ABSTRACT Mass personalisation is characterised by unpredicted changes in product design and manufacturing processes, as a result of customers' ability to co-create and co-design products based on personal preferences. Previous approaches that address such unpredicted changes rely on heterarchical control structures and require changes in manufacturing systems' layout. However, in mass personalisation context, the notion of planning before production is redundant, hence requirement for layout reconfiguration is frequent and at such short intervals that present systems are unsuitable. This paper seeks to deliver distinct production mechanisms which react to the frequent requirement for layout changes, inspired by naturally occurring self-organising systems with stigmergic self-organising mechanisms. These systems lack initial structural organisation, and structure only emerges through reinforcement of local interactions with the environment without the need for planning, centralised control, direct communication and simultaneous presence. Therefore, a manufacturing system for mass personalisation with mobile production resources, heterarchical control architecture, and a stigmergic control mechanism is proposed. Simulation is developed using realistic shoe personalisation scenario, which demonstrates the system's capability to produce personalised shoes and automatically reconfigure the layout of its production resources.


In her diary entry of 24 December 1862, Harriet Anne Severance, a domestic worker, detailed the activity surrounding the seasonal slaughter of hogs: " It has been grease, grease all day, the hog is most taken care of. Henry,Meroa & I got started forMr. Henry's this afternoon,Wells came after Henry overtook us at Uncle Chester's, took him home with him, & Meroa and I went on had a good visit, & we have been to Mr. Child's this evening." While her day was unusually busy, it was not unusual in the way that it intertwined the lives of many people, men and women included.


Ball-throwing is a basic open skill common to several physical activities and sports. It is strictly related to eye-hand coordination, a neuromuscular ability affecting many expressions of human movement, including daily living activities (Houwen et al., 2008). The accuracy of underhand ball-throwing task was studied in 538 girls and 583 boys aged 6-11yr, with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Within range of age, the ages of boys and girls did not differ (ANOVA, p>0.05). Using the dominant hand, each participant performed 2 consecutive sequences of 5 repetitions of a standardized underhand ball-throwing test (UBT). It consisted in underhand throwing a tennis ball into the floor area delimited by a 80cm diameter wooden hoop, lying on the floor 9m apart the standing child (Grassi et al., 2006). Within subject, the centered targets of each sequence were scored. Descriptive statistics of UBT were computed within sequence, age, and sex group. The effects of age and sex, and sex × age interaction on UBT scores were compared by ANOVA (statistical significance 5%). UBT scores significantly increased with age (p=0.003). Boys obtained larger UBT scores than those obtained by the girls of the same age (p=0.002). The age-related differences of UBT scores were similar in boys and girls (p>0.05). On average, UBT scores recorded in the second sequence were larger than those of the first sequence. Differences were significant in boys, and increased with age (p 0.05). UBT could be used in both sport activities and rehabilitation to quantify either the level of motor learning and training or the effects of physiotherapy treatments.


We have grown single crystals of U2FeGa8 and U2RhGa8 with the tetragonal structure by the self-flux method. Both compounds are Pauli paramagnets and possess relatively large γ-values of 52 and 43 mJ K−2/mol U, respectively.


Short- (3-24 h) and long-term (4-50 days) changes in sulphated glycoprotein-2 (SGP-2) and ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) mRNA levels in the adult rat testis were studied following a single dose of ethane-dimethane sulphonate (EDS), to destroy the Leydig cells. Distribution patterns of SGP-2 and ODC labelling were consistent with prevailing expression of the two transcripts in Sertoli cells and germ cells, respectively. This pattern did not show appreciable changes following EDS administration. No labelling of SGP-2 mRNA was noted in the interstitium of control and EDS-treated rats. This finding indicates that Leydig cell death induced by EDS is not associated with increased SGP-2 mRNA levels, a phenomenon related to apoptotic cell death in many tissues. Semi-quantitative densitometric analysis of the preparations demonstrated differential changes in SGP-2 and ODC mRNA levels in the tubular compartment following EDS treatment. At 6, but not at 3 and 12, h following EDS administration, SGP-2 mRNA levels showed a significant increase, possibly secondary to a direct effect of the alkylating agent on Sertoli cells. A significant decrease in ODC mRNA levels was observed from day 7 to day 28, matching degenerative changes in the seminiferous epithelium. In contrast, a decrease in SGP-2 transcript levels was observed from days 21-35 after treatment. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that SGP-2 mRNA, a putative marker of apoptosis, is not altered in the testicular interstitium during EDS-induced degeneration of Leydig cells.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


If the concrete members are restrained, drying shrinkage strain develops tensile stress and consequently develops cracks. Creep which is another long term characteristic of concrete relaxes the tensile stress due to shrinkage. Creep is represented in the form of creep function or relaxation function and the relaxation effect of creep can be considered by numerical integration. Creep function or relaxation function depend on two time variables representing creep effect and aging effect, respectively. In general purpose finite element program like Abaqus, Prony series are used in creep analysis to evade the complexity of numerical integration of creep function. However, Prony series in Abaqus has critical deficiency that it can represent only creep effect excluding aging effect. In this paper, optimized Prony series was proposed to complement the weakness of Prony series in Abaqus. The optimized Prony series can include not only creep effect but also aging effect. Drying shrinkage crack analysis was performed using XFEM features in Abaqus to demonstrate the efficiency of the optimized Prony series. Analysis model representing the drying shrinkage crack test specimen specified in KS F 2595 was used to compare with the shrinkage crack development measured in experiment. Analysis results with the optimized Prony series were quite similar to the experiment results and show the effectiveness of the proposed method in long term analysis of concrete structures.


We study thermal-shock-induced fragmentation of soda glass plates. The total length of cracks and the characteristics of the fracture patterns are investigated both in direct and Fourier space. The relevance of the fractal concept to the problem is discussed. The obtained experimental results are explained considering a simple theoretical model.


The Covid-19 pandemic affected Romanian intra-EU labour migrants in a particular way and challenged the established themes associated with and the social roles assigned to them in news discourses. During the first wave of the pandemic, Covid-19 hotspots were reported abroad in Romanian migrant communities, the most notorious example being at the Tönnies factory in Germany. The pandemic brought to prominence the precarious working conditions of labour migrants employed in agriculture and especially in the food industry. Wider discussions, conflicts, and solidarity actions were generated around this topic. In the present study, we identify the main themes and topics present in the Romanian media coverage of Romanian labour migrants, as well as the way foreign, particularly German, media perspectives were integrated into and domesticated in the Romanian coverage. Findings show that both the Romanian and German media used, to a certain extent, the media coverage of this exceptional pandemic situation to invite reflection on the general social costs of migration and on the responsibility of political actors in the migrants' country of origin, in their country of destination, and at the level of EU institutions. However, the perspective of the migrants was underrepresented in the media coverage.


The segmentation of skin color region is carried on through the mathematics morphology processing, using Hough transform to locate the eyes, and then the expression image is proceeded by geometry standardization. After using wavelet transform to reduce the dimension of images, the feature extraction of facial expression can be realized with the discrimination of improved Fishier. It can solve actual problems on dispersion matrix singular within the class. Finally, the method of minimum Mahalanobis distance classifier is carried on facial expression recognition. It is proved in the CMU facial expression database that the method can reduce computation and enhance the recognition rate of facial expression recognition.


In this paper, we present evidence of the likely impact of cigarette tax hikes on consumers, governments, and producers. We show that 100 percent of a tax hike is passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. Using both state and individual-level data, we find a cigarette demand elasticity of -0.30 to -0.50, with long-term elasticities 1.75 times the short-term values. We demonstrate that cigarette taxes have become much more regressive over time as smoking rates among the highest income groups have fallen sharply. One reason for this drop is the large decline in smoking rates for the most educated. Given their ability to shift tax increases onto consumers, tobacco companies bear little of the burden of a tax. We estimate that for every $1 raised in tax revenues, cigarette companies lose only 8 cents in before-tax profits. Using daily stock prices, we conduct an event study examining how new information about litigation and settlement of state Medicaid cases against cigarette manufacturers changed the value of the firm. Events that increased the plaintiffs' chances in state Medicaid cases had a statistically significant negative impact on firm value while movements toward settlement greatly increased stock prices. Finally, we consider the external costs of smoking. Although some argue that current tax revenues exceed the external costs of smoking, these estimates typically exclude the costs of maternal smoking. We show that the costs of maternal smoking range from $0.42-$0.72 per pack which makes the question of whether these costs should be considered external critical in any cost-benefit analysis.


Motivation Circadian rhythms are approximately 24 hour endogenous cycles that control many biological functions. To identify these rhythms, biological samples are taken over circadian time and analyzed using a single omics type, such as transcriptomics or proteomics. By comparing data from these single omics approaches, it has been shown that transcriptional rhythms are not necessarily conserved at the protein level, implying extensive circadian post-transcriptional regulation. However, as proteomics methods are known to be noisier than transcriptomic methods, this suggests that previously identified arrhythmic proteins with rhythmic transcripts could have been missed due to noise and may not be due to post-transcriptional regulation. Results To determine if one can use information from less-noisy transcriptomic data to inform rhythms in more-noisy proteomic data, and thus more accurately identify rhythms in the proteome, we have created the MOSAIC (Multi-Omics Selection with Amplitude Independent Criteria) application. MOSAIC combines model selection and joint modeling of multiple omics types to recover significant circadian and non-circadian trends. Using both synthetic data and proteomic data from Neurospora crassa, we showed that MOSAIC accurately recovers circadian rhythms at higher rates in not only the proteome but the transcriptome as well, outperforming existing methods for rhythm identification. In addition, by quantifying non-circadian trends in addition to circadian trends in data, our methodology allowed for the recognition of the diversity of circadian regulation as compared to non-circadian regulation. Availability MOSAIC's full interface is available at https://github.com/delosh653/MOSAIC. Contact email@example.com Supplementary information Supplementary data are available.at Bioinformatics online.


