"How should I apply this information?" Physical therapists are "transforming society by optimizing movement," and oftentimes interventions focus on changing the environment, not the child. Solutions for low-cost adaptive equipment, training paraprofessionals, and creating accessible, inclusive movement groups are critical priorities. Lack of participation of people with disabilities is a global public health crisis and human rights issue.1 Youth with disability participate less in social activities than peers without disability,2 and most never participate in organized or unstructured physical activity.3 Studies from developed countries have reported similar findings regarding environmental and personal barriers and facilitators for participation.4 Access to assistive devices and navigability of the built environment are key findings that should drive practice. Living in poverty and in rural areas increases risk for disease and difficulty accessing resources. Capitalizing on extended family networks, which may be more established in developing countries, is an avenue to enhance participation. Physical therapists should participate in advocacy efforts to promote health and accessible environments. "What should I be mindful about when applying this information?" The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework for the constructs investigated in this study provides a clear structure for the qualitative findings. Although the authors audiotaped and transcribed interviews to demonstrate rigor, using more than 1 person to perform interviews reduces bias. The disability experience is often influenced by socioeconomic status and urban or rural region. Access issues are universal despite sociocultural context. Findings are based on a small sample from an urban locale in a developing country; generalizability of findings is limited to similar populations. The authors provide little insight into specific sociocultural influences on disability status in Thailand. All school-aged children with cerebral palsy need appropriate physical, social, and environmental supports to enable full participation. Enactment of support will be unique, given sociocultural context. Physical therapists are ideally suited to advocate for and provide these services, regardless of culture, socioeconomic status, or region of residence.


A photomicrographic method for evaluation of stallion spermatozoal motility was developed, and spermatozoal image and velocity characteristics were defined. The photomicrographic method was compared with visual estimation of motility in the same semen sample over time. Using photomicrography, velocities and percentages of individual spermatozoal image characteristics were determined. Although there was a high correlation between results of the 2 methods, results of the photomicrographic method were more repeatable than were those of the visual method.


This paper highlights the impressive utility of multi-parallel corpora for transfer learning in a one-to-many low-resource neural machine translation (NMT) setting. We report on a systematic comparison of multistage fine-tuning configurations, consisting of (1) pre-training on an external large (209k–440k) parallel corpus for English and a helping target language, (2) mixed pre-training or fine-tuning on a mixture of the external and low-resource (18k) target parallel corpora, and (3) pure fine-tuning on the target parallel corpora. Our experiments confirm that multi-parallel corpora are extremely useful despite their scarcity and content-wise redundancy thus exhibiting the true power of multilingualism. Even when the helping target language is not one of the target languages of our concern, our multistage fine-tuning can give 3–9 BLEU score gains over a simple one-to-one model.


An extremely versatile microfluidic device is demonstrated in which multi-step (bio)chemical procedures can be performed in continuous flow. The system operates by generating several co-laminar flow streams, which contain reagents for specific (bio)reactions across a rectangular reaction chamber. Functionalized magnetic microparticles are employed as mobile solid-supports and are pulled from one side of the reaction chamber to the other by use of an external magnetic field. As the particles traverse the co-laminar reagent streams, binding and washing steps are performed on their surface in one operation in continuous flow. The applicability of the platform was first demonstrated by performing a proof-of-principle binding assay between streptavidin coated magnetic particles and biotin in free solution with a limit of detection of 20 ng mL(-1) of free biotin. The system was then applied to a mouse IgG sandwich immunoassay as a first example of a process involving two binding steps and two washing steps, all performed within 60 s, a fraction of the time required for conventional testing.


The Binary Phylogeny Problem is to reconstruct a tree reporting the evolutionary history of a group of taxa for which a binary matrix of characteristics is given. Gusseld 5] presented an O(mn)-time algorithm for this problem with n taxa and m characteristics. This bound is tight if the input is given as an n m matrix. In this paper we show that a linear time algorithm is possible provided the input is given as a list of the \1" positions in the matrix. The PQ-trees introduced by Booth and Leuker 1] are used here. More precisely, we show that a binary phylogeny exists if and only if the input admits a PQ-tree without Q nodes. This immediately gives a linear time algorithm for the problem.


Twenty isolates of Fusarium oxysporum from Brazil, pathogenic and non-pathogenic to common bean, were analysed using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPDs) to study the genetic diversity. RAPD analysis using 23 oligonucleotides resulted in the amplification of 229 polymorphic and 7 monomorphic DNA fragments ranging from 234 to 2590 bp. High genetic variability was observed among the isolates, with the distances varying between 8% and 76% among pathogenic, 2% and 63% among the non-pathogenic and 45% and 76% between pathogenic and non-pathogenic isolates. The analysis of genetic distance data showed that the pathogenic isolates tended to group in one group and the non-pathogenic in another. The genetic distance values of 30% among the pathogenic isolates in cluster A are compatible with the genetic distance values observed within the physiological races, but the distance values among the pathogenic isolates in clusters B and G are not compatible with the distance values observed within the race. Although our results are preliminary, it was not possible to exclude the existence of more than one race of this fungus in Brazil.


OBJECTIVE
To report surgical repair of a bifid nose combined with a cleft of the primary palate.

STUDY DESIGN
Clinical report.

ANIMALS
A 1-year-old, male castrated Springer spaniel dog.

METHODS
With the dog in sternal recumbency, an extraoral (dorsal) approach to the nose was performed, and after surgical margins were outlined, a Y-shaped skin incision was made to remove redundant tissue and expose the bifid nasal cartilages. The cartilages were opposed and sutured together and the skin closed in 2 layers. The dog was repositioned in dorsal recumbency, and the 2 maxillary first incisor teeth were extracted. After tangential incision and undermining of the cleft defect, the mucosa was sutured in 1 layer.

RESULTS
Healing was uneventful and there was an immediate return to normal function. At 2 weeks, 3 and 6 months function was excellent without further clinical signs.

CONCLUSION
Bifid nose associated with a cleft of the primary palate can be surgically corrected.


Between 2000 and 2005 infrastructure made a net contribution of only 0.3 percentage points to the improved per capita growth performance of Niger, one of the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries (MICs) could boost annual growth by about 4.5 percentage points, mainly by improving the condition of the road network. Niger has made significant progress in some areas of its infrastructure. Important reforms liberalizing the water supply and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors have boosted performance. In particular, reforms in urban water are among the most promising on the continent. Increased competition in the ICT market has contributed to the rapid expansion of mobile services. NIGELEC, the national power utility, has enhanced its performance. The Nigerien portions of regional corridors are in relatively good or fair condition. Air transport connectivity has improved. Niger has the potential to close this funding gap by tapping alternate sources of financing or adopting lower-cost technologies. There is plenty of room for private sector participation in Niger's infrastructure sectors, in particular ICT. Meanwhile, the adoption of alternate lower-cost technologies in the water supply, power, and road sectors would reduce the financing gap by almost a half ($219 million).


Modified bituminous materials can be used to advantage on roads that are subject to high stress, such as on heavily trafficked sections, sharp bends, and bridge decks, or to wide variations of temperatures. Addition of polymer to bitumen improves the visco-elastic properties by increasing the resistance to permanent deformation at high stresses and temperatures. To encourage more accurate road surfacing design in New Zealand, accurate reproducible measurements of the mechanical properties of both unmodified and polymer-modified bitumens are needed. Test methods to obtain these data are generally expensive. A low cost analysis technique that has potential for both quality control and performance specification in testing laboratories is torsional braid analysis. An investigation to test the torsional braid analysis technique was commenced in 1991 using samples of unmodified and polymer-modified bitumens that are used on New Zealand roads. The technique was tested in the frequency range 0.1 to 0.01 Hz, and in the temperature range 5 to 60 degrees Celsius. However, the quantitative results for the shear moduli of the bitumens tested were difficult both to interpret and to compare with other results because of the high experimental error, especially in these low frequencies and in this temperature range. The method without refinements, such as automated data collection, was not entirely satisfactory for the intended application of characterising polymer-modified materials to be used in high temperature and high stress sections of New Zealand roads.


The question of responsibility plays a critical role not only in our attempts to resolve social and political problems, but in our very conceptions of what those problems are. Who, for example, is to blame for apartheid in South Africa? Is the South African government responsible? What about multinational corporations that do business there? Will uncovering the "true facts of the matter" lead us to the right answer? In an argument both compelling and provocative, Marion Smiley demonstrates how attributions of blame-far from being based on an objective process of factual discovery-are instead judgments that we ourselves make on the basis of our own political and social points of view. She argues that our conception of responsibility is a singularly modern one that locates the source of blameworthiness in an individual's free will. After exploring the flaws inherent in this conception, she shows how our judgments of blame evolve out of our configuration of social roles, our conception of communal boundaries, and the distribution of power upon which both are based. The great strength of Smiley's study lies in the way in which it brings together both rigorous philosophical analysis and an appreciation of the dynamics of social and political practice. By developing a pragmatic conception of moral responsibility, this work illustrates both how moral philosophy can enhance our understanding of social and political practices and why reflection on these practices is necessary to the reconstruction of our moral concepts.


This paper proposes a novel fault detection algorithm in a brushless DC (BLDC) motor drive system. This proposed method is configured without the additional sensor for fault detection and identification. The fault detection and identification are achieved by a simple algorithm using the operating characteristic of the BLDC motor. The drive system after the fault identification is reconfigured by four-switch topology connecting a faulty leg to the middle point of DC-link using bidirectional switches. This proposed method can also be embedded into existing BLDC motor drive system as a subroutine without an excessive computational effort. The feasibility of a novel fault detection algorithm is validated in simulation and experiment.


