In this paper, we discuss project scheduling with
conflicting activity-resources. Several project activities require
same resources but, may be scheduled with the certain lapse of
time resulting in repeatedly using the same kind of resources for
executing dissimilar activities. Due to the frequent usage of same
resources multiple times, expenditure become more expensive
and project duration extends. The problem is to find out such
kind of activities which are developing implicit relations amid
them. , we proposed a solution by introducing TVs (Transparent
view of Scheduling) model. First, we analyze and enlists activities
according to required resources, categorize them and then we
segregate dependent and independent activities by indicating a
value. Performing Dependency test on activities by using
Pearson's Correlation Coefficient (PCC) to calculate the rate of
relations among the ordered activities for similar resources. By
using this model we can reschedule activities to avoid confusion
and disordering of resources without consumption of time and
capital.


1. The effect of elevated CO2 on tissue composition in an alpine grassland (Swiss Central Alps, 2500m) under both natural and increased nutrient supply (NPK) is summarized.

2. During 3 years of CO2 enrichment the concentration of total non-structural carbohydrates (TNC) in leaves increased by 32% in Leontodon helveticus (largely sugar) and by 56% in Trifolium alpinum (largely starch) but did not change significantly in the dominant sedge Carex curvula and in Poa alpina, currently a rare species at this site.

3. Enhanced mineral nutrient supply (unlike elevated CO2) greatly stimulated growth but did not reduce the CO2-induced TNC accumulation.

4. Under elevated CO2 nitrogen concentrations (per g TNC-free dry matter) of green leaves decreased in Leontodon (–21%) and in Trifolium (–24%) but not or only slightly in Carex and in Poa. NPK addition compensated this CO2 effect on nitrogen concentration in Trifolium but not in the other species.

5. In below-ground tissue neither TNC nor nitrogen concentration responded to CO2 fertilization.

6. The nitrogen pool per unit land area at peak season biomass remained unaffected by the CO2 treatment.

7. Overall our results suggest that the late successional dominant sedge Carex curvula remains unaffected by elevated CO2, independently of mineral nutrient supply, whereas the co-dominant and sub-dominant forbs Leontodon helveticus and Trifolium alpinum show both an increase of TNC as well as N depletion under elevated CO2.

8. None of these changes in active plant tissue translate into compositional changes in naturally senesced litter suggesting caution with predictions of CO2 effects on decomposition based on data from green plant material.


The sequencing of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome 21 years ago ushered in the genomics era for plant research. Since then, an incredible variety of bioinformatic tools permit easy access to large repositories of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, epigenomic and other "-omic" data. In this review, we cover some more recent tools (and highlight the "classics") for exploring such data in order to help formulate quality testable hypotheses, often without having to generate new experimental data. We cover tools for examining gene expression and co-expression patterns, undertaking promoter analyses and gene set enrichment analyses, and exploring protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions. We will touch on tools that integrate different data sets at the end of the article.


On February 9th, 1983, Dennis Nilsen was arrested in connection with the uncovering of human remains in a manhole outside his home in Cranley Gardens, Muswell Hilll. Within the next few days Nilsen confessed to a total of fifteen murders which he committed over a period of four years. Only two of his victims had ever been reported as missing, and certainly not one had occasioned a murder hunt. Never had any of Nilsen's colleagues at the Job Centre of the Manpower Services Commission in Kentish Town or his co-tenants had any cause for suspicion about his behaviour. It is vital that we try to comprehend such catastrophes rather than turn in horror from them, if we are to discover how to avert their repetition. We must examine the sort of society it is in which fifteen men can disappear practically unnoticed. We must attempt to fathom the conditions which transform an apparently mild-mannered man into a brutal killer. Brian Masters is in a unique position to address these questions. Sanctioned by the Home Office, he has had free access not only to Nilsen's extensive personal journals, but also to Nilsen himself. It is extremely rare for a murderer to talk about himself as frankly and exhaustively as Nilsen has: his prison archive is an unprecedented document in the history of criminal homicide. Masters has made discriminating use of this unusual cooperation and articulacy, corroborating the murderer's memory and retrospection by researches in to outside sources, to produce a document as illuminating as it is chilling. The forlorn life of Nilsen - his all but loveless childhood, his gradual and fatal obsession with the sexuality of death, the increasing isolation of his adulthood, the heavy drinking this resulted in, the horrific squalor of his existence at the time of his arrest - is compellingly drawn and scrupulously examined. As desperate and dismal the inner world of Nilsen was the world from which he drew his victims - the unseen London of casual sexual encounters, of down-and-outs and drifters with no one to miss them. Killing for Company is the story of how these two worlds came into collision. As such, it must stand as one of the most remarkable and accurate accounts ever written of the singular relationship between a mass murderer and a society.