Abstract The vulnerable eco-area is one of the important research targets in the field of sustainable development. It is the requirement of building a well-off society in an all-round way that we should study more on the vulnerable eco-areas, deal with the relationship between environmental protection and economic development, speed up the economic development in these areas and increase the living standard of the local people. This paper puts forward the countermeasures of environment—economy coordination, on the basis of the recognition of eco- environment features and social economic conditions in the vulnerable eco-areas of China, in view of the progress in sustainable development studies of the vulnerable ones, taking the transitional areas of farming and pasturing in northeast China as an example to study the regional environment vulnerability.


Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors produce a number of beneficial effects in a condition where diabetes - mellitus and hypertension co-exist. The present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of chronic treatment with losartan (2mg/kg, p.o.) on streptozotocin(STZ)-induced (45mg/kg, single dose, tail vein) diabetic nephropathy in rats. Treatment of ratswith STZ produced a significant loss of body weight, polyuria, polydipsia, hypoinsulinemia, hyperglycemia and increase in blood pressure. There was a significant increase in blood glucose levels in STZ-diabetic rats. Serum cholesterol, creatinine, urea and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels were found to be increased significantly in the STZ group diabetic rats. Treatment with losartan significantly prevented the raise in cholesterol, creatinine, urea and blood urea nitrogen levels. Creatinine clearance was significantly less in STZ-diabetic rats as compared to control animals and treatment with losartan significantly increased creatinine clearence. Our data suggest a beneficial effect of losartan in STZ - induced nephropathy in rats.


Background Essential hypertension (EH) and COPD are the most frequent comorbid conditions.COPD is often complicated by pulmonary hypertension (PH), which affects the course and prognosis of the disease. Objective was to estimate the effect of the combinend antihypertensive therapy of EH on the level of PH depending on the stage of bronchoobstruction in COPD patients. Methods 48 patients (37 males and 11 females) with COPD of moderate and severe bronchial obstruction complicated by PH and with essential hypertension were studied. Mean pressure in the pulmonary artery (PA) was determined by Doppler-echocardiography. PH was diagnosed at a pulmonary artery (PA) pressure ≥36 mm Hg. In addition to the treatment of COPD was used a combinated antihypertensive therapy: amlodipine at daily dose of 5 mg and an ramipril at daily dose of 5 mg. The observation lasted 3 months. Results The mean age of patients was 51,88 ± 2,26 years. Antihypertensive drugs usage decreased the PA pressure in COPD patients with moderate bronchial obstruction on 36.72%, and in COPD patients with severe obstruction - on 24.19% (p Conclusions Amlodipine and ramipril on the background of the basic treatment of COPD has a positive effect on the blood pressure dynamics in the pulmonary artery and at the system circulationl that encourages their use in this group of patients.


Purpose – The increasing variety and variability of social and economic dynamics is pushing both researchers and practitioners in developing approaches, models, and tools for supporting decision makers in observing, interpreting, understanding and managing emergent dynamics. For contributing to the ongoing debate, the paper aims at discussing possible paths for facing the challenges of the increasing complexity through flexible decisional and behavioral approaches. Methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative approach for systematizing and refreshing the interpretative role of existing literature within managerial and organizational fields. Through the interpretative contributions provided by the systems thinking, a multi-disciplinarity literature review is conducted for identifying possible constructs through which addressing the development of flexible managerial and organizational models. Findings – Managerial and organizational fields are enriched through the concepts of exaptation and bricolage as explicative domains able to provide useful indications to decision makers interested in building more flexible decisional and behavioral approaches. A possible path for managing the increasing social and economic complexity is depicting in the light of systems perspective, and a system based interpretative framework is defined for explaining actors' reciprocal adaptation as a way for supporting value co-creation. Research implications – The paper provides possible pillars on which acting to build managerial and organizational approaches able to enhance actors' contributions through the definition of shared processes. The concepts of exaptation and bricolage enrich previous managerial and organizational literature promoting research on value co-creation as a driver for ensuring systems' viability in dynamic ecosystems. Practical implications – The paper calls the attention of decision makers on the need for the systems' flexibility trough the enhancement of actors' contributions for facing the challenges of increasing social and economic complexity. Acting on exaptation and bricolage, a possible model is provided for clarifying managerial and organizational paths for increasing the systems' flexibility and for supporting practitioners in defining approaches able to support actors' collaboration as a required condition for value co-creation. Originality/value – Adopting a multi-disciplinary perspective the paper enriches previous managerial and organizational literature trough the definition of concepts, processes, and approaches able to support both researchers and practitioners for better understanding and managing increasing social and economic complexity by acting on exaptation and bricolage. Thanks to the interpretative lens provided by the systems studies, a conceptual model for addressing systems' decisions and behaviors in the light of value co-creation is proposed.


Purpose: LOH on circulating DNA may provide tumor-specific information on breast cancer. As identification of LOH on cell-free DNA is impeded by the prevalence of wild type DNA in blood of cancer patients, we fractionated plasma DNA, and determined the diagnostic and prognostic value of both


A 42-year-old male with autonomic dysreflexia after touching his scrotum was seen at the outward department. Radiological imaging showed a renal mass at the right side. After radical nephrectomy his symptoms disappeared. Such a case has never been described before. Our hypothesis is that autonomic dysreflexia is elucidated by stimulation of the testis as both testis and kidney have the same vascularisation and sensory innervation.


In the parallel-architecture turbo codes, the constituent interleaver must avoid memory collision. This paper proposes a collision-free interleaver structure composed of a Latin square matrix and pre-designed interleavers. Our proposed interleavers can be easily optimized for various information block sizes and for various degrees of parallelism. Their performances were evaluated by computer simulation.


This study investigated alterations in glycogen, catecholamines, and the function of various subcellular membranes of the heart after exhaustive swimming in rats. The rats were exhausted by daily exercise over 1, 3, or 7 consecutive days. Glycogen content of the heart and three selected skeletal muscles was depleted after a single bout of exhaustive exercise. Repeated bouts of exhaustive swimming elicited a depletion of glycogen in only the plantaris and gastrocnemius skeletal muscles. Plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine levels were highly elevated, and cardiac concentrations of these hormones were significantly depleted immediately after all exercise sessions. Cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ transport was depressed after a single exhaustive exercise period. After three exercise bouts SR Ca2+ accumulation remained depressed; however, mitochondrial Ca2+ transport was found to be augmented. If the exhaustive exercise protocol was continued up to seven days, only mitochondrial Ca2+ accumulation was depressed. Various parameters of sarcolemmal membrane function were observed to be unaltered after exhaustive exercise. These findings demonstrate that exhaustive swimming exercise in rats is capable of producing significant alterations in the Ca2+ transport capacity of the SR and mitochondrial membrane systems of the heart but is without apparent effect on the sarcolemmal membrane.


Employee voice efficacy has remained at the centre of global employment relations discourse following the continuing demise of union representative voice, largely portrayed as a tendentious function of the surge of alternative voice systems (or non-unionised employee representations -NERs). Discourses pertaining to voice have equally remained contentious in the developed world and fundamentally complex to follow in the developing countries, giving the widening gap in their employment relations literatures, particularly in Nigeria's terrain currently being investigated in this study. Thus, this research aims to identify the various voice channels through which employees are represented and to establish how participatory they are perceived by respondents. Consequently, an empirical investigation was conducted in 5 organisations across the Nigeria's banking and ICTs sectors, via a semistructured interviews and focus group discussions with 73 managers and employees altogether. Data gathered consequently were qualitatively analysed via critical discourse analytical (CDA) framework, to uncover Nigeria's unique cultural-environmental dynamics driving the adoption of non-unionised employee voice systems by organisations.


The main aim of this paper is to relate instability modes with modes obtained from proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) in the study of global spatio-temporal nonlinear instabilities for flow past a cylinder. This is a new development in studying nonlinear instabilities rather than spatial and/or temporal linearized analysis. We highlight the importance of multi-modal interactions among instability modes using dynamical system and bifurcation theory approaches. These have been made possible because of accurate numerical simulations. In validating computations with unexplained past experimental results, we noted that (i) the primary instability depends upon background disturbances and (ii) the equilibrium amplitude obtained after the nonlinear saturation of primary growth of disturbances does not exhibit parabolic variation with Reynolds number, as predicted by the classical Stuart–Landau equation. These are due to the receptivity of the flow to background disturbances for post-critical Reynolds numbers (Re) and multi-modal interactions, those produce variation in equilibrium amplitude for the disturbances that can be identified as multiple Hopf bifurcations. Here, we concentrate on Re = 60, which is close to the observed second bifurcation. It is also shown that the classical Stuart–Landau equation is not adequate, as it does not incorporate multi-modal interactions. To circumvent this, we have used the eigenfunction expansion approach due to Eckhaus and the resultant differential equations for the complex amplitudes of disturbance field have been called here the Landau–Stuart–Eckhaus (LSE) equations. This approach has not been attempted before and here it is made possible by POD of time-accurate numerical simulations. Here, various modes have been classified either as a regular mode or as anomalous modes of the first or the second kind. Here, the word anomalous connotes non-compliance with the Stuart–Landau equation, although the modes originate from the solution of the Navier–Stokes equation. One of the consequences of multi-modal interactions in the LSE equations is that the amplitudes of the instability modes are governed by stiff differential equations. This is not present in the traditional Stuart–Landau equation, as it retains only the nonlinear self-interaction. The stiffness problem of the LSE equations has been resolved using the compound matrix method.


