Pesticides are designed toxic chemicals for specific purposes and can harm nontarget species as well. The honey bee is considered a nontarget test species for toxicity evaluation of chemicals. Global QSTR (quantitative structure-toxicity relationship) models were established for qualitative and quantitative toxicity prediction of pesticides in honey bee (Apis mellifera) based on the experimental toxicity data of 237 structurally diverse pesticides. Structural diversity of the chemical pesticides and nonlinear dependence in the toxicity data were evaluated using the Tanimoto similarity index and Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman statistics. Probabilistic neural network (PNN) and generalized regression neural network (GRNN) QSTR models were constructed for classification (two and four categories) and function optimization problems using the toxicity end point in honey bees. The predictive power of the QSTR models was tested through rigorous validation performed using the internal and external procedures employing a wide series of statistical checks. In complete data, the PNN-QSTR model rendered a classification accuracy of 96.62% (two-category) and 95.57% (four-category), while the GRNN-QSTR model yielded a correlation (R(2)) of 0.841 between the measured and predicted toxicity values with a mean squared error (MSE) of 0.22. The results suggest the appropriateness of the developed QSTR models for reliably predicting qualitative and quantitative toxicities of pesticides in honey bee. Both the PNN and GRNN based QSTR models constructed here can be useful tools in predicting the qualitative and quantitative toxicities of the new chemical pesticides for regulatory purposes.


First come, first served: Critical choices between alternative actions are often made based on events external to an organization, and reacting promptly to their occurrence can be a major advantage over the competition. In Business Process Management (BPM), such deferred choices can be expressed in process models, and they are an important aspect of process engines. Blockchain-based process execution approaches are no exception to this, but are severely limited by the inherent properties of the platform: The isolated environment prevents direct access to external entities and data, and the non-continual runtime based entirely on atomic transactions impedes the monitoring and detection of events. In this paper we provide an in-depth examination of the semantics of deferred choice, and transfer them to environments such as the blockchain. We introduce and compare several oracle architectures able to satisfy certain requirements, and show that they can be implemented using state-of-the-art blockchain technology.


Existing corner detection methods either extract boundaries and search for points having maximum curvature or apply a local operator in parallel to neighborhoods of a gray level picture. The key problem in these methods is the conversion of a pixel into a value reflecting a property of cornerness at that point. A neural network's ability to learn and to adapt together with its inherent parallelism and robustness has made it a natural choice for machine vision applications. This paper presents the application of neural networks to the problem of detecting corners in 2-D images. The performance of the system suggests its robustness and great potential.


A PCR assay was developed for detection of wheat seed naturally contaminated with Septoria tritici. S. tritici specific primers were derived from strict alignment of ITS and α-tubulin sequences of the pathogen. The specificity of four sets of synthesised oligonucleotide pairs (A, B, C and D) were tested using isolates from S. tritici, other selected fungi and wheat seeds. A single DNA fragment was amplified from S. tritici isolates with all primer pairs, whereas no product was generated from other DNA sources. S. tritici was also detected in wheat seed lots collected from plants with variable pycnidial coverage on the upper two leaves. PCR detection of as little as 0.5 pg of S. tritici genomic DNAwas possible. This is the first report on the detection of S. tritici DNA in naturally infested wheat seeds. This PCR based assay is simple, rapid, specific, sensitive and suitable for routine detection of the wheat pathogen in infested wheat seeds.


Venoms are complex mixtures of different molecules and ions. Among them, bioactive peptides have been found to affect cancer hallmarks, such as cell proliferation, cell invasion, cell migration, and can also modulate the immune response of normal and cancer-bearing organisms. In this article, we review the mechanisms of action on these cancer cell features, focusing on bioactive peptides being developed as potential therapeutics for one of the most aggressive and deadly brain tumors, glioblastoma (GB). Novel therapeutic approaches applying bioactive peptides may contribute to multiple targeting of GB and particularly of GB stem cells. Bioactive peptides selectively target cancer cells without harming normal cells. Various molecular targets related to the effects of bioactive peptides on GB have been proposed, including ion channels, integrins, membrane phospholipids and even immunomodulatory treatment of GB. In addition to therapy, some bioactive peptides, such as disintegrins, can also be used for diagnostics or are used as labels for cytotoxic drugs to specifically target cancer cells. Given the limitations described in the last section, successful application in cancer therapy is rather low, as only 3.4% of such peptides have been included in clinical trials and have passed successfully phases I to III. Combined approaches of added bioactive peptides to standard cancer therapies need to be explored using advanced GB in vitro models such as organoids. On the other hand, new methods are also being developed to improve translation from research to practice and provide new hope for GB patients and their families.


Mary Douglas's grid/group analysis has been a very influential theory for many culture theorists in all fields of the social sciences. There are two good reasons for importance of this theory. It allows for an interaction between the individual and the culture, and it can explain cultural change. There has been some theorizing about the implications of these innovations; however, little empirical work has been done to test these implications. The reason for this, at least partly, is the lack of an indicator capable of easily measuring culture on a wide-scale basis. This paper attempts to solve this problem by using questions chosen from the World Values Survey as an indicator of grid and group. To test the validity of these indicators, a survey was administered to five groups on Illinois Wesleyan University's campus, and these results were compared to results given by the Gross and Rayner method of measuring grid/group. If the World Values Survey indicators are valid, there should be a strong correlation between the grid and group scores for members of the same group. Additionally, there should be less than ten-percent variance between the World Values Survey indicators of grid and group and the pre-established indicators of grid and group. Finally, there should be little or no correlation between grid and group. Based on the data gathered, all these hypotheses seem to be valid, and therefore, the data suggests the indicators chosen from the World Values survey are a valid wide-scale indicator of an individual's typology.


BACKGROUND Selective nonablative wrinkle reduction with low-fluence pulsed dye laser has been shown to provide cosmetic benefits by stimulating the production of dermal collagen. The clinical efficacy for improving the appearance of acne scarring using selective nonablative laser treatments has yet to be established. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the improvement in the appearance and topography of acne scarring following application of a 585 nm pulsed dye laser with a temporal profile and pulse duration designed specifically to target healthy microvasculature in the dermis. METHODS Ten patients (mean age 34.8 years) with Fitzpatrick skin types I–IV and shallow to moderately deep, saucerized facial acne scars were enrolled in a prospective trial to receive a single laser treatment of both cheeks. Patients were evaluated at 30, 60, 90, and 120 days to assess the degree of clinical improvement. The evaluation process included assessment of pre- and posttreatment photography by two independent observers, patient assessment surveys, and surface profilometry using silicone imprints in order to quantify the degree of clinical improvement. RESULTS All 10 patients reported visible cosmetic improvement in the treated areas while surface profilometry showed that, on average, the depth of the acne scars was reduced by 47.8%. No adverse effects of this treatment were reported. CONCLUSION The treatment of acne scars utilizing a 585 nm pulsed dye laser with a temporal profile and pulse duration designed specifically to target healthy microvasculature in the dermis may be a safe and effective noninvasive alternative for a natural result.


We use observational gaseous and stellar density distributions in the disk of the Milky Way (MW) galaxy together with the disk rotation curve and measured disk velocity dispersion to build collisionless and combined collisionless-gaseous equilibrium models of the Milky Way disk. A purely collisionless MW disk is unstable towards the development of a central bar, so that during the nonlinear stage of instability the stellar bar is a dominant non-axisymmetric structure developing the disk. A ten percent admixture of a gaseous component leads to the development of a three-armed spiral structure in the stellar disk, decoupled spatially from the central bar-like structure. In our simulations, the spiral structure lasts for about 3 Gyr.


The relationship and clinical implications of atrial fibrillation (AF) in acute pulmonary embolism (PE) are poorly investigated. We aimed to analyze clinical characteristics and prognosis in PE patients with paroxysmal AF episode. Methods. From the 391 patients with PE 31 subjects with paroxysmal AF were selected. This group was compared with patients with PE and sinus rhythm (SR) and 32 patients with PE and permanent AF. Results. Paroxysmal AF patients were the oldest. Concomitant DVT varies between groups: paroxysmal AF 32.3%, SR 49.5%, and permanent AF 28.1% (p = 0.02). The stroke history frequency was 4.6% SR, 12.9% paroxysmal AF, and 21.9% permanent AF (p < 0.001). Paroxysmal AF comparing to permanent AF and SR individuals had higher estimated SPAP (56 versus 48 versus 47 mmHg, p = 0.01) and shorter ACT (58 versus 65 versus 70 ms, p = 0.04). Patients with AF were more often classified into high-risk group according to revised Geneva score and sPESI than SR patients. In-hospital mortality was lower in SR (5%) and paroxysmal AF (6.5%) compared to permanent AF group (25%) (p < 0.001). Conclusions. Patients with PE-associated paroxysmal AF constitute a separate population. More severe impairment of the parameters reflecting RV afterload may indicate relation between PE severity and paroxysmal AF episode. Paroxysmal AF has no impact on short-term mortality.


Analog magnetic tapes have been the main video data storage device for several decades. Videos stored on analog videotapes exhibit unique degradation patterns caused by tape aging and reader device malfunctioning that are different from those observed in film and digital video restoration tasks. In this work, we present a reference-based approach for the resToration of digitized Analog videotaPEs (TAPE). We leverage CLIP for zero-shot artifact detection to identify the cleanest frames of each video through textual prompts describing different artifacts. Then, we select the clean frames most similar to the input ones and employ them as references. We design a transformer-based Swin-UNet network that exploits both neighboring and reference frames via our Multi-Reference Spatial Feature Fusion (MRSFF) blocks. MRSFF blocks rely on cross-attention and attention pooling to take advantage of the most useful parts of each reference frame. To address the absence of ground truth in real-world videos, we create a synthetic dataset of videos exhibiting artifacts that closely resemble those commonly found in analog videotapes. Both quantitative and qualitative experiments show the effectiveness of our approach compared to other state-of-the-art methods. The code, the model, and the synthetic dataset are publicly available at https://github.com/miccunifi/TAPE.


