The object of the research is the scientific potential of the modern university, and the subject is the system of social factors of its formation. The purpose of the study is to identify the role of social factors in the development of the scientific potential of the modern university. The methodological basis of the paper is a system-dynamic approach to the study of scientific potential, which consists in the consistent disclosure of its spatial, temporal and technological components. Within the framework of the first component, it is necessary to emphasize such a little-studied aspect as the social foundations of scientific potential, including the system of values of employees and students of the university, their motivation to engage in scientific activity and the level of prestige of scientific activity at the university. The components of the scientific potential of the modern university have been analysed in the article. In particular, the close interrelation of the specified social factors with personnel bases of scientific potential of higher education institution, namely with tendencies of development of its personnel structure has been revealed. A system for assessing the social factors of the scientific potential of the university has been proposed. The results of the study can be used by universities to increase the level of motivation of teaching staff to research activities, as well as the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia – in assessing the research activities of Russian universities.


Muscle's structural composition is an important factor underlying muscle strength and physical function in older adults. There is an increasing amount of research to support the clear disassociation between the loss of muscle lean tissue mass and strength with aging. This disassociation implies that factors in addition to lean muscle mass are responsible for the decreases in strength and function seen with aging. Intermuscular adipose tissue (IMAT) is a significant predictor of both muscle function and mobility function in older adults and across a wide variety of comorbid conditions such as stroke, spinal cord injury, diabetes, and COPD. IMAT is also implicated in metabolic dysfunction such as insulin resistance. The purpose of this narrative review is to provide a review of the implications of increased IMAT levels in metabolic, muscle, and mobility function. Potential treatment options to mitigate increasing levels of IMAT will also be discussed.


terns without becoming anti-revolutionary or anti-Communist. But no realistic suggestions are made as to how this can be done. He has almost nothing to say about Communist atrocities and aggressions in Vietnam and appears to be ready to abandon our commitment to countries in Southeast Asia. His arguments against our stance in Vietnam do not take into account the more positive reasons for our being there. This side should be presented also. Henlee H. Barnette


Abstract Corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG) is involved in the regulation of cortisol delivery. Neutrophil elastase-mediated cleavage of high to low affinity CBG (haCBG to laCBG) induces cortisol release at inflammatory sites. Past studies have shown reduced CBG in obesity, an inflammatory state, particularly in central adiposity/metabolic syndrome. We performed an observational, cross-sectional study of the effects of obesity, age and sex on ha/laCBG in 100 healthy volunteers. Total and haCBG levels were 11% higher in women but did not vary with age or menopausal status. Total CBG levels were lower with increased body weight and waist circumference; laCBG levels were lower with increased body weight, waist circumference, body mass index and body fat; higher haCBG levels were seen with increased body fat. The relation between CBG and adiposity appeared to be driven predominantly by the metabolic syndrome group. The results suggest reduced CBG cleavage in central obesity, possibly contributing to the characteristic inflammatory phenotype of the central obesity and metabolic syndrome. The mechanism of gender differences in CBG levels is unclear.


Under simulated physiological conditions, the reaction mechanism between cefixime and bovine serum albumin at different temperatures (293, 303 and 310 K) was investigated using a fluorescence quenching method and synchronous fluorescence method, respectively. The results indicated that the fluorescence intensity and synchronous fluorescence intensity of bovine serum albumin decreased regularly on the addition of cefixime. In addition, the quenching mechanism, binding constants, number of binding sites, type of interaction force and energy-transfer parameters of cefixime with bovine serum albumin obtained from two methods using the same equation were consistent. The results indicated that the synchronous fluorescence spectrometry could be used to study the binding mechanism between drug and protein, and was a useful supplement to the conventional method.


INTRODUCTION
Although guidelines allow cardioversion after adequate non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC) treatment without prior transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), the majority of patients still undergo this examination.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to assess the factors determining the decision to perform TEE in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who are qualified for elective cardioversion.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In this study, we evaluated the medical data of consecutive patients with AF who were admitted for cardioversion after being previously treated with NOACs.

RESULTS
Of a total of 668 patients included in the study, 362 (54%) underwent TEE before cardioversion. In a univariable analysis, paroxysmal AF, hypertension, coronary disease, thromboembolic event, a history of percutaneous coronary intervention, a history of bleeding, left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction, LV end-diastolic diameter, a reduced dose of NOACs, hemoglobin, impaired renal filtration, and a high CHA2DS2VASc score were significant predictors of the decision to perform TEE. In the multivariable logistic regression analysis, a history of coronary disease, bleeding, and stroke/transient ischemic attack (TIA)/thromboembolism remained independent predictors of a patient qualifying for TEE (odds ratio [OR] 3.92; P < 0.001; OR 7.92; P < 0.001 and OR 2.36; P = 0.02, respectively). In contrast, paroxysmal AF (OR 0.31; P = 0.02) and hypertension (OR 0.28; P < 0.001) were indicators to avoid TEE.

CONCLUSIONS
TEE before cardioversion was more frequent in patients with a history of coronary disease, bleeding, or thromboembolic event. Patients with paroxysmal AF and hypertension more often received cardioversion without prior TEE.


In our society women enjoy a unique position and their contribution to the Social development and progress can never be denied. In almost all parts of the world their role in building the national character is significant. Their contribution to the society is manifold and they have got multifaceted personality as they play the role of mother, sister, wife and daughter during various stages of their life. In their role in various capacities they become a part of the society. In the modern age in this new millennium they have shown their excellence in almost all fields and their contribution in political, civil & overall growth of a country is widely appreciated and recognized and they have proved be more week and are equal with men. Despite all these, even today, a major chunk of women folk are deprives of the basic necessities of life and are being considered as a neglected segment of the society. They have become victim of the social set-up and sex-based discrimination continued to dominate the society ther by depriving them from all sort of facilities.


The complete molecule of the title complex, [Co(C14H9Br2FNO)2], is generated by crystallographic twofold symmetry, with the CoII atom lying on the rotation axis. The coordination of the metal atom by the two N,O-bidentate ligands results in a squashed CoN2O2 tetrahedron. The six-membered chelate ring is an envelope, with the metal atom as the flap. The dihedral angle between the planes of the aromatic rings within each ligand is 84.1 (6)°.


The libraries must be able to transform into a digital library so they can build a digital society and serve the digital generation. Problems occur when the library itself fails to develop the digital culture of its employees which results in the failure of transformation into a digital library. This article is an experience in undergoing and observing the efforts of the Library of East Kalimantan Province to transform itself into a digital library. This effort has lasted until now, where one of the obstacles is that most employees are digital immigrant generations. Data collection was done by remembering and writing down the process from 1992 to the present. The analysis process was employed by looking at every meaning of the writing in the diary (content analysis). In 2015, The Library Agency of East Kalimantan Province of Indonesia obtained an A rating in the management of digital libraries from the National Library of Indonesia. There are three factors that need to be considered in the transformation effort, namely formal and informal education for employees, leadership, and employee mental development. This article is beneficial for government institutions in facing the constraints of transformation into digital libraries, especially dealing with employees who are mostly immigrant digital generations.


Introduction Vascular calcification is considered to be a significant predictor of coronary heart disease. It is also associated with serious clinical complications such as left ventricular hypertrophy and calcific uremic arteriolopathy. Matrix vesicles and apoptotic bodies (AB's) released by calcifying vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC's) form the nidus for calcification in the vessel wall. Electron beam computed tomography (EBCT), the gold standard for non-invasive imaging and quantitation of vascular calcification fails to provide any information at the molecular and cellular level. It cannot differentiate between intimal and medial calcification and the early phase of calcification is not revealed on computed tomography (CT) images. We have synthesised a series of novel bone-seeking complexes of 99mTc and used them for the detection of the process of vascular calcification in rat models. Materials and method Two established bone seeking radiopharmaceutical 18F-Fluoride and 99mTc-Methylenediphosphonate (MDP), as well as two novel bisphosphonates, 99mTc(CO)3-Dipicolylamine (DPA) Alendronate and 99mTc-Nitrido Bis(dithiocarbamatebisphosphonate) [99mTc-N(DTC-BP)2] were used in the study. In-vitro binding measurement studies were performed to compare the binding efficiencies of the radiopharmaceuticals with minerals from intimal and medial calcifications, powdered equine bone, synthetic hydroxyapatite and AB's isolated from calcifying VSMC's. In-vivo imaging was performed on Sprague-Dawley (S-D) rats fed with a warfarin diet to induce calcification in the tunica-media. SPECT-CT and PET-CT scanning were done on week 1, 2 and 4 of the diet to monitor progression of disease. Results The in vitro binding efficiencies of radiopharmaceuticals to the minerals were ranked as: Medial Mineral: 99mTc-DPA Ale >99mTc-N(DTC-BP)2 >18F-Fluoride >99mTc-MDP. Intimal mineral: 99mTc-DPA Ale >18F-Fluoride >99mTc-N(DTC-BP)2 >99mTc-MDP. In-vivo imaging with SPECT-CT and PET-CT revealed uptake of radiotracers in the aorta of warfarin fat rats as early as week 1 of the diet, where as calcification on the CT images was observed on week 4 in the same animal. Abstract YIA1 Figure 1 and 2 Sagittal sections of an S-D rat fed with warfarin diet for two weeks. In-vivo scanning was performed after intravenous administration of radiotracer. The arrows show uptake of the tracer in the abdominal aorta. Fig:1 SPECT-CT with 99mTc-DPA Ale and Fig:2 PET-CT with 18F-Fluoride; Left: CT only; centre: PET-CT; right: PET only Conclusions The findings indicate that novel bone seeking radiopharmaceuticals can bind with minerals present in intimal and medial aortic calcification and AB's released by calcifying VSMC's. In-vivo imaging results show that SPECT and PET scanning with bone seeking radiotracers can detect the process of calcification earlier than CT.


