Effective eddy current nondestructive evaluation of metal tubes requires accurate modeling of the fields observed in known configurations in order to understand the behavior of such fields when a defect is present, to test inversion algorithms from synthetic data, and to appraise the output of these algorithms in real cases. Here we restrict ourselves to the interaction between a non-magnetic probe displaced along a straight part of the tube when a 3-D bounded defect is found nearby in the tube wall also assumed to be non-magnetic. Modeling of the anomalous fields at a given frequency and of the variations of impedance of the probe is carried out from an exact vector domain integral formulation of the eddy current phenomenon. This formulation results from the application of the Green's theorem to the wave equations and provides the sources induced in the defect volume, from which the variation of impedance follows by application of the reciprocity theorem. All depolarization effects in the flawed region are accounted for. This formulation is handled by a conjugate-gradient FFT-based Method of Moments. Difficulties met when carrying out the integrals involving the dyadic Green's function of the tubular structure are overcome by singularity extraction and the use of the nonlinear accelerating Shanks' transform. Results of numerical simulations for an axisymmetric'probe and typical defects illustrate the effectiveness of the approach, while consequences of neglecting depolarization effect are discussed. These results are compared to those obtained by a localized nonlinear approximation and by the Born approximation, which have the advantage to bypass in part or altogether the calculation of the field inside the defect volume, and to experimental data acquired from calibration tubes.


Peer interaction in an online environment has close connections with self-disclosure. Hence, this study was conducted to explore peer interaction patterns and self-disclosure levels via a social networking tool, specifically, Facebook. Twenty-two postgraduate students who enrolled for the Authoring System course participated in the study. Data were gathered from the online discussion transcripts in Facebook. The online discussion transcripts were coded and analysed based on (a) coding scheme for identifying patterns of peer interaction, and (b) a self-disclosure rating scale for categorizing the levels of self-disclosure. Findings showed that the students had mostly used response and position types of peer interaction. Meanwhile, most of the students were self-disclosing through Information-Level 1 followed by Feeling-Level 1, and Thought-Level 1. Furthermore, peer interaction patterns were found to have a strong significant and positive correlation with self-disclosure levels. In conclusion, this study revealed that high self-disclosure by students affects positively peer interaction in Facebook discussions. The implications of these results are considered, and possible future studies are suggested.


The characterise the surface condition of thin solid foils (x approximately=1000 AA) by ion impact, a novel combination of different independent methods of control has been used: (1) Auger electron spectroscopy (AES); (2) secondary electron spectroscopy (SES); (3) measurement of the total electron coefficient gamma ; and (4) detection of elastically scattered projectiles. Surfaces of various elemental foils (6<or=ZT<or=83) have been carefully prepared by heavy-ion- (Kr+-) induced sputtering. Coverage could be removed from the target surfaces (better than 0.3 remaining monolayers) and the roughness could be reduced considerably.


We construct N = 2 chiral supergravity (SUGRA) which leads to Ashtekar's canonical formulation. The supersymmetry (SUSY) transformation parameters are not constrained at all and auxiliary fields are not required in contrast with the method of 2-form gravity. We also show that our formulation is compatible with the reality condition, and that its real section is reduced to the usual N = 2 SUGRA up to an imaginary boundary term.


Background: Early onset neonatal sepsis (EOS, occurring in the first 72 hours of life) remains an important cause of illness and death among very low birth weight (VLBW) preterm infants. We previously reported a change in the distribution of pathogens associated with EOS from predominantly Gram-positive to primarily Gram-negative organisms. Objective: To compare rates of EOS and pathogens associated with infection among VLBW infants born at centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network during 3 time periods: 1991–1993; 1998–2000; and 2002–2003. Study Design: Prospectively collected data from the NICHD Neonatal Research Network VLBW registry were retrospectively reviewed. Rates of blood culture confirmed EOS, selected maternal and infant variables and pathogens associated with infection were compared between 2002–2003 and 2 previously published cohorts. Results: During the past 13 years, overall rates of EOS have remained stable (15–19 per 1000 live births of infants 401–1500 g). More than one-half of early infections in the 2002–2003 cohort were caused by Gram-negative organisms (53%), with Escherichia coli the most common organism (41%). Rates of group B streptococcal infections remain low (1.8 per 1000 live births). Between 1991–1993 and 1998–2000, there was a significant increase in rates of E. coli infections; but in 2002–2003, there was no significant change (7.0 per 1000 live births). Infants with EOS continue to be at significantly increased risk for death compared with uninfected infants. Conclusion: EOS remains an uncommon but important cause of morbidity and mortality among VLBW infants. Gram-negative organisms continue to be the predominant pathogens associated with EOS.


Amino acid metabolism in various blood diseases was studied by the method of column chromatography of Stein-Moore. 1) Serum free amino acid levels in hypoplastic anemia was low, especially glycine and alanine, and was found unidentified ninhydrine positive substances. 2) Amino acid fractionation in essential hypochromic anemia revealed no significant abnormalities in comparison to that of normal individuale. 3) In leukemia the peaks of amino acid fractions were either higher or lower depending upon the type of leukemia, but as the disease was controlled by treatment, the pattern of amino acid fractionation approached the normal pattern in all the cases. 4) In renal anemia a low amino acid fractionation pattern apparently resembling that of hypoplastic anemia was obtained. 5) In pernicious anemia there was a high amino acid fractionation pattern, indicating poor utilization of amino acids before treatment, but after treatment the pattern was normalized. 6) In multiple myeloma amino acid metabolism was unique and as in hypoplastic anemia there were unidentified substances, X substance, which were considered to be intermediate metabolites. 7) The pattern of amino acid fractionation in idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and in agranulocytosis exhibited some resemblance to that of hypoplastic anemia in that it contained unidentified substances, but the overall pattern of the former was different from that of the latter.


The archaeology of ancient New World civilizations began with a focus on the monumental cores that marked those societies' past. For decades, projects excavated the massive hearts of past societies. Then, armed with more sophisticated theoretical bases and different questions about the past, attention turned away from the cores. Settlement pattern studies, non-urban work, and household and activity area analyses abounded. In the last ten years, archaeologists have returned to site centers, this time complementing scientific approaches with new and more humanistic approaches. Of particular interest are the palaces of the ancient kingdoms that housed the rulers and were the foci for their political endeavors. Archaeologists are now concentrating on identifying palaces (or corroborating previous interpretations) based on current understandings of the particular political systems in which they operated, and not driven by European examples. The current work is serving to elucidate the functions of a palace and to identify the people and activities once located within its doors.


In e-commerce environments, the reputation of sellers is a crucial issue to potential buyers in making decisions. Most existing trust evaluation models compute a single value to reflect the general trust level of a seller without taking any transaction context into account. With such a simple trust evaluation model, a buyer may be easily deceived by a malicious seller in a transaction where the notorious value imbalance problem is involved, namely, the malicious seller can accumulate a high level of trust by selling cheap products and then start to deceive buyers by inducing them to purchase expensive products. In this article, we first present a trust vector consisting of four trust values termed as CTT values, the computation of each of which is based on both past transactions and the forthcoming transaction. In addition, in the computation of CTT values, the parameters, such as product category, price range, and time range, can be specified and adjusted by the buyer, yielding different sets of trust values that can outline the seller's reputation profile. As a result, the value imbalance problem potentially existing in a forthcoming transaction can be identified. The computation of CTT values requires the pre-computation of aggregates over large-scale ratings and transaction data with necessary combinations of three dimensions i.e., product category, price, and time, so as to deliver prompt responses to a buyer's query on different CTT values. In solving this challenging problem, we propose three new data structures and algorithms that mainly focus on efficient computation of CTT values. Our experiments conducted on both eBay data sets and large-scale synthetic data sets illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of our proposed approaches when responding to a buyer's CTT queries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The purpose of this thesis is to obtain an understanding of parasite ecology and the incidence of black spot disease in freshwater fish. Parasite morphology, transmission, and life cycles are important to understand before being able to control a parasite. Uvulifer ambloplitis is a larval trematode worm that infects freshwater fish and causes a black pigment to be produced in response to its metacercariae stage. Other immune responses and effects on the intermediate hosts, fish and snails, are examined. A study was done on the fish of Rutledge Creek, Virginia to take a closer look at the epidemiology of this parasite. A flourishing parasite community at Rutledge Creek can be an indicator of good stream health and quality. Typically, the prevention and control of trematode parasites focuses on molluscicidal chemicals and plants.


The high temperature tetragonal phase of zirconia containing 1.40-1.60 mol% Y 2 O 3 were successfully quenched in at room temperature by rapid cooling of small spherical specimens. On these metastable specimens, the isothermal transformation behavior into the monoclinic phase was studied by dilatometric method. The transformation start time exhibited a C-curve in a TTT diagram. The C-curve shifted toward short time side as well as toward high temperature side with decreasing yttria content or increasing grain sizes. A study of the pre-aging effect during the incubation period on the subsequent isothermal transformation suggested consecutive growth of embryos, but alternative interpretation was also possible. The activation energy Was evaluated to be ∼50 kJ/mol.


