Twenty years ago, Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) was the oncologic counterpart to Winston Churchill's Russia: a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. First described by Moritz Kaposi in 1872, who reported it to be an aggressive skin tumor, KS became known over the next century as a slow-growing tumor of elderly men—in fact, most KS patients were expected to die with the tumor rather than from it. Nevertheless, the course and manifestations of the disease varied widely in different clinical contexts. The puzzle of KS came to the forefront as a harbinger of the AIDS epidemic. The articles in this issue of Viruses recount progress made in understanding Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) since its initial description in 1994.


This paper discusses the use of OLE for process control as a medium for connection of third-party applications to legacy control systems. This topic is becoming more important as legacy system users attempt to "open up" their systems to third-party applications. Several approaches to implementing the OLE for process control interfaces to existing systems are discussed, including emulation of field hardware, use of available communication ports, and legacy application nodes. The advantages and disadvantages of implementing each approach are discussed, including feasibility, performance and cost. A brief overview of the client-server paradigm is provided, as this is the cornerstone of OLE for process control communications. Finally, some examples of successful connections to legacy systems are presented.


Although Six Sigma has been in business lexicon for more than 20 years, research has shown the need of practical implementation framework for successful deployment of Six Sigma, especially in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This article proposes a Six Sigma implementation framework customised to the needs of SMEs by performing a critique of quality management frameworks/models for SMEs and drawing conclusion from the empirical research conducted over 3 years. If Six Sigma is poorly launched, it will be very difficult to reorganise and regain momentum. Though the framework was tested in three SMEs and revised, still its robustness needs to be checked and refined based on suggestions and comments from industry, practitioners and academics.


The main goal of this research was to determine optimum pH conditions for coupling between protein A and epoxy-activated Sepharose beads for purification of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) expressed in plants. To confirm the effect of pH conditions on purification efficacy, epoxy-activated agarose beads were coupled to protein A under the pH conditions of 8.5, 9.5, 10.5, and 11.5 (8.5R, 9.5R, 10.5R, and 11.5R, respectively). A total of 300 g of fresh leaf tissue of transgenic Arabidopsis expressing human anti-rabies mAb (mAbP) SO57 were harvested to isolate the total soluble protein (TSP). An equal amount of TSP solution was applied to five resin groups including commercial protein A resin (GR) as a positive control. The modified 8.5R, 9.5R, 10.5R, and 11.5R showed delayed elution timing compared to the GR control resin. Nano-drop analysis showed that the total amount of purified mAbPSO57 mAbs from 60 g of fresh leaf mass were not significantly different among 8.5R (400 μg), 9.5R (360 μg), 10.5R (380 μg), and GR (350 μg). The 11.5R (25 μg) had the least mAbPSO57. SDS–PAGE analysis showed that the purity of mAbPSO57 was not significantly different among the five groups. Rapid fluorescent focus inhibition tests revealed that virus-neutralizing efficacies of purified mAbPSO57 from all the five different resins including the positive control resin were similar. Taken together, both pH 8.5 and 10.5 coupling conditions with high recovery rate should be optimized for purification of mAbPSO57 from transgenic Arabidopsis plant, which will eventually reduce down-stream cost required for mAb production using the plant system.


Diabetic patients are at particular risk of severe COVID-19. Human dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) is a membrane-bound aminopeptidase that regulates insulin release by inactivating incretin. DPP-4 inhibitors (DPP-4is) are therefore used as oral anti-diabetic drugs to restore normal insulin levels. These molecules also have anti-inflammatory and anti-hypertension effects. Recent studies on the interactions of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein and DPP-4 predict a possible entry route for SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, DPP-4is could be effective at reducing the virus-induced 'cytokine storm', thereby ceasing inflammatory injury to vital organs. Moreover, DPP-4is may interfere with viral entry into host cells. Herein, we have reviewed the efficacy of DPP-4is as potential repurposed drugs to reduce the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with diabetes.


In mammography, the efficacy of computer-aided detection methods depends, in part, on the robust localisation of micro-calcifications ($\mu$C). Currently, the most effective methods are based on three steps: 1) detection of individual $\mu$C candidates, 2) clustering of individual $\mu$C candidates, and 3) classification of $\mu$C clusters. Where the second step is motivated both to reduce the number of false positive detections from the first step and on the evidence that malignancy depends on a relatively large number of $\mu$C detections within a certain area. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to $\mu$C detection, consisting of the detection \emph{and} classification of individual $\mu$C candidates, using shape and appearance features, using a cascade of boosting classifiers. The final step in our approach then clusters the remaining individual $\mu$C candidates. The main advantage of this approach lies in its ability to reject a significant number of false positive $\mu$C candidates compared to previously proposed methods. Specifically, on the INbreast dataset, we show that our approach has a true positive rate (TPR) for individual $\mu$Cs of 40\% at one false positive per image (FPI) and a TPR of 80\% at 10 FPI. These results are significantly more accurate than the current state of the art, which has a TPR of less than 1\% at one FPI and a TPR of 10\% at 10 FPI. Our results are competitive with the state of the art at the subsequent stage of detecting clusters of $\mu$Cs.


This chapter examines the work of the media "structuralists" of the so-called Canadian or Toronto school of media studies: Harold Adams Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Walter J. Ong, especially. Their work is placed within its historical context, both in terms of scholarly ancestry and in terms of its reception in North American universities and especially in schools of journalism. A critical assessment of the work of these scholars as media history is offered, recognizing its shortcomings as historical narrative but also its appeal as a way of understanding the influence of media forms.

Keywords:

Innis;
McLuhan;
Ong;
orality;
literacy;
media structuralism


Unstable snow cover and more frequent freeze–thaw events have been predicted for montane areas in southern Norway, where stable winters are common today. These systems are important contributors to the flux of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) to air and water. Here we quantify and compare the effects of freeze–thaw on C and N release from soils collected below Calluna, Molinia or Sphagnum. Intact organic soil cores were subjected to four different freeze–thaw regimes for four consecutive 2‐week periods: (1) slow cycling (SC) with one long freezing event during each 2‐week period, (2) fast cycling (FC) with four short freezing events during each 2‐week period, (3) permanent frost (PF) and (4) permanent thaw (PT). The freezing temperature was −5 °C and the thawing temperature was 5 °C. Before start of treatment, at the end of each 2‐week period, and during postincubation periods, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission as well as leachable dissolved organic C (DOC), dissolved organic N (DON), ammonium (NH4), nitrate (NO3) and absorbance at 254 nm were measured. In soils from all three vegetations, PF increased the release of CO2, DOC, DON and NH4 compared with PT. SC caused some scattered effects whereas FC only resulted in some increase in NO3 release below Molinia. Generally, the emission of CO2 and leaching of DOC, DON and NH4 increased in the following order: Sphagnum < Calluna < Molinia. The release of NO3 was greatest below Calluna. Our data suggest that vegetation cover and composition seem at least as important as increased soil frost for future winter fluxes of CO2, DOC, DON and dissolved inorganic N (DIN) from the soil to air and water. The freezing period needs to be sufficiently long to give significant effects.


Although mental illness is a serious public health issue, little is known about the nature of national television news coverage of these medical conditions. The framing of this coverage, the subtopics discussed in stories, and the sources used to tell those stories of mental illness may have a significant impact on attitudes and behaviors tied to diagnosis, treatment, and social interactions with those with a mental illness. Through a content analysis of 18 years of coverage of anxiety and depression, we sought to gain deeper insight into the connections between source use and frames in national television news stories about mental illness. Prospect theory and Iyengar's concepts of episodic and thematic frames formed the foundation of this content analysis. The data revealed different source use patterns in gain—versus loss-framed stories as well as in episodic—versus thematic-framed stories. Implications for researchers, news organizations, and mental health advocates are discussed.


BECAUSE the United States was a comparatively new nation when its constitution was drafted, it could in many areas-among which church and state is one of the most important-embark upon a revolutionary political and social experiment without having to clear away the debris left by previous builders. The compromises crystalized in the Weimar constitution, on the other hand, represented but one stage in a lengthy process of interaction which had already molded both church and state. Consequently, although both the Weimar and the Philadelphia documents were products of a political revolution, any examination of the historical background of the 1919 provisions should serve not only to make the compromises they contained more explicable, but simultaneously to demonstrate why the two situations cannot be equated.' The delicate structures which embody institutional compromises, unlike Scottish castles, rarely survive trans-Atlantic voyages. In Germany, the institutional role of religion and churches was inextricably connected with the rise of the nation-state itself. During the Middle Ages, for example, because the territorial magnates who controlled vast tracts of land under the nominal authority of the Holy Roman Emperor in fact represented competing centers of secular authority, the Emperor was forced to turn to church officials for the performance of imperial administrative tasks. This tradition, deriving from the time of the Carolingian Renaissance in the ninth century, resulted in so close a relationship between church and state that Papal efforts to reform the German church in the eleventh century-aimed at the achievement of institutional independence-inevitably led to open conflict with the Emperors. The ensuing Papal victory was complete, the ruling Hohenstaufen line having been literally exterminated by 1268, and the resultant weakening of the central authority played a significant role in permitting centrifugal elements to prevent the unification of Germany until well into the nineteenth century. The heritage of open conflict between church and state, furthermore, was to play an important role in German history in the period immediately following unification.