The advantages and possibilities of a unitary coupled-cluster (CC) theory are examined. It is shown that using a unitary parameterization of the wave function guarantees agreement between a sum-over-states polarization propagator and response theory calculation of properties of arbitrary order, as opposed to the case in conventional CC theory. Then, using the Zassenhaus expansion for noncommuting exponential operators, explicit diagrams for an extensive and variational method based on unitary CC theory are derived. Possible extensions to the approximations developed are discussed as well. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2006


This paper analyzes land use in the Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee by bridging the broad socio-demographic and market force information at the census-block group level in conjunction with site-specific information of forest land use change at the pixel level. The study focuses on the classical von Thunen model and finds determinants of forest loss. The results indicate that the surface terrain, resident's education level, market forces from urban centers in proximity, and distance to water streams, major transportation corridors are likely to affect the probability of conversion of forest into both agricultural and urban uses. Findings also suggest that the role of forest is changing from timber, fodder, and fiber toward amenity benefits on the Plateau.


A matching pursuit technique in conjunction with an imaging method is used to obtain quantitative information on geological records from seismic data. The technique is based on a greedy, non-linear search algorithm decomposing data into atoms. These atoms are drawn from a redundant dictionary of seismic waveforms. Fractional splines are used to define this dictionary, whose elements are not only designed to match the observed waveforms but also to span the appropriate family of geological patterns. Consequently, the atom's parameterization provides localized scale, order and direction information that reveals the stratigraphy and the type of geological transitions. Besides a localized scaling characterization, the atomic decomposition allows for an accurate denoised reconstruction of data with only a small number of atoms. Application of this approach to angles gathers allows us to track geological singularities from seismic data. Our characterization bridges the gap between the analysis of the main features within geologic processes, i.e. the geologic patterns, and the interpretation of their associated seismic response. A case study of Valhall data is presented.


Recurrent dislocation of the patella is more common in girls than in boys. Although several predisposing factors may exist, patellar dislocation is most commonly associated with familial ligamentous laxity. Many surgical repairs have been described to stabilize the patella. We have found the semitendinosus transfer to the patella to result in a predictable, stable patellofemoral joint without risk of injury to the proximal tibial physis. Between January 1990 and December 1997, 29 children have been treated at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario with a semitendinosus transfer for recurrent dislocation of the patella. Seven children were excluded from the study because of insufficient follow-up; consequently this series consisted of 22 children. Four children underwent bilateral repairs, hence 26 knees that have been operated on with this procedure were included in this study. There were three boys and 19 girls, with an average age at surgery of 14 years and 4 months, ranging from 8 years and 11 months to 17 years and 10 months. The average length of follow-up was 3 years and 2 months, ranging between 2 years and 7 years and 4 months. All children had experienced greater than three episodes of recurrent dislocation of the patella. Pain consistent with patellofemoral syndrome or chondromalacia was present in 17 of 26 knees. On clinical examination, 10 knees exhibited marked ligamentous laxity. There were nine positive patellar apprehension tests, and eight patellae were hypermobile. All children were treated with a semitendinosus transfer to the patella with concomitant tightening of the medial retinaculum and a lateral retinacular release. On long-term follow-up, 23 of the 26 knees (88%) were asymptomatic, and the child had returned to regular activities. Each child completed the Lysholm and the subjective component of the Zarins-Rowe questionnaire to determine the subjective results of the repair procedure. Three children complained of patellofemoral symptoms. One child experienced recurrence of the patellar dislocation, and one child developed medical patellar subluxation.


Probiotics and synbiotics are known to have beneficial effects on human health and disease. Hirsutism, a disorder that is characterised by the presence of coarse terminal hairs in a male-like pattern, is usually caused by elevated androgen levels in blood plasma. This disorder is usually observed in PCOS women and it is linked to insulin resistance (IR). Although idiopathic hirsutism (IH) is not shown to have excess androgen production from the ovarian and adrenal glands, increased 5α-reductase in peripheral tissues and insulin resistance are common observations. The effect of probiotics and synbiotics have been recently studied on PCOS women; androgens were also included in the hormonal groups that were investigated. Only a few studies focus on hirsutism and the potential effect of the beneficial microbes mentioned, whereas the increasing interest on insulin resistance and synbiotics indicate a potential beneficial effect on hirsutism through the management of insulin resistance.


"Back Pressure" and " Compensation" SIR,-Sir Thomas Lewis's little book, Diseases of the Heart, has come as a welcome aid to the practitioner, who, while attempting to keep up with the latest findings in connexion with circulatory conditions, is apt to feel swamped by the mass of " new " details that are constantly appearing in print. The book contains the essentials in a delightfully clear and readable form. But while yielding to none in my admiration of the author's '--ork, it seems to me that he goes a little too far in condemnning the two time-honoured views as expressed by the terms " back pressure " and " compensation." To take the latter first, comupensation surely well expresses the idea of making up for some deficiency. The word means " the act of giving an equivalent for" and " the act of counterbalancing orrecompensating or making amends "; and we see the process occurring in every direction, when somethifig lessens the efficiency of an organ or it is called upon to do more work than is its wont. One lung is collapsed and the loss is compensated for by the more efficient action of the other. One kidney is removed and the other works for both. A blacksmith labours harder than the average man and his muscles enlarge in order that he may carry on. Arn individual goes to a place at several thousand feet elevation and his body compensates for the lowered oxygen pressure by an increase in the number of the red cells and the total haemoglobin, along with deeper and more frequent respirations. A man suffers from some organic lesion of the brain which causes anaemia of a vital centre and the blood pressure rises, sometimes enormously, in an endeavour to get blood into it and so saving life. In the same way, some lesion of the heart makes that organ a less efficient pump than normal, and the myocardium accommodates itself to the increased load by hyp3rtrophying and by more efficient contractions, and thus the sufferer is said to have a compensated les-on. In time, owing to any cause increasing the obstruction or lessening the efficiency of the muscle, he begins to suffer from dyspnoea and other signs of cardiac distress, and it is commonly said, and I think with clarity, that the compensation is lessening. When one watches a patient with, say, mitral stenosis, who for years has been able to live a normal life, and sees, or even hears, that his breath is not so good as formerly and that he cannot do the things that he had been accustomed to do, surely it is correct (without going into (letails of whether or not dilatation is occurring) to feel assured that his compensation (in other words his cardiac reserve) is diminishing, and that myocardial failure is appearing. It is our duty then to endeavour to discover the cause of this lessening myocardial efficiency, which may be due to some pathological chaange in the muscle tissue and often to some disturbance in rhythm such as auricular flA rillation. Frequently we are able, by lessening the work of the heart or by improving the action of the muscle, once again to enable the organ to do its work sufficiently, and surely it is correct to say that compensation has been restored. Back-pressure theory: Sir Thomas is strong in his condemnation of this term, and yet it undoubtedly expresses what may be happening in the circulation when some 9bstruction or regurgitation is sufficiently severe to hamper the free onflow of the blood and thus tend to raise the pressure behind the lesion. I say " sufficiently severe " because, as is now well recognized, a considerable obstruction or regurgitation often exists writhout doing, anly harm. But when in, say, mitral stenosis real obstruction exists and the blood pressure in the left ventricle rises, then there is a tendency to damming back of the pulmonary circulation, and the right ventricle works against extra resistance. It may for long succeed, so that the circulation is successfully carried on and there is no interference with the cardiac output; but in time the systemic venous return is hampered, and so the whole train of signs and symptoms associated with congestive circulatory failure develops. It seems to me that here the idea of back pressure clearly expresses the condition. I think that Sir James Mackenzie was the first to condemn the back-pressure theory. He did this in emphasizing the fact, until then not sufficiently recognized, that it was not the valvular defect but rather the myocardial failure that was allimportant; but all the same it was the valvular trouble that primarily threw the extra work on the right ventricle. If only we could, at an early stage before myocardial changes had occurred, lessen the obstruction-as has even been attempted by keen surgeons-the muscle, thus having less work to do, might for long be able to carry on. For these reasons, which seem to me, at least, to have some weight, I would regret to see the terms " compensation " and " back pressure " relegated to a back shelf. -I am, etc.,


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder and its reported pathophysiological features in the brain include the deposition of amyloid beta peptide, chronic inflammation, and cognitive impairment. The incidence of AD is increasing worldwide and researchers have studied various aspects of AD pathophysiology in order to improve our understanding of the disease. Thus far, the onset mechanisms and means of preventing AD are completely unknown. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator (PGC-1α) is a protein related to various cellular mechanisms that lead to the alteration of downstream gene regulation. It has been reported that PGC-1α could protect cells against oxidative stress and reduce mitochondrial dysfunction. Moreover, it has been demonstrated to have a regulatory role in inflammatory signaling and insulin sensitivity related to cognitive function. Here, we present further evidence of the involvement of PGC-1α in AD pathogenesis. Clarifying the relationship between PGC-1α and AD pathology might highlight PGC-1α as a possible target for therapeutic intervention in AD.


We report a newly observed phenomenon in a dusty plasma device of the \mbox{Q-machine} type. At low plasma densities the time required by the plasma to return to its no-dust conditions, after the dust dispenser is turned off, can be as long as many tens of seconds or longer. A tentative interpretation of this observation in terms of magnetized dust grains is advanced. It appears that an important loss mechanism of fine dust grains is by ion drag along the magnetic field lines. The effect of ion drag is somewhat counteracted by the -µ∇B force present when the magnetic field has a mirror geometry.


Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of turbid medium with spatially fluctuating optical parameters demonstrate the presence of spatial noise ('shadow noise') caused by shading of the observed layer by variations in scattering and absorption coefficients of superficial layers. In this paper we report the development of the theoretical model of shadow noise in OCT images in which the features for discriminating this type of noise from the noise of a different origin are determined. Shadow noise is discovered in OCT images of biological tissue after specific image processing and the validity of the developed theoretical model is proven. The role of shadow noise as an interfering factor at imaging the variations in the backscattering coefficient, as well as the source of extra information on optical characteristics of the medium is analysed.


Stochastic model predictive control has been a successful and robust control framework for many robotics tasks where the system dynamics model is slightly inaccurate or in the presence of environment disturbances. Despite the successes, it is still unclear how to best adjust control parameters to the current task in the presence of model parameter uncertainty and heteroscedastic noise. In this paper, we propose an adaptive MPC variant that automatically estimates control and model parameters by leveraging ideas from Bayesian optimisation (BO) and the classical expected improvement acquisition function. We leverage recent results showing that BO can be reformulated via density ratio estimation, which can be efficiently approximated by simply learning a classifier. This is then integrated into a model predictive path integral control framework yielding robust controllers for a variety of challenging robotics tasks. We demonstrate the approach on classical control problems under model uncertainty and robotics manipulation tasks.


Presented in this report is apparently the first case of its kind in the medical literature where a woman with 11 years of primary infertility not only conceived following conservative surgery for uterine prolapse but also had a successful obstetrical outcome.


Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA), which is an important topic in transfer learning, aims to predict unlabeled data from target domain with access to labeled data from the source domain. In this work, we propose a novel framework called SIDA (Surrogate Mutual Information Maximization Domain Adaptation) with strong theoretical guarantees. To be specific, SIDA implements adaptation by maximizing mutual information (MI) between features. In the framework, a surrogate joint distribution models the underlying joint distribution of the unlabeled target domain. Our theoretical analysis validates SIDA by bounding the expected risk on target domain with MI and surrogate distribution bias. Experiments show that our approach is comparable with state-of-the-art unsupervised adaptation methods on standard UDA tasks.


Due to its simplicity and communication efficiency many client-server object-oriented database systems are based on the basic page server architecture-pages serve as their smallest unit of data transfer, client caching, and concurrency control. In an earlier paper, we showed how to extend this architecture to permit object-level callback locking, and we showed through simulations that significant performance gains can be expected. In the current paper we report on our experiences from implementing this approach in the context of the SHORE system, which supports a generalized peer-servers architecture. In addition to discussing some of the stickier implementation details, we also explain how our callback algorithm was extended to support the hierarchical locking approach used in SHORE. Finally, we present performance measurements obtained by running SHORE on an IBM SP2 machine.


Although etiological theories on musical hallucinations tend to focus on single factors, this article reports the case of a patient with coexistent factors that might be relevant in aberrant musical listening. A 61-year-old woman with symptoms of anxiety was examined in an outpatient psychiatric center. During the examination, musical hallucinations were explored. Severe hearing loss, including loss in her right ear and mild loss in her left ear, was found. The magnetic resonance scan exhibited a right-sided fronto-parietal meningioma. In lieu of the presenting clinical picture, where the presence of simple partial seizures was considered a possibility, carbamazepine treatment and later a lowdose risperidone add-on medication were introduced. This report emphasizes the importance of assessing the interactive potential of coexistent pathogenetic factors. Such factors might take an active presence, especially when considered in the context of evaluating musical hallucinations.


Abstract This study was conducted to estimate the elasticities of demand for eight different fish types and four income groups in Bangladesh using year-round data collected from inland areas of the country. It uses a three-stage budgeting framework that estimates a demand function for food in the first stage, a demand function for fish (as a group) in the second stage, and a set of demand functions for fish by type in the third stage using a quadratic extension of the Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model. The Heckman procedure was used in stage three to remove the possible bias in the parameter estimates brought about by zero consumption. The magnitude of both price and income elasticities varies across different fish types and income quartile groups, indicating the relevance of estimation specific to fish types and quartiles. Except for assorted small fish, the other seven fish types included in the study were found to have positive income elasticity for all income levels. Assorted small fish is an inferior commodity for the richest quartile of the population. JEL Classification Code: C3, Q21


"Der Volksgeistgedanke als Wurzel der modernen Geisteswissenschaften" is one
of the papers which was not published during Auerbach's lifetime and which has
been recently recovered. The translation of the text is the first one edited in Italy.
As Cordibella argues in the "Note to the Text", Auerbach submitted the paper to the Sixty-Ninth annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association of America which was held in New York on 24-29 December 1954. The paper is part of Auerbach's review of historicist tradition and of the modern disciplinary development of the Geisteswissenschaften. This abstract of the speech, arguably written by Auerbach himself, was published in an issue of the journal «Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America» (1955) together with the program of the Meeting: «Modern research in the humanistic disciplines is based on historical perspectivism. This perspectivism was developed by preromantic and romantic critics; its most characteristic and complete elaboration took place in Germany, under special conditions, in connection with the concept of folk-genius».


This study examines the consequences of variation in the laying and hatching date for the time of metamorphosis in the common frog Rana temporaria. Field data are presented showing that eggs laid early tend to take longer to develop. Thus, the time advantage for early eggs is reduced at the time of hatching. There was an among-year variation in this phenomenon; it was not manifest in a phenologically late year. Also, field data revealed that mortality due to pond freezing is a real risk for early laid eggs. Finally, two experiments in tanks analyse the effects of hatching date variation for the time of metamorphosis. (1) When hatching was experimentally delayed by 7 or 11 days, this resulted in later metamorphosis, however, by only 2 and 5 days, respectively. (2a) When tadpoles from the same pond that naturally hatched at different times were compared, it was found that a hatching time difference of 6 days resulted in later metamorphosis by 2 days only. (2b) A comparison of tadpoles from two different ponds that hatched 11 days apart also resulted in only 2 days' difference in metamorphosis. In this case, the later but faster developing tadpoles metamorphosed at a smaller size. I suggest that eggs from these two ponds differed genetically in the growth and development strategy. Despite the obvious risks, and the moderate gain in terms of early metamorphosis, frogs breed dangerously early in spring. Possible reasons for this are discussed. These include external selective forces that promote early metamorphosis (also at a high cost), within-pond competition among tadpoles with an advantage for early and large tadpoles and finally factors relating to mate choice at the breeding site. (Less)


This paper develops a two-country model of international trade in which citizens who are heterogeneous with respect to their factor endowments vote over tariffs and income tax rates. In the politico-economic equilibrium, each country chooses its national policies by majority voting, taking the policy choice of the other country as given. By incorporating both income and trade taxes in a unified international-trade framework, we uncover the interplay between majority voting over these two instruments at the domestic level and strategic interdependencies between countries' trade policies. Our main result is that greater inequality can be conducive to more redistribution via income taxation, more protectionist policies in capital-abundant countries, and less protectionist policies in labour-abundant countries. The model can accommodate the predictions of recent empirical studies on the relationship between inequality, protectionism, and redistribution. JEL classification: D31, D72, F13, F59


The following critical note aims at highlighting the liveliness and depth of three crucial thesis of Epicurean Ethics, by drawing on a recent publication, edited by Enrico Piergiacomi, of a selection of essays by Phillip Mitsis, A. S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization at the New York University. The issues addressed are freedom, pleasure and death, in relation to which Epicurus' disconcerting teachings show a surprising ability to dialogue with the later history of moral thought. In this regard, the philosophy of Kepos turns out to be a definitely contemporary interlocutor, able to stimulate our rational capacity, contributing, at the same time, to the problems of our time.


