The use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a thickening agent in polyalphaolefin oils to create CNT-grease has significant merit. Given the abnormally high thermal conductivities of CNTs, it is conceivable that a CNT-grease would exhibit excellent thermal conductivity. The rheological response of CNT-greases is important for two reasons: to determine if the grease will have sufficient lubricating properties and to provide critical information on the structure and particle-particle interactions of CNT suspensions. The viscoelastic response and evidence of creep recovery support the theory of the stable 3 Dimensional network (3D) formation in the CNT-grease. The elastic response indicates that significant energy is needed to dismember the network structure and initiate viscous flow. The macroscopic rheological investigation provides additional information regarding the structure of CNT-grease and particle-particle interactions at high SWNT concentrations, ~10.0 wt. The knowledge gained concerning the structure of CNT suspensions will allow its manipulation to achieve better thermal properties.


Twenty-five Vibrio strains belonging to nine different species, isolated in common mussels, were examined for the presence of different virulence genes: ctxA, tcpA, toxR, toxS, ace, zot and vpi previously found in pathogenic Vibrio cholerae strains. Our results suggest that there is a wide dissemination of Vibrio cholerae virulence genes among the various Vibrio species tested. This finding raises the question of whether a different approach should be taken to study "environmental" Vibrio strains.


TELOMERESFindings about how the end bits of chromosomes, called telomeres, are maintained may point the way to new therapies to fight cancer. One of many discoveries about telomeres over the past few decades ([see main text][1]) is that telomerase, the enzyme that synthesizes the telomere DNA, helps drive the growth of cancer cells. Because telomerase is not present in most normal cells, the enzyme could be an attractive target for therapies aimed at halting tumor growth.

 [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/295/5564/2348


Indirect anticoagulants effectively prevent thromboembolic complications in patients with high risk of their development. It was proven in multicenter controlled studies. However in spite of efficient laboratory control of anticoagulant effect with the international normalized ratio, treatment with drugs of this group deals with high risk of bleeding including fatal one. Latest decade studies showed that efficacy and safety of indirect anticoagulants significantly depend on genetic factors in the form of polymorphisms of genes of their biotransformation (CYP2C9) and molecule-targets (VKORC1). This created basis for usage of pharmacogenetics approach for individual choice of indirect anticoagulant dose regime. However to use this approach in clinical practice physician needs to have algorithms for choosing of indirect anticoagulant dose regime according to pharmocogenetics test results. Analysis of these existing algorithms, their advantages and disadvantages are described in the review.


A set of points that corresponds a vector of vector space constructed on a field is called an affine space associated with that vector space. We denote A 3 as affine 3-space associated with IR 3 . The first written sources that can be achieved about affine space curve theory are based on the 1890's when Ernesto Ces\`{a}ro and Die Schon von Pirondini lived period. From that years to 2000's there are a some affine fames used in curve theory. One of them is centro-affine frame. The grup of affine motions special linear transformation consist of volume preserving linear transformations denoted by and comprising diffeomorphisms of that preserve some important invariants such curvaures that in curve theory as well. In this study, we separated the matrix representing affine frame as symmetric and antismmetric parts by using matrix demonstration of the centro-affine frame of a curve given in affine 3-space. By making use of antisymmetric part, we obtained the angular velocity vector which is also known as Darboux vector and then we expressed it in the form of linear sum of affine Frenet vectors. On the other hand, by making use of symmetric part, we obtained the normal stresses and shear stress components of the stress on the frame of the curve  in terms of the affine curvature and affine torsion. Thus we had the opportunity to be able to explane the distinctive geometric features of the affine curvature and affine torsion. Lastly, we made stress analysis of a curve with constant affine curvature and affine torsion in affine 3-space as an example.


In this paper, solute concentration and precipitate content in A2024 aluminum alloy are adjusted by solution treatment (ST) at different temperatures and tensile experiments on these treated specimens are carried out. It is found that the temperature of solution treatment (ST temperature) has a remarkable influence on the amplitude of the serrated flow and the propagation characteristics of shear bands. These results are due to the effects of solute atoms and precipitates on dynamic strain aging (DSA). When ST temperature is higher than 300 °C, solute concentration is relatively high and solute cloud is a key factor of DSA. When ST temperature is lower than 300 °C, precipitate content is relatively high and the mechanism of DSA is determined by precipitates.


Herein, 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-methyl-6-[p-(dimethylamino)styryl]-4H-pyran (DCM)-based dyes with electron donating groups were designed and their electronic and optical properties were investigated theoretically for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Among the dyes, the D1 and D2 dyes were composed of single electron donating group and the D3 and D4 dyes composed of dual donating group. We performed DFT/TDDFT calculations to get insight into the factors responsible for photovoltaic properties as dye sensitizers. It showed that all the dyes in this work are available as dye sensitizers from the energy consideration compared to TiO2 electrode and iodide electrolyte. It also showed that the D3 and D4 dyes produced additional absorption bands by the introduction of dual donor in absorption spectra and the absorption band of the D4 dye is more red-shifted than that of the D3 dye. It is attributed to the fact that the M2 (a coumarin derivative) moiety with stronger electron withdrawing ability stabilized its LUMO level. In terms of molar extinction coefficient and panchromatic feature, we suggest that the D4 dye would show better performance than other dyes in the present study as a dye sensitizer for DSSCs.


Aims. In this paper we discuss the cluster and field star formation in the central part of the Small Magellanic Cloud. The main goal is to study the correlation between young objects and their interstellar environment. Methods. The ages of about 164 associations and 311 clusters younger than 1 Gyr are determined using isochrone fitting. The spatial distribution of the clusters is compared with the HI maps, with the HI velocity dispersion field, with the location of the CO clouds and with the distribution of young field stars. Results. The cluster age distribution supports the idea that clusters formed in the last 1 Gyr of the SMC history in a roughly continuous way with periods of enhancements. The two super-shells 37A and 304A detected in the HI distribution are clearly visible in the age distribution of the clusters: an enhancement in the cluster formation rate has taken place from the epoch of the shell formation. A tight correlation between young clusters and the HI intensity is found. The degree of correlation is decreasing with the age of the clusters. Clusters older than 300 Myr are located away from the HI peaks. Clusters and associations younger than 10 Myr are related to the CO clouds in the SW region of the SMC disk. A positive correlation between the location of the young clusters and the velocity dispersion field of the atomic gas is derived only for the shell 304A, suggesting that the cloud-cloud collision is probably not the most important mechanism of cluster formation. Evidence of gravitational triggered episode due to the most recent close interaction between SMC and LMC is found both in the cluster and field star distribution.


Gastric schwannoma is a very rare gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor. Schwannoma in the gastrointestinal tract is usually not symptomatic, and preoperative abdominal CT or endoscopic evaluation cannot distinguish it from gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Surgical resection of this tumor is adequate to achieve a good prognosis. We performed laparoscopic gastric wedge resection in two patients who had the preoperative diagnosis of gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumor. In both cases, the postoperative immunohistochemistry staining was positive for S-100 protein and it was negative for CD34, which is consistent with gastric schwannoma. We report here on two cases of gastric schwannoma along with a review of the literatures.


The post-medieval castle is often neglected in English archaeology, with most analyses focusing on whether the castle was built for status or defence, a debate which has become known as 'the Battle for Bodiam'. However, in the English Civil War between 1642 and 1651, many castles were fortified either for King Charles I or his rebellious Parliament. Although the fortification of castles during this period is often attributed to acts of desperation and a lack of more suitable defences, an examination of the Royalist occupation of Sandal Castle in West Yorkshire demonstrates how this view is simplistic. The decision to fortify Sandal can be directly linked to the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, when Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, the father of King Edward IV and Richard III, was killed outside its walls. This episode heavily influenced subsequent events, culminating in the occupation of the castle at the outbreak of the English Civil War. The importance of the past during this later conflict is reinforced by the faunal and artefactual assemblages, and the locations in which they were found (and consumed). The complexity of the social discourse at Sandal challenges current approaches in castle studies and highlights the need for a biographical approach which sees the interpretation and interaction of the castle through time and space as far more important than the motivations behind its initial construction. Such a way of proceeding complements existing methodologies but also relies on material culture and history to create a subtler interpretation of these complex buildings.


Legitimate Differences challenges the usual portrayal of current debates over thorny social issues including abortion, pornography, affirmative action, and surrogate mothering as moral debates. How can it be said that our debates oppose principles of life to those of liberty, principles of liberty to those of equality, principles of equality to those of fairness, and principles of fairness to those of integrity, when we as Americans share all these principles? Debates over such issues are not, Georgia Warnke argues, moral debates over which principles we should adopt. Rather, they are interpretive debates over the meanings of principles we already possess. Warnke traces the structure of these debates with reference to the work of Jane Austen, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jurgen Habermas, and Bernard Williams. In separate chapters on surrogate mothering, affirmative action, abortion, and pornography she articulates new understandings of the meanings of some of our principles and shows the equal legitimacy of some different interpretations of the meanings of others. Finally, she suggests that the orientation of American public policy ought to be directed less at finding single canonical interpretations of our principles than at accommodating different legitimate understandings of them. The perspective offered by Legitimate Differences should have a significantly beneficial effect on public discussions.


Twelve lorry drivers participated in a field study, including in total 110 tests of a waking sound system. The system was based on a time and frequency varied sound, generated at intervals between 1 and 15 min for periods of 3-7 s. The waking effect of the sound was analysed through subjective ratings. Exposure to the sounds was correlated to improvements of the immediate as well as the long-term self-reported changes in wakefulness. The results of the study show consistently positive assessments concerning the applied waking system, both regarding the system as a measure for raised wakefulness, increased road safety and the interest in having the system installed in the vehicle. The waking sounds were in no case felt to be annoying. Analyses of the wakefulness and other factors and the interaction related to fatigue and driving are included in the investigation.


