With an end goal of creating single-alloy functionally-graded additively manufactured (FGAM) parts, this paper investigates the manufacture and properties of stainless steel 316L samples via a pulsed selective laser melting (SLM) process. The focus is on elucidating the underlying causes of property variations (within a functionally-acceptable range) through material characterization and testing. Five samples (made via different volumetric energy density-based process parameter sets) were down-selected from preliminary experimental results and analyzed for their microstructure, mechanical and physical properties (hardness, density/porosity, Young's modulus). It was observed that property variations resulted from combinations of porosity types/amounts, martensitic phase fractions, and grain sizes. Based on these, various functionally-graded specimens of different sizes were built as per ASTM standards, each having intended property changes along its gauge volumes. The presented findings establish that a methodical control of microstructure and mechanical properties could be obtained in a repeatable and reproducible manner by changing the process parameters. This work lays the foundation for understanding and tuning the global mechanical performance of FGAM bulk structures as well as the role of interfacial zones.


The ADP ribosylation factor (Arf)1 orthologue in the divergent eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei (Tb) shares characteristics with both Arf1 and Arf6 and has a vital role in intracellular protein trafficking. TbARF1 is Golgi localized in trypanosomes but associates with the plasma membrane when expressed in human cells. Depletion of TbARF1 by RNA interference causes a major decrease in endocytosis, which correlates with Rab5 dissociation from early endosomes. Although the Golgi remains intact, parasites display enlarged flagellar pockets and intracellular flagella. An increase in active GTP-bound TbARF1 in bloodstream parasites is rapidly lethal, correlating with a defect in Golgi-to-lysosome transport. We conclude that the essential Golgi-localizing T. brucei ARF1 has a primary role in the maintenance of both post-Golgi transport and endocytosis and that it is significantly divergent from other characterized ARFs.


The development of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) around the globe has been influenced by Anglo-Saxon countries and a global policy of intergovernmental organisations. The main aim of this paper is to explore how recently developed NQFs in diverse global con-texts—Ghana, Malaysia, and Serbia—fulfil two proclaimed objectives: recognition of prior learning (RPL) and support for lifelong learning. Based on a comparative analysis of official national and international policy documents relevant to the NQFs in these selected countries, conducted using the method of documentary analysis, our findings indicate that despite dif-ferences according to type, scope, and stage of development, all three NQFs are used as a policy instrument for lifelong learning on the one hand, while on the other hand, they rein-force a vocational perspective of RPL, lifelong learning, and adult education.


Indications for the early use of tracheostomy include flail chest, severe lung contusion, injuries to the head and neck, mediastinal emphysema, and associated unconsciousness. Practical suggestions are made as to operative technique and subsequent nursing care. It is emphasized that tracheostomy has certain dangers. A combination of positive pressure mechanical respiration with tracheostomy has proved beneficial to patients with inadequate respiratory reserve after various types of chest injury. Such a combination of techniques commonly utilized by cardiac surgeons has proved life-saving to many patients after chest trauma. Physicians and medical centers assuming responsibility for care of chest injuries should have both the proper equipment and personnel trained in the use of mechanical respirators in combination with tracheostomy.


In recent years, quantum computers and algorithms have made significant progress indicating the prospective importance of quantum computing (QC). Especially combinatorial optimization has gained a lot of attention as an application field for near-term quantum computers, both by using gate-based QC via the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm and by quantum annealing using the Ising model. However, demonstrating an advantage over classical methods in real-world applications remains an active area of research. In this work, we investigate the robustness verification of ReLU networks, which involves solving many-variable mixed-integer programs (MIPs), as a practical application. Classically, complete verification techniques struggle with large networks as the combinatorial space grows exponentially, implying that realistic networks are difficult to be verified by classical methods. To alleviate this issue, we propose to use QC for neural network verification and introduce a hybrid quantum procedure to compute provable certificates. By applying Benders decomposition, we split the MIP into a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization and a linear program which are solved by quantum and classical computers, respectively. We further improve existing hybrid methods based on the Benders decomposition by reducing the overall number of iterations and placing a limit on the maximum number of qubits required. We show that, in a simulated environment, our certificate is sound, and provides bounds on the minimum number of qubits necessary to approximate the problem. Finally, we evaluate our method within simulations and on quantum hardware.


The mutation pattern of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is constantly changing with the places of transmission, but the reason remains to be revealed. Here, we presented the study that comprehensively analyzed the potential selective pressure of immune system restriction, which can drive mutations in circulating SARS-CoV-2 isolates. The results showed that the most common mutation sites of SARS-CoV-2 proteins were located on the non-structural protein ORF1ab and the structural protein Spike. Further analysis revealed mutations in cross-reactive epitopes between SARS-CoV-2 and seasonal coronavirus may help SARS-CoV-2 to escape cellular immunity under the long-term and large-scale community transmission. Meanwhile, the mutations on Spike protein may enhance the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to enter the host cells and escape the recognition of B-cell immunity. This study will increase the understanding of the evolutionary direction and warn about the potential immune escape ability of SARS-CoV-2, which may provide important guidance for the potential vaccine design.


Robust, low-loss photonic packaging of on-chip nanophotonic circuits is a key enabling technology for the deployment of integrated photonics in a variety of classical and quantum technologies including optical communications and quantum communications, sensing, and transduction. To date, no process has been established that enables permanent, broadband, and cryogenically compatible coupling with sub-dB losses from optical fibers to nanophotonic circuits. Here, we report a technique for reproducibly generating a permanently packaged interface between a tapered optical fiber and nanophotonic devices on diamond with a record-low coupling loss <1 dB per facet at near-infrared wavelengths (∼730 nm) that remains stable from 300 K to 30 mK. We further demonstrate the compatibility of this technique with etched lithium niobate on insulator waveguides. The technique lifts performance limitations imposed by scattering as light transfers between photonic devices and optical fibers, paving the way for scalable integration of photonic technologies at both room and cryogenic temperatures.


This manual is designed to provide guidance to state consumer advocates and other state consumer groups interested in either initiating and/or participating in an Least-Cost Utility Planning (LCUP) process in their state. Least cost utility planning examined primarily as a regulatory framework to be implemented by an appropriate state authority -- usually the public utility commission -- for the benefit of the state`s citizens and electric utility customers. LCUP is also a planning process to be used by investor owned and public utilities to select, support and justify future expenditures in resource additions. This manual is designed as a ``How-To`` manual for implementing and participating in a statewide LCUP process. Its goal is to guide the reader through the LCUP maze so that meaningful, forward-looking, and cost minimizing electric utility planning can be initiated and sustained in your state.


In today's world the internet and social media are omnipresent and information is accessible to everyone. This shifted the advantage from those who have access to information to those who do so first. Identifying new events as they emerge is of substantial value to financial institutions who consider realtime information in their decision making processes, as well as for journalists that report about breaking news and governmental agencies that collect information and respond to emergencies. First Story Detection is the task of identifying those documents in a stream of documents that talk about new events first. This seemingly simple task is non-trivial as the computational effort increases with every processed document. Standard approaches to solve First Story Detection determine a document's novelty by comparing it to previously seen documents. This results in the highest reported accuracy but even the currently fastest system only scales to 10% of the Twitter stream. In this thesis, we propose a new algorithm family, called memory-based methods, able to scale to the full Twitter stream on a single core. Our memory-based method computes a document's novelty up to two orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art systems without sacrificing accuracy. This thesis additional provides original work on the impact of processing unbounded data streams on detection accuracy. Our experiments reveal for the first time that the novelty scores of state-of-the-art comparison based and memory-based methods decay over time. We show how to counteract the discovered novelty decay and increase detection accuracy. Additionally, we show that memory-based methods are applicable beyond First Story Detection by building the first real time rumour detection system on social media streams.


As the efficiency measuring and analyzing is a crucial problem in modern enterprise management, this paper focuses on the problem of small and medium enterprise financing efficiency analyzing, and we proposed an improved DEA model based on stepwise regression to tackle this problem. Data envelopment analysis technology can calculate the efficiency of each decision making unit relative. Hence, DEA can provide an efficient frontier or envelop for all consid- ered decision making units rather than fitting a regression plane through the center of the data. To solve the limitations in traditional DEA model, we propose an improved DEA model using the stepwise regression technology which has the abil- ity to automatically select variables for the DEA model. To test the effectiveness of our proposed DEA model, 120 small and medium enterprises of China in 2010-2013 is chosen to construct a dataset, and this dataset are collected from the an- nual reports of sample firms. In particular, in this experiment, the input indexes we used are (1) Total assets of an enter- prise, (2) Main business cost, (3) Asset liability ratio. On the other hand, the output indexes are (1) Rate of return on net assets, (2) Main business income, and (3) Total assets turnover. Combining all the experimental results, some suggestions to enhance the small and medium-sized enterprise financing efficiency in China are offered.