Some Indian Lower Gondwana compressions of sterile and fertile Sphenopteris-like fern fronds are assigned to Damudopteris polymorpha (Fiestmantel) comb. nov. Its leaves show a distinctive epidermal structure and the sporangia have a transverse, multiseriate annulus, interrupted on one side by a vertical stomium. On the basis of these sporangia it is suggested that the fern annulus may have had one or more alternative courses of evolution other than the one suggested by Bower (1923).


The Backside Absorbing Layer Microscopy (BALM) is a recently introduced surface imaging technique in reflected light with an unprecedented combination of sensitivity and lateral resolution, hence very promising for the development of imaging sensors. This requires to turn BALM images into quantative analyte measurements. The usual way to analyze reflectivity is to compare the optical signal and a numerical model with many adjustable parameters. Here we demonstrate a universal relationship between the sample reflectivity and the physical thickness of the sample, ruled by three measurable quantities. Mapping the physical sample thickness becomes possible whatever the instrument setting and the sample refractive index. Application to kinetic measurements is discussed.


The DVD release of Robert Gardner's Dead Birds exemplifies the added value of extra features and the improvement in viewing quality when existing ethnographic films are distributed in this new medium. Whereas in the past, ethnographic films have been experienced as transitory performances, a nonlinear medium like DVD makes it possible to read a film the way one reads a book, stopping, reflecting, and reviewing. The inclusion of multiple soundtracks, additional sequences, and associated texts affords a density of content that has not previously been possible in either films or books.


In this work, segregation in the cast and hot worked structure, as well as the effects of soaking on macro and micro segregation, in hypereutectoid bearing steel produced by ingot casting were studied. Samples were selected from ingots that where either as cast or soaked for twenty hours. Two similar bearing steel grades were used for this investigation. For the as cast ingot, samples were selected from both A-segregation channel regions and the matrix region. Samples were also selected from hot-worked bars originating from ingots that had been soaked for four hours or twenty hours. Micro and macro examinations of the microstructures were conducted and compared. In addition, a segregation analysis of the substitutional solute elements was performed using EDX equipment mounted on a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). EMPA mapping of the composition pattern in the bulk, as well as the carbides, was conducted. Precipitation of M3C, M2C, and M6C was observed. The carbides at A-segregation channels were found to have a different morphology to those precipitated in the bulk matrix. After soaking at 1200 °C for 4 h, all the primary carbides are dissolved.


A pilot-scale wastewater source heat pump was operated for 30 days to recover heat from waste bathwater and to warm up fresh bathwater. The results indicated that the fresh water successfully warmed up to the designated 45℃, 50℃, and 55℃ with the coefficients of performance of 2.3–3.5. Artificial neural networks including back propagation, radial basis function, and nonlinear autoregressive model with exogenous input were used to simulate this process. The root-mean-square error and coefficient of variation of the simulated results, using the experimental data taken on the first 18, 21, 24, and 27 days, respectively, as a package of training data, showed that taking the data measured on more days as the training data improved simulation accuracy. The nonlinear autoregressive model with exogenous input needed at least 24 days' training data to achieve acceptable simulation results, the back propagation needed 27 days, while the radial basis function did not achieve acceptable results. Predictions based on the nonlinear autoregressive model with exogenous input modeling showed that the performance of the wastewater source heat pump system could gradually be stabilized within 42 days. Practical application: This study showed that the wastewater source heat pump can recover heat from waste bathwater to warm up fresh bathwater, and also demonstrated that the artificial neural network, especially nonlinear autoregressive model with exogenous input, is appropriate for predicting heat pump performance. Using this system can reduce building energy consumption, while using the artificial neural network model can help operate and maintain the wastewater source heat pump system.


The development of marine integrated power systems has enabled all-electric ship, with electric propulsion systems to be powered from diesel-generators. In addition, vessels with DC hybrid power sources such as fuel cell, super-capacitor, and battery have been emerging in recent decades. Despite several studies related to hybrid-electric vessels, the integration of hybrid power systems and its application for the marine industry still requires additional research tasks since marine power concepts have unique features, which are different from well-known hybrid vehicle concepts in respect of the number of generators & size, system response, and load profile characteristic. Especially, efficient power management in terms of load sharing among different hybrid power sources is one of the critical issues in the marine hybrid system. In this paper, the load frequency-based approach is proposed for power management and load sharing in DC hybrid electric ships. The main idea is that each power source has distinctiveness with respect to response time. By the application of several low-pass filters, an acceptable range of load frequency for each power source can be classified and distributed to each power controller. The integrated modeling & simulation of the DC hybrid powered vessel is developed to verify the proposed method. The simulation test is implemented as a feasibility study of the proposed load-sharing model for marine applications. As a result, the load frequency-based power management provides an effective load distribution scheme in terms of charging/discharging intervention of hybrid systems, and it is able to protect the generator from the sudden load variation which leads to tears & wears in mechanical systems as well as poor quality of power in electrical systems.


We studied the incidence and potential prognostic value of thyroid abnormalities after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) without total body irradiation (TBI) conditioning. 77 consecutive patients who received a chemotherapy‐alone‐based conditioning regimen pretransplant were included. Free serum thyroxine (FT4), free serum triiodothyronine (FT3) and serum thyrotropin (TSH) levels were assayed before and 3 and 14 months after BMT. Patients were classified in three categories: normal thyroid profile if FT3 and FT4 were within the normal range and TSH was normal or low, peripheral thyroid insufficiency (PTI) if TSH was >4 mIU/l, or an 'euthyroid sick syndrome' (ETS) if FT3 and/or FT4 were low and TSH was normal or low. The incidence of thyroid dysfunction at 3 months was 57%, and 29% at 14 months. This was mostly due to the occurrence of ETS which was more frequent at 3 months (48%, 29/61) than at 14 months (19%, 9/48). Furthermore, at 3 months, survival was significantly lower in the ETS group (34.5%) than in the euthyroid group (96.2%), or in the PTI group (83.3%) (P  <  0.0001). PTI was observed even in the absence of TBI in 11 patients (14%) and was equally distributed at 3 months (n  =  6) and 14 months (n  =  5).


Bio mass gasification has becomea common technology now days for the production of synthesis gas.Synthesis gas produced as a result of gasification has many applications. The numerical simulation techniques can be applied to the gasification process to save time and energy from lengthy experimentation. Simulation of reduction zone of adowndraft biomass gasifier was carried out for three different biomasses, Wheat Straw, Rice Husk and Corn Stover. The kinetic parameters were simulated and optimized, based on the maximum yield of CO and H2, for the three biomass materials under isothermal conditions, using kinetic models over the temperature range of 1000-2000K. For all three biomasses, the maximum composition of CO and H2 in producer gas was obtained at a temperature of 1400 K under isothermal conditions. Furthermore, the composition of CO and H2and char utilization was at maximum in the case of wheat straw.


The purpose of this study was to examine the technical skills that emerged as statistically important for volleyball men teams' progress into the qualification round, semi-final and final in the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008. Collection of data included the use of the statistical recording program Data Volley 2 Professional (2005) for games evaluated. Additional statistical analyses included the use of SPSS 15.0. Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test use revealed statistically significant differences among the teams concerning the "attack errors following bad receptions" factor. Additional statistical analyses using Mann - Whitney U test showed statistically important differences between the teams playing in each semi-final and the final with the qualification round teams regarding the "attack errors following bad receptions" factor. Statistically important differences were also noticed in the "attack after bad reception" between qualification round teams and teams playing in the final (Brazil-USA)


RESECTION of the vagus nerves for ulcer, like any other application of autonomic surgery, may be considered to embody three rather distinct areas for study and development. The first of these concerns the technical procedure itself, its extent, its intrinsic surgical complications and the immediate hospital morbidity and mortality. The second area embodies the physiologic response of the patient. No autonomic nerve can be interrupted, be it the presacral plexus, the lumbar sympathetic, the splanchnic nerve, or the vagus, without producing physiologic changes, an understanding of which is absolutely essential to intelligent clinical application of the procedure. The third area in this field involves close examination of the clinical end results. Clinical results may be extremely variable in their degree of dependence on the first two factors. In this paper it is my wish to outline the technical procedures which my colleagues and I have employed in vagus resection for


The author introduces a central counterparty (CCP) into a model of a repo market. Without the CCP, there exist multiple equilibria in the model. In one of the equilibria, a repo market emerges as bond dealers and cash investors choose to arrange repos in an over-the-counter bond market. In another equilibrium, the repo market collapses due to aggregate cash shortage for dealers. Introducing a CCP into the repo market blocks the latter equilibrium. This stabilizing effect of a CCP is robust to idiosyncratic default risk of dealers and asymmetric information about the risk.


Prehospital care is defined as the phase of patient care from the point of injury or illness to the place of definitive treatment. As such, it is imperative that the patient is transported to the right place of care within the right time frame via the right mode of transportation by the right personnel. In this article, the authors explore seven components that are essential in the initial stage of any prehospital care system development—the components of manpower, training, communication, transportation, facilities, access to care and coordinated patient record keeping. The authors then address issues and challenges in these seven components within the Malaysian context. Because of geopolitical and logistic differences from one locality with another, it is not possible for a, 'one-size-fit-all' solution to these issues and challenges within Malaysia. Ultimately, any effort to develop the prehospital care system should not be a mere stop gap measure, rather, it should address fundamental root problems in ...


