Growth, metabolic rate, and energy reserves of Cherax quadricarinatus (von Martens, 1868) juveniles were evaluated in crayfish acclimated for 16 weeks to either 25 oC (temperature near optimum) or 20 oC (marginal for the species). Additionally, the modulating effect of ecdsyone on acclimation was studied. After 12 weeks of exposure, weight gain of both experimental groups acclimated to 25 oC (control: C25, and ecdysone treated: E25) was significantly higher than that of those groups acclimated to 20 oC (C20 and E20). A total compensation in metabolic rate was seen after acclimation from 25 oC to 20 oC; for both the control group and the group treated with ecdysone. A Q 10 value significantly higher was only observed in the group acclimated to 20 oC and treated with ecdysone. A reduction of glycogen reserves in both hepatopancreas and muscle, as well as a lower protein content in muscle, was seen in both groups acclimated to 20 oC. Correspondingly, glycemia was always higher in these groups. Increased lipid levels were seen in the hepatopancreas of animals acclimated to 20 oC, while a higher lipid level was also observed in muscle at 20 oC, but only in ecdysone-treated crayfish.


Aging entails health challenges globally, but pertinent data from low-income countries like Uganda remains scarce. A cross-sectional study was carried out at Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala, among 134 patients (38% men and 62% women) aged ≥60 years. Data was collected on sociodemographic characteristics, medical disorders, cognitive function, hearing handicap, and functional status, that is, Basic Activities of Daily Living (BADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL). The participants had high independency in BADL (89%) and IADL (75%). The most common medical conditions were bone/joint pain (35%), hypertension (24%), and visual problems (20%). More women (54%) than men (37%) reported bone and joint pain. The majority (80%) of the participants did not report any hearing handicap, and half (54%) did not have any cognitive impairment. Dependency in IADL was associated with advanced age, being female, and being financially dependent, and the risk of having a hearing handicap was higher among those above the median age (68 years). In adjusted models, the effects remained similar although statistical significance was only achieved for advanced age versus dependency in IADL (RR: 2.38, 95% CI: 1.12–5.08) and hearing handicap (RR: 2.67, 95% CI: 1.17–6.12). Thus, socioeconomic status and gender are relevant aspects when attempting to understand the health profile of the elderly in Kampala, Uganda.


The mean received power of partially coherent cw laser radiation scattered in the atmosphere is calculated depending on the spatial coherence of the initial field and the angular divergence of a laser beam formed by a circular output aperture. It is shown that due to diffraction on the circular aperture, the dependence of the mean radiation power on the divergence angle is nonmonotonic and has a maximum. The divergence angle corresponding to this maximum is determined by the spatial coherence of the initial field. The possibility of controlling the adaptive loop of the laser system by means of signals backscattered in the atmosphere is discussed.


This paper revisits the issue of fiscal space requirements for achieving health millennium development goals (MDGs) in Rwanda. The paper updates and extends work on financing for the health MDGs prepared by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in 2006. It draws on papers prepared by World Bank staff for a comprehensive health sector review and information collected during a field visit to Kigali in March 2008. The context is one of large recent increases of financing from development partners (donors) combined with far reaching reforms of health sector management. The paper aims to provide a concise summary of the key issues for policymakers in Rwanda, development partners, and to inform a broader international audience of the prospects for scaling up financing for health in order to substantially raise the health status of low income country populations. The plan of the paper is as follows: section one describes the demographic and health context, the strategic objectives through to 2015, and recent and prospective progress towards achieving these objectives; section two briefly explains the distinctive features of health financing with an emphasis on primary and secondary services needed to achieve strategic objectives; section three considers financial flows in the health sector; section four elaborates a forward-looking fiscal space for health scenario; section five compares projections of fiscal space and alignment of health spending with a costing scenario developed using the marginal budgeting for bottlenecks (MBB) tool; section six concludes with a discussion of the uses and potential of government-development partner compact for health sector financing in support of a long term health strategy.


Craniofacial osseointegrated implants enabled producing implant-retained facial prosthesis, namely the orbital prosthesis. Aim: To evaluate the length and width of the bone structure of the peri-orbital region and to present the method validation. Methods: Computed tomography scans of 30 dry human skulls were obtained in order to register linear length and width measurements of the periorbital region. Two examiners made the measurements twice with intervals of at least 7 days between them. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and the paired Student's t-test was used as inferential technique (SAS, α=0.05). Results: In most cases, the intra- and inter-examiner variations were not significant (p>0.05). Therefore, the method proposed was considered as precise and valid for the measurement of the peri-orbital region. The measured points correspond to the hours of a clock. The major lengths were observed at 1 h (18.32 mm) for the left peri-orbital bone and at 11h (19.28 mm) for the right peri-orbital bone, followed by the points situated at 2h (13.05 mm) and 12h (11.37 mm) for the left side and at 10 h (12.34 mm) and 12 h (11.56 mm) for the right side. It was verified that the three points with lowest values followed the same anatomical sequence in the supraorbital rim for the right and left orbits, showing compatibility with the insertion of the intraoral osseointegrated implants. The medial wall of both orbits did not present sufficient length to allow the insertion of intraoral or craniofacial implants. Conclusions: The largest width points were observed in the supraorbital rim and in the infralateral region of both orbits and those of smallest width were found in the supralateral region of both orbits.


A shocking event such as the one experienced by the population of central Italy in 2016 highlights two problems that afflict the national heritage: the fragility of historic villages and the conservation of the historical-artistic heritage of these cultural centres. This paper intends to propose an applicative method to address the problem of the documentation and conservation of the material and intangible characteristics of the historic centre of Amatrice following an earthquake that de facto cancelled almost all the material components and therefore prevents a campaign of traditional data acquisition. The applied methodology is based on the complementarity between the analysis of unpublished historical photographic material and the digital reconstruction of each building in the city through the aid of Google Street, creating an integration between digital restitution tools, social media as iconographic sources and the contextual architectural reading of the few building fragments still in situ.


Coal reservoirs in the Ignacio-Blanco Fruitland Field, LaPlata County, Colorado have been exploited for methane production for several years. Enough performance history has accumulated to confirm that various completion and stimulation techniques impact production rates differently across the field. These data also imply that the character of the coal itself varies across the field, so completion techniques which are effective in one part of the field may not be effective in another. Petrologic study of the coal available in three cores was undertaken to determine the nature of changes in coal character and properties across the field, and to identify and recommend alternative stimulation and treatment procedures. This study employed a broad spectrum of analytical techniques including electron microprobe and CT scanning and imaging techniques, as well as more conventional mineralogical, organic content, and chemical and isotopic analyses. These analyses indicate that the gross ash content does not vary systematically across the field and that the ash content did not seem to influence cleat formation in the coals. Mineralogy of the ash found kaolinite to be the dominant clay in some portions of the field and montmorillonite and illite to be dominant in others; pyrite was present in the areasmore » dominated by smectites. CT image analysis found that both cleat formation and character varied across the field; it also found that microporosity is locally quite pervasive.« less


This paper traces the evolution of measures and parameters for the evaluation of science and scientific journals from the first attempts during the early part of the last century to the development of the most popular, current and widely used metrics viz., citations, impact factor (IF) etc. The identification of measures of evaluation in science and scientific reporting paralled the post-war increase in funding in the United States of America. Biomedical and medical sciences continue to garner a major share, estimated to be almost two-thirds of total research and development funding of over US$ 350 billion. There has been a concomitant growth in the publications in learned journals. About 1.4 million papers are published every year in an estimated 20,000 journals. In India there are an estimated 100 journals in medical sciences. With a steady increase of about 10% every year, the competition for grants, awards, rewards etc., is fierce. This unrelenting increase in number of scientists and the resultant competition, the limitation of peer review was felt. A search was on for new quantifiable measures for informed decision making for funding, awards, rewards, etc. Now virtually all major decisions all over the world are based on some data linked to publications and/or citations. The concept of citations as tool for 'evaluating' science was first proposed by Eugene Garfield in 1955. The availability of Science Citation Index (SCI), Journal Citation Reports (JCR), Web of Science etc. and the relative ease with which they could be used (and abused) has spawned an entirely new area bibliometrics/scientometrics. As only a limited number of journals could be included in the Thomson Reuters (TR) databases (currently numbering about 10500), analyses based on such a limited dataset (also selected in a non-transparent way by the TR) has been widely and severely criticized by both the developed and developing countries. Yet, studies have shown that citation-based data and indicators (warts and all) could still be put to productive use for purposes of evaluation (as scientists just love numbers). There were simultaneous efforts to find alternative indicators using the TR databases, and through other innovative methods. Some of these include Google Scholar, PageRank, H-index, Y-factor, Faculty of 1000, Eigen Factor etc. The advantages and limitations of these indices are discussed. There is a need for a more critical look at these parameters from the Indian perspective to compute/ device/adapt these measures to suit our needs. There are 205 journals under the category Physiology and 201 in the Pharmacology category listed in the JCR. There are four major Indian journals under the category of Physiology and Pharmacology and none of them are listed in the TR databases reflecting the limitation of these databases. Eventually, and in the long run, the quality of our journals needs to be improved as the current era of globalization and web-access provides both a challenge and an oppportunity for the science and scientific journals published from India to get increased global visibility.


A matrix NxM multi phase converter is a very simple structure incorporating NxM bi-directional switches, able to convert input voltages into output voltages of any shape and frequency. However, commutation problems and complicated control algorithms keep it from being utilized on a large scale. This paper shows a new field of application of the matrix converter, witch is working as a connection device between high speed, multiphase generator and power grid or as an interconnection device within power system. The task performed by this connection is a control of power flow and power flow oscillations dumping. The device can be viewed as a new FACTS device, based on straight forward energy conversion.


