The paper is devoted to the benefit of professional education to employees' work performance. A properly set up education system motivates employees to continue their education and subsequently facilitates their work activities. However, simply completing a properly planned training course may not guarantee the facilitation of the performance of work activities. By subsequent evaluation of the educational activities of the employees, it is necessary to find out whether the setting of professional education is beneficial for them or not. The education system needs to be looked at holistically. It is impossible to separate the benefit for the employees and the knowledge gained by completing the course. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the effectiveness of professional education to determine knowledge at the input and output of educational courses. The research was based on findings from groups of civil servants.


Co-provider marriages in which husbands and wives jointly provide shelter, food, and clothing for their families have existed for centuries. The extent to which both spouses' breadwinning efforts have been recognized, however, has varied over time. Currently, 65 percent of married couples in the United States are dual earners. Often overlooked are the meanings dual-earner spouses ascribe to paid employment, and husbands often retain the psychological responsibility to provide. Dual-earner couples in which both spouses assume responsibility for breadwinning have been termed "co-providers." In contrast to research that assumed similar attitudes between spouses, contemporary husbands and wives in dual-earner marriages are likely to have discrepant provider role attitudes. The extent to which dual-earner husbands and wives in the United States view wives' paid employment as essential varies among couples and often between spouses and has important implications for spouses' role-related stress, division of housework, and marital satisfaction.

Keywords:

co-providers;
division of labor;
dual-earner couples;
employment;
gender;
marriage;
provider role attitudes;
provider roles


When mining non-linearity function with large number of variables, traditional methods cannot effectively reduce the conditional attributes. To solve the problem, this paper proposes GEP-ARFM model. The model includes the concepts of marginal gene, marginal fitness, and revised fitness and the algorithms of GEPAMF, GARFM-GEP, and SARFM-GEP. The comparison experiments show that (1) both GARFM-GEP and SARFM-GEP can effectively reduce the conditional attributes to find the best function expression. (2) The precision of function expression by using SARFM-GEP is approximate with using GARFM-GEP algorithm. (3) SARFM-GEP method is 300 times faster than GARFM-GEP in the case of 20 independent variables. (4) The fitness value of the function expression got by using GEP-ARFM model is 24.6% greater than the traditional method


In this thesis the overall aim is to analyse conceptions of change with the point of departure being texts developed within the framework of three development partnerships financed by the European Social Fund's Equal Programme 2001-2007. The development partnerships, consisting of collaborating parties from both the public and private sector, aimed at developing new methods and ideas in order to counteract discrimination and all kinds of inequality in working life. The thesis poses the following research questions: How are the problems that the development partnerships intended to counteract described? What appears as important to change in order for discrimination in working life to decrease? In what ways are changes aimed at combating discrimination and contributing to increased gender equality and diversity in working life deemed possible? What motives emerge behind the visions of creating a working life without discrimination? How are gender and other social categories constructed and how do these constructions impact on the conceptions of change that emerge? The ideas, perspectives and interests that characterise the understanding of changes in working life in the studied texts, are illustrated with the aid of theories on how society's forms of rule have changed from government to governance and theories on how gender is done. Furthermore, why certain perspectives and ideas emerge and the consequences of them is analysed based on institutional ethnography and concepts such as social relations and ruling relations. The thesis' analysis points to how the consensus-based organisational form of partnership and the politics and principles that are reflected in the Equal Programme together with notions on growth, leadership and gender create limits for the conceptions of change. Limits that in certain respects entail that society's relations of power and inequality, instead of being challenged, are reproduced. Based on the results of the study, the importance is emphasised of continuously taking one's point of departure in identifying and challenging the limits to how one can speak of change, since the dominant conceptions of change may be an expression of the ruling relations.


This paper presents a low voltage, On-Off Keying (OOK) CMOS integrated transmitter for ISM 434 MHz biomedical applications using a concept of a novel self-oscillating (degenerated) active inductor. A thorough theoretical analysis of the oscillator is presented, together with simulated results using UMC 90 nm 1P9M RF process libraries. The proposed oscillator achieves an average phase noise of −93 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from 434 MHz carrier frequency, with a relative tuning range of 26% to compensate for process variations. The transmitter allows modulation speeds up to 100 Mbps with RF output power of −4 dBm to 50 Ω load from 1 V power supply.


In this paper we investigate the time and frequency synchronization as well as the sector and cell search for the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) downlink. The proposed algorithms rely on the synchronization and cell-specific reference signals and are hence compliant to most recent 3GPP specifications. Time and (fractional) frequency offset coarse synchronization are performed in the time domain with the cyclic prefix based autocorrelation, while the sector and cell as well as the integer frequency offset are estimated in the frequency domain by using the primary and secondary synchronization signals. To improve the cell detection reliability, the estimated cell is afterwards confirmed through the cell-specific reference signal. All algorithms are evaluated under multipath channel conditions and an initial carrier frequency mismatch. Compromising high performance with reasonable implementation complexity, we draw a practical solution for an LTE receiver.


Yuying Xie: ESTIMATION OF GRAPHICAL MODELS WITH BIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS (Under the direction of Yufeng Liu and William Valdar) Graphical models are widely used to represent the dependency relationship among random variables. In this dissertation, we have developed three statistical methodologies for estimating graphical models using high dimensional genomic data. In the first two, we estimate undirected Gaussian graphical models (GGMs) which capture the conditional dependence among variables, and in the third, we describe a novel method to estimate a Gaussian Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). In the first project, we focus on estimating GGMs from a group of dependent data. A motivating example is that of modeling gene expression collected on multiple tissues from the same individual. Existing methods that assume independence among graphs are not applicable in this setting. To estimate multiple dependent graphs, we decompose the problem into two graphical layers: the systemic layer, which is the network affecting all outcomes and therefore describing cross-graph dependency, and the category-specific layer, which represents the graph-specific variation. We propose a new graphical EM technique that estimates the two layers jointly; and also establish the estimation consistency and selection sparsistency of the proposed estimator. We confirm by simulation and real data analysis that our EM method is superior to a naive one-step method Next, we consider estimating GGMs from noisy data. A notable drawback of existing methods for estimating GGMs is that they ignore the existence of measurement error which is common in biological data. We propose a new experimental design using technical replicates, and develop a new methodology using an EM algorithm to efficiently estimate the sparse GGM by taking account the measurement error. We systematically study the asymptotic properties of the proposed method in high dimensional settings. Simulation iii study suggests that our method have substantially higher sensitivity and specificity to estimate the underlying graph than existing methods. Lastly, we consider the estimation of the skeleton of a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) using observational data. We propose a novel method named AdaPC to efficiently estimate the skeleton of a DAG by a two-step approach. The performance of our method is systematically evaluated by numerical examples.


This proposed rule would implement section 1893 of the Social Security Act (the Act) by establishing the Medicare integrity program (MIP) to carry out Medicare program integrity activities that are funded from the Medicare Trust Funds. Section 1893 expands our contracting authority to allow us to contract with "eligible entities" to perform Medicare program integrity activities. These activities include review of provider and supplier activities, including medical, fraud, and utilization review: cost report audits; Medicare secondary payer determinations; education of providers, suppliers, beneficiaries, and other persons regarding payment integrity and benefit quality assurance issues; and developing and updating a list of durable medical equipment items that are subject to prior authorization. This proposed rule would set forth the definition of eligible entities, services to be procured, competitive requirements based on Federal acquisition regulations and exceptions (guidelines for automatic renewal), procedures for identification, evaluation, and resolution of conflicts of interest, and limitations on contractor liability. In addition, this proposed rule would bring certain sections of the Medicare regulations concerning fiscal intermediaries and carriers into conformity with the Act. The rule would distinguish between those functions that the statute requires be included in agreements with intermediaries and those that may be included in the agreements. It would also provide that some or all of the listed functions may be included in carrier contracts. Currently all these functions are mandatory for carrier contracts. These changes would give us the flexibility to transfer functions from one intermediary or carrier to another or to otherwise limit the functions an intermediary or carrier performs if we determine that to do so would result in more effective and efficient program administration.


Photocatalysts, contrary to conventional catalysts, utilize light to drive a reaction. By absorption of photons, electrons are excited and reach higher states to initiate a redox reaction. This principle can be broadly used to produce chemicals such as hydrogen via the reduction of water or transform carbon dioxide into solar fuels, i.e., methane, methanol, and formaldehyde. Besides chemical production, the reductive/oxidative potential of the excited electrons/holes can be utilized to degrade molecules. This is especially useful for self-cleaning materials or for cleaning waste water streams from molecules such as dyes, pesticides, or pharmaceuticals, as water pollution levels increasingly harm human health, especially in developing countries. Despite the great potential and vast research activities over the last decades, the development of cheap and efficient photocatalysts and especially the evaluation of the mechanism of photocatalytic degradation pathways are still lacking, which hampers the translation from lab to application. TiO2 (P25) is a cheap and non-toxic photoactive material, yet too inefficient for water cleaning. This thesis focuses on the surface modification of TiO2 (P25), minimizing various drawbacks of TiO2 (P25) and on the evaluation of the photocatalytic mechanisms. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) allows us to precisely control the deposition of many different materials at the atomic level, an advantage that could improve the photocatalyst design and optimize the activity.