This article provides a solution to the unaffordable legal services problem in Canada ("the problem"), so as to: (1) maintain law society management structures as they are; (2) fulfilling their duties in law to make legal services adequately available; (3) avoid law societies being abolished; and, (4) enable that solution to pay for itself. What is needed is to convert the way the work is done to provide legal services from a handcraftman's method to a support services method. There are parts of the work done for all legal services that can be more cost-efficiently done, and equally competently done by a highly specialized support service, particularly so legal research.No doctor's office provides all treatments and remedies for all patients the way a lawyer's office does for all clients. The whole of the medical services infrastructure is made up of highly specialized, high volume, mutually interdependent support services. There are no "generalists." Even the family doctor is a type of specialist. The innovation to bring about the highest degree of competence and the greatest economies of scale never stops. In the legal profession it never started because the pressure necessary for such innovation has never started.In law firms, the degree of specialization of all factors of production and volume of legal services produced are insufficient to make legal services affordable to middle income and poorer people — particularly so legal advice services. They are the source of the problem; not routine legal services. Such people are the majority of the population that cannot afford legal services. They pay for the justice system where lawyers earn, on average, a much better income than they do.People want "their own lawyer" and not the "alternative legal services" that are the law societies' answer to the problem. Such services do not provide a lawyer in a fiduciary relationship to do all the work arising from a client's legal problems and do it at reasonable cost. They are based upon a strategy of "cutting costs by cutting competence" — the competence of the person who provides the service. But the successful strategy is the opposite — increase competence by higher degrees of specialization, and volume of production, so as maximize the economies of scale that maintain a product or service as affordable. This faulty choice of strategy means that Canada's law societies have no answer to these accusations of the angry taxpayer and self-represented litigant:Why can't I have an affordable lawyer of my own? I pay for the justice system where you lawyers earn a very good living compared to me. But I must use the second best "alternative legal services" such as, clinics providing advice from students, paralegals and other non-lawyers, targeted-unbundled legal services, and various forms of self-help and public legal education. You say you take this 'access to justice' problem very seriously. I don't believe that. If you were sincere and honest, you would be trying to solve the problem. You can't show me anything that you have done about trying to solve the problem. I can't have an affordable lawyer of my own because you use your monopoly over legal services to serve yourselves, but not the needs of the public for legal services. Would you send your close relatives to "alternative legal services"? Of course not; that's not good enough for them, but it's good enough for us — yes us, the majority of the population who cannot afford legal services. Why should I give my respect and tax money to your justice system?Why indeed! The unaffordable legal services problem is not a legal problem. Law society benchers — the elected lawyer-managers of Canada's law societies — do not have the expertise necessary to solve the problem. Needed is a permanent civil service-type institute of continuously developing expertise with which to advise all law societies as to the many ways that costs can be cut so as to make legal services affordable while competence is maintained. Elected governments, like law society benchers, are amateurs too in regard to the management problems of their government departments. But they have a civil service to advise them; benchers don't. Without such an advisory institute, dedicated to constant surveillance of, and response to public need, problems such as unaffordable legal services will never be solved. And they will continue to inflict major damage and misery upon society until law societies are replaced with agencies that are more responsive to public need and the democratic process.In addition to legal research, there are many other specialized support services that can be provided with such expert advice, including the automation of routine legal services at a lower cost than can the investor-owners of law firms (the ABS alternative), and advice as to marketing strategies and methods of maximizing income and client services and satisfaction. That is what law societies lack — the expertise to deal with problems as serious as unaffordable legal services. They are not legal problems. That is one of the reasons why law societies and access to justice committees fail. They are made up entirely of lawyers.Without an advisory institute to advise and carry out benchers' choices, it is not possible to be both a good bencher and a good lawyer. Because of that conflict, benchers do the easy things such as promoting alternative legal services, but not the hard things such as carrying out the difficult trial-and-error work necessary to solving the problem but will leave them short of time to serve their clients and employers. They don't try to solve the problem, but merely promote those programs and services that will help the population learn to live with the problem — like providing palliative care instead of trying to cure the disease.Because of a lack of law society leadership, lawyers have priced themselves beyond the majority of the population. The resulting vacuum is being filled in ways that work against lawyers. Innovation is happening. But it is the innovation of: (1) alternative legal services that cut costs by cutting the competence of the people who deliver the legal services; (2) the commercialization and industrial production of legal services (such as, LegalX, LegalZoom, LegalZoom (Canada), Axiom, and, Neota Logic); and, (3) of ownership of law firms by investors referred to as, "alternative business structures." It is innovation that will speed the reduction of the per capita number of lawyers in the private practice of law.Law society efforts and access to justice committees have been in effect for several years now, but the victims of unaffordable legal services continue to grow in size and number. The coming problems, like the present problem, will require types of expertise that lawyers' committees and law society convocations do not have. That is why they fail.The consequences of not learning how to solve the problem are very destructive consequences to: (1) the population; (2) the courts and the justice system; and, (3) the legal profession. The continuing growth of that destruction, combined with the great power of communication provided by the social media, the news media, the pressure groups, and opposition political parties, will not allow matters to remain as they are. Governments will have to intervene. But law societies have no answer — no program whose purpose is to solve the problem.Because of the increasing volume and complexity of laws, people cannot deal with their legal problems by themselves. If legal services were affordable, no law firm would be short of clients. Instead, providing nothing more than alternative legal services is to ignore that volume and complexity by responding with methods of comparative incompetence and simplicity. The law and the population's need for help to use it effectively are moving in one direction, but those who manage our law societies are moving in the opposite direction. If law societies won't accept the principle that their duty in law to make legal services adequately available, includes making them affordable and provided by a client's "own lawyer," the abolition of law societies best follows.


Extracting intra- and inter-subject parameters from Electroencephalogram (EEG) representing different Situation Awareness (SA) status is a critical challenge for objective SA recognition. Most of the existing work focuses on the subject-dependent classification that applies power spectrum density (PSD) features. In this paper, we propose a novel spectral-spatial (S-S) model for cross-subject fatigue-related SA recognition. The S-S model not only considers the biological topology across different brain regions to capture both local and global relations among different EEG channels, but also extracts spectral features for each EEG channel. Specifically, we firstly model the topological structure of EEG channels via an adjacency matrix which is built based on the Euclidean distance between EEG channels. Then, the graph convolution operation is employed to perform the neighbourhood aggregation for extracting spatial features. We test our model on a public dataset collected during driver's task performance. The subject-independent performance of the model is explored. Results demonstrate (1) the superior performance of our model compared with the state-of-the-art models on SA recognition from EEG signals. Specifically, our S-S model achieves 70.6% accuracy which is higher than traditional machine learning methods by 2.7%-6.8% and deep learning methods by 10.3%-11.6%; (2) EEG signal at the occipital region can better reflect the change of SA.


We investigate small artificial quantum dots obtained by geometrically controlled resistive confinement in low mobility silicon-on-insulator nanowires. Addition spectra were recorded at low temperature for various dot areas fixed by lithography. We compare the standard deviation of the addition spectra with theory in the high electron concentration regime. We find that the standard deviation scales as the inverse area of the dot and its absolute value is comparable to the energy spacing of the one particle spectrum.


If a durable-good monopoly can use either of two technologies whose properties are known to consumers, the monopoly uses only the technology with the lowest average cost at low levels of production. If consumers only know about technologies in use, the monopoly may use an inferior technology initially to increase its profits, keeping the new, efficient technology secret and switching later. Thus, in either case, an inferior technology may be used; however, switching between technologies occurs only if consumers are not fully informed about both technologies.


This paper address the problem of tracking multiple objects encountered in many situations in developing condensation algorithms. The difficulty lies on the fact that the implementation of condensation algorithm is not easy for the general users. We propose an automatic code generation program for condensation algorithm using MATLAB tool. It will help for general user who is not familiar with condensation algorithm to apply easily for real system. The merit of this program is that a general industrial engineer can easily simulate the designed system and confirm the its performance on the fly.


This article discusses the relations between football, politics and historical memory in Brazil, focusing on the manifestations of groups of fans against the celebration of the 1964 coup that gave rise to a civil-military dictatorship that lasted until 1985. The goal of the present article is to understand how the discourses conveyed in a manifesto signed by different groups of football fans delegitimize the dictatorship, its agents and the discourses that support them. In order to achieve this objective, we developed a constructivist-based discourse analysis, which concludes, among other things, that the manifesto seeks to legitimize itself, presenting sources considered reliable by the authors. We also show that a melodramatic narrative is used, which characterizes the agents of the dictatorship as villains and their patients, as victims. In addition, we show that it alludes to some aspects of manipulation theories, which suggest that sport serves as an opium for the people.


Clinical observations led to the development of this article in order that the dental profession may become cognizant of the ethereal radiographic appearance of titanium-alloy posts.


Demographic change has become a major issue of concern in western societies in the past few years. Populations are declining, aging and diversifying. Germany is no exception in this regard but its peculiar history makes it a good case to look at the problems involved in dealing with demographic change and population decline. In order to do so, both political- and public discourses need to be taken into account and their connection identified. In short, the aim of this monograph is to explore the discursive practices involved in the public and political debate on demographic change in Germany, and how the expected consequences of this population change have affected policy and public discourse. A discourse analysis, including the political and public realm of the media was conducted, combined with an overview and analysis of past population policies- immigration policies and family policies in Germany.


The modified optical disc process has been investigated and demonstrated to enable fast prototyping in fabricating molds
and replicating substrates with various microstructures including micro-chambers and micro-channels. A disc-like microfluidic
device was created and the testing results showed good performance in bonding and packaging. The switching of
the nozzle-like micro-valve was also validated to work well. Furthermore, the relevant procedures of liquid samples
loading, separating and mixing were also accomplished through food experiments.


This essay is reflecting on frailty, the university and the city, in relation to each other. It seeks to transcend the binary concepts of presence and absence, proposing remembrance as the frail work of making absence present, of reweaving what is dismembered, and of a politics of hospitality. It considers the task of remembrance in the 'studio of life', disrupting or transcending the confines of laboratory and asylum.


Abstract Two surveys were carried out in the Ross Sea region during February and March 2004 and 2008 from the New Zealand RV Tangaroa. Fishes were sampled on the continental shelf and slope of the Ross Sea, and on adjacent seamounts to the north, mainly using a large demersal fish trawl and a large mesopelagic fish trawl. Parts of the shelf and slope were stratified by depth and at least three random demersal trawls were completed in each stratum, enabling biomass estimates of demersal fish to be calculated. Fish distribution data from these two surveys were supplemented by collections made by observers from the toothfish fishery. A diverse collection of over 2500 fish specimens was obtained from the two surveys representing 110 species in 21 families. When combined with previous documented material this gave a total species list of 175, of which 135 were from the Ross Sea shelf and slope (to the 2000 m isobath). Demersal species-richness, diversity and evenness indices all decreased going from the shelf to the slope and the seamounts. In contrast, indices for pelagic species were similar for the slope and seamounts/abyss but were much lower for the shelf.


The trusted computing has become an effective method to resolve trust related problems in current network security environment. In order to improve the trustworthiness of trust evaluation, a model based on weighted closeness of trust combination (WCTC) is presented. The model chooses the trusted path with considering the transition fading, time decay, weight of the path and so on. The model decreases the time complexity in the search of the trusted paths. The model uses weighted closeness to combine the recommendation paths. Through building the trusted network, the validity of the model is analyzed by mathematics method, and the policy to inhibit the malicious recommendation is given. Finally, the experiment has shown that this model has improved the trustworthiness of trust evaluation, the trust combination based on weighted closeness of the trust combination can be used in various trust models and it has better adaptability.


