I was recently asked if I thought that the oil and gas industry would bounce back once the world is rid of the coronavirus. It was a question prompted by the sharp decline in activity in several oil-and-gas-dependent sectors such as transportation. The coronavirus and its subsequent impact on the price of oil have injected a sense of uncertainty into the industry, prompting many to speculate as to what will happen once the pandemic abates.
 Rather than asking if we'll bounce back, I'd prefer we focus on how fast we can learn from the challenges and move forward. The oil and gas industry has come to a point at which there is no turning back. The pressure to transform was mounting long before COVID-19 entered our vocabulary. Recent events only highlight the urgency of it.
 It is an urgency that stems from new regulation, increasing financial pressure, and growing societal expectations. From the Paris Agreement to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, the world has come to terms with the fact that our planet is not immune to human impact and that we need to take measures to mitigate our damage to it. For oil and gas, that means transformation, in both the short and long term, all the while remaining profitable and competitive.
 In the shorter term, the world is not able to fill the void that going completely fossil-free would create. Oil and gas are still key components of the global energy system, driving both social and economic development in much of the world. That means that while our dependency remains, the extraction of this natural resource and its subsequent processing need to be done as safely, efficiently, and as carbon-friendly as possible. That's where technology stands to play a pivotal role.
 For oil and gas operations, achieving near-term, sustainable success will require three things.
 Optimizing the use of data for increased transparency. There are savings to be had across oil and gas operations. In 2017, global management consultant McKinsey & Company reported that the industry's performance gap was around $200 billion and that most offshore platforms are only running at 77% of their maximum potential. This means that there is significant ground to be gained. Today, we have the tools available to capture this value, to extract the data, and identify where there is waste and where there is opportunity. This kind of accountability is possible only if you are transparent with your data, which requires the right tools to uncover it, understand it, and share it.
 Several oil and gas players today have already cracked the code to learn how to use data to ensure more sustainable operations. By gaining an understanding of the inherent power of data flowing through their operations and by embracing transparency around that data, they can harness it to their advantage. Norway-based oil and gas operator Aker BP is one such example. Working with Cognite, it recently implemented machine learning to improve water- contamination detection, saving $6 million per year and reducing the company's environmental impact. The massive savings for both the companies and the environment was achieved with the smarter and more open use of data.


ISSN 0817-8542 ISBN 0 642 24178 3 Over 150 years ago, the Cabbage Tree Hat Mob, one of the prominent "youth gangs" of the time, reputedly annoyed respectable Sydneysiders. Since then, there have been periodic expressions of public concern regarding youth group formations in major Australian urban centres. This paper provides an insight into perceptions of, and research into ,"youth gangs" in Australia today. Among its findings are that American style criminal gangs are not prevalent in this country, although the preconditions for the emergence of such gangs are apparent. The paper shows that by and large the phenomenon of "criminal youth gangs" is largely a media myth. Furthermore, much of the publicised concern over youth gangs is linked to the ethnic background of particular groups of young people, which in turn raises major issues regarding youth opportunities and the policing of youth from selected social backgrounds. While "youth gangs" as such do not constitute a significant social problem, there is nevertheless evidence that young people on the street are engaging in activity that occasionally includes anti-social behaviour, criminal activity and group conflict. To address present and potential "gang" problems a range of social and economic measures as well as community effort, are required.


This paper investigates a double-integrator consensus problem for multi-agent networks (MANs) with nonlinear dynamics, where each agent is governed by both time-varying position and velocity consensus terms. The following three cases are carefully analyzed: 1) networks with fixed topology; 2) networks with controlled switching topology; and 3) networks with random switching topology. Based on previous work [11], some sententious sufficient criteria are established for reaching consensus in MANs with fixed topology. With the help of consensus results under fixed topology, some criteria are also derived to achieve consensus for MANs with switching topology by utilizing average dwell time approach and a programmable switching signal. The next moment, in view of ergodic property and stationary distribution of Markov chain, some criteria are derived to reach consensus for MANs with random switching topology. It is worth noting that the MANs considered in the above two switching cases are composed of all or partial individual switching topologies which can be reached the desired consensus.


ABSTRACT Septic cardiomyopathy is a severe complication among some patients who develop group A streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. Despite the importance of cardiac dysfunction in determining prognosis, very little is known about mechanisms that reduce cardiac output in association with streptococcal infection. Here, we investigated the effects of streptococcal extracellular toxins on mechanical contractility of electrically paced primary murine cardiomyocytes. Our data demonstrate that streptolysin O (SLO) is the major streptococcal toxin responsible for cardiomyocyte contractile dysfunction. Streptolysin O dose-dependently affected cardiac myocyte function in discrete stages. Exposure to SLO caused a failure of cardiac cells to respond to electrical pacing, followed by spontaneous dysregulated contractions and augmented strength of contraction. Central to these SLO-mediated effects is a marked influx of calcium into the cytosol through SLO-mediated pores in the cytoplasmic membrane. Such calcium mobilization in response to SLO correlated temporally with hypercontractility and unpaced contractions. During continued exposure to SLO, cardiomyocytes exhibited periods of reversion to normal electrical pacing suggestive of membrane lesion repair and restoration of calcium handling. Together, these observations are consistent with the clinical observation that septic cardiomyopathy is a reversible condition in patients who survive streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. These data provide strong evidence that streptococcal exotoxins, specifically SLO, can directly impact cardiac mechanical function.


During the First World War Muslim soldiers from India made up a significant part of the British forces. Attempts to satisfy the soldiers' religious needs became a British strategy to maintain military discipline among the soldiers in Europe and to avoid public unease and discontent in colonial India. Based on archival material, this article examines how the British tried to identify the religious needs of the Indian soldiers and how letters written by Muslim soldiers emphasized the importance of the Qur'an. The article further explores how the Indian Soldiers' Fund became an important charity which procured and distributed miniature copies of the Qur'an and how prominent persons in India and Europe donated scriptures to Muslim soldiers. Although the soldiers' uses of the miniature scriptures remain uncertain, the books were given iconic functions to represent religion and identities in a time when the British national honour was threatened.


The development of interdisciplinary theory is problematic in several ways, not least the ambiguity inherent in the diverse conceptualizations and applications of the term. However, the focus in interdisciplinary scholarship on disciplinary negotiation, complexity, and integration allows for a more coherent approach to such developments. At its core, interdisciplinarity constitutes a unique approach to knowledge and therefore is involved in questions of epistemology. The idea of interdisciplinarity arises from and responds to the key epistemological strategies in the Western philosophical canon. These strategies, including logical determinism, duality and absolute truth, are examined in detail through a survey of primary works. This survey will help situate interdisciplinarity in the History of Ideas and begin to lay the foundation for a philosophically grounded theory of interdisciplinarity.


Antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) are an emerging drug class that uses antibodies to improve cytotoxic drug targeting for cancer treatment. ADCs in current clinical trials achieve a compromise between potency and physicochemical/pharmacokinetic properties by conjugating potent cytotoxins directly to an antibody at a 4:1 or less stoichiometric ratio. Herein, we report a novel, polyacetal polymer-based platform for creating ADC that use poly-1-hydroxymethylethylene hydroxymethyl-formal (PHF), also known as Fleximer. The high hydrophilicity and polyvalency properties of the Fleximer polymer can be used to produce ADC with high drug loading without compromising physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties. Using trastuzumab and a vinca drug derivative to demonstrate the utility of this platform, a novel Fleximer-based ADC was prepared and characterized in vivo. The ADC prepared had a vinca-antibody ratio of 20:1. It exhibited a high antigen-binding affinity, an excellent pharmacokinetic profile and antigen-dependent efficacy, and tumor accumulation in multiple tumor xenograft models. Our findings illustrate the robust utility of the Fleximer platform as a highly differentiated alternative to the conjugation platforms used to create ADC currently in clinical development.


Multi-disciplinary multi-national education and research in building architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) can involve participants with different first languages and/or different preconceptions. Further, AECO education and research can involve uncertain and evolving situations and/or geographically dispersed interactions. As a result, generic methods for preparing and communicating information, such as business English and standard process charting techniques, may be insufficient to facilitate shared understanding among participants. This paper describes three cases of information and communication design in AECO education and research. These cases involved a variety of methods, including: concept mediation; the explicit representation of implicit context; and the development of a symbol system. At the time of the research, underlying issues and potential methods must be identified through labor-intensive and time-consuming survey research. It is argued that the formulation of simple checklists could make information gathering and communication design more feasible and viable for multi-disciplinary multi-national AECO education and research.


