Ratiometric fluorescence carbon dots (CDs) that serve as probes have attracted more attention on account of their unique optical properties, low toxicity, anti-interference, and internal reference. However, the facile fabrication of CDs with the aim of detecting multiple targets through mutually independent response channels is always a challenge. Herein, multifunctional label-free N-doped ratiometric fluorescence CDs (N-CDs) are developed from tea leaves extract and o-phenylenediamine by a mild solvothermal method. The prepared N-CDs are tailored with nitrogen- and oxygen-containing functional groups on the surface and contribute to splendid hydrophilia. Two completely independent ratiometric fluorescence channels of N-CDs, respectively, respond to Hg2+ and H2O in a mutually independent manner. Based on the interactions of N-Hg and O-Hg, N-CDs achieve an excellently sensitive and selective detection for Hg2+ in the channel of I387 nm/I351 nm, giving a linear relationship in the range of 0-50 μM. Also, a wide range of Hg2+ concentration (0-100 μM) is linear to A374 nm through UV-vis assay. Otherwise, the linear determination of H2O content (0-30%) is realized in another channel (Igreen/Iblue). The good performance in the independent testing of Hg2+ and H2O, demonstrate that the proposed N-CDs have potential in multifunctional detection.


The architecture for Spallation Neutron Source accelerator physics application programs is presented. These high level applications involve processing and managing information from the diagnostic instruments, the machine control system, models and static databases; they will be used to investigate and control beam behavior. Primary components include an SNS global database and Java-based Application Toolkit, called XAL. A key element in the SNS application programs is time synchronization of data used in these applications, due to the short pulse length (1 ms), pulsed (60 Hz) nature of the device. The data synchronization progress is also presented.


A large telescope's adaptive optics (AO) system requires one or more bright artificial laser guide stars to improve its sky coverage. The recent advent of a high power sodium laser is perfect for such application. However, besides the output power, other parameters of the laser also have a significant impact on the brightness of the generated sodium laser guide star, mostly in non-linear relationships. When tuning and optimizing these parameters it is necessary to tune based on a laser guide star generation performance metric. Although return photon fluxis widely used, variability of the atmosphere and sodium layer makes it difficult to compare results from different sites or even within a short time period for the same site. A new metric, coupling efficiency, is adopted in our field tests. In this paper, we will introduce our method for measuring the coupling efficiency of a 20W class pulse sodium laser for AO application during field tests that were conducted during 2013–2015.


ABSTRACT With the advancement of the cutting age, there is an increase in the forage yield of elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum), but there is also a reduction of the protein levels and digestibility of this forage. This study aimed to identify the ideal cutting age of elephant grass forage (BRS Canará cultivar) to chopped hay production. The experimental design was a randomized block, with five treatments (42, 60, 76, 91 and 105 days of growing) and four replicates. Forage agronomical, morphological and chemical characteristics were evaluated. A linear positive effect of the cutting age was observed on plant height, senescent material and yield of the chopped hay. The leaf percentage and leaf:stem ratio were reduced by the advance in the cutting age. There was also a linear positive effect of the cutting ages on indigestible neutral detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber corrected for ash and protein and neutral detergent insoluble protein, with increases of 17.13 %, 16.63 % and 20.66 %, respectively. The contents of ashes, crude protein, total digestible nutrients and net lactation energy were reduced with the advance in the forage age. From 76 days, the ashes contents reached values below 9.29 % and the crude protein below 7.16 %. In the same cutting age, the chopped hay yield was 12.91 t ha-1. To improve the hay quality and production, the BRS Canará cultivar must be harvest between 60 and 76 days, when the plants are with 1.20-1.50 m of height, leaf:stem ratio of 0.55-0.44, crude protein of 8.29-7.16 % and indigestible neutral detergent fiber of 26.21-29.06 %.


The study analyses the role of regional development in higher education using the approach of the balanced scorecard, which provides a framework for organizations to describe and communicate their strategy. It turns out that the balanced scorecard is not only an approach for implementing the strategy, but it also provides a general framework for evaluating the strategy from the different perspectives. The study presents examples where the new evaluation approach has been used to analyse the national educational policy of regional development, regional strategies of higher education institutions and their cooperation. According to the results of the study, cooperation between higher education institutions is most important from the perspectives of learning and regional development.


This paper presents and evaluates a model of how the abstractness of source and target concepts influences metaphoricity, the property of how metaphoric a linguistic metaphoric expression is. The purpose of this is to investigate the long-standing claim that metaphoric mappings are from less abstract concepts to more abstract concepts. First, abstractness is modeled using Searle's social ontology and this model of abstractness evaluated using a participant-based measure of abstractness. Second, this model of abstractness is used to determine the direction and distance in abstractness of metaphoric mappings. Direction of abstractness in these mappings is whether the source or target concept is the more abstract. Distance is the difference in abstractness between source and target concepts. Both factors influence metaphoricity, as measured using introspection and a participant-based study of metaphoricity. The results give empirical support for a long-standing claim about abstractness in mappings, but also provide important new details about the nature of metaphoric mappings.


This research aims to (1) Analyze stakeholder perceptions of ecological, social, economic, and institutional and policy aspects, (2) formulating the policy strategy of marine tourism in order to developing marine tourism in Betoambari sub-district Bau Bau City. This research was held on November 2018 until January 2019 at Nirwana Beach and Lakeba Beach Betoambari sub-district Bau Bau City. Determination of the research location was determined intentionally (purposive sampling) by considering the potential possessed of Nirwana Beach and Lakeba Beach. Nirwana Beach and Lakeba Beach have physical and non-physical potential to be developed as a marine tourism area. The type and source of research data is a combination of quantitative and qualitative descriptions. The data used in the research are primary data and secondary data. Analysis of determining stakeholder perceptions, that is by conducting direct interviews with related parties. Calculations for weighting perception data values using a Likert scale. From the results of the weighting that obtained, then a SWOT analysis was carried out to form a strategy for tourism policy in order to develop marine tourism in Nirwana Beach and Lakeba Beach Betoambari sub-district Bau Bau City. The results of the research show that stakeholder perceptions for the development of maritime tourism from the social, economic, ecological, infrastructure and legal, institutional and policy dimensions are agree strongly and agree. The strategy of building a good cooperative relation between the regional goverment and the local community towards the development of marine tourism object areas. Investmentstrtaegy between government and private parties. There needs to be a Regional Regulation that regulates the management of marine tourism. Carry out counseling about the importance of environmental sustainability and sustainability of aquatic resources.


STUDY QUESTION
What are the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards fertility and elective oocyte cryopreservation (OC) for age-related fertility decline (ARFD) in women in the UK?

SUMMARY ANSWER
Awareness of OC for ARFD has reportedly improved compared to studies carried out almost a decade ago, but inconsistencies in knowledge remain regarding the rate of miscarriage amongst specific age groups, the financial costs and optimal age to undergo OC for ARFD.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY
The age of first-time motherhood has increased amongst western societies, with many women of reproductiveage underestimating the impact of age on fertility. Further understanding of women's awareness of their fertility, the options available to preserve it and the barriers for seeking treatment earlier are required in order to prevent the risk of involuntary childlessness.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION
A hyperlink to a cross-sectional survey was posted on social media (Instagram) between 25February 2021 and 11 March 2021.

PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS
Women from the general population aged 18-50 years were invited to complete the survey.

MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE
In total, 5482 women fulfilled the inclusion criteria and completed the survey. The mean age of participants was 35.0 years (SD 10.25; range 16-52). Three quarters (74.1%; n = 4055) disagreed or strongly disagreed they felt well informed regarding the options available to preserve their fertility, in case of a health-related problem or ARFD. The majority overestimated the risk of miscarriage in women aged ≥30 years old, with 14.5% correctly answering 20%, but underestimated the risks in women ≥40, as 20.1% correctly answered 40-50%. Three quarters (73.2%; n = 4007) reported an awareness of OC for ARFD and 65.8% (n = 3605) reported that they would consider undergoing the procedure. The number of women who considered OC for ARFD across age groups were as follows: 18-25 (8.3%; n = 300), 26-30 (35.8%; n = 1289), 31-35 (45.9%; n = 1654), 36-40 (9.6%; n = 347), 41-45 (0.3%; n = 13), and 46-50 (0.1%; n = 2). The majority of women (81.3%; n = 4443) underestimated the cost of a single cycle of OC forARFD (<£5000). Furthermore, 10.4% (n = 566) believed a single cycle would be adequate enough to retrieve sufficient oocytes for cryopreservation. Approximately 11.0% (n = 599) believed OC for ARFD may pose significant health risks and affect future fertility. Less than half agreed or strongly agreed that the lack of awareness regarding OC for ARFD has impacted the likelihood of pursuing this method of fertility preservation further (41.4%; n = 2259).

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION
Results from cross-sectional studies are limited as interpretations made are merely associations and not of causal relationships. The online nature of participant recruitment is subject to selection bias, considering women with access to social media are often from higher socioeconomic and education backgrounds, thus limiting generalizability of the findings.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
Further education regarding the financial costs and optimal age to undergo elective OC to increase the chances of successful livebirth are required. Clinicians should encourage earlier fertility counselling to ensure that OC is deemed a preventative measure of ARFD, rather than an ultimate recourse to saving declining fertility.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)
No funding was required for this article. There are no conflicts of interests to declare.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER
N/A.


