A major disadvantage of feedforward neural networks is still the difficulty to gain insight into their internal functionality. This is much less the case for, e.g., nets that are trained unsupervised, such as Kohonen?s self-organizing feature maps (SOMs). These offer a direct view into the stored knowledge, as their internal knowledge is stored in the same format as the input data that was used for training or is used for evaluation. This paper discusses a mathematical transformation of a feed-forward network into a SOMlike structure such that its internal knowledge can be visually interpreted. This is particularly applicable to networks trained in the general classification problem domain.


This paper presents the dynamic study of a recently proposed single-stage multiple output DC-DC converter topology that achieves high-voltage-low-current on-board power distribution to, and obtains independent voltage regulation at, multi-points loads. The small signal model of the topology is derived to reveal its dynamic properties, and its performance under dynamic conditions is characterized. A prototype converter is built, and simulation and experimental results are presented as the proof-of-concept.


The conversion of geranyl pyrophosphate to (+)-alpha-pinene and to (-)-beta-pinene is considered to proceed by the initial isomerization of the substrate to (-)-(3R)- and to (+)-(3S)-linalyl pyrophosphate, respectively, and the subsequent cyclization of the anti, endo-conformer of these bound intermediates by mirror-image sequences which should result in the net retention of configuration at C1 of the geranyl precursor. Incubation of (1R)-[2-14C,1-3H]- and (1S)-[2-14C,1-3H]geranyl pyrophosphate with (+)-pinene cyclase and with (-)-pinene cyclase from common sage (Salvia officinalis) gave labeled (+)-alpha- and (-)-beta-pinene of unchanged 3H/14C ratio in all cases, and the (+)- and (-)-olefins were stereoselectively converted to (+)- and (-)-borneol, respectively, which were oxidized to the corresponding (+)- and (-)-isomers of camphor, again without change in isotope ratio. The location of the tritium was determined in each case by stereoselective, base-catalyzed exchange of the exo-alpha-hydrogens of these derived ketones. The results indicated that the configuration at C1 of the substrate was retained in the enzymatic transformations to the (+)- and (-)-pinenes, which is entirely consistent with the syn-isomerization of geranyl pyrophosphate to linalyl pyrophosphate, transoid to cisoid rotation, and anti, endo-cyclization of the latter. The absolute stereochemical elements of the antipodal reaction sequences were confirmed by the selective enzymatic conversions of (3R)- and (3S)-1Z-[1-3H]linalyl pyrophosphate to (+)-alpha-pinene and (-)-beta-pinene, respectively, and by the location of the tritium in the derived camphors as before. The summation of the results fully defines the overall stereochemistry of the coupled isomerization and cyclization of geranyl pyrophosphate to the antipodal pinenes.


Solar energy may probably prove to be best option for future in air conditioning system. With growing need of energy consumption, the solar air conditioning system stands as a useful alternative. The objective of this work is to simulate a single effect LiBr-H2O absorption system, coupled with solar flat plate collector (SFPC), to supply heat to the generator of Vapor Absorption System (VAS). Case studies have been taken from India, particularly New Delhi and Mumbai, which are, respectively, known for their hot and humid climate. The influence of different parameters like inlet generator temperature, heat supplied to the generator and cooling load have been investigated. The design day of 15th of April, May and June has been considered. The thermodynamic analyses have also been carried out. An outlet solar collector temperature between 68°C and 78°C was maintained for New Delhi, whereas between 67°C and 79°C for Mumbai. The maximum efficiency of SFPC was found to be 50 percent and 51 percent in case of New Delhi and Mumbai, respectively, on 15th April and 15th of May. A coefficient of performance of 0.857 was obtained at 4.1033 kWof heat supplied to the generator, at an inlet generator temperature of 68°C and cooling load of 3.5167 kW. It was observed that at constant ??????, any increase in supply heat, increases the flow rate of vapor and cooling load. Furthermore, the analysis for various stages of single effect LiBr-H2O (VAS) is presented including the design of the evaporator, absorber, condenser, heat exchanger and generator.


The authors demonstrate a simplified calculation of the radial, tangential and axial components of the stress arising during isothermal and non-isothermal firing of a cylindrical kaolin body in the region of dehydroxylation brought about by temperature and concentration gradients. It was found that a tensile stress develops at the surface, and a compressive one at the body axis on both isothermal and non-isothermal firing. During non isothermal firing, the surface stress is decreased by the compressive stress due to the temperature gradient. An increase in the rate of firing a cylindrical body from 1 K min-• to 5 K min-1 was .found to raise by 30 % the maximum of resultant tensile stress at the surface.


Purpose – The authors conclude the "Engaging with Capitalism" volume with a discussion of social theory focusing on the implications of the volume for practices in international and community development.Approach – This chapter draws together some of the key themes in this collection to identify the development implications of the efforts of local communities to socially embed their engagement with capitalism and markets to better serve their socioeconomic and cultural needs. Discussion is informed by the literature on social embeddedness of economies, critical development theory, and the authors' ongoing empirical research in rural Papua New Guinea.Findings – There is growing recognition within anthropology and geography of the enduring influence of indigenous social and economic practices and values and their capacity to condition the introduced market economy and capitalist economic practices. The chapters in this collection, from the "Engaging with Capitalism" sessions of the 2011 and 2012 ASAO conferences, speak to this issue directly by exploring how indigenous forms of socioeconomy interact with introduced capitalist and market processes to influence sociocultural and economic change at the local level.Research and social implications – The challenge for development researchers is how to conceptualize local engagements with capitalism, and to identify how such concepts and concerns might be applied in development practice to better serve the needs of local communities. We outline some key principles that could be incorporated into development planning to make development projects more sustainable and better tailored to the needs of recipient communities.


Background: Thromboembolic events (TEEs) may significantly complicate the clinical management of patients with testicular germ cell tumours (GCTs). We analysed a cohort of GCT patients for the occurrence of TEEs and looked to possible pathogenetic factors. Patients, Methods: TEEs occurring within 6 months after diagnosis were retrospectively analysed in 317 consecutive patients with testicular GCT (median age 37 years, 198 seminoma, 119 nonseminoma). The following factors were analysed for association with TEE: histology, age, clinical stage (CS), chemotherapy, use of a central venous access device (CVA). Data analysis involved descriptive statistical methods with multivariable analysis to identify independent risk factors. Results: Twenty-three TEEs (7.3%) were observed, 18 deep vein thromboses, 4 pulmonary embolisms, and 1 myocardial infarction. Univariable risk calculation yielded the following odds ratios (ORs) : >CS1 OR = 43.7 (95% confidence intervals [CIs] 9.9–191.6); chemotherapy OR = 7.8 (95% CI 2.3–26.6); CVA OR = 30.5 (95% CI 11.0–84.3). Multivariable analysis identified only CS > 1 (OR = 16.9; 95% CI 3.5–82.4) and CVA (OR = 9.0; 95% CI 2.9–27.5) as independent risk factors. Conclusions: Patients with CSs >CS1 are at significantly increased risk of TEEs even without chemotherapy. Particular high risk is associated with the use of CVA devices for chemotherapy. Caregivers of GCT patients must be aware of the particular risk of TEEs.


In the last five years, much information has been gathered about the efficacy of several technics for managing obesity. Hospitalization with fasting, surgery, drugs, weight reducing clubs, and behavior modification methods have proven efficacious for select groups of obese Individuals. Methods of behavior modification appear to offer some of the most promising management technics, since results are good, and cost and discomfort to the patient are minimal.


This book is an endeavor to explore how context shapes the political identity of the Moroccan party of justice and Development through an investigation of the party members'discourse. The driving force of the research was the investigation of the contextual implications for the Islamist phenomenon from a Social Movement perspective. The aim of the book is twofold then, it sought both to provide a multi-perspectival approach for revisiting as well as redefining such key concepts as context, identity and language often neglected in the study of Islamism, and also to approach these issues from the prism of the Moroccan context. This was possible through a close analysis of the discourse of the Moroccan Islamist party of Justice and Development on the issue of the new Mudawwana implementation. Exploration of the PJD's speeches was based on discourse analysis of the different ways in which the party framed the Mudawwana reform issue in three different time frames to provide empirical grounds for discussing ways in which language and context provide the possibility for grasping the Islamist experience beyond the boundaries of ideology.


Background Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) provides a small but significant survival benefit. Nevertheless, controversies on applying NAC remain because the limited benefit must be weight against chemotherapy-related toxicity and the delay of definitive local treatment. Therefore, there is a clear clinical need for tools to guide treatment decisions on NAC in MIBC. Here, we aimed to validate a previously reported 20-gene expression signature that predicted lymph node-positive disease at radical cystectomy in clinically node-negative MIBC patients, which would be a justification for upfront chemotherapy. Methods We studied diagnostic transurethral resection of bladder tumors (dTURBT) of 150 MIBC patients (urothelial carcinoma) who were subsequently treated by radical cystectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection. RNA was isolated and the expression level of the 20 genes was determined on a qRT-PCR platform. Normalized Ct values were used to calculate a risk score to predict the presence of node-positive disease. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) RNA expression data was analyzed to subsequently validate the results. Results In a univariate regression analysis, none of the 20 genes significantly correlated with node-positive disease. The area under the curve of the risk score calculated by the 20-gene expression signature was 0.54 (95% Confidence Interval: 0.44-0.65) versus 0.67 for the model published by Smith et al. Node-negative patients had a significantly lower tumor grade at TURBT (p = 0.03), a lower pT stage (p<0.01) and less frequent lymphovascular invasion (13% versus 38%, p<0.01) at radical cystectomy than node-positive patients. In addition, in the TCGA data, none of the 20 genes was differentially expressed in node-negative versus node-positive patients. Conclusions We conclude that a 20-gene expression signature developed for nodal staging of MIBC at radical cystectomy could not be validated on a qRT-PCR platform in a large cohort of dTURBT specimens.