The use of a parallel multiplier for performing high-speed binary division requires that an algorithm be devised that obtains the quotient by means of multiplications and additions. Furthermore, its hardware implementation must be as simple and as fast as possible. A suitable algorithm, which applies to a first approximation to the reciprocal of the divisor, has already been proposed[1]. A similar algorithm is presented in this paper. The comparison between the two methods for equal numbers of multiplications shows that the latter is more accurate. Conversely, a given accuracy can often be obtained with a higher speed. The generation of a piecewise-linear initial approximation is also discussed.


This report explores why it is necessary to design and deliver homelessness services specifically for Indigenous people. The authors speak to the concerns of government policy makers in this field generally as well as relevant administrators and non-government organisations (NGOs) engaged in designing programs and services for Aboriginal homeless and public place dwelling people. They begin with a discussion of the policy context and relevance of the report including a discussion of recent trends in policy towards mainstreaming of services provided for Indigenous homeless people. An introductory section also contains a short historical contextualisation of Indigenous homelessness which aims to demonstrate how it is different to homelessness in other sectors of the community and introduces some of the culturally specific drivers as well as a demographic profile. Various identified historical camping lifestyles will provide a background to the reasons for the currency within Aboriginal living memory of the practice of camping which enables many contemporary Aboriginal people to engage in camping in public places when no other housing option is accessible. The report contains an analysis of the recent empirical studies of Indigenous homeless people which brings forth some of the specific multiple causes, conditions and implications of Indigenous homelessness. This leads to the development of a set of homeless categories to define the specific conditions of Indigenous homelessness that the authors argue is more relevant and useful for policy makers and service practitioners. The authors discuss Indigenous public place dwellers and develop a more nuanced understanding than previously reported in the published literature of this little understood phenomenon, based on fieldwork and studies over the past several decades, and illustrated with case study examples. This in turn is linked to the short discussion in Section 4 which outlines the risks faced by rough sleepers. An analysis of conditions of housed people who are at risk of homelessness which the authors argue is a second category of homelessness that is often overlooked or under-reported in survey and census data and therefore by policy making is discussed. The report also discusses terms such as 'spiritual homelessness', concerns about the nature of practice responses to Indigenous homelessness and public place dwelling, and briefly examines cross-cultural differences in the values underlying whether particular Aboriginal lifestyle behaviours that can be associated with homelessness, may or may not be legitimised.


The enthalpies of mixing in the system 3-ethyl-3 pentanol–carbon tetrachloride were measured by microcalorimetry. The classic theory of associated solutions leads to an expression for the excess enthalpy which we have simplified by introducing the heat at infinite dilution for the alcohol. The resulting expression allows the enthalpy of formation of a hydrogen bond to be calculated using calorimetric and tonometric results. The calculations show that this enthalpy is independent of the concentration of the solution (up to 0.45 in molar fraction) and is in agreement with the literature.


The immune system protects a host from foreign pathogens. In rare cases, the immune system can attack the cells of the host organism causing autoimmune diseases. We outline a computational framework that combines bioinformatics and network analysis with an emerging targets platform. The computational framework presented here can be used to find drug targets for autoimmune diseases. It can also be used to find existing drugs that can be repurposed to treat autoimmune diseases based on networks of interactions or similarities between different diseases. Information on which gene regions are associated with the disease (single nucleotide polymorphisms) can be used in gene therapy when that technique becomes viable. Our analysis also revealed immune cell subtypes that are implicated in these diseases. These immune cell subtypes can be selected for immunotherapy experiments. Finally, our analysis also reveals intra-cellular and protein-protein interaction networks and pathways that can be targeted with small molecule inhibitors. The downstream off-target effects of these inhibitors can also be determined from such a network analysis. In summary, our computational framework can be used to find novel therapeutics for autoimmune diseases and potentially even other dysfunctions.


The present article deals with the Italian lexical-semantic database Simple_PLUS and focuses on its essential core, i.e. the network of lexical semantic relations. This lexical resource builds on Parole-Simple-Clips, a four-layered electronic lexicon of Italian, founded on the SIMPLE model. Simple_PLUS consists of 30,000 semantic entries, partly imported from the source lexicon and partly newly created, but all encoding a wide-ranging set of information provided by the underpinning model. In Simple_PLUS, this semantic representation has been enriched with significant relational information, in a largely automated, inexpensive process. More than 5,000 links relating events to their participants and co-participants in events, and which were not capturable previously through lack of suitable representational means, have been encoded with the appropriate descriptive vocabulary borrowed from the EuroWordNet lexical model. Such conceptual links, which efficiently enhance the predicative representation in the lexicon, provide crucial lexical knowledge for NLP systems and for the Semantic Web.


SMOOTH muscle tumors constitute approximately 1% of all gastrointestinal neoplasms. To date, 40 cases of leiomyoma and leiomyosarcoma of the colon have been described.1-6It has been suggested that such tumors in the young have a different growth rate, aggressiveness, biologic potential, and radiosensitivity than those seen in adults. There is no report of a myomatous tumor arising from the cecum in a child. Report of a Case A 10-year-old boy was admitted to the pediatric service of the institute on Feb 27, 1968, with complaints of colicky pain in the right side of the abdomen and progressive distention during the last month. The pain, associated with vomiting, recurred every seven to eight days. There was no history of diarrhea, constipation, melena, or significant weight loss. Physical examination showed a slightly pale child weighing 24 kg (53 lb). There was no jaundice or lymphadenopathy. Palpation of the abdomen revealed


In the late 20th century theorists within the radical feminist tradition such as Haraway (1988) highlighted the impossibility of separating knowledge from knowers, grounding firmly the idea that embodied bias can and does make its way into argument. Along a similar vein, Moulton (1983) exposed a gendered theme within critical thinking that casts the feminine as toxic 'unreason' and the ideal knower as distinctly masculine; framing critical thinking as a method of masculine knowers fighting off feminine 'unreason'. Theorists such as Burrow (2010) have picked up upon this tradition, exploring the ways in which this theme of overly masculine, or 'adversarial', argumentation is both unnecessary and serves as an ineffective base for obtaining truth. Rooney (2010) further highlighted how this unnecessarily gendered context results in argumentative double binds for women, undermining their authority and stifling much-needed diversity within philosophy as a discipline.These are damning charges that warrant a response within critical thinking frameworks. We suggest that the broader critical thinking literature, primarily that found within contexts of critical pedagogy and dispositional schools, can and should be harnessed within the critical thinking literature to bridge the gap between classical and feminist thinkers. We highlight several methods by which philosophy can retain the functionality of critical thinking while mitigating the obstacles presented by feminist critics and highlight how the adoption of such methods not only improves critical thinking, but is also beneficial to philosophy, philosophers and feminists alike.


As an urgently needed device for vascular diseases, the small-diameter vascular graft is limited by high thrombogenicity in clinical applications. Rapid endothelialization is a promising approach to construct an antithrombogenic inner surface of the vascular graft. The main bottleneck for rapid endothelialization is the adhesion, migration, and proliferation of endothelial cells (ECs) in situ of the small-diameter vascular graft. Herein, we innovatively fabricated an intelligent gene delivery small-caliber vascular graft based on electrospun poly(lactic acid-co-caprolactone) and gelatin for rapid in situ endothelialization. The graft surface was co-modified with EC adhesive peptide of Arg-Glu-Asp-Val (REDV) and responsive gene delivery system. REDV can selectively adhere ECs onto the graft surface; subsequently, the overexpressed matrix metalloproteinase by ECs can effectively cleave the linker peptide GPQGIWGQ-C; and finally, the gene complexes were intelligently and enzymatically released from the graft surface, and thereby, the gene can efficiently transfect ECs. Importantly, this enzymatically releasing gene surface has been proven to be safe and temporarily stable in blood flow owing to the biotin-avidin interaction to immobilize gene complexes on the inner surface of vascular grafts through the GPQGIWGQ-C peptide linker. It has the advantage of specifically adhering the ECs to the surface and smartly transfecting them with high transfection efficiency. The co-modified surface has been demonstrated to accelerate the luminal endothelialization in vivo, which might be attributed to the synergistic effect of REDV and effective gene transfection. Particularly, the intelligent and responsive gene release surface will open a new avenue to enhance the endothelialization of blood-contacting devices.


A ring cavity Tm-doped fiber laser system was built based on a 1 550 nm fiber laser. And, its spectral chacteristics were investigated. With 1 550 nm pump, the spontaneous emission of the 1.6 m long Tm-doped fiber covered a spectral range from 1 800-1900 nm with a 3 dB bandwidth bigger than 60 nm. Inserting an isolator into the ring cavity, narrow linewidth output was obtained with a 3 dB linewidth smaller than 0.2 nm centering at around 1 900 nm. Further adding a tunable FP filter, tunable, narrow linewidth laser output was attained. The laser spectrum was tunable from 1 840 -1 900 nm with a broad tunable range reaching 60 nm while maintaining a 3 dB linewidth of only 0.07 nm. In addition, a telecommunication FP filter at the 1 550 nm waveband was also exploited in this ring cavity laser system for wavelength tuning. And, a narrow linewidth, broadband tunable laser output in two seperated spectral ranges was also recorded. Together with the 2000nm FP laser system, this laser demonstrates a wide tunable range from 1820-1915nm which is consistent with the spontaneous emission spectrum of the Tm-doped fiber.


