The acoustic variability of noisy and reverberant speech mixtures is influenced by multiple factors, such as the spectro-temporal characteristics of the target speaker and the interfering noise, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the room characteristics. This large variability poses a major challenge for learning-based speech enhancement systems, since a mismatch between the training and testing conditions can substantially reduce the performance of the system. Generalization to unseen conditions is typically assessed by testing the system with a new speech, noise or binaural room impulse response (BRIR) database different from the one used during training. However, the difficulty of the speech enhancement task can change across databases, which can substantially influence the results. The present study introduces a generalization assessment framework that uses a reference model trained on the test condition, such that it can be used as a proxy for the difficulty of the test condition. This allows to disentangle the effect of the change in task difficulty from the effect of dealing with new data, and thus to define a new measure of generalization performance termed the generalization gap. The procedure is repeated in a cross-validation fashion by cycling through multiple speech, noise, and BRIR databases to accurately estimate the generalization gap. The proposed framework is applied to evaluate the generalization potential of a feedforward neural network (FFNN), Conv-TasNet, DCCRN and MANNER. We find that for all models, the performance degrades the most in speech mismatches, while good noise and room generalization can be achieved by training on multiple databases. Moreover, while recent models show higher performance in matched conditions, their performance substantially decreases in mismatched conditions and can become inferior to that of the FFNN-based system.


This integrated numerical and experimental study intends to enhance the performance of an in-line fan with the implement of the guiding vane and the tail body. At first the flow flied associated with the original in-line fan is simulated and analyzed within the framework of CFD code Fluent, in which the finite volume method is applied. Next, the guiding vane is constructed based on the calculated flow characteristics, and attached in the downstream of rotor to smoothen the flow pattern. An appropriate guiding vane with high-performance and low-noise features can be achieved after several design iterations. In addition, the tail body connected to the motor is introduced for further enhancing the fan performance by reducing the sizes of wake and reversed flow behind the hub. Thereafter, to manufacture the mockup for experimental verification, the modified fan with guiding vane is plotted in the CAD/CAM format for mockup fabrication via the rapid-prototype technique. Moreover, a set of relations correlating the performance and noise of this fan prototype are executed inside AMCA test chamber and semianechoic chamber, respectively. Consequently, the feasibility of design scheme and numerical system can be verified according to these experimental results. In summary, this work provides a systematic scheme for designing and analyzing the in-line fan.


Four experiments were conducted to determine whether voluntarily produced emotional facial configurations are associated with differentiated patterns of autonomic activity, and if so, how this might be mediated. Subjects received muscle-by-muscle instructions and coaching to produce facial configurations for anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise while heart rate, skin conductance, finger temperature, and somatic activity were monitored. Results indicated that voluntary facial activity produced significant levels of subjective experience of the associated emotion, and that autonomic distinctions among emotions: (a) were found both between negative and positive emotions and among negative emotions, (b) were consistent between group and individual subjects' data, (c) were found in both male and female subjects, (d) were found in both specialized (actors, scientists) and nonspecialized populations, (e) were stronger when the voluntary facial configurations most closely resembled actual emotional expressions, and (f) were stronger when experience of the associated emotion was reported. The capacity of voluntary facial activity to generate emotion-specific autonomic activity: (a) did not require subjects to see facial expressions (either in a mirror or on an experimenter's face), and (b) could not be explained by differences in the difficulty of making the expressions or by differences in concomitant somatic activity.


In case of the conventional DC-AC inverter using two DC-DC converters with unipolar output capacitor voltages, for generating the AC output voltage, the output capacitor voltages of its each DC-DC converter must be higher than the DC input voltage. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a single-phase DC-AC inverter using two embedded Z-source converters with bipolar output capacitor voltages. The proposed inverter is composed of two embedded Z-source converters with common DC source and output AC load. The AC output voltage is obtained by the difference of the output capacitor voltages of each converter. Though the output capacitor voltage of converter is relatively low compared to the conventional method, it can be obtained the same AC output voltage. Moreover, by controlling asymmetrically the output capacitor voltage, the AC output voltage of the proposed system is higher than the DC input voltage. To verify the validity of the proposed system, a DSP(TMS320F28335) based single-phase embedded Z-source DC-AC inverter was made and the PSIM simulation was performed under the condition of the DC source 38V. As controlled symmetrically and asymmetrically the output capacitor voltages of each converter, the proposed inverter could produce the AC output voltage with sinusoidal waveform. Particularly, in case of asymmetric control, a higher AC output voltage was obtained. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed system was measured as 95% and 97% respectively in case of symmetric and asymmetric control.


The authors have produced epitaxial thin films of superconducting Y-Ba-Cu-O grown onto (110) and (100) oriented SrTiO3 and MgO substrates by in situ RF sputter deposition. The impedance of the films has been measured and the results compared with two-fluid theory. The impedance of the films depended strongly on crystallographic orientation. Between room temperature and the critical temperature Tc the film reactance was inductive for well orientated (100) films and capacitive for (013) orientated films. The films were purely inductive for temperatures below Tc, with a constant value equal to the film inductance after flux exclusion due to the Meissner effect.


Objective: The intoxications occur via taking high doses of drugs or substances for the purpose of suicide or unconsciously. In this retrospective study, we aimed to explore the causes of intoxications and to evaluate the demographic and clinical features and the prognosis of patients who were followed and treated for intoxications in our intensive care unit or internal medicine clinic and secondly we aimed to add information for the data of intoxications in our country. Methods: All patients over 15 years old who admitted to Emergency Unit of Recep Tayyip Erdogan University Teaching and Research Hospital for the intoxications because of suicide, between November 2008 and November 2013 included in this study. Results: 127 patients were enrolled in the current study and 75,6% (96) of the patients were female. Mean age of the patients was 25,04±9, 61 years and 37% of the patients were under 20 years old. The antidepressant agents were the most frequent pharmacologic agent (28,3%) as the cause of intoxications. The number of drugs taken for the intoxication was 15-20 in 22% of the patients. 58,3% of the patients admitted to the hospital after 1-2 hours taking the drug. The patients were followed and treated for meanly 1.88 days in the hospital. When we evaluated the results of psychiatry consultation reports, we found that 50,4% of the patients were diagnosed with depression. Conclusion: The young and female patients are on the risk of drug abuse for the aim of suicide. Particularly, suicides are observed more frequently in the patients with depression. Admission to the hospital in a short time after taking the drugs reduces the time of stay in hospital and mortality. KEYWORDS: Suicide, Drug, Intoxication. Language: tr


This paper introduces an adaptive filter method for enhancing ventricular late potentials. The adaptive filter has only one signal electrode and does not need the reference electrode. The experiment results show that this adaptive filter method can effectively improve signal-to-noise ratio of ventricular late potentials.


Let $ped(n)$ denote the number of partitions of an integer $n$ wherein even parts are distinct. Recently, Andrews, Hirschhorn and Sellers, Chen, and Cui and Gu have derived a number of interesting congruences modulo 2, 3 and 4 for $ped(n)$. In this paper we prove several new infinite families of congruences modulo 8 for $ped(n)$. For example, we prove that for $ \alpha \geq 0$ and $n\geq 0$, \[  ped\left(3^{4\alpha+4}n+\frac{11\times 3^{4\alpha+3}-1}{8}\right)\equiv 0 \  ({\rm mod \ 8}). \]


How do households consume and spend on energy? What are the drivers of their spending and consumption patterns? How does energy consumption has evolved? What is to be expected as the region climbs the development ladder? What are the distributive implications of different energy pricing approaches? This book looks at these questions and examines which policies work in reducing energy poverty and increasing energy savings. The authors unveil the growing household demand of better quality of energy and show that to achieve more cost-effective and progressive public policies, it is necessary to strengthen the transparency and sustainability of energy pricing while having into account the consumer behavioral responses. This volume is a resource for designing energy policies based on an empirical understanding of the household's energy needs.


When Lhe J a pan AnUu·opology Works hop (known as JAWS) held its first mee ting in Oxford in 1984 with twenty-five participants. few would have believed that wh en it held its 12th meeting in 1999. it would need to create seven separate worl<shops to accommodate the diverse demands and interests of ils 230 members. The reasons for this exponential growth in membership offe r interesting lns igh ts into developments In U1e s tudy of Japan and U1e field of ru1lhropology during the ln tcrven ing period . JAWS was conceived in the 1980s by a small band of anthropologists of Japan who were based ln Europe and who knew of each other's exis tence. but who had unUJ U1en worked very much In isolation. Sin ce Its first meetingconvened by J oy Hendry who also acted as Secretary for the Orsl ten years of lhe Works hop-JAWS has met every e igh teen months or so. a lternate workshops coinciding with the triennial meetings of U1 e European Association of J apanese Studies (EAJS). Each workshop has had one or two con venors a nd a s ingle theme ru1d each has resulted. or is about to result. in Lhe publicalion of an edi ted volume of papers (a fuU lJsl is given below) . Ln addition . a newsletter is sent out twice a year to all members. This level of activity Is probably h igher than most voluntarily-nm. international academic organisations. but 1t does not fully expla in why JAWS has grown at such a ra te. A close exruninalion of Lhe JAWS membership shows a number of Interesting trends. Firstly. U1ere has. s ince U1e mid1980s, been an exponen tia l growU1 at all levels In J apanese studies in Europe (the o rigina l home of JAWS). in the US. 11 and in Australasia. Tills of course was related to the strength of the J a pcu1csc economy and indeed many overseas cen tres received financial support from Japanese public a nd private sources as well as from their own governrnen ts. The bttll< of UlJs money was put lnlo new posts ln con temporary Japru1ese society-economics. poUlics, modern history and sociology or social anthropology. Part of the growth of JAWS' membership can be related to the