We propose a low complexity antenna selection algorithm for low target rate users in cloud radio access networks. The algorithm consists of two phases. In the first phase, each remote radio head (RRH) determines whether to be included in a candidate set by using a predefined selection threshold. In the second phase, RRHs are randomly selected within the candidate set made in the first phase. To analyze the performance of the proposed algorithm, we model RRHs' and users' locations by a homogeneous Poisson point process, whereby the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) complementary cumulative distribution function is derived. By approximating the derived expression, an approximate optimum selection threshold that maximizes the SIR coverage probability is obtained. Using the obtained threshold, we characterize the performance of the algorithm in an asymptotic regime, where the RRH density goes to infinity. The obtained threshold is then modified depending on various algorithm options. A distinguishable feature of the proposed algorithm is that the algorithm complexity keeps constant independent to the RRH density, so that a user is able to connect to a network without heavy computation at baseband units.


High frequency (HF) radars are capable to detect and track targets at extremely long ranges. But the signal environment that includes external noise, different kinds of clutter and interference will significantly limit the detection and system capability. This paper considers a new approach to solve the ship detection problem in a complex HF radar signal environment. It uses detection procedure based on conventional constant false-alarm-rate (CFAR) and curvilinear regression analysis of power spectrum values along range and Doppler cells for thresholding. The CFAR detection test rule was combined with a local peak determination procedure. The proposed detection scheme was tested using real HF radar data and gave very promising results.


This paper analyses some of the most common error-detecting codes used in self-checking circuits with respect to the errors induced by crosstalk faults (CFs). The electrical-level behavior of circuits in the presence of CFs has been analyzed by considering these faults as parametric. A logic-level model providing the probability of errors has been abstracted and applied to the case of functional unit outputs (buses). Finally, the probability of detectable and undetectable errors has been evaluated for the parity, two-rail, m-out-of-n, and Berger codes, thus providing some design hint.


As part of a collaborative research project (OPTIMA) by Fraunhofer FOKUS, Engineering Company Prof. Dr. Sieker mbH, Department of Distributed and Operating Systems and Department of Fluid System Dynamics, TU Berlin, an "Intelligent Pumping Station" is being developed. In this research project, the operation of wastewater pumping stations is to be optimized by integrating precipitation forecasts and recording operating conditions on one hand, and by integrating historical data on use and operation on the other. The individual strategies for optimizing the operation of pumping stations and the possibilities of data integration will be systematically investigated.
 The focus of this paper is on the method for developing an optimized pump control. It examines how knowledge of predicted inflow can be used to achieve energy savings and a reduction in wastewater overflows. This method is based on the development of an algorithm in which detailed consideration of pump specifics and future pumping station inflow can be used to predict all possible suction head level curves for the considered period of time. Depending on the target criterion — minimum energy consumption per transported cubic meter or minimum overflow volume — the algorithm calculates the optimum path from all possible suction chamber level curves.


Scale-out architectures supporting flexible, incremental scalability are common for computing and storage. However, the network remains the last bastion of the traditional scale-up approach, making it the data center's weak link. Through the UCSD Triton network architecture, the authors explore issues in managing the network as a single plug-and-play virtualizable fabric scalable to hundreds of thousands of ports and petabits per second of aggregate bandwidth.


This book might be subtitled " Feminine liberation is alive and well in China " or " Look, ma, Chinese women don't wear bras." Ruth Sidel is a psychiatric social worker in New York. Travelling in China for two and a half weeks during the summer of 1971 with her doctor husband, she visited several health and child care institutions and asked many questions of various types of personnel. This book is an analysis of her findings. The result is an exercise in frustration. While Ms Sidel is apparently well versed in modern western social theory and well aware of female problems in America she is quite unfamiliar with basic aspects of both traditional and modern Chinese society. She suggests that the Chinese have solved some of the most pressing female problems in western society without giving a scholarly or, in many cases, credible explanation for her conclusions. Feminine liberation, a major theme, is one example. Ms Sidel categorically accepts the statement that women have equal rights (p. 21) and proceeds to explain that the key to this new status is work. To support her conclusions she recounts the briefest history of the role of women in China's past and several anecdotes based on her personal experience. Has Ms Sidel heard of Marx? Again, she suggests that the lessened emphasis on sex in China allows women to develop warm relationships among members of their own sex and cites the example of a photo she has of two young female medical students with their arms around each other's waist Does this also explain the behaviour of young French girls in the streets of Paris?


PURPOSE
To evaluate the body posture of women submitted to treatment for breast cancer, to identify the postural changes in the first three months after surgery and to investigate the correlation of these findings with the woman's age and type and side of surgery.

METHODS
A longitudinal study that monitored the postural changes of 39 women who underwent mastectomy and quadrantectomy. Postural evaluation was performed using the technique of biophotogrammetry before surgery, after drain removal and three months after surgery. Statistical analysis was performed using parametric and nonparametric tests, with the level of significance set at p<0.05.

RESULTS
The average age of the women studied was 50±10.5 years, 48.8% underwent mastectomy and the left breast was operated in 61.5% of them . There was no statistically significant difference in the women's posture during the study period. However, the pelvis and trunk of women submitted to quadrantectomy showed better alignment (90°) compared to the women submitted to mastectomy (91.3°). The women submitted to surgery in the left breast had shoulder elevation and ipsilateral inclination of the trunk within a short period of time.

CONCLUSION
Postural changes were correlated with the type and side of surgery. The follow-up of this group after completion of treatment is needed to clarify long-term postural changes.


Mr. Heaton believes that "it is the reasonable duty and obligation of almost every church in the nation to hold services of sacred music periodically." In this small book, he discusses thirty-five varied "services of sacred music" as organized and presumably performed by different choir-masters of the United States. These are tastefully chosen and illustrate many practicable formats for various services. Some chapter titles are: Christmas Season, Hymn Festivals, Services of Anthems and Spirituals, Junior and Youth Choir Festivals, Organ Dedicatory Services, Cantatas, Organs and Other Instruments. Giving a sensible and practical exposition of the underlying phibecomes the top above the sackbuts, then he is left an open field in which to glory and is free to add all the glosses that he desires and knows so well how to execute on his instrument. As for Alvanchez, he shall play tenors and the bassoon. At greater feasts there shall always be a verse played on recorders. At Salves, one of the three verses that are played shall be on shawms, one on cornetts, and the other on recorders; because always hearing the same instrument annoys the listener." A vocal glossing of a Victoria motet Vadam et circuibe (1572) by Giovanni Battista Bovicelli (1594) which Stevenson reprints, makes one realize how complicated ornamentation could be. It also


Since feminism of the 70s, especially the Anglo-Saxon, the analytical category of gender emerged, which allowed revealing the constructed nature of inequalities between women and men. From the initial approach, this category referred to the need to rethink and act on analytical perspectives, and permeated by a partial male view that historically had concealed or disguised these inequalities, from the anatomical difference between the sexes. "Woman is not born, she is made"; phrase of Simone de Beauvoir is an antecedent of the social and cultural construction that gender category incorporates within its main tenets. Become women is much more complicated that transformed into a man, because, historically, the human and the male have been interchangeable concepts in the same way that they have been the concepts of women and inferiority This article aims to show the richness of gender as an analytical category and its contribution to the understanding of other categories such as power, culture and ideology. In the analysis of the category power, some discussion arising decolonial studies to show that the construction of a feminist project —ético boat politicall—, require large doses of agreement and unity are taken up, but in particular a critical consciousness.


In the last five years, our knowledge about the heterogenous syndrome of congenital hyperinsulinism (HI) has expanded explosively. HI may be familiar or sporadic, mild or severe, transitory or persistent, and histologically focal or diffuse. At least 63 disease-causing mutations have been found in the genes for the beta cell's ATP-dependent potassium channel, whose elements are the sulphonylurea receptor, SUR1, and Kir6.2. Other mutations cause enhancement of the glucose-stimulated ATP production in the beta cell. The resulting non-functional, or closed, potassium channel causes hypersecretion of insulin. Genetic screening has succeeded in detecting mutations in less than 50% of HI-patients. Genotype-phenotype relations, diagnosis and treatment are reviewed.


To assess the relationship between the fibrinolytic system and coronary risk factors, several fibrinolytic parameters were measured in 72 male survivors of myocardial infarction and in 53 age-matched healthy controls. The coronary patients had significantly higher plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI) activity than the control subjects, while t-PA antigen did not differ between the groups. After stratifying the coronary patients in 14 diabetic and 58 nondiabetic patients, the elevated PAI activity remained limited to the diabetic group. PAI activity correlated significantly with systolic blood pressure, blood glucose, body mass index and LDL cholesterol. In multivariate regression analysis, significant associations persisted between PAI and diabetes, body mass index and LDL cholesterol. Coronary disease had no impact on the regression model. Our results suggest that the increased PAI-1 in selected groups of coronary patients is not a consequence of coronary disease itself, but is rather related to the metabolic risk factors of atherosclerosis, especially diabetes.


The present study deals with pollen morphology of fifteen species of Commelinaceae belonging to three genera: Commelina (6 species), Cyanotis (7 species) and Murdannia (2 species), collected from different localities in Andhra Pradesh, India. Species have shown diversity in size, shape and ornamentation, but all share a common feature; heteropolar and monosulcate apertural nature. While all the six species of Commelina have echinate ornamentation, four of them with prolate shape and two others have spheroidal shape. Seven species of Cyanotis have granular ornamentation and prolate in shape, except Cyanotis axillaris which is perprolate. Both the species of Murdannia have granular ornamentation; but differ in shape: prolate in M. nodiflora and perprolate in M. nimmoniana. These observations are of immense value in taxonomical, melissopalynological and aeropalynological studies.


