We extend the model of risk sharing with limited commitment (Kocherlakota, 1996) by introducing both a public and a private (non-contractible and/or non-observable) storage technology. Positive public storage relaxes future participation constraints and may hence improve risk sharing, contrary to the case where hidden income or effort is the deep friction. The characteristics of constrained-efficient allocations crucially depend on the storage technology's return. In the long run, if the return on storage is (i) moderately high, both assets and the consumption distribution may remain time-varying; (ii) sufficiently high, assets converge almost surely to a constant and the consumption distribution is time-invariant; (iii) equal to agents' discount rate, perfect risk sharing is self-enforcing. Agents never have an incentive to use their private storage technology, i.e., Euler inequalities are always satisfied, at the constrained-efficient allocation of our model, while this is not the case without optimal public asset accumulation.


INTRODUCTION
Magnolol is beneficial against inflammation-mediated damage. However, the underlying mechanisms by which m+agnolol exerts anti-inflammatory effects on macrophages remain unclear.

OBJECTIVE
In this study, network pharmacology and experimental validation were used to assess the effect of magnolol on inflammation caused by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in RAW264.7 cells.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Genes related to magnolol were identified in the PubChem and Swiss Target Prediction databases, and gene information about macrophage polarization was retrieved from the GeneCards, OMIM, and PharmGKB databases. Analysis of protein-protein interactions was performed with STRING, and Cytoscape was used to construct a component-target-disease network. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses were performed to ascertain significant molecular biological processes and signaling pathways. LPS was used to construct the inflammatory cell model. ELISA and qRT‒PCR were used to examine the expression levels of inflammationassociated factors, immunofluorescence was used to examine macrophage markers (CD86 and CD206), and western blotting was used to examine protein expression levels.

RESULTS
The hub target genes of magnolol that act on macrophage polarization were MDM2, MMP9, IL-6, TNF, EGFR, AKT1, and ERBB2. The experimental validation results showed that magnolol treatment decreased the levels of proinflammatory factors (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6). Moreover, the levels of anti-inflammatory factors (IL-10 and IL-4) were increased. In addition, magnolol upregulated the expression of M2 markers (Agr-1, Fizzl, and CD206) and downregulated M1 markers (CD86). The cell experiment results supported the network pharmacological results and demonstrated that magnolol alleviated inflammation by modulating the PI3k-Akt and P62/keap1/Nrf2 signaling pathways.

CONCLUSION
According to network pharmacology and experimental validation, magnolol attenuated inflammation in LPS-induced RAW264.7 cells mainly by inhibiting M1 polarization and enhancing M2 polarization by activating the PI3K/Akt and P62/keap1/Nrf2 signaling pathways.


BeH+ molecules will be an important intermediary species present in fusion plasmas with Be walls (e.g. JET, ITER), both for impurity transport and spectroscopic studies. To enable such analyses the electron-impact-induced excitations X 1Σ+(vi) → A 1Σ+(vf) and X 1Σ+(vi) → B 1Π(vf) in BeH+(vi) molecular ion, occurring between the vi and vf vibrational levels of different electronic states (vibro-electronic transitions), have been studied using the Coulomb–Born approximation. The cross sections and rate coefficients for these transitions have been calculated in a broad energy and temperature range, respectively. Accurate analytic fit expressions have been derived for the cross sections and rate coefficients for the vi = vf = 0 case of considered electronic transitions that have correct asymptotic limits. It has been demonstrated that the cross sections and rate coefficients for vi, vf > 0 transitions satisfy approximate (to within 10%) scaling relationships that involve the transition energies and matrix elements of dipole transition moments only.


In this paper, we study the post-hoc calibration of modern neural networks, a problem that has drawn a lot of attention in recent years. Many calibration methods of varying complexity have been proposed for the task, but there is no consensus about how expressive these should be. We focus on the task of confidence scaling, specifically on post-hoc methods that generalize Temperature Scaling, we call these the Adaptive Temperature Scaling family. We analyse expressive functions that improve calibration and propose interpretable methods. We show that when there is plenty of data complex models like neural networks yield better performance, but are prone to fail when the amount of data is limited, a common situation in certain post-hoc calibration applications like medical diagnosis. We study the functions that expressive methods learn under ideal conditions and design simpler methods but with a strong inductive bias towards these well-performing functions. Concretely, we propose Entropy-based Temperature Scaling, a simple method that scales the confidence of a prediction according to its entropy. Results show that our method obtains state-of-the-art performance when compared to others and, unlike complex models, it is robust against data scarcity. Moreover, our proposed model enables a deeper interpretation of the calibration process.


About 80% of 70 clinical isolates of Bacteroides fragilis were inhibited by 4 micrograms of ciprofloxacin (Bay o 9867) per ml. The 90% MIC of ciprofloxacin was 8 micrograms/ml for other Bacteroides species, 2 micrograms/ml for Peptococcus species, 8 micrograms/ml for Peptostreptococcus species, and 16 micrograms/ml for Clostridium and Eubacterium species.


Motivation Whole-genome alignment is an important problem in genomics for comparing different species, mapping draft assemblies to reference genomes, and identifying repeats. However, for large plant and animal genomes, this task remains compute and memory intensive. Results We introduce an approximate algorithm for computing local alignment boundaries between long DNA sequences. Given a minimum alignment length and an identity threshold, our algorithm computes the desired alignment boundaries and identity estimates using kmer-based statistics, and maintains sufficient probabilistic guarantees on the output sensitivity. Further, to prioritize higher scoring alignment intervals, we develop a plane-sweep based filtering technique which is theoretically optimal and practically efficient. Implementation of these ideas resulted in a fast and accurate assembly-to-genome and genome-to-genome mapper. As a result, we were able to map an error-corrected whole-genome NA12878 human assembly to the hg38 human reference genome in about one minute total execution time and < 4 GB memory using 8 CPU threads, achieving more than an order of magnitude improvement in both runtime and memory over competing methods. Recall accuracy of computed alignment boundaries was consistently found to be > 97% on multiple datasets. Finally, we performed a sensitive self-alignment of the human genome to compute all duplications of length ≥ 1 Kbp and ≥ 90% identity. The reported output achieves good recall and covers 5% more bases than the current UCSC genome browser's segmental duplication annotation. Availability https://github.com/marbl/MashMap Contact email@example.com, email@example.com


Currently wireless networks are virtually everywhere and though security is easily configurable some people opt to leave their wireless networks unsecured. There are many blogs and columns available online as to what security measure is the best to implement and when, however very few articles actually compare and contrast methods side by side. In this paper we hope to accomplish just by researching the pros and cons of each method and proposing which method should be implemented depending on the situation. Based on your needs the victor from comparison was WPA2 Enterprise, hence we built a RADIUS server and attempted to integrate it into this newly secured network. We then utilized a Microsoft Windows 7 laptop to attempt to connect to the network. Then finally we tested each security measure's effect on performance due to the different methods of encryption. We found that RADIUS servers are somewhat complex to setup and integrate with WPA2 Enterprise, hence we propose the use of WPA2 Personal with AES encryption; the second most secure method that does not hamper performance and is relatively simple to configure and implement. Therefore, this research lends itself to verifying what was found on the blog sites and columns as to which method offers the best security while remaining simple to set up.


North Atlantic right whales are one of the most endangered of the great whales. A remnant population of ~500 inhabits the eastern seaboard of North America. A small fraction (2%) travels south to their critical calving habitat along the Florida and Georgia coast. By late November and through the winter, right whales give birth and nurse their calves in these shallow waters before departing in early spring to their northern habitats. In the southeast critical habitat mother-calf pairs remain generally isolated from other whales, presenting a unique platform to study vocal development and learning in large whales. Using small boats, GPS-instrumented, free-drifting autonomous acoustic buoys were deployed in close proximity to 44 photo-identified mother-calf pairs over 7 calving seasons. Surface video and synchronized underwater recordings documented their social and vocal behavior. With the exception of some low-energy gunshot sounds, mothers, and their calves, remained predominantly silent during the first ...


The 50-year old concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy provided a key tool for theorists to model ultimate drivers of behaviour in social interactions. For decades, economists ignored ultimate drivers and used models in which individuals choose strategies based on their preferences—a proximate mechanism for behaviour—and the distribution of preferences in the population was taken to be fixed and given. This article summarizes some key findings in the literature on evolutionarily stable preferences, which in the past three decades has proposed models that combine the two approaches: individuals inherit their preferences, the preferences determine their strategy choices, which in turn determine evolutionary success. One objective is to highlight complementarities and potential avenues for future collaboration between biologists and economists. This article is part of the theme issue 'Half a century of evolutionary games: a synthesis of theory, application and future directions'.


We present high resolution heat capacity measurements of the organic superconductors kappa-(ET)(2)Cu[N(CN)(2)]Br and kappa-(ET)(2)Cu(NCS)(2) in fields up to 14 T. We use the high field data to determine the normal state specific heat and hence extract the behavior of the electronic specific heat C(el) in the superconducting state in zero and finite fields. We find that in both materials for T/T(c) less or similar 0.3, C(el)(H=0) approximately T2 indicating d-wave superconductivity. The data are well described by a strong coupling d-wave model from our base temperature (T/T(c) approximately 0.1) right up to T(c). Our data help to resolve the controversy regarding the order parameter symmetry in these materials.


Estes et al. (2018) provide an interesting and intriguing approach to assessment of dialysis facilities for time-varying patient outcomes. They develop a method to monitor patient outcomes continuously over time for a population of patients with end-stage renal disease. It is our belief that statistics has not played a sufficiently prominent role in the development of health care policy, and we congratulate the authors in their efforts to push the field forward. From a technical standpoint, we find particularly interesting the extension of multilevel varying coefficient models (MVCMs) for time-varying hospital profiling. However, we also have concerns about the practical usefulness of this work and its potential to influence policy. We discuss the policy question as well as the interpretation and robustness of conclusions. We begin with some background context for our discussion.