The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge level of environmental health (EH) risk factors of senior baccalaureate nursing students enrolled in a public health course in a public university in northern Florida. A convenient sample was used from one group of students enrolled in a mandatory public health course in the spring 2007 term. Seventy-five students were enrolled in this course and 65 students participated in the study. A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest follow-up test design has been used to determine the effectiveness of an EH educational intervention with senior baccalaureate nursing students. Students were given a pretest prior to a 1.5 hour EH nursing intervention which included a lecture and PowerPoint presentation. Students were also given instruction on the use of a modified EH risk appraisal tool. They were encouraged to use this tool during their public health home visits. The objectives of the EH nursing intervention were based on the recommendations from the Institutes of Medicine's 1995 report on nursing, health and the environment. A posttest was administered immediately after the EH nursing intervention. A follow-up test was given four weeks after the first intervention in order to assess what knowledge had been retained and if the students utilized the modified EH risk assessment tool. The results of this study showed that almost half of the students did not have prior EH knowledge. A Paired t-test was utilized for the data analysis in order to assess for any difference between the scores before and after the EH nursing intervention. In addition, a one way analysis of variance was used to compare pre, post, and follow-up test scores of all students who completed any of the questionnaires. Students pretest scores showed a 69% pre-test knowledge level, a 72% posttest knowledge level, and a 79% follow-up test knowledge level. Results from the one way ANOVA showed a significant difference between the 3 testing times. The post hoc tests showed that the mean score on the pretest was significantly different from the mean score on the followup test. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the topic of EH nursing and the need to incorporate EH into nursing curricula to help bridge the gap between nursing practice and the emerging health care needs and environment.


♠ This work was supported by National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) and National Electronic and Computer TEchnology Center (NECTEC) through the project "A Feasibility Study of Wireless Hi-Fi Audio Transmission using Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) Technique", grant number NT−C005−47. ♣ SCORPion stands for Superior COmmunication Research and Prototyping for commercialization Abstract


Current statistical procedures used in the construction of isobolograms do not use recent advances in mathematical statistics. The variability in the experimental data is either ignored or incompletely accounted for in the analyses. The decision procedures currently used to characterize the type of interaction between two agents do not permit the determination of the level of statistical significance associated with a given conclusion. Furthermore, the often formidable sample size is not exploited in the current isobologram methodology. Statistical techniques exist that may be used to construct isobolograms and decision procedures with a reliable level of significance. An isobologram is a contour of constant response of the underlying dose-response surface. Consequently, response surface methods (RSM) are useful in the estimation and analysis of isobolograms. The interaction between ethanol and chloral hydrate in female ICR mice was evaluated using the RSM approach by fitting the logistic model to quantal data. The loss of righting reflex was quantitated in mice 30 min after coadministration of the two drugs, injected IP on a body weight basis (mg/kg). The study consisted of 39 groups with 6 animals per group. Analysis of our data supports the conclusion of synergy between the drugs as reported by others; however, our results were obtained with a significantly smaller number of animals. These studies also demonstrate that response surface modeling can be used for determining additivity, synergism, and antagonism at a given preselected level of significance.


In the article the schemes of power circuits of a feed of synchronous reluctance machines are considered. The features of the choice of the most rational scheme by the criterion of improved weight and size parameters are shown. It is shown that the specific parameters of electric drives have values that exceed similar synchronous electric drives by approximately 20%. Improvement of specific parameters in the electric drive can be achieved not only due to the complexity of the electric machine construction, but also due to the choice of optimal schemes of power circuits. So, in electric drives with individual sources with rectangular current form, the values of overloads corresponding to electric drives with complex (compound) rotor design.


Competitive liquid-phase hydrodesulfurization of thiophene and hydrogenation of cyclohexene on a monolithic CoMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst were studied. The flow pattern in the monolithic catalyst reactor was segmented gas-liquid flow (slug flow). The hydrogen pressure and the temperature were varied between 30–40 bar and 509–523 K, respectively. The experimental data are consistent with rate expressions of the Langmuir-Hinshelwood type where the reactions proceed on two different types of active sites. This kinetic model is based on hydrogenation of the thiophene ring prior to sulfur elimination.


ABSTRACT This research aims to acknowledge the effect of organic fertilizing the growth and production of sweet corn which in carried out in the Village of Kauneran Satu, Sonder Sub-District during 3 months start from July – October 2018. The method of this researchment are use randomized group design with four behaviors A) None fertilizer, B) 300kg/ha of Phonska plus fertilizer, + 300 kg Urea/ha, C) 20 ton/ha organic water hyacinth fertilizer + 10 ton fertilizer from animals, D) 20 ton/ha Hydrilla Verticillata Organic fertilizer + 10 ton fertilizer from animals. The observed variable is the dried weight of the plant, the length of the cabbage, the diameter of the cabbage and the fresh weight of the sweet corn cob was measured and weighed after the sweet corn harvest. Studies have shown that treatment C 20 tons/ha organic water hyacinth fertilizer + 10 tons fertilizer from animals gives a good response to the sweet corn. Key words: Fertilizer Organic, Sweet Corn


Stereochemistry plays an important role in nature because biologically important molecules such as amino acids, nucleotides and sugars, only exist in enantiomerically pure forms. Semiochemicals carry messages, between the same species (pheromones) and between different species (allelochemicals). Both pheromones and allelochemicals can be used as environmentally friendly pest management. Many semiochemicals, i.e. behaviour modifying chemicals, consist of pure or well-defined mixtures of stereoisomers, where some of the other stereoisomers can be repellent. It is therefore important to be able to separate them to produce a synthetic pheromone in a mixture that is attractive.Pine sawflies are a family of insects that in some cases can be severe defoliators of conifer trees. Diprion pini, Diprion similis and Neodiprion sertifer are severe pests for these trees and have got the most attention in pine sawfly pheromone studies. The pheromone precursors are stored in the female body as long-chain secondary alcohols, which, when released, are esterified to acetates or propionates. The alcohols are chiral, and normally one of the stereoisomer is the main pheromone component, sometimes possible together with other stereoisomers as essential minor components.Bicyclus is a genus of African butterflies, and especially Bicyclus anynana has become a popular model for the study of life history evolution, morphology, mating choice and genetics. The wing pattern of Bicyclus differs depending on the season, with large eyespots during the rain-season and small or absent spots during the dry season. Euglossa is one of the genera among the orchid bees in the Neotropics that does not produce its own pheromone. Instead, the males collect fragrances from orchids and other sources and store them in a pocket in their hind legs. Both Bicyclus and Euglossa use semiochemicals similar to pine sawflies, and thus can be analysed by the same methods.Pheromones and other semiochemicals in insects are often present in low amounts in a complex matrix, and purification of the sample before chemical analysis is often required. A common method is gradient elution on a solid phase silica column. Separation of stereoisomers can be achieved either by using a column with a chiral stationary phase (CSP) or with pre-column derivatisation using a column with an achiral stationary phase (ASP) or a combination of both, with mass detection as the dominant detection method. The purpose of this work has been to improve the purification method, find suitable methods to separate the stereoisomers of secondary alcohols, and to apply this on extracts of insects.By selecting the right fractions to collect during gradient elution the purification method was optimised. To reduce plasticizer contamination from ordinary columns, solid phase columns of Teflon or glass were used. For pre-column derivatisation of different chiral alcohols various acid chlorides were tested. For the pine sawfly pheromone precursors enantiopure (2S)-2-acetoxypropionyl chloride was the best choice. To separate some of the stereoisomers achiral 2-naphthoyl chloride was used. For derivatisation of 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecan-2-ol (R)-trans-chrysanthemoyl chloride was the best choice. The derivatised alcohols were separated on different columns, both chiral and non-chiral. Varian FactorFour VF-23ms was chosen as a general-purpose column, the Agilent HP-88 column was the best column with an ASP of those tested, and the Chiraldex B-PA column (CSP) was the only one that could separate all eight stereoisomers of derivatised 3,7-dimethylundecan-2-ol, 3,7-dimethyldodecan-2-ol, and 3,7-dimethyltridecan-2-ol.To determine the stereoisomeric purity of standard solutions used in field experiments and extracts of different species of insects the optimised methods were applied. For extracts from B. anynana, Euglossa and Neodiprion lecontei this work describe the first determination of the stereochemistry of some of their semiochemicals.For the determination of the stereochemistry of chiral semiochemicals the methods for purification and separation presented herein have shown to be of great value. The results will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of the communication among insects, and ultimately to a more environmentally friendly pest control.


We present a method to learn a representation for adverbs from instructional videos using weak supervision from the accompanying narrations. Key to our method is the fact that the visual representation of the adverb is highly dependent on the action to which it applies, although the same adverb will modify multiple actions in a similar way. For instance, while 'spread quickly' and 'mix quickly' will look dissimilar, we can learn a common representation that allows us to recognize both, among other actions. We formulate this as an embedding problem, and use scaled dot product attention to learn from weakly-supervised video narrations. We jointly learn adverbs as invertible transformations which operate on the embedding space, so as to add or remove the effect of the adverb. As there is no prior work on weakly supervised learning from adverbs, we gather paired action-adverb annotations from a subset of the HowTo100M dataset, for 6 adverbs: quickly/slowly, finely/coarsely and partially/completely. Our method outperforms all baselines for video-to-adverb retrieval with a performance of 0.719 mAP. We also demonstrate our model's ability to attend to the relevant video parts in order to determine the adverb for a given action.


