ABSTRACT Disease from nicotine dependency continues to be a leading cause of preventable death worldwide, and therefore research that elucidates potential correlates of tobacco use may facilitate the advancement of research, clinical practice, and policy in this area to target this public health challenge. One potential tobacco use correlate is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) phenomena. The growing research evidence on the association between tobacco use and OCD phenomena is mixed, making it difficult to synthesize extant findings into meaningful conclusions. Indeed, there has never been a systematic review or meta-analysis of this area of research. To this end, a systematic review was carried out with studies between 1988 and 2021, and from this review, 71 independent estimations (n = 10,475; Females = 51.95%; mean age = 37.29, SD = 13.78) were extracted for meta-analysis. We found that about three in ten participants with OCD are likely to use tobacco, which is higher than the general population. The prevalence was the same among OCD participants at all levels (those with symptomology but no confirmed diagnosis, those surpassing a clinical cutoff for OCD but no confirmed diagnosis, and those with a confirmed OCD diagnosis). The results also indicated considerable variability across study results and a wide confidence interval associated with the tobacco use prevalence rate among those with OCD phenomena. The findings provide support for continued study of this comorbidity, perhaps with longitudinal and experimental designs to test for reciprocal associations between tobacco use and OCD phenomena in the service of targeting nicotine dependence as a substantial global public health concern.


After analyzing the characteristics and limitations of signed directed graph (SDG) model, the paper took into account of fault revealing time in modeling, and investigates its superposition rules in the propagation path, therefore presented the interval estimation of the fault propagation time. This information is introduced into the fault diagnosis process. We combined the prediction and verification in the propagation direction of initial response with the inverse tracking for the fault origin. This approach extends the static logical reasoning on certain instant pattern into the dynamic reasoning. Simulation experiments show that this idea is reasonable to improve the efficiency of fault diagnosis


There's a big change happening in the world of databases. The industry is buzzing about Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), a cloud offering that allows companies to rent access to these managed digital data warehouses. Database-as-a-service (DBaaS) is a cloud computing service model that provides users with some form of access to a database without the need for setting up physical hardware, installing software or configuring for performance. Since consumers host data on the Mobile Cloud, DBaaS providers should be able to guarantee data owners that their data would be protected from all potential security threats. Protecting application data for large-scale web and mobile apps can be complex; especially with distributed and NoSQL databases. Data centers are no longer confined to the enterprise perimeter. More and more enterprises take their data to the Mobile Cloud, but forget to adjust their security management practices when doing so. Unauthorized access to data resources, misuse of data stored on third party platform, data confidentiality, integrity and availability are some of the major security challenges that ail this nascent Cloud service model, which hinders the wide-scale adoption of DBaaS. In this chapter, I propose a security model for Mobile Cloud Database as a Service (DBaaS). A user can change his/her password, whenever demanded. Furthermore, security analysis realizes the feasibility of the proposed model for DBaaS and achieves efficiency. This will help Cloud community to get an insight into state-of-the-art progress in terms of secure strategies, their deficiencies and possible future directions.


There have been arguments about hadronic molecules, which are weakly-bound states of two or more hadrons. We investigate the possibility of some candidates (f0 (980), a0 (980), f0 (1500), f0 (1710), etc.) using QCD sum rule approach and compare our results with multiquark states in the MIT bag model. We find that f0 (1500), f0 (1710) can be good candidates for vector-vector molecule-type multiquark states.


Abstract. CuZn30, which is also called cartridge brass, is an alloy used commonly in the production of large-calibre round cartridge cases. They are usually produced via cupping of a disc and consecutive deep drawing steps to decrease the wall thickness, with an annealing process in between each step to restore formability. In this study the manufacturing of cartridge brass (CuZn30) tubes is conducted through the flow forming process. In order to evaluate the flow forming behaviour, the preforms are manufactured by machining the CuZn30 billets, then the flow forming processes is applied. Thereafter, different temperature ranges (350, 450, and 550ºC for 1 h) are applied to flow formed samples in order to determine the proper recrystallization annealing temperature. The obtained microstructures and the mechanical properties are studied and revealed that the flow forming process is successfully realized, and the microstructure of the material is mapped with respect to the subsequent heat treatment temperature for recrystallization. Spherical and new grains are precisely generated after recrystallization annealing at 450 and 550ºC, but only partial recrystallization is obtained at 350ºC.


In magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), data are collected as spectrum samples. The acquisition time is proportional to the number of the spectrum lines. Therefore, only few lines of the data space may be required in order to track rapid changes of an object. In the current techniques, the missed lines may be zeroed or replaced by the corresponding lines in a reference image, which is acquired a priori for the same anatomical cross-section. However, this always comes at the expense of the spatial-resolution. In this study, we propose an extrapolation iterative algorithm to provide an improved estimate of the missed lines. Additional spatial and spatial-frequency constraints of the reference image are incorporated to enhance the convergence and obtain a better estimate of the initial conditions of the iterations. Results from simulated data verify the theory and indicate that the algorithm may provide better reconstruction in dynamic imaging studies.


New vapor–liquid–liquid equilibrium (VLLE) data for methanethiol (CH3SH) + methane (CH4) + water (H2O) have been obtained at three temperatures (304, 334, and 364 K) and pressures up to 9 MPa. A "static-analytical" method was used to perform all of the measurements. The objective was to provide experimental VLLE data for CH3SH with other natural gas contents at its crude form for which limited or no data are available in the open literature. Such kinds of data are required for the industrial modeling of sulfur emissions. It is observed from the experimental data that the solubility of CH4 in the aqueous and organic phases increases with an increase of the total system pressure and decreases with an increase of the temperature. However, the solubility of CH3SH in the aqueous and organic phases decreases slightly with an increase of the total system pressure and increases significantly with an increase of the temperature. The new VLLE data of this ternary system were compared with predictions of the cubic-p...


On a standardized test required for admission to physics graduate programs in the United States, residents of the People's Republic of China (PRC) score more than 230 points higher—out of a possible score of 990—than U.S. residents. A huge pool of highly motivated, well-trained students in the PRC is one factor, but intensive coaching is another. Widespread security breaches may also have played some role in the past.


The pharmacokinetics of 2 doses of intravenous lysine clonixinate (4 and 6 mg x kg-1) were studied in 10 children (age 4-10 years) under postoperative care. A single dose of the drug was injected in a forearm vein. Blood samples were collected at regular intervals for 3 hours. Serum clonixin concentrations (expressed as clonixin) were analyzed using a high pressure liquid chromatography method. Pharmacokinetic values were estimated by a nonlinear computer program. The distribution volume was similar in both groups of children (1.288 +/- 0.829 1 and 1. 139 +/- 0.667 1, respectively). There were no differences between the values of total plasma clearance and the administered doses (0.026 +/- 0.017 ml x min-1 and 0.017 +/- 0.008 ml x min-1, t = 1.07, p = 0.76). The elimination half-life was longer in children who received 6 mg x kg-1 (44.26 +/- 6.34 min vs 38.63 +/- 10.93 min) but this difference was not statistically significant (t = 0.99, p < 0.34). The pharmacokinetic parameters calculated in these children were different from those found by other authors in adults and experimental animals.


The Mas protooncogene is a maternally imprinted gene encoding an orphan G protein-coupled receptor expressed mainly in forebrain and testis. Here, we provide evidence for a function of Mas in the central nervous system. Targeted disruption of the Mas protooncogene leads to an increased durability of long term potentiation in the dentate gyrus, without affecting hippocampal morphology, basal synaptic transmission, and presynaptic function. In addition, Mas −/− mice show alterations in the onset of depotentiation. The permissive influence ofMas ablation on hippocampal synaptic plasticity is paralleled by behavioral changes. While spatial learning in the Morris water maze is not significantly influenced, Mas-deficient animals display an increased anxiety as assessed in the elevated-plus maze. Thus, Mas is an important modulating factor in the electrophysiology of the hippocampus and is involved in behavioral pathways in the adult brain.


In this work, we introduce the MOldavian and ROmanian Dialectal COrpus (MOROCO), which is freely available for download at https://github.com/butnaruandrei/MOROCO. The corpus contains 33564 samples of text (with over 10 million tokens) collected from the news domain. The samples belong to one of the following six topics: culture, finance, politics, science, sports and tech. The data set is divided into 21719 samples for training, 5921 samples for validation and another 5924 samples for testing. For each sample, we provide corresponding dialectal and category labels. This allows us to perform empirical studies on several classification tasks such as (i) binary discrimination of Moldavian versus Romanian text samples, (ii) intra-dialect multi-class categorization by topic and (iii) cross-dialect multi-class categorization by topic. We perform experiments using a shallow approach based on string kernels, as well as a novel deep approach based on character-level convolutional neural networks containing Squeeze-and-Excitation blocks. We also present and analyze the most discriminative features of our best performing model, before and after named entity removal.


