BACKGROUND
This retrospective study aimed to determine the efficacy and toxicity of a combined chemotherapeutic regimen of gemcitabine and cisplatin (GC) for the treatment of metastatic urothelial carcinomas (UCs) in patients 80 years of age and over.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Twelve patients who were at least 80 years old and had been diagnosed with metastatic UC were treated with GC. The patient cohort consisted of 9 men and 3 women, with a median age of 83 (range 80-84) years. The median follow-up was 54 (range 14-80) months.

RESULTS
Five out of the 12 patients (42%) showed an objective response, with two achieving a clinically complete response and three a partial response with GC. The median time to progression was 6 months, and the median overall survival was 14 months. The grade 3 and 4 toxicities of the regimen were primarily hematological, including anemia (33%), neutropenia (58%), and thrombocytopenia (50%). No grade 3 or 4 non-hematological toxicities were found.

CONCLUSION
GC appears to be an effective and well-tolerated regimen for the treatment of metastatic UCs in very old patients.


The American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists bestows upon ALFRED TRAVERSE its Medal of Excellence in Education in recognition of a man who never missed an opportunity to teach, or to be taught, and whose intellectual curiosity and genuine love for the enterprise of teaching have brought him international acclaim."

ALFRED TRAVERSE

In the following letter I would like to present the reasons why I think Dr. Alfred Traverse is highly qualified to receive the A.A.S.P. Medal of Excellence in Education.

The most important insight I got from Alfred Traverse was the importance of putting paleobotanical results in a geologic context. In great contrast to most paleobotanists until the 1980s who just peeled the fossils off the rocks and threw the rocks away, Traverse paid attention to the sediments in which the fossils occurred. I think it is now impossible to separate how much my interest in the geologic context of fossils derives from me and how much from him. I think, though, that concentrating on how Alfred Traverse affected me in my development as a scientist is missing the point of how important his effects have been.

The keystone to his approach has been the palynology course. This course has attracted biology and geology students, both undergraduate and graduate, in sufficient numbers to have been taught every year for more than 30 years. What makes this course unique is the "analysis of an unknown" that is the centerpiece of the lab and indeed the entire course. This transformed the students from mere pupils into real palynologists who had to master the basic lab techniques to process the sample and then use the knowledge of palynomorphs through time that was the rest of the course to interpret a sample's age (to the nearest stage). The investigative experience was only heightened by …


Introduction and Theoretical Framework In today's society, characterized by constant changes and competition, educators and employers are seeking students who are equipped with critical thinking skills to face challenges, to make the right decisions, to build an integrated personality capable of participating in a society, to share different point of views, and ultimately to solve national problems (Biajeh, 2002; Khalefh, 1990; McFarland, 1985). Critical thinking skills represent a persons' ability to assess knowledge, facts, and accuracy in topical analysis for any Gnostic assumptive or beliefs in regards to evidence that it supports to arrive at unharmed findings in clear and logical ways (Al-Zyadat, 1995). Gunn (1993) defined critical thinking as the mental process to evaluate individual thinking based on established evidence and laws. Elkins (1999) added that critical thinking may involve various components such as imagination, analytical, and cause and effect relationships. To succeed and become competent, students should possess the needed critical thinking skills and utilize them in their daily lives, which may allow them to organize and evaluate the information they receive from reading books and by attending school. Researchers have mentioned a number of critical thinking skills that students should possess, such as being able to evaluate discussions, explain information, and test hypotheses (Watson & Glaser, 1991), distinguish facts, determine right answers from wrong answers, determine right resources, and the ability to make predictions (Beyer, 1995), solve problems, and evaluate performance (Billy, 2001). Moreover, critical thinking skills have been found to influence students' achievement (Alrabthy, 2004) and motivation (Jennifer & Jeffry, 2001). Based on the review of previous research, the researchers noticed that few studies discussed the importance of utilizing modern teaching strategies aimed at developing students' critical thinking skills. Furthermore, previous research indicated that teachers are apt to use traditional teaching methods in their classrooms (Alziyadat, 2003). Traditional teaching methods that are based on providing information to students for memorization purposes, may negatively impact students' achievements (Alnabulsy, 1995). Based on this finding, educational personnel have developed new teaching strategies aimed at developing critical thinking skills for students such as the McFarland strategy, Smith Strategy, Orelly strategy, Byer strategy, and Monro & Slater strategy. The importance of developing students' critical thinking skills via different teaching methods has been emphasized by few studies. For example, Lumpkin (1992) studied the effect of direct teaching methods for developing critical thinking skills for 80 fifth and sixth-grade Social Studies students. The sample was divided into two groups: one group (experimental) was taught with a focus on critical thinking while the control group was taught via the traditional teaching method. The Cornell test for measuring critical thinking skills was applied on the two groups. The results showed no statistical differences in critical thinking skills for the students. Another study by Husny (2002) measured the effectiveness of teaching History utilizing the style of historical story in developing critical thinking skills for basic level students. The sample consisted of 120 second-grade students in Oman. The results indicated that there were statistical differences in favor of empirical groups taught by using historical story for testing the skill of correlated words. Alhusny's (2002) study investigated the effect of teaching history via story telling to develop the critical thinking skills of 120 tenth-grade students in Oman. The researcher divided students into one experimental group taught via story telling and one control group taught via traditional method. …


A design of an inverse U-shape buried doping in a pinned photodiode (PPD) of CMOS image sensors is proposed for electrical crosstalk suppression between adjacent pixels. The architecture achieves no extra fill factor consumption, and proper built-in electric fields can be established according to the doping gradient created by the injections of the extremely low P-type doping buried regions in the epitaxial layer, causing the excess electrons to easily drift back to the photosensitive area rarely with a diffusion probability; the overall junction capacitance and photosensitive area extensions for a full well capacity (FWC) and internal quantum efficiency (IQE) improving are achieved by the injection of a buried N-type doping. By considering the image lag issue, the process parameters of all the injections have been precisely optimized. Optical simulation results based on the finite difference time domain method show that compared to the conventional PPD, the electrical crosstalk rate of the proposed architecture can be decreased by 60%–80% at an incident wavelength beyond 450 nm, IQE can be clearly improved at an incident wavelength between 400 and 600 nm, and the FWC can be enhanced by 107.5%. Furthermore, the image lag performance is sustained to a perfect low level. The present study provides important guidance on the design of ultra high resolution image sensors.


Background: Immediate implantation was suggested to reduce the number of surgical interventions and to preserve the alveolar ridge. Implant placement demands a thorough understanding of anatomic, biologic, surgical, and prosthetic principles. Purpose: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the 18 months survival rate of osseointegration, on the basis of clinical and radiographic examinations, for simultaneous bone grafting with immediate implants supporting partial denture with locator attachment in the maxillary esthetic area. Materials and Methods: A total of twenty patients randomly assigned received 45 immediate implants with bone graft supporting maxillary partial overdentures. The clinical analysis of probing depth, bleeding index, plaque index, and radiographic analysis of crestal bone level at a follow-up interval of 6, 12, and 18 months was evaluated. Results: All implants achieved successful osseointegration. The soft tissue architecture remained stable throughout the healing period of the implants as well as after final prostheses delivery, contributing to esthetically pleasing and biologically sound results. Conclusions: Immediate implants with locator attachment supporting maxillary partial denture can be safe, reliable, and a predictable option for the replacement of teeth in the anterior maxillary zone, providing stability to the peri-implant soft tissue.


BACKGROUND
The amount of information shared with children regarding their illness, as well as what knowledge children are entitled to know, varies widely among cultures.

AIMS
This study aims to examine mothers' accounts of communication about cancer diagnosis to their children, how much children knew about their illnesses and how satisfied the mothers were with the method they used in communicating the diagnosis.

METHODS
Using semi-structured interviews and open-ended questions, 51 mothers attending paediatric oncology clinics in Jordan were interviewed. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.

FINDINGS
Mothers expressed a range of views about the forms of disclosure, including being clear about the diagnosis and its treatment and being secretive yet misconceptualizing the accounts of the illness. The median age for the children diagnosed with cancer was 11 years (interquartile range 7-16 years). Most of the mothers were offered no help with talking to their children about cancer diagnosis. Mothers who found it difficult to tell the news of the diagnosis to their children finally withheld the diagnoses from them. Those same mothers were unhappy and uncomfortable with the communication method they had used with children.

CONCLUSION
This study emphasized the role of nurses' interaction with their child patients diagnosed with cancer. Nurses should not have an opinion about how and what children need to know about their illness, and preferably should take an active role in the process of communication between mothers and their children. Further work and research are needed in this field.


This project began with testing five different versions of supply duct static pressure reset strategies that fall into two general categories: Proportional plus Integral control loops, and Trim and Respond control strategies. The testing took place from July 2009 through January 2011 at the Energy Resource Station in Ankeny. During this time, these five experimental control strategies were modified and altered in order to achieve substantial energy savings without unwanted instability. In the end, only one strategy, tiered Trim and Respond, was able to perform as desired by saving energy without displaying unstable behavior or significantly impacting maintenance costs. The final stage of this project saw the tiered Trim and Respond strategy implemented in the Hixson-Lied building on the Iowa State University campus. This field test resulted in no apparent unstable behavior and savings of 37% per week in fan energy savings alone.