This paper presents a case study of a 30-year-old male patient with dyspnea on exertion had echocardiographic diagnosis of aortic subvalvar stenosis. Discrete mitral regurgitation and aortic valve dysplasia with mild to moderate insufficiency and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were also noted. During surgery, a rare condition was identified: presence of papillary muscle anomaly associated with the subaortic membrane as a cause of obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. With the resection of these structures and a mitral valve annuloplasty, the patient evolved with a significant improvement of clinical condition and heart failure, with no residual mitral insufficiency.


We evaluated the treatment of varicella-zoster infection with BV-araU in immuno-compromised patients with haematological malignancies in a randomized controlled study. Comparison was made between doses of 150 and 30 mg/day. For ethical reasons there was no placebo group. The percentage of patients given a 'very effective' rating by both attending physicians and the Evaluation Committee was significantly higher in the 150 mg/day group (56.0%) compared to the 30 mg/day group (15.0%). There was no significant difference in efficacy rate ('very effective' plus 'effective') between the two groups. The incidence of side effects was low (7.8%), all were mild and disappeared on stopping treatment. These results suggest that BV-araU is clinically useful, especially at a dose of 150 mg/day in immunocompromised patients. Further comparative studies between BV-araU and acyclovir or vidarabine are indicated.


With the ever-increasing amount of anatomical information radiologists have to evaluate for routine diagnoses, computational support that facilitates more efficient education and clinical decision making is highly desired. Despite the rapid progress of image analysis technologies for magnetic resonance imaging of the human brain, these methods have not been widely adopted for clinical diagnoses. To bring computational support into the clinical arena, we need to understand the decision-making process employed by well-trained clinicians and develop tools to simulate that process. In this review, we discuss the potential of atlas-based clinical neuroinformatics, which consists of annotated databases of anatomical measurements grouped according to their morphometric phenotypes and coupled with the clinical informatics upon which their diagnostic groupings are based. As these are indexed via parametric representations, we can use image retrieval tools to search for phenotypes along with their clinical metadata. The review covers the current technology, preliminary data, and future directions of this field.


The government of Ethiopia has technically and financially encouraged cooperative societies in order to play significant role in ensuring food security. This study thus investigated the impact of cooperative societies on ensuring household food security in Tigray region using 400 sample households, household survey and Heckman two-stage model. The study confirms that cooperatives have contributed substantial roles in ensuring food security in the study area through increasing income sources, creating employment, and supplying inputs and consumer goods at reasonable price. The adult-equivalent income and expenditure of cooperative members are statistically different from the nonmembers during 2009 and 2010 (P<0.05). The inter-time comparison method indicates that there are statistically significant difference in per adult- expenditure and -income of the members before and after joining the cooperatives (P<0.05). The study found that 21% of the members are food insecure while the figure for the nonmembers is 36% (significance difference at P<0.01). Cooperative society is among the major determinant of household food security in the study areas (P<0.05). This justifies that expansion of cooperative societies is an important tool to minimize the food insecurity problem in the country. The study is also vital for policy makers, students and researchers to draw lessons on how cooperative societies reduce food security. Thus, the government should give attention for the expansion and diversification of cooperatives in order to join more people and then achieve food security. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA


Using a cross-sectional design with 407 Chinese children aged 3-5 years and their parents, this study examined the effects of socioeconomic status, specifically parents' education and family income, on the children's mother-child relationships, father-child relationships, and the social environment in their families. The results indicated that income negatively predicted conflict in father-child relationships and positively predicted family active-recreational environments. Income also positively predicted family cohesion among girls but not boys. Maternal education negatively predicted conflict in mother-child relationships and positively predicted closeness in mother-child and father-child relationships, family cohesion, and the intellectual-cultural and active-recreational environments in the family. Paternal education positively predicted family cohesion and intellectual-cultural and active-recreational environments. Income was found to partially mediate the effects of both maternal and paternal education on family active-recreational environments. Findings are discussed in the frameworks of the family stress model and the family investment model.


The electrophysiologic effects and antiarrhythmic efficacy of tiracizine, a new class I antiarrhythmic drug, were studied in 16 patients with documented sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) after intravenous drug application and in 6 patients after oral drug administration by means of programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS). After intravenous tiracizine (0.3 mg/kg) the VT was no longer inducible by PVS in 3 of 16 patients and became nonsustained in another patient. In 11 of 13 patients with further inducible VT the cycle duration of VT increased after tiracizine (mean 29 ms). After oral tiracizine (150-225 mg/day) the VT induction was suppressed in one patient. In a second patient the VT became nonsustained. Cycle length of VT in 4 patients with persistent induction of VT was longer after therapy (mean 88 ms). Antiarrhythmic efficacy of intravenous or oral tiracizine can be expected in at least one third of patients with VT.


In this paper I investigate the nature of the beliefs which agents must hold (at least implicitly) in order to justify their considering various alternatives, in two distinct settings: the Walrasian model without production (with competitive equilibrium), and the sell-all version of the Shapley-Shubik market game (with Nash equilibrium). For this purpose I introduce a weak consistency requirement on behavior, one which I refer to as (having) compatible beliefs. My main conclusion is that, in this respect, these two versions of market allocation are essentially identical. For both, contemplating different choices requires varying the associated set of values of the variables defining compatible beliefs. And - though prima facie very different - it turns out that both equilibrium concepts can be recast entirely in terms of having compatible beliefs. My analysis also leads unequivocally to the interesting conclusion that, in the Walrasian model (even elaborated to encompass production, financial markets, and so on), budget constraints must hold, ab initio, with equality. This has one very important consequence: the First Basic Welfare Theorem, as usually stated, is false, as I demonstrate with two distinct counterexamples, the second of which is (in classical terms) unexceptional.


OBJECTIVE
To ascertain the perception of third and fourth year medical students and interns (fifth year) about the educational environment during the clinical education phase and during the internship at Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS).

METHODOLOGY
A questionnaire with 120 items was developed to evaluate whether IMSS educational environment encourages reflection and criticism among medical students and interns. The highest possible score of the questionnaire was 240 points. A t test was used to compare the score of the students who were classified according to the term in which they were enrolled. 1997 medical students and 1075 interns from 46 IMSS clinical settings answered the previously validated questionnaire.

RESULTS
Seventy percent of the students considered that the educational environment was not very favorable for reflection and criticism; 19% perceived it as favorable and 11% as unfavorable. The median score of third and fourth year medical students, was 134.9 (range 80-193; p = 0.27), interns' score was 130.4 (range 80-208; p = 0.001). The perception of the medical students in clinical settings other than Mexico City was less unfavourable (median 132.8; range 63.5-208); p = 0.003).

CONCLUSIONS
apparently, the occupational environment influences the educational environments where the courses take place. As long as the students advance in their courses and get involved in clinical practice, their perception of the educational environment becomes unfavorable.


In this paper we discuss how multisource data (wind, ocean-current, optical, bathymetric, automatic identification systems (AIS)) may be used to improve oil spill detection in SAR images, with emphasis on the use of automatic oil spill detection algorithms. We focus particularly on AIS, optical, and bathymetric data. For the AIS data we propose an algorithm for integrating AIS ship tracks into automatic oil spill detection in order to improve the confidence estimate of a potential oil spill. We demonstrate the use of ancillary data on a set of SAR images. Regarding the use of optical data, we did not observe a clear correspondence between high chlorophyll values (estimated from products derived from optical data) and observed slicks in the SAR image. Bathymetric data was shown to be a good data source for removing false detections caused by e.g. sand banks on low tide. For the AIS data we observed that a polluter could be identified for some dark slicks, however, a precise oil drift model is needed in order to identify the polluter with high certainty.


Barite (BaSO4) precipitation is one of the most ubiquitous examples of secondary sulfate mineral scaling in shale oil and gas reservoirs. Often, a suite of chemical additives is used during fracturing operations to inhibit the accumulation of mineral scales, though their efficacy is widely varied and poorly understood. This study combines experimental data and multi-component numerical reactive transport modeling to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the geochemical behavior of barite accumulation in shale matrices under conditions typical of fracturing operations. A variety of additives and conditions are individually tested in batch reactor experiments to identify the factors controlling barite precipitation. Our experimental results demonstrate a pH dependence in the rate of barite precipitation, which we use to develop a predictive model including a pH-dependent term that satisfactorily reproduces our observations. This model is then extended to consider the behavior of three major shale samples of highly variable mineralogy (Eagle Ford, Marcellus, and Barnett). This data-validated model offers a reliable tool to predict and ultimately mitigate against secondary mineral accumulation in unconventional shale reservoirs.


A miniature passive perfluorocarbon tracer system was successfully applied to the determination of air infiltration and exfiltration rates from each zone of a multizoned structure as well as the air exchange rates between zones in homes, multiple unit condominiums, naturally ventilated apartment buildings, and large commercial buildings with multiple air handling systems. Use of the multizone technique in indoor air quality assessments and air handling system stratification studies appears to be quite feasible with the availability of this measurement system. 16 refs., 8 figs., 6 tabs.


From the rhizomes of Curcuma singularis Gagnep (Zingiberaceae family), six compounds, including three terpenoids, p-menthane-1,2,4-triol (1), amoxantin A (2), rugosic acid B (3); two diols, 2,3-butanediol (4) [2R,3R-butanediol (4a) and 2S,3S-butanediol (4b)], and meso-2,3butanediol (5), along with 3-hydroxy-4-methoxy benzoic acid (6) were isolated. All of six compounds were obtained for the first time from the Curcuma genus. The structures of those compounds were determined by 1D and 2D-NMR spectroscopic data.


