DOI:10.1097/MOG.0000000000000063 This year has seen continued growth in the practice and science of hepatology. Thus, it is opportune that this edition of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology focuses on several important and timely issues in liver disease. Recent advances in hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy have been remarkable. The introduction of two new direct acting antiviral (DAA) agents, telaprevir and boceprevir, in 2011 led to higher cure rates than ever seen previously. However, the field has progressed so rapidly that these agents soon will likely become obsolete. Indeed, in the fall of 2013, two new DAAs, sofosbuvir and simeprivir, were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. New data with these and other similar agents suggest that they are not only more effective, but are better tolerated than any previously before. Further, the promise of interferon free, curative regimens, promises to revolutionize this field. However, despite these exciting data, there have been concerns about these agents, including their very high cost. Thus, it is extremely timely that Dr Mitchell Schiffman reviews the new developments in this remarkable and rapidly evolving area. One of the noteworthy changes in hepatology is that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has now become the most common cause of chronic liver disease in western countries, and with the promise of DAAs that will likely eradicate HCV in many patients, it will likely become the most prominent cause of liver disease in these regions. Although the best therapy appears to be lifestyle modification, in particular, weight loss, this is rarely achievable. Thus, many other approaches have gained interest, including a number of pharmacologic agents. Recent data point to vitamin E, pioglitazone, pentoxifylline, and others. Drs Michelle Pearlman and Rohit Loomba provide an outstanding overview of these agents, novel agents on the horizon, and a best practices approach to treatment of NAFLD. Alcohol-mediated liver disease continues to be a major issue for all clinicians. Indeed, the burden of alcohol on global health continues to climb. Further, there is a strong relationship between population ethanol consumption and liver-related deaths. Alcohol-mediated liver disease may develop


The aims of this study were to clarify how a patient's identity was verified before the administration of medication in medical and surgical wards in a hospital, as well as to study the association between patient identification and the registered nurse's work experience, observed interruptions, and distractions. The study material was collected during April and May 2012 in two surgical and two medical wards in one university hospital in Finland, using a direct, structured observation method. A total of 32 registered nurses were observed while they administered 1058 medications to 122 patients. Patients were not identified at all in 66.8% (n = 707) of medication administrations. Patient identifications were made more often by nurses with shorter work experience in the nursing profession or in the wards (4 years or less), or if distractions existed during medication administration. According to the results, patient identification was not adequately conducted. There is a need for education and change in the culture of medication processes and nursing practice.


The total fish abundances of two gravel-pit lakes connected with the River Rhine have been observed by a hydro-acoustic method (echo-sounder: Lowrance X16) for about one year. Diel (24-hour-period) as well as seasonal changes in fish distribution and aggregation behaviour have been established. Concerning the assessment of the fish stocks, these changes in fish behaviour have to be considered. Some clear fluctuations of fish numbers, which coincide with flood events of the river are interpreted as indications of fish migration from the river into the lentic water.


Photograph of Hazel Petrey and Gilbert Dove kneeling in front of preacher, Hiram Frakes, as he officiates their wedding ceremony at the Sunny View Methodist Church. The bridesmaids Anna Ruth Petrey, Gerry Petrey, and Mabel Henderson stand to their left while groomsmen, Bob Green, stands to their right. Brother of Hazel Petrey, A.D. Petrey, is visible seated on the bench in the first row. Narrative by Junebug Clark: More images and information can be found in the July 28, 1941 issue of Life Magazine, pages 82-85 in the story "Life Magazine Goes to a Kentucky Wedding." Also in the Joe Clark, HBSS book "Country Wedding," published in 1974. Additionally a 1982 photo of Hazel and Gilbert can be found in Joe's Tennessee Scrapbook. All are in the Clark Family Photography Collection.


Abstract : Recent technological advances have made viable the implementation of intelligent automation in advanced tactical aircraft. The use of this technology has given rise to new human factors issues and concerns. Errors in highly automated aircraft have been linked to the adverse effects of automation on the pilot's system awareness, monitoring workload, and ability to revert to manual control. However adaptive automation, or automation that is implemented dynamically in response to changing task demands on the pilot, has been proposed to be superior to systems with fixed, or static automation. This report examines several issues concerning the theory and design of adaptive automation in aviation systems, particularly as applied to advanced tactical aircraft. An analysis of the relative costs and benefits of conventional (static) aviation automation provides the starting point for the development of a theory of adaptive automation. This analysis includes a review of the empirical studies investigating effects of automation on pilot performance. The main concepts of adaptive automation are then introduced, and four major methods for implementing adaptive automation in the advanced cockpit are described and discussed. Aircraft Automation, Pilot Situational Awareness, Aviation Human Factors, Pilot Workload.


One of the key elements of the Semantic Web is the Resource Description Framework (RDF). Efficient storage and retrieval of RDF data in large scale settings is still challenging and existing solutions are monolithic and thus not very flexible from a software engineering point of view. In this paper, we propose a modular system, based on the scalable Content-Addressable Network (CAN), which gives the possibility to store and retrieve RDF data in large scale settings. We identified and isolated key components forming such system in our design architecture. We have evaluated our system using the Grid'5000 testbed over 300 peers on 75 machines and the outcome of these micro-benchmarks show interesting results in terms of scalability and concurrent queries. KeywordsSemantic Web; Peer-to-Peer (P2P); Resource Description Framework (RDF); RDF data indexing; RDF query processing


Abstract : One Thiokol Chemical Corporation TE-M-521-5 solid-propellant apogee rocket motor was successfully fired at an average simulated altitude of about 108,000 ft while spinning at 46 rpm. The general program objectives were to verify compliance of motor performance with the manufacturer's specifications. Specific primary objectives were to determine vacuum ballistic performance of the motor after prefire vibration conditioning and temperature conditioning at 40F, altitude ignition characteristics, motor structural integrity, and motor temperature-time history during and after motor operation. Additional objectives were to measure the lateral (nonaxial) thrust component during motor operation and to measure radiation heat flux in the vicinity of the nozzle exit plane.


Hostile aortic neck characteristics, such as short length and large diameter, have been associated with type Ia endoleaks and reintervention after endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR). However, such characteristics partially describe the complex aortic neck morphology. A more comprehensive quantitative description of 3D neck shape might lead to new insights into the relationship between aortic neck morphology and EVAR outcomes in individual patients. This study identifies the 3D morphological shape components that describe the infrarenal aortic neck through a statistical shape model (SSM). Pre-EVAR CT scans of 97 patients were used to develop the SSM. Parameterization of the morphology was based on the center lumen line reconstruction, a triangular surface mesh of the aortic lumen, 3D coordinates of the renal arteries, and the distal end of the aortic neck. A principal component analysis of the parametrization of the aortic neck coordinates was used as input for the SSM. The SSM consisted of 96 principal components (PCs) that each described a unique shape feature. The first five PCs represented 95% of the total morphological variation in the dataset. The SSM is an objective model that provides a quantitative description of the neck morphology of an individual patient.


To date, the most effective approach to compiling strict, higher-order functional languages (such as OCaml, Scheme, and SML) has been to use whole-program techniques to convert the program to a first-order monomorphic representation that can be optimized using traditional compilation techniques. This approach, popularized by MLton, has limitations, however. We are interested in exploring a different approach to compiling such languages, one that preserves the higher-order and polymorphic character of the program throughout optimization. To enable such an approach, we must have effective analyses that both provide precise information about higher-order programs and that scale to larger units of compilation. This paper describes one such analysis for determining the extent of variable bindings. We classify the extent of variables as either register (only one binding instance can be live at any time), stack (the lifetimes of binding instances obey a LIFO order), or heap (binding lifetimes are arbitrary). These extents naturally connect variables to the machine resources required to represent them. We believe that precise information about binding extents will enable efficient management of environments, which is a key problem in the efficient compilation of higher-order programs. At the core of the paper is the 3CPS intermediate representation, which is a factored CPS-based intermediate representation (IR) that statically marks variables to indicate their binding extent. We formally specify the management of this binding structure by means of a small-step operational semantics and define a static analysis that determines the extents of the variables in a program. We evaluate our analysis using a standard suite of SML benchmark programs. Our implementation gets surprisingly high yield and exhibits scalable performance. While this paper uses a CPS-based IR, the algorithm and results are easily transferable to other λ-calculus IRs, such as ANF.


Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is a highly infectious respiratory disease that leads to respiratory, physical, and psychological dysfunction in patients. Respiratory rehabilitation is an important intervention as well as cure for clinical patients. With increased understanding of COVID-19 and the accumulation of clinical experience, we proposed recommendations for respiratory rehabilitation in adults with COVID-19 based on the opinions of frontline clinical experts involved in the management of this epidemic and a review of the relevant literature and evidence. Our recommendations are as follows: 1. for inpatients with COVID-19, respiratory rehabilitation would relieve the symptoms of dyspnea, anxiety, and depression and eventually improve physical functions and the quality of life; 2. for severe/critical inpatients, early respiratory rehabilitation is not suggested; 3. for patients in isolation, respiratory rehabilitation guidance should be conducted through educational videos, instruction manuals, or remote consultation; 4. assessment and monitoring should be performed throughout the respiratory rehabilitation process; 5. proper grade protection should be used following the present guidelines. These recommendations can guide clinical practice and form the basis for respiratory rehabilitation in COVID-19 patients.


