INTRODUCTION The ability to conduct military operations in a nuclear environment will require an understanding of the medical threats posed by nuclear weapons and the development of tactics and techniques designed to mitigate them. This will be a difficult task given that we have no recent experience upon which to base doctrine. Experience is of paramount importance in the development of medical doctrine, as it provides the raw material from which medical planners determine infrastructure configuration, identify support requirements, and program the disposition of clinical resources. Where experience is lacking, both animal and in vitro studies have been utilized to provide data concerning the medical effects of nuclear weapons. Significantly, there has never been a systematic study of the microbiological aspects of nuclear war and consequently there is only a paucity of guidance available to military medical personnel regarding the role of the microbiology laboratory in the nuclear theater of operations and the development of the assets necessary for the production of an antimicrobial cache relevant to the nuclear environment. With reference to the study of the medical effects of nuclear war, the field of mycology is arguably the most neglected subdiscipline of microbiology. This omission is fallacious given that there are well over 100,000 species of fungi and that fungi have been found to occupy almost every environmental niche on the planet. In addition, invasive fungal infections resulting from combat-related trauma has recently been recognized as a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among military personnel who were injured during the Global War on terrorism. Previous research has revealed that certain categories of fungi (melanized or dematiacious fungi) are able to survive and thrive in an environment characterized by high levels of ionizing radiation. It is speculated that this capability may have enabled melanized fungi to survive the high levels of radiation present at the beginning of the cretaceous period when many other classes of organism perished. Previous studies have also shown that whole-body irradiation can lead to deficiencies in hematopoiesis resulting in a general state of immunosuppression and an increased susceptibility to infection by both endogenous and exogenous flora. Hematopoietic deficiency may also result in an increase in bacterial–fungal coinfection. This is concerning given that recent research has shown that infections due to both bacteria and fungi are often synergistic, difficult to treat, and associated with an increase in morbidity and mortality. From the military medical perspective, it is important to understand the interactions between bacteria and melanized fungi in the context of radiation exposure. Understanding these interactions will be necessary in order to assess and mitigate the threat that these organisms pose to military operations in a nuclear environment. In addition, understanding these interactions will enable military commanders and medical planners to program the proper distribution of resources and ensure that the appropriate diagnostic and treatment capabilities are available in the theater of operations.


Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has radically changed global healthcare and colposcopy services are no exception. The aim of this study was to review the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on colposcopy services in a tertiary center. Study design: A retrospective observational study was conducted in a tertiary center between March to August 2020. We included all women referred to our colposcopy services. The practice has been reviewed according to guidance from BSCCP. Results: For high grade dyskaryosis referral, 64% of patients were offered an appointment within the target 2 week-wait time frame. For low grade dyskaryosis referral, 47% of patients were seen within the target 12-week timeframe. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in longer waiting times for both high- and low-grade colposcopy referrals. This highlights the need for better preparation for potential future disruption of services and improvement of the existing service provided in order to support a faster and more efficient recovery from the pandemic.


Percutaneous translumbar pyelography is indicated when excretory urography has failed to demonstrate the cause or site of obstructive uropathy and retrograde pyelography is impossible, undesirable or contraindicated. Under prophylactic treatment with antibiotics translumbar antegrade pyelography is safe, simple and accurate and in selected cases the only diagnostic method to establish exact diagnosis without which appropriate therapy cannot be planned. The method is described and the results of 30 percutaneous translumbar pyelographies obtained from 2680 renal angiographies and 230 punctures of space-occupying lesions over 13 years are reported.


In an era when Web 2.0 is starting to become one of the more popular ways of communicating with users, the School of Computing in the University of Portsmouth is still distributing their student handbook in a paper format. As identified in this report, a large number of students found this format to be dull and uninteresting and so did not use it. To address this issue, different technologies were studied with the aim of getting a friendlier, more multimedia based and interactive method of presenting the book to students. This report starts off by reviewing how technology is moving forward within the teaching environment with, for example, e-learning, continues by analysing existing handbooks used among the top 20 British Universities, and then tries to find and develop the best handbook solution. To find out what issues the students had when using the paper version, a survey was distributed asking them about its usage, how to improve it and what they expected to find in it. Analysis of the responses led to the conclusion that an improved version of the handbook was needed. Members of the School of Computing staff in charge of updating and distributing the handbook each year were also asked for their views. The requirements became to get a better experience for the students while being easy to use and kept up to date by members of staff. After analysing different technologies such as Flash, Ajax and other Web 2.0 solutions, it was proposed that a 2-part website (front-end for students and a back-end for staff to update the handbook content) based on PHP, which would load the information from an Oracle database, be the way forward. Thus, all the content modified by staff members would automatically be displayed on the front-end for students. In this report the entire implementation process is explained as well as the platform that this system requires to work. During the evaluation and test stage of the report, it is shown that the artefact received very good feedback from both staff members and students, with the possibility of being put onto a production server for real life use.


Power scaling of ultrafast fiber lasers has been accelerated by coherent beam combination [1]. Persisting challenges regarding the average power, i.e. mode instabilities, or regarding the peak power, i.e. high nonlinear phase, can be easily overcome by using several parallel amplifiers in a stabilized interferometer configuration. In this contribution, we present a new record average power for ultrafast laser systems enabled by coherent beam combination and the use of partially-reflective dielectric mirrors as high-power compatible combining element.


Posture measurement and correction using inertia sensors are finding applications in rehabilitation as well as in human robot interaction systems. This paper presents two designs of arm posture mapping and replication system using inertia sensors and vibrotactile feedback device. The designs differ in the number of vibrotactile actuators and the vibration feedback pattern used. User performance in replicating arm postures when using the different systems were compared. Results show that using fewer vibrotactile actuators to provide feedback is feasible and that a more informative vibration feedback pattern could improve user response time in replicating reference arm postures.


We propose a VLSI design of Multi-Format Decoder (MFD) to support multiple video codec standards such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264 and VC-1. A decoupled MFD architecture is introduced in order to easily add or remove the codecs. The decoupled architecture preserves the stability of the previously designed and verified codecs. It also reduces the gate count by sharing the large-size common resources. The design size is 2.4M gates and the operating clock frequency is 225MHz in the 65nm process.


BACKGROUND
CCL19 is a chemokine involved in cancer research due to its important role in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and clinical relevance in cancers. This study aimed to analyze transcription expression, genomic alteration, association with tumor immune microenvironment of CCL19 expression and its prediction value for prognosis and responses to immunotherapy for patients with cancers.

METHODS
RNA sequencing data and corresponding clinicopathological information of a total of large-scale cancer patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus databases. Multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) was implemented to identify differential infiltration of Treg, CD8+ T cells, and tumor-associated macrophages, while CCL19 immunohistochemistry was conducted on 182 breast cancer samples from a real-world cohort.

RESULTS
Based on large-scale multi-center survival analysis of cancer patients, we found the prognosis of patients with high CCL19 expression was prominently better than those with low CCL19 expression. For patients from multiple independent cohorts, suppressed CCL19 expression exerts significant progressive phenotype and apoptosis activity of cancers, especially in breast and ovarian cancer. Interestingly, anti-tumor immune cells, specifically the CD8+ T cells and macrophages, were clustered from TME by elevated CCL19 expression. Additionally, higher CCL19 levels reflected heightened immune activity and substantial heterogeneity.

CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, our findings support the notion that elevated CCL19 expression is linked to favorable outcomes and enhanced anti-tumor immunity, characterized by increased CD8+ T cells within the TME. This suggests the potential of CCL19 as a prognostic marker, predictive biomarker for immunotherapy, therapeutic target of cancers.


Matching nucleic acid sequences has long become the performance bottleneck in genome assembly which aims to connect enormous partial genome reads without prior knowledge of the reference sequence. The intensive and random data accesses of querying sequences using the widely adopted FM-Index data structure have caused in-efficient usage and long runtime of the memory system. Existing software FM-Index tools are limited on algorithmic inefficiency and poor processing parallelism. Solutions on GPU, FPGA and ASIC focus mainly on computational acceleration while still bottlenecked at the memory-bound nature of querying FM-Index. This paper proposes DSIM, a scalable FM-Index querying on near-DRAM accelerators. DSIM supports highly parallel multi-step query processing by distributing partial FM-Index table to different DRAM chips. Each genome sequence is partitioned into shorter queries and dispatched to the corresponding DRAM chip for string lookup. The optimized data layout and execution control on DRAM enables high row-data reuse and minimizes CPU-DRAM data transfers. The light-weight mapping scheme on the host CPU facilitates effective query distribution to DRAM chips and further supports scalability to multiple DIMMs (Dual-Inline Memory Modules). An in-DRAM arbiter is implemented to control the intra-chip data processing without affecting the external memory controller and DDR protocol. Experiments on 128-chip DRAM system showed that DSIM achieves up to 231 $\times$ and 8.9 $\times$ overall speedup compared to the software FM-Index tool and the state-of-the-art near-DRAM solution respectively.


This study examines the relationship between climate change-induced weather emergencies and labor market outcomes in Mexico from 2016 to 2020. Using panel data and a two-way fixed effects estimation, the analysis focuses on storms, floods, wildfires, and landslides. The results show that storms can have significant negative associations with labor market outcomes. When living in municipalities affected by storms individuals experience 3.5% lower wages. Also, storms are associated to a decrease in weekly working hours, while the rest of weather-related emergencies do not show significant effects. Furthermore, the probability of employment is negatively and significantly affected by storms, resulting in a 1 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of being employed.


