Unmanned systems, such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), planetary rovers and space probes, have enormous potential in areas such as reconnaissance and space exploration. However the effectiveness and robustness of these systems is currently restricted by a lack of autonomy. Previous work introduced the concept of a model-based executive, which increases the level of autonomy, elevating the level at which systems are commanded. This simplifies the operator's task and leaves degrees of freedom in the plan that allow the executive to optimize resources and ensure robustness to uncertainty. Uncertainty arises due to uncertain state estimation, disturbances, model uncertainty and component failures. This thesis develops a model-based executive that reasons explicitly from a stochastic hybrid discrete-continuous system model to find the optimal course of action, while ensuring the required level of robustness to uncertainty is achieved. Our first contribution is a novel 'Particle Control' approach for robust execution of state plans with stochastic hybrid systems. We introduce the notion of chance-constrained state plan execution; this means that the executive ensures tasks in the state plan have at least a specified minimum probability of success. The minimum probabilities are specified by the operator, enabling conservatism to be traded against performance. In order to make optimal chance-constrained execution tractable, the Particle Control approach approximates the system's state distribution using samples or 'particles' and optimizes the evolution of these particles to achieve chance-constrained state plan execution. In this manner particle control solves a tractable deterministic approximation to the original stochastic problem; furthermore the approximation becomes exact as the number of particles approaches infinity. For an important class of hybrid discrete-continuous system known as Jump Markov Linear Systems, the resulting deterministic optimization can be posed as a Mixed Integer Linear Program and solved to global optimality using efficient commercially-available solvers. Our second contribution is 'active' hybrid estimation subject to state plan constraints. Exact hybrid state estimation in stochastic hybrid systems is, in general, intractable. Tractable approximate hybrid estimation methods can lose track of the true hybrid state. In this thesis we develop an active hybrid estimation capability, which probes the system in order to reduce uncertainty in the hybrid state. This approach generates control sequences to minimize the probability of approximate hybrid estimation losing the true mode sequence, while ensuring that the state plan is satisfied subject to chance constraints. In order to make this problem tractable, we develop an analytic upper bound on the probability of losing the true mode sequence, and use a convex constraint tightening approach to approximate the chance constraints in the problem. Our final contribution is a novel hybrid model-learning approach. Specifying accurate hybrid system models is essential for accurate estimation and control, but is also extremely challenging. The hybrid executive must therefore determine hybrid system models from observed data. In this thesis we present an approximate Expectation-Maximization method for hybrid model learning; this method extends prior approaches to deal with mode transitions that depend on the continuous state.


Anticipatory Guidance is a form of health care where the information provided helps the families to prepare for expected physical and behavioural changes during their child's or teen's current and approaching stage of development. Anticipatory guidance should be provided to pregnant women, new mothers and other caregivers because bacteria such as S.Mutans can be transmitted from mother (or) caregiver to infant (or) child through contact. This article discusses with the application of Anticipatory guidance in oral health care.


Filariasis survey in a randomly selected tea estate of district Dibrugrah revealed 6.7% infection of Wuchereria bancrofti in labour population with microfilaria (mf) rate of 7.6% in males and 5.9% in females. The mf rate increased progressively with the age which however, dropped in 31-40 age group of males and in 41-50 age group of females. Chronic filariasis diseases rate was 2.7%. The involvement of genitals in manifesting chronic filariasis was significantly higher than of the lower extremities. Infection and infectivity rates in the vector mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus were 6.1% and 4.6% respectively with mean L3 load per infective mosquito of 8.5. Drains, land, peridomestic ditches were chief breeding habitats of Cules quinquefasciatus in the tea estate.


As recently as ten years ago, projections of ever increasing unit ratings spurred development efforts toward improved cooling systems for generator rotors. Today, however, the concern of the power generation industry is focused on reliability and efficiency rather than on rating growth. Consistent with these concerns, gas- cooled two-pole rotors with diagonal flow ventilation and gas- cooled four-pole rotors with radial flow ventilation have provided reliable and efficient performance. In addition, development programs set in motion in the early 70' s, prior to the reduction in projected unit ratings, have demonstrated that further improvements in efficiency, as well as rotor thermal capability, can be attained with gas-cooled rotors. This proven capability will provide for the needs of the power generation industry both today and in the foreseeable future.


Antenna efficiency is an important parameter in RFID range and power consumption. Screen printed antennas often have poor conductivity and so increased loss. Designers offset this loss by increasing the width of the elements. This requires a substantial increase in the material required for construction. With billions of RFID antennas now in use worldwide, there is a need to reduce the environmental impact of the technology. A straight dipole antenna with decreasing width from the feed point to the ends achieved the same efficiency as a uniformly thick antenna. The design methodology is based on reducing the thickness of low current segments and increasing the thickness of high current segments.


The article makes the case that civil society activism should not be confined to pure advocacy of particular interests in a social segment; there is equally a role for critical action researchers to unravel a broad spectrum of exercise of power and to challenge the unquestioned acceptance of the order by the marginalized communities. The Critical Action Research (CAR) approach developed and used at ForestAction Nepal emphasizes empowering right holder citizens and their alliances through sharing knowledge that counters the dominant knowledge system, collating and communicating critical evidence for transforming policy dialogues, and learning from practice. The CAR attempts of ForestAction have generated valuable evidence of the prospects of civic organizations to act as producers of counter-knowledge rather than reproducers and disseminators of hegemonic knowledge systems that sustain exclusion, domination, and inequities. However, there are formidable challenges in trying to organize critical and engaged action research – from building up of a competent team to confronting institutional powers and raising funds to sustain the activity. It is clearly established that civil society actors have to think and act differently to understand what changes they want to bring about and how to do so. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jfl.v10i1.8604 Journal of Forestry and Livelihood Vol.10(1) 2012 101-125


This paper reports on performance and robustness to hot electron effects of GaAs based power HFET's. The performance and the reliability provide a promise of the fabricated device to be a good candidate for practical circuit application. The effective gate length can be controlled by a selective dry etching. In the latter case particular care must be taken to avoid deep surface levels which can originate instabilities of device even if of limited amount. Transconductance frequency dispersion has been employed to analyze these deep levels and can be used to control the fabrication process in order to minimize their concentration.


In recent days the increase in per capita disposable income, exposure to global information and life style, urbanization, and the prevalence of nuclear family structure ensured a rapid evolution in the food purchase behaviour of Indian consumers resulting in the growth and acceptance of modern retail formats. A modern retail store's atmosphere should affect the shoppers' mood/emotions and willingness to visit. They influence the consumers' judgments towards the quality of the store. This study focuses on the consumer perception towards modern retailing across time convenience, atmospherics, accessibility, product assortment, price and promotions, clientele, product quality, store layout and shopping experience factors. A total of 200 male and female respondents were included in the study and was conducted to find out the criteria which the respondents took into account while purchasing food and groceries in supermarkets. The collected data was entered into SPSS 16.0 and result were analyzed and interpreted through non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test to find the main objectives. A significant relationship was determined between the scores the consumers received from; it was found that majority of the consumers are visiting organized formats for variety, easy availability, cleanliness, parking etc. Today's retail customers have ever more demanding expectations of value, choice, availability and accessibility of products and services. Further studies can be carried out by taking shops across different geographical location and involving more number of retailers.


Background Recently, a EULAR (European League Against Rheumatism) working group developed the PsA impact of disease (PsAID) questionnaire which is a patient-derived composite index which assesses pain, skin problems, fatigue, work and/or leisure activities, functional capacity, uncomfortable feelings, sleep problems, anxiety-fear and uncertainty, coping, distress and/or embarrassment, social participation, and depression1. However this questionnaire has not yet been validated in other cohorts. Objectives To validate the PsAID questionnaire in terms of correlation to other outcome measures in routine practice. Methods Between January-December 2013, PsA patients on anti-TNF treatment were included in the HURBIO (Hacettepe University Rheumatology Biologic Registry) pragmatic observational study. Data collection comprised PsAID, Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI), Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI), Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), patient global Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), tender/swollen joints counts and DAS28. Non-parametric correlations between the PSAID score and the other outcome measures were assessed cross-sectionally. Feasibility was assessed by % missing data. Results 111 patients were assessed: females 70%, mean age 44±12 years, mean disease duration 10.3±7,6 years, median anti-TNF treatment duration 16 (0- 100) months. There was a good correlation between PsAID and BASDAI (r=0.71), BASFI (r=0.72), HAQ (r=0.60), DLQI (r=0.47), and patient global VAS (r=0.59), and as expected correlations were moderate versus DAS28CRP (r=0.55), swollen joint count (r=0.25), and tender joint count (r=0.39). There was no correlation vs ESR or CRP level. Missing data in the 12 questions of the PsAID was unfrequent: 0.5%. Conclusions PsAID is a recently developed patient reported outcome measure for PsA. In this study we showed that PsAID correlates with other composite indices for patients with PsA treated by anti-TNF. Furthermore the PsAID questionnaire was easy to fill in for the patient indicating good acceptability in a non-Western culture. References Gossec, Laure, de Wit, Maarten, Balanescu, Andra, Balint, Peter V., Bekes, Gabor, Braun, Juergen, et al; Patient-Perceived Impact of Psoriatic Arthritis Is Due to Pain and Fatigue, but Also to Psychological Aspects – the Psa Impact of Disease Study. [abstract]. Arthritis Rheum 2011;63(Suppl 10):1296 Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.3915