While the apoptosis‐inducing ligand Apo2L/TRAIL is a promising new agent for the treatment of cancer, the sensitivity of cancer cells for induction of apoptosis by Apo2L/TRAIL varies considerably. Identification of agents that can be used in combination with Apo2L/TRAIL to enhance apoptosis in breast cancer cells would increase the potential utility of this agent as a breast cancer therapeutic. Here, we show that the histone deacetylase inhibitor, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), can sensitize Apo2L/TRAIL‐resistant breast cancer cells to Apo2L/TRAIL‐induced apoptosis. Importantly, neither Apo2L/TRAIL alone, nor in combination with SAHA, affected the viability of normal human cells in culture. Apo2L/TRAIL‐resistant MDA‐MB‐231 breast cancer cells, generated by long‐term culture in the continuous presence of Apo2L/TRAIL, were resensitized to Apo2L/TRAIL‐induced apoptosis by SAHA. The sensitization of these cells by SAHA was accompanied by activation of caspase 8, caspase 9 and caspase 3 and was concomitant with Bid and PARP cleavage. The expression of the proapoptotic protein, Bax, increased significantly with SAHA treatment and high levels of Bax were maintained in the combined treatment with Apo2L/TRAIL. Treatment with SAHA increased cell surface expression of DR5 but not DR4. Interestingly, SAHA treatment also resulted in a significant increase in cell surface expression of DcR1. Taken together, our findings indicate that the use of these 2 agents in combination may be effective for the treatment of breast cancer. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


In order to recognize the role and the contribution of ESP in fostering or changing the components of the value system of a particular society, it is necessary to determine what particular society and its respective value system shall be treated. Being involved in tertiary education, and, more precisely, teaching ESP at the universities of Niš and Skopje, the authors of this paper have been facing the changing value system of their societies after the fall of the socialism and the takeover of capitalism. The aim of this article will be three-fold: firstly, to determine the contemporary value systems worldwide and the one that reflects the highest levels of consciousness, secondly to recognize the value system currently established in our two countries, and thirdly, to investigate how education can promote the present value system emphasizing the contribution the ESP may give in this respect.


Type 2 diabetes is a syndrome characterized by relative insulin deficiency, insulin resistance and increased hepatic glucose output. Medications used to treat the disease are designed to correct one or more of these metabolic abnormalities. Current recommendations of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) include diet and exercise as first-line therapy plus hypoglycemic drugs. Actually there are seven distinct classes of anti-hyperglicemic agents, each of them displaying unique pharmacologic properties. The aim of this review is to describe the pathophysiological basis of their mechanism of action, a necessary step to individualize treatment of diabetic people, taking into proper consideration potential benefits and secondary effects of drugs.


This study was to evaluate the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia and the associated factors of anemia during pregnancy in the lower north of Thailand. A prospective study was conducted in pregnant women who attended the antenatal care clinic at Naresuan University hospital, Phitsanulok, from May 2008 May 2010. All subjects were from the lower northern region of Thailand. A complete blood count and serum ferritin was performed in every case. Anemia during pregnancy was defined according to World Health Organization criterion as the hemoglobin less than 11 g/dL. Iron deficiency anemia was the anemia with a serum ferritin of less than 15 g/L. Four hundred and one pregnant women were recruited for the study. Teenage pregnancy was 27%. The gestational age at the first visit ranged from 5 to 38 weeks and the iron supplement was found in 30% of cases. Anemia was found in 70 cases (17.5%). Twenty-four cases (6.0% of 401) had iron deficiency anemia but 61 cases were at the stage of iron deficient erythropoiesis without anemia. Associated factor for iron deficiency anemia was gestational age. This study confirmed a high prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency anemia. High proportion of pregnancies with iron deficient erythropoiesis was warranted.


This article, focusing on Seebohm Rowntree's poverty surveys, considers the importance and durability of the concept of secondary poverty. It argues that secondary poverty was a central component of Rowntree's first survey of York, carried out in 1899, and in his lectures and writing in the Edwardian period. Moreover, secondary poverty remained an important feature of Rowntree's analysis during the interwar years and after the Second World War, and was adopted by other researchers in various ways. Although secondary poverty was not seriously examined in the published version of Rowntree's 1936 York survey, there is evidence that it was originally intended to feature, and it is clear that impressionistic evidence of poverty was gathered by Rowntree's investigators, as had been the case in 1899. Moreover, although it was completely expunged from the third survey of York, carried out by Rowntree and Lavers in 1950, a separate inquiry into secondary poverty was carried out in the early 1950s, with a number of prominent supporters. Subsequently, dissatisfaction with income-based definitions and measurements of poverty allowed the concept of secondary poverty to continue to exercise an influence on the study of poverty in the postwar period.


In September 2004, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published updates to the work zone regulations at 23 CFR 630 Subpart J. The updated rule is referred to as the Work Zone Safety and Mobility Rule (Rule) and applies to all State and local governments that received Federal-aid highway funding. Transportation agencies are required to comply with the provisions of the Rule by October 12, 2007. The changes made to the regulations broaden the former rule to better address the work zone issues of today and the future. Growing congestion on many roads, and an increasing need to perform rehabilitation and reconstruction work on existing roads already carrying traffic, are some of the issues that have led to additional, more complex challenges to maintaining work zone safety and mobility. To help address these issues, the Rule provides a decision-making framework that facilitates comprehensive consideration of the broader safety and mobility impacts of work zones across project development stages, and the adoption of additional strategies that help manage these impacts during project implementation. The Rule requires agencies to develop an agency-level work zone safety and mobility policy to support systematic consideration and management of work zone impacts across all stages of project development. Based on the policy, agencies will develop standard processes and procedures to support implementation of the policy. The third primary element of the Rule calls for the development of project-level procedures to address the work zone impacts of individual projects. To help transportation agencies understand and implement the provisions of the Rule, FHWA has been developing four guidance documents. This Guide is the main Rule Implementation Guide and provides a general overview of the Rule and overarching guidance for implementing the provisions of the Rule. This document includes guidelines and sample approaches, examples from transportation agencies using practices that relate to the Rule, and sources for more information. While this Guide covers aspects of the Rule, it also contains information that can be useful to agencies in all of their efforts to improve safety and mobility in and around work zones, and thereby support effective operations and management of our transportation system.


Tillage practices in viticulture are very important, with major effects on quantitative and qualitative production, on vines phenology and stages of growth. In this study the aim was to identify the most appropriate vineyard floor management, located on flat land or mild slopes, with medium or high soils fertility. The research was carried out during 2011–2013 in the vineyard of the BUASVM Didactic Station from Timisoara and focusing exclusively on several variants of soil maintenance in order to replace the need for manual labor. Leaf area was estimated by concentric circles method and sugar concentration was evaluated by refractometry. Total acidity in must and wine was determined by titration. Grape yield was estimated by bunches counting and weighing, for each variety and productive potential (kg ha -1 ) was appreciated by multiplying the average yield per vine with the number of vines per hectare. Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism 6. Performance of Burgundy variety for superior red wines group and Silvania table grape variety – with a medium ripening, were analyzed in the experiment. For both Burgundy and Silvania varieties the sixth variant (V6–bare soil by tillage middles row (tractor and rotary hoe)/rotary hoe undervine (tractor and adjustable offset rotary tiller) registered the highest grape yield during the research. The lowest grape yield fulfils to the seventh variant of vineyard floor management. Burgundy variety had the average must sugar content of 195 ± 4.27 g l -1 and that of the leaf area of 7.09 ± 0.58 m 2 while in Silvania variety the average of grape must acidity was 4.66 ± 0.35 g l -1 H 2 SO 4 and the leaf area of 7.42 ± 0.51 m 2 /vine. Between must sugar content and leaf area, in Burgundy and Silvania variety has been established a significant positive linear correlation (r = 0.94 ***) and (r = 0.88 **; p <0.001) respectively, variables being virtually indistinguishable. Keywords: grapevine, leaf area, soil, sugars, sustainability, variety, wine. Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2015.022


The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on travel mode choices in cities across the world. Driven by perceptions of risk and the fear of infection, the pandemic resulted in an increased preference for private vehicles and active modes and a reduced preference for public transit and ride-sourcing. As travel behavior and modal preferences evolve, a key question is whether the pandemic will result in long-term changes to travel mode choices. This study uses data from a web-based survey to examine the factors influencing mode choices for non-commuting trips in the post-pandemic era. Specifically, it uses stated preference data to develop a random parameter mixed logit model, which is used to compare the elasticity of key variables across different income and age groups. The results of the study highlight the influence of sociodemographic attributes and pre-pandemic travel habits on anticipated post-pandemic mode choices. Additionally, the results suggest that frequent users of private vehicles, public transit, and active modes are likely to continue to use these modes post-pandemic. Furthermore, the results highlight the potential for the perception of shared modes to influence post-pandemic mode choice decisions. The results of the study offer insights into policy measures that could be applied to address the increased use of private vehicles and reduced use of transit during the pandemic, while also emphasizing the need to ensure that certain segments of the population can maintain a sufficient level of mobility and access to transport.


With the increasing low-cost, high performance digital video camera, other hardware and broadband network, it has become easier to create and distribute multimedia content personally. However, for personal use, it is very difficult to attend content distribution using personal library (music, image, logo, etc) may violate content holder's copyright. As a solution for this problem, in this paper we propose a new approach for music copyright protection on content distribution. The basic idea of this approach is to use audio separation techniques using sound source which is used in multimedia content. The algorithm presented estimate transfer function from between real-world output and reference sound source's output. The benefits of this approach are (1) simplicity in implementation. (2) low processing load. (3) application flexibility in various acoustic fields. We also evaluate several results in various situations by this system.