We identify a set of planetary systems observed by Kepler that merit transit-timing variation (TTV) analysis given the orbital periods of transiting planets, the uncertainties for their transit times, and the number of transits observed during the Kepler mission. We confirm the planetary nature of four Kepler Objects of Interest within multicandidate systems. We forward-model each of the planetary systems identified to determine which systems are likely to yield mass constraints that may be significantly improved upon with follow-up transit observations. We find projected TTVs diverge by more than 90 minutes after 6000 days in 27 systems, including 22 planets with orbital periods exceeding 25 days. Such targets would benefit the most from additional transit-timing data. TTV follow-up could push exoplanet characterization to lower masses, at greater orbital periods and at cooler equilibrium temperatures than is currently possible from the Kepler data set alone. Combining TTVs and recently revised stellar parameters, we characterize an ensemble of homogeneously selected planets and identify planets in the Kepler field with large-enough estimated transmission annuli for atmospheric characterization with James Webb Space Telescope.


Demographic linkage between subpopulations plays a critical role in population processes. Metapopulation dynamics, however, remains one of the most poorly understood aspects of population biology. This is especially true for small, pelagic seabirds because their discrete subpopulations are located on offshore islands, separated by vast areas of open ocean, making monitoring logistically challenging. Seabird populations often contain large numbers of immature pre‐breeders that may be important for subpopulation connectivity and demography, but are poorly studied. Here we provide evidence for intercolony movement of pre‐breeding Leach's storm‐petrels Oceanodroma leucorhoa among three colonies spanning the North Atlantic Ocean. We discuss their influence on metapopulation dynamics and the extinction risk of a subpopulation under threat from extreme predation.


We conducted a study of published work to evaluate the evidence for the hypothesis that environmental exposure and parental occupation are risk factors for neural tube defects. As other risk factors such as maternal illnesses, medication, and dietary factors have been reviewed before, this review only summarizes this information. In studies concerning environmental pollution, only a few weak associations were found. It appears that specific studies on the topic of parental occupation and neural tube defects are scarce. Therefore, studies on broader malformation categories, such as central nervous system defects, were also taken into account. Both maternal and paternal occupation seem to be associated with the occurrence of neural tube defects. However, results are not always consistent with each other, and relevant recommendations concerning prevention thus cannot be given before more studies with larger populations are conducted to confirm or refute the findings reviewed. Imagesp140-a


According to several contemporary observers, the British prison system at the end of the nineteenth century was in a savage and deplorable state. A series of articles in The Daily Chronicle in January 1894 referred to these prisons as 'our dark places'. They were managed by a man a few years later accredited with a 'barbaric philosophy'. The severity of this prison system was said to be legendary even in Russia. This school of observation then developed the view that the penal system was rescued by the recommendations of an influential home office report published in 1895. Named after its chairman, the then under secretary at the home office, Herbert Gladstone, this report was welcomed as 'the beginning of a beneficient revolution'. Upon its publication, the man vilified in The Daily Chronicle, the chairman of the prison commissioners, Sir Edmund Du Cane, resigned his post; the newspaper greeted this event as 'the inevitable end of a discredited system'. How correct was this perception of the late nineteenth-century British prison system?


Natural quartzites have been experimentally deformed at a temperature of 1073 K, a confining pressure of 1.2 ± 0.1GPa, strain rates of 10−5, 10−6 and 10−7 s−1 and in the presence of 0.4 wt% of added water. Microstructures after deformation indicate that at strain rates of 10−5–10−6 s−1 crystal plastic deformation is predominant. This is evident from abundant deformation lamellae in the original grains, and the fact that these grains show a (weak) crystallographic preferred orientation. New grains are absent or of relatively minor volumetric importance. In contrast, samples deformed at 10−7 s−1 show numerous arrays of fine, new polygonal to euhedral quartz grains developed in axially aligned transgranular and grain boundary microcracks. These new-grain aggregates are characterized by abundant microscale voids, fine intergranular channels and fluid inclusion trails. Syntaxial overgrowth structures on crack walls are also widespread. The aggregates of new grains are thus interpreted to have formed by precipitation from solution. In addition, old grain boundaries oriented perpendicular to the shortening direction show evidence for dissolution. The old grains show almost no deformation lamellae, subgrains or c-axis preferred orientation. It therefore appears that at strain rates of 10−7 s−1 microcracking and solution-precipitation creep are the dominant deformation mechanisms.


Electrically activated soft actuators capable of large deformation are powerful and broadly applicable in multiple fields. However, designing soft actuators that can withstand a high strain, provide a large actuation displacement, and exhibit stable reversibility are still the main challenges toward their practical application. Here, for the first time, we report a two-dimensional (2D) conductive metal-organic framework (MOF) based electrochemical actuator, which consists of vertically oriented and hierarchical Ni-CAT NWAs/CNF electrodes through the use of a facile one-step in situ hydrothermal growth method. The soft actuator prepared in this study demonstrated improvements in actuation performance and benefits from both the intrinsically ordered porous architecture and efficient transfer pathways for fast ion and electron transport; furthermore, this actuator facilitated a considerably high diffusion rate and low interfacial resistance. In particular, the actuator demonstrated a rapid response (<19 s) at a 3 V DC input, large actuation displacement (12.1 mm), and a correspondingly high strain of 0.36% under a square-wave AC voltage of ±3 V. Specifically, the actuator achieved a broad-band frequency response (0.1-20 Hz) and long-term cyclability in air (10000 cycles) with a negligible degradation in actuation performance. Our work demonstrates new opportunities for bioinspired artificial actuators and overcomes current limitations in electrode materials for soft robotics and bionics.


Miners in the blockchain system are suffering from the ever-increasing storage costs, which in general have not been properly compensated by the users' transaction fees. In the long run, this may lead to less participation of miners in the system and jeopardize the blockchain security. In this work, we mitigate such a blockchain storage sustainability issue by proposing a social welfare maximization mechanism, which encourages each user to pay sufficient transaction fees for the storage costs and consider the waiting time costs imposing on others. We model the interactions between the protocol designer, users, and miners as a three-stage Stackelberg game. In Stage I, the protocol designer optimizes the consensus parameters associated with the transaction fee per byte values and waiting time costs to maximize the social welfare. In Stage II, the users decide the transaction generation rates to maximize their payoffs. In Stage III, the miners select the transactions and record them into the blockchain to maximize their payoffs. Through characterizing the Nash equilibrium of the three-stage game, we find that the protocol designer can not only achieve maximum social welfare in Stage II and III of the model, but also incentivize each user pays sufficient transaction fees for storage costs. We also find that for users who generate transactions at lower rates, they may pay higher waiting time price per transaction for the waiting time costs they impose on other users. Ethereumbased numerical results showed that our proposed mechanism dominates the existing protocol in both social welfare and fees, achieves a higher fairness index than the existing protocol, and performs well even under heterogeneous-storage-cost miners.


This article is based on the development of proposals and recommendations related to the formation of spiritual and moral education of students through the scientific heritage of hadith scholars. The useful aspects of hadiths in the upbringing of young people in the "Education" classes of 5-7 grades are also revealed.


Au nanoparticles were successfully synthesized using diabetic sugar as reducing agent, with and without the aid of microwave heating. The hydrolysis of diabetic sugar was carried out using HCl, prior to the synthesis. By adjusting pH of the mixture to basic condition, the formation of the nanoparticles effectively occurred resulting purple colloidal solution. The solution was centrifuged or left overnight to yield precipitate of Au nanoparticles. The as-formed Au nanoparticles were characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometry, Fourier-Transform infrared spectrophotometry and scanning electron microscopy. The result showed that the Au nanoparticles played a significant role as catalyst for oxidation of methylene blue by H2O2. The kinetics of the oxidation process followed pseudo first order reaction rate with the rate constant depending on the AuNP characteristic and experimental condition.


In the last four decades, as the nuclear industry grew and got mature, the importance of adequate risk evaluating tools became decisive. Therefore, the Probabilistic Risk Assessment (also known as Probabilistic Safety Analysis) became a cornerstone of the decisions in such high energy and high-risk industry. PSA has an internationally recognised standard, and it is supported by a group of highly trained experts, (no more than a few hundred worldwide).This work can be used as a guide for the improving the required individual and teamwork skills needed in a Probabilistic Safety Analysis - PSA Team. The necessity of such a moment in a PSA Training was imagined by Dan Serbanescu, doctor in science, nuclear energy expert, risk and safety analyst, in May 2017. After few discussions and according to recognised international standards (Probabilistic Risk Assessment procedures guide, 1983), a first time delivery was possible in the PSA Training delivered in Centrala Nuclearoelectrica Cernavoda / Nuclear Power Plant Cernavoda (2017).This article presents a systematic approach for team improvement skills, consisting of the observation, presentation of the skills required, the skills practised in the proposed exercises, the techniques used during this module (coaching included), and results. The Purpose of the newly proposed combination of training and coaching methods with the specific traditional one oriented mainly to the technical and procedural skills is to raise participants' awareness about how soft-skills can be used in the PSA Teamwork. As Nuclear Power Plant can be easily compared with a complex organisation, soft skills are vital to be developed within the teams. PSA is becoming more required not only in nuclear but also in the aerospace industry (it was adopted by NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration for all future space program and by some hazardous chemical industries, as also stated in international documents (of the European Commission for instance).


Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease characterised by progressive deterioration of upper and lower motor neurons that eventually culminates in severe muscle atrophy, respiratory failure and death. There is a concerning lack of understanding regarding the mechanisms that lead to the onset of ALS and as a result there are no reliable biomarkers that aid in the early detection of the disease nor is there an effective treatment. This review first considers the clinical phenotypes associated with ALS, and discusses the broad categorisation of ALS and ALS-mimic diseases into upper and lower motor neuron diseases, before focusing on the genetic aetiology of ALS and considering the potential relationship of mutations of different genes to variations in phenotype. For this purpose, a systematic review is conducted collating data from 107 original published clinical studies on monogenic forms of the disease, surveying the age and site of onset, disease duration and motor neuron involvement. The collected data highlight the complexity of the disease's genotype–phenotype relationship, and thus the need for a nuanced approach to the development of clinical assays and therapeutics.


