MicroRNAs (miRNAs) present diverse regulatory functions in a wide range of biological activities. Studies on miRNA functions generally depend on determining miRNA expression profiles between libraries by using a next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform. Currently, several online web services are developed to provide small RNA NGS data analysis. However, the submission of large amounts of NGS data, conversion of data format, and limited availability of species bring problems. In this study, we developed miRSeq to provide alternatives. To test the performance, we had small RNA NGS data from four species, including human, rat, fly, and nematode, analyzed with miRSeq. The alignments results indicate that miRSeq can precisely evaluate the sequencing quality of samples regarding percentage of self-ligation read, read length distribution, and read category. miRSeq is a user-friendly standalone toolkit featuring a graphical user interface (GUI). After a simple installation, users can easily operate miRSeq on a PC or laptop by using a mouse. Within minutes, miRSeq yields useful miRNA data, including miRNA expression profiles, 3′ end modification patterns, and isomiR forms. Moreover, miRSeq supports the analysis of up to 105 animal species, providing higher flexibility.


Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are more at risk for mathematical difficulties than hearing children. The few studies that have focused on preschoolers showed that even at this age DHH children already lag behind their hearing peers. Early math skills are important for later mathematics performance and school success in general, so early stimulation of these skills is needed. Research has shown that the home environment plays an important role in the development of early math skills. Because parent-child math activities predict later achievement, it is important to increase parents' awareness of the importance of math activities for young DHH children. This chapter focuses on early math skills in DHH children and describes how parents can enhance these skills in the home environment.


Personalized tag recommendation systems recommend a list of tags to a user when he is about to annotate an item. It exploits the individual preference and the characteristic of the items. Tensor factorization tech- niques have been applied to many applications, such as tag recommendation. Models based on Tucker Decomposition can achieve good performance but require a lot of computation power. On the other hand, mod- els based on Canonical Decomposition can run in linear time and are more feasible for online recommendation. In this paper, we propose a novel method for personalized tag recommendation, which can be considered as a nonlinear extension of Canonical Decomposition. Different from linear tensor factorization, we exploit Gaussian radial basis function to increase the model's capacity. The experimental results show that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods for tag recommendation on real datasets and perform well even with a small number of features, which verifies that our models can make better use of features.


The abstracts below were presented at the Research Forum at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) in Seattle, WA, September 6-9, 2008. They are presented in alphabetical order by the last name of the author, according to abstract category. The abstracts were selected by the Research Submissions Committee. The AAP would like to thank The Natural Dentist for sponsoring the Research Forum.


Background: Improvement of nasal aesthetics by means of rhinoplasty is a highly sought-after procedure and leads to increased patient confidence. The aim of the study was to provide a quantitative synthesis of existing data regarding the ability of cosmetofunctional rhinoplasty to improve patient satisfaction and quality of life measured by the Rhinoplasty Outcomes Evaluation scale. Methods: Electronic databases were searched for studies evaluating quality of life following aesthetic rhinoplasty. Study results were pooled and analyzed using a random effects model. Effect size was estimated using standardized mean difference at a 95 percent confidence interval. Heterogeneity and benefit were assessed and reported using the I2 and standard mean difference. Subgroup analyses were performed based on follow-up period and age group segregation. Results: A total of 377 articles were retrieved, of which eight studies were included in the final analysis. Overall, patient satisfaction analyzed by pooling eight observational studies improved following cosmetofunctional rhinoplasty (standard mean difference, 5.87; 95 percent CI, 3.55 to 8.19; I2 = 100 percent). In addition, further subgroup analyses revealed that maximum benefit was derived by younger patients (standard mean difference, 6.69; 95 percent CI, 3.65 to 9.74; I2 = 99 percent) compared with older patients (standard mean difference, 3.48; 95 percent CI, 3.01 to 3.96; I2 = 0 percent). Postoperative patient satisfaction levels showed maximum improvement during a follow-up period of 6 to 12 months (standard mean difference, 11.07; 95 percent CI, −8.79 to 32.12; I2 = 100 percent). Conclusion: Cosmetofunctional rhinoplasty improves patients' quality of life as evidenced by an improvement in Rhinoplasty Outcomes Evaluation scores. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, IV.


Gippsland has perhaps the most colourful history of exploration of any area in Australia. Hydrocarbons were first discovered in the Gippsland Basin in 1924 when a water well at Lakes Entrance encountered oil and gas shows. In 1942, the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments, in an effort to supplement a wartime oil shortage, sank a shaft near this well and produced 8000 barrels of low gravity oil up to 1956, when the field was abandoned. A total of 64 shallow wells had been drilled in the Lakes Entrance area by that time. Elsewhere in the onshore Gippsland Basin, 30 wells were drilled from 1925 to 1941. In 1960 BHP Ltd was granted an exploration permit covering much of the offshore area of the Gippsland Basin. Esso Australia Ltd joined BHP in 1964 and drilled the Barracouta-1 gas discovery in 1965. Since then over 100 exploration and appraisal wells have been drilled in the basin resulting in the discovery to date of some 3.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas (Current remaining recoverable reserves are 906 million barrels of oil and 5.7 TCF of gas). Exploration in the offshore areas is actively continuing today and new discoveries are still being made.


PurposeAlthough several different learning technologies have been integrated into the face-to-face (F2F) learning approach, the effective implementation of mobile learning (m-learning) is still at an early stage. This may be due to the lack of understanding factors that affect learners' acceptance of m-learning.Design/methodology/approachConsidering the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as a theoretical background, this research investigates m-learning adoption in Saudi Arabia. The research framework extends the UTAUT by including intrinsic motivation, mobile learning self-efficacy and perceived satisfaction. A total of 200 higher education students voluntarily participated in the research. The application of the partial least square technique indicated that the proposed model can predict m-learning adoption adequately in Saudi Arabia (R2 = 0.73.8).FindingsThe research outcomes are significant for educational institutions and teachers to implement m-learning effectively. Many recommendations can be suggested to help enhance learners' willingness to adopt m-learning technology: Teachers need to design their courses in an interactive way and provide several different activities to ensure that learners obtain real benefits in their learning outcomes. When learners have positive perceptions about the use of this technology in the learning process, such perceptions should be supported by providing beneficial courses.Originality/valueThis research examines the effectiveness of the extended UTAUT to predict m-learning adoption in Saudi Arabia higher education. This could provide a significant contribution to the existing evidence about the validity of the model in different learning cultures and contexts.


In this paper, we have investigated the characteristics of a thermopneumatic-actuated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic system integrated with a micropump and microvalves on the same structure. A thermopneumatic-actuated PDMS microfluidic system has been fabricated and its properties are characterized. The advantages of proposed microfluidic system are disposable, low cost fabrication process and transparent properties using indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass and PDMS. The flow rate of the proposed microfluidic system could be easily controlled by the switching function of the ITO heater. The flow rate of the microvalve gradually decreases as the applied heater power increase. At the membrane thickness of 350 mum, the power to cut-off flow is 400 mW. The optimized PDMS membrane thickness of 350 mum is acquired integrating a micropump and microvalve on the same substrate with the same fabrication process. The peak of the pumping rate in the micropump is observed at the duty ratio of 4% and frequency of 4 Hz for the applied pulse power. The maximum pumping rate is 70 nl/min


Predictive human performance modeling has traditionally been used to make quantitative comparisons between alternative designs (e.g., task execution time for skilled users) instead of identifying UI problems or making design recommendations. This note investigates how reliably novice modelers can extract design recommendations from their models. Many HCI evaluation methods have been plagued by the "evaluator effect" [3], i.e., different people using the same method find different UI problems. Our data and analyses show that predictive human performance modeling is no exception. Novice modelers using CogTool [5] display a 34% Any-Two Agreement in their design recommendations, a result in the upper quartile of evaluator effect studies. However, because these recommendations are grounded in models, they may have more reliable impact on measurable performance than recommendations arising from less formal methods.


SUMMARY: This paper describes the results obtained in experiments on interspecific transformation in Azotobacter. When Azotobacter chroococcum was transformed with the DNA of A. vinelandii 6–10% of the colonies differed from the parent strain in colour, colony character and biochemical characteristics. Some of the transformant strains had higher nitrogen-fixing capacities than had the receptor strain. Transformants obtained by treatment of A. vinelandii with the DNA of A. chroococcum also had different colour, colony characteristics and capacity to grow in nutrient broth and peptone, but their nitrogen-fixing capacity was decreased.


Predictive PI (PPI) control form, capable of time delay compensation, has been put forward recently. This control algorithm is essentially a PI controller with enhanced derivative action, which is not only suitable for long time delay process, but also of simple structure and excellent robust stability. The performance of PPI controller was demonstrated and compared with that of traditional PID controller by different tuning methods.


Purpose: This study is aimed at identifying factors influencing attitudes of Evidence-Based Practice among nursing students. Methods: 202 nursing students were recruited from B city and G district. The questionnaires included critical thinking dispositions, information retrieval skills, knowledge and attitudes of Evidence-Based Practice, and characteristics. Data were analyzed by SPSS/Win 21.0 using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and stepwise multiple regressions. Results: The average score of undergraduate nursing students for Evidence-Based Practice attitudes was 32.92±4.57. Evidence-Based Practice attitudes had positive correlation with critical thinking disposition (r=.53, p <.001), information retrieval skills (r=.45, p <.001) and Evidence-Based Practice knowledge (r=.42, p <.001). Factors influencing Evidence-Based Practice attitudes were critical thinking dispositions ( β =.45) and Evidence-Based Practice knowledge ( β =.30). Total variance was explained about 35.3% (F=55.80, p <.001). Conclusion: These results show that teaching strategies that enhance critical thinking dispositions are recommended to improve Evidence-Based Practice attitudes among nursing students. Also, nursing education should include a regular Evidence-Based Practice curriculum to improve Evidence-Based Practice knowledge as is necessary for students to improve information retrieval skill. Reading nursing articles can help nursing students comprehend the up-to-data evidence of clinical practice.