Germanate glasses are interesting materials for photonics applications. Particularly PbO containing glasses are interesting because they combine high photomechanical stability and chemical durability with temperature stability and excellent transmission in the infrared spectral region (up to 4,5 ?m). Besides the low phonon energy (around 700 cm-1) compared to borates (around 1400cm -1) and phosphates (around 1200 cm-1) the glasses indicate low nonradiative relaxation rates and makes up conversion easily observable. The results of measurements of a dependence of SHG in these glasses with different Er, Eu, Ag impurities are reported together with thermal measurements of these glasses. We compared the DSC traces with temperature dependences of second order susceptibilities enhancement. Temperature dependence of the second-order optical susceptibilities detected by the SHG correlates well with the differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) measurements. It is demonstrated that although both methods give an evidence of the phase transitions the non-linear optical one is much more sensitive and temperature resolved. Possible physical origins of the observed phenomenon are discussed.


3433 Serum oxidized LDL (oxLDL) is associated with increased ovarian cancer risk. OxLDL may also be elevated in the serum of obese individuals and we recently reported outcomes data from 216 ovarian cancer patients demonstrating that obesity was associated with reduced survival. To define the underlying mechanism for these observations, this study investigates targeting of liver X receptor (LXR) as a means to reverse proliferation of ovarian cancer cells mediated by ox-LDL. Serum oxLDL is regulated upon its binding scavenger receptors (CD36 & SRA), mediating oxLDL cell entry by receptor mediated endocytosis. Upon entering the cell oxLDL activates LXR nuclear receptors resulting in expression of ATP binding cassette transporter (ABCA1) leading to cholesterol efflux to HDL and subsequent reduction of LDL synthesis by the liver. Activation of LXR by synthetic nonsteroidal LXR ligands elicits the same response in mouse models, reducing atherosclerosis and other oxLDL-related disorders. We hypothesized that oxLDL is directly mitogenic to ovarian carcinoma cells and that LXR agonist can inhibit oxLDL mediated proliferation. Ovarian carcinoma cell lines CAOV3, OVCAR3 and SKOV3 were cultured as indicated and MTT proliferation assays were conducted. Expression of cell surface receptors was assessed by immunoblotting. Proliferation of each of the cell lines was significantly increased by oxLDL, but LDL had no mitogenic effect. A dose-dependent increase in cellular proliferation was seen with increasing oxLDL concentration. LXR synthetic ligand TO901317 doses between 10-50 ng/ml significantly inhibited the proliferation of all three cell lines. Growth stimulated by 25 μg/ml oxLDL was also reversed with the addition of 50 ng/ml TO901317. OxLDL also reduced the inhibitory effect of cisplatin for CAOV3 cells. We confirmed that each of the cell lines expressed CD36. We also showed that media conditioned on adipose cells was mitogenic to ovarian carcinoma cells. We conclude that LXR agonists may be effective for treating ovarian cancer based on dual roles of lowering LDL synthesis by the liver and directly effecting the inhibition of ovarian cancer cell proliferation.


ABSTRACT For as long as libraries have charged fines for books returned after their due dates, this familiar practice has excited comment and controversy. Fines are thought by many to deter patrons from keeping materials too long. However, others believe there is little persuasive evidence that fines are more effective at minimizing overdues than are reminder notices. Further, some critics contend charging fines is unethical, especially in public or school libraries, and the meager results are not worth the harmful public relations fines incur. The authors experimented with an alternative approach using positive reinforcement.


Afro-Asian cockroach from Chiapas amber and the lost Tertiary American entomofauna Cockroach genera with synanthropic species (Blattella, Ectobius, Supella, Periplaneta, Diploptera and ?Blatta), as well as other insects such as honeybees, although natively limited to certain continents nowadays, had circumtropic distribution in the past. The ease of their reintroduction into their former range suggests a post-Early Miocene environmental stress which led to the extinction of cosmopolitan Tertiary entomofauna in the Americas, whilst in Eurasia, Africa and Australia this fauna survived. This phenomenon is demonstrated here on a low diversity (10 spp.) living cockroach genus Supella, which is peculiar for the circumtropical synanthropic brownbanded cockroach S. longipalpa and also for its exclusively free-living cavicolous species restricted to Africa. S. (Nemosupella) miocenica sp. nov. from the Miocene amber of Chiapas in Mexico is a sister species to the living S. mirabilis from the Lower Guinea forests and adjacent savannas. The difference is restricted to the shape of the central macula on the pronotum, and size, which may indicate the around-Miocene origin of the living, extremely polymorphic Supella species and possibly also the isochronic invasion into the Americas. The species also has a number of characteristics of the Asian (and possibly also Australian) uniform genus Allacta (falling within the generic variability of Supella) suggesting Supella is a direct ancestor of the former. The present species is the first significant evidence for incomplete hiati between well defined cockroach genera — a result of the extensive fossil record of the group. The reported specimen is covered by a mycelium of a parasitic fungus Cordyceps or Entomophthora.


AIM
Analysis of LPS and LPS-binding protein (LBP) serum levels and prognostic value evaluation in cancer patients with sepsis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Blood samples of 17 healthy donors and 46 cancer patients with sepsis were analyzed by using "Hycult biotechnology" kits (The Netherlands).

RESULTS
Serum LPS level in cancer patients with sepsis was increased significantly. A substantial decrease of LBP level was detected in blood samples of deceased patients.

CONCLUSION
Dynamic increase of LPS serum level and decrease of LPS-binding protein serum level in cancer patients should be considered as an unfavorable factor for sepsis.


This study examined direct effects of postnatally administered ethanol upon growth and adult open field behaviors in male rats. Charles Rivers CD albino rats (13 litters) were used in 5 groups; ethanol, Sustagen, pair-fed, handled, or unhandled. Experimental animals were intragastrically fed ethanol (Sustagen [Mead Johnson] vehicle) twice daily, comparable volumes isocaloric Sustagen, handled or left unhandled. Ethanol doses on postnatal days 1-8, respectively, were: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1 g/kg. Ethanol-pups ceased weight gains at 4 g/kg; a handled pup, kept with a nonlactating female until its body weight matched its ethanol littermate, became a pair-fed control. Group body weights did not differ from day 21 throughout the experiment, day 154. Open field testing (day 120-124) used microcomputer programs to record event times and frequencies. Ethanol-treated rats had lower activity and longer start latencies (p less than 0.05) but did not differ on other computer-timed measures. Unhandled animals displayed some differences. When underfeeding effects are eliminated, ethanol (up to 4 g/kg) given on postnatal days 1-8 produced open field activity changes that persisted until day 120.


Sinus of Valsalva aneurysm is a rare defect that can present with fatal complications in case of rupture. Heart failure symptoms are common due to high fraction of the resultant shunt. Multimodality imaging and invasive hemodynamic assessment is essential for comprehensive evaluation of the defect and guiding surgical planning. We describe the case of a 40-year-old woman who presented with heart failure symptoms and was found to have ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm on transthoracic echocardiogram. Cardiac computed tomography angiography further characterized the defect and the associated anomalies. Right heart catheterization assessed the hemodynamic significance of the left to right shunt. Intraoperative findings highlighted the associated congenital anomalies including supracristal ventricular septal defect. The use of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography proved essential in detecting worsening of the right ventricular outflow track infundibular dynamic obstruction post repair thus delineating the importance of maintaining adequate cardiac preload. This case highlights a stepwise approach in the anatomical characterization of sinus of Valsalva aneurysm using multimodality imaging and the use of hemodynamic assessment and intraoperative imaging to guide surgical planning.


Microsomal cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase (EC 188.8.131.52) in rat liver was assayed by a single-isotope-incorporation method, and factors influencing its activity were studied. Crude cytosol contained a non-catalytic activator which was heat-stable and on-dialyzable. This activator enhanced cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase catalytic activity. The stimulatory property of this cytosolic activator was not altered by cholestyramine feeding, and was retained after fractionation by ammonium sulfate of saturation up to 65%. 3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) stimulated hydroxylase activity at concentrations up to 90 micro M. ATP at concentration greater than 1.2 mM inhibited hydroxylase activity. NaF was stimulatory at concentrations up to 50 mM with a maximum stimulatory effect at 10 mM, and was antagonistic in effect to ATP. HMG-CoA and ATP at the above inhibitory concentrations and higher abolished the activating effect of the cytosolic factor.


Abstract The hypothesis evaluated was that sorption/desorption experiments conducted under nonequilibrium conditions would sorb/desorb smaller amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in comparison to those conducted under an equilibrium condition. The magnitude of phenanthrene's (PHEs) sorption coefficient was approximately the same for both equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions. However, when the initial PHE concentrations were varied, sorption nonequilibrium resulted in a 1.4–4.8% decrease in the actual PHE sorbed than those obtained under equilibrium conditions. Similarly, thermodynamic nonequilibrium led to a smaller pyrene (PYR) desorption. For example, when PYR was initially spiked at 10 mg/L, a total of 3.1 mg PYR/kg was desorbed under desorption nonequilibrium, whereas 3.6 mg/kg when equilibrium had been achieved. Mechanistic analysis of sorptive phenomena with respect to soil organic matter (SOM), clay minerals, and dissolved organic matter (DOM) demonstrated that both expandable clays and aliphatic SOM served as main sorbents for PAH sorption/desorption; that DOM was not a primary desorptive factor; and the interaction with clay minerals were stronger than that with SOM.