The temperature and density profiles of the Joint European Torus (JET) are parametrized using log additive models in the control variables. Predictive error criteria are used to determine which terms in the log linear model to include. The density and temperature profiles are normalized to their line averages (n and T). The normalized ohmic density shape depends primarily on the parameter n/Bt, where Bt is the toroidal magnetic field. Both the low mode (L mode) and the edge localized mode-free (ELM-free) high mode (H mode) temperature profile shapes depend strongly on the type of heating power, with ion cyclotron resonant heating (ICRH) producing a more peaked profile than neutral beam injection (NBI). Given the heating type dependence, the L mode temperature shape is nearly independent of the other control variables. The H mode temperature shape broadens as the effective charge, Zeff, increases. The line average L mode temperature scales as Bt0.96 (power per particle)0.385. The L mode normalized density shape depends primarily on the ratio of line average density, n, to the edge safety factor, q95. As n/q95 increases, the profile shape broadens. The current, Ip, is the most important control variable for the normalized H mode density. As the current increases, the profile broadens and the gradient at the edge sharpens. Increasing the heating power, especially ICRH, or decreasing the average density, peaks the H mode density profile slightly


The nematode P. mamillatus is described from the lizard Chalcides ocellatus (Forsk.) from Cairo, Egypt. The use of both light and scanning electron microscopy enabled the authors to report new morphological features of the worms, including the cuticular surface, lateral alae and male caudal structures.


Aims to help personnel specialists choose and interpret salary surveys. While there are a large number of these, their quality varies considerably. At the same time little is written about how to choose and interpret them. Even the best contain built in biases which under – or overestimate actual salaries being paid and/or report a very wide range of salaries – so it is often difficult for users to make sense of what is often a mass of confusing data.


In this paper a method of modeling the distribution of scattered events in emission projection data is developed and applied. This method is based on the use of a transmission map to define the inhomogeneous scattering object. The key point is the use of the set of line integrals calculated as part of the attenuation correction technique, as the basis of a model of the distribution of scattered events. The probability of a photon being scattered through a given angle and being detected in the emission energy window is approximated using a Gaussian function. The parameters of this Gaussian are determined using Monte Carlo generated parallel-beam scatter line spread functions from a nonuniformly attenuating phantom. The model is incorporated into a two-dimensional projector-backprojector and used with the Expectation-Maximization-Maximum-Likelihood algorithm for the reconstruction of fan-beam phantom data. The correction is shown to perform well for a phantom that varies slowly in the axial direction. For the more clinically realistic situation of a torso phantom, the method produces improvements in terms of blood pool to myocardium contrast, but does not restore the contrast to the level exhibited in a reconstruction from "scatter free" data.


In the modern technological era, Anti-cancer peptides (ACPs) have been considered a promising cancer treatment. It's critical to find new ACPs to ensure a better knowledge of their functioning processes and vaccine development. Thus, timely and efficient ACPs using a computational technique are highly needed because of the enormous peptide sequences generated in the post-genomic era. Recently, numerous adaptive statistical algorithms have been developed for separating ACPs and NACPs. Despite great advancements, existing approaches still have insufficient feature descriptors and learning methods, limiting predictive performance. To address this, a trustworthy framework is developed for the precise identification of ACPs. Particularly, the presented approach incorporates four hypothetical feature encoding mechanisms namely: amino acid, dipeptide, tripeptide, and an improved version of pseudo amino acid composition are applied to indicate the motif of the target class. Moreover, principal component analysis (PCA) is employed for feature pruning, while selecting optimal, deep, and highly variated features. Due to the diverse nature of learning, experiments are performed over numerous algorithms to select the optimum operating method. After investigating the empirical outcomes, the support vector machine with hybrid feature space shows better performance. The proposed framework achieved an accuracy of 97.09% and 98.25% over the benchmark and independent datasets, respectively. The comparative analysis demonstrates that our proposed model outperforms as compared to the existing methods and is beneficial in drug development, and oncology.


Fault Injection (FI) is a method for system validation and verification in which the tester evaluates the system behavior resulting from the introduction of faults into the system under test. This paper proposes a model-based approach to improve the efficiency of the FI process by utilizing Machine Learning (ML) and formalized domain knowledge. This ML algorithm uses a probabilistic automaton to reduce the manual effort required in the testing procedure as the algorithm can automatically make decisions and predictions about catastrophic fault parameters. This assists the tester in dealing with complicated and broad-scale systems by enabling higher fault coverage with fewer simulations.


Information is indispensable in modern society. People's daily communication and work depend on information transmission. Unsafe storage or transmission of data may result in privacy and security problems. One way to attempt to prevent such issues is to use encryption algorithms to transform information into encrypted forms. Because the encryption steps of most encryption algorithms are complex, deciding the correctness of the encrypted output may take a long time in practice. This kind of problem is called the Test Oracle problem. In contrast to traditional software testing, Metamorphic Testing (MT) does not focus on the correctness of each individual output, but examines whether the inputs and outputs of multiple executions of a Program Under Test (PUT) satisfy necessary relations of the PUT, called metamorphic relations. This paper reports on an experience of applying MT to test three encryption algorithms — Data Encryption Standard (DES), Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).


This article reviews the complexity, expression, genetics, regulation, function, and evolution of the avian myosin heavy chain (MyHC). The majority of pertinent studies thus far published have focussed on domestic chicken and, to a much lesser extent, Japanese quail. Where possible, information available about wild species has also been incorporated into this review. While studies of additional species might modify current interpretations, existing data suggest that some fundamental properties of myosin proteins and genes in birds are unique among higher vertebrates. We compare the characteristics of myosins in birds to those of mammals, and discuss potential molecular mechanisms and evolutionary forces that may explain how avian MyHCs acquired these properties. Microsc. Res. Tech. 50:473–491, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We identified and diagnosed hemochromatotic cases with an automatic technique based on peak recognition and chemometrics. Hemochromatosis is a disease characterized by an accumulation of iron in body organs. Neutron-stimulated emission computed tomography (NSECT) has demonstrated its ability to detect elevated iron concentrations in the liver through a non-invasive, low dose scan. Fast neutrons are used to generate gamma-ray emission from atomic nuclei in the liver, and the spectral energies of the emitted gamma photons are used to identify the elements of interest. The ability to analyze all gamma lines in the spectra, belonging either to an individual element or to different elements, significantly enhances the overall sensitivity, accuracy, and effectiveness of the diagnosis. We developed a novel peak-finding/peak-fitting algorithm, which rapidly processes all spectra collected on a large scale (i.e. all peaks within each spectrum in a set of spectra), and classifies the samples into healthy and diseased categories. The technique finds, deconvolves, and characterizes peaks based on their position, height, full width at half maximum (FWHM), and area, classifying the samples automatically with two methods, incriminant (novel) and discriminant analysis. We demonstrated that the algorithm classified a population of 64 healthy and 120 diseased simulated patients into healthy and hemochromatotic groups with clinically significant accuracy.


Models With Varying Parameters as A Tool to Classify Polish Voivodships in 2002-2008 One of the often used measures of economic development is gross domestic product per capita. In Poland the Main Statistical Office collects the data on this variable on several levels of aggregation. The paper shows the application of panel data models in order to classify Polish voivodships according to the level of economic development. As explained variable the regional GDP per capita was used and such variables as structure of employees, unemployment rate or retail sales per capita were the explaining variables. As a result the groups of voivodships with similar pattern of economic development were distinguished.


A paper on the UK debate about AVPhDs delivered at the DIEGETIC LIFE FORMS AND DIEGETIC LOGIC: ASSESSING IMAGE-BASED SCHOLARSHIP CONFERENCE - 6 July 2009 at VCA, Melbourne

I am a currently the Course Convenor for MA Screen Documentary at Goldsmiths, University of London – so I teach aspiring documentary makers as well as co-supervising PhD students working on projects that involve media practice. For much of my working life I worked as a documentary filmmaker, first in community and political video activism, then as a producer (predominantly for Channel 4). I have taught at MA level for the last 20 years. From 2003-2006 I have had an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts, which included the production of an experimental video-diary film, A Whited Sepulchre. I am a founding member, also serving on the Steering Group of AVPhD1, an AHRC funded training and support network for all those doing, supervising and examining audio-visual practice based doctorates. Starting in September 2005, AVPhD has mounted more than a dozen events across the UK and Ireland; the practice research projects covered, include (but are not restricted to) documentary, fiction, narrative/non-narrative film, non-linear and new media.

So I am making a slow journey from being a media practitioner, to being an academic – and probably will always be stuck, somewhere in the middle. Most of what I am saying here comes through the lens of that history, and from my own experience of supervision as well as currently doing my own (AV) PhD, based on my fellowship film, A Whited Sepulchre.


Some time ago two of our sons went "off the payroll"—for the last time, I hope. The nature of lifelong learning is such that our eldest, at the age of 28, is now pursuing his third career post-university, and is a commercial airline pilot. Our second son started work as a preregistration house officer eight years after leaving school. He had the obligatory year out to see the world and did a two year intercalated BSc in sports medicine.

On starting work my pilot son's first 18 flights were always with a third, safety pilot, and for the next 20 flights he was always with a training captain. He was finally allowed full operational work after having acquired and demonstrated the appropriate competencies. He works in a profession where there is a planned programme of professional development and has regular evaluation. On overnight stops he gets accommodation in four or five star hotels. He regularly undergoes a health assessment to ensure his fitness. He is allowed to fly a …


The book is based on the research and review of related literature(TBLT).It provides a deep analysis of Task Based Language Teaching methods and its procedures.The main focus of the book is to find out how far TBLT is applicable and fruitful for developing students writing skills. The Researcher has applied Interactive and genre based models for teaching writing to secondary level students. Task Based language teaching has its positive influence in the development of language skills. Moreover it provides the most flexible setting for the English as a second language learners in formal classes.The writer finds TBLT: A more apprised , Appropriate and easy method of teaching language. If a learner feels for the TASK in their classroom than he really enjoys, and engages in teaching learning activities easily but creation of authentic TASKS in the formal classes is a challenge if the teachers do not envisages TASK as an Instructional segment in the process of achieving L2 (second language) performance.


