Summary The aim of this paper is to ascertain the correlation between selected cognitive abilities, age and performance of judokas according to ranking. The study group consisted of judokas in the age group 18 ± 2.4 years. The Stroop Color-Word Test - Victoria Version (VST) was the instrument used to determine the level of cognitive abilities. The data obtained were measured by the Pearson Correlation (r) correlation test. The results of the study show an associative relationship of indirect correlation (p < 0.01) between age and all of the three categories of the Stroop test. This is an indirect correlation, so the higher the age, the lower the time (better performance) of the probands in the Stroop test. There was no statistically significant correlation between performance in the categories of the Stroop test and rankings. The outcomes show that the level of selected cognitive abilities depends on age, but the level of the selected cognitive abilities does not affect the ranking of the judokas.


Two experiments qualify the previously observed finding that a moderately incongruent brand extension is evaluated more favorably than a congruent or extremely incongruent brand extension and reconcile this finding with other outcomes that have been reported in the brand extension literature. A congruent brand extension is judged more favorably than either a moderately incongruent extension or an extremely incongruent extension when involvement in the task is low. Apparently, incongruity per se does not always prompt the elaboration required to reconcile a moderately incongruent extension with the parent brand and, thereby, enhance evaluation of the moderately incongruent extension. Further, when involvement is high, a moderately incongruent brand extension may only be judged more favorably than a congruent one if the extension is undifferentiated. If the extension is differentiated, the differentiation may provide a basis for favorable evaluation irrespective of the level of congruity with the brand. Recall of information about the performance of the extension relative to competitive brands and measures of attitude toward the parent brand, fit between the extension and the parent brand, and task satisfaction provide insight into the processes that underlie these effects.


Depression among older adults is one of the most critical public health issues. The proximity of elementary schools has been positively associated with neighborhood social cohesion and quality of life. However, no studies have identified an association between the proximity of elementary school and older adults' mental health. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between the proximity of elementary schools, one of the core facilities of neighborhood communities in Japan, and depression in older adults. A total of 131,871 participants (63,430 men 73.7 ± 6.1 years, 68,441 women 73.8 ± 6.2 years) were analyzed from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) 2016 survey. Logistic regression analysis showed that there was no association between distance to elementary school and depression among males. However, among females, compared with the participants living within 400 m from the nearest elementary school, the odds ratio of depression for those living between 400 and 799 m and more than 800 m away were 1.06 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00–1.12) and 1.07 (95% CI 1.00–1.15), respectively. The findings may be useful when considering the design of communities around elementary schools and the planning of facilities as a population-based approach to promote mental health of older women.


With the aid of computerized symbolic computation, an improved F-expansion method is presented to uniformly construct more new exact doubly periodic solutions in terms of rational formal Jacobi elliptic function of nonlinear partial differential equations (NPDEs). The coupled Drinfel'd–Sokolov–Wilson equation is chosen to illustrate the method. As a result, we can successfully obtain abundant new doubly periodic solutions without calculating various Jacobi elliptic functions. In the limit cases, the rational solitary wave solutions and trigonometric function solutions are obtained as well.


Metal-organic framework materials (MOFs) have been widely used in food contamination adsorption and detection due to their large specific surface area, specific pore structure and flexible post-modification. MOFs with specific pore size can be targeted for selective adsorption of some contaminants and can be used as pretreatment and pre-concentration steps to purify samples and enrich target analytes for food contamination detection to improve the detection efficiency. In addition, MOFs, as a new functional material, play an important role in developing new rapid detection methods that are simple, portable, inexpensive and with high sensitivity and accuracy. The aim of this paper is to summarize the latest and insightful research results on MOFs for the adsorption and detection of food contaminants. By summarizing Zn-based, Cu-based and Zr-based MOFs with low cost, easily available raw materials and convenient synthesis conditions, we describe their principles and discuss their applications in chemical and biological contaminant adsorption and sensing detection in terms of stability, adsorption capacity and sensitivity. Finally, we present the limitations and challenges of MOFs in food detection, hoping to provide some ideas for future development.


We have imaged an area ∼5 arcmin2 at the center of the Trapezium cluster in Orion in the K band using the University of Hawaii (UH) adaptive optics system at the UH 2.2 m telescope. Our survey detects 292 stars brighter than K = 18.2 mag and resolves pairs to the 0.″23 diffraction limit of the telescope. The binary fraction in the angular separation range 0.″3–0.″6, corresponding to 132–264 AU at 440 pc, is indistinguishable from that of the solar-like stars in the solar neighborhood. Proplyds are associated with both single stars and visual binaries. About half the stars in our sample have also been measured at V and I by Prosser et al.; most of these seem to be about 106 yr old, observed through moderate extinction, and having some excess emission at K. The luminosity function turns over before the stellar limit of ∼13.5 mag, indicating that the cluster does not contain a large population of massive brown dwarfs.


For roughnecks in search of trouble, Deadwood was the place to go. An outlaw town--its very beginnings as a mining camp violated government treaties with the Sioux--Deadwood soon acquired a reputation that dime novels could hardly exaggerate. It attracted both the great and the gritty. Calamity Jane lived there, Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back there and Buffalo Bill was an irregular visitor, not to mention Seth Bullock, Mineral Jack, Slippery Sam, Cold Deck Johnny, and Belle Haskell, the best-known madam in town. To reform the town's notorious habits, Federal Judge Granville G. Bennett moved to Deadwood with his family in 1877, and his young daughter, Estelline, grew up with the town. She saw it change from a congeries of horse thieves, claim jumpers, road agents, painted ladies, and slick or shabby gamblers to a middle-class railroad town, a little dazed by its history and success. Her story of the settlement that grew up around Deadwood Gulch remains one of the finest and fullest accounts of the taming of the West.


Given a network of interconnected nodes, each with its own value (such as a measurement, position, vote, or other data), we develop a distributed strategy that enables some or all of the nodes to calculate any arbitrary function of the node values, despite the actions of malicious nodes in the network. Our scheme assumes a broadcast model of communication (where all nodes transmit the same value to all of their neighbors) and utilizes a linear iteration where, at each time-step, each node updates its value to be a weighted average of its own previous value and those of its neighbors. We consider a node to be malicious or faulty if, instead of following the predefined linear strategy, it updates its value arbitrarily at each time-step (perhaps conspiring with other malicious nodes in the process). We show that the topology of the network completely characterizes the resilience of linear iterative strategies to this kind of malicious behavior. First, when the network contains 2f or fewer vertex-disjoint paths from some node xj to another node xi , we provide an explicit strategy for f malicious nodes to follow in order to prevent node xi from receiving any information about xj's value. Next, if node xi has at least 2f+1 vertex-disjoint paths from every other (non-neighboring) node, we show that xi is guaranteed to be able to calculate any arbitrary function of all node values when the number of malicious nodes is f or less. Furthermore, we show that this function can be calculated after running the linear iteration for a finite number of time-steps (upper bounded by the number of nodes in the network) with almost any set of weights (i.e., for all weights except for a set of measure zero).


The bi-directional and the directional-conical transmittances and reflectances of various materials used for sampling aerosols by filtration were measured, using directional incident light. Observations were made with white light and, in some instances, with light filtered through broad-band optical filters. The results are interpreted in terms of a one-dimensional model which incorporates a term taking account of absorption, as well as one involving scattering.


This research work presents results obtained from the simulation of natural convection inside a concentric hexagonal annulus by using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The fluid flow (pressure and velocity fields) inside the annulus is evaluated by LBM and a finite difference method (FDM) is used to get the temperature filed. The isothermal and no-slip boundary conditions (BC) on the hexagonal edges are treated with a smooth profile method (SPM). At first, for validating the present simulation technique, a standard benchmarking problem of natural convection inside a cold square cavity with a hot circular cylinder is simulated. Later, natural convection simulations inside the hexagonal annulus are carried out for different values of the aspect ratio, AR (ratio of the inner and outer hexagon sizes), and the Rayleigh number, Ra. The simulation results are presented in terms of isotherms (temperature contours), streamlines, temperature, and velocity distributions inside the annulus. The results show that the fluid flow intensity and the size and number of vortex pairs formed inside the annulus strongly depend on AR and Ra values. Based on the concentric isotherms and weak fluid flow intensity at the low Ra, it is observed that the heat transfer inside the annulus is dominated by the conduction mode. However, multiple circulation zones and distorted isotherms are observed at the high Ra due to the strong convective flow. To further access the accuracy and robustness of the present scheme, the present simulation results are compared with the results given by the commercial software, ANSYS-Fluent®. For all combinations of AR and Ra values, the simulation results of streamlines and isotherms patterns, and temperature and velocity distributions inside the annulus are in very good agreement with those of the Fluent software.


This paper introduces and studies the following beyond-planarity problem, which we call h-Clique2Path Planarity. Let G be a simple topological graph whose vertices are partitioned into subsets of size at most h, each inducing a clique. h-Clique2Path Planarity asks whether it is possible to obtain a planar subgraph of G by removing edges from each clique so that the subgraph induced by each subset is a path. We investigate the complexity of this problem in relation to k-planarity. In particular, we prove that h-Clique2Path Planarity is NP-complete even when h=4 and G is a simple 3-plane graph, while it can be solved in linear time when G is a simple 1-plane graph, for any value of h. Our results contribute to the growing fields of hybrid planarity and of graph drawing beyond planarity.


