- Torsional vibrations of drill-strings are actively controlled using a non-switching sliding mode strategy. The controller is intended also to reject the effect of the interaction between the drill-bit and rock formation which induces non-linear stick-slip friction torque while tracking a desirable constant angular velocity of the drill-string. In order to demonstrate the merits of the proposed control algorithm, it is integrated with a simple two degrees-of-freedom model of the drill-string which is considered as a benchmark model for studying stick-slip induced torsional vibrations. Details of the development of the individual components making up the entire control action of the sliding mode controller ( SMC ) are presented. These components aim at rejecting the effect of the external disturbance of the stick-slip disturbance and tracking a reference angular velocity of the drill-string. Such development of the control action components is established using Lyapunov stability criterion. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the SMC controller as influenced by the weight-on-bit ( WOB ), the drill-string rotational speed, and the main parameters of the controller. The stick-slip sensitivity (SSS) maps are developed to illustrate the performance characteristics of the active system for different operating conditions and important design parameters of the SMC . The presented active control approach is envisioned to present an invaluable and practical means for effectively mitigating the undesirable effects of stick-slip frictional disturbances on drill-stings. Abstract-Torsional vibrations of drill-strings are actively controlled using a non-switching sliding mode strategy. The controller is intended also to reject the effect of the interaction between the drill-bit and rock formation which induces non-linear stick-slip friction torque while tracking a desirable constant angular velocity of the drill-string. In order to demonstrate the merits of the proposed control algorithm, it is integrated with a simple two degrees-of-freedom model of the drill-string which is considered as a benchmark model for studying stick-slip induced torsional vibrations. Details of the development of the individual components making up the entire control action of the sliding mode controller (SMC) are presented. These components aim at rejecting the effect of the external disturbance of the stick-slip disturbance and tracking a reference angular velocity of the drill-string. Such development of the control action components is established using Lyapunov stability criterion. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the SMC controller as influenced by the weight-on-bit (WOB), the drill-string rotational speed, and the main parameters of the controller. The stick-slip sensitivity (SSS) maps are developed to illustrate the performance characteristics of the active system for different operating conditions and important design parameters of the SMC. The presented active control approach is envisioned to present an invaluable and practical means for effectively mitigating the undesirable effects of stick-slip frictional disturbances on drill-stings.


The prevalence of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is reaching into epidemic proportions worldwide. Non-communicable diseases are not transmitted from person to person, persist for a long period of time and generally have a slow progression. The most common NCDs are cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes mellitus, covering every countries and every age. Diabetes mellitus is one of the most challenging health problems of the 21st century. Diabetes mellitus is currently a major chronic disease that affects individuals from countries at all stages of economic and social development. Even people in developed countries, despite scientific advances and easy access to health care systems, are affected by the increasing prevalence of diabetes. The severity of the disease stems from the increased frequency of diabetes and the growing number of premature deaths from complications of the disease. Diabetes imposes a large economic burden for the patients and their families and for the national health systems. Management of chronic diseases (in this particular diabetes) does not focus on individual interventions and provides a coordinated care to ensure that the chronically ill people will get the support they need at the appropriate time. The chronic care model (CCM) describes chronic care as "the prevention and diagnosis, management, and palliation of chronic disease" and is internationally accepted as the main strategic response to the challenges of chronic disease. The model calls for the redesign of health care to provide continuous, coordinated multi-faceted systems of health service delivery. The personal and economic burden of diabetes mellitus is a serious challenge for Bulgarians. Public policy has a strong focus on chronic disease, emphasizing health system redesign with the introduction of a series of different health system models to enhance population-based prevention and chronic disease management. The CCM in NCDs shows the relationship between the major components in their management such as social policies and public resources; organization and function of the health system in terms of health services; support diagnostic and therapeutic systems; maintenance of clinical information systems; support self – management. The result of effective interaction of these components leads to informed and active patient and proactive medical professionals. The integration of this model in the programs for chronic disease management aimed on improvement of people's health and optimisation of cost-effectiveness of health care. Data from scientific studies indicate that for the effectiveness of these programs they must have strong leadership and vision at national, regional or organizational level. Different approaches to chronic disease management are available, but most often in these programs focusing on systemic approach as an optimal and cost-effective way for providing health care.


Abstract Zhao, Y.-Z., Wu, Y.-H. & Zhao, L.-Q.: Caragana leduensis, a new species of Leguminosae from Qinghai, China. — Willdenowia 35: 155–157. — ISSN 0511-9618; © 2005 BGBM Berlin-Dahlem. doi:10.3372/wi.35.35111 (available via http://dx.doi.org/) Caragana leduensis from Qinghai is described as a new species and illustrated. It is similar to C. kozlovii but differs by the corolla wing auricle being ¾ as long as the claw, the densely white-villous ovary and legumes, and the obovate-elliptic leaflets being blunt at the apex and glabrous except for the white-villous midvein and margins on the lower surface.


The methodology of fractal interpolation is very useful for processing experimental signals in order to extract their characteristics of complexity. We go further and prove that the Iterated Function System involved may also be used to obtain new approximants that are close to classical ones. In this work a classical function and a fractal function are combined to construct a new interpolant. The fractal function is first defined as a perturbation of a classical mapping. The additional condition of proximity to another interpolant leads to a problem of convex optimization whose solution is a fractal element with mixing properties. This procedure may be applied to the reduction of the regularity order of traditional approximants and for the computation of models with rich geometric structure.


This research aims at evaluating the risk analysis process in Information Technology and Communication (ICT) outsourcing conducted by organizations of the private sector. The research is characterized by being a descriptive, quantitative and transversal type study, which was used the survey method. Data were collected through questionnaire, the sample is not random and we used a convenience sampling process. The research made contributions to understanding the risk analysis process in ICT services outsourcing, and identified statistically significant relationships between risk analysis, organization's size and its industry, and between risk analysis and diversity of outsourced services.


The increased frequency of HLA-B8 in Sjögren's syndrome was recently reported independently by Gershwin et al. (1975) and Iványi et al. (1976). The association of HLA-B8 antigen with other diseases, characterized generally by impaired immunologic reactivity, has been shown (see Svejgaard et al. 1975, Dausset & Hors 1975), and in some of these diseases MLC typing has revealed the strong association also with the Dw3 determinant. The degree of association with each of the two, B8 and Dw3, varied between different diseases, in some of them having been reported to be higher for antigen B8 (Möller et al. 1976) and in the others for the determinant Dw3 (Thomsen et al. 1975, 1976). In some of the diseases, the association was found to be equally strong for both determinants (Solheim et al. 1976, Thorsby et al. 1975). In this communication, we describe the typing of HLA-Dw3 in 29 patients with Sjögren's syndrome (Ss). They represent part of the experimental group reported in a previous study (Iványi et al. 1976).


The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty brings a number of institutional innovations. The Treaty includes a number of modalities of differentiated integration which did already exist and it adds some new forms.

The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty brings a number of institutional innovations. Among these, the Treaty includes a number of modalities of differentiated integration which did already exist (such as enhanced cooperation or opt-outs) and it adds some new forms: 'oriented' enhanced cooperation; opt-ins and permanent structured cooperation on defence. Given the subsidiary character that these forms have vis-a-vis the standard Community methods (all states through the same legal instruments), the Trio cannot anticipate an agenda of application for any of them. Nevertheless, some issues may crop up in the agenda that require action by means of these instruments.


This paper describes a case based reasoning system that is used to guide the parameters of a segmentation algorithm. Instead of using a fixed set of parameters that gives the best average result over all images, the parameteres are tuned to maximize the score for each image separately. The system's foundation is a set of 20 cases that each contains one 3D MRI image and the parameters needed for its optimal segmentation. When a new image is presented to the system a new case is generated and compared to the other cases based on image similarity. The parameters from the best matching case are then used to segment the new image. The key issue is the use of an iterative approach that lets the system adapt the parameters to suit the new image better, if necessary. Each iteration contains a segmentation and a revision of the result, and this is done until the system approves the result. The revision is based on metadata stored in each case to see if the result has the expected properties as defined by the case. The results show that combining case based reasoning and segmentation can be applied within image processing. This is valid for choosing a good set of starting parameters, and also for using case specific knowledge to guide their adaption. A set of challenges for future research is identified and discussed at length.


The objective of this report is twofold. First, it represents an accompanying user manual to the third release of the KOF Youth Labour Market Index (hereafter abbreviated KOF YLMI). Second, the report uses index-based tables and graphs to analyse the evolution of the working conditions that young people faced in Europe after the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008. The KOF YLMI — developed by the KOF research division Education Systems in 2014 — offers a multidimensional approach for the comparison of the youth labour market situation across countries and over time. Besides applying widely used indicators such as the youth unemployment rate, the KOF YLMI also considers the working conditions, the provided education, and the ease to entry into the labour market for youth in a specific country. The media attention and the political recognition received by the two previous releases encouraged us to maintain and improve the index and the associated web tool1. The main improvement to the third release of the KOF YLMI is the addition of new data from 2014 to the set of indicators composing the index. Due to larger datasets provided by our repositories2 and ameliorations in the aggregation's procedures, we also increased the data coverage of years prior to 2014. Altogether this increased the data coverage by about 8%. The detailed descriptions of data sources and availability are reported in Section 2. This section also reviews the indicators' definitions and why they are included in the index. From a methodological point of view, the only relevant modification is the shift of some upper bounds used to standardize the indicators' values. The dramatic evolution of some indicators has forced us to shift the bounds that are used to standardize values into scores. One prime example is the share of youth working involuntarily part-time, whose median value has more than doubled between 2008-2014. Without a modification to the upper bound, the values of all countries overtaking the original upper bound would be assigned the lowest possible score, and no further distinctions would be possible. The shift of the upper bounds is described in Section 3. These modifications to the bounds are not only applied to the data added from 2014, but retroactively applied to all values in the index from 1991-2013. This report, besides keeping track of changes in data availability and calculation methods, aims to show the potential of the KOF YLMI in analysing the youth labour market situation. In this regard, Section 4 offers both a general overview of the index's evolution during the period 2008-2014, as well as case studies of selected countries. The attention here is mainly concentrated on the working conditions that youth face on the labour market. Working conditions, together with the indicators describing the activity state, are the components that were most strongly affected by the 2008 Great Recession. In particular, we highlight the heterogeneity that characterizes the working conditions in the countries impacted most by the crisis. Section 5 concludes and briefly suggests future areas of work.