Benefit analysis is particularly in need for one popular ITS technique: ramp metering systems. The reported benefits of ramp metering systems range widely and little analysis has been performed to determine the magnitude and cause of this discrepancy. There is such a wide range of opinions that some transportation professionals are currently questioning whether ramp meters generate any benefits at all. The variation in opinions is largely due to the fact that the relationship between the performance and cost of ramp metering systems is not well understood. Without understanding what factors cause ramp meters to perform well, it is very difficult to efficiently design a new ramp metering system. Additionally, insufficient analysis of prior benefits causes difficulty for transportation engineers attempting to make rational design decisions based on past results. This study investigates the benefit-cost relationship of ramp metering systems by constructing a performance-cost tradeoff curve that displays the maximum achievable performance for any budget. A simulation- optimization methodology was developed to generate the tradeoff curve. This methodology employs heuristic search techniques to locate the optimal ramp metering deployment scheme (quantity and location of equipment) for each budget. All deployment schemes are evaluated using CORSIM, a traffic simulation tool. The performance-cost curve constructed by the simulation-optimization methodology has the shape of a step function. Significant benefits are possible with only a small initial investment, however, beyond this initial step diminishing returns are experienced as benefits slowly increase with additional spending. Analysis of the tradeoff curve provides valuable information about the performance-cost relationship and ramp metering systems in general. Recommendations for improving ramp metering implementation are developed using this information


Fibrosing alveolitis, a condition characterized by a poor prognosis and a limited response to treatment, is readily identified by thin-section computed tomography (CT). Fibrotic and inflammatory histologic results, obtained at open lung biopsy, both have characteristic CT patterns. To evaluate whether CT could predict prognosis and response to therapy, we examined the CT appearances of 76 patients with lone cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis and 66 patients with fibrosing alveolitis associated with systemic sclerosis. CT abnormalities were categorized as predominantly a ground-glass pattern (Grade 1), mixed (Grade 2), or predominantly a reticular pattern (Grade 3). In cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis, 4-yr survival was highest in association with CT Grade 1 and higher with CT Grade 2 than with CT Grade 3, independent of the extent of abnormal lung on CT, duration of dyspnea, or severity of depression of DLCO or FVC, p < 0.001. A response to therapy in previously untreated cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis was seen most frequently with CT Grade 1 and more frequently with CT Grade 2 than with CT Grade 3, p < 0.025. In systemic sclerosis, CT appearances were not predictive of 4-yr survival; a response to therapy was seen more frequently with CT Grade 2 (three of seven patients) than with CT Grade 3 (zero of six patients). These data have shown that CT appearances are of prognostic value in fibrosing alveolitis and that they are likely to play an increasing role in disease-staging in this condition.


An attempt has been made to study the steady laminar flow of a incompressible electrically conducting fluid between infinitely long concentric rotating porous cylinders under the influence of radial magnetic field. A solution has been obtained under the assumption of uniform conditions along the axis of the cylinders. The cylinders being porous, a hyperbolic radial velocity distribution has been superimposed over the circumferential velocity produced due to rotation. There is a Bernoulli type pressure variation in the radial in the direction. When the inner cylinder is at rest the shearing stress at it and the torque transmitted to it decrease as R (=v/Sub/1y/Sub1/v= v/Sub2y/Sub2/v) increases and the magnetic parameter lambda (=4sigma mue/sube/sup2A/Sup2/Mue) will further decrease them.


Introduction: The spinal loads depend on moment arm of the object, and regardless of the lifting technique, it can be effective in reducing the risk of low back pain. However, thoracic kyphosis variations during lifting can affect the moment arm of the external load. Materials and Methods: In this study 12 men volunteers recruited for lifting a box with tow techniques (squat and stoop), three instructions (increased, decreased, and normal thoracic kyphosis), and two masses (10% and 20% of body mass). We used motion analysis system for calculation of the transverse distance between a box and fifth lumbar vertebral. Results: Lifting techniques (P < 0.001), kyphosis instructions (P = 0.039), and box masses (P = 0.001) had significant effects on the moment arm of external load. The interaction between lifting techniques and kyphosis instructions (P = 0.012), lifting techniques and box masses (P = 0.026), kyphosis instructions and box masses (P = 0.029), and finally between all three factors (P = 0.006) were also significant. Conclusion: Lifting technique and mass of the external load influenced moment arm. Using squat technique was associated with an increase in the length of the moment arm, but in general, the increase in the mass of the box, and thoracic kyphosis in squat technique make it reduce.


The emergence of drug resistance and the limited number of approved antitubercular drugs prompted identification and development of new antitubercular compounds to cure Tuberculosis (TB). In this work, an attempt was made to identify potential natural compounds that target mycobacterial proteins. Three plant extracts (A. aspera, C. gigantea and C. procera) were investigated. The ethyl acetate fraction of the aerial part of A. aspera and the flower ash of C. gigantea were found to be effective against M. tuberculosis H37Rv. Furthermore, the GC-MS analysis of the plant fractions confirmed the presence of active compounds in the extracts. The Mycobacterium target proteins, i.e., available PDB dataset proteins and proteins classified in virulence, detoxification, and adaptation, were investigated. A total of ten target proteins were shortlisted for further study, identified as follows: BpoC, RipA, MazF4, RipD, TB15.3, VapC15, VapC20, VapC21, TB31.7, and MazF9. Molecular docking studies showed that β-amyrin interacted with most of these proteins and its highest binding affinity was observed with Mycobacterium Rv1636 (TB15.3) protein. The stability of the protein-ligand complex was assessed by molecular dynamic simulation, which confirmed that β-amyrin most firmly interacted with Rv1636 protein. Rv1636 is a universal stress protein, which regulates Mycobacterium growth in different stress conditions and, thus, targeting Rv1636 makes M. tuberculosis vulnerable to host-derived stress conditions.


forms, whose symptoms had failed to respond to conventional therapy. The patients were advised of potential risks and informed consent was obtained. The culture was administered as a liquid infusate into the caecum following antibiotic pretreatment of the bowel. The results have been most encouraging in 33 patients with severe chronic constipation. Twenty-five of these patients (76%) experienced significant improvement (visual analog scale) or were well (absence of constipation) following bacterial treatment. None of the 25 patients required any further laxatives. The follow-up period was 4-52 weeks (mean, 21 weeks). Factors identified by some of the 33 patients as "causative" were surgery and hospitalisation (6), antibiotic use (5), and a gastrointestinal upset (3). In four patients the constipation had been lifelong. These preliminary results suggest that a proportion of "functional" disorders with disturbed motility in the lower gastrointestinal tract may be secondary to an abnormal resident bowel flora. The problem is too complex to accurately characterise in our present state of knowledge, but it appears to respond to manipulation.


The problem of translating a query specified in a user data content ontology into queries that can be answered by the individual data sources is an important challenge in data integration in e-science applications. We develop the notions of semantics-preserving query translation and maximally informative query translation in such a setting. We describe an algorithm for maximally informative query translation and its implementation in INDUS, a suite of open source software tools for integrated access to semantically heterogeneous data sources. We summarize experimental results that demonstrate the scalability of the proposed approach with very large ontologies and mappings between ontologies.


This in vitro study elevated the effect of two primers on bond strengths and durability of luting agents joined to a silver-palladium-copper-gold alloy. One primer (Metal Primer) contained methacryloyloxyalkyl thiophosphate derivative (MEPS). The other primer (V-Primer) contained 6-(4-vinylbenzyl-n-propyl)amino-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-dithiol (VTD). The luting agent was a methyl methacrylate (MMA)-based adhesive resin that contained 4-methacryloyloxyethyl trimellitate anhydride (4-META) and was initiated with tri-n-butylborane derivative (TBB). In order to evaluate the function of 4-META, MMA-TBB resin without 4-META was used as a control. The alloy specimens were bonded with six combinations of two primers and two luting agents. Shear bond strengths were determined before and after thermocycling. Both primers significantly elevated the bond strengths of the luting agents joined to the alloy. For unprimed groups, 4-META resin showed a more durable bond than did MMA-TBB resin. Combined use of Metal Primer with 4-META resin reduced the bond strength, while combination of V-Primer and 4-META resin did not affect the bond strength.


Cell-free and cell-associated human immunodeficiency virus cultures suspended in 10% serum remained infectious for several weeks at room temperature. The stability was further increased when cell-associated virus was suspended in neat serum. When dried onto a glass coverslip, virus remained infectious for several days, although cell-associated virus lost infectivity more rapidly than cell-free virus.


The site-specific incorporation of three new coumarin lysine analogues into proteins was achieved in bacterial and mammalian cells using an engineered pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase system. The genetically encoded coumarin lysines were successfully applied as fluorescent cellular probes for protein localization and for the optical activation of protein function. As a proof-of-principle, photoregulation of firefly luciferase was achieved in live cells by caging a key lysine residue, and excellent OFF to ON light-switching ratios were observed. Furthermore, two-photon and single-photon optochemical control of EGFP maturation was demonstrated, enabling the use of different, potentially orthogonal excitation wavelengths (365, 405, and 760 nm) for the sequential activation of protein function in live cells. These results demonstrate that coumarin lysines are a new and valuable class of optical probes that can be used for the investigation and regulation of protein structure, dynamics, function, and localization in live cells. The small size of coumarin, the site-specific incorporation, the application as both a light-activated caging group and as a fluorescent probe, and the broad range of excitation wavelengths are advantageous over other genetically encoded photocontrol systems and provide a precise and multifunctional tool for cellular biology.


The Present study demonstrates the diagnostic characteristics of Pedilanthus tithymoloides, agglutinin (PTA), lectin based hemagglutination method for screening of thyroid disorders as compared with RIA as gold standard. The result estimates 90% sensitivity, 95.55% specificity and 92.63% observed agreement with RIA test in thyroid disorders. The result of hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism and cretinism are discussed and these results project Lectin based hemagglutination as simple, reliable, cost effective and an alternative method of choice for screening of thyroid disorders.


Abstract This study reports findings from a survey of media directors of interactive advertising agencies regarding how they price, evaluate, and pretest banner ads. Results suggest that more than 90% of the responding agencies used cost per thousand frequently to price banner ads, whereas about 33% used click-throughs. In addition, a majority of the agencies used click-throughs and outcomes (e.g., inquires, purchases) rather than exposures to gauge banner advertising effectiveness. Although few agencies pretested their banner ads on a regular basis, most perceived the lack of measurement standards and independent auditing of Web sites as major problems facing Internet banner advertising. Findings from this study should provide benchmarks for future research on the topic and help facilitate the process of developing viable pricing and measurement standards on the Internet.