Background Pancreatic schwannomas are rare neoplasms, which typically affect the adult population. The size of these tumors is highly variable. Since two thirds of these tumors are partially cystic, they grossly mimic cystadenomas and cystadenocarcinomas of the pancreas. The most common presenting symptom is abdominal pain. However, weight loss, jaundice and gastrointestinal bleeding have all been reported. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are the primary initial imaging modalities, which suggest schwannomas by evidence of encapsulation, hypointensity on T-1 weighted images and hyperintensity on T-2 weight images. However, the diagnosis is typically made at the time of laparotomy following biopsy. Histologically, schwannomas are characterized by spindle cells, whorling appearances and strong immunoperoxidase staining with S-100 protein marker. Surgical resection is the mainstay of therapy. Methods In the present report, we discuss a case of a 69 year-old woman whose initial presentation was progressive worsening abdominal pain in the epigastric and left upper quadrant. The patient had no systemic symptoms and laboratory results including tumor markers were negative. A CT scan of the abdomen showed a large mass arising from the head of the pancreas. Subsequent needle biopsy revealed a mass consistent with schwannoma. Results At laparotomy, a large retroperitoneal mass, 5.0×4.4cm, at the head of the pancreas was found to encase the superior mesenteric artery, and portal vein confluence. Frozen biopsy confirmed benign schwannoma. Curative resection was deferred due to extensive vascular involvement and favorable tumor biology. A retro-colic gastrojejunostomy was performed and radiation therapy was instituted post-operatively. Conclusion Pancreatic schwannomas are extremely uncommon and only 23 cases had been previously reported. Definitive diagnosis is obtained with routine histology and immunoperoxidase staining. Most tumors are benign and surgical resection is curative. Malignant transformation, albeit rare, had been reported. The role of chemoradiation therapy in the management of schwannomas is still unclear.


Purpose

As the Arab/Muslim-Israeli animosity case is attracting international attention, citizens of non-Arab and non-Muslim countries around the world, referred to as third-country nationals (TCNs), are increasingly joining the boycott against Israel. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of empathy for the citizens of the countries offended by Israel, namely Palestine and Lebanon, as a potential factor affecting TCNs decision to boycott Israeli products.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 20 in-depth interviews were conducted with non-Arab, non-Muslim, and non-Israeli informants from different national and religious backgrounds, supported by secondary data sources. The qualitative grounded theory approach was employed to analyse data in order to answer the research questions.

Findings

TCNs decision to boycott Israeli products is affected by their empathic concern for the citizens of Palestine and Lebanon rather than by animosity towards Israel. Such concern is evoked by their awareness of the animosity case and further strengthened by their self-transcendence/universalism values and interaction with the case which activate their altruism towards the citizens of the offended countries, and consequently motivates them to relieve or reduce the suffering of these citizens by avoiding Israeli products. Greater emphasis is given to the Arab/Muslim-Israeli animosity case as a result of the greater empathic emotional impact it generates compared to other cases.

Originality/value

This is an original attempt to distinguish empathy from animosity as a factor which can affect TCNs decision to buy from a country engaged in hostile actions against another country other than their own. As the boycott campaign against the country under examination is growing internationally, this study can help international marketers in setting strategies to either exploit or combat the boycott campaign.


This paper studies organizational structure and incentives within a company, Citibank, that has an explicit and evolving global business strategy. The paper focuses on Citibank's corporate banking business, which in the mid-1990s underwent major changes in its strategy that, in turn, were accompanied by two major reorganizations and implementation of a new incentive compensation system. Citibank's corporate banking business in OECD markets moved from a geography-based organization to one that was multi-dimensional, with the customer dimension given first priority, the product dimension given second priority, and the geography dimension significantly de-emphasized. Citibank thus represents an excellent setting for examining the interplay among strategy and organizational structure in a complex, global company. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.


An analysis of acoustic noise in electronically controlled variable speed drives is presented. The causes of vibration and acoustic noise in switched reluctance motors are discussed and it is shown that brushless d.c. motors can produce resonant vibration and acoustic noise by similar mechanisms.

The flux switching motor is introduced. This new class of reluctance motor is an advance on the established switched reluctance motor, retaining many of its benefits, but with a simpler and cheaper power electronic converter. The phase windings and method of flux control are different and tests are performed to quantify the effect on the acoustic noise produced. Measurements of acoustic noise are made on one flux switching motor and one 2-phase switched reluctance motor, made from the same laminations and mechanical components. It is shown that the flux switching motor produced 2dB less acoustic noise under the same conditions. Finite element analysis is used to calculate the radical force profiles of the two motors during normal rotation, and further analysis of this data provides evidence to support the experimental results. The experimental results go on to show how the acoustic noise from a second flux switching drive was found to be comparable to that of a split phase induction motor.


The underground complicated testing environment and the fan operation instability cause large random errors and outliers of the wind speed signals. The outliers and large random errors result in distortion of mine wind speed monitoring, which possesses safety hazards in mine ventilation system. Application of Kalman filter in velocity monitoring can improve the accuracy of velocity measurement and eliminate the outliers. Adaptive Kalman Filter was built by automatically adjusting process noise covariance and measurement noise covariance depending on the differences between measured and expected speed signals. We analyzed the fluctuation of airflow flow using data of wind speed flow and distribution characteristics of the tunnel obtained by the Laser Doppler Velocimetry system (LDV) studies. A state-space model was built based on the tunnel airflow fluctuations and wind speed signal distribution. The ad aptive Kalman Filter was calculated according to the actual measurement data and the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. The adaptive Kalman filter was used to shield fluid pulsation while preserving system-induced fluctuations. Using the Kalman filter to treat offline wind speed signal acquired by LDV, the reliability of Kalman filter wind speed state model and the characteristics of adaptive Kalman Filter were investigated. Result s showed that the adaptive Kalman filter effectively eliminated the outliers and reduced the root-mean-squares error (RMSE), and the adaptive Kalman filter had better performance than the traditional Kalman filter in eliminating outliers and reducing RMSE. Field experiments in online wind speed monitoring were conducted using the optimized adaptive Kalman Filter. Results showed that adaptive Kalman filter treatment could monitor the wind speed with smaller RMSE compared with LVD monitor. The st udy data demonstrated that the adaptive Kalman filter is reliable and suitable for online signal processing of mine wind speed monitor.


2',5'-Oligoadenylate synthetase (2',5'-OAS) was discovered and characterized as an interferon (IFN)-induced enzyme that in the presence of double-stranded (ds) RNA converts ATP into 2',5'-linked oligomers of adenosine with the general formula pppA(2'p'A)n, n > or = 1. The product is pppG2'p5'G when GTP is used as a substrate. Now, 20 years later, this activity is attributed to several well-characterized, homologous, and IFN-induced proteins in human cells. Three distinct forms of 2',5'-OAS exist, small, medium, and large, which contain 1, 2, and 3 OAS units, respectively, and are encoded by distinct genes clustered on the 2',5'-OAS locus on human chromosome 12. Recently, other IFN-induced proteins homologous to the OAS unit but devoid of the typical 2',5'-OAS catalytic activity have been described. These OAS-related proteins are encoded by a gene located at the proximity of the 2',5'-OAS locus. These findings illustrate the apparent structural and functional complexity of the human 2',5'-OAS family.


Among the members of the cytochrome P450 superfamily, P450 2E1 is most often associated with the production of reactive oxygen species and subsequent cellular toxicity. We sought to identify a structural basis for this distinguishing feature of P450 2E1 by examining its carbon monoxide binding kinetics as a probe of conformation/dynamics. We employed liver microsomes from wild-type and P450 2E1 knockout mice in order to characterize this P450 in a natural membrane environment. The CO binding kinetics of the P450s of wild-type microsomes had a rapid component that was absent in the knockout microsomes. Data analysis using the maximum entropy method (MEM) correspondingly identified two distinct kinetic components in the wild-type microsomes and only one component in the knockout microsomes. The rapid kinetic component in wild-type microsomes was attributed to endogenous P450 2E1, while the slower component was derived from the remaining P450s. In addition, rapid binding kinetics and a single component were also observed for human P450 2E1 in a baculovirus expression system, in the absence of other P450s. Binding kinetics of both mouse and human P450 2E1 were slowed in the presence of ethanol, a modulator of this P450. The unusually rapid CO binding kinetics of P450 2E1 indicate that it is more dynamically mobile than other P450s and thus able to more readily interconvert among alternate conformations. This suggests that conformational switching during the catalytic cycle may promote substrate release from a short-lived binding site, allowing activated oxygen to attack other targets with toxic consequences.


The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of responses to selected fragrance materials in patients who were fragrance sensitive. 218 fragrance sensitive subjects were evaluated in eight centres worldwide with a fragrance mixture (FM) and 17 less well-studied fragrance materials. Reaction to the fragrance mixture (FM) occurred in 76% of the subjects. The (FM) detected all reactions to nerol and hydroxycitronellol and 93% of the reactions to clove bud oil. Ten fragrance materials were not detected by the FM and deserve further study: benzenepropanol, beta, beta, 3-trimethyl, hexyl-salicylate, dl-citronellol, synthetic ylang ylang oil, benzyl mixture, cyclohexyl-acetate, eugenyl methyl ether, isoeugenyl methyl ether, 3-phenyl-1-propanol, and 3, 7-dimethyl-7-methoxyoctan-2-ol.


The occurrence of HIV-infected women resulted in the birth of children exposed or infected by the virus. This research aimed to identify aspects of HIV-positive children's interactions. This exploratory and descriptive study of qualitative approach was developed at an HIV/AIDS care referral service in Fortaleza-CE, Brazil, between July and December 2009. Participants were caregivers of 13 children infected with HIV. The semi-structured interviews and content analysis enabled the creation of categories: fear of contamination by HIV in the family core; lack of confidentiality and training of health professionals in care delivery to HIV/AIDS patients; and social exclusion in the family, neighborhood and school environment. In conclusion, the social interactions of HIV-positive children are impaired. Fear, exclusion and prejudice permeate the caregivers' lives, due to the fear that the children will be discriminated against in society. This study reveals information that can support holistic nursing care.