We present a theory of electronic excitation energies and optical absorption spectra which incorporates energy-level renormalization and phonon-assisted optical absorption within a unified framework. Using time-independent perturbation theory we show how the standard approaches for studying vibronic effects in molecules and those for addressing electron–phonon interactions in solids correspond to slightly different choices for the non-interacting Hamiltonian. Our present approach naturally leads to the Allen–Heine theory of temperature-dependent energy levels, the Franck–Condon principle, the Herzberg–Teller effect and to phonon-assisted optical absorption in indirect band gap materials. In addition, our theory predicts sub-gap phonon-assisted optical absorption in direct gap materials, as well as an exponential edge which we tentatively assign to the Urbach tail. We also consider a semiclassical approach to the calculation of optical absorption spectra which simultaneously captures energy-level renormalization and phonon-assisted transitions and is especially suited to first-principles electronic structure calculations. We demonstrate this approach by calculating the phonon-assisted optical absorption spectrum of bulk silicon.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by microscopic lesions consisting of beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). The majority of cases are defined as sporadic and are likely caused by a combination of both genetic and environmental factors. Of the genetic risk factors identified, the 34 kDa protein, apolipoprotein (apo) E4, is of significant importance as APOE4 carriers account for 65%–80% of all AD cases. Although apoE4 plays a normal role in lipoprotein transport, how it contributes to AD pathogenesis is currently unknown. One potential mechanism by which apoE4 contributes to disease risk is its propensity to undergo proteolytic cleavage generating N- and C-terminal fragments. The purpose of this review will be to examine the mechanisms by which apoE4 contributes to AD pathogenesis focusing on the potential loss or gain of function that may occur following cleavage of the full-length protein. In this context, a discussion of whether targeting apoE4 therapeutically is a rationale approach to treating this disease will be assessed.


The purpose of this study is an efficient estimation of the time-dependent performance of rotors at various flight modes. A numerical technique based on the unsteady source-doublet panel method is developed to predict aerodynamic characteristics of helicopter rotor flowfields. A time-marching free wake model is used for wake consideration. For wake roll-up simulation in consideration of viscous diffusion, the wake doublet panel with constant strength is replaced by equivalent vortex ring. The potential value of the wake vortex ring inside the solid boundary was removed to deal with the wake-body collision problem. The vortex instability of hovering mode is settled by slow starting and a vortex core growth model. The rotor aerodynamic analysis program is validated by the experimental data of a helicopter rotor in hover and forward flight. The computed results show good agreement with the experimental data.


Public broadcasting radio now operates at a time of political disengagement, media consolidation and digital fragmentation.
The basis of this thesis is that new empirical research is essential to assess the significance of these latest developments that shape public broadcasting and to explore the possibilities for radio broadcasters to expand engagement with their audiences. Through an industry-informed and focused inquiry into local radio, this thesis advances an understanding of journalism 'as conversation', specifically those professional practices that attend to improving the diversity and depth of discourse and civic engagement. The research data collection methods for the investigation include: observation and discourse analysis of a series of radio forums covering contentious local issues in Tasmania and long qualitative interviews with journalists, participants- and leaders of public broadcasting.
It finds that an active commitment to collaboration, voice and diversity in conversational radio journalism practice can facilitate citizen engagement and public trust, as long as sufficient time and resources support such activity. Creating a space for intense focus on local issues, with debate framed transparently, not only produces opportunities for citizens to participate more fully in their communities, but creates empathy and builds consensus. This suggests that a wider function for local journalism is to not only inform the public, but also to pursue collaborative practices which empower citizens and foster social inclusion. As such, the thesis contributes to scholarship about the changing values of news and journalism, public broadcasting, journalism-as-conversation, and radio, and contributes insight to inform contemporary practice.


Observational studies provide evidence that a higher intake of protein from plant-based foods and certain animal-based foods is associated with a lower risk for type 2 diabetes (T2DM). However, there are few distinguishable differences between the glucoregulatory qualities of the proteins in plant-based foods, and it is likely their numerous non-protein components (e.g., fibers and phytochemicals) that drive the relationship with T2DM risk reduction. Conversely, the glucoregulatory qualities of the proteins in animal-based foods are extremely divergent, with a higher intake of certain animal-based protein foods showing negative effects, and others showing neutral or positive effects on T2DM risk. Among the various types of animal-based protein foods, a higher intake of dairy products (such as milk, yogurt, cheese and whey protein) consistently shows a beneficial relationship with glucose regulation and/or T2DM risk reduction. Intervention studies provide evidence that dairy proteins have more potent effects on insulin and incretin secretion compared to other commonly consumed animal proteins. In addition to their protein components, such as insulinogenic amino acids and bioactive peptides, dairy products also contain a food matrix rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, trans-palmitoleic fatty acids, and low-glycemic index sugars—all of which have been shown to have beneficial effects on aspects of glucose control, insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity and/or T2DM risk. Furthermore, fermentation and fortification of dairy products with probiotics and vitamin D may improve a dairy product's glucoregulatory effects.


As the government approached a shutdown in 2013, one thing appeared clear: a majority of members of the House of Representatives were opposed to what seemed inevitable.1 All the congressional Democrats and about twenty congressional Republicans seemed ready to adopt a budget that would have kept the government open.2 Even more, House Speaker John Boehner appeared to be among those willing to adopt a budget.3 But Speaker Boehner was unwilling to permit a vote on the relevant measures because a majority of his party caucus opposed one.4 Were he to allow the vote, one might think - and he might have thought - the budget might be adopted but his caucus would immediately revolt and replace him as Speaker.But, I wondered, was that really true? That is, was there some way for Boehner to retain his post of Speaker of the House even after a vote by the House Republican caucus to replace him? The answer seemed obvious, and obviously "yes." He could have proposed a deal to the Democratic minority: "I will resign as Speaker of the House, thereby triggering a vote for a replacement. But I will have one of my twenty or so Republican supporters put my name up for the position. You, though, will not put up Representative Pelosi; instead, you agree to vote for me as the 'new' Speaker. What I get out of this is obvious. What you get out of it is a vote on adopting a budget and avoiding a shutdown (and, though Boehner would not say this out loud, 'whatever concessions you can wring from me on such matters as chairing committees')."5This is a proposal for a coalition government (in the House), composed of a majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans, with the latter in a strong enough bargaining position to extract concessions from the Democrats. But, of course, no one seriously thought that this was a real possibility (and I did not then, nor do I now). Why not?In this Essay, I speculate about the reasons we do not see coalition governments in the United States, with the proximate aim of identifying interactions between some structural features of our political system - most notably, that Representatives are elected from individual districts - and the modern form political parties take. The ultimate aim of this sketch is to suggest that those who attribute the government's dysfunction to the Constitution may be overstating the Constitution's contribution to those interactions.6 Statutes and norms - both of which are alterable given enough7 political will - may be at the root of dysfunction. Of course, those statutes and norms are sufficiently embedded that, even if not constitutionally entrenched, they make coalition governments extremely unlikely. Speaker Boehner's "decision" to forgo attempting to create one - really, the fact that the possibility probably never crossed his mind - was as close to a certainty as one can get.8I begin with a relatively mundane account of political calculation. Perhaps Boehner might have thought that the coalition would last only through the next election, after which he would definitely lose the speakership. How might that happen? One way would be that Republicans would lose their majority in the House. That, though, is an ever-present possibility, and it would count against the coalition idea only if the very creation of the coalition would increase the Democrats' chances in the next election (relative to their chances without a coalition and with a shutdown).If Republicans retained their majority and enough of his allies won reelection, Boehner would be in a position to recreate the coalition government and continue as Speaker. So, another route to Boehner's defeat would be that enough of his allies would lose their seats to challengers from the right, even as Republicans retained their overall majority in the House. With the right numbers, this would have the effect of denying Boehner the possibility of recreating the coalition after the election.9Exploring this route in a bit more detail opens up more general questions about the U. …


Considering the ongoing miniaturization of electronic devices using new categories of nanomaterials, particular importance should be given to the quantum confinement effects in advanced fabrication processes. This paper presents a new analytical model of the quantum capacitance for zigzag silicon doped graphene nanscrolls,SiCNSs. Although, studying the electronic properties and synthesis methods of SiC-based nanostructures has drawn great research attention in recent years, no analytical model or numerical simulation for quantum capacitance and carrier concentration has been conducted concerning the SiC nanoscrolls so far. In this study, the quantum capacitance model of zigzag SiCNSs is presented for both degenerate and non-degenerate regimes considering the effects of different structural parameters. In the degenerate regime, the zigzag SiCNS shows a constant quantum capacitance value of 4.75 × 10–11 F m−1 (47.5 pF m−1) while for non-degenerate regime it follows exponential behaviour. The dominancy of the quantum capacitance of SiCNSs at different levels of concentration is compared in this study. The investigation also highlights the variations of the density of states and carrier concentration with respect to the length and chirality. Presented results suggest that synthesis of SiCNSs possesses a range of potential technological applications as supercapacitors and the channel or interconnections in transistors in the new generation of the nanodevices.


This paper reports the hardware and software of virtual instruments and the tests conducted on a microcontroller-based smart transducer interface module (STIM) to check both STIMs performance and the suitability of a network capable application processor (NCAP) implemented in LabVIEW. The tests include the characterization of a digitizing channel of the STIM and the performance analysis of the system when the STIM simultaneously operates its digital outputs and its analog inputs.


The World Health Organization predicts that infertility will be the third major health threat after cancer and cardiovascular disease, and will become a hot topic in medical research. Studies have shown that epigenetic changes are an important component of gametogenesis and related reproductive diseases. Epigenetic regulation of noncoding RNA (ncRNA) is appropriate and is a research hotspot in the biomedical field; these include long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), microRNA (miRNA), and PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA). As vital members of the intracellular gene regulatory network, they affect various life activities of cells. LncRNA functions as a molecular bait, molecular signal and molecular scaffold in the body through molecular guidance. miRNAs are critical regulators of gene expression; they mainly control the stability or translation of their target mRNA after transcription. piRNA functions mainly through silencing genomic transposable elements and the post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs in animal germ cells. Current studies have shown that these ncRNAs also play significant roles in the reproductive system and are involved in the regulation of essential cellular events in spermatogenesis and follicular development. The abnormal expression of ncRNA is closely linked to testicular germ cell tumors, poly cystic ovary syndrome and other diseases. This paper briefly presents the research on the reproductive process and reproductive diseases involving ncRNAs.


