The application potential of Visual Analytics (VA), with its supporting interactive 2D and 3D visualization techniques, in the environmental domain is unparalleled. Such advanced systems may enable an in-depth interactive exploration of multifaceted geospatial and temporal changes in very large and complex datasets. This is facilitated by a unique synergy of modules for simulation, analysis, and visualization, offering instantaneous visual feedback of transformative changes in the underlying data. However, even if the resulting knowledge holds great potential for supporting decision-making in the environmental domain, the consideration of such techniques still have to find their way to daily practice. To advance these developments, we demonstrate four case studies that portray different opportunities in data visualization and VA in the context of climate research and natural disaster management. Firstly, we focus on 2D data visualization and explorative analysis for climate change detection and urban microclimate development through a comprehensive time series analysis. Secondly, we focus on the combination of 2D and 3D representations and investigations for flood and storm water management through comprehensive flood and heavy rain simulations. These examples are by no means exhaustive, but serve to demonstrate how a VA framework may apply to practical research.


In this paper analysis results of a cooperation of the Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) with the photovoltaic system are presented. The proposed system consists of a series inverter, a shunt inverter, and some photovoltaic arrays connected in the dc link through the Multi-Input Single-Output (MISO) DC-DC converter. A numerical formulation of the proposed control schemes, which are based on the instantaneous power theory, is presented. The proposed system can improve the power quality at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC) on power distribution systems. The performance of the proposed system was analyzed using simulations with Power System Computer Aided Design/ElectroMagnetic Transients DC (PSCAD/EMTDC) analysis program.


The smaller the robot the easier it is for it to access voids in a collapsed structure. Yet, small size brings a host of problems due to resource constraints. One of the primary constraints on small robots is limited motive power to surmount obstacles and rough terrain. We are developing a small reconfigurable robotic system with various add-on modules to provide bulk motive force adaptable for different scenarios. The difficulty in adding modules with unsteerable motive force to generic host robots stems from directing the energy in the proper direction in a general way. This paper investigates modulating the non-isotropic Cartesian mass matrix of a robot, in contact with the ground, to passively steer the acceleration resulting from a motive force module. A robot in contact with the ground in a statically stable configuration is a parallel chain mechanism. We dynamically model the robot itself as an augmented object supported by multiple serial chain mechanisms to ground. In this paper, we develop the Cartesian mass matrix of the TerminatorBot robot by summing the dynamics component of each individual serial chain using the operational space formulation. A map is built of the resulting Cartesian acceleration vectors as a function of the robot's configuration. Desired acceleration vectors are mapped backwards from Cartesian space to configuration space, allowing the controller to assume a stance for the robot that will result in the desired motion.


Prostate (PR) cancer (CA) is one of the most common malignant neoplasms in men all over the world. In general, if prostate cancer (PC) is detected early, treatment usually involves either surgical removal of the prostate or radiotherapy (RT). Hormone Therapy (HT) or chemotherapy (CH) is the preferred treatment for more advanced cases of PC or if CA spreads beyond the PT. A number of complications, such as urinary incontinence (IU) or erectile dysfunction (ED), can be associated with some modalities of treatment of the PC. The aim of this work is to evaluate, in PubMed, the number of publications related with prostate cancer and the main modalities of treatment, as well as some clinical complications. The searches were performed in PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) in the period 1950 to 2008 using the words: (i) CA, (ii) CA and PR or penis or testis, (iii) CA and PR and RT, CA and PR and surgery (SU), CA and PR and CH and, CA and PR and HT and (iv) CA and PR and RT and IU or ED, CA and PR and SU and IU or ED, CA and PR and CH and IU or ED and, CA and PR and HT and CH and IU or ED, and (V) PC and the same modalities of treatment. The data was obtained on July 20th, 2008. PC, as expected has been cited extensively and surgery has been identified as the most widely referenced modality of treatment. Furthermore, urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction are important complications that have attracted significant scientific interest. In conclusion, these findings have shown the relevance of the PubMed to analyze quantitatively the publications in cancer and this information could be worthwhile in aiding the comprehension of some clinical aspects related with PC, as well as the development of preventative actions. The analysis of the scientific interest, considering the number of publications in the PubMed, reveals research trends in the field and demonstrates the importance of the surgical procedures in the treatment of the prostate cancer. Moreover, this finding is relevant due to the fact that surgery is the treatment of choice when early detection of PC is achieved. However, it is important to consider clinical complications related to such procedures, such as urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunctions that can reduce the quality of life of the patient.


Ultrasound-guided perineural dextrose injection (PDI) has been reported effective for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Higher volume of injectate may reduce adhesion of median nerve from other tissues, but volume-dependent effects of PDI in CTS remain unknown. We aimed to investigate whether PDI with different injectate volumes had different effects for CTS participants. In this randomized, double-blinded, three-arm trial, 63 wrists diagnosed with CTS were randomized into three groups that received ultrasound-guided PDI with either 1, 2 or 4 ml of 5% dextrose water. All participants finished this study. Primary outcome as visual analog scale (VAS) and secondary outcomes including Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire (BCTQ), Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand score (QuickDASH), electrophysiological studies and cross-sectional area (CSA) of the median nerve at carpal tunnel inlet were assessed before and after PDI at the 1st, 4th, 12th and 24th weeks. For within-group analysis, all three groups (21 participants, each) revealed significant improvement from baseline in VAS, BCTQ and QuickDASH at the 1st, 4th, 12th and 24th weeks. For between-group analysis, 4 ml-group yielded better VAS reduction at the 4th and 12th weeks as well as improvement of BCTQ and QuickDASH at the 1st, 4th, and 12th weeks, compared to other groups. No significant between-group differences were observed in electrophysiological studies or median nerve CSA at any follow-up time points. There were no severe complications in this trial, and transient minor adverse effects occurred equally in the three groups. In conclusion, ultrasound-guided PDI with 4 ml of 5% dextrose provided better efficacy than with 1 and 2 ml based on symptom relief and functional improvement for CTS at the 1st, 4th, and 12th week post-injection, with no reports of severe adverse effects. There was no significant difference between the three groups at the 24th-week post-injection follow-up. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT03598322.


The development of formal models is often a key step when developing safety or mission critical software. In this setting it is vital to formally check and validate these formal models before translating them into code. I will present ProB, a toolset for the B method which was developed using constraint logic programming technology. ProB allows fully automatic animation of B models, and can be used to systematically check a B model for errors. ProB supports B features such as non-deterministic operations, ANY statements, operations with complex arguments, sets, sequences, functions, lambda abstractions, set comprehensions, constants and properties, and many more. ProB's animation facilities allow users to gain confidence in their specifications, and unlike other animators, the user does not have to guess the right values for the operation arguments or choice variables. This is achieved by using co-routining and finite domain constraint solving. On top of the animation features, ProB contains a temporal model checker and a constraint-based model checker, both of which can be used to detect various errors in B specifications.


Entrepreneurship in Colombia has gained great importance in recent years, and it is thanks to this that, according to information from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, a large part of the formal employment in the country is generated, since with the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises the business dynamic has managed to position itself. Many of these undertakings are in the footwear sector, as the country has high consumption indicators in this line, so this research proposes to analyze how it could favor companies in the sector with the insertion of digital marketing, thus exploring the advantages offered by ICT in this regard. The research is based on a mixed design, as it combines quantitative tools with the revision of sector and qualitative figures, as it raises reflections on the inherent aspects of ICT and alternatives for trade today. The final results show growth opportunities for entrepreneurs in the sector, highlighting the importance of training and education for leaders and actors of organizations. 4060 Remedios Pitre Redondo et al.


ABSTRACT Donald Trump became the president that the American system of government was designed to avoid and that America's founders feared; an anti-democratic leader who positioned himself as an alternative to that system. This critical rhetorical analysis initially deconstructs the founders' vision of a system configured to vet, counter and neutralise anti-constitutional demagogues with leadership aspirations. The essay suggests such leadership as Donald Trump's is the prototype of a legitimately elected leader who rhetorically deconstructs the political system which initially elevates them to office. In so doing, it becomes difficult if not impossible for that system to hold such a leader and their political organisation accountable for their actions, at least through democratic means. The essay also examines the impact of such dysfunctional political discourse on American democracy as well its global significance. It concludes speculatively by suggesting the enactment of a rhetorical narrative of constitutional patriotism as a counterpart to demagogic populism.


Convergent hybrid maze procedure is very safe and effective surgical modality for the treatment of refractory atrial fibrillation. It carries very little risk of complications and an intrapericardial diaphragmatic hernia is amongst the rarest of complications. Only three cases of intrapericardial hernia have been reported in literature till date. This case report describes a middle aged gentleman admitted in emergency department with life-threatening condition of small bowel obstruction secondary to strangulated intrapericardial diaphragmatic hernia. He was resuscitated in Surgical Assessment Unit and underwent emergency laparotomy involving bowel resection and repair of diaphragmatic hernia.