Silica-coated Ag nanostructures usable as magnetic nanoparticle-based Raman barcode materials were developed. Initially, 283 nm sized spherical magnetite particles composed of 13 nm sized superparamagnetic Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles were synthesized, and silver deposition was conducted using butylamine as the reductant of AgNO(3) in ethanol. The Ag-deposited Fe(3)O(4) (Fe(3)O(4)@Ag) particles are found to be efficient surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates with the enhancement factor at 632.8 nm excitation to be about 3 x 10(6). After SERS markers such as benzenethiol, 4-mercaptotoluene, 4-aminobenzenethiol, and 4-nitrobenzenethiol were adsorbed onto the silver surface, poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) was coated onto them using the layer-by-layer deposition method such that a subsequent base-catalyzed silanization could readily form a 60 nm thick silica shell around the PAH layer by a biomimetic process. The cross-linked silica shells effectively prevented the SERS-marker molecules from being liberated from the surface of the Fe(3)O(4)@Ag particles. Although the gram magnetization decreased nearly to one-half of the initial value because of coating with silver and silica, the remaining magnetization was nonetheless strong enough for the silica-coated Fe(3)O(4)@Ag particles to be used as barcode materials operating via SERS.


Background Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression.It is known that an altered miRNA expression plays an important role in cancer.A new emerging role for miRNAs has been evidenced in the pathogenesis of rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.Recently,we evaluated miRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of 21 patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) of recent onset and naïve from treatment by miRNA microarray. Three mi-RNAs (miR-21-5p, miR-34a and miR-21-3p) resulted significantly upregulated compared to 12 healthy controls. Objectives We set out to validate microarray results in the same series of PsA patients and controls;and to check for changes in the mi-RNA expression from baseline after appropriate therapy. Methods We performed a quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis for miR-21 in the entire series of 21 PsA patients and 12 controls. We also checked for changes in miR-21 expression profile from baseline after 3 months of appropriate therapy (symptomatic therapy, DMARDs,TNF-alpha blockers) in 9 of the 21 PsA patients. Mature miRNA expression was evaluated by Taqman miRNA assays (Applied Biosystem) specific for miR-21 and RNU6B as reference gene, according to the manufacturer's protocol. Five ng of total RNA was reverse transcribed using the specific looped primer; quantitative PCR was conducted using the standard Taqman MiRNA assay. Each sample was analyzed in triplicate.The amount of target, normalized on U6 RNA amount, was calculated using 2-ΔCt (Comparative Ct) method. Significance in RT-qPCR results was determined by unpaired t test with Welch's correction and graphs were created using GraphPad software Results In comparison with healthy controls, the up-regulation of miR-21 in PsA was validated and confirmed by RT-qPCR (p<0.05). In the treated PsA patients, miR-21 resulted significantly reduced (p<0.05) after 3 months of therapy compared to baseline Conclusions The upregulation of miR-21 in early, active and naïve of treatment PsA was confirmed and validated. Compared to baseline, miR-21 resulted significantly reduced after 3 months of appropriate therapy. These results, if confirmed on a larger number of patients, could have two important implications. First, it calls into question all the previous studied on miRNA performed on PBMC of pharmacologically treated patients. Second, it opens new horizons not only in understanding pathogenic mechanisms of the disease but also in identifying useful diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and new possible therapeutic targets in PsA. For the latter purpose, comparative studies with other chronic inflammatory conditions other than PsA are needed References Ciancio G,Ferracin E, Zagatti B,et al. Microrna Expression Profiles in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Early Onset Psoriatic Arthritis. Arthritis Rheumatism, 2012, 64(10 Suppl):433. Alevizos I, Illei GG: MicroRNAs as biomarkers in rheumatic diseases. Nat Rev Rheumatol 2010, 6:391-398 Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Regione Emilia Romagna and the University of Ferrara which made this study possible. Disclosure of Interest : None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.4448


Background Age and socioeconomic status (SES) predict several health-related outcomes, including prescription opioid use. Contrasting findings from previous literature found higher prevalence of opioid use in both people over 65 years old and the working-age population of 35–55 years old. This study aimed to analyse if the association between age and opioid use is non-linear and differs in adults with different SES levels. Methods This cohort study used the Health Survey for England waves 1997–2014 data to investigate the shape of the correlation between reported opioid use and income decile, employment status and educational level. A semiparametric Generalised Additive Model was employed, so that linearity of correlation was not assumed. The shape of the relationship was assessed using the effective degrees of freedom (EDF). Results Positive correlation between age and reported opioid use, more linear in people in the highest income decile (EDF: 1.01, p<0.001) and higher education (EDF: 2.03, p<0.001) was observed. In people on lower income and with lower levels of education, the highes probability of reported opioid use was at around 40–60 years old and slowly decreased after that. Higher income decile and higher levels of education were predictors of a lower probability of reported opioid use (OR: 0.27, 95% CI: 0.21 to 0.36 and OR: 0.48, 95% CI: 0.41 to 0.57, respectively). There was no statistically significant difference in opioid use between employed and unemployed people. Conclusion The relationship between age and the probability of prescribed opioid use varies greatly across different income and educations strata, highlighting different drivers in opioid prescribing across population groups. More research is needed into exploring patterns in opioid use in older people, particularly from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.


The relationships between political philosophy and political science are complex, important, changing. They are also quite unsatisfactory. Following a brief analysis of four types of political philosophy, this article argues that the branch of political philosophy interested in describing and shaping a just society is highly relevant for what several political scientists study and write. When dealing with democracy and the processes of democratization, with the quality and the transformation of democratic political systems, political scientists can and should find a lot of interesting and useful material produced by political philosophers. Liberal democracies have won the Cold War. Now the challenge is represented by, on one side (religious), fundamentalisms (in the plural); on the other side, by the communitarians and the multiculturalists. Both groups of political philosophers declare that political liberalism, especially, the brand espoused and formulated by John Rawls, is inadequate to provide a framework for contemporary democratic regimes. This article claims that political scientists have a lot to learn from the clash of these political theories as well as from republicanism and constitutional patriotism. In this article, some indications are given and few examples are provided. So far the challenge has been eschewed and the task has gone unfulfilled.


The confluence of state-of-the-art electronic-structure computations and modern synthetic materials growth techniques is proving indispensable in the search for and discovery of new functionalities in oxide thin films and heterostructures. Here, we review the recent contributions of electronic-structure calculations to predicting, understanding, and discovering new materials physics in thin-film perovskite oxides. We show that such calculations can accurately predict both structure and properties in advance of film synthesis, thereby guiding the search for materials combinations with specific targeted functionalities. In addition, because they can isolate and decouple the effects of various parameters which unavoidably occur simultaneously in an experiment -- such as epitaxial strain, interfacial chemistry and defect profiles -- they are able to provide new fundamental knowledge about the underlying physics. We conclude by outlining the limitations of current computational techniques, as well as some important open questions that we hope will motivate further methodological developments in the field.


A bridgehead adamantyl peroxyl radical has been prepared and isolated in the gas phase by the reaction of a distonic radical anion with dioxygen in a quadrupole ion-trap mass spectrometer.


We have built a new software toolkit that enables mu- sic therapists and teachers to create custom digital musical interfaces for children with diverse disabilities. It was designed in collaboration with music therapists, teachers, and children. It uses interactive ma- chine learning to create new sensor- and vision-based musical interfaces using demonstrations of actions and sound, making interface building fast and accessible to people without programming or engineering expertise. Interviews with two music therapy and education professionals who have used the software extensively illustrate how richly customised, sensor-based inter- faces can be used in music therapy contexts; they also reveal how properties of input devices, music-making approaches, and mapping techniques can support a variety of interaction styles and therapy goals.


The use of chemical signals for communication is wide spread in many animal taxa. Squamates in particular have a highly developed vomeronasal system and investigate chemical signals through tongue flicking. In some lizard species, individuals have been seen to be able to use chemical signals, including those from faeces (scats), for discriminating between kin and conspecifics and members and non-members of social groups. The Australia scincid lineage Egernia, is one group that has an unusually high number of species reported to produce scat piles close to their refuge sights. In this paper, we explore the scatting behaviour of the sleepy lizard, Tiliqua rugosa, a member of the Egernia lineage to determine whether there is any evidence of an aggregated deposition pattern of scats by this lizard, similar to other member species in the lineage. We found that unlike related species that appear to use scat piles as social markers, sleepy lizards do not deposit scats in any systematic latrine system, or in piles to indicate occupancy of an area. Rather, they appear to be scatting haphazardly inside their home range. A conclusion from this comparison is that scat piling in the Egernia lineage is associated more with refuge defence than with social aggregation.


Purpose

Despite the positive effects of customer capital (CC), questions remain over how managers enable CC growth by applying their skills and capabilities through managerial actions and strategies, such as developing information technology (IT) capability, fostering relationship learning (RL) activities and developing green innovation performance (GIP) with clients. These questions are especially pertinent in small and medium-sized enterprises and automotive industry companies that operate through supply chains, where knowledge about customers is likely to result from personal contact between customers and organisational members. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which these managerial actions were more likely to lead to the successful creation of CC.

Design/methodology/approach

Using the partial least squares technique, this paper studies how these three managerial actions impact on CC. To do so, data from 140 companies in the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector have been used.

Findings

The findings support the influence of RL on both GIP and CC. RL is a key managerial action in exploiting customer information and knowledge advantages, enabling firms to structure and reconfigure resources to produce new ways to compete and to satisfy stakeholders. In addition, results show that GIP is a determinant of CC because of its contribution to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, with GIP performing a mediating role in the relationship between RL and CC. A second contribution shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP, which enhance IT's influence on CC.

Research limitations/implications

The authors were unable to explore the subtleties of the processes over time. Future research should include a longitudinal study.

