We studied the development of optic tract evoked field potentials (FP) in the rodent superior colliculus (SC) and the effect of GABA antagonists upon their development and upon induction of long‐term depression (LTD). Brain slices were cut from Lister Hooded rats. The optic tract was stimulated while recording from the superficial grey layer. GABAergic inhibition was assessed by adding 100 µm picrotoxin and 3 µm CGP55845 antagonists to block GABAA,B,C receptors. LTD was induced with a 50 Hz, 20 s tetanus. At age P2, the FP consisted only of a presynaptic spike. The GABA antagonists had no effect. By P4, the FP consisted of a presynaptic spike, a longer latency population spike, and a field excitatory postsynaptic potential (fEPSP). The fEPSP was slightly prolonged by the GABA antagonists at this age. By P7–P14, a prominent FP with trailing fEPSP was recorded. The GABA antagonists usually had a large effect, with the fEPSP increasing in both amplitude and duration. A mature FP was usually recorded in P15–P23 slices where the GABA antagonist effect remained substantial. LTD could be induced in 17 of 30 control slices from rats aged P4–P26. The average fEPSP amplitude after tetanus was 77.9% of control. Pre‐treatment with GABA antagonists produced a short‐term potentiation (average 114.0%), rather than LTD, in 14 of 19 cases. This STP was followed by a more prolonged potentiation in 12 of the 14 cases. We conclude that GABAergic inhibitory circuits mature before eye opening and that GABA contributes to induction of LTD in the developing SC.


Since little is known about the effect of decreased haematocrit (Hct) on lung function, we assessed the acute effects of haemodilution during stable haemodynamic condition on respiratory mechanical parameters and lung volume changes on anaesthetized intubated minipigs (n=8). After control condition, stepwise 10 ml/kg blood withdrawals were compensated with 30 ml/kg of crystalloid to maintain stable haemodynamics. Forced oscillation technique was used to measure airway resistance (Raw), respiratory tissue damping (G) and elastance (H). Effective lung volume (ELV) was measured from the CO2 elimination traces. Extravascular lung water (EVLW) was determined by thermodilution. Respiratory and haemodynamic measurements were made before and following each step of haemodilution. Haemodilution led to an increase in Raw (up to 20%) and decrease in G (up to – 40%), with significant correlations with Hct levels (R=-0.67 and 0.67 for Raw and G respectively, p< 0.0001). ELV decreased in parallel with a slight but significant increase in H (r=0.66, p< 0.0001) and EVLW.
 Our data suggest that haemodilution affects the lung function and these changes correlate with the Hct values. The increase in EVLW indicates that this regimen leads to overcompensation, which may explain the increases in Raw and the loss of ELV. The decreases in G with Hct may be due to the altered blood rheology affecting the lung tissue viscoelasticity.


Extraction of 3D geometry from hand-held unsteady uncalibrated cameras faces multiple difficulties: finding usable frames, feature-matching and unknown variable focal length to name three. We have built a prototype system to allow a user to spatially navigate playback viewpoints of an event of interest, using geometry automatically recovered from casually captured videos. The system, whose workings we present in this paper, necessarily estimates not only scene geometry, but also relative viewpoint position, overcoming the mentioned difficulties in the process. The only inputs required are video sequences from various viewpoints of a common scene, as are readily available online from sporting and music events. Our methods make no assumption of the synchronization of the input and do not require file metadata, instead exploiting the video to self-calibrate. The footage need only contain some camera rotation with little translation --- for hand-held event footage a likely occurrence.


The study of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has focused largely on identifying diagnostic correlates and the functions of this behavior; however, little is known about the broader range of factors related to NSSI. We examined a wide array of factors hypothesized to correlate with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and provided a qualitative analysis of adolescents' self-reported motivations for starting and stopping this behavior. Participants were 64 adolescents with a history of NSSI and 30 comparison adolescents without such a history matched on age, sex, and ethnicity recruited from the community and assessed during one laboratory visit. The presence of NSSI was associated with a family history of suicidal ideation, violence, and drug and alcohol abuse, but not with more general forms of psychopathology. NSSI also was associated with the presence of in utero complications, the occurrence of non-injurious repetitive behaviors during childhood, and endorsement of a homosexual or bisexual orientation. Self-injurers reported getting the idea to self-injure from peers (38%) more often than any other source, and most (78%) reported at least one reason for wanting to stop self-injury. Less than half were currently receiving treatment. This exploratory study provides new information about the correlates of NSSI that has implications for research and clinical work in this area.


In patients with hyperosmolality as the sole cause or as an important factor in the production of the coma, therapy with hypotonic or isotonic fluids and with insulin, often in amounts less than those generally used in diabetic ketoacidosis, has proved effective in restoring consciousness in many, but not all, instances of hyperosmolar coma. The mortality, however, has been high, usually because of uremia, stroke, massive infection, pancreatitis, etc.


Social and emotional impairments are frequently reported following acquired brain injury, including an inability to adopt another's perspective, empathize, and display guilt, and inappropriate social conduct. Case studies suggest that these problems are particularly apparent when the injury is sustained in childhood, with deficits increasing with age and persisting throughout adulthood. In addition to these deficits, individuals may have limited insight into their cognitive or social-emotional deficits, which in turn may also affect social functioning and have implications for the success of rehabilitation. Despite the frequency of these problems, there is a dearth of suitable measures for detecting them in children or adolescents. The purpose of the current study was to develop one such measure from a measure initially intended for adults. Normative data were collected from 109 typically-developing 11- to 14-year-olds and their parent/guardian on the Social-Emotional Questionnaire for Children (SEQ-C). Factor and reliability analyses were conducted and the subscales were then explored in association with key demographic information. Social-emotional development showed a fluctuating course across early adolescence, alongside some gender differences. This measure, with its normative data, will be of value to neuropsychologists wishing to explore such functioning in their clinical practice.


Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC

Gene expression signatures are used clinically as prognostic tools to determine the risk of individual patients with localized breast tumors developing distant metastasis. However, we lack a clear understanding of whether these correlative biomarkers link to a common biological network that regulates metastasis. METHODS: In order to address this question, we analyzed thirteen different well-described (including two in clinical use) "poor outcome" cancer signatures in a cell line model of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer (MCF7) manipulated by diverse oncogenic stimuli. RESULTS: We find that the c-MYC oncoprotein coordinately regulates the expression of these thirteen different "poor outcome" cancer signatures. In addition, functional inactivation of MYC in human breast cancer cells specifically inhibits their distant metastasis in vivo and invasive behavior in vitro. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that MYC oncogene activity, as reflected by "poor prognosis" signature expression, may be necessary for the translocation of "poor outcome" human breast tumors to distant sites.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3300.


The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) can be a viable tool for organizations to clarify their privacy promises. In this paper, we summarize our experiences and describe some of the problems we have encountered when using P3P. Our main criticisms on P3P are its complicated structure, ambiguities in the specification, and missing guidelines for user agents. We suggest several improvements such as an extended but simplified syntax and a revised consent model that groups opt-in/opt-out choices into one "consent block", which can be associated with multiple statements.


Many statisticians and other scientists use what is commonly called the "delta method." However, few people know who proposed it. The earliest article was found in an obscure journal, and the author is rarely cited for his contribution. This article briefly reviews three modern versions of the delta method and how they are used. Then, some history on the author and the journal of the first known article on the delta method is given. The original author's specific contribution is reproduced, along with a discussion on possible reasons that it has been overlooked.


Reddish cuprous oxide crystals can be readily formed by irradiating an aqueous alkaline Cu(II) solution containing suitable complexing agents with UV or sunlight in the presence of a photocatalyst such as TiO 2 or ZnO. Various factors, including the Cu(II) concentration, pH of the Cu(II) solution, amount of TiO 2 catalyst, method used to agitate the test suspension, concentration of potassium sodium tartarate, and intensity of UV radiation, affecting cuprous oxide preparations were investigated. Concentrations of Cu(II) and potassium sodium tartarate have no significant effect on reaction rates, white pH. and amount of TiO 2 , play important roles in the reaction. The dispersion of TiO 2 in Cu(II) solution is another important factor. Cu(II) reduction rate is not affected as far as the amount of reduced Cu(II) plotted against the cumulative intensity of UV radiation is concerned. It is necessary to stop the cuprous oxide formation before the complete reduction of Cu(II), since metallic copper is formed on cuprous oxide.


Objective: Here, we compared the fluorescence spectra from in vitro models containing advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) with human skin. Methods: The in vitro samples were prepared from glycated human serum albumin (HSA-Glc (+), (–)), pentosidine (a typical fluorescent AGE), and bovine skins. Fluorescence data from the skin of 11 healthy people were collected. We used a commercially available fluorometer to measure fluorescence at 370 nm excitation. The correlation of fluorescence intensity, age, and skin auto fluorescence was assessed using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results::The peak fluorescence of HSA- Glc (+) and pentosidine were close to 440 nm, and a peak fluorescence at 451 nm was observed in the spectra of human and bovine skin. The fluorescence intensity of human skin at 440 nm might be positively correlated with age (r = 0.582, p = 0.060) and skin AF (r = 0.832, p = 0.001). Conclusion: The in vitro results demonstrate that fluorescence intensity at 370/440 nm indicates fluorescent AGEs products. Since the fluorescence spectrum of glycated HSA and human skin are similar, it may be feasible to measure the degree of glycation in living tissue by measuring AGEs fluorescence.