Research background: Despite a growing interest in the role of time and risk preferences in explaining technology adoption, empirical studies that investigate this behavior are scant. Numerous studies have attempted to identify the determinants of adoption of new technologies. However, those studies failed to capture the duration of time farmers will take to adopt a given technology using a proper model such as duration model. Purpose of the article : This study developed a technology adoption theoretical model that incorporates time and risk preferences in addition to household level characteristics. Using this model, we tested whether impatience and risk aversion delays or expedites stall-feeding adoption or not. Methods: Using cross sectional data of 518 sample farmers from Ethiopia, both semi-parametric (Cox PH) and parametric (Weibull PH and Weibull AFT) models have been applied to estimate the conditional probability of SF adoption. This enables us to convey information not only on why a farmer adopted, but also on the timing of the adoption decision. Findings : As expected, our results indeed show that, the time of stall-feeding adoption increases with discount rate. Individuals who are patient and risk loving adopt stall-feeding sooner than individuals who are impatient and risk averse. Likewise, farmers who are more less-averse adopt SF technology latter compared to farmers who are risk neutral. The estimated results also revealed that economic incentives (i.e. prices) was found to be the most important determinants of the time farmers wait before adopting new technologies. While higher output price significantly accelerates SF adoption, higher input price decelerates the adoption period. The expected milk yield (first moment) had a positive significant effect on the adoption decision, indicating that higher expected mean, on average decreases farmers' time to adopt. Findings in this study suggest that, land and labor endowment shorten the time to adopt SF. However, market distance delay the adoption of SF. Moreover, access to information, education of household head, breed cow ownership, and location of the farmer, accelerated the likelihood of early SF adoption. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is one of the first adoption studies to have incorporated time and risk preference in its parametric and semi-parametric adoption analysis.


Oil spill increases the amount of hydrocarbons in marine ecosystems that disrupts the ecological balance with severe economic consequences. This study was conducted to assess the microbial composition in the sediments of oil affected areas in Mactan Island, Cebu eight months after the incident. Four sites designated as S1 (low) , S2 (mid) and S3 (high) representing oil spill contamination gradient were established. A reference site (Ref) was selected. Sediment samples from each site were collected for microbial count enumeration (heterotrophic and oil degrading bacteria) using the spread plate technique and the MPN method respectively. An increasing pattern of heterotrophic bacteria and decreasing trend of oil degrading bacteria counts were observed along S1, S2 and S3. Results revealed the heterotrophic bacteria count in all sites did not vary significantly. In addition, Ref exhibited highest and lowest count for heterotrophic and oil degrading bacteria respectively whereas S3 and S2 displayed highest in density for the oil degrading bacteria. The proliferation of oil degrading microbe implies the possible presence of oil residues including those PAH components that gets more toxic through time.


With the rapid development of 3D imaging technology, the wide usage of 3D surface information for research and applications is becoming a convenient reality. We focus on a quantified analysis of facial asymmetry of more than 100 3D human faces (individuals). We investigate whether facial asymmetry differs statistically significantly from a bilateral symmetry assumption, and the role of global and local facial asymmetry for gender discrimination.


The pixels segmentation of high resolution RGB images into background, green vegetation and senescent vegetation classes is a first step often required before estimating key traits of interest including the vegetation fraction, the green area index, or to characterize the sanitary state of the crop. We developed the SegVeg model for semantic segmentation of RGB images into the three classes of interest. It is based on a U-net model that separates the vegetation from the background. It was trained over a very large and diverse dataset. The vegetation pixels are then classified using a SVM shallow machine learning technique trained over pixels extracted from grids applied to images. The performances of the SegVeg model are then compared to a three classes U-net model trained using weak supervision over RGB images with predicted pixels by SegVeg as groundtruth masks. Results show that the SegVeg model allows to segment accurately the three classes, with however some confusion mainly between the background and the senescent vegetation, particularly over the dark and bright parts of the images. The U-net model achieves similar performances, with some slight degradation observed for the green vegetation: the SVM pixel-based approach provides more precise delineation of the green and senescent patches as compared to the convolutional nature of U-net. The use of the components of several color spaces allows to better classify the vegetation pixels into green and senescent ones. Finally, the models are used to predict the fraction of the three classes over the grids pixels or the whole images. Results show that the green fraction is very well estimated (R2=0.94) by the SegVeg model, while the senescent and background fractions show slightly degraded performances (R2=0.70 and 0.73, respectively). We made SegVeg publicly available as a ready-to-use script, as well as the entire dataset, rendering segmentation accessible to a broad audience by requiring neither manual annotation nor knowledge, or at least, offering a pre-trained model to more specific use.


In orthodontic treatment, the use of mechanical forces generated by magnetic fields have increased significantly over the past years, triggered by the introduction of rare earth permanent magnetic alloys. Rare earth magnets, initially made from cobalt-samarium alloy and later from neodymium-iron-boron alloy generate high mechanical forces in relation to their small size. Relating to their use in orthodontic treatment, queries about possible side effects have been expressed. This study was undertaken in order to determine if cell growth and attachment in vitro is affected over time in a static magnetic field of a magnitude comparable to that used clinically. Significantly and progressively impaired attachment and growth over a 5 week period was observed when human periodontal fibroblasts were cultured in a static magnetic field. These results indicate that a static magnetic field itself is capable of influencing vital cell functions, although they do not exclude the possibility of corrosion products from the magnets contributing to previously observed cytotoxic in vitro and biological in vivo effects.


Financing agricultural producers is one of the most acute problems within the entire scope of economic reforms in Kazakhstan. State financial support for agriculture in Kazakhstan is episodic in nature, small in size, and seldom reaches the target recipients, while the commercial banks are reluctant to give credit to agricultural producers. Although Rural Credit Partnerships (RCP) are very promising credit institutions for the agricultural sector, there are a number of challenges to their development. This study is organized in two parts: the first part analyzes the RCP membership status among corporate farms; the second part analyzes access to RCP credit by members of rural credit partnerships (both corporate and individual farms). The results of the first part of the analysis demonstrate that large-scale corporate farms with bank credit history are more likely to be members of RCPs. The second part of the analysis shows that the purpose of a loan requested from the RCP significantly affects the probability of a member to have access to RCP credit.


This paper presents a method to obtain a Linear Fractional Transformation (LFT) model from a set of numerical flexible aircraft models. The core of the method lies in a polynomial interpolation, but before this step, some cautious treatments must be applied to the numerical models for them to be interpolable. First the models have to be reduced to be exploitable, while ensuring they all keep the same consistent modal content and avoiding numerical problems. Second the interpolation of the reduced models state representations can only be processed if the state vector has the same physical meaning for the whole model set (state vector consistency). For this problem, a specific state coordinate transformation is emphasized. After models are interpolated, the LFT is computed with the LFR toolbox's generalized Morton method. Then the LFT accuracy can be improved through a biconvex optimization.


AIM
To investigate and compare the cytopathological and clinical effects of amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT) and oral mucosal membrane transplantation (OMMT) in socket contraction.

METHODS
Twelve patients who could not be fitted with ocular prosthesis due to socket contracture were included in this study. Seven patients underwent AMT and 5 patients underwent OMMT. Thirteen patients who had healthy sockets were included as control group. Depth of inferior fornix, degree of inflammation, extent of the socket contracture and socket volume were measured in the preoperative period and at sixth and twelfth weeks postoperatively. Impression cytology of conjunctival fornices and tear transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGFβ1) levels were determined.

RESULTS
In the AMT group, socket volume and lower fornix depth values were significantly higher (P=0.030 and P=0.004 respectively) and inflammation levels and impression cytology stages (P=0.037 and P=0.022 respectively) were significantly lower in postoperative period compared to preoperative period. In the OMMT group, no statistical differences were found in terms of clinical parameters, inflammation levels and impression cytology stages of preoperative versus postoperative values. Preoperative tear TGFβ1 levels were higher in AMT and OMMT groups compared to the control group (25.5 ng/mL, 26.3 ng/mL and 21.7 ng/mL respectively). Decreased tear TGFβ1 levels were observed in both the AMT and OMMT groups postoperatively (median decrease value=2.1 ng/mL and 2.7 ng/mL respectively).

CONCLUSION
AMT is associated with postoperative improvement in inferior fornix depth, socket volume, inflammation and impression cytology levels and may be a more proper alternative method than OMMT in the management of socket contracture.


Ethanol production from direct cellulose fermentation has mainly been described as a strictly anaerobic process. The use of air-tolerant organisms or consortia for this process would reduce the need for prereduction of the medium and also permit continuous feed of aerobic feedstock. To this end, moderately thermophilic (60 °C) consortia of fermentative, cellulolytic bacteria were enriched from 3 distinct environments (manure, marsh, and rotten wood) from a farm in southeast Saskatchewan, Canada. Community phenotypic and metabolic profiles were characterized. Selection methods included direct plating under an aerobic atmosphere and repeated passaging; the methods were designed to select for robust, stable aerotolerant cellulose-degrading communities. Several of the isolated communities exhibited an increase in total cellulose degradation and total ethanol yield when compared with a monoculture of Clostridium thermocellum DSMZ 1237. Owing to stringent selection conditions, low diversity enrichments were found, and many appeared to be binary cultures via density gradient gel electrophoresis analysis. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequencing, aerobic conditions selected for a mix of organisms highly related to C. thermocellum and Geobacillus species, while anaerobic conditions led to the development of consortia containing strains related to C. thermocellum with strains from either the genus Geobacillus or the genus Thermoanaerobacter. The presence of a Geobacillus-like species appeared to be a prerequisite for aerotolerance of the cellulolytic enrichments, a highly desired phenotype in lignocellulosic consolidated bioprocessing.