BACKGROUND
Canine trunk-dominant pemphigus foliaceus (PF) is mentioned rarely in the literature.

HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES
The goal of this study was to provide clinical description of trunk-dominant PF and to demonstrate the prevalence of serum antikeratinocyte, anti-desmocollin-1 (DSC1) and anti-desmoglein-1 (DSG1) antibodies, and determine their diagnostic value in this particular PF phenotype.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Clinically relevant information was collected from 31, 25 and 34 dogs with trunk-dominant and facial PF and superficial pyoderma (SP), respectively. Sera from these dogs were tested for antikeratinocyte, anti-DSC1 and anti-DSG1 antibodies using indirect immunofluorescence on canine tissues and DSC1- and DSG1-transfected cells. Sera from healthy dogs and dogs with clinically irrelevant diseases served as controls.

RESULTS
Footpad involvement and grouped/polycyclic lesion organisation were identified as features of both PF phenotypes, and not of SP. Antikeratinocyte immunoglobulin (Ig)G was not specific for canine PF. By contrast, antigen-specific IgG was detected only in PF sera; anti-DSC1 IgG in 100% and 58% of dogs with facial and trunk-dominant PF, respectively, and anti-DSG1 IgG in 7% of dogs with trunk-dominant PF only.

CONCLUSIONS
Trunk-dominant PF shares DSC1 as a major autoantigen with facial PF. The ability to detect anti-DSC1 IgG is lower in trunk-dominant PF, yet despite the lower sensitivity, the positive predictive value and accuracy of this particular anti-DSC1 IgG test are high. A negative test result, however, cannot exclude the diagnosis, and characteristic clinical features such as footpad involvement and/or grouped/polycyclic lesions must be considered when distinguishing trunk-dominant PF from its most relevant differential diagnosis: SP.


To foster students' learning of critical-thinking skills, we incorporated ill-structured problems in a Human Diseases module for third-year Life Sciences students. Using a problem-solving rubric and working in groups of three, students attempted to solve problems presented to them. We mediated their discussions by asynchronous online discussion forums (AODFs) as part of mass customisation of learning for 40 students where personalised learning was constrained by structure of the module. We examined the quality of students' discussion, focusing on the feedback group members provided to one another, using an interpreted Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy to code students' feedback. Our analysis indicated that the students were able to provide uni-structural and multi-structural level in relation to solving an ill-structured problem, even though they are not used to solving ill-structured problems. This indicated that in a mid-size class, while personalised-learning is not always easy, it is possible to mass customise learning for students using common ill-structured problems in a class by mediating problem-solving using student discussions as feedback. However, more can be done to scaffold peer feedback on solving ill-structured problems so that the level of collaborative-learning can be improved in a mass customised model that approaches personalised learning.


This work was carried out to compare the ectoparasites on Clarias gariepinus and Tilapia zilli obtained from Advanced Teachers College (ATC) Kofai Fish Market (Kasuwan Bera), Ardo Kola LGA, Mayo Gwoi, and Jalingo LGAs, Taraba State, from July to November 2016. A total of 80 randomly selected fishes ( C. gariepinus and T. zilli ) obtained from fish market were examined for ectoparasites. The skin, fins, nostrils, operculum, and buccal cavities scrapping were also examined under a dissecting microscope with dark background. The methods of obtaining parasites were made separately for fish samples from different markets. Fishes were examined for ectoparasites in relation to their size and sex. Of the 80 fish species examined 65(81.25%) were infested. Prevalence of ectoparasite infestation on C. gariepinus and T. zilli were 72.5% and 90% respectively. The male fish has higher percentage infestation (58.82%) than the females (42.18%). Fish with size range of 1.0-9.9 cm recorded the lowest infestation. T. zilli with size range 10.0-19.9 cm had high prevalence of 91.9% infestation. The higher rate of parasite infestation on T. zilli could be attributed to the presence of scale which aids the parasite to hide under. Ectoparasites has no direct effect to consumer, but has effect on fish farms which causes hemorrhagic lesions on the skin making it unappealing to consumers. Gills' necrosis can result to opportunistic infections by pathogens such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. Keywords : Ectoparasites; fishes; gills' necrosis.


Purpose:  To find out the effect of suprachoroidal Triamcinolone injection on best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central retinal thickness (CRT) in patients with macular edema secondary to retinal vein occlusion.
Study Design:  Interventional case series.
Place and Duration of Study:  College of Ophthalmology and Allied vision Sciences, Ophthalmology department, Unit II Mayo hospital, Lahore, from September 2019 to January 2020.
Methods:  This study included 45 patients diagnosed with unilateral, retinal vein occlusion associated with macular edema. Patients with previous anti-vascular endothelial growth factor injection or any steroid injection received in the last 3 months or macular edema due to any other cause were excluded from the study. Only one eye of each patient was enrolled. The patients were treated with suprachoroidal triamcinolone injection (4 mg/100µL concentration). Patients with baseline central retinal thickness (CRT) of > 300 µm were included in the study. Serial changes in this parameter were evaluated at 1 week, 1 month and 3?months after suprachoroidal triamcinolone injection. Final CRT and Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was recorded after three months.
Results:  Out of 45 patients, 26 (57.7%) were males and 19 (42.2%) were females. Majority of the patients (35.4%) were 51–60 years old. During first week the visual acuity was 0.321 ± 0.273 LogMAR, after one month it was 0.468 ± 0.291 and 0.406 ± 0.318 after 03 months with a p value of 0.003. After three months significant decrease in CRT was observed. With a p-value of 0.002.
Conclusions:  Suprachoroidal injection significantly improves BCVA and decreases CRT in patients with macular edema due to retinal vein Occlusion.
Keywords:  Retinal vein occlusion, suprachoroidal injection, triamcinolone acetonide.


Structural design for crashworthiness is a challenging area of research due to large plastic deformations and complex interactions among diverse components of the vehicle. A notable idea in topology optimization is the hybrid cellular automaton (HCA) method capable of topology synthesis for crashworthiness design. The HCA algorithm was inspired by the structural adaptation of bones to their ever changing mechanical environment. This methodology has been shown to be an effective topology synthesis tool.The objective of this investigation is to examine the convergence and algorithm factors analysis of topology optimization for crashworthiness based on hybrid cellular automata paradigm. The orthogonal test is also proposed to study the effects of the algorithm factors on the dependent variables of the structure with new optimized topology. To demonstrate the convergence properties influenced by factors of the HCA algorithm in dynamic problems, the HCA framework is developed to a methodology for crashworthiness, which combines transient, non-linear finite-element analysis and local control rules acting on cells, and some simple cantilevered beam examples are utilized.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


With the advancement of nanotechnology, there is an interest in the replacement of conventional materials by nanomaterials. There is a reasonable chance that as the active mass of electrode for lithium batteries is comprised of smaller particles, they will perform better in terms of capacity, power, rate capability and stability. LiMn2O4 is inexpensive material but it shows rather poor cyclic performance. The electrochemical performance of spinel type LiMn2O4 has been effectively improved with doping of Nd the "bottom–up" approach of LiMn2O4 and LiNdxMn2-xO4 (x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4) synthesized by citric acid modified microwave assisted sol-gel method. LiMn2O4 has been synthesized from nitrates and acetates. Citric acid was added as a complexing agent and acryl amide acts as a gelling agent. This technique offers better homogeneity, preferred surface morphology, reduced heat-treatment conditions, sub-micron sized particles and better crystallinity. The structure and the electrochemical performances of the samples are characterized by Xray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, cyclic voltammetry and charge-discharge testing. XRD data shows both samples exhibit the same pure spinel phase. Nano crystalline LiNd0.3Mn1.7O4 sample has a smaller morphology including small particle size and the homogeneous particle distribution compared to the other compositions.


This article investigated the possibility of simulation technology process for destruction of chemical weapons. In this paper, we consider a model of technological operations: detoxification, ripening, neutralization, bituminization, evaporation. Formalization of management task performed. The problem of optimal control formulated as a maximization problem. Problem of operational management industrial complex formulated in the form of a linear programming problem. The objective function of this problem it is a linear function, which determines the maximum possible mass of toxic substances destroyed in a single cycle. Coefficients of the linear function are the price of products and energy flows. Tolerance range of regime parameters of technological operations (balance equation capacity, tolerances material flows, load range) define the scope of restrictions on the objective function.


The technological advances in digital space have provided a renewed impetus for business to expand their footprint across digital modes. The growth of the internet and the ease of its access to the masses has encouraged many businesses to go online. Online e-commerce platforms make it easy to search, locate and place orders. Technology-assisted supply chains and fast delivery mechanisms ensure that users don't have to go elsewhere to fulfill their needs. To earn loyalty and customer satisfaction, e-commerce platforms have evolved into a sophisticated recommender system. It has evolved from just an informational source to a participative mode where users can share their experiences about their purchases. Customer values other user experiences more than the information provided by the seller. The presence of many conflicting and contradicting reviews can make the task of making rational decisions difficult for many users. Many studies were performed to understand what constitutes a review helpful and came up with different or mixed outcomes. The present study reviews the factors that influence online customer reviews helpful. Meta-analysis was performed to reconcile the mixed findings of different factors of online review helpfulness. The meta-analysis found that with the moderating effect of product type, factors like review length, readability, rating, reputation, and expertise positively correlate with helpfulness. Further, the customer finds moderate reviews more helpful in terms of polarity. Meta-analysis has a mix of findings for the selected data points in the study. The mixed findings include product type (search, experience, or other) and helpfulness measurement criteria.