Cadmium (Cd) is a pollutant with multiple adverse health effects: cancer, renal dysfunction, osteoporosis and fracture, and cardiovascular disease. Several population-based studies found an association between Cd and diabetes mellitus (DM), but this association is inconsistent with other research. We conducted meta-analysis to examine relationship between urinary/blood Cd exposure and DM risk. Pertinent studies were identified by searching PubMed and Embase databases, and combined odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were applied to evaluate said association. Meta-analysis showed that high U-Cd exposure is not correlated with DM risk (OR = 1.19; 95% CI = 0.83–1.71), and high B-Cd exposure is also not associated with increased risk of DM (OR = 1.16; 95% CI = 0.84-1.62) in the general population. Subgroup and sensitivity analysis proved similar results, with little evidence of publication bias. This meta-analysis suggests that high U-Cd/B-Cd exposure may not be risk factor for DM in general populations. However, large prospective studies are needed to confirm this finding.


Five clonal cell strains of an early-passage normal rat liver epithelial cell line were transformed spontaneously using the protocol of "selective culture" condition. Twelve cell lines were established from the tumors produced after injecting these transformed cells into 1-day-old syngeneic rats. The phenotypic expressions of these spontaneously transformed tumor cell lines were studied and compared to those of cell lines obtained from tumors produced by rat liver epithelial cells transformed by N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine. Like the chemically induced tumor cells, spontaneously transformed tumor cells exhibited phenotypic heterogeneity in the expression of isoenzymes, proto-oncogenes, growth factors and their receptors, and cellular responses to the effect of growth factors. However, unlike the chemically induced tumor cells, these spontaneously induced tumor cells did not express the "resistant phenotypes" characteristic of chemically induced or promoted tumors. Although all the spontaneously induced tumor cell lines expressed variable amounts of transforming growth factor-alpha mRNA, it was not functionally coordinated with the expression of its receptor, the epidermal growth factor receptor. Thus, spontaneously transformed rat liver epithelial cells demonstrate both similarity and diversity in their phenotypic expression when compared to their chemically induced counterpart. This model of spontaneous transformation of cultured rat liver epithelial cells may be useful for the mechanistic study of non-chemically induced carcinogenesis.


The  purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of web quality, fulfillment, and satisfaction and its impact on repurchase intention of e-commerce customers. This type of research used survey methods, the population in this study were all Tokopedia consumers in Pontianak city-Indonesia. The sample in this study used 100 respondents using purposive  sampling technique and the data analysis carried out with path analysis. Results of the first substructure was fulfillment and web quality had positive effect to satisfaction. The second substructure was the fulfillment did not effect the repurchase intention while the web quality and satisfaction variables had positive effect on repurchase intention. Satisfaction mediated the effect of fullfillment and web quality on repurchase intention.


In a magnetofluid, magnetic and velocity fluctuations B' and ν' can generate a mean electromotive force along the mean magnetic field, which has been termed the alpha-effect. In the present paper the mathematical relationship between the alpha-effect and the mean current helicity of the fluctuations, ⟨B' · curl B'⟩, hitherto proven for the case that i) either the magnetic or the velocity fluctuations are statistically homogeneous and stationary, ii) the first-order smoothing approximation (FOSA) is valid, and iii) the mean flow, ⟨ν⟩, vanishes, is rederived, assuming the magnetic fluctuations to be stationary and the coupled magnetic-electric fluctuations to be homogeneous, but without using FOSA and allowing for a non-vanishing mean flow.


Anne Spence, University of Maryland-Baltimore County ANNE M. SPENCE is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UMBC and holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering. During her thirteen years as an engineering educator, she has developed curricula, directed programs to increase the recruitment and retention of women in engineering, and developed hands on engineering programs designed to foster an interest in engineering among elementary, middle and high school students. She manages a number of NSF grants related to engineering education.


The origin of the magnetic anisotropy of the antiferromagnetic (AF) layer and the role of it on the magnetization process of exchange-coupled ferromagnetic/AF bilayers are discussed. Through the magnetic torque analysis of a polycrystalline Ni–Fe/Mn–Ir bilayer and a pseudo-single crystalline Ni–Fe/Mn–Ni bilayer, the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the antiferromagnet is strongly suggested to be the origin of the magnetic anisotropy of the AF layer. The single spin ensemble model is newly introduced for polycrystalline bilayers, taking into account the two-dimensional random distribution of the magnetic-anisotropy axes of AF grains. The mechanism of the reversible inducement of exchange anisotropy along desirable directions, as achieved by a field cooling procedure, is successfully elucidated with the new model. According to the simple exchange-anisotropy model established by Meiklejohn and Bean (1957), magnetic torque curves are analysed for a pseudo-single crystalline bilayer, the AF layer thickness of which is less than the critical value necessary to induce an exchange bias field. The anisotropy energy of Mn82Ni18, determined from the saturation torque amplitude, is 3.2×105 erg cm−3 with two-fold symmetry in (110), 1.4×104 erg cm−3 with four-fold symmetry in (001), and 7×103 erg cm−3 with six-fold symmetry in (111), respectively.


The real degree of constriction of rotating hinge knee (RHK) and condylar constrained prostheses (CCK) is a matter of discussion in revision knee arthroplasty. The objectives of this study are to compare the tibial rotation of both implants and validate the use of inertial sensors with optical tracking system as movement measurement tools. A total of 16 cadaver knees were used. Eight knees were replaced using a RHK (Endomodel LINK), and the remaining 8 received a CCK prosthesis (LCCK, Zimmer). Tibial rotation range of motion was measured in full extension and at 30°, 60°, and 90° of flexion, with 4 continuous waveforms for each measurement. Measurements were made using 2 inertial sensors with specific software and compared with measurements obtained using the gold standard technique - the motion capture camera. The comparison of the accuracy of both measurement methods showed no statistically significant differences between inertial sensors and motion capture cameras, with p > 0.1; the mean error for tibial rotation was 0.21°. Tibial rotation in the RHK was significantly greater than in the CCK (5.25º vs. 2.28º, respectively), p <0.05. We have shown that RHK permit greater tibial rotation, being closer to physiological values than CCKs. Inertial sensors have been validated as an effective and accurate method of measuring knee movement. The clinical significance: RHK appears to represent a lower constriction degree than CCK systems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


Response surface methodology was used to design and evaluate the experimental variables for Pd-B/γ-Al2O3 catalyst preparation. The catalyst was prepared by impregnation and chemical reduction. Thirteen different samples of the catalyst were prepared at different KOH concentrations and annealed at various temperatures, before applying them in palm oil hydrogenation. Hydrogenation was performed on a 0.12% PdB/γ-Al2O3 catalyst at a temperature of 393 K, hydrogen pressure of 500 kPa and agitation of 500 rpm for 1 h. The iodine value (IV) and trans fatty acids (TFAs) content responses were measured for each hydrogenated palm oil sample. The predicted models were verified for both responses and found to be statistically adequate. An optimization study was performed on the catalyst preparation variables for minimizing both IV and TFAs content. The Pd-B/γ-Al2O3 prepared under optimized conditions exhibited 47% higher conversion and 22% lower trans-isomerization selectivity than Escat 1241 commercial catalyst. The Pd-B/γ-Al2O3 catalyst preparation variables have a noticeable effect on palm oil hydrogenation conversion and trans-isomerization selectivity.


The construction of tertiary alkylamines is a synthetic challenge exacerbated by the poor electrophilicity of imines. Due to the presence of this kind of building block in a large number of bioactive molecules, the development of new strategies to synthesise the quaternary carbon centre is essential.This thesis describes the work carried out on the rearrangement of lithiated vinyl ureas in order to form ?-tertiary amines. The first part presents how vinyl ureas were synthesised, using the reaction between an imine and an aryl isocyanate. The development of one-pot process allows the synthesis of a range of ureas in large scale. These vinyl ureas present unusual reactivity: the electron-rich double bond can undergo syn umpolung carbolithiation followed by retentive aryl migration in order to generate highly substituted amines after cleavage of the urea. The complete mechanism is investigated to understand fully the diastereoselective pathway of the reaction.In the next part, the rearrangement of lithiated ureas is extended to the N to C vinyl transfer. Different vinyl migrating group are investigated and ?-tertiary amines have been synthesised in high yields and enantiomerically pure form using this new rearrangement. The mechanistic insights of the reaction are also studied and a retentive mechanism will be identified. Finally, N to C vinyl transfer is applied toward the synthesis of Erythrina alkaloids.


Climatic indices reflecting the environmental conditions and patterns of their variability in the entire northern Pacific and in its local regions are overviewed. Their physical nature and mechanisms of the processes, their geography and methods of calculation are presented, with citing of the first descriptions. Among a variety of global and regional climatic indices concern ing the North Pacific, the following ones are described: the indices of Arctic Oscillation (AO), El Nino — Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Aleutian Low Pressure Index (ALPI), Siberian High Index (SHI), North Pacific Index (NPI), Pacific/North American (PNA) Index, and West Pacific Index (WP). AO is a large-scale index of atmospheric circulation reflecting the processes both in the troposphere and stratosphere, where «pumping» of air masses between the high and moderate latitudes occurs continuously. ENSO is also a large-scale index that reflects large-scale interactions in the fields of temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, and cloudiness over the whole Pacific. Other indices are rather regional, since their influence does not extend far beyond the limits of the domains of their definition. Nevertheless, their role in environmental fluctuations in certain areas could be significant and their influence could be traced throughout the Northern Hemisphere.


This article addresses the unintended consequences of using house arrest for female offenders as an alternative to prison for drug-related crimes. We propose that in patriarchal societies, locking women at home could imply moving them to another control device that may be as harmful as prison. Thereby, house arrest creates an unintended effect in which domestication in traditional gender roles ends up being the primary target of female offender punishment.