Objective: Some of the reported factors that increased the risk for coronary events in hypertensive individuals included elevated total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), reduced high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) and physical inactivity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of interval training programme on blood pressure and lipid profile in subjects with hypertension.
Methods: Two hundred and seventeen male patients with mild to moderate (systolic blood pressure [SBP] between 140-180 & diastolic blood pressure [DBP] between 90-109 mmHg) essential hypertension were age matched and grouped into interval and control groups. The interval (n=112; 58.63 ± 7.22 years) group involved in an 8 weeks continuous training (60-79% HR max reserve) programme of between 45minutes to 60 minutes, while age-matched controls hypertensive (n=105; 58.27 ± 6.24 years) group remain sedentary during this period. Cardiovascular parameters (SBP & DBP), VO 2 max, TC, LDL, HDL and Artrogenic Index (AI) were assessed. Students't test and Pearson correlation test were used in data analysis.
Results: Findings of the study revealed significant decreased effect of interval training programme on SBP, DBP, TC, LDL and significant increased effects on VO 2 max and HDL level at p < 0.05. Also there was a significant negative and positive correlation between changes VO 2 max and changes in TC and HDL respectively.
Conclusions: it was concluded that interval training programme is an effective adjunct non-pharmacological management of hypertension and a means of normal regulation of lipid profile.


Navassa Island is a small uninhabited island, approximately 60 km west of the south-west tip of Haiti (18°24′N, 75°00′W). Haiti laid claim to the island in 1804, however the USA claimed it under the Guano Act of 1856 and recently placed it under jurisdiction of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Remoteness from USFWS administration in Puerto Rico and disputed sovereignty by Haiti make enforcement of management impractical. Artisanal fishers from Haiti have frequented Navassa over the past several decades. Given the lack of current land-based development and limited transient land-based activity (for example salting fish and gear construction), Navassa provides a case study where fishing is largely isolated as the dominant human impact on coastal resources.


Structural power composites are multifunctional materials with simultaneous load bearing and energy storing functionality. This is made possible due to carbon fibers' ability to act not only as structural reinforcement materials, but also as electrode components. A crucial component of structural power composites is the structural electrolyte that is required to have both high stiffness and high ionic conductivity. To explore microstructure properties that bear optimal bifunctional performance a procedure is presented to generate various classes of synthetic microstructures with a wide span of properties for computer simulation. The effective properties of the generated artificial structural electrolytes are obtained via virtual material testing and compared with experimentally obtained data. Ultimately, a microstructure class with very good bifunctional properties is identified.


This article reports the results of a national study of American School Counselor Association members (N = 860). Information includes level of school counselor self-efficacy, type of program, status of achievement gap, and equity in their schools. School counselors with higher self-efficacy were more aware of achievement gap data, and school counselors who indicated a program approach and high self-efficacy were more likely to report narrowing achievement gaps. One fifth reported no awareness of achievement gap data. Implications for school counselors are included.


Dispensing with calorie-counting, this book is based on a system that is tailored to each individual. The basic idea is that each person has intolerances towards certain foods, which are inadequately digested and which cause weight-gain. For the nutron system, the individual has a blood test, is told which foods to avoid, and then can eat and rest freely.


Human rights are a universal language intended to end discrimination and violence, reduce human suffering and promote human development. The implementation of children's rights may prove crucial for the success of the human rights project. We are beginning to understand why this may be so, due in large part to new approaches to the prevention of childhood trauma which may lead to a paradigm shift in children's subject of rights status. The subject of rights status of children is still an international legal stipulation without substantive national implementation. Automatic parental authority over children at child birth – and its logical and factual corrolory: unprepared and not empowered or even disempowered parenthood – does not seem compatible with children's subject of rights status. Two waves of emancipation, culminating in the nearuniversal ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), have not changed this situation. A recent third wave, however, may trigger structural reforms in child protection. In this contribution, the three waves of children's emancipation will be briefly indicated on the basis of the movements and pioneers that played or play a crucial role in them. The first wave of children's emancipation from parental property status started with the first child protection organizations and laws at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first movement that has tried, and is still trying, to mitigate adult privileges that perpetuate transgenerational transmission of trauma, is the so-called Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention movement. The second wave consists of several advancements in children's social and legal status that, by and large, began after the adoption of the CRC in 1989, culminating in a fastly growing number of states adopting legal bans on corporal punishment in family law at the turn of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The CRC's monitoring treaty body, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe, and child rights NGOs and national child rights coalitions together form what may be called a Child Participation movement. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe and especially one NGO, the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, launched in Geneva in 2001, are also part of another movement which may be labeled the Hitting Ban movement. A third wave started recently, independently of the CRC and child rights NGOs, in the US. It is spreading around the globe on the basis of the 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study). The ACE Study led to a new science, ACEs science, and a new movement, the ACEs science movement or ACEs movement. These are exciting times, especially in relation to the ACEs movement which may very well trigger structural reforms in the century-old field of child protection. This could happen if the ACEs movement leads to trauma-informed child rights research and advocacy – which in turn would influence and even change the human rights project, as our understanding grows of the historical roots and pervasiveness of prejudice, discrimination and violence against children.


Recent malicious attempts are intended to get financial benefits through a large pool of compromised hosts, which are called software robots or simply "bots." A group of bots, referred to as a botnet, is remotely controllable by a server and can be used for sending spam mails, stealing personal information, and launching DDoS attacks. Growing popularity of botnets compels to find proper countermeasures but existing defense mechanisms hardly catch up with the speed of botnet technologies. In this paper, we propose a botnet detection mechanism by monitoring DNS traffic to detect botnets, which form a group activity in DNS queries simultaneously sent by distributed bots. A few works have been proposed based on particular DNS information generated by a botnet, but they are easily evaded by changing bot programs. Our anomaly-based botnet detection mechanism is more robust than the previous approaches so that the variants of bots can be detectable by looking at their group activities in DNS traffic. From the experiments on a campus network, it is shown that the proposed mechanism can detect botnets effectively while bots are connecting to their server or migrating to another server.


Abstract Under free market conditions, there should be a correlation between price and demand. In the electricity market, it is not possible to shift all consumption to hours that are more favourable. Therefore, free market rules do not fully apply to the electricity exchange market. Household consumers have a better ability to shift their energy consumption. At the same time, a large number of household consumers have fixed-price contracts and are therefore not affected by the sharp price changes, so it can be said that they do not actively participate in the stock market. They do not need to shift their electricity consumption. High-consumption industrial companies have very low possibilities at all to react to the stock market changes. The aim of this study is to find out how much electricity consumption has been able to shift in a situation where electricity prices in Estonian were extremely high and volatile. Electricity prices are usually lower at night-time, so it can be assumed that consumption will be shifted to night-time if possible. Examining the change in the distribution of night- and daytime electrical consumption over the years, it is possible to analyse the effect of energy prices on consumer behaviour during periods of high volatility.


Enhanced positron annihilation on polyatomic molecules is a long-standing and complex problem. We report the results of calculations of resonant positron annihilation on methyl halides. A free parameter of our theory is the positron binding energy. A comparison with energy-resolved annihilation rates measured for CH3F, CH3Cl, and CH3Br [L. D. Barnes, Phys. Rev. A 74, 012706 (2006)10.1103/PhysRevA.74.012706] shows good agreement and yields estimates of the binding energies.


During May of 1999 the sounding system (SOUSY) VHF radar was operated in a demonstrational field campaign specially designed to test the applicability of range imaging (RIM) to radar studies of the atmosphere. The RIM technique utilizes frequency diversity to offer a novel method of improving radar range resolution over that which can be obtained with a conventional pulsed radar with the same bandwidth. During the field campaign, which is being called SOUSY Multifrequency Atmospheric Radar Experiment 1999 (SOMARE‐99), the application of RIM on a VHF radar has been demonstrated. The data from SOMARE‐99 are intended for investigating the dynamics and morphology of fine‐scale vertical structures in the troposphere. This paper gives an overview of SOMARE‐99 and provides some initial scientific results. A central and important result was obtained by comparing RIM‐processed radar observations and data from radiosondes. Profiles of the vertical gradient of the generalized refractive index and the so‐called RIM‐enhanced echo power are found to bear similarities during one particular case, for which the radiosonde was located directly over the radar. Furthermore, a spectral analysis of these two parameters has provided evidence that RIM is successfully identifying multiple structures within the radar sampling volume with scales smaller than the conventional range resolution.


Floods are a serious concern in West Africa, and their severity will likely increase with climate change. The European Union-financed, inter- and transdisciplinary project FANFAR (https://fanfar.eu/) aims at providing an operational flood forecast and alert pilot system for West Africa, based on an open-source hydrological model employed in a cloud-based Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environment. To achieve this, an existing pilot ICT system is co-designed and co-adapted to meet needs and preferences of West African users. Four workshops are carried out in West Africa from 2018 to 2020, each with around 40 representatives from hydrological and emergency management agencies from 17 West African countries.

To better understand the stakeholders’ needs and preferences, and to prioritize the development of the FANFAR ICT flood forecasting and alert system, we use Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). This MCDA framework guides through a stepwise procedure to develop the FANFAR ICT system such that it best fulfils those objectives that are fundamentally important to stakeholders. The first steps of MCDA are problem structuring; starting with a stakeholder analysis to identify the most important participants for the co-design workshops. In the first co-design workshop (Niamey, Niger, 2018), we then used different problem structuring methods (PSMs) to brainstorm which objectives are fundamentally important to West African stakeholders, and which options (ICT system configurations) might achieve these objectives. To generate objectives, we used online and pen-and-paper surveys, group brainstorming, and plenary discussions. To generate options, we used a strategy generation table and the brainwriting-635 method. Between workshops, the FANFAR consortium post-processed the objectives and options. We also interviewed experts to predict how well an option achieves each objective; including the uncertainty, which is later propagated to the MCDA results with Monte Carlo simulation.