Classic linguistic theory ascribes language change and diversity to population migrations, conquests, and geographical isolation, with the assumption that human populations have equivalent language processing abilities. We hypothesize that spectral and temporal characteristics make some consonant manners vulnerable to differences in temporal precision associated with specific population allele frequencies. To test this hypothesis, we modelled association between RU1-1 alleles of DCDC2 and manner of articulation in 51 populations spanning five continents, and adjusting for geographical proximity, and genetic and linguistic relatedness. RU1-1 alleles, acting through increased expression of DCDC2, appear to increase auditory processing precision that enhances stop-consonant discrimination, favouring retention in some populations and loss by others. These findings enhance classical linguistic theories by adding a genetic dimension, which until recently, has not been considered to be a significant catalyst for language change.


PRRS has now become an endemic disease in the global swine production, except for several countries, including Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand, and Australia claimed to be free of this disease. India was considered as free from the disease till 27-06-13, when the Government of India has reported the first outbreak of PRRS in pig population of Mizoram, to OIE. The north-eastern region of India, comprising of 8 States namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim consists 27.94% of the total pig population of India. Pig husbandry plays an important role in the socio-economic development of this NER of India, including Mizoram. Detection of PRRSV of genotype II, which has caused heavy mortality in pig population of Mizoram during March 2013 to April 2013, is a matter of great concern for the entire pig population of NER, India. A thorough and systematic study on surveillance, epidemiology and diagnosis, is essential to know the magnitude of the disease & also for designing strategy to control & containment of PRRS in NER, India.


The problem of low bit rate image coding is addressed. The proposed approach is based on the embedded zerotree wavelet (EZW) algorithm. At high compression ratios, visually annoying artifacts appear in the reconstructed images using the original EZW algorithm. Hence, the first goal of this paper is to improve the visual quality of the coded pictures. The main distortion is due to the Gibbs phenomenon of the linear filter bank and appears as "ringing effect" in the reconstructed images. The ringing effect is shown to be considerably reduced by using asymmetrical filter banks. It can even be completely removed by means of a morphological subband decomposition. The major drawback of the morphological filter bank is the loss of textures at high compression factors. The second objective is to make an optimal use of the embedded bit stream by reducing the computational cost of the decoding process. A new decomposition is proposed which reduces drastically the computational load of the synthesis stage.


The results achieved with polymer Y-splitters, codirectional couplers, and multimode interference couplers, realized by deep ultraviolet lithography are presented. The devices are designed and fabricated for the 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength region and have a waveguide loss of 1 dB/cm. The waveguide width is 7.5 /spl mu/m. The fiber-chip coupling loss is 0.5 dB per facet. The polarization-dependent loss is <0.15 dB.


The Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a unique disaster has stressed the extreme importance of the three issues for medicine, society and humanity in general: comorbidity, pandemic and syndemic. There are many reasons why the study of comorbidities and syndemics of COVID-19 is of great importance for researchers, clinicians and health policy makers who are responsible for health care organization and funding in a bid to develop more effective and efficient prevention and treatment. Thinking about COVID-19 through a syndemics concept and taking biological, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions into account, physicians could be more effective in clinical practice and community-based interventions. The outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection is determined by the virus-host interaction, with pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 being related to the presence of comorbid diseases. The risk for severe COVID-19 clinical manifestations and death increases with age of patients and comorbidity. General mechanisms of multi-system dysfunction and multi-organ damage reported in COVID-19 are probably related to ubiquitous expression of ACE2 in many tissues and its important role in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) functioning. Physicians all over the world should be aware of COVID-19 related comorbidities, multisystem disorders and syndemics, as well as treatment and preventive strategies. COVID-19 age is a right time to reconsider the state of science and practice in comorbidity medicine field from the both epistemological and treatment perspective. Comorbidities and multimorbidities are indifferent to medical specializations, so the integrative and complementary medicine is an imperative in the both education and practice. Shifting the paradigm from vertical and mono-morbid interventions to comorbidity, multimorbidity and multi-system disease approaches enhances effectiveness and efficiency of human resources utilization. The aim of this review is to summarize the theoretical concepts and clinical experience and research regarding comorbidity in general, and specifically related to the COVID-19 pandemic, syndemics and infodemic.


implementing high-performance lowpower and low-CMOS chip area A/D converters with background self calibration. The technique is applicable to the design of mixed signal integrated circuits in general. The analysis presented in this book is very nice. This book can be used as a supplementary text for an advanced integrated circuit or VLSI course. It is also a very good reference book for engineers working with A/D converters.


We study the use of deep features extracted from a pretrained Vision Transformer (ViT) as dense visual descriptors. We observe and empirically demonstrate that such features, when extractedfrom a self-supervised ViT model (DINO-ViT), exhibit several striking properties, including: (i) the features encode powerful, well-localized semantic information, at high spatial granularity, such as object parts; (ii) the encoded semantic information is shared across related, yet different object categories, and (iii) positional bias changes gradually throughout the layers. These properties allow us to design simple methods for a variety of applications, including co-segmentation, part co-segmentation and semantic correspondences. To distill the power of ViT features from convoluted design choices, we restrict ourselves to lightweight zero-shot methodologies (e.g., binning and clustering) applied directly to the features. Since our methods require no additional training nor data, they are readily applicable across a variety of domains. We show by extensive qualitative and quantitative evaluation that our simple methodologies achieve competitive results with recent state-of-the-art supervised methods, and outperform previous unsupervised methods by a large margin. Code is available in dino-vit-features.github.io.


The presence of growth factors during otitis media with effusion (OME), induced by antigenic stimulation of the middle ear, was explored in guinea pigs. There was a significant increase in heparin-binding proliferative activity detected in mucosal tissue. This heparin-binding activity was identified as basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF) using several criteria. First, the majority of this activity was eluted from heparin-Sepharose gels with 1.3-1.8 M NaCl, consistent with basic FGF. Second, these fractions are potent stimulators of endothelial cell proliferation, characteristic of basic FGF. Third, the fractions contain basic FGF-like immunoreactivity based on radioimmunoassay. Finally, Western blotting of tissue extracts reveals the presence of an 18 kDa protein that is indistinguishable from basic FGF. We conclude that basic FGF plays a major role in the proliferation of the middle ear mucosa during OME.


We proposed a simple and efficient modular single-source surface integral equation (SS-SIE) formulation for electromagnetic analysis of arbitrarily connected penetrable and perfectly electrical conductor (PEC) objects. In this formulation, a modular equivalent model for each penetrable object consisting of the composite structure is first independently constructed through replacing it by the background medium, no matter whether it is surrounded by the background medium, other media, or partially connected objects, and enforcing an equivalent electric current density on the boundary to remain fields in the exterior region unchanged. Then, by combining all the modular models and any possible PEC objects together, an equivalent model for the composite structure can be derived. The troublesome junction handling techniques are not needed and non-conformal meshes are intrinsically supported. The proposed SS-SIE formulation is simple to implement, efficient, and flexible, which shows significant performance improvement in terms of CPU time compared with the original SS-SIE formulation and the Poggio-Miller-Chang-Harrington-Wu-Tsai (PMCHWT) formulation. Several numerical examples including the coated dielectric cuboid, the large lossy objects, the planar layered dielectric structure, and the partially connected dielectric and PEC structure are carried out to validate its accuracy, efficiency and robustness.


A novel slow-down set waveform is proposed to improve the set performance and a 1 kb phase change random access memory chip fabricated with a 130 nm CMOS technology is implemented to investigate the set performance by different set programming strategies based on this new set pulse. The amplitude difference (I1 — I2) of the set pulse is proved to be a crucial parameter for set programming. We observe and analyze the cell characteristics with different I1 — I2 by means of thermal simulations and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, which reveal that an incomplete set programming will occur when the proposed slow-down pulse is set with an improperly high I1 — I2. This will lead to an amorphous residue in the active region. We also discuss the programming method to avoid the set performance degradations.


Collaboration has long been considered an effective approach to learning. However, forming optimal groups can be a time consuming and complex task. Different approaches have been developed to assist teachers allocate students to groups based on a set of constraints. However, existing tools often fail to assign some students to groups creating a problem well known as "orphan students". In this paper we propose a framework for learner group formation, based upon satisfying the constraints of the person forming the groups by reasoning over semantic data about the potential participants. The use of both Semantic Web technologies and Logic programming proved to increase the satisfaction of the constraints and overcome the orphans' problem.