In this paper, we study offline Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) where we aim to learn the human's underlying reward and the MDP's optimal policy from a set of trajectories induced by human choices. RLHF is challenging for multiple reasons: large state space but limited human feedback, the bounded rationality of human decisions, and the off-policy distribution shift. In this paper, we focus on the Dynamic Discrete Choice (DDC) model for modeling and understanding human choices. DCC, rooted in econometrics and decision theory, is widely used to model a human decision-making process with forward-looking and bounded rationality. We propose a \underline{D}ynamic-\underline{C}hoice-\underline{P}essimistic-\underline{P}olicy-\underline{O}ptimization (DCPPO) method. \ The method involves a three-stage process: The first step is to estimate the human behavior policy and the state-action value function via maximum likelihood estimation (MLE); the second step recovers the human reward function via minimizing Bellman mean squared error using the learned value functions; the third step is to plug in the learned reward and invoke pessimistic value iteration for finding a near-optimal policy. With only single-policy coverage (i.e., optimal policy) of the dataset, we prove that the suboptimality of DCPPO almost matches the classical pessimistic offline RL algorithm in terms of suboptimality's dependency on distribution shift and dimension. To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first theoretical guarantees for off-policy offline RLHF with dynamic discrete choice model.


In the last years, as a result of climate changes, plenty of transformations have taken place in the High North. Consequently, ice cap of the Arctic is melting at a very fast pace, and that means significant rise of sea levels as well as decreasing animals' habitats. On the other hand, disappearing Arctic ice is opening new areas of exploitation for humans. The Arctic might also soon become the world's most important reservoir of clean water and food. The warming is leading to changes in ecosystems, arousing a number of enquiries about territorial division of the region, its preservation and utilisation. The changes taking place in the Arctic pose a challenge on many levels: economic, social, security, and environmental protection. First of all, economic (access to probably the biggest deposits of oil, gas and precious metals in the world) and ecological (environmental protection) interests are clashing there. The North Pole, although with varying intensity, is becoming present in foreign policies of many countries. On the Old Continent, it has been noticed by the whole European Union as well as particular countries. One of them is Germany. Germany is interested in the region from the economic and ecological perspective.


Assessment of noise exposed population is to check the environmental noise level and social influence in order to reduce the risks such as annoyance and disturbance that are generated by environmental noise. Also, this method suggests the preferential noise abatement policy and action plan by accurately finding the area that the noise causes harmful effect to human health. Recently, a noise map, which can predict noise in comprehensive areas, is used for the assessment of noise exposed population, breaking from the methods using existing measures. In particular, countermeasure for the noise can be considered more effectively by using assessment methods of noise exposed population for specific noise levels, areas, and building types which are the main input factors in noise maps. In this study, assessment methods of noise exposed population by using 2 dimensional noise map are compared with those by 3 dimensional noise map.


Rats have long been one of the world9s most ubiquitous—and infamous—forms of urban wildlife, synonymous with pestilence and squalor. They9ve attracted only sporadic attention from scientists, however, and much about the secretive city rat—chiefly the Norway rat, Rattus norvegicus , remains a mystery. But as the world9s urban population surges, and more people crowd into rat-plagued slums, the rodents are getting renewed attention from researchers and public health experts. Over the past decade, scientists in a number of cities have launched efforts to better understand rat behavior and evolution, and the role they play in spreading disease. One of the most intensive and longest-running investigations is occurring in Pau da Lima, a crowded favela on the edge of Salvador, Brazil9s third largest city. For the last 2 decades, researchers have been working to understand the forces driving leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread by rats, which kills some 60,000 people annually worldwide. They are searching for the best ways to curb a disease that experts warn is an underappreciated threat in the burgeoning slums of a more urban world.


The stratospheric ozone depletion observed in polar regions is caused by several catalytic cycles induced by reactive chlorine and bromine species. By reacting with BrO, ClO causes the formation of OClO which is considered as a proxy of the halogen activation. We present the first global determination of the stratospheric OClO distribution measured during the year 2003 by the stellar occultation spectrometer GOMOS. Besides its expected polar abundance, we discovered the presence of a worldwide OClO layer in the upper stratosphere. At lower altitudes, OClO seems also to be present beyond the limit of the polar vortices, an unreported feature.


Coupled-states calculations with large target-centred basis sets have been used to compute ionization probabilities and cross sections for at collision energies down to 10 keV. The results are in good agreement with recent theoretical calculations based on numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation but there are no experimental data. Both an independent particle model and an independent event model were used to carry out calculations for . These results are in good agreement with experiment at 40 keV and above but differ at lower energies. The impact-parameter-dependent probabilities for these collisions were used in the independent event model to calculate helium double-ionization cross sections and excellent agreement was found with experimental measurements between 13 and 200 keV, but this simple way of treating correlation fails at higher collision energies.


This article defends the disputed label "private creeds" as a useful one for describing a number of fourth-century texts. Offering such a confession was the normal method for clearing one's name on charges of heterodoxy in fourth-century Greek Christianity, though writing such a creed made the author susceptible to charges of innovation. A number of letters on Trinitarian doctrine by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa should be read in light of the tradition of private creeds. Indeed, the writings of Basil and Gregory provide unparalleled evidence for the roles such creeds played in Christian disputes of the fourth century.


Smartphones have become necessary components of both daily life and business life. Recent research shows that smartphone use gradually increases. In addition to the features provided by mobile phones, smartphones have most of the functionalities of computers, and provide many benefits to businesses, including savings and productivity. In this research study, the factors that affect the use of smartphones and whether or not these factors affect smartphone use will be investigated. In the context of this study, a survey was conducted with the mobile communication sector personnel. Results of this study reveal that organizational factors positively influence smartphone use. We also found that individual and social factors do not have any statistically significant impact on smartphone use.


This study focuses attention on the causes and effects of corruption on the education sector in Nigeria. It also proffers solutions to the menace. Indeed, the standard of education in the country has been negatively affected by corrupt practices manifested by school administrators, educators, students, students' parents and government agencies. Some of the identified causes of corruption were poverty, poor remuneration for educators and moral decadence among students and educators. The foregoing negative inclinations have a number of unfavourable effects; the most pronounced among them is lowering of the standard and quality of education in the country. The methodology utilized in the study is descriptive analysis. This study recommended, among other things, that quality assurance unit should be established to monitor teaching, admission and examination practices in all Nigerian schools.


A simple analytical method is proposed to predict the maximum plasma power for a torch of given geometry. Experiments were conducted on two torches of different diameters. The results indicate that reasonable estimates of plasma power can be made for a range of gas flow rates by monitoring the temperature rise at the final segment of the torch. It has also been shown that this method can be used as a design tool for the engineering scale-up of plasma torches.


Ectothermic darkling beetle larvae, known as superworms, rely on external heat sources and their ability to move and burrow to regulate their metabolism and ensure survival.  Metabolic rate can be measured by carbon dioxide production as well as oxygen consumption.  We aimed to determine the effects of temperature on oxygen consumption by exposing the superworms to higher than ambient room temperature.  We hypothesized that when superworms were exposed to heat, they would increase their metabolic rate via oxygen consumption due to the increase demand in cellular respiration and their inability to burrow away from heat in a closed container.  A majority of previous studies focus on the production of carbon dioxide to measure metabolic rate, so we chose to measure oxygen consumption to better understand gas exchange in ectothermic cellular respiration.  We introduced three superworms to two controlled temperatures in a small, enclosed metabolic chamber and measured the changes in oxygen percentage over five minutes.  An increase in oxygen consumption when exposed to higher than ambient room temperature in these ectotherms will serve to better support previous studies that correlated the effect of temperature on cellular respiration via carbon dioxide production.


was particularly marked in one patient, who had been following an intensive endurance training programme for several years. On pindolol he was unable to complete his training programme and complained of an insatiable apetite, presumably owing to low blood glucose levels. On metoprolol these changes were not apparent. Similar differences in terms of working capacity have also been shown by Fellenius et al2 between the non-selective betablocker propranolol and metoprolol. Fatigue is a commonly encountered problem in patients treated with beta-blockers. On the basis of these findings it would appear that in these circumstances the predominantly cardioselective beta-blocker metoprolol may be preferable since it would appear to have less effect on energy metabolism during physical stress. RICHARD GOODFELLOW Astra Pharmaceuticals Ltd, St Albans, Herts ALl 3JW


We propose two coding schemes for the two-receiver discrete memoryless broadcast channel (BC) with rate-limited feedback from one or both receivers. They improve over the no feedback capacity region for a large class of channels, including the class of strictly essentially less-noisy BCs that we introduce in this paper. Examples of strictly essentially less-noisy BCs are the binary symmetric BC or the binary erasure BC with unequal crossover or erasure probabilities at the two receivers. When the feedback rates are sufficiently large, our schemes recover all previously known capacity results for discrete memoryless BCs with feedback. In both our schemes, we let the receivers feedback quantization messages about their receive signals. In the first scheme, the transmitter simply relays the quantization information obtained from Receiver 1 to Receiver 2, and vice versa. This provides each receiver with a second observation of the input signal and can thus improve its decoding performance unless the BC is physically degraded. Moreover, each receiver uses its knowledge of the quantization message describing its own outputs so as to attain the same performance as if this message had not been transmitted at all. In our second scheme, the transmitter first reconstructs and processes the quantized output signals, and then sends the outcome as a common update information to both receivers. A special case of our second scheme also applies to memoryless BCs without feedback but with strictly causal state-information at the transmitter and causal state-information at the receivers. It recovers all previous achievable regions also for this setup with state-information.


OBJECTIVE
Hypertensive retinopathy (HR) is the most common ocular manifestation of systemic arterial hypertension. This paper aims to summarize the current knowledge of HR, reviewing its classical features, such as epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, classifications, management and the most significant systemic correlations. We also provide an update on the latest advances in new technologies focusing on novel instrumental classifications.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A literature search was performed to identify articles regarding HR listed in Embase, PubMed, Medline (Ovid) and Scopus database up to 1 December 2021. The reference lists of the analyzed articles were also considered a source of literature information. The following keywords were used in various combinations: hypertensive retinopathy, hypertension and eye, hypertensive retinopathy and systemic correlations, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and hypertensive retinopathy, optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and hypertensive retinopathy, adaptive optics (AO) and hypertensive retinopathy. The authors analyzed all English articles found using the aforementioned keywords. All the publications were thoroughly reviewed to create a detailed overview of this issue.

