Control of systems that have had their passive input–output map partially violated is the motivation of this study. The hybrid passivity/finite-gain systems framework is specifically well suited to systems that have experienced a passivity violation. The focus of this study is the extension and application of the hybrid passivity/finite-gain systems framework to a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) control problem. Calculation of the hybrid passivity/finite-gain parameters in a linear time-invariant (LTI) MIMO context is considered. Additionally, we show that a set of hybrid very strictly passive/finite-gain (VSP/finite-gain) controllers gain-scheduled in a particular way also possesses hybrid VSP/finite-gain properties. To synthesise hybrid VSP/finite-gain controllers a frequency-weighted optimal control scheme is used to parameterise controllers that are then constrained and optimised within a numerical optimisation framework. The theoretical contributions of this work are validated experimentally using a two-link flexible manipulator apparatus. Results highlight the utility of the hybrid passivity/finite-gain framework, the scheduling scheme and controller design method.


Mechanical avalanches during compression of martensitic porous Ti-Ni have been characterized by high-frequency acoustic emission (AE). Two sequences of AE signals were found in the same sample. The first sequence is mainly generated by detwinning at the early stages of compression while fracture dominates the later stages. Fracture also determines the catastrophic failure (big crash). For high-porosity samples, the AE energies of both sequences display power-law distributions with exponents ɛ≃2 (twinning) and 1.7 (fracture). The two power laws confirm that twinning and fracture both lead to avalanche criticality during compression. As twinning precedes fracture, the observation of twinning allows us to predict incipient fracture of the porous shape memory material as an early warning sign (i.e., in bone implants) before the fracture collapse actually happens.


Modelling and Simulation of Packed Bed Catalytic Converter for Oxidation of Soot in Diesel Powered Vehicles Flue Gas. Diesel vehicle is used in Indonesia in very big number. This vehicle exhausts pollutants especially diesel soot that can be reduces by using a catalytic converter to convert the soot to CO2. To obtain the optimal dimension of catalytic converter it is needed a model that can represent the profile of soot weight, temperature and pressure along the catalytic converter. In this study, a model is developed for packed bed catalytic converter in an adiabatic condition based on a kinetic study that has been reported previously. Calculation of developed equations in this model uses Polymath 5.X solver with Range Kutta Method. The simulation result shows that temperature profile along catalytic converter increases with the decrease of soot weight, while pressure profile decreases. The increase of soot weight in entering gas increases the needed converter length. On the other hand, the increase of catalyst diameter does not affect to soot weight along converter and temperature profile, but results a less pressure drop. For 2.500 c diesel engine, packed bed catalytic converter with ellipse's cross sectional of 14,5X7,5 cm diagonal and 0,8 cm catalyst particle diameter, needs 4,1 cm length.


ABSTRACT The status and quality of vocational education and training (VET) represent a challenge in many countries, including Norway. In recent decades the political goal in Norway has been to ensure that vocational programmes at upper secondary level achieve equal status with academic programmes. Considerable efforts have been made to strengthen the quality of vocational programmes to achieve this. This article presents an analysis of the challenges of the school-based part of Norwegian VET. The analysis is particularly directed at issues of vocational relevance and coherence between the educational content and the qualification needs of the vocations. The aim is to identify the obstacles to relevance and coherence and show the attempts made to strengthen both quality and status.


We propose and experimentally demonstrate an electrically programmable second order optical temporal differentiator (OTD) based on linearly chirped fiber Bragg grating (LCFBG) and digital thermal print head (TPH). For the high-speed optical signal with 25-GHz repetition rate, an efficient second-order OTD has been achieved for arbitrary wavelength and bandwidth with the software-defined TPH configurations. By optimizing the thermooptic effect induced optical phase change in the LCFBG, the central wavelength of the differentiator can be reconfigured flexibly from 1543.5 to 1561.7 nm, with a step size of 0.114 nm. By dynamically controlling the heating elements bonded with the LCFBG, optical pulses with 0.55- and 0.8-nm 3-dB bandwidths have been successfully processed with acceptable deviation compared with the theoretical calculations.


The real-time visualization of 3D GIS at a whole city scale always faces the challenge of dynamic data loading with high-efficiency. Based on the multi-tier distributed 3D GIS framework, this paper presents a multi-level cache approach for dynamic data loading. It aims to establish in 3D GIS spatial database engine (3DGIS-SDE) the unified management mechanism of caches on three levels, including: the client memory cache (CMC) oriented to sharing application, the client file cache (CFC) organized by index, as well as the application server memory cache (ASMC) of structural consistency. With the help of the proposed optimized cache replacement policy, multi-level cache consistency maintenance as well as multithread loading model designed in the paper, the engine is able to adaptively make full use of each-level caches according to their own application properties and achieve effective coordination between them. Finally, a practical 3D GIS database based on Oracle 11g is employed for test. The experimental results prove this approach could satisfy multi-user concurrent applications of 3D visual exploration.


Background: In indonesia, stunted, waste and undernutrition  children remain nutrition problems. Primary health survey indicated that as many as 35,6% under five children were stunted, 13,3% waste and 17,9 were undernutrition. Objective: to investigate the effect of KAP (knowledge, attitude and practice) of responsive feeding  intervention on complementary feeding and children's weight. Methods: the study used quasi experiment design. There were 70 children on both groups. Intervention group was given 3 times counselling, home visit completed with video, brochures, and modul,  meanwhile comparative group was given general health information. Results: the study showed that responsive feeding intervention through communication, information and  education has positif effect on the responsive feeding practice (p=0,001) yet did not at knowledge, attitude toward responsive feeding (p=0,905 dan p=0,728) and the increase of children's weight (p=0,402).


Background Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) in pregnancy has serious implications and requires multidisciplinary management. This becomes even more complicated in the setting of active disease and history of prior vascular grafts. Case A woman presented with increasing left lower extremity pain at 18 weeks of gestation with a complex history of PAD and a previous bifurcated aorta-left femoral, -right iliac bypass. CT angiogram demonstrated known occluded bypass graft. A multidisciplinary team of providers developed guidelines for potential surgical intervention based upon clinical symptoms. Conclusion Pelvic PAD can worsen in pregnancy in the setting of the enlarging uterus, which can potentially deplete perfusion of existing collateral vessels. Symptomatic approach to worsening disease provided an effective management strategy in this case.


The leading strategy towards eradication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is the depletion of viral reservoirs through reversal of viral latency, followed by clearance of persistently infected cells. To date, a latency reversing agent (LRA) that reactivates a majority of the quiescent provirus population, without significant off-target effects, has not been identified. We show here that molecules mimicking the active N-terminal tetrapeptide of the second mitochondrial-derived activator of caspases (SMACm) potently reverse HIV latency in vitro and ex vivo without the pleotropic cellular effects seen with other LRA. We verified that SMACm facilitate latency reversal through activation of the non-canonical NFkB pathway as exemplified by rapid degradation of cellular inhibitor of apoptosis protein 1 (cIAP1), followed by a slower conversion of the inactive p100 form of NFκB2 into the active p52 transcription factor. A potent representative of this class, AZD5582, increases cell-associated HIV RNA expression in resting CD4+ T cells from ART-suppressed, HIV-infected donors while altering the expression of a restricted number of human genes. These findings represent the first demonstration that SMACm have single agent latency reversal activity in patient-derived cells and support evaluation of this class of molecules in preclinical animal models.


Abstract In 1992–1993 we replicated a mourning dove Zenaida macroura marginella study conducted in 1951–1952 near Fillmore, Utah, to document differences in nesting activity between time periods. Nests along irrigation canals averaged 6.8 nests/km in 1993 vs 36.9 nests/km in 1952. Dove production was 2.4 offspring per pair in 1993 vs 3.9 offspring per pair in 1952, and nest abandonment was higher: 12.9 vs 6.2%, respectively. No differences occurred in nest success (57.1 vs 57.4%) or nest predation (35.7 vs 29.6%). The breeding season was 80 days in 1952, 75 days in 1992, and 70 days in 1993. Nest height was lower in 1992–1993 than in 1951–1952, and nest frequency by vegetation type changed from predominately willow Salix spp. to a broader distribution of nests among available vegetation types. Two distinct riparian habitats existed in both time periods: a natural creek and man-made irrigation canals. The highest nest density occurred in riparian areas during both time periods, but the relative number of nests within these riparian habitats differed, with the highest number of nets occurring along the creek in 1992–1993 and along the irrigation canals in 1951–1952. The highest predation rates occurred in creek habitat during 1992–1993.


Background: Insulin-like growth factor receptor 1 (IGF-1R) is a key player in a wide array of pathological processes, while the prognostic role of IGF-1R in lung cancer remains controversial. Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the prognostic value of IGF-1R in lung cancer. We searched for recent studies on the expression of IGF-1R and extracted prognostic lung cancer data from the articles. Results: Eventually, 22 studies with 3859 patients were analyzed in our meta-analysis. Hazard ratios (HRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to quantify the ability of IGF-1R to predict survival. The results indicated that IGF-1R positive expression was associated with an unfavorable disease-free survival (DFS) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients on univariate analysis (HR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.00–1.55, P = .054) and multivariate analysis (HR = 1.49, 95% CI: 1.01–2.21, P = .045), but there was no significant difference in the relationship between IGF-1R positive expression and overall survival (OS) on univariate analysis (HR = 1.04, 95% CI: 0.86–1.25, P = .712) and multivariate analysis (HR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.57–1.39, P = .602). IGF-1R mRNA expression related to OS was obtained in 2 studies, with the pooled HR being 1.663 (95% CI: 1.071–2.583, P = .024). For IGF-1R expression and small cell lung cancer (SCLC), the conclusion was not statistically significant, with the pooled HR being 1.22 (95% CI: 0.66–2.27, P = .524). Conclusions: Our results indicate that high expression of IGF-1R predicts poor DFS in NSCLC, yet it does not predict poor OS in NSCLC and SCLC. IGF-1R may be a useful predictor of outcomes in patients with NSCLC.