It is argued in existing Korean criminological literature that penal populism has strongly influenced the criminal justice system over the last two decades in South Korea ('SK', hereafter). Their contention is based on the evidence of punitive penal policies formulated around sex offences against children since the 2000s. These policies include increased minimum sentencing for sex offenders, increased maximum terms of imprisonment, sex offender registration and community notification, electronic monitoring, and chemical castration.  However, imprisonment rates in SK, one of the main indicators of punitiveness in other countries, rapidly decreased in the 2000s and have since then been stable. Moreover, the imprisonment rates in this country are significantly lower than those of other societies where penal populism has occurred, including the US, England, and New Zealand. Why, then, do criminologists in SK argue that penal populism has flourished in SK at a time when imprisonment rates are not sufficiently high to invoke punitiveness, let alone the downward (and stabilising) trend of imprisonment rates?  The purpose of this thesis is to explain the punitive penal developments in SK since the 2000s, by drawing upon Pratt's (2007) penal populism theory. Firstly, the contention in Korean criminology that penal populism has strongly operated and impacted the penal landscape in SK is empirically demonstrated. This demonstration is based on analyses of newspaper articles, social media, legislative bills, and minutes of the National Assembly with regard to sexual violence against children.  This is followed by an explanation of the specific form of penal populism in SK, which is focused exclusively around sexual violence against children. The explanation draws on a social analysis of why and how the sensibilities of South Koreans toward children and the safety of children have changed over recent decades. The main argument here is that the socio-cultural value of children created under the tradition of Confucian familialism in SK has significantly increased through immense social, economic, and structural changes. These changes were brought about by a compressed process of industrialisation, which began as early as the 1960s, and the transition to late-modern society from the 1990s onwards.  Lastly, this thesis seeks to explain the apparent contradiction between penal populism and the rapid decrease of the imprisonment rate in the 2000s in SK. I argue here that the rapid decrease of the imprisonment rate at that time was primarily caused by the changed patterns of pardon, parole, and remand within the context of the criminal justice reforms driven by the two progressive governments between 1998 and 2007. In addition, during the CJS reforms, 'independence of the judiciary' was upheld as the most important value, which regulated institutional arrangements in regard to sentencing in particular. Within these arrangements, the judiciary has been able to resist the impact of penal populism, which also contributed to the decrease of the imprisonment rate in the 2000s in this country.


ABSTRACT Bai, X.; Liu, Z.; Li, X.; Chen, Z.; Hu, J.; Sun, Z.; and Zhu, J., 2013. Observations of high-frequency internal waves in the southern Taiwan Strait. Based on in situ hydrographic measurements at a station at about 60 m depth near the local shelf break in July 2011 and a satellite image of the sea-surface roughness, we present the evidence of existence and characteristics of high-frequency internal waves (HIWs) in the southern Taiwan Strait. Variations of the thermohaline structure at the observational site were revealed by repeating conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiling measurements of every 2 hours, while fluctuations of the isothermals due to the passage of HIWs were recorded by continuous CTD measurements with a probe positioned approximately in the middle of the pycnocline. A fast sampling frequency of 8 Hz allows the structure of the HIWs to be captured in great detail. The waves were depression waves, with a period of about 6.2 min and an amplitude of about 25 m. The propagation speed of the waves is estimated to be 0.56 m/s by solving the KdV equation with the observed background stratification. The frequent occurrence of HIWs in the Taiwan Strait is evidenced by the analysis of a MODIS true color image of the sea-surface roughness. The possible generation mechanism of the HIWs is discussed based on a MODIS image and the perturbed KdV equation.


Adoptive immunotherapy with cytokine induced killer (CIK) cells has shown antitumor activity against several kinds of cancer in preclinical models and clinical trials. CIK cells are a subset of ex vivo expanded T lymphocytes with T-NK phenotype and MHC-unrestricted antitumor activity. The literature provides scant information on cytokines, chemokines and growth factors secreted by CIK cells. Therefore, we investigated the secretory profile of CIK cells generated from tumor patients. The secretome analysis was performed at specific time points (d 1, d 14 and d 21) of CIK cell expansion. Mature CIK cells (d 21) produce a great variety of interleukins and secreted proteins that can be divided into three groups based on their secretion quantity: high (interleukin [IL]-13, regulated on activation normal T cell expressed and secreted [RANTES] chemokine, MIP-1α and 1β), medium (IL-1Ra, IL-5, IL-8, IL-10, IL-17, IP-10, INF-γ, vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF] and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor [GM-CSF]) and low (IL-1β, IL-4, IL-6, IL-7, IL-9, IL-12, IL-15, eotaxin, platelet-derived growth factor-bb, basic fibroblast growth factor, G-CSF and monocyte chemoattractant protein [MCP]-1). Moreover, comparing peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) (d 1) and mature CIK cells (d 14 and 21) secretomes, we observed that IL-5, IL-10, IL-13, GM-CSF and VEGF were greatly upregulated, while IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-15, IL-17, eotaxin, MCP-1 and RANTES were downregulated. We also performed a gene expression profile analysis of patient-derived CIK cells, showing that mRNA for the different cytokines and secreted proteins was modulated during PBMC-to-CIK differentiation. We highlight previously unknown secretory properties and provide, for the first time, a comprehensive molecular characterization of CIK cells. Our findings provide a rationale to explore the functional implications and possible therapeutic modulation of CIK secretome.


Cardiac involvement in Churg Strauss Syndrome is common and a poor prognostic indicator. Myocarditis in Churg Strauss Syndrome can present in different ways. It has been shown that basic cardiac investigations including echocardiography can be normal even in symptomatic patients. More recently cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been shown to be more sensitive in its diagnosis. Our case report describes a 45 year old male who presented with palpitations and breathlessness. Echocardiography was normal but cardiac MRI demonstrated abnormalities consistent with Myocarditis. He was treated with Cyclophosphamide and follow up MRI imaging demonstrated complete resolution of these abnormalities which was accompanied by resolution of symptoms. This case therefore supports the use of cardiac MRI in Churg Strauss Syndrome as a sensitive diagnostic tool in and as a means of monitoring response to therapy. It also supports the therapeutic effectiveness of Cyclophosphamide therapy in Churg Strauss related Myocarditis, something that has yet to be assessed on a large scale.


From a wellness perspective, health is viewed in a broad sense that encompasses interrelationships among physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual components. This approach to health is particularly applicable in diabetes management because diabetes affects all areas of a person's life — work, family, social, and recreational. The boundaries of diabetes education need to be expanded to address this holistic view of health. The integration of a wellness approach in an adult-centered diabetes education program is described to offer a new perspective in diabetes management and education. This outpatient, hospital-based program is provided at regular intervals for small groups of 6 to 12 participants, most of whom have type II diabetes. Support for this wellness direction in diabetes education is discussed in relation to theoretical principles of the wellness model, including similarities and differences with other concepts such as empowerment and self-efficacy. Practical applications of the wellness perspective are clarified using this specific outpatient program as a case example.


To reveal the internal physics of the low-temperature mobility of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in Al-GaN/GaN heterostructures, we present a theoretical study of the strong dependence of 2DEG mobility on Al content and thickness of AlGaN barrier layer. The theoretical results are compared with one of the highest measured of 2DEG mobility reported for AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. The 2DEG mobility is modelled as a combined effect of the scattering mechanisms including acoustic deformation-potential, piezoelectric, ionized background donor, surface donor, dislocation, alloy disorder and interface roughness scattering. The analyses of the individual scattering processes show that the dominant scattering mechanisms are the alloy disorder scattering and the interface roughness scattering at low temperatures. The variation of 2DEG mobility with the barrier layer parameters results mainly from the change of 2DEG density and distribution. It is suggested that in AlGaN/GaN samples with a high Al content or a thick AlGaN layer, the interface roughness scattering may restrict the 2DEG mobility significantly, for the AlGaN/GaN interface roughness increases due to the stress accumulation in AlGaN layer.


Objectives: Providing a comprehensive review of the beneficial effects of Midodrine and Pyridostigmine in heart failure. Background: Heart failure is a leading cause of mortality, and morbidity. Applying the standard medical therapy is often limited by developing side effects. This study explores the role of Midodrine in optimizing heart failure therapy, and describes the role of Pyridostigmine as a novel agent in the treatment of heart failure. Methods: A 16 years search was conducted through PubMed, using the search terms Midodrine and Pyridostigmine each in association with cardiac failure, congestive heart failure, heart failure, or other related terms. Articles through December 2015 were used. Results and discussion: Using Midodrine in hypotensive patients with heart failure resulted in a twofold increase in the number of patients on optimal medical therapy, increase in ejection fraction, decrease in hospitalization days, and symptomatic improvement. Pyridostigmine use in heart failure was associated with beneficial effects in cardiac remodeling and with improvement in ejection fraction in animal models, and with better cardiac exercise response profile in humans. Conclusion: Pyridostigmine carry potential benefits in heart failure therapy and Midodrine can be beneficial in patients with heart failure and hypotension. This needs to be verified in larger studies.


This service evaluation analysed the long-term clinical outcomes, as measured by the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), of a 12-h group-based, multidisciplinary, combined physical and psychological treatment programme for patients with persistent back pain in a secondary care setting. Between April 2012 and December 2015, 373 patients attended the programme, with outcome measures obtained for 272 patients post-treatment. We randomly selected 120 patients who had completed treatment, for long-term outcome measurement follow-up, and gained outcome measures for 40 patients in total. At a median follow-up of 27 months post-treatment, the results demonstrated significant improvements in both clinical outcome measures. We conclude that a brief combined physical and psychological treatment programme appears to be effective at reducing back disability and pain self-efficacy, with improvements maintained in the longer term.