The depositional processes associated with late Devensian ice in areas bordering the Irish Sea basin have been the subject of considerable debate. Among the key areas around the Irish Sea, southwest Wales occupies a particularly crucial position because it is here that ice flowing from the north impinged upon the coast orthogonally and encroached inland. Two main hypotheses have emerged concerning deglaciation of the Irish Sea basin. The traditional hypothesis holds that sedimentation was ice‐marginal or subglacial, whereas an alternative hypothesis that emerged in the 1980s argued that sedimentation was glaciomarine. Southwest Wales is well‐placed to contribute to this debate. However, few detailed sedimentological studies, linked to topography, have been made previously in order to reconstruct glacial environments in this area. In this paper, evidence is presented from four boreholes drilled recently in the Cardigan area, combined with data from coastal and inland exposures in the lower Teifi valley and adjacent areas. A complex history of glaciation has emerged: (i) subglacial drainage channel formation in pre‐Devensian time, (ii) deposition of iron‐cemented breccias and conglomerates possibly during the last interglacial (or in the early/mid‐Devensian interstadial), (iii) late Devensian ice advance across the region, during which a glaciolacustrine sequence over 75 m thick accumulated, within a glacial lake known as Llyn Teifi, (iv) a second high‐level glaciolacustrine succession formed near Llandudoch, (v) outside the Teifi valley, ice‐marginal, subglacial and glaciofluvial sediments were also laid down, providing a near‐continuous cover of drift throughout the area. Glacial advance was characterized by reworking, deformation and sometimes erosion of the underlying sediments. The glaciomarine hypothesis is thus rejected for southwest Wales. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Cereal aphids, including the bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, and the grain aphid, Sitobion avenae, can transmit viruses that significantly reduce crop yields. To mitigate against yield losses, insecticides are routinely used to manage aphid populations. Aphids can form relationships with endosymbionts that confer fitness benefits or consequences to the aphid. Recent artificial inoculation experiments indicate that endosymbionts could increase aphid susceptibility to insecticides, but this has not been explored using aphid populations naturally infected with endosymbionts. Here, we sampled aphids from an important cereal production region in Lower Saxony, Germany. We characterised the endosymbiont profile of these aphid populations and conducted pyrethroid dose-response assays to test the hypothesis that facultative endosymbionts increase aphid susceptibility to insecticides. We find that the level of insecticide susceptibility is highly variable in S. avenae and we identify populations that are sensitive and tolerant to pyrethroids, including populations collected from the same field. For R. padi, we find evidence for decreased sensitivity to pyrethroids, representing the first report of reduced sensitivity to pyrethroids in R. padi sampled from Central Europe. We detected high endosymbiont infection frequencies in the aphid populations. 84% of aphids carry one facultative endosymbiont and 9% of aphids carry two facultative endosymbionts. We detected associations with Regiella insecticola, Fukatsia symbiotica, and Hamiltonella defensa. However, we do not identify a link between endosymbiont infection and insecticide susceptibility, indicating that other factors may govern the development of insecticide resistance and the need for alternative management strategies.


Data now (DF) architecture resulting from the DF program representation by the functional language being developed at the Department of Computers and Informatics is proposed in the paper. The contribution is concentrated to the efficient implementation of functional language in the DF architecture supporting the idea of the programming parallel problems by specification and transformation using mathematical methods. The combination of a local control flow with a global data flow model in the proposed DF architecture is connected with the direct operand matching mechanism using matching vectors. The concepts of the data flow graph representation using the functional language, the approaches to the parallel execution of the functional program in the data now implementational environment and the DF architecture layout are presented in the paper. It is supposed that the hardware implementation of the architecture can be used as a specialised accelerator in problem-oriented computer systems with high requirements on the operation speed.


AIMS
Early left ventricular (LV) dysfunction in asymptomatic patients with severe aortic regurgitation (AR) may go undetected due to the lack of a sufficiently sensitive diagnostic tool. Ultrasonic strain/strain rate (S/SR) imaging should now provide such sensitivity in detecting early dysfunction in regional LV systolic deformation. The aim of this study was to understand and define the changes in LV regional systolic deformation based on S/SR imaging in patients with asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic AR.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Eighty-one individuals were studied: 59 asymptomatic patients with isolated non-ischaemic AR who were divided into three sub-groups such as mild, moderate, and severe AR and 22 age-matched healthy subjects. All patients underwent standard echocardiographic examinations including a tissue Doppler imaging study. For LV radial deformation, the posterior wall (LVPW) was examined. To assess LV longitudinal deformation, S and SR data were acquired from the LV lateral wall and septum. Radial as well as longitudinal peak systolic SRs were significantly decreased in patients with both moderate AR (LVPW, P=0.0009; septum, P=0.03; LV lateral wall, P=0.0009) and severe AR (P<0.0001) compared with healthy subjects. Changes in regional LV deformation correlated inversely both with LV end-diastolic volume and with end-systolic volume.

CONCLUSIONS
Strain rate imaging is a sensitive tool in detecting the spectrum of changes in radial and longitudinal deformation in asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic patients with AR. The index where volume was corrected by deformation should form the basis for predicting subclinical LV dysfunction in patients with increasing LV dilatation.


BACKGROUND
With the development of autonomous driving, the occupants' comfort perception and their activities during the drive are becoming increasingly the focus of research. Especially in one of the first applications, a drive on a motorway, vertical dynamics play a major role.

OBJECTIVE
To be able to robustly objectify ride comfort, better models need to be developed. Initial studies have shown, that the current ISO-2631 standard creates good results in the objectification and can be regarded as benchmark.

METHODS
To increase the accuracy in objectification, an extended model with the occupants' head as additional measuring point is introduced. Instead of the known frequency filters, weighting (k-factors) is used to differentiate possible excitations. For comparing the model with the ISO-2631, a simulator study with 5 excitations and 50 inattentive subjects is carried out.

RESULTS
Evaluating the study with the ISO-2631, 3 out of 5 excitations indicate a significant difference between the occupant's impression and the calculated comfort value. In comparison the extended model has no significant difference.

CONCLUSION
The results further show, that inattentive occupants move their heads significantly more. By measuring accelerations of the head, the extended model creates equivalent or more accurate comfort values than the ISO-2631.


The need for biodegradable and biocompatible polymers is growing quickly, particularly in the biomedical and environmental industries. Cellulose acetate, a natural polysaccharide, can be taken from plants and modified with polycaprolactone to improve its characteristics for a number of uses, including biomedical applications and food packaging. Cellulose acetate-g-polycaprolactone was prepared by a three-step reaction: First, polymerization of ε-caprolactone via ring-opening polymerization (ROP) reaction using 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and functionalization of polycaprolactone(PCL) by introducing NCO on the hydroxyl end of the HEMA-PCL using hexamethyl lenediisocyanate(HDI) were carried out. Then, the NCO–HEMA-PCL was grafted onto cellulose acetate (using the "grafting to" method). The polycaprolactone grafted cellulose acetate was confirmed by FTIR, the thermal characteristics of the copolymers were investigated by DSC and TGA, and the hydrophobicity was analyzed via water CA measurement. Introducing NCO-PCL to cellulose acetate increased the thermal stability. The contact angle of the unreacted PCL was higher than that of cellulose acetate-g-PCL, and it increased when the chain length increased. The CA-g-PCL50, CA-g-PCL100, and CA-g-PCL200 showed very high inhibition zones for all three bacteria tested (E. coli, S. aureus, and P. aeruginosa).


The industrial manufacturing environment is nowadays characterized by fierce global competition, rapid market changes and short product life cycles. Such a complex scenario originated a vast demand for sophisticated techniques guaranteeing adequate planning and control of warehouses. A widely used solution is to adopt Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RSs). A typical AS/RS comprises a number of parallel aisles with storage racks, serviced by automated stacker cranes and rail guided vehicles. This paper compares several management strategies addressing the system operational control, i.e., dealing with the AS/RS real time behaviour. A common coloured timed Petri net models the system and the controlled AS/RS operation is highlighted by way of several discrete event simulations carried out in the Matlab-Stateflow software environment. The proposed control policies are compared and discussed on the basis of appropriate performance indices.


Until recently, the choice of die attach materials in hermetic packaging for space applications has been limited to three types: silver-glass, gold-silicon eutectic, and polyimide film or paste. The performance of each die bond material varies with die size and actual package design, and no single material has given optimum performance for every type of packaging configuration. As a result, selection of the appropriate material has become a complicated procedure where production processes must be continuously modified to meet quality, reliability and performance goals. However, the use of solvent free, polymeric materials such as cyanate ester have great potential as universal die bond adhesives for single chip modules. Details of the qualification process for use of cyanate ester die attach material within radiation hardened memory modules is presented in this paper. A package was subjected to testing as per MIL STD 883E to assess the quality of the die bond, and the effect of cyanate ester on any other subsequent process steps. Based on the results obtained, cyanate ester has become the clear choice for the die attach material for all single chip modules at LMFS. Not only did it prove to be the superior die attach material in this case, it also provided additional benefits such as significantly reduced cycle times and overall manufacturing costs.


Human factors are a critical issue in informatics or information technology systems as the computer industry realizes the need to change from technology-dominated goals to the needs of computer users. The study of human factors can help to improve the usability of information systems and to help reduce the huge costs of human-computer interactions. However, information technology equipment is not easy to use. Even specialists in computing and information technology have difficulty with equipment produced by other experts. This book shows how knowledge and methods from the field of ergonomics can be used to help make information technology equipment easier to use. The principal audience is the many designers, software and hardware engineers, system design managers, management service managers, and user managers who are now becoming aware of the importance of usability. This book provides not only an introduction and overview but guidance on what they can do and how they can approach the problems of usability in informatics equipment.