Past. Data curation - the process of discovering, integrating, and cleaning data - is one of the oldest data management problems. Unfortunately, it is still the most time consuming and least enjoyable work of data scientists. So far, successful data curation stories are mainly ad-hoc solutions that are either domain-specific (for example, ETL rules) or task-specific (for example, entity resolution).
Present. The power of current data curation solutions are not keeping up with the ever changing data ecosystem in terms of volume, velocity, variety and veracity, mainly due to the high human cost, instead of machine cost, needed for providing the ad-hoc solutions mentioned above. Meanwhile, deep learning is making strides in achieving remarkable successes in areas such as image recognition, natural language processing, and speech recognition. This is largely due to its ability to understanding features that are neither domain-specific nor task-specific.
Future. Data curation solutions need to keep the pace with the fast-changing data ecosystem, where the main hope is to devise domain-agnostic and task-agnostic solutions. To this end, we start a new research project, called AutoDC, to unleash the potential of deep learning towards self-driving data curation. We will discuss how different deep learning concepts can be adapted and extended to solve various data curation problems. We showcase some low-hanging fruits about the early encounters between deep learning and data curation happening in AutoDC. We believe that the directions pointed out by this work will not only drive AutoDC towards democratizing data curation, but also serve as a cornerstone for researchers and practitioners to move to a new realm of data curation solutions.


Antigen PDEB was purified from pigeon dropping extracts and characterized as a basic glycoprotein, containing 93% protein and 7% carbohydrate, with a molecular weight of approximately 51,000. Based on its size, subunit composition, and cross-reactions with PDE1 (pigeon IgA) and papain digestion products of PDE1, PDEB appears to be the basic Fab fragments of antigen PDE1. The acidic Fab fragments (PDEA) and the Fc fragments (PDE2) of PDE1 were also isolated from the whole PDE as 50,000 MW components.


The effect of Ca on the uptake of the anion Br and the cations K (Rb) and Na was investigated, with emphasis on its relation to time.

Absorption of the Br ion is stimulated in the presence of Ca ions. This stimulation is relatively stronger at low concentrations than at higher ones, and manifests itself without a lag-phase. The effect of the Ca ion on Br uptake is independent of temperature; it appears at 1.5° C as well as at 20° C. Moreover, this stimulation is more or less independent of the pH in the range between 3.8 and 7.0. Further, the stimulating effect on Br uptake is not specific for the Ca ion because other cations such as K, Na, and Li also increase the Br absorption albeit to a less extent than the divalent Ca ion. The view is advanced that cations screen the negative charges on the cell surface, as a result of which more absorption sites come within the reach of the Br ion.

The effect of the Ca ion on Na uptake is manifested at a pH of 5.3 in the form of a reduction in the total amount of Na entering the roots. It was found that the Na uptake can be divided into two fractions, a steady-state Na uptake and an additional Na uptake taking place only over a limited period, viz. during the first two hours of the experimental time, and probably consisting of the adsorption of Na to cytoplasmatic sites. This additional Na uptake is entirely or partially eliminated by Ca, but, quite to the contrary, the steady-state Na uptake is not at all influenced by Ca. Evidence is advanced indicating that the effect of Ca on this additional Na uptake is based not on competition for negative adsorption sites in the cytoplasm but on a reduction of the permeability of the outer plasma membrane under the influence of the Ca ion, by which admittance to the cytoplasmic sites behind this membrane is denied to the Na ion.

The influence of the Ca ion on the K uptake at pH 5.4 manifests itself as inhibitory, stimulatory, or neutral depending upon the K concentration and the experimental time. At low K concentration (0.01 m.e./l), analogous to the situation with Na, there is an additional K uptake of limited extent and duration which is inhibited by Ca. As in the case of Na, this additional K uptake is assumed to consist of an adsorption of K ions to negative adsorption sites situated behind a membrane, the permeability of which is decreased by Ca. The steady-state K uptake is in itself not Ca-sentitive. At higher K concentrations (0.2 m.e./l) the additional K uptake is no longer abolished by the presence of Ca. The fact that in the absence of Ca at higher K concentrations (0.2 m.e./l and higher) the uptake rate diminishes quite considerably after a few hours is to be seen as the result of an efflux of K coming into operation as the K content of the root increases.

The results are discussed in relation to the interpretations presented in the literature with respect to the influence of the Ca ion on ion uptake. An attempt is made to localize the various physiological processes involved in cation uptake at the cellular level.


The 18th human chromosome is probably known mainly due to patients with Edwards syndrome, children dying usually during the first week of life, the syndrome being due to the presence of three chromosomes 18-trisomy. Some of its loci participate in oncogenesis either as cellular oncogenes (BCL2 in lymphomas), or antioncogenes (DCC--in colorectal carcinomas--Lynch I and Lynch II). It is assumed that some of the causes of maniac depression could be associated with chromosome no. 18.


We demonstrate a micromachined flexible chip-to-board chip interconnect structure for a chip scale package. Micromachined flexible interconnects enable robust operation in high thermal cycling environments, even for high pinout chips due to the flexible interconnect ability to absorb thermal expansion strain. The interconnects on the chip-side and printed wiring board (PWB)-side are united by electroplating bonding technology, a direct bonding technology resulting in solder-free, underfill-free, low temperature joining by means of copper (Cu) electroplating. Over 200 surface micromachined interconnects, which have a thermal relief geometry, are radially arranged on 11 cm substrates. A chip surrogate consisting of glass with integrated platinum (Pt) microheaters mimics a real electronic device under varying thermal loads. The integrated microheaters can simultaneously test mechanical and electrical performance of the interconnects by generation of on-chip temperatures up to 150 C. Lateral and vertical displacement of the interconnects in the thermal environment are measured and simulated. A mechanical reliability test of the chip scale package is successfully performed for 5000 cycles with thermal cycles of 5 min between 40 C to 147 C. No failures were observed during this period.


Adrenal pseudocysts are rare entities and occurred in the 5th and the 6th decades of life. They are discovered accidentally, while appearing with nonspecific clinical and imaging findings. We report a case of a 28-year-old woman presented in our Emergency Department complaining about upper abdomen pain. Computed tomography revealed a hypodense cystic lesion containing hyperdense material. The size of a mass was 11. 7 × 9.3 × 6.6 cm in diameter close to the pancreas, but the origin was from the left adrenal gland. The mass was excised with surgical laparotomy. Giant adrenal pseudocysts are rare entities. Final diagnosis usually confirmed with the pathology examination. Management of such adrenal lesions depends on the unique characteristics, the surgeon's experience, and local resources.


This article compares the prevalence and determinants of international mobility intentions across immigrant generations (G1, G1.5, G2, and G2.5), using French survey data. Two types of migration intentions are analyzed: (a) return to the (parents') origin country and (b) onward migration to a third country. Results highlight migration intentions' intergenerational variation and underlying logics. The probability to state return intentions is larger for G1 yet surprisingly similar to the stated return intentions for G2. By contrast, G2.5 (one immigrant and one French native parent) stand out as they are primarily characterized by onward migration intentions and are significantly less likely to consider "returning" to their sole immigrant parents' origin country. Echoing the conceptual framework of "reactive transnationalism" or "reactive ethnicity," the specific determinant of G2 return intentions appears to be their perception of discrimination. These findings show the value of (a) disaggregating the traditional first versus second generation dichotomy to understand the complexity of migration intentions and (b) including countries other than the parental homeland when studying second-generation transnational practices. More broadly, the article contributes to a better understanding of integration mechanisms by using migration intentions not only as proxies for population movements but also as a valuable framework providing empirical insights into immigrants' personal relationship to both the country of residence and expected destination.


A new family of materials has been developed to serve as a wet-developable bottom antireflective coating (D-BARC) for patterning levels that have a strong need to avoid dry-etch processes for BARC-open steps. Such include some implant levels, where dry-etch introduces surface damage that consequently affects the final electrical performance of a device. Other levels that might benefit from all-wet patterning are those using special substrates such as high-k metal-gate (HKMG) levels. Our design of D-BARC materials combines the unique properties of traditional BARC as well as those of a photoresist to deliver a D-BARC solution that is photoimageable in nature. It was found that isotropically developable (i.e., non-imageable) D-BARCs do not provide viable solutions that satisfy the resolution requirements of the current 32 nm technology node and provide the extendibility to future nodes. The optical properties of the D-BARC material are critical for reflectivity control but high optical density can negatively impact the imaging performance of the material. Therefore a balance is needed where the D-BARC is co-optimized with the photoresist as a system, achieves good reflectivity control, residue-free imaging and process gains.


Insulin deficiency in type 1 diabetes (T1D) is generally considered a consequence of specific beta-cell loss. Since healthy pancreatic islets consist of ~65% beta cells, this would lead to reduced islet size if the beta cells are not replaced by other cells or tissue. The number of islets per pancreas volume (islet density) would not be affected. In this study, we compared the islet density, size, and size distribution in subjects with recent-onset or long-standing T1D, with that in matched non-diabetic subjects. Results show that subjects with T1D, regardless of disease duration, had a dramatically reduced islet number per mm2, while the islet size was similar in all groups. Insulin-negative islets in T1D subjects were dominated by glucagon-positive cells that frequently had lost the alpha-cell transcription factor ARX while instead expressing PDX1, normally expressed in beta cells. Based on our findings, we propose that failure during childhood to establish a sufficient islet number to reach the beta-cell mass needed to cope with episodes of increased insulin demand contributes to T1D susceptibility. Exhaustion induced by relative lack of beta cells could then potentially drive beta-cell dedifferentiation to alpha-cells, explaining the preserved islet size observed in T1D compared to controls.