The simultaneous comminution and drying of coal in spouted beds at various temperatures and structural conditions was studied in a column with 152 mm internal diameter. Size reduction in the spouted bed occurs by three different mechanisms: impaction, shear (attrition) and crushing. The size reduction process depends on the physical parameters and the operating conditions in the spouted bed. The key parameters are the design features of the insert, the spouting velocity, the chosen feedrate and the drying temperature. The feedrate for a continuous run can be determined from the instantaneous production rates of the related semi-batch run at the same operating conditions. In this study, the operating conditions were kept constant in each run, except for the inlet gas temperature, while the grinding medium was either glass beads or a special static insert. The results show that the size reduction rate is more rapid with the special insert than with the glass beads. At elevated temperature the rate of size reduction is also more rapid than that at room temperature. The moisture content and particle size distribution of the products with various inlet gas temperatures were measured for each run. The particle size distribution of the product was dependent on the outlet gas velocity. The energy input to a spouted bed during a comminution and drying operation includes both kinetic energy and thermal energy. The kinetic energy has a direct effect, that is, it provides comminution energy to the particles, whereas the thermal energy influences the comminution of the particles due to the change in their physical properties. These two kinds of energy can complement each other and improve both the efficiency and the capacity of the comminution. The total energy equation, therefore, can provide a simple method to estimate the energy requirement for the coal comminution.


This paper presents an analog neuromimetic integrated circuit and an associated system dedicated for experiments of parameters extraction in biological neuron models. The IC based on Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) formalism computes in real-time and continuous mode. The dedicated system is a PCI board that is able to program dynamically the neuron model parameters in the IC. The full system, which includes the IC and the PCI board, is used to build a new hardware/software technique to extract biophysics parameters from biological neuron. This technique could be helpful for the neuroscientists proposing an alternative to voltage-clamp technique. For that, the new technique will use optimization algorithms to be efficient


Applying deep learning to solve real-life instances of hard combinatorial problems has tremendous potential. Research in this direction has focused on the Boolean satisfiability (SAT) problem, both because of its theoretical centrality and practical importance. A major roadblock faced, though, is that training sets are restricted to random formulas of size several orders of magnitude smaller than formulas of practical interest, raising serious concerns about generalization. This is because labeling random formulas of increasing size rapidly becomes intractable. By exploiting the probabilistic method in a fundamental way, we remove this roadblock entirely: we show how to generate correctly labeled random formulas of any desired size, without having to solve the underlying decision problem. Moreover, the difficulty of the classification task for the formulas produced by our generator is tunable by varying a simple scalar parameter. This opens up an entirely new level of sophistication for the machine learning methods that can be brought to bear on Satisfiability. Using our generator, we train existing state-of-the-art models for the task of predicting satisfiability on formulas with 10,000 variables. We find that they do no better than random guessing. As a first indication of what can be achieved with the new generator, we present a novel classifier that performs significantly better than random guessing (99%) on the same datasets, for most difficulty levels. Crucially, unlike past approaches that learn based on syntactic features of a formula, our classifier performs its learning on a short prefix of a solver's computation, an approach that we expect to be of independent interest.


The authors report two cases of patients with appendix adenocarcinoma, manifested as a syndrome of abdominal tumor of unknown origin. It was not possible to perform etiological diagnosis in the preoperative period for any of them. Literature data show that large locoregional tumor is a manifestation of appendix adenocarcinoma, although acute appendicites is the most frequent clinical manifestation. Preoperative diagnosis is rare and usually performed during laparotomy or through histopathological examination of the specimen. In large tumors, total mass resection including hemicolectomy should be carried out whenever possible. Whenever diagnosis of appendix adenocarcinoma is performed by the histopathological examination of the acute appendicites specimen, re-intervention is indicated for a right hemicolectomy.


Abstract To determine the diagnostic accuracy of pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), transvaginal sonography (TVS), and transrectal sonography (TRS) in diagnosis of deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE). This diagnostic accuracy study was conducted during a 2-year period including a total number of 317 patients with signs and symptoms of endometriosis. All the patients were evaluated by pelvic MRI, TVS, and TRS in the same center. The criterion standard was considered to be the laparoscopy and histopathologic examination. Of 317 patients being included in the present study, 252 tested positive for DIE. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of TVS was found to be 83.3%, 46.1%, 85.7%, and 41.6%, respectively. These variables were 80.5%, 18.6%, 79.3%, and 19.7% for TRS and 90.4%, 66.1%, 91.2%, and 64.1% for MRI, respectively. MRI had the highest accuracy (85.4%) when compared to TVS (75.7%) and TRS (67.8%). The sensitivity of TRS, TVS, and MRI in uterosacral ligament DIE was 82.8%, 70.9%, and 63.6%, respectively. On the contrary, specificity had a reverse trend, favoring MRI (93.9%, 92.8%, and 89.8% for TVS and TRS, respectively). The results of the present study demonstrated that TVS and TRS have appropriate diagnostic accuracy in diagnosis of DIE comparable to MRI.


Conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA) is produced by heating the aggregate and the asphalt binder to elevated temperatures that are typically in the range of 150◦C to 160◦C. These temperatures ensure that the viscosity of the asphalt binder is low enough to effectively coat the aggregate particles. During the past decade, warm mix asphalt (WMA) has been introduced to reduce the mixing temperatures by approximately 30◦C compared to HMA. Workability at these reduced temperatures is typically achieved by the use of chemical additives in the asphalt binder or by foaming the asphalt binder using small percentages of water. The use of WMA is associated with advantages such as reduced emissions during mixture production, extended paving season and reduced aging in the asphalt binder. In case of the WMA and the HMA, one of the important physical properties that dictates the quality of coating is the surface tension of the asphalt binder at mixing temperatures. In this study, the surface tension of different liquid asphalt binders was measured at typical mixing temperatures. The effect of binder type, temperature, and chemical additives used to produce WMA on the surface tension of the binder was evaluated. Three different binders with and without three different chemical additives were used in this study. The dynamic surface tension was measured using four different rates of surface formation and at several different temperatures within the range of 140◦C and 170◦C. Results show that the surface tension of asphalt binder depends on the rate of surface formation, temperature and source of the asphalt binder. Dynamic surface tension of asphalt binders suggests that asphalt binders behave similar to surfactants. The addition of chemical warm mix additives did not significantly reduce the surface tension of the binder compared to the control.


Adhesion strength may be explained by different theories that allow a better understanding and a better use of orthodontic adhesives. Transmission (TEM) and scanning (SEM) electron microscopy analysis of debonding areas allows to differentiate the location of bonding fractures and the consequences on enamel. Such a knowledge may be useful when choosing the most adapted protocol.


ABSTRACT This paper describes the synthesis of B4C/carbon nanotube (CNT) composite by hot-pressing and shows the details for the effectiveness of CNT addition, additive amount and its orientation on the thermal shock resistance. CNTs tend to array perpendicular to the hot-pressing direction, which caused anisotropic mechanical and thermal properties of B4C/CNT composite. We investigated the residual bending strength of thermally shocked B4C/CNT composites and determined the critical temperature ΔTC that causes precipitous strength drop. In the case of B4C/15 vol% CNT composite, the residual bending strength almost unchanged at ~450°C; ΔTC increased by 150°C or more than that of monolithic B4C. Based on the thermal stress fracture-resistance parameter R' of the composites, it was clarified that the excellent R' is mainly due to the higher thermal conductivity and lower elastic modulus. The numerical results showed that CNT addition has a pronounced effect on the thermal shock residual bending strength and thermal stress fracture-resistance of B4C/CNT composite.


The high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscope has significantly different characteristics from the conventional electron microscope. The process of producing images is in itself quite different but most significantly it is a quantitative instrument which is capable of providing numerical data on the properties of thin specimens. The author discusses the physics involved in the design and operation of the instrument. He has made little attempt to give details in particular designs because such details already appear in the literature. Instead emphasis is placed on the capabilities and limitations of the instrument and give some ideas of the direction of future developments.


Generalized Place/Transition Petri nets, called contextual nets, and processes of such nets are considered. Processes of contextual nets are represented as partial orders with some extra structure. Operations of composing processes are deened such that each process of a contextual net can be obtained by combining processes corresponding to places and transitions of this net. Matrix-like characteristics of processes, called tables, and natural operations on such characteristics are deened such that the correspondence between processes and their characteristics is a homomorphism.