The Blue-throated Macaw (Ara glaucogularis) is a critically endangered species found in the savannas of Berri, north-east Bolivia. Since 1995 the LPF has supported Armonia of Bolivia in its actions for the recovery of this species, in particular to avoid any illegal trafficking of birds and to reduce the loss and deterioration of its preferred habitat. Part of the Armonia/LPF Blue-throated Macaw conservation programme has been a wide search of the enormous savannas to find more birds. More have been found and, as reported in Cyanopsitta N°87, there was a recent unprecedented find of a flock of70 birds on one farm, raising the total wild population to as many as 350. Now come important news from Armonia that it has managed to purchase the farm where this concentration of Blue-throated Macaws lives. This 4,254-hectare ranch is located in Yacuma Province to the northwest of the city of Trinidad, the capital of Berri. The ranch represents a typical example of the habitat for this species, with seasonally inundated savannas and dispersed higher areas free of water which form islands of palms and other trees. The purchase of the ranch was made possible by donations from the American Bird Conservancy and World Land Trust. This important step now provides the first protected area for this species, and the Armonia/LPF Bluethroated Macaw programme can begin habitat protection measures that have not been possible to achieve until now because of a lack of land owner permission. Among others, these can include habitat restoration studies, experimentation with natural and artificial nest designs, and the exploration oflong-term sustainability through ecotourism. The project installed 57 nest-boxes during the 2007-2008 season, 51 in the southern area and 6 in the north, some sponsored by The Bird Endowment. The nests in the northern area were only explored by Blue-and-Yellow Macaws Ara ararauna, but in the south four nests were occupied by Blue-throated Macaws, 24 by Blue-and-Yellow Macaws, and by other animal species (Table 1). Two of the Blue-throated Macaw nests were successful, one producing one chick and the other with three, all fledging in March. From January to mid-May the principal markets in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz were monitored for parrots in the pet trade. No Blue-throated macaws were seen, but a total of 5,714 parrots of 19 different species were recorded, including three individuals of the Bolivian endemic and threatened species, the Red-fronted Macaw (Ara rubrogenys). Of all parrots recorded, 86% were of five species, the Yellow-chevroned Parakeet (Brotogeris chiriri)-26%, Blue-fronted Amazon (Amazona aestiva)-22%, Green-cheeked Parakeet (Pyrrhura molinae)-17%, Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus)-11% and Blue-winged Parrotlet (Forpus xanthopterygius)-10%. With regard to Blue-throated Macaw protection, these statistics indicate that vigilance still has great importance. The other important advance has been the signing of a formal agreement between the LPF, Armonia, the Zoo Fauna Sudamericana (ZFS-zoological park of the Municipality of Santa Cruz), the Noel KempffMercado Natural History Museum (also located in Santa Cruz and affiliated to the Autonomous University Gabriel Rene Moreno). The agreement formalises the initiation of a managed cooperative breeding programme in Bolivia, as part of the international conservation effort...


Abstract By using an experimental model of dexamethasone-induced osteoporosis we investigated the effects of different therapeutic schemes combining sodium alendronate (SA) and simvastatin on bone mineral and protein composition, microstructural and mechanical remodeling. Wistar rats were randomized into eight groups: G1: non-osteoporotic; G2: osteoporotic; G3, G4, and G5: osteoporotic+SA (0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mg/kg, respectively); G6, G7, and G8: osteoporotic+SA (0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mg/kg, respectively)+simvastatin (0.4, 0.6, and 1 mg/kg, respectively). Osteoporosis was induced by dexamethasone (7 mg/kg, i.m.) once a week for 5 weeks. All treatments were administered for 8 weeks. Dexamethasone increased serum levels of alkaline phosphatase, calcium, phosphorus, and urea, especially in non-treated animals, which showed severe osteoporosis. Dexamethasone also induced bone microstructural fragility and reduced mechanical resistance, which were associated with a marked depletion in mineral mass, collagenous and non-collagenous protein levels in cortical and cancellous bone. Although SA has attenuated osteoporosis severity, the effectiveness of drug therapy was enhanced combining alendronate and simvastatin. The restoration in serum parameters, organic and inorganic bone mass, and mechanical behavior showed a dose-dependent effect that was potentially related to the complementary mechanisms by which each drug acts to induce bone anabolism, accelerating tissue repair.


What has become known as the Bologna Process has evolved over a series of ministerial conferences with the last meeting in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009. There has been a move towards recognition of the benefits to be gained from greater transparency, a general recognition of degrees across Europe, cooperation with regard to quality assurance, an emphasis on more flexible learning paths and lifelong learning, and the promotion of mobility. This paper highlights the ambitious objectives underpinning the Bologna Declaration and Process and the developments since the 1999 Declaration and the current position in particular with regard to medicine. The paper describes common myths and misunderstandings about the Process relating to the two cycle model, the progress of students after the first cycle and the concept of harmonisation rather than uniformity. It is argued that the Bologna Process can serve as a catalyst for the necessary change in medical education. With careful management and imaginative implementation and the necessary vision, creativity and enthusiasm, any problems can be circumnavigated and rich rewards achieved. The Bologna Process is constantly evolving and its dynamic nature is one of its strengths. Medicine has much to contribute and should be part of this Process.


Chronic monthly transfusions are a lifesaving preventative therapy for many patients with sickle cell disease; however, the burden of this therapy for patients and families is high. In the United States, there is overlap in the population affected by sickle cell disease and those with the greatest burden of social needs. Hematology providers caring for patients with SCD have an opportunity to screen for and mitigate social determinants of health, especially in those receiving chronic transfusion therapy given the frequent interactions with the healthcare system and increased demand on already potentially limited resources. Given the complexity of the treatment and medication regimens, providers caring for patients receiving chronic transfusions should implement universal strategies to minimize the impact of low health literacy, as this therapy imposes a significant demand on the health literacy skills of a family. Despite the social and literacy burden of this intervention, it is reassuring that quality of life is preserved as patients with SCD on chronic transfusion therapy often report higher health related quality of life than their peers receiving other disease modifying therapies.


Abstract:  We aimed to assess the impact of oral calcium supplementation (OCS) on the prevalence of nephrolithiasis among a cohort of patients undergoing surgery for primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). There were 339 patients undergoing surgery for PHPT with detailed past medical history data that were analyzed. 73 patients (22%) had a history of nephrolithiasis prior to parathyroid surgery. Nephrolithiasis was more common among men than women (40% vs 15%, P < 0.001), despite the predominance of women (73% of patients) with hyperparathyroidism. 83 patients (25%) used OCS. OCS was associated with a lower prevalence of nephrolithiasis (9.6% vs 25.4% without OCS, P = 0.002). This protective effect included both men and women (rates of nephrolithiasis with and without supplements: men 19% vs 46%, P = 0.027; women 7% vs 17%, P = 0.04). The mechanism for the apparent protective effect of OCS on rates of nephrolithiasis is unclear, and further research is required to elucidate the variable penetrance of nephrolithiasis among PHPT patients.


Background The fundamental concept of community-based health insurance is to strengthen the healthcare financing system to access universal healthcare by reducing costly risk-coping strategies. The scheme's sustainability and the quality of services provided by it are highly dependent on the satisfaction of its beneficiaries. Despite beneficiaries' satisfaction being the key determinant for providing evidence for policy revision and decision-making, it has often been neglected. Therefore, the study investigated the community-based health insurance beneficiaries' satisfaction and associated factors in Legambo district, North-East Ethiopia. Methods The study was conducted in the Legambo district with a community-based cross-sectional study design from October to November 2019. The data were collected from 838 households that had been the beneficiaries of the scheme using multi-stage and systematic random sampling. Twelve trained data collectors were employed and gathered the data using a pre-tested, structured questionnaire. We ran descriptive, bivariate, and logistic regression analyses. A value of p less than 0.05 with a 95% CI was used in multivariate logistic regression to determine the association of variables with the beneficiaries' satisfaction. Results The overall satisfaction level of the beneficiaries of the scheme was 58.6% and was associated with the following factors: merchandize (AOR = 1.92, 95% CI = 1.02–3.63), living in rural areas (AOR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.02–2.27), an early office opening time (AOR = 3.81, 95% CI = 2.04–7.10), a short time interval to use benefit packages (AOR = 4.85, 95% CI = 2.08–11.31), an inexpensive membership premium (AOR =10.58, 95% CI = 3.56–31.44), availability of laboratory services (AOR =2.95, 95% CI = 1.71–5.09), presence of referral services (AOR =1.93, 95% CI = 1.33–2.80), having immediate care at health facilities (AOR = 1.73, 95% CI = 1.01–2.97) and non-compulsory enrolment (AOR = 6.31, 95% CI = 1.64–24.20). Conclusion The beneficiaries' satisfaction with the scheme was suboptimal and found to be determined by occupation, residence, laboratory and referral services, immediate care, office opening time, time interval to use benefit packages, premium amount, and situation of enrollment, most of which are service-related variables. Thus, to improve the satisfaction level, the stakeholders that should work hard seem to be the health insurance agency (the insurer) and the health facilities (the provider or supplier).


Introduction Exercise training at higher intensities seems to result in a better training effect. However, in some patients with COPD this intensity is limited due to decreased ventilatory pump capacity. Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) relieves the work of breathing, so higher intensities are reached and could result in a better exercise tolerance. Objective Analysis of the effects of Bi-pap during an exercise training program in COPD on lung function and maximal exercise capacity. Methods 8 patients were randomized in a NIV (n=5) or control group (n=3). Patients trained with or without NIV for a period of 6 weeks. Lungfunction and exercise tests were taken before and after 6 weeks. NIV was set on I/E pressure of 8/4 and 1 or 2 leakage valves were added for patients comfort. Results Ventilation at maximal tolerated load (VE max) changed significantly in the experimental group and did not reach significance in the control group compare to baseline (p=0.043). In the same test setting there was no significant drop in heart rate. Conclusions Noninvasive ventilation during exercise training may change ventilation at maximal tolerated load and heart rate after 6 weeks. This allows patients to train at a higher level and achieve better training results because of a better ventilatory adaption during exercise.