The color reaction of cholesterol with trichloracetic acid and antimony trichloride was examined to elucidate its reaction mechanism. 3,5-Cholestadiene, 3,3'bis(3,5-cholestadiene), 3,3'bis(2,4-cholestadiene), and cholesteryl trichloroacetate were isolated as the reaction products from the colored reaction mixture of cholesterol, and the first three compounds were found to be responsible for the coloration. It was assumed that cholesterol was dehydrated to 3,5-cholestadiene and 2,4-cholestadiene, which were dimerized to 3,3'-bis(3,5-cholestadiene) and 3,3'-bis(2,4-cholestadiene), respectively, and 3,3'-bis(2,4-cholestadiene) was in part converted to 3,3'-bis(3,5-cholestadiene) in trichloroacetic acid and antimony trichloride. The free radicals were detected in the colored solutions of choelsterol, 3,5-cholestadiene, 3,3'-bis(3,5-cholestadiene), and 3,3'-bis(2,4-cholestadiene), and inferred to be the radical cations of the steroids. The radical cation was postulated to be responsible with respect to the mechanism of the coloration. The relationship between the color reagent and the formation of dimeric steroids was described.


Stroke is a serious neurological disease and the third leading cause of death in the western world. In roughly 15 % of the cases, the cause is due to an intracranial haemorrhage, and the remaining 85 % represent ischemic strokes. Ischemic stroke is caused by the occlusion of a cerebral artery either by an embolus or by local thrombosis. Several studies have shown an involvement of the endothelin system in ischemic stroke. This review aims to examine the alterations of vascular endothelin receptor expression in ischemic stroke. Furthermore, studies of the intracellular signalling pathways leading to the enhanced expression of vascular endothelin receptors show that both protein kinase C (PKC) and mitogen activating protein kinase (MAPK) play important roles. The results from this work provide new perspectives on the pathophysiology of ischemic stroke, and give a possible explanation to the beneficial effects of treatment with PKC and MAPK inhibitors to limit the infarct volume.


The effectiveness of Community Policing has been enhanced when PDRM has introduced two strategies namely 'Ops Payung' and sector cards that bring closer police personnel to the community or in other words 'public engagement'. In Malaysia, based on the community's policing, the community needs the presence of policemen. Unlike the outside world, their community members do not need the presence of police personnel everywhere. The crime prevention concept of Community Policing has long been established. The implementation of the current schemes, the Residents and Rukun Tetangga Association has helped a lot in preventing criminal activity in the surrounding communities. Among the current schemes currently and in Malaysia are the Salleh System, Partner Cop, Voluntary Patrolling Scheme, People's Volunteer Corps, Police Volunteers, Department of Public Defense Malaysia, Amanita, Motorcycle Patrol Unit and National Blue Ocean Strategy. The implementation and achievement of community policing programs in Malaysia based on eleven organizations under the community policing demonstrate strongly in assisting PDRM especially in combating crime today. Therefore, with these organizations, it will also alleviate the task of members of the PDRM where the community has joined the members in full control of public safety. Now the community together with PDRM is in touch with each other in ensuring that the safety of the locals is always safe from the threat of crime.


We present an algorithm for optimal view point selection for 3D reconstruction of an object using 2D image points. Since the image points are noisy, a Kalman filter is used to obtain the best estimate of the object's geometry. This Kalman filter allows us to efficiently predict the effect of any given camera position on the uncertainty, and therefore quality, of the estimate. By choosing a suitable optimization criterion, we are able to determine the camera positions which minimize our reconstruction error. We verify our results using two experiments with real images: one experiment uses a calibration pattern for comparison to a ground-truth state, the other reconstructs a real world object


THIS ANNUAL financial review of all 125 fully accredited US medical schools reports revenues for fiscal year 1994-1995 and identifies patterns in the financing of medical education during the past 3 years. We chose 1992-1993 as the base year to show more recent patterns in medical school financing amid the current economic climate. In addition, the review highlights trends in medical service and differences in the funding of public and private medical schools for fiscal year 1994-1995. DATA SOURCES AND CHARACTERISTICS For the 1994-1995 fiscal year, all 125 accredited US medical schools responded to the Annual Medical School Questionnaire of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. Part I-A of this survey is an annual financial questionnaire (AFQ) that is the basis for analysis of medical school financing; Part II includes student counts, faculty counts, and many other data describing medical education. This analysis used data derived from both parts of


Groundwater arsenic (As) presents a public health risk of great magnitude in densely populated Asian delta regions, most acutely in the Bengal Basin (West Bengal, India and Bangladesh). Research has focused on the sources, mobilisation, and heterogeneity of groundwater As, but a consistent explanation of As distribution from local to basin scale remains elusive. We show for the Bengal Aquifer System that the numerous, discontinuous silt‐clay layers together with surface topography impose a hierarchical pattern of groundwater flow, which constrains As penetration into the aquifer and controls its redistribution towards discharge zones, where it is re‐sequestered to solid phases. This is particularly so for the discrete periods of As release to groundwater in the shallow subsurface associated with sea level high‐stand conditions of Quaternary inter‐glacial periods. We propose a hypothesis concerning groundwater flow (Silt‐clay layers Impose Hierarchical groundwater flow patterns constraining Arsenic progression [SIHA]), which links consensus views on the As source and history of sedimentation in the basin to the variety of spatial and depth distributions of groundwater As reported in the literature. SIHA reconciles apparent inconsistencies between independent, in some cases contrasting, field observations. We infer that lithological and topographic controls on groundwater flow, inherent to SIHA, apply more generally to deltaic aquifers elsewhere. The analysis suggests that groundwater As may persist in the aquifers of Asian deltas over thousands of years, but in certain regions, particularly at deeper levels, As will not exceed low background concentrations unless groundwater flow systems are short‐circuited by excessive pumping.


Patterns of crime and punishment in the USA greatly magnify corresponding developments in other liberal market economies – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK – faced with similar broad macro-technological transformations, namely the collapse of Fordism in the 1970s and 1980s and the development of knowledge economies in the 1990s and 2000s. In this article, we set out the case for seeing these differences as largely the product of dynamics shaped by the institutional structure of the US political system. We focus on the exceptional direct and indirect role of local democracy in key policy areas including law and order and beyond that in residential zoning, in public education and in incorporation of suburbs, which has no parallel in the other Anglo-Saxon polities, and which magnifies through residential and educational segregation and concentrated poverty the social problems caused by socio-economic developments.


Great changes took place at the turn of the Tang and Song dynasties.There are two lines to understand these changes.One is from Chinese scholars and the other is from Japanese scholars.In the perspective of paradigm,Japanese scholars have their own dividing line standards,reform scope and time,reform tendency and influence,thus making their own theoretical system of historical development after the Tang and Song dynasties,namely,a special view of history,which has great significance in methodology.Chinese scholars have not put forward a systematic theoretical paradigm,but they self-examine the reform of the Tang and Song dynasties from their own times,which should be valued more.


Determining the Standard Value of the Oily Distortion of Acquisition the Fingerprint Images. This research describes a novel procedure for determining the standard value of the oily distortion of acquisition the fingerprint images based on the score of clarity and ridge-valley thickness ratio. The fingerprint image is quantized into blocks size 32 x 32 pixels. Inside each block, an orientation line, which perpendicular to the ridge direction, is computed. The center of the block along the ridge direction, a two-dimension (2-D) vector V1 (slanted square) with the pixel size 32 x 13 pixels can be extracted and transformed to a vertical 2-D vector V2. Linear regression can be applied to the onedimension (1-D) vector V3 to find the determinant threshold (DT1). The lower regions than DT1 are the ridges, otherwise are the valleys. Tests carried out by calculating the clarity of the image from the overlapping area of the gray-level distribution of ridge and valley that has been separated. Thickness ratio size of the ridge to valley, it is computation per block, the thickness of ridge and valley obtained from the gray-level values per block of image in the normal direction toward the ridge, the average values obtained from the overall image. The results shown that the standard value of the oily distortion of acquisition the fingerprint image is said to oily fingerprint when the images have local clarity scores (LCS) is between 0.01446 to 0.01550, global clarity scores (GCS) is between 0.01186 to 0.01230, and ridge-valley thickness ratio (RVTR) is between 6.98E-05 to 7.22E-05.


A novel topology of PLL based on a new compensated VCO has been proposed in this paper. It is shown that the VCO can compensate supply noise and other factors with an optimum varactor value efficiently, and the on-chip calibration block can find this varactor value automatically. The PLL is fabricated and tested on 0.18-μm CMOS process demonstrates robust performance against the supply variation. The measured rms jitter of the proposed PLL with on-chip calibration is 3ps at 2.5GHz operation frequency. The total power consumption of the PLL with the calibration block is 27mW. Keywords—ring oscillator, PLL, compesated technique, VCO


Given a demonstrable correlation between telecommunications and industrial development, an interesting underlying question is: How can a telecommunication system be planned to achieve overall industrial development goals? A response could focus on the technical capabilities of a network, on the telecommunication equipment supply arrangements, and on the tariff structure. High telephone density is a technical attribute of primary importance because telecommunications' value for industrial development is that it provides an infrastructure. This value is not realized until a "critical mass" of telephone density is achieved. Where demand for telecommunication service substantially exceeds supply, screening criteria can be used to give certain classes of users higher priority in concert with industrial development goals. A second area of importance is the selection of plant technology which involves decisions that will affect technical capabilities of the network for 15-20 years or more; for example, crossbar, and electronic switching systems each possess certain advantages which should be considered in the light of local conditions. A local telecommunication equipment manufacturer is a participant in national industrial development. Efficient production of equipment might be supported by continuous and substantial demand from trading partners within a block such as the Andean Common Market. To reduce a telecommunication company's equipment costs, competitive procurement and negotiated allocation of supply contracts are two methods that are feasible particularly with transmission equipment such as microwave radios and cable. Alternatively, where a favored supplier relationship exists, the telecommunication company could benefit from the support of a research, development and engineering group in assessing its product choices. Tariff structure is a major allocator of telecommunication resources that is controllable by telecommunication planners. Price rationing is a conservative response to unsatisfied demand but does not respond fully to the needs of industrial development. Seeking to achieve a "critical mass" of telephone density through subsidized rates would be more responsive. Other tariff structure issues include use of measured versus flat rate local services, selection of criteria for drawing of local calling area boundaries and utilizing local calling area size as a basis for discrimination in rates. In response to inflation, continual modification of tariff structure is more sensitive to the needs of industrial development than the indexing of the rates, although the latter option requires fewer analytical resources.