Object-oriented programming has advantages of reusability, more extensibility, and easier maintainability. While it needs hardware/software environment to support the OO behaviors. In the paper, three OO supporting mechanisms are discussed, the advantages and disadvantages are compared.


Summary
Phage α3 had a buoyant density of 1#x00B7;506 g/ml, suggesting a protein capsid. The mol. wt. of the phage genome was 34 ± 1 × 106. A dual genome population was observed and partial denaturation, duplex and restriction analyses facilitated distinction between constituent phages, α3τ and α3ω. Phage α3τ exhibited a 0.7 ± 0#x00B7;2 × 106 mol. wt. deletion in its genome with respect to α3ω. Both phages were encapsulated by a headful mechanism and the genomes were permuted over 27% and <18% of their length respectively. It is concluded that stable variants may be isolated and that these phages offer potential, through physical studies, to elucidate the properties of the Achromobacter-α3 system.


Thermal power plants dominate electric power generation in Taiwan, which are also the major contributor to Green House gases (GHG). CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas that cause global warming and sea-level rising. This paper pierces the relationship between GHG reduction and power generation expansion planning (GEP) problem for the utility. Refined Immune Algorithm (RIA) is presented to determine the generation expansion planning strategy of the utility with independent power providers (IPPs). The utility has to take both the IPPs' participation and environment impact into account when a new generation unit is expanded. This problem also takes into account the GHG reduction and reliability issues, while satisfying all electrical constraints simultaneously from view of supply side. RIA was conducted by an improved crossover and mutation mechanism with a competition and auto-adjust scheme to avoid prematurity. Testing results shows that RIA can offer an efficient way in determining the generation expansion planning.


Germline and somatic variant detection from human and cancer whole-genome sequencing data is a challenge task for genome-wide association study and cancer genomics in precision medicine. Many confounding factors contribute the difficulties including complexity of variant, sequencing and alignment error, tumor clonality and sample purity etc. Current genomic variant callers are too time-consuming to meet the requirement of clinical application in precision medicine. We developed superfast and universal Genomic Variant Caller (GVC), which can simultaneously detect various genomic variants including SNV, sINDEL and SV from personal and normal-cancer paired whole-genome/exome sequencing data within fifteen minutes. What's more, it achieved higher sensitivity and precision than popular variant callers including GATK4, Mutect, NovoBreak in germline and somatic variant detection from NA12878 and ICGC-TCGA Dream Challenge Datasets respectively. It is worth mentioning that GVC achieved comparable performance in variant detection from NA12878 sequenced by three different high-throughput sequencing platforms including Illumina HiSeq2000, NovaSeq and BGISEQ-500.


Availability and reliability of a manufacturing system are the most common indicators in the reliability engineering area to assess the quality and on-time deliveries of the products they produce. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the availability, reliability. failure metrics such as MTBF and MTTF, and also steady-state availability of a cooking oilproduction line using a Markov approach. The product line works in three consecutive shifts 24 hours a day, for which five main subsystems are identified for the analysis. The results show that the first shift has the best performance in terms of reliability while the second shift has the worst performance. To improve the reliability of the production line, a corrective maintenance policy is used. First, the critical components of the subsystems are identified using the Pareto charts, and then, by increasing the repair rates, the availability of the production line in all three shifts is increased.


Objectives: Currently there is a lack of information regarding the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of healthy as well as chronically ill children on a European level. In 2 European projects questionnaires for the assessment of the HRQoL in children and adolescents have been developed: The KIDSCREEN project aims at a co-operative European development of a standardised screening instrument for children's HRQoL for the implementation in representative national and European health surveys. In the DISABKIDS project a chronic-generic questionnaire as well as modules for specific conditions (e.g. asthma) were developed for children with chronic conditions. Methods: Both projects shared similar steps: 1. Development phase, in which the items were generated and tested, 2. Survey and Field phase, in which the modified questionnaires were tested with healthy and chronically ill children and adolescents in national representative surveys, and 3. Implementation phase in national health surveys or clinical studies. Results: In the sister projects, the KIDSCREEN instrument was tested in 22,830 children and the DISABKIDS instrument in 1605 chronically ill children. The current paper describes the development and pilot-testing as well as psychometric results of the field tests of both studies. Conclusion: The KIDSCREEN/DISABKIDS instruments make it possible to assess generic, chronic-generic and disease-specific aspects of quality of life in children and present an innovative approach to intercultural HRQoL assessment in health research.


In the last decade and more recently triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, algorithmic surveillance technologies have been increasingly implemented and experimented with by the police for crime control, public order policing, and as management tools. Police departments are also increasingly consumers of surveillance technologies that are created, sold, and controlled by private companies. They exercise an undue influence over police today in ways that are not widely acknowledged and increasingly play a role in the data capture and processing that feeds into larger cloud infrastructures and data markets. These developments are having profound effects on how policing is organized and on existing power relations, whereby decisions are increasingly being made by algorithms. Although attention is paid to algorithmic police surveillance in academic research as well as in mainstream media, critical discussions about its democratic oversight are rare. The goal of this paper is to contribute to ongoing research on police and surveillance oversight and to question how current judicial oversight of algorithmic police surveillance in Belgium addresses socio-technical harms of these surveillance practices.


In this paper we demonstrate for the first time a novel CMOS IT-FET (inverted T channel FET) architecture. We demonstrate well functional ITFET SRAM bit-cells. Vertical devices such as FinFET and planar ultra thin body devices have been shown to exhibit good short channel control and proposed for future device scaling. The ITFET is novel device architecture that takes advantage of both vertical and horizontal thin-body devices. A doped channel IT-FET process has been developed and is the focus of this paper. This technology can be scaled beyond 45nm technologies using undoped channels. An ITFET device comprises of an ultra thin body planar horizontal channels and vertical channels in a single device. The devices have multi-gate control around these channels to improve short channel control. A single device has multiple orientations and hence mobility enhancement of both (110) and (100) planes can be used optimally. The devices presented have 15nm planar horizontal thin body and 40nm vertical channels of 100nm height, 17Aring gate dielectric and 50nm gate length. These devices are especially useful in circuits that need ratioing such as in SRAM cells and a well functional SRAM cell is demonstrated


Beta Thalassemia is a genetic disorder affecting millions around the word including Pakistan. Thalassemia is a major problem of concern causing high mortality rate in children, adolescents and adults. Thalassemia patients need repeated transfusion, which might result into number of complications. Many studies have reported association of ABO blood groups with diseases. The associations of ABO blood group with thalassemia have not been extensively studied. In order to find out the prevalence of thalassemia according to age, gender and frequency of blood groups, a retrospective study was carried out in 810 thalassemia patients. Our finding suggests the prevalence of thalassemia was higher in male patients than female patients. Higher number of patients was found in the lower age group ≤ 5 years old. The pattern of ABO blood groups was O> B > A> AB. Rh negative factor was significantly (P< 0.05) higher in female patients than male patients. In conclusion higher prevalence of thalassemia patients was found in male patients and females were found to have higher prevalence of Rh-negative group.


• Preface
 It is our privilege to present the proceedings of the two-day online Conference entitled "International Conference on Advanced Earth Sciences and Foundation Engineering (ICASF-2022)".The Conference was held virtually considering COVID–19 pandemics, ensuing gathering, and travel restrictions in the nation and worldwide. Yet, despite the issues, the virtual ICASF-2022 took place on 23rd and 24thJune 2022 and attracted a more significant number and diverse mix of attendees than it would have done as per expectations. The Organizers, i.e., ChandigarhUniversity, Mohali, India, which runs the event, seek to promote international collaborations in Research and Innovation. The Conference was delivered through ZOOM Cloud Meeting technology. More than 200 extra individuals signed upto ICASF-2022 over the guests, presenters, and invited attendees because of easier online access. Collectively more than 450 people attended from 15 countries. The Conference had delegates, participants, and attendees from Tanzania, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Russia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and European countries some of whom might not otherwise have come because of the distance and time constraints in traveling. The Conference consists of six sessions, including inaugural and valedictory. Prof. (Dr.) Mikhael Bechelany from CNRS, France, Trinidad graced the plenary session along with Prof. (Dr.) Luminita Andronic, Professor at the Product Design and Environment Faculty, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania, Prof. (Dr.) Valeria De Matteis, Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Physics "Ennio De Giorgi" of the University of Salento, Lecce (Italy), and Prof. (Dr.) Siraj Muhammed Pandhiani, Professor in the Department of General Studies, Jubail University College, Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, Four Keynote addresses were given by researchers and scientists from NIT, Kurukshetra, GHRCEM, Pune, National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali, Punjab, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agriculture University, Haryana. Overall, 130 paper presentations were delivered by authors in four conference technical sessions. Authors were facilitated with 15 minutes to present their papers, followed by 5 minutes of discussion and query session. The paper presentation and discussion emphasized incorporating Advanced Earth Science and Foundation Engineering, and compatibility withconstruction. The national and international research scenario on Advanced Earth Science and Foundation Engineering seeks to reduce negative impacts on the ecosystem, modern era development, and Future possibilities for sustainability. Thereby role play in Sustainable Development Goals. The primary objectives of today's development are reducing the consumption of non-renewable resources, minimizing waste, and creating a healthy environment. Consequently, interdisciplinary and integrated innovations have resulted in numerous smart solutions. This event provided a forum for researchers from different scientific and engineering fields to deliberate and collaborate at national and international levels for translating research into intelligent possibilities to make human life better.
 Chandigarh University, Gharuan, the leading university in research and Innovation in India, sponsored this Conference. This Conference provided an opportunity for in-depth technical discussions and the exchange of innovative ideas on a wide range of possibilities to explore the potential of their applications in industry and society. Moreover, young researchers were exposed to emerging trends and research areas that have significant technical and scientific importance for sustainable development.
 List of Conference photographs, Sponsoror funding acknowledgements, committees/participants are available in this Pdf.


