The existence of global problems in the world and the increase in the speed of these problems in comparison to centuries cause fluctuations in the world population. While the events directly affecting the world population are concentrated on certain masses, the perception of the society is also affected in this direction and creates cultural changes. One of these global problems is Covid-19 pandemic, which began to spread from Wuhan, China on December 31, 2019. WHO declared covid-19 caused by corona virus as a pandemic on March * Geli tarihi: 21 Temmuz 2020 Kabul tarihi: 10 E l l 2020 demir, Mer em. Ya l l k Alg n n Korona ir Salg n S recindeki K l rel De i imi Mill F lkl 127 (G z 2020): 46-58 ** Ankara Hac Ba ram Veli ni er i e i, Li an E i im En i T rk Halk Bilimi ABD, Y k ek Lisans Mezunu, Ankara/T rki e, firstname.lastname@example.com, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0473-6587. Mill Folklor, 2020, Y l 32, Cilt 16, Sa 127 http://www.millifolklor.com 47 11, 2020. It spreads rapidly through the respiratory tract and is declared to result in death, especially in patients with chronic diseases and the elderly. It is supported by cultural codes that pandemic is a respiratory disease that increases the risk of death of the elderly population and follows different policies around treatment, care, prevention and protection according to the development level of the countries. Being under direct risk, the elderly population over the age of 65 and those with chronic illnesses in Turkey faced curfew on March 22 and protection approaches are intended to be taken for the elderly population. It is predicted that the risk of transmission will increase compared to the density of the elderly population and measures have been taken accordingly. It should be emphasized that the epidemic process and the measures taken affect the aging culture, and cultural changes should be determined by taking into consideration the rate of increase in the population. In this way, revealing the value gains and losses of the elderly in the society and the change experienced by the culture of the aging through the epidemic process will be evaluated in terms of folklore. When the policies of the state are analyzed, the viewpoint of the society towards the elderly and the vital value of the elderly can change. For this reason, it is necessary to reveal the difference between the policies pursued by the state from the policies followed in other world states and to determine the culture-based approaches. Policies on health, economy, socialization, physical isolation, social support and the protection and preventive measures implemented in this context have enabled the change of the culture of elderliness and the change in the socie percep ion of elderl in remembering, longing, belonging, fear and anxiety arising from the loss of their value attract attention. How the elderly perceive the epidemic, how they reflect their feelings and perceptions on social media, and their attitude towards the reactions have been directly influential in the regaining of their social roles. The obligatory contact of the elderly group with technology took place in this period and acquiring the right information through the media has gained importance in terms of ease of access to information. Since the prevention of socialization with the curfew only covers the physical distance, communication with people continued remotely through technology, neighbors, friends, balconies, building spaces, etc. and it is thought that communication has been used more intensively with the change of size. When those who comply with the decisions implemented by the state within the scope of health measures and those who do not comply are evaluated, it can be concluded that the perception of aging in the society gains value. It can be said that the approach established by the state on protection and trust is based on respect and love for the elderly in culture. With being a risk group, following precautions, using warnings that appeal to emotions and using appropriate language, the state has modeled the behavior of the elderly with the methods it has followed and it is understood that social memory is an example in recalling cultural codes.


This paper describes our research on using Genetic Programming to obtain transition rules for Cellular Automata, which are one type of massively parallel computing system. Our purpose is to determine the existence of a limit of chaos for three dimensional Cellular Automata, empirically demonstrated for the two dimensional case. To do so, we must study statistical properties of 3D Cellular Automata over long simulation periods. When dealing with big three dimensional meshes, applying the transition rule to the whole structure can become a extremely slow task. In this work we decompose the Automata into pieces and use OpenMp to parallelize the process. Results show that using a decomposition procedure, and distributing the mesh between a set of processors, 3D Cellular Automata can be studied without having long execution times.


Uneven illumination and space radiation can cause inhomogeneous grayscale distribution, low contrast, and noisy images in in-orbit cameras. A binarization algorithm based on morphological classification is proposed to solve the problem of inaccurate image binarization caused by space image degradation. Traditional local binarization algorithms generally calculate thresholds based on statistical information of gray dimensions within the local window, often ignoring the morphological distribution information, leading to poor results in degraded images. The algorithm presented in this paper demonstrates the property of the side window filtering (SWF) kernel on morphological clustering. First, the eight-dimensional SWF convolution kernel is used to describe the morphological properties of the pixels. Then, the positive and negative types of each pixel in the local window are identified, and the local threshold is calculated according to the difference between the two types. Finally, the positive pixel is used to filter the threshold of each pixel, with the binarization threshold satisfying the morphologically smooth and continuous property. A self-built dataset is used to evaluate the algorithm quantitatively and the results are compared with the three existing classical techniques using the quantitative measures FM, PSNR, and DRD. The experimental results show that the algorithm in this paper yields good binarization results for different degraded images, outperforms the comparison algorithm in terms of accuracy and robustness, and is insensitive to noise.


Article history The Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), also known as Mongolian jird, is a rodent of the family Cricetidae. One of its most noticeable anatomical characteristics is the presence of ventral and dorsal scent glands, the former located in the abdominal region. The present study aimed at describing an incidence of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the ventral scent gland in the species. A two-year-old animal characterized by an increased volume in the ventral abdominal region was treated at the Veterinary Hospital. After evaluating the macroand microscopic characteristics of the mass tissue, a diagnosis of SCC could be confirmed. However, further studies on the physiology of neoplasms in Mongolian gerbils are needed in order to promote the well-being and longevity of individuals. Hormonal dysfunction of sexual origin is likely the most common factor associated with the occurrence of this type of neoplasm in the species. Received 16 May 2019 Accepted 02 March 2020


When President Bill Clinton testified before a Grand Jury hearing on August 17, 1998 that he "did not have sexual intercourse with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," the American public learned at least two important lessons. First, the definition of sex was debatable and second, the authority to define sex as sexual intercourse was the crucial factor in the meaning of that pesky verb "is." The questions of what is sex and, more importantly, who defines it have been studied and discussed thoroughly by scholars of U.S. history and culture. In American popular culture the social scientific findings published in the Kinsey Reports (1948, 1953) and William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson's Human Sexual Response (1966) provided information (or "scientific facts") for lay people regarding the diversity and possibility of human sexual expression: what sex "is." The growing awareness since the late 1950s that sex is more than one specific act has led many people to question whether sex as we learn it from our parents, teachers, clergy, friends, books, and science is "natural" (a matter of biological response) or socially constructed (a matter of cultural control). Opinions vary, tempers flare, and the mountain of sex advice manuals available at local bookstores attests to the U.S. public's insatiable appetite for knowledge about sex.


This article examines the relationship between international commercial banks and military regimes in South America. The focus is on how military regimes in the Southern Cone of Latin America and Brazil in the 1970s became heavily dependent on foreign capital provided by international banks based in Britain and France. It makes use of previously unavailable archival evidence to examine the interactions between international banks and South American governments, showing how these interactions intensified once military rule was established. It shows that international capital was used for a wide variety of purposes, including arms imports. When global banks cut loans once the debt crisis erupted in 1982, they aggravated the economic crisis but also fostered democratic change.


Type I male midshipman fish acoustically court females, whereas type II males do not but instead sneak or satellite spawn to compete with type I males for fertilizations. 'Singing' type I males diverge from type II males and females in the organization of an expansive hindbrain pacemaker–motoneuron circuit that establishes the physical attributes of vocalizations. Here, levels of aromatase activity were determined in homogenates of brain by measuring the conversion of 3H–androstenedione (AE) to 3H–oestrone (E1) and 3H–oestradiol (E2). Levels were highest in the telencephalon–preoptic area and similar for all morphs. Lower levels were in a region including the diencephalon, midbrain and cerebellum, although levels were significantly higher in females compared with type I males. In the vocal hindbrain region, aromatase levels were three– to five–fold higher in type II males and females than in type I males, and in castrated type II males than in castrated type I males. Conversion of testosterone to oestrogen in type II males and females may effectively prevent testosterone–induced maturation of the vocal system that characterizes type I males. Aromatase may thus be a key enzyme regulating the expression of individual–specific brain circuitry and behaviours among members of one sex.


As economy is growing and income level is increasing, more people are pursuing relaxation and leisure in their life. As the sports market in Korea is flourishing, sports wear companies have begun to focus marketing their brand by carefully selecting advertising models in order to get more exposure for their brands. The purpose of this study was to analyze, the effects of the advertising model types had on the company`s brand recognition, and consumer subjectivity on consumer`s preference and purchasing intention were studied. The subjects for the study were 260 men and women in their 20~30s living in Seoul and Gyunggi province. Three-way ANOVA was conducted for the data analysis. The results showed significant interactions between the three independent variables on preference. Although there were various advertising model types due to the improvement of media, (brand advertisement employing) the well known celebrity model was more effective for raising consumer brand awareness compared to non-celebrity models.


This article contributes to the development of a standard of good practice for Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA). It charts the design, delivery and refinement of a methodology for identifying and assessing the human rights impacts of an existing mining operation. The methodology was designed to fulfil the requirements of an internal corporate standard, as well as the due diligence requirements of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. The HRIA model emphasizes the identification of human rights impacts and the assessment of the effectiveness of responses to such impacts. Four elements are central: (1) building a shared understanding of the historical and current human rights context of the operation; (2) identifying the current and potential areas of human rights impacts and prioritizing them; (3) reviewing the management systems in place to address human rights impacts; and (4) facilitating significant human rights capacity building for operational personnel responsible for managing human rights-related areas. We also consider the question: where is the most natural home for this emerging field of practice? The fields of social impact assessment, corporate accountability and risk assessment are considered. The authors conclude with key questions that require answers before the full potential of HRIA's role in the business and human rights agenda can be realized.