The de novo folding of newly synthesised polypeptide chains, exposed in a vectorial manner to the crowded cellular environment, often requires the assistance of molecular chaperones. The ribosome-associated molecular chaperone, trigger factor (TF), facilitates the early folding events of such nascent chains at the ribosomal exit tunnel. The investigation of the structural and dynamic properties of this interaction, at high resolution, presents a challenge due to the dynamic nature of the interaction and the intrinsic conformational heterogeneity of nascent chains. Additional complexity comes from the competition between TF self-association into a dimeric state, the interaction with ribosome-nascent chain complexes (RNCs) and the interaction with isolated protein substrates independent of the ribosome. The sensitivity of NMR spectroscopy to both structural and dynamic changes make this technique uniquely suited to the investigation of the trigger factor chaperone. This thesis presents the application of selective isotopic labelling strategies and advanced TROSY optimised NMR experiments to the study of the TF dimerisation equilibrium, providing a detailed understanding of its kinetics and thermodynamics and insights into the solution structure of the TF dimer. The improved understanding of the mechanism of TF dimerisation forms the basis for the interpretation of observations made in the presence of substrate proteins. Preliminary results on the interaction of TF with two disordered model ribosome- nascent chain complexes reveal that ribosome-associated nascent chain substrates are significantly perturbed by the presence of TF, even in the absence of predicted TF binding motifs. The study of TF and the corresponding isolated polypeptides reveals that limited interaction occurs in the absence of the ribosome. This early NMR investigation of the TF chaperone provides the first residue-specific details of the highly dynamic interaction of TF with nascent polypeptides and begins to elucidate the role of this chaperone in the process of co-translational folding.


The transit of spermatozoa in the genital tract of the male mouse was investigated by quantitative light microscopic autoradiography after intraperitoneal injection of tritiated thymidine. Transit duration in the caput and the corpus of the epididymis was shown to be 3 days; the total duration of transit in the genital tract was 5 days. These findings indicate that the time required for the transit of spermatozoa in the epididymal caput and corpus was comparable to that calculated in other mammals studied. However, the duration of sperm storage in the epididymal cauda appeared to be shorter than that previously reported for rodents.


Presents work on a project for the automatic recognition of spontaneous facial actions. Spontaneous facial expressions differ substantially from posed expressions, similar to how spontaneous speech differs from directed speech. Previous methods for automatic facial expression recognition assumed images were collected in controlled environments in which the subjects deliberately faced the camera. Since people often nod or turn their heads, automatic recognition of spontaneous facial behavior requires methods for handling out-of-image-plane head rotations. There are many promising approaches to address the problem of out-of-image plane rotations. In this paper, we explore an approach based on 3D warping of images into canonical views. A front-end system was developed that jointly estimates camera parameters, head geometry and 3D head pose across entire sequences of video images. First, a small set of images was used to estimate camera parameters and 3D face geometry. Markov-chain Monte-Carlo methods were then used to recover the most likely sequence of 3D poses given a sequence of video images. Once the 3D pose was known, we warped each image into frontal views with a canonical face geometry. We evaluated the performance of the approach as a front-end for a spontaneous expression recognition system using support vector machines and hidden Markov models. This system employed general-purpose learning mechanisms that can be applied to recognition of any facial movement. We showed that 3D tracking and warping, followed by machine learning techniques directly applied to the warped images, is a viable and promising technology for automatic facial expression recognition. One exciting aspect of the approach presented is that information about movement dynamics emerged out of filters which were derived from the statistics of images.


We propose a quantum model interpolating between the fully frustrated spin-1/2 Ising model in a transverse field and a dimer model. This model contains a resonating-valence-bond phase, including a line with an exactly solvable ground state of Rokhsar-Kivelson type. We discuss the phase diagrams of this model on the square and triangular (in terms of the dimer representation) lattices.


Abstract. Subglacial bed roughness is one of the main factors
controlling the rate of future Antarctic ice-sheet retreat and also one of
the most uncertain. A common technique to constrain the bed roughness using
ice-sheet models is basal inversion, tuning the roughness to reproduce the
observed present-day ice-sheet geometry and/or surface velocity. However,
many other factors affecting ice-sheet evolution, such as the englacial
temperature and viscosity, the surface and basal mass balance, and the
subglacial topography, also contain substantial uncertainties. Using a basal
inversion technique intrinsically causes any errors in these other
quantities to lead to compensating errors in the inverted bed roughness.
Using a set of idealised-geometry experiments, we quantify these
compensating errors and investigate their effect on the dynamic response of
the ice sheet to a prescribed forcing. We find that relatively small errors
in ice viscosity and subglacial topography require substantial compensating
errors in the bed roughness in order to produce the same steady-state ice
sheet, obscuring the realistic spatial variability in the bed roughness.
When subjected to a retreat-inducing forcing, we find that these different
parameter combinations, which per definition of the inversion procedure
result in the same steady-state geometry, lead to a rate of ice volume loss
that can differ by as much as a factor of 2. This implies that ice-sheet
models that use basal inversion to initialise their model state can still
display a substantial model bias despite having an initial state which is
close to the observations.


Houses and other types of housing are things that cannot be separated from the needs of human life. The house function as a place to refuge, a place to live, and to gather with family. Proper housing is the basic need of all people who will strengthen the family, as the main pillar of the nation's strength, at the same time acting as a bastion against various health risks. The properness of a house for family housing becomes the basis for the growth and development of a better family life. Roofs, floors, and walls (aladin) are indicator data of whether a house is proper or not at the time of the survey. An adaptive, flexible and interactive computer-based system is used to solve unstructured problems so the more valuable decisions can be produced. This study describes how to process data using fuzzy logic methods. The expected result is to support the decision whether or not a house is feasible are in accordance with the facts and location data in the field. To determine which housing are categorized as severely damaged, moderate and lightly damaged by using the fuzzy logica method with roof, floor and wall variables as input variables so that local governments will find it easier to sort work priorities in the short, medium and long term


Naveen, Vaibhav and local sickles were evaluated for harvesting paddy crop with 12 farm women (subjects) at CIAE, Bhopal.  The data of improved and local sickles were compared.  As per the anthropometric data of Madhya Pradesh farm workers, the effective handle length excluding ferrule and diameter of sickle's should not be less than 125 and 24 mm, respectively.  Mean heart rate during work in operation of these sickles were 103 beats/min, 107 beats/min and 106 beats/min, respectively.  The workload was under acceptable limit for day-long work with normal rest pause for studied sickles.  The output of Naveen, Vaibhav and local sickles was 47.3, 60.7 and 65.4 m 2 /h, respectively.  Output with local and Vaibhav sickles was significantly higher than Naveen sickle.  Low output with Naveen sickle might be due to less concavity, i.e. 30 mm.  Thus, improved sickle having similar shape of blade to local having concavity could be manufactured and popularized among farm workers.  The potential demand of improved sickle is more than 2.27 million in the country.


The social and economic level of damages might be highly increased in the case of wide-area black-outages, because of heavy dependence of electricity. Therefore, the development of a wide-area protection relay intelligence techniques is required to prevent massive power outages and minimize the impact strength at failure. The frequency monitoring and prediction for wide-area protection relaying intelligence has been considered as an important technology. In this paper, a network-based frequency monitoring system developed for wide-area protection relay intelligence is presented. In addition, conventional techniques for frequency estimation are compared, and a method for advanced frequency estimation and measurement to improve the precision is proposed. Finally, an integrated monitoring system called K-FNET(Korea-Frequency Monitoring Network) is implemented based on the GPS and various energy monitoring cases are studied.


Eyelid tumors are the most common neoplasm in daily ophthalmology practice and encompass a wide variety of benign and malignant tumors. In this retrospective study, we report the clinical and histological features of 5504 eyelid skin tumors diagnosed at the Laboratory of Ophthalmopathology of the Hôpital Ophtalmique Jules Gonin, Lausanne, Switzerland, between January 1989 and December 2007. Benign tumors largely predominated over malignant ones, representing 84% of cases in this series, and the 5 most frequent subtypes were squamous cell papilloma (26%), seborrheic keratosis (21%), melanocytic nevus (20%), hidrocystoma (8%), and xanthoma/xanthelasma (6%). Basal cell carcinoma was the most frequent malignant tumor (86%), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (7%) and sebaceous carcinoma (3%). For several tumor subtypes, there was a poor correlation between clinical and histological diagnosis, stressing the numerous pitfalls in the diagnosis of eyelid tumors. We further discuss our results with reference to previously published series.


Background: In adults most common intracranial malignant lesion is brain metastasis, far outnumbering primary brain tumor. The most common primary site is lung cancer (18–64%), followed by breast (25–21%), malignant melanoma (4–16%), and colorectal cancer (2–12%). It is hypothesized that the incidence of brain metastasis might be increasing, as a result of increasing survival from recent advance in cancer treatment, more frequent brain screening for specific primary malignancy that known to have a higher prediction for brain metastasis and greater availability and use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain. In clinical oncology, understanding brain metastasis is important, because it has profound effect on length of survival, quality of life, and in one-third to one-half of affected patients, they represent the direct cause of death despite current improvement in therapeutic approach. Epidemiological data of brain metastasis are lacking in India.

Objectives: Aims of our retrospective analysis are to study epidemiology and pattern of care of brain metastasis over last one decade in Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata.