Practical implications

This study considers RL an essential factor in achieving both GIP and CC. Consequently, managers should seek to build strong RL cultures. In addition, this study shows that IT is not in itself able to yield a competitive advantage, thereby validating the existence of complementary or co-focused strategic assets such as RL and GIP.

Originality/value

No study has ever examined these three antecedent variables (IT, RL and GIP) together, with the aim to examine their effects on CC.


The reliability of reinforced concrete columns is evaluated by application of the Monte Carlo simulation techniques in order to quantify the probability of exceeding the ultimate limit state of buckling. The mechanical model takes into account second order effects and material non-linearity. The probability of failure gives an estimation of design safety and allows sensitivity to such changes in the deterministic parameters as the steel ratio, slenderness, connection types, and in distributions of the random variables, such as geometrical dimensions, mechanical properties of materials and load parameters. (A)


Four species of stingrays of the genus Dasyatis occur in the Gulf of Gabès, but the taxonomic status of one of them, D. tortonesei has been questioned by several authors, and synonymized with D. pastinaca by some. The present study, using morphological comparisons and genetic analyses, demonstrates that there is a closely related species to D. pastinaca in the Gulf of Gabès, but distinguishable by several characters. This species is provisionally identified as Dasyatis cf. tortonesei, pending a more extensive comparative study including specimens from other regions of the Mediterranean Sea and eastern North Atlantic Ocean.


A combination of the two names Rand McNally and Emil G. Kraeling could hardly produce anything less than an excellent Bible Atlas. The present volume does justice to both names. The Atlas includes twenty-two color maps of Bible lands, and more than three-hundred photographs, illustrations and sketches. However, the chief value of the book is the splendid narrative in which the author has given a wealth of Bible history, and the results of years of archaeological research. The book is so up-to-date that it includes not only a discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls but has a photograph and discussion of the newly-disccvered Nebuchadnezzar Chroniole. Archaeological excavations are sketched and their finds are described. With an abundance of charts, chronological outlines of history, and good indices, the atlas gives promise of lssting value. Not only scholars, but also laymen, Sunday Schocl teachers and pastors will profit from this volume. Morris Ashcraft


Published evidence of pathogenetic mechanisms of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in mycoplasmal lung infections suggests that the pulmonary injury is related to a cell-mediated immune response. Therefore, steroids may play a role in the treatment of severe cases. We describe a patient who had Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia that progressed to severe ARDS requiring mechanical ventilation and who had improvement with prednisolone pulses.


We argue that information about firm activities can vary substantially in the presence of founder or heir ownership, thereby influencing the risks borne by minority investors. We explore two hypotheses with regard to these controlling shareholders and corporate transparency, focusing on their role as monitor in-place and their potential to exploit firm opacity to accrue private benefits of control. To test these notions, we create an opacity index that ranks the relative transparency of the 2,000 largest industrial U.S. firms and find founder and heir ownership in 22% and 25% of these firms, respectively. Our analysis indicates that in large, publicly-traded companies, both founder and heir firms are significantly more opaque than diffuse shareholder firms. We also find that founder- and heir-controlled firms exhibit a negative relation to performance in all but the most transparent firms. Surprisingly, additional tests reveal that concerns about divergences in ownership versus control, management type, dual class shares, and board influence appear to be substantially less important than corporate opacity in explaining the performance impacts of founder and heir control. Finally, we decompose corporate opacity into disclosure and market scrutiny components, finding that the disclosure quality component appears to be of greater importance to investors. However, irrespective of whether these controlling shareholders create and/or stay in the firm because of corporate opacity, our analysis suggests that founders and heirs in large, publicly-traded firms exploit opacity to extract private benefits at the expense of minority investors.


To obtain the best surgical results in orthognathic surgery, treatment planning and the evaluation of results should be performed. In these operations it is necessary to provide to the physicians powerful tools able to underline the behaviour of soft tissue. For this reason, considering the improvements provided by the use of 3D scanners in the medical diagnosis this paper proposes a methodology for analysing the facial morphology working with geometrical features. The methodology has been tested over patients affected by malocclusion, in order to analyse the reliability and efficiency of the provided diagnostic results.


The lipid/protein stoichiometries of a naturally crystalline biological membrane, the purple membrane (PM) of Halobacterium salinarum, have been obtained by a combination of (31)P- and (1)H-NMR analyses of the lipid extract. In total, 10 lipid molecules per retinal were found to be present in the PM lipid extract: 2-3 molecules of phosphatidylglycerophosphate methyl ester (PGP-Me), 3 of glycolipid sulfate, 1 of phosphatidylglycerol, 1 of archaeal glycocardiolipin (GlyC), 2 of squalene plus minor amounts of phosphatidylglycerosulfate (PGS) and bisphosphatidylglycerol (archaeal cardiolipin) (BPG) and a negligible amount of vitamin MK8. The novel data of the present study are necessary to identify the lipids in the electron density map, and to shed light on the structural relationships of the lipid and protein components of the PM.


The need for increased disaster resilience planning, especially at the community level, as well as the need to address sustainability are clear; these dual objectives have been deemed national priorities in a number of recent US Executive Orders. Major global climate agreements, (i.e., the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paris Climate Agreement, and the Sustainable Development Goals) all emphasize the need to integrate disaster resilience and climate risks with continued sustainable development concerns. Current ways of assessing synergies and trade-offs across planning for disaster resilience and sustainability in investment projects that impact communities are limited. The driving research question in this paper is how researchers and practitioners may better express relative categories of co-benefits to meet this need. We draw upon the categorization of some co-benefits as contributing to the resilience dividend, which has helped communication across fields and created bridges from research to practical on-the-ground planning in recent years. Furthermore, we leverage the growing focus on the need to recognize the role of narratives in driving decisions about how and where to invest, which elucidates the inherent value of archetypes that resonate across stakeholders and disciplines to describe investments that may meet multiple objectives. We introduce the concept of a resilience windfall as an unexpected or sudden gain or advantage of resilience planning to be conceptualized alongside resilience dividends. We then assess the practicality of decerning resilience windfalls across various projects that have aspects of both resilience and sustainability. We recount five narrative vignettes that demonstrate disaster resilience interventions and associated resilience dividends and windfalls. This effort highlights the importance of considering resilience dividends and resilience windfalls during the planning, execution, and evaluation phases of disaster resilience projects. These typologies provide an important contribution to the integration agenda between disaster resilience, climate risks, and sustainable development. There are policy implications of framing incentives for interventions that address both disaster resilience and long-term sustainability objectives as well as encouraging robust tracking of both resilience dividends and windfalls.


Research has suggested that the structure of deep convection often consists of a series of rising thermals, or "thermal chain," which contrasts with existing conceptual models that are used to construct cumulus parameterizations. Simplified theoretical expressions for updraft properties obtained in Part I of this study are used to develop a hypothesis explaining why this structure occurs. In this hypothesis, cumulus updraft structure is strongly influenced by organized entrainment below the updraft's vertical velocity maximum. In a dry environment, this enhanced entrainment can locally reduce condensation rates and increase evaporation, thus eroding buoyancy. For moderate-to-large initial cloud radius R, this breaks up the updraft into a succession of discrete pulses of rising motion (i.e., a thermal chain). For small R, this leads to the structure of a single, isolated rising thermal. In contrast, moist environments are hypothesized to favor plume-like updrafts for moderate-to-large R. In a series of axisymmetric numerical cloud simulations, R and environmental relative humidity (RH) are systematically varied to test this hypothesis. Vertical profiles of fractional entrainment rate, passive tracer concentration, buoyancy, and vertical velocity from these runs agree well with vertical profiles calculated from the theoretical expressions in Part I. Analysis of the simulations supports the hypothesized dependency of updraft structure on R and RH, that is, whether it consists of an isolated thermal, a thermal chain, or a plume, and the role of organized entrainment in driving this dependency. Additional three-dimensional (3D) turbulent cloud simulations are analyzed, and the behavior of these 3D runs is qualitatively consistent with the theoretical expressions and axisymmetric simulations.


Abstract This paper reports on a qualitative study that examined English as a second language (ESL) teachers' perceptions of classroom-based reading assessments. ESL teachers' use of classroom-based reading assessments, their understanding about the function and effectiveness of this assessment method, and the factors influencing this assessment process are presented. Six middle school and 7 elementary school ESL teachers participated in this study. Data consisted of interviews with ESL teachers, classroom observations, and assessment materials teachers used in the classrooms. Constant comparative method was used for data analysis. Findings of this study include that ESL teachers highly value classroom-based reading assessments, considered them accurate and valuable and thought these assessments could provide great help to the daily teaching of reading. Teachers viewed state-mandated standardized testing negatively and of little value for English language learners. Student characteristics, statewide mandated tests, and district policies were three major forces influencing and controlling the kind of reading assessment used by teachers. The teachers' perceptions, beliefs, and uses of assessment have implications for teacher education programs and policymakers.