Aims of the present study were to evaluate otolith shape and estimate the relationships between total length and otolith dimensions of S. sphyraena from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. Two shape analysis methods were used for otolith shape and also two regressions models were used to estimate total length-otolith dimensions relationships. In the present study, 97 fish were examined during 2020-2021 fishing season. Otolith shape indices such as form factor, aspect ratio, ellipticity, circularity, rectangularity, and roundness were calculated for each S. sphyraena sample. Otolith contours were obtained using wavelet functions and ten otolith morphological characters for S. sphyraena. Morphological characteristics of S. sphyraena otoliths were variable both between left and right side of the otolith and total length groups. Otolith width and area measurements differed statistically between left and right otoliths (p<0.05). High-level morphological differences in anterior, posterior and dorsal part zones of the otoliths of S. sphyraena were detected between right and left otoliths. The relationships were determined between total length and otolith dimensions. The highest correlation value was calculated between otolith length and total length (r 2 : 0.876). This is the first study to determine the otolith shape and relationships between total length and otolith dimensions of S. sphyraena from the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.


In Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, 1473–1541, Hazel Pierce was unable to corroborate Richard Morisyne's assertion that as a young widow Margaret Pole made her home with the other Bridgettine nuns at Syon abbey. However, the household accounts of Lady Margaret Beaufort (held at St. John's College, Cambridge) reveal that this was indeed the case, recording payments to her from May 1505 until May 1509, the month before Lady Margaret Beaufort's death. This article provides evidence from these accounts, together with a brief analysis of the context in which they were made, and includes details of payments made by Lady Margaret Beaufort to another Syon incumbent, her goddaughter and, at the time of the Dissolution, prioress of Syon, Margaret Windsor.


Despite Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) being one of the main apolipoproteins in the blood, the association between its genotype and the high cholesterol or blood glucose levels commonly seen in clinical practice is inconclusive. Such research is also lacking in the Han population. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between APOE genotype, diabetes, and plasma glucose and lipid levels. We included 243 community-dwelling elderly residents in this study. Participant APOE genotypes were assessed and were simultaneously tested for weight, height, blood glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, and high- and low-density lipoprotein. In addition, gender, age, years of education, cognitive function, and medical history was recorded. Subjects were divided into 3 groups based on APOE genotype: APOE ε2 group (ε2/ε2 and ε2/ε3), APOE ε3 group (ε3/ε3), and APOE ε4 group (ε2/ε4, ε3/ε4 and ε4/ε4). Comparisons between groups were conducted for the incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure, and dementia, as well as for differences in body-mass index, fasting plasma glucose, and blood lipids. The APOE ε3/ε3 genotype exhibited the highest frequency (70.4%) among the subjects. Participants in the APOE ε3 group demonstrated significantly higher levels of fasting plasma glucose than those in the APOE ε2 and APOE ε4 groups (P<0.05). The APOE ε3 group had slightly higher abnormal fasting plasma glucose values than did the APOE ε2 group (P = 0.065). Furthermore, the APOE3 genotype was significantly correlated with both fasting plasma glucose level and glucose abnormality (P< 0.05) and trended toward statistically significant correlation with diabetes (P = 0.082). The correlation between APOE2 and low low-density lipoprotein levels also approached statistical significance (P = 0.052). Thus, elderly community dwelling residents of Han ethnicity carrying the APOE ε3/ε3 genotype might have higher plasma glucose levels and a higher occurrence of diabetes.


A method for separating particles in liquid by exploiting the competition between acoustic radiation force and electrostatic force is investigated. The displacement of particles from the pressure node of an ultrasound standing wave varies according to the effective charges, radii, and stiffness of the particles, and the particles of different radii can thus be separated even when they consist of the same material. When the particles are of different materials, they can also be separated in relations to their effective electric charges or their stiffness. In this study, the efficacy of this method was theoretically estimated and demonstrated by an experiment, with a mixture of polystyrene spheres of different radii in water, using 500‐kHz ultrasound and a 3.3‐V/mm electric field. The measured ratio of the displacements of polystyrene spheres 10 and 20 μm in diameter from the pressure node was 2:3, which is consistent with the value predicted theoretically. Radiation forces on the polystyrene spheres were a...


It is called self-alignment or initial alignment that INS(Inertial Navigation System) is aligned using the measurements from the inertial sensors as an accelerometer and. a gyroscope and the inserted reference navigation information in the stop state. The main purpose of self-alignment is to obtain the initial attitude of INS. The accuracy of self-alignment is determined by the performance grade of the used inertial sensors, especially horizontal attitude accuracy by the horizontal accelerometer and vertical attitude accuracy by the E-axis gyroscope. Therefore the uncertain errors in the inertial sensors cause the performance of self-alignment to degrade. In this paper, we analyze theoretically and through a simulation how the errors of inertial sensors in the temperature stabilizing state, one of the uncertain errors, affect the accuracy of self-alignment.


ABSTRACT Shrub encroachment into arid and semi-arid grasslands has elicited extensive research attention worldwide under the background of climate change and increasing anthropogenic activities. Shrub encroachment may considerably impact local ecosystems and economies, including the conversion of the structure and function of ecosystems, the shift in ambient conditions, and the weakness of local stock farming capacity. This article reviews recent research progresses on the shrub encroachment process and mechanism, shrub identification and dynamic monitoring using remote sensing, and modeling and simulation of the shrub encroachment process and dynamics. These studies can help to evaluate the ecological effect of shrub encroachment, and thus, practically manage and recover the ecological environment of degraded areas. However, the lack of effective measures and data for monitoring shrub encroachment at a large spatial scale severely limits research on the mechanism, modeling, and simulation of shrub encroachment, and the shrub encroachment stages can hardly be quantitatively defined, resulting in insufficient analysis and simulation of shrub encroachment for different spatiotemporal scales and stages shift. Improvement in remote sensing-based shrub encroachment dynamic monitoring might be crucial for analyzing and understanding the process and mechanism of shrub encroachment, and multi-disciplinary and multi-partnerships are required in the shrub encroachment studies.


Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is a type of analysis in applied psychology aimed at eliciting and representing the knowledge and thought processes of domain experts. In CTA, often heavy human labor is involved to parse the interview transcript into structured knowledge (e.g., flowchart for different actions). To reduce human efforts and scale the process, automated CTA transcript parsing is desirable. However, this task has unique challenges as (1) it requires the understanding of long-range context information in conversational text; and (2) the amount of labeled data is limited and indirect—i.e., context-aware, noisy, and low-resource. In this paper, we propose a weakly-supervised information extraction framework for automated CTA transcript parsing. We partition the parsing process into a sequence labeling task and a text span-pair relation extraction task, with distant supervision from human-curated protocol files. To model long-range context information for extracting sentence relations, neighbor sentences are involved as a part of input. Different types of models for capturing context dependency are then applied. We manually annotate real-world CTA transcripts to facilitate the evaluation of the parsing tasks.


Changes in total number, differentials, cell protein, adherence properties, acetyltransferase and acetylhydrolase activities, prostaglandin E2 and leukotriene C4 production, as well as Ca2+ ionophore A23187 stimulation were examined in resident peritoneal cells isolated from mice 2 h to 10 days postexposure to a single dose (7, 10 or 12 Gy) of gamma-radiation. Radiation dose-related reductions in macrophage and lymphocyte numbers and increases in cellular protein and capacity to adhere to plastic surfaces were evident. In vivo irradiation also elevated the activities of acetyltransferase and acetylhydrolase (catalysing platelet-activating factor biosynthesis and inactivation, respectively) in adherent and nonadherent peritoneal cells, particularly 3-4 days postexposure. Blood plasma from irradiated animals did not reflect the increased cellular acetylhydrolase activity. Prostaglandin E2 and leukotriene C4 synthesis were elevated postexposure, suggesting increased substrate (arachidonate) availability and increased cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase activities. Ionophore stimulation of enzyme activities and eicosanoid release also differed in irradiated peritoneal cells. While the properties of adherence, platelet-activating factor synthesis/inactivation-associated enzyme activities, and eicosanoid production are generally characterized as those of macrophages, lymphocytes or their products may influence or contribute to the observed radiation-induced changes.


In this study, it is aimed to determine the some interactions between various fishery types and seabirds, results of this interaction and sea bird species that have been interacting due to secondary attraction factors. A total of 80 fishermen, working in fish farms, small scale fishery (SSF) and lagoons located in Izmir, Aydin and Mugla were face-to-face interviewed between September 2016 and December 2018.  The great cormorant ( Phalacrocorax carbo ), yellow-legged gull ( Larus michahellis ), great white egret ( Ardea alba ), some yelkouan shearwater ( Puffinus yelkouan ) and great white pelican ( Pelecanus onocrotalus ) are the bird species that have an interaction with coastal fishermen and sea-cage fish farms. 82% of employees in sea-cage fish farms mentioned that they have an interaction with sea birds in winter, besides %50 of SSF have an interaction with sea birds in summer. The difference between interaction rate according to seasons has been found as statistically significant (p<0.05). 33% of employees in fish farms expressed that they see sea birds during the day. This ratio is 21.7% and 15% for SSF and fishermen in lagoon, respectively. Furthermore, 8.3% of fishermen in lagoon, 11% of employees in fish farms and SSF mentioned that they have an interaction with seabirds especially in the morning time.


A water-soluble compound, sodium formononetin-3'-sulfonate with good lipid-lowering and liver-protection activities was synthesized. It was synthesized by sulfonation reaction, and its structure was characterized by IR, NMR and elemental analyses. The solubility of sodium formononetin-3'-sulfonate in water and n-octanol/water partition coefficient were determined by UV spectrophotometry. The lipid-lowering and liver-protection activities of sodium formononetin-3'-sulfonate were tested by using rat's high fat model induce by feeding with high fat food. The results showed that sodium formononetin-3'-sulfonate not only had favorable water, solubility but also had good lipid-lowering and liver-protection activities.


Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are a class of layered inorganic materials that consist of structurally positively charged layers and exchangeable anions in the interlayer gallery for charge balance. The delamination of LDHs has attracted much attention in the last decade because it is an effective way for exposing the inner surfaces of the host layers. Delaminated nanosheets may be referred to as "macromolecules", and they have opened nanostructures. They can be used as an ideal model system and as building blocks for various multilayer ultrathin films and functional nanocomposites. In this article, we outline the progress made regarding the delamination of LDHs and pose future challenges.


We investigate whether the demonstrated effectiveness of technical analysis for forecasting equity returns can be reconciled with market efficiency. We find that evidence supportive of technical sell signals identifying periods of negative expected returns is confined to the pre-1940 subsamples. On average, transactions costs eliminate any additional returns to traders using the technical rules. We also demonstrate that technical analysis of an index constructed from CRSP returns, which is not typically observed by practicing technicians, is as useful for forecasting returns as is technical analysis of the widely observed DJIA. Finally, we show that, while technical analysis of individual equity price histories can forecast returns, it does not provide the ability to "beat the market". On balance, we conclude that there is little or no reason to view the evidence of technical forecast power as inconsistent with market efficiency.


Germination is the fi rst step to successful plant establishment. Th e range of factors that promote germination varies among species. Light and temperature requirements for the germination of species of Velloziaceae were investigated. Seeds of Barbacenia fl ava, B. markgrafi i, B. purpurea, B. williamsi, Vellozia alata, V. compacta, V. glochidea and V. plicata were collected from rocky outcrops located in diff erent Brazilian states and were incubated for germination at 10 to 40 °C in light or dark conditions. Seed mass and length were measured for each species. In general, all species exhibited a high germination percentage at temperatures of 15-40 °C in the light, with the optimal temperature being 25-30 °C for species of Barbacenia and 30 °C for species of Vellozia. Barbacenia fl ava, V. compacta and, particularly, B. markgrafi i, germinated in the dark. In contrast, B. purpurea exhibited an absolute requirement for light and the most restricted range of temperature to germinate. Germination responses and seed traits were related to the microclimate where the species were collected, and germinability in darkness is likely a common trait for species of Velloziaceae from the Espinhaço Range.


Mental pain is more dramatic and painful than physical pain, it is more common and hardest to bear as we know its easier to complain my leg is paining in spite of "my head feels like hammered or poked". The aim of this study on migrant laborers working in Kazakhstan was conducted aiming to discover their suffering due to the COVID outbreak. We interviewed Indian migrant workers associated with our university were selected, questioned, and physically examined and discovered.

Almost 60% were depressed since they suffer hopelessness, loss of interest, sadness, lack of knowledge about the pandemic. 20% suffer excess sleepiness, and around 20% suffer fatigue, loss of appetite, all suffer weight gains, job insecurity. No one was observed as healthy as before due to depression. We conclude by this study demonstrates that urgent need for health and mental health care for migrant laborers needs to be provided and knowledge related to pandemic shall also be provided by the personalized conference, especially for central Asian laborers.


In contrast to the case of pure Fe, the increase in resistivity of Nd2Fe14B at temperatures higher than half the Curie point is exceedingly small and the Curie point d rho /dT anomaly has the opposite sign. The results are related to the giant Invar effect observed in Nd2Fe14B. The persistence of this effect above the Curie point may lead to an apparent anomalous phonon resistivity slope in the paramagnetic phase. At low temperatures the behaviour of rho is dominated by the Nd3+ crystal field levels. A single model using realistic level splittings accounts satisfactorily for the observed behaviour.


We report multiple epoch VLA/JVLA observations of 89 northern hemisphere sources, most with 37 GHz flux density >1 Jy, observed at 4.8, 8.5, 33.5, and 43.3 GHz. The high frequency selection leads to a predominantly flat spectrum sample, with 85% of our sources being in the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalog (ERCSC). These observations allow us to: 1) validate Planck's 30 and 44 GHz flux density scale; 2) extend the radio spectral energy distributions of Planck sources to lower frequencies allowing for the full 5−857 GHz regime to be studied; and 3) characterize the variability of these sources. At 30 GHz and 44 GHz, the JVLA and Planck flux densities agree to within ∼3%. On timescales of less than two months the median variability of our sources is 2%. On timescales of about a year the median variability increases to 14%. Using the WMAP 7-year data, the 30 GHz median variability on a 1−6 years timescale is 16%.


The rigid skeletal frameworks of two heliospongid genera from the Bethany Falls Limestone (Pennsylvanian) of Missouri provided suitable sites of attachment for other marine invertebrates in a quiet water environment. A cluster of three horn corals attached apically to one Heliospongia while it was upright. Other horn corals are in lateral contact with ?Coelocladiella fragments and may have attached to fallen specimens. The distribution of acrothoracic barnacle borings and membraniporiform bryozoans on ?Coelocladiella fragments suggest that the sponges were in an upright position when the epizoans lived. Calcareous worm tubes and shell scars of Derbyia are also associated with ?Coelocladiella. The sponges themselves became established on a soft carbonate mud bottom by growing on productacean shells and possibly fallen blades of calcareous algae. Irregularities in their form indicate that conditions were crowded on limited sites of attachment. The organisms in the assemblage are ecologically coherent and in situ. Ecological requirements of associated organisms and sponge morphologies indicate: (1) the energy of the environment was low to moderate, (2) the rate of deposition was slow and (3) the substrate was a soft carbonate mud.


This collection of seven personal essays centers on certain commonalities of human experience as discovered in the life experience of the author. Issues of discussion include the acceptance and/or alienation of self, the way issues of gender are transferred to succeeding generations, the divide between spirituality and physicality or faith and reason, the transformation of the stages of grief, as well as the dichotomy of living in a world filled with beauty and horror, pleasure and pain. Also discussed are issues dependent on human institutions or .frameworks such as self in relation to community, family, friendship, as well as marr iage, and parenting. In each of the texts, it is the author's intent to demonstrate that hope or faith can be evident through subtle paradigm shifts and simple actions rather than miraculous epiphanies or heroic deeds.


Applications such as the Active Interrogation of shielded nuclear material that require the detection of specific gamma and neutron signatures in a high mixed radiation field background, require detector materials and device fabrications that are not highly susceptible to neutron or photon activation. This paper presents an activation analysis from Active Interrogation experiments where a pulsed-power accelerator was used to deliver 2.5 MeV protons onto a lithium target to produce a spectrum of neutrons up to 1 MeV. The experimental objectives were to characterize the neutron energy spectrum and spatial distribution produced from the ion beam diode utilized with the pulsed accelerator with a view to its utility for the purposes of active detection. A variety of neutron and gamma detectors were used to record the resulting signatures including sodium iodide (NaI), which is the main focus of this paper, and which is also a candidate detector technology to detect fission signatures from active detection systems. A High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector was used to measure the amount of activation created in the NaI detector. The results showed significant activation of the core detection material, with activation product decay time constants of the order of seconds and minutes. Activation of the detector construction materials was also observed. From this type of analysis, the minimum time between active interrogations can be determined based on the recovery time of the detectors following activation, or alternatively, materials can be sought that are less susceptible to activation.


The basic theory of photogrammetry is mature and widely used in engineering. The environment in engineering is very complex, resulting in the corners or multi-line intersections being blocked and unable to be measured directly. In order to solve this problem, a prediction and optimization algorithm for intersection point of spatial multi-lines based on photogrammetry is proposed. The coordinates of points on space lines are calculated by photogrammetry algorithm. Due to the influence of image point distortion and point selection error, many lines do not strictly intersect at one point. The equations of many space lines are used to fit their initial value of intersection point. The initial intersection point is projected onto each image, and the distances between the projection point and each line on the image plane are used to weight the calculated spatial lines in combination with the information entropy. Then the intersection point coordinates are re-fitted, and the intersection point is repeatedly projected and recalculate until the error is less than the threshold value or reached the set number of iterations. Three different scenarios are selected for experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the prediction accuracy of the intersection point.


In south-east Asia, during Quaternary glaciations, increased seasonality and sea level decreases of ~120 m caused considerable fragmentation of the rainforest. It is believed that most of the region's core was covered with savannah vegetation, and rainforest was confined to a few refugia. We investigated the geographical extent of the savannah vegetation and the positions of the refugia, using a combination of palynonlogical, geological, fossil and termite data. Our results show that during the Last Glacial Maximum, most of Thailand, Peninsula Malaysia, western and southern Borneo, eastern and southern Sumatra, and Java were probably covered by savannah. Rainforest refugia were probably present in northern and eastern Borneo, northern and western Sumatra and the Mentawai islands. We also discuss a possible complete history of the region. © 2002 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2002, 75, 453–466.


Background and Aims: T1D requires constant self-management and can substantially impact quality of life. We aimed to survey patient and caregiver experiences of T1D management.
 Methods: Adult people with T1D (PwD) or their caregivers living in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, or the UK were invited to complete an online survey (July-August 2021) .
 Results: Responders were 458 PwD (54% female, mean age 47.8 years, mean age at diagnosis 24.4 years) and 54 caregivers. For PwD, moderate to very high impacts of T1D on daily life included fatigue (77%) and anxiety (65%) . The top 2 other illnesses with significant impact on PwD's lives were hypertension (29%) and depression (26%) . Many PwD (68%) would have liked more psychological support, mainly from healthcare professionals (HCPs) . Most caregivers (76%) would have liked support, mainly from HCPs, especially diabetologists (39%) , nutritionists (31%) and psychologists (28%) . Over half of responders felt they lack knowledge on T1D (53% PwD, 56% caregivers) . Only 57% of PwD and 39% of caregivers had participated in education programmes; of those <30% of PwD/caregivers still regularly attended. There were regional differences in the proportion of PwD who had attended education programmes (Figure) , but not in the proportion who still were regularly attending.
 Conclusion: In Europe, PwD and their caregivers require more support and education for T1D management.