The ultimate goal of our research is to generate Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mutants that are sufficiently tolerant to O2 to produce H2 under aerobic conditions. We have been addressing this goal by means of both classical genetic and molecular biology approaches. Two generations of algal mutants were produced by application of chemical mutagenesis, selection, and screening to a wildtype algal strain. The H2 production activity of the mutants showed up to 9 times higher tolerance to O2 when compared to the parental strain. However, since the algal hydrogenase gene sequence was not known, it was not possible to determine whether the chemical mutagenesis that gave rise to the O2 tolerant phenotypes was due to a single-point mutation affecting the hydrogenase gene or whether it was due to a secondary mutation in another gene. We have concomitantly pursued a molecular biology approach, in order to enhance the probability of ultimately obtaining a commercially-viable organism. Our purpose was to first clone the hydrogenase gene and then to use molecular genetic means to generate random mutations in the hydrogenase gene. The transformed genes would be used in the future to re-transform wild-type C. reinhardtii, and O2-tolerance of the resulting transformants would be determined by chemochromic screening, as was done for the classical mutants. Current results include the successful cloning and sequencing of not only the Fe-only reversible hydrogenase gene but also a second Fe-only hydrogenase gene in C. reinhardtii. Preliminary studies suggesting differences in the expression of the two genes are also reported. The cloning of the algal hydrogenase will also allow us to re-analyze our mutants obtained previously by the classical mutagenesis approach. This will determine the specific locus of each genotype and may help guide us in possible future site-directed mutagenesis approaches to improving O2 tolerance


A computer-controlled three-oven gas chromatograph having a multi-position stream-switching valve has been used first to divide a wide-boiling mixture of n-alkanes into three cuts and then to fractionate each cut using a packed column at a different temperature. After initial injection of the sample into the highest temperature column, the low boilers were switched to a low temperature oven. Then, the mid-boilers were switched to a column at an intermediate temperature. For routine repetitive analyses, the multi-oven approach offers an attractive alternative.


he Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica (ING) Seismic Network Database (ISND) includes over 300000 arrivaI times of Italian, Mediterranean and teleseismic earthquakes from 1983 to date. This database is a useful tool for Italian and foreign seismologists ( over 1000 data requests in the first 6 months of this year). Recently (1994) the ING began storing in the ISND, the digital waveforms associated with arri,Tal times and experimen- tally allowed users to retrieve waveforms recorded by the ING acquisition system. In this paper we describe the types of data stored and the interactive and batch procedures available to obtain arrivaI times and/or asso- ciated waveforms. The ISND is reachable via telephone line, P.S.I., Internet and DecNet. Users can read and send to their E-mail address alI selected earthquakes locations, parameters, arrivaI times and associated digital waveforms (in SAC, SUDS or ASCII format). For r;aedium or large amounts of data users can ask to receive data by means of magnetic media (DAT, Video 8, floppy disk).


The possible interaction between cholecystokinin (CCK) and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) was evaluated in vitro in the longitudinal muscle-myenteric plexus of the guinea-pig ileum. Devazepide and L-365,260 were used to block CCKA and CCK(B) receptors and ondansetron and tropisetron to block 5-HT3 and 5-HT4 receptors, respectively. The CCK receptor antagonists blocked, in a dose-dependent manner, the response to 5-HT and to the selective agonists at 5-HT3 and 5-HT4 receptors, 2-methyl-5-hydroxytryptamine (2-Me-5-HT) and 5-methoxytryptamine (5-MeOT), respectively. The blockade was almost complete on the first phase of the concentration response curve to 5-HT and for all the concentrations of 5-MeOT tested. In the 2-Me-5-HT-induced contractile response there was a component with the same sensitivity to devazepide and to the selective NK1 receptor antagonist, GR 82334, and another resistant component that was abolished by atropine. However, the blockade of the NK1 receptor did not produce a significant increase in the inhibition obtained when atropine or devazepide were separately tested on the 5-MeOT-induced response. These results suggest that CCK is involved in the 5-HT-induced contractile response, particularly in the response induced by 5-HT4 receptor stimulation.


IJEMHHR • Vol. 17, No. 3 • 2015 624 The idea of fostering 'resilience' among police and military personnel is a topic of growing interest (Andersen et al., 2015a; Cornum, Matthews, & Seligman, 2011; Reivich, Seligman, & McBride, 2011). This topic is particularly timely in light of recent media depictions of questionable use-of-force actions by police and the subsequent public retaliations against the police.


From the Ancient Greek chole(bile) and stereos (solid) followed by the chemical suffix -ol for an alcohol, is an organic molecule. It is a sterol (or modified steroid), a type of lipid molecule, and is biosynthesized by all animal cells, because it is an essential structural component of all animal cell membranes; essential to maintain both membrane structural integrity and fluidity. Cholesterol enables animal cells to dispense with a cell wall (to protect membrane integrity and cell viability), thereby allowing animal cells to change shape and animals to move (unlike bacteria and plant cells, which are restricted by their cell walls).


Background and Objective Rate of leukemic invasion to kidney varied among reports, and because of it, the clinical significance of renal involvement in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia at diagnosis has remained controversial. Conventionally, renal involvement have been diagnosed by ultrasonography according to the definition of unilateral or bilateral nephromegaly based on the length of major or minor axis >2SD, diffuse abnormal findings, or mass legions. However to detect the leukemic involvement much more accurately, we utilized contrast-enhanced CT to evaluate renal mass legions and to measure renal volume by utilizing 3D reconstruction models of CT images. Leukemic involvement in the kidney was defined only when markedly decrease of renal volume before and after induction chemotherapy and/or mass lesions were observed. The aim of this study was to assess whether our 3D-CT-based criteria determined by utilizing the modern medical technology could be superior to the conventional criteria based on ultrasonography and to reveal significant clinical impact of renal involvement. Materials and Methods From 2006 to 2012, 23 children were diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in our hospital. Enhanced CT scan was performed to the all patients before induction therapy, and a follow-up CT scan was performed after induction therapy or later stages on the patients who had abnormal CT findings at diagnosis. Mass legions, length of major and minor axis, and volume changes by utilizing enhanced CT and 3D reconstruction models calculated with the software SYNAPSE VINCENT (FUJIFILM MEDICAL), were evaluated. Results  15 out of 23 patients (65.2%) presented with renal involvement when conventional criteria was used (major or minor axis >2SD, or diffuse abnormal findings or mass legions). However when applied to our 3D-CT- based criteria (mass legions or marked decrease of renal volume before and after induction therapy), only 6 patients out of 23 patients (26.1%) showed renal involvement (volume change alone 1, mass lesions alone 3, mass lesion with volume change 2). Quite big difference of renal involvement between criteria was due to the patients who fulfilled conventional criteria did not show the volume decrease of kidney before and after induction chemotherapy, even though these patients reached complete remission in bone marrow and markedly decrease of spleen volume measured by our 3D-CT methods. It suggested that these cases did not have true renal involvement and that the nephromegaly defined by only renal length included many false positive cases. Most importantly, renal mass legions could be detected only by enhanced CT, not by ultrasonography in some cases. Frequency of the presence of central nervous system and extramedullary involvement except lymphadenopathy were significantly higher in the patients with renal mass legions (p=0.005 and P=0.043, respectively). Moreover, the patients with renal mass legions had tendency to relapse. Conclusion Our 3D-CT-based criteria for detection of leukemia invasion to kidney is much more reliable than the conventional criteria based on nephromegaly measured by major or minor axis. Renal mass legions strongly correlated with central nervous system and extramedullary involvement except lymphadenopathy. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Murine Balb/3T3 and murine A-MT-BU-A1 mammary tumor cells were separated in the presence of cytochalasin B into enucleated cytoplasmic components (cytoplasts) and nucleated subcellular components (karyoplasts). Karyoplasts were derived from 3T3 cells, while cytoplasts were derived from A-MT-BU-A1 cells that were both chloramphenicol-resistant (CAP(r)) and sensitive to hypoxanthine/aminopterin/thymidine (HAT(s)). CAP(r) has been shown to be cytoplasmically transmitted (possibly a mitochondrial gene mutation), while sensitivity to medium containing HAT has been shown to be transmitted by the nucleus (i.e., nuclear gene mutation). Such CAP(r) cytoplasts derived from A-MT-BU-A1 cells were then fused, using polyethylene glycol, to HAT-resistant 3T3 karyoplasts. The mononucleated reconstituted cells produced by such procedures were cloned in medium containing both HAT and CAP. Some of the reconstituted cells survived, because they were resistant to both drugs, while the nuclear and cytoplasmic whole cell contaminants were killed by one or the other of the two drugs. The results of these experiments indicate that reconstituted cells that are derived from two different cell lines are viable, as indicated by their ability for long-term proliferation in culture. Most of the clones derived resembled morphologically the 3T3 nuclear donor parent cells, but some of the clones did not resemble either parental cell line. It is anticipated that such selection techniques will permit more complete analysis of interrelationships between nucleus and cytoplasm.


The risk of experiencing an unintended pregnancy, STIs, HIV and AIDS is exacerbated when low literacy level, low functional health literacy level and misconceptions prevail as barriers to accessing primary health care services and learning about the correct use of and adherence to medicine regimens. Sometimes the source of misconception on the risks regarding unintended pregnancy, STIs, HIV and AIDS are low literacy and health literacy. This study explored the experiences of females who utilise reproductive health promotion services and the experiences of reproductive health care providers regarding the provision of reproductive health services in a primary health care setting. A qualitative, descriptive phenomenological design was used. A sample of 36 participants (11 health care providers and 25 females) who utilise the primary health care facility, was drawn through purposive sampling. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted. Tesch's data analysis method was used. Ethical principles were observed and trustworthiness was ensured. The themes that emerged confirmed that low health literacy levels were related to unsafe sex practices, specifically, unprotected sex. It is recommended that a health literacy assessment tool for reproductive health be developed to reduce reproductive health problems associated with low health literacy levels.