It is a fundamental ability to discriminate incongruent information in daily activity. However, the underlying neural dynamics are still unclear. Using stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), in this study, we investigated the fine-grained and different states of incongruent information processing in patients with refractory epilepsy who underwent intracranial electrode implantation. All patients performed a delayed match-to-sample paradigm in the sequential pairs of visual stimuli (S1 followed by S2). Participants were asked to discriminate whether the relevant feature of S2 was identical to S1 while ignoring the irrelevant feature. The spatiotemporal cortical responses evoked by different conditions were calculated and compared, respectively, in the context of brain intrinsic functional networks. In total, we obtained SEEG recordings from 241 contacts in gray matter. In the processing of irrelevant incongruent information, the activated brain areas included the superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus. By comparing the relevant incongruent condition with the congruent condition, the activated brain areas included the middle frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, posterior superior temporal sulcus, and posterior cingulate cortex. We demonstrated the dynamics of incongruent information processing with high spatiotemporal resolution and suggested that the process of automatic detection of irrelevant incongruent information requires the involvement of local regions and relatively few networks. Meanwhile, controlled discrimination of relevant incongruent information requires the participation of extensive regions and a wide range of nodes in the network. Furthermore, both the frontoparietal control network and default mode network were engaged in the incongruent information processing.


THE DEVELOPMENT of preventive therapies for stroke should be a high priority on the American health agenda. More than 3 million Americans have evidence of cerebrovascular disease, and each year about 150 000 die of stroke. Stroke is the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in the United States and the leading cause of serious long-term disability.1Current prevention strategies focus on medical management of hypertension, the most widely recognized stroke risk factor, and lifestyle interventions that are thought to decrease risk, such as smoking cessation, alcohol moderation, increase in physical activity, and weight loss.2,3Oral contraceptive use, especially in combination with smoking, is also considered to increase risk, as does the occurrence of atrial fibrillation and coronary heart disease. Until recently, treating elevated serum cholesterol or low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels was thought to be of relatively minor importance in reducing the


Among human affective behavior research, facial expression recognition research is improving in performance along with the development of deep learning. For improved performance, not only past images but also future images should be used along with corresponding facial images, but there are obstacles to the application of this technique to real-time environments. In this paper, we propose the causal affect prediction network (CAPNet), which uses only past facial images to predict corresponding affective valence and arousal. We train CAPNet to learn causal inference between past images and corresponding affective valence and arousal through supervised learning by pairing the sequence of past images with the current label using the Aff-Wild2 dataset. We show through experiments that the well-trained CAPNet outperforms the baseline of the second challenge of the Affective Behavior Analysis in-the-wild (ABAW2) Competition by predicting affective valence and arousal only with past facial images one-third of a second earlier. Therefore, in real-time application, CAPNet can reliably predict affective valence and arousal only with past data.The code is publicly available. 1


The paper is a description of the way in which one neural network was built on a Single-DSP PCI Board. The board was designed for software evaluation and system prototyping on NeuroMatrix® NM6403 DSP. In the first part of the paper, we will point out the importance of the hardware neural network in different lines of business and we will explain which these lines are. Further on, we will present a summary of the main features of the NM6403 board, followed by the implementation of a feedforward neural network. The network has one input layer with 20 neurons, one hidden layer with 512 neurons and an output layer with 20 neurons. We should mention that the neural network described in this paper was used for testing. The results achieved with the help of this network are encouraging and they open new possibilities of study for the future.


The tyrosinase of Penicillium chrysogenum strain AUMC 14100 Accession No. MN219732 was purified to homogeneity and chemically modified by N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) and 5-(dimethylamino)naphthalene-1-sulfonyl chloride (dansyl chloride, DC). The inactivation of the purified enzyme obeyed pseudo-first-order reaction kinetics in the presence of NEM and DC (1-5 mM). The rate constants of the enzyme inactivation by NEM and DC were calculated to be 0.083 mol/min and 0.0013 mol/min, respectively. The recovery of enzyme activity by the protective effect of substrate indicates a non-specific modification of the active center. The order of tyrosinase inactivation kinetics and the substrate protection revealed the essentiality of sulfhydryl and lysyl residues in the enzyme active site and its role in the enzyme catalysis. The immobilized tyrosinase on alginate showed a gradual increase in residual activity over the immobilization time until the fourth hour. The desorptivity of tyrosinase was gradually raised with higher sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) concentrations. The immobilized enzyme retained about 70% of its original activity after 8 repeated cycles. Thus, immobilized tyrosinase of Penicillium chrysogenum removed 75% of phenol after 8 cycles and thus seems likely to be a good candidate for phenol removal in aqueous solution.


This paper aims to propose an unified model for non-business marketing including the marketing activities of organizations working in non-profit and profit oriented business sectors. At this purpose, we assumed that even when the marketing activities in non-profit, public and public utility organizations show certain specificities, almost all organizations develop them sharing the background aim of improving social welfare. Further objectives of the study were to explore the way which Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is incorporated in the sphere of non-business activities, and to describe how Hungarian organizations relate to CSR activities, as the results of previous exploratory researches in the country context pointed to a still rather poor implementation of responsible principles.


Molecular biologists rely very heavily on computer science algorithms as research tools. The process of finding the longest common subsequence of two DNA sequences has a wide range of applications in modern bioinformatics. Genetics databases can hold enormous amounts of raw data, for example the human genome consists of approximately three billion DNA base pairs. The processing of this gigantic volume of data necessitates the use of extremely efficient string algorithms. This paper introduces a space and time effective technique for retrieving the longest common subsequence of DNA sequences.


One hundred and twenty five randomly selected semen samples revealed the range of copper in seminal plasma from 7.5 to 400 ug/dl. The metal had no statistical correlation with number of spermatozoa or with its percentage of motility.


Deep neural networks (DNN) have been widely applied in modern life, including critical domains like autonomous driving, making it essential to ensure the reliability and robustness of DNN-powered systems. As an analogy to code coverage metrics for testing conventional software, researchers have proposed neuron coverage metrics and coverage-driven methods to generate DNN test cases. However, Yan et al. doubt the usefulness of existing coverage criteria in DNN testing. They show that a coverage-driven method is less effective than a gradient-based method in terms of both uncovering defects and improving model robustness. In this paper, we conduct a replication study of the work by Yan et al. and extend the experiments for deeper analysis. A larger model and a dataset of higher resolution images are included to examine the generalizability of the results. We also extend the experiments with more test case generation techniques and adjust the process of improving model robustness to be closer to the practical life cycle of DNN development. Our experiment results confirm the conclusion from Yan et al. that coverage-driven methods are less effective than gradient-based methods. Yan et al. find that using gradient-based methods to retrain cannot repair defects uncovered by coverage-driven methods. They attribute this to the fact that the two types of methods use different perturbation strategies: gradient-based methods perform differentiable transformations while coverage-driven methods can perform additional non-differentiable transformations. We test several hypotheses and further show that even coverage-driven methods are constrained only to perform differentiable transformations, the uncovered defects still cannot be repaired by adversarial training with gradient-based methods. Thus, defensive strategies for coverage-driven methods should be further studied.


Deuterium magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (DMRSI) has recently been recognized as a potentially powerful tool for noninvasive imaging of brain energy metabolism and tumor. However, the low sensitivity of DMRSI has significantly limited its utility for both research and clinical applications. This work presents a novel machine learning-based method to address this limitation. The proposed method synergistically integrates physics-based subspace modeling and data-driven deep learning for effective denoising, making high-resolution dynamic DMRSI possible. Specifically, a novel subspace model was used to represent the dynamic DMRSI signals; deep neural networks were trained to capture the low-dimensional manifolds of the spectral and temporal distributions of practical dynamic DMRSI data. The learned subspace and manifold structures were integrated via a regularization formulation to remove measurement noise. Theoretical analysis, computer simulations, and in vivo experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the denoising efficacy of the proposed method which enabled high-resolution imaging capability. The translational potential was demonstrated in tumor-bearing rats, where the Warburg effect associated with cancer metabolism and tumor heterogeneity were successfully captured. The new method may not only provide an effective tool to enhance the sensitivity of DMRSI for basic research and clinical applications but also provide a framework for denoising other spatiospectral data.


In this paper, we aim at learning simultaneously a discriminative dictionary and a robust projection matrix from noisy data. The joint learning, makes the learned projection and dictionary a better fit for each other, so a more accurate classification can be obtained. However, current prevailing joint dimensionality reduction and dictionary learning methods, would fail when the training samples are noisy or heavily corrupted. To address this issue, we propose a joint projection and dictionary learning using low-rank regularization and graph constraints (JPDL-LR). Specifically, the discrimination of the dictionary is achieved by imposing Fisher criterion on the coding coefficients. In addition, our method explicitly encodes the local structure of data by incorporating a graph regularization term, that further improves the discriminative ability of the projection matrix. Inspired by recent advances of low-rank representation for removing outliers and noise, we enforce a low-rank constraint on sub-dictionaries of all classes to make them more compact and robust to noise. Experimental results on several benchmark datasets verify the effectiveness and robustness of our method for both dimensionality reduction and image classification, especially when the data contains considerable noise or variations.


Equipment for measuring the shape of a groove with a depth of 3.6-4.5μm and a width of 0.15-0.30 mm inside a kinetic pressure bearing (K.P.B), which is used for magnetic discs, with a length of 8.75 mm and an inner diameter of 3 mm, is developed. The light projected to a specimen through a lens makes a small spot near the inside wall of the specimen. The position of the wall in the specimen is determined by detecting an image of the spot reflected on the wall. A two-dimensional theoretical analysis shows that the depth of the groove can be measured with an error of less than ±0.05μm. An experimental result shows that the depth of the groove can be measured with an amount of scatter less than -0.2 -+0.2 μm. As this scattering is sufficiently small to measure the depth of the groove, this equipment can be used in a production line.