giori and expressive culture (beliefs, practitioners, ceremonies, arts, death & afterlife). Sites are dcscrihed with attention to environment, features and culture. Each article or note is provided with references. Some knacks are necdcd. To relatc the chapter on 'Classic Maya' lo the one on 'Postclassic Maya', for example, the alphabetic scquence rcquircs one to skip past half thc book, from 'Coauhuilan' to the end of 'Paya'. Middle America, clcarly, is a misnomer, for, as well as Mesoamerica, it covers all of Central America, northwestern South America (but hardly Venezuela), and the West Indies, which would be better trealed with lowland South America. There is a distinct LJS bias. Vol. 6 comprises 48 chapters. Norlhern Mexico is covered but north of about 50Onot. Vol. 5 has only 32 chapters and, of 32 authors, only 2 are Latins based in Latin America, while barely half of those writing Vol. 4's 36 are European. By any but North American reckoning, the relative amount of attention to Europe is modest. That is not to impugn the quality of the entries, although Vol. 6 seems more generous with references than the others, and the Spanish ones in Vol. 5 (not numerous) suffer from some typing errors. Other Lhan crude maps, the Encyclopedia does without pictures. On the other hand, a blessing not to he taken for granted is the provision of indexes. These volumes will be usefiil to the ANTIQLJITY editors but, in all, considering the competition, others may hesitate to pay so much for these hooks.


We present an algorithm called the best trail algorithm, which helps solve the hypertext navigation problem by automating the construction of memex-like trails through the corpus. The algorithm performs a probabilistic best-first expansion of a set of navigation trees to find relevant and compact trails. We describe the implementation of the algorithm, scoring methods for trails, filtering algorithms and a new metric called potential gain which measures the potential of a page for future navigation opportunities.


It is very important that sex and relationships education (SRE) programme developers attempt to elicit, understand and incorporate young people's views in the SRE development and implementation processes. This paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify young people's self-identified learning needs and priorities regarding sexual health that should be included in school-based SRE. Seven hundred and fifteen primary and secondary students aged between eight years and over 20 years old completed a survey between June and September 2007. The questionnaire had both closed and open-ended items. The open-ended items asked students to provide up to two questions on sex and relationships; this study briefly reports on the results of students' responses. Students raised a total of 535 questions, which were subjected to quantitative content analysis. This revealed that students asked a wide range of questions across three major themes of SRE; namely, facts and information, attitudes and values, and relationships and skills. The most frequently asked questions were on sexual decision-making (27%), sexual pleasure and enjoyment (20%), relationships (14%), safer sex and condom use (10%), sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS (8%) and masturbation (7%). Of these topics, only sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS are currently covered in Tanzania's school curriculum. The results of this study show that, although students consider HIV/AIDS as one of the important SRE areas, they want a broader SRE coverage than a purely health-oriented model can offer. Furthermore, the nature of the questions that students asked exposes some serious inadequacies in the current SRE programmes in Tanzania. This calls for broad school-based SRE programmes, which should reflect a wider coverage of sexual health than the present curriculum's rather narrow focus on HIV/AIDS.


Resilience and self-efficacy are emerging issues in student-leadership literature.As malleable skills, these concepts show potential to positively influence leadership development and appropriately prepare students for engagement with an increasingly diverse workforce and social change beyond graduation.This qualitative study utilized open-ended interviews and directed content analysis to explore leadership perceptions of female college students(n=6) at a regional, public university in Northwest Louisiana. The student narratives are consistent with previous research demonstrating the importance of relationship building, personal characteristics, and external influences in student leadership perceptions. Additionally, this investigation extends the research by giving specific consideration to the concepts of resilience and self-efficacy within the students' narratives. Observations regarding differences in gender and race are also noted where appropriate.


A good deal of recent theology has been characterized by a robust, self-confident trinitarianism. Is it possible, by contrast, to develop something like an apophatic trinitarianism? This article attempts to sketch what such a thing might look like and defend it against some obvious objections.


Author(s): Epperson, Matthew | Advisor(s): Atanasov, Nikolay | Abstract: Tropical rainforests worldwide are negatively impacted from a variety of human-caused threats. Unfortunately, our ability to study these rainforests is impeded by logistical problems such as their physical inaccessibility, expensive aerial imagery, and/or coarse satellite data. One solution is the use of low-cost, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly referred to as drones. Drones are now widely recognized as a tool for ecology, environmental science, and conservation, collecting imagery that is superior to satellite data in resolution. We asked: Can we take advantage of the sub-meter, high-resolution imagery to detect specific tree species or groups, and use these data as indicators of rainforest functional traits and characteristics? We demonstrate a low-cost method for obtaining high-resolution aerial imagery in a rainforest of Belize using a drone over three sites in two rainforest protected areas. We built a workflow that uses Structure from Motion (SfM) on the drone images to create a large orthomosaic and a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to classify indicator tree species. We selected: 1) Cohune Palm (Attalea cohune) as they are indicative of past disturbance and current soil condition; and, 2) the dry-season deciduous tree group since deciduousness is an important ecological factor of rainforest structure and function. This framework serves as a guide for tackling difficult ecological challenges and we show two additionally examples of how a similar architecture can help count wildlife populations in the Arctic.


This study addresses the effects of gamma irradiation (1, 5 and 8 kGy) on color, organic acids, total phenolics, total flavonoids, and antioxidant activity of dwarf mallow (Malva neglecta Wallr.). Organic acids were analyzed by ultra fast liquid chromatography (UFLC) coupled to a photodiode array (PDA) detector. Total phenolics and flavonoids were measured by the Folin-Ciocalteu and aluminium chloride colorimetric methods, respectively. The antioxidant activity was evaluated based on the DPPH• scavenging activity, reducing power, β-carotene bleaching inhibition and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) formation inhibition. Analyses were performed in the non-irradiated and irradiated plant material, as well as in decoctions obtained from the same samples. The total amounts of organic acids and phenolics recorded in decocted extracts were always higher than those found in the plant material or hydromethanolic extracts, respectively. The DPPH• scavenging activity and reducing power were also higher in decocted extracts. The assayed irradiation doses affected differently the organic acids profile. The levels of total phenolics and flavonoids were lower in the hydromethanolic extracts prepared from samples irradiated at 1 kGy (dose that induced color changes) and in decocted extracts prepared from those irradiated at 8 kGy. The last samples also showed a lower antioxidant activity. In turn, irradiation at 5 kGy favored the amounts of total phenolics and flavonoids. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of the effects of irradiation in indicators of dwarf mallow quality, and highlighted the decoctions for its antioxidant properties.


The Windpoort Granite is a porphyritic, leucocratic granite belonging to the Spektakel Suite, a group of late- to post-tectonic granites intruded into the orthogneisses and supracrustal metamorphic rocks in western Namaqualand. Like other granites of this type, it is devoid of penetrative tectonic foliation, at most displaying a magmatic foliation parallel to the boundaries of the intrusion. Its main characteristic setting it apart from other Spektakel Suite granites in western Namaqualand is its tightly packed arrangement of small stubby alkali feldspar phenocrysts. Its U-Pb LA-ICPMS age of 1087 ± 11 Ma agrees with the age of other Spektakel Suite granites showing similar field relationships. It classifies geochemically as a highly potassic monzogranite with more evolved compositions than all other plutons of the Spektakel Suite.


Stable and clean AC tokamak discharges with two, four and eight cycles of alternating plasma current have been achieved in the CT-6B tokamak. Although there are differences in the plasma-wall interactions in the two halves of each AC cycle, the purity of the plasma is not significantly affected. The finite electron densities during the current reversal phases of each cycle are attributed to a non-zero particle confinement time even at zero current. The plasma parameters in the boundary region during the AC operations were measured by a triple probe system.


The refinement and implementation of the Radon-on-Activated-Charcoal technique (ROAC), developed in the 1970?s by the South African Atomic Energy Board (Hambleton-Jones and Smit, 1980), is discussed. The objectives were to implement a radon (222Rn) detection technique for uranium exploration which is sensitive, cost effective, and relatively rapid in its application. The refinement of the technique, referred to here as RadonX, has primarily involved improvement of counting statistics and sensitivity. Radon, emanating from buried uranium mineralization, is adsorbed onto activated charcoal contained within a cartridge, fitted into the base of an inverted cup, and buried in the ground. The technique differs from alpha-sensitive radon detection systems in that it measures the gamma radiation arising from the daughter products of the adsorbed radon, namely 214Bi and 214Pb. Two case study datasets are presented. The first is from an exploration area potentially hosting uraniferous granites, where the sand cover varies in thickness from 10 to 100m. Time domain electromagnetic (TDEM) soundings provided cover thickness and conductivity data as a guideline to porosities. The second is from an orientation survey over a known buried palaeo-channel of duricrust-hosted uranium. The results from the latter area, after a 10-day burial period, showed an improved sensitivity compared to a past alpha-detection survey, conducted with a burial period of 30 days. The technique has proven to be highly effective through both residual and transported surficial cover, with good repeatability. A depth of penetration of 80m or more under favourable porosity conditions has been achieved.


