The scores of distance-based outlier detection methods are difficult to interpret, and it is challenging to determine a suitable cut-off threshold between normal and outlier data points without additional context. We describe a generic transformation of distance-based outlier scores into interpretable, probabilistic estimates. The transformation is ranking-stable and increases the contrast between normal and outlier data points. Determining distance relationships between data points is necessary to identify the nearest-neighbor relationships in the data, yet most of the computed distances are typically discarded. We show that the distances to other data points can be used to model distance probability distributions and, subsequently, use the distributions to turn distance-based outlier scores into outlier probabilities. Over a variety of tabular and image benchmark datasets, we show that the probabilistic transformation does not impact outlier ranking (ROC AUC) or detection performance (AP, F1), and increases the contrast between normal and outlier score distributions (statistical distance). The experimental findings indicate that it is possible to transform distance-based outlier scores into interpretable probabilities with increased contrast between normal and outlier samples. Our work generalizes to a wide range of distance-based outlier detection methods, and, because existing distance computations are used, it adds no significant computational overhead.


The aim of this study was to identify susceptibility variants of LOXL1 gene for Exfoliation Syndrome and Exfoliation Glaucoma by a case-control association study approach in Georgian population. Self-reported Georgian subjects were recruited between 2015 and 2017 at a specialized ophthalmic center. Patients underwent detailed ophthalmic examination to diagnose or exclude Exfoliation Syndrome (XFS) and Exfoliation Glaucoma (XFG). Patients underwent peripheral blood sampling. Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) was performed using Illumina OmniExpress Microarray. One hundred and thirty-two XFS patients and 195 healthy subjects were included into the study. Four LOXL1 variants were identified: rs2165241, rs3825942 (G153A), rs4886776 (R141L) and rs8042039 (G153D). Allele A of rs2165241 and allele G of rs3825942 are likely the main risk factors of disease development in Georgians with p=0.0001; OR= 5.8; 95% CI: 1.9986-16.9372 and p=0.002; OR=4.6; 95% CI: 1.7531-12.3146, respectively, both present in 96% of affected patients. The above-mentioned alleles are also encountered in more than 80% of healthy individuals. Two other SNPs have been described for the first time in exfoliation patients, though they appear to have no effect on the disease development in Georgian population. Two high-risk alleles of LOXL1 gene have been identified in Georgian population. As these SNPs are also very prevalent in healthy subjects, further studies are needed to identify the genetic mechanisms of exfoliation syndrome and exfoliation glaucoma.


The problem of stability analysis for a class of switched linear systems is studied in this paper based on the theory of matrix measure. The matrix measures of all subsystems are used to determine the stability of the switched linear systems. Based on this, sufficient conditions are reached, which can be used to determine the stability or instability of switched linear systems under arbitrary switching law. If a switching sequence satisfies some conditions, a theorem in this paper can be used to verify if it can stabilize the systems. The obtained conditions are simpler than the reported methods such as multi-Lyapunov functions and hence are easier to check. Numerical examples are used to demonstrate these conditions.


Farmer managed natural regeneration (FMNR) is promoted as a cost-effective technique to restore degraded arable drylands. Evidence comes mainly from the West-African Sahel, where it is a traditional practice, and it is now being promoted across the African continent. In this study, we evaluated the role of the farmer affecting natural regeneration under farmer managed natural regeneration in the highly degraded Dodoma region in Tanzania. We systematically assessed the linkages between species selection, perceived benefits and management practices as reported by 57 farmers in 13 villages involved in FMNR. On average, farmers list 2.8 species to be promoted on their farms as part of the practice of FMNR. In total, a list of 69 species was promoted by the practice, of which most (51) were only mentioned by one or two farmers, indicating that FMNR may contribute substantially to on-farm regional diversity. Most species selected were associated with a range of benefits and the diversity of benefits, not any single benefit, explained species selection under FMNR. Management of FMNR species goes beyond pruning, a practice promoted within FMNR, and is characterized by 10 different practices that are differentially applied to the selected species and individuals. We conclude that species selection and management under FMNR is driven by farmers autonomous decisions, making FMNR both diverse and complex and complicates predicting the extent to which FMNR may successfully contribute to achieving specific restoration outcomes. Monitoring farms over extended periods may increase outcome prediction capacity.


Brain damage is underestimated as a public health and personal problem. The common belief in a good prognosis for childhood brain damage is unsubstantiated. It is based on lack of rigorous study and examiner satisfaction with a low response level. Occult brain trauma plagues victims into maturity. Above a rather low threshold of injury (even without focal neurologic findings), cognitive, personality, and adaptive dysfunctions are common and impairing. Child abuse signals were described. Brain lesions impair both matured functions and those expressed later. Dysfunctions were discussed for these neurobehavioral systems: consciousness, attention and tonic motor level; sensorimotor and body schema; neurophysiologic; cerebral personality; intelligence; memory; language; information processing; posttraumatic stress and mood; identity and insight; adaptivity in the community. Outcome evolves from complex pathologic, neurologic, anatomic, and personality parameters, the postinjury interval and child's age, the maturity and developmental trajectory of the function, social support, and emotional reaction to impairment. Assessment should study the entire range of functions, utilizing records, collaterals, observation, and qualitative and psychometric measurement. Complex, challenging, and ecologically relevant tasks are appropriate. There are several patterns of outcome: immediate permanent deficits; improvement through compensatory mechanisms, but with subclinical deficits; and initial progress with delayed expression (premature plateau of cognitive and personality maturity; physiologic developmental deficits). Confirmation of mild TBI may require several years of observation to determine late dysfunctions and deviation from preinjury or postinjury performance or expected level of development.


Objective: Compare outcomes of surgical techniques in percutaneous bone-anchored hearing implant surgery. Study Design: Matched retrospective cohort study. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Patients: Electronic review of adult and pediatric patients who underwent bone conduction device surgery by either the Minimally-invasive Ponto Surgery (MIPS) technique or the linear incision with no soft tissue removal (LnSTR) technique or between August 2015 and April 2018 at our facility. Intervention: Patients in MIPS group underwent Minimally invasive Ponto Surgery (MIPS) technique, while those in LnSTR group underwent LnSTR technique. Main Outcome Measure: Major outcome was presence/severity of localized skin reaction. Secondary outcomes included cosmetic outcome, revision surgery, minor adverse events, device utilization, and postoperative aided speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) across 250 to 4000 Hertz (Hz). Results: Fifty patients met inclusion criteria. There was a significantly lower rate of localized cutaneous reactions for the MIPS group (4.5%) compared with LnSTR group (33.3%; p = 0.026). Rate of revision surgery was significantly less for MIPS (13.6%) compared with LnSTR (20.8%; p = 0.008). Occurrence of poor cosmetic outcome was noted significantly less for the MIPS group (9.1%) compared with LnSTR patients (20.8%; p = 0.005). Minor adverse events and aided SRTs were comparable between groups. Conclusions: MIPS leads to a statistically significant decrease in localized cutaneous reaction compared with LnSTR. Both the LnSTR and MIPS techniques are safe and effective in the treatment of hearing loss, however MIPS may be superior in certain cases by offering improved healing, decreasing needs for wound care, and possibly decreasing need for frequent follow up.


The translocation dynamics of a polymer chain through a nanopore in the absence of an external driving force is analyzed by means of scaling arguments, fractional calculus, and computer simulations. The problem at hand is mapped on a one-dimensional anomalous diffusion process in terms of the reaction coordinate s (i.e., the translocated number of segments at time t ) and shown to be governed by a universal exponent alpha=2(2nu+2-gamma(1), where nu is the Flory exponent and gamma(1) is the surface exponent. Remarkably, it turns out that the value of alpha is nearly the same in two and three dimensions. The process is described by a fractional diffusion equation which is solved exactly in the interval 0<s<N with appropriate boundary and initial conditions. The solution gives the probability distribution of translocation times as well as the variation with time of the statistical moments <s(t) and <s2(t)-<s(t)>2, which provide a full description of the diffusion process. The comparison of the analytic results with data derived from extensive Monte Carlo simulations reveals very good agreement and proves that the diffusion dynamics of unbiased translocation through a nanopore is anomalous in its nature.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

There is growing interest in the development of molecules that can inhibit DNA repair or disrupt DNA damage response pathways for application to cancer therapy. Such inhibitors offer the potential to achieve synthetic lethality in the context of DNA repair deficient cancers and/or to sensitize tumors to chemotherapy and radiation. We have identified a series of structurally related small molecules that demonstrate increased toxicity to human cancer cells deficient in BRCA2, PTEN, ATM, and the Fanconi pathway. These compounds are not PARP inhibitors but rather impact DNA damage response pathways at upstream steps, causing impairment of both homology-dependent DNA repair (HDR) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) repair of DNA double-strand breaks. The molecules also reduce the formation of DNA repair foci by several damage response factors, including 53BP1, BRCA1, and DNA-PK, following ionizing radiation treatment of cancer cells. Efforts to identify the molecular target of these compounds are underway.

In addition, we have found that a highly unusual lupus-derived, cell-penetrating autoantibody, 3E10, preferentially binds DNA single-strand tails, inhibits key steps in DNA single-strand and double-strand break repair, and sensitizes tumor cells and human tumor xenografts to DNA-damaging therapy, including doxorubicin and radiation. Moreover, we find that 3E10 alone is synthetically lethal to BRCA2-deficient human cancer cells and selectively sensitizes such cells to low dose doxorubicin. These findings identify a new antibody that may have clinical application in cancer, particularly in BRCA-related malignancies. Because lupus is associated with circulating autoantibodies reactive against host DNA, the work also suggests that lupus autoantibodies may be a valuable source of other potential therapeutic agents. In addition, our findings raise the possibility that lupus autoantibodies may be partly responsible for the unexpectedly low rates of breast and ovarian cancers observed in lupus patients.