A new anti-inflammatory peptide X (Ingramon)--a fragment of C-terminal sequence (65-76) of MCP-1, was elaborated. In Boyden chamber assay, Ingramon inhibited migration of human monocytic cells THP-1 and peripheral blood monocytes. In vitro in blood plasma, Ingramon was stable for at least 24 hours. Ingramon was accumulated in sites of inflammation in rats, and impaired monocyte and granulocyte accumulation occurred in different models of inflammation in rodents and primates. Ingramon exerted no effect on the MCP-1-dependent externalisation of p2 integrins CD lib CD18 (Mac-1). We propose that Ingramon might interfere with MCP-1-heparin/heparan sulphate binding on cell surface. Ingramon reception by volunteers showed its safety. The clinical trials of Ingramon in patients with acute coronary syndromes and percutaneous coronary interventions, have been launched.


In this work the mechanical properties of the wear parts with respect to the different heat treatments applied have been investigated. Two different alloys and a total of nine different heat treatment procedures were tested. Alloy 35M13B have been tested with respect to tempering temperature and represents one wear part. The other wear part 30M12CB have been tested with respect to both tempering temperatures and effect of direct hardening. The main goal of this work has been to improve the understanding of how the steel alloys used for the wear parts responds to different tempering temperatures and heat treatments. During this work both alloys were tested using the following test methods; charpy impact testing, tensile testing and Vickers hardness testing. From production, wear part 30M12CB as currently produced and when directly hardened was to be investigated for its mechanical properties, thus alloy 30M12CB was heat treated at different temperatures with the aim to find two heat treatments that would match the wear parts pulled from production. The two chosen temperatures for 30M12CB were 850*C representing the current production and 1100*C representing direct hardening. Then, wear parts 30M12CB and 35M13B was heat treated accordingly and tempered. The current tempering temperature of 220*C was compared with 180*C and no tempering. Charpy test specimens and tensile test specimens for 35M13B and 30M12CB were then tested with three parallels. The results recorded was then compared with respect to mechanical properties for the different tempering temperatures and heat treatments. For all parts the strength increased slightly by lowering tempering temperature from 220*C to 180*C. No tempering did not affect the ductility of 35M13B and improved the strength and hardness for this alloy, in contrast no tempering left 30M12CB-850 very brittle. Directly hardening wear part 30M12CB will result in a slight reduction in quality, however the difference in quality will likely be slightly greater than the results from this work indicates. It is reasonable to say that reducing the temperature of tempering for 35M13B may be preferable as it saves space, reduces production time and cost, while maintaining or increasing the hardness and strength of the material. Further, the slight reduction in ductility should not lead to brittle fractures and thus may not affect the end product negatively.


ABSTRACT The flipped classroom has gained a great deal of attention in educational research and practice in recent years. The purposes of this study are to understand the relationship between students' online self-regulated learning (SRL) and their perceptions of learning in a flipped classrooms (FC), to identify possible mediators in this relationship, and to explain how this relationship predicts students' intentions to participate in an FC. Two questionnaires were used to gather data from 576 undergraduate or graduate students in Taiwan. The structural equation model showed that students' in-class interactions and online SRL are predictors of their perceived quality of usefulness of online learning activities and positive experience of FC, and these, in turn, associate with their intentional behaviours of participating in FC. While students' perceived value of interactions in physical classrooms directly related to their intentions to participate in FC, their online SRL predicts their intentions to participate in flipped learning only when mediated by the perceived quality of the usefulness of the online learning activities and positive experience of FC.


In the field of molding, the use of a large quantity of sand from the beach causes an ecological problem for Algeria, plus its price which keeps increasing in the Algerian market leads to the search for solutions, to replace this type of sand which was nowadays among the first concerns of the country. Thus the proposal to substitute beach sand by the sand of Western ERG of Algeria gave satisfactory results presented on a first place as a simple and effective solution, knowing that this type of sand is in abundance and occupies nearly 6% of the surface of our country. The subject on which this work focuses is part of the problematic associated with the study of valorization of the sand of the ERG in the process of molding of parts and the investigation to the improvement of the sand casting formula of the ERG by incorporating local materials. However, the development of ERG sand has an economic and ecological impact for Algeria. Among other things, the addition of Bentonite in the molding formulation is an economic problem because this type of material is very rare, very expensive and is currently imported from abroad. Indeed, we want to improve the sand molding formula of the ERG by adding materials that replace the Bentonite to greatly reduce manufacturing costs in molding. The investigation in this area is relevant to our country.


Two cases are described of female goats, Saanen crossbreds, two months old, with clinical signs of hind limb paresis, incoordination, difficulty breathing and cachexia, which were subjected to euthanasia due to unfavorable prognosis. At necropsy it was possible to observe that there was congestion of the central nervous system (CNS) and pulmonary consolidation in both goats. Microscopic changes were characterized by multifocal lymphoplasmacytic leucoencephalomielitis, with vacuolization of neuropile and axonal spheroids, leptomeningitis, interstitial nonsupurative pneumonia in goat A and bacterial bronchopneumonia in goat B. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was positive for the caprine arthritis - encephalitis virus in thalamus fragments. The agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) test was performed in sera sample of twenty animals and sixteen resulted positive. Diagnosis of the nervous form of caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus (CAEV) infection was based on clinical and pathological status, IHC and AGID. This clinical presentation of CAE could be uncommon in Brazil, but must be considered in case of neurologic diseases in small ruminants.


Dust samples were collected for the heavy metals pollution survey from Xiqing District in Tianjin, including forty-three sites of Outer-ring West Road, Jinlai Road, Gong No.1Road and Xiuchuan Road. After collecting and pre-treatment about road surface dust, particle size, pH and heavy metal content were also measured and analyzed. Results show that the distribution of road dust particles in Xiqing District is irregular, most of them are between 106 ~ 250 and the average diameter of low-grade road dust particles is larger than that of high-grade road dust particles. The collected road dust samples imply that it is alkaline. Heavy metal concentrations witness a downward trend with increasing dust particle size. The average content of heavy metals in road dust is listed in the sequence of Gong No.1Road, Outer-ring West Road, Jinlai Road, and Xiuchuan Road, and the order of heavy metals is: Zinc (Zn); Chromium (Cr); Copper (Cu); Lead (Pb); and Cadmium (Cd) which are higher than those in Tianjin Soil background values, especially Cadmium (Cd) and Lead (Pb) which are 10 times more. Those Heavy metals including Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb), Copper (Cu), Chromium (Cr), and Zinc (Zn) are mainly associated with anthropogenic activities, such as transportation and industrial emissions. The sources of heavy metal Cadmium (Cd) are complex and may result from the wear and tear of automobile tires, brakes and so on. The potential ecological risk index method is implemented to evaluate ecological risk of heavy metals in road dust which shows that the area for study is at slight ecological risk.


Caregivers of HIV-positive children were interviewed in the Mbarara and Isingiro districts of Uganda to identify current trends in practices related to HIV testing and the disclosure of HIV status to the child. A total of 28 caregivers of at least one HIV-positive child participated in semi-structured interviews exploring when and why they tested the child for HIV, when the child was informed of their positive status, and what the caregiver did to prepare themselves and the child for status disclosure. For a majority (96%) of respondents, the decision to test the child for HIV was due to existing illness in either the child or a relative. Other common themes identified included the existence of stigma in the caregivers' communities and doubt that the children truly understood what was being explained to them when their status was disclosed. Most (65%) children were informed of their HIV status between the ages of 5 and 9, with the mean age of disclosure occurring at the age of 7. General provision of HIV information typically began at the same age as disclosure, and as many as two thirds (64%) of the caregivers sought advice from an HIV counsellor prior to disclosure. How a caregiver chose to prepare themselves and the child did not affect the caregiver's perception of whether the disclosure experience was beneficial or not. These findings suggest that the HIV disclosure experience in Mbarara and Isingiro districts differs from current guidelines, especially with respect to age of disclosure, how caregivers prepare themselves and the child, and approaching disclosure as an ongoing process. The doubts expressed by caregivers regarding the child's level of HIV understanding following the disclosure experience suggest the children may be insufficiently prepared at the time of the initial disclosure event. The findings also suggest that examining the content of pre-disclosure counselling and HIV education, and how health care professionals are trained to facilitate the disclosure process as important avenues for further research.


In old times, before the firearms were produced, the most common weapon used in wars is undoubtedly the sword. It makes it important that it is robust, is low possibility of being surprised its goal and the most effective tool used in battles against chest. Apart from that, the use of it sworn in the ceremonies show his holiness. The concept of sword contributed to the enrichment of poetry by adding various meanings to the poems of Classical Turkish literature in the sense of literal or metaphorical meaning. Like Ahmadi, Sheikh Galip and Nefi, Baki also had subject sword to his poems in the sense of literally or metaphorically. Baki, the well-known poet of the 16th century, was also referred to as queen of poets and, with his unique style, with succeeded in using the prosody prosody had signed for the century.In his poems, the poet, who gave joy and enthusiasm rather than suffering and suffering, frequently referred to the sermons and entertainment assemblies. Baki usually had used literally the concept of sword in his parasites, gave more space to metaphor in his ghazals and musamies. Metaphorically with lover's beauty elements and so on has established a relationship. In this study, about Baki Divan that prepared by Sabahattin Küçük has been used. Also in the content of the study; the relationship in between the beauty elements of the beloved and sword, the shape of the sword, its relation to the religious-historicalmythical heroes, its construction, its decoration, its raw material, its functions,its used with abstract concepts and with the words used together will be give place to related couplet. In the study, all the couplets related to the sword in the divan were given the study.


Purpose of the Study
This article presents a narrative-based case study about chronic illness and genetic uncertainty and their relationship to generativity throughout the life course. Our focus is a woman who experienced vision loss early in life and interpreted its impact on her generativity through present-day biographical rescripting.