During November and December 1985, a series of shallow (80-m or 250-ft.) holes were drilled in the southern Salton Sea. Temperatures in these holes will be logged for at least 3 months after drilling to establish equilibrium temperatures. The intent is to close the thermal gradient contours of the field and thus define the width of the transition zone between the locations exhibiting high thermal gradients and those exhibiting regional thermal gradients in the area north of the volcanic domes. These observations will allow competing models [e.g., Riney et al., 1977; Rex, 1983; Kasameyer et al., 1984] for the circulation of the hydrothermal system to be tested and will provide a more accurate assessment of the size of the geothermal resource.


A modified melt blending method has been developed for preparing exfoliated nanocomposites of poly(ethylene terephthalate) with sodium-montmorillonite (Na-MMT) and poly(m-xylylene adipamide) with Na-MMT. In this novel compounding process, a Na-MMT water solution was blended with the polymer in a twin screw extruder. This mixing process ensured that the silica nanoparticles were exfoliated in the polymer matrix through fixing the nanoparticles within the polymer matrix almost as they were in water. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction were used to determine nanoparticle dispersion level. The absence of the X-ray basal reflections in conjunction with the TEM images revealed the exfoliation of clay platelets. Differential scanning calorimetry illustrated that the nucleating abilities of montmorillonite were related to clay content and dispersion morphology. Oxygen permeation results indicated that the improved morphologies had enhanced the barrier properties of the nanocomposites. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013


The present study first investigated the mechanisms of vasorelaxation induced by ellagic acid (EA), which is one of the major compounds extracted from the pomegranate in the rat thoracic aorta. Male Wistar rats aged 10 to12 weeks weighing 250–350 g were used for the present study. The animals were killed by decapitation, and thoracic aortas were immediately excised and placed in Krebs solutions, cleaned, and freed from surrounding connective tissue. The isolated arteries were cut into rings (4‐ to 5‐mm long) and placed in 20‐mL tissue chambers filled with Krebs solution. Initially, the aortic rings were equilibrated for 60 min until a resting tension of 1.0 gr. After the equilibration period, aortic rings were firstly contracted with phenylephrine to increase tone. Once a stable contraction was achieved, EA (10−8 to 10−4 M) was added cumulatively on aortic rings with or without endothelium into organ bath. To characterize the mechanisms involved in EA‐induced vasorelaxant effect, the aortic rings were incubated with each inhibitor added to the bath for 30 min before phenylephrine was added to increase tone. The results of the present study have demonstrated in the rat thoracic aorta that EA causes vasorelaxations, which are partly modulated via endothelium‐dependent mechanisms and through inhibition of calcium influx. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


A major focus of recent RF transceiver IC designs has been to increase both the integration and adaptability to multiple RF communication standards. Performing channel selection on chip at baseband allows the use of high-integration receiver architectures, and enhances programmability to different channel bandwidths and dynamic range requirements of multiple RF standards. A wideband, high-dynamic range sigma-delta modulator can be used to digitize both the desired signal and potentially stronger adjacent-channel interferers. In the digital domain, the decimation filter following the ADC can be easily made programmable. A 4th-order sigma-delta ADC which is capable of adapting to GSM (cellular) and DECT (cordless) communication standards is described. The ADC achieves 14 bits of resolution at 128x oversampling ratio (200kS/s Nyquist rate) for GSM, and 12 bits of Programmable, High-Dynamic Range Sigma-Delta A/D Converter for Multistandard, Fully-Integrated CMOS RF Receiver by Kelvin Boo-Huat Khoo Master of Science in Electrical Engineering University of California, Berkeley Professor Paul R. Gray, Advisor ii resolution at 32x oversampling ratio (1.4MS/s Nyquist rate) for DECT. Power reduction strategies are developed at both the sigma-delta architecture and circuit design levels. The experimental prototype, fabricated in a 0.35 μm CMOS process, dissipates 70mW from a 3.3V supply.


Failure to properly form bone or integrate surgical implants can lead to morbidity and additional surgical interventions in a significant proportion of orthopedic surgeries. While the role of skeletal stem cells (SSCs) in bone formation and repair is well-established, very little is known about the factors that regulate the downstream Bone, Cartilage, Stromal, Progenitors (BCSPs). BCSPs, as transit amplifying progenitor cells, undergo multiple mitotic divisions to expand the pool of lineage committed progenitors allowing stem cells to preserve their self-renewal and stemness. Del1 is a protein widely expressed in the skeletal system, but its deletion led to minimal phenotype changes in the uninjured mouse. In this paper, we demonstrate that Del1 is a key regulator of BCSP expansion following injury. In Del1 knockout mice, there is a significant reduction in the number of BCSPs which leads to a smaller callus and decreased bone formation compared with wildtype (WT) littermates. Del1 serves to promote BCSP proliferation and prevent apoptosis in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, exogenous Del1 promotes proliferation of aged human BCSPs. Our results highlight the potential of Del1 as a therapeutic target for improving bone formation and implant success. Del1 injections may improve the success of orthopedic surgeries and fracture healing by enhancing the proliferation and survival of BCSPs, which are crucial for generating new bone tissue during the process of bone formation and repair.


Arsenic, a potent carcinogen, fails to induce gene mutations in mammalian cells. However, posttreatment of ultraviolet light (UV) irradiated cells with sodium arsenite synergistically enhances the mutation frequency on the hypoxanthine (guanine) phosphoribosyltransferase locus. To investigate the molecular mechanism of the comutagenic effects of sodium arsenite, we characterized the alterations of nucleotide sequences in 30 UV‐induced and 39 sodium arsenite enhanced hprt mutants from Chinese hamster ovary K1 cells by direct sequencing of mRNA‐PCR amplified cDNA. The majority of sequence alterations derived from UV irradiation (80%) and from sodium arsenite posttreatment (70%) were single base substitutions. UV irradiation induced all types of base substitutions. Among them, 57% were transversions. The frequency of transversions increased to 70% in sodium arsenite enhanced mutants. While base substitutions observed in UV‐induced mutants were evenly distributed along with the whole coding region, exons 3 and 8 were most frequently mutated in sodium arsenite enhanced mutants. Sodium arsenite posttreatment did not alter the strand bias for mutation induction, i.e., 73% and 78%, of the mutations were located on the non‐transcribed strand in UV‐induced and sodium arsenite enhanced mutants, respectively. In contrast to UV‐induced mutations, bases at the 5' position of TT and the 3' position of CT sequences were the most frequent mutation sites observed in sodium arsenite enhanced mutants. We hypothesize that sodium arsenite may interfere with the process of mutation fixation of TT and CT dimers during DNA replication. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


As the wind power system moves toward more efficient operation, one of the main challenges for managers is to determine a cost effective maintenance strategy. Most maintenance optimization studies for wind power generation systems deal with wind turbine components separately. However, there are economic dependencies among wind turbines and their components. In addition, most current researches assume that the components in a wind turbine only have two states, while condition monitoring techniques can often provide more detailed health information of components. This study aims to construct an optimal condition based maintenance model for a multi-state wind farm under the condition that individual components or subsystems can be monitored in periodic inspection. The results are demonstrated using a numerical example.


The mechanism of Sn and Nb influence on the fraction of tetragonal ZrO2 in oxide films on Zr alloys and their influence mechanism on corrosion resistance of Zr alloys, despite decades of research, are ambiguous due to the lack of kinetic knowledge of phase evolution of ZrO2 with doping. Using stochastic surface walking and density functional theory calculations, we investigate the influence of Nb and Sn on the stability of tetragonal (t) and monoclinic (m) ZrO2, and t-m phase transition in oxide films. We found that though Nb and Sn result in similar apparent variation trends in the t-phase fraction in oxide films, their influences on t-m phase transition differ significantly, which is the underlying origin of different influences of the t-phase fraction in oxide films on the corrosion resistance of Zr alloys with Sn and Nb alloying. These results clarify an important aspect of the relationship between the microstructure and corrosion resistance of Zr alloys.


Conducted process analysis of treatment mediation effects (Judd & Kenney, 1981) on longitudinal data from a large randomized field experiment with 928 recently unemployed persons. The experimental treatment included an intervention that succeeded in promoting quality reemployment outcomes, as described in earlier reports (Caplan et al., 1989; Vinokur et al., 1991). Using Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1988), the analyses examined the mediating effects of job-search self-efficacy, attitude, norms, and intention on job-search behavior. The results provided substantial support for the theory o f planned behavior and demonstrated the mediational role o f job-search self-efficacy. For both 1and 4-month posttests, job-search self-efficacy was shown to mediate the effects of the intervention through its direct effects on job-search intention and on short term job-search behavior, as well as through its indirect effects on subjective norms and attitude. However, in the longer term 4-month posttest, exposure to the intervention had a direct effect on job-search behavior. This long-term direct effect o f the intervention was hypothesized to reflect the influence of inoculation against setbacks which is essential for sustaining the long-term behavioral efforts involved in job seeking.


The transformation of lymphocytes in vitro in the clinical types of histoplasmosis was studied by stimulation of peripheral blood lymphocytes with histoplasmin. Lymphocytes were obtained from five healthy histoplasmin-positive and five histoplasmin-negative donors as well as five patients who had acute histoplasmosis and five patients who had chronic histoplasmosis. The measurement of incorporation of radioactive thymidine into DNA was a more sensitive indicator of lymphocyte transformation than morphology.
 The uptake of thymidine, as expressed by a ratio of the radioactive counts from the antigne stimulated tubes and the unstimulated tubes (E′C), was greater for the healthy histoplasmin-positive donors (median E/C 66.7) than for the histoplasmin-negative donors (median E/C 4.9). Acute histoplasmosis patients (median E/C 51.1), as a group, reacted similarly to the healthy histoplasmin-positive donors. The chronic histoplasmosis patients (median E/C 22.6), on the other hand, reacted more like the histoplasmin-negative donors. The lymphocyte transformation, appeared to be depressed according to the severity of the clinical illness as well as by the presence of serum antibodies. Also, the transformation was depressed by heating serum at 56°C in a water bath for 30 min. No antibody against histoplasmin could be demonstrated in the culture fluid by means of the C-F test even when there was strong lymphocyte transformation.