BACKGROUND
Percutaneous aortic valve replacement (PAVR) is an emerging alternative for high-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis. The aim of this study was to report acute and short-term outcomes of PAVR with the 18 Fr CoreValve Revalving System.

METHODS
From January 2007 to July 2008, 69 high-risk symptomatic patients with severe aortic stenosis were screened to assess their eligibility criteria for PAVR. All candidates were evaluated by a cardiac surgeon and a cardiologist. Thirty patients (13 men, 17 women, ages 82 +/- 5 years, range 73-88 years) met all the eligibility criteria and were enrolled in the study.

RESULTS
Twenty-nine patients (97%) underwent successful valve implantation by a retrograde approach, with improvement in valve area (0.61 +/- 0.18 cm(2) to 1.49 +/- 0.39 cm(2); p < 0.001) and transvalvular gradient (58.1 +/- 17.6 mmHg to 9.2 +/- 4.0; p < 0.001). Paravalvular leakages were 1+ (n = 12) and 2+ (n = 2). Procedural success was achieved in 93% of patients, with 1 case of pericardial tamponade occurred during the first 48 hours after implantation. At 30-day mortality was 7%. The mean NYHA Functional Class declined from 2.72 +/- 0.59 to 1.31 +/- 0.47 (p < 0.001). No other major adverse events occurred at a mean follow up of 4.9 +/- 4.0 months (range 1-13 months).

CONCLUSIONS
Our initial experience of PAVR in a cohort of older and high-risk surgical patients has been positive, with excellent acute and encouraging short-term results in terms of safety and efficacy.


OBJECTIVE
Recently, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have caught more attention for their role in the progression of many diseases. Among them, lncRNA GAS5 (Growth Inhibition Specificity 5) was studied in this research to identify how it affects the progression of atrial fibrillation (AF).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
In 40 patients with AF and 30 patients with sinus rhythm (SR), the GAS5 expression of the right atrial appendage (RAA) tissues was detected by the quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR). Moreover, the cell proliferation assay was conducted in AC16 cells transfected with GAS5 inhibitor and mimics, respectively. Furthermore, the qRT-PCR was performed to uncover the mechanism.

RESULTS
In the research, the expression of GAS5 in RAA tissues was decreased significantly in AF patients than that in SR ones. Moreover, overexpression of GAS5 inhibited cell growth in AC16 cells, while knockdown of GAS5 promoted cell growth in AC16 cells. In addition, further experiments revealed that ALK5 was a target of GAS5 and its expression in AF tissues negatively correlated to GAS5 expression.

CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that GAS5 could inhibit cell proliferation of AF via suppressing ALK5, which may offer a new vision for interpreting the mechanism of AF development.


The role of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Africa is puzzling: they pioneered China's inroads into Africa and shouldered the responsibilities of building and expanding cooperation with African countries, while these very activities and engagement, according to many scholars, often contradict or even undermine the political and diplomatic objectives adopted by the central government. To understand this puzzle, this article unpacks China's engagement in Africa, by examining large central SOEs in the resources and infrastructure sectors. It concludes that the commitment of large SOEs in Africa relies on small public and private contractors. The paradox therefore is, that while the central government encourages and supports the large SOEs to 'go global', it has limited capacity to control and regulate the small contractors.


This article presents a model for studying diaspora communities as independent structures applied to the Slovenian-Canadian case and where the synchronous examination of diaspora communities and the literary system is the central subject of study. This paper presents an established research model, which does not examine diaspora communities as a bridge between the country of origin and the country of acceptance, but as a third autonomous, equivalent space. The model enables extra and intratextual analysis of literature, treatment of written and spoken language use and examination of formal and informal institutional situations of the diaspora community. This methodology is especially effective in the analysis of the diaspora community under contemporary conditions, where we find only the remnants of a once powerful system that have managed to be maintained over many decades up to the present, which is not possible from a distance (e.g. from Slovenia). Using the researcher's two years of fieldwork as well as the intra-community status of the researcher, the community was observed with the taxonomy of variables proposed by Howard Giles et al. (1971) that determines the empirical reality of minority communities. Due to the shortcomings of this approach in the analysis, we have established a more appropriate model, which not only enables the monitoring and assessment of the community, but on the basis of the theory of realization of national interpellation proposed by Marcello Potocco (2012), we are able to increase the actual vitality and strengthen the (Slovenian) national identity. The model allows participation in the activity, not only for observing, but for implementation of additional activity as well, according to the existing situations and needs of the community. The vitality of the community was re-assessed and the results compared with the pilot assessment. The comparison demonstrated that the proposed approach is effective. In the Slovenian community, in Ontario, the material factors of national interpellation are: socio-institutional context (interconnection of institutions), education, media, literary system (extra and intratextual), publishing market, the use of language (written, spoken) and other (religion, economy, music, sport and gastronomy).


In this paper, a novel two-branch neural network model structure is proposed for multimodal emotion recognition, which consists of a time synchronous branch (TSB) and a time asynchronous branch (TAB). To capture correlations between each word and its acoustic realisation, the TSB combines speech and text modalities at each input window frame and then uses pooling across time to form a single embedding vector. The TAB, by contrast, provides cross-utterance information by integrating sentence text embeddings from a number of context utterances into another embedding vector. The final emotion classification uses both the TSB and the TAB embeddings. Experimental results on the IEMOCAP dataset demonstrate that the two-branch structure achieves state-of-the-art results in 4-way classification with all common test setups. When using automatic speech recognition (ASR) output instead of manually transcribed reference text, it is shown that the cross-utterance information considerably improves robustness against ASR errors. Furthermore, by incorporating an extra class for all the other emotions, the final 5-way classification system with ASR hypotheses can be viewed as a prototype for more realistic emotion recognition systems.


Let $(X_t)_{t\ge 0}$ be the stochastic process solution to the overdamped Langevin dynamics $$dX_t=-\nabla f(X_t) \, dt +\sqrt h \, dB_t$$ and let $\Omega \subset \mathbb R^d $ be the basin of attraction of a local minimum of $f: \mathbb R^d \to \mathbb R$. Up to a small perturbation of $\Omega$ to make it smooth, we prove that the exit rates of $(X_t)_{t\ge 0}$ from $\Omega$ through each of the saddle points of $f$ on $\partial \Omega$ can be parametrized by the celebrated Eyring-Kramers laws, in the limit $h \to 0$. This result provides firm mathematical grounds to jump Markov models which are used to model the evolution of molecular systems, as well as to some numerical methods which use these underlying jump Markov models to efficiently sample metastable trajectories of the overdamped Langevin dynamics.


Two leading Holocaust historians, Yehuda Bauer and Christopher Browning, have in recent years independently asked how so many ordinary Germans (most of whom in the 1930s had been moderately anti-Semitic) could become by the early 1940s willing murderers of Jews. Social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, had years before been interested in finding answers to similar questions, and to that end in the early 1960s carried out his widely debated "Obedience to Authority" (OTA) experiments at Yale University. Drawing on previously unpublished material from Milgram's personal archive at Yale, this thesis investigates how Milgram developed his research idea to the point where, by the time he ran his first official experiment, he was able to convert the majority of his ordinary subjects into torturers of other people. It is argued that Milgram's experiments were in themselves structured as a bureaucratic microcosm, and say less about obedience to authority, per se, than about the ways in which people in an organisational context resolve a pressing moral dilemma. The thesis uses insights gained from Milgram's experimental innovations to assist in answering the question posed by Bauer and by Browning, focusing on the Nazis' progressive development of mass killing methods, from 1941 to 1944, during Operation Barbarossa and Operation Reinhard. It is shown how these methods were designed to diminish perpetrators' perceptual stimulation, in order to make the "undoable" increasingly "doable", in ways that were later reflected in Milgram's development of his own experimental methodology.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of emerging technologies in the promotion of health and well-being at the urban, domestic and bodily scale, through the systematic examination of technologies such as physical sensing systems and physiological data monitoring, that are currently explored as drivers for achieving sustainable healthcare within a multi-scalar approach.

Design/methodology/approach

A comprehensive study of the various technologies associated with smart healthcare is provided, first investigating smart cities, physical sensing systems and geospatial data as potential enablers of public health. Then the discourse shifts towards exploring Smart Home technologies for healthcare, first reviewing strategies of enhancing the home environment with multisensory components, and then discussing the emergence of physiological monitoring devices and their interconnection with the domestic and urban environment.

Findings

While the implementation of Internet of Things, physical sensing systems and geospatial analytics in extracting and analyzing the multiple information layers of the urban, the domestic and the bodily environment, has been widely explored, there is little consideration on the transition from the domestic to the urban level, and while within each of the different scales, the need for a multi-componential approach is addressed, there is minimal effort towards its materialization.

Originality/value

The major contribution of this study therefore lies in laying the ground for further research towards a multi-scalar relational approach that views smart healthcare as a trajectory, binding the bodily, to the domestic and the urban fabric.