The purpose of this paper is to optimize a wireless link which uses forward error correction (FEC), modulation gain, and for data services, automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocols, with the aim to minimize the bandwidth required. Simulations are used to derive bit error rate values for a range of modulation and FEC code rate parameters. These parameters are optimized to maximize efficiency. We demonstrate that optimal adaptive modulation provides significant efficiency gains. We actually question the use of FEC for a wide (practical) range of signal-to-noise ratios, and demonstrate that in the case of data traffic, optimal adaptive modulation together with ARQ retransmission, in the absence of FEC, provides better efficiency, and/or QoS, than the same system with FEC. Similar results are achieved also for video, where ARQ is not used.


The wind field at sea is of considerable interest to identify suitable sites and for designing offshore wind energy production facility. However, the reliability of wind information suffers from the relative scarcity of offshore wind measurements to validate the wind models used in assessments. This paper presents a comparison of the publicly available NOAA-CFSR global re-analysis data set against offshore wind measurement collected in West Africa, Mediterranean Sea, Barents Sea and NW Australia, with the goal to investigate — in widely different meteorological conditions — the overall model reliability, in term of statistical indices of performance: Moreover, an attempt has been made to ascertain the representative averaging duration of model wind and the reliability of engineering formulas used to correlate wind of different averaging durations.


HIGHLIGHTS This paper analyses the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the Ghana VPA process. The identified weaknesses undermine the strengths. The multi-stakeholder platform is seen as a top-down process. The VPA has influenced legal reforms and brought some legal clarity, yet implementing the reforms remains a challenge. Implementing agencies need to address the unequal power relations between domestic actors if forest governance issues are to be addressed. SUMMARY The European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) is an important international forest governance initiative, yet various implementation challenges remain. The FLEGT VPA implementation challenges are well-documented in the scientific literature, where various methodologies and research approaches have been used. As the empirical case indicated various contradicting and overlapping claims, where different respondents framed the same situations as strengths as well as weaknesses, and/or as threats as well as opportunities, we used the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) approach to assess the associated governance changes in FLEGT VPA implementation in Ghana. This paper offers new insights derived from participant observation of the second independent technical evaluation of the Ghana Timber Legality Assurance System (GhTLAS) conducted in July 2019, and from semi-structured interviews with key informants and a document review. What are considered the greatest perceived strengths – namely multi-stakeholder engagement, clarification of regulatory frameworks, and access to information – are brought into question once the identified weaknesses and threats are explored in more detail. The identified weaknesses include the top-down nature of the multi-stakeholder process, fatigue related to additional legality principles, and bureaucracy of the GhTLAS, which negatively affect VPA implementation activities and processes in Ghana.


Air-borne pollen is known as one of the major causal agents to respiratory allergic reactions. The daily number of pollen grains was monitored using Burkard volumetric spore traps at eight locations including Seoul and Jeju during 1997-2005. Pollen grains were observed throughout the year especially from February to November. They showed similar distribution patterns of species among locations except Jeju, where Japanese cedar vegetation is uniquely found. The peak seasons for pollen grains from trees, grasses, and weeds were from March to May, May to September, and August to October. Tree pollens were mainly composed of pine, oak, alder, and birch. Weed pollens were mainly from Japanese hop, sagebrush, and ragweed. The diameter of pollen grains, which has a typical range of 20~60 μm, has close relationship with allergenicity. The allergenicity of trees and weed pollens is higher than that of grass pollens in general. Daily fluctuations in the amount of pollens have to do with a variety of meteorological factors such as temperature, rainfall, and the duration of sunshine. Temperature and rainfall are especially decisive in determining pollen concentrations. Ten weather elements that are thought to affect the concentration of pollens are used to develop equations for the pollen forecasts. Predictive equations for each pollen species and month are developed based on statistical analyses using observed data during the last 5 years in Seoul through a co-work with the Committee of Pollen Study in Korean Academy of Pediatric Allergy and Respiratory Diseases and National Institute of Meteorological Research.


The aim of this article is to assess, by way of an empirically based analysis, whether or not the price behavior of newspapers, both on reader and advertising markets, is affected by consolidation. Two questions related to consolidation are investigated. The first relates to the extent to which consolidation between regional newspapers in the same area leads to a change in either the subscription price or in the real advertising costs. The second investigates whether a merger between newspaper publishing companies leads to a change in the subscription price of their newspapers or in the real advertising costs. Newspapers that were directly or indirectly involved in consolidations did not show a more detrimental pricing behavior to consumers than the other dailies.


OBJECTIVE
Titanium in other parts of the body, well known for its biocompatibility, was examined in an animal model for its use as an ossicular replacement material.

STUDY DESIGN
The biocompatibility of titanium was studied in the middle ear of rabbits using light and scanning electron microscopy. Titanium pins were placed as middle ear prostheses or as free implants and were examined after 28, 84, 168, and 336 days.

RESULTS
After 28 days, the prostheses were covered by regular mucosa. The free implants took up to 336 days to be totally epithelialized. There were no inflammatory cells observed on the surface of the material nor were unusual amounts of fibrous tissue seen. In addition, the titanium material exhibited an affinity toward bone.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this animal experiment indicate that titanium is a useful material for ossicular replacement prostheses.


Objective To investigate the association between functional tumor burden of peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) derived from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and overall survival in patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma (OC). Materials and Methods This prospective study was approved by the local research ethics committee, and informed consent was obtained. Fifty patients (mean age ± standard deviation, 57 ± 12 years) with stage III–IV OC scheduled for primary or interval debulking surgery (IDS) were recruited between June 2016 and December 2021. DWI (b values: 0, 400, and 800 s/mm2) was acquired with a 16-channel phased-array torso coil. The functional PC burden on DWI was derived based on K-means clustering to discard fat, air, and normal tissue. A score similar to the surgical peritoneal cancer index was assigned to each abdominopelvic region, with additional scores assigned to the involvement of critical sites, denoted as the functional peritoneal cancer index (fPCI). The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of the largest lesion was calculated. Patients were dichotomized by immediate surgical outcome into high- and low-risk groups (with and without residual disease, respectively) with subsequent survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier curve and log-rank test. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the association between DWI-derived results and overall survival. Results Fifteen (30.0%) patients underwent primary debulking surgery, and 35 (70.0%) patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by IDS. Complete tumor debulking was achieved in 32 patients. Patients with residual disease after debulking surgery had reduced overall survival (p = 0.043). The fPCI/ADC was negatively associated with overall survival when accounted for clinicopathological information with a hazard ratio of 1.254 for high fPCI/ADC (95% confidence interval, 1.007–1.560; p = 0.043). Conclusion A high DWI-derived functional tumor burden was associated with decreased overall survival in patients with advanced OC.


Recently, the American Thyroid Association (ATA)2 issued new guidelines for the diagnosis and management of thyroid diseases during pregnancy and the postpartum period (1). The document is an excellent review of current literature relating to the assessment of thyroid status during pregnancy. While universal screening for thyroid disease before or during pregnancy remains controversial, thyroid status can be accurately screened with thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and additional testing such as free thyroxine (FT4) is required only when TSH is abnormal. However, one of the recommendations of the ATA document stood out: Recommendation 3 reads, "Accurate estimation of the FT4 concentrations can also be done by calculating a FT4 index." The FT4 index is a virtually obsolete estimation of FT4 that has been replaced by newer and more accurate FT4 immunoassays and LC-MS/MS. This recommendation is based on the panel's observation that "Current uncertainty around FT4 estimates in pregnancy has led some to question the wisdom of relying on any FT4 immunoassays during pregnancy." Here I would like to review the source of this uncertainty and propose an alternative interpretation of the literature.

### SOURCES OF UNCERTAINTY

In 1991, Roti et al. compared 10 different radioimmunoassay methods for free triiodothyronine (FT3) and FT4 (2). They observed that whereas FT4 concentrations were often lower in pregnant (third trimester) women than nonpregnant women, the TSH concentrations remained within the reference interval. These findings suggested that many of the assays available at that time for the measurement of serum free thyroid hormone concentrations did not seem adequate to evaluate the real thyroid status of pregnant women. Indeed, since then numerous studies have demonstrated that FT4 measured by …


The relative growth of field and metric perturbations during preheating is sensitive to initial conditions set in the preceding inflationary phase. Recent work suggests this may protect super-Hubble metric perturbations from resonant amplification during preheating. We show that this possibility is fragile and sensitive to the specific form of the interactions between the inflaton and other fields. The suppression is naturally absent in two classes of preheating in which either: (1) the vacua of the noninflaton fields during inflation are deformed away from the origin; or (2) the effective masses of noninflaton fields during inflation are small but during preheating are large. Unlike the simple toy model of a g2Φ2χ2 coupling, most realistic particle physics models contain these other features. Moreover, they generically lead to both adiabatic and isocurvature modes and non-Gaussian scars on super-Hubble scales. Large-scale coherent magnetic fields may also appear naturally.


