Visualizing large graphs is a difficult problem, and requires balancing of the need to express global structure and the need to preserve local detail. The commute-time embedding is an attractive choice for providing a geometric embedding for graph vertices, but is high-dimensional. Dimension reduction of the commute-time embedding may be accomplished with Krylov subspace methods, which can preserve local detail and have intuitive geometric interpretations. These reduced-dimension approximations are computationally inexpensive, and may be contrasted against the much more expensive application of principal components analysis dimension reduction.


THIS most interesting and densely written monograph attempts to put forward, and to justify by reference to decided cases in many different jurisdictions, a new conception of international commercial law. Dr. Langen believes that the way forward for international commercial law in present world conditions lies through the working out of the transnational legal principles underlying the rules of law applicable in the domestic legal systems of the parties to disputes. He is critical of the shortcomings of modern efforts to create a lex mercatorta independent of municipal laws and of the manifest disadvantages of reference to a single municipal system through the operation of conflicts of laws rules. His central thesis is tested by a detailed investigationof decisions—over 400 in all— relating to four different, but crucial, subject areas; these are (i) licensing agreements, (ii) contracts of sale, (iii) the limitation of claims, and (iv) the practice of transnational adjudication. This choice allows him to examine newly developed and long-established institutions, and to show, in the last two heads, how fairly simple general principles can be derived from a multiplicity of decisions. Although Dr. Langen's grounds for making this choice may be criticised there is no doubt but that his perceptive and practically orientated survey of the cases is both highly illuminating and excellently points up the fundamental changes in the circumstances of international trade in recent years. To the present reviewer Dr. Langen's chapters on the international sale of goods (pp. 72-165) are the most convincing in the book, and his attempts to reconcile the disparities between the Uniform Commercial Code of 1962 and the Hague Rules of 1964 show his approach at its most realistic and constructive. His chapters on the practice of transnational adjudication (pp. 203-245) or " binomial adjudication" are deeply thoughtful and reflect a < lifetime's experience in the courts. There is an excellent table of cases and a helpful select bibliography. The index is not up to the standard of the rest of the work and there are, unfortunately, a number of proof-reading lapses. Overall, this is an important pioneering work which should provoke wide discussion of its central premises and attitudes. It is timely and deserves very careful attention.


Lessmeier et al 1 studied 107 patients with reentrant paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. They state that Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition , panic disorder criteria 2 were fulfilled by 67% of the patients and that 54% of the patients had not received the correct diagnosis from their physicians, who attributed the patients' symptoms to panic anxiety or stress. The authors caution that diagnosis is often delayed by inappropriate rhythm detection techniques, such as using a Holter monitor instead of event monitoring and failing to recognize ventricular preexcitation on the electrocardiogram. Also, it is important to note that these incorrect diagnoses steer the patients away from a specific, effective electrophysiologically guided therapy that has proved effective in 86% of these cases. Several question arise. Did the patient's syndrome truly mimic panic disorder, or is this a faute de mieux diagnosis? That is, if the physician cannot detect cardiac disease,


Abstract The complexity of the current medical trainee work environment, including the impact of social media participation, is underappreciated. Despite rapid adoption of social media by residents and the introduction of social media guidelines targeted at medical professionals, there is a paucity of data evaluating practical methods to incorporate social media into professionalism teaching curricula. We developed a flipped classroom program, focusing on the application of professionalism principles to challenging real-life scenarios including social media-related issues. The pre-workshop evaluation showed that the participants had a good understanding of basic professionalism concepts. A post-workshop survey assessed residents' comfort level with professionalism concepts. The post-workshop survey revealed that the postgraduate trainees perceived significant improvement in their understanding of professionalism (p < 0.05). Resident responses also exposed some challenges of real-life clinical settings. There was an apparent contradiction between placing a high value on personal health and believing that physicians ought to be available to patients at any time. Participants' satisfaction with the course bodes well for continual modification of such courses. Innovative flipped classroom format in combination with simulation-based sessions allows easy incorporation of contemporary professionalism issues surrounding social media.


The breakdown of marriage unions in Kenyan society is a serious problem as is evidenced by increased marital violence, high divorce rates, numerous separations and other family problems. Even then people are still marrying and others still staying in marriage. This study investigated perceptions of Socio-economic and educational factors that contribute to marriage instability in Oyugis town, Kenya. The sample comprised 108 participants drawn from church ministers, church elders and advocates of law. A questionnaire developed by the researcher was used in data collection. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics-means and percentages. The Socio-educational factors identified as contributing to marriage instability included level of education of the couple at the time of marriage – Differences in education level of the married couple was found to enhance marriage instability especially if the wife is more educated than the husband. Socio-economic level of the married couple – this was found to enhance marriage instability especially if the wife is more economically stable than the husband.


A road traffic noise prediction model (ASJ MODEL-1998) has been integrated with a road traffic simulator (AVENUE) to produce the Dynamic areawide Road traffic NoisE simulator-DRONE. This traffic-noise-GIS based integrated tool is upgraded to predict noise levels in built-up areas. The integration of traffic simulation with a noise model provides dynamic access to traffic flow characteristics and hence automated and detailed predictions of traffic noise. The prediction is not only on the spatial scale but also on temporal scale. The linkage with GIS gives a visual representation to noise pollution in the form of dynamic areawide traffic noise contour maps. The application of DRONE on a real world built-up area is also presented.


A series of thirty-five patients suffering from diphtheria, who had been previously fully inoculated against the disease and from whom toxigenic diphtheria bacilli were isolated, were investigated and compared with seventeen patients who had not been inoculated. There were smaller groups of those patients who had had incomplete courses of immunization and of those who had had previous attacks of the disease. Two-thirds of the infections in the inoculated were due to Corynebacterium diphtheriae, intermedius type. Intermedius infections were proportionately more numerous in the inoculated than in the uninoculated, whereas gravis infections were less frequent. Estimations of the antitoxin in the blood were made on admission. The inoculated patients had levels of antitoxin below, or in the neighbourhood of, that believed to confer protection. In the inoculated group severity did not appear to be influenced by the level of antitoxin in the blood on admission. Antitoxin in the blood was found to have increased after recovery from the disease in all except one patient; the increase was considerable in those who had been inoculated previously. From 23·5% of all cases of clinical diphtheria investigated only non-toxigenic diphtheria bacilli (gravis, intermedius and mitis types) were isolated. These cases were considered separately. On admission the majority had in their blood considerable amounts of antitoxin, which did not increase after recovery. No other pathogenic organisms were regularly found. The possibility is discussed that under certain conditions non-toxigenic C. diphtheriae may be able to cause a diphtherialike disease.


: Here we report on the in fl uence of an aliphatic oxalamide-based nucleating agent (OXA3,6) on the viscoelastic and mechanical properties of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) blended with ultrahigh molecular weight iPP (UHMWiPP). The linear viscoelastic properties are investigated by using a plate − plate rheometer; the presence of only 0.5 wt % of OXA3,6 in the iPP − UHMWiPP blends results in a reduction of the complex viscosity in the entire frequency domain examined. This observation holds irrespective of the UHMWiPP weight fraction, up to 25 wt %. The viscosity suppression is attributed to an acceleration of the reorientation times of the chains, especially the longer ones, due to partial alignment of their molecular segments. Furthermore, SAXS measurements on cooled, injection molded samples hint that OXA3,6-containing samples display enhanced alignment under processing conditions (injection molding). Compared to samples without OXA, an increase in the SAXS intensity along the equator is observed in the OXA3,6 samples, implying an enhanced ability of shish-kebab formation. Such a morphological development results in higher yield stress while maintaining the elastic behavior.


Xanthium strumarium L. is a member of the Asteraceae commonly used in Cuba, mainly as diuretic. Some toxic properties of this plant have also been reported and, to date, very little is known about its genotoxic properties. The present work aims was to evaluate the potential cytotoxic and genotoxic risk of whole extract from Xanthium strumarium L. whole extract of aerial parts. No positive response was observed in a battery of four Salmonella typhimurium strains, when exposed to concentrations up to 5 mg/plate, with and without mammalian metabolic activation (liver microsomal S9 fraction from Wistar rats). In CHO cells, high concentrations (25–100 μg/mL) revealed significant reduction in cell viability. Results from sister chromatid exchanges, chromosome aberrations, and comet assay showed that X. strumarium extract is genotoxic at the highest concentration used, when clear cytotoxic effects were also observed. On the contrary, no increase in micronuclei frequency in bone marrow cells was observed when the extract was orally administered to mice (100, 500, and 2000 mg/Kg doses). The data presented here constitute the most complete study on the genotoxic potential of X. strumarium L. and show that the extract can induce in vitro DNA damage at cytotoxic concentrations.


Background: Perceived health care is influenced by patient satisfaction favorable to the hospital and positive impact on patient satisfaction. This study aimed to make recommendations for increasing admissions for Inpatient room based on the result of the analysis of perceived health care quality, customer voice and satisfaction.
Methods: This research used cross-sectional method. The sampling technique used proportionate stratified random sampling. The data obtained were then analyzed using descriptive and regression methods.
Results: The results obtained indicated that perceived health care quality had a significant positive effect on patient satisfaction. The Quality Interaction (b = 0.273) had a stronger influence on patient satisfaction. The results showed physical environment quality (p = 0.008, b = 0.199), interaction quality (p = 0.000, b = 0.471), and outcome quality (p = 0.005, b = 0.238).
Conclusion: Perceived health care quality has a strong effect on patient satisfaction.