Background Listening to preferred music can provide distraction and reduce the feeling of pain and negative emotions associated with an uncomfortable experience. Several studies have examined how music can reduce pain and anxiety related to urological procedures that are not typically performed under anesthesia, such as cystoscopy, cystoscopy with stent pull, and urodynamic studies. To our knowledge, no studies have been done to examine the effect of listening to preferred music generalized across a variety of these procedures. Therefore, we looked to combine multiple factors from prior studies to determine if listening to music of a patient's choice would decrease pain during various outpatient clinic urological procedures, and to examine differences between men and women. Methods This was a single investigator series randomized controlled trial with 91 subjects in an academic outpatient urology clinic. After applying exclusion criteria, eligible patients were randomized to a music group or non-music group via coin flip. Fifty-three patients were in the music group (16 men, 37 women) and 38 patients were in the non-music group (16 men, 22 women). Subjects in the music group selected a song to play during the procedure, which was stopped at the conclusion of the procedure. Pre- and post-procedure Visual Analog Pain Scale were completed by the subjects of each group and subsequently analyzed. Where appropriate either Pearson's Chi-Square or Independent-Sample t-test were used to compare the groups as well as randomized-repeated analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results For men, pain scores worsened in both groups, however the music group experienced a statistically significant increase in pain (mean change =1.0, P=0.05), while the non-music group only clinically worsened (mean change =0.38, P=0.459). For women, the music group noticed an improvement in the pain score (mean change =−0.14, P=0.590), while the non-music group significantly worsened (mean change =1.14, P=0.008). Conclusions Women who listened to music of their choosing experienced significant improvement in overall perceived pain compared to women who did not listen to music. Women may benefit from music as a novel tool to alleviate pain during outpatient clinic urological procedures.


Klebsiella spp are one of the best natural producers of 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD). However, their usage in the biotechnological production of the diol is limited, since the species belong to the second hazard group. Nevertheless, multiple advantageous traits of Klebsiella spp justify the international effort devoted to develop a biotechnological process of 1,3-PD production with these microorganisms. Apart from the process engineering approach aiming at improvement of 1,3-PD production by Klebsiella spp, plethora of metabolic engineering approaches have been reported. Different strategies have been undertaken to genetically improve Klebsiella strains and provide them with the ability to synthesize 1,3-PD more efficiently. These include over-expression of both homologous and heterologous genes of the 1,3-PD synthesis pathway, protein and cofactor engineering, deletion of the genes involved in by-products formation. This review provides an overview of the initial and most recent reports on the metabolic engineering of Klebsiella spp with the aim of improvement of 1,3-PD biosynthesis.


In estimation, the misspecified Cramer–Rao bound (MCRB), which is an extension of the well-known Cramer–Rao bound (CRB) when the underlying system model is misspecified, has recently attracted much attention. In this paper, we introduce a new interpretation of the MCRB, called the generalized MCRB (GMCRB), via the Moore–Penrose inverse operator. This bound is useful for singular problems and particularly blind channel estimation problems in which the Hessian matrix is noninvertible. Two closed-form expressions of the GMCRB are derived for unbiased blind estimators when the channel order is misspecified. The first bound deals with deterministic models where both the channel and unknown symbols are deterministic. The second one is devoted to stochastic models where we assume that transmitted symbols are unknown random variables i.i.d. drawn from a Gaussian distribution. Two case studies of channel order misspecification are investigated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed GMCRBs over the classical CRBs. When the channel order is known or accurately estimated, both generalized bounds reduce to the classical bounds. Besides, the stochastic GMCRB is lower than the deterministic one, especially at high SNR.


In this Letter, we present a simple approach for monitoring electron bunch form and arrival time combining electro-optic sampling and phase and frequency sensitive signal detection. The sensitivity of the technique has the potential to allow online diagnostics to be performed down to bunch charges in the femto coulomb regime. The concept has high impact for the developments of the next generation of 4th generation x-ray light sources working with long pulse trains or continuous wave mode of operation.


Graphene-based nanostructured systems and van der Waals heterostructures comprise a material class of growing technological and scientific importance. Joining materials with vastly different properties, polymer/graphene heterosystems promise diverse applications in surface and nanotechnology, including photovoltaics or nanotribology. Fundamentally, molecular adsorbates are prototypical systems to study confinement-induced phase transitions exhibiting intricate dynamics, which require a comprehensive understanding of the dynamical and static properties on molecular time and length scales. Here, we investigate the dynamics and the structure of a single polyethylene chain on free-standing graphene by means of molecular dynamics simulations. In equilibrium, the adsorbed polymer is orientationally linked to the graphene as two-dimensional folded-chain crystallite or at elevated temperatures as a floating solid. The associated superstructure can be reversibly melted on a picosecond time scale upon quasi-instantaneous substrate heating, involving ultrafast heterogeneous melting via a transient floating phase. Our findings elucidate time-resolved molecular-scale ordering and disordering phenomena in individual polymers interacting with solids, yielding complementary information to collective friction and viscosity, and linking to recent experimental observables from ultrafast electron diffraction. We anticipate that the approach will help in resolving nonequilibrium phenomena of hybrid polymeric systems over a broad range of time and length scales.


This study examines pre-service teachers' points of view about learning history of mathematics during their undergraduate education. An open-ended questionnaire was administered to one hundred and twenty pre-service teachers, during the fall semester of the 2013–14 academic year. The participants indicated that learning history of mathematics could increase their content knowledge as they understand how formulas, theories and relations were developed over time. In addition, it could develop them intellectually as they learn life stories of mathematicians. Also, it could help them to hold the attention of students, and answer some of the why questions. Particularly, they reported using history of mathematics knowledge while teaching Geometry and Numbers.


Abstract : The recruitment, radicalization, travel, and return of opposition foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq pose unique challenges at home and abroad in both the short and long term. In an effort to shed more light on the nature of this problem, the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point collected a large dataset of open source information on individuals who attempted or successfully traveled to Syria and Iraq from 2012-2015 to join one of the many groups opposing the Bashar al-Assad regime, with a focus on fighters coming from Western countries. The goal of this collection was not to create a master list of all foreign fighters, but to see how information in the open source could shine light on the three stages of what the CTC refers to as the foreign fighter lifecycle: pre-departure, in theater, and return. In examining the entire lifecycle, the goal was to paint a picture of the depth and nuance of the overall threat. In doing so, several key findings emerged. Some of these findings reinforce existing understanding of the foreign fighter problem, while others provide new insights into the challenging nature of this issue.


In order to properly interpret the thermal conductivity of molten silicate slags, several different measurement methods are briefly reviewed, along with a discussion as to their respective advantages and limitations. In addition, a large number of thermal conductivity values measured by these methods are assessed, in order to evaluate their dependence on composition and temperature. The behavior of the thermal conductivity of molten silicate slags was found to show good agreement with well-focused analyses into its microstructure. Moreover, with an improved understanding of the microstructure of silicate slags, there is an apparent co-relation between thermophysical properties such as thermal conductivity, viscosity, and so forth.


This paper examines the role of Natural Protected Areas (NPAs) as a source of economic spillovers for mass tourism destinations in Mexico. An econometric model was used to explain the number of booked rooms in tourism destinations as a function of proximity to NPAs, controlling for destination characteristics. A conservative estimate suggests that some rooms booked by foreign visitors can be explained by proximity to NPAs. Our results open public policy options, such as a compensating mechanism from conventional tourism to fund NPAs and show that they would be economically efficient and contribute to sustainability.


This paper presents a novel and general method for the detection, rectification and segmentation of imaged coplanar repeated patterns. The only assumption made of the scene geometry is that repeated scene elements are mapped to each other by planar Euclidean transformations. The class of patterns covered is broad and includes nearly all commonly seen, planar, man-made repeated patterns. In addition, novel linear constraints are used to reduce geometric ambiguity between the rectified imaged pattern and the scene pattern. Rectification to within a similarity of the scene plane is achieved from one rotated repeat, or to within a similarity with a scale ambiguity along the axis of symmetry from one reflected repeat. A stratum of constraints is derived that gives the necessary configuration of repeats for each successive level of rectification. A generative model for the imaged pattern is inferred and used to segment the pattern with pixel accuracy. Qualitative results are shown on a broad range of image types on which state-of-the-art methods fail.


Abstract Purpose: To investigate the overall prevalence of vertebral fractures (VF) following childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment and examine the association of VF with growth trajectory and insulin-like growth factors. Methods: Children (n=172; 59.3 % male) diagnosed with ALL at age between 2 and 18 years were assessed for VF by screening the lateral thoracolumbar spine radiographs (Genant's semi-quantitative method) when treatment was completed (baseline). Anthropometric measurements between pre- to post-treatment period were obtained and the association of VF with insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) were examined. Results: Thirty-five children (20.3 %) had vertebral fractures at baseline. Among children with vertebral fractures, 97.1 % had either mild or moderate deformity, and the 5th lumbar vertebrae was the most frequently injured site (20.0 %). Median lumbar spine bone mineral density Z-score was -1.0 (IQR of -1.6 and -0.8) in children with VF. Baseline Z-scores for height and weight were lower in children with VF than without VF (-0.5±1.3 and 0.0±0.9, P=0.01; -0.2±1.6 and 0.3±1.1, P=0.04, respectively). Height Z-score in children with VF had greater height decline than without VF (0.5±0.6 and 0.2±0.8; P=0.02). Children with VF had lower IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 Z-score than without VF at baseline (-1.2±1.0 and 0.0±0.8, P<0.01; -2.3±1.1 and -1.3±1.0, P<0.01). Decrease in IGF-1 level was associated with the presence of VF (OR=0.3(95 % CI of 0.2-0.5), P<0.01). Conclusion: Substantial number of children encounter VF after ALL treatment is completed and the presence of VF might be associated with compromised auxological state, prominent height decline and IGF-1 deficiency.