Citation Format: Peter M. Glazer. Novel DNA repair inhibitors for radiosensitization and cancer therapy. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr SY42-03. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-SY42-03


In this paper we present a new methodology, DaOBML, to test environmental models whose outputs are complex artifacts such as images (maps) or plots. Our approach suggests several test data generation techniques (Combinatorial Interaction Testing, Model-Based Testing, Random Testing) and digital image processing methods to drive the creation of Knowledge Bases (KBs). Considering such KBs and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, a test oracle assigns the verdicts of new test data. Our methodology is supported by a tool and we applied it to models developed via the TerraME product. A controlled experiment was carried out and we conclude that Random Testing is the most feasible test data generation approach for developing the KBs, Artificial Neural Networks present the best performance out of six ML algorithms, and the larger the KB, in terms of size, the better.


Although our idea of sequential input being a key to cerebellar function was taken seriously by most commentators, there were also objections, based in part on experimental evidence that seems to contradict our intuitions and in part on commentators' preferences for different schemes. Several were suspicious of experiments (performed on slices of cerebellar tissue) that may have severed some of the synaptic connections, particularly the inhibitory ones. It is our feeling that a modi- fication of our theory that could satisfy most critics would not have to be very radical.


The invention relates to a compound as a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-IV) inhibitor, which can be used for treating all symptoms or diseases that get benefits by inhibiting DPP-IV activity, such as type I and II diabetes, diabetes complications and other related diseases.


Abstract State and police brutality around the globe in 2020 brought into sharp focus the role of legal apparatuses in causing death, particularly of black and Indigenous lives. Against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter (#BLM) events and protests, #endSARS in Nigeria and amid the ongoing fight against Aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia, the critique made by Isobell Coe in Nulyarimma v Thompson, the case that sought to have the crime of genocide and its impact as part of ongoing colonialism recognised in Australian law, is more urgent than ever. Following Coe's critique that Australian law becomes complicit in genocide if it fails to hear Indigenous peoples protests, how do and how should legal thinkers engage with the system of Australian law especially in a climate where the direct link between settler-colonial legal infrastructures (courts, prisons, police and legislators) and the violation of Indigenous and black lives has been laid bare. A legal system lacking consent at its foundation and characterised in the present day by a refusal to hear and engage with its violent origin, while seeking to acquire consent retrospectively is nomocidal. Nomocide captures the function performed by all arms of the law in committing genocide in Australia. As such, the complicity and culpability of a system of law founded in non-consensual conditions must be reckoned with, without delay. This requires a willingness among scholars and practitioners of law to see it as deathly or nomocidal in order to begin addressing the colonial violence that stems from it.


GeMS is a customisable, open-source toolkit for generating random, yet constrained, modulo scheduling problems with a known optimal initiation interval. These can then be used to evaluate the behavior of different scheduling algorithms under controlled conditions.


Animal models of chronic pain have provided valuable information on the mechanisms of initiation and maintenance of the disease. Much of the research effort has targeted sensory abnormalities like hyperalgesia and allodynia. However, in the past 15 years a significant number of research groups have focused their attention on comorbid anxiety, depression and cognitive impairments that frequently emerge in chronic pain conditions. A myriad of paradigms have since then been introduced in the field to tackle multiple dimensions of rodents' behavior. Concerning emotional behavior, these include the elevated plus (and zero) maze and dark/light box for anxiety, the forced swimming and tail suspension tests for depression, and the spontaneous burrowing behavior for general well-being. Regarding the cognitive dimension, several water mazes (spatial-reference memory), attentional set-shifting test (attention and reversal learning), novel object recognition (memory), 5-choice serial reaction time task (sustained attention) and variable delay-to-signal task (impulsivity) are among the most commonly employed paradigms. The construct of some of these paradigms in the context of chronic pain will be reviewed in this chapter, with special emphasis on mood and cognitive alterations that are associated with the development of neuropathic and arthritic pain.


Acute ethanol administration causes an enhancement of mesolimbic dopaminergic activity in the brain. The microRNAs miR-124 and miR-132 are highly expressed in the central nervous system and contribute to the regulation of mesolimbic dopaminergic activity. However, the nature of a potential mechanistic association between ethanol and these microRNAs has remained unclear. Recent studies reported that the expression of some microRNAs was regulated by histone acetylation. In this study, we investigated whether ethanol administration can change the expression of miR-124 and miR-132 via histone acetylation in mouse brain. We administered 2 g/kg ethanol (s.c.) to male C57BL / 6J mice. Total RNA was extracted using TRIzol in the whole brain 1 to 12 hr after administration. MicroRNAs were detected by northern blotting. Acetylated histone H3 and histone deacetylases (HDACs) were detected by western blotting analysis and immunohistochemistry. Trichostatin A (TSA) was administered intracerebroventricularly.
Acute ethanol administration increased expression of miR-124 and miR-132 in the mouse whole brain 12 hr after ethanol administration. Acute ethanol administration significantly increased acetylated histone H3 in the nuclear fraction of mouse whole brain, especially the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area. HDAC4 expression was significantly decreased in the nuclear fraction after acute ethanol administration. These findings suggest that acute administration induces histone acetylation by reducing nuclear HDAC4 expression. TSA treatment increased the expression of miR-124 in mouse whole brain. These findings suggest that HDAC4 may directly regulate the expression of miR-124 in the brain. In conclusion, acute ethanol administration induces histone acetylation via reducing nuclear HDAC4 protein, resulting in increased microRNA expression in the brain.


The purpose of this study was to determine if phonatory air flow characteristics differed among women with adductor spasmodic dysphonia (AdSD), muscle tension dysphonia (MTD), and normal phonation. Phonatory air flow signals were gathered during [pa] syllable repetitions. Mean phonatory air flow, coefficients of variation, and the presence of large air flow perturbations (75 ml/s or more) were examined for the three groups of speakers. There was no significant difference in mean phonatory air flow across groups, and very large intersubject variation in mean phonatory air flow occurred for both the AdSD and MTD groups. Coefficients of variation were similar for the groups of women with MTD and normal phonation but were significantly larger for the group with AdSD. Air flow perturbations were common with AdSD and rare with MTD. Relatively large coefficients of variation and air flow perturbations of at least 75 ml/s did occur for some women with normal voices who were 70 years of age or older. It appears that intrasubject variability in phonatory air flow may aid in the differentiation of AdSD and MTD when used in conjunction with other elements of a thorough voice evaluation. However, the potential contribution of aging to increased intrasubject variability in phonatory air flow must be considered when interpreting findings.


Entresto® (Sacubitril/valsartan) is a recently approved oral drug for the treatment of symptomatic chronic heart failure. In this study, simple, rapid and economic TLC-densitometric method has been developed for simultaneous determination of sacubitril and valsartan in their mixture. The TLC-densitometric separation process has beenachieved on pre-coated silica gel (60 GF254) plates using toluene–ethylacetate– methanol mixture(4:4:2, by volume) as a developing system. The well separated bands have been quantified densitometricallyat 260nm. Calibration graphs were found to be linear over a concentration range of 0.1–0.6μgband-1for two drugs. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the analysis of sacubitril and valsartan in Entresto® tablets.


This paper explores the increasingly intrusive aspect of 'ugliness' marring the architectural urban built environment today focusing on the underlying connotations of the inherent mindset. Questions arise as to why, who or what is responsible and what can be done about it? A wide literature review, addressing this issue from varying standpoints, is presented here as supporting evidence of this persistent trend of 'ugliness' defacing our cities and negatively affecting the quality of life since the mid-19th Century and the time of Ruskin. Findings confirm a direct link between the visible aspect of ugliness and the mindset of society. Modernity, tradition, the role of the architect, architecture and the dilemmas facing the architectural practice today are visited. Issues of ethics, morality, aesthetic values, and general wellbeing appear pertinent. Maintaining individual identity appears as a valid need. It is surmised that there is no singular all-encompassing solution to suit all but that each society, through its unique cultural and geographic environment, potentially holds within its own heritage the remedy; an example being the Muslim Society which has a rich heritage and is governed by well documented principles. The aim of this paper is to continue to emphasize the urgency of the problem and proposes that the route to salvation starts from within; in the mind. Attainment of knowledge and revitalizing traditional values are seen as conducive to a practical solution. This is especially significant in the current globalization and technological advancement.


Ageing stress induce an effect on each body cell causing degeneration and malfunction as consequence this appear in different investigation degree of views so this study was mad to investigate the anatomical, histological and sonographical changes during aging process in pancreas. The pancreas specimens were divided into five groups (four pancreas specimens ) according to cadaver age ranging from 2170 years, to five groups : group A (21-30 years), group B (31-40 years), group C (41-50 years) ,group D (51-60) and group E (61-70). The pancreas were inspected grossly for their shape and Location. The morphometrics of pancreas in the present study was 20.3±2.3 (cm) as a maximum mean length in group B and 15.6±0.9 (cm) as a minimum mean length in group E. The weight of pancreas in this study a maximum mean weight in group B was 122.41±0.27 (gm) and minimum mean weight in group E was 75.52±0.28(gm). Microscopically, pancreatic section showed that, the pancreas was covered by a thin fibrocollagenous connective tissue capsule from which septa extend into the gland dividing it into lobules. Nerves and blood vessels extended within the septa, the lobules contain exocrine tissue and endocrine tissue . Diameter of pancreatic acini ranged from 49±15 (μm) in head region of group B to 11±2 (μm) in the tail region of group E . The diameter of Islet of Langerhans ranged from 102±2 (μm) in head region of group B to 48±15(μm) in the tail region of group E, thickness of pancreatic septa in the head was 86±3 (μm) as a maximum value in group E and in the tail was 36±5 (μm) as a minimum value in group A . Kirkuk University Journal /Scientific Studies (KUJSS) Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2016 , p.p(104-113) ISSN 1992 – 0849 Web Site: www.kujss.com Email: firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com 105 In addition, an ultrasonographic pancreas gland inspection were performed on forty volunteers who were similarly divided according to age into five groups (eight individuals for each), according to age, the ultrasound inspection concerned with length and width of gland . The results showed that the age have a reliable degeneration effect specially after 40 years old, other further investigation on different population and further tools help to show more details about age related changes.