Temporal abstraction allows reinforcement learning agents to represent knowledge and develop strategies over different temporal scales. The option-critic framework has been demonstrated to learn temporally extended actions, represented as options, end-to-end in a model-free setting. However, feasibility of option-critic remains limited due to two major challenges, multiple options adopting very similar behavior, or a shrinking set of task relevant options. These occurrences not only void the need for temporal abstraction, they also affect performance. In this paper, we tackle these problems by learning a diverse set of options. We introduce an information-theoretic intrinsic reward, which augments the task reward, as well as a novel termination objective, in order to encourage behavioral diversity in the option set. We show empirically that our proposed method is capable of learning options end-to-end on several discrete and continuous control tasks, outperforms option-critic by a wide margin. Furthermore, we show that our approach sustainably generates robust, reusable, reliable and interpretable options, in contrast to option-critic.


Purpose Lung cancer is a disease with a high percentage of patients diagnosed in an advanced stage. In a situation of palliative treatment, both patients and their relatives experience diverse types of distress and burden. Little research has been done to identify the individual difficulties and resources for patients with advanced lung cancer and their relatives. Especially, standardized questionnaire-based exploration may not assess the specific distressing issues that pertain to each individual on a personal level. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore and compare individual difficulties and resources for lung cancer patients and their relatives within the palliative care context. Methods Data were collected by qualitative interviews. A total of 18 participants, nine patients diagnosed with advanced lung cancer (International Classification of Diseases, tenth edition, diagnosis C-34, stage IV) starting or receiving palliative treatment and nine relatives, were interviewed. Data were interpreted through qualitative content analysis. Results We identified four main categories of difficulties: communication and conflicts, home and everyday life, thinking about cancer, and treatment trajectory. In general, difficulties were related to interpersonal relationships as well as to impact of chemotherapy. Family, professional caregivers, and social life were significant resources and offered support to both patients and relatives. Conclusion Results suggest that patient and relative education could reduce difficulties in several areas. Patients seem to struggle with the fear of not having any perspective in therapy. Relatives seem to experience helplessness regarding their partner's deterioration and have to handle their own life and the care work simultaneously. The most important resource for both patients and relatives is their family. In addition, professional lung cancer nurses support relatives in an emotional and organizational way. Intense supportive care for relatives should be standardized.


Three-dimensional microscopy is increasingly prevalent in biology due to the development of techniques such as multiphoton, spinning disk confocal, and light sheet fluorescence microscopies. These methods enable unprecedented studies of life at the microscale, but bring with them larger and more complex datasets. New image processing techniques are therefore called for to analyze the resulting images in an accurate and efficient manner. Convolutional neural networks are becoming the standard for classification of objects within images due to their accuracy and generalizability compared to traditional techniques. Their application to data derived from 3D imaging, however, is relatively new and has mostly been in areas of magnetic resonance imaging and computer tomography. It remains unclear, for images of discrete cells in variable backgrounds as are commonly encountered in fluorescence microscopy, whether convolutional neural networks provide sufficient performance to warrant their adoption, especially given the challenges of human comprehension of their classification criteria and their requirements of large training datasets. We therefore applied a 3D convolutional neural network to distinguish bacteria and non-bacterial objects in 3D light sheet fluorescence microscopy images of larval zebrafish intestines. We find that the neural network is as accurate as human experts, outperforms random forest and support vector machine classifiers, and generalizes well to a different bacterial species through the use of transfer learning. We also discuss network design considerations, and describe the dependence of accuracy on dataset size and data augmentation. We provide source code, labeled data, and descriptions of our analysis pipeline to facilitate adoption of convolutional neural network analysis for three-dimensional microscopy data. Author summary The abundance of complex, three dimensional image datasets in biology calls for new image processing techniques that are both accurate and fast. Deep learning techniques, in particular convolutional neural networks, have achieved unprecedented accuracies and speeds across a large variety of image classification tasks. However, it is unclear whether or not their use is warranted in noisy, heterogeneous 3D microscopy datasets, especially considering their requirements of large, labeled datasets and their lack of comprehensible features. To asses this, we provide a case study, applying convolutional neural networks as well as feature-based methods to light sheet fluorescence microscopy datasets of bacteria in the intestines of larval zebrafish. We find that the neural network is as accurate as human experts, outperforms the feature-based methods, and generalizes well to a different bacterial species through the use of transfer learning.


We study the output entanglement in a three-mode optomechanical system via reservoir engineering by shifting the center frequency of filter function away from resonant frequency. We find the bandwidth of the filter function can suppress the entanglement in the vicinity of resonant frequency of the system, while the entanglement will become prosperous if the center frequency departs from the resonant frequency. We obtain the approximate analytical expressions of the output entanglement, and from which we give the optimal center frequency at which the entanglement takes the maximum. Furthermore, we study the effects of time delay between the two output fields on the output entanglement, and obtain the optimal time delay for the case of large filter bandwidth.


This study evaluates the efficiency of Microfinance institutions operating in East African using non parametric approach (Data Envelopment Analysis).  The study used production approach to estimate efficiency scores of 35 MFIs under both constant and variable returns to scale. The results show that, MFIs in East Africa have higher efficiency scores in average. The average technical efficiency scores were 0.706 (2009), 0.798 (2010) and 0.852 under constant return to scale and 0.823, 0.892 and 0.891 under variable return to scale for three years respectively. The average efficiency trend was found to be positive with low efficiency scores in 2009 and high scores in 2011. The numbers of MFIs at efficient frontier line under both returns to scale were 5, 8 and 11 in 2009 to 2011respectively. The findings also show that, on average the banks and non bank financial Institutions were more relatively efficient compared to NGOs and Cooperatives while the country efficiency averages show that, Kenya and Rwanda had higher average efficiency scores for three years under constant return to scale while Tanzania and Uganda have higher average efficiency scores under variable return to scale. The study recommends that, MFIs in the area should improve their efficiency by better allocation of input resources used and reduction of the amount of waste, since most of the inefficiency was found to be technical in nature. Keywords: Microfinance Institutions in East Africa, Efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)


PURPOSE
Two output (cGy/MU) prediction models (one existing and one newly developed) for a passively double-scattered proton therapy system are implemented and investigated for clinical use. Variations of each model are tested for accuracy in order to determine the most viable prediction model.

METHODS
The first output prediction model [model (1)] is a semianalytical model proposed by Kooy et al. [Phys. Med. Biol. 50, 5847-5856 (2005)], which employs three main factors. The first factor (basic output prediction) uses a unique combined parameter [r = (R - M)/M] of range (R) and modulation [M; spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) width] along with option specific fitting parameters. The second factor takes into account minor source shifts using a linear fit due to varying beamline configurations for different options. The final factor accounts for a condition where the point of measurement is not at the isocenter or away from the middle of the SOBP based on an inverse-square correction. The second model [model (2)] is a novel quartic polynomial fit of the basic output prediction whose idea was inspired by the first model. Different variations in the definition of R and M at distal (D) and proximal (P) ends resulted in the exploration of three variations of r for both models: r1 = (RD90 - MD90-P95)/MD90-P95, r2 = [(RD90 + ΔR1) - m × (MD90-P95 + ΔR1)]/[m × (MD90-P95 + ΔR1)], where ΔR1 is an offset between RD80 and RD90 and m is a ratio between MD90-P95 and theoretical MD100-P100', and r3 = [(RD90 - 0.305) - 0.801 × MD90-P95]/(0.801 × MD90-P95), where 0.305 (ΔR2) is an offset between RD90 and RD100 and 0.801 is a ratio between MD90-P95 and measured MD100-P100. Output measurements for 177 sets of R and M from all 24 options are compared to outputs predicted by both the models of three variations of r.

RESULTS
The mean differences between measurements and predictions ([predicted - measured]/measured × 100%) were -0.41% ± 1.78% (r1), 0.03% ± 1.53% (r2), and 0.05% ± 1.20% (r3) for model (1), and 0.27% ± 1.36% (r1), 0.71% ± 1.51% (r2), and -0.05% ± 1.20% (r3) for model (2). For a passing prediction rate with a difference threshold of ±3%, model (1) showed slightly worse results than model (2) using r1 (91.5% vs 94.4%). In general, small (M < 4 g/cm2) and close-to-full modulations produced larger discrepancies. However, 100% output predictions using r3 were confined within ±3% of measurements for both models and the difference between the models was not substantial (mean difference: 0.05% vs -0.05%).

CONCLUSIONS
The first existing model has proven to be a successful predictor of output for our compact double-scattering proton therapy system. The new model performed comparably to the first model and showed better performance in some options due to a great degree of flexibility of a polynomial fit. Both models performed well using r3. Either model with r3 thus can serve well as an output prediction calculator.


This paper aims at the development of a new stabilization formulation based on the finite calculus (FIC) scheme for solving the Euler equations using the Galerkin FEM on unstructured triangular grids. The FIC method is based on expressing the balance of fluxes in a space–time domain of finite size. It is used to prevent the creation of instabilities typically present in numerical solutions due to the high convective terms and sharp gradients. Two stabilization terms, respectively called streamline term and transverse term, are added via the FIC formulation to the original conservative equations in the space–time domain. An explicit fourth‐order Runge–Kutta scheme is implemented to advance the solution in time. The presented numerical test examples for inviscid flows prove the ability of the proposed stabilization technique for providing appropriate solutions especially near shock waves. Although the derived methodology delivers precise results with a nearly coarse mesh, a mesh refinement technique is coupled to the solution process for obtaining a suitable mesh particularly in the high‐gradient zones. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


English translation © 2006 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text "Smysl kak psikhologicheskoe poniatie," in Iazyk i rechevaia deiatel'nost' v obshchei i pedagogicheskoi psikhologii (Moscow and Voronezh: IPO MODEK, 2001), pp. 141–52. Published with the permission of Dmitry A. Leontiev. Translated by Nora Favorov. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 44, no. 3, May–June 2006, pp. 57–69. © 2006 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1061–0405/2006 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753RPO10610405440305


Abstract I unpack the "potter's field" as an everyday practice and a category, especially as it operates in the material treatment of bodies as a mirror of life. I examine this space of "worthlessness" as it exists in liberal capitalism. From the potter's fields of São Paulo, Brazil, I consider how these are, in fact, mundane mass graves, made politically useful as a means to obscure important bodies alongside those who are, today, the subjects of terror. I then ask how the rise of the uncertified potter's field—a burial field for disposable bodies, not made legal by the state—is inseparable from recent historical and contemporary conditions of political abandonment. The uncertified field is made easy by a politics of abandonment, and becomes useful to state institutions as a material invocation of responsibility, interred elsewhere, while nonetheless advancing a larger logic of governance and political will in our times.