The polytropic efficiency is the best quality measure for compressing or expanding engines for compressible fluids. Compressor- and gas-turbine 1D cycle performance simulation methods use it preferably. In steam expanding engine simulation the isentropic efficiency definition is dominating. However, the polytropic efficiency is well applicable for steam expansion based on recent papers of the author [1], [2]. Most applications of polytropic efficiency assume adiabatic change of state. In current turbomachinery, external heat exchange in the blading is often negligible due to short residence time and established external insulations. However, in (historic) reciprocating engines as well as in some current concepts external heat exchange plays an important role forcing to understand this effect as well. This paper aims at understanding the effects of external heat exchange on the polytropic efficiency calculated with a recursive numeric integration algorithm for any finite pressure ratio in expansion.
 I select as a teaching appliance a historically well-documented reciprocating Uni-(directional)-flow steam engine involving steam condition with condensation (assuming equilibrium). The older reciprocating steam engines (with alternating flow direction in the cylinders) have both internal heat exchange and external heat losses during expansion. "Our" uniflow engine was a considerable historic improvement step including internal heat exchange in a documented manner. This allows demonstrating the features and the interpretation of the polytropic efficiency based on the use of the current IAPWS steam data.


The dream of building robots and artificial agents that are more and more capable of thinking and acting like humans is growing by the day. Various models and architectures aim to mimic human behavior. In our current research, we propose a solution to make actions and thought cycles of agents explainable by introducing inner speech into a multi-agent system. The reasons that led us to use inner speech as a self-modeling engine raised the question of what inner speech is and how it affects cognitive systems. In this proposal, we used speech act to enable a coalition of agents to exhibit inner speech capabilities to explain their behavior, but also to guide and reinforce the creation of an inner model triggered by the decision-making process through actions applied to the surrounding world and to themselves. The BDI agent paradigm is used to keep the agents rational and with the innate ability to act in a human-like manner. The proposed solution continues the research path that began with the definition of a cognitive model and architecture for human-robot teaming interaction, and aims to integrate the believable interaction paradigm into it.


Growing evidence demonstrates the important role of microRNAs (miRs) in regulating adipogenesis, obesity and insulin resistance. The miR-200b/a/429 cluster has been functionally characterized in mammalian reproduction; however, the potential role of the miR-200 family in adipocytes is poorly understood. The aim of our study was to investigate the physiological function of miR-200b/a/429 in the regulation of whole-body metabolism in terms of the activities and targets of this cluster in adipocytes. We generated adipocyte-specific miR-200b/a/429 knockout (ASKO) mice using a Cre-loxP system in which Cre expression was driven by the aP2 promoter. The ASKO and wild type (WT) littermate were fed a chow diet (CD) or high-fat-diet (HFD), and changes in body composition, metabolic parameters, energy homeostasis, glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity were analyzed. The miR-200b/a/429 putative target genes were predicted and validated via luciferase reporter assays. We found that the HFD-fed ASKO mice gradually gained more body weight than the WT mice due to the increased adiposity. Decreased glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity were also observed in the HFD-fed ASKO mice. Notably, the down-regulation of lipolysis-related genes and the decreased response to CL-316,243 stimulation in the HFD-fed ASKO mice suggested that these animals exhibited impaired lipolysis. In addition, the HFD-fed ASKO mice displayed impaired energy expenditure, indicating that the miR-200b/a/429 cluster is essential for developing adaptive responses to stressors such as HFD. For the first time, our studies demonstrated the essential role of miR-200b/a/429 in adipocytes in the regulation of HFD-induced whole-body metabolic changes.


Sixty-five couples with male infertility or unexplained infertility or infertility due to cervical factor underwent 156 cycles of homologue intrauterine insemination. The overall pregnancy rate was 16.5% with 2.4 mean value of insemination cycles for each couple. The highest pregnancy rate was observed in cases of cervical factor infertility. The mean age of patients who had pregnancy was 30 years (overall mean value 34 years) and the mean time of sterility was 3 years (overall mean value 4.4 years).


The Thailand Development Policy focuses on the simultaneous growth of the economy, society, and environment. Long-term goals have been set to improve economic and social well-being. At the same time, these aim to reduce the emission of CO2 in the future, especially in the construction sector, which is deemed important in terms of national development and is a high generator of greenhouse gas. In order to achieve national sustainable development, policy formulation and planning is becoming necessary and requires a tool to undertake such a formulation. The tool is none other than the forecasting of CO2 emissions in long-term energy consumption to produce a complete and accurate formulation. This research aims to study and forecast energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in Thailand's construction sector by applying a model incorporating the long- and short-term auto-regressive (AR), integrated (I), moving average (MA) with exogenous variables (Xi) and the error correction mechanism (LS-ARIMAXi-ECM) model. This model is established and attempts to fill the gaps left by the old models. In fact, the model is constructed based on factors that are causal and influential for changes in CO2 emissions. Both independent variables and dependent variables must be stationary at the same level. In addition, the LS-ARIMAXi-ECM model deploys a co-integration analysis and error correction mechanism (ECM) in its modeling. The study's findings reveal that the LS-ARIMAXi -ECM model is a forecasting model with an appropriate time period (t − i), as justified by the Q-test statistic and is not a spurious model. Therefore, it is used to forecast CO2 emissions for the next 20 years (2019 to 2038). From the study, the results show that CO2 emissions in the construction sector will increase by 37.88% or 61.09 Mt CO2 Eq. in 2038. Also, the LS-ARIMAXi -ECM model has been evaluated regarding its performance, and it produces a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 1.01% and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.93% as compared to the old models. Overall, the results indicate that determining future national sustainable development policies requires an appropriate forecasting model, which is built upon causal and contextual factors according to relevant sectors, to serve as an important tool for future sustainable planning.


Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is the most common non-hereditary cause of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) yet the mechanisms of hearing loss remain obscure. Natural Killer (NK) cells play a critical role in regulating murine CMV infection via NK cell recognition of the Ly49H cell surface receptor of the viral-encoded m157 ligand expressed at the infected cell surface. This Ly49H NK receptor/m157 ligand interaction has been found to mediate host resistance to CMV in the spleen, and lung, but is much less effective in the liver, so it is not known if this interaction is important in the context of SNHL. Using a murine model for CMV-induced labyrinthitis, we have demonstrated that the Ly49H/m157 interaction mediates host resistance in the temporal bone. BALB/c mice, which lack functional Ly49H, inoculated with mCMV at post-natal day 3 developed profound hearing loss and significant outer hair cell loss by 28 days of life. In contrast, C57BL/6 mice, competent for the Ly49H/m157 interaction, had minimal hearing loss and attenuated outer hair cell loss with the same mCMV dose. Administration of Ly49H blocking antibody or inoculation with a mCMV viral strain deleted for the m157 gene rendered the previously resistant C57BL/6 mouse strain susceptible to hearing loss to a similar extent as the BALB/c mouse strain indicating a direct role of the Ly49H/m157 interaction in mCMV-dependent hearing loss. Additionally, NK cell recruitment to sites of infection was evident in the temporal bone of inoculated susceptible mouse strains. These results demonstrate participation of NK cells in protection from CMV-induced labyrinthitis and SNHL in mice.


A four-dimensional perturbation theory for bound-state problems is developed here. It is shown that modified S-matrix techniques and graphical methods can be applied to bound-state problems. The correspondence of this theory to the ordinary perturbation theory is discussed, and by way of illustration, the four-dimensional theory is applied to the calculation of energy corrections from the exchange of two transverse photons by the electron and proton in hydrogen. This exchange is found to contribute only to the fine-structure and not to the spin-spin interaction in the first order it enters, α3(m/M) R.


The fluorogenic probe o-OH is able to detect and quantify organophosphorus nerve agent mimics in solution and in the vapor phase following immobilization on a solid substrate, making the system a suitable candidate for the field detection of chemical warfare agents. Detection is achieved by the suppression of internal rotation upon phosphorylation of a reactive phenolate, resulting in a large fluorescence "turn-on" response.


Abstract With the rapid growth of electric vehicles (EVs) in recent years, the research on their energy storage systems (ESSs) has also shown great popularity. A traditional ESS normally has a fixed configuration and uses a single type of energy storage unit. However, this traditional design has some limitations, such as low flexibility and high requirements to unit consistency. To solve these problems, a new hybrid energy storage system is proposed in this paper. The proposed ESS hybridises multiple lithium-ion battery modules and one supercapacitor module. By controlling the states of switches inside the ESS topology, module level reconfiguration can be achieved. Further, a DC/DC converter is also included in the ESS topology, which is connected to the supercapacitor module and can be used to ensure correct ESS output voltage. Reconfiguration and active balancing algorithms are also given based on the proposed ESS topology. Situations with and without bypassing the lithium-ion battery modules are both discussed in the algorithms. The proposed hybrid ESS is finally verified with simulations. The system model is built in the Simulink/MATLAB environment. Simulation results show that the lithium-ion modules with a lower state of charge values have higher priorities to be connected in parallel. Reconfiguration actions are able to balance all lithium-ion battery modules within one Worldwide Harmonised Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle (WLTC) simulation cycle while maintaining ESS output voltage within a correct range. Furthermore, the proposed hybrid ESS control algorithms remain valid when one lithium-ion battery module is manually bypassed during simulation.


