Object tracking is an important task in the field of computer vision. In which the camera tracking have become a common requirement in today's society. The inexpensive video camera and the high quality lens generate a great interest in the object tracking field. Generally, it is not easy to track human behavior in an environment with a large view. So the project aims to solve the big problems which are associated with the large view camera system to track the people in the large area which is single targets in nonlinear motion, handle occlusion & to reduce the processing time. In this paper a new algorithm is used to solve the problems which are by using a GbLN-BCO & model based particle filter. The proposed algorithm is tested on the several set of video data. The accuracy of the tracking perform is greater than the previous techniques i.e. unscented Kalman filter & Parzen Particle Filter.


Purpose: There has been little research into the effects of therapies for alcohol dependence in Japanese patients with depression and drinking problems. The aim of this study was to: 1) assess the prevalence of problem drinking in patients with depression and 2) evaluate the association between depression severity and problem drinking. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted in Japanese patients aged ≥ 20 years old with depression. Survey 1 identified those who engaged in habitual drinking and these individuals completed survey 2, which assessed alcohol consumption, depression severity and alcohol dependence or abuse. Results: Overall, 2354 patients completed survey 1 and 425 patients completed survey 2. Of the patients who completed survey 2, 112 (26.4%; 95% confidence interval 22.2, 30.8) had alcohol dependence. Survey 2 showed that the severity of depression was significantly associated with the prevalence of alcohol dependence (p < 0.0001), suspected alcohol dependence (p = 0.0001) and high or very high drinking risk level (DRL; p < 0.0001). Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that alcohol dependence (p < 0.0001), suspected alcohol dependence (p = 0.0112), high DRL (p = 0.0027) and very high DRL (p = 0.0004) were significantly associated with severity of depression. Conclusions: Among patients with depression who engaged in habitual drinking, the prevalence of alcohol dependence and suspected alcohol dependence were substantially higher than in the general population. Depression severity was significantly associated with alcohol dependence, suspected alcohol dependence and high or very high DRL.


The unprecendeted growth of terrorism had made the environment of international peace and security far more complex than in the era of World war and Cold war. By utlizing the features of globalization the terror organizations had gone transnationalwith its elaborate complicated networks thereby changing the nature of conflict fought so far as these terror organizations as non-state actors tends to challenge the state stability as never before. Further the process of globalization had blurred the distinction between global and regional security because if there is a threat to regional stability then it willhave its spillover effects like in the form of refugee, migration crisis and other human right rights issues which became a matter of concern for international community as it threatens the international peace. Therefore in order to devise an efficient and effective counter policy to terrorism it is necessary to understand the perpetuators of terrorism- the terrorist organizations. This paper tends to analyse one of the prominent terror organization Al-Qaeda using the combined aspects of strategic framework and organizational theories that usually explains the decision making process of the organization. In this paper the background events that contributed to the evolution of Al-Qaeda as a organization, its objectives and underlying ideological narrative are discussed in detail. Further the modus operandi of Al-Qaeda are explained in the form of its terror tactics strategies, its organizational features and its revenue and logistics supply methods. Therefore this paper gives the detailed understanding about the working method of Al-Qaeda which helps to understand the policy implications that demands the combination of hard power to contain and soft power to curb it.


Bioremediation is emerging as one of the most promising technology for the removal of xenobiotics. Bioremediation of xenobiotic compounds by microorganisms is a crucial phenomenon by which these compounds can be detoxified or removed from the environment, thus preventing pollution, where screening of the potential degrading organism is one of the key step. Methomyl belonging to N-methyl carbamate group of insecticide is the most commonly used pesticide on fruits and vegetables. It is classified as a toxic, hazardous and restricted use pesticide by the World Health Organization (WHO), European Commission (EC) and Environmental Protection Act (EPA). The present study is therefore aimed to isolate a soil bacterium, characterize the most potential degrader of methomyl and further determine the role of plasmid in bioremediation. Soil samples were collected from different areas around Karnatak University campus, Dharwad and inoculated in minimal medium containing methomyl (10-3 M). Morphological characteristics of ten isolates were studied and subjected to HPLC analysis where methomyl degradation (%) was observed. The most potential strain with the ability to degrade methomyl was inoculated in synthetic medium containing methomyl (10-3 M) for 96 hrs. This strain was further identified morphologically, biochemically and genetically. The results indicated that the isolated strain was gram -ve rods and biochemical characteristics showed that indole, methyl red, vogues prauskauer and H2S test was negative and citrate, catalase, gelatin hydrolysis and oxidase test was positive. The 16Sr DNA reports revealed that the accession number was G01801181 and showed 99% similarity to Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The present study on HPLC analysis at regular intervals of 24 hrs of the soil isolate - Pseudomonas aeruginosa in synthetic medium containing methomyl (10-3 M) incubated for 96 hrs revealed that there was a significant decrease in the methomyl content in the treated group when compared with the initial control demonstrating its potential use in bioremediation. The plasmid isolation and curing study confirmed that the genes of the plasmid of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are involved in the methomyl degradation and such plasmids could be used as recombinant DNA technology for bioremediation.


The present study was carried out to investigate the wound healing potentials of 17 medicinal plants historically used in Ghana for wound healing. Warm and cold water extracts were prepared from the 17 dried plant species and tested in vitro in the scratch assay with NIH 3T3 fibroblasts from mice. The wound healing scratch assay was used to evaluate the effect of the plants on cell proliferation and/or migration in vitro, as a test for potential wound healing properties. After 21 hours of incubation increased proliferation and/or migration of fibroblasts in the scratch assay was obtained for 5 out of the 17 plant species. HPLC separation of the most active plant extract, which was a warm water extract of Philenoptera cyanescens, revealed the wound healing activity to be attributed to rutin and a triglycoside of quercetin. The present study suggests that Allophylus spicatus, Philenoptera cyanescens, Melanthera scandens, Ocimum gratissimum, and Jasminum dichotomum have wound healing activity in vitro.


With the emergence of the "sociology of body" and "sociology of emotions" in recent years, and the explosion of research about placebos and the mechanisms of their action, there is enough grounding now to consider the placebo response from a sociological point of view. These new subfields of sociology have provided enough knowledge about the primacy of action and emotions, and the importance of embodied knowledge and feelings in social interactions. Studies in medicine and psychology show that placebo response is a meaning response which develops in the context of interpersonal relationships. In this process, the embodied experience of the patient and health care professionals and their thoughts, beliefs, emotions and feelings are involved. Lines of research in the fields of placebo response, hypnosis research, doctor-patient relationship, and sociology of body and emotion are converging and provide the evidence for the role of interpersonal interactions in the healing process. Critical analysis of the placebo response provides the basis for an alternative framework to the current dominant model of health care which is biomedicine. This model is based on the dualisms and is inadequate to provide a place and explanation for psychosomatic and culture related disorders which are currently categorized under terms like "Medically Unexplained Syndromes (MUS)". A possible new model could be constructed based on our new understandings provided by studies on placebo response. In this new model, interpersonal dynamics, intersubjectivity, and intercorporeality are core issues and in the center of attention for research and enquiry.


Femtosecond laser-driven approximately 1 GPa shock waves are used to compress monolayers of hydrocarbon chains. Vibrational sum-frequency generation spectroscopy probes the orientation of the terminal methyl groups. With an odd number (15) of carbon atoms, shock compression is an elastic process that causes the methyl groups to tilt. With an even number (18) of carbon atoms, shock compression is viscoelastic, creating single and double gauche defects. When the shock unloads, single gauche defects remain while double defects relax in 30 ps to single-defect states with more upright methyl groups.


It is well known that the various manuscripts of the Targumim of the Five Scrolls are divided into two primary families: a Western family, comprising manuscripts that were written in Europe and North Africa, and a Yemenite family, exclusively comprising manuscripts of Yemenite provenance. The present article challenges this sharp division by presenting a unique Western manuscript which has adopted a clear Yemenite recension for at least two Targumim of the Five Scrolls. A close comparison reveals unprecedented resemblance between the 'Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurentiana, Plut. III.1' manuscript and the Yemenite textual tradition. Various explanations have been proposed so far in order to determine the origin of the Yemenite version, but given the new evidence it seems preferable to assume that the emergence of the Yemenite recension did not take place in Yemenite or Babylonian regions, but rather in the West.


Modern distribution matching algorithms for training diffusion or flow models directly prescribe the time evolution of the marginal distributions between two boundary distributions. In this work, we consider a generalized distribution matching setup, where these marginals are only implicitly described as a solution to some task-specific objective function. The problem setup, known as the Generalized Schr\"odinger Bridge (GSB), appears prevalently in many scientific areas both within and without machine learning. We propose Generalized Schr\"odinger Bridge Matching (GSBM), a new matching algorithm inspired by recent advances, generalizing them beyond kinetic energy minimization and to account for task-specific state costs. We show that such a generalization can be cast as solving conditional stochastic optimal control, for which efficient variational approximations can be used, and further debiased with the aid of path integral theory. Compared to prior methods for solving GSB problems, our GSBM algorithm always preserves a feasible transport map between the boundary distributions throughout training, thereby enabling stable convergence and significantly improved scalability. We empirically validate our claims on an extensive suite of experimental setups, including crowd navigation, opinion depolarization, LiDAR manifolds, and image domain transfer. Our work brings new algorithmic opportunities for training diffusion models enhanced with task-specific optimality structures.