Introduction The need for a psychosocial intervention for patients with IBD was recognised by multidisciplinary healthcare professionals working at a large Irish teaching hospital. CDSMP, developed by Stanford University, was identified as a leading model of psychosocial intervention. Run over 6 weeks in 2.5 hour weekly sessions and delivered by two people, one of whom must have a chronic illness, the CDSMP focuses on action planning and goal setting, using brainstorming exercises to help develop self management techniques. Aims/Background To pilot the use of a CDSMP in patients with IBD. Method A repeated measures design with wait list control (n=44) was utilised. Mood and general health related quality of life (HRQoL) were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and Rand 36-Item Health Survey (SF-36). The Short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (SIBDQ) was used to measure physical, social, and emotional status in patients with IBD. Qualitative descriptions of problems caused by chronic disease were noted the beginning and end of the six week intervention. Results 44 patients participated in the pilot study, 11 male (25%) and 33 female (75%). Significant improvement in mood was achieved in treatment group with paired sample t-tests indicated significant reduction in levels of depression on the HADS (p=0.05). At baseline, 14% of the treatment group displayed mild depression. Post-intervention no clinical levels of depression were evident in the treatment group compared to 17% of waitlist control who displayed mild to severe levels of depression. Significant improvement was noted in the SF-36 on the factor of emotional well-being (p=0.04). There was also an improvement in the qualitative descriptions of problems related to chronic disease. Of note, 14% of the treatment group were experiencing relapses in their condition at the end of the CDSMP. Conclusion The results of this study indicate that CDSMP appears to be an effective psychosocial intervention for patients with IBD. Implementation of a CDSMP in hospital and community settings in Ireland for this patient group should be considered.


The utilization of fishbone as the carbon source for methylene blue adsorption has been successfully studied. Fishbone was prepared from two kinds of fish such as marine fisheries (ex. Tenggiri) and freshwater fisheries (ex. Belida). The carbons were prepared by carbonation of fishbone powder at  500 °C for 2 h. Physical properties of carbons were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and hydrophobicity. The carbons were utilized as the adsorbent for removing methylene blue by varying the contact time, initial dye concentration, and temperature. It is concluded that both carbons can very good adsorb the methylene blue. The adsorption performance of carbon (TFC) from Tenggiri fish is better than carbon (BFC) from Belida fish. The adsorption was well fitted with the Langmuir adsorption model (R2 ~ 0.998) and the pseudo-second-order model. This indicated that the dye molecules were adsorbed on the surface-active site of carbon via chemical binding, forming an adsorbate monolayer. Thermodynamic parameters, including the Gibbs free energy (ΔG), enthalpy (ΔH), and entropy (ΔS), indicated that the adsorption of methylene blue onto the carbon from fishbone was spontaneous. Thus, carbon from fishbone can be applied as a low-cost adsorbent to treat industrial effluents contaminated with methylene blue. Copyright © 2022 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).


In recent years, the prevalent online services generate a sheer volume of user activity data. Service providers collect these data in order to perform client behavior analysis, and offer better and more customized services. Majority of these data can be modeled and stored as graph, such as the social graph in Facebook, user-video interaction graph in Youtube. These graphs need to evolve over time to capture the dynamics in the real world, leading to the invention of dynamic graphs. However, the temporal information embedded in the dynamic graphs brings new challenges in analyzing and deploying them. Events staleness, temporal information learning and explicit time dimension usage are some example challenges in dynamic graph learning. In order to offer a convenient reference to both the industry and academia, this survey presents the Three Stages Recurrent Temporal Learning Framework based on dynamic graph evolution theories, so as to interpret the learning of temporal information with a generalized framework. Under this framework, this survey categories and reviews different learnable encoder-decoder architectures for supervised dynamic graph learning. We believe that this survey could supply useful guidelines to researchers and engineers in finding suitable graph structures for their dynamic learning tasks.


Aggression is an important social problem that has been studied from a variety of perspectives. Decades of research have been devoted to understand its biological and sociocultural bases. Anthropological records show that a distinction between peaceful and violent cultures can be made. The exact mechanisms for such differences remain unspecified, however. Social perception, modeling of aggressive behavior Bandura, and culture-specific traditions endorsing violent acts Staub has been implicated among the factors that contribute to the cross-cultural differences in aggressive behavior. Here, I propose that cross-cultural differences in aggression and violent conflict may be better understood by examining attributional biases regarding hostile intent, blameworthiness, and the resultant angry reaction.


ABSTRACTBackground: Nutritional status is a state of health related to the use of food by the body. As a result of poor nutritional status during infancy, it can cause stunted growth, cause toddlers to be lazy to carry out activities related to energy production, disruption of the toddler's immune system so that they  are  susceptible  to  infectious  diseases,  inhibition  of  optimal  brain  growth,  and  changes  in behavior such as apathy. Purposes: This study aimed to determine the relationship between parental income, and eating patterns in children under five with the occurrence of malnutrition in children under five in the working area of Soropia Health Center. Methods: This research was a quantitative research  that  is  observational  analytic  with  a  Cross  Sectional  Study  approach.  The  number  of samples were 50 toddler with a sampling technique using total sampling and for analysis using the Chi-Square test. Results: The results showed that there was a relationship between parental income (p=0.048) and eating patterns (p=0.000) with the nutritional status of children under five in the Soropia Health Center area in 2021. Conclusion:it was found that there was a relationship between parents' income and diet. on the nutritional status of children.Keywords: Toddler, nutritional status, parents' income, diet


Objective: To describe the experience with CytoSorb treatment in patients with refractory acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) following SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: Retrospective observational study on 15 patients treated in a University Hospital. Results: All patients were male, with a mean age of 55 ± 14 years; eight patients (53%) were on venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV ECMO) due to refractory ARDS and all (100%) under mechanical ventilation at the time of CytoSorb use. We observed reduction in the level of C reactive protein (−52%, p = 0.002), total bilirubin (−46%, p = 0.03), direct bilirubin (−50%, p = 0.02), and D-dimers (−39%, p = 0.04) during CytoSorb treatment and a trend toward reduction in lactate dehydrogenase (−20%, p = 0.2), creatine phosphokinase (−38%, p = 0.1), and fibrinogen (−15%, p = 0.07). Eight patients died (53%) and seven (47%) were discharged from the ICU, of which five had recovery of the native lung function and two were successfully bridged to lung transplantation on VV ECMO support. No difference between survivors and non-survivors was present at baseline. Patients received three CytoSorb cycles on average: mean duration of CytoSorb cycle was 17 h 21 min, but premature circuit clotting despite appropriate level of systemic anticoagulation was frequently observed. Conclusions: CytoSorb treatment was effective in improving several laboratory parameters and inflammation in our experience and no treatment-related adverse effects were recorded. In the light of the unique pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection, CytoSorb treatment is extremely promising, since it might both reduce inflammation and activation of coagulation.


A less well known variant of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with Nc colors and U(2)L X U(2)R chiral symmetry is studied in 1+1 dimensions. Using semi-classical methods appropriate for the large Nc limit, we determine the vacuum manifold, the meson spectrum, massless and massive multi-fermion bound states and the phase diagram as a function of temperature, chemical potential and isospin chemical potential. An important tool to understand soliton dynamics is the generalization of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approach to two flavors along the lines recently developed by Takahashi in the context of unconventional fermionic superfluids and superconductors.


In 1933 M. Glasunow of the Oncological Institute of Leningrad published some observations concerning the origin of basal-cell carcinoma (Ueber das Wesen und die Histogenese der Basalzellenkrebses, Frankfurt. Ztschr. f. Path. 46: 140, 1933–34) which so interested us that we determined to set about their confirmation or refutation.

The "basalioma" or "basal-cell carcinoma," was first pointed out as a clinical entity by Jacob of Edinburgh in 1827, and as a histopathological entity by Krompecher in 1900. The latter insisted that the tumor arose from the basal cells of the epidermis, but in that he was strongly opposed by Borrmann, who adopted Cohnheim's theory and taught that the tumor originates from sequestered groups of ectodermal cells, and that any observed union with the epiderm is the result of subsequent growth, fusion, and commingling. Krompecher succeeded for a time in obtaining a large following, but as he attempted to apply the basal-cell theory of origin to tumors of the mucous membranes and internal organs, the enthusiasm waned.


Collecting adverse case reports suspected to be due to health foods and evaluation of the causality are important to secure safety, even if the causal relationship between health foods and reported health problem is uncertain. Case reports are mainly collected at three sites: public health centers, practical living information online network system(PIO-NET), and individual companies. The case reports from the three sources are not dealt with consistently. In this study, we investigated and characterized those case reports from the viewpoint of evaluating causality, using the causality association rating methods, namely, the dendritic and pointed methods, which we reported previously. Information in public health centers comprised 20 reports per year; approximately 40% were from health care providers and contained detailed medical data. PIO-NET information comprised 366 reports per year; 80% were self-reports from users, and few medical details were included. Company information covered 1,323 cases from 13 companies; more than 90% were from users and most of them were complaints. Case reports from public health centers and PIO-NET showed that the largerst number of victims were female aged >60, with allergy and gastrointestinal symptoms. When these case reports from the letter two sources were examined using the causality association rating systems, most were rated as "possible" and only a few were rated as "probable". As specific case reports from different information sources were examined in this study, we were able to identify several points that should be improved in our two rating methods. However, to ensure the safety of health foods, it will be necessary to collect a large number of high-quality case reports for evaluation by a suitable causality rating method, and to integrate those evaluated case reports into a single site.