A study was conducted to characterize the morpho–physiological traits of seven genotypes of wheat, viz. Sonalika, HDR-77, PBW-343, PBW-154, Raj-3077, C-306 and K-8027 under rain fed condition . Sonalika, HDR-77and C-306 are recommended for Assam. Genotypes were found to show significant variation for all the studied traits. Highest leaf area per plant was recorded in PBW-154 followed by Sonalika, whereas, highest specific weight of flag leaf (SLW) was observed in C-306 followed by PBW343 , HDR-77 and Sonalika. Genotype K-8027 registered the highest values of relative leaf water content (RLWC). Highest in-vivo nitrate reductase activity in the leaves was observed in C-306 followed by Sonalika and HDR-77. At maximum tillering stage, highest total leaf chlorophyll content was found in PBW-343, but at ear emergence, C-306 contained highest amount of total leaf chlorophyll. Genotype C-306 was found to accumulate highest total plant biomass and grain biomass followed by PBW-343, however, in terms of harvest index (HI) C-306 was superior followed by Raj-3077 and HDR-77. The study showed that cv. PBW-343 is a promising genotype from physiological and yield point of view next to C-306 for the rainfed condition of Assam.


Normal 0 14 false false false IT ZH-TW X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Among several Phytophthora spp. reported previously from Pistacia vera in Iran, a high temperature species recently identified as P. parsiana (formerly known as high temperature P. cryptogea ) is becoming important in woody plants, including P. vera . The host range of this newly recognised species, including both annual and perennial plants, is reported here. The pathogen infected 4–5 month-old glasshouse grown seedlings of P. vera , Ficus carica , Malus pumila and Prunus dulcis , and detached stems of 23 woody plants collected during dormant and growing seasons. Nineteen field and vegetable crops and 17 weed species were not infected by P. parsiana in these pathogenicity assays.


In eighteenth-century London, abandoned children were one of the social groups most affected by the harsh living conditions. Several charitable initiatives had endeavoured to alleviate the problem, not least the Foundling Hospital, of which Jonas Hanway (c.1712–86) was a governor. His tireless philanthropy and campaigning resulted in the 1762 Registers Bill, which required parishes to keep records of the poor children they looked after. In this tract, first published in 1766, Hanway uses information collected from these registers to demonstrate the appalling mortality rates of orphans in care in London, calling for radical reform. This work was instrumental in the passage of the 1767 act that resulted in a dramatic fall in the number of infant deaths over the following decade. It is a powerful exposA© of the failures of the capital's care system, as well as a testament to the influence of philanthropic activism.


Nucleon structure functions, as measured in deep-inelastic lepton scattering, are studied within a covariant scalar diquark spectator model. Regarding the nucleon as an approximate two-body bound state of a quark and diquark, the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) for the bound state vertex function is solved in the ladder approximation. The valence quark distribution is discussed in terms of the solutions of the BSE.


The recognition of dentistry as a specialty of medicine by the American Medical Association and the International Medical Congresses, marks one of the happiest epochs in the history of both professions, for it has opened the way for a mutual understanding of conditions and study of theories beneficial to both, and destined to promote in no small degree the health and happiness of the human race. The goal of both professions is practically identical, embracing as it does, all honorable means for the relief of suffering and for the cure and prevention of disease. Within comparatively few years, the medical profession has made giant strides in preventing epidemics of plague, cholera, yellow fever and malaria, and is to-day waging a relentless war, and one which will ultimately be successful, against the greatest of all scourges, tuberculosis. Dentistry is no unworthy member of the great medical family, and many of its


Introduction Drug courts have been an aspect of the corrections scene for over twenty years. Beginning with the first drug court in Miami, Florida in 1989, there are now 2840 drug courts throughout the United States and territories, serving about 52777 participants who are at risk for substance abuse and dependence (National Drug Court Institute, 2014). This represents about 10 percent of the 1.2 million adults arrested in the United States each year that are at risk for substance abuse and dependence (Sevigny, Fuleihan, & Ferdik, 2013). Drug courts emerged as a means to deal with the burgeoning criminal justice system population within the United States. Between 1973 and 2009, the prison inmate population increased 705 percent coupled with rapid cost increases required to operate prison systems (Henrichson & Delaney, 2012). This boom in inmate populations was associated with several factors to include more stringent sentencing for drug related crimes at the state and federal levels. Since 2010, inmate populations have declined in a majority of American states (Carson & Golinelli, 2013; Desilver, 2014). Part of this decline is attributed to state level changes in drug policies and sentencing, and alternative sentencing and corrections programs to include the drug court program. The drug court movement reaches beyond the United States. Twenty-three nations utilize drug courts, also known as drug treatment courts, in providing services to substance abusing adults and their families (Global Center for Drug Treatment Courts, 2014). These nations are likely to endorse reduction in demand through the use of prescribed maintenance drugs or needle exchange programs rather than advocating total abstinence from all substances as is likely the case in a United States drug court. These nations also view success in terms of reducing drug use and criminal activity opposed to striving for no criminal recidivism or drug use as espoused within United States drug court programs. International Drug Treatment Courts (http://nadcp.org) and Nolan (2010) provide perspectives on international drug courts and comparative practices within these courts and those in the United States . What are Drug Courts Drug courts are an aspect of several types of accountability or problem solving court programs. A drug court is a specific court docket with the purpose of reducing criminal recidivism, substance abuse and increasing the likelihood of successful habilitation among nonviolent substance abuse offenders. Drug courts have central philosophical and empirical principles that guide program operation. Known as the ten key concepts (Huddleston & Marlowe, 2011; United States Department of Justice, 1997), these principles include: * Integration of alcohol and drug treatment with justice system case processing; * Non-adversarial judicial process with prosecution and defense personnel promoting public safety and protecting participant due process rights; * Early identification and prompt placement of eligible participants into the court program; * Participant access to a continuum of alcohol and drug related treatment and rehabilitation services; * Drug abstinence is monitored through frequent alcohol and drug testing; * Coordinated treatment, sanction, and reinforcement strategies are used to respond to participant compliance; * Judicial interaction, oversight, and review with each participant is essential throughout the drug court experience; * Program goals and effectiveness are monitored through systematic program evaluation; * Interdisciplinary education and a multidisciplinary team approach promotes effective court planning, implementation, and operations; * Partnerships are established between community and public organizations and the court to enhance program effectiveness and promote community support. …


Abstract: This paper investigates an initiative by a New Zealand School to integrate one-to-one ICTs into the learning process, called 'Bring your own device' (BYOD). Prior to embarking on the BYOD initiative, similar past initiatives have been studied and some persistent issues have been identified. Before starting with the detailed investigation of BYOD, a preliminary analysis of the public response data from different sources has also been conducted. From the past initiatives and preliminary analysis of public responses, we have been able to form general research questions for the study. A socio-cultural ecological approach to mobile learning has been considered appropriate as a means of analysis for this study. Authors: Janak Adhikari, Doctoral Student; Dr. David Parsons, Associate Professor and Dr. Anuradha Mathrani, Lecturer, in the department of Information Technology, Massey University Auckland. This paper was presented at mLearn 2012 Mobile and Contextual Learning, Helsinki, Finland, October 16 -18, 2012 and published in the Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning .


In this cross-sectional survey, this study aimed to determine the factors associated with oral health of elite athletes and to determine the clustering tendency of the variables by dendrogram, and to determine the relationship between predefined clusters and see how these clusters can converge. A total of 97 elite (that is, top-level performing) male handball players aged 18 to 29 years participated in the study. Two questionnaires with high validity scores were computed based on the results of the oral health of elite athletes (Geriatric/General Oral Health Assessment Index (GOHAI) and the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP)). The GOHAI mean and standard deviation score was 8.381±3.988, indicating a low self-perception of oral health by the allocated sample The OHIP mean and standard deviation score was 11.25±3.553, indicating a low self-perception of oral health by the allocated sample. OHIP shows low scores based on these results. According to the first sub cluster; dental floss, dental control, brushing, gingival health, age, dieting and education was found significantly related with these two indexes. The ratios of these variables were as follows: dental floss; 56.7%, dental control; 80.4%, brushing; 99%, gingival health; 96.9%, dieting; 94.8%, education; 100% and the mean age was 18.96±3.731. These results indicate positive correlations among GOHAI and OHIP indexes and positive results for elite athletes included to the current study. As a result, the variables that affect the oral health of the athletes in the study based on multivariate analysis of the clustering results were observed to be healthy at the expected level. The relationships between variables with dendrogram by using hierarchical cluster analysis was discovered.

 Key words: Elite athletes, oral health, cluster analysis, dendogram.


Friedrich Nietzsche is supposed to have been one of the harshest critics of compassion. Many of his publications try to unmask its failings and to expose its true motives. From an ardent admirer of Schopenhauers's ethics of compassion, Nietzsche turned into a vigorous despiser of compassionate feelings. It is shown that this change was above all caused by overwhelming personal experiences of compassion due to illness and death in his family and, later on, with his first aid activities in military hospitals during the German-French war in 1870. Combined with that, Nietzsche suffered from feelings of passivity and helplessness, which gave him the impression of compassion being a negative and--in the end--loathed emotion.