We have studied 99 lateral teleroentgenograms of the scull made in patients aged 20 to 45. There were 48 patients with physiological occlusion of dentition, 36 patients with distal occlusion and 15 patients with mesial occlusion of dentition. We have identified four basic forms of the lower boundary of the maxillary sinus and 3 types of its vertical distance from the basis of maxilla (line ANS-PNS) in the portions corresponding to the position of the premolars' and molars' root tips. We have compared the frequency of the location of the posterior teeth's root tips above the lower boundary of the sinus for various types of dental occlusion. This analysis is important for forecasting outcomes of orthodontic mesial/distal movement of posterior teeth, as well as for replacement of defects of the upper denture by implant-supported prostheses.


We report on the first observation of folded acoustic phonons in the Raman spectra of short‐period AlN/GaN superlattices (SLs). The values of longitudinal and transverse sound velocities along the [0001] direction of SL were estimated. It is shown that the SL period can be evaluated from Raman data with a good accuracy. Ab initio calculations of the zone‐center phonons in (AlN)n(GaN)n SLs with the number of monolayer equal to n = 2,4,6 were performed. The frequencies of phonon modes were calculated and the mode displacement patterns have been established. The theoretical Raman spectra were simulated and compared with experimental ones. A strong sensitivity of A1(LO) phonons confined within the AlN layer to its thickness was revealed both experimentally and in calculations. This finding can be used for quantitative characterization of short‐period AlN/GaN SLs.


Active Appearance Models (AAMs) can be used for interpreting face images and image sequences. AAMs combine a statistical shape model and a model of grey-level appearance. They also contain an iterative matching scheme for image interpretation, which only needs an initial estimate of the position and size of the face and results in a set of parameters describing the matched face. In this paper we describe, how to build up the shape model, the grey-level model and how to combine them to an AAM. Then we show, how to construct a search algorithm to derive the model parameters for a given face and investigate how well these parameters can be used to descibe known and unknown face images, measuring the similarity between the model-built faces and the original image data.


The needle biopsy as a useful adjunct in tissue diagnosis is firmly established. Its solid position is beyond the reach of persistent occasional snipers. Undoubtedly needle biopsy has its limitations. These should be definitely understood by those who employ the method. It should also be realized that the needle biopsy often requires more than average skill. Nonetheless, the procedure is here to stay. The details of technique no doubt will continue to be refined and improved. The needle biopsy can perhaps be classified into two groups: first, the aspiration technique, and second, the nonaspiration technique. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the various techniques or their indications. For the purpose of this communication it may suffice to say that the aspirating technique is still a method of choice in various instances. In such cases it is desirable to remove all of the aspirated material from the


This article argues that the concept of maendeleo, which conflates development with progress, has served many contradictory purposes in Tanzania, and traces how it has worked its way through different phases of Tanzanian development history. The starting point is the recognition that the concept of development, and maendeleo even more so, has a great variety of meanings and it is not possible to pick up one as 'correct'. Rather, the argument goes, it is this ambiguity where the concept derives its power from. While everybody can agree on its significance, many things can be accommodated under its umbrella. It has been made such a concept by its history which has allowed it to accumulate various meanings. The article maps the process of how this happened in Tanzania. The German colonialists introduced the notion in the guise of development of exploitable resources. The British followed the lead, formalizing the idea of mutual benefit as dual mandate and adding "native welfare" to it. A crucial shift occurred during the transition from the late colonial to early postcolonial development. As colonialism approached its end, the idea of development seemed to be in danger to outlive its political usefulness, but it was rescued by African nationalists as maendeleo. They appropriated the concept and made use of it in their independence campaign and later elevated it to a major prop for their rule. The article concludes that while maendeleo undoubtedly has been a politically successful concept, it has been much less effective as a guide for economic and social transformation. This raises the question whether the very concepts of development and maendeleo have become part of the problem rather than that of the solution.


Introduction: G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are transmembrane proteins that play a key role in the signal transduction of extracellular stimuli. GPCRs associate to a complex assembly of intracellular proteins regulating a large variety of signaling pathways. In particular, the production of inositol 1,4,5 triphosphate (IP3) signs the activation of Gq-coupled receptors. However, its very short half-life makes its assessment too challenging for drug screening operations and the monitoring of calcium release, triggered by IP3, has been extensively used as a downstream readout of this signaling pathway. Recently, a new homogeneous time-resolved fluorescence (HTRF) assay, detecting a downstream metabolite of IP3, inositol monophosphate (IP1), has overcome the drawbacks of the IP3 quantification, allowing its use in primary or secondary screening. Areas covered: This review provides an overview of the use of the IP-One assay in screening processes, providing comparisons with results obtained with other existing techniques traditionally used to investigate Gq-coupled receptors. Moreover, the review highlights two key features of the IP-One assay, the discrimination of slow acting compounds and the characterization of inverse agonists, which are impossible to achieve using calcium release. Expert opinion: The IP-One assay is well established to perform screening in the pharmaceutical industry. A number of criteria can be taken into account, including the impact of the sensitivity improvement of the assay, to position the IP-One assay in the different stages of the drug screening process. Moreover, the IP-One assay can be used as a valuable solution to investigate new research concepts such as ligand-biased signaling or receptor heteromerization.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze GJB2 235delC monoallelic mutation carrier individuals and test the possible presence and incidence of audiometric abnormalities among 30-60 years old carriers of the 235delC mutations.

METHODS
A total of 32 unrelated subjects with nonsyndromic hearing loss were screened for the 235delC mutation. Tonal audiometric analysis was performed on the 235delC mutation carrier group and on a non-carrier control group.

RESULTS
Audiometric evaluations in the control group showed the presence of thresholds within normal limits at all frequencies, while carriers of the 235delC mutation presented with decreased hearing at 1000 Hz and 2000 Hz (age 40-49 years and 50-59 years), and 4000 and 8000 Hz (age 30-59 years), P < 0.05. The hearing loss of carriers gradually increased with age.

CONCLUSIONS
GJB2 235delC heterozygous carriers may be a risk group for high-frequency hearing loss. Hearing thresholds may deteriorate in the intermediate frequencies over the age of 40.


Four patients with chronic subdural hematomas, all of which resolved spontaneously, were followed from the time of injury to resolution of the chronic subdural hematoma. Periodic computed tomographic (CT) scans showed spontaneous resolution 78, 174, 231, and 326 days after the development of the chronic subdural hematoma, respectively. Features of the CT scans and a possible mechanism of spontaneous resolution are discussed.


Purpose: Differentiation syndrome (DS) is a serious adverse reaction of isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) inhibitors ivosidenib and enasidenib in patients with (IDH)1- and IDH2-mutated acute myeloid leukemia (AML), respectively. Experimental Design: During FDA review of marketing applications for ivosidenib and enasidenib, data from pivotal trials were queried to identify cases of DS in patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) AML. One hundred seventy-nine patients with R/R AML received ivosidenib and 214 received enasidenib. Adverse events, labs, and vital signs in the first 90 days of treatment were screened per diagnostic criteria, and narratives were reviewed to adjudicate DS cases. Results: We identified 72 of 179 (40%) potential cases for ivosidenib and 86 of 214 (40%) for enasidenib; 34 of 179 (19%) and 41 of 214 (19%) were adjudicated as DS. Leukocytosis was present in 79% and 61% of cases, respectively. Median (range) time to onset was 20 (1–78) and 19 (1–86) days. Grade ≥ 3 adverse reactions occurred in 68% and 66%; 6% and 5% were fatal. Univariate analyses suggested baseline bone marrow blasts ≥ 48% and peripheral blood blasts ≥ 25% and 15% for ivosidenib and enasidenib, respectively, were associated with increased risk of DS. Complete remission (CR) + CR with partial hematologic recovery rates were lower in patients with versus without DS [ivosidenib 18% (95% confidence interval, 7%–35%) vs. 36% (28%–45%); enasidenib 18% (7%–33%) vs. 25% (18%–32%)]. Conclusions: DS is a common and potentially fatal adverse reaction of IDH inhibitors, and use of standardized diagnostic criteria may aid in earlier diagnosis and treatment. See related commentary by Zeidner, p. 4174


Extreme Value Theory has been used to model the WCET probabilistically, relying on the assumption that probabilistic WCET (pWCET) estimates can be upper-bounded with exponential distributions, but this is only assessed on execution time samples with pass/fail hypothesis tests. However, the degree of fulfilment of this hypothesis for the execution time sample has a direct impact on the tightness of the pWCET estimate. This paper tackles this limitation of pass/fail tests by applying 3 alternative methods to model the distribution of high execution times through the analysis of the number of finite moments of execution time samples. These methods provide information on the degree of fulfilment of the exponentiality hypothesis, rather than a simple pass/fail response. Hence, whenever the number of finite moments is shown to be low, despite pass/fail tests are passed, these methods indicate that pWCET estimates may be untight. We show that those methods complement each other and the information obtained – number of finite moments proven to exist – can be used to increase the execution time sample size opportunistically to obtain tighter pWCET estimates.