A significant attempt to design a timesaving and efficient four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVar) has been made in this paper, and a new approach to data assimilation, which is noted as 'three-dimensional variational data assimilation of mapped observation (3DVM)' is proposed, based on the new concept of mapped observation and the new idea of backward 4DVar. Like the available 4DVar, 3DVM produces an optimal initial condition (IC) that is consistent with the prediction model due to the inclusion of model constraints and best fits the observations in the assimilation window through the model solution trajectory. Different from the 4DVar, the IC derived from 3DVM is located at the end of the assimilation window rather than at the beginning conventionally. This change greatly reduces the computing cost for the new approach, which is almost the same as that of the three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVar). Especially, such a change is able to improve assimilation accuracy because it does not need the tangential linear and adjoint approximations to calculate the gradient of cost function. Therefore, in numerical test, the new approach produces better IC than 4DVar does for 72-h simulation of TY9914 (Dan), by assimilating the three-dimensional fields of temperature and wind retrieved from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) observations. Meanwhile, it takes only 1/7 of the computing cost that the 4DVar requires for the same initialization with the same retrieved data.


This manuscript outlines the different sedimentary deposits that characterise the Tavoliere di Puglia plain (the second largest Italian plain). The plain is largely covered by Quaternary terrace deposits that unconformably lie on older deposits, most commonly the argille subappennine unit. The outcropping units have been divided into categories of descending rank: the first subdivision is made on the basis of geological domain; within each domain a subdivision of lower rank is based on age; within each age a further subdivision is based on the nature of the sediments. The main map presents an updated synthesis of the geology and geomorphology of the Tavoliere di Puglia plain and provides a firm foundation for further, more detailed studies.


The current and charge relations for SiGe-base heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) are derived from the differential equations for carriers in the base. A universal description for all injection levels is obtained, which is suitable for circuit simulation. Based on these relations, the invalidity of the concept of effective doping used previously in high injection is identified and explained physically. The base profile design for applications at both room and liquid nitrogen temperature is also discussed.


Abstract Although research is emerging on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected people who use drugs (PWUD), there is a lack of studies focusing on professionals' views on Covid-19 related risks and consequences for this group. The aim of this study was to analyze how social workers and health care professionals in the city of Malmö, Sweden viewed the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on PWUD risk environments. We used a mixed methods approach including an online survey with social workers and three qualitative focus group sessions with social workers and health care professionals working with PWUD. The professionals defined PWUD as an especially vulnerable group that had difficulty protecting themselves from contracting Covid-19, and who risked severe consequences if infected. They described risks relating to lifestyle and marginalization, limited health literacy, and health-related problems. Reported consequences of the pandemic included reduced access to treatment and support, social isolation, anxiety, and increased drug use. Factors at both micro and meso levels of risk environments seemed to contribute to a particular vulnerability for PWUD during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is important to learn from this development in order to provide better support to at-risk groups in future crises.


This paper presents an application and extension of multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to account for stochastic input variables. More in particular, a comparative study is carried out among well-known and widely-applied methods in MCDM, when applied to the reference problem of the selection of wind turbine support structures for a given deployment location. Along with data from industrial experts, six deterministic MCDM methods are studied, so as to determine the best alternative among the available options, assessed against selected criteria with a view toward assigning confidence levels to each option. Following an overview of the literature around MCDM problems, the best practice implementation of each method is presented aiming to assist stakeholders and decision-makers to support decisions in real-world applications, where many and often conflicting criteria are present within uncertain environments. The outcomes of this research highlight that more sophisticated methods, such as technique for the order of preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) and Preference Ranking Organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE), better predict the optimum design alternative.


5616 Background: The present standard therapy for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) consists of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy with nitrosoureas. However, tumors recur in almost all patients receiving the standard therapy, and the one-year survival rate is only 26%. In addition, combination chemotherapy with ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide is toxic and not very effective. Thus, new modalities that will maximize the potential of cytotoxic drugs and reasonably prolong the overall survival of patients with GBM are urgently needed. NK012 is a drug formulation composed of polymeric micelles containing SN-38; about 80% of the SN-38 inside the micelles is gradually released within 48 hours under physiological conditions. The purpose of this study was to determine whether NK012 is an appropriate formulation for the treatment of GBM. Methods; We used human GBM cell lines to measure the cytotoxicity of NK012, CPT-11 and ACNU in vitro. A human GBM line, U87MG, transfected with the luciferase gene was inoculated into the brains of nude mice to analyze the pharmacokinetic character and in vivo antitumor activity of the drugs. Assays for SN-38 and CPT-11 were performed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Fluorescence microscopy was used to examine the distribution of NK012 and CPT-11 in vivo. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results; NK012 inhibited the cell growth of human GM lines in vitro with an IC50 range of 0.01 - 0.1 nM. The growth-inhibitory effects of NK012 were 100-fold more potent than those of CPT-11, whereas the IC50 values of NK012 were almost the same as those of SN-38. Compared with CPT-11, NK012 had a significantly more potent antitumor activity against orthotopic GBM xenografts. Enhanced and prolonged distributions of free SN-38 were observed in the tumors after the injection of NK012. Conclusion: NK012 may be a promising SN-38-based formulation that enhances the antitumor activity of SN-38 in orthotopicU87MG tumors.


The natural nitrogen stable isotope signatures (δ 15N) found in poultry by-product meal (PBM) and fish meal (FM) were used to estimate the relative contribution of dietary nitrogen supplied by both ingredients to the somatic growth of juvenile channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus . Six isonitrogenous and isoenergetic experimental diets were formulated using FM and PBM. Two of these diets consisted of isotopic controls having only one ingredient supplying dietary nitrogen, either FM or PBM. Four combined diets were formulated with varying proportions of these ingredients in order to supply high proportions of PBM (FM:PBM, 50:50, 35:65 20:80 and 5:95) on a nitrogen basis. There were significant differences in mean final weight of fish at the end of the trial. Lower growth was observed as the dietary level of PBM increased. In order to determine the relative contributions of the dietary nitrogen supplied by FM and PBM to catfish growth, an isotopic mixing model was applied. Results indicated that the incorporation of dietary nitrogen supplied by PBM was equivalent to the die tary proportions. The dietary nitrogen available in combined diets containing 50, 65 and 80% of PBM was incorporated in fish bodies as 50, 62 and 81%, respectively. However, high incorporation of dietary nitrogen from PBM was not always reflected in higher growth rates. Results demonstrate the viable use of stable isotopes to determine the allocation of dietary nitrogen and indicate that practical diets for catfish can be formulated with levels of PBM as high as 65% without affecting growth and survival.


The paper presents an overview of "The Journey Guides Program" - a mentorship and experiencial learning framework developed by the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary in Canada. This program was implemented in an Advanced Graduate Seminar, a preparatory course for graduate Social Work students prior to entering their field placements. This article begins by discussing critical pedagogy, the theoretical framework that undepinned the "The Journey Guides Program", followed by a description of the eight-step process we adopted to implement this program. The authors conclude by discussing the benefits of the Journey Guides program, and plans for ongoing development and transferability of this model. Keywords: Journey guides, transformative learning; mentorship; social work


Purpose
This study aims to examine the moderating role of chief executive officer (CEO) power on the relationship between divestiture strategy and firm performance by framing the relationship under the agency and power circulation theories.

Design/methodology/approach
This study focuses on a sample of 319 non-financial public-listed companies in Malaysia from the year 2012–2016 and estimates the model under two-step generalized method of moments panel regression to eliminate the endogeneity issue.

Findings
The results show that divestiture strategy decreased the firm performance. Meanwhile, greater CEO power changed that divestiture effect but still failed to increase the performance. This study also indicates the CEO power strengthens the relationship between firm performance and divestiture.

Research limitations/implications
The overall findings show that the positive moderating role of CEO power on the relationship between divestiture and performance. This research confirmed the agency and power circulation theories by showing that CEO power can make divestiture strategy works. However, the moderating plot tells different. CEO power may strengthen the relationship between divestiture and performance; it fails to boost up the performance in overall. Therefore, this study is about CEO power on the strategic decision and gives a good implication for corporate governance concerning the impact of CEO power on the organization's alignment process.

Originality/value
This study examines the effect of CEO power on the performance of divestiture strategy implementation by contesting the agency and power circulation theories within an emerging country context.


The crystal structures of n-nonylammonium dihydrogen phosphate and n-octylammonium dihydrogen phosphate were determined by X-ray crystallography. Lattice potential energies of the compounds were obtained from the crystallographic data. The molar enthalpies of dissolution of the two compounds at various molalities in the double-distilled water were measured at T = 298.15 K by means of an isoperibol solution-reaction calorimeter, respectively. According to the Pitzer's electrolyte solution theory, the standard molar enthalpies of dissolution of the two compounds at infinite dilution were determined to be 34.50 kJ·mol–1 and 22.32 kJ·mol–1, and the Pitzer's parameters βMX(0)L and β MX(1)L were obtained. The values of apparent relative molar enthalpies (ΦL) of the title compounds and relative partial molar enthalpies (L2 and L1 of the solute and the solvent at different concentrations were derived from the experimental values of the enthalpies of dissolution of the two compounds.


Air pollution is a significant problem in cities across the world. It affects human health and well-being, ecosystem health, crops, climate, visibility and human-made materials. Health effects related to air pollution include its impact on the pulmonary, cardiac, vascular and neurological systems (Section 2). Trees affect air quality through a number of means (Section 3) and can be used to improve air quality (Section 4). However, air pollution also affects tree health and plant diversity (Section 5). Bioindicators can be useful for monitoring air quality and indicating environmental health (Section 6). Understanding the impacts of vegetation biodiversity on air quality and air quality on vegetation biodiversity is essential to sustaining healthy and diverse ecosystems, and for improving air quality and consequently human health and well-being.