Fearing a repeat appearance of a rare strain of bacterial meningitis that killed 1500 people last year in Africa, the World Health Organization last week issued an urgent plea to drugmakers to make an effective vaccine against strain W135 available at reduced cost. If a major outbreak of W135 were to strike this winter, officials say there would not be enough vaccine doses available at any price.


: The proposed system of flowering plants (Angiospermae) is based on synthesis of cladistic researches from different authors, morphological data and "traditional" systematics as well. Classis Angiospermae is divided for 4 subclassis: Magloliidae, Liliidae, Rosidae and Asteridae. Thus, monocots belong to subclassis Liliidae, and so-called "dicots" to three other subclasses. Altogether there are 35 orders and 328 families of flowering plants in this system.


OBJECTIVE
We studied direct effects of Erythropoietin (Epo) on functional properties of human monocytes/macrophages (Mc/Mphs) in vitro.

METHODS
Cells expressing CD14 marker were isolated from human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by positive magnetic separation. Mc/Mphs were cultured without or with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the absence or presence of Epo for 24 h.

RESULTS
We showed that Epo treatment hoticeably reduces the percentages of CD14+ cells, CD124 (alpha subunit of IL-4 receptor)+ cells and CD197 (CCR7)+ cells in non-activated Mph cultures without affecting the levels of CD16 (low-affinity Fc-receptor)+ and CD119 (interferon-γ (IFN-γ) receptor)+ cells. Epo also markedly reduced percentages of CD197+ cells in LPS-activated Mc/Mphs, without significantly affecting the expression of all other molecular markers studied. In addition, Epo caused moderate up-regulation of interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-6 production in resting Mc/Mph cultures, as compared to the down-regulation of IL-1β and IL-6 production in LPS-activated cells. No Epomediated effects on tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and IL-10 production were observed.

CONCLUSION
Our data suggests that Epo effects on Mph functionality are largely dependent on the baseline activation status of these cells, and that Epo exerts no distinct direct effects on the particular Mph polarization pathway.


Abstract. Wave-transported boulders represent important records of storm and tsunami impact over geological timescales. Their use for hazard assessment requires chronological information that in many cases cannot be achieved by established dating approaches. To fill this gap, this study investigated, for the first time, the potential of optically stimulated luminescence rock surface exposure dating (OSL-RSED) for estimating transport ages of wave-emplaced coastal boulders. The approach was applied to calcarenite clasts at the Rabat coast, Morocco. Calibration of the OSL-RSED model was based on samples with rock surfaces exposed to sunlight for ~ 2 years, and OSL exposure ages were evaluated against age control deduced from satellite images. Our results show that the dating precision is limited for all boulders due to the local source rock lithology which has low amounts of quartz and feldspar. The dating accuracy may be affected by erosion rates on boulder surfaces of 0.06–0.2 mm/year. Nevertheless, we propose a robust relative chronology for boulders that are not affected by significant post-depositional erosion and that share surface angles of inclination with the calibration samples. The relative chronology indicates that (i) most boulders were moved by storm waves; (ii) these storms lifted boulders with masses of up to ~ 40 t; and (iii) the role of storms for the formation of boulder deposits along the Rabat coast is much more significant than previously assumed. Although OSL-RSED cannot provide reliable absolute exposure ages for the coastal boulders in this study, the approach has large potential for boulder deposits composed of rocks with larger amounts of quartz or feldspar, older formation histories and less susceptibility to erosion.


Computer simulations using Cellular Automata (CA) have been applied with considerable success in different scientific areas. In this work we use CA in order to specify and implement a simulation model that allows to investigate behavioural dynamics for pedestrians in an emergency evacuation. A CA model is discrete and handled by rules. However several aspects of the crown behaviour should appear as a continuous phenomenon. In this paper we implement the sub steps technique in order to solve an unexpected phenomenon: the formation of holes (empty cells) both around the exit and mixed in the crowd evacuation. The holes occur when individuals of consecutive cells want move towards an exit. Additionally, the methodology allowed us to include, as a new parameter of the model, speeds associated to the pedestrians. Due to the incorporation of new features, the model complexity increases. We apply a parallel technique in order to accelerate the simulation and take advantage of modern computer architectures. We test our approaches to several environment configurations achieving important reduction of simulation time and the total evacuation time.


Understanding the cloud microphysical processes and precise retrieval of parameters governing the same are crucial for weather and climate prediction. Advanced remote sensing sensors and techniques offer an opportunity for monitoring micro-level developments in cloud structure. . Using the observations from a visible and near-infrared lidar onboard CALIPSO satellite (part of A-train) , the spatial variation of cloud structure has been studied over the Tropical monsoon region . It is found that there is large variability in the cloud microphysical parameters manifesting in distinct precipitation regimes. In particular, the severe storms over this region are driven by processes which range from the synoptic to the microphysical scale. Using INSAT-3D data, retrieval of cloud microphysical parameters like effective radius (CER) and optical depth (COD) were carried out for tropical cyclone Phailine. It was observed that there is a general increase of CER in a top–down direction, characterizing the progressively increasing number and size of precipitation hydrometeors while approaching the cloud base. The distribution of CER relative to cloud top temperature for growing convective clouds has been investigated to reveal the evolution of the particles composing the clouds. It is seen that the relatively high concentration of large particles in the downdraft zone is closely related to the precipitation efficiency of the system. Similar study was also carried using MODIS observations for cyclones over Indian Ocean (2010-2013), in which we find that that the mean effective radius is 24 microns with standard deviation 4.56, mean optical depth is 21 with standard deviation 13.98, mean cloud fraction is 0.92 with standard deviation 0.13 and mainly ice phase is dominant. Thus the remote observations of microstructure of convective storms provide very crucial information about the maintenance and potential devastation likely to be associated with it. With the synergistic observations from A-Train , geostationary and futuristic imaging spectroscopic sensors, a multi-dimensional, and multi-scalar exploration of cloud systems is anticipated leading to accurate prediction of high impact weather events.


The H2JCO reaction has been investigated over well characterized iron (111) single crystal surfaces. Under the reaction conditions (6 atm, 3:1 n2co, 3000 C) the dominant product was methane (85 mole %) with small • amounts of ethylene (11 mole %) and propylene (3 mole %). Due to the low surface area of our catalyst ( lcm2) the total conversion was less than 1%. The addition of ethylene or propylene in small concentrations (0.04-2.7 mole %) to the reactant stream resulted in a product distribution more typical of high conversion reactors (dominant product c5+). These results suggest that readsorption and secondary reaction of the initially produced a-olefins is an important pathway leading to the formation of large molecular weight hydrocarbons during Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.


BACKGROUND
Rabbits are popular pets, but research into their welfare is limited. This study analysed the potential association(s) between the provision of suitable housing and owner demographic factors.

METHODS
Data from 2017, 2018 and 2019 PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) report surveys gave a sample of 1333 UK rabbit owners. Whether the rabbit housing was adequate or inadequate was ascertained by asking owners to indicate images of hutch and run size or indoor environment type that were similar to their own. The owner demographic factors collected included gender, education, household income and deprivation. Chi-squared tests and binary logistic regression (univariable and multivariable) were used to investigate factors associated with adequate/inadequate housing.

RESULTS
One-third (31.2%) of rabbits lived in inadequate housing and half were housed alone (51.4%). Male owners were more likely to report providing inadequate housing than females (odds ratio [OR] = 1.795, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.319-2.441, p < 0.001). Compared to owners over 55 years old, those aged 25-34 years were more likely to house their rabbits inadequately (OR = 2.050, 95% CI 1.286-3.267, p = 0.003). Owners with a household income below average were more likely to report providing inadequate housing compared to those with a household income above average (OR = 1.406, 95% CI 1.025-1.928, p = 0.035).

CONCLUSION
The findings identify that inadequate rabbit housing is provided by owners of all ages, genders and deprivation levels but highlight some particular owner demographics that could be useful to target if resources are limited.


We present refinements of the SIBFA (Sum of Interaction Between Fragments ab initio) and GEM (Gaussian electrostatic Model) polarizable molecular mechanics procedure to represent the intermolecular interaction energies of metal cations. Improved forces fields for closed‐shell, open‐shell and heavy metals are discussed. Some perspectives towards a multiscale SIBFA‐GEM approach using density fitting techniques are presented.


Koistinen and Marburger's equation relating volume fraction of athermal martensite to temperature has been applied to diffusional transformation dilatometry data obtained on continuous cooling Fe-15%Ni alloys. After austenitising for 1 h at 1 000°C and cooling at 50 K/min (0.83 K/s), grain boundary nucleated massive ferrite was observed which developed into Widmanstatten ferrite with a ferrite habit plane of {110} b for temperatures between 372°C and 352°C. On cooling at 44 K/s from 1 000°C bainitic ferrite was observed for temperatures below 360°C. There was some retained austenite in this bainitic structure giving a ferrite habit plane of {110} b parallel to the austenite plane {111} 4 . Cooling at the same rate, 44 K/s from 1 200°C gave lath martensite below the M s of 261°C with a ferrite habit plane of {112} b . Superlattice spots corresponding to the DO 3 or B2 structure were observed in electron diffraction patterns on cooling at 50 K/min (0.83 K/s) and 44 K/s from 1 000°C.