BACKGROUND
Faecal incontinence is a particularly embarrassing and distressing condition with significant medical, social and economic implications. Electrical stimulation has been used with apparent success in the treatment of faecal incontinence. However, standards of treatment are still lacking and the magnitude of alleged benefits has yet to be established.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the effects of electrical stimulation for the treatment of faecal incontinence in adults.

SEARCH STRATEGY
We searched the Cochrane Incontinence Group Specialised Trials Register (searched 13 March 2007) and reference lists of potentially eligible articles.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All randomised or quasi-randomised trials evaluating electrical stimulation in adults with faecal incontinence.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two reviewers assessed the methodological quality of potentially eligible trials and independently extracted data from the included trials. A wide range of outcome measures were considered.

MAIN RESULTS
Four eligible trials with 260 participants were identified. Findings from one trial suggest that electrical stimulation with anal biofeedback and exercises provides more short-term benefits than vaginal biofeedback and exercises for women with obstetric-related faecal incontinence. Another study found contradictory results, with no added benefit from electrical stimulation over biofeedback and exercises alone. Although all trials report that patient's symptoms are generally improved, it is not clear that this is the effect of electrical stimulation. No further conclusions could be drawn from the data available.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
At present, there are insufficient data to allow reliable conclusions to be drawn on the effects of electrical stimulation in the management of faecal incontinence. There is a suggestion that electrical stimulation may have a therapeutic effect, but this is not certain. Larger, more generalisable trials are needed.


Background Few reports have examined the viral aetiology of fever of unknown origin (FUO). Objective This study determined the prevalence of human herpes virus (HHV) DNA in blood of Chinese patients with classic FUO using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and explored the possible role of HHV. Study design Blood samples were collected from 186 patients (151 children, 35 adults) with classic FUO and 143 normal individuals in Beijing during the years 2009–2012. The HHV DNA, including Herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1/2, Varicella zoster virus (VZV), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), and Human herpes virus (HHV)-6 and -7, was detected by multiplex PCR. The epidemiological and clinical features were also analysed. Results HHV DNA was detected in 63 (33.9%) of the FUO patients, and the prevalence of EBV and HHV-6 was significantly higher than in the normal cohort. HHV co-infection was also frequent (10.2%) in the patients with FUO. The majority of patients with HHV infection present with a fever only. Our data also revealed that EBV infection was associated with hepatitis and abnormal blood indices, HHV-6 was associated with a cough, and HHV-7 was associated with hepatitis. Conclusions HHVs are associated with Chinese patients (especially for children) with classic FUO. Our study adds perspective to the aetiological and clinical characteristics of classic FUO in beijing patients.


We characterize an equilibrium development process driven by the interaction of the distribution of wealth with credit constraints and the distribution of entrepreneurial skills. When efficient entrepreneurs are relatively abundant, a "traditional" development process emerges in which the evolution of macroeconomic variables accord with empirical regularities and income inequality traces out a Kuznets curve. If, instead, efficient entrepreneurs are relatively scarce, the model generates long-run "distributional cycles" driven by the endogenous interaction between credit constraints, entrepreneurial efficiency and equilibrium wages.


Taken at face value, it may initially seem difficult to argue with the sentiments enshrined in the rhetoric that surrounds the TEF – raising the status of teaching in Higher Education (HE), rebalancing its relationship with research, incentivising institutions to focus on the quality of teaching and making them more accountable for 'how well they ensure excellent outcomes for their students in terms of graduate-level employment or further study' (OfS, 2018, p. 1). Clearly, these are laudable aspirations that will chime with anyone who believes in the importance of students experiencing an education that enriches and transforms them and their potential. Drawing on Fraser and Lamble's (2014/2015) use of queer theory in relation to pedagogy, however, this chapter aims to expose the TEF not just 'as a landmark initiative that is designed to further embed a neoliberal audit and monitoring culture into Higher Education' (Rudd, 2017, p. 59) but as a constraining exercise that restrains diversity and limits potential. Although queer theory is more usually linked with gender and sexuality studies, Fraser and Lamble show us that it can be used 'in its broader political project of questioning norms, opening desires and creating possibilities' (p. 64). In this way, the queer theoretical lens used here helps us to question, disrupt and contest the essentialising hegemonic logics behind the nature and purposes of the TEF and its effects in HE classrooms. Using the slantwise position of the homosexual (Foucault, 1996), this queer analysis of the TEF can thus be helpful as a politically generative exercise in opening up space for new possibilities.


XMASS is a large volume multi-purpose experiment using a liquid xenon technology located underground in Kamioka Observatory, Japan. XMASS-I aims to search for dark matter, which is holding 832kg of liquid xenon in an active volume.
In this talk, the result of WIMPs search using fiducial volume analysis will be reported. The data accumulated between November 2013 and March 2016 were used for this analysis with 705.9days livetime. We present the WIMPs search with precise prediction of background events which are generated by radioactive decay in detector materials.


Background: Respiratory system is the most common organ system affected in patients of H1N1influenza. Many patients requires mechanical ventilation for treatment as they develop ALI/ARDS due to primary viral or secondary bacterial pneumonia. In resource poor countries like us, providing ICU ventilator to all patients can produce a difficult task for health care system. Noninvasive ventilation can be an option provided appropriate patients are chooses at right stage of disease-probably in early stage of acute hypoxic respiratory failure. Aim: (1) To identify the patients suitable for non-invasive ventilation in patients of swine flu with signs of respiratory failure (2) To study outcome of NIV in these patients with aim to identify factors for the so called "late failure of NIV". Materials and Methods: This study is meant to analyze data from patients of Novel H1N1 influenza patients admitted to swine flu isolation ward during January to December 2015 at PDU Hospital, Rajkot. From 650 patients admitted as suspected case, 283 were confirmed by RTPCR. Among 84 patients who were offered NIV 43 died during course of treatment. It is a retrospective study to analyze the patients who remains stable on NIV for at least 24 hrs. There were 66 such patients. Results: Out of 66 patients studied, 40 successfully treated with NIV. After initial 24 hrs factors which were statistically significantly associated with NIV late failure were-pregnancy (including postpartum period), tachycardia on admission and high total count during course of treatment (suggesting developing bacterial pneumonia). Conclusion: NIV can be used in selected patients of viral pneumonia. In pregnant or postpartum patients NIV should be used with caution. Signs of developing of bacterial pneumonia and MODS herald the chances of NIV failure. Co morbidities are not a strong predictor for NIV failure. Avoiding intubation can decrease complications particularly in immunocompromised patients. Use of steroid does not have significant effect on respiratory function improvement. Key words: H1N1 influenza A infection, severe pneumonia, NIV late failure


Education is the formal process by which society transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, customs and values from one generation to another deliberately. Education is fundamental right to enhancing the quality of human life and ensuring social and economic progress. The higher education is the important major part of the education system. The key objectives of higher education are to generate the new knowledge, explore new ideas and concept on different sectors of economy which might enhance the economic growth and development and anticipate the needs of the economy and prepare highly skilled workers. In these contexts, higher education should be standard, welfare and sustainable develop oriented. In this paper contents the quality and accessibility of higher education in the public universities in Bangladesh. The main objective of this study is to standardize of higher education in public university of Bangladesh. The paper emphasizes on the students and ordinary people opinion that represent the present education system of public university, its existing problems, challenges, the quality, diversity and accessibility of higher education system in Bangladesh. Dhaka University and National University was selected to collect the data purposively for both qualitative and quantitative methods have been applied. The findings of the study show the different branches of higher education its quality and accessibility of the students as well as the educational cost effectiveness perceived by their guardian. The findings of the study would be able to represent the overall scenario of higher education system of Bangladesh that may guide to the policy makers further.


Significance Graduate programs increasingly place women directly into leadership positions. For men, centrality in the school-wide student network predicts job-rank placement. Women's placement is also predicted by centrality and the presence of a distinctive inner circle of women in their network. The inner circle of high-placing women displays an unusual network duality: The network has cliquish ties among women, but each woman is connected to a separate set of third-party contacts. This dual connectivity of strong and weak ties appears to provide simultaneous access to gender-related tacit information important for women's success as well as diverse job-market data needed for successful job search and negotiations. Many leaders today do not rise through the ranks but are recruited directly out of graduate programs into leadership positions. We use a quasi-experiment and instrumental-variable regression to understand the link between students' graduate school social networks and placement into leadership positions of varying levels of authority. Our data measure students' personal characteristics and academic performance, as well as their social network information drawn from 4.5 million email correspondences among hundreds of students who were placed directly into leadership positions. After controlling for students' personal characteristics, work experience, and academic performance, we find that students' social networks strongly predict placement into leadership positions. For males, the higher a male student's centrality in the school-wide network, the higher his leadership-job placement will be. Men with network centrality in the top quartile have an expected job placement level that is 1.5 times greater than men in the bottom quartile of centrality. While centrality also predicts women's placement, high-placing women students have one thing more: an inner circle of predominantly female contacts who are connected to many nonoverlapping third-party contacts. Women with a network centrality in the top quartile and a female-dominated inner circle have an expected job placement level that is 2.5 times greater than women with low centrality and a male-dominated inner circle. Women who have networks that resemble those of high-placing men are low-placing, despite having leadership qualifications comparable to high-placing women.