Design and Methods
The case we present was chosen from the study "Generativity and Lifestyles of Older Women," which explored life history, social relations, and forms of generativity in an ethnographic interview format with 200 older women.

Results
In constructing a present-day identity, the informant used shifting and conflicted self-constructions to produce a self-image as generative. Three critical themes emerged in understanding her life course: (a) retrospective interpretations of autonomy; (b) renegotiating control in the present, and (c) generativity across the life course.

Implications
This article contributes an understanding of childlessness as observed through the lenses of chronic illness, autonomy, and generativity. We conclude that a history of chronic illness, as it is co-occurring with internal debates about the meaning of key life events, may influence older adults' present-day identity. Implications for later life care needs are discussed.


A method for acquisition of direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signals based on a minimum mean-square error (MMSE) receiver is presented. An adaptive decision feedback equalizer (DFE), operating at the chip rate, uses the known spreading code as training data. A fixed number of unmodulated code periods is transmitted for acquisition purposes. An arbitrarily chosen initial code timing is hypothesized, and this timing is used to adapt the DFE and despread the chip estimates at its output. When the despreader output exceeds a threshold, lock is declared, and the receiver switches from acquisition to tracking mode. If the threshold is not exceeded during a pre-specified amount of time, a different initial timing is hypothesized, and the receiver is re-initialized. The locally generated code can be advanced by a number of chips that is proportional to the length of the feedforward equalizer filter. The MMSE receiver also automatically acquires and tracks the Doppler shift that results from source-receiver motion using a phase-locked loop and integrated sample-rate interpolation. Code acquisition is demonstrated using experimental data with length 63 Kasami sequences transmitted at a chip rate of 10 kHz for a resulting data rate of 150 bps. Up to 8 simultaneous users are reliably acquired and demodulated using the recursive least-squares (RLS) update algorithm.


Occupancy detection is one of the many applications of Building Automation Systems (BAS) or Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control systems, especially, with the rising demand of Internet of Things (IoT) services. This article describes the fusion of data collected from sensors by exploiting their potential to sense occupancy in a room. For this purpose, a sensor test bed is deployed that includes four sensors measuring temperature, relative humidity, distance from the first obstacle, and light along with a Arduino micro-controller to validate our model. In addition, this article proposes three algorithms for efficient fusion of the sensor data that is inspired by the Grey theory. An improved Grey Relational Model (iGRM) is proposed, which acts as the base classifier for the other two algorithms, namely, Grey Relational Model with Bagging (iGRM-BG) and Grey Relational Model with Boosting (iGRM-BT). Furthermore, all three algorithms use a sliding window concept, where only the samples inside the window participate in model training. Also, we have considered varying number of window size for optimal comparison. The algorithms were tested against the experimental data collected through a test bed as well as on a publicly available large dataset, where both the ensemble models, iGRM-BG and iGRM-BT, are seen to enhance the performance of iGRM. The results reveal exceptionally high performances with accuracies above 95% (iGRM) and up to 100% (iGRM-BT) for the experimental dataset and above 98.24% (iGRM) and up to 99.49% (iGRM-BG) using the publicly available dataset. Among the three proposed models, iGRM-BG was observed to outperform both iGRM and iGRM-BT owing to its advantage of being an ensemble model and its robustness against over-fitting.


The use of structural glass has increased lately, due to the higher demands for transparency in modern architecture. Therefore, the role of glass changes from a mere transparent function (used in windows only) to a function in which the glass is contributing to the bearing structure as well. Because of the fragile nature of glass, it is important to understand its behaviour. Due to the manufacturing process, the strength of glass is decreased severely by small cracks that are present on the surface. Also, glass cannot redistribute stress peaks very well. Stress peaks tend to occur near the connection between two (glass) components, making this a critical part in glass design. A common way to joint glass elements is by a bolted connection. However, this type of connection does not seem suitable for glass design. Due to the drilling process extra cracks will occur, causing a reduced material resistance, and at the edge of the holes large stress intensifications arise. Adhesive connections are more in line with the above stated problems of glass design. No drilling is needed, so no extra cracks will occur. Also, forces are transferred over the entire surface of the connection, leading to smaller stress peaks in the glass. However, adhesive connections know risks of their own. Problems are (1) the sensitivity of some adhesives to aging affects like humidity, (2) the strongly non-linear behaviour of the adhesive which causes stress peaks in the connection, and (3) the complex manufacturing process of the joint, because some adhesives will liquefy and squeeze out during the lamination process. In this thesis a concept for an adhesive connection is proposed that addresses these issues. The concept proposes the use of two adhesives in order to reach the following effect. The first adhesive is a rigid ionomer adhesive (SG) that is very sensitive for humidity and the second adhesive is a flexible silicone adhesive (TSSA) which is not sensitive to aging effects. The first adhesive is used in the centre of the connection and the second adhesive forms an external ring to protect the SG against moisture exposure. Also, the non-linear behaviour of the rigid adhesive is leading to stress peaks at the edge of the connection. By placing a less rigid adhesive at the edge, the overall stress distribution is more evenly divided. The manufacturing process is enhanced because the TSSA remains solid during the lamination process, so it can be used as a mould for the SG that will liquefy. The concept is called a hybrid adhesive connection. The concept is tested for a circular point connection exposed to tensile loading. This is done by means of an experimental and numerical analysis. The experimental analysis focusses on the deterioration of the hybrid circular connection after exposure to either immersion or 100% relative humidity. The numerical analysis concentrates on the stress distribution of the proposed connection. The following conclusions can be drawn from this investigation. In the manufacturing process of the experimental analysis, also the TSSA is squeezed out due to its softness. Therefore, extra measures should be taken to prevent this, which means that the manufacturing process of hybrid connections is not improved in comparison to SG connections. Deterioration of the connection due to humidity is still visible for a hybrid connection containing a ring of TSSA with a width of 5mm. This effect is less visible when a width of 10mm TSSA is used. Unfortunately, due to lamination problems, the samples suffered from poor SG bonding, which makes it difficult to give substantial conclusions on the matter. The numerical analysis gave more clear results. The E-modulus of TSSA is very low in comparison to that of SG. Therefore, the contribution of the TSSA to the bearing capacity of the connection is negligible, so the stress distribution is not enhanced. On the other hand, due to the external ring of TSSA, the stress peaks in the connection are moved inwards, from the perimeter of the connection to the perimeter of the SG centre. This is a positive effect with regard to humidity exposure. The strength of the hybrid circular point connection in comparison to the TSSA connections, is only slightly increased, but the stiffness of the hybrid connection surely is enhanced. Treats of the hybrid connection might be the risk of air bubbles in between the SG and TSSA and the absence of the whitening effect in the TSSA.


Abstract. Tsunamigenic fast movements of the seabed generate pressure waves in weakly compressible seawater, namely hydro-acoustic waves, which travel at the sound celerity in water (about 1500 m s−1). These waves travel much faster than the counterpart long free-surface gravity waves and contain significant information on the source. Measurement of hydro-acoustic waves can therefore anticipate the tsunami arrival and significantly improve the capability of tsunami early warning systems. In this paper a novel numerical model for reproduction of hydro-acoustic waves is applied to analyze the generation and propagation in real bathymetry of these pressure perturbations for two historical catastrophic earthquake scenarios in Mediterranean Sea. The model is based on the solution of a depth-integrated equation, and therefore results are computationally efficient in reconstructing the hydro-acoustic waves propagation scenarios.


Patients with lymphoma are predisposed to infection because of the immunocompromised state related to the disease itself and as a consequence of chemo-/radiotherapy. Here, we report a case of Herpes-simplex virus encephalitis (HSE) in an immunosuppressed patient with splenic marginal zone lymphoma (SMZL), a rare indolent variant of non-Hodgkin´s lymphoma (NHL). The course was complicated febrile neutropenia and HSV-1-related cerebral vasculitis causing progressive ischemic stroke. This case illustrates the expanding spectrum of atypical clinical and radiological manifestations of HSE in patients treated with myelotoxic drugs. Moreover, we summarize the few central nervous system manifestations of SMZL reported in the literature and discuss distinct causes of neurological deterioration in patients with NHL.


Alpha-synuclein belongs to the class of intrinsically disordered proteins lacking a well-folded structure under physiological conditions. The conversion of alpha-synuclein from a soluble monomer to an insoluble fibril may underlie the neurodegeneration associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). Although the exact mechanism of alpha-synuclein toxicity is still unknown, it has been proposed that alpha-synuclein disturbs membrane structure, leading to increased membrane permeability and eventual cell death. This review highlights the significant role played by fluorescence techniques in unraveling the nature of interactions between alpha-synuclein and membranes and its implications in PD.


In this paper we define a Haar-like wavelets basis that form a basis for L2(T,S,μ), μ being the Lebesgue measure and S the σ -algebra of all tetrahedra generated from a subdivision method of the T tetrahedron. As 3D objects are, in general, modeled by tetrahedral grids, this basis allows the multiresolution representation of scalar functions defined on polyhedral volumes, like colour, brightness, density and other properties of an 3D object.


This article defends Jacques Lacan and Judith Butler against the long-standing but recently reiterated charge that they affirm a linguistic idealism or foundationalism. First outlining the parameters of Lacan's thinking on this topic through his comments on the materiality inherent in the imaginary, symbolic, real schema to show that he offers an account built around the tension between the real and symbolic, I then move to Butler to argue that she more coherently identifies the parameters of the problem before offering an explanation based on paradox. With this, both offer (1) a forceful rebuttal of linguistic idealism, (2) a far more complex analysis of the materialism–signification relation than their new materialist critics tend to appreciate, and (3) innovative but often-ignored "new" materialisms of their own.