Research aims to understand gyrations cash pt .Had provided nusantara viii , liquidity to pt .Had provided nusantara viii , and to know the influence of gyrations cash on the level of liquidity to PT .Perkebunan nusantara VIII  sukabumi .
The methodology used is the method ex-post facto capital .This research using primary and secondary data obtained from financial reports and non financial from pt .Pekebunan nusantara viii sukabumi .To test hypotheses used linear regression and the correlation with on the spss 15.0 for windows.
Based on the results of research shows that there is a positive influence between second match of cash and liquidity pt .Had provided nusantara viii sukabumi .A level of closeness ( correlation ) the second variables strong enough , are r = 0,800 with a value of a correlation coefficient r & gt; 0 it means if cash second match of getting up and liquidity will increase , and vice versa . While from the results of the equation above the results linear regression simple as follows: y = 185,137 + 0,045x means value ( a ) or constant of 185,137 who have the meaning that if cash two zero ( 0 ) or not increased so level of 185,137 liquidity .The score regression ( b ) of 0,045 the show the relation in line that every 1 increase point in cash and two rate rose to 185,137 liquidity


We have performed detailed $^{57}$Fe M\"ossbauer spectroscopy measurements on Ba$_{0.78}$K$_{0.22}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ and BaFe$_{2-x}$Ni$_x$As$_2$ single crystal mosaics showing antiferromagnetic ordering below $T_N$ with superconductivity below $T_C$. Analysis of the M\"ossbauer spectra shows a decrease in the magnetic hyperfine (hf) field but no change in the magnetic volume fraction below $T_C$. This clearly indicates the coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity in these compounds. The decrease in the magnetic hf field below $T_C$ depends on the difference between $T_N$ and $T_C$, being the largest for $T_N$ close to $T_C$. Two different explanations for this observation are given. We also find that the non-magnetic volume fraction below $T_N$ correlates with the Ni doping $x$, being large for high $T_C$ and small for high $T_N$.


The magic nature of the $^{54}$Ca nucleus is investigated in the light of the recent experimental results. We employ both HFB and HF+BCS methods using Skyrme-type SLy5, SLy5+T and T44 interactions. The evolution of the single-particle spectra is studied for the N=34 isotones: $^{60}$Fe, $^{58}$Cr, $^{56}$Ti and $^{54}$Ca. An increase is obtained in the neutron spin-orbit splittings of $p$ and $f$ states due to the effect of the tensor force which also makes $^{54}$Ca a magic nucleus candidate. QRPA calculations on top of HF+BCS are performed to investigate the first $J^{\pi}$=$2^{+}$ states of the calcium isotopic chain. A good agreement for excitation energies is obtained when we include the tensor force in the mean-field part of the calculations. The first $2^{+}$ states indicate a subshell closure for both $^{52}$Ca and $^{54}$Ca nuclei. We confirm that the tensor part of the interaction is quite essential in explaining the neutron subshell closure in $^{52}$Ca and $^{54}$Ca nuclei.


The present paper investigates the electrocoagulation-electrooxidation (EC-EO) process for the treatment of high-strength wastewater textile industry located in Babylon governance -Iraq. This EC-EO process evaluated the efficiency of electrocoagulation in treating contaminants.Textile wastewater such as BOD, COD, TDS, TSS, turbidity, nitrates, sulfate, total phosphates, electrical conductivity, oil and grease and the total phenols by using either Aluminum or (Iron) electrodes set in a bipolar structure or Titanium coated with iridium oxide Ti/IrO2 electrodes arranged in a monopolar outline in the same electrolytic cell. The first set of analyses that examined the best performance of textile wastewater was achieved by using Aluminum and Titanium coated with iridium oxide plates alternated in the electrode pack and operated at a current of 0.6 A during 90 min of treatment with pH adjusted to approximately 6.0. Further analysis showed that, 95% of oil and greases (O&G) were removed, however chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD) removal reached 90% and 87%, respectively. Another important finding was that, more than 96 % of soluble phosphate was removed, and the process was effective in removing turbidity (98%) and suspended solids (98%). A total cost of treated textile effluent process under the best conditions involved using an EC - EO process including chemical electrode consumption, and energy was 2.03 USD/m3. Keywords: Electrocoagulation, Electro-oxidation, Titanium electrode, Textile wastewater, Aluminum electrode.


Recent advances in ferromagnetic theory, which are outlined briefly in this article, are concerned principally with the effect of elastic deformation on magnetic properties and the related magnetostriction. This is the ninth of a series of special articles reviewing contemporary advances in several of the more important and rapidly advancing fields of science that are of especial interest to electrical engineers, and prepared under sponsorship of the A.I.E.E. committee on education.


This book reviews research on the past, present and future of citizenship. Chapter One provides an empirical exploration of citizenship acquisition by region and nation. Chapter Two focuses on citizenship, migration and national sovereignty in Europe. Chapter Three examines innovative educational programs and practices to successfully implement the right to education and integrate culturally-diverse students. Chapter Four analyzes civic identity profiling in Hong Kong and Taiwan.


Solving math word problems requires deductive reasoning over the quantities in the text. Various recent research efforts mostly relied on sequence-to-sequence or sequence-to-tree models to generate mathematical expressions without explicitly performing relational reasoning between quantities in the given context. While empirically effective, such approaches typically do not provide explanations for the generated expressions. In this work, we view the task as a complex relation extraction problem, proposing a novel approach that presents explainable deductive reasoning steps to iteratively construct target expressions, where each step involves a primitive operation over two quantities defining their relation. Through extensive experiments on four benchmark datasets, we show that the proposed model significantly outperforms existing strong baselines. We further demonstrate that the deductive procedure not only presents more explainable steps but also enables us to make more accurate predictions on questions that require more complex reasoning.


This paper presents a scene agnostic neural architecture for camera localization, where model parameters and scenes are independent from each other.Despite recent advancement in learning based methods, most approaches require training for each scene one by one, not applicable for online applications such as SLAM and robotic navigation, where a model must be built on-the-fly.Our approach learns to build a hierarchical scene representation and predicts a dense scene coordinate map of a query RGB image on-the-fly given an arbitrary scene. The 6D camera pose of the query image can be estimated with the predicted scene coordinate map. Additionally, the dense prediction can be used for other online robotic and AR applications such as obstacle avoidance. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our method on both indoor and outdoor benchmarks, achieving state-of-the-art performance.


A first attempt to determine the effect of vigor and parents on the length of the juvenile period of olive seedlings is here reported. Vigor seems to have a significant influence on the percentage of flowering seedlings, especially in the first 2 years of bearing. The different parents used have produced differences in the juvenile period of their descendants. A correspondence between the length of the unproductive period of the parents and the length of the juvenile period that they transmit to their descendants has been observed. The seedling forcing growth protocol described here has been able to produce flowering seedlings 28 months after germination, with >93% of seedlings flowering 65 months after germination.


A method was developed for calculating approximate reliability for national systems of evaluation. The method combined the reliability of three information sources: parent average, animal's own records, and progeny records. This method provided good approximation to the actual values with minimal upward bias and was considerably better than the current national method of New Zealand genetic evaluation or Meyer's method for all accuracy measures. Our method had an average absolute bias of 0.006 compared with 0.026 and 0.035 for the current national method and Meyer's method, respectively. Our method was less computationally demanding than the current New Zealand method. One of the major advantages of the method is that it can be extended to accommodate more complex models by altering the selection index equations within the method. An example is given for which the method was extended to account for a genetic correlation other than unity between an incomplete lactation and a complete lactation yield.


Background Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) is an imperative chemical substance used in the production of polyurethane foams, elastomers, paints and coatings that cause a variety of health problems in workers who are exposed in work places. This study aimed to determine the asthma symptoms and serum specific IgE levels in TDI exposed workers and comparing the results with healthy control group. Methods: All the plants that use TDI in the manufacturing of paint and glue in the west of Tehran Province entered to the study and all the workers (550) completed modified initial questionnaire of the NIOSH, the questions were consisted of asthma symptoms. For each symptomatic exposed worker one healthy, sex and age matched control selected. Total IgE and Specific TDI IgE tests were done for each case and control groups. Results: Among 550 TDI exposed workers, 26(4.7%) had asthma symptoms. Nine (34.6%) of symptomatic workers who were exposed to TDI were active cigarette consumer versus 3(11.5%) unexposed workers, P=0.049(CI= 0.953–17.29) OR=4.059. Nine (34.6%) workers had positive family history of atopy versus 1(3.8%) unexposed workers, P=0.0138 (CI= 1.45–305.41) OR=13.24. TDI specific IgE was found in 2 TDI exposed workers and 1 unexposed worker (P=0.5). Mean of total IgE was 339.05 in exposed workers (P=0.201). Conclusion: This study provides clinical and paraclinical data of workers exposed to TDI and points to a relation between atopy and smoking habit with asthma symptoms that offer preventing recommendations for TDI exposed workers and their heath administrators.


This article explains the impacts of Dubai Crisis (DC) on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the wider Gulf region and at international level. It also extensively examines the differences and similarities between Dubai Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This examination includes studying the impact of the safety net and other issues that could help Dubai to survive this crisis. Causes & impacts behind Dubai Crisis, especially sub-prime lending, are further investigated in the context of Global Financial Crisis, i.e., Global Financial Crisis impacts in the stock market, GDP, the credit ratings in Dubai companies and the bankruptcy banks.


The townscape should be the most distinctive and important part in regional planning, but lacking of planning research. In recent 10 years, the rapid urbanization of the Jiangsu Province in the large scale and high strength directly affects the townscape composition. Modern urban planning too much emphasis on the use of function and utility, the continuous river system in the history has been reduced to fragments decomposition by the modern construction. Townscapes in Jiangsu Province has been blessed with a long history and unique landscape, accounting for 30% of the population. In recent years, the urban construction in Jiangsu Province has been developing on a large scale and with a high intensity unprecedented in history. It greatly influenced the landscape composition of villages and towns in the province. The research is from multiple perspectives: cultural geography study of the regional cultural heritage, landscape ecological research on its natural space, and city planning study of its physical space layout. The paper researches and analyzes the village natural ecological system and social construction process, determines the scientific research methods, and then lays a foundation of scientific theory for town landscape planning and management.


Our primary purpose in this study was to determine the structure of sense of security of children left behind in China, and to develop and validate a suitable measure for this. Participants were 1,836 pupils at rural Chinese schools, 100 of whom completed open surveys and semistructured interviews, 289 of whom completed the preliminary survey, and 1,447 of whom completed the final survey. An exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 5-factor solution, comprising 26 items that explained 56.08% of the variance. A confirmatory factor analysis replicated the initial factor structure, indicating satisfactory goodness-of-fit and internal consistency. The reliability and validity of the resulting Questionnaire of Sense of Security for Children Left Behind has considerable potential for use in the context of rural China for research about children who have been left behind.