Critical infrastructures are the most important sector in countries because of the essentiality of nation security, public safety, socioeconomic security, and way of life. According to the importance of infrastructures, it is a necessity to analyze the potential risks to do not allow these risks convert into events. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a developed framework with the aim to overcome limitations of the classical approach to build a more secure, safer, and more resilient critical infrastructures in order to develop, implement, control. The proposed framework extends conventional RAMCAP (Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Asset Protection) through introducing new parameters the effects on risk value. According to the complexity of problem and the inherent uncertainty, this research adopts the fuzzy TOPSIS as a fuzzy multi criteria decision making technique to determine the weights of each criterion and the importance of alternatives with respect to criteria. Case analysis is implemented to illustrate the capability and effectiveness of the model for ranking the risk of critical infrastructures. The proposed model demonstrates a significant improvement in comparison with conventional RAMCAP.


The S isomer of Ftorafur was synthesized and the ability of the latter to inhibit growth of cultured human fibroblasts was determined relative to both the R isomer and the racemic mixture (Ftorafur) that is presently used clinically. No significant difference in the cytotoxic effects or the relative abilities to prevent an increase in cell numbers was observed with the three forms. Inhibition of DNA synthesis in murine L1210 leukemia cells by either isomer was observed only after prolonged (18-hr) exposure. The data suggest that Ftorafur is a repository form of 5-fluorouracil and that activity is manifested equally by both isomers.


The problems associated with crankcase oils for engines using liquefied petroleum gas as a fuel are largely those involving oxidation and excessive ash. Engine oils for propane or natural gas service, therefore, must be formulated to control combustion chamber deposits which may promote preignition and spark plug fouling and to resist oxidative deterioration. These requirements define an LP-Gas engine oil composition as a virtually ashless product with excellent oxidation stability. Generally, since propane/natural gas fuels produce no liquid byproducts to act as a temperature quench and, in addition, burn cleanly and completely, combustion temperatures are high. Fuel combustion properties and other factors such as exhaust blow-by determine the performance characteristics needed by LP-Gas engine oils as superior dispersancy for oil oxidation products, high-temperature oxidation inhibition, rust protection, antiwear and extreme pressure (load carrying) qualities, and pour-point depression. The details of an additive system supplying these performance properties is given. The proposed formulation has Supplement I compounding and satisfactorily meets the service requirements of both automotive and high, medium, and slow speed industrial engines.


In the recent years, due to proliferation of the internet and smart
computing there has been progress in the areas of energy, manufacturing, oil and gas, smart grid
and other industrial applications. The progress in these areas is due to the advances in the emerging
areas such as Big data, cloud computing, fog computing and wireless networks. The advancement
in these areas has paved the way for new industrial evolution, Industry 4.0 or smart factory or
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT is made up of a collection of devices, with each device
being able to monitor, collect, exchange, analyze and take decisions intelligently based on the
environment through proper communication channels. IIoT consists of smart solutions in the fields
of electricity (smart-grid), home automation (smart-home), supply-chains (smart-automation) and
agriculture (smart-agriculture). The interconnection among the different smart components of IIoT
is a key requirement for IIoT systems. We revised all the patents relating to industry 4.0 and its
application in Internet of Services (IoS).

In this paper, a novel three-layered architecture is proposed to handle the heterogeneity
of components of IIoT, thus providing a way for the digital transformation of IIoT systems.

The paper also provides an overview of underlying components, principles,
communication standards and enabling technologies for IIoT or smart factory. There is no patent
information used in the paper for discussing the framework.

Recent technologies such as cloud computing, fog computing, and big data are the
key enablers for IIoT systems and are transforming the way in which the industrial systems work
and operate.


We consider a nonparametric Bayesian approach to estimate the diffusion coefficient of a stochastic differential equation given discrete time observations over a fixed time interval. As a prior on the diffusion coefficient, we employ a histogram-type prior with piecewise constant realisations on bins forming a partition of the time interval. Specifically, these constants are realizations of independent inverse Gamma distributed randoma variables. We justify our approach by deriving the rate at which the corresponding posterior distribution asymptotically concentrates around the data-generating diffusion coefficient. This posterior contraction rate turns out to be optimal for estimation of a Holder-continuous diffusion coefficient with smoothness parameter $0<\lambda\leq 1.$ Our approach is straightforward to implement, as the posterior distributions turn out to be inverse Gamma again, and leads to good practical results in a wide range of simulation examples. Finally, we apply our method on exchange rate data sets.


Fish as a functional food plays an important role for health and preventing diseases. The objective of the study was to difermined the quality of smoked Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis L.) found from the traditional market in Bahu Manado. The method of the study was to analyzet the TVB-N by using Conway, pH by using pH meters and water contents by using oven method. The product was storage at 40C and 27-280C ( refrigeratot and room temperature) for 4 days, data were analyzet using statistical test from the triplicate analyzet. The results obtained, the TVB-N value of smoked Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis L.) at 0 day storage in 27-280C (A1B1) and refrigerator 40C (A1B2) was 11,2 mg/100gr, 2 days storage 27-280C (A2B1) is 44,8 mg/100gr and 40C (A2B2) is 19,6 mg/100gr, and 4 days storage in 27-280C (A3B1) is 56 mg/100gr and 40C (A3B2) is 28 mg/100gr. The pH value storage at 40C was 5,7 and no differents among the sample, in contrast at 27-280C value varied from 5,7 to 6,3 and 6,6. The water contents storage at 27-280C were at 0 day (A1B1) is 62,5%, 2 days (A2B1) is 62,8% and 4 days (A3B1) is 63,8% and storage 40C were 0 day (A1B2) is 59%, 2 days (A2B2) is 61,1% and 4 days (A3B2) is 62,7%. Based on the results of the TVB-N value, pH and water contents of smiked Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis L.) found from the traditional market at Bahu Manado were acceptable until 4 days storage. While the smoked Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis L.) storage at 27-280C (room temperature) acceptable until 2 days storage. Keywords: Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis L.), Smoke, Study Quality, Chemical, TVB-N, pH, Moisture.


Human respiratory cells participating in the repair of epithelial wounds have been shown to be highly susceptible to Pseudomonas aeruginosa adherence. To ascertain whether such susceptibility is a common feature of different repairing epithelial cells, Caco-2 cell monolayers were chemically injured, reincubated for 48 h to partially repair and exposed to bacteria. Cells edging the wounds that spread and migrate to re-establish cell confluence were called 'repairing cells' while cells far from the wounds were called 'non-repairing cells'. By light microscopy, bacteria were seen to adhere to and to enter into both repairing and non-repairing cells. The percentage of intracellular bacteria in repairing cells was significantly higher than in non-repairing cells. The higher susceptibility of repairing monolayers to bacterial entry was confirmed by the gentamicin exclusion assay. P. aeruginosa entry into Caco-2 cells was greatly enhanced in non-injured confluent monolayers treated with EDTA to disrupt intercellular junctions. As tight junction disfunctions have been described during the wound repair process, we speculate that exposure of basolateral receptors to bacterial ligands may account for the enhancement of P. aeruginosa internalization by repairing monolayers.


Parkinson's disease (PD) is a slowly progressive, age-related, second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer's disease of unknown etiology. Dopamine replacement therapies were introduced five decades ago and still remain the mainstay of treatment for Parkinson's disease. However, with long-term treatment with L-dopa, more than 50% of patients were found to develop motor response complications approximately after 4 - 5 years of initiation of continuous treatment, in 80% of patients treated for 10 years, and in nearly 100% patients with young-onset disease. The complications of long–term treatment with levodopa include-motor fluctuations, dyskinesias, and nonmotor fluctuations are such as mood disturbance, cognitive dysfunction, dysautonomia and pain. Till date, there are various therapeutic approaches having been developed for the treatment of advanced PD comprising Pharmacotherapy, neurotrophic factors, surgical procedures such as DBS, cell-based therapies and gene therapies. The pharmacological and surgical therapies are only aiming to improve the symptoms of PD, but none are proven to have a significant effect on the underlying disease process with respect to either slowing disease progression or restoring the affected dopaminergic neurons. Although there is no cure for PD, Gene based therapy has significant prospective advantages over the conventional treatment modalities for PD, as it could theoretically be used to preserve or restore dopaminergic neurons affected by PD through the action of neurotrophic factors or alternatively increase the availability of enzymes required for dopamine synthesis. All commonly employed PD therapies focus on the amelioration of symptoms and do not cure disease. In this review only we summarize the newer therapeutic strategies for the treatment of PD such as anti-inflammatories, neurotrophic factors, neurosurgical procedures (DBS), cell based therapies and gene therapies.


Popular songs are often said to be 'contagious', 'infectious' or 'viral'. We find that download count time series for many popular songs resemble infectious disease epidemic curves. This paper suggests infectious disease transmission models could help clarify mechanisms that contribute to the 'spread' of song preferences and how these mechanisms underlie song popularity. We analysed data from MixRadio, comprising song downloads through Nokia cell phones in Great Britain from 2007 to 2014. We compared the ability of the standard susceptible–infectious–recovered (SIR) epidemic model and a phenomenological (spline) model to fit download time series of popular songs. We fitted these same models to simulated epidemic time series generated by the SIR model. Song downloads are captured better by the SIR model, to the same extent that actual SIR simulations are fitted better by the SIR model than by splines. This suggests that the social processes underlying song popularity are similar to those that drive infectious disease transmission. We draw conclusions about song popularity within specific genres based on estimated SIR parameters. In particular, we argue that faster spread of preferences for Electronica songs may reflect stronger connectivity of the 'susceptible community', compared with the larger and broader community that listens to more common genres.


For emerging mm-wave consumer applications such as high data-rate wireless communications at 60GHz and car radar at 76–81GHz, it is important to investigate the impact of module assembly on IC performance. Flip-chip is a promising candidate to meet requirements like low reflections, low insertion loss and low costs for mm-wave applications. This paper addresses the design, modeling and evaluation results of a 60GHz LC-VCO module using flip-chip. The impact of the substrate on on-chip CPW transmission lines and spiral inductors is studied based on the performance of a 60GHz LC-VCO. Since the inductor is part of the VCO resonator, a remarkable 10% increase in oscillation frequency occurs due to the nearby top-metal layer of the substrate. The IC is realized in a 0.25µm SiGe BiCMOS process. The 0.44mm thick substrate offers four copper signal layers.