Respiratory symptoms accompanying pleural diseases combine dyspnea, tachypnea, rapid shallow breathing, and sometimes hypotension. There are no experimental data on the changes in respiratory and circulatory functions elicited by the activation of pleural afferents. After removal of all muscles covering the 5th to 10th intercostal spaces, we investigated in paralyzed, vagotomized rabbits the changes in phrenic discharge, transpulmonary pressure, and systemic arterial pressure in response to an outwardly directed force exerted on the parietal pleura or the local application of solutions containing lactic acid or inflammatory mediators. Mechanical stimulation of the pleura induced an immediate decrease in both integrated phrenic discharge and arterial blood pressure, the responses being positively correlated with the magnitude of force applied on the pleura. No accompanying changes in ventilatory timing, transpulmonary pressure, or heart rate were measured. Lactic acid solution also elicited an inhibition of phrenic activity and a fall in blood pressure. Section of the internal intercostal nerves supplying the stimulated intercostal spaces totally abolished the responses to mechanical stimulation or lactic acid. An inflammatory mixture elicited only modest respiratory and circulatory effects. We concluded that an acute mechanical distension of the parietal pleura as well as its chemical stimulation by lactic acid elicit a marked inhibition of phrenic motoneurons combined to a reduction of the sympathetic outflow to the circulatory system.


This paper investigates how the emotional bond a consumer experiences with ordinary durables varies over time. We found that product attachment is affected by the degree of self-expression, memories, and perceived pleasure. Over time, the determinants of product attachment can be added or lost, or their impact on product attachment can change. Our research shows that product usage is essential to maintain the impact of memories on product attachment. For users, the impact of the determinants was stable over time. For non-users, however, the impact of memories on product attachment decreased to non-significance, whereas the impact of the low pleasure ratings increased.


Leaves show great diversity in shape, size, and color in nature. Interestingly, many plant species have the ability to alter their leaf shape in response to their surrounding environment. This phenomenon is termed heterophylly, and is thought to be an adaptive feature to environmental heterogeneity in many cases. Heterophylly is widespread among land plants, and is especially dominant in aquatic and amphibious plants. Revealing the mechanisms underlying heterophylly would provide valuable insight into the interaction between environmental conditions and plant development. Here, we review the history and recent progress of research on heterophylly in aquatic and amphibious plants.


The effect of intrarenal artery injection of bradykinin (BK, 5.0 micrograms/kg) on multi- and single-unit recordings of afferent renal nerve activity (ARNA) was examined in anesthetized 48 rabbits. The results obtained are as follows. (1) There were two phases of increase in ARNA following intrarenal BK. The early phase occurred immediately while the delayed phase made its appearance about 7 min later. The degree of increase in ARNA of the delayed phase induced by intrarenal BK was more prominent than that in the early phase. BP was actually unaltered following intrarenal BK. (2) By pretreatment with indomethacin (Indo, 5.0 mg/kg), the delayed phase of increase in ARNA induced by intrarenal BK was attenuated, while the early phase was not affected. (3) Pretreatment with L-NAME (30 mg/kg) led the delayed phase to be blocked completely while the early phase was partially decreased. From the above-mentioned observations, it is concluded that intrarenal BK induces a significant increase in ARNA in two phases. The early phase may be due to the direct action of BK and partially due to the NO action, while the delayed phase may be attributed to the action of released prostaglandin and NO as a result of intrarenal BK.


Although hilar cholangioma is the most common cause of stricture of the hilar bile duct, several diseases can contribute to stenosis. Here, we report on a patient with immunoglobulin (Ig) G4-related sclerosing cholangitis (IgG4-SC) of the hilar bile duct arising from obstructive jaundice. The patient had undergone laparoscopic cholecystectomy for the removal of gallstones. The differential diagnosis for icterus included hilar cholangiocarcinoma, primary sclerosing cholangitis, IgG4 sclerosing cholangitis, ischemic bile duct stenosis, a complication of cholecystitis, amputation neuroma, and iatrogenic stenosis. Numerous examinations were performed, but a definite diagnosis remained elusive. Because cholangiocarcinoma could not be ruled out, we proposed surgical resection. The patient subsequently underwent extended right liver lobectomy and intrahepatic cholangiojejunostomy. Pathological examination revealed numerous inflammatory cell infiltrates resembling IgG4-positive antibody plasma cells in the stromal layer of the stenotic bile duct walls. Hypertrophy of the nerve fiber fascicles was not observed. The serum IgG4 level of the patient was within the normal range. Few reports of IgG4-SC with a normal serum IgG4 level have been published. When this condition presents as it did in the present case, establishing a definite diagnosis can be difficult.


The establishment of diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) for all typical radiological examinations became mandatory following the implementation of the Ionising Radiations (Medical Exposure) Regulations Act 2000. At present, there are no national dosage guidelines in the UK regarding use of fluoroscopy in orthopaedic trauma. The increasing popularity of the mini C-arm image intensifier amongst surgeons has led to concerns regarding use of ionizing radiation by personnel who have not been trained in radiation protection. It is therefore essential to have formal protocols for use of the mini C-arm to comply with the law and to maintain safe clinical practice. It is attempted to provide dose data for wrist fracture manipulations that may be used as a basis for setting a DRL for this procedure. Screening times were recorded for 80 wrist manipulations in a fracture clinic setting using a mini C-arm image intensifier. A DRL was set using the third quartile value for screening time. The median screening time for wrist fractures was 20 s with a range from 1 to 177 s. The third quartile value for screening time was 34 s. This value can be used as a provisional DRL for wrist fracture manipulations. The DRL is a quantitative guide for the optimisation of radiological protection. IR(ME)R 2000 states that if it is consistently exceeded by an individual operator or a piece of equipment, investigation and remedial action must be taken. We recommend that trauma units establish their own local DRLs for common procedures as made mandatory by legislation.


Directing attention to onset and ooset of image events for eye-head movement control. 40 11] David Coombs and Christopher Brown. Real-time smooth pursuit tracking for a moving binocular head. The agile eye: a high-prformance three-degree-of-freedom camera-orienting device.tions to peripheral image motion using a head/eye platform. Wor delays interpretation of the next command until any of the named event ags in list name : : : have been set. wand name : : : Wand delays interpretation of the next command until all of the named event ags in list name : : : have been set. An event can be automatically set after the R-shell commands (hand, shape, grasp, un-grasp, arm, loc, rot, tran or align) by adding the command line suux \:e i " which speciies the event ag to be set by the controller when the motion indicated by the command is completed. 38 grasp ^] f] if f is preexed by \^", the value of f will be taken to be an increment to the current desired reeex forces. This can be used to tighten or loosen the grasp. If the preex \^" is omitted, the value is taken to be absolute. The ungrasp command is used to terminate force control and expand the hand until all forces become 0. Manipulator and hand instances created in R-shell are just images of the real world. The commands previously described create and modify this image of the real manipulator or hand. In order to cause changes to an actual device, this image must be connected to the real device. When devices are physically connected to R-shell in this way, R-shell commands which aaect the connguration and position of the manipulator or hand internally will now also aaect the connguration of the physical device. Once connection is established, data in the manipulator or hand controller and in R-shell can be shared. In this way, R-shell has access to the real values generated in the controller and can use them for its own purposes. connect-e,-s,-b] instance-name server-name] This command establishes a physical link from R-shell to the device via software called the target server. With this physical link established, commands that aaect the con-guration of the manipulator or hand internally will now also cause motion of the physical device. Supported communications methods are:-e (ethernet sockets),-s (serial link),-b (backplane-shared memory). If the-e option is speciied, the parameter server-name must also be speciied. …


Provided is a commentary on articles written for a special section on temperament and childhood disorders. Temperament's contributions to the development of childhood disorders are considered both generally and specifically. Questions are raised about the use of terminology in the field, particularly the term difficult. Differentiation of outcomes and predictors is discussed, with a view to identifying multiple pathways to adaptation or disorder.


One can consider the acoustic soundscape as consisting of two parts the direct acoustic soundscape and the diffuse acoustic soundscape. This fact has important consequences when attempting to change the acoustic soundscapes. The traditional approach to control traffic noise by means of noise barriers or change of traffic distribution is only valid for the areas directly exposed from sources (direct acoustic soundscape). These areas will experience a certain decrease of sound pressure levels when applying these noise control measures. However there will be a lower limit for reduction due to the presence of a diffuse acoustic soundscape. To control/modify such a diffuse acoustic soundscape has been shown very difficult by traditional means of noise control. Main characteristic of diffuse acoustic soundscapes is the presence of a multitude of sources, distributed over a wide area contributing evenly to the acoustic soundscape in a certain areas. Screening will only lead to a redistribution of sound, however consequences of such a redistribution will not be recognised in a diffuse sound field. Absorption has been identified as a main parameter to control diffuse acoustic soundscapes. Reducing sound pressure levels in shielded areas such as inner-yards can only be achieved by adding acoustically absorbing areas along the transfer path between source and receiver, but especially inside the inner-yard. Redistribution of traffic flow has been shown to have a tremendous effect on the directly exposed side, but only a small effect in shielded areas.


The left atrium is a complex chamber, which plays an integral role in the maintenance of physiologic hemodynamic and electrical stability of the heart and is involved in many disease states, most commonly atrial fibrillation. Preserving regions of the left atrium that contribute the greatest to atrial mechanical function during curative strategies for atrial fibrillation are important. We present here a new application of the CARTO electroanatomical mapping system in the assessment of the left atria mechanical function. Electroanatomical data were collected in course of the electrophysiological procedure in 11 control patients and 12 patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. The three-dimensional geometry of the left atria was reconstructed in 10 ms intervals and segmented into distinct regions. For each segment, a regional ejection fraction was calculated. We found that anterior, septal and lateral segments have significantly greater regional ejection fraction than atria roof, inferior and posterior segments. Therefore, we hypothesize that in order to minimize the impact on atrial mechanical function, an important determinant of thromboembolic risk, damage should be minimized to these atrial regions.