One-Class Collaborative Filtering (OCCF) problems are more problematic than traditional collaborative filtering problems, since OCCF datasets lack counter-examples. Social networks can be used to remedy dataset issues faced by OCCF applications. In this work, we compare social networks belong to specific domains and the ones belong to more generic domains in terms of their usability in OCCF problems. Our experiments show that social networks that belong to a specific domain may better be appropriate for use in OCCF application.


This has been a vintage decade for commemorating Irish teaching hospitals. In Dublin alone seven general, and three specialist ones, have attracted histories, six of the former on their downtown closure and move to the Beaumont, Tallaght or St. James's complexes: only Sir Patrick Dun's has failed to find a chronicler. It is now Belfast's turn and this sensibly planned, beautifully produced, handsomely illustrated, and well-written volume marking the Royal's bicentenary is a superb memorial to what is, by any standards, one of the premier hospitals in these islands. There have been previous histories-by A. and numerous other publications on specific events, facilities, personnel and personalities, but this is the first attempt to 'tell the story' of the hospital over the whole two hundred years albeit in one volume. Several factors have ensured its success. The book is beautifully produced. Richard Clarke is a gifted narrator trawling expertly through a welter of facts to select those essential to the story so that the narrative never lacks pace, clarity and focus yet preserves essential scope-remarkable given the wealth of source material. I have never, for example, seen the early period (1797-1850) described so lucidly and coherently, if necessarily briefly in only some 9,000 words. Only in the post-1948 period does the mushroom growth of facilities and personnel force the author, in describing the trees, to neglect something of the forest. Professor Clarke has a wide knowledge of and feel for the swing of local and medical history and this adds sensitivity and authority to the text and adds skilfully the dimensions of the external social, economic, demographic, medical and political factors which were so important as being the waters in which the hospital developed and swam. There are few digressive cul-de-sacs and only one (highly appropriate) footnote to distract and detract from the main thrust of the narrative. It is necessarily less detailed and comprehensive than Allison's history (1850-1903) but it is better ordered and cohesive and freer from errors. The numerous illustrations are well-chosen, of high quality, and add value to the text. The format of the book is well-conceived. The chapters are sequenced chronologically, and contain sections describing the physical plant, specialities, personnel, personalities, medical developments etc, with little overlap and then adequately cross-referenced, the whole ensuring precision and clarity. There are valuable appendices including a 30-page chronological list of all consulting staff from 1797 ('visiting' and/or 'attending' staff …


Hypokalemic periodic paralysis (hypo KPP) is a rare form of autosomal dominant channelopathy characterized by muscular weakness and paralysis caused by decreased potassium levels. Precipitating factors are a diet rich in starches and sweets, and rest after an unusual degree of exercise. Paralytic attacks are more common between the ages of 15 and 40 years. The presentation can be a total paralysis or severe quadriplegia or mild weakness in certain group of muscles. During the acute episode of weakness proximal muscles are involved initially with gradual spread to the distal muscles. Deep reflexes are decreased or absent but the cognitive functions and sensory systems are intact. The paralysis may last for few hours to several days, but recovery is usually sudden in most patients. Hypo KPP is usually associated with thyroid disorders and distal renal tubular acidosis (DRTA). Here we report a case of young female patient who presented in emergency with two days history of weakness of all four limbs. The patient also had two episodes of similar illness in the last two and half years. On examination she had decreased tone and power in all four limbs with absent deep tendon reflexes, and plantar reflexes were down going bilaterally. On initial laboratory workup, patient was diagnosed to have hypokalemic, hyperchloremic metabolic acidosis with alkaline urine secondary to hypothyroidism. Features of hypokalemia with metabolic acidosis and failure to acidify urine was consistent with DRTA. Intravenous potassium chloride and bicarbonate replacement resulted in biochemical and clinical improvement.