A systematic review identifies and collates various clinical studies and compares data elements and results in order to provide an evidence based answer for a particular clinical question. The process is manual and involves lot of time. A tool to automate this process is lacking. The aim of this work is to develop a framework using natural language processing and machine learning to build information extraction algorithms to identify data elements in a new primary publication, without having to go through the expensive task of manual annotation to build gold standards for each data element type. The system is developed in two stages. Initially, it uses information contained in existing systematic reviews to identify the sentences from the PDF files of the included references that contain specific data elements of interest using a modified Jaccard similarity measure. These sentences have been treated as labeled data.A Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier is trained on this labeled data to extract data elements of interests from a new article. We conducted experiments on Cochrane Database systematic reviews related to congestive heart failure using inclusion criteria as an example data element. The empirical results show that the proposed system automatically identifies sentences containing the data element of interest with a high recall (93.75%) and reasonable precision (27.05% - which means the reviewers have to read only 3.7 sentences on average). The empirical results suggest that the tool is retrieving valuable information from the reference articles, even when it is time-consuming to identify them manually. Thus we hope that the tool will be useful for automatic data extraction from biomedical research publications. The future scope of this work is to generalize this information framework for all types of systematic reviews.


This refers to the manuscript by Falak S, Aftab L, Saeed M, Islam A. entitled Prevalence of Vitamin-D deficiency is related to severity of liver damage in Hepatitis-C patients. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36 (3):445-450 I would like to point out some short comings of the aforementioned study. The authors have not taken into account the geographical location of the city under study and the physiological variants such as skin color, sun exposure, clothing style, sun screen use and the nutritional status of the patient, all of which can influence the vitamin D measurement. The seasonality of the time of measurement of vitamin D, which has been found as an important pre analytical factor to achieve the diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency1-3 has also not been mentioned.1 Similarly, the impact of renal function on vitamin D absorption was not taken into account and thus no measurement of Glomerular filtration rate estimation (eGFR) was made. 1 The authors have not cared to mention their criterion for labeling the patient cirrhotic as per any scoring system, degree of fibrosis or through liver biopsy or any lab values, neither have they mentioned the phase of treatment of the patient. While measuring vitamin D values, It seems logical to assess the levels of extra hepatic albumin for it is believed to be an independent risk factor for vitamin D inadequacy and deficiency.1 One unit increase in albumin has been predicted to cause a proportional increase of 25 nmol/l in the overall serum 25(OH)D concentration, therefore, vitamin D-binding protein (DBP) and albumin are important confounders of the total circulatory 25(OH)D. About 90% of which is bound with DBP, 9.9% is loosely bound with albumin, and only about 0.1% stays in free-circulating fraction.1 Genotype of the HCV and the genetic influence on vitamin D metabolism cannot be overlooked as an integral factor which could affect the deficiency and also severity of fibrosis and response to treatment2, which the authors have also failed to discuss.


Abstract Bacillus anthracis is a pathogenic, Gram-positive bacterium which chiefly affects the livestock of animals and humans through acute disease anthrax. All around the globe this bio-threat organism damages millions of lives in every year and also most of the drugs were not responding properly in inhibition against this diseased pathogen. In recent development, phage therapy is considered as alternative solution to treat this serious infectious disease. In this study, we elucidated the binding of γ phage lysin plyG enzymes toward the SrtA along with its activator peptide LPXTG. Through protein–protein docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies, we showed the distinguished structure complementarity of SrtA and plyG complex. Especially, MD simulation relates strong and stable interaction occurs between the protein complex structures. These results suggest that additional experimental studies on our approach will lead to availability of better inhibitor against the SrtA.


Nurses can take a leadership role in the process of helping rural Americans to recognize and implement their vision of a healthy community. This necessitates an understanding of rural communities' perceptions of health and health care and allows nurses to more appropriately provide primary health care. As defined by the World Health Organization, primary health care is comprised of concepts of essentiality, community participation, intersectorial collaboration, access, and empowerment (Barnes et al., 1995). A focused ethnography involving 150 residents was conducted in a midwestern rural community and included 56 personal and 8 focus group interviews. A qualitative analysis of responses to the question, "What is your vision of a healthy community?" was conducted using Leininger's (1985) categories of economics, social-kinship, cultural, political-legal, religion, technology, and education. An eighth category of environmental concern emerged from the data. Responses were further assimilated into descriptive statements reflecting the community's vision of a healthy community, including issues of accessible and technologically adequate healthcare, job availability, strong community support by schools and churches, a caring community membership, and an attractive, pollution-free environment. This analysis demonstrates the need for application of primary health care at the level of community in designing services to achieve healthy rural communities.


In this thesis I examine an ongoing conflict over control of a Christian missionary-founded college in Tamil Nadu, India. Both sides in this debate assert Christian identities and claim rights under the Indian secular state, though in different ways and towards different ends. Church officials seeking to control the school argue that their minority status protects them from government interference, while a dedicated group of striking faculty argues for government oversight to protect the school and its property from the church. I rely on newspaper articles, blog posts, and the history of the college to discuss the ways in which the boundaries of the school have become an important test site for questions of the rights of minorities and the role of the secular Indian state. I argue that the boundaries between religious and secular authority are what is at stake for both sides in this particular disagreement, not just the problem of possibly corrupt religious officials. The ways in which conflicting, yet still in some sense shared, values of secularism and Christianity are articulated by both sides through legal cases, demonstrations, or violence directs us to think of secularism' as a system of mediating and resolving these disagreements, rather than a state where these sorts of disputes should not happen


Conflicting results have been reported in the literature concerning the effects of narrow row spacings on soybean [Glycine max (L). Merr.] production in the southern USA. The objective of this study was to revisit the issue by evaluating some economic implications of alternative row spacing arrangements on soybean performance under both irrigated and nonirrigated conditions. Data from 3-yr continuous soybean experiments conducted at the Northeast Research and Extension Center, Keiser, AR, between 1990 and 1992 were used for this purpose. Enterprise budgeting was employed to determine the nature of costs and returns associated with alternative production systems. Simple variability and break-even analyses were used to provide preliminary insights into the probable sensitivities of alternative practices to fluctuations in production and economic environments. The results indicated that narrow row systems (usually between 10 and 20 in.) could enhance yields and net returns either under nonirrigated or irrigated conditions. A yield increase of between 15 and 30% was obtained under nonirrigated conditions, while an improvement in yields ranging from 10 to 17% was obtained under irrigation. Furthermore, results from break-even analysis supported the use of narrow row systems for enhancing net returns relative to wide row arrangements under a production environment that is characterized by fluctuations in yields and output prices.


Mesoporous LaFeO3 having extremely high surface area was prepared by means of one-step infiltration hard-template (HT) nanocasting method using SBA-15 as a template, which could be partially leached out by NaOH solution. Although this lanthanum ferrite is not an exact replica of the corresponding HT, its specific surface area could reach 158 m2 g−1, which is much higher than that of the sample prepared by a traditional sol–gel method (19 m2 g−1). Subsequently, LaFeO3/SBA-15 hybrid samples containing the different amounts of Si residue were obtained by carefully controlling the leaching time under 2 M NaOH. These as-prepared samples were characterized by XRD, TEM, XPS, XRF, H2-TPR, N2 physisorption techniques, NH3-TPD, CH3Cl-TPD, as well as in situ NH3 DRIFTS, which were further evaluated for the catalytic combustion of methyl chloride (CH3Cl). Thereafter, the effect of silica residues of HT on the texture, morphology, acidity/basicity, and the catalytic activities of the prepared nanocasted samples was systematically studied. The more silica HT was left in samples, the lower surface area associated with the less adsorbed oxygen and the worse catalytic activity was achieved. The acidity of the prepared LaFeO3 samples decreased along with reduction in the residual Si content; however, the opposite occurred for the related basicity which was found to play an important role on CH3Cl catalytic oxidation. The total collapse of mesoporous structure and the generation of some new crystal phases were observed simultaneously with an obvious drop in its BET surface area (down to 69 m2 g−1), as the sample was treated by a highly concentrated NaOH (10 M) in order to entirely remove HT silica.


AIMS
On the basis of the evidence from autopsy studies, it is accepted that compensatory enlargement (remodelling) of coronary arteries during progression of atherosclerosis diminishes once atheroma burden (cross-sectional area stenosis) reaches approximately 40%. Our aim was to evaluate whether atheroma burden is a limiting factor for coronary arterial remodelling using in vivo serial intravascular ultrasound (IVUS).

METHODS AND RESULTS
From the cohort of the Reversal of Atherosclerosis with Aggressive Lipid Lowering (REVERSAL) trial, we identified 210 focal coronary lesions at baseline IVUS. Of these, 128 lesions that had an increase in atheroma area at the 18-month follow-up IVUS were included in the analysis. Lesions were matched at baseline and follow-up. The increase in external elastic membrane (EEM) area for each mm(2) increase in atheroma area was not significantly different in lesions with <40 and >or=40% atheroma burden at baseline (1.62 vs. 1.28 mm(2), P=0.30). There were no correlations between atheroma burden at baseline and change in EEM (r=0.02, P=0.86) or change in lumen (r=0.04, P=0.64) areas.

CONCLUSION
Assessment of coronary arterial remodelling by serial IVUS revealed that compensatory remodelling is not limited by atheroma burden. Atheroma burden is not a determinant of arterial enlargement during the progression of atherosclerosis.