RESULTS
HR signs have a significative association with cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and other systemic diseases. Patients with arteriosclerotic changes and, at the same time, severe HR, are at increased risk for coronary disease, peripheral vascular disease, stroke and dementia. HR is even now diagnosed and classified by its clinical appearance on a fundoscopic exam that is limited by interobserver variability. New technologies, like OCT, OCTA, AO and artificial intelligence may be used to develop a new instrumental classification that could become an objective and quantitative method for the evaluation of this disease. They could be useful to evaluate the subclinical retinal microvascular changes due to hypertension that may reflect the involvement of other vital organs.

CONCLUSIONS
The eye is the only organ in the human body where changes in the blood vessels due to systemic hypertension can be studied in vivo. All doctors should be familiar with this disease because it has been largely demonstrated that signs of HR are correlated to patient's health and mortality. Researchers should develop a new common, standardized, and objective method to assess hypertensive retinal changes; new technologies may have a significant role in this field. This review takes most of the literature published so far, including the OCTA studies in order to stimulate new points of reference to standardize parameters and new diagnostic markers of this disease.


Here, the authors propose a novel tracking algorithm that can automatically modify the initial configuration of a target to improve the tracking accuracy in subsequent frames. To achieve this goal, the authors' method analyses the likelihood landscape (LL) for the image patch described by the initial configuration. A good configuration has a unimodal distribution with a steep shape in the LL. Using the LL analysis, the authors' method improves the initial configuration, resulting in more accurate tracking results. The authors improve the conventional LL analysis based on two ideas. First, the authors' method analyses the LL in the RGB space rather than the grey space. Second, the method introduces an additional criterion for a good configuration: a high likelihood value at the mode. The authors further enhance their method through post-processing of the visual tracking results at each frame, where the estimated bounding boxes are modified by the LL analysis. The experimental results demonstrate that the authors' advanced LL analysis helps improve the tracking accuracy of several baseline trackers on a visual tracking benchmark data set. In addition, the authors' simple post-processing technique significantly enhances the visual tracking performance in terms of precision and success rate.


All prosthetic rehabilitations require healthy, stable oral conditions. The biologic response to the preliminary treatment provides important criteria for planning the final reconstruction and permits testing of the desired prosthetic treatment goals within the unique patient-specific biologic conditions before final restoration. This study used long-term provisional restorations that corresponded in both form and function to the anticipated restorations. Intraoral testing of the diagnostic waxup is an outstanding basis for discussing the provisional as well as final restoration. As required, changes necessary to teeth form and position can be simply accomplished.


Antibiotic resistance has been accepted as a potential threat to the future of antibiotic therapy ever since the discovery of the first penicillin-resistant strain of Stapyhlococcus aureus in 1947. Now, almost 60 years later, we are facing a possible global pandemic as bacteria continue to evolve into multiple drug-resistant species and the healthcare industry struggles (and fails) to keep up. As it becomes increasingly apparent that industry is no match for nature, so too has it become more obvious, that in order to prevent a return to the pre-antibiotic era, we must adapt our focus and research in order to better understand the mechanisms bacteria use to outwit and evade antibiotic agents. Dr Joseph Blondeau of the University of Saskatchewan (SA, Canada) has been working in the field of antibiotic resistance as a Clinical Microbiologist for almost 15 years and in this issue of Therapy, shares his thoughts on the threat of antibiotic resistance, lessons from the past and his vision for the future of rese...


Patients with cancer treated with PARP inhibitors (PARPi) experience various side effects, with hematologic toxicity being most common. Short-term treatment of mice with olaparib resulted in depletion of reticulocytes, B-cell progenitors, and immature thymocytes, whereas longer treatment induced broader myelosuppression. We performed a CRISPR/Cas9 screen that targeted DNA repair genes in Eμ-Myc pre-B lymphoma cell lines as a way to identify strategies to suppress hematologic toxicity from PARPi. The screen revealed that single-guide RNAs targeting the serine/threonine kinase checkpoint kinase 2 (CHK2) were enriched following olaparib treatment. Genetic or pharmacologic inhibition of CHK2-blunted PARPi response in lymphoid and myeloid cell lines, and in primary murine pre-B/pro-B cells. Using a Cas9 base editor, we found that blocking CHK2-mediated phosphorylation of p53 also impaired olaparib response. Our results identify the p53 pathway as a major determinant of the acute response to PARPi in normal blood cells and demonstrate that targeting CHK2 can short circuit this response. Cotreatment with a CHK2 inhibitor did not antagonize olaparib response in ovarian cancer cell lines. Selective inhibition of CHK2 may spare blood cells from the toxic influence of PARPi and broaden the utility of these drugs. Implications: We reveal that genetic or pharmacologic inhibition of CHK2 may offer a way to alleviate the toxic influence of PARPi in the hematologic system.


The implementation of new course standard of mathematics is one of the significant changes of our educational business. Through our analysis of the present mathematics education to discuss the new idea of mathematics education under the new curriculum standard, the new ways of mathematics classroom teaching under the new curriculum standard are given in the paper.


This study addresses the construct of conflict or ambivalence over emotional expression. Ambivalence is seen as an important mediator in the link between emotional styles and psychological and physical well-being. Using the "personal striving" framework, a questionnaire measure of ambivalent emotional strivings (AEQ) was designed. In Study 1, 292 Ss completed this measure along with questionnaire measures of expressiveness, social desirability, and intense ambivalence. Women scored significantly higher than men on both the AEQ and expressiveness. In Study 2, scores on the AEQ were found to be negatively correlated with self-reported and peer-rated expressiveness. In Study 3, 48 Ss participated in a 21-day study of mood and health. Expressiveness was positively correlated with some measures of well-being and with daily negative affect. Ambivalence was positively correlated with several indices of psychological distress. Although the AEQ correlated with questionnaire measures of physical symptomatology, neither the AEQ nor the expressiveness measures correlated with daily symptom reports. Results support the contention that conflict over emotional expressiveness is a variable worthy of study in its own right, having implications for research on personality and health.


Studies of the electropolishing of copper are reviewed. Recent work intended to demonstrate the electrochemical planarization of the overburden in electroplated copper interconnect metallization is emphasized. Furthermore, two common reaction mechanisms invoked to explain the mass-transfer limitation required to achieve electropolishing are outlined and discussed within the context of anodic leveling, which has been more recently called electrochemical planarization. Finally, scaling arguments are used to demonstrate practical considerations for tool development and to speculate about uncertainties in anodic leveling theories.


A new percutaneous needle for pulmonary biopsy is described in this report, as well as its clinical applications--showing the different types of material that may be obtained--and the restrictions for its use. The results of using this biopsy needle were examined in 29 cases. Among these patients diagnoses of neoplastic processes--an accuracy of 82.75%--were established, being false or negative only 8.33% of the cases. In the rest of the patients, different kinds of pathological processes were examined (17.25 percent), which were mostly infectious cases. There was a low rate of clinically detectable complications (10.34%), all of them corresponding to pneumothorax.


AMIs (Advanced Metering Infrastructures) present an important role in Smart City environments, especially from the point of view of distribution and customers, offering control and monitoring capabilities. The use of PLC (Power Line Communication) technology offers a wide range of advantages in AMI, including not needing to deploy an additional communication infrastructure. However, the electrical network was not initially designed for communications, as these networks pose problems depending on the connected loads, such as network impedance variation, frequency selectivity or noise. For this reason, the use of simulators is proposed to facilitate the deployments based on PLC networks, and analysis and diagnosis tools for the identification of problems in operating networks are also required. This paper presents a toolkit for evaluating and analyzing the performance of PLC networks. This toolkit is composed of SimPRIME, a simulator for the evaluation of NB-PLC PRIME (PoweR line Intelligent Metering Evolution) networks' performance; SimBPL, a simulator for the evaluation of MV-BPL (Broadband Power Line over Medium Voltage) cells' performance; and PRIME Analytics, a forensics tool that allows diagnosis of communication problems in PRIME operational networks based on traffic traces. The toolkit has been developed throughout several research projects in close collaboration with DSOs (Distribution System Operators) and equipment manufacturers, so they provide solutions to actual problems of these industry key players and have been adapted to facilitate their use. As a result, the tools are accessible through web applications to increase their usability, portability, and scalability. These applications represent the first steps in offering PLC simulation and analysis as a service that could benefit the research community, academia, and industry.


Financial reporting is one of the primary sources of information about a company. Financial reports must be issued on time to ensure that the users of financial information receive them on time to allow them to make decisions. Delays in issuing financial reports interfere with users of financial information making decisions. This research aimed to identify the effect of Shariah committee composition on the audit report lag of Malaysian Islamic banks. The study quantitatively analysed the financial reporting of 16 Islamic banks in Malaysia from 2011 to 2020. The analysis revealed that Shariah committee expertise and meeting frequency had significant relationships with audit delay. However, Shariah committee independence and size displayed insignificant relationships. The study's findings support the agency theory hypothesis. The results suggest that principal and agent conflict can be relieved by equipping more members of the Shariah committee with accounting and financial knowledge.


Today there is an urgent need to find new ways to satisfy the current and growing food demand and to maintain crop protection and food safety. One of the most promising changes is the replacement of chemical fertilizers with biofertilizers, which include plant root-associated beneficial bacteria. This work describes and shows the use of B. halotolerans SCCPVE07 and R. laguerreae PEPV40 strains as efficient biofertilizers for escarole crops, horticultural species that are widely cultivated. An in silico genome study was performed where coding genes related to plant growth promoting (PGP) mechanisms or different enzymes implicated in the metabolism of phenolic compounds were identified. An efficient bacterial root colonization process was also analyzed through fluorescence microscopy. SCCPVE07 and PEPV40 promote plant development under normal conditions and saline stress. Moreover, inoculated escarole plants showed not only an increase in potassium, iron and magnesium content but also a significant improvement in protocatechuic acid, caffeic acid or kaempferol 3-O-glucuronide plant content. Our results show for the first time the beneficial effects in plant development and the food quality of escarole crops and highlight a potential and hopeful change in the current agricultural system even under saline stress, one of the major non-biological stresses.