Regional Development as any other field of planning procedures needs a well-established evaluation assessment. The importance of evaluation assessment is as significant as strategy formulation because it spots light on the efficiency and effectiveness of the comprehensive plans in attaining the anticipated outcomes. It can also assess the suitability of the current processes and methods and acclimatize them to keep up with socio-economic, political and technological innovations of our dynamic world. Another aspect of the significance of regional development evaluation lies in its capability to synchronize the task performed by executive managers, working groups, divisions and subdivisions etc., through controlling of performance. Moreover, it helps in developing inputs for new strategic planning, enhance feedback process, review strategic management process and judging the validity of strategic choices. In August 2015, Egyptian Government announced its new regional development strategy to develop Sinai Peninsula based on the establishment of the economic zone of the New Suez Canal. The economic free zone of Suez Canal is expected to change the nature of the whole region socially, economically and also on the urban planning level as what Jebel Ali Port of Dubai did. The Egyptian new development plan comprises a strategy aims to establish new factories, logistic services areas, fisheries, agricultural lands reclamation and formation of new urban communities. The impact of such a development ¬¬needs to be pre-assessed on the planning level to estimate the degree of success or failure that could be attained by the end of strategy time frame on 2052. This paper is exploring the impact of such a strategy on the area through conducting SOWT analysis followed by a proposed framework capable of determining –quantitatively- the degree of the mentioned strategy in fulfilling the targeted aims.


SUBJECT AREAS: project finance, emerging markets, risk management, CASE SETTING: March 1999, petroleum industry, $4 billion investment Following the BP Amoco (hereafter "BPA") merger in December 1998, the new CFO, David Watson, asked Bill Young to create a policy statement recommending when the firm should use project finance instead of corporate finance for new capital investments. Young and his team created a new policy statement recommending that BPA always use corporate finance with three exceptions: mega projects, projects in politically volatile areas, and joint ventures (JV's) with heterogeneous partners. Essentially project finance would be a tool for managing project risk. In the A case, students must assess the economic rationale for the policy and the exceptions. The B case presents an interesting natural experiment involving two firms from the same industry financing the same asset in two different ways. Prior to their merger, BP and Amoco joined the Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium (AIOC), an 11-firm consortium that was developing oil fields in the Caspian Sea at a cost of $10 billion. As of March 1999, AIOC had completed the $1.9 billion Early Oil Project. BP used internal corporate funds to finance its share of the project while Amoco was one of five AIOC partners that raised $400 million of project finance. The managers in BPA's newly merged Finance Group must reassess the Early Oil financing strategy in light of the new policy statement and determine the best way to finance its share of the remaining $8 billion Full Field Development Project. Should it use corporate finance, project finance, or a combination of the two? While these cases were written for a course on project finance, they make an effective introduction to the field of project finance for advanced corporate finance, international finance, or emerging markets courses. The cases have four pedagogical objectives. First, the cases describe what project finance is and why it creates value-project finance reduces the net cost of financing certain assets. For BP Amoco, separate incorporation for investment purposes (project finance) reduces expected distress costs. For other firms in the consortium, project finance allows them to raise capital when they otherwise could not (it solves a debt overhang problem). Second, in conjunction with the teaching note, the cases present a framework based on portfolio theory that explains why large, risky, tangible assets are the best candidates for project finance. Third, the B case not only gives students an opportunity to apply the new policy statement in a real investment decision, it also illustrates the benefits of staged investment and multi-lateral support. Finally, the cases build appreciation for the complexity of merger integration, particularly horizontal mergers between former competitors.


Considerations of energy density, power, and calendar life are critical to effectively develop advanced secondary systems. For next generation battery applications requiring multiple features including long life, large cycle count, high energy density and high power, new strategies are needed for the rational design of electroactive materials and electrodes. This article discusses several conceptual approaches under exploration with examples from our research group. The first approach is the systematic synthesis of materials with structures facilitating ion insertion and deinsertion at high voltage and energy density, where we control materials properties such as surface area, particle size and in particular crystallite size. A second approach is the investigation of novel electrode structures and substrates to increase energy density and capacity retention under cycling, where we have developed strategies for minimizing passive components. A third approach is investigation of catalysts for metal air batteries where the cathode active material is drawn from the air rather than carried in the battery.


The transition to preschool special education is challenging for parents, children, and professionals. Occupational therapists who work in schools often serve an important role for families during their children's transitions from family-centered, early intervention services to child-centered, educationally relevant programs. In this article, we propose that the values underlying Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model work in concordance with those of occupational therapy and can serve as a framework from which therapists in schools can work with families to ease the stresses of transitioning into preschool. We also provide recommendations that support use of family-centered practice by occupational therapists during this transition.


A sample of 1,123 sixth, ninth, and twelfth graders in two Southern counties was questioned to ascertain how many children they think is ideal. More than three-fourths of the students in each grade had given thought to an ideal number of children for themselves; fewer had thought about the ideal number for the average American couple. Two and three children were the modal responses; mean ideal sizes were 3.02 for self and 3.16 for the average couple. The range of acceptable fertility behavior, "too few" or "too many" children, is defined by medians of 1.56 and 5.96. Ideal and acceptable family sizes increase slightly in the higher grades. A sex difference in ideals appeared only at grade 12; girls wanted more children. Negroes wanted fewer children than did whites at grade 6, more at grade 12. Size of family of orientation was directly related to ideals at grades 6 and 9, but the relation was curvilinear at grade 12. The direct relation between ideals and socioeconomic status became more pronounced at grade 12. Ideal sizes were larger for Catholics than for other religious groups. The study lends at least minimal support to the notion that early socialization affects ideas about family size.


The rapid growth of data mining generates an ever-increasing demand for automatic information extraction from Chinese texts. However, existing approaches in this domain focus on well-structured Chinese texts and therefore have difficulties in dealing with semi-structured Chinese texts which do not conform to strict syntactic structures. We propose in this paper an approach to semi-automatic data extraction and cleansing for these texts. Preliminary experimental results show that, with modest manual intervention, it can effectively extract information from raw semi-structured Chinese texts collected from e-business applications.


In this paper, we study the optimal storage investment problem faced by an owner of renewable generator the purpose of which is to support a portion of a local demand. The goal is to minimize the long-term average cost of electric bills in the presence of dynamic pricing as well as investment in storage, if any. Examples of this setting include homeowners, industries, hospitals or utilities that own wind turbines or solar panels and have their own demand that they prefer to support with renewable generation. We formulate the optimal storage investment problem and propose a simple balancing control for operating storage. We show that this policy is optimal for constant prices and some special cases of price structures that restrict to at most two levels. Under this policy, we provide structural results that help in evaluating the optimal storage investment uniquely and efficiently. We then characterize how the cost and efficiency of storage, dynamic pricing and parameters that characterize the uncertainty in generation and demand impact the size of optimal storage and its gain. One surprising result we prove is that for storage to be profitable under the balancing policy the ratio amortized cost of storage to the peak price of energy should be less than 1 over 4


This paper focuses on the mammal bionic quadruped robots. The main challenge in this field is how to design the highly dynamical and high payload quadruped robots. This paper firstly introduces the history of bionic quadruped robots, particularly the landmark quadruped robots. Then the state-of-the art of drive mode for quadruped robots is reviewed. Subsequently, the development trend of quadruped robots is described. Based on the state-of-the art of quadruped robots, the technical difficulties of bionic quadruped robots are briefly reviewed. And the hydraulic quadruped robot developed in Shandong University is introduced. Finally, the summary and future work of the quadruped robots is given.


Background: Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) is associated with different kinds of tumors. In the present study we tried to understand its role in pediatric MDS of a 4-year-old girl with EBV infection and MDS with refractory anemia and monosomy 7. Procedures: The work-up included: hematological tests; serology for IgM, IgG antibodies to EBV; PCR for EBV; cytogenetics of bone marrow (BM), and FISH analysis of BM and blood; immunohistochemistry-LMP1 expression on BM smears. Results: Hematological follow up showed constant mild dysplastic changes mostly in the erythroid lineage. PCR for EBV showed positive results in the nasopharygeal smears as well as in blood 15 weeks after disease onset. Cytogenetic analysis showed monosomy7 inall the mitoses of BM sample. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) showed monosomy 7% in 57% of the cells, followed by a decreased tendency in the percentage of monosomy 7 cells in both BM and blood. Immunohistochemistry for EBV-latent membrane protein 1 (LMP-1) on the patient's BM smears, 21 weeks post disease onset, showed 9% positive cells, 80% of them carried monosomy 7. Conclusion: The parallel occurrence of the EBV infection and MDS, as well as the continuous EBV PCR positive and monosomy 7, support the possibility that they are related.


Classic Garden Style is all about the decorative, ornamental details that make a garden an extension of the home-an additional room with a variety of purposes. The book begins with a wide variety of containers and supports, including urns, terra cotta pots, zinc containers, trellises, pergolas, and other visual devices you can use to add height and depth to any garden space. Every garden needs a place to sit, and garden furniture-from table and chair sets to hammocks, settees, folding chairs, and other elements that invite seating, reclining, or entertaining-are covered in detail. Accessories of a practical nature come next. The items highlighted here, from birdbaths, baskets, cloches, and greenhouses to watering cans, lamps, and more, have some practical use in the garden in addition to adding visual interest. Strictly ornamental elements inject a sense of whimsy or art into the garden and range from garden gnomes to obelisks, statues, and fountains. This book catalogues many different types of ornament and decoration you can use to transform an ordinary garden into an exciting and comfortable outdoor room that extends the living space of your home."