Ceci, S. J., & Bruck, M. (1995). The recent past: Changes in legal and behavioral approaches. In Jeopardy in the courtroom: A scientific analysis of children's testimony (pp. 63-74). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. The numerous studies examined in this chapter may be highly important in revealing the factors involved in suggestibility and children's memory, but they may underestimate the power of suggestive techniques in real cases. Because of this concern, other researchers have examined in more detail the conversations and interviews between youngsters and adults and the effects of different interviewing techniques on the accuracy of youngsters' claims. The seven chapters that follow analyze these issues. (NCAC Abstract)


Disclosed is a method for processing an audio signal including at least one audio object on the basis of image information, the method comprising: obtaining an audio signal and a current image corresponding to the audio signal; dividing the current image into at least one block; obtaining movement information for the at least one divided block; generating index information including information for assigning a three-dimensional effect to the audio object in at least one direction, on the basis of the movement information for the at least one block; and processing the audio object in order to assign the three-dimensional effect to the audio object in the at least one direction, on the basis of the index information.


Author article stakes part in several projects focused just on development of technical creativity and imagination in students of faculties of education, teachers and primary school pupils. The article deals with the teacher's approach to the teaching of psychomotor skills, while specifically seeking to answer whether among teachers of technical education and practical activities, there are groups with significantly different approaches to teaching in terms of chosen objectives, methods and forms of teaching. This claim was first examined using a questionnaire survey focused on the objectives of education and further using Q-methodology concerning methods and forms. These examinations were performed as part of the "Nonverbal Creativity in Technical Education" project - GACR 406/07/0109 and as part of the "The Development of School-age Pupils' Competencies in the Area of Psychomotor Skills" project by the Internal agency of the Faculty of Education at Jan Evangelista Purkyne University.


Nowadays, fuzzy logic applications can be found in a variety of fields, specially engineering and scientific areas. However, applications of fuzzy logic in the artistic fields are not abundant. This is highly surprising if we consider the fact that other related techniques such as neural networks and genetic algorithms have been widely used for artistic and creative purposes. Two applications of fuzzy logic in the artistic domain are presented here: a fuzzy logic-based mapping strategy for audiovisual composition and a novel audio synthesis technique based on sound particles and fuzzy logic.


We present a girl with del(18p) syndrome and a single maxillary central incisor; she is only the second patient in whom this association has been reported. Del(18p) syndrome results from deletion of all or part of the short arm of chromosome 18 and is probably the second most frequent autosomal deletion syndrome. It is associated with a recognisable clinical phenotype, which includes some degree of holo-prosencephaly in at least 10% of cases.' Single maxillary central incisor can be a miid manifestation of holoprosencephaly in some cases.2 This finding has been reported only once previously in association with del(l8p) syndrome.3 Here we present a second affected child with del(18p) syndrome and single maxillary central incisor.


Sleep is an important part of our daily routine -- we spend about one-third of our time doing it. By tracking sleep-related events and activities, sleep monitoring provides decision support to help us understand sleep quality and causes of poor sleep. Wearable devices provide a new way for sleep monitoring, allowing us to monitor sleep from the comfort of our own home. However, existing solutions do not take full advantage of the rich sensor data provided by these devices. In this paper, we present the design and development of SleepGuard, a novel approach to track a wide range of sleep-related events using smartwatches. We show that using merely a single smartwatch, it is possible to capture a rich amount of information about sleep events and sleeping context, including body posture and movements, acoustic events, and illumination conditions. We demonstrate that through these events it is possible to estimate sleep quality and identify factors affecting it most. We evaluate our approach by conducting extensive experiments involved fifteen users across a 2-week period. Our experimental results show that our approach can track a richer set of sleep events, provide better decision support for evaluating sleep quality, and help to identify causes for sleep problems compared to prior work.


Development of high-efficiency multijunction solar cells for concentrator applications is a key step in achieving the goals of the US Department of Energy National Photovoltaics Program. This report summarizes findings of an issue study conducted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Photovoltaic Analysis and Integration Center, with the assistance of the Solar Energy Research Institute and Sandia National Laboratories, which surveyed multijunction cell research for concentrators undertaken by federal agencies and by private industry. The team evaluated the potentials of research activities sponsored by DOE and by corporate funding to achieve projected high-efficiency goals and developed summary statements regarding industry expectations. Recommendations are made for the direction of future work to address specific unresolved aspects of multijunction cell technology.


This issue of Higher Learning Research Communications (HLRC) features research focused on faculty development from scholars across both sides of the Atlantic. The opening piece, Enhancing faculty performance through coaching: Targeted, individualized support, describes the culture within a US-based higher education institution, where emphasis is given to supporting faculty. One of their latest approaches has been to implement coaching as a means for professional development, with positive results.  Promoting critical thinking skills has always been a challenge for higher education professionals. Different models and techniques have been researched and described in different contexts. And, as higher education makes its way into the 21st century, developing critical thinking skills in online learning environments can prove to be an even bigger challenge. Laura A. Schindler and Gary J. Burkholder present a literature review related to instructional design and facilitation approaches that promote critical thinking in asynchronous online discussions (AODs) across multiple cognitive constructs (cognitive domain, cognitive presence, knowledge construction, and perspective-taking). According to their review of the available literature, certain design approaches are effective for promoting critical thinking.  Another 21st century challenge has been globalization, with higher education professionals being able to teach face-to-face and online across the globe. However, cultural differences and language barriers may present teaching and learning challenges. In the article, Communicative differences between domestic and foreign instructors, authors Narissra Punyanunt-Carter, Jason Wrench, Stacy L Carter, and Daniel Linden researched how students perceived their instructors, depending on whether they were local or foreign. Their findings may aid international faculty make a better transition into US-based campuses and classrooms.


Haematological studies of ruminant vertebrates (cow, sheep and goat) present one acceptable method of understanding the ecological biochemical and physiological relationship between lower and higher vertebrate animals like man. Haematological/Biochemical studies were carried out on blood from the vertebrate ruminants: Goat (Capra hircus-L), sheep (Ovis Aries dolrchra), cattle (Bos Taurus) and human (Homo sapiens) as control, indicated that; Electrophoretically goat blood revealed three different Hb polymorphic types: HbAA (45%), HbAS (50%) and HbSS (5%). Only the 'O' Rh blood group was observed in all cases, and GST values of 4.05-6.30 I.U were obtained on the other hand. Cow Hb electrophoresis produced two patterns corresponding to the human HbAA and HbAS types. Only the 'O' Rh - blood group was obtained in all cases and GST values of 2.85-5.02 I.U were obtained, while sheep blood produced only the HbAA-type, only the 'O' blood group was identified in all case. GST activity values were in the range of 3.05-4.52 I.U. These results could point to definite haematological and biochemical similarities in man and ruminants and thus serves as a springboard for further genetic studies using lower vertebrates research models. @JAEM


Dipolar systems with randomly directed anisotropy axes are analysed within a local-mean-field approach and in the Ising limit. The properties of the system are shown to be essentially identical to those characterizing Ising spin glasses. Accounting for some departures from the spin glass behaviour that have been found in experiments on frozen ferrofluids requires more involved modelling.


The work deals with the choice of the most adequate method of surgical treatment of traumatic injuries of vertebrae in low thoracic spine when applying the ventral approach. Materials and methods: 48 patients aged from 21 to 68 with closed simple compression and comminuted vertebral body fractures in low thoracic spine. According to the specified treatment character the patients have been divided into three groups. In the first group (21 cases) injured segment fixation with use of ventral rod hardware, body resection of injured vertebra, anterior autobone spine fusion are performed; in the second group (20 patients)fixation with use of ventral rod hardware, body replacement of injured vertebra by reticular endoprosthesis are carried out. The third group (7 cases) presents the patients treated conservatively (5 persons have somatic pathology which is the contraindication to surgery, and in the last 2 cases there is a surgical treatment refusal). Clinical and radiological research methods of surgical treatment follow up are used. Research results: all the compression and comminuted vertebral body fractures in low thoracic spine are amenable to surgical treatment as at activation of the patient there is kyphotic deformity aggravation and pain syndrome intensification, besides secondary compression of a spinal cord can take place. When applying the ventral approach the most expedient method of fixation of low thoracic spine injuries is rod hardware ventral spondylosyndesis with vertebral body replacement by reticular endoprosthesis.


Open-domain chatbots engage with users in natural conversations to socialize and establish bonds. However, designing and developing an effective open-domain chatbot is challenging. It is unclear what qualities of a chatbot most correspond to users' expectations and preferences. Even though existing work has considered a wide range of aspects, some key components are still missing. For example, the role of chatbots' ability to communicate with humans at the emotional level remains an open subject of study. Furthermore, these trait qualities are likely to cover several dimensions. It is crucial to understand how the different qualities relate and interact with each other and what the core aspects would be. For this purpose, we first designed an exploratory user study aimed at gaining a basic understanding of the desired qualities of chatbots with a special focus on their emotional intelligence. Using the findings from the first study, we constructed a model of the desired traits by carefully selecting a set of features. With the help of a large-scale survey and structural equation modeling, we further validated the model using data collected from the survey. The final outcome is called the PEACE model (Politeness, Entertainment, Attentive Curiosity, and Empathy). By analyzing the dependencies between the different PEACE constructs, we shed light on the importance of and interplay between the chatbots' qualities and the effect of users' attitudes and concerns on their expectations of the technology. Not only PEACE defines the key ingredients of the social qualities of a chatbot, it also helped us derive a set of design implications useful for the development of socially adequate and emotionally aware open-domain chatbots.