Two isolates of Trichoderma, which reduce the incidence of witches'broom disease caused in cocoa by Crinipellis perniciosa, were evaluated for their potential to produce hydrolases in liquid medium. Very low or no hydrolytic activity was produced in the absence of any substrate. The activities of chitinase, N-acetylglucosaminidase, b-1,3-glucanase, total cellulase, endoglucanase, aryl- b-glucosidase, b-glucosidase, protease and amylase increased dramatically within 72-120 h of growth in the presence of specific substrates. Except for N-acetylglucosaminidase and b-glucosidase Trichoderma harzianum isolate 1051 produced the largest amounts of hydrolases. The possible involvement of these enzymes in the antagonistic interaction between Trichoderma and C. perniciosa is discussed.


Video conferencing systems have long facilitated work-related conversations among remote teams. However, social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic has forced colleagues to use video conferencing platforms to additionally fulfil social needs. Social talk, or informal talk, is an important workplace practice that is used to build and maintain bonds in everyday interactions among colleagues. Currently, there is a limited understanding of how video conferencing facilitates multiparty social interactions among colleagues. In our paper, we examine social talk practices during the COVID-19 pandemic among remote colleagues through semi-structured interviews. We uncovered three key themes in our interviews, discussing 1) the changing purposes and opportunities afforded by using video conferencing for social talk with colleagues, 2) how the nature of existing relationships and status of colleagues influences social conversations and 3) the challenges and changing conversational norms around politeness and etiquette when using video conferencing to hold social conversations. We discuss these results in relation to the impact that video conferencing tools have on remote social talk between colleagues and outline design and best practice considerations for multiparty videoconferencing social talk in the workplace.


Bondi's Newtonian Poynting Vector is extended to other 'Bondi-type' conserved quantities, which are also derived by variational methods. By means of the technique of Seliger & Whitham it is shown that they are the expressions which arise most naturally in contexts concerned with the equations of motion. The pseudo-tensor derived from the Lagrangian R√(— g) is the corresponding expression in General Relativity; direct calculation verifies that it tends to Bondi's vector in the Newtonian limit.


MANY CURRENT neurological texts continue to recommend the inclusion of the serial sevens test (counting backward from 100 in sevens) in neurologic examinations of the mental function of patients with suspected or confirmed brain lesions. Hayman 1 (1942) administered this test to 580 adult psychiatric patients and concluded that it was a quick and reasonably accurate test for assessing intellectual efficiency or deterioration in patients with psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Hayman also compared patterns of errors of the adult psychiatric patients with errors of 433 normal male and female school children between the ages of 8 and 15 years, and he described four identical patterns of errors in the two populations. However, the origins, rationale, and validity of this now conventional neurological test have rarely been reviewed. In 1966, Luria 2,3 described serial sevens as an important neurologic diagnostic aid in many cases because This test makes particularly high


This paper presents the technology and laboratory testing of an embedded system that enables inter-vehicular communication for real-time route guidance (RG). Specifically, it presents a developed prototype for testbed deployment of the vehicle-to-vehicle-based RG algorithm by Hawas and El-Sayed. For efficient communication and to prevent data overflow, the RG algorithm only allows message exchange among vehicles within the so-called geo-fence regions, which are in the vicinity of the urban network intersections. The utilization of exchanged data among vehicles for real-time navigation and best route finding follows a specific protocol and screening conditions to minimize data overflow and communication requirements. This paper reviews the detailed procedure and the mathematical formulations of the RG algorithm. Detailed functional analysis was performed on the system, and technical requirements were subsequently identified. Based on these requirements, the on-board units were designed, and the functionality was validated with different test cases. To further investigate the performance of the RG algorithm in the real world, different laboratory scenarios were formed to emulate various field conditions. The description of each scenario and the results are discussed in detail.


Abstract In the worldwide, the consumption of traditional coffees has been widely increased due to their distinctive aroma. Turpentine coffee (TC), known as "menengic coffee" is one of the most consumed coffees in the Turkey. The aim of this study was to produce a new and functional yoghurt using different concentrations of TC (0.5, 1 and 2%) and evaluated the effect of TC addition on the physicochemical and microbiological properties, colour values, organic acid profiles and sensory parameters of yoghurts during 21 days of storage at ±4 °C. The ash, protein, fat, viscosity, syneresis, titratable acidity and pH values, a* and b* colour properties, orotic, citric, lactic, acetic, butyric and propionic acid levels of yoghurts showed an increase with the increment of TC amount, while total solids, Lactobacillus delbrueckii spp. bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus and yeast-mould counts, L* colour value, pyruvic acid amount and all observed sensory properties of yoghurts decreased. Total solids, ash, protein and syneresis values, L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus counts, L*, a* and b* colour parameters, appearance scores of yoghurts have shown almost similar changing during storage. Generally, all observed parameters showed statistically significant differences (P < 0.01; P < 0.05) with the addition of TC except for syneresis value, orotic, pyruvic, butyric and malic acid concentrations.


. The state of the art engineering dynamic inflow models of Pitt-Peters, Øye and ECN have been used to correct Blade Element Momentum theory for unsteady load prediction of a wind turbine for two decades. However, their accuracy is unknown. This paper is to benchmark the performance of these engineering models by experimental and numerical methods. The experimental load and flow measurements of an unsteady actuator disc were performed in the Open Jet Facility at Delft University of Technology. The unsteady load was generated by a ramp-type variation of porosity of the disc. A Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model, a Free Wake Vortex Ring (FWVR) model and a Vortex Tube Model (VTM) simulate the same transient load changes. The velocity field obtained from the experimental and numerical methods are compared with the engineering dynamic inflow models. Velocity comparison aft the disc between the experimental and numerical methods shows the numerical models of RANS and FWVR model are capable to predict the velocity transient behaviour during transient disc loading. Velocity comparison at the disc between the engineering models and the numerical methods further shows that the engineering models predict much faster velocity decay, which implies the need for more advanced or better tuned dynamic inflow models.


Toluene embryopathy is characterised by microcephaly, central nervous system dysfunction, attentional deficits and hyperactivity, developmental delay with greater language deficits, minor craniofacial and limb anomalies, and variable growth deficiency. Previously, three affected children, born to women who inhaled toluene regularly throughout pregnancy, have been reported. Two more cases are described emphasising the importance of toluene as a potential human teratogen.


PCR amplification of highly polymorphic variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) sequences could be particularly useful in documentation of engraftment and characterization of chimerism following allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). We have monitored a 31-year old male patient treated with allogeneic BMT for chronic myeloid leukaemia. The recipient's DNA samples were obtained before the transplant and on day 28, 100 and 150 after BMT. The donor's DNA (patient's sister) was also obtained as a reference. ACT B2 locus on chromosome 6 was chosen for the analysis. In addition a deletion polymorphism locus within the pseudoautosomal region of chromosome X and Y (amelogenin gene) was also analysed. On day 28 after BMT both donor and recipient specific alleles were detected in the recipient's sample. However, on day 100 and 150 the recipient specific alleles were no longer detectable. The aforementioned pattern was observed for both markers analysed. The disappearance of recipient specific alleles correlated with clinical symptoms of chronic graft-versus host disease.


Hyperspectral (HS) images contain detailed spectral information that has proven crucial in applications like remote sensing, surveillance, and astronomy. However, because of hardware limitations of HS cameras, the captured images have low spatial resolution. To improve them, the low-resolution hyperspectral images are fused with conventional high-resolution RGB images via a technique known as fusion based HS image super-resolution. Currently, the best performance in this task is achieved by deep learning (DL) methods. Such methods, however, cannot guarantee that the input measurements are satisfied in the recovered image, since the learned parameters by the network are applied to every test image. Conversely, model-based algorithms can typically guarantee such measurement consistency. Inspired by these observations, we propose a framework that integrates learning and model based methods. Experimental results show that our method produces images of superior spatial and spectral resolution compared to the current leading methods, whether model-or DL-based.


A simple multiscale model was developed and used to predict gas diffusivities through expanded polystyrene foam at near standard temperature and pressure conditions. The technique involves measuring gas diffusivities at various length scales then combining them using an electrical analogy for parallel resistances to construct an effective property. A commonly used experimental technique, the continuous flow method, was used to obtain diffusivity data for argon through polystyrene films and foams. Although a simple Fickian mathematical model was able to predict diffusivities through films, a simple 'coarse' multiscale model that accounts for the morphological features was developed for the foam.


The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a multiple treatment approach to the group treatment of hypnotic and non-hypnotic taking insomniacs. Twenty subjects sequentially assigned into four groups attended weekly group therapy over a period of 11–13 weeks. Pre- and post-treatment comparisons indicated an overall improvement of the total sample on measures of general health, benzodiazepine related symptom reduction, reduction from hypnotic sedative medication as well as on measures of the quality and quantity of sleep. Overall there was a marked similarity between hypnotic and non-hypnotic users on the measures both before and after treatment. Psychological approaches are suggested as an effective alternative to the prescription of sedative-hypnotics to both recent and chronic insomnia sufferers. The implications of the findings are discussed.


The emergence of 'new media' and social media is widely discussed in contemporary society. However, media and public communication are mostly analyzed within particular theoretical frameworks and within specific disciplinary fields. Such approaches have created polarized views on media and communication, and fail to create an understanding of the interdependencies between these fields. This book expertly synthesizes competing theories and disciplinary viewpoints, integrates scholarly and cutting edge research, and examines international data from fast-growing markets including China, to provide a comprehensive, holistic view of the twenty-first century [Registered]evolution in media and public communication. The book identifies how the changes are located in practices rather than technologies and that these practices are emergent in highly significant ways. Engaging and accessible, the book is essential reading for media scholars and communication professionals, and a valuable text for courses in media studies, journalism, advertising, public relations, and organisational and political communication.