For multivariate stationary time series many important properties, such as partial correlation, graphical models and autoregressive representations are encoded in the inverse of its spectral density matrix. This is not true for nonstationary time series, where the pertinent information lies in the inverse infinite dimensional covariance matrix operator associated with the multivariate time series. This necessitates the study of the covariance of a multivariate nonstationary time series and its relationship to its inverse. We show that if the rows/columns of the infinite dimensional covariance matrix decay at a certain rate then the rate (up to a factor) transfers to the rows/columns of the inverse covariance matrix. This is used to obtain a nonstationary autoregressive representation of the time series and a Baxter-type bound between the parameters of the autoregressive infinite representation and the corresponding finite autoregressive projection. The aforementioned results lay the foundation for the subsequent analysis of locally stationary time series. In particular, we show that smoothness properties on the covariance matrix transfer to (i) the inverse covariance (ii) the parameters of the vector autoregressive representation and (iii) the partial covariances. All results are set up in such a way that the constants involved depend only on the eigenvalue of the covariance matrix and can be applied in the high-dimensional settings with non-diverging eigenvalues.


A Chandra AO1 30ks HETGS observation of the X-ray transient micro-quasar GRS 1915+105 reveals absorption edges and faint line emission over the HETG energy range. We find from a preliminary analysis evidence for prominent neutral K edges associated with iron, silicon, magnesium, and tentatively sulphur. The column densities assuming solar abundances are consistent with ~ few x $10^{22} cm^{-2}$ in excess of the Galactic value, and may point to surrounding cold material associated with GRS 1915+105. Neutral Fe K$\alpha$ emission, and ionized absorption from Fe XXV and Fe XXVI are resolved. We limit our discussion to the Chandra results.


The aim of this study is to characterize the structural noise for a better flaw detection in heterogeneous materials (steels, weld, composites...) using ultrasonic waves. For this purpose, the continuous wavelet transform is applied to ultrasonic Ascan signals acquired using an ultrasonic non destructive testing (NDT) device. The time-scale representation provided, which highlights the temporal evolution of the spectral content of the A-scan signals, is relevant but can lead to misinterpretation. The problem is to identify if each pattern from the wavelet representation is due to the structural noise or the flaw. To solve this problem, a detection technique based on statistical significance testing in the time-scale plane is used. Information about the structural noise signals is injected into the decision process using an autoregressive model, which seems relevant according to the spectral content of the signal. The approach is tested on experimental signals, obtained by ultrasonic NDT of metallic materials (austenitic stainless steel) then on a weld in this steel and indeed enables to distinguish the components of the signal as flaw echoes, which differ from the structural noise.


Lacerations and traumatic wounds are considered to be among the most prevalent scenarios encountered in hospitals and emergency rooms. Reattachment of the lacerated soft tissue edges is traditionally performed using sutures. Use of tissue adhesives, i.e. substances that have the ability to firmly attach lacerated tissues back together, has raised interest as an alternative, due to several advantages. Novel tissue adhesives based on the natural polymers gelatin and alginate, and cross-linked by carbodiimide (EDC), were recently developed by our research group. In the current research, two types of hemostatic agents, tranexamic acid and kaolin, were loaded into our gelatin–alginate bioadhesive, in order to improve the adhesion abilities in the hemorrhagic environment of the wound. Their effects on the ex vivo adherence properties, physical properties, and biocompatibility were investigated. Incorporation of kaolin significantly improved the ex vivo bonding strength of the gelatin–alginate–EDC bioadhesives through a combination of three physical mechanisms and decreased the swelling ratio without affecting weight loss. In contradiction, incorporation of tranexamic acid into the bioadhesive formulation resulted in a lower ex vivo bonding strength and a higher swelling ratio and weight loss, probably due to reduced efficiency of the cross-linking reaction between the molecules of the natural polymers and the cross-linking agent EDC. The hemostatic agent-loaded bioadhesives showed good biocompatibility when tested in vitro on fibroblast cells. This research clearly shows that the incorporation of kaolin in our gelatin–alginate tissue adhesives may be a very promising novel approach for improving the bonding strength and physical properties of the tissue adhesives for use in hemorrhagic environments.


Potential interference sources into direct broadcast satellite (DBS) home receiving equipment and the means of reducing the effects are discussed in this paper. Interference sources are divided into two categories: those that enter at the receiving antenna microwave equipment, and those that enter at the indoor unit or at the coaxial cable connecting the antenna to indoor equipment. The results of the analysis show that good design practice will control this kind of interference to an acceptable degree. Recommendations to reduce the interference are given.


The Dramasearch project imports the Dramatour methodology for character-based guided tours into interactive search applications for web sites and data repositories. The virtual character acts as a mediator between the user and the search engine, without replacing but complementing the role of the search engine. The character interacts with the user through a multimodal interface, with the aim of assisting the user to formulate her/his query in an effective way, presenting her/him the results and recommending related resources. In this paper, we describe an architecture for charactermediated search applications. In particular, we describe the process of dramatizing the interaction with the user, a feature that is required to qualify the character as a cooperative agent, and we show how the domain expertise of the character, embedded in the architecture as a semantic search layer, is exploited to construct the coherence of the interaction.


Abstract Objective To investigate how GPs manage women with urinary incontinence (UI) in the Netherlands and to assess whether this is in line with the relevant Dutch GP guideline. Because UI has been an underreported and undertreated problem for decades despite appropriate guidelines being created for general practitioners (GPs). Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Routine primary care data for 2017 in the Netherlands. Subjects We included the primary care records of women aged 18–75 years with at least one contact registered for UI, and then extracted information about baseline characteristics, diagnosis, treatment, and referral to pelvic physiotherapy or secondary care. Results In total, 374 records were included for women aged 50.3 ± 15.1 years. GPs diagnosed 31.0%, 15.2%, and 15.0% women with stress, urgency, or mixed UI, respectively; no diagnosis of type was recorded in 40.4% of women. Urinalysis was the most frequently used diagnostic test (42.5%). Education was the most common treatment, offered by 17.9% of GPs; however, no treatment or referral was reported in 15.8% of cases. As many as 28.7% and 21.7% of women were referred to pelvic physiotherapy and secondary care, respectively. Conclusion Female UI is most probably not managed in line with the relevant Dutch GP guideline. It is also notable that Dutch GPs often fail to report the type of UI, to use available diagnostic approaches, and to provide appropriate education. Moreover, GPs referred to specialists too often, especially for the management of urgency UI. Key points Urinary incontinence (UI) has been an underreported and undertreated problem for decades. Despite various guidelines, UI often lies outside the GPs comfort zone. •According to this study: general practitioners do not treat urinary incontinence according to guidelines. •The type of incontinence is frequently not reported and diagnostic approaches are not fully used. •We believe that increased awareness will help improve treatment and avoidable suffering.


In today's business world, social media tools (i.e. facebook, twitter, Linkedin, etc.) begin to play an important role in reaching and communicating with customers for businesses. However, the importance of using social media can't be still understood by SMEs so far. Businesses use different social media tools in various purposes in their life. In this research we aim to investigate the ideas of SMEs about social media and their aims of using social media tools. Data were collected from SMEs operating in Burdur by simple random sampling. The data obtained from the 84 questionnaires was entered to computer and statistical analysis was carried out by using SPSS 20 statistical program. In this study, reliability analysis was used firstly. Then, some descriptive analyses were carried out about using social media for SMEs. Finally, a frequency table regarding the social media usage in SMEs was given. As a result, it was seen that 82.1% of SMEs participating in this study have a social network page. Secondly, SMEs are using facebook social media network mostly. In addition, SMEs have expressed that they attend all statements involved in the use of social media scale.


In managing and troubleshooting home networks, one of the challenges is in knowing what is actually happening. Availability of a record of events that occurred on the home network before trouble appeared would go a long way toward addressing that challenge. In this position/work-in-progress paper, we consider requirements for a general-purpose logging facility for home networks. Such a facility, if properly designed, would potentially have other uses. We describe several such uses and discuss requirements to be considered in the design of a logging platform that would be widely supported and accepted. We also report on our initial experience deploying such a facility.


A discussion of intrinsic localized modes (ILMs) in photonic crystals is given. Emphasis is placed on ILMs in photonic crystal waveguides formed from Kerr nonlinear materials and photonic crystal circuits formed by joining nonlinear photonic crystal waveguides into networks. Work on stationary and propagating ILMs in nonlinear waveguides and waveguide junctions is reviewed. In addition, some discussion is given on the optical bistability of the barrier and junction geometries and on recent results on two-dimensional ILMs in Kerr nonlinear photonic crystals.


Doctor Shoja-ad-Din Sheikholeslamzadeh (also known as Dr. Sheikh) (1931-2014) was an outstanding orthopedic surgeon. He is credited for the establishment of the Iranian Association of Rehabilitation, Shafa Yahyaian Hospital as an Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Center, the Social Welfare Organization, Iran's emergency dispatch center (115) and many other major projects that led to the upgrading of health care services in Iran. He also served as the Minister of Social Welfare and Minister of Health and Welfare before the Islamic revolution. The history of modern health care management and modern orthopedic surgery in Iran are indebted to the great leadership and executive abilities of Dr. Sheikh.


: The international COSPAS-SARSAT program is a satellite-based search and rescue distress alert detection and information distribution system and best known as the system that detects and locates emergency beacons activated by aircraft, ships and so on. However, the current message format of the system is not encrypted so that, if the rescue signal can be intercepted by the unintended receivers, the subsequent rescue activities can be handled in a hostile environment. So, this article concerns how to deal with the rescue signals in a secure way and proposes some adequate encryption methods and the corresponding key management.