This Special Publication examines tsunami hazard and risk, with particular focus on using the geological record. With Earth's growing population clustered increasingly on coastlines, tsunami hazards are of concern worldwide. The papers explore the sedimentological and dynamic traces of recent and prehistoric tsunamis globally – from Europe to the Pacific – as well as looking at historic records and how the information can be used to characterise the scale of impacts and areas that are most susceptible to tsunami hazards. Armed with this information, scientists can begin to quantify risks, both to populations and in economic terms. This volume is aimed both at scientists working in this field and at a wider community, interested in tsunami science and natural hazard assessment.


Comparative study of isoenzymic patterns of acid phosphatase, beta-glucuronidase and alpha-naphthyl acetate esterase of normal and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) lymphocytes was carried out by means of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The isoenzymograms of acid phosphatase and beta-glucuronidase of leukaemic cells were similar to that of normal lymphocytes. However, different patterns were found in the case of alpha-naphthyl acetate esterase. Two prominent anodal bands were present in CLL lymphocytes; these bands were either absent or very weak in normal cells.


Background: Semantic feature analysis (SFA) is a treatment for lexical retrieval impairment in which participants are cued to provide semantic information about concepts they have difficulty naming, in an effort to facilitate accurate lexical retrieval (Boyle, 2004a). Previous work has provided preliminary evidence that persons with aphasia who participated in SFA-focused group aphasia treatment demonstrate improved lexical retrieval in discourse, with additional improvements observed in either general communication informativeness or efficiency (Antonucci, 2009). Furthermore, results suggested that individuals with differing mechanisms of anomia could derive benefits from participation in SFA-focused group treatment. Aims: The aim of the current study was to investigate further training of SFA in connected speech during group aphasia treatment. This study expanded and extended previous work (Antonucci, 2009), through the addition of participants with more varied aetiologies and severities of aphasia, and through the introduction of home practice. It was hypothesised that lexical retrieval during discourse would improve, as would overall communicative informativeness and/or efficiency. Methods & Procedures: Four individuals with aphasia participated in biweekly group treatment during which SFA was trained through connected speech tasks. Three participants presented with stroke aphasia, while one demonstrated aphasia consequent to traumatic brain injury. Discourse measures included those for overall communicative informativeness and efficiency (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993) and for word-class-specific lexical retrieval (Mayer & Murray, 2003). Effect sizes were calculated for all discourse measures. Pre- and post-treatment performance on the spontaneous speech portion of the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised was also analysed relative to discourse measures, to corroborate findings from more frequently repeated probes. Outcomes & Results: All four participants demonstrated improvement to communicative informativeness and/or efficiency in connected speech tasks. Conclusions: Results provide additional support for the hypothesis that SFA administered during group aphasia treatment can be used successfully to facilitate improvement of communicative effectiveness. These results also support previous findings that individuals with differing aetiologies and natures of word retrieval impairment may benefit from participation in the same SFA-focused group aphasia treatment. Future work proceeding from this study may be directed towards differentiating which aspects of the treatment are most effective across participants with varied naming impairment, what is the optimal group composition and size, and towards discerning the most effective methods for facilitating and monitoring home practice.


In women with estrogen receptor(ER)-and ErbB2 (HER2)positive breast cancer, a vicious cycle is established between ER mechanisms of action and the growth factor receptor network, leading to enhanced cell proliferation and endocrine resistance. As such, co-targeting ErbB1 and ErbB2 with lapatinib in combination with hormonal therapy is an attractive approach to enhance the efficacy of either tamoxifen or estrogen deprivation. As demonstrated in the EGF30008 trial, a combined targeted strategy with letrozole and lapatinib significantly increased progression-free survival and clinical benefit rates in patients with metastatic breast cancer that co-expresses ER and ErbB2. Therefore, women who are not in an acutely life-threatening situation should be considered for upfront treatment with hormonal therapy (e.g. aromatase inhibitors) in combination with an anti-ErbB2 therapy.


Objectives The Yale observation scale (YOS), also called the Acute Illness Observation Scale, was developed to help detect serious illness in febrile children. We conducted this study to evaluate the clinical utility of the YOS for predicting serious illness in Japanese primary care settings. Method We conducted a prospective observational study from June 2015 to January 2018. We enrolled patients younger than 10 years, who attended the primary care centre at the Aichi Medical University Hospital and who had recorded YOS scores. Serious illnesses included invasive bacterial infections and any conditions requiring artificial ventilation, surgical treatment, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. We calculated point estimates for YOS sensitivity and specificity for predicting serious illness and hospitalisation. We evaluated the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) by the Youden index. Results The 260 participants (227 outpatients and 33 inpatients) had a median age of 1.75 years (range, 0–10); 80 (30.8%) were younger than 1 year, 131 (50.4 %) between 1 and 3 years, 44 (16.9%) between 4 and 7 years, and 5 (1.9%) between 8 and 10 years. Infectious illness was the most common diagnosis (n = 211), followed by allergic disease (n = 11) and trauma (n = 10). Among the 211 patients with infectious illness, upper respiratory tract infections were the most common (n = 55). Fourteen patients among the 29 with YOS >10, and 19 among those with YOS ≤10 were hospitalised. We found 6 patients with serious illnesses: intussusception (n = 1; YOS, 22), encephalitis (n = 1; YOS, 16) and urinary tract infection (n = 4; YOSs, 18, 16, 8 and 6). The sensitivity and specificity of the YOS for predicting serious illness at a cut-off point of 10 were 0.67 and 0.90, respectively. The corresponding values for hospitalisation at that cut-off point were 0.42 and 0.93, respectively. The AUCs of the YOS for predicting serious illness and hospitalisation were 0. 82 (excellent) and 0.74 (acceptable). Conclusions We conclude that a YOS >10 may be useful to predict severe paediatric diseases in Japanese primary care settings.


Perkalite, an organically modified synthetic layered double hydroxide, was used as a filler in the preparation of nanocomposites based on isotactic polypropylene. The polymorphism of the polymer matrix was investigated, finding that Perkalite favors beta phase in certain conditions and is not a nucleant for the gamma polymorph. Perkalite promoted the formation of a dual population of lamellae, as evidenced by SAXS data. The dispersion of the filler was studied by WAXD, SAXS, and TEM. Perkalite was intercalated by the polymer and formed small, rather disordered tactoids, that determined an increase in physical mechanical properties, such as modulus, impact strength, thermal stability and heat deflection temperature. The Tm(0) of the materials was calculated by the method proposed by Marand, the kinetics of crystallization was evaluated by the Avrami analysis and also the Hoffman-Lauritzen theory of crystallization regimes was applied. Perkalite was found to depress Tm(0), to greatly enhance the rate of crystallization and to ease the chain folding of macromolecules.


The effects of a four-hour exposure (via a Plexiglas hood) to sulfur dioxide (SO2) on airway reactivity was studied in both normal and allergic conscious sheep. Allergic sheep were defined as animals in whom inhalation of Ascaris suum extract resulted in an increase in mean pulmonary flow resistance (RL). Airway reactivity (delta RL) was assessed by measuring the increase in RL after 18 breaths of 0.25% carbachol, from an initial value obtained after 18 breaths of buffered saline. RL and delta RL were determined prior to, immediately after and 24 hours following SO2 exposure in three groups of sheep: six normal sheep exposed to 5 ppm SO2 (group A); six normal sheep exposed to 10 ppm SO2 (group B) and seven allergic sheep exposed to 5 ppm SO2 (group C). RL was not affected by SO2 exposure in any group but both groups B and C showed increases in delta RL 24 hours after exposure. Since the increase in delta RL was greater in group C than in either groups A or B, we conclude that allergic sheep have enhanced susceptibility to the injurious airway effects of SO2.


Sage (Salvia) species are the largest members of Lamiaceae or mint family. Many species of salvia are native to Mediterranean region. Sage family members especially common sage (Salvia officinalis) have been used traditionally throughout the world as a remedy for the treatment of many common ailments such as, cough, asthma, bronchitis, angina, mouth and throat inflammations, depression, digestive and circulation disorders, excessive sweating, skin and many other diseases.


Hydroponics is one of the effective farming methods to apply in big cities because it does not require extensive agricultural land. In addition, hydroponic products are cleaner, higher quality and free from pesticides. However, the development of hydroponic products in Indonesia is relatively slow. One of the factors causing the slow development of hydroponic agribusiness is that online sales media for hydroponic products are still limited, especially android-based e-marketplace application. Hydrolite is present as an e-marketplace that specifically sells vegetables grown using the hydroponic method, and sells all the equipment needed to farm hydroponically. Hydrolite is a prototype e-marketplace application designed using the Marvelapp platform. Further, Marvelapp is one of the best prototyping tools to support application development on mobile devices.


The nature of phonon dispersion relation anomalies of the IV - VI compounds in the high-symmetry phase is analysed in the framework of the vibronic theory of ferroelectricity. It is shown that the source of the phonon dispersion curve anomalies is the strong electron - phonon interaction of pseudo-Jahn - Teller type. The phonon spectra of the high-symmetry phase of PbTe are calculated for different temperatures. The calculated spectra are in agreement with experimental data. It is shown that the significant temperature dependence of the soft mode in IV - VI semiconductors is caused by the closeness of the lattice to structural instability.