The aim of this paper is to study twelve modern Dictionaries of Neologisms (DN) in six different languages: Catalan, English, French, Galician, Italian and Spanish. I systematically analysed an array of relevant parameters in lexicographical works of this type. First, the two criteria most used by the DNs to identify the eligible lexical units are: the lexicographical (based on the use of a control corpus) and the chronological criterion. Second, I described and analysed in depth the macrostructure (origin of entries, variants, parts-of-speech) and the microstructure (definitions and senses, citations, examples and contexts, dating and thematic fields) of the DNs. From a general perspective, these DNs are grouped into three types: those developed by an author, by publishing houses and by Observatories of Neology – each with different objectives and methodologies. Third, I have tried to summarize the main strengths and weaknesses of these DNs, and I propose a number of contents and measures intended in particular to improve modern DNs. Finally, I conclude that in the 21st century we can indeed speak of a "neological lexicography".


Objective: The risk of macrosomia in diabetic complicated pregnancy is increased perinatal morbidity. But it is difficult to predict adverse outcomes after birth with conventional diagnostic tools of diabetes in pregnant women. We evaluated the birth-weight between diabetic and non-diabetic pregnant women based on gestational weeks to determine adverse pregnancy outcome. Methods: We selected 166 diabetic complicated pregnant women delivered between January 2005 and December 2008 and 248 non-diabetic pregnant women at same period. We compared the birth-weight between two groups in relation to the gestational age below and over 37 weeks. Fetal anomalies, fetal death, and multifetal pregnancy were excluded in this study. And we also evaluated the incidence of baby who had birth-weight 3.8 kg or more and their neonatal outcomes between two groups. Results: There were 4.9% (166/3404) of diabetic complicated pregnancies. The preterm births (birth before 37 weeks of gestation) were occurred 32.5% (54/166) and term births (birth after 37 weeks of gestation) were 67.5% (112/166). The mean birth-weight in preterm birth showed 2,492 g of gestational diabetes, 3,315 g of pregestational diabetes and 2,118 g of control group (P=0.001). The mean birth-weight and gestational age at delivery in term birth showed pregestational diabetes and gestational diabetes were heavier and shorter than those of control group (P=0.002). The incidence of 3.8 kg or more of birth-weighted baby appeared 43.5% (10/23) of pregestional diabetes, 16.8% (24/143) of gestational diabetes and 8.5% (21/248) of control group (P=0.000). The Apgar score less than 7 at minutes of neonate were more frequent in pregestational and gestational diabetes than that of control group (P=0.013). Conclusion: It is important to classify the type of diabetes during pregnancy and there should be needed to predict adverse pregnancy outcomes including macrosomia.


Calculations of the energy levels of atoms and ions with Z ≤ 10 are carried out in this paper using the variational method. New wave function with two terms including correlation was performed to calculate excited (ns 2 ) 1 Se, (np 2 ) 1 D e , (nd 2 ) 1 G e , (nf 2 ) 1 I e , (nh 2 ) 1 M e and (ng 2 ) 1 K e states with (n ≤ 7). The results obtained show quantitatively the great significance of electron correlation effects in the doubly excited states. These results are in compliance with some experimental and theoretical data.


This study builds a conceptual model of strategic decision-making ability that leads to entrepreneurial performance (EP) based on the two-system decision-making theory and logical analysis. An empirical approach using structural equation modeling – artificial neural network (SEM-ANN) was performed to describe the linear and nonlinear relationships in the proposed model. The empirical results reveal that strategic decision-making abilities are affected by five factors: attention, memory, thinking, emotion, and sentiment, and whose influence mechanisms and degrees are varied. Results also describe that these abilities have a positive effect on overall EP. Therefore, results suggest that businesses' strategic decision-making is usually strengthened when entrepreneurs have a clear understanding of these influencing elements, and the interaction between them leads to improved performance.


BACKGROUND
Cathepsin-K is an enzyme involved in bone metabolism which may make this feature important for both natural teeth and dental implants. The aims of the present study are to comparatively analyze the gingival crevicular fluid (GCF)/peri-implant sulcus fluid (PISF) cathepsin-K levels of natural teeth and dental implants, and to assess the potential relationship between this biochemical parameter and alveolar bone loss around natural teeth and dental implants.

METHODS
Probing depth, bleeding on probing, gingival index, and plaque index clinical parameters were assessed, and GCF/PISF samples were obtained from natural teeth/dental implants presenting with either clinical health, gingivitis/peri-implant mucositis, or chronic periodontitis/peri-implantitis. Cathepsin-K activity levels of 42 GCF samples and 54 PISF samples were determined, and marginal bone loss (MBL) measures were calculated from digitalized standardized intraoral periapical radiographs obtained from natural teeth and dental implants by using cemento-enamel junction and the actual distance between two consecutive threads of the dental implant as reference points for natural teeth and dental implants, respectively.

RESULTS
Comparing the natural teeth group with dental implant group with regard to MBL measure, cathepsin-K activity, and GCF/PISF volume revealed no significant differences. In both natural teeth and dental implant groups, despite higher MBL measures, cathepsin-K activity, and GCF/PISF volumes with the presence of inflammation, it was the presence of alveolar bone loss that lead to significantly higher values for these parameters.

CONCLUSION
We suggest cathepsin-K as a biochemical parameter for monitoring periodontal/peri-implant alveolar bone loss.


The study proposes an integrated and multifaceted approach to the problem of how to interpret settlements in the outer hinterland of Rome by using complex and non-schematic methods; it focuses on the critical areas and antinomies - often dramatically evident - between the city and its outermost settlement areas. This is particularly important when it involves casual models which escape the net of good urban design projects and associated analytical studies and theorisations. In this particular case, the city appears to loose its traditional logocentrism and substantive nature and dissolve in the proliferation of descriptive adjectives: diffuse city, mutant city, removed city, dispersed settlements, urbanised countryside, inhabited landscape, and metropolitan nebulous.
However, all this terminological proliferation depends on just one thing: the fact that the urban-centric city is considered as a conceptual facility and the end product of an idea to which the suburbs, open land, and countryside, are all subservient. Vice versa, the territory considered in this study is a well-defined area 45 km northeast of Rome where the Via Salaria crosses the municipalities between Fara Sabina and Scandriglia in the province of Rieti. It is an excellent area on which to test our theory that geographical space is not only a potential city opening onto the countryside, but also an experimental workshop to test knowledge tools and specific projects in our field of learning. This involves testing a new urban and territorial image based on formal conditions of use in certain places, and revising and verifying pre-established interpretive models and their conceptual schema (Amin, Thrift, 2011).
This particular geographical area was chosen due to its multifaceted heterogeneity, including its urbanisation models, dispersal or concentration of settlements, the presence of historical residential facilities (such as small towns and archaeological sites), morphology of open spaces, agricultural farmlands, and the influence of the road and rail system. This is a potential and unusual urban entity prompting a re-think of the city starting with its places-space in open territory, its size, latent proportions, relationships and forms. At the same time, the heuristic process (required to structure the problem) is accompanied by a review of the tools and fundamentals of a design technique which should affect "all dimensional scales of the environmental ensemble with a view to architecturally transform the anthropogeographic landscape (Gregotti, 1991, 2).
Architectural spaces have recently appeared in the inhabited countryside along the two Salaria roads (Salaria Nuova SS 4 and Salaria Vecchia SP 20) consolidated in the fifties by casual settlement formulas. This agglomeration lies between Passo Corese and Osteria Nuova extending in a west/northeast direction for 18 km. It is a small part of the historical and geographical area known as Sabina, where open space has been divided into small sequential lots with different characteristics. The term used to describe them in this study - places-space – is intended to illustrate how in their relationship with the interpreting entity, places and space are created by delimitation and descriptive compilations (De Certeau, 2001, 182). This procedure takes prior account of the temporary and experimental nature of these narrations while searching for appropriate explanatory models and applicable forms of design.
Moreover, to avoid remaining imprisoned in the cages of our disciplinary representations, the latter were corrected and amended through hands-on knowledge of the sites: analysis is thus questioned by experience, by multiple contemporary views, by getting lost in the streets and byways, where language become tangible while we see, touch and hear things which become part of our conscience (Secchi, 1995; Munarin, 2012, 32-37). The description and identification of the parts is subordinate to the composite web of relationships and internal ties, historically grafted into the tectonic fold that encourages the Apennines to vanish into the plain of the Tiber.
As a result, interpreting the territory prior to its transformation or vice versa its safeguard is based on the more grandiose and conflicting architecture of its original elements, nature-environment-landscape, which impose their jurisdiction and determine specific spatial rules. When the "dictatorship of the natural orientation of the orography" puts its stamp on the landscape and communications network it determines a figurative individualism of the ensemble albeit within the "compartimentalisation and division of the physiological cells" in the geographical expanse (Farinelli, 2000, 128).
The order of this potential "expanding city", between the two extremes of Passo Corese and Osteria Nuova, is based on the divergent and multiform factors which determine its characteristics. These heterogeneous entities, which play a different role in the organic life of the system, reflect the plurality of these interpretive methods. The elements involved are the old and new Salaria roads representing the functional need for mobility. Together they not only create a sort of territorial and morphologically characterised architecture - since they include the elements which have led to the formation of spontaneous aggregations - but together with all the other roads also establish a dialogue with the sites. It is this dialogue that reveals a reality suspended between linearity and fragmentation.
Signs and script determine the constitutive rules of the territory and teach us about the compositional grammar of the "landscape of urban sprawl". Then there are other endogenous factors: the inhabited farmland characterised in this area by traditional olive-growing but gradually being converted into residential housing; smaller towns and their balanced silence of abandonment; the heritage of history alerting us to the past we have inherited (Cures, Farfa, the Via Francigena); recent, low-quality urbanisation; industrial and artisanal areas and, finally, the local character of the landscape. All this creates overburdened reality and conceals its unitary nature, a nature which is perhaps unnecessary because many possible descriptions and representations exist, even if they overlap.
The critical features of this area depend on the different way in which the settlements are dispersed along the Salaria, in the countryside, or in the two housing agglomerations at each end of the area in question. Again, this is due to residential architecture and its relationship with the land, to agricultural production methods, to the industrial dislocation created by administrative fragmentation and lack of an overall vision. With this in mind, smaller towns are weak elements to be re-inserted by carefully balancing protection and regeneration.
Nevertheless, the study focuses on trying to identify its unappreciated potential and reinvent the territory. It also tries to distance itself from traditional planning practices which impose a chiefly regulating vision and, vice versa, assert a design dimension.