Of the more than 3900 described species worldwide, stoneflies (order Plecoptera) are represented in Israel, a semi-arid country, by as few as five species. As a group of highly sensitive aquatic insects, they are restricted to the northernmost watershed of the Sea of Galilee, where the most pristine streams in Israel are found. The Israeli stoneflies are not often collected in the field, and they have not been recorded in the literature in the last 30 years. In order to provide an up-to-date picture, I gathered the available historical records of the local fauna, as well as all verified data from the last decade, and compared the two datasets. Despite the unprecedented efforts that have recently been invested in studying freshwater macroinvertebrates in Israel, a sharp decrease in stonefly occurrence is evident. Whilst the populations of three species have dramatically declined (Protonemura zernyi, Leuctra hippopus, and L. kopetdaghi), the remaining two have not been collected at all in over four decades and are considered locally extinct (Brachyptera galeata and Marthamea beraudi). These findings highlight the joint impact of multiple stressors on the stream system in the Sea of Galilee Watershed—namely, stream pollution and water diversion on the local level and climate change on the global level. If the current trends continue, there is a great concern that the entire local stonefly fauna will become extinct, and many stream-dwelling taxa may follow soon after.


Forty-five children aged two to 10 years with persistent eustachian tube dysfunction received a three-week course of aerosolized nasal dexamethasone phosphate or placebo. Patients were randomly assigned to the drug or placebo group and received one spray in each nostril three times a day for three weeks. Middle ear pressure and gradient were assessed with tympanometry. Tympanic membrane mobility, position and presence of middle ear fluid were assessed by the investigators initially and at weekly intervals during the study. Fasting morning plasma cortisol levels were obtained prior to starting the study and at its conclusion. The dexamethasone-treated group showed a significant increase in patients with normal middle ear pressure compared to placebo after one week and a significant increase in the number of patients with normal middle ear gradient at the second week. By the conclusion of the study there were no significant differences between the groups. Within the dexamethasone group, however, there were statistically significant increases in patients achieving normal middle ear pressure, tympanic membrane mobility and position in one or both ears. Plasma cortisol levels fluctuated widely from one determination to another and did not show an over-all declining trend for the dexamethasone group. However, two dexamethasone patients had a transient fall in cortisol level to below the normal range. These results support some therapeutic efficacy for nasal aerosolized dexamethasone but also point out the therapeutic value of time alone. The observation that most improvement occurred in the first two weeks and that some worrisome cortisol changes occurred suggests that dexamethasone therapy should be limited to two weeks and be undertaken with caution.


Over the past two decades, several broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) that confer protection against diverse influenza strains have been isolated1,2. Structural and biochemical characterization of these bnAbs has provided molecular insight into how they bind distinct antigens1. However, our understanding of the evolutionary pathways leading to bnAbs, and thus how best to elicit them, remains limited. Here, we measure equilibrium dissociation constants of combinatorially complete mutational libraries for two naturally isolated influenza bnAbs3–5 (CR-9114, 16 mutations; CR-6261, 11 mutations), reconstructing all possible intermediates back to the unmutated germline sequences. We find that these two libraries exhibit strikingly different patterns of breadth: while many variants of CR-6261 display moderate affinity to diverse antigens, those of CR-9114 display appreciable affinity only in specific, nested combinations. By examining the extensive pairwise and higher-order epistasis between mutations, we find key sites with strong synergistic interactions that are highly similar across antigens for CR-6261 and different for CR-9114. Together, these features of the binding affinity landscapes strongly favor sequential acquisition of affinity to diverse antigens for CR-9114, while the acquisition of breadth to more similar antigens for CR-6261 is less constrained. These results, if generalizable to other bnAbs, may explain the molecular basis for the widespread observation that sequential exposure favors greater breadth6–8, and such mechanistic insight will be essential for predicting and eliciting broadly protective immune responses.


Alameda Creek is one of the few remaining streams in the San Francisco Bay Estuary that has the potential to regain a viable steelhead trout population (Oncorhynchus mykiss). While great effort is underway to remove large barriers throughout the watershed, lesser known are the impacts of smaller structures in the lower reaches. The objective of my study was to determine if a decommissioned rubber dam, a check dam, and a temporary sewage pipe crossing impeded movement and/or created conditions that were unfavorable for outmigrating steelhead smolt during low flow periods. For the study I gathered data on temperature, depth, and channel form. The results showed that the rubber dam created inhospitable conditions of < 0.1 ft depth and water temperature of 20C in April across a 54 ft flat cement surface. Although the check dam and the sewage pipe crossing were less restrictive for smolt passage, all of the structures created environments that increased the risk of smolt predation. These inhospitable conditions were likely exacerbated by low flows. Gauge data from the past 33 years showed that low flows are common throughout the smolt migration period of April in the lower reach of Alameda Creek; therefore indicating the conditions observed in this study were not uncommon. Overall, the results suggest that modification or complete removal of these structures is the most viable solution to improve smolt migration success during low flow periods.


A new epiphytic dinoflagellate is described, G ambierdiscus scabrosus sp. nov., from tidal pools and rocky shores along the coastal areas of Japan. Cells are 63.2 ± 5.7 μm in depth, 58.2 ± 5.7 μm in width, and 37.3 ± 3.5 μm in length. The plate formula of G . scabrosus is Po, 4′, 0a, 6′′, 6c, ?s, 5′′′, 0p, and 2′′′′. Morphologically, G . scabrosus resembles G . belizeanus as follows: anterioposteriorly compressed cell shape, narrow 2′′′′ plate, and areolated surface. Despite this similarity, the cells of G . scabrosus can be distinguishable by the presence of the asymmetric shaped 3′′ plate and the rectangular shaped 2′ plate.


BACKGROUND
Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) is a phenomenon whereby transient nonlethal ischemia and reperfusion episodes confer protection against prolonged ischemia reperfusion-induced injury. However, the underlying intracellular signaling has not been extensively explored.

OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to inspect the putative involvement of TRPV1 -dependent CGRP release in mediating remote hind limb preconditioning-induced cardioprotection.

METHODS
In this study, remote hind limb preconditioning stimulus was delivered (four consecutive episodes of 5 minutes of ischemia reperfusion) using a blood pressure cuff tied at the inguinal level of the rat. The isolated rat hearts were perfused on the Langendorff's system and were subjected to 30-minutes global ischemia and 120-minutes reperfusion. Prolonged ischemia and subsequent reperfusion led to myocardial injury that was evaluated in terms of infarct size, LDH release, CK release, LVDP, +dp/dtmax , -dp/dtmin , and coronary flow rate. The pharmacological agents used in this study included capsaicin as TRPV1 channel activator, sumatriptan and CGRP8-37 as CGRP blockers.

RESULTS
Remote hind limb and capsaicin preconditioning (10 mg/kg-1 ) significantly reduced the infarct size, LDH release, CK release and significantly improved LVDP, +dp/dtmax , -dp/dtmin , and coronary flow rate. However, remote hind limb and capsaicin preconditioning-induced cardioprotective effects were remarkably reduced in the presence of sumatriptan (8 mg/kg-1 ) and CGRP8-37 (1 mg/kg-1 ).

CONCLUSION
This indicates that remote hind limb preconditioning stimulus probably activates TRPV1 channels which subsequently induces CGRP release to produce cardioprotective effects.


The cell's primary cilium is both a mechanical and chemical sensor involved in many signaling pathways. In order to ascertain protein enrichment in the primary cilium or study sub‐ciliary localization of various proteins, it is advantageous to remove the primary cilium from the cell body. The protocol described here gives detailed instructions on purifying primary cilia by separating them from the cell body using shear force. This simple technique avoids using harsh purification conditions that may affect signaling proteins in the cilium or cause the ciliary membrane to disintegrate. In addition, as the cell body remains mostly intact, contamination of the isolated cilia by proteins from the cell body is minimized. This protocol is ideally suited for isolating cilia from renal cell lines, as primary cilia in these cells grow to greater lengths than in other cell types (up to 50‐µm long in Xenopus A6 toad kidney cells as opposed to 1 to 5 µm in NIH3T3 fibroblast cells). Curr. Protoc. Cell Biol. 59:3.42.1‐3.42.9. © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Abstract This work focuses on the reasons why physical education (PE) teachers leave their profession. The study included 80 individuals who decided to leave a teaching profession in 2013. A diagnostic poll method with the use of the QWL (Quality of Work Life) index was employed in the study. It was observed that there are usually a number of reasons why they give up their job, the most important being financial reasons. Their decision is influenced by the accumulation of professional and personal problems as well as their inability to solve them. The findings showed that teachers' departure from the profession is generally associated with the issue of burnout; however, financial reasons are most frequently ones that directly affect this decision.


Pleasing Wall Street used to be easy for executives. Not anymore. The stock market is an uncertain place, and every day executives have to figure out what investors really want. There are right ways and wrong ways to do this. Get it wrong, and you risk alienating investors as well as employees, consumers, and suppliers--which can erode your earnings and stock price. In Winning Investors Over, Baruch Lev draws on his own and other finance scholars' research to present authoritative, often surprising instructions for dealing intelligently with Wall Street--and boosting your company's earnings and stock price. Through rigorous data analysis and real-life cases, Lev shows how to: * Understand and address investors' concerns to secure ongoing funding and support from the capital markets * Deliver disappointing news effectively to investors * Build, rebuild, and maintain credibility on Wall Street * Buy time for your company's recovery from activist shareholders and hedge fund raiders * Structure your compensation to win shareholders' support Winning Investors Over demonstrates that despite the uncertainty that characterizes Wall Street today, you can still craft a mutually beneficial, long-term partnership with investors.