The Education policy "Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers of English" had been controversial since its establishment in 2000, in the sense that various stakeholders including parents, students, school administrators, teachers and the general public. This essay critically analyses this education policy in the HK context by scrutinizing the prerequisite. Subsequently, how LPATE was built on policy texts and how it was construed as a solution of gradual decline of English as well as the reciprocal politics interacting with the policy were analyzed. Additionally, the institutions and actors involved in the policy process are discussed followed by the revelation of the outcomes of LPATE in both the expected and the unanticipated dimensions.


We present Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) measurements of gas-phase HNO3 obtained at the beginning of five southern hemisphere winters: 1992–1996. To investigate the composition of the polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) that formed in early winter each year, the observed evolution of HNO3 at 465 K is compared against that predicted using nitric acid trihydrate (NAT), nitric acid dihydrate (NAD), and liquid ternary solution models of PSC formation and correlated with temperature histories from three-dimensional back trajectory calculations. The MLS HNO3 observations suggest that the initial composition of PSCs depends on the physical state of the background sulfate aerosols. If the preexisting aerosols are liquid, then the formation of ternary solutions is initiated as the temperature drops below about 192 K, followed by a gradual conversion to NAD after exposure to low temperatures for several days. HNO3 uptake into ternary solutions occurs at higher temperatures, and the conversion to NAD is delayed, under conditions of enhanced aerosol loading from the Mount Pinatubo eruption. If a majority of the background aerosols are frozen, the growth of ternary solutions is inhibited, but formation of a metastable, water-rich, HNO3-containing solid phase characterized by a relatively high HNO3 vapor pressure (type Ic PSC) may occur. In general, MLS HNO3 measurements obtained during early southern winter indicate a strong correspondence between the area of gas-phase HNO3 loss and the area of temperatures below 192 K but only a weak correspondence between the area of gas-phase HNO3 loss and the area of temperatures below 195 K, the value commonly assumed as the threshold for PSC formation. Although temperatures were low enough to maintain NAT PSCs, the MLS data show that they were not forming, at least not over spatial scales comparable to or larger than the ∼400 × 100 × 5 km MLS field of view.


I'm a dancer who engages improvisation every time I put on my shoes to brush, step, click, and knock the floor. Not surprisingly, my work until March 2020 was primarily with fellow sound-makers, usually folk musicians from Ireland, Scotland, what's now called Canada, and what's now called Appalachia. COVID-19 has forced me to listen to the extemporaneous music I make anew, in the absence of collaborators, within a soundscape of profound uncertainty. In this contribution, I offer a voice from the floor, enunciated by my lowest limbs contacting the surface upon which I stand. This is where my work as an LGBTQ2IA+ improvising step dancer finds its meaning. In this essay, I respond to the incisive queer horizon Thomas F. DeFrantz casts, as "imagining outside of what came before." I share ways I have been thinking about improvisation and offer thoughts on how we might learn from DeFrantz to imagine and improvise "outside of" critically, queerly, and generatively.


Abstract This paper gives a basic overview of relevant statistical methods for the analysis of bioimpedance measurements, with an aim to answer questions such as: How do I begin with planning an experiment? How many measurements do I need to take? How do I deal with large amounts of frequency sweep data? Which statistical test should I use, and how do I validate my results? Beginning with the hypothesis and the research design, the methodological framework for making inferences based on measurements and statistical analysis is explained. This is followed by a brief discussion on correlated measurements and data reduction before an overview is given of statistical methods for comparison of groups, factor analysis, association, regression and prediction, explained in the context of bioimpedance research. The last chapter is dedicated to the validation of a new method by different measures of performance. A flowchart is presented for selection of statistical method, and a table is given for an overview of the most important terms of performance when evaluating new measurement technology.


The origins of different stereoselectivities observed experimentally in the alkylations of azulenone precursors in the guanacastepene A synthesis have been determined through density functional theory investigations. The optimized transition structures of methylation of two different guanacastepene A precursors show that steric effects, rather than torsional factors that often determine such stereoselectivities, dictate the preferred products observed.


ABSTRACT Zhang, M.; Cheng, W., and Guo, P., 2015. Intelligent recognition of mixture control chart pattern based on quadratic feature extraction and SVM with AMPSO. Take control charts as the principal statistical process control tools. The recognition accuracy of abnormal control chart patterns (CCPs) directly influences the quality control of production process. (Most of the existing studies focus on the basic recognition of abnormal CCPs, but the observed process data could be of mixture patterns in real world, which consists of two or three basic patterns. This paper introduces a hybrid intelligent model for recognizing the mixture control chart pattern that includes three main aspects: feature extraction, classifier and parameter optimization. In feature extraction, statistical and sharp features of observation data are used as data input and principal component analysis as the second feature extraction to get the effective data of the classifier. A multi-class support vector machine (SVM) is applied for recognizing the mixture patterns. Finally, adaptive mutation particle swam optimization is used to optimize the SVM classifier by searching the best values of the parameters of SVM kernel function. The simulation results show the proposed algorithm with little features has better recognition accuracy compared with other methods.


Code smells co-occurrences, i.e., occurrences of more than one code smell in the same class or method, can be better indicators of design problems for software quality. Despite its importance as an indicator of design problems, we have little known about the impact of removing the smells co-occurrence via software refactoring on internal quality attributes, such as coupling, cohesion, complexity, and inheritance. There are several literature reviews on code smells and refactoring. However, we did not identify any literature review investigating the impact of co-occurring code smells in primary studies. Thus, this work presents a systematic mapping of code smell co-occurrences state of the art. To guide the mapping, we defined the following research questions: (i) Which code smells are most tend to co-occur?; (ii) How are code smells co-occurrences refactored?; (iii) What is the impact of code smell co-occurrences on internal quality attributes?; (iv) Which datasets are considered to analyze code smells co-occurrences?; (v) How are code smells co-occurrences detected?; and, (vi) What are the most common code smells co-occurrences?. With main findings, we identified that the code smells that most co-occur are: Feature Envy (19 co-occurrences), Long Method (14 co-occurrences), Long Parameter List (11 co-occurrences) and God Class (11 co-occurrences). No studies were found to answer how the code smells co-occurrences are refactored and the co-occurrences that most impacted the quality attributes, all of which were negative. Only three datasets were considered in the studies to analyze the code smell co-occurrences. Manual detection of co-occurrences is the most used. The co-occurrences Class Data Should Be Private + Feature Envy and Feature Envy + Long Method were the most common co-occurrences in the studies.


We present a method for the static resource usage analysis
of MiniZinc models. The analysis can infer upper bounds on the usage that a MiniZinc model will make of some resources such as the number of constraints of a given type (equality, disequality, global constraints, etc.), the number of variables (search variables or temporary variables), or the size of the expressions before calling the solver. These bounds are obtained from the models independently of the concrete input data (the instance data) and are in general functions of sizes of such data. In
our approach, MiniZinc models are translated into Ciao programs which are then analysed by the CiaoPP system. CiaoPP includes a parametric analysis framework for resource usage in which the user can define resources and express the resource usage of library procedures (and certain program construets) by means of a language of assertions. We present the approach and report on a preliminary implementation, which shows the feasibility of the approach, and provides encouraging results.


Abstract Tibia fractures are among the most common long-bone fractures in children. Despite this, there is no current consensus on the optimal treatment strategy for closed displaced tibia shaft fractures in the pediatric patient population. The aim of this study is to compare the reported complications and outcomes of reduction and cast immobilization versus flexible intramedullary nailing in the treatment of pediatric tibia shaft fractures. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement when conducting and reporting this prospectively registered systematic review. Eleven studies were included. Quality of the studies was assessed using the Coleman methodology score. Mantel–Haenszel cumulative odds ratios were used to compare the risk of complication between different methods of treatment. Eleven studies including 1,083 patients with diaphyseal fractures of the tibia met the inclusion criteria. The most common fracture type was simple 42-A (782; 91%). Majority (75%) of the patients were treated nonoperatively. The total complication rate was higher among operatively treated patients (24 vs. 9%; p < 0.05). Satisfactory fracture alignment had to be restored surgically in 5% of the primarily nonoperatively treated patients. The evidence levels of the included studies were II (1), III (2), and IV (7). Three-fourths of closed diaphyseal fractures of the tibia in children are still treated with reduction and cast immobilization. Flexible intramedullary nailing is associated with significantly higher complication rate than nonoperative treatment.


The radioactive decay of 110Agm+g has been studied extensively using gamma-gamma coincidence and sum-coincidence spectrometers. Levels at 2078.8, 2250.7, 2287.7, 2433.1, 2539.6, 2659.9, 2706, 2793.4, 2842.5 and 2876.8 keV previously proposed on energy sum considerations are proved by these techniques. For the first time the gamma rays of 120.3, 133.4, 341.4 and 356.4 keV are interpreted. The existence of a new level at 2356.2 keV is proposed. An interpretation is suggested for known gamma rays of 120.3, 133.4, 341.4 and 356.4 keV as well as for new transitions of about 648, 714.9, 1465.6 and 1698.5 keV. The spins of a few levels of 110Cd are discussed on the basis of present models.


In optical networks, Lightpath Bundling & Anycast Switching paradigm (LB+AS) consists of (i) bundling together the lightpaths which follow a common route (LB), and (ii) perform a fine-grained per-packet granularity balance of the traffic among the lightpaths in the bundle (AS). Recent works suggest that, with seamless changes in the electronic equipment, and no changes in the optical infrastructure, LB+AS can bring promising advantages to existing optical networks. In particular, AS operation spreads the traffic among the lightpaths in the bundle, to enhance the statistical multiplexing gain. However, this type of operation could bring up packet reordering problems if different packets of the same flow traverse different lightpaths. Packet reordering issues especially affect protocols such as TCP, reducing the goodput and increasing the flow completion time. This paper addresses this problem and investigates viable implementations of anycast switching techniques that: (i) allow a practical implementation in commercial high-speed switches, and (ii) eliminate the packet reordering problem in practice. Among several solutions presented and tested, the e-JSQ scheme has emerged as a solution fulfilling both requirements.