This paper explores the creative process related to the performance Espelho meu (Mirror), premiered in 2017, in Porto. This performance is the materialization of a creative process into the artistic gesture of the performer. We believe that the creation of new performances is the most effective way to develop the contemporary performative scene promoting new visions of the world. We will briefly discuss the process of creating a vocal gesture that externalizes an inner thought, the role of the body, the cross paths between artistic practice and technology as a mediation that doesn't limit the performative interaction of the performer with the space and the audience. We will also consider ways of exploration of the performance after its physical existence in time through the concept of performative resonance. This resonance would work as a creative tool, again mediated by technology, to reconfigure time, provoking the ephemerality of performance.


Android-based smartphones have features such as short message data transmission through the Short Message Service (SMS). But SMS is not secure facility so we need cryptography and cryptographic methods are one of the Vigenere cipher, Vigenere cipher but relatively easy to solve with this method therefore needs Kasiski unbreakable chipper uses the principle of ONE-TIME PAD, the Vigenere cipher key using the sequence of characters "random" throughout the plaintext by exploiting properties of Fibonacci numbers to satisfy the principle of ONE-TIME PAD. So the research aims to create applications based on Android Smartphone using Vigenere cipher with a modified Fibonacci equation. Applications developed with the method of System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model waterfall. Vigenere Cipher using cryptographic methods and keys using the principle of ONE-TIME PAD with modifications equation Fibonacci on Android Smartphone version 4.0 or higher. SMS Application Encryption can encrypt outgoing SMS, incoming SMS decrypt and display it in the form of Conversations, and also stores data for each Key Contact data on Android based Smartphones Based on the Alpha test results are the results of the fit between the design of applications while data Beta test results showed that 22.22% of respondents strongly agree, agree 74.44%, 3.33% disagree, and strongly disagree that said 0%. Based on the test results, we can conclude SMS Encryption Applications 74.44% as agreed can be used.
Keywords: Android, Short Message Service (SMS), ONE-TIME PAD ,Vigenere Cipher, Fibonacci.


Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is the most efficient fuel cell with the ability to directly convert chemical energy into electrical energy. Although there are numerous advantages offered by SOFCs, such as high energy conversion efficiency, low noise, less emission of pollutants and flexibility of hydrocarbon fuels, the processing cost and the performance improvement of SOFCs are hindered due to the higher operational temperatures. Therefore, the tendency to reduce the operational temperature of SOFC has brought about the development of research in materials and fabrication technology of fuel cells. Recently, among the many types of cathode materials that have been studied, lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite, La1-xSrxCo1-yFeyO3-d (LSCF) has been discovered to offer the most potential for use as cathode material in intermediate to low temperature SOFCs. The use of LSCF composite cathode has significantly reduced the cathode polarisation resistance and expanded the triple phase boundary (TPB) area available for oxygen reduction. The overall performance of cathodes and fuel cells are also influenced by the method of powder preparation and fabrication of the composite cathodes. As such, the present article focuses on the LSCF composites for use as durable cathode material in SOFCs from the aspects of materials development, powder preparation and fabrication techniques


This paper proposes a welfare criterion for economies in which agents have heterogeneously distorted beliefs. Instead of taking a stand on whose belief is correct, our criterion asserts that an allocation is belief-neutral efficient (inefficient) if it is efficient (inefficient) under any convex combination of agents' beliefs. While this criterion gives an incomplete ranking of social allocations, it can identify positive- and negative-sum speculation driven by conflicting beliefs in a broad range of economic environments.


Female illiteracy, especially in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), has been identified by several scholars as a major social problem in developing countries such as Nigeria.This situation has caught the attention of various governmental and non-governmental organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF and concerned parents and individuals. The interventions and support brought in by these organizations and individuals have been of immense help as parents now see the need to allow their girl-child exposure to education, especially in the rural areas. However, the access,acquisition and expertise of the girl-child in the area of ICT are still limited. This paper, therefore,intends to look at this problem from the perspective of the Nigerian parent, a representative of
government, a representative of an NGO working in this area, teachers in all facets of education, a sociologist and a psychologist. The worry of parents not wanting to expose their children, particularly girl children, to TV (foreign media fare), and in particular the Internet (over which they have no control), because of their supposed corrupting influences will also be examined. Incidentally, ICT promises to increase the girl-child's access to quality education and quality development in a world that is fast becoming digital. Lack of exposure to or inadequate knowledge of ICT would not stand the girl-child in a good stead to compete favorably with her boy-child counterpart in an economy that is dominated by science and technology. This paper would also look at the strategies that have been put in place to checkmate child-online abuse which has become a major concern for parents and regulatory frameworks, regarding girl-child's use of the internet and the benefits of ICT on the girl-child development; it would also serve to enlighten parents on the opportunities their girls stand to get when they become ICT savvy. The challenges to curricular designers are to fashion a mechanism for counter-balancing the threat to cultural values with the overwhelming advantages of ICT; and to
convince parents that the benefits of the ICT far outweigh the fears of cultural pollution. A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) involving parents, NGOs working in this area and teachers in post primary and tertiary institutions will be the pivot around which the study will revolve.


The objective of the research was to study the agronomic characteristics ofsorghum and studying genetic relationships genotypes of 13 sweet sorghum. Thisresearch  has  been  carried  on  in  the  field  experiment  and  Plant  BreedingLaboratory,  Faculty  of  Agriculture,  University  of  Riau,  Pekanbaru, from April2013 to September 2013.The data were examined by analysis of variance consistof 13 treatments and 3 replications that contained 39 experimmental units. Thesetreatments consist of BATAN's sweet sorghum strains, there are Patir-1, Patir-2,Patir-3, Patir-4, Patir-5, Patir-6, Patir-7, Patir-8, Patir-9, Patir-10 and 3 sweetSorghum  varieties  as  a  comparison,  there  are  Kawali,  Mandau  and  Pahat.GenotypePatir-10 has the highest of seed weight are 3.78 ton/ha compare to othergenotypes.  The results of the research  showed that clusters are the differencesand similarities between the 13 sorghum genotypes tested on quantitative andqualitative variables.  Based  on  the cluster analysisPatir 2 and  Patir 3 are genotype that has nearst genetic with the lowest genetic  distance is 1.71. Patir 9 and Mandau have farthest genetic relationship with the highest genetic distance is 84.24. Keywords : characteristic, relationship, sorghum and Cluster Analysis.


Background: Mitragynine is the major alkaloid of Mitragyna speciosa (Korth.) or Kratom, a psychoactive plant widely abused in Southeast Asia. While addictive effects of the substance are emerging, adverse cognitive effects of this drug and neuropharmacological actions are insufficiently understood. Aims: In the present study, we investigated the effects of mitragynine on spatial learning and synaptic transmission in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats received daily (for 12 days) training sessions in the Morris water maze, with each session followed by treatment either with mitragynine (1, 5, or 10 mg/kg; intraperitoneally), morphine (5 mg/kg; intraperitoneally) or a vehicle. In the second experiment, we recorded field excitatory postsynaptic potentials in the hippocampal CA1 area in anesthetized rats and assessed the effects of mitragynine on baseline synaptic transmission, paired-pulse facilitation, and long-term potentiation. Gene expression of major memory- and addiction-related genes was investigated and the effects of mitragynine on Ca2+ influx was also examined in cultured primary neurons from E16–E18 rats. Results/outcomes: Escape latency results indicate that animals treated with mitragynine displayed a slower rate of acquisition as compared to their control counterparts. Further, mitragynine treatment significantly reduced the amplitude of baseline (i.e. non-potentiated) field excitatory postsynaptic potentials and resulted in a minor suppression of long-term potentiation in CA1. Bdnf and αCaMKII mRNA expressions in the brain were not affected and Ca2+ influx elicited by glutamate application was inhibited in neurons pre-treated with mitragynine. Conclusions/interpretation: These data suggest that high doses of mitragynine (5 and 10 mg/kg) cause memory deficits, possibly via inhibition of Ca2+ influx and disruption of hippocampal synaptic transmission and long-term potentiation induction.


Determinantal point processes (DPPs) are probabilistic models of configurations that favour diversity or repulsion. They have recently gained influence in the machine learning community, mainly because of their ability to elegantly and efficiently subsample large sets of data. In this paper, we consider DPPs from an image processing perspective, meaning that the data we want to subsample are pixels or patches of a given image. To this end, our framework is discrete and finite. First, we adapt their basic definition and properties to DPPs defined on the pixels of an image, that we call determinantal pixel processes (DPixPs). We are mainly interested in the repulsion properties of such a process and we apply DPixPs to texture synthesis using shot noise models. Finally, we study DPPs on the set of patches of an image. Because of their repulsive property, DPPs provide a strong tool to subsample discrete distributions such as that of image patches.


Assessing factuality of text generated by large language models (LLMs) is an emerging yet crucial research area, aimed at alerting users to potential errors and guiding the development of more reliable LLMs. Nonetheless, the evaluators assessing factuality necessitate suitable evaluation themselves to gauge progress and foster advancements. This direction remains under-explored, resulting in substantial impediments to the progress of factuality evaluators. To mitigate this issue, we introduce a benchmark for Factuality Evaluation of large Language Models, referred to as felm. In this benchmark, we collect responses generated from LLMs and annotate factuality labels in a fine-grained manner. Contrary to previous studies that primarily concentrate on the factuality of world knowledge (e.g.~information from Wikipedia), felm focuses on factuality across diverse domains, spanning from world knowledge to math and reasoning. Our annotation is based on text segments, which can help pinpoint specific factual errors. The factuality annotations are further supplemented by predefined error types and reference links that either support or contradict the statement. In our experiments, we investigate the performance of several LLM-based factuality evaluators on felm, including both vanilla LLMs and those augmented with retrieval mechanisms and chain-of-thought processes. Our findings reveal that while retrieval aids factuality evaluation, current LLMs are far from satisfactory to faithfully detect factual errors.