We introduce a new golf ball flight model powered by deep learning. Our method combines a physics model with a deep learning model by inserting a neural network directly into the differential equations governing the projectile motion of the golf ball. The role of the neural network is to estimate the aerodynamic coefficients based on the state of the golf ball at each time step. The entire model was made end-to-end differentiable, permitting us to train the neural network using only measured launch conditions and landing positions. However, in experiments we find that using additional loss terms, such as the max height error, improves the accuracy of the predicted landing position. The key to our approach is that we automatically learn the relationship between the aerodynamic coefficients and the state of the golf ball directly from the data as opposed to manually defining a model that imposes a bias. As a result, we are able to reduce the mean landing position error by 28% compared to a published model that learns the coefficients by fitting polynomials to the spin ratio. Our method is also computationally efficient, with a processing time of 35 ms for a single shot using a CPU.


On a world scale, a huge concentration could be observed in viticulture and wine production during the last few decades. According to Kym Anderson [2003] the development of global wine market may be put at the 1990s. In the traditional European wine producing countries collaborations and integrations, as conditions for the safe operation of the sector, had been formed some decades before. Cooperation is necessary, because in many cases, only it can solve or mitigate the issues from global challenges. In our times assertion of interests and minimizing costs are becoming increasingly important, in which different forms of cooperation can provide great help. This study is intended to show what kind of collaborations can be noticed in the wine production of Hungary, and which form of cooperation could be the best one to manage the current professional issues. It examines how to adapt the basic principles of integrations that have achieved success abroad. The topicality of this matter is strengthened by the fact that Zsolt Feldman [2016] ranks the elaboration of inter-trade agreements, which can be the first step of cooperation by all means, amongst the most important tasks of the sector based on the FM-HNT partnership.


We study the Mori dream space property for blowups at a general point of weighted projective planes or, more generally, of toric surfaces with Picard number one. Such a variety is a Mori dream space if and only if it contains two irreducible disjoint curves; one of them necessarily having non-positive self-intersection. We call such a curve a "negative curve". A significant part of this thesis is dedicated to the study of such negative curves, as they largely govern the Mori dream space property for these varieties. Our study begins by constructing two one-parameter families of negative curves and subsequently a larger two-parameter class of negative curves having the previous two families as boundary cases. Once such a variety is known to contain a negative curve, we determine if it contains a disjoint curve by using different procedures. For example, prime characteristic and cohomological methods. Furthermore, we introduce an independent technique that applies to a broader class of cases. As a result, for each of the negative curves constructed we provide examples and non-examples of Mori dream spaces containing the curve.


This materialist reappraisal of 'abject art' locates Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection (Kristeva, 1982) within the contradictory spheres of social and biological reproduction that are produced by capitalism. The article argues that abject art is inherently tied to the sphere of social reproduction and consequently it proliferates with economic recessions and downturns, when the sphere of social reproduction is squeezed, controlled or abandoned. Abject art is symptomatic of what Nancy Fraser (2017) describes as capitalism's 'crisis tendency,' and therefore the article utilises Marxist Feminism (Federici, 2012; Fortunati, 1995) and Social Reproduction Theory (Bhattacharya, 2017) to draw out the political economic facets of abject art. In defence of abject art's efficacy to respond to transforming regimes of capitalist accumulation, I develop a new lineage of abject art in three distinct historical periods. I begin with the 1960s Tokyo avant-garde in the work of Hi Red Centre and their abject proofing of Tokyo, and secondly address the 1970s in an Anglo-American context, with maintenance works by Barbara T. Smith and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Finally, I reconsider the trauma and hedonism of the early 1990s in the work of Karen Finley and collaborators Bob Flanagan and Shree Rose. The article focuses on works that employ performance and the body to interrogate regimes of care, waste, the maternal and desire as facets of social reproduction. In doing so it reclaims abject art as an important aesthetic and political response that is capable of representing our ongoing crises of social reproduction under capitalism.


In Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA), a group of trained and supervised volunteers support a sex offender (core member in a circle), with the aim of supporting the core member's transitions toward full desistance. A prospective, multi-method design was used to explore psychological and social transitions in core members. Data were collected at the start of their circle, after 6 months, and after 12 months. Qualitative data were collected in semi-structured interviews with 17 core members and a total of 29 professionals, and analyzed with Kwalitan, a computer-assisted program for qualitative data analysis. Quantitative data were assessed with self-report questionnaires for sex offenders. Mean differences between t0, t1, and t2 were tested with repeated-measures ANOVAs. Qualitative results indicated improvements in reflective skills, openness, and problem-solving skills, as well as social skills, agency, and self-regulation. Quantitative results documented improvements in emotion regulation and internal locus of control, and positive trends in self-esteem and coping skills. Due to the small sample size, our results must be interpreted with caution. Core members as well as professionals reported a unique contribution of circles to their process, but this claim needs further confirmation.


This research was based on three species: Citrus sinensis (orange), Olea europaea (olive), and Prunus amygdalus (almond). The biomass was determined for a complete tree without roots, but including stem, branches, and canopy or crown. The obtained results demonstrate that the stem volume is slightly higher for almond trees (0.035 m3/tree) than for olive trees (0.027 m3/tree). In comparison, the average stem volume of orange trees is lower (0.006 m3/tree). On the other hand, the total biomass volume including canopy branches is similar in all three species: 0.043 m3/tree for orange tree, 0.066 m3/tree for olive tree, and 0.040 m3/tree for almond tree. The new practical quantification model for these Mediterranean agricultural crops is based on total biomass calculations normally used in forestry stands. So, the obtained values were used to develop models for biomass of the stem, branches, and canopy, relating them with the diameter and volume stem. The regression analysis shows a significant correlation with minimized estimation errors. This allows a practical use of this model in biomass calculation in standing trees, both for total tree biomass and also for pruning material.


Challenge of analysis and optimization method selection for data centre energy efficiency improvement has been addressed based on several pilot site data centres. Typically energy efficiency has been presented by single performance factor – power usage effectiveness. Full cycle of workflow and methods covering data collection, system modelling and complexity layer definition, data analysis and user feedback and visualization approaches have been discussed and proposed for in-depth analysis and impact on power usage effectiveness examination. Experimental plan is created and higher resolution sensors are selected to analyse thermodynamic behaviour of system and its elements, which will enable AI-based algorithm development for automated analysis, cooling regime optimisation and system behaviour prediction.


Out of 31 bacterial strains isolated from culture tanks of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis, only 8 strains which were vitamin B12 producers supported the growth of germ-free rotifer when they were added into yeast suspension. Of the 6 strains which were taxonomically examined, they were identified as Pseudomonas. Their vitamin B12 productivity was measured by Euglena bioassay method. The concentrations of vitamin B12 in the bacterial suspension were measured daily and the higbest levels of B12 were estimated to be 1.2-16.5ng/ml during 8 day culture. Most (98.1-99.3%) of the vitamin B12 which was produced accumulated inside the bacterial cells. The rotifer growths were tested in batch cultures under germ-free condition, provided with vitamin B12-producing bacteria as the sole food source, and with these bacteria as a complement of Nannochloropsis oculata or baker's yeast Saccharompces cerevisiae. The rotifer showed rapid growth when vitamin B12 producing bacterial cells were supplied in a range of 107-1011cells/ml. The results imply that in mass production tank of the rotifer vitamin B12-producing bacteria might play an important role as vitamin B12 supplier.


MultiAgent Real-Time A* (MARTA*) is a multiagent version of Real-Time A* (RTA*) algorithm where multiple agents concurrently and autonomously search and move to find a solution. In this paper, we introduce two organizational strategies based on repulsion and attraction to MArtTA*. Each agent observes the distances from others and moves as it becomes parted from or approaches others, in contrast it simply moves randomly in the original MAR.TA*. Through simulation experiments, we demonstrate repulsion and attraction are effective in both search time and solution quality for Maze and 15-puzzle respectively. However, the opposite combinations of strategy and problem degr'd~le the performance. We finally discuss why the effectiveness of organizational strategy depends on the problem from a viewpoint of heuristic depression. Observed results suggest that there is a fertile research field which crosses over the traditional heuristic search and the organizational approach in multi-agent environment.


Objective— Vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) phenotype change is a hallmark of vascular remodeling, which contributes to atherosclerotic diseases and can be regulated via microRNA-dependent mechanisms. We recently identified that asymmetrical dimethylarginine positively correlates to vascular remodeling–based diseases. We hypothesized that asymmetrical dimethylarginine induces smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotypic change via a microRNA-dependent mechanism. Approach and Results— Microarray analysis enabled the identification of downregulation of miR-182-3p in asymmetrical dimethylarginine–treated human aortic artery SMCs. The myeloid-associated differentiation marker (MYADM) was identified as the downstream target of miR-182-3p and implicated to contribute to miR-182-3p knockdown–mediated SMC phenotype change, which was evidenced by the increased proliferation and migration and reduced expression levels of phenotype-related genes in human aortic artery SMCs through the ERK/MAP (extracellular signal-regulated kinase/mitogen-activated protein) kinase–dependent mechanism. When inhibiting MYADM in the presence of miR-182-3p inhibitor or overexpressing MYADM in the presence of pre-miR-182-3p, human aortic artery SMCs were reversed to the differentiation phenotype. In vivo, adeno-miR-182-3p markedly suppressed carotid neointimal formation by using balloon-injured rat carotid artery model, specifically via decreased MYADM expression, whereas adeno-miR-182-3p inhibitor significantly promoted neointimal formation. Atherosclerotic lesions from patients with high asymmetrical dimethylarginine plasma levels exhibited decreased miR-182-3p expression levels and elevated MYADM expression levels. Conclusions— miR-182-3p is a novel SMC phenotypic modulator by targeting MYADM.