 B.Kulzer: Advisory Panel; Bayer AG, Bayer AG, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Berlin-Chemie AG, Berlin-Chemie AG, Dexcom, Inc., Dexcom, Inc., Insulet Corporation, Novo Nordisk, Roche Diabetes Care, Sanofi, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, Research Support; Novo Nordisk, Roche Diabetes Care. S.Down: Advisory Panel; Viatris, Speaker's Bureau; Abbott Diabetes, AstraZeneca, Lilly Diabetes, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Viatris. A.Seignez: Employee; Else Care. A.Vives: Other Relationship; Sanofi. M.Bonnemaire: Employee; Sanofi. A.Penfornis: Board Member; Insulet Corporation, Medtronic, Mundipharma, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Speaker's Bureau; Glooko, Inc., Insulet Corporation, Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Ypsomed AG.

 Sanofi


Subglacial Lake Vostok is located ~4 km beneath the surface of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and has been isolated from the atmosphere for ≫15 million yr. Concerns for environmental protection have prevented direct sampling of the lake water thus far. However, an ice core has been retrieved from above the lake in which the bottom ,85 m represents lake water that has accreted (i.e., frozen) to the bottom of the ice sheet. We measured selected constituents within the accretion ice core to predict geomicrobiological conditions within the surface waters of the lake. Bacterial density is two‐ to sevenfold higher in accretion ice than the overlying glacial ice, implying that Lake Vostok is a source of bacterial carbon beneath the ice sheet. Phylogenetic analysis of amplified small subunit ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) gene sequences in accretion ice formed over a deep portion of the lake revealed phylotypes that classify within the β‐, γ‐, and Δ‐Proteobacteria. Cellular, major ion, and dissolved organic carbon levels all decreased with depth in the accretion ice (depth is a proxy for increasing distance from the shoreline), implying a greater potential for biological activity in the shallow shoreline waters of the lake. Although the exact nature of the biology within Lake Vostok awaits direct sampling of the lake water, our data from the accretion ice support the working hypothesis that a sustained microbial ecosystem is present in this subglacial lake environment, despite high pressure, constant cold, low nutrient input, potentially high oxygen concentrations, and an absence of sunlight.


T lymphocytes are characterized by the use of structurally diverse TCR. The discovery of subsets of canonical T cells that have structurally homogeneous TCR presents an enigma: What antigens do these T cells recognize, and how does their antigen specificity relate to their functions? One subset of canonical T cells is restricted by CD1d, a non‐classical antigen presenting molecule that presents lipids and glycolipids. Canonical CD1d‐restricted T cells have semi‐invariant TCR consisting of an invariantly rearranged TCRα chain, paired with diversely rearranged TCRβ chains. Most respond strongly to the unusual glycolipid α‐galactosylceramide (α‐GalCer), and can also respond to cellular antigens presented by CD1d. Mounting evidence indicates that α‐GalCer responsive T cells are heterogeneous in their reactivities to cellular antigens, suggesting that an individual semi‐invariant TCR may be capable of recognizing more than one ligand. Recent crystal structures of CD1b molecules with three different bound lipids indicate that the antigenic features of lipids may be localized over a smaller area than those of peptides, and that the positioning of the polar head group can vary substantially. A model that explains how CD1d‐restricted T cells could possess both conserved and heterogeneous antigen specificities, is that different lipid antigens may interact with distinct areas of a TCR due to differences in the positioning of the polar head group. Hence, canonical CD1d‐restricted TCR could recognize conserved antigens via the invariant TCRα chain, and have diverse antigen specificities that are conferred by their individual TCRβ chains.


Herein, we report water-soluble mitochondria-selective molecules that consist of a target-specific moiety conjugated with a near-infrared (NIR) imaging agent through variable spacer length. The presented NIR fluorescent cyanine-5 (Cy-5) chromophore exhibits excellent photostability, narrow NIR absorption and emission bands, high molar extinction coefficient, high fluorescence quantum yield, and long fluorescence lifetime. The biological compatibility and negligible cytotoxicity further make the dye an attractive choice for biological applications. Confocal fluorescence microscopic studies in the fixed human lung carcinoma cell line (A549) stained with the targeting NIR Cy-5 dyes (Cy-5a and Cy-5b) at 700 nM concentration show their cellular uptake and localization, which is compared with the nontargeting Cy-5c. Mitochondrial target specificity is demonstrated by colocalization experiments using the mitochondrion-tracking probe, MitoTracker Red and lysosome-tracking probe, LysoTracker Green. Multicolor imaging of cellular organelles in A549 cells is achieved in combination with suitable target-specific dyes with distinct excitation and emission, such as green emitting FM 1–43FX to selectively image the plasma membrane, blue-fluorescent DAPI to stain the nucleus, and the synthesized NIR Cy-5 to image the mitochondria. Higher accumulation of the dye inside the cancer cell mitochondria compared to the noncancerous cell is also demonstrated.


Background The plasminogen activation system represents a potent mechanism of extracellular proteolysis and is an essential component of normal wound healing. It has also been implicated in the pathogenesis of chronic, nonhealing ulcers. Traditionally, urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) has been associated with pericellular proteolytic activity involved in tissue remodelling processes, and tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) mainly with intravascular fibrinolysis. Objectives The present study was conducted to characterize the spatial distribution of the various plasminogen activation system components in chronic ulcers and acute, well-granulating wounds. Methods The expression of uPA, tPA, urokinase receptor (uPAR), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), and vitronectin was investigated by immunohistochemical staining, in addition to uPA, tPA and PAI-1 expression by in-situ hybridization, in samples from eight chronic venous ulcers, five decubitus ulcers, five well-granulating acute wounds and five normal skin samples. Results In chronic venous leg ulcers tPA mRNA was detected in basal and suprabasal keratinocytes at the leading wound edge, while in well-granulating wounds and in decubitus ulcers tPA mRNA was expressed only in a few keratinocytes. However, tPA was widely expressed in fibroblastand macrophage-like cells in the stroma of well-granulating wounds, while less tPA was detected in the granulation tissue of chronic ulcers. tPA mRNA and protein were localized in the superficial granular layers in normal skin. Although no qualitative differences in expression of uPA, PAI-1 or uPAR in the wound edge keratinocytes in chronic ulcers vs. normally granulating wounds were found, their expressions were more pronounced in the granulation tissue of well-granulating wounds. Conclusions These results suggest that in poorly healing venous leg ulcers, the pattern of tPA expression is altered in keratinocytes at the leading edge of the wound, and the patterns of tPA, uPA and PAI-1 expression are altered in the granulation tissue.


The energy allocation from food consumption (C) to fecal losses (F), routine oxygen consumption (Rr), ammonia excretion (U) and body mass production (P) was assessed in juveniles of Centropomus parallelus acclimated for 15 and 30 days to 5, 20 and 30 salinities, and temperature of 21o C. Oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion were linear related to fish wet weight and differences were significant either between salinities and acclimation periods. The body mass production suggests this salinity range as better conditions for rearing C. parallelus at this stage of life cycle. The energy balance as food consumption ranged from: 101.86 to 105.43%; 79.85 to 92.90%; 91.16 to 111.66%, at salinities 5, 20 and 30, respectively. This energy balance was comprised with metabolic maintenance that expended from 40 to 70% and with 20 to 42% saved as body mass production, in accordance to the salinity and period of acclimation. The energy lost as feces and ammonia excretion represented ca. of 8.70 11.90% and 0.50 – 1.30%, respectively from the general balance. Suitable environmental conditions for the fat snook aquaculture are discussed in accordance to the present results.


Police use of body-worn cameras (BWCs), proponents believe, will bring transparency and accountability to police work, and ultimately enhance police legitimacy. As with previous major organizational changes in policing, BWCs may be greeted with cynicism. Such cynicism by officers can obstruct the expected benefits of BWCs to policing. Yet, evidence on the receptivity of officers to BWCs is sparse. We seek to investigate the nature and sources of officers' cynicism about BWCs. Our data came from a survey of 550 police officers from seven forces in England and Northern Ireland. Results show that cynicism towards BWCs is multi-dimensional, with levels of cynicism varying across these dimensions. Officers were more cynical about public receptivity and the impact on crime prevention, but least cynical about the likely impact on police integrity. Further analysis found that cynicism hinges, largely, on organizational commitment.


The study is aimed at process of isolation, purification and characterization of actinomycetes species from soil which exhibits antimicrobial property versus 8 chosen pathogenic strains. The soil samples collected from different habitats present in Secunderabad, India. The collected samples were subjected to serial dilution and are plated on agar media containing actinomycetes isolates. Screening, purification and storage of potential colonies in glycerol stock solution is carried out followed by characterization of isolates biochemically and morphologically is carried out. The extraction process of isolates is carried out to produce antibacterial compound and evaluation process is conducted by Minimum inhibitory concentration method. A total of 6 isolates of actinomycete species were tested for antagonistic property vs 8 pathogenic microbes. S-4 among isolates found to be very active and activity of the isolate is further increased by the influence of UV mutation. The strain AM2 exhibited maximum antibiotic producing property which is 4.9 mg/ml and it is referred to as S-4 mutant strain. S-4 mutant strain is further used to carry out fermentation related studies.