Clipper Windpower (CWP) has developed the Liberty 2.5 MW wind turbine. The development, manufacturing, and certification process depends heavily on being able to validate the full-scale system design and performance under load in both an accredited structural test facility and through accredited field testing. CWP requested that DOE/ NREL upgrade blade test capabilities to perform a scope of work including structural testing of the C-96 blade used on the CWP Liberty turbine. This funds-in CRADA was developed to upgrade NREL blade test capability, while enabling certification testing of the C-96 blade through the facility and equipment upgrades. NREL shared resource funds were used to develop hardware necessary to structurally attach a large wind turbine to the test stand at the NWTC. Participant funds-in monies were used for developing the test program.


[18/19F]-4, an anionic GCPII/PSMA inhibitor for image-guided intervention in prostate cancer, is described. [19F]-4 is radiolabeled with a radiochemical yield that is ≥27% and a molar activity of 190 ± 50 mCi/μmol in a <1 h, one-step, aqueous isotopic exchange reaction. [19F]-4 allows PSMA expression to be imaged by fluorescence (FL) and [18F]-PET. PC3-PIP (PSMA-positive, EC50 = 6.74 ± 1.33 nM) cancers are specifically delineated in mice that bear 3 million (18 mg) PC3-PIP and PC3 (control, PSMA-negative) cells. Colocalization of [18/19F]-4 PET, fluorescence, scintillated biodistribution, and PSMA expression are observed.


The factors that determine the virulence and pathogenesis characteristics of bluetongue virus (BTV), African horse sickness virus (AHSV) and other orbiviruses are not well known. With respect to the viral proteins that are expected to play a role it may be assumed that proteins, such as the outer capsid proteins VP2 and VP5, that are involved in the attachment of virus particles to target cells and influence replication efficiency are particularly important. Equally important are viral proteins such as non-structural protein NS3 that influence the release of virus particles from a target host or vector cell. The authors compare the amino acid sequence variation, structural motifs and some phenotypic characteristics of proteins VP2, VP5 and NS3 of different orbiviruses, such as AHSV, BTV and equine encephalosis virus (EEV). The most variable protein is VP2 and a pair-wise alignment of VP2 sequences of different serotypes of both BTV and AHSV indicated variation of between 48% to 64% and 46% to 52% for most isolates, respectively. Several regions of high variability can be identified. VP5 of BTV is much less variable than VP2 but still more so than the cognate AHSV VP5. In contrast, the NS3 protein of AHSV is much more variable than its BTV or EEV counterpart with maximum levels of NS3 variation up to 36% as compared to 10% for BTV. The AHSV NS3 variation is clustered into three discreet phylogenetic groups. All orbivirus NS3/NS3A proteins share a number of highly conserved structural features that include two hydrophobic domains (HD1 and HD2) that are involved in the interaction with the membrane. Most of the NS3 variation is located in HD1 and the adjacent variable region between HD1 and HD2. In the case of AHSV this region only has 13% identity compared to 64% in the case of BTV. NS3 of AHSV is also a highly toxic protein and mutation analysis has indicated that the toxicity is associated with the two hydrophobic domains. Expression of NS3 deletion mutants in bacterial cells has shown that both HD1 and HD2 are necessary for cytotoxicity and that removal of the adjacent N-terminal domains increases cytotoxicity. Preliminary results with different AHSV strains and the corresponding NS3 equivalent have indicated that the membrane permeabilisation effect of the individual NS3 proteins correlate with the permeabilisation effect of the corresponding viruses. These results would suggest that characterisation of the NS3 protein by itself might predict some phenotypic characteristics and potential membrane destabilisation effect of the corresponding virus.


Kirby has given an elementary geometric proof showing that if an (n — l)-sphere £ in Euclidean n-space E is locally flat modulo a Cantor set that is tame relative to both 2 and e", then X is locally flat. In this paper we illustrate the sharpness of the result by describing a wild (n l)-sphere S in e" such that E is locally flat modulo a Cantor set C and C is tame relative to E . These examples then are used to contrast certain properties of embedded 3 spheres in higher dimensions with related properties of spheres in E . Rather obviously, as Kirby points out in [11], his result cannot be weakened by dismissing the restriction that the Cantor set be tame relative to En. It is well known that a sphere in E containing a wild (relative to E ) Cantor set must be wild. Consequently the only variation on his work that merits consideration is the one mentioned above. The phenomenon we intend to describe also occurs in 3-space. Alexander's horned sphere [1] is wild but is locally flat modulo a tame Cantor set. In fact, at one spot methods used here parallel those used to construct that example. However, other properties of 3-space are strikingly dissimilar to what can be derived from the higher dimensional examples constructed here, for, as discussed in §2, natural analogues to some important results concerning locally flat embeddings in E are false. Most of the terminology and notation is standard. We distinguish between the two senses of the term "boundary" by using 971/ to denote the boundary of a manifold M and Bd A, for A C X, to denote the boundary of A in the space X. Our standard &-cell Bk is the set of points in Ek of norm < 1. We use p to denote the standard complete metric on E"+', and for two maps/and /' of a space X into E"+!, we use p(f, /') to denote lub {p(f(x)>f(x))\x G X}. 1. Construction of certain wild spheres. The somewhat intricate definition and lemma that follow are designed to slip naturally into the proof of Theorem 3 Received by the editors February 2, 1973 and, in revised form, February 22, 1974. AMS (MOS) subject classifications (1970). Primary 57A15, 57A45, 57A50; Secondary 57A60.


The major impacts of climate change play a substantial role in triggering human migration, especially in the coastal areas. The individual or combined effects of climate change are likely to trigger mass human movement both within and across international borders. People rarely move for a single reason; the motivation to migrate is complex of many factors. The main goal of this article is to identify the factors related to the decision to migrate taken by refugees in the coastal area. To assess this objective we employ exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) and find that different factors influence refugees' migration decision differently. From the findings, it is seen that loss of shelter, extreme events, decreasing soil fertility and food shortage, variability in temperature patterns and exhaustion of natural resources are the most important environmental factors that affect the decision to migrate of climate refugees. Low income, increasing price, decreasing purchasing power are the most important economic factors that influence migration decision. No social factors have significant effect on migration decision while safety as a political factor has a moderate influence on refugees' decision to migrate. Finally, this article provides some recommendations for recognition of and protection for migrants forced to move to safer places due to certain direct impacts of climate change, notwithstanding the existence of multi-causality.


Disk access performance is a major bottleneck in traditional information retrieval systems. Compared to system memory, disk bandwidth is poor, and seek times are worse.
 We circumvent this problem by considering query evaluation strategies in main memory. We show how new accumulator trimming techniques combined with inverted list skipping can produce extremely high performance retrieval systems without resorting to methods that may harm effectiveness.
 We evaluate our techniques using Galago, a new retrieval system designed for efficient query processing. Our system achieves a 69% improvement in query throughput over previous methods.


Acid base balance during biofiltration (BF): Six patients on standard acetate hemodialysis (HD) were switched to BF with 1 m2 AN69-S membrane, 12 hours weekly (BF-4h) and, later on, to a stage with 1.2 m2 AN69-S, 9 hours weekly (BF-3h). During BF, in order not to exceed 25 mEq/l in intradialytic arterial HCO3, arterial acid-base was examined hourly and a mean of 178 and 199 mEq of HCO3 respectively were infused in BF-4h and BF-3h. We obtained a better control of acidosis with a reduction of the intradialytic pCO2 decrease and hypoxemia. The amount of HCO3 infused was related to the patients deficit in HCO3 total pool and therefore it can be predicted, to avoid postdialytic alkalosis.


A 5GHz differential power amplifier (PA) module with a dipole antenna has been implemented. The PA integrated circuit (IC) was mounted on a fluoroplastic substrate on which the dipole antenna was fabricated. The differential PA IC was fabricated using 0.18µm Si-CMOS process. For the differential operation, an n/nMOS push-pull circuit was employed. The PA IC was directly connected to the balance input of dipole antenna without a balun using stud bump bonding on a fluoroplastic substrate. The antenna was designed using a 3-dimensional electromagnetic simulator including a feed line. The measured gain of the PA module was 12.6dB at 5GHz.


This paper presents a theoretical study for modelling the thermoelastic excitation of transient Lamb waves propagating along the principal directions in an orthotropic plate. The normal mode expansion method is employed to express the transient displacement field by a summation of the antisymmetric and symmetric Rayleigh - Lamb wave modes in the surface stress-free orthotropic plate. This method is particularly suitable for waveform analyses of transient Lamb waves in thin sheet materials because one needs only to calculate contributions of the lowest few antisymmetric and symmetric modes. The dispersion characteristics and the transient Lamb waveforms excited by a pulsed laser in machine-made paper are analysed numerically and discussed in detail and attention is focused on the influence of the elastic stiffness constants. This work provides a quantitative analysis for noncontact and nondestructive detection of the elastic stiffness properties of the machine-made paper by the laser-generated Lamb wave technique.