We consider serially concatenated block codes in a hybrid ARQ scheme using iterative decoding. The extrinsic information generated in the iterative decoding process is saved and used when a retransmission is decoded. Two different strategies are examined; one using the extrinsic information only in the very first iteration, whereas the other uses it in all subsequent iterations until another retransmission arrives. The latter can be seen as turbo or concatenated code combining whereas the former, where the extrinsic information is used only once may be seen as code doping, providing an alternative perspective. The strategy of saving the extrinsic information is also compared to traditional type-III, equal gain diversity combining. Using the extrinsic information from previous retransmission is shown to improve performance not only in terms of bit error rate but also in terms of throughput and convergence speed and requires only negligible additional decoder complexity. The performance of this strategy is however not as good as simple equal gain combining. As a consequence, the investigated schemes are not competitive alternatives, however, the code doping procedure can be used in conjunction with traditional diversity combining schemes, improving further on convergence speed.


The complementary log‐log link was originally introduced in 1922 to R. A. Fisher, long before the logit and probit links. While the last two links are symmetric, the complementary log‐log link is an asymmetrical link without a parameter associated with it. Several asymmetrical links with an extra parameter were proposed in the literature over last few years to deal with imbalanced data in binomial regression (when one of the classes is much smaller than the other); however, these do not necessarily have the cloglog link as a special case, with the exception of the link based on the generalized extreme value distribution. In this paper, we introduce flexible cloglog links for modeling binomial regression models that include an extra parameter associated with the link that explains some unbalancing for binomial outcomes. For all cases, the cloglog is a special case or the reciprocal version loglog link is obtained. A Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo inference approach is developed. Simulations study to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm is conducted and prior sensitivity analysis for the extra parameter shows that a uniform prior is the most convenient for all models. Additionally, two applications in medical data (age at menarche and pulmonary infection) illustrate the advantages of the proposed models.


Background: The hospital-at-home (HAH) model is a viable alternative for conventional in-hospital stays worldwide. Serum electrolyte abnormalities are common in acute patients, especially in those with many comorbidities. Pathologic changes in cardiac electrophysiology pose a potential risk during HAH stays. Periodical electrocardiogram (ECG) tracing is therefore advised, but few studies have evaluated the accuracy and efficiency of compact, self-activated ECG devices in HAH settings. This study aimed to evaluate the reliability of such a device in comparison with a standard 12-lead ECG. Methods: We prospectively recruited consecutive patients admitted to the Sheba Beyond Virtual Hospital, in the HAH department, during a 3-month duration. Each patient underwent a 12-lead ECG recording using the legacy device and a consecutive recording by a compact six-lead device. Baseline patient characteristics during hospitalization were collected. The level of agreement between devices was measured by Cohen's kappa coefficient for inter-rater reliability (Ϗ). Results: Fifty patients were included in the study (median age 80 years, IQR 14). In total, 26 (52%) had electrolyte disturbances. Abnormal D-dimer values were observed in 33 (66%) patients, and 12 (24%) patients had elevated troponin values. We found a level of 94.5% raw agreement between devices with regards to nine of the options included in the automatic read-out of the legacy device. The calculated Ϗ was 0.72, classified as a substantial consensus. The rate of raw consensus regarding the ECG intervals' measurement (PR, RR, and QT) was 78.5%, and the calculated Ϗ was 0.42, corresponding to a moderate level of agreement. Conclusion: This is the first report to our knowledge regarding the feasibility of using a compact, six-lead ECG device in the setting of an HAH to be safe and bearing satisfying agreement level with a legacy, 12-lead ECG device, enabling quick, accessible arrythmia detection in this setting. Our findings bear a promise to the future development of telemedicine-based hospital-at-home methodology.


Deep geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) could offer an essential solution to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the continued use of fossil fuels. Currently, CO 2 capture is both costly and energy intensive; it represents about 60% of the cost of the total carbon capture and storage (CCS) chain which is causing a bottleneck in advancement of CCS in China. This paper proposes capturing CO 2 from coal chemical plants where the CO 2 is high purity and relatively cheap to collect, thus offering an early opportunity for industrial‐scale full‐chain CCS implementation. The total amount of high concentration CO 2 that will be emitted (or is being emitted) by the coal chemical factories approved by the National Development and Reform Commission described in this paper is 42 million tonnes. If all eight projects could utilize CCS, it would be of great significance for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in China. Basins which may provide storage sites for captured CO 2 in North China are characterized by large sedimentary thicknesses and several sets of reservoir‐caprock strata. Some oil fields are nearing depletion and a sub‐set of these are potentially suitable for CO 2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and CCS demonstration but all these still require detailed geological characterization. The short distance between the high concentration CO 2 sources and potential storage sites should reduce transport costs and complications. The authors believe these high purity sources coupled with EOR or aquifer storage could offer China an opportunity to lead development in this globally beneficial CCS option. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd


In modern embedded system applications, hardware acceleration of complex software algorithms is proven to be of great importance when it comes to performance enhancement and functionality realization, especially within systems with limited resources. On the other hand, testing a hardware module is not always straightforward, and a PC could have a crucial part in it. Therefore, this paper depicts a methodology for testing and debugging various hardware modules implemented on an FPGA platform with the Ethernet 8P8C port, as well as for utilizing some of its advantages while being integrated into an embedded system. It is achieved using a parameterizable generator, implemented mainly using Chisel hardware design language. The proposed generator provides instances of hardware modules connected to both the Ethernet 8P8C port and the AXI4 or AXI4-Stream bus, thus serving as a bridge and allowing the two-way communication between the other modules implemented in hardware and connected to the bus (e.g. algorithm acceleration module), and an external device with the Ethernet port, namely a PC. The design was tested by implementing different generated instances within appropriate systems, consisting of commercial FPGA-based boards and PC-run Python applications. It was shown on multiple examples that it could greatly help in testing and utilizing hardware modules and their capabilities, even on relatively low-priced FPGA devices.


The generative and transformative nature of the Internet which has become a synonym for the infrastructure of the contemporary digital society, is also a place where there are unsavoury and illegal activities such as fraud, human trafficking, exchange of control substances, arms smuggling, extremism, and terrorism. The legitimate concerns such as anonymity and privacy are used for proliferation of nefarious deeds in parts of the Internet termed as a deep web and a dark web. The cryptographic and anonymity mechanisms employed by the dark web miscreants create serious problems for the law enforcement agencies and other legal institutions to monitor, control, investigate, prosecute, and prevent the range of criminal events which should not be part of the Internet, and the human society in general. The paper describes the research on developing a framework for identifying, collecting, analysing, and reporting information from the dark web in a forensically sound manner. The framework should provide the fundamentals for creating a real-life system that could be used as a tool by law enforcement institutions, digital forensics researchers and practitioners to explore and study illicit actions and their consequences on the dark web. The design science paradigms is used to develop the framework, while international security and forensic experts are behind the ex-ante evaluation of the basic components and their functionality, the architecture, and the organization of the system. Finally, we discuss the future work concerning the implementation of the framework along with the inducement of some intelligent modules that should empower the tool with adaptability, effectiveness, and efficiency.


Background: Secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH) is a rare, life-threatening syndrome which may develop on the background of several clinical conditions (e.g., autoimmune disease, infection or malignancy) and is characterized by uncontrolled hyperinflammation. Preclinical data have shown the central role of interferon-gamma (IFNγ) in the pathogenesis of this disease (Strippoli et al. 2012; Prencipe et al. 2018), and observational studies confirm the presence of an IFNγ signature in sHLH (data on file, Buatois et al. 2017, Bracaglia et al. 2017, Akashi et al. 1994, Henter et al. 1991; Ohga et al. 1993; Maruoka et al. 2014).
 Emapalumab is a monoclonal antibody neutralizing IFNγ, approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with primary HLH with refractory, recurrent or progressive disease or intolerance with conventional HLH therapy.
 Study design: This open-label, single arm, multicenter, phase 2/3 interventional study (NI-0501-10; NCT03985423) enrolls adult patients diagnosed with any non-primary HLH. The study includes an initial phase enrolling 10 patients, with subsequent broadened enrollment if no untoward significant safety signal attributable to emapalumab treatment (as judged by an independent Data Monitoring Committee) is identified. Emapalumab is administered intravenously at an initial dose of 6 mg/kg (on a background of glucocorticoids), and continued at a dose of 3 mg/kg every 3 days until Study Day 15, and twice-a-week afterwards. If the treating physician deems appropriate, the dose of emapalumab may be increased, guided by clinical and laboratory response. Treatment shall continue until a clinically satisfactory response is achieved. After treatment discontinuation (for any reason), patients will continue in the study for long-term follow-up until 1 year after the last emapalumab administration (or after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, if performed).
 Eligible patients include male and female patients 18 years and older at the time of HLH diagnosis, with fulfilment of at least 5 of the 8 HLH-2004 clinical criteria. Patients diagnosed with malignancy-associated HLH (M-HLH) must be treatment-naïve; patients diagnosed with HLH driven by any other etiology or idiopathic HLH can be either treatment-naïve or treatment-experienced. Patients who have already received conventional therapy for HLH must have failed prior treatment as per the treating physician's judgement. Excluded are patients with primary HLH, as well as patients receiving or scheduled to receive therapies known to trigger cytokine release syndrome, patients with a life-expectancy associated with the underlying disease (triggering HLH) <3 months, patients with active mycobacteria, Histoplasma capsulatum or Leishmania infections or with evidence of latent tuberculosis, patients who received bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine within 12 weeks prior to screening, or a live or attenuated live (other than BCG) vaccine within 6 weeks prior to screening.
 The primary outcome measure of the study is Overall Response at Week 4. Secondary efficacy measures include survival, best response on treatment, Overall Response at end of treatment, time to Complete or Partial Response, duration of response, HLH relapse; safety endpoints include incidence, severity, causality and outcomes of adverse events; other endpoints include serum concentrations of emapalumab and biomarkers (IFNγ, CXCL9, sCD25, IL-6), and incidence of anti-drug antibodies. The primary analysis will evaluate the Overall Response Rate at Week 4. In this adaptive design, the data are reviewed periodically in order to assess each of the 2 etiologies (i.e., M-HLH and any other sHLH) for futility and efficacy. The first analysis will occur after 10 patients with one etiology reached the primary endpoint time point. Descriptive statistics and graphical methods will be used for the evaluation of the secondary efficacy endpoints. Safety data will be listed and summarized using descriptive statistics.
 Study status: The study is expected to open enrollment in the US in Q3 2019. Study results will be presented after completion of the study.