A Midwifery Service SM,-Prcobably most general practitioners, if they were honest with themselves, would admit that they consider midwifery the most irksome -of their many duties. Either it interferes with the ordinary run of work or it deprives them of much-needed hours of sleep. Except in the very early stages, attendance on a case should be a whole-time, uninterrupted job. Also, in a certain number of cases, which would come to a successful if tardy termination when left to nature, forceps are applied, owing partly to the importunities of the mother or her relations and partly to pressure of other work that is waiting. If the present agitation is going to result in the establishment of another State service I Ehould like to suggest that the medical profession should organize its own midwifery on the following lines. Let the country be divided up into districts. In each district the general practitioners would agree to hand over all their midwifery to someone who wishes to specialize in this work and in gynaecology, and who, in turn, would guarantee to practise solely as a gynaecological surgeon and specialist in midwifery. The fees would be those current in the district. This should afford a good living for anyone for whom, in spite of his ambitions, Harley Street has no room. The general practitioner would be relieved of much night work without losing his family practice. In addition, neighbouring districts could combine to equip up-to-date maternity and gynaecological hospitals, which could be made self-support-ing through fees charged, and to which abnormal cases could be sent. These would be staffed by all the specialists in the area covered. Another advantage of this 'scheme would be that the general practitioner would cease to be the scapegoat in the question of maternal mortality, and the cause or causes would be more easy to trace. Doubtless some of my elder medical brethren will now pour out the vials of their wrath upon my head for suggesting that they should hand over some small portion of their work. It is surely better to do this voluntarily, and on our own terms, than be forced to do so by the State.-I am, etc.,


The utilisation of geographic information systems and digital image processing techniques for the construction of digital landscape models necessitate for a reconsideration of the classical concepts for landscape ecological mapping. In this thesis, some methods are presented for the spatial modelling and monitoring of natural landscapes based upon digital workflow information. In spatial information processing, two major approaches for the conceptual representation of spatial features are distinguished, the field and spatial object respectively. A field is a feature which is contiguously distributed over space and time. The object approach, on the contrary, assumes that the earth´s surface is populated with spatially interacting discrete units. Because natural landscapes often show both continuous and discrete variation in space and time, a hybrid terrain description is proposed, denoted as ´spatial object with nested field´. In this hybrid approach the discrete landscape patterns are described by spatial objects, while the internal spatial variability within an spatial object is represented by a field. Classification is applied during the construction of the spatial objects and nested fields, because it is acknowledged to be a powerful technique to extract essential information from the background of infinite complexity. Crisp classification yields discrete attribute values and is therefore suitable for the definition and construction of spatial objects. The representation of continuously varying terrain features requires a continuous type of classification, i.e. fuzzy classification. Throughout this thesis, fuzzy classification is applied to construct fields.The concepts for spatial modelling, that were introduced above, were used in three cases resulting from the landscape management practice in the Amsterdam Waterworks Dunes: Spatio-temporal mapping of the vegetation structure from high resolution CIR-images Two radiometrically corrected, digital colour infrared orthophotos from the summer of 1990 and 1995 with a resolution of 0.25 metre were semi-automatically interpreted. Crisp and fuzzy classification techniques were applied to construct the spatial objects and their nested fields, representing the vegetation structure of the test site. Compared to manual photo-interpretation, the semi-automatic interpretation of vegetation structure results in a more realistic, more detailed and less subjective digital representation of the landscape. Subsequently, the vegetation structural dynamics were explored on the basis of this multi-temporal data set. Methods are presented to answer two primary questions relevant to nature managers, regarding the turnover between cover types and the changes in the spatial structure. It appeared necessary to aggregate the spatial objects provided by the image interpretation to composite objects prior to the spatio-temporal analysis, because thematic and geometric inaccuracies in the data can yield faulty analysis results. Estimation of the spatial distribution of vegetation communities from environmental data In addition to information about vegetation structural dynamics, there is a need for information on changes in the vegetation composition. This information can be provided by a multi-temporal map of vegetation communities. An experiment was conducted to estimate the presence of vegetation communities from environmental data, including vegetation structural data. A reliable procedure for the automatic mapping of vegetation communities from environmental data requires a fine tuned definition of the vegetation communities and a powerful explanatory model. The first condition was met by applying the concept of fuzzy vegetation communities. After the optimisation of the degree of vagueness, the fuzzy vegetation community types show a closer resemblance with the vegetation abundance data in the relevees compared to the classical crisp vegetation classes. The second objective, i.e. the construction of a powerful explanatory model, was not successfully achieved. Clearly, vegetation structural data are not sufficient to map the vegetation composition in dunes. Additional information regarding some abiotic site characteristics seem indispensable to improve the explanatory power of the model. Fuzzy ecohydrological expert modelling of dune slacks The thesis also describes the fuzzy ecohydrological expert model ECOMOD. The model predicts the primary parameters for the specification of ecotopes, i.e. vegetation structure, moisture content, nutrient availability and acidity of the soil. ECOMOD is calibrated for dune slacks by a team of experts. These experts estimated the parameters of the membership functions that quantify the fuzzy classes and fuzzy relations constituting the model. Experts apply vagueness or fuzziness in order to quantify the continuous turnover between classes and to quantify the uncertainty related to their knowledge. Therefore, fuzzy expert models like ECOMOD enable the robust modelling of complex systems, even if relatively little data is available. Models like this are particularly suited for scenario studies. ECOMOD is a generic ecohydrological model that can be adapted and calibrated for other ecohydrological systems.


Rilpivirine is an antiretroviral drug used to treat AIDS worldwide. The drug is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor that halts the cDNA elongation process and, thus, the capacity of the HIV-1 virus to replicate. With the new wave of drug repurposing in recent years, rilpivirine has been studied in this regard. This drug is useful in Zika virus treatment, with in vivo results indicating regression in neuronal effects often associated with this infection. Several cancer types have also been researched, from breast to leukemia and pancreatic cancer, and rilpivirine has proved to have inhibitory effects in various cell lines with low concentrations, causing cellular death, apoptosis, and cell cycle arrest. The pathways are not yet established, but some works have hypothesized and demonstrated that rilpivirine causes inhibition of Aurora A kinase and has effects on the Janus kinase-signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK-STAT) signaling pathway and the vascular endothelial growth factors-receptors (VEGFs-VEGFRs) pathway, which are known to be altered in cancer and tumors and can be targeted for cancer treatment. Further testing and clinical trials are needed, but this review demonstrates the potential of rilpivirine's repurposing for cancer treatment.


We consider a network of service-providing agents, where different agents have different capabilities, availability, and cost to solve problems. These characteristics are particularly important in practice for semi-automated call centers which provide quality customer service in real time. We have developed SANet, a service agent network for call center automation, to serve as an experimental testbed for our research. SANet can select appropriate agents to provide better solutions for customer problems according to the changing capabilities and availability of service agents in the network. It can also add or delete appropriate agents to balance problem-solving quality, efficiency, and cost according to the number and types of incoming customer problems. On this network, each service agent can be a human service agent, an automated software service agent, or a combination of the two. This paper describes the architecture, a problem scheduling algorithm and an agent assignment algorithm on the SANet. We highlight an application in which we apply SANet to a call-center scheduling problem for a cable-TV company. Finally, we show the efficiency and adaptability of our system via experimental results and discuss related works.


This project produced detailed data on the processes that affect methane and nitrous oxide emissions from rice agriculture and their inter-relationships. It defines the shifting roles and potential future of these gases in causing global warming and the benefits and tradeoffs of reducing emissions. The major results include: 1). Mechanisms and Processes Leading to Methane Emissions are Delineated. Our experiments have tested the standard model of methane emissions from rice fields and found new results on the processes that control the flux. A mathematical mass balance model was used to unravel the production, oxidation and transport of methane from rice. The results suggested that when large amounts of organic matter are applied, the additional flux that is observed is due to both greater production and reduced oxidation of methane. 2). Methane Emissions From China Have Been Decreasing Over the Last Two Decades. We have calculated that methane emissions from rice fields have been falling in recent decades. This decrease is particularly large in China. While some of this is due to reduced area of rice agriculture, the bigger effect is from the reduction in the emission factor which is the annual amount of methane emitted per hectare of rice. Themore » two most important changes that cause this decreasing emission from China are the reduced use of organic amendments which have been replaced by commercial nitrogen fertilizers, and the increased practice of intermittent flooding as greater demands are placed on water resources. 3). Global Methane Emissions Have Been Constant For More Than 20 Years. While the concentrations of methane in the atmosphere have been leveling off in recent years, our studies show that this is caused by a near constant total global source of methane for the last 20 years or more. This is probably because as some anthropogenic sources have increased, others, such as the rice agriculture source, have fallen. Changes in natural emissions appear small. 4). Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Rice Fields Increase as Methane Emissions Drop. Inundated conditions favor anaerobic methane production with high emission rates and de-nitrification resulting in modest nitrous oxide emissions. Under drier conditions such as intermittent flooding, methane emissions fall and nitrous oxide emissions increase. Increased nitrogen fertilizer use increases nitrous oxide emissions and is usually accompanied by reduced organic matter applications which decreases methane emissions. These mechanisms cause a generally inverse relationship between methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Reduction of methane from rice agriculture to control global warming comes with tradeoffs with increased nitrous oxide emissions. 5). High Spatial Resolution Maps of Emissions Produced. Maps of methane and nitrous oxide emissions at a resolution of 5 min × 5 min have been produced based on the composite results of this research. These maps are necessary for both scientific and policy uses.« less


Despite its potential, life history methodology has seldom been used in TESL research. This article first defines what is meant by life history research methodology, and then examines how it might benefit our research in TESL. Answering the question, What are the benefits of life history research? the author examines how life histories in other fields and in her own research have shifted focus from the extraordinary to the mundane, and from the universal to the singular, while simultaneously adding previously marginalized perspectives, challenging and informing theory, allowing for comprehensive reinterpretation, locating research historically, and encouraging the production of invitational texts. The author further argues that participants in life history research benefit from being listened to and from framing their stories in terms of overcoming adversity, while the researcher benefits from becoming critically involved with her or his participants. The final section of the article addresses some of the potential pitfalls of life history research, including reliability, verifiability, the tendency toward exoticism, difficulties with translation and authorship, and the "afterlife" of research. The article concludes by asserting that life history is one methodology that is powerful enough to begin recording the complexities of race, class, language, history, and cultures in our classrooms.