Lake Urmia is one of the most important salt lakes in the world and the largest in Iran. At present, because of the recession of Lake Urmia and deposition of lacustrine sediments on the lake bed, a large part of the surrounding areas has become flat with several playa surfaces. So far, there have been very few studies related to Lake Urmia playa and its geomorphology. Therefore, the aim of this research was to field study of playa surfaces of Lake Urmia in its eastern part and also to identify areas susceptible to wind erosion. In this study, different playa surfaces from the northeast to the south of the lake were identified and mapped using satellite imagery. Then, boundaries of the mapped surfaces were checked during field observations. Moreover, physical soil properties, such as texture, bulk density, saturation percentage, resistancy, particle size distribution and soil aggregate stability, were determined. Next, the correlation of the studied properties with each surface resistance to wind erosion was investigated, and finally the geomorphic surfaces of Urmia Playa and their resistance to wind erosion were mapped using ARCGIS software. Based on the results, the study area included agricultural lands, shrub-grass zones, sand and gravel zones, mud-clay salt flats, sand-salt crusts, puffy grounds, delta-fans and wet zones. Results showed that approximately 25% of the surfaces had high resistance to wind erosion and they are therefore stable surfaces with no potential for generating dust in the future. About 35% of the surfaces were strongly susceptible to wind erosion, highly prone to generate saline dusts and sand storms. These areas were located in the east and southeast of the lake. Also, 40% of playa surfaces had moderate resistance to wind erosion. These areas can become very sensitive to wind erosion if ground water depth or the roughness of the surface changes. In conclusion, sandy-salt surfaces in the east and southeast of the lake are the most susceptible to wind erosion with high potential for generating dust, sand, and salt storms, which can affect agricultural lands and human health in the near future. Keywords: dust, erosion, geomorphology, Inceptisols, playa, Lake Urmia


Purpose: To investigate the degree and sources of stress which fathers of infants in NICU experience. Method: Eighty-five fathers of NICU infants at 5 university hospitals in Seoul volunteered to complete the Parental Stressor Scale for NICU (PSS: NICU) from September 1, to October 15, 2002. Result: Total perceived stress was 3.50±0.76. The highest score were in Parental Role Alteration (3.76±0.83) and Appearance and Behavior (3.65±1.04). The total perceived stress score (PSS), correlated significantly with method (t=3.50, p=.01), and route (F=5.30, p=.00) of feeding. Light & Sound correlated significantly with birth weight (F=3.39, p=.02), medical diagnosis(F=2.30, p=.03), plan of operation(t=2.50, p=.01), operation (t=3.80, p=.02), method (F=4.90, p=.003), and route (F=4.70, p=.00) of feeding. Infant Appearance and Behavior correlated significantly with birth weight (F=5.12, p=.01), plan of operation (t=2.50, p=.01), method (F=3.50, p=.01), and route (F=7.80, p=.00) of feeding. Parental Role Alteration correlated significantly with care of incubator (t=-.68, p=.03), method of feeding (F=2.80, p=.04) and education level of father (F=3.00, p=.05). Conclusion: Father with NICU infants were concerned mostly with parental role alteration and infant appearance. Nursing intervention should include fathers of NICU infants.


Using Scale of Subjective Happiness,SCL-90 Scale of Symptom Self-assessment,PARS-3 Scale of PE Activity Grade,the study investigates and assesses the subjective happiness,psychological health and PE activities of 315 college teachers.It concludes that the influences of physical exercise on subjective happiness take an manifestation in negative and positive emotion;influences on psychological health manifest in terms of anxiety and depression.Influence of exercise amount on subjective happiness and psychological health is made mainly through period of continuous exercise which works as a decisive factor.With similar period of continuous exercise,middle amount of exercise has more positive influence.Elements in SCL-90 Scale of symptom self-assessment has different affect on index subjective happiness,stronger influence on negative emotion.Index of subjective happiness can explain elements in SCL-90 Scale,more on depression,less on anxiety.


The northern coast of Peru is a region that can rapidly detect the impact of an El Niño. To investigate the effects of the 2015-2016 El Niño on the oceanographic environment of the northern coast of Peru, the temperature and current data obtained from moored equipment at an oil platform were analyzed. Strong coastal along-shore currents of more than 0.60 m·s-1 were observed three times, although the mean current speed was 0.10 m·s-1 flowing toward the south-southwest. After the first strong current, the bottom temperature increased and the mixed layer deepened and remained there during the El Niño event. The temperature reached a maximum after the strong coastal current, then decreased gradually. An analysis of wind and sea surface height anomalies revealed that the coastal strong current was caused by Kelvin waves and the deepening of the mixed layer was not related to local winds, but to coastal Kelvin waves from the equator during the El Niño event.


The present study examined the associations of time perspective (TP) with health behaviors including smoking, exercise, and body mass index (BMI), and perceptions of health status after controlling for sociodemographic factors. Participants (N = 413) completed a web-based questionnaire that included a short version of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, and reported their weight, height, smoking, and exercise frequency. Future TP was associated with more physical exercise, whereas past-negative and present-fatalistic dimensions were associated with higher BMI. Smoking was not associated with any of the TP dimensions. Additionally, all of the dimensions of TP were found to be associated with conceptually relevant perceptions of health status. Research on TP predominantly focuses on the future and the present orientation, but the findings of the present study suggest that all dimensions of TP should be used in health-related research. Also, issues regarding the role of the present-hedonistic dimension are discussed and directions for future research are proposed.


The electrical, optical, and magneto-optical properties of La0.69Ba0.31MnO3-delta thin films with a Curie temperature near room temperature are studied. It is shown that in the region of the phase transition there is a sharp change in the behavior of the temperature dependences of the electrical resistance and optical transparency of the films, which is associated with the insulator-metal transition. In a narrow temperature region near the transition, a change in the external magnetic field leads to the appearance of negative magnetoresistance and magnetotransmission of unpolarized light in the spectral range from 1 to 12 μm. It is shown that the effect of magnetic transmission (magnetoabsorption) in films is mainly due to the contribution of free charge carriers. The magnetic transmission spectra are sensitive to the magnetic and electronic inhomogeneities of the films. Keywords: Thin films, manganites, magnetoabsorption, colossal magnetoresistance, IR spectroscopy, metal-insulator transition, magnetic inhomogeneities.


The aim of the research: to study the possibilities of transient and two-dimensional shear wave elastography in the diagnosis of fibrosis in chronic diffuse liver diseases of non-viral etiologyMaterials and methods: the study included 415 male patients aged 19 to 54 years (average age 40.4 ± 7.8 years), including 156 with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, 66 with alcoholic liver disease, 122 with fatty disease liver alcohol-metabolic etiology, 68 people without liver disease. The examination plan included the measurement of anthropometric indicators, a biochemical study of blood serum, an ultrasound study of the hepatobiliary zone, a morphological study of liver tissue, transient and two-dimensional shear wave elastography.Results: according to the results of transient and two-dimensional shear wave elastography, the degree of fibrotic changes with combined alcohol-metabolic liver disease is higher than with isolated exposure to an alcoholic or metabolic factor; the highest diagnostic significance in elastographic research methods was noted in the third and fourth stages of fibrosis, in the second stage, the quality of the diagnostic model in transient elastography was higher than in two-dimensional shear wave.


ABSTRACT Pasteurella multocida toxin (PMT) is a potent mitogen for fibroblasts and osteoblastic cells. PMT activates phospholipase C-β through Gqα, and the activation of this pathway is responsible for its mitogenic activity. Here, we investigated the effects of PMT on human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDC) in vitro and show a novel activity for PMT. In this regard, PMT activates MDDC to mature in a dose-dependent manner through the activation of phospholipase C and subsequent mobilization of calcium. This activation was accompanied by enhanced stimulation of naïve alloreactive T cells and dominant inhibition of interleukin-12 production in the presence of saturating concentrations of lipopolysaccharide. Surprisingly, although PMT mimics the activating effects of cholera toxin on human MDDC and mouse bone marrow-derived dendritic cells, we found that PMT is not a mucosal adjuvant and that it suppresses the adjuvant effects of cholera toxin in mice. Together, these results indicate discordant effects for PMT in vitro compared to those in vivo.


The human locomotor apparatus consists of an active motor system (muscles) and a passive system of transmission (bones and joints) connected by an intermediate formation, the muscular and tendinous insertions. The insertions must be differentiated from the other two systems both anatomically and functionally. These insertions are effected in three principal manners: (1) inlaid piercing into the bony substance through periosteum (tendinous insertion), (2) reinforcing fibrous bundles extending from tendon to ligaments, joint capsule, or other tendons (aponeurosis), and (3) direct adhesion to periosteum of the bone (muscular or tendinomuscular attachment). The locations of these attachments are therefore spots where tissues of common mesenchymal origin, but often poorly differentiated, meet. Possibly for this reason, insertions show a peculiar reaction to irritative stimuli, often characterized by metaplastic phenomena. Most frequently these stimuli are of traumatic, particularly microtraumatic, origin. The continually recurring concentration of muscle stress at these points provokes a reaction


Environmental performances of PV systems are likely to evolve in the future due to significant technological improvements of the systems, to less energy intensive manufacturing processes as well as a shift towards less carbon-intensive energies for electricity mix. In spite of the complexity to estimate these changes with accuracy, projections are available based on scenarios representing different levels of improvements. Based on these scenarios, prospective environmental impacts and electricity production of large scale PV systems are assessed. This paper focuses on GHG performance of large scale photovoltaic ground mounted systems based on the Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) technology. We compare the current (2011-2013) and prospective (at 2050 time horizon) GHG performance of such PV systems under different scenarios accounting for technological improvements, future electricity mixes, and module manufacturing origin. A significant decrease in GHG performance is to be found for the prospective scenarios compared to the current situation ranging from 50 up to 80% depending on the scenarios. Prospective technological improvement seems to induce more uncertainties than prospective electricity mixes involved in manufacturing the modules.