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 Emapalumab is FDA-approved for primary HLH. This study will investigate the use of emapalumab in secondary HLH.


Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the indirect economic burden incurred by patients with primary and secondary hypogonadism (HG) compared with non-HG controls using real-world data. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study using a large US administrative claims database, adult males with primary or secondary HG were selected from 2010 to 2014. Non-HG controls had no evidence of HG from 2009 to 2014 and were matched on age, insurance type, and geographic region to HG patients. Outcomes included absenteeism and associated costs. Results: HG (vs non-HG) patients had a significant 15% increase in nonrecreational absenteeism hours (adjusted odds ratio 1.15, P = 0.002) and associated costs ($2152 vs $1172, P < 0.001) post-index after adjusting for pre-period differences. Conclusion: The indirect economic burden of HG is significant. Further research is needed to test whether treatment with testosterone can help alleviate the indirect burden associated with HG.


The paper deals with the analysis of various smart solutions that can be implemented in airport maintenance. The aim of this paper is to compare the current situation in Slovakia with smart solutions that have been used in the world and to suggest which of the solutions could be implemented in Slovakia. The theoretical part describes the purpose of smart airports and conventional methods of airport maintenance. The next part of the paper is devoted to the description of the current state at the airport in Bratislava and a description of smart solutions used around the world. These may include: scaring birds with drones, snow removal with autonomous ploughs, mowing lawns with robotic mowers, inspection of the Instrumental Landing System ILS with drones and inspection of the Precision Approach Path Indicator PAPI with drones. The last part of the paper compares conventional maintenance methods used at the airport in Bratislava with their smart solutions used around the world. The evaluation includes a proposal for smart solutions which could effectively be used at Bratislava Airport.


In this paper the method for determination of the object's elevation on the ground as well as the mathematical model for error estimation of object's determination are suggested. It is assumed that the object is situated beyond line-of-sight or, whatsoever, beyond the horizon. It has been obtained the analytic expression for error estimation of the object's elevation determination using flying platform in case of the known inaccuracy of goniometry and distance measures. The effect of inaccuracy of goniometry and distance measurements on the error estimation of the object's elevation determination is traced. Analytic expressions of evaluating requirements for accuracy of goniometer and distance measurer are deduced. These requirements will ensure the specified accuracy of the object's elevation determination. A relationship between object's elevation determination and its location with respect to the observing station and flying platform is investigated.


The article examines Sartre's highly controversial preface to The Wretched of the Earth. Its aim is to identify what, in the various modes of address, are elements in an economy of violence and what, on the contrary, participates in a process of recognition. The examination of the addressees of the address leads to a correlative transformation of the very notion of the author, commonly equated with the merely singular individual. What is at stake here is to grasp what makes Fanon, as it does any political theorist, not merely an author but also a "movement emerging". The exploration of discursive regimes also leads to a reflection on what, within the habitual practices of interpellation, participates in a gendered division of the conversation and companionship of struggles.


This article discusses the process by which a questionnaire was developed specifically to measure attitude to shared learning. Over a three-year period the attitude questionnaire was developed and tested using pre-registration students who were engaged in a shared learning programme. These pre-registration students were from three professional groups, namely occupational therapy (OT), diagnostic radiography (DR), and therapeutic radiography (TR). While the study hypothesis was that shared learning would improve attitudes over the three-year period, the focus of this article is to discuss the process by which the research instrument was developed. The rationale for focusing on the process is a simple one. After a diligent literature search it was clear that there were no attitude questionnaires specific to attitude measurement in relation to shared learning. Thus without an already validated attitude to a shared learning questionnaire, it became imperative to create systematically a credible attitude measure of shared learning. The process centred on understanding how monadic scales are constructed and used to measure attitudes and perceptions of participants. Amongst a number of processes to be followed was the need also to check the reliability of the developed questionnaire. This was done using the Cronbach alpha coefficient. A Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.7 was set as a minimum reliability requirement, which was duly satisfied. The outcome of this process was that it very useful to learn how to produce a suitable instrument to measure attitude to shared learning and to add in a small way to the range of attitude questionnaires available.


The interactions between insect repellents and the olfactory system have been widely studied, however relatively little is known about the effects of repellents on the gustatory system of insects. In this study, we show that the gustatory receptor neuron (GRN) located in the medial styloconic sensilla on the maxillary palps of gypsy moth larvae, and known to be sensitive to feeding deterrents, also responds to the insect repellents DEET, IR3535, and picaridin. These repellents did not elicit responses in the lateral styloconic sensilla. Moreover, behavioral studies demonstrated that each repellent deterred feeding. This is the first study to show perception of insect repellents by the gustatory system of a lepidopteran larva and suggests that detection of a range of bitter or aversive compounds may be a broadly conserved feature among insects.


Background : Assessment of the structural and functional effects of sickle cell anaemia (SCA) on the heart can be done using echocardiography. There has been no agreement on which indicator of body size (weight, height, and body surface area (BSA)) or age in children should be used to relate to and correct echocardiographic measurements. Aim : To correlate the echocardiographic findings of children with SCA aged one to fifteen years in steady state with their age, anthropometry and haemoglobin concentration. Methods : A prospective study carried out at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), between May and October 2005. The subjects were 60 paediatric patients attending the LUTH SCA outpatient clinic and 60 age, sex and socioeconomic matched controls. Their height, weight, and echocardiographic parameters were measured and their BSA and haemoglobin level were determined. Results : The direct echocardiographic measurement (AO, LA, LVPW, EDD, ESD, IVS) and LVM each increased progressively with body weight, height, body surface area and age in both subjects and controls (r > 0.3, p < 0.001 in each case). Multivariate analysis showed that height correlated significantly with AO, ESD, EDD and LVPW in the subjects. All the parameters except age were significantly correlated with LVM both in univariate and multivariate analysis. Conclusion : Echocardiographic parameters in SCA patients are significantly correlated with anthropometric indices and age. Our data suggest best correlation with height in these subjects.


With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, Wi-Fi signals have been widely used for trajectory signal acquisition. Indoor trajectory matching aims to achieve the monitoring of the encounters between people and trajectory analysis in indoor environments. Due to constraints ofn the computation abilities IoT devices, the computation of indoor trajectory matching requires the assistance of a cloud platform, which brings up privacy concerns. Therefore, this paper proposes a trajectory-matching calculation method that supports ciphertext operations. Hash algorithms and homomorphic encryption are selected to ensure the security of different private data, and the actual trajectory similarity is determined based on correlation coefficients. However, due to obstacles and other interferences in indoor environments, the original data collected may be missing in certain stages. Therefore, this paper also complements the missing values on ciphertexts through mean, linear regression, and KNN algorithms. These algorithms can predict the missing parts of the ciphertext dataset, and the accuracy of the complemented dataset can reach over 97%. This paper provides original and complemented datasets for matching calculations, and demonstrates their high feasibility and effectiveness in practical applications from the perspective of calculation time and accuracy loss.


Donna Mergler INTRODUCTION The ecosystem approach to human health is an innovative concept that incorporates humanhealth into the dynamic interrelations of ecosystem analyses. In this approach, humans are notsolely the drivers and disrupters of the ecosystem or the passive victims of environmentaldestruction, but are in continuous interaction with changing environmental, social, and eco-nomic conditions. In this dynamic process, ecosystem changes, resulting from human inter-ventions (mining, agriculture, urbanization, etc.), driven by the need for subsistence or theforces of economic development, affect current and future well-being, not only of the present,but also for coming generations. Human health and well-being are, in turn, determinants ofsocial, economic and cultural development. Appropriately applied to environmental and healthimpact studies, the ecosystem approach can be a useful tool toward attaining sustainable andequitable development.Human health deterioration and its consequences for the quality of life are most often omittedfrom environmental and cost-benefit impact studies. Here, we propose a means of integrating humanhealth into the ecosystem analysis, using mining activities as an example. Four major issues, keysto the understanding of the relation between mining and human health, are examined: (1) miners'health; (2) a framework for focusing on the impact of mining development and activities on humanhealth; (3) a model for examining human health deterioration; and (4), the notion of fragileecosystem, using the example of gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon. MINERS' HEALTH The extraction and transformation of minerals and quarrying are almost as old as civilization,and so are the accidents and diseases that have afflicted those who are engaged in these activities.In ancient Greece, in the 4th Century B.C., Hippocrates described illness among lead miners(Landrigan et al., 1990). Five hundred years later, Pliny the Elder called lead poisoning "one ofthe diseases of slaves" and described a bladder-derived protective mask to be used by laborerssubjected to large amounts of dust or lead fumes (Hamilton, 1943).