Managing the complaint is tough to handle, efficient response to the complaints from the customer can be an indicator to measure an organization's performance. We've chosen Politeknik Nilai as one of the institutions that are facing daily complaints from the students and parents. Currently, they are using the manual form to lodge a complaint and receive the feedback via email. In this study, we developed an android based mobile application to manage the students' complaint. With mobile apps, the management can prevent the loss of complaint forms and keep track of the records. This system will send feedback and notification directly via students' mobile phone. This study referred to the ten principles for effective complaint handling by Ombudsman. We only referred to eight principles to construct the PNSCares. The methodology used to develop mobile apps is using the Mobile Application Development Life Cycle (MADLC). System Usability Scale (SUS) is used to measure the effectiveness of the mobile apps. The feedbacks from ten respondents on the PNSCares prototype are good with 72 scores in SUS for perceived usefulness and ease of use factor. Based on the result, the prototype is effective and easy to use.


An experimental study of a new biologic vascular graft for reconstruction of small diameter arteries was carried out in 50 sheep. Results up to 2 years allow us to conclude that the new vascular prostheses may be "reutilized" by the host. Infections and aneurysmal degeneration were be observed. Early occlusion of the graft due to technical reasons occurred in only one case.


OBJECTIVE
Glucocorticoids (GC) are associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity despite increased HDL-C concentration. HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux, a major anti-atherogenic property of HDL particles, is negatively associated with CVD risk. We aimed to determine whether HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux was influenced by GC.

DESIGN
Prospective, observational study.

METHODS
Lipid parameters, HDL composition, HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux, Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein, Phospholipid Transfer Protein and Lecithin Cholesterol Acyl-Transferase (LCAT) activities were determined in 10 patients with giant cell arteritis before and 3 months after GC introduction and in 7 control subjects. HDL concentration and composition, HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux and LCAT activity were determined in GC-treated mice.

RESULTS
In patients, HDL-C concentration was higher after than before treatment GC-treatment (p=0.002) while HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux was decreased (p=0.008) and negatively associated with the proportion of cholesteryl ester in HDL (p=0.04), independently of CRP. As well, in mice, HDL-C level was increased after GC exposure (p=0.04) and HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux decreased (p=0.04). GC-treated patients had higher cholesteryl ester content in HDL, higher HDL2-to-HDL3 ratio and higher LCAT activity than before treatment (p=0.008, p=0.02 and p=0.004, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
We report, for the first time, that in patients with giant cell arteritis and mice treated with GC, HDL-mediated cholesterol efflux was impaired by GC besides an increased HDL-C level. This impaired HDL functionality, possibly related to HDL enrichment in cholesteryl ester, could contribute to the increased CVD risk observed in GC-treated patients. Further studies are needed in larger populations, to further decipher the effect of GC on HDL.


recent social-scientifically oriented work, in particular Bengt Holmberg's discussion of what she calls &dquo;community-building institutionalization,&dquo; the habitualization of behaviors and solidification of a symbolic world. Part 1 surveys indications that this process was already well underway in Paul's own congregations. Ambivalently interested &dquo;in both evangelizing and avoiding outsiders,&dquo; these churches resemble Bryan Wilson's model of a &dquo;conversionist sect&dquo; (pp. 34-35, 40-41 That ambivalence also motivates the socially conservative ethos of &dquo;love-patriarchalism&dquo; (pp. 43-45). Paul's instructions to his communities show his concern for &dquo;struc-


Two sowing rates, 4 and 12 kg/ha, and two sowing methods, broadcast and drilled into 18 cm rows, were used to give different population densities and spatial distributions of a semi-winter dormant lucerne, Condura 73 Brand, in mown dryland plots. Lucerne population in these plots was monitored for the first 12 months after sowing by either estimating the frequency of cells occupied by plants, using a 1 m2 steel mesh with a 10 cm x 10 cm or a 5 cm x 5 cm grid, or estimating plant population by taking crown counts at the soil surface. To estimate the true plant population for each sowing rate and method, plots were excavated regularly and plant tap roots counted. Crown counts consistently underestimated the true plant population over the range of 35-450 plants/m2. The underestimation was greater at the higher sowing rate. At populations greater than 150 plants/m2, frequency estimates were not sensitive to changes in plant numbers, but within the range of 20-80 plants/m2 they reliably reflected changes in plant populations. In a second experiment, six lucerne cultivars with a range of dormancy characteristics and crown structures were used to investigate the effect of crown size and type. Although crown counts underestimated (P<0.05) the actual plant population of a highly winter active, narrow-crown cultivar, there were no significant differences between cultivars in the number of plants or their frequency estimates.


Present effort intends to improve the performance of gelatin based casted-films for controlled delivery of hydrophobic drugs. To achieve this goal, Piperine (a model drug) was loaded into gelatin (type A) casted-films by solvent evaporation method. Glutaraldehyde was used as a cross-linker for the gelatin films to modulate the drug release behavior and to prolong the rate of degradation of the film. In-vitro degradation study under physiological conditions and thermal analysis through differential scanning calorimetry were performed to confirm stability of the gelatin casted-film matrix. Aim was to control the drug release from films by varying the cross-linking degree and the gelatin concentration. Optical microscope analysis was performed to study the surface topography of the sample. In order to understand the drug–polymer interaction in the film, attenuated total reflectance (ATR)-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis was done. The in-vitro release study gave an overall idea of the role of cross-linkers, gelatin concentration, and effect of pH on the release profiles of Piperine. Results show that one can effectively use gelatin casted-film based drug delivery systems for a wide range of release requirements, i.e., from fast release to delayed release.


Summary Examination of the rate-controlling factors in the hexose monophosphate shunt pathway in ascites tumor cells was made by studying the incorporation of C14 of glucose—labeled uniformly or in carbons-1, -2, and -6—into the respiratory CO2 under varied conditions. A study of the effect of glucose concentration on the operation of the alternate pathway in a hyperdiploid Ehrlich ascites tumor revealed that the initial rate of CO2 production by the shunt was independent of substrate concentration in the range of 2.5 × 10-5m to 1 × 10-2m. Artificial electron acceptors such as methylene blue, menadione, and phenazine methosulfate stimulated carbon-1 oxidation from six- to 30-fold with only a slight stimulatory effect on the oxidation of carbon-6, suggesting that one of the ratelimiting factors in the operation of the alternate pathway is the availability of the electron transport system. This stimulation was also observed with homogenates of ascites cells when a source of TPN was supplied. This TPN-dependent oxidative system for carbon-1 was localized in the soluble fraction, which also contained a lactic acid dehydrogenase that catalyzed the oxidation of TPNH by pyruvate. A significant oxidation of carbon-1 of glucose by intact tumor cells was observed under anaerobic conditions. The rate of oxidation of carbon-1 was stimulated by pyruvate to that observed in the presence of oxygen. Oxygen did not increase carbon-1 oxidation by the intact cells in the presence of moderate pyruvate levels, indicating that intermediary metabolites such as pyruvate may serve as the principal electron acceptors for the hexose monophosphate shunt. From the data, it is concluded that the prime function of the hexose monophosphate shunt is to provide reduced triphosphopyridine nucleotide for specific reductive syntheses.


Peer mediation is conflict resolution by youth, for youth. In a Montessori setting, students are given responsibility, freedom, and choice, often working without adult guidance. Peer mediation allows students to extend that freedom and responsibility to their own conflict resolution. The purpose of this action research project was to explore peer mediation through the lens of Montessori and the effects of peer mediation on peer interactions. Research was conducted in a suburban public charter Montessori school. It took place in an upper level elementary classroom consisting of 25 students in grades 4, 5, and 6, with an equal balance of boys and girls. The researcher used confidential student surveys and observations to analyze the effects of peer mediation in a Montessori Upper Elementary classroom. The research concluded that peer mediation in a Montessori environment had a positive effect on peer interactions.


Polymer‐based materials with high electrical conductivity are of considerable interest because of their wide range of applications. The construction of a 3D, compactly interconnected graphene network can offer a huge increase in the electrical conductivity of polymer composites. However, it is still a great challenge to achieve desirable 3D architectures in the polymer matrix. Here, highly conductive polymer nanocomposites with 3D compactly interconnected graphene networks are obtained using a self‐assembly process. Polystyrene (PS) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) are used as polymer matrixes. The obtained PS composite film with 4.8 vol% graphene shows a high electrical conductivity of 1083.3 S/m, which is superior to that of the graphene composite prepared by a solvent mixing method. The electrical conductivity of the composites is closely related to the compact contact between graphene sheets in the 3D structures and the high reduction level of graphene sheets. The obtained EVA composite films with the 3D graphene structure not only show high electrical conductivity but also exhibit high flexibility. Importantly, the method to fabricate 3D graphene structures in polymer matrix is facile, green, low‐cost, and scalable, providing a universal route for the rational design and engineering of highly conductive polymer composites.


Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common preventable and treatable disease, characterized by persistent airflow limitation that is usually progressive and associated with an enhanced chronic inflammatory response in the airways and the lung to noxious particles or gases. The major risk factor of COPD, which has been proven in many studies, is the exposure to cigarette smoke. However, it is 15–20% of all smokers who develop COPD. This is why we should recognize the pathobiology of COPD as involving a complex interaction between several factors, including genetic vulnerability. Oxidant-antioxidant imbalance is recognized as one of the significant factors in COPD pathogenesis. Numerous exogenous and endogenous sources of ROS are present in pathobiology of COPD. One of endogenous sources of ROS is mitochondria. Although leakage of electrons from electron transport chain and forming of ROS are the effect of physiological functioning of mitochondria, there are various intra- and extracellular factors which may increase this amount and significantly contribute to oxidative-antioxidative imbalance. With the coexistence with impaired antioxidant defence, all these issues lead to oxidative and carbonyl stress. Both of these states play a significant role in pathobiology of COPD and may account for development of major comorbidities of this disease.