Received: 30 August 2022 / Accepted: 24 October 2022 / Published: 5 November 2022


First, the short description of the opening title in Biggs' new Everything Goes series: a little boy and his dad leave their quiet suburban home and step into their sedan for a trip into the city. Creeping through the insanely congested streets, the father and son converse about the types of vehicles; they pick Mom up at the train station and drive home. Now, what the fun is all about: Biggs cleverly directs the zany cartoon traffic so that each spread features a particular type of vehicle—e.g., truck, motorcycle, train, RV—in an eye-boggling array of iterations. Several models get a double-page spread cutaway-diagram treatment, with important parts (brake lever, gas tank, exhaust pipe) and goofy extras (nice socks, Miss Kitty) duly labeled. Numbers from one to one hundred are hidden within the deliciously jammed compositions; also a multitude of birds sporting hats are hidden, Waldo-style, in plain view. If this level of intricacy in the artwork isn't sufficient, viewers can try to correlate ads with businesses throughout the book or carefully inspect motorists and pedestrians for visual gags: the panicky White Rabbit rushing for the subway, the health-food vendor with no business, the tentacled alien on the trolley. Still not enough? How about a double foldout of about a half-mile of cityscape? Once you embark on this wild interactive journey, don't expect to get home for quite a while. EB


Although age discrimination laws boost employment of older workers, some are exempt from age-law protection and may be better protected by disability discrimination laws. Disability laws may raise the costs of employing the disabled, however, generating mixed predictions regarding employment effects of protection by both types of laws. This study finds that employment of older disabled workers with the coupled laws is lower than those with age-law protection only; employment of the younger disabled is higher with the coupled laws. For older disabled workers, earnings of those with the coupled laws are lower than their counterparts with only age-law protection. (JEL "J78", "K31", "J00") Copyright 2004 Western Economic Association International.


Induction motors constitute a theoretically challenging control problem due to non-linearity of the dynamical system, motor parameter variation and the difficulty in measuring rotor variables. Incorporation of thyristorised a. c. voltage controller for speed control of the induction motor aggravates the non-linearity of the system. The use of conventional PI controller will not guarantee optimum dynamic response at different operating points of the drive. This paper presents the design and simulation of a fuzzy logic controller for speed regulation of voltage controlled induction motor drive. The fuzzy algorithms in the proposed controller are systematically obtained from the intuition and experience about the motor drive dynamics. A linearized incremental model of a. c. voltage controller fed induction motor drive is derived from the fifth order d-q axis model and is used for simulation study. The nullifying effect of parameter variation and disturbance rejection property of fuzzy logic controller is evidenced through simulation results.


Recent years have witnessed growing interests in solving partial differentialequationsbydeepneuralnetworks,especiallyinthehigh-dimensional case. Unlike classical numerical methods, such as finite difference method and finite element method, the enforcement of boundary conditions in deep neural networks is highly nontrivial. One general strategy is to use the penalty method. In the work, we conduct a comprehensive study of four different boundary conditions, i.e., Dirichlet, Neumann, Robin, and periodic boundary conditions, using two representative methods: deep Ritz method and deep Galerkin method. It is thought that deep Galerkin method works better for smooth solutions while deep Ritz method works better for low-regularity solutions. However, by a number of examples, we observe that deep Ritz method can outperform deep Galerkin method with a clear dependence of dimensionality even for smooth solutions and deep Galerkin method can also outperform deep Ritz method for lowregularity solutions. Besides, in some cases, when the boundary condition can be implemented in an exact manner, we find that such a strategy not only provides a better approximate solution but also facilitates the training process.


BACKGROUND
GNE myopathy is an adult onset recessive genetic disorder that affects distal muscles sparing the quadriceps. GNE gene mutations have been identified in GNE myopathy patients all over the world. Homozygosity is a common feature in GNE myopathy patients worldwide.

OBJECTIVES
The major objective of this study was to investigate the mutation spectrum of GNE myopathy in India in relation to the population diversity in the country.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We have collated GNE mutation data of Indian GNE myopathy patients from published literature and from recently identified patients. We also used data of people of Indian subcontinent from 1000 genomes database, South Asian Genome database and Strand Life Science database to determine frequency of GNE mutations in the general population.

RESULTS
A total of 67 GNE myopathy patients were studied, of whom 21% were homozygous for GNE variants, while the rest were compound heterozygous. Thirty-five different mutations in the GNE gene were recorded, of which 5 have not been reported earlier. The most frequent mutation was p.Val727Met (65%) found mainly in the heterozygous form. Another mutation, p.Ile618Thr was also common (16%) but was found mainly in patients from Rajasthan, while p.Val727Met was more widely distributed. The latter was also seen at a high frequency in general population of Indian subcontinent in all the databases. It was also present in Thailand but was absent in general population elsewhere in the world.

CONCLUSION
p.Val727Met is likely to be a founder mutation of Indian subcontinent.


Physically-based rendering (PBR) is key for immersive rendering effects used widely in the industry to showcase detailed realistic scenes from computer graphics assets. A well-known caveat is that producing the same is computationally heavy and relies on complex capture devices. Inspired by the success in quality and efficiency of recent volumetric neural rendering, we want to develop a physically-based neural shader to eliminate device dependency and significantly boost performance. However, no existing lighting and material models in the current neural rendering approaches can accurately represent the comprehensive lighting models and BRDFs properties required by the PBR process. Thus, this paper proposes a novel lighting representation that models direct and indirect light locally through a light sampling strategy in a learned light sampling field. We also propose BRDF models to separately represent surface/subsurface scattering details to enable complex objects such as translucent material (i.e., skin, jade). We then implement our proposed representations with an end-to-end physically-based neural face skin shader, which takes a standard face asset (i.e., geometry, albedo map, and normal map) and an HDRI for illumination as inputs and generates a photo-realistic rendering as output. Extensive experiments showcase the quality and efficiency of our PBR face skin shader, indicating the effectiveness of our proposed lighting and material representations.


Reaction of N-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)pyridinium chloride (salt(Cl−)) with sodium dicyanamide (Na(CN)2N) resulted in anion exchange between Cl− and (CN)2N− to yield a new Zincke salt, salt((CN)2N−). Reactions of salt((CN)2N−) with piperazine, specifically (R)-(−)- or (S)-(+)-2-methylpiperazine under eco-friendly conditions, such as in aqueous solution, in the absence of a catalyst, and at room temperature, resulted in pyridinium ring opening to yield ionic high-molecular-weight polymers with 5-2,4-dienylideneammonium dicyanamide units or chiral 5-(2-methylpiperazinium)-2,4-dienylideneammonium dicyanamide units, namely, polymer(H;(CN)2N−), polymer(R-Me;(CN)2N−), and polymer(S-Me;(CN)2N−). UV-Vis measurements revealed that the π-conjugation system expanded along the polymer chain due to the orbital interaction between the electrons on the two nitrogen atoms of the piperazinium ring. Circular dichroism (CD) measurements revealed a helical conformation of the main chain in polymer(R-Me;(CN)2N−) and polymer(S-Me;(CN)2N−). The reaction of polymer(H;(CN)2N−) with p-phenylenediamine (PDA) caused recyclization of the 2,4-dienylideneammonium unit and resulted in depolymerization to yield N-(4-aminophenyl)pyridinium dicyanamide. Cyclic voltammetry analysis suggested that the polymers obtained in this study undergo electrochemical oxidation and reduction.


Post-hoc feature importance is progressively being employed to explain decisions of complex machine learning models. Yet in practice, reruns of the training algorithm and/or the explainer can result in contradicting statements of feature importance, henceforth reducing trust in those techniques. A possible avenue to address this issue is to develop strategies to aggregate diverse explanations about feature importance. While the arithmetic mean, which yields a total order, has been advanced, we introduce an alternative: the consensus among multiple models, which results in partial orders. The two aggregation strategies are compared using Integrated Gradients and Shapley values on two regression datasets, and we show that a large portion of the information provided by the mean aggregation is not supported by the consensus of each individual model, raising suspicion on the trustworthiness of this practice.


Taking the practical teaching of the profession of urban and rural planning in local universities as object of study, this thesis elaborates the history and current situation of studio mode of teaching, and puts forward an applicable practice-oriented teaching mode studio mode of teaching adaptable to local economic development. A practice-oriented studio teaching system is to be built through the setting of research studios, the studio mode of teaching, the organization of the teaching team, the configuration of environment devices, as well as quality assessment of studio teaching, and so on. Keywords-Studio; mode of teaching; rural and urban


The minimum oil film thicknesses (MOFT) in the crankshaft main bearings of a 1.5 liter, L-4, gasoline engine are measured and calculated to study the dynamically loaded engine bearing.
The MOFT are measured simultaneously at each of the five main bearings using the total capacitance method(TCM). To improve the reliability of the TCM, a reasonable determination method of bearing clearance is introduced and the effects of bearing cavitation and aeration on the test results are analyzed. Also the crankshaft is grounded by means of a slip ring instead of the friction contact method to improve the test precision.
The calculation is based on the model of statically determinate beam, short bearing approximation and Mobility method
From the comparison between the measured and calculated MOFT curves, it is found that a qualitative similarity exists between them, but in all cases, measured MOFT are smaller than that of calculated The crankshaft vibration and the imbalance of the load distribution between the engine bearings have important influence upon the MOFT curve. So. it is found that the calculation result from the model of the statically determinate beam has a limitation in predicting bearing performance.


