An ex vivo resuscitation of kidney function following substantial post mortem warm ischemia was attempted with the ultimate goal of overcoming the ischemic barriers in organ retrieval for transplantation. The resuscitation technology involved reperfusion at 32°C with an acellular solution to reinstitute oxidative metabolism of sufficient magnitude to restore function after a substantial postmortem warm ischemic insult. The ability to resuscitate renal function at various time periods postmortem was evaluated. Resuscitation parameters included perfusion pressures, vascular flow rates, vascular resistances, restoration of diuresis with concordant urinary creatinine concentrations, and blinded histologic evaluations. The results of this study suggest that it may one day be feasible to resuscitate organs following as much as-2 hr of postmortem warm ischemia for clinical transplantation. An expanded donor pool consisting of allografts resuscitated post mortem from what is now considered to be the "non retrieval donor" could help alleviate the chronic organ shortage. Furthermore, since organs resuscitated ex vivo at 32°C exhibited ongoing metabolism, which was artificially supported rather than inhibited by traditional hypothermia, diuresis was restored. The ability to collect and analyze urine during organ resuscitation and preservation may present the opportunity to assess organ function prospectively.


The significant progress in terms of fabricating large-area graphene films for transparent electrodes, barriers, electronics, telecommunication and other applications has not yet been accompanied by efficient methods for characterizing the electrical properties of large-area graphene. While in the early prototyping as well as research and development phases, electrical test devices created by conventional lithography have provided adequate insights, this approach is becoming increasingly problematic due to complications such as irreversible damage to the original graphene film, contamination, and a high measurement effort per device. In this topical review, we provide a comprehensive overview of the issues that need to be addressed by any large-area characterisation method for electrical key performance indicators, with emphasis on electrical uniformity and on how this can be used to provide a more accurate analysis of the graphene film. We review and compare three different, but complementary approaches that rely either on fixed contacts (dry laser lithography), movable contacts (micro four point probes) and non-contact (terahertz time-domain spectroscopy) between the probe and the graphene film, all of which have been optimized for maximal throughput and accuracy, and minimal damage to the graphene film. Of these three, the main emphasis is on THz time-domain spectroscopy, which is non-destructive, highly accurate and allows both conductivity, carrier density and carrier mobility to be mapped across arbitrarily large areas at rates that by far exceed any other known method. We also detail how the THz conductivity spectra give insights on the scattering mechanisms, and through that, the microstructure of graphene films subject to different growth and transfer processes. The perspectives for upscaling to realistic production environments are discussed.


Goal of research - to evaluate the role of myofascial syndrome developing on the background of cervical pathology, dysfunction of the temporomandibular joint or occlusive disorders. The myofascial syndrome manifests itself in the development of pain phenomena, cochlear and vestibular symptoms similar to the symptoms of the diseases of the ENT organs.Materials and methods. We have analyzed the results of several studies conducted in 2012-2017 at L. I. Sver-zhevsky Otorhinolaryngology Research Clinical Institute, which involved more than 3 000 people with neck and head pain and/or cochleovestibular symptoms in combination with myofascial pain syndrome (MFPS), developing on the background of cervical pathology, dysfunction of the temporomandibular joint or occlusive disorders.Results. Patterns of development of the MFPS in head and neck regions, as well as peculiarities of diagnostics of trigger points with pain and non-pain manifestations (buzzing in ears, ear fullness, loss of hearing, dizziness) were defi ned. The principles of MFPS treatment with pain and non-pain manifestations and therapy options used in L. I. Sverzhevsky Otorhinolaryngology Research Clinical Institute were described. The effect of pathogenetic therapy is shown in the collaborative work of doctors of different specialties: ENT specialist, neurologist, physiotherapist and dentist.Conclusion. Myofascial syndrome of the pericranial muscles can be one of the causes of face and neck pain imitating diseases of ENT organs and dental pathologies. Treatment of such clinical forms should be the subject of an interdisciplinary approach. It should include pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical methods: analgesia, relaxation and stretching of the corresponding muscles.


Background The Subjective Risk Estimation (SER) depends on the own driving skills self- assessment and the calibration made between the benefits and cost involved in this risk at the moment of driving. Offender drivers' assumption of higher risk could be related with a more general factor that also involves the assumption of higher risk in other facets of their lives that could derive in drugs taking or other kind of additions. Deficient SER could be considered as a TRAIT, a higher proneness or disposition that only some drivers could show as another characteristic of their personality (measured with the DOSPERT (Domain-Specific Risk Taking). It could also be possible to establish a relation with other personality measures related to Anger or Aggressive Driving, measured with DAS (Driving Anger Scale). Methods The Subjective Risk Estimation (SER) is measured with the DOSPERT (Domain-Specific Risk Taking Scale). The Anger to Aggressive Driving is measured with DAS (Driving Anger Scale). Results In this work we would like to find out if could deficient SER be considered as a TRAIT of personality and some drivers could show a higher proneness to it (i.e. offender drivers) and if does deficient SER take part of a more general pattern of behaviour related with risk behaviour (drugs taking, alcohol consumption, and addiction to food or sex) that should be also trait to sort the problem out. Results are in progress. Conclusions This knowledge could be useful to better understand the different profiles of drivers. To plan prevention and to settle better strategies of intervention and treatment of the specific lacks for each group of drivers, for instance, reducing aggressive driving or helping to be aware of the problem and dealing with the Anger in offender drivers.


Supported Ni2P catalysts are efficient for the hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of liquid fuels. In situ extended x-ray absorption fine-structure (EXAFS) analysis of the Ni2P catalyst under realistic HDS conditions revealed the formation of Ni-S bonds in the catalyst system. In order to identify the origin of these bonds, a quick x-ray absorption fine structure (QXAFS) system was set up, which enabled measurement of one Ni K-edge EXAFS spectrum in 10 sec. In addition, a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) unit was incorporated to the QXAFS system, which allowed simultaneous measurements of XAFS and IR spectra on the same sample. The catalyst (12.2 wt% Ni2P/MCM-41) was activated under H2 at 723 K to regenerate an active phosphide phase. After activation, a reaction gas mixture (thiophene/He/H2 = 0.1/1.9/98, at a total flow rate of 102 ml/min) was introduced. Under the reaction conditions, there was a change in the pre-edge area of XANES, which corresponded to the evolution of Ni-S bonds in EXAFS. The simultaneous measurements of XANES and IR revealed that this Ni-S could be attributed to the formation of a Ni phosphosulfide species rather than bonding between Ni and S of adsorbed thiophene. The combined in situ techniques proved to be an effective tool for the characterization of working catalysts.


We have used the newly developed concept of CROSS (cation ratio of soil structural stability) instead of SAR (sodium adsorption ratio) in our study on dispersive soils. CROSS incorporates the differential dispersive powers of Na and K and the differences in the flocculating effects of Ca and Mg. The CROSS of the dispersed soil solutions, from the differently treated soils of three soil types varying in clay content, mineralogy, and organic matter, was highly correlated with the amount of clay dispersed. The relation between CROSS and exchangeable cation ratio depended on soil type, and particularly organic matter and the content and mineralogy of clay. Threshold electrolyte concentration of the flocculated suspensions was significantly correlated with CROSS of the dispersed suspensions. The cationic flocculating charge of the flocculated suspensions, which incorporates the individual flocculating powers of the cations, was significantly correlated with CROSS. However, these types of relations will depend on several soil factors even within a given soil class. Therefore, we have derived the dispersive potential of an individual soil from which we calculated the required cationic amendments to maintain flocculated soils and their structural integrity.


Motivation: Code camps and hackathons been used in education for almost two decades. These approaches are usually intensive and for most times quite practical events for solving some real-world problems with various educational objectives. The objectives and structures of these events differ depending on the role of the event in curricula. Problem statement: Both code camps and hackathons been implemented in various ways, with varying success levels. As expected the implementation of the event varies considerably depending on the objectives set for the event, but that then leads to the difficulty and problem setting to understand what organizing of these events actually mean. For educational context, curricula have also its role in defining the targeted skills and competencies the events has to consider too. Approach: We applied a systematic literature review (SLR) to look at the various definitions and modes of these events. Whether it is called "code camp", or "hackathon", or anything else with the same basic meaning, we want to find out what skills and competencies these events emphasize, how they are used in Computer Science (CS) and Software Engineering (SE) education and what are the general structures of the actual arranged events. Contribution: It is aim of this SLR to i) identify various possible ways of implementing these intensive events, and ii) reflect the results to the lessons we have learned of almost two decades of various intensive code camps and hackathons we have been organizing building and participating into. Based on the results, we claim that there is tremendous potential of using these events in education and in the curriculum than how it has been applied so far.


Abstract The planning and design of any coal mine development requires among others a thorough investigation of the geological, geotechnical and hydrogeological subsurface conditions. As part of a coal mine exploration program we conducted heat pulse vertical flow meter testing. The flow data were combined with absolute and differential temperature logging data to gain information about the hydraulic characteristics of two different coal seams and their over- and interburden. For the strata that were localised based on geophysical logging data including density, gamma ray and resistivity hydraulic properties were quantified. We demonstrate that the temperature log response complements the flow meter log response. A coupling of both methods is therefore recommended to get an insight into the hydraulic conditions in a coal seam and its overburden.