The concept of risk-based adaptive access control (RAdAC, pronounced Raid-ack) has been recently introduced in the literature. It seeks to automatically (or semi-automatically) adjust security risk for providing access to resources accounting for operational needs, risk factors and situational factors. In order to make progress in this arena we need abstract models analogous to those that underlie the sustained and successful practice of discretionary, mandatory and role-based access control. Such models define a formal structure and components for policy specifications, while allowing for a variety of enforcement architectures and detailed implementation. In this paper we develop a novel approach to capture these characteristics of RAdAC using attribute-based access control. We further show that this RAdAC model can be expressed in the UCON usage control model with suitable extensions, and discuss how other UCON elements not used in this construction could beneficially improve the RAdAC vision.


As a seasonal crop, rice production is highly depend on the carrying capacity of the climate, that the changing climate requires the adaptive capacity of the farmers. On the other hand, climate change is still a new and complex issue for most people which is followed by differences in response to its impact. This research tries to describe the relationship between communication variables and adaptive capacity to climate change of rice farmers. The survey method is applied in lowland, midland, and upland agroecosystem zones affected by climate change which are represented by 32 rice farmers each. The result shows that there is a very strong relation between climate change communication variables of the farmers and their capacity in adapting to the climate change. Therefore, the diversity of sources of climate change information of the farmers and the frequency of its use, and the exposure to climate change information and convergence of climate change communication of the farmers need to be improved.


Essential oils (EOs) obtained from a wide variety of plants have become popular with increased scientific interest as potential natural agents for food preservation. Two concentrations of rind EOs (400 mg/ml and 200 mg/ml) from three species of citrus fruit; Citrus sinensis (Sweet orange), Citrus limon (Lemon), and Citrus aurantifolia (Lime) were used to treat fresh chicken meat inoculated with Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Salmonella typhi ATCC 20971 and Salmonella enterica ATCC 14028 to evaluate their protective abilities on bacteria-contaminated meat The EOs were extracted from the ground rinds by hydro-distillation. Alongside the EOs, sodium nitrate (NaNO3) was used as a positive control preservative. A viable count was carried out to determine the bacteria load reduction on the inoculated fresh chicken meat. After 24 hours of treatment, the results showed that the EOs had no adverse effect on the physical attributes of the meat: the color and smell of the chicken meat were unaltered compared with the negative control (None EO and NaNO3 treated meat) that showed evidence of putrefaction through color change and foul smell. The two- lime rind EOs concentrations used to treat the Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 inoculated meat reduced the viable count of the organism by 7.9 log compared to the Escherichia coli ATCC 25922-inoculated meat which received no rind EOs or NaNO3 treatment. Other results showed that sweet orange (SO) rind EOs (400 mg/ml and 200 mg/ml) treatment of meat inoculated with Salmonella enterica ATCC 14028 had similar but mild preservative effects as both treatments reduced the log of the bacteria by 1.1 and 0.8, respectively. In comparison with NaNO3, the EOs treatment had a significant (p<0.05) preservative effect on the bacteria-inoculated meats. Findings from this study, therefore, suggest that Citrus spp. rind EOs have good potential as natural preservative for chicken meat. However, notwithstanding the relative positive organoleptic results observed in this study, further investigations on the prolonged preservation effect of the EOs on the physical attributes of fresh chicken meat need to be undertaken.


A compact internal antenna is proposed for GSM/GPS/DCS/PCS/UMTS/Bluetooth/WLAN/WiFi/WiMAX applications. The proposed antenna is comprised of a loop antenna and a monopole antenna. The antenna system shows wide multi-operation band as well as good radiation patterns and small volume. The antenna can be printed on the system circuit board of the mobile phone and short-circuited to the system ground plane to form a loop-type structure. A comparison with that of the existing antennas showed that wide impedance bandwidth of the proposed structure can be achieved without increasing the implementation complexity.


Abstract Objective To investigate the expression and clinical significance of let-7a and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in placental tissue of patients with severe preeclampsia (SPE). Methods From January 2018 to October 2019, 64 cases of puerperal delivery at the First People's Hospital of Lianyungang City, 44 cases of SPE (SPE group), and 20 cases of healthy pregnant women (NC group) were selected. QRT-PCR and Western-blot were used to detect the expression levels of let-7a, TNF-αmRNA, and protein in the two groups of placental tissues. The correlation and the clinical significance of the two were statistically analyzed. Results The relative expression of let-7a in the SPE group was significantly lower than that in the control group (0.06 ± 0.02 versus 0.25 ± 0.04, p < .05); the expression of TNF-αmRNA in the SPE group was significantly higher than that in the control group (0.48 ± 0.04 versus 0.17 ± 0.03, p < .05); TNF-α protein expression was significantly increased in the SPE group (1.09 ± 0.12 versus 0.56 ± 0.03, p < .05); let-7a and TNF-α were significantly negatively correlated (r = −0.41, p < .05); the blood pressure and birth weight of the pregnant women in the SPE group and the control group were significantly different [systolic blood pressure (164.27 ± 4.62) mmHg versus (125.01 ± 2.23)] mmHg, diastolic blood pressure (109.24 ± 2.97) mmHg versus (75.94 ± 2.74) mmHg, neonatal birth weight (2507.02 ± 161.46) g versus (3592.12 ± 153.05) g, p < .05]; the expression of TNF-α in placental tissue of SPE group was significantly positively correlated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure (r = 0.93 and 0.89, p < .05). Conclusion let-7a may participate in the occurrence and development of SPE by negatively regulating the expression of TNF-α.


Real-world planners must be able to temporally project their external actions internally. Typically, this has been done entirely at an abstract representational level. We investigate an alternative approach, performing projections on a concrete, property-based representation, and rederiving the abstract level from it. We show that this approach can greatly alleviate the frame problem in certain types of spatial domains, while maintaining the advantages of planning at an abstract level. We present a comparison of the approaches in various object-manipulation domains, including the results of a re-implementation of the Robo-Soar system [Laird et al., 1989].


For the last half century, the novels of Philip Roth have re-energized American fiction and redefined its possibilities, leading the critic Harold Bloom to proclaim Roth "our foremost novelist since Faulkner." Roth's comic genius, his imaginative daring, his courage in exploring uncomfortable truths, and his assault on political, cultural, and sexual orthodoxies have made him one of the essential writers of our time. By special arrangement with the author, The Library of America continues the definitive edition of Roth's collected works. This fourth volume presents the trilogy and epilogue that constitute "Zuckerman Bound" (1985), Roth's wholly original investigation into the unforeseen consequences of art-mainly in libertarian America and then, by contrast, in Soviet-suppressed Eastern Europe-during the latter half of the twentieth century. "The Ghost Writer" (1979) introduces Nathan Zuckerman in the 1950s, a budding writer infatuated with the Great Books, discovering the contradictory claims of literature and experience while an overnight guest in the secluded New England farmhouse of his literary idol, E. I. Lonoff. "Zuckerman Unbound" (1981) finds him far from Lonoff's domain-the scene is Manhattan as the sensationalizing 1960s are coming to an end. Zuckerman, in his mid-thirties, is suffering the immediate aftershock of literary celebrity. The high-minded prot?g? of E. I. Lonoff has become a notorious superstar. "The Anatomy Lesson" (1984) takes place largely in the hospital isolation ward that Zuckerman has made of his Upper East Side apartment. It is Watergate time, 1973, and to Zuckerman the only other American who seems to be in as much trouble as himself is Richard Nixon. Zuckerman, at forty, is beset with crippling and unexplained physical pain; he wonders if the cause might not be his own inflammatory work. In "The Prague Orgy" (1985), entries from Zuckerman's notebooks describing his 1976 sojourn among the outcast artists of Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia reveal the major theme of Zuckerman Bound from a new perspective that provides the stinging conclusion to this richly ironic and intricately designed magnum opus. As an added feature, this volume publishes for the first time Roth's unproduced television screenplay for "The Prague Orgy," featuring new characters and scenes that do not appear in the novella.


The optical absorption spectra and static polarizabilities for the lowest energy configurations of Al2O3 and Gd doped (Al2O3)n clusters (n = 1–10) are investigated based on the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) formalism. The polarizabilities of (Al2O3)n, GdAl2n−1O3n, and Gd2Al2n−2O3n clusters decrease with the increase in size (n) of the cluster. On the other hand, the polarizability of the pristine system increases with the Gd concentration. A systematic study of the optical band gap and HOMO–LUMO gap change for different cluster sizes and Gd concentrations has been envisaged. This could be quite useful from the application perspective of band gap tuning with respect to the cluster size. The study reveals the dependence of both the optical gap and the optical spectra on the geometry, size of the cluster and number of Gd atoms. It is observed that the optical gap oscillates with an increase in the cluster size. With an increase in the number of Gd atoms, a red shift is observed in the optical spectra compared to the pristine system. Interestingly, smooth transitions from discrete to quasi-continuous optical spectra have also been predicted with an increase in size. The simulated spectra exhibit long absorption tails extending deep into the region of lower transition energies.


