in order to improve the situation of road safety and energy conservation in urban area, reducing the parking number is taken as research content. Aiming at the vehicle make up of traffic flow, prediction model of travel time was built. Combined with the vehicles running status, real-time signal information at intersection and the data collected by detector, the optimal speed strategy in urban intersections was designed. Results of the emulation make clear that the strategy has a high accuracy rate, and provide efficient information. The strategy plays a certain role in releasing intersection confusion


Nowadays, due to the rapid development and wide deployment of handheld mobile devices, the mobile users begin to save their resources, access services, and run applications that are stored, deployed, and implemented in cloud computing which has huge storage space and massive computing capability with their mobile devices. However, the wireless channel is insecure and vulnerable to various attacks that pose a great threat to the transmission of sensitive data. Thus, the security mechanism of how the mobile devices and remote cloud server authenticate each other to create a secure session in mobile cloud computing environment has aroused the interest of researchers. In this paper, we propose an efficient and provably secure anonymous two-factor user authentication protocol for the mobile cloud computing environment. The proposed scheme not only provides mutual authentication between mobile devices and cloud computing but also fulfills the known security evaluation criteria. Moreover, utilization of ECC in our scheme reduces the computing cost for mobile devices that are computation capability limited and battery energy limited. In addition, the formal security proof is given to show that the proposed scheme is secure under random oracle model. Security analysis and performance comparisons indicate that the proposed scheme has reasonable computation cost and communication overhead at the mobile client side as well as the server side and is more efficient and more secure than the related competitive works.


Abstract : The research under this program has investigated problems associated with transporting regional-phase amplitude ratios, such as Pn/Sn or Pn/Lg ratios. The first study investigated the effect of sensor site effects on the variance of P/S ratios. Using multiple array recordings of groups of events in the same source region, we characterized the factors that contribute bias or the scatter of P/S ratio measurements, after correction for propagation path effects. The variance in the P/S ratio around regional arrays reveals the extent to which site affects cause variations in P/S ratios. The partitioning of the variance between source, path, and receivier effects was examined by analysis of variance (ANOVA). In the second study, we performed a statistical analysis of the transportability of P/S ratio discriminates using separability measures and optimum transformations in order to reduce dimensionality of multiple frequency P/S ratios. These transformations consist of calculating the intra-class, and inter-class scatter matrices for P/S ratio discrirminants and using the eigenvectors, corresponding to the largest eigenvalues of,the inter-class matrix to compute optimum transformation of discriminants that provide the best separation. We applied this analysis to distance-corrected,discriminants in different regions (e.g., China,'Eurasia, North A,merica) in order to compare discriminant effectiveness for different regions and to evaluate the transportability of optimum discriminant decision surfaces.


Finding correct corresponding points from more than one perspective views in stereo vision is subject to number of potential problems, such as occlusion, ambiguity, illuminative variations and radial distortions. A number of algorithms has been proposed to address the problems as well as the solutions, in the context of stereo correspondence estimation. The majority of them can be categorized into three broad classes i.e. local search algorithms (LA) L. Di Stefano (2004); T. S. Huang (1994); Wang et al. (2006), global search algorithms (GA) Y. Boykov & Zabih (2001); Scharstein & Szeliski (1998) and hierarchical iterative search algorithms (HA) A. Bhatti (2008); C. L. Zitnick (2000). The algorithms belonging to the LA class try to establish correspondences over locally defined regions within the image space. Correlations techniques are commonly employed to estimate the similarities between the stereo image pair using pixel intensities, sensitive to illuminative variations. LA perform well in the presence of rich textured areas but have tendency of relatively lower performance in the featureless regions. Furthermore, local search using correlation windows usually lead to poor performance across the boundaries of image regions. On the other hand, algorithms belonging to GA group deals with the stereo correspondence estimation as a global cost-function optimization problem. These algorithms usually do not perform local search but rather try to find a correspondence assignment that minimizes a global objective function. GA group algorithms are generally considered to possess better performance over the rest of the algorithms. Despite of the fact of their overall better performance, these algorithms are not free of shortcomings and are dependent on how well the cost function represents the relationship between the disparity and some of its properties like smoothness, regularity. Moreover, how close that cost function representation is to the real world scenarios. Furthermore, the smoothness parameters makes disparity map smooth everywhere which may lead to poor performance at image discontinuities. Another disadvantage of these algorithms is their computational complexity, which makes them unsuitable for real-time and close-to-realtime applications. Third group of algorithms uses the concept of multi-resolution analysis Mallat (1999) in addressing the problem of stereo correspondence. In multi-resolution analysis, as is obvious from the name, the input signal (image) is divided into different resolutions, i.e. scales and spaces Mallat (1999); A. Witkin & Kass (1987), before estimation of the correspondence. This group of algorithms do not explicitly state a global function that is to be minimized, but rather try to establishes correspondences in a hierarchical manner J. R. Bergen & Hingorani (1992); Q'ingxiong Yang & Nister (2006), similar to iterative optimization algorithms Daubechies (1992). Generally, stereo correspondences established in lower resolutions are propagated to higher resolutions in an 2


My new girlfriend and I had sex for the first time this weekend. Later in the evening, she was curious about something... "Where is that thing going???" she asked. She mentioned that full insertion was painful and she wanted to know what I was hitting, and "how far does it go?" Being admittedly a bit rusty on my knowledge of the anatomy of the female body, I told her that I thought it went no further than the "uvula" (whatever that is), but that I would do a little research, maybe see what I could get off the Net and get back to her.


We demonstrate that the data presented in the manuscript by Y. Roichman et al. are not sufficient to show that the circulation of a trapped particle exists in a static optical trap.


In just thirty years, we have gone from punched cards to Second Life. But, as the American National Science Foundation (NSF) recently noted, "undergraduate computing education today often looks much as it did several decades ago" (NSF, 2006). Consequently, today's "Nintendo Generation" have voted with their feet. We bore them. The contrast between the changes wrought via computer research over the last 30 years, and the failure of computing education to adapt to those changes, is because computing academics lead a double life. In our research lives we see ourselves as part of a community that reaches beyond our own university. We read literature, we attend conferences, we publish, and the cycle repeats, with community members building upon each other's work. But in our teaching lives we rarely discuss teaching beyond our own university, we are not guided by any teaching literature; instead we simply follow our instincts.
 Academics in computing, or in any other discipline, can approach their teaching as research into how novices become experts. Several recent multi-institutional research collaborations have studied the development of novice programmers. This paper describes some of the results from those collaborations.
 The separation of our teaching and research lives diminishes not just our teaching but also our research. The modern practice of stripping away all 'distractions' to maximize research output is like the practice of stripping away rainforest to grow beef -- both practices appear to work, for a little while, but not indefinitely. Twenty-first century academia needs to bring teaching and research together, to form a scholarship of computing that is an integrated, sustainable, ecological whole.


Escherichia coli is a highly adaptive bacterial species that is both a member of the commensal intestinal flora and a versatile pathogen associated with numerous types of intestinal and systemic infections in humans and other animals. The spectrum of diseases caused by E. coli is due to the acquisition of specific virulence genes harbored on plasmids, bacteriophages, or within distinct DNA segments termed pathogenicity islands (PAIs) that are absent from the genomes of commensal E. coli strains. PAIs are likely to have been transferred horizontally and may have integrated into the E. coli chromosome through bacteriophage or plasmid integration or transposition. The contribution of intergenic inheritance to the adaptation and evolution of E. coli, types of PAIs associated with different groups of pathogenic E. coli and approaches to identify unique sequence islands (USIs), some of which might confer pathogenicity, in E. coli and other bacteria are presented.


ABSTRACT The events industry is female-dominated numerically, yet men continue to occupy the majority of senior roles and positions of influence. A variety of factors contribute to this persistent glass ceiling, including shortage of female role models, lack of confidence, inflexible working hours and limited professional networks. Mentoring has been shown to begin to address some of these challenges women may face in progressing to senior positions. This paper reports on research conducted on a formal industry-wide mentoring programme for women that aims to pair female professionals with leading industry figures in a supportive, collaborative and focused programme of development activities. Drawing on data from 37 interviews with mentees on the programme, conducted over the course of one year, the article considers if and how mentoring can help empower women in the events industry to aim high and proactively advance their careers. Findings suggest that mentoring can have positive effects on women's confidence, ability to plan professionally and build supportive and enabling networks. The study shows the value of a structured, formal programme for mentoring activities and suggests that, although mentoring alone will not redress gender inequality in the events industry, it provides a valuable and effective mechanism for individual career development and empowerment.


Infectious diseases have led to illness and death for many famous musicians, from the classical period to the rock 'n' roll era. By the 20th century, as public health improved and orchestral composers began living more settled lives, infections among American and European musicians became less prominent. By mid-century, however, seminal jazz musicians famously pursued lifestyles characterized by drug and alcohol abuse. Among the consequences of this risky lifestyle were tuberculosis, syphilis, and chronic viral hepatitis. More contemporary rock musicians have experienced an epidemic of hepatitis C infection and HIV/AIDS related to intravenous drug use and promiscuity. Musical innovation is thus often accompanied by diseases of neglect and overindulgence, particularly infectious illnesses, although risky behavior and associated infectious illnesses tend to decrease as the style matures.