We introduce a scheme for realizing arbitrary controlled-unitary operations in a two-qubit system. If the 2x2 unitary matrix is special unitary (has unit determinant), the controlled-unitary gate operation can be realized in a single pulse operation. The pulse in our scheme will constitute varying one of the parameters of the system between an arbitrarily maximum and a 'calculated' minimum value. This parameter will constitute the variable parameter of the system while the other parameters, which include the coupling between the two qubits, will be treated as fixed parameters. The values of the parameters are what we solve for using our approach in order to realize an arbitrary controlled-unitary operation. We further show that the computational complexity of the operation is no greater than that required for a controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. Since conventional schemes realize a controlled-unitary operation by breaking it into a sequence of single-qubit and CNOT gate operations, our method is an improvement because we not only require less time duration, but also fewer control lines to implement the same operation. To demonstrate improvement over other schemes, we show, as examples, how two controlled-unitary operations, one being the controlled-Hadamard gate, can be realized in a single pulse operation usingmore » our scheme. Furthermore, our method can be applied to a wide range of coupling schemes and can be used to realize gate operations between two qubits coupled via Ising, Heisenberg, and anisotropic interactions.« less


Increasing seawater temperatures are expected to have profound consequences for reef-building corals' physiology. Understanding how demography changes in response to chronic exposure to warming will help forecast how coral communities will respond to climate change. Here, we measure growth rates of coral fragments of four common species, while exposing them to temperatures ranging from 19°C to 31°C for one month to calibrate their thermal-performance curves (TPCs). Our results show that, while there are contrasting differences between species, the shape of the TPCs was remarkably consistent among individuals of the same species. The low variation in thermal sensitivity within species may imply a reduced capacity for rapid adaptive responses to future changes in thermal regimes. Additionally, interspecific differences in thermal responses show a negative relationship between maximum growth and thermal optima, contradicting expectations derived from the classic 'warmer-is-better' hypothesis. Among species, there was a trade-off between current and future growth, whereby most species perform well under current thermal regimes but are susceptible to future increases in temperature. Increases in water temperature with climate change are likely to reduce growth rates, further hampering future coral reef recovery rates and potentially altering community composition.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the predictive value of umbilical cord serum (UCS) bilirubin for subsequent jaundice in healthy term newborns.

METHODS
Five hundred and twenty-three healthy term newborns (275 boys, 248 girls) were selected. The cord blood total serum bilirubin concentration and the serum albumin concentration were determined. All the infants were assessed for jaundice daily by measurement of transcutaneous bilirubin (TCB). When the infant's TCB was >or= 18 within the first 24 h after birth, >or= 21 at 48 h, >or= 25 at or after 72 h, the venous total serum bilirubin (TSB) was determined and treatment against jaundice was applied as needed. The infants were aligned into four groups according to their UCS bilirubin levels, starting from < 30 micromol/L(group 1); >or= 30 micromol/L(group 2); >or= 36 micromol/L(group 3); >or= 42 micromol/L(group 4). The frequency of hyperbilirubinemia and phototherapy (PT) were compared among the four groups. An analysis of UCS bilirubin as a predictor of later development of jaundice was performed. The characteristics of the infants who became jaundiced (jaundiced group) were compared with the normal infants (non-jaundiced group).

RESULTS
A clear correlation between UCS bilirubin level and the development of hyperbilirubinemia was found in all populations of the four groups. Only eight of the 194 infants in group 1 showed a TCB index >or= 25. TSB values > 205 micromol/L but < 257 micromol/L were observed in 2 newborns. None of the infants in this group showed TSB > 257 micromol/L or needed PT. Thirty-two infants in group 2 showed TCB >or= 25, 12 infants had TSB > 205 micromol/L but < 257 micromol/L, 2 infants had TSB > 205 micromol/L and received PT. In group 3, one infant developed hyperbilirubinemia at 48 h after birth and received PT. Thirty-nine infants showed TCB >or= 25, 16 infants TSB > 205 micromol/L but < 257 micromol/L, 2 infants had TSB > 205 micromol/L and also received PT. In group 4, 4 infants showed a range of TSB from 200 to 215 micromol/L at 48 h and received PT. Twenty-two infants showed TCB >or= 25, 17 of them showed TSB > 205 micromol/L but < 257 micromol/L, and 5 of them had TSB > 205 micromol/L and received PT. The frequency of TSB > 205 micromol/L increased from 1.03% in group 1, 5.77% in group 2, 19.75% in group 3 and to 42.5% in group 4. None of the 194 newborns in group 1 needed phototherapy, whereas 0.96%, 3.70% and 22.5% of the newborns in groups 2 - 4, needed PT. The frequency of patients with hyperbilirubinemia or phototherapy increased with increasing UCS bilirubin levels. For the prediction of TCB >or= 25 using a UCS bilirubin cut-off level, such as >or= 35 micromol/L, we found a positive predictive value of 45.68% and sensitivity of 68.27%. It is significant to predict neonatal jaundice by UCS bilirubin levels (P < 0.001). In the jaundiced group (TCB >or= 25) UCS bilirubin levels were significantly higher than those in the non-jaundiced group (t = 10.96, P < 0.001). No significant differences were found in the cord blood serum albumin concentration (t = 2.38, P > 0.05), the gestational age (t = -0.90, P > 0.05), and birthweight (t = 0.10, P > 0.05) between the jaundiced and non-jaundiced groups.

CONCLUSIONS
UCS bilirubin level is useful in predicting the subsequent jaundice in healthy term infants. The use of UCS bilirubin values may help detect infants at low or high risk for hyperbilirubinemia and minimize an unnecessary prolongation of hospitalization.


REFERENCES 1. Kaukinen K, Halme L, Collin P, et al. Celiac disease in patients with severe liver disease: gluten-free diet may reverse hepatic failure. Gastroenterology 2002; 122: 881-8. 2. Demir H, Yüce A, Caglar M, et al. Cirrhosis in children with celiac disease. J Clin Gastroenterol 2005; 39: 630-3. 3. Freeman HJ. Lymphoproliferative and intestinal malignancies in 214 patients with biopsy-defined celiac disease. J Clin Gastroenterol 2004; 38: 429-34. 4. Oruc N, Ozutemiz O, Tekin F, et al. Celiac disease associated with B-cell lymphoma. Turk J Gastroenterol 2010; 21: 168-71. 5. Fattovich G, Stroffolini T, Zagni I, et al. Hepatocellular carcinoma in cirrhosis: incidence and risk factors. Gastroenterology 2004; 127(Suppl): S35-50. 6. Sorensen HT, Friis S, Olsen JH, et al. Risk of liver and other types of cancer in patients with cirrhosis: a nationwide cohort study in Denmark. Hepatology 1998; 28: 921-5.


When a meniscus injury occurs, it is generally accepted that preserving the meniscus is important for life-long joint preservation. Traditional suture repair of the meniscus has good results; however, the healing potential of meniscus tissue remains as a biological challenge because it is not a completely vascularized structure. For this reason, investigators have continued to search for adjuncts to improve clinical results. Mechanical adjuncts, local factor enhancement, scaffolds, gene therapy, and cell therapy have all been examined as options for improvement of biology and structure. This study reviews the basic science and clinical application of these modalities and provides an assessment of techniques on the horizon.


In this paper, we propose a 2D-3D vascular registration algorithm based on an efficient rendering method for generating 2D projected images from a segmented 3D MRA volume. At the preprocessing stage, vessels are segmented and represented by a number of spheres with centers on the skeleton points of the vessels and radii equal to the distance from the skeleton points to their closest boundary. To generate projected images for 2D-3D registration, instead of using the conventional ray-casting technique, the spheres are projected to the projection plane. The discrepancy between the projected image and the reference DSA image is measured by the sum of squared differences. Experimental results show that our method is computationally efficient. Moreover, based on manually selected markers, it is shown that the accuracies of our proposed method and the conventional ray-casting based registration method are comparable.


Infectious uveitis is a common entity representing 15–20% of all uveitis cases worldwide. The aim of this short commentary
 is to provide a summary of the identification, treatment, and complications associated with syphilitic uveitis. While syphilitic
 uveitis may involve any part of the eye from cornea to optic nerve and retina, the most devastating complications are
 represented by posterior segment involvement. As syphilitic uveitis can mimic various types of immun-mediated uveitis, clinical
 suspicion, recognizing certain clinical features including multi-modal imaging characteristics are crucial for visual recovery and
 preservation.


Chronological thinking is an indispensable tool to structure a historical narrative and to give meaning to a sequence of events. It is not a natural skill, so the conscious inclusion of tasks stimulating that skill in teaching is crucial. It is important to appropriately test students' chronological skills by means of well--constructed examination tasks administered at the conclusion of subsequent stages of education. The authors discuss tasks that assess chronological thinking included in contemporary exam papers in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Russia, the USA and the United Kingdom. The tasks included in Polish arts and humanities exam papers at the lower secondary school level in the years 2002–2011 and the first history paper (2012) are then analysed. The final section presents the results of a survey to test the chronological thinking of lower secondary school students carried out by the Educational Research Institute.


INTRODUCTION: Emergency checklists have been offered as an important tool to improve patient outcomes. This study aims to determine whether use of an initial version of ACOG District II Safe Motherhood Initiative checklists during simulated obstetric emergencies improves interdisciplinary teamwork. METHODS: During this randomized-control trial, interprofessional teams undergoing simulation-based training for Eclampsia and Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) were randomly assigned to utilize a standardized checklist during one of two simulated emergencies. Teams without checklists served as controls. Trained raters reviewed all videos of simulated obstetric emergencies and used the "Clinical Teamwork Scale" (CTS) to assess various facets of teamwork. This scale assesses 6 items: overall team work, communication, situational awareness, decision making, role responsibilities, and patient friendly language use among team members. Teams with checklists were compared to those without checklists using Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: 36 teams (148 multidisciplinary providers) completed 72 scenarios. Data is presented for teams with complete video available for review, 29 teams randomized to the checklist group (14 Eclampsia and 15 PPH) and 30 randomized to the no checklist group (15 Eclampsia and 15 PPH). When comparing checklist group to no checklist group for each of the 6 CTS items, regardless of scenario, there were no statistically significant differences noted between the two groups. CONCLUSION: While checklists hold promise to improve team performance, before introducing them it is critical to test them. We believe optimal focus on checklist design, piloting use with modifications based on feedback, intensive implementation planning and training will result in improved patient outcomes and team work.