The refined objectives were again discussed in plenary sessions in co-design workshop 2 (Accra, Ghana, 2019), and we elicited the participants’ preferences in small group sessions. Weight elicitation captures the trade-offs stakeholders are willing to make regarding achieving objectives, if not all objectives can be fully fulfilled. We used the card procedure to elicit weights (Simos revised procedure), and the popular swing method. As additional preference information for the MCDA modelling, we elicited the shape of the most-important marginal value functions, which “translate” the objectives’ measurement-units to a neutral value between 0 (objective is not achieved) and 1 (fully achieved). To give one example: for the objective “high accuracy of information”, the best case is “100% accuracy”, translated to the value v=1; the worst case “0% accuracy” translates to v=0. Furthermore, we asked whether stakeholders agree with the implications of the commonly used (linear) additive aggregation model in MCDA (weighted average).

We will present and discuss main results of the MCDA-modeling. Our main aim is to give some insights into the participatory co-design process employed in FANFAR, and recommendations for other projects. We will discuss the problem structuring and preference elicitation methods, and how well they worked in this interesting West African context.


Abstract Study objective: Although uncommon, children (<16 years) with acute behavioral disturbance are a significant issue for emergency medical service providers. In this study, we aimed to investigate the safety and effectiveness of droperidol in children with prehospital acute behavioral disturbance. Methods: This was a prospective observational study over 1 year investigating the use of droperidol (0.1–0.2 mg/kg) for children (< 16 years) with acute behavioral disturbance. Inclusion criteria for acute behavioral disturbance were defined by a sedation assessment tool score of ≥2 determined by the attending paramedic. The primary outcome was the proportion of adverse effects (need for airway intervention, oxygen saturation <90% and/or respiratory rate <12, systolic blood pressure <90 mmHg, sedation assessment tool score of −3 and dystonic reactions). Secondary outcomes included time to sedation (sedation assessment tool score decreased by 2 or more, or a score of zero), requirement for additional sedation, failure to sedate and proportion of sedation success defined as the number of patients successfully sedated who did not suffer any adverse events or receive additional sedation. Results: There were 96 patients (males 51 [53%], median age 14 years [range 7–15 years]) who presented on 102 occasions over the one year study period. Self-harm and/or harm to others was the commonest (74/105 [70%]) cause of acute behavioral disturbance followed by alcohol (16/105 [15%]). There were 9 adverse events in 8 patients (8/102 [8%]; 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 3–13%) Five patients had hypotension, all asymptomatic and only one required treatment; 2 dystonic reactions managed with benztropine and one patient with respiratory depression. Median time to sedation was 14 min (interquartile range (IQR): 10–20 min; range: 3–85 min). There was no requirement for prehospital additional sedation (0/102 [0%]; 95% CI: 0–4%) and additional sedation in the first hour of arrival to hospital was required by 4 patients (4/102 [4%]; 95% CI: 1–10%). Overall successful sedation was achieved in 89 (87%) patients. Conclusions: The use of droperidol in children for acute behavioral disturbance in the prehospital setting is both safe and effective.


This research is concerned with how policy becomes practice. It examines the ways by which a policy is reshaped through its encounter with people, architecture and facilities, documents and specific realisations in art projects. In particular, it is concerned with how a left-wing arts education policy, one that aimed to emancipate disadvantaged people, worked in practice – including how it sometimes ended up running counter to its stated aims.

The policies that are followed here were first devised by the Leftist government in Mexico City between 1997 and 2000, and then expanded through various revisions and new policies in the following years. As part of the initial policy, an arts organisation, Faro de Oriente – Lighthouse of the Orient – was constructed in a deprived area in the East of Mexico City to give 'access' to 'arts' and opportunities for 'creativity' for the local population.

This thesis provides an in-depth study of how this specific arts policy was experienced on the ground between 2011-12 by the various participants in FARO –permanent staff, temporary teaching staff and also students who participated in arts workshops. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews, archival research, and photographic documentation, the thesis charts the ways in which particular aspects of the policy were mobilised and to what ends, and how these were reshaped through practice. This thesis highlights the significance not only of intentional actions by people but also of implements of work, such as the architecture of the FARO main building and its physical condition, the role of teaching staff and artistic projects.

Inspired by actor-network and assemblage theory which emphasise the interactions of human with non-human actors and processes that shape entities, the thesis maintains that a policy concerning arts education and creativity refers to the processes, practices and meanings of creativity that participants produce at FARO through everyday practice. A policy is an unfinished social process shaped by technical concepts, materialities, implements and reshaped through the practices of participants. Empirically, this research provides understanding of the everyday dynamics inside FARO, highlighting contradictions and ambiguities for the experience of students.

This thesis contributes to debates suttounding policy and creativity through the processes of the everyday life in an arts organisation.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the expressions of costimulators on peripheral T and B lymphocytes in patients with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).

METHODS
The expression of B7-CD(28) and CD(40) of peripheral lymphocytes was measured by flow cytometry in 21 ITP patients and 9 normal subjects. The expression of PAIgG was measured by ELISA method.

RESULTS
The expression of CD(4)(+)CD(28)(+) was lower in ITP patients than in normal controls, but the expression of CD(86)(+) and CD(86)(+)CD(19)(+) was higher in ITP patients than in normal controls, while the expression of CD(80)(+), CD(40)(+), CD(28)(+), CD(19)(+)CD(86)(+), CD(19)(+)CD(40)(+), CD(4)(+)CD(28)(+)/CD(4)(+), CD(19)(+)CD(80)(+)/CD(19)(+) and CD(19)(+)CD(40)(+)/CD(19)(+) in ITP patients was normal. The PAIgG level was higher in 16 patients with a mean of (184.62 +/- 38.00) ng/10(7) plt. A positive correlation was found between PAIgG and CD(19)(+)CD(86)(+)/CD(19)(+) expression.

CONCLUSION
There is no deficiency in expression of CD(28) on CD(4)(+) T lymphocytes in ITP patients. The change of CD(86) expression on B lymphocytes is possibly involved in pathophysiology of ITP, which may provide a theoretical instruction for ITP patients immunological therapy.


Emerging intelligent transportation applications, such as accident reporting, lane change assistance, collision avoidance, and infotainment, will be based on diverse requirements (e.g., latency, reliability, quality of physical experience). To fulfill such requirements, there is a significant need to deploy a digital twin-based intelligent transportation system. Although the twin-based implementation of vehicular networks can offer performance optimization. Modeling twins is a significantly challenging task. Machine learning (ML) can be a preferable solution to model such a virtual model, and specifically federated learning (FL) is a distributed learning scheme that can better preserve privacy compared to centralized ML. Although FL can offer performance enhancement, it requires careful design. Therefore, in this article, we present an overview of FL for the twin-based vehicular network. A general architecture showing FL for the twin-based vehicular network is proposed. Our proposed architecture consists of two spaces, such as twin space and a physical space. The physical space consists of all the physical entities (e.g., cars and edge servers) required for vehicular networks, whereas the twin space refers to the logical space that is used for the deployment of twins. A twin space can be implemented either using edge servers and cloud servers. We also outline a few use cases of FL for the twin-based vehicular network. Finally, the paper is concluded and an outlook on open challenges is presented.


Modern real-time applications have become more sophisticated and complex in their behavior over the time. Contemporaneously, multiprocessor architectures have emerged. Multiprocessor systems, due to their autonomy and reliability, face critical problem of energy consumption. To address this issue in real-time systems, many software-based approaches have emerged. This thesis proposes new techniques for energy-efficient scheduling of multiprocessor systems. Our first contribution is a hierarchical scheduling algorithm that allows restricted migration of tasks. This algorithm aims at reducing the sub-optimality of global EDF algorithm. The second contribution of this thesis is a dynamic power management technique called Assertive Dynamic Power Management (AsDPM). This technique is an admission control technique for real-time tasks, which decides when exactly a ready task shall execute, thereby reducing the number of active processors. The third contribution of this dissertation is a DVFS technique, referred as Deterministic Stretch-to-Fit (DSF) technique, which falls in the category of inter-task DVFS techniques. Both DPM and DVFS techniques are efficient for specific operating conditions. However, they often outperform each other when these conditions change. Our fourth and final contribution is a generic power/energy management scheme, called Hybrid Power Management (HyPow-Man) scheme. This scheme, instead of designing new power/energy management techniques for specific operating conditions, takes a set of well-known existing policies. At runtime, the best-performing policy for given workload is adapted by HyPowMan scheme through machine-learning approach.


One hundred forty-three patients with bronchogenic carcinoma were studied prospectively with computed tomography (CT) to determine the accuracy of CT in the evaluation of mediastinal nodal metastases. Mediastinal lymph nodes were localized according to the lymph node mapping scheme of the American Thoracic Society and were considered abnormal if they exceeded 1 cm in short-axis diameter. All patients underwent surgical staging, which consisted of either mediastinoscopy alone or mediastinoscopy and thoracotomy. At the time of surgical staging, all accessible nodes were either removed or sampled. The sensitivity of CT for mediastinal nodes on a per-patient basis was 64%, with a specificity of 62%. The sensitivity of CT for individual nodal stations involved with tumor was only 44%. The presence of obstructive pneumonitis did not appreciably alter the sensitivity of CT, but the specificity was lower (43%). The likelihood of metastases increased with lymph node size; however, seven of 19 (37%) lymph nodes that measured 2-4 cm in short-axis diameter were hyperplastic and did not contain metastases. The relative insensitivity of CT makes formal nodal sampling at the time of mediastinoscopy or thoracotomy essential to detect lymph node metastases.