Ocean-crossing vessels should be designed with sufficient fatigue strength. The highcycle
fatigue principle with specific S-N curves is used in the maritime industry to
predict the fatigue life of ship structures. For conventional ship structures, the stress
range distributions are provided by classification societies and are mainly based on
empirical experience. However, a ship may change its designated trade region,
leading to a change in encountered wave environment. This will create a discrepancy
between design and actual stress range distribution. Furthermore, for a novel ship
design, data of fatigue loads is not available to guide the structural design.
Consequently, so-called direct calculation methods are introduced in order to compute
the loads and corresponding structural stresses.
For the fatigue assessment of ship structures, the stresses are mainly caused by wave
loads on the hull. These hydrodynamic loads can be computed using various theories
and numerical implementations. As the method complexity increases, the computation
may become more sensitive, leading to larger uncertainties. Moreover, usually, many
different sea states with several operational conditions are considered, consuming
much computational time in the early fatigue design stage.
The objective of this thesis is to study the efficiency and fatigue result of using
different computational methods as well as the effect of fatigue damage contribution
from bending and torsion. Different methods, from strip theory to advanced non-linear
panel methods, are employed in order to estimate the hydrodynamic loads on a
4,400TEU container ship. Subsequently, the structural stresses are computed using
both finite element methods and engineering beam theory combined with different
options for local stress concentration. The corresponding fatigue damage is then
estimated using various spectral methods and compared to direct rainflow counting to
investigate the scatter.
Based on the results presented in this thesis it is concluded that a linear panel method
for wave load analysis and engineering beam theory for structural stress calculation,
combined with a simple spectral fatigue model, can give us accurate enough results
and the most convenient/fast computation for simple details. However, at locations
other than the mid-section, correct accounting for warping is required and an FE
method is recommended.


This report describes findings from seven focus groups conducted by the Urban Institute with Rhode Island service providers and current and released prisoners across a variety of subject areas related to prisoner reentry. The focus groups were commissioned as part of Rhode Island's participation in the National Governors Association's Prisoner Reentry State Policy Academy. The overriding themes that emerged from the focus groups included a lack of coordination between the department of corrections and state and local service providers; the belief that prisoners are not adequately prepared for reentry prior to their release, and a general consensus that the demand for community services to assist released prisoners far exceeds the supply.


This paper presents future trends of urban wastes and their impacts on the environment of African cities using plausible mitigation scenarios. To accomplish this, an integrated dynamic model for urban waste flows was developed, tested, calibrated and validated. Its parameter sensitivity was analyzed. Using population projection up to 2052 with different levels of technological implementation, policy enforcement and awareness raising, four runs were executed. The "business as usual" run showed that with no additional mitigation measures, the environmental quality in Kampala and Dar es salaam Cities deteriorates. The "more enforcement" and "more collection" scenarios showed good reduction in environmental loads but they perform less well in resource recovery. The "proper management" scenario that combines enhanced technological implementation, awareness raising and policy enforcement, produced the smallest environmental loads, and recovered the largest amount of resources. Thus, the city authorities, general public, community based organisations and Non-governmental organizations would have to increase their efforts in finances and commitment to improve the urban environmental quality and increase resource recovery.


Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) has been used as a fungicide, is a contaminant of various pesticides and is a by-product in the manufacture of many other chlorinated hydrocarbons. In Turkey, HCB caused an epidemic of toxic porphyria involving several thousand people between 1955 and 1959. The aim of the present studies was to determine the chronic toxicity of HCB after prolonged oral administration and we report here that HCB is carcinogenic in mice and hamsters. Mice and hamsters were given dietary HCB at doses of 50, 100 and 200 ppm for life, with deaths due to toxic manifestations of HCB occurring in group HCB 200. All survivors were killed after 120 weeks. In both mice and hamsters, exposure to HCB increased the incidence of liver-cell tumours but no such tumours were observed in the controls. A significant increase in the incidence of thyroid tumours and liver haemangioendotheliomas was observed in hamsters treated with HCB. Our findings that HCB is carcinogenic in mice and hamsters, together with other results showing the same effect in rats, provide sufficient experimental evidence to recommend great caution in the use of this material.


Women and men are traditionally cast in different roles, with males being leaders in the workplace, home and government. In contrast, communities promote women as caregivers who support male leaders and shape future generations as mothers, mentors and teachers. In recognition of this societal view of women that often led to inequality and inequity, the UNDP listed Gender Equality and empowering women as one of eight Millennium Development Goals. The post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in autumn 2015, also included gender equality and empowering women as Goal 5. In its work in the Caribbean, the Caribbean Local Economic Development Project (CARILED) examined gender as it relates to micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) development in six Caribbean countries.  The findings of this study showed gender gaps for both male and female entrepreneurs in different areas of development.  Traditionally gendered roles for MSME sectors, access to financing and lack of adequate guidance or community support were some areas that affected men and women differently in the region.  The study outlines ways in which male and female leaders can address traditional gender roles by identifying priority areas for development, creating an enabling environment for start-ups and expansion, and fostering a policy and legislative base that facilitates ease of doing business.  The recommendations further describe the public–private partnerships needed to successfully meet gender gaps, and the importance of both elected officials and technocrats in inter alia community engagement and advocacy towards local economic development. The importance of gender equality among elected officials and technocrats, and the influence gender has on determining priority areas of focus within local government strategic plans for communities are also set out within this paper.


Objective: analyzing the profile of attention of the mobile emergency services in cases of violence and the actions of the nursing team. Methods: observational, exploratory and analytical study made from secondary records. A Correspondence Analysis was conducted to identify the associations between the actions of the nursing team and the profile of the necessity of care due to violent causes. Results: from 1800 cases, most took place during the weekend (49.2%), involving men (70.0%) and traffic accidents (76.5%). The correspondence analysis highlighted two dimensions (76.7% of explanatory contribution), resulting in three similar groups considering the nursing professional taking part in the attention, how the situation ended, period in which it occurred, and profile of the victim. Conclusion: the analysis was strategic for the systematization of data which gave support to the situational understanding of the composition of the service and for the planning of the actions of the nursing team.


Polyethylene oxide solutions have a behavioral flexibility that provides researchers with the opportunity to use constitutive law models in a variety of ways for their MRI characterization. Our results obtained in numerical simulation carried out in 2D and 3D for speed profiles of a solution of PEO deployed by the simple method of the cylindrical Couette geometry considering the fluid Newtonian defect, allowed to identify the behavior of fluid complex (rheo-fluidifying threshold fluid). The relevance and the interest of the method are examined by analyzing these results generated by the numerical data obtained, since these profiles depend on the non-Newtonian properties of the fluid which one does not know a priori and which one seeks to measure by postulating first to the power law of Ostwald, then to the truncated power law.


A large sample (N = 141) of college students participated in both a conjunctive visual search task and an ambiguous figures task that have been used as tests of selective attention. Tests for effects of bilingualism on attentional control were conducted by both partitioning the participants into bilinguals and monolinguals and by treating bilingualism as a continuous variable, but there were no effects of bilingualism in any of the tests. Bayes factor analyses confirmed that the evidence substantially favored the null hypothesis. These new findings mesh with failures to replicate language-group differences in congruency-sequence effects, inhibition-of-return, and working memory capacity. The evidence that bilinguals are better than monolinguals at attentional control is equivocal at best.


Evaluation of the impact of clinical nurse specialist (CNS) practice in today's health care environment is currently one of the most important issues facing these advanced practitioners and nursing administrators. The unique contributions of CNS practice can be demonstrated through use of sophisticated evaluation methods. This paper begins with a discussion of types of evaluation (structure, process, and outcome) that have been utilized in the past and then describes the structure, developmental process, and function of an evaluation instrument recently implemented by a group of CNSs. The evaluation instrument is a step towards the ultimate goal of process-outcome evaluation, the most sophisticated method of evaluating the impact of the CNS. The benefits of utilization of this tool are presented from the perspective of CNSs and nurse administrators.


In this paper a metamaterial-inspired mushroom antenna with broad bandwidth is proposed. This antenna is designed on the single-layer printed circuit board (PCB) with a solid ground. It is realized based on a 2 by 2 mushroom structure and an elliptical ring slot incorporated on the surface. By combining three different resonances, including the zeroth order resonance of the small patch inside the slot and the +1st and +2nd resonances of the overall patch, this antenna achieves a measured bandwidth of 36% (−10 dB). Broadside radiation is obtained. Antenna radiation patterns and gain are all provided.


The symptoms produced by hypercalcaemia are often sufficiently specific for the disorder to be suspected from the history alone; and in most instances appropriate enquiry will make it possible to establish the most likely cause.


A neural conversation model is a promising approach to develop dialogue systems with the ability of chit-chat. It allows training a model in an end-to-end manner without complex rule design nor feature engineering. However, as a side effect, the neural model tends to generate safe but uninformative and insensitive responses like "OK" and "I don't know." Such replies are called generic responses and regarded as a critical problem for user-engagement of dialogue systems. For a more engaging chit-chat experience, we propose a neural conversation model that generates responsive and self-expressive replies. Specifically, our model generates domain-aware and sentiment-rich responses. Experiments empirically confirmed that our model outperformed the sequence-to-sequence model; 68.1% of our responses were domain-aware with sentiment polarities, which was only 2.7% for responses generated by the sequence-to-sequence model.