Abstract: The epidemiology of Staphylococcus spp. has become a major concern among humans and animals due to increasing antimicrobial resistance and frequent reports of infection. Despite the importance of animals as reservoirs for staphylococci, little is known about the epidemiology of Staphylococcus spp. in most nondomestic species, including canids and felids. This study evaluated the frequency, distribution, and patterns of antimicrobial resistance of staphylococcal species isolated from captive felids and canids from Belo Horizonte Zoo, Brazil. Rectal, oral, and nasal swabs from apparently healthy maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus, n= 7), a lion (Panthera leo, n = 1), jaguars (Panthera onca, n = 3), and one swab of a cougar (Puma concolor) with an ear infection were streaked onto mannitol salt agar. Colonies identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry, polymerase chain reaction for the Staphylococcus intermedius group (SIG), and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Isolates were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility tests and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius strains were subjected to multilocus sequence typing. Staphylococcus species were isolated from 24 of the 34 samples (70.6%). Among the isolated strains, S. pseudintermedius and Staphylococcus felis were the most frequent species (41.7 and 25%, respectively). Five novel sequence types were identified among the S. pseudintermedius isolates. Resistance to tetracycline (7/24, 29.2%) or penicillin (6/23, 26.1%) was significantly higher than the other antimicrobial agents tested (P < 0.05). One isolate, Staphylococcus nepalensis, was positive for mecA and resistant to five antimicrobials, and was thus classified as multidrug-resistant. The present work suggests that maned wolves are natural hosts of SIG and also reports the isolation of S. felis in sick and healthy, captive, nondomestic carnivores. The isolated staphylococci were susceptible to most classes of antimicrobials tested. However, the multidrug-resistance capability of an S. nepalensis strain reinforces the hypothesis that felids and canids act as reservoirs of pathogens with antimicrobial resistance.


The Southern African Stone Age covers the longest period in human history, that is, the last three million years of human evolution and adaptation in a region south of the 18th parallel south. The region includes the countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, with a northern border marked by the Kunene River between Angola and Namibia, the Cuando River on the borders of Angola, Namibia, and Botswana, and the Zambezi River. It is divided into three main phases, known as Early, Middle, and Later Stone Age. The Early Stone Age had its beginning about three million years ago with the development of Australopithecus, found in South Africa in the region called the Cradle of Humankind. The earliest stone tools in the region were discovered in the cave of Sterkfontein and are dated to around two million years ago. These first stone tools, which include choppers, polyhedrons, and subspheroids, among other artifacts, are part of an industrial complex known as the Oldowan, which lasted for a few hundred thousand of years. It was followed by the Acheulean, known by its unique large cutting tools, the handaxes, cleavers, and picks, starting about 1.8 million years ago. During this period, species such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus/ergaster walked over southern Africa. The Middle Stone Age, starting about three hundred thousand years ago, seems to be directly associated with the emergence of a new species, Homo sapiens. This phase shows a wide cultural diversity in the region, and in fact across the whole African continent, both in time and space. This is a phase drastically marked by technological and cultural innovations, such as the use of bow and arrow, hafting, bone tools, lithic heat treatment, use of pigments, production of body ornaments such as beads, art in the form of engravings, and, finally, the systematic inclusion of shellfish and plants in the human diet. These innovations, however, were not used all in the same location. This congregation of techniques and innovations took place only during the next phase, the Later Stone Age, which started around thirty-five thousand years ago. It is likely the result of an important demographic change that occurred as a response to climatic oscillations that took place at the world level. Like the Middle Stone Age, the Later Stone Age saw an incredible range of cultural diversity in the large region of southern Africa. Traditionally, it was believed that the main differences between the Middle and Later Stone Ages were based on a dichotomy where, on one side, points and flake industries resulting from prepared cores such as Levallois were present, and on the other, simple cores producing microlithic assemblages, sometimes geometric, together with art, and beads and organic tools were present. Today, however, that simplistic contrast is known to be wrong, and the differences in cultural complexity are more a matter of concentration than innovation. The Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers were finally slowly replaced by farmers and herders and later by Iron Age populations, between twenty-five hundred years ago and the recent historical present.


BIOLOGICAL WEAPONSRevelations about the extent of the former Soviet Union's biological weapons program and recent discoveries by United Nations inspectors of Iraq's widespread efforts have led both the European Union and the Clinton Administration to push for a compliance protocol to be negotiated for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) by the end of this year. Negotiations resumed last week in Geneva to finally put some teeth into the BTWC, an arms control agreement that currently has no mechanism to check whether signatories are complying. The compliance protocol will likely require some biotech firms and academic microbiologists to file reports detailing the materials they possess and submit to regular inspections.


An effective boson Hamiltonian applicable to atomic beam splitters, coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, and optical lattices can be made exactly solvable by including all n-body interactions. The model can include an arbitrary number of boson components. In the strong interaction limit the model becomes a quantum phase model, which also describes a tight-binding lattice particle. Through exact results for dynamic correlation functions, it is shown how the previous weak interaction dynamics of these systems are extended to strong interactions, now becoming relevant in the experiments. The effect of the number of boson components is also analyzed.


The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of mood on the detection of covariation. Predictions were based on an assumption that sad moods facilitate a data-driven information elaboration style and careful data scrutinizing, whereas happy moods predispose individuals toward top-down information processing and decrease the attention given to cognitive tasks. The primary dependent variable involved is the detection of covariation between facial features and personal information and the use of this information for evaluating new target faces. The findings support the view that sad mood facilitates both conscious and unconscious detection of covariation because it increases motivation to engage in the task. Limiting available cognitive resources does not eliminate the effect of mood on the detecting of covariation.


Fat balance studies were done on rhesus monkeys irradiated with 325, 400 and 650 r total-body x-irradiation. The postirradiational results were compared with the preirradiational values of the same monkeys and with those obtained in pair-fed controls. No defect in fat absorption was found due to the irradiation. Increased fecal fat loss after irradiation was observed in both irradiated and nonirradiated animals. Monkeys given 650 r had liver lipid concentrations similar to their pair-fed controls. These analyses were done at 12, 96 and 229 days after irradiation. Changes in body weight in all animals paralleled decreases in food intake immediately after irradiation and subsequent increases with recovery. Hematologic studies showed the usual decrease in leucocyte count after irradiation. One monkey given 650 r was killed 12 days postirradiation because death was imminent; all other animals survived the irradiation.


Abstract Glaucoma may develop or worsen after ocular surface transplantation and often requires surgical management for adequate intraocular pressure control. Traditional glaucoma filtering procedures in patients with prior ocular surface transplant may be problematic for several reasons, which include mechanical disruption of the pre-existing graft, epithelial and stem cell toxicity induced by antifibrotic agents, and increased risk of future corneal transplantation failure. We describe the implantation of a glaucoma drainage implant via a limbal-based conjunctival incision with tube placement in the ciliary sulcus in three eyes of two patients with prior ocular surface transplantation. At a follow-up interval of 3–7 months, all three eyes have excellent postoperative control of intraocular pressure, stable vision, and healthy ocular surface grafts.


This paper deals with firmware updates for embedded systems, more precisely with the update processing on target devices. It presents a new lightweight yet efficient patch module for differential updates. It also provides analysis and comparison of two update strategies, single-bank and dual-bank approach. Differential updates use delta files that encode only differences between firmware images and require different processing than standard full firmware image transfer. The designed module is written to be easily portable to different hardware platforms. It reduces the amount of memory pages that must be erased during an update to preserve durability of the memories. The paper describes the patch module, its take on the single and dual-bank approaches, discusses advantages and disadvantages of each approach and shows experimental results from its implementation for the nRF52840 system on a chip from Nordic Semiconductor. Contact authors of this paper for source code of the patch module.


In the past years, considerable effort has been made towards integrating technological enhancement and support for learning, these technologies have not only impacted the field of education, but have also expanded and challenge our thinking of what constitute a learning environment. In spite of the fact that the world is without a doubt three dimension, we are always inclined to teach by utilizing two dimensional technology, which we know is static and offers no powerful substance, but since we trust it to be more adaptable, more helpful and less expensive. This research is a quantitative research that explores the use of two different questionnaires to access the level of 3D technological readiness and general technological readiness among students of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and all analysis were done using SPSS version 20 software. The questionnaires were both found to be reliable with Cronbach's Alpha .730 for 3D technological questionnaire and .783 for the general technology questionnaire  It was found that the students are ready for the implementation of 3D technology in education with mean = 3.5403 and that they are undecided when it comes to general technological readiness with mean = 3.427 which was attributed to the ambiguous nature of the word technology. No significant difference was found in terms of readiness between the two genders, but Civil Engineering Department students are more ready. A significant positive correlation was found between the two questionnaires


Genetic variability in a population of wild rhesus monkeys near the village of Dunga Gali, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan (Melnick et al., Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 63:341-360, 1984) was compared to similar variation in other wild-caught rhesus monkeys. Regional samples of rhesus from different parts of Asia all displayed similar amounts of variation (i.e., P and Hi) and were consistently more variable than the Dunga Gali local population. Despite these differences in the level of genetic variation, genetic diversity is fairly evenly distributed across the species range. Thus only 3-9% of the total gene diversity of Macaca mulatta can be attributed to differences among major regions. The differences that do exist tend toward a weak geographic cline with clustering of populations into an eastern and a western group. Both selection and drift/migration models explain this general genetic homogeneity. More genetic (protein and DNA) and zoogeographic data are necessary to choose between these models.


Interventional Radiology (IVR) is an important technique to visualize and diagnosis the vascular disease. In real medical application, a weak x-ray radiation source is used for imaging in order to reduce the radiation dose, resulting in a low contrast noisy image. It is important to develop a method to smooth out the noise while enhance the vascular structure. In this paper, we propose to combine an ICA Shrinkage filter with a multiscale filter for enhancement of IVR images. The ICA shrinkage filter is used for noise reduction and the multiscale filter is used for enhancement of vascular structure. Experimental results show that the quality of the image can be dramatically improved without any blurring in edge by the proposed method. Simultaneous noise reduction and vessel enhancement have been achieved.