This study is a hospital based concurrent cohort study with the objectives of investigating the risk factors and the predictive level of the risk factors of pressure ulcers in hospitalized elderly The study was conducted between January 9th and March 12th 2002, in the medical, surgical, and orthopedic wards of Pranangklao Hospital, a 430-bed tertiary hospitsl under the Ministry of Public Health in Nonthaburi Province. The participants in this study were 117 hospitalized elderly patients who were 60 years or older, did not have pressure ulcers on admission, and were hospitalized for at least four days. Data were collected by the researcher and the research assistant who achieved an inter-rater reliability for pressure ulcer risk assessment and skin assessment on the research instrument of 0.905 and 0.954 resprctively. Pressure ulcer risk assessment and skin assessment were conducted daily by utilizing the Braden pressure ulcer risk assessment scale and the Bergstrom's skin assessment scale throughout the study period. Logistic regression analysis was employrd to analyze the data. The results of the study revealed the greatest frequency of pressure ulcers was found in those aged 70 to 79 years old (41%) and had neurological or spinal problems (30.8%). The assessment of elderly patients' risk of pressure ulcers on admission correctly predicted 71.8% of pressure ulces. Of the elderly patients who were predicted to have pressure ulcers, 28.2% developed this complication during the hospitalization period. Most pressure ulcers occurred on the second day after admission. Of the elderly who were predicted not to develop this complication, 93.6% were free from pressure ulcers. An increase in friction and shearing (OR=4.592, 95% CI=1.531-13.770) was the risk factor that had the most influence among the participants, where the second most important risk factor was an increase in core temperature (OR=2.760, 95%CI=1.105-6.891). This study indicates the need for pressure ulcer risk assessment at the time of admission and a need for a pressure ulcer education program for the elderly or their caregivers and for all health care providers. In addition, this study also reveals the need for proper management of these elderly patients who are prone to develop pressure ulcers at the time of admission, especially among those who have increases in friction and shearing forces and an increase in core temperature.


Objective. Sports injuries are one of the most common injuries in the modern Western society. In line with the increased interest in eHealth, a tailor-based online injury prevention intervention was developed to influence determinants and actual sports injury preventive behaviour. An effect study was carried out among runners. Methods. Runners between 18 and 35 years were randomly assigned to the intervention (n=109) or control group (n=105). Participants in the intervention group were invited to visit the website for 30 minutes. Those in the control group were invited to read magazines that did not contain information about running, injuries or other sport related issues for 30 minutes. Online questionnaires were completed just before (TO) and immediately after the intervention (Ti), and after 3 months (T2). Outcome measures were knowledge, risk perception, attitude, intention and injury prevention behaviour. Results. Immediately after the intervention (Tl) an effect was found on all outcome measures. After three months (T2) the effect remained only for behaviours relating to warm-up and frequency of shoe replacement. Conclusion. Short-term (3 months) effects were demonstrated on determinants and actual performance of sports injury prevention behaviour. These results confirm the value of online tailored interventions for the dissemination of injury prevention knowledge.


A women aged 24 years with congenital perceptive impairment of hearing, was referred to an ear, nose and throat department on account of dysphonia. It was found that the only functioning thyroid tissue was in the midline at the base of the tongue. The combination of congenital perceptive impairment of hearing and goitre at the base of the tongue has only been described once previously and was, on that occasion, associated with mental retardation. The present author's patient was of normal intelligence.


The M / G/00 queue with Optimistic Concurrency Control (OCC) is a model for transaction processing in a real-time database. Transactions arrive according to a Poisson process and require some generally distributed execution time. The number of servers is unlimited so execution of an arriving transaction always starts immediately. However there is a risk that after completion of a transaction all work turns out to be useless because another transaction has overwritten one or more data-items that were used. Thus, the total service time of a transaction consists of a stochastic number of runs, dependent on the load of the system. In this study we develop an approximation for the distribution of the total service time, and test the approximation against simulation. Although in practice the number of servers is never unlimited, this study is very useful to judge the value of having a large number of servers in OCC systems.


We flow a 2D foam through a model 2D porous medium and study experimentally and numerically how the bubble size distribution evolves along the medium. The dominant mechanism of bubble creation is a fragmentation process occurring when bubbles pinched against obstacles are split in two smaller bubbles. We infer the statistics of these individual and local fragmentation events from the experimental data and propose a fragmentation equation to relate that statistics to the evolution of the global size distribution. The predicted evolution shows very good agreement with direct experimental measurements of the bubble size distribution.


A 53-year-old English woman who had been thought to have systemic monoclonal immunoglobulin light chain (AL) amyloidosis was investigated further because of her unusually long 17-year history and a suggestion of renal disease in the family. She was found to have the Glu526Val fibrinogen alpha-chain variant that causes autosomal dominant hereditary systemic amyloidosis. This has not previously been described in a British family. The mutant gene was associated with the same haplotype as in all other reported cases, suggesting a common founder. The patient had already received a renal transplant, but the graft failed within 6 years due to amyloid deposition. Progressive hepatic amyloidosis eventually caused liver failure, although the function of other organs was well preserved. She therefore received hepatic and renal transplants to replace the failed organs and the hepatic source of the amyloidogenic variant fibrinogen. Three years later she is completely well and has no amyloid deposits identifiable by serum amyloid P component scintigraphy. This is the first detailed report of hepatic transplantation for liver failure caused by amyloidosis of any type. The substantial follow-up suggests that fibrinogen alpha-chain amyloidosis is one of the inherited metabolic diseases that can be cured by liver transplantation. The mutation underlying Glu526Val fibrinogen alpha-chain amyloidosis is incompletely penetrant and has a variable phenotype that can clinically mimic AL amyloidosis. Hereditary fibrinogen amyloidosis may be more prevalent than previously suspected and, since AL amyloid is sometimes a diagnosis of exclusion, genotyping for other amyloidogenic proteins is mandatory in all cases in which the amyloid fibrils cannot be positively identified as AL.


A new three‐dimensional imaging strategy based on magnetization prepared ultrafast gradient recalled echo technique that demonstrates pronounced T1 contrast at high fields is introduced. High‐resolution three‐dimensional image sets of human brain showing high contrast between white and gray matter areas are presented. The ratio of contrast‐to‐noise was examined as a function of the relevant parameters in the imaging sequence; calculations based on high‐field T1 values as well as the experimental data demonstrated that maximal contrast‐to‐noise ratio is attained under the same magnetization preparation conditions both for cortical and subcortical gray matter relative to white matter, leading to approximately equivalent appearance of all gray matter areas in the same image. In addition, the images displayed clear visualization of subtle anatomical structures such as the subthalamic nuclei (ventral tier nuclei, dorsomedial nucleus, and pulvinar) and mammillothalamic tracts.


The aim of this study was to determine first, if benign fasciculations and those in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis can de distinguished on the basis of their waveforms or firing characteristics, and second to determine how fasciculation parameters evolved with progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Fasciculation potentials recorded from 63 muscles of 28 patients with definite amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were compared with those from 21 muscles of 11 patients with the benign fasciculation syndrome. In each muscle, at a single site, up to 15 identifiable fasciculation potentials could be recognized. Thus the characteristics of 430 fasciculations from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and 191 benign fasciculations were analysed. Fasciculation potential amplitude, area, turns, duration, firing interval, indices of waveform variability, evidence of axonal conduction block, evidence of axonal conduction variability and propensity to produce double fasciculations were measured. The waveforms of fasciculations in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were on average of shorter duration and had a greater number of turns than benign fasciculations, but, although irregular in both conditions, the firing rate in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was significantly higher. In both conditions, there was evidence of multifocal distal generation of fasciculations, axonal conduction block in the motor unit arborization and of variable axonal conduction. When severe weakness and marked chronic neurogenic change were present on electromyography, the firing rate of fasciculations in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was higher but fasciculation potential amplitude, area and indices of waveform variability were little changed. Double fasciculations in which the waveforms of the two potentials were the same occurred in both conditions. The intervals were in two bands: an early band with 4-10 ms intervals showed identical waveforms of the two potentials, indicating the region of generation was the same. A second band of double fasciculation occurred in the tibialis anterior at an interval of 30-50 ms. Here, the first fasciculation waveform was variable in shape but the second fasciculation was the same on each occasion, suggesting reactivation of the fasciculation via the F-wave route. Double fasciculations in which the second discharge was different from the first had flat time-interval histograms, indicating no interaction between different fasciculations. In conclusion, benign and malignant fasciculations are not distinguishable on the basis of waveform; highly complex fasciculation potentials can be seen in both conditions. Fasciculation firing rate and the frequency of double fasciculations increases in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis when there is a marked lower motor neuron abnormality.


This paper presents a method of object map building using object models created from image sequences captured by a single camera. Object map is a highly structured map, which is built by placing 3-D object models on the floor plane according to object recognition results. To increase the efficiency of object map building, we propose a framework to integrate dense shape and recognition features into an object model. Experimental results show that an object map of a room was built successfully using the proposed object models


: The results of analysis of flavonoids (flavonols as rutin) in staple Russian vegetables and fruits are presented. It was shown that onion and apples are the main vegetable and fruit containing the flavonols in considerable amounts of flavonols. The level of flavonols depends on kind of onions. The data are used for creation of database for calculation of dietary intake of flavonoids by Russian population.