ABSTRACT Here we report the complete genomic sequence of the bacterium Arthrobacter sp. strain LS16, consisting of a single circular chromosome of 3.85 Mb with no identified plasmid. Data contained within will facilitate future genetic modification and engineering of the Arthrobacter sp. LS16 metabolic network to enhance traits relevant to bioremediation and bioproducts.


The Technological Capabilities of Nations: A Survey of Composite Indicators - Composite synthetic indicators of the technological capabilities of nations have been used ever more frequently over the last few years, creating a sort of Olympic Games medal table of the innovation race. Such measurement tools have been formulated at the macroeconomic level by the European Commission, specialised 98 United Nations Agencies, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and individual scholars. All these indicators are based on a variety of statistical sources in order to capture the multidimensional nature of technological change. This article reviews these various exercises , in particular) casts light on the explicit and implicit assumptions on the nature of technological change; ii) discusses their pros and cons; iii) examines the soundness of the results achieved. Finally, the relevance of synthetic indicators of technological capabilities for policy makers, company strategies and economic studies is discussed. EconLit Classification: O300, O570, C340 Keywords: Technological Capabilities, Composite Indicators, Innovation Measurement, Cross-Country Comparisons


It has been widely reported that speech provides cues to a speaker's regional background. Little is known about how such cues influence human behavior, however. In the present study we used a matched-guise design to test how speakers' regional accents affect listeners' decision-making. In three scenarios, 72 subjects from three regions in Switzerland were asked to choose either the Standard German, Bern, or Zurich German speaker when asked to select a secretary, surgeon, or travel companion. Results revealed that preferences differed depending on the scenario. We further report two results that have not been described before: (1) the Standard accent was least preferred in all scenarios; (2) in-group favoritism seems to apply only partially to the Swiss context: the Zurich variety was the most preferred variety for all listener groups. We discuss implications from the point of view of accent prestige and social identity theory.


Based on a simplified predator-prey model, the influence of noise on the ecosystem has been studied. The results show the following facts. (i) For all parameter values, the existence of noise maintains the oscillatory state of the ecosystem, and enough strong noise can destroy the ecosystem, which means the annihilation of the species. (ii) Comparing to oscillation with small amplitude, while the ecosystem oscillates explosively with large amplitude, it is more likely to lose balance. In addition, the small-amplitude oscillation takes on higher level of regularity. All the numerical results are reasonable comparing to the general knowledge about ecosystem.


The antibacterial activity of four new fluoroquinolone carboxylic acids, pefloxacin, ofloxacin, enoxacin and ciprofloxacin, against 256 clinical isolates was investigated by means of an agar dilution method. Generally, all quinolones tested had a high activity against Gram-negative bacteria. More than 90% of Enterobacteriaceae strains were inhibited by a quinolone concentration of 0.4 microgram/ml. Also strains usually resistant to conventional beta-lactam antibiotics, and sometimes to third-generation cephalosporins, like Enterobacter spp., Serratia spp, and Yersinia spp. were susceptible to the tested quinolones. Ciprofloxacin was 5 to 25-fold more potent on a weight basis against Enterobacteriaceae than the other quinolones. Neisseria meningitidis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Haemophilus influenzae were extremely susceptible to the new quinolones. Ciprofloxacin was about 10 times more potent against Pseudomonas aeruginosa than the other quinolones, and was the only quinolone that was sufficiently active against all tested P. aeruginosa strains (MIC less than or equal to 0.4 microgram/ml). The activity against Gram-positive bacteria was considerably lower. All the quinolones investigated had an acceptable activity against many of the methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci. The majority of the Streptococcus spp. tested was quinolone-resistant, and was Listeria monocytogenes. Generally, it was evident that ciprofloxacin was more potent on a weight basis than the other quinolones, but this difference was counterbalanced by a higher achievable serum concentration for ofloxacin. Some of the investigated fluoroquinolones might constitute valid therapeutical alternatives to beta-lactam antibodies and aminoglycosides in the treatment of serious bacterial infections.


In this paper we examine the utility of a certain type of learning techniques that are based on information-theoretic methods for music modeling. Using universal compression algorithms we apply the notion of entropy to characterize sequences in terms of their statistical source coding.
This approach provides powerful methods for generation and comparison of sequences without any explicit knowledge
of their statistical source.
The method was applied for automatic extraction and aleatoric generation of melodies with typical motivic/melodic phrases,
style mixture and style classification.
The classification results show an interesting grouping that separates works of early classical period from
works of a later romantic period.


No-flow underfill technology has been drawing attention due to its potential advantages over conventional underfill technology and several no-flow underfill materials have been developed and reported. However, most of these materials are unsuitable for lead-free solder applications that usually have higher melting temperatures than eutectic solder. Due to increasing environmental concerns, demand for friendly lead-free solders has increased. This paper demonstrates the study of two new formulas of no-flow underfill developed for lead-free solders with melting point around 220/spl deg/C. These novel formulas use a liquid curing catalyst to provide ease in preparation of the no-flow underfill materials and more choice in combining fluxing agents. In this study, the curing kinetics, glass transition temperature (T/sub g/), thermal expansion coefficient (TCE), storage modulus (E') and loss modulus (E") of these materials were studied with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermo-mechanical analysis (TMA), and dynamic-mechanical analysis (DMA). The pot-life in terms of viscosity of these materials was characterized with a stress rheometer. The adhesive strength of the material on the surface of silicon chip was studied with a die-shear instrument. The materials curing kinetics were studied with DSC. The materials compatibility to the solder penetration and wetting on copper clad during solder reflow was investigated with both eutectic and no-lead solders on copper laminated FR-4 organic boards and heated in a reflow oven.


Ubiquitous wearable and mobile technologies generate vast amounts of data from sensors and self-logging applications. This data creates opportunities to better understand people's behavior and inform research on intimate topics such as menstruation. However, in design and HCI research, reconstructing the context in which data was collected and understanding the lived experience behind the data often requires the active participation of people. In this paper, we augment the concept of data donation beyond data collection to explore the possibilities of actively engaging data donors in the (intimate) interpretation of their data. Specifically, we define and implement a menstrual logs data donation journey. We received data sets from 35 donors over five weeks, 13 of whom participated in reconstructing the context of their data. We translate our experience into a conceptualization of designerly data donation around the data, data donors, and data receivers, which we discuss along with its implications.


It has been already proved in many experimental studies that tobacco smoke has multiple toxic effects on respiratory tract cells. Alterations in ciliary epithelium of rats trachea after short exposition to high tobacco smoke concentrations in inhaled air were been determinate in current study. Morphological evaluation revealed in lining epithelium voluminous exudate located between epithelium and lamina propria cells with evidently larger number of mast cells.


An enhanced thermal decomposition of chemical compounds in aqueous solution has been achieved at reduced solution temperatures. The technique exploits hitherto unrecognized properties of a bubble column evaporator (BCE). It offers better heat transfer efficiency than conventional heat transfer equipment. This is obtained via a continuous flow of hot, dry air bubbles of optimal (1-3 mm) size. Optimal bubble size is maintained by using the bubble coalescence inhibition property of some salts. This novel method is illustrated by a study of thermal decomposition of ammonium bicarbonate (NH4HCO3) and potassium persulfate (K2S2O8) in aqueous solutions. The decomposition occurs at significantly lower temperatures than those needed in bulk solution. The process appears to work via the continuous production of hot (e.g., 150 °C) dry air bubbles, which do not heat the solution significantly but produce a transient hot surface layer around each rising bubble. This causes the thermal decomposition of the solute. The decomposition occurs due to the effective collision of the solute with the surface of the hot bubbles. The new process could, for example, be applied to the regeneration of the ammonium bicarbonate draw solution used in forward osmosis.


Obesity has been identified as an epidemic in the United States for more than two decades and yet the numbers of overweight and obese adults and children continue to grow. Currently, the rates of both overweight and obesity in the US are 61% and 14% in adults and children, respectively. Among US adults aged 20−74 years, the prevalence of overweight (defined as BMI 25.0−29.9) has increased from 33% in 1980 to 35% of the population in 1999. In the same population, obesity (defined as BMI ≥ 30) has nearly doubled from approximately 15% in 1980 to an estimated 27% in 1999. The percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight has more than doubled since the early 1970s. About 14% of children and adolescents are now seriously overweight. Obesity burdens the health care system, strains economic resources, and has far reaching social consequences. The disease is associated with several serious health conditions including: type 2 diabetes mellitus, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. It is also linked to higher rates of certain types of cancer. Obesity is an independent risk factor for heart disease, hypoxia, sleep apnea, hernia, and arthritis. Obesity is the seventh leading cause of death in the US. The total cost of overweight and obesity by some estimates is $100 billion annually. Others put the cost of health care for obesity alone at $70 billion. Other annual costs associated with obesity are 40 million workdays of productivity lost, 63 million doctors' office visits made, and 239 million restricted activity days and 90 million bed-bound days. Emotional suffering may be among the most painful aspects of obesity. American society emphasizes physical appearance and often equates attractiveness with slimness, especially for women. Such messages may be devastating to overweight people. Many think that obese individuals are gluttonous, lazy, or both, even though this is not true. As a result, obese people often face prejudice or discrimination in the job market, at school, and in social situations. Feelings of rejection, shame, or depression are common. Since the 1950s, national dietary recommendations have come to acknowledge obesity as a significant societal trend. The Surgeon General's 2001 Call To Action, Healthy People 2010, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2000 all emphasize the importance of healthy weight. There are some new tools available to help in the fight against overweight and obesity: Weight Control Information Network, The Third National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel, and The Practical Guide: Identification, Evaluation, & Treatment of Overweight & Obesity in Adults from the National Institutes of Health and National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.


