce discusses the source material of the Carmelite feast of the Presentation of the Virgin, demonstrating how the Carmelites of Mainz adapted established melodies, particularly from the well-respected and widely disseminated office of St. Thomas of Canterbury, in order to concentrate on theological rather than musical considerations. The sixth and final section deals with the liturgy of the hours and computers. Andrew Hughes, blending musical expertise with a facility for handling state-- of-the-art computer technology, reports on his late-medieval liturgical offices project. …


At present the genomes of many organisms have been sequenced, meaning that the nucleotide structure is known but the location of genes, and most importantly, the coding regions, are unknown. Locating the coding regions is vital as they code for the proteins which control the functioning of the organism, such as its resistance to disease. We propose a new algorithm to score genomic sequences. The algorithm is based on discriminant analysis and can be incorporated into existing programs to analyse DNA sequences


As the feature size of the CMOS integrated circuit continues to shrink, the more and more serious scattering effect has a serious impact on interconnection performance, such as delay and bandwidth. Based on the impact of the scattering effect on latency and bandwidth, this paper first presents the quality-factor model which optimises latency and bandwidth effectively with the consideration of the scattering effect. Then we obtain the analytical model of line width and spacing with application of curve-fitting method. The proposed model has been verified and compared based on the nano-scale CMOS technology. This optimisation model algorithm is simple and can be applied to the interconnection system optimal design of nano-scale integrated circuits.


The question of the translation of the figures of speech is a debated and complex field of studies. In the present work, after a brief introduction, I propose to ponder over with  concrete examples on the translation of some figures of speech (metaphor, comparison and hyperbole) from Persian into Italian, taking as a source and representative text a passage from the poem Khosrow o Širin by Neẓāmi Ganjavi (XII century). This is a text of extraordinary imaginative and creative power, which represents a hard challenge for a translator, especially at a rhetoric level. Through the analysis of some verses that describe the pain of Princess Širin, I will try to verify methods, possibilities, strategies and defeats for their translation into Italian.


The present study reports, for the first time, both a facile synthesis for ternary Cu2WS4 nanocubes, which were synthesized by a simple and low-cost hot-injection method, and the hydrogen evolution reaction at a biomembrane-like polarized water/1,2-dichloroethane interface catalyzed by Cu2WS4 nanocubes. The rate of hydrogen evolution reaction is increased by about 1000 times by using Cu2WS4 nanocubes when compared to an uncatalyzed reaction.


Wall shear rates and pressure developed in blood vessels play an important role on the development of some clinical problems such as atherosclerosis and thrombosis. In the present work, blood flow behaviour was numerically studied in simplified domains and several relevant local properties were determined. We believe that the obtained results will be useful in the interpretation of some phenomena associated to some clinical problems. To describe the rheological behaviour of blood, three constitutive equations were used- constant viscosity, power-law and Carreau model. Numerical predictions for the blood flow in stenosed channels were in good agreement with analytical results, indicating that the computational model used to describe the studied problem is reliable. Pressure attains maximum values close to the top of the atheroma and shear rates achieved maximum values at the walls located in the nearby of the atheroma. It was also observed that, with the studied flows, the impact of the non-Newtonian behaviour of the blood on the velocity profiles was not significant. This observation can be explained by the magnitude of the obtained shear rates.


Background More patients with lung diseases were identified with low-dose computed tomography (CT) popularization and increasing physical examination awareness. Day surgery was routinely conducted in many departments as a relatively mature diagnosis and treatment mode. Thus, this study aimed to assess the feasibility of day surgery in thoracic surgery for pulmonary surgery and provide guidance for selecting suitable patients. Methods This study retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of patients with pulmonary nodule surgeries. Patients were divided into the day and routine surgery groups following chest tube removal within 48 h postoperatively and the discharge criteria. Each group was further divided into the wedge and anatomic lung resection groups. The feasibility and applicability of day surgery in thoracic surgery was evaluated by calculating the percentage of the day surgery group and comparing the clinical data of the two groups, and corresponding guidance was given for selecting suitable patients for day surgery. Results The day surgery group accounted for 53.4% of the total number of patients in both groups. Data comparison revealed differences in age, hypertension, coronary heart disease, pulmonary function index, nodule localization, pleural adhesion, total postoperative drainage, and complications in the wedge resection and age, gender, smoking history, pulmonary function indexes, intraoperative adhesions, operative duration, total postoperative drainage volume, and complications in the anatomic lung resection (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in the rates of re-hospitalization (1/172 ratio 1/150) and re-drainage (0/172 ratio 1/150) (P > 0.05). Conclusion This study concluded that more than half of the pulmonary surgery can be applied to the treatment mode of day surgery, and day surgery can be applied to the screened patients. It conforms to the concept of accelerated rehabilitation and can speed up bed turnover so that more patients can receive high-level medical treatment promptly.