The limited viewing access and asymmetric D-shaped plasmas on DIII-D make millimeter-wave reflectometry an attractive diagnostic for density profile and fluctuation measurements. For a reflectometer the Abel inversion of the phase information is performed along the line of sight, so only a single viewing chord, and no symmetry assumption, is required for density profile measurements. The quantity required for the profile determination is a measure of the propagation delay (phase or time) to the cutoff layer and back, either continuously or at several points on the density profile. In its final form the reflectometer system for DIII-D will be composed of two independent reflectometers; a seven channel narrowband reflectometer for density profile and fluctuation measurements, primarily in the plasma edge region, and a broadband reflectometer for full density profile measurements. Laboratory testing of the broadband system is nearly complete, and we are aiming for installation on DIII-D in early 1989. In this paper we will restrict our attention to some of the results which have been obtained with the narrowband reflectometer. 7 refs., 4 figs.


The production, consumption, and distribution of contemporary Ethiopian music has thus far remained largely unexplored, although it is an important part of the urban Ethiopian public sphere. This study explores themes dominant in the music scene of Ethiopia in 2016, in which musicians explore ideas central to Ethiopian socio-political and economic life. The subversive nature of Ethiopian music, its presentation of characteristic topics of urban life, its aesthetic power, and the prominence it gives to important themes such as citizenship, nationalism, and identity are all investigated in this article. The study examines the influence music has had on bringing Ethiopians together in the face of a divisive political landscape, and as ultimately having played a critical role in the political changes the country witnessed in 2018.


Introduction: the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. The clinical presentation and severity of the disease has been described from its most typical symptoms, the common cold, pneumonia and respiratory distress syndrome, to the involvement of other organs and systems such such as the gastrointestinal, renal and cardiovascular.
Case report: we describe the first case of COVID-19 diagnosed in Cartagena, Colombia, on March 11, 2020, and its uncommon clinic presentation, which was almost unknown at the time. An 85-year-old woman with week-long initial symptoms of nausea and occasional vomiting, with progression to diarrhea and a 38.5 oC fever during the last three days. The patient came from Oxford, UK, and she had been on a Caribbean cruise excursion since the end of February, 2020. Chest computed tomography showed ground glass opacities in both peripheral and central lung fields, multilobar and predominantly subpleural; without evidence of consolidation or pleural effusion. COVID-19 was confirmed three days after admission, when a RT-PCR molecular test performed on a nasopharyngeal swab sample tested positive for SARS-Cov-2
Conclusion: this first case of COVID-19 diagnosed in Cartagena occurred at a time when our health system was not prepared to face the pandemic. However, despite having manifested with a clinical that had not been described at the time, and thanks to the epidemiological, clinical and imaging data, the case could be adequately approached, diagnosed and treated according to the necessary and recommended measures at the time.


4120 NNMT is a methytransferase catalyzing N-methylation of nicotinamide and other structural analogs. Its expression is enhanced in many papillary thyroid cancers and cell lines and activated by HNF-1β. The function of NNMT and HNF-1β in the papillary cancer cells that express them is unclear. It was reported recently that inhibition of HNF-1β expression caused apoptosis in ovarian clear cell cancer. Depsipeptide is a histone deacetylase inhibitor. It causes cell cycle arrest, differentiation and/or apoptosis of cancer cells. In this project, we studied the effects of depsipeptide on NNMT gene expression. Treating BHP 18-21 papillary thyroid cancer cells with depsipeptide reduced NNMT mRNA and protein levels and NNMT catalytic activity. The reduction was dose-dependent. In contrast, expression of the sodium iodide symporter, a gene for differentiated function, was enhanced in the treated cells. To study the mechanism of the depsipeptide-mediated NNMT gene repression, NNMT promoter activity in the presence of depsipeptide was determined by luciferase reporter gene assay. NNMT promoter activity was significantly reduced in the HNF-1β positive BHP 18-21 cells, but was not reduced in the HNF-1β negative BHP 14-9 papillary cancer cells. A mutant reporter construct with mutations in a HNF-1 binding site in the NNMT basal promoter region did not respond to depsipeptide in both HNF-1β positive and negative cells. Further study showed that depsipeptide reduced HNF-1β mRNA and protein levels as well as reducing binding to its target in the NNMT promoter region. The results of this study indicate that depsipeptide represses NNMT and HNF-1β gene expression. The repression of NNMT is at least partially through down-regulation of HNF-1β. Based on the fact that expression of many cancer related genes is down-regulated by depsipeptide, we propose that NNMT and HNF-1β may be involved in a cancer related function in some papillary thyroid cancers.


In order to explore the potential impact of novel command and control configurations, it is useful to have some means of extrapolating from existing systems and comparing the outcome of change from existing to novel systems. By taking a 'systems' view of operations, it is possible to consider the impact of reconfiguration upon the performance of the system and upon the agents operating within the system. The aim of the WESTT analytical prototyping tool is to support systems analysis and to allow the analyst to explore the impact of reconfiguration through the manipulation of models. In this paper we describe the underlying approach behind the tool which emphasises taking multiple perspectives (task/social network/knowledge network) with regard to the activity being analysed and we describe the functionality of the present version of the software.


From the proton NMR spectra of Nfl-dimethyluracil oriented in two different nematic solvents, the internal rotation of the methyl groups about the N-C bonds is studied. It has been observed that the preferred conformation of the methyl group having one carbonyl in the vicinity is the one where a C-H bond is in the ring plane pointing toward the carbonyl group. The results are not sensitive to the mode of rotation of the
other methyl group. These data are interpreted in terms of the bond polarizations.


A simple Pd/Cu-catalyzed borylation of allenylic carbonates with B2Pin2 was developed using a cheap P(OEt)3 ligand. Under mild neutral conditions, 2-boryl 1,3-butadienes were obtained selectively in moderate to high yields. Furthermore, the use of different diboron reagents was also feasible in the reaction.


DRUG DELIVERY
Several particle-coating methods have been developed for time-released drug delivery, but few have been tested under in vivo conditions. Recently, two groups have subjected their delivery systems to some of these conditions. Qui et al. encapsulated micrometer-sized ibuprofen crystals through repeated adsorption of oppositely charged biocompatible polysaccharides. The polymer coating delayed ibuprofen release at pH 1.4 (representative of gastric fluid) but did not significantly affect release at pH 7.4 (similar to intestinal pH). Marinakos et al. used gold colloidal particles to support small molecules or enzymes. Conductive polymer coatings were formed in situ without altering the biomolecules, and then the colloidal core was dissolved away. The addition of counterions was shown to influence the diffusion rate of the encapsulated small molecules, and coated enzymes showed greater resistance to harsh solvents. When generated in this fashion, poly(pyrrole) capsules 25 to 100 nm in diameter were absorbed by mouse fibroblasts without compromising cell viability. — MSL

Langmuir , 10.1021/la010201w; J. Phys. Chem. B . 10.1021/jp010820d.


With the growing number of grid connected solar farms, management of power quality has become an important task for the proponents of such solar farms and the network owners and operators. One major concern is the harmonic compliance at their Point of Connection, particularly at low order harmonics up to the 50th considering relatively low switching frequencies (e.g. 3 kHz) of the large inverters used in these solar farms. Norton/Thevenin models are commonly used as inverter harmonic models to determine the harmonics injected into the grid. Employing software models of inverters and their control systems, harmonic injection method is widely used to determine the parameters of these Norton/Thevenin models at specific harmonic frequencies of interest, as an alternative to experimental determination of such parameters. This paper gives a methodology for the determination of these parameters mathematically using the details of the inverters and the control system thus making the approach attractive in comparison to harmonic injection method. It has been found that the Norton/Thevenin model parameters determined using the described theoretical approach is comparable to those determined using the harmonic injection method.


We study the problem of information sharing and cooperation in Multi-Player Multi-Armed bandits. We propose the first algorithm that achieves logarithmic regret for this problem when the collision reward is unknown. Our results are based on two innovations. First, we show that a simple modification to a successive elimination strategy can be used to allow the players to estimate their suboptimality gaps, up to constant factors, in the absence of collisions. Second, we leverage the first result to design a communication protocol that successfully uses the small reward of collisions to coordinate among players, while preserving meaningful instance-dependent logarithmic regret guarantees.


The paper presents a new test vector generator construction technique for built-in self-test (BIST). The technique is based on the cellular automata model nonuniform cellular automata (NUCA). In NUCA, cell neighbourhoods are not predefined but decided for each cell dynamically by the test vector set. The problem of finding the minimum NUCA topology that can generate a given precomputed test vector sequence is worked on and reduced to independent set-covering problems. Also, a polynomial time algorithm that decides on a small, but not minimal, cellular topology is introduced. Simulations using benchmark circuits showed that the hardware component cost of a test vector generator based on the NUCA model is considerably less than the cost of a single programmable logic array (PLA) approach.


[1] We present a statistical study of approximately 40 Pi1B events, using data gathered from an induction coil magnetometer array located in Svalbard, Norway, showing good alignment along the magnetic meridian: Hornsund (corrected geomagnetic (CG) latitude = 74.23° magnetic latitude (MLAT), magnetic local time (MLT) midnight = 21:01), Longyearbyen (CG latitude = 75.29° MLAT, MLT midnight = 20:50), and Ny Alesund (CG latitude = 76.30° MLAT, MLT midnight = 20:56). We find that average attenuation across the 0.001–1.0 Hz bandwidth is in the range of 30–37 dB/1000 km but that attenuation is not independent of frequency. The nonlinear dependence of attenuation on frequency is most pronounced for sunlit events, and the complexity is expected to result from a mixing of ducted and direct Pi1B signals.