This paper presents progress toward an integrated, robust, real-time face detection and demographic analysis system. Faces are detected and extracted using the fast algorithm proposed by P. Viola and M.J. Jones (2001). Detected faces are passed to a demographic (gender and ethnicity) classifier which uses the same architecture as the face detector. This demographic classifier is extremely fast, and delivers error rates slightly better than the best-known classifiers. To counter the unconstrained and noisy sensing environment, demographic information is integrated across time for each individual. Therefore, the final demographic classification combines estimates from many facial detections in order to reduce the error rate. The entire system processes 10 frames per second on an 800-MHz Intel Pentium III.


We consider finite systems of contractive homeomorphisms of a complete metric space, which are non-redundant on every level. In general this separation condition is weaker than the strong open set condition and is not equivalent to the weak separation property. We prove that this separation condition is equivalent to the strong Markov property (see definition below). We also show that the set of N -tuples of contractive homeomorphisms, which are nonredundant on every level, is a Gδ set in the topology of pointwise convergence of every component mapping with an additional requirement that the supremum of contraction coefficients of mappings be strictly less than one. We give several sufficient conditions for this separation property. For every fixed N -tuple of d × d invertible contraction matrices from a certain class, we obtain density results for N -tuples of fixed points which define N -tuples of mappings non-redundant on every level.


In the North Sea well studied in this paper, the radioactive isotopes of U, Th and K are shown to control the variations in the gamma-log response. Th and K are associated with the clay fraction, while U is enriched in the silt fraction.

In the volcaniclastic Palaeocene and Eocene beds, low gamma activity is due to a high content of volcanic debris poor in U and Th, while higher gamma activity in the younger beds indicates the decrease in volcaniclastic material.


The present paper is aimed at working out the algorithm of multi-contact interaction of solid bodies; it studies the influence of the shape of projectile (damage agent) on its penetration capability. Steel projectiles of different shape have been considered as damage agents: sphere, regular tetrahedron, cube, cylinder and plate. The weight of projectiles has been kept the same. Antitank grenade has been used as a target. The study has been conducted by means of numerical simulation using finite element analysis. The simulation is three-dimensional. Behavior of materials has been described by elasto-plastic model taking into consideration the fracture and fragmentation of interacting bodies. The speed of interaction has been considered within the range of 800 to 2000 m/s. Research results demonstrated significant influence of the projectile shape on its penetration capability. Projectile in the shape of elongated cylinder has shown better penetration capability. Considering the weight of damage agents (exc...


Technology assessment (TA) is a relatively new concept with a heterogeneous "community" of practitioners and advocates. Consequently, there is much confusion about the new analytic strategy. Many people, for example, confuse TA with other technology studies such as engineering feasibility, market research, clinical trials, cost-benefit, environmental impact, technology forecasting, or technology transfer. This article-which draws most of its examples from the field of health-attempts to allay the confusion by showing how TA differs significantly from other technology studies and by articulating both the opportunities and obstacles involved in conducting comprehensive assessments. Using a question and answer format, the paper focuses on six facets of TA: 1) What is technology assessment? 2) Why is technology assessment needed? 3) How do comprehensive TA's differ from other technology studies? 4) What are the differences among evolving TA prototypes? 5) What comprehensive TA's have been done in health/medicine? 6) What are the limitations of the state of the art of TA?


The technique of in situ hybridisation was optimised for the detection of viral RNA using radioactively-labelled single-stranded DNA and RNA probes, and applied to three areas of interest. Optimum hybridisation conditions were determined in vitro using cells infected with the single-stranded negative sense RNA paramyxoviruses. Transcription of RNA probes was the most rapid and efficient method of probe labelling, since electrophoretic purification was not required and large amounts of RNA were produced. However, their use for in situ hybridisation was problematic due to RNase contamination and low sensitivity, in contrast, DNA probes produced from M13 clones and oligonucleotide probes gave consistent hybridisation results Ind were preferred in subsequent studies for their ease of use, stability and sensitivity. The effect of virus-host interactions on the clearance of the paramyxovirus, SV5, in a mouse model was investigated by detection of viral RNA and protein in lung sections. Immunisation with purified SV5 proteins prior to infection provided protection against infection, indicated by a reduction in the level of viral RNA and protein, due to enhanced clearance of virus by primed T cells. X-lrradiation of the host prior to infection resulted in prolonged or persistent infection in which RNA was detected up to 19 days post-infection. The potential of in situ hybridisation for detection of aetiologicai agents was demonstrated by investigation of the presence of measles virus in two chronic human diseases. Thus, measles virus RNA was detected in brain sections from a patient with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis and in the osteoclasts of bone sections from a patient with Paget's disease of bone. In situ hybridisation was used to analyse expression of the two immediate-early genes of herpesvirus saimiri, the 52K gene and the hinG gene. Differential expression was detected by hybridisation to mRNA using oligonucleotide probes, in productively-infected cells. The 52K gene was expressed asynchronously throughout the population In agreement with immunocytochemical detection of the 52K protein, in contrast, the hinG gene was expressed synchronously, with all cells showing similar levels of hybridisation, indicating a specific control mechanism for expression of the 52K gene, which differs from that of the hinG gene in requiring or being inhibited by additional factors. This may have relevance to the mechanism of establishment of latency in this virus.


The comparative assessment of the combining application of bulbosum technique and anther culture in vitro for spring barley haploid production has been presented. It has been shown that the yield of haploids depended on genotype of initial material and genotype and method interaction. The advantages of the use of these two techniques complemented each other in barley breeding program are discussed.


A series of studies have found that, prior to the introduction of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS), parents in Ireland faced some of the highest childcare costs among OECD countries. To improve childcare affordability, in 2019 the Government introduced the NCS, which awards universal and means-tested childcare subsidies to families using registered childcare. In this report we estimate the potential cost and distributional impact of extending the NCS to a form of mostly unregistered childcare: childminders who care for children in the childminder's home . We estimate that this reform would increase the cost of the NCS to the Exchequer by € 35 – 121 million per annum (8 per cent to 29 per cent of the current cost), depending on take-up of the subsidy. Such a reform would decrease the cost of childminder-based care by € 100 per month, per child, and would mainly benefit middle-income households. This could also have wider impacts, on both the demand for centre-based childcare and mothers' labour supply.


Hydrocarbon pollution is a perennial problem not only in India but throughout the globe. A plethora of microorganisms have been reported to be efficient degraders of these recalcitrant pollutants. In the present study the Basidiomycetous a fungal isolate Agaricomycetes sp. AGAT was isolated from wood bark collected from Anand, Gujarat India. The isolate was screened for production of ligninolytic enzyme by primary and secondary screening. The isolate Agaricomycetes sp. AGAT is also able to degrade the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in the contaminated soil. The basidiomycetous fungal Agaricomycetes sp. AGAT was able to grow on 100 ppm Pyrene, Phenanthrene, Fluorene and Fluoranthene as a sole source of carbon in minimal medium. Maximum degradation of 78.53%, 85.05%, 20.5% and 70.49% of Phenanthrene, Pyrene, Fluoranthene and Fluorene respectively. The depletion in the residual PAHs in the culture medium was determined by HPLC. By GC-MS analysis metabolites were identified as 1-hydroxypyrene and phthalic acid from Pyrene, 9H- Fluoren-9-ol from Fluorene, Fluorene, 4-[1,2-dihydroxethyl] from Fluoranthene and 9,10-dihydro-9,10-dihydroxyphenanthrene from Phenanthrene. Further effect of surfactants, mediator were also studied. Phytotoxicity study of degraded metabolite was also studied.


This paper presents a methodological framework to explore the cognitive processes implemented by members of a software development team to manage ambiguous situations at the stage of product requirements definition. Fuzzy Cognitive Maps are used in the framework to elicit cognitive schemes and develop a measure of individual ambiguity tolerance.


Nowadays people are being more dependent on web application because of its accessibility. The web application is expected to play a significant role in internet applications. A web application can be accessed from anywhere by any person of the world through internet. People use web application for their own purpose through a web system. But it has some probability to be hacked or data stolen by an unauthorized person. There are some common vulnerabilities of a web application. If it is possible to prevent the attack and then web application will be secure to protect user's information. And then the user also will get the best productivity of web application and they will increase interaction with the web based system. So it is very important to provide a secure web platform. In this paper, some basic steps have been proposed to secure web application form unauthorized access.


A psychological model portrays substance abuse as the result of efforts to self-medicate for particularly painful affect states. Long-term psychotherapy is the treatment of choice for the hypersensitization to affects. The important role of group psychotherapy in substance-abuse treatment is discussed in light of clinical results.


This paper is concerned with the ways in which lay people come to understand and assess xenotransplantation. Drawing on focus group data, we explore how people can both demonstrate a collective process of cost–benefit thinking and tacitly problematize this by deploying three meta-arguments that we call "trust," "telos," and "trump." Respectively, these meta-arguments emphasize: unexamined relations of trust; irrelevance because innovations such as xenotransplantation are inevitable; and redundancy in the face of desperation. We then consider how lay people draw upon certain analogies associated with meat in order to grasp the meaning of xenotransplantation. The data show how "meat" itself displays disparate and contested meanings. Depending on what aspects of meat are emphasized, xenotransplantation is represented in either a negative or a positive light. Some of the implications of the fluidity of the meaning of both meat and xenotransplantation for cost– benefit thinking in lay and expert discourse are discussed.