Background The present study evaluated the association between participation in a rehabilitation program during a hospital stay and 1-year survival of patients requiring at least 21 days of mechanical ventilation (prolonged mechanical ventilation [PMV]) with various respiratory diseases as their main diagnoses that led to mechanical ventilation. Methods Retrospective data of 105 patients (71.4% male, mean age 70.1±11.3 years) who received PMV in the past 5 years were analyzed. Rehabilitation included physiotherapy, physical rehabilitation, and dysphagia treatment program that was individually provided by physiatrists. Results The main diagnosis leading to mechanical ventilation was pneumonia (n=101, 96.2%) and the 1-year survival rate was 33.3% (n=35). One-year survivors had lower Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score (20.2±5.8 vs. 24.2±7.5, p=0.006) and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score (6.7±5.6 vs. 8.5±2.7, p=0.001) on the day of intubation than non-survivors. More survivors participated in a rehabilitation program during their hospital stays (88.6% vs. 57.1%, p=0.001). The rehabilitation program was an independent factor for 1-year survival based on the Cox proportional hazard model (hazard ratio, 3.513; 95% confidence interval, 1.785 to 6.930; p<0.001) in patients with APACHE II scores ≤23 (a cutoff value based on Youden's index). Conclusion Our study showed that participation in a rehabilitation program during hospital stay was associated with an improvement of 1-year survival of PMV patients who had less severe illness on the day of intubation.


Introduction Lower Urinary tract symptoms are common in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and have a negative influence on the quality of life (QoL). Detrusor overactivity is the most frequent symptom. Lifestyle modifications are the first therapeutic line followed by oral medication in patients with storage dysfunction. When these drugs are ineffective or intolerable, botulinum toxin bladder injection is an alternative treatment. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness and the impact on QoL of patients with MS and refractory or intolerant to oral therapy overactive bladder (OAB) after botulinum toxin type A bladder injection. Materials and Methods Retrospective study with six-months follow-up of patients with MS diagnosis and a refractory or intolerable to oral drugs OAB treated with botulinum toxin injections. All patients completed urological evaluation and a QoL questionnaire prior to the injection, 3 and 6-months after. Evaluation of the urodynamics tests prior and 3-months post injection was made. Outcomes Sixteen patients were treated. The QoL questionnaire showed progressive improvement 3 and 6-months after the injection. There was decrease in the number of daily voids urination and in the urinary incontinence episodes. There was an upgrade in the bladder capacity from 191 to 338 ml average (p 0.0004) and 75% evidenced disappearance of detrusor overactivity (p 0.0005). Thirteen (13) patients (81.25%) made spontaneous urination with post-voiding residue <100 ml after injection. Three (3) episodes of urinary tract infection were evidenced. Conclusion Botulinum toxin generates a positive impact on the QoL of patients with neurogenic OAB with MS.


MPI has proven effective for parallel applications in situations with neither QoS nor fault handling. Emerging environments motivate fault-tolerant MPI middleware. Environments include space-based, wide-area/web/meta computing and scalable clusters. MPI/FT, the system described in the paper, trades off sufficient MPI fault coverage against acceptable parallel performance, based on mission requirements and constraints. MPI codes are evolved to use MPI/FT features. Non-portable code for event handlers and recovery management is isolated. User-coordinated recovery, checkpointing, transparency and event handling, as well as evolvability of legacy MPI codes form key design criteria. Parallel self-checking threads address four levels of MPI implementation robustness, three of which are portable to any multithreaded MPI. A taxonomy of application types provides six initial fault-relevant models; user-transparent parallel nMR computation is thereby considered. Key concepts from MPI/RT-real-time MPI-are also incorporated into MPI/FT, with further overt support for MPI/RT and MPI/FT in applications possible in future.


Chrysomya rufifacies is an ecologically and forensically important blowfly, widespread in Australasia, the Orient and the Americas. The recent molecular studies of Wallman et al. (2005) showed significant levels of nucleotide divergence between Australian populations of this species based on the cytochrome oxidase subunit two (COII) gene, suggesting that Ch. rufifacies is in fact two species. The present study used COII to verify the existence of these two putative species. A 642-bp fragment of COII was sequenced from 37 specimens sampled from 35 diverse Australian geographical locations and analysed using the Kimura-two-parameter distance model and Bayesian methods. Surprisingly, all Ch. rufifacies sequences demonstrated typical levels of mean intraspecific variation (mean = 0.042%, range = 0.000–0.315%, standard error = 0.003) and were resolved as a monophyletic group on the Bayesian tree. Reassessment of the original COII data of Wallman et al. (2005) showed that the high nucleotide divergence within Ch. rufifacies was attributed to two COII sequences actually derived from specimens of Lucilia porphyrina. Ultimately, this study does not support the hypothesis that Australian Ch. rufifacies comprises two cryptic species but instead confirms its existing status as a single taxon.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of Beauveria bassiana (Bb) of diatomaceous earth (TD) and the dust of rock Protesyl and Rocksil, alone or in combinations, for Alphitobius diaperinus to control. The control agents were applied in dried by mixing with the poultry liter. The concentration of Bb conidia was 0.08% on the weight of the substrate, and for the dust inert were 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%. Twenty treatments with five repetitions of 200 insects were tested for 10 days. The treatments with highest efficiency were TD 1.5% and Bb 0.08% + TD 1.5%, with 60.2 and 57.8%, respectively. Protesyl and Rocksil in the three concentrations and TD 0.5% did not differ from control. For the interaction between control agents no advantage was observed for the association. Additive effect occurred for Bb + TD and Bb + Rocksil at the three concentrations and for Bb + Protesyl at 1.5%. The action of the fungus was reduced in association with Protesyl with antagonistic non-additive effect in 0.5 and 1.0%. Diatomaceous earth, isolated our in association with B. bassiana its a good alternative for A. diaperinus control. Just rock dust Protesyl and Rochsil were not efficient for insect control.


The review analyzes the current state of experimental studies on the ability to obtain and cultivate stem cells from the nail organ and their possible involvement in the regeneration of a limb. It has been known that the nail unit consists of a pool of undifferentiated cells which provide sustained growth and nail repair throughout life. But, nowadays the issue of stem cell niche localization in the nail organ remains unresolved. Also, researchers demonstrated involvement of these cells in the restoration of amputated limbs, in particular, through activation of certain signaling pathways (Wnt, BMP, Notch), and epithelial-mesenchymal interactions, but the detailed mechanism of this process is poorly understood. It is supposed that the nail organ has two sources of undifferentiated cells of different origin: the proximal nail fold and the dorsal part of the nail matrix (K15 + , K19 + , PHLDA1 + ); and onychodermis (CD10 + , CD34 - ). However, these markers are not generally accepted, so the search for markers combinations for exhaustive and complete characterization of stem cells from the nail organ continues.


This article deals with the history of the creation of the international rating agencies and their role in market economy. The authors have also presented their research on the methodological aspects of rating creation and factors affecting it as well as the possibilities of practical application of the acquired assessments in the risk management process.


The paper highlights some commonalities between the development of cryptocurrencies and the evolution of ecosystems. Concepts from evolutionary finance embedded in toy models consistent with stylized facts are employed to understand what survival of the fittest means in cryptofinance. Stylized facts for ownership, trading volume and market capitalization of cryptocurrencies are selectively presented in terms of scaling laws.


Optical Music Recognition (OMR) promises great benefits to Music Information Retrieval by reducing the costs of making sheet music available in a symbolic format. Recent advances in deep learning have turned typical OMR obstacles into clearly solvable problems, especially the stages that visually process the input image, such as staff line removal or detection of music-notation objects. However, merely detecting objects is not enough for retrieving the actual content, as music notation is a configurational writing system where the semantic of a primitive is defined by its relationship to other primitives. Thus, OMR systems must employ a notation assembly stage to infer such relationships among the detected objects. So far, this stage has been addressed by devising a set of predefined rules or grammars, which hardly generalize well. In this work, we formulate the notation assembly stage from a set of detected primitives as a machine learning problem. Our notation assembly is modeled as a graph that stores syntactic relationships among primitives, which allows us to capture the configuration of symbols in a music-notation document. Our results over the handwritten sheet music corpus MUSCIMA++ show 95.2% precision, 96.0% recall, and an F-score of 95.6% in establishing the correct syntactic relationships. When inferring relationships on data from a music object detector, the model achieves 93.2% precision, 91.5% recall and an F-score of 92.3%.


Early detection of faulty process steps through process diagnosis is critical to the semiconductor industry. The AC-ID methodology can isolate the root causes of yield loss by combining end-of-line tests with process history information. The ACID software tool automates this methodology and is fully operational at several industry production sites.


A 3-yr-old female presented at the emergency dept with a 24-h history of dyspnoea, productive cough, bilious vomiting and a low-grade fever. At physical examination, nasal flaring and mild chest retractions were noted. No stridor or wheezing was present and oxygen saturation was normal. Heart rate was 120 bpm in the presence of a low-grade fever (38.6°C). Decreased breath sounds were heard over the right hemithorax, while no asymmetry was noted on either chest inspection or percussion. Otherwise, the findings of physical examination were normal.

Laboratory investigation showed no signs of infection. A chest radiograph was performed (fig. 1⇓). As a result of the dyspnoea, the patient was admitted and azithromycin was commenced to cover possible Mycoplasma pneumoniae . However, serological screening for Mycoplasma antibodies was negative. Furthermore, no pathogen was cultured from either blood or pharynx.

Fig. 1—
Chest radiograph at presentation.

During admission an additional history was taken, in which the mother reported that the child had previously choked upon eating a piece of candy, 1 week before the onset of symptoms. To rule out the presence of a foreign body, which could explain both the symptoms and the abnormalities seen on chest radiography, the patient was transferred to a tertiary centre for bronchoscopic evaluation. At bronchoscopy, purulent sputum was noted in the left main bronchus but no foreign body was found. Laboratory investigation was repeated, showing C-reactive protein (CRP) of 16 mg·L−1 without any other abnormalities. Moraxella catarrhalis was cultured from the sputum obtained at bronchoscopy. This pathogen was treated with amoxicillin and clavulanic acid for 7 days, although no clear signs of infection were demonstrated. As no explanation for the clinical situation was found, computed tomography (CT) of the chest was performed 5 days after admission (fig. 2⇓).