We study the problem of finding maximal exact matches (MEMs) between a query string $Q$ and a labeled graph $G$. MEMs are an important class of seeds, often used in seed-chain-extend type of practical alignment methods because of their strong connections to classical metrics. A principled way to speed up chaining is to limit the number of MEMs by considering only MEMs of length at least $\kappa$ ($\kappa$-MEMs). However, on arbitrary input graphs, the problem of finding MEMs cannot be solved in truly sub-quadratic time under SETH (Equi et al., ICALP 2019) even on acyclic graphs. In this paper we show an $O(n\cdot L \cdot d^{L-1} + m + M_{\kappa,L})$-time algorithm finding all $\kappa$-MEMs between $Q$ and $G$ spanning exactly $L$ nodes in $G$, where $n$ is the total length of node labels, $d$ is the maximum degree of a node in $G$, $m = |Q|$, and $M_{\kappa,L}$ is the number of output MEMs. We use this algorithm to develop a $\kappa$-MEM finding solution on indexable Elastic Founder Graphs (Equi et al., Algorithmica 2022) running in time $O(nH^2 + m + M_\kappa)$, where $H$ is the maximum number of nodes in a block, and $M_\kappa$ is the total number of $\kappa$-MEMs. Our results generalize to the analysis of multiple query strings (MEMs between $G$ and any of the strings). Additionally, we provide some preliminary experimental results showing that the number of graph MEMs is an order of magnitude smaller than the number of string MEMs of the corresponding concatenated collection.


After the breakout of COVID-19, many entity industries have to shut down. The rapid decline of money transaction caused by the shutdown of the entity industries has shocked the financial service industry while the increase in digital transactions also offers them opportunities. Facing both challenges and opportunities, financial services firms should change their target and compensation policy during the pandemic to survive. After analysing three major firms in this industry by using SOAR method, we conclude four keys for financial services firms to survive in COVID-19.


The increasing pervasiveness of social media and digital technology has had a particular impact on the geographies and nature of work in the fashion industry. A new segment of entrepreneurs – fashion bloggers – are utilizing these digital technologies, such as blogs and social media, to transform their personal lives and style into online businesses. This article draws on an in-depth case study analysis of an American personal style fashion blog; tracing its nine-year evolution from an 'outfit-of-the-day' personal style blog, to one that encompasses her entire personal life, including diets, fitness, home décor and pregnancy. By focusing on one blog, we provide an in-depth exploration from its roots as a hobby for personal expression to a means of full-time employment in the fashion industry. Through this examination, emphasis is given to the process of becoming a blogger and the intensification of the ways in which the self is presented and commodified over time. We argue that personal style fashion bloggers provide an illustrative case study, not only for expanding our understanding of aesthetic labour in the digital age, but also highlighting the spaces and temporalities of work that these new formations and engagements of work give rise to. These processes highlight the changing configurations and spatialities of aesthetic labour online.


Visually evoked cerebral responses (VERs) from the occipital and central areas were compared between 50 patients with multiple sclerosis and 50 control subjects. The average peak latencies of four occipital components (OII-OV) and two central ones (CIV and CV) were significantly delayed. In no instance was the amplitude significantly different. Routine EEGs were either entirely normal (16) or showed only minor findings (10) in 26 patients. Of this group, nine showed abnormal VERs. Seventeen patients had clinical symptoms or signs which pointed to spinal cord involvement only; nonetheless, eight in this group had abnormal responses. Inasmuch as changes in visually evoked potentials are not directly dependent upon the presence of a demonstrable field defect, the technique may be useful in detecting otherwise occult cerebral lesions.


[1] As Earth's climate has warmed over the past several decades, atmospheric and hydrological cycle changes are being observed globally and regionally. For instance, Zhou et al. analyzed trends in the hydrological cycle in the tropics over the past 20–30 years using precipitation, cloud, and radiation data. In particular, the researchers looked at Hadley and Walker cell atmospheric circulation patterns. Hadley circulation is a major circulation pattern in the tropical atmosphere in which air masses, warmed by the Sun, rise near the equator, then travel poleward, sink back toward Earth's surface in the subtropics, and return to the equator. Similarly, in the Walker circulation, air rises over the warmer parts of the oceans near the equator, travels zonally toward the colder parts, then sinks back to the surface. There are indications that both of these circulation patterns are changing with global warming and could be altering precipitation and cloud radiation distributions in the tropical regions. (Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, doi:10.1029/2010JD015197, 2011)


In recent time the study topic of many scientific institutions throughout the world is the process of obtaining high-coercive magnetic materials based on Nd-Fe-B, by the method of rapid quenching from the alloy melt of desired chemical composition, so-called "melt spinning" method. Cooling speed range in which optimal results are achieved is rather narrow so that heat treatment of R/Q Nd-Fe-B alloys is needed in order to achieve the maximal coercivity. Crystallization and thermomagnetic behaviour of melt-spun Nd-Fe-B alloy with Nd low content was observed through phase transformation, for defined cooling rate and different heat treatment regime. The crystallization kinetics and activation energy of investigated alloy were observed by DTA measurements. The phase composition of the samples was investigated by conventional XRD analysis and Mössbauer spectroscopic phase analysis (MS). For determining the critical temperature of phase and thermomagnetic transformations, magnetic measurements were additionally carried out. Comparison of the experimental results obtained by different investigation techniques enabled more complete comprehension of the crystallization process during the heat treatment. Analysis of experimental results also enabled better insight in relationship between microstructure and magnetic properties in function of heat treatment regime.


Background Bone subtraction computed tomography angiography (BSCTA) is a useful alternative technique for improving visualization of vessels surrounded by skull bone. However, no studies have compared computed tomography angiography (CTA) and BSCTA for improving the visibility of canine cerebral blood vessels. Objectives To evaluate the potential benefit of BSCTA for better delineation of brain arteries of the circle of Willis (CoW) in dogs by comparing BSCTA with non-subtraction computed tomography angiography (NSCTA). Methods Brain CTA was performed for nine healthy beagle dogs using a bolus tracking method with saline flushing. A total dose of 600 mgI/kg of contrast agent with an iodine content of 370 mgI/mL was injected at a rate of 4 ml/s. Bone removal was achieved automatically by subtracting non-enhanced computed tomography (CT) data from contrast CT data. Five main intracranial arteries of the CoW were analyzed and graded on a scale of five for qualitative evaluation. Results Scores of basilar artery, middle cerebral artery, and rostral cerebral artery in the BSCTA group were significantly higher than those in the NSCTA group (p = 0.001, p = 0.020, and p < 0.0001, respectively). Scores of rostral cerebellar artery (RcA) and caudal cerebral artery (CCA) did not differ significantly between the two groups. However, scores of RcA and CCA in the BSCTA group were higher than those in the NSCTA group. Conclusions BSCTA improved visualization of intracranial arteries of the CoW with close contact to bone. Thus, it should be recommended as a routine scan method in dogs suspected of having brain vessel disease.


OBJECTIVE
To summarize the progress of Masquelet technique to repair bone defect.

METHODS
The recent literature concerning the application of Masquelet technique to repair bone defect was extensively reviewed and summarized.

RESULTS
Masquelet technique involves a two-step procedure. First, bone cement is used to fill the bone defect after a thorough debridement, and an induced membrane structure surrounding the spacer formed; then the bone cement is removed after 6-8 weeks, and rich cancellous bone is implanted into the induced membrane. Massive cortical bone defect is repaired by new bone forming and consolidation. Experiments show that the induced membrane has vascular system and is also rich in vascular endothelial growth factor, transforming growth factor beta1, bone morphogenetic protein 2, and bone progenitor cells, so it has osteoinductive property; satisfactory results have been achieved in clinical application of almost all parts of defects, various types of bone defect and massive defect up to 25 cm long. Compared with other repair methods, Masquelet technique has the advantages of reliable effect, easy to operate, few complications, low requirements for recipient site, and wide application.

CONCLUSION
Masquelet technique is an effective method to repair bone defect and is suitable for various types of bone defect, especially for bone defects caused by infection and tumor resection.


Abstract The Aurora, Nebraska, hailstorm of 22 June 2003 produced some exceptionally large hailstones, and was widely publicized. Nineteen hailstones obtained from local people have been sectioned and photographed and eight are illustrated here, recording their interior layering and external appearance. They exhibit great variability, with features that are common to large hail as well as one unusual growth form: a roughly prolate external shape indicating an approximately constant falling orientation during final growth, forming large, icicle-like projections at one end. Much of the growth is wet but not appreciably spongy, as appears to be common for large hail. While a hailstone from this storm has been called the largest recorded in the United States on the basis of its longest dimension, we suggest that the most meaningful measure of hailstone size is weight. Weight is unambiguous and easily measured, and is an excellent indicator of volume for large hail. People generally think of hail as spherical ...


New series of YBCO ceramics samples doping with different oxides such as SiO2, WO3, Al2O3, and TiO2 were fabricated to study the ionizing radiation shielding properties. The structure and morphology were explored by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The shielding properties were investigated experimentally and theoretically to check the validity of the results. The investigated radiation shielding properties include the proton, neutron, and gamma-ray. The XRD results show the orthorhombic structure for all ceramics without any additional peaks related to WO3, SiO2, TiO2, and Al2O3. At the same time, the SEM results appear to have a significant differentiation in the granular behavior of all ceramics surfaces. The incorporation of WO3 to YBCO enhanced the ceramic density, whereas the addition of different oxides reduced the density for ceramic samples. This variation in density changed the radiation shielding results. The sample containing WO3 (YBCO-W) gives us better results in radiation shielding properties for gamma and neutron; the sample having Al2O3 (YBCO-Al) is superior in shielding results for charged particles. Finally, the possibility to use YBCO with various oxides in different ionizing radiation shielding fields can be concluded.