Abstract : Over time, Navy warfighters have grown accustomed to the promise of reliable information technology, based on the experience of more than 30 years of relative peace in this domain. However, inspections, Red Teams, and actual adversaries have shown that this reliance on interconnected technology is not well-founded. In 2012, the Defense Science Board determined that nearly every conceivable component within DoD is networked. These networked systems and components are inextricably linked to the Departments ability to project military force and the associated mission assurance. Yet, DoDs networks are built on inherently insecure architectures that are composed of, and increasingly using, foreign parts. While DoD takes great care to secure the use and operation of the hardware of its weapon systems, the same level of resource and attention is not spent on the complex network of information technology (IT) systems that are used to support and operate those weapons or critical IT capabilities embedded within them. In many cases, the Navy bases its strategic and operational plans on the very capabilities a cyber enemy will deny or exploit in war. In an interview with CHIPS (2014) magazine, Matt Swartz, Director, Communications and Networks Division Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance (N2/N6) and Navy Task Force Cyber Awakening (TFCA) Lead said, Recent real world events and attacks on our Navy systems make clear the cyber threat is increasing. The risk calculus in the cyber domain has changed. Our reliance on connected capabilities has significantly increased the potential consequences of a cyber-attack.


As Overturned-bowl Stupa of India, the origin of Stupa, is accepted by neighboring countries, pure form and local characteristics combined to bring change in unique style for each country. Such change is established as new style through combination with contemporary tradition in China. In this thesis, pattern of Stupa shown in Longmen Grottoes??Relief-Stupa relieves. Since study on how Indian Stupa was introduced into China has been partially undertaken, this study focuses on the pattern of Stupas from that perspective. 40 Stupas were explored during field work with naked eyes, among about 50 stupas reported on the research data by Longmen Grottoes Institute. Relief-Stupa relieves of Longmen Grottoes are as important as Yungang Grottoes. While Yungang Grottoes were built during a period when Gandhara style and Occidental expression were adopted and integrated with Chinese culture and Buddhism, building of Longmen Grottoes can be called a starting point of ?쁂hinese??style of Buddhist culture and Stupa, fully integrated with Chinese culture.


"Brief narratives," or medieval precursors to the modern short story, are compositions couched in the form of a tale of reasonable short length. They began with writings in Latin and, eventually, made their way into the vernacular languages of Europe. They include the fable, the apologue, the exemplum, the saint's life, the miracle, the biography, the adventure tale, the romance, the jest, and the anecdote, among others. In Spain, the oldest extant brief narratives in written form are in verse and date from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The earliest examples include "La vida de Santa Maria Egipciaca" and "El libre dels tres reys d'Orient." Both are concise enough to be read in one sitting and were probably read before or after meals as entertainment.In "Pious Brief Narrative in Medieval Castilian and Galician Verse," John E. Keller studies the structure of the pious brief narrative, including such works at the "Cantigas de Santa Maria" of Alfonso X and Gonzalo de Berceo's "Milagros de Nuestra Senora," among others. He examines which narrative techniques were employed by their authors, including versification, music, and the pictorial arts as aids to narration. Using nine basic elements -- plot, setting, conflict, characterization, theme, style, effect, point of view, and mood or tone -- Keller shows how writers in medieval Spain employed more sophisticated uses of these techniques than has previously been recognized.


The trumpeting by the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) of screening guidelines for emergency care workers handling victims of domestic violence - while welcomed - got a muted response from emergency medicine chiefs in the country's most brutal province last month. The two people heading the Western Cape's clinical protocols and training for emergency medicine and overall emergency medicine services, had reservations as to how practical - or user-friendly - the guidelines are in high-pressure or dangerous situations encountered by their staff.


How a Pennsylvania medical center found a unique and time-saving approach to satisfying compliance with JCAHO's Management of the Environment of Care standards. Several members of the Safety Committee and the Education Resources Department developed a 25-question quiz, the "Safety Challenge Assessment Tool," to see what employees really knew.


Software Engineering (SE) is one of the core courses in Informatics Engineering. Teaching SE faces many challenges because the objective of this course is that the students are able to create many artifacts along the software development process, not merely recalling information or theory that has been taught. It is often found that students cannot synchronize their work starting from the early phase of software development until the last stage of implementation. The unavailability of reference books that explain software engineering steps, including the implementation, accompanied by relevant case study that is easy to be understood by students is also a hindering factor. Therefore, this paper will propose a teaching method for SE course which implements problem -based learning. The proposed method includes material composition; problem, project, and team; sessions in the class; tools utilization; and assessment methods. This method considers the outcomes of SE course in the past, and its tight relation with other courses, such as Final Project I and Object Oriented Programming.


Solving an optimization task in any domain is a very challenging problem, especially when dealing with nonlinear problems and non-convex functions. Many meta-heuristic algorithms are very efficient when solving nonlinear functions. A meta-heuristic algorithm is a problem-independent technique that can be applied to a broad range of problems. In this experiment, some of the evolutionary algorithms will be tested, evaluated, and compared with each other. We will go through the Genetic Algorithm\, Differential Evolution, Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm, Grey Wolf Optimizer, and Simulated Annealing. They will be evaluated against the performance from many points of view like how the algorithm performs throughout generations and how the algorithm's result is close to the optimal result. Other points of evaluation are discussed in depth in later sections.


Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has drawn tremendous attention, being a potential candidate for the spectrum access technology for the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond 5G(B5G) wireless communications standards. Most research related to NOMA focuses on the system performance from Shannon's capacity perspective, which, although a critical system design criterion, fails to quantity the effect of delay constraints imposed by future wireless applications. In this paper, we analyze the performance of a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) two-user downlink NOMA system, in terms of the link-layer achievable rate, known as effective capacity (EC), which captures the performance of the system under a delay-limited quality-of-service (QoS) constraint. For signal combining at the receiver side, we use generalized selection combining (GSC), which bridges the performance gap between the two conventional diversity combining schemes, namely selection combining (SC) and maximal-ratio combining (MRC). We also derive two approximate expressions for the EC of NOMA-GSC which are accurate at low-SNR and at high-SNR, respectively. The analysis reveals a tradeoff between the number of implemented receiver radio-frequency (RF) chains and the achieved performance, and can be used to determine the appropriate number of paths to combine in a practical receiver design.


During the fifteen year period from Jan. 1, 1934 to Jan. 1, 1949 we observed as both inpatients and outpatients at the Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia, 110 patients with esophageal hiatal hernia. It is the purpose of this report to present an analysis of this group of patients with particular reference to the problems of diagnosis and the indications for surgical therapy. Only patients with true esophageal hiatal hernia were included in the report; those patients with a congenital shortening of the esophagus were excluded. No significant sex predilection was noted in this series. There were 59 women and 51 men. Esophageal hiatal hernia is primarily encountered in middle and later life, although the symptoms may begin in childhood when the hernia is congenital in origin. In this series of 110 cases, the youngest patientwas 29 years of age and the oldest 78. There were 78 patients between the ages


We introduce and study a spherical representation of generalized functions and use it to give a complete description of asymptotically homogeneous generalized functions in the case when the order is non-critical and sufficient conditions when it is critical. Generalized functions of slow growth (tempered distributions) that have (quasi-)asymptotics at infinity in the asymptotic scale of regularly varying functions are said to be asymptotically homogeneous. In particular, all homogeneous generalized functions are asymptotically homogeneous. We apply our results to the study of singularities of holomorphic functions in tubular domains over cones.


Thrombolytic therapy is aimed at dissolving thrombi. Streptokinase (SK) and urokinase (UK) are currently used in France but their mode of action has not been completely elucidated, which renders the establishment of therapeutic protocols and the choice of doses difficult. This treatment has a certain number of contraindications which must be strictly respected. The effectiveness of SK and UK in high doses has been demonstrated, in particular in pulmonary embolism and acute arterial obstruction of the limbs, but there is a risk of haemorrhage, whilst UK in moderate doses is usually well tolerated but has yet to prove its effectiveness in randomised double blind trials. Laboratory control has been simplified but it is essential not to forget the importance of clinical monytoring. Finally, drugs have recently been used in association with thrombolytics and more particularly the administration of plasminogen or defibrinating agents before or after thrombolytics.


The synthesis of novel, potent diol-based HIV-1 protease inhibitors, having either -SAr, -SCH(2)Ar, or -SCH(2)R groups as P1/P1' substituents is described. They can be prepared using a straightforward synthesis involving a thiol nucleophilic ring opening of a diepoxide. Inhibitor 13 was found to be a potent inhibitor of HIV-1 PR, showing good antiviral activity in a cell-based assay.


This paper describes the results of an investigation concerning the idea of modify/relaxing the Newton-type transient load flow algorithms, implemented to achieve computationally more efficient load flow solutions in the transient security studies. Relaxing the coupling between MW and MVAr transient flows, and also the coupling between V and /spl theta/ in the Jacobian matrix, including the complete decoupling, is studied. The algorithms were tested on the IEEE 18- and 68-node systems, showing improvements in computation speed and convergence and memory characteristics.