Background/Aims: The prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) is rising and it is the prime cause of death in all developed countries. Bioactive compounds (BACs) can play a role in CVD prevention and treatment. To examine the scientific evidence supporting BACs groups' efficacy in CVD prevention and treatment, we conducted a systematized review. Methods: All available information on Medline, LILACS and EMBASE; all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with prospective, parallel or crossover designs in humans in which the BACs effect was compared with that of placebo/control. Vascular homeostasis, blood pressure, endothelial function, oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers were considered primary outcomes. Results: We selected 26 articles, verifying their quality based on the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, establishing diverse quality levels of scientific evidence according to the design and bias risk of a study. Grades of recommendation were included, depending on the evidence strength of antecedents. Conclusions: Evidence shows that certain BACs' derivative from active lipids and nitrogen compounds, mainly from horse chestnut seed extract, sterol plants, allium derivatives, and certain doses of beta-glucans, can be helpful in decreasing the prevalence of CVD risk factors. However, further rigorous evidence is necessary to support and prove BACs' effect on CVD prevention and treatment.


Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) are toxic for human and livestock. They undergo a metabolic toxication process in the liver which is the first target organ for PA poisoning. Worldwide many episodes of human PA intoxications are well reported. In many cases the reason for these intoxications has been PA contamination in food. The main tools for analysing food and fodder on PA content are based on GC and HPLC separation, followed by MS(-MS) detection. Actual incidents with toxic PA are the 'Jacobaea vulgaris (syn. Senecio jacobaea) problem' in Europe and the 'Ageratum conyzoides problem' in Ethiopia.


This paper studies droop method based wireless parallel operation of inverters. With conventional droop method, the voltage deviation is usually quite severe to achieve good power sharing among the inverters connected in parallel. To overcome this problem, an adaptive droop method is developed by which the trade-off between voltage regulation and power sharing is relieved significantly. In addition, the second order filter rather than the first order filter that is adopted to obtain the average power drawn from each module improves the transient response. Experiment has been carried out on the system with two inverters in parallel. The results have validated the strategy developed


The analysis of the literature data demonstrates that trauma often occur in elderly patients with underlying pathology. Preexisting diseases impact on the degree of bodily injuries and, conversely, bodily injury affects the progression of disease and complications. This problem requires further investigation.


An animal model [the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse] for type I diabetes features a striking infiltration of T cells into the pancreatic islets. This infiltration selectively destroys beta cells. Most of the T cells are Lyt-1+, but some are Lyt-2+,3+. Transfer experiments using parabiosis revealed that insulitis can be transferred within 2 weeks after parabiosis to immunoincompetent thymectomized mice. When NOD mice (6 mo old) were irradiated and reconstituted with bone marrow cells from young BALB/c nu/nu mice (less than 2 mo old), the NOD mice exhibited neither insulitis nor overt diabetes. Deposits of immunoglobulin in mesangial areas of the glomeruli disappeared within 3 mo after bone marrow transplantation in such irradiated allogeneic bone marrow reconstituted mice. Assays for immunological functions, including mitogen response and mixed lymphocyte reaction, revealed that both T- and B-cell functions were increased in NOD mice with overt diabetes. NOD mice reconstituted with BALB/c nu/nu bone marrow cells displayed normal T- and B-cell functions. The newly developed T cells in the allogeneic bone marrow recipients are tolerant to cells with both donor- and host-type major histocompatibility complex determinants. These results suggest that bone marrow transplantation may ultimately be developed as a component of a strategy to be employed for treatment of type I diabetes in humans.


Background: Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a condition characterized by menstrual abnormalities (oligo/amenorrhea) and clinical or biochemical features of hyperandrogenism and may manifest at any age. It is a common cause of female subfertility. All the dimensions of PCOS have not been yet completely explored.
Methods: It was a cross sectional comparative study carried out at-GOPD of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College & Hospital from January, 2016 to December 2016 on 162 subfertile women. Among them 54 were PCOS group and 108 were non PCOS group. PCOS was diagnosed by (Rotterdam criteria 2003) (i) Oligo or anovulation (ii) hyperandrogenism (iii) Polycystic ovaries. Study was done to evaluate and compare the demographic characteristics, clinical, biochemical and ultrasoundgraphic features of sub-fertile women with and without PCOS.
Results: A total of 162 sub-fertile women aged 16-36 years. Mean age was 29.5±5.4. There were significant differences between the two groups in terms of (oligo/amenorrhea), hirsutism, WHR and ovarian ultrasound features. There were no significant differences between two groups in correlations between the level of obesity with the incidence of anovulation, hyperandrogenism or with hormonal features.
Conclusion: PCOS is one of the important factors causing Infertility. It is an ill-defined symptom complex needed due attention. There is a need to increase awareness regarding. The clinical features of PCOS are heterogenous thus can be investigated accordingly of selection of appropriate treatment modality.
J Shaheed Suhrawardy Med Coll, June 2019, Vol.11(1); 17-23


A Vision: Wherein is Manifested the Disease and Cure of the Kingdome (1648) is Elizabeth Poole's account of the prophecies she delivered before Cromwell and the Puritan Army's General Council as they debated the regicide of Charles I at the end of the first English Civil War in 1648-49. This article discusses the prophetic voice in Elizabeth Poole's texts as she uses strategies of 'self' and 'others' to establish her authority before her audience and her own sectarian group. While the circumstances surrounding Poole's participation in the Whitehall deliberations are unclear, her appearance represents a rare case of a woman's direct involvement in the mid-seventeenth-century discussions of the scope and legitimacy of government. With her defying anti regicidal speech, Poole builds her authorial voice beyond the divine mandate of her prophetic identity.


Objective: Assessing professional attitudes and behaviors as components of professionalism among residents
at the Suez Canal University Hospital (SCUH).
Methodology: The study was a descriptive, cross sectional study, included residents at the Suez Canal
University Hospital. A validated questionnaire to assess the professionalism components (attitude and behavior) was
used. The first part of this questionnaire is a peer assessment through the Scale to Measure Professional Attitudes
and Behaviors in Medical Education. The second part is Self-assessment questions from UMKC-SOM Climate of
Professionalism Survey (University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine). It contains 10 questions about
professional behavior rated (mostly-often-sometimes-rarely).
Results: residents are capable of consistently performing professionally across the domains of professionalism.
However, variations across items suggest that professionalism is multifaceted, and the distribution of responses
highlights some specific items where residents' performance could be improved.
Conclusion: Assessment of self and peer reported competences among residents at Suez Canal University
Hospital showed that residents are capable of consistently performing professionally across the domains of
professionalism. However, variations across items suggest that professionalism is multifaceted, and the Excellence
subscale in a need for improvement.


RNA molecules are single-stranded analogues of DNA that can fold into various structures which influence their biological function within the cell. RNA structures can be modelled combinatorially in terms of a certain type of graph called an RNA diagram. In this paper we introduce a new poset of RNA diagrams $\mathcal{B}^r_{f,k}$, $r\ge 0$, $k \ge 1$ and $f \ge 3$, which we call the Penner-Waterman poset, and, using results from the theory of multitriangulations, we show that this is a pure poset of rank $k(2f-2k+1)+r-f-1$, whose geometric realization is the join of a simplicial sphere of dimension $k(f-2k)-1$ and an $\left((f+1)(k-1)-1\right)$-simplex in case $r=0$. As a corollary for the special case $k=1$, we obtain a result due to Penner and Waterman concerning the topology of the space of RNA secondary structures. These results could eventually lead to new ways to investigate landscapes of RNA $k$-noncrossing structures.


Chitin and chitosan are copolymers build from N-acetyl-D-glucosamine and D-glucosamine. The former is widely found in nature and yields the latter on deacetylation. The copolymers are being used for several purposes. Since 1977, when the First International Conference on Chitin and Chitosan was held in Boston, USA, the interest on chitin and chitosan has remarkably increased. This review emphasizes pharmaceutical applications of chitosan and its derivatives, and presents recent advances. Some therapeutical applications of these polymers are also discussed.


These lecture notes are a combination of two lectures and a contribution to the celebration of Andrzej Bia las' birthday at the LI Cracow School of Theoretical Physics in June 2011. I here discuss the dynamics of particle production in high energy reactions. It includes parton cascades and hadronization in e + e −-ann., small x evolution including the Double Leading Log approximation and the BFKL equation, saturation at high densities and the BK equation, and finally the Lund Dipole Cascade model for high energy collisions, which is implemented in the DIPSY MC.


In a globalized framework, environmental regulations can have a decisive role in influencing countries' comparative advantages. The conventional perception about environmental protection is that it imposes additional costs on firms, which may reduce their global competitiveness with negative effects on growth and employment. However, some economists, in particular Porter and Van der Linde (1995), argue that pollution is often associated with a waste of resources and that more stringent environmental policies can stimulate innovations that may over-compensate for the costs of complying with these policies. This is known as the Porter hypothesis and suggests the existence of a "double dividend", for both economic and environmental aspects, related to environmental regulation. In this paper, we adopt a macroeconomic approach to investigate the impact of different environmental instruments on the economy as a whole. We investigate the environmental policy impacts on a sample of European economies in 1995-2008. Our findings suggest that the "narrow" Porter Hypothesis cannot be rejected and that the choice of the policy instruments is not neutral. In particular, market based environmental stringency measures look as the most effective to stimulate innovations and productivity..