Background The detection of drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) is a major concern in China. China has implemented multiple DR-TB interventions in partnership with development partners and via domestic policy reforms. We aim to summarize the interventions related to the screening and detection of DR-TB in Jiangsu Province, analyse their impact, and highlight policy implications for the prevention and control of DR-TB.Methods We selected six prefectures across Jiangsu Province, a relatively developed area in China with a long history of collaboration with development partners and provincial policy reforms. We collected policy documents between 2008 and 2019, and extracted routine TB patient registration data from the TB Information Management System (TBIMS) between 2013 and 2019. We used the High-quality Health System Framework to guide the analysis. We performed statistical analysis on the percentage of pulmonary TB cases confirmed by bacteriology, percentage of bacteriologically confirmed TB patients tested for drug susceptibility by prefecture and by year. We used logistic regression models on TB cases confirmed by bacteriology and bacteriologically confirmed TB patients tested for drug susceptibility to further assess the impact of different policy interventions. Results Our study found that three prefectures in Jiangsu introduced DR-TB related interventions between 2008 and 2010 in partnership with the Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. By 2017, all prefectures in Jiangsu had implemented provincial level DR-TB policies, such as increases in human resources for health, use of rapid molecular tests (RMT), expanded drug susceptibility testing (DST) for populations at risk of DR-TB, and allocation of funds specifically targeting DR-TB. With the use of RMT, the diagnostic process of DR-TB was optimized and the testing time shortened. The percentage of pulmonary TB cases confirmed by bacteriology increased from around 30% to over 50% between 2013 and 2019, indicating that the implementation of new diagnostics, including RMT, have provided more sensitive testing results than the traditional smear microscopy. At the same time, the proportion of bacteriologically confirmed cases tested for drug resistance has increased substantially, indicating that the intervention of expanding the coverage of DST has reached more of the population at risk of DR-TB. Prefectures that implemented interventions with the Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had better performance in detecting DR-TB patients. The disparities in detecting DR-TB among prefectures significantly narrowed after the implementation of provincial DR-TB polices. Conclusions The introduction of new diagnostics, including RMT, have improved the detection of DR-TB. Prefectures implementing interventions with the Global Fund and the Gates Foundation had better detection of DR-TB even after the end of the partnership. Additionally, the implementation of provincial DR-TB polices led to improvements in the detection of DR-TB across all regions.


Novel liquid biopsy technologies are creating a watershed moment in cancer early detection. While evidence supporting population screening is nascent, a rush to market the new tests is prompting cancer early detection researchers to revisit the standard blueprint established by the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) for evaluating novel screening biomarkers. In this commentary, we review the EDRN's Phases of Biomarker Development (PBD) for rigorous evaluation of novel early detection biomarkers and discuss both hazards and opportunities involved in expedited evaluation. According to the PBD, for a biomarker-based test to be considered for population screening: (1) test sensitivity in a prospective screening setting must be adequate, (2) the shift to early curable stages must be meaningful, and (3) any stage shift must translate into clinically significant mortality benefit. In the past, determining mortality benefit has required lengthy randomized screening trials, but interest is growing in expedited trial designs with shorter-term endpoints. Whether and how best to use such endpoints in a manner that retains the rigor of the PBD remains to be determined. We discuss how computational disease modeling may be harnessed to learn about screening impact and meet the needs of the moment.


The ionic liquid choline arginate [Ch][Arg] is more effective for biomass pretreatment than other choline based amino acid ILs, but the underlying mechanism has been unclear. In the present work we use the high-level CCSD(T)/CBS(MP2) and G4(MP2) thermochemical protocols to probe the H-bonding interactions of [Ch][Arg] with water, and organic functional groups commonly found in biomass. We show that the [Ch][Arg] IL forms unusually strong H-bonding interactions with prototypical H-bond donors. For example, we obtain H-bonding interactions of 76.6, 80.0, and 103.6 kJ mol–1 with water, methanol, and phenol, respectively. Our theoretical results shed light on the capacity of [Ch][Arg] to dissolve biomass, and they demonstrate the importance of ion conformation, in addition to speciation, for IL performance more generally. As a point of reference, we compare the H-bonding interactions of [Ch][Arg] with those of a related IL, choline glycinate ([Ch][Gly]), which does not dissolve biomass as effectively as [Ch][...


As public concern grows over juvenile violence, the juvenile court system is increasingly seen as weak and ineffective. Federal and state legislators are under pressure to pass stricter juvenile crime laws, send more youth to adult court, and make the juvenile system more formalized and adversarial. However, our research shows that some of this public concern is based on inaccurate perceptions of who is responsible for violence in America. Specifically, there is confusion over the difference between crime by juveniles and crime by youth, which includes young adults.


Lodging occurs frequently in soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Men.] and has been shown to reduce yields of indeterminate cultivars under most conditions: Information is limited on effects of lodging on determinate cultivars, types commonly grown in the southern U. S. Influence of lodging on pod distribution and seed yield was measured during a 2-year study in the field on 'Forrest', a determinate cultivar and 'R74-334', a semideterminate strain, at three stages of growth. Growth of the semideterminate strain in Arkansas resembled that of indeterminate cultivars grown in the Midwest. Plants were lodged at 0°, 45°, and 90° angles from the vertical at a vegetative stage (V8) and two reproductive stages (R2 and R4). A significant yield reduction was obtained from induced lodging at full pod (R4) but none at the vegetative (V8) or full bloom (R2) stage of development. The determinate cultivar and semideterminate strain were affected similarly by the lodging treatments. Lodging resulted in an increase in percentage of pods on lateral branches at stages V8 and R2 but no change was noted at R4. Number of seeds per pod was not affected by plant lodging. Lodging affected the number of seeds per plant more than seed size. Decrease in seed yield, therefore, was primarily due to reduction in number of seeds produced on lodged plants.


Klumpke palsy, named after Augusta Dejerine-Klumpke, is a neuropathy involving the lower brachial plexus.[1] In contrast, the more common Erb-Duchenne palsy involves the more cephalic portion of the brachial plexus C5 to C6.[2] The brachial plexus is a bundle of individual nerves that exit between the anterior and middle scalene muscles in the anterior lateral and basal portion of the neck. Although, the most common anatomical presentation of the brachial plexus is between the anterior and middle scalene there are variations with the most common being penetration of the anterior scalene.[3] The main mechanism of injury to the lower brachial plexus is hyper-abduction traction and depending on the intensity, will lead to signs and symptoms consistent with a neurological insult.[4]


Automotive software development requires engineers to test their systems to detect violations of both functional and drivability requirements. Functional requirements define the functionality of the automotive software. Drivability requirements refer to the driver's perception of the interactions with the vehicle; for example, they typically require limiting the acceleration and jerk perceived by the driver within given thresholds. While functional requirements are extensively considered by the research literature, drivability requirements garner less attention. This industrial paper describes our experience assessing the usefulness of an automated search-based software testing (SBST) framework in generating failure-revealing test cases for functional and drivability requirements. Our experience concerns the VI-CarRealTime simulator, an industrial virtual modeling and simulation environment widely used in the automotive domain. We designed a Cruise Control system in Simulink for a four-wheel vehicle, in an iterative fashion, by producing 21 model versions. We used the SBST framework for each version of the model to search for failure-revealing test cases revealing requirement violations. Our results show that the SBST framework successfully identified a failure-revealing test case for 66.7% of our model versions, requiring, on average, 245.9s and 3.8 iterations. We present lessons learned, reflect on the generality of our results, and discuss how our results improve the state of practice.


Modular composition is the problem to compute the composition of two univariate polynomials modulo a third one. For polynomials with coefficients in a finite field, Kedlaya and Umans proved in 2008 that the theoretical complexity for performing this task could be made arbitrarily close to linear. Unfortunately, beyond its major theoretical impact, this result has not led to practically faster implementations yet. In this paper, we explore the particular case when the ground field is the field of computable complex numbers. Ultimately, when the precision becomes sufficiently large, we show that modular compositions may be performed in softly linear time.


A thin back-illuminated CCD based photon detector system has been installed on the Rowland circle of a 2.2 meter grazing incidence spectrometer, replacing the previously used Ceratron single channel detector. For reasons to be described the CCD chip surface was not angled tangential to the spectrometer Rowland circle. The spectrometer is used for beam-foil spectroscopy experiments at the RIKEN laboratory. The performance of the CCD was tested using a beam of 183 MeV Nb ions.


Curated databases have become important sources of information across several scientific disciplines, and as the result of manual work of experts, often become important reference works. Features such as provenance tracking, archiving, and data citation are widely regarded as important features for the curated databases, but implementing such features is challenging, and small database projects often lack the resources to do so.
A scientific database application is not just the relational database itself, but also an ecosystem of web applications to display the data, and applications which allow data curation. Supporting advanced curation features requires changing all of these components, and there is currently no way to provide such capabilities in a reusable way.
Cross-tier programming languages allow developers to write a web application in a single, uniform language. Consequently, database queries and updates can be written in the same language as the rest of the program, and it should be possible to provide curation features via program transformations. As a step towards this goal, it is important to establish that realistic curated databases can be implemented in a cross-tier programming language.
In this article, we describe such a case study: reimplementing the web frontend of a realworld scientific database, the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to PHARMACOLOGY (GtoPdb), in the Links cross-tier programming language. We show how programming language features such as language-integrated query simplify the development process, and rule out common errors. Through an automated functional correctness evaluation, we show that the Links implementation correctly implements the functionality of the official version. Through a comparative performance evaluation, we show that the Links implementation performs fewer database queries, while the time neededto handle the queries is comparable to the official Java version. Furthermore, while there is some overhead to using Links because of its comparative immaturity compared to Java, the Links version is usable as a proof-of-concept case study of cross-tier programming for curated databases.


The major aim of our investigations is the computation of the voltages induced by an external transient electromagnetic excitation, especially due to the lightning discharge coupling to overhead transmission line networks. In this paper we propose a hybrid method for evaluating the electromagnetic field radiated by lightning The Agrawal et al. model coupling model will be used in order to analyse the lightning-induced disturbances in overhead transmission line networks.


Background: To
deal with emergency department crowding and long waits before patient care,
many institutions have placed a doctor in the triage area to initiate treatment
and testing. Objective: to determine
the effect of a doctor in triage on patient satisfaction scores. Methods: This is an observational study
comparing the patient satisfaction scores from days when a physician was in
triage to days when a physician was not present. The study was conducted in the
ED of an urban academic medical center with excellent primary care resources
and payer mix (7% self pay, 11% Medicaid). Results: There was a mean of 4 (95% CI 3.1 - 4.5) surveys
returned for each day when there was a doctor in triage and a mean of 5 (95% CI
4.3 - 5.7) surveys for each day without a
doctor in triage. Overall satisfaction for the days with a doctor in triage was
79.9 ± 10.5 (95% CI
77.7, 82.1) compared to 78.8 ± 9.2 (95% CI
76.5, 81.1) (p = 0.9) on days without a doctor in
triage. Conclusion: In this setting,
there was no effect of a doctor in triage on patient satisfaction scores. While
a doctor in triage may be valuable and cost effective in some settings, it may
not provide appropriate benefit in all settings. We suggest that facilities
trial a physician in triage program and measure predetermined outcomes such as
patient satisfaction scores, length of stay and the percentage of patients left
without being seen before investing in additional staffing and cost to sustain
such a program.