Relief shown by hachures.
Title from cover.
Gift; Ransom Post no. 131, Grand Army of the Republic, St. Louis, Mo.; September 1933.
Pen and ink and colored ink on paper and tracing cloth.
LC Civil War Maps (2nd ed.), 77
LeGear. Atlases of the United States, 10658
Similar maps printed in the U.S. War Dept.'s Atlas to accompany the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, 1891-95, pl. 71, no. 1-11; pl. 79., no. 4; pl. 80, no. 1-11; and pl. 101, no 7, 19.
Title pages to sections 2 and 3 not manuscript. All section title pages signed by R.M. McDowell.
Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image.
On label (6 x 12 cm.) affixed inside front cover: "Presented by Ransom Post no. 131, Grand Army of the Republic, St. Louis, MO."
Lower portion of title page to section 1 wanting.
Conserved Feb. 1988.
Call number revised from that appearing in Stephenson's Civil War maps, 1989.


Whenever a child presents to hospital with a reduced level of consciousness, admitting clinicians have to decide the underlying cause rapidly so that the correct emergency treatment can be initiated. Unfortunately, the clinical presentations of many of the possible diagnoses are very similar. The diagnosis often results from investigations within the clinical biochemistry laboratory. In the past, clinicians have had limited guidance on which tests to request when presented with a child with a reduced level of consciousness. Guidelines have recently been developed relating to all aspects of management of the child in a coma. Due to a lack of evidence in the literature regarding the most appropriate first line tests for children with a reduced level of consciousness, a formal consensus process ('Delphi consensus') was performed using a large multidisciplinary panel of experts. The recommendations reached by this process include the list of initial ('core') tests to request for all children with a reduced level of consciousness (excluding those immediately after suffering a convulsion and those involved in obvious trauma). Depending upon the results of these 'core' tests and the clinical condition of the child, further tests may be requested later. The key point is that all the samples have been taken at the time of presentation to provide the best chance of reaching a diagnosis and correctly treating the child. The article reviews the recommended core investigations and further tests and discusses how individual laboratories can help to implement the guidelines jointly with their Emergency and Paediatric Departments.


We have used the living ring-opening metathesis polymerization reaction with Cl2(PCy3)2RuCHPh to generate a new class of conjugated polymer precursors containing the reactive group 1,2-dichlorocarbonate in their backbone. These polymers possess narrow molecular weight distributions and are easily processable. We have incorporated the 1,2-dichlorocarbonate monomers into block copolymers and have shown that these systems can self-assemble in selective solvents to generate spherical micellar aggregates (TEM). Mild hydrolytic treatment of these precursor polymers converts them into novel low-band-gap conjugated polymers and block copolymers containing 1,2-diol groups in their backbone.


ABSTRACT Inter-organizational collaboration (IOC) research considers the achievement of a collaborative identity as a key enabler of a successful collaboration. As a result, little has been said about the interactions between collaborative and non-collaborative identities. We build on narrative identity work and positioning theory, to explore how collaboration partners engage in identity work positioning to manage the interactions of the multiple identities emerging through the process of collaboration as they try to accomplish collaborative work. We illustrate this process through a qualitative longitudinal study of an educational partnership in Greece. Our analysis shows how IOC partners manage the interactions between collaborative and non-collaborative identities by positioning themselves, and others, in narratives of collaboration as part of their daily identity work when responding to emerging collaborative needs. Our research extends our current understanding of identity work processes in IOCs by demonstrating the paradoxical nature of the collaboration, which requires relying on both collaborative and non-collaborative identities for the successful achievement of aims. We therefore suggest that identity tensions should not be resolved but rather managed, since they enable partners to respond creatively to contextual organizational changes and make sense of the collaboration as it happens.