Conflict is a natural phenomenon in the construction project management as in other areas of human activities as its importance being accepted if positively managed. Despite different types of conflict resolution, arbitration and mediation conflict in construction projects remained unending and project abandonment flourishes in Nigerian construction industry, however the involvement of Project Managers as a leader who should maintain conflict within the project is worthy of precise role clarification. Therefore, the study seeks to confirm the nature of conflict that is applicable in construction project management; identify the main causes of conflict and ascertain how conflict can be minimized through the use of available tactics in project management. In addition, the researcher reviews current literature on conflict management in construction industry. Also, questionnaires were given to Project managers from a construction background to elicit necessary information for data analysis. Inferential and relational statistical analyses suggest that conflict is natural and inevitable, which may have positive or negative effect. Furthermore, communication breakdown and conflicting commitment of the project managers are the most prevalent causes of conflict in Nigerian construction industry and the tactics most adopted by Project managers in minimizing conflict is by improving communication channels and establishment of sense of trust and collective responsibilities. (In addition to the research findings) the author recommends that Project managers should improve communication channels; build a sense of trust amongst project team members and advance their knowledge in human relation in order to reduce conflicts in projects logically to improve on project success.


Cubic copper ferrite CuFe2O4 nanopowders have been synthesized via a hydrothermal route using industrial
wastes. The synthesis conditions were systematically studied using statistical design (Box–Behnken
Program) and the optimum conditions were determined. The results revealed that single phase of cubic
copper ferrite powders can be obtained at different temperatures from 100 to 200 C for times from 12 to
36 h with pH values 8–12. The crystallite size of the produced powders was in the range between 24.6
and 51.5 nm. The produced copper ferrite powders were appeared as a homogeneous pseudo-cubic-like
structure. A high saturation magnetization (Ms 83.7 emu/g) was achieved at hydrothermal temperature
200 C for 24 h and pH 8. Photocatalytic degradation of the methylene blue dye using copper ferrite powders
produced at different conditions was investigated. A good catalytic efficiency was 95.9% at hydrothermal
temperature 200 C for hydrothermal time 24 h at pH 12 due to high surface area (118.4 m2/g).
 2011 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder
Technology Japan. All rights reserved.


The metabolism of biogenic aldehydes was measured in different fractions of human blood. Isolated erythrocytes, leukocytes, platelets and plasma were incubated with the aldehydes derived from dopamine and serotonin (DOPAL and 5-HIAL, respectively). The disappearance of the aldehydes and the formation of the acid and alcohol metabolites were analysed using HPLC with electrochemical detection. When erythrocytes were incubated with 1 microM DOPAL or 5-HIAL only the acid metabolites were formed, whereas both acid and alcohol metabolites were formed in incubations with leukocytes or platelets. No metabolites were formed when the aldehydes were incubated with plasma. In incubations with erythrocytes, the oxidation of the aldehydes was totally inhibited in the presence of 50 microM disulfiram, whereas the formation of both acid and alcohol metabolites was inhibited in incubations with platelets. Disulfiram did not affect the metabolism of DOPAL or 5-HIAL in incubations with leukocytes. The oxidation of the aldehydes was inhibited by 50-70% in the presence of a 500-fold excess of acetaldehyde. Ethanol at a concentration of 10 mM did not affect the metabolism.


For many, YouTube is little more than a deluge of low-quality videos depicting the latest internet craze or conspiracy theory, perhaps some painful-looking accident, music videos and videobloggers of dubious talent, and of course, cats. But many underestimate the potential of YouTube as an educational tool. From how-to instructional videos to TED talks, YouTube could well be the most important educational tool of our time.


Hexagonal LiCoO2 nanomesh is fabricated for the first time based on the low crystal mismatch strategy. From the precursor of (NH4)2Co8(CO3)6(OH)6·4H2O nanosheet to Co3O4 nanomesh and finally to LiCoO2 nanomesh, the crystal mismatch ranges from 0 to 13%, which ensures that the feature of single crystallinity remains in the prepared samples. LiCoO2 nanomesh exhibits combined properties of single crystallinity, mesoporosity, and ultrathin thickness. To the best of our knowledge, no similar results have been reported before in selectively exposing (100) and (010) crystal planes, the rapid rocking planes of the Li ions, for LiCoO2 at almost 100% surface ratio. The enhanced performance in rate capability enables the LiCoO2 nanomesh to be an excellent cathode in Li ion batteries (LIBs).


This dissertation focuses on the labor supply decisions of temporary workers in order to determine who these workers are, the welfare of these workers and if their choice of employment is a result of their preferences or of labor market constraints. In Chapter 1 I summarize the existing literature and outline the direction of my future research in this area. Chapter 2 uses cross-sectional data from the Current Population Survey for 1985 and 1995, and looks at the changes in earnings and composition of the temporary labor force between 1985 and 1995. I find among other things that 1) the wage differential between temporary and non-temporary workers has narrowed over the ten-year period, 2) the composition of the temporary labor force has changed; there has been an influx of Latinos, Blacks and other racial minorities entering the temp sector and, 3) there is evidence that the temporary labor market is becoming more organized in terms of firms specializing and offering non-pecuniary benefits in order to recruit, attract, and retain workers. In Chapter 3, I use the May 1985 Current Population Survey: Work Schedules, Multiple Jobholding and Premium Pay (CPS) to examine the preferences of workers for more hours, fewer hours or the same number of hours from the benchmark of the number of hours they currently work. I find strong evidence that contingent workers are significantly more likely to desire more hours than they currently can obtain, even after conditioning on a fairly full set of personal and job characteristics. In the Chapter 4 I use the NLSY79 to examine from the change from regular to contingent employment and vice versa, on family earnings. Since contingent employment is an increasingly common means of securing employment, it is important to understand whether the change in job status stated above adversely affects the economic outcome of the family unit. Results show that family earnings are adversely affected by the change in work status from regular to contingent employment although the spouse mitigates this through compensatory spousal contributions


A two-stage chemostat was used to study removal of cadmium by microorganisms in continuous culture. The medium was contaminated with 0.8 mg of Cd per liter. At 20°C, most of the microbial biomass formed aggregates which settled in the second stage of the chemostat. Effluent was free of bacteria. Up to 80% of the metal contained in the inlet flux was removed by the biomass, with 20% remaining in solution. At 10°C and with a shorter retention time, flocculation was poorer and metal removal by settling biomass did not exceed 35%.


AIM
To investigate the relationship between c.343A>G and c.2216A>C polymorphism sites in the CDH17 gene and colorectal carcinoma.

METHODS
Ninety-three non-consanguineous colorectal carcinoma patients admitted to the Department of Oncology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University were included in this study. Ninety-three peripheral venous blood samples, of approximately one milliliter from each patient, were collected between December 2009 and August 2010. The genomic DNA of these peripheral venous blood samples were extracted and purified using a Fermentas Genomic DNA Purification Kit (Fermentas, CA) according to the manufacturer's protocol. The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the liver-intestine cadherin (CDH17) gene c.343A>G and c.2216A>C were determined by the polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism method (PCR-SSCP) in 93 peripheral venous blood samples from patients suffering with colorectal carcinoma. Typical samples that showed different migration bands in SSCP were confirmed by sequencing. Directed DNA sequencing was used to check the correctness of the genotype results from the PCR-SSCP method.

RESULTS
There was a significant association between the c.2216 A>C SNPs of the CDH17 gene and the tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) grade, as well as with lymph node status, in 93 peripheral venous blood samples from colorectal carcinoma patients. The genotype frequencies of A/C, A/A, and C/C were 12.90%, 33.33% and 53.76%, respectively. There was a significant correlation between lymph node metastasis, TNM grade, and the genotype distribution (P < 0.05). The C/C genotype raised the risk of lymph node metastasis and the TNM grade. There was a significant difference in the TNM grade and lymph node metastasis between the A/A and C/C genotypes (P = 0.003 and P = 0.013, respectively). Patients with colorectal carcinoma carrying the C allele tended to have a higher risk of lymph node metastasis and have a higher TNM grade. The difference between the TNM grades, as well as the lymph node metastasis of the two alleles, was statistically significant (P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
The SNPs of the CDH17 gene c.2216 A>C might be clinically important in the prognosis of colorectal carcinoma.


Voluntary intake and liveweight gain of Angus cattle (CAP) and swamp buffalo (B) were compared on 2 feeds; ad lib. luceme hay (L) + 1 kg concentrate/animal/day (LC) and nd lib. pasture hay (P) in a 2 x 2 Latin square designed trial. The two hays had similar ME values; L, 8.5 and P 8.7 MJ/MJYkg DM, but differed (P ~0.05) in protein content; L, 14.6% and P IO. 1%. The concentrate was 13.5 MJ ME/kg DM and 14.1% protein. Animals were fed in a feed-lot with individual pens/treatment. Intake was assessed on a group basis for all treatments and individual animal intake was assessed for the P treatments only using slow release chromium capsules. Two, 4 week. experimental periods were preceded by a 2 week feed adjustment period. Liveweight gains showed a species x fed interaction (P ~0.001) with individual treatment gains (kg/day) of; 0.80, -0.54, -0.02, -0.09 for CLC, CP, BLC, and BP groups respectively. Cattle consumed (group assessment) more (P ~0.05) L hay than buffalo; 127 vs 99 g DW kg LWT'.75. The intake of P hay was similar for each species; 102 and 100 g DM/kg LWF'.7s for C and B respectively. The release of Cr,O, from the capsules were similar for the two species (1.56 g/day). Intakes of P hay assessed by the marker technique differed (P <O.OS); 100 and 88 g DiWkg LWl?.7s for the CP and BP treatments respectively. The difference in performance of the two species on P may have been the result of the marginal (for cattle) protein levels. No explanation is given for the poor performance of buffalo on the LC ration.