Synthesis of monodispersed nanostructures would be attractive if the synthesis is simple, one step and cost effective. In this work, an eco-friendly approach for the synthesis of ZnO nanostructures using the aqueous extract of pomegranate peel has been described. ZnO nanoflakes were formed initially upon 15 min sunlight irradiation of an aqueous solution of Zn acetate in the presence of pomegranate peel extract. We observed that the nanoflakes formed are converted to ZnO nanopencils upon mild heating. The nanopencils have been characterized by diffused reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, photoluminescence spectroscopy, FT-Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Furthermore, we examined the photocatalytic activity of the ZnO nanopencils and compared the performance with commercial ZnO and TiO2 (P25) nanoparticles towards the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue under direct sunlight irradiation. The total carbon removal efficiency of the ZnO nanopencils for methylene blue is 95% which was achieved by 4.5 h.


Due to its improved physical and chemical performances, a strongly hydrogenated TiO2 was designed and produced successfully by using a sealing-transfer reduction method at a relatively low temperature (425 °C). The microstructures, electromagnetic and microwave absorbing properties were investigated in detail. Experimental results revealed that: (1) the minimum reflection loss (RL) value of the hydrogenated TiO2 up to −53.8 dB (99.999 99% of EM wave attenuation) was reached at 11.2 GHz, and the RL values below −20 dB (99%) were obtained in a frequency range of 7.3–16.8 GHz. (2) Compared to pristine TiO2 and black TiO2 in other reports, the present hydrogenated TiO2 exhibited greatly improved microwave absorption performance. Moreover, the mechanism was also discussed. It was demonstrated that the excellent microwave absorption performance of the black TiO2 arose from the strong dielectric loss, excellent impedance matching and attention loss due to associated relaxation and interfacial polarization. It is expected that the hydrogenated TiO2 exhibits great potential applications in the area of high performance microwave absorbing materials. In addition, it is believed that the black TiO2 @ magnetic metals composites will display an excellent microwave absorbing property.


Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly capable and prevalent, and can be used to produce creative content. The quality of content is influenced by the prompt used, with more specific prompts that incorporate examples generally producing better results. On from this, it could be seen that using instructions written for crowdsourcing tasks (that are specific and include examples to guide workers) could prove effective LLM prompts. To explore this, we used a previous crowdsourcing pipeline that gave examples to people to help them generate a collectively diverse corpus of motivational messages. We then used this same pipeline to generate messages using GPT-4, and compared the collective diversity of messages from: (1) crowd-writers, (2) GPT-4 using the pipeline, and (3&4) two baseline GPT-4 prompts. We found that the LLM prompts using the crowdsourcing pipeline caused GPT-4 to produce more diverse messages than the two baseline prompts. We also discuss implications from messages generated by both human writers and LLMs.


So-called linear rank statistics provide a means for distribution-free (even in finite samples), yet highly flexible, two-sample testing in the setting of univariate random variables. Their flexibility derives from a choice of weights that can be adapted to any given (simple) alternative hypothesis to achieve efficiency in case of correct specification of said alternative, while their non-parametric nature guarantees well-calibrated $p$-values even under misspecification. By drawing connections to (generalized) maximum likelihood estimation, and expanding on recent work on ranks in multiple dimensions, we extend linear rank statistics both to multivariate random variables and composite alternatives. Doing so yields non-parametric, multivariate two-sample tests that mirror efficiency properties of likelihood ratio tests, while remaining robust against model misspecification and computationally tractable. We prove non-parametric versions of the classical Wald and score tests facilitating hypothesis testing in the asymptotic regime, and relate these generalized linear rank statistics to linear spacing statistics enabling exact $p$-value computations in the small to moderate sample setting. Moreover, viewing rank statistics through the lens of likelihood ratios affords applications beyond fully efficient two-sample testing, of which we demonstrate three: testing in the presence of nuisance alternatives, simultaneous detection of location and scale shifts, and $K$-sample testing.


A rewinding, productivity, and excellent in efficiency of working space, provision of OETO (over-end-take-off) unwinding elastomeric yarn using the method apparatus and method rewound by it. And A Motohara yarn package 4, a pre-package 1, fixed guide and a 6, wherein the fixed guide 6 and the distance d between the facing surface center of the yarn package 4 is 25cm~38cm range, and wherein the distance R between the facing surface center and the opposite surface center of the preliminary package 1 of the yarn package 4 towards the fixed guide 6 is in the range of 25Cm~50cm. .FIELD 1


Effective monitoring of the current situation and change of vegetation contamination has become an application of the space remote sensing technology. The long-term exploitation of mines at Baiyin city, which is located in the typical vegetation-cover area, has led to the natural ecological environment of Baiyin very fragile. The object of present study is to investigate the vegetation contamination caused by exploit mineral resources using remote sensing technique, and confirmed that the feasibility of using remote sensing technology to monitor the vegetation contamination surrounding the mineral resources. The extraction of vegetation growth status in minerals areas is carried out by using multispectral remote sensing data (or images), we use the methods of density slice based on vegetation-greenness of rotating planar scanner plots in this study. In the end of the study, we provides some countermeasures and advises in the face of existing environment problems, in the hope of offer the available technology procedure and work ideas to other areas which are fit for remote sensing.


ABSTRACT Following recent debates on the relationship between "God," "ethics," and issues of "social justice" within sporting locales, this article contends that Christian ethics and the biblical mandate of social justice have important contributions to make to broader understandings of sport and sport ethics. The aim of the article is to: (a) map the emergence of the concept of social justice within academic, social, and political discourse; (b) examine the metaphysical anchors of sport ethics; (c) explore how a Christian framework of metaphysics might be understood within sport and sport ethics; and (d) highlight how key dimensions of the sporting experience, i.e., play and embodiment, might impact theological understandings of ethics and social justice. The article concludes by suggesting that a Christian metaphysical vision has much to offer in reforming sport by grounding it within a Trinitarian theology, borne out of a biblical description of a perfectly "just," Creator God.


We present a routing algorithm for the Θ4-graph that computes a path between any two vertices s and t having length at most 17 times the Euclidean distance between s and t. To compute this path, at each step, the algorithm only uses knowledge of the location of the current vertex, its (at most four) outgoing edges, the destination vertex, and one additional bit of information in order to determine the next edge to follow. This provides the first known online, local, competitive routing algorithm with constant routing ratio for the Θ4-graph, as well as improving the best known upper bound on the spanning ratio of these graphs from 237 to 17. We also show that without this additional bit of information, the routing ratio increases to 290 ≈ 17.03.


Thermal energy storage (TES) systems store a sizeable quantity of "cool" thermal energy that helps meet the cooling load of a building. A typical system of TES consists of a large vessel filled with water or brine that may contain multiple small containers such as encapsulated bricks or balls, that filled with a fluid. TES system can save energy in several ways, compared to conventional chillers.
Nighttime chillers operation takes advantage of lower dry-bulb temperatures (for air-cooled condensers) or
moderately lower wet-bulb (for water-cooled condenser)
temperatures relative to daytime values, which also reduce
chiller to lift. Since the thermal energy system has a great benefit for saving the energy, it is very interesting to adopt this system into the split unit air conditioning for getting a low power consumption. It is found that the electrical consumption of this system can reduce up to 70% by comparing to conventional split unit air conditioning with the same capacity. The Coefficient of Performance (COP) of this system is almost twice higher than the conventional one, which is in a range of 5.491 – 5.89 as 3.05 – 3.24 for
conventional split unit.


Background: Fabry's disease is an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder characterised by deficient activity of the enzyme α-galactosidase A. Aim: To study eye abnormalities in patients with Fabry's disease in the Fabry Outcome Survey (FOS). Methods: This is the largest study of ocular manifestations in patients with Fabry's disease. In all, 173 of the 688 patients enrolled in FOS underwent a detailed ophthalmic examination, with a special focus on abnormalities of the cornea, lens, conjunctival and retinal vessels. Results: Cornea verticillata was reported in 76.9% of females and 73.1% of males; vessel tortuosity was observed in 21.9% of females and in 48.7% of males. Fabry cataract was recorded in 9.8% of females and in 23.1% of males. Cornea verticillata was therefore the most frequently reported ophthalmic abnormality in Fabry's disease in both hemizygotic males and heterozygotic females. Tortuous conjunctival and retinal vessels and Fabry cataract were more frequently found in males than in females. Vessel tortuosity was more frequently observed in patients with a higher severity score and greater impairment of renal and cardiac function, suggesting that it may be associated with a more severe disease. The youngest patient with ocular changes was 3 years old. The prevalence of tortuous vessels in males increased with age. Conclusion: The presence of cornea verticillata is a useful aid in the diagnosis of Fabry's disease, as it is often present at the time of diagnosis. Vessel tortuosity may have some predictive value for systemic involvement.


We use the notation of Kripke's paper [1]. Let M = (G, K, R) be a tree structure and D a domain and η a Beth model on M. The truth conditions of the Beth semantics for ∨ and ∃ are (see [1]): (a) η (A ∨ B, H) = T iff for some B ⊆ K, B bars H and for each H′ ∈ B, either η(A, H′) = T or η(B, H′) = T. (b) η(∃xA(x), H) = T iff for some B ⊆ K, B bars H and for each H′ ∈ B there exists an a ∈ D such that η(A (a), H′) = T. Suppose we change the truth definition η to η* by replacing condition (b) by the condition (b*) (well known from the Kripke interpretation): Call this type of interpretation the new version of Beth semantics. We prove Theorem 1. Intuitionistic predicate logic is complete for the new version of the Beth semantics. Since Beth structures are of constant domains, and in the new version of Beth semantics the truth conditions for ∧, →, ∃, ∀, ¬ are the same as for the Kripke interpretation, we get: Corollary 2. The fragment without disjunction of the logic CD of constant domains (i.e. with the additional schema ∀x(A ∨ B(x))→ A ∨ ∀xB(x), x not free in A) equals the fragment without disjunction of intuitionistice logic.