Circulating-free DNA (cfDNA) holds great potential for non-invasive somatic mutation detection in cancer patients as a so-called "liquid biopsy". A liquid biopsy is especially valuable when tumor tissue is not available and for longitudinal monitoring of tumor burden or emerging resistance. In such cases, tumor-specific mutations are not known a priori and in order to detect tumor-derived somatic mutations it is best to interrogate a broad panel of cancer genes. The primary obstacle to sequencing cfDNA with broad mutation panels is achieving the necessary limit of detection to identify small amounts of tumor-derived cfDNA relative to the predominant wild-type cfDNA in the plasma of cancer patients. Tumor-derived cfDNA levels correlate with tumor stage, also making it an important consideration when investigating the sensitivity of this approach. We demonstrate the detection of somatic variants in several cancer genes in the plasma of early and late-stage colorectal cancer (CRC) patients by deep sequencing (> 8,000X) the cfDNA and matched normal DNA of N=33 CRC patients using the AmpliSeq cancer panel. The AmpliSeq panel requires less than 10ng of input DNA and amplifies hotspot loci of 50 known cancer genes for next-generation sequencing (NGS). We observe at least one somatic mutation with greater than 0.1% variant allele frequency in the cfDNA of all 33 CRC patients. We also show the sensitivity of detecting tumor-derived somatic mutations in cfDNA by exome sequencing of the primary tumor tissue. We find higher sensitivity for tumor mutations in cfDNA of late-stage patients compared to early-stage patients. Overall, we demonstrate the feasibility of using NGS on a small sized cancer panel for identifying somatic mutations, including those with low variant allele frequency, in cfDNA of early and late-stage CRC patients. Although a cfDNA approach holds promise as a tool to aid in pre-clinical and clinical research, more work is needed to understand its performance under different assay and disease conditions. Citation Format: Steven M. Bray, Philip J. Ebert, John N. Calley, Richard E. Higgs, Isabella H. Wulur, Swee Seong Wong, Candice L. Horn, Ricardo Martinez, Christoph Reinhard. Concordance of somatic mutations found in primary tumors and plasma circulating-free DNA from early and late-stage colorectal cancer patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Precision Medicine Series: Integrating Clinical Genomics and Cancer Therapy; Jun 13-16, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2016;22(1_Suppl):Abstract nr 29.


According to the mother`s drain to low birth weight, premature newborn infant are 1 about that foremost pressing duty for the moms amid the hospitalization in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Mothers' drain essentially diminishes mortality and dreariness of premature newborns, children and communicating breast drain empowers moms to gotten to be a basic portion of the NICU group. There are various brief and extended term useful impacts of breastfeeding in premature newborn's Breastfeeding makes a difference within the advancement of the premature newborn's immature host defense. The sign for a lessening within this recurrence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), with breast drain premature newborn infant within the NICU; do mix by below flows of extreme retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Premature newborn with breastfeeding is moreover connected by below flows of metabolic disorder, and in youths, at the side low birth weight, low-density lipoprotein concentration and reestablished leptin and affront digestion system. Consumption of mother's milk in NICU reduces the risk of chronic lung disease. Also, it reduces the chance of being re-hospitalization after being released from the NICU.


Domain modeling promotes the description of various facets of information systems by a coordinated set of domain-specific languages (DSL). Some of them have visual/graphical and other may have textual concrete syntaxes. Model Driven Engineering (MDE) helps defining the concepts and relations of the domain by the way of metamodel elements. For visual languages, it is necessary to establish links between these concepts and relations on one side and visual symbols on the other side. Similarly, with textual languages it is necessary to establish links between metamodel elements and syntactic structures of the textual DSL. To successfully apply MDE in a wide range of domains we need tools for fast implementation of the expected growing number of DSLs. Regarding the textual syntax of DSLs, we believe that most current proposals for bridging the world of models (MDE) and the world of grammars (Grammarware) are not completely adapted to this need. We propose a generative solution based on a DSL called TCS (Textual Concrete Syntax). Specifications expressed in TCS are used to automatically generate tools for model-to-text and text-to-model transformations. The proposed approach is illustrated by a case study in the definition of a telephony language.


Currently, research does not agree as to the extent to which medical content and problem‐solving processes underlie clinical problem‐solving. The results of research in this area fall into two categories: (1) clinical problem‐solving is primarily dependent upon medical content specific within the case, and (2) clinical problem‐solving is a skill, or series of skills, which can be applied to all clinical problems. In the study reported in this paper, seventy‐one second‐year medical students who had completed a 2‐year, body‐systems oriented curriculum were given an examination designed to measure clinical problem‐solving. The results indicated that gathering data on patient history and hypotheses generation were specific skills common to clinical problem‐solving, while hypotheses refinement, identification of relevant physical examinations, ordering laboratory investigations and making a diagnosis were case‐related.


This work introduces the transverse flow carbon nanotube (CNT) membrane, a novel membrane configuration designed to separate salt from water efficiently. The transverse flow CNT membrane uses transverse flow across horizontally stacked CNT, with neighboring CNT separated by a critical slit size. Through molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, the nano-fluidics interactions involved in the separation of salt from water using the transverse flow CNT membrane is studied. The simulation shows that this new membrane offers superior desalination performance, with permeability more than two times that of atom-thick graphene slit membrane, and orders of magnitude higher than conventional membranes. The effects of the nano-channels formed by the transverse flow CNT membrane on the behavior of water molecules and salt ions in a desalination system are studied in further detail with thermodynamic free energy computations, oxygen density mapping and hydrogen bond network studies. This simple but effective design offers an alternative solution for the practical use of CNT for efficient desalination.


Orbital angular momentum (OAM) at radio frequency (RF) provides a novel approach of multiplexing a set of orthogonal modes on the same frequency channel to achieve high spectral efficiencies (SEs). However, the existing research on OAM wireless communications is mainly focused on point-to-point transmission in the line-of-sight (LoS) scenario. In this paper, we propose an overall scheme of the downlink multi-user OAM (MU-OAM) wireless backhaul based on uniform circular arrays (UCAs) for broadcasting networks, which can achieve the joint spatial division and coaxial multiplexing (JSDCM). A salient feature of the proposed downlink MU-OAM wireless backhaul systems is that the channel matrices are completely characterized by the position of each small base station (SBS), independent of the numbers of subcarriers and antennas, which avoids estimating large channel matrices required by the traditional downlink multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) wireless backhaul systems. Thereafter, we propose an OAM-based multi-user distance and angle of arrival (AoA) estimation method, which is able to simultaneously estimate the positions of multiple SBSs with a flexible number of training symbols. With the estimated distances and AoAs, a MU-OAM preprocessing scheme is applied to eliminate the co-mode and inter-mode interferences in the downlink MU-OAM channel. At last, the proposed methods are extended to the downlink MU-OAM-MIMO wireless backhaul system equipped with uniform concentric circular arrays (UCCAs), for which much higher spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) than traditional MU-MIMO systems can be achieved. Both mathematical analysis and simulation results validate that the proposed scheme can effectively eliminate both interferences of the practical downlink MU-OAM channel and approaches the performance of the ideal MU-OAM channel.


Background Pyrosequencing has emerged as an alternative method of nucleic acid sequencing, well suited for many applications which aim to characterize single nucleotide polymorphisms, mutations, microbial types and CpG methylation in the target DNA. The commercially available pyrosequencing systems can harbor two different types of software which allow analysis in AQ or CpG mode, respectively, both widely employed for DNA methylation analysis. Objective Aim of the study was to assess the performance for DNA methylation analysis at CpG sites of the two pyrosequencing software which allow analysis in AQ or CpG mode, respectively. Despite CpG mode having been specifically generated for CpG methylation quantification, many investigations on this topic have been carried out with AQ mode. As proof of equivalent performance of the two software for this type of analysis is not available, the focus of this paper was to evaluate if the two modes currently used for CpG methylation assessment by pyrosequencing may give overlapping results. Methods We compared the performance of the two software in quantifying DNA methylation in the promoter of selected genes (GSTP1, MGMT, LINE-1) by testing two case series which include DNA from paraffin embedded prostate cancer tissues (PC study, N = 36) and DNA from blood fractions of healthy people (DD study, N = 28), respectively. Results We found discrepancy in the two pyrosequencing software-based quality assignment of DNA methylation assays. Compared to the software for analysis in the AQ mode, less permissive criteria are supported by the Pyro Q-CpG software, which enables analysis in CpG mode. CpG mode warns the operators about potential unsatisfactory performance of the assay and ensures a more accurate quantitative evaluation of DNA methylation at CpG sites. Conclusion The implementation of CpG mode is strongly advisable in order to improve the reliability of the methylation analysis results achievable by pyrosequencing.


The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is one of the main communication protocols proposed for wireless sensor networks, IoT 'Internet of Things' and WoT 'Web of Things'. This protocol provides a flexible MAC layer designed to meet a variety of applications. Since WSN is application-specific, it's very difficult to provide a generic solution for all types of applications and topologies. In this work we focus on delay sensitive applications in star networks. This topology is used in wireless sensor networks for monitoring and control applications. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard provides some quality of service features for real-time data transmission. We identified some limitations of this standard and we proposed an improvement to provide a lower end-to-end delay with respect to energy consumption constraint by optimizing MAC layer. The experimentations are done using the NS-2 simulator. The results show the improvements expected by our approach among the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC standard.


Six samples of raspberry honey collected from different regions of Romania were analysed in order to confirm that they are classified as monofloral honey. Melissopalynological analysis, alongside the determination of physico-chemical parameters - moisture, pH, free acidity, electrical conductivity, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) content, color, total polyphenols content, flavonoids content, DPPH radical scavenging activity - were chosen as methods of analysis that give indications regarding the botanical origin of honey.The results of the melissopalynological analysis showed that all honey samples had a percentage of Rubusidaeus pollen grains above the minimum of 45%, which was required in order to classify the samples as monofloral honey. The values determined for pH (4.01-4.31), free acidy (20.1-42.1 meq/kg) and electrical conductivity (0.36-0.52 mS/cm) confirmed that the samples were of pure raspberry honey. In the case of moisture content, one honey sample exceeded the moisture content set by Codex Alimentarius (20%). The limit set for HMF content was not exceeded by any raspberry honey sample, for which values of 6.13-26.79 mg HMF/kg were determined. Raspberry honey had high total polyphenols content (8.11-12.86 GAE/100 g), flavonoids content (25.36-41.35 mg QE/100 g) and DPPH radical scavenging activity (58.1-94.35%). These results contribute to the knowledge of the chemical compositions and physical parameters of Romanian honeys.