Materials and Methods: Between 2006 and December 2017, a total of 710 patients of brain metastasis treated in our department with palliative intent were analyzed retrospectively. New-onset neurological symptoms in a known case of cancer we always presumed that, symptoms were due to brain metastasis until proven otherwise. Hence, all patients presenting with acute neurological signs and symptoms underwent through clinical examination, contrast-enhanced (CE) computed tomography brain, and/or CEMRI of brain. Epidemiology, pattern of care, and outcome in the form of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival were determined.

Results: Fifty-seven percent patients were male. The median age was 62 years at the time of diagnosis. Lung carcinoma was most common primary site seen in 52% patients, followed by carcinoma breast second most common primary site, seen in 32% patients. Headache (73%) and motor weakness were most common presenting symptoms. Supratentorial location most common site, out of which parietal region is most common. The only small number of patients was offered best supportive care alone whereas majority of the patients were considered fit for palliative therapy. Treatment consisted of metastasectomy when possible and palliative whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) alone or followed by systemic therapy. Optimal supportive care in addition to chemotherapy or radiotherapy is given to all patients. A total of 254 patients were given blood product, erythropoietin, granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor following chemotherapy. Hospitalization required in 71% patients and tumor-related problem was most common cause (46%). Remaining patients were hospitalized for delivery WBRT or CCT. The median OS is 9 months. Patients with younger age and breast primary associated with better prognosis than lung primary.

Conclusions: We can conclude that carcinoma lung in male and carcinoma breast in females was most common cause of brain metastasis. Because advance in palliative therapy, outcome of patients with brain metastasis has improved, and patients with brain metastasis benefit from palliative radiotherapy and chemotherapy and this treatment could be delivered easily on outpatients basis.


- The growing demand for high density VLSI circuits result in scaling of supply voltage and an exponential increase of leakage or static power in deep sub-micron technology. Therefore reducing static power consumption of portable devices such as cell phones and laptop computers is highly desirable for a longer battery life. In this paper we propose two power reduction techniques such as reverse body bias and transistor stacking for reducing the static power of Pseudo NMOS logic circuits that have very high static power consumption. The simulation results show that the static power decreases with both the methods and the combined effect of reverse body bias and stack method gives the least static current. The simulations are done at 65nm and 45nm process technologies using HSPICE at a temperature of 27C with two different supply voltages of 1v and 0.3v.


Abstract In juvenile dependency proceedings, the protection of children depends upon the collaboration between professionals in the child welfare and court systems. Since there is little empirical research on such collaborations, this exploratory study sought to identify factors associated with the difficulties encountered in these professional relationships through an analysis of case records. The data were extracted from 111 cases in seven Northern California counties. Using a logistic regression it was found that the short tenure of court professionals is significantly associated with the difficulties of fostering inter-professional collaboration. The implications for future practice and research are identified.


If a medical procedure will secondarily result in the sterilization of the patient is the consent of the patients spouse required? Is the consent of the patients spouse required if the procedure is not medically necessary but is intended primarily for sterilization? If a procedure is medically necessary the consent of the patients spouse in not required. The consent of the spouse is not required even if it incidentally will result in the sterilization of the patient. Statutes in Georgia North Carolina and Virginia requie the written consent of the patients spouse to voluntary sterilizations. In the absence of such a statute no definitive answer can be given. Every individual does have the right to consent to any lawful Medical treatment or procedure. However an individual also has an interest in the procreative ability of his or her spouse. While it appears that the right to consent to lawful medical procedures would be paramount to the interest of the patients spouse this matter has not yet been judicially resolved.(Full text)


Introduction Verification of accuracy is required for multiple breath inert gas washout (MBW) equipment according to the new ERS/ATS Consensus Report.

Aims To evaluate accuracy of two commercially available MBW setups in vitro using a new lung model, and to compare functional residual capacity (FRC) measured by MBW and plethysmography in vivo .

Methods Two MBW setups, one for infants using sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and one for preschool children using helium, were evaluated in vitro in quasi-physiologic conditions with and without added carbon dioxide (CO2). FRC was measured repeatedly for specific model settings, and corrected for additional CO2 volume where appropriate. Difference of measured to model FRC and coefficient of variation (CV) per FRC were calculated for both in vitro setups. For in vivo evaluation, FRC values from helium MBW (FRCMBW) were compared to those from plethysmography (FRCpleth) in 20 healthy preschool children.

Results In the infant model (51 runs, FRC 80 – 300 mL), mean (SD) relative difference was 1 % (5 %), mean CV was 4.9 % for measured FRCs. In the preschool model (50 runs), relative difference was up to 13 % in the lowest FRC setting (400 mL). For the remaining five specific FRCs (600 – 1400 mL), mean (SD) relative difference was – 2 % (3 %); mean CV was 1.6 % for measured FRCs. In vivo , FRCpleth exceeded FRCMBW with a mean relative difference of 38 % (1081 mL vs. 676 mL).

Conclusion Both setups are appropriate for MBW in the respective FRC range (80 – 300 mL and 600 – 1400 mL). The surprisingly high difference of FRCMBW and FRCpleth in vivo remains unclear, but may be explained to some extent by physiological variability and differences in measurement technique.


Write amplification is a critical factor that limits the stable performance of flash-based storage systems. To reduce write amplification, this paper presents a new technique that cooperatively manages data in flash storage and nonvolatile memory (NVM). Our scheme basically considers NVM as the cache of flash storage, but allows the original data in flash storage to be invalidated if there is a cached copy in NVM, which can temporarily serve as the original data. This scheme eliminates the copy-out operation for a substantial number of cached data, thereby enhancing garbage collection efficiency. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme reduces the copy-out overhead of garbage collection by 51.4% and decreases the standard deviation of response time by 35.4% on average.


Background & objectives: The prevalence of Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO) varies widely in different ethnic groups. Indians have been reported to have a lower prevalence of Graves' ophthalmopathy as compared to Caucasians of European origin, but data are sparse and inconclusive. We studied the prevalence, clinical features and association of GO in Indian patients with Graves' disease attending a referral centre in north India. Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 235 consecutive newly referred north Indian patients with Graves' disease presenting to a tertiary care centre in north India. All patients underwent a comprehensive ophthalmological examination as per the European Group on Graves' Orbitopathy (EUGOGO) recommendations. Results: GO was diagnosed in 65 patients (prevalence 28%; 95% confidence interval 22-33%). The prevalence was similar in males (28%) and females (27%). It was mild in 83 per cent, moderate-severe in 15 per cent and sight-threatening in only 2 per cent of cases. Ophthalmopathy was clinically active in only two (3%) cases. Upper eyelid retraction was the most common manifestation (83%), followed by exophthalmos (75%). Extra-ocular muscle involvement (5%) and optic nerve dysfunction (2%) were uncommon. The risk of GO was 3.9- fold (95% confidence interval 1.1-13.6) higher in smokers compared to non-smokers. However, severity of disease in smokers was similar to non-smokers. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, GO was associated only with high thyrotropin receptor antibody titres and current smoking. Interpretation & conclusions: Among north Indian patients with GD studied at a referral center, the prevalence of GO was similar to Caucasians of European descent, but clinically active and severe ophthalmopathy was uncommon. More studies are needed to confirm these findings.


Background. The presence of a noise component on 3D images of single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) of a brain significantly distorts the probability distribution function (PD) of the radioactive count rate in the images. The presence of noise and further filtering of the data, based on a subjective assessment of image quality, have a significant impact on the calculation of volumetric cerebral blood flow and the values of the uptake asymmetry of the radiopharmaceutical in a brain.
Objective. We are aimed to develop a method for optimal SPECT filtering of brain images with lipophilic radiopharmaceuticals, based on a Gaussian filter (GF), for subsequent image segmentation by the threshold method.
Methods. SPECT images of the water phantom and the brain of patients with 99mTc-HMPAO were used. We have developed a technique for artificial addition of speckle noise to conditionally flawless data in order to determine the optimal parameters for smoothing SPECT, based on a GF. The quantitative criterion for optimal smoothing was the standard deviation between the PD of radioactive count rate of the smoothed image and conditionally ideal one.
Results. It was shown that the maximum radioactive count rate of the SPECT image has an extremum by changing the standard deviation of the GF in the range of 0.3–0.4 pixels. The greater the noise component in the SPECT image, the more quasi-linearly the corresponding rate changes. This dependence allows determining the optimal smoothing parameters. The application of the developed smoothing technique allows restoring the probability distribution function of the radioactive count rate (distribution histogram) with an accuracy up to 5–10%. This provides the possibility to standardize SPECT images of brain.
Conclusions. The research results of work solve a specific applied problem: restoration of the histogram of a radiopharmaceuticals distribution in a brain for correct quantitative assessment of regional cerebral blood flow. In contrast to the well-known publications on the filtration of SPECT data, the work takes into account that the initial tomographic data are 3D, rather than 2D slices, and contain not only uniform random Gaussian noise, but also a pronounced speckle component.