Large-scale collaborative scientific software projects require more knowledge than any one person typically possesses. This makes coordination and communication of knowledge and expertise a key factor in creating and safeguarding software quality, without which we cannot have sustainable software. However, as researchers attempt to scale up the production of software, they are confronted by problems of awareness and understanding. This presents an opportunity to develop better practices and tools that directly address these challenges. To that end, we conducted a case study of developers of the Trilinos project. We surveyed the software development challenges addressed and show how those problems are connected with what they know and how they communicate. Based on these data, we provide a series of practicable recommendations, and outline a path forward for future research.


Thomas B. Brill, 74, died on July 23 in Gaithersburg, Md. "Tom lived life to the fullest, personifying the old saying 'Waste not, want not,' with the reagent in question being time. Indeed, he raised multitasking to the level of art form. He was enormously productive in his research pursuits, which ranged from the basic (nuclear quadrupole resonance spectroscopy) to the applied (rocket propellants). He trained 45 graduate students and published more than 300 papers, plus six books. He also held professorships in the departments of art conservation and chemical engineering. He enjoyed hiking, running, canoeing, and mountain climbing. He was, truly, a 'man for all seasons.' "—John L. Burmeister, friend and colleague Most recent title: Emeritus professor of chemistry, University of Delaware Education: B.S., chemistry, University of Montana, 1966; Ph.D., chemistry, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 1970 Survivors: Wife, Patricia; daughter, Barbara; son, Russell; three grandchildren To recognize your late


A new technique is proposed for the recognition of hand-printed Latin characters using artificial neural networks together with conventional techniques. One advantage of this technique is that it combines rule-based (structural) and classification tests. Another advantage is that it it more efficient for large and complex sets. The technique can be divided into five major steps: (1) digitization of the image; (2) thinning of the binary image using a parallel thinning algorithm; tracing of the tree; (3) tracing of the skeleton of the image and construction of a binary tree; (4) extraction of features from the structural information; and (5) classification of the segmented descriptions as particular characters by a feedforward neural network trained by backpropagation.<<ETX>>


Epinephrine (EPI), an endogenous catecholamine involved in the body's fight-or-flight responses to stress, activates α1-adrenergic receptors (α1ARs) expressed on various organs to evoke a wide range of physiological functions, including vasoconstriction. In the smooth muscle of human bronchi, however, the functional role of EPI on α1ARs remains controversial. Classically, evidence suggests that EPI promotes bronchodilation by stimulating β2-adrenergic receptors (β2ARs). Conventionally, the selective β2AR agonism of EPI was thought to be, in part, due to a predominance of β2ARs and/or a sparse, or lack of α1AR activity in human airway smooth muscle (HASM) cells. Surprisingly, we find that HASM cells express a high abundance of ADRA1B (the α1AR subtype B) and identify a spontaneous "switch-like" activation of α1ARs that evokes intracellular calcium, myosin light chain phosphorylation, and HASM cell shortening. The switch-like responses, and related EPI-induced biochemical and mechanical signals, emerged upon pharmacological inhibition of β2ARs and/or under experimental conditions that induce β2AR tachyphylaxis. EPI-induced procontractile effects were abrogated by an α1AR antagonist, doxazosin mesylate (DM). These data collectively uncover a previously unrecognized feed-forward mechanism driving bronchospasm via two distinct classes of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and provide a basis for reexamining α1AR inhibition for the management of stress/exercise-induced asthma and/or β2-agonist insensitivity in patients with difficult-to-control, disease subtypes.


Gastric acid plays a fundamental role in the development of mucosal injury and symptoms in gastro-esophageal reflux disease(GERD). In this issue of the Journal, Milkes et al report the inability of proton pump inhibitor (PPIs) therapy to "normalize" 24-hour intraesophageal pH parameters despite good symptom control. Twenty-five of fifty H. pylori negative patients with chronic uncomplicated GERD failed to normalize their pH parameters. Failure of esophageal acid control correlated with inadequate gastric acid inhibition. These findings are provocative and interesting but difficult to reconcile against a large body of evidence supporting the superior therapeutic efficacy of PPIs in symptom control, healing of esophagitis, and decreasing the rate of dilations in patients with GERD. No information is provided regarding the status of the esophageal mucosa in patients failing to achieve normalization of pH values. This raises the question about the clinical significance of this finding: i.e., does the lack of normalization of esophageal pH parameters correlate with esophageal epithelial damage (endoscopically visible injury) or complications of the disease? The patient population for this study was highly selected, thus the true prevalence of this observation for the large pool of patients with GERD remains unknown. Despite this and other limitations, the study will likely stimulate further research to examine ultimately how much acid inhibition—and for how long—is critical to the healing of GERD and to prevent the complications of the disease.


In this paper, we report our investigation into the effect of using fixed multibeam antennas on the performance of the slotted ALOHA protocol with capture in a mobile communications environment with Rayleigh and Log-normal fading. We consider the configuration where multiple receivers are present at each base station and calculate the capture probability, its asymptotic value as the number of colliding packets tends to infinity, and throughput when multiple receivers are used. The results demonstrate that by using fixed multibeam antennas, we can achieve higher performance in terms of capture probability and throughput when compared to a conventional antenna system using the slotted ALOHA protocol.


A simple method of vapor deposition for the shape selective synthesis of ZnO structures, namely, multipods, submicron wires, and spheres, has been successfully demonstrated. A plausible growth mechanism based on the studies of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is proposed. Our studies suggest that the growth of a multipod structure is governed by the screw dislocation propagation while the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism is responsible for the formation of submicron wires and spheres. Moreover, the flow rate of the carrier gas plays a crucial role in governing the morphology. Further, these structures exhibit an enhanced field emission behavior. The nonlinearity in the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plot, a characteristic feature of electron emission from semiconductors, is explained by considering the contributions from both the conduction and the valence bands of ZnO.


The atmospheric pressure solvothermal (APS) synthesis of nanocrystalline SnO2 (average size of coherent scattering regions (CSR)—7.5 ± 0.6 nm) using tin acetylacetonate as a precursor was studied. The resulting nanopowder was used as a functional ink component in microextrusion printing of a tin dioxide thick film on the surface of a Pt/Al2O3/Pt chip. Synchronous thermal analysis shows that the resulting semiproduct is transformed completely into tin dioxide nanopowder at 400 °C within 1 h. The SnO2 powder and the resulting film were shown to have a cassiterite-type structure according to X-ray diffraction analysis, and IR spectroscopy was used to establish the set of functional groups in the material composition. The microstructural features of the tin dioxide powder were analyzed using scanning (SEM) and transmission (TEM) electron microscopy: the average size of the oxide powder particles was 8.2 ± 0.7 nm. Various atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques were employed to investigate the topography of the oxide film and to build maps of surface capacitance and potential distribution. The temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity of the printed SnO2 film was studied using impedance spectroscopy. The chemosensory properties of the formed material when detecting H2, CO, NH3, C6H6, C3H6O and C2H5OH, including at varying humidity, were also examined. It was demonstrated that the obtained SnO2 film has an increased sensitivity (the sensory response value was 1.4–63.5) and selectivity for detection of 4–100 ppm C2H5OH at an operating temperature of 200 °C.


The B7/CD28 pathway provides critical costimulatory signals required for complete T cell activation and has served as a potential target for immunotherapeutic strategies designed to regulate autoimmune diseases. This study was designed to examine the roles of CD28 and its individual ligands, B7-1 and B7-2, in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a Th1-mediated inflammatory disease of the CNS. EAE induction in CD28- or B7-deficient nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice was compared with the effects of B7/CD28 blockade using Abs in wild-type NOD mice. Disease severity was significantly reduced in CD28-deficient as well as anti-B7-1/B7-2-treated NOD mice. B7-2 appeared to play the more dominant role as there was a moderate decrease in disease incidence and severity in B7-2-deficient animals. EAE resistance was not due to the lack of effective priming of the myelin peptide-specific T cells in vivo. T cells isolated from CD28-deficient animals produced equivalent amounts of IFN-γ and TNF-α in response to the immunogen, proteolipid protein 56–70. In fact, IFN-γ and TNF-α production by Ag-specific T cells was enhanced in both the B7-1 and B7-2-deficient NOD mice. In contrast, peptide-specific delayed-type hypersensitivity responses in these animals were significantly decreased, suggesting a critical role for CD28 costimulation in in vivo trafficking and systemic immunity. Collectively, these results support a critical role for CD28 costimulation in EAE induction.


OBJECTIVE
To identify the change of the mRNA and protein expression of T-bet and GATA-3 in lung tissues, and to investigate the association between the imbalanced T cell-specific transcription factors T-bet/GATA-3 and the airway inflammation in asthmatic rats.

METHODS
Twenty-four male SD rats were randomly divided into a control group and an asthmatic group. Airway responsiveness was measured and the change of airway histology was observed. The concentrations of interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-5, and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The mRNA and protein expressions of IL-4, IL-5, IFN-gamma, T-bet and GATA-3 in the lungs were detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot respectively.