In the present study, we calculate the activation barriers and information entropies of helium penetration into the C60 and C70 fullerenes resulting in the singly and doubly filled endofullerenes Hen@C60/70 (n = 1 and 2). The activation barriers of hexagon penetration of C60 and C70 are very high (∼900 kJ mol−1) and they slightly increase for the second insertion as compared to the first step. The activation parameters are linearly correlated with the squares of the penetrated hexagons. This allows the proposal that the other fullerene cages should reveal almost the same penetrability because the size of the hexagons do not significantly vary from one fullerene to another. We have found that the experimental ratios of the yields of He@C60/70 and He2@C60/70 (and the other related endofullerenes Nen@C70, (H2)n@C70, and NHe@C60/70) may be qualitatively described in terms of the information entropy approach using the respective changes in information entropy upon the formation of singly and doubly filled endofullerenes. This approach stresses the probabilistic nature of the penetration processes and may be used for qualitative prediction of the expected yields of endofullerenes with two encapsulated species.


The time series of turbo-unit rotor are tested under 3 different working conditions in this paper, which respectively calculates the largest Lyapunov exponent and correlation dimension, and analyzes and studies these two characteristic quantities. The study results show that: the Lyapunov exponent and correlation dimension of the time series for the generator rotor under different working conditions are obviously different. Therefore, "Lyapunov exponent - correlation dimension" is proposed to act as the quantitative characterization of the fault diagnosis for the generator rotor, which can diagnose and monitor the mechanical faults of the generator rotor. The study also opens up an effective way for diagnosis and prediction over other complex mechanical faults


Human albumin 5% (HA), frequently used in paediatric anaesthesia as a human plasma substitute, could be replaced by hydroxyethyl starch 6% (HES) 40,000/0.5 provided its use would not entail any disadvantages but rather advantages instead. This problem was studied by examining 30 children (mean body weight 32.5 kg) in general anaesthesia. During about 3 hours of surgery the patients lost up to 15 per cent (approx. 400 ml) of blood volume. In a randomised study the blood loss was compensated either via HA or HES with 14 ml/kg body weight each, respectively. Blood pressure and pulse rate remained within the normal range. Haemodilution was represented by a drop in the erythrocyte count to about 3 million/microliter, haematocrit (HCT) to about 30% and haemoglobin to approx. 10 g/100 ml. Slight metabolic acidosis (Bodansky unit = -4 mmol/l) was found to be statistically not significant (= n.s.) with both methods, as was the difference in serum albumin and during serum electrophoresis. Serum [Na+] was reduced in those children who had been treated with HES, to 137.33 +/- 33.30 mmol/l; however, in those children who received HA with low sodium content (statistically significant difference = s.s.) the corresponding level was 134.15 +/- 2.36 mmol/l. Serum creatinine rose in each case from 60 to 80 mmol/l (s.s.), renal function being slightly impaired probably due to the anaesthesia and surgery. The value according to Quick's test and the partial thromboplastin time (PTT) remained in the normal range both with HA and HES treatment (in each case over 70% and below 25s, respectively).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


We establish the fixed nitrogen budget of the Pacific Ocean based on nutrient fields from the recently completed World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). The budget includes denitrification in the water column and sediments, nitrogen fixation, atmospheric and riverine inputs, and nitrogen divergence due to the large‐scale circulation. A water column denitrification rate of 48±5 Tg N yr −1 is calculated for the Eastern Tropical Pacific using N* [Gruber and Sarmiento, 1997] and water mass age tracers. On the basis of rates in the literature, we estimate sedimentary denitrification to remove an additional 15±3 Tg N yr−1. We then calculate the total nitrogen divergence due to the large scale circulation through the basin, composed of flows through a zonal transect at 32°S, and through the Indonesian and Bering straits. Adding atmospheric deposition and riverine fluxes results in a net divergence of nitrogen from the basin of −4±12 Tg N yr−1. Pacific nitrogen fixation can be extracted as a residual component of the total budget, assuming steady state. We find that nitrogen fixation would have to contribute 59±14 Tg N yr−1 in order to balance the Pacific nitrogen budget. This result is consistent with the tentative global extrapolations of Gruber and Sarmiento [1997], based on nitrogen fixation rates estimated for the North Atlantic. Our estimated mean areal fixation rate is within the range of direct and geochemical rate estimates from a single location near Hawaii [Karl et al., 1997]. Pacific nitrogen fixation occurs primarily in the western part of the subtropical gyres where elevated N* signals are found. These regions are also supplied with significant amounts of iron via atmospheric dust deposition, lending qualitative support to the hypothesis that nitrogen fixation is regulated in part by iron suppy.


Anterior supernumerary teeth in the permanent dentition may be supplemental or rudimentary. Rudimentary types are further classified as conical, tuberculate, and molariform. The molariform type has been only rarely reported. We report a rare variety of anterior supernumerary teeth - the molariform type, occurring bilaterally and in association with a midline supernumerary tooth. We also suggest a hypothesis for the bilateral occurrence of supernumerary teeth.


In this paper we analyse regional inequalities trough the concept of regional entropy taking as a reference the regional development in Mexico from the point of view of the human development index between 1950 and 2003. Our hypothesis proposes that regional inequalities have increased as a result of development. Furthermore, in recent times the regional disequilibrium detected through the evaluation of the regional sustainability tends to be higher. As a methodology to measure inequality we propose the use of some concepts such as the absolute and relative entropies of the development indicators, fairness, efficiency and sustainability of the country.


According to the ITRS, a significant decrease in lateral resolution and thickness of resists is anticipated for the forthcoming decade. In order to study in-situ the dissolution of thin resist films, a set-up based on multiwavelength interferometry was developed. Using this setup and an appropriate fitting algorithm, based on the interference function, the resist thickness vs. time is calculated. In the present work, the dissolution of PMMA in a 20-300 nm thickness range is studied. First results showed that in the case of ultra thin films of high molecular weights, dissolution proceeds smoothly after an initial surface inhibition period while thicker films present a more complex dissolution curve. In the case of low molecular weight (15K) the surface inhibition period is negligible and dissolution proceeds smoothly for the whole thickness range examined. PMMA films exposed with various DUV doses exhibit similar behavior with the unexposed films in terms of dissolution inhibition.


Objective: to describe the main methods of body identification performed by dental professionals in criminal investigation, as well as to discuss the importance of archiving patient protocol data, as they may support criminal investigations. Materials and Methods: literature review counting on one book, code of dental ethics and articles published in English and Portuguese available in the PubMed database, Virtual Health Library, Scielo and Google Scholar, published from 2010 to 2019. Results: Forensic dentist is the specialized dental surgeon, legally qualified to perform criminal body examinations focused mainly on the head and neck area, who performs clinical activities and autopsies in the service of justice. Studies show that 70% of human identifications performed worldwide are made by these professionals, proving effectiveness and easy accomplishment. Due to the resistance of the dental element, in addition to the cranial aspects, there are several methods that can be used to identify cadavers, such as through DNA pulp, palatal roughness, sex determination by cranial characteristics, medical history, among others. Conclusion: it is possible to observe that forensic dentistry plays a significant role in post mortem recognition, making the performance of this professional indispensable in human identification. Additionally, there are numerous methods of identifying a body that can be applied by forensic dentistry. Thus, it is essential that ante-mortem records be properly archived and archived, as they can support the identification of a body


We present a risk management tool, named Economic Scenario Generator (ESG), used by insurance companies for simulating the global state of one or several economies described by key financial risk drivers. This tool is of particular use within the Solvency II framework, since insurance companies are required to value their balance-sheet from a market-consistent viewpoint. However, there is no observable price of insurance contracts hence the necessity of relying on ESGs to perform Monte Carlo simulations useful for valuation. As such, the calibration of Risk-Neutral models underlying this valuation is of particular interest as there is a strong requirement to match observable market prices. Furthermore, for a variety of applications, the insurance company has to value its balance-sheet over a set of different economic conditions, leading to the need of intensive re-calibrations of such models. In this paper, we first provide an overview of the key requirements from Solvency II and their practical implications for insurance valuation. We then describe the different use cases of ESGs. A particular attention is paid to Risk-Neutral interest rates models, specifically the Libor Market Model with a stochastic volatility. We discuss the complexity of its calibration and describe fast calibration methods based on approximations and expansions of the probability density function. Comparisons with more common method highlight the reduction in calibration time.


Shigella species are characteristically nicotinic acid (NA) auxotrophs. The invasive S. flexneri strain M90T, transformed with the multicopy plasmid pZT349 encoding the nadB gene of Salmonella typhimurium, can grow in minimal glucose medium without exogenous NA, whereas, M90T containing the control vector, pUC18 does not, suggesting that this species lacks L-aspartic acid oxidase, the first enzyme in the de novo NAD biosynthetic pathway. The estimated growth rate of strain M90T (pZT349) in HeLa cells was identical to that of M90T (pUC18), indicating the available intracellular concentration of NA is not limiting for bacterial growth.