An apparatus and method that can allow continuous and precise total collection of urine under normal conditions was developed that could satisfy the urine-sampling requirement of balance studies, metabolic experiments, and hormone trials of cows and heifers. The apparatus is composed of an anterior urethra, a urine cup, and a collection barrel. Total and precise collection of urine can be achieved without leakage, fecal contamination, or urethra infection. The apparatus has few negative effects on the cows and does not influence the cows' normal physiological activities.


Abstract. We have proposed and demonstrated numerically an ultrasmall and highly sensitive plasmonic hydrogen sensor based on an integrated microring resonator, with a footprint size as small as 4×4  μm2. With a palladium (Pd) or platinum (Pt) hydrogen-sensitive layer coated on the inner surface of the microring resonator and the excitation of surface plasmon modes at the interface from the microring resonator waveguide, the device is highly sensitive to low hydrogen concentration variation, and the sensitivity is at least one order of magnitude larger than that of the optical fiber-based hydrogen sensor. We have also investigated the tradeoff between the portion coverage of the Pd/Pt layer and the sensitivity, as well as the width of the hydrogen-sensitive layer. This ultrasmall plasmonic hydrogen sensor holds promise for the realization of a highly compact sensor with integration capability for applications in hydrogen fuel economy.


This paper is intended for military officers on rifle platoon commander duty to help them in decision making about platoon command organization. Management and command in Serbian Armed Forces rifle platoon are mostly based on experiences of twenty century. Contemporary environment influence on missions of armed forces and surely influence on tactics. To be able to perform given tasks rifle platoon commanders must know how to adopt platoon organisation as a system of sections. This paper gives better understanding how rifle platoon commander could organise subordinated units depending on various duties and weapon systems.


This paper discusses the development of handbook techniques for the preliminary assessment of V/STOL aircraft performance while hovering in the proximity of the ground. In particular, the suckdown forces due to entrainment are described for configurations using a single jet. Corrections to current methods are suggested from an analysis of recent large-scale test data.


Mutation analysis is a well-known testing criterion that involves seeding changes in the system under test, i.e. creating mutants, to simulate faults, and measuring the capacity of the test suite to detect these changes. The question of whether real faults are coupled with the mutants is central, as it determines whether tests that detect the mutants will also detect faults that actually occur in code, making the mutants reasonable test requirements. Prior work has explored this question, notably using the Defects4J dataset in Java. As the dataset and the mutation tools used in these prior works have evolved, this work re-visits this question using the newest available versions in order to strengthen and extend prior results. In this work we use 337 real faults from 15 different projects in the Defects4J 2.0.0 dataset, 2,828 test suites, and two well-known Java mutation testing tools (Major and Pitest) to explore (i) to what extent real faults are coupled with mutants, (ii) how both tools compare in terms of producing mutants coupled with faults, (iii) the characteristics of the mutants that are coupled with real faults, and (iv) the characteristics of faults not coupled with the mutants. Most (80.7%) of the faults used were coupled with at least one mutant created by Pitest or Major, most often with mutants created by both tools. All operators used produced a low (<4%) proportion of coupled mutants, although some operators are exclusively coupled to more faults, i.e. coupled to faults where no other operator produces coupled mutants. Finally, faults not coupled with any mutants usually had small fix patches, and although the code related to these faults was mostly affected by the mutation operators used the mutants produces were still not coupled. Results confirm previous findings showing that the coupling effect mostly holds but that additional mutation operators are needed to capture all faults.


Matrilysin is known to play an important role in tumor invasion, but it is not known yet whether there is a direct relationship between matrilysin expression and cell proliferation. Therefore, we compared expression of matrilysin with expression of Ki-67, a marker of cell proliferation, at different tumor areas in 130 advanced gastric carcinomas. Both matrilysin and Ki-67 were distributed heterogeneously in tumor tissue. Matrilysin frequently was expressed at the invasive front, whereas Ki-67-positive cells frequently were located both at the tumor surface and in central tumor cell nests. The patterns of gastric cancer cell invasion into the surrounding tissues are described as alpha-infiltration, beta-infiltration, and gamma-infiltration, respectively, according to the guidelines of the Japanese Research Society for Gastric Cancer Study. The mean matrilysin labeling index (LI) of gamma-infiltration tumors at the invasive front was significantly greater than that of alpha- and beta-infiltration tumors (P =.01). In contrast to the matrilysin LI, the mean Ki-67 LI of gamma-infiltration tumors was significantly lower than that of alpha- and beta-infiltration tumors (P =.02). Moreover, Ki-67 antigen was absent in matrilysin-positive tumor cells and vice versa. We concluded that matrilysin expression was related inversely with proliferative activity of tumor cells and that matrilysin expression could possibly serve as a useful marker of tumor invasion.


Epizootic congenital abnormalities, encephalomyelitis and febrile illnesses in cattle caused by arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) are prevalent in Japan. Causative viruses including orthobunyaviruses, orbiviruses and rhabdovirus are thought to be transmitted by Culicoides biting midges. Recently, the incursions of several arboviruses, potentially Culicoides-borne, were newly confirmed in Japan. However, their spread pattern and exact vector species are currently uncertain. Attempts to isolate arboviruses from Culicoides biting midges and sentinel cattle were conducted in Kagoshima, located at the southernmost end of the main islands of Japan, a potentially high-risk area for incursion of arboviral diseases and outbreak of endemic ones. Seventy-eight isolates comprising Akabane, Peaton and Sathuperi viruses of the genus Orthobunyavirus of the family Bunyaviridae, bluetongue virus serotype 16, D'Aguilar virus, Bunyip Creek virus and epizootic haemorrhagic disease virus serotype 1 of the genus Orbivirus of the family Reoviridae, a potentially novel rhabdovirus of the genus Ephemerovirus and unidentified orbivirus-like viruses were obtained from Culicoides biting midges and sentinel cattle between 2003 and 2013. Akabane, Sathuperi, D'Aguilar and Bunyip Creek viruses were selectively isolated from Culicoides oxystoma, suggesting this vector's responsibility for these arbovirus outbreaks. The results of virus isolation also implied that C. tainanus, C. jacobsoni and C. punctatus are competent for the transmission of bluetongue virus serotype 16, Peaton virus and epizootic haemorrhagic disease virus serotype 1, respectively. Our monitoring in Culicoides biting midges and sentinel cattle detected the circulation of Akabane virus just prior to the accumulations of bovine congenital abnormalities and encephalomyelitis by it around study sites in 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2013. Silent circulations of the other arboviruses, including potentially new viruses, were also detected during the study period.


Purpose of review De-novo introduction of everolimus (Eve) in heart transplant recipients opens for early reduction of calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) and potential of preserving renal function, attenuate progression of coronary allograft vasculopathy (CAV) and maintain rejection efficacy. Recent findings The first trials demonstrated adequate rejection prophylaxis and favorable outcomes on CAV, but observed enhanced nephrotoxicity because of insufficient CNI reduction. The SCHEDULE trial compared de-novo Eve with significantly reduced CNI exposure and conversion to CNI-free treatment week 7–11 postheart transplant, with standard CNI immunosuppression. Improved renal function and attenuation of CAV was found among Eve patients, with higher numbers of treated acute rejections observed. With sustained superior renal and CAV related data also after 36 months with the Eve protocol, cardiac function was equally well preserved in both groups. According to the International Society of Heart and Lunge Transplantation registry, mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor treatment is uncommon during the first postoperative year, with a prevalence of 20% in patients after 5 years. Summary Current evidence suggests a greater benefit from these immunosuppressives if introduced at an earlier timepoint. Immunosuppressive protocols based on Eve treatment in de-novo patients should be further investigated and developed, enabling CNI avoidance before accelerating side-effects lead to irreversible damage.


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In chronic kidney disease (CKD), the first cause of mortality is cardiovascular disease induced mainly by vascular calcification (VC). Recently, iron-based phosphate binders have been proposed in advanced CKD to treat hyperphosphatemia. We studied the effect of iron citrate (iron) on the progression of calcification in high-phosphate (Pi) calcified VSMC. Iron arrested further calcification when added on days 7–15 in the presence of high Pi (1.30 ± 0.03 vs 0.61 ± 0.02; OD/mg protein; day 15; Pi vs Pi + Fe, p < 0.01). We next investigated apoptosis and autophagy. Adding iron to high-Pi-treated VSMC, on days 7–11, decreased apoptotic cell number (17.3 ± 2.6 vs 11.6 ± 1.6; Annexin V; % positive cells; day 11; Pi vs Pi + Fe; p < 0.05). The result was confirmed thorough analysis of apoptotic nuclei both in VSMCs and aortic rings treated on days 7–15 (3.8 ± 0.2 vs 2.3 ± 0.3 and 4.0 ± 0.3 vs 2.2 ± 0.2; apoptotic nuclei; arbitrary score; day 15; Pi vs Pi + Fe; VSMCs and aortic rings; p < 0.05). Studying the prosurvival axis GAS6/AXL, we found that iron treatment on days 9–14 counteracted protein high-Pi-stimulated down-regulation and induced its de novo synthesis. Moreover, iron added on days 9–15 potentiated autophagy, as detected by an increased number of autophagosomes with damaged mitochondria and an increase in autophagic flux. Highlighting the effect of iron on apoptosis, we demonstrated its action in blocking the H2O2-induced increase in calcification added both before high Pi treatment and when the calcification was already exacerbated. In conclusion, we demonstrate that iron arrests further high Pi-induced calcium deposition through an anti-apoptotic action and the induction of autophagy on established calcified VSMC.