OBJECTIVE
To elucidate the types of patients cared for by physician assistants (PAs), specifically older adults and those with complex medical conditions.

METHODS
A nationwide survey was sent to PAs asking about their practice demographics, including the complexity of their patients and the types of treatment they provide; 676 responded.

RESULTS
Less than 2% of PAs specialize in geriatrics but 92.1% of PAs see patients over age 65 years. Most PAs see patients with conditions associated with aging, including hypertension (85.8%) and osteoarthritis (82.1%) as well as those with three or more comorbidities (54.8%) or who are medically complex (52.8%).

CONCLUSIONS
Although few PAs work exclusively in geriatrics, most PAs are providing medical care for older adults and patients with complex healthcare needs. PAs should be considered to fill healthcare needs that will continue to exist when caring for this patient population.


This paper is the study on random, sinusoidal and shock vibration responses for the STSAT-3(science and technology satellite-3) proto-model which is the first small size all-composite satellite in Korea. The structure system of the STSAT-3 forms box type structure by joining several hybrid sandwich panels comprised of honeycomb core and carbon fiber reinforced laminated composite skins on both side. Mode shape, stress, displacement and acceleration responses are obtained on both the frequency domain and time domain by means of a commercial FEA software MSC/NASTRAN. From these analysis results, failure, safety factor and design validity are assessed. These results can be successfully applicable as reference data when a new satellite is developed as well as giving out an excellent criteria in satellite vibration treatment design.


The paper contributes towards the development of a unified control approach for longitudinal aircraft dynamics with large flight envelopes. Prior to the control design, we analyze the existence and the uniqueness of the equilibrium orientation along a reference velocity. We show that shape symmetries and aerodynamic stall phenomena imply the existence of the equilibrium orientation irrespective of the reference velocity. The equilibrium orientation, however, is not in general unique, and this may trigger an aircraft loss-of-control for specific reference velocities. Conditions that ensure the local and the global uniqueness of the equilibrium orientation are stated. We show that the uniqueness of the equilibrium orientation is intimately related to the so-called spherical equivalency, i.e. the existence of a thrust change of variable rendering the direction of the transformed external force independent of the vehicle's orientation, as in the case of spherical shapes. Once this transformation is applied, control laws for reference velocities can be designed. These laws extend the so-called vectored--thrust control paradigm %developed for systems subject to orientation-independent external forces, e.g. spherical shapes, to the case of generic body shapes subject to steady aerodynamics.


Summary Laboratory studies have provided evidence that the replication of dengue viruses in preparations of primary peripheral blood mononuclear cells of human or simian origin, or in macrophage-like cell lines of human or murine origin, may be enhanced by sub-neutralizing concentrations of homotypic dengue antibody, by heterotypic dengue antibody, or by antibody against heterologous flaviviruses. The mechanism underlying this phenomenon is discussed in the context of dengue haemorrhagic fever and the dengue shock syndrome.


J. Taylor Perron received the 2011 Luna B. Leopold Young Scientist Award at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting, held 5–9 December in San Francisco, Calif. The award recognizes "a young scientist for making a significant and outstanding contribution that advances the field of Earth and planetary surface processes."


Continuous Auditing, broadly defined as the transformation of internal and external auditing through the application of modern information technology, is being increasingly adopted by firms throughout the world. Organizations ranging from Siemens, HCA, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, BIPOP Bank and the Internal Revenue Service are developing tools and practices that will bring assurance closer to the transaction and reduce through automation, the cost of auditing. A June 2006 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey finds that 50% of U.S. companies now use continuous auditing techniques and 31% percent of the rest have already made plans to follow suit. In this article we introduce the concepts of CA to a Brazilian audience and discuss its further application there.


Though the power supply scenario in Assam is not comparable with other developed states of India, yet it is improving gradually. With increasing household electrification rate, increasing income and technological development, the share of Domestic electricity consumption in the state is experiencing a rapid growth in comparison to the other sectors like Industry, Commerce, Agriculture etc. and therefore the forecasting of domestic electricity consumption become very important to meet the power needs of the consumer. The aim of this study is to suggest the best forecasting model for domestic electricity consumption in Assam. For this purpose, three models viz. Multiple Linear Regression considering the effects of population and per capita income; ARIMA and Growth curves viz Linear, Quadratic, Cubic, Exponential, Logarithmic and Inverse are used considering the time period 1980-2018. When growth curves are compared in terms of diagnostic criteria- Adjusted R2, RMSE, AME and MAPE, then it is found that exponential model fits the data better than the other growth models. After that, comparisons are made among the models Multiple Linear Regression, ARIMA and Exponential by considering their average relative error and found the efficiency of ARIMA the highest followed by Exponential and Multiple Linear Regression models. Therefore, forecasting of domestic electricity consumption in Assam has been done with ARIMA model for the next 10 years.


Chinese calligraphy, which distinctively represents traditional Chinese culture, contains many culture-specific
 aesthetic terms that pose a translation challenge requiring creative cross-cultural strategies. This study presents several
 English translations for four key Chinese aesthetic terms on calligraphy, namely shi 勢 (roughly translated as "vital force" or "energy"),
 yun 韻 (once translated as
 "rhythmic life" or "life movement"), fei bai 飛白 ("flying white" or "hollow strokes") and jibai-danghei 計白當黑 (literally: treating white areas like black ink). It examines
 their effectiveness in facilitating cross-cultural understanding and maximizing cultural authenticity. This article points out
 that most of these terms have been adequately contextualized in English over the past century, even though some are rendered in
 English using terms borrowed from Western art history. This shows how cultural translation, the theoretical basis of this study,
 comes into play when dealing with Chinese aesthetic terms in calligraphy.


One in the ways of measuring the behavior of the economy of a country, is through the local stock exchanges. In Colombia the economic behavior of the Stock exchange is measured mainly through three indicators: the Colcap, the Col20 and the Igbc, this last one is the oldest and more used by the agents that intervene in the market market. Presently document is exposed as predicting the behavior of the market index Igbc through the methodology of the nets neuronales, offering the investor the possibility to project the behavior of the market market Colombian in an efficient way.


The fire resistance characteristic of LSF wall systems mainly depends on the protective linings in use, commonly gypsum plasterboards. However, unclassified boards with varying composition and more notably with ambiguous thermal properties are increasingly becoming available in the market. Therefore a study was undertaken with an aim to set minimum standards for fire protective boards used in LSF wall applications. This paper presents the details of this study based on material characterisation and finite element thermal modelling of the most commonly used fire protective board, gypsum plasterboards, to address these critical issues related to fire safety design. In the material characterisation phase of this study, thermal properties of three different gypsum plasterboards manufactured in Australia were measured, analysed and compared. Subsequently, it proposes a thermal property based "k-factor" capable of giving an overall measure of the fire performance of boards, so that it can be used in appropriately classifying fire protective boards. As it is not known how this factor relates to the overall fire performance of LSF wall systems, numerical models were also developed and used to simulate the performance of LSF walls exposed to the standard fire. Finally, a correlation between time-temperature profiles from numerical analyses and calculated k-factors was established.


The objective of this work is to identify the hand written digits represented by rectangular box of 16x16 in a gray scale of 256 values. Backpropagation neural network (BPN) is one of the simplest models of supervised training multi layer neural networks. In this paper we design an BPN and train it with a set of hand written data. We also implement BPN on Master – Slave architecture to minimize the learning time. The performance parameters are evaluated for both sequential implementation and parallel implementation on Master – Slave architecture.


BACKGROUND
The clinical presentations and endoscopic features of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are diverse, and can mimic other inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases.

METHODS
From 1987 to 2003 at Chang-Gung Medical Center, 20 patients with CMV infections of the GI tract who were assessed using endoscopic examinations and diagnosed via pathologic studies were retrospectively reviewed.

RESULTS
Most of the patients were adults with immunocompromised conditions (10/20). GI tract bleeding was the most common clinical manifestation (11/20). Five patients presented with abdominal pain, and two patients presented with diarrhea. Fifteen patients suffered from fever. The endoscopic abnormalities could be classified into four main groups: inflammatory mucosa alone (3/20), ulceration alone (7/20), inflammatory mucosa associated with ulcer (9/20) and sub-mucosal tumor with ulcer (1/20). Of the 17 patients with ulcer lesions, ten had multiple ulcers and 12 had large ulcers exceeding 2 centimeters in diameter. Of the six patients followed up with colonoscopy, one was free of disease, one had a single ulcer, and four had colitis and were CMV positive on repeat biopsy. Two patients had colon strictures with persistent CMV colitis.

CONCLUSION
Many patients with GI tract CMV infection are immunocompromised. Gastrointestinal bleeding is the most common initial presentation of gastrointestinal CMV disease. Fever is the most common associated toxic sign. Sigmoidoscopy cannot replace colonoscopy for detecting CMV colitis. The most common feature is multiple ulcers with at least one large ulcer. Endoscopic follow-up in patients with CMV colitis is recommended to investigate for possible persistent colitis and strictures.