Emerging optical functional imaging and optogenetics are among the most promising approaches in neuroscience to study neuronal circuits. Combining both methods into a single implantable device enables all-optical neural interrogation with immediate applications in freely-behaving animal studies. In this paper, we demonstrate such a device capable of optical neural recording and stimulation over large cortical areas. This implantable surface device exploits lens-less computational imaging and a novel packaging scheme to achieve an ultra-thin (250μm-thick), mechanically flexible form factor. The core of this device is a custom-designed CMOS integrated circuit containing a 160×160 array of time-gated single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SPAD) for low-light intensity imaging and an interspersed array of dual-color (blue and green) flip-chip bonded micro-LED (μLED) as light sources. We achieved 60μm lateral imaging resolution and 0.2mm3 volumetric precision for optogenetics over a 5.4×5.4mm2 field of view (FoV). The device achieves a 125-fps frame-rate and consumes 40 mW of total power.


Humour is a complex and dynamic phenomenon prevalent in social interaction in various settings, such as mundane talk and institutional contexts. It has been a focus of interest in social interaction research for decades. To date, scholars have sought to gain insights regarding what counts as humorous and why we find certain utterances funny (e.g., Carroll, 2014; Bell & Pomerantz, 2016). As such, scholars from various fields ranging from philosophy, sociology, psychology, pragmatics, and linguistics, to name a few, have adopted different approaches in the examination of humour. One of the new perspectives that offers unique insights into humour scholarship is Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology. CA is a method and a research field in itself deriving from ethnomethodology, and it provides valuable opportunities for researchers to investigate humour in interaction. Thus, the main aim of this study is to present Conversation Analysis as a candidate methodology to be used for analysing humour in interaction. It also provides a critical discussion of how CA approaches 'humour'.


This entry describes the estimation of normal ranges for clinical variables. A key issue is the identification of the appropriately healthy segment of the general population, and ways in which it can be sampled without bias. Techniques such as convenience sampling often do involve potential bias. Topics such as exclusion and partitioning criteria for the sampling are described. Sample size determination for establishing normal limits is reviewed.

Keywords:

population sampling;
bias;
exclusion criteria;
sample size;
normal limits;
tolerance interval


This book critically examines the current discourse on skills shortage in the South African workplace in the post apartheid era by reviewing the workplace in relation to equity and skills development in general. It also reviews the historical evolution of capitalist economy at the detriment of the indigenous knowledge system in relation to skills acquisition and utilization in meeting their daily livelihoods. However, the study revealed that although South African political settlement is highly celebrated in other quarters but the real fact of the matter is that inequality, lack of political will to bring about desired change and further undermining of indigenous knowledge systems remain prevalent as the stumbling block to change. For example, the adoption of 'ubuntu' principle to be one of the driving strategy to render relevant service delivery to the broader society remain debatable, as the principle tend to be in conflict with the core values of the capitalism such as individualism versus collectivism. Lastly, this study attempted to help in shedding some light in establishing the true settings of the current workplace in the apartheid era.


A self-administered questionary (the General Health Questionnaire) aimed at detecting current psychiatric disturbance was given to 553 consecutive attenders to a general practitioner's surgery. A sample of 200 of these patients was given an independent assessment of their mental state by a psychiatrist using a standardized psychiatric interview. Over 90% of the patients were correctly classified as "well" or "ill" by the questionary, and the correlation between questionary score and the clinical assessment of severity of disturbance was found to be +0·80. The "conspicuous psychiatric morbidity" of a suburban general practice assessed by a general practitioner who was himself a psychiatrist and validated against independent psychiatric assessment was found to be 20%. "Hidden psychiatric morbidity" was found to account for one-third of all disturbed patients. These patients were similar to patients with "conspicuous illnesses" in terms both of degree of disturbance and the course of their illnesses at six-month follow-up, but were distinguished by their attitude to their illness and by usually presenting a physical symptom to the general practitioner. When 87 patients who had been assessed as psychiatric cases at the index consultation were called back for follow-up six months later, two-thirds of them were functioning in the normal range. Frequency of attendance at the surgery in the six months following index consultation was found to have only a modest relationship to severity of psychiatric disturbance. It is argued that minor affective illnesses and physical complaints often accompany each other and usually have a good prognosis.


Abstract This paper examines ChukriKhodja's El-Euldjcaptif des Barbaresques (1929) as an early challenge to the colonial paradigm of assimilation through its author's re-appropriation and subversion of colonial discourse. The novel attests to an active literary dialogue that evolved in response to changes in the Third Republic's colonial policies following the First World War. Taking that critical moment of French colonial history into account, ChukriKhodja's narrative deconstructs the French discourse and reveals its disturbing, hidden implications. The present article exploreshow does the text respond to or comment on the characters, topics, and assumptions of a (colonialist) work by following Helen Tiffin's theoretical guiding principles, which examine how can a postcolonial text reshape the reader's previous interpretations of canonical texts. Our final goal is to show how each of the work and its author contributed to a growing sentiment of anti-colonialism that would eventually lead to Algerian independence.


Against the background of high and progressively increasing unprotected sexual activities among adolescents generally, this study analyzes the spatial pattern of adolescents' access to and use of contraceptives in Osun State, Nigeria. It analyses inter and intra-city variations in the distribution of contraceptive outlets and varying levels of access and use of contraceptives by adolescents. Also factors that affect access to and use of contraceptives are analyzed. Primary and secondary data were used for the study. Primary data involved the use of handheld GPS to obtain the geographic coordinates of the contraceptive outlets and those of secondary schools. Secondary data include the analogue map of the State collected from the State's Ministry of Land and Physical Planning, the list of all registered pharmacies in the study area from the State's Ministry of Health. Also, a total of 1,440 questionnaires were administered to randomly selected adolescents to collect data on the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, degree of access to contraceptives, and varying types and levels of use of contraceptives. Variation in the distribution of outlets and adolescents' use of contraceptive was analyzed using GIS tools. The patterns of outlets and secondary schools were mapped. The results showed that there was concentration of contraceptive outlets in the high density residential areas (60%) than in the medium (30%) or low (10%) density residential areas and that with Rn Values of 0.86 and 1.48 respectively for Outlets and schools, there was no spatial causation between pattern of outlets and distribution of schools. Forty-four per cent of adolescents claimed use of contraceptive devices, while 56% did not. Fifty percent of the adolescents stated that societal disapproval is a factor that hinders their use of contraceptives. Further result showed that there was a direct but weak relationship (r = 0.449; p = 0.561) between the pattern of outlets and use of contraceptive in the study area. The study concluded that to reduce the problems associated with adolescents' reproductive health, there is the need to improve access and right usage of contraceptives


The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most common anatomic, congenital, and developmental anomalies of the pancreas. Familiarity with the imaging appearances of these anomalies as well as the range of normal appearance is important to differentiate them from other conditions, especially since some of these variants are commonly encountered. Basic knowledge of the normal embryology is of utmost importance to be able to recognize these disorders.


The implementation of nanoflow liquid chromatography offers unique opportunities for automation of proteomics research. We demonstrate that automated nanoflow LC/MS/MS allowed the unambiguous identification of proteins from the omnipotent bacterium Shewanella putrefaciens, based on similarity searches against the completely determined genome of related microorganisms and against non-redundant databases. Total protein extracts were separated by 2-dimensional polyacrylamide electrophoresis. Only 1/20th of a tryptic digest mixture obtained from a single Coomassie Blue stained spot was loaded on the nanoflow LC column using a preconcentration/desalting step, and analyzed on-line on a hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer with an automated MS-to-MS/MS switching protocol. This method allowed the de novo peptide sequence determination of several tryptic fragments and the identification of different proteins. CopyrightCopyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Changes in credit risk may arise when either the value or the risk of corporate assets changes. Changes in the equity value associated with the changes in the asset value and changes in asset risk can be characterized into potentially countervailing direct and indirect effects. The indirect effect of risk on equity value is a function of factors that affect the debt value of including leverage, asset value, and asset risk. This study examines whether the equity value reflects the profits and losses associated with the changes in the debt value consistent with the predictions of Merton [21]. The insurance companies listed in the Stock Exchange during 2010-2015 were selected to test the desired hypotheses. It has been found that the stock returns are negatively related to the increase in credit risk as reflected in the changes of estimated bond ratings. More importantly for the research question, it has been realized that the relationship between risk changes and equity returns is negative when the leverage is higher.


We characterized the dietary pattern of Malayan sun bear Helarctos malayanus from three seasons in Namdapha tiger reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Eighty five scat samples were collected between August 2008 and November 2010. Scats were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively to determine the food composition of sun bear in the region. The contents were manually separated and examined. Cumulative frequency was used to determine the contribution of food items in the diet of sun bear. Malayan sun bear was observed to feed on a wide variety of food items. Coleoptera were the most frequently occurring food item in their diet. Sun bear consumed 10 plant species. The items/species area curve was developed to find the minimum number of scats required to study the dietary composition. Food of animal origin comprised of the class Arachnida, Insecta, Mammalia and Osteichtyes. Sun bear were also found to feed on 15 families of insects that were mainly from the order Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Isoptera. Among 15 families, 14 insects were identified as regular food items of sun bear in the study area. Presence of rodents and scorpions in food of sun bear was also recorded. Among these, 8 families of beetles (Coleoptera), one family of stingless bee (Apidae), one family of ants (Formicidae) and one wasp (Vespidae) could be identified.