This paper focuses on a method to integrate additive manufacturing (AM) structure, processing, and property-geometry modeling methods to facilitate the qualification and certification of AM-fabricated metal parts and enable their rapid deployment. The conventional approach to qualifying AM parts is to destructively evaluate a significant number of parts, measure the properties of interest, and look for anomalies in each part. This approach also requires statistical sampling of parts for destructive testing to verify the process is still operating correctly over time. This is costly, time consuming, and negates much of the benefits offered by AM. The approach outlined in this paper leverages OpenMETA, a suite of tools that provide a unified design space, a unified system representation across engineering specialties, and multidisciplinary workflow for optimization, design-of-experiments, and trade-off studies. OpenMETA provides the ability to conduct high-fidelity, low-fidelity, and hybrid analyses within one framework. Test benches are built within OpenMETA that capture the requirements for the component in an executable manner to support automated analysis such as thermal analysis, finite element analysis, and high-fidelity physics-based (HFPB) analysis. Test benches also describe the intended environment in which the component will be used after manufacture. This description of the environment might include details of the surrounding components, the interfaces to those components, and corrosive agents. Test bench results are used to estimate and assess component performance related to requirements. This paper focuses on one technology for manufacturing the parts, a wire-fed, robotic, pulsed-arc AM process, although the OpenMETA platform can be applied to other AM technologies.


Multifractal analysis is a powerful modeling and estimation framework for the characterization of data dynamics via the fluctuations of its pointwise regularity in time or space. Though successfully applied in a large number of applications in very different contexts, the estimation of parameters related to the data multifractality is an intricate issue for discrete realworld data in non-standard situations, e.g., for small sample size or in the presence of data corruptions. Building upon a recently introduced generic statistical model for log-leaders, specific multiresolution quantities designed for multifractal analysis, the present work proposes a novel robust model and estimator for the multifractality parameter that quantifies the degree of multifractality in data. Our model explicitly accounts for certain data corruptions as outliers in the spectral log-leader domain. Moreover, we propose an original expectation-maximization algorithm for estimating the parameters associated with the model. Several Monte Carlo simulations have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed estimator, which confirm its good performance when compared to standard linear regression in the presence of different additive or multiplicative data perturbations.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of LLLT in the treatment of trigger points (TrPs) that are associated with rotator cuff tendonitis. A double-blind randomized controlled trail was conducted. Sixty patients were randomly allocated to one of two groups: sham or laser therapy. The laser (Excel, Omega Universal Technologies Ltd, London, UK) parameters used were a wavelength of 820 nm, a power output of 100 mW, a frequency of 5000 Hz (modulated) and energy density of 32 J/cm2. The two groups received a course of 12 treatment sessions for four weeks (3 sessions per week). Pain, functional activities (as measured using the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index, SPADI), pressure pain threshold (PPT) and range of motion (ROM) were assessed pre and post treatment, with a three month follow-up assessment. Significant improvements in pain (p < 0.001) were observed for the laser group (6 cm median improvement on a 10 cm VAS) compared to the sham group (2 cm median improvement) immediately post treatment. The improvements in the laser group continued post treatment with a 7 cm median improvement observed at three month follow-up. Similar between group differences were observed for ROM (p < 0.01), functional activities (p ≤ 0.001) and PPT (p ≤ 0.05). The findings of the current study suggested that LLLT is effective in treating patients with TrPs associated with rotator cuff tendonitis, when using the parameters described. However, the mechanism of its action is not yet clear, and will require further investigation.


in this paper, we propose adaptive medical image watermarking technique based on wavelet transform and properties of human visual system in order to maintain the authentication of medical images. Watermark embedding process is carried out by transforming the medical image into wavelet domain and then adaptive thresholding is computed to determine the suitable locations to hide the watermark in the image coefficients. The watermark data is embedded in the coefficients that are less sensitive to the human visual system in order to achieve the fidelity of medical image. Experimental results show that the degradation by embedding the watermark is too small to be visualized. Also, the proposed adaptive watermarking technique can preserve the fidelity of medical image. The fidelity performance of the proposed technique was evaluated by three image quality metrics which are PSNR, UQI and SSIM. The evaluation results exhibit a very good results of the proposed technique with respect to fidelity of medical image.


Phosphorylation motifs represent common patterns around the phosphorylation site. As the discovery of such kinds of motifs reveals the underlying regulation mechanism and facilitates the prediction of unknown phosphorylation events, some phosphorylation motif discovery methods are proposed. Existing methods include Motif-X, MoDL, and Motif-All. Each of these methods can find a certain number of motifs, however, there are still no theoretically guided measures to select true phosphorylation motifs from false ones. Since it is very expensive and time-consuming to perform the biological validation on all reported motifs, the use of effective statistical methods as a preliminary filter to remove non-significant motifs is actually needed. To solve this problem, we use permutation to calculate p-values of identified motifs and thus their statistical significance can be assessed accurately. We suggest to utilize three permutation methods: the Standard Permutation (SP), the Adaptive Marginal Effect Permutation (AMEP) and the Modified Adaptive Marginal Effect Permutation (MAMEP). We conduct comprehensive experimental studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods. Experimental results on real data and simulation studies show that all permutation methods are capable of removing potential false positives. Particularly, both AMEP and MAMEP are of practical use and can satisfy different requirements of biological researchers.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Background: Recent studies suggest that bisphosphonates, drugs commonly prescribed for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis, may reduce risk of developing a first breast cancer. This is the first population-based assessment of the effect of bisphosphonate use on risk of developing a second breast cancer among breast cancer survivors.

Methods: Within a population-based nested case-control study of women diagnosed with a first primary ER+ invasive breast cancer (BC) at ages 40-79, we assessed the association between bisphosphonate use after first breast cancer diagnosis and risk of asynchronous primary in the contralateral breast (CBC). Conditional logistic regression was used to compare 359 CBC cases to 649 incidence density matched controls (women not diagnosed with CBC). Analyses of duration were restricted to women followed for similar time periods.

Results: Use of nitrogenous bisphosphonates for ≥12 months following first primary ER+ BC diagnosis was associated with a 56% decrease in CBC risk relative to no bisphosphonate use in this period (95% CI: 0.24-0.80, p-value: 0.008). Increasing duration of bisphosphonate use was associated with greater reductions in CBC risk (OR≥6months: 0.52, 95% CI: 0.31-0.89, p-value: 0.02; OR≥16months: 0.42, 95% CI: 0.21-0.83, p-value: 0.01; OR≥36months: 0.25, 95% CI: 0.07-0.84, p-value: 0.03). Use within 6 months also appeared protective (OR: 0.50, CI: 0.29-0.88, p-value: 0.02).

Conclusions: This study suggests that use of nitrogenous bisphosphonates, following diagnosis with ER+ BC, may reduce second primary CBC. Given bisphosphonate tolerability and other potential benefits in this high-risk population, bisphosphonate therapy may be a feasible approach for CBC risk reduction, and merits further investigation.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3669. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3669


PURPOSE
To determine the role of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) during FGF-2-mediated endothelial mesenchymal transformation (EMT) in response to interleukin (IL)-1β stimulation in corneal endothelial cells (CECs).

METHODS
Expression and/or activation of IL-1 receptor-associated protein kinase (IRAK), TNF receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6), phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase), IκB kinase (IKK), IκB, NF-κB, and FGF-2 were analyzed by immunoblot analysis. Cell proliferation was measured by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazolyl-2)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. NF-κB activity was measured by NF-κB ELISA kit, while binding of NF-κB to the promoter region of FGF-2 gene was determined by chromatin immunoprecipitation.

RESULTS
Brief stimulation of CECs with IL-1β upregulated expression of IRAK and TRAF6 and activated PI 3-kinase; expression of IRAK and TRAF6 reached maximum within 60 minutes, after which the expression disappeared, while PI 3-kinase activity was observed up to 4 hours after IL-1β stimulation. Use of specific inhibitor to PI 3-kinase or IRAK demonstrated that IRAK activates PI 3-kinase, the signaling of which phosphorylates IKKα/β and degrades IκB, subsequently leading to activation of NF-κB. The induction of FGF-2 by IL-1β was completely blocked by inhibitors to NF-κB activation (sulfasalazine) or PI 3-kinase (LY294002), and both inhibitors greatly blocked cell proliferation of CECs. Chromatin immunoprecipitation further demonstrated that NF-κB is the transcription factor of FGF-2 as NF-κB binds the putative NF-κB binding site of the FGF-2 promoter.

CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest that IL-1β signaling combines the canonical pathway and the PI 3-kinase signaling to upregulate FGF-2 production through NF-κB, which plays a key role as a transcription factor of FGF-2 gene.


We present a new approach to the analysis of radiance in turbid media. The approach combines data from spectral, angular and spatial domains in a form of spectro-angular maps. Mapping provides a unique way to visualize details of light distribution in turbid media and allows tracking changes with distance. Information content of experimental spectro-angular maps is verified by a direct comparison with simulated data when an analytical solution of the radiative transfer equation is used. The findings deepen our understanding of the light distribution in a homogenous turbid medium and provide a first step toward applying the spectro-angular mapping as a diagnostic tool for tissue characterization.


Thermal demagnetization furnaces are widely used paleomagnetic facilities for progressive removal of naturally acquired magnetic remanence or the imparting of well controlled laboratory magnetization. An ideal thermal demagnetizer should maintain "zero" magnetic field in the sample chamber during thermal treatments. However, magnetic field noises, including the residual magnetic fields of the construction material and the induced fields caused by the alternating current (AC) in the heating element are always present, which can contaminate the paleoamgnetic results at the elevated temperatures or especially for the magnetically weak samples. Here, we designed a new structure of heating wire named " straight core solenoid " to develop a new demagnetization furnace with ultra-low magnetic field noise. Simulation and practical measurements show that the heating current magnetic field can be greatly reduced by using the new technology. Thermal demagnetization experiments demonstrate that the new demagnetizer can yield low noise results even for weakly magnetic samples.