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To examine whether and how stigma influences attitudes towards seeking treatment for urinary incontinence, and whether its effect varies by symptom severity.

BACKGROUND
Urinary incontinence is prevalent among women, but few seek treatment. Negative attitudes towards urinary incontinence treatment inhibit from seeking care. Urinary incontinence is a stigmatised attribute. However, the relationship between stigma and attitudes towards seeking treatment for urinary incontinence has not been well understood.

DESIGN
This was a cross-sectional community-based study.

METHODS
We enrolled a sample of 305 women aged 40-65 years with stress urinary incontinence from three communities in a Chinese city between May-October in 2011. Data were collected on socio-demographic characteristics, urinary incontinence symptoms, stigma and attitudes towards seeking treatment for urinary incontinence using a self-reported questionnaire. Effects of stigma were analysed using path analysis.

RESULTS
Attitudes towards seeking treatment for urinary incontinence were generally negative. For the total sample, all the stigma domains of social rejection, social isolation and internalised shame had direct negative effects on treatment-seeking attitudes. The public stigma domain of social rejection also indirectly affected treatment-seeking attitudes through increasing social isolation, as well as through increasing social isolation and then internalised shame. The final model accounted for 28% of the variance of treatment-seeking attitudes. Symptom severity influenced the strength of paths: the effect of internalised shame was higher in women with more severe urinary incontinence.

CONCLUSIONS
Stigma enhances the formation of negative attitudes towards seeking treatment for urinary incontinence; public stigma affects treatment-seeking attitudes through internalisation of social messages.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Stigma reduction may help incontinent women to form positive treatment-seeking attitudes and engage them in treatment. Interventions should specifically target the self-stigma domains of social isolation and internalised shame in women with urinary incontinence to most efficiently increase their use of health care.


"Working problems," writes Fuzhen Zhang in the preface," is a crucial part of learning mathematics. A good problem should be one through which one learns methods, uses techniques, and gains insights into the subject. The reader should find the collection of 200 problems in this book diverse, interesting, and challenging." Linear Algebra: Challenging Problems for Students is a supplementary text for undergraduate and first-year graduate students majoring in mathematics, statistics, engineering, or related areas. The book will also be helpful for instructors teaching linear algebra and matrix theory. Based on the author's ten years' experience in teaching and research, it presents 200 problems of varying difficulty ranging from elementary to some which may baffle even professional mathematicians. Hints and solutions for all problems are found in the second half of the book. Concise and clearly written, the problems in Linear Algebra are interesting, challenging, and up-to-date. This book will be of interest to students seeking to do further work in linear algebra on an independent basis, to those wishing to refresh their knowledge of the subject, and to those in seminar-style advanced linear algebra courses.


The present paper reflects the mindset of the people in terms of class discrimination in the society. Although we all are born same yet people reflect different framework of mind based on caste, color and creed. Basu's work in particular focus on complexes framed among people. The higher caste people are affected by some kind of superiority complex. They marginalize and undermine the people of low caste. Many a time, this leads to injustice and misconduct towards low caste people. Basu has suggested in his words that a person should be recognized based on his merits rather than his/her caste.


The original safety assessment and the Safety Envelope for the NuMI beam line corresponds to 400 kW of beam power. The Main Injector is currently capable of and approved for producing 500 kW of beam power2. However, operation of the NuMI beam line at 400 kW of power brings up the possibility of an occasional excursion above 400 kW due to better than usual tuning in one of the machines upstream of the NuMI beam line. An excursion above the DOE approved Safety Envelope will constitute a safety violation. The purpose of this addendum is to evaluate the radiological issues and modifications required to operate the NuMI beam line at 500 kW. This upgrade will allow 400 kW operations with a reasonable safety margin. Configuration of the NuMI beam line, boundaries, safety system and the methodologies used for the calculations are as described in the original NuMI SAD. While most of the calculations presented in the original shielding assessment were based on Monte Carlo simulations, which were based on the design geometries, most of the results presented in this addendum are based on the measurements conducted by the AD ES&H radiation safety group.


Objective: To compare the profile of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD) with dementia associated with Parkinson's disease (PDD). Methods: Neuropsychological assessment was performed in 488 patients with PDD and 488 patients with AD using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog). Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate whether the diagnosis could be accurately predicted from the cognitive profile. Additionally, the cognitive profiles were compared with a normative group using standardised effect sizes (Cohen's d). Results: Diagnosis was predicted from the cognitive profile, with an overall accuracy of 74.7%. Poor performance of the AD patients on the orientation test in ADAS-cog best discriminated between the groups, followed by poor performance of the PDD patients on the attentional task in MMSE. Both groups showed memory impairment, AD patients performing worse than PDD patients. Conclusion: The cognitive profile in PDD differs significantly from that in AD. Performance on tests of orientation and attention are best in differentiating the groups.


An element excitation method which provides a simple and fast way of determining the excitation of antenna elements in an active phased array as a function of the amplitude and phase setting is presented. These element ions can be used to align the amplitude and phase settings of the antenna elements of an active phased array for a desired radiation pattern. The complex electric field has to be measured in only one observation point in the far field of the antenna as a function of the element's amplitude and phase settings. The method is described in detail and excellent experimental results are shown. >


Rice false smut (RFS), which is caused by Ustilaginoidea virens (U. virens), has become one of the most devastating diseases in rice-growing regions worldwide. The disease results in a significant yield loss and poses health threats to humans and animals due to producing mycotoxins. In this review, we update the understanding of the symptoms and resistance genes of RFS, as well as the genomics and effectors in U. virens. We also highlight the genetic mechanism of the immune response to RFS. Finally, we analyse and explore the identification method for RFS, breeding for resistance against the disease, and interactions between the effector proteins and resistance (R) proteins, which would be involved in the development of rice disease resistance materials for breeding programmes.


The Direct Antiglobulin Test [DAT] is widely used in Immunohematological laboratory test because it is simple, quick and inexpensive test. It is performed when the presence of haemolysis and is the most important diagnostic tests for determining Immune Hemolytic Anemias. With this background this study was conducted, to evaluate the DAT positive cases Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia [AIHA], along with antibody classes, severity and finally to perform elution studies to specify the antibody coated onto the red cells. 34 DAT positive AIHA cases with clinical and laboratory evidence of hemolysis were evaluated in this study. In these cases 25 warm Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia [WAIHA]. 6 Cold Agglutinin Disease [CAD] and 3 Mixed AIHA. Our study suggests a significant association between the strength of DAT, the IgG class and subclass of Immunoglobulins either alone or in combination with other classes of immunoglobulins and/or complements. The specificity of auto and alloantibodies were identified by adsorption and elution techniques, which revealed exclusively anti-e in 6 cases of WAIHA and 5 cases with alloantibodies. The elution provides unbound RBCs for phenotyping and provide appropriate transfusion support for the needy patients. In our study revealed a strong association between the severity of hemolysis and the strength of DAT, the IgG and subclass (IgG 1 & IgG 3) of IgG Antibodies either alone or in combination with other classes of Antibodies and/or complements. The autoantibody specificity had anti-e in 6 cases of WAIHA and 5 cases had clinically significant alloantibodies. The positive DAT with falling hematocrit, jaundice appear to be clinically helpful in identifying alloantibodies.


Pearl millet seeds were treated with latex extracts (L1- 50 µl, L2- 100 µl and L3- 200 µl) ofAsclepias curassavica, Calotropis gigantea, Croton sp., Eucalyptus alba, Morus alba,Nerium odoratum, Lactuca sativa and Tridax procumbens were applied on pearl millet seeds for 3 and 6 h to evaluate their role in growth promotion and downy mildew resistance. Latex extracts of all tested plants improved vegetative parameters when compared with the control. L. sativa (L2) at 3 h showed 38 and 18% increase in seed germination and vigor, respectively, over the control. Plant height, shoot fresh and dry weight, number of tillers and leaf surface area also increased upon latex treatment. Green house studies indicated that L. sativa required four days after challenge inoculation to build up maximum resistance and offered 54% protection against downy mildew. Resistance induction was evident with increased activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) (four fold), peroxidase (POX) (three fold) and chitinase (three fold) in L. sativa(L2) treated seedlings challenged with the pathogen as compared to control seedlings.

 Key words: Downy mildew, induced resistance, Lactuca sativa, pearl millet, plant extracts, Sclerospora graminicola.


High performance, high bandwidth, and scalable network storage system is the requirement tendency of most data-intensive applications. Distributed RAID, as a storage architecture, is widely used in cluster and distributed computing environments. But the data placement is mechanical and penalty for maintaining consistency is suffered. In this paper we propose a novel block-level storage architecture called iVISA (iSCSI based virtual interface storage architecture) which employs the concepts both distributed RAID and virtualization storage. All storage resources distribute in a high performance VI network and are managed by a metadata server. A number of iSCSI target nodes act as the entrances of iVISA system for accessing through iSCSI connections. The storage resources are dynamically allocated to users during I/O accessing. The users' logical block addresses are intelligently and flexibly mapped to the physical block addresses based on the current workload of storage nodes and data layout. The evaluation result shows that better performance can be achieved by allocation and mapping dynamically and flexibly with optimized allocation strategy. A hybrid strategy considering both data layout and load of storage nodes has a 30% higher I/O performance than conventional distributed RAID.