According to theoretical view of Habermas on "relation between ethics and politics" in history of western political thought, the ethics and politics in classic era and aristotelian tradition are ingrained around the concept of welfare, because the ethics defines the welfare and the politics serves as achieving welfare concept. Although, in the modern political thought and in Hobbsian tradition, the ethics and politics are seperated from each other, because the politics defines its goal, not as prospering and giving excellence to its citizens, but as controlling and managing the human instinct for the creation of "security" and achieving "prosperity". With this description and according to the theoretical framework of Habermas, the present paper believes that in the views of Frankfurt school intellectuals, the ethics and politics merge around the ethical concept like the classic tradition, the only difference is that the joining of ethics and politics is not "prosperity" concept but it is the "salvation" concepts; the concept that is compatible with "excellence concept". We should add this point that any of this school intellectuals considers the "salvation" achievement way in its special mechanism. Horkhimer, "the objective intellect", Adorno, "aeshetics", Markoze, "the intellectual reconstruction of society"And Hobermas, "the dialogue" is the way of achieving the salvation.


Abstract: Studies in Aplysia and Drosophila have suggested that Ca2+/calmodulin‐sensitive adenylyl cyclase may act as a site of convergence for the cellular representations of the conditioned stimulus (Ca2+ influx) and unconditioned stimulus (facilitatory transmitter) during elementary associative learning. This hypothesis predicts that the rise in intracellular free Ca2+ concentration produced by spike activity during the conditioned stimulus will cause an increase in the activity of adenylyl cyclase. However, published values for the Ca2+ sensitivity of Ca2+/calmodulin‐sensitive adenylyl cyclase in mammals and in Drosophila vary widely. The difficulty in evaluating whether adenylyl cyclase would be activated by physiological elevations in intracellular Ca2+ levels is in part a consequence of the use of Ca2+/EGTA buffers, which are prone to several types of errors. Using a procedure that minimizes these errors, we have quantified the Ca2+ sensitivity of adenylyl cyclase in membranes from Aplysia, Drosophila, and rat brain with purified species‐specific calmodulins. In all three species, adenylyl cyclase was activated by an increase in free Ca2+ concentration in the range caused by spike activity. Ca2+ sensitivity was dependent on both calmodulin concentration and Mg2+ concentration. Mg2+ raised the threshold for adenylyl cyclase activation by Ca2+ but also acted synergistically with Ca2+ to activate maximally adenylyl cyclase.


The clinical diagnosis is not always easy in monoclonal gammopathies. Therefore we used discriminating analysis to obtain diagnosis statistically sure. The parameters considered were kappa-lambda ratio, marrow plasma cells percentage and labeling index, CD3, CD4, CD8 lymphocytic absolute values. The plasma cells percentage and their labeling index make the differential diagnosis between MM and MGUS or SMM and MGUS feasible and quite correct. Additional immunological parameters should be used for the diagnosis between SMM and MM.


The incidence of antituberculosis drug resistance in South Texas has been tabulated. Age, sex, and ethnic group were not found to significantly influence the incidence of resistance. The incidence of resistance to isoniazid (NH) was 16.4%, ethambutol, 3.9%, rifampin, 10.6%, and streptomycin, 7.8%. There was a 7.3% rate of resistance to INH and/or ethambutol or rifampin for any individual organism (i.e., to 2 of the 3 most commonly used antituberculosis drugs). We conclude that the incidence of single and multiple antituberculosis drug resistance in South Texas is higher than previously reported.


THE INFLUENCE OF THE LENGTH OF THE SCHOOL DAY ON THE PERCENTAGE OF PROFICIENT AND ADVANCED PROFICIENT SCORES ON THE NEW JERSEY ASK FOR GRADES 6, 7, AND 8 This cross-sectional, correlational, explanatory study aimed to explain the influence of the length of the school day on the total percentage of students who scored Proficient or Advanced Proficient (TPAP) on the New Jersey Ask (NJ ASK) in both Language Arts and Mathematics in Grades 6-8. The data analyzed included the length of the school day with controlled student, staff, and school variables. The study aimed to provide research-based evidence on the intervention that is being imposed on some school districts by policy makers and bureaucrats. The results from the study serve to distinguish how this intervention influences TPAP based upon socioeconomic status (SES). The study used over 600 public schools for each grade level/subject combination. For all grade level/subject combinations, socioeconomic status (SES) by far had the largest predictive contribution to the dependent variable compared to the other predictor variables. In addition to SES, the other significant variables present in all six models included attendance, student mobility, and school day length. Although school day length was a statistically significant predictor variable in all six models, the R squared contribution of this variable was consistently small, ranging from 0.2% to 1.2%. This illustrated that the length of the school day has a minimal influence on the NJ ASK passing percentage rates in Grades 6, 7, and 8.


P\'olya urns are urns where at each unit of time a ball is drawn and replaced with some other balls according to its colour. We introduce a more general model: the replacement rule depends on the colour of the drawn ball and the value of the time ($\operatorname{mod} p$). We extend the work of Flajolet et al. on P\'olya urns: the generating function encoding the evolution of the urn is studied by methods of analytic combinatorics. We show that the initial partial differential equations lead to ordinary linear differential equations which are related to hypergeometric functions (giving the exact state of the urns at time n). When the time goes to infinity, we prove that these periodic P\'olya urns have asymptotic fluctuations which are described by a product of generalized gamma distributions. With the additional help of what we call the density method (a method which offers access to enumeration and random generation of poset structures), we prove that the law of the south-east corner of a triangular Young tableau follows asymptotically a product of generalized gamma distributions. This allows us to tackle some questions related to the continuous limit of large random Young tableaux and links with random surfaces.


This article focuses on the regionalization process in Hungary in light of the increasing Europeanization of regional policy. Its underlying assumption is that, although the Europeanization process plays a crucial role in the transformation of the domestic governance structures, the adaptation process is significantly dependent on the learning capacity of the pre-existing institutional infrastructure. In that respect it evaluates the learning capacity of the domestic regional policy network by concentrating on the structure of the state and the centre-periphery relations, the presence of veto points and resistance to change, the level of social capital and cooperative culture, and the role of non-state actors – namely the private sector, experts and NGOs – in the policy process.


Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) is defined as somatic mutations in clonal blood cells of individuals without any other hematological abnormalities and have been identified using whole exome sequencing (WES) from pre-specified genes. CHIP is reportedly associated with aging, reduced overall survival, cardiovascular disease, and hematologic disease, mainly myeloid cancers. Additionally, whole genome sequencing and WES studies in CLL cases have identified putative CLL driver genes with recurrent somatic variants or copy number alterations. Here, we investigate the associations of CHIP and mutations in CLL somatic driver genes with risk of CLL and MBL, a precursor to CLL.
 Using WES, 571 individuals from 132 CLL families were sequenced from two different sites, Mayo Clinic (92 families) and National Cancer Institute (NCI, 40 families), including 251 CLLs, 74 MBLs, and 246 unaffected relatives. DNA was extracted from buccal cells (Mayo Clinic) and peripheral blood (NCI). Allele counts from gVCF files were extracted for specific genes and analyzed. Variants were annotated using the Variant Effect Predictor in Ensembl, genome build GRCh37 (http://useast.ensembl.org/index.html). Highly-sensitive flow cytometry of the blood was used to screen for MBL. CHIP was defined as in Genovese et al., 2014 as the presence of any of the following: A) disruptive mutations in ASXL1, TET2, or PPM1D; B) missense mutation p.617F in JAK2; C) disruptive or missense mutations in DNMT3Alocalized to exons 7 to 23D) any mutations reported at least 7 times in hematological malignancies in the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC); and (E) No variant allelic fraction (VAF) threshold. CLL driver genes included disruptive or missense mutations in ATM, BIRC3, MYD88, NOTCH1, SF3B1, TP53, EGR2, POT1, NFKBIE, XPO1, or FBXW7with VAF greater than 0.1. Mutations from COSMIC and CLL driver genes were excluded if the minor allele frequency in 1000 Genomes was greater than 0.5%. Data was analyzed using logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, and site. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated.
 Median age for CLL, MBL, and unaffected was 63, 61.5, and 54, respectively. The unaffected relatives were significantly younger than both the CLL and MBL groups (p<0.0001), with no difference between CLL and MBL (p=0.46). A total of 70 (12%) individuals from 54 different families had CHIP. CHIP was characterized in the majority of samples as mutations in DNMT3A, ASXL1, and TET2with 43, 9 and 8 individuals, respectively. As expected, CHIP was associated with age (p<0.001) but not sex (p=0.87). CHIP was present in 42 (17%) CLLs, 9 (12%) MBLs, and 19 (8%) unaffected relatives. There was a significant association between the presence of CHIP and CLL risk compared to unaffected relatives (OR= 2.19, 95% CI: 1.20 - 4.13, p=0.013) but not with MBL risk (OR=1.34, 95% CI: 0.54 - 3.11, p=0.51). Using the CLL driver genes, we found mutations in 119 (47%) CLL, 20 (27%) MBL, and 70 (29%) unaffected relatives. Mutations in CLL driver genes were associated with CLL risk compared to unaffected relatives (OR = 2.51, 95% CI: 1.64 - 3.87, p<0.0001), but there was no evidence for increased MBL risk (OR = 1.00). These results held when we subset the analysis to the Mayo only data where the DNA was extracted from buccal cells.
 This study further supports the association between mutations in CHIP related genes and risk of hematologic malignancies, in particular CLL. This is the first report of the prevalence of CHIP in MBLs. Although MBL and CHIP represent clonal population of blood cells, our data suggest the clones are different. Mutations in CLL driver genes are also associated with CLL risk but show little to no evidence with increased MBL risk. Interestingly, our unaffected relatives of CLL cases also had a high frequency of CLL driver mutations. Future studies are needed to understand these acquired mutations (both in CHIP- and CLL driver- related genes) in the unaffected to MBL to CLL continuum.