We have performed multivariate statistical analyses of photometric and chemical abundance parameters of three large samples of stars in the globular cluster ω Centauri. The statistical analysis of a sample of 735 stars based on seven chemical abundances with the method of Maximum Parsimony (cladistics) yields the most promising results: seven groups are found, distributed along three branches with distinct chemical, spatial and kinematical properties. A progressive chemical evolution can be traced from one group to the next, but also within groups, suggestive of an inhomogeneous chemical enrichment of the initial interstellar matter. The adjustment of stellar evolution models shows that the groups with metallicities [Fe/H]>-1.5 are Helium-enriched, thus presumably of second generation. The spatial concentration of the groups increases with chemical evolution, except for two groups, which stand out in their other properties as well. The amplitude of rotation decreases with chemical evolution, except for two of the three metal-rich groups, which rotate fastest, as predicted by recent hydrodynamical simulations. The properties of the groups are interpreted in terms of star formation in gas clouds of different origins. In conclusion, our multivariate analysis has shown that metallicity alone cannot segregate the different populations of ω Centauri.


OBJECTIVES
As a tumor suppressor gene, SOCS3 inhibits the growth of tumor cells by regulating JAK/STAT signaling pathway through negative feedback. This study aimed to investigate the biological function and mechanism of SOCS3 methylation mediated by DNMTs in the development of AML.

METHODS
Bone marrow samples were collected from 70 AML patients and 20 healthy volunteers. The expression and methylation status of each gene were detected by RT-qPCR, western blot and MS-PCR, and the growth and apoptosis rate of leukemia cell lines were detected by CCK-8 and flow cytometry. The effects of changes in SOCS3 gene expression and methylation status of AML cell lines were observed by gene transfection and gene knockdown.

RESULTS
The methylation rate of SOCS3 in AML initial treatment group was significantly higher than that in the remission group and the normal control group (60% vs. 0%, 0%). The expression of SOCS3 in the SOCS3 methylation group was significantly lower than that in the non-methylated group and control group, while the expression of DNMT1, DNMT3a, p-JAK2, p-STAT3 and p-STAT5 were significantly higher than those in the non-methylated group and control group. Demethylation treatment, SOCS3 transfection and DNMT3a knockdown could up-regulate the expression of SOCS3, which decreased the proliferation and increased the apoptosis of leukemia cell lines.

CONCLUSION
SOCS3 methylation mediated by DNMTs promotes the occurrence and development of AML and can be used as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis and efficacy evaluation of AML.


This paper argues that there is a great need for family planning research in the developing world and identifies the areas in which research is most necessary. More effective delivery systems and more acceptable contraceptive methods are needed to maintain family planning motivation in the Third World. Most contraceptive technology has been developed in industrialized countries and people in developing countries have been expected to adapt to it in spite of differentials in motivation, medical facilities, nutritional status, disease patterns and so on. Timing of the research is critical because population is continually growing, so that an immediate marginal improvement in available contraceptives may be much more useful than a new contraceptive technique which will take 20 years to develop. Local research needs to be done on the safety of oral contraceptives, IUD insertion techniques, patient selection for IUDs, reversability of vasectomies, delivery of female sterilization services, improvements in conventional contraceptives--heretofore underemphasized--such as condoms, diaphragms and spermicides, and marketing techniques for family planning. Adapting present contraceptive methods to the needs of the developing countries is less costly than basic research in reproductive biology and makes contraceptives available sooner to more couples.


In the process of schooling teachers have placed increasingly greater stress on the qualitative performance of formative assessment during the teaching process in order to gather information about knowledge, meant for both pupils and teachers. It can serve as a good help for more efficiently organised lessons and gaining knowledge in a different way. The process of formative assessment can, however, be even more effective if available digital tools or online applications are used.
Formative assessment was defined in the first part of my master's degree thesis, we looked at conditions that must be completed for such assessment, presented its forms, his advantages and disadvantages, and justify the importance of feedback when assessing formatively and described its function in different countries.
In the second part of the master's degree thesis the selection of digital tools and online applications was presented. They can be used as a teaching accessory when formative assessment is used at work with pupils in a classroom. After that we presented and described criteria for evaluating digital tools and online applications. After that were presented and described and were later also used to analyse them.
Based on the analysis and evaluation of the aforementioned set of tools for the on-going assessment, the key differences in the utility value of the mentioned tools for formative assessment with pupils in a classroom were established.


With the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and its pitch scaling, the resist shrinkage from electron beam has returned to an important critical dimension (CD) control issue - unlike multi-patterning where the smallest CD is larger than 40nm. The resist height reduces to maintain the aspect ratio below 2:1 which is critical factor for the prevention of the resist collapse. This leads to huge challenges to minimize the shrinkage of resist during the scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurement. Accurate and precise metrology of chemically amplified resist (CAR) type EUV photoresist processed pattern utilizing classical beam energy for lithography pattern such as 500V is great challenging as electron beam exposure of 1st measurement already fully shrunk the pattern. Moreover, occurrence of carbonization along with shrinkage hinders finding best conditions for not only metrology optimization but also minimized process impact. In this work, we evaluated the magnitude of shrinkage of CAR type EUV photoresists with several approaches including 0th and 1st shrinkage estimation utilizing line & space pattern and contact hole pattern as a function of landing energy dose and static/dynamic repeatability method to distinguish behaviors of shrinkage and carbonization by controlling interaction time of photoresist to its environment. One approach to trace minimized 0th shrinkage and metrology uncertainty in lithography process is utilizing 1st shrinkage (1st CD – 2nd CD) analysis together with plotting absolute value of the 1st CD as a function of dose. The other approach to trace optimization condition was comparing exposed area with electron beam and non-exposed area achieved by comparing litho/etch consecutive process on the same area. Furthermore, model fits, a simulation study were also performed.


Abstract: Field experiments were conducted on a silty clay loam in Corvallis, OR during the summers of 1995 and 1996 to study the effects of soil solarization, spring-planted green manure crops, fumigation with metham, and combinations of these treatments on annual bluegrass seed survival. Annual bluegrass seeds were incorporated into the soil as a bioassay species and soil samples extracted to a depth of 15 cm to determine effects on seed survival. Soil solarization was applied over a 53- or 59-d period using a 0.6-mil clear polyethylene film. Soil samples were collected from four depths after the solarization period in both solarized and nonsolarized plots and surviving seeds germinated in a greenhouse. Maximum soil temperatures recorded at 5-, 10-, and 20-cm depths were 52, 47, and 33 C in solarized soil, respectively. Solarization reduced annual bluegrass seed survival from 89 to 100% in the upper 5 cm of soil, but did not reduce survival below 5 cm. Solarization may have enhanced seed survival below 5 cm. Cover crops of barley, rapeseed, and sudangrass generally increased survival of annual bluegrass seeds buried 2.5 to 15 cm deep in the soil. Green manure cover crops plus solarization did not improve the efficacy of solarization alone and in some cases diminished the effectiveness of solarization. Solarization significantly improved the efficacy of one-quarter rates of metham (230 L/ha) in the top 5 cm of soil, reducing overall annual bluegrass seed survival in the soil by 40% compared with metham alone (230 L/ha) but only 30% compared with solarization alone. The conventional rate of metham (930 L/ha) was the most effective and consistent treatment across all depths. Nomenclature:Metham, methyldithiocarbamic acid; annual bluegrass, Poa annua L. #3 POANN; spring barley, Hordeum vulgare L. Micah; rapeseed, Brassica napus Dwarf Essex; sudangrass, Sorghum vulgare Trudan 8. Additional index word: Green manures. Abbreviations: PE, polyethylene; PNW, Pacific Northwest.


I quote from the Preface: ... "The intention was to encourage contributions from all branches of the educational profession—teachers a t different levels, administrators, examiners and test constructors, psychologists—and to consider all aspects of evaluative procedures ... and . . . the impact on the pupil and on his teachers of the e valuator processes used." Twenty contributors have produced a most useful and provocative volume. The teacher (or training college lecturer) concerned with the fate of his pupil in the current examination-ridden world of education will find much to interest him in this critique of present trends. Firstly the book examines the place of examinations and testing procedures in education generally, then proceeds to the field of mathematics. Attention is given to new ideas which have been developed in connection with various recent mathematical projects, and CSE tests loom large in the volume. Two long articles by Mr. R. Wood of the National Foundation for Educational Research on modern ideas concerning assessment of achievement are especially thought -provoking. There are also excellent contributions about multiple-choice questions and Project-Work (investigations and other projects) with many actual examples of possible work in this field. Current A level examination procedures are criticized in one section (and incidentally emerge with no little credit!) and are compared with similar methods used abroad—the German Abitur method, for instance. This volume will provide the thoughtful would-be examiner with very valuable ideas.