The steric requirements for the triphenylphosphite ligand in several molybdenum and tungsten carbonyl derivatives have been shown by X-ray crystallography to exceed the original Tolman's cone angle of 128°. That is, due to various accessible conformers possible for P(OPh)3, solid-state data predict a considerably larger cone angle for the ligand of between 140° and 160°. Importantly, the solution behavior of cis-M(CO)4[P(OPh)3]2 (M = Mo or W), coupled with similarly reported observations on a series of cis-Mo(CO)4[PR3]2 derivatives, support this conclusion, for these molecules both undergo thermal rearrangement to the more stable trans-isomers. On the other hand, the electronically similar but sterically much smaller cis-Mo(CO)4[P(OCH2)3CEt]2 complex is thermally stable under much harsher conditions. Furthermore, a comprehensive survey of structural data for transition-metal−triphenylphosphite derivatives available in the Cambridge Crystallographic Database reveals that most molecules display conformation...


The expression of the argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) has been analyzed in renal, bladder, and pharyngeal carcinomas, multiple myeloma (MM), and skin melanocytic lesions to clarify their role in tumor detection and prognosis. Sections from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded biopsies were stained with the method of Ploton; the mean AgNOR number per nucleus (AgNOR count) and their distribution (configuration) were assessed examining 100 neoplastic cells. AgNOR counts and histologic grade were highly associated in bladder urotheliomas (6.01 for grade 1 [G1], 7.69 for G2, 13.35 for G3; p < 0.00001) and MM (3.18 for G1, 4.36 for G2, 6.13 for G3; p < 0.0001); they were not associated in renal cell carcinomas (5.35 for G1, 5.92 for G2, 7.99 for G3; p = 0.132) and pharyngeal carcinomas (11.1 for G2, 10.27 for G3; p = 0.08). AgNOR number was also related to the degree of malignancy in melanocytic lesions (2.93 for common blue nevus, 2.89 for benign nevus [BN], 3.69 for cellular blue nevus [CBN], 7.71 for malignant melanoma, and 8.33 for malignant cellular blue nevus [MCBN]; p < 0.00001). Association between AgNOR counts and pathologic stage was found in bladder carcinomas (6.43 for pTa, 10.19 for pT1, 12.57 for pT2-4; p < 0.00001) and MM (3.06 for cases with percentage of bone marrow plasma cells [BMPC%] < or = 20, 4.28 for BMPC% 21 to 50, 5.14 for BMPC% > 50; p < 0.0001]; no correlation was found in pharyngeal (11.18 for T1, 10.08 for T2, 10.68 for T3, 11.47 for T4; p = 0.18) or renal cell carcinomas (6.06 for pT2, 6.31 for pT3; p = 0.78). Few, large and grouped AgNORs were found in well-differentiated bladder carcinomas, MM, and benign melanocytic lesions; numerous, small and dispersed AgNORs were seen in poorly differentiated bladder, renal and pharyngeal carcinomas, MM and malignant melanocytic lesions. Significant association with prognosis was found in pharyngeal carcinomas (5-year survival: 68% for cases with < or = 10.31 AgNOR/cell, 20% for cases with > 10.31 AgNORs) and MM (5-year survival: 46% for cases with < or = 4.62 AgNOR/cell, 7% for cases with > 4.62 AgNORs; in MM the configuration too was related to prognosis: median of survival 72 months for tightly grouped, 16 for partially grouped, and 11 for dispersed AgNORs). Our results indicate that AgNOR number and configuration are useful in detection and prognosis of some neoplasias. They permit a rapid evaluation of morphology and tumor cell kinetics even on small biopsies.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Background It has been reported that low-viscous and fermentable dietary fiber and nondigestible oligosaccharides enhance mineral absorption. Resistant maltodextrin, nonviscous, fermentable and soluble source of dietary fiber, has several physiological functions. However, influence of resistant maltodextrin on mineral absorption is unclear. Aim of the study We conducted balance studies in rats to investigate effects of resistant maltodextrin and hydrogenated resistant maltodextrin on apparent mineral absorption. Methods In experiment 1 (Exp. 1), 40 rats were fed test diets based on AIN-93G with or without resistant maltodextrin or hydrogenated resistant maltodextrin for 2 weeks. In experiment 2 (Exp. 2), 32 rats were cecectomized (CX) or sham-operated (Sham) and fed diets with or without hydrogenated resistant maltodextrin for 1 week. Results In Exp. 1, ingestion of resistant maltodextrin and hydrogenated resistant maltodextrin dose-dependently enhanced apparent absorption rates of Ca, Mg, Fe and Zn, and increased cecal fermentation with cecal expansion. In Exp. 2, the absorption rates of Ca and Mg were significantly enhanced by ingestion of hydrogenated resistant maltodextrin in Sham group but not in CX group. The promotion of Fe and Zn absorption was not affected by cecectomy. Conclusion Ingestion of resistant maltodextrin and hydrogenated resistant maltodextrin increased apparent Ca and Mg absorptions dependent on cecal fermentation, while other mechanisms may also be involved in promotion of apparent Fe and Zn absorption by resistant maltodextrin.


In this work a comparison of three different database management systems (DBMS) is presented. In general a relational data model with a graph data model is compared. The three systems used are MySQL, Neo4j and Apache Hive. Neo4j is a member of the NoSQL database family and is a well-known graph database. The relational databases used in this work are MySQL and Apache Hive. The latter is not a classic relational model but since it is modelled as such it can be considered relational. MySQL is a well-known solution that has been on the market for several years now and is a standard solution for many data problems.

Within this work a detailed comparison of all three systems from different aspects of usage is made, both from our own experience as well as from preliminary research from other authors and sources. Additionally some practical information from our dataset with some simple mining techniques is extracted and the result of our work is visualised in an interactive web side using modern approaches to data visualisation.


In a hot and humid climate such as Florida, "snowbirds" that leave their homes for extended summer periods need guidance on effective and energy efficient methods of humidity control. Experiments were performed in seven residences to evaluate various approaches to humidity control, including providing no mechanical system control. A humidity target was identified to maintain indoor relative humidity (RH) at 65% or lower most of the time. Providing no mechanical conditioning (letting the building "float") yields relative humidity at 65% or below during hot and sunny weather in some homes, but not during cloudy weather. Setting the AC system thermostat at 85 o F or 83 o F yielded lower than required RH during hot and sunny weather, but it yielded insufficient RH control during cloudy weather. Furthermore, AC energy use peaks during the utility's peak demand period. Running the AC system for two hours a day (3-5 AM) yielded effective and energy efficient RH control. Operation of a dehumidifier on timer control or humidistat control provided good results with the lowest overall energy use. Operation of the space heating system to maintain 89 o F (which yields 65% RH when the outdoor dew point temperature is 75 o F) provides reliable RH control, with good energy efficiency during hot weather (assuming a heat pump as the heating system). However, during cooler weather, the space heating approach consumed considerably more energy. Operation of the space heating system based on humidistat control provides reliable RH control and eliminates the excessive energy use which occurs during cooler weather with the constant 89 o F setting.


The problem of the ssmacron- content in the nucleon is discussed. In the framework of the generalized Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model we estimate the parameter β of the Zweig rule violation and the critical temperature Tc of the chiral-symmetry restoration.


Microgrids are new distribution level power networks that consist of various electronically-interfaced generators and sensitive loads. The important control object of Microgrids is to supply reliable and high-quality power even during the faults or loss of mains (islanding) cases. This paper presents power control methods to coordinate multiple distributed generators (DGs) against abnormal cases such as islanding and load power variations. Using speed-droop and voltage-droop characteristics, multiple distributed generators can share the load power based on locally measured signals without any communications between them. This paper adopts the droop controllers for multiple DG control and improved them by considering the generation speed of distribution level generators. Dynamic response of the proposed control scheme has been investigated under severe operation cases such as islanding and abrupt load changes through PSCAD/EMTDC simulations.


Over the last decade, the potential utility of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors as novel therapeutic agents for diseases such as arthritis, cancer and multiple sclerosis has lead to an abundance of three-dimensional structural information on this family of enzymes. This review describes the spatial features of the conserved three-dimensional scaffold of the MMPs, discusses enzyme-inhibitor interactions and relates these data to the characteristics of individual MMPs which influence the potency and selectivity of inhibitors.


820 Ann Dermatol Received August 30, 2016, Revised November 3, 2016, Accepted for publication November 25, 2016 Corresponding author: Kui Young Park, Department of Dermatology, Chung-Ang University Hospital, 102 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 06973, Korea. Tel: 82-2-6299-1525, Fax: 82-2-823-1049, E-mail: email@example.com This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Copyright © The Korean Dermatological Association and The Korean Society for Investigative Dermatology https://doi.org/10.5021/ad.2017.29.6.820


Experiments have been carried out to determine the transition between static and kinetic conditions when stationary metal surfaces are set into motion, a simple method being used which measures the energy that has to be given to one of the bodies to start it moving. The method is confined to cases in which the static coefficient exceeds the kinetic. Using a load of 1 kg and metal surfaces of various kinds, it is found that the static coefficient persists for distances of the order of 10−4 cm, and then gradually falls off to values corresponding to the kinetic coefficient. This behavior is shown to be consistent with a simple model based on the assumption that the friction force is needed to shear metallic junctions formed between the metal surfaces. The action of boundary lubricants is discussed, and it is shown that they can act either by diminishing the metallic interaction directly, or by preventing its increase during the sliding process.


In this study, we investigate whether individual variability in the rate of visuomotor adaptation and multiday savings is associated with differences in regional gray matter volume and resting‐state functional connectivity. Thirty‐four participants performed a manual adaptation task during two separate test sessions, on average 9 days apart. Functional connectivity strength between sensorimotor, dorsal cingulate, and temporoparietal regions of the brain was found to predict the rate of learning during the early phase of the adaptation task. In contrast, default mode network connectivity strength was found to predict both the rate of learning during the late adaptation phase and savings. As for structural predictors, greater gray matter volume in temporoparietal and occipital regions predicted faster early learning, whereas greater gray matter volume in superior posterior regions of the cerebellum predicted faster late learning. These findings suggest that the offline neural predictors of early adaptation may facilitate the cognitive aspects of sensorimotor adaptation, supported by the involvement of temporoparietal and cingulate networks. The offline neural predictors of late adaptation and savings, including the default mode network and the cerebellum, likely support the storage and modification of newly acquired sensorimotor representations.


