In a single quantum well with no applied electric field, the typical exciton lifetime is subnanosecond. Excitons do not have time to reach thermodynamic quasi-equilibrium before recombining. Quasi-equilibrium requires both an average exciton kinetic energy of kT and thermalized occupation of the inhomogeneously broadened exciton density of states. In a coupled double quantum well under an electric field, lifetimes of the `indirect' excitons (i.e., electrons and holes mostly confined in different wells) are substantially longer, typically in the range 10 to 100 nsec. We have measured cw and time-resolved photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectra as a function of temperature from a symmetric coupled double quantum well. The double wells consisted of 50 angstrom GaAs wells separated by a 40 angstrom Al0.3Ga0.7As barrier, and an electric field of 30 kV/cm was applied across the wells. The indirect exciton lifetime was measured to be 40 nsec for temperatures between 2 K and 30 K. Direct analysis of the data (discussed in detail in Refs. 3 and 4 shows that: (1) Below 6 K, the excitons are metastably trapped in spatial domains which are local energy minima; thermodynamic quasi-equilibrium is not achieved within the exciton lifetime. (2) Raising the temperature above 6 K increases the exciton kinetic energy and allows the excitons to be thermally activated out of these local minima; thermodynamic quasi-equilibrium is achieved. (3) The quasi-equilibrium occupation of the exciton density of states is very well approximated by a Fermi-Dirac distribution. This last observation is particularly noteworthy, in that excitons are bosons and there have been predictions of Bose-Einstein condensation in this system. Because of the electric dipole of the indirect excitons in coupled wells, there is a repulsion between the excitons. This repulsion is strong enough to cause the excitons to avoid each other, but sufficiently short ranged to be neglected for spatially separated excitons. Since the different energies in the inhomogeneously broadened density of states correspond to spatially different positions in the well, this exciton-exciton interaction can be modelled using non-interacting thermodynamic statistics but using a Fermi-Dirac distribution to approximately account for the repulsion.


Automated hematology analyzers (analyzers) can provide complete blood counts and white blood cell (WBC) differentials in clinical laboratories and alert users to the presence of quantitative and qualitative cell abnormalities through cautionary flags. In this study, we applied analyzers to the screening of apoptotic cells in peripheral blood and examined the triggering capacity of cautionary flags to detect apoptotic cell populations. EDTA-anticoagulated fresh peripheral blood from patients with acute infectious mononucleosis containing atypical lymphocytes comprising 12.3 +/- 4. 0% of WBC was applied to a Beckman-Coulter MAXM A/L Retic (MAXM) analyzer. The lymphocyte cluster spread upward in VOLUME/DF1 scattergrams and the threshold lines between lymphocyte and monocyte clusters shifted upward. Flags for the number and percentage of lymphocytes, variant lymphocytes, and blast cells were generally present for samples containing atypical lymphocytes. After the blood from acute infectious mononucleosis patients was incubated for 4 h at 37 degrees C, peripheral blood smears revealed the presence of morphologically apoptotic cells comprising 9.0 +/- 4.2% of WBC and a comparable reduction of lymphocytes. On the MAXM analyzer, the apoptotic lymphocyte cluster appeared under the lymphocyte cluster in VOLUME/DF1 scattergrams. However, no specific flag was present to alert users to the presence of the apoptotic lymphocyte cluster. We conclude that visual inspection of scattergrams generated by the MAXM analyzer can be useful for the detection of apoptotic lymphocytes in peripheral blood. Cytometry (Comm. Clin. Cytometry) 42:209-214, 2000. Published 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


. The paper presents a simple method for calculation of static and dynamic active force on the rigid retaining wall following the pseudo-static approach of analysis and includes the effects of cohesion of the backfill and the friction between the backfill and the wall face. The resultant earth pressure obtained by this method has been compared with the experimentally observed values during small scale tests on retaining walls by other investigators. The displacement of retaining wall must not exceed specified values. The methods for calculation of displacement of rigid retaining walls are also discussed.


Multi-tier architectures are widely used by internet applications. Guaranteeing the performance, and more generally the quality of service (QoS), of such applications remains a crucial issue. In this paper we propose a methodology to get the optimal admission control of multi-tier server systems under high loads for one QoS objective. First we present a model of multi-tier server systems using fluid approximations. Second, we state and solve an optimization problem which consists in finding the configuration that maximizes the availability of the system for a given performance constraint. Simulations of both model and control from this preliminary work are presented. They show that the optimal configuration of such systems is not always intuitive.


3,4-Methylendioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has both stimulatory and hallucinogenic properties which make its psychoactive effects unique and different from those of typical psychostimulant and hallucinogenic agents. The present study investigated the effects of MDMA on extracellular dopamine (DAex) and serotonin (5-HTex) levels in the striatum and prefrontal cortex (PFC) using in vivo microdialysis techniques in mice lacking DA transporters (DAT) and/or 5-HT transporters (SERT). subcutaneous injection of MDMA (3, 10 mg/kg) significantly increased striatal DAex in wild-type mice, SERT knockout mice, and DAT knockout mice, but not in DAT/SERT double-knockout mice. The MDMA-induced increase in striatal DAex in SERT knockout mice was significantly less than in wildtype mice. In the PFC, MDMA dose-dependently increased DAex levels in wildtype, DAT knockout, SERT knockout and DAT/SERT double-knockout mice to a similar extent. In contrast, MDMA markedly increased 5-HTex in wildtype and DAT knockout mice and slightly increased 5-HTex in SERT-KO and DAT/SERT double-knockout mice. The results confirm that MDMA acts at both DAT and SERT and increases DAex and 5-HTex.


In enterprise intranets, information is encoded in documents and databases. Logically, the information in both worlds is tightly connected, however, on the system level there is usually a large gap. In this paper, we propose a system to retrieve documents in the enterprise intranet. The system is an extension to common text search. It does not only consider the content of documents but also it exploits the enterprise databases to determine the documents' context.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
The Dichotic Verbal Memory Test (DVMT) is useful in detecting verbal memory deficits and differences in memory function between the brain hemispheres. The purpose of this study was to prepare the Persian version of DVMT, to obtain its results in 18- to 25-yr-old Iranian individuals, and to examine the ear, gender, and serial position effect.

RESEARCH DESIGN
The Persian version of DVMT consisted of 18 10-word lists. After preparing the 18 lists, content validity was assessed by a panel of eight experts and the equivalency of the lists was evaluated. Then the words were recorded on CD in a dichotic mode such that 10 words were presented to one ear, with the same words reversed simultaneously presented to the other ear. Thereafter, it was performed on a sample of young, normal, Iranian individuals.

STUDY SAMPLE
Thirty normal individuals (no history of neurological, ontological, or psychological diseases) with ages ranging from 18 to 25 yr were examined for evaluating the equivalency of the lists, and 110 subjects within the same age range participated in the final stage of the study to obtain the normative data on the developed test.

RESULTS
There was no significant difference between the mean scores of the 18 developed lists (p > 0.05). The mean content validity index (CVI) score was .96. A significant difference was found between the mean score of the two ears (p < 0.05) and between female and male participants (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The Persian version of DVMT has good content validity and can be used for verbal memory assessment in Iranian young adults.


Quantum dots were proposed as new fluorochromes for use in fluorescence in-situ hybridization. EBV-encoded small RNA, the most abundant viral product in latently infected cells, was detected by quantum dot fluorescence in-situ hybridization in paraffin-embedded tissue sections of gastric carcinoma. An indirect FISH approach using quantum dots streptavidin conjugates as secondary reporters and digoxigenin labeled EBV-encoded small RNA oligonucleotide probes as detectable molecules was employed. Quantum dot fluorescence in-situ hybridization offered a slightly higher sensitivity in detecting EBV-encoded small RNA in gastric carcinoma than chromogenic in-situ hybridization. Statistical analyses showed that the detected EBV-associated gastric carcinoma was not associated with any clinicopathological parameters of the Chinese gastric carcinoma patients investigated in this study.


Original Research, C1 SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE PATTERNS IN THE TURKMEN NATIVE HOUSING, IRAN Hosna Varmaghani J Art Arch Stud, 3(1): 01-06 , 2014 ABSTRACT: Various guidelines that can response different Climatic, cultural and social human needs have been created by sustainable design between environment and building throughout history. Turkmen native houses in north eastern of Iran (Turkmensahra region) have architectural values and urban planning identity. The research subject is formation and layout of residential patterns and constructing technique taking effect of lifestyle and native culture. The results of this research can provide suitable field for using in Turkmen contemporary housing design and planning for development or rebuilding residential contexts. For this purpose, many case studies of Turkmen native houses have been analyzed with respect to physical and spatial values. Paper results include various scales from house, district to town layouts. In this paper, a sustainable relationship between culture, environment and economy existed in life and housing architecture of Turkmen society has been investigated.


Background: There is a need for improved breast cancer risk prediction by tumor estrogen receptor (ER) status. Endogenous sex hormone levels are associated with risk of overall breast cancer and the ER-positive subtype. However, the role of estradiol (E2) and testosterone (T) in the development of ER-negative tumors remains unclear. We investigated the associations of circulating levels of endogenous E2 and T with the risk of ER-positive as well as ER-negative breast cancer in postmenopausal women.Methods: We performed a case-cohort study within the Women9s Health Initiative- Observational Study of postmenopausal women not taking exogenous hormones (age range: 50-79 years). Baseline endogenous levels of bioavailable E2 and T were measured using radioimmunoassays (University of Southern California, LA, CA) in 196 cases of invasive ER-positive breast cancer, 107 cases of invasive ER-negative cancer, and 560 randomly selected controls. The average follow-up time was 7.3 years.Results: After adjustment for putative risk factors, women with E2 levels in the upper three quartiles had an approximately 2-fold increased risk of ER-positive breast cancer, compared to those with E2 in the lowest quartile. These associations were only modestly decreased after adjustment for T. Higher T levels also indicated increased risk of ER-positive breast cancer; women in the third quartile of T had a 1.7-fold significantly higher risk, compared to those in the first quartile. However, this association was substantially diminished and not significant after controlling for E2.No association was observed between E2 levels and ER-negative cancer. However, women with T levels in the second, third, and fourth quartiles had lower risks of ER-negative cancer in the order of 54% (p= 0.018), 38% (p= 0.13), and 46% (p= 0.05), respectively, compared to women with T in the lowest quartile. These associations did not change materially after adjusting for E2.Conclusion: Higher endogenous E2 levels were associated with increased risk of ER-positive breast cancer, independent of risk factors and T. In contrast, higher concentrations of endogenous T were related to lower risk of ER-negative breast cancer, independent of risk factors and E2. This is the first study to report an association of testosterone with ER-negative breast cancer. Further studies are needed to confirm this association. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2009;69(24 Suppl):Abstract nr 907.