What are we talking about when we talk about sovereignty? Is it about formal legitimacy or practical authority? Does it require the ability to control the flow of people or goods across a border; is it primarily a principle of international recognition; or does its essence lie in the power to regulate the lives of a state's citizens? Political theorists, historians, scholars of international relations, lawyers, anthropologists, literary critics-all approach the dilemmas of sovereign power with a mixture of urgency and frustration.In On Lingering and Being Last, Jonathan Elmer argues that the logic of sovereignty that emerged in early modern Europe and that limits our thinking today must be understood as a fundamentally racialized logic, first visible in the New World. The modern concept of sovereignty is based on a trope of personification, the conjunction of individual and collective identities. In Grotius, Hobbes, and others, a fiction of sovereign autonomy enabled states to be personified as individuals, as bodies politic, even as individual humans could be imagined as miniature states. The contradictions of this logic were fully revealed only in the New World, as writers ranging from Aphra Behn to Thomas Jefferson and Herman Melville demonstrate.The racialized sovereign figures examined in On Lingering and Being Last-the slave king Oroonoko, the last chief Logan, and their avatars-are always at once a person and a people. They embody the connection between the individual and the collectivity, and thereby reveal that the volatile work of sovereign personification takes place in a new world constituted both by concepts of equality, homogeneity, and symmetry-by an ideal of liberal individualism-and by the realities of racial domination and ideology in the era of colonial expansion. The conjunction of the individual, race, and New World territorialization, Elmer argues, is key to understanding the deepest strata in the political imagination of Atlantic modernity.


This paper presents the theory and algorithm for SPFD-based global rewiring (SPFD-GR). SPFD-GR allows us to globally replace a target wire with some alternative wire possibly far away from the target. It successfully overcomes the limitations of the existing SPFD-based local rewiring algorithm (SPFD-LR), which can only replace a wire with another wire that has the same destination node. In order to perform SPFD-based global rewiring, we developed the theory and algorithm for solving a fundamental problem in SPFD-based rewiring: Given the in-pin functions of a node and the SPFD at the node's out-pin, is there a way to modify the node's internal function so that the SPFD at the node's out-pin can be satisfied? Combined with a state-of-the-art partitioning algorithm, SPFD-GR scales well to large circuits with good synthesis quality. Our SPFD-based rewiring algorithm is ideal for LUT-based FPGAs, where the node's internal function can be changed freely without any area or delay penalty. Extensive experimental results show that for LUT-based FPGAs, the rewiring ability of SPFD-GR (in terms of the number of wires that have alternative wires) is 1.45, and 3 times that of SPFD-LR and an ATPG-based rewiring algorithm (with a preliminary experimental flow), respectively, while the run time is quite acceptable. When applied to the post-mapping area reduction for large LUT-based FPGAs under circuit depth restriction, SPFD-GR achieves 17.1% average area reduction, with no or little delay increase.


Through a new collection of primary documents about Japanese internment during World War II, this book enables a broader understanding of the injustice experienced by displaced people within the United States in the 20th century.
 In the 1940s, Japanese and Japanese American internees of Redwood City, CA, had a dedicated ally: J. Elmer Morrish, a banker who kept their businesses alive, made sure their taxes were paid, and safeguarded their properties until after the end of World War II and the internees were finally released. What were Morrish's motivations for his tireless efforts to help the internees? How did the unjustly incarcerated deal with the loss of freedom in the camps, and how did they envision their future? And how did the internees both cooperate with the U.S. government and attempt to resist victimization?
 Citizen Internees: A Second Look at Race and Citizenship in Japanese American Internment Camps is an edited selection from a collection of more than 2,000 pieces of correspondence—some of which is previously unpublished—regarding the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans from Redwood City, CA. These primary source documents reveal the experiences and emotions of a group of imprisoned people attempting to run the necessary day-to-day tasks of the lives they were forced to leave behind—as property owners, taxpayers, and proprietors. Through these letters about practical matters, readers can gain insight into the internees' changing family relations, their financial concerns, and their struggles in making decisions about an uncertain future. The book also includes essays that supply background information, analysis of the documents' contents and meaning, and historical context.