A technique for virtually atraumatic placement of small size chest catheters for suction drainage of pleural effusions and pneumothorax in the dog and cat is described. Thirty-nine dogs and two cats were treated for pyothorax (10 cases), hydrothorax (eight), chylothorax (three), haemothorax (three), haemothorax/ pneumothorax (three) and pneumothorax (14). In all 41 cases, thin or viscous fluid and/or air were efficiently drained. The mean period of drainage was four days (range, 0.5 to 18 days). The average amount of fluid removed from each patient in 24 hours was 530 ml in pyothorax cases (range, 140 to 1100 ml) and 1300 ml in the other cases (range, 20 to 5000 ml). In 40 cases there were no complications related to the procedure. One dog with severe pleural adhesions was euthanased because of lung perforation and pneumothorax secondary to misplacement of the catheter.


Context: A study of certain foods was carried out on their bioactive compounds, which help in the treatment and prevention of some diseases, resulting in a global trend, conditioned by scientific and technological development, which has attracted the attention of academic sectors and organisms. International organizations to research on the subject. Method: Within this work a broad bibliographic review of functional foods with its general analysis and development within the food industry is demonstrated. Development: A functional food is one that has been elaborated by adding biologically active components that fulfill a specific function and improve health by establishing the origin and applying technological tools to obtain new products and supply market demand. Conclusions: The varied possibilities for the development of functional foods, based on the combination of a common food consisting of a variety of ingredients with biological activity, on the elimination of unwanted components or on the modification of others, making this range of products is currently marketed with a rapid increase.


Fixed (nonadaptive) and forward adaptive differential pulse code modulation of regenerative composite sources is investigated. In the fixed code, an approximate formula is given for the optimal value of the prediction coefficient. This is then used as an initial guess to optimize the code (predictor and quantizer) through a numerical method. In the forward adaptive scheme, the state of the switch in the composite source is estimated using a MAP sequence estimation algorithm, and the code is then matched to the mode process corresponding to the estimated switch state. The performance of the two systems is evaluated with quantizers of 4, 8, and 16 levels. The results show that the forward adaptive scheme significantly outperforms optimized fixed DPCM in the sense of mean-squared error. Stochastic stability of the code is also established for the fixed DPCM scheme as well as for an adaptive scheme which receives the switch state as side information. >


Abstract Since the year 2000, remembering the Holocaust and fighting anti-Semitism have come to be accepted as cornerstones of European identity. The flip side of this development has been racialization of Muslims by singling them out as the main contemporary anti-Semites. After discussing the emergence of the concept "Muslim anti-Semitism," I scrutinize government-issued reports and anti-Semitism-prevention programs in Germany. I show how the recent wave of struggle against anti-Semitism depicts Muslims as outsiders who bring unwanted ideologies, evaluates their anti-Semitism as more dangerous than that of right-wing German nationals, and attributes to Muslims culturally transmitted psychopathologies that make Muslim nations prone to anti-Semitism. Experts locate the root of Turkish anti-Semitism in their "myth of tolerance toward Jews," and of Arab anti-Semitism in their sense of a "false victimhood" and "desire for power and pride." Educators focus on each nationality separately to distinguish these alleged group-specific myths and feelings. Efforts and money that go into producing nation-specific Muslim anti-Semitisms depict a new Germany that has fully liberated itself from any anti-democratic tendencies surviving from its Nazi past. It also obscures connections between anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim racism, both of which are active forces in mainstream German society.


7-F,0-balanced truncation may be used to obtain reduced-order plants or controllers. The plant (possibly unstable) is compensated using a particular robustly stabilizing controller. The two Riccati equations involved are then used to define a set of closed-loop input-output invariants called the 71, 0 -characteristic values. That part of the plant or controller corresponding to 'small' %7'/-characteristic values is discarded to give a reduced-order plant or controller. By exploiting an intimate connection with coprime factorization, a simple a priori test is derived for the ability of such a reduced-order controller to stabilize the full-order plant. Furthermore, the performance of the resulting closed-loop may also be bounded a priori i.e., in terms of the prespecified level of robustness and the discarded 7-/,-characteristic values.


The complete amino acid sequence of the alpha A-chain of major hemoglobin component from Cuckoo (Eudynamys scolopaceae) is presented. Separation of the polypeptide subunits was achieved by ion exchange chromatography in the presence of 8 M urea. The sequence was studied by automatic Edman degradation of the native chain and its tryptic fragments in a gas-phase sequencer. Comparison with other avian hemoglobins shows residues alpha 21, alpha 30, alpha 96, alpha 110, and alpha 114 as being specific to Cuckoo. The functional significance of these is discussed.


We present a system for accurately predicting stable orientations for diverse rigid objects. We propose to overcome the critical issue of modelling multimodality in the space of rotations by using a conditional generative model to accurately classify contact surfaces. Our system is capable of operating from noisy and partially-observed pointcloud observations captured by real world depth cameras. Our method substantially outperforms the current state-of-the-art systems on a simulated stacking task requiring highly accurate rotations, and demonstrates strong sim2real zero-shot transfer results across a variety of unseen objects on a real world reorientation task.


A systematic arrangement has been gotten for the transient issue of three-dimensional multilayer heat conduction in a circle with layers in the spiral course. The arrangement strategy can be connected to an empty circle or a strong circle made out of a few layers of different materials. By and large, the partition of factors connected to 3D round directions has interesting attributes because of the nearness of related Legendre works as the eigenfunctions. Additionally, an eigenvalue issues the azimuthal way likewise requires arrangement; once more, its properties are one of a kind inferable from periodicity the azimuthal way. In this way, broadening existing arrangements in 2D round directions to 3D circular directions isn't clear. In a round facilitate framework, one can explain a 3D transient multilayer heat conduction issue without the nearness of fanciful eigenvalues. A 2D tube shaped polar facilitate framework is the main other case in which such multidimensional issues can be tackled without the utilization of nonexistent eigenvalues. The nonappearance of nonexistent eigenvalues renders the arrangement philosophy fundamentally increasingly valuable for pragmatic applications. The strategy portrayed can be utilized for all the three kinds of limit conditions in the external and inward surfaces of the circle. The arrangement method is shown on an illustrative issue for which results are gotten.


Problem statement: The aim of this research was to study further some latest progress of
wavelet transform for time series forecasting, particularly about Neural Networks Multiscale
Autoregressive (NN-MAR). Approach: There were three main issues that be considered further in this
research. The first was some properties of scale and wavelet coefficients from Maximal Overlap
Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT) decomposition, particularly at seasonal time series data. The
second focused on the development of model building procedures of NN-MAR based on the properties
of scale and wavelet coefficients. Then, the third was empirical study about the implementation of the
proposed procedure and comparison study about the forecast accuracy of NN-MAR to other
forecasting models. Results: The results showed that MODWT at seasonal time series data also has
seasonal pattern for scale coefficient, whereas the wavelet coefficients are stationer. The result of
model building procedure development yielded a new proposed procedure of NN-MAR model for
seasonal time series forecasting. In general, this procedure accommodated input lags of scale and
wavelet coefficients and other additional seasonal lags. In addition, the result showed that the proposed
procedure works well for determining the best NN-MAR model for seasonal time series forecasting.
Conclusion: The comparison study of forecast accuracy showed that the NN-MAR model yields better
forecast than MAR and ARIMA models.


A core from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 43.5°N and ∼3 km water depth shows distinct evidence of the deglacial events known as Heinrich event 1 (probably the marine equivalent of Oldest Dryas cooling in Europe) and the Younger Dryas. The Heinrich event, dated at three levels to between 14.3 and 15.0 ka, is marked by a minimum in foraminifera per gram, by maxima in rates of sedimentation, ice rafted debris per gram, and relative abundance of N. pachyderma (s.), and by a δ18O minimum in planktonic foraminifera. The Younger Dryas event is marked by peak abundance of N. pachyderma (s.) and a planktonic δ18O maximum. Benthic foraminiferal δ13C reaches minimum values during both the Heinrich event and the Younger Dryas. Our data indicate pronounced changes in surface water properties were coupled with reduced production of North Atlantic Deep Water at each of these times.


This study focuses on the performance of employees in the Bone Regency Population and Civil Registration Service, with a specific emphasis on timeliness in completing work tasks. The aim is to analyze and evaluate employee performance in this dimension. The study contributes to the understanding of performance measurements in organizational settings and offers practical insights to enhance employee performance and meet public expectations in population and civil registration services. Using a descriptive research methodology with a qualitative approach, the study involved interviews, observations, and document analysis for data collection. The main findings reveal that employee performance in the timeliness dimension at the Bone Regency Population and Civil Registration Service is suboptimal. Factors contributing to this include the complexity of document processing, inadequate technological support, and poor time management. This study fills a gap in the literature by addressing specific challenges related to timeliness in employee performance within population and civil registration services. It provides recommendations for improvement, such as offering training on efficient document management, utilizing relevant technology, providing adequate support facilities, and enhancing coordination and communication. Implementing these corrective measures can help enhance employee performance in the service and improve overall efficiency.
Keywords: employee performance, public service, effectiveness


This paper presents a constraint programming (CP) approach to optimal steelmaking process scheduling with constraints of processing time, limited waiting time between adjacent stages, serial batching, sequence independent setup time, release/due time, and with the objective of minimizing maximal total waiting time between adjacent charges in the same casts. The model and search strategies are proposed. Numerical experiments with the steel making process show that CP approach, under appropriate formulation and search strategies, can not only describe the problem exactly, but also can solve the problem more effectively and efficiently compared with classical exact algorithms and heuristic rules.