Most recently, with the proliferation of IoT devices, computational nodes in manufacturing systems IIoT(Industrial-Internet-of-things) and the lunch of 5G networks, there will be millions of connected devices generating a massive amount of data. In such an environment, the controlling systems need to be intelligent enough to deal with a vast amount of data to detect defects in a real-time process. Driven by such a need, artificial intelligence models such as deep learning have to be deployed into IIoT systems. However, learning and using deep learning models are computationally expensive, so an IoT device with limited computational power could not run such models. To tackle this issue, edge intelligence had emerged as a new paradigm towards running Artificial Intelligence models on edge devices. Although a considerable amount of studies have been proposed in this area, the research is still in the early stages. In this paper, we propose a novel edge-based multi-phase pruning pipelines to ensemble learning on IIoT devices. In the first phase, we generate a diverse ensemble of pruned models, then we apply integer quantisation, next we prune the generated ensemble using a clustering-based technique. Finally, we choose the best representative from each generated cluster to be deployed to a distributed IoT environment. On CIFAR-100 and CIFAR-10, our proposed approach was able to outperform the predictability levels of a baseline model (up to 7%), more importantly, the generated learners have small sizes (up to 90% reduction in the model size) that minimise the required computational capabilities to make an inference on the resource-constraint devices.


The actors, who consented to the success and effectiveness of an organization are always an essential aspect of the structure, robust operation and the rise of service output of the organization to end users / customers - internal (agency clerical staff) and external (public). Nowadays more and more apparent strong need for applying scientific methods to the in depth evaluation and measurement of quality of an organization. Believing that quality is inseparable from the sense of satisfaction, this work deals with the measurement of internal customer satisfaction with a local health units using multicriteria model. The first chapter refers to Social Security in Greece, analyzing the concept, its historical evolution, and all insurers. The second chapter then, is extensive reference to the Social Security Institute, in whose local branch was part of the research work. The third chapter in the quality of service efforts as well as the benefits of continuous improvement. The fourth chapter talks about the contribution of IT services quality in general and the important role that the insurance carrier IK.A. - ETAM. The fifth chapter refers to methods of improving the quality of health, stressing the need for TQM in the health sector. The sixth chapter discusses the concept of job satisfaction of internal customers and the importance of measuring internal customer satisfaction. The seventh chapter, is one of the most important methods of measuring satisfaction, the method MU.SA, which was used for the research part of this work. The eighth and final chapter, is hosting the research piece of work, the questionnaire used to learn useful information on the part of the evaluation of quality health services to reach useful conclusions - recommendations.


Four patients, including one preoperative patient, developed neurological deficits associated with angiographically proven cerebral vasospasm and were treated with intravascular volume expansion. Indicator dilution techniques were employed to monitor intravascular volume and cardiac functions during treatment. All four patients improved promptly. None of the patients developed cardiac or pulmonary dysfunction despite marked increase in intravascular volume and despite several risk factors such as cardiac symptoms, electrocardiographic abnormalities, and advanced age. The techniques of monitoring and controlling intravascular volume are described. We believe that this is an important therapeutic adjunct for certain aneurysm patients.


Marine ecosystem pollution is one of the important problems of today environment. In this study the existence of heavy metal in the Namrood River, situated in Firoozkooh in Tehran province, Iran has been investigated. The Namrood River is located near Firoozkooh route, and is affected by pollutant from tourist centers, entertainment, gas stations, nearby villages' sewage systems, farming effluent, and hatchery farms. In some areas, its water is heavily polluted possibly by heavy metals. After selecting two stations in upstream and downstream of the river, they were sampled three times in both cold and hot seasons of year (mid-March, and June) for Chironomidae, and Gammarus plux sediments. The measured heavy metals were cadmium and lead. The results showed that the concentration of cadmium in measured samples varied from 0.010-0.2033 ppm. The concentration of lead in samples varied from 0.11-2.16 ppm. The results also indicated that sediments of samples taken from the upper station in the cold season had a higher proportion of cadmium and a higher concentration of lead than sediments in the lower station during the hot season.


Trauma and fractures in mandibular symphysis are prevalent in our population. Surgical options used in this treatment are related to differences in osteosynthesis systems, anatomical implications, risk and cost; tridimensional plates (3D) as unique system, show a validated condition for application. this revision make an analysis of the recent studies and the application of the 3D plate in symphysis fracture.


We present an efficient method of utilizing pretrained language models, where we learn selective binary masks for pretrained weights in lieu of modifying them through finetuning. Extensive evaluations of masking BERT and RoBERTa on a series of NLP tasks show that our masking scheme yields performance comparable to finetuning, yet has a much smaller memory footprint when several tasks need to be inferred simultaneously. Through intrinsic evaluations, we show that representations computed by masked language models encode information necessary for solving downstream tasks. Analyzing the loss landscape, we show that masking and finetuning produce models that reside in minima that can be connected by a line segment with nearly constant test accuracy. This confirms that masking can be utilized as an efficient alternative to finetuning.


Sadler's (1981) analysis of how measured sedimentation rate decreases with timescale of measurement quantified the vanishingly small fractional time preservation—completeness—of the stratigraphic record. Generalized numerical models have shown that the Sadler effect can be recovered, through the action of erosional clipping and time removal (the "stratigraphic filter"), from even fairly simple topographic sequences. However, several lines of evidence suggest that most of the missing time has not been eroded out but rather represents periods of inactivity or stasis. Low temporal completeness could also imply that the stratigraphic record is dominated by rare, extreme events, but paleotransport estimates suggest that this is not generally the case: The stratigraphic record is strangely ordinary. It appears that the organization of the topography into a hierarchy of forms also organizes the deposition into concentrated events that tend to preserve relatively ordinary conditions, albeit for very short intervals. Our understanding of time preservation would benefit from insight about how inactivity is recorded in strata; better ways to constrain localized, short-term rates of deposition; and a new focus on integrated time–space dynamics of deposition and preservation.


Numerous studies have examined exposures to indoor combustion products such as secondhand smoke and emissions from burning of solid fuels. However, only a few have examined incense burning as a potential health threat, even though incense is commonly used for religious and ritual purposes in China, Taiwan, Singapore, India, and Middle Eastern nations.1,2 In this issue of EHP, investigators report an association between long-term incense use and increased cardiovascular mortality.1

Although the ritual use of incense is common around the world, few studies have investigated its impact on indoor air quality and human health.

The study used data from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, which enrolled a cohort of 63,257 Chinese adults aged 45–74 years between 1993 and 1998. The authors identified cardiovascular deaths of cohort members via a nationwide death registry, checking the registry yearly through 31 December 2011. They stratified their analysis for factors such as smoking history, education level, baseline history of cardiovascular disease, and gender. They also performed a sensitivity analysis to examine potential confounding by exposure to secondhand smoke.

More than three-quarters of the participants reported currently using incense, and another 13% were former users. Most had used incense daily for at least 20 years, typically keeping it burning intermittently throughout the day. The authors estimated that current long-term incense users had a 12% increased risk of cardiovascular mortality compared with former and never users, including a 19% increased risk for stroke and a 10% increased risk for coronary heart disease.1

Previous studies reported concentrations of volatile organic compounds and particulate matter in incense emissions similar to those in cigarette smoke.3,4 Others showed that long-term exposure to incense smoke increased blood vessel inflammation and affected blood flow in rats.5 In vitro studies have indicated adverse impact to human coronary6 and lung cells.4 But this is the first study to provide epidemiological evidence of effects at the population level resulting from habitual day-to-day burning of incense at home, says senior author Woon-Puay Koh, an epidemiologist at Duke–National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School.

"This study is of particular significance given that cardiovascular disease is one of the most common chronic diseases in the population worldwide," says Karin Yeatts, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has studied indoor air quality in the Middle East. In contrast with outdoor air pollution, incense exposure may be easier for an individual to avoid, but Yeatts says education will be needed to help people understand the risks of these exposures, similar to educational campaigns about cigarette smoking.

Limitations to the study include lack of information on the type of incense burned and the use of ventilation during incense burning. In addition, participants were asked about their incense exposure only once—during recruitment—and no data were available for nonfatal coronary heart disease or stroke. A strength of the study is the cohort study design, which provides evidence that the exposure of interest preceded the health outcome.

Koh published an earlier prospective study that found an association between incense use and upper respiratory cancer.7 Next she and her coauthors hope to look at cardiovascular risk biomarkers in relation to diseases such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension. It's also unclear why the estimated impact on stroke was greater than that on heart disease, says first author An Pan, an epidemiologist at the National University of Singapore. "That could be very interesting to look at in terms of future research."


Looking for the universal covering of the smooth non-commutative torus leads to a curve of associative multiplications on the space O M (R) ∼= OC(R ) of Laurent Schwartz which is smooth in the deformation parameter ~. The Taylor expansion in ~ leads to the formal Moyal star product. The non-commutative torus and this version of the Heisenberg plane are examples of smooth *-algebras: smooth in the sense of having many derivations. A tentative definition of this concept is given. Table of contents 0. Introduction 1. Smooth ∗-algebras 2. The non-commutative torus 3. The smooth Heisenberg algebra 4. Appendix: Calculus in infinite dimensions and convenient vector spaces 0. Introduction The noncommutative torus in its topological version (C-completion) as well as in its smooth version [6] is one of the most important examples in noncommutative geometry. Beside the fact that the classical tools of differential geometry have unambiguous generalizations to it, it provides a very nontrivial example of noncommutative geometry satisfying the axioms of [7] (see also in [8], [9]). We looked at its smooth version and asked for its universal covering. We found the Heisenberg plane as it is presented in this paper: a twisted convolution on a carefully chosen space of distributions, namely the topological dual space O M of the Schwartz space OM 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 46L87, 46L60.