There is a growing body of bioethics research that addresses the importance of adapting empirical, predominantly qualitative, methods to generate debate on ethical arguments. However, there is an absence of illustrative work examining how this could be realised from a feminist perspective. This article, seeking to address the research gap, examines interview methods through a reflexive lens. Drawing on the doctoral research I conducted through interviews with women who were interested in social egg freezing (i.e., healthy women freezing their eggs in anticipation of future infertility), I describe how I encountered a dilemma because of my gendered positionality and the intended Socratic method I had wanted to use. To handle the dilemma, I employed a combination of techniques for posing interview questions: descriptive questioning, Socratic dialogue, and an elicitation method. Based on my experiences of navigating these different methods through the interview process and discussing their effectiveness, I argue that there is value in overlapping different models of interviewing and thus contributing to greater critical reflexivity, an enhanced quality of data, and egalitarian research interactions. The article concludes with some suggestions for applying this fusion of interviewing approaches in future empirical bioethics research.


The Spectral and Polarimetric Imagery Collection Experiment (SPICE) is a collaborative effort between the US Army ARDEC and ARL that is focused on the collection of mid-wave and long-wave infrared imagery using hyperspectral, polarimetric, and broadband sensors. The objective of the program is to collect a comprehensive database of the different modalities over the course of 1 to 2 years to capture sensor performance over a wide variety of weather conditions, diurnal, and seasonal changes inherent to Picatinny's northern New Jersey location. Using the Precision Armament Laboratory (PAL) tower at Picatinny Arsenal, the sensors will autonomously collect the desired data around the clock at different ranges where surrogate 2S3 Self-Propelled Howitzer targets are positioned at different viewing perspectives in an open field. The database will allow for: 1) Understanding of signature variability under adverse weather conditions; 2) Development of robust algorithms; 3) Development of new sensors; 4) Evaluation of polarimetric technology; and 5) Evaluation of fusing the different sensor modalities. In this paper, we will present the SPICE data collection objectives, the ongoing effort, the sensors that are currently deployed, and how this work will assist researches on the development and evaluation of sensors, algorithms, and fusion applications.


CO2 pricing is essential for an efficient transition to the green economy. Despite Daniel, Litterman and Wagner (2019)' claim that CO2 prices should decline, CO2 prices should rise over time. First, damages from global warming are proportional to economic activity and this makes CO2 prices grow at the same rate as the economy. Second, even if uncertainty about the damage ratio is gradually resolved over time, this only slows down the price rise. Third, if CCS is allowed for, the optimal CO2 price will rise before it declines but this decline does not occur until more than two centuries ahead. Fourth, damages are likely to be a very convex function of temperature which with rising temperature implies that CO2 prices must grow faster than the economy. Fifth, internalizing the social benefits of learning by doing or a shift towards technical progress in renewable energy production requires a subsidy for renewable energy, not a temporary spike in CO2 prices. Having high CO2 prices upfront is an artefact of failing to separate out renewable energy subsidies from the carbon price. Finally, efficient intertemporal allocation of policy efforts implies that a temperature cap or cap on cumulative emissions requires that CO2 prices must rise at a rate equal to the risk-adjusted interest rate, typically higher than the economic growth rate. Summing up, CO2 prices must rise at a rate at least equal to the economic growth rate and at most to the risk-adjusted interest rate. They should not decline.


Besides tumor cells, the tumor microenvironment harbors a variety of host-derived cells, such as endothelial cells, fibroblasts, innate and adaptive immune cells. It is a complex and highly dynamic environment, providing very important cues to tumor development and progression. Tumor-associated endothelial cells play a key role in this process. On the one hand, they form tumor-associated (angiogenic) vessels through sprouting from locally preexisting vessels or recruitment of bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells, to provide nutritional support to the growing tumor. On the other hand, they are the interface between circulating blood cells, tumor cells and the extracellular matrix, thereby playing a central role in controlling leukocyte recruitment, tumor cell behavior and metastasis formation. Hypoxia is a critical parameter modulating the tumor microenvironment and endothelial/tumor cell interactions. Under hypoxic stress, tumor cells produce factors that promote tumor angiogenesis, tumor cell motility and metastasis. Among these factors, VEGF, a main angiogenesis modulator, can also play a critical role in the control of immune tolerance. This review discusses some aspects of the role of endothelial cells within tumor microenvironment and emphasizes their interaction with tumor cells, the extracellular matrix and with immune killer cells. We will also address the role played by circulating endothelial progenitor cells and illustrate their features and mechanism of recruitment to the tumor microenvironment and their role in tumor angiogenesis.


Online Transformer-based automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems have been extensively studied due to the increasing demand for streaming applications. Recently proposed Decoder-end Adaptive Computation Steps (DACS) algorithm for online Transformer ASR was shown to achieve state-of-the-art performance and outperform other existing methods. However, like any other online approach, the DACS-based attention heads in each of the Transformer decoder layers operate independently (or asynchronously) and lead to diverged attending positions. Since DACS employs a truncation threshold to determine the halting position, some of the attention weights are cut off untimely and might impact the stability and precision of decoding. To overcome these issues, here we propose a head-synchronous (HS) version of the DACS algorithm, where the boundary of attention is jointly detected by all the DACS heads in each decoder layer. ASR experiments on Wall Street Journal (WSJ), AIShell-1 and Lib- rispeech show that the proposed method consistently outperforms vanilla DACS and achieves state-of-the-art performance. We will also demonstrate that HS-DACS has reduced decoding cost when compared to vanilla DACS.


The paper aims to answer the question why the process of institutionalization of the EU's external relations with its six neighboring countries, representing the Eastern dimension of European Neighbourhood Policy (i.e., Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), has failed to perform its stabilization role. The study is exploratory and descriptive in nature. Its results indicate three main reasons for which the aforementioned institutionalization process has not been successful, and thus – the EU's neighbourhood has become even more unstable than it was over a decade before. The first reason is rooted in the applied integration model. The model expected the EU's neighbours to undergo deep reforms, without offering them the EU membership 'reward'. In this regard, the EU's offer not only failed to meet the expectations of the neighbours in question, but also appeared to be partly misunderstood. In consequence, the Eastern ENP countries considered the decision on their potential EU membership to be exclusively political, as well as underestimated the importance of the previously agreed reforms. As regards the second reason for the unsuccessful development of the institutionalization process, the Eastern ENP countries found it very difficult to reach a high level of 'embeddedness' of the transferred formal institutions in their socio-economic environment. Finally, the institutionalisation process has also faced difficulties due to the geopolitical rivalry between the EU and Russia over the region. The actions and policies undertaken by Russia not only influenced the (political and economic) decisions of the EU's Eastern neighbours, but also clearly showed that the institutionalisation of their relations with the EU neither provided for them protection nor guaranteed defence. According to the presented theoretical approach, this serves as an explanations why the stabilisation function of the institutionalization process was not able to perform its role.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.11.18410


Abstract This chapter provides a survey of recent developments of positive as well as normative theories of city systems. Static theory of city systems emphasizes the factors that result in the formation of cities through the interaction between two opposing forces: (i) agglomeration economy and (ii) agglomeration diseconomy. Furthermore, the theory examines the interaction between cities within the national economy through intercity trade and migration, which shape the internal population composition and the internal industrial structure of cities within the system. New development of this theory has been influenced by industrial organization and economic growth together with the new urban economic paradigm. This chapter focuses on the following questions: what are the factors that lead to the formation of cities? When do cities specialize in production, and when do they diversify? When do both specialized cities and diversified cities coexist? What determines the number and sizes of cities of different types in an economy? What are the factors that determine skill distribution and income disparities among different types of cities? What are the impacts of income inequalities on welfare? What are the tax and/or subsidy schemes that would result in a Pareto-efficient allocation of resources in a system of cities? Do we need the intervention of federal government in order to achieve a Pareto-efficient allocation of resources in a system of cities? These questions are addressed in a spatial general equilibrium model of a closed economy consisting of a system of monocentric cities.


A molecular derivatization method followed by gas chromatographic separation coupled with mass spectrometric detection was used to study photodegradation of molecular I2 adsorbed on solid SiO2 particles. The heterogeneous photodegradation of I2 was studied as a function of temperature and relative humidity in synthetic air to better understand its environmental fate. Two sets of experiments were carried out. In the first set of experiments, the temperature was T = (298 ± 1) K and relative humidity was varied from ≤ 2% to 75%RH under given experimental conditions. In the second set of experiments, the relative humidity within the Pyrex bulb was 40%RH and the temperature was varied from 283 ± 1 ≤ T (K) ≤ 323 ± 1. The obtained results show a considerably enhanced atmospheric lifetime of molecular iodine adsorbed on solid media that does not depend on relative humidity of the environment. The obtained results show that the rate constant for the photolysis of molecular iodine adsorbed on model SiO2 particles depends on temperature and is reported to be J (T)=(1.24 ± 1.4)×10−2×exp[(1482±345)/T]/s over the measured temperature range. The heterogeneous atmospheric residence time () of I2 adsorbed on solid media is calculated to range from 2 to 4.1 h. The experimentally obtained heterogeneous lifetime of I2 is shown to be considerably longer than its destruction by its principal atmospheric sink, photolysis. The observed enhanced atmospheric lifetime of I2 on heterogeneous media will likely have direct consequences on the atmospheric transport of I2 that influences the toxicity or the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere.


Context-awareness is a key challenge for pervasive computing, as it is a prime requirement towards delivering applications to users in a way that best matches user requirements, digital resources availability and physical conditions. However, enabling anytime, anywhere context-awareness, as targeted by pervasive computing, is further challenged by the openness of the environment, which requires making available context information in various computing environments. This then calls for the ad hoc networking of context sources and of context-aware applications, so that applications may always benefit from a context knowledge base, although it may be more or less rich, depending on the specific environment. Building upon the context management literature, and the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm that is a major enabler of open ad hoc networking, this paper sketches key context-aware system concepts that need be incorporated in the SOA style towards enabling context-aware services for pervasive computing.