Phytochemicals from lingonberry have rich pharmacological value and may play an essential role in treating liver diseases. We investigated the regulatory role of lingonberry anthocyanins (LA) on HSC activation in vitro and liver fibrogenesis in vivo. The viability of HSCs treated with LA was significantly reduced in a dose-dependent manner at the concentration of 25-100 μg/mL, in which the monomers of LA also reduced the proliferation of HSCs via IC50 assay. The inducer transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1) and the effector α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) of HSC activation were all decreased both in protein and RNA levels treated by LA. Moreover, LA alleviated CCl4-induced liver fibrosis in rats, reducing collagen aggregation and production and decreasing the hydroxyproline (HYP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in the liver tissue. Moreover, LA reduced the indexes of serum liver fibrosis and reversed the index of serum liver function in CCl4-induced rats. Furthermore, the antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and catalase (CAT), in the liver tissue and serum were significantly increased upon treatment with LA. Importantly, LA promoted hepatic parenchymal cell proliferation and inhibited the expression of TGFβ/Smad/extracellular regulated protein kinase (ERK) signaling pathway-related genes. This study demonstrates the anti-liver fibrosis activity of LA and investigates its mechanism, which may provide a novel strategy for treating liver fibrosis using lingonberry.


Background: Hug therapy, or hugging therapy, is using hugs to provide emotional comfort and healing. Recent studies have found that the simple act of hugging can help people who suffer from stress, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. The benefits of hugging come from the power of touch. The reason for this is oxytocin, a hormone that brain naturally releases into the system whenever the affected engages in hugging, cuddling, or physical intimacy. The study proved that oxytocin helped people overcome social rejection. One of the studies on the effects of this "cuddle hormone" was published in the medical journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. Little is known on the effect of hugging on depression and feeling of powerlessness in an Indonesian population. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of hugging in reducing depression and the feeling of powerlessness in the affected adolescents.

Subjects and Method: This was a randomized control trial involving 20 adolescents affected with depression and feeling of powerlessness. This sample was taken from out-patients visiting Atmahusada Mahakam Mental Hospital, Samarinda, East Kalimantan. As many as 10 subjects in the experimental group received hug therapy, and 10 subjects in the control group received no hug therapy. The dependent variables were depression and feeling of powerlessness. The independent variable was hug therapy. Depression was measured by Beck depression inventory (BDI). Feeling of powerlessness was measured by Beck's Hopelessness Scale (BHS). The difference in the proportion of the affected subjects after the intervention was analyzed by Chi square.

Results: After the intervention, the proportion of the depressed subjects in the hug therapy group were 7 (70%) and in the control group were 9 (90%) with p=0.265. Likewise, after the intervention, the proportion of subjects with the feeling of powerlessness in the hug therapy group were 8 (80%) and in the control group were 9 (90%) with p=0.531.

Conclusion: Hug therapy alone is not effective to reduce depression and feeling of powerlessness in the affected adolescents.

Keywords: depression, powerlessness, hug therapy, adolescents


We form sub-micrometer-sized vapor bubbles around a single laser-heated gold nanoparticle in a liquid and monitor them through optical scattering of a probe laser. Bubble formation is explosive even under continuous-wave heating. The fast, inertia-governed expansion is followed by a slower contraction and disappearance after some tens of nanoseconds. In a narrow range of illumination powers, bubble time traces show a clear echo signature. We attribute it to sound waves released upon the initial explosion and re fl ected by fl at interfaces, hundreds of microns away from the particle. Echoes can trigger new explosions. A nanobubble ' s steady state (with a vapor shell surrounding the heated nanoparticle) can be reached by a proper time pro fi le of the heating intensity. Stable nanobubbles could have original applications for light modulation and for enhanced optical – acoustic cou-pling in photoacoustic microscopy.


When children of diverse disabilities and students with ELL rulings are included in traditional classrooms, regular education teachers face a dilemma: How to teach the standard curriculum and teach the new inclusion students? How do they teach students with different heritages and linguistic backgrounds? Differentiated Instruction (DI) is content, process, and product related to student learning. DI can be implemented through Retrofitting the curriculum or Universally Designing the curriculum for learning. This article operationalizes the terminology related to DI, Retrofit Framework, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). A student vignette contrasts how the elements of Retrofit verses UDL come to life in the teaching-learning process. After reading the vignettes, the reader will determine which pathway could lead to more positive learning environment for learners with and without exceptionalities.


Guava (Psidium guajava L.) is a luscious and important tropical fruit crop.It belongs to the family Myrtaceae; is ever green and hardiest among all the tropical fruit trees and exceeds most other fruit crops in productivity and adaptability and is richest source of vitamin C.The research studies were carried out at Institute of Horticultural Sciences, University of Agricultural, Faisalabad and the objectives to determine guava genetic diversity using morphological and DNA markers based approaches and to develop vegetative propagation system to avoid clonal degradation of guava.Tree parameters like growth habit, leaf shape, flowering, fruit and seed was recorded in two districts Faisalabad and Sheikhupura according to the plant descriptor.Ten plants from each accession of guava were selected for tree, leaf, fruit, flower and seed morphological analysis. Data was registered from 25 leaves/flowers/fruits/seed per accession.15 to 20 young leaves per accession of guava were collected for DNA extraction following CTAB protocol.The extracted DNA was subjected to SSR analysis.For clonal propagation softwood cuttings from five year old trees were prepared from the tips of current season growth.IBA (0, 2000, 4000, 6000 and 8000 ppm) was used to treat cuttings for root induction.The data collected was subjected to different statistical software.During the survey 37 accessions of guava were collected from two major growing areas of district Faisalabad and Sheikhupura for phenotypic genetic variation analysis. Multivariate analysis principal component indicated high diversity for accessions Mota gola, Khata gola, Rough gola, Bangladeshi gola and Surahi in district Faisalabad and Mota gola, Larkana gola, Desi gola, Gola and Sadabahar gola were most diverse accessions in district Sheikhupura.The combined analysis of accessions of both districts indicated Mota gola (SKP), Mota gola (FSD) belonging two different orchards, Bangladeshi gola(FSD), Rough gola (FSD), Surahi (FSD), Moti surahi (SKP), Gola (SKP) and Gola (SKP) (belonging two different orchards) as most divergent accessions.Among tree parameters like, young shoot color, fully developed leaf shape of tips, fully developed leaf shape of base, fully developed leaf color,fully developed leaf curvature in cross section, thickness of outer flesh in relation to core diameter, fruit length, fruit width, fruit juiciness, fruit length of stalk, fruit length/width ratio, fruit relief of surface, fruit size of sepal, fruit sweetness, fruit diameter of calyx cavity in relation to that of fruit and fruit ridged collar around calyx cavity and seed size was the most diverse phenotypic markers for guava accessions identification.The phenotypic and genotypic based dendrograms grouped guava accessions into two main groups and many sub groups and sub groups.High diversity was found in all accessions especially Mota gola (SKP) was the most diverse phenotype among all accessions of both districts and Gola (SKP) had most diverse genotype on genetic basis.Sadabahar gola (SKP), Gola (SKP), Gola (FSD), Choti surahi (SKP) and Surahi (FSD) were found quite phenotypic diverse accessions in morphological analysis, and Bangladeshi gola (FSD), Lal gola (FSD), Larkana gola (FSD), Gola (SKP), Moti surahi (SKP) and Sadabahar gola (SKP) were quite genetically diverse accessions on the basis of genetic markers variation analysis.As for as clonal propagation is concerned highly significant results were obtained for all the parameters (number of rooted cuttings, sprouting % age, average number of roots per cuttings, average root length (cm) and survival % age) and all concentrations (0, 2000, 4000, 6000 and 8000 ppm) for rooting of softwood cuttings treated with IBA and NAA.Highly significant results were obtained with 4000 ppm IBA and 2000 ppm of NAA and IBA performed the best for rooting of softwood cuttings in comparison with NAA.This study revealed the great potential of morphological and genetic variation and clonal propagation technique in guava.However, a comprehensive and detailed inventory for documentation of all guava accessions, supported with gene banks and also an annexed crop catalogue needs to be carried out.


The mechanism of the pain relief produced by opiates in normal volunteers in the cold induced pain test has been investigated. In a double-blind placebo controlled study, hand skin temperature during a 3 min immersion in water at 1 degree C was not affected by either the opioid dipipanone 8 mg or the vasodilator nifedipine 10 and 20 mg. During this immersion, dipipanone produced significant pain relief. Nifedipine reduced pre-immersion blood pressures and raised heart rates, however, it did not significantly alter pain scores. It is concluded that vasodilatation and local warming do not play a role in the relief of pain by opiates in the cold immersion test.


In this paper we describe an instrumentation environment for the performance analysis and visualization of parallel applications written in JOMP, an OpenMP-like interface for Java. The environment includes two complementary approaches. The first one has been designed to provide a detailed analysis of the parallel behavior at the JOMP programming model level. At this level, the user is faced with parallel, work-sharing and synchronization constructs, which are the core of JOMP. The second mechanism has been designed to support an in-depth analysis of the threaded execution inside the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). At this level of analysis, the user is faced with the supporting threads layer, monitors and conditional variables. The paper discusses the implementation of both mechanisms and evaluates the overhead incurred by them.


In these exploratory experiments, entomopathogenic nematodes and fungi were investigated for the management of the populations of postharvest insect pests. Nematodes were screened for pathogenicity to Plodia interpunctella (Hubner), while nematodes and fungi were investigated for virulence to the maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais (Motschulsky). Adults and larvae of P. interpunctellea were screened for susceptibility to the following six nematodes: Heterorhabitis bacteriophora Poinar (HP88, Lewiston and Oswego strains); H. indica Poinar, Karunakar and David (Homl strain); H. marelatus Liu and Berry (Point Reyes strain); H. megidis Poinar, Jackson, and Klein (UK211 strain); and H. zealandica Poinar (NZH3 strain). The nematodes that had the highest virulence to larvae and adults of P. interpunctellea were H. indica, H. megidis, and H. marelatus. Six strains of nematodes were studied, namely H. bacteriophora, H. indica, H. georgiana (K22), Steinernema feltiae SN and S. carpocapsae. All strains of fungi, Beauveria bassiana (GHA) and Metarhizium brunneum (F52) were evaluated for infectivity to adults of S. zeamais. The two strains of Steinernematidae nematodes and a strain of fungus, B. bassiana were found to cause significant mortality of the weevils compared to the rest of the entomopathogens and the control. To demonstrate the practical application of entomopathogens, wettable dust of B. bassiana were dispensed on jute bags after which weevils were exposed to the treated surfaces for 30 min. The exposed weevils recorded between 90 to 100% mortality 14-d after exposure. Additional study demonstrated that the parasitoid, Habrobracon hebetor (Say) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) could be integrated with entomopathogenic nematodes. These experiments demonstrate the potential usefulness of entomopathogens in the management of stored product Lepidopteran and Coleopteran pests.