 Parikh: Abbvie: Honoraria, Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Honoraria, Research Funding; MorphoSys: Research Funding; AstraZeneca: Honoraria, Research Funding; Gilead: Honoraria; Janssen: Research Funding. Ding:Merck: Research Funding. Cerhan:Jannsen: Other: Scientific Advisory Board; Celgene: Research Funding; Nanostring: Research Funding. Shanafelt:Jansen: Research Funding; Pharmacyclics: Research Funding; Genentech: Research Funding; GlaxoSmithKline: Research Funding. Kay:Morpho-sys: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Infinity Pharm: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Cytomx Therapeutics: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Janssen: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Agios Pharm: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Pharmacyclics: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Acerta: Research Funding; Tolero Pharmaceuticals: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; Gilead: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Celgene: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees.


T he purpose of this research to determine the effect of implementing the CSR strategy carried out by PT. Pertamina (Persero) through various programs owned by the company's image. The method used in this research is a qualitative method / approach. This research was made not to test the hypothesis between the two variables, but to describe the extent of CSR programs that have been run by PT. Pertamina (Persero) can play  a  role  in  improving  the  company's  image.  The  data collected is data obtained from the annual report of PT. Pertamina (Persero) in 2018 taken from IDX, articles and other documents. Data analysis techniques used in this study use comparative  analysis  (comparing  the  findings  of  researchers with the theory used) and include data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. Based on the results of the analysis of the data obtained, the strategy embodied in the CSR program of PT. Pertamina (Persero) has been carried out in accordance with the company's vision, mission, principles and strategy set by the company itself. The results obtained from this study indicate that the overall implementation of CSR strategies carried out by PT. Pertamina (Persero) basically has an influence and plays an active role in improving the image, reputation and credibility of the company. In this case, things that must be done by PT. Pertamina (Persero) is considering expanding the scope of the area of the recipients of the CSR programs they have, so that not only the people in the vicinity of the head office or its subsidiaries can benefit from each CSR program that is carried out, but also the community as a whole.


Knowledge graphs link entities through relations to provide a structured representation of real world facts. However, they are often incomplete, because they are based on only a small fraction of all plausible facts. The task of knowledge graph completion via link prediction aims to overcome this challenge by inferring missing facts represented as links between entities. Current approaches to link prediction leverage tensor factorization and/or deep learning. Factorization methods train and deploy rapidly thanks to their small number of parameters but have limited expressiveness due to their underlying linear methodology. Deep learning methods are more expressive but also computationally expensive and prone to overfitting due to their large number of trainable parameters. We propose Neural Powered Tucker Network (NePTuNe), a new hybrid link prediction model that couples the expressiveness of deep models with the speed and size of linear models. We demonstrate that NePTuNe provides state-of-the-art performance on the FB15K-237 dataset and near state-of-the-art performance on the WN18RR dataset.


Variations in the definition of the corporate tax base across countries can have significant impacts on tax liabilities associated with a given investment. An accurate assessment of the effects of corporate tax systems on investment thus needs to build on a consistent methodological framework covering not only statutory tax rates (STRs) but also many provisions affecting the base such as, e.g., fiscal depreciation. The new OECD model described in this paper provides such a framework; building on the theoretical model developed by Devereux and Griffith (1999, 2003) it presents forward-looking effective tax rates (ETRs) for 36 OECD and Selected Partner Economies taking into account a wide range of corporate tax provisions. Empirical results confirm that corporate tax bases vary considerably across countries and asset categories; since tax bases are typically narrower in countries with higher STRs, ETRs tend to be less dispersed across countries than STRs.


This paper describes a system for the simultaneous dynamic control and thermal characterization of the heating and cooling phases of an ultralow-power (ULP) micromachined sensor, featuring thermal characteristics that are quite similar to those of innovative ULP semiconducting metal-oxide gas sensors. A pulsewidth-modulated (PWM) excitation system has been realized using a microcontroller featuring an ARM7 core to characterize the thermal behavior of a device formed by a Pt microheater and a Pt temperature sensor, over an insulating membrane. Three operating modes, i.e., constant target heater resistance, constant heating power, and cooling phase monitoring, were implemented. Objectives of the research were to analyze the relation between the time period and duty cycle of the PWM signal and the operating temperature of such ULP micromachined systems, to observe the thermal time constants of the device during the heating and cooling phases, and to measure the total thermal conductance. Experiments indicated that an approximately constant heater temperature in the constant target heater resistance regime (i.e., after the initial thermal transient due to the heating algorithm) can only be obtained if the time period of the heating signal is smaller than 50 μs, i.e., much faster than the time constant of the device. Constant power experiments show quantitatively a unique time constant τ for both the heater and the temperature sensor (T-sensor) in the heating phase (with a known applied power) and the cooling phase (with zero power). This time constant decreases during heating in a range of 2.3-2 ms as a function of an increasing temperature rise ΔT between the ambient and the operating temperature. Moreover, we observed that, in the chosen operating temperature range, the thermal conductance is a linear function of ΔT. Finally, repeatability of experimental results was assessed by guaranteeing that the standard deviation of the controlled temperature was within ±5.5°C in worst-case conditions.


The study is a narrative study based on two life history interviews (n = 2) with people who have dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder (MPD). The study also includes five interviews (n = 12) with professionals, who in their work meet people with DID. The study investigates how people with DID are experiencing the encounter with Mental Health Care and Social Services and how their experiences of the diagnosis relates to stigma. A certain interest is taken in how stigma is experieced in their encounters with Mental Health Care professionals and Social Services and how the diagnosis is understood by professionals. The results indicates that the diagnosis is experienced as a legitimation to feel hurt and suffer in relation to early childhood trauma. The diagnosis is also understood as a natural way to deal with severe trauma, which sets it apart from most other mental disorders. A problem is that the diagnosis itself also acts as an external stigma in encounters with Mental Health Care and Social Services since it is experienced as an questioned diagnosis. The professional field is described as a polarized field between those who believe the diagnosis to be a result of trauma or those who see it as a state induced by a therapist, the media or otherwise question the legitimacy of the diagnosis. The external stigma is thwarted by a situation were the diagnosis itself is associated with a sense of mastery and as such can be seen as a means of survival rather than the expression of disease.


Abstract Confidently making progress on multilingual modeling requires challenging, trustworthy evaluations. We present TyDi QA—a question answering dataset covering 11 typologically diverse languages with 204K question-answer pairs. The languages of TyDi QA are diverse with regard to their typology—the set of linguistic features each language expresses—such that we expect models performing well on this set to generalize across a large number of the world's languages. We present a quantitative analysis of the data quality and example-level qualitative linguistic analyses of observed language phenomena that would not be found in English-only corpora. To provide a realistic information-seeking task and avoid priming effects, questions are written by people who want to know the answer, but don't know the answer yet, and the data is collected directly in each language without the use of translation.


One of the most interesting and characteristic findings in the condition known in Great Britain as Ankylosing Spondylitis, and in the U.S.A. as Rheumatoid Spondylitis, is the diminution in thoracic, i.e. intercostal, expansion due to involvement of the costo-transverse and costo-vertebral joints. This finding is not seen as a common or characteristic feature in any of the other rheumatic diseases; it is one of the characteristic and pathognomonic physical signs in ankylosing spondylitis. While the vital capacity in any febrile active locomotor disease may be reduced, figures in uncomplicated cases do not descend to the low level seen on occasion in ankylosing spondylitis, nor is the reduction in thoracic expansion as marked. For this reason, although some attention has been devoted to thoracic changes in ankylosing spondylitis (Hamilton, 1949; Hart, 1950), we have paid particular attention to this finding. It is a useful diagnostic pointer; in our series of cases the majority of patients had reduced thoracic expansion on their first attendance at the clinic. This particular finding is prominent and frequent enough to be taken as a cardinal early diagnostic sign. Under treatment by various methods the vital capacity and chest expansion may improve and even return to normal. This has been observed by us by the use of deep x-ray therapy and general body and breathing exercises, and by Swaim (1939) by the use of light jacket supports for the prevention and correction of kyphotic thoracic deformity. Restriction of intercostal respiration is therefore an early sign as well as a late one. It may disappear or lessen in the intermediate phase on therapy, though in many instances vital capacity and chest expansion remain subnormal throughout the course of the disease.


Low latency is critical for interactive networked applications. But while we know how to scale systems to increase capacity, reducing latency --- especially the tail of the latency distribution --- can be much more difficult.
 We argue that the use of redundancy in the context of the wide-area Internet is an effective way to convert a small amount of extra capacity into reduced latency. By initiating redundant operations across diverse resources and using the first result which completes, redundancy improves a system's latency even under exceptional conditions. We demonstrate that redundancy can significantly reduce latency for small but critical tasks, and argue that it is an effective general-purpose strategy even on devices like cell phones where bandwidth is relatively constrained.


OBJECTIVE
The Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis (WOMAC) Pain Scale quantifies knee pain severity with activities of daily living, but the potential impact of pain in other body regions on WOMAC pain scores has not been explored using a causal modeling approach. The purpose of this study was to determine if pain in other areas of the body impact WOMAC pain scores, a phenomenon referred to as "cross talk."