The loop between alpha-helix 6 and beta-strand F of the phosphofructokinase (PFK) from Bacillus stearothermophilus is proposed to be important in the allosteric transition of the enzyme [Schirmer, T., & Evans, P.R. (1990) Nature 343, 140-145]. Except for residue 161, the amino acids within the loop are similar between B. stearothermophilus PFK (BsPFK) and the PFK from Escherichia coli (EcPFK). In the former enzyme, residue 161 is a glutamate, while in the latter it is a glutamine. We have used site-directed mutagenesis to investigate the importance of residue 161 for the allosteric regulation of the two enzymes by phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP), an inhibitor, and GDP, an activator. In BsPFK, glutamate 161 has been changed to a glutamine and an alanine, while in EcPFK, glutamine 161 has been changed to a glutamate, an arginine, and an alanine. The kinetic parameters of the mutant enzymes were similar to those of the respective wild types, indicating that residue 161 is not directly involved in substrate binding and catalysis. One of the EcPFK mutants, Q161A, though activated normally by GDP, was completely insensitive to PEP. This indicates that the hydrogen-bonding ability of residue 161 is critical for PEP inhibition of EcPFK and suggests that GDP activation and PEP inhibition follow different structural pathways in EcPFK. The BsPFK mutant enzymes were less sensitive to PEP inhibition and more sensitive to GDP activation, suggesting that inhibition and activation are opposed and follow a common structural pathway in agreement with a concerted allosteric mechanism.


Community action is one of the health promotion strategies that is considered to solve health problems. Community action has a positive effect on the improvement of public health, especially in reducing non-communicable diseases. This strategy uses available resources within the community to implement changes. It is based on these principles: empowering communities to act effectively to improve health and empowerment of the health care system to work with communities. The purpose of strengthening community action is to support people to recognize their capacity for creating safe and healthy communities. Thus, community action is not imposed on individuals from special representative or specific organs. Paper Type: Editorial


The artistic heir of sonic artists such as John Cage and James Tenney, John Luther Adams is one of the most significant and highly regarded contemporary American composers. The Farthest Place is the first critical look at the work of the composer whom the New Yorker critic Alex Ross has called "one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century." While often identified with the Alaska that so inspires him, Adams is anything but a regionalist. Though inspired by the wild and open nature that surrounds him,"Adams does not represent nature through music. He creates tonal territories that resonate with nature-immersive listening experiences that evoke limitless distance, suspended time, deep longing and even transcendence." In addition to the New Yorker piece by Alex Ross, and original essays by Kyle Gann and Wilco's own Glenn Kotche, The Farthest Place includes essays by scholars, critics, composers, and performers, merging theoretical and historical observations, musical and environmental questions with analytical discourse and personal commentaries on Adams's music and thought.


Urbanization results in considerable land use changes in urban areas, increasing potential flood impacts. However, the majority of the main urban stormwater management systems are still pipe based systems, collecting excess water from urban sub-catchments and transferring it to outlets. This system is highly reliant on the structure of the piped drainage network and its capacity. In addition, stormwater drainage network structures are predominately acyclic systems that transfer load from sources to outlets by gravity. This type of network structure provides a minimum level of connectivity without alternative pathways between source nodes and destinations. Water sensitive design (WSD) in stormwater is a new sustainable development approach that attempts to overcome the constraint of drained city systems and move toward a resilient system not only for flood control but also by protecting natural freshwater resources and ecosystems. To conduct WSD in stormwater, many approaches have been introduced to improve reducing peak flow and flood volume in the system. However, there is not a robust framework to quantify the change in the resilience of stormwater management systems using these approaches. This paper introduces an index based methodology to quantify the resilience of primary stormwater management systems in terms of the network structure and hydraulic capacity dimensions. In the hydraulic capacity dimension, the degree of resilience for a primary stormwater system is quantified by accounting for the temporal nature of system robustness and functionality during the conveyance of different extreme rainfall events. To demonstrate this approach, a resilience-based approach is introduced to determine the best practicable option for a stormwater management plan within an urban catchment using WSD approaches by considering the two main objectives of WSD for flood quantity controls. These two aims are controlling flood volume and peak flow rate generated in an area in order to control the flow quantity downstream. These two objectives impact directly on hydraulic performance capacity (HPC) of the affected primary stormwater management system within the urban catchment by improving the robustness value and altering recovery and loss rates of the system.


Representing surfaces as zero level sets of neural networks recently emerged as a powerful modeling paradigm, named Implicit Neural Representations (INRs), serving numerous downstream applications in geometric deep learning and 3D vision. Training INRs previously required choosing between occupancy and distance function representation and different losses with unknown limit behavior and/or bias. In this paper we draw inspiration from the theory of phase transitions of fluids and suggest a loss for training INRs that learns a density function that converges to a proper occupancy function, while its log transform converges to a distance function. Furthermore, we analyze the limit minimizer of this loss showing it satisfies the reconstruction constraints and has minimal surface perimeter, a desirable inductive bias for surface reconstruction. Training INRs with this new loss leads to state-of-the-art reconstructions on a standard benchmark.


This paper develops a method for finding a robust test plan, which consists of a mixture of full system and subsystem tests, to estimate the reliability of a system given that the model for the system reliability is flawed. A robust test plan is developed by trading off the number of full system and subsystem tests to minimize the mean-squared error (MSE) of the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of system reliability. The MSE is decomposed into the variance of the MLE and a bias from incorrectly specifying the model that relates the subsystem reliabilities to the full system reliability (series, parallel, other). The variance of the MLE is based on the inverse Fisher Information. The bias is due to the modeling error. A demonstration of the test plan determination is given for a hypothetical system by trading off between the MSE (estimation accuracy), the degree of modeling error, and the cost of doing system and subsystem tests. A Pareto frontier can be identified, as illustrated in the paper.


Introduction and objectives Lung volume reduction (LVR) via unilateral VATS or endoscopic placement of endobronchial valves (EBV) in carefully selected individuals with severe emphysema can result in a major improvement in quality of life. Despite being approved by NICE, there remains patchy service provision across the UK.1 In 2010, we established a multidisciplinary COPD Hyperinflation service for our region. There is a scarcity of information on such services and we report on our referral outcomes for 2015. Methods Our Hyperinflation MDT includes specialist COPD physician, specialist nurse, thoracic radiologist, thoracic surgeon, interventional pulmonologist and transplant physician. We review clinical features, CT and lung function to decide on specialist assessment, progressing to detailed physiological assessment, lung perfusion scanning and MDT discussion in some. We retrospectively reviewed outcomes on 120 patients referred for LVR assessment between 1/1/15–31/12/15. Results 111 patients underwent specialist assessment. 20% of patients were discharged, as they did not meet NICE criteria. Nonetheless, many of these patients benefited from clinical phenotyping and management recommendations. 67% of patients were discussed at MDT. 35% of patients were not offered LVR (high risk and lack of hyperinflation targets). 64% of patients were deemed suitable for LVR or transplantation [(EBV or LVRS 37%; LVRS 35%; EBV 15%; EBV bridging to transplantation 7%; transplant 4% (Figure 1)]. One patient received endobronchial coils as part of a clinical study. Patients who are considered suitable for EBV with intact or <10% defect in fissure undergo bronchoscopic balloon catheter assessment for collateral ventilation. Conclusion Our experience with this service model shows that LVR can be incorporated into existing pathways. Our model has evolved to triage patients at various points to ensure high quality discussion of selected patients at the dedicated MDT. As a result, the proportion of patients at the MDT offered LVR procedures is relatively high. MDT expertise allows optimal patient selection with effective utilisation of existing resources. We hope that these data will stimulate others to develop local models of care to enable better access to LVR for COPD patients. Abstract P199 Figure 1 Flow of patients through our COPD Hyperinflation service in 2015. MDT: multidisciplinary team; EBV: endobronchial valve; LVRS: Lung volume reducation surgery.* Endobronchial coil was offered as part of a clinical trial Reference McNulty W, et al. BMJ Open Respirat Res 2014;1:e000023.


Interactions between water and rocks are the main factors affecting the deformation of rock masses on sloped banks by reservoir impoundment. The technology used in laboratory tests of water-rock interaction mechanisms cannot simulate the coupling of water, the rock structure and the initial stress environment. In this work, we develop an in situ hydromechanical true triaxial rock compression tester and apply it to investigate the coupling response of reservoir bank rocks to changing groundwater levels. The tester is composed of a sealed chamber, loader, reactor, and device for measuring deformation, which are all capable of withstanding high water pressures, and a high-precision servo controller. The maximum axial load, lateral load and water pressure are 12 000 kN, 3 000 kN and 3 MPa, respectively. The dimensions of the test specimens are 310 mm×310 mm×620 mm. The test specimens are grey-black basalts with well-developed cracks from the Xiluodu reservoir area. The results show that increasing water pressure promotes axial compression and lateral expansion, while decreasing water pressure causes axial expansion and lateral compression. A water pressure coefficient, K, is introduced as a measure of the hydromechanical coupling effect (expansion or compression) with changing groundwater level. A mechanical tester can be used to perform accurate field tests of the response of wet rocks to hydromechanical coupling. The test results provide new information about the deformation patterns of rock slopes in areas surrounding high dams and reservoirs.Thematic collection: This article is part of the Role of water in destabilizing slopes collection available at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/Role-of-water-in-destabilizing-slopes


OBJECTIVE
Mycobacteria have been implicated in the pathogenesis of various forms of arthritis. The aim of this study was to examine the diagnostic potential of molecular biological techniques as well as to investigate the pathogenetic role of mycobacteria in chronic arthritis.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
DNA, extracted from synovial fluid and synovial tissue samples from patients with mycobacterial septic arthritis (n = 2), seronegative spondyloarthropathies (SpA) (n = 18), undifferentiated arthritis (UA) (n = 21) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (n = 40), was analysed using a mycobacterial genus-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) applied to amplify mycobacterial DNA. Subsequently, automated sequencing was performed for speciation. Samples from patients with either non-mycobacterial septic arthritis, osteoarthritis (OA), crystal arthritis or joint trauma served as negative controls (n = 19).