Cellular cardiomyoplasty is undergoing intensive investigation as a new form of therapy for severely damaged hearts. Among several cell types, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been proposed as a potential cell source. MSC can be found in adult tissues or in fetal tissues like the umbilical chord blood, amniotic membrane, or amniotic fluid (AF). AF‐MSCs have properties intermediate between embryonic and adult MSC, which make them particularly attractive for cellular regeneration. It has been shown that MSC could differentiate in cardiomyocytes‐like cells in vitro. In some animal models, it has also been shown that transplanted MSC could engraft and show some cardiomyocytes‐like characteristics. Since MSC do not express HLA‐DR and present in vitro and in vivo immunosuppressive properties, they can be envisioned to be used in allogenic cellular cardiomyoplasty. Based on these promises, MSC from adult donors are currently used in small safety and feasibility trials. No clinical trial using AF‐MSC has been performed yet. Still, the exact role of true cell repopulation and in situ cardiomyocytes differentiation versus pure paracrine effect after cell transplantation is currently much debated. Cellular cardiomyoplasty is a fascinating new area of investigation in regenerative medicine. Although considerable knowledge has been gained over the last decade on the use of MSC as a potential stem cell (SC) source, many issues remain unsolved. Because of several limitations in animal models, clinical studies in highly selected patients balancing the risks and benefits are required. In that regard, MSCs obtained from the fetal AF are a potential new source of SCs that need to be further investigated for cellular cardiomyoplasty. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Background: Due to limited therapeutic options and potential for spread, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE)-producing New Delhi metallo-β-lactamases (NDMs) are a public health priority. We investigated the epidemiology of NDM-producing CRE reported to the CDC to clarify its distribution and relative prevalence. Methods: The CDC's Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory Network supports molecular testing of CRE for 5 carbapenemases nationally. Although KPC is the most common carbapenemase in the United States, non-KPC carbapenemases are a growing concern. We analyzed CRE with any of 4 non-KPC plasmid-mediated carbapenemases (NDM, VIM, IMP, or OXA-48 type) isolated from specimens collected from January 1, 2017, through June 30, 2019; only a patient's first isolate per organism–carbapenemase combination was included. We excluded isolates from specimen sources associated with colonization screening (eg, perirectal). We compared the proportion of NDM-producing CRE to all non-KPC–producing CP-CRE between period A (January to June 2018) and period B (January to June 2019). Health departments and the CDC collected additional exposure and molecular information in selected states to better describe current NDM-producing CRE epidemiology. Results: Overall, 47 states reported 1,013 non–KPC-producing CP-CRE (range/state, 1–109 isolates; median, 11 isolates); 46 states reported 631 NDM-producing CRE (range/state, 1–84; median, 6). NDM-producing CRE increased quarterly from the third quarter of 2018 through the second quarter of 2019; CP-CRE isolates with other non-KPC carbapenemases remained stable (Fig. 1). In period A, 124 of 216 emerging CP-CRE had NDM (57.1%), compared with 255 of 359 emerging CP-CRE (71.0%) during period B (P = .1179). Among NDM-producing CRE, the proportion of Enterobacter spp increased from 10.5% in 2018 to 18.4% in 2019 (P = .0467) (Fig. 2). In total, 18 states reported more NDM-producing CRE in the first 6 months of 2019 than in all of 2018. Connecticut, Ohio, and Oregon were among states that conducted detailed investigations; these 3 states identified 24 NDM-producing CRE isolates from 23 patients in period B. Overall, 5 (21.7%) of 22 patients with history available traveled internationally ≤12 months prior to culture; 17 (73.9%) acquired NDM-producing CRE domestically. Among 15 isolates sequenced, 8 (53.3%) carried NDM-5 (6 E. coli, 1 Enterobacter spp and 1 Klebsiella spp) and 7 (46.7%) carried NDM-1 (6 Enterobacter spp and 1 Klebsiella spp). Species were diverse; no single strain type was shared by >2 isolates. Conclusions: Detection of NDM-producing CRE has increased across the AR Lab Network. Among states with detailed information available, domestic acquisition was common, and no single variant or strain predominated. Aggressive public health response and further understanding of current US NDM-CRE epidemiology are needed to prevent further spread. Disclosures: None Funding: None


The variety and heterogeneity of different approaches for Quality of Service (QoS) support on different protocol layers result in the need of a solution with end-to-end overview and regulation of dataflows in a network. Previously we proposed the concept of ROBIN (regulation of bandwidth in intra-networks) to regulate the sending bandwidth of data flows in heterogeneous campus networks by determining bottlenecks and possible rate limitations with a global knowledge of the network state based on the end-to-end operation of the mechanism. This paper presents latest results of a simulation-based performance analysis studying the throughput fairness of an enhanced version of ROBIN and evaluating the impact of the bandwidth regulation on delays and packet losses in the network.


Today, diabetes is one of the leading medical and social problems. This is due to a pandemic increase in the development of the disease. Eye complications that occur against the background of diabetes are complex. Diabetic damage to the visual organ is the main cause of visual acuity in these patients. One of the serious complications of proliferative diabetic retinopathy is secondary neovascular glaucoma, which is often refractory to treatment and eventually leads to irreversible blindness. Currently, neovascular glaucoma is an important and urgent problem in modern society, as it leads a large number of patients to disability and impaired social adaptation. The paper presents a review of the literature on the current state of the problem of neovascular glaucoma and presents the results of major international studies.Based on the data of domestic and foreign literature, the authors provide up-to-date information on the incidence, evaluate the clinical manifestations of the disease, paying attention to new methods of diagnosis and treatment. These data allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of modern therapeutic and surgical approaches in the treatment of neovascular glaucoma, as well as its various complications and measures for their prevention.


BACKGROUND: Community pharmacies are a convenient setting for vaccinating adults against infectious diseases in the United States. Whether the costs paid for vaccination in pharmacies differ from those in medical settings is unclear. OBJECTIVES: To examine whether the direct medical costs paid for adult vaccination differ by vaccination setting. METHODS: This was an observational retrospective study using 2010 MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters and Medicare Supplemental and Coordination of Benefits databases. Adults receiving herpes zoster or shingles vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine 23-valent, or influenza vaccines were identified using Current Procedural Terminology codes and National Drug Code numbers from medical and pharmacy claims files, respectively, between January 1 and December 31, 2010, in 1 of the following 3 settings: physician offices; other medical settings (e.g., inpatient/outpatient hospitals, emergency rooms); and pharmacies. Patients were adults aged ≥ 60 years on the date of zoster vaccination and aged ≥ 19 years on the date of pneumococcal or influenza vaccinations. The final study samples meeting inclusion/exclusion criteria were 54,042 for zoster vaccine, 154,994 for pneumococcal vaccine, and 1,657,264 for influenza vaccine. The vaccination costs included the health plan and enrollee paid amounts for the product; vaccine administration; dispensing fee; and, where applicable, the visit. The mean (SD) vaccination costs paid per vaccine administration were estimated by vaccine and type of setting, overall, and by geographic region and type of health plan. The costs paid for the same vaccine across vaccination settings were compared using analysis of variance with post hoc tests (Tukey). RESULTS: Of those receiving zoster, pneumococcal, and influenza vaccines, 25%, 1%, and 7%, respectively, received the vaccines at a pharmacy. Compared with other U.S. regions, pharmacy-based vaccination for these 3 vaccines was generally more frequent in the West and the South. Overall, the mean (SD) costs paid per enrollee per vaccine administration at physician offices, other medical settings, and pharmacies were as follows: for zoster vaccine, $208.72 (42.10), $209.51 (50.83), and $168.50 (15.66), respectively (P  less than  0.05); for pneumococcal vaccine, $65.69 (27.54), $72.11 (49.95), and $54.98 (9.72), respectively (P  less than  0.05); and for influenza vaccine, $29.29 (15.29), $24.20 (13.12), and $21.57 (6.63), respectively (P  less than  0.05). The mean amounts paid also differed by geographic region and type of health plan, with costs usually lower for the vaccinations given at pharmacies. CONCLUSIONS: The average direct costs paid per adult vaccination were lower in pharmacies compared with physician offices and other medical settings by 16%-26% and 11%-20%, respectively. These results were mostly consistent across geographic regions and types of health plans. These data may help payers and policymakers understand the economic value of adult vaccination in different settings, especially in pharmacies.


In this article an efficient method to allocate bandwidth in high coverage Passive Optical Networks (PONs) based on Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) strategies is proposed. The novelty of this proposal relies on the fact that this is the first one which applies PID policies to control a network parameter, such as the bandwidth in these networks. Contrary to other proposed algorithms, the bandwidth assignation made with PID controllers provide a more stable and quicker response than the one achieved by other proposals. As these strategies take into consideration present, past and future errors in the bandwidth adjustment, this self-adapting technique leads to a very robust process. Simulations results exhibit that not only are they faster and more stable than other algorithms, but also they auto-adapt very efficiently the resources when facing changes in the bandwidth conditions. Another great strength of these techniques is that they can be easily extended to control other critical network parameters such as the delay or packet losses and they can be directly applied in PONs with different end-to-end distances.


Nearly any diamond electronic or sensor device needs at least one ohmic contact. These contacts play a key role in the overall device performance. This paper reviews the dependence of the Schottky barrier height on the surface termination and the impact of annealing of carbide-forming metals on the specific contact resistivity to diamond. It is concluded that carbide patches dominate the specific contact resistivity after annealing. Furthermore, the doping dependence of the specific contact resistivity and suitable diffusion barriers, which avoid interdiffusion of the contact scheme, are briefly discussed.


Metal ion-doping has been paid little attention for improving the fluorescence intensity of carbon dots (CDs) compared with nonmetallic-element doping. Herein, for the first time, Fe2+-doped CDs were facilely synthesized at 80 °C instead of by a hydrothermal method. Fe2+ was confirmed to be the only definitive common metal ion to synthesize highly fluorescent CDs with proline (Pro) as a carbon resource. The as-synthesized Fe2+-doped CDs showed bright blue fluorescence at 455 nm and exhibited favorable anti-ion, pH, and time stability. The blue cysteine-functional-Fe2+-doped CDs were combined with red gold nanoclusters (Au NCs) to construct a nanohybrid by electrostatic interaction for the ratiometric fluorescence sensing of Zn2+ and histidine (His), in which the CDs acted as a reference signal and the Au NCs as an analyte-responsive unit. The detection of Zn2+ and histidine (His) was shown by two distinct blue-pink and pink-blue-pink fluorescence color changes, respectively. Both of them showed excellent selectivity and sensitivity. Dual-emission fluorescent probes avoid the shortcomings of single fluorescence signals, which are susceptible to experimental conditions, and have a bright future being utilized for the visual detection of Zn2+ and His in practical analysis.