Visualization in information retrieval (IR) is a rapidly emerging area in which human-computer interaction (HCI) is adapted to the design of interfaces for IR systems. There are numerous proposals for the development of new visual IR systems. In parallel with the advent of advanced software and hardware, the attempts to design visualization-based IR systems are stimulated with the promise that information visualization applies visual processing to abstract information. Under this rapid development in the research area, there are few attempts to conceptualize this new field of study. This paper intends to classify the works of visualization for IR system design in a systematic way, by providing a mosaic view of the emerging area of visualization in IR system design. The paper proposes a three-level approach to analyzing visualization in IR system design: (i) component level analysis, (ii) technique level analysis and (iii) interaction level analysis. This three-level approach helps us to understand the state of visualization for the design of IR systems in multiple ways. The three-level approach also enables us in further serious investigation in this emerging field that has been created by the intersection of visualization and IR, by allowing us to look at different layers of visualization in IR that have both technical and theoretical concerns.


Gas Insulated Lines (GIL) are considered an attractive alternative technology to overhead lines for transmission of high power over long distances. However, a key drawback is the use of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) as the main dielectric medium. SF6 is listed as a greenhouse gas with a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 23,500 times higher than CO2. As SF6 is widely used in the power industry, there are increasing research activities to find a cost-effective and technically viable alternative candidate with significantly lower environmental impact. This paper investigates the feasibility of replacing SF6 in high voltage equipment with a more environmentally friendly gas named C3F7CN. A reduced-scale coaxial prototype was developed which replicates the quasi-uniform electric fields as found in a full-scale GIL. The test samples were subjected to standard lightning impulse (1.2/50 μs) of both polarities. The results have shown that the mixture of 20% C3F7CN / 80% CO2 can reach a dielectric strength equivalent to 100% SF6 gas. In coaxial configurations, the positive lightning impulse breakdown voltage is in general higher than the negative polarity, especially at higher pressures. In conclusion, C3F7CN mixtures can be a potential candidate of replacing SF6 for insulation applications such as gas insulated lines and busbars which is an encouraging step towards a more environmentally friendly future transmission network.


Discussion of corporate governance is increasingly prevalent in an era of globalisation and a hyper-competition. China's corporate governance system is inevitably affected by these theories. This article uses path-dependence theory, to answer a neglected question of China's legal reform of corporate governance: why does this reform follow the approach of legal transplantation, despite the many problems caused by that approach. China's corporate governance shows two path-dependence characteristics, in that it is 'starting sensitive' and 'efficiency driven'. The latter includes sunk costs, learning effects, and network effects. These characteristics show that China's corporate governance has developed an intrinsic order system based on the path of transplantation. The causes of this include not only an eagerness to enhance the local competitiveness of the corporate governance model but also a large number of hidden factors. Any attempt to alter the resulting equilibrium is likely to lack efficiency.


Music criticism has a long tradition as a leading agent in the classical music discourse. However, some people question its function in the contemporary music market. We explored the topicality of classical music critique by asking: Who reads professional reviews today? And what do readers expect from review? Through an online survey (English/German), we profiled the listening habits of classical music listeners (N = 1200) and their engagement with professional reviews. Our participants were more actively engaged with music, but contrary to the 'highbrow' stereotype, not more highly musically trained than the general population. They consumed music and opinion sources in a variety of ways. Approximately two-thirds (n = 741) of the participants had recently engaged with professional reviews, which were perceived as the most useful form of opinion, followed by short written commentaries and, lastly, ratings. A multiple logistic regression model suggested that the typical consumer of professional music critique was older with higher levels of musical engagement and education, had a higher inclination to purchase music and lower usage of streaming services, and had a preference for detailed reviews from traditional sources (e.g. newspapers). According to review readers, reviews should cover a variety of topics and offer evaluations underpinned with reasons. Reviewers should be constructive, open-minded, respectful, and well informed; their professional background was less relevant. Professional reviews should not necessarily provide a recommendation on what to buy, but rather guide listeners' musical appreciation and understanding. Professional criticism still has an audience, although more so among older, musically educated listeners. Critics need to explore various channels in order to connect to a new generation of classical music listeners.


The focus of this paper is to review approaches for segmentation of breast regions in mammograms according to breast density. Studies based on density have been undertaken because of the relationship between breast cancer and density. Breast cancer usually occurs in the fibroglandular area of breast tissue, which appears bright on mammograms and is described as breast density. Most of the studies are focused on the classification methods for glandular tissue detection. Others highlighted on the segmentation methods for fibroglandular tissue, while few researchers performed segmentation of the breast anatomical regions based on density. There have also been works on the segmentation of other specific parts of breast regions such as either detection of nipple position, skin-air interface or pectoral muscles. The problems on the evaluation performance of the segmentation results in relation to ground truth are also discussed in this paper.


Purpose The clinical presentation and therapeutic outcomes of elderly patients may be different from those in younger populations, leading to additional diagnostic and therapeutic difficulties. The present study reviewed the findings on the epidemiology, and clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic outcomes of elderly patients with laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). Methods A PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Scopus literature search was conducted on the epidemiological, clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic findings of elderly LPR patients. Findings The prevalence of LPR in the elderly population remains unknown. From a clinical standpoint, older LPR patients report overall lower symptom scores and related quality-of-life outcomes at the time of the diagnosis. The required treatment time to obtain symptom relief appears to be longer in older compared with younger patients. Particular attention needs to be paid to prolonged medication use because the elderly population is characterized by polypharmacy and there is a higher risk of proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) interactions and adverse events. The plasma clearance of most PPIs is reduced with age, which must be considered by practitioners in the prescription of antireflux therapy. Conclusion The clinical presentation and treatment efficacy of elderly LPR patients differ from those in younger patients. Practitioners need to carefully consider the risk of drug interactions and adverse events in elderly patients.


When beef calves are weaned abruptly at 5 to 6 months of age this triggers a strong stress reaction, since the animals have not yet untied the bonds to their mothers or stopped suckling. This is displayed as extensive vocalization and restlessness. Attempts to diminish the negative effects of weaning on sucking calves have been showing varying results.

The study presented here emanates from the observation that when calves are weaned without human interference they are only prevented from suckling, but are still allowed to have social contacts with their mothers. The hypothesis was that calves weaned in two steps would be calmer, gain more weight, and be healthier than animals that were abruptly weaned. To investigate this, 15 calves where weaned in two stages (Group 2), by fitting the calves with nose tags that prevented them from suckling during 5 days prior to the separation of the cows and calves. These calves were compared with 15 calves that were abruptly weaned (Group 1).

The results showed that calves weaned in two stages vocalized significantly less (during the first two days after weaning 37.5 times less) compared to calves weaned abruptly. There was also a statistically significant difference with regard to their degree of activity, with the gradually weaned calves being calmer than the others. Especially during the first two days after weaning when the calves weaned abruptly spent 3,3 times more time on walking and took 3,5 times the number of steps as the calves weaned in two stages did. These findings indicate that the two step weaning procedure was less stressful for the calves than the method of abrupt weaning.

There was a significant difference in growth where the abruptly weaned calves ceased to gain weight during days 5 to 9, while the gradually weaned calves did not. However, the difference in total weight gain during the entire experimental period was not statistically significant.

There was no significant difference in body temperature. However, the number of times a body temperature equal to or above 39.5oC was registered in Group 2 was only around 70% of Group 1.

In conclusion, two step weaning with the aid of nose tags seems to be a good alternative to abrupt weaning since the calves weaned according to the alternative method kept calmer and didn't cease to gain weight compared to calves weaned abruptly. Moreover, the nose tags are cheap and can be used repeatedly after cleaning and disinfection.

Further studies with a larger number of calves are needed to establish whether there is a significant difference in weight gain or body temperature when comparing between the two methods of weaning.


Objective: This study aimed to determine the total phenolic content, correlation of it with antioxidant capacity, and peanut hulls as an antiproliferation on Henrietta Lacks (HeLa) cancer cells, which Indonesia has a serious problem in term of cervix cancer. Methods: Peanut hulls were extracted by Soxhlet extraction, ultrasound vibration, and reflux boiling to obtain the best extraction method. The total phenolic content of the ethanol extract and the ethyl acetate fraction was determined using Folin–Ciocalteu method. The 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay was used to evaluated an antioxidant capacity of both samples. Identification of the isolated flavone was done by ultraviolet spectra and analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer. Inhibition of proliferation of HeLa cancer cells was tested for the purified fraction using 3-(4,5-dimethyl thiazole-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Results: The results of total phenolic content determination giving 262 (ethanol extract) and 532 (ethyl acetate fraction) mg gallic acid equivalent/g extract, respectively. DPPH assay resulted antioxidant capacity with value of inhibitory concentration 50% (IC) was 36.36 (ethanol extract) and 18.68 (ethyl acetate fraction) µg/mL, respectively. Identification of isolated flavone resulted an apigenin and indicated moderate potency in inhibiting the proliferation of HeLa cancer cells with IC 50 value of 34 µg/mL. 50 Conclusions: There was a correlation between the total phenolics with antioxidant capacity of the peanut hulls. The isolated flavone is predominated by apigenin. This isolated compound is potential as antioxidant and inhibiting the proliferation of HeLa cancer cells moderately. Keywords: Peanut hulls, Total phenolic, Antioxidant capacity, Flavone, Apigenin, Henrietta Lacks cancer cells.


This paper aims to find out how media in different countries in the same part of a continent portray the latest development in the Korean conflict. To achieve this, the articles published by two newspapers, The Japan Times and The Korea Times, in the last five months have been analysed. The theory used to analyse the published articles is the agenda setting theory. This paper has found that geography, in the sense of proximity to the conflict, do affect what stories the newspapers publish and how they portray the story.