Metasurfaces have received a lot of attentions recently due to their versatile capability in manipulating electromagnetic wave. Advanced designs to satisfy multiple objectives with non-linear constraints have motivated researchers in using machine learning (ML) techniques like deep learning (DL) for accelerated design of metasurfaces. For metasurfaces, it is difficult to make quantitative comparisons between different ML models without having a common and yet complex dataset used in many disciplines like image classification. Many studies were directed to a relatively constrained datasets that are limited to specified patterns or shapes in metasurfaces. In this paper, we present our SUTD polarized reflection of complex metasurfaces (SUTD-PRCM) dataset, which contains approximately 260,000 samples of complex metasurfaces created from electromagnetic simulation, and it has been used to benchmark our DL models. The metasurface patterns are divided into different classes to facilitate different degree of complexity, which involves identifying and exploiting the relationship between the patterns and the electromagnetic responses that can be compared in using different DL models. With the release of this SUTD-PRCM dataset, we hope that it will be useful for benchmarking existing or future DL models developed in the ML community. We also propose a classification problem that is less encountered and apply neural architecture search to have a preliminary understanding of potential modification to the neural architecture that will improve the prediction by DL models. Our finding shows that convolution stacking is not the dominant element of the neural architecture anymore, which implies that low-level features are preferred over the traditional deep hierarchical high-level features thus explains why deep convolutional neural network based models are not performing well in our dataset.


Alternatives assessment is applied for minimizing the risk of unintentionally replacing a hazardous chemical with another hazardous chemical. Central challenges are the diversity of properties to consider and the lack of high-quality experimental data. To address this, a novel alternatives assessment procedure was developed based on in silico data and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods. As a case study, 16 alternatives to the flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ether were considered. The hazard properties included persistence (P), bioaccumulation potential (B), toxicities (T), and mobility in water (M). Databases were consulted and 2866 experimental data points were collected for the target chemicals; however, these were mostly replicate data points for some hazard criteria for a subset of alternatives. Therefore, in silico data and three MCDA strategies were tested including heat mapping, multiattribute utility theory (MAUT), and Elimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité (ELECTRE III). The heat map clearly showed that none of the target chemicals are hazard-free, whereas MAUT and ELECTRE III agreed on ranking the "least worst" choices. This study identified several challenges and the complexity in the alternatives assessment processes motivating more case studies combining in silico and MCDA approaches.


Due to the emergence of adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the survival rate has been greatly improved in osteosarcoma (OS) patients with localized disease. However, this survival rate has remained unchanged over the past 30 years, and the long-term survival rate for OS patients with metastatic or recurrent disease remains poor. To a certain extent, the reason behind this may be ascribed to the chemoresistance to anti-OS therapy. Chemoresistance in OS appears to be mediated by numerous mechanisms, which include decreased intracellular drug accumulation, drug inactivation, enhanced DNA repair, perturbations in signal transduction pathways, apoptosis- and autophagy-related chemoresistance, microRNA (miRNA) dysregulation and cancer stem cell (CSC)-mediated drug resistance. In addition, methods employed to circumvent these resistance mechanism have been shown to be effective in the treatment of OS. However, almost all the current studies on the mechanisms of chemoresistance in OS are in their infancy. Further studies are required to focus on the following aspects: i) Improving the delivery of efficacy through novel delivery patterns; ii) improving the understanding of the signal transduction pathways that regulate the proliferation and growth of OS cells; iii) elucidating the signaling pathways of autophagy and its association with apoptosis in OS cells; iv) utilizing high-throughput miRNA expression analysis to identify miRNAs associated with chemoresistance in OS; and v) identifying the role that CSCs play in tumor metastasis and in-depth study of the mechanism of chemoresistance in the CSCs of OS.


A great challange in robotics is to make robots more like humans. One important aspect is to make robots move like humans and recognize their motions. Both tasks are based on human motion trajectories and require a proper modelling. To accomplish these tasks, we acquire data from complex motions like setting the table, pouring water into a cup, or stirring the content of the cup. The objectives of our studies are to identify the subject doing the motion and to detect slight changes in motion constraints with automatic classification methods. For that purpose, we present reliable methods based on Elman networks and hidden Markov models. We develop the model parameters and compare the performance of the methods, especially, the classification results and the suitability for the classification tasks.


The United Arab Emirates (UAE) proposes "peaceful" religious discourse by supporting religious scholars such as Hamza Yusuf and Abdallah bin Bayyah and institutions such as the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies and the Emirates Fatwa Council. The UAE has attempted to present itself as promoting a moderate form of Islam to counter political Islam. This study is based on data from religious verdicts (fatwās), speeches, and conference records of these scholars and institutions. The main point of the research is to show to what extent providing additional support to recently established religious institutions and emerging scholars is used as soft power to promote the UAE's version of Islam and present the UAE as a moderate and tolerant country. Applying critical discourse analysis, the study aims to uncover the existing connection between emerging religiopolitical discourse and UAE-based legal verdicts of scholars (ulamā) and the organizations that they initiated. This study further argues that "moderate Islam" and "tolerance", used as religious soft power, are other tools that the UAE has applied in line with expectations for influence and power-seeking based on small state theory.


The causes and dynamics of invalidism following femur fractures were analysed in 549 patients. Serious fractures of the femur were most frequently associated with traffic accidents. Treatment defects are emphasized to be greatly responsible for the appearance of invalidism. The most effective treatment and use of dynamic observations of such patients is shown to be necessary. Language: ru


A new 1.3 GHz photo cathode electron gun (prototype 4.2) for the Photo Injector Test facility in Zeuthen (PITZ) was tuned in February 2007. The main difference in the mechanical design compared to earlier guns is a significantly improved cooling system. This gun is also the first copper gun cavity where a particle free cleaning using dry ice technique was applied while in the previous guns the high pressure ultra pure water rinsing technique was used. The cavity has been installed in a new Conditioning Test Stand (CTS) at PITZ in autumn 2007. It has been conditioned to an accelerating gradient of 60 MV/m. Dark current measurements have been performed to monitor the improvement of conditioning and to compare with the results from the previous guns. In this paper, RF measurement and tuning results as well as results of the conditioning and dark current measurements will be presented and discussed.


Thepurpose of the proposed study was to study the need for the regulation of Micro Finance
Institutions (MFIs) in Kenya, where some selected MFIs were studied as a sample. The study also
pointed out areas, which should be addressed to ensure that these MFIs are regulated under the
laws of Kenya so as to protect depositors.
The research was carried out specifically in Nairobi, which is the Capital City of Kenya and a
home to majority of the MFIs. Literature was reviewed from books, magazines, journals and
references from previous research work conducted by earlier students and researchers on this area.
Primary data was collected by the use of a questionnaire, which consisted of open and closed
ended questions.
The research adopted both the exploratory and descriptive research design. The sample from this
study was drawn by the use of systematic sampling. The population for this study was two
managers of every MFI that was selected for the study. Data was analyzed using qualitative and
quantitative data analysis techniques with the aid of SPSS.
The findings indicate that there is urgent need for the supervision of micro-finance institutions
since majority of them engage in deposit taking-related business. The study found out that the rules
restricting lending to the public need to be relaxed to enable micro-finance institutions to lend
legally and use legal machinery to recover from defaulters.
Itwas found that the law as it is hampers the development of the sub-sector as it requires the
institutions to be extra cautious when lending.
Thegovernment should treat micro-finance institutions different from commercial banks since
theydo not perform core banking business. These institutions come in to fill the gap left by
mainstream banks, i.e. banking for the neglected poor in the society whose savings are small
compared to mainstream banks. They therefore should be allowed a lower capital base and less
license fees.
There is need for the creation of a regulatory authority for the micro-finance institutions, or
delegating such authority to Central Bank of Kenya who have the capacity to do so. Areas to be closely supervised include minimum capital maintenance, maintenance of proper
books of accounts, adherence to accounting standards, and control in lending to customers so that
the sub-sector can remain stable.
The government should move with speed to enact the micro-finance bill to weed out unscrupulous
shylocks operating as micro-finance institutions who are out to steal from the public. Such
institutions give the sub-sector a bad name and depositors shy away from genuine institutions.


This study aims to find the process of change of spatial
structure in urban housing. The analyses of plan proceed
on simple tool. It is Gamma-Map that draw from the
relationship between rooms in the house. This map precisely
presents spatial structure of house. The change of house
are due to socio-cultural variation. Relation between
socio-cultural variation and change of house present
regular process. To find out process of change of spatial
sturcture, three ordinary types of urban house were analysed,
and this process was verified by reviewing Young-Dan Housing.


Comparative evaluation of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) cultivars for yield and quality is confounded with cultivar maturity differences if all cultivars are harvested on the same day; harvesting on different days at a similar morphological stage confounds quality with day-to-day environmental fl uctuations. Forage grasses should be harvested at optimum fiber content for the class of livestock being fed. For lactating dairy cattle, optimum is approximately 500 g kg−1 neutral detergent fi ber (NDF). Our goal was to develop a system to adjust yield and quality of each cultivar to the date of optimum NDF content for harvest. Tall fescue cultivars were sampled on five to eight dates during late spring growth for fi ve trials in New York State.
Rates of change per day for yield, NDF, and neutral detergent fiber digestibility (NDFD) were used to adjust these parameters to the date of
optimum NDF content. Rates of change in yield and quality among cultivars were similar within an environment but were not similar across environments.
Harvesting cultivars on a single date biased the yields of both early and late maturing cultivars. Cultivar heading dates were not well correlated with NDF or NDFD, indicating that heading date was not a useful adjustment parameter. Adjustment of yield and NDFD to the optimum spring harvest date for each cultivar in a trial signifi cantly changed cultivar ranking. This method should be feasible for evaluating cultivars of any cool-season grass species but
requires further testing for other species.


The Internet of things (IoT), which is the network of physical devices embedded with sensors, actuators, and connectivity, is being accelerated into the mainstream by the emergence of 5G wireless networking. This paper presents an uncoordinated non-orthogonal random access protocol, which is an enhancement to the recently introduced Slotted Aloha-NOMA (SAN) protocol that provides high throughput, while being matched to the low complexity requirements and the sporadic traffic pattern of IoT devices. Under ideal conditions it has been shown that Slotted Aloha-NOMA (SAN), using power-domain orthogonality, can significantly increase the throughput using SIC (Successive Interference Cancellation) to enable correct reception of multiple simultaneous transmitted signals. For this ideal performance, the enhanced SAN receiver adaptively learns the number of active devices (which is not known a priori) using a form of multi-hypothesis testing. For small numbers of simultaneous transmissions, it is shown that there can be substantial throughput gain of 5.5 dB relative to slotted Aloha (SA) for 0.07 probability of transmission and up to 3 active transmitters.