RESULTS
The expiration resistance after injection of acetylcholine chloride (20, 40, 80, 160 microg/ml) in the asthmatic group was (6.26 +/- 0.85), (11.55 +/- 3.09), (28.74 +/- 5.94), (3,710.83 +/- 197.49) cm H2O.ml(-1).s(-1) respectively; and that in the control group was (1.51 +/- 0.18), (2.15 +/- 0.36), (6.08 +/- 1.06), (37.17 +/- 6.12) cm H2O.ml(-1).s(-1) respectively; the difference being significant between the two groups (all P < 0.01). In the asthmatic group, the numbers of eosinophils and lymphocytes, the thicknesses of WA/Pi and ASM/Pi were (26.0 +/- 1.6)/mm(2), (45.2 +/- 3.2)/mm(2), 12.0 +/- 1.4, 6.7 +/- 0.6, respectively; and those of the control group were (2.9 +/- 1.2)/mm(2), (8.8 +/- 1.8)/mm(2), 6.4 +/- 0.8, 2.7 +/- 0.5, respectively; all were significantly different between the two groups (all P < 0.01). In the asthmatic group, the concentrations of IL-4, IL-5, and IFN-gamma in BALF were (23.4 +/- 0.7) pg/ml, (24.8 +/- 0.5) pg/ml, (21.7 +/- 1.1) pg/ml, respectively, and those of the control group were (9.3 +/- 0.3) pg/ml, (12.5 +/- 0.3) pg/ml, (65.8 +/- 2.1) pg/ml, respectively; all were significantly different between the two groups (all P < 0.01). In the control group, the mRNA ratio of T-bet to GATA-3 (0.73 +/- 0.32) was significantly increased compared with the asthmatic group (0.06 +/- 0.09, P < 0.01). There was also a significant difference in the ratio of protein expression of T-bet to GATA-3 between the control group (0.75 +/- 0.25) and the asthmatic group (0.09 +/- 0.04, P < 0.01). The ratio of protein expression of T-bet and GATA-3 was correlated negatively with expiration resistance (r = -0.959, -0.919, -0.949, all P < 0.01), the numbers of eosinophils and lymphocytes in lung tissues (r = -0.832, -0.831, all P < 0.01), the thicknesses of WA/Pi and ASM/Pi (r = -0.837, -0.863, all P < 0.01) and the concentrations of IL-4, IL-5 in BALF (r = 0.921, 0.920, all P < 0.01), the mRNA of IL-4, IL-5 in lung tissues (r = -0.964, -0.931, all P < 0.01), but positively with the concentrations of IFN-gamma in BALF and the mRNA of IFN-gamma in lung tissues (r = -0.934, 0.983, all P < 0.01).

CONCLUSION
Imbalance of transcription factors T-bet and GATA-3, a reflection of the immune imbalance in asthma, may play a key role in the formation of airway inflammation in the disease.


The approximate closed-form Green's functions of the vector and scalar potentials in the spatial domain are derived for a horizontal electric dipole placed over a finite grounded dielectric medium. The effects of the discontinuity at the edges are considered by including the surface wave reflections from the edges, which are obtained as a function of the incident angle by using the edge admittance concept. The closed-form expressions of the reflection coefficients are then derived by means of the generalized pencil of functions method. The resulting Green's functions are the sum of the contributions of discrete complex images, the incident, and the reflected surface wave contributions.


Poker is a game of skill and chance, where players often experience significant monetary losses. Detrimental out-of-control poker decision-making due to negative emotions is known as tilting. A qualitative assessment of losing and tilting was conducted by analysing stories about significant monetary losses, written by Finnish on-line poker players (N = 60). Thematic and narrative analyses uncovered five themes and a narrative structure underlying the aetiology and phenomenology of tilting. Tilting, in the narratives, was often instigated by dissociative feelings ('unreality', disbelief) following a significant monetary loss. Thereafter, moral indignation was experienced, followed by chasing behaviour, in an attempt to restore a 'fair balance' between wins and losses. In the aftermath of tilting, self-focused feelings of disappointment, depression and/or anxiety, and sleeping problems were experienced. It was also observed that experienced players, as compared to inexperienced ones, exhibited in their narratives a more mature disposition towards encountering 'bad luck', and losing in general. The results are relevant in better understanding psychological processes related to losing in the multifaceted game of poker, thus contributing also to existing knowledge on detrimental gambling behaviour.


Catalytic propane dehydrogenation has been tested on different reactor configurations employing Pt–Sn/MgAl2O4 as a catalyst. Hollow fiber palladium membranes coupled to the two-zone fluidized bed reactor (TZFBR) combine the possibility of improving propane conversion by hydrogen removal from the reaction bed through the membrane with in situ catalyst regeneration in the lower section of the TZFBR. Experiments have been carried out at different reaction temperatures and time on stream. In addition, the optimum regenerative agent flow fraction (diluted oxygen) to be fed into the TZFBR has been determined at the reaction temperatures between 500 °C and 600 °C to get a constant catalytic activity without net deactivation. Moreover, the TZFBR with palladium membranes has been successfully tested, displacing the reaction equilibrium towards the production of propylene, and still keeping steady state in the catalytic propane dehydrogenation. These results were better than those reported in the literature for con...


Data augmentation is proven to be effective in many NLU tasks, especially for those suffering from data scarcity. In this paper, we present a powerful and easy to deploy text augmentation framework, Data Boost, which augments data through reinforcement learning guided conditional generation. We evaluate Data Boost on three diverse text classification tasks under five different classifier architectures. The result shows that Data Boost can boost the performance of classifiers especially in low-resource data scenarios. For instance, Data Boost improves F1 for the three tasks by 8.7% on average when given only 10% of the whole data for training. We also compare Data Boost with six prior text augmentation methods. Through human evaluations (N=178), we confirm that Data Boost augmentation has comparable quality as the original data with respect to readability and class consistency.


Objective: To observe the response of General and colorectal surgeons of Ireland
regarding fast track surgery.
Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to general and colorectal consultant surgeons in all
the public hospitals in Ireland. Questions were asked regarding elective colorectal
resections and routine use of nasogastric tubes, duration of feeding tube left in situ,
whether artificial feeding tube is used like total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or enteral etc.
Results: The overall response rate was 43%. Forty four percent of consultants have the
practice of using nasogastric tube with average duration of 24 to 48 hours. The majority
of consultants did not use artificial feeding and majority of them started oral feeding on
2nd or 3rd post operative day. Various different criteria were seen regarding determination
of timing of oral or enteral feeding after elective colorectal resection.
2
Conclusion: Fast track surgery has not yet become common in Ireland but there is a
move towards incorporating its basic principles into every day practice. (Rawal Med J
2008;33:81-84)


The Ku Klux Klan grew as a movement in Maine and New Brunswick during the 1920s and 1930s. Reflective of a larger wave of anti-Catholicism in the northeastern borderlands, the Klan presented itself as a bulwark against the impact of Catholic participation in civil society and as the defender of a Protestant, Anglo-Saxon culture under siege. Drawing upon Klan publications, public speeches and pronouncements, and private correspondence between Klansmen and sympathetic political figures, this article argues that the growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the Interwar Northeast reflected the construction of a transnational, ethnoreligious identity, termed "Patriotic-Protestantism," that challenges interpretations of the Klan movement as simply nationalistic and highlights the importance of the borderlands framework to understanding Maine and New Brunswick in the twentieth century.


The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare the performance of TCMs in satellite S-CDMA channels considering both Ungerboeck (1982) and Schegel-Costello (1989) designs. The performance of the different codes are simulated in Ricean fading channel for different values of the K factor. The impact of imperfect synchronisation between the different users on the performance is assessed. Finally, it is shown that even though S-CDMA is less sensitive than A-CDMA to the near-far effect, a good accuracy of the power control technique(s) is still required.


Distribution automation is a sector having vast possibilities for major improvements. The system described in this paper consists of a console master computer (CMC) which will monitor various physical nodes usually found in a large industry. The proposed work analyzes the capability of CAN networking which includes data traffic management. The CMC is designed using Matlab 7.12, the CAN networking is supported using the Vehicular Net- work Toolbox. The proposed system using CAN has the advantages of being simple in its design which contributes to the overall low cost. The novelty of the work lies in the low cost approach , and fail safe methodology of CAN communication. The proposed system is capable of sending and receiving signals with the additional benefit of feedback mechanism .The proposed work is implementable in any industry with the cost advantage of CAN inter- face. The prposed work can be used as a cheaper and robust alternative to native tecnologies like PLC( Programmable Logic Controller) . Moreover, the CAN network system is immune from the electrical interferences.


BACKGROUND
Dental extractions in haemophiliacs may cause secondary bleeding, requiring repeated surgical and haematological interventions. As a local haemostatic, fibrin glue has recognised efficacy but, as a plasma-derived product, it carries the risk of viral infections. We, therefore, compared fibrin glue with an autologous haemostatic, plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF), in a controlled trial.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
One hundred and twenty patients with different blood disorders were randomised into two cohorts to undergo dental extraction procedures without hospitalisation. Prior to the extractions, patients underwent systemic haematological treatment. Complications were defined as secondary bleeding after the 7-day follow-up period or protracting after the repair procedure.

RESULTS
There were 106 extractions (7 retained 3(rd) molars) in the group managed with fibrin glue: secondary bleeding affected 3/60 patients (5%) on the third day after extraction and necessitated additional surgery and systemic treatment (in one case the procedure had to be repeated on the 7(th) day). In the PRGF arm there were 98 extractions (23 retained 3(rd) molars): secondary bleeding affected two patients (3.3%) on the first day after extraction and was arrested with surgery without systemic treatment. Four out of the five secondary bleeds occurred in patients with haemophilia A. Concomitant diabetes or liver disease significantly increased the bleeding risk.