Because of the important side effects and high cost of PEG-IFN plus ribavirin therapy, it is highly important to identify markers that can discriminate patients who will not respond to the treatment. Several viral and host factors have been associated with non-response: steatosis, obesity, insulin resistance, age, male sex, ethnicity and genotypes. Many studies have demonstrated that in non-responders, some interferon-stimulated genes were upregulated before treatment. Patients who present a rapid virological response (RV have a greater chance of achieving an SVR (higher than 85%). Patients who do not present any decrease of the viral load will not be able to respond to the treatment. Very consistent data were reported by independent groups finding SNPs near the IL-28B (IFN-3k) region and associated with treatment response, thus opening a window for personalized medicine Those findings associated to clinical, biochemical and histological data may help detect responders before starting any treatment. This is a very important issue because the standard treatment is physically and economically demanding. The future of HCV treatment would probably consist in the addition of specifically targeted antiviral therapy for HCV such as protease and/or polymerase inhibitors to the standard of care.


BACKGROUND
It is often argued that the negative development of intrinsic motivation in elementary school strongly depends on the presence of school grades because grades represent extrinsic consequences and achievement feedback that are supposed to influence intrinsically motivated behaviour. However, only a few studies have tested this hypothesis.

AIMS
Therefore, we investigated the role of school grades in inter- and intra-individual changes in elementary school students' intrinsic motivation from when grades were first introduced until the end of elementary school, when students in Germany receive recommendations for a secondary school type on the basis of their prior performance in school.

SAMPLE
A sample of 542 German elementary school students (t1 : M = 7.95 years, SD = 0.57) was followed for 2 years from the end of Grade 2 to the end of Grade 4.

METHODS
At seven measurement occasions, children's math grades and their domain-specific intrinsic motivation were assessed.

RESULTS
Latent growth curve models showed differences in trajectories of intrinsic motivation across students rather than uniform development. Moreover, students' trajectories of grades and intrinsic motivation were only weakly associated. A latent cross-lagged model revealed that reciprocal effects between the two constructs over time were small at best.

CONCLUSIONS
Contrary to theoretical considerations, our results indicate that negative performance feedback in the form of grades does not necessarily lead to a decrease in intrinsic motivation. This calls into question the common opinion that a perception of being less competent, as reflected by poor grades, is responsible for weakening students' intrinsic motivation.


It is a common problem in industry that the development of software does not go hand-in-hand with the development of the hardware that the software is intended to control. A similar situation can occur in the undergraduate laboratory. Here a student, having designed the software component of a project, can't gain access to the necessary hardware to prepare for or complete a laboratory because of schedule/security difficulties. Over the past year we have overcome this problem by using "virtual" hardware, where device operation is simulated in software. We have generalized the approach so that the virtual devices can be used in conjunction with microprocessor simulator software and with actual evaluation boards for both RISC and CISC systems. We are in the preliminary development stages of a new HTML Web page approach where we control, rather than just launch, these commercial simulation packages. Such an approach would provide a controlled, interactive, tutorial environment for students taking microprocessor courses. There are further industrial and academic advantages of such an approach which can help to overcome the initial learning curve for the tools. We discuss the basics of developing "virtual" devices for use with the Windows based development environment provided with Software Development Systems 68 K and PowerPC free sample kits. These devices can then be ported to the Motorola M68332EVK and Advanced Micro Devices' SA29200 microprocessor evaluation boards to provide actual hardware experience.


To develop coordination polymers (CPs) as catalysts to selectively catalyze the reaction of C-H bond activation of arylalkanes to their homologous ketones, three new Cu(I)-based coordination polymers (CuI-CPs) [CuI(aas-TPB)]n (1), [CuBr(ass-TPB)CH3CN]n (2), and {[Cu(ass-TPB)]Cl}n (3) (TPB = N,N,N-tris(3-pyridinyl)-1,3,5-benzenetricarboxamide) were synthesized. Structural variations from a herringbone fashion one-dimensional framework of 1 to a two-dimensional framework of 2 containing a 48-membered macrocycle and a cationic three-dimensional framework of 3 filled with Cl- anions were observed arising from the different halogen ions (I-, Br-, and Cl-). 1-3 were used as the green heterogeneous catalysts to catalyze direct C-H bond activation reactions of arylalkanes to ketones under mild reaction conditions with water as solvent. Handy product separation, convenient reaction procedures, and recyclability of these catalysts make the catalytic system fascinating. Moreover, the CuI-CPs performed the reaction with high regioselectivity due to the unique spatial confinement effect of CPs.


Light scattering in biological tissue originates from tissue inhomogeneities such as extracellular matrix, cells and cellular organelles. This translates into unique spectroscopic features of scattered light emerging from tissue. In this talk we will discuss how light scattering signatures could be used to detect dysplasia and early cancer in epithelial tissue.


Catalase (CAT) is a group of enzymes that protect cells against oxidative damage generated by reactive oxygen species. A CAT cDNA was previously isolated and characterized from 3-month-old hydroponically cultured Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Thunb.) Makino plants. The ORF is 1.479 bp with a deduced amino acid sequence of 492 residues. CAT from G. pentaphyllum has a molecular mass of 56.97 kDa with an isoelectric point (pI) of 6.95. The temporal expression analysis of leaf samples demonstrated that GpCAT expression could be up-regulated by various environmental stresses such as jasmonic acid electro, oxidative, salt, heavy metal, chilling and heat stress in a certain time period. A three-dimensional structural model of G. pentaphyllum based on its GpCAT cDNA sequence. The temporal expression pattern suggests that the GpCAT could play a role in the molecular defense response of G. pentaphyllum to abiotic stresses.


In this report, two biodegradable star-shaped polyasparamide derivatives and four analogues modified with either mannose or folic acid moiety for preferential targeting of a difficult-to-transfect immune cell type, i.e., macrophage, have been synthesized. Each of the prepared star polymers complexes with plasmid DNA to form nanosized particles featuring a core-shell-like morphology. Mannose or folate functionalized star polymers can greatly improve the transfection performance on a macrophage cell line RAW 264.7. As a result, a combination of targeting ligand modification and topological structures of gene carriers is a promising strategy for immune cells-based gene therapy.


UK governmental policy regarding disability (e.g. The Disability Discrimination Act, 2005) and associated legislation has potentially strengthened the quest for equality of opportunity. However, I feel there is a gap between that which is enshrined in law and the application on legislation in everyday life, so while greater understanding of human rights and a push for cultural change have been characteristic of policy, publicly available visual material appears to contradict such messages. In order to explore this contradiction my presentation will focus on visual portrayals of disability taken from online university prospectuses. In doing so I present a feminist (re)interpretation of this material to address the question:
What do visual representations of disability look like and what messages do they convey?


Modern zoos utilise a variety of education tools for communicating with visitors. Previous research has discussed the benefits of providing multiple education communications, yet little research provides an indication of what communications are being employed within zoos today. This research is a two-phased, mixed-methods investigation into the communication between zoos and their general visitors. Phase 1 involved an online questionnaire to which 176 zoos from 50 countries reported on the types of education communications they typically use for their general visitors. The second phase comprised nine zoo case studies, enabling direct observation and face-to-face interviews on site with zoo staff and zoo visitors. The findings of this research provide a snapshot of education communications offered to zoo visitors, and indicate that zoo exhibit signage remains the most prevalent medium. The findings further indicate that 95% of visitors read at least some exhibit signs and that more than 70% of participating zoos utilise person-to-person education. The implications of these findings for improving zoos' educational communication are discussed.


The United States faces a complex and rapidly shifting international security landscape. Forces of ethnic and religious extremism, diffusion of information technologies, proliferation of mass destruction weapons, and newly empowered non-state actors are just some of the trends whose complex interplay will produce unanticipated threats. Yet, while the future is more uncertain today than during the Cold War, we currently have a window of opportunity for shaping a more favorable future. The challenge for the United States, and for all states, is not just to manage uncertainty but also to prevail in spite of it. To help address that challenge, this book examines strategic choices in uncertain times and analyzes how different strategies position states to compete, manage risk, and prevail despite uncertainty. It investigates how past and current political and military leaders have responded to uncertain strategic and technological environments, and assesses the consequences of those strategies for their state's power and influence.


Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic cancer and new and improved adjuvant therapies are needed. The confinement of disease to the peritoneal cavity has led to the therapeutic use of intraperitoneal (IP) infusion of biologic agents. Interleukin-2 (IL-2) is a T-cell growth factor important in anti-tumor immunity. The aim of our study was to determine the clinical efficacy of IP IL-2 in a phase II trial for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and to identify immune correlates of response and survival in 31 IL-2 treated patients. Peripheral blood T cells, collected throughout the treatment were phenotyped and cytokines measured by FACS. Sera and IP fluids were assayed by ELISA for IgE and IgG antibodies and by cytometric bead arrays for VEGF and eotaxin. We found significant associations between baseline IFNγ-secreting CD8 T cells and survival (p=0.04) and between number change during treatment of circulating T cells and survival (p=0.05). Peripheral blood eosinophils were markedly increased at the end of treatment (p<0.0001) and associated with increased eotaxin (p=0.03). Although serum VEGF increased with treatment (p=0.025), measurements in the IP fluid suggest a decrease in local levels of VEGF (p=0.053). This study provides evidence for IP IL-2 in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and identifies several immune correlates of survival. NIH R21 CA74105-02S1, ACS, Chiron Therapeutics, Magee Health Foundation, PA Dept. of Health.