The research aims to identify a knowledge approach for the preindustrial basic
building that is preliminary to the improvement of energy efficiency.
Preindustrial basic building refers to existing building resulting from a traditional
building process, i.e. preindustrial, constituting the bearing structure of historic
centres.
The analysis aims to identify the alteration limits of historic and artistic
characteristics pertaining to these buildings, in order to improve energy efficiency,
from the point of view of mediation between performance issues, according to
national and regional laws, and conservation issues, pursued with the restoration of
an historical heritage, be it preserved or not.
In consideration of the unavoidable preservation of cultural and architectural
characteristics, the difficulty of operating on preindustrial building implies the
intentional distinction between energy efficiency "improvement" and the "compliance"
with the minimum requirements set forth by regulations, from the viewpoint of critical
assessment of compatible and actually effective technological solutions, among the
ones currently available.
In this case, the experimentation of the morphological and typological evaluation
of Ferrara building represents the application starting point to develop an evaluation
process targeting research objectives.
The final outcome is a number of additional and applicative proposals for the
current Emilia Romagna regulation on energy efficiency of building. These proposals
aim to guide the professional towards the development of improvement projects, in
consideration of the distinctive and constituent characteristics of preindustrial basic
building.
The study represents the first knowledge moment within a wider research
process, which is strictly related to the contents and the developments of Marco
Zuppiroli Ph.D. dissertation ("Valutazione del fabbisogno di energia termica utile in
sistemi aggregati di edilizia pre-industriale di base nel centro urbano di Ferrara").
This Ph.D. dissertation is legitimately the second part of the research. Starting from
the methodological assumptions and the final objectives developed during this study,
the dissertation provides an in-depth quantitative analysis of the thermal energy
demand and the improvement of energy efficiency in preindustrial basic building,
through the analytical investigation of the case studies considered and which were
analyzed at an urban fabric scale.


Fractal analysis has already found widespread application in the field of neuroscience and is being used in many other areas. In this study we applied fractal analysis on two dimensional images of the α retinal ganglion cells from various species, in order to investigate the morphology of these cells and to test whether there are differences in alpha cell morphology between the species. The binary and skeletonised fractal dimension (Dbin and Dskel) were calculated for alpha retinal ganglion cells of wild and domestic animals. The aim was to determine whether the complexity of the branching pattern, which reflects the cell's function is reflected in the animal's ecology. The highest mean Dbin was obtained for the guanaco and Niglau antilope, while the smallest mean value was found for the ferret. On the other hand, the highest and smallest mean Dskel was found for the chinchilla and ferret, respectively. For the domestic animals the highest mean Dbin was obtained for the Guinea pig, dog and ox, while the smallest mean was found in the pig. As for the mean Dskel, the highest and smallest value was found for the dog and pig, respectively. The results showed that the fractal dimension represents a parameter which is of relevance for inter-species comparisons of retinal ganglion cell populations.


Abstract Decisions relating to designing and implementing economic evaluations alongside clinical trials are dependent on a number of issues. Initial consideration should focus on whether an economic evaluation is appropriate, whether a randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a suitable vehicle, and whether the design of the specific RCT is appropriate for integration of economic evaluation. If an economic evaluation is appropriate, decisions are required on how economic data are to be collected and analyzed. This paper discusses these and other issues and, where appropriate, provides recommendations for future studies.


Soil fertility decline is the major single factor explaining the decrease in per capita food production in sub-Saharan Africa. Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) is an approach to improving or restoring soil productivity, based on combinations of organic and mineral fertilisers, improved germplasm and N2-fixation, but its adoption by farmers has been limited. Smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa are highly diverse, heterogeneous and dynamic, and operate in complex socio-ecological environments. Much of the heterogeneity within the farming systems is caused by spatial soil variability. This affects the performance of ISFM technologies, which must be then targeted strategically within heterogeneous farming systems to ensure their propensity to enhance the efficiency of resource (e.g. land, labour, nutrients) use at farm scale. An analytical framework in which systems analysis is aided by survey, experiments and simulation modelling was used to analyse farming futures in the highlands of East Africa. Case study farms from six moderate to high potential agricultural areas in central and western Kenya and eastern Uganda were characterised to identify the diversity of livelihood strategies and understand the main drivers of farm heterogeneity. Constraints to the performance of ISFM technologies and opportunities for efficient targeting of resources within heterogeneous smallholder farms were analysed considering short and long-term horizons, scaling up from field to farm scale, and contextualising livelihood opportunities at regional scale. Across sites, population densities varied from 250 to 1000 inhabitants km, which translated in 11 to 4 months year of food self-sufficiency. Based on resource endowment, dependence on off-farm income and production objectives, households were grouped into five Farm Types: 1. Subsidised by off-farm employment; 2. Marketoriented, cash-crops farms; 3. Expanding, medium resource endowment farms; 4. Subsisting, partly on non-farm activities; and 5. Dependent, wage labourers. Despite their differences in access to resources for soil management, these Farm Types differed more in the degree of soil heterogeneity than in the average fertility status at farm scale. Across sites, soil heterogeneity was smaller on farms owning more cattle. The productivity of maize, the main crop in most of the region, was highly variable within individual farms, strongly influenced by variation in both current crop management (e.g. planting dates, fertilizer rates) and soil fertility (influenced by past soil and crop management). In a classification and regression tree analysis (CART), resource use intensity, planting density, and time of planting were the principal variables determining yield, but at low resource intensity, total soil N and soil Olsen P became important yield-determining factors. Soil heterogeneity also affected crop responses to fertilisers from a maximum of 4.4-fold to –0.5-fold relative to the control in soils varying in organic C and P availability. Across sites in western Kenya, P was the most limiting nutrient for crop production, and P availabilities > 10 mg kg were only measured in soils with > 10 g kg organic C. Such co-variation is induced by day-to-day management decisions farmers make when facing trade-offs in the allocation of their limited resources. A study using inverse modelling allowed analysing tradeoffs of this nature, coupling the dynamic crop/soil simulation model DYNBAL with a Metropolis-type of search algorithm (MOSCEM) and linking crop husbandry practices to labour availability. In a heterogeneous farm, the allocation of fertiliser and labour favoured the fields around the homestead, where the efficiency of nutrient capture was the largest. Productivity could be increased up to a certain threshold beyond which N losses by leaching and soil erosion losses increased abruptly, when fertilisers were applied to the most degraded outfields of the farm. These fields must be rehabilitated through ISFM technologies ensuring organic matter additions, before crops growing on them can respond to nutrient applications. However, the quality of manure common in smallholder farms (e.g., 23 – 35% C, 0.5 – 1.2% N, 0.1 – 0.3% P) and their availability are restrictive. This prevents a quick (hysteretic) soil restoration. Competing uses for crop residues on the farm limit the capacity of fertilisers to restore soil fertility. In simulations using the crop/soil model for long-term dynamics FIELD, which was developed, calibrated and tested against 4 independent datasets, soils receiving combined manure and fertiliser applications over 12 years stored between 1.1 to 1.5 t C ha year when 70% of the crop residue was retained in the field, and between 0.4 to 0.7 t C ha year when only 10% of residues were retained. In mixed crop-livestock systems, crop residues are used to feed livestock, which in turn provide manure to fertiliser crops. When farmers in western Kenya designed ideal farms through participatory prototyping, they emphasised on the importance of such interactions, but tended to overestimate the necessary nutrient flows. A study using the farm-scale model FARMSIM, which integrates FIELD with livestock and manure-cycling models dynamically, showed that although tightlymanaged crop-livestock interactions allowed a more efficient use of nutrients brought in the system as fertilisers, the trajectory of change from the current to the ideal farming system is hardly feasible for a majority of farmers. Sustainable intensification should be an aim in the design of ISFM options, partly by intensification of nutrient inputs (removing constraints) and partly by implementing qualitative changes in the configuration of the farming systems (removing inefficiencies). However, the context in which farming systems operate cannot be overlooked. Based on their agroecological potential and market opportunities, and conditioned by population pressure, different sites or regions have a certain propensity to stimulate either: hanging-in (subsistence), stepping-up (market orientation) or stepping-out (off/non-farm income) livelihood strategies.


This article deals with the modern mechanisms of the political parties financing in Russia and Spain. Nowadays the parties may be  effective if they are effective in fundraising. That's why we may say  that all and any democratic country shall create a balanced model of  parties financing. Such model shall minimize the influence of private  money and at the same time of public funds. For this purpose, it is necessary to take into consideration the peculiarities of the  political system, order of parties funding and the practice. It is also useful to learn the experience of parties funding of foreign  countries. The subject of this study is the legal regulation of sources  of political parties financing if Russia and Spain. The special attention  is paid to public funds and principles of legal regulation of  it. Such principals are rule of law, transparency of parties funding as  well as reasonableness and compliance with voters' support. The  authors analyze recent amendments of law on political parties in the  field of state subsidies. A great attention is paid to private sources of  parties financing. The study reveals the tendency of tightening of  legal regulation of political parties funding especially concerning the amount of donations, donors and credits. The legal comparative  study and analyze of financial reports helps to look at the problem of parties funding from other side.


Nonhysteretic infiltration in nonswelling soil is modelled by the Burgers equation under appropriate physical conditions. For this nonlinear partial differential equation a modal scheme for estimating parameters such as soil water diffusivity and conductivity are introduced, and numerical experiments are performed.