Understanding how two hands interact with each other is a key component of accurate 3D interacting hand mesh recovery. However, recent Transformer-based methods struggle to learn the interaction between two hands as they directly utilize two hand features as input tokens, which results in distant token problem. The distant token problem represents that input tokens are in heterogeneous spaces, leading Transformer to fail in capturing correlation between input tokens. Previous Transformer-based methods suffer from the problem especially when poses of two hands are very different as they project features from a backbone to separate left and right hand-dedicated features. We present EANet, extract-and-adaptation network, with EABlock, the main component of our network. Rather than directly utilizing two hand features as input tokens, our EABlock utilizes two complementary types of novel tokens, SimToken and JoinToken, as input tokens. Our two novel tokens are from a combination of separated two hand features; hence, it is much more robust to the distant token problem. Using the two type of tokens, our EABlock effectively extracts interaction feature and adapts it to each hand. The proposed EANet achieves the state-of-the-art performance on 3D interacting hands benchmarks. The codes are available at https://github.com/jkpark0825/EANet.


This work analyzes pragmatic development in the first words stage, specifically the form-function rules that infants construct for communicating. It presents data from two children who took part in a longitudinal/observational case study research. Our results point to the general tendencies identified with respect to form-function rules (Ninio, 1994b; Ninio & Snow, 1996) and to the existence of inter-individual differences. These differences refer to: a) the mapping of form-function rules and b) pragmatic flexibility. Differences in early lexical acquisition are related to the children's general communicative profiles.


In Taiwan, when students learn in experiment-related courses, they are often grouped into several teams. The familiar method of grouping learning is "Cooperative Learning." A well organized grouping strategy improves cooperative learning and increases the number of activities. This study proposes a novel pedagogical method by adopting the Learning Diagnosis Diagram to obtain students' knowledge structure. According to each knowledge structure of student, this study proposes dynamic grouping to solve problems in the conventional once-and-for-all grouping strategy. The dynamic grouping method achieves the best complementary groups for further learning stages. Two courses were applied to conduct the proposed Two-phase Cooperative Learning. Complementary grouping method and more interaction among team members are helpful for increasing the effect of learning. Evaluation results indicate that the proposed method significantly improves the learning achievement of all learners.


Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) caused by "Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum″ (Xcm) is a disease that devastates bananas production. The Xcm kills banana plants quickly, spreads rapidly and causes loss of upto 100%. The BXW disease spread on banana occurs mainly through insect vectors which use banana male flower for nectar. A study on banana insect diversity and abundance in epidemic areas of BXW was done in western Kenya. The objective was to determining the diversity of insects associated with banana in BXW epidermic areas in western Kenya including Busia, Kakamega and Siaya counties. A collection of all types of insects visiting inflorecence parts of banana and on the same inflorescence DNA samples were captured by 2 minutes dipstick to confirm the presence of Xcm using PCR procedures and eclectroforesis gel picture. Insects were positively identified by entomologist with aid of a dicotomous key and pictures. Significantly a diversified insects were found to be associated with banana in BXW in epidemic areas. The Drosophilidae, Apinae and Tephritidae families were most frequently recorded in banana farms. Bees, grass flies, banana fruit flies, flies, wasps, butterflies, beetles, spiders and black ants formed the diversity. Significantly more bees were recorded followed by flies. Isolates from inflorecence samples, positvely confimed the presence of Xcm through eclectroforesis gel picture in the study area in western Kenya.


The aim of the text is to draw attention to the need to undertake planned and targeted preventive actions in the family environment as well as to domesticate effectively the so-called new technologies that are already present in our social reality, in the process of the education of pupils, with special attention paid to children with disability degree certificates. The article also presents the results of a study conducted on parents of children aged 7–12. The respondents were divided into two groups, parents of children with special educational needs due to various mental disorders, and parents of those with no such certificate. The two groups of interlocutors differed in terms of the extent to which they perceived Internet threats. A larger picture of this phenomenon emerges from the narrative of adults raising children with disability degree certificates, which points to the need to equalize opportunities and to keep pace with able peers, but creates many difficulties, including the already difficult process of educating children with developmental disorders.


We introduce rook visibility, which is a new model of visibility for the art gallery problem when the gallery is a polyomino, the union of square tiles from a square grid. We show that floor(n/2) chess rooks are sufficient and sometimes necessary to guard a polyomino with n tiles. We also prove that finding the minimum number of rooks needed to guard a polyomino is NP-hard.


Abstract: This article presents three methods used to evaluate an ergonomic preventive training program for VDT workers: an epidemiological method to measure effects and two qualitative methods of work analysis based on ergonomic and psychodynamic approaches. Combining different sources of data aimed at an understanding of the impact of the program in a given context and led to a better understanding of the use of training to introduce preventive practices in the workplace and discussion of quantitative measurements and findings. Finally, the complementary data allowed a more documented assessment of the program and indicated possible improvements.


In this paper, a facile method for the fabrication of hollow glass microspheres–Ag composite particles with core–shell structures is investigated. Ag-coated hollow glass microspheres with raspberry morphology have been prepared by an in situ composite technique in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). The as-prepared composite particles are characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS, TEM, IR, and XPS. The results show that 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTS) coupling can remarkably improve the adhesion between the palladium colloid particles and the surface of hollow glass microspheres, increasing the amount of active sites on such surfaces. With the increase in pH value, the equilibrium of the [Ag(NH3)2]+ solution is destroyed, which is beneficial to the output of Ag nanoparticles. The shell thickness of silver-coated hollow glass microspheres increases from 30 nm to 52 nm with an increase in the concentration of the [Ag(NH3)2]+ solution. The shielding property of the composite particles increases gradually and shows an obvious increase in the range of 30% to 35% with an increase in the volume fraction of the composite particles. When the volume fraction of the filler reaches 35%, electromagnetic shielding effectiveness is between 70 dB and 80 dB with the frequency of electromagnetic wave ranging from 2 GHz to 12 GHz. These results indicate that the Ag-coated glass microsphere's core–shell particles could have extensive applications in the electromagnetic compatibility field.


Objective: A comparative study to evaluate the efficacy of dexmedetomidine as a hypotensive agent in comparison to esmolol in Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS). Methods: Forty patients ASA I or II scheduled for FESS were equally randomly assigned to receive either dexmedetomidine 1 μg/Kg over 10 min before induction of anesthesia followed by 0.4-0.8 μg/Kg/h infusion during maintenance (DEX group), or esmolol, loading dose 1mg/kg was infused over one min followed by 0.4-0.8 mg/kg/h infusion during maintenance (E group) to maintain mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) between (55-65 mmHg). General anesthesia was maintained with sevoflurane 2%-4%. The surgical field was assessed using Average Category Scale and average blood loss was calculated. Hemodynamic variables (MAP and HR); arterial blood gas analysis; plasma cortisol level; intraoperative fentanyl consumption; Emergence time and total recovery from anesthesia (Aldrete score ≥9) were recorded. Sedation score was determined at 15, 30, 60 min after tracheal extubation and time to first analgesic request was recorded. Result: Both DEX group and E group reached the desired MAP (55-65 mmHg) with no intergroup differences in MAP or HR. The for the quality of the surgical filed in the range of MAP (55-65 mmHg) were <=2 with no significant differences between group scores during hypotensive period. Mean intraoperative fentanyl consumption was significantly lower in DEX group than E group. Cortisol level showed no significant changes between or within groups. No significant changes were observed in arterial blood gases. Emergence time and time to achieve Aldrete score ≥9 were significantly lower in E group compared with DEX group. The sedation score were significantly lower in E group compared with DEX group at 15 and 30 minutes postoperatively. Time to first analgesic request was significantly longer in DEX group. Conclusion: Both dexmedetomidine or esmolol with sevoflurane are safe agents for controlled hypotension and are effective in providing ideal surgical field during FESS. Compared with esmolol, dexmedetomidine offers the advantage of inherent analgesic, sedative and anesthetic sparing effect.


In this paper a new model predictive control (MPC) strategy, applicable to a set of nonlinear systems, is proposed and the use of it is demonstrated on a model of a waste treatment reactor. The MPC strategy is an extension of earlier work in optimization-based control [2]. The motivation for the study is to search for approaches to nonlinear MPC without having to solve the full nonlinear problem. We restrict our problem by de ning a nonlinear model set as a convex combination of a set of bounding linear models. The weighting factors between the models can be a function of the states and/or inputs. At a given time-instant we compute an optimal future control sequence for each of the bounding linear models. A novel feature is that all models must obey the constraints for each of the control sequences. The reason for these additional constraints is that they provide us with feasibility guarantees. It also is a means of robustifying the MPC. The nal control sequence is found by interpolating the control sequences derived from the optimization problems. There are di erent possible approaches for choosing the interpolation variables. Provided the optimization criterion and the constraint sets for the control variables and states are convex, the proposed control algorithm involves only convex optimization problems. The interpolating MPC strategy is applied to a waste treatment reactor, where the process dynamics are nonlinear and time-varying depending on the disturbance. Linearization is carried out to obtain bounding models for the process. The interpolating MPC is designed based on the bounding models. Through the example we demonstrate signi cant improvements over a standard quadratic MPC strategy based on linear models.


Our ability to hold information in mind for a short time (working memory) is separately predicted by our ability to ignore two types of distraction: distraction that occurs while we put information into working memory (encoding) and distraction that occurs while we maintain already encoded information within working memory. This suggests that ignoring these different types of distraction involves distinct mechanisms which separately limit performance. Here we used fMRI to measure category-sensitive cortical activity and probe these mechanisms. The results reveal specific neural mechanisms by which relevant information is remembered and irrelevant information is ignored, which contribute to intra-individual differences in WM performance.