The IEEE 802.15.4 standard has no provisions for rate sensitive applications because of its ability to operate in pure CSMA/CA or TDMA modes. Some operating scenarios for rate-sensitive applications arise when one considers wireless video surveillance and target detection applications for wireless sensor networks. To support such rate-sensitive applications in wireless sensor networks, we present a Multirate-based Service Differentiation (MRSD) based on unslotted CSMA/CA. Unlike existing priority-based service differentiation models, the MRSD defines independent virtual MACs, each of which consists of Adaptive Backoff Window Control (ABWC) and Virtual Collision Avoidance (VCA) algorithms. The ABWC dynamically adjusts the backoff window to reflect the local network state in the local collision domain. The VCA prevents virtual collisions and preempts packets with the minimal utility in the virtual collision domain. By analyzing these algorithms, we prove that the ABWC enables the achieved transmission rate to converge to the rate requirement and the VCA produces a virtual collision-free schedule to avoid degradation of the achieved transmission rate. Through the simulation, we validate our analysis and show the MRSD outperforms existing algorithms in terms of convergence to the rate requirement.


The current study is attempting to answer the research question "the impact my previous ABA training may have on my current practice as a must therapy student?". The goal of this study is to gain insight on my own clinical practice in order to develop a more well-rounded therapeutic approach. I used a secondary analysis of session notes from my student music therapy placement at an intermediate school. A deductive content analysis was used to explore data within separate categories underpinning either humanistic or behavioural approaches. The data collected into these categories was qualitatively considered to create themes and to support how behavioural methods manifest in my current practice. The study assumes that a behavioural way of thinking is already present in my practice and seeks to investigate how has also manifested in my professional identity. The study acknowledges that although the field of music therapy can take on a variety of different therapeutic approaches, the training that I have received at Victoria University of Wellington has a largely humanist emphasis.
Overall, the study found that the use of either behavioural or humanistic approaches are situationally dependent on the client, activity, or therapeutic goal. In both goal setting, and musical choice, there was a spectrum of attitudes falling between the theories while other methods such as therapeutic relationship or prompting held a unique perspective falling into one or the other. I feel that the use of dual methodologies in my practice compliment the limitations and advantages that each approach may present. As these approaches both fall on opposite ends of the "theoretical spectrum", they pair to create a middleground between a holistic, client-centered practice, and a tightly structured, goal-oriented practice.
KEYWORDS:Music therapy, behaviourism, humanism, principles, content analysis, secondary analysis, deductive, qualitative


Estimates of the intensity and abundance of species provide essential data for ecological, evolutionary and epidemiological studies of gastrointestinal nematode communities. These estimates are typically derived from the species composition of adult males when only males have readily scorable species-specific morphological traits. Such estimation assumes that all species in the community have the same adult sex ratio. We evaluated this assumption for the trichostrongyle nematodes Ostertagia gruehneri and Marshallagia marshalli in infracommunities in Svalbard reindeer by identifying to species adult females using a polymerase chain reaction assay. The proportion of males was found to be slightly higher in O. gruehneri than in M. marshalli. Evidence for seasonal variation and density dependence in the adult sex ratio was only found for O. gruehneri. Possible demographic mechanisms for such sex ratio variation are discussed, and stochastic models that generate density-dependent sex ratios proposed. Sex ratio variation caused substantial bias in some male-based estimates of intensity of infection, while substantial and consistent bias in estimates of abundances was only evident in late winter samples. Our results suggest that estimating sex ratios can be particularly important in individual host level studies of nematode species of low abundance.


We develop a dot matrix method (DMM) using the principles of computational geometry to place aggregates into matrices for the construction of mesolevel concrete models efficiently and rapidly. The basic idea of the approach is to transform overlap detection between polygons (or polyhedrons) into checking the possibility of any intersection between the point sets within a trial placement aggregate and the already placed ones in mortar. Through the arithmetic operation of integer point sets, the efficiency of the underlying algorithm in the dot matrix method is higher. Our parking algorithm holds several advantages comparing with the conventional placement issues. First, it is suitable for arbitrary-shape aggregate particles. Second, it only needs two sets for examining if the overlap between a trial placement aggregate and the already placed ones. Third, it accurately places aggregates according to aggregate grading curves, by order of reduction, led to more efficiently reducing aggregate placement time. The present method is independent of the size of aggregate particles. Combing with 3D laser scanning technology, the present method can also be used to create mesostructure concrete models conveniently and flexibly. Several examples show that DDM is a robust and valid method to construct mesostructure concrete models.


Abstract Two genera of tylosaurine mosasaurs, Tylosaurus and Hainosaurus, are recorded for the first time from Germany. Tylosaurus sp. is represented by two isolated tooth crowns, originally described as Mosasaurus? alseni (here considered a nomen dubium) from the latest Santonian–Early Campanian, which are very similar to T. ivoensis and T. gaudryi. The material of Hainosaurus sp. comprises a maxillary with associated postorbitofrontal, two pterygoid teeth and several indeterminate cranial fragments. The specimen from the Late Campanian is slightly less derived than H. bernardi from the Maastrichtian in retaining labiolingually less compressed anterior maxillary teeth and unserrated pterygoid teeth with only very weak carinae. Despite only minor skeletal differences, the genus Hainosaurus is considered to be distinct from Tylosaurus because of its significant modification of the dental apparatus compared to the plesiomorphic condition in the latter. This dental morphology suggests a phylogenetic trend from a generalised-piercing marginal dentition in Tylosaurus towards the increasingly labiolingually compressed, symmetrical, strongly bicarinate cutting marginal teeth in Hainosaurus spp. from the Early through Late Campanian and Maastrichtian. A similar trend is also present in pterygoid teeth with very indistinct unserrated carinae in the Campanian Hainosaurus sp. towards serrated ones in the Maastrichtian H. bernardi. A short review indicates the presence of Hainosaurus in northern, central and western Europe (Sweden to Spain) since the Early Campanian, and the occurrence of Tylosaurus spp. in the same area until the Late Campanian. Hainosaurus persisted until the end of the Maastrichtian; outside Europe it may have been present in the Late Campanian of the USA and the Maastrichtian of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Judging from a simple, uni- to bicarinate, stoutly conical tooth morphology in aigialosaurs and very basal mosasaurs as well as phylogenetic patterns, the development of blade-like cutting tooth crowns appears to have been convergent in several clades of large-bodied Campanian–Maastrichtian mosasaurids. These include both mosasaurines ('Leiodon' mosasauroides, Prognathodon? sectorius, Prognathodon? kianda, Eremiasaurus heterodontus) and tylosaurines (Hainosaurus spp.).


The threat landscape facing the Federal Government is growing, from underground cybercrime economy and burgeoning malware production to rumors of cyber war. Business leaders and security professionals focused on this threat landscape and evaluating cloud computing advantages also need to address cloud computing's unique survivability and information assurance risks.


Research in Software Architectures has put forward the concept of connector to express complex relationships between system components, thus facilitating the separation of coordination from computation. A system can then be understood, at a given level of abstraction, in terms of its components and the connectors that establish how they interact. However, for systems in which many interconnections exist between their components, the architectures themselves may become very complex due to the high number of connectors in place. This is especially true in the context of mobile systems in which the interconnections are, by nature, transient in the sense that, at a given instant of time, only a subset of the potential connectors are actually effective. In this paper, we formalise a notion of transient connector that allows, at any given moment, for the architecture to depict only the connectors that are active and, in this way, capture the dynamics of architectures themselves. Our approach is based on the use of COMMUNITY, a UNITY-like program design language that has a semantics in Category Theory, and rewriting logic as a means of capturing the dynamic aspects of connectors.


A novel chemoenzymatic strategy for the synthesis of enantiomerically pure secondary alcohols with sterically similar substituents is described. The key step is the kinetic lipase-catalyzed resolution of racemic mixtures of substituted propargylic alcohols. The efficiency of this new approach was tested in the preparation of the corresponding enantiomers of 1,11-hexadecandiol derivatives ((R)-5 and (S)-5). Two strategies were tested. In the first one, the racemic intermediate 1-octyn-3-ol (1) was resolved enzymatically and then elongated with 1-bromo-9,11-dioxadodecane. Alternatively, the racemic 1 can be elongated to the corresponding racemic 17,19-dioxa-7-eicosyn-6-ol (3) first and then resolved biocatalytically. Twelve commercially available lipases were screened for the kinetic resolution of these intermediates. Among them, Candida antarctica lipase (CAL-B) and Humicola lanuginosa lipase (HLL) were the best biocatalysts for the resolution of 1 (S enantiomer 90% ee, E = 35), and 3 (R enantiomer 90% ee, E = 34), respectively.