An automatic planning method of light source and camera placement for an active photometric stereo system is presented. Since photometric stereo systems normally use multiple light sources fixed to the environment, they cannot avoid shadows caused by surrounding objects. Using a movable light source and adapting its placement actively to the task environment eliminates shadows. Candidate positions for light source placement are obtained based on a three-dimensional model of the environment and image processing of a virtual sphere around the target objects. Possible combinations are evaluated using the combined criteria of reliability and detectability of the measurement. Experimental results obtained using a light source affixed to a manipulator demonstrate the usefulness of the method. To improve the detectability of the active photometric stereo system, an extension has been made by using a movable camera in place of a fixed camera.<<ETX>>


The social and political conditions actuated by 9/11 have been a major catalyst for new literature, television and film about South Asians and Muslims in America. Stemming from a 2001 speech by then-president George W. Bush, the concept of the "War on Terror" has served to rationalize the domestic regulation of Muslims, while also validating the need for US imperialist and capitalist expansion. Where US government discourse highlights first-person narratives that figure America as a benevolent global protector of freedom and democracy, South Asian American fictional and non-fictional narratives posit critiques of Islamophobia and the US security state. Spanning a breadth of genres and styles, including the paradigmatic 9/11 novel, the bildungsroman, comedic satire, dramatic monologue, magic realism, documentary film, and urban fiction, South Asian American literature and media highlight narratives of interfaith and cross-racial solidarity. The imaginary worlds of these texts confront the injustices of US imperialism and the global War on Terror for Muslim communities both in the United States and abroad. At the same, South Asian American representation engaged with the impacts of post-9/11 politics and society has enriched understanding of the complex lived experiences of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Americans, as well as those of Indian Americans who are Muslim or trace their ancestry to the Sikh-majority state of Punjab. By centering the perspectives of those communities most affected by detention, xenophobia, and surveillance, post-9/11 South Asian American literature and media reveal how the exigencies of history produce new forms of narrative and cultural practice.


Now we turn to the effects of magnetic fields; we will concentrate on the orbital coupling, since effects related to the Zeeman coupling are usually negligible. Of course, the effect will depend on the geometry: for example, in a thin film (d L φ) we do not expect a (weak) field parallel to the film to have much effect. In general, the effect of the field will be to change the phase relation between the two time-reversed paths. A very spectacular example of this effect occurs in a cylindrical geometry with the magnetic field applied (ideally under Aharonov-Bohm conditions) along the cylinder axis (the conductivity is also measured along this axis). In this geometry, the effect of the magnetic field is to add to paths which go around the cylinder an extra phase e A · dl, which is 2πn(Φ/Φ 0)(Φ 0 ≡ h/e) for a path circling the cylinder n times in a clockwise direction (anticlockwise paths contribute with a negative value of n). Thus, if there were no inelastic dephasing, the effect would be to multiply the total return amplitude coming from a pair of time-reversed paths (n, −n) by the factor cos 2πnΦ/Φ 0. In practice, the interference of a paths with given n will be attenuated, owing to inelastic dephasing, by a factor exp −2πnR/L φ (T). In any case, since the corresponding contribution to the return probability (and hence δσ) is proportional to cos 2 2πnΦ/Φ 0 ∼ 1 + cos 4πnΦ/Φ 0 , one expects to see an oscillation in the magnetoresistance with a period Φ 0 /2, i.e. h/2e. This is quite different from the effects associated with the simple AB effect, which gives a periodicity h/e. Moreover, we expect these oscillations to start to appear when L φ (T) becomes comparable to the circumference 2πR of the cylinder and to sharpen with decreasing temperature. This is just what is seen experimentally. In the case of a bulk geometry things are more complicated, but the general pattern of the effect of a magnetic field can be seen by the following simple argument: Although there is no unique relation between the time taken by an electron to return to the origin and the area normal to the magnetic field enclosed by its path, the " typical " distance to which it has migrated in time t is of order √ Dt and the area …


Aerial imagery has been increasingly adopted in mission-critical tasks, such as traffic surveillance, smart cities, and disaster assistance. However, identifying objects from aerial images faces the following challenges: 1) objects of interests are often too small and too dense relative to the images; 2) objects of interests are often in different relative sizes; and 3) the number of objects in each category is imbalanced. A novel network structure, Points Estimated Network (PENet), is proposed in this work to answer these challenges. PENet uses a Mask Resampling Module (MRM) to augment the imbalanced datasets, a coarse anchor-free detector (CPEN) to effectively predict the center points of the small object clusters, and a fine anchor-free detector FPEN to locate the precise positions of the small objects. An adaptive merge algorithm Non-maximum Merge (NMM) is implemented in CPEN to address the issue of detecting dense small objects, and a hierarchical loss is defined in FPEN to further improve the classification accuracy. Our extensive experiments on aerial datasets visDrone and UAVDT showed that PENet achieved higher precision results than existing state-of-the-art approaches. Our best model achieved 8.7% improvement on visDrone and 20.3% on UAVDT.


Abstract Judicial reliance on foreign law has been hotly debated since the early 2000s, with commentators staking out competing positions on the role of foreign sources in constitutional interpretation. While the literature has been normative in focus, authors frequently incorporate empirical assumptions about how judges have used foreign law in practice. Yet scholars have done little empirical work to ground the debate and have focused so predominantly on the Supreme Court that the US Courts of Appeals have been largely ignored. This study analyzes findings from a newly created database containing Courts of Appeals decisions relying on foreign law in deciding constitutional rights issues from the earliest cases to the present day. The surprising results include the low number of overall cases, the dearth of cases using foreign law to challenge accepted principles, and the absence of cases engaging the reasoning behind foreign judicial determinations. The findings serve as a jumping off point for the examination of normative concerns, including the risk of arbitrariness in judges' decisions to rely on foreign law in particular cases.


Does the expansion of LGBT+ rights in the US affect mass attitudes towards sexual minorities abroad? Relying on a quasi-experiment presented by the as good as random exposure to news regarding the US's legalisation of same-sex marriage in the landmark US Supreme Court case - Obergefell vs Hodges – in Israel, I present an empirical test of the cross-national effect of LGBT+ rights advances in the US on mass attitudes abroad. Empirically, I rely on data from wave 7 of the European Social survey to show that legalising same-sex marriage engendered a popular backlash towards homosexuality amongst Israeli citizens and that this rise in homonegativity was greatest amongst women. In contrast to the domestic tolerance-inducing effects of policy feedback at home, this study shows that advances in domestic LGBT+ rights can trigger a negative response among citizens beyond the confines of a state's borders.


The service based navigation algorithms plays a vital role in robotic navigation research area. This research work proposes autonomous navigation of patrolling type service robot and efficient hardware scheme for patrolling problem. It is able to cover the environment even in the clustered scenario like static and dynamic conditions. The total scenario is traversed by the robot with minimal sensing and parallel processing method. The FPGA (Spartan 6) is preferred for parallel computation of ultrasonic sensor signal and driving the mobile robot as per the proposed algorithm.


International Academy of Pathology, Malaysian Division has initiated and run the external quality assurance program for general diagnostic histopathology since the year 2017. This article introduces the educational philosophy of this external quality assurance program and the technicalities in running such a national program. Challenges in ensuring the successful running of this program to gain wide acceptance by histopathology laboratories in Malaysia as well as experience in overcoming these challenges are detailed. This article charts the future direction of this external quality assurance program.


Two episodes of lacustrine sedimentation, separated by an erosional surface and fluvial sedimentation, took place in the southern part of the broken foreland Vinchina basin (NW Argentina) between 11 and 5 Ma. The lacustrine deposits, 768 and 740 meters thick, are recorded in the upper part of the Vinchina Formation ("Vinchina lake") and the lower part of the Toro Formation ("Toro Negro lake") respectively. According to sedimentological features, four sedimentary facies associations (FAs) are recognized in the lacustrine deposits: 1) thinly laminated mudstones facies association (FA 1), 2) coarsening- and thickening-upward muddy to sandy cycles (FA 2), 3) medium- to coarse-grained sandstones (FA 3), and 4) mudstones, sandstones, and oolitic limestones (FA 4). Altogether, these facies correspond to ephemeral, shallow, lacustrine systems including saline mudflats. The total thickness of each lacustrine interval, the thickness of the individual cycles and their lithology, and the overall aggradational facies arrangement suggest that both lakes developed during underfilled stages of the basin. The coarsening-upward cycles can be regarded as lacustrine parasequences representing cyclic episodes of expansion and contraction of the lake, but unlike marine parasequences these cycles do not correlate to water depth. The development of lacustrine conditions and continuous base-level rise, together with the coeval southward-directed paleoflow indicators, suggest axial drainages and that the basin was externally closed (endorheic) at that time. The large thicknesses of each lacustrine interval also points to high accommodation in the southern part of the Vinchina basin during these times. Lake filling cycles are one order of magnitude thicker than lake depth, so we postulate that subsidence (tectonic) and rise of the spill point (geomorphology) increased accommodation but not water depth. Thus, unlike marine parasequences, the analyzed coarsening-upward cycles do not correlate to water depth, but rather they are controlled by more complex basinal accommodation processes. We hypothesize that the coeval uplift of the Umango and Espinal basement block to the south, coupled with the initial doming of the Sierra de Los Colorados to the east, may have generated the damming of the southward-directed drainage and a zone of maximum accommodation, then controlling the location of the two lakes and the preservation of their thick sedimentary records. Therefore, localized accommodation was enhanced by a combination of tectonic subsidence and topographic growth. The two lacustrine intervals and the intervening fluvial deposits record changing contributions from axial to transverse drainages and different cycles of closed and open conditions in the basin. A low-frequency, closed to open and back to closed (axial to transverse and return to axial drainage) basin evolution, is envisaged by the development of the two lakes (closed stages) and the erosional surface followed by the interval of fluvial sedimentation that separates them (open stage). In addition, several high-frequency lake fluctuations (expansion–contraction) are represented by the coarsening-upward cycles within each lacustrine interval. The thick lacustrine intervals and their intermediate incision surfaces record cyclic filling and re-excavation stages and localized episodes of increased subsidence in the Vinchina basin, which seem to be a common feature of tectonically active broken foreland basins.