Recently, analysts' cash flow forecasts have become widely available through financial information services. Cash flow information enables practitioners to better understand the real operating performance and financial stability of a company, particularly when earnings information is noisy and of low quality. However, research suggests that analysts' cash flow forecasts are less accurate and more dispersed than earnings forecasts. We thus investigate factors influencing cash flow forecast accuracy and build a practical model to distinguish more accurate from less accurate cash flow forecasters, using past cash flow forecast accuracy and analyst characteristics. We find significant power in our cash flow forecast accuracy prediction models. We also find that analysts develop cash flow-specific forecasting expertise and knowhow, which are distinct from those that analysts acquire from forecasting earnings. In particular, cash flow-specific information is more useful in identifying accurate cash flow forecasters than earnings-specific information.Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The use of arthroscopy in the management of acute traumatic conditions of the foot and ankle has increased in recent years, primarily because of an appreciation of fracture morphology and the utility of reducing the surgical footprint. This article presents an overview of the use of this modality in foot and ankle trauma and presents an anatomical survey of the various fractures where arthroscopic assistance can be of benefit. In addition, a discussion of the seminal articles on this subject is included. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic Level IV: Review


Eleven Y-specific DNA probes hybridizing with DNA from one or more 46,XX males were isolated from a recombinant phage DNA library constructed from flow sorted human Y chromosomes. Two probes hybridized with DNA from nine out of eleven, i.e. greater than 80% of these 46,XX males. The relative frequency of hybridization of the probes in the 46,XX males and in a 46,X,dic(Y) female, together with in situ hybridization data, allowed mapping of the probes on Yp in relation to a putative testis determining locus. Several of those probes were also absent in a 46,XY female, further refining a model for ordering the probes on Yp. The DNA of one XX male hybridized both with probes from Yp and probes from proximal Yq (excluding the pericentral region). This suggests that complex translocations may occur into the DNA of 46,XX males that involve not only parts of Yp but also parts of Yq.


The evolution of a tripolar vortex under the influence of a parabolic topography – like the free surface of a rotating fluid – is studied experimentally and with a point-vortex model. Laboratory experiments reveal that tripoles generated off-axis become asymmetric and the whole structure travels towards the centre of the tank along an anticyclonic spiral. During this translation the structure rotates quasi-periodically with the core pairing alternately with one of the satellites. An asymmetric point-vortex tripole (with the central vortex located at a distance ε from the middle point of the configuration) displays a periodic motion which is qualitatively similar to the motion of the laboratory tripoles. The exchange of fluid between the three vortices as a function of the perturbation parameter ε is studied using the lobe-dynamics technique. A point-vortex tripole modulated on the basis of conservation of potential vorticity reproduces quantitatively the trajectories of the individual vortices measured in the laboratory. As in the experiments, the model shows that fluid is strongly stirred in the region surrounding the vortex cores and that the tripole carries a finite amount of fluid.


The outcome at discharge, 6 months, and 1 year after they had sustained severe head injuries was investigated in children (0-15 yr old at injury) who were admitted to the neurosurgery service at one of four centers participating in the Traumatic Coma Data Bank. Of 103 eligible children, the quality of recovery was assessed by the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) at 6 months after injury in 92 patients (86% of series) and at 1 year in 82 patients (73% of series). The lowest post-resuscitation Glasgow Coma Scale score and pupillary reactivity were predictive of the 6-month GOS as were their interaction. Analysis of the first computed tomographic scan disclosed that bilateral swelling with/without midline shift was related to a poor outcome as was the presence of mass lesions. Comparison of age-defined subgroups of patients revealed that outcome was poorest in the 0- to 4-year-old patients, as reflected by their mortality, which increased to 62% by 1 year. Distinctive features of the injuries in the 0- to 4-year-olds included evacuated subdural hematomas (20% of patients) and hypotension (32% of patients). The most favorable outcome was attained by 5- to 10-year-olds (2/3 had a good recovery by 1 yr), whereas the GOS distribution of adolescents was intermediate between the children and adults. In summary, the GOS data reflect heterogeneity in the quality of outcome after severe head injury depending on age, neurological indices, and computed tomographic scan diagnostic category.


Abstract:Ethical and theological concern for nonhuman animals has been a primary characteristic of the neo-Vaiṣṇava movement of Assam, India. This concern is reflected in its strict prohibition of blood sacrifice or any kind of cruelty toward animals. At the same time, theologically, this faith puts all living beings, human and nonhuman, on an equal ontological footing and urges its followers to see God in all creatures. The present article looks at some of these concerns/considerations of this faith for nonhuman animals and, at the same time, also takes into account neo-Vaiṣṇavism's historical backdrop and a few of its inner contradictions.


【Different studies have been conducted regarding caffeine as psychostimulant drugs and its effects as well as determination in various materials. Since, coffee and tea are most drinkable beverage in the world and their major constituent is caffeine. So, analysis of the effect of equal amount of caffeine in coffee and tea with respect to SD rats was studied. The present methodology was purposed to determine and validate caffeine amount in different brands of coffee and tea, and canvass locomotor and behavioral patterns of SD rats after administrating coffee and tea orally consisting of same amount of caffeine (10, 30 mg/kg). Determination of caffeine in different brands of coffee and tea and validation of caffeine were evaluated using HPLC. Depending upon different brands of tea and coffee, caffeine amount was altered. Meanwhile, amount of caffeine in tea was directly proportional to the temperature of liquid. Coffee and tea (Instant Maxim original coffee $^{(R)}$ and earl grey black tea $^{(R)}$ ) consisting 10, 30 mg/kg of caffeine were studied in SD rats for locomotor activity and behavioral patterns using Tru Scan 99. The locomotor activities of SD rats were increased after administration of coffee and tea consisting caffeine compared to water. The coffee consisted of higher amount of caffeine exhibited steep movement of SD rats. Similarly, rearing and scratching of SD rats as frequency and duration were increased in coffee and tea consisting caffeine compared with water. The study revealed that coffee and tea had effects in locomotor activity and behavioral patterns of SD rats.】


Background: Anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents are increasingly being used for a rapidly expanding number of rheumatic and systemic diseases. As a result of this use, and of the longer follow-up periods of treatment, there are a growing number of reports of the development of autoimmune processes related to anti-TNF agents. The use of anti-TNF agents has been associated with more and more cases of autoimmune diseases, principally cutaneous vasculitis, lupus-like syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus and interstitial lung disease. Observations: We report 2 cases of autoimmune bullous skin disease occurring in patients undergoing TNF-targeted therapy: a bullous pemphigoid and a pemphigus foliaceus. Both patients were treated by anti-TNF agents for rheumatoid arthritis and showed improvement following interruption of that treatment. Here, we discuss the relationship between anti-TNF therapy and the occurrence of autoimmune bullous disease. Conclusion: Anti-TNF agents should be considered as a potential cause of drug-induced autoimmune bullous skin disease.


Cyclotron absorption around the electron cyclotron frequency in a weakly relativistic plasma of finite density in thermal equilibrium is considered for both perpendicular and quasi-perpendicular propagation. A comprehensive analysis which includes thermal effects together with finite density corrections is given and the resulting scaling of the absorption of the extraordinary and the ordinary modes is examined. The line profiles are discussed and the optical thicknesses of a typical tokamak plasma are evaluated.


A numerical technique based on the variational principle and finite element method is developed for studying the wave propagation problem for an arbitrary inhomogeneous dielectric slab. The variational equation for the boundary value problem is formulated and then solved numerically by the finite element method. The energy criterion for estimating the error in the numerical solution is presented. Numerical results for linear, parabolic, and sinusoidal profiles are included.


Where do women fit into the automotive industry? In every possible space-including those they have yet to invent! As Katelyn Shelby Davis and Kristin Shaw demonstrate in Women Driven Mobility, women are in leadership roles in all aspects of the industry. Davis and Shaw seek bring awareness and reroute this through a series of case studies that feature women working in 11 vital pillars of the mobility industry: Awareness and community advocacy Design and engineering Funding Infrastructure Marketing and communications Mobility on demand Placemaking Policy and legislation Sustainability Talent and education Technology and innovation Foreword by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, State of Michigan


This study is concerned with the feeding behavior of pikeperch (Sander lucioperca (L., 1758)) living in Hirfanli Dam Lake constructed on the Kizilirmak River. There were 326 pikeperch caught between August 1996 and July 1997. The fork length and weight of the pikeperch caught ranged between 105 and 529 mm and 12 and 1520 g in the general population. Pikeperch are carnivorous and piscivorous and they eat their own species when nutrients are lacking. The smallest fish-swallowing length was determined to be 145 mm. A cannibalism rate of 40.5% among pikeperch of 145-378 mm in length living in the lake was observed. The stomach content of individual pikeperch was as follows: Gammarus (27.7%), Diptera larvae and pupae (22.7%), fish and fish remains (22.1%), Odonata nymphs (9.8%), organism remains (9.5%), Mysis (6.0%), Isopoda (1.9%) and fibrous algae (0.3%).


The authors followed 38 children with delayed speech development approximately two to four years after initial diagnosis, assessing and comparing their subsequent speech and language, and over‐all development. Nearly all of the children had appropriate language levels for their general development. Just over half had less articulation competence than expected for their age, but this was not related to language achievement or age. It appears that the prognosis for future language development is favourable for these children. The results suggest that articulation might be a developmentally related process with a good prognosis, but further follow‐up is necessary to determine ultimate competence of children in whom this is delayed.