Fig. 2—
Non-contrast-enhanced computed tomography scan of the chest in a pulmonary window setting.

Additional …


Background The use of supra-physiological exogenous corticosteroids in pregnancy can lead to neonatal adrenal suppression causing life-threatening disease. However, evidence on the occurrence of neonatal adrenal suppression after maternal steroid use, is lacking. Objective Examining the occurrence of adrenal suppression in newborns after maternal steroid use during pregnancy. Methods Single-centre case series including all newborns (n = 18) between October 1st, 2006 and February 1st, 2014 of mothers using prednisolone, more than 10 mg/ day. Newborns were routinely assessed by physical examination, blood glucose concentrations, serum cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone concentration and urinary steroid profiles within 48 h after birth. Hypoglycemia was defined as blood glucose below 2,6 mmol/L (46 mg/dl). Abnormal serum cortisol was defined as twice below 100 nmol/L. An abnormal urinary steroid profile was defined as absence of fetal metabolites. Results Six newborns suffered from hypoglycemia, responding well to oral feedings or intravenous glucose administration. All had additional risk factors for hypoglycemia; none had abnormal serum cortisol concentrations or urinary steroid profiles. In two newborns abnormalities in urinary steroid profiles were suggestive for adrenal suppression, although both had adequate serum cortisol concentrations. In both cases, the infants were born prematurely and placenta bed pathology was suspected. After four weeks, urinary steroid profiles of both neonates showed fetal metabolites. Conclusion No clinically relevant adrenal suppression was found in eighteen newborns of mothers using corticosteroids during pregnancy. Assessment of adrenal function should be preserved for newborns with clinical suspicion of adrenal dysfunction or with risk factors as prematurity or placenta bed pathology.


The electronic structure of fcc Fe/Cu {111} interface has been studied by angle-resolved photoemission with synchrotron radiation. The existence of the interface state and absence of intermixture between Fe and Cu atoms in the Fe/Cu {111} interface show that the Fe/Cu {111} system has an abrupt and ordered interface.


Micromachined inertial sensors offer new applications and opportunities for improved mobile devices. Especially the consumer market for micromechanical motion sensing through gyroscopes is widely emerging. The integration of inertial sensors within portable devices enforces suitable power management concepts to handle and achieve the tight power budget of the electronic devices. This paper presents a digital system approach to reduce the power consumption for a capacitive micromachined yaw rate sensor and enables an energy efficient frontend operation of the sensor.


Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a critical problem that contributes to the spread of HIV and may intrinsically worsen neuroHIV. Despite the advent of combined antiretroviral therapies (cART), about half of persons infected with HIV (PWH) experience cognitive and emotional deficits that can be exacerbated by opioid abuse. HIV-1 Tat is expressed in the central nervous system (CNS) of PWH on cART and is thought to contribute to neuroHIV. The amygdala regulates emotion and memories associated with fear and stress and is important in addiction behavior. Notwithstanding its importance in emotional saliency, the effects of HIV and opioids in the amygdala are underexplored. To assess Tat- and morphine-induced neuropathology within the amygdala, male Tat transgenic mice were exposed to Tat for 8 weeks and administered saline and/or escalating doses of morphine twice daily (s.c.) during the last 2 weeks of Tat exposure. Eight weeks of Tat exposure decreased the acoustic startle response and the dendritic spine density in the basolateral amygdala, but not the central nucleus of the amygdala. In contrast, repeated exposure to morphine alone, but not Tat, increased the acoustic startle response and whole amygdalar levels of amyloid-β (Aβ) monomers and oligomers and tau phosphorylation at Ser396, but not neurofilament light chain levels. Co-exposure to Tat and morphine decreased habituation and prepulse inhibition to the acoustic startle response and potentiated the morphine-induced increase in Aβ monomers. Together, our findings indicate that sustained Tat and morphine exposure differentially promote synaptodendritic degeneration within the amygdala and alter sensorimotor processing.


Supramolecular assemblies based on oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) building blocks are well-known for their neutral chemical property and thermal-responsive behavior. Here, the cyclic "CLOSED" and linear "OPEN" typologies of OEGs led to dramatic difference in the sensitivity to guanidinium-containing species. From thermodynamic studies, the association constant (Ka) between the "CLOSED" form amphiphile and guanidinium salt was determined to be 28.7 M-1, whereas there was no detectable binding affinity for the "OPEN" form. Therefore, considering ion specificity, the present results establish that crown ether derivatives with "CLOSED" and "OPEN" topologies provide an easy-to-access model pair with designed ion-recognition sites and special functional moieties and geometries (like the binding pockets of enzymes or ion channels in cellular members) that allow the manipulation of the intercrossed relationship between supramolecular solutes, waters, and guanidinium salts. These supramolecular forces in aqueous solution offered an alternative strategy to fabricate thermal-responsive systems in ionic medium.


Abstract A recent Elsevier survey of 200 urologists and oncologists who treat patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) identified a lack of physician confidence in understanding and using current clinical practices regarding the identification, treatment, and management of patients with CRPC. In response to this knowledge gap, a urologic oncology physician roundtable discussion was convened and a companion summary article created to provide a knowledge-based perspective for optimizing the identification, monitoring, and treatment of patients with metastatic CRPC (http://prostatecancer.urologiconcology.org/). Leading urology experts were selected to discuss how CRPC is defined and monitored, and to elaborate (through the presentation of 2 different cases) on considerations of how the currently approved chemotherapeutics, immunotherapy, and oral androgen inhibition agents can be used in the treatment of metastatic CRPC.


The aim of the work was to find out about school environment and burdensome factors that occur at school according to students. The research was conducted at Primary School no. 23 in Tarnów. 244 students were examined, including 135 students of 8th form and 109 students of 4th form. Troublesome factors, which students are exposed to, may be divided into two groups. The first group is related to physiochemical environment, the second group are the factors which result from a child's way of living and working in the school environment. On the basis of the analysis of the results, the necessity of restriction of both physical and psychosocial burden of students is emphasised. What seems to be especially crucial is ergonomic school furniture, diminishing of noise, improvement of hygienic condition of toilets, rational school timetable, and elimination of dangers resulting from other students' behaviour.


This paper proposes to bring the principles of the Geneva and Hague conventions to bear on cyberconflicts. These conventions establish rules for the treatment of civilians, prisoners of war, and the wounded, and they also ban the use of certain weapons, such as poisonous gas. Preserving these principles is of solemn relevance to billions of people, yet there is still no clear way to apply them to cyberattacks. To find the way forward, the EastWest Institute has created the Cyber 40, with delegates from 40 digitally advanced countries. Practical recommendations on spam and hacking have been issued, many of which have already been implemented. Other groups are also working on the legal issues surrounding cyberattacks. If parameters of basic human decency can be set in time of cyberwar, then maybe aspects of such warfare altogether can be avoided. We can bring the principles of the Geneva Conventions into the 21st century if we agree that these rules are worth preserving and agree that war need not be the infliction of maximum suffering on the enemy. Mankind can be civilized even as we engage in a new era of cyberconflicts.


There seems to be a comparable personal circumstance between the Attic dramatist, Euripides, and the Nigerian dramatist, Wole Soyinka on one hand, and between Soyinka and the popular dramatist, Hubert Ogunde on the other. They all appeared to be actively involved in the politics of their time and society. However, Ogunde's role seem to have been underplayed, perhaps, because he was, like Shakespeare of the Elizabethan era, looked down upon on account of his little learning by the university wits of Cambridge and Oxford, notably Robert Green. Emerging at the time he did and a contemporary of the university trained Soyinka, this paper asks, Was Hubert Ogunde an upstart Crow? It takes a look at the political involvements of Soyinka and Ogunde and makes the point that Ogunde developed a more appropriate style for reaching his audiences. LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research , 8(2), 153-166, 2011


Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the location and characteristics of mental foramen, anterior loop and mandibular incisive canal using cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). Materials and Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study evaluated 200 mandibular CBCT scans for the location of mental foramen, anterior loop prevalence and mandibular incisive canal visibility, its mean length and distance to buccal and lingual plates and inferior border of the mandible. The effect of age and gender on these variables was also analyzed (P<0.05). Results: Anterior loop and mandibular incisive canal were seen in 59.5% and 97.5% of the cases, respectively. The mean length of the mandibular incisive canal was 10.48±4.53mm in the right and 10.40±4.52mm in the left side. The mean distance from the endpoints of the canal to buccal plate was 3.63±1.73mm in the right and 3.66±1.45mm in the left side. These distances were 3.89±1.53mm in the right and 4.13±1.48mm in the left side to lingual plate and 9.98±2.07mm in the right and 8.62±1.97mm in the left side to the inferior border of the mandible. The distance from the endpoints of the canal to lingual plate was significantly different in the right and left sides. The distance from the endpoint of the canal to the buccal plate and inferior border of the mandible was significantly shorter in females (P=0.016), and had a weak, significant correlation with age (rsp=0.215, P=0.003). Conclusions: Due to variability in mandibular incisive canal length and high prevalence of anterior loop, CBCT is recommended before surgical manipulation of interforaminal region.


The striking left-right asymmetry of visceral organs is known to depend on left- and right-side-specific cascades of gene expression during early embryogenesis. Now, developmental biologists are characterizing the earliest steps in asymmetry determination that dictate the sidedness of asymmetric gene expression. The proteins and structures involved control fascinating physiological processes, such as extracellular fluid flow and membrane voltage potential and yet little is known about how their activities are coordinated to control laterality. By analogy with intercellular signalling in certain epithelial and endothelial cells, however, it is reasonable to speculate that at least three of these players, monocilia, gap junction communication and the Ca2+ channel polycystin-2, participate in a signalling pathway that propagates left-right cues through multicellular fields.