There is an increasing interest in dynamical food web modeling, and recent advances of computational biology provide new algorithms and tools for modern systems ecology.
In this work stochastic individual-based models are used for simulating food web dynamics in two case studies: the Kelian river, in Borneo, Indonesia and a marine ecosystem in Gulf of Guinea. The two cases present effects from human perturbations. In both cases, we constructed food webs, based on real databases. We parameterized the stochastic dynamical model for the system models and performed sensitivity analysis (and community response indicators) in order to quantify the relative importance of system components.
The main aims are to understand the importance of functional diversity of aquatic ecosystems and relations between the dynamics of species and the whole community in perturbed ecosystems due to human activities (pollution due to gold mining activity and human settlements in the case of the Kelian river ecosystem and the impact of Fish Aggregation Devices on skipjack tuna communities in the case of the Gulf of Guinea ecosystem).
In Kelian river case, our results suggest that invertebrate shredders are indicators of human impact on the river. In downstream sites our results show that the river is more polluted and the relative importance of grazers and shredders decrease. The primary producers disappear downstream as consequence of mine activity and human waste.
In the marine system case study, we analyzed the effects of association between tunas and FADs, and compared this to the behavior of free tuna individuals. The results suggest that skipjack tuna is affected by the use of FADs as fishing strategy on them. Some individual species show more sensibility to variation of population size of tuna.
These two studies contribute to better understand how functional diversity is related to human impact. This kind of approach may help in shaping systems-based conservation and marine fisheries management strategies.

Keywords: food web, aquatic ecosystems, stochastic model,
sensitivity analysis


Patrick Quilty says that the fossilised remains of an extinct dolphin genus he found in Antarctica show that the climate was much warmer 4 million years ago.


Many model based scientific and engineering methodologies, such as system identification, sensitivity analysis, optimization and control, require a large number of model evaluations. In particular, model based real-time control of urban water infrastructures and online flood alarm systems require fast prediction of the network response at different actuation and/or parameter values. General purpose urban drainage simulators are too slow for this application. Fast surrogate models, so-called emulators, provide a solution to this efficiency demand. Emulators are attractive, because they sacrifice unneeded accuracy in favor of speed. However, they have to be fine-tuned to predict the system behavior satisfactorily. Also, some emulators fail to extrapolate the system behavior beyond the training set. Although, there are many strategies for developing emulators, up until now the selection of the emulation strategy remains subjective. In this paper, we therefore compare the performance of two families of emulators for open channel flows in the context of urban drainage simulators. We compare emulators that explicitly use knowledge of the simulator's equations, i.e. mechanistic emulators based on Gaussian Processes, with purely data-driven emulators using matrix factorization. Our results suggest that in many urban applications, naive data-driven emulation outperforms mechanistic emulation. Nevertheless, we discuss scenarios in which we think that mechanistic emulation might be favorable for i) extrapolation in time and ii) dealing with sparse and unevenly sampled data. We also provide many references to advances in the field of Machine Learning that have not yet permeated into the Bayesian environmental science community.


Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res, Volume 45, 2004

4303

Glucocorticoid hormones have a variety of important functions in eucaryotic cells and tissues; they usually promote cell differentiation and inhibit proliferation. It is known that glucocorticoids have an inhibitory effect on androgen-independent prostate carcinoma (PC) cell growth in vitro and in vivo. The glucocorticoid control of cellular functions is mediated via glucocorticoid receptor (GR), a well-known transcription factor. In this work we characterized the effect of GR on prostate development and prostate cell proliferation in transgenic mice overexpressing GR in basal epithelial cells of prostate. To quantitatively characterize the mouse prostate morphology we performed the analysis of the luminal bridging that reflects the complexity of prostate gland. We found that in both lobes of prostate of adult K5.GR transgenic males the luminal bridging was significantly decreased. In dorsolateral prostate of K5.GR mice the number of glands with luminal bridging was three times lower than in prostate of w.t. littermates. In ventral mouse prostate the luminal bridging is more common finding. Thus, we have compared the average number of luminal bridging /gland, and found that the luminal bridging was more than 2.5 times decreased in K5.GR transgenics in comparison with w.t. littermates. In addition, we have evaluated the proliferation rate in prostate glands using BrdU immunostaining. We found the statistically significant two-fold decrease of the number of BrdU-positive cells in both lobes of prostate glands in K5.GR-transgenic mice. These data indicate that GR plays an important role in regulation of prostate development and proliferation.


Template languages are widely used within generative programming, because they provide intuitive means to generate software artefacts expressed in a specific object language. However, most template languages perform template instantiation on the level of string literals, which allows neither syntax checks nor semantics analysis. To make sure that generated artefacts always conform to the object language, we propose to perform static analysis at template design time. In addition, the increasing popularity of domainspecific languages (DSLs) demands an approach that allows to reuse both the concepts of template languages and the corresponding tools.
 In this paper we address the issues mentioned above by presenting how existing languages can be automatically extended with generic template concepts (e.g., placeholders, loops, conditions) to obtain safe template languages. These languages provide means for syntax checking and static semantic analysis w.r.t. the object language at template design time. We discuss the prerequisites for this extension, analyse the types of correctness properties that can be assured at template design time, and exemplify the key benefits of this approach on a textual DSL and Java.


The anodic oxidation of copper in sodium acetate aqueous solutions is studied in relation to the anodic films formed, in order to elucidate the role of acetates to the corrosion of copper. At open circuit conditions a cuprous oxide layer is formed having a thickness of few monolayers. At low anodic potentials, a composition with a single component which is cuprous oxide, is observed for the thin anodic film, whereas at relatively high anodic potentials a cuprous oxide and cupric hydroxide film is formed, accompanied by extensive dissolution of anodic products. At intermediate potentials, a duplex oxide film formation is not able to explain the electro-oxidation/reduction processes on copper in acetate solutions but the presence of the conducting hydrated layer, which may be probably basic copper acetate on top of cuprous oxide layer, has to be considered.


The ESRF undulator beamline ID14 'Quadriga' is dedicated to monochromatic macromolecular crystallography. Using two undulators with 23 mm and 42 mm periods and a minimum gap of 16 mm installed on a high-beta section, it will provide high-brilliance X-ray beams at around 13.5 keV, as well as a wide tuneability between 6.8 and 40 keV. Based on the Troika concept, this beamline has four simultaneously operating experimental stations: three side stations, EH1, EH2 and EH3, using thin diamond crystals, and an end station, EH4, with a fast-scan double-crystal monochromator. Station EH3 has a kappa-diffractometer, and an off-line Weissenberg camera with a large 80 x 80 cm active area combined with a 2048 x 2048 CCD detector. During data collection the image plates are placed and removed by a robot located inside the hutch using a cassette system. After data collection the image plates are scanned with an off-line drum scanner. Station EH4 is designed for MAD applications, including Xe K-edge anomalous experiments, and is equipped with a 2048 x 2048 CCD detector on a pseudo 2theta arm. A common graphical user interface and a database will be available to cover all aspects of data collection, including strategy optimization. First results on the performance of the optics elements and initial crystallographic results are presented.


The zooplankton community in a relatively small and mountain pond was studied during the spring growing season. To investigate which factors operate in the community structure, we explored several physical conditions, such as high inflows, and the biotic dynamics of the main zooplankton groups (i.e., rotifers, cladocerans and copepods).  Two extreme flood events occurred during the investigated period and caused dramatic changes in physical conditions and reduction of the planktonic community abundances. The short period between both high-flow events was enough for the recovery of microplankton, but not for the metazoan zooplankton. Our results are in agreement with the common situation in which high flood events commonly favour rotifers over crustaceans, likely due to rotifer species have great colonization ability and grow faster. However, we found that the dominance of rotifers over crustaceans in our system is evidenced by an extremely, unusual high ratio between their abundances.  We observed that, at the time of the great floods, crustacean abundances as well as rotifer populations notably decreased until near zero values. Although rotifer abundance began declining before high floods, the decrease was particularly notable when the great flood happened.  Our results evidenced that i) dilution rate and temperature were the main drivers which are operating in the structure of the zooplankton community; and ii) no negative biotic interactions were detected between large and small cladocerans and rotifers. Additionally, we found surprisingly that a repeated disturbance caused by high flood events does increase the species diversity of rotifers. Finally, our study also detected some cues which may indicate that diapausing egg bank is also playing an important role in the zooplankton community, favouring the dominance of rotifers; however, this phenomenon deserves further studies.


Sensor selection in data modeling is an important research topic for prognostics. The performance of prediction model may vary considerably under different variable subset. Hence it is of great important to devise a systematic sensor selection method that offers guidance on choosing the most representative sensors for prognostics. This paper proposes a sensor selection method based on the improved grey correlation analysis. From empirical observation, all the continuous-value sensors with a consistent monotonic trend are firstly selected for data fusion, and a linear regression model is used to convert the multi-dimensional sensor readings into one-dimensional health factor (HF). The correlation between HF and each of the selected sensors is evaluated by calculating the grey correlation degree defined on two time series. The optimal sensor subset with a relatively large correlation degree is selected to execute the final fusion. The effectiveness of the proposed method was verified experimentally on the turbofan engine simulation data supplied by NASA Ames, using instance-based learning methodology, and the experimental results showed that RUL prediction with fewer sensor inputs can obtain a more accurate prognostics performance than using all sensors initially considered relevant.


SbTe films doped with different SiNx concentrations (2, 5, 17, 25at.%) are prepared by co-sputtering with Si3N4 and SbTe alloy targets. In order to study the crystallization process and amorphous state stability and to compare with Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and pure SbTe films, x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and in situ film resistance measurements are carried out. SiNx doping enhances the amorphous state stability of the SbTe films. The temperature for 10-year retention of amorphous state of pure SbTe films is −11°C and that of 17at.% SiNx-doped SbTe films increases to 75°C. SiNx addition increases the crystallization temperature and the electrical resistivity of SbTe films. The microstructures of SiNx-doped SbTe films are analyzed through XRD and TEM. After annealing at 350°C, SiNx-doped SbTe films crystallized into a kind of nanocomposite films with rhombohedra Sb2Te3 nanoparticles embedded into an amorphous SiNx matrix. The nanocomposite structure and higher crystalline resistivity of the SiNx-doped SbTe films is helpful to reduce the RESET current of phase change memory.