Science is not just about knowing but also about experiencing. Today with the boon of technological advancement we have easy access to information and knowledge which is merely a click away with the advent of technological transformation. Science is largely about learning and it majorly comes through the experience. So, it's more important how you can make the experience of science more accessible to a lot of people around the world. The actual experience of science is utilizing scientific tools to make your own discoveries. Prof. Manu Prakash at Stanford University \cite{lab} is in a quest of how can we make scientific tools that are so affordable, which are like buying a pencil from a shop, So what it would mean if a scientific tool is as accessible as pencil? What you would actually do, would you sketch with it or would you write a poetry with it, what exactly is the end of that for science? This really can be done across different fields by making scientific devices and tools for all. So how do you make the microscopic world easily visible, it's just around you but most people haven't actually seen it.  What a feeling of wonder it would be for all the people to zoom into that invisible world which we are part of. Frugal Science which came out as a philosophy is now an innovative research field. Frugal Science is a type of research focusing on the development of scientific tools that are far cheaper and more accessible to the average person \cite{wikipedia}. Accessibility is a big challenge that science is faceing. The day is not far when we can have devices for point of care applications in our pocket, the devices which are versatile and robust. We can have diagnostics of deadly infectious diseases in the field with simple and easy devices without the sophisticated instruments and expertise. Improve the quality of treatment and also decrease the cost so that broad community of people can benefit. \cite{sciencea}Science doesn't always have to be costly. This way people can experience the science and can make them more curious, have them discover this new world and interpret it in their own way. With frugal science we can have designers and inventors at every home, you just need nourish your curiousity as we know, "Curiosity is the mother of inventions". With accessibility to frugal tools people can unleash and discover the world and experience the science for themselves. Also, this can lead to transformation in global health solutions and making healthcare accessible to the most remote parts of the world and making it more affordable. There are plenty of problems around us which are in urgent need to be addressed but with simple solutions. We need many frugal scientist for together making this world a better place to live. Be Crazy Be Curious!!


Hyperspectral data collected using a field spectroradiometer was used to model asymptomatic stress in Pinus radiata and Pinus patula seedlings infected with the pathogen Fusarium circinatum. Spectral data were analyzed using the random forest algorithm. To improve the classification accuracy of the model, subsets of wavebands were selected using three feature selection algorithms: (1) Boruta; (2) recursive feature elimination (RFE); and (3) area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the random forest (AUC-RF). Results highlighted the robustness of the above feature selection methods when used in conjunction with the random forest algorithm for analyzing hyperspectral data. Overall, the Boruta feature selection algorithm provided the best results. When discriminating F. circinatum stress in Pinus radiata seedlings, Boruta selected wavebands (n = 69) yielded the best overall classification accuracies (training error of 17.00%, independent test error of 17.00% and an AUC value of 0.91). Classification results were, however, significantly lower for P. patula seedlings, with a training error of 24.00%, independent test error of 38.00%, and an AUC value of 0.65. A hybrid selection method that utilizes combinations of wavebands selected from the three feature selection algorithms was also tested. The hybrid method showed an improvement in classification accuracies for P. patula, and no improvement for P. radiata. The results of this study provide impetus towards implementing a hyperspectral framework for detecting stress within nursery environments.


STUDY DESIGN
Prospective, single-group, repeated-measures design.

OBJECTIVE
To analyze the longissimus thoracis and lumbar multifidi muscle activity with surface electromyography (EMG) during exercises used in back rehabilitation programs.

BACKGROUND
Physical therapists use a variety of exercises when rehabilitating patients with low back pain (LBP). EMG analysis of exercises can provide a measure of muscle activation so a clinician can have a better idea about the effect the exercise may have on the muscle for stabilization, endurance, or strength training.

METHODS AND MEASURES
Surface EMG analysis of the muscle activity of the longissimus thoracis and lumbar multifidi was carried out bilaterally on 3 different experimental groups while performing a variety of exercises commonly used in low back rehabilitation programs. Groups 1 and 2 each had 30 subjects and group 2 had 29 subjects, ranging in age from 21 to 35 years. All EMG data during exercises were normalized to percent of the maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC).

RESULTS
The lumbar multifidus and longissimus thoracis muscles were most active, with EMG amplitudes of greater than 92% +/- 12% MVIC during prone lumbar extension to end range with resistance applied. Prone lumbar extension to neutral, resisted lumbar extension while sitting, and prone extension with the upper and lower extremities lifted (Superman exercise) produced EMG amplitudes ranging from a mean +/- SD of 77% +/- 13% to 82% +/- 12% MVIC. Exercises that produced EMG amplitudes of less than 50% MVIC were bridging exercises, the side-bridge exercise, and upper and lower extremity raises in either the prone or quadruped positions.

CONCLUSION
The findings from this study may be helpful for physical therapists in selecting exercises when progressing patients with LBP from low-intensity exercises to those that require more muscle activity.


The paper deals with ECG prediction based on neural networks classification of different types of time courses of ECG signals. The main objective is to recognise normal cycles and arrhythmias and perform further diagnosis. We proposed two detection systems that have been created with usage of neural networks. The experimental part makes it possible to load ECG signals, preprocess them, and classify them into given classes. Outputs from the classifiers carry a predictive character. All experimental results from both of the proposed classifiers are mutually compared in the conclusion. We also experimented with the new method of time series transparent prediction based on fuzzy transform with linguistic IF-THEN rules. Preliminary results show interesting results based on the unique capability of this approach bringing natural language interpretation of particular prediction, that is, the properties of time series.


Jaw mechanics in Pteropus were studied by means of a three-dimensional model. The model included several parameters of muscle architecture, combined with quantified movement and electromyographical data. Estimates of the nature of the applied forces that act upon the mandible during a chewing cycle, and subsequent estimates of reaction forces at the bite point and joints during the powerstroke, were thus obtained for different food consistencies. The resultant muscle force (relative to the palate) shifts from upward and slightly backward at large gapes to upward and markedly backward at the end of closing. The resultant simultaneously moves anteriorly. During the powerstroke it retains a constant position and orientation along the thickened anterior edge of the coronoid process. The early stages of opening are guided by the slope of the teeth and mandibular fossa; during the remaining part of opening the working line of the resultant crosses the skull behind the joint and thus acquires an opening moment. The bite force has downward and forward components, and a slight transverse component. For a given applied muscular force its magnitude is larger in more posteriorly positioned bite points. Both joints are loaded, the contralateral one more than the ipsilateral. Food consistency affects magnitude and orientation of the applied force, and hence, magnitude and orientation of the bite force and magnitude of the joint reaction forces. The magnitude of masseter activity relative to temporalis activity appears to be the key factor for the orientation of the bite force, and hence for the mechanical optimal position of the food. The adaptive value of the general topography of the masticatory muscles in Pteropus is discussed.


The field of geropsychology has grown worldwide since the 1990s, particularly in the United States. In the early 21st century, professional geropsychology was recognized by the American Psychological Association as a clinical specialty. Despite this growth, there is a shortage of practicing psychologists proficient in geropsychology to meet the mental health needs of older adults. Moreover, the need for psychologists with geriatric training is continuing to grow as healthcare increasingly shifts to integrated care, creating a demand for psychologists in clinical settings such as nursing homes, hospice and palliative care, primary care, and home-based primary care. The widening gap between supply and demand requires strategic recruitment and educational initiatives to grow the number of providers with competency in working with older adults. Recruitment strategies emphasize increasing supply by "priming the pipeline" through the creation of early exposure opportunities at the secondary, undergraduate, and graduate school level, strategic recruitment of underrepresented students, and expanding financial incentives for practice.
 Training and education in geropsychology have advanced considerably. The Pikes Peak Model for Professional Geropsychology Training provides the structure to gauge competency development. A framework for obtaining competency at the generalist, generalist with proficiency, and specialist levels has been created. In future years, there will be greater demand for post-licensure training in geropsychology, and geropsychologists will increasingly function as clinical educators. Technological advances will play a vital role in disseminating geropsychology education to generalist providers and related disciplines interested in gaining geropsychology exposure.


We propose a new word embedding method called word-like character n-gram embedding, which learns distributed representations of words by embedding word-like character n-grams. Our method is an extension of recently proposed segmentation-free word embedding, which directly embeds frequent character n-grams from a raw corpus. However, its n-gram vocabulary tends to contain too many non-word n-grams. We solved this problem by introducing an idea of expected word frequency. Compared to the previously proposed methods, our method can embed more words, along with the words that are not included in a given basic word dictionary. Since our method does not rely on word segmentation with rich word dictionaries, it is especially effective when the text in the corpus is in unsegmented language and contains many neologisms and informal words (e.g., Chinese SNS dataset). Our experimental results on Sina Weibo (a Chinese microblog service) and Twitter show that the proposed method can embed more words and improve the performance of downstream tasks.