We clarify the dependence on the torsion tensor of all coefficients in the covariant Taylor expansion of the HMDS coefficient in the heat kernel for the fermion of spin in Riemann-Cartan space. The dependence on the torsion tensor of the quantities in the expansion coefficients is determined by the matrices in the quantities, except for that of the matrix potential X itself. The quantities with matrices contain the torsion tensor only in a peculiar form, and the others are independent of the torsion tensor.


In this paper, we conduct a comparative analysis to examine the characteristics and evolutionary trends of open access (OA) publications in natural and social sciences. We use data recorded by Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Journal Citation Reports during 2001–2015 as the main source. We then comparatively analyse the characteristics of natural and social sciences in terms of historical evolution, main contributors, and distribution of OA journals and publications across different languages, disciplines, and impact factor quartiles. Our results suggest that both natural and social sciences experienced dramatic growth of OA journals since 2009, but the share of social science OA journals within journal impact factor quartile 1 is much lower than that of natural sciences. While natural and social sciences share some similarities in OA publishing activities, such as main countries of contribution, they differ greatly in dimensions such as OA ratio across specific disciplines, countries, and publishing languages. We acknowledge that OA publishing offers a level playing field for traditionally disadvantaged languages, countries, and scientific disciplines, but meanwhile, the advancement of high‐quality OA publishing needs more targeted and sophisticated approaches to tackle differences in natural and social sciences.


Abstract This paper documents the Late Quaternary (120 ka BP–present) stratigraphic architecture of Italian continental shelves through the interpretation of single-channel, very high-resolution seismic reflection profiles and from data derived from published studies, by using the high-resolution sequence stratigraphy framework. The result of this analysis provides a detailed reconstruction of the variability of shelf stratigraphy in relation to differences in physiography, sediment supply, structural framework and local factors. We distinguish four stratigraphic types: (1) wide shelves with high sediment supply (e.g. the central Adriatic and the central-northern Tyrrhenian shelves); (2) wide but sediment-starved shelves (e.g. the southern Latium shelf); (3) narrow shelves with high sediment supply (e.g. shelves located in the Ionian and southern Tyrrhenian Sea); and (4) narrow and sediment-starved shelves (shelves located around islands and archipelagos). Besides physiography, sediment supply and vertical movements, local factors and specific processes play a significant role in determining Late Quaternary stratal architecture and sedimentary facies. For example, the attributes of antecedent topography commonly seem to govern the formation and preservation of transgressive deposits, whereas the formation and preservation of falling stage and lowstand systems deposits can be hindered by the presence of canyons indenting the shelf edge and/or slope instability.


There are constraints on the rate of energy intake of foraging animals, and allocation of energy, for example, to growth therefore must be at the expense of allocation to other purposes, such as energy storage. Moreover, the relative amount of energy allocated to different kinds of activities is likely to depend upon food availability. We have compared the patterns of energy allocation between adders, Vipera berus (L.), in populations inhabiting two different island groups in the Baltic Sea. These adders primarily feed on field voles, Microtus agrestis (L.), which undergo great population density fluctuations. In order to survive periods of low food supply adders allocate some energy to storage, and they can be expected to increase the proportion of energy devoted to storage when food levels and rate of energy intake decrease. Individuals allocating much energy to storage have less energy available for growth, reproduction and maintenance, and one can expect a trade-off between growth and energy storage, especially during resource shortage. Since the size of energy reserves influences fasting endurance, while body size influences future reproductive success, the pattern of energy allo- cation between growth and storage might have important fitness consequences for these animals. We compared the size of energy reserves (body mass in relation to body length) and the growth rates of individual male adders from two localities with different densities of field voles. Relative body mass was similar to both adder populations, but individuals grew faster where vole density was higher. This suggests that the pattern of energy allocation changed with resource availability. We also investigated the relationships between rela- tive growth rate and relative mass within the two adder populations. We found a significant nega- tive relationship where prey density was low, and a negative but non-significant relationship where prey density was high, indicating a trade-off between growth and energy storage in male adders that changes with food availability.


When people choose between multiple alternatives it has been observed that the probability of choosing one option over another often depends on the additional options available. For instance, one's preference for a high-end notebook computer over a cheaper midrange model can reverse when a third, low price, but bulkier, computer is also considered. Importantly, such context effects violate fundamental choice axioms of most standard economic choice theories. To account for these effects various computational models have been proposed. The present work examines two prominent models that have been proposed to simultaneously account for the similarity, compromise, and attraction effects: multialternative decision field theory (MDFT; Roe, Busemeyer, & Townsend, 2001) and the multiattribute linear ballistic accumulator (MLBA; Trueblood, Brown, & Heathcote, 2014). Because the models imply quite different psychological processes, we focus our comparison on the various mechanisms the models use to produce each effect. We test the models using data from a large within-subjects consumer choice experiment in which all three effects occurred. Overall, we find that both MLBA and MDFT have valuable mechanisms for understanding multialternative context effects. When considering each context effect in isolation MDFT gave the better account of the similarity and attraction effects, while MLBA better described the compromise effect. We conclude that three mechanisms—attention switching and distance-dependent inhibition from MDFT and extremeness aversion from MLBA— appear crucial. These results provide insights into the psychological mechanisms underlying human decision making and should be considered in further development of decision theories.


Though MIG welding robots are extensively applied in the automotive assemblies 'Spot Welding' is the most common welding application found in the auto stamping assembly manufacturing.Every manufacturing process is subject to variations – with resistance welding, these include;
part fit up, part thickness variations, misaligned electrodes, variations in coating materials or
thickness, sealers, weld force variations, shunting, machine tooling degradation; and slag and spatter damage.All welding gun tips undergo wear; an elemental part of the process.Though
adaptive resistance welding control automatically compensates to keep production and quality
up to the levels needed as gun tips undergo wear so that the welds remain reliable; the system
cannot compensate for deterioration caused by the slag and spatter on the part holding fixtures,
sensors, and gun tips.To cleanse welding robots of slag and spatter, dry-ice blasting has proven
to be an effective remedy. Presently, CO2 / dry ice blasting is being effectively used in a wide
array of applications from heavy slag removal to delicate semiconductor and circuit board
cleaning.This process can be used on-line without damaging equipment or requiring a machine
"teardown".Unlike conventional toxic chemicals, high-pressure water blasting and abrasive grit
blasting, CO2 / dry ice blasting uses dry ice particles in a high velocity air flow to remove
contaminates from surfaces without the added costs and inconvenience of secondary waste treatment and disposal.This paper describes MIG and Spot welding process and analyses the slag and spatter formation during robotic welding of stamping assemblies; and concludes that the dry ice blasting process's utility in cleansing of welding robots in auto stamping plant operations is paramount and exigent


The proteins in follicular fluid from individual and pooled bovine follicles were studied by gel chromatography and quantitative immunoelectrophoresis. The mean protein concentration was 86-4% of serum; very large proteins were present in only low concentrations. A minimum of 40 individual proteins was distinguished in follicular fluid, and 15 of these proteins were quantitated. A correlation between molecular weight and follicular fluid: serum concentration ratio was found. Fluid from individual follicles differed only in the relative concentrations of small and large proteins. An exception to this was IgG which was occasionally, but never in healthy growing follicles, present in concetrations above 150% of serum. Healthy growing, preovulatory and atretic follicles had higher, and cystic follicles mostly lower, concentrations of small proteins than serum. The concentration of alpha2-macroglobulin in healthy growing follicles never exceeded 16% of serum. The concentration of large proteins in follicular fluid increased with increasing follicle size. Attempts to detect proteins specific to follicular fluid by immunizing rabbits with pooled follicular samples and the follicular fluid proteins not bound by anti-bovine antiserum resulted in production of antibodies against fibrinogen and its split products D+E only.


Abstract Objective: We evaluate the anti-tumor effect of Ethyl Pyruvate (EP) on the human pancreatic cancer xenograft in nude mice. Methods: Human pancreatic cancer cell line SW1990 was used in vivo to investigate the effect of EP on the human pancreatic cancer in mice. The mice were treated with different doses of EP (100 mg/kg, 50 mg/kg, i. p. ) initiating 1 hour (early treatment) after tumor cells injection daily for 14 days, and EP (100 mg/kg, i. p. ) was administered beginning12 days (delayed treatment) after tumor cells injection daily for 14 days. Tumor volumes were measured. ELISA was used to measure tumor necrosis factor (TNF) -α, interleukin (IL) -1β, IL-6 and high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1). Results: EP administration inhibited pancreatic tumor growth significantly. The differences in tumor volumes were statistical significant (P=0.0001) and in tumor weights (P=0.0028) between treatment and untreated groups. Treatment with the higher (100 mg/kg) dose of EP conferred better efficacy than lower (50 mg/kg) group (P=0.024). Early treatment with EP inhibited tumor significantly than delayed treatment (P=0.001). Early administration of EP inhibits TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6 and HMGB1 release. Conclusions: EP may have potential as a therapeutic candidate for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.