METHODS
Cross-sectional datasets were built from public use data available from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) and the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST).The WOMAC Pain Scale and generic hip, knee, ankle, foot and back pain measures were included. Three nested regression models grounded in causally based classical test theory determined the extent of cross talk. Improvements in the coefficient of determination (R2) across the 3 models were used to determine the presence of cross talk.

RESULTS
Causal modeling provided evidence of cross talk in both OAI and MOST datasets. For example, in OAI, multiple statistical models demonstrated significant increases in R2 values (P < .0001) as additional pain areas were added to the models.

CONCLUSIONS
Cross talk appears to be a clinically important source of error in the WOMAC Pain Scale, particularly for patients with a larger number of painful body regions and when contralateral knee joint pain is more severe.

IMPACT
This study has important implications for arthritis research. It also should raise clinician awareness of the threat to score interpretation and the need to consider the extent of pain in other body regions when interpreting WOMAC pain scores.


Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), comprising of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC), is the most prevalent cancer amongst Caucasians. The main risk factor for the development of NMSC is UV-irradiation but human papillo-mavirus (HPV) might be a co-factor. We extended the heterogeneity of the genus Betapapillomavirus by characterizing six putative types, HPV93 (species 1), 96 (species 5), 107, 110, 111 and FA75[KI88-03] (species 2). The prevalence of these types in lesions and paired healthy skin were low (< 7%) and the viral loads spanned from 3 copies/cell to less than 1 copy/35,000 cells. Altogether, the four viruses belonging to Betapapillomavirus species 2 were associated with actinic keratosis. In addition, the E7 protein of HPV92, 93 and 96 was able to bind pRb and induce anchorage-independent growth. Transcriptional activity from the upstream regulatory regions (URR) of HPV8, 38, 92, 93 and 96 was higher in skin- than mucosaderived cells. Transcriptional start sites were mapped at nucleotide position P92 (HPV38), P45 (HPV92), P7439 (HPV93) and P256 (HPV96). Also, responsiveness to UV-B irradiation showed that HPV8 was activated, HPV38 and 93 down-regulated and HPV 92 and 96 were non-responsive. These variable responses among the HPV types within the genus Betapapillomavirus indicate that it is not likely to predict reactivity to UV-B based on genus. In addition, differentiation was shown to up-regulate the transcriptional activity of HPV8, 93 and 96. Keratoacanthoma (KA) and SCC are histologically difficult to distinguish and thus 19 biomarkers were immunohistochemically investigated in 25 SCC and 64 KA by tissue microarray. The anti-apoptotic Bcl-xL was detected in 84% of the SCC and in 15% of KA, indicating a possible distinguishing marker. HPV DNA was detected in 22% of SCC and 27% of KA and eighty percent of the HPV isolates belonged to the Betapapillomavirus species 2. (Less)


This thesis contains a report of two distinct areas of research into thin films of tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5), also known as tantala. Firstly, the surfaces of the tantala films have been investigated with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the results presented and analysed. Secondly, the same films have been investigated with Raman spectroscopy and conclusions have been drawn from the data. Thin films of tantala are used as mirror coatings in gravitational wave detectors. Theoretically predicted gravitational waves should induce a movement of 10-20 m Hz-1/2 in a gravitational wave detector. All sources of noise that could preclude the positive detection of a wave need to be minimised if not removed altogether. A mechanical dissipation within the tantala films is one such source of noise that limits the sensitivity of the detector. This mechanism is not altogether understood yet. In this work thin films of tantala (10-500nm) have been deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD), atomic layer deposition (ALD) and ion beam sputtering (IBS) on to silicon substrates. Studies by atomic force microscopy (AFM) have been made and show the influence of deposition conditions on the surface morphology of grown films. Films with low surface roughness will be good candidates for mirror coatings in order to minimise possible scattering of incident radiation. The same films have also been studied with Raman spectroscopy in an effort to characterise the vibrational energy of the films. Raman studies of glasses are relatively rare and this is a first study in the context of mirror coatings and doped tantala. An assessment is offered as to what films offer the best features for mirror coatings.


Characteristics of fully developed flow and heat transfer in stationary rectangular channels with two opposite ribbed walls, adopted for internal cooling of a gas turbine blade, were investigated by using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and measurement. Effect of aspect ratio of the channel cross section on the flow and thermal fields in the channels with crossed, 60-deg. angle ribs was studied. The thermo-flow field in the stationary rectangular channels with the crossed angled ribs has a single secondary swirl in the cross sections, which exhibits a basic pattern for convection in the channels with the angled ribs. The aspect ratio was varied from 0.5 to 2.0. The rib height-to-hydraulic diameter and the rib pitch-to-height ratio were kept at 0.075 and 11.547, respectively. Calculations were conducted for Reynolds number based on the hydraulic diameter at around 50 000 and 120 000. The present calculations showed that formation of rib induced separation vortex varies with the channel aspect ratio. The change in the vortex formation has an influence on augmentation of friction and heat transfer. Current correlations for friction and heat transfer agreed reasonably with previous experiments.


The UK's Marine Insurance Act 1906 was passed following a 12-year gestation period during which Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, the great codifier of the common law, analysed and extracted from 150 years of judicial authority a set of principles which was designed to reflect the law as it stood in 1906. The measure is now enshrined, in largely unamended form, in the law of most common law jurisdictions, with Australia following suit by the Marine Insurance Act 1909 (Cth). The 1906 Act was in part redundant by the time it was passed, and much of the remainder of it has been overtaken by many hundreds of judicial decisions, market practice and standard terms of contracting. Many of the solutions to modern issues are despite the measure and not because of it. Australia has had two opportunities to put the 1909 Act out if its misery but has passed on both. First, marine insurance was omitted from the terms of reference which led to the Australian Law Reform Committee's Report No 20 (1982), and the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) duly excluded maritime contracts. Secondly, the Australian Law Reform Committee had a further look at insurance in 2001, this time specifically at marine insurance, but its Report No 91 was somewhat tame in its recommendations: only minor changes to the 1909 Act were recommended and few of them were actually effected. This paper suggests that it is time to administer the coup de grace (dictionary definition - 'to end the suffering of a wounded creature') and to repeal the marine legislation. After 100 or so years, even the best of Chalmers show their age.


The effects of physiological concentrations of the native catecholamines norepinephrine and epinephrine upon term placental hormonal function were examined by measuring estradiol and progesterone secretion by organ and cell culture systems. Results show that, in explants, both catecholamines caused a significant increase in the secretion of both sex steroids, p less than 0.05. Estradiol secretion was blocked by the alpha and beta adrenergic receptors antagonists, phenoxybenzamine and propranolol, respectively, p less than 0.05. Norepinephrine but not epinephrine dependent progesterone secretion was blocked by propranolol. In cells, epinephrine stimulated cyclic AMP generation and caused a 30% increase in estradiol secretion, p less than 0.05. Both were abrogated by propranolol. Norepinephrine increased secretion by 25%, p less than 0.05. This was inhibited by yohimbin and prazosin, alpha-1 and -2 receptors antagonists, respectively. In conclusion, the placenta in vitro is a target organ for catecholamines. The marked response of the explant system as compared with the marginal response of the cell culture system indicates that cell to cell contact/communication is required for full expression of catecholamine effect.


Background: Recent research in patients with ARDS has consistently shown the presence of two distinct subphenotypes of host-responses (hyper- and hypo-inflammatory) with markedly different outcomes and responses to therapies. However, inherent uncertainty in reaching the diagnosis of ARDS creates considerable biological and clinical overlap with other broadly-defined syndromes of acute respiratory failure, such as patients with risk factors (e.g. sepsis or pneumonia) for ARDS (at-risk for ARDS [ARFA]) or patients with decompensated congestive heart failure (CHF). Limited data are available for the presence of subphenotypes in such broader critically-ill populations. Methods: We enrolled mechanically-ventilated patients with acute respiratory failure (ARDS, ARFA, and CHF) and measured 11 plasma biomarkers at baseline. We applied latent class analysis (LCA) methods to determine optimal subphenotypic classifications in this inclusive patient cohort by considering clinical variables and biomarkers. We then derived a parsimonious logistic regression model for subphenotype predictions and compared clinical outcomes between subphenotypes.Results: We included 334 patients (123 [37%] ARDS, 177 [53%] ARFA, 34 [10%] CHF) in a derivation cohort and 36 patients in a temporally-independent validation cohort. A two-class LCA model was found to be optimal, classifying 29% of patients in the hyper-inflammatory subphenotype, consistent with prior findings. A 4-variable parsimonious model (angiopoietin-2, soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor-1, procalcitonin and bicarbonate) for subphenotype prediction offered excellent classification (area under the curve = 0.98) compared to LCA classifications. For both LCA- and regression model classifications, hyper-inflammatory patients had higher severity of illness by Sequential Organ Failure Assessment scores, fewer ventilator-free days and higher 30- and 90-day mortality (all p<0.01) compared to the hypo-inflammatory group. Subphenotype predictions in the validation cohort revealed consistent trends for clinical outcomes and higher levels of inflammatory biomarkers in the hyper-inflammatory group (22%). Conclusions: Host-response subphenotypes are observable in broader and heterogeneous patient populations beyond just patients with ARDS, and subphenotypic classifications offer prognostic information on clinical outcomes. Accurate subphenotyping is possible with the use of a simple predictive model to improve clinical applicability.