The outer segments of the long arm of laminin have recently been shown to mediate attachment of many cell types and to stimulate neurite outgrowth. For a structural characterization of this part of the molecule we prepared, by limited elastase digestion of laminin, fragments E3 and E8, previously identified as a globular heparin-binding domain and as a 35-nm-long rod with a terminal globule, respectively. Fragment E3 is a domain adjacent to fragment E8. Both structures together comprise the complete terminal half of the long arm. Our data confirm current models, which predict that the C-terminal segments from all three chains contribute to its structure. The B chains terminate at the end of the rod like domain, while the large terminal globule is formed by A-chain structures only. In addition to fragment E3, two new fragments T1 and T2 obtained by tryptic cleavage of fragment E8 were characterized as substructures of the globular domain. Screening of a mouse cDNA library with synthetic oligonucleotides allowed isolation of an 1.8-kb cDNA clone encoding 547 C-terminal amino acids of the A chain and some 196 nucleotides of the 3'-untranslated region including a single polyadenylation site. The clone contained portions of domain T2 and the complete heparin binding domain E3 which was thus identified as the most C-terminal domain of the A chain. Sequence alignment indicated that the terminal globule is formed by homologous repeats of some 140 residues having no counterpart in the B chains.


Abstract:Recent approaches to children's art and drawing influenced by the writings of Deleuze and Guattari and new materialist scholars (for example, Karen Barad, Jane Bennett Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin) explore themes such as process, duration, matter, assemblage, and becoming. They allow for a shift away from linguistic and symbolic interpretations, and offer an opportunity to focus on making rather than meaning in children's drawing practices. In this paper, I will discuss a selection of research by Linda Knight, Christina MacRae, Christopher M. Schulte, and Christine Marmé Thompson, which focuses on assemblage and process, before presenting a case study from my own research. This case study documents and discusses a drawing made during the course of a lunchtime comic club with children aged 7 and 8. My aim in writing this paper is to examine the ways in which research written from these perspectives opens up new understandings of children's drawing practices.


Domestic drinking water supplies prone to interruptions and low per capita domestic water availability have been frequently reported among African households. Despite expanded international monitoring indicators that now include metrics of water availability, the range of methods used for measuring and monitoring availability remains unclear in Africa. Few household surveys have historically assessed water continuity and per capita availability, and both pose measurement challenges. This paper aims to examine the methods used to measure availability and synthesise evidence on African domestic water availability by systematically reviewing the literature from 2000–2019. Structured searches were conducted in five databases: Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, GEOBASE, Compendex and PubMed/Medline. A total of 47 of 2406 reports met all inclusion criteria. Included studies were based on empirical research which reported the household's perspective on a water availability measure. Most studies had methodological problems such as small sample sizes, non-representative sampling and incomplete reporting of methods and measures of uncertainty. Measurement of drinking water availability is primarily reliant on quantifying litres/capita/day (LPCD). Only four (9%) of the included studies reported an average water availability over the international benchmark of 50 LPCD. This pattern of water insufficiency is broadly consistent with previous studies of domestic water availability in Africa. The review highlights the need for high-quality and representative studies to better understand the uncertainties and differences in household water availability across Africa, and the methods used to measure it.


Negative electron affinity GaAs photoemission electron sources are the electron sources of choice in many applications. We have built a GaAs photoemission source to be used in a reaction microscope for near threshold and kinematically complete experiments [1]. In this study, we present the current status of the photoelectron source, a precise characterization of the electron beam and first results of electron-atom scattering experiments.


With the advent of computers in education, and the ample availability of online learning and practice environments, enormous amounts of data on learning become available. The purpose of this paper is to present a decade of experience with analyzing and improving an online practice environment for math, which has thus far recorded over a billion responses. We present the methods we use to both steer and analyze this system in real-time, using scoring rules on accuracy and response times, a tailored rating system to provide both learners and items with current ability and difficulty ratings, and an adaptive engine that matches learners to items. Moreover, we explore the quality of fit by means of prediction accuracy and parallel item reliability. Limitations and pitfalls are discussed by diagnosing sources of misfit, like violations of unidimensionality and unforeseen dynamics. Finally, directions for development are discussed, including embedded learning analytics and a focus on online experimentation to evaluate both the system itself and the users' learning gains. Though many challenges remain open, we believe that large steps have been made in providing methods to efficiently manage and research educational big data from a massive online learning system.


The advent of discrete multitone modulation (DMT) systems in recent years has brought to light the importance of channel shortening equalizers. In this paper, we present a method for the design of one such equalizer for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) linear dispersive channels. This method is a generalization of one that was used for shortening of single-input single-output (SISO) channels. Experimental results presented show that our design method performs better than the minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) technique in terms of effective channel energy compaction. 1


Previous studies have demonstrated that repeated administration of 17βestradiol (E-2) at a dose of 1mg/kg to both (SWR x NZB)F1 (SNF1) mice and (DBA x BALB/c)F1(DBF1) mice resulted in significantly decreased survival and increased appearance of lupus nephritis pathology. However, the ways in which estrogen modulates immune responses has yet to be fully understood, specifically in regard to modulations in TH1 and TH2 cytokine profile. Various studies have reported the presence of two estrogen receptors (ER), α and β, which have been found to be constitutively expressed in many immune cells. In the present project, ER chimeric alpha knockout (αERKO), beta knockout (βERKO) and double knockout (αβERKO) as well as wild type(WT) mice were injected monthly with β-estradiol 17-valerate (E-2) at 1mg/kg. Control mice of each type received oil vehicle only. Results showed that TH1 cytokine production by cells from WT mice was suppressed by E-2 administration, although IFN-γ production was increased in cells from βERKO mice treated with estrogen compared to those treated with oil vehicle. TH2 cytokine production was increased in cells from WT mice treated with estrogen compared to controls. Increases in the production of anti-double stranded DNA antibodies were also observed in cells from αERKO mice. These observations suggest a role for differences in ER-α and ER-β expression in E-2 induced modulation of immune responses, including autoimmune diseases like Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).


Blind image quality assessment (BIQA) methods based on visual codebooks have received much attention due to its prominent generalization capacity across different image domains. Existing codebook-based BIQA methods depend on large-size codebooks and high-dimensional features, which are memory-consuming and have the risk of over-fitting. Thus, it is necessary to design quality metrics with much smaller codebooks. This paper presents a novel multistage feature encoding (MSFE)-based BIQA method which requires much lower dimensional features while preserving comparable or even better performance. To specify, MSFE is performed over multiple cascaded and much smaller sub-codebooks to generate more compact and discriminative features for quality prediction. The latter stage takes the encoding residuals in the former stage as input. We use KSVD and sparse coding for codebook training and feature encoding in the framework, respectively. Finally, the generated sparse feature codes in all stages are combined and aggregated over the entire image for quality prediction via support vector regression (SVR). We evaluate the proposed method on several natural and screen content image databases. The experimental results confirm its superiority in terms of both validity and universality.


In recent years, deep generative models for graphs have been used to generate new molecules. These models have produced good results, leading to several proposals in the literature. However, these models may have troubles learning some of the complex laws governing the chemical world. In this work, we explore the usage of the histogram of atom valences to drive the generation of molecules in such models. We present Conditional Constrained Graph Variational Autoencoder (CCGVAE), a model that implements this key-idea in a state-of-the-art model, and shows improved results on several evaluation metrics on two commonly adopted datasets for molecule generation.


Background: Caesarean scar pregnancy (CSP) stands for the advanced stage severe complication secondary to cesarean section, and its incidence shows an increasing trend recently. However, no consensus has been reached about the optimal CSP treatment. Methods: The childbearing CSP patients with a cesarean section history were evaluated by ultrasonography, with a gestational age of less than 10 weeks. 34 patients receiving dilation and curettage (D&C) and uterine artery embolization (UAE) were enrolled into the D&C group, while 46 undergoing hysteroscopy (H/S) and D&C after UAE were enrolled into the H/S+D&C group. Results: Differences in success rate and decrease in the β-hCG level in serum on the second day of surgery were not significant between D&C and H/S+D&C groups (P>0.05). Also, differences in side effect rate, intraoperative blood loss amount, postoperative bleeding time, and total length of stay were not significant between both groups (P>0.05). Compared with D&C group, H/S+D&C group had decreased postoperative length of stay (P<0.05), increased hospitalization cost (P<0.05), and significantly elevated time of CSP mass disappearance (P<0.05). In addition, 8 (18.19%) patients in H/S+D&C group developed anesthesia-related side effects.Conclusions:This study reveals no obvious difference between UAE+D&C and H/S+D&C in terms of the clinical efficacy and safety, except for the time of CSP mass disappearance. The hospitalization cost is more expensive for H/S+D&C, but the postoperative length of stay is shorter for H/S+D&C. Besides, H/S+D&C is associated with the risk of anesthesia-associated side effects. All these will affect the selection of patients for the two methods.


The equivalent admittance of a 2-D array of printed metallic patches/apertures is obtained here by extending a precedent equivalent circuit approach reported by some of the authors. The goal of the present extension is to cover more complex situations like multi-resonant scatterers, several scatterers per unit cell, and conical incidence. After studying the limits of validity of the equivalent circuit approach, it is found that this quasi closed-form approach is a very efficient numerical tool which also provides a very convenient physical insight into the involved electromagnetic phenomena.


We present new HI spectral line imaging of 19 galaxies in the "Survey of HI in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs" (SHIELD) acquired for Large Program VLA/ 20A-330. Using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in the C configuration, we produce images of the neutral interstellar medium (HI) on angular scales of 15 to 20 arcseconds (corresponding to physical resolutions of 200 to 1100 parsecs). The three-dimensional cubes probe the morphology and kinematics of the gas at a range of spatial and spectral resolutions. The cubes were collapsed to produce twodimensional moment maps (representing HI mass surface density and intensity weighted HI velocity). The HI gas was directly compared to the stellar component by comparison against optical and infrared imaging. In most cases, the gas and stars are co-spatial, with the exception of dwarfs with companion galaxies. The SHIELD galaxies are important to our understanding of galaxies' properties at the low end of the mass spectrum.