This study reports a novel and convenient bimodal method for label-free and signal-off detection of arsenate in environmental samples. Cobalt oxyhydroxide (CoOOH) nanoflakes with facile preparation and intrinsic peroxidase-like activity as nanozyme can efficiently catalyze the conversion of chromogenic substrate such as 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) with the presence of H2O2 into green-colored oxidation products. CoOOH nanoflakes can specifically bind with arsenate via electrostatic attraction and As-O bond interaction, which gives rise to inhibition of the peroxidase-like activity of CoOOH. Thus, through arsenate specific inhibition of CoOOH nanozyme toward ABTS catalysis, a simple colorimetric method was developed for arsenate detection with a detection limit of 3.72 ppb. Based on the system of CoOOH nanozyme and ABTS substrate, this colorimetric method can be converted into an electrochemical sensor for arsenate assay by the utilization of CoOOH nanoflake-modified electrode. The electrochemical measurement can be realized by chronoamperometry, which showed more sensitive and a lower limit of detection as low as 56.1 ppt. The applicability of this bimodal method was demonstrated by measuring arsenate and total arsenic in different real samples such as natural waters and soil extracted solutions, and the results are of satisfactory accuracy as confirmed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry analysis. The bimodal strategy offers obvious advantages including a label-free step, convenient operation, on-site assay, low cost, and high sensitivity, which is promising for reliable detection of arsenate and total arsenic in environmental samples.


Fatty acids, in the form of triglycerides, are the main constituent of the class of dietary lipids. They not only serve as a source of energy but can also act as potent regulators of gene transcription. It is well accepted that an energy rich diet characterized by high intakes of dietary fat is linked to the dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in both developed and developing countries in the last several decades. Obese individuals are at increased risk of developing the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of metabolic abnormalities that ultimately increase the risk of developing vascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. Many studies have been performed to uncover the role of fatty acids on gene expression in different organs, but integrative studies in different organs over time driven by high throughput data are lacking. Therefore, we first aimed to develop integrative approaches on the level of individual genes but also pathways using genome-wide transcriptomics datasets of mouse liver and small intestine that are related to fatty acid sensing transcription factor peroxisome proliferator activated receptor alpha (PPARα). We also aimed to uncover the behavior of PPARαtarget genes and their corresponding biological functions in a short time series experiment, and integrated and modeled the influence of different levels of dietary fat and the time dependency on transcriptomics datasets obtained from several organs by developing system level approaches. We developed an integrative statistical approach that properly adjusted for multiple testing while integrating data from two experiments, and was driven by biological inference. By quantifying pathway activities in different mouse tissues over time and subsequent integration by partial least squares path model, we found that the induced pathways at early time points are the main drivers for the induced pathways at late time points. In addition, using a time course microarray study of rat hepatocytes, we found that most of the PPARα target genes at early stage are involved in lipid metabolism-related processes and their expression level could be modeled using a quadratic regression function. In this study, we also found that the transcription factorsNR2F, CREB, EREF and RXR might work together with PPARα in the regulation of genes involved in lipid metabolism. By integrating time and dose dependent gene expression data of mouse liver and white adipose tissue (WAT), we found a set of time-dose dependent genes in liver and WAT including potential signaling proteinssecreted from WAT that may induce metabolic changes in liver, thereby contributing to the pathogenesis of obesity. Taken together, in this thesis integrative statistical approaches are presented that were applied to a variety of datasets related to metabolism of fatty acids. Results that were obtained provide a better understanding of the function of the fatty acid-sensor PPARa, and identified a set of secreted proteins that may be important for organ cross talk during the development of diet induced obesity.


In Pelletier and Asher (1997) we presented a modal conditional analysis of the semantic interpretation of characterizing generics (in the terminology of Krifka et al. 1995). Since that time there have been a number of advances to our understanding of this area: Cohen (1999a,b, 2005), Leslie (2007, 2008), Nickel (2010), Sterken (2009). However, some of these advances have been seen as overthrowing the modal conditional analysis, and we think this is not correct. The present paper is a defense of the modal conditional analysis when it is augmented with information about


Effective interpretation of, and compliance with, data protection and freedom of information law across the range of administrative and educational activities undertaken in a UK higher educational institution are tasks which, over a decade after the passage of the legislation, remain fertile ground for disagreement, misunderstanding and poorly conceived institutional policymaking. For social science researchers, the issue is further complicated by the need to simultaneously interpret and implement research ethics guidelines promulgated by diverse external bodies: the Research Councils, subject-specific research associations and other cross-disciplinary special interest groups. The cascade of new information communication technologies (ICTs) available to the social science researcher completes a triangle of policy variables and uncertainties for both researchers and institutional research scrutiny bodies. The aim of this article is threefold: first, to examine some of the issues raised by the application of data protection and freedom of information law to research in the social sciences, with a particular eye to the impact of ICTs; second, to discuss how the interplay between legal rules, ethical guidelines, and institutional regulation is developing; and finally, to suggest some potential ways forward.


Traditional DFT methodologies increase useless power dissipation during testing and are not suitable for testing low power VLSI circuits leading to lower reliability and manufacturing yield. Traditional test scheduling approaches based on fixed test resource allocation decrease power dissipation at the expense of higher test application time. On the one hand it was shown that power conscious test synthesis and scheduling eliminate useless power dissipation. On the other hand by exploiting regularity in BIST RTL data paths using test compatibility classes an improvement in test application time, BIST area overhead, performance degradation, volume of test data, and fault escape probability is achieved. This paper shows that when combining power conscious test synthesis and scheduling with the test compatibility classes into low power test compatibility classes, simultaneous reduction in test application time and power dissipation is obtained.


To preserve the traditional spring hunting of the Eurasian Woodcock
 (Scolopax rusticola) in Hungary while also assuring its sustainability, a
 monitoring program was maintained with the coordination of the Hungarian
 Hunters' National Association. The program's primary goal was to estimate
 the size of the migrating population in the country based on synchronised
 census data and track its long-term changes. The program was maintained
 successfully with national coverage in the last 13 years, and it was based
 on synchronised roding surveys performed weekly, 12 times each spring. The
 observers used standardised paper forms to record the number of contacts
 (Woodcocks seen and/or heard). Hunting of Woodcock between 2010–2021 was
 only allowed for the monitoring program participants with strict regulation
 and obligatory sample collection from each bird. The primary purpose of
 sample collection was to assess the sex- and age structure of the
 population and to evaluate their trends. According to the results, no
 significant trend could be observed either in the population size or the
 sex- and age composition between 2009 and 2021. The proportion of males was
 above 75% each year, while the proportion of first-year birds and adults
 was almost identical in the annual hunting bags. The measure of harvesting
 was meagre compared to the size of the population, and it had no
 significant, detectable impact.


In the present study attempts have been made to evaluate the soil fertility status from Sangamner area, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra. 62 surface soil samples were analyzed for various soil fertility parameters like pH, EC, organic matter, available NPK and boron by standard procedures. pH ranged from 8 to 9.7 reflecting alkaline nature of soils. Higher EC in the downstream part reflecting low flushing rate and sluggish ground water movement in the area. Organic carbon ranges from 0.165 to 1.575% in the soils. 29.03% and 48.38% of soils showed low and medium status of organic carbon respectively. Low status of organic carbon in some soils of the area is indicating that adequate nitrogen fertilization through organic manure, FYN etc are required. Soils showed low contents of available nitrogen and phosphorus, while available potassium was high. Available boron ranged from 0.02 to 14.42ppm. Boron is found to be higher in salt affected soils which are located in the downstream part of Pravara River. It was found that 56.45 % boron concentrations were safe,9.67% marginal and 33.81% reflect unsafe class of soil samples in the area. Improper agriculture practices, intensive farming, monoculture type of cropping pattern and over irrigation are responsible for degradation of soil fertility from the area. To overcome the adverse effect, complimentary use of biofertilizers, organic manures in suitable combination of chemical fertilizers were suggested. Awareness camps, rallies and training programmes can be arranged for farmers regarding the benefits of balanced use of chemical fertilizers and use of organic agriculture in crop production in improving soil fertility and nutrition status.


To the Editor.— We wish to share our observation on hairy pinna with your readers. From among the patients attending our dermatology clinic for various dermatoses, we examined 250 men, all over 50 years of age, with pinnal hairs. We noticed that none of them showed graying of the hairs over their pinnae. All of them manifested physiologic canities over their scalp, beard, and moustache areas. The absence of graying of pinnal hairs was irrespective of the age of onset of growth of the pinnal hairs, which ranged from 30 to 40 years. Hairy pinna is known to be a genetic trait of Y-linked inheritance. 1 Canities is a physiologic manifestation of the aging process. The initial white hairs commonly appear at the temples, spread to the scalp, and, over a period of years, graying of beard, moustache, and body hairs follows. It is known that some individuals retain the


This paper identifies the affiliation between the ending cash balance of the operating section in the cash flow statement and the bonds ratings. Our sample includes 600 companies from 26 countries. The study was conducted over a period of 18 years. An Ordered Probit regression analysis had been applied to identify how the positive cash balance of the operating section in the cash flow statement shapes the probability of escalating the bonds ratings. We find burly proof that the positive operating cash balance considerably affects the bonds ratings. In other words, when a company is able to generate enough cash from its main operating activities, the likelihood of having higher bonds ratings raises; this entails a low cost of debt since higher bond ratings have been proven to lessen the company's cost for raising funds (in the form of bonds). The results add more confirmation to the creditors' rights shields and how it affects the cost of debt.