In spite of efforts by state and non-state agencies to respond to crisis in the horn of Africa, underlying vulnerabilities and low resilience capacities have resulted into chronic food insecurity among majority of the populations in the region. The goal of this paper was to examine the role of community resilience capacity on food security in Loima within Turkana County. The study used descriptive research design to examine the food security situation and existing resilience capacity in the community and correlational design to measure the relationship between the variables on the performance of food security projects. The main instruments of data collection for the study were semi-structured questionnaires, interview guides and observation check lists. The sample size for the study was 491 households administered across 11 sub locations of the sub county. Community resilience variables included: social capital, social safety nets, disaster management skills, resource capacity and external environmental factors. Performance of food security projects was measured in relation to the four standard dimensions and elements of food security. The results of the study highlighted that performance of food security projects has a moderate positive correlation with community resilience capacity of r value = 0.458, R2=0.1633. Disaster management skills had the highest correlation coefficient with social safety net having a relatively weak correlation coefficient. Majority of the households were vulnerable, partly due to their over-reliance on relief food, frequency of disasters, and lack of livelihood diversification. Other cause of vulnerabilities is the inadequate strategic and policy instruments for the long term, sustained support. Social safety net programs were not robust enough to enhance resilience against the impacts of severe shocks. The study concludes that households with combined resilience capacity were less likely to be trapped in food insecurity than those who didn't adopt the strategies.


Treatment of normal mice with a mAb to CD4 (GK1.5) was explored as a means of inhibiting the antibody response to an immunotoxin. Three days of pretreatment with 200 micrograms of GK1.5 completely abrogated the primary antibody response to a 3-micrograms dose of a mutant diphtheria toxin conjugated to an anti-transferrin receptor antibody. The same dose and schedule of anti-CD4 antibody significantly reduced and delayed, but did not prevent, the anamnestic antitoxin response in animals that had been previously primed to the immunotoxin. Three daily injections of anti-CD4 antibodies followed by weekly doses of immunotoxin resulted in a 3-wk delay in the development of antitoxin antibodies, and the kinetics of the antitoxin response correlated with the kinetics of recovery of CD4+ T cells in the spleen and lymph nodes. The antitoxin response to repeated doses of immunotoxin was completely abrogated when anti-CD4 antibodies were given every 2 wk throughout the course of immunotoxin treatment. Thus, transient depletion of Th cells during treatment can block the immune response to an immunotoxin. There was no evidence of tolerance induction with this regimen.


State representation learning (SRL) in partially observable Markov decision processes has been studied to learn abstract features of data useful for robot control tasks. For SRL, acquiring domain-agnostic states is essential for achieving efficient imitation learning. Without these states, imitation learning is hampered by domain-dependent information useless for control. However, existing methods fail to remove such disturbances from the states when the data from experts and agents show large domain shifts. To overcome this issue, we propose a domain-adversarial and -conditional state space model (DAC-SSM) that enables control systems to obtain domain-agnostic and task- and dynamics-aware states. DAC-SSM jointly optimizes the state inference, observation reconstruction, forward dynamics, and reward models. To remove domain-dependent information from the states, the model is trained with domain discriminators in an adversarial manner, and the reconstruction is conditioned on domain labels. We experimentally evaluated the model predictive control performance via imitation learning for continuous control of sparse reward tasks in simulators and compared it with the performance of the existing SRL method. The agents from DAC-SSM achieved performance comparable to experts and more than twice the baselines. We conclude domain-agnostic states are essential for imitation learning that has large domain shifts and can be obtained using DAC-SSM.


Expression vectors for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplast transformation have been constructed with transcription and translation signals from chloroplast genes. The bacterial aadA sequence, coding for aminoglycoside 3" adenyl transferase, was inserted in these vectors and introduced into the C. reinhardtii chloroplast by particle gun transformation. The stable transgenic expression of this foreign protein in the chloroplast confers spectinomycin and streptomycin resistance to the transformed cells. This new marker can be used as a reporter of gene expression, and as a portable selectable cassette for chloroplast reverse genetics. Targetted gene disruption mutants of loci required for photosynthesis, tscA and psaC, were thus obtained. A gene disruption of an unidentified open reading frame, ORF472, remained heteroplasmic, suggesting that it has a vital function.


The rates of deamidation of α‐synuclein and single Asn residues in 13 Asn‐sequence mutants have been measured for 5 × 10−5M protein in both the absence and presence of 10−2M sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). In the course of these experiments, 370 quantitative protein deamidation measurements were performed and 37 deamidation rates were determined by ion cyclotron resonance Fourier transform mass spectrometry, using an improved whole protein isotopic envelope method and a mass defect method with both enzymatic and collision‐induced fragmentation. The measured deamidation index of α‐synuclein was found to be 0.23 for an overall deamidation half‐time of 23 days, without or with SDS micelles, owing primarily to the deamidation of Asn(103) and Asn(122). Deamidation rates of 15 Asn residues in the wild‐type and mutant proteins were found to be primary sequence controlled without SDS. However, the presence of SDS micelles slowed the deamidation rates of nine N‐terminal region Asn residues, caused by the known three‐dimensional structures induced through protein binding to SDS micelles.


The application of diffraction technology to ultra wideband synthetic aperture radars (UWB SAR) was investigated to find an optimal solution to high-quality radar imagery. The microwave imagery criterion is presented and the spatial frequency coverage is introduced to evaluate imaging systems at first. Then radar imagery is analyzed with the comprehensive consideration of the scattering mechanisms, the data acquisition system, and the image reconstruction algorithm. Theoretical and numerical results show UWB SAR exploiting diffraction technology has the potential to realize high-resolution geometric imaging and probe inherent physical properties of targets. This provides a theoretical basis for formation flight and optimization of SAR systems.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are 19-25 nucleotides non-coding RNAs that control diverse cellular events through multiple target mRNAs. Dysregulation of specific spectrum of miRNAs in human malignancies is frequently observed, suggesting that they may play a new layer of regulation as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. Apart from the functional role in embryonic development and tumorigenesis, the imprinted H19 gene also exerts as a primary source for miR-675 biosynthesis. As detected by quantitative real-time PCR, both H19 and miR-675 were overexpressed in human colon cancer cell lines (CloneA, MIP101 and SW480) as well as in primary human colorectal cancer tissues; the miR-675 level is positively correlated with the H19 expression level. Ectopic H19 expression by transfection with H19 expression plasmid induced miR-675 expression while H19 knockdown by using H19 siRNA decreased miR-675 expression in colon cancer cells. For biological function of miR-675, ectopic miR-675 expression by transfection with miR-675 precursor increased cell proliferation and anchorage-independent growth of colon cancer cells while miR-675 knockdown by using miR-675 inhibitor suppressed the growth of cells. Moreover, miR-675 overexpression decreased the luciferase activity of a reporter construct comprising the 3\#8217;untranslated region (3\#8217;UTR) of the Rb mRNA. By Western blot analysis, miR-675 overexpression also suppressed RB protein level in cells. These data show, for the first time, that H19-derived miR-675 is involved in colorectal cancer development and may serve as the potential therapeutic targets for colorectal cancer. Citation Information: In: Proc Am Assoc Cancer Res; 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract nr 2532.


This work explains how to analyze the aggregate electricity consumption of many consumers, and extract key components such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), residential lighting, and street lighting consumption from the total consumption. To avoid explicit modeling of dependencies on time of day and on working versus non-working days, least-squares fitting for outside temperature and natural illumination dependency proceeds independently for each hour of the day. Cubic polynomials model dependencies on Steadman apparent temperature and on log-scale illumination, but spline surfaces are best when considering these variables jointly. The primary focus is on residential consumption, but the same techniques can be used for studying street lighting, commercial and industrial consumption.


Making adobes with the best mechanical properties for the construction of earthen housings is the overall goal of this work. Specifically, we study the influence of rice straw on the physical and mechanical properties of these adobes. The physical and mechanical properties (compressive and flexural strength) of adobes (mixture of sandy clay and rice straw) have been studied with different proportions of straw in the mixture. It is a question of determining the quantity of stalks of rice straw making it possible to optimize the mechanical performances of the composite. Various compositions have been considered with mass concentrations of rice straw ranging from 0 to 40% relative to the volume of clay sand to make 4×4×16cm prismatic specimens. The results obtained during physical and mechanical tests were presented in the form of a graph. The analysis of these data shows that the optimal addition of rice straw in the clay matrix is 25% for a better compromise between the compressive and tensile strengths. The improvement of the physical and mechanical properties of adobes is related to the good adhesion between the rice straw and the clay matrix, to the high tensile strength of the rice straw and finally to a good distribution of cracks in the composites.


In this paper FIR filter is designed by two algorithms. We consider the filter order and sparsity of filter to implement the FIR Filter. The problem identification handles by the l0-norm minimization which can be implemented by two different algorithms. In first design approach the upper bound value taken into consideration which leads to weighted l 0 -norm minimization problem, in the second one a problem transformed into another weighted l 0 -norm minimization. Weighted l 0 -norm minimization problem can be tackled by the IRLS algorithm to solve the problem. Both Sparsity and filter order design approach provides the best FIR Filter Design. From this reduced coefficient set, we can implement multiplierless FIR filter to achieve the reduced hardware design.


[Objective] To study the chemical constituents from the stalks of Alsophila spinulosa(Hook.) Tryon.[Method] The chemical constituents isolated and purified from the crude powder of A.spinulosa stalks through silica column chromatography method were analyzed by TLC,1H-NMR,13C-NMR,etc.In comparision with related literatures,these compounds were further identified.[Result] 3 chemical constituents were isolated from A.spinulosa stalks for the first time,including vitexin,isorientin and an organic acid(3,4,6-trihydroxy-1-ring vinyl carboxylic acid).And,this organic acids presented different degrees of antimicrobial activity,which provided support for the antimicrobial activity of A.spinulosa stalks from the angle of chemical constituents.[Conclusion] This method was simple,convenient and accurate to identify the chemical constituents that were isolated from A.spinulosa stalks.