Drs Parish, Seghal, and Buntin have written the Color Atlas of Sexually Transmitted Diseases to provide the clinician with a pictorial reference when making a diagnosis. The book consists of a short introduction followed by 20 chapters arranged alphabetically by disease. Most diseases outlined are sexually transmitted. The few that are not are important to the discussion as they commonly occur in the genital area. Each chapter is divided into "Background," "Epidemiology," "Clinical Manifestations," "Diagnostic Tools," "Differential Diagnosis," and "Treatment." Following these are pictures depicting both typical and atypical presentations of the disease discussed. As each chapter is a synopsis rather than a detailed discussion, a listing of suggested readings is included at the end of every section. This book is compact and well organized, making it a quick and easy reference. Although each disease is discussed briefly, pertinent information is included. Most of the photographs are clear and of


More accurate analytical solutions of the maximum rate of climb and maximum climb angle are proposed for the climbing flight of the piston–propeller airplane. For the solutions, it is assumed that the propeller efficiency is a function of the airspeed and the airplane has cambered wing drag polar. The solutions are compared with the performance calculated through traditional assumptions of a constant propeller efficiency and a symmetrical wing drag polar. Moreover, the quartic equation to find the best climb angle speed is solved exactly. The comparison proved that the solutions with traditional assumptions result in a higher service ceiling, a shorter climb time, and a shorter climb distance.


Introduction: Young adults (YAs) with T1D experience poorer self-care, psychosocial well-being and clinical outcomes relative to other age groups. A better understanding of factors that drive these challenges is needed to better support this age group. Behavioral science theory suggests that greater autonomous (vs. controlled) motivation (the degree to which behaviors are motivated by internal vs. external drivers) may enable YA to more effectively navigate the challenges of living with T1D.
 Methods: Baseline surveys and clinical data from an ongoing self-management RCT were analyzed to examine associations between autonomous motivation (modified TSRQ) , glycemic control (HbA1c) , diabetes distress (DDS) , diabetes self-management (DSMQ) , self-efficacy (DES-SF) , and quality of life (ADD-QoL) . All analyses were adjusted for treatment regimen (injections/pump/CGM) .
 Results: Among 133 YA with T1D (24.2±3.7 yrs, 53% female, 53% Latinx, 36% White, 11% multiethnic/other) , more autonomous motivation was associated with lower diabetes distress (standardized b= -0.19, p=0.04) and better self-management (b=0.18, p=0.04) . Analyses revealed that the association of autonomous motivation with lower diabetes distress scores was attributable to its associations with the emotional burden (b=-0.17, p=0.05) and regimen distress (b=-0.24, p=0.01) subscales, and its association with higher self management scores was driven by its association with the glucose monitoring subscale (b=0.32, p=0.0005) . Relationships between motivation and other measures were not significant.
 Conclusion: Among YA with T1D, those with greater autonomous motivation for diabetes care had lower regimen distress and emotional burden, and greater glucose monitoring. While the causal direction of these relationships is unclear, it is plausible that interventions to enhance autonomous motivation may enhance self-management and well-being in this population.

 E.Pyatak: Research Support; Abbott Diabetes. E.Taylor: None. J.Raymond: None. C.Vigen: n/a. J.Sideris: None. D.Fox: None. J.Diaz: None. A.Ali: None. J.Blanchard: None. G.Granados: None. E.Salazar: None.

 National Institutes of Health (R01DK116719)


T HE "MAKING AFICTION OF HISTORY" PANEL AT THE 2007 Sydney Writers' Festival included award-winning novelist, Roger McDonald, and renowned historian and public intellectual, Inga Clendinnen. Given Clendinnen's well-publicized attack on the "opportunistic transpositions and elisions" (16) of historical fiction generally, and Kate Grenville's The Secret River in particular, I was anticipating her criticism of McDonald's historical novel, The Ballad of Desmond Kale, especially of what I considered its elision of indigenous genocide and dispossession. Instead, Clendinnen specifically exempted McDonald's work from her arguments against historical fiction. Clendinnen's praise of McDonald's novel (which won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2006, the same year that Grenville's book was short-listed) caused me to look anew at her essay and his novel. Returning to Clendinnen's "The History Question," I was struck by the disjunction between her insistence on the political significance of "stories" about history, and her claim that authors of fiction have only aesthetic, not moral, obligations in their work. I also noticed a resonance between Clendinnen's views on Anzac Day and McDonald's construction of an ideal history of Australian settlement. In Ballad, McDonald explicitly constructs the inland as an ideal site of equality, freedom, and authentic Australian settlement. Yet as I will argue, this construction is enabled by, at the same time as it conceals, an aggression towards and rejection of women and homosexuals, as well as working-class and indigenous people. Discussing Australian national identity in relation to Anzac Day, Clendinnen honors the "good legacy Australians took away from the First World War" (12). Although aware of the exclusions underlying this legacy, Clendinnen seems highly invested in the all-white, all-male origins of Anzac Day: her "throat still tightens" remembering the Dawn Services she attended in the late 1930s, when she "was still too young to count as fema Ie (women were ofcourse banned from this sacred men's business)" (11). Being one of the Others excluded from this ritual, Clendinnen occupies an ambivalent position in relation to this signifier of national identity, and consequently, to what Jennifer Rutherford has termed the "fantasy of Australia as site of a privileged and realised good" (15). Nevertheless, Clendinnen's depiction of the "good legacy" of Anzac Day has connections with the more aggressive and unambivalent manifestation of this fantasy in McDonald's book. In accepting and supporting the fantasy of Australia as quintessentially free and equal, such constructions of national identity camouflage, at the same time as they enable, the aggression to and rejection of the Other that underlies white Australian society, historically and today. Clendinnen's "sympathy" with John Howard in her celebration of Anzac Day-and "even with his longing for a clear, celebratory story of how Australia got to be the fine country it undoubtedly is" (2)-reveals the wider resonance of this shared fantasy. Such correspondence between constructions of national identity by figures associated with the "left" in Australia (Clendinnen and McDonald) and Howard, an icon of the "right," suggests a contraction in available and permissible sentiments about nationhood. As the Australian nation becomes increasingly fearful ofexternal and internal Others-an attitude especially apparent in Howard-era discourses of terrorism and refugees-the idea that Australia is good becomes obligatory. (At the same time, the violent consequences of that fear expose the lie of this joint fantasy.) In the light of the widespread portrayal of Australia as a good nation, it seems significant that McDonald's prizewinning manifestation of this fantasy has received so little critical attention. Indeed, whereas Grenville's book has been vigorously debated by both historians and literary critics, McDonald's novel has received only briefreviews.' Mimicking and realizing the semi-conscious desires of contemporary white Australia, and masked by aesthetic conventions and an overt discourse of freedom and equality, McDonald's fantasy of an all-white, all-male Australian society avoided criticism. Responding to this deficit of critical attention, and taking Ballad as symptomatic of a broader fantasy informing contemporary Australian society, this essay explores the dark underbelly of such constructions of nationhood. At the end of Ballad, most of the main characters, and many others, congregate at Ducks Mole Reach and prepare to travel further inland to join the escaped convict and


CASE.-A housekeeper, aged 38, single, came under my care in November last. Sixteen months ago, she first noticed a swelling in the right breast, which gradually grew larger, and was excised in February I874. Five weeks later, a fresh tumour had already formed, and was likewise removed by excision. Soon afterwards, numerous cancerous nodules sprang up about the cicatrices in the axillary glands, and also in the left breast; and, as further surgical operations appeared unadvisable, Mlr. Irvine sent her to me. When I first saw her, on November 23rd, the cancerous cachexia was strongly marked. There was intense weakness and depression of spirits; the face bore an expression of agony; the complexion was sallowv; there was complete loss of appetite, great wasting, restlessness at night, a pulse of 120, and sixty respirations in the minute. Towards evening, well marked febrile movements set in, and there was excruciating pain, more especially in the left shoulder. Under these circumstances, no treatment could be expected to produce a decided change in the aspect of the case; but, as the patient and her friends wvere most anxious that something should be done, electrolysis was suggested. On November 30th, I introduced a needle connected with the cathode of lBecker-MIuirhead's battery into one of the cancerous nodes on the right side of the chest, and placed the anode to the left shoulder. The power of current wvas gradually raised from ten to thirty-five cells, and it was allowed to circulate for ten minutes. Immediately afterwards, the patient expressed herself as considerably relieved. I saw her again two days later, when she informed me that she-had had less pain ever since, had slept better, and felt stronger and more cheerful. On December i4th, the cancerous node which had been electrolysed had disappeared, the tumour in the left breast was smaller, the pain was gone, the pulse had fallen to ninety beats, and the inspirations were only thirty-six in the minute. The patient said that she hardly felt any discomfort at all; looked wonderfully better, and entertained hopes of perfect recovery. During the intense frost which prevailed at that time, she caught a severe -cold, which prevented her from coming to see me again, and she died on January 15th, 1875, from congestion of the lungs, but without a return of the pain. I should add that I also prescribed for this patient morphia, chloral, and quinine; but these remedies appeared to do little good, while, imme(liately after each electrolytic application, a decided change for the better took place. I have now put before you as concisely as possible what I believe to be the advantages anid limits of usefulness of the electrolytic treatment, and trust that you will henceforth use it more extensively in suitable cases than has hitherto been done.