Abstract We visualize water utilization in Beijing from source to service and onwards to destination using Sankey diagram to analyze the energy–water nexus at the city level. First, we describe the methodology, definition, and data and apply the Sankey diagram approach. Beijing faces highly constrained water resources and relies heavily on water that is energy-intensive to supply (such as underground water or water that must be conveyed over long distances. We find that the electricity required for water supply, treatment, utilization, and post-use utilization comprised about 5–7% of total electricity consumption in Beijing in 2009. We further find that water used in the energy-related sub-sectors accounted for about one-fourth of the water used in the whole industrial sector and about of 3% of the total fresh water used in Beijing in 2009. Among the energy related sub-sectors, the electricity sub-sector was found to be the largest contributor.


Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), subtype H5N1, constitutes one of the world's most important health and economic concerns given the catastrophic impact of epizootics on the poultry industry, the high mortality attending spillover in humans, and its potential as a source subtype for a future pandemic. Nevertheless, we still lack an adequate understanding of HPAI H5N1 epidemiology and infection ecology. The nature of the wild waterfowl-poultry interface, and the sharing of diverse wetland habitat among these birds, currently underscore important knowledge gaps. India has emerged as a global hotspot for HPAI H5N1, while also providing critical wintering habitat for many species of migratory waterfowl and year-round habitat for several resident waterfowl species. The current study sought to examine the extent to which the wild waterfowl-poultry interface, varied wetland habitat, and climate influence HPAI H5N1 epizootics in poultry in India. Using World Organisation for Animal Health reported outbreaks, this study showed that the wild waterfowl-poultry interface and lacustrine, riparian, and coastal marsh wetland systems were strongly associated with landscape suitability, and these realtionships varied by scale. Although increasing poultry density was associated with increasing risk, this was only the case in the absence of wild waterfowl habitat, and only at local scale. In landscapes increasingly shared between wild waterfowl and poultry, suitability was greater among lower density poultry, again at local scale only. These findings provide further insight into the occurrence of HPAI H5N1 in India and suggest important landscape targets for blocking the waterfowl-poultry interface to interrupt virus transmission and prevent future outbreaks.


In Malaysia, drawing is a compulsory subtopic in Visual Art Education subject. A study was conducted in order to identify the creativity in drawing among High or Low Spatial Learners. This study also examined the relationship between High and Low Spatial Learners in terms of students' genders. Furthermore, this study also identified the relationship between drawing creativities among the genders and measuring students drawing creativity using Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The present study adopted qualitative method where data were obtained through Drawing Test and Visual Spatial Test (Newton & Bristol, 2009). The numbers of samples involved in this study were 70. The students were all Form 3 students at Sek. Men. Keb. Alam Megah, Shah Alam. These students were selected randomly from their class name list. Findings of the study revealed that majority of the students were High Spatial Learners but only reached Average Level on their drawing test. It was found that the drawing ability and gender factors were not statically related. The data obtained from students' drawing revealed that most students either male or female were High Spatial Learners and did not fit the criteria of TTCT in terms of creativity. They were only at Average Level in the Drawing Test. Hence, several implication and recommendations were outlined as to enhance creativity among High and Low Spatial Learners.


Issues of housing in India are synonymous with ignorance of housing in active government involvement at the policy and program formulation levels. They are also due to the problems that unplanned urbanization, income disparity, poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment brought. These issues extenuated the housing problem, causing a housing shortage of 51 million in 2011. Though India has a long history of establishing policies, programs, and institutions to cater to housing, without allocating adequate resources, their impact in ameliorating the shortage has been marginal. This paper argues that to address the housing shortage in India, there is desperate need to prepare a framework for housing by (i) including housing as a constitutional right; (ii) resolving issues of unclear land titles and ensuing claims; (iii) building adequate financial resources for affordable housing programs; (iv) building responsive instruments to facilitate the affordability of housing by all income segments; and (v) overcoming market segmentation, which is currently catering to the housing needs of creditworthy clients and is overlooking the growing demand from middle- and lower-income segments. India needs to leverage its extensive architecture of agencies, policies, and market frameworks for housing by equipping them with adequate resources so they can deliver housing for all.


A theoretical model for the prediction of compression response of a randomly formed flake mat is developed. The model rigorously relates the overall mat response to local mat structure and individual flake properties. The compression behavior of single flakes, flake columns, and random flake mats is experimentally determined. Satisfactory agreement is found between the predicted and experimentally obtained results. Equations are also derived for the calculation of the relative volumetric change of between- and inside-flake voids in a mat and the change of relative flake-to-flake bonded area during the course of mat densification. Typical predictive outputs are presented and discussed.


The field of international judicial jurisdiction constantly witnesses the presence of interpretative argument and consent-based argument. The principle of consent is sometimes presented as the crucial factor in interpreting the instruments conferring jurisdiction to international tribunals. This contribution examines the relevant practice from the times of the Permanent Court of International Justice to the present, and demonstrates that although the jurisdiction of international tribunals is based on consent, the relevance of consent ceases once the relevant tribunal engages in interpreting the actual instrument interpreting jurisdiction. In this area, the normal principles of interpretation applicable to treaties determine the outcome. The reference to consensual principle has no autonomous relevance to determine or upset the outcomes in this process.


The applications of antibodies, be it monoclonal or polyclonal, in the diagnostic and research fields are well established. The disadvantage is the high cost of commercially available antibodies. In a diagnostic establishment like ours which also functions as a training ground for laboratory related personnel, it is beneficial to be able to produce in-house reagents. Therefore, we have undertaken this project to produce a rabbit polyclonal antibody against B lymphocytes. We found that the rabbit was a good choice because the titre of antibody produced was high and positive reactions were still detected at a dilution of 1:38400. The antibody showed significant positive reaction only with the lymphocyte subpopulation. A positive reaction was observed between the immunized rabbit serum and B lymphocytes but not T lymphocytes. This shows that the antibody was B lymphocyte specific. There was a positive correlation between the percentage of B lymphocytes labelled using the commercial anti-CD19 monoclonal antibody and the in-house polyclonal antibody (n = 13, r = 0.7, p = 0.02). However, the percentage of cells labelled by the in-house polyclonal anti-B was lower than that by the commercial monoclonal anti-CD19. The fluorescence intensity of the polyclonal antibody was lower than that of the monoclonal. In general, the performance of the in-house polyclonal antibody can be considered as satisfactory. The rabbit serum was stored at -20 degrees C and no significant loss of activity was detected for over a period of 19 months.


The crystal and molecular structure of the title compound has been determined by Patterson heavyatom methods and refined to R = 0.066 {triclinic, a = 11.708 (5), b = 11.596 (5), c = 7.750 (3) A, a = 86.33 (2), fl = 82.92 (2), y = 73.26 (3) °, space group Pi, Mo Ka radiation, 1334 reflections [1 > 3a(I)l}. The bis(r/-cyclopentadienyl)molybdenum moiety has the eclipsed configuration and the M o M g bond length is 2.732 A. The presence of the hydrido ligand is inferred from the molecular geometry. The Mg atom has a distorted tetrahedral configuration.


The delayed damper (DD) is a new active vibration absorption technique that uses time-delayed partial state feedback to generate ideal resonance on a passive vibration absorber. It has many attractive features such as real-time adjustability, ease of implementation, and total suppression of vibration for tonal frequency disturbances. In this paper, a major advantage of engineering structures analysis is the reduction of characteristic roots from infinite to finite numbers and the consequent simplicity in the dynamic analysis of the controller. The dynamic model principle is employed to design controllers for the structure. The system is examined by simulation. It is shown that engineering structures control application for DD yields better vibration suppression considering the sampled control structure in implementations.


In this study, a stone cracking machine with periodic loading, and a shaky and sloping jaw which breaks apricot and almond stones was designed and manufactured. For determining the cracking efficiency of the stone cracking machine, the apricot stones were cracked under dry and different wetting periods (1, 2, 3 and 4 hours) and jaw clearances (8.5, 9.5, 10.5 and 11.5 mm). The results obtained at the end of this study were compared with a similar type of stone cracking machine.


ABSTRACT We previously reported the presence of brown/beige adipocytes in the white fat depots of mature cattle. The present study examined the effects of dietary vitamin A on the expression of brown/beige adipocyte-related genes in the white fat depots of fattening cattle. No significant differences were observed in the expression of Ucp1 between vitamin A-deficient cattle and control cattle. However, the expression of the other brown/beige adipocyte-related genes was slightly higher in the mesenteric fat depots of vitamin A-deficient cattle. The present results suggest that a vitamin A deficiency does not markedly affect the expression of Ucp1 in white fat depots, but imply that it may stimulate the emergence of beige adipocytes in the mesenteric fat depots of fattening cattle.


INTRODUCTION
The endovascular method of treating abdominal aortic aneurysms was introduced as an alternative to conventional surgical repair in the hope of reducing the operative mortality and morbidity.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Thirty patients were selected for endovascular aneurysm repair on the basis of anatomical criteria. The result of the treatment was evaluated by angiography on completion of surgery and by contrast-enhanced CT scans at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months, and annually thereafter.

RESULTS
Exclusion of the aneurysm sac was achieved in 27 patients. Acute conversion to open surgical repair was necessary in one patient, owing to arterial damage. Two patients had primary endoleak. In one patient the endoleak disappeared spontaneously, in the second patient conversion to open repair was performed during follow up. The operative mortality was 0%, and the incidence of early complications requiring treatment was 13%. During a median follow-up period of 22 months, secondary endoleaks were detected in five patients and graft-limb occlusion occurred in three patients. Secondary intervention was performed in eight patients (29%).