We give an overview of relative tensor products (RTPs) for von Neumann algebra modules. For background, we start with the categorical definition and go on to examine its algebraic formulation, which is applied to Morita equivalence and index. Then we consider the analytic construction, with particular emphasis on explaining why the RTP is not generally defined for every pair of vectors. We also look at recent work justifying a representation of RTPs as composition of unbounded operators, noting that these ideas work equally well for L^p modules. Finally, we prove some new results characterizing preclosedness of the map (\xi, \eta) \mapsto \xi \otimes_\phi \eta.


The objective of this study was to evaluate plain radiographs, US and MRI in detection of occult lesions of the elbow in asymptomatic handball players. Comparative plain films of both elbows were obtained in an anteroposterior and lateral projection. A bilateral comparative ultrasound examination was performed with measurement of the thickness of the flexor and extensor tendons, the triceps tendon, the lateral collateral ligament and the anterior bundle of the medial collateral ligament (MCL). Echogenicity of these structures was evaluated. Articular recesses were scanned for fluid and loose bodies. Axial and coronal MRI of the dominant elbow was performed using a T1W sequence after intravenous injection of gadolinium 30 minutes before the examination and by a FISP 3D T2W echo gradient sequence in coronal plane and reconstruction in a sagittal plane. Twenty-eight male asymptomatic members of the national handball team with 7 to 25 years of experience and undergoing 3 to 4 training sessions per week were studied. Paraphysiological modifications such as hypertrophy of bone and muscles were evidenced. Flexion deformity of the elbow was present even in the youngest players, but valgus deformity occurred preferentially in the more experienced players. US was more efficient in detection of small loose bodies and gave more precise information on the structure of the MCL and the tendons compared with MRI. Plain film and US were sufficient for the detection of chronic lesions of the elbow. MRI did not add significant findings.


Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) was a key author of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution, also known as the Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary Theory, which embodies a complex array of biological knowledge centered around Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection couched in genetic terms. The epithet "synthetic" primarily alludes to the artful combination of Darwin's natural selection with Mendelian genetics, but also to the incorporation of relevant knowledge from biological disciplines. In the 1920s and 1930s several theorists had developed mathematical accounts of natural selection as a genetic process. Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species , published in 1937 (1), refashioned their formulations in language that biologists could understand, dressed the equations with natural history and experimental population genetics, and extended the synthesis to speciation and other cardinal problems omitted by the mathematicians.

The current Synthetic Theory has grown around that original synthesis. It is not just one single hypothesis (or theory) with its corroborating evidence, but a multidisciplinary body of knowledge bearing on biological evolution, an amalgam of well-established theories and working hypotheses, together with the observations and experiments that support accepted hypotheses (and falsify rejected ones), which jointly seek to explain the evolutionary process and its outcomes. These hypotheses, observations, and experiments often originate in disciplines such as genetics, embryology, zoology, botany, paleontology, and molecular biology. Currently, the "synthetic" epithet is often omitted and the compilation of relevant knowledge is simply known as the Theory of Evolution. This is still expanding, just like one of those "holding" business corporations that have grown around an original enterprise, but continue incorporating new profitable enterprises and discarding unprofitable ones.