Traditional survival analysis methods are primarily those of Kaplan-Meier curves, the log-rank test and Cox's Proportional Hazards model. Only the first of these techniques is routinely used to provide a graphical representation of the data. The idea of a regression curve is used to describe the relationship between survival time and a continuous covariate is rarely considered. This is presumably due to the complexity of estimating a mean when there are censored observations. Median survival times are often quoted for a set of analysed data and extending this to a median curve across a continuous covariate would provide an intuitive description of the effect of this covariate on survival time. In this thesis, a combination of two nonparametric procedures using kernel estimates provides a doubly-smooth quantile estimator for the pth (0 ≤ p ≤ 1) quantile of survival time given a covariate. Similar percentile curves can be derived for both Cox's model and a smooth proportional hazards models. While these allow a more explicit form of the curve to be written down, the doubly-smooth estimator has no assumptions about the baseline hazard rate or the shape of the covariate effect and is therefore more flexible. Assessing and comparing the fits of each of these approaches can be achieved by the calculation of a form of likelihood statistic. Due to the complexity of the mathematical properties of the nonparametric method, testing procedures are carried out using resampling techniques such as bootstrapping and permutation tests. One extension of this methodology is to consider the additional effect of a binary covariate on survival time. This is analogous to an analysis of covariance in a Normal regression model and interest lies in how to characterise the behaviour of the curves from each of the two levels. As before, percentile curves can be obtained and appropriate testing procedures applied. An algorithm based on serum creatinine curves was developed to detect graft deterioration in kidney transplant patients. These diagnoses had previously only been made by the subjective, experienced opinions of physicians, whereas the algorithm provided an explicit rule for detecting these cases. Survival times were also obtained and these data were analysed using standard techniques. Percentile curves were used to provide more information where the interpretation of a co- variate effect was difficult. In the absence of censored data, a different form of nonparametric smoothing was considered to assess the development of children suffering from cerebral palsy. Percentile curves were obtained using cubic splines to describe the growth of children with this condition and to compare them with those of normal children. This not only vindicated the belief that children suffering from cerebral palsy tend to be smaller and lighter than normal children of similar age but also provided standard curves useful in monitoring the development of these children.


Two possible mechanisms are responsible for the temporal broadening of pulses propagating in a turbulent medium. The ensemble averaged pulse may be broadened owing to the fact that each realization of the ensemble is spread in time as a consequence of scattering. It may also come about because of the wandering of the pulse. In this paper these two mechanisms are studied. First, the two-frequency and the four-frequency mutual coherence functions for the field are obtained for both the Rytov approximation and the asymptotic saturated condition. They are then used to compute the spreading and wandering of the pulse. It is found that under the condition of weak scattering, pulse wandering dominates the contribution to the broadening of the pulse. In the saturated region, however, pulse spreading becomes the dominant factor. Explicit expressions for the spreading and wandering are derived for some examples.


Certain exaggerated motor behavior patterns, particularly "toe walking," "rocking," "spontaneous whirling," and "clinging," or "herding," have been reported by several observers as symptomatic of schizophrenia in children. However, rhythmical behavior such as jouncing, rocking, and even spontaneous whirling may almost be considered as characteristic of the infant and the preschool child, and, at least momentarily, children of this age group may walk on their toes or have occasional outbursts of "clinging" to adults. 5 Although such motor activities probably become less frequent as the child develops more organized and specific play activities, at least somewhat similar motor behavior might be thought to occur sporadically in the play of normal school age children. Nevertheless, since such behavior may also be a forewarning of schizophrenia, it cannot be summarily dismissed as normal activity, especially among schoolage children. Since it is to the pediatrician that many parents initially report the occurrence of such


Venoms of snakes and scorpions pose a significant threat to the health and life of humans. The speed and range of their actions causes damage of the organ responsible for the maintenance of vital signs. Venomous snake venoms cause blood clotting disorders, tissue necrosis and hemolysis, and the release of a number of proinflammatory cytokines and impair antibody synthesis. Availability of antitoxins is limited and in the most cases supportive treatment is recommended. In turn, the venom of scorpions beside intestinal symptoms cause significant impairment of neuromuscular conduction, causing severe respiratory disorders. Action venom poses a particular threat to sensitive patients. The degree of threat to life caused by the venom of snakes and scorpions authorizes the treatment of these substances as a potential biological weapon.


Computer seed digital imaging was utilized in this study to evaluate the differences in seed metric traits in twenty genotypes of pigeon pea as affected by the seed production environment. InSEEDLE™ software digital imaging analysis was used to differentiate the seed metric characters. For every replication, a hundred seeds were placed on the lighting hood in such a way that the embryo axis of the seed faced the image analysis system. Seeds were automatically analyzed by the scanner and the image of the seed was recorded by the 'WinSEEDLE™'. The procedure was repeated three times. The parameters observed were seed area, straight length, curve length, straight width, curve width, width length, and seed perimeter. Data collected were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) and principal component analysis. The result revealed that the pigeon pea genotypes evaluated were highly variable in all the seed metric traits evaluated. NSWCC-34C, NSWCC-34b, NSWCC-50 and NSWCC-34 were identified with consistent and high seed morphometric characteristic performance for most of the attributes examined, hence, an important tool in selecting superior pigeon pea genotypes and could be used as parental material.


More than 300 quarries and 1000 stone cutting industries are exist in Palestine, with a total annual yield of 100 million tons of raw stone and 25 million square meters of good stone. Unfortunately, this industry is usually associated with air pollution. To assess the impact of such action on agriculture and plant biodiversity, two methods including measurement of the particulate matters (PM) as well as a social survey were used in this study. Significant high concentrations of particulate matter/dust as well as total suspended solids (TSP) were presented in the three examined sites located at the northern region of West-Bank, Palestine. This indeed implies the occurrence of high amount of air pollution and dust in the examined areas which significantly exceed the international standards. Furthermore, a notable negative impact of quarrying on plant biodiversity, habitat destruction, and plant survival is also revealed. Based on the questionnaire results and due to quarrying and stone cutting industries, wide range of the plants were affected or even extinct, in which olive was the most affected one with average respondents of 31%. According to the obtained results, it is highly recommended to develop green belt surroundings the quarrying using pollutant-tolerant trees (usually with broad leaves) in order to restrict spreading of quarrying dust via intercepting, filtering and absorbing pollutants.


ABSTRACT Innovative microanalytical methods are valuable tools in geomicrobiology. They often require the use of dried samples, demanding a challenging sample preparation. Since geomicrobiological samples typically have a strongly heterogeneous composition, choosing a preparation method is not straightforward. We therefore compared how different drying methods (critical point drying, hexamethyldisilazane drying, air drying and freeze drying) influence the structure of bacterial cell-mineral aggregates. Each method proved suitable for a specific purpose, but none was able to completely preserve the sample structure. Additional information was obtained on surface alterations by sputter coating and on preservation of extracellular polymeric substances during resin embedding.


From the Publisher:
CRC Press, LLC presents the "Best Practices In" series. Auerbach publishing, a world-renowned leader in Information Technology and Information Systems, announces a bold new publishing program to serve the ever increasing needs of the IT professional. This series is designed to provide cutting-edge techniques and practices of leading IT organizations; these are "must have" reference works for any IT organization.


Measurements of a large, 1-m in diameter, turbulent buoyant methane-air fire plume are taken and compared to results from numerical simulation using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). The experiments are carried out in Sandia's FLAME (Fire Laboratory for Accreditation of Models and Experiments) facility and consist of a low velocity (0.12 m/sec) methane plume emitting upwards into ambient air. Numerical results show evidence of strong entrainment velocities resulting in flame pinch off near the base of the plume. Preliminary comparisons of the LES results to experimental measurements show good qualitative agreement to mean stream-wise and cross-stream velocities.


In this chapter fundamental problems of collaborative computational intelligence are discussed. The problems are distilled from the seminal research of Alan Turing and John von Neumann. For Turing the creation of machines with human-like intelligence was only a question of programming time. In his research he identified the most relevant problems concerning evolutionary computation, learning, and structure of an artificial brain. Many problems are still unsolved, especially efficient higher learning methods which Turing called initiative. Von Neumann was more cautious. He doubted that human-like intelligent behavior could be described unambiguously in finite time and finite space. Von Neumann focused on self-reproducing automata to create more complex systems out of simpler ones. An early proposal from John Holland is analyzed. It centers on adaptability and population of programs. The early research of Newell, Shaw, and Simon is discussed. They use the logical calculus to discover proofs in logic. Only a few recent research projects have the broad perspectives and the ambitious goals of Turing and von Neumann. As examples the projects Cyc, Cog, and JANUS are discussed.


In most existing recommender systems, implicit or explicit interactions are treated as positive links and all unknown interactions are treated as negative links. The goal is to suggest new links that will be perceived as positive by users. However, as signed social networks and newer content services become common, it is important to distinguish between positive and negative preferences. Even in existing applications, the cost of a negative recommendation could be high when people are looking for new jobs, friends, or places to live. In this work, we develop novel probabilistic latent factor models to recommend positive links and compare them with existing methods on five different openly available datasets. Our models are able to produce better ranking lists and are effective in the task of ranking positive links at the top, with fewer negative links (flops). Moreover, we find that modeling signed social networks and user preferences this way has the advantage of increasing the diversity of recommendations. We also investigate the effect of regularization on the quality of recommendations, a matter that has not received enough attention in the literature. We find that regularization parameter heavily affects the quality of recommendations in terms of both accuracy and diversity.