The structure of the organ of Bellonci indicates that it is a sensory organ able to receive a variety of external stimuli. The suspension of the organ was investigated in the marine amphipod Gammarus setosus by light, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy. The organ is suspended ventrally by a cord whose specialized cuticular attachment is in the roof of a canal under the interantennal angle of the head. The conical end of the cord consists of five epithelial attachment cells sheathed by processes of 21 cells arranged in five tiers inside a basal lamina. The attachment cells end within a knob in the centre of a diaphragm. The cuticular attachment is confined to the knob and consists of endocuticular rods within pits on the surfaces of the attachment cells. Dorsally, the long processes of the attachment cells form a net over the surface of the organ and reunite in the dorsal suspensor, which anchors the organ in the epidermis at the crown of the head. The attachment cells are characterized by extensive hemidesmosomes and dense core granules at both attachment sites and by microtubules that extend through their entire length of up to 1 mm in the adult. The large size, cephalic position, elaborate structure, and suspension of the organ suggest that it is of considerable importance in the sensory capability of aquatic Malacostraca.


The medical profession in general, and the psychiatric profession in particular, have moved away from the liberal use of descriptive, usually pejorative, terms to describe people who are difficult, dangerous, or different. It is over 40 years since psychiatry abandoned the concept of hysterical personality disorder, ever since Paul Chodoff showed that it was simply a caricature of male views of femininity. We no longer use 'psychopath' simply to mean a nasty piece of work, and we leave megalomaniac to the script writers for James Bond.

Indeed, psychiatrists are increasingly cautious about entering into the minefield of understanding the minds of prominent people, let alone predicting their behaviour. During the Waco siege the FBI commandeered a group of psychiatrists and locked them in a hotel room until they had predicted the likely behaviour of David Koresh, the cult leader. The one thing on which they were agreed was that Koresh would not commit suicide, which is what he did. It is rumoured that the same psychiatrists later predicted that Saddam Hussein would prefer suicide to capture, which he did not. It is territory that few mental health professionals care to tread.

I have myself dabbled in these dark arts on occasions—in Roger Chickering's recent biography of General Erich Ludendorff, the man who steered the German Army to defeat in the First World War, and whose oft iterated and fanatical views on why the Jews and Freemasons, and not himself, had led to this outcome, were such that even Hitler thought he was cranky—I am cited as the source for the observation that the General and his even more bizarre psychiatrist wife were 'not mad, but the kind of person you wouldn't want to sit near at a dinner party'. But Ludendorff is safely dead.

However, neither the general public nor politicians show any such compunction. Our current media psychiatrist, Raj Persaud, took Jack Straw to task for calling suicide bombers 'crazy' and Bin Laden 'psychotic'. Both observations were factually untrue, impeded rather than assisted understanding, and stigmatized those who are genuinely psychotic, but I suspect that neither the now ex-Foreign Secretary nor the public paid Raj much attention.

And now another ex-Foreign Secretary swims in the same dangerous waters. However, this is no politician using psychiatric terminology because he knows no better. As most people will know, David Owen qualified as a doctor, and came perilously close to a career in psychiatry. Indeed, if he had taken the SHO post he was offered at the Maudsley he might have ended up where I am now.

Putting aside that tantalizing 'what if'—or 'counter factual', as historians call it—in recent years Lord Owen has returned to his roots, and has become increasingly fascinated with the question of how illness influences history via the health of politicians. That raises a host of 'what ifs' well beyond the early career of David Owen. What if Woodrow Wilson had not had the stroke when he did—would America have ratified the Treaty of Versailles and hence not started twenty years of isolationism, until Pearl Harbour reminded them they were a superpower after all? Would Stalin have managed to hoodwink Roosevelt at Yalta had the latter not been on his death bed? Or my favourite—what if Sir Morrell McKenzie, the best ENT surgeon in Europe, had not diagnosed influenza when called on to explain the hoarseness of the still youthful Crown Prince Friedrich, but instead the early stages of the throat cancer that would kill the heir to the German throne almost as soon as he had come to power? In that case we would have been spared his son, Kaiser Wilhelm II, with his dangerous combination of withered arm, blind ambition, reckless misjudgements, and jealousy of the British Empire. There might have been no naval arms race and no First World War, at least not involving us.

But physical health is always simpler than mental health, and now Lord Owen has gone beyond his previous studies of the physical or neurological health of the good and great, to consider their psychological make up. In particular he draws on the Greek concepts of hubris and nemesis as a way of understanding what many of us struggle to understand: the minds of Bush and Blair.

Lord Owen lands some heavy blows, finding them guilty of numerous sins of pride, over-confidence and messianic zeal, a case he makes at greater length and with numerous insights from his own career and interactions in the book of which this paper is a part. But it is inevitable that in seeking to make his case, he must over-emphasize the personal at the expense of the political. Just how much do the failures in Iraq owe to Bush's pride, and how much to the complex political agendas of Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, and their neo-conservative Cold War gurus such as Albert Wolstetter?

It is often said that all political careers begin brightly, and end in failure. But are all politicians doomed to make the journey from success, via hubris, to nemesis? Hubris is excessive pride that leads in Greek tragedy to the downfall of the hero, when he meets his nemesis. But the hubristic hero must first have carried out great deeds, which makes the subsequent nemesis all the more tragic. When Ajax accuses Achilles of hubris in book nine of the Iliad, there is no doubting Achilles' previous feats and valour. It is always a mistake to underestimate George Bush, but not even his closest admirers could call him a war hero.

But which David Owen has the most telling insights: is it Owen the doctor, or Owen the politician? It must be the latter. Understanding the motivations and mind set of our leaders will be the historian's task, not the psychiatrist's. Personal issues may play a larger role in the grand scheme of events than we care to admit—who knows how historians will unravel the tangled web of rivalry between Number 10 and Number 11 and how that influenced decision making? But the historian who comes to weigh up Blair's Wars will need to take into account a far wider range of factors, political, social, economic, cultural and much else besides. David Owen's own observations of Blair at his zenith will be part of this reckoning, and his analysis of events demands and receives respect. But will this future historian also draw on the findings of cognitive neuroscience, as David Owen suggests, to unlock the secrets of Blair's mind? I doubt it. Owen the doctor gives us some insight into the characters and motivations of the powerful, but it is Owen the politician who delivers the most compelling verdicts.


The article is the result of the first stage of the study devoted to the analysis of the work of accreditation and simulation centers during the period of passing the primary specialized accreditation. The technical issues of the functioning of such centers, as well as the need to develop new methods of interaction between the accredited and the personnel of the simulation centers, were considered.


BACKGROUND
A patient`s individual chance of being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease can be determined by risk scores.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the risk score profiles of patients presenting with a first acute coronary event according to pre-admission risk factors and to evaluate its association with long-term mortality.

METHODS
The research was based on a retrospective study of a cohort from the 2010 and 2013 Acute Coronary Syndrome Israeli Surveys (ACSIS). Inclusion criteria included first event and no history of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease risk equivalent. The Framingham Risk Score, the European Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE), and the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association/ (ACC/AHA) risk calculator were computed for each patient. The risk profile of each patients was determined by the three scores. The prognostic value of each score for 5 year survival was evaluated.

RESULTS
The study population comprised 1338 patients enrolled in the prospective ACSIS survey. The ACC/AHA score was the most accurate in identifying patients as high risk based on pre-admission risk factors (73% of the subjects). The Framingham algorithm identified 53%, whereas SCORE recognized only 4%. After multivariate adjustment for clinical factors at presentation, we found that no scores were independently associated with 5 year mortality following the first acute coronary event.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients with first acute coronary event had a higher pre-admission risk scores according to the ACC/AHA risk algorithm. No risk scores were independently associated with 5 year survival after an event.


Safeguarding is about the protection of the most vulnerable people in our society. This article presents a case history of the author's experience of a patient with a colostomy and high-output abdominal fistula, who was involved in a safeguarding alert. It explores the roles and responsibilities of nurses, regardless of specialty, to increase their awareness, understanding and knowledge of safeguarding, and the processes in place to protect the most vulnerable people they care for.


This article proposes to interpret Plato's discussion on knowledge in the first part of the Theaetetus in the light of the hypothetical procedure used in the previous dialogues. The author focus on the connection between the mobilism and the definition of knowledge as sensation and tries to show that the method Plato is following is similar to the one used in the Meno in order to solve the issue of the teachability of virtue. Theaetetus and Meno are closely related not only by their method. Both are in relation with the early, Socratic, dialogues, and at the same time are crucial for interpreting those that follow them.


A Levy model combines a Brownian motion with drift and a purejump homogeneous process such as a compound Poisson process. The estimation of the Levy density, the infinite-dimensional parameter controlling the jump dynamics of the process, is studied under a discrete-sampling scheme. In that case, the jumps are latent variables whose statistical properties can in principle be assessed when the frequency of observations increase to infinity. We propose nonparametric estimators for the Levy density following Grenander's method of sieves. The associated problem of selecting a suitable approximating sieve is subsequently investigated using regular piece-wise polynomials as sieves and assuming standard smoothness conditions on the Levy density. By sampling the process at a high enough frequency relative to the time horizon T , we show that it is feasible to choose the dimension of the sieve so that the rate of convergence of the risk of estimation off the origin is the best possible from a minimax point of view, and even if the estimation were based on the whole sample path of the process. The sampling frequency necessary to attain the optimal minimax rate is explicitly identified. The proposed method is illustrated by simulation experiments in the case of variance Gamma processes.