With the change of the material environment on which architect depends and inter-infiltration of environmental sciences, ecological science, and humane studies, architectural theories and practices have been developed and completed continuously toward a more scientific, ethnic, and local direction. This paper gets the historical basis and judgment standards of Chinese modern architecture creation by providing detailed illustration of the current situation of Chinese and other countries' architecture fields, development of Western architectural theories and Chinese traditional architectural culture, and influences process of regional culture on Chinese modern architectural creation. This paper also gives out some advantageous methods and research conclusions by summing up Contextualism related theories and systematic research on typical cases in the architecture history. Key words: Contextualism; City; Architecture


Suspended sediment concentration (SSC), fluid velocity and morphological response were measured on the foreshore of a high energy dissipative beach west of Auckland, New Zealand. Swash re-suspension events exhibit a distinct temporal structure associated with both the uprush and backwash phases. SSC of > 50  gl -1 is associated with large accelerations, turbulence, and high flow speeds in shallow water under shoreward propagating swash bores. SSC decreases rapidly from the initial peak and then more gradually as water depth increases to a maximum at the end of the uprush. SSC increases gradually as the backwash accelerates, and then reaches a peak under the rapidly thinning and accelerating flow near the end of the backwash. Flows are super-critical, hydraulic jumps occur and unstable anti -dune bedforms often develop near the end of backwash events resulting in sharp increases in SSC. Event averaged SSC declines systematically as maximum depth of swash increases. Peak SSC tends to be larger under uprush events than backwash events particularly near the margins of the swash zone. Cross-spectral analysis of velocity and SSC at the transition between the inner surf zone and swash zone confirms that the dominant transport occurs at infragravity frequencies. Net transport is potentially sensitive to small variations in the phase angle between SSC and velocity in the uprush and backwash cycle as well as to the variability in bed conditions during swash cycles.


Rotating electric fields are used to compress electron plasmas confined in a Penning-Malmberg trap. Bifurcation and hysteresis are observed between low-density and high-density steady states as a function of the applied electric field amplitude and frequency. These observations are explained in terms of torque-balanced fixed points using a simple model of the torques on the plasma. Perturbation experiments near the high-density fixed point are used to determine the magnitude, frequency, and voltage dependence of the drive torque. The broader implications of these results are discussed.


Objective The aim of the study was to assess and evaluate the indications of penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), visual outcome, complications, and causes of suboptimal visual acuity after PKP. Background PKP involves surgical removal of diseased or damaged cornea from the host and replacement with a full-thickness donor cornea. Patients and methods PKP alone or triple procedure (PKP combined with extracapsular cataract extraction and intraocular lens implantation) was performed in 50 eyes of 50 patients at National Eye Center Hospital, Cairo, Egypt, between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2011. The outcome was evaluated in terms of graft survival (number of clear grafts at final follow-up) and final best-corrected visual acuity. Results Of 50 patients who underwent PKP, 66% were male patients and 34% were female patients. The mean recipient age was 36.5 years (range 9-78 years). Leading indication of PKP was keratoconus (36%). PKP alone was performed in 88% patients, and 12% patients underwent triple procedure. Follow-up period after surgery was on the first postoperative day and after 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months. Overall graft survival was 86%. Excluding failed grafts, final best-corrected visual acuity achieved was 0.5 or better in 4% patients, 0.3-0.16 in 54% patients, 0.1-0.016 in 28% patients, and less than counting fingers (CF) in 14% patients. Keratoconus had most favorable outcome with graft survival of 94.4% and final visual acuity of 0.16 or better in 83.3% patients. Graft survival and final best-corrected visual acuity of 0.16 or better were found in remaining indications: corneal scar due to trauma (90 and 40%), corneal scar due to infection (66.7 and 44.4%), corneal dystrophy (100 and 71.4%), and other indications (66.7 and 16.7%). Conclusion This series showed that PKP is an effective procedure for corneal disease with poor vision. Visual outcome was good especially in cases of keratoconus.


Although metallic nanoparticles play an important role in the area of nanotechnology, a coherent mechanistic explanation for the evolution of the particles during their chemical synthesis has not yet been provided in many cases. To gain a profound understanding of the growth mechanism of colloidal nanoparticles, new approaches using Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) combined with X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) are presented. This combination allows for insights into two prominent syntheses routes of gold nanoparticles (GNP): The "slow" reaction using sodium citrate (30-90 min) as a reducing agent and the "fast" reaction employing NaBH4 (within few seconds). In the first case data derived with the coupled XANES and SAXS suggests a four-step particle formation mechanism. For the second system a time resolution in the order of 100-200 ms was achieved by coupling a common laboratory SAXS instrument with a microstructured mixer, which allows data acquisition in a continuous-flow mode. The results indicate a coalescence driven growth process. Based on the capabilities to deduce the size, number and polydispersity of the particles, the results of both methods enable the development of mechanistic schemes explaining the different phases of particle formation and growth, thus providing a basis for improved control over the synthesis processes.


Time series analysis poses many challenges to professionals in a wide range of domains. Several visualization solutions have been proposed for exploratory tasks on time series collections. For large data sets, however, current techniques fail to provide a global view that supports a good association between groups of similar time series. We employ fast multidimensional projection techniques to create concise visual representations of a collection of time series. The whole collection can be viewed in a two-dimensional graph-based representation that provides a starting point for further exploration and detailed analysis. The projections employ distance metrics to compare the series and generate a layout that attempts to group those with similar behavior. We illustrate the approach on a real data set containing streamflows describing the behavior of hydroelectric power plants in Brazil.


Premating behaviour of the free-living marine nematode Chromadorita tenuis consists of movements of the male towards the adult virgin female stimulated by a pheromone released by the female. The vaginal gland cells are suggested as possible site of pheromone production. Sperm cells or an accon~panying substance probably inhibit pheromone release after insemination. At close range, the attracted male shows pre-copulatory behaviour consisting of reverse locomotion which 1s not sexspecific since it also occurs between males. Mating itself consists of the male coiling the posterior part of the body around the female. The single ventral seta anterior to the male cloaca is suggested to act a s receptor of mechanical stimuli (vibrations, touch) involved during, or preceding, mating. Insemination results in fertilization, egg shell formation, oviposition and loss of the capacity to attract males. Females mate only once during their life. Adult virgin females are continuously attractive to males; ovulation proceeds continuously; eggs are deposited in the proximal chambers of the uterus. There is no egg shell formation, nor are the unfertilized eggs deposited in the substrate; they are resorbed. At the age of 32 d, virgin individuals of both sexes have as high a fecundity/fertilization capacity as newly matured 16-d olds.


Several authors have proposed that Oryzomys albigularis constitutes a supraspecific complex and that chromosomal pericentromeric inversions have played a fundamental role in the diversifying process. With the purpose of clarifying the unclear taxonomic situation of the nominal forms of O. albigularis living in Venezuela, a cytogenetic study was carried out on individuals from five different localities along the Andean range and the Cordillera de la Costa. All of the individuals examined showed a diploid number (2n) of 66 chromosomes, but there were differences in the number of autosomal arms (FN = 90, 92, and 104) and in the morphology of the X chromosome (metacentric or acrocentric). The C-banding pattern was similar in all populations, autosomal heterochromatin was restricted to the centromere, and the Y chromosome was the only one that had completely heterochromatic arms. G-banding was useful in making arm-to-arm comparison between the FN = 90 and FN = 104 karyomorphs; 23 shared pairs were found, 7 pairs differed due to pericentric inversions, and 3 pairs had no correspondence. We postulate that these karyomorphs probably correspond to allospecies, and that the specific denominations must correspond to two previously recognized populations of sigmodontine rodents: O. caracolus Thomas 1914 (2n = 66, FN = 90), for the populations from the Cordillera de la Costa, and O. meridensis Thomas 1894 (2n = 66, FN = 104), for the populations distributed between the middle and extreme north of the Andean range. The specific denomination for the populations of animals from the southern portion of the Andean range (Oryzomys sp., 2n = 66, FN = 92) is still to be determined.


An experiment is reported that investigated factors that might contribute to age differences in the ability to process spoken language under conditions of competition from various types of background noise. Age differences in recall of spoken sentences were shown to depend on the type of background noise as well as its intensity. Increased intensity levels of just one competing speaker produced differentially greater impairment in older adults than in young adults. Analyses showed that listening performance was predicted not only by individual differences in hearing ability but also by speed of processing, which underscores the combined role of age-related auditory and cognitive changes in processing spoken language.


OBJECTIVE
To test the predictive value of the cross-linked carboxyterminal telopeptide of type I collagen (ICTP; a marker of type I collagen degradation), rheumatoid factor (RF) and C-reactive protein (CRP) for disease progression in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) METHOD: We tested the value of baseline values of RF, CRP and ICTP for the prediction of radiological joint progression over 3 yr in 63 consecutive patients with early RA who were treated with the 'saw-tooth strategy'.

RESULTS
Age- and sex-adjusted risks as odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) of elevated serum ICTP, RF positivity and increased CRP for progressive joint disease (defined as an increase of > 20 in Larsen's index on radiographs of the hands and feet) were 3.9 (1.3, 11.9), 3.9 (1.0, 15.5) and 2.6 (0.9, 7.5), respectively. Better prediction was achieved when the tests were used in combination, and where there was both elevated ICTP and positive RF the odds ratio was 9.1 (2.5, 32.9). This test combination showed good sensitivity and specificity (71 and 77%, respectively), with a positive predictive value of 65% and a likelihood ratio of 3.1.

CONCLUSION
This kind of risk profile, in which the tests used reflect different aspects of the disease process, may be useful in early disease assessment to find patients who will need the most active drug therapy.


OBJECTIVE
Web-based diabetes management can be used to provide frequent interactions between patients and providers and thus result in improved glycemic control.

METHODS
In a single-center, prospective feasibility study, 16 poorly controlled patients with either type 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus were enrolled to assess the impact of using MyCareTeam, a web-based diabetes management application, for diabetes management. Patients were asked to transfer their blood glucose data electronically, maintain exercise logs, and communicate with their provider via MyCareTeam. The provider gave clinical interventions to optimize blood glucose control and provided feedback via MyCareTeam. Diabetes, nutrition, and exercise information was also available via MyCareTeam.