This paper describes a lighting technique which enables us to invisibly attach information onto a real object by using illumination light and to extract the information from a video image of the object captured with a video camera. A temporally and spatially color-intensity modulation embeds information into a color component of the light beam. First, we assessed the invisibility to the human eye of the information attached onto a real object visible to the human eye. The experiments showed an upper limit value of modulation amplitude that satisfied invisibility for each color component. The experiment results revealed that the blue color component had a much higher degree of invisibility than the red and green components. We also examined the readability of the information attached to the object with a video camera when the information was embedded in the blue color component of the light beam. The experimental results showed a lower limit value of modulation amplitude that satisfied readability. The experimental results showed the range of modulation amplitude of intensity in the blue color that satisfied the invisibility and readability of the information attached to the object. The results of our experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed technique.


Abstract The study examined the relationship between climate variability and livestock production and the lessons that can be drawn for achieving sustainable livestock production in Nigeria. The study employed time series data on annual rainfall and livestock production given by index of the aggregate livestock production over the period of 1970 to 2008. The data were obtained from various publications of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Meteorological Agency. The data were analyzed through the instrumentality of econometric tools such as Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test, Vector auto regression (VAR) lag order selection test and Pairwise granger causality. The results of the data analysis revealed the existence of unidirectional causality from climate variability to livestock production in Nigeria and this implies that climate variability has been significant in influencing livestock production over the period under study. Based on the foregoing, it is recommended as a matter of urgency that government should continually sensitize farmers on the challenges of climate change and feasible adaptation measures that they can adhere to in order to avert the detrimental effects of climate change on sustainable livestock production. In other words, implementation of the policy thrust on climate smart agriculture should be pursued vigorously.


Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a mutual contract between service provider and consumer upon quality of service in cloud computing. A self-healing framework is unavoidable to monitor the agreed services and react against any probable SLA violation. Some SLA-based self-healing frameworks are presented but the rate of SLA violations is significantly high. Current SLA structure is not adapted for the hierarchical nature of SLAs in cloud computing. The response time of SLA monitoring systems also are not fast enough for early violation detection, and consuming a high overhead cost for bandwidth, CPU and memory consumption in both server and virtual machine sides. High reaction time for recovering violated services is also a considerate issue in this matter. Consequently, cloud consumers faced significant number of SLA violations in their services. The critical literature review conducted by this study highlighted the mentioned problem statements in detail. In this study, an extended SLA is proposed to fulfill the hierarchical structure of SLAs in cloud computing. The objective of self-monitoring SLA is mainly to reduce the monitoring response time and overhead. A self-healing framework is also proposed to reduce the reviving time for violated services. The proposed framework is developed based on self-monitoring SLA as to reduce the rate of SLA violations. The self-healing framework is evaluated by two different experiment scenarios in cloud computing. The proposed self-monitoring SLA and LoM2HiS, as a related work, are developed in the first experiment. Both of monitoring systems are executed to monitor virtual machines based on predefined SLA with the number of virtual machines increases from 1 to 4 units. The response time, bandwidth, CPU and memory consumption of monitoring systems are recorded and observed at run time. As for the second experiment, SLA1 and SLA2 are defined for hMailServer and SQL Database services respectively while SLA1 is depended on SLA2. The proposed selfhealing framework and three other alternative works are developed to keep hMailServer and SQL Server available. The implemented frameworks are executed in described scenario for 20 minutes and every 5 minutes an intrusion attack applied to stop SQL service. The reaction speed and the rate of SLA violation are measured in this experiment for results comparison. The response time of self-monitoring SLA is recorded to be seven times less than LoM2HiS. The average reviving time in self-healing framework is recorded to be two times lesser than developed related work based on LoM2HiS. The self-healing SLA also decreased the number of SLA violations. Therefore, the proposed self-healing framework is proven to reduce the overhead of SLA monitoring and the number of SLA violations in cloud computing. The proposed system has also been executed in real environment for validation purposes.


The most common building material for the construction of infrastructures such as buildings, roads, bridges and dams is reinforced concrete. This construction material utilizes concrete and steel as tension reinforcement. Concrete is relatively weak in tension, thus steel is needed to provide tension strength in concrete .For the past century, steel has been the material of choice to improve the compressive and flexure strength of concrete which are extremely essential in the construction of infrastructures. But steel, which is basically an iron ore, is a non-renewable resource. In addition, steel, though an excellent construction material, is quite expensive. The problem of availability of steel especially in rural areas is also a concern for constructors of infrastructures. Due to these pressing problems of steel's high cost, non-renewability and availability in far-flung areas of the country, our National Government main thrust of renewed construction boom might experience another downtrend. This study endeavored to provide an alternative to steel as reinforcement for concrete construction by introducing indigenous bamboo as concrete reinforcement. Bamboo is known as a high strength material. It has been utilized in the construction of many time enduring structures. Its compressive strength may reach up to 8000 pounds per square inch (psi) and its tension strength may reach up to 18,000 psi. The only concern is that it is an organic material thus the possibility of decomposition. Seasoning and treatment of bamboo is therefore necessary to preserve or improve its strength. In this study, three (3) chemical treatments applied to bamboo are studied to characterize its effect in the structural strength of reinforced concrete. These are formalin, borax and paint. To determine the effect of chemically treated bamboo as reinforcement, four mixtures of concrete were designed. These are the following: Control mixture (no bamboo reinforcement); Concrete reinforced with formalin treated bamboo; Concrete reinforced with borax treated bamboo; Concrete reinforced with paint treated bamboo. A total of twelve (12) concrete cylinder specimens for ASTM compression test and twelve (12) beam specimens for ASTM flexure test were prepared. The results of the test indicated that chemically treated bamboo significantly improved the strength of ordinary concrete. The best treatment of bamboo producing the highest strength in the specimens is borax. Borax treated bamboo increased the compression strength of ordinary concrete by 27% and increased the flexure strength of ordinary concrete by 166%. The study also showed that utilizing chemically treated bamboo (borax treated) as reinforcement for concrete instead of steel yields a 95% savings (P 288) in material and freight costs.


In this paper a pattern-based stochastic simulation method is presented to model 2D and 3D heterogeneous reservoirs. The method uses a spatial template to extract information in the form of patterns from a training image; i.e., a prior representation of the reservoir. The patterns are grouped into a pattern database and are classified to reduce the computational time. The classification algorithm proposed consists of reducing the dimension of spatial patterns and performing a class centers selection in the lower dimensional space. Conditional and unconditional simulations of reservoir channels are presented. The method is compared with the Filtersim method. Results show that the proposed method is better at producing the multipoint configurations and the main characteristics of the reference images including continuity of channels, and it is very stable with respect to the number of classes and spatial templates used in the simulations.


Background: National Lung Screening Trial (NSLT) reported screening with low-dose CT could reduce mortality from lung cancer. Breath analysis such as canine scent, electronic nose and ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) could detect volatile organic compounds (VOC). Objectives: To detect specific VOC peaks in lung cancer then compare lung cancer and healthy subjects. Methods: IMS coupled to a multi-capillary column (MCC/IMS) (BioScout: B&S Analytik, Dortmund, Germany) with a 95MBq β-radiation source was used to detect VOC peaks. For the Japanese market, regulations restrict 63Ni β-radiation sources to under 100MBq. Exhaled breath samples were collected at quite breathing in 30 patients with lung cancer and 13 healthy volunteers. Peaks were characterized using Visual Now 2.2 software (B&S Analytik, Dortmund, Germany). Results: Patients included 17 adenocarcinoma, 3 squamous cell carcinoma, 6 small cell carcinoma and 4 unclassified carcinoma. Forty-seven VOC peaks were detected and 10 VOC peaks showed significant differences between lung cancer and healthy volunteers (p Conclusions: IMS using 95MBq β-radiation source is a feasible screening test in the detection of lung cancer. In the future, IMS may detect histological types of lung cancer and molecular mutation.


The allure of emerging AI technologies is undoubtedly thrilling. However, the promise that AI technologies will benefit all of humanity is empty so long as we lack a nuanced understanding of what humanity is supposed to be in the face of widening global inequality and pressing existential threats. Going forward, it is crucial to invest in rigorous and collaborative AI safety and ethics research. We also need to develop standards in a sustainable and equitable way that differentiate between merely speculative and well-researched questions. Only the latter enable us to co-construct and deploy the values that are necessary for creating beneficial AI. Failure to do so could result in a future in which our AI technological advancements outstrip our ability to navigate their ethical and social implications. This path we do not want to go down.


In Egypt, concentrated wet-process phosphoric acid is produced from phosphate concentrate by the conventional dihydrate process in which phosphate concentrate leached with sulfuric and weak phosphoric acids. It is an important intermediate product for production of phosphatic fertilizers. The produced acid contains iron ranging from 2.0 % to 4.0 % Fe2O3 as inorganic impurity and 48% P2O5. Ion-exchange method is used to reduce the concentration of ferric ions content. Ferric ions affect the quality of produced fertilizers as they combine with P2O5 and form insoluble compounds. Decreasing Fe2O3 content to less than 1.0% was achieved by reaction of fertilizer-grade phosphoric acid with strong acid cation exchanger (Dowex-50). The following optimum reaction conditions were determined: 30°C reaction temperature, 30 min. raction time, 1.25 weight ratio of cation-exchange resin to acid and 28 % P2O5 from acid concentration. These conditions lead to removal of 80.3 % from Fe2O3 in the treated acid. Reduction of ferric ions to ferrous ions is a must for higher Fe2O3 removal efficiency. Also, regeneration conditions of loaded resin were systematically studied.