DISCUSSION
The bleeding rates in the study and control arm prove that PRGF works as well as fibrin glue as a local haemostatic. Further assets are that PRGF has autologous origin, does not require additional systemic treatment in post-extraction repair surgery, is associated with an earlier onset of neo-angiogenesis and, overall, can reduce patients' distress and costs to the health system.


To better connect supply and demand for various products, marketers needed novel ways to segment and target their customers with relevant adverts. Over the last decade, companies that collected a large amount of psychographic and behavioural data about their customers emerged as the pioneers of hyper-targeting. For example, Google can infer people's interests based on their search queries, Facebook based on their thoughts, and Amazon by analysing their shopping cart history. In this context, the traditional channel used for advertising – the media market – saw its revenues plummeting as it failed to infer viewers' interests based on the programmes they are watching, and target them with bespoke adverts.

In order to propose a methodology for inferring viewers' interests, this study adopted an interdisciplinary approach by analysing the problem from the viewpoint of three disciplines: Customer Segmentation, Media Market, and Large Knowledge Bases. Critically assessing and integrating the disciplinary insights was required for a deep understanding of: the reasons for which psychographic variables like interests and values are a better predictor for consumer behaviour as opposed to demographic variables; the various types of data collection and analysis methods used in the media industry; as well as the state of the art in terms of detecting concepts from text and linking them to various ontologies for inferring interests. Building on these insights, a methodology was proposed that can fully automate the process of inferring viewers interests by semantically analysing the description of the programmes they watch, and correlating it with data about their viewing history.

While the methodology was deemed valid from a theoretical point of view, an extensive empirical validation was also undertaken for a better understanding of its applicability. Programme metadata for 320 programmes from a large broadcaster was analysed together with the viewing history of over 50,000 people during a three-year period. The findings from the validation were eventually used to further refine the methodology and show that is it possible not only to infer individual viewers interests based on the programmes watched, but also to cluster the audience based on their content consumption habits and track the performance of various topics in terms of attracting new viewers. Having an effective way to infer viewers' interests has various applications for the media market, most notably in the areas of better segmenting and targeting audiences, developing content that matches viewers' interests, or improving existing recommendation engines


This paper proposes a simple antenna array based on three stacked shorted patches aimed to be used as GSM (900 MHz) indoor base station antenna. Three same linearly polarized stacked patches are set in three orthogonal planes in space forming pyramid-like structure. The antenna array can be used for nearly omnidirectional coverage as well as for covering three 120° sectors. The proposed array also offers the possibility of polarisation diversity.


Radial diffusion of fast ions in tokamaks due to torodial field ripple is analysed using a Fokker-Planck equation. Neglecting pitch-angle scattering and parallel diffusion in velocity-space an approximate solution is obtained, from which criteria for the importance of this process is obtained. For a relative ripple strength δ given by δ(r) ~ rλ where r is the minor radius it is shown that λ must be larger than 5 to avoid large losses of alpha particles. Thus, this process could pose relatively stringent design constraints on the torodial field coils.


The microtubule content of the isolated mitotic apparatus of sea-urchin eggs ( Arbacia punctulata has been investigated by electron microscopy. Cross-sections were made through asters or spindles of flat-embedded mitotic apparatuses of known mitotic stage and specific orientation in the block. Cross-sections between chromosomes and poles of five metaphase half-spindles revealed approximately 2000-2300 sectioned microtubules. The number was somewhat higher in three anaphase half-spindles examined, approximately 2400-2600. A method was devised for calculating the total number of microtubules in an aster, based upon the number of microtubules appearing in cross-sections. Application of this method to selected mitotic apparatuses enabled calculation of the total number of microtubules in metaphase mitotic apparatuses of average dimensions. Using a 13-protofilament model of the microtubule and existing data on possible monomer sizes and molecular weights, the total amount of microtubule protein in the isolated mitotic apparatus was calculated. The values obtained are in the range of about 1-2 x 10 -8 mg microtubule protein per isolated mitotic apparatus. These values are close to those reported for the 4-5s protein of the isolated mitotic apparatus, but are considerably lower than the amount of 22s protein. The results are discussed with respect to cellular factors which determine microtubule number, and the possible sources and origin of mitotic microtubule protein.


Many Latin-American institutions recognise the potential of learning analytics (LA). However, the number of actual LA implementations at scale remains limited, notwithstanding considerable effort made to formulate guidelines and frameworks to support the LA policy development. Guidance on how to coordinate the interaction between the LA policymaking and implementation is mostly missing, leaving a difficult challenge up to practitioners. In this study we propose a coordination model to support future LA initiatives at scale. We explore the problem by comparing two cases in Belgium and Ecuador. Following up we use the LA implementation timeline as a driver for planning the interaction between the policymaking and implementation. We continue by testing an application of the model with LA experts predominantly from Latin-American institutions, asking them to map low-level items of the SHEILA policy framework to four implementation phases. The results of this mapping support that LA policy building can be spread over time, that it can coincide with LA implementation at scale, and that both efforts can be coordinated. It is hoped that this study will provide additional guidance for future Latin-American and other LA initiatives.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effect of the method of tonsillectomy on postoperative pain in pediatric patients.

DESIGN
Prospective, randomized, single-blind, controlled clinical trial.

SETTING
A university pediatric hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland.

PATIENTS
A volunteer sample of 54 children, aged 3 to 12 years, with recurrent tonsillitis or symptomatic adenotonsillar hypertrophy. Two patients withdrew consent.

INTERVENTIONS
Twenty-six children underwent a nonelectrical (ie, cold) dissection tonsillectomy with cold steel instruments, 5 of whom also had adenoidectomy by curettage. Monopolar diathermy forceps were used for tonsillar bed hemostasis. Twenty-four children had electrocautery (ie, hot) dissection tonsillectomy, 7 of whom underwent adenoidectomy by curettage without a suction coagulator.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Postoperative analgesic consumption, time to regain normal diet and activity levels, and complications.

RESULTS
Patients who underwent hot dissection tonsillectomy showed no difference in time to first drink or analgesic use within the first 24 postoperative hours compared with children undergoing cold nonelectrical dissection tonsillectomy. The hot dissection tonsillectomy group took 7.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1-14.1) more doses of analgesics than the cold dissection group over the next 12 days (P<.05). The hot dissection tonsillectomy group took 2.5 more days than the cold dissection tonsillectomy group to regain normal diet (P<.05). Thirteen children (54%; 95% CI, 34-74) in the hot dissection tonsillectomy group and 6 (23%; 95% CI, 7-39) in the cold dissection tonsillectomy group sought outpatient care for throat pain, otalgia, poor diet, pyrexia, and/or bleeding (P<.05). Throat pain delayed in onset or of prolonged duration affected 9 children (38%; 95% CI, 19-57) in the hot dissection tonsillectomy group as opposed to 3 children (12%; 95% CI, 0-24) in the cold dissection tonsillectomy group (P<.05).

CONCLUSION
Hot dissection tonsillectomy increases morbidity in pediatric patients in the recovery period following hospital discharge.


Monitoring of the Campi Flegrei caldera has been undertaken since 1983 by measuring radon content (by track etch method), pH and temperature in three thermal water wells. Collection of data started after the area was affected by a dramatic phase of volcano unrest, with a high rate of uplift and increased seismicity. Results show that the radon content is different from well to well; low in the cold well and at least one order of magnitude greater in the two hot wells. Variations in radon content in the three wells sometimes occurred simultaneously and indicate an influence from the same phenomena and feeding source. Three main events, (i) rain fall, (ii) seismic activity and (iii) volcano unrest have been identified to correlate with variations in the radon content, with pH and temperature changes at the same time.


This study investigates the influence of urban form on automobile travel using household survey data from Germany. Two dimensions of car use are considered: the discrete decision to own a car and the continuous decision of distance traveled. Because these decisions are likely influenced by factors unobservable to the researcher, we apply censored regression models to evaluate the role of biases emerging from sample selectivity. Unlike much of the literature, we find that urban form variables are a significant determinant of both automobile ownership and use, a finding that holds even after using instrumental variables to control for endogeneity. (JEL R14, R41)