The diversification of teaching strategies helps students to learn by a more effective way of understanding and assimilating the themes seen in the classroom. This study aimed to develop an educational model of human physiology, based on memory stimulation, and evaluate the effectiveness of this model for undergraduate and high school students. The effectiveness of the model was evaluated by the application of two questionnaires in order to verify the assimilation of the theme seen in the classroom and the perception of the individuals about the model. The results confirm the effectiveness of this model pointing out the importance of these resources as motivational educational devices as well as the need to use innovative methodologies. Furthermore, the use of models with visual appeal and which do the learning in a playful way could improve the efficiency in the process of teaching and learning together with the traditional classroom model.


A discontinuous spectral element time-domain method is proposed to analyze transient electromagnetic properties of general 3-D structures. This method is advantageous in that its mass matrices are block-diagonal due to the Gauss-Lobatto-Legendre polynomials, and it allows different orders of basis functions for each subdomain. The Riemann solver is employed in the boundary integral terms to communicate fields between adjacent subdomains. Perfectly matched layers are utilized to truncate the computational domain. Galerkin method is used for spatial discretization, and a fourth-order Runge-Kutta scheme is employed for the time integration. The validity of the proposed approach is demonstrated through several numerical examples of initial value problems and scattering problems.


We develop a general methodology for a partially observed stochastic control problem. The dynamics is governed by a discrete-time Markov process. We describe an application to an inventory system with possibility of shrinkage, and introduce unnormalized conditional probabilities to transform the nonlinear state evolution into a linear one. We then prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution for the Bellman equation between the floor and the ceiling functions in the case of unbounded costs.


Dynamic concurrency bug detectors predict and then examine suspicious instances of atomicity violations from executions of multithreaded programs. Only few predicted instances are real bugs. Prioritizing such instances can make the examinations cost-effective, but is there any design factor exhibiting significant influence? This work presents the first controlled experiment that studies two design factors, abstraction level and subspace, in partitioning such instances through 35 resultant partition-based techniques on 10 benchmarks with known vulnerability-related bugs. The empirical analysis reveals significant findings. First, partition-based prioritization can significantly improve the fault detection rate. Second, coarse-grained techniques are more effective than fine-grained ones, and using some 1-dimensional subspaces is more effective than using other dimensional subspaces. Third, eight previously unknown techniques can be more effective than the technique modeled after a state-of-the-art dynamic detector.


Design-based learning (DBL) is a learning strategy that requires students to use their theoretical knowledge to develop an artifact or system to tackle a real-life problem. DBL has long been utilized in design-related curricula in higher education such as engineering, computer science, and architecture. However, little is known about how DBL in non-design-based courses enhances students' learning experience, especially in recent years when the COVID-19 pandemic has compelled the worldwide education systems to adapt to online learning. Hence, this study aims to investigate the experience of science undergraduate students after one semester of participating in online DBL. The participants include 25 second-year science undergraduate students enrolling in the Managing New Technologies course. Using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, the findings of this study indicated that online DBL contributes to easy access to learning, enhances creativity, and allows students to think outside the box. Nevertheless, students highlighted online learning as an obstacle to their DBL experience. They claimed that online platforms as a means of communication are not practical due to insufficient interaction time and misunderstanding of information. In addition, some students stated that the online environment poses difficulties for collaborative learning.


ABSTRACT This paper examines the dynamics of volatility spillovers among five major tourism stock indices during the Covid-19 period. Our paper enriches the current literature as it is the first paper to investigate the volatility spillovers among major global tourism stock indices by adopting Diebold and Yilmaz (2012. Better to give than to receive: Predictive directional measurement of volatility spillovers. International Journal of Forecasting, 28(1), 57–66. ), and Barunik and Krehlik (2018. Measuring the Frequency Dynamics of Financial Connectedness and Systemic Risk. Journal of Financial Econometrics, 16(2), 271–296.) time and frequency domain methods. Results suggest that total spillovers of the tourism stock indices rose significantly during the pandemic. Turkey and Italy are net volatility spillover transmitters, and others are net volatility spillover receivers. Findings of this study also indicates that the effect of volatility transmission among tourism stock markets is temporary (short-lasting). The results suggest that short-term investors and portfolio managers should avoid investing in the tourism indices in the short term.


Trib1, Trib2, and Trib3 are mammalian homologues of the Tribbles protein family, an evolutionarily conserved group of proteins that can mediate proteasome-dependent degradation. Evidence suggests that these proteins function as adapters, where they recruit E3 ligases and enhance ubiquination of the target protein in order to promote its degradation. To date, increased Trib1 and Trib2 mRNA expression has been shown to correlate with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) in humans and induces AML in mice; whereas Trib3 has not been associated with AML. In order to understand the effects of Trib family members in hematopoietic cells, we reconstituted mice with hematopoietic progenitors retrovirally expressing Trib1, Trib2, or Trib3. Trib1 and Trib2 mice developed AML whereas Trib3 mice did not. Our previous data suggested that Trib2-mediated degradation of the transcription factor, C/EBPα, is important for leukemogenesis. We now show that Trib1, like Trib2, strongly binds C/EBPα and induces its degradation. In contrast, Trib3 weakly binds C/EBPα and fails to induce its degradation. Consistent with the ability to strongly bind and degrade C/EBPα, Trib1 and Trib2, but not Trib3, block differentiation of myeloid cells. We are currently mapping the domains that account for the differences between Trib1/Trib2 and Trib3 in leukemogenesis. Together, our results strengthen the correlation between Trib-induced C/EBPα degradation and induction of AML. Furthermore, our data show that different Tribbles family members have distinct targets and understanding this specificity may provide opportunities to therapeutically target Tribbles.


We studied the electrophysiological characteristics of systolic (SP) and diastolic (DP) potentials recorded during sinus rhythm (SR) in the left interventricular septum of a 27 year-old woman presenting with verapamil-sensitive idiopathic left ventricular tachycardia (VT). During SR, and during VT, SP was activated from ventricular base-to-apex, and DP from apex-to-base. SP and DP were both detected at the site of successful ablation during SR, whereas during VT, DP was detected away from the earliest activation site. Thus, SP apparently reflected a critical component of the reentrant circuit, while DP reflected the activation of a bystander pathway.


On November 1, 1974 a law went into effect in the Netherlands granting the police more possibilities for taking action against drinking drivers. The police are authorized by this law to stop any person who is driving a motor vehicle, if they suspect the driver has been drinking. In presence of significant alcoholic-beverage odor on a driver's breath the police can request him to submit to a breath test. In judging whether the extension of police authority in the Netherlands has led to the removal from the highway of mostly social drinkers, leaving the problem drinker unapprehended, the following general conclusions were drawn. In spite of the extension of police authority, most DWI-drivers (64.5%) are still apprehended on classical grounds (driving behavior and accidents). The new legislation has led to considerably more drunken driver apprehensions. Comparison of three groups (Police Control Group, Driving Behavior Group and Accident Group) revealed no significant differences for the following variables: recidivism, refusal to submit to the blood test, kind of drugs used, MAST score and work situation. Significant differences were found for the variables "age" and "BAC". The author assumes that there is a relationship between these last two variables. Findings in an earlier study led him to conclude that the BAC increases as driver age increases. There is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the increased police authority has indeed resulted in the apprehension of more social drinkers than problem drinkers. The results of this exploratory study in no way lends firm support to the supposition that it is the perpetual social drinker in particular who is apprehended because of police checks. It is also possible to assume that many of them are social drinkers who are likely to become problem drinkers. The fact that no significant differences were found either for the MAST or the work situation might very well suggest this. However, proceeding from the fact that many experts consider detection in an early stage of drinking to be important, it would appear that authorization of the police to prevent drivers from driving after drinking with the help of an objective means, the breath test, was justified.


The article examines the correspondence (1701) between the Neapolitan mathematician Giacinto De Cristofaro and Domennico Guglielmini, professor of theoretical medicine at Padua, on the role of blood and on the fermentative process in the 'origin' of life. The discussion is set against the background of the lively Italian medical debates and experimentations on the function and composition of the blood. Works by Marcello Malpighi, Giacomo Sandri, Giovanni Maria Lancisi, Giorgio Baglivi, Giovanbattista Morgagni and Nicola Cirillo - all of them taking into account Robert Boyle's Natural History of the Blood (1683-4) - show that blood composition and heart motion were described in different ways, ranging from the adoption of chemical theories and experimentation to that of strictly mechanical explanations. Different positions about the role of the blood and of its fermentative motion reflect different views about the relationship between matter and life.