Nanoviruses are plant multipartite viruses with a genome composed of six to eight circular single-stranded DNA segments. The distinct genome segments are encapsidated individually in icosahedral particles that measure ≈18 nm in diameter. Recent studies on the model species Faba bean necrotic stunt virus (FBNSV) revealed that complete sets of genomic segments rarely occur in infected plant cells and that the function encoded by a given viral segment can complement the others across neighbouring cells, presumably by translocation of the gene products through unknown molecular processes. This allows the viral genome to replicate, assemble into viral particles and infect anew, even with the distinct genome segments scattered in different cells. Here, we question the form under which the FBNSV genetic material propagates long distance within the vasculature of host plants and, in particular, whether viral particle assembly is required. Using structure-guided mutagenesis based on a 3.2 Å resolution cryogenic-electron-microscopy reconstruction of the FBNSV particles, we demonstrate that specific site-directed mutations preventing capsid formation systematically suppress FBNSV long-distance movement, and thus systemic infection of host plants, despite positive detection of the mutated coat protein when the corresponding segment is agroinfiltrated into plant leaves. These results strongly suggest that the viral genome does not propagate within the plant vascular system under the form of uncoated DNA molecules or DNA:coat-protein complexes, but rather moves long distance as assembled viral particles.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate the comprehensive costs of intensive care units in general and university hospitals.

DESIGN
Cost analysis.

SETTING
Nine Dutch hospitals.

METHOD
The costs of the ICUs were estimated on the basis of data from the internal accounting systems of the nine hospitals. Allocation keys were used to allocate the costs of other departments to those of the respective ICUs.

RESULTS
The average costs of an ICU in a general hospital were Dfl. 527,000 per bed and Dfl. 2260 per patient day. Corresponding figures for a university hospital were Dfl. 771,000 and Dfl. 2530, respectively. Combined ICUs (i.e. intensive and medium care) cost Dfl. 430,000 and Dfl. 1130, respectively. The total costs of intensive care in the Netherlands for 1990 were estimated at Dfl. 1209 million, about 2.5% of total health care costs.


The low-energy electronic structure of a metallic single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) in an external electric field perpendicular to the tube axis is investigated. Based on tight-binding approximation, a field-induced energy gap is found in all (n,n) SWNTs, and the gap shows strong dependence on the electric field and the size of the tubes. d a metal-insulator transition is predicted for all (n,n) tubes. We numerically find a universal scaling that the gap is a function of the electric field and the radius of SWNTs, and the results are testified by the second-order perturbation theory in weak field limit. the range Our calculation shows the field required to induce a 0.1 eV gap in metallic SWNTs can be easily reached under the current experimental conditions. It indicates the possibility of applying nanotubes to electric signal-controlled nanoscale switching devices.


The paper describes a 16-GHz monolithic varactorless LC-tank VCO implemented in a 0.18-mum CMOS technology. Unlike the traditional tuning method by a varactor, in this work a tunable inductor, which is introduced by a transformer based on tuning currents from the active components controlled by the input voltage, is employed in the VCO. Without a varactor in the LC tank, the oscillator can easily arrive at the requirement for high-frequency operation. The VCO using a symmetry transformer provides the tuning range of 15.44 to 16.64 GHz (7.5%) at 1.8 V supply. With operating at 16-GHz frequency, the measured phase noise is -118.6 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset, and the VCO dissipates around 3.3 mA.


Explores atomic commitment among heterogeneous distributed databases. Two cases are considered, one where the individual databases participating in the system do not externalize their commit protocols, and one where the participating databases do externalize their commit protocols. With regard to the latter case, I propose new heterogeneous commit protocols, one for joining databases that have different 2-phase commit protocols, and one for uniting databases which employ a 3-phase protocol with others employing a 2-phase commit protocol.<<ETX>>


Currently, the availability and usefulness of computer applications developed supporting the teaching–learning process have increased and are progressively being used in different branches of education. Given the importance of emotions in learning, it is appropriate to review the influence of the use of technology in this field. Out of the many existing technologies, augmented reality (AR) has been of great interest to this study due to its great potential in learning. Therefore, the present study carries out a systematic mapping, whose objective is to review how AR technology influences the emotional state of the student in the learning process. The study indicates that the application of AR technology has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the use of AR on students produces enjoyment and interest due to visual feedback provided by AR, enthusiasm about the use of innovative technology tools, and curiosity when they view and interact with virtual objects in 3D. The attractive visualizations used and feedback generated by AR applications can reduce the cognitive load and increase student motivation in the learning process. On the other hand, AR may present some negative aspects, such as ergonomic problems, which produce that users prone to dizziness or nausea may reject the use of AR devices and a complex interaction when users must use multiple devices. Besides this, it should not be forgotten that their application may entail technological requirements and associated costs that may be difficult for some schools to afford.