The identification of the second-order dependence structure of streamflow has been one of the oldest challenges in hydrological sciences, dating back to the pioneering work of H.E Hurst on the Nile River. Since then, several large-scale studies have investigated the temporal structure of streamflow spanning from the hourly to the climatic scale, covering multiple orders of magni-tude. In this study, we expanded this range to almost eight orders of magnitude by analysing small-scale streamflow time series (in the order of minutes) from ground stations and large-scale streamflow time series (in the order of hundreds of years) acquired from paleocli-matic reconstructions. We aimed to determine the fractal behaviour and the long-range de-pendence behaviour of the streamflow. Additionally, we assessed the behaviour of the first four marginal moments of each time series to test whether they follow similar behaviours as sug-gested in other studies in the literature. The results provide evidence in identifying a common stochastic structure for the streamflow process, based on the Pareto–Burr–Feller marginal dis-tribution and a generalized Hurst–Kolmogorov (HK) dependence structure.


Background Biologics brings the target of RA treatment from just care of pain to remission. In Japan, treatment with Bio was stared at 2003 in clinical practice. Mid-long term results of the treatment are still unclear. Especially, inhibitory effects on destruction of weight-bearing large joints such as knee, which should cause much loss of ADL and QOL of patients, are unknown at all. Objectives The purpose of this study is to estimate the effectiveness of biologics on prevention of destruction of knee joints for five years retrospectively. Methods We studied retrospectively the 156 RA patients (312 knee joints) who were started the treatment with biologics (infliximab 80 cases, etanercept 76 cases) until May 2008. We collected the data including disease activity (DAS28-CRP), presence or absence of arthritis in knee joint by physical examination, Larsen grade of knee joints at initiation and latest observation, and the date of total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Survival rate of knee joint was determined using Kaplan-Meier Method. Results Baseline characteristics were shown in Table 1. We detected arthritis in 141 knee joints, no arthritis in 130 knee joints and 41 TKA at baseline. The patients with arthritic knee joint had significant higher disease activity, compared to the patients with non-arthritic knee joints (DAS28-CRP; 5.42 vs 4.96, p=0.031). 49% of arthritic knees were estimated as Larsen III-IV while 99% of non-arthritic knees were Larsen 0-II. The survival rate of arthritic knees at 5 years was 60% while that of non-arthritic knees was 90% (Fig.1). In these years until 2008, 40% of the knee joints had been destructed as (Larsen III-IV) at initiation of Bio. 36% of arthritic Larsen 0-II-graded knee joints at baseline still had arthritis in the knee at latest observation or had been performed TKA. Finally, progression of joint destruction was detected in 58% of these knees. However, 60% of arthritis in Larsen 0-II graded knee joint at baseline was suppressed. The knee joints, of which arthritis was suppressed, had less progression of joint destruction. In the other hand, only 9% of non-arthritic Larsen 0-II-graded knee joints at baseline had arthritis at latest observation or had been performed TKA (just 1 case). It is significant low rate. However, progression of joint destruction was detected in 67% of arthritic knee joints, which had no arthritis at baseline (Fig.2). Conclusions Bio could have significant effectiveness for suppression of arthritis and joint destruction in the knee joints. If arthritis in the knee joint was continued even after treatment with Bio, joint destruction could progress for 5 years (mean) observation. The more aggressive and earlier intervention is critical to prevent the destruction of knee joints with arthritis. Disclosure of Interest T. Kojima: None Declared, K. Funahashi: None Declared, N. Takahashi: None Declared, D. Kato: None Declared, H. Matsubara: None Declared, Y. Hattori: None Declared, N. Ishiguro Speakers Bureau: Abbott Japan, Chugai Pharmaceutical, Daiichi Sankyo Pharmaceutical, Eisai, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, Pfizer Japan, Takeda Pharmaceutical


The melt apparent shear viscosity (ηa) of polypropylene (PP) composites filled with aluminum hydroxide [Al(OH)3] and magnesium hydroxide [Mg(OH)2] was measured by means of a capillary rheometer under experimental conditions of temperature ranging from 180 to 200°C and apparent shear rate varying from 10 to 2 × 103 s−1, to identify the effects of the filler particle content and size on the melt viscosity. The results showed that the melt shear flow of the composites obeyed the power law and presented pseudoplastic behavior. The dependence of ηa on temperature was consistent with the Arrhenius equation. The sensitivity of ηa for the composite melts to temperature was greater than that of the unfilled PP, and weakened with increasing apparent shear rate. The ηa increased linearly with an increase of the weigh fraction of the flame retardant, especially in the low apparent shear rate region. The ηa of the composites decreased slightly with an increase of particle size of flame retardant. Moreover, the variation for the ηa with particle size of flame retardant was much less than with apparent shear rate under these test conditions. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011


Phyllanthus niruri L. herbs was extracted using ethanol 96%, ethylacetate and n-hexane. The rendements were respectively 49.25% (for ethanol extract), 4.18% (ethylacetate extract) and 0.78% (n-hexane extract). Identification of the ethanol extract using phytochemical assays resulted in alkaloid, flavonoid, saponin, and tannin compounds. Purification of the ethanol extract using thin layer chromatography (TLC) with n-hexane-ethylacetate (6:4) followed by the inhibitory activity test using bioautography TLC showed that the spot of Rf 0,46 inhibited Staphylococcus aureus and that of Rf 0,66 inhibited Candida albicans. Analysis with infra red spectrophotometer showed that the ethanol extract has hydroxyl (-OH) and carbonyl (C=O) functional groups.


We provide an update on JSegMan, an interactive system to extend the ACT-R cognitive architecture to interact with dynamic interfaces based on the screen contents and generating input for the operating system directly. Current ACT-R models typically interact with the world through ACT-R's device interface  an abstract representation of the world that is based on a simulated Lisp environment provided with ACT-R, or by instrumenting interfaces. In JSegMan, computer vision pattern matching algorithms and visual patterns extend the ACT-R cognitive architecture. With JSegMan, models directly move the cursor on the screen, click on application GUI objects on PCs, and type through the use of existing Java libraries. Implementing users' visual search strategies and input abilities for different visual objects enables the detailed modeling of interactive tasks on any interface. The visual pattern matching algorithms serve two goals: to simulate user behavior in interactive tasks and to create representations of visual stimuli. We tested our visual pattern matching approach by using it with an existing model for a long spreadsheet task. We found that the revised model more accurately predicted a 20-min task by entirely performing the task on an uninstrumented and unmodified interface.


Abstract Background In the reconstruction of facial burn scars, large, thin, color-matching flaps are desirable due to aesthetic and functional demands. There have been many reports using prefabricated flaps to resurface facial skin lesions. However, an algorithm to select the most suitable treatment option for the individual patient is lacking. Methods An algorithm for facial resurfacing based on three types of prefabricated flaps from the cervical, periclavicular, and lateral thoracic area was setup, and 15 were patients treated accordingly. Results All 15 prefabricated flaps survived. Minor necrosis at the distal flap edge developed in three cases. After a follow-up of at least 6 months, all patients showed satisfactory aesthetic and functional outcomes. Conclusion By individual selection of the most suitable option among these three types of prefabricated flaps, satisfactory resurfacing can be achieved for most facial burn scars.


Family farms dominate in agriculture determining global food security and are essential for ecological security. These farms have not been precisely defined probably due to their enormous differentiation among and within regions and countries of the world. Along with the development of capitalism, family farms are subject to industrial transformation which is highly advanced in developed countries, while in less developed countries it has just started. New challenges and development conditions related mainly to environmental limitations and globalization, as well as contestation of industrial transformation outcomes give rise to a question about the universality of such transformation and inevitability of transformations in agriculture of less developed countries to follow the path demarcated by developed countries. In addition to the issues of understanding and importance of family farms, the article presents the issue of perspectives of agricultural transformation in general and in Poland, including the position on the comments by S. Figiel.


In order to integration in ASEAN region, Cambodia should be ready for all sectors and must be solving some critical issues currently encountering well and on time for forwarding to develop sustainability and inclusive development. All dilemmas such as dollarization, illegal immigration and stability of political system. In addition, I would only mention the dollarization market in Cambodia. Somewhat paradoxically, growing dollarization in Cambodia has occurred against the backdrop of greater macroeconomic and political stability. The usual motive, currency substitution, does not appear to have been a factor. As the volume of dollars increased over the years of UNTAC for first Cambodia's election, so has the volume of riel. A strong inward flow of dollars related to garments sector exports, tourism receipts, foreign direct investment, and aid, has benefitted the dollar based urban economy. The riel based rural economy has, however, lagged behind. Given international experience in de-dollarization, a carefully managed market based strategy, supported by a continued stable macroeconomic environment is essential for Cambodia's dedollarization (Masato 2011). Cambodia has been losing around $20 million to $100 million annually in using this international currency. Cambodia's loss of seigniorage, the value a country gains in producing its own currency equates to about 2 percent of total GDP. In this term paper will assert that, with ample deficit current account of our country in mechanism of using domestic currency in market, and allocate the resource by transparency and accountability in order to promote the financial inclusive development in Cambodia.


This study reports a CMOS-MEMS condenser microphone implemented using the standard thin films stacking of 0.35µm UMC CMOS 3.3/5.0V logic process, and followed by post-CMOS micromachining steps without introducing any special materials. The corrugated diaphragm for microphone is designed and implemented using the metal layer to reduce the influence of thin film residual stresses. Moreover, silicon substrate is employed to increase the stiffness of back-plate. Measurements show the sensitivity of microphone is −42±3dBV/Pa at 1kHz under 6V pumping voltage, the frequency response is 100Hz–10kHz, and the S/N ratio >55dB. Table1 summarizes detail specifications.