As indicated by the literature, leader behaviors, salient management practices (management by objectives and compensation practices), organizational structure, and organizational culture were chosen as the dimensions with the greatest impact on business/competitive strategy implementation. So as not to over-generalize, business level strategies were collapsed into two Ð retrenchment and growth. For similar reasons, the competitive strategy schema was simplified in such a way that competition only on the basis of price and innovation was retained. Informed by relevant literature and case studies, implementation guidelines were crafted that appear to have considerable practical utility.


Duplex stainless steel, 71 wt.% austenite, 13 wt.% ferrite and 16 wt.% sigma, was made upon heat treating of fully ferritic as-built selective laser melted (SLM) 2507 stainless steel at 1200 °C. Formation of sigma phase in the heat treated SLM 2507 was investigated using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The heat treated SLM 2507 demonstrated a yield strength of 686 MPa, ultimate tensile strength of 920 MPa and an elongation of 1.8% at room temperature with a brittle fracture morphology. Precipitation of sigma phase during heat treatment and slow cooling improved the mechanical and wear properties at high temperatures (1200 °C and 800 °C, respectively). The tensile strength and elongation of the heat treated SLM 2507 was measured 400 MPa and 20% as compared to casted duplex steel with 19 MPa and 30% elongation at 1200 °C. The 20 times higher mechanical strength as compared to casted duplex steel was attributed to sigma precipitates. Tribological behaviour of heat treated duplex SLM 2507 containing sigma at 800 °C showed very low wear rate of 4.5 × 10−5 mm3/mN compared to casted duplex steel with 1.6 × 10−4 mm3/mN.


The first half of this paper briefly describes the major achievements of the existing JT-60U machine, i.e., high-performance plasma with full noninductive current drive, long time sustainment of high-beta plasma, and real-time neoclassical tearing modes (NTM) suppression experiments. In addition, the ongoing minor modification of the pulse length prolongation for further enhancement of numerous plasma properties is mentioned. The second half describes the major modification program for the next generation full superconducting coil tokamak called JT-60SC. The object of JT-60SC is to help in the design of DEMO reactor which will improve the attractiveness of fusion power plants from the economical and environmental viewpoints. The present status of the machine design and major technological developments are also presented.


Prior to the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act last summer, derivatives and repurchase agreements ("repos") were largely unregulated outside of bankruptcy, and also were exempted from core bankruptcy provisions such as the automatic stay, which prevents creditors from seizing collateral or attempting to collect what they are owed. The Dodd-Frank Act now extensively regulates derivatives outside of bankruptcy, but it left their special treatment in bankruptcy completely untouched. There is a gap in the debate over this special treatment. To date, neither scholars nor the derivatives industry have fully analyzed the key counterfactual: what would happen if derivatives and repos were subject to the same treatment as other contracts? This Article tries to fill the gap, and to develop a more general theory about the importance of "transaction consistency" in the bankruptcy laws. Our findings are surprising. Contrary to the dire warnings of the repo industry, the effect of transaction consistency on repos would be limited, because repos would automatically be terminated as of the bankruptcy filing and thus could not be reinstated by the debtor. Derivatives have more at stake, but the nondebtor's right of setoff would reduce many of the adverse effects. We do not argue that the special treatment should simply be removed, however. Given the distinctive attributes of these contracts, we argue that repo lenders should be able to immediately sell some kinds of collateral and that the automatic stay should be limited to three days for derivatives. We also explain how transaction consistency can be integrated with the Dodd-Frank Act. We believe that that the reforms we propose would strongly enhance bankruptcy's efficacy, and make Dodd-Frank resolution unnecessary in all but the most extraordinary cases.


One of the most pressing debates in Nigeria today is on the continued retention, or removal, of the immunity clause enshrined in section 308 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Some scholars canvass for the removal of the immunity clause because its retention, they argue, appears ironic in view of the stance of the government to rid governance of corrupt practices, including misappropriation of public funds. Others have called for its retention while another set of scholars further ask that it be extended to the leadership of the National Assembly and the States Houses of Assembly. This latter group has said that the Senate President, the Deputy Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Deputy Speaker as well as the Speakers of the States Houses of Assembly and their Deputies should be granted immunity under the Constitution. This article discusses the immunity clause and its sphere, extent and limits as it relates to the officers protected, the arguments for and against its retention in the Constitution, as well as state practices in other jurisdictions.It concludes that it is expedient to retain the clause, but the call in some quarters to expand it to cover the leadership of the National Assembly and States Houses of Assembly is not viable. Keywords : Corruption, immunity, Constitution, sustainable development.


Background: Diastolic dysfunction has been reported in patients with COVID-19. Due to the role of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in the diagnosis of heart failure, this study investigated the relationship between serum NT-proBNP levels and diastolic heart failure in COVID-19 patients.Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed at Ayatollah Rouhani Hospital in Babol. Fifty-four patients with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis who were admitted to the ICU were included in the study. The primary outcome was the relationship and predictive role of NT-proBNP and diastolic heart failure in patients with severe SARS-COV-2 infection. Patients with pro BNP >125 pg/mL underwent echocardiography and the relationship between echocardiographic indices and NT-proBNP was assessed as a secondary outcome.Results: Our study showed that plasma NT-proBNP levels in patients with increased diastolic dysfunction were associated with disease severity. It was also found that the cut-off point of NT-proBNP = 799 pg/mL could be a predictor of diastolic dysfunction grades two and three. In this study, patients with a serum NT-proBNP level equal or above 799 had 37 times higher chance of having diastolic dysfunction than those with a serum NT-proBNP level below 799. Patients with NT-proBNP above 556 had RV_EA> 2 in echocardiography, indicating increased right-sided filling pressures.Conclusion: Despite the confounding factors in the interpretation of the pro BNP level in COVID-19, its level can be used to estimate the presence of high-grade diastolic heart failure on the left and right sides of the heart and the presence of high filling pressures. Lower levels of NT-proBNP are associated with right-sided diastolic failure.


The current study is concerned with the stability of and changes in vocational interest profiles and interest congruence in vocational education and training (VET). Specifically, we examined (1) the stability of vocational interest profiles, (2) the existence of occupational socialization effects that manifest themselves as increases in person-environment (P-E) congruence, and (3) the question of whether or not changes in P-E congruence are psychologically relevant because they are related to trainees' attitudes towards their VET course. We used data from a three-wave longitudinal sample comprising N = 2611 trainees from five different VET courses in Germany. Through the use of meta-analytical aggregation techniques, we were able to analyze interindividual differences in intraindividual interest stability and P-E congruence and to relate these differences to trainees' satisfaction with VET. On average, interest profiles turned out to be highly stable over the entire course of VET. However, we found substantial interindividual and intergroup differences in interest stability. Average P-E congruence increased slightly in two groups, providing only little evidence for the presumed socialization effects. Nevertheless, interindividual differences in P-E congruence and changes in P-E congruence were psychologically relevant because they were linked to trainees' satisfaction with their VET course and changes therein.


Leadership is fundamentally important for improving public sector performance, but the existing literature has severe endogeneity problems. Using a field experiment with 720 Danish leaders and 23.000 employees, the LEAP (Leadership and Performance) project will try to overcome these problems. We use a field experiment to study the effects of leadership training and leadership strategies on organizational performance. The research question is how leadership training affect leadership strategies, and how these strategies affect performance? This paper takes three steps towards answering this question. First, we discuss the conceptualization of leadership strategies. Second, we present our research design and clarify how we expect the leadership training to affect leadership strategies. Third, we discuss briefly how we measure the key concepts: Leadership and performance. Our aim is to develop stronger conceptualizations and operationalizations of transformational and transactional leadership strategies which do not confound leadership strategies with their effects. It is also important to understand how leadership strategies might have different effect in different settings and for different performance measures. Finally, developing leadership training programs to accommodate the problem of causality is also a very important task. Paper presented on the IRPSM conference in Ottawa 9-12 April 2014.


Patients with chronic kidney disease, patients on dialysis, and kidney transplant recipients are at high risk of mortality and morbidity due to coronavirus disease-19. Most patients with chronic kidney disease are elderly and have other comorbidities. In addition, some of these patients have been exposed to immunosuppressive drugs to treat their underlying primary disease or to prevent allograft rejection. This general profile of chronic kidney disease patients renders them susceptible to a more severe course of coronavirus disease-19 once they are infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Many studies showed that impaired kidney function on admission is an independent risk factor for a more severe course of coronavirus disease-19 with significantly increased risk for hospital and intensive care unit admission, intubation, mechanical ventilation, and death. Coronavirus disease-19 vaccination is crucial to create immunity in the general community, but the evidence addressing this specific population is scarce. However, based on the current evidence, all patients with chronic kidney disease are strongly recommended to receive the available vaccine in their country against coronavirus disease-19, and booster doses will presumably prove necessary for this group of patients. Furthermore, vigilant use of protective measures is strongly recommended for this patient population. Current studies and recommendations from health authorities should be followed closely.