Abstract This study aims to get an overview of the effect of training factors and locus of control on self efficacy and work ability of employees in three-star hotels in East Java. The population in this study is the three-star hotel industry in East Java, which totals 20 hotels and all employees at the three-star hotels in East Java, with a total sample of 501 employees. The analysis technique used is by using path analysis. Based on the analysis of the results and the hypothesis proposed previously that the variables of trainer, training material, training method, training facility, and locus of control partially have a significant effect on the variable of self-efficacy, that is acceptable/true. Meanwhile, the hypothesis which states that the variables of trainer, training material, and training methods and locus of control partially have effect on the variable of work ability can also be accepted, only one hypothesis that cannot be accepted, i.e. the effect of the variable of training facility on work ability.


Background: Epilepsy surgery has become a successful treatment option for patients with drug-resistant epilepsies. Objectives: This study aimed to assess temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) surgery outcome and its association with epilepsy duration, the presence of pre-surgical generalized tonic-clonic seizure (GTCS), and brain MRI findings. Materials & Methods: This retrospective study was performed from 2016 to 2020 at Loghman-Hakim Hospital, Tehran, Iran. The patients' demographic data, epilepsy type, duration, frequency, brain image findings, the selected surgical approaches, and histopathological findings were collected. The post-operative seizure outcome was expressed one year according to the proposed International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) classification system. The independent sample t-test, chi-square, and one-way analysis of variance were applied to analyze the differences between variables in terms of quantitative and categorical data. Results: A total number of 69 TLE surgeries were enrolled in our study. No differences were found in the surgical outcome base on the ILAE classification system of patients with lesional vs non-lesional MRIs (P=0.834). In patients with mesial temporal sclerosis, no correlation was found between the surgical approaches including selective amygdalohippocampectomy, anterior temporal lobectomy, and post-operative seizure outcome (P=0.142). Seven patients (10.1%) developed post-operative functional seizures. Conclusion: In our study, the epilepsy duration and the presence of GTCSs before surgery had no effect on the surgery outcome. In patients with mesial temporal sclerosis, amygdalohippocampectomy, and anterior temporal lobectomy did not confer different surgical outcomes. TLE patients with normal MRI showed similar surgical outcomes as lesional patients. A significantly high proportion of our patients developed functional seizures, postoperatively.


This article discusses about the history and the development of family law reform in Muslim countries. This work has taken a lot benefits from Anderson's works on Islamic law in the Muslim world for both data and perspective. Islamic family law reform started from the second decade of twentieth century (1915) with the issuance of two Ottoman Caliph decrees on wife rights to ask religious court to divorce them from their husband. This reform was followed by Sudan (starting from 1916), Egypt (1920), Jordan (1951), Syria (1953), Tunisia (1956/1959), Morocco (1958), Iraq (1959), Pakistan (1961) and Iran (1967). The reformation aims to administrate the members of community in the filed of social, economy, politics, and law. From the perspective of modernization, Islamic family law reform in Muslim countries has shown the process of modernization from above.


Genetic material in eukaryotes is tightly packaged in a hierarchical manner into multiple linear chromosomes within the nucleus. Although it is known that eukaryotic transcriptional regulation is complex and requires an intricate coordination of several molecular events both in space and time, whether the complexity of this process constrains genome organization is still unknown. Here, we present evidence for the existence of a higher-order organization of genes across and within chromosomes that is constrained by transcriptional regulation. In particular, we reveal that the target genes (TGs) of transcription factors (TFs) for the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are encoded in a highly ordered manner both across and within the 16 chromosomes. We show that (i) the TGs of a majority of TFs show a strong preference to be encoded on specific chromosomes, (ii) the TGs of a significant number of TFs display a strong preference (or avoidance) to be encoded in regions containing particular chromosomal landmarks such as telomeres and centromeres, and (iii) the TGs of most TFs are positionally clustered within a chromosome. Our results demonstrate that specific organization of genes that allowed for efficient control of transcription within the nuclear space has been selected during evolution. We anticipate that uncovering such higher-order organization of genes in other eukaryotes will provide insights into nuclear architecture, and will have implications in genetic engineering experiments, gene therapy, and understanding disease conditions that involve chromosomal aberrations.


We propose a novel DTM scheme based on the user-perceived response time analysis, called SmartDTM. Unlike existing DTM schemes that can significantly degrade the quality of user experience, SmartDTM takes explicit account of the quality of user experience into making the DTM decisions. Our experimental results on an ODROID-XU+E board show that the proposed technique can improve the user-perceived performance by up to 37% over the Android's default DTM policy without any thermal violations.


This paper deals with the electrical issues related to the NRC Generic Letter (GL) 89-10. A brief background along with the basic design requirement of motor operated valves (MOV) is also presented. The degraded voltage impact on MOV's are discussed. Analytical and diagnostic techniques to study degraded voltage issues are presented to resolve the issues raised in GL 89-10. >


Isolated perfused rat lungs (IPRLs) were used to study mechanisms andmediators of lung injury due to (i) ischemia-reperfusion (IR) and (ii) endotoxin. To investigate the role of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) in IR injury, PMNs were added to the perfusate of IPRLs subjected to IR. PMNs did not contribute to the injury as assessed by albumin leak indices. Addition of erythrocytes or catalase attenuated the injury, indicating that IR injury is dependent on a non-PMN source of toxic 02 metabolites. Moreover, increased levels of 6-keto-PGE1o: and tromboxane B2 were found in the perfusate and cyclooxygenase and thromboxane synthase inhibitors (indomethacin and U 63557A) reduced the injury, suggesting that cyclooxygenase metabolites of arachidonic acid are involved in IR lung injury.To study PMN-dependent injury in IPRLs, phorbol ester-activated PMNs were added to the perfusate in the presence of Iloprost, a long-acting prostacyclin analog. Iloprost attenuated the lung injury and decreased PMN adherence to endothelial monolayers in vitro, indicating that prostacyclin is an important regulator of PMN-dependent injury in the lung. PMN-dependent lung injury was further explored by adding calcium ionophore-activatcd PMNs prestimulated with endotoxin to the perfusate and studying the increases in pulmonary arterial pressure and capillary permeability. Both these effects were attenuated by the Ginkgo biloba-derived platelet-activating factor (PAF) antagonist, BN 52021, suggesting that endotoxin-stimulated, calcium ionophore (A 23187)activated PMNs exert important parts of their pro-inflammatory action via generation of PAF. Furthermore, addition of endotoxin to the perfusate of IPRLs caused elevated levels of group-11 phospholipase A2 (PLAz), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-o:) and interleukin-1 beta (Il-1~) mRNA in the lung tissue and release of PLA2 and TNF-o: activity into the perfusate. Increased TNF-a m RNA levels and increased TNF-o: activity release were also found in alveolar macrophages exposed in vitro to asbestos as well as man made mineral fibers. In conclusion, these observations illustrate the importance of PLA2 - related mediators in inflammatory lung injury and demonstrate that neutrophils are involved in some but not necessary for all types of lung injury to occur.


An experiment was conducted during two consecutive years (1997–98 and 1998–99). The soil of experimental field was sandy loam having low available nitrogen and phosphorus and well supplied with potassium and alkaline in reaction. Increased applicationof phosphorus increased the dry matter accumulation and plant height of fenugreek significantly. Application of 80 kg P205 ha−1 increased the dry matter accumulation per 0.5 m row length at 30, 60, 90 DAS and at harvest by 22.38, 20.09, 27.74 and 2272 per cent and plant height at 60,90 DASand at harvest by 9.06, 17.20 and 15.74 per cent over control. respectively. Application of 100 kg sulphur per hectare significantly increased the mean dry matter accumulation of fenugreek at 30, 60, 90 DAS and at harvest by 6.87, 6.25, 8.45 and 5.10 per cent over control, respectively. Seed treatment with Rhizobium + PSB, PSB alone and Rhizobium alone increased the mean dry matter accumulation of fenugreek by 2.84, 1.63 and 1.03 per cent at 90 DAS over control, respectively, The maximum seed yield of fenugreek was recorded IAlith the application of 80 kg P2O5 ha−1, 100 kg S ha−1 and seed treatment with Rhizobium + PSB.


ABSTRACT Wu, H.; Liu, S.; Wang, J., and Yang, T., 2020. Construction safety risk assessment of bridges in the marine environment based on CRITIC and TOPSIS models. In: Yang, D.F. and Wang, H. (eds.), Recent Advances in Marine Geology and Environmental Oceanography. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 108, pp. 206–210. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. To accurately assess the safety risk level of bridge construction in the marine environment, this study puts forward a safety risk evaluation model by comprehensively using the CRITIC and TOPSIS methods. First, from the five dimensions of men, machines, materials, methods, and environment, this paper identified and constructed a construction safety risk evaluation index system for bridges in the marine environment, aided by expert opinions and literature research. This index system included 16 secondary indexes, and the risk classification standard of each index was determined. Then, the CRITIC model was used to calculate the weights of secondary indexes, and the TOPSIS model was used to evaluate the risk level of construction safety. The results for Tangshan Zhongshan Bridge Project showed the key technology scheme, and the key technologies that had the greatest weight. The risk level of this bridge was medium risk, and its construction safety risk level was the highest in spring. The case analysis in this paper is consistent with engineering practice, which proves the scientific suitability effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper.