POLR3A encodes the largest subunit of the DNA‐dependent RNA polymerase III. Pathogenic variants in this gene are associated with dysregulation of tRNA production and other non‐coding RNAs. POLR3A‐related disorders include variable phenotypes. The genotype–phenotype correlation is still unclear. Phenotypic analysis and exome sequencing were performed in four affected siblings diagnosed clinically with hereditary spastic ataxia, two healthy siblings and their unaffected mother. All four affected siblings (ages 46–55) had similar clinical features of early childhood‐onset hypodontia and adolescent‐onset progressive spastic ataxia. None had progeria, gonadal dysfunction or dysmorphism. All affected individuals had biallelic POLR3A pathogenic variants composed by two cis‐acting intronic splicing‐altering variants, c.1909 + 22G > A and c.3337–11 T > C. The two healthy siblings had wild‐type alleles. The mother and another unaffected sibling were heterozygous for the allele containing both variants. This is the first report addressing the clinical consequence associated with homozygosity for a unique pathogenic intronic allele in the POLR3A gene. This allele was previously reported in compound heterozygous combinations in patients with Wiedemann‐Rautenstrauch syndrome, a severe progeroid POLR3A‐associated phenotype. We show that homozygosity for this allele is associated with spastic ataxia with hypodontia, and not with progeroid features. These findings contribute to the characterization of genotype–phenotype correlation in POLR3A‐related disorders.


The role of somatic mutations in sporadic thyroid cancer is unclear today. Probably they coming out as aetiological factors in carcinogenesis as well as, respectfully to many authors, can to participate in TC pathogenesis and to determine the clinical course and prognosis of the disease. For today as main oncogenes taking part in initiation of thyroid malignant tumors are considered: RET/PTC, TRK, PTEN, P53, RAS, MET, PPARγ. By means of genetic investigations scientists are trying to solve problems with thyroid cancer differentiated diagnostics (cytokeratin-19, cytokeratin-20, mesothelial cells antigen (Hector Battifora MEsotelial (cell) or HBME-1), loss of heterozigitoty (LOH) in short arm of 3 chromosome (gene VHL -von Hippel Lindau, 3р26). Recently in foreign literature appeared reports of activated mutations in gene BRAF which most frequently are occurred in melanoma and papillary TC. Prognosis of thyroid cancer may reflected by the LOH as a biological breakage as well as changes of tumor suppressive gene P53 which fraught with decrease of disease prognosis. Thus, both researchers and clinicians have many questions concerning the role of genome, particularly in order to precise of genetic abnormality influence on tumor growth and therefore for assessment of clinical prognosis and with aim to chose adequate treatment tactic in each case.


Problem statement: A half-bridge LLC resonant converter with a voltage doubler rectifier has a simple structure and its Zero-Voltage-Switching (ZVS) capability is excellent from zero to full load condition. But conduction loss is more due to high circulating energy thus reducing the system efficiency. Moreover a variable frequency control method makes the control circuits more complicated than those using the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) control method. Thus, DC drive has lower efficiency when it operates on light loads. Approach: To improve the efficiency of the DC drive under light loads, a PWM-controlled quasi-resonant converter is proposed .It has simple control circuits and less conduction loss compared to a half-bridge LLC resonant converter under light load conditions. The proposed converter has a half-bridge LLC resonant converter along with an auxiliary circuit. The load regulation of the proposed converter can be achieved by an auxiliary circuit. Thus the proposed converter is expected to be suitable sustaining power module for the efficiency enhancement of DC drives. As the magnetizing inductance of the proposed converter is larger the circulating energy is considerably reduced under light load conditions. In this study the operational principle, design and modeling of QRC DC-DC converters for DC drives are presented. The PWM controlled quasi resonant converter is implemented using PIC microcontroller 16F184A. Results: The capacitor filter in the output is replaced by pi filter to produce DC with minimum ripple. The experimental results and simulation results are compared. This converter has the advantages like reduced number of switches, reduced transformer and filter size, reduced ripple, reduced switching losses, reduced switching stresses and increased power density. Conclusion: The experimental results closely agree with the simulation results.


Throughout the years, many shading techniques have been developed to improve the conveying of information in Volume Visualization. Some of these methods, usually referred to as realistic, are supposed to provide better cues for the understanding of volume data sets. While shading approaches are heavily exploited in traditional monoscopic
setups, no previous study has analyzed the effect of these techniques in Virtual Reality. To further explore the influence of shading on the understanding of volume data in such environments, we carried out a user study in a desktop-based stereoscopic setup. The goals of the study were to investigate the impact of well-known shading approaches and the influence of real illumination on depth perception. Participants had to perform three different perceptual tasks when
exposed to static visual stimuli. 45 participants took part in the study, giving us 1152 trials for each task. Results show that advanced shading techniques improve depth perception in stereoscopic volume visualization. As well, external lighting does not affect depth perception when these shading methods are applied. As a result, we derive some guidelines that may help the researchers when selecting illumination models for stereoscopic rendering.


Abstract The use of alternative nutritional sources is an important topic for animal production such as poultry. This study examined the effect of replacing soybean meal with sunflower leaf meal in the diet of laying shaver brown pullets. A total of 30 laying birds were assigned to three treatments of 0% (as control group), 10% and 15% MSFLM inclusion. Four eggs per replicate were randomly taken for three consecutive days at two weeks interval for five times, and 18 weeks individuals were selected after 40 days of experimental time. External parameters of the eggs (egg weight, egg length, egg breadth and egg shape index, shell thickness), and body parameters (Final body weight, weight gain), feed intake and hen day production were measured. For egg length, egg breadth and shell thickness showed significant difference (p< 0.05) in from the control birds. Final body weight, weight gain, feed intake and hen day production showed comparable results with values from eggs of birds on control diet. The study revealed the ability of birds to easily utilize the nutrients in the protein sources. MSFLM utilization up to 15% in pullets' diet revealed no detrimental effect on the performance of the laying birds and the external qualities of eggs produced.


Network embedding is a promising way of network representation, facilitating many signed social network processing and analysis tasks such as link prediction and node classification. Recently, feature hashing has been adopted in several existing embedding algorithms to improve the efficiency, which has obtained a great success. However, the existing feature hashing based embedding algorithms only consider the positive links in signed social networks. Intuitively, negative links can also help improve the performance. Thus, in this paper, we propose a novel deep hashing method for signed social network embedding by considering simultaneously positive and negative links. Extensive experiments show that the proposed method performs better than several state-of-the-art baselines through link prediction task over two real-world signed social networks.


COPD is a common, complex and heterogeneous disease. General objective is to identify factors which correction can be translated into improved health care for COPD patients. The study will take place in Guimarães hospital's outpatient pulmonology care. COPD outpatients over 40 years of age, will be enrolled sequentially in order of appearance in the consultation during a one-year period. The most relevant demographic and clinical patients' characteristics will be studied using appropriate tools, and will be transformed into variables, which will be used for descriptive and inferential analysis. The variables degree of severity, medication adherence, beliefs about the disease and about the inhaled medications, and the inhalation technique are intended to be related to each other, in order to understand the relative weight of each of these variables under study as factors of therapeutic success in COPD.


AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of partial removal of carious dentine and restoration in a single session (PDR) and stepwise excavation (SW), both of which are treatments for deep carious lesions, in Public Health Services in Brazil. METHODS: INCLUSION CRITERIA: patients ≥6 years old, permanent molars with deep caries lesions (having a radiolucency halfway or more into dentine) and pulp vitality but absence of spontaneous pain, positive percussion test, and periapical alterations. The subjects received either PDR (test group) or SW (control group). The radiological and clinical exams were performed after a mean time of 18 months. OUTCOMES: success was defined as pulp sensitivity to cold test and absence of periapical alterations. RESULTS: Of the 299 treatments performed, 146 were SW and 153 were PDR; 122 were amalgam restorations and 168 resin-composite restorations. There were no differences between the groups regarding the baseline characteristics (i.e. age, gender and family income). After 18 months, 212 evaluations were performed, which indicated 99 and 86% success rates in the PDR and SW groups, respectively (p = 0.016). Reasons for failure were: PDR 1 pulpitis; SW 8 pulpitis; 1 osteitis; 4 necrosis; 1 endodontic treatment. None of the baseline variables were significantly associated with the outcomes. CONCLUSION: The retention of carious dentine does not interfere in pulp vitality. Data from this 18-month study suggest that the procedure of reopening the cavity to remove the residual infected dentine is not necessary. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 1999 Dec;27(6):449-53. Painting the future for ART. Holmgren CJ1, Frencken JE. •1Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract The objective of this paper is to review recent research and developments with respect to the atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) approach and to outline future areas of research and development. Areas identified as requiring further investigation include the evaluation of: ART restorations for longer than 3 years duration using recognised evaluation criteria, multi-surface ART restorations, ART restorations in primary teeth and ART sealants. In addition, the possibility and potential dangers of caries remaining after cavity cleaning with hand instruments must be investigated and the findings balanced against the known damage to sound tooth tissue caused by more routine cavity preparation techniques. New bioactive restorative materials which offer the possibility of healing dentinal caries lesions should be developed and evaluated. Finally, behavioural and educational aspects of the ART approach should be investigated. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 1999 Dec;27(6):436-41. The residual caries dilemma. Weerheijm KL1, Groen HJ. Abstract Restorative dentistry is based on the assumption that bacterial infection of demineralized dentine should prompt operative intervention. One of the concepts of practical dentistry is to create a favourable environment for caries arrest with minimal operative intervention. The progress of remaining primary caries is key to any discussion of this concept. This discussion is important for the atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) approach, since the removal of all carious dentine is sometimes difficult using hand instruments only. In this paper the results of possible measures to guard against the effects of residual carious and its consequences are reviewed, in order to obtain an impression of the justification for (in)complete excavation of occlusal dentinal caries. Three types of measure are considered: isolating the caries process from the oral environment, excavating the carious dentine, and using a cariostatic filling material. Each of these measures contributes to the arrest of the caries process. However, none of these measures can arrest this process by itself. A combination of all three seems necessary. It is concluded that although residual caries does not seem to be the criterion for rerestoration, one has to strive for as complete caries removal as possible. If this cannot be fulfilled the sealing capacities of the filling material seem to be more important than its cariostatic properties. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 1999 Dec;27(6):431-5. Is ART really atraumatic? van Amerongen WE1, Rahimtoola S. Abstract Atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) is an approach to the management of carious lesions that uses only hand instruments to remove carious tissue and to restore the tooth involved. The name ART implies that the approach is atraumatic to both the patient and the tooth. This study set out to evaluate whether ART is atraumatic in terms of both patient discomfort and tooth tissue conservation. Three hundred and fifty-nine patients were divided in two groups: one group was treated with hand instruments and the other with rotary equipment. Each patient received two restorations: one using amalgam and one using glass ionomer as the restorative material, placed without the use of anaesthesia. Less discomfort was reported with the ART approach compared to conventional restorations made using rotary instruments and amalgam. Moreover, preparations with hand instruments were smaller than those produced with rotary instruments. Reported discomfort was associated with the size of the preparation, although the influence of the operator on both criteria was considerable. A patient effect was also observed since patients who reported discomfort during the firsttreatment were more likely to report discomfort after the second treatment. In conclusion, the choice of the term "ART" as an atraumatic procedure is defensible. Mil Med. 2000 Apr;165(4):278-82. The comparative radiopacity of Fuji IX-GP, an intermediate restorative material. DuBois DJ1, Reichl RB, Hondrum SO. Abstract The radiopacity of intermediate restorative materials should be sufficient to enable the clinician to distinguish the material from normal and decalcified tooth structure. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative radiopacities of intermediate restorative materials, including a newly introduced high-viscosity, self-cured, condensable glass ionomer material. Radiographs were made of six intermediate restorative materials: two reinforced zinc oxide-eugenol materials (IRM and Zinroc), a conventional glass ionomer material (Ketac-fil), a synthetic resin material (Cavit), a eugenol-free zinc oxide material (Tempit), and a new, general-purpose, condensable glass ionomer material (Fuji IX-GP). Optical density was measured using a densitometer. The optical density of dentin and enamel were used for radiographic comparison. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences among materials: Cavit = IRM = Tempit > Zinroc = Fuji IX-GP > Ketac-fil = enamel > dentin (where > indicates a statistical difference at p < or = 0.05). Although not as radiopaque as some other intermediate materials tested, the radiopacity of Fuji IX-GP appears sufficient to aid diagnosis. J Am Dent Assoc. 2004 Dec;135(12):1707-12. Success of an alternative for interim management of irreversible pulpitis. McDougal RA1, Delano EO, Caplan D, Sigurdsson A, Trope M. Abstract BACKGROUND: Extraction and endodontic therapy are treatment options for irreversible pulpitis. Extraction often is chosen for financial reasons. The authors conducted a study to investigate an alternative interim therapy. METHODS: The authors recruited patients (N = 73) with irreversible pulpitis and whose teeth were restorable but who opted for extraction owing to financial reasons. After undergoing pulpotomy, the teeth were restored by random assignment with one of two intermediate restorative materials: Caulk IRM (Dentsply Caulk, Milford, Del.) (Group I, n = 38) or an IRM base with glass ionomer core (Fuji IX GP, GC America, Alsip, Ill.) (Group II, n = 35). The authors monitored the teeth over six and 12 months for pain, integrity of restoration and radiographic periapical status by densitometric analysis. RESULTS: By six months, 10 percent of subjects remaining in the study (Group I, n = 27; Group II, n = 25) reported pain; by 12 months, 22 percent (Group I, n = 22; Group II, n = 18) reported pain. A two-tailed Fisher exact test showed no significant difference (P > or = .05) between groups at either time interval. No apical radiographic change was noted in 49 percent of teeth at six months (Group I, n = 18; Group II, n = 19) and 42 percent at 12 months (Group I, n = 16; Group II, n = 15). Chi2 analysis demonstrated no significant differences (P > or = .05) between groups. Seven of 22 restorations in Group I and four of 18 in Group II required repair at 12 months with no statistical difference (chi2 analysis, P > or = .05). CONCLUSIONS: The interim treatment of eugenol pulpotomy using either restorative material reliably prevented pain for six months. For longer periods, both restorations may require repair. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: This option should preserve the integrity of the arch and extend the use of the tooth while the patient finds the means to finance complete endodontic treatment. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 2003 Feb;31(1):15-20. Atraumatic perspectives of ART: psychological and physiological aspects of treatment with and without rotary instruments. Schriks MC1, van Amerongen WE. Abstract Atraumatic Restorative Treatment, ART, is a method of minimal caries intervention that uses only hand instruments. The aim of the present study was to explore a possible difference between the extent of discomfort experienced during dental treatment according to the ART approach and a method using rotary instruments. The study was performed in Indonesia. A total of 403 children were randomly divided in two groups. In each child, one class II restoration in a deciduous molar was made. One group received treatment using rotary instruments (750 r.p.m.). The other group was t


ABSTRACT Group II introns are catalytic RNAs and mobile retrotransposable elements known to be present in the genomes of some nonmarine bacteria and eukaryotic organelles. Here we report the discovery of group II introns in a bacterial mat sample collected from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent near 9°N on the East Pacific Rise. One of the introns was shown to self-splice in vitro. This is the first example of marine bacterial introns from molecular population structure studies of microorganisms that live in the proximity of hydrothermal vents. These types of mobile genetic elements may prove useful in improving our understanding of bacterial genome evolution and may serve as valuable markers in comparative studies of bacterial communities.


Abstract As any other therapy method, hiperbaric oxygen therapy is connected with the risk of complications. The article is a review of the results of research on adverse events of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The most common are: borotrauma of the middle ear, paranasal sinuses or lungs, oxygen toxicity can be pulmonary, ocular in extreme cases leading to cataracts, claustrophobia, pulmonary edema or hypoglycaemia. Research has shown that these events occur in the presence of high oxygen concentration or high pressure. Depending on the severity of complications, they are short-term not causing discontinuation of therapy or long-term excluding continuation of treatment. However adverse events connected with oxygen therapy are not common and are usually mild. This confirms that HBOT is an effective and safe method of treating decompression sickness, carbon monoxide poisoning, and the treatment of chronic wounds, delayed radiation injuries or necrotic soft tissue infections.


We report on two patients with severe Smith‐Lemli‐Opitz syndrome who acutely developed postnatal cataracts. These postnatal cataracts appear to be due to a different pathological mechanism and have a different clinical course than the typical congenital cataracts that occur in SLOS. The rapid development of these cataracts suggests that dysfunction or rupture of the lens capsule leading to acute osmotic shifts contributes to their formation. In addition, cataract formation in these patients was associated with conjunctival injection, fibrotic irido‐lenticular adhesions, and capsular fibrosis. These findings are suggestive an inflammatory component that is consistent with impaired competence of the lens capsule. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The theory and method of suppressing electron emission from cathode surfaces is introduced, including increasing the emission threshold, reducing the surface electric field and shielding the emitted electrons. The stainless steel-graphite and Teflon-graphite composite cathodes are designed to test the above methods for a rod-pinch diode. The experiments are performed on the inductive voltage adder, and the results indicate that the Teflon-graphite composite cathode is effective in suppressing electron emission from the specified cathode surface, while the stainless steel-graphite composite cathode fails. The reasons are analyzed theoretically.


Ibuprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug widely used to relieve pain and inflammation in many disorders via inhibition of cyclooxygenases. Recently, we have demonstrated that ibuprofen inhibits intracellular signaling of RhoA and promotes significant axonal growth and functional recovery following spinal cord lesions in rodents. In addition, another study suggests that ibuprofen reduces generation of amyloid-β42 peptide via inactivation of RhoA signaling, although it may also regulate amyloid-β42 formation by direct inhibition of the γ-secretase complex. The molecular mechanisms by which ibuprofen inhibits the RhoA signal in neurons, however, remain unclear. Here, we report that the transcription factor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) is essential for coupling ibuprofen to RhoA inhibition and subsequent neurite growth promotion in neurons. Ibuprofen activates PPARγ in neuron-like PC12 and B104 cells. Activation of PPARγ with traditional agonists mimics the RhoA-inhibiting properties of ibuprofen in PC12 cells and, like ibuprofen, promotes neurite elongation in primary cultured neurons exposed to axonal growth inhibitors. Protein knockdown with small interfering RNA specific for PPARγ blocks RhoA suppression of PPARγ agonists in PC12 cells. Moreover, the effect of ibuprofen on RhoA activity and neurite growth in neuronal cultures is prevented by selective PPARγ inhibition. These findings support that PPARγ plays an essential role in mediating the RhoA-inhibiting effect of ibuprofen. Elucidation of the novel molecular mechanisms linking ibuprofen to RhoA inhibition may provide additional therapeutic targets to the disorders characterized by RhoA activation, including spinal cord injuries and Alzheimer's disease.


In recent years, wireless sensing technologies have provided a much sought-after alternative to expensive cabled monitoring systems. Wireless sensing networks forego the high data transfer rates associated with cabled sensors in exchange for low-cost and low-power communication between a large number of sensing devices, each of which features embedded data processing capabilities. As such, a new paradigm in large-scale data processing has emerged; one where communication bandwidth is somewhat limited but distributed data processing centers are abundant. By taking advantage of this grid of computational resources, data processing tasks once performed independently by a central processing unit can now be parallelized, automated, and carried out within a wireless sensor network. By utilizing the intelligent organization and self-healing properties of many wireless networks, an extremely scalable multiprocessor computational framework can be developed to perform advanced engineering analyses. In this study, a novel parallelization of the simulated annealing stochastic search algorithm is presented and used to update structural models by comparing model predictions to experimental results. The resulting distributed model updating algorithm is validated within a network of wireless sensors by identifying the mass, stiffness, and damping properties of a three-story steel structure subjected to seismic base motion.