Curiosity has been described as a desire for learning and knowledge, but its underlying mechanisms are not well understood. We scanned subjects with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they read trivia questions. The level of curiosity when reading questions was correlated with activity in caudate regions previously suggested to be involved in anticipated reward. This finding led to a behavioral study, which showed that subjects spent more scarce resources (either limited tokens or waiting time) to find out answers when they were more curious. The functional imaging also showed that curiosity increased activity in memory areas when subjects guessed incorrectly, which suggests that curiosity may enhance memory for surprising new information. This prediction about memory enhancement was confirmed in a behavioral study: Higher curiosity in an initial session was correlated with better recall of surprising answers 1 to 2 weeks later.


A total of 10,753 oligotrophic bacteria were isolated from the cultivated soils of red-pepper infected by Phytophthora blight disease in various regions of Korea (Chungju, Anmyon, Taean, Andong, Eumsung and Goesan). Seven bacteria isolates among these collected resources were selected by the first screening of in vitro antagonistic assay against major several plant pathogenic fungi including Phytophthora capsici. Finally, strain 7F was selected by pot assay for a possible biological control agent against Phytophthora blight disease of pepper seedling in the greenhouse. Strain 7F was identified as Bacillus subtilis on the basis of its 16S rDNA sequence analysis and as standardized biochemical characteristics assay kits such as API20 NE. In the experiment of P. capsici zoospore infected red-pepper on the pot test, infection rate of red-pepper with nonetreatment to Phytophthora blight disease was 87%, while the rate was only 6% in the pot treated with strain 7F. This result indicated that the Bacillus subtilis strain 7F will be useful as a potential biocontrol agent for Phytophthora blight disease of red-pepper.


Problem From 1986 to 2005, the North Miami Beach Seventh-day Adventist Church has never been exposed to spiritual formation. The poor inadequate knowledge of church members as to how to practice the presence of God on a daily basis and the lack of numerical and spiritual growth, along with the unfulfilled goals of the founding members of the church, called for special and immediate action. The purpose of this project was to develop and implement a spiritual formation program in the church and address this deep spiritual need that had not been met over the years. Method A nine-month process in two stages began with an assessment of spiritual needs of the congregation and a review of church history. A group of twenty church members was exposed to a significant number of specific seminars on spirituality and was introduced to the concept of practicing the presence of God through the use of spiritual disciplines. Time of reflection on God's presence in their personal history, along with weekly meetings which involved prayer, spiritual topics, spiritual disciplines, discussions and a specific program to follow during every week took the participants on a new journey of Christian life. All of these along with a special spiritual inventory, ten days of prayer and fasting for the Holy Spirit, and direct involvement in two evangelistic crusades were meant to teach and train the participants in the biblical practices of spiritual growth and to help them develop an authentic and permanent relationship with God. Results At the conclusion of the spiritual formation program of the nine-month time period, the church had witnessed positive changes. A new spiritual mindset seems to characterize an increasing number of members. Based upon the evaluation process and personal testimonies, all participants seemed to have experienced new ideas in their relationship with God. Their understanding on the meaning and importance of spirituality has improved considerably, and their determination to continue the process of spiritual formation is remarkable. Since the program began, to its completion, twenty-eight persons were baptized in the church and two were added by profession of faith. This number is very close to the number of baptisms over the previous ten years. A seven year decline in church membership had been reversed. Conclusions The project was effective in attaining an important level of understanding of spirituality and in achieving a personal involvement in the process of spiritual formation. It is evident that the spiritual formation program brought about a new spiritual atmosphere in the church. A number of church members testify to spiritual growth in their lives that perhaps otherwise could not take place. The process of change that took place at North Miami Beach SDA Church with the twenty participants in the program has the potential to spread over the entire congregation and may also serve as a model to other local churches wishing to develop a relationship with God that is genuine, biblical, permanent and rewarding.


This study aims to propose a technology forecasting approach based on hierarchical S-curves. The proposed approach uses holistic forecasting by evaluating the S-curves of sub-technologies as well as the main technology under concern. A case study of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies is conducted to demonstrate how the proposed approach works in practice. This is the first study that applies hierarchical S-curves to technology forecasting of unmanned aerial vehicle technologies in the literature. The future trend of the UAV technologies is analysed in detail through a hierarchical S-curve approach. Hierarchical S-curves are also utilised to investigate the sub-technologies of the UAV. In addition, the technology development life cycle of technology is assessed by using the three indexes namely, (1) the current technological maturity ratio (TMR), (2) estimating the number of potential patents that could be granted in the future (PPA), and (3) forecasting the expected remaining life (ERL). The results of this study indicate that the UAV technologies and their sub-technologies are at the growth stage in the technology life cycle, and most of the developments in UAV technology will have been completed by 2048. Hence, these technologies can be considered emerging technologies.


This paper is concerned with the stabilisation of linear time-delay systems by tuning a finite number of parameters. Such problems typically arise in the design of fixed-order controllers. As time-delay systems exhibit an infinite amount of characteristic roots, a full assignment of the spectrum is impossible. However, if the system is stabilisable for the given parameter set, stability can in principle always be achieved through minimising the real part of the rightmost characteristic root, or spectral abscissa, in function of the parameters to be tuned. In general, the spectral abscissa is a nonsmooth and nonconvex function, precluding the use of standard optimisation methods. Instead, we use a recently developed bundle gradient optimisation algorithm which has already been successfully applied to fixed-order controller design problems for systems of ordinary differential equations. In dealing with systems of time-delay type, we extend the use of this algorithm to infinite-dimensional systems. This is realised by combining the optimisation method with advanced numerical algorithms to efficiently and accurately compute the rightmost characteristic roots of such time-delay systems. Furthermore, the optimisation procedure is adapted, enabling it to perform a local stabilisation of a nonlinear time-delay system along a branch of steady state solutions. We illustrate the use of the algorithm by presenting results for some numerical examples.


In order to ensure privacy constraints in biometrics, new algorithms called template protection schemes have been proposed in the last ten years in the literature. Most of these algorithms require as input a feature having a fixed size. Texture features can be used within this context for fingerprints as the number of minutiae varies in general for different captures. BioHashing is a two authentication factor algorithm that can be used to enhance to ensure privacy while using biometrics. In this work, we compare different recent texture features from the literature within the BioHashing scheme while considering many constraints: efficiency, maximal representation size and constant size description. Experiments are conducted on three fingerprint databases from the FVC competition. Results permit us to conclude on the texture features to be used within this context.


The specific binding of broxaterol, a potent new orally active antiasthmatic drug, to beta 1- and beta 2-adrenoceptors was characterized by receptor binding studies with rat heart and lung membrane preparations. Broxaterol showed high affinity and selectivity for the beta 2-component of [3H]dihydroalprenolol binding in both lung (58% beta 2-sites, Ki = 130 nM) and heart membranes (19% beta 2-sites, Ki = 98 nM), whereas the binding to the beta 1-component was at lower affinity (42% beta 1-sites, Ki = 4100 nM in the lung and 81% beta 1-sites, Ki = 3460 mM in the heart). The influence of temperature changes on the binding properties of broxaterol towards beta-adrenoceptors was also investigated. A marked increase in the affinity of broxaterol for lung beta-receptors was observed on lowering the assay temperature, whereas the affinity for heart beta-receptors was little affected by temperature changes. Thermodynamic analysis of the binding data showed that the binding of broxaterol as well as isoproterenol to lung beta-receptors was associated with a large decrease in enthalpy, which correlates well with the full agonistic properties of this compound at beta 2-receptors.


The evaluation process of achievement is organized and accurate, and therefore the assessment of student achievement should be free from negative and wrong practices. So this study aimed to determine the level of these negative and wrong practices in assessing student learning by tests in Jordanian public schools. The study developed a questionnaire composed of 64 items (32 for the preparation stage, 18 implementation stage, and 14 scoring phase). The validity of this questionnaire was verified by presenting it to a group of arbitrators at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Jordan, and the educational supervisors of the Ministry of Education. Cronbach's alpha was used to test the reliability and the values have exceeded 0.70   in all phases of the questionnaire. The sample consisted of (200) male teachers and (200) female teachers, they are teaching in public schools and practice two kinds of assessment: tests and non-tests. The results showed that the degree of negative practices was moderate in all stages (preparation, application, correction) and the result found that there were no statistically significant differences at (α = 0.05) between males and females.


J. montana extract in the form of ethanolic formulation is rich in polyphenols, mono- and sesquiterpenes, Essential oils, flavonoids, tri- tetra- and pentamethoxy quercetin derivatives. The present study was designed to investigate the anti-obesity, antiatherogenic, anti-diabetic and antioxidant activities of J. montana using obese diabetic rats' model. Rats received either regular diet, high-fat diet or high-fat diet with additional J. montana (150 and 300 mg/kg bw) for 8 weeks. In the preventive experiment, J. montana co-administered with a high fat diet significantly inhibited body weight gain, blood glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL-C, vLDL-C, HDL-C, free fatty acid and atherogenic index levels in a dose dependent manner. J. montana-treated rats at doses of 150 and 300 mg/kg improved the insulin resistance index when compared to the high fat diet (HFD) control. Finally, the present study is designed to evaluate the effect of ethanolic extract of J. montana on figh fat diet induce obesity in rats. J. montana treatment (150 and 300 mg/kg bw) for 8 consecutive weeks prior to obese rats administration significantly prevented the decrease in the levels of hepatic oxidative stress biomarkers reduced Glutathione (GSH), Glutathione peroxidase (GPx), Glutathione reductase (GR), Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and Catalase (CAT). The J. montana extract, also exhibited its capacity to prevent the elevated thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) in the liver tissue. In conclusion, the anti-obesity actions of J. montana are considered attributable to increased expression of energy expenditure-related fatty liver degradation, and decreased fatty acid synthesis and fat intake in the liver. Taken together, J. montana has potential as a preventive agent for type 2 diabetes mellitus (and possibly obesity) and deserves clinical trial in the near future.