Wardell, J. M., Hill, C. M. and D'Souza, S. W. (Department of Child Health, St. Mary's Hospital, Manchester, UK). Effect of pasteurization, and freezing and thawing human milk on its triglyceride content. Acta Paediatr Scand, 70: 467, 1981.--In a study of human milk collected for banking, heating at 62.5"C for 30 min, and freezing and thawing resulted in hydrolysis of triglycerides. Freezing and thawing caused disruption of fat globules and a greater hydrolysis of triglycerides than did the heating process. There was a decrease in the percentage of the poly-unsaturated fatty acids linoleic acid (Cl8:2) and linolenic acid (C18:3) after freezing and thawing, and after heating, but the other fatty acids of human milk triglycerides were not affected. It is suggested that the availability of linoleic and linolenic acid in milk declines when these procedures are used in human milk banking.


Protection switching interactions in wide-area networks need to interoperate with each other in order to restore a wide variety of services, provide survivability to mission-critical applications and accommodate an evolving network infrastructure. Without some coordination between restoration mechanisms, an outage duration would be lengthened as methods assigned to each layer interfere with each other or the network would be locked up in a deadlocked state that never converges to a new topology. A set of control policies can be specified to coordinate between restoration mechanisms in a network that spans multiple layers and regions. These control policies are expressed as rules, and are collectively denoted as the escalation strategy. The escalation strategy can be provisioned by a network manager and is implemented as a distributed coordination protocol between peer recovery agents in the nodes. As rules for coordinating between restoration mechanisms are formalized, a mathematical proof could be provided to prove that the network does indeed converge to a new topology.


BACKGROUND
Every year, there are significant numbers of motorcycle accident casualties in Taiwan. These accidents are the leading cause of maxillofacial trauma. Age should be an important factor of maxillofacial fracture patterns yet there is limited literature on the topic. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the correlation of age with maxillofacial fracture in motorcycle accidents.

METHODS
This is a retrospective descriptive analysis conducted over 2-year period at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. We focused on the population of maxillofacial injury caused by motorcycle accidents. Data, including demographics, age, fracture patterns of facial bones, and other associated injuries, were collected.

RESULTS
Among 881 admissions, there were 179 patients in the minor group, 644 patients in the adult group, and 58 patients in the geriatric group. With patterns of maxillofacial fracture, midface fracture was the most common type. The minor group had higher incidence of mandibular fracture. The geriatric group sustained more midface fracture. Associated injuries, such as severe head injuries and c-spine injury, were more likely to occur with the old age victims. The overall mortality rate was 3.1%.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study presents the different trends of fracture patterns in different age groups, which is associated with different types of treatment required. We summarized all these data in the hope of providing further assistance to trauma doctor dealing with motorcycle accidents.


This paper presents an investigation into the zero-shot performance of pre-trained foundation models on remote sensing tasks. Recent advances in self-supervised learning suggest that these models, when trained on vast amounts of unsupervised data, could potentially improve generalization across a number of downstream tasks. Our study offers an empirical evaluation of these models on standard remote-sensing benchmarks such as EuroSAT and BigEarthNet-S2, with the intent to confirm whether these models have encountered satellite imagery during their training phase. Moreover, we examine the impact of adding a geospatial domain-specific textual description of classes, contrasting it with the standard class-based prompts. Our findings indicate that the fine-tuned BLIP models exhibit superior zero-shot performance on these benchmarks compared to their standard counterparts, signifying that fine-tuning on standard benchmarks enhances performance. Furthermore, the addition of geospatial context variably influences performance depending on the specific model and dataset. This work provides crucial insights into the applicability of foundation models in remote sensing tasks and lays the groundwork for further research.


The condition factor (CF) were calculated by the morphometric data, and gonadal maturation and reproductive potential associated with fecundities of indoor cultured Hapalogenys nitens were investigated by microscopic and morphometric analysis from August 2011 to October 2012. Monthly changes in the GSI and CF were closely related to gonadal maturation and spawning. The ovary consisted of a pair of saccular structure with many ovarian lobules, the testis is a pair of lobular structure with many testicular lobules. The relationship between total fecundity (F) and total length (TL) of fish was expressed as F=0.0449TL 2.7926 (r 2 =0.0653), and body weight (BW) was expressed as F=1.4492BW0.8964(r2=0.0863). In this study, some exceptional special cases and phenomena were observed: absolute and relative fecundities were not increased with the increases of total length and body weight, respectively. Absolute and relative fecundities were no concerned with the increases of age classes of total length (cm) and of body weight (g).


A sizeable portion of the Athabasca oil sand reservoir is classified as inclined heterolithic stratification lithosomes (IHSs). However, due to the significant heterogeneity of IHSs and the minimal experimental studies on them, their hydrogeomechanical properties are relatively unknown. The main objectives of this study are investigating the geomechanical constitutive behavior of IHSs and linking their geological and mechanical characteristics to their hydraulic behavior to estimate the permeability evolution of IHSs during a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) operation. To that end, a detailed methodology for reconstitution of analog IHS specimens was developed, and a microscopic comparative study was conducted between analog and in-situ IHS samples. The SAGD-induced stress paths were experimentally simulated by running isotropic cyclic consolidation and drained triaxial shearing tests on analog IHSs. Both series of experiments were performed in conjunction with permeability tests at different strain levels, flow rates, and stress states. Additionally, an analog sample with bioturbation was tested to examine the hydrogeomechanical effects of bioturbation. Finally, the hydromechanical characteristics of analog IHS were compared with its constituent layers (sand and mud).
 The microscopic study showed that the layers' integration and grain size distributions are similar in analog and in-situ IHS specimens. The results also revealed that geomechanical properties of IHSs, such as shear strength, bulk compressibility, Young's modulus, and dilation angle, are stress-state dependent. In other words, elevating the confining pressure could significantly increase the strength and elastic modulus of a sample, while decreasing the compressibility and dilation angle. In contrast, the friction angle and Poisson's ratio are not very sensitive to changes in the isotropic confining stress. An important finding of this study is that the effect of an IHS sample's volume change on permeability is contingent on the stress state and stress path. Volume change during isotropic unloading-reloading resulted in permeability increases, and sample dilation during compression shearing resulted in permeability decreases, especially at high effective confining stresses. Moreover, the tests revealed that the existence of bioturbation dramatically improves permeability of IHSs in comparison to equivalent nonbioturbated specimens but has negligible effects on its mechanical properties, which remain similar to nonbioturbated specimens. The results also showed that bioturbation had minimal impact on permeability changes during shearing. Lastly, experimental correlations were developed for each of the preceding parameters mentioned.
 For the first time, specialized experimental protocols have been developed that guide the infrastructure and processes required to reconstitute analog IHS specimens and conduct geomechanical testing on them. This study also delivered fundamental constitutive data to better understand the geomechanical behavior of IHS reservoir and its permeability evolution during the in-situ recovery processes. Such data can be used to accurately capture the reservoir behavior and increase the efficiency of SAGD operations in IHS reservoirs.


A small-scale field study was conducted to explain seedling emergence and recruitment of reproductive individuals in a four-year-old Mediterranean annual plant community. The analyzed levels were populations, functional types, and total number of individuals in the community. We hypothesized that the number of germinable seeds positively affects the number of emerged seedlings, which positively affects the number of reproductive individuals. We hypothesized as well that litter mass, biomass of established adults, and number of non-conspecific emerged seedlings negatively affect the numbers of emerged seedlings and reproductive individuals. The results supported our multivariate causal explanation of plant recruitment, although concordances with the initial hypotheses were more frequent at the community level. The effect of the number of germinable seeds on the number of emerged seedlings was found to be robust only at the community level. At the population level, this relationship did not have a consistent tendency and depended on species identity and range of seed density experienced. Litter had negative effects on total number of individuals in the community, and usually non-significant effects at the population level. Litter effects were found to be inversely related to seed mass, and sharper cotyledons did not improve seedling emergence likely by favoring litter mat penetration. Interactions among plant species appeared not to have any effect on seedling emergence and survival, and had positive effects on certain populations. Biomass of established adult plants exerted no influence on seedling emergence and survival, probably due to their low abundance in this community during the germination period. Results permitted the inference of the main stages in the recruitment process and causal factors. They provided evidence for the greater importance of germination and emergence in comparison with seedling survival to insure reproductive recruitment in this community.


High pressure studies of solid methane are performed using both classical simulated annealing and first-principles methods. A series of simulated annealing and geometry optimization reveal a monoclinic P21/b structure with the unit cell containing four methane molecules. The phonon dispersion curves and vibrational density of states indicate that this structure is stable in the pressure range 10–90 GPa. The electronic band structure and density of states show that this structure has not metalized until 90 GPa.


The neuropsychiatric manifestations of lupus are very heterogeneous and are a source of significant morbidity and mortality. Transverse myelitis is a rare but serious complication of systemic lupus erythematosus, classically described as an acute attack with a poor functional prognosis. It most often complicates the course of a previously diagnosed lupus and corresponds clinically to a complete medullary syndrome associating a symmetrical bilateral sensitivo motor deficit and sphincter disorders. We report a rare case of a young woman who was admitted to intensive care for a rapidly evolving flaccid tetraparesis with impaired consciousness. The explorations concluded that Case Study Amri et al.; AJORRIN, 3(2): 1-5, 2020; Article no.AJORRIN.59095 2 there was lupus with an inaugural neurological disorder such as longitudinal transverse myelitis associated with a secondary locked-in syndrome and a pontine ischemic stroke. Our observation has several particularities: the inaugural character and the longitudinal form of lupus myelitis as well as the serious association at the outset with a locked-in syndrome secondary to a cerebrovascular accident.