Objective The purpose of this study was to try to delineate the esophageal passage under dynamic conditions and to determine optimum settings for esophageal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Methods Ten healthy volunteers underwent MR fluoroscopy with two T1-weighted sequences: turbo field echo (TFE) and T1-weighted fast field echo (T1-FFE). These sequences were compared for signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and image quality. To determine the optimum slice thickness, an additional 10 healthy volunteers underwent MR fluoroscopy. Results obtained for slice thicknesses of 25, 35, 45, and 55 mm were compared for delineated length of the esophagus and image quality. Results The T1-FFE sequences provided higher SNRs and better image quality than the TFE sequences (T1-FFE: 89.4 ± 28.0, TFE: 52.4 ± 16.7; P < 0.001). Artifacts were less prominent and delineation of the esophageal wall was better on the T1-FFE images. The delineation of the esophageal wall was best with a 35-mm slice thickness, although delineated length was the longest with a 55-mm slice thickness. Conclusion This study showed T1-FFE to be a more suitable sequence than TFE and that the 35-mm slice thickness was the optimum slice thickness for esophageal MR fluoroscopy.


In Islam, the objective of human capital development is not just only to produce a better person in terms of possessing technical knowledge, skills and good values but also a person with a better soul. This is because in Islam, a better person is a person who does not only possess the worldly knowledge, skills and Islamic values but also practices them. Consequently, he or she will be a good worker that will not act in his or her own interests but to be loyal to his or her employer as he or she is fearful (taqwa) of Allah al-Mighty. Hence, human capital development from the Islamic perspective focuses on cleansing of one's soul (tazkiyah al-nafs), ta'dib , the instillation of the tauhid philosophy (uluhiyyah and rububiyyah) and the understanding of the concepts of work as khalifah and contents. On the hand, conventional perspective of human capital development is more on the upgrading knowledge and skills. Good values are inculcated informally through teamwork, ceremonies, stories etc. Therefore, human capital development from the Islamic perspective is more integrated and comprehensive compared to the conventional perspective. Consequently, the employers or the organization will gain maximum productivity and profitability due to the maximum gain of the individuals or workers. Thus, it is hypothesized in this study that there is a positive relationship between Islamic human capital development and organizational performance. Organizational performance in this study is measured in terms of service quality and productivity. ibadah, and al-falah . Sermons (tazkirah), discussion of the Islamic principles in view of al-Quran Hadith (Prophet's prescriptions) and congregational prayers should be some of the training


Abstract. Authors. 2019. The activity phagocytosis of isoeugenol-ester compound on Mus musculus macrophage cell. Nusantara Bioscience 11: 117-122. Chemotherapy is drugs therapy for cancer. However, chemotherapy could damage normal cells and decrease immune system. For this reason, it is necessary to find immunostimulant compound that is able to increase immune system. Isoeugenol-ester is unnatural compound that has been tested for its cytotoxicity against cancer cell and showed positive result. Nevertheless, ability of Isoeugenol-ester for inducing phagocytosis is still unknown. Therefore, bioassays study using in vitro phagocytosis were performed. Latex beads methods using antigen model in 5 isoeugenol-ester concentration series: 6, 25; 12, 5; 25; 50 and 100 μg/mL were tested to Mus musculus peritoneal macrophage cell. The optimum concentration of Isoeugenol-ester compounds in inducing phagocytosis activity of M. musculus macrophage cell was 12.5 μg/mL.


Galileo's realization that nature is not scale invariant, motivating his subsequent discovery of scaling laws, is traced to two lectures he gave on the geography of Dante's Inferno.


An unsteady numerical simulation method for an autorotating rotor in forward flight was developed. The flapping and rotational equations of motion of autorotation are continuously integrated for given time steps, meanwhile the induced velocity field at disc plane is obtained by the dynamic inflow theory embodying the unteadiness. The transitions from arbitrary initial states to equilibrium states were simulated. Steady autorotations as numerical solutions of equations were predicted by using two sources of blade airfoil data. The simulations using airfoil data which were obtained by a two dimensional Navier-Stokes solver in terms of angles of attack and Reynolds numbers have shown good agreements with wind tunnel experimental results.


Concentrations of the vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12, C, folic acid, A, E and beta-carotene were determined in blood and 24-h dialysate in 44 CAPD patients. Twenty-five of these patients were studied during chronic treatment (mean 313 days, range 60-1034 days). Nineteen patients were studied during training. In a longitudinal study, 11 patients were analysed again after 77-507 (mean 238) days. In both patient groups a considerable portion of patients (11%-64%) had blood concentrations indicative of a deficiency of the vitamins B1, B6, C and folic acid. The average concentrations of these vitamins were normal in both groups. The only abnormal finding was the mean EGOT activity being deficient in patients on chronic treatment. Mean concentrations of vitamin A were above normal in both groups. In the longitudinal study a significant increase of vitamin B2 and a decrease of vitamin B6 in blood was found. When compared to 24-h excretion in normal urine, loss with 24-h dialysate was low for vitamin B1, normal to relatively high for vitamin B2 and B6, but extremely high for vitamin C and folic acid. The vitamins B12, A, E and carotenoids were hardly detectable in the dialysate. In ten other patients the effect of daily supplementation with 2 mg vitamin B6, 100 mg vitamin C and 400 micrograms folic acid was analysed during a 16-week period. In all patients a significant increase in blood concentrations was obtained. It is concluded that these dosages were sufficient to maintain a normal status of these vitamins in CAPD patients.


In this study, the asymptotic tracking control problem is addressed for known and unknown non-linear systems in the strict-feedback form with time-varying output constraints, input saturation, and external disturbances. A barrier Lyapunov function is employed to prevent transgression of the output constraints. Neural networks are applied to approximate the unknown functions. To deal with the input saturation effects and/or neural networks reconstruction errors, the Nussbaum gain technique is suggested. The proposed approach guarantees the boundedness of all the closed-loop signals, and for the first time, the asymptotic tracking property is achieved for the strict-feedback non-linear systems, while the actual output remains in the output constraints, despite input saturation and external disturbances. Two simulation examples have validated the effectiveness of the proposed results.


Dorothy Smith is considered one of the most original sociologists and theorists of our time, and her writings have attracted much attention in Europe and the US as well as in Canada. This collection of original essays, written by scholars who worked or studied with Smith, exemplifies Smith's approach to social analysis.Each author takes an empirical approach. Some analyse texts (the maps and documents of land-use planning, photographs, an influential history of British India, reports of a task force on battered women); some draw on interviews (with clerical workers, with Japanese corporate wives), while others (an AIDS activist, a teacher of adult literacy, a social worker) reflect on personal experiences. In each case we are introduced to specific themes in Smith's approach. The essays put Smith's method to work in diverse ways and in the process offer intriguing insights into their topics.This tribute to Smith's empowering contribution as a thinker and teacher reveals how empirical studies can illuminate concepts usually presented in the abstract. As the first compilation of applications of Smith's methodology, this is a landmark work in the developing field of the social organization of knowledge.


Pseudodiaptomus inopinus, a common estuarine calanoid copepod in the Northwest Pacific, has been suggested to be a species complex. The population of the mainland of Japan consists of two allopatric forms that are distinguishable by the length of the posterior processes of the genital operculum; the forms with short and long processes are tentatively called SPand LP-forms, respectively. We analyzed the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene and the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) gene of 34 individuals (12 SPand 22 LP-forms) collected from various localities. The genetic differences between the two forms were 12–15% for COI and 7–10% for ITS1. They were clearly separated into different clades in both COI and ITS1 trees. These results confirmed that the two forms belong to different species. The SP-form is a distinct species because the shape of the genital operculum of P. inopinus s. str. has long posterior processes as in the LP-form. Pseudodiaptomus japonicus Kikuchi, 1928, which is the SP-form and was once synonymized with P. inopinus, is revived. The genetic comparison using available sequence data indicates that Pseudodiaptomus koreanus Soh et al., 2012 is the same species as P. japonicus.


It's not that you didn't want to create motion graphics for your video or DVD projects: You simply didn't have the time or money to take on a program like After Effects. Now you don't need to! With Apple's $299 Motion and this project-based guide to it, you'll be animating like a pro in no time! Assuming no prior motion graphics knowledge, this Apple-certified guide (the only one geared to newcomers to the field) starts slow, introducing you to motion graphics aesthetics at the same time you learn the program. From the first chapter, you'll be playing with the interface, building projects, and adding behaviors as you learn what makes Motion tick and how to use it effectively. Each lesson builds on the last as you learn about the time pane; behavior; particles; working with text, keyframes, Audio Editor, and sprites; importing/exporting and rendering; managing media; creating layered projects; and more. Review questions reinforce the knowledge, and a DVD with lesson files and media lets you work along with the book's projects.