Context Adrenal incidentaloma (AI) is commonly discovered on cross-sectional imaging. Mild autonomous cortisol secretion is the most common functional disorder detected in AI. Objective To delineate the association between radiological characteristics of benign adrenocortical tumors and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Methods In the study, 494 patients diagnosed with benign unilateral adrenocortical tumors were included. Mild autonomous cortisol secretion (MACS) was diagnosed when cortisol after 1mg-dexamethasone suppression test (1-mg DST) was in the range of 1.8-5ug/dl. Non-functional adrenocortical tumor (NFAT) was diagnosed as cortisol following 1-mg DST less than 1.8ug/dL. We performed Logistics regression and causal mediation analyses, looking for associations between radiological characteristics and the HPA axis. Results Of 494 patients, 352 (71.3%) with NFAT and 142 (28.7%) with MACS were included. Patients with MACS had a higher tumor diameter, thinner contralateral adrenal gland, and lower plasma ACTH and serum DHEAS than those with NFAT. ACTH (OR 0.978, 0.962-0.993) and tumor diameter (OR 1.857, 95%CI, 1.357-2.540) were independent factors associated with decreased serum DHEAS (all P<0.05). ACTH was also associated with decreased contralateral adrenal diameter significantly (OR 0.973, 95%CI, 0.957-0.988, P=0.001). Causal mediation analysis showed ACTH mediated the effect significantly for the association between 1-mg DST results and DHEAS level (Pmediation<0.001, proportion=22.3%). Meanwhile, we found ACTH mediated 39.7% of the effects of 1-mg DST on contralateral adrenal diameter (Pmediation=0.012). Conclusions Patients with MACS had thinner contralateral adrenal glands and disturbed HPA axes compared with NFAT. ACTH may partially be involved in mediating the mild autonomous cortisol secretion to DHEAS and the contralateral adrenal gland.


Increased non-resident ownership makes the capital market vulnerable to declining stability and the global economy that can affect the condition of the financial sector as indicated. These factors will affect the company's stock price is the company's cash holding policy, dividend policy and profitability performance. This study aims to determine the effect of cash holding policy, dividend policy and profitability on the company's stock price. Cash holding policy variables are measured by a cash to asset ratio, dividend policy is measured by a dividend pay-out ratio, profitability is measured by return on equity (ROE) and stock prices are measured by a price to book ratio. This research is a quantitative study using multiple regression analysis methods. The data used are secondary data from the annual report and the stock market performance reports of financial sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The sampling method uses purposive sampling with an observation period of 2011–2017 and there are 14 companies that meet the criteria. The results showed that cash holding and profitability policies had a significant effect on stock prices dividend policy had no significant effect on stock prices.


This paper presents findings from a study comparing young peoples' relationships with 'new' digital and more 'traditional' forms of media. The study explored mediated relationships emerging in the everyday lives of older adolescent teenagers, aged 13-17. The study utilised multiple methods of inquiry, seeking out holistic depictions of young peoples' multi-media experiences, rooted in everyday lifestyles. Self-completion questionnaires were combined with mini focus groups across three diverse school types. The quantitative findings confirm that the internet was used for a diverse range of motivations, one the least powerful being commercial contact. The qualitative findings highlight the intensity of young peoples' concerns over commercial intrusion experienced online. This theme highlighted the growing conflict between marketing practitioners seeking to harness digital media for targeted communication and the uses of digital media by young people for noncommercial purposes.


In order to evaluate the economy of superhighway, on the basis of the analysis of the cost of the ordinary expressway and high speed railway, the cost of superhighway is estimated. On this basis, the standard of the toll of superhighway at all levels is determined by reference to the standard of the construction cost and the toll collection standard of the ordinary expressway. According to the toll collection standard of superhighway and the fuel consumption cost of superhighway at all levels, the cost of single car and the single person cost of superhighway are calculated. Based on the analysis of highway passenger transport, railway passenger transport and civil aviation ticket price, the single person cost per kilometer of the above travel modes is calculated and compared with the single person travel cost per kilometer of superhighway. The results show that the single person cost of superhighway is between 0.29 and 0.47 yuan /km, which is 0.28 yuan /km higher than the highway bus, 0.18 yuan /km higher than the ordinary expressway self driving and 0.23 yuan /km higher than the express train, but 0.78 yuan/km lower than that of the first class seat of high-speed train, and is 0.92 yuan/km far lower than that of civil aviation flight economy class and 2.42 yuan/km lower than the business class. Therefore, the superhighway trip has certain advantages in economy.


No profession can have legitimacy without accountability. For pension fund managers, accountability means being able to demonstrate that they know their mission and that they pursue it with diligence and skill. Only recently has a generally accepted approach for pension fund managers to do this emerged. This article describes the approach and reports research results based on an asset pool comprising 184 pension funds aggregating to almost $1 trillion. Differences in investment policy do indeed have a significant impact in explaining differences in fund returns. Thus, raw fund returns are too noisy to be subjected to comparative measurement. Factors such as fund size, management mode, and type of sponsor do not explain differences in policy-adjusted returns in a significant, consistent manner. Systematic factors explain 60 percent of the variance in fund operating costs. For the 76 funds with continuous 1991-93 three-year histories, each incremental unit of discretionary operating costs produced an average three units of incremental return. The relationship was of only marginal statistical significance, however. It remains to be seen whether this positive value-cost relationship will persist in the future.


The quality of education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is an issue of particular educational and economic importance, and Calculus I is a linchpin course in STEM major tracks. A national study is currently being conducted examining the characteristics of successful programs in college calculus (CSPCC, 2012). In work related to the CSPCC program, this study examines the effects on student outcomes of four different teaching strategies used at a single institution. The four classes were a traditional lecture, a lecture with discussion, a lecture incorporating both discussion and technology, and an inverted model. This dissertation was guided by three questions : (1) What impact do these four instructional approaches have on students' persistence, beliefs about mathematics, and conceptual and procedural achievement in calculus? (2) How do students at the local institution compare to students in the national database? And (3) How do the similarities and differences in opportunities for learning presented in the four classes contribute to the similarities and differences in student outcomes? Quantitative analysis of surveys and exams revealed few statistically significant differences in outcomes, and students in the inverted classroom often had poorer outcomes than those in other classes. Students in the technology-enhanced class scored higher on conceptual items on the final exam than those in other classes. Comparing to the national database, local students had similar switching rates but less expert-like attitudes and beliefs about mathematics than the national average. Qualitative analysis of focus group interviews, classroom observations, and student course evaluations showed that several implementation issues, some the result of pragmatic constraints, others the result of design choice, weakened affordances provided by innovative features and shrunk the differences between classes. There were substantial differences between the inverted classroom in this study and successful implementations in the literature. I identified a set of departures that forms a list of best practices for inverting classrooms. Students in all classes felt that prior calculus experience was a prerequisite for their current calculus class, and that class sessions felt rushed. These concerns implicate the constraints imposed by the curriculum shared by the four classes


© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of West China School of Medicine & West China Hospital of Sichuan University. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact email@example.com


The fabrication of highly active and robust hexagonal ruthenium oxide nanosheets for the electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in an acidic environment is reported. The ruthenate nanosheets exhibit the best OER activity of all solution‐processed acid medium electrocatalysts reported to date, reaching 10 mA cm−2 at an overpotential of only ≈255 mV. The nanosheets also demonstrate robustness under harsh oxidizing conditions. Theoretical calculations give insights into the OER mechanism and reveal that the edges are the origin of the high OER activity of the nanosheets. Moreover, the post OER analyses indicate, apart from coarsening, no observable change in the morphology of the nanosheets or oxidation states of ruthenium during the electrocatalytic process. Therefore, the present investigation suggests that ruthenate nanosheets are a promising acid medium OER catalyst with application potential in proton exchange membrane electrolyzers and beyond.


RF We are closer than we have ever been before. There has been a lot of molecular work done in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that has identified important pathways and targets for therapy. However, we still have not seen these targets validated the way they have been in other types of cancer. In breast cancer, for example, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) or estrogen and progesterone receptors can be used to make treatment decisions based on drugs targeting those pathways. In HCC, we have seen a number of treatment failures in clinical development, which is spurring researchers to look back more closely and try to get the right drugs to the right patients, based on specific biomarkers. There are several studies currently being conducted that address this therapeutic approach.


Higher education in Asia is becoming more prominent according to Western higher education researchers, but it is also being influenced by globalization, resulting in two types of structural inequality in higher education. Organizational justice relates to positive developments of educational organizations. It refers to the sense of fairness and equality on aspects of organization policies and regulations relating to individual interests perceived by organizations' internal members. This research first reviews the related literature to identify internal factors in the concept of organizational justice in higher education. The author designed a survey questionnaire to assess professors' perceptions of organizational justice at their universities. The author sent out the questionnaires to Taiwanese professors with different research expertise at different universities. This research divided organizational justice into distributive justice, procedure justice, interpersonal justice, and information justice. Ultimately, 180 valid questionnaires were collected and analyzed. Four background variables (gender, age, position, and institutional type) showed statistical correlations with organizational justice in Taiwan's higher education institutions.