Subunit c in the membrane-traversing F0 sector of Escherichia coli ATP synthase is known to fold with two transmembrane helices and form an oligomeric ring of 10 or more subunits in the membrane. Models for the E. coli ring structure have been proposed based upon NMR solution structures and intersubunit cross-linking of Cys residues in the membrane. The E. coli models differ from the recent x-ray diffraction structure of the isolated Ilyobacter tartaricus c-ring. Furthermore, key cross-linking results supporting the E. coli model prove to be incompatible with the I. tartaricus structure. To test the applicability of the I. tartaricus model to the E. coli c-ring, we compared the cross-linking of a pair of doubly Cys substituted c-subunits, each of which was compatible with one model but not the other. The key finding of this study is that both A21C/M65C and A21C/I66C doubly substituted c-subunits form high yield oligomeric structures, c2, c3... c10, via intersubunit disulfide bond formation. The results indicate that helical swiveling, with resultant interconversion of the two conformers predicted by the E. coli and I. tartaricus models, must be occurring over the time course of the cross-linking experiment. In the additional experiments reported here, we tried to ascertain the preferred conformation in the membrane to help define the most likely structural model. We conclude that both structures must be able to form in the membrane, but that the helical swiveling that promotes their interconversion may not be necessary during rotary function.


The purpose of this study was to establish whether preconceived body images influence quantitative perceptions of body shape. 59 healthy female subjects were subdivided into four groups by amount of activity and body mass index. The body shape of the same person, dressed differently to appear like a model, a student, and a cook, was classified by reference to an adiposity scale based on line drawings. A significant difference was shown between the representations of the types of occupation with the model viewed consistently as the slimmest and the cook as the fattest. The obese women classified all three occupational groups as slimmer than the nonobese, and the active groups as slimmer than the inactive. The implications of this work relate to a better understanding of body-image distortion, to treatment for eating disorders, and a recognition that people retain preconceived perceptions developed on the basis of experience.


Background Increased numbers of apoptotic leukocytes1 and impaired clearance of apoptotic cells2 have been demonstrated in SLE. Patients with C1q deficiency almost invariably develop SLE, probably because C1q is important in the clearance of apoptotic cells by monocyte/macrophages.3 Calreticulin has been shown to bind to the early complement component C1q, and interfere with complement-mediated immune processes. Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have increased serum levels of calreticulin.4 C-reactive protein (CRP) facilitates the clearance of apoptotic cells in the presence of C1q,5 but CRP levels are inappropriately low in SLE. Objectives To measure the expression of calreticulin on the surface of peripheral blood monocytes and neutrophils in SLE patients compared to normal and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) subjects, and correlate these with disease activity. Methods Peripheral blood was sampled from 28 SLE, 17 normal, and 19 RA subjects. Calreticulin expression on monocytes and neutrophils was measured by immunofluorescence labelling and flow cytometry, and the density of surface expression of calreticulin expressed as mean channel fluorescence (MCF) values. Results Calreticulin was expressed on the surface of over 90% of monocyes and neutrophils in all three groups. No differences in the percentage of cells expressing calreticulin were seen when the three groups were compared. The density of surface expression of calreticulin on monocytes was significantly higher in SLE (median MCF = 4.45) compared with normal subjects (median MCF = 3.25, p = 0.014). Density of surface expression of calreticulin on neutrophils was also higher in SLE (median MCF = 19.6) compared with normal subjects (median MCF = 14.50, p = 0.002). Calreticulin expression did not correlate with SLAM or BILAG scores. There were trends towards higher surface calreticulin expression on monocytes and neutrophils in SLE compared with RA, but these did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion Calreticulin expression is increased on monocyte and neutrophil cell surface membranes in SLE. The combination of increased monocyte and neutrophil surface calreticulin expression (which can interfere with C1q-mediated clearance), and inappropriately low levels of serum CRP and/or C1q (which facilitate this clearance), may contribute to the increased circulating apoptotic leukocytes seen in SLE. References Courtney PA, Crockard AD, Williamson K, Irvine AE, Kennedy RJ, Bell AL. Ann Rheum Dis. 1999;58(5):309–14 Herrmann M, Voll RE, Zoller OM, Hagenhofer M, Ponner BB, Kalden JR. Arthritis Rheum. 1998;41(7):1241–50 Walport MJ, Davies KA, Botto M. Immunobiology 1998;199(2):265–85 Eggleton P, Reid KB, Kishore U, Sontheimer RD. Lupus 1997;6(7):564–71 Gershov D, Kim S, Brot N, Elkon KB. J Exp Med. 2000;192(9):1353–64


This report presents an L/S-band over 300 W GaAs heterojunction FETs (HJFETs) amplifier for 28V operation. We employed "dual field-modulating-plates (dual-FP) technology", in which one of the FP electrodes is connected to the gate and the other to the ground. The newly developed push-pull amplifier, with four dual-FPFET chips, demonstrated 55.1dBm (320W) CW output power with a 14.0dB linear gain and a maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) of 57% at 2.14GHz. Under two-carrier W-CDMA signals, it showed high drain efficiency (nd) of 30% and low IM3 of -37dBc at Pout of 47.5dBm. To our knowledge, this is the best performance ever reported among high power amplifiers for W-CDMA base stations.


The academic pursuit within the area of parapsychology has been developed since the turn of the twentieth century. Despite this there remains ongoing dispute as to whether such abilities as psi, loosely defined as the transfer of information or energy between individuals and their environment in the absence of known physical means, do in fact exist. The current study attempted to utilise EEG, GSR and self-report measures to show that significantly above chance hit rates could be obtained during forced choice Zener card trials between isolated pairs. It also attempted to show that emotional connectedness presumably characterised by the duration of the individual's relationship and ones belief in the paranormal could positively affect hit rates during such forced choice trials. The results failed to show any level of hit rates above those expected by chance by either the physiological or self-report measures. There was also no significant relationship found between the duration of an individual's personal relationship or their degree of belief in the paranormal and their hit rate during the forced choice trials. There was therefore no support in the current study for the existence of psi ability specifically telepathy or clairvoyance within the participant sample.


It is amazing to see the progress, which has been made over the last two decades, in investigating and developing numerical methods beyond the classical finite element method. The Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) and related methods are some of the major outcomes of this time. The name 'XFEM' has been coined about 10 years ago. Since then, the method has gained the attention and overwhelming interest of an ever-increasing number of researchers. The XFEM is on its best way toward being a reliable and accepted innovative tool for computational engineers in research and industry. The XFEM proves highly useful for the simulation of solutions that involve non-smooth features such as jumps, kinks, and singularities. This is the case for a large number of engineering applications ranging from crack propagation, two-phase flows, fluid–structure interaction, or even biomechanics. The XFEM has also matured in terms of methodological improvements: different formulations of the approximation, the extension to hand p-adaptivity, numerical integration, and the treatment of interfacial constraints are some of the topics. Many developments in the closely related Partition of Unity Method and Generalized Finite Element Method have also proven their applicability and usefulness in the context of the XFEM. Most of the contributions in this special issue are related to presentations held at the first ECCOMAS thematic conference 'The Extended Finite Element Method—Recent Developments and Applications' at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. This event took place in September 2009 and attracted more than 130 participants. The follow-up event will take place in July 2011 in Cardiff, U.K. The editors would like to take the opportunity to thank all authors for their contributions. We wish the reader an interesting and fruitful study of this special issue on the XFEM and related methods.


The authors assessed the impact of the Nazi Holocaust on the course and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Israeli combat stress reaction casualties. They examined a sample of 96 such casualties of the 1982 Lebanon War whose parents had gone through the Nazi Holocaust and compared them to casualties who did not have such family history for 3 consecutive years beginning 1 year after their participation in the war. Results showed that 2 and 3 years after their participation in the 1982 Lebanon War, the children of Holocaust survivors, i.e., "second-generation" casualties, had higher rates of PTSD than did the control subjects, as well as a somewhat different clinical picture. Clinical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed.


With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and indoor positioning technologies, how to manage the rapidly increasing indoor moving object data is a research topic. The fundamental issue is to consider the representation of complicated indoor space as well as the moving object. In this paper, we aim to propose a complete indoor space model that can support various indoor applications. The proposed model divides each indoor element into multigranularity grids and introduces grids as indoor primitive geometry for the representation of connectivity between indoor elements and location of moving objects. The advantage of this approach is that it can simultaneously represent the connective relationship and geometric information of indoor elements, and give more accurate description of indoor distance and direction information. Several queries of indoor applications under the shopping mall scenario are employed to illustrate the completeness and robustness of our model.


This work presents an indirect method of investigating the elemental diversity of historical inks. The manuscript of Fryderyk Chopin's Impromptu in A flat major, Op. 29 was examined as an example of the proposed approach for testing documents containing different inks. Preliminary in situ X-ray fluorescence (XRF) measurements carried out it the museum storage room provided qualitative reference data for the object. Then, selected areas on the item were examined with indicator papers soaked in 4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (Bphen). The reaction with the ligand enabled the immediate colorimetric detection of Fe(II) in the form of magenta Fe(Bphen)3 complex. The overall condition of the manuscript with regard to the risk of ink corrosion was assessed in this way. More chemical information were obtained by the proposed elemental imaging-based approach to evaluate chemical heterogeneity of the used indicator paper samples using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The recorded data were visualised in the form of elemental distribution maps. The Fe enriched areas indicated Regions of Interest (ROIs) to approximate composition of the inks from the manuscript. All calculations were done solely for the data mathematically singled out from these areas. The varying proportions of AI, Mn, Co and Cu relative to Fe correlated with the ROIs of the composer's handwriting, editor's notes and stave lines, demonstrating the applicability of the proposed approach for comparative studies.