Knowledge sharing typically examines organizational transfer of knowledge, often from headquarters to subsidiaries, from developed country sites to emerging country sites, or from host to local employees. Yes, recent research, such as Prahalad's Bottom of the Pyramid, raises the question of reverse transfer of knowledge, or whether knowledge could and should be transferred from local sites to home country sites within an organization. As several emerging economies build their capabilities in knowledge, research and development, marketing, and the like, it only makes sense to consider what type of knowledge and how to transfer it in reverse or bi-directional manners. This paper takes one step back in the process. Rather than focusing on what knowledge transfer may make sense within an organization, we consider what types of knowledge are important for foreigners to know at the initial stages of engagement abroad as they consider whether to do business in an emerging country.


Two space qualified frequency synthesizers were found to exhibit noise bursting during testing, following X-ray examination, in July 1994. An inter-company, cross-functional investigation team was formed to determine root cause because of the potential impact on flight hardware. The source of the problem was isolated to poor bonding of a bipolar junction transistor (BJT). The root cause of the noise bursting phenomena was not positively identified, but there is strong correlation to the die attachment process of the BJT in the oscillator of the VCO and a soft correlation with the BJT environment.


We investigate the effects of fabrication parameters on the optical properties of hybrid carbon metal flakes. We use a microscopic Muller matrix measurement technique to experimentally investigate different samples of carbon flakes. In all cases studied, the self-assembled metamaterial exhibited strong linear birefringence in the visible spectral range, while attenuation was found to be dependent on supra molecular complex density.


Seabed Logging was introduced to the oil industry about ten years ago. It is a
technique that utilizes Electromagnetic (EM) waves to propagate signals underneath
seabed to determine the difference in resistivity levels in order to determine possible
oil wells for exploration. This new technology would make it possible to identifY the
presence of oil and gas in undrilled prospects. Both research surveys and commercial
!
investigatipns show that the technology functions as predicted. Therefore, the purpose
of this project is to develop a 3D simulator that can model the sea bed environment
and EM waves using COMSOL. This 3D simulator could show the EM waves in the
form of djrect waves, reflected waves and refracted waves for predefmed seabed
environment. This report describe briefly on the advantages of this technique as well
as the profeSS on how the EM wre is implemented to distinguish the hydrocarbon
from othet elements.


BACKGROUND
Many burns that occur in the first two decades of life are accidental and preventable. The aim of this study was to determine the demographic features, mortality, and other factors associated with pediatric burns in Istanbul, Turkey.

METHODS
Our retrospective study included 375 hospitalized pediatric patients (225 male, 150 female; mean age 4.07±3.79; range 0.2 to 16 years) aged 16 years or less admitted between January 2005 and January 2009. Each child's medical record was reviewed and demographic features, mechanism of burn, place of residence, total body surface area (TBSA), surgical treatment, duration of hospital stay and mortality rates were analyzed.

RESULTS
Scalding was the predominant cause among all pediatric age groups. There were no differences between the age groups with respect to mean TBSA. Length of hospital stay in infants and toddler age group was significantly lower than in other age groups (p<0.005). Sixteen (4.3%) patients died during the study period. Mortality rates associated with scalding, flame and electrical burns were 3.1%, 13.9% and 10%, respectively. Electrical burns and flame resulted in significantly higher mortality rates than scalding (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION
Scalding was found to be the most important cause of burns and flame-related mechanisms resulted in the highest mortality rate among children. Only a specific preventive program for changing the traditional habits of Turkish parents would reduce burn injuries among children.


A 22-year-old female came to a cornea specialist in our center to do refractive surgery. The bestcorrected visual acuity was 20/20 in both of her eyes with the following refraction: OD: –4.5–0.75 x 180 and OS: –4.75–2.00 x 110. Scissors motion was obvious in her left eye during refraction. In funduscopic evaluation, an abnormal yellow to brown sheen was obvious in her both eyes (Figure 1, right column). Other ocular examinations were within normal limits and patient had no history of any other systemic or ocular disease. Drug history and family history of ocular diseases were negative. Due to scissors motion and abnormal Pentacam (Figure 2), she has been diagnosed with keratoconus, her refractive surgery has been held, and corneal cross linking (CXL) was suggested to her. Both eyes optical coherence tomography (OCT) were completely normal but due to abnormal yellow sheen in her both eyes funduscopy, she was referred for further evaluation to us beforeCXL. She denied any night blindness or decreased vision in her both eyes. Oguchi disease diagnosis was made with presence of obvious Mizuo-Nakamura phenomenon (Figure 1) and was confirmed with


This article examines the relationship between migration and transportation improvements. More precisely, will transportation improvements between central business districts (CBDs) and rural areas make migration trends more favorable in rural areas? Due to household utility geographical differentials, there are interregional migration. Thus, it is resaonable to believe that transportation improvements that increase the access of rural population to the labor and the service market of CBDs will influence interregional migration in rural areas positively. I will examine whether this is true for Iceland, a thinly populated area with two CBDs. A macro panel data set from Iceland will be used. It represents several essential varaibles of the house market for seventy-nine municipalities in Iceland during the period from 1986 to 2006. Furthermore, I will investigate whether there are any gender aspects regarding the matter.


In this introductory chapter, we develop a brief history around the institutionalization process of sociology in Latin America. At the same time, we revisit some of the core debates and contributions of the sociology of Latin America, identifying some of the topics and fields in which sociology from this region has made key contributions to the discipline. The chapter is divided into three sections: development and institutionalization of the discipline, selected debates and contributions to sociology from Latin America, and, finally, the roadmap to this Handbook, which covers eight research fields.


This paper presents an evaluation of efficiency on glass precision machining by using abrasive water-jet machine. In this study, problems of conventional water-jet machining are examined experimentally and are analysized numerically. Especially, the reason of whitening on the machined surface of biochip glass is determined. It is found that the mass flow rate of abrasive input and transverse speed of water-jet are key parameters to control the direct machining of micro hole and channel on a glass substrate. Based on results of experimental analysis, possibility of direct fabrication of micro holes and channels on a glass substrate is successfully confirmed.


As a result, the implementation of measures to protect the atmosphere (the use of innovative technologies in the introduction of dust and gas cleaning equipment, the conversion of cars to gaseous fuel, the renewal of rolling stock, the implementation ofthe state program to reduce emissions), the stabilization of the environment is observed.It is necessary to carry out technical re-equipment of key sectors of the economy, the introduction of new technologies, as well as the stabilization and reduction of emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere. It is recommended to take additional measures to ensure that the amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere as a result of the operation of the facility does not exceed the permissible level, to install dust-collecting equipment that captures dust with high efficiency (up to 99.5%).


Methods
Ninety Wistar male rats were used in this study. Type 1 diabetes was induced by i.p injection of 50 mg/kg of streptozotocin in all animals. After 42 days of treatment with testosterone (2mg/kg/day) or voluntary exercise alone or in combination, the heart of the rats has been removed and MicroRNA was extracted from the heart using miRCURYTM RNA isolation kit.

Results
Our results showed that either testosterone or exercise increased miRNA-126 expression levels in the heart of diabetic rats. Treatment of diabetic rats with testosterone and exercise at the same time had a synergistic effect on miRNA-126 levels in the heart. Furthermore, in castrated diabetes group, miRNA-126 levels were significantly decreased in heart, whereas either testosterone treatment or exercise training enhanced expression of this miRNA. Also, simultaneous treatment of castrated diabetic rats with testosterone and exercise had an additive effect on miRNA-126 expression levels.

Conclusion
This study showed that testosterone and exercise promote an increase in the expression of miRNA-126 in the heart tissue and this may be related to cardiac angiogenesis. These results may indicate that testosterone and exercise can help to prevent progression of diabetic cardiomyopathy due to impaired angiogenesis in the heart.


Summary
The physiological and ecological impact of the thermal environment across life stages can result in trade-offs that determine fitness and population dynamics. Understanding mechanisms and consequences of local adaptation for any organism that overwinters requires taking a cross-seasonal perspective.
We used a trait-based approach to distinguish variation among ecotypes in ecological and physiological responses to overwintering conditions. We used fall webworms (Hyphantria cunea; Lepidoptera: Arctiidae) from Ottawa, Ontario and Columbus Ohio, representing the centre and periphery of the native range.
We hypothesized that populations would be locally adapted to their overwintering environments, with fitness maximized under natal overwintering conditions. We predicted that this local adaptation would result from modulation of rates of energy use, growth and development.
Each ecotype had higher overwinter survival in their natal compared with non-natal winter environment, and this was associated with larger pupal mass, size and carbohydrate reserves at the end of winter. This suggests that the ecotypes are locally adapted to winter conditions. Larger adults laid more eggs, but there was no effect of ecotype or environment on fecundity.
Pupae overwintering at warm, energetically demanding, southern temperatures suppressed metabolic rates in autumn, and developed more quickly in the spring, compensating for energetic demands of warmer winters. Northern ecotypes had lower thermal sensitivity of metabolism, leading to higher metabolic rates at cool temperatures that correlated with faster post-winter development.
Local adaptation to winter conditions suggests performance of peripheral populations may not be enhanced by warming winters. Decoupling of winter and growing season temperatures may negatively impact ectotherms.


Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging viral disease in East Asian countries, including China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK). The causative agent of SFTS is the SFTS virus (SFTSV), which is transmitted by ticks. To investigate the prevalence of SFTSV in the ROK, a total of 9744 ticks were collected from vegetation in five national parks between July and November 2015. Of the collected adult and nymph ticks, Haemaphysalis longicornis (68.44%) was the most abundant, followed by Haemaphysalis flava (29.66%), Ixodes nipponensis (1.56%), and Amblyomma testudinarium (0.34%). Collected larval ticks were of the genera Haemaphysalis (99.61%) and Ixodes (0.39%). One-step RT-PCR and nested PCR were used to detect SFTSV-specific genes from each individual adult and nymph tick and pooled larval ticks. SFTSV was detected in 4.77% (48/1006) in H. longicornis, 1.15% (5/436) in H. flava, 0% (0/23) in I. nipponensis, and 20% (1/5) in A. testudinarium. The infection rate of SFTSV in adult and nymph ticks was 3.61%. The prevalence of SFTSV in adult and nymph ticks was relatively high, compared with previous reports. In larval ticks, the minimum infection rate was 0.31%. SFTSV was detected in ticks collected from both trail and nontrail areas in the national parks, and up to 800 meters above sea level. The sequences obtained showed 99.4-99.7% homology with SFTS virus S segment sequences from Chinese and Japanese ticks.


Reactions of niobium and tantalum penta-alkoxides with corresponding alkali-metal alkoxides have been studied and a number of double alkoxides of the type MM′(OR)6 have been isolated (M = Li, Na, or K; M′= Nb or Ta; and R = Me, Et, Pri, or But). Tantalum derivatives can be purified by sublimation in a few cases whereas the niobium ones decompose to penta-alkoxides. Conductivities have been measured and molecular weights determined.


Electronic Product and Process Management [EPPM] systems provide the capability to establish and map information flow between different parties in a construction project as well as model project processes. Much of the information relating to processes and their structure, the actors that operate them, and the data associated with each instance of a process is encapsulated within workflows. The wealth of information contained in an EPPM system can be exploited to extract knowledge that can provide significant cost benefits to construction companies. Workflows provide an ideal medium for the capture of knowledge over the course of a project lifecycle. We demonstrate how this knowledge may then be used to analyze workflows and determine metrics that establish the suitability of workflows to construction processes. We present a conceptual approach to measure the performance of a workflow, its constituent components and evolution, which may be used to lay the foundation for establishing paragon workflows suited to classes of construction activities.


We propose a new formula to compute Witten--Kontsevich intersection numbers. It is a closed formula, not involving recursion neither solving equations. It only involves sums over partitions of products of factorials, double factorials and Kostka numbers (numbers of semi-standard tableau of given shape and weight) with bounded weights. As an application, we prove a conjecture of [ELO21] stating that the generating polynomials of the intersection numbers expressed in the basis of elementary symmetric polynomials have an unexpected vanishing of their coefficients.


This study introduces two speaker types, which have not yet been studied, to the study of heritage Norwegian: one adult (48, i.e., not elderly) and one adolescent speaker (16), "Kari" and "Jess". They are both North American, English-dominant heritage speakers of Norwegian (AmNo), but differ from an older, previously studied cohort of American Norwegian speakers (old AmNo) in several respects. Kari and Jess have had more continuous contact with Norway throughout their lives. They are both Norwegian-literate and consume Norwegian-language media. Jess has attended Norwegian language courses in Norway, which motivates seeing her as a heritage language relearner. In this pilot study, we test the hypothesis that such extra-linguistic factors lead to grammatical differences between the groups. The hypothesis is tested by the analysis of three variables previously studied in old AmNo speakers: verb-second word order in non-subject initial clauses, possessive placement, and grammatical gender. We drew data from a 48-minute semi-structured speech recording. The study found that Kari and Jess indeed differ from old AmNo speakers. Kari's language shows very little grammatical innovation, placing her among the most stable AmNo speakers. Jess' language, in contrast, shows strongly innovative tendencies in all studied variables. To explain the innovations in Jess' language, we appeal to heterogeneous input during childhood acquisition and cross-linguistic influence from English. Both factors, we argue, are active in the process of heritage language relearning.


PROBLEM
To assess symptoms attributed to the environment from an interdisciplinary perspective and to evaluate the plausibility of the participants' individual theory of a causal relationship between exposure and health impairment.

METHOD
We assessed the medical, psychiatric and environmental background in every participant in an environmental medicine project and discussed the explanatory value of our findings for each reported symptom.

RESULTS
Every second participant had at least one symptom that could be plausibly explained by simultaneously occurring medical, psychological or environmental findings. In 40% of the participants the research team rated the association between an environmental exposure and the health complaints to be 'plausible'. Psychiatric disorders were frequent, but did not exclude environmentally caused symptoms.

CONCLUSION
Only an interdisciplinary structure including medical, psychiatric and environmental expertise is likely to adequately diagnose and advise persons with environmentally related symptoms.


Speaker diarization in noisy conditions is addressed in this paper. The regression-based DNN is first adopted to map the noisy acoustic features to the clean features, and then consensus clustering of the original and mapped features is used to fuse the diarization results. The experiments are conducted on the IFLY-DIAR-II database, which is a Chinese talk show database with various noise types, such as music, applause and laughter. Compared to the baseline system using PLP features, a 21.26% relative DER improvement can be achieved using the proposed algorithm.


INTRODUCTION
Because alterations in the bile ducts found in cystic fibrosis mimic those found in primary sclerosing cholangitis, magnetic resonance cholangiography (MRC) could be a useful diagnosis technique, especially because it is non-invasive.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
We prospectively studied 26 adult patients with cystic fibrosis. Of these, 11 had liver disease previously diagnosed on the basis of symptomatology, physical examination, liver function tests and abdominal ultrasound (group A) and 15 had no apparent liver disease (group B). In all patients liver function tests, abdominal ultrasound and MRC using 1.5 Teslas General Electric and Siemens systems were carried out. The images were interpreted blind by two radiologists with experience in the interpretation of biliary alterations in cystic fibrosis.

RESULT
In 6 of the 11 patients in group A, MRC showed signs of liver cirrhosis (nodularity, irregular surface, splenomegaly, varicosity); 4 patients showed rose-colored images in the choledoch and intrahepatic ducts; of the 5 patients with previous non-cirrhotic liver disease, 2 showed rose-colored intrahepatic ducts, 2 showed dilatation of the intrahepatic ducts and 1 showed hepatosplenomegaly with hepatic steatosis. Of the 15 patients in group B, bile duct anomalies were found in 5. Of these, 3 showed rose-colored images of the hepatic ducts and/or choledoch, 1 showed stenosis of the common hepatic duct with rigidity of the intrahepatic ducts and 1 showed irregularities in the caliber of the intrahepatic ducts without dilatation, which were suspicious for intrahepatic lithiasis.

CONCLUSIONS
MRC is a useful technique in the study of hepatobiliary disease in cystic fibrosis because it detected anomalies in all our patients previously diagnosed with liver disease and revealed ductal lesions not revealed by other non-invasive techniques.


Human muscle can be considered a biological machine for generating force. Techniques are described for analysing the function of muscle in health and disease in terms of electromechanical activation, energy metabolism, and the amount of the contractile machinery. Such quantitative techniques offer a logical basis for assessing the progress of disease processes and evaluating possible treatments.


Feeding and energetics are fundamental processes in all species that must also be balanced with reproductive investment. The peptide hormone nesfatin-1 is encoded by the nucleobindin-2 ( nucb2 ) gene and has recently emerged as a key player involved in both feeding and reproduction across vertebrates. How nesfatin-1 might help regulate trade-offs between feeding and reproduction, however, are relatively unexplored. The female cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni is an ideal system to examine the role of nesfatin-1 in regulating metabolic and reproductive functions because this species cycles between a gravid feeding state while preparing to mate, followed by a forced starvation state while they carry a clutch of ~10-50 developing young in their mouths for ~2 weeks. We used in situ hybridization to localize nucb2 -expressing cells in discrete nuclei of the brain, many of which have roles in metabolism, reproduction, and parental care. The number and size of nucb2 -expressing cells differed in the brain of mouthbrooding, starved, and fed females, but only in specific nuclei. RT-PCR also revealed widespread expression of nucb2 in many body tissues, suggesting pleiotropic functions. Using qPCR, we also show that nucb2 mRNA levels in the liver and stomach are different among the three female groups suggesting peripheral regulation. Collectively, this work provides important comparative information towards better understanding the role and evolution of nucb2 /nesfatin-1 regulatory pathways.


This paper investigates the implementation of compressive sensing (CS) for stepped frequency continuous wave ground penetrating radar (SFCW GPR) imaging system. Previous works in this field mostly focus on reducing the frequency samples in the measurement. While this approach enables faster scanning speed, we consider reducing spatial sampling is more efficient in reducing the data acquisition time in the GPR survey over a very large area. In this study we propose a data acquisition method and CS algorithm. A two-step sampling scheme is presented. In the first step, the spatial sampling was directly conducted in the data acquisition process. In the second step, the frequency sampling was conducted offline during the signal processing. Full frequency information was used in pre-processing to suppress the noise and clutter in the experiment data. To solve the sparse-data problem, some CS algorithms are compared and a modified Bayesian approach based on fast relevance vector machine (RVM) is proposed. The performance of the proposed CS-GPR system is analyzed using the real experimental GPR data set which contains non ideal conditions, e.g. high level clutter, not truly sparse targets, and inaccurate estimation of wave velocity in the medium. Using the proposed data acquisition and CS algorithm, even with these non ideal conditions, CS can give clear and stable results with high probability detection of the target.