Abstract Objectives: to investigate factors associated with the route of birth delivery in a hospital extending public and private healthcare services, in the Northeast region in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Methods: a cross-sectional study with 676 postpartum women, conducted from January to May 2017. The data were collected from the hospital records and women were interviewed shortly after childbirth in the maternity. Data analysis was performed by associating the Pearson's chi-square and the Poisson regression tests with robust variance. Results: the prevalence of cesarean sections was 58.7%, that is, 41.7% in public health-care and 83.9% in private healthcare. The main reason for having a cesarean section was having had a previous one (PR=5.69; CI95%=3.64 - 8.90; p<0.001), followed by having source of childbirth financing (PR=1.54; CI95%=1.27 - 1.87; p<0.001), having source of prenatal care financing (PR=1.48; CI95%=1.22 - 1.79; p<0.001), the childbirth and prenatal care professional (PR=1.46; CI95%=1.28 - 1.66; p<0.001) and the prenatal care professional (PR=1.43; CI95%=1.07 - 1.90; p=0.016). Conclusions: the high cesarean section rates identified in this study were mainly associated with previous cesarean section. The findings suggest a change in the current childbirth care model in the city, characterized as highly medicalized, focused on the physician and on hospital care.


This letter presents a 60 GHz direct down-conversion mixer in a 90 nm CMOS. The mixer consists of an RF transconductance stage, a switching stage, an LO amplification stage, a balun and a buffer amplifier, and employs a current-reuse LO-boosting technique for low power consumption with small LO input power. The measured conversion gain of the differential IF output is 12 dB at an input LO power of -13 dBm. The mixer consumes 8.8 mW and the measured 3 dB IF bandwidth is greater than 1.2 GHz. To the best of our knowledge, this mixer achieves the highest conversion gain with the lowest LO input power of all published 60 GHz band CMOS mixers.


Objective: To observe the effect of Chinese medicine guidance combined with Ziwu Liuzhu acupuncture on blood lipids and inflammatory factors in obese youth. Methods: 46 obese college students were randomly divided into a control group and an observation group, with 23 cases in each group. The intervention group used TCM guidance combined with Ziwu Liuzhu acupuncture for 24 weeks of intervention. The practice sequence of Daoyin technique is 1-6 Friday Qin Xi, 7-12 weeks Ba Duan Jin, 1318 weeks Yi Jin Jing, 19-24 Saturday Zi Jue. The practice time starts from a low starting load of 2-3 METs, and then increases in increments of 0.5-1.0 METs per week. The training time of the two groups of traditional Chinese medicine guidance surgery was 5d per week, 90min/time. Both groups did not participate in the intervention exercise on Saturday and Sunday, for a total of 24 weeks; the intervention group was provided by the deputy chief endocrinologist of Anhui Provincial Acupuncture Hospital Needle application, a total of four courses, 18 times per course (twice a week, 30 minutes each time, a total of 24 weeks). Results: After 24 weeks of treatment, the intervention group's blood lipid indexes (TG, TC, LDL-C, HDL-L) and inflammatory factor indexes (TNF-α, CRP, IL-6 and IL-18) were compared with those of the observation group , All decreased significantly, with statistical significance (P<0.05). Conclusion: Daoyin surgery combined with Ziwu Liuzhu acupuncture can effectively improve the obesity of young people, and the method is highly maneuverable.


The pvsC gene of unknown function has been found in the iron-regulated vibrioferrin biosynthesis operon of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Tanabe, T. et al., J. Bacteriol. 185: 6938-6949, 2003). The amino acid sequence deduced from the gene showed significant similarity to 12-transmembrane segment efflux pumps belonging to the major facilitator superfamily. A nonpolar deletion of pvsC in V. parahaemolyticus resulted in a reduced release of vibrioferrin into the medium. Vibrioferrin release could be regained by introducing the intact pvsC gene on a complementing plasmid. These results indicate that the pvsC gene product functions as an inner membrane exporter of vibrioferrin.


Evidence has shown that alcoholism leads to volume reductions in brain regions critical for associative learning using the eyeblink classical conditioning paradigm (EBCC). Evidence indicates that cerebellar shrinkage causes impairment in simple forms of EBCC, whereas changes in forebrain structures result in impairment in more complex tasks. In this study, the ability of abstinent alcoholics and matched control participants to acquire learned responses during delay discrimination and discrimination reversal was examined and related to severity of drinking history and neuropsychological performance. During discrimination learning, one tone (CS+) predicted the occurrence of an airpuff (unconditioned stimulus), and another tone (CS-) served as a neutral stimulus; then the significance of the tones was reversed. Alcoholics who learned the initial discrimination were impaired in acquiring the new CS+ after the tones reversed; this is a function that has previously been linked to forebrain structures. It is suggested that a factor important to alcoholic addiction may be the presence of alcoholic-related associative responses that interfere with the ability to learn new more adaptive associations.


The control of the solidification process of energetic materials is important to prevent manufacturing defects in high explosive ammunitions. The present work aims to propose an optimisation procedure to determine the value of the model parameter, avoiding the traditional trial and error approach. In this work, the solidification of TNT has been numerically modelled employing apparent heat capacity method and the model parameter was optimised using genetic algorithm. One dimensional numerical model has been solved in Comsol Multiphysics Modeling Software and the genetic algorithm code was written in Matlab. The Neumann's analytical solution of the solidification front was used as a reference to build the fitness function, following the inverse problems concepts. The optimum model parameter has been predicted after 20 generations and among 30 candidate solutions for each generation. The numerical solution performed with the optimised model parameter has agreed with the analytical solution, indicating the feasibility of the proposed procedure. The discrepancy was 3.8 per cent when maximum difference between analytical and numerical solutions was observed.


Abstract Ecological camera traps are increasingly used by wildlife biologists to unobtrusively monitor an ecosystems animal population. However, manual inspection of the images produced is expensive, laborious, and time‐consuming. The success of deep learning systems using camera trap images has been previously explored in preliminary stages. These studies, however, are lacking in their practicality. They are primarily focused on extremely large datasets, often millions of images, and there is little to no focus on performance when tasked with species identification in new locations not seen during training. Our goal was to test the capabilities of deep learning systems trained on camera trap images using modestly sized training data, compare performance when considering unseen background locations, and quantify the gradient of lower bound performance to provide a guideline of data requirements in correspondence to performance expectations. We use a dataset provided by Parks Canada containing 47,279 images collected from 36 unique geographic locations across multiple environments. Images represent 55 animal species and human activity with high‐class imbalance. We trained, tested, and compared the capabilities of six deep learning computer vision networks using transfer learning and image augmentation: DenseNet201, Inception‐ResNet‐V3, InceptionV3, NASNetMobile, MobileNetV2, and Xception. We compare overall performance on "trained" locations where DenseNet201 performed best with 95.6% top‐1 accuracy showing promise for deep learning methods for smaller scale research efforts. Using trained locations, classifications with <500 images had low and highly variable recall of 0.750 ± 0.329, while classifications with over 1,000 images had a high and stable recall of 0.971 ± 0.0137. Models tasked with classifying species from untrained locations were less accurate, with DenseNet201 performing best with 68.7% top‐1 accuracy. Finally, we provide an open repository where ecologists can insert their image data to train and test custom species detection models for their desired ecological domain.


OBJECTIVE
Our purpose was to evaluate the imaging characteristics and clinical outcomes of children less than 5 years old who underwent surgery for presumed appendicitis.

CONCLUSION
Appendicitis is not rare in young children and imaging findings reflect the high frequency of perforation in this population.


ABSTRACT This study joins the scholarly discussion that uses strategy in media management and provides a developed framework of strategic issues. This paper assists organisations in overcoming uncertainty by helping them construct issues and not impose the opportunity or threat labels on ill-defined issues. Based on a qualitative case study of two newspapers that represent an industry in disruption, this paper extends the existing conceptual framework on strategic issues by providing an additional strategic issue label, amorphous issues, that captures the uncertainties organisation members face during periods of disruption. Moreover, this paper also illustrates how the construction of issues can change over time. This emphasises the dynamic nature of strategic issues construction, which more closely aligns with the disruptive environment in which many contemporary organisations operate.


Rice bran contains 11-17% of protein, 12-22% of oil, 10-15% of moisture, 6-14% of fiber and 8-17% of ash. Rice bran is rich in vitamins and minerals, such as calcium, aluminium, iron, chlorine, manganese, magnesium, zinc and phosphorus, niacin, vitamin E and thiamine. Rice bran also contains a significant amount of nutraceutical compounds and approximately 4% unsaponifiables, consisting primarily of natural antioxidants (approximately 100) such as oryzanol, tocopherols and tocotrienol. Rice bran contains a highly digestible protein that is rich in essential amino acids, particularly lysine, so it can be used as an ingredient in the preparation of different food recipes. Due to its antioxidant properties, it also has the potential to be used as an additive to increase storage stability in food, therefore rice bran fiber can be used as both a functional and nutritious ingredient. Rice bran can be used in the preparation of bakery items with high fiber and low fat. Rice bran is also used industrially in batter blends and meat emulsions. Taking into account the potential of rice bran, this review aims to concentrate on rice bran nutraceuticals, its nutritional composition and application in the food industry.