RESULTS
A significant reduction of over 2.22% points in hemoglobin A1C was seen for the total patient population. Differences between moderate/heavy users (n = 8) versus light/never users (n = 8) of MyCareTeam were evaluated for intergroup differences based upon utilization. Moderate/heavy users had a significant 6-month A1C reduction of 3.15 percentage points compared with a reduction of 1.28 percentage points in light/never users. Other secondary end points were improved as well, including systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides. However, as expected, body mass index levels increased because of aggressive diabetes management with insulin therapy.

CONCLUSIONS
These results demonstrate a significant treatment effect from the MyCareTeam application. A larger randomized control trial is under way at the Boston Veterans Administration Healthcare System. If these results are confirmed as expected, then web-based diabetes management may prove to be the link to achieving target American Diabetes Association glycemic goals in patients with poorly controlled diabetes.


Two solvent mixtures: n-pentane/n-hexane and n-heptane/n-octane at ten different percentage ratios were used to dissolve 2.5 g of vacuum distilled Anthan crude oil residue (500°C). The crude oil/n-alkane mixture in different conical flasks was stoppered, shaked mechanically and allowed to stand overnight. The resultant solution was subsequently filtered using a vacuum pump to afford the different weights of the residue (asphaltenes). The result of the weights of asphaltenes obtained at the different ratios of solvent mixtures showed that the highest amount of precipitate was obtained at 100% n-pentane solvent. Also there was a sharp increase in the amount of asphaltenes precipitated when the percentage ratio of n-pentane to n-hexane precipitant was 40:60 and when the ratio of n-heptane to n-octane precipitant was 30:70. A good understanding of the contribution of the different n-alkane solvents in the precipitation of asphaltenes is very necessary to flow assurance of crude oils in terms of solid precipitation.


Abstract Human resource management (HRM) has evolved over the years and is constantly adapting to the advanced technologies and research endeavours to address the complexities of the corporate environment and aspirations of the stakeholders. In this article, the authors explain the relevance of neuroscientific research for HRM practices. Interdisciplinary nature and landmarks of social neuroscience and newly evolved discipline of organisational cognitive neuroscience are discussed. The nexus of Neuro–HR has phenomenal research and application opportunities to progress and enhance the quality of HRM for effective organisations leading to a healthier society. A significant use of neuroscience in HRM appears to be an interesting journey full of opportunities and challenges ahead.


The work presented in this chapter demonstrates the economical feasibility of making a good oxygen carrier from commercial raw materials using a commercial production method, i.e. spray-drying.

A batch fluidized-bed reactor was used for an extensive screening of many NiO-based oxygen carriers. This screening process led to the production of two major particle batches, which were used in continuous chemical-looping experiments. High-temperature experiments in a batch-fluidized bed verified the thermal durability of the particles. The most important result presented here concerns long-term operation (> 1000 h) of a 10-kWth chemical-looping combustor using spray-dried NiO-based oxygen carriers. Conversion of the fuel was good, and increased with (a) decreased circulation, and (b) increased fuel-reactor temperature. Combustion efficiency close to 99% was accomplished using these spray-dried particles. At the end of the test series, the continuous loss of fine material was 0.003%/h, which corresponds to a particle life time of 33000 h. No decrease in reactivity was seen during these long-term tests. The fuel used in the experiments was natural gas and methane.


South Africa is viewed as one of the developing countries when compared to other African countries. However, the challenges that are experienced by the Small Business Enterprises (SMEs) continue to limit the economic growth of the country. Thus, these challenges are linked to the high rate of business failures. The main aim of the study is to evaluate constrains that hinder the sustainability of small businesses in Durban, South Africa. Employing the sociological entrepreneurship theory to understand the context of entrepreneurship and the challenges that pose a threat to the entrepreneurial activities, a qualitative approach was employed to achieve the objectives of study. A convenience sampling technique was employed to conduct in-depth interview among ten (10) entrepreneurs who participated in this study. NVivo 12 software was employed to analyse the data using a thematic and content analyses. The study findings revealed poor management, poor planning and lack of appropriate technology as some of the challenges confronting small businesses. Recommendations and conclusion are provided in this article.


This study finds evidence of mean reversion for the 228 highest and 136 lowest monthly rolling annual returns, identified by a rolling equality test over a 125-year period. The distribution of returns in processes of mean reversion further suggests the dominance of optimistic speculations over pessimistic selling. That is, probabilities for market exuberance—returns remaining positive after the stock market reaches a peak or reverting to positive after the stock market hits a low point—are higher than those for either market corrections (returns becoming negative after the market peaks) or market anxiety (returns remaining negative after the market troughs). The results also indicate that positive returns demonstrate higher persistency than negative returns.


This article examines fan social media responses to media-reported, alcohol-related player behavioral transgressions that occurred in Australia's two largest professional sporting leagues, the National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Football League (AFL), over a 33-month period. Using netnography and content analysis, the study aimed to better understand the ways in which sport fans employed social media to voice their perceptions about alcohol-related player transgressions. The article reports on parochial fans' commentaries about alcohol-related transgressions and uses these data to inform options for harm-reduction strategies associated with alcohol-related transgressions in sport. Sport fans expressed dissatisfaction when they observed disparity in policy responses from clubs and leagues. At the same time, the data show that fan responses reflect a desire for parity and protection more than punishment, with the former more relevant to game, club, and league reputation than the latter. We suggest that a harm-reduction policy offers one mechanism for managing reputation through a focus on parity and protection. We argue that the introduction of a harm-reduction approach would offer a more effective policy for managing player alcohol-related transgressions than the current 'ad hoc' approach.


This paper introduces a novel multiscale nonlinear wavelet diffusion (MNWD) method for ultrasound speckle suppression and edge enhancement. It considers wavelet diffusion as an approximation to nonlinear diffusion within the framework of the dyadic wavelet transform. Consequently, this knowledge is exploited in the design of a speckle suppression filter with an edge enhancement feature. MNWD takes advantage of the sparsity and multiresolution properties of wavelet, and the iterative edge enhancement feature of nonlinear diffusion. In our algorithm, speckle is suppressed by employing the iterative multiscale diffusion on the wavelet coefficients, while the edges of the image are enhanced by using an iterative signal compensation process. We validate the proposed method using synthetic and real echocardiographic images. Performance improvement over other traditional denoising filters is quantified in terms of noise suppression and structural preservation indices. The application of the proposed method is demonstrated by the segmentation of the echocardiographic image using the active contour


A freefloating iris cyst in a dog, the congenitally attached apex of the epiglottis in a cat, spontaneous healing of Filaroides osleri in a dog and dermoid sinus in a Ridgeback crossbreed are discussed.


Computing accurate and robust organizational patterns of chromosome territories inside the cell nucleus is critical for understanding several fundamental genomic processes, such as co-regulation of gene activation, gene silencing, X chromosome inactivation, and abnormal chromosome rearrangement in cancer cells. The usage of advanced fluorescence labeling and image processing techniques has enabled researchers to investigate interactions of chromosome territories at large spatial resolution. The resulting high volume of generated data demands for high-throughput and automated image analysis methods. In this paper, we introduce a novel algorithmic tool for investigating association patterns of chromosome territories in a population of cells. Our method takes as input a set of graphs, one for each cell, containing information about spatial interaction of chromosome territories, and yields a single graph that contains essential information for the whole population and stands as its structural representative. We formulate this combinatorial problem as a semi-definite programming and present novel techniques to efficiently solve it. We validate our approach on both artificial and real biological data, the experimental results suggest that our approach yields a near-optimal solution, and can handle large-size datasets, which are significant improvements over existing techniques.


This paper investigates the predictive capability of a morphodynamic model in capturing the development of a tidal channel on the German North Sea coast which experienced migration in the last few years. A depth-averaged version of a process-based model, Delft3D, is used. A description of the set-up, calibration and validation of the process-based models is presented. Field measurements with a dense spatial and temporal coverage were used for the development of the models. Results from the hydrodynamic and sediment transport simulations were in agreement with observations. The morphodynamic model simulations were speeded up with a morphological acceleration factor in conjunction with a representative period. Results of model calibration and validation covering periods of several years proved the capability of the model to reproduce the migration of the tidal channel. According to the standards usually adopted for checking the accuracy of morphodynamic models, the performance of the model presented here was quite good. The model ability in predicting the migration in the medium-term was found to be dependent primarily on the accuracy of the starting bathymetry, characteristics of the substrata and of the mud sediment fraction as well as on the selection of the representative period. A reduction in the rate of migration of the tidal channel is predicted from 2008 till 2010.


ABSTRACT This study establishes a dynamic modelling for site-related credits. Guidelines of the 'Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design' (LEED) system are used for the context and project levels under Location and Transportation (LT) and Sustainable Sites (SS) categories, respectively. The research steps are; determining site-dependent credits based on LEED project checklist and credit-weighting calculator, calculating the dependency coefficient of credits and categories, developing representative causal-effect feedback loops and a stock-and-flow model using VENSIM-PLE and testing two alternative project site locations. Studying these intrinsic relations reveals that proper site selection may earn the project 63% of total available points which qualifies it to LEED Gold certification level. The results show the dominant effect of site selection on the context and site-related credits. It also shows the latent effect on other sustainable categories; the highest impact is seen for energy-related credits (EA), followed by indoor environmental quality (IEQ), materials and resources (MR) and finally for water efficiency (WE). Comparing site-dependent credits for LEED Version 3.0 and 4.0 shows that they are less in WE and EA for the latter and more for the MR and IEQ categories. This shows that the improper selection of a project site may eventually lead to downsizing building performance. Furthermore, the proposed model establishes a dynamic predictive tracing and evaluation mechanism for the rate and pattern of point-scoring scenarios to achieve sustainability targets and level of certification. It also proposes a new datum to assess the sustainability of site locations; both in a comparative and absolute manner.