The Abstract: The article deals with current issues of socializa tion of the financial and commercial sectors of the society, received strong development in the last decade. The common fea- tures of social entrepreneurship and social finance , and the reasons causing the rise in popularity of these areas were determined. The author analyzed th e conceptions of social entrepreneurship, defined criteria for identifying social enterprises among o ther forms of organizations.


This paper describes the connections between computational thinking and digital craft, and proposes several ways that architectural education can cultivate better digital craft, specifically: motivating the use of computational strategies, encouraging a conceptual understanding of computing as a medium, teaching computer programming, and discussing digital ethics. For the most part, these subjects are not widely taught in architecture schools. However, moving forward, if the profession values good design, it must also value good digital craft, and ought to instil a way of working in the next generation of architects that makes the most of both the computer and the designer. Computational thinking provides a common foundation for defining and instilling this critical mindset and, therefore, deserves greater consideration within architectural pedagogy.


Over the past two centuries, Orthodox Judaism's attitude toward the Reform movement has been dominated by animosity and polemical efforts at delegitimization and demonization. In particular because of the Reform sanction of patrilineal descent as a basis for Jewish identity, the early 1980s was a period of acute tensions. Various Orthodox parties gave the impression that they were on the verge of completely cutting themselves off from their Reform contemporaries. This article demonstrates that, in the subsequent decades, hostilities have diminished and a new style of Orthodox interaction with Reform has begun to emerge. This dynamic, though by no means leading to harmony between the religious streams, was far removed from prior predictions of "separation-cum-divorce" of these two movements. The article analyzes a range of examples that manifest this transition and offer insight that helps to account for the ensuing changes.


The gastrointestinal tract uses a system of tolerance and
controlled inflammation to limit the response to dietary or
bacteria-derived antigens in the gut. The triggering factor
for this and cascade whether it represents an auto-antigen
or an heteroantigen is still to be elucidated. It has been
also demonstrated that a serologic anti-microbial response
in CD patients exists. This response includes antibodies
against saccharomyces cerevisiae (ASCA), E.coli outer
membrane porin C (Omp-C), flagelin (cBir1) and pseudomonas
aeroginosa (l2). Host response to microbial pathogens
includes self-defense mechanisms such as defensins,
pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and TLRs (Toll Like
Receptors).
Natural history of IBD has been described mainly through
studies in American and north European IBD cohorts. In
general, 50-60% of IBD patients are in remission during
any given year. The likelihood of steroid dependency remains
high in IBD. The prediction of disease location seems
quite safe as the location of the disease remains stable over
time. By contrast the disease behaviour changes over time
with increasing risk for structuring/penetrating disease with
longer disease duration. The question whether currently
available therapies are able to alter natural history of IBD
still remains unanswered. The risk of colorectal cancer in
UC patients begins to increase 8 years from diagnosis and
high risk groups are patients with extensive colitis, young
age at UC onset, familial cancer history and co-existing primary sclerosing cholangitis. In CD the risk of cancer
seems to be comparatively smaller. Life expectancy of CD
patients is slightly lower compared to healthy subjects while
life expectancy in UC patients is generally normal.


Determining whether certain categories of words have discrete neural representations (processing dedicated to different brain regions) is the pursuit of this thesis. Twelve participants were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to discriminate between the neural correlates of words representing either animals or objects during episodic encoding. Consistent with semantic retrieval studies, neural activity associated specifically with objects was encoded predominantly in the posterior portion of the left hemisphere: the superior frontal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, posterior cingualte cortex, occipitotemporal cortex, precuneus, and occipital cortex. Activity associated specifically with animals, however, was encoded predominantly in anterior portion of the right hemisphere: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), medial prefrontal cortex, and the posterior midline. Although the regions for animal activity are inconsistent with previous studies, data show that each category exhibits its own processing regions, suggesting that category specificity occurs not only during semantic retrieval, but also during episodic encoding of words.


This study aimed to determine the prevalence of the wish to die in elderly people and investigate the factors associated with it, in particular, whether factors other than depression contribute to the wish to die. Data were obtained from an Australian epidemiological survey of people aged 70 or more. Survey participants were asked whether, in the last two weeks, they had felt that they wanted to die and, if so, if they had had such thoughts repeatedly. Three classes of possible risk factors were investigated: sociodemographic factors (age, sex, marital status), mental health (depression, cognitive impairment), and physical health (poor self-rated health, disability, pain, sensory impairment, and living in a nursing home or hostel). Only 21 of 923 elderly persons reported repeatedly having had a wish to die during the previous two weeks. Although the wish to die was associated with depression, there were several other factors also associated with it independently of depression: not being married, poor self-rated health, disability, pain, hearing impairment, visual impairment, living in a nursing home or hostel. A small minority expressed the wish to die but had a normal mood state. It was concluded that the wish to die is associated with several factors in addition to depression and may be present in individuals with few depressive symptoms. There is a need to investigate whether factors associated with the wish to die are treatable and whether this can restore the desire to live.


Reported here is the room-temperature metal-free iodoarene-catalyzed oxyamination of unactivated alkenes. In this process, the alkenes are difunctionalized by the oxygen atom of the amide group and the nitrogen in an exogenous HNTs2 molecule. This mild and open-air reaction provided an efficient synthesis to N-bistosyl-substituted 5-imino-2-tetrahydrofuranyl methanamine derivatives, which are important motifs in drug development and biological studies. Mechanistic study based on experiments and density functional theory calculations showed that this transformation proceeds via activation of the substrate alkene by an in situ generated cationic iodonium(III) intermediate, which is subsequently attacked by an oxygen atom (instead of nitrogen) of amides to form a five-membered ring intermediate. Finally, this intermediate undergoes an SN2 reaction by NTs2 as the nucleophile to give the oxygen and nitrogen difunctionalized 5-imino-2-tetrahydrofuranyl methanamine product. An asymmetric variant of the present alkene oxyamination using chiral iodoarenes as catalysts also gave promising results for some of the substrates.


Distinct observations are those different with respect to one or more variables, considered either individually or jointly. Distinctness is thus a key aspect of the similarity or difference of observations. It is sometimes confounded with uniqueness. Counting the number of distinct observations may be required at any point from initial data cleaning or checking to subsequent statistical analysis. We review how far existing commands in official Stata offer solutions to this issue, and we show how to answer questions about distinct observations from first principles by using the by prefix and the egen command. The new distinct command is offered as a convenience tool.


The horseshoe vortex is typical flow characteristic around the appendage-body junction. The horseshoe vortex formation around the hull-said junction has important influence on the submarine hydrodynamics performance. The origination process of the submarine horseshoe vertex and its influence on submarine flow is analyzed. The numerical simulation on the horseshoe vortex is carried out using DES method (Detached Eddies Simulation); the influence og model speed on submarine horseshoe vertex is studied. It is shown that the model speed has little influence on the position of the horseshoe vortex center, while has signification influence on the intensity of horseshoe vortex. The attenuation of horseshoe vortex becomes slow with the increase of its distance.


Molnupiravir (EIDD-2801) (MLN) is an oral antiviral drug for COVID-19 treatment, being integrated into viral RNA through RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). Upon ingestion, MLN is transformed into two active metabolites: β-d-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC) (EIDD-1931) in the host plasma, and EIDD-1931-triphosphate (MTP) within the host cells. However, recent studies provide increasing evidence of MLN's interactions with off-target proteins beyond the viral genome, suggesting that the complete mechanisms of action of MLN remain unclear. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the molecular interactions of MLN in the form of NHC and MTP with the non-RNA structural components of avian influenza (hemagglutinin, neuraminidase) and SARS-CoV-2 (spike glycoprotein, Mpro, and RdRp) viruses and to elucidate whether these two metabolites possess the ability to form stable complexes with these major viral components. Molecular docking of NHC and MTP was performed using AutoDock 4.2.6 and the obtained protein-drug complexes were submitted to 200-ns molecular dynamics simulations in triplicate with subsequent free energy calculations using GROMACS. Docking scores, molecular dynamics and MM/GBSA results showed that MTP was tightly bound within the active site of SARS-CoV-2 RdRp and remained highly stable throughout the 200-ns simulations. Besides, it was also shown that NHC and MTP formed moderately-to-highly stable molecular complexes with off-target receptors hemagglutinin, neuraminidase and Mpro, but rather weak interactions with spike glycoprotein. Our computational findings suggest that NHC and MTP may directly inhibit these receptors, and propose that additional studies on the off-target effects of MLN, i.e. real-time protein binding assays, should be performed.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.


The large-time behavior of solutions to the Burgers equation with small viscosity is described using invariant manifolds. In particular, a geometric explanation is provided for a phenomenon known as metastability, which in the present context means that solutions spend a very long time near the family of solutions known as diffusive N-waves before finally converging to a stable self-similar diffusion wave. More precisely, it is shown that in terms of similarity, or scaling, variables in an algebraically weighted $L^2$ space, the self-similar diffusion waves correspond to a one-dimensional global center manifold of stationary solutions. Through each of these fixed points there exists a one-dimensional, global, attractive, invariant manifold corresponding to the diffusive N-waves. Thus, metastability corresponds to a fast transient in which solutions approach this "metastable" manifold of diffusive N-waves, followed by a slow decay along this manifold, and, finally, convergence to the self-similar diffusion wave.


Voltage-gated ion channels play a fundamental role in the generation and propagation of the cardiac action potential by acting synergistically to produce an ionic current across cellular membranes. Abnormalities of heart ion channel activities that lead to loss or gain of function (channelopathies) are often associated with disruption of the coordinated propagation of electrical activity of the cardiac myocytes and can generate fatal arrhythmogenesis. Drugs that act on cardiac ion channels have long been used to restore normal rhythm and conduction in patients affected by cardiac arrhythmias and offered to basic scientists the possibility to characterize distinct ion channel classes. This review will explore the mechanisms and role of the current anti-arrhythmic drugs used in the clinic, and discuss recent development on ion channel openers as potential anti-arrhythmic drugs.