The conventional wisdom that antitrust is less tolerant of monopoly than is intellectual property (IP) law is sometimes true, but there is another side of the coin that is less frequently commented upon and that deserves further scrutiny. On occasion, IP law condemns conduct on the part of IP owners - or excuses otherwise infringing activity on the part of IP defendants - expressly for the purpose of promoting competition, even though antitrust law (if it were to apply at all) would not find anticompetitive harm absent a more thorough analysis of whether the antitrust defendant possesses power over a well-defined market. Salient examples include the misuse doctrines in patent and copyright law; some applications of merger and fair use in copyright; and trademark law's functionality doctrine. In this paper, I develop an explanation for this divergence between antitrust and IP. Specifically, I argue that in some limited contexts the expected social costs (including error costs) of ruling for IP defendants are relatively low in comparison with the expected anticompetitive harm from ruling for IP plaintiffs. As a result, it is sometimes welfare-enhancing for IP courts to be less concerned than antitrust courts about the expected costs of "false positives," that is, cases wrongly decided against the party defending the allegedly anticompetitive conduct. Thus, in an appropriate case courts should deploy IP doctrine to prevent harms that would be deemed unduly speculative, or not cognizable at all, in the analogous antitrust context, including (1) harms stemming from the exercise of small-scale, transitory, or localized market power; (2) harms that are individually of little competitive significance, but which in the aggregate threaten a substantial reduction in consumer welfare; (3) threats to dynamic efficiency stemming from the reduction of competition in innovation markets; and (4) potential reductions in expressive output that, for reasons rooted in the First Amendment, may be qualitatively, but not quantitatively, significant. I further contend, however, that such cases probably are more common in the copyright than in the patent law context, and that even in copyright contexts courts should be cautious about casually inferring anticompetitive harm; but that the analysis provides a rationale for a relatively expansive definition of trademark functionality.


We underwent protein assay for Myc expression in 76 human gastric cancer tissues using immunohistochemistry. Expression of Myc protein was analyzed according to proliferative indices measured by flow cytometry. Levels of Myc protein expression was evaluated by correlating with biologic and clinical parameters. In 36 (47.4%) of 76 primary gastric cancers, overexpression of Myc was observed. We could observe expression of Myc protein in a significant portion of early gastric cancer (42.9%). Expression of Myc protein was demonstrated to be more frequent in poorly differentiated cancer cells (p=0.043). However, expression of Myc protein had little influence over progress or extent of the disease. Expression of Myc protein was significantly correlated with increased proliferative activity (p=0.032) and patients with high levels of Myc expression had poor disease-free survival. In a certain proportion of human gastric cancer, Myc protein may function as a regulator of cancer cell growth and expression of Myc may represent an aggressive phenotype of gastric cancer.


The microbiology of a Fibrisol (little decomposed), a Mesisol, and a Humisol (highly fermented) were compared to a depth of 1.25 m. Counts of up to 2 million psychrophilic bacteria per gram oven-dry weight were common for the shallow fibric horizons, whilst the deeper and more humified layers generally had much higher counts of 3–10 million. Mesophilic bacteria were about one-fifth more abundant, but thermophiles averaged less than 1 million. The influence of aeration in the top 15 cm increased counts noticeably. From 1 to 6 million fungi were present in the top 25 cm but numbers dropped sharply around this depth. The abundance of Cytophaga and Chromobacterium species in the Humisol, and in the humic horizons of Mesisol, is interesting and its significance is discussed. Physiological studies concentrated on the nitrogen cycle, with determinations of nitrification, denitrification, ammonification and nitrogen fixation being made. The only significant conversion was that of proteins to ammonia, and "most pr...


Multiaccess Edge Computing (MEC) brings additional computing power in proximity of mobile users, reducing latency, saving energy and alleviating the network's bandwidth. This proximity is beneficial, especially for mission-critical applications where each second matters, such as disaster management or military operations. Moreover, it enables MEC resources embedded on mobile units like drones or robots that are flexible to be deployed for mission-critical applications. However, the MEC servers are capacity-limited and thus need an acute management of their resources. The mobile resources also need a smart deployment scheme to deliver their services efficiently. In this survey, we review mission-critical applications, resource allocation and deployment of mobile resources techniques in the context of the MEC. First, we introduce the technical specifics and uses of MEC in mission-critical applications to highlight their needs and requirements. Then, we discuss the resource allocation schemes for MEC and assess their fit depending on the application needs. In the same fashion, we finally review the deployment of MEC mobile resources. We believe this work could serve as a helping hand to design efficient MEC resource management schemes that respond to challenging environments such as mission-critical applications.


In the temperature range 5000-30000 K, thermodynamic properties of plasmas from vaporization of Calpha Hbeta Ogamma Ntheta insulators have been calculated in the pressure range from 1*105 Pa to 10*105 Pa. The method of calculation is indicated. The analysis shows that the respective proportions of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms ( alpha , beta , gamma and theta ) in the organic molecule can notably modify the characteristics of the medium (plasma).


BACKGROUND
Many guidelines have been developed in the area of depression but there has been no systematic assessment of their relevance to general practice.

AIM
To assess national guidelines on general practice management of depression using two complementary approaches to identify specific ways in which guidance could be made more relevant and applicable to the nature of general practice and the patients who seek help in this context.

DESIGN OF STUDY
Review of national guidelines.

SETTING
Seven English speaking countries: UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, and Singapore.

METHOD
Seven guidelines were independently reviewed quantitatively using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) scores and qualitatively using thematic coding.

RESULTS
The quantitative assessment highlights that most of the guidelines fail to meet the criteria on rigour of development, applicability, and editorial independence. The qualitative assessment shows that the majority of guidelines do not address associated risk factors sufficiently and the dilemma of diagnostic uncertainty flows over into management recommendations. Management strategies for depression (antidepressants and psychological strategies) are supported by all of the guidelines, with several listing drugs before psychological therapies; there is limited attention paid to the different types of psychological therapies. Moreover, the guidelines in the main fail to acknowledge individual patient circumstances, in particular the influence on response to treatment of social issues such as adverse life events or social support.

CONCLUSION
Assessments of current national guidelines on depression management in general practice suggest significant limitations in their relevance to general practice.


We study the centrifugal instability of non-axisymmetric vortices in the presence of an axial flow ( $w$ ) and a background rotation ( ${\it\Omega}_{z}$ ) using the local stability approach. Analytically solving the local stability equations for an axisymmetric vortex with $w$ and ${\it\Omega}_{z}$ , growth rates for wave vectors that are periodic upon evolution around a closed streamline are calculated. The resulting sufficient criterion for centrifugal instability in an axisymmetric vortex is then heuristically extended to non-axisymmetric vortices and written in terms of integral quantities and their derivatives with respect to the streamfunction on a streamline. The new criterion for non-axisymmetric vortices, which converges to the exact criterion of Bayly (Phys. Fluids, vol. 31, 1988, pp. 56–64) in the absence of background rotation and axial flow, is validated by comparisons with numerically calculated growth rates for two different anticyclonic vortices: the Stuart vortex (specified by the concentration parameter ${\it\rho},~0<{\it\rho}\leqslant 1$ ) and the Taylor–Green vortex (specified by the aspect ratio $E,~0<E\leqslant 1$ ). With no axial velocity and finite background rotation, the criterion predicts a lower and an upper threshold of $|{\it\Omega}_{z}|$ between which centrifugal instability is present. We further demonstrate that the criterion represents an improvement over the criterion of Sipp & Jacquin (Phys. Fluids, vol. 12, 2000, pp. 1740–1748). Finally, in the presence of both axial velocity and background rotation, the criterion is shown to be accurate for large enough ${\it\rho}$ and $E$ .


Background: Lateral epicondylitis (LE) is a common musculoskeletal condition. However, the treatment of LE is still controversial. The present study evaluated the production of inflammatory cytokines by lateral epicondylitis-derived cells and compared the anti-inflammatory effect of triamcinolone acetonide with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) on their production in cell culture.Methods: Third passage cells from primary cultures of lateral epicondylitis were assessed for the production of the cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and TNF-α by immune-enzymatic assay (ELISA), after treatment with 1, 10 and 100 mM triamcinolone compared to untreated controls at the time points 6, 12, 18, 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours, and to PRP at 48, 72 and 96 hours.Results: The cytokines IL-6 and IL-8 were produced in high concentrations by lateral epicondylitis cells. Triamcinolone induced a significant decrease in the production of IL-6 and IL-8 at 48, 72 and 96 hours, and at 12 hours for IL-8. The PRP group produced significantly higher levels of IL-8 than the control group, at 96 hours. There was a significant increase in IL-10 production with the use of 100 μM triamcinolone at 48 hours, compared to controls. The production of IL1-β and TNF-α was very low and did not change when the cultures were treated with triamcinolone or PRP.Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that IL-6 and IL-8 plays a role in the pathogenesis of lateral epicondylitis. Triamcinolone inhibited the production of the production of IL-6 and IL-8 by lateral epicondylitis-derived cells and PRP induced an increase in IL-8 levels compared to controls.


Author(s): Maksimov, Pavel | Advisor(s): Chernyshev, Alexander | Abstract: Frustrated magnets gain a lot of interest due to promise of states with exotic properties, such as spinons in quantum spin liquids, emergent electrodynamics in quantum spin ices, and strong quantum effects in long-range ordered systems. Magnetic frustration is a situation where classical energy cannot be minimized for all interactions simultaneously, and different phases may be very competitive, or even degenerate. Such competition can either result in ordered states with significant quantum effects or it can completely destroy long-range order. Frustration in these systems can be induced either through geometry of the lattice or through anisotropic interactions.Very often three-magnon interactions become allowed in frustrated magnets. Since magnons are bosons, as long as kinematic conditions are satisfied (energy and momentum conservation), magnons acquire finite lifetime from decaying into two magnons. There are two main ways to achieve three-magnon interaction: noncollinear ground state of isotropic model or anisotropic interactions.We performed spin-wave theory calculations for easy-plane models, where frustration and magnon decays are induced with out-of-plane magnetic field. Thus, in easy-plane honeycomb and triangular antiferromagnets out-of-plane magnetic field makes the spins cant out of the plane, forming highly non-collinear structure, and affects magnon spectrum providing kinematic conditions for magnon decays. We also studied a ferromagnet on kagome lattice with Dzyaloshinkii-Moriya interactions. As we found out, the anisotropic interactions do not affect the ground state, but they affect magnon spectrum and magnon interactions depending on the direction of the magnetic moment, which can be controlled externally. This system is of interest because magnons on kagome lattice are known to exhibit topological properties. Strong magnon interactions, however, put validity of quasiparticle picture in those systems to question.As it turns out even finding ground states and excitations of anisotropic models is not a trivial task. In honeycomb system with bond-dependent interactions, so-called Kitaev-Heisenberg model, we were able to estimate magnon decay rate which matched numerics of my coauthors. We explored the same model on triangular lattice and found regions of quantum spin liquid and peculiarities of magnon spectrum, such as hidden accidental degeneracies and unexpectedly small quantum corrections to average magnetization.