The aim of this study was to examine the associations of dietary-lifestyle patterns (DLPs) with adiposity and metabolic abnormalities in adult Polish men that were under 40. The cross-sectional study included 358 men that were 19–40-year-old. Dietary and lifestyle data were collected with multicomponent food frequency questionnaire (KomPAN®). DPLs were derived with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using 25 dietary and six lifestyle as the input variables. Adiposity was determined with the use of: overweight (body mass index 25–29.9 kg/m2), central obesity (waist-to-height ratio ≥ 0.5), general obesity (body fat ≥ 25%), excessive visceral fat tissue (≥ median), and increased skeletal muscle mass (≥ median). The metabolic abnormalities were characterised by elevated: fasting blood glucose (FBG ≥ 100 mg/dL), triglycerides (TG ≥ 150 mg/dL), total cholesterol (TC ≥ 200 mg/dL), or systolic or diastolic blood pressure (≥ 130 or ≥ 85 mmHg, respectively). Four PCA-driven DLPs were derived and labelled accordingly to the most characteristic dietary or lifestyle behaviours that were correlated with each pattern. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that higher adherence (upper vs. bottom tertile as referent) to "Protein food, fried-food, and recreational physical activity" pattern was associated with higher odds of overweight and increased skeletal muscle mass, and lower odds of: general obesity, excessive visceral fat tissue, and elevated TC. Higher adherence to "Healthy diet, active, past smokers" pattern was associated with higher odds of overweight and lower odds of: general obesity, excessive visceral fat tissue, and elevated FBG. Higher adherence to "Sandwiches and convenient diet" pattern was associated with higher odds of: central obesity, general obesity, excessive visceral fat tissue, elevated TC, elevated TG, occurrence at least two metabolic abnormalities, and lower odds of increased skeletal muscle mass. A higher adherence to "Fast foods and stimulants" pattern was associated with higher odds of central obesity, general obesity, excessive visceral fat tissue, and lower odds of increased skeletal muscle mass. The interrelations between diet and lifestyle behaviours were reflected in three out of four patterns. Healthy diet attempts combined with active lifestyle was associated with reduced risk of adiposity and metabolic abnormalities despite some unhealthy components, like former smoking or fried-food consumption. In contrary, patterns that were composed of undesirable dietary behaviours solely, as well as poor diet combined with stimulant use, were associated with higher adiposity and worse metabolic health, despite the relatively young age of the study participants. Accurate mapping of dietary-lifestyle behaviours can serve as a tool for formulating evidence-based recommendations.


The increase in housing equity withdrawal and coincident decline in aggregate savings rates in a number of countries in recent years is consistent with the consumption-smoothing model of housing equity withdrawal. However, there are a variety of other theoretical models that purport to explain why households withdraw and inject equity. To assess the relative importance of these various theories, we use a comprehensive survey of the equity withdrawal and injection decisions of Australian households. We find support for several theories. Life cycle considerations appear to be most important, with older households accounting for the bulk of equity withdrawn. Portfolio rebalancing considerations also appear important, with financial asset accumulation the primary use of withdrawn funds. Consumption-smoothing motives play an influential role, although primarily for smaller-value transactions.


The stomach contents of 2756 fish of 14 species taken by seine and gill netting in the Bot River, Kleinmond and Palmiet estuaries on the south-western Cape coast of South Africa were examined. The small juveniles of all species consumed primarily zooplankton before switching to their adult diets. Seven of the species, Atherina breviceps , Caffrogobius multifasciatus , Clinus spatulatus , Galeichthys feliceps , Gilchnstella aestuaria , Monodactylus falciformis , Psammogobius knysnaensis and Syngnathus acus were carnivores which fed primarily on invertebrates; two, Hyporhamphus capensis and Sarpa salpa , were herbivores; three, Lithganathus lithognathus , Rhabdosargus globiceps and R. holubi were omnivores and two, Lichia amia and Pomatomus saltatrix were piscivores. Within these trophic groupings variations in the diets of fish from the different estuaries were noted as were changes in diet with season. Differences between estuaries were ascribed primarily to food availability and differences in the size ranges of the fish species sampled in them. Differences in the diet between size classes were primarily due to an increasing ability to handle larger food items. The few seasonal differences in diet that occurred appeared not to conform to any observable pattern. Twelve food categories provided > 1 % of food consumed by at least one species and each of these categories was represented in the guts of between 9 and 14 of the fish species examined. Six of the prey categories, Isopoda, Amphipoda, Decapoda, Teleostei, Algae and Spermatophyta each provided> 10% of the food consumed by all 14 species combined.


Dc to dc converters are used to change the input voltage level to a desired output voltage level less (Buck converter) or more (Boost converter) than the input voltage magnitude. This paper proposes a novel method for increasing output power by utilizing two storage elements as well as reducing the output ripple voltage for Buck and Boost converters. In this improved converters, two inductors are used for feeding the load by two independent switches. One inductor charges up by the source voltage while another inductor is discharging its energy into the load during this time. The output power production is almost doubled while the ripple voltage is reduced by a factor of two when compared to a conventional dc to dc converter. This paper provides the analysis, simulation, experimental results as well as the comparison with conventional Buck and Boost converters.


Generative models with an encoding component such as autoencoders currently receive great interest. However, training of autoencoders is typically complicated by the need for training of a separate encoder and decoder model that have to be enforced to be reciprocal to each other. Here, we propose to use the by-design reversible neural networks (RevNets) as a new class of generative models. We investigate the generative performance of RevNets on the CelebA dataset, showing that generative RevNets can indeed generate coherent faces with similar quality as Variational Autoencoders. This first attempt to use RevNets as a generative model still slightly underperformed relative to recent advanced generative models using an autoencoder component on CelebA, but this gap may diminish with further optimization of the training setup of generative RevNets. In addition to the experiments on CelebA, we show a proofof-principle experiment on the MNIST dataset suggesting that adversary-free trained RevNets can discover meaningful dimensions without prespecifying the number of latent dimensions of the sampling distribution. In summary, this study shows that RevNets enable generative applications with an encoding component while overcoming the need of training separate encoder and decoder models.


A novel and simple photoelectrochemical method was developed for the selective detection of Cd2+. CdS, a semiconductor, was obtained by electrodepositing Cd2+ solution containing S2O32− and EDTA, and ITO glass covered with ZnO nanorod arrays, synthesized by a hydrothermal process, was used as the photoelectrochemical sensing matrix. Compared with ZnO, CdS is a narrow band semiconductor and could be easily stimulated by light irradiation. Based on the principle that CdS could enhance the charge separation of ZnO nanorods, the detection of Cd2+ was achieved. SEM images of the CdS/ZnO electrode showed that different amounts of CdS were obtained when the electrodepositions were operated in solutions containing different concentrations of Cd2+, and on account of the different concentrations of Cd2+, different photocurrent intensities were obtained. A good linear relationship between the photocurrent intensity and Cd2+ concentration was achieved from 0.01 mM to 5 mM with a detection limit of 3.3 μM. The analysis of Cd2+ in a water sample using the proposed method also gave satisfactory results. Therefore, this work provides a novel methodology for Cd2+ analysis, which has potential application in environmental monitoring and analysis.


Submarine interconnections allow for the connection of large islands to the onshore transmission grid and for the decommissioning of local power plants, which are often old, inefficient and polluting. High voltage alternating current (HVAC) cables are an interesting solution for smaller power ratings and distances up to 120 km, due to lower capital costs and absence of converting stations, if compared to HVDC links. However the design of terminal stations of HVAC interconnections must account for some specific issues, such as switching equipment performance limits, reactive power compensation and insulation coordination. The paper deals with two recent examples of HVAC submarine link, i.e. the Malta-Sicily and Capri-Italy interconnectors, focusing on terminal substation design and testing. Keywords—HVAC; submarine cable; substation design; insulation coordination.


Between September 1977 and September 1980 we implanted 4 Rosen inflatable incontinence prostheses in 4 men with urinary incontinence. Twelve operations were necessary on these 4 patients to assure them to be continent during a total of 43 months. Because of the great number of complications we no longer use the Rosen prosthesis.


Recursive models a computational tool for representing the mean ing of natural language utterances at a semantic pragmatic level are described and compared with relevant work Recursive models are not only a theorical instrument but an e ective tool they have been used in TOBI Temporal presup positions and counterfactuals an Ontological Based Interpreter a natural language processing system for modelling temporal pre suppositions and counterfactuals linguistic phenomena situated on the boundary line between semantics and pragmatics and common to many languages


One way to extract patterns from clinical records is to consider each patient record as a bag with various number of instances in the form of symptoms. Medical diagnosis is to discover informative ones first and then map them to one or more diseases. In many cases, patients are represented as vectors in some feature space and a classifier is applied after to generate diagnosis results. However, in many real-world cases, data is often of low-quality due to a variety of reasons, such as data consistency, integrity, completeness, accuracy, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, attention based multi-instance neural network (AMINet), to make the single disease classification only based on the existing and valid information in the real-world outpatient records. In the context of a patient, it takes a bag of instances as input and output the bag label directly in end-to-end way. Embedding layer is adopted at the beginning, mapping instances into an embedding space which represents the individual patient condition. The correlations among instances and their importance for the final classification are captured by multi-head attention transformer, instance-level multi-instance pooling and bag-level multi-instance pooling. The proposed approach was test on two non-standardized and highly imbalanced datasets, one in the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) domain and the other in the Western Medicine (WM) domain. Our preliminary results show that the proposed approach outperforms all baselines results by a significant margin.