Nanolimes are alcohol dispersions of colloidal Ca(OH)2 nanoparticles used as novel nanomaterials for the conservation of cultural heritage. Upon exposure to atmospheric CO2 at room T, and in the presence of H2O, they undergo carbonation forming CaCO3 cement which consolidates decayed porous materials such as stone or mural paintings. Despite extensive research on the synthesis and applications of nanolimes, little is known about the mechanisms and kinetics of the formation and transformation of metastable and stable calcium carbonate phases and their effects on the treatment efficacy. This is a strong handicap to their effective and widespread application. Here we show that the carbonation of nanolimes in humid air at room T involves the initial formation of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) and its transformation into metastable vaterite (and minor aragonite) via a dissolution–precipitation process, followed by non-classical nanoparticle-mediated crystal growth. Subsequently, vaterite (and aragonite) partially dissolves and stable calcite precipitates. All these phase transformations follow first order kinetics, where the rate controlling step is the amount of undissolved parent phase. We unambiguously demonstrate that precipitation of vaterite (up to ∼35 wt%) and aragonite (∼5 wt%) after ACC (up to ∼24 wt%) is favored by the alcohol adsorbed on Ca(OH)2 nanoparticles undergoing carbonation. Although it is known that vaterite formation limits consolidation, the fast kinetics of the solvent-mediated vaterite–calcite transformation (72% conversion in ten days) ensures that, in the short-term, the almost full consolidation potential of nanolimes can be achieved. Finally, the mechanistic and kinetic commonalities between nanolime carbonation and biomineralization/biomimetic synthesis of CaCO3 underline that the observed multistep crystallization and non-classical crystal growth might be general and applicable for the rational design of novel CaCO3 materials.


BACKGROUND
Psychosocial factors at work (PFW) can be defined as all non-physicochemical occupational risks. Several epidemiological models have been proposed to measure PFW, but one of the most widely used is Karasek's model.

AIMS
To determine whether psychosocial factors, evaluated by Karasek's questionnaire, had increased in a cohort of workers.

METHODS
A random sample of workers in the Pays de la Loire region of France, who could be considered representative of the region's population of salaried workers, filled in a self-administered questionnaire, including Karasek's self-administered questionnaire, in 2002-05 and 2007-09. Karasek's questionnaire can be used to study three psychosocial dimensions (psychological demand, decision latitude and social support in the workplace) in workers in order to define two high-risk situations for their health: 'Job Strain' and 'Iso Strain'. Changes in job strain and iso strain among workers were studied according to the workers' sociodemographic characteristics and their working conditions.

RESULTS
In this sample of 2049 workers, the proportion with iso strain increased between the two periods from 12 to 16%, P < 0.001, mainly among manual workers. Deterioration of Karasek indicators was mainly explained by an increase of the 'low social support' dimension (38 versus 49%, P < 0.001). Working conditions such as temporary employment of colleagues and high perceived physical exertion were associated with higher PFW.

CONCLUSIONS
This study, based on a quantitative and collective model, showed deterioration of working team environments and increased risk for individual mental health in this cohort of French workers in recent years.


Gastrointestinal motility dysfunctions entailed in non ulcer dyspepsia, gastroparesis and reflex oesophagitis are known to be effectively treated with the gastroprokinetic agents e.g. metoclopramide and cisapride. The mechanism of gastroprokinetic action is accepted to be correlated with agonistic activity at 5-HT4 receptor. Metoclopramide and cisapride concurrently have dopamine D2 receptor antagonistic activity, which is responsible for unfavorable side effects such as extrapyramidal symptoms and central nervous system depression. To obtain gastroprokinetic agents with more potent and selective than metoclopramide, 4-amino-N- [(4-benzyl-2-morpholinyl) methyl] -5-chloro-2-methoxy-benzamide was designed and prepared. As a result of structure-activity relationship studies, mosapride was identified as a novel gastroprokinetic agent. As an extension of this project, the N- (1-benzyl-4- methylhexahydro-1, 4-diazepin-6-yl) benzamides and carboxamides were evaluated for 5-HT3 receptor antagonistic activity, and DAT-582 was selected as an optimal compound. DAT-582 was exhibited to be highly effective for the blockade of chemotherapy-induced nausea and emesis.


Physiology and evolutionary biology have developed as two separated disciplines, a separation that mirrored the hypothesis that the physiological and evolutionary processes could be decoupled. We argue that non‐genetic inheritance shatters the frontier between physiology and evolution, and leads to the coupling of physiological and evolutionary processes to a point where there exists a continuum between accommodation by phenotypic plasticity and adaptation by natural selection. This approach is also profoundly affecting the definition of the concept of phenotypic plasticity, which should now be envisaged as a multi‐scale concept. We further suggest that inclusive inheritance provides a quantitative way to help bridging infra‐individual (i.e. physiology) with supra‐individual (i.e. evolution) approaches, in a way that should help building the long sough inclusive evolutionary synthesis.


Understanding the social determinants of telomere length is critical to evaluate the risk of early biological aging. We investigated sex differences on the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and demographic markers and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) in Brazilian adults. This cross-sectional study was conducted in a subsample (women=228; men=200) nested within the Pro-Saúde study, a prospective cohort study of university civil servants in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2012-2013). Adjusted multivariate models were used to test the relationship between SES markers (marital status, educational attainment, father's educational attainment, race/skin color, household income, and childhood experience of food deprivation) and LTL. After adjusting for age and potential health-related confounders, lower educational attainment was associated with shorter LTL among men (β=-0.05, 95% confidence interval (CI)=95%CI: -0.10, 0.00, P=0.03). In women, LTL was inversely associated with unmarried status (β=-0.05, 95%CI: -0.09, 0.00, P=0.03), lower father's educational attainment (β=-0.05, 95%CI: -0.13, 0.00, P=0.04), and childhood experience of food deprivation (β=-0.07, 95%CI: -0.13, 0.00, P=0.04). Our findings suggested that the association between SES markers and LTL differs according to sex. SES markers able to induce lifelong stress, reflected in LTL, appeared to be more related to individual factors in men, whereas in women they were family-related.


To make removable, flexible disk drives (FDDs) a practical solution for modern backup, archiving, and data sharing, current areal density capabilities must be improved. In this paper, we study prototype drive-level performance of two types of flexible media. Using giant magneto-resistive heads, a partial-response maximum-likelihood channel, and a robust error-correction coding scheme, we evaluated signal-to-noise ratios, byte-error rates, pulse widths, and off-track read capabilities for each media type. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of FDD areal densities at 17.5 Gb/in2 using barium-ferrite particulate media, and 31 Gb/in2 using CoPtCr-SiO2 sputtered media


Sir,

In the present study, we described the first case series of intraoperative positioning of subconjunctival dexamethasone implant as adjunctive antiscarring agent in patients undergone trabeculectomy for primary open angle glaucoma (POAG).

The rationale of subconjunctival dexamethasone implant injection was to reduce the postsurgical overscarring at the site of the bleb, by limiting the first acute inflammatory reaction that represents the primum movens for conjunctival healing.

Three eyes of three consecutive patients (three female) with a mean age of 61 ± 14.5 years taking a maximum tolerated dose of intraocular pressure (IOP)-lowering medication for POAG with a recorded IOP of ≥18 mmHg, glaucomatous damage on visual field and underwent trabeculectomy: All patients underwent a limbus-based conjunctival flap with one circumferential and one radial incision, antimetabolite sponge application, and scleral rectangular flap which was sutured with 10-0 nylon suture, sclerostomy with punch a peripheral iridectomy. Before the conjunctival suture with 9-0 vicryl was performed, a subconjunctival apposition without fixation of 0.7 mg sustained-release dexamethasone implant (Ozurdex, Allergan, Inc., Irvine, USA) was obtained. The implant was softly leaned on the sclera posterior to the flap.

After 7 days, 1 month, and 2 months, the implant seemed to fragment reducing progressively its dimensions and was no more detectable after 2 months in all eyes [Fig. 1].

Figure 1

Patient with primary open angle glaucoma undergone trabeculectomy and subconjunctival apposition of 0.7 mg sustained-release dexamethasone implant at day 1 (a), day 7 (b), month 1 (c), and month 2 (d). The implant seemed to fragment reducing progressively ...

After 2 months, IOP not quite significantly (P = 0.056, nonparametric Mann–Whitney U-test) decreased from 19.3 ± 2.3 mmHg (median: 18, interquartile range [IQR]: 4) at baseline to 15.7 ± 0.6 mmHg (median: 16, IQR: 1) without any glaucoma medication. In all eyes, IOP was ≤16 mmHg (range: 15–16).

After 2 months in all the cases, conjunctival scarring at the site of the filtering bleb was not observed. No ocular adverse event or postoperative complications were observed.

Corticosteroids have long been used as inflammation modulators of posttrabeculectomy conjunctival healing with significantly success rates, since they act on vascular permeability, as well as white blood cell chemotaxis and function.[1]

First evidence of steroids effects in glaucoma surgery came from Starita et al.,[2,3] who investigated the effects of topical and systemic steroids in a randomized prospective trial. They found that topical steroids significantly improved trabeculectomy outcome as compared to the group without steroids at 5 and 10 years.

There are studies about the intraoperative subconjunctival injection of triamcinolone acetonide (TA) after bleb-forming filtration surgery.[4] TA injections appeared to be safe in both studies, with no significant adverse events, even if results of a randomized controlled trial about long-term clinical benefits in patients receiving intrableb TA against whom receiving topical steroids only, have not been published yet. The rationale of intraoperative subconjunctival corticosteroid injection was to find a more direct, sustained, and convenient mode of steroid delivery in the operated patients; moreover, the bulk of injected TA would also serve as a barrier between the inflamed conjunctiva and sclera, to avoid adherence in between. In this view, Ozurdex implant would be even more effective than TA, lasting longer and interposing a bigger volume in the conjunctival layers.