It is at once an obstacle and an aid to the spread of sound geological knowledge that the wider problems of the science are in some of their aspects capable of easy apprehension. The facility with which their nature and bearings may in many cases be understood, added to the attractiveness of the subject itself, undoubtedly tends to increase largely the number of earnest students of geology. But this facility has brought a long list of followers, who, misled by the simplicity of the first aspect of the subject, have imagined that no more serious difficulties lay beyond. Such a misconception would not, indeed, have been so unfortunate, had not those who laboured under it felt themselves impelled to publish their views to the world. For in this way geological literature in this country has been burdened with a weight of crude opinion and hypothesis which seriously retard the advance of the science. No branch of geological inquiry offers a more signal example of this result than that which deals more especially with the influence of Denudation upon the present outlines of a land-surface. The subject possesses a strong human interest, and, viewed from certain points, presents itself in a simple and intelligible guise. It has accordingly attracted much attention, and the amount of literature devoted to it has now become very large. Of some portions of this literature it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the value; the contributions of Ramsay, Jukes, and others, are among the most important which This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract


The author demonstrates the superposition of sinusoidal oscillations using only the usual laboratory equipment plus a phase shifter and an amplifier which are both cheap and easy to build.


Circulating malignant cells may be demonstrated in patients with lymphoma. Whereas Hodgkin's disease rarely if ever becomes leukemic, the non-Hodgkin's lymphomas often express varying numbers of neoplastic cells in peripheral blood. The incidence of leukemic manifestation in these patients correlates with the histologic subtype of the lymphoma. Pure morphologic examination of neoplastic circulating cells may not be sufficient to recognize the presence of lymphoma or to diagnose its type. The application of modern laboratory techniques such as enzyme histochemistry, cell surface markers and cell kinetics, may be very helpful in demonstrating the presence of circulating lymphoma cells in recognizing their type.


The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between leisure involvement and subjective well-being and clarify the moderating effect of spousal support in this relationship. A total of 254 questionnaires were collected from a sample of players of slow pitch softball. Structural equation modelling was utilised to estimate a model that linked leisure involvement and spousal support to subjective well-being. As expected, the results show that a recreation having greater leisure involvement leads to a high level of subjective well-being. The findings further show that spousal support moderate the effect of leisure involvement on subjective well-being, indicating that greater spousal support is associated with a higher likelihood that leisure involvement will improve subjective well-being. Key words : Leisure involvement; Spousal support; Subjective well-being; Slow pitch softball


List of illustrations Preface 1. Brahms and England Michael Musgrave 2. The establishment of a Brahms repertoire 1980-1902 Siegfried Kross 3. New light on the Brahms Nachlass Otto Biba 4. Brahms's 'Way': a composer's self-view Imogen Fellinger 5. Brahms's posthumous compositions and arrangements: editorial problems and questions of authenticity George S. Bozarth 6. Brahms's links with German Renaissance music: a discussion of selected choral works Virginia Hancock 7. Brahms's Missa canonica and its recomposition in his Motet 'Warum' Op. 74 No. 1 Robert Pascall 8. The String Quartets Op. 51 No. 1 in C minor and No. 2 in A minor: a preface Michael Musgrave and Robert Pascall 9. Two of a kind? Brahms's Op. 51 finales Arnold Whittall 10. Motivic design and structural levels in the first movement of Brahms's String Quartet in C minor Allen Forte 11. The 'Sceptred Pall': Brahm's progressive harmony Christopher Wintle 12. Brahms the indecisive: notes on the first movement of the Fourth Symphony Louise Litterick Appendix: exhibition handlist Nigel Simeone Index.


Markov networks are models for compactly representing complex probability distributions. They are composed by a structure and a set of numerical weights. The structure qualitatively describes independences in the distribution, which can be exploited to factorize the distribution into a set of compact functions. A key application for learning structures from data is to automatically discover knowledge. In practice, structure learning algorithms focused on "knowledge discovery" present a limitation: they use a coarse-grained representation of the structure. As a result, this representation cannot describe context-specific independences. Very recently, an algorithm called CSPC was designed to overcome this limitation, but it has a high computational complexity. This work tries to mitigate this downside presenting CSGS, an algorithm that uses the Grow-Shrink strategy for reducing unnecessary computations. On an empirical evaluation, the structures learned by CSGS achieve competitive accuracies and lower computational complexity with respect to those obtained by CSPC.


This article conducts an empirical analysis of the role of intergovernmental transfers in a group of regions (departments) in Uruguay during the period 2006–2014. It examines the structure and evolution of regional fiscal disparities and the equalizing effects of the current transfer system. It then proposes an innovative methodology for simulating the effects of a new system of equalization transfers. The main finding is that implementing this new system would help to consolidate greater territorial fiscal homogeneity in Uruguay.


SUMMARY For Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), identifying the copyright notices is important. However, both the collaborative manner of FOSS project development and the large number of source files increase its di ffi culty. In this paper, we aim at automatically identifying the copy-right notices in source files based on machine learning techniques. The evaluation experiment shows that our method outperforms FOSSology, the only existing method based on regular expression. key words: software maintenance, open source software, software copy-right


An image is often modeled as a product of two principal components: illumination and reflectance components. The former is related to the amount of light incident on the scene and the latter is associated with the scene characteristics. The images formed from the two components are referred to as the illumination and the reflectance images; both are called the intrinsic images of the original image. The illumination components of the images of a fixed scene vary from image to image, while the reflectance components of the images in principle remain constant. Both reflectance and illumination images have their own applications. Intrinsic image extraction has long been an important task for computer vision applications. However, this task is not at all simple because it is an illconditioned problem. The proposed approach convolves an input image with a prescribed set of derivative filters. The pixels of the derivative images are next classified as being reflectance or illumination according to three measures: chromatic, intensity contrast and edge sharpness, which are calculated in advance for each pixel from the input image. Finally, a de-convolution process is applied to the classified derivative images to obtain the intrinsic images. The results reveal the feasibility of the proposed technique in both rapidly and effectively decomposing intrinsic images from one single image.


Revising scientific papers based on peer feedback is a challenging task that requires not only deep scientific knowledge and reasoning, but also the ability to recognize the implicit requests in high-level feedback and to choose the best of many possible ways to update the manuscript in response. We introduce this task for large language models and release ARIES, a dataset of review comments and their corresponding paper edits, to enable training and evaluating models. We study two versions of the task: comment-edit alignment and edit generation, and evaluate several baselines, including GPT-4. We find that models struggle even to identify the edits that correspond to a comment, especially in cases where the comment is phrased in an indirect way or where the edit addresses the spirit of a comment but not the precise request. When tasked with generating edits, GPT-4 often succeeds in addressing comments on a surface level, but it rigidly follows the wording of the feedback rather than the underlying intent, and includes fewer technical details than human-written edits. We hope that our formalization, dataset, and analysis will form a foundation for future work in this area.


Background: If a lung is homogenized and a trace element analysis procedure is applied, then, indeed, some trace amounts of some elements could be found with high accuracy and sensitivity. But if there is a question as Is this human or animal drowned in this water or environment? some alternative opinions must be taken into account and some alternative methods that satisfy this opinion must be applied. This study was carried out to answer this question on a drowned green sea turtle (Chelomia-Mydas) in a polluted part of eastern Mediterranean Sea. Method: This study includes the scanning electron microscope electron dispersion spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analysis of soil samples which were collected from the polluted area and the residues of 6 different ground water samples. Residues of a seawater sample which were collected from the highly polluted part of the sea and the residues on the drowned turtle lung bronchial surface, were detected by SEM, analyzed by EDS and the elemental compositions of both samples were compared. Results: As a predictive parameter of pollution of chromium contents of seawater from the front of a soda chrome factory and lung bronchial surface, residues were found to be nearly in the same amount. Other results from the soil and underground water samples showed that the environment of the soda chrome factory have been dramatically polluted. Conclusion: One forensically can say that this turtle has been drowned in this highly polluted region of the sea.


This paper is a descriptive research to identify the types of strategies used by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to provide a main competitive factor. Data collection involved two instruments, taken from Vezina (2011). We use an interview guide and questionnaire to directors and/or managers. We used the strategies typology of Miles and Snow (1978). Evidence shows that managers of small and medium enterprises for the most part, adopted a strategy that adapts to the environment. We further find that exploring and analyzing strategies were the most representative for small businesses, defined by staying in a more dynamic environment. Midsize companies adopt further to the analyzing type, characterized by trying to minimize risks and maximize profits in a safer environment and always supported by a administrative management system.


Constructed stormwater infiltration basins have been broad applied in urban areas in terms of stormwater disposal and compensation of reduced groundwater recharge. However, stormwater derived from sediments accumulating in infiltration beds may act as a source of dissolved contaminants for groundwater. Concentrations of DO, NO3(-)-N, NO2(-)-N, NH4(+)-N and PO4(3-)-P were monitored at multiple depth with time. The results showed that the occurrence of denitrificarion was restrained by sediments in term of no invertebrates. Under the conditions of invertebrates inoculated, the concentrations of DO, NO3(-)-N, NO2(-)-N, NH4(+)-N and PO4(3-)-P varied respectively with time and the occurrence of nitrification and mobilizing nitrate in the sediment. It is concluded that there exist the invertebrate activities such as building tubes and galleries and excreting faecal pellet which may increase water dispersion and enhance accessibility of nutrient, and stimulate microbial process effected in the sediment. Besides, the natural death and rot of worms were also found to be important factors of the invertebrate activities.