Protein Arginine Methyltransferase (PRMT) 5 catalyzes symmetric dimethylation of arginine, a post-translational modification involved in cancer and embryonic development. However, the role of PRMT5 in T helper (Th) cell polarization and Th cell-mediated disease has not yet been elucidated. Here we report that PRMT5 is necessary for Th17 differentiation and EAE, via enhancement of cholesterol biosynthesis and activation of ROR-γt. PRMT5 additionally controls thymic and peripheral homeostasis in the CD4 Th cell life cycle, as well as iNK T and CD8 T cell development or maintenance, respectively. Overall, our two conditional PRMT5 KO models that selectively delete PRMT5 in all T cells (T-PRMT5Δ/Δ) or Th cells (iCD4-PRMT5Δ/Δ) unveil a crucial role for PRMT5 in T cell proliferation, Th17 responses and disease. These results point to Th PRMT5 and its downstream cholesterol biosynthesis pathway as promising therapeutic targets in Th17-mediated diseases.


During the first week of November the U.S. government announced a package of strong measures designed to check the seemingly endless downward drift in the international value of the dollar. Washington was well aware that these steps might set off a recession, especially since one of the planned actions was to attract foreign capital by boosting the already high interest rates even higher. But the authorities, who were long held back from decisive action by fear of the consequences of a new recession, were finally confronted by an even greater danger—the likely onset of a world-wide financial panic.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


The relative roles of genetic differentiation and developmental plasticity in generating latitudinal gradients in life histories remain insufficiently understood. In particular, this applies to determination of voltinism (annual number of generations) in short‐lived ectotherms, and the associated trait values. We studied different components of variation in development of Chiasmia clathrata (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) larvae that originated from populations expressing univoltine, partially bivoltine or bivoltine phenology along a latitudinal gradient of season length. Indicative of population‐level genetic differentiation, larval period became longer while growth rate decreased with increasing season length within a particular phenology, but saw‐tooth clines emerged across the phenologies. Indicative of phenotypic plasticity, individuals that developed directly into reproductive adults had shorter development times and higher growth rates than those entering diapause. The most marked differences between the alternative developmental pathways were found in the bivoltine region suggesting that the adaptive correlates of the direct development evolve if exposed to selection. Pupal mass followed a complex cline without clear reference to the shift in voltinism or developmental pathway probably due to varying interplay between the responses in development time and growth rate. The results highlight the multidimensionality of evolutionary trajectories of life‐history traits, which either facilitate or constrain the evolution of integrated traits in alternative phenotypes.


Biliary atresia (BA) is a rare cholestatic disease, which manifests itself in the form of inflammation of the liver and bile ducts in newborns, with an unknown etiology and a poor outcome. Mx proteins, which are mediators of innate, antiviral resistance induced by type I interferon, were recently detected in the livers of children with BA. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine whether the expression of Mx protein could affect the course of experimental BA in mice. A total of 185 newborn Balb/c mice (expressing dysfunctional Mx protein) and Balb/c-Mx+-A2G mice (with functional Mx protein) were intraperitoneally infected with rhesus rotavirus (RRV) or injected with saline solution as controls. They were sacrificed if they showed signs of cholestasis or at three weeks after infection. The expression of hepatic Mx protein was detected by immunostaining (POX) and the hepatic virus load was determined. There was no significant difference in the incidence of cholestasis between wild-type Balb/c mice and Balb/c-Mx+-A2G mice (67 % vs. 65 %). However, Mx protein was highly expressed in Balb/c-Mx+-A2G mice with BA phenotype, but not in wild type Balb/c mice or disease-free Balb/c-Mx+-A2G mice despite RRV infection. The difference in the hepatic virus load was not statistically significant in mice with BA. In conclusion, Mx protein does not prevent newborn Balb/c mice from developing biliary atresia after RRV infection. However, the expression of Mx protein is independent of the hepatic virus load and could be used as a marker of BA in humans, as well as in the RRV model.


British Columbia leads the world in mined land reclamation. Effective programs for re-integration of the disturbed lands with the surrounding terrain have been developed. Strategies for replacement of substrates that provide suitable characteristics for plant growth as well as protection and isolation of underlying mine wastes from the environment have been applied at a number of mines in British Columbia. Effective systems for the establishment of an appropriate vegetation cover on the reclamation sites are as varied as the biogeoclimatic zones in which they are applied. Similarly, diverse systems for reclamation monitoring and maintenance have been developed at some mines. However, there are mines and sites on some mining properties where large waste rock dumps stand in stark contrast to the surrounding landscape. At some mines or on some sites within a particular mine, waste rock and/or tailings have not been adequately covered with a suitable growth medium and the growth of vegetation is patchy or non-existent. Similarly, although effective revegetation strategies have been applied at some properties, there are sites where dense stands of agronomic grasses and legumes all but preclude the reestablishment of appropriate successional trajectories on the disturbed lands on these sites and the prospects of a self-sustaining vegetation cover are a distant dream. This paper explores the accomplishments and pit-falls in mined land reclamation in British Columbia.


Studying shifts in species diversity through time and space is an essential component of many aspects of biogeography and ecology. In this study, we predict the potential distribution of 61 species of African estrildid finches in order to assess current and past diversity patterns. Models were projected onto two climatic scenarios (Community Climate System Model, CCSM, and Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate, MIROC) representing past climate conditions, as might be expected during the Last Glacial Maximum 21 000 years BP. Subsequent overlays of the resulting potential distributions were conducted under different dispersal assumptions and compared with expert maps. Our results suggest highly similar current distribution patterns obtained by both methods. Projections onto Pleistocene scenarios showed similar patterns, with only small differences under limited and unlimited dispersal assumptions. Looking separately at diversity patterns predicted for forest and savannah species, diversity hot spots of forest species under MIROC conditions were consistent with suggested forest refugia, but were inconsistent under CCSM conditions. According to our models, savannah species were more widely distributed during the cooler and drier conditions of the Pleistocene. By using ecological niche models we show that current diversity patterns of a whole species group may have changed only slightly since the Pleistocene, suggesting a pattern of general spatial stability. However, we emphasize the importance of using different climatic scenarios as well as including the supposed dispersal of organisms in the modelling, as these factors influence results on a broad scale. © 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 102, 455–470. ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: diversity hot spots – ecological niche modelling – Last Glacial Maximum – MAXENT – Pleistocene – refugia.


One of the most challenging problems in real-time operation of power system is the assessment of transient stability. Fast and accurate techniques are imperative to achieve on-line transient stability assessment (TSA). Based on the statistical learning theory, a novel learning-based nonlinear classifier, i.e., the support vector machines (SVMs) for TSA was presented here. In the approach, the feature variables, which describe the system state before and after the occurrence of a fault, were selected for TSA. Abundance of initial data was preprocessed by feature extraction to improve the data quality. By using SVM training, models were built and used to predict the operation state whether is stable or not for given operation data. The validity of the approach was verified by the simulation for the 4933-bus state grid of China system


INTRODUCTION
The current study aimed to investigate the diagnostic performance of metabolic parameters of pre-treatment F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET/computed tomography for predicting axillary lymph node metastases, distant metastases, and overall survival rates in breast cancer patients.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
One hundred thirteen breast cancer patients who underwent pre-treatment F18 [FDG] PET-computed tomography with biopsy-proven axillary lymph node status were included in the current study. In pre-treatment F18 [FDG] PET-computed tomography for primary tumour area maximum standard uptake value, metabolic tumour volume, tumour lesion glycolysis, tumour diameter and for axillary lymph nodes maximum standard uptake value-LN were recorded. Also if distant metastatic sites were observed they were verified.

RESULTS
The median follow-up period was 43.8 months. Five-year overall survival was 98% vs. 56% in patients with tumour diameter < vs. ≥22 mm, 93% vs. 50% in patients with maximum standard uptake value-T < vs. ≥6.7, 71% vs. 70% in patients with metabolic tumour volume < vs. ≥8.31cm, 94% vs. 49% in patients with maximum standard uptake value-LN < vs. ≥1.6, 98% vs. 48% in patients with tumour lesion glycolysis < vs. ≥19 084 g/ml × cm, 90% vs. 30% in patients with negative or positive distant metastases in initial PET/computed tomography, respectively. Maximum standard uptake value-LN with a cut-off level of <1.6 and <5.7 had high sensitivity and specificity for predicting axillary lymph node and systemic metastasis, respectively. Additionally, tumour lesion glycolysis was the strongest independent prognostic factor for overall survival.

CONCLUSION
Our data shows that the combination of pre-treatment tumour lesion glycolysis and maximum standard uptake value-LN could improve risk stratification among breast cancer patients.