The facility location problems have been applied extensively in practice. We describe a facility location problem with stochastic demand based chance-constrained programming model, and formulate an approach to conversion of the chance constraints to their respective deterministic equivalents. A Lagrangian relaxation approach using subgradient algorithm is adopted and designed for the equivalent model. The performance of the proposed method is tested by a numerical experiment, and show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.


This paper concerns forced surface waves on an incompressible, inviscid fluid in a two-dimensional channel with nonzero surface tension on the free surface and a small bump on a horizontal rigid flat bottom. It is known that if non-dimensional wave speed, called Froude number, is near 1 and a non-dimensional surface tension, called Bond number, is near 1/3, the KdV theory fails and a time dependent fifth order KdV equation, called the Kawahara equation, can be derived to study the wave motion on the free surface. In this paper both time independent and time dependent forms of the Kawahara equation with a forcing are studied numerically and theoretically and various numerical results are presented.

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Adrenal steroids have been shown to accelerate both spontaneous and thyroid hormone (TH)-induced metamorphosis. The present study is concerned with the mechanisms underlying this effect. Premetamorphic Rana catesbeiana tadpoles were immersed in water containing 1-20 nM T4 or T3 +/- 1 microM corticosterone (B) for 6 to 19 days. B is the predominant glucocorticoid in tadpole plasma before climax. As indicated by the rate of tail resorption and hepatic carbamyl phosphate synthetase (CPS) activity, metamorphosis was significantly accelerated when TH-treated animals also received B: after 14 days in T4 (20 nM), tadpole tail length was decreased by 10%; in T4 + B, the decrease was 19%. At the same time, CPS activity was increased approximately 12-fold in tadpoles in T4 and 18-fold in those in T4 + B. Comparable results were obtained when T3 was employed. Neither tail resorption nor CPS activity was influenced by B alone. Plasma T4 levels attained at all bath concentrations of T4 were increased more than 2-fold when B was present. The same was true when T3 was used. In addition, in tadpoles immersed in 20 nM T4, the plasma T3 level-was significantly increased in the presence of B. Assessment of 5'-deiodinase and 5-deiodinase activities in vitro revealed that administration of B for 7 days resulted in a significant increase in 5'-deiodinase activity in skin and a significant reduction in T3 5-deiodinase activity in both liver and gut. Treatment with B reduced the rate of turnover of T3; 72 h after injection of 0.01 nmol [125I]T3, B-treated tadpoles had retained approximately 58% of the dose vs. 42% in controls. T3 nuclear receptor number (sites per nucleus) as assessed by an in vitro saturation technique was not altered in liver, tail, or red blood cells after 14 days of exposure to B. On the basis of these findings it is suggested that the acceleration of TH-induced metamorphosis by B is due at least in part to its ability to increase the plasma level of T4 or T3 through its effects on the peripheral metabolism of TH. HD-09020


A comparison of capacitance at 100 pF was conducted between thirteen participating laboratories from the Asia-Pacific region. Measurements were made over the period 2004 to 2006. The behaviour of the travelling artefact was consistent with a steady linear drift at a rate of less than 0.1 µF/F per year. Despite the wide range of capabilities within the region, the results showed good agreement between all participating laboratories. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the APMP, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA).


There are many unbalanced models such as helicopter's rotor blades, small-sized precision motor in industrial applications. In the real products, their gravity center usually does not accord with the desired gravity center. If the deviation is large between them, it can be a major cause of vibration and noise as the part of model rotate. Therefore the gravity center in the rotational parts should be controlled properly because of static and dynamic balancing of the parts. In the research, the rotor blade of unmanned helicopter has been selected to obtain the high quality of balancing. In order to achieve the purpose, measuring system has been developed. In the system applied principle is three point weighting method, which is one of the Multiple-point Weighting Method. It has circle fitting for compensation of machining error, after measuring the values. From this study, the results showed that the proposed measurement procedure gives reliable and precise gravity center.


Background: Intestinal parasitic infection triggered considerable gastrointestinal morbidity, malnutrition and mortality worldwide, particularly among young children in developing countries. In magnitude, Helminthiasis affect 10%–20% of pre-school children worldwide. In addition, small children below 5 years are uniquely susceptible to intestinal parasitic infestation in the poor community because of their childhood behavior like playing with soil and putting hand to mouth habit. Thus, the aim of this study is to assess the prevalence and risk factors of intestinal parasitic infection among pre-school children in Sekota town, Ethiopia.
Methods: a community based cross-sectional study was completed on 378 preschool children in Sekota town from February 15 – March 10/2019. Stool specimens were collected and examined for intestinal parasites using wet mount and formyl-ether concentration techniques. The risk factors of intestinal parasite were also assessed using a pre-tested structured questionnaire. The data were entered and analyze using Epi-data version 4.1 and SPSS-version 23 statistical software respectively. Both bivariable and multivariable analysis was carried out. Potential co-linearity was considered and tested. Variables with P-value less than 0.05 in multivariable analysis were considered as statistically significant.
Results: The prevalence of intestinal parasitic infection in Sekota town on wet mount and concentration techniques was 83 (21.9%) and 113 (29.9%) respectively. On multivariable analysis deworming (AOR, (95% CI), (2.5(1.5-4.3), presence of animal in the living room (AOR, (95% CI) (3.1(1.8-5.3), and occupation (AOR, (95% CI) (3.4 (1.1-10.0) were increase the odds of intestinal parasitic infections.
Conclusion: The prevalence of intestinal parasitic infection in Sekota town is high, which is a public health problem. The risk factors that contribute for intestinal parasitic infection in this study are preventable and modifiable. These are deworming, having animals in the living room, and occupation. Therefore, care should emphasis on periodical deworming, and campaign either through health education or visiting the home of the community. Whenever possible financially, double and above rooms would be recommended for the community of the town, in particular the animals should be lived in isolated rooms.
Key Words: Intestinal Parasites, Preschool, Sekota Town, Prevalence, Risk Factors


Background: Robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy ( RALRP) has better effects than conventional laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP). However, there were few research focus on the incidence and risk factors of postoperative delirium for patients with different procedures. Methods: Eighty-one cases of RLRP patients (group RALRP) and 71 cases of LRP patients (group LRP) under general anesthesia were collected from anesthesia information system from June 2013 to December 2019. Comparison of the time of preparation period before surgery(Tp), time of operation(To), time of anesthesia maintenance (Ta), time of anesthesia recovery(time from cessation of intravenous anesthetic to endotracheal extubation, Tr), time of endotracheal extubation(time from endotracheal extubation to discharge from post-anesthesia care unit, Te), dosage of anesthetic (propofol, sufentanil, remifentanil), PaCO2, plasma lactate level and airway pressure at different points (before pneumoperitoneum, post-pneumoperitoneum, after loosening pneumoperitoneum), the incidences of postoperative delirium and utilization of mannitol, IAP, dosage of vasoactive agents(ephedrine, methoxamine and atropine), fluid infusion volume, blood transfusion volume, blood loss, postoperative hospitalization time (Th) and overall cost. Results: The incidences of postoperative delirium and utilization of mannitol in group RALRP and LRP were (17.3% VS 32.4%, P=0.03;7.4% VS 21.1%, P=0.014), Tr was (31.52±9.89 VS 38.65±16.32 min; P=0.01,95%CI 2.72-11.54), IAP was (12.72±1.87 VS 13.37±1.12 mmHg; P=0.01, 95%CI 0.16-1.14), PaCO2 at post-pneumoperitoneum and after loosening pneumoperitoneum were (47.89±10.89 VS 38.65±16.32 mmHg; P <0.001, 95%CI 6.47-11.98; 40.77±5.34 VS 43.57±4.54 mmHg; P=0.001, 95%CI 1.17-4.37), the difference was statistically significant. Tp, To, Ta and overall cost of patients in the RLRP group were significantly longer than those in the LRP group (P <0.02). No statistical difference was found in other observation variables. The incidence of postoperative delirium was considered as the dependent variable for binary logistic regression analysis. The result showed the incidence of postoperative delirium increased 1.17 times (95%CI 1.06-1.17), 1.13 times (95%CI 1.03-1.24), and 1.66 times (95%CI 1.02-2.70) for each unit increase in Tr, post-pneumoperitoneum PaCO2 and IAP.Conclusion: Compared with group LRP, patients in group RALRP had lower IAP, lower incidence of postoperative delirium and shorter recovery time, but the overall cost was higher. IAP is the main factor affecting the incidence of postoperative delirium.