Routers are important devices in the networks that carry the burden of transmitting information among the communication devices on the Internet. If a malicious adversary wants to intercept the information or paralyze the network, it can directly attack the routers and then achieve the suspicious goals. Thus, preventing router security is of great importance. However, router systems are notoriously difficult to understand or diagnose for their inaccessibility and heterogeneity. The common way of gaining access to the router system and detecting the anomaly behaviors is to inspect the router syslogs or monitor the packets of information flowing to the routers. These approaches just diagnose the routers from one aspect but do not consider them from multiple views. In this paper, we propose an approach to detect the anomalies and faults of the routers with multiple information learning. We try to use the routers' information not from the developer's view but from the user' $s$ view, which does not need any expert knowledge. First, we do the offline learning to transform the benign or corrupted user actions into the syslogs. Then, we try to decide whether the input routers' conditions are poor or not with clustering. During the detection phase, we use the distance between the event and the cluster to decide if it is the anomaly event and we can provide the corresponding solutions. We have applied our approach in a university network which contains Cisco, Huawei and Dlink routers for three months. We aligned our experiment with former work as a baseline for comparison. Our approach can gain 89.6% accuracy in detecting the attacks which is 5.1% higher than the former work. The results show that our approach performs in limited time as well as memory usages and has high detection and low false positives.


Emotional intelligence is often associated with higher psychological functioning, leading to an increase in the awareness of psychological skills application in sports. We examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological skills application among a sample of senior-level South African female field-hockey players (n = 60). Participants completed the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) and the Psychological Skills Inventory (PSI). We utilised bivariate correlations to assess the relationship between variables and linear regression to predict players' level of psychological skills application from emotional intelligence scores. Results indicated several significant correlations between the dimensions of emotional intelligence and players' psychological skills. Further, emotional intelligence seems to be a significant predictor of mental rehearsal and total psychological skill scores. Emotional intelligence appears to be a potential facilitator of psychological skills application in high level field-hockey participation and performance.


Many reports have shown that matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐9 plays an important role in brain inflammation and diseases. In our previous study, bradykinin (BK) has been shown to induce proMMP‐9 expression via MAPKs and NF‐κB in rat brain astrocytes (RBA‐1). However, the molecular mechanisms and physiological roles underlying BK‐induced MMP‐9 expression in RBA‐1 remain unclear. Here we reported that BK induced proMMP‐9 expression and promoted RBA‐1 cell migration, via a B2 BK receptor‐activated protein kinase C‐δ (PKC‐δ)‐dependent signaling pathway. Activation of PKC‐δ led to phosphorylation and translocation of extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and then activated a transcription factor Elk‐1. Phospho‐Elk‐1 bound to MMP‐9 promoter and thereby induced transcription of MMP‐9. The rat MMP‐9 promoter containing an Elk‐1 cis‐binding site (Ets domain), that located at nucleotides −511 to −506 was identified as a crucial domain linking to BK action. Moreover, BK induced recruitment of p300 (as a transcriptional co‐activator) to the MMP‐9 promoter, leading to the acetylation of histone H4 in chromatin and facilitating MMP‐9 gene transcription. Taken together, these results suggested that in RBA‐1 cells, activation of ERK1/2 by a PKC‐δ‐dependent event mediated through Elk‐1 pathway is essential for MMP‐9 gene up‐regulation and cell migration induced by BK. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Background: Laparoscopic appendectomy is the most common emergent surgery, and various techniques were used for the closure of appendicular stump and appendiceal artery. Aim: This study aimed to compare the clinical impacts of absorbable polymeric clips and traditional metallic clips. Methods: We reviewed the laparoscopic appendectomies performed from June 2020 to May 2021 in a medical center. We analyzed the characteristics and intraoperative and postoperative data of patients receiving absorbable or metallic clips during laparoscopic appendectomy. Results: A total of 120 patients were enrolled in this study. Fifty-nine patients received lapro-clips for the ligation of appendicular stump and artery (Group A), whereas 61 patients received titanium clips (Group B). The operative time for both groups was 63.6 ± 18.9 min and 65.5 ± 19.2 min, respectively (P ɢ.586). There was no significant difference in postoperative complications (P = 0.958). The length of hospital stay for each group was 3.07 ± 1.14 days and 2.90 ± 1.18 days, respectively (P = 0.435). Conclusion: The application of absorbable polymetric clips is feasible and safe with the additional benefit of leaving no foreign body for the closure of appendicular stump and ligation of appendiceal artery for laparoscopic appendectomy.


In the past, for the effects of doping content on the properties of materials and the optimum doping content problems, research workers only do experiments according to experiences, then give out some qualitative explanations, and there never quantitative calculation has been reported. In this paper, a theoretical model is investigated and the expression of optimum doping content is proposed. Starting from crystal structure, a theoretical expression of the relationship among the optimum doping content and the crystal structure coordination number and preparation methods has been set up.Assumption 1: If a doping atom replaces a lattice atom, and there is another doping atom in the near lattices, two such atoms meeting results in impurity bunching.Assumption 2: The atom energy change for different film preparation process can be divided as follows: For sol-gel method or reactive evaporation method, △E≈0. For magnetron sputtering method, △E≈(1/2)kT. For vacuum evaporation method, △E≈kT. For CVD method, △E≈(3/2)kT.The experimental data fits a parabola equation as:The optimum value of doping content isi=0,1/2,1,3/2,So according to the equality, we can calculate the optimum doping content in consideration of crystal structure and preparation methods.Using this expression, the optimum doping content of manganese-doped zinc sulfide nanocrystals can be calculated respectively. The typical values of quantitative calculation is: xopt≈5.88at%-7.69at%. Those values are just around 4at%-7at% and they are in accordance with the experimental results of Ref. [2] . The quantitative calculation results are in accordance with the experimental results. The author have been applied this method to calculate the optimum doping content of some other films successfully, such as some oxide semiconductor transparent conductive films, gas sensitive films, electrochromic films, ferroelectric films. The values are also in accordance with experimental results. Those results are reported in other papers latterly.The theoretical investigation in this paper may be shallow indeed and the results may be discreditable, but that calculation results are in accordance with experimental results may not be occasionally. The problem of optimum doping content must imply some rules undiscovered. We expect that this paper will be paid attention to, thus real theory of optimum doping content will rise as quickly as possible.


We report a case in which posture change for radiography after induction of anesthesia caused free rupture of the abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) into the peritoneal cavity, resulting in shock, although in the patient an AAA had ruptured into only the retroperitoneal space and hemodynamics had been stable preoperatively. The massive bleeding was controlled with autotransfusion using a washing salvaging autotransfusion device and a roller pump for hemodialysis. In addition, international mild hypothermia was effective for protection of the brain from suspected ischemia during shock. Meticulous attention should be paid for anesthetic management of patients with ruptured AAA even if their hemodynamic status is stable.


We propose a Gaussian mixture language model for speech recognition. Two potential benefits of using this model are smoothing unseen events, and ease of adaptation. It is shown how this model can be used alone or in conjunction with a a conventional N-gram model to calculate word probabilities. An interesting feature of the proposed technique is that many methods developed for acoustic models can be easily ported to GMLM. We developed two implementations of the proposed model for large vocabulary Arabic speech recognition with results comparable to conventional N-gram.


Human settlement and migrations along sides of Bay-of-Bengal have played a vital role in shaping the genetic landscape of Bangladesh, Eastern India and Southeast Asia. Bangladesh and Northeast India form the vital land bridge between the South and Southeast Asia. To reconstruct the population history of this region and to see whether this diverse region geographically acted as a corridor or barrier for human interaction between South Asia and Southeast Asia, we, for the first time analyzed high resolution uniparental (mtDNA and Y chromosome) and biparental autosomal genetic markers among aboriginal Bangladesh tribes currently speaking Tibeto-Burman language. All the three studied populations; Chakma, Marma and Tripura from Bangladesh showed strikingly high homogeneity among themselves and strong affinities to Northeast Indian Tibeto-Burman groups. However, they show substantially higher molecular diversity than Northeast Indian populations. Unlike Austroasiatic (Munda) speakers of India, we observed equal role of both males and females in shaping the Tibeto-Burman expansion in Southern Asia. Moreover, it is noteworthy that in admixture proportion, TB populations of Bangladesh carry substantially higher mainland Indian ancestry component than Northeast Indian Tibeto-Burmans. Largely similar expansion ages of two major paternal haplogroups (O2a and O3a3c), suggested that they arose before the differentiation of any language group and approximately at the same time. Contrary to the scenario proposed for colonization of Northeast India as male founder effect that occurred within the past 4,000 years, we suggest a significantly deep colonization of this region. Overall, our extensive analysis revealed that the population history of South Asian Tibeto-Burman speakers is more complex than it was suggested before.


Weather may play an important role in population dynamics by effects on breeding success and survival. To establish the impact of weather on populations of Lesser Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos minor we compared numbers in two regions in Norway with relevant temperature data. During 1990 to 2002 observed spring numbers varied from 1 to 52 in the western region and from 1 to 21 in the southern region. In a multiple regression model, December and June temperatures in the preceding year explained 56% of the observed variation in numbers, the relation was positive in both cases. We presume that winter temperatures exhibit a direct effect on winter survival of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers by heat loss, whereas weather conditions during spring have an indirect effect on breeding performance by affecting food production.


BACKGROUND
Despite previous confirmation of osteoinductive potential of demineralized bone matrix (DBM) by other researchers, there is not yet any evidence of studies showing the osteoinductive activity of DBM products from South Africa tissue banks using both in vitro and animal models. This work evaluated the osteoinductivity of DBM both in vitro and in vivo.

METHOD
DBM particles from six donors from the Centre for Tissue Engineering and C2C12 were cultured (5x104) in 24-well plates using DMEM/F-12 medium supplemented with 10% FBS. After 24 h medium was replaced with medium containing 1% FBS and 5 mg/ml of DBM particles. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2,500 pg/ml) was used as a positive control. After 48 h of incubation, cells were assayed for osteoinductive potentials. In an in vivo study, 27 Wistar rats aged six to eight weeks were divided into three groups and experimentally observed for 7, 14 and 28 days. Implants were explanted according to the duration of the experiment.