Excerpt] Business leaders are complaining about the declining quality of entry level workers in the U.S. They and others argue correctly that the competitiveness of American companies is threatened by the poor educational background of our frontline workers. Some have responded to these complaints by saying that business should solve its own problems by improving management and beefing up training. Public education should not, it is argued, give business needs much consideration; student and public needs should come first. And indeed there is a grain of truth in the first response, the survival of a business is almost entirely determined by factors which schools, even excellent schools, cannot change. If schools do not improve, businesses must and will adapt to the capabilities of the workers that are available. Functionally illiterate workers are less productive,so domestic companies will survive by paying lower wages. Multinational companies will survive by transferring assets and activities overseas. There is no amount of union power or government regulation that can stop this from happening. When the pie shrinks, the slices shrink as well. The losers will be American workers and all who depend on their productivity including the least fortunate among us. Yes, public and student needs must come first. It is their need for higher wages and a better standard of living which drives the need for higher standards in secondary school. Like Cassandra, employers are warning the nation that its mediocre secondary education system is a Trojan Horse which if not repaired will eventually bring the city down. The warning needs to be heeded not because employers are the daughters of a king, but because their forecast is correct and none of us can escape the city. This paper proposes a strategy for banishing the mediocrity described above and building in its place an excellent American system of secondary education. Before a cure can be prescribed, however, a diagnosis must be made. The first three sections of the paper provide the diagnosis. The fourth and fifth sections propose the cure.


Few complete mitochondrial genomes representing limited families in the order Hymenoptera have been sequenced. Here, we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of Diadegma semiclausum (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae). This genome is 18 728 bp long, the second largest hexapod mitochondrial genome sequenced in its entirety and that with the highest A+T content at 87.4%. Four tRNAs are rearranged compared with the ancestral arrangement. Gene rearrangement mechanisms are different among all three rearranged regions. Six tRNAs have a large variable loop, which is not found in other metazoan mitochondrial genomes. trnS(AGY) uses the abnormal anticodon TCT but trnK uses the normal CTT. The A+T-rich region is very long (2161 bp). An extremely A+T-rich (99.1%) 1515 bp tandem repeat region with three types of repeat elements is located between cox1 and cox2, and the most likely ancestral element originated from the 3' end of cox1. Independent tandem duplications followed by mutation-insertion-deletion is the best model to explain the formation of this region. These results indicate that independent evolutionary events occurred extensively, such as gene rearrangement events, gene rearrangement mechanisms, derivation of tRNA variable loops, and tandem repeat region evolutionary processes, all of which likely contribute to the diversified features of hymenopteran mitochondrial genomes.


The plasma membrane dopamine transporter is located on presynaptic nerve terminals and is responsible for the termination of dopaminergic neurotransmission via dopamine reuptake. The dopamine transporter may also contribute to the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease. Dopamine transporter expression correlates well with susceptibility to neuronal degeneration in 1‐methyl‐4‐phenyl‐1,2,3,6 ‐tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)‐induced parkinsonism. Recent studies have implicated the dopamine transporter in the uptake of both this neurotoxin and its metabolite, MPP+, as well as another experimental neurotoxin, 6‐hydroxydopamine. In these studies we examined the role of the dopamine transporter in the neurotoxicity of both MPP+ and 6‐hydroxydopamine in the rat brain using in vivo administration of phosphorothioate antisense oligonucleotides targeting dopamine transporter mRNA. Infusion of dopamine transporter antisense (1 nmol/day, 7 days) into the left substantia nigra pars compacta resulted in reduced 3H‐WIN 35‐428 binding in the left striatum and significant levodopa and amphetamine‐induced contralateral rotations. Unilateral pretreatment with dopamine transporter antisense prior to bilateral intrastriatal infusion of either MPP+ or 6‐hydroxydopamine resulted in asymmetrical striatal 3H‐WIN 35‐428 binding and dopamine content as well as significant apomorphine‐induced ipsilateral rotations, suggesting neuroprotection of nigrostriatal neurons on the antisense‐treated side. Thus, the dopamine transporter appears to play a critical role in determining susceptibility to the experimental neurotoxins MPP+ and 6‐hydroxydopamine. In light of this, the dopamine transporter may prove useful, both as a marker for susceptibility to Parkinson's disease and as a target for therapeutic intervention. Synapse 37:171–178, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


In the real world, it is rare for any problem or task to concern only a single value or objective. Generally, most of the real-life search and optimization problems naturally involve multiple objectives or parameters. In recent years, a number of Multiobjective Optimization Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) have been proposed to solve multiobjective optimization problems (MOPs). MOEAs can find a set of optimal solutions that trade-off quality in a space shared by several conflicting functions. In this study, the enhancement of a standard MOEA with the coevolutionary approach is investigated. The objective is to augment a well-known MOEA, the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2), with two types of the coevolutionary approach respectively, Competitive Coevolution (CE) and Cooperative Coevolution (CC). Currently, SPEA2 has been noticed to provide less favorable maintenance of diverse solutions in certain multi-objective optimization problems and to a lesser extent, its convergence to the true Pareto front. Two different CE approaches were studied, namely Hall of Fame and K-Random Opponents resulting in two new SPEA2 algorithms using CE, which are the SPEA2-CE-HOF and SPEA2-CE-KR algorithms respectively. Using the CC approach, one new SPEA2 algorithm was proposed, which is the SPEA2-CC algorithm. The proposed algorithms were benchmarked against the original SPEA2 using seven scalable benchmark test problems having 3 to 5 objectives based on the generational distance, spacing and coverage metrics. Overall, the experimental results indicate that the three proposed algorithms performed better than the original SPEA2 in terms of the average distance of the nondominated solutions to the true Pareto front, spacing index of the obtained solutions and also the coverage level. Additionally, the CC approach was found to be superior to the CE approach in terms of enhancing the performance of the original SPEA2 algorithm.


This article considers the asset price movements in a financial market when risky asset prices are modeled by marked point processes. Their dynamics depend on an underlying event arrivals process, modeled again by a marked point process. Taking into account the presence of catastrophic events, the possibility of common jump times between the risky asset price process and the arrivals process is allowed. By setting and solving a suitable control problem, the characterization of the minimal entropy martingale measure is obtained. In a particular case, a pricing problem is also discussed.


Nuclear shape and the organization of nuclei within the seminiferous follicles have been used to divide spermiogenesis in the longnose skate, Raja rhina, into eight stages and in the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias, into seven stages. Cytochemical techniques for basic proteins reveal that as spermatid nuclei begin to elongate they have the somatic histone complement, and as they complete elongation they contain a very arginine-rich, TCA-extractable complement, or the salmon sperm histones type. After the nuclei have developed their ultimate corkscrew shape the final transition takes place to a very arginine-rich, TCA-stable complement, or the mammalian sperm histone type. These nuclei were not rich in sulfhydryl groups, but they were extractable with sodium thioglycolate. In addition, a number of variables affecting TCA extraction and subsequent alkaline fast green staining are described.


Component based software engineering (CBSE) is one of the most effective solutions to improve software development quality and productivity. Component composition and compositional reasoning are the core technologies and frontier research areas in CBSE. Based on the characteristics of software components and inspired by process construction methods in process algebra, in this paper, six component composition mechanisms are proposed to integrate software components simply and conveniently. And it is argued to compose interfaces at the same time of component composition, consequently to generate more powerful and more abstract interfaces to support integration of coarse-grained components and raise the abstract level of component composition. Moreover, based on the Wright's research on formal specification of software architecture, compositional reasoning algorithms about the behaviors of composite component as well as the protocols of composite interfaces are developed in this paper, which establish a foundation to analyze, validate, simulate composite systems.


In this study, polyethylene oxide (PEO) and curdlan solutions were used to prepare PEO/curdlan nanofiber films by electrospinning using deionized water as the solvent. In the electrospinning process, PEO was used as the base material, and its concentration was fixed at 6.0 wt.%. Moreover, the concentration of curdlan gum varied from 1.0 to 5.0 wt.%. For the electrospinning conditions, various operating voltages (12–24 kV), working distances (12–20 cm) and feeding rates of polymer solution (5–50 μL/min) were also modified. Based on the experimental results, the optimum concentration for the curdlan gum was 2.0 wt.%. Additionally, the most suitable operating voltage, working distance and feeding rate for the electrospinning process were 19 kV, 20 cm and 9 μL/min, respectively, which can help to prepare relatively thinner PEO/curdlan nanofibers with higher mesh porosity and without the formation of beaded nanofibers. Finally, the PEO/curdlan nanofiber instant films containing 5.0 wt.% quercetin inclusion complex were used to perform wetting and disintegration processes. It was found that the instant film can be dissolved significantly on the low-moisture wet wipe. On the other hand, when the instant film touched water, it can be disintegrated very quickly within 5 s, and the quercetin inclusion complex was dissolved in water efficiently. Furthermore, when the instant film encountered the water vapor at 50 °C, it almost completely disintegrated after immersion for 30 min. The results indicate that the electrospun PEO/curdlan nanofiber film is highly feasible for biomedical applications consisting of instant masks and quick-release wound dressings, even in the water vapor environment.


This paper describes mobile services with time constraints in ubiquitous computing environments. In a ubiquitous computing environment, the need for a real-time database management model is strong, because one of the basic requirements in mobile data management is to provide real-time response to transactions of the underlying strategies. However, the resource constraints of ubiquitous computing systems make it difficult to satisfy timing requirements of supported strategies. In this paper, we study scheduling strategies for mobile data program with timing constraints in the form of deadlines. Unlike previously proposed scheduling algorithms for mobile systems which aim to minimize the mean access time, our goal is to identify scheduling algorithms for ubiquitous systems that ensure requests meet their deadlines. We present a study of the performance of traditional real-time strategies, and demonstrate that traditional real-time algorithms do not always perform the best in a mobile environment.We propose an efficient scheduling algorithm, called scheduling priority of mobile data with time constraint(SPMT), which is designed for timely delivery of data to mobile clients.