A Warm Welcome in Chilled Quetta Dear Readers  It gives me immense pleasure to inform you about the PJR's Pre-conference issue ( PJR 28.4: Oct-Dec 2018 ). You would remember that this is the 4th  pre-conference issue in row and following the footsteps, it includes abstracts of 34th  Annual RSP Conference, being held from 7-9th December 2018 in Quetta. On behalf of Editorial Team of PJR, I am extremely grateful to all authors who have contributed their manuscripts for this issue and all reviewers for their sincere scholastic support in reviewing large number of manuscripts in a timely and purely professional manner. We are also thankful to Prof Dr Ashraf Achakzai,  President RSP and executive council for continuous financial support to PJR which  has enabled us to issue PJR (both online and print version)  without putting publication charges to contributing authors. This reiterates commitment of RSP to its motive of fostering the sole scholastic radiology forum of Pakistan. I also congratulate the Organizing Committee of 34th Annual RSP Conference for organizing a wonderful meeting and Scientific Committee for designing an exemplary grid of academic events knitted with pre-conference workshops and rich scientific sessions. Hope we will be having good audience in these academic events to fulfill the theme behind every academic symposia and conference. Organizing committee is waiting eagerly to warmly welcome in chilled Quetta to our valued participants at 34th Annual RSP Conference 2018. Prof. Maseeh uz Zaman  MD, FRCP (Ed) Editor PJR


Nowadays mercury poisoning usually results from the oral ingestion of methylmercury or from inhalation of mercury vapor. Mercury intoxication in a gold prospector after inhalation of mercury vapor is described. The patient presented a history of fever, tachypnea and headache. Despite the treatment with dimercaprol, penicillamine and intensive supportive care the patient died with symptoms of acute respiratory distress.


Context. More than 10% of barred galaxies with a direct measurement of the bar pattern speed host an ultrafast bar. These bars extend well beyond the corotation radius and challenge our understanding of the orbital structure of barred galaxies. Most of the bars are found in spiral galaxies, rather than in lenticular galaxies. Aims. We analyse the properties of the ultrafast bars detected in the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Spectroscopy Area Survey to investigate whether they are an artefact resulting from an overestimation of the bar radius and / or an underestimation of the corotation radius or a new class of bars, whose orbital structure has not been understood yet. Methods. We revised the available measurements of the bar radius based on ellipse fitting and Fourier analysis and of the bar pattern speed from the Tremaine-Weinberg method. In addition, we measured the bar radius from the analysis of the maps tracing the transverse-to-radial force ratio, which we obtained from the deprojected i -band images of the galaxies retrieved from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Results. We found that nearly all the sample galaxies are spirals with an inner ring or pseudo-ring circling the bar and / or with strong spiral arms, which hamper the measurement of the bar radius from the ellipse fitting and Fourier analysis. According to these methods, the bar ends overlap with the ring or the spiral arms, thereby making the adopted bar radius unreliable. On the contrary, the bar radius from the ratio maps are shorter than the corotation radius. This agrees with the theoretical predictions and findings of numerical simulations regarding the extension and stability of the stellar orbits supporting the bars. Conclusions. We conclude that ultrafast bars are no longer observed when the correct measurement of the bar radius is adopted. Deriving the bar radius in galaxies with rings and strong spiral arms is not straightforward and a solid measurement method based on both photometric and kinematic data is still missing.


Using speeding citations from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, this paper examines whether out-of-state drivers face different enforcement standards than in-state drivers. Discrimination effects are identified by assuming exogenous differences in license plate design affect troopers' abilities to identify out-of-state drivers. The pattern of citations for difficult to identify out-of-state drivers is significantly different from (indeed, stricter than) the pattern for more easily identifiable out-of-state drivers. I take this as evidence of troopers attempting to apply different enforcement standards to out-of-state drivers. One explanation is troopers attempting to deter in-state speeders whose behavior may be more sensitive to enforcement.


The bumblebee focus of the online platform naturbeobachtung.at has developed into a high quality zoogeographic data source and a place of collecting observation data from citizens, bringing them in contact with zoogeographic and ecological questions and connecting them to a network of common interests and shared competences.
The main factors for the success are a sophisticated technology, prompt support for Citizen Scientists via internet and a long-term community building by public courses, common mapping excursions and presentations. Long term-engagement in know-how-transfer and support guarantees high quality data and an increasing community, that raises public awareness of the value of pollinators and the pollinator crisis.


We investigate proton-production double-differential cross sections (DDXs) for 300- and 392-MeV proton-induced reactions on O, V, Tb, Ta, Au, Pb, and Bi. Emitted proton energies are measured with stacked scintillator spectrometers by the {Delta}E-E technique. Experimental results are compared with the intranuclear cascade (INC) and quantum molecular dynamics models. Although both models can reproduce spectral DDXs, there is a difference at the most forward and backward angles. The cause of these differences is discussed in terms of the refraction caused by the nuclear potential. Angular distributions of the present data are well accounted for by the Kalbach systematics plus INC one-step calculations. The quasi-free-scattering contribution increases with decreasing target mass and increasing emission energy.


OBJECTIVES
Noninvasive positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV) is increasingly used in critically ill pediatric patients, despite limited data on safety and efficacy. Administrative data may be a good resource for observational studies. Therefore, we sought to assess the performance of the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision procedure code for NIPPV.

METHODS
Patients admitted to the PICU requiring NIPPV or heated high-flow nasal cannula (HHFNC) over the 11-month study period were identified from the Virtual PICU System database. The gold standard was manual review of the electronic health record to verify the use of NIPPV or HHFNC among the cohort. The presence or absence of a NIPPV procedure code was determined by using administrative data. Test characteristics with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were generated, comparing administrative data with the gold standard.

RESULTS
Among the cohort (n = 562), the majority were younger than 5 years, and the most common primary diagnosis was bronchiolitis. Most (82%) required NIPPV, whereas 18% required only HHFNC. The NIPPV code had a sensitivity of 91.1% (95% CI: 88.2%-93.6%) and a specificity of 57.6% (95% CI: 47.2%-67.5%), with a positive likelihood ratio of 2.15 (95% CI: 1.70-2.71) and negative likelihood ratio of 0.15 (95% CI: 0.11-0.22).

CONCLUSIONS
Among our critically ill pediatric cohort, NIPPV procedure codes had high sensitivity but only moderate specificity. On the basis of our study results, there is a risk of misclassification, specifically failure to identify children who require NIPPV, when using administrative data to study the use of NIPPV in this population.


A robust adaptive neural network control scheme is proposed for a class of strict-feedback nonlinear systems with unknown control directions and unmodeled dynamics. The proposed design method expands the class of nonlinear systems for which robust adaptive control approaches have been studied. A priori knowledge of the signs of the control directions is not required. It is proved that under the proposed control law, all the closed-loop signals are uniformly ultimately bounded and the output asymptotically converges to zero. Simulation study is provided to verify the theoretical results.


Relay-assisted communication can improve the quality of service (QoS) of users located at the cell boundary or the shadowed area. In this paper, we investigate the efficient resource allocation scheme for the orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) based relaying systems. To maximize system performance, the proposed scheme exploits the spatial reuse in the frequency selective fading channel, by allocating a subchannel to multiple transmissions simultaneously. Performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by simulation. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme can increase the cell throughput while reducing the outage probability of users.


Hybrids based on an aza-analogue of CGP37157, a mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchanger antagonist, and lipoic acid were obtained in order to combine in a single molecule the antioxidant and NRF2 induction properties of lipoic acid and the neuroprotective activity of CGP37157. The four possible enantiomers of the hybrid structure were synthesized by using as the key step a fully diastereoselective reduction induced by Ellman's chiral auxiliary. After computational druggability studies that predicted good ADME profiles and blood–brain permeation for all compounds, the DPPH assay showed moderate oxidant scavenger capacity. Following a cytotoxicity evaluation that proved the compounds to be non-neurotoxic at the concentrations tested, they were assayed for NRF2 induction capacity and for anti-inflammatory properties and measured by their ability to inhibit nitrite production in the lipopolysaccharide-stimulated BV2 microglial cell model. Moreover, the compounds were studied for their neuroprotective effect in a model of oxidative stress achieved by treatment of SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells with the rotenone–oligomycin combination and also in a model of hyperphosphorylation induced by treatment with okadaic acid. The stereocenter configuration showed a critical influence in NRF2 induction properties, and also in the neuroprotection against oxidative stress experiment, leading to the identification of the compound with S and R configuration as an interesting hit with a good neuroprotective profile against oxidative stress and hyperphosphorylation, together with a relevant anti-neuroinflammatory activity. This interesting multitarget profile will be further characterized in future work.


In lattice Quantum Field Theory, we are often presented with integrals over polynomials of coefficients of matrices in U(N) or SU(N) with respect to the Haar measure. In some physical situations, e.g., in presence of a chemical potential, these integrals are numerically very difficult since their integrands are highly oscillatory which manifests itself in form of the sign problem. In these cases, Monte Carlo methods often fail to be adequate, rendering such computations practically impossible. We propose a new class of integration rules on U(N) and SU(N) which are derived from polynomially exact rules on spheres. We will examine these quadrature rules and their efficiency at the example of a 0+1 dimensional QCD for a non-zero quark mass and chemical potential. In particular, we will demonstrate the failure of Monte Carlo methods in such applications and that we can obtain polynomially exact, arbitrary precision results using the new integration rules.


This publication is divided into 5 books; book 1 present regional overview of Sumatera; book 2 present regional overview of Jawa and Bali; book 3 present regional overview of Kalimantan; book 4 present regional overview of Sulawesi; book 5 present regional overview of Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, and Papua. This publication present GRDP by regencies/municipalities and industrial origin, graphs derive from GRDP with a brief review, and thematic maps of regional economic potential.