KVKs impart trainings and education with a view to raise the level of knowledge, attitudinal changes and testing and transferring of recommended improved farm technologies so as to bridge the gap between production and productivity and also to increase self-employment opportunities among the farming community. Rural Women in India, contributing 25% of GDP, is increasingly becoming a Female Activity. The present study was an attempt to evaluate the impact of training on its beneficiaries with reference to know the extent of success in raising the income of beneficiaries. For attaining the objectives, the present investigation was carried out in Baikunthpur block of Koriya district, Chhattisgarh. A total of 60 trainees and 60 non-trainees were selected as sample for the study. The data were collected by personal interview with the help of structured and pre-tested schedule. Percentage and other statistical tools were used to analyze the data. Age, educational status, land holding, number of training attended and progressiveness had significant relation with income and employment generation. Size of family, occupation, annual income, extension participation and risk bearing capacity had non-significant relation with income and employment generation.


This autoethnography study reflects on the experiences of three assistant professors of different races of the tenure process at a large public research university. The study was framed by social cognitive career theory (SCCT), which is often used to describe career interest and career choice in a variety of professional domains, considering cognitive-personal, environmental, and experiential factors (Lent, 2005; Tang, Pan, & Newmeyer, 2008). Despite the commonality of the journey through the tenure process, everyone's path looks different. Isolation, collegial relationships, and for some, unusually high service commitments and family responsibilities, whether because of gender or race, have provided a backdrop for the lives of women in academe and have, in large part, defined their experiences on the tenure track. The results of the reflections of our experiences identify that environmental variables are important to the success of tenure seeking faculty. Keywords: Women Faculty, Tenure, Race, Ethnicity, Environmental Barriers, Career Advancement, Social Cognitive Career Theory


Nonimaging reflectors that are an extension of the design principle that was developed for compound parabolic concentrator type devices are proposed for illumination applications. The optical designs presented offer maximal lighting efficiency while they retain sharp angular control of the radiation and highly uniform flux densities on distant target planes. Our results are presented for symmetrical configurations in two dimensions (troughlike reflectors) for flat and for tubular sources. For fields of view of practical interest (half-angle in the 30-60 degrees range), these devices can achieve minimum-tomaximum intensity ratios of 0.7, while they remain compact and incur low reflective losses.


Worldwide Pulmoary Embolism is a major health problem. It may be the cause of sudden death or chronic disability. Advances have been made in the diagnosis and management of this disorder in past decade or so. Even in 1996 identification of P.E. remains a challenge to clinicians.  This article describe the current diagnostic strategy for Pulmonary Embolism.


Purpose
The 2015 global economic crisis has triggered the issuance of several banking regulations in Indonesia, including those related to temporary stimulus for Islamic banks and branchless banking (fintech). However, few studies attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of such regulations. Thus, this study aims to determine the role and assess the effectiveness of such banking regulations.

Design/methodology/approach
The data used cover all 12 Islamic commercial banks in Indonesia during the stimulus period of Q3.2015 to Q2.2017. The variables included were banks' fundamental factors (Islamic financing, capital adequacy ratio, investment, non-performing financing, return on asset, efficiency, financing deposit ratio and fintech) and macroeconomic variables (inflation, exchange rate and money supply). The model was analyzed by using multiple linear regressions with generalized least square estimation technique.

Findings
The main finding suggests that the stimulus regulation indeed played a positive role in the acceleration of Islamic bank financing. However, the fintech-related regulation was not yet effective to achieve the goal, at least in the short term. Furthermore, the study found that return of assets, operational efficiency, financing deposit ratio and money supply also influenced Islamic financing.

Practical implications
For policymakers, the effectiveness of the temporary stimulus in accelerating Islamic banking financing and preventing the possible negative impacts of the external crisis provides indications that the regulator could conduct similar policy in the future. More generally, the findings are also expected to enrich Islamic banking literature.

Originality/value
This is possibly one of the few studies to investigate the role and effectiveness of banking regulations on Islamic banking financing in Indonesia.


We performed a multicenter trial of 99mTc-tetrofosmin myocardial SPECT for the assessment of acute thrombolysis, pre and post elective PTCA and myocardial viability in comparison with 201Tl myocardial SPECT. The participants consisted of 212 patients at 44 institutions and the study lasted for 10 months. In assessing acute thrombolysis, the perfusion defect from the acute to subacute phase was reduced by 25% and that from the subacute to chronic phase by 10%. The mean perfusion defect score at subacute and chronic phase was correlated well with regional wall motion. The mean defect score during the subacute phase could predict future wall motion abnormalities. In assessing pre and post PTCA, 99mTc-tetrofosmin stress/rest myocardial SPECT could identify the changes of perfusion as in the case with successful PTCA and/or restenosis. In assessing the myocardial viability, 99mTc-tetrofosmin rest myocardial SPECT was superior to 201Tl redistribution, and equal to 201Tl reinjection method. In summary, we concluded that 99mTc-tetrofosmin is a powerful tool, with which to diagnose and manage patients with coronary artery diseases.


Currently, linear motors find increasingly wide application in various industrial sectors. These motors feature a range of advantages including the absence of compound mechanical power transmissions between a motor and an actuator, simple design, and performance reliability. These advantages determine application of linear motors in electric drive systems of a range of industrial mechanisms including liquid metal and melt transfer units, various transport systems, and metal working and grinding machines. As an illustration, the article addresses submersible cylindrical linear alternating current electronic engines used for rodless oil extraction. Practice shows that the overall efficiency of such units is extremely low. This article is dedicated to the determination of performance and power/angle characteristics of such linear motors, their main energy indicators 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜑 and efficiency at various supply voltage frequencies. It is shown that 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝜑 at all supply voltage frequencies remains very high, while the efficiency is extremely low. The main way to increase the engine efficiency is to increase the frequency of its supply voltage as much as possible. It is proposed to extend the results obtained to other possible industrial applications of linear electric drives.


The phytotechnology concept that is applied for a bio-desalination reactor become a new desalination technology. The desalination technology can be called as bio-desalination technology to remove ions of Na+ and Clin brackish or saline water using mangrove plant. Before the mangrove plants were used in bio-desalination technology, the preliminary phytotoxicity test was conducted. The purpose was to determine the salinity concentration at which the mangrove species of Rhizophora mucronata can survive. The preliminary phytotoxicty test was carried out using a plastic reactor that was designed as a reed bed system. The reactors filled with gravel, sand, and artificial saline water. The variation of the NaCl concentrations were 0 mg/L as control, 10,000; 20,000; 30,000; 40,000, and 50,000 mg/L. The physical observation of the survival condition of Rhizophora mucronata was carried out during the preliminary test for 7 days. The analysis of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) on Rhizophora mucronata was conducted at the end of exposure. The results showed that Rhizophora mucronata could not survive at the concentrations of 40,000 and 50,000 mg/L. Rhizophora mucronata changed the color of the leaves to brown and the stems become softer. Multiple cell damage and the decreasing trend of sodium and chloride amounts occured on roots and stems at the salinity concentration of 50,000 mg/L. In conclusion, the high of salinity concentration (> 30,000 mg/L) can be toxic to Rhizophora mucronata.


The longitudinal controller at DaimlerChrysler AG consists of two cascade controllers. The outer control loop contains the driver assistance functions such as speed limiter, cruise control, etc. The inner control loop consists of a PID-controller and an observer. The task of the observer is to estimate the part of the vehicle's acceleration caused by large disturbances, for example by a changed vehicle mass or the slope of the road.As observer the Kalman filter is selected. It is the optimal filter when the process model is linear and the process noise and measurement noise can be modeled as Gaussian noise. In this Master's thesis the theory for the Kalman filter is presented and it is shown how to choose the filter parameters. Simulated annealing is a global optimization technique which can be used when autotuning, i.e., automatically find the optimal parameter settings. To be able to perform autotuning for the longitudinal controller one has to model the environment and driving situations.In this Master's thesis it is verified that the parameter choice is a compromise between a fast but jerky, or a slow but smooth estimate. As the output from the Kalman filter is directly added to the control value for the engine and brakes, it is important that the output is smooth. It is shown that the Kalman filter implemented in the test vehicles today can be exchanged with a first-order lag function, without loss in performance. This makes the filter tuning easier, as there is only one parameter to choose.Change detection is a method that can be used to detect large changes in the signal, and react accordingly - for example by making the filter faster. A filter using change detection is implemented and simulations show that it is possible to improve the estimate using this method. It is suggested to implement the change detection algorithm in a test vehicle and evaluate it further.


Stream data processing has gained progressive momentum with the arriving of new stream applications and big data scenarios. One of the most promising techniques in stream learning is the Spiking Neural Network, and some of them use an interesting population encoding scheme to transform the incoming stimuli into spikes. This study sheds lights on the key issue of this encoding scheme, the Gaussian receptive fields, and focuses on applying them as a pre-processing technique to any dataset in order to gain representativeness, and to boost the predictive performance of the stream learning methods. Experiments with synthetic and real data sets are presented, and lead to confirm that our approach can be applied successfully as a general pre-processing technique in many real cases.