Abstract Objectives: Previous research suggests recovery from cannabis-related deficits in verbal learning and memory functioning after periods of cannabis abstinence in adolescents. Here, we examine how cannabis cessation affects cognitive performance over 2 weeks of monitored abstinence compared to controls in adolescents and young adults. Methods: Seventy-four participants (35 cannabis users) aged 16–26 ceased all cannabis, alcohol, and other illicit substance consumption for a 2-week period; abstinence was monitored via weekly urinalysis, breath, and sweat patch testing. Starting at baseline, participants completed weekly abbreviated neuropsychological batteries. Measures included tests of attention, inhibition, verbal working memory, and learning. Repeated measures assessed within and between subject effects for time and group status, while controlling for past year alcohol and nicotine use. Results: Cannabis users showed increased performance compared to controls on sustained attention tasks after 2 weeks of cannabis use. Conclusions: Deficits in attention, but not verbal learning and memory, recovered after 2 weeks of monitored abstinence. This differs from previous literature, suggesting that other cognitive domains may show signs of recovery after periods of cannabis cessation in adolescents and young adults.


In this paper, we describe a holonomic omnidirectional mobile robot with three orthogonal-wheel assemblies and its high accurate tracking control system. We first analyze three types in the realization of mechanical structure. We then develop an omnidirectional mobile robot using the lateral wheel assembly to obtain the much simpler control system. Several test results in the feedforward control system indicated that the mobile robot had a desirable full mobility and smooth motion. In order to realize a dynamic control system based on the model information, the dynamic model and its resolved acceleration control system are described. The effectiveness of the control system is demonstrated by a set of practical experiments.


New semi-quantitative metrics for simple evaluation of global greenness of chemical reactions used in teaching laboratories, namely, the Green Circle (GC) and Green Matrix (GM), were developed. These metrics globally consider all Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry. To illustrate their construction, the greenness of several syntheses performed in the laboratory under different sets of conditions was assessed. The tools were validated by comparing the results with another metric, the Green Star (GS), developed in our previous study. Results showed these new metrics were useful for the intended purpose, having the advantage of being simpler than the GS.


Personal trainers hold an important position as intermediaries between their clients and the vast amount of available information regarding health, fitness and body weight. Research to date has largely neglected to explore how they interpret and respond to their clients' goals. This paper reports interviews with 12 Australian personal trainers to investigate how they view the goals and motivations that their clients bring to training, and explore how they view their role in working with clients towards these goals. The personal trainers reported that their clients primarily came to them with weight loss goals, which the trainers understand as being motivated by aesthetic and social concerns. The only reservations expressed by trainers about their clients' weight loss goals concerned unrealistic timeframes; there were no other concerns expressed about the advisability or achievability of weight loss goals. When prompted, the trainers did acknowledge biological differences in clients' capacity for weight loss; however, this was strongly downplayed relative to the importance of diet, exercise and "mindset". These findings suggest that personal trainers encourage the view that weight loss is straightforward and achievable for everyone who is sufficiently motivated and self-disciplined, despite the emerging scientific literature that suggests that weight loss goals, especially when motivated by appearance concerns, may undermine sustained exercise participation and other health-enhancing practices.


Abstract In aqueous BeF2-solutions of different concentrations and therefore different viscosities the magnetic relaxation time T1 was measured as a function of the viscosity over a wide range by pulsed NMR-technique. For small viscosities a linear dependence of T1 on the viscosity was observed as predicted by theoretical calculations. Since the ground state spin of 19F is I = 1/2, the quadrupole moment vanishes. For observing quadrupole relaxation of the F-nuclei, one has to use an excited level. With the time differential perturbed angular distribution method (TDPAD) we observed the quadrupole relaxation time TRel of 19F in aqueous BeF2-solutions.


ABSTRACT Objectives: The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between body mass index(BMI) and periodontal disease in Korean adult from the data of the fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(KNHANES). Methods: The subjects were 3,309 adults from 25 ro 45 years old in the fifth KNHANES. The subjects were divided into three BMI categories: normal weight 1,549(BMI ≤22.9 kg/m²), overweight 792(BMI 23.0-25.0 kg/m²) and obesity 968(BMI≥25.0 kg/m²). Periodontal disease was assessed by community periodontal index(CPI) and periodontitis was defined as ≥ code 3. Results: Increased BMI adults had no significantly higher prevalence of periodontitis than those having normal body weight after adjusti ng for variables; the odds ratio(OR) was 1.06 in overweight and 1.23 in obesity. BMI and periodontitis had no significant relation to increased age, but the age increase tended to have high odds ratio. Women had a higher OR than men. Conclusions: Through this study, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between the obesity index and periodontitis in the further study.


In 1970–1971, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR Ilya Trofimovich Bogdesko (1923—2010) created a linocut series for the socio-psychological novel "Crime and Punishment" by F.M. Dostoyevsky. The illustrations were made specifically for the Leipzig Book Fair in 1971. The artist's idea had been limited to the competition task: he created only three illustrations in the linocut technique, and their artistic solution was based on the conditional-decorative principle of composition organization. The main characters are depicted almost two-dimensionally, "purified" of everyday details, environment, entourage. Using a minimum of visual means, I.T. Bogdesko achieved a sensation of stunning drama in the illustrations. For this work, the artist was awarded a gold medal in Leipzig. At the end of 1971, "Kartya Moldovanyaske" published the book "Crime shi pedyapse" ("Crime and Punishment") in the Moldovan language. In the design of that book, his illustrations were used — "Raskolnikov" (on the dust cover) and "The Old Pawnbroker" (on the title page). A different vision of Sonya's image appeared on the dust cover. The preserved sketches, a number of which are presented in this article, allow recognizing the artist's work hidden from prying eyes. In 1995, Bogdesko applied to Dostoevsky again. He created the writer's portrait against the background of the characteristic St. Petersburg landscape. In those years, the artist was working on "Don Quixote", inspired by Dostoevsky's expressing about the novel by Cervantes: "There is nothing in the whole world deeper and stronger than this composition". Bogdesko upheld this assertion with 36 illustrations (by chisel engraving) for the famous novel: a titanic work that lasted more than two decades. The artist executed the portrait of the Russian writer in the same unique technique of classical engraving as the illustrations for "Don Quixote". Changes in graphic techniques dramatically alter the plasticity of images of the characters of "Crime and Punishment": a quarter of a century later, the tragically flat vision of linocuts turned into a sharp, nervous, frequent movement of the chisel. Bogdesko created three illustrations for Dostoevsky's novel in the technique of chisel engraving.


Mocean Energy has designed a 100-kW hinged-raft wave energy converter (WEC), the M100, which has a novel geometry that reduces the cost of energy by improving the ratios of power per size and power per torque. The performance of the M100 is shown through the outputs of frequency-domain and time-domain numerical models, which are compared with those from 1/20th scale wave-tank testing. Results show that for the undamped, frequency-domain model, there are resonant peaks in the response at 6.6 and 9.6 s, corresponding to wavelengths that are 1.9 and 3.7 times longer than the machine. With the inclusion of power-take-off and viscous damping, the power response as a function of frequency shows a broad bandwidth and a hinge flex amplitude of 12-20 degrees per meter of wave amplitude. Comparison between the time-domain model and physical data in a variety of sea states, up to a significant wave height of 4.5 m, show agreements within 10% for average power absorption, which is notable because only simple, nonlinear, numerical models were used. The M100 geometry results in a broad-banded, large amplitude response due to its asymmetric shape, which induces coupling between modes of motion.


Rosiglitazone is one of the members in the thiazolidinedione (TZD) class of anti-diabetic agents that have proven efficacy in the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes. We studied serum from a patient who developed acute, severe thrombocytopenia after exposure to rosiglitazone maleate (Avandia®) and proposed the mechanisms for rosiglitazone-induced thrombocytopenia. Tested by flow cytometry, the patient's serum was positive for rosiglitazone-induced antibody with the binding ratio of 5.93 (mean fluorescence intensity, MFI) in the presence of the patient's serum and rosiglitazone in a final concentration of 0.53 mmol/l. The antibody was found to bind both glycoprotein (GP) IIb–IIIa complex and GP Ib/IX complex by MAIPA assay using five different monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against GP complexes Ib/IX, GPIIb/IIIa or GPIa/IIa. Immunoprecipitation studies showed that both GPIIb/IIIa and GP Ib/IX complex were precipitated by antibody in the presence, but not in the absence of rosiglitazone. These findings provide evidence that immune thrombocytopenia can be caused by sensitivity to the antidiabetic agent rosiglitazone maleate. This report documents the first case of rosiglitazone-induced immune thrombocytopenia.


The intestinal epithelium represents a critical barrier protecting the host against diverse luminal noxious agents, as well as preventing the uncontrolled uptake of bacteria that could activate an immune response in a susceptible host. The epithelial monolayer that constitutes this barrier is regulated by a meshwork of proteins that orchestrate complex biological function such as permeability, transepithelial electrical resistance, and movement of various macromolecules. Because of its key role in maintaining host homeostasis, factors regulating barrier function have attracted sustained attention from the research community. This paper will address the role of bacteria, bacterial-derived metabolism, and the interplay of dietary factors in controlling intestinal barrier function.


A Pin-Grid-Array (PGA) package router is presented in this paper. Given a chip cavity with a number of I/O pads around its boundary and an equivalent number of pins distributed on the substrate, the objective of the router is to complete the planar interconnection of pad-to-pin nets on one or more layers. This router consists of three phases: layer assignment topological routing, and geometrical routing. Examples tested on a windows-based environment show that our router is efficient and can complete the routing task with less substrate layers. Compared to manual routing, this router features a friendly graphic user interface and can be practically applied to VLSI packaging.


The human amniotic membrane (hAM) or amnion contains two principal types of cells: amniotic epithelial cells (hAECs) and amniotic mesenchymal stromal cells (hAMSCs), located in two distinct regions: the epithelium and the stromal layer. Emerging evidence suggests that both of them retain multipotent/pluripotent characteristics, making the amniotic membrane a promising and very attractive source of cells for regenerative medicine. Therefore, the isolation of hAECs and hAMSCs has recently received great interest; they can be released by differential enzymatic digestion and various procedures have been reported; however, significant contamination of hAMCs with hAECs and vice versa frequently occurs. This unit describes an efficient and rapid method to separate, mechanically, amniotic mesoderm from amniotic epithelium in order to obtain, after subsequent enzymatic digestions, purified population of hAMCs and hAECs. In this way, the cells can be cultured or investigated for other aims avoiding additional procedures related to their purification.