Background:To investigate whether a lower-end calibration error check alone can identify a Goldmann applanation tonometer (GAT) with acceptable calibration error as per Asia-Pacific Glaucoma Society (APGS) and World Glaucoma Association (WGA) guidelines. Methods:This was a multicentric prospective study in a tertiary eye-care institutional setting. Seventy-six slit-lamp–mounted Haag-Streit GATs (Model AT 900 C/M) were included in the study. All GATs were checked for calibration error at 0, 20, and 60 mm Hg testing levels as recommended by the manufacturer. The ability of 2 screening criteria (calibration error within ±1 or ±2 mm Hg, respectively, at the 0 mm Hg testing level without using the calibration error check weight bar) to identify a tonometer within acceptable calibration limits defined by APGS (calibration error within ±2, ±3, and ±4 mm Hg at 0, 20, and 60 mm Hg testing levels, respectively) and WGA (calibration error within ±1 mm Hg at all testing levels) was determined. Main Outcome Measure:The negative likelihood ratio of the screening criteria Results:Five (6.6%) and 42 (55%) GATs were outside of the APGS and the WGA calibration limits, respectively. Negative likelihood ratios of the first and the second screening criteria at the APGS definition of calibration error tolerance were 0.11 and 0.25, respectively, and at that of the WGA definition of calibration error tolerance were 0.38 and 0.90, respectively. Conclusions:The screening criteria of calibration error within ±1 mm Hg at the 0 mm Hg testing level seem to be clinically useful to detect GAT with an acceptable calibration error as per the APGS guideline.


Existing research in firm internationalization tends to adopt the perspective of relatively fixed country specific advantages and disadvantages. However, firms operating from small developing countries may experience rapidly shifting country-specific advantages due to industrial policy interventions. These changes influence the internal configuration and, ultimately, the internationalization paths of firms, a factor that is not captured by current theory. Using a combination of a country case study and nested multiple firm cases, data were collected on how organizations internationalized from Trinidad and Tobago, a small developing country. Unlike the relatively deterministic outward patterns predicted by existing theories, analysis revealed both evolutionary and co-evolutionary trajectories of development. These outcomes suggest that as a country moves to more open economic environment, network connections in the form of supplier and institutional relationships are of increased value for firms seeking to enter external markets.


Riparian buffer systems (RBS) are a common agroforestry practice that consists of keeping a forested boundary adjacent to water bodies in agricultural landscapes, thus helping to protect aquatic ecosystems from adverse impacts. Nevertheless, despite the multiple benefits they provide, RBSs can be hotspots of methane emissions since abundant organic carbon and high-water tables are often found in these soils. In southern Ontario, Canada, the rehabilitation of Washington Creek's streambank occurred in 1985. In a recent study, methane (CH4) fluxes were measured biweekly for two years (2017-2018) in four different vegetative riparian areas alongside Washington creek: a rehabilitated tree buffer (RH), a grassed buffer (GRB), an undisturbed deciduous forest (UNF), an undisturbed coniferous forest (CF), and an adjacent agricultural field (AGR) for comparison. Based on methane fluxes in 2018 and hot moments identified, we selected two dates from summer (July 04 and August 15) and use soil sampling from those days to assess the CH4 cycling microbial communities in these RBS. We used qPCR and high-throughput sequencing from both DNA and cDNA to measure the diversity and activity of the methanogen and methanotroph communities. Methanogens were abundant in all riparian soils, including the archaeal genera Methanosaeta, Methanosarcina, Methanomassiliicoccus Methanoreggula, but they were mostly active in UNF soils. Among methanotrophs, Methylocystis was the most abundant taxon in all the riparian sites, except for AGR soils where the methanotrophs community mostly comprised members of rice paddy clusters (RPCs and RPC-1) and upland soil clusters (TUSC and USCα). In summary, these results indicate that differences in CH4 fluxes between RBS at Washington creek are influenced by differences in the presence and activity of methanogens, which were higher in the deciduous forest (UNF) soils during hot moments CH4 flux, likely due to high water content in that soils.


Speckle noise is the most prevalent noise in clinical ultrasound images. It visibly looks like light and dark spots and deduce the pixel intensity as murkiest. Gazing at fetal ultrasound images, the impact of edge and local fine details are more palpable for obstetricians and gynecologists to carry out prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease. A robust despeckling filter has to be contrived to proficiently suppress speckle noise and simultaneously preserve the features. The proposed filter is the generalization of Rayleigh maximum likelihood filter by the exploitation of statistical tools as tuning parameters and use different shapes of quadrilateral kernels to estimate the noise free pixel from neighborhood. The performance of various filters namely Median, Kuwahura, Frost, Homogenous mask filter and Rayleigh maximum likelihood filter are compared with the proposed filter in terms PSNR and image profile. Comparatively the proposed filters surpass the conventional filters.


This paper proposes a Multi-Level Sampling (MLS) approach for continuous Loss of Self-Similarity (LoSS) detection using iterative window. The method defines LoSS based on Second Order Self-Similarity (SOSS) statistical model. The Optimization Method (OM) is used to estimate self-similarity parameter since it is fast and more accurate in comparison with other estimation methods known in the literature. Probability of LoSS detection is introduced to measure continuous LoSS detection performance. The proposed method has been tested with real Internet traffic simulation dataset. The results demonstrate that normal traces have probability of LoSS detection below the threshold at all sampling levels. Meanwhile, false positive detection can occur where abnormal traces have probability of LoSS that imitates normal behavior at sampling levels below 100 ms. However, the LoSS probability exceeds the threshold at sampling levels larger than 100 ms. Our results show the possibility of detecting anomaly traffic behavior based on obtaining continuous LoSS detection monitoring.


Background In contrast to cutaneous vasculitis, the morphology of which is well known, that of peripheral nerve lesions in HCV-positive mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC) patients are still under debate.1,2 Objectives To evaluate the pathological processes underlying the peripheral nerve damage in HCV-infected patients, with and without MC. Methods From 14 HCV-infected patients (10 with MC and 4 without), all with clinically peripheral neuropathy, a sural nerve biopsy was obtained. Diseases other than HCV infection were excluded. The tissue samples were processed according to standard methods to perform morphologic and morphometric evaluation, on light and electronmicroscopic study. An immunohistochemical evaluation was carried out using labelled antisera against immunoglobulins (IgA, IgG, IgM), complement proteins (C1q, C3, terminal complex C5–9), and cellular antigens (CD3, CD11a-b-c, CD20, CD45, CD68). Results In all nerve biopsies an axonal involvement without a distinctive vasculitis was found. Scarce perivascular infiltration by monuclear cells was observed, particularly around perineural blood vessels; extravasation of red cells was also found in the endoneurial vessels. Immunohistochemical study pointed out deposits of immunoglobulins and complement in sub-perineurial vessels, and infiltrations by mononuclear cells, mainly macrophages and CD4 T cells. Demyelinating neuropathy was only observed in patients without MC. Conclusion Our data suggest that in HCV-infected patients different physiopathological processes are involved in induction of peripheral nerve damage. A potential direct pathogenic role of HCV should be investigated. References Bonetti B, et al. J Neuroimmunol. 1997;73:145 Bonetti B, et al. Virchows Arch. 1999;434:533


A new class of solar energy converters is described, based on photon-enhanced thermionic emission of electrons into a vacuum region between two electrodes. In contrast to conventional thermionic converters, the two electrodes are at the same temperature, and the cathode is side-illuminated rather than front-illuminated. This configuration leads to several advantages: close coupling of multiple units in a series connection high-voltage configuration; higher area for electron emission; and recovery of waste heat at a higher temperature compared to heat recovery from the anode of a conventional thermionic converter. The conversion efficiency from solar radiation to electricity of the new photo-thermionic device may be in the range of 30-40% at moderate operation temperatures and moderate concentration of the incident sunlight.


We address the issue of accuracy in recovering density profiles from observations of rotation curves of galaxies. We "observe" and analyze our models in much the same way as observers do the real galaxies. Our models include stellar disks, disks with bars, and small bulges. We find that the tilted-ring model analysis produces an underestimate of the central rotational velocity. In some cases the galaxy halo density profile seems to have a flat core, while in reality it does not. We identify three effects that explain the systematic biases: inclination, small bulge, and bar. Inclination effects are due to the finite thickness of the disk, bar, or bulge. Admixture of a nonrotating bulge component reduces the rotational velocity. A small (200-500 pc) bulge may be overlooked, leading to systematic bias even on relatively large (~1 kpc) distances. In the case of a disk with a bar, the underestimate of the circular velocity is larger because of a combination of noncircular motions and random velocities. The effect of the bar depends on the angle that the bar makes with the line of sight. Signatures of bars can be difficult to detect in the surface brightness profiles of the model galaxies. The variations of inclination angle and isophote position angle with radius are more reliable indicators of bar presence than the surface brightness profiles. The systematic biases in the central ~1 kpc of galaxies are not large. Each effect separately gives typically a few km s-1 error, but the effects add up. In some cases the error in circular velocity was a factor of 2, but typically we get about a 20% effect. The result is the false inference that the density profile of the halo flattens in the central parts. Our observations of real galaxies show that for a large fraction of galaxies the velocity of gas rotation (as measured by emission lines) is very close to the rotation of the stellar component (as measured by absorption lines). This implies that the systematic effects discussed in this paper are also applicable both for the stars and emission-line gas.