In the oil and gas industry the occurrence of slug flow in flowlines and risers can cause operational problems. Such flowline-riser systems are used to transport the oil and/or gas from the location of the wells to a production platform, where the fluids might be separated into single phases. Slug flow conditions impose fluctuations in the production rate, which may lead to the flooding of the separators, trips of compressors or pumps, and to increased loads on the supports of the pipeline and piping sections at the production platform. Therefore, measures have to be taken to mitigate the slugging, which can be a reduction of the production rate, making adjustments to the pipeline system, or adding surfactants to the flow. For vertical flow in production wells, the use of surfactants is a proven technology. Here the creation of a foam through adding a surfactant can increase the production life time, as the accumulation of liquid, which typically occurs when the reservoir pressure has decreased at the end of field life, is prevented. Far less is known yet about the effect of using surfactants for the mitigation of hydrodynamic slugs in a nearly horizontal flowline or the mitigation of severe slugs in risers. From a previous Master's Thesis project by Pronk [1], in which lab experiments were carried out in the same flowline-riser facility as used in the present study, it was concluded that growing slugs could be suppressed by adding a surfactant to create foam. The surfactants also influence the characteristics of the severe slugging cycle, but they are not able to fully suppress it. Re-analysis of the measurement data by Pronk has turned out that instead of growing slugs, severe slugging was measured and therefore that severe slugging can be suppressed using surfactants and no conclusions can be drawn on growing slugs or hydrodynamic slugs from her research. There is limited literature on the effect of adding a surfactant to hydrodynamic slug flow in horizontal flowlines, but there are some indications that hydrodynamic slugs can be suppressed, though requiring a higher concentration of the surfactant than vertical flow. Suppressing slug flow using surfactants should eliminate the fluctuations in the flow and can lead to a lower pressure drop. For this research experiments have been carried out in the Severe Slugging Loop at the Shell Technology Centre Amsterdam. This flow loop consists of a horizontal flowline of 50 m, a U-turn and a 15 m section. From there onward the pipe starts declining at an angle of -2.54° over a length of 35 m. Thereafter there is a short horizontal section of 5 m before arriving at the base of the riser, which has a height of 16.8 m and an internal diameter of 32 mm. The other sections have an internal diameter of 50.8 mm. For this research the configuration was used where air and water are connected through a Y-sprout at the start of the flow line. The air is supplied as pressurized air of 6 barg. The water is supplied by a pump, and it is separated from the air at a section at the top of the riser and recirculated through the system. The used surfactant is the household detergent Dreft. At several points along the flowline and riser the flow conditions have been measured using pressure indicators and at two locations along the flowline the pressure difference over 3 m has been measured using differential pressure indicators. Through the inspection window at the end of the flowline the flow is recorded by using a GoPro camera. Furthermore, over a distance of 40 m the acoustic energy of the flow has been measured by a Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) system. The DAS measurements have been used to determine the flow behaviour of the flow. In the case of slug flow, the velocity of the slugs was deduced from the DAS data. Adding a 2000 ppm concentration of the surfactant Dreft Original has resulted in the full suppression of hydrodynamic slug flow. This has been verified using the pressure data, the video data and the DAS data in combination with the velocity tracking tool. The waves that were present without surfactant are decreased to a much smaller wave height when the surfactant is added; therefore, the flow pattern is changed from slug flow to wavy stratified flow. The severe slugging cycle can also be suppressed using 2000 ppm concentration of the surfactant Dreft Original. At the same flow conditions, the gas is able to lift more liquid through the riser. The measurements by the DAS system were quantified using a velocity tracking algorithm. The measurement data can now be used to accurately measure the slug velocity and to determine whether slug flow or stratified flow is present in the system. This measurement method is ready for scale-up. When the concentration of surfactant is sufficient to suppress slug flow, the flow can be described from visual observations as a threephase flow, containing gas, foam and liquid. The foam absorbs the stresses


Hydrogen-producing bacteria groups were studied for seeking a bioenergy source. The bacteria were sampled in mangrove ooze from Beihai intertidal zone Guangxi, South China, and were enriched in batch fermentation culture. The pH and ORP (oxidation reduction potential) values were measured. During the peak hydrogen production by the bacteria, Fe-hydrogenase gene and 16S rRNA gene of the bacteria was PCR amplified and analyzed in DGGE (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis). Six operational taxonomical units (OUT) were obtained on the 16S rRNA gene but only one on the Fe-hydrogenase gene of Clostridium. The segment of Fe-hydrogenase gene was cloned and sequenced. NCBI blast result indicates that the segment of Fe-hydrogenase gene was 99% identical to that of C. perfringens. Thus, forward and reverse primers were designed according to the reported Fe-hydrogenase gene of C. perfringens. After two PCR amplifications, the full-length of Fe-hydrogenase gene was obtained. The accession number of this gene is EU590683. The sequence of this gene was arranged and analyzed with Mega software package having a phylogenetic tree built up in DNADist and Neighbor. The deduced amino acid sequence shared 97%-99% homology with the Fe-hydrogenase of C. perfringens. Five domains were found in the Fe-hydrogenase by PfamHMM domain search, namely, a 2Fe-2S binding domain, two 4Fe-4S binding domains, an Fe-hydrogenase large subunit, and an Fe-hydrogenase small subunit.


Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) is still the main stream among Resolution Enhancement Techniques (RETs) for printing advanced technology nodes in optical lithography in the foreseeable future. However, to keep pace with the continuous shrinkage of feature dimensions, OPC algorithms are getting more aggressive to achieve acceptable pattern fidelity on the silicon wafer. This results in outputting complex mask patterns whose manufacturability is degraded. In this paper, we propose an intensity based OPC algorithm to improve mask manufacturability with preserving acceptable pattern fidelity following linearly interpolated intensity error model. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our algorithm on the public benchmarks.


The emergence of nano-technology, precision machining and the overriding goals of higher quality and better reliability are increasing the importance of surface profiling instrumentation. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the available instrumentation including brief discussions of their operation, their advantages and limitations, and their primary applications. The instruments discussed are primarily for measuring microscopic surface structure with spatial frequencies in the 0.1 - 1000 lines per millimeter range. Vertical resolution ranges from 100 nm on the least sensitive instruments to 0.01 nm on one of the high precision optical instruments.The emergence of nano-technology, precision machining and the overriding goals of higher quality and better reliability are increasing the importance of surface profiling instrumentation. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the available instrumentation including brief discussions of their operation, their advantages and limitations, and their primary applications. The instruments discussed are primarily for measuring microscopic surface structure with spatial frequencies in the 0.1 - 1000 lines per millimeter range. Vertical resolution ranges from 100 nm on the least sensitive instruments to 0.01 nm on one of the high precision optical instruments.


Author(s): Jang, Ganghee | Advisor(s): Gaudiot, Jean-Luc | Abstract: The issue of the power wall has had a drastic impact on many aspects of system design. Even though frequency scaling is limited because Dennard scaling stopped a few years ago, new technologies and design trends such as 3D stacking and heterogeneous multi-core architectures still offer us opportunities to integrate more logic to increase performance. However, these new trends have increased design complexity significantly, especially in terms of satisfying various system requirements and system goals: power efficiency must be handled carefully while scaled resources must be managed to improve performance. Sometimes system scaling itself conflict with system goals. Increased chip resources and core counts make fair resource sharing more notable issues, and the increased number of heterogeneous architecture makes programming more challenging by requiring more programming styles (e.g., stream programming, SPMD style programming), API, etc. We suggest here that multiple design goal issues could be handled more efficiently via explicit resource addressing. This idea is applied to the shared last level cache design and we call this approach the Data Shepherding cache. We show how the Data Shepherding cache design solves some of the design issues of integrating mechanisms from multiple goals especially when we consider scaling in capacity and performance. The properties of the Data Shepherding cache are evaluated in two ways with open source tools. CACTI from HP.com simulates cache models to obtain cache parameters such as access time, power consumption, etc. Further analysis with the model parameters shows that the Data Shepherding cache has 10% smaller area footage, which leads to a 7% leakage power reduction over the Static NUCA cache. We analyze performance using the GEM5 simulator from gem5.org which models system architecture. The results show a 12.6% performance improvement with selected Spec2000 benchmarks with 2MB bank, 128 MB total shared cache size.


Tacit knowledge is difficult to transfer. It is also context specific. Hence it is often argued to be a key strategic asset and as such attention to how it is created and transferred in organisation in critical to strategists. The transfer of tacit knowledge is however still a challenge. It is known that shared communication and socialization are important processes in the transfer of tacit knowledge and person–organization fit (POF) is associated with such phenomena. Hence we argue that POF is likely to shape the transfer of tacit knowledge with higher levels of one resulting in higher levels of the other. We explore the interaction of tacit knowledge and POF fit and develop a matrix that suggests a complex interaction between the two.


Covers OS 3.0 Step-by-step instructions with callouts to iPod touch photos so that you can see exactly what to do. Help when you run into iPod touch problems or limitations. Tips and Notes to help you get the most from your iPod touch. Full-color, step-by-step tasks walk you through getting and keeping your iPod touch working just the way you want. Learn how to: Make the most of Apples newest iPod touch 3.0 software Connect your iPod touch to Wi-Fi networks and the Internet Move content onto your iPod touch Synchronize your iPod touch with a computer, MobileMe, or Exchange Listen to music, podcasts, and other audio Watch movies, TV shows, music videos, and video podcasts Surf the Web and email Create, manage, display, and edit contacts and calendar entries Store, view, and share your photos Find, install, use, and maintain iPod touch applications Customize, maintain, and troubleshoot your iPod touch BONUS MATERIAL: Find additional tasks and other helpful information on this books website at www.informit.com/title/9780789742391


This article analyses the trajectory and the main explanatory factors of changes in the labour market participation rate in the euro area in recent decades. First, these changes are compared with the United States, highlighting the extraordinary convergence that has taken place between the two areas owing to the momentum in the European labour market and the declining secular trend on the other side of the Atlantic. Second, the increase in participation in the euro area was led by females, particularly as a result of the higher probability of new cohorts joining the labour market against a background of significant socio-educational changes. In any event, in view of the demographic ageing in progress and the progressive exhaustion of the above-mentioned changes, the focus is on the need for specific policies aiming to raise labour participation of such population groups where there is still room to do so, i.e. older workers, in general, and women in countries where the gender gap is still large.


The possibility to reduce clogging in the submerged entry nozzle (SEN) during continuous casting of Ce alloyed stainless steels has been studied. This was done by implementing a new plasma coating material, consisting of yttria-stabilised zirconia (YSZ). The coating was first tested in pilot–plant trials; where the amount of steel teemed through the plasma-coated nozzles was monitored. Thereafter, samples of the coatings from the nozzles were studied using a FEG-SEM equipped with EDS. In addition, the coating material was tested in industrial trials where the performance was judged with respect to the clogging tendency detected as the movement of the stopper rod. The results from both the pilot–plant trials and industrial trials showed that the use of an YSZ coating led to a decreased clogging tendency during the casting in comparison to when using an uncoated SEN. Specifically, the pilot–plant trials showed that the clogging factor was lowered when implementing the YSZ coatings. Furthermore, the industrial trials showed that the clogging tendency, measured by the stopper rod movements, were lower when implementing the YSZ coating.