Medicines and insecticides are expensive nowadays, this situation propelled the researchers to look into the potential uses of abundant mother-in-law's tongue ( Sansevieria trifasciata Laurentii). This experimental study determined the phytochemical screening and insecticidal testing of mother-in-law's tongue. Three phases were included: extraction, phytochemical screening (Mayer, Wagner, Froth, Color, Fehling, Gelatin & Burchard) and insecticidal testing on different insects. Mean, standard deviation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the data. Results showed that the ethanol extract of the leaves and rhizomes contain alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids, glycosides, tannins , sterols and triterpenes. The leaves and rhizomes of Sansevieria trifasciata can be made into insecticides and more effective than carbamate. The researchers recommend that studies should be conducted for the quantitative analyses of alkaloids, saponins, flavonoids, glycosides, tannins, sterols and triterpenes present in the whole plant. Pharmacological testing and microbio- logical assay of the whole plant are also recommended. The leaves and rhizomes of mother- in- law's tongue can be organic insecticides and are recommended for farmers to use in their crops because these are cheaper and safer. Further studies should be conducted using other concentrations of mother-in-law's tongue leaves and rhizomes or mixed together against insects. Keywords: Botany, phytochemical screening, insecticidal testing, mother-in-law's tongue,Sansevieria trifasciata, carbamate, experimental study, Vigan City, Philippines


PURPOSE
To determine the effects of epidermal growth factor (EGF) on lacrimal gland secretion of proteins and characterize its signal-transducing components.

METHODS
Both exorbital lacrimal glands were removed from male Sprague-Dawley rats. Dispersed acini were isolated by collagenase digestion in Krebs-Ringer bicarbonate (KRB) buffer at 37 degrees C. Acini were incubated with EGF (10(-7) M), the cholinergic agonist carbachol (10(-4) M), or the alpha(1)-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine (10(-4) M), and peroxidase secretion was measured by a fluorescence assay. To measure intracellular calcium ([Ca(2+)](i)), acini were incubated in fura-2 tetra-acetoxymethyl ester for 60 minutes at 22 degrees C, and fluorescence was measured at 340 and 380 nm with an emission wavelength of 505 nm. Extracellular Ca(2+) was chelated with KRB-BSA without CaCl(2) and with 2 mM EGTA before measurement of peroxidase secretion. Protein kinase C (PKC) was downregulated by incubating acini overnight, with or without the phorbol ester, phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA; 10(-6) M), and peroxidase secretion was measured.

RESULTS
EGF-stimulated peroxidase secretion in a concentration-dependent manner with a significant increase at 10(-7) M. EGF-stimulated secretion was inhibited by the EGF receptor (EGFR) inhibitor AG1478, but not by the phosphoinositide-3 kinase inhibitor LY292004 or the mitogen-activated kinase kinase (MEK) inhibitor U0126. EGF increased [Ca(2+)](i), whereas chelation of extracellular Ca(2+) inhibited EGF-induced peroxidase secretion by 90%. Downregulation of PKC also inhibited EGF-stimulated peroxidase secretion.

CONCLUSIONS
EGF stimulates lacrimal gland secretion of protein by activating the EGFR to increase [Ca(2+)](i) and activate PKC.


Instability of the fragile X CGG repeat involves both maternally derived expansions and deletions in the gametes of full-mutation males. It has also been suggested that the absence of aberrant CpG methylation may enhance repeat deletions through an unknown process. The effect of CGG tract length, DNA replication direction, location of replication initiation, and CpG methylation upon CGG stability were investigated using an SV40 primate replication system. Replication-dependant deletions with 53 CGG repeats were observed when replication was initiated proximal to the repeat, with CGG as the lagging-strand template. When we initiated replication further from the repeat, while maintaining CGG as the lagging-strand template or using CCG as the lagging-strand template, significant instability was not observed. CpG methylation of the unstable template stabilized the repeat, decreasing both the frequency and the magnitude of deletion events. Furthermore, CpG methylation slowed the efficiency of replication for all templates. Interestingly, replication forks displayed no evidence of a block at the CGG repeat tract, regardless of replication direction or CpG methylation status. Templates with 20 CGG repeats were stable under all circumstances. These results reveal that CGG deletions occur during replication and are sensitive to replication-fork dynamics, tract length, and CpG methylation.


Tandem Scanning Confocal Microscopy (TSCM) is a non-invasive form of vital microscopy which can be used to evaluate superficial uriniferous tubules in living kidneys. Because TSCM has a number of advantages over conventional microscopic examination of renal biopsies, the present study was undertaken to determine whether the histopathological images obtained by TSCM can be correlated with post-transplant renal function. The kidneys of New Zealand male rabbits were harvested, flushed in Euro-Collins solution, and stored at 0-2 degrees C for periods of 24, 48, 67 and 72 hours prior to transplantation. As expected, there was a significant deterioration in post-transplant renal function as the kidneys were stored for longer periods of time. TSCM observations of the kidneys prior to their transplantation revealed characteristic histopathological changes of the proximal convoluted tubules which correlated closely with post-transplant renal function. These observations support the proposed use of TSCM in evaluating human donor kidneys prior to their transplantation.


Background Three national HIV household surveys were conducted in South Africa, in 2002, 2005 and 2008. A novelty of the 2008 survey was the addition of serological testing to ascertain antiretroviral treatment (ART) use. Methods and Principal Findings We used a validated mathematical method to estimate the rate of new HIV infections (HIV incidence) in South Africa using nationally representative HIV prevalence data collected in 2002, 2005 and 2008. The observed HIV prevalence levels in 2008 were adjusted for the effect of antiretroviral treatment on survival. The estimated "excess" HIV prevalence due to ART in 2008 was highest among women 25 years and older and among men 30 years and older. In the period 2002–2005, the HIV incidence rate among men and women aged 15–49 years was estimated to be 2.0 new infections each year per 100 susceptible individuals (/100pyar) (uncertainty range: 1.2–3.0/100pyar). The highest incidence rate was among 15–24 year-old women, at 5.5/100pyar (4.5–6.5). In the period 2005–2008, incidence among men and women aged 15–49 was estimated to be 1.3/100 (0.6–2.5/100pyar), although the change from 2002–2005 was not statistically significant. However, the incidence rate among young women aged 15–24 declined by 60% in the same period, to 2.2/100pyar, and this change was statistically significant. There is evidence from the surveys of significant increases in condom use and awareness of HIV status, especially among youth. Conclusions Our analysis demonstrates how serial measures of HIV prevalence obtained in population-based surveys can be used to estimate national HIV incidence rates. We also show the need to determine the impact of ART on observed HIV prevalence levels. The estimation of HIV incidence and ART exposure is crucial to disentangle the concurrent impact of prevention and treatment programs on HIV prevalence.


When we open our closet doors each morning, we seldom consider what our sartorial choices say, whether we tend toward jeans and a well-worn concert T-shirt or wingtips and a three-piece suit. Yet, how we dress divulges more than whether we crave comfort or couture; our clothing communicates who we are and how we relate to our culture. But how does a Balenciaga bag or a tough leather jacket topped by liberty spikes signify these things? Fashion in Popular Culture considers this question. Combining fashion theory with approaches from literature, art, advertising, music, media studies, material studies, and sociology, contributors from across Europe, Australia, and the United States consider the function of fashion within popular culture. Fashion, they show, has the capacity to both influence and be influenced by popular culture, and its meaning is also contingent upon context. Chapters in the book cover both historical and contemporary concerns, addressing a variety of other questions, including the role fashion plays in subcultures. For students and scholars of fashion and popular culture-or anyone fascinated by what clothing can convey-ashion in Popular Culture offers an engaging, interdisciplinary analysis.


OBJECTIVE
To observe the effect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on ileus-postope-rative gastrointestinal functions and plasma ghrelin, motilin, and gastrin contents, and heart rate variability (HRV) in patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery, so as to explore the interaction of vagus-brain-gut peptide.

METHODS
A total of 58 patients undergoing elective gastrointestinal surgery were randomly assigned to TEAS (n=29) and sham-TEAS group (n=29, patients had no subjective sensation to 1 mA TEAS, thus, being considered to be sham-TEAS). TEAS (2 Hz/100 Hz, 6-8 mA for LI 4-PC 6, 12-18 mA for ST 36-SP 6) was applied to bilateral Hegu (LI 4)-Neiguan (PC 6) from 30 min pre-operation to the end of the operation and to bilateral LI 4-PC 6 and Zusanli (ST 36)-Sanyinjiao (SP 6) for 30 minutes twice daily in 3 consecutive post-operative days. ECGs of 12 leads were recorded to analyze different parameters of HRV from 2 days before and 4 days after surgery. Plasma ghrelin, motilin and gastrin contents were assayed by radioimmunoassay, and the patients' first bowel sound, first independent walk, first flatus, first solid food-intake and first defecation were recorded to evaluate the recovery state of gastrointestinal motility.

RESULTS
Postoperative gastrointestinal motility:compared with the sham-TEAS group, the first bowel sound and the first defecation after surgery appeared apparently earlier in the TEAS group (P<0.05), but no significant differences were found between the two groups at the time of the first independent walk, first flatus and the first solid food-intake in patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery. Plasma brain-gut peptides:the plasma ghrelin and motilin contents 4 days post-surgery were significant increased in the TEAS group than in the sham-TEAS group (P<0.05). No significant difference was found between the two groups in plasma gastrin contents (P>0.05). HRV domains:in comparison with pre-surgery, the levels of low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) of frequency domain (FD) and root mean square of successive differences (rMSSD) of the time domain (TD) of HRV 4 days after surgery were significantly decreased in the sham-TEAS group (P<0.05), but no significant changes were found in both FD and TD domains of the TEAS group 4 days after surgery (P>0.05). Compared with the sham-TEAS group, the HF and rMSSD levels were significantly increased in the TEAS group 4 days after the surgery (P<0.05). No significant differences were found between the two groups in the levels of very low frequency, LF and LF/HF levels of FD, and standard deviation of NN (beat-to-beat) intervals, the standard deviation of the average NN intervals and the proportion of NN 50 (the number of pairs of successive NNs that differ by more than 50 ms) divided by total number of NNs of TD.

CONCLUSIONS
TEAS can promote gastrointestinal activities (i.e., reducing the time spending of first bowel sound and the first defecation) in gastrointestinal surgery patients, which may be related to its effects in up-regulating ghrelin and motilin contents and parasympathetic activity.