Subconjunctival implant appears to be well tolerated by operated eyes. However, use of Ozurdex has been associated with several adverse events including posterior subcapsular cataract and a higher risk of eye infections;[5] reasonably, the most threatening glaucoma surgery success is eye pressure increase that may need supplementary IOP lowering medical therapy after trabeculectomy. Effective success of surgery should therefore be taken only several weeks after the operation, when the insert is completely reabsorbed.

Limitations of this study were the small sample size and the absence of a control group.

The data of this pilot study showed that no serious side effects were noted, subconjunctival Ozurdex was well tolerated and that a controlled study is required to establish the efficacy of this easy to perform the technique.

Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.

Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.


The problems of landfill gas collection and treatment at municipal solid waste landfills are considered. The analysis of the main methods of landfill gas treatment and use is carried out. The characteristic of the gas collection system used at the Kuchino MSW landfill is presented. Installation of a landfill gas treatment system on a flare at the stage of landfill closing will reduce methane emissions by 65 % in comparison with a landfill not equipped with such a system, and the fee for negative impact on environmental objects will decrease by 30 %. Based on the analysis of monitoring studies of landfill biogas emissions from the Kuchino MSW landfill, a decrease in the concentration of pollutants in the landfill gas after its treatment to the MPC level and below was established.


Basically, the substance of democracy is the existence of role/active participation in the governance based on independence, equality and freedom. Somehow in new era, this strategic position of public servant was used by political party which finally makes political problems in the conception of law enforcement and makes confusedness to the role of public servant. Finally, the government make coherent regulation concerning with the neutrality in the public service law.  Arrangement of public service neutrality, arranged in article 3 sentence (2) and sentence (3) Law No. 43 Year 1999 and Government Regulation No. 37 Year 2004 concerning prohibition order of public servant becoming political party member and official member. The regulation only arranging concerning public servant becoming member and official member of political party, while public servant which was nonmember of political party, what exactly more loyal in political party not yet been arranged in that regulation. The regulation which straightening of neutrality arrange in  the preamble which public servant that impinge this regulation not yet arranged to collision, though sanction to this regulation was riffed as public servant, for public servant that becoming member and official member of political party. Keyword: Neutralities, political party, law enforcement


The von Neumann entropy is a central concept in physics and information theory, having a number of compelling physical interpretations. There is a certain perspective that the most fundamental notion in quantum mechanics is that of a quantum channel, as quantum states, unitary evolutions, measurements, and discarding of quantum systems can each be regarded as certain kinds of quantum channels. Thus, an important goal is to define a consistent and meaningful notion of the entropy of a quantum channel. Motivated by the fact that the entropy of a state ρ can be formulated as the difference of the number of physical qubits and the "relative entropy distance" between ρ and the maximally mixed state, here we define the entropy of a channel $\mathcal{N}$ as the difference of the number of physical qubits of the channel output with the "relative entropy distance" between $\mathcal{N}$ and the completely depolarizing channel. We establish that this definition satisfies all of the axioms, recently put forward in [Gour, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 65, 5880 (2019)], required for a channel entropy function. The task of quantum channel merging, in which the goal is for the receiver to merge his share of the channel with the environment's share, gives a compelling operational interpretation of the entropy of a channel. We define Rényi and min-entropies of a channel and establish that they satisfy the axioms required for a channel entropy function. Among other results, we also establish that a smoothed version of the min-entropy of a channel satisfies the asymptotic equipartition property.A full version of this paper is accessible at http://arxiv.org/abs/1808.06980


Murraya koenigii (L.) Spreng., commonly called Indian curry leaf, is an aromatic shrub highly valued for its medicinal potentialviz. anticonvulsant, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antiviral and diuretic. Its leaves, locally known as curry patta, are used widely for culinary purpose, particularly in India. However, M. koenigii, due to poor rate of fruit set and seeds with short viability period and poor rate of germination, are sparsely distributed in wild, and has attracted researchers for propagation through biotechnological approaches. In this context, maintaining genetic fidelity is a vital for assessing genetic uniformity in micropropagated plantlets as variations within the progeny can result in serious losses to the end users. Therefore, it is necessary to screen them for their genetic makeup whether they are true-to-type or not. Molecular techniques like Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) that are not influenced by environmental factors are appropriate tools to analyse genetic fidelity of in vitro propagated plants as, and generate reliable and reproducible results. In this study, we tried to evaluate genetic fidelity of micro-clones of tissue culture raised M. koenigii using ISSR technique. Twenty five ISSR primers were used to amplify genomic DNA from in vitro raised field grown plants and mother plant. Out of 25 primers screened, a total 465 amplified products were obtained from 10 ISSR primers. Out of which, 55 were monomorphic across the mother plant and its micropropagated progenies of 10 ISSR primers 05 showed profiles identical to mother plant. Similarity matrix based on Jaccard's coefficient and pair-wise values between mother plant and tissue cultured plant ranged from 0.91 to 1.00, indicating a high degree of genetic fidelity.


To address the navigation issues of the planetary rover and construct a map for the unknown environment as well as the surface of the planets in our solar system, the simultaneous localization and mapping can be seen as an alternative method. In terms of the navigation with the laser sensor, the Kalman filter and its improving algorithms, such as EKF and UKF are widely used in the the process of processing information. Nevertheless, these filter algorithms suffer from low accuracy and significant computation expensive. The EKF algorithm has a linearization process, the UKF algorithm is better matched in a nonlinear system than the EKF algorithm, but it has more computational complexity. The GP-RTSS filtering algorithm, based on a Gaussian filter, is significantly superior to the EKF and UKF algorithms regarding the sensor fusion accuracy. The Gaussian Process can be used in different non-linear system, does not need prediction model and linearization. However, the main barrier in the process of implementing the GP-RTSS algorithm is that the Gaussian core function requires a lot of computation. In this paper, an algorithm, so-called DIS RTSS filter under a distributed computation scheme, derived from the GP-RTSS Gaussia n smoothing and filter, is proposed. The distributed system can effectively reduce the cost of computation (computation expense and memory). Moreover, four fusion methods for the DIS RTSS filter, i.e., DIS RTP, DIS RTGP, DIS RTB, DIS RTrB are discussed in this paper. The experiments show that among the four algorithms described above, the DIS RTGP algorithm is the most effective solution for practical implementation. The DIS RTSS filtering algorithm can realize a high processing rate and can theoretically process an infinite number of data samples.


It is well known that speech sounds evolve at multiple timescales over the course of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. Such temporal modulations are crucial for speech perception and are believed to directly influence the underlying code for representing acoustic stimuli. The present work seeks to explicitly quantify this relationship using the principle of temporal coherence. Here we show that by constraining the outputs of model linear neurons to be highly correlated over timescales relevant to speech, we observe the emergence of neural response fields that are bandpass, localized, and reflective of the rich spectro-temporal structure present in speech. The emergent response fields also appear to share qualitative similarities those observed in auditory neurophysiology. Importantly, learning is accomplished using unlabeled speech data, and the emergent neural properties well-characterize the spectro-temporal statistics of the input. We analyze the characteristics and coverage of ensembles of learned response fields for a variety of timescales, and suggest uses of such a coherence learning framework for common speech tasks.


Received 01 December 2019 Accepted 06 January 2020 Available online 05 February 2020 A piece of study was carried out to identify the resistant varieties to stemphylium blight disease of lentil at Plant Pathology Division, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, Joydebpur, Gazipur during the period of September 2013 to April 2014. The experimental design was RCB in field condition having three replications. Eleven lentil test entries along with 2 check variety BARI masur-1 and BARI masur-7 were evaluated. At maturity 4 lines showed Moderately Resistant (MR) and 7 lines showed Moderately Susceptible (MS) types of reaction. The line BLX-06004-12 gave the highest yield (1456 kg ha-1) followed by BLX-06004-2 (1113.30 kg ha-1 ) and BLX-05001-6 (1106.30 kg ha-1) which were designated as moderately resistant to stemphylium blight disease. The lowest yield (987.30 kg ha-1) was recorded in BLX-05008-21 which was designated as moderately susceptible to stemphylium blight disease.


Initiation of dormancy in woody species is induced by a short photoperiod. In the early stages of dormancy development, growth can be initiated by long days. To study the possible involvement of gibberellins and indole-3-acetic acid in bud break in Salix pentandra, effects on levels of these plant hormones of transfer of seedlings in an early stage of dormancy to a growth-inductive long photoperiod was investigated. The bud break and initiation of growth correlated with a rapid transient increase in GA, in defined zones of shoot tips to levels twice of that in continuously elongating long day-grown control seedlings, followed by a rapid decrease to levels similar to in these control plants. Also, the contents of GAS3, GA19, GAM, GA8 increased upon transfer from short to long days. Levels of indole-3acetic acid showed a gradual decline under short days, and increased gradually upon transfer to long days up to a level of continuously elongating plants. The present data suggest an interaction between gibberellin and indole-3-acetic acid in the photoperiodic control of dormancy development and bud break in S. pentandra.


Measurements of surface area reduction of TiO2 anatase powder (of initially 100 m2· g−1) were carried out for various partial pressures of water and oxygen at 823 K. The kinetic equation obtained for the experimental rates has the formulation r=k[PH2O]1/α [PO2]1/β where α and β are equal to 2 and -12, respectively. A mechanistic model involving six consecutive elementary steps was developed, in which hydroxyl species play a dominant role. No geometrical assumption is required. The general expression of the deduced theoretical rates has the same form as previously given. The comparison between the experimental and the predicted rates points out that the rate-limiting step is the surface diffusion of hydroxyl species. This model can easily be used for any other compounds, for particle growth, and for porosity elimination.