Abstract : The overall focus of the research effort is the understanding of the physical structure of 3-D shock wave-turbulent boundary layer interactions. The approach utilizes the full mean compressible Navier-Stokes equations with turbulence incorporated through the algebraic turbulent eddy viscosity model of Baldwin and Lomax. The research effort is categorized into two major areas. First, the efficacy of the Baldwin-Lomax model is examined for the 2-D supersonic compression ramp at Mach 3 and a Reynolds number based on upstream boundary layer thickness of 1.6 million. The results indicate that the Baldwin-Lomax model underestimates the upstream propagation of the shock-boundary layer interaction, and underestimates the recovery of the boundary layer downstream of reattachment. The incorporation of a simple relaxation modification to the eddy viscosity greatly improves the prediction of the upstream propagation, but does not appreciably affect the prediction of the downstream recovery fo the boundary layer. Second, the three-dimensional interaction of an oblique shock wave with a turbulent boundary layer (the 3-D 'sharp fin' configuration) at Mach 3 has been computed for two different shock strengths (i.e., shock-generator angles), and the results compared with the extensive experimental data. Present results indicate that the Baldwin-Lomax model provides an accurate prediction of a wide variety of flow properties, including surface pressure, heat transfer, yaw and pitch angle, static pressure and pitot pressure.


Experiments searching for parity nonconservation in the scattering of 1.5 GeV/c (800 MeV) polarized protons from an unpolarized water target and a liquid hydrogen target are described. The intensity of the incident proton beam was measured upstream and downstream of the target by a pair of ionization detectors. The beam helicity was reversed at a 30-Hz rate. Auxiliary detectors monitored beam properties that could give rise to false effects. The result for the longitudinal asymmetry from the water is A/sub L/ = (1.7 +- 3.3 +- 1.4) x 10/sup -7/, where the first error is statistical and the second is an estimate of systematic effects. The hydrogen data yield a preliminary result of A/sub L/ = (1.0 +- 1.6) x 10/sup -7/. The systematic errors for p-p are expected to be < 1 x 10/sup -7/.


Many libraries have large collections of electronically available databases including journal article and conference paper indexes, full-text vendor catalogs, and standards databases. Which of these resources are being used and to what level becomes a point of interest. A quick re-direct Web-log has been created to track the number of times a particular link is selected, providing a consistent comparison of different resources. The resulting information can be used to determine if what the library provided is being used and if it can be marketed more effectively, which, ultimately, will aid in a cost/benefit analysis for budget decisions.


. Community of Inquiry is a theoretical framework with great influence in the investigation of online learning in higher Education. This study examines the reliability and validity of a neutral Spanish version of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Survey (v14) for online learning. The sample is composed of Spanish and Latin-American online university students. The results revealed a high reliability for the instrument (Conbrach's α = .978) and the different presences (Conbrach's α = .956 and higher). Three factor-structures of the CoI framework explained 71% of the variance in the pattern of relationships among the items using the first split-half sample. Confirmatory factor Analysis (CfA) demonstrates a good fit to the data from the sample to the sub-scales «Teaching presence» and «Cognitive presence» but an adequate fit was not found for the sub-scale Social presence. It is suggested that some of the items of the instrument be revised to improve its construct validity.


There is a potential for the discovery of buried and blind base metal mineral deposits in paleophysiographic environments in carbonate rocks, i.e., Mississippi Valley-Appalachian site types, in formations of Cambrian to Cretaceous age in the Cordillera. This conviction is based on a review and interpretation of selections from the literature regarding the stratigraphic settings and habits of occurrence of the described deposits. The initial control of the localization of these deposits, i.e., site types regardless of structural setting, appear to be more readily accounted for as derivatives of paleo-physiography, i.e., as features inherent in sedimentation or induced by erosion, rather than as the induced consequences of tectonics or as random mineralization stoping. Examples are presented in support of this concept regarding sites of mineralization.Some of the deposits are close to igneous intrusives, others remote therefrom. Thus the question arises as to the source of the mineralization and the timing of its emplacement with respect to the age of the host. The conventional wisdom with respect to deposits in Western United States has generally been that tectonics and igneous intrusives, respectively, are the sine qua non for sites and sources of the mineralization and that the mineralization is late epigenetic with respect to the invaded rocks. This is in contrast to the concept of Mississippi Valley-type mineralizations. Such deposits have no obvious igneous intrusive source and are believed to be syngenetic, diagenetic, or early epigenetic concentrations from metal-rich brines or submarine volcanic exhalatives. To establish how much, if any, of the subject class of mineralization in the Cordillera is Mississippi Valley type, it is suggested that a paleomagnetic method be used to determine relative ages of mineralization and host.However, one need not defer exploration while awaiting such determination if willing to accept as permissible that the possibilities for discovery (a) are not initially controlled by tectonics and by some inverse power law of attenuation with distance from an igneous intrusive; (b) may be defined by the character and distribution of paleophysiographic features responsible for the ore sites, which sites may serve as receptacles for mineralization from any source and at any time during their existence.Reference is made to some of the procedures that have been used in prospecting on such premise.


Families caring for a frail elderly loved one at home face numerous problems and crises and often become incapacitated, sometimes breaking down completely, in their efforts to cope. Research indicates that education, information and referral services, and support and respite services can significantly improve coping abilities and relieve care givers' burden. During the past eight years, the Neurological Sciences Center's Education & Family Support Services (E&FSS) of Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center, Portland, OR, has become a leader in developing these services for families. E&FSS programs include Helping You Care; Caregiver Series; Caregiver Support Group; POPS; Polishing Our People Skills; Neurological Coalition; Caregiver's Respite Program; Legal/Financial Planning class; and the E&FSS Resource Center. The program also provides public education in the form of three major programs each year, videotapes, and fact sheets. The program benefits the facility by providing direct revenues, referring clients to medical services and physicians, and enhancing the facility's image in the community.


Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is an hereditary disease affecting conective tissue, mainly associated to growth retardation and pathological fractures. OI type I (OI type I), is the mildest, most often, and homogeneous in its fenotype. Vertebral fractures are the most significant complications, associated to skeletical and cardiopulmonary morbidity.

OBJECTIVES
To characterize clinically a cohort of children with OI type I.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A cohort of OI type I children younger than 20 year old was evaluated. Demographic, clinical, biochemical and radiological data were registered.

RESULTS
Sixty seven patients were included, 55% male, 69% resident in the Metropolitan Region. The mean age of diagnose was 2.9 years, 70% presented vertebral fractures on follow-up, mostly thoracic, and 50% before the age of 5 years. Fifty percentage presented vertebral fractures at diagnose, which was about the age of 5 years. Bone metabolic parameters were in the normal range, without significant change at the moment of vertebral fractures. Calcium intake was found to be below American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations at the time of the first fracture.

CONCLUSIONS
In this study OI type I has an early diagnose, and vertebral fractures show a high incidence, mostly in toddlers. Calcium intake was found to be below reccomended values, and should be closely supervised in these patients.


Introduction: An estimated 19,970 Americans died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in 2015, with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) accounting for roughly 30% of newly diagnosed NHL. Our study focuses on three NHL subtypes: germinal center (GCB)-DLBCL, the most common DLBCL subtype; activated (ABC)-DLBCL, a particularly aggressive and high-risk subtype; and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), considered incurable. Constitutive B-cell receptor signaling is implicated in the pathogenesis of ABC-DLBCL and MCL and may couple with aberrant apoptotic BCL-2 pathway proteins. The BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax is a promising targeted agent that promotes apoptosis in a variety of NHL subtypes, but is almost never curative as a single agent. Radiotherapy promotes apoptosis by creating DNA strand breaks, and we hypothesized that the combination of radiotherapy and venetoclax would act synergistically in NHL to increase the probability of cures. Methods: We tested in vitro killing efficacy of sublethal 137Cesium irradiation combined with venetoclax in 15 cell lines, representing a diversity of NHL subtypes. Cells were treated with 137Cesium and venetoclax in 8 x 8 dose combination matrices, incubated 72-120 hrs, then assayed for viability with Celltiter-Glo (Promega). The degree of treatment antagonism, additivity, or synergism was determined using isobolographic analyses. For in vivo studies, we tested combinations of venetoclax with either 137Cesium total body irradiation (TBI), or CD20 pre-targeted radioimmunotherapy (PRIT), in threetumor models chosen for divergent single agent sensitivities. Tumor xenografts of Rec-1 (MCL), U2932 (ABC-DLBCL), and SU-DHL-6 (GCB-DLBCL) were produced by subcutaneous flank injection of 10 x 106 cells in male and female NOD.Cg-Rag1tm1Mom Il2rgtm1Wjl/SzJ (NRG) mice. When tumor volumes were 50 mm3, mice (n = 8-12/group) were treated with either venetoclax (100-200mg/kg daily for 10-30 days), diluent control, TBI (single dose, 6-10 Gy 137Cesium), or a combination of venetoclax and TBI. In PRIT studies, mice were coinjected with 300µg unlabeled streptavidin-conjugated anti-CD20 antibody (murine IgG2a) and 400µg HB8181 (IgG2a isotype control to block non-specific binding) in place of TBI. Twenty-one hours later, 5.8 nmol biotin-galactose "clearing agent" was administered, followed in 3 hours by 1.2 nmol DOTA-biotin labeled with 400, 800, or 1200 µCi of 90Y (14.8, 29.6, or 44.4 MBq, respectively). Results: In vitro, 10 of 15 lymphoma cell lines responded synergistically to combined radiotherapy and venetoclax, including GCB-DLBCL, ABC-DLBCL and MCL lines (p TBI alone). The SU-DHL-6 model produced similar results. In the U2932 model, tumors disappeared during venetoclax monotherapy, but recurred in all mice, such that mean survival time doubled compared to controls (p = .0001). Six Gy TBI had no effect (p = .73), but combining TBI with venetoclax tripled survival time compared to controls (p = .0003, combination group > venetoclax alone). Using PRIT in place of TBI produced yet greater efficacy. In Rec-1 bearing mice, venetoclax had no effect alone (p = .12), 800µCi PRIT lengthened survival time 111% beyond controls (p = .0001), while the combination extended survival 483% beyond controls and cured 40% (p = .001, combination group > PRIT alone). In the U2932 xenograft model, venetoclax alone doubled survival time compared to controls (p Conclusion: In vitro and in vivo results support our hypothesis that radiotherapy combines effectively with venetoclax to treat NHL. Despite differences in single agent sensitivity, xenograft models of GCB-DLBCL, ABC-DLBCL and MCL all responded synergistically to combinations of either TBI or PRIT with venetoclax. PRIT combinations with venetoclax produced cures (Fig. 1) without detectable toxicity, and merit clinical preference. Ongoing studies examine predictive biomarkers and optimal treatment protocols for therapeutic efficacy. Disclosures Gopal:Paid Consultancy- Gilead, Janssen, Seattle Genetics, Spectrum, Research funding- Gilead, Janssen, Pfizer, BMS, Merck, Teva, Takeda, Spectrum, Seattle Genetics: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding.