Fluorescence assays are useful tools for estimating enzymatic activity. Their simplicity and manageability make them suitable for screening enzyme inhibitors in drug discovery studies. However, researchers need to pay attention to compounds that show auto-fluorescence and quench fluorescence, because such compounds lower the accuracy of the fluorescence assay systems by producing false-positive or negative results. In this study, we found that aurone compound 7, which has been reported as a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, gave false-positive results. Although compound 7 was identified by an in vitro HDAC fluorescence assay, it did not show HDAC inhibitory activity in a cell-based assay, leading us to suspect its in vitro HDAC inhibitory activity. As a result of verification experiments, we found that compound 7 interferes with the HDAC fluorescence assay by quenching the HDAC fluorescence signal. Our findings underscore the faults of fluorescence assays and call attention to careless interpretation.


This note is motivated by preparations of a new $ep$ elastic scattering experiment in the low transfer momentum region to be carried out in the 720 MeV electron beam of the Mainz Microtron MAMI. This experiment will use an innovative method allowing for detection of recoil protons in coincidence with the scattered electrons. The goal is to measure the $ep$ differential cross sections in the $Q^2$ range from 0.001 GeV$^2$ to 0.04 GeV$^2$ and to determine the proton charge radius with sub-percent precision.


Background: Male circumcision is the most common surgical procedure worldwide and is often carried out for religious, cultural, medical and public health reasons. It is commonly performed during the neonatal period. Many studies have now shown that pain is a common intra- and post-operative complication. To ensure proper analgesia during the procedure, many surgeons opt for the use of pacifiers as an adjunct to anaesthesia during neonatal circumcision. The aim of this study is to compare nutritive pacifiers (NPs) versus non-NPs (NNPs) as adjuncts to local anaesthesia in male neonatal circumcision using the Plastibell technique. Methods: A prospective randomised controlled study was carried out between October 2019 and March 2020. A total of 100 neonates were circumcised using the Plastibell technique and randomised into NP (Group A, n = 33), NNP (Group B, n = 33) and controls (Group C, n = 34), respectively. The differences in pain scores using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale, total crying time and heart rate during circumcision were recorded and assessed. Results: The age of participants ranged from 5 to 28 days and the weight ranged from 2.5 to 5.0 kg. The overall mean age, birth weight and current weight of the participants were 15.5 ± 6.1 days, 3.4 ± 0.4 kg and 3.5 ± 0.6 kg, respectively. The control group had the highest average pain score of 5.5 (4.5–5.8) compared to the intervention groups with median pain score (NP: 3.3 [1.3–4.3] and (NNP: 4.3 [3.1–5.1], respectively). NPs had significantly lower pain scores (P = 0.023) and reduced total crying time (P = 0.019) at all stages of the circumcision compared to those given NNPs and controls. Conclusion: This study showed that NPs were superior to NNPs in providing additional pain control during male neonatal circumcision.


The effect of food preservatives and sanitizers at low concentrations on the induction of Escherichia coli into a viable but nonculturable (VBNC) state was investigated. When E. coli was incubated in physiological saline at 37℃, the viable cell count measured by plate counting was approximately 3-logs lower than that measured by flow cytometry after 30 days. This difference, and morphological changes in cells, confirmed the transition of E. coli into a VBNC state. Adding 10 μg/l of sorbic acid significantly promoted the induction of E. coli into a VBNC state. This effect was not seen with benzoic acid or sodium hypochlorite at the same concentration. Resuscitation of E. coli VBNC cells was successful when they were grown in nutrient broth containing sodium pyruvate. These results suggest that the presence of low concentrations of food additives in a food manufacturing environment may act as potential triggers for bacterial VBNC induction.


Probiotics, such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, promote growth in piglets by modulating gut microbiota composition and improving the host immune system. A strain of Lactobacillus sp. and Bifidobacterium thermacidophilum (B. thermacidophilum) were previously isolated from fresh feces of Tibetan pigs. The effects of these isolated strains on growth performance, intestinal morphology, immunity, microbiota composition, and their metabolites were evaluated in weaned piglets. Thirty crossbred piglets were selected and fed either a basal diet (CON), a basal diet supplemented with aureomycin (ANT), or a basal diet supplemented with Lactobacillus sp. and B. thermacidophilum (LB) for 28 days. The piglets in the ANT and LB groups had significantly higher body weight gain than those in the CON group (P < 0.05). Piglets in the ANT and LB groups had regularly arranged villi and microvilli in the small intestine. Furthermore, they had improved immune function, as indicated by decreased serum concentrations of inflammatory cytokines (P < 0.05), improved components of immune cells in the blood, mesenteric lymph nodes, and spleen. Additionally, metagenomic sequencing indicated a significant shift in cecal bacterial composition and alterations in microbiota functional profiles following Lactobacillus sp. and B. thermacidophilum supplementation. Metabolomic results revealed that the metabolites were also altered, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis revealed that several significantly altered metabolites were enriched in glycerophospholipid and cholesterol metabolism (P < 0.05). Furthermore, correlation analysis showed that several bacterial members were closely related to the alterations in metabolites, including Bacteroides sp., which were negatively correlated with TG (16:0/18:0/20:4(5Z,8Z,11Z,14Z)), the metabolite that owned the highest variable importance of projection scores. Collectively, our findings suggest that combined supplementation with Lactobacillus sp. and B. thermacidophilum significantly improved the growth performance, immunity, and microbiota composition in weaned piglets, making them prospective alternatives to antibiotics in swine production.


A slow manifold is a low-dimensional invariant manifold to which trajectories nearby are rapidly attracted on the way to the equilibrium point. The exact computation of the slow manifold simplifies the model without sacrificing accuracy on the slow time scales of the system. The Maas-Pope intrinsic low-dimensional manifold (ILDM) [Combust. Flame 88, 239 (1992)] is frequently used as an approximation to the slow manifold. This approximation is based on a linearized analysis of the differential equations and thus neglects curvature. We present here an efficient way to calculate an approximation equivalent to the ILDM. Our method, called functional equation truncation (FET), first develops a hierarchy of functional equations involving higher derivatives which can then be truncated at second-derivative terms to explicitly neglect the curvature. We prove that the ILDM and FET-approximated (FETA) manifolds are identical for the one-dimensional slow manifold of any planar system. In higher-dimensional spaces, the ILDM and FETA manifolds agree to numerical accuracy almost everywhere. Solution of the FET equations is, however, expected to generally be faster than the ILDM method.


. This study deals with a quantification of pre- and post-fire seedling establishment and microsite characteristics in two Florida sand pine scrub sites burned in May 1993. In addition, life history characteristics related to seedling establishment are described for five perennial species –Calamintha ashei, Chapmannia floridana, Eriogonum floridanum, Garberia heterophylla and Palafoxia feayi. Post-fire seedling establishment in sand pine scrub was sparse (median = 1, 12 seedling/m2), with 17 of 35 species establishing seedlings. Chapmannia, Eriogonum, Garberia and Palafoxia resprouted and flowered after fire; Eriogonum and Garberia had strong post-fire seedling establishment responses within 19 months post-fire. Calamintha individuals were killed by fire, but this species had a strong post-fire seedling establishment response, presumably from seeds in a soil seed bank. Eriogonum and Calamintha seedlings established preferentially in plots centered on conspecific adults. For these species with poor seed dispersal, spatial patterns of seedling establishment may be influenced more by pre-fire adult plant location than by post-fire microsite conditions. Post-fire seedling density in sand pine scrub was much lower than in California chaparral and South African sand plain lowland fynbos.


We propose an iterative procedure to minimize the sum of squares function which avoids the nonlinear nature of estimating the rst order moving average parameter and provides a closed form of the estimator. The asymptotic properties of the method are discussed and the consistency of the linear least squares estimator is proved for the invertible case. We perform various Monte Carlo experiments in order to compare the sample properties of the linear least squares estimator with its nonlinear counterpart for the conditional and unconditional cases. Some examples are also discussed.


BACKGROUND
Little is known regarding the utilization of services of a hospital-based employee health clinic (EHC).

MATERIAL/METHODS
We evaluated the utilization of services of the EHC of a tertiary hospital in Greece. Demographic and clinical data were prospectively collected and analyzed for all employees who visited the EHC during a 24-month period (01/06/2003-31/05/2005).

RESULTS
A total of 939 primary and 55 follow-up visits were recorded. Of all 994 visits, 419 were made by nurses (42%), 270 by administrative staff (27%), and only 15 visits by physicians (1%). Only 5.6% of physicians used the EHC during the study period (14 out of 252 doctors) whereas 35.4% of the nurses (218 out of 615) visited the EHC at least once (p<0.001). Three hundred and one of the rest 544 employees (55.3%) visited the EHC, significantly more than physicians (p < 0.001) and nurses (p<0.001). The majority of employees who visited the clinic were females (78%), while the most common reason for consultation was periodic evaluation accounting for 108 visits (11%), followed by abdominal pain (99 visits, 10%), dizziness (48 visits, 5%), and respiratory tract infections (44 visits, 5%). A significant reduction in the number of visits was observed after the 9(th) month of the study, coinciding with a change in the worker's health insurance policy (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
Periodic evaluations, abdominal pain, dizziness, respiratory tract infections, and weakness/malaise cover the bulk of consultation visits of a hospital-based EHC. Physicians were the group of employees that visited the EHC less often.