The academic theory of unjust enrichment, hypersensitive to charges that it represents 'palm-tree justice', aspires to a high degree of rigour and conceptual unity. The judiciary, while highly receptive to that theory, are nonetheless subject to the demand to do substantial justice in individual cases. This article reviews that tension in contemporary theory and case law. Firstly, it reviews the failure, to date, of theories seeking to justify modern unjust enrichment theory. Next, it notes the increasing rigidity of that theory. Then it reviews recent case law, where judges have evidently allowed other considerations to guide the application of theory. Finally, the article suggests that we have reached the stage where any apparently unfair claim in unjust enrichment will be refused whether or not that unfairness can find a niche in current theory, thus effectively making the liability subject to a judicial discretion.


The Northern Scorpion (Paruroctonus boreus) is a predatory arachnid.  Although occurring at relatively high densities in local areas, conspecifics have seldom been observed sharing cover items.  We investigated territoriality of scorpions by analyzing pairs of scorpions introduced into a habitat with a single, small cover item.  We used mono- and bisexual pairs, similar and differently sized pairs, and pairs from the same or different populations.   Scorpions were collected from two populations in south-central Montana.    Results indicate that scorpions do interact over cover items, though not to the extent that we had anticipated.  When scorpions were housed singly, they spent 80% of their time under cover.  When size-matched pairs were offered a single cover item, up to 60% of the time at least one scorpion was not under cover.  Further, when differently-sized scorpions were paired, a similar result obtained with the larger scorpion excluding the smaller most often.  Interestingly, these results all differed by population and sex.   Scorpions from the naturally more-dense population excluded others more frequently than scorpions from the less-dense population.  Additionally, males excluded other males more frequently than mixed-sex pairings excluded one sex or the other, or than females excluded other females.   Finally, late in the experimental season (early Spring), there were six instances of cannibalism.   In each case, females killed and consumed males.   Though cannibalism has been previously documented in this genus, it has not been observed to be "seasonal" and has been attributed to size differential and not simply sex.  In one of our cases, a smaller female killed and consumed a larger male.  This pilot project provides several interesting questions to pursue regarding behavioral ecology in this species.


Video retargeting is the process of transforming an existing video to fit the dimensions of an arbitrary display. A compelling retargeting aims at preserving the viewers' experience by maintaining the information content of important regions in the frame, whilst keeping their aspect ratio. An efficient algorithm for video retargeting is introduced. It consists of two stages. First, the frame is analyzed to detect the importance of each region in the frame. Then, a transformation that respects the analysis shrinks less important regions more than important ones. Our analysis is fully automatic and based on local saliency, motion detection and object detectors. The performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated on a variety of video sequences, and compared to the state of the art in image retargeting.


This paper presents mathematical methods to develop a high-efficiency and real-time driving energy management for a front-and-rear-motor-drive electric vehicle (FRMDEV), which is equipped with an induction motor (IM) and a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). First of all, in order to develop motor-loss models for energy optimization, database of with three factors, which are speed, torque and temperature, was created to characterize motor operation based on HALTON sequence method. The response surface model of motor loss, as the function of the motor-operation database, was developed with the use of Gauss radial basis function (RBF). The accuracy of the motor-loss model was verified according to statistical analysis. Then, in order to create a two-factor energy management strategy, the modification models of the torque required by driver (Td) and the torque distribution coefficient (β) were constructed based on the state of charge (SOC) of battery and the motor temperature, respectively. According to the motor-loss models, the fitness function for optimization was designed, where the influence of the non-work on system consumption was analyzed and calculated. The optimal β was confirmed with the use of the off-line particle swarm optimization (PSO). Moreover, to achieve both high accuracy and real-time performance under random vehicle operation, the predictive model of the optimal β was developed based on the hybrid RBF. The modeling and predictive accuracies of the predictive model were analyzed and verified. Finally, a hardware-in-loop (HIL) test platform was developed and the predictive model was tested. Test results show that, the developed predictive model of β based on hybrid RBF can achieve both real-time and economic performances, which is applicable to engineering application. More importantly, in comparison with the original torque distribution based on rule algorithm, the torque distribution based on hybrid RBF is able to reduce driving energy consumption by 9.51% under urban cycle.


The evaluation of the seismic risk of built-up areas is associated to the level of earthquake hazard, building vulnerability and level of exposure. Within this holistic approach that defines seismic risk, building vulnerability is from all three variables, the one that assumes great importance not only because of its obvious physical consequences in the occurrence of a seismic event, but because it is the potential aspect, for which the engineering research can intervene, improve and even control seismic behaviour of existing buildings, reducing the level of vulnerability and consequently the level of physical damage, life loss and economical loss. Development of vulnerability studies in urban centres can be conducted aiming to identify building fragilities and reduce the seismic risk, therefore in the scope of the rehabilitation process of the old city centre of Coimbra, a complete identification and inspection survey of the old masonry buildings has been carried out. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the vulnerability assessment methodologies, particularly the first level approaches, by presenting a proposed method which determines previously the level of vulnerability, only then assessing physical damage and its relationship to seismic intensity. It is presented and discussed the strategy and proposed methodology adopted for the vulnerability assessment, damage and loss scenarios for the city centre of Coimbra, in Portugal, through the GIS mapping of the building stock of the project perimeter.


The author has performed three independent molecular dynamics computer simulations to examine the effects of counterion identity on hydrogen-bond dynamics in the enclosed water pool of anionic surfactant-based reverse micelles. The water-water hydrogen-bond lifetime in the reverse micelle (RM) with calcium ions is found to be longer than that in the RM with sodium or ammonium ions. The hydrogen bond between a polar head group and a water molecule, on the other hand, breaks but reforms most rapidly in the RM with calcium ions, indicating that there exists a strong competition between head group-counterion and head group-water interactions at such complex interfaces.


This thesis outlines the development of four new procedures (1) to synthesise melanins
reproducibly, (2) to objectively determine the degree of structural similarity between melanins (3) to
use diffuse reflectance to objectively measure skin colour and (4) to evaluate the SPF of melanin
and other sunscreen formulations using in vitro methods.
1) Reproducible synthesis of melanins
Melanins were synthesised from the precursors adrenaline, dopamine and DL-dopa under controlled
conditions. The synthesis procedure outlined was simple and inexpensive and the variables were
easily monitored and controlled. The method also allowed for the synthesis of multiple batches of
melanin simultaneously in a reproducible fashion.
2) Characterisation of melanin
The synthesised melanins were characterised by objective comparison of pyrograms. This was
achieved by conversion of the pyrograms to "pseudo-mass spectra" and objective comparison using
NIST software that us readily and widely available for the comparison of mass spectra.
The method indicated that the melanin batches, synthesised by the methods outlined in this thesis
and later analysed by the methods described, were synthesised in a reproducible manner.
3) Measurement of skin colour by diffuse reflectance
A commercially available spectrophotometer was modified to objectively characterise skin colour
and changes in skin colour by the determination of the diffuse reflectance of the skin.
This device developed compares favourably with similar devices described in the literature in terms
of reproducibility and has the advantages of shorter scan times and a higher resolution. It was
simple to construct and at about A$600 was approximately one tenth the cost of similar commercial
devices.4) In vitro evaluation of topical sunscreens
The aim of this work was to develop an improved technique for the in vitro determination of SPF
values of sunscreens. The method outlined differs from other in vitro techniques in that it utilises a
standard spectrophotometer operated in a pseudo-double beam mode. The pseudo-double beam
mode compared detector responses taken at different gains in single beam mode, and was used to
increase the linear range of the spectrophotometer detector, allowing the measurement of SPF
values greater than 30 which is difficult using standard in vitro techniques. In theory, SPF values
greater than > 1000 could be measured by this method.
The value of this technique was subsequently demonstrated when it correctly measured the SPF
value of a commercially available sunscreen that had been assigned an incorrect SPF value from
earlier in vivo testing. The corrected value was subsequently confirmed by independent in vivo
testing.


The increasing growth of energy demand leads to issues associated with energy demand reduction and propose new energy efficient solutions. Heat recovery consists the most promising solution especially in regions where renewable energy resources are not available. That is why the domain of heat recovery has shown a tremendous improvement during the recent years. On the other hand, few works have been dedicated to heat recovery from exhaust gas. This paper presents a review on heat recovery from exhaust gas. The authors propose to classify exhaust gas heat recovery systems within three different classifications that are exhaust gas temperature, utilized equipment and recovery purposes.