Hepatitis B virus(HBV)reactivation has been reported as a fatal complication following systemic chemotherapy or other immunosuppressive therapies. The Japanese Guidelines for HBV reactivation were published in 2009. Despite the publication of these guidelines, there have been some reports of fulminant hepatitis B. Therefore, it was suggested that the guidelines were not yet been widely implemented. We investigated whether the guidelines had been implemented in our hospital. After the evaluation, it was determined that 89%of HBV cases were screened for the HBV surface antigen(HBs-Ag). Additionally, the screening for HBV surface antibody(HBs-Ab)and HBV core antibody(HBc-Ab)should be performed in cases negative for HBs-Ag, which was performed in only 17% of HBs-Ag-negative cases. It was concluded that the guidelines had not been implemented in our hospital. Therefore, we conducted educational activities to promote the implementation of the guidelines. Screening tests were performed in all 270 HBV cases between January and June 2013. Two antigen-positive carriers were identified. The rate of HBs-Ag-negative and/or HBc antibody -positive cases was 20.3%. Of these, 76.4%were tested using a DNA quantitative test, but DNA quantification did not increase in any case. HBV reactivation is expected to increase due to the development of new drugs and the use of diverse regimens. All physicians who perform immunotherapy and chemotherapy should immediately participate in educational activities.


Author(s): Sclater, John G; Munschy, Marc; Fisher, Robert L; Weatherall, Pauline; Cande, Steven C; Patriat, Philippe; Bergh, Hugh; Schlich, Roland | Abstract: Commencing in 1987, an international panel of sea-going scientists has collaborated in compiling and interpreting all available sea floor topographic, magnetic and satellite-derived gravity data in the Indian Ocean overall, from sow to 1660E and from Africa-Asia-Australia south to Antarctica. The purpose of the project is to evaluate uniformly comparable data from academic and agency sources, to provide large scale working charts of these compilations and to produce a detailed digital state-of-the art tectonic chart for the entire Indian and contiguous Southern Oceans.The compilations and the tectonic chart will be used to reconstruct the history of the seafloor and the continents surrounding these oceans. This technical report, Part 1 of the project, provides the data compilation plots and the tectonic chart for the southwestern Indian Ocean which lies between southern Africa and Antarctica. Lying between 31 o S and 71 o S, and sow and 71 OE, it represents almost one third of the entire area of the Indian Ocean and the contiguous Southern Oceans.The topographic contours portray the shape and relief of the sea floor itself. They also display well the long-wavelength depth anomalies such as oceanic plateaus and swells. The satellite-derived gravity field does not resolve local fine detail but reflects the longer wavelength (g 20 km) density contrasts beneath the oceans. Like the bathymetry, it is dominated in the Southwest Indian Ocean by the spreading ridge axis, the active transform faults and the major fracture zones. It also reveals the sediment-covered extension of these fracture zones and the basement relief of the oceanic plateaus. Identification of magnetic anomaly data permits the determination of the age of the oceanic crust. The three data bases, combined and abstracted into a tectonic chart, together present a very clear summary of the present overall morphology of the ocean floor and also reveal the masking effects of sedimentation. They present a unique data base from which to reconstruct the history of the seafloor in the southwestern Indian Ocean.


Statistics is a challenging course for students and of which is often associated with subsequent concerns that may affect statistical achievement. Therefore, this study aims to identify the relationship between statistical concerns and statistical achievement in the systematic literature review context. This study also identifies the statistical method used in articles relating to the relationship between statistical concerns and statistical achievement. Four electronic databases were used; ERIC, DOAJ, Science Direct and Google Scholar. The eligibility of article selection is based on a few criteria that assess the relationship between anxiety and statistical achievement, quantitative research, access and use of Malay and English. 10 articles fulfilled the eligibility selection criteria. Extraction of data is based on the name of the researcher and the year, country, title, sample size, instrument, statistical component of statistical concerns, statistical methods and findings. The findings revealed that most of studies reported statistical concerns negatively affecting statistical achievements either directly or indirectly. Additionally, the findings also reported statistical methods frequently used in the study article were Structural Equation Modeling, correlations of 4 articles using this method followed by regression method, ANCOVA and MANCOVA. The results of this systematic literature survey provide insights of relationship between statistical concerns and statistical achievements. To conclude, educators should consider assessing the method of teaching that they use on students who are facing statistical concerns.


The DNA-DNA hybridization method was used to study 4 species of bacteria of the genus Listeria. Concerning the DNA homology, L. monocytogenes strains may be divided into several species (in particular, the pathogenic forms may be isolated into independent taxon), in correlation with their biochemical and serological properties. Most of the studied strains of this species exhibit a high level of DNA homology--65-100%. Bacteria of the L. grayi and L. murrayi species are closely related to each other (90% of DNA homology), the reasonable suggestion being to unite them into a single species. L. denitrificans has 7% of DNA homology with the DNA of the other three species suggesting that it should be excluded from the genus Listeria.


Sculpted figural motifs were an important component of many buildings in the Hellenistic world, and their frequent relegation to subsidiary status has, until now, left our knowledge of both Hellenistic architecture and sculpture incomplete. In "Hellenistic Architectural Sculpture," Pamela A. Webb examines the full range of figural embellishment from simple to complex, on large monuments as well as on more obscure ones, and in the major population centers as well as the smaller cities, sanctuaries, and isolated areas throughout western Anatolia and the Aegean islands.In this book, the first to focus specifically on the figural adornment of Hellenistic architecture, Webb provides extensive information about the chronology and interpretation of figural motifs adorning religious, civic, commercial, commemorative, and domestic constructions. She finds that figural sculptures adorn structures at every level from the ground to the roof, and display a wide variety of motifs on such architectural elements as columns, walls, entablatures, and pediments. More than 130 illustrations of Hellenistic monuments temples, altars, cult buildings, "heroa," theaters, "bouleuteria," "stoas," gymnasia, and houses and their sculptured adornment complement the author's descriptions and analyses. The book features an extensive bibliography, citing resources from the early nineteenth century to the most recent publications."


The last fifteen years has seen a proliferation of deregulation in transportation industries throughout the world; in the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan. While it is easy to view the European liberalisation of civil aviation as a latecomer to this trend, it takes place in by far the most difficult environment thus far. All previous deregulatory efforts have been solely domestic in nature. Even where trade between nations has been liberalised (such as in the North American Free Trade Agreement), transportation sectors have been explicitly excluded. While deregulation in individual countries has proceeded quickly, even though the various legislation provided for phased processes, the politics in Europe are likely to move the process along much more slowly. This expected sluggishness is due to two factors: the close association of the major European carriers with national governments, and differences in the competitive postures of these airlines. Historically, differences in competitive abilities of air carriers have led to restrictive competition rules. This is clearly evident in the unsuccessful attempts to reach a multilateral agreement on air transport at the I944 Chicago Convention. The United States with its large fleet of military transport aircraft, favoured a competitive 'open skies' international environment. Other industrialised countries, with their economies in near ruin, fearing that their aviation industries would be overwhelmed if they had to compete immediately with the American carriers, resisted. Less-developed countries, without any air transport at all, feared that they would be permanently excluded under an open skies policy. This failure to reach a multilateral agreement led to today's system of bilateral agreements, which specify the number of carriers, routes, capacities and fares for service between the two countries. Today, most countries have seventy or so of these agreements. This pattern of pursuing a pro-competitive multilateral agreement when possessing competitive advantage is also present among European countries. Those which have air carriers with high levels of productivity have pressed for such an agreement (British Airways and KLM). Those whose carriers are relatively poor performers have resisted (Alitalia, Iberia, Olympic). Even in the absence of differences in competitive advantage, countries will be reluctant to allow their national carriers to compete. Our discussion of European liberalisation begins with a description of the


The single-particle structure of nuclei remains a subject of considerable experimental and theoretical interest. Much of the information on this subject comes from experiments in which a nucleon is transferred to or from a given nucleus to make states of adjacent nuclei. Such data can be examined critically using sum rules, and the authors describe various non-energy-weighted sum rules for one-nucleon transfers and their applications. For completeness, they include a section on the analogous two-nucleon transfer sum rules. They show how exact spin-dependent sum rules can be used in informative analyses of one-nucleon transfer data on odd-mass nuclei, and how they can be combined with properties of nuclear structure to yield approximate sum rules applicable to a subset of the data.


In this work materials characterizing the appearance and development of influenza epidemic at the territories of the USSR and the Czech Socialist Republic are presented, the common features and differences of the epidemic process in both countries are recorded. The work shows that in both countries the appearance of this epidemic is caused by the same virus. In most cases the epidemic started earlier and lasted longer in the USSR, but morbidity rate during the epidemic was, on the whole, higher in the Czech Socialist Republic. Similarity in the course of the primary period of the epidemic processes from their appearance to their maximum rise was observed. In both countries the maximum rise of morbidity rate was registered on weeks 3-4 from the beginning of the epidemic.