In this study, the potential of raw samples of digitized echo waveforms collected by full-waveform (FW) terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) for point cloud classification is investigated. Two different TLS systems are employed, both equipped with a waveform digitizer for access to the raw waveform and online waveform processing which assigns calibrated waveform attributes to each point measurement. Point cloud classification based on samples of the raw single-peak echo waveform is compared with point cloud classification based on the calibrated online waveform attributes. A deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) is designed for the supervised classification. Random forest classifier is used as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of the proposed DCNN model. In addition, feature importance and temporal stability of the raw waveform samples versus the calibrated waveform attributes for point cloud classification are reported. Classification results are evaluated at two study sites, a built environment on a university campus and a coastal wetland environment. Results show that direct classification of the raw waveform samples outperforms classification based on the set of waveform attributes at both study sites. Results also show that the contribution of the range, as the only geometric attribute in the raw waveform feature vector, significantly increases the classification performance. Finally, the performance of the DCNN for filtering ground points to generate a digital terrain model (DTM) based on classification of the raw waveform samples is assessed and compared to a DTM generated from a progressive morphological filter and to real-time kinematic (RTK) GNSS survey data.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
The purpose of the study was to see the effect of age, sex, body mass index, previous cholecystectomy, hepatomegaly and fasting status on the common bile duct diameter.

METHODOLOGY
A series of 463 patients, 283 females and 180 males, with no hepatobiliary or pancreatic pathology were included in this study, the mean age was 45 +/- 16 years. Their age, sex, weight, height, fasting status and previous cholecystectomy was assessed and recorded by a physician prior to ultrasound examination. All patients were examined by real-time ultrasound to see if there was any pathology in the hepatobiliary and pancreatic area. Those with history of common bile duct exploration, endoscopic sphincterotomy or with previous history of cholecystectomy of less than 6 months and patients with common bile duct pathology were excluded from the study. The midportion of the common bile duct was taken as a fixed measurement for all patients and the size of the liver was also recorded. Analysis of variance as part of SPSS statistical package was used where common bile duct was considered a dependent variable, while sex, fasting status, hepatomegaly and previous cholecystectomy were considered to be independent variables, age and sex were considered as co-variants.

RESULTS
The factors found to be significantly affecting the diameter of the common bile duct (P<0.05) were age, previous cholecystectomy and body mass index.

CONCLUSIONS
If the CBD dilatation can not be explained by age, previous cholecystectomy and BMI, a pathology causing obstruction should be ruled out.


Vasopressin (AVP) is an ancient molecule of the salt-water homeostasis. On the other hand, in the brain AVP can be found in many regions, where it has a prominent role in the regulation of stress and stress related diseases, too. During acute stress AVP regulates the adrenocorticotropin secretion in a time and stressor specific manner. Its role seems to be especially critical during the perinatal period. Despite earlier theories, during chronic stress the role of AVP has never been highlighted. AVP seems to be also responsible for our mood. Its high level is accompanied by higher level of anxiety and depression. Pharmacological intervention of the AVP secretion could influence not only the salt-water homeostasis, but might have strong impact on our stress state and behaviour.


Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer‐related deaths. It causes approximately 125,000 deaths per year worldwide; its diagnosis is made in advanced stages resulting in a high mortality rate. The objective of the study was optimizing the isolation of cells obtained from the solid tumor and ascitic fluid of patients with ovarian cancer and the phenotype with markers related to the epithelial–mesenchymal transition. For this, the solid tumor tissue was disaggregated and cultivated with different methodologies. As a result, cell growth was obtained and epi‐immunofluorescence was performed using antibodies against E‐cadherin, EpCAM, N‐cadherin, vimentin, CD133, and CD44. The primary culture from the solid tumor was obtained using Dispase II and DMEM/F12. Finally, heterogeneity was detected in terms of the expression of mesenchymal and epithelial type markers in the two types of isolated cells. Additionally, CD133 and CD44 expression was detected, proteins associated with the tumor stem cells phenotype.


In the context of sparse principal component detection, we bring evidence towards the existence of a statistical price to pay for computational efficiency. We measure the performance of a test by the smallest signal strength that it can detect and we propose a computationally efficient method based on semidefinite programming. We also prove that the statistical performance of this test cannot be strictly improved by any computationally efficient method. Our results can be viewed as complexity theoretic lower bounds conditionally on the assumptions that some instances of the planted clique problem cannot be solved in randomized polynomial time.


There are few published studies on biopsy proven lupus nephritis (LN) from sub-Sahara Africa, mainly due to lack of expertise and pathology back-up for performing and interpreting renal biopsies in many centres. The purpose of this study was to document factors associated with biopsy proven LN and to determine clinical and laboratory models that best predict proliferative LN in South Africans. Of the 251 patients studied, 84.1% were females and 79.3% were of mixed ancestry. There were more observed cases of proliferative LN (63%) than non-proliferative LN. Factors associated with proliferative LN were male gender (p = 0.049), haematuria on dipstix (p < 0.0001), proteinuria on dipstix (p = 0.042), low serum albumin (p = 0.032), low complement C3 (p < 0.0001), low complement C4 (p = 0.009) and positive double-stranded DNA (p = 0.039). Using four models designed from various combinations of the factors associated with proliferative LN, the specificity and positive predictive values were highest for the model that combined gender (male), presence of dipstix haematuria and proteinuria, hypoalbuminaemia, low C3 and low C4 and positive double-stranded DNA (100% respectively). Further study is recommended to identify the value of using these demographic and laboratory parameters in identifying patients with proliferative LN in resource limited centres where the performance of a biopsy is not possible.


A Mather-type plasma focus device (32 µF, 4 kJ), called Hanyang University Plasma Focus device, is developed as a prototype device for the irradiation test of neutrons for electric probes and cables to be used in Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research with pure deuterium gas. The six different lengths of electrode are used in order to see the dependence of neutron yield on the deuterium filling pressure at given system conditions such as capacitance, currents and inductance, after optimizing the focusing condition in terms of electrode length versus filling pressure. The relationship between the pressure and electrode length is to be fitted well by the snow-plow model. The neutron fluence and angular distribution are measured at the angles of 0°, 25°, 60° and 90° by locating the bubble neutron dosimeter at a distance 30 cm from the inner electrode head at each electrode length. The anisotropic factor tends to increase with pressure and the total neutron yield is strongly dependent on the isotropic emission. The maximum neutron yield is estimated to be about 1.6 × 108 (n/shot) at a pressure of 3.4 Torr.


A new cybersecurity attack (cryptojacking) is emerging, in both the literature and in the wild, where an adversary illicitly runs Crypto-clients software over the devices of unaware users. This attack has been proved to be very effective given the simplicity of running a Crypto-client into a target device, e.g., by means of web-based Java scripting. In this scenario, we propose Crypto-Aegis, a solution to detect and identify Crypto-clients network traffic--even when it is VPN-ed. In detail, our contributions are the following: (i) We identify and model a new type of attack, i.e., the sponge-attack, being a generalization of cryptojacking; (ii) We provide a detailed analysis of real network traffic generated by 3 major cryptocurrencies; (iii) We investigate how VPN tunneling shapes the network traffic generated by Crypto-clients by considering two major VPNbrands; (iv) We propose Crypto-Aegis, a Machine Learning (ML) based framework that builds over the previous steps to detect crypto-mining activities; and, finally, (v) We compare our results against competing solutions in the literature. Evidence from of our experimental campaign show the exceptional quality and viability of our solution--Crypto-Aegis achieves an F1-score of 0.96 and an AUC of 0.99. Given the extent and novelty of the addressed threat we believe that our approach and our results, other than being interesting on their own, also pave the way for further research in this area.


N J Jhaveri Any assessment of the government's budget based on financial data atone is naturally incomplete. Despite this limitation, however, the acute difficulty encountered by Finance Ministers in enhancing the investment component of incremental resource mobilisation in the recent years has been obvious. Financing of revenue expenditure out of potential or actual savings is clearly harmful The economic effects of raising 'additional' resources, which are often largely in the nature of intra-public sector transfers, similarly need thorough examination. All the more so, when the same tax base is often exploited by governments at different levels.


Article influence ranking is an effective way to reduce information redundancy and improve the efficiency of article retrieval. A large number of ranking models for network items have been employed for the ranking of article influence, such as PageRank and Spamming-resistant Expertise Analysis and Ranking. However, the effectiveness of article influence ranking based on the models of PageRank and SPEAR declines with the rapid growth of academic datasets, because of the increasing complexity of citation network. In order to take a rich set of contextual structures of citation context into consideration, we propose a visualization system VAIR for the citation context-based article influence ranking. Firstly, the word2vec model, a renowned technique in the field of natural language processing, is applied to transform articles into vectorized representations according to citation context. Then, a novel citation context-based article influence ranking model is designed according to the complex relationships quantified in a semantic vectorised space. Several visual designs are implemented, allowing users to perceive and compare the ranking results visually and intuitively. A set of user-friendly interactions are provided in the visualization framework, enabling users to explore the desirable article influence and obtain deep insights into the ranking model. Moreover, a series of case studies and comparison experiments are carried out based on real-world datasets, which further demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm for article influence ranking. INDEX TERMS influence ranking, visualization, visual analysis, citation network, word2vec


Direct torque control (DTC) is known to generate fast and robust control for induction motor drives. Even though, in classical DTC, there exists a notable ripple in torque and flux during steady state, which can be reflected towards the speed response and generating undesirable acoustic noise. This paper introduces two approaches based on variable structure control (VSC) and fuzzy logic control (FLC) to mitigate steady state chattering problem while preserving the merits of DTC operation. The inverter is controlled directly on the basis of stator flux and the torque errors, by selecting most appropriate voltage vector from switching logic table. A comparative study is performed for the three control topologies including conventional DTC and simulation results are presented and discussed. It is concluded that SMC and intelligent control based technique provide better characteristics in steady state operation with regards to the conventional DTC.