RESULTS
Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and Mycobacterium marinum were detected in the two patients with mycobacterial septic arthritis. The other species identified were Mycobacterium hodleri (in one RA patient), Mycobacterium smegmatis (in one OA patient and two RA patients) and Mycobacterium austroafricanum (in one crystal arthritis patient). All other samples were negative.

CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that the mycobacterial genus-specific PCR applied on DNA extracts isolated directly from joint samples may be employed as an additional diagnostic tool in the case of clinical suspicion of a mycobacterial infection. No evidence was obtained for a pathogenetic role of mycobacteria in SpA, UA or RA.


Ubiquitous in eukaryotes, Long Terminal Repeats (LTR) retrotransposons elements play important role in the genome evolution. Sequencing of genomes presents a great challenge of rapidly identifying them in large-scale genomic data. In this report we describe LTR_INSERT, a computational method for identifying LTR elements in genomic sequences. Our method provides structural and evolutionary supports to discover LTR elements. By applying LTR_INSERT to two rice genomes, we have identified 72 novel LTR families in the species of which LTR elements have been extensively mined.


The intensity dependence of electron energy spectra in the case of eleven-photon ionisation of xenon at 1064 nm is investigated with an improved accuracy over an extended range, covering the region between the onset of the 'non-perturbative' behaviour and the saturation intensity. The results are compared with the predictions of four calculations recently developed to describe ATI in the non-perturbative regime.


Abstract Contact facilitates a reduction in prejudice and negative stereotypes between the social groups. The effect of such contact is optimized when there is equal status between groups, which in volunteerism is manifested through as mutually equitable partnership. This qualitative study examines the processes of contact through an intervention youth group that connects Chinese and refugee/asylum seeker youths in Hong Kong. Interviews were conducted with 5 participants (60% females; mean age = 24) in 2016. Results indicated the youth group facilitated contact within its members, where the more they engage, in frequency and intentionality, the more they find a sense of belonging with each other. Moreover, Chinese participants demonstrated a shift in seeing refugee participants as collaborators and friends instead of service-recipient. The findings shed light on the processes of contact within volunteerism and offers potential contribution of collaborative environment in similar integration intervention.


Mucocutaneous is an infection caused by a single celled parasite transmitted by sand fly bites. There are about 20 species of Leishmania that may cause mucocutaneous leishmaniasis. Some Leishmania species are closely linked to humans and are therefore found in cities (L. tropica) whereas some others are more traditionally associated with animal species and therefore considered zoonoses (L. major). The evidence for optimal treatment of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis is patchy. Although the cutaneous form of the disease is often self-limiting, it does result in significant scarring and can spread to more invasive, mucocutaneous disease. Therefore, treatment may be considered to prevent these complications. Drugs for systemic and topical treatment are presented and discussed with regard to their application, use and adverse effects.


A wide range of 4-(N-Boc-amino)-1-alken-3-ols were efficiently resolved by lipase-catalyzed kinetic resolution. This procedure has been successfully applied to the highly enantioselective synthesis of the taxol side chain.


The dramatic warming of the Arctic Ocean will impact pelagic ecosystems in complex ways, including shifting patterns of species distribution and abundance, and altering migration pathways and population connectivity. Species of the Phylum Chaetognatha (arrow worms) are abundant in the zooplankton assemblage and are highly effective predators, with key roles in pelagic food webs. They are useful indicator species for impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. This study examined the population genetic diversity, structure and connectivity of the chaetognath, Eukrohnia hamata, based on sampling from six regions defined by geography, bathymetry, and major currents flowing through the Arctic Ocean. A 528-base pair sequenced region of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (mtCOI) analyzed for 131 specimens resulted in 78 haplotypes and very high haplotype diversity. Analysis of mtCOI haplotype frequencies provided no evidence of population genetic structure. Genomic Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) detected from the same specimens by double-digest Restriction-site Associated Digestion (ddRAD) confirmed high levels of gene flow among the regions, but supported the genetic distinctiveness of two population clusters: Atlantic–Arctic versus Pacific–Arctic. Removal of SNPs subject to selection resulted in slightly higher probability of three clusters, and suggested the possibility of local adaptation of regional populations of E. hamata. Comparative analysis revealed evidence that random selection of subsets of SNPs, perhaps impacted by different ecological and (micro) evolutionary drivers, can result in marked differences in numbers and distributional patterns of clusters and associated variation in F-statistics. Analysis of population connectivity using SNPs supported the primary migration pathway via flow from the Atlantic to the Pacific Arctic regions.


Abstract The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the utility of using the thought-listing technique to examine participants' attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues and (b) determine the effectiveness of two new training interventions (rational and experiential) that were designed using cognitive-experiential self-theory (Epstein, 1994). Fifty participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions (rational training, experiential training, control group). Participants completed a thought-listing technique before and after receiving one of the theoretically based training interventions. Three judges free sorted the 2,481 collected thoughts and identified and defined 25 thought categories. Three trained judges then placed 2,426 (98%) of the thoughts into these categories. Results indicated that different categories of responses (cognitive, affective, behavioral) emerged among the individuals which provided four distinct profiles of how people thought about the topic of homosexuality. Furthermore, chi-square analyses revealed that the experiential group had changes in their thoughts after receiving the workshop. Findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.


ABSTRACT Signal peptides are a cornerstone mechanism for cellular protein localization, yet until now experimental determination of signal peptides has come from only a narrow taxonomic sampling. As a result, the dominant view is that Sec-cleaved signal peptides in prokaryotes are defined by a canonical AxA motif. Although other residues are permitted in the motif, alanine is by far the most common. Here we broadly examine proteomics data to reveal the signal peptide sequences for 32 bacterial and archaeal organisms from nine phyla and demonstrate that this alanine preference is not universal. Discoveries include fundamentally distinct signal peptide motifs from Alphaproteobacteria, Spirochaetes, Thermotogae and Euryarchaeota. In these novel motifs, alanine is no longer the dominant residue but has been replaced in a different way for each taxon. Surprisingly, divergent motifs correlate with a proteome-wide reduction in alanine. Computational analyses of ~1,500 genomes reveal numerous major evolutionary clades which have replaced the canonical signal peptide sequence with novel motifs. IMPORTANCE This article replaces a widely held general model with a more detailed model describing phylogenetically correlated variation in motifs for Sec secretion. This article replaces a widely held general model with a more detailed model describing phylogenetically correlated variation in motifs for Sec secretion.


Objective: Financial fraud has been a big concern for many organizations across industries; billions of dollars are lost yearly because of this fraud. So businesses employ data mining techniques to address this continued and growing problem. This paper aims to review research studies conducted to detect financial fraud using data mining tools within one decade and communicate the current trends to academic scholars and industry practitioners. Method: Various combinations of keywords were used to identify the pertinent articles. The majority of the articles retrieved from Science Direct but the search spanned other online databases (e.g., Emerald, Elsevier, World Scientific, IEEE, and Routledge - Taylor and Francis Group). Our search yielded a sample of 65 relevant articles (58 peer-reviewed journal articles with 7 conference papers). Onefifth of the articles was found in Expert Systems with Applications (ESA) while about one-tenth found in Decision Support Systems (DSS). Results: 41 data mining techniques were used to detect fraud across different financial applications such as health insurance and credit card. Logistic regression model appeared to be the leading data mining tool in detecting financial fraud with a 13% of usage.In general, supervised learning tool have been used more frequently than the unsupervised ones. Financial statement fraud and bank fraud are the two largest financial applications being investigated in this area - about 63%, which corresponds to 41 articles out of the 65 reviewed articles. Also, the two primary journal outlets for this topic are ESA and DSS. Conclusion: This review provides a fast and easy-to-use source for both researchers and professionals, classifies financial fraud applications into a highlevel and detailed-level framework, shows the most significant data mining techniques in this domain, and reveals the most countries exposed to financial fraud.


Antibody to rubella virus was measured in 3655 serum samples collected during 1973-1979 from females of child bearing age in Umbria (Italy). The overall incidence of seronegatives was 24 percent (hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) antibody less than 1:16), with a higher proportion of seronegatives in the first years studied (1973-1976). A history of rubella infection was shown to be an unreliable index of immunity. One case of rubella congenital syndrome was detected following laboratory screening of newborn babies after the rubella virus circulation in Umbria during 1978. The persistence of a risk associated with rubella virus in women living in Umbria indicates the importance and the urgency of the adoption of a full-scale rubella control campaign.


Presented is an algorithm (for learning a subclass of erasing regular pattern languages) which can be made to run with arbitrarily high probability of success on extended regular languages generated by patterns of the form x0 1x1::: mxm for unknown m but known c , from number of examples polynomial in m (and exponential in c ), where x0; : : : ; xm are variables and where 1; :::; m are each strings of terminals of length c . This assumes that the algorithm randomly draws samples with natural and plausible assumptions on the distribution. With the aim of nding a better algorithm, we also explore computer simulations of a heuristic.


Since publication in 1979 Isabel Rivers' sourcebook has established itself as the essential guide to English Renaissance poetry. It: * provides an account of the main classical and Christian ideas, outlining their meaning, their origins and their transmission to the Renaissance; * illustrates the ways in which Renaissance poetry drew on classical and Christian ideas; * contains extracts from key classical and Christian texts and relates these to the extracts of the English poems which draw on them; * includes suggestions for further reading, and an invaluable bibliographical appendix.