Resistively switching devices are promising candidates for the next generation of non-volatile data memories. Such devices are up to now fabricated mainly by means of top-down approaches that apply thin films sandwiched between electrodes. Recent works have demonstrated that resistive switching (RS) is also feasible on chemically synthesized nanoparticles (NPs) in the 50 nm range. Following this concept, we developed this approach further to the sub-10 nm range. In this work, we report RS of sub-10 nm TiO2 NPs that were self-assembled into monolayers and transferred onto metallic substrates. We electrically characterized these monolayers in regard to their RS properties by means of a nanorobotics system in a scanning electron microscope, and found features typical of bipolar resistive switching.


In this paper, the author establishes the boundedness in weighted $L_p$ spaces on $\mathbb R^{n+1}$ with a parabolic metric for a large class of sublinear operators generated by parabolic Calderon-Zygmund kernels. The conditions of these theorems are satisfied by many important operators in analysis. Sufficient conditions on weighted functions $\omega$ and $\omega_1$ are given so that certain parabolic sublinear operator is bounded from the weighted Lebesgue spaces $L_{p,\omega}(\mathbb R^{n+1})$ into $L_{p,\omega_1}(\mathbb R^{n+1})$.


We carried out extremely sensitive Submillimeter Array (SMA) 340 GHz continuum imaging on two submillimeter galaxies (SMGs): GOODS 850−11 and GOODS 850−13. The observations reach sub-mJy rms sensitivities and, interestingly, resolve both sources into multiple, physically unrelated SMGs. GOODS 850−11 is resolved into two sources at different redshifts. GOODS 850−13 is resolved into three sources, two with different spectroscopic redshifts and one only with a photometric redshift. All the SMA sources have fluxes in the 3–5 mJy range and all are detected at 1.4 GHz. Three of them are detected by Chandra, and one is a previously unknown X-ray SMG. This is the first time that single-dish SMGs are resolved into multiple unrelated sources and also the first time that the SMA has discovered new SMGs. Our results show that identifications of SMGs at any wavelengths other than the submillimeter itself can be misleading, since such identifications usually only pick up one of the real counterparts. Using simulations that mimic our SCUBA and SMA observations, we find that the number of triple systems detected in our SMA survey is much higher than that expected from the current best-determined number counts. We tentatively attribute this to clustering. We also predict that ALMA will find ∼1/3 of >5 mJy 850 μm SCUBA sources to be multiple systems. Based on our SMA observations and simulations, we suggest that large samples of existing SMGs should be imaged with sensitive interferometric observations, even if the SMGs were previously thought to be securely identified.


Most cases of oral candidiasis have been attributed to C. albicans, but recently non-albicans Candida species have been identified as frequent human pathogens, especially C. glabrata. In past two decades, C. glabrata that was known as non-pathogenic saprophyte, as a consequence of the widespread use of immunosuppressive drugs and the emergence of the AIDS, C. glabrata is increasingly implicated in human infection. Moreover, C. glabrata is of added concern because of it's inherent resistance to certain antifungal agents and need a high doses of antifungal agents. Mangosteen peel is a medicinal herb that grows widespread worldwide. It has many health benefits, one of them is antifungal effect. Purpose. The aim of this study was to find the effective concentration (MIC and MFC) of mangosteen peel extract towards the growth of C. glabrata from HIV/AIDS Patient's Mouth. Method. This research was done with the used of C. glabrata colony culture from the pseudomembranous oral candidiasis lesions in patient with 4th stage of HIV/AIDS. The inoculums was incubated in Sabouraud broth liquid to let the C. glabrata grow. Mangosteen peel extract is diluted in different concentration: 100%, 50%, 25%, 12,5%, 6,25%, 3,125%, 1,56%, 0,78%. Inoculums are dipped in Mangosteen peel extract and put on the Sabouraud dextrose agar media. After 24 hours, colony of C. glabrata will be counted. Result. The colony count on the concentration 100% and 50% were none. On the concentration 25%, 12,5%, 6,25%, 3,125%, 1,56%, 0,78% showed a growth of C.glabrata colonies, but in 25% had the minimum colonies. Conclusion. Mangosteen peel extract have antifungal effect toward the growth of C. glabrata colonies from HIV/AIDS patient's mouth lesions. The MIC is 25% and the MFC is 50%.


The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of family context on the performance of 5-year-old children (N = 70) in theory of mind (ToM) tasks. The children's p erformances were assessed during individual sessions held at school. Children's verb al skills were assessed using the Peabody picture vocabulary test (PPVT). Interviews were also conduc ted with parents in the family home in order to gather socio demographic data and to assess diverse variables of the family context. In addition to confirming the important role played by children's verbal skills in ToM, the results also supported a potential influence of family context in ToM develo pment through variables, such as quality of nonparental care or level of social contact and suppor t. The educational implications of these results are discussed in relation to family intervention.


Due to vegetative propagation, grapevine cultivars are supposed to be genetically identical offspring of a parent seedling. However, over time, spontaneous mutations occur within the populations of cultivars resulting in vines with new traits. This phenomenon has been utilized in selection to establish subpopulations with new agronomic values, usually called clones. Clones of a cultivar often have unique and superior traits. Mutations in grape berry skin are known and found in several cultivars (e.g., ?Pinot? family). Color of the grape berry skin is dependent on the presence or absence of anthocyanin. Anthocyanin biosynthesis is mostly controlled by a cluster of Myb-type genes. ?Plavac mali? is a major Croatian red cultivar and ?Sangiovese? is the most widely planted red cultivar in Italy. Color mutants of these cultivars have been found, including a pink mutant of ?Plavac mali?, also called ?Plavac mali sivi?, and several bud sports of ?Sangiovese?. In this study, layer specific molecular characterization has been performed. Leaf and root DNA samples have been used to test if the mutations are chimeric. Genome regions along chromosome 2 containing Myb genes were analyzed using previously known and newly developed SSR markers. Applied markers enabled differentiation of mutants and wild types in both cultivars, but in spite of very similar phenotypes, genetic backgrounds were different.


Abstract-This paper presents an extremely compact, highly efficient hardware implementation of the Reed Solomon (RS) decoder. Such efficiency is of critical importance for the next generation of passive optical networks featuring bit rates of 10 Gb/s, high bit error rates and high cost sensitivity. RS codes are widely used for error correction in optical communication networks. The central element of a t-error correcting RS decoder is the key equation solver, which is the most time-critical stage in the RS decoder operation. It uses 2t equations to determine up to 2t unknown values. A key equation solver typically performs the Berlekamp-Massey (BM) algorithm or the Modified Euclidean (ME) algorithm. Hardware implementations of these algorithms usually include a large number of Galois Field (GF) multipliers needed to achieve the required throughput. This paper presents a scalable BM architecture and a scalable ME architecture that minimizes the number of GF multipliers by their higher utilization. This is achieved through efficient control that avoids idle cycles and also through optimal grouping of multipliers into parallel structures given the bit error distribution for the respective optical network. The major building block of this architecture is a compact, programmable GF processor (GFP) capable of high frequency operation.


Purpose The objective was to investigate the impact of statin use on prognosis after radical nephroureterectomy for upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). Materials and Methods A retrospective review of medical records identified 277 patients who underwent radical nephroureterectomy for primary UTUC at Asan Medical Center between January 2006 and December 2011. Information on preoperative statin use was obtained from patient charts in an electronic database. We assessed the impact of statin use on recurrence-free survival (RFS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), and overall survival (OS). Results Of these 277 patients, 62 (22.4%) were taking statin medications. Compared to the statin nonusers, the statin users were older, had a higher body mass index, and had higher rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The 5-year RFS rates of statin users and nonusers were 78.5% and 72.5%, respectively (p=0.528); the 5-year CSS rates were 85.6% and 77.7%, respectively (p=0.516); and the 5-year OS rates were 74.5% and 71.4%, respectively (p=0.945). In the multivariate analysis, statin use was not an independent prognostic factor for RFS (hazard ratio, 0.47; p=0.056), CSS (hazard ratio, 0.46; p=0.093), or OS (hazard ratio, 0.59; p=0.144) in patients who underwent radical nephroureterectomy for UTUC. Conclusions Statin use was not associated with improved RFS, CSS, or OS in the sample population of patients with UTUC.


Background: Congenital muscular torticollis (CMT) is a postural deformity evident shortly after birth, typically characterized by lateral flexion/side bending of the head to one side and cervical rotation/head turning to the opposite side due to unilateral shortening of the sternocleidomastoid muscle; it may be accompanied by other neurological or musculoskeletal conditions. Infants with CMT should be referred to physical therapists to treat these postural asymmetries as soon as they are identified. Purpose: This update of the 2013 CMT clinical practice guideline (CPG) informs clinicians and families as to whom to monitor, treat, and/or refer and when and what to treat. It links 17 action statements with explicit levels of critically appraised evidence and expert opinion with recommendations on implementation of the CMT CPG into practice. Results/Conclusions: The CPG addresses the following: education for prevention; referral; screening; examination and evaluation; prognosis; first-choice and supplemental interventions; consultation; discontinuation from direct intervention; reassessment and discharge; implementation and compliance audits; and research recommendations. Flow sheets for referral paths and classification of CMT severity have been updated.


We investigate the nonlinear response of macromolecular thin films subjected to high-amplitude ultrasonic shear oscillation using a sphere-plane contact geometry. At a film thickness comparable to the radius of gyration, we observe the rheological properties intermediate between bulk and boundary nonlinear regimes. As the driving amplitude is increased, these films progressively exhibit oscillatory linear, microslip, and full slip regimes, which can be explained by the modified Coulomb friction law. At highest oscillation amplitudes, the interfacial adhesive failure takes place, being accompanied by a dewettinglike pattern. Moreover, the steady state sliding is investigated in thicker films with imposed shear stresses beyond the yield point. We find that applying high-amplitude shear ultrasound affects not only the yielding threshold but also the sliding velocity at a given shear load. A possible mechanism for the latter effect is discussed.