ABSTRACT In this study, opinions of participant stakeholders regarding fiscal space in the Turkish health care system were revealed benefiting from qualitative study techniques. According to the findings of the study, increases in health expenditures, health care market characteristics, equity in health care, insufficient funds for health care, demographic changes and health reforms were prominent reasons for creating fiscal space in the Turkish health care system. Majority of the participants stated that creating fiscal space in the Turkish health care system had a priority. Measures for income increases, reform-based measures, measures for expense decreases and budget-based measures were expressed by the participant stakeholders as ways of creating fiscal space methods in the Turkish health care system. By this study, for the first time in Turkey, creating fiscal space in health care was investigated based on stakeholders' opinions.


Cross-validation (CV) is a technique used to estimate generalization error for prediction models. For pipeline modeling algorithms (i.e. modeling procedures with multiple steps), it has been recommended the entire sequence of steps be carried out during each replicate of CV to mimic the application of the entire pipeline to an external testing set. While theoretically sound, following this recommendation can lead to high computational costs when a pipeline modeling algorithm includes computationally expensive operations, e.g. imputation of missing values. There is a general belief that unsupervised variable selection (i.e. ignoring the outcome) can be applied before conducting CV without incurring bias, but there is less consensus for unsupervised imputation of missing values. We empirically assessed whether conducting unsupervised imputation prior to CV would result in biased estimates of generalization error or result in poorly selected tuning parameters and thus degrade the external performance of downstream models. Results show that despite optimistic bias, the reduced variance of imputation before CV compared to imputation during each replicate of CV leads to a lower overall root mean squared error for estimation of the true external R-squared and the performance of models tuned using CV with imputation before versus during each replication is minimally different. In conclusion, unsupervised imputation before CV appears valid in certain settings and may be a helpful strategy that enables analysts to use more flexible imputation techniques without incurring high computational costs.


Background: The host immune system is one of the key players of anti-tumor functions. High numbers of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes has been showed to be a predictor of favorable clinical outcome in several solid cancers. The role of B cells in tumor microenvironment is still unclear. Recent studies have reported a correlation between the densities of B cells and the favorable clinical outcome of cancer patients. Moreover, some studies considered the organization of tumor infiltrating B cells as criteria in addition to the cell density. Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) are defined as transient ectopic lymphoid organizations that can develop in non-lymphoid tissues at the site of chronic inflammation, and are anatomically and functionally similar to secondary lymphoid organs. In the present study, we investigated the association between tumor infiltrating B cells and clinicopathological features in gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: Tumor blocks were obtained from 226 patients with stage Ib to stage IV gastric cancer who had undergone initial surgical resection. The density of CD20+ B cells within the tumor and invasive margin area was assessed by immunohistochemistry. We also evaluated CD3+ T cells, CD21+ follicular dendritic cells (FDCs), Bcl6 germinal center B cells, and PNAd+ high endothelial venules (HEVs) to show the presence of TLSs in gastric cancer. Results: Tumor infiltrating B cells mostly organized clusters surrounded by CD3+ T cells. B cell area contained FDCs and some clusters had Bcl6+ B cells. There were HEVs around follicles. We observed most of TLSs at the tumor invasive margin. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that high number of CD20+ B cells was associated with significantly better survival (P Conclusion: We demonstrated that B cells mostly infiltrated as TLSs and were associated with better prognosis in patients with gastric cancer. Our results suggested that B cells, perhaps as the structure of TLSs, might play an important role for immune response against gastric cancer. Citation Format: Chie Sakimura, Hiroaki Tanaka, Tatsuro Tamura, Go Ohira, Masatsune Shibutani, Sadaaki Yamazoe, Katsunobu Sakurai, Hisashi Nagahara, Kenjiro Kimura, Takahiro Toyokawa, Ryosuke Amano, Naoshi Kubo, Kazuya Muguruma, Kiyoshi Maeda, Masaichi Ohira, Kosei Hirakawa. Intratumoral tertiary lymphoid structures are associated with favorable prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1468.


The phenomenal success of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, has revolutionized the way people communicate. This paradigm has attracted the attention of researchers that wish to study the corresponding social and technological problems. Link recommendation is a critical task that not only helps increase the linkage inside the network and also improves the user experience. In an effective link recommendation algorithm it is essential to identify the factors that influence link creation. This paper enumerates several of these intuitive criteria and proposes an approach which satisfies these factors. This approach estimates link relevance by using random walk algorithm on an augmented social graph with both attribute and structure information. The global and local influences of the attributes are leveraged in the framework as well. Other than link recommendation, our framework can also rank the attributes in the network. Experiments on DBLP and IMDB data sets demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods for link recommendation.


Multiple food intolerance in infants and young children is increasingly diagnosed. More than 40% of infants less than 1 y.o. could be affected. The syndrome is characterized by the seriousness of atopic dermatitis (SCORAD > 50), by enterocolitis or failure to thrive or various associations of symptoms that may change over time. The evolution is long-lasting. Common food allergens are milk, egg, soy, wheat, but other ones can be implicated. The diagnosis is established by standardized oral challenges. Multiple etiopathogenic factors are involved: atopy, gastro-enteritis induced intestinal hyperpermeability, precocity of food diversification, breast-feeding continued after the onset of symptoms. Amino-acid based formulas have changed the evolution.


Excess 210Pb dating is not only an important method for sediment dating, but also a major environmental tracer. In arid regions, excess 210Pb deposited in lake sediment mainly depends on wind erosion recycle besides the atmospheric precipitation flux background. Therefore, the higher excess 210Pb is a potential for identifying the aeolian activities. This paper makes a systematical analysis on the data published in recent years, and calculates the multi-year average excess 210Pb flux in different lakes. Thus, the areas in which multi-year average excess 210Pb flux that exceeded atmosphere flux background could be recognized preliminarily as regional aeolian deposits. And then, we use the excess 210Pb model (PF-CRS) to calculate the lake sedimentation rates in some typical aeolian regions. At last, we compare the results with the dust records correspondingly so as to estimate the reliability of this method.


Many compression techniques have been proposed to accommodate ever increasing software pieces into restricted memory area in embedded systems. Recently, these techniques have been shown to improve other design constraints like energy and performance. This paper proposes a blended dictionary model based on static/dynamic profiling that lead to best trade-offs on compression, performance and energy savings. We also propose a new dictionary based code compression algorithm, independent of the cache organization and processor, to support our experiments. A mix of benchmarks and MiBench suites reveals that compression ratios of 75% can be obtained while decreasing bus accesses to the cache by 31% for the Leon processor. These results approach simultaneously the best solutions of when using pure static or pure dynamic information based dictionaries techniques.


Every year in the United States more adults become legally blind due to diabetes than due to any other disease. This teaching case report reviews the etiology, pathophysiology, clinical presentation, management and treatment options of diabetic retinopathy. This case specifically highlights the need for detailed historytaking and adherence to an appropriate dilation schedule.


This article applies a comparative-historical analysis (critical junctures and multiple-orders framework) to understand how and why India and Pakistan chose different strategies for the management of diversity after partition, despite their common colonial roots. After identifying several strategies for the management of diversity, the article traces the factors which account for a predominantly group-dominant approach to diversity in Pakistan and an integrationist approach in India. The analysis highlights the relevance of structural antecedent conditions during colonial times: namely the accommodationist tradition within Congress, and the absence thereof in Pakistan (Muslim League) and the group-dominant legacy of the military and civil service. The comparison also draws attention to gradual processes of change within a dominant path and nuances the relevance of elections as sufficient mechanisms for strengthening accommodation. For elections to fulfil this accommodationist potential, they need to be embedded within a liberal constitutional framework.


BACKGROUND
There are many different potential strategies for identification of patients eligible for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The ability to use a more efficient strategy has a value. This paper models the costs and benefits of a number of identification strategies and estimates the additional value of an information-based strategy.

DESIGN
Modelling study.

METHODS
Ten-year Framingham cardiovascular risk was calculated for each individual in a population of 4471 persons aged 35-74 drawn from the Health Survey for England (equivalent to a total practice population of 12,000). Estimated Framingham risk was calculated using limited risk factor information and default risk factors. Costs of risk factor assessment were calculated using standard NHS costs. The outcomes of risk factor assessment were the total number of patients identified as eligible for treatment and the total burden of cardiovascular disease in eligible patients. Several strategies for prioritising patients for assessment were defined: opportunistic, diabetics and treated hypertensives first, ranked by estimated cardiovascular risk. The costs and outcomes of assessing increasing numbers of patients under each strategy were presented in graphical form.

RESULTS
To identify 70% of the burden of cardiovascular disease in this population opportunistically costs Pounds 82,102; under a 'diabetics and hypertensives first' strategy it costs Pounds 72,916; under a strategy prioritising by estimated cardiovascular risk, Pounds 27,795. The value of information in this scenario is therefore at least Pounds 45,121.

CONCLUSIONS
Because strategies prioritising patients by estimated cardiovascular risk dominate alternative strategies, it is possible to estimate the value of information in terms of reduced resources to achieve the same results. These resource savings largely represent savings in staff time.


A serial reaction time (SRT) experiment tested the hypothesis that there are two independent forms of implicit learning: learning that is linked to making judgments about stimuli, and learning that is linked to motor processing. Participants performed 2, 6, or 12 blocks of single task SRT, dual task SRT, or observation with one of five sequence; each sequence had the same underlying structure. Participants then performed two implicit tests, SRT (a motor-linked test) and pattern judgment, as well as a generation test and an explicit knowledge test. There was a double dissociation of the effect of sequence surface structure on SRT and pattern judgment. SRT and pattern judgment competence developed independently of each other across length of acquisition task. Performance on both implicit tasks did not depend on explicit knowledge. These results indicate that the SRT and pattern judgment measures tap independent forms of implicit learning, which is consistent with the modular nature of memory and cognition.