Nanocomposites of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) have been prepared by solution intercalation method using both natural and modified kaolinites. Kaolinite was modified with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to expand the interlayer basal spacing. The characterization of PVC/kaolinite nanocomposites was made by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM); the interactions between kaolinite and PVC was discussed by FTIR-ATR; the thermal stability was determined by simultaneous DTA/TG. FTIR-ATR confirms hydrogen bonds formed between dimethyl sulfoxide molecules and the inner surface hydroxyl groups of kaolinite. XRD and TEM results give evidence that kaolinite was dramatically intercalated into nanoscale and homogenously dispersed in the PVC matrix. Thermogravimetric analysis indicated that introduction of clay to the polymer network resulted in an increase in thermal stability. Ultraviolet (UV) absorbance experiments showed that nanocomposites have a higher UV transmission than PVC film. The Kiss...


The bisphenol-containing 4,4′-biphenylene moiety was prepared by the reaction of 4,4′-bis(methoxymethyl) biphenyl with phenol in the presence of p-toluenesulfonic acid. The bisphenol was end-capped with the cyanate moiety by reacting with cyanogen chloride and triethylamine in dichloromethane. Their structures were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, 1H-NMR, and elemental analysis. Thermal behaviors of cured resin were studied by differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis, and TGA. The flame retardancy of cured resin was evaluated by limiting oxygen index (LOI) and vertical burning test (UL-94 test). Because of the incorporation of rigid 4,4′-biphenylene moiety, the cyanate ester (CE) resin shows good thermal stability (Tg is 256°C, the 5% degradation temperature is 442°C, and char yield at 800°C is 64.4%). The LOI value of the CE resin is 42.5, and the UL-94 rating reaches V-0. Moreover, the CE resin shows excellent dielectric property (dielectric constant, 2.94 at 1 GHz and loss dissipation factor, 0.0037 at 1 GHz) and water resistance (1.08% immersed at boiling water for 100 h). © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011


Since its inception more than a decade ago, blockchain technology has been quickly adopted by a large number of sectors, including finance, healthcare, energy supply, and logistics, due to its numerous benefits, such as decentralization, persistency, anonymity and auditability. However, blockchain applications are intrinsically complex, as they are heterogeneous in nature and require cooperation and interoperation with non-blockchain systems. The complexity of the blockchain systems is further exacerbated by the lack of a clear understanding of their composition. This paper aims to bridge this knowledge gap by proposing a taxonomy for characterizing blockchain systems. The proposed taxonomy classifies a blockchain system into a hierarchy of components: At the top level, the system is organized into an external subsystem, an internal subsystem and an execution environment subsystem. These subsystems are then decomposed into eight fundamental components: Platform, Network, Distributed Ledger, Smart Contract, Consensus Protocol, Digital Wallet, Token, and Node. Each component is further divided into different aspects and each aspect is characterized by various features. This taxonomy thus provides a comprehensive understanding of the composition of a blockchain system, which can better inform software developers in their design and implementation of blockchain systems. The paper presents and illustrates the proposed taxonomy through some application scenarios and a case study.


Sprinklers are commonly sited in the high headspace atrium of a building where such systems are required. It was questioned whether sprinkler heads would be activated in the case of a fire. A fire modelling technique was applied to estimate the actuation time of sprinkler heads located in the atrium ceiling. The response time of sprinkler heads to a fire in a shop at a high level adjacent to the atrium roof was calculated. A self-developed FORTRAN code together with the CFD model CFX4.2 were used to simulate the atrium fire environment. The standard k-e model was used with two key parameters, diffusion coefficient and effective Prandtl number tuned. A comparison with some experiments reported in the literature was made. Satisfactory agreement between the predicted and measured results was found. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


We prove two inequalities between the Lyapunov exponents of a diffeomorphism and its local recurrence properties. We give examples showing that each of the inequalities is optimal.


A wide-band cavity-backed dual-loop antenna for circularly polarized (CP) applications is proposed in this paper. It is differentially fed by a parallel strip line, via a transition from a microstrip line. The operating frequency band of the antenna can be tuned from 2.07 to 2.98 GHz by changing a capacitor's value in a simple matching circuit, and the bandwidth of each operating band for |S11| les -10 dB is in a range of 2.6%-4.9%. Measurements and simulations reveal that the proposed antenna features total dimensions of 1.03lambda0 in diameter and 0.26lambda0 in height (lambda0 is the free-space wavelength at the center frequency of the tunable range), AR les 3 dB and stable radiation patterns with small cross polarizations over the whole tunable frequency range.


Purpose: To compare the eye and head movements and lane-keeping of drivers with hemianopia and quadrantanopia with that of age-matched controls when driving under real world conditions. Methods: Participants included 22 hemianopes and 8 quadrantanopes (M age 53 yrs) and 30 persons with normal visual fields (M age 52 yrs) who were ≥ 6 months from the brain injury date and either a current driver or aiming to resume driving. All participants drove an instrumented dual-brake vehicle along a 14-mile route in traffic that included non-interstate city driving and interstate driving. Driving performance was scored using a standardised assessment system by two "backseat" raters and the Vigil Vanguard system which provides objective measures of speed, braking and acceleration, cornering, and video-based footage from which eye and head movements and lane-keeping can be derived. Results: As compared to drivers with normal visual fields, drivers with hemianopia or quadrantanopia on average were significantly more likely to drive slower, to exhibit less excessive cornering forces or acceleration, and to execute more shoulder movements off the seat. Those hemianopic and quadrantanopic drivers rated as safe to drive by the backseat evaluator made significantly more excursive eye movements, exhibited more stable lane positioning, less sudden braking events and drove at higher speeds than those rated as unsafe, while there was no difference between safe and unsafe drivers in head movements. Conclusions: Persons with hemianopic and quadrantanopic field defects rated as safe to drive have different driving characteristics compared to those rated as unsafe when assessed using objective measures of driving performance.


A combination of prospective Ultrawideband (UWB) technology and Multisite Radar Systems (MSRSs) technology is considered for detection and coordinate measurement of motionless survivors in rubble. Main attention is paid to effective detection of weak signals from a moving human chest due to breathing in a background of clutter (intensive reflections from environment) as well as to high accuracy of survivor position determination, especially its angle coordinates. Large signal attenuation and unknown additional delay of signals propagating through rubble are taken into account.


: The aim of the paper is to review recent literature and introduce a systemic approach to the nature of sibling relationships during the first years of life. A growing body of evidence suggests that siblings play considerable roles in each other's development, and that the quality and the character of the sibling bond may have far-reaching effects. The present review elu-cidates the interactions between subsystems, particularly the functioning of the sibling subsystem; it also considers influences from other internal and external factors. It discusses siblinghood between children with regard to three main domains: warmth and support, rivalry and jealousy, and conflict. The final part of the article suggests some implications considering the influence of child siblinghood on adolescent and adult life.


Since heavy-duty truck operations can significantly affect traffic congestion, especially on road grade, the creation of exclusive lanes for trucks has been viewed as a potential alternative to reduce congestion delay, fuel consumption, and emissions. However, few studies have rigorously evaluated the effectiveness of truck-only lanes in achieving these benefits. This study demonstrates a model framework that combines a microscopic traffic simulation with emissions and microscale dispersion models to quantify the potential impacts of truck-only lanes on fuel consumption, emissions, and near-road pollutant concentrations. As a case study, the framework was used to evaluate a proposed $2 billion project to construct 40-miles of truck-only lanes on Interstate 75 (I-75) between Atlanta and Macon, Georgia (USA). The findings of this study suggest that truck-only lanes could significantly improve the traffic flow, and reduce energy, emissions, and pollutant concentrations. The research team expects that the extensive simulation results of this study help to understand the performance of truck-only lanes on a large-scale network with a heavy mixture of truck and general purpose lane traffic. The methodology and framework developed in this study can be effectively and efficiently applied to a wide variety of scenarios to evaluate the environmental impacts of other transportation projects under various conditions. View the NCST Project Webpage


Bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) are susceptible to particle bombardment in radiative environment. A model that is capable of predicting the performance of a BJT subjected to neutron irradiation and that is suitable for SPICE circuit simulation is presented. It is shown that neutron irradiation affects the emitter-base space-charge region capacitance slightly but strongly influences the forward-active current gain. Results calculated from the present model compared favorably with measured dependencies available in the literature. The model was implemented in SPICE, and the performance of a BJT differential amplifier was simulated. >


GOVERNING GLOBAL HEALTH: CHALLENGE, RESPONSE, INNOVATION Andrew Cooper, John Kirton and Ted Schrecker (eds) Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing 2007, HB 320 pp, GBP 55.00 ISBN 978-0-7546-4873-4The concept of 'governing global health' is problematic. Is there a specific set of governance structures through which 'global health' is 'governed'? Does it include the political and economic conditions which shape people's health chances or only the policies and funding of health care? Does it apply to the health of the rich or just the health of the poor? Or is it only the health of the poor when their poor health threatens the health of the rich?Governing Global Health: Challenge, Response, Innovation is a collection of 14 essays dealing with policies adopted by the rich countries and multilateral institutions regarding the health and health care of people in developing countries. Some of the chapters offered useful analyses, and the collection as a whole provides excellent material for a discourse analysis of conversations regarding global governance and health.The book has three main parts, plus introductory and concluding chapters by the editors. Global challenges and responses sets out some of the background. Zacher provides a brief history of the World Health Organization's role in the international control of communicable disease counterposed against the rise of the World Trade Organization and in particular the role of the Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) in 'governing' access to essential medicines. Orbinski highlights the role of social movements, featuring the role of Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) (and a global social movement behind it), in forcing the WTO (at the Doha Ministerial Council meeting in 2001) to amend the TRIPS Agreement to make it (slightly) easier for small poor countries to access generic medicines. In the third of the background essays, Fidler explores the idea of 'securitisation' of public health, which means that the health problems of poor people in the developing world are constructed as security threats to the well being of the rich countries and prioritised accordingly.The second main part of the book deals with The central institutions: The multilateral system. Drager and Sunderland describe the role of the WHO, focusing in particular on the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (and its conclusions regarding the productivity case for increased development assistance) and the dialogue between WHO and the WTO in pursuit of 'policy coherence' between health objectives and the regulation of global trade. Bradford and Hsu and White discuss the Millennium Development Goals (and the bleak prospects for their achievement), and Blouin explores the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (she is not positive).The third main section focuses on the G8, the promises and declarations which have emerged from the various leaders' meetings and the institutional initiatives that have been supported through the G8, notably the MDGs and the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). There is a muted debate across this section. While Kirton and Manned celebrate the new role of the G8 in global health governance, Schrecker, Labonte and Sanders present a more broadly based and balanced assessment. Aginam returns to the role of the TRIPS Agreement and measures the G8 against the criterion of access to essential medicines and points out that little progress has been made in creating a more supportive regulatory regime despite the long drawn out negotiations to amend the TRIPS Agreement to give effect to the 2001WTO Doha Declaration. Finally, O'Manique explores the role of the G8 in global health governance against criteria derived from the human rights paradigm.I found this collection annoying but fascinating. My annoyance arose in part from the editors' selfserving celebration of the achievements of the G8 in 'global health governance' (set against the 'failure' of the WHO), without any exploration of the deliberate policy of certain G8 members to hobble the WHO by not paying their assessed contributions to the WHO budget. …