Objective: The objective was to describe a case of ocular myasthenia gravis (MG) in a pediatric patient. Design: This is a descriptive, retrospective study and case report. Methodology: For the purpose of the case report, we searched and analyzed the literature referring to the diagnosis and treatment of ocular MG (OMG) in children. Description: A previously healthy 5-year-old girl presented to the emergency room because of sudden-onset ptosis of the right upper lid without other symptoms. Her examination demonstrated fluctuating ptosis and limitation to downgaze in the right eye. Because of the fluctuation of the ptosis, OMG was suggested, and the patient was tested with ice-pack test and neostigmine test with positive results. Treatment with pyridostigmine was initiated with a good response. Discussion: OMG has a very low incidence in pediatric patients. It is a disorder characterized by impairing neurotransmission at the neuromuscular junction that generates extraocular muscle weakness. It is important that ophthalmologists have knowledge about this disease because it is a differential diagnosis when there is a patient who has ptosis, strabismus, or limitation of movements. There are no standard diagnostic criteria for this disease; the diagnosis is based on clinical presentation and pharmacologic, serologic, and electrophysiologic tests. The treatment is based on steroids and anticholinesterase drugs. Some patients will require plasmapheresis or immunomodulators.


Aims To ascertain whether the clinical objectives for 4th year medical students on paediatric attachments were being met by evaluating the learning opportunities available to them. Background Recent research shows a decline in the number of foundation trainees selecting paediatrics. Students have previously described their attachment as too emotional and clinical experience too limited to make an informed choice about paediatrics as one of their career options. There are numerous skills to be learnt over a relatively short period of time. Moreover, skills such as history-taking and clinical examinations acquired over adult clinical exposure are not entirely transferrable to children hence it is anticipated that they do so with apprehension. Methods A questionnaire was developed and made available online. The list of clinical skills and examinations used in this questionnaire were derived from the set of learning objectives provided to students prior to their placement. In addition to basic demographics, frequency of clinical skills, history-taking and the confidence at which they were performed were collected. Data was collected from 90 medical students. Results Only a proportion of students could identify a cardiopulmonary arrest on their attachment. This could be explained by lack of confidence in interacting with children. It appears that District General Hospitals offer more learning opportunities in paediatrics than tertiary institutions. Conclusions Learning objectives are not being met by all students on attachment at St George's Medical School London. This could be due to the lack of learning opportunities such as teaching, feedback given and varying clinical environments.


After years of strong growth, the U.S. auto market is entering a period of marketing and technological changes. Apart from the usual changes in market demand and marketing strategies, new technologies, including electric vehicles and autonomous driving, are impacting conventional vehicles. Forecasting future used car values (residual values) in this environment is becoming especially challenging, and larger margins of error could be the result.


A connection between the dynamics of a sine-Gordon chain and a certain static membrane folding problem was recently found. The one-dimensional membrane profile is a cross section of the position-time sine-Gordon amplitude profile. Here we show that when one system is embedded in a higher-dimensional system in this way, obvious symmetries in the larger system can lead to nontrivial symmetries in the embedded system. In particular, a thin buckled membrane on a fluid substrate has a continuous degeneracy that interpolates between a symmetric and an antisymmetric fold. We find the Hamiltonian generator of this symmetry and the corresponding conserved momentum by interpreting the simple translational symmetries of the sine-Gordon chain in terms of the embedded coordinates. We discuss possible extensions to other embedded dynamical systems.


Context The clinical outcome of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is variable, ranging from spontaneous recovery to an inactive carrier state, chronic hepatitis, occult HBV infection, liver cirrhosis, or hepatocellular carcinoma. Evidence Acquisition This variable pattern and clinical outcomes of the infection were mainly determined by virological and host genetic factors. Since the most of host genetic factors associated with HBV infection have currently focused on human leukocyte antigen (HLA) associations and interleukin (IL)-10 gene polymorphisms, this review focuses on the recent progresses in these issues to provide prognostic markers for the outcome of HBV infection. Results A study on serum levels of IL-10 in occult HBV infected patients reported that the higher level of IL-10 production may suppress function of the immune system against HBV in patients with occult HBV infection. IL-10 promoter polymorphism at position -592 is associated with susceptibility to occult HBV infection. Conclusions Findings of this study suggest that the host HLA polymorphism is an important factor in determining outcome of HBV infection but regarding IL-10 gene promoter polymorphisms, we are still have a long way to achieve a definite conclusion.


Purpose Continuous reductions in trabecular meshwork (TM) cellularity inhibit aqueous humor (AH) outflow, which is the main cause of primary open-angle glaucoma. Rho-associated protein kinase inhibitor (ROCKi) targets the TM to reduce intraocular pressure (IOP) and increase AH outflow facility. However, the underlying mechanisms are not entirely clear. Here, we aimed to investigate the effect of a ROCKi (Y-27632) on TM cell proliferation and phagocytosis. Methods Immortalized human TM (iHTM) cells, glaucomatous TM (GTM3) cells, and primary human TM (pTM) cells were cultured and identified. The effects of various concentrations of Y-27632 on F-actin cytoskeleton were assessed using immunofluorescence. Cell proliferation effects were evaluated using a cell counting kit-8 (CCK8), cell counting, and Ki67 immunostaining. Cell phagocytosis was evaluated using immunofluorescence and flow cytometry in immortalized TM cells. C57BL/6J and Tg-MYOCY437H mice were used to investigate the proliferative effects of Y-27632 on TM cells in vivo. The effect of Y-27632 on IOP was monitored for 2 weeks, and the outflow facility was detected 2 weeks after IOP measurement. TM cells in mice were counted using immunohistochemistry. Results Y-27632 (100 μM) significantly promoted the proliferation of both immortal TM cells and pTM cells. In GTM3 cells, phagocytosis was significantly greater in the Y-27632 group than in the control group, nearly reaching the level of phagocytosis in iHTM, as determined using immunofluorescence and flow cytometry. In Tg-MYOCY437H mice, treatment with Y-27632 significantly decreased IOP and increased outflow facility, which greatly influenced the long-term IOP-lowering effect. The number of TM cells in Tg-MYOCY437H mice was significantly improved after Y-27632 administration. Conclusion Y-27632 promoted cell proliferation and phagocytosis of TM cells, and its proliferative effect was demonstrated in a transgenic mouse model. These results revealed a new IOP-lowering mechanism of Y-27632 through effects on TM cells, suggesting the potential for a correlation between TM cellularity and long-term recovery of IOP.


Mechanical properties of (001) Mo and (001) Mo – 1.5 at.% Ir single crystals have been studied by nanoindentation. It has been found that the iridium addition to molybdenum leads to an increase in both hardness and elastic modulus. An abrupt elasto-plastic transition (pop-in) at a depth of about 20 - 40 nm caused by dislocation nucleation in previously dislocation-free volume has been observed in the initial portion of the loading curve. It has shown that the Ir addition essentially affects the dislocation nucleation. Mean shear stress required for the dislocation nucleation increased from 10.8 GPa (G/12) for a Mo single crystal to 18.2 GPa (G/8) for the Mo – 1.5 at% Ir solid solution. Thus, the Ir solution in a Mo single crystal affects not only the resistance to the motion of dislocations (hardness) but the nucleation of them as well. The latter is likely to occur as a result of an increase in the structure perfection of the Mo – 1.5 at% Ir solid solution as compared to the pure Mo single crystal.


ABSTRAK: The National Health Insurance (JKN) characterized the operation of the Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial Kesehatan on 1st January 2014. The medical specialist plays an important role related to health care in hospital. Preliminary study of the specialist, obtained complaints less comfortably with INACBG's (Indonesian Case Base Groups) and medical services. The purpose of this study was to analyze factors related to job satisfaction specialist in Islamic Hospital Sultan Agung (RSISA) post-JKN. This type of research using quantitative and qualitative methods with cross sectional design. Most tetap respondents (56.5%) perceive less satisfied and as much as 69.2% of mitra respondents perceive satisfied. Most tetap respondents (56.5%) perceive poor medical services, 52.2% good working conditions, 69.6% administrative discretion good organization, poor leadership 52.2%, 69.6% good interpersonal relationships, and 52.2% less good promotion opportunities. Most mitra respondents (53.8%) perceive a good medical services, 61.5% good working conditions, 61.5% administrative discretion poor organization, 53.8% good leadership, 61.5% good interpersonal relationships, and 61.5% good chance of promotion.There relationship between the perception of medical services (p = 0.007), there is a correlation between the perception of working conditions (p = 0.003), there was no correlation between the perception of the organization's policy administration (p = 0.194), there the relationship between the perception of leadership (p = 0.019), there was no correlation between the perception of interpersonal relationships (p = 0.345) and there is a correlation between the perception of promotion opportunities (p = 0.047) and job satisfaction specialist. Several factors related to job satisfaction RSISA is a specialist in medical services, working conditions, leadership, and promotion opportunities. Management can improve job satisfaction evaluation specialists to conduct an ongoing job satisfaction, optimizing gathering, seeking disclosure of the calculation of medical services, and to seek equal opportunities training.