The limiting throughput of an ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) switch with input queueing under the FCFS (first-come-first-served) scheme is 0.59. Three policies are proposed in the literature to improve the throughput of the switch: policy A (input expansion policy), policy B (window selection policy) and policy C (cell discarding policy). The author considers, for policy C, correlated traffic where all cells belonging to a burst are routed to the same output port and each traffic source is modelled by an interrupted Bernoulli traffic process (IBP). The results for policy C show that the destination correlation does not affect the throughput, and that the throughput is higher when all input traffic is balanced. Better results for policy B are obtained compared with the simulation results found in the literature. Results show that policy A achieves the highest throughput. The throughput obtained by policy A is higher by 0.07 than that obtained by policy B. For example, with expansion size s = 8, the achievable throughput obtained by policy A is 0.94 With window size w = 8, the throughput obtained by policy B is 0.87. The throughput obtained by policy C exceeds 0.8 when the input traffic rate is less than 0.5. The throughput, for policy C, is ρ = 1 – (1 – p/N)N whether the input is IBP or Bernoulli and whether there is destination correlation or not. Simulation data, which are available in the literature for policy B, show better agreement with the author's analytical results than with other analytical results in the literature.


Four representative soil pedons formed from ultrabasic or serpentinite parent materials were studied in the field and laboratory in order to determine their soil characteristics and suitability for maize. Maize is one of the most important agricultural food crops in Indonesia. Up to now, the need of this crop for any other usages tends to increase. However, maize production could not meet the demand. Therefore, extensification and intensification of the agricultural area for the crop cultivation need to be conducted. The results indicated that all the studied soils have deep solum, yellowish red to red colour, blocky structure, and friable to firm consistency. Particle-size distribution was dominated by clay fraction (73-88%). The soil bulk density and available water was relatively low (0.84-1.12 mg m-3 and 9-15%, respectively), while the total porosity was high (58-68%). Except pedon PN-35, some soils have acid reaction, medium C organic in the upper horizons, and low base saturation (<40%). The soil CEC and exchangeable Al were low (<12 and <1.3 cmolc kg-1, respectively). P retention of all the soils is high (60-87%). The soils were classified as Typic Hapludox, Anionic Acrudox, and Kandiudalfic Eutrudox. Most soils were moderately suitable (S2) for maize cultivation with nutrient retention (acid reaction, low CEC-clay and base saturation) and water availability (high wet months) as the main limiting factors. To increase soil productivity, application of agricultural lime, P fertilizers (rock phosphate) and organic matter were highly recommmended.


This paper introduces a new concept for advanced driver assistance by means of a defined architecture including all system components redundant from the environment perception to the vehicle controllers. The first part analyzes the bottleneck of the current association driver with vehicle. After that a virtual driver, which computes the safety envelope of the motion vector of the vehicle, would be described. The driver's command would be monitored depending on the output of this virtual driver to give a feedback to the driver or to take the control of the vehicle. In the next part a concept of exchange of information to enhance the cognition of the vehicle and of the driver would be explained. At the end this paper would conclude towards future works and research issues.


Objective: Evaluation of left ventricular function provides early evidence of target-organ damage in children with primary hypertension. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of left ventricular systolic and diastolic function in children and adolescents with primary hypertension. Methods: Literature search was performed in PubMed database and out of 718 articles (published between 2000 and 2021) 22 studies providing comparison of left ventricular function parameters between children with primary hypertension and normotensive controls were selected. Results: Overall, 3460 children (5–21 years) with primary hypertension were analyzed. Meta-analysis showed that hypertensive patients when compared with normotensives, had an increased heart rate (mean difference [MD] 5.59; 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.28, 7.89; 10 studies) and increased fractional shortening (MD 1.04; 95% CI 0.48, 1.60; 9 studies) but did not differ in ejection fraction (MD −0.03; 95% CI −1.07, 1.02; 12 studies). Stroke volume was higher in one out of three studies, whereas no differences in cardiac output were found in two studies with available data. Hypertensive children had also lower E/A values (MD −0.21; −0.33, −0.09; 14 studies), greater values of E/e′ (MD 0.59; 0.36, 0.82; 8 studies) and greater global longitudinal stress (MD 2.50; 2.03, 2.96; 4 studies) when compared to those with normotension. Conclusion: Our results indicate that hypertensive children and adolescents present with signs of hyperkinetic function of the left ventricle, demonstrate evidence of increased left ventricular strain and impaired diastolic function compared to normotensive controls.


AIMS
This study aims to evaluate if pre-hospital heparin administration by paramedics is safe and improves clinical outcomes.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Using the multicentre Victorian Cardiac Outcomes Registry, linked with state-wide ambulance records, we identified consecutive patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention for STEMI between January 2014 and December 2018. Information on thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) flow at angiography was available in a subset of cases. Patients receiving pre-hospital heparin were compared to those who did not receive heparin. Findings at coronary angiography and 30-day clinical outcomes were compared between groups. Propensity-score matching was performed for risk adjustment. We identified a total of 4720 patients. Of these, 1967 patients had TIMI flow data available. Propensity-score matching in the entire cohort yielded 1373 matched pairs. In the matched cohort, there was no observed difference in 30-day mortality (no-heparin 3.5% vs. heparin 3.0%, P = 0.25), MACCE (no-heparin 7% vs. heparin 6.2%, P = 0.44), and major bleeding (no-heparin 1.9% vs. heparin 1.4%, P = 0.64) between groups. Propensity-score analysis amongst those with TIMI data produced 552 matched pairs. The proportion of cases with TIMI 0 or 1 flow in the infarct-related artery (IRA) was lower among those receiving pre-hospital heparin (66% vs. 76%, P < 0.001) compared to those who did not.

CONCLUSION
In this multicentre, propensity-score matched study, the use of pre-hospital heparin by paramedics was safe and is associated with fewer occluded IRAs in patients presenting with STEMI.


From the Publisher:
LINUX® Programming combines the latest release of Slackware LINUX with a slew of programming tools needed by any programmer interested in UNIX, LINUX, and C. This book shows you everything you need to know to program on LINUX using any of the most popular programming languages, including C, C++, Java, Perl, Fortran, and Tcl. And the CD-ROM comes directly from Patrick Volkerding, the creator of Slackware.

If you want to take the next step beyond setting up, installing, and configuring LINUX, this book is for you. Volkerding, Johnson, and Reichard show you how to make the most effective use of LINUX by creating your own software or porting existing software packages to LINUX.

With this book:

Get the most out of C and C++ with the GNU compiler
Use GNU to automate your software development tasks
Create friendly user interfaces and pick from a variety of GUI tools
Generate Motif applications with the freeware LessTif library
Learn programming alternatives like Eiffel, Objective C, Fortran, Basic, LISP, and Modula
Create Java applications and Web applets
Script in Perl or Tcl for faster development

On the CD-ROM:

Complete Slackware LINUX operating system
Everything you need to compile, link, run, and debug C, C++, Perl, and Tcl programs, including a free Motif clone called LessTif


Abstract In this paper we generalize an explicit numerical scheme for the CIR process that we have proposed before. The advantage of the new proposed scheme is that preserves positivity and is well posed for a (little bit) broader set of parameters among the positivity preserving schemes. The order of convergence is at least logarithmic in general and for a smaller set of parameters is at least 1/4.


The study of sign language reveals the effect of the modality of communication on the language system. This paper presents a comprehensive description and discussion of the manifestation of time, space, and person reference in American Sign Language. It is in this area that the effect of the modality on information transmission appears most clearly. Various aspects of space, time, and person are discussed: the manner in which visual language allows for deictic and anaphoric locative, temporal, and 'pronominal' reference, the surface manifestation of the conceptualization of time, the specialized use of the dominant and non-dominant articulators, the contrast between the 'segmental' nature of oral-language spatial terms and the continuous nature of locative expressions in ASL, and the manner in which verbs may incorporate agent and/or patient and manner adverbials.*


This article was conceived to analyze the work of the School of Public Health of Mexico (ESPM for is acronym in Spanish) from the year 2000 to the present day. One of the highlights that we will examine is the reorientation of the educational work of the school in order to meet the challenges in health and education that emerged during the end of the twentieth century. In order to explain the evolution of this process, we will describe the three main guiding principles that characterize the present work of the school: the pedagogical model's change, the incorporation of the information and communication technologies, and the professionalization in teaching. The purpose of this work is to define those guiding principles, and to expose, through the contrast between past and present, the complete history of uninterrupted work of the School of Public Health of Mexico during its ninety-two years of existence, that has gone beyond the boundaries of the country.


Objective This paper outlines different approaches to understanding disability and describes ways in which psychological researchers and psychologists can promote the social inclusion of people with disability. Method Narrative review drawing on writings and research from psychology and disability studies. Results Five prominent models of disability appear in the literature (moral, medical, social, biopsychosocial, and post‐modern), all of which have relevance to the lives of people with disability. Conceptualisations commonly used to understand the experience of disability from a psychological perspective include stigma and psycho‐emotional disablism. There is evidence that people with disability wish to have greater involvement in research (e.g., as consultants and partners in research about them, and as participants in mainstream research) and to see research findings translated into practice. Evidence is emerging that can be used to underpin psychologists work with (a) communities (to foster social change and social justice, and to reduce stigma); (b) organisations, such as schools, workplaces, and disability service providers (to help develop inclusive and supportive environments); (c) families (to promote optimism, alternative understandings of disability, and a sense of control, as well as developing behaviour support plans and providing referrals to other sources of practical support); and (d) people with disability (to assist them with the issues they bring to therapy while being mindful of the potential for psycho‐emotional disablism to colour the material presented). Conclusion Psychological researchers and psychologists have significant potential to contribute to the social inclusion of people with disability.