Background. Cancer is a leading cause of death in children and adolescents worldwide. The cancer incidence rate in children and adolescents has been on the rise for decades. Climatic, geographic and social factors of the region play an important role for cancer incidence. Objective: to analyze the cancer incidence and mortality rates in children and adolescents of Prymorsky krai. Methods. Cancer incidence rates in Russia for 2008–2018 as well as cancer incidence among children treated at the regional pediatric hematology/oncology center (Vladivostok, Russia) for 2014–2019 were analyzed. Results. No statistically significant differences in the cancer incidence rates for the 2008–2018 period between children and adolescents of Primorsky krai and the russian federation in the whole and the far-eastern federal district were found. In in Primorsky krai, there was a variability in the incidence rate during the analyzed period, a negative average annual growth rate in the group of children under 14 years of age (-0.86 %). For the 2008–2018 period, the cancer mortality rate in children and adolescents of Primorsky krai significantly decreased (from 5.65 ‰ in 2008 to 2.6 ‰ in 2018), with the average annual increase rate in children aged 017 years of -9.17 %. In 2014–2019, the quality of cancer detection improved significantly, and the number of children and adolescents with stage iiiiv cancer reduced. Conclusion. Cancer prevention and early detection can potentially reduce the cancer incidence and mortality rates in children and adolescents in Primorsky krai. Population-based cancer registries are needed for quantifying the burden of cancer in children and adolescents and assessing prevention and control programs.


This study uses Census data to look at travel to work patterns in Nottingham. Spatial trends are identified by analysing how number of journeys to work, distance travelled, commuter flows, method of travel, type of job and type of neighbourhood vary across the study area. Affluent commuters working in managerial and professional roles travelling long distances by car from the rural hinterland to the city centre contrast with people with routine jobs travelling short distances to work from deprived urban neighbourhoods using public transport. Temporal trends are revealed through the comparison of 1991 and 2001 Census data. The number of journeys to work is increasing, whilst flow patterns are becoming more complex. The environmental impact of travel to work in Nottingham is quantified through the application of a simple model that estimates the carbon dioxide emissions produced by commuting in each area. The Nottingham Express Transit tram network has been introduced in the city with the aim of reducing congestion and reliance on the car through the provision of an environmentally friendly alternative. The possible environmental benefits of this solution are highlighted by exploring several what-if scenarios. It is concluded that the tram network has the potential to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.


Corporate effects in variance decomposition capture heterogeneity of business performance derived from factors internal to firms at the corporate level. Most estimates of corporate effects do not include effects associated with fluctuations in returns over time, except insofar as the fluctuations affect the average corporate return for the time period in question. Exclusion of the time-varying dimension of the corporate effect makes it difficult to fully understand the effect of corporate strategy and the actions of corporate managers, particularly in response to a changing environment. The evidence in this article shows that within a single industry, where managers face the same external environment, time-varying corporate effects associated with corporate level managerial decisions are statistically significant. We introduce the concept of dynamic managerial capabilities to underpin the finding of heterogeneity in managerial decisions and firm performance in the face of changing external conditions. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Background: Cervical cancer is the second leading malignancy and cause of death in Bangladeshi women. Health professional's misconceptions about the disease and lack of knowledge may worsen the situation. Nurses form a large proportion of the health care provider workforce. Among them who had opportunity to work in cancer hospital should know better about cervical cancer than other hospitals in the country. This survey was undertaken with an intention to address this important health issue by determining the awareness of cervical cancer among nurses at a tertiary cancer centre of Bangladesh.
Objective: To provide the baseline information about the knowledge of cervical cancer and explore attitude and practice of cervical cancer screening among staff nurses.
Methods: A pretested structured self-administered questionnaire based cross sectional survey was done on 154 staff nurses working in National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH), Dhaka, containing mostly recognition and some recall type questions about knowledge of cervical cancer, its risk factors, screening techniques, attitude towards cervical cancer screening and its practices.
Results: 100% respondents heard the name of cervical cancer but 35.7% did not know about any of its risk factors and only 3.2% aware about more than 3 risk factors. Twenty seven percent not aware about any symptom, only 51.9% identified the foul smelling excessive vaginal discharge and irregular abnormal vaginal bleeding as the symptom and 16.8% know that post coital bleeding may be the symptom. Only 42.2% know VIA as a screening test, 39.6% know actual screening interval, 23.37% know who should be screened, 42.2% aware about HPV vaccine, 35.7% can do VIA, 42.2% said that they referred patient for screening but only 16.2% of themselves have ever been screened.
Conclusion: The majority of nursing staff in NICRH had inadequate knowledge about cervical cancer screening and their attitude and practice towards cervical cancer screening could not be termed positive. There is an urgent need for orientation course for working nurses and integration of cervical cancer prevention issues in the existing curriculum of nurses in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh J Obstet Gynaecol, 2020; Vol. 35(2): 102-106


This report describes two cases of twin pregnancy in which continuous heart rate monitoring of both twins was successfully carried out during labour. In both cases monitoring permitted early diagnosis of fetal distress and both mothers were delivered by caesarean section. Continuous fetal heart rate monitoring permits diagnosis of fetal distress in the second twin much earlier than conventional methods.


Longitudinal surveys were used to identify the effect of increased media climate change reporting because of An Inconvenient Truth, the Stern Report and drought. Results suggest that this was a catalyst for decreased support for policy action at low and moderate cost levels, while support marginally increased at higher costs. Similar results were found for additional information presented within questionnaire suggesting less engaged respondents chose the status quo if information was too complex, while others found the information strengthened the case for action. This highlights tension between ensuring debate is well informed and the risk of disengagement from presenting complex information.


Background/Context There is continuing debate among social scientists and educators about the role of school-to-school differences in generating educational inequality. Are some students high achieving because they attend School A, while others struggle because they attend School B, as critical discourse on schools argues? Alternatively, is educational inequality driven largely by social forces outside of the school, in the home and neighborhood environment, or by educational processes that are largely common across schools as much social science research argues? Analyses of school achievement, and in particular test score gains from year-to-year, suggest very small between-school differences. Yet, analyses of test score data alone may fail to reveal important school-to-school differences that affect the quality of the classroom experience and a variety of educational outcomes. Purpose/Objective We provide evidence on the following research questions. What is the magnitude of school-to-school variation in instructional practice, as captured by multiple measures? Are some domains of instruction (e.g., behavioral management) more variable between schools than others? To what extent are school-to-school differences in instruction associated with compositional characteristics of students and teachers? Research Design This study relies on the Measures of Effective Teaching Study data, which offer an unprecedented set of observations of teachers' instruction scored on state-of-the-art observational protocols. To examine the extent of school-to-school variation in instructional practice in elementary and middle schools, we conducted a decomposition of variance analysis using summary scores on multiple measures. We further examine behavioral climate as revealed during instruction separately from overall instructional practice. Next, we examine differences in instruction associated with compositional characteristics of students using multilevel models. Finally, we use an innovative two-stage statistical adjustment strategy to more narrowly identify the possible association between composition and teaching practice due to school-to-school teacher sorting. Findings/Results The basic descriptive results from this study suggest a middle view of school-to-school differences in instruction. We find that substantial school-level variation in instruction exists, with 30% or more of the total variance in instruction lying between schools in these data. Behavioral climate during instruction appears to be particularly salient, and especially in elementary schools. Much of the between school variance we identify, in some cases 40% or more, is readily explained by simple measures of socio-demographic composition, including in particular the racial make-up of schools in the MET districts. Finally, some evidence from a statistical adjustment method suggests that teacher sorting, rather than measurement bias and teacher adaptation, is principally responsible for school-to-school differences in instruction. Conclusions/Recommendations More than an academic debate, basic differences between schools in the quality of the learning environment, along with parental understandings and beliefs about school effects, are potentially important drivers of school and neighborhood sorting and segregation, and even public investment in schooling. Additionally, this question carries continued policy relevance as states adopt and revise teacher and school accountability frameworks that implicitly attribute school-to-school differences to organizational functioning, and seek to carry out instructional improvement efforts in targeted schools. The basic descriptive results from this study suggest school-level differences are not as great as suggested by critical theory and the public discourse, but neither are they as inconsequential as one might infer from some social science research or the literature on value-added differences between schools.


The most frequent MAPT H1 haplotype is associated with the risk for developing progressive supranuclear palsy and other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease. A recent report suggests that the MAPT H1 is associated with the risk for developing essential tremor. We wanted to confirm this association in a different population. We analyzed the distribution of allelic and genotype frequencies of rs1052553, which is an H1/H2 SNP, in 200 subjects with familial ET and 291 healthy controls. rs1052553 genotype and allelic frequencies did not differ significantly between subjects with ET and controls and were unrelated with the age at onset of tremor or gender, and with the presence of head, voice, chin, and tongue tremor. Our study suggests that the MAPT H1 rs1052553 is not associated with the risk for developing familial ET in the Spanish population.