Author(s): Blake, Corey Michael | Advisor(s): Ritter, Jonathan | Abstract: The first Chinese migrants arrived in modern-day Panama aboard the clipper Sea Witch in April of 1854. In their first steps on what was then known as New Granada, they arrived as laborers to work on the Panama Railroad, a project commissioned by the United States to help transport wealth accumulated from the California Gold Rush that was taking place at the time. Since their arrival, waves of migrations have occurred over the past century and a half. With each wave of migration, people bring with them their own customs and ideals, of which music and dance are of great importance. This research makes evident the importance of Chinese presence in Panamanian culture and society. As one of the largest Chinese diasporas within Latin America, the case of Chinese Panamanians provides a compelling case study for understanding the sociopolitical consequences of being ethnically Asian within a Latin American context. In this dissertation, I argue that cultural performances through music and dance construct, maintain, and express unique bicultural, transnational, and often shifting identities to assert belonging through difference as Panamanians of Chinese descent continue to redefine and negotiate notions of Panamanian nationhood. Central throughout this project, cultural performance through music, dance, religious worship, and sporting events becomes an important tool for validating and asserting a Panamanian national identity in light of a long history of marginalization. By incorporating Chinese art forms into the most meaningful personal and nationalistic moments of their lives, Chineseness no longer becomes a symbol of what is not Panamanian, but instead becomes a representation of what Panamanian can be. In doing so, this community deconstructs the barriers of national identity that have historically marginalized them in very openly hostile ways. A result of ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Panama City, Panama between September 2017 and July 2018, this dissertation explores issues of diaspora, belonging, and nationhood for Chinese Panamanians and Panamanians of Chinese descent and the complexities inherent in performative expressions of identity in situating national belonging, validation, and recognition of such identities in the Panamanian national imaginary.


Election of contestants into positions in a civilized society is a product of choice among few or many alternatives. In order to make a good choice among the available alternatives, a number of criteria must be considered. Several methods had been adopted in the past at local, national and international scene but in most cases with prejudice and biasness. These had subsequently produced contentious results which eventually led to political violence and insecurity. This paper proposes a multi-criteria decision making algorithm which is based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for quality leadership selection, free of strive and violence. Alternative election contestants were considered; the required qualities for a post were defined. Their evaluations were translated into reciprocal matrix in order to determine the priority vector while the validity of the designed paradigm was assessed using secondary data. Out of the three alternative election contestants under consideration, the results of the designed paradigm show that the political aspirant Y is the best choice, followed by aspirant X and aspirant Z. That is, it can be inferred that aspirant Y is 3.87 times more preferable than choice Z, and choice Y is 1.3 times more preferable than choice X. Also, the obtained overall composite weight of 0.092 further proves that the result of the analysis is consistent. Thus, the practical application of the designed paradigm would eliminate an atmosphere of rancor, which may arise from unfair selection of contestants and decision making processes.


Purpose: To investigate the anatomical success rate associated with rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) repair without postoperative head positioning. Methods: Data on 182 individuals undergoing pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) with or without phacoemulsification or scleral buckle for primary RRD with intraocular tamponade were retrospectively reviewed. The primary outcome was the initial anatomical success rate. Secondary outcome measures were the change in best-corrected visual acuity and the final reattachment rate. Results: A total of 122 eyes from 122 patients who underwent RRD repair without postoperative positioning were included in this study. PPV alone was performed in 39% of cases, whereas the remaining patients had PPV combined with phacoemulsification (35%), with scleral buckle (19%), or both (7%). Inferior breaks between the 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock positions were present in 47% of cases. Primary and final anatomical success was achieved in 86% and 98% of cases, respectively. The most common cause for redetachment was proliferative vitreoretinopathy. Age and combined inferior retinal and superior breaks were predictive of recurrence in the logistic regression model. The mean baseline best-corrected visual acuity improved from 1.2 (Snellen equivalent, 20/320) to 0.76 (Snellen, 20/125) logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution after retinal reattachment (P < .001). Conclusions: PPV combined with or without phacoemulsification or scleral buckle for primary RRD in pseudophakic eyes or those rendered pseudophakic is associated with good anatomical outcomes without restricted postoperative head positioning. Retinal detachment in eyes with combined retinal inferior and superior breaks may have a lower success rate, and whether this is due to lack of postoperative positioning needs further evaluation in prospective, controlled studies.


Passive optical networks have been identified as promising access solutions that can open the first-mile bottleneck, bringing gigabits-per-second data rates to end users. Current TDM PONs enjoy low cost by sharing resources in time, but suffer from limited capacity. In the future, WDM technology may be employed to achieve high performance. In this article we introduce a novel PON employing dynamic wavelength allocation to provide bandwidth sharing across multiple physical PONs. Tunable lasers, arrayed waveguide gratings, and coarse/fine filtering combine to create a flexible new optical access solution. The network's excellent scalability can bridge the gap between conventional TDM PONs and WDM PONs. The powerful architecture is a promising candidate for next-generation optical access networks.


A conspicuous absence in the field of communication and theology presents a challenge to theologians and communicators alike. It is the absence of a theology of communication rights, which this chapter seeks to address by identifying "pointers" drawing on the theory and practice of communication for development, the "capability approach," and the right to communicate debate. It argues that, if globalization is to have moral validity, it must bring with it an enhanced sense of globalized humanity. As such, we must ask if we are willing to live in a world with disenfranchised people – the "new slaves" of society. If not, we are obliged by our faith and our common humanity to take responsibility for the world's failings. Unless we work to understand the structures and inadequacies that enable marginalization and oppression to persist, and unless we take action to change them, we are complicit with injustice.


ABSTRACT
Maternal Mortality Rate in Indonesia is still relatively high, based on the Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey in 2012 showing a MMR of 359 / 100,000 live births. This figure is still far from the health development targets listed in the SDGs. In general, maternal mortality occurs due to bleeding during labor which can be caused by too young and too close pregnancy. This study aims to determine the description of knowledge of young women about age and distance of pregnancy. This type of research is Study Literature Review. Based on results of a journal search on age to get pregnant in the first journal 62.5% of young women are in category of insufficient knowledge, in the second journal 54.2%, both are due to a lack of information, in the third journal the educational factors are explained which influence the OR results = 3,437 and CI = 6,906-1,711). Based on a journal search on pregnancy spacing in the first journal 33.34% of young women lacked knowledge, in the second journal of 43.3%, both were caused by a lack of information, whereas in the third journal it was explained that educational factor had an effect of 51.9%. The results are obtained if knowledge of young women about age to get pregnant is still low with 62.5% and 43.4% lacking knowledge about pregnancy spacing. The need for an active role of health workers in providing counseling and socializing about the risk of pregnancy at a young age and the distance of pregnancy.


Background The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that the Asia Pacific region will experience an increase in cardiovascular disease (CVD) as a result of demographic changes and an increasing prevalence of diabetes. The aims of this study were to assess the predictive value of glucose tolerance status as a risk factor for CVD and identify a high-risk group for fatal CVD in population-based studies of Asians. Design A meta-analysis of five prospective cohort studies of Japanese and Asian Indian origin from five countries. Methods A total of 6573 subjects without a history of CVD from five prospective studies were followed for 5–10 years. Diabetes at baseline was diagnosed according to 1999 WHO criteria. Hazard ratios for death from CVD were estimated using a Cox proportional hazard model, adjusting for glucose tolerance status together with established risk factors for CVD. Results The meta-analysis showed that the overall hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) for CVD mortality corresponding to the presence of screen-detected diabetes, hypertension and hypercholesteremia were 3.42 (2.23–5.23), 1.57 (1.10–2.24) and 1.49 (1.05–2.10), respectively. Stratified multivariate analysis of the pooled data showed that subjects with screen-detected diabetes in the presence of hypertension or hypercholesteremia had the highest risk of CVD in individuals without previous CVD or diabetes. Subjects with screen-detected diabetes in the presence of hypertension or hypercholesteremia comprised 78% of CVD deaths that occurred in all subjects with screen-detected diabetes. Conclusions The early detection of undiagnosed diabetes in hypertension or hypercholesteremia may have clinical and public health implications for the primary prevention of rapidly increasing diabetes-related atherosclerotic CVD in Asian populations.


Regenerated silk (RS) is a natural polymer that results from the aggregation of liquid silk fibroin proteins. In this work, we observed that RS dispersed in aqueous solution undergoes a reversible solid/liquid transition by programmed heating/cooling cycles. Fourier transform infrared, atomic force microscopy imaging and Raman measurements of the RS reveal that the transition fromrandomcoil to b-sheet structures is involved in this liquid–solid transition. The reversible solid-liquid transition of silk fibroin was then found to be helpful to prepare polymer-like carbon nanotube (CNT) dispersions. We demonstrate that the gelation of RS makes the CNTs with the consistency of a dough with polymeric behavior. Such RS can disperse carbon nanotubes at high concentrations of tens of weight percent. Finally, such carbon nanotube dough has been used for the realization of rubber composites. With this method, we pave the way for handling nanopowders (e.g. CNTs or graphene related materials) with safety and reducing the filler volatility that is critical in polymer-processing.


ABSTRACT Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain JJC33M is a bacterium that produces α-amylase (EC 22.214.171.124) and was isolated from sugarcane soil. Its estimated genome size is 3.96 Mb, and it harbors 4,048 coding genes (CDSs).


Deep neural networks for medical image reconstruction are traditionally trained using high-quality ground-truth images as training targets. Recent work on Noise2Noise (N2N) has shown the potential of using multiple noisy measurements of the same object as an alternative to having a ground truth. However, existing N2N-based methods cannot exploit information from various motion states, limiting their ability to learn on moving objects. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a novel motion-compensated deep image reconstruction (MoDIR) method that can use information from several unregistered and noisy measurements for training. MoDIR deals with object motion by including a deep registration module jointly trained with the deep reconstruction network without any ground-truth supervision. We validate MoDIR on both simulated and experimentally collected magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and show that it significantly improves imaging quality.