Background Although previous studies demonstrated no association between depression and tamoxifen in patients with breast cancer, there is still a limited amount of long-term follow-up data. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between endocrine treatment and the risk of depression. Methods This nationwide population-based cohort study used data obtained over a 14-year period (January 2007 to December 2021) from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database. All female patients with breast cancer were included. We examined the incidence of depression in patients who underwent endocrine treatment, and those who did not undergo endocrine treatment constituted the control group. Results The data from 11,109 patients who underwent endocrine treatment and 6,615 control patients between 2009 and 2010 were analyzed. After performing matching for comorbidities and age, both groups comprised 6,532 patients. The median follow-up were 119.71 months. Before and after matching was performed, the endocrine treatment was not a significant risk factor for developing depression (p=0.7295 and p=0.2668, respectively), nor was it a significant factor for an increased risk for suicide attempt (p=0.6381 and p=0.8366, respectively). Conclusions Using a real-world population-based cohort, this study demonstrated that there is no evidence that the endocrine treatment increases the risk of depression.


Asteraceae account for 10% of all flowering plant species, and 35%–40% of these are in five closely related tribes that total over 10 000 species. These tribes include Anthemideae, Astereae, Calenduleae, Gnaphalieae, and Senecioneae, which form one of two enormous clades within Subfamily Asteroideae. We took a phylogenomics approach to resolve evolutionary relationships among these five tribes. We sampled the nuclear and plastid genomes via HybSeq target enrichment and genome skimming, and recovered 74 plastid genes and nearly 1000 nuclear loci, known as Conserved Orthologous Sequences. We tested for conflicting support in both data sets and used network analyses to assess patterns of reticulation to explain the early evolutionary history of this lineage, which has experienced whole‐genome duplications and rapid radiations. We found concordance and conflicting support in both data sets and documented four ancient hybridization events. Due to the timing of the early radiation of this five‐tribe lineage, shortly before the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event (34 MYA), early lineages were likely lost, obscuring some details of their early evolutionary history.


Abstract This study provides results on buried tunnel valleys from the greatest number of released three-dimensional (3D) seismic surveys in the Danish North Sea sector to date. The valley infill sediments and the fluid content from buried Pleistocene tunnel valleys beneath the North Sea floor cause significant seismic velocity effects. Analysis of conventional 3D seismic data, high-resolution two-dimensional (2D) seismic data and wire-line log data from exploration wells reveal a multistage cut-and-fill history of tunnel valleys in the Danish North Sea. The seismic infill facies of the valleys is analysed and the associated velocity effects quantified. The valley infill generates both velocity pull up and push down of underlying seismic horizons. In contrast to expectations, our analysis shows no distinct correlation between particular seismic facies and a particular travel-time effect. Infill units characterized by the same seismic facies within the same valley can thus provide different travel-time effects. The anomalous velocities can be used as indicators of shallow gas and till content within the valleys leading to low and high velocities, respectively. Detailed investigations suggest that tunnel valley formation and sediment infill occurred over several episodes, with partial reuse of the kilometre-scale valleys and strong indications of ice-free periods between some of the formation episodes.


RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To evaluate adherence to guidelines for prophylactic antibiotic use in total knee replacement (TKR) and total hip replacement (THR) procedures and to examine the associations between guideline adherence and health care outcomes.

METHODS
Using nationwide health insurance claims data, all adult inpatients undergoing TKR or THR procedures at teaching hospitals from 2002 to 2006, were included. Guideline adherence rates were assessed every year according to the national guidelines introduced in 2004. Multiple regression analyses with generalized estimating equations models were used to examine the relationships between the deliberate variables.

RESULTS
The guideline adherence rates stably increased from 14.07% in 2002 to 28.34% in 2006. The 2006 dataset included 12 863 observations. The results revealed that guideline adherence was negatively associated with length of stay and health care expenses with beta = -0.0207 and -0.0087, respectively (P < 0.0001). The 30-day readmission rate was 1.54% among the patients seen in 2006, and it was significantly different between the two groups, with 0.90% of the adherence group and 1.82% of the non-adherence group being readmitted (P = 0.0002).

CONCLUSIONS
The guideline adherence for prophylactic use of antibiotics is improving in Taiwan and is associated with a shorter length of stay, fewer medical expenses and lower 30-day readmission rates. Promoting evidence-based practice guidelines may be beneficial to patients and health care providers.


The aim of this study was to clarify the features of the reparative process of the rat's oral mucosa in the later periods after fractional laser treatment with an analysis of the possible involvement of mast cells and myofibroblasts in this process. Material and methods. The samples of the oral mucosa of male Wistar rats (n=9) were used as a material for this study. Fractional laser treatment was carried out using stLase (DentalPhotonics, USA) with power P=7–10 W and pulse duration tp=100–200 ms (wavelength 980 nm). Histological sections of the oral mucosa from the control zones (unaffected) and zones treated with laser radiation were stained with hematoxylin and eosin and with Masson's aniline blue. To identify mast cells, toluidine blue was used. For the detection of blood vessels and myofibroblasts, immunohistochemical reaction to smooth-muscle α-actin was performed. Results. On the 28th day after fractional laser treatment in rat oral mucosa the signs of incomplete repair were present. At this period in laser treated areas within the lamina propria rows of densely adjacent myofibroblasts were found. In the rows of myofibroblasts the mast cells are not visualized, while in the similar areas of the intact mucosa mast cells are present in large numbers. Conclusion. Fractional laser treatment stimulates the prolongation of regeneration process of rat oral mucosa while formation of myofibroblasts occurs in the laser treated zone. During this process mast cells may be involved. The ability to degranulate under laser radiation was shown.


The interference behavior of high-l Rydberg states is investigated in external fields. We prepare high-l states from an initial excited ns Cs Rydberg state by applying one electric-field pulse. The interference between the initial ns state and the high-l states is investigated by two time-delayed short electric-field pulses. The state selective field ionization technique is used to measure the transfer ratio versus the field pulses parameters. The visibility of interference is defined to describe interference and the results show that a relative long duration of electric-field pulse will weaken the interference.


In 2017, the Dutch government has set the goal to achieve a 100% circular economy by 2050. A transition from the current linear economy towards a circular economy is necessary to reach this goal. In the circular economy, products at end-of-life are no longer seen as waste but will be reused as a secondary product or resource. The general aim of this research is to investigate the implementation of the circular economy concept in the public space. From this study, it became clear that Dutch municipalities are willing to implement circularity for assets released from the public space. However, the municipalities are not aware of the actions which are required to increase the circularity within its maintenance activities. A method is proposed which gives decision makers of a municipality guidelines to justify their decision for a maintenance plan of an urban area. This method includes PAVE (maintenance plan analysis tool to value enhancement of circularity in the public space): a tool which quantifies the environmental and economic impact of maintenance plans. To express the impacts four criteria were selected: the carbon footprint, financial footprint, material loss and monetary value loss. The tool follows a life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. In this research, the use of PAVE was investigated during the maintenance of a neighbourhood in Almere. It was concluded that to be able to implement PAVE in an effective manner, the asset database of the municipality needs to be updated to fill in the information gap. Part of the case area database was renewed to conduct an inventory of the assets in the selected urban area for this research. In PAVE, the impacts of the selected assets were calculated for both the circular project plan of the contractor and the traditional linear plan. PAVE indicated that using the new project plan for the case area results in approximately 1455 ton less CO2 emissions and is €4304000 cheaper compared to the traditional linear maintenance plan. Furthermore, PAVE demonstrated that the use of the new plan leads to 238 m3 and €424.000 less material and monetary value loss, respectively. In this research, it was evident that to select a maintenance plan among others, the tool should be included in the decision-making scheme of municipalities. By implementing PAVE, decision makers will be able to compare the impacts of different maintenance plans and select the most suitable plan based on environmental and economic considerations. The implementation of the tool can be ensured by making the provided budget dependent on implementation. Finally, the proposed plans of contractors should be evaluated on their circularity. Guidelines have been formulated to support the selection of the maintenance plan for urban areas in the public space.


Abstract How do children acquire beliefs from testimony? In this chapter, we discuss children's trust in testimony, their sensitivity to and use of defeaters, and their appeals to positive reasons for trusting what other people tell them. Empirical evidence shows that, from an early age, children have a tendency to trust testimony. However, this tendency to trust is accompanied by sensitivity to cues that suggest unreliability, including inaccuracy of the message and characteristics of the speaker. Not only are children sensitive to evidence of unreliability, but they are also sensitive to the positive reasons a speaker may have for the reliability of their testimony. This evidence is discussed in relation to reductivist and non-reductivist viewpoints.


A simple and relatively cheap method for quantitating diabetic microproteinuria with Coomassie brilliant blue dye binding method was evaluated. It provides a proportional reactivity to urinary albumin as measured by the more expensive immunoassay. The significant correlation between haemoglobin A1 and microproteinuria shows that the quantity of urinary protein is affected by metabolic control of diabetes.