ABSTRACT Background Longer-term consumption of SFA-reduced, MUFA-enriched dairy products has been reported to improve fasting flow-mediated dilatation (FMD). Yet, their impact on endothelial function in the postprandial state warrants investigation. Objectives The aim was to compare the impact of a fatty acid (FA) modified with a conventional (control) dairy diet on the postprandial %FMD (primary outcome) and systemic cardiometabolic responses to representative meals, and retrospectively explore whether treatment effects differ by apolipoprotein E (APOE) or endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) Glu298Asp gene polymorphisms. Methods In a crossover-design randomized controlled study, 52 adults with moderate cardiovascular disease risk consumed dairy products [38% of total energy intake (%TE) from fat: FA-modified (target: 16%TE SFAs; 14%TE MUFAs) or control (19%TE SFAs; 11%TE MUFAs)] for 12 wk, separated by an 8-wk washout. Blood sampling and FMD measurements (0–480 min) were performed pre- and postintervention after sequential mixed meals that were representative of the assigned dairy diets (0 min, ∼50 g fat; 330 min, ∼30 g fat). Results Relative to preintervention (∆), the FA-modified dairy diet and meals (treatment) attenuated the increase in the incremental AUC (iAUC), but not AUC, for the %FMD response observed with the conventional treatment (–135 ± 69% vs. +199 ± 82% × min; P = 0.005). The ∆ iAUC, but not AUC, for the apoB response decreased after the FA-modified treatment yet increased after the conventional treatment (–4 ± 3 vs. +3 ± 3 mg/mL × min; P = 0.004). The ∆ iAUC decreased for plasma total SFAs (P = 0.003) and trans 18:1 (P < 0.0001) and increased for cis-MUFAs (P < 0.0001) following the conventional relative to the FA-modified treatment. No treatment × APOE or eNOS genotype interactions were evident for any outcome. Conclusions This study provides novel insights into the longer-term effects of FA-modified dairy food consumption on postprandial cardiometabolic responses.


BACKGROUND
It has been demonstrated that during +Gz exposure cerebral blood flow is significantly reduced, resulting in brain ischemia. In pilots, such conditions could recur several times during centrifuge training and combat maneuvers and could possibly cause reversible change in brain energy metabolism.

HYPOTHESIS
In rats there is an association between +10 Gz exposure and the decreased brain metabolism, as indicated by decreased adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and ATPase activity, and increased adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and lactate, etc. The aim of the present study was to examine the time course and recovery of brain energy metabolism, lactate, ATPase activity, Na+, K+, Ca2+ and water contents after three +10 Gz exposures in rats.

METHODS
There were 64 male Sprague-Dawley rats that were restrained and placed on an animal centrifuge. They were divided into groups of 16. Control rats were exposed to +1 Gz and experimental rats were exposed to +10 Gz three times each for 3 min at 30-min intervals. After being euthanized, rat brains were removed 0 h, 1 h, or 6 h after the last centrifuge run. Brain samples were analyzed for energy metabolism, lactate, Na+-K+-ATPase activity, water and electrolytes contents.

RESULTS
The cortical ATP content, Na+-K+-ATPase and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activities decreased significantly, whereas the cortical ADP, adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and lactate contents increased significantly 0 h after three +10 Gz exposures, as compared with those of control. The ATP, ADP, and AMP contents returned to their control levels 1 h after the +10 Gz exposures, however, lactate content, Na+-K+-ATPase and LDH activities delayed recovery 6 h after +10 Gz exposures. The cortical K+ content increased significantly 0 h and 1 h after +10 Gz exposures, and returned to the control level 6 h after +Gz exposures. Na+ and water contents increased significantly 1 h and 6 h after the +10 Gz exposures. There was no significant change in Ca2+ content after +Gz exposures.

CONCLUSIONS
Three +10 Gz (3 min each) exposures were associated with transient depression of brain metabolism as indicated by a decrease in ATP, Na+-K+-ATPase activity, and an accumulation of lactate, and disturbance of ion homeostasis. It is suggested that a causal relationship might exist between repeated high +Gz exposures and brain metabolism.


As we enter the era of large-scale Chip MultiProcessing (CMP) systems, evaluating architectures and projecting performance for commercial workloads on such systems is becoming increasingly important. One of the major areas of concern for Multi-Socket SMP systems has been the detrimental effects of Locking and Synchronization (L&S) overheads. However, the lower on-die interconnect latency and higher available bandwidth in CMP systems can change the effects of L&S dramatically. We wanted to analyze and study these effects. Towards this goal, we built a flexible, fast and accurate platform simulation framework called ManySim, and used this to study effects of locking and synchronization. We demonstrate that the CMP architecture outperforms the multi-socket architecture due to reduced L&S overheads, making the CMP architecture highly scalable and allowing it to almost reach the limits of Amdahl's law.


Corneal stromal fibroblasts expressed HLA-DP, -DQ and -DR Class II MHC antigens in response to interferon-gamma, but did not induce proliferative responses by allogeneic peripheral blood mononuclear cells in vitro when used as stimulator cells in a mixed leukocyte-type reaction. Furthermore, corneal stromal fibroblasts inhibited mixed leukocyte reactions between peripheral blood mononuclear cells of allogeneic donors, even when the corneal stromal fibroblasts were separated from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells by a 0.4 micron pore membrane. Pretreatment of the corneal stromal fibroblasts with interferon-gamma increased the inhibitory activity. Both [3H]thymidine incorporation and interleukin-2 production were inhibited, and the inhibition appeared to be mediated by a soluble factor whose production required protein synthesis. The inhibitory activity was not abolished by including 1-10 micrograms ml-1 indomethacin in the culture media. No inhibition was observed in the proliferation dose-response curves of responder peripheral blood mononuclear cells that had been cultured with corneal stromal fibroblasts for 3 days, prior to culture with allogeneic stimulator peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Thus, the ability of corneal stromal fibroblasts to interfere with alloimmune responses in vitro was dependent upon the continued presence of the fibroblasts and their continued production of a soluble inhibitory factor or factors. Inhibitors of allogeneic reactions that are produced by corneal stromal fibroblasts stimulated by immune cytokines (e.g. interferon-gamma) may play a role in prolonging corneal allograft survival.


It is shown that the metric proposed originally by Fano for sequential decoding is precisely the required statistic for minimum-error-probability decoding of variable-length codes. The analysis shows further that the "natural" choice of bias in the metric is the code rate and gives insight into why the Fano metric has proved to be the best practical choice in sequential decoding. The recently devised Jelinek-Zigangirov "stack algorithm" is shown to be a natural consequence of this interpretation of the Fano metric. Finally, it is shown that the elimination of the bias in the "truncated" portion of the code tree gives a slight reduction in average computation at the sacrifice of increased error probability.


Conjugated polymers have been found useful in a wide range of applications such as sensors, electrochemical transistors, solar cells, and printed electronics due to their mechanical, optical and electronic properties. An amazing research field has grown during the last three decades since the discovery of conducting polymers in 1976. Since the materials can be made from solutions, different processing methods such as spin coating and vapor phase polymerization can be used to coat a huge variety of substrates. The choice of method depends mainly on monomer solubility and kind of substrate to be coated. During the synthesis the polymers can be chemically modified to tailor their functionalities. Due to this variability in materials and the processability, electronics can be achieved on unconventional substrates such as flexible plastic foils and cell culturing dishes. As a contrast to inorganic, usually metallic materials, conducting polymers are built up from organic compounds in a molecular structure with soft mechanical properties that have shown to be a benefit in combination with biology, ranging from interactions with cells to interactions with advanced biological species such as tissues. This combination of research fields and the possible applications are merged within the field of organic bioelectronics. The primary purpose of this thesis is to give a background to organic electronics in general and how electrochemical devices can be processed and developed for biological applications in particular. An organic electronic surface switch is introduced to control cell adhesion and proliferation as well as an electrochemical transistor to spatially tune the cell adhesion along an electrochemical gradient. To mimic a more natural cell environment a three dimensional fiber substrate was used to design an electronically active matrix to promote nerve cell adhesion and communication. By combining standard microfabrication techniques and conjugated polymers desired patterns of electroactive polymer were created to enable active regulation of cell populations and their extracellular environment at high spatial resolution. Finally, a brief look into future challenges will also be presented.


Abstract This paper reports the synthesis and characterization of an efficient anionic olive stone waste-based material as new ion-exchanger adsorbent. The olive stone waste was subjected to an alkaline pretreatment in order to enhance their reactivity towards maleic anhydride. The maleate-derived material MOS was characterized by FTIR, 13C NMR, TGA and DSC. The resulting sodium form of material NaMOS was subjected to batch experiments in order to evaluate its cadmium and lead removal efficiency. Adsorption experimental data showed a uniform and rapid process. Both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were found to fit adequately the equilibrium isotherm data. The sorption capacities reached 240.96 mg Cd g−1 and 127.38 mg Pb g−1. The thermodynamic parameters showed that the process was exothermic and the adsorption occurred spontaneously. The desorption experiments show a quantitative recovery of the metal ions from NaMOS material.


In the experiments on mice, immunized by mutton erythrocytes, the authors have studied the effect of phenobarbital, in the doses activating drug-metabolizing hepatic systems, on immunodepressive action of imurane, 6-mercaptopurine and cyclophosphane. It has been found that phenobarbital eliminates the immunodepression and reduces considerably the toxicity of the mentioned cytostatics. Under these conditions imurane and 6-mercaptopurine in certain doses render an immunostimulative instead of immunodepressive effect.