Developing measurement tools in the form of a question is a skill that must be mastered by educators and prospective educators. With the implementation of the 2013 curriculum, educators must not only be able to develop authentic assessments but questions that developed must also be able to encourage students to master lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) as well as higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). This study aims to determine the cognitive level of final semester exam questions at fourth-grade elementary school level on theme 3, theme 4, and theme 5. This study uses descriptive-analytical methods in which the researcher tries to describe the object (question item). The results obtained that most of the multiple-choice questions both in Theme 3, Theme 4, and Theme 5 at the elementary school level grade IV (four) at Gugus 2 Aik Dareq sub-district, Central Lombok are still at the cognitive level of low-level thinking ability (LOTS).


This study used the strengthening grinding process (SGP) to treat the surface of 30CrMnSiA bearing steels. The effect of the jet angle of SGP on the tribological properties of 30CrMnSiA bearing steels under lubrication was investigated. The principle of enhancing wear resistance of 30CrMnSiA bearing steel ascribed to SGP was discussed in detail. The results showed that the lubrication properties and surface hardness of the 30CrMnSiA steels were enhanced due to the formation of numerous microscale microscope oil pockets on the surface layer and the grain refinement of the surface microstructures, resulting in a significant improvement in wear resistance. With the jet angle of SGP increased from 0° to 90°, the friction coefficient, the wear volume, and the specific wear rate were exhibited to reduce rapidly first, then reduce slowly, and then rise slowly. With the optimal parameters at the jet angle of 60°, compared with the control sample, the average friction coefficient was reduced from 0.2235 to 0.1609, and the wear volume and specific wear rate were reduced from 9.04 × 10−3 mm3 to 3.82 × 10−3 mm3 and from 15.13 × 10−3 mm2/N to 6.36 × 10−3 mm2/N, respectively. When the jet angle was 90°, the reduced wear resistance was mainly attributed to the excessive roughness that caused the oil coating on the surface to be severely damaged.


The present research aims to investigate the effects of supply chain management in Indian cement industries using a Qualitative data collection techniques & logistic Management. These data were analysed using SWOT analysis. The outcomes of the analysis are the peculiar features of the practice of Supply Chain Management in Indian cement industry. the optimal supply chain strategy demonstrates the best economic, ecological and social performance in the cement industry. Since 2000, supply chain management has played an operational role within cement and mineral extraction commodity companies. Recently, cost reduction projects have brought supply chain management into the limelight. The level of advancement in cement Supply Chain Management (SCM) can facilitate or constrain indian economic development. Logistics Management also plays important roles and contribute immensely to the economy of a nation. Research was conducted to investigate how logistics and supply chains are implemented in cement factories in India. The cement industries are playing vital role in the economic and social development of the countries. The Indian cement industry chosen for this study is the biggest cement industries in the country.


The exponential growth of dynamic Web content has posed serious challenges to the scalability of the World Wide Web. While caching on the edge of the Internet has emerged as a popular technique to address these challenges, many of the present-day edge caching systems do not harness the complete benefits of edge computing. Our research efforts in the cooperative edge cache grid project are aimed at utilizing collaboration among edge caches as a means to further enhance the capabilities and the performance of edge cache network. This paper outlines the cooperative EC grid project including its architecture, fundamental concepts, and various techniques that have been designed for supporting low-cost cooperation among the edge caches


Abstract: Kant's argument against suicide is widely dismissed by scholars and often avoided by teachers because it is deemed inconsistent with Kant's moral philosophy. This paper attempts to show a way to make sense of Kant's injunction against suicide that
 is consistent with his moral system. One of the strategies adopted in order to accomplish my goal is a de-secularization of Kant's ethics. I argue that all actions of self-killing (or suicide) are morally impermissible because they are inconsistent with God's established nature
 and order. It is argued that the existence of God as the locus of moral value and duty in Kant's moral system, and not belief in God, can explain the consistency of Kant's injunction against suicide. A synergistic view is offered, which rests on three arguments: First,
 suicide goes against God's authority. Second, suicide is inconsistent with our self-perpetuating nature. Third, suicide goes against the rational will.


Stochastic gradient methods for machine learning and optimization problems are usually analyzed assuming data points are sampled \emph{with} replacement. In practice, however, sampling \emph{without} replacement is very common, easier to implement in many cases, and often performs better. In this paper, we provide competitive convergence guarantees for without-replacement sampling, under various scenarios, for three types of algorithms: Any algorithm with online regret guarantees, stochastic gradient descent, and SVRG. A useful application of our SVRG analysis is a nearly-optimal algorithm for regularized least squares in a distributed setting, in terms of both communication complexity and runtime complexity, when the data is randomly partitioned and the condition number can be as large as the data size per machine (up to logarithmic factors). Our proof techniques combine ideas from stochastic optimization, adversarial online learning, and transductive learning theory, and can potentially be applied to other stochastic optimization and learning problems.


Tolosa-Hunt syndrome is a painful ophthalmoplegia due to nonspecific granulomatous inflammation in the cavernous sinus. A 16-year-old man developed Tolosa-Hunt syndrome accompanied by facial nerve palsy. MRI showed an inflammatory lesion in the cavernous sinus with gadolinium enhancement. This rare presentation suggests that Tolosa-Hunt syndrome is a localized form of idiopathic hypertrophic pachymeningitis. KeyWords:Tolosa-Hunt syndrome, Facial nerve palsy, Ophthalmoplegia


Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) can be determined using Patlak plot analysis with single-slice dynamic computed tomography (CT). Acute autologous graft failure has several causes, all of which induce a measurable decrease in glomerular filtration rate. This study demonstrated in an experimental model of canine autologous renal transplant that CT-derived renal plasma clearance was significantly lower (p = 0.002) in dogs having undergone transplant (0.077 +/- 0.058 ml min(-1) ml renal tissue(-1)) compared with control dogs (0.396 +/- 0.139 ml min(-1) ml renal tissue(-1)). A significant negative curvilinear relationship was seen between serum creatinine and total renal plasma clearance (R(2) = 0.84, p = 0.0001). Alterations in renal time attenuation curve shape in dogs having undergone transplant may have been related to increased renal vascular resistance related to tubular necrosis. CT-GFR may be a useful experimental tool in the evaluation of renal dysfunction in transplant models.


Voice trigger detection is an important task, which enables activating a voice assistant when a target user speaks a keyword phrase. A detector is typically trained on speech data independent of speaker information and used for the voice trigger detection task. However, such a speaker independent voice trigger detector typically suffers from performance degradation on speech from underrepresented groups, such as accented speakers. In this work, we propose a novel voice trigger detector that can use a small number of utterances from a target speaker to improve detection accuracy. Our proposed model employs an encoder-decoder architecture. While the encoder performs speaker independent voice trigger detection, similar to the conventional detector, the decoder predicts a personalized embedding for each utterance. A personalized voice trigger score is then obtained as a similarity score between the embeddings of enrollment utterances and a test utterance. The personalized embedding allows adapting to target speaker's speech when computing the voice trigger score, hence improving voice trigger detection accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves a 38% relative reduction in a false rejection rate (FRR) compared to a baseline speaker independent voice trigger model.


Acupuncture is regarded as an effective therapy for cerebral ischemia. Different acupuncture manipulations and durations may result in different therapeutic effects. In the present study, the Neiguan (PC6) acupoint of rats with occluded middle cerebral arteries was needled at a fixed frequency (3 Hz) with different durations, i.e., 5, 60 and 180 seconds under a twisting-rotating acupuncture method. Results showed that different durations of acupuncture had different therapeutic effects, with 60 seconds yielding a better therapeutic effect than the other two groups. This duration of treatment demonstrated rapid cerebral blood flow, encouraging recovery of neurological function, and small cerebral infarct volume. Experimental findings indicated that under 3 Hz frequency, the treatment of needling Neiguan for 60 seconds is effective for ischemic stroke.


The spatial frequency contained in visual objects is known to affect human psychophysiology. In our previous study, we showed that event‐related potentials are affected by spatial frequency during a simple calculation task. In that study, however, we did not investigate the contribution of oscillatory neural activities. The purpose of the present study is to characterize the changes in oscillatory neural activity associated with cognitive processes, and to investigate how these signals are affected by the spatial frequency of a visual stimulus during simple calculation tasks. We investigate these issues by analyzing our previously collected electroencephalography (EEG) dataset using the same visual stimulus, tasks, subjects, and EEG recordings. In that study, four types of vertically striped visual stimuli were used. The visual stimuli contained embedded numbers (from 0 to 9) that possessed the following frequency (f) characteristics: white noise, 1/f, 1/f2, and 1/f3. The subjects were instructed to perform two tasks: 'add numbers' (addition task) and 'do not add numbers' (reference task). EEG data were recorded, and event‐related synchronization (ERS) and desynchronization (ERD) for each visual stimulus were analyzed on the basis of the intertrial variances of wavelet coefficients for theta, alpha, low‐beta, and gamma band activity. Eight healthy men (21–23 years) were recruited to participate in the study. Our results suggest the presence of a frequency discrimination function in the theta band activity in the fronto‐central area at the latency of 198 ms during the addition task. The alpha‐band ERD during completion of the reference task also showed a spatial frequency dependency. This phenomenon was observed in the left temporal‐parietal area at a latency of 376 ms, and is thought to be related to the perceptual filter. We conclude that the observed changes in oscillatory neural activity associated with cognitive processes are affected by spatial frequency. © 2014 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


BACKGROUND
The Carotid Artery Insufficiency Retinopathy (CAIR) is an uncommon sign of carotid artery obstruction. It is mainly found in patients with complete occlusion or severe obstruction of internal Carotid Artery (ICA). Retinopathy is caused by progressive and chronic hypoxia to ocular tissues. The purpose of the study is to describe the variable presentation of CAIR in patients with internal carotid artery stenosis and to asses the resolution of retinopathy in patients who had carotid endarterectomy.