Cataract is a leading cause of curable blindness. Hence, in its global declaration of 'Vision 2020 Right to Sight', the World Health Organization (WHO) encouraged its member countries to address the problem of incident cataract. Many factors are related to the cataract surgical coverage rate, such as gender and diabetes mellitus. The objective of this study was to determine the cataract surgical coverage rate and investigate the determinants factors of cataract surgical coverage rate among adults 40 years old and above with cataract. A cross sectional study was conducted using National Basic Health Research (RISKESDAS) 2007 data. Cataract surgery was defined as surgery conducted within the last 12 months before the survey was performed. There were 6939 subjects (3105 male, 3834 female) who fulfilled the study criteria. The cataract surgical coverage rate was 19.3%. The cataract surgical coverage rate was lower in subjects with low education, in the group of farmers/ fishermen/laborers, in the 40-49 years age group, in rural areas, and in subjects of low socioeconomic status (p<0.05). The cataract surgical coverage rate was not different between gender and diabetes mellitus (p>0.05). Determinants that were related to cataract surgical coverage rate were age, type of area of residence, socioeconomic status, and region of residence (p<0.001). The implementation of educational programs and reforms to local ophthalmic health services may improve the cataract surgical coverage rate.


Aim: To determine the neuromuscular recruitment characteristics during supramaximal exercise. Methods: Ten healthy subjects completed the Wingate anaerobic test (WAT) cycling protocol. Electromyographic (EMG) data and rate of fatigue were recorded throughout the cycling. Results: The mean (SD) rate of fatigue (decrease in power output) was 44.5 (8.6)%. No significant change was found in EMG amplitude. A significant decrease (p<0.01) in mean power frequency spectrum was found over the 30 second period. Conclusions: During WAT, mean power frequency spectrum was attenuated with no decline in EMG amplitude, which may be caused by an accumulation of metabolites in the periphery. However, it is also possible that the feedback loop from intramuscular metabolism to the central nervous system is unable, within the 30 second period of the WAT, to affect neural recruitment strategy.


Based on the background of the change in the urban–rural relationship in Guangdong Province, this paper constructs an analysis framework of urban and rural coordination development. Using the data of 19 administrative units above prefecture level in Guangdong Province, this paper studies the space–time evolution of urban and rural coordination development during 2000–2015 through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) and explores the influencing factors and driving forces behind it. It is found that there is club convergence in the urban and rural coordination development in Guangdong Province. This kind of convergence is reflected in the findings that the east bank of the Pearl River estuary is the best area for the urban and rural coordination development where Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen is the core and the level of urban and rural coordination development in the east, west and north of Guangdong Province is relatively low, which also reflects a geographical polarization feature. Based on the analysis of the factors that promote the urban and rural coordination development in the main years of 2000–2015, it can be concluded that location, economic development and urbanization level are the most important driving forces, followed by industrial structure. This research can be used as a decision-making reference for urban and rural coordination development and new countryside construction in China in the New Era.


Transient implantable medical bionics offer great promise in the field of smart controlled release and tissue regeneration. On-board energy storage is the ideal power system to drive them. In this work, a critical component of such a device, a biodegradable polymer electrolyte (silk fibroin–choline nitrate) has been developed. The efficiency of this electrolyte is demonstrated when deployed in a biodegradable thin-film magnesium battery. The battery, encapsulated in silk, offers a specific capacity of 0.06 mAh cm–2. The enzymatic degradation of the whole device occurs over 45 days in the buffered protease XIV solution. A programmed battery lifetime can be achieved using silk protection layers. This battery system provides a new avenue for an on-board biodegradable power source for next-generation transient medical bionics.


Introduction. Exosomes are small vesicles (50-100 nm) of endocytic origin, which are released in the extra-cellular milieu by several cell types. Exosomes play a role in tumor progression since they have been shown to carry and transfer microRNAs (miRNAs) to recipient cells. In this study, we sought to characterize circulating exosomes in Multiple Myeloma (MM) patients and to assess the prognostic value of circulating exosomal miRNAs in a cohort of 112 newly diagnosed MM patients.