DISCUSSION
In selected patients, endovascular repair is feasible and associated with few major perioperative complications. The observed rate of secondary intervention emphasises the need for continued surveillance.


Boza is a dense beverage of sour taste. The taste may vary according to the amount of added sugar, the type of cereals and micro-organisms used, and the length of fermentation. It is a typical beverage found in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and other Balkan countries. In Turkey, warm boza is consumed primarily during the winter due to the effect of warming of the body and as a result it is expected to help against seasonal respiratory infections. In Romania, they drink chilled, refreshing boza, especially during the summer months. As it contains vitamins A, C, E and four types of vitamin B, it is a valuable nutrient for physically active people. It is especially suitable for vegetarians and vegans, since it is entirely plant-based, and is a good source of vitamins and a good substitute for milk drinks. In the present Master's degree thesis, a change in pH of the mixture of flour and bacteria was monitored in order to determine how quickly the pH of mixture decreases. We found that the rate of pH decrease of mixtures from various types of flour and also with the addition of different bacteria types differs. We also found that the pH of the mixtures 48 hours after the addition of bacteria differs according to the type of bacteria added. We also carried out titration of the boza mixture in order to determine the amount of acid produced during the fermentation process. We found that for a boza mixture prepared with starch, the addition of any type of bacteria does not require a lot of base in order to neutralize the acid produced during the fermentation process. We were also interested in the growth of bacteria in the sample, which was assessed with the Petrifilm® plate. We described the growth curve of bacteria obtained from sour cream in an millet flour. By means of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, the volatile substances in the boza samples were determined qualitatively and quantitatively on several occasions, in order to evaluate if and how these volatile substances change during fermentation. We demonstrated that the content of some of the analyzed volatile substances varies significantly during fermentation. Finally, we reviewed and analyzed the objectives that pertain to our topic in the curriculum for primary schools, to assess how these topics are represented in certified textbooks. On the basis of our experimental work, we developed two worksheets for pupils, as an alternative to the previously described experiments (i.e. acidification of milk) on the topic of fermentation.


My aim in this article is to evaluate some general statements on civil violence, and more particularly on the purposefulness of collective action and on the alleged rationality that moves social actors launching rebellion. With the use of African examples, examples that are too seldom taken into account in theoretical explanations of violent conflict, it is shown that rationality in collective action can certainly not be dismissed out of hand, but that some caveats have to be entered into the argument: some African rebels, although acting rationaly, base themselves on completely erroneous information, while in other cases social actors consciously opt for life or a career as a rebel, but out of motives that anything but "revolutionary ".


Research on engineering practice accentuates interplays between the social and technical dimensions of complex engineering problems. Yet within engineering education, relatively little content focuses on such interplays. Content in the engineering curricula often ignores the broader impacts or sociocultural contexts in which engineering designs, products, and services are created and used. As part of a larger study, our research examines whether (compared to males) female undergraduate engineering students indicate similar or different perceptions on the integration of sociotechnical thinking in engineering curricula. The integration of sociotechnical thinking in engineering curricula represents one of several pedagogical techniques that may engage female (and perhaps also male) engineering students as a result of correlation to perceived learning preferences and broader interests. After reviewing relevant literature, this paper analyzes quantitative survey data on student perceptions of the importance of sociotechnical integration in engineering education. Baseline sociotechnical survey data were collected in spring and fall semesters of 2018 in two (spring) and three (fall) engineering classes at two public universities: the Colorado School of Mines and University of Colorado Boulder. Results demonstrate a greater preference for certain forms of sociotechnical thinking in engineering among women. For example, female students assigned greater importance to 'Ethical' and 'Social' considerations and skills such as 'Listen to and integrate the perspectives of both engineers and non-engineers' and 'Work with people having a diverse set of backgrounds.' Also, compared to male students, a higher percentage of female students characterized social responsibility as 'Engineers' obligations to the public' and identified the reason why engineers have special societal obligations as due to the notion that 'Engineering decisions can impact individuals, communities, and the broader public positively and/or negatively.' These results are particularly salient when considered in light of recent research accentuating the importance of contextualized engineering problem-framing and solving processes within a broader sociotechnical context. Finally, we explore ways in which the results open up multiple directions for future research.


Hydrogenated TiO2 (H:TiO2) is intensively investigated due to its improvement in solar absorption, but there are major issues related to its structural, optical and electronic properties and therefore an easily compatible method of preparation is much needed. In order to clarify this issue we studied TiO2 nanocrystals under the partial pressure of hydrogen to modify the structural, optical and electrical properties and to significantly improve the photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical performance. The hydrogen treated TiO2 nanocrystals contained paramagnetic Ti3+ centers and exhibited a higher visible light absorption cross-section as was confirmed by electron paramagnetic resonance diffuse reflectance spectra measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The hydrogen annealed samples showed a noticeable improvement in photocatalytic activity under visible light (λ > 380 nm) which was demonstrated by the degradation of methylene blue dye and an improved photoelectrochemical response in terms of high photocurrent density. Ab initio simulations of TiO2 were performed in order to elucidate the conditions under which localized Ti3+ centres rather than delocalized shallow donor states are created upon the reduction of TiO2. Randomly distributed oxygen vacancies lead to localized deep donor states while the occupation of the oxygen vacancies by atomic hydrogen favours the delocalized shallow donor solution. Furthermore, it was found that localization is stabilized at high defect concentrations and destabilized under external pressures. In those cases where localized Ti3+ states are present, the DFT simulations showed a considerable enhancement of the visible light absorption as well as a pronounced broadening of the localized Ti3+ energy levels with increasing defect concentration.


Introduction: American Academy of Pediatrics recommends investigating for urinary tract infection (UTI) in neonates with conjugated hyperbilirubinemia, but UTI may be associated with unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia also. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the frequency of UTI in initial 4 weeks of life in pathological unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia and to study the effect of treatment of UTI on the course of hyperbilirubinemia in these neonates. Methods: This hospital-based prospective cohort study included 100 consecutive neonates with a gestational age more than or equal to 35 weeks and <42 weeks with unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia in pathological range. Babies were treated with phototherapy (and exchange transfusion), and neonates with UTI were treated with antibiotics also. The primary outcome was the frequency of UTI, confirmed by a positive urine culture and secondary outcomes included positive leukocyte esterase (LE) and nitrite reactions, significant pyuria, and rate of fall of bilirubin levels. Results: Seven neonates had a positive urine culture growth (UTI group) while remaining 93 babies constituted non-UTI group. In the UTI group, six and five babies had positive LE and nitrite reactions, respectively, and four babies had significant pyuria also. Exchange transfusion was done in 23 neonates in the non-UTI group. The median (range) duration of phototherapy in the remaining 70 neonates in the non-UTI group was 39 (15


Development and expansion of high-avidity T cell populations may be important for the success of immunization strategies against HIV and other pathogens that have presented major problems for vaccine development. We have used tetrameric-MHC complexes ex vivo and lytic assays to show that 'prime-boost' immunization with DNA vaccines and recombinant poxvirus vectors generates high frequencies of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) that recognize target cells expressing very low levels of specific antigen. These cells persist for at least 6 months at levels representing approximately 10% of the CD8(+) T cell population. Using a novel in vivo assay, we also found that prime-boost immunized animals were capable of eliminating target cells expressing 10- to 100-fold less immunogenic peptide than mice given either vector alone. In addition, viral challenge led to rapid expansion of CTL effectors in prime-boost groups, to levels representing >30% of total CD8(+) T cell numbers. Strategies that generate specific T cells of high avidity, optimizing early detection of infected cells, offer new hope for effective prophylaxis and immunotherapy.


This article addresses the development of an integrated approach to assessing the effectiveness of state projects for all types of accessibility (physical, transport, time, information) of environment for the disabled in all directions from the point of view of citizens (rendering state and municipal services and vital activity, categories of disability). The work presents theoretical foundations of the concepts "efficiency of state projects", "accessible environment"; the analysis of theoretical approaches to the evaluation of state projects' effectiveness; the practice of implementing state projects on an accessible environment in the Perm region; the efficiency indicators of the realized state projects of an accessible environment for low-mobility groups in the Perm region; problems of assessing the success of state projects; the integrated approach to assessing the effectiveness of state projects; the comparative analysis of the evaluation of state projects implementation by public authorities on the one hand, and organizations of the disabled, on the other. Drawing on the results of the analysis, we may conclude that there are significant differences in evaluating the implementation of state accessibility projects due to functional and organizational reasons. The authors have developed the directions of improving the organization of an accessible environment for low-mobility citizens, such as provision of direct interaction between public organizations of the disabled and public authorities, development of a unified construction concept of accessibility formation, improving the mechanisms for conducting inspections, monitoring and regulatory and legal frameworks in the field of accessibility of the environment.