An 8-month-old cat was presented with bilateral hydronephrosis. Bilateral ureteral obstructions were identified by diagnostic imaging and confirmed by necropsy. Histopathologic findings revealed polypoid transitional epithelial hyperplasia with chronic lymphoplasmacytic inflammation. This report documents congenital ureteral strictures as a cause of ureteral obstruction in a young cat.


Korea's life expectancy has experienced an unprecedented rapid increase that is significantly higher than that in other advanced economies. However, this phenomenon also signifies that the Korean government faces a considerable financial risk. This study identifies the factors that contribute to the overestimation of mortality and develops a new mortality forecasting model. In addition, the population projections of the new mortality forecasts are used to quantitatively measure the economic size of the longevity risks faced by the Korean government. Results suggest that if substantial longevity exposure is realized in the context of the Korean government, the longevity can solely increase the debt-to-GDP ratio by 33.8%p by 2060. Drawing on these findings, this study concludes with suggestions to mitigate such longevity risks.


This paper presents a new composite drive cycle used to evaluate and test the performance of Class 4-6 heavy-duty hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). The new cycle is being used in the ongoing Advanced Heavy Hybrid Propulsion Systems (AHHPS) Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The goal was to select a cycle that is acceptable to all involved parties, has an achievable speed-time trace for target applications, represents the typical driving pattern of these applications, and is practical for testing and state-of-charge correction. These criteria were applied to numerous element and composite cycles. Ultimately, a new composite cycle was developed and selected--the Combined International Local and Commuter Cycle (CILCC). Various activities conducted under the AHHPS Program are based on this cycle, including energy auditing, modeling and simulation, system optimization, and vehicle testing. Progress thus far shows that the CILCC is appropriate for objectively evaluating heavy-duty Class 4-6 HEVs.


Abstract In van Benthem (2008), van Benthem proposes a dynamic consequence relation defined as ${\psi _1}, \ldots ,{\psi _n}{ \models ^d}\phi \,{\rm{iff}}{ \models ^{pa}}[{\psi _1}] \ldots [{\psi _n}]\phi ,$ where the latter denotes consequence in public announcement logic, a dynamic epistemic logic. In this paper we investigate the structural properties of a conditional dynamic consequence relation $\models _{\rm{\Gamma }}^d$ extending van Benthem's proposal. It takes into account a set of background conditions Γ, inspired by Makinson (2003) wherein Makinson calls this reasoning 'modulo' a set Γ. In the presence of common knowledge, conditional dynamic consequence is definable from (unconditional) dynamic consequence. An open question is whether dynamic consequence is compact. We further investigate a dynamic consequence relation for soft instead of hard announcements. Surprisingly, it shares many properties with (hard) dynamic consequence. Dynamic consequence relations provide a novel perspective on reasoning about protocols in multi-agent systems.


One hallmark of plant cells is their pecto-cellulosic cell walls. They protect cells against the environment and high turgor and mediate morphogenesis through the dynamics of their mechanical and chemical properties. The walls are a complex polysaccharidic structure. Although their biochemical composition is well known, how the different components organize in the volume of the cell wall and interact with each other is not well understood and yet is key to the wall's mechanical properties. To investigate the ultrastructure of the plant cell wall, we imaged the walls of onion (Allium cepa) bulbs in a near-native state via cryo-Focused Ion Beam milling (cryo-FIB-milling) and cryo-Electron Tomography (cryo-ET). This allowed the high-resolution visualization of cellulose fibers in situ (in muro). We reveal the coexistence of dense fiber fields bathed in a reticulated matrix we termed "meshing," which is more abundant at the inner surface of the cell wall. The fibers adopted a regular bimodal angular distribution at all depths in the cell wall and bundled according to their orientation, creating layers within the cell wall. Concomitantly, employing homogalacturonan (HG)-specific enzymatic digestion, we observed changes in the meshing, suggesting that it is at least in part composed of HG pectins. We propose the following model for the construction of the abaxial epidermal primary cell wall: The cell deposits successive layers of cellulose fibers at −45° and +45° relative to the cell's long axis and secretes the surrounding HG-rich meshing proximal to the plasma membrane, which then migrates to more distal regions of the cell wall.


At present, the substation SCD model mainly aims at the modeling of primary equipment and secondary equipment, and the description of auxiliary equipment and substation area model is missing. According to the characteristics of equipment monitoring of the new generation centralized control station, the description of auxiliary equipment model and area model needs to be added to the original IEC61850 standard. In the first mock exam station, the current business requirements of centralized control station are analyzed. A unified model structure of master station is designed. Based on the definition of IEC61850 standard, a method and example of extending auxiliary device model and regional model are given. The proposed auxiliary equipment and area modeling method based on IEC61850 standard can make up for the shortcomings of the original standard, support the equipment monitoring of the new generation centralized control station and realize rich application functions.


The European stereotype of the desert as a flat, sandy waste derived from images of the Sahara and the Arabian Desert, the two deserts most familiar in the West. Yet deserts are found in every continent except Europe, and this geographic spread produces an immense variation in desert locations (coastal, inland), landscapes (sandy, salt, clay pan, rocky, mountainous, glaciated), rainfall (from zero recorded in the Atacama Desert to erratic flooding in the Australian deserts), stability (deserts have appeared and disappeared over time), and climate (hot, temperate, cold and ice-bound Antarctica – the most extensive of all deserts). Irrespective of this physical diversity, the very word 'desert' involves powerful emotional and cultural associations. Derived from the Latin desertum, meaning 'abandoned', it suggests alienation and foreboding, connotations echoed in the word for desert in many languages. The numerous accounts of travellers struggling through extremes of heat or cold, facing starvation, thirst, disorientation, and loneliness, reinforce this image, while the sense of immensity, of visual emptiness, the lack of temporal references in a seemingly changeless landscape, and the characteristic silence of deserts present a further psychological challenge, raising profound questions about identity and meaning. However, these same qualities that many travellers find threatening have proved alluring for others. Precisely because of its visual desolation, its lack of material comforts and distractions, the desert may also engender a sense of the numinous, promoting inner reflection, spiritual inquiry, purification, and visionary enlightenment. Conceivably, a desert landscape beneath a vast monochromatic sky may suggest a unified cosmos, created by one deity, rather than a diversity of gods or spirits and, significantly, the three major monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, originated in the deserts of the Middle East. For these reasons, desert travel writing is rarely confined to physical description. Overtly it may seem to be concerned with destinations, details, and difficulties but, as in mountaineering, the principal narrative more often concerns an inner journey involving encounters with landscape, race, culture, religion, or the physical and mental challenges involved. The various travel writers considered in this chapter include religious pilgrims, adventurers, explorers, missionaries, scientists, and those who feel the need to undertake extreme hardship. For some the desert has explicitly religious significance; for others, its stark landscape, whether perceived as beautiful or terrifying, is a personal challenge to survive and to be the first to reach a destination; for others still, it is a place of desolation, horror, and death. In most cases these diverse reactions arise from the writers' motives and temperament, their ability to be absorbed in their surroundings, and their psychological state. Because of their number (twenty-two major deserts) and variety,4 as well as the diversity of travellers, this essay focuses on only three desert areas: those of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Australia.


A mind map is an approach to the organisation of the human mind that prepares the ground for thinking. Inspired by the function of the mind in handling a situation, this article reports on an empirical study that evaluated the efficiency of mind map techniques and tools in formulating and refining information needs. The study examined graduate students' Internet information searching. Two simulated search tasks were completed by participants in two search sessions. The results revealed no statistically significant difference between searching with a mind map and without a mind map, and therefore, no advantage could be found for using a mind map in the search process. Participants were happier with their search session when not using mind maps; mind map might help information need clarification, but it is a barrier to interaction and serendipity retrieval. However, this could be due to the search setting where the mind map had to be used as a separate tool and not an integrated component of the search system. The article also discusses some potential benefits of mind mapping for searching.


Cellular-based networks are expected to offer connectivity for massive Internet of Things (mIoT) systems. However, their Random Access CHannel (RACH) procedure suffers from unreliability, due to the collision from the simultaneous massive access. Despite that this collision problem has been treated in existing RACH schemes, these schemes usually organize IoT devices' transmission and re-transmission along with fixed parameters, thus can hardly adapt to time-varying traffic patterns. Without adaptation, the RACH procedure easily suffers from high access delay, high energy consumption, or even access unavailability. With the goal of improving the RACH procedure, this paper targets to optimize the RACH procedure in real-time by maximizing a long-term hybrid multi-objective function, which consists of the number of access success devices, the average energy consumption, and the average access delay. To do so, we first optimize the long-term objective in the number of access success devices by using Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms for different RACH schemes, including Access Class Barring (ACB), Back-Off (BO), and Distributed Queuing (DQ). The converging capability and efficiency of different DRL algorithms including Policy Gradient (PG), Actor-Critic (AC), Deep Q-Network (DQN), and Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) are compared. Inspired by the results from this comparison, a decoupled learning strategy is developed to jointly and dynamically adapt the access control factors of those three access schemes. This decoupled strategy integrates predicted traffic into the learning process to improve training efficiency, where a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) model is first employed to predict the real-time traffic values of the network environment, and then multiple DRL agents are employed to cooperatively configure parameters of each RACH scheme. Our results demonstrate that the decoupled strategy remarkably accelerate the training speedy.