Acquired scars of the tracheolaryngeal compartment dissected during surgery of 28 children (35 samples) were taken under histological and histochemical examination. In most cases, scar tissues-showed signs of chronic inflammatory infiltration, pronounced changes of the microcirculatory bed, dystrophic and destructive processes, continuous formation of granulation foci and subsequent fibrosis, fibrotic changes in muscles and noticeable dystrophic and metaplastic changes of the epithelium. This points to changes in the relationship between inflammation and regeneration and persistence of inflammatory, sclerotic and dysplastic processes which may cause recurrent development of stenotic scars after their removal.


Background: Although role of ARID1A in pancreatic homeostasis and tumorigenesis has been recently described using genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models, whether ARID1A plays a role in pancreatic in�ammation and regeneration remains to be explored. Methods: Pancreas-specic Arid1a-decient GEM model (Arid1a def ) was generated by Ela1-Cre/ERT2 mice crossing with Arid1a �/� mice and characterized histologically. In physiological and in�ammatory conditions, serum amylase and lipase activity were measured to investigate effects of Arid1a de�ciency on pancreatic secretion function. Histology analysis of pancreas was used to evaluate pancreatic lesions and recovery. Ex vivo primary acinar cell culture was employed to study acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM) process. In HPNE cells, ARID1A knockdown and histone acetyltransferases inhibitors were used to explore epigenetic regulation on interleukin-6 (IL6) expression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and quantitative real-time PCR were performed to analyze on IL6 promoters. Results: Arid1a de�ciency promoted formation of ductal cysts characterized as silenced acinar genes and activated duct genes. Arid1a-decient acinar cells were more inclined to trans-differentiation to ductal cells in cerulein-induced acute pancreatitis (AP) model. Expression analysis of proin�ammatory cytokines reveals that ARID1A de�ciency led to increased IL-6 expression in mice acinar cells and HPNE cells. ARID1A-associated histone acetylation partially involved in epigenetic regulation of IL-6. Conclusion: These results demonstrate ARID1A is involved in cerulein-induced AP development by mediating pro-inammatory cytokines IL-6 and suggest that ARID1A-containing SWI/SNF complex is an epigenetic regulator of acute pancreatitis.


Rice straw bales and fresh pig manure were used as feedstock, and added microbial fortification agent and stepwise spraying methods were used to investigate the effect on the gas yield characteristics and fermentation properties of garage-type anaerobic solid-state fermentation at ambient temperature. The test results showed that the added microbial fortification agent advanced the arrival time of the peak temperature by one day and increased the average fermentation temperature by 8.28%. The microbial fortification agent can increase gas production and the time of first yield peak and shorten the start-up time. The maximum gas yield of the enhanced groups was 13.01% higher than the ordinary groups, and the methane concentration increased 16.98%. After the second gas yield peak, the reduction of spraying frequency had almost no effect on the gas yield. The stepwise spraying method was helpful to improve the moisture distribution and the degradation rate of the middle layer. This study provides a basis for evaluating and improving the operating efficiency of the anaerobic solid-state fermentation systems.


Revisiting the accounts pertaining to the East India Company's annexation of Awadh in 1856 reveals the similarity of many arguments that persist even at the beginning of the 21st century. It is clear that the formula 'democracy at home, despotism abroad' is perfectly applicable today in the context of realist discourses of national interest, that the liberal evangelical creed of taking democracy and human rights to backward cultures is still a potent ideological drive, and that even the instrumental use of ideological rhetoric for realist imperialist ends remains entirely available, as seen in the case of Iraq. But the question is whether people of occupied countries will accept the renewed state of colonial tutelage.


The process of national reconciliation is the key to the Afghan reality that affects all spheres of the Islamic Republic. Guarantor of peaceful development serves the balance of interests of the various ethnic groups in the verticals of higher power, but however as long as the parallel sides will try to learn their political, ethnic and religious gains from this process — peace in Afghanistan cannot occur in the foreseeable future.


This paper presents a purely declarative approach to artifact-centric case management systems. Each case is presented as a tree-like structure; nodes bear information that combines data and computations. Each node belongs to a given stakeholder, and semantic rules govern the evolution of the tree structure, as well as how data values derive from information stemming from the context of the node. Stakeholders communicate through asynchronous message passing without shared memory, enabling convenient distribution.


This highly illustrated book contextualises the Queen's House within its setting of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site. From its origins as a royal residence designed by Inigo Jones, to its use by the Royal Naval Asylum and Greenwich Hospital School and more recently as the home to the National Maritime Museum's vast painting collection, the book explores the architectural significance of the house and provides an insight into its cultural and social uses. Beautifully illustrated throughout with nearly 100 images from the National Maritime Museum's collection, this book is a delightful mix of historic prints, scenic paintings and up to date photography.


A new species of namanereid polychaete, Namanereis araps n. sp., is described from groundwater of the Sultanate of Oman. It occurs in fresh groundwater of natural springs, man-made water channels (falaj) and dry stream beds (wadis) in recently uplifted limestone areas of the south-eastern Arabian peninsula. This is the first species of Namanereis recorded from the coast of the northern Indian Ocean. Namanereis araps n. sp. most closely resembles the Caribbean species Namanereis hummelincki (Augener, 1933).


The purpose of this research was to determine the integration of the K13 curriculum and the islamic boarding school curriculum and its implementation in Madrasah Tsanawiyah Tambak Sumur. This research uses qualitative research methods with observation data collection techniques, interviews, and documentation. While the data analysis technique used is descriptive data analysis techniques, namely written and unwritten data from the community and observable behavior. So that in this case, the author seeks to thoroughly describe the actual situation. Based on the research conducted, it was found that the integrated curriculum at Madrasah Tsanawiyah Fadllillah was a curriculum development that eliminated the boundaries between the K13 curriculum subjects and the islamic boarding school curriculum subjects (TMI). This curriculum development can be interpreted as an effort to combine two different curricula in one educational institution. In order to achieve the goals of educational institutions, in addition to students mastering abilities in the K13 curriculum subjects, they can also master skills in the islamic boarding school curriculum subjects (TMI). Therefore, to improve the quality for the better, researchers suggest that always make every effort to improve facilities and infrastructure to support the learning process. So that it can improve quality and achieve the expected learning objectives.


The paper analyzes the optimal response of an individual smart load with deferrable demand for electricity, to exogenous and stochastic price processes. It is assumed that a smart load can delay a time-flexible energy demand up to a fixed deadline. Under mild assumptions on the regularity of the stochastic price process, it is shown that the optimal strategy is to consume only when the price is less than or equal to a certain threshold that depends only on the time left to the deadline and the price statistics. This analysis is performed under both perfect and partial information about the statistics of the price process. Robust policies with performance guarantees are derived for the partial information case. Such performance bounds are also used for deriving upper and lower bounds on the economic value of load-shifting. Numerical simulation results based on price data from wholesale electricity markets suggest that when information must be empirically extracted from data, the robust policies provide various theoretical and practical advantages over the full information policies.


Dusty Cobol card decks, difficult-to-maintain programs, and software generally incompatible with current state-of-the-art application frameworks: that's legacy. Or is it? Start with the cleansing effect of Y2K, add the Internet and e-commerce, and throw in component technologies such as Corba, COM, and Enterprise JavaBeans, the standardization effort behind XML, and the resurgent interest in data, and you'll find new meaning and vitality for the term legacy. Estimated at over 100 billion lines of code, most of it Cobol, it drives the world's infrastructure. The end result is a new appreciation of legacy and a search for ways to capitalize on its potential. Cobol programs and data are being viewed in a new positive light with options for interconnection and integration for both code and data.


A sensitive and accurate method for the spectrofluorimetric determination of trace levels of aluminum in hemodialysis solutions using Mordant Red 19 as the complexation reagent has been developed. The optimal experimental conditions for the concentration of fluorimetric reagent, pH, temperature, and the specific type of matrix are reported. The emission of the fluorescent metal chelate was measured at 555 nm, excitation at 478 nm. Linearity between emission intensity and aluminum concentration was found in the 2-20 ppb range in standard aluminum solutions. Limit of detection was 0.4 ppb. The aluminum amounts in some commercial hemodialysis solutions were determined by means of the extrapolation method. The proposed method proved to be suitable in terms of sensitivity and accuracy for the determination of aluminum in dialysis fluids.


We experimentally investigate the structural behavior of an interacting colloidal monolayer being driven across a decagonal quasiperiodic potential landscape created by an optical interference pattern. When the direction of the driving force is varied, we observe the monolayer to be directionally locked on angles corresponding to the symmetry axes of the underlying potential. At such locking steps, we observe a dynamically ordered smectic phase in agreement with recent simulations. We demonstrate that such dynamical ordering is due to the interaction of particle lanes formed by interstitial and noninterstitial particles.


The segmentation of deformable structures is an important task of image analysis. Satellite image sequences provide a huge amount of data often displaying the temporal evolution of complex structures, like clouds in the atmosphere on meteorological data. Structures like clouds and vortices are also subject of fusions, or can dissolve themselves into many connected components. Powerful deformable models, like the level-sets methods, are steadily gaining ground in image analysis and computer vision. In the research conducted in the AIR project at INRIA-Rocquencourt, a new characterization of level-sets by particle systems is achieved, leading to models that can be interactively controlled by an operator and permit the modeling of complex visco-elastic structures in motion. The control of level-sets by particle systems gives the possibility of using fast numerical resolution algorithms. It also features the attractive property of assigning specific internal or external energies to the level-sets, simply by prescribing particular forces on the finite set of particles. It also gives the possibility of analyzing motion.