Background: Gefitinib is the epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) that has the dramatically effects in selective patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). EGFR mutations predict response and survival in patients treated with gefitinib. However, almost of these patients have a relapse within a year after the start of therapy. Although the mechanisms of acquired resistance to Gefitinib were MET amplification, L861Q and hepatocyte growth factor(HGF), main reason was a secondary EGFR mutation, threonine to methionine at codon 790 in exon 20 (T790M). Therefore, we analyzed EGFR mutations after gefitinib treatment in addition to before treatment in patients with NSCLC. Materials and methods: From December 2004 to September 2009, 37 patients with advanced NSCLC harboring EGFR mutations were treated with gefitinib in our hospital. When tumor was relapsed, we got written informed consent from patients, and re-examination of EGFR mutations was performed in 9 patients by present. EGFR mutations were examined by mutant-enriched polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and/or peptide nucleic acid-locked nucleic acid (PNA-LNA) PCR clamp method. Samples were the paraffin-embedded specimens, transbronchial biopsied tissues, surgically resected tissues, bronchial washing liquids, and pleural effusion, and we used relapsed tumor samples at secondary analysis. In addition, we evaluated the response to treatment according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) and progression free survival defined as the time from the date of beginning treatment to the date of disease progression or death. Results: 37 patients treated by gefitinib, response rate was 60%(22/37) and disease control rate was 78%(29/37). Within a year, most patients were relapse. In 9 patients, we could analyze EGFR mutations again. Secondary analysis of EGFR mutations was performed in safety. T790M, a resistant mutation of EGFR, was detected in 4 patients. Samples from lymph node biopsy were used in 2 patients, pleural effusion was in a patient, and transbronchial biopsied tissue was in a patient. 1 patient was adenosquamous cell carcinoma, and all of the rest were adenocarcinoma. Despite emergence of T790M, in a patient, readministration of gefitinib was effective (stable disease), furthermore, treatment of erlotinib after gefitinib was also effective (partial response). In 1 patient, secondary analysis is performing at present. Conclusion: These results suggested the importance of EGFR analysis after relapse in patients treated with gefitinib. We must consider why erlotinib was effective in patients with T790M, and screen appropriate subjects of readministration of EGFR-TKIs. The new therapeutic strategy according to the mechanism of resistance to EGFR-TKI is expected. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1800.


The quest to improve effective teaching and student learning is on-going. Many different learning style models have been developed, but most are too complicated to give in interpret in the classroom. One simple tool that has been successfully used to gain insight into student learning is the VARK catalyst (Visual/Aural/Read-Write/Kinesthetic). Results obtained for class profiles of Freshmen and Junior level Chemical Engineering students using VARK indicate that student learning styles may differ substantially from what most professors believe and that these styles are firmly in place by the time a student reaches the university. Students showed much less preference for visual input than expected. The preferred learning style of the majority of students as was found to be kinesthetic (hands-on) mode, either by itself or in combination with other learning styles (multimodal). A discussion of the class results compared with activities designed to reach students through multiple modes proved easy to discuss with the students and opened up the discussion of study habits and active learning in the classroom.


This research was mainly conducted in order to prove that anagram technique could improve students' vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade students of SMP Santo Thomas Medan in the Academic Year of 2021/2022 and to describe their responses towards the implementation of anagram technique during the processes of learning teaching. The quantitative data analysis showed the mean score increases from 78 in Pre-test with 65% of the students got score ≥ 75, to do the post test one with 74% of the students got score ≥ 75. From post test one 80 risen up to 92 in post test two with 97% of the students got score ≥ 75. Nearly all the students pass the minimum completion criterion which is 75. Their mean score is much higher than that. As for the qualitative data, they throwed their enthusiasm in learning with anagram technique because above 60% of students agree and 23% of students are strongly agree. The research findings showed that teaching vocabulary by using anagram technique to the seventh grade students of SMP Santo Thomas 3 Medan could improve their vocabulary mastery significantly.


The effect of the real part of the Raman suscep-tibility on the Stokes spectrum excited by Gaussian and Bessel beams is studied theoretically and experimentally. This part of the susceptibility is shown to be responsible for the increase in the overlap integral of the Stokes beam and the pump beam and, as a result, for the increase in the Raman amplification in the region of frequencies higher than the frequency of the exact Raman resonance. This, in particular, is observed in the spectral shift of the axial component of Raman generation in the case of Bessel pump and Stokes radiation in the case of the Gaussian pump to the high-frequency region. It is shown that the shift caused by the Bessel pump significantly exceeds the shift caused by the Gaussian pump. The conical component in the case of the Bessel pump is generated at the frequency of the exact Raman resonance.


Introduction: Tibial shaft fracture is among the most common long bone fracture encountered, open fractures are more common in the tibia because one third of the Tibial surface is subcutaneous throughout most of its length, and the blood supply to the tibia is more precarious than that of bones enclosed by heavy muscles. Whenever open fractures occur in the tibia they are more commonly type IIIB. Objective: To study delayed union, non-union and infection are relatively common complications of tibial shaft fracture functional outcome & effect of dynamization in closed Intra-medullary Interlocking nailing for closed and open (Gustilo & Anderson Type I to Type IIIb) Tibial diaphyseal fractures. Material and Methods: Total of 56 skeletally mature patients diagnosed as Tibial diaphyseal fracture included closed & open (Gustilo type I to IIIb). Treated with intramedullary interlocking nail. Observation & Results: The age distribution was 42.9% in 21-40 years age group & 41.1% in 41-60 years age group with mean age 39.32 ± 14.85. Majority of fractures occurred in male i.e. 76.8%. Road traffic Accidents were found to be the main culprit as it contributed to 83.9% of total cases, other includes the fall from height (12.5%) & slip at home (3.6%). Among 56 tibia fractures 51.8 % were the lower 1/3 shaft of tibia. 31.5% were middle 1/3 shaft of tibia fracture. 1.8% upper 1/3 shaft of tibia fracture. 8.9% are segmental fracture. In 33 cases which is more commonly i.e. 58.9% & Right side was involved in only 23 cases i.e. 41.1% of total cases. 80.4% of total cases (45) were closed tibia fractures. Dynamization increases the rate of callus formation with mean time to union post dynamization is 6.86 weeks. We evaluated patient using Lysholm score at 3 months and we found that mean Lysholm score was 75.54, which has increased in 6 months to 87.84. At the end of the study we found score further increased to 95.39. Final result in 56 case of tibia shaft fractures treated with intramedullary interlocking nail, 39 case (69.6%) result was "Good to excellent", in 13 patient (23.2%) results were "Excellent". 3 patients (5.4%) had "fair to good "result. 1 patient had "fair" result. We found no case with poor results. Conclusion: Dynamization increases the pace of fracture healing in delayed uniting fracture. Intramedullary interlocking nails shows good to excellent results in the treatment of diaphyseal fractures. Distal tibia shaft fracture are more common followed by middle 1/3.


LIF spectroscopy has been introduced for the in situ diagnostic of phenol degradation in the aqueous solution under pulsed-corona discharges. The applicability of LIF to the measurements of phenol concentration up to 1×10-5 mol l-1 was confirmed. The temporal variation of the absolute concentration of phenol was measured in an aqueous solution exposed by pulsed-corona discharges. This exhibited two characteristic decay times.


Retrovirus‐based vectors are presently the most efficient gene transfer vehicles for introducing genes into human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. However, their use for gene therapy is still problematic. A major obstacle is viral sequences such as the tRNA primer binding site or the dimerization and encapsidation signals that are not required for the expression of the therapeutic gene. These sequences can recombine with endogenous and/or exogenous retroviruses to generate new forms of unpredictable retroviruses. Moreover, these sequences are the targets for transcriptional repressors which inhibit the expression of the transduced genes. Therefore we have developed a new generation of retrovirus vectors which self‐delete upon integration. The vectors are based on the natural life cycle of retroviruses, involving duplication of the terminal control regions U5 and U3 to generate long terminal repeats, and on the ability of the P1‐phage site‐specific recombinase (Cre) to excise any sequences positioned between two target sequences (loxP). Thus, while inserting a therapy gene into the genome, the vectors simultaneously excise most proviral sequences that are not required for gene expression.


This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the four kinds of additives on the silage quality and the relevant bacterial community diversity by Illumina HiSeq 16S rRNA sequencing. The four kinds of additives were Lactobacillus plantarum (LP), organic acids including gallic acid (GA) and phenyllactic acid (PA), pectin (PEC), and enzymes including pectinase (PEE) and cellulase (CE). After 30 d of fermentation, the pH value was shown to have the lowest value in the PEE and PEC groups, followed by the PA group, and then in CE and GA groups; the highest value of pH was found in both LP and control groups. The ammonia nitrogen concentration was lower in the PEE group compared to the other groups except for the PA group. In the comparisons among the seven groups, Lactobacillus was higher in the LP group, Paracoccus was higher in the GA group, Weissella was higher in the PA group, Leuconostoc was higher in the PEC group, Bacillus, Aeromonas, and Curvibacter were higher in the PEE group, and Coriobacteriaceae_UCG_002 was higher in the CE group compared to the other groups. This study proposed that the addition of PEC and PEE improved the fermentation quality of alfalfa silage compared to other additives by improving the bacterial community of Leuconostoc, and Bacillus and Aeromonas, respectively. Moreover, the enhanced fermentation quality of alfalfa silage by the supplementation of PEC and PEE might be attributed to other unclassified genera. This study provides an implication that pectin degradation is an important determinant for alfalfa silage fermentation through the rescheduling of bacterial community diversity.


We developed and evaluated an algorithm for enumerating fluorescently labeled cells (e.g., stem and cancer cells) in mouse-sized, microscopic-resolution, cryo-image volumes. Fluorescent cell clusters were detected, segmented, and then fit with a model which incorporated a priori information about cell size, shape, and intensity. The robust algorithm performed well in phantom and tissue imaging tests, including accurate (<2% error) counting of cells in mouse. Preliminary experiments demonstrate that cryo-imaging and software can uniquely analyze delivery, homing to an organ and tissue distribution of stem cell therapeutics.


We discuss an application of risk-sensitive control to portfolio optimization problems for a general factor model, which is considered a variation of Merton's intertemporal capital asset pricing model ([18]). In the model the instantaneous mean returns as well as volatilities of the security prices are affected by economic factors and the security prices. The economic factors are assumed to satisfy stocahstic differential equations whose coefficients depend on the security prices as well as themselves. In such general incomplete market models under Markovian setting we consider constructing optimal strategies for risk-sensitive portfolio optimization problems on a finite time horizon. We study the Bellman equations of parabolic type corresponding to the optimization problems. Through analysis of the Bellman equations we construct optimal strategies from the solution of the equation. We further discuss the problem with partial information. We shall obtain a necessary condition for optimality using backward stochastic partial differential equations. §