For electronic circular dichroism in the 4f-4f transitions (4f-4f CD) of a series of nine tetrakis ((+)-3-heptafluorobutyrylcamphorato) Ln(III) complexes, Δ-SAPR-8-C(4)(llll) Cs[Ln((+)-hfbc)(4)]·H(2)O (Cs-Ln = Cs-Pr, -Nd, -Sm, -Eu, -Dy, -Ho, -Er, -Tm, -Yb), the spectroscopic observables such as the dissymmetry factor g = Δε/ε values with the intensities (Δε) of the CD components and the molar absorption intensities (ε) in the 4f-4f transitions between the (2S+1)L(J) levels are compared with each other to test the classification of the CD components in the relative order of the observables predicted in terms of the selection rule for 4f-4f transitions. The 4f-4f CD-based chiroptical spectra-structural relationship across the series of Δ-SAPR-8-C(4)(llll) lanthanide(III) complexes is proposed: the signs of the 4f-4f CD or CPL in the hypersensitive transitions are related to the absolute configuration; Ln complexes with a negative CD component have the Δ-configuration around Ln(III) and vice versa.


Background : Colorectal carcinoma is a common malignancy with the highest mortality rate. Epstein- Barr virus (EBV) as the virus that most commonly infect humans, also can infect the body in a latent and induce the occurrence of malignancy. This study aimed to prove an association between EBV virus infection with degree of colorectal carcinoma by examining the main EBV oncogene expression, namely Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA-1), in low grade and high grade colorectal carcinoma. Method : Cross-sectional study was performed in 14 colorectal cancer patients in Moewardi Hospital, Surakarta between July 2011 and January 2012. The biopsy specimens were stained for EBNA-1 expression using immunohistochemical technique. Statistical analysis was performed using T-test and Mann-Whitney by SPSS software version 19.0 for windows. Results : Of the 14 patients, there were 7 patients with low grade colorectal carcinoma and 7 patients with high grade colorectal carcinoma. EBNA-1 expression was found in epithelium of low grade and high grade colorectal carcinoma with p = 0.01; CI = -5.24-0.88. We also assessed the expression of EBNA-1 on lymphocytes B of low grade colorectal carcinoma and high grade colorectal carcinoma with p = 0.043. Conclusion : Significant differences in the expression of EBNA-1 was found in association with EBV infection either in low grade and high grade colorectal carcinoma. The role of EBNA-1 as tumor initiator needs to be elucidated further. Keywords: carcinoma colorectal, Epstein-Barr virus, EBNA-1


Based on the analysis of the literature data and personal authors' observations, the clinico-morphological signs of sinus histiocytosis are described. Also, the kinetics of the disease and a histological picture of the involved lymph nodes are shown at different stages of the process development. The necessity of lymph nodes biopsy in all cases suspicious of malignant lymphoma is emphasized.


The current stage of 'neo-capitalism' or 'state monopoly capitalism' is characterized by a qualitatively expanded role of the state in capitalist social formations. [1] One expression of this huge politico-economic weight of the modern state is the prolonged expansion in state expenditures, such that they now exceed one half of gross domestic product in contemporary Britain. [2] Yet despite this, there have been only isolated studies by Marxists which systematically examine the causes and consequences of this unprecedented growth. In the following sections we propose to outline the patterns and trends in state expenditure in the major capitalist economies; briefly to analyse the nature of the modern capitalist state and its socio-economic setting; in the light of this to attempt an explanation of the growth and composition of state expenditures; and finally to consider briefly some of the major economic and political consequences of this phenomenon. Beforehand, however, it is incumbent on us to consider current theories and state why we regard them as unsatisfactory or incomplete. To this end, the recent studies of O'Connor, Yaffe and Barratt Brown will be singled out for attention.


We investigate transmitter-side digital signal processing to generate 16-ary quadrature-amplitude-modulation (16QAM) Nyquist wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) signals by simulations. We first study required digital finite-impulse response (FIR) filter tap numbers and optimum roll-off factors to generate Nyquist 16QAM WDM signals. We show that a root-raised cosine spectrum with a roll-off factor of 0.1 is optimal for Nyquist 16QAM signals considering the tradeoff between the system performance and complexities, and a digital FIR filter with 37 taps is sufficient to generate such signals. Then we look into the effects of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) sampling speeds on the performance of Nyquist-WDM systems. We show that the electrical filter shape and spectral pre-emphasis have a big impact on the system performance. With a fourth-order super-Gaussian electrical filter and spectral pre-emphasis, DACs with 1.2 samples/symbol sampling speed can generate 16QAM Nyquist-WDM signals at 1.05-symbol-rate channel spacing, with an OSNR penalty below 0.2 dB compared with 2 samples/symbol DACs.


Background: Sodium acetate is one of the important nutrients that regulate milk fat synthesis in bovine mammary epithelial cells (BMECs), and it regulates milk fat synthesis mainly through the SREBP1 pathway. Our previous study has showed that TATA element modulatory factor 1 (TMF1) may be interacts with SREBP1 and regulates the sodium acetate-dependent milk synthesis in BMECs, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. In the current study, the effect of TMF1 on sodium acetate activated milk fat synthesis in BMECs was assessed. Results: Overexpressing or inhibiting TMF1 demonstrated that TMF1 negatively regulated sodium acetate activated sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 (SREBP1) pathway and milk fat synthesis; Overexpressing or inhibiting SREBP1 showed that TMF1 inhibited sodium acetate activated milk fat synthesis through SREBP1 pathway; Co-immunoprecipitation analysis showed that TMF1 interacted with SREBP1; Nuclear localization of SREBP1 analysis showed that sodium acetate activated nuclear localization of SREBP1 was inhibited by TMF1; Depletion or supply sodium acetate demonstrated that sodium acetate negatively regulated expression of TMF1 and the interaction between TMF1 and SREBP1. Conclusions: Together, these results indicate that TMF1 is a negative regulatory factor for sodium acetate activated milk fat synthesis, it induced expression by sodium acetate depletion, and interacts with SREBP1 in cytoplasmic, prevents the nuclear localization of SREBP1 and then suppresses the expression of SREBP1 target gene and subsequent milk fat synthesis in BMECs.


The authors present a case of a patient with a persistent spontaneous pneumothorax (after seven days of chest tube drainage) in whom a tear in an upper lobe bleb was held open by adhesions between the bleb and the chest wall. Radiographic findings which might indicate such a condition are presented, thus altering one to the need for early surgical intervention. Current theories regarding the pathophysiology of pneumothorax in the young and elderly patient are reviewed.


Although bone is the second-most frequent site of distant metastases of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), variable prognostic factors in patients with bone metastases from HNSCC have not been fully investigated. The aim of the present study was to assess the prognostic factors affecting overall survival (OS) in these patients. The medical records of 97 patients at two institutions who developed bone metastases from HNSCC between January 2010 and December 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. A multivariate analysis using a Cox proportional hazards model was performed to identify potential clinical predictive factors for longer OS. The median OS was 7 months, and the 1- and 2-year OS rates for all patients were 35.4 and 19.2%, respectively. The independent predictive factors for longer OS were single bone metastasis, good performance status and administration of systemic chemotherapy. The median OS with each predictor was 10, 10 and 10.5 months, respectively. In a selected group of patients with these three factors, the OS was 14.5 months. In conclusion, single bone metastasis, a good performance status and systemic chemotherapy were independent predictors of longer OS in patients with HNSCC, but their contributions were limited.


An experimental campaign was performed on a non-uniformly heated 19-pins wire-spaced fuel pin bundle simulator, cooled by Heavy Liquid Metal and installed in the NACIE-UP (NAtural CIrculation Experiment-UPgrade) facility located at the ENEA Brasimone Research Center (Italy). The experimental tests concerned mass flow rate transition of the primary coolant from forced to natural circulation, with fuel pin bundle simulator characterized by non-uniform power distribution. The main objective of the performed experimental campaign was to perform integral system and local thermal-hydraulic analysis, in particular to investigate the flow in different flow regimes and specifically the transition from forced to natural circulation flow and, more specifically, analyze the behavior of the 19-pins wire-spaced fuel pin simulator (FPS) during such transient. Indeed, the performed test were characterized by non-uniform heating of the bundle (i.e. just some pins switched on), so the effects of this non-uniformity on the local temperatures and on the overall system behavior was evaluated. A deep investigation on the local temperature distribution was performed thanks to the accurate instrumentation provided in the bundle (67 thermocouples). For instance, in some cases, the wall temperatures relative to pins switched off remained below the relative sub-channel temperature, depending on the heating distribution. The obtained experimental data provided useful information for the characterization of the bundle and the computation of the heat transfer coefficient. Moreover, the collected system data can be helpful for STH codes validation, whereas the local fuel bundle data, especially the ones from dissymmetric tests can be useful for the qualification and benchmarking of CFD codes and coupled STH/CFD methods for HLM systems.


Alternative concepts for everyday life often unfold in the context of social movements, as marginalised niches become laboratories for new ways of living. This was especially true in Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, when new forms of self-made housing experienced a fundamental shift. Until that time, light and self-made dwellings brought to mind socially scorned shanty towns. But when countercultural groups appropriated similar construction techniques and adopted corresponding daily routines, these dwellings became an influential image and reference point for a freely chosen, off-the-grid lifestyle beyond capitalist consumer society. In retrospect, this process appears straightforward and self-evident, and the ruptures, contingencies and specific conditions accompanying it are easily overlooked. This article seeks to expose those gaps by describing the challenges and experimental steps that led to the introduction of light, ephemeral and mobile housing alternatives in Germany and France as a lived practise. To do so, it relies on a qualitative examination of publications and grey literature from countercultural movements in France and Germany. This provides new insights into how this form of alternative housing evolved from the first reports of US-American examples, and how diverse directions were taken in the two different national contexts.