Compressing neural nets is an active research problem, given the large size of state-of-the-art nets for tasks such as object recognition, and the computational limits imposed by mobile devices. We give a general formulation of model compression as constrained optimization. This includes many types of compression: quantization, low-rank decomposition, pruning, lossless compression and others. Then, we give a general algorithm to optimize this nonconvex problem based on the augmented Lagrangian and alternating optimization. This results in a "learning-compression" algorithm, which alternates a learning step of the uncompressed model, independent of the compression type, with a compression step of the model parameters, independent of the learning task. This simple, efficient algorithm is guaranteed to find the best compressed model for the task in a local sense under standard assumptions.
We present separately in several companion papers the development of this general framework into specific algorithms for model compression based on quantization, pruning and other variations, including experimental results on compressing neural nets and other models.


Research into the benefits of mindfulness training, meditation, and other contemplative practices for the workplace has grown dramatically. Within the context of Canadian policing, the wellness benefits of these mental practices are beginning to be understood. However, little is known about Canadian police officers' current use of these practices. This information is important for future research exploring the effects of these practices over time, and for police agencies considering introducing mindfulness or meditation training programs into their organizations. This article shares initial findings from a broader, yet unpublished, qualitative study of a cohort of Commissioned Officers from a large Canadian police service who self-identified as having regular meditation practices. Invitations to participate in a study exploring the perceived influence of meditation on leadership were e-mailed to all 605 Commissioned Officers. Of the 13 individuals who responded, 11 met the study criteria. Qualitative content analysis of the data yielded the following results: Commissioned Officers in a wide variety of roles in this police service are engaged in a broad spectrum of contemplative practices; each participant engaged in multiple practices; and the most common reason for beginning to practice meditation was to assist in recovery from a psychological or physical injury. These findings suggest that police organizations introduce a variety of mental training practices early in officers' service to ensure their career is more positive, resilient, and rewarding.


At least 16 fragments were detected in images of comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) taken on 5 August 2000 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and on 6 August with the Very Large Telescope (VLT). Photometric analysis of the fragments indicates that the largest ones have effective spherical diameters of about 100 meters, which implies that the total mass in the observed fragments was about 2 × 109 kilograms. The comet's dust tail, which was the most prominent optical feature in August, was produced during a major fragmentation event, whose activity peaked on UT 22.8 ± 0.2 July 2000. The mass of small particles (diameters less than about 230 micrometers) in the tail was about 4 × 108 kilograms, which is comparable to the mass contained in a large fragment and to the total mass lost from water sublimation after 21 July 2000 (about 3 × 108 kilograms). HST spectroscopic observations during 5 and 6 July 2000 demonstrate that the nucleus contained little carbon monoxide ice (ratio of carbon monoxide to water is less than or equal to 0.4%), which suggests that this volatile species did not play a role in the fragmentation of C/1999 S4 (LINEAR).


Photonics is a key enabling technology for many emerging systems for homeland and national security. The range of applications encompasses visible and IR imaging, 3-D ladar imaging, IR countermeasures, laser range finders and designators, chem.-bio sensing, OE networking of sensors, directed energy, and a host of others. The PhAST track on this topic will present the state of the art in many important facets of this exciting field of defense R&D.


Abrupt return to normothermia has been shown a genuine factor contributing to graft dysfunction after transplantation. This study tested the concept to mitigate reperfusion injury of liver grafts by gentle warming‐up using ex vivo machine perfusion prior to reperfusion. In a single center randomized controlled study, livers were assigned to conventional static cold storage (SCS) alone or to SCS followed by 90 min of ex vivo machine perfusion including controlled oxygenated rewarming (COR) by gentle and protracted elevation of the perfusate temperature from 10°C to 20°C. Primary outcome mean peak aspartate aminotransferase (AST) was 1371 U/L (SD 2871) after SCS versus 767 U/L (SD 1157) after COR (p = 0.273). Liver function test (LiMAx) on postoperative day 1 yielded 187 μg/kg/h (SD 121) after SCS, but rose to 294 μg/kg/h (SD 106) after COR (p = 0.006). Likewise, hepatic synthesis of coagulation factor V was significantly accelerated in the COR group immediately after transplantation (103% [SD 34] vs. 66% [SD 26]; p = 0.001). Fewer severe complications (Clavien‐Dindo grade ≥3b) were reported in the COR group (8) than in the SCS group (15). Rewarming/reperfusion injury of liver grafts can be safely and effectively mitigated by controlling of the rewarming kinetics prior to blood reperfusion using end‐ischemic ex vivo machine perfusion after cold storage.


Paper Compared to traditional cast-in-place concrete
structures, the precast Concrete structures are usually constructed
in a controlled environment , i.e. plants, and then assembled
through certain links at the construction site. The concrete precast
concrete structures can therefore have better concrete quality and
help to reduce labor costs and increase construction speed.
Because of these advantages, in recent years the precast concrete
structures have received much attention. This research work
therefore presents a reasonable procedure for designing a grouted
sleeve splice connection using a simple material such as standard
pipes with little workmanship which gives the design a good
advantage compared to just using selection tables for expensive
proprietary similar connection. Such splices' mechanical
behavior is a function of two essential mechanisms: bar-to-grout
bond behavior, and sleeve-to-grout bond behavior. To achieve the
purpose of this analysis work , three arrangements were
manufactured and checked under incremental axial tensile load
with an all-out number of 66 grouted splice sleeve specimens.
While experimental methods of investigation are extremely useful
in obtaining information about the grouted splice sleeve
connection behavior, the use of numerical models helps to develop
good comprehension of behavior at lower cost. Models of
non-linear finite-element analysis for grouted splice sleeve
connection were presented in this research. The research utilized
the commercial Finite Element modeling software (ANSYS) to
study the effects of some parameters that are important in the
bond behavior of the grouted splice sleeve connection and
compare the analytical results with the experimental results to
confirm the analytical model. The average efficiency of the finite
element models using ANSYS was 92.5%. Having the finite
element model validated, a parametric study was performed using
ANSYS to evaluate the effect of the following parameters on the
behavior of grouted splice sleeve: bar diameter, embedded length,
grout compressive strength, sleeve wall thickness, and sleeve inner
diameter


Since the outbreak of the Asia exchange rate crisis last year, different analysts have attempted to analyze and explain the reason and the development of the crisis theoretically. But the present theory of the reason of the crisis is not account for the crisis, especially the evident feature that the Asia crisis appear to be infective, which seems to make the world economy to a stagnant degree. This thesis filed the present argumentations which helped to understand the Asia foreign exchange rate crisis and made a discussion at this level. This thesis first explained a certain contact between the secular trend of the capital movement and the appearance of the foreign exchange crisis, then extend to the theoretical explanation of the infective effect of the foreign exchange crisis. Meanwhile, as to the question the predictive possibility which is an important part related to foreign exchange theory, this thesis introduced former thesis which took Korea as the object of analysis.


Overexpression of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) has been postulated as one possible mechanism of radioprotection for hematopoietic cells. In this study retroviral constructs having the human MnSOD gene in both the sense and antisense orientations and the Neo-R gene as a selectable marker were transfected into the human erythroleukemic cell line K562 and the human melanoma cell line A375 by electroporation. Stably transfected K562 and A375 cells selected in G418 for 3 weeks were subjected to various doses of irradiation, and cell viability was assayed using a colony assay system in semisolid medium. Results demonstrated that K562 cells transfected with MnSOD in the antisense orientation displayed increased sensitivity to irradiation compared to parental or vector-transfected K562 cells. In contrast, A375 cells transfected with the sense MnSOD gene demonstrated increased resistance to irradiation compared to parental or vector-transfected A375 cells. The expression of the MnSOD gene in these transfected cell lines correlates with the up- or down-modulation of radiosensitivity. Thus, increased MnSOD protein was seen in the A375 cells containing the sense MnSOD, whereas decreased MnSOD protein was seen in the K562 cells containing the antisense MnSOD. These data provide evidence for the direct role of MnSOD in radioprotection using antisense gene transfer/inhibition studies.


The architecture of uniform information space of Republic of Uzbekistan by a hierarchical principle on the basis distributed mobile IT systems is stated. For the information space of regional management which is formed as set of the distributed databases and knowledge, storehouses of the information, computing centers, managing systems, and also applied Internet-portals and systems for representation of modern e-services the task of providing of reliability of inputting, transfer and processing of the information of a various nature and format is put and solved at a level of the users of network services of an applied level (Applied, Presentation, Session levels of OSI model). The algorithms based on principles of statistical and dictionary coding are developed for the control of the information reliability at the expense of statistical redundancy. There are used the schemes of coding by methods of Huffman, Lempel-Ziv-Welch, transformation of Burrows-Wheeler and arithmetical coding.


Background: Dexmedetomidine is useful during mapping of epileptic foci as it facilitates electrocorticography unlike most other anesthetic agents. Patients with seizure disorders taking enzyme-inducing anticonvulsants appear to be resistant to its sedative effects. The objective of the study was to compare the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile of dexmedetomidine in healthy volunteers with volunteers with seizure disorders receiving enzyme-inducing anticonvulsant medications. Methods: Dexmedetomidine was administered using a step-wise, computer-controlled infusion to healthy volunteers (n = 8) and volunteers with seizure disorders (n = 8) taking phenytoin or carbamazapine. Sedation and dexmedetomidine plasma levels were assessed at baseline, during the infusion steps, and after discontinuation of the infusion. Sedation was assessed by using the Observer's Assessment of Alertness/Sedation Scale, Ramsay Sedation Scale, and Visual Analog Scale and processed electroencephalography (entropy) monitoring. Pharmacokinetic analysis was performed on both groups, and differences between groups were determined using the standard two-stage approach. Results: A two-compartment model was fit to dexmedetomidine concentration–time data. Dexmedetomidine plasma clearance was 43% higher in the seizure group compared with the control group (42.7 vs. 29.9 l/h; P = 0.007). In contrast, distributional clearance and the volume of distribution of the central and peripheral compartments were similar between the groups. No difference in sedation was detected between the two groups during a controlled range of target plasma concentrations. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that subjects with seizure disorders taking enzyme-inducing anticonvulsant medications have an increased plasma clearance of dexmedetomidine as compared with healthy control subjects.