Disruptions on ITER present challenges to handle the intense heat flux, the large forces from halo currents, and the potential first wall damage from energetic runaway electrons. Injecting large quantities of material into the plasma during the disruption can reduce the plasma energy and increase its resistivity to mitigate these effects. Assessments of the amount of various mixtures and quantities of material required have been made to provide collision mitigation of runaway electron conversion [1], which is the most difficult challenge. The quantities of material required (∼0.5 MPa-m3 for deuterium or helium gas) are large enough to have implications on the design and operation of the vacuum system and tokamak exhaust processing system.


Background While Denmark is facing growing inequality between Danish women and immigrant women in relation to exercise and health, research on interventions and targeted exercise programmes is limited. This study aimed to test the feasibility of a physiotherapeutic supervised exercise programme for immigrant women. Methods Inspired by improvement research a programme was developed in cooperation with the immigrant women. The intervention was modified continuously according to the women's wishes and needs. Intervention Baseline focus-group interviews, completion of questionnaire and physical-strength tests, was followed by a 12-week supervised training period. After completion of the training the participants were re-interviewed and re-tested. Results Twenty-nine women were recruited to the training programme, and 10 attended follow-up. Mean body mass index was 34 kg/m2. Attendance rate among follow-up tested participants was 70%. The women gained knowledge about their bodies, a healthier lifestyle, and awareness of the importance of active living. Conclusion It was possible to recruit and maintain immigrant women in the exercise programme. This study demonstrated the importance of involving the women in the process, and revealed important factors, such as privacy, a local setting and trust in the physiotherapists. LAY ABSTRACT While Denmark is facing growing inequality between Danish women and immigrant women in relation to exercise and health, research on interventions and targeted exercise programmes is limited. This study tested the usefulness of a physiotherapeutic exercise programme developed in cooperation with immigrant women based on interviews. The intervention was modified continuously according to the women's wishes and needs. A total of 29 women were included. Attendance rate among follow-up tested participants was 70%. The women gained knowledge about their bodies, a healthier lifestyle, and awareness of the importance of active living. It was possible to recruit and maintain immigrant women in the exercise programme. The study demonstrated the importance of involving the women in the process and revealed important factors for successful execution of the intervention.


Objective: To minimize treatment comorbidities in glomus jugulare tumor patients with advanced age while reducing pulsatile tinnitus and preserving or improving residual hearing using a limited middle ear/mastoid tumor resection and postoperative gamma knife radiosurgery to tumor remnants in the jugular foramen region. Study Design: Retrospective consecutive case review of five patients. Setting: Tertiary referral, academic medical center. Patients: Patients with advanced age (mean, 69.6 yr; range, 61-78 yr) harboring symptomatic glomus jugulare tumors. Intervention: All patients were treated with resection of middle ear and mastoid portions of tumor and subsequent gamma knife radiosurgery to jugular foramen portion of tumor. Main Outcome Measures: Length of hospitalization; hearing, pulsatile tinnitus, cranial nerve, and tumor control status. Results: All patients were treated on an outpatient surgical basis without the need for blood transfusion. There were no incidents of a change in cranial nerve status (Cranial Nerves VII, IX, X, XI, and XII) in the immediate postoperative period. All patients had improvement or resolution of pulsatile tinnitus with preservation or improvement of preoperative hearing levels. Tumor volume was stable or reduced in all patients at mean follow-up of 19 months (range, 11-24 mo). Gamma knife radiosurgery (mean peripheral dose of 15 Gy) was not associated with any significant immediate or delayed complications. Conclusion: Short-term data reveals that staged microsurgical and radiosurgical therapy for glomus jugulare tumors in the symptomatic patient with advanced age is safe and yields favorable results regarding tinnitus, hearing, and cranial nerve status. Long-term data are needed to further evaluate the effectiveness of this treatment algorithm before extrapolating this treatment option to younger patients.


This beguiling story is woven around the life of Fragrant Lotus, who has her feet bound in the supreme Golden Lotus style when she is six years old. Her beautiful feet allow her to marry into a wealthy family, and with steady determination she jockeys her way to head of the household, strategizing through the intricate politics of foot-binding competitions and the turbulent times of the anti-foot-binding movement at the turn of the century. Events in Fragrant Lotus' life twist and unfold in a series of witty and often wicked ironies, obliterating easy distinctions between kindness and cruelty, the transcendent and the mundane, history and fable, forgery and authentic work. The novel's waggish narrator exists in the tension between judgment and description, wryly deflating his reader's certainties along the way. Feng's engaging storytelling technique effectively undercuts the broad simplifications with which we inevitably approach his novel. The act of foot binding is horrific, but it is also an act of love; the bound foot is a symbol of entrapment and oppression, but it is also an emblem of exquisite beauty and refinement. Written in 1985, The Three-Inch Golden Lotus is a deeply affecting, thoroughly enjoyable literary revelation.


Farmers markets have flourished in recent decades as alternative distribution outlets for small-scale, organic producers. However, one persistent challenge for farmers markets is attracting a diverse range of patrons across the wide socio-economic spectrum. This issue is even more critical when focused on individuals with a limited budget for food expenditures. Thus, we surveyed SNAP and non-SNAP users who attend a Midwestern farmers market in order to investigate motivations for attendance, local food values, and the role that financial incentives play in affecting attendance. Additionally, we compared our findings with our previous research on households who receive SNAP and do not attend the farmers market. Our results underscore that the SNAP users at the market have much in common with their non-SNAP market-going counterparts. There are also several critical differences between market-going SNAP users and the non-going SNAP users. In conclusion, while our results show financial incentives work to reduce the reproduction of economic privilege at the farmers market, additional initiatives are required to address other food access barriers and to promote food justice in this important and expanding space.


This paper outlines an exciting new approach for carrying out blind seismic deconvolution. In this algorithm, overlapping source wavelets are modeled as amplitude-modulated sinusoids, and blind deconvolution is carried out by initially determining the seismogram's principle phase components. Once the principle phases are determined, a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF) is utilized to separate the corresponding overlapping source wavelets. This deconvolution technique is referred to as principle phase decomposition (PPD). The PPD technique makes use of the fact that in reflection seismology the discrete convolution operation can be represented as the summation of several source wavelets of differing arrival times. In this algorithm, a jump Markov linear Gaussian system (JMLGS) is defined where changes (jumps) in the state-space system and measurement equations are due to the occurrences and losses of overlapping source wavelet events. The RBPF obtains optimal estimates of the possible overlapping source wavelets by individually weighting and subsequently summing a bank of Kalman filters (KFs). These KFs are specified and updated by samples drawn from a Markov chain distribution that defines the probability of the overlapping source wavelets that compose the JMLGS. In addition, hidden Markov model filters are utilized for refining the principle phase estimates


Statement of purpose While photo-elicitation has been described as a promising method to explore complex emotional topics such as trauma healing, few methods incorporate a trauma-informed approach grounded in feedback from participants who have experienced violence firsthand. The purpose of this study therefore was to create and evaluate a new trauma-informed photo-elicitation method, Photo-experiencing and Reflective Listening (PEARL). Methods/Approach PEARL involves the use of a photography focusing prompt and subsequent activity-based interview to capture day-to-day healing experiences and emotions. We used a concurrent mixed methods approach with 17 survivors of gender and sexual violence to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of using PEARL to explore one's healing journey. Results Overall, participants enjoyed the uniqueness of PEARL and found it a non-triggering way to engage with difficult material. Of note, participants said that they fully agreed that the interview covered the most important aspects of the topic for them (N=17) and that it was the correct investigative approach (n=14). Participants also noted that PEARL helped them understand how to improve their situation (n=15) and gave them new ways of looking at their problems (n=14). Conclusion With careful application, PEARL is a survivor-centered method that allows researchers to get a glimpse at survivor healing experiences through the collection of both visual and narrative data. Future research should explore PEARL not only as a potential data collection technique, but also as an intervention to promote active healing engagement in survivors of gender and sexual violence. Significance While PEARL was created for survivors of sexual violence, it can be applied to understand a wide array of violence experiences. Learning from those who have been victims of violence first hand can help reveal the roots of violence in our society and how we can ultimately prevent it.


With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of patients suffering from depression is rising around the world. It is important to diagnose depression early so that it may be treated as soon as possible. The self-response questionnaire, which has been used to diagnose depression in hospitals, is impractical since it requires active patient engagement. Therefore, it is vital to have a system that predicts depression automatically and recommends treatment. In this paper, we propose a smartphone-based depression prediction system. In addition, we propose depressive features based on multimodal sensor data for predicting depressive mood. The multimodal depressive features were designed based on depression symptoms defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The proposed system comprises a "Mental Health Protector" application that collects data from smartphones and a big data-based cloud platform that processes large amounts of data. We recruited 106 mental patients and collected smartphone sensor data and self-reported questionnaires from their smartphones using the proposed system. Finally, we evaluated the performance of the proposed system's prediction of depression. As the test dataset, 27 out of 106 participants were selected randomly. The proposed system showed 76.92% on an f1-score for 16 patients with depression disease, and in particular, 15 patients, 93.75%, were successfully predicted. Unlike previous studies, the proposed method has high adaptability in that it uses only smartphones and has a distinction of evaluating prediction accuracy based on the diagnosis.