Joint of concrete pavement contributes to improvement of pavement performance by preventing occurrence of random cracking due to drying shrinkage and temperature changes of concrete slabs at early age. However, saw-cutting operations performed prior to sufficient concrete hardening develop micro-cracking of the concrete near the joints, which may develop to long-term distresses due to repetitious traffic and environmental loadings. To reduce the distresses, the joint crack inducers with heights of 100 ㎜, 150 ㎜, and 220 ㎜ and the joint cracking slots with various depth were installed at a test section to investigate occurrence of the joint cracks and their behaviors over 5 months. As the results, higher efficiency of the crack inducing and larger behavior of the joint cracks were observed for the taller joint crack inducer. Higher efficiency of the crack inducing and improvement of the joint performance are warranted by additional investigation and reformation of the joint crack inducer.


Objective: Ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring was recommended as the preferred diagnostic tool to clinic blood pressure (CBP) measurement in diagnosing hypertension. But the implementation issue for primary care physician, the major service provider in hypertension, has been challenging and clinical implication of ABP monitoring (ABPM) in primary care setting is largely unknown in Korea. Design and Method: For 32 primary care clinic distributed in South Korea, 259 subjects were enrolled for the pilot study in preparing large scale ABPM registry in primary car setting in 2015. White-coat hypertension (WCH) was defined as CBP3 140/90 mmHg and daytime ABP < 135/85 mmHg and masked hypertension (MH) was defined as CBP < 140/90 mmHg and daytime ABP3 135/85 mmHg. Results: Age was 54.5 ± 13.4 (n = 259) and female was 46.3%. CBP was 133.1 ± 20.5 mmHg and daytime ABP was 129.4 ± 15.9 mmHg. Nocturnal systolic blood pressure (BP) was 120.6 ± 16.6 mmHg and non-dipper was 64.9%. WCH and MH were 15.8% and 10.0%, respectively. For 98 subjects on antihypertensive medication, calcium antagonist was the most frequently prescribed (82.5%). WCH and MH for treated patients were 16.3% and 9.2%, respectively. Among the factor tested for MH, only abdominal circumference was with borderline significance (OR: 1.22, p = 0.07). For WCH, no factor was suggested to be related. Conclusions: In the pilot study, relatively lower prevalence of masked hypertension could suggest the difference in the clinic environment or clinical background of the patents. But abdominal obesity may be a significant remaining factor for masked hypertension in primary care setting.


Promoters claim that bitcoin is a new type of money, reduces transactions costs by abandoning intermediaries and will become a safe asset that they call "digital gold". In this book, we dissect these claims and explain what bitcoin really is. Economic theory states that money should reduce transaction costs for payments, loans, and relative valuations, which requires a stable value. We show that the extreme price volatility and the high transaction costs – especially the time component – make bitcoin almost useless as money. Bitcoin increases, instead of reduces, transactions costs. Furthermore, an intermediary exists – the miner – who charges a transaction fee. The fundamental value of assets is based on their cash flow or utility, which applies for shares, bonds, real estate, and intellectual property. Gold is the best-known store of value and a hedge against financial crisis and inflation. Bitcoin has no cash flow or utility, and statistics show that it is no hedge against anything. It is, in fact, pro-cyclical and its crashes of 50 % in 2018 and 2021 are unmatched by any of the main fiat currencies in the last 50 years. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and is not anything at all like digital gold. Bitcoin is an open Ponzi scheme. The Ponzi is "open" since it is public knowledge that there are no assets at all backing a bitcoin. To the promoters of bitcoin, the lack of assets is "a feature and not a bug." The main function of the bitcoin network is simply unlicensed gambling, where new players redeem those who entered earlier. It is a zero-sum game. Finally, the bitcoin system has no responsible issuer. So, if the system breaks down, holders have nobody from whom to claim – or to whom to assign blame. Although bitcoin is nothing other than a public and decentralized ledger of accounts and transactions, the bitcoin network and its promoters have been very successful in increasing the market value of a bitcoin from 10 to 30,000 USD in 10 years. Promoters of bitcoin use methods that include: 1) distracting investors from which functions bitcoin has or does not have; 2) directing attention to irrelevant technobabble; and 3) manipulating trade and prices in the bitcoin market. Marketing of a strong brand and visual illusions in the form of physical glittering coins make the impression that bitcoin is something valuable. But we show that it is not. The average investor is succumbing to these successful methods and risk their house, savings, and pension. We show that bitcoin is also used for criminal activities such as ransomware payments, tax evasion, and money laundering. The bitcoin network consumes vast amounts of electricity and critical advanced computer chips, which consumption creates negative externalities in the form of higher prices and shortages in other sectors. With no fundamental function, not even providing governments with tax revenue specifically due from the unlicensed gambling that bitcoin really is, bitcoin's actual value for society is negative. We propose that, before there is more damage to the public, government gambling regulators immediately enforce existing regulations and take action to investigate those who operate the bitcoin network.


In the original version of this article (1), the same invasion assay image was inadvertently duplicated in the shCtrl/shHD1#1 panel and the shCtrl/shHD2#1 panel in Fig. 6D. Likewise, the same image was inadvertently duplicated in the shCtrl panels in Supplementary Fig. S4A and S4B. The correct images have been provided and the errors have been corrected in the latest online HTML and PDF versions of the article. The authors regret these errors.


Background
This study compared the pulmonary embolism (PE) risks between Asian dialysis patients and a comparison cohort without clinical kidney disease.

Methods
From the National Health Insurance claims data of Taiwan, we identified 106 231 newly diagnosed end-stage renal disease patients undergoing dialysis in 1998-2010 and randomly selected 106 231 comparison subjects, frequency matched by age, sex and the index year. We further selected 7430 peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients and 7340 propensity score-matched hemodialysis (HD) patients. Incidence rates and hazard ratios (HRs) of PE and odds ratio (OR) of subsequent 30-day deaths from PE were evaluated among study cohorts by the end of 2011.

Results
The overall incident PE was nearly 3-fold greater in dialysis patients than in the comparison cohort (0.92 versus 0.33 per 1000 person-years), with an adjusted HR of 2.02 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.63-2.50]. The PE incidence was greater in the propensity score-matched HD patients, than in PD patients with an adjusted HR of 2.30 (95% CI = 1.23-4.29). There was a greater PE risk for central venous catheter users than non-users among HD patients (1.83 versus 0.75 per 1000 person-years). The 30-day mortality from PE was higher in dialysis patients than in the comparison cohort (16.5 versus 9.77%) with an adjusted OR of 2.56 (95% CI = 1.32-4.95).

Conclusions
Dialysis patients are at a nearly 2-fold increased hazard of developing PE and are at greater risk of fatality from PE compared with those without clinical kidney disease. This study also shows a higher PE risk in HD patients than in PD patients.


Tissue microarray (TMA) assessment of histomorphological biomarkers contributes to more accurate prediction of outcome of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), a common disease. Unfortunately, a typical problem with the use of TMAs is that the material contained in each TMA spot changes as the TMA block is cut repeatedly. A reclassification of the content within each spot would be necessary for accurate biomarker evaluation. The major challenges to this end however lie in the high heterogeneity of TMA quality and of tissue characterization in structure, size, appearance and tissue type. In this work, we propose an end-to-end framework using deep learning for TMA spot classification into three classes: tumor, normal epithelium and other tissue types. It includes a detection of TMA spots in an image, an extraction of overlapping tiles from each TMA spot image and a classification integrated into two effective deep learning architectures: convolutional neural network (CNN) and Capsule Network with the prior information of intended tissue type. A set of digitized H&E stained images from 410 CRC patients with clinicopathological information is used for the validation of the proposed method. We show experimentally that our approach brings state-of-the-art performances for several relevant CRC H&E tissue classification and that these results are promising for use in clinical practice.


A facial ageing synthesis (rendering) method based on combination of wavelet transform and texture transplant is proposed in this paper. Firstly, 2D discrete wavelet transform (2D DWT) is performed on ageing templates to extract the high-frequency sub-images and high-pass filtered low-frequency sub-images, which contain the texture characteristic of ageing skin. Then the corresponding sub-images of target facial image are replaced and fused with them, and the transplant of ageing texture towards target face is achieved through wavelet reconstruction. In addition, the average variation of the facial shape between young population and old population is extracted, and imposed onto the target face to enhance the ageing rendering effect. Combining with color rendering technique, an integrated framework for photorealistic facial ageing rendering is designed and implemented. In the experiment, the proposed rendering framework is applied to oriental face, western face and art painting image, and the rendering results show the realistic and impressive effects. Comparing with PCA (principal components analysis)-based method, 3D Morphable model, and ratio image method, this method contributes a solution for the problem of tradeoff between photorealistic effect and easiness to operate for facial ageing rendering.