Atika Dyah Syarifa. 2018. The Implementation of Using Proble Based Learning to Improve Writing Skill of the Eighth Grade Students of SMP N 2 Salam. Thesis. English Education Program. State Islamic Institute Surakarta. Advisor: Dr. H. Sujito, M. Pd Keyword: Problem Based Learning, Writing Skills. Writing is an important skill for language production. However, it is considered a difficult skill, particularly in English as a second language (ESL) context where students face many challenges in writing. Moreover the eighth grade students of SMP N 2 Salam, Magelang also faced some problems in learning writing. When the researcher conducted preliminary research, she found some problems that were faced. First problem was the students were difficult in composing the words in English into sentences, such as many errors in vocabulary, grammar and spelling. The second problem was the way of the teacher in teaching
writing is monotonous and applied old method which made the students felt bored with it. In this case, the researcher proposed the method of problem based learning
to teach writing. The purpose of this research is to find out how Problem Based Learning Method improves writing skills of the students of SMP N 2 Salam, Magelang, and to find out the responses of the students on the application of Problem Based Learning Method in teaching writing. Research method applied in this research is collaborative classroom action research with the setting of this study is at SMP N 2 Salam, Magelang and the subjects of this research are the students of the eighth year of SMP N 2 Salam in the academic year of 2017/ 2018. Meanwhile, the research instruments are observation sheet, list of students' names, interview sheet, and test. The result of data analysis shows that the writing skills of the students improve after being taught by Problem Based Learning Method. The students were
more imaginative and feel free to express their idea into written text. It made them motivated to learn and they could improve their writing skills through group
discussion in the Problem Based Learning. the student's score of writing achieved taught by problem based learning method taken from their mean (79,37) were
higher than those their mean (52,37) were taught without implementing of problem based learning method. The students score obtained in the first cycle could not
achieve the minimum standard and the student's score of cycle 2 could achieve the minimum standard. It can be concluded that there was an improvement in writing
skills of the students of SMP N 2 Salam, Magelang. The result of interview shows that most of the students are quite interested in implementation of Problem Based
Learning Method. Those mean that Problem Based Learning Method could solve the students' problem in writing skills of the students of SMP N 2 Salam, Magelang.
Therefore, teacher must emphasize the uses of Problem Based Learning to keep students' interest in writing skill not only for recount text but also various texts.


AbstractThe article discusses the new features of the Russian book scene at the beginning of 1992 the development of a book market, formation of a new structure of reading public, decline of prestige of literature. The article also contains information on studies in sociology of reading that were carried out by the Russian State Library (former Lenin State Library of the U.S.S.R.) over three decades.


Background: Sharps waste, especially medical sharps waste, can put those who come into contact with it at risk for injury and exposure to blood-borne pathogens. Options for self-injectors to dispose of their sharps while traveling vary greatly – from sharps containers in limited locations in some public restrooms to large kiosks centrally located to no containers at all. Currently, there is a lack of published data on sharps disposal bins in commercial airports. We surveyed commercial airports in California to assess the current state of sharps waste disposal. Many people with diabetes routinely use sharps every day for injecting medications or for self-monitoring glucose concentrations and these people, along with others who self-inject medications, must have a safe mechanism for sharps disposal when travelling by air. Methods: A five-question survey was sent to 30 commercial airports in California. Responses were collected and then analyzed based on the following three metrics: (1) the percentage of airports that responded and indicated that they had any sharps disposal bins, (2) the percentage of airports that responded and indicated that they had sharps disposal bins in over half their restrooms, and (3) the average percentage of bathrooms that have available sharps disposal bins in airports that responded to our survey. Results: Out of 30 commercial airports in California, we received survey responses from 13 airport representatives and direct email responses from 5 airport representatives. Out of 18 total responses, 11 airports (61.1%) reported that they had some form of available sharps disposal options. Out of the 13 survey responses, 6 airports (46.2%) reported that they had sharps disposal in over 50% of their restrooms. Conclusion: There is a lack of consistency in sharps waste disposal options among commercial airports in California. While many commercial airports in California offer sharps waste disposal options, not all commercial airports have sharps waste disposal options in all their public restrooms. There is room for improved availability of sharps disposal bins in California's commercial airports.


Oxidative damage is considered to be the primary cause of several aging associated disease pathologies. Cumulative oxidative damage tends to be pervasive among cellular macromolecules, impacting proteins, lipids, RNA and DNA of cells. At a systemic level, events subsequent to oxidative damage induce an inflammatory response to sites of oxidative damage, often contributing to additional oxidative stress. At a cellular level, oxidative damage to mitochondria results in acidification of the cytoplasm and release of cytochrome c, causing apoptosis. This review summarizes findings in the literature on oxidative stress and consequent damage on cells and tissues of the cardiovascular system and the central nervous system, with a focus on aging-related diseases that have well-documented evidence of oxidative damage in initiation and/or progression of the disease. The current understanding of the cellular mechanisms with a focus on macromolecular damage, impacted cellular pathways and gross morphological changes associated with oxidative damage is also reviewed. Additionally, the impact of calorific restriction with its profound impact on cardiovascular and neuronal aging is addressed.


In the United States the policy making process claims to be a cyclical process which drives politicians, dictates policies drafted, and legislation ultimately passed. The process begins with the people bringing issues, ideas, and concerns to the attention of the news media, advocacy groups, grassroots organizations, or interest groups. Ideally these groups connect the concerns of the people to elected officials and/ or courts who respond by creating policies which address these concerns. This is an over-simplified ideal. The reality of policymaking is messy, partisan, and the results frequently fail to address the concerns of the public, or create more unintended consequences than solve problems. Public education is an area of concern most familiar with unintended consequences.


Summarization of legal case judgement documents is a challenging problem in Legal NLP. However, not much analyses exist on how different families of summarization models (e.g., extractive vs. abstractive) perform when applied to legal case documents. This question is particularly important since many recent transformer-based abstractive summarization models have restrictions on the number of input tokens, and legal documents are known to be very long. Also, it is an open question on how best to evaluate legal case document summarization systems. In this paper, we carry out extensive experiments with several extractive and abstractive summarization methods (both supervised and unsupervised) over three legal summarization datasets that we have developed. Our analyses, that includes evaluation by law practitioners, lead to several interesting insights on legal summarization in specific and long document summarization in general.


In this study, we compared Entailer, a computational tool that evaluates the degree to which one text is entailed by another, to a variety of other text relatedness metrics (LSA, lemma overlap, and MED). Our corpus was a subset of 100 self-explanations of sentences from a recent experiment on interactions between students and iSTART, an Intelligent Tutoring System that helps students to apply metacognitive strategies to enhance deep comprehension. The sentence pairs were hand coded by experts in discourse processing across four categories of text relatedness: entailment, implicature, elaboration, and paraphrase. A series of regression analyses revealed that Entailer was the best measure for approximating these hand coded values. The Entailer could explain approximately 50% of the variance for entailment, 38% of the variance for elaboration, and 23% of the variance for paraphrase. LSA contributed marginally to the entailment model. Neither lemma-overlap nor MED contributed to any of the models, although a modified version of MED did correlate significantly with both the entailment and paraphrase hand coded evaluations. This study is an important step towards developing a set of indices designed to better assess natural language input by students in Intelligent Tutoring Systems.


The objectives of this research are to desain and to test the biodiesel processing  unit from waste cooking oil, to examine the characteristics  of processed  biodiesel, and to apply the biodiesel on diesel engine to ensure that there will not be a problem  on the tested diesel engine. This research is an experiment  research  carried out by several steps, designing waste cooking-biodiesel processing unit, examining the characteristics ofbiodiesel made, and applying the biodiesel on diesel  engine. The result showed that the biodtesel processing  unit that was  made could work well to produce biodiesel. The biodiesel characteristics are comparable with diesel oil and the biodiesel is applicable on diesel engine without any problems accured. Keywords: biodiesel, waste cooking oil, alternative fuel, diesel engine


All the shoots of mature irrigated 9Shiraz9 grapevines ( Vitis vinifera ) were cut back to either 2 or 6 leaves above the distal bunch for 3 consecutive seasons at one of 5 phenological stages: 1) during bunch elongation; 2) beginning of fruit set; 3) first rapid growth of berries; 4) lag phase; and 5) veraison. Each vine was cut back only once each season. Slashing to the 2-leaf level gave a lower berry sugar and skin pigmentation than did the 6-leaf level, which was not different from control vines. Response to treatment time was less consistent. Bunch weights were not altered by any time of treatment whereas bunch numbers per vine were highest on vines treated at bunch elongation. The results are interpreted in terms of relative strengths of the sinks and sources for organic nutrients. It is concluded for 9Shiraz9 vines that in general, the 6-leaf treatment is not too severe but the 2-leaf treatment is overly severe, and it is apparent that unslashed vines have more than adequate leaf area.