The effects of feeding a high level of organic selenium on the level of selenium, antioxidative status of m. longissimus lumborum et thoracis (MLLT) and m. semimembranosus (MSM) and meat quality of pigs (defined on malignant hyperthermia status, DNA based test) were investigated. Treatments consisted in supplementation of organic selenium (0.3 mg Se/kg diet) for the last 97 days to finishing pigs (basic diet with 0.18 mg Se/kg diet) before slaughter. MLLT was further examined for pH (45 min, 24 h), colour and conductivity (24 h), drip loss (48 h) and myofibrillar fragmentation index (MFI, 5 days). Chemical composition (protein, intramuscular fat) was also estimated. Concentration of Se (spectrofluorometric method) and antioxidative status (rate of oxidation by stimulation with Fe2+/ascorbate, production of malondialdehyde – MDA) were estimated in muscle samples obtained post mortem. The level of selenium was more than twice higher (P < 0.05) in muscles from pigs treated with higher selenium than in controls (0.377 vs. 0.922 mg/kg – MLLT and 0.377 vs. 0.836 mg/kg – MSM). The rate of oxidation was positively (P < 0.05) influenced by Se supplementation. Tendencies to lower drip losses were observed in MLLT of pigs supplemented with Se but the differences were not significant (P > 0.05). We concluded that dietary organic Se supplementation (0.3 mg Se/kg diet) to basic diet (0.18 mg Se/kg diet) of finishing pigs significantly increased the selenium concentration and improved the antioxidative status of muscle tissue.


The default mode network (DMN) is thought to exhibit infraslow anticorrelated activity with dorsal attention (DAN) and salience (SN) networks across various behavioral states. To investigate the dynamics of activity across these networks on a finer timescale, we used human intracranial electroencephalography with simultaneous recordings within core nodes of the three networks. During attentional task performance, the three sites showed dissociable profiles of high-frequency broadband activity. Anticorrelated infraslow fluctuations of this activity were found across networks during task performance but also intermittently emerged during rest and sleep in concert with the expression of task-like network-level topographic patterns. Critically, on a finer timescale, DAN and SN activations preceded DMN deactivations by hundreds of milliseconds. Moreover, greater lagged, but not zero-lag, anticorrelation between DAN and DMN activity was associated with better attentional performance. These findings have implications for interpreting antagonistic network relationships and confirm the behavioral importance of time-lagged inter-network interactions.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose was to determine adherence of apparently healthy adults who joined an exercise program with a spouse (Married Pairs) vs. without a spouse (Married Singles). It was hypothesized that Married Pairs would have significantly higher adherence than Married Singles; and that self motivation would be associated with adherence.

EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Twelve month adherence of Married Pairs and Married Singles were compared to self motivation in a retrospective design.

SETTING
Subjects in this study did not volunteer for a scientific investigation, instead they were spontaneous participants in a university fitness program.

PARTICIPANTS
Married Pairs were 16 couples and Married Singles were 16 married men and 14 married women.

INTERVENTIONS
This study observed the 12 month spontaneous participation in a fitness program. The only intervention was the self motivation questionnaire.

MEASURES
Adherence was defined as monthly attendance, compliance to the exercise prescription, dropout, and reason(s) for dropout. Self motivation was also measured.

RESULTS
For Married Pairs, monthly attendance was significantly higher (54.2% +/- 10.3 vs 40.3% +/- 14.3) and dropout (6.3% vs 43.0%) was significantly lower than for Married Singles. Compliance to the exercise prescription was good for all of the groups except for the Married Single Men. Fifty percent of the dropouts left because of family responsibilities/lack of spousal support; 25% dropped-out to continue exercising on their own. Self motivation did not differ between Married Pairs and Married Singles. Monthly attendance of spouses in the Married Pairs demonstrated a significant correlation.

CONCLUSIONS
Married Pairs had significantly higher attendance and lower dropout than Married Singles which appeared to be primarily influenced by spousal support rather than by self motivation.


Lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer. A close monitor of in vivo tumor development may help to better understand the pathogenesis and pathological processes of this disease. A bimodal imaging strategy has been developed, which is a very important tool to investigate the growth and metastasis of lung adenocarcinoma. In the present study, we used a combined labeling strategy in p53RE-luc-A549 cells via transfecting the reporter gene EGFP. In order to unambiguously identify the growth and metastasis of transfected A549 tumor cells, we established and observed subcutaneous and orthotopic xenografts in nude mice by in vivo bioluminescence and fluorescence imaging, which was verified by our post-mortem histological analysis. In vivo bioluminescence signal was observed for the progression of both subcutaneous and orthotopic xenografts in EGFP-p53RE-luc-A549 cells; in vivo fluorescence was only observed for the growth of subcutaneous xenograft of EGFP-p53RE-luc-A549 cells. Moreover, EGFP-p53RE-luc-A549 cells allow for the improved identification of implanted cells within host tissue during histological analysis. In conclusion, we presented a combined labeling strategy for bimodal A549 cell imaging which leads to improved detection of cellular grafts.


The degree of semantic similarity between an anaphoric noun phrase (e.g., the bird) and its antecedent (e.g., a robin) is known to affect the anaphor resolution process, but the mechanisms that underlie this effect are not known. One proposal (Almor, 1999) is that semantic similarity triggers interference effects in working memory and makes two crucial assumptions: First, semantic similarity impairs working memory just as phonological similarity does (e.g., Baddeley, 1992), and, second, this impairment interferes with processes of sentence comprehension. We tested these assumptions in two experiments that compared recall accuracy between phonologically similar, semantically similar, and control words in sentence contexts. Our results do not provide support for Almor's claims: Phonological overlap decreased recall accuracy in sentence contexts, but semantic similarity did not. These results shed doubt on the idea that semantic interference in working memory is an underlying mechanism in anaphor resolution.


Immobilization techniques have been popularly used to preserve the operational stability of the enzymes for industrial applications. The three main components of an immobilized enzyme system are the enzyme, the matrix/support, and the technique of immobilization. So far different supports have been developed to improve the efficiency of the immobilized enzymes. But in the recent decade, nanotechnology has been considerable research interest in the field of immobilized enzyme carriers. The materials at the nano-scale due to their unique physicochemical properties including; specific surface area, mass transfer limitation, and effective enzyme loading, are considered as interesting matrices for enzyme immobilization. This review describes techniques employed to immobilize enzymes and provides an integrated focus on the most common nanoparticles for enzyme conjugation. Additionally, the pros and cons of nanoparticles as immobilization matrices are also discussed. Depending on the type of enzyme and its application, in this review, the researchers are directed to select an appropriate method and support for enzyme immobilization in terms of enzyme stability and functionality.


We present METRIC, an environment for determining memory inefficiencies by examining data traces. METRIC is designed to alter the performance behavior of applications that are mostly constrained by their latency to resolve memory references. We make four primary contributions. First, we present methods to extract partial data traces from running applications by observing their memory behavior via dynamic binary rewriting. Second, we present a methodology to represent partial data traces in constant space for regular references through a novel technique for online compression of reference streams. Third, we employ offline cache simulation to derive indications about memory performance bottlenecks from partial data traces. By exploiting summarized memory metrics, by-reference metrics as well as cache evictor information, we can pin-point the sources of performance problems. Fourth, we demonstrate the ability to derive opportunities for optimizations and assess their benefits in several experiments resulting in up to 40% lower miss ratios.


Wallacea is home to languages of the Austronesian language family, and to languages from multiple Papuan, or non-Austronesian, language families. It has long been observed that the Austronesian languages of Wallacea display Papuan influences. Some linguists have attempted to define linguistic Wallacea (albeit under other names) in terms of this hybridity. The present article however shows that the zone of Papuan influence on Austronesian languages is much wider than Wallacea, encompassing areas east as well as west of New Guinea. Within this wider zone, called here Linguistic Melanesia, a more restricted Wallacean linguistic area can nevertheless be identified as a subcategory defined by a set of specific features not found elsewhere in Linguistic Melanesia. There is evidence that Linguistic Wallacea is the result of prehistoric interactions between Austronesian migrants and a pre-existing population of seafaring Papuan agriculturalists, who were already well established in Wallacea before the Austronesians arrived.


Background The burden of poverty-related infectious diseases remains high in low- and middle-income countries, while noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are rapidly gaining importance. To address this dual disease burden, the KaziBantu project aims at improving and promoting health literacy as a means for a healthy and active lifestyle. The project implements a school-based health intervention package consisting of physical education, moving-to-music, and specific health and nutrition education lessons from the KaziKidz toolkit. It is complemented by the KaziHealth workplace health intervention program for teachers. Objectives The aim of the KaziBantu project is to assess the effect of a school-based health intervention package on risk factors for NCDs, health behaviors, and psychosocial health in primary school children in disadvantaged communities in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. In addition, we aim to test a workplace health intervention for teachers. Methods A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted in 8 schools. Approximately 1000 grade 4 to grade 6 school children, aged 9 to 13 years, and approximately 60 teachers will be recruited during a baseline survey in early 2019. For school children, the study is designed as a 36-week, cluster RCT (KaziKidz intervention), whereas for teachers, a 24-week intervention phase (KaziHealth intervention) is planned. The intervention program consists of 3 main components; namely, (1) KaziKidz and KaziHealth teaching material, (2) workshops, and (3) teacher coaches. After randomization, 4 of the 8 schools will receive the education program, whereas the other schools will serve as the control group. Intervention schools will be further randomized to the different combinations of 2 additional intervention components: teacher workshops and teacher coaching. Results This study builds on previous experience and will generate new evidence on health intervention responses to NCD risk factors in school settings as a decision tool for future controlled studies that will enable comparisons among marginalized communities between South African and other African settings. Conclusions The KaziKidz teaching material is a holistic educational and instructional tool designed for primary school teachers in low-resource settings, which is in line with South Africa's Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement. The ready-to-use lessons and assessments within KaziKidz should facilitate the use and implementation of the teaching material. Furthermore, the KaziHealth interventions should empower teachers to take care of their health through knowledge gains regarding disease risk factors, physical activity, fitness, psychosocial health, and nutrition indicators. Teachers as role models will be able to promote better health behaviors and encourage a healthy and active lifestyle for children at school. We conjecture that improved health and well-being increase teachers' productivity with trickle-down effects on the children they teach and train. Trial Registration International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN): 18485542; http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN18485542 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/14097