Abstract There is significant interest in the potential of Internet-delivered pain management programs for adults with chronic pain. Understanding the characteristics of people who do and do not benefit from Internet-delivered programs will help to guide their safe and effective use. Using a large sample from a previous randomised controlled trial of an established Internet-delivered pain management program, the Pain Course, this study (n = 463) examined whether several demographic, clinical, psychological, and treatment-related variables could be used to predict clinical response in levels of disability, depression, anxiety, or average pain. Multiple univariate and multivariate stepwise logistic regressions were used to identify unique predictors of clinical improvement, which, consistent with recommendations, was defined as a ≥30% reduction in symptoms or difficulties from baseline. Several unique predictors of clinical improvement were found. However, no particularly decisive or dominant predictors emerged that were common across time points or across the outcome domains. Reflecting this, the identified predictors explained only 18.1%, 13.7%, 7.6%, and 9.5% of the variance in the likelihood of making a clinical improvement in disability, depression, anxiety, and average pain levels, respectively. The current findings suggest that a broad range of patients may benefit from emerging Internet-delivered pain management programs and that it may not be possible to predict who will or will not benefit on the basis of patients' demographic, clinical, and psychological characteristics.


Development of the characterization tools and techniques used by semi-conductor industry directs not only towards increasing of the instrumental precision, to push limits of the optical characterization methods to the smallest lines, but also towards a decreased dependency of the used tools on the tool-to-tool calibration procedures. The challenge approached in this work is to use multiple independent optical configurations to determine overall accuracy of the results with minimal or no assistance of the other non-optical methods. The approach presented here is based on a well-known change of sensitivity of the optical model parameters at the different azimuthal measurement configurations. The full potential of this method can only be unlocked using complete Mueller matrix measurements providing complete information on the anisotropic nature of the gratings. The measurements at multiple azimuth configurations, used in this work, illustrate the potential of the method on the experimental data provided by the angle-resolved and spectrally resolved Mueller matrix polarimetric tools. The results are consistent with the single-line AFM measurements used as an independent reference.


The brain is one of the most energy-consuming organs in the body. Satisfying such energy demand requires compartmentalized, cell-specific metabolic processes, known to be complementary and intimately coupled. Thus, the brain relies on thoroughly orchestrated energy-obtaining agents, processes and molecular features, such as the neurovascular unit, the astrocyte–neuron metabolic coupling, and the cellular distribution of energy substrate transporters. Importantly, early features of the aging process are determined by the progressive perturbation of certain processes responsible for adequate brain energy supply, resulting in brain hypometabolism. These age-related brain energy alterations are further worsened during the prodromal stages of neurodegenerative diseases, namely Alzheimer's disease (AD), preceding the onset of clinical symptoms, and are anatomically and functionally associated with the loss of cognitive abilities. Here, we focus on concrete neuroenergetic features such as the brain's fueling by glucose and lactate, the transporters and vascular system guaranteeing its supply, and the metabolic interactions between astrocytes and neurons, and on its neurodegenerative-related disruption. We sought to review the principles underlying the metabolic dimension of healthy and AD brains, and suggest that the integration of these concepts in the preventive, diagnostic and treatment strategies for AD is key to improving the precision of these interventions.


We measure pseudospectral and peak ground motions from 44 intermediate‐depth Mw≥4.9 earthquakes in the Cook Inlet region of southern Alaska, including those from the 2018 Mw 7.1 earthquake near Anchorage, to identify regional amplification features (0.1–5  s period). Ground‐motion residuals are computed with respect to an empirical ground‐motion model for intraslab subduction earthquakes, and we compute bias, between‐, and within‐event terms through a linear mixed‐effects regression. Between‐event residuals are analyzed to assess the relative source characteristics of the Cook Inlet earthquakes and suggest a difference in the scaling of the source with depth, relative to global observations. The within‐event residuals are analyzed to investigate regional amplification, and various spatial patterns manifest, including correlations of amplification with depth of the Cook Inlet basin and varying amplifications east and west of the center of the basin. Three earthquake clusters are analyzed separately and indicate spatial amplification patterns that depend on source location and exhibit variations in the depth scaling of long‐period basin amplification. The observations inform future seismic hazard modeling efforts in the Cook Inlet region. More broadly, they suggest a greater complexity of basin and regional amplification than is currently used in seismic hazard analyses.


In the recent operation of blast furnace, it is supposed that high gas permeability of burden is important for low RAR and high PCR operation. In this work, sinter quality for improvement in gas permeability of blast furnace was investigated with reduction degradation and under-load-reduction tests. As the results, the reduction degradation of sinter is deteriorated by increasing H2 concentration in the reduction gas under the condition of below 3.8 vol% H2. However, over 3.8 vol% H2, increase of H2 has no effect on the reduction degradation because the diffusion of reduction gas in the sinter is limited. On the other hand, from the under-load-reduction test, there is possibility that increase in H2 concentration of reduction gas and decrease in slag ratio in sinter are effective to improve gas permeability of lower part of blast furnace rather than reducibility of sinter. Due to adoption of these experimental results to a 2-dimentional mathematical simulation model, the precision of pressure drop calculation of blast furnace was improved. It is considered from the evaluation by this model calculation that the RDI, a slag ratio and the slag viscosity as the sinter properties are greatly influence on the permeability of blast furnace.


Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to explicate how connectedness of relationships results in varying value potentials of triads.

Design/methodology/approach

First connectedness is re-described as an actor-perceived and actor-interpreted phenomenon. The re-description is used to theorize the triad value function. Next, the applicability and validity of the concept is examined in a case study of four closed vertical supply chain triads.

Findings

The case study demonstrates that the triad value function facilitates the analysis and understanding of an apparent paradox; that distributors are not dis-intermediated in spite of their limited contribution to activities in the triads. The results indicate practical adequacy of the triad value function.

Research limitations/implications

The triad value function is difficult to apply in the study of expanded networks as the number of connections expands exponentially with the number of ties in the network. Moreover, it must be applied in the study of service triads and open vertical supply chain triads to further verify the practical adequacy of the concept.

Practical implications

The triad value function cannot be used normatively or prescriptively. It is a descriptive tool which indirectly supports managerial decision-making through the analysis of how the structural context of a triad influences the value of relationships.

Originality/value

The paper offers an additional aspect for the study of value in and of triads. It illustrates that perceived connectedness of relationships operates as a triad value function, which captures the structural value potential of the triad for a focal actor.


The precise control of spindle microtubule (MT) dynamics is essential for chromosome capture and alignment. Kif18A/kinesin-8, an essential regulator of kinetochore MT dynamics, accumulates at its plus-ends in metaphase but not prometaphase cells. The underlying mechanism of time-dependent and kinetochore MT-specific plus-end accumulation of Kif18A is unknown. Here, we examined the factors required for the MT plus-end accumulation of Kif18A. In Eg5 inhibitor-treated cells, Kif18A localized along the MTs in the monopolar spindle and rarely accumulated at their plus-ends, indicating that MT-kinetochore association was not sufficient to induce Kif18A accumulation. In contrast, taxol treatment triggered the rapid MT plus-end accumulation of Kif18A regardless of kinetochore association. Furthermore, Aurora B inhibitor-induced stabilization of the plus-ends of kinetochore MTs promoted the plus-end accumulation of Kif18A. In the absence of Kif18A, treatment with taxol but not Eg5 inhibitor causes highly elongated mitotic MTs, suggesting the importance of plus-end accumulation for the MT length-controlling activity of Kif18A. Taken together, we propose that there is a mutual regulation of kinetochore MT plus-end dynamics and Kif18A accumulation, which may contribute to the highly regulated and ordered changes in kinetochore MT dynamics during chromosome congression and oscillation.


Transient receptor potential melastatin 8 (TRPM8) functions in the sensing of noxious and innocuous colds; however, its significance in pathogen-induced thermoregulation and inflammation remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the role of TRPM8 in the regulation of endotoxin-induced body temperature control and inflammation. The peripheral administration of low-dose LPS or zymosan generated fever in wild-type (WT) mice and hypothermia in TRPM8 knockout (KO) animals. TRPM8 KO mice exhibited severe hypothermia and sickness responses following the peripheral administration of high-dose LPS. An intracerebroventricular injection of LPS and interleukin-1ß (Il-1ß) elicited hypothermia in TRPM8 KO mice, in contrast to fever in WT animals, whereas that of prostaglandin E2 induced normal fever. Fos immunohistochemistry showed the stronger activation of hypothalamic thermoregulation-associated nuclei following the peripheral administration of low-dose LPS. Therefore, TRPM8 is necessary for switching between fever and hypothermia during endotoxin-induced inflammation.


The experiment was conducted to determine the effect of different levels of dietary methionine on carcass characteristics of finisher cockerels. 500 day old cockerels were reared together initially for 7 weeks and at 8 weeks of age, they were assigned to 8 dietary groups or different methionine levels. Weights of the birds were taken at the beginning and end of the experiment. In the 16th week, the birds were slaughtered to determine various carcass measurements. Results indicated that daily weight gain was significantly (P < 0.05) affected by dietary treatments. The daily weight gain increased with increasing level or dietary methionine until it was optimised at 0.37% level. The dressing percentage and most other cut up parts (Drumstick, Thigh, Neck, Back, Breast, Wing) were significantly (P < 0.05) different. Although significant differences were observed for most organs (expect spleen), gut and comb measured, these were not however consistent with dietary treatments. Keywords: Cockerels, Methionine, Carcass characteristics


Deformable image registration, i.e., the task of aligning multiple images into one coordinate system by non-linear transformation, serves as an essential preprocessing step for neuroimaging data. Recent research on deformable image registration is mainly focused on improving the registration accuracy using multi-stage alignment methods, where the source image is repeatedly deformed in stages by a same neural network until it is well-aligned with the target image. Conventional methods for multi-stage registration can often blur the source image as the pixel/voxel values are repeatedly interpolated from the image generated by the previous stage. However, maintaining image quality such as sharpness during image registration is crucial to medical data analysis. In this paper, we study the problem of anti-blur deformable image registration and propose a novel solution, called Anti-Blur Network (ABN), for multi-stage image registration. Specifically, we use a pair of short-term registration and long-term memory networks to learn the nonlinear deformations at each stage, where the short-term registration network learns how to improve the registration accuracy incrementally and the long-term memory network combines all the previous deformations to allow an interpolation to perform on the raw image directly and preserve image sharpness. Extensive experiments on both natural and medical image datasets demonstrated that ABN can accurately register images while preserving their sharpness.


Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes inflammation and ulcers in the colon. The disease is a type of colitis, which is a group of diseases that cause inflammation of the colon, the largest section of the large intestine, either in segments or completely. The main symptom of this active disease is diarrhea mixed with blood. In Ayurveda, it can be compared with a disease Pravahika characterized by Atidrava Mala Pravrutti with Rakta. A 30 year old female patient reported to the out patient Department of Panchakarma, NIA, Jaipur, with the complaints of frequent loose, watery, frothy, and foul-smelling stool stained with mucous and blood. Other associated complaints were reduced appetite, distension and pain in the abdomen, weakness, heat intolerance, reduced sleep, and headache. The patient was diagnosed as IBD consistent with UC. A combination of Nagarmotha(Cyperus rotundus L.) 2 g, Indrayava(Holarrhena antidysenterica (L.) Wall.) 1 g, Nagakeshara(Mesua ferrea L.) 1 g, Madhuyashti(Glycyrrhiza glabra L.) 1 g, and Amalaki(Emblica officinalis Gaertn.) 1 g powders three times a day, along with Dadimashtaka Choorna 3 g with Shankha Bhasma 500mg three times a day, Mustarista 2 tsp three times a day after food, and Dhanyapanchaka Kvatha 20ml two times a day before food was administered for 2months. After the 2-month treatment, a significant response in various symptoms such as frequent defecation, abdomen distension, headache, heat intolerance, and reduced sleep was found.


Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women, primarily due to metastatic disease rather than the primary tumor. Median survival with metastatic breast cancer is 3 years, with no statistically significant change in survival in over 20 years. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) lacks estrogen and progesterone receptor expression and ERBB2 amplification and is the most lethal form of breast cancer. It is resistant to endocrine therapy and chemo-resistance and metastasis invariably emerge. Increasing evidence indicates that cancer stem cells (CSCs) are chemo-resistant and initiate metastasis. We have previously identified and characterized distinct subsets of CSCs within TNBC cell lines and patient-derived tumors. Within the surface CD44+ populations, CD24 expression defines two subsets of CSCs: mesenchymal-like CD24neg and epithelial-like CD24low+. Epithelial-like CD24low+ cells are more aggressive than CD24neg cells, with increased self-renewal, migration, invasion, tumor-initiation and metastatic potential. In addition, CD24low+ cells are enriched following chemo- and radiation therapies; greater than 80% of CD24neg cells die and the majority of cells that survive are CD24low+. Hence, therapies that selectively eliminate the CD24low+ population in TNBC have the potential to be of enormous benefit to cancer patients. Therapeutic targeting of surface CD24 using antibodies have not been successful due to the expression of CD24 on many different cell types including B cells. Thus, there is a need for more selective strategies to target CSC populations without affecting normal cells. Here, we show for the first time, increased expression of a family of cancer/testis antigens (CTAs) namely SPANX in the most aggressive CD24low+ CSC population. CTAs belong to a class of testis-derived proteins which are only expressed in germ cells in the male testis, and the expression of CTA genes is entirely silenced in the adult somatic tissues. Thus, SPANX may serve as a selective marker for targeting CSCs. In addition, we demonstrate a functional role for SPANX in mediating CSC phenotype. Knockdown of SPANX decreased the percent of CD24low+ CSCs in TNBCs. It also attenuated the proliferation, migration and invasion of CD24low+ cells. Radiation treatment increased SPANX expression levels and enriched for CD24low+ cells. Loss of SPANX resulted in increased cell death of CD24low+ cells after radiation treatment. Hence, we show that SPANX may be promoters of the most aggressive CSC subset of TNBC. Since SPANX is highly immunogenic, our data provide rationale for further testing of combined radiation and immunotherapy approaches in the treatment of this deadly cancer. It also supports the use of protective and therapeutic SPANX vaccines against the most aggressive CSC subset in TNBC. Citation Format: Lauren Shahin, Elena Cubedo, Ebony Coats, Jeff Boyd, Diana Azzam. The role of immunogenic SPANX antigens in distinct cancer stem cell subsets within triple negative breast cancers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1906. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-1906


In Web based applications, Recommender systems have become fundamental information access system. They effectively prune large information spaces which provide appropriate decision making and suggestions, so that the users are directed towards those web pages that best meet their needs, preferences and interests. In web-based context, this can be achieved by basic rough set model and collaborative filtering techniques in decision making of the web pages. The recommender system can be implemented based on two types of techniques which are content based filtering and collaborative filtering. Content based filtering constructs a recommendation on basis of user's behavior (historical browsing information) and collaborative filtering uses group knowledge to form a recommendation based on like users. Sparsity, the cold-start problem, fraud are main challenges in recommender system.This paper proposes recommendations to the user that varies from one user to another user which is based on the user's profile. (For example, for a search with same keyword a student will be suggested differently compared to a scholar or a teacher).The abstract should state the purpose, approach, results and conclusions of the work.  The author should assume that the reader has some knowledge of the subject but has not read the paper. Thus, the abstract should be intelligible and complete in it-self (no numerical references); it should not cite figures, tables, or sections of the paper. The abstract should be written using third person instead of first person.


TLRs play a central role in the innate recognition of pathogens and the activation of dendritic cells (DCs). In this study, we establish that, in addition to TLR11, TLR12 recognizes the profilin protein of the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii and regulates IL-12 production by DCs in response to the parasite. Similar to TLR11, TLR12 is an endolysosomal innate immune receptor that colocalizes and interacts with UNC93B1. Biochemical experiments revealed that TLR11 and TLR12 directly bind to T. gondii profilin and are capable of forming a heterodimer complex. We also establish that the transcription factor IFN regulatory factor 8, not NF-κB, plays a central role in the regulation of the TLR11- and TLR12-dependent IL-12 response of DCs. These results suggest a central role for IFN regulatory factor 8–expressing CD8+ DCs in governing the TLR11- and TLR12-mediated host defense against T. gondii.


In this work, corrosion behaviour of zinc-based alloys with addition of 0.5%, 1%, and 2% of zirconium for biodegradable material as orthopaedic implant were investigated. The potentiodynamic polarization method is carried out to determine the corrosion resistance and corrosion rate of each composition in order to observe the effect of zirconium addition in a Kokubo simulated body fluid solution. The result showed that the addition of 0.5% and 1% of zirconium would decrease the corrosion rate of Zn-xZr alloys corresponding to 0.079 mm/year and 0.116 mm/year whereas the 2% addition would increase the rate to 0.188 mm/year due to the formation of Zr-rich precipitates inside the alloys. The passivation zone on the polarization curve showed the formation of the protected thin layer on the surface of the alloys which caused the corrosion rate to decrease, therefore confirmed the degradable ability of the Zn-xZr alloys. In general, the corrosion rates of Zn-xZr alloys were higher than Fe-based alloys and lower than Mg-based alloys. Moreover, the corrosion rates were much lower than the maximum rate of 0.4 mm/year for biodegradable implants so Zn-xZr alloys were suitable as biodegradable material implant for orthopaedic application.


Let F_q be the finite field with q elements. Consider the standard embedding GL(n,F_q) -> GL(n+1,F_q). In this paper we prove that for every irreducible representation pi of GL(n+1,F_q) over algebraically closed fields of characteristic different from 2 we have dim\pi^GL(n,F_q)<=2.
To do that we define a property of weak Gelfand pair and prove a generalization of Gelfand trick for weak Gelfand pairs, using the anti-involution transpose to get the result for GL(n+1,F_q),GL(n,F_q). In a similar manner we show that for q not a power of 2 O(n+1,F_q),O(n,F_q) is a Gelfand pair over algebraically closed fields of characteristic different from 2.


This study has been made to characterize the plastically subsurface layer after orthogonal cutting of on high grade Ti-5N unalloyed titanium with a mean grain size of about 0.5 to 1.8mm. A home-made sample holder has been specially developed for these experiments and SEM EBSD technique is used to characterized the subsurface layer. In function of the cutting conditions, we have found in subsurface glide (when the cutting speed is low) and when the cutting speed is high some compression twins but also some tension twins which indicated that we have tensile stress state ahead of the tool tip.


The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of patriotism and spirituality in modern Russian youth. The appeal to the Russian history, promotion of national spiritual values, achievements and victories, opinions of Russian great people, representing its national pride play an important role in solving this problem. Author marks the need to strengthen the ideological education of youth, emphasizes the significance of positive hero, spiritual ideal in the media. In this article author relies on the rich spiritual heritage of the Russian philosophers abroad after October, paying particular attention to the spiritual and moral judgments of I.A. Ilyin.


We report a strategy for the employment of highly unstabilized anions in palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylations (AAA). The "hard" 2-methylpyridyl nucleophiles studied are first reacted in situ with BF3.OEt2; subsequent deprotonation of the resulting complexes with LiHMDS affords "soft" anions that are competent nucleophiles in AAA reactions. The reaction is selective for the 2-position of methylpyridines and tolerates bulky aryl and alkyl substitution at the 3-, 4-, and 5-positions. Investigations into the reaction mechanism demonstrate that the configuration of the allylic stereocenter is retained, consistent with the canonical outer sphere mechanism invoked for palladium-catalyzed allylic substitution processes of stabilized anions.


Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death in chronic renal failure (CRF) patients managed by dialysis or kidney transplantation. Whilst the use of human growth hormone (hGH) is of established benefit in CRF children particularly in those with short stature, in the present study we assessed in CRF children the effect of hGH treatment on circulating lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], a genetically determined cardiovascular risk factor. We studied 15 CRF children treated by dialysis or conventional therapy and after kidney transplantation. Overnight fasting blood samples were collected immediately before and after 6 months hGH treatment. In all but one of the children there was a significant increase in serum Lp(a) over the 6 month treatment period -(+)66.7% over the basal levels (range 14 to 180%). After the hGH treatment, in six children Lp(a) levels were elevated to above 300 mg/l, the cut-off level for increased coronary artery disease (CAD) risk. Concomitantly/children also had an increase in serum levels of IGF-I (+96.4%) and insulin (+85.8%). All children had an accelerated growth velocity during the treatment; there was no effect on serum creatinine. Our study shows that hGH treatment in CRF children, though beneficial in its growth promoting effects, increases the already characteristically high levels of serum Lp(a), a risk factor for CAD, and that serum Lp(a) monitoring during treatment with hGH may be useful in evaluating future cardiovascular risk.


The Legal Information Institute (LII, Cornell), to commemorate its 25th anniversary, commissioned 25 contributions to its '25 for 25' series in the VOXPOPULII blog. This is the 4th in the series.
This short article is, as requested, on the theme "Here's what we *thought* we were doing, and here's what it really turned into", as applied to the formation of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) in 1995.
It discusses 13 objectives or principles that we thought we were implementing in 1995, as evidenced by our contemporaneous actions or publications, and whether they have turned out to be either achievable or a good idea.
The article also discusses some environmental factors which contributed to AustLII's success, and some examples of developments in free access to legal information which we did we not imagine, back in 1995. Every free access to law provider has a different story to tell, with different challenges to overcome in environments typically much more difficult than Australia.


In this paper, we propose an accurate non-contact pose estimation method for the pose of a remote target in the earth coordinate frame using a mobile phone equipped with a camera and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Under the Manhattan world assumption, we first estimate the relative pose between the target and the camera using an existing line-based pose estimation method and then seek the target's pose in the earth frame by combining the visual pose and the IMU orientation. To improve the overall estimation accuracy, we propose a new camera-IMU relative pose calibration method, where we take the different stochastic nature the accelerometer and magnetometer measurements into consideration, and propose a new a consistency measure defined on elevation and azimuth angles. When compared to state-of-the-art methods, it demonstrates strong advantage on both elevation and azimuth estimation accuracy while featuring convenient calibration setting-up. We also report the improved overall pose estimation accuracy based on evaluations on a real-world dataset using our method, in contrast to an uncalibrated phone.


Here a development of an Acoustic and Language Model is presented. Low Word Error Rate is an early good sign of a good Language and Acoustic Model. Although there are still parameters other than Words Error Rate, our work focused on building Bahasa Indonesia with approximately 2000 common words and achieved the minimum threshold of 25% Word Error Rate. There were several experiments consist of different cases, training data, and testing data with Word Error Rate and Testing Ratio as the main comparison. The language and acoustic model were built using Sphinx4 from Carnegie Mellon University using Hidden Markov Model for the acoustic model and ARPA Model for the language model. The models configurations, which are Beam Width and Force Alignment, directly correlates with Word Error Rate. The configurations were set to 1e-80 for Beam Width and 1e-60 for Force Alignment to prevent underfitting or overfitting of the acoustic model. The goals of this research are to build continuous speech recognition in Bahasa Indonesia which has low Word Error Rate and to determine the optimum numbers of training and testing data which minimize the Word Error Rate. Keywords— Acoustic Model; Language Model; Speech Recognition; Word Error Rate


Fish sauce is popular for fermenting food in Southeast and Eastern Asia, while black bean is used to ferment condiments in Taiwan. Researchers have recently investigated the use of fish and black bean sauce in places where combining both fish and black bean is rare. This study was focused on fish sauce made from concentrated tuna cooking juice mixed with black bean koji. The experiment was divided into two stages. In the pre-fermentation stage, a suitable fermentation time with no salt added was determined. In the later fermentation stage, two preformatted samples of 4 and 7 days were added to salt water at 20 °Bé. In the pre-fermentation stage, the results show that the protease activity increased as time passed, but the pH value decreased. The highest browning degree was achieved after 120 days. In the later fermentation period, the total nitrogen contents for both experimental groups of 4 days and 7 days reached up to twice that of soy sauce. The total nitrogen content increased with time. In addition, the level of ammonia nitrogen increased from 0.08 to 0.15 g/dL in the first month. In conclusion, a new flavor of fermented sauce was produced in a shorter time and more effectively by combining tuna cooking juice and black bean.


Market saturation due to increasing competition among celluler operators
and the number of celluler customers who are already more than half the
population of Indonesia caused a decline in customer growth and profitability of
each celluler operator. It is also experienced by Telkomsel especially for simPATI
brand as a market leader in this sector. Obtaining a high profitability in the
company, need any effort to improve customer retention due to customer retention
is key of profitability. In this study, the author used customer satisfaction,
switching costs, and trust in brand as an independent variable to be studied how
they affect customer retention.
After doing a literature review and hypothesis formulation, data is
obtained by spreading questionnaires to 100 customers of simPATI in Semarang
city using purposive sampling, and then data is analyzed quantitatively and
qualitatively. Quantitative analysis covers some matters; they are validity and
reliability examinations, classic assumption examination, analysis multiple
regression, and hypothesis examination. The hypothesis examination is done
through t and F test, and coefficient of determination (R2). Qualitative analysis is
the interpretation of the data got from the research and the result of data
tabulation which have been done by giving information and explanation.
The result of this study shows that coefficient of determination in
Adjusted R Square is 0.630, which means that 63% customer retention effect can
be explained by three independent variables in this study that are customer
satisfaction, switching costs, and trust in the brand, and the rest 37% can be
explained by other variables outside the model of this study. Partially based on
the results of t test, variables in this study has a positive effect and significant in
which customer satisfaction has the greatest influence than other variables in this
study, whereas switching costs has the lowest one. Based on F test results
indicate that simultaneously, variables in this study that are customer
satisfaction, switching costs, and trust in the brand has positive effect and
significant on customer retention. Therefore, to improve customer retention can
be done by improving customer satisfaction, switching costs, and trust in the
brand.


The mutations G170R and I244T are the most common disease cause in primary hyperoxaluria type I (PH1). These mutations cause the misfolding of the AGT protein in the minor allele AGT-LM that contains the P11L polymorphism, which may affect the folding of the N-terminal segment (NTT-AGT). The NTT-AGT is phosphorylated at T9, although the role of this event in PH1 is unknown. In this work, phosphorylation of T9 was mimicked by introducing the T9E mutation in the NTT-AGT peptide and the full-length protein. The NTT-AGT conformational landscape was studied by circular dichroism, NMR, and statistical mechanical methods. Functional and stability effects on the full-length AGT protein were characterized by spectroscopic methods. The T9E and P11L mutations together reshaped the conformational landscape of the isolated NTT-AGT peptide by stabilizing ordered conformations. In the context of the full-length AGT protein, the T9E mutation had no effect on the overall AGT function or conformation, but enhanced aggregation of the minor allele (LM) protein and synergized with the mutations G170R and I244T. Our findings indicate that phosphorylation of T9 may affect the conformation of the NTT-AGT and synergize with PH1-causing mutations to promote aggregation in a genotype-specific manner. Phosphorylation should be considered a novel regulatory mechanism in PH1 pathogenesis.


Two fingerprints can be combined to improve the privacy of a fingerprint system. From the first fingerprint, the orientation is estimated and from the second one minutia points are found out. Some reference points from fingerprints are estimated. Then these all are used to form a combined template which is stored in database. . In the authentication, the system requires two query fingerprints from the same two fingers which are used in the enrollment. Using the combined minutiae template, the minutiae features of a single fingerprint pattern will not be compromised even if the database is stolen.


Restraint water-immersion stress (RWIS) can induce a gastric mucosal lesions within a few hours. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is involved in the RWIS process. The present study investigated the modulatory effects and molecular mechanisms of the mPFC on gastric function under an RWIS state. Male Wistar rats were divided into four groups; namely, the control, RWIS 4 h (RWIS for 4 h only), sham-operated and bilateral-lesioned (bilateral-lesioned mPFC) groups. The gastric erosion index (EI) and gastric motility (GM) were determined, and the proteomic profiles of the mPFC were assessed by isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) coupled with two-dimensional liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. Additionally, iTRAQ results were verified by western blot analysis. Compared with the RWIS 4 h group and the sham-control group, the bilateral-lesioned group exhibited a significantly lower EI (P<0.01). In the bilateral-lesioned group, RWIS led to a significant decrease in EI and GM. When comparing the control and RWIS 4 h groups, 129 dysregulated proteins were identified, of which 88 were upregulated and 41 were downregulated. Gene Ontology functional analysis demonstrated that 29 dysregulated proteins, including postsynaptic density protein 95, were directly associated with axon morphology, axon growth and synaptic plasticity. Ingenuity pathway analysis revealed that the dysregulated proteins were mainly involved in neurological disease signaling pathways, including the NF-κB and ERK signaling pathways. These data indicated that the presence of the mPFC exacerbates gastric mucosal injury in awake rats during RWIS. Although the quantitative proteomic analysis elucidated the nervous system molecular targets associated with the production of gastric mucosal lesions, such as the role of PSD95. The underlying molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity need to be further elucidated.