Methods. Exosomes were isolated from peripheral blood (serum samples) using an ultracentrifugation protocol and Exoquick® solution. They were characterized using electron microscopy with immunogold labeling for the detection of CD63 and CD81, as well as for size using Nanosight® analysis. MiRNAs were isolated using miRNeasy micro kit (Qiagen®) and profiled using nCounter miRNA expression assay (Nanostring® Technologies) in 5 healthy donors (HD) and 10 MM patients. We next studied a cohort of 112 newly diagnosed MM patients uniformly treated with Bortezomib-Dexamethasone (4 cycles) followed by high dose Melphalan and autotransplant on the IFM 2005-01 Phase III Trial. After exosome isolation and miRNA extraction, we performed a low density qRT-PCR miRNA array using Taqman Array Micro Fluidic Cards for a panel of 23 specific miRNAs. Data were normalized by robust median global normalization and conditional inference tree was used to select the cut-point for miRNA levels. Kaplan-Meier estimation, Log-Rank test and Cox regression were used to assess progression-free survival (PFS).

Results. Circulating exosomes were first characterized from 5 HD and 10 MM patients. CD63 and CD81 expression was demonstrated by immunogold labeling and electron microscopy. The size (approx. 100nm) and concentration of peripheral blood exosomes did not differ between HD and MM patients using Nanosight® analysis. We next performed a miRNA array (Nanostring) and identified differentially expressed miRNAs in circulating exosomes from MM patients compared to HD. Notably, the miR-17/92, -106b/25, -106a/363 clusters were more highly expressed and the cluster miR-15a/16 and let-7 family members were down regulated in circulating exosomes from MM patients as compared to HD. We then designed a panel of 23 specific miRNAs from circulating exosomes in MM and performed a Taqman Low Density Array on a cohort of 112 patients who were newly diagnosed and therapy-naive in the IFM 2005-01 Phase III Trial or treated as such. The mean patient's age was 61 years, 36% of patients had a 13q deletion, 7% a t(4;14) and 4% a 17p deletion. ISS stage I, II and III distribution was 37%, 39% and 21% respectively. The median follow up was 5.4 years. Among tumor suppressor miRNAs, we found that patients with lower let-7e levels before treatment had significantly shorter PFS compared to patients with higher levels of let-7e ( P <0.001). The median PFS was 2.46 years and 4.06 years respectively in low and high let-7e level groups (Figure). A multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was fitted and included ISS (III vs. I), cytogenetics (17p deletion and t(4;14) vs. no abnormality) and let-7e expression (high vs. low). This indicated that decreased let-7e expression is associated with decreased PFS [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.4; P =.0004] after adjusting for the effects of ISS stage (HR=1.4; P =.261) and adverse cytogenetic status (HR=1.8; P =.096).

Conclusion. These findings indicate that circulating exosomes differ between normal and MM patients in terms of miRNA content. In this study, we report for the first time the prognostic impact of exosomal miRNA content in MM. The data presented here indicate that circulating exosomal levels of let7-e are an independent predictor of PFS in patients with MM who are therapy-naive.

![Figure 1][1]

Figure 1
Kaplan-Meier PFS curves by let-7e exosome levels in 112 patients with MM

Disclosures Anderson: Celgene: Consultancy; Sanofi-Aventis: Consultancy; Onyx: Consultancy; Acetylon: Scientific Founder, Scientific Founder Other; Oncoprep: Scientific Founder Other; Gilead Sciences: Consultancy. Ghobrial: Sanofi: Research Funding; Noxxon: Research Funding; BMS: Advisory board, Advisory board Other, Research Funding; Onyx: Advisory board Other.

 [1]: pending:yes


Oak Ridge National Laboratory is developing remote excavation technologies for the Office of Technology Development, Robotics Technology Development Program. This work is being done to meet the need for remote excavation and removal of radioactive and contaminated buried waste at several DOE sites. System requirements are based on the need to uncover and remove waste from burial sites in a way that does not cause unnecessary personnel exposure or additional environmental contamination. Goals for the current project are to demonstrate dexterous control of a backhoe with force feedback and to implement robotic operations that will improve productivity. The Telerobotic Small Emplacement Excavator is a prototype system that incorporates the needed robotic and telerobotic capabilities on a commercially available platform. The ability to add remote dexterous teleoperation and robotic operating modes is intended to be adaptable to other commercially available excavator systems.