Discriminatory pricing rule or pay-as-bid pricing rule has been proposed to replace the uniform pricing rule in the deregulated electricity markets, with the expectation that it would lower market prices and reduce price volatility. Using a multi-agent approach, where each adaptive agent represents a generator who develops bid prices based on Q-learning algorithm, the pay-as-bid auction and the uniform price auction are compared. The experimental results show that the pay-as-bid auction indeed results in lower market prices and price volatility, as expected. Also the experimental results show that the demand-side response has less effect on the reduction of market prices in the pay-as-bid auction, because bidders in the pay-as-bid auction bid as close to the market prices as possible and this makes the aggregate supply curve more flattened than that in the uniform price auction.


Background: The subcallosal artery (ScA) is a single dominant artery arising from the anterior communicating artery. Its injury causes amnesia and cognitive disturbance. The conventional computed tomographic angiography (C-CTA) is a common evaluation method of the intracranial artery. However, to image tinny perforating arteries such as the ScA is technically demanding for C-CTA. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the ultra-high-resolution CTA (UHR-CTA) could image the ScA better than C-CTA. UHR-CTA became available in clinical practice in 2017. Its novel features are the improvement of the detector system and a small X-ray focus. Methods: Between April 2019 and May 2020, 77 and 49 patients who underwent intracranial UHR-CTA and C-CTA, respectively, were enrolled in this study. Two board-certified neurosurgeons participated as observers to identify the ScA based on UHR-CTA and C-CTA images. Results: UHR-CTA and C-CTA detected the ScA in 56–58% and 30–40% of the patients, respectively. In visualization of the ScA, UHR-CTA was better than C-CTA (P < 0.05, Fisher's exact test). Between the two observers, the Cohen's kappa coefficient was 0.77 for UHR-CTA and 0.78 for C-CTA. Conclusions: UHR-CTA is a simple and accessible method to evaluate intracranial vasculature. Visualization of the ScA with UHR-CTA was better than that with C-CTA. The high quality of UHR-CTA could provide useful information in the neurosurgery field.


In bioelectrochemical systems, the electrode potential is an important parameter affecting the electron flow between electrodes and microbes and microbial metabolic activities. Here, we investigated the metabolic characteristics of a glucose-utilizing strain of engineered Shewanella oneidensis under electrode-respiring conditions in electrochemical reactors for gaining insight into how metabolic pathways in electrochemically active bacteria are affected by the electrode potential. When an electrochemical reactor was operated with its working electrode poised at +0.4 V (vs. an Ag/AgCl reference electrode), the engineered S. oneidensis strain, carrying a plasmid encoding a sugar permease and glucose kinase of Escherichia coli, generated current by oxidizing glucose to acetate and produced D-lactate as an intermediate metabolite. However, D-lactate accumulation was not observed when the engineered strain was grown with a working electrode poised at 0 V. We also found that transcription of genes involved in pyruvate and D-lactate metabolisms was upregulated at a high electrode potential compared with their transcription at a low electrode potential. These results suggest that the carbon catabolic pathway of S. oneidensis can be modified by controlling the potential of a working electrode in an electrochemical bioreactor.


Concrete is principally composed of the mixture of cement, fine and coarse aggregates, and water and widely used for every building structure and other infrastructure. Aggregate has important functions as concrete making materials for the hardness and strength of concrete. The objective of this research was co – relation of compressive strength of concrete with Rebound number of crusher and river bed coarse aggregate in respect to the M20 grade of concrete with nominal mix. For this research, sample were taken from Hemja Crusher (HC), Hemja River Bed (HR), Kotre Crusher (KC), Kotre River Bed (KR) and considering sand from single source and commercially available single brand OPC cement. Fifteen cubes (150 mm × 150 mm×150mm) were cast for each sampled sources and the Compressive strength and Rebound number was determined after 7 days, 14 days and 28 days of curing.
In this research, statistical analysis was carried out to determine the best fit curve by using IBM SPSS. Finally the outcomes of this research indicated that the relationship between rebound number and compressive strength curve is liner.


Extracellular formation of struvite crystals by Yersinia enterocolitica, Y. frederiksenii, Y. kristensenii and Y intermedia strains was investigated. Precipitation of crystalline structures was found with 19 of the 187 strains tested, its formation being more frequently observed at 25 degrees C than at 37 degrees C. Production of struvite was greater in Y. enterocolitica strains belonging to biotype 1, serogroup 0:7,8 and lysotype Xz, than observed in other phenotypes. Quantitative assay in a liquid medium showed that struvite formation began after 3 d of incubation; production of these crystals increased up to 15 d. Crystalline structures were examined using electron microscopy and their extracellular formation was observed.


The temperature dependent of threshold current density (J<inf>th</inf>) of GaAs/Al<inf>x</inf>Ga<inf>1−x</inf>As terahertz quantum cascade lasers (THz QCLs) with different Al barrier composition are studied and reported here. One of the most important issues of the recent THz QCLs is their limited operation temperature. Increasing the Al composition in longitudinal optical (LO) phonon depopulation design THz QCLs tend to reduce J<inf>th</inf> and improve current dynamic range of lasers, which is expected to increase the maximum operation temperature (T<inf>max</inf>).


A SURVEY OPINION IN A SAMPLE OF 101 UNDER GRADUATE STUDENTS (44 MALES AND 57 FEMALES) OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE WAS MADE IN A PERUVIAN UNIVERSITY. ITS PURPOSE WAS TO IDENTIFY THE PATTERNS OF USE OF INTERNET ACCORDING TO THE GENDER OF THE PARTICIPANTS, AND TO ANALYZE YTHE PERCEPTION OF THEIR OWN PERFORMANCE RELATION TO THE TOOLS OFFERED TO THEM BY THE WEB. IN ORDER TO DOD THIS THE INSTRUMENTS DESIGNEDFOR FORDAND MILLER (1966) WAS ADAPTED. MAIN RESULTS ARE HERE LISTED:1) NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES WERE FOUND BETWEEN MEN AND WOMWN AS TO PAT TERNS OF INTERNET US AGE. 2) ANALYSIS OF MAIN COMPONENTS (AMC) AL LOWED IDENTIFICATION OF FIVE BEHAVIOR IN INTERNET US AGE. THIS HELPED US TO DISTINGUISH THE WAY A USER APPROACHES INTERNET BASED ON HIS OR HER HANDLING CAPACITY AND THEIR PERCEIVED USEFULNESS OF THE INSTRUMENTS INTERNET PROVIDES. RESULTS ARE ALSO ANALYZED IN THE LIGHT OF PREVIOUS FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS ARE DISCUSSED FOR FUTURE STUDIES


: Experimental data indicate dependence of the respiration rate on the body mass in both caudate and ecaudate amphibians. The regression line slopes are similar in the both groups, while the a factor value is 3 times lower in the caudates than it is in ecaudates. There certain sex differences in the respiration rate which have no clear biological interpretation.


We propose a generalization of the Witten-Dijkgraaf-Verlinde-Verlinde (WDVV) equation from ${\mathbb R}^n$ to an arbitrary Riemannian manifold. Its form is obtained by extending the relation of the WDVV equation with ${\cal N}{=}\,4$ supersymmetric $n$-dimensional mechanics from flat to curved space. The resulting `curved WDVV equation' is written in terms of a third-rank Codazzi tensor. For every flat-space WDVV solution subject to a simple constraint we provide a curved-space solution on any isotropic space, in terms of the rotationally invariant conformal factor of the metric.


There is a growing need to develop and implement new forms of governance that respond to the increasing complexity of decision making and balance the roles of government and local citizens. Localism is (re)emerging as an alternative to traditional 'top-down' governance strategies which are criticised for their failure to adequately respond to the diversity of community needs. This article uses two case studies to explore how localism works in practice, the Tasmanian Drought Support Network and the Tasmanian Forest Agreement. Four dimensions of adaptive governance are used to critically identify the benefits and limitations of localism as a governance approach, exploring the approaches capacity for social and economic entrepreneurship, governance quality and the utilisation and enhancement of individual capacities. These empirical findings will help policy makers and community members better understand localism and guide the development of theory around localism and its future practice.


Background Adrenomedulin is a peptide firstly isolated from human phaeochromocytoma with vasodilatory effects. Secretion of adrenomedulin is modified by inflammatory cytokines and it may be important as a suppressor of lupus nephritis activity. Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM) is a member of immunoglobulin superfamily clearly elevated in inflammatory conditions. Some subgroups of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus-SLE may have especially elevated levels of s-TREM. Objectives The aim of this study was to examine adrenomedulin and s-TREM levels in patients with SLE and healthy controls and to assess their relation with SLE disease activity index-SLEDAI Methods Serum samples from 50 SEL patients and 40 healthy blood donors were analysed. Serum levels of adrenomedulin, s-TREM, complement components C3 and C3, and anti-dsDNA antibodies were measured Results Patients with SLE had higher adrenomedulin (9.8±4.5 vs. 15.3±7.2 pg/mL, p<0.05) and s-TREM (11.7±4.1 vs. 20.3±13.1 pg/mL) (p<0.05) levels. s-TREM showed correlation with anti-dsDNA antibodies (ρ=0.405, p<0.05) and SLEDAI score (ρ=0.386, p<0.001). In multivariate analysis s-TREM did not appear as an independent predictor of SLEDAI score, while only anti-dsDNA antibodies were significant in multivariate analysis. Conclusions Increased adrenomedulin and s-TREM are found in lupus sera. Despite of correlation with SLEDAI score, s-TREM is not better then anti-dsDNA antibodies as a predictor of SLE disease activity. Disclosure of Interest None declared


A double blind study was undertaken to compare the efficacy between centbutindole and haloperidol. A total of 44 patients suffering from schizophrenia diagnosed in accordance to ICD-10 criteria were included. They were randomly assigned into two groups receiving centbutindole (4.5 mg) or haloperidol (15 mg) in two divided doses per day for six weeks. Each patient was evaluated on Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI-S) and UKU side effect scale every week. Five patients (1 patient in centbutindole group, 4 patients in haloperidol group) dropped out due to various reasons. A total of 39 patients (21 patients in centbutindole group and 18 patients in haloperidol group) completed the study. The results revealed an early onset of therapeutic effect with centbutindole for both positive and negative symptoms. However, the efficacy was comparable between centibutindole and haloperidol from 3rd week onwards.