In this analysis, I investigate the causes of early elections in four parliamentary democracies across the world: Great Britain, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. While I consider a number of explanations for the decisions to hold early elections, I find most theoretical and statistical support for Smith's (2003; 2004) informational thesis. He maintains that governments look to future economic conditions when making their timing decision. This approach, however, also leaves open the possibility that other, noneconomic factors can explain why prime ministers call elections earlier than is necessary. I argue that the degree of disproportionality, the measured gap between a party's vote share and seat share, is a key attribute to explain the early election decision. When prime ministers weigh their decision to dissolve government, they cannot assess the effect of changes in their support in the population as accurately when a high degree of disproportionality is present. Using survival analysis, I find some support for a comprehensive attributes and events approach. New Zealand proves an exception; governments tend to fail sooner when high levels of disproportionality are present. This appears to be a result of particular factors related to disproportionality as a political issue, leading to electoral reform in 1996. Abstract Approved: ________________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor ________________________________________________ Title and Department ________________________________________________ Date ECONOMICS AND DISPROPORTIONALITY: THE DETERMINANTS OF EARLY ELECTIONS IN FOUR PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACIES by Howard Bartlett Sanborn, IV A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Political Science in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa


"Despite all remaining political, economical and cultural differences in the member countries of the European Union...population ageing is a common phenomena of all these countries.... Many spheres of socio-economic life in the countries of the European Union are already affected by this shifting process.... Most of the social security and welfare systems of the industrialized countries in the European Union are mainly based on intergenerational solidarity, a solidarity which is highly burdened by the demographic development. In this respect policy makers have to take into consideration the expected changes in the age structure of the economically active population, changing patterns of labour force participation as well as changes in family and household structures in their task to modify existing systems or to build new systems of social security and welfare under the growing burden of an ageing society." (SUMMARY IN ENG)


Background The treatment of chronic Monteggia fracture-dislocation (CMF) remains controversial and challenging for surgeons. We describe our initial experience with ulnar osteotomy and angulation on correction with modified open surgery and evaluate outcomes from clinical and radiographic findings. Methods We retrospectively reviewed 18 children with a mean age of 6.78±2.67 years old who underwent surgical treatment because of CMF. Electronic medical records of Bado type, complaints, Kim scores, and complications were recorded. Radiographic parameters of maximum interosseous distance (MID), proportional ulnar length (PUL), lengthening, and bending angle of the ulna were summarized. The final reduction statuses of the radial head were reviewed. Parameters were compared at the time of pre-operation and the last follow-up. The relationship between the lengthening and angulation of ulna and the interval was calculated. Results The mean interval was 11.1 [1–48] months and the follow-up time was 46.6 [24–96] months. A good reduction was observed in 15 (83.33%) patients, while 3 (16.67%) patients were fair. Postoperatively, the Kim scores were improved, from 59.17±18.17 to 90±6.64 (P=0.000). The mean posterior bending angle was 12.88° (range, 3 to 25°), and the mean amount of elongation of the ulna was 8.78 mm (range, 3.61 to 17.52 mm). The lengthening of the ulna was proportional to the magnitude of angulation of the ulna (r=0.648, P=0.004), and a positive correlation was also seen between the lengthening and the interval (r=0.632, P=0.005) and the angulation and the interval (r=0.502, P=0.034). The PUL and MID were significantly increased from 1.06±0.03 and 1.11±0.26 to 1.13±0.11 (P=0.047) and 1.28±0.27 (P=0.021), separately. Conclusions We highlight ulnar osteotomy as the essential procedure during reconstruction surgeries. Stabilization of the radial head with adequate elongation and balanced angulation of the osteotomy through direct observation is the main way to ensure and maintain satisfactory outcomes. With the extension of the interval, it is more necessary to increase the lengthening and angulation in positive proportion. PUL is a useful parameter in evaluating the mismatch between ulna and radius in CMF.


Model predictive control is a prominent approach to construct a feedback control loop for dynamical systems. Due to real‐time constraints, solving model‐based optimal control problems in a very short amount of time can be challenging. For linear‐quadratic problems, Bemporad et al have proposed an explicit formulation where the underlying optimization problems are solved a priori in an offline phase. In this article, we present an extension of this concept in two significant ways. We consider nonlinear problems and—more importantly—problems with multiple conflicting objective functions. In the offline phase, we build a library of Pareto optimal solutions from which we then obtain a valid compromise solution in the online phase according to a decision maker's preference. Since the standard multiparametric programming approach is no longer valid in the nonlinear situation, we instead use interpolation between different entries of the library. To reduce the number of problems that have to be solved in the offline phase, we exploit symmetries in the dynamical system and the corresponding multiobjective optimal control problem. The results are verified using two different examples from autonomous driving.


In this paper, we introduced our joint team SJTU-NICT 's participation in the WMT 2020 machine translation shared task. In this shared task, we participated in four translation directions of three language pairs: English-Chinese, English-Polish on supervised machine translation track, German-Upper Sorbian on low-resource and unsupervised machine translation tracks. Based on different conditions of language pairs, we have experimented with diverse neural machine translation (NMT) techniques: document-enhanced NMT, XLM pre-trained language model enhanced NMT, bidirectional translation as a pre-training, reference language based UNMT, data-dependent gaussian prior objective, and BT-BLEU collaborative filtering self-training. We also used the TF-IDF algorithm to filter the training set to obtain a domain more similar set with the test set for finetuning. In our submissions, the primary systems won the first place on English to Chinese, Polish to English, and German to Upper Sorbian translation directions.


The majority of the arctic waters are only seasonally ice covered; the northern Barents Sea, where freezing starts at 80 to 81°N in September, is one such area. In March, the ice cover reaches its greatest extension (74-75°N). Melting is particularly rapid in June and July, and by August the Barents Sea may be ice free. The pelagic productive season is rather short, 3 to 3.5 months in the northern part of the Barents Sea (north of the Polar Front, 75°N), and is able to sustain an open water production during only half of this time when a substantial part of the area is free of ice. Ice algal production starts in March and terminates during the rapid melting season in June and July, thus equalling the pelagic production season in duration. This paper presents the first in situ measurements of both pelagic and ice-related production in the northern Barents Sea: pelagic production in summer after melting has started and more open water has become accessible, and ice production in spring before the ice cover melts. Judged by the developmental stage of the plankton populations, the northern Barents Sea consists of several sub-areas with different phytoplankton situations. Estimates of both daily and annual carbon production have been based on in situ measurements. Although there are few sampling stations (6 phytoplankton stations and 8 ice-algae stations), the measurements represent both pelagic bloom and non-bloom conditions and ice algal day and night production. The annual production in ice was estimated to 5.3 g Cm-2, compared to the pelagic production of 25 to 30 g Cm-2 south of Kvitoya and 12 to 15 g Cm-2 further north. According to these estimates ice production thus constitutes 16% to 22% of the total primary production of the northern Barents Sea, depending on the extent of ice-free areas.


In this paper, we investigate the classification of microscopic tumours using full digital mammography images. Firstly, to address the shortcomings of traditional image segmentation methods, two different deep learning methods are designed to achieve the segmentation of uterine fibroids. The deep lab model is used to optimize the lesion edge detailed information by using the void convolution algorithm and fully connected CRF, and the two semantic segmentation networks are compared to obtain the best results. The Mask RCNN case segmentation model is used to effectively extract features through the ResNet structure, combined with the RPN network to achieve effective use and fusion of features, and continuously optimize the network training to achieve a fine segmentation of the lesion area, and demonstrate the accuracy and feasibility of the two models in medical image segmentation. Histopathology was used to obtain ER, PR, HER scores, and Ki-67 percentage values for all patients. The Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival estimation, the Log-rank test was used for single-factor analysis, and Cox proportional risk regression was used for multifactor analysis. The prognostic value of each factor was calculated, as well as the factors affecting progression-free survival. This study was done to compare the imaging characteristics and diagnostic value of mammography and colour Doppler ultrasonography in nonspecific mastitis, improve the understanding of the imaging characteristics of nonspecific mastitis in these two examinations, improve the accuracy of the diagnosis of this type of disease, improve the ability of distinguishing it from breast cancer, and reduce the rate of misdiagnosis.


The efficient processing of tree based multiple task jobs arriving in batches to parallel and distributed systems is presented. This type of processing can be found in such application fields as, for example, automatic diagnostics and document recognition. A key management issue in such systems is task allocation. Load balancing is often proposed as the task allocation approach. The load balancing algorithms are employed to improve the throughput of the system by distribution of the incoming workload evenly among the processors in the system. The problem-specific static algorithms as well as general dynamic load balancing algorithms have been developed for supporting batch processing of tree based multiple task jobs. The proposed algorithms have been studied through simulation. Prescheduling load balancing algorithms have been evaluated as superior to other algorithms investigated.<<ETX>>


This study investigated nonverbal communicative abilities, functional play, and symbolic play in 11 toddlers with Williams syndrome (WS) during spontaneous communication. The WS group was compared with a group of typically developing (TD) children matched for linguistic abilities. Results demonstrated that children with WS exhibited significantly less spontaneous functional play and imaginary play compared to TD children. On the other hand, children with WS showed significantly more showing and giving guided by their parents than TD children. In addition, it was shown that in both groups aspects of symbolic play are correlated with expressive as well as receptive language. These findings are interpreted through the Theory of Intersubjectivity, which contrasts with the Theory of Mind and suggests that shared arbitrary purposes regarding actions on objects constitute presuppositions for the development of language.