In this paper, we introduce a cutting-edge system that leverages state-of-the-art deep learning methodologies to generate high-quality synthetic thermal face images. Our unique approach integrates a thermally fine-tuned Stable Diffusion Model with a Vision Transformer (ViT) classifier, augmented by a Prompt Designer and Prompt Database for precise image generation control. Through rigorous testing across various scenarios, the system demonstrates its capability in producing accurate and superior-quality thermal images. A key contribution of our work is the development of a synthetic thermal face image database, offering practical utility for training thermal detection models. The efficacy of our synthetic images was validated using a facial detection model, achieving results comparable to real thermal face images. Specifically, a detector fine-tuned with real thermal images achieved a 97% accuracy rate when tested with our synthetic images, while a detector trained exclusively on our synthetic data achieved an accuracy of 98%. This research marks a significant advancement in thermal image synthesis, paving the way for its broader application in diverse real-world scenarios.


Summary There is little cytological information for Pistacia species in the literature and they are old or require confirmation. This study aims to adapt a chromosome count procedure for Pistacia species and to determine chromosome numbers of four Pistacia species in root tip cells. Chromosome counts were performed for P. vera L., P. terebinthus L., P. atlantica Desf. and in a new species P. eurycarpa Yalt., which have been characterized at the molecular level. Dehulled Pistacia nuts were stratified and treated with 500 ppm GA3 and then germinated on plates. Growing root tips were used for counting at c-metaphase of mitosis cells. A good chromosome counting procedure was established for Pistacia species that provided well-spread and well-stained chromosome at metaphase of mitosis. Chromosome numbers of all four Pistacia species were found to be 2n = 30. Chromosome numbers of P. atlantica and P. eurycarpa (syn. P. atlantica subsp. kurdica) species are reported here for the first time as 2n = 30. This study provides important information on pistachio cultivars/rootstocks for breeders and cytogeneticists.


Acromelic frontonasal dysostosis (AFND) represents a subgroup of patients with frontonasal malformation with limb abnormalities including preaxial polydactyly and tibial hypoplasia. Previous case reports have suggested autosomal recessive inheritance, given parental consanguinity. However, no affected siblings have been described. Longitudinal clinical history is limited as many do not survive the first years of life. The molecular basis of AFND is not known. Previous investigators have proposed that AFND may result from a perturbation in the Sonic Hedgehog pathway. We present clinical and radiographic findings in two unrelated boys, ages 8 and 9 years, with AFND, one of whom has a family history suggesting dominant inheritance. A focused study of genetic marker data and candidate gene mutation analysis in this family is presented. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Braess's paradox is said to occur in a network if the addition of an extra link leads to worse performance. It has been shown to occur in transportation networks (such as road networks) and also in queueing networks. Here, we show that it can occur in loss networks.


Purpose: This paper aims to assess the impact of contemporary Coronavirus Pandemic on tourism and trade with its potential implications on the Kenyan economy.
Method: The study considered the cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Ebola epidemics to provide an understanding of the possible impacts that the novel coronavirus pandemic could have on the economy.
Results: This study established that the demand and supply shocks of the pandemic will inevitably impact Kenya's economy specifically, the tourism and trade sectors. The Kenyan government has imposed several measures in an attempt to combat the spread of the coronavirus and cushion the country against a possible economic downturn. The study established that the policies imposed have largely focused on demand shock management.
Implications: To effectively minimize the impacts of the pandemic shocks on the economy, it will be prudent for the Kenyan government to design policy responses with a blend of short term and long term orientations. The policies should be multifaceted and their design should involve stakeholders from all the relevant sectors.


The susceptibilities of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) to 17 nucleoside analogs were compared by a plaque reduction assay with human embryonic lung fibroblast cells. The susceptibility of VZV to certain nucleoside analogs was different from that of HSV-1. Against VZV the 5-halogenovinyl-arabinosyluracils were the most potent of the compounds tested.


The durability of mortar coatings is directly linked to their permeability. Crystallization additives have the potential to modify the pore structure and connectivity within the mortar, thereby improving its permeability. These additives serve the dual function of preventing water ingress while allowing water vapor permeability, which is crucial to promote moisture elimination in mortars. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of a crystallization additive in enhancing the water vapor permeability of mortars. For this evaluation, samples with proportions of 1:1 and 1:3 (cement: sand, dry materials, by volume, produced by weight) were prepared with the addition of 0%, 1%, and 3% crystallizer based on the cement mass. These proportions were evaluated over time in both the fresh and hardened states, following the Portuguese standard NP EN 1015-19 for determining the water vapor permeability of hardened plastering mortars. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images were also captured. During the fresh state, the addition of 3% crystallizer impacted the workability of the mortars. However, through rigorous statistical analysis, it was determined that the incorporation of the crystallizing additive in the mortar did not significantly affect its steam permeability. As a result, the additive effectively prevents water from infiltrating and filling the pores of the material. The SEM images depicted the presence of potential crystal formations in the 1:3 mortar mixture containing 3% additive, which underwent wet curing (WC) for 97 days. Moreover, the observed crystallization process facilitated the ability to self-heal a crack, with Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis revealing a predominance of calcium hydroxide particles (Ca(OH)₂). This behavior demonstrates the viability of incorporating this particular additive in coating mortars, introducing a novel approach to these construction systems.


Objective The Nellix EndoVascular Aneurysm Sealing (EVAS) system has offered a novel approach in the treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). While it is currently indicated as a primary procedure in patients with infrarenal AAA with suitable anatomy according to the indications for use, a few studies aimed to address its potential interest in failed endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR). The aim of this systematic review was to analyze the postoperative outcomes of patients with prior EVAR who underwent EVAS. Design of the study A literature search was performed according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines in May 2019 and included patients with prior EVAR who underwent EVAS. The publications had to report at least one of the basic postoperative outcomes (technical success rate, all-cause complications, mortality, length of in-hospital stay, length of stay in intensive care unit, the need of re-intervention). Results Eleven studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria, for a total of 46 patients. EVAS was used to treat endoleaks in 45 cases (97.8%): 29 type Ia endoleaks (63%), 6 type IIIa endoleaks (13%), and 10 type IIIb endoleaks (21.7%). Standard EVAS procedure was performed in 21 patients (45.7%), and 25 patients (54.3%) had chimney-EVAS. The technical success was achieved in all the studies. Two patients (4.9%) died during the 30-day postoperative period, but no aneurysm-related mortality was reported. The presence of endoleaks was reported in five patients (9.8%) during the follow-up. Conclusion The results suggest the safety and the efficiency of EVAS in the treatment of complications following EVAR including type Ia, type IIIa, and type IIIb endoleaks. Further studies on larger cohorts and longer follow-up periods are required to confirm the interest of EVAS in the endovascular management of failed EVAR.


This study assesses effects of airgun sounds on bowhead calling behavior during the autumn migration. In August–October 2007, 35 directional acoustic recorders (DASARs) were deployed at five sites in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. Location estimates were obtained for >137,500 individual calls; a subsample of locations with high detection probability was used in the analyses. Call localization rates (CLRs) were compared before, during, and after periods of airgun use between sites near seismic activities (median distance 41–45 km) and sites relatively distant from seismic activities (median distance >104 km). At the onset of airgun use, CLRs dropped significantly at sites near the airguns, where median received levels from airgun pulses (SPL) were 116–129 dB re 1 μPa (10–450 Hz). CLRs remained unchanged at sites distant from the airguns, where median received levels were 99–108 dB re 1 μPa. This drop could result from a cessation of calling, deflection of whales around seismic activities, or both combined, but call locations alone were insufficient to differentiate between these possibilities. Reverberation from airgun pulses could have masked a small number of calls near the airguns, but even if masking did take place, the analysis results remain unchanged.


We retrospectively evaluated our experience with phaeochromocytoma from January 1986 to December 1995. There were 18 patients with surgically-proven phaeochromocytoma: three males, 15 females, aged 12-81 years (mean 42 years) at diagnosis. Sixteen were hypertensive; only 6/18 presented with two or more of the classical triad of headaches, palpitations and diaphoresis. One patient presented with hypertensive crisis. Duration of symptoms prior to diagnosis was 2 weeks to 6 years, mean 16.4 months. Sixteen patients had adrenal tumours and two had extra-adrenal tumours or paragangliomas. One had bilateral adrenal tumours and two had a combination of both adrenal and extra-adrenal tumours. There were four familial cases: two had multiple endocrine neoplasia type IIA (MEN-IIA), one had neurofibromatosis type I (NF-I) and one von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease. One patient had Cushing's syndrome arising from ectopic production of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) by the phaeochromocytoma. Disease was recurrent in three patients. Pre-operative diagnosis was confirmed mainly by elevated urine vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) and/or catecholamine levels. Twelve patients had plasma catecholamine determinations: noradrenaline was elevated in all, adrenaline in six and dopamine in two. Pre-operative localization was by CT scan or MR imaging in all patients. At follow-up of 1-10 years (median 4.8 years), 15 patients were cured surgically while two were asymptomatic despite recurrence of disease. One patient with recurrent paragangliomas died post-operatively.


Author(s): Newman, Marc Francis | Advisor(s): Rich, B. Ruby | Abstract: This dissertation looks back at how popular queer films—canonical then or now—were programmed at urban art-house, independent, repertory, and second-run theaters primarily from 1968 to 1989. Contrary to assumptions that undergird queer film criticism, queer cinema was by no means marginal, rare, peripheral, or strictly nocturnal within these spaces. What I call deviant programming in art-house and repertory houses provides pivotal access into an underlying register of subversive and deviant spectatorial political imaginaries beyond the LGBT circumscription to which queer politics has grown accustomed. Programming, the practice of selecting films to be shown for exhibition in a specific space for a specific audience, aggregates discrete texts to form interrelated networks. It continually offers spectators of all sexualities and genders opportunities to encounter narratives about non-normative subjectivities. Positioning calendars and programs as acute indicators for spectatorial desires, I argue that these practices shook audiences with depictions of masochism, bodily fetishes, abjection, and other "degenerate" practices that fall outside of or are relegated within the bourgeois ethos of sexual propriety. Programming metabolized these confrontational aesthetics, leading spectators to enjoy, resist, discover, as well as learn from their atypical renderings of sexual pleasure and gender performativity. Merging concepts in affect studies (e.g., contact zones and reparativity) with semiotics (e.g., intertextuality and bricolage), I try to capture what it means to feel the intertextuality of programming, both in knowable and inchoate forms.