We study the production of pions, kaons, and (anti-) protons in A Multi Phase Transport (AMPT) Model in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 7.7, 27, and 200 GeV. We present the centrality and energy dependence of various bulk observables such as invariant yields as a function of transverse momentum $p_T$, particle yields $dN/dy$, average transverse momentum $\langle p_T \rangle$ and various particle ratios, and compare them with experimental data. Both default and string melting (SM) versions of the AMPT model are used with three different sets of initial conditions. We observe that neither the default nor the SM model could consistently describe the centrality dependence of all observables at the above energies with any one set of initial conditions. The energy dependence behavior of the experimental observables for 0--5\% central collisions is in general better described by the default AMPT model using the default HIJING parameters for Lund string fragmentation and 3mb parton scattering cross-section.


Coronavirus Disease – 2019 (COVID–19) caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV2 has plagued the world in pandemic for the past few months Currently, many groups are investigating on a potent candidate for treating this highly infectious disease Phytocompounds from many medicinal plants are reported to possess anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties The current study emphasizes on evaluating the inhibition efficacy of the phytocompounds from Andrographis paniculata against 10 structural and non-structural SARS-CoV2 proteins by virtual screening Molecular docking, binding interactions, ADME and toxicity profiling of the selected fifty one phytocompounds were analysed and compared against 10 well studied repurposed drugs The best docked complexes were subjected to MD simulation for 50 nanoseconds and the compound stigmasterol was observed to be outperforming in the simulation studies We report that A paniculata constitutes 65 78% druggable phytocompounds against SARS‐CoV2 We found that the two phytosterols, stigmasterol and stigmasta-5,22-dien-3-ol act as potential lead molecules against multiple target proteins of SARS–CoV2 Based on the literature evidence on Andrographis paniculata and our detailed analysis, this plant and its phytocompounds could be repurposed as a potential anti-COVID agent


Assessment of the quality of distance education institutions has become an important issue that needs to be addressed to ensure program survival. This study uses SERVPERF model to identify the differences that exists in students' perception of service quality in public and private universities in Malaysia that offer distance education. Our study confirms that this model is valid and reliable. We find that the students' overall perception of service quality is lower in all five dimensions of service quality for the private universities. The dimensions that influence overall service quality are noticeably different for public and private universities. This suggests that private universities need to improve their service provision in order to remain competitive. Managerial implications of the major findings are discussed.


e Abstract—Some toxins do not result in clinical manifestations until several hours after exposure. This article reviews those agents that may cause delayed-onset toxicity. They are organized into four classes: specific pharmaceuticals, biologicals, pharmaceutical dosage forms, and chemicals. There are five basic mechanisms for delayed toxicity: delayed absorption, distribution factors, metabolic factors, cellular and organ capacity effects, and unknown. Scientific evidence for delayed-onset of effects varies considerably among the individual toxins. © 1999 Elsevier Science Inc.


A feature extraction technique is presented that extracts ice floes from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sea ice imagery. The authors investigate two types of floe: 1) independent ice floes that collide and meet, and 2) component ice floes that melt and consolidate to form an independent ice floe. To detect independent ice floes, the authors consider two kinds of edges: 1) clear edges, and 2) blurred edges. They use a spatial enhancement technique combined with thresholding to obtain the clear edges. To detect the blurred edges, they make use of "corners" which are pixels where a considerable change in direction of a floe boundary occurs. To connect the corners appropriately, they incorporate both their geometric and semantic properties into heuristics that choose which pair of corners to connect. To investigate component ice floes, they have developed a technique that combines thresholding, correlation, morphological cleaning, and structural growing. The technique has been tested successfully on a large number of SAR images, including data from ERS-1.<<ETX>>


OBJECTIVE
To describe sleep problems among youth with and without functional abdominal pain (FAP).

METHODS
Participants were 8-15 years of age diagnosed with FAP (n = 67) or healthy pain-free comparisons (n = 80). Parents and participants completed instruments assessing sleep, psychiatric status, and FAP symptoms. Parent and child reports of sleep problems were compared across groups and the association of FAP to behavioral sleep problems was assessed controlling for psychopathology.

RESULTS
Children with FAP were reported to have more symptoms of behavioral sleep disorders (BSD), as well as increased nightmares and daytime tiredness than the comparison group. There were no group differences in total sleep time. Logistic regression analysis indicated that FAP was associated with a significantly increased risk of BSD symptoms [Odds ratio (OR): 4.17] after controlling for psychopathology.

CONCLUSION
Sleep problems in youth with FAP warrant clinical attention and future research should continue to explore sleep problems that co-occur with and independent of psychopathology.


The use of β2 agonists for the control of symptoms is central to the treatment of patients with asthma. However, there is controversy surrounding the regular use of this drug class as numerous studies have demonstrated a variety of changes that can be considered unwanted attributes, particularly when these drugs are used regularly as monotherapy. These include increased bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) to inhaled contractile agents1 and an increase in the allergen-induced early2 and late asthmatic response3 following regular treatment with short-acting β2 agonists (SABAs). Furthermore, a number of studies have suggested that regular treatment with inhaled SABAs and long-acting β2 agonists (LABAs) by inhalation leads to a loss of bronchoprotection4 5 and with salmeterol treatment an excess mortality in patients with asthma,6 a trend also observed with regular treatment with formoterol.7 This has led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to post black-box warnings on all medicines containing these LABAs.

Christian Virchow and colleagues from Rostock have provided data ( see page 763 ) on a potential mechanism as to how regular treatment with salmeterol can paradoxically increase BHR. …


Co-operative movement dawned in India a century ago to eradicate indebtedness and to accelerate agricultural production in India. Co-operatives are eminently suited to achieve social, economic changes in rural India. However, credit risk is acute in co-operative credit system, predominantly manifested in short-term credit. Delinquency of co-operative credit is the object of enquiry for many committees and researches. Mounting overdues at the level of Primary Agricultural Co-operative Banks (PACB) contribute to the accumulation of Non-performing Assets (NPA) in the Central Co-operative Banks (CCB). Willful default has been identified as the main reason for mounting overdues. This empirical study of defaulters of co-operative credit has examined the factors discriminating default of co-operative credit, which subsequently increase NPA. Univariate Analysis and Discriminant Function analysis was carried out to identify the factors. Such identification of factors discriminating credit default is crucial to reduce credit delinquency in co-operative credit system.


SAH is an important and common form of stroke. Detection of SAH is now possible through the clinical syndrome and CT scanning. Angiography is required to pinpoint the site of the hemorrhage. Medical therapy to prevent complications is often effective. Surgical therapy to prevent recurrent hemorrhage is now effective and safe with modern microsurgical methods. Even with large and deep aneurysms or AVMs, indirect treatment by means of interventional radiology or radiosurgery may be effective in eliminating these life-threatening lesions. In a few cases, evacuation of intraparenchymal brain hematoma can be life-saving. SAH is common, readily identified, and treatable. All physicians should be able to recognize and institute appropriate management for this important subclass of stroke.


The English reformist writer Mary Hays published a compilation of women's biographies entitled Female Biography (1803), with the aim at providing other women with examples to emulate. she intended not only to convey her deepest convictions about women's capacities and abilities, but also to leave her own stylistic imprint on the text. This study seeks to analyse diverse entries of Hays's collection (Lady Dudleya North, Lady Damaris Masham, Margaret Roper, Aphra Behn, and Lady Rachel Russel) in order to elucidate her concerns as a data collector and biographer, and her techniques as a lexicographer, which are chiefly shaped by her concern about education and by her intended audience: women.


This paper presents a non-traditional method and algorithm to calculate the inverse solution for a one-dimensional function without the diffeomorphism property. The proposed method is called the linear reoriented coordinates method (LRCM). The LRCM is a very powerful and useful too to calculate the symbolic solutions for transcendental functions where the inverse function is not possible to calculate using other traditional methods and only analytic solutions can be calculated but symbolic solutions are not possible to obtain. The description and conditions for the application of the method are presented in the paper. Three of the applications presented in the paper will be to optimize the maximum rectangular area for a floor plan for an 8-bit A/D converter given space constraints, to determine the maximum power for a photovoltaic module (PVM) and for a fuel cell. In both applications, it is not possible to calculate the maximum values using only differential calculus. Finally, examples and simulations for the LRCM are presented


Abstract The syn-tectonic deep-marine Ainsa fans (Eocene of the Ainsa basin, Spanish Pyrenees) were confined by lateral thrust ramps and influenced by intra-basinal growth anticlines. Mass transport complexes (MTCs) constitute a major component of the stratigraphy and represent an integral part of the evolution and depositional style of the deep-marine clastics. Using an integrated study of outcrop data from sedimentary logs and mapping, with core data from eight wells and micropalaeontological and palynomorph analyses, we demonstrate the lateral step-wise migration of sandy channelized submarine fans, as a foreland-propagating clastic wedge on a time-scale of hundreds of thousands of years. The deep-marine expression of the inferred tectonic pulses began with the large-scale basin-slope collapse as sediment slides and debris flows that formed much of the seafloor topography for each fan and contributed to their lateral confinement. The uppermost slope and any shelf-edge, including the narrow shelf, then collapsed, redepositing unconsolidated sands and gravels into deep water. This is overlain by an interval of mainly channelized and amalgamated sandy deposits, passing up into several tens of metres of less confined, non-amalgamated, medium- and thin-bedded, finer grained sands and marls. These deposits represent the phase of most active fan growth, initially by erosional channel development, sediment bypass and backfill (in several cycles), giving way to non-channelized, finer grained sandy deposition, interpreted as a response to the flushing out of the coarser clastics from the coastal and near coastal fluvial systems. During this latter stage in active fan growth and when sediment accumulation rates probably remained high, the degraded submarine slope was regraded and healed by finer grained depositional events. The high amount of woody material and the high non-marine palynomorph signal in these sandy deposits suggest direct river input as both turbidity currents and hyperpycnal flows for the silty marls. In the upper few metres, a thinning-and-fining-upward sequence shows a return to background marl deposition, representing fan abandonment. Many sequences are overlain by intraformational sediment slides that attest to the increasing seafloor gradients associated with the regrading and healing stage in slope development. These organized, predictable vertical sedimentary sequences provide a testable generic model for submarine fan development where fan growth is strongly influenced by tectonic processes.