According the American Cancer Society's data, in 2013, an estimated 53,640 people developed head and neck cancers [1], which accounts for about 3% to 5% of all cancers in the United States. Removing head and neck malignant neoplasms is one of the first stages towards patient recovery. However, these types of invasive procedures often lead to disfiguring scars and resections with functional and aesthetical drawbacks (see Figure 1).Copyright © 2015 by ASME


Thermal sprayed nanoscale materials produce coatings with enhanced properties. Thermally spraying nanopowders, in non-agglomerated form, include several potential advantages. These advantages can not be tested because nanoparticles do not have the inertia required to cross streamlines in typical plasma spray flows. Hence, they are swept away without depositing on the substrate. Analysis of inertial deposition reveals that the non-dimensional Stokes number largely characterizes deposition efficiency. Under low pressure plasma spray conditions, with reduced stand-off distance, the Stokes number of nanopowders can be made to approach the Stokes numbers of typical thermal spray powders. This paper explores the conditions that make the inertial deposition efficiency of nanoparticles quantitatively similar to the typical inertial deposition efficiency of microparticles. Paper includes a German-language abstract.


Green mold is a serious disease of the cultivated mushroom causing losses in production of economical importance. In the present study, digestion of a Th 444 amplicon with endonuclease BseGI was useful to discriminate Trichoderma aggressivum f. aggressivum (T.a.f.a) from the T. aggressivum f. europeanum (T.a.f.e.). The informative restriction fragments of 260 and 300 bp were revealed in the corresponding reference strains T.a.f.a. and T.a.f.e. The 300-bp marker was found in all 28 Polish mushroom isolates tested.


A retrospective study was carried out on 200 patients who underwent surgery between January 1989 and September 1991. The aim was to investigate the development of urinary retention following renal and ureteric surgery. The incidence of urinary retention was 55% for patients in the renal group and 26% for those in the ureteric group. In a control group of 100 patients undergoing cholecystectomy the incidence was 5%. The results showed that bladder function was inhibited greatly after renal surgery. Catheterisation in the pre-operative period may help to prevent post-operative urinary retention.


Multiple Self-Organizing Networks (SON) functions have been deveoped towards the SON promise of automating cellular network operations. Meanwhile, advancing SON towards Cognitive Cellular Networks requires the (SON) Functions (SFs) to autonomously learn the required optimal configurations. Since the SFs adjust the same or related network parameters, conflicts are bound to occur. Mechanisms that are better than current SON coordination approaches must thus be devised to manage the conflicts. In this paper we propose multi-agent Concurrent Cooperative Games (CCG) an approach where peer SFs communicate with one another so as to learn to minimize the conflicts. Using two Q-learning based SFs, we evaluate the benefits of CCG comparing against the independent functions and their uncoordinated operation. Our results show that CCG achieves good compromise especially where concurrent action among neighbor cells is avoided.


Changes in the User Preferences. The Case of Social Networking Sites Orkut and
Facebook.
This bachelor's thesis focused on analyzing individuals' reasons for becoming users
of social networking sites (SNS-s) and motives that influenced them to give up the
active use of the SNS Orkut in favour of Facebook. Research data was gathered by
interviewing 12 young Estonians aged 20-22. The information gained from these
interviews enabled to draw quite solid conclusions applying to the given research
sample.
Firstly, it became clear that similarly to previous research, mainly friends who
already had created themselves profiles on a SNS and with whom the interviewees
wished to communicate and thereby preserve social connections, were the most
important sources of motivation for becoming users of a SNS. This can also be
explained by the fact that through various activities on SNS-s users get an opportunity
to satisfy their need to belong while gaining social acceptance. Estimably, the time
spent browsing social networks online can be measured in hours per week which,
considering modern conditions and the characteristics of SNS-s, is quite anticipated.
The time dedicated to activities on SNS-s varies among respondents for the reason
that these online environments provide a number of activities to engage in and not
everyone's user practices are alike. However, most of the activities of young people
who participated in this study are connected with Facebook's News Feed.
Two main aspects were observed while analyzing interviewees' reasons for
giving up the active use of Orkut in favour of Facebook. One of these focused on the
respondents' motives for creating user accounts in Facebook and the other looked at
reasons why they retained this membership. The main influences that drove the
interviewees towards becoming Facebook users, again, came from friends who had
already registered user accounts in the SNS. Contacts from abroad play an important
role here for they were the significant others with whom many respondents wished to
preserve connections but had no alternatives to Facebook for fulfilling that wish.
There were many reasons why interviewees started to prefer Facebook to
Orkut, among which the highest importance lies on the fact that they simply outgrew
the latter. Facebook turned out to be more credible and reliable as a SNS, reflecting
life outside the online environment more accurately and providing users with new and
diverse information quickly thanks to its user interface. In addition, there were no
motives for continuing the active use of Orkut because Facebook met users'
expectations on a higher level and, at the same time, all of the important connections
were there.
The author proposed that one area of future research on processes connected
with SNS-s should be about internet marketing. Considering the fact that Facebook
offers excellent conditions for advertising products or services and promoting events
and causes and noting that by the completion of the thesis about a sixth of Estonians
had user profiles on Facebook, its potential as a marketing environment should be
looked into in depth and the knowledge gained used for the good of society, e.g. to
attract more citizens to participate in public discussions. Also, since Facebook is the
environment with the largest amount of Estonians and Estonian organisations ever
recorded as users of a SNS, further research is needed to map and understand the
online practices of these newly emerged Facebook users.


Mitochondria play essential roles in eukaryotic cells for glucose metabolism to produce ATP. In Schizosaccharomyces pombe, transcription factor Rst2 can be activated upon glucose deprivation. However, the link between Rst2 and mitochondrial function remains elusive. Here, we monitored Rst2 transcriptional activity in living cells using a Renilla luciferase reporter system, and found that inhibition of mitochondrial complex III/IV caused cells to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO), which in turn activated Rst2. Furthermore, Rst2‐GFP was observed to translocate from cytoplasm to nucleus upon mitochondrial complex III/IV inhibitors treatment, and deletion of genes associated with complex III/IV resulted in delayed process of Rst2‐GFP nuclear exportation under glucose‐rich condition. In particular, we found that Rst2 was phosphorylated following the treatment of complex III/IV inhibitors or SNAP. Altogether, our findings suggest that mitochondrial complex III/IV participates in the activation of Rst2 through ROS and NO generation in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.


A vibrating micromechanical spoke-supported ring resonator employing a central peg-anchor, balanced non-intrusive quarter-wavelength extensional support beams, and notched support attachments attains high $Q$ -factor in vacuum, posting 10 000 at 441 MHz when made of polysilicon structural material and 42 900 at 2.97 GHz when made of microcrystalline diamond. The latter marks the highest $f\cdot Q$ of $1.27\times 10^{14}$ for any acoustic resonator at room temperature, besting even macroscopic bulk-mode devices. Very high $Q$ values like these in a device occupying only 870 $\mu \text{m}^{2}$ pave a path toward on-chip realizations of RF channelizers and ultra-low phase-noise gigahertz oscillators for secure communications. With frequency determined by lithographically defined ring-width rather than radius, a capacitive transducer with a 75-nm gap allows this 2.97-GHz version to achieve a series motional resistance of 81 $\text{k}\Omega $ . Though still higher than desired, this marks a $30\times $ improvement over previous pure polysilicon surface-micromachined solid disk resonators in the gigahertz range, and if predicted performance-scaling holds true, seven such resonators constructed in a mechanically coupled array with 30-nm gap spacing, could lower this to only 300 $\Omega $ . Confidence in a prediction like this stems from the confirmed accuracy of the electrical equivalent circuit described herein that models not only the ring and its transducers, but also its supports. [2015-0132]


In a respirator fit test, a subject is required to perform a series of exercises that include moving the head up and down and rotating the head left and right. These head movements could affect respirator sealing properties during the fit test and consequently affect fit factors. In a model-based system, it is desirable to have similar capability to predict newly designed respirators. In our previous work, finite element modeling (FEM)-based contact simulation between a headform and a filtering facepiece respirator was carried out. However, the headform was assumed to be static or fixed. This paper presents the first part of a series study on the effect of headform movement on contact pressures-a new headform with the capability to move down (flexion), up (extension), and rotate left and right-and validation. The newly developed headforms were validated for movement by comparing the simulated cervical vertebrae rotation angles with experimental results from the literature.


Holders of public office, whether elected or not, exercise a range of legal powers, and it would seem to go without saying that they should do so in the public interest. There have always been opportunities to misuse such powers and, what is a separate but overlapping problem, to extract personal gain. These are the same problems that animate the principles governing fiduciary relationships in private law. In this paper, I examine the extent to which the fiduciary principles relating to conflicts and unauthorized profits have been applied to elected politicians. The courts in the UK and in Canada were willing to apply them, as a matter of non-statutory law, directly to elected municipal politicians. In relation to governments with sovereign powers (as opposed to the delegated powers of municipalities), however, the picture is different. While fiduciary principles have been applied to servants of such governments, there is no evidence that the courts have been willing to apply these non-statutory norms to elected members. In Canada, however, recent years have seen an expansion of statutory interventions aimed at subjecting politicians (and other public office holders) to legislated versions of fiduciary principles. This article examines these developments, offering some reflections on why the courts have made the distinctions that they have. It also asks whether these statutory interventions are well conceived and well designed. Finally, it suggests that fiduciary norms do not belong exclusively either to private law or public law, but rather to certain kinds of relationships wherever they may arise.