To promote dopamine cell survival in human fetal tissue strands transplanted into immunosuppressed 6-OHDA-lesioned rats, we have preincubated tissue in insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I, 150 ng/ml) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF, 15 ng/ml) in vitro for 2 weeks. Growth factor treatment did not affect the rate of homovanillic acid production in vitro but increased overall dopamine neuron survival in animals after transplant from 1240 +/- 250 to 2380 +/- 440 neurons (P < 0.05). Animals in the growth factor-treated group had a significantly greater reduction in methamphetamine-induced rotation (66%) compared to control transplants (30%, P < 0.05). We conclude that in vitro preincubation of human fetal tissue strands with IGF-I and bFGF improves dopamine cell survival and the behavioral outcome of transplants.


We present a randomized controlled trial for a model-in-the-loop regression task, with the goal of measuring the extent to which (1) good explanations of model predictions increase human accuracy, and (2) faulty explanations decrease human trust in the model. We study explanations based on visual saliency in an image-based age prediction task for which humans and learned models are individually capable but not highly proficient and frequently disagree. Our experimental design separates model quality from explanation quality, and makes it possible to compare treatments involving a variety of explanations of varying levels of quality. We find that presenting model predictions improves human accuracy. However, visual explanations of various kinds fail to significantly alter human accuracy or trust in the model - regardless of whether explanations characterize an accurate model, an inaccurate one, or are generated randomly and independently of the input image. These findings suggest the need for greater evaluation of explanations in downstream decision making tasks, better design-based tools for presenting explanations to users, and better approaches for generating explanations.


Exposure of human pancreatic islets to a mixture of cytokines induces expression of the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), impairs beta-cell function, and induces apoptosis. We performed a mutational scanning of all 27 exons of the human NOS2 gene and linkage transmission disequilibrium testing of identified NOS2 polymorphisms in a Danish nationwide type 1 diabetes mellitus (IDDM) family collection. Mutational screening was performed using PCR-amplified exons, followed by single stranded conformation polymorphism and verification of potential polymorphisms by sequencing. The transmission disequilibrium test was performed in an IDDM family material comprising 257 Danish families; 154 families were affected sibling pair families, and 103 families were simplex families. In total, 10 polymorphisms were identified in 8 exons, of which 4 were tested in the family material. A C/T single nucleotide polymorphism in exon 16 resulting in an amino acid substitution, Ser(608)Leu, showed linkage to IDDM in human leukocyte antigen DR3/4-positive affected offspring (P = 0.008; corrected P = 0.024). No other distorted transmission patterns were found for any other tested single nucleotide polymorphism or constructed haplotypes with the exception of those including data from exon 16. In conclusion, linkage of the human NOS2 gene to IDDM in a subset of patients supports a pathogenic role of nitric oxide in human IDDM.


Background: While there have been numerous reports concerning the risk of pulmonary embolism after knee and hip arthroplasty, no such information is available for shoulder arthroplasty, as far as we know. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of pulmonary embolism following shoulder arthroplasty.Methods: A review of 2885 consecutive patients who underwent primary shoulder arthroplasty at our institution between June 30, 1981, and June 30, 2001, was performed to identify all patients who sustained a pulmonary embolism.Results: During this time-period, five patients sustained a pulmonary embolism following shoulder arthroplasty. Three of the five presented with symptoms that were originally attributed to causes other than pulmonary embolism. None of the patients sustained a fatal pulmonary embolism.Conclusions: The data from this study demonstrate that pulmonary embolism is an uncommon complication of shoulder arthroplasty and that surgeons should have a high degree of suspicion if patients have respiratory difficulty following shoulder arthroplasty.


Current technological developments change physical paper patterns into digital, and this has a very high impact. Positive impact because paper waste is reduced, on the other hand, the rampant copying of digital data raises the amount of plagiarism that is increasing. At present, there are many efforts made by experts to overcome the problem of plagiarism, one of which is by utilizing the winnowing algorithm as a tool to detect plagiarism data. In its development, many optimizing winnowing algorithms used stemming techniques. The most widely used stemmer algorithms include stemmer porter and nazief-adriani. However, there has not been a discussion on the comparison of the effect of performance using stemmer on the winnowing algorithm in measuring the value of plagiarism. So it is necessary to research the effect of stemmer algorithms on winnowing algorithms so that the results of plagiarism detection are more optimal. The results of this study indicate that the effect of nazief-adriani stemmer on the winnowing algorithm is superior to the stemmer porter, only decreasing the detection performance of the 0.28% similarity value while the Porter stemmer is superior in increasing the processing time to 69% faster.


Restoration techniques were explored for the patterns, materials, and surface pigments of the pigments decoration art of Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, a world cultural heritage site in southern China. Field investigation was supplemented by scanning electron microscopy, microscopic Raman spectroscopy characterization, colorimetric tests, and tensile tests. Materials and concepts for the restoration of the Kaiping Diaolou pigments were analyzed. Raman spectroscopy was used to characterize the surface pigments display of pigments decorative patterns. The main colors of restoration included green, red, white, and blue. The green color was a mixture of colored copper arsenate minerals. The red color was made of hematite (Fe2O3). White was calcite, and blue was lapis lazuli or synthetic ultramarine. SEM revealed both pigments show similar flake flocculent section morphologies. UV accelerated aging experiments showed that the Ultraviolet absorber and antioxidants effectively inhibited the degradation of the interface matrix. The interface was less prone to cracking. The tension test showed that the bond stress reached a maximum value of 0.193 MPa at a curing temperature of 20 °C under 95% ambient humidity. The results provide strong evidence for pigment restoration in Kaiping Diaolou. This study also provides a scientific reference for the pigment conservation of other architectural decorations from the same historical period.


The adaptive tuned vibration absorbers based on magnetorheological elastomers are mainly developed in shear and squeeze working modes. The distinctions between the two kinds of magnetorheological elastomer absorbers are less investigated. In order to investigate the distinctions induced by the working mode, two magnetorheological elastomer absorbers working in different modes are theoretically and experimentally analyzed in this article. Magnetorheological elastomer was first prepared and tested in shear and squeeze modes by parallel-plate rheometer and materials test system, respectively. Then, the fabricated magnetorheological elastomers were used to develop absorbers working in shear and squeeze modes. The performance of these two absorbers at various magnetic fields is characterized under swept excited frequencies by using a vibration testing system. The experimental results illustrate that the natural frequency of the magnetorheological elastomer absorber working in shear mode can be tuned from 32 to 62 Hz, while the variation range of the natural frequency of the magnetorheological elastomer absorber working in squeeze mode is from 62 to 127 Hz, which indicates the squeeze magnetorheological elastomer absorber has larger frequency-shift range than the shear magnetorheological elastomer absorber. Then, two theoretical models are presented to investigate and predict the frequency-shift performance of the two magnetorheological elastomer absorbers. The theoretical analysis results further verify the above conclusion.


This paper proposes an effective emotion control method for an end-to-end text-to-speech (TTS) system. To flexibly control the distinct characteristic of a target emotion category, it is essential to determine embedding vectors representing the TTS input. We introduce an inter-to-intra emotional distance ratio algorithm to the embedding vectors that can minimize the distance to the target emotion category while maximizing its distance to the other emotion categories. To further enhance the expressiveness of a target speech, we also introduce an effective interpolation technique that enables the intensity of a target emotion to be gradually changed to that of neutral speech. Subjective evaluation results in terms of emotional expressiveness and controllability show the superiority of the proposed algorithm to the conventional methods.


Genes are much in the news, creating curiosity, concern, hope, and confusion. "Contrary to what you might think, your genetic destiny is not preordained … despite our genetic blueprints, there is much we can do to secure our health - and even to save our lives or those of our loved ones" (page xiii). People who are concerned about their "genetic destiny" will find much of interest in this book. It is intended for the general public. It can be read from cover to cover, probably most often as a textbook, but lay readers will plot a course through the book that speaks to their individual interests.

One such course might be: Preface; What you should know and why; Personal considerations and your family history; The threads of your life, explaining basic genetics; The blueprints for life chapters 6-8 (explaining inheritance); Random chapters chosen from chapters 9 to 20, depending on family issues or fears; Aging and longevity; One or more chapters from Avoidance and prevention of genetic disorders if childbearing is a concern; Genes, ethics, law, and public policy; Treatment of genetic disorders.

The book takes a practical approach, concentrating on the information needed to prevent, avoid, and treat the disorders that may be lurking in your genes. The interaction between genes and the environment is stressed many times. "Studies of several hundred sets of twins from Sweden …


Are corporate charters and bylaws contracts? What is the scope or subject matter of the corporate contract? Is access to litigation part of the bundle of rights that shareholders purchase when they buy shares in a corporation? This book chapter, "Litigation Rights and the Corporate Contract," examines how one controversial innovation has pushed courts and legislatures to address these fundamental questions about the nature and scope of the corporate contract. That innovation was the use of corporate charter provisions and bylaws to set the rules for resolving internal disputes, especially for shareholder litigation. The emergence of exclusive forum and fee-shifting bylaws pushed lawmakers to be newly explicit about the role of corporate organizational documents. The questions and initial answers have broad implications, reaching all of the ways charters and bylaws define the relationships within the corporation. The emergence of dispute resolution provisions made them express and potentially urgent.


Pyrazolines are one of the heterocyclic compo unds with very important biological activities . Pyrazoline carbaldehydes were synthesized using chalcones and hydrazine hydratein presence of formic acid. The s tructures of the synthesized compounds have been established on the basis of their spectral data. The synthesized s elected compounds were evaluated for their anti-cancer acti vity.