Serverless computing with cloud functions is quickly gaining adoption, but constrains programmers with its limited support for state management. We introduce a shared file system for cloud functions. It offers familiar POSIX semantics while taking advantage of distinctive aspects of cloud functions to achieve scalability and performance beyond what traditional shared file systems can offer. We take advantage of the function-grained fault tolerance model of cloud functions to proceed optimistically using local state, safe in the knowledge that we can restart if cache reads or lock activity cannot be reconciled upon commit. The boundaries of cloud functions provide implicit commit and rollback points, giving us the flexibility to use transaction processing techniques without changing the programming model or API. This allows a variety of stateful sever-based applications to benefit from the simplicity and scalability of serverless computing, often with little or no modification.


The focus of this article is the strategies young children use to solve rectangular covering tasks before they have been taught area measurement. One hundred fifteen children from Grades 1 to 4 were observed while they solved various array-based tasks, and their drawings were collected and analyzed. Children's solution strategies were classified into 5 developmental levels; we suggest that children sequentially learn 4 principles underlying rectangular covering. In the analysis we emphasize the importance of understanding the relation between the size of the unit and the dimensions of the rectangle in learning about rectangular covering, clarify the role of multiplication, and identify the significance of a relational understanding of length measurement. Implications for the learning of area measurement are addressed.


Paragangliomas (PGLs) are benign hypervascular tumors that can develop in head and neck at different locations, primarily in the carotid bifurcation, jugular bulb, tympanic plexus, and vagal ganglia.1 Different gene mutations have been linked to the familial inherited forms, which can represent approximately 30% of all PGLs.1,2 These are classified into 5 different clinical syndromes: PGL 1 to 5.1 These patients have increased risk for synchronous and metachronous lesions requiring an extensive work-up for hormone secretion and other associated neoplasms, as well as attentive follow-up for lifelong management.1,3 Surgical resection is the best treatment option as it can be curative when the resection is total.2-4 Preservation of the lower cranial nerve function is central to the management of head and neck PGLs, given the gravity of bilateral injuries.3 Irradiation therapy should be considered if the risk for bilateral lower cranial nerve injuries is high.5 Surgically, intrabulbar resection with preservation of the medial wall of the jugular bulb protects the lower cranial nerve function.3 Other technical finesses, including maintaining the facial nerve in its bony fallopian canal (facial bridge), avoiding carotid artery sacrifice, preservation of the ear canal, and preoperative embolization, contributed markedly to outcome improvement.2,3 We report a case of a 34-yr-old male with PGL 3 with a left glomus jugulare tumor that recurred and a right carotid body tumor. Patient consented to surgery and photography.  Image at 3:44 republished from Al-Mefty and Teixeira,3 with permission from JSNPG.


Digoxin is a cardiac glycoside obtained from digitalis lanata, is a positive inotropic and negative chronotropic agent. Digoxin works by blocking Na-K ATPase pump resulting in raised intracellular sodium which in turn raise intracellular calcium in the myocytes resulting in increase in inotropic effect [1, 2]. Digoxin causes several adverse effects in overdose leading to both bradyarrhythmias and tachyarrhythmias. The approved antidote, digoxin-specific antibody fragments (DIGIFAB), is costly yet effective option for managing digoxin toxicity [3] we describe the cases in which levels of digoxin fell to acceptable therapeutic levels with the use of Cholestyramine. Keywords— Digoxin;toxicity;cholestyreamine.


Human Action Recognition plays a driving engine of many human-computer interaction applications. Most current researches focus on improving the model generalization by integrating multiple homogeneous modalities, including RGB images, human poses, and optical flows. Furthermore, contextual interactions and out-of-context sign languages have been validated to depend on scene category and human per se. Those attempts to integrate appearance features and human poses have shown positive results. However, with human poses' spatial errors and temporal ambiguities, existing methods are subject to poor scalability, limited robustness, and sub-optimal models. In this paper, inspired by the assumption that different modalities may maintain temporal consistency and spatial complementarity, we present a novel Bi-directional Co-temporal and Cross-spatial Attention Fusion Model (B2C-AFM). Our model is characterized by the asynchronous fusion strategy of multi-modal features along temporal and spatial dimensions. Besides, the novel explicit motion-oriented pose representations called Limb Flow Fields (Lff) are explored to alleviate the temporal ambiguity regarding human poses. Experiments on publicly available datasets validate our contributions. Abundant ablation studies experimentally show that B2C-AFM achieves robust performance across seen and unseen human actions. The codes are available at https://github.com/gftww/B2C.git.


The time rate of change of acceleration has been called the jerk and is important in certain applications of mechanics and acoustics. For planar motion, the jerk vector is resolved here into tangential‐normal and radial‐transverse components, and the normal component is expressed in terms of an affine differential invariant known as the aberrancy. Using known aberrancy properties of curves, several geometrical properties of the jerk vector are established for plane motion.


A new species in the previously monotypic, endemic New Caledonian genus Gastrolepis (Stemonuraceae) is described. Gastrolepis alticoladiffers from G. austrocaledonica by its shorter and thicker petioles, strongly coriaceous leaves with revolute margins, shorter inflorescences, and pubescent corollas. The new species is further distinguished by its ecology, occurring only in high-altitude maquis on two massifs in southern New Caledonia, Mt. Kouakoue and the Montagne des Sources. Gastrolepis alticola is assigned a preliminary conservation status of 'Endangered' using the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List criteria. Comparison of the IUCN threat status for the 19 species endemic to this distinctive, restricted vegetation type reveals a striking lack of consistency and underscores the need for a reassessment of the entire New Caledonian flora. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 157, 775–783.


1. Change in environmental conditions in the complex non-equilibrium rangelands of arid Australia is difficult to monitor. We show how trends in rangeland condition can be identified from changes over time in the pattern of vegetation growth across gradients of differing grazing intensity.

2. Grazing intensity was measured indirectly using distance from water. Vegetation growth was derived from remotely sensed vegetation index values before and after large rainfalls. The amount of growth was adjusted for initial vegetation cover to give a standard measure of vegetation response.

3. A vegetation response ratio was derived by comparing areas less than 4 km from water with benchmark areas further away. Systematic changes in this ratio over time indicate a trend.

4. Ratio values from test areas suggested decline, improvement and no change, consistent with recent management history.

5. The method can be applied where the whole area is affected by grazing and relatively pristine benchmarks are unavailable. It could therefore be useful in the semi-arid rangelands where paddocks are smaller than in the arid part of Australia. It also has possible uses in the rangelands of Africa and the Americas. There is potential for applying the method to traditional grazing systems as well as to commercial pastoralism.

6. The method is cheaper and more effective than other techniques and increases the capacity of grazing gradient-based monitoring schemes for arid and semi-arid areas.


We address the problem of recovering the shape and spatially-varying reflectance of an object from multi-view images (and their camera poses) of an object illuminated by one unknown lighting condition. This enables the rendering of novel views of the object under arbitrary environment lighting and editing of the object's material properties. The key to our approach, which we call Neural Radiance Factorization (NeRFactor), is to distill the volumetric geometry of a Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) [Mildenhall et al. 2020] representation of the object into a surface representation and then jointly refine the geometry while solving for the spatially-varying reflectance and environment lighting. Specifically, NeRFactor recovers 3D neural fields of surface normals, light visibility, albedo, and Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions (BRDFs) without any supervision, using only a re-rendering loss, simple smoothness priors, and a data-driven BRDF prior learned from real-world BRDF measurements. By explicitly modeling light visibility, NeRFactor is able to separate shadows from albedo and synthesize realistic soft or hard shadows under arbitrary lighting conditions. NeRFactor is able to recover convincing 3D models for free-viewpoint relighting in this challenging and underconstrained capture setup for both synthetic and real scenes. Qualitative and quantitative experiments show that NeRFactor outperforms classic and deep learning-based state of the art across various tasks. Our videos, code, and data are available at people.csail.mit.edu/xiuming/projects/nerfactor/.


A new fighter aircraft will most likely be acollaborative project. In this study conceptualknowledge-based design is demonstrated, usingmodels of comparable fidelity for sizing, geometrydesign, aer ...


Grid-connected and island control of parallel inverters used in micro grid based on a variety of micro-source were introduced in this paper. Micro-grid in the connected mode should be able to operate automatically with the grid frequency and output high quality electricity in PQ control, and in island mode it can realize load power sharing of the parallel DGs in Droop control (1). Simultaneously, it should also ensure the stability of the load voltage and frequency in island mode with the droop-based controller which can make the micro-grid smoothly switching between the two operation modes. Finally, simulation of two inverters in the connected mode and island mode was introduced in MATLAB / SIMULINK; the simulation results show the effect of droop control and the load-sharing function. The results also indicate the feasibility and correctness of the control strategy.


To investigate human perceptions of image manipulation at both the conscious and non-conscious levels, we compared participants' verbal reporting of image manipulation to data recordings of their eye movements while viewing 36 images of varying manipulation levels. To further understand subjects' ability to use image comparison tools to aid in manipulation detection, variants of a trial 'image packaging' software provided two levels of image comparison support tools.


: Anthracnose caused by Colletotrchumcapsici is one of the most important diseases of chilli. In the present investigation, inhibitory effectof different Trichoderma species were observed in lab condition. It was found that all four treatments,were efficient in mycelia growth inhibition of Colletotrichumcapsici. Trichodermaharzianum gave best result in dual culture with growth inhibition of 83.8% against whereas T. viride showed (83.3%). &Carbendazim 79.4% mycelium growth inhibitionrespectively.