This paper presents a system for proving the existence of malware on mobile phones that are exhibits in a criminal investigation. The system masquerades as legitimate GSM/GPRS network and thus is able to intercept and process all traffic sent from and received by the mobile. Eavesdropping the complete traffic is important, as mobile malware applications use IP as well as SMSs for communication. Some malware apps even check the type of IP connectivity and require both, GPRS and GSM to be present to work correctly. The proposed system intercepts the traffic in a simulated GSM/GPRS environment and additionally provides a connection to the real or a simulated Internet. After the traffic has been recorded it is post-processed using various filter options and presented in the form of an HTML report for further analysis.


Searching and reusing existing code from a large-scale codebase, e.g, GitHub, can help developers complete a programming task efficiently. Recently, Gu et al. proposed a deep learning-based model (i.e., DeepCS), which significantly outperformed prior models. The DeepCS embedded codebase and natural language queries into vectors by two LSTM (long and short-term memory) models separately, and returned developers the code with higher similarity to a code search query. However, such embedding method learned two isolated representations for code and query but ignored their internal semantic correlations. As a result, the learned isolated representations of code and query may limit the effectiveness of code search. To address the aforementioned issue, we propose a co-attentive representation learning model, i.e., Co-Attentive Representation Learning Code Search-CNN (CARLCS-CNN). CARLCS-CNN learns interdependent representations for the embedded code and query with a co-attention mechanism. Generally, such mechanism learns a correlation matrix between embedded code and query, and coattends their semantic relationship via row/column-wise max-pooling. In this way, the semantic correlation between code and query can directly affect their individual representations. We evaluate the effectiveness of CARLCS-CNN on Gu et al.'s dataset with 10k queries. Experimental results show that the proposed CARLCS-CNN model significantly outperforms DeepCS by 26.72% in terms of MRR (mean reciprocal rank). Additionally, CARLCS-CNN is five times faster than DeepCS in model training and four times in testing.


With the growing digitalization of our society and the increasing development of Industry 4.0, the development of safe human-computer interfaces is of prime importance. For this purpose, we present a new solution for avoiding any physical contact between the human and the machine's display and/or its keyboard/pad. Hence, we developed an innovative image processing algorithm which runs on the live video stream of the remote interaction between the human and the machine such as a computer or an intelligent agent; the video stream being captured by an off-the-shelf camera which is embedded in the main machine. The resulting computer-vision system performs visual object detection and tracking of a marker the user holds in one hand and could wave it from a distance in order to remotely interact with the interface of the machine. This remote interaction system has been successfully tested in real-world operational conditions, and the performance of this image processing application has been evaluated in real time.


Lymphocytic alveolitis is the characteristic feature of active sarcoidosis. High intensity alveolitis (more than 28% of lymphocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid) implicates, according to some authors, specific, most often poor prognosis. Twenty-seven patients with active pulmonary sarcoidosis were grouped according to the intensity of lymphocytic alveolitis. In the first group, there were 13 patients with high intensity alveolitis (more than 28% of lymphocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, average 42.8 +/- 12%) and in the second group 14 patients with low intensity alveolitis (less than 28% of lymphocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, average 13.3 +/- 6.5%). The groups did not differ with regard to sex, chest radiologic stage or the number of relapses. All the patients had pulmonary function tests: forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1), diffusion capacity (DLCO), and rest and exercise arterial blood oxygen tension. The high intensity alveolitis group had significantly lower FVC (p < 0.01) and FEV1 (p < 0.05) as compared with the low intensity alveolitis group, what indicates that the high intensity alveolitis group of patients had more advanced pulmonary disease and was accordingly more often treated with corticosteroids (69.2%). Nine patients with high intensity alveolitis and ten with low intensity were followed up for 6 months. In the group with high intensity alveolitis there was a statistically significant improvement of DLCO (p < 0.01) what could be explained by a frequent use of corticosteroids in this group. Chest radiogram in the high intensity alveolitis group showed complete clearing in one patient only and incomplete in eight.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Shigella are pathogens originating within the Escherichia lineage but frequently classified as a separate genus. Shigella genomes contain numerous insertion sequences (ISs) that lead to pseudogenization of affected genes and an increase of non-homologous recombination. Here, we study 414 genomes of E. coli and Shigella strains to assess the contribution of genomic rearrangements to Shigella evolution. We found that Shigella experienced exceptionally high rates of intragenomic rearrangements and had a decreased rate of homologous recombination compared to pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. coli. The high rearrangement rate resulted in independent disruption of syntenic regions and parallel rearrangements in different Shigella lineages. Specifically, we identified two types of chromosomally encoded E3 ubiquitin-protein ligases acquired independently by all Shigella strains that also showed a high level of sequence conservation in the promoter and further in the 5' intergenic region. In the only available enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC) strain, which is a pathogenic E. coli with a phenotype intermediate between Shigella and non-pathogenic E. coli, we found a rate of genome rearrangements comparable to those in other E. coli and no functional copies of the two Shigella-specific E3 ubiquitin ligases. These data indicate that accumulation of ISs influenced many aspects of genome evolution and played an important role in the evolution of intracellular pathogens. Our research demonstrates the power of comparative genomics-based on synteny block composition and an important role of non-coding regions in the evolution of genomic islands. Importance Pathogenic Escherichia coli strains frequently cause infections in humans. Many E. coli exist in nature and their ability to cause disease is fueled by their ability to incorporate novel genetic information by extensive horizontal gene transfer of plasmids and pathogenicity islands. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant Shigella spp., which are pathogenic forms of E. coli, coupled with the absence of an effective vaccine against them, highlights the importance of the continuing study of these pathogenic bacteria. Our study contributes to the understanding of genomic properties associated with molecular mechanisms underpinning the pathogenic nature of Shigella. We characterize the contribution of insertion sequences to the genome evolution of these intracellular pathogens and suggest a role of upstream regions of chromosomal ipaH genes in the Shigella pathogenesis. The methods of rearrangement analysis developed here are broadly applicable to the analysis of genotype-phenotype correlation in historically recently emerging bacterial pathogens.


The Westinghouse Hanford Company has been testing various technologies for decontaminating groundwaters and liquid effluents. The results of preliminary testing of three technologies are reported. The technologies are iron coprecipitation/filtration, supported liquid membranes, and reverse osmosis. The processes were tested to determine their capability to remove uranium, chromium, nitrates, and technetium. All processes removed contaminants to less than maximum contaminant limits. The secondary waste volumes were estimated for each process. The supported liquid membranes secondary waste volume was the smallest, followed by iron coprecipitation, and the largest volume was created by the reverse osmosis process. 5 refs., 7 tabs.


The diurnal Dipsadidae snakes Philodryas olfersii and P. patagoniensis are closely related in their phylogeny but inhabit different ecological niches. P. olfersii is arboreal, whereas P. patagoniensis is preferentially terrestrial. The goal of the present study was to compare the density and topography of neurons, photoreceptors, and cells in the ganglion cell layer in the retinas of these two species using immunohistochemistry and Nissl staining procedures and estimate the spatial resolving power of their eyes based on the ganglion cell peak density. Four morphologically distinct types of cones were observed by scanning electron microscopy, 3 of which were labeled with anti-opsin antibodies: large single cones and double cones labeled by the antibody JH492 and small single cones labeled by the antibody JH455. The average densities of photoreceptors and neurons in the ganglion cell layer were similar in both species (∼10,000 and 7,000 cells·mm-2, respectively). The estimated spatial resolving power was also similar, ranging from 2.4 to 2.7 cycles·degree-1. However, the distribution of neurons had different specializations. In the arboreal P. olfersii, the isodensity maps had a horizontal visual streak, with a peak density in the central region and a lower density in the dorsal retina. This organization might be relevant for locomotion and hunting behavior in the arboreal layer. In the terrestrial P. patagoniensis, a concentric pattern of decreasing cell density emanated from an area centralis located in the naso-ventral retina. Lower densities were observed in the dorsal region. The ventrally high density improves the resolution in the superior visual field and may be an important adaptation for terrestrial snakes to perceive the approach of predators from above.


In the economic growth literature, the contribution of tourism to economic development has attracted great attention due to its significant roles as a source of foreign exchange earnings, creation of employment opportunities and an important source of public revenues in many countries. In this paper, we aim to analyse the empirical relationship between economic growth and tourism by employing different econometric techniques. First, we employed the Bound test approach developed by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001, Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 16(3), 289–326) in order to investigate the co-integration relationship between economic growth and tourism. Second, we used the Granger causality analysis for the 1998–2011 period and found evidence of a long-run uni-directional causality running from tourism to economic growth, but not vice versa. Our findings show that the Turkish case supports the tourism-led growth hypothesis (TLGH). Third, the autoregressive-distributed lag approach was employed in order to investigate the long-term and short-term static relationship between tourism and economic growth. The results show that tourism has a positive effect on gross domestic product and economic growth both in the long-term and short-term. Finally, the effect of tourism on economic growth was also investigated dynamically by employing the Kalman filter method. The findings of this method support the TLGH for Turkey.


Recent discussions of the relation between R-curve analysis and failure assessment diagrams of the type used in R6 and PD6493 are generalized to the situation where the material resistance is defined by a function depending not only on the crack extension but also on other parameters which measure the constraint at the crack tip. There is thus a resistance surface if only one other parameter in addition to the crack extension is involved. The analysis is formulated for any number of generic constraint parameters which can be defined in terms of a generic constraint function which depends on the independent variables used in the characterizing parameter functions. These variables are here taken to be the crack length a and the load L on the structure. The analysis is developed in detail for the parameter T. It is shown that, provided the R-curve image (RCI) of the previous work is generalized to a curve called the projected growth path image (PGPI) the relations between R-curve analysis and the failure assessment diagram (FAD) can be extended to this more general situation while still retaining a two dimensional fad. The methods previously developed for testing the consistency or conservatism of an engineering fad can thus be extended to generalized diagrams which allow for crack tip constraint. An illustrative example showing the effect of including constraint is given and some general implications are considered.