CONTEXT
Microbial invasion of the amniotic fluid (AF) cavity stimulates an inflammatory response that involves activin-A, a pleiotropic mediator member of the TGFβ superfamily involved in connective tissue remodeling. The role of AF follistatin, a natural inhibitor of activin-A, in inflammation-induced preterm birth (PTB), has yet to be determined.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of the study was to investigate the relationships between AF activin-A and follistatin in physiological gestation and in pregnancies complicated by PTB and to evaluate a possible role played by the activin-A-follistatin balance in processes leading to PTB and preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM).

STUDY DESIGN
The AF levels of total activin-A and follistatin were immunoassayed in 168 women with a normal pregnancy outcome or PTB with and without intraamniotic inflammation or PPROM. The impact of the activin-A-follistatin imbalance on PTB terminal effector pathways (prostaglandins [prostaglandin E2, prostaglandin F2α] and matrix metalloproteinases [MMP-1, MMP-2, MMP-3, and MMP-9]) was investigated in an amniochorion explant system challenged with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to mimic inflammation.

RESULTS
AF follistatin and the activin-A to follistatin ratio varied with gestational age, both decreasing toward term (P < .001). Activin-A was up-regulated in AF infection (>2-fold elevation in activin-A to follistatin ratio) correlating directly with severity of inflammation (both P < .001). Activin-A increased prostaglandins, MMP-1, and MMP-9 released by amniochorion (P < .05) to LPS-equivalent levels. Follistatin effectively blunted the prostaglandin response to activin-A and LPS and that of MMPs after activin-A but not after LPS challenge.

CONCLUSION
Activin-A and follistatin are part of the complex inflammatory response of the gestational sac to infection and modulate effector pathways leading to PTB. The activin-A to follistatin ratio may play a role in determining the clinical phenotype of PTB as preterm labor or PPROM.


We construct a theory for the semiclassical dynamics of superconducting quasiparticles by following their wave packet motion and reveal rich contents of Berry curvature effects in the phase space spanned by position and momentum. These Berry curvatures are traced back to the characteristics of superconductivity, including the nontrivial momentum-space geometry of superconducting pairing, the real-space supercurrent, and the charge dipole of quasiparticles. The Berry-curvature effects strongly influence the spectroscopic and transport properties of superconductors, such as the local density of states and the thermal Hall conductivity. As a model illustration, we apply the theory to study the twisted bilayer graphene with a d_{x^{2}+y^{2}}+id_{xy} superconducting gap function and demonstrate Berry-curvature induced effects.


A series of meso- O-aryl functionalized BODIPY trimers positioned along the C3-symmetric axis of triazine ring have newly been synthesized to probe the ground and excited state intramolecular type interactions between the BODIPY entities within the trimer. The developed synthetic strategy resulted in BODIPY trimers in good yields. The electron rich, meso- O-aryl functionalized BODIPYs revealed larger HOMO-LUMO gap and higher Stokes shift and fluorescence lifetimes compared to the traditional BODIPY derivatives having an aryl group attached at the meso position. The optical absorption, steady-state fluorescence, and electrochemical studies revealed weak, if any, intramolecular type interactions among the BODIPY entities within the trimer and the central triazine unit to be both photo- and redox-salient. The possibility of singlet-singlet energy migration among the BODIPY entities was investigated using time-resolved emission and femtosecond transient absorption studies. Excitation of a BODIPY entity in the trimers led to successful formation of 1BODIPY*, which populated the 3BODIPY* via intersystem crossing. Among the three trimers, although very weak, only trimer 8 revealed excitation transfer to some extent. The present findings suggest that the meso- O-aryl functionalized BODIPYs due to their superior fluorescence properties are better probes to build light energy harvesting supramolecular oligomeric systems and for other applications such as sensing and imaging.


Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)‐based materials have been recently identified as promising electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, little work has been done to improve the catalytic performance of MoS2 toward HER in alkaline electrolytes, which is more suitable for water splitting in large‐scale applications. Here, it is reported that the hybridization of 0D nickel hydr(oxy)oxide nanoparticles with 2D metallic MoS2 nanosheets can significantly enhance the HER activities in alkaline and neutral electrolytes. Impressively, the optimized hybrid catalyst can drive a cathodic current density of 10 mA cm−2 at an overpotential of ≈73 mV for HER in 1 m KOH, about 185 mV smaller than the original MoS2. The improved HER activity is attributed to a bifunctional mechanism adopted in these hybrid catalysts, in which nickel hydr(oxy)oxide promotes the water adsorption and dissociation to supply protons for subsequent reactions occurred on MoS2 to generate H2.


The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the generalized fractional integration of the generalized M-series.Some results derived by Saxena and Saigo [13], Samko, Kilbas and Marichev [15] are the special cases of the main results derived in this paper.


This paper presents a scale model excavator intended to allow for studies on human-machine interactions. In the past, this work has been performed on full-scale equipment which can be dangerous and costly to acquire and operate, or fully in simulation, which requires high precision models of complex effects such as soil forces (e.g. using the Discrete Element Method, DEM, simulating thousands of particles). Also simulation models with scenes projected on computer monitors or in virtual reality may not be realistic enough for the human operator to be fully immersed and behave in a realistic manner. The motion of the small-scale excavator presented here is directed by a digital model of a hydraulic machine given inputs of operator commands and actuator forces, allowing it to mimic the behavior of various hydraulic architectures (e.g. pressure compensated load sensing vs open center vs closed center systems). The excavator is used to dig in physical soils, generating realistic soil-tool interaction forces (which are fed back into the digital machine model) without the need for computationally expensive DEM models. This allows for rapid, low-cost evaluation of various hardware modifications as well as human-machine interaction effects. We also present some preliminary data from a pilot study investigating energy efficiency.


The polarization properties of a two-axis periscopic optical scanner constituted by a pair of rotating planar mirrors have been studied by using the three-dimensional polarization ray-tracing matrix method. The separate and cumulative matrices that define the transformation of the polarization state are obtained and expressed in terms of the rotation angles of two mirrors. The variations of diattenuation and retardance are investigated and graphically shown as functions of the rotation angles. On this basis, a further investigation about the cumulative polarization aberrations of three different metal-coated periscopic scanners is accomplished. Finally, the output polarization states of the three metal-coated scanners are calculated with the input beam of the arbitrary polarization states, and the results show that aluminum film is more appropriate than gold film or silver film for the polarization-maintaining periscopic scanner.


Abstract The organization of construction in the People's Republic of China has over recent decades undergone radical restructuring. The announcement of Deng Xiaoping's Open Door strategy in 1978 marked the beginning of the transition towards the espoused socialist market economy and the progressive introduction of market mechanisms. Existing research tends to focus on the derivation of "critical success factors" rather than the lived realities of those directly involved. In contrast, the current paper adopts a sensemaking perspective that privileges the transient roles and identities of those involved in the micro-processes of project organizing. The empirical focus lies on the sensemaking narratives of middle managers within three state-owned construction enterprises in the Chongqing city region. The findings illustrate how market mechanisms such as bidding and tendering play out in complex ways involving hybrid arrangements between new and pre-existing ways of working. The terminology of project management is seen to have played a performative role in establishing the "project" as the essential unit around which the socialist market is organized. Middle managers are further found to maintain multiple identities in response to the experienced paradoxes of the socialist market economy. The research provides new insights into the micro-processes of project organizing in China with broader implications for transitional economies elsewhere.


In this study, a longitudinal pitch effect on in-line tube bank heat transfer has been analyzed numerically. To verify the accuracy of the solver model and boundary conditions, global Nusselt number(Nu) and pressure drop across the 2 row tube bank are compared with the existing experimental correlations under 500 ~ 2,000 Reynolds number(Re) range. By changing transverse pitch(ST) or longitudinal pitch(SL) separately in tube bank, we're trying to identify the each effect on heat transfer. We found that the effect of transverse pitch can be accounted for Reynolds number evaluated with maximum velocity(Vmax) at the smallest flow area similar to most existing correlations. Variation of the longitudinal pitch(SL) has a greater impact on the heat transfer compared to the transverse pitch(ST). Overall Nusselt number increases with larger longitudinal pitch(SL), however individual Nusselt number of the tube row has significant difference after the first row.


We report two infants who underwent right pneumonectomy in infancy and developed postpneumonectomy syndrome with obstruction of the left main bronchus causing severe airway obstruction in one patient and gastrointestinal reflux due to a displaced and grossly dilated oesophagus in the other patient. Both patients were operated with implantation of an expandable breast prosthesis.


ABSTRACT Objective: The study investigated the effect of prehabilitation on the quality of life and function in patients having total knee replacement (TKR)/total hip replacement (THR). Methods: A pilot randomized controlled trial with concealed allocation, assessor blinding, and intention-to-treat analysis was conducted. Sixty-four people undergoing elective lower-limb arthroplasty were included. Prehabilitation included one-hour twice-weekly sessions for at least three and a maximum of four weeks prior to surgery. Control participants did not complete any pre-surgical programs. Health utility and quality of life as measured by the EQ-5D-3L and the patient-specific functional scale were the primary outcomes measured before allocation and eight weeks post-operatively. Results: No between-group differences were evident in health utility (main effect of the group −0.04 (95% Confidence Interval [CI] −0.16 to 0.08, p = 0.50) or patient-specific functional scale (main effect of the group −0.59 (95% CI −1.8 to 0.6, p = 0.73), but the group-by-joint interaction effects for the timed up and go (TUG) (7.6 (95% CI −0.9 to 16.1, p = 0.08)) and the EQ-5D VAS (−18.3 (95% CI −41.1 to 4.5), p = 0.11) were larger. Prehabilitation participants' knee flexion improved by 12.6 degrees (95% CI 5.2–20, p = 0.001). Conclusions: Prehabilitation improved knee flexion, but this did not translate into improved functional mobility or quality of life.