Hypothesis: The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of three different adaptive devices used to facilitate therapeutic horseback riding for riders with cerebral palsy (CP), the horses, and the assisting persons. The study hypothesis was that there is no difference in clinical benefit to the rider; stress or physical saddle pressure to the horse; or the level of exertion required from assisting persons when using any of the three adaptive devices. Population: Individuals with varying disability due to cerebral palsy who participated in a therapeutic horseback riding program at a Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH) Premier Accredited Center.
 Intervention: Therapeutic horseback riding sessions using one of three adaptive devices. Comparators: Two commonly used adaptive devices (English saddle and bareback pad with backrider), and one recently developed, less-used device (Independence saddle). Outcomes: Clinical benefit for the individual with Cerebral Palsy was evaluated using an osteopathic musculoskeletal exam score. Equine stress was evaluated using a horse stress behavior ethogram. Physical pressure under the saddle of the horse was evaluated using a
 Pliance Saddle pad under each adaptive device. Required level of exertion by assisting persons was measured using an assistant exertion score.
 Conclusion: Therapeutic riding using an English saddle, a backriding pad with backrider, or an Independence saddle, by individuals with various degrees of disability, does not cause excessive stress or result in excessive pressure to the horse. Using one assistive device over another also does not appear to change the likelihood of clinical benefit to the rider. However, exertion scores for assisting persons were lower when the Independence saddle was used compared to the English saddle or backriding pad. Adaptive devices that allow an individual with CP to improve function, ride more independently, provide some respite for the side walker and do not cause undue stress or frustration to the horse would be a great addition to the therapeutic regimen. Based on the results of this study, the Independence saddle is a viable alternative to the English saddle or the backriding pad for riders that would otherwise need extensive assisting person support in a therapeutic riding program.


Advanced-stage prostate cancer is characterized by osseous metastases whose establishment involves the dynamic interplay of factors and exchange of cellular contents by constituents of the tumor bony microenvironment. Among the factors that transport cellular cargoes and facilitate the transmission of signaling complexes for establishment of the bone metastatic lesions are large extracellular vesicles (LEVs), also known as large oncosomes. Information on the contents of LEVs and the mechanisms by which LEVs are formed and regulated is incomplete. In the course of studies aimed at elucidating the mechanisms of bony metastases using the LNCaP-C4-2B prostate cancer progression model, we show that the expression and cellular distribution of nicotinamide riboside: quinone oxidoreductase 2 (NQO2) and glutaminase (GLS, kidney type) both participate in the induction of membrane-localized oxidative stress and the formation of LEVs. The salient features of our findings are the following: The LNCaP model system exhibits gradually increasing oxidative stress levels as it progresses to the bone metastatic derivative C4-2B, while at the same time showing a progressive decrease in the expression level of NQO2. Reverse transcription PCR studies showed that NQO2 mRNA levels were unchanged between LNCaP and its metastatic derivatives C4, C4-2 and C4-2B. As a control, the expression level of the analogous enzyme NADP(H):quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1) was also unchanged. These results suggested the possibility that the NQO2 enzyme in the bone metastatic C4-2B derivative could be localized elsewhere, possibly at an extracellular location. Further studies showed that a fraction of the NQO2 enzyme was associated with the detergent resistant membrane fraction of the C4-2B prostate cancer cells. Molecular modeling studies showed that the NQO2 enzyme had two caveolin-1 and NQO1 enzyme had one caveolin-1 binding sites. While the caveolin-1 binding site of NQO1 is buried inside the molecule and hence inaccessible to caveolin-1, one of the two binding sites available in NQO2 was external and accessible to caveolin-1. We have validated the specific interaction between NQO2 and caveolin-1 using deletion constructs of caveolin-1 fused with glutathione S-transferase (GST). Mitochondrial preparations of LNCaP, C4, C4-2, and C4-2B cells showed increasing level of expression of the GLS enzyme, suggesting a correlation between increased oxidative stress, glutaminase activity, and metastatic potential. Moreover, we found that the metastatic C4-2B derivative extruded LEVs in which the enzyme NQO2 and caveolae specific caveolin-1 could be visualized as cargo using double immunofluorescence studies. The extrusion of these LEVs could be inhibited by the GLS specific inhibitor BP-TES. Characteristically, curcumin was also found to inhibit the extrusion of these LEVs. This naturally occurring plant-based compound was shown earlier to inhibit prostate cancer bone metastasis in vivo using the C4-2B model. These results indicate a role for the NQO2 enzyme at the membrane level, possibly increasing the oxidative stress in a localized manner by lipid peroxidation. These results also suggest that a glutamine/GLS-mediated metabolic reprogramming in the LNCaP model system as it progresses toward the bone metastatic C4-2B is an integral component of the force driving the metastatic process. Based on the results of our studies, a combinatorial strategy using antimetastatic therapies such as nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates (NBPs) and anti-GLS therapy or, alternatively, a naturally occurring plant compound-based anti-NQO2 and anti-GLS therapy, could be considered for treating advanced prostate cancer patients with bone metastatic complications. Citation Format: Thambi Dorai, Ankeeta B. Shah, Faith Summers, Rajamma Mathew, Jing Huang, Tze-chen Hsieh, Joseph M. Wu. NRH:quinone oxidoreductase 2 (NQO2) and glutaminase (GLS) both play a role in large extracellular vesicles (LEV) formation in preclinical LNCaP-C4-2B prostate cancer model of progressive metastasis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference: Prostate Cancer: Advances in Basic, Translational, and Clinical Research; 2017 Dec 2-5; Orlando, Florida. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(16 Suppl):Abstract nr B003.


Three single phase current fed converters operating in pwm mode, are combined as an active power filter of 15 kVA. The undesired limit cycle shown by the system is eliminated by feedback loop compensation. Analog, computer and analytical models which predict remarkably similar system responses are used to investigate the technique. The analytical model involves describing function methods. The losses in the converters are modelled, and used as a feedback reference to allow losses in the system to be accurately covered from the supply. The system behaves as an accurate, fast active filter for distortion in power networks. Results illustrating this include a comparison between the system response without control loop compensation and that with control loop compensation. This is shown for the computer simulation as well as the practical system. Some more results include the response of the system to both a balanced and an unbalanced set of references in the three phases. The last results shown, illustrate the ability of the system to compensate a non-linear load.


The first quantitatively correct pictorial atlas of the cut locus of a nontrivially deformed standard torus in R3 given a nonsymmetrically placed starting point is presented along with a description of the software tool Loki used to generate it. Loki can compute the cut locus from a point on a genus-1 twodimensional Riemannian manifold defined either by a parametrization or its metric, these to be given in closed form. The algorithm computes a piecewise polynomial approximation to the exponential map and inverts this numerically, thus correctly taking into account the global nature of the problem. As an example of its use in motivating and guiding traditional mathematical research, we provide a preliminary conjecture based upon the output of this software and both a counterexample and a proof motivated by the conjecture.


Results of investigation of influence of tilt of mirror surface on the measurement accuracy of laser triangulation rangefinder are represented. Optical system of sensor satisfying to Scheimpflug's principle is considered. The measuring errors produced by asymmetry of light distribution in photorecording plane at sensing a surface by anisotropic Gaussian light beam are analyzed. The example of measuring a melt level in the crucible during the Czochralski pulling is considered at which the tilt of a melt surface depends on angular velocity of crucible rotation.


Abstract In the backdrop of the COVID‐19 pandemic, which has already had disastrous public health and economic effects, but also resulted in the positive emotion of love as a spontaneous response at many levels, this article asks whether there is a need for the explicit inclusion of the emotion of love in policy formulation. It answers this affirmatively by first proposing, in Part I, what love should mean in policy formulation. However, as rationality remains highly prized in policy formulation, it considers emotion as prejudicial to its cool and level‐headed processes and assumes that human behaviour is exclusively negative. To overcome this drawback, love is proposed for inclusion in policy formulation on the rationale that it is a real and positive emotion. Part II takes an eclectic approach and provides six examples of love's relevance drawn from hate studies, medicine, business, psychology, religion, and women's preferences. Together, they constitute a significant pattern and demonstrate love's versatility, making it relevant for those who formulate policy. Suggestions for policy applications are also made. While acknowledging that including love in policy formulation is not a panacea, this positive, universal, and resilient emotion should be incorporated in policy formulation to increase its effectiveness and relevance given the exceptional negativity of our times following COVID‐19.


This paper is concerned with the active construction of site enacted by the performances of the guided tour. Acknowledging that sites are not just "read" and visited by tour groups, but also "written" and performed, guided tours are recognised as part of the performative relational processes that continually create sites. Following the geographer Doreen Massey, sites are understood as a "simultaneity of stories-so-far" which include the representations and practices of the tour itself. In academic writing on tourism per se, the illusion/authenticity debate has been widely discussed, but this has yet to be given adequate attention regarding the specific situation of the guided tour. The article suggests that in buying into the illusions of the tourist industry, and accepting the spatial stories that the guide performs, tourists are often making active choices about how they engage with the site. Nevertheless, the choices that are made in performance are powerful spatial practices that actively construct the sites that are toured.


The present invention relates to a fully effective homomorphic cryptosystem based on a new probabilistic and homomorphic transform between the ring z 2z / (residues ring of integers modulo 2) and the ring of modular Lipschitz whole. Our cryptosystem is able to process clear messages as input bits and provide cryptograms form of quaternions matrices Lipschitz modulo a large natural even integer $ a non-deterministic way. The security of said cryptosystem is based on the difficulty of solving a system of multivariate polynomial equations in a non-commutative ring. This cryptosystem further reduces the computation time of the multiplications in fully homomorphic encryption algorithms (eh), as it minimizes the size of a secret key and reduce the expansion of cryptograms.


Liposomal doxorubicin is used for the treatment of various cancers like epithelial ovarian cancers, multiple myeloma and sarcomas. We report the first case of anaphylaxis to pegylated liposomal doxorubicin.