One hundred two patients aged 2-43 years diagnosed with acute malaria due to P. falciparum or P. vivax were treated with 3 doses of halofantrine (500 mg for > or = 18 year old patients and 8 mg/kg of patient body weight for 2-17 year olds), with each dose administered once in 6 hours and followed up for 28 days. Out of 102 patients 63 had P. falciparum, 36 had P. vivax and 3 had unidentified species. Following three dose therapy, 96.1% (98/102) of patients were cured, 0.98% (1/102) showed improvement from baseline, 1.96% (2/102) did not respond and were considered as treatment failures and one patient had indeterminate data. The lone patient, who relapsed after 120 hours post dose 1, was cured following re-treatment on day 7. The median parasite clearance and fever clearance times, from the first dose, were 26 hours and 30 hours, respectively. Eleven point eight percent (12/102) of patients reported adverse events, of which abdominal pain, reported by one subject, was considered to be probably related to the drug and required corrective therapy. There were no serious adverse events or fatalities and none of the patients had a change in QTc interval greater than 10%. Thirteen point seven percent (14/102) of patients had abnormal clinical laboratory parameters that normalized later.


New zirconium glycine crystals have been isolated by the reaction between hydrated ZrOCl2 and glycine. The structure was determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Employing dynamic light scattering (DLS), the particle size changes in an aqueous zirconium oxychloride octahydrate (ZrOCl2·8H2O) system with and without glycine have been investigated. A preliminary assay of ZrOCl2·8H2O indicated the viability of DLS to perform detailed analysis of species with hydrodynamic radii smaller than 1 nm. Additional time-resolved DLS studies of ZrOCl2·8H2O employing a linear temperature gradient from 0−100 °C demonstrated the temperature-dependent formation of oligonuclear aggregates, which was inhibited in the presence of acidic buffer. After glycine was added into aqueous ZrOCl2·8H2O, DLS detected the formation of the newly characterized zirconium-glycine species, CP-2. The results clearly show an equilibrium process, which has at least three distinct phases depending on the solution temperature.


UNLABELLED
The aim of the study was to evaluate lung function among patients who underwent Nuss Procedure. The analysis included spirometric evaluation of the lung function before Nuss Procedure, during perioperative period and after removing steel bars from behind the sternum.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The study group involved patients operated on the pectus excavatum in the Department of Thoracic Surgery in Poznań in years 2002-2004. The study group consisted of 44 patients (5 females and 39 males). Aged between 10 to 32 years old, the mean age was 16. The following spirometric parameters were analysed: vital capacity (VC), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV1), FEV1/VC ratio, peak expiratory flow (PEF), forced expiratory flow for 25% (FEF25), 50% (FEF50) and 75% FVC (FEF75).

RESULTS
The values of the FVC, FEV1, FEF25, and FEV1/VC ratio in the study group were significantly higher in the postoperative period in comparison with the preoperative period. There was a statistically significant correlation between the improvement in spirometric parameters after Nuss Procedure and the impairment of spirometric values in preoperative period. There were no statistical differences between the value of initial chest deformation and spirometric parameters improvement. There were also no statistically significant correlations between age, height and weight of the patient in the study group and spirometric values improvement.

CONCLUSION
There is a statistical improvement in lung function in patients who underwent Nuss Procedure. The improvement in spirometric parameters correlates with the impairment of spirometric values in the preoperative period.


Oncorhynchus masou virus (OMV) was isolated from naturally diseased rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss cultured in Nagano Prefecture. In the present study, histopathological and electron microscopic features were performed on spontaneously and experimentally infected fish with OMV. The definite change was necrosis of OMV-infected cells, which were observed in the spleen, hematopoietic tissues in the kidney, liver, intestine, heart, gill filaments, epidermis and lateral musculature. In particular, the intestine showed severe necrosis and hemorrhage in the epithelium and underlying tissues, which is the first description of OMV disease.


Vaccination has been proven to be the most effective method to prevent infectious diseases. However, in many low and middle-income countries with geographically dispersed and nomadic populations, last-mile vaccine delivery can be extremely complex. Because newborns in remote locations within these countries often do not have direct access to clinics and hospitals, they face significant risk from diseases and infections. An approach known as outreach is typically utilized to raise immunization rates in these situations. A set of these remote population centers is chosen, and over an appropriate time horizon, teams of clinicians and support personnel are sent from a depot to set up mobile clinics at these locations to vaccinate people there and in the immediate surrounding area. In this paper, we model the problem of optimally designing outreach efforts as a mixed integer program that is a combination of a set covering problem and a vehicle routing problem. In addition, because elements relevant to outreach (such as populations and road conditions) are often unstable and unpredictable, we incorporate uncertainty to study the robustness of the worst-case solutions and the related issue of the value of information.


The paper examines the links between the rise of local entrepreneurialism and state rescaling in a neo-liberal context. The thrust of the article is that the agency of localities, increasingly manifested in the form of local entrepreneurialism, emerges through the political activism of a local bourgeoisie, in pursuit of a multiscalar local accumulation strategy. The article focuses on the spatial interest representation strategies of the local bourgeoisie introducing the concept of scalar strategies of representation, to examine in what ways the broader state rescaling process contributes to the formation of local agency and how this agency influences state rescaling. The city of Gaziantep, Turkey, constitutes its empirical focus.


BackgroundIt is controversial whether statin therapy is beneficial for sepsis patients. A large retrospective cohort study was conducted to evaluate the association between statin therapy and mortality in sepsis patients.MethodsAdult (≥18 years) sepsis patients were enrolled and divided into two groups: the statin group and the no-statin group. Data including demographic features, vital signs, laboratory tests, and comorbidities from MIMIC-IV v1.0 were extracted. Delirium was assessed via the Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU (CAM-ICU). Ninety-day mortality, 28-day mortality and the incidence of delirium after statin therapy were evaluated using multivariable logistic analysis, the PSM model and subgroup analysis based on univariate analysis. ResultsIn univariate analysis and multivariable logistic analysis, statin therapy showed a significant association with both reduced 28-day and 90-day mortality (90-day mortality: OR 0.58, 95% CI: 0.46-0.72, p<0.001; 28-day mortality: OR 0.47, 95% CI: 0.37-0.60, p<0.001), while no relationship was found between statin therapy and delirium (OR 0.92, 95% CI: 0.49-1.72, p=0.787). In further PSM model and subgroup analyses or sensitivity analysis, consistent results were shown. ConclusionStatin therapy is significantly associated with 28-day and 90-day mortality without decrease in the incidence of delirium.


The authors report photoluminescence measurements made on highly strained nominally GaAs/GaSb/GaAs heterostructures (grown by MOVPE) at pressures up to 5.5 GPa in a diamond anvil cell. Two samples have been studied, a single 15 AA GaSb layer, and a five 15 AA GaSb layer heterostructure. In both cases the 1.3 eV strained layer luminescence increased in energy with pressure with a large pressure coefficient. This identifies the transition as one involving a Gamma state in the conduction band. It is suggested that lower energy luminescence, observed only from the five-layer sample, involves a defect. A theoretical model predicts that the bands line up in a type-II configuration, and the observed behaviour at pressures beyond the GaAs Gamma -X crossover confirms this. The possibility of incorporation of As atoms in the thin nominally GaSb layer is considered.


Many predictors for venous thromboembolism (VTE) and bleeding in hospitalized medical patients may exist but until now systematic reviews and assessments of the certainty of the evidence do not exist. We conducted a systematic review to identify prognostic factors for VTE and bleeding in hospitalized medical patients and searched Medline and EMBASE from inception to May 2018. We considered studies that identified potential prognostic factors for VTE and bleeding in hospitalized adult medical patients. Reviewers extracted data in duplicate and independently and assessed the certainty of the evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Of 69,410 citations, we included 17 studies; 14 that reported on VTE and identified 29 candidate prognostic factors and three that reported on bleeding and identified 17 candidate factors. For VTE, moderate certainty evidence shows a probable association with older age, elevated CRP, D-dimer, fibrinogen levels, heart rate, thrombocytosis, leukocytosis, fever, leg edema, lower Barthel Index score, immobility, paresis, previous history of VTE, thrombophilia, malignancy, critical illness and infections. For bleeding, moderate certainty evidence shows a probable association with older age, sex, anemia, obesity, low hemoglobin, gastroduodenal ulcers, rehospitalization, critical illness, thrombocytopenia, blood dyscrasias, hepatic disease, renal failure, antithrombotic medication and central venous catheter (CVC). Elevated CRP, a lower Barthel Index, history of malignancy and elevated heart rate are not included in most VTE risk assessment models (RAMs). This study informs risk prediction in the management of hospitalized medical patients for VTE and bleeding, related research and guidelines for VTE prevention.


This study investigates foreign language teacher candidates' views regarding the issue of autonomous learning through a survey given to the students in the Department of German Language Teaching at Marmara University in Istanbul. Participants' views on their responsibilities, learning styles, strategies, and motivation during the learning processes were elicited through the scale "checklists for learner autonomy". The results of the study indicate that while prospective teachers were aware of their learning styles and strategies, their strengths and weaknesses, they needed to develop their skills to put into practice what they knew about autonomous learning in theory.

 Key words: Autonomous learning, learning style, learning strategy.