Algebraic factorization is an extremely important part of any logic synthesis system, but it is computationally expensive. Hence, it is important to look at parallel processing to speed up the procedure. This paper presents three different parallel algorithms for algebraic factorization. The first algorithm uses circuit replication and uses a divide-and-conquer strategy. A second algorithm uses totally independent factorization on different circuit partitions with no interactions among the partitions. A third algorithm represents a compromise between the two approaches. It uses a novel L-shaped partitioning strategy which provides some interaction among the rectangles obtained in various partitions. For a large circuit like ex1010, the last algorithm runs 11.5 times faster over the sequential kernel extraction algorithms of the SIS sequential circuit synthesis system on six processors with less than 0.2% degradation in quality of the results.


Single User, Transmission Control Protocol Downstream Throughput (TCPDST) probability models in an IEEE802.11b WLAN have been developed, validated and evaluated for performance. Measurement of single user TCPDST were taken using Tamosoft throughput test while that of signal to noise ratio (SNR) were taken using inSSIDer 2.1. The Tamosoft throughput tests were conducted using different quality of service (QoS) traffic. These QoS traffic (which were sent through an infrastructure based network) correspond to different wireless multimedia tags. Measurements were taken in free space, small offices and open corridor environments. By assuming a normal distribution, single user TCPDST Cumulative distribution function (CDF) probability models were developed for different signal categories namely: (i) all the SNR considered, (ii) strong signals only, (iii) grey signals only and (iv) weak signals only. The models were validated and their performances evaluated using root mean square (RMS) errors. RMS errors were computed by comparing model predicted values with validation data. The RMS errors for single user CDF all signals model was 0.1466%. RMS errors for strong signals models, grey signals model and weak signals model respectively were 0.1466%, 0.6756% and 0.1233% indicating acceptable performances. All signals, strong signals, grey signals and weak signals CDF probability models predicted probabilities of obtaining TCPDST values greater than 5Mbps as 74.79%, 90.55%, 13.00% and 4.77% respectively while probabilities of obtaining TCPDST values less than 2Mbps were predicted as 4.91%, 0.00%, 18.98% and 52.41% respectively. These probability models will provide additional useful information needed to design efficient distributed data networks.
Keywords: Throughput, TCP, WLAN, probability models


The use of mobile personal health records (m-PHR) has been little studied at the organizational level. This study was to investigate the relationships of various hospital-related factors with m-PHR use in Korean hospitals. Downloads of m-PHR applications for 101 hospitals were examined from May 26 to 30 June 2022. The dependent variable was the number of m-PHR downloads, and the major independent variables included six technological, organizational, and environmental factors. As technological factors, the number of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imagery devices were significantly associated with downloads (RR = 1.119, CI = 1.022-1.226, p = 0.016; and RR = 1.155; 95% CI = 1.024-1.302, p = 0.019, respectively). At the organizational level, the number of physicians, adjusting for the number of beds, and the number of medical information management staff showed significant associations (RR = 1.059, CI = 1.019-1.100, p = 0.004; and RR = 1.026, CI = 1.002-1.050, p = 0.033, respectively). From an environmental standpoint, downloads were positively associated with the proportion of the local population of working age (20-59 years) (RR = 1.102, CI 1.022-1.189, p = 0.012). Healthcare policymakers should pay close attention to these factors to advocate for the widespread use of m-PHR applications.


We study how a wide class of Abelian Yang-Baxter deformations of the AdS_5 \times S^5AdS5×S5 string behave at the quantum level.
These deformations are equivalent to TsT transformations and conjectured to be dual to beta, dipole, and noncommutative deformations of SYM.
Classically they correspond to Drinfeld twists of the original theory.
To verify this expectation at the quantum level we compute and match (1) the bosonic two-body tree-level worldsheet scattering matrix of these deformations in the uniform light-cone gauge,
and (2) the Bethe equations of the equivalent model with twisted boundary conditions.
We find that for a generalization of gamma deformations of the BMN string the we are able to express the S matrix either through a Drinfeld twist or a shift of momenta.
For deformations of the GKP string around the null-cusp solution we encounter calculational obstacles that prevent us from calculating the scattering matrix.


ABSTRACT Guo, P., 2020. Sustainable development of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Zhangjiakou Stadium under the concept of ocean ecological environment. In: Guido Aldana, P.A. and Kantamaneni, K. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Coastal Management, and Marine Science Technology. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 104, pp. 151–155. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Sustainability is an idea promoted and developed in today's society, as is the case with international sporting events such as the Olympic Games. The IOC focuses on environmental sustainability and adopted a document at the 127th plenary session focusing on sustainability. The sustainable development of the Olympic Games is reflected in many aspects, mainly environmental governance, stadium construction and post-match utilization and so on. This paper studies and analyzes the sustainable development of the 2022 Winter Olympics venues after the Games, so as to put forward a substantial construction opinion on the 2022 Winter Olympics.


A model for the topographic influence on shallow landslide initiation is developed by coupling digital terrain data with near-surface through flow and slope stability models. The hydrologic model TOPOG (O'Loughlin, 1986) predicts the degree of soil saturation in response to a steady state rainfall for topographic elements defined by the intersection of contours and flow tube boundaries. The slope stability component uses this relative soil saturation to analyze the stability of each topographic element for the case of cohesionless soils of spatially constant thickness and saturated conductivity. The steady state rainfall predicted to cause instability in each topographic element provides a measure of the relative potential for shallow landsliding. The spatial distribution of critical rainfall values is compared with landslide locations mapped from aerial photographs and in the field for three study basins where high-resolution digital elevation data are available: Tennessee Valley in Marin County, California; Mettman Ridge in the Oregon Coast Range; and Split Creek on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington. Model predictions in each of these areas are consistent with spatial patterns of observed landslide scars, although hydrologic complexities not accounted for in the model (e.g., spatial variability of soil properties and bedrock flow) control specific sites and timing of debris flow initiation within areas of similar topographic control.


The Department of Technology and Society of SUNY at Stony Brook offers a dozen courses specifically designed for the 70 percent of campus undergraduates who are not majoring in engineering or the natural sciences. About ten years ago, Professor John G. Truxal, an electrical engineer who started our department, developed a new course (EST 320: Cybernetics) that has become the most popular course that we offer. About 4,000 students have taken the course; most of the undergraduates have been juniors and seniors.


Opinions with respect to whether it is in the public interest to construct roads into wilderness areas of Alaska and the Canadian territories are varied. ... Much time has been devoted to impact studies of new or improved highways on urban and rural areas, and much energy has been devoted to studies of the impact of new or improved highways on commercial, residential or recreational developments. ... In Alaska and the Canadian Territories today the stage of development of the countryside at the time of highway construction compares in many ways to that of eastern North America in the early 1800s. ... Concern for the environment through which a highway passed was undreamed of in the early 1800s, and even 150 years later few actually worry about highway impact. ... All authorities agree that changes in the visible landscape do begin with the construction of a highway through a wilderness area of the Arctic or Subarctic. A preponderance of opinion favours the view that the benefits to be derived from new highways do outweigh the undesirable side effects, and plans for future highway construction in Alaska, the Yukon, and Northwest Territories tend to indicate this to be the official view as well. The background of conflicting opinions, claims, and counter-claims which have been building to the present intensity for several years prompted this study. ... During the spring and summer of 1972 approximately 8,000 miles of Alaskan and Yukon Territorial highways were travelled in an effort to gain first-hand knowledge of present conditions along the corridors of highways which had been built through wilderness areas during the past thirty years .... Although the investigation of these Canadian and Alaskan highways was in the nature of a reconnaissance and any conclusions must certainly be validated by further study, it would appear that the construction of a new highway through a wilderness area starts an irreversible series of more or less predictable events. First come the surveyors and the contractors who plan and build the highway. Then there are the hunters and fishermen who want to get in and get theirs before they and others "spoil" the country. On the heels of the sportsmen come guides, outfitters, small enterprises which provide gasoline, tire repairs, groceries, and possibly food and lodging. These small businesses may expand and improve the quality of their services, or others with more capital and experience may provide competition which forces the first comers out of business. ... we must recognize that highways will be built through wilderness areas, and that they can be built in such a way that the changes in the wilderness environment will be acceptable. The greatest environmental problems are created by those who will use the highways for purposes of access and exploitation of a heretofore inaccessible wilderness. It is essential that there be a comprehensive land use plan which would allocate appropriate areas for all activities and allocate the locations for all installations, services and recreational areas in such a way that incompatible activities would not be in too close proximity. Thus by anticipation of conflict and the use of land allocations or zoning it would appear that optimum land utilization can be achieved and the wilderness character of the area preserved.


A variable-focus liquid-filled optical lens consists of a solid plate, a ring spacer, and an elastic film; a liquid fills this lens-shaped container. One varies the focus by changing the liquid volume in the lens. The lens shape calculated theoretically is a paraboloid. However, it is approximately a sphere near the central area. The deformation of the lens shape by gravity was also calculated with a simplified structure in which the lens was held vertically and found to be independent of the elastic properties of the film. The effect of gravity was found to be negligible when the pressure at the liquid pump was more than 30 times that induced in the liquid at the bottom of the lens by the gravity. The aberrations of the lens were calculated and observed to be negligibly small compared with the normal convex spherical single-glass lens. A liquid-filled lens was fabricated and experimentally evaluated.