METHODS
Records of the patients with confirmed internal carotid artery stenosis were reviewed. Patients' demographic data and way of presentation to ophthalmologist was recorded. Associated systemic vascular diseases were also recorded on the proforma. Records of the patients with confirmed internal carotid artery stenosis were reviewed.

RESULTS
Thirteen eyes of 10 patients were included in study with male to female ratio of 9:1. Patients' clinical presentation ranged from scattered blot haemorrhages to ocular ischemic syndrome. Patients presented with retinopathy at different stages. The presentation of retinopathy varied from scattered blot haemorrhages to ocular ischemic syndrome. Endarterectomy resolved CAIR in 2 out of 3 patients, with one patient having bilateral resolution.

CONCLUSION
CAIR should be suspected if retinopathy is unilateral. On the other hand patients with asymptomatic Carotid artery stenosis should be examined for signs of ocular ischemia. All patients with CAIR should be investigated for cardiovascular diseases. Endarterectomy in selected patients can resolve CAIR.


The objective of the study is to determine the degree of extent of the phenomenon of psychological exhaustion among teachers of physical education and sports at the secondary and middle levels of education. For this study, the researchers relied on the descriptive approach for it fits the subject of the study. The sample consisted of (60) teachers, including (40) of the average level of education chosen at random. The researchers opted for the burnout scale introduced by Seidman and Zager 1994 and translated into Arabic by Adel Abdullah (1994). After statistical treatment, the results showed that teachers of physical education and sports are characterized by moderate degrees of psychological exhaustion. The study also revealed statistically significant differences in favor of middle school teachers.


The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of varying curricular experiences on the psychological well-being and academic achievement of students of higher education in the Ethiopian context. The target population was first-year students who were admitted to the Debub University possessing different entry behaviours. The first group includes those admitted in 2003/4 academic year after two years of pre-university preparatory programs in secondary schools based on the results of the University Entrance Examinations (UEE) (or the PPC group) and the other batch was admitted in 2002/03 based on the ESLCE results (the FPC group). A representative sample was drawn from four randomly selected faculties and colleges affiliated to the Debub University. Data was interpreted using bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses. The results show that PPC and FPC students differed to statistically significant extent in academic self-concept and academic achievement in favour of the latter. However, no variation was found in perceiving the way how their instructors treat them in class. Generally, achievement at the university was significantly predicted (p<.05) by academic self-concept (ASC), perceived instructors treatment (PTT), entry behaviour, and gender. Moreover, majority of the students from PPC group expressed dissatisfaction over their merger with their FPC counterparts (2=48.2, df =1, p<.0001). Implications of the findings for planning instruction in HEIs are discussed.


Bullet embolism is a rare but potentially serious complication of a gunshot wound. This case report describes a 26-year-old male who presented with a gunshot to the lower back. Diagnostics revealed a migrating bullet that became lodged in the left pulmonary artery. After two unsuccessful attempts at endoscopic removal, the decision was made by the multidisciplinary team to retrieve the bullet surgically. The patient recovered well postoperatively. Four- and eight-month follow-up in the emergency department revealed no significant postoperative complications. Bullet embolism should be suspected when radiographs reveal a migrating projectile. Treatment options include conservative management, endoscopic bullet retrieval, and surgical removal. No guidelines for the management of a bullet embolism exist. Management should be based on the patient's clinical status and comorbidities, facility resources, and perceived risk of undergoing surgical retrieval of the bullet.


Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) represent a promising drug class which expresses a wider therapeutic window than conventional chemotherapeutic agents by effecting efficient and specific drug delivery to antigen-expressing tumor cells. DS-8201a is a HER2-targeting ADC structurally composed of a humanized anti-HER2 antibody, enzymatically cleavable peptide-linker, and a novel topoisomerase I inhibitor (DXd), which is cell-membrane permeable and more potent than SN-38 the active metabolite of irinotecan. This ADC achieves a high drug-to-antibody-ratio (DAR, 7 to 8) with homogeneous conjugation with DXd. DS-8201a is cleaved by lysosomal enzymes and releases DXd in the cytoplasm after it binds to HER2 receptors and is internalized in tumor cells. In order to evaluate the pharmacological potential of DS-8201a, in vitro and in vivo studies were performed in comparison with T-DM1. T-DM1 is a commercialized HER2-targeting ADC with a tubulin polymerization inhibitor that is approved for treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. In vitro studies indicated that DS-8201a exhibited a HER2 expression-dependent cell growth inhibitory activity. In vivo studies using a HER2-positive gastric cancer NCI-N87 cell line-derived xenograft (CDX) model suggested that DS-8201a induced a dose-dependent tumor growth inhibition and tumor regression with a single dosing at more than 1 mg/kg. In comparison with T-DM1, 1) DS-8201a was effective against T-DM1-insensitive breast and gastric patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models with high HER2 expression. 2) DS-8201a, but not T-DM1, demonstrated anti-tumor efficacy against several breast cancer PDX models with low HER2 expression. 3) DS-8201a showed a complete response in mice inoculated with a mixture of HER2-positive and -negative cells while T-DM1 did not. These differentiations may be due to the different mechanisms of action of each conjugated drug (topoisomerase I inhibition vs. tubulin polymerization inhibition), higher DAR of DS-8201a (7 to 8 vs. 3.5), and DS-8201a9s more potent bystander killing due to higher cell membrane permeability of conjugated toxin. When taken together with over 30 CDX and PDX models from 8 tumor types (breast, gastric, cholangiocarcinoma, esophagus, colon, NSCLC, pancreas, and ovary) conducted so far, DS-8201a induced tumor regression in over 20 models with various HER2 expression levels though T-DM1 induced regression in only 8 models with high HER2 expression. In conclusion, these studies suggest that DS-8201a, a novel HER2-targeting ADC, may be more efficacious in a broader patient population than T-DM1, and in tumors which current anti-HER2 therapies are ineffective, such as T-DM1 insensitive tumors and low HER2-expressing tumors, and in tumors with high HER2 heterogeneity. The first in human study will be initiated in 2015 3Q. Citation Format: Yusuke Ogitani, Junko Yamaguchi, Chiaki Ishii, Takehiro Hirai, Ryo Atsumi, Koji Morita, Ichiro Hayakawa, Hiroyuki Naito, Takeshi Masuda, Takashi Nakada, Takahiro Jikoh. DS-8201a, a novel HER2-targeting ADC with a novel DNA topoisomerase I inhibitor, demonstrates a potent anti-tumor efficacy with differentiation from T-DM1 in preclinical studies. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2015 Nov 5-9; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2015;14(12 Suppl 2):Abstract nr A145.


A 70-year-old woman presented with a corneal ulcer resulting from aberrant and exuberant eyelash growth. She had recently been diagnosed with recurrent non-small-cell lung cancer for which she had begun a chemotherapeutic regimen that included erlotinib HCl. After several months of treatment, she noted the onset of escalating ocular irritation, which culminated in her presentation. Examination of her ocular adnexa revealed coarse, brittle, irregular aberrant eyelash growth. She has been successfully treated with regular epilation and eyelash trimming and has remained symptom free.


Minimum Description Length (MDL) estimation has proven itself of major importance in a large number of applications many of which are in the fields of computer vision and pattern recognition. A problem is encountered in applying the associated formulas, however, especially those associated with model cost. This is because most of these are asymptotic forms appropriate only for large sample sizes. J. Rissanen has recently derived sharper code-length formulas valid for much smaller sample sizes. Because of the importance of these results, it is our intent here to present a tutorial description of them. In keeping with this goal we have chosen a simple application whose relative tractability allows it to be explored more deeply than most problems: the segmentation of binary strings based on a piecewise Bernoulli assumption. By that we mean that the strings are assumed to be divided into substrings, the bits of which are assumed to have been generated by a single (within a substring) Bernoulli source.


In this paper, the aerodynamic characteristics are clarified by the airfoil performance test of the model of icing airfoil in wind tunnel. As a result of wind tunnel test, the lift coefficient of model of icing airfoil becomes lower and the drag coefficient becomes higher than those of clean airfoil. With the use of these results, numerical analysis using aeroelastic code was carried out to clarify the influence of icing airfoil on wind turbine performance. As result of the analysis, the rated power with icing airfoil is obtained at higher wind speed than clean one, and the maximum value of output power is decreased by icing airfoil. Compared to clean airfoil, the amplitude of edgewise moment at blade root is increased, which is mainly caused by the effects of mass of icing on the blade.


The TOMORROW trial of nintedanib comprised a randomised, placebo-controlled, 52-week period followed by a further blinded treatment period and an open-label extension. We assessed outcomes across these periods in patients randomised to nintedanib 150 mg twice daily or placebo at the start of TOMORROW. The annual rate of decline in FVC was −125.4 mL/year (95% CI −168.1 to −82.7) in the nintedanib group and −189.7 mL/year (95% CI −229.8 to −149.6) in the comparator group. The adverse event profile of nintedanib remained consistent throughout the studies. These results support a benefit of nintedanib on slowing progression of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis beyond 52 weeks.