Inferring the motion and shape of non-rigid objects from images has been widely explored by Non-Rigid Structure from Motion (NRSfM) algorithms. Despite their promising results, they often utilize additional constraints about the camera motion (e.g. temporal order) and the deformation of the object of interest, which are not always provided in real-world scenarios. This makes the application of NRSfM limited to very few deformable objects (e.g. human face and body). In this paper, we propose the concept of Structure from Category (SfC) to reconstruct 3D structure of generic objects solely from images with no shape and motion constraint (i.e. prior-less). Similar to the NRSfM approaches, SfC involves two steps: (i) correspondence, and (ii) inversion. Correspondence determines the location of key points across images of the same object category. Once established, the inverse problem of recovering the 3D structure from the 2D points is solved over an augmented sparse shape-space model. We validate our approach experimentally by reconstructing 3D structures of both synthetic and natural images, and demonstrate the superiority of our approach to the state-of-the-art low-rank NRSfM approaches.


Prior research suggests that midbrain serotonergic signaling and hypothalamic ghrelinergic signaling both play critical roles in appetitive and emotional behaviors. In the present study, we investigated the effects of median raphe nucleus (MRN) somatodentritic 5-HT1A receptor activation on the feeding-stimulant and anxiogenic action of paraventricular nucleus (PVN) ghrelin. In an initial experiment, adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with either ghrelin (200–800 pmol) into the PVN or 8-OH-DPAT (2.5–10 nmol), a 5-HT1A receptor agonist, into the MRN. Performance on the elevated plus maze (EPM) was then assessed. In separate rats, MRN 8-OH-DPAT (2.5–5 nmol) was administered 5 min prior to PVN injection of ghrelin (400 pmol) followed by EPM testing. The orexigenic effects of MRN 8-OH-DPAT (0.1–1.6 nmol) paired with PVN ghrelin (50 pmol) were also examined. When administered alone into the PVN, ghrelin significantly decreased the number of entries and time spent in the open arms of the EPM. This anxiogenic effect was blocked if rats were allowed to eat immediately after ghrelin administration and then tested in the plus maze. MRN injections of 8-OH-DPAT were anxiolytic, and when rats were pretreated with 8-OH-DPAT prior to ghrelin, the anxiogenic action of the peptide was attenuated. In contrast, MRN administration of 8-OH-DPAT potentiated the eating-stimulant effect of PVN ghrelin. Overall, our findings demonstrate that ghrelinergic and serotonergic circuits interact in the neural control of eating and anxiety-like behaviors, with 5-HT1A receptor mechanisms potentiating the orexigenic action of ghrelin while inhibiting ghrelin-induced anxiogenesis as measured via the EPM.


The role of contextual-level factors in bullying is still not clear, and evidence is mostly from high-income countries. Our objective was to investigate the association between community violence, disorder, school environment and bullying among school adolescents. We used data from a representative sample of 9th grade Brazilian adolescents (n = 2108) from the Sao Paulo Project for the social development of children and adolescents (SP - PROSO). Multilevel logistic regression models stratified by sex were used to assess the association between variables at student and school/neighbourhood level and bullying victimization or perpetration. For both sexes, we found that adolescents who perceived high violence between students and high school disorder were more likely to be bullies and victims. Boys who perceived high community violence and disorder in their neighbourhood were more likely to be bullies (OR3tertile = 2.73 CI95%: 1.57–4.74). Girls attending schools where the principal reported high community violence and disorder in the neighbourhood (ORhigh = 10.24 CI95%: 2.11–49.59) and inside the school (ORhigh = 6.83 CI95%: 1.48–31.56) were more likely to be bullies. Boys from schools whose principal perceived violence between students were less likely to be victims (ORhigh = 0.35 CI95%: 0.16–0.78) and bullies (ORhigh = 0.21 CI95%: 0.07–0.64). Girls attending schools with signs or posters about tolerance/gender equality and about violence were less (OR = 0.12 CI95%: 0.03–0.50) and more likely (OR = 25.88 CI95%: 4.28–156.63) to report being bullies, respectively. Community violence, disorder and school environment were associated with bullying victimization and perpetration among adolescents. Sex-specific associations should be further investigated. Prevention and management of school violence in adolescence should consider contextual-level characteristics.


A58-year-old man with upper abdominal pain had a duodenal perforation and a huge hepatocellular carcinoma (BCC). Atumor embolism in the main portal vein was also seen. Extended right lobectomy against a huge tumor in right lobe and ethanol injection to a tumor in the lateral segment were performed. In addition, fluorouracil arterial infusion and interferon therapy(FAIT)were carried out. He has been for 4 years and 6 months without recurrence. Although prognosis of patients with a huge BCC is miserable even if curative hepatic resection is performed, it may be possible for adjuvant FAIT to suppress the recurrence after hepatic resection for huge BCC.


Women in abusive relationships are at risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but the strategies they use to protect themselves from such infections have not been studied. Using the descriptive qualitative approach of thematic analysis, I explored those strategies among formerly abused women and examined the role of pregnancy as a protective factor for both STIs and intimate partner violence (IPV). Women described creative strategies, but as the abuse continued, women came to realize that the only way to protect themselves was to leave the relationship. Health care providers are well situated to provide information and support to abused women.


Abstract It is unknown whether resting fat oxidation (RFO), maximal fat oxidation (MFO) and FatMax (intensity at which MFO is reached) are related to cardiometabolic risk (CMR). Thus the aim of this study was to examine the association of RFO, MFO and FatMax with CMR. 81 healthy adults (n = 31 women; 22.72 ± 4.40 years) participated in this cross-sectional study. Glucose and triglycerides were analysed in plasma. Body composition, anthropometry, physical activity, blood pressure (BP) and heart rate measurements were taken. RFO and MFO were determined through indirect calorimetry. Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) test was performed until exhaustion after MFO test. The CMR cluster was created from individual CMR factors: waist circumference, body fat percentage, systolic BP, diastolic BP, blood glucose and plasma triglycerides. Groups of high and low MFO and VO2max were created. RFO was not associated with CMR (p < 0.05). FatMax, MFO and VO2max were associated with individual CMR factors as waist circumference (R 2 = 0.144; R 2 = 0.241; R 2 = 0.285; p = 0.001; respectively) and plasma triglycerides (R 2 = 0.111; p = 0.004 and R 2 = 0.130; p = 0.002 and R 2 = 0.093; p = 0.008; respectively) and clustered CMR factors (R 2 = 0.105; p = 0.008 and R 2 = 0.162; p = 0.001 and R 2 = 0.239; p = 0.001; respectively). VO2max was also associated with body fat percentage (R 2 = 0.105; p = 0.003) and diastolic BP (R 2 = 0.083; p = 0.01), even adjusting for sex or age (p < 0.05). Groups with high level of MFO or VO2max obtained lower CMR (p = 0.001), even adjusting for sex or age (p < 0.01). FatMax, MFO and, especially, VO2max are associated with CMR, regardless of age and sex. However, RFO is not associated with CMR.


This policy statement replaces the 1994 Medicaid Policy Statement. The new policy statement incorporates federal legislative changes and policy recommendations related to eligibility, outreach and enrollment, Medicaid managed care, covered benefits, access to pediatric care, and quality improvement plans.


Rule–based expert systems proved to be a successful AI technology in a number of areas. Building such systems requires creating a rulebase, as well as providing an effective inference mechanism that fires rules appropriate in a given context. The paper briefly discusses main rule inference algorithms Rete, TREAT and Gator. Since large rulebases often require identifying certain rule clusters, modern inference algorithms support inference rule groups. In the paper the case of the new version of Drools, introducing the RuleFlow module is presented. These solutions are contrasted with a custom rule representation method called XTT2. It introduces explicit structure in the rulebase based on decision tables linked in an inference network. In this case, the classic Rete–based solutions cannot be used. This is why custom inference algorithms are discussed. In the paper possible integration of the XTT2 approach with that of RuleFlow is discussed.


Pistachio contamination to aflatoxin has been known as a serious problem for pistachio exportation. With regards to the increasing demand for Raman spectroscopy to detect and classify different materials and also the current experimental and technical problems for measuring toxin (such as being expensive and time-consuming), the main objective of this study was to detect aflatoxin contamination in pistachio by using Raman spectroscopy technique and artificial neural networks. Three sets of samples were prepared: non-contaminated (healthy) and contaminated samples with 20 and 100 ppb of the total aflatoxins (B1+B2+G1+G2). After spectral acquisition, considering to the results, spectral data were normalized and then principal components (PCs) were extracted to reduce the data dimensions. For classification of the samples spectra, an artificial neural network was used with a feed forward back propagation algorithm for 4 inputs and 3 neurons in hidden layer. Mean overall accuracy was achieved to be 98 percent; therefore, non-liner Raman spectra data modeling by ANN for samples classification was successful.