This thesis includes work dealing with topics related to the modeling, understanding, andcontrolling the acute inflammatory response. After the introductory chapter, the secondchapter discusses a small (four equation) ordinary differential equation (ODE) model of theacute inflammatory response to endotoxin stimuli. Many scenarios of endotoxin toleranceare reproduced and explained in the context of inflammation. The third chapter explores thenumerical aspects of coding an algorithm produced by Bernd Krauskopf and Hinke Osinga[63] for generating 2D (un)stable manifolds for 3D ordinary differential equation systems.The fourth chapter returns to the topic of endotoxin tolerance, but now in an abstractmathematical setting. The fifth chapter presents an exposition regarding the applicationof nonlinear model predictive control to the four equation ODE model (now with pathogeninstead of endotoxin) to explore strategies to modulate the inflammatory response duringsevere infection.


The water sensitive city is a term within urban water management in which the concept of resilience to extreme climatic events and climate change plays a key role and represents the interaction between different branches of water science, engineering, and other domains such as urban planning and design. In this context, resilience is the ability of a system to cope with or recover from inter alia floods and droughts and also to retain original identity in some form in the face of long‐term change. It is generally accepted that sustainable systems with respect to water management are mainly dominated by their resilience, which is intrinsic to water sensitive cities, and includes social, economic, and environmental as well as technical systems, such as built infrastructure and environments, and their interactions. Therefore, each system cannot be considered in isolation but needs to be seen as a part of wider aspects of water and urban services and utilities in resilient cities. New urban development can be better provided with flood and drought resilience because of the opportunity for the implementation of the available technical, social, and economic knowledge. This is different in the case of existing urban areas where maximization of the value and use of water requires more and in‐depth analysis. The growing movement for water‐sensitive urban design (WSUD), a concept developed in Australia, provides inspiration for maximizing the value and use of water in urban areas, with an increasing consideration of flood and drought resilience. Synergistic integration between the extant knowledge on WSUD together with resilience approaches can lead to the establishment of a new model for water sensitive cities which are also flood resilient. Similarly, dealing with urban flooding in a wise manner can simultaneously optimize the use of all kinds of available resources—also enhancing resilience for droughts.


The current literature of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) has frequently discussed issues regarding ETD collaborations, discovery, metadata, system improvement, and long-term preservation strategies. However, rare literature discussed music-related ETDs; no found literature provided a solution to address the concerns of multimedia publishing in music-related ETDs. Main challenges associated with music ETDs are integration of a variety of music format and software, as well as the appropriate use of copyrighted materials of music. One of the common ways to publish music-related ETDs merely include multimedia supplements in ways of attaching original audio files, allowing free downloads of the copyrighted performing works. Realizing the current concerns and unresolved issues that are still existing in music-related ETDs, TTU Libraries has developed a system called Streaming Audio and Video Experience (SAVE) that includes an authenticated streaming multimedia player, a responsive-design user interface, and a web-based submission and management system.  The TTU Libraries is using SAVE, integrated with DSpace-based Institutional Repository, to publish music-related electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) for the College of Visual & Performing Arts. The integrated system – including both the technology solution SAVE and the publishing model – overcomes physical and technological limits while expanding access to music-related ETDs and other multimedia collections to patrons from any computer with an Internet connection. Through the SAVE system, distance education students have the same access to multimedia collections as local students do. Also, these multimedia collections can be made available for use in networked classroom and course management systems across campus. Professors are able to use these collections in their lessons without having to check out the physical copies from the library. By offering this online accessible system, physical multimedia files avoid substantial amount of future damage caused by heavy use and frequent check-outs. The development and implementation of SAVE system fill the blank in the current literature of the music-related ETDs and also ETDs in general, as well as offer a solution to resolve the essential conflicts between open access ETDs and copyrighted performing works. The TTU Library wants to propose it as a solution to handle other multimedia collections on the TTU campus and to release it as open source software for other institutions with similar needs. In addition, TTU Libraries plans to release the SAVE technology as open source software to benefit the universities that have similar needs.


The Cytochrome b (Cyt b) gene has proved to be useful for identification and classification of many mammals and plants. In order to evaluate the utility of this gene for discrimination of Leishmania parasites as well as for exploring their phylogenetic relationships, we determined the nucleotide sequences of the Cyt b gene from 13 human-infecting Leishmania species (14 strains) from the New and Old Worlds. The Cyt b genes, approximately 1080 base pairs, were found to be A/T rich, and their 5′ terminal-editing regions were highly conserved. The nucleotide sequence variation among them was enough to discriminate parasite species; 245 nucleotide positions were polymorphic and 190 positions were parsimony informative. The phylogenetic relationships based on this gene, showed good agreement with the classification of Lainson & Shaw (1987) except for the inclusion of L. (L.) major in the L. (L.) tropica complex and the placement of L. tarentolae in another genus. These data show that the Cyt b gene is useful for phylogenetic study of Leishmania parasites.


This paper is about the design and analysis of an index-assignment (IA)-based multiple-description coding scheme for the n-channel asymmetric case. We use entropy constrained lattice vector quantization and restrict attention to simple reconstruction functions, which are given by the inverse IA function when all descriptions are received or otherwise by a weighted average of the received descriptions. We consider smooth sources with finite differential entropy rate and MSE fidelity criterion. As in previous designs, our construction is based on nested lattices which are combined through a single IA function. The results are exact under high-resolution conditions and asymptotically as the nesting ratios of the lattices approach infinity. For any n, the design is asymptotically optimal within the class of IA-based schemes. Moreover, in the case of two descriptions and finite lattice vector dimensions greater than one, the performance is strictly better than that of existing designs. In the case of three descriptions, we show that in the limit of large lattice vector dimensions, points on the inner bound of Pradhan can be achieved. Furthermore, for three descriptions and finite lattice vector dimensions, we show that the IA-based approach yields, in the symmetric case, a smaller rate loss than the recently proposed source-splitting approach.


ABSTRACT Noor, N.; Shaukat, S.S., and Naseem, S., 2016. Evaluation of elemental composition of Avicennia marina and associated soil, Karachi coast, Pakistan. The present study evaluates the elemental composition of root, stems, and leaves of Avicennia marina and related soil samples. The scanning electron microscope–energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDS) technique along with wet chemical analysis was used for the determination of elemental composition and their ratios in vegetative parts of A. marina. The SEM of soil samples displays clay minerals having platy structure and well-rounded quartz mineral. The EDS spectra of soil represented an O>Si>Al>Ca>Mg>Fe>Na>K>Cl>Ti trend. The Al and Si in spectra confirm the presence of clays, whereas Ti and Fe indicate Ti-bearing mineral (ilmenite). Soil textural study shows that the soil is loamy sand. The wet chemical analysis of all three parts, viz. root, stems, and leaves of A. marina, follow the Na+>K+>Ca2+>Mg2+ trend. Roots accumulate more K+ (X̄ 12.6%) than stems (X̄ 6.9%) and leaves (5.0%), whereas stems of A. marina showed highest concentration of Ca2+ (X̄ 6.03%). The correlation matrix displayed antipathetic relationship among Na+–Mg2+ (−0.911) and K+–Mg2+ (−0.84) in the stems. Leaves exhibit maximum Na+ and Mg2+ accumulation, whereas stems possess their minimum concentration. High Na concentrations in leaves indicate that A. marina is a salt-secretor mangrove and can be treated for phytoremediation of salt-affected lands. A strong negative relationship (−0.996) exists between K+ and Mg2+, whereas poor correlations were found among Na+ and other three macroelements (K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+) in leaves. The K+/Na+ ratio is in the order of root>stems>leaves, whereas Ca2+/Na+ and Mg2+/Na+ ratios in A. marina followed stems>root>leaves and leaves>root>stems trends respectively. The overall highest sodium bioconcentration factor is responsible for osmoregulation and water transport from soil to plant parts. The EDS elemental composition was compared with wet chemical analysis and found compatible with each other, with few exceptions. Elements exhibit a Na+>K+>Ca2+>Mg2+ trend through both techniques. EDS elemental mapping shows the distribution of elements in the stems.


Current distributed computing is based on rigid paradigms such as client server computing, that lack run-time adaptive behaviour. The designer of such systems has to consider all possibilities during the design stage and the services that are offered remain constant until a new re-design is done. Although there have been attempts to provide different programming languages that consider programming both distributed and non distributed applications the same, the two remain however different. New paradigms are needed that consider factors such as dynamic adaptability, interaction, ability to monitor and react to the environment, mobility, network latency, partial failure and concurrency. We show that the agent based programming paradigm, agent-ware, is closer to fulfilling some of these requirements and describe the proposed Agentware Virtual Machine (AVM), a generic distributed agent-based computing environment. With the emergence of intelligent agent-based technology, a number of distributed applications are being re-engineered taking advantage of this new design methodology.


The objective of this study is to find the effects of consumer values on eco-friendly buying behavior. This study examines environmental attitudes and involvement as moderating variables to explain eco-friendly buying behavior of consumers. Hypotheses were developed based on Focus Group Interviews, Depth Interviews, and literature reviews. To test such hypotheses, questionnaires were distributed and collected among female adults aged 18 or above, and who are either office workers or housewives. The analysis results show that personal values, sociocultural values, and values related to ecofriendly products affect consumers in their eco-friendly buying behavior. Among those values, concern about safety and health, eco-friendly culture and trend, willingness to pay price premiums and functional effects of eco-friendly products have significant effects on eco-friendly buying behavior. Reflecting these results, business marketers must appeal to consumers with more focus on safety and health, perceived consumer effectiveness, self-monitoring, eco-friendly culture and trend, media exposure, willingness to pay price premiums, design excellence and functional effects, to implement marketing communication strategies accordingly.