In his seminal publications between the 1930s and 1960s, Frederick Lane offered three hypotheses regarding the impact of the Voyages of Discovery that have guided debate ever since. First, pepper and other spice prices did not rise in European markets in the century before the 1490s, and thus could not have %u2018pulled in%u2019 the oceanic explorations by their rising scarcity. Second, Portuguese circumnavigation of Africa did not lower European spice prices across the 16th century, implying that the discovery of the Cape route had no permanent effect on Euro-Asian market integration. Third, 15th century Venetian spice markets were already well integrated with those in Iberia and northern Europe, implying that Portugal could not have had an intra-European market integrating influence in the 16th century. Lane developed these influential hypotheses by relying heavily on nominal spice prices from Venice and the Levant. This paper revisits Lane%u2019s hypotheses by using instead relative spice prices, that is, accounting for inflation. It also draws on evidence from Iberia and northern Europe. In addition, it explores European market integration before and after 1503, the year when da Gama returned from his financially successful second voyage. Lane%u2019s three hypotheses are rejected: the impact of the Portuguese was profound on all fronts. We conclude by using a simple model of monopoly and oligopoly to decompose the sources of the Cape route%u2019s impact on European markets.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs of ~22 nucleotides in length that play important roles in controlling a huge range of eukaryotic cell functions. Many studies have shown that abnormal expression levels of miRNAs are associated with many diseases and detrimental health effects caused by exposure to environmental pollutants and particulate matter. As a number of reports suggest that profiles of miRNAs in body fluids reflect physiological and pathological status, extracellular miRNAs, especially in plasma and serum, are being focused on as candidate disease biomarkers. Although these phenomena suggest that expression levels of plasma miRNAs can also be used as biomarkers for the detection of adverse health effects caused by exposure to environmental pollutants, there are still few studies on this subject. In the present study, we used diesel exhaust (DE) and filtered-DE (F-DE), which is DE with the particulate matter removed, as a model for environmental pollutant exposure and comprehensively analyzed alteration of the expression levels of plasma miRNAs in mice using a LNA miRNA microarray. MiRNA microarray analyses showed altered expression level of 5 plasma miRNAs (miR-1983, miR-720, miR-1957, miR-335-3p, and miR-1897-5p) in the DE-exposed group and F-DEexposed group. The results show both the possibility that exposure to various environmental chemicals including DE alters plasma miRNAs and the potential for plasma miRNAs to be used as biomarkers of exposure to these chemicals.


Although much progress has been made regarding our knowledge of stem cells and their potential applications for therapeutic angiogenesis, there has been less success with the clinical application of this knowledge to patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI). Patients with CLI often have chronic wounds and newer cell-based therapies for chronic wounds show interesting parallels to stem cell therapy for CLI. Several human-derived wound care products and therapies, including human neonatal fibroblast-derived dermis (Dermagraft®), bilayered bioengineered skin substitute (Apligraf®), recombinant human platelet-derived growth factor and autologous platelet-rich plasma may provide insight into the mechanisms through which differentiated cells can be used as therapy for chronic wounds, and, analogously, by which stem cells might function therapeutically in CLI.


The British Antarctic Survey regularly conducts airborne surveys with Twin Otter aircraft equipped with a variety of instruments. Each instrument captures its specific navigation requirements in a dedicated cockpit display that is unique and incompatible with that of other instruments. This creates unwanted logistical problems and training requirements, and necessitates extra air safety certification. In this paper we describe a new avionics display that is sufficiently flexible to capture the requirements of all of our instruments, as well as all of the preferences of our pilots. This Airborne Survey Navigation Device (ASCEND) dynamically routes aircraft within the constraints of the survey and features flexible and intuitive planning and navigation interfaces. ASCEND has been tested and compared to the instrument specific displays and is preferred, both for its ease of use and also for the effective accuracy of the pilot following a survey line.


In this ground-breaking study, Anne Cruz examines the treatment of poverty, prostitution, war, and other social concerns in the cultural and literary discourses of early modern Spain. This book investigates the polemics on poor relief through religious charity and secularized reform articulated not only in the Spanish picaresque canon - Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzm-n de Alfarache, El busc3/4n - but also in female picaresque narratives and soldiers' tales. Emphasizing Bakhtin's notion that discursive practices must be assessed as they intersect and become textualized in history, the book also looks at this literature in relation to normative writings such as royal decrees, regulations, economic proposals, synods, and sermons. Through these discourses, authors and authorities alike debated their theories of poor assistance for both men and women, from the critique of unregulated prostitution in works such as La lozana andaluza to the control of impoverished youths through military conscription as in Alonso de Contreras and Estebanillo Gonz-lez. The rupture of the feudal system and the economic devastation of the country precipitated a dramatic rise in the number of poor, who were increasingly perceived as delinquents by an anxious populace. The book employs Foucault's paradigms of confinement and control to study the various suggestions for the social containment of Spain's marginalized elements. Positing that the literary p|caros and p|caras assume the role of scapegoats for this disenfranchised social Other, Cruz further argues that the picaresque novels respond dialectically to the growing demonization of the poor in early modern Spanish culture.


Abstract Esophageal cancer (EC) is relatively common; at the time of diagnosis, 50% of cases present with distant metastases, and most patients are men. This study aimed to examine and compare the clinicopathological characteristics and metastatic patterns of male EC (MEC) and female EC (FEC). In addition, risk factors associated with MEC prognosis were evaluated. The present study population was extracted from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database. MEC characteristics and factors associated with prognosis were evaluated using descriptive analysis, the Kaplan–Meier method, and the Cox regression model. A total of 12,558 MEC cases were included; among them, 3454 cases had distant organ metastases. Overall, 27.5% of the entire cohort were patients with distant organ metastases. Compared with patients with non-metastatic MEC, patients with metastatic MEC were more likely to be aged ≤60 years, of Black and White race, have a primary lesion in the overlapping esophagus segments, and have a diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of poorly differentiated and undifferentiated grade that was treated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy rather than surgery; moreover, they were also more likely to be married and insured. In addition, patients with MEC were more likely to be aged ≤60 years, White race, and diagnosed with a primary lesion in the lower third of the esophagus and overlapping esophagus segments, and treated without chemotherapy, compared with those with FEC. Patients in the former group were also more likely than those in the latter group to be unmarried and have bone metastasis only and lung metastasis only. Liver, lung, and bone metastases separately, and simultaneous liver and lung metastases were associated with poor survival in MEC patients. Metastatic MEC is associated with clinicopathological characteristics and metastatic patterns different from those associated with non-metastatic MEC and metastatic FEC. Metastatic MEC and FEC patients may have similar prognoses. Distant organ metastasis may be associated with poor prognosis in patients with MEC and FEC.


A correction on ones own initiative, so called "own-initiative corrections" means that an individual submit changes to previously submitted information to the Swedish Tax Agency. These corrections mean that the individual will avoid both tax penalties and being charged of taxation fraud. Through "own-initiative corrections" the Tax Agency receives information from tax payers that they otherwise were unlikely to gain. In recent years international tax leaks have disclosed how private individuals and companies worldwide have hidden money to avoid taxes. Many Swedes escaped criminal charges by correcting their declarations after the leaks.

In August 2018, a new regulation took effect resulting in a more restrictive interpretation for when a correction is considered to be an "own-initiative correction". The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and critically examine whether the new legal rules meet the requirements for rule of law and efficiency, and whether they are expedient. The thesis is written with legal judicial method. The requirements are analysed on one hand by the fiscal interest of the state and on the other hand the individual interest.

It is impossible to predict the financial consequences of the regulations in advance, which makes it difficult to determine how well the requirements are met. One potential consequence is that the corrections come in at a higher speed. However, the consequence of the new deadline could also be that fewer self-corrections come in. From a legal certainty perspective, it would have been desirable to have clearer definitions for the requisites in the legal rules and guidelines for how the Tax Agency should announce the information.

Overall, my view is that efficiency, and thus the fiscal purpose, will likely benefit from the regulations. Hopefully, future court rulings will provide us with some clarifications and allow for more evidence based conclusion.


Industrial wastewater recycling projects are mainly used for alleviation of both water scarcity and contamination of freshwater bodies. These projects mainly address major challenges related to technological and economic aspects rather than stakeholders' responsibility. Hence, little is known for the role of responsible stakeholders as a major part of planning policy, which requires recognition of their crucial role and integration into associated procedures. This paper presents a new decision support framework to identify responsible stakeholders and reveal the role of their motivations. The approach integrates qualitative and frequency analysis methods into a comprehensive framework to identify the problems over the project lifetime from visible to their roots and link them together with stakeholders through deep mapping. The planning policy framework is applied to a real-world case study of industrial parks in Iran. The results of the case study show that visible economic, social, and technological problems are caused by responsible stakeholders with no direct role in those projects. Additionally, deep mapping analysis shows various deep roots caused by the government and industry are linked to visible problems across all project phases that are related to the role of stakeholders, their behaviour, and deep beliefs.


To The Editor:

Thomas Brown, in his address as outgoing President of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) "Toward Better Interaction Between Orthopaedists and Researchers: A Two-Way Street" (2002;84:1473-7), chronicled the transformation of the ORS from an organization of and for surgeon-scientists to one composed largely of nonsurgeons. He argued that this trend from a clinical to basic-science focus is favorable and should be more tangibly supported by the community of orthopaedic surgeons. His thesis was that the financial and innovative health of our field is in jeopardy because it has not supported basic research wisely and, as a result, is reliant on "relatively simplistic procedures" with diminishing value to society. The "better interaction," which Dr. Brown proposed, is one in which surgeons give over a greater share of their compensation to finance basic research directed and performed by nonclinicians. As academic surgeons, we agree with Dr. Brown on the value and importance of quality research, but we find this advocacy for further de-emphasis of applied research alarming. The pathway endorsed by Dr. Brown will neither improve cooperation between clinicians and basic scientists nor will it likely lead to changes in the clinical practice of orthopaedic surgery. We believe that collaboration between clinicians and basic scientists should be based upon joint formulation of hypotheses and methods of research; collaboration should not be defined as clinicians funding science projects.

Dr. Brown used an artful comparison with the Microsoft Corporation to argue that orthopaedic surgeons devote relatively little of their earnings to research. We would point out that corporate research is funded by profits and competitive federal grants—not through the largesse of employees. Sensible corporations invest in research to develop and test products, and they pay scientists to solve specific problems for their customers. They cannot afford to fund very much scientific "virtuosity …

Corresponding author:, John M. Clark, MD, PhD, Department of Orthopaedics, and Sports Medicine, University of Washington Campus, 1959 N.E. Pacific Street, Box 356500, Seattle, WA 98195-6500, drclark{at}u.washington.edu