Background: Elbow capitellum fractures are rare and represent an incidence of 1.5 per 100,000 distal humerus fractures. The objective of this workis to present a functional evaluation of patients treated with open reduction and internal fixation of isolated capitellum fractures. Material and Methods: Retrospective study of four patients with capitellum fractures, with one year of follow-up. The patients were evaluated with functional scales: the Mayo Elbow Score and the Disability of Arm, Shoulder and Hand scale, and measured the range of motion of the elbow in flexion, extension, pronation and supination. Results: The range of age was 14 to 71 years old. In the Mayo Elbow Score, at the end of follow-up, all the patients obtained a result of 100 points; and in the Disability of Arm, Shoulder and Hand scale, the result was 0. The mobility of the elbow was 130º of flexion, -5º of extension, pronation and supination of 80º. Conclusion: The functional results of isolated capitellum fractures treated with open reduction and internal fixation was excellent in this case series. We need to know and recognize this fracture to make and adequate treatment and obtain a good clinical result. Evidence: IV Case series.


Data from five almost identical protocols have been pooled to give the results of treatment with lamotrigine in 285 children with refractory epilepsy. All the children received lamotrigine as open, add-on therapy and efficacy was assessed after the first 12 weeks of maintenance dosage. More than 50% reduction in seizures was achieved for over 30% of patients with complex partial, secondary generalized tonic-clonic, myoclonic, primary generalized tonic-clonic and atonic seizures; and, more than 50% of those with typical or atypical absences. In children treated for more than a year, there was no evidence of development of tolerance. Evaluations by investigators and parents found lamotrigine to improve the child globally in 74% of cases. Lamotrigine was well tolerated. Dizziness, unsteadiness and other non-specific side-effects that have been noted in a small minority of adults were rarely complained of by children. Rash was the most frequently reported side effect, leading to withdrawal of the drug in 7.4% of patients. However, the rate was lower when lamotrigine dosage was increased slowly as recommended. Data from other, smaller trials have also been reviewed and it is concluded that lamotrigine is a very well tolerated drug with a broad spectrum of efficacy.


The purpose of this paper is three-fold: (1) this editorial viewpoint gives context to the manuscripts included in this special issue on pandemics and epidemics. (2) The viewpoint frames a research agenda for the vital work necessary to understand and make the humanitarian supply chain more resilient. (3) The authors hope that the viewpoint as well as the included papers contribute to the dialogue and facilitate a research program over the short- to medium-term about mass complex disasters, including epidemics and pandemics, and their effects on the humanitarian supply chain and logistics.,The paper examines COVID-19 response by focusing on the USA as a mini case study. It utilizes contemporaneous reporting in USA newspapers between February and July of 2020. Reports made during an incident or event provide some of the most accurate records of that event and point to gaps in our understanding of research in the humanitarian supply chain.,The novel COVID-19 pandemic highlights unanticipated ways that pandemics and epidemics impact HLSCM and display the supply chain's fragility in stark terms. The paper layouts some of the thematic issues that emerged from COVID-19 that could point the way for future research in the field in the short run.,The articles accessed for the paper dated February–July 2020. With the pandemic ongoing, many more thematic areas or more enduring ones might surface that could change the direction of the findings or recommendations. In addition, relying on secondary sources like newspapers for this research largely depends on the quality of the reports. Moreover, newspaper articles are not as scientifically robust as are academic journals as some. The viewpoints could be biased. It is also difficult to verify the best news sources, if they are not known a priori.,Thematic lessons from America's COVID-19 impact set the stage for future research agenda in the humanitarian supply chain and logistics response over the next few years. There will be other pandemics. The question is not if, but when.,The COVID-19 pandemic makes it impossible for us to ignore the link between the global supply chain, natural and human-made disasters, including epidemics and pandemics, environmental degradation and deforestation.,The paper's originality lies it being one of the first, if not the first, to deal with this topic within the operations/logistics/supply chain management field. It therefore helps to pave the way for other perspectives and approaches to understand and advance the field of humanitarian logistics and supply chain management.