While there has been interest in modeling the group behavior of herds or flocks, much of this work has focused on simulating their collective spatial motion patterns, which have not accounted for individuality in the herd and instead assume a homogenized role for all members or subgroups of the herd. Animal behavior experts have noted that domestic animals exhibit behaviors that are indicative of social hierarchy: leader/follower type behaviors are present as well as dominance and subordination, aggression and rank order, and specific social affiliations may also exist. Both wild and domestic cattle are social species, and group behaviors are likely to be influenced by the expression of specific social interactions. In this paper, global positioning system coordinate fixes gathered from a herd of beef cows tracked in open fields over several days at a time are utilized to learn a model that focuses on the interactions within the herd as well as its overall movement. Using these data, in this way, explores the validity of existing group behavior models against actual herding behaviors. Domain knowledge, location geography, and human observations are utilized to explain the causes of these deviations from this idealized behavior.


Chocolate cyst, a complex ovarian cyst, resembles that of a chocolate coloured sac, grows on the outer surface of the ovary containing old menstrual fluid and affects women of reproductive ages. The cause of its formation is unknown but many hypothesises are proposed. Ultrasonography and laparoscopy are the two conventional methods of diagnosis but present day researchers concentrate on use of biomarkers. Based on diagnosis of endometrial patches, it can be staged I-IV. These are treatable with hormones, painkillers, laparoscopy, laparotomy and oopherectomy, but are incurable. As it affects women of reproductive age group, it causes hindrance in fertility and assisted reproductive methodologies are recommended. The most challenging property of chocolate cyst is its recurrence nature which makes it incurable to date and finding its solution is an area of interest of present day researchers and can fetch a hope for the affected individuals.


I want to thank the Society for inviting me to present this material to you. I hope that it will give you some idea of what we can do now, what some of the technical problems are, and perhaps, stimulate your interest and solicit your help.


Magnesium sulfate has been shown to be effective clinically as a bronchodilator, but its mechanism of action is unknown. We used a wedged bronchoscope technique to study the ability of MgSO4 at clinically relevant concentrations to attenuate hypocapnia-, acetylcholine- (ACh), and dry air-induced bronchoconstriction in the canine lung periphery. Control experiments demonstrated that consecutive challenges of either hypocapnia or ACh resulted in greater collateral system resistance (Rcs) after the second challenge compared with the first. Intravenous infusion of MgSO4 diminished the maximum response to a second hypocapnic challenge (Rcs = 1.59 +/- 0.29 cmH2O.ml-1.s prechallenge vs. 1.12 +/- 0.20 postchallenge) but had no effect on either ACh- or dry air-induced bronchoconstriction. Serum magnesium levels before MgSO4 administration were 1.59 +/- 0.04 meq/l and rose to 6.20 +/- 0.13 during the infusion. Previous studies demonstrated that nifedipine, like MgSO4 in this study, attenuates hypocapnia-induced bronchoconstriction in the canine lung periphery but has no effect on ACh- or dry air-induced bronchoconstriction. We conclude that these results are consistent with the idea that, like nifedipine, magnesium acts in the airway as a voltage-sensitive calcium channel blocker.


AIMS
To assess the clinical presentation and acute management of patients with transient loss of consciousness (T-LOC) in the emergency department (ED).

METHODS AND RESULTS
A multi-centre prospective observational study was carried out in 19 Spanish hospitals over 1 month. The patients included were > or =14 years old and were admitted to the ED because of an episode of T-LOC. Questionnaires and corresponding electrocardiograms (ECGs) were reviewed by a Steering Committee (SC) to unify diagnostic criteria, evaluate adherence to guidelines, and diagnose correctly the ECGs. We included 1419 patients (prevalence, 1.14%). ECG was performed in 1335 patients (94%) in the ED: 498 (37.3%) ECGs were classified as abnormal. The positive diagnostic yield ranged from 0% for the chest X-ray to 12% for the orthostatic test. In the ED, 1217 (86%) patients received a final diagnosis of syncope, whereas the remaining 202 (14%) were diagnosed of non-syncopal transient loss of consciousness (NST-LOC). After final review by the SC, 1080 patients (76%) were diagnosed of syncope, whereas 339 (24%) were diagnosed of NST-LOC (P < 0.001). Syncope was diagnosed correctly in 84% of patients. Only 25% of patients with T-LOC were admitted to hospitals.

CONCLUSION
Adherence to clinical guidelines for syncope management was low; many diagnostic tests were performed with low diagnostic yield. Important differences were observed between syncope diagnoses at the ED and by SC decision.


The Chibchas, whose habitat was in the high plains of the eastern Cordillera of the Andes in central Colombia, are usually classified with the Maya and Inca as representatives of the highest civilized peoples in native America. Unlike the Maya and Inca, who left abundant testimony of their greatness in the form of spectacular religious monuments, cities, public works, and an enormous array of material possessions, the reminders of the Chibcha are not only difficult to find, but once found, they are unimpressive. Chibcha greatness is attributed to their achievement of political states, each dominated by a ruler who controlled the destiny of those people within his domain. Using cultures of high political and religious achievement as a basis for comparison, it may be inferred that the Chibcha should have had a respectable history as a requisite for advanced political organization and a complex material culture.


An epidemiological analysis study of Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) suspected cases has been done at two hospitals in Jakarta; namely Ciptomangunkusumo Hospital and Sumber Waras Hospital, from 1986 to 1987. From 3,164 suspected DHF cases there were 1,868 paired serum and all of them were tested with H.I. against D2 antigen from PN Biofarma based on microtechnique method by Qark & Cassals. Among them 1£10 were positive ( 70.1%) according to WHO Criteria. Analysis of DHF cases with positive H.I. test shows that the number of DHF cases started to increase continuously from February 1986, until June 1987 with a second and third peak on January and April 1987. The dominant age group were 5 - 7years old children (30.1%) and 15 - 20years old adults (15.8%). There were no significant difference between males and females, although the frequency among females was higher then males. Factors which influence those patterns : sex, age, seasonal variation were discussed in detail in this paper.


Diversity and density are critical variables in determining the functioning of an ecosystem. Wetlands are among the ecosystems that are rich in biodiversity. However, in many Ramsar wetlands, such information is lacking. Bird species were assessed in Protected Areas (PAs) and Unprotected Areas (UPAs) of the Hadejia-Nguru Ramsar site between October and December, 2015 using point count method. Ninety nine point count stations spaced 400 m apart with radius of 100 m were surveyed. A total of 42,255 individuals of birds belonging to 148 species, 50 families and 23 avian order were observed. Two globally threatened species, the European Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur and Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus were observed. The former was categorized as Vulnerable while the latter as Near Threatened based on IUCN Red List categories version 3. There was higher species diversity in the UPAs than in the PAs (t = -15.34, df = 40073, p <0.001). The two areas were similar in their species composition by 81% indicating that these areas share a number of species. A relatively higher bird density was recorded in the PAs (7 individuals ha ) than in the UPAs (5 individuals ha ).. Both habitats are rich in avifauna and therefore deserve equal -1 -1 conservation attention, , especially the Unprotected wetlands and the globally threatened species. .


Abstract Background/Aim: Chlamydia pneumoniae (C. pneumoniae) is implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Chlamydial elementary and reticulate bodies have been identified in tissues from afflicted AD brain regions by electron and immunoelectron microscopy, whereas similar tests of non-AD brains were negative for the bacterium. Studies in mice have shown that C. pneumoniae can rapidly penetrate the central nervous system by entering glia and causing beta amyloid deposition via the nerves between the nasal cavity and the brain, which serve as invasion pathways. Materials and Methods: We used data from the UK Biobank (UKBB) to assess the relationship of chlamydia and AD. Circulating C. pneumoniae antigen measurements were not available, but UKBB data field 23037 held measurements of PorB antigen for Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis). We used C. trachomatis as a surrogate for C. pneumoniae since serum cross-reactivity to C. trachomatis and C. pneumoniae antigens occurs in patients with documented infection and in healthy children as revealed by microimmunofluorescence and immunoblotting techniques. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data for rs429358 and rs7412 were used to impute ApoE genotypes. Results: PorB antigen levels for C. trachomatis were significantly higher in subjects with AD (p=0.007). PorB antigen levels were not related to ApoE genotype (e3e3, e3e4, e4e4) p=0.783. To control for the effects of age, sex, educational level, and apoE genotype, logistic regression analysis was performed. AD was the dependent variable. Independent variables were sqrt PorB antigen for C. trachomatis, age, sex, educational level, apoE genotype. AD odds ratio (OR) increased 1.156 for each unit increase of sqrt PorB antigen for C. trachomatis and the effect was significant (p=0.004). Conclusion: PorB antigens for C. trachomatis being significantly higher in subjects with AD, corroborates previous studies demonstrating that C. pneumoniae inflammation appears to play a role in AD development. AD may result from the reactivation of embryologic processes and pathways silenced at birth. A trigger for the reactivation may be bacterial or viral infections. Further studies are warranted.