Based on psychological approaches that evoke mental representations through verbal and visual cues, this paper investigates the different kinds of mental representations projected by 8 to 11 year old children of identified arithmetical achievement when responding to verbal and visual stimuli associated with fractions. It examines how the visual and verbal cues may affect the kind of mental representations the students' project. The paper traces the way these mental representations may change from an immediate "first" response to a"30 seconds" response. The study reveals that different formats of the stimuli and the elapse of time not only evoke different kinds of mental representation but that these different kinds may be strongly associated with the level of mathematical achievement.


This study examined the oral epithelial immunotranscriptome response patterns modulated by oral bacterial planktonic or biofilm challenge. We assessed gene expression patterns when epithelial cells were challenged with a multispecies biofilm composed of Streptococcus gordonii, Fusobacterium nucleatum, and Porphyromonas gingivalis representing a type of periodontopathic biofilm compared to challenge with the same species of planktonic bacteria. Of the 579 human immunology genes, a substantial signal of the epithelial cells was observed to 181 genes. Biofilm challenged stimulated significant elevations compared to planktonic bacteria for IL32, IL8, CD44, B2M, TGFBI, NFKBIA, IL1B, CD59, IL1A, CCL20 representing the top 10 signals comprising 55% of the overall signal for the epithelial cell responses. Levels of PLAU, CD9, IFITM1, PLAUR, CD24, TNFSF10, and IL1RN were all elevated by each of the planktonic bacterial challenge vs the biofilm responses. While the biofilms up-regulated 123/579 genes (>2-fold), fewer genes were increased by the planktonic species (36 [S gordonii], 30 [F nucleatum], 44 [P gingivalis]). A wide array of immune genes were regulated by oral bacterial challenge of epithelial cells that would be linked to the local activity of innate and adaptive immune response components in the gingival tissues. Incorporating bacterial species into a structured biofilm dramatically altered the number and level of genes expressed. Additionally, a specific set of genes were significantly decreased with the multispecies biofilms suggesting that some epithelial cell biologic pathways are down-regulated when in contact with this type of pathogenic biofilm.


Routine pavement maintenance necessitates present structural diagnosis and condition evaluation of pavements by employing non-destructive test equipment such as the Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD). FWD testing of pavements involves measuring time-domain surface deflections resulting from applied impulse loading on the pavement. Through inverse analysis of FWD deflection data, the stiffness parameters of the individual pavement layers are, in general, determined using iterative optimization routines. In recent years, Neural Networks (NN) aided inverse analysis has emerged as a successful alternative for predicting pavement layer moduli from FWD deflection data in real-time. Especially, the use of Finite Element (FE) based pavement modeling results for training the NN aided inverse analysis is considered to be accurate in realistically characterizing the non-linear stress-sensitive response of underlying pavement layers in real-time. Efficient NN learning algorithms have been developed and proposed to determine the weights of the network, according to the data of the computational task to be performed. In this paper, the effect of training algorithms on the NN aided inversion process is analyzed and discussed. Keywords: Neural networks; Non-destructive testing; Inverse analysis; Finite element; Flexible pavement.


The growing numbers of land change models makes it difficult to select a model at the beginning of an analysis, and is often arbitrary and at the researcher's discretion. How to select a model at the beginning of an analysis, when multiple are suitable, represents a critical research gap currently understudied, where trade-offs of choosing one model over another are often unknown. Repeatable methods are needed to conduct cross-model comparisons to understand the trade-offs among models when the same calibration and validation data are used. Several methods to assess accuracy have been proposed that emphasize quantity and allocation, while overlooking the accuracy with which a model simulates the spatial configuration (e.g., size and shape) of map categories across landscapes. We compared the quantity, allocation, and configuration accuracy of four inductive pattern-based spatial allocation land change models (SLEUTH, GEOMOD, Land Change Modeler (LCM), and FUTURES). We simulated urban development with each model using identical input data from ten counties surrounding the growing region of Charlotte, North Carolina. Maintaining the same input data, such as land cover, drivers of change, and projected quantity of change, reduces differences in model inputs and allows for focus on trade-offs in different types of model accuracy. Results suggest that these four land change models produce representations of urban development with substantial variance, where some models may better simulate quantity and allocation at the trade-off of configuration accuracy, and vice versa. Trade-offs in accuracy exist with respect to the amount, spatial allocation, and landscape configuration of each model. This comparison exercise illustrates the range of accuracies for these models, and demonstrates the need to consider all three types of accuracy when assessing land change model's projections.


To the Editor.—
 In a recent Pediatrics' supplement, Oski1 reviewed potential hazards of bovine milk-feeding and came to the conclusion that:
 Whole bovine milk should not be fed to infants during the first year of life because of its association with occult gastrointestinal bleeding, iron deficiency anemia, and cow's milk allergy. The consumption of whole milk after the first year of life should be discouraged because of its potential role in a variety of disorders including atherosclerosis, recurrent abdominal pain of childhood, cataracts, milk-borne infections, and juvenile delinquency.


It is essential to critically and systematically analyze the literature to determine what impact the historical effects of individual and institutional racism have had on the prevailing health disparities across racial/ethnic groups including African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. Moreover given the historical significance of institutional racism, a review of health disparities across ethnic minority groups could ultimately ayugment understanding in order to ensure culturally competent health care to these vulnerable populations.


Abstract Paclitaxel (PCT) is a cytotoxic agent with a broad antineoplastic activity. IV formulation of PCT causes hypersensitivity reactions in some patients and oral administration is an alternative to decrease the side effects. PCT is not orally available because of low solubility, lack of intestinal permeability, and efflux by pumps in intestinal wall. PCT solution in cremophor EL: ethanol (100 mg/kg) was administered orally to rats after pre-treatment by mefenamic acid, ibuprofen, verapamil, cyclosporine, and verapamil+ibuprofen in individual groups. Ibuprofen presented positive effect on intestinal permeation of PCT. Cmax and area under the serum concentration versus time curve (AUC) after pre-treatment by ibuprofen was decreased when the oral dose of PCT was decreased to 50 and 25 mg/kg, while dose–blood concentration relationship was nonlinear. Rise in oral bioavailability of PCT after pre-treatment by cyclosporine was lower than ibuprofen. It seems that by using ibuprofen in concomitant with potent P-gp inhibitors before PCT solution, oral delivery of PCT could be promising.


A desirable goal for cryptographic protocols is to guarantee security when the protocol is composed with other protocol instances. Universally composable (UC) protocols provide this guarantee in a strong sense: A protocol remains secure even when composed concurrently with an unbounded number of instances of arbitrary protocols. However, UC protocols for carrying out general tasks are known to exist only if a majority of the participants are honest, or in the common reference string (CRS) model where all parties are assumed to have access to a common string that is drawn from some pre-defined distribution. Furthermore, carrying out many interesting tasks in a UC manner and without honest majority or set-up assumptions is impossible, even if ideally authenticated communication is provided. A natural question is thus whether there exist more relaxed set-up assumptions than the CRS model that still allow for UC protocols. We answer this question in the affirmative: we propose alternative and relaxed set-up assumptions and show that they suffice for reproducing the general feasibility results for UC protocols in the CRS model. These alternative assumptions have the flavor of a "public-key infrastructure": parties have registered public keys, no single registration authority needs to be fully trusted, and no single piece of information has to be globally trusted and available. In addition, unlike known protocols in the CRS model, the proposed protocols guarantee some basic level of security even if the set-up assumption is violated.


Aim: This article reviews the studies examining patients' perspective toward telemedicine and their preference for virtual health care services. Methods: An electronic literature search using PubMed was conducted to identify relevant research studies published between December 2019 and August 2020. Twenty-five studies were selected out of 1,041 studies based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, which highlight patients' satisfaction and experience with the use of telemedicine during the pandemic. Results: The findings based upon 48,144 surveyed patients and 146 providers in 12 different countries revealed high satisfaction with virtual encounters across a spectrum of diseases. Telemedicine was found satisfactory on various outcome measures, such as addressing patients' concerns, communication with health care providers, usefulness, and reliability. Most common advantages were time saved due to lesser traveling and waiting time, better accessibility, convenience, and cost efficiency. Age and sex did not significantly impact the satisfaction levels. Physicians and patients both showed a strong preference for continued usage and agreed upon telemedicine's potential to complement the regular health care services even after the pandemic. Technical challenges (reported in 10 studies) and lack of physical examination (reported in 13 studies) were the main limitations encountered in virtual visits. Conclusion: Long-term sustainability of telemedicine for all socioeconomic classes requires closer scrutiny of issues such as technology, training, reimbursement, data privacy, legal guidelines, and framework. Telemedicine must be adopted as a proactive strategy and scaled-up even beyond emergency usage due to its immense potential in complementing conventional health care services, such as diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, surveillance, and infection control.