Agricultural cooperatives, like other cooperative firms, face a wide array of choices in how they distribute and retain profits. These choices impact the cooperative's solvency, liquidity, and cash flow as well as each member's cash flow and realized return from the cooperative. Taxation at both the firm and the patron level further complicates the picture. In recent years the availability of the Domestic Production Activities Deduction (DPAD) has impacted the profit distribution of many agricultural cooperatives (Barton, 2011). While cooperative CEOs and boards of directors appear to be astute in analyzing the tax and cash flow implications of profit distribution alternatives, it is not clear whether they understand the impacts on the members' return from the cooperative. This paper explicitly examines that question using financial data from 10 case study grain and farm supply cooperatives in Oklahoma


This paper describes a number of experiments in adding new grammatical knowledge to the Berkeley Restaurant Project (BeRP), our medium-vocabulary (1300 word), speaker-independent, spontaneous continuous-speech understanding system. We describe an algorithm for using a probabilistic Earley parser and a stochastic context-free grammar (SCFG) to generate word transition probabilities at each frame for a Viterbi decoder. We show that using an SCFG as a language model improves the word error rate from 34.6% (bigram) to 29.6% (SCFG), and the semantic sentence recognition error from from 39.0% (bigram) to 34.1% (SCFG). In addition, we get a further reduction to 28.8% word error by mixing the bigram and SCFG LMs. We also report on our preliminary results from using discourse-context information in the LM.


Most biomass to biofuel processes are limited to the production of linear or minimally branched hydrocarbons. Motor gasoline, however, consists of highly branched linear and/or cyclic alkanes. This work describes the optimization of the levulinic ester self-condensation reaction and the efficient conversion of its products, which are highly branched cyclopentadienes, into a mixture of substituted cyclopentanes with high octane ratings and excellent density and flow properties.


Abstract When identifying the conditions required for the sustainable and long-term exploitation of geothermal resources it is very important to assess the dynamics of processes linked to the formation, migration and deposition of particles in geothermal systems. Such particles often cause clogging and damage to the boreholes and source reservoirs. Solid particles: products of corrosion processes, secondary precipitation from geothermal water or particles from the rock formations holding the source reservoir, may settle in the surface installations and lead to clogging of the injection wells. The paper proposes a mathematical model for changes in the absorbance index and the water injection pressure required over time. This was determined from the operating conditions for a model system consisting of a doublet of geothermal wells (extraction and injection well) and using the water occurring in Liassic sandstone structures in the Polish Lowland. Calculations were based on real data and conditions found in the Skierniewice GT-2 source reservoir intake. The main product of secondary mineral precipitation is calcium carbonate in the form of aragonite and calcite. It has been demonstrated that clogging of the active zone causes a particularly high surge in injection pressure during the fi rst 24 hours of pumping. In subsequent hours, pressure increases are close to linear and gradually grow to a level of ~2.2 MPa after 120 hours. The absorbance index decreases at a particularly fast rate during the fi rst six hours (Figure 4). Over the period of time analysed, its value decreases from over 42 to approximately 18 m3/h/MPa after 120 hours from initiation of the injection. These estimated results have been confi rmed in practice by real-life investigation of an injection well. The absorbance index recorded during the hydrodynamic tests decreased to approximately 20 m3/h/MPa after 120 hours.


The following paper explores the use of collaborative pedagogical approaches to advance foundational architectural design education, by linking design process to sustainable technology principles. After a brief discussion on architectural design education, the mentioned collaborative approach is described. This approach facilitates students' exchange of knowledge between two courses, despite no explicit/assessable requirement to do so. The result for the students is deeper learning and a design process that is enriched through collaboration with sustainable technology. The success of this approach has been measured through questionnaires, evaluation surveys, and a comparative assessment of students common to both courses. The paper focuses on the challenges and innovations in connecting architectural design and technology education, where students are encouraged to implement lessons learnt, thereby closing the gap that these courses have traditionally represented.


Background/Aims: The use of antihypertensive medicines has been shown to reduce proteinuria, morbidity, and mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). A specific recommendation for a class of antihypertensive drugs is not available in this population, despite the pharmacodynamic differences. We have therefore analysed the association between antihypertensive medicines and survival of patients with chronic kidney disease. Methods: Out of 2687 consecutive patients undergoing kidney biopsy a cohort of 606 subjects with retrievable medical therapy was included into the analysis. Kidney function was assessed by glomerular filtration rate (GFR) estimation at the time point of kidney biopsy. Main outcome variable was death. Results: Overall 114 (18.7%) patients died. In univariate regression analysis the use of alpha-blockers and calcium channel antagonists, progression of disease, diabetes mellitus (DM) type 1 and 2, arterial hypertension, coronary heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, male sex and age were associated with mortality (all p<0.05). In a multivariate Cox regression model the use of calcium channel blockers (HR 1.89), age (HR 1.04), DM type 1 (HR 8.43) and DM type 2 (HR 2.17) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (HR 1.66) were associated with mortality (all p < 0.05). Conclusion: The use of calcium channel blockers but not of other antihypertensive medicines is associated with mortality in primarily GN patients with CKD.


The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) plays an important role in the regulation of normal cell proliferation, differentiation and survival. For this reason EGFR status is often altered in a range of human tumor types and generally correlates with a poor prognosis. In recent years a number of mutations in the EGFR gene have been noted that lead to the expression of overactive or constitutively active aberrant receptors. These receptors have been shown to participate actively in the process of tumor genesis. This review provides an overview of the structure of these mutations and their biological function in human tumors plus the potentials of anticancer therapy.


The structure of supported platinum catalyst (2 wt% Pt/Al2O3) has been determined during the sudden change in the activity of the catalyst, referred as "ignition", during oxidation of carbon monoxide. The catalyst was prepared by incipient wetness impregnation method. The active phase of the catalyst is shown to be a highly disordered platinum oxide. This surface oxide increases with the increase of carbon monoxide conversion during the ignition process, which further increased the conversion, making the process autocatalytic. The QEXAFS spectra collected at Pt L3 edge with a time resolution of 0.5 sec are compared with the standard EXAFS that are generally collected in transmission mode and are shown to be useful to extract valuable information about the changing structure of the catalyst during the ignition.


A mixed graph is said to be integral if all the eigenvalues of its Hermitian adjacency matrix are integer. Let $\Gamma$ be an abelian group. The mixed Cayley graph $Cay(\Gamma,S)$ is a mixed graph on the vertex set $\Gamma$ and edge set $\left\{ (a,b): b-a\in S \right\}$, where $0\not\in S$. We characterize integral mixed Cayley graph $Cay(\Gamma,S)$ over an abelian group $\Gamma$ in terms of its connection set $S$.


By making use of the diagonalization of the complete d(3) energy matrix in a trigonally distorted cubic-field and the theory of pressure-induced shifts (PS) of energy spectra, the whole energy spectrum of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ and PS of levels have been calculated. All the calculated results are in excellent agreement with the experimental data. The comparison between the results of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ and ruby has been made. It is found that on one hand, R-1-line and R-2-line PS of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ and ruby are linear in pressure over 0 similar to 100 kbar, and their values of the principal parameter for PS are very close to each other. On the other hand, the sensitivities of R-1-line and R-2-line PS of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ axe higher than those of ruby respectively, which comes mainly from the difference between the values of parameters at normal pressure of two crystals; moreover, the expansion of d-electron wavefunctions of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ with compression is slightly larger than the one of ruby, and the effective charge experienced by d-electrons of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ decreases with compression more rapidly than the one of ruby. In the final analysis, all these can be explained in terms of the facts that the two crystals are doped alpha-Al2O3 with two isoelectronic ions; the strengths of the crystal field and covalency of alpha-Al2O3:Mn4+ are larger than those of ruby respectively, due to the charge of Mn4+ to be larger than that of Cr3+.


BACKGROUND
Stroke survivors might perceive their quality of life (QoL) as being affected even years after onset. The purpose of this review was to go through the literature to identify factors related to QoL for persons with stroke in China and Western countries for possible similarities and differences in their respective cultural views.

METHOD
A narrative literature review was conducted on the papers identified by searching PubMed, EBSCO/CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang Data that published up to November 2016. Factors predicting QoL after stroke were extracted, and comparisons were made between Chinese and Western studies respecting cultural aspects.

RESULTS
A total of 43 articles were included in this review, with 31 conducted in Western countries and 12 in China. Predictors of QoL included Demographic factors: age, gender, marital status, education level, socioeconomic status; Clinically related factors: severity of stroke, physical function, depression/anxiety, cognitive impairment, incontinence and other comorbidities; Environmental factors: residential status, social support, social participation; and Individual factors: coping strategies and self-perception. Being married and resident at home might be associated with the perception of QoL differently between Chinese and Western survivors.

CONCLUSIONS
Most predictors of QoL in stroke survivors were the same in China and the Western countries. However, their QoL might be predicted differently regarding to the individualistic and collectivistic cultural differences.


Support for democratisation and democracy has become one of the leading topics in a wide-ranging debate over the state of democracy in the contemporary world. The European Union became an important player in global politics, one with an ambitious programme for the spreading and supporting of democracy and the process of democratisation in Eastern Europe. Hence the author's attempt at addressing the following question: what actions and strategies have and are being undertaken by the EU to facilitate the above-mentioned processes? The aim of the paper is to describe and assess the strategies and actions of the European Union in the field of supporting democratisation and democracy in selected countries of the former USSR (e.g. Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), additionally well-fitting to the concept of Eastern Partnership, in the last decade of XX and the first decade of XXI Century. The paper also aims to present which procedures and standards (that are supposed to guarantee their usefulness and effectiveness) are being used by the EU. The emphasis has been placed primarily on the processes of democratisation, their mileage, specificity and possible strategies for supporting democratic development, as well as its potential for consolidation, in the countries of the former Soviet Union. In order to conduct the research it is necessary to assess the political, social and economic conditions in the researched countries. It is to be stressed that one should be aware of the complexity and dynamics of the described processes whilst evaluating the EU's initiatives. The papers topic was chosen due to the importance and currentness of the researched EU actions and their results.