ABSTRACTRhabdomyosarcoma is one of the most common soft-tissue sarcomas in children. Prompt diagnosis and treatment significantly improve survival; however, misdiagnosis is common because of this aggressive temporal bone lesion's similarity to more common benign diseases. Clinicians should maintain a high index of suspicion for rhabdomyosarcoma in patients with a presumed otologic infection not responsive to medical therapy.


Examining Maternal Psychological Recollections of Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorders by Christine Losinno Shoop MA, State University of New York at New Paltz, 2002 BA, State University of New York at New Paltz, 1998 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Clinical Psychology Walden University January 2016 Abstract Mothers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and despair stemming from the challenges of raising offspring with behavioral, communicative, and socioemotional impairments. Researchers have shown that children diagnosed with ASDs exhibit symptoms within the first year of life (early-onset), while some exhibit normal development until the second year (regressive-onset), and some exhibit normal development until the second year but display abnormalities in the first year (mixed-onset). Despite the wealth of research on ASDs, there are few examinations of ASD symptom onset groups and the impact of those onset groups on parental psychological experiences: stress, impact on family, and future hopes. This research compared the retrospective parent reports of 31 mothers across ASD onset groups (early-onset, n = 16, regressive-onset, n = 8, and mixed-onset, n = 7) with psychological experiences using Impact on Family Scale, the Vicarious Futurity Scale, and the Parent Stress Inventory. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance assessed the relationship between maternal groups and psychological experiences. No significant differences were found between the groups. However, significant correlations were found between stress, family impact, and perceived hope for the future. Mothers reporting high levels of stress also reported high levels of family impact and low levels of perceived hope for the future. There is a need for increased emotional support for mothers of children diagnosed with ASDs. It should be a standard practice for clinicians, upon diagnosing children with ASDs, to refer mothers and caregivers to therapy or support groups. This may alleviate key aspects of family stressors.Mothers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and despair stemming from the challenges of raising offspring with behavioral, communicative, and socioemotional impairments. Researchers have shown that children diagnosed with ASDs exhibit symptoms within the first year of life (early-onset), while some exhibit normal development until the second year (regressive-onset), and some exhibit normal development until the second year but display abnormalities in the first year (mixed-onset). Despite the wealth of research on ASDs, there are few examinations of ASD symptom onset groups and the impact of those onset groups on parental psychological experiences: stress, impact on family, and future hopes. This research compared the retrospective parent reports of 31 mothers across ASD onset groups (early-onset, n = 16, regressive-onset, n = 8, and mixed-onset, n = 7) with psychological experiences using Impact on Family Scale, the Vicarious Futurity Scale, and the Parent Stress Inventory. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance assessed the relationship between maternal groups and psychological experiences. No significant differences were found between the groups. However, significant correlations were found between stress, family impact, and perceived hope for the future. Mothers reporting high levels of stress also reported high levels of family impact and low levels of perceived hope for the future. There is a need for increased emotional support for mothers of children diagnosed with ASDs. It should be a standard practice for clinicians, upon diagnosing children with ASDs, to refer mothers and caregivers to therapy or support groups. This may alleviate key aspects of family stressors. Examining Maternal Psychological Recollections of Children Diagnosed With Autism Spectrum Disorders by Christine Losinno Shoop MA, State University of New York at New Paltz, 2002 BA, State University of New York at New Paltz, 1998 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Clinical Psychology Walden University January 2016 Dedication This body of work is dedicated to my son, Anthony, who not only educates but inspires me to help families affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders. Maybe, in his lifetime, a cure will be found. Acknowledgments I would like to first thank my children, Anthony, Giavanna, and Jianni, for allowing me their incredible patience and understanding in order to complete this dissertation. Second, my parents, Rita and John Losinno, for giving me enormous support and an abundance of free babysitting while I took on this task. This dissertation is as much as their accomplishment as it is mine. Third, The Center for Discovery, especially Drs. Theresa Hamlin, Rune Simeonsson, and Johanna Lantz, for providing never-ending guidance and allowing me to access the families they serve. Fourth, the mothers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders who took the time out of their busy schedules to participate in my study. I truly appreciate the way you answered difficult questions about your children, families, and experiences in order to help out this old college student! Last, but certainly not least, my wonderful dissertation committee, Drs. Brian Ragsdale, Chet Lesniak, and Frederica Hendricks-Noble for their invaluable feedback and advisement. Dr. Ragsdale provided me not only direction, but a big shoulder to cry on when I needed it. Rest in peace, Dr. Trocchio, and thank you!


Background: Aerosol inhaler characteristics such as low plume temperature and high force may result in greater impaction of drug in the mouth and throat and reduced lung deposition. 1 This study compared plume temperature and force of two ICS/LABA combination products: fluticasone propionate/formoterol 125/5μg (FP/FORM; flutiform ® ) and fluticasone propionate/salmeterol 125/25μg (FP/SAL; Seretide ® ), delivered via metered-dose inhalers. Methods: Inhalers were held in a fixed device and operated according to manufacturers9 instructions. A thermal imaging video camera, operating at 30 frames per second, recorded plume temperature from the side of the device. The same test rig, with a copper disc attached to a sensitive load cell measured plume force over a range of distances 25mm to 95mm from the device. Results: At 25mm the FP/FORM plume was +6 o C, while that of the FP/SAL plume was -38 o C. The FP/SAL plume was colder over a longer distance. The force of the FP/SAL plume was greater than that of the FP/FORM device at all distances measured: mean force recorded for FP/SAL was 218.0mN compared to 104.0mN for FP/FORM. Conclusion: The FP/SAL plume was considerably colder than the FP/FORM plume particularly over shorter distances. The FP/SAL plume was more forceful, approximately twice that of the FP/FORM device. These differences may be due to different types of HFA propellant with different boiling points, the excipients in each formulation, and actuator geometry. The plume characteristics of the FP/FORM device may facilitate lung deposition and lessen impaction in the throat. 1 Gabrio BJ. Int J Pharm 1999;186:3-12 Sponsor: Mundipharma Research Ltd.


We address the problem of compression for large camera arrays, and propose a distributed solution based on Wyner-Ziv coding. The proposed scheme allows independent encoding of each view with low-complexity cameras, and performs centralized decoding with side information from additional views. Experimental results are given for two light field data sets. The performance of the proposed scheme is compared with independently coding each view using JPEG2000 and a shape-adaptive JPEG-like coder. The Wyner-Ziv coder yields superior compression performance at low bit-rates. In addition, there is a great reduction in encoder complexity when compared to JPEG2000.