The minimal refining method offers the potential to produce canola oil with an increased nutritional profile that retains excellent sensory qualities. Canola oil contains the lowest amount of saturated fatty acids and high amount of phytosterols and tocopherols. Refining process is required to remove undesirable components such as free fatty acids, chlorophyll, gums, trace metals, oxidized products from the crude oils. Traditional refining consists of degumming, neutralization, bleaching and deodorization stages. Some part of sterols and tocopherols are, however, inevitably removed from the oil during various stages of refining such as washing with hot water, absorption by soap or clays, and stripping off by steam. More than 40 percent of sterols and tocopherols are lost during deodorization, which is conducted at high temperature and low vacuum pressure. Minimal refining method, replaces sodium hydroxide with a weaker alkali, to minimize degradation of tocopherols and sterols. Natural clays are used for bleaching instead of acidified clays and deodorization is omitted completely to preserve natural canola oil flavor and healthy components.


Background: Trastuzumab therapy is highly effective in HER2 positive breast cancer patients, but it is complicated by cardio toxicity. Objective: To elucidate the possible effects of valsartan medication on echocardiographic fraction shortening, serum troponin I and serum malondialdehyde in trastuzumab treated patients with HER2 positive breast cancer. Patients and Methods: A total of twenty six female patients with HER2 positive breast cancer were enrolled in this study. The patients were randomized into two groups, thirteen patients in each group. Group I included patients who received trastuzumab medication for 8 cycles with 21 days apart. Group II included patients who treated with trastuzumab medication with valsartan 40 mg, orally, once daily dose for 8 cycles. Echocardiography was used to measure fraction shortening at zero time, 4 th and 8 th cycles in both groups Serum troponin I and malondialdehyde were measured at zero time, 2 nd , 4 th , 6 th and 8 th cycles in both groups. Results: Treatment with trastuzumab medication caused a significant reduction in echocardiographic fraction shortening at an only 8 th cycle in comparison to baseline level readings (P < 0.05). Combined trastuzumab plus valsartan medications caused a significant increment in echocardiographic fraction shortening in comparison with that of trastuzumab medication group (P < 0.05). Regarding serum troponin I and malondialdehyde, trastuzumab medication caused a significant increment in both these markers compared with those baseline readings (P < 0.05). Combined trastuzumab plus valsartan caused significant reduction in troponin I and malondialdehyde in comparison with that of trastuzumab medication group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Valsartan causes significant increase in echocardiographic fraction shortening level and cause significant reduction in serum troponin I and malondialdehyde in trastuzumab treated patients. Keywords: Valsartan, Trastuzumab, Cardiotoxicity, Fraction shortening, Troponin I, MDA.


This study was carried out in greater Noakhali region (Lakshmipur, Noakhali and Feni) to evaluate the type of aqua-chemicals used in aquaculture activities where data were collected through questionnaire interview, Focus Group Discussion (FCD), personal contact with fish farmers, hatchery and nursery owner, farm workers. A variety of aqua drugs and chemicals including antibiotics have been using in the region by farmers for fish health management and increasing production. Aqua-chemicals were commonly used for pond preparation, disease control and treatment of the carps, tilapia, prawns and weed fishes. Carps show very positive results when they were treated against the diseases, Motile Aeromonas Septicaemia (MAS), Epizootic Ulcerative Syndrome (EUS), Saprolegniasis, Argulosis, Fin rot, Dropsy, Ichthyophthiriasis with oxytetracycline, potassium permanganate, sumithione, malachite green, dipterex, pillar sulfan, secofon, timsen, geolite and lime. The study also identified the problems associated with the use of chemicals which included lack of knowledge regarding the use of chemicals, appropriate dose, method of application and indiscriminate use of chemicals.


This recent study documents the phenolic constituents of the Triticum L. species in Iran using thin layer chromatography. Species studied are related to 55 wild and cultivated accessions of four diploid and four tetraploid species, namely Triticum boeoticum subsp. boeoticum Boiss., T. boeoticum subsp. thaoudar Reut. ex Boiss., T. monococcum L., T. urartu Tum. ex Gand., T. turgidum L., T. dicoccoides (Korn. ex Ascher. et Graebn.) Thell., T. dicoccum (Schrank.) Schubl. and T. durum Desf. collected from natural habitats and analyzed for their flavonoid compounds. The current study found that of a total of 20 flavonoid compounds, most of the derivatives were flavones, chalcones, and the others were mainly pseudobaptisin, sciadopitysin, baptigenin and fustin-3-O-glucoside. The basis of variation in these compounds was shown to be usable as an appropriate marker for chemotaxonomic studies.


Simulations are used intensively in the developing process of new industrial products and have achieved a high degree of detail. In that workflow often thousand finite element model variants, representing different product configurations, are simulated within a few days or even overnight. Currently the decision process for finding the optimal product parameters involves the comparative evaluation of large finite element simulation bundles by post-processing each one of those results using 3D visualisation software. This time consuming process creates a severe bottleneck in the product design and evaluation workflow. To handle these data we investigate an analysis approach based on nonlinear dimensionality reduction to find a low dimensional parameterisation of the dataset. In such a reduced representation, similar model variants are organised in clusters and the influence of the input variables can be analysed along such a parameterisation. We demonstrate the application of this approach to a realistic and relevant industrial example for robustness analysis of the bumper location in a frontal crash simulation. The approach has the potential to considerably speed up the virtual product development process by allowing an intuitive and interactive simultaneous evaluation of many product designs.


Characteristics of architectural space is due to the interaction between meaning and form. These relation ship can be compared to dual structure of language, and concerned with the semantic properties of space.In design, semantics elavate a configuration of spatial elements to something with meaning. I attempt here to clarify the semantic properties of spatial system which can be translated from the syntactic rules, that is, the grammer rules and transformation rules.


OBJECTIVES
Hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) is characterized by the early onset of colorectal cancer (approximately 40 years). Adolescent colorectal cancer is unusual in HNPCC families. We speculated that some DNA mismatch repair germline mutations might be associated with early onset of disease.

STUDY DESIGN
Genomic DNA was extracted from members of a kindred with virulent HNPCC fitting the Amsterdam Criteria for HNPCC and sequenced for 2 DNA mismatch repair genes, hMSH2 and hMLH1. A sigmoid adenocarcinoma from the 14-year-old proband was analyzed for highfrequency microsatellite instability and immunostained for DNA mismatch repair gene expression.

RESULTS
A germline mutation was identified at nucleotide 676 (codon 226) of the hMLH1 gene. The C to T transition created a nonsense mutation, truncating the hMLH1 protein. This mutation also alters the splice donor sequence, because nucleotide 676 is 2 base pairs from the 3' end of the exon 8. The proband's tumor demonstrated high-frequency microsatellite instability and displayed loss of hMLH1 expression, indicating bi-allelic inactivation of hMLH1.

CONCLUSIONS
A complex mutation of hMLH1 at codon 226 is associated with adolescent onset of colorectal cancer in an HNPCC family. Genetic screening of other suspected HNPCC families with unusually young members with cancer might reveal certain genotypes with particularly virulent forms of this disease.


This study investigated soil carbon storage and microbial activities influenced by different management practices in rice paddies and pastures. Soils under a single-crop farming of rice (CON) and rice-Italian ryegrass rotation farming (IRG) were compared in Jangheung, Jeollanam-do, Seocheon and Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do. Soils from pastures were analyzed to investigate the effect of duration period (P1, P2, P3) in Namwon, Jeollabuk-do and Seosan, Chungcheongnam-do. In rice paddy, total and particulate carbon (PC) concentrations in the IRG soils were significantly higher than those in the CON soils both in Jangheung and Seocheon where the IRG has been established for three years, whereas carbon concentrations were not significantly different in Cheonan where IRG planting history is only one year. In rice paddy soils, PC was suggested as an early indicator to monitor changes in soil carbon storage followed by adopting different management practices. In pasture, total and PC concentrations increased with duration period especially in the 0-5 cm soils. Contrary to the rice paddy soils, the magnitude of change in PC concentration is not as great as that in total carbon concentration, implying that there is a need to develop a new early indicator other than PC using different fractionation scheme. The soil carbon storage in pasture also increased with years since establishment and the increasing rate was significantly greater in the early stage (0-5 yrs) than the later one (> 5 yrs). Microbial activities measured from fluorescein diacetate (FDA) hydrolysis analysis were significantly lower in the IRG soils than CON soils, whereas no difference was observed in the pastures of different ages. This shows that FDA activity is not a sensitive indicator to differentiate soil qualities influenced by management practices if it is used by itself.


Tamoxifen citrate (TAM) is one of the most regularly used therapy in hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Although it is a successful treatment, there is a problem with its bioavailability, accordingly this study was designed to improve TAM solubility and reduce its associated toxicity. TAM-Loaded poly (D, L-lactide –co- glycolide) nanostructure (TAM-loaded PLGA) has been synthesized and employed both in vitro and in vivo experiments. The blood hemolysis induced by TAM- loaded PLGA was 4.6 % at 200 µg mL-1, indicating that this nano-construct led to increased red blood cell protection. DNA molecule integrity was assessed and results indicated that DNA strands were protected from destruction at 200 µg mL-1. The antioxidant activity of TAM-loaded PLGA exceeded the pure TAM, it showed concentration-dependent scavenging action in the 100-200 µg mL-1 range, with a maximum activity of 79.2% at 200 µg mL-1. Whereas pure TAM had a decrement of 60.57%. While the activity of positive control (Vit. C) was 92.12%. Finally, the safety of TAM-loaded PLGA was examined in vivo. The functions of the heart, liver, and kidney in male mice injected with TAM-loaded PLGA were detected. A histopathological investigation was also included. TAM-loaded PLGA offered better properties as a drug delivery system, nutritional supplements, and pharmaceutical products.