A stable three-dimensional glucose/oxygen enzymatic biofuel cell is fabricated based on the method of polymer encapsulation-based immobilization. And three-dimensional carbon felt is used as the substrate of the bio-electrode for increasing enzymatic loading density. Gold nanoparticles and multi-wall carbon nanotubes are employed to promote direct electron transfer and enhance conductivity and electron conduction rate of bio-electrodes. Glucose dehydrogenase and bilirubin oxidase are immobilized with tetrabutylammonium bromide (TBAB) modified Nafion, which enhances the stability of the bio-electrodes by the immobilization method. A membrane-free glucose/oxygen biofuel cell is assembled with a high open-circuit voltage of 0.85 V and a maximum power density of 21.9 ± 0.1 μW/cm2 in 0.1 M pH 7.0 phosphate buffer solution with 100 mM glucose and air saturation. And the biofuel cell shows high stability to the condition. After 60 days of periodic storage experiments, the performance of the enzymatic biofuel cell still maintained 90.3% of its electrochemical performance.


Objective This study aimed to investigate the relationship between physical activity (PA) of moderate to vigorous intensity (MVPA) and ikigai in older Japanese adults. We evaluated the amount of PA using an activity meter equipped with a three-axis accelerometer. The measured activities were classified into locomotive PA and non-locomotive PA to clarify not only the relationship between MVPA and ikigai, but the types of activities that lead to increased ikigai as well. Methods Participants were 86 community-dwelling older adult Japanese men and women. Measurement items included basic information (age, sex, BMI, and the number of underlying diseases), PA, Self-completed Occupational Performance Index (SOPI), and ikigai (the K-1 Scale). Confounding factors presumed to be related to ikigai were also elicited from previous studies. Associations of ikigai into three groups (high, middle, and low) with PA were analyzed by group comparisons and multivariate analyses. Results The comparison of PA indices among the high, middle, and low ikigai groups revealed that non-locomotive MVPA is significantly associated with ikigai (p < 0.05). In multiple comparisons, the low ikigai group was significantly and negatively affected by non-locomotive MVPA (p < 0.05) compared to the middle and high ikigai groups. Furthermore, in a multivariate analysis with ikigai as the dependent variable and sex, age, locomotive MVPA, and non-locomotive MVPA as independent variables, only non-locomotive MVPA (p < 0.05) was associated. Discussion These results suggest that non-locomotive MVPA is effective in enhancing ikigai.


ABSTRACT Lu, X.-M. and Wu, Q., 2019. Coverage hole patching of hybrid wireless sensor network in marine environment. In: Gong, D.; Zhu, H., and Liu, R. (eds.), Selected Topics in Coastal Research: Engineering, Industry, Economy, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 94, pp. 296–300. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. During the pollutant leakage detection process in the marine environment, since the detection area cannot be determined in advance, applying random distributed homogeneous static wireless sensor nodes for the detection would generate coverage holes. The traditional coverage hole patching method uses the homogeneous mobile sensor nodes to randomly cover the hole area, the coverage rate is low, and it's a huge waste of resources, and in practical applications, all sensor nodes are heterogeneous. In response to this problem, this paper proposed a hole patching algorithm with a priority mechanism. The algorithm used the size of the holes of the heterogeneous hybrid network to determine the patching priority and to perform hole patching, and increased the coverage rate, it is conductive to the coverage hole patching of wireless sensor network (WSN) in the marine environment.


Panax ginseng is one of the most frequently used herbs in the world. Numerous trials have evaluated its clinical benefits. However, the quality of these studies has not been comprehensively and systematically assessed. We reviewed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Panax ginseng to evaluate their quality and risk of bias. We searched four English databases, without publication date restriction. Two reviewers extracted details about the studies' methodological quality, guided by the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist and its extension for herbal interventions. Risk of bias was determined using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Of 475 potentially relevant studies, 58 met our inclusion criteria. In these 58 studies, 48.3% of the suggested CONSORT checklist items and 35.9% of the extended herbal items were reported. The quality of RCTs published after the CONSORT checklist improved. Until 1995 (before CONSORT) (n = 4), 32.8% of the items were reported in studies. From 1996-2006 (CONSORT published and revised) (n = 30), 46.1% were reported, and from 2007 (n = 24), 53.5% were reported (p = 0.005). After the CONSORT extension for herbal interventions was published in 2006, RCT quality also improved, although not significantly. Until 2005 (n = 34), 35.2% of the extended herbal items were reported in studies; and from 2006 onwards (n = 24), 37.3% were reported (p = 0.64). Most studies classified risk of bias as "unclear". Overall, the quality of Panax ginseng RCT methodology has improved since the CONSORT checklist was introduced. However, more can be done to improve the methodological quality of, and reporting in, RCTs.


Piezoelectric nanocrystals have been used for self-powered nanosystems, implantable biodevices, wireless sensors and portable/wearable electronics. A profound way to increase the output voltage (or power) of the piezoelectric devices is to utilize a material with higher piezoelectric constants. (1−x)Pb (Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3−x PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) has been considered as the piezoelectric material of the next generation due to the high piezoelectric constant. The high flexibility, sensitivity and strain tolerance of PMN-PT nanostructures make them ideal for self-powered nanosystems. This article reviews the fabrication and structural characterization of different PMN-PT nanostructures, and their applications in various devices.


In this letter, we focus on rateless coded adaptive transmission in a cellular downlink. Based on a stochastic geometry model for the locations of BSs, we evaluate the meta-distribution of rate, i.e., the distribution of rate conditioned on the point process. An accurate approximation to the distribution of per-user rate is proposed and clearly shown to provide a good match to the simulation results. We quantify the gain in the per-user rate due to physical layer rateless codes relative to the fixed-rate adaptive modulation and coding.


Doctor Berkowitz has produced an unusual book on diagnosis. What he has done has been to list a series of symptoms and signs, such as jaundice, nausea, vomiting, or menstrual disorders, and then to check for all the conditions that might produce these particular clinical findings. This book could be helpful to a physician faced with a much-studied patient who complains, let us say, of severe itching day and night, with no other symptoms or helpful findings. He could look to this book and immediately identify the disorders that he should suspect (such as the very subtle jaundice due to cancer of the liver or the final stage of Hodgkin's disease or a beginning diabetes). I was able to use this book the other day when a young woman came in having a history of daily slight fever for months and no other clues that would help in the diagnosis.


Neuropeptide Y (NPY) plays an important role in stress, anxiety, obesity, and energy homeostasis via activation of NPY-Y1 receptors (Y1Rs) in the brain. However, global knockout of the Npy1r gene has low or no impact on anxiety and body weight. To uncover the role of limbic Y1Rs, we generated conditional knockout mice in which the inactivation of the Npy1r gene was restricted to excitatory neurons of the forebrain, starting from juvenile stages (Npy1rrfb). Npy1rrfb mice exhibited increased anxiety and reduced body weight, less adipose tissue, and lower serum leptin levels. Npy1rrfb mutants also had a hyperactive hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical axis, as indicated by higher peripheral corticosterone and higher density of NPY immunoreactive fibers and corticotropin releasing hormone immunoreactive cell bodies in the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus. Importantly, through fostering experiments, we determined that differences in phenotype between Npy1rrfb and Npy1r2lox mice became apparent when both genotypes were raised by FVB/J but not by C57BL/6J dams, suggesting that limbic Y1Rs are key targets of maternal care-induced programming of anxiety and energy homeostasis.


Continuous improvement techniques are important tools for enabling companies to improve their operations. The implementation of these techniques is however estimated to be quite different around the world. Continuous improvement is a thermometer that companies can use to feel their health in this hectic market. This paper compares two countries, Mexico and Sweden, which are considered to be quite different in culture and industrial structure, in terms of the use of continuous improvement tools and techniques, such as TQM, Kaizen, Six-Sigma, and Lean Manufacturing.The surveys in the two countries are based on the same scale, sample size, and industrial sector. A definition of each of the key-words was included in the questionnaire. The results indicate both similarities and differences in the strengths and weaknesses of the companies. The companies can work on the results to benchmark themselves and they can reinforce their strengths as well as to reduce their weaknesses.


The process of writing code and use of features in an integrated development environment (IDE) is a fruitful source of data in computing education research. Existing studies use records of students' actions in the IDE, consecutive code snapshots, compilation events, and others, to gain deep insight into the process of student programming. In this paper, we present a set of tools for collecting and processing data of student activity during problem-solving. The first tool is a plugin for IntelliJ-based IDEs (PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA, CLion). By capturing snapshots of code and IDE interaction data, it allows to analyze the process of writing code in different languages --- Python, Java, Kotlin, and C++. The second tool is designed for the post-processing of data collected by the plugin and is capable of basic analysis and visualization. To validate and showcase the toolkit, we present a dataset collected by our tools. It consists of records of activity and IDE interaction events during solution of programming tasks by 148 participants of different ages and levels of programming experience. We propose several directions for further exploration of the dataset.


Four hundred and fifty subjects were included in a study of the prevalence of soil-transmitted nematodes in Ujung Pandang, South-Sulawesi, Indonesia. Trichuriasis was the most prevalent infection (93.3%), followed by ascariasis (80.2%) and hookworm infection (19.5%). Among 156 subjects who were given 500 mg of mebendazole in a single dose, treatment resulted in cure rates of 93.4%, 77.6%, and 91.1%, and average egg-count reduction rates of 99.0%, 92.8%, and 98.3%, for ascariasis, trichuriasis, and hookworm infections, respectively. Mebendazole appeared to be equally effective against necatoriasis and ancylostomiasis. The drug was well tolerated and almost no side effects were observed. Single dose mebendazole treatment appears to be relatively inexpensive, convenient, and effective in mass treatment for the control of intestinal nematode infections, especially in highly infected communities.