Synthesizing individual wavefield constituents (such as primaries, first-order scattering, and free-surface or internal multiples) is important in the development of seismic data processing algorithms, for instance, for seismic multiple removal and imaging. A range of methods that allow for the computation of such wavefield constituents exist, but they are generally restricted to relatively simple, horizontally layered media. For wave simulations on more complex models, a straightforward and performant alternative are finite-difference methods. They are, however, generally not perceived as being capable of delivering isolated wavefield constituents. Based on recent advances, we found how this can be achieved for (nonhorizontally) piecewise constant layered media. For example, we were able to accurately retrieve the isolated direct arrival of the transmission response (including tunneled waves), primary reflection data (without internal multiples), and all events related to a single (or multiple) interface(s) in a medium. Our methods required detailed knowledge of discretized medium parameters. Alternatively, if a medium is known only implicitly via recordings of reflection data, interface-related events can still be isolated through a combination of subdomain-related wavefields. We found how Marchenko redatuming can be used to derive these, which enables data-driven identification (and removal) of interface-related events from surface data.


In 1990 the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic seceded from Moldavia which was then a part of the USSR. Since that time the legal status of the region has remained unclear and not fully explicit. Today, despite the fact that a quarter of the century has passed since its creation, the Republic remains a de facto state, as it has not been recognised by the international community. Under international law, Transnistria is treated as a Moldavian autonomous region having a special status. From the perspective of the theory of state and constitutional law it undoubtedly possesses all the attributes of statehood. This paper is a consecutive publication of the series of papers constituting a wider research into Transnistria's legal status. It aims at analysing its binding basic law and the assumptions of its constitutional system. It particularly characterizes the shape and makes exegesis of the content of the independent Transnistria's constitution of 1995, which has been revised several times and is still in force. The further parts of the article have been dedicated to (i) the origin of the fi rst Constitution of independent Transnistria of 1991, which was in force for only four years; (ii) the adoption and development of the presently binding Constitution of 1995; (iii) the general and detailed systematics of this act; and (iv) the constitutional solutions implemented in its present text edition. First and foremost the results of this research contribute to the determination of the present assumptions of Transnistria's constitutional system, its catalogue of fundamental principles, human rights and freedoms, the system of the supreme state authorities and the form of government. Moreover, it enables to estimate the eff ectiveness of Transnistria's constitutional mechanisms in their practical functioning. Thus it allows to determine the region's legal status more precisely.


After noting that a generation of large optical telescopes is under construction and commenting briefly on the problems in stellar spectroscopy that these telescopes will address, the review focuses on the need for more complete information on the interactions between H atoms and the atoms whose spectral lines are to be investigated in stellar spectra. The H-atom collisions may determine the atomic lines' widths and may influence the excitation and ionization of the atom.


Anthropometric databases are essential in biological profiling. Stature reconstruction could play an integral role in helping forensic anthropologists in establishing the identity of human remains at crime and/or disaster scenes. This study aimed to derive simple and multiple linear regression equations for reconstruction of stature from upper limb segments in a living adult Nigerian population. The sample included 230 adult medical students at the University of Lagos, Nigeria (100 males and 130 females), aged 18 to 36 years. Direct anthropometric methods were employed to measure all variables. Stature, arm and forearm lengths were measured. Results showed a strong positive correlation between long bones and stature ( p < 0.01). Both simple and multiple regression equations were derived and showed low standard errors of estimate and high coefficients of determination (R2). This study presents a simple and reliable approach to predict stature, which may help forensic scientists in disaster victim identification and in medico-legal jurisprudence.


The object of this paper is the development of a modern web application. In this paper there is reference to all the phases of the procedures of design and coding. In addition, there is a full user manual which describes all the functions of the application. The platform is a web application designed from scratch and developed with open source tools and technologies. The main target during the design and the development of this application was to develop an application that can be used by any educational institution in order to facilitate the educational task for both teachers and parents. It can be a powerful tool in the hands of every teacher as it is a platform fully adapted to the needs of the modern Greek education system. It was designed taken into consideration the parameters of all the Greek educational system, and therefore provides features on the educational paths that exist in Greek schools as well as the Project which is being implemented as an educational procedure in Greek schools.


This Letter presents circular polarimetry that unequivocally identifies EXO 033319-2554.2 as only the third eclipsing AM Her star and brings the total number of AM Her stars now identified to 14. The orbital period is 126.4 minutes, as previously reported, and defines a new short-period edge to the period gap seen in all classes of cataclysmic variable stars. EXO 033319-2554.2 shows 2.5 mag deep eclipses of the predominantly accreting magnetic pole on the white dwarf. Before the eclipse, the pole rotates into the line of sight and shows white-light circular polarization, due to cyclotron radiation, that reaches values as high as 10 percent. There is some evidence that the second pole is emitting cyclotron radiation too. How high time resolution photometry, linear polarimetry, and spectroscopy will be of great value in understanding this system. 17 references.


This paper presents new experimental methods for the study of rail vehicle dynamics through the use of scaled models on tangent track, and the application of these techniques to the measurement of nonlinear wheelset force/displacement relations in steady-state. These relations are important to the analysis of wheelset response to track inputs, curving performance of trucks, and wheelclimb derailment. A one-fifth scale model instrumented wheelset with new wheel profiles is used, with similitude scaling of the contact forces achieved through use of a polycarbonate resin for the contact surfaces. Data are presented for wheelset lateral force and yaw moment for the nonlinear range of wheelset lateral displacements and yaw angles, including flange contact. The measured data validate the analytical model presented in Part 1 of this paper, based on nonlinear wheel/rail contact geometry, creep forces with adhesion limits, and wheelset kinematics. A criterion for wheelclimb derailment is presented and verified experimentally.


Chloroplast biogenesis requires coordination of gene expression between the organellar and nuclear genomes. Sequencing of chloroplast genomes from a large collection of green organisms has revealed the existence of approximately one hundred genes in this organelle present in multiple copies. In the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, many of these genes have been characterized thanks to its dispensable photo-autotrophic growth in acetate-containing medium and the successful development of plastid transformation methods based on its highly efficient chloroplast homologous recombination system. However, there are still a number of genes for which it has never been possible to disrupt all of their copies. These genes are believed to encode essential factors for growth and survival of the cell. The aim of this thesis was to establish an inducible/repressible expression system for chloroplast genes in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and to explore its potential for elucidating the role of essential chloroplast genes.


Developed at the request of the Mexican G20 Presidency for consideration by the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors at the G20 Leaders' Summit in Mexico, and jointly prepared with the Asian Development Bank, this policy paper positioned green transport in the context of cities development. Urban transport determines the shape of a city and its ecological footprint. Many cities in low and middle income countries are at a crossroads. Policy decisions taken now, while car use is still relatively low and cities retain a relatively transit friendly, compact urban form, will affect how people will live in their cities for many decades into the future. A new paradigm of urban transport can be part of the solution to reversing the deteriorating situation in some cities of developing countries, and supporting others to embark on a sustainable, low carbon, green growth path: developing a city for people rather than cars, and including public and mass transport as a major component of the modal structure. Implementing such a new paradigm can be truly transformational. This joint World Bank and Asian Development Bank paper lays out six aspects, which are most difficult to align, yet, are critical to ensure the sustainability of urban transport systems, visionary leadership, integrated strategy for land use and urban transport, coordination among agencies, domestic capacity, adequate cost recovery, and private participation in the operation and construction of urban transport systems. The paper proposes a set of new initiatives for G20 leaders' consideration, including the development of an umbrella toolkit to guide policy makers in charge of urban planning to make transport decisions best suited to their local contexts.


Aerial tracking, which has exhibited its omnipresent dedication and splendid performance, is one of the most active applications in the remote sensing field. Especially, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based remote sensing system, equipped with a visual tracking approach, has been widely used in aviation, navigation, agriculture, transportation, and public security, etc. As is mentioned above, the UAV-based aerial tracking platform has been gradually developed from research to practical application stage, reaching one of the main aerial remote sensing technologies in the future. However, due to real-world challenging situations, the vibration of the UAV's mechanical structure (especially under strong wind conditions), and limited computation resources, accuracy, robustness, and high efficiency are all crucial for the onboard tracking methods. Recently, the discriminative correlation filter (DCF)-based trackers have stood out for their high computational efficiency and appealing robustness on a single CPU, and have flourished in the UAV visual tracking community. In this work, the basic framework of the DCF-based trackers is firstly generalized, based on which, 20 state-of-the-art DCF-based trackers are orderly summarized according to their innovations for soloving various issues. Besides, exhaustive and quantitative experiments have been extended on various prevailing UAV tracking benchmarks, i.e., UAV123, UAV123_10fps, UAV20L, UAVDT, DTB70, and VisDrone2019-SOT, which contain 371,625 frames in total. The experiments show the performance, verify the feasibility, and demonstrate the current challenges of DCF-based trackers onboard UAV tracking. Finally, comprehensive conclusions on open challenges and directions for future research is presented.


This study aims to know more effective inventory management in UMKM Jazid Bastomi Batik. With descriptive qualitatif approach, researcher analyze inventory management done in UMKM Jazid Bastomi Batik. Observation and interview and documentation data results show inventory management of UMKM Jazid Bastomi Batik optimal yet. This is showing a minimum inventory, because limited inventory. For that, reseacher use safety stock technique, EOQ, and ROP to analyze inventory. It can improve effective and efficient inventory management.
Keywords: Inventory, Inventory Management, Safety Stock, EOQ, ROP
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Tourism is growing as a major contributor to the GDP of the country. Various researches have been done with the focus to predict the travel intensions for tourism research. There is a complex decision making process to select the travel destination which are governed by various factors that affect the decision. This research focuses on identifying various variables that govern the decision making of an individual for the travel destination and classify them into factors thereby developing a framework to map the decision making process. For the purpose of research tools like factor analysis, percentage analysis, chi-square test is used. A conceptual framework is designed on the basis of the results. Implications useful for theory and marketing perspective are derived.