Because of the problems of low allocation efficiency and accuracy in the traditional resource allocation model for the intelligent construction of track and field team training venues, this paper proposes a new intelligent construction resource allocation model for track and field team training venues. A distributed data collection method is adopted to select the index data for the intelligent construction of the track and field team training venues to optimize the allocation of resources and the mined resource allocation index through extracting the optimized index characteristics. The goal of the optimization problem is transformed into a single-objective solving problem. The suggested approach is based on the two-level programming concept. The simulation experimental results show higher efficiency and better allocation effect of the proposed scheme compared to other state-of-the-art approaches. Our evaluation and observations suggest that the accuracy of the intelligent construction of track and field team training venues is between 90% and 99% which is higher than two other benchmarked models. Furthermore, the proposed model can quickly reach to an optimal decision.


This performance featured the new music of Tony Gould, including his major work, 'The Subtlety of Time'. Legg was chief conductor for this concert, providing a necessary bridge between classical and contemporary musical interpretation and performance techniques and traditions. The music was arranged for string orchestra and jazz ensemble.


BACKGROUND
Tuberculosis had been declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as 'public health emergency' in 1993. Extra pulmonary tuberculosis (E.P.T.B.) comprises 20-25% total burden of the disease in which genitourinary tuberculosis (GU.T.B.) is 4%. Timely diagnosis and treatment will prevent the sequelae of this disease.

AIMS
To know the varied clinical presentations, diagnostic modalities and management of G.U.T.B.

METHODS
During a 13-year-period, 117 retrospective cases of GUTB were admitted in the tertiary care centre. They were analyzed for clinical presentation, diagnostic modalities and management.

RESULTS
Young patients mainly in third decade of life were commonly affected with higher incidence in females. In our study, the most common presentation was irritative voiding symptoms (66.47%) followed by haematuria (47.60%). Although it can affect the entire organ in genito-urinary system but, in the present study, kidney was the most affected organ (64.9%) following ureter (27.35%), urinary bladder (17.09%), prostate (3.4%) and epididymis (5.19%). In this study, we had not encountered any case of testicular and penile tuberculosis. Among the different diagnostic modalities in this study, the diagnostic positivity rate was 41.6% for the urine AFB test, 55.4% for the urine M. tuberculosis culture test and 67.7% for PCR. Chest x-ray was positive in 25.6% (30). ESR was raised in 62.5% and Mantoux test was positive in 61.2% patients.

CONCLUSION
A high index of suspicion and a wide range of investigations may be required to achieve a complete diagnosis of genitourinary tuberculosis. Though short course chemotherapy with four-drug-regimen for six-month-duration is the mainstay of treatment, surgical interventions were required in 60% of cases of this study.


Preserving the availability and integrity of process control systems in the face of fast-spreading intrusions requires advances not only in detection algorithms, but also in automated response techniques. In this presentation, we propose a new approach to automated response called the Response and Recovery Engine (RRE). Our engine employs a game-theoretic response strategy against adversaries modeled as opponents in a two-player Stackelberg stochastic game. RRE applies attack-response trees to analyze undesired security events and their countermeasures using Boolean logic to combine lower-level attack consequences. In addition, RRE accounts for uncertainties in intrusion detection alert notications. RRE then chooses optimal response actions by solving a partially observable competitive Markov decision process that is automatically derived from attack-response trees. Experimental results show that RRE, using Snort's alerts, can protect large networks for which attack-response trees have more than 500 nodes.


PurposeThe authors examine the influence of planning and execution capability (PEC) and operational improvement capability (OIC) on small-and-medium-sized firms' (SMEs) attainment of different innovation outcomes under the conditions of exports and formal business networks, based on the capability-based perspective and organisational learning literature.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyse time-series data about UK SMEs, extracted from the 2015 and 2016 UK Longitudinal Small Business Surveys (LSBS).FindingsThe authors failed to find any direct effects of PEC and OIC on product innovation outcomes. However, the authors discovered that OIC supports the generation of process innovation outputs more strongly than PEC. Additionally, exports and formal business networks provide SMEs with different learning opportunities. The authors find limited support that exports amplify the beneficial effect of PEC on product innovation outcomes more than formal business networks. On the other hand, formal business networks strengthen the effect of PEC on process innovation outcomes more than exports. As a result, exports reduce the beneficial effect of OIC on product innovation outcomes more than formal business networks. However, formal business networks weaken the beneficial effect of OIC more than exports.Originality/valueThe authors distinguish between two types of organisational capabilities – PEC and OIC – and examine their impact on SMEs in achieving innovation outcomes. The authors also identify SMEs' involvement in exports and formal business networks as the important boundary conditions for such effects. xD; xA; xD; xA;


Despite significant therapeutic advances, patients with chronic heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) remain at high risk for heart failure progression and death. The PARADIGM-HF study, the largest outcome trial in HFrEF, has shown improved cardiovascular outcomes with sacubitril/valsartan (Entresto®, Novartis), previously known as LCZ696, compared with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor therapy, possibly leading us to a new era for heart failure treatment. Sacubitril/valsartan represents a first-in-class drug acting through inhibition of angiotensin receptor and neprilysin, thus modulating the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and vasoactive substances such as natriuretic peptides. This approach can be considered a "paradigm shift" from neurohumoral inhibition to neurohumoral modulation. Based on the PARADIGM-HF results, the European Society of Cardiology and the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guidelines proposed a substitution of ACE-inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker therapy rather than an "add-on" strategy in HFrEF. Sacubitril/valsartan can be considered a milestone in cardiovascular therapy, like aspirin, statins, beta-blockers. Of course there are many questions that arise spontaneously from this trial, three recognized experts can help us to answer them.


The vast majority of freshly produced oceanic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is derived from marine phytoplankton, then rapidly recycled by heterotrophic microbes. A small fraction of this DOC survives long enough to be routed to the interior ocean, which houses the largest and oldest DOC reservoir. DOC reactivity depends upon its intrinsic chemical composition and extrinsic environmental conditions. Therefore, recalcitrance is an emergent property of DOC that is analytically difficult to constrain. New isotopic techniques that track the flow of carbon through individual organic molecules show promise in unveiling specific biosynthetic or degradation pathways that control the metabolic turnover of DOC and its accumulation in the deep ocean. However, a multivariate approach is required to constrain current carbon fluxes so that we may better predict how the cycling of oceanic DOC will be altered with continued climate change. Ocean warming, acidification, and oxygen depletion may upset the balance between the primary production and heterotrophic reworking of DOC, thus modifying the amount and/or composition of recalcitrant DOC. Climate change and anthropogenic activities may enhance mobilization of terrestrial DOC and/or stimulate DOC production in coastal waters, but it is unclear how this would affect the flux of DOC to the open ocean. Here, we assess current knowledge on the oceanic DOC cycle and identify research gaps that must be addressed to successfully implement its use in global scale carbon models.


In this paper, a high-precision direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of coherent signals algorithm using the improved off-grid sparse Bayesian inference is proposed. Firstly, we construct a weighted vector via IMUSIC algorithm to provide a priori information of spatial distribution, which can improve the estimation accuracy and efficiency. Then, to further reduce the approximate error of the first-order off-grid model, the steering vector is reformulated by the second-order Taylor expansion. Finally, the steering vector higherorder approximation model and weighted sparse Bayesian inference are combined together to realize the estimation of DOA. Extensive simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm under the conditions of coherent signals and low SNR.


The use of wood and residual biomass from forestry works is a CO2 emission-neutral source of energy that also contributes to reducing the risk of spreading forest fires, especially under Mediterranean climate. The forest stands of stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) occupies about 0.7 million hectares in the Mediterranean basin. In this study, the commercial quality of the pellets manufactured from different types of cutting residues (needles and thin branches, medium branches and bark), as well as wood from trunks and thick branches, was assessed. It was concluded that with the exclusive use of residual biomass it is not possible to obtain pellets of high commercial quality, useful for residential or industrial use. However, the highest quality pellets could be obtained by combining them with stone pine debarked wood, but in a certain proportion that differs depending on the type of residue (around 15% for bark, 30% for medium branches and less than 15% for needles and thin branches). It is recommended to take advantage of both the thick wood (trunk + thick branches) and a proportion of medium branches and bark, while in the case of needles and thinnest branches it would be more convenient to leave them in the forest for their incorporation into the soil, given their high nutrients concentration and their low quality for energetic use. The results found support a greater valorization of the biomass obtained in the stone pine fellings. In the future it will be necessary to study which is the most appropriate logistics of the silvicultural works to be able to conveniently apply the results of this study.