The situation and trends in the application of fuzzy logic to control multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) systems are analyzed. The basic steps in designing a control system are considered. Fuzzy control applications are either knowledge-based or model-based. In model-based approaches, the first step is process modeling: Usually, interpolation and universal approximation are the two main features to be used in fuzzy MIMO systems in order to obtain a fuzzy function approximator which represents the controlled plant to a desired accuracy. For instance, the well known Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) model of the plant can be obtained. This leads to an integrated model which incorporates one "local behavior" in each fuzzy rule. Another alternative is following a reasoning approach. In this case, a MIMO plant is treated as a whole, with as many variables as required, leading to a complex set of rules and knowledge. In this case, also an integral model of the plant is obtained. The structure of the plant can be captured if the modeling approach deals with single input-output relationships and interactions among individual variables. In this case, a particular model can be AbstrAct


This study investigates a relationship between free access to research articles and the diffusion of their ideas as measured by citation counts. By using a dataset from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), an open repository of research articles, and employing a natural experiment that allows the effect of free access separate from other confounding factors, this study identifies the causal effect of free access on the citation counts. The natural experiment in this study is that a select group of published articles is posted on SSRN at a time chosen by their authors' affiliated organizations or SSRN, not by heir authors. Using a difference,in,difference met hod and comparing the citation profiles of the articles before and after the posting time on SSRN against a group of control articles with similar characteristics, I estimated the effect of the SSRN posting on citation counts to be 10,20% of total citations.


Knowledge representation and granular computing is an active area of current research for their potential application to many real life problems. Thus, it is challenging for human being in converting huge data into knowledge, and to use this knowledge to make informed decisions properly. It is very difficult to extract expert knowledge from the universe and is an active area of research in artificial intelligence. This involves analysis of how to accurately and effectively use a set of symbols to represent a set of facts within a knowledge domain. The focus of the work in this book is a combination of theoretical advancements of some of the extended models and their applications in knowledge bases. The theoretical advancements have been supported with formal proof to establish soundness whereas the applications are mostly undertaken from real life situations. The book discusses some aspects of rough sets approach in the study of knowledge discovery in databases and granular computing. An elaborate bibliography is provided at the end of the book. The material in this book includes concepts, figures, graphs, and tables to guide researchers in the area of knowledge representation.


In this paper, we redesign the previous iterative row-column soft decision feedback algorithm (Cheng et al., 2007) for a two-dimensional intersymbol interference channel with additive white Gaussian noise; a 2 × 2 averaging mask and two 3 × 3 masks are considered. In particular, we consider the joint statistics for a block of pixels involved in the exchange of extrinsic information between the detectors; previously, these pixels were considered to be statistically independent. The new algorithm, referred to as the block (BLK) algorithm, provides more than 1 dB SNR gain; the resulting performance is within 0.3 dB from the maximum likelihood bound for the masks considered. To address the increased computational and storage complexity introduced by the joint statistics, we have developed a simplified version of the block (SBLK) algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the SBLK algorithm performs almost as well as the BLK algorithm.


ABSTRACT We have discovered a novel class of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors that block the polymerization reaction in a mode distinct from those of the nucleoside or nucleotide RT inhibitors (NRTIs) and nonnucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTIs). For this class of indolopyridone compounds, steady-state kinetics revealed competitive inhibition with respect to the nucleotide substrate. Despite substantial structural differences with classical chain terminators or natural nucleotides, these data suggest that the nucleotide binding site of HIV RT may accommodate this novel class of RT inhibitors. To test this hypothesis, we have studied the mechanism of action of the prototype compound indolopyridone-1 (INDOPY-1) using a variety of complementary biochemical tools. Time course experiments with heteropolymeric templates showed "hot spots" for inhibition following the incorporation of pyrimidines (T>C). Moreover, binding studies and site-specific footprinting experiments revealed that INDOPY-1 traps the complex in the posttranslocational state, preventing binding and incorporation of the next complementary nucleotide. The novel mode of action translates into a unique resistance profile. While INDOPY-1 susceptibility is unaffected by mutations associated with NNRTI or multidrug NRTI resistance, mutations M184V and Y115F are associated with decreased susceptibility, and mutation K65R confers hypersusceptibility to INDOPY-1. This resistance profile provides additional evidence for active site binding. In conclusion, this class of indolopyridones can occupy the nucleotide binding site of HIV RT by forming a stable ternary complex whose stability is mainly dependent on the nature of the primer 3′ end.


Variations of the Data Driven Learning approach, originally devised by Johns (1991), have been pursued by only a relatively small number of specialist practitioners. This investigation sought to establish whether a wider application of various forms of the Data Driven Learning approach was warranted within the sphere of 'English for Academic Purposes'(EAP) programmes. On the basis of a review of the literature, it concluded that the further exploitation of concordancing tools by EAP teachers was justifiable. Substantial empirical evidence was found to support the case for wider exploitation of specialised corpora to facilitate broader and deeper lexical acquisition in certain EAP settings. Whilst the literature review revealed sufficient evidence of productive exploitation of concordancing tools by the EAP teacher, scant evidence, in contrast, was found of any research into the direct exploitation of online concordancing tools by the EAP learner. The research project attempted to address this deficiency in the research by exploring the scope for successful independent consultation of online concordancing tools by EAP learners on a pre-sessional course programme. EAP learners were invited to three piloting sessions and presented with a task-sheet requiring the exploration of four online concordancing tools. Their attitudes toward the application of these four varied tools were sought by questionnaire directly after completing the tasks, and later by interview. The findings suggest that only a small minority of pre-sessional programme EAP learners are sufficiently well-motivated to pursue the consultation of online concordancing tools independently. The study also found evidence that within the sample studied, this well-motivated minority will exploit the tools further in future bids to enhance their linguistic skills and lexico-grammatical awareness. Therefore, the investigation concludes, on the basis of its own findings, that there is scope for a further extension of this research work into the university's later EAP course programmes. During this investigation the significance of the design limitations of the currently available online concordancing tools' end-user interfaces became more apparent. Consequently, further research is recommended into the various options for the enhancement of the tools' end-user interfaces. Proposals are provided for the routes that this software development work might take to improve the prospects of future independent consultation by a novice analyst being successful and productive.


Pursuit of a cross-country infrastructure corridor raises complex legal issues with respect to the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The legal context has changed significantly since the corridor concept was initially presented in the 1960s. This article sets out the diverse legal landscape across treaty and non-treaty contexts in Canada today, and then describes Crown obligations with respect to Indigenous peoples, including "meaningful consultation", that would be involved in pursuing the corridor concept. A key observation is that, while the jurisprudence provides relatively comprehensive guidance on the meaningful consultation standard, the contextual nature of the duty to consult legal framework will make it difficult to achieve in the practical Corridor context. This article also puts forward preliminary comments and queries with respect to legal forms that the Corridor concept make take and formal forums in which Crown consultation might occur, including in relation to the new federal impact assessment regime. Overall, this article observes that tensions, complexities and sensitivities that have produced friction in the contemporary legal sphere pertaining to large linear infrastructure projects and the rights of Indigenous peoples would still be present in pursuing the corridor proposal. Meanwhile, further change in the law is entirely foreseeable.


Entity Alignment (EA) aims to find the equivalent entities between two Knowledge Graphs (KGs). Existing methods usually encode the triples of entities as embeddings and learn to align the embeddings, which prevents the direct interaction between the original information of the cross-KG entities. Moreover, they encode the relational triples and attribute triples of an entity in heterogeneous embedding spaces, which prevents them from helping each other. In this paper, we transform both triples into unified textual sequences, and model the EA task as a bi-directional textual entailment task between the sequences of cross-KG entities. Specifically, we feed the sequences of two entities simultaneously into a pre-trained language model (PLM) and propose two kinds of PLM-based entity aligners that model the entailment probability between sequences as the similarity between entities. Our approach captures the unified correlation pattern of two kinds of information between entities, and explicitly models the fine-grained interaction between original entity information. The experiments on five cross-lingual EA datasets show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art EA methods and enables the mutual enhancement of the heterogeneous information. Codes are available at https://github.com/OreOZhao/TEA.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is a technology available for outdoor area application. The characteristic of illegal logging application is suitable to apply WSN-based application. Because the illegal logging application is implemented in a wide range area, supervised the environment forest, and consists of hundreds of sensor nodes. This paper aims to review and summarize as systematically the contribution of WSN Technology in illegal logging area research as a long-range network application especially in detection and identification method, timber tracking methods, data exchange, and transmission method. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) were outlined in this paper as a standard methodology of predefined research strategy to solve the problems by tracing the previous research. By defining the Research Question (RQ) to guidelines the SLR process and inserting the search string in the database reputation journal, the previous research can be configured. There are 42 previous studies applied WSN to used it in the illegal logging application. The result stated that WSN has biggest contributions since 33% researcher using WSN to tracking application, 41% use the WSN as a data exchange in their system, and 48% used WSN as data transmission between sensor nodes. This paper is expected to give a contribution to the researcher who wants to build the system to tackle illegal logging since the illegal logging has been hot issues in the world.


The development of hallux interphalangeal joint (IPJ) arthritis after an arthrodesis of the first metatarsophalangeal joint has been established in the literature. However, the significance has not been well reported. A retrospective, radiographic review of patients who had undergone a first metatarsophalangeal joint arthrodesis was performed. The Coughlin classification for degree of arthritic degeneration, hallux abductus angle, and hallux interphalangeus angle were measured in 107 radiographs of 103 patients preoperatively and postoperatively. Postoperative angles were measured immediately following surgery at approximately 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months. We found that the hallux abductus angle had decreased in the patients postoperatively; however, the hallux abductus interphalangeus angle increased on average after first metatarsophalangeal fusion. The majority of patients started with a Coughlin classification I of the hallux IPJ, which remained unchanged over the postoperative period, with no statistically significant difference in IPJ degeneration in the patients with or without fusion of the first metatarsophalangeal joint. In addition, no patients had a symptomatic hallux IPJ postoperatively within our limited study period. Further prospective studies would be beneficial with longer follow-up times to assess IPJ degeneration following first metatarsophalangeal joint fusions. Levels of Evidence: Level III: Retrospective, comparative study