RESULTS
Increase in cell growth was observed in C2C12 treated with DBM samples. BMP-2 and DBM samples were found to stimulate alkaline phosphatase activity and ELISA assay. Animal weight increase was observed during the 7, 14 and 28 days. Cartilage regeneration were also observed in the histology results.

CONCLUSION
BMP-2 played a role in the differentiation of myoblast cells into osteoblasts. DBM products showed different osteoinductive capacity both in vitro and in vivo. Findings were variable and time-dependent. From our results, this study supports the effectiveness of DBM fromdonors aged between 45 to 55 years.


This communication described efficient DNA extraction from Scrophularia and Verbascum samples. Modified Murray and Thompson modified Cota-Sànchez method and Bioflux kit methods were applied for the extraction of DNA. Among the different methods, Bioflux kit Plant DNA extraction kit, coupled with some modification was the best for extraction of high molecular weight DNA as long as the extracted DNA is quantified with fluorescence-based methods. The genera Verbascum L. with ~360 species and Scrophularia L. with ~300 species were placed in the tribe Scrophularieae based on molecular studies (Oxelman et al. 2005). The most crucial step for any molecular study is isolation of pure and high-quality of DNA. However, due to excessive presence of secondary metabolites, isolating pure DNA from plants is very difficult as compared to animals and microorganisms. Mature leaves of Scrophularia and Verbascum contain a number of secondary metabolites in which the most important are the iridoid and phenylethanoid glycosides. Oxidation products of secondary metabolites covalently binds with DNA and make it resistant to restriction enzymes and give DNA a brown colour (Rawat et al. 2016). Despite the development and use of several standard protocols for reproducibly extracting high quality DNA, it is quite impossible to develop a single isolation protocol which suits every plant species (Pirttilä et al. 2001, Riahi et al. 2009). In this study, four extraction techniques were compared using dry old leaves of Scrophularia and Verbascum, sometimes leaf samples over 60 years old. In the peresnt study the optimization of the protocol that provided the maximum yield of pure and high quality DNA is reported. Fifteen species of Scrophularia and Verbascum were analyzed for their ability to yield DNA (Appendix 1). The dried leaves used came from herbarium specimens of various ages catalogued in herbarium of Tehran and Bingol University. Four methods of DNA extraction were evaluated. DNA was extracted using a modified CTAB protocol (Murry and Thompson 1980). Extraction buffer consisted of CTAB (with 2% concentration), 1.4 M NaCl, 50 mM EDTA with pH 8.0, 100 mM tris-HCl with pH 7.5. Immediately before use of EDTA, 0.4% β-mercaptoethanol were added. Other solutions consisted of tris-EDTA (TE), chloroform: isoamyl alcohol (24:1) (Sigma Aldrich, Dorset, UK), 2.5 M of sodium oxaloacetate, isopropanol, 10 mg/ml of RNase and 70 and 95% EtOH. For this protocol, 750 μl of extraction buffer with a few amount of powdered herbarium leaves added to 1.5 ml microtubes and spines well then were incubated for 1 hr at 60°C. Next 700 μl of the chloroform: isoamyl alcohol (24:1) were added and centrifuged at 10,000 rpm for 15 min. The aqueous phases were transferred to new tubes and 1 : 3 volume ice cold isopropanol were added and stored at –30°C for 1 hr and were further centrifuged at 10,000 rpm *Author for correspondence: <email@example.com>.


: Progressive climate changes are the most important challenges for modern agriculture. Permanent grassland represents around 70% of all agricultural land. In comparison with other agroecosystems, grasslands are more sensitive to climate change. The aim of this study was to create deterministic models based on artificial neural networks to identify highly significant factors influencing the yield and digestibility of grassland sward in the climatic conditions of central Poland. The models were based on data from a grassland experiment conducted between 2014 and 2016. Phytophenological data (harvest date and botanical composition of sward) and meteorological data (average temperatures, total rainfall, and total effective temperatures) were used as independent variables, whereas qualitative and quantitative parameters of the feed made from the grassland sward (dry matter digestibility, dry matter yield, and protein yield) were used as dependent variables. Nine deterministic models were proposed Y_G, DIG_G, P_G, Y_GB, DIG_GB, P_GB, Y_GC, DIG_GC, and P_GC, which differed in the input variable and the main factor from the grassland experiment. The analysis of the sensitivity of the neural networks in the models enabled the identification of the independent variables with the greatest influence on the yield of dry matter and protein as well as the digestibility of the dry matter of the first regrowth of grassland sward, taking its diverse botanical composition into account. The results showed that the following factors were the most significant (rank 1): the average daily air temperature, total rainfall, and the percentage of legume plants. This research will be continued on a larger group of factors influencing the output variables and it will involve an attempt to optimise these factors.


Research on multinational inter-organizational relationships has demonstrated that the capabilities of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can be developed via partnerships, but at present, we lack studies that relate the development of such capabilities to the management of business governance structure. This study provides a new perspective on internationalized SME marketing strategies in the global context. Using a dynamic capability view of firms, the study develops hierarchical regression models linking global dynamic capabilities and governance structure. This study empirically verifies the research framework from 206 internationalized SME Taiwanese firms. The results confirm previous studies that indicate positive correlations between market orientation, learning orientation, and global dynamic capabilities. The results also indicate that the development of global dynamic capabilities impacts the choice of governance structure in firms. Our study suggests that internationalized SMEs strategically manage their autonomy and strategic options by choosing combinations of different relationship types while they decide to develop global marketing capabilities and global design capability, or both. The study also found that market orientation and learning orientation act as enabling mechanisms for building global dynamic capabilities.


This article focuses on a particular aspect of research and design processes in community-based projects: the transition from exploratory stages, concerned with knowledge production, to design stages, in which goals for action-taking are formulated and desired directions for change are envisioned. This paper offers a reflection about the methodological processes that underpin this transition, in response to the questions : How are design goals formulated in community informatics interventions that rely on data-intensive exploratory methodologies, and what factors and dynamics shape them? Guided by these questions, we shed light on various issues related to this transition by recounting and analysing cases taken from field experiences within three different community projects in Syria, Brazil and Mozambique. The article proposes that the transition is associated with shifts in intentionality, which are elusive and hard to grasp, particularly in participatory approaches. Three analytical categories are put forward to illuminate the dynamics of intentionality shifts along the continuum of transitioning from exploration to design. Reflections based on the empirical cases are contributed.


197 Multiple Gestation in a Patient with Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Abstract Type: Case Report/Case Series Lisa A. Rhodes, M.D.; John J. Kowalczyk, B.Sc.; Bridget M. Marroquin, M.D. Strong Memorial Hospital, University of RochesterType: Case Report/Case Series Lisa A. Rhodes, M.D.; John J. Kowalczyk, B.Sc.; Bridget M. Marroquin, M.D. Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS) is an autosomal recessive disorder defined by oculocutaneous albinism, platelet storage dysfunction, and abnormal lipofuscin deposits. Pulmonary fibrosis or granulomatous colitis may be present in severe cases. This syndrome creates unique circumstances for the parturient. Patients are at high risk for morbidity due to their bleeding diathesis. A 33 yo G4P2 Puerto Rican female with HPS and triplet gestation was admitted at 32 weeks EGA for preterm labor. The patient had a history of severe postpartum hemorrhage with her first vaginal delivery. Postpartum hemorrhage was a concern because of the patient's bleeding diathesis and increased potential for uterine atony with the triplet gestation. The patient was taken for urgent Cesarean section due to fetal distress. Desmopressin (0.3 mcg/kg) was administered prior to surgery. In the operating room, an arterial line and large bore peripheral intravenous access were obtained. General endotracheal anesthesia was induced and triplets were delivered uneventfully. After delivery, the patient was treated with oxytocin and methylegonovine to improve uterine tone. The patient's mild thrombocytopenia (100K) was treated with five units of platelets. Estimated blood loss was 800ml. Transfusion of red blood cells was unnecessary. The patient was extubated and recovered without incident. The triplets were taken to the NICU for further monitoring. HPS occurs in one in 500,000 worldwide but more commonly in Puerto Rico, with one in 1,800 persons affected. The bleeding diathesis results from the absence of dense bodies, contained within platelets. Dense bodies release factors which assist in platelet aggregation. Our patient was of fair complexion, with nystagmus, decreased visual acuity, and mild pulmonary fibrosis. Her PT and PTT were normal, but bleeding time was prolonged, which is typical for HPS. To avoid excessive bleeding in the pregnant HPS patient, intravenous desmopressin (0.3 mcg /kg) should be given prior to delivery. This causes an increase in release of factor VIII and Von Willebrand's factor from storage sites. The mechanism of action of desmopressin in HPS is unclear, but case reports have demonstrated its efficacy. Platelets and packed red cells should be available for possible transfusion. Neuraxial anesthesia is contraindicated in HPS patients. Spencer J, Rosengren S. Hermansky–Pudlak syndrome in pregnancy. Am J Perinatol 2009; 26:617-619. Beesley R, Robinson R, Stewart T. Two successful vaginal births after Cesarean section in a patient with Hermansky–Pudlak syndrome who was treated with 1-Deamino-8-Arginine-Vasopressin during Labor. Military Med 2008;173:1048-1049. Wei M. Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome: a disease of protein trafficking and organelle function. Pigment Cell Res 2006;19:19–42. Poddar R, Coley S., Pavord S. Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome in a pregnant patient. Br J Anaesth 2004;93:740-742.