This paper is focused on the approximation of the Euler equations of compressible fluid dynamics on a staggered mesh. With this aim, the flow parameters are described by the velocity, the density and the internal energy. The thermodynamic quantities are described on the elements of the mesh, and thus the approximation is only L 2 -accurate, while the kinematic quantities are globally continuous. The method is general in the sense that the thermodynamic and kinetic parameters are described by an arbitrary degree of polynomials. In practice, the difference between the degrees of the kinematic parameters and the thermodynamic ones is equal to 1. The integration in time is done using the forward Euler method but can be extended straightforwardly to higher-order methods. In order to guarantee that the limit solution will be a weak solution of the problem, we introduce a general correction method in the spirit of the Lagrangian staggered method described in [1, 2, 3], and we prove a Lax Wendroff theorem. The proof is valid for multidimensional versions of the scheme, even though most of the numerical illustrations in this work, on classical benchmark problems, are one-dimensional because we have easy access to the exact solution for comparison. We conclude by explaining that the method is general and can be used in different settings, for example, finite volume, or discontinuous Galerkin method, not just the specific one presented in this paper.


Madrasah performance dominantly to date is very low and below the standard of other educational institutions. Only a small number of Islamic education are able to compete with other educational institutions. Seeing such a phenomenon is interesting to conduct an assessment of the conditions and problems that are actually faced by Islamic education institutions in Indonesia. Research is a literature research with the focus of the study of the implications of regional autonomy policies in the management of Islamic educational institutions, while the object to be studied is the implications of the regional autonomy policy in the management of Islamic educational institutions, with the procedure for obtaining data on researchers using literature. The data obtained will be identified, examined, analyzed, and interpreted so that the substance of the implications of regional autonomy policies in the management of Islamic educational institutions can be captured. After that, researchers will try to compare with other theories, to achieve a complete picture of the implications of regional autonomy policies in the management of Islamic educational institutions. The results of the study that the presence of madrasas in Indonesia has the same duties and roles as schools. As an educational institution that prepares the young generation of Muslims for the future, madrassas are expected to be able to produce graduates who will be able to play an important role in all sectors of national life, both the religious, social, economic, political, scientific and technology sectors. Madrasas are seeded than public schools because madrasas provide religious education (which is better than public schools) in addition to public education (which is the same as public schools). The problem that is still faced by madrasas today is the still low quality standards of general education provided in madrasas. Problems in the management of Islamic educational institutions in Indonesia faced, are (1) management problems which include the field of human resources/education personnel, curriculum fields, facilities and infrastructure; (2) Conceptual-Teoritis and Operational-Practical Problems; and (3) the problem of education policies and politics.
Keywords: Implications, Regional Autonomy, Madrasa, Problems, Solutions


BACKGROUND
Staging of colorectal carcinoma has prognostic value and allows to take decisions about adjuvant therapy and follow up. Prognostic factors are not universally accepted and there are different staging classifications.

AIM
To assess the prognostic value of clinical and pathological variables in 224 patients subjected to a curative resection of a colorectal carcinoma.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A retrospective analysis of 99 men and 125 women, aged 23 to 91 years old subjected to a curative resection of a colorectal carcinoma and followed up for a mean of 72 months.

RESULTS
Global survival at 60 months was 72%. Univariate analysis showed that tumor localization, vascular permeation, wall infiltration and number of involved lymph nodes had an influence on survival. A Cox regression model disclosed tumor localization (colon versus rectum), a carcino-embryonic antigen over 30 ng/ml, vascular permeation, presence of 1 to 4 involved lymph nodes, or 5 or more lymph nodes and the presence of an apical lymph node as variables with significant prognostic value.

CONCLUSIONS
Our series confirms the prognostic importance of lymph node involvement. This parameter is incorporated in Jass, GITSG (both modifications of Dukes classIfication) and TNM staging scores.


With dramatic changes in climate and land-cover patterns around the world, it is of great significance to evaluate the corresponding influence on runoff change as water resources have become a strategic resource. We analysed the runoff change driven by landscape change and climate variation in Hanjiang River basin, which is the water source area of the central route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China. Results show that the runoff decreased greatly from 1960 to 2012 in all the six selected sub-catchments. Attribution analysis results show that reduction of precipitation contributed to the catchment runoff decrease by 39.5–64.9% and landscape change, represented by increase of the parameter in the mathematical Budyko function contributed to the runoff decrease by 34.4–63.3%, while potential evapotranspiration change had a slightly negative contribution. In addition, the contribution is spatially variable from downstream to upstream. We conclude with a qualitative description about how water availability changes under changing landscape and climate conditions, and focus on the impact of vegetation cover change.


Using precautionary savings models we compute levels of optimal reserves for Bolivia. Because of Bolivia's reliance on commodity exports and little integration with capital markets, we focus on current account shocks as the key balance of payments risk. These models generate an optimal level of net foreign assets ranging from 29 to 37 percent of GDP. For comparison purposes, we contrasted these results with standard rule of thumb measures of reserve adequacy, which in the case of Bolivia resulted in substantially lower levels of adequate reserves. These differing results emphasize the need to appropriately account for country-specific risks in order to derive adequate measures of reserve buffers.


The first example of a cationic cluster-based fcu-lanthanide metal-organic framework (MOF) bearing an asymmetric linker, herein named UOTT-4, has been designed and fully characterized. Compared to its rare-earth (RE) anionic counterpart (RE-UiO-66), UOTT-4 was found to significantly improve the performance towards adsorption of iodine vapour at room temperature, opening avenues for the design of the next-generation cationic porous materials for the beneficial uptake and confinement of target molecules.


It is shown that a simple relation exists between the hybrid equations of a physical network and its adjoint. The same is true for the state-space equations. This relation permits one to deduce the LU factors of one network from those of the other, thus reducing by almost 50 percent the computation required to analyze both networks.


Future generations of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) will posses the ability to autonomously cooperate in teams to meet various military objectives. This is the focus of research at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, which developed MultiUAV, a research tool used to simulate UAV teams collaborating autonomously in various mission scenarios. In a previous effort, Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) mission capabilities were developed for MultiUAV and tested against Joint Integrated Mission Model (JIMM) scenarios. This architecture provided an accurate battlefield environment for small SEAD studies. To truly stress the collaborative algorithms in MultiUAV and build complex SEAD missions, a connection to a streamlined and user-friendly software tool was required. The FLexible Analysis Modeling and Exercise System (FLAMES) software has been chosen as the JIMM replacement. This paper describes the MultiUAV/FLAMES integration effort and provides results to illustrate MultiUAV conducting complex SEAD missions using battlefield information provided by FLAMES.


Naive ecology is defined as the layperson's understanding of how organisms interact in and with the natural world, and all cognition, particularly causal cognition, in which that understanding is evoked. Stimulus materials in this study described a simple model of a food web. Participants judged how to bring about a particular stable change in the food web, and also the effects of different kinds of disturbance within the food web. Their judgments showed a consistent tendency named the dissipation effect: a tendency to judge that effects of a perturbation at a particular locus in an ecosystem weaken or dissipate as they spread out from that locus. The effect is not typical of real food webs. The finding may represent an effect of domain-specific acquired beliefs, or participants may have been making analogies with the properties of more familiar complex physical systems.


Electrochemical sensors have drawn significant attention over the last couple of decades because of their ability to improve detection of organic and inorganic analytes found in the field of biotechnology, environmental sciences, medicine, and food quality control. This personal account summarizes the state-of-art research carried out in the construction and evaluation of nanostructured metal oxides and zeolite based electrochemical sensors. Metal oxides and zeolite-based nanomaterials have many unique and extraordinary properties such as tunable redox activity, surface functionalization ability, optimum conductivity, large surface area, biocompatibility and so forth. In this personal account, the current advances in electrochemical sensor applications of metal oxides, zeolite-based nanomaterials, and their nanocomposites are described for the single and simultaneous determination of organic & inorganic contaminants present in water bodies, physiological bio-molecules present in human blood & urine samples, and organic contaminants present in food materials.Moreover, concluding section focuses discussion on the future developments and applications of these materials in various emerging technologies.


This paper provides an overview of the most significant public policy initiatives that apply to known sexual offenders who live in the community. It is argued that while registration schemes, community notification, and offender residency restrictions have become a prominent feature of contemporary sex offender policy, the evidence base supporting their implementation is, at best, limited. There is a need to develop policies which are more tailored to the needs of individual offenders and which are explicitly designed to manage risk. Policies which mandate and facilitate interagency and partnership working represent one way in which individualised and research-informed approaches can be developed. It is suggested that the implementation of this type of approach may ultimately lead to more effective community responses to preventing sexual reoffending than those which rely solely on monitoring and supervision.


The definition, history, experimental background, surgical technique, and clinical applications of compound gracilis myocutaneous flaps are presented. This flap has been our method of choice for neo-vaginal reconstruction after radical pelvic surgery.