A simple procedure was developed for the room temperature leaching of several elements from mussel samples with a solution of 1.6 M HNO3, 1.2 M HCl and 0.1 M H2O2. The method involves the use of a sonication time of 120 min and determination by flame (FAAS) and electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS). Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, V and Zn were quantitatively recovered and Cd, Co, Cr, Rb and Se were partially leached; the leaching of Cs and Sc was poor. The effect of sample mass, reagent leaching mixture and sonication time on the extraction of the elements was evaluated from the direct analysis of the acidic phase by AAS and of the remaining solids by neutron activation analysis. The results obtained by the proposed procedure were evaluated by comparison with those obtained by ICP-MS and AAS after microwave-assisted digestion and also with those found by direct analysis of the solid sample by neutron activation. The method provides a limit of detection of 0.081, 0.012, 0.059, 0.002 and 0.007 µg ml–1 for Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg and Zn, respectively, and 0.342 ng ml–1 for Mn, and RSD values from 0.6 to 7.1% as a function of the element concentration. The recovery values found in the analysis of spiked samples ranged from 92 to 109%, and relative errors lower than 9% were found in the analysis of a certified mussel tissue.


Qi, Q.; Zhu, Z.; Zhang, R., and Liu, L., 2019. Application of coupled mathematical model of wave and tidal current in strong wind on muddy coast of Lianyungang, China. In: Guido-Aldana, P.A. and Mulahasan, S.(eds.), Advances in Water Resources and Exploration. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 93, pp. 220–231. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.In order to accurately simulate the coupled distribution of wave, tidal current and wave-current in muddy sea area under extreme typhoon weather, the advanced Weather Research and Forecasting field model was used to simulate the 10-meter wind speed on the sea surface as the driving wind field of the wave and tidal current. Considering the effect of storm surge, the formation, propagation and attenuation of wind waves in Lianyungang sea area during Typhoon Weipa and Dawei were simulated and reappeared. This paper adopts the three-dimensional tidal current model, considering the factors such as wave-induced nearshore current and the influence of wave on tidal current. There was the anticlockwise circulation circle near the typhoon center, but it was not obvious under the action of gale wind. Due to the sudden change of surface wind and barometric pressure in the sea area, the sea level and the tidal level rose strongly, and the influence of nearshore windblown current was very obvious. The wind-wave-current coupled model could better reflect the hydrodynamic field during typhoon, the changing process of which can provide dynamic conditions for further simulation of river bed erosion and siltation during typhoon.


Around the world, about 2,400 million people, in about 100 countries and territories, are still at risk of contracting malaria. Between 300 and 500 million of them get the disease each year and between 1.1 and 2.7 million die from it. In Uganda, malaria is the first cause of morbidity and mortality. It accounts for 29%-50% of all out-patients consultations, 30% of inpatients admissions and 9%-14% of inpatient deaths. Up to 23% of deaths in children under five years of age are due to malaria. The Uganda Minister of Health recently announced the intention of using DDT for Indoor Residual Spraying to decrease malaria morbidity and mortality. This spurred a heated debate. The available scientific evidence, accumulated over the years, strongly suggests that DDT, when properly used, is harmless to human beings. The attempt to control malaria, without DDT, is futile. This paper advocates an evidence based approach, free from preconceived ideas. Politicians should help to inform and sensitise public opinion, rather than spread false information harmful for public health.


Fibromyalgia is a common rheumatologic disorder. Societal costs, based on medical expenses, lost wages, lost tax revenue and compensation expenditures, are significant. Diagnosis, dependent primary on subjective patient reports, can be confirmed by mapping alterations in electrical resistance or temperature. The most effective available medication regimens are only moderately effective in the treatment of fibromyalgia and have undesirable side effects. Hypnotic, injection and electroprobe therapy appear reasonable alternatives.


Abstract Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is the most prevailing digestive tract malignant tumor worldwide with high mortality and recurrence rates. However, its potential molecular mechanism and prognostic biomarkers are still not fully understood. We aim to screen novel prognostic biomarkers related to GC prognosis using comprehensive bioinformatic tools. Methods: Four gene expression microarray data were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (GSE26942, GSE33335, GSE63089, and GSE79973). Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between gastric carcinoma and normal gastric tissue samples were identified by an integrated bioinformatic analysis. Gene Ontology (GO) term enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis were performed using statistical software R. STRING and Cytoscape software were employed to construct protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks. Hub genes with a high score of connectivity identified from the PPI network were identified. Prognostic values of hub genes were evaluated in GSE15459 dataset. Hub genes related to GC overall survival were further validated in GEPIA (Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis) online tool. Results: A total of 12 upregulated DEGs and 59 downregulated DEGs were identified when the 4 microarray data overlapped. Among them, 10 hub genes with a high score of connectivity were identified. High expression of ghrelin and obestatin prepropeptide (GHRL), BGN, TIMP metallopeptidase inhibitor 1, thrombospondin 2, secreted phosphoprotein 1, and low expression of CHGA were associated with a poor overall survival of gastric cancer (all log rank P < .05). After validation in GEPIA database, only GHRL was confirmed associated with a poor overall survival of gastric cancer (log rank P = .04). Conclusions: GHRL could be used as a novel biomarker for the prediction of a poor overall survival of gastric cancer, and could be a novel therapeutic target for gastric cancer treatment. However, future experimental studies are still required to validate these findings.


Title of Document: ENGAGING IN COMMUNITY SERVICE AND CITIZENSHIP: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS BASED UPON COMMUNITY SERVICE PARTICIPATION PRIOR TO COLLEGE Jennifer Bonnet, Master of Arts, 2008 Directed By: Dr. Susan Jones, Associate Professor Department of Counseling and Personnel Services This study addressed community service participation and citizenship among undergraduate students, based upon participation in community service prior to college. In particular, this study investigated three service groups: mandatory volunteers in high school, non-mandatory volunteers prior to college, and students who had never volunteered prior to college. Gender, race/ethnicity, and parent(s)/guardian(s) education were also examined. Data were collected from 47,898 undergraduate students at 52 institutions across the U.S., as part of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership. Two four-way analyses of variance were conducted to evaluate differences in college 1) community service participation and 2) citizenship, when considering service group, gender, race/ethnicity, and parent(s)/guardian(s) education. Regarding community service participation, significant main effects emerged for service group, gender, and race/ethnicity. Results for citizenship evidenced significant main effects for service group and race/ethnicity, and interaction effects for parent(s)/guardian(s) education by race/ethnicity by gender, and parent(s)/guardian(s) education by race/ethnicity by gender by service group.


"The current international security situation determined by the new economic, financial, political, military and social context, in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, is perhaps one of the major challenges that the states have to face in their development and existence. Beyond the concept of consolidated national defence, the need for an alliance and for lifting the barriers between states in the face of the waves of the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus contamination is a reality which is difficult to characterise. In this context, we rediscover the meaning of terms such as "uncertainty", "probability" and "knowledge" as well as the "Black Swan" – a highly improbable event, identified by rarity, extreme impact and surprise, which, despite the unexpected, could have been demonstrated predictable. Hybrid warfare – a trend in the international affairs at the beginning of the 21st century is already one of the intriguing topics of many studies on security or of epic writings about "an immediate future". The role of the military component in the societal network of the interconnected domains becomes a major one, which requires a reassessment of the military specialist's skills, in an extended situational awareness, on the critical infrastructure protection societal coordinates."


Abstract Background: Thyroidectomy has been considered an effective method to treat thyroid cancer. However, about 20% of patients have psychological distress before surgery. Psychological distress is considered common mental illnesses and it has been reported that the patients who suffer psychological distress have poor clinical outcomes than the patients without psychosocial disorder. Therefore, we design this randomized controlled study to explore the effect of psychological nursing intervention against quality of life and psychological distress of the patients with thyroid cancer. Method: The trial will be conducted from September 2020 to December 2020 at Wuhan Fourth Hospital on the basis of the International Council for Harmonisation's Good Clinical Practice Guidelines and the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. The study was authorized via the Research Ethics Committee of the Wuhan Fourth Hospital (Approval number: 20200721-046). This study is a single-center, randomized, 2-arm, evaluator-blinded clinical trial. In all, 90 patients with thyroid cancer undergoing thyroidectomy will be enrolled in this study. The inclusion criteria includes: patients aged between 20 and 60 years old; ASA I-II classification; normal platelet coagulation and count function. The exclusion criteria contains: people with the intellectual and cognitive impairment (behavioral-cognitive intervention); BMI above 35 kg/m2; the history of renal and hepatic dysfunction; and patients refuse to participate in this study. Both the patients in psychological intervention group and control group should receive the routine care, while the psychological intervention group also needs to receive the additional proper psychological nursing interventions. The emotional disorders are detected with the Chinese version of Profile of Mood States-Brief. And the patients' life quality is evaluated with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core Questionnaire (QLQ-C30, version 3.0). All the data are collated into Microsoft Excel 2010 and analyzed with SPSS 12.0 (IBM). Results: It is assumed that psychological nursing intervention could alleviate the psychological distress of patients with thyroid cancer and improve their quality of life. Conclusion: This study can provide the reliable evidence regarding the influence of psychological nursing intervention against the life quality and psychological distress of the patients with thyroid cancer. Trial registration: This study protocol is registered in Research Registry (researchregistry5937).