Each year, the editors of the general medicine version of Journal Watch pick the past year's top stories. Typically, these stories emerge from a group


Classroom action research aims to improve the activity and student learning outcomes with the application of inquiry learning methods. The study consisted of 2 cycles of the number of students 25. Collecting data using achievement test, student questionnaire responses, and observations of students in learning activities with the method of inquiry. Data analysis using quantitative techniques and qualitative techniques by linking existing data. The analysis showed: (1) an increase in the activity of the students are in the first cycle of acquisition activity by 61.25% students and 75.63% with enough categories. In the second cycle increased to 92.50% with very good category. (2) an increase in student learning outcomes in the first cycle is the average value of student learning outcomes for cognitive assessment was increased to 82 disiklus 60 to II with the percentage of students who obtained excellent learning predicate 96%. For the assessment of students psychomotor also increased in the first cycle is the highest score obtained by the students increased 3.30 to 3.40 in the second cycle with the percentage of students who received either 72% predicate learning. For the assessment of affective (honest, discipline and cooperation) also increased in the first cycle is 12% to 48%. Based on the above results it can be concluded that the application of the inquiry method can improve the activity and learning outcomes of students in the fourth grade SDN.060843 Medan.


We give an example of a morphism of simplicial sets which is a monomorphism, bijective on

 0
 0

-simplices, and a weak categorical equivalence, but which is not inner anodyne. This answers an open question of Joyal. Furthermore, we use this morphism to refute a plausible description of the class of fibrations in Joyal's model structure for quasi-categories.


Anthropometric and skinfold measurements in 51 newborns of mothers with gestational diabetes were compared to reference ranges obtained from measurements of 501 newborns of nondiabetic mothers. In newborns of diabetic mothers, the means of fetal birth weight, biceps, subscapular, suprailiac skinfolds, and total fat index measurements (the sum of all measurements) were significantly greater than those of the nondiabetic group. While the means of fetal crown-heel length and head circumference did not significantly differ between the two groups, these findings suggest a disproportionate pattern of growth in fetuses of diabetic mothers, with increased tendency for deposition of subcutaneous fat. The studied population were then stratified into six categories according to birth weight percentiles. Within each category, the skinfold measurements in newborns of diabetic mothers were greater—though the difference was not statistically significant than that of nondiabetic mothers. It is possible, however, that in ...


A Cataract is the most common cause of sight impairment around the globe. Therefore, determining the presence and severity of cataracts is critical for analysis and movement monitoring. This research proposes a framework for the automatic classification of cataracts through retinal fundus images. Moreover, this research provides an automatic structure for diagnosing and analyzing eye disease. Further-more, image augmentation is utilized to increase the number of images in the dataset. In addition, pre-processing is used to remove the noise in the images. Convolutional Neural Networks, GoogleNet, and AlexNet are proposed in this research for the classification of normal and cataract-affected images. A total of 449 cataract and normal fundus images are acquired for testing and training the models. The dataset was increased to 1159 images using a data augmentation technique. Exploratory outcomes demonstrate that the GoogleNet attained 97% accuracy, 90% sensitivity, and 90% specificity. On the other hand, AlexNet attained 90% accuracy, 88% sensitivity, and 85% specificity. Outcomes show that GoogleNet beats the best in class cataract detection approaches and can assist doctors in real-time cataract disease detection applications.


In the male, a countercurrent mechanism between vena and arteria spermatica interna seems well documented. The exchange has been described for heat (Waites, 1970), inert gases (Einer-Jensen, 1974a) and for testosterone (see Setchell, 1973; Einer-Jensen, 1974b). In the female, much less evidence exists for a similar exchange between the cranial uterine and ovarian blood vessels, although the vessels are close together in many species including sheep, horses, cattle, pigs, rats, rabbits and guineapigs (see Goding & co-authors, 1972). So far, a local exchange has only been described with 133xenon in sheep (Coudert, Phillips, Faiman, Chernecki & Palmer, 1974a) and with prostaglandin F2\g=a\in sheep (McCracken, Baird & Goding, 1971; McCracken & co-authors, 1972) and cattle (Hixon & Hansel, 1974). Using a method similar to the one indicating recirculation of the inert gases, 133xenon and 85krypton, in the male countercurrent system (Einer-Jensen, 1974a), the present experiment was performed to investigate whether 133xenon injected into the lumen of one uterine horn could be found in a higher concen¬ tration in the ipsilateral ovary than in the contralateral ovary. Groups of four to eight adult mice, rats, rabbits, hamsters or guinea-pigs were used (Table 1 ). Of the seventy-nine animals used, twenty rats were at Day 2 of pregnancy which was initiated by caging single oestrous females overnight with two males. If spermatozoa were observed in the vaginal smear the following morning, the day was regarded as Day 1 of pregnancy. The rats, hamsters and guinea-pigs were anaesthetized with an intraperitoneal injection of 25 to 30 mg Nembutal/kg; mice were given 50 mg/kg. Rabbits were anaesthet¬ ized by giving a slow intravenous infusion of Nembutal until anaesthesia was obtained (20 to 30 mg/kg). The abdomen was opened and 0-01 to 0-1 ml 133xenon-saline (0-5 to 2 mCi/ml, New England Nuclear) was injected through the wall into the lumen of the left uterine horn through a 26-gauge needle. After the injection, the abdominal wall was temporarily closed with wound clips. In fifteen rats and five hamsters, both tubes were ligated close to the uterotubal junction with 5-0 silk before injection. In six mice and five hamsters, the oviducts were ligated 1 week before the injection. The abdominal wall was reopened 1, 5 or 30 min after the injection, and the


Celiac disease (CD) is diagnosed by a combination of specific serology and typical duodenal lesions. The histological confirmation of CD, mandatory in the majority of patients with suspected CD, is based on invasive and poorly tolerated procedures, such as upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. In this study we propose an alternative and non-invasive methodology able to confirm the diagnosis of CD based on the analysis of serum samples using the Raman spectroscopy technique. Three different bands centered at 1650, 1450 and 1003 cm−1 have been considered and the A1450/A1003 and A1650/A1003 ratios have been computed to discriminate between CD and non-CD subjects. The reliability of the methodology was validated by statistical analysis using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The Youden index was also determined to obtain optimal cut-off points. The obtained results highlighted that the proposed methodology was able to distinguish between CD and non-CD subjects with 98% accuracy. The optimal cut-off points revealed, for both the A1450/A1003 and A1650/A1003 ratios, high values of sensitivity and specificity (>95.0% and >92.0% respectively), confirming that Raman spectroscopy may be considered a valid alternative to duodenal biopsy and demonstrates spectral changes in the secondary structures of the protein network.


The onset of critical complications (multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, MODS) after coronary artery bypass grafting is the result of severe stress response. The key etiopathological factor of the induction phase of the complex pathological process, which ultimately leads to dysfunction of organs and systems, is the dysfunction of the immune response. The characteristics of reactions of the immune system in a particular individual are genetically determined and realized through innate immunity activation. Aim. To determine the role of TREM-1 gene polymorphism through the changes of sTREM serum levels and their contribution to the development of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome after coronary artery bypass grafting.Materials and Methods. 132 patients with coronary atherosclerosis who had undergone coronary artery bypass grafting were included in the study. Of them, 30 patients had multiple organ dysfunction syndrome in the early postoperative period. sTREM serum levels were measured using enzyme immunoassay. Genotyping of polymorphic loci of the TREM-1 gene was performed with real-time allele-specific PCR using TaqMan system.Results. Significant differences in sTREM levels among patients with and without MODS were found. sTREM levels depend on the carriage of certain allelic variants in the three polymorphic loci of the TREM-1 gene (rs1817537, rs2234246, rs3804277)Conclusion. The relationships of the levels of the circulating soluble form of TREM-1 and the polymorphic variants of the coding TREM-1 gene with the severity of MODS were determined in coronary artery disease patients after coronary artery bypass grafting.


This paper addresses the difficulty that designers of embedded software systems face when doing formal verification. Existing theories and practices in verification are powerful, but when applying formal techniques, the use of detailed mathematical model descriptions in verification greatly increase the burden on system designers; construction of such models may be time consuming and error prone. We lay the groundwork for solving this problem by providing a mapping from actor models to mathematical models suitable for verification; the conversion is automatic with minimal human intervention. Meanwhile, the interactions between the verification model and its environment can guide us in designing how the implementation model interprets the raw data from sensors and to actuators, allowing us to reuse the verification model as the basis of its implementation model. Following these strategies, the productivity of designers and the correctness of designs can be maintained simultaneously.


We use static solutions of 5-dimensional Kaluza-Klein gravity to generate several classes of static, spherically symmetric spacetimes which are analytic solutions to the equation (4)R = 0, where (4)R is the four-dimensional Ricci scalar. In the Randall & Sundrum scenario they can be interpreted as vacuum solutions on the brane. The solutions contain the Schwarzschild black hole, and generate new families of traversable Lorenzian wormholes as well as nakedly singular spacetimes. They generalize a number of previously known solutions in the literature, e.g., the temporal and spatial Schwarzschild solutions of braneworld theory as well as the class of self-dual Lorenzian wormholes. A major departure of our solutions from Lorenzian wormholes a la Morris and Thorne is that, for certain values of the parameters of the solutions, they contain three spherical surfaces (instead of one) which are extremal and have finite area. Two of them have the same size, meet the ``flare-out" requirements, and show the typical violation of the energy conditions that characterizes a wormhole throat. The other extremal sphere is ``flaring-in" in the sense that its sectional area is a local maximum and the weak, null and dominant energy conditions are satisfied in its neighborhood. After bouncing back at this second surface a traveler crosses into another space which is the double of the one she/he started in. Another interesting feature is that the size of the throat can be less than the Schwarzschild radius 2M, which no longer defines the horizon, i.e., to a distant observer a particle or light falling down crosses the Schwarzschild radius in a finite time.