Dioscorea starches are presently not used in the food industry due to their poor functionality. Annealing has been shown to improve starch functionality. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the structural changes within the amorphous and crystalline domains of starches isolated from varieties of D. esculenta and D. alata tubers on annealing, and the impact of these changes on functional properties. Starches from varieties of Dioscorea esculenta (kukulala, java-ala, nattala) and Dioscorea alata (hingurala, raja-ala) tubers grown in Sri Lanka were isolated and their yield, morphology, composition (phosphorus, bound lipid, total amylose and lipid complexed amylose), molecular structure and physicochemical properties were studied in their native and annealed states. Among the D. esculenta starches, nattala exhibited the highest levels of phosphorus (0.1 0%), bound lipid (0.44%) and lipid complexed amylose chains (22.01 %). However, between the D. alata starches, the highest levels of phosphorus (0.05%), bound lipid content (0.25%) and lipid complexed amylose chains (8.34%) was in hingurala. All isolated starches were pure, undamaged and with granule sizes ranging from 3 to 40 μm (D. esculenta) and 30 to 45 μm (D. alata). The granules had smooth surfaces with shapes ranging from polygonal (D. esculenta) to truncated oval or truncated spade in D. alata starches. The amylopectin unit chain length distribution and the average chain length of native D. esculenta ranged from 24.57-25.85% (Degree of polymerization [DP] 6-12), 56.55-59.64% (DP 13-24), 12.61-13.58% (DP25-36), 3.17-4.41 (DP 37-50) and 17.93-18.33%. However, the corresponding values for D. alata starches were 17.89-20.68, 57.40-59.76, 17.46-17.47, 4.46-4.87 and 19.29-19.61%. Among the D. esculenta starches, the highest proportion of DP 37-50 and average chain length was in nattala starch. D. esculenta starches displayed a B-type X-ray pattern. However, a B-type (raja-ala) and Ca-type (hingurala) X-ray patterns were displayed by the D. alata starches. Crystallinities ranged from 49-53%, in the D. esculenta (nattala>java-ala> kukulala) starches, but were similar (43.0%) in the D. alata starches. A V-lipid amylose complex peak was also visible in the X-ray pattern of all starches. -- The gelatinization transition temperatures (To [onset], Tp [mid point], Tc [conclusion]) and enthalpy (ΔH) of gelatinization of native D. esculenta starches ranged from 72.55 to 85.40°C and 17.32-18.07 J/g, respectively. The corresponding values for the D. alata starches being 75.45-92.70°C and 18.60-18.98 J/g, respectively. The extent of amylose leaching (AML) at 90°C, ranged from 5.58 to 6.19% and 13.20 to 13.60% in the D. esculenta and D. alata starches, respectively. Variations in AML among varieties of each species was negligible. Swelling factor at 90°C, ranged from 53.61 to 64.97% in the native D. esculenta (nattala>java-ala>kukulala) and from 36.60 to 38.64% in the D. alata (hingurala>raja-ala) starches. D. esculenta starches exhibited a higher peak viscosity (nattala>kukulala> java-ala), lower pasting temperatures, a greater degree of viscosity breakdown (nattala> java-ala> kukulala) and lower set-back (kukulala>nattala>java-ala) values than D. alata starches. A similar trend was also observed for peak viscosity (raja-ala>hingurala), viscosity breakdown (hingurala> raja-ala) and set-back (raja-ala>hingurala) among the D. alata starches. The rate and extent of acid hydrolysis of D. esculenta starches (nattala>java-ala>kukulala) were higher than those of the D. alata (raja-ala>hingurala) starches. D. esculenta java-ala>kukulala>nattala) starches were more susceptible than D. alata (hingurala>java-ala) towards α-amylolysis. The extent of retrogradation of D. esculenta java-ala>kukulala>nattala) was higher than that of the D. alata (hingurala>raja-ala) starches. -- The second phase involved a study of the impact of annealing on the structure and properties of Dioscorea starches. The granule surface, birefringence patterns, concentric growth rings and the amylopectin unit chain length distribution of all starches remained unchanged on annealing. The crystallinity of some varieties of D. esculenta (kukulala, java-ala) and D. alata (hingurala) starches remained unchanged on annealing. However, crystallinity decreased in nattala (D. esculenta) but increased in raja-ala (D. alata) starches. In addition crystalline polymorphism remained unchanged on annealing. Annealing increased the gelatinization temperatures to nearly the same extent for all starches. However, the gelatinization temperature range (T c-T 0 ) decreased on annealing (hingurala> kukulala>raja-ala>nattala>java-ala). The enthalpy of gelatinization increased marginally (kukulala > hingurala > java-ala > nattala >raja-ala) on annealing. Amylose leaching (AML) and swelling factor (SF) decreased (D. alata> D. esculenta) on annealing. At 90°C, the decrease in AML in the D. esculenta and D. alata starches followed the order: nattala-kukulala>java-ala and raja-ala>hingurala, respectively. However, at the same temperature, the decrease in SF for the D. esculenta and D. alata starches followed the order: kukulala>nattala>java-ala and raja-ala-hingurala, respectively. In the D. esculenta starches, annealing decreased the peak viscosity (kukulala>java-ala>nattala). However, annealing increased peak time (kukulala > nattala > java-ala) pasting temperature (kukulala > nattala-java-ala) and thermal stability (kukulala>nattala>java-ala). The set-back decreased on annealing in kukulala, but increased in both nattala and java-ala (nattala>java-ala) starches. In the D. alata starches, annealing decreased peak viscosity (raja-ala>hingurala), but increased peak time (raja-ala>hingurala), pasting temperature (raja-ala>hingurala) and thermal stability (hingurala>raja-ala). However, set-back decreased in raja-ala but increased in hingurala on annealing. In all starches, the acid hydrolysis pattern remained unchanged on annealing. However, the extent of acid hydrolysis decreased (D. esculenta [java-ala>nattala>kukulala] - D. alata [raja-ala~ hingurala]) on annealing. α-amylolysis decreased on annealing. The extent of this decrease was more pronounced in D. alata (raja-ala>hingurala) than in the D. esculenta java-ala>kukulala) starches. However, annealing increased the susceptibility of nattala starch towards α-amylolysis. The enthalpy of retrogradation decreased in both D. esculenta (kukulala-nattala>java-ala) and D. alata (raja-ala>hingurala) starches. The major findings of this research are: (1) the different responses shown by the Dioscorea cultivars towards annealing were mainly influenced by differences in their composition and molecular structure, (2) differences in physicochemical properties between native and annealed starches are influenced to a large extent by structural changes within the amorphous (interaction between AM-AM and/or AM-AMP chains) and crystalline (AM-AMP and/or AMP-AMP interactions, crystallite reorientation, crystallite perfection, reorientation of phosphate groups on amylopectin) domains of the starch granule during annealing, (3) annealing has a major impact on the thermal stability and extent of retrogradation of Dioscorea starches. Consequently, annealed Dioscorea starches can be used for applications in foods that are subjected to thermal processing and frozen
storage.


Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) are an important emerging therapeutic; however, they struggle to enter cells without a delivery vehicle, such as a cationic polymer. To understand the role of polymer architecture for ASO delivery, five linear polymers and five diblock polymers (capable of self-assembly into micelles) were synthesized with varying cationic groups. After complexation of each polymer/micelle with ASO, it was found that less bulky cationic moieties transfected the ASO more effectively. Interestingly, however the ASO internalization trend was the opposite of the transfection trend for cationic moiety, indicating internalization is not the major factor in determining transfection efficiency for this series. Micelleplexes (micelle-ASO complexes) generally enable higher transfection efficacy as compared to polyplexes (linear polymer-ASO complexes). Additionally, the order of addition of cells and complexes was explored. Linear polyplexes showed better transfection efficiency in adhered cells, whereas micelleplexes delivered the ASO more efficiently when the cells and micelleplexes were added simultaneously. This phenomenon may be due to increased cell-complex interactions as micelleplexes have increased colloidal stability compared to polyplexes. These findings emphasize the importance of polymer composition and architecture in governing the cellular interactions necessary for transfection, thus allowing advancement in the design principles for nonviral nucleic acid delivery formulations.


The structure and functioning of freshwater turtle communities remain understudied topics, especially in tropical regions where biodiversity is higher. The objective of our study was to compare the diets of Podocnemis erythrocephala ,P. expansa, P. sextuberculata, and P. unifilis living in syntopy in Amazonas, Brazil. We tested for qualitative and quantitative variations in the way different species used the same available food resources. We collected fresh stomach flushings from all turtles captured in trammel nets in three lakes in 2012. Sampling was conducted in the four distinct tropical seasons: beginning of rainy season (rising water), peak of rainy season (rapidly rising water), end of rainy season (highest flooded forest water level), and dry season (when water levels were receding). We tested the hypothesis that different food items are available in different quantities at different times of the year due to the seasonality of fruiting trees and other plants in response to the wet and dry conditions. We examined whether food items consumed were related to turtle body size and if there was feeding niche overlap among species. Podocnemis sextuberculata consumed the least amount of food by volume, while P. expansa consumed the highest diversity of food items. All four species are primarily herbivorous, and their diets were composed mainly of fruits and seeds (85.4% mean proportion by volume). Genipa americana (Rubiaceae) was most important in the diet of all species, except in P. sextuberculata. We found some evidence of seasonal differences in the consumption of some plant species. Body size did not influence qualitative (diversity of food items eaten) or quantitative variation of food items (volume), except in P. erythrocephala for which we detected a significant linear relationship between carapace length and the volume of stomach contents. The highest food niche overlap was between P. expansa and P. unifilis, and the lowest niche overlap was between P. erythrocephala and P. sextuberculata. Turtles tended to partition food resources more in areas that had more species feeding in syntopy than in areas with fewer syntopic species.


Volume 74, no. 7, p. 2089–2094, 2008. Strain DF-1 was inoculated into sediments contaminated with weathered Aroclor 1260 to determine whether the augmentation would stimulate the dechlorination of congeners as they occur in the environment, adsorbed to sediment particles and in the presence of an indigenous bacterial population. The 8.9 mol% net decrease in double-flanked chlorines observed after bioaugmentation with DF-1 cannot be calculated directly from the abridged data set in Table 1 on page 2092 that highlighted only some of the changes in absolute amounts. A revised Table 1 (see following page) shows the congener profile that was used to calculate the moles percent decrease catalyzed by DF-1. There are disparities between the tables that resulted from normalization of the data in the published Table 1 to dry mass of soil. The revised moles percent analysis shows that non-double-flanked PCBs 63 and 153 did not decrease with the addition of DF-1, but a slight reduction of non-doubleflanked PCBs 136 and 66/95 was significant, possibly a result of DF-1 dechlorination products serving as "primers" that stimulated the activities by the indigenous population. The relative reduction of double-flanked PCBs 180 and 202 (and coelutants) also appears to be greater. Although we cannot confirm which double-flanked dechlorination reactions were catalyzed exclusively by DF-1, the revised table clearly supports our conclusion that bioaugmentation with DF-1 stimulated reductive dechlorination of weathered Aroclor-contaminated soil.


System frequency is an indicator of system integrity. Bus frequencies are reliable indicators of power system islands and system separation points. Frequency information is also very important during the black-start and system restoration following break-ups; phasor data can be used to bring equipment back into service without risking stability or unsuccessful reclosing attempts. Phasor Measurement Units are vital in the identification and warning of islanding conditions during emergencies and can provide significant insight in managing an island.


Efficient utilization of resources plays an important role in the performance of large scale task processing. In cases where heterogeneous types of resources are used within the same application, it is hard to achieve good utilization of all of the different types of resources. By taking advantage of recent developments in cloud infrastructure that enable the use of dynamic clusters of resources, and by dynamically altering the size of the available resources for all the different resource types, the overall utilization of resources, however, can be improved. Starting from this premise, this paper discusses a solution that aims to provide a generic algorithm to estimate the desired ratios of instance processing tasks as well as ratios of the resources that are used by these instances, without the necessity for trial runs or a priori knowledge of the execution steps. These ratios are then used as part of an adaptive system that is able to reconfigure itself to maximize utilization. To verify the solution, a reference framework which adaptively manages clusters of functionally different VMs to host a calculation scenario is implemented. Experiments are conducted based on a compute-heavy use case in which the probability of underground pipeline failures is determined based on the settlement of soils. These experiments show that the solution is capable of eliminating large amounts of under-utilization, resulting in increased throughput and lower lead times.