The solution of the two-dimensional convolution integral is presented for the case when the experimental results are subject to error. In particular, a resolution kernel whose Fourier transform has zeros is considered. This corresponds to resolution functions obtained in high-resolution electron microscopy, where the image intensity is modified by lens aberrations (spherical aberration and defocusing). The method for deconvolution is applied to computer-generated results subject to (i) random errors in the range ±20% and (ii) photographic noise in the range ±20%.


Objective: Mental illness is a leading cause of disease burden; however, many barriers prevent people from seeking mental health services. Technological innovations may improve our ability to reach underserved populations by overcoming many existing barriers. We evaluated a brief, automated risk assessment and intervention platform designed to increase the use of crisis resources provided to those online and in crisis. Method: Participants, users of the digital mental health app Koko, were randomly assigned to treatment or control conditions upon accessing the app and were included in the study after their posts were identified by machine learning classifiers as signaling a current mental health crisis. Participants in the treatment condition received a brief Barrier Reduction Intervention (BRI) designed to increase the use of crisis service referrals provided on the app. Participants were followed up several hours later to assess the use of crisis services. Results: Only about one quarter of participants in a crisis (21.8%) reported being "very likely" to use clinical referrals provided to them, with the most commonly endorsed barriers being they "just want to chat" or their "thoughts are too intense." Among participants providing follow-up data (41.3%), receipt of the BRI was associated with a 23% increase in the use of crisis services. Conclusion: These findings suggest that a brief, automated BRI can be efficacious on digital platforms, even among individuals experiencing acute psychological distress. The potential to increase help seeking and service utilization with such procedures holds promise for those in need of psychiatric services. Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03633825.


A new type of interferon (IFN)-alpha cDNA (IFN-alpha I') was identified in a cDNA library constructed from Namalva cells infected with Sendai virus. The nucleotide sequence of this cDNA showed homology, with the exception of two nucleotides in the coding region, with the previously identified IFN-alpha I gene (Lawn et al., 1981). An expression plasmid which directs the synthesis of the mature IFN-alpha I' peptide was constructed using vectors carrying the lpp/lac promoter and "runaway" replicon. Furthermore, hybrid genes were constructed by in vitro recombination of IFN-alpha I' and IFN-alpha A at a common restriction endonuclease site located at amino acid positions 121-122. While the specific antiviral and anticellular activities of IFN alpha A and IFN-alpha I' on human cells were comparable, the antiviral activity of IFN-alpha I' on mouse cells was 125-fold higher than that of IFN-alpha A. The specific antiviral activities of the hybrid IFNs on human and bovine cells were similar to that of the amino-terminal parental IFN peptide, while the anticellular activities on human cells of the alpha A/alpha I' hybrid were higher and that of the alpha I'/alpha A hybrid were lower than the parental IFN-alpha A and IFN-alpha I'.


Background: The Cure SMA database is one of the largest patient reported databases for people affected with SMA. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine a subset of affected SMA persons with types I, II, and III from a patient reported database. Methods: Individuals with SMA were selected from the database using a date of first contact to Cure SMA between 2010 and 2016. Data analyzed included age at diagnosis, number of weeks from SMA diagnosis to contacting Cure SMA, and geographic distribution of individuals. Results: A total of 1,966 individuals with SMA were included in the analysis. Of these individuals, 51.9% had type I, 32.3% had type II, and 15.8% had type III. The average age of diagnosis for type I patients was 5.2 months, 22.1 months for type II, and 97.8 months for type III. From published incidence, about 59.0% of affected individuals in the US are registered in the Cure SMA database. Conclusions: The Cure SMA database is a unique and robust source of patient reported data that informs on the burden of illness and supports the development of new therapeutic modalities.


The frequency and intensity of discomfort and pain at the site of injection during intravenous infusion of theophylline sodium glycinate and theophylline ethylenediamine were compared in a single blind crossover study on 6 healthy adult volunteers. The preparation containing theophylline sodium glycinate was significantly better tolerated than theophylline ethylenediamine.


Social interactions have multifaceted effects on individuals' mental health statuses, including mood and stress. As a proxy for the social environment, Bluetooth encounters detected by personal mobile devices have been used to improve mental health prediction and have shown preliminary success. In this paper, we propose a vector space model representation of Bluetooth encounters in which we convert encounters into spatiotemporal tokens within a multidimensional feature space. We discuss multiple token designs and feature value schemes and evaluate the predictive power of the resulting features for stress recognition tasks using the StudentLife and Friends & Family datasets. Our findings motivate further discussion and research on bag-of-words approaches for representing raw mobile sensing signals for health outcome inference.


ABSTRACT The measurement of spatial dependence within a set of observations or the residuals from a regression is one of the most common operations within spatial analysis. However, there appears to be a lack of appreciation for the fact that these measurements are generally based on an a priori definition of a spatial weights matrix and hence are limited to detecting spatial dependence at a single spatial scale. This paper highlights the scale-dependence problem with current measures of spatial dependence and defines a new, multi-scale approach to defining a spatial weights matrix based on a discrete Fourier transform. This approach is shown to be able to detect statistically significant spatial dependence which other multi-scale approaches to measuring spatial dependence cannot. The paper thus serves as a warning not to rely on traditional measures of spatial dependence and offers a more comprehensive, and scale-free, approach to measuring such dependence.


Aromatic hydrocarbon solvents, used widely in industry, cause central nervous system symptoms in exposed workers. Acute effects of m-xylene were studied in nine voluntary subjects exposed experimentally to stable or varying concentrations of m-xylene at rest or while exercising. Each subject participated in four exposure and two control sessions in a single-blind fashion. The time-weighted average (TWA) m-xylene concentration was always 200 parts per million (ppm) (8.2 mumol/l) during the 4-h exposure period, complying to a TWA of 4.1 mumol/l.8 h, which is equivalent to the hygienic limit allowed in work situations. The short-term peak concentrations were 400 ppm or less. Electroencephalography was recorded at the beginning of exposure, during exposure, and after exposure was stopped. Eighteen 60-s EEG samples for each subject on each experimental day were analyzed automatically. Exercise increased theta percentage and delta power and percentage; these changes were more prominent in the control session without exposure. Exposure increased the dominant alpha frequency and alpha percentage during the early phase of exposure and also counteracted the effects of exercise. The effects of short-term m-xylene exposure on EEG were minor, and no deleterious effects were noted. Perhaps alpha activation is indicative of stimulating and excitatory effects induced by m-xylene exposure, which has been noted heretofore in the absorption phase of alcohol intake.


Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are normally assumed to be synchronized (in Syn-mode). However, nodes may lose synchronization, and therefore, will work in Syn-lost-mode before potentially re-synchronizing. This procedure brings poor performance to the network. This paper evaluates the impact of losing synchronization in beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 network with star topology. Discrete-time Markov-Chains (DTMC) are proposed to investigate the impact of three scenarios which lead to Syn-lost-mode. These scenarios are node identification (ID) conflict, realignment failure and a certain number of times of continuous beacon-loss. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work on Syn-lost-mode performance in synchronized IEEE 802.15.4 networks. The performance is investigated in terms of the network throughput, time delay, packet delivery ratio and energy consumption. Simulation also verifies our work and demonstrates the poor network performance due to synchronization-loss.


Written in the final years of the nineteenth century and published in 1905, Santiago Ramón y Cajal's Cuentos de vacaciones provide wide-ranging reflections on the cultural import of science and the social ramifications of new scientific discoveries. "El pesimista corregido," the story discussed in this article, mixes the conventions of nineteenth-century realism with science fiction as it explores the possible pitfalls of a slavish commitment to scientific instruments that promise miraculously enhanced vision—in the story's case, the microscope. Influenced by Lorraine Daston's notion of "the moral economy of science," Comparone delves into an aspect of this story that has been ignored until now: the role of gender and gender relations in the context of scientific hubris. Taking into account the epistemic ramifications of magnification, this article examines the narrator's view of gender, marriage and fatherhood, claiming that these views are difficult to dissentangle from the author's view of scientific objectivity. As Comparone notes, Ramón y Cajal, himself a Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology, has a surprisingly ambivalent view of his obsessive scientist protagonist. The article further argues that a preoccupation with aesthetics plays a role in the story's treatment of the issues raised when science becomes so infatuated, or horrified, with the cellular level that it loses sight of the living organism.


Optical vortices (OVs) carrying orbital angular momentum have been an emerging research area due to their widespread applications ranging from optical communication to particle trapping. However, conventional OV generators suffer from bulky configurations and limited performance. Here, we design and experimentally demonstrate high-efficiency focused OV generation by using geometric gap-surface plasmon metalenses with spin-flipped focal planes, where the polarization states, positions, and corresponding topological charges of the OVs can be controlled by changing the spin of incident circularly polarized light, reproducing thereby the combined functionalities of a lens and a q-plate. The fabricated dual-polarity OV metalens features the polarization conversion ratios above 88% and efficiencies exceeding 50% for both right-handed and left-handed circularly polarized light in a wide wavelength range of 850 to 1000 nm. We further extend this approach to realize a multiple-focal OV metalens with distinct and spin-multiplexed OVs at four different longitudinal focal planes. Compared to conventional OV generators, the proposed OV metalenses are compact, ultrathin, and multiplexed, therefore opening an innovative avenue for advanced research and applications aiming at multiple functionalities and dense integration in photonics.