Alterations in the environment during critical periods of development, including altered maternal nutrition, can increase the risk for the development of a range of metabolic, cardiovascular and reproductive disorders in offspring in adult life. Following the original epidemiological observations of David Barker that linked perturbed fetal growth to adult disease, a wide range of experimental animal models have provided empirical support for the developmental programming hypothesis. Although the mechanisms remain poorly defined, adipose tissue has been highlighted as playing a key role in the development of many disorders that manifest in later life. In particular, adipokines, including leptin and adiponectin, primarily secreted by adipose tissue, have now been shown to be important mediators of processes underpinning several phenotypic features associated with developmental programming including obesity, insulin sensitivity and reproductive disorders. Moreover, manipulation of adipokines in early life has provided for potential strategies to ameliorate or reverse the adverse sequalae that are associated with aberrant programming and provided insight into some of the mechanisms involved in the development of chronic disease across the lifecourse.


Objective: To determine the effect of orthodontic tooth movement on the expression of interleukin-1β mRNA in rats using RT-PCR. Materials and Methods: Sample consisted of eighteen 8-week-old male Wistar rats. The right maxillary first molar of each animal was protracted using an orthodontic protraction appliance. The left maxillary first molar received no treatment and was assigned as the control group. On day 21, all rats were sacrifice and divided in two equal groups. The first group, group (A), was histologically evaluated for the presence and size of potential resorptive lacunae. The second group, group (B), was investigated using RT-PCR in order to determine IL-1β mRNA expression. Results: Measurements revealed that the mean tooth movement was 0.23 mm in group A and 0.24 mm in group B. The mean depth of the resorptive lacunae was 0.17×10 -11 mm 2 in the control group and 4.9×10 -11 mm 2 in the intervention group (control group: left maxillary first molars; right maxillary first molars were divided to group A & B, histologic study of group A assures the existence of resorptive lacunae and its extent relative to control group). The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (p<0.05). The RT-PCR evaluation showed no significant differences in IL-1β mRNA expressions of resorptive lacunae between the treated and untreated groups. Conclusion: Although interleukin1-beta is the most potent stimulator of bone resorption and mediator of inflammatory response, the present study showed that the IL-1beta mRNA was not expressed more significantly in root resorption lacunae of the treated molars relative to the control group.


Effector CD4 T cells have been classically divided into two lineages, T-helper type 1 (TH1) and TH2. TH1 cells develop in response to intracellular viruses and bacteria and secrete interferon-γ (IFNγ) while TH2 cells produce interleukin (IL)-4 in response to extracellular pathogens. Recent studies have identified a third distinct lineage of effector CD4 T cells called as TH17 that characteristically produce IL-17. The development of TH17 cells depends on TGFβ and IL-6. The published reports establish a direct link between IL-23 and the TH17 cell subset in mediating inflammatory pathology in certain autoimmune diseases although IL-23 is not required for TH17 commitment. We observed that IL-23 acts synergistically with IL-1 or IL-18 to induce IL-17 cytokine production in TH17 cells independent of T cell receptor (TCR) stimulation, analogous to the induction of IFNγ by IL-12 and IL-18 in TH1 cells. Our results suggest that IL-1 or IL-18 signaling might be preceded by IL-23 signaling through the IL-23 receptor (IL-23R), which is upregulated in TH17 by TGFβ. The TH17 effector function is augmented by these non-antigen-specific responses subsequent to their previous antigen-induced differentiation. Our findings help to delineate the role of IL-23 in TH17 cell biology and identify potential targets for prevention of TH17-mediated immunopathology.
 This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (C.T.W.).


A theory of the mechanical origins of receptor-mediated endocytosis shows that a spontaneous membrane complex formation can provide the stimulus for a local membrane motion toward the cytosol. This motion is identified with a nucleation stage of receptor-mediated endocytosis. When membrane complexes cluster, membrane deformation is predicted to be most rapid. The rate of growth of membrane depressions depends upon the relative rates of approach of aqueous cytosolic and extracellular fluids toward the cell membrane. With cytosolic and extracellular media characterized by apparent viscosities, the rate of growth of membrane depressions is predicted to increase as the extracellular viscosity nears the apparent viscosity of the cytosol and then to decrease when the extracellular viscosity exceeds that of the cytosol. To determine whether these trends would be apparent in the overall endocytosis rate constant, an experimental study of transferrin-mediated endocytosis in two different cell lines was conducted. The experimental results reveal the same dependence of internalization rate on extracellular viscosity as predicted by the theory. These and other comparisons with experimental data suggest that the nucleation stage of receptor-mediated endocytosis is important in the overall endocytosis process.


Introduction The benefit of ambulatory oxygen (AO) in patients with hypoxaemia on exercise remains contentious. Often AO is not used in the way the prescribers envisage. Device suitability or poor understanding about the benefits of AO may mean patients remain hypoxic on activity and/or avoid exercise. Objective To assess patients activity and preference using HomefillTM versus usual AO device in a mixed population of patients with exercise hypoxaemia and/or LTOT. HomefillTM allows patient refill of oxygen cylinders (1.9 L) as needed using a compressor. Methods Inclusion criteria included current use of AO and stable physical condition. AO prescription was optimised for each device. Patients were randomised to usual AO then HomefillTM for 6 wks or vice versa. Tri-axial activity monitors were used during the last week. Patient preference was identified by questionnaire. Weekly calls encouraging activity and AO use were made. If patients suffered an inter-current illness, the trial arm was extended by 2 wks; those with >1 illness were withdrawn. Power calculation indicated a sample of 40 subjects was required to detect a difference of 1,000 domestic activity counts at a 5% significance level with 80% power. Results 70 patients met the inclusion criteria and 40 enrolled. Mean age 66 yrs, 17 males, 70% had COPD with median FEV1 41% predicted (range 27–71%), restrictive median FVC 70% predicted. 29 complete data sets were collected. There were 9 episodes of AECOPD. Fifteen patients required the highest 02 pulsed setting on HomefillTM There was no statistically significant difference in mean daily activity counts when using HomefillTM compared to usual AO. A decline in activity counts was observed in both cohorts during the second period. Eighteen patients elected to keep HomefillTM of whom 11 previously used LOX as their usual AO. Conclusions Homefill was equivalent to usual provision of AO and was preferred by the majority. Disappointingly, regular phone encouragement failed to increase activity levels. Activity levels were very low and highly variable reflecting advanced disease/deconditioning. Implications for Practise Patient use and preference of AO device includes non physiological aspects. AO maybe best targeted at patients before exercise tolerance is severely limited.


Eutypa dieback symptoms on grapevine have been reported in Rioja Alavesa since the nineteen eighties. However, attempts to fi nd the perithecia of Eutypa lata in vineyards were not successful. Old vineyards in the Rioja Alavesa region were inspected for the presence of such perithecia. They were eventually detected in a 80-year-old Tempranillo vineyard in Laguardia. The morphology and size of the perithecia and the ascospores, as well as the colony features of the isolates on PDA were in agreement with those previously described for E. lata . The identifi cation was confi rmed by PCR using specifi c primers, as well as by sequence analysis of the rDNA ITS1/5.8S/ITS2 region. This is the fi rst report of perithecia of E. lata in Rioja Alavesa and will improve understanding of the disease cycle of Eutypa dieback of grapevine in this region.


Studying the internal structure of exoplanet-host stars compared to that of similar stars without detected planets is particularly important for the understanding of planetary formation. The observed average overmetallicity of stars with planets is an interesting point in that respect. In this framework, asteroseismic studies represent an excellent tool to determine the structural differences between stars with and without detected planets. It also leads to more precise values of the stellar parameters like mass, gravity, effective temperature, than those obtained from spectroscopy alone. Interestingly enough, the detection of stellar oscillations is obtained with the same instruments as used for the discovery of exoplanets, both from the ground and from space. The time scales however are very different, as the oscillations of solar type stars have periods around five to ten minutes, while the exoplanets orbits may go from a few days up to many years. Here I discuss the asteroseismology of exoplanet-host stars, with a few examples.


From April 23 to 27, 2001, more than 230 caribou experts migrated to the 9th North American Caribou Workshop, held at the tree-line in the Inuit town of Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Quebec. This community of about 1800 people near Ungava Bay was chosen over larger cities in southern Quebec following a survey of potential workshop participants. Holding the conference in such a particularly appropriate location was made possible by the sustained efforts of the Organizing and Scientific Committees, by the help of the sponsors, and, above all, by the tremendous support of the people of Kuujjuaq. Keeping in mind the importance of caribou to the local people and the fact that development and other fast-growing human activities have today reached the North—for many southerners, the last frontier—the theme chosen for the 9th North American Caribou Workshop was also particularly appropriate: Caribou and Man.


The research of parametric rolling has encountered many challenging problems due to its nonlinearity. In this paper, an in-house CFD code HUST-Ship based on fully structured overset grids is used for the investigation of KCS parametric rolling, which can overcome the shortcomings of potential flow method. Modeling errors and numerical errors are presented to improve the credibility of CFD simulation. The grid and time step are studied for the quantification of numerical errors. The phenomenon of parametric rolling is successfully captured in the paper and motion responses of KCS have a good agreement with experimental data. The characteristics of motions, forces and moments under parametric rolling are investigated by using fast Fourier transform. The relationship between wave characteristics and motion responses of ship is revealed in this paper. Following, a simulation model with three DOFs' model (heave-roll-pitch model) is used to investigate the influence of surge motion on parametric rolling. Result shows that the excluding of surge motion has no qualitative influence on the prediction of parametric rolling. In general, the simulation limited to heave-roll-pitch coupling is adequate for its capture.