CDMA2000 1/spl times/, one of the world's first commercial third generation (3G) systems, offers high-speed data services in conjunction with the voice service. This high data rate capability of CDMA2000 1/spl times/ enables delivery of real-time streaming video. To facilitate efficient network planning for wireless multimedia services, it is important to have a solid understanding of the feasibility and impact of delivering streaming video over a CDMA2000 1/spl times/ network in the presence of voice and data traffic. This paper evaluates video streaming throughputs and wireless system capacities for a CDMA2000 1/spl times/ network under mixed traffic conditions (including voice, web-browsing and streaming video traffic) through a multicell multiuser system-level event-driven simulation. We also demonstrate the advantages of incorporating scalability and dynamic rate control (DRC) in wireless video streaming services.


The chromosomal locations of a cosmid-linking clone, cLN12-43, isolated from band 12p13 in man and containing subtelomeric repeat sequences, were determined by FISH. The cosmid hybridized to the telomeres of 3q, 6p, 9p, 12p, 15q, 19p, 20p, and 20q at high frequency and showed variable hybridization to 1p, 6q, and 9q. Two interstitial loci were detected, one at bands 2q13-->q14 and the other at band 12q13. The former corresponds to the fusion point of chimpanzee chromosomes 12 and 13, resulting in the human chromosome 2, whereas the latter may represent a similar but more ancient fusion event. The cLN12-43 cosmid was also shown to hybridize to a set of chimpanzee telomeres.


In this study, an analysis of the oil-forced (OF) and oil-directed (OD) cooling of oil power transformers was performed. The starting point was a case study of an OF transformer with a declared rated power of 360 MVA having thermal problems in operation. The effects of possible improvements of the cooling were analyzed, where the limiting factor was the geometry of the transformer (winding, core, and tank); cross sections and cooling channels of the windings and the core were also resolved. All calculations, showing an influence of varying characteristics of the cooling (the pump, the cooler, modification from OF to OD construction), were realized with software based on a detailed thermal-hydraulic model. This method gives all relevant oil flows (including oil bypass between the winding and the tank) and all temperatures for a specified configuration and specified parameters of the cooling system. Based on the results, the limits of OF cooling in general are clearly described in this paper. Finally, the effect of applying oil guiding elements inside the windings is illustrated and discussed.


Mutations of the p53 tumour-suppressor gene in human hepatocellular carcinomas from certain geographic areas appear to be associated with high dietary exposure to aflatoxin B1 (AFB1). In this study, the effects of AFB1 on p53 locus at the preneoplastic stage of rat liver oncogenesis were assessed. Male Wistar rats were treated with a single dose of 1.5 mg AFB1/kg body weight by a gastric tube. Liver biopsies over a period of one year were examined for aberrations of the p53 gene together with the expression of placental glutathione-S transferase (GST-P), a marker for preneoplasia. Immunohistochemistry, Western blot, polymerase chain reaction-single-strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) and DNA sequencing techniques were used. AFB1 induction resulted in GST-P overexpression, forming GST-P-positive multi-foci and nodules of hepatocytes, but no aberrations in the p53 expression and the microstructure of exons 5-8 of the p53 gene. These results suggested that p53 mutation(s) might not occur at this early stage of AFB1-induced hepatocarcinogenesis.


Disseminated adenovirus disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is lethal in most cases, especially when it develops as fulminant hepatic failure. We encountered a patient who developed fulminant hepatic failure caused by adenovirus infection. She did not show manifestations of graft-versus-host disease and the results of serum tests for viral infection were all negative. Abdominal computed tomography (CT) findings were consistent with peliosis hepatitis. She died of fulminant hepatic failure, however, and pathological examinations of the liver specimen obtained after her death revealed adenovirus infection. In this report, we review the clinical characteristics and imaging findings of fulminant hepatic failure caused by adenovirus infection.


Summary: Proteoglycans (PG) are essential for regulating water flow in the interstitium. From stage 1 of lymphostasis, there is an accumulation of interstitial PG, which regulate the increasing fluids. As the disease progresses, more PG are formed than degraded, resulting in proliferation, and increases in circumference and volume of solid tissue. The removal of this subcutaneous tissue, which is very rigid due to cross-linked PG, is a particular challenge in lymphedema surgery. Hyaluronidase has a lytic effect on these PG structures and, after subcutaneous infiltration, reduces the viscosity of the extracellular matrix, promoting diffusion and penetration of solutions into the surrounding tissue. By using hyaluronidase in our vascular-sparing surgical protocol (lymphological liposculpture), we have not observed any lymphedema recurrences even after 15 years.


Gene copy number (GCN) changes are common characteristics of many genetic diseases. Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) is a new technology widely used today to screen the GCN changes in mutant cells with high resolution genome-wide. Statistical methods for analyzing such CGH data have been evolving. Existing methods are either frequentist's or full Bayesian. The former often has computational advantage, while the latter can incorporate prior information into the model, but could be misleading when one does not have sound prior information. In an attempt to take full advantages of both approaches, we develop a Bayesian-frequentist hybrid approach, in which a subset of the model parameters is inferred by the Bayesian method, while the rest parameters by the frequentist's. This new hybrid approach provides advantages over those of the Bayesian or frequentist's method used alone. This is especially the case when sound prior information is available on part of the parameters, and the sample size is relatively small. Spatial dependence and false discovery rate are also discussed, and the parameter estimation is efficient. As an illustration, we used the proposed hybrid approach to analyze a real CGH data.


The Taylor rule has become the dominant model for academic evaluation of out-of-sample exchange rate predictability. Two versions of the Taylor rule model are the Taylor rule fundamentals model, where the variables that enter the Taylor rule are used to forecast exchange rate changes, and the Taylor rule differentials model, where a Taylor rule with postulated coefficients is used in the forecasting regression. We use data from 1973 to 2014 to evaluate short-run out-of-sample predictability for eight exchange rates vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar, and find strong evidence in favor of the Taylor rule fundamentals model alternative against the random walk null. The evidence of predictability is weaker with the Taylor rule differentials model, and still weaker with the traditional interest rate differential, purchasing power parity, and monetary models. The evidence of predictability for the fundamentals model is not related to deviations from the original Taylor rule for the U.S., but is related to deviations from a modified Taylor rule for the U.S. with a higher coefficient on the output gap. The evidence of predictability is also unrelated to deviations from Taylor rules for the foreign countries and adherence to the Taylor principle for the U.S.


In Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd [2020] SGCA(I) 2, the Singapore Court of Appeal had the opportunity to set out how the traditional contract law doctrine of unilateral mistake would apply to disputes in which the contracting process has been automated, in the context of a number of cryptocurrency trades. It concluded that when assessing the state of knowledge that is to be attributed to the parties at the time of a contract made by way of deterministic algorithms, the relevant inquiry cannot be directed at the parties themselves but rather, working backwards from the output that emanated from the programs, must be directed at the programmers. This paper sets out the problems with the court's conclusion.


A tightly-coupled NFE model combined with Neural network, Fuzzy reasoning and Expert system is constructed in this paper based on the neural network-fuzzy reasoning model by introducing expert system technology. The structure and modeling process of the generalized model are presented, and it is derived in theory that this model possesses convergence property and can be regarded as a category of complete information fusion model.


Large software projects often require a programmer to make changes to unfamiliar source code. This paper presents the results of a formative observational study of seven professional programmers who use a conventional development environment to update an unfamiliar implementation of a commonly known video game. We describe several usability problems they experience, including keeping oriented in the program's source text, maintaining the number and layout of open text documents and relying heavily on textual search for navigation. To reduce the cost of transferring knowledge about the program among developers, we propose the idea of wear-based filtering, a combination of computational wear and social filtering. The development environment collects interaction information, as with computational wear, and uses that information to direct the attention of subsequent users, as with social filtering. We present sketches of new visualizations that use wear-based filtering and demonstrate the feasibility of our approach with data drawn from our study.


Pseudoconvex optimization problem, as an important nonconvex optimization problem, plays an important role in scientific and engineering applications. In this paper, a recurrent one-layer neural network is proposed for solving the pseudoconvex optimization problem with equality and inequality constraints. It is proved that from any initial state, the state of the proposed neural network reaches the feasible region in finite time and stays there thereafter. It is also proved that the state of the proposed neural network is convergent to an optimal solution of the related problem. Compared with the related existing recurrent neural networks for the pseudoconvex optimization problems, the proposed neural network in this paper does not need the penalty parameters and has a better convergence. Meanwhile, the proposed neural network is used to solve three nonsmooth optimization problems, and we make some detailed comparisons with the known related conclusions. In the end, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the performance of the proposed neural network.


The paper will discusses the use, logic and the theoretical issues underpinning the definitions of housing market areas (HMAs) and their relationships with labour market areas. Drawing on this understanding, the empirical research generates sets of different potential geographies of HMAs for England based on an algorithm that applies a range of criteria linked to the degree of closure of migration and commuting patterns. Based on a range of criteria/tests the different geographies are assessed. In particular standardised house prices in neighbouring HMAs are tested to assess whether they are different using hedonic multiple regressions and a Chow test to see if they generate statistically different coefficients. Finally conclusions are drawn on these relationships. The empirical work is on England and the datasets drawn from the Population Census and the Land Registry.