The development of new MOEMS demands for cooperation between researchers in micromechanics, optoelectronics and microoptics at a very early state. Additionally, microoptical technologies being compatible with structured silicon have to be developed. The microoptical technologies used for two silicon based microsystems are described in the paper. First, a very small scanning laser projector with a volume of less than 2 cm3, which operates with a directly modulated lasers collimated with a microlens, is shown. The laser radiation illuminates a 2D-MEMS scanning mirror. The optical design is optimized for high resolution (VGA). Thermomechanical stability is realized by design and using a structured ceramics motherboard. Secondly, an ultrathin CMOS-camera having an insect inspired imaging system has been realized. It is the first experimental realization of an artificial compound eye. Micro-optical design principles and technology is used. The overall thickness of the imaging system is only 320 μm, the diagonal field of view is 21°, and the f-number is 2.6. The monolithic device consists of an UV-replicated microlens array upon a thin silica substrate with a pinhole array in a metal layer on the back side. The pitch of the pinholes differs from that of the lens array to provide individual viewing angle for each channel. The imaging chip is directly glued to a CMOS sensor with adapted pitch. The whole camera is less than 1mm thick. New packaging methods for these systems are under development.


Policies to mitigate natural hazards and terrorism are facing increasing scrutiny, such as the benefit-cost test. The benefits are the losses that can be avoided by the mitigation actions. For sound policy-making, it is therefore necessary that the various types of losses and major factors affecting them be identified and that metrics be established for their measurement in accordance with economic principles. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for the analysis and measurement of ordinary economic impacts and two categories of impacts that have recently gained the attention of analysts and policy makers, but for which operational definitions are lacking. The first is resilience, which refers to how the economy manages to keep functioning and how quickly it recovers. The second major extension of loss estimation pertains to behavioral and systems linkages. These refer to considerations unique to disasters that cause indirect impacts to be orders of magnitude greater than ordinary indirect effects in cases where risks are amplified, systems are overwhelmed, and resilience is eroded. The framework combines a checklist of types of impacts, consistent definitions, metrics, and strategies for estimation. The framework is serving as a template for loss estimation and benefit-cost analysis by several offices of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.


In the present study, we developed a novel ligninolytic enzymes based treatment for color stripping of cotton fabric. Knitted fabric was dyed with CI Reactive Black B dye to 2, 4 and 6% shades strengths. All the three shade were subjected to pre-optimized chemical and biological stripping processes, separately. In biological stripping, the fabrics were treated with ligninolytic enzymes extract produced from Ganoderma lucidum IBL-05 under optimum solid state fermentation conditions. The ligninolytic enzymes extract contained lignin peroxidase (944 ± 36.21 U/mL), manganese peroxidase (472 ± 12.11 U/mL) and laccase (94 ± 3.76 U/mL) as major enzyme activities. The effluents generated in the two processes were analyzed for various water quality parameters. The effluents from biological stripping were transparent whereas the dark blue colored effluents were generated in chemical stripping. The effluents generated in the chemical stripping process were highly polluted as compared to that obtained from the biological process in terms of pH, TSS, DO, BOD, COD and TOC values. Most of the water quality parameters of biological stripping effluents were in the recommended range of National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS) for industrial waste water, whereas, the values of these parameters were significantly higher for chemical stripping effluents suggesting that biological stripping is environment responsive technology for recycling of faulty dyed and old fabric.


The advent of the Java Card standard has been a major turning point in smart card technology. With the growing acceptance of this standard, understanding the performance behavior of these platforms is becoming crucial. To meet this need, we present in this paper a novel benchmarking framework to test and evaluate the performance of Java Card platforms. MESURE tool is the first framework which accuracy and effectiveness are independent from the particular Java Card platform tested and CAD used.


Thalidomide (Thal) can suppress the growth of established, as well as explanted tumors in mice. We wanted to determine if it could suppress the ability of tumor cells to assemble and establish a primary tumor at the injection site. Using the mouse 4T1 mammary tumor model, we fed Thal to mice for 4 days, then injected 105 4T1 cells into the interscapular region of Balb/c mice. After 20 days on treatment with Thal, all seven control mice, fed with meal had tumors ranging from 3 to 93 mm3 (median 20). Two of the eight mice fed with meal + Thal had no tumors, and the remaining mice had tumors ranging from 2 to 22 mm3 (median 5). The median volume of the tumors in the control group was significantly more than that of mice treated with Thal (p = 0.03, Mann–Whitney test). In vitro treatment of the 4T1cells with Thal did not inhibit their ability to proliferate, to adhere to plastic, or to bind to Concanavalin-A. Thal caused a marked reduction in the ability of the 4T1 cells to assemble into palpable tumors.


Abstract Due to the confusion of model contents and use, the reuse of existing enterprise models is limited. The inability for various aspects of an enterprise to be aware of its existing models, further exacerbates this problem. This paper presents an approach to integrating models and then proposes a methodology that will significantly aid in the comparison and evaluation of various enterprise models. This will lead to an enterprise-wide enterprise model repository. Two sample enterprise models are represented using the methodology. A direct benefit is the potential for increased model reuse.


Supports the Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust in its work of looking after all aspects of Isaiah Berlin's literary estate and fostering awareness of and access to his intellectual and literary legacy, particularly editing and publishing his unpublished works and letters and publishing collections of his published but uncollected work.


Knowledge of the pK(a) of phosphoranes is important for the interpretation of phosphate ester hydrolysis. Calculated pK(a)'s of the model phosphorane, ethylene phosphorane, are reported. The method of calculation is based on the use of dimethyl phosphate as a reference state for evaluating relative pK(a) values, and on the optimization of the oxygen and acidic hydrogen van der Waals radii to give reasonable pK(1)(a), pK(2)(a), and pK(3)(a) for phosphoric acid in solution. Density functional theory is employed to calculate the gas-phase protonation energies, and continuum dielectric methods are used to determine the solvation corrections. The calculated pK(1)(a) and p(2)(a) for the model phosphorane are 7.9 and 14.3, respectively. These values are within the range of proposed experimental values, 6.5-11.0 for pK(1)(a), and 11.3-15.0 for pK(2)(a). The mechanistic implications of the calculated pK(a)'s are discussed.


The most frequent PUVA treatment regimen in current use is three times weekly, using skin typing to estimate the starting dose. Recently, it was suggested that twice‐weekly treatment, using the minimal phototoxic dose (MPD) to calculate suberythemal starting doses of UVA, achieved similar clearance rates with fewer treatments and a lower cumulative UVA dose. We have carried out a trial on 83 patients, comparing twice‐weekly MPD‐PUVA with three times‐weekly skin typing‐PUVA, in order to test this hypothesis. Although clearance rates were comparable between the two regimens, there was no overall significant difference in the number of treatments or in the cumulative UVA doses at clearance. However, for patients with skin types I and II the cumulative UVA dose was significantly higher using the twice‐weekly MPD regimen (70–0 J/cm2 vs. 55–8 J/cm2; P < 005). Our results do not confirm that there is a reduction in cumulative UVA dosage with twice‐weekly MPD‐PUVA.


We propose diagonally oriented systolic algorithms for the computation of matrix functions. We design bidimensional and linear arrays and apply decomposition techniques in order to obtain size-independent algorithms for both arrays. An adequate chaining of the computations in the size-independent case allows us to get an optimal efficiency.<<ETX>>


Forest encroachment into several relict prairies located within the Edge of Appalachia Preserve System, Adams County, Ohio, was studied using a series of U.S.D.A. aerial photographs taken in 1938, 1950, 1965, and 1971. The corresponding photointerpretations reveal increased herbaceous cover after abandonment of cultivated field sites and illustrate the conversion of prairie and prairie glades to forest. All sites studied exhibited decreased percentage of prairie from 1938—1971. OHIOJ. SCI. 83 (3): 109-114, 1983


NEAR Shoemaker images reveal widespread occurrence of tectonic landforms on asteroid 433 Eros. Hinks Dorsum is a ridge that extends for about 18 km around the asteroid and strongly resembles thrust fault structures on the terrestrial planets. Tectonic landforms can provide information on the mechanical properties of asteroids, a subject of much controversy. Modeling constrained by topographic data shows that Hinks Dorsum can be accounted for by a shallow rooted thrust fault no greater than 250 m in depth with ∼90 m of cumulative slip. Strength envelopes based on frictional and rock mass strength criteria suggest the near‐surface shear strength of Eros is from ∼1 to 6 MPa. A spatial correlation is found between Shoemaker crater, a transition from low to high crater density, and Hinks Dorsum. This spatial relation along with the estimated strength of the asteroid suggests the thrust fault was formed by impact induced compression.


Background: Distal triceps ruptures are rare, and complete ruptures are commonly treated with surgery. Studies of patients in small cohorts with distal triceps tear have reported outcomes and risk factors; however, large-scale data are scant. This study seeks to determine current trends, outcomes, and risk factors of distal triceps tears. Methods: Within a large insurance claims database, distal triceps repair patients were identified through Current Procedural Terminology coding with concomitant distal triceps International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision/10th Revision diagnosis codes and 1-year active status before and after surgery. Demographics, total costs, 90-day complications, and revision rates within 1 year of index surgery were analyzed. Logistic regression was performed for revision and complication rates using sex, age, and comorbidities (anabolic steroid use, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, tobacco use, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic kidney disease). Results: A total of 8143 patients were included in the cohort. Male patients and patients aged 40 to 59 years comprised most of the study population. The postoperative complication rate was 5.8%, and the 1-year revision rate was 2.6%. Male sex, age >60 years, ischemic heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic kidney disease were statistically significant risk factors for higher 90-day complication rates. Anabolic steroid use significantly increased the risk of surgical revision. Conclusions: Distal triceps repairs in this large cohort study occur most frequently in men aged 40 to 59 years. Complications are generally low, with age >60 years, male sex, ischemic heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic kidney disease as risk factors for 90-day complications and prior anabolic steroid use as a risk factor for 1-year revision surgery. This information can help to improve education and expectations of this procedure.