In surgery operations, wound should be cleaned with warm sterilized saline solution. In order to reach rapidly warming the washing solution from the room temperature during the surgery, we designed a thermostatic medical infusion pump. The present paper mainly presents researches on the two temperature control methods in the standby mode and in the flushing mode of the system. In the standby mode, the traditional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control algorithm was adopted. In the flushing mode, dynamic characteristics of the system was changed in real time, which made the thermostatic control process more complex, and the fitted control function combined with the PID control algorithm was adopted in this mode. The temperature control parameters were adjusted in real time according to the initial temperature and the flow rate of the washing solution to obtain a constant temperature of the washing solution, no matter how the initial temperature and the flow rate are changed. The experiment results showed that this kind of control system performed well with a high accuracy.


The problem of planning a mobile cellular radio network involves the allocation of channels to base stations so as to ensure that the network can carry sufficient traffic while avoiding interference conflicts. An optimum algorithm for this purpose would meet these constraints while allocating a minimum number of radio channels. The mathematical formulation of this problem reveals that it is a nondeterministic complete polynomial for which the time to solve scales exponentially with its size. The authors extend a technique previously used to address the travelling salesman problem. A method of solution is developed which analytically determines a valid subspace in which solutions must lie before an energy minimisation argument is applied. This approach is shown to simplify the solution technique and guarantees the traffic demand constraints are enforced.


EMV signature is one of specifications for authenticating credit and debit card data, which is based on ISO/IEC 9796-2 signature scheme. At CRYPTO 2009, Coron, Naccache, Tibouchi, and Weinmann proposed a new forgery attack against the signature ISO/IEC 9796-2 (CNTW attack) [2]. They also briefly discussed the possibility when the attack is applied to the EMV signatures. They showed that the forging cost is $45,000 and concluded that the attack could not forge them for operational reason. However their results are derived from not fully analysis under only one condition. The condition they adopt is typical case. For security evaluation, fully analysis and an estimation in worst case are needed. This paper shows cost-estimation of CNTW attack against EMV signature in detail. We constitute an evaluate model and show cost-estimations under all conditions that Coron et al. do not estimate. As results, this paper contribute on two points. One is that our detailed estimation reduced the forgery cost from $45,000 to $35,200 with same condition as [2]. Another is to clarify a fact that EMV signature can be forged with less than $2,000 according to a condition. This fact shows that CNTW attack might be a realistic threat.


In this paper, the performance of dynamic resource allocation and channel de-allocation in integrated voice/data wireless networks with link adaptation is mathematically analyzed and evaluated. To our knowledge, all previous related works published in the literature have considered only link adaptation (LA) or dynamic resource allocation (DRA) separately. Additionally, a DRA strategy with link quality-aware prioritized channel de-allocation (called DRA LA DAS) is proposed. With the DRA LA DAS scheme that calls with the greatest number of channels and the worst link quality are degraded first. In this way, in DRA LA DAS preference is given to data users with good quality link which, on average, retain resources less time than data users with bad quality link. Numerical results show that the proposed DRA LA DAS strategy significantly improves system performance. The GSM/GPRS system is used as a case study. The GSM voice new call blocking and forced termination probabilities, GPRS packet dropping probability, average GPRS packet transmission time, and channel utilization are analyzed


Architecture processes are considerably new parts of organisations' processes. These processes have the responsibility to aim at high quality and financially successful architectures. However, the activities which promote this aim are not clearly defined yet. This study reviews literature and practitioners' experiences on quality management activities that could be suggested to promote the achievement of high quality software architectures and a good quality software architecture process. These activities are proposed to be taken into account in the software architecture process design, development and capability assessment.


Bogotá is a city of around 8 million inhabitants, composed of migrants from across Colombia, but mainly descendants from Spaniards or mestizos. Black or Afro-Colombian residents represent just 1.5% of the urban population. Increasingly, larger numbers of Afro-Colombians are migrating to the city for different reasons: internal conflict (internally displaced people) or the search for economic opportunities (economically displaced people), among others. Though racism in Colombia is not considered a social problem, in fact, racial discrimination persists in the imaginary of a large segment of the population, making the urban integration of Afro-Colombians a stressful and difficult process. As a result, many black settlements have emerged across the city, creating zones that separate them from the rest of the city, and stress the cultural traits and ethnic identity of their inhabitants. This paper tries to assess the urban dynamics that might explain the living conditions and the modes of insertion of Afro-Colombian residents in large cities like Bogotá that are both racially diverse and racially segregated.