Podemos, SYRIZA and FSM were described by a conservative newspaper in Spain as an "antisystem
trident", which came "dangerously close to power". From the one hand, their electoral
success seemed to be related with the dissatisfaction with traditional political parties and the
austerity reforms implemented by both progressive and conservative parties when in government.
From the other hand, the raise of the three parties is also associated with the spread of the protests
against austerity (especially in the first two cases) and political corruption.
However, what my research is intended to show is that SYRIZA, Podemos and FSM have
institutionalized in different contexts with different political opportunity structures (POSs). Mostly,
they are all but similar in their ideological and organizational features, despite sharing one crucial
feature, a vote-seeking strategy along with an anti-establishment ideology. SYRIZA, before its
unification under this label, was an alliance among different parties and associations, whose aim
was the creation of a new way toward socialism. Podemos emerged out of a social movement – the
so-called Indignados – thanks to the entrepreneurship of a group of political-science scholars and
left-wing activists. Five Stars Movement, on the contrary, is a unique organization, centred on the
founders, Beppe Grillo, a former comedian and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web-entrepreneur died in
2016.
In order to reach this goal, I frame my work with two broad research questions, which are further
detailed in a set of hypotheses in Chapter 4.
The first research question I want to address is the following:
1.In what ways, Podemos, SYRIZA and FSM may be considered different organizationally,
ideologically and both in terms of the patterns of competitions and of the political opportunity
structures?
Using Key's distinction (1964) between party functions, namely party government, party in the
electorate and party organization, my focus is on the latter and, partly, on the second, since from a
sociological standpoint the ideological articulation of any party is aimed (at least in principle) at
both giving voices to those issues raised in the society and to shaping electoral preferences. The
study of parties-as-organization has a long history: Michels (1911 [1966]) and Ostrogorski (1912
[1991]) pioneering analyses were focused on those issues. More recently, Duverger (1954) was the
first scholar to note in the first half of the XX Century a "contagion from the left" in the organizational features of the bourgeoisie parties; the cadre party – with a small membership and
with a loose coalition among the elected members – should have adapted to the by-then emerging
mass parties in order to be better equipped to compete in democracies with a universal suffrage.
Epstein (1967), on the contrary, highlighted a contagion from the right, that is an Americanization
of party politics in Western Europe. Without going into detail here, even the catch-all (Kirchheimer
1966) and the cartel parties (Katz and Mair 1995, 1996, 2009) in this perspective are a by-product
of the analysis of parties "as-organizations".
Yet, the mere description of the differences is inadequate to provide an analytical framework that is
aimed at disentangling the puzzle of the rise of those parties and their success in their own contexts.
I am aware that finding a mono-causal explanation in the three national is a too ambitious task and,
more important, epistemologically and methodologically wrong for a supply-side analysis. The
political system, the electorate, the economic performance of each countries, the policy records of
the parties in governments, the politicization of new issues, may be regarded as valid elements to
explain the electoral success of political contenders.
More modestly, using a Most Different Similar Outcome (MDSO) framework of analysis I try to
encapsulate the "supply" of these political parties, rather than the "demand"-side. With this premise
in mind, my second research question is:
2.Which supply-side condition(s) are better equipped to provide a partial explanation of the
electoral success of SYRIZA, Podemos and FSM?


This book provides an overview of the Japanese sex industry in the years of Japan's postwar economic boom. It argues that the origins of gender inequality in contemporary Japan resulted from the policies put in place during this period, when there was instituted a "sexual contract" which provided male salarymen whose work was arduous, underpaid and subject to military-like organisation with easy access to women's bodies, through workplace getaway trips to hot springs resorts, hostess bars, and prostitution tourism to South Korea, as sexual inducement to acquiesce to their own exploitation. Japan's economic growth, the book thereby contends, came at the price not just of environmental and labour degradation, but also gender inequality.


The spectrum of ten times ionized xenon, Xe XI, was observed in the region 105–157 A with a low-inductance vacuum spark and a 10.7 m grazing-incidence spectrograph. About 200 lines belonging to the 4d8–(4d75p + 4d74f + 4p54d9) transition array were observed. 140 of these lines are in the region 130–140 A, which is of importance for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. The spectrum was interpreted by means of Hartree–Fock calculations and orthogonal parameters using scaling factors for the energy parameters obtained by extrapolation along the Rh II isoelectronic sequence. All 9 levels of the 4d8 configuration and 123 levels of the 4d75p + 4d74f + 4p54d9 configurations were established. Transition probabilities for all observed lines were calculated with fitted values of the energy parameters. A value of 1847200 ± 1600 cm-1 (229.02 ±0.20 eV) was obtained for the ionization energy.


The crystallization of nanometer‐scale materials during high‐temperature calcination can be controlled by a thin layer of surface coating. Here, a novel silica‐protected calcination process for preparing mesoporous hollow TiO2 nanostructures with a high surface area and a controllable crystallinity is presented. This method involves the preparation of uniform silica colloidal templates, sequential deposition of TiO2 and then SiO2 layers through sol–gel processes, calcination to transform amorphous TiO2 to crystalline anatase, and finally etching of the inner and outer silica to produce mesoporous anatase TiO2 shells. The silica‐protected calcination step allows crystallization of the amorphous TiO2 layer into anatase nanocrystals, while simultaneously limiting the growth of anatase grains to within several nanometers, eventually producing mesoporous anatase shells with a high surface area (∼311 m2 g−1) and good water dispersibility upon chemical etching of the silica. When used as photocatalysts for the degradation of Rhodamine B under UV irradiation, the as‐synthesized mesoporous anatase shells show significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity with greater enhancement for samples calcined at higher temperatures thanks to their improved crystallinity.


The aim is to develop a systematic procedure for planning feasible motions for a double rotary pendulum. This pendulum has one directly actuated horizontal link and two passive links, moving in a rotating vertical plane. We plan a nontrivial oscillatory motion for the passive links that is consistent with the horizontal link rotating at a given average speed and also design a stabilizing controller to approximately induce such a motion. For the motion planning, a numerical optimization procedure is proposed in the form of a sequence of three simpler problems to systematically derive initial guesses for the final optimization search. For the controller design, firstly the system is linearized along a nominal trajectory, and then a parametrized family of candidate stabilizing controllers is designed. For each set of parameters, a necessary and sufficient stability condition can be checked for the derived linear time varying periodic system. Therefore, a numerical optimization procedure is used to find the controller gain for the linear system based on the stability condition. The performance of the closed‐loop system is illustrated via numerical simulations and verified via experiments with an educational platform produced by PendCon, demonstrating achieving oscillations with required characteristics. However, the formal proofs for convergence and even for existence of almost periodic solutions are left for future studies.


In this paper, a novel control algorithm for optimal operating efficiency of induction generators for wind power generation is presented. The proposed method is based on the flux level reduction, where the flux level is computed from the machine model for the optimum d-axis current of the generator. For the vector-controlled induction generator, the d-axis current controls the excitation level in order to minimize the generator loss while the q-axis current controls the generator torque, by which the speed of the induction generator is controlled according to the variation of the wind speed in order to produce the maximum output power. An experimental setup has been implemented in laboratory to validate the theoretical development. The experimental results show that the loss minimization process is more effective at low wind speed and that the percent of power saving can approach to 25%. Experimental results are shown to verify the validity of the proposed scheme.


Room-temperature photomodulated reflectance (PR) has been performed on a series of tensilely strained undoped multiple quantum well (QW) structures with barriers, which were lattice matched to an InP substrate. The nominal QW Ga composition varied from x = 0.467 to 0.684 corresponding to tensile strains between zero and 1.5%, respectively. In this range of strain, the QW heavy-hole (HH) and light-hole (LH) ground-state zone-centre excitonic transitions increase in energy, with the HH varying more rapidly, with the result that it moves from energies below that of the LH, in the unstrained wells, to above the LH, at the highest strain. The variation in the LH and HH energies with strain is measured using PR which is able to resolve these two transitions even when they are almost degenerate, which occurs at % tensile strain. The results from the PR measurements are also compared with room-temperature photoluminescence and photovoltage measurements on samples from the same wafers. The experimental results are shown to compare well with theoretical QW calculations based on an effective mass formalism.


Knowledge graphs (KGs) are a popular way to organise information based on ontologies or schemas and have been used across a variety of scenarios from search to recommendation. Despite advances in KGs, representing knowledge remains a non-trivial task across industries and it is especially challenging in the biomedical and healthcare domains due to complex interdependent relations between entities, heterogeneity, lack of standardization, and sparseness of data. KGs are used to discover diagnoses or prioritize genes relevant to disease, but they often rely on schemas that are not centred around a node or entity of interest, such as a person. Entity-centric KGs are relatively unexplored but hold promise in representing important facets connected to a central node and unlocking downstream tasks beyond graph traversal and reasoning, such as generating graph embeddings and training graph neural networks for a wide range of predictive tasks. This paper presents an end-to-end representation learning framework to extract entity-centric KGs from structured and unstructured data. We introduce a star-shaped ontology to represent the multiple facets of a person and use it to guide KG creation. Compact representations of the graphs are created leveraging graph neural networks and experiments are conducted using different levels of heterogeneity or explicitness. A readmission prediction task is used to evaluate the results of the proposed framework, showing a stable system, robust to missing data, that outperforms a range of baseline machine learning classifiers. We highlight that this approach has several potential applications across domains and is open-sourced. Lastly, we discuss lessons learned, challenges, and next steps for the adoption of the framework in practice.


Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are predicted to play an important role in the evolution of host mating strategies, and vice versa, yet our understanding of host-STI coevolution is limited. Here, I present a model of acute STI infection in populations with ephemeral mating dynamics, where hosts evolve their preference for healthy mates and STIs evolve mortality or sterility virulence. Mate choice readily evolves even though ephemeral mating and acute infections reduce the advantages of mate choice compared to previous theory based on serial monogamy and chronic infections. Selection for mate choice constrains both mortality and sterility virulence, leading to optimal strategies in each population, host polymorphism, or fluctuating selection. I show how the mode of virulence, costs associated with mate choice, recovery, and host lifespan impact on host-STI coevolution, with fluctuating selection most likely when hosts have intermediate lifespans, STIs cause sterility and longer infections, and costs of mate choice are not too high. The results reveal new insights into the evolution of mate choice and how coevolution unfolds for different host and STI life-history traits, providing increased support for parasite-mediated sexual selection as a potential driver of host mate choice, and mate choice as a constraint on STI virulence.


of radiomic and deep learning algorithms to automatically detect pros- tate cancer on MRI will be aided by the accurate labelling of tumour foci on mpMRI images using our 3D reconstruction approach. via transrectal (TR) approach. The adoption of transperineal (TP) prostate biopsy is increasing, but conversion to TP fusion technology can be fi nancially prohibitive. Cognitive TP targeting is a cost-effective alternative but may be perceived as a barrier and assumed to result in lower cancer detection. We describe a single surgeon's transition from TR MRI/US fusion to cognitive TP targeted biopsies. METHODS: A retrospective chat review of patients that underwent targeted prostate biopsy (either TP cognitive or TR MRI/US fusion) from 2015 - 2021 was performed. Patients with PSA > 20, concomitant procedures or metastatic disease were excluded. In pa- tients with multiple biopsies only the fi rst targeted biopsy was abstracted. Chi-Square and Mann-Whitney tests were utilized for univariable analysis of categorical and continuous variables, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression models were fi t to evaluate variables associated with clinically signi fi cant prostate cancer on targeted biopsy. RESULTS: Of the 146 patients that underwent targeted prostate biopsy, 40% underwent TP cognitive approach. Clinicopathologic characteristics between the two groups differed in demographic distri-bution, prostate size, and MRI fi ndings (Table The detection of any prostate cancer (64% vs 39%, p [ 0.003) and clinically signi fi cant prostate cancer (csPCa) (48% vs 19%, p < 0.001) were higher in the TP cognitive targeted group. On multivariable analysis, controlling for clinicopathologic characteristics, only PSA density above > 0.15 ng/ml 2 was associated with csPCa on targeted biopsy (Table 2). Targeted bi- opsy approach, TR fusion vs. TP cognitive targeted biopsy, was not associated with detection of csPCa. CONCLUSIONS: Clinically signi fi cant prostate cancer detection rate was not compromised when switching from transrectal MRI/US fusion to transperineal cognitive targeted biopsy technique.


Laboratory colonies of Amblyomma variegatium nymphae were established by incubating thirty fully and eighteen partially engorged female ticks collected from sedentary herds in Zaria. They were incubated at 28°C and 80% relative humidity. Preoviposition periods ranged from 7 to 10 days (mean 8.5+ 1.5) and 9 to 11 days (mean 10±1.0) for the fully and partially engorged ticks respectively. The eggs maintained under the same incubation conditions hatched 'between 40-43 days (mean 41.5 +1.5) and 40 to 59 days (mean 49±9.5) post oviposition for the fully and partially engorged ticks respectively. The larvae were infected by feeding them on a heartwater infected goat using ear bags. The resultant nymphae transmitted heartwater to susceptible goats after 11 and 52 weeks, of preservation in the incubator maintained at WOC and 80% relatively humidity.


State discrimination against out-of-staters falls into two conceptually distinct categories. On the one hand, a state might treat its own residents more favorably than residents of other states who are temporarily within the state's jurisdiction. The Court has generally viewed this kind of resident-nonresident discrimination as subject to the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV. The Commerce Clause has also been invoked against such discrimination, in the context of commercial discrimination against nonresident buyers or sellers. On the other hand, a state might discriminate among those currently claiming residence in the state, on the basis of how recently they moved into the state or on their motives for moving into the state. This type of policy divides residents into two classes: those accepted as bona fide, established residents, and those disfavored as latecomers with inadequate ties or attachment to the state, suspect motives for immigrating, or perhaps both. Because the latecomers have, by definition, recently exercised the right to travel into the state discriminating against them, the Court has tended to view such discrimination as impinging on that right, thereby triggering strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This has been the basis for the Court's development of the so-called right to travel strand of equal protection analysis.Regardless of whether a state discriminates against nonresidents or recent residents, a survey of recent Supreme Court cases, as discussed in Part I of this Note, confirms that invalidation is the rule for such state laws. The Court's 1984-85 Term yielded four cases striking down different parochial state policies. One was decided under the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause, one was a Commerce Clause case in equal protection clothing, one was a right-to-travel case, and one was just plain confusing.Part II of this Note surveys the constitutional doctrine relating to state parochial discrimination and discusses two broad areas where the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause has already been used or proposed for use as the constitutional source for a new, clarified doctrine. Part III focuses on the goals and problems of the right-to-travel doctrine and the possibility of analyzing those cases under a Privileges and Immunities Clause rationale. Part IV concludes that the Privileges and Immunities Clause, freed of cramped and anachronistic interpretations, should be the basis for a new, more stringent test for scrutinizing state parochial legislation, a test more clearly tied to the language and structure of the Constitution and better suited to carry out its guarantees.


Biomedical named entity recognition (NER) is a challenging problem. In this paper, we show that mining techniques, such as sequential pattern mining and sequential rule mining, can be useful to tackle this problem but present some limitations. We demonstrate and analyse these limitations and introduce a new kind of pattern called LSR pattern that offers an excellent trade-off between the high precision of sequential rules and the high recall of sequential patterns. We formalise the LSR pattern mining problem first. Then we show how LSR patterns enable us to successfully tackle biomedical NER problems. We report experiments carried out on real datasets that underline the relevance of our proposition.


Abstract This article is based on a multi-site study of teachers in elite private schools in Australia. Teachers' accounts from this study bring nuance to the reasons one might short-handedly expect they have in working for these exclusive institutions. It is not that everyday motivations don't matter, for example, the financial compensations, the beautiful grounds and the status payoffs, but that teachers bring their own discourses, histories and intentions to bear on the contradictions of their work-lives. This is crucial evidence for understanding how privilege functions, how teachers are not simply co-opted or constrained. Instead, this article brings into view the agency of teachers who embrace privilege in spite of thorny questions around educational inequality that elite private schools cannot avoid.


Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), which is an excellent tool for trace elemental analysis, was studied as a method of detecting sub-part-per-10(6) (ppm) concentrations of aluminum in surrogates of human tissue. Tissue was modeled using a 2% agarose gelatin doped with an Al(2)O(3) nanoparticle suspension. A calibration curve created with standard reference samples of known Al concentrations was used to determine the limit of detection, which was less than 1 ppm. Rates of false negative and false positive detection results for a much more realistic sampling methodology were also studied, suggesting that LIBS could be a candidate for the real-time in vivo detection of metal contamination in human soft tissue.


Increasing the use of reflection as well as an educational focus on the humanistic approach to care holds great hope for diminishing provider bias in caring for individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD). It is an inherited red blood cell disorder affecting approximately 100,000 individuals in the United States, mostly African Americans. Individuals with SCD often face bias from providers who believe they are exaggerating their pain complaints to obtain pain medication. This bias frequently creates an antagonistic relationship between patients and providers. Reflection is frequently taught in medical school and often involves writing or debriefing after a live patient encounter. For example, after working in the Sickle Cell Infusion Center (SCIC), a medical student reflected that in his future practice he would adopt the SCIC's policy towards pain management, which is that, regardless of a patient's capacity to be ''drug-seeking'' their pain should still be quickly and adequately treated. We offer an alternative model. A brief video-intervention, showcasing patients in crisis, as well as discussing treatment received from providers when seeking care for a painful crisis, created by researchers at Johns Hopkins University improved provider attitudes towards individuals with SCD (Haywood et al. 2010). Reflection after viewing such a video can allow medical students to gain better understanding and empathy for individuals with SCD. It is important for providers to know how to provide compassionate care. Reflection can assist in creating empathetic and caring providers. It should be emphasized that it is a clinically relevant skill which can aid students in their personal growth throughout the course of their career (Song & Stewart 2012). By creating this new generation of providers with a more humanitarian approach to the care for SCD, individuals living with the disease will receive the unbiased compassionate care everyone in pain should receive.


The communication between CORBA juxtaposed components suffer from unnecessary object request broker participation overhead in available implementations of CORBA component model. Some efforts have been made to optimize CORBA Component Model structure by differentiating remote requests from local requests to efface Object Request Broker interventions to realize components communications and make it possible to use Object Request Broker services such as Naming, Event and Transaction services. One such solution presented by ourselves has merely proposed a local transaction service model to minimize the response time of communication by managing four types of events occurring during execution of a transaction over distributed components using CORBA Component Model. This paper attempts to show the attained optimization of the proposed local transaction service model by implementing the model and providing a real local transaction service support for juxtaposed components. In the best-case we got a 25% optimization rate when all of the components involved in a transaction were juxtaposed.