Bone marrow features in stable-phase chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) are characterized by a striking heterogeneity which is determinable by appropriate means including representative pre-treatment trephine biopsies, immunohistochemistry and morphometry. Cell lineages involved to a variable extent consist not only of neutrophil granulopoiesis, but include also megakaryocytes, erythroid precursors, resident macrophages and lymphocytes. Moreover, the stromal compartment, in particular reticulin and collagen fibers, plays a pivotal role in the disease process. Following morphometric analysis significant correlations may be calculated between histological parameters and clinical-laboratory findings. Relevant interactions are detectable between number of megakaryocytes and their precursors with fiber density. This findings is in line with the close functional relationships between megakaryopoiesis and fibroblasts regarding the complex pathomechanisms of myelofibrosis. Moreover, other correlations are observable between reduction of erythropoiesis or increase in fibers with clinical features like anemia, percentages of myelo- and erythroblasts in the peripheral blood, spleen size or LDH level. These variables are in keeping with more advanced stages of CML which indicate a transition to myeloid metaplasia and thus exert a significant impact on survival. Consequently, the different risk profiles of patients are determined by both clinical and morphological parameters of predictive value. Regarding the latter, extent of myelofibrosis, amount of erythroid precursors and numbers of myeloerythroblasts in the peripheral blood are significantly associated with prognosis. For this reason, it should be mandatory to enter morphological criteria into prospective clinical trials on CML, not only for diagnostic purpose, but also for a proper evaluation of different survival patterns.


The paper introduces issues related to the design of the gripper manipulator. The displacement, velocity and force characteristics of the gripper manipulator have been determined. The drives of the grippers have been selected, and static analyses with the help of finite method (in SolidWorks program) have been conducted. The simulation models of the gripper manipulators in Matlab/Simulink environment have been carried out.


The criminal offense of stalking is somewhat different to other offenses due to the repetitive, innocuous, and often multifaceted nature of the crime. Given that stalking constitutes a number of different behaviors, such as violence and threats, research on stalking recidivism becomes difficult as recidivism can be defined in a number of ways. This study utilized a dataset of Western Australia Police Force incident reports, comprising a sample of 404 stalking offenders. Survival curves and a binomial logistic regression were used to determine time to recidivism and predictors of recidivism, using four different definitions of recidivism. Predictor variables included age of the offender, prior history of criminal charges, and offender ethnicity. The four definitions ranged from narrow (a new stalking charge) to broad (any new criminal charge). The results of the study show that stalkers reoffend quickly, however our understanding of how fast and which offender characteristics predict recidivism, is dependent on how we define recidivism. This highlights the importance of considering how stalking recidivism is defined in future works and may explain current differences in stalking recidivism findings.


Virtual community, which is formed on the internet, is expected to serve the needs of members for communication, information, and knowledge sharing. The executives of organizations should consider operating strategy of virtual community as a new innovation or knowledge pool since members share knowledge. However, many virtual community have failed due to members' low willingness to engage and furthermore to share knowledge with other members. Thus, there is a need to understand and foster the determinants of members' loyalty in virtual community. The objective of this study is to develop an integrated model designed to investigate and explain the relationships between contextual factors, personal perceptions of virtual com munity, usefulness, ease use, familiarity, members' trust, reputation, community trust, loyalty. Empirical data was collected from 286 internet users and tested using structural equation modeling to verify the fit of the hypothetical model. The results show that the usefulness, familiarity significantly influences attitude and members' trust is significantly influence the community trust. And I confirmed that ease of use and attitude play the role of determinants in making the satisfaction, community trust and reputation influence the satisfaction that have the direct effect to making the loyalty. The results of the study can be used to identify the loyalty in virtual community. By investigating the impacts of contextual factors and personal perceptions on virtual community, the integrated model better explains behavior than other proposed models. This study might help executives of virtual communities and organizations to manage and promote community trust, attitude, satisfaction to stimulate members' willingness to re-visit the community and futhermore enhance their virtual community loyalty. Knowledge in virtual community Use Familiarity


Research on drama in Indonesia is an effort to apply and express the theory in Indonesia. Naturally a theory existence from research accumulation to applied skills. It is hoped that this research can accumulate the science, mainly drama. The term of absurd was used by Martin Esslin for kind of theater that used the failure of language as main of communication. Besides, this term is popularized by Eugene Ionesco. He is a writer of absurd theater. Many of his drama already translated and performed in Indonesia. The data that already collected is analyzed by using the concept of absurdity to reveal the absurdity in Dag-Dig-Dug drama. In other side, the concept of class from Karl Marx is used to comment the domination and class resistance that are taken from Dag-Dig-Dug drama. Dag-Dig-Dug shows the social problems, mainly domination and hegemony of powerful person toward proletarian people. The domination and hegemony are in form of physics and psychology.


In multiple users MIMO- OFDM system allocates the available resources to the optimal users is a difficult task. Hence the scheduling and resource allocation become the major problem in the wireless network mainly in case of multiple input and multiple output method that has to be made efficient. There is various method introduced to give an optimal solution to the problem yet it has many drawbacks. So we propose this paper to provide an efficient solution for resource allocation in terms of delay and also added some more features such as high throughout, energy efficient and fairness. To make optimal resource allocation we introduce optimization algorithm named spider monkey with an enhancement which provides the efficient solution. In this optimization process includes the scheduling and resource allocation, the SNR values, channel state information (CSI) from the base station. To make more efficient finally we perform enhanced spider - monkey algorithm hence the resource allocation is performed based on QoS requirements. Thus the simulation results in our paper show high efficiency when compared with other schedulers and techniques.


Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a successful technique in wireless communication system. However, frequency offset in OFDM system leads to loss of orthogonality among subcarriers, which resulted in intercarrier interference (ICI) to occur. To improve bandwidth efficiency performance in ICI self-cancellation schemes, frequency domain partial response signaling (PRS) has been studied. In this paper, the integer polynomial partial response coefficients are exploited to enhance carrier-to-interference power ratio (CIR) in OFDM system. The CIR is enhanced by about 3.8 dB up to 4.7 dB when the length of PRS polynomial, K is 2, 3, and 4 respectively


This article analyses the legal regulation of the use of force in international law in the context of three emerging Palestinian forms of struggle against Israeli occupation: the Knife Intifada, the disturbances at the border, and the launching of incendiary kites. It discusses what legal paradigms or concepts should regulate the type and level of force used in each situation – a question that is complicated by various dilemmas – and finally, appraises the Israel Defence Forces policies tailored in response. The article evaluates the applicability of two legal paradigms regulating the use of force in military operations – (i) the conduct of hostilities and (ii) law enforcement – as well as the concept of personal self-defence in international law and the escalation of force procedure. While the Knife Intifada clearly falls under the law enforcement paradigm, the disturbances at the border and the launching of incendiary kites raise more difficult legal questions. Categorising them under a paradigm of law enforcement is less straightforward, and may have undesirable ramifications for safeguarding humanitarian interests. The article argues that the use of force in the disturbances at the border and the incendiary kites cases should be regulated by the concept of self-defence and escalation of force procedure, and that the application of the self-defence concept should be adapted, mutatis mutandis, to situations of law enforcement and to situations of hostilities.


High power single mode fiber lasers are an excellent tool for micro cutting applications. In order to manage the heat input into the material most micro cutting applications require pulsed operation of the laser. Temporal pulse shaping is a proven and enabling technology for many laser welding applications with flash lamp pumped lasers where typical pulse lengths are in the order of 0.1 to 10 ms. The excellent controllability of diode pumped fiber lasers enables pulse shaping during the cutting process with laser pulse length typically less then 0.1 ms. For laser micro cutting applications a small kerf width with small HAZ and good surface finish define the quality of the process. This paper shows the influence of the laser pulse shape on the cutting quality in stainless steel with diode pumped fiber lasers.


A new isolated dc/dc converter with zero-voltage turn-on switching (ZVS) of power switches and zero-current turn-off switching (ZCS) of diodes is presented. In conventional flyback converters, the main drawbacks are high voltage stresses on power devices, large transformer size and serious reverse recovery current, which resulted in high voltage spikes across output diode. To solve these problems, a buck-boost type of active-clamp circuit is connected in parallel with the primary winding to clamp the voltage spike across the power switch, to recycle the energy stored in the leakage and magnetising inductances of the transformer and to realise the turn-on ZVS by utilising the leakage inductance and output capacitance of the switch. The leakage inductance and the resonant capacitance on the secondary side are resonant to allow the output diodes to turn off at ZCS. Thus, the switching losses and thermal stresses of switches and diodes are reduced, the output diode has no reverse recovery problem and voltage stresses of the output diodes are clamped to the output voltage. Experiments conducted on a laboratory prototype rated at 270 W are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed converter.


Sedimentation in the shallow neritic environment is influenced by the interplay of numerous factors. Both type and thickness of the sediment differ depending upon the relative significance of these factors. The chief factors to be considered are tectonics, physiography, climate, biological activity, and associated energy relationships. The tectonic intensity of the source area and depositional site of the sediments, although primary factors, may be surpassed in significance by the factors of climate and biological activity. Variation of intensity of uplift and deformation of the source area provide primary control on the composition of the source area and the sediment derived therefrom. Sediments range from mature to immature, and from fine to coarse terrigenous clastics. The same variation of tectonic activity provides variations in physiography of the source area and accompanying energy relationships. Physiographic variations may produce both local and regional climatic variations as a third order factor. Climate and its influence on and control of vegetation will control weathering, resulting soils, and erosion. Thus climate may be the primary factor in the type and amount of sediment derived from the source area. Tectonic intensity of the depositional site controls the thickness of the sedimentary sequence, with climate and biological activity providing the influence modifying the type and character of the sediment deposited. Wave and current energy related to storms modify the sediment type and distribution. End_of_Article - Last_Page 340------------