Darwin summarized the theory of evolution by natural selection in the Origin of Species (2) as follows:

"As many more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case …


Copper (Cu2+), cadmium (Cd2+) and lead ions (Pb2+) are toxic to human beings and other organisms. In this study, a silica gel material modified with nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA-silica gel) was sensibly designed and prepared via a simple amidation procedure for the removal of Cu2+, Cd2+ and Pb2+ from water. The NTA-silica gels showed rapid removal performances for the three metal ions (Pb2+ (<2 min), Cu2+ and Cd2+ (<20 min)) with relatively high adsorption capacities (63.5, 53.14 and 76.22 mg g−1 for Cu2+, Cd2+ and Pb2+, respectively). At the same concentration of 20 mg L−1, the removal efficiencies of the three metals by the adsorbent ranged from 96% to 99%. The Freundlich and Langmuir models were utilized to fit the adsorption isotherms. The adsorption kinetics for the three metal ions was pseudo-second-order kinetics. The removal performance of the NTA-silica gels increased in a wide pH range (2–9) and maintained in the presence of competitive metal ions (Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+ and Al3+) with different concentrations. In addition, the NTA-silica gels were easily regenerated (washed with 1% HNO3) and reused for 5 cycles with high adsorption capacity. This study indicates that the NTA-silica gel is a reusable adsorbent for the rapid, convenient, and efficient removal of Cu2+, Cd2+, and Pb2+ from contaminated aquatic environments.


One of the key goals of incident management is the rapid clearance of traffic incidents. Many transportation agencies focus their incident management on quicker and more reliable detection techniques. Another focus, however, should be the reduction in time required by law enforcement officers to complete on-scene investigations of crashes. As the price of high-quality digital cameras has steadily declined, more agencies are beginning to use photogrammetry as a method for accident investigation and reconstruction. The investigative time needed for certain crash sites is reduced because taking photographs is quicker and simpler than employing other methods typically used, such as coordinate and the total station survey method. Pictures are taken at the site and then brought back to the office and analyzed to obtain measurements of the scene. The analysis can be very time-consuming; therefore, the trade-off for reduced field time and road closure time is increased analysis time. Many law enforcement agencies in Virginia, including the Virginia State Police, use the total station survey method for accident investigation and reconstruction. Its main disadvantages are its relatively high cost and complexity, with the latter necessitating extensive training on how to use the system. Because of these factors, it is often the case that only a few systems and operators are available. Given the commitment of the Virginia State Police and other law enforcement agencies to total stations, the purpose of this study was to determine if photogrammetry is a valid tool for accident investigation and reconstruction in Virginia. The scope was limited to reviews of the literature and the state of the practice. Findings and conclusions are provided regarding the use of photogrammetry in Virginia and the United States, its advantages and disadvantages, associated legal issues, and its cost. The report recommends that the Virginia Department of Transportation in conjunction with the Virginia State Police undertake several case studies of accident investigation and reconstruction at either mock or real crash scenes in which both total station and the most current photogrammetry methods are used and compared.


Mammalian stress granules (SGs) are cytoplasmic domains into which mRNAs are sorted dynamically in response to phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 2alpha, a key regulatory step in translational initiation. The activation of one or more of the eIF2alpha kinases leads to SG assembly by decreasing the levels of eIF2-GTP-tRNA(Met), the ternary complex that is normally required for loading the initiator methionine onto the 48 S preinitiation complex to begin translation. This stress-induced scarcity of eIF2-GTP-tRNA(Met) allows the RNA-binding proteins TIA-1 (T-cell internal antigen-1) and TIAR (TIA-1-related protein) to bind the 48 S complex in lieu of the ternary complex, thereby promoting polysome disassembly and the concurrent routing of the mRNA into a SG. The actual formation of SGs occurs upon auto-aggregation of the prion-like C-termini of TIA-1 proteins; this aggregation is reversed in vivo by overexpression of the heat-shock protein (HSP) chaperone HSP70. Remarkably, HSP70 mRNA is excluded from SGs and is preferentially translated during stress, indicating that the RNA composition of the SG is selective. Moreover, the effects of HSP70 on TIA aggregation suggest a feedback loop whereby HSP70 synthesis is auto-regulated. Proteins that promote mRNA stability [e.g. HuR (Hu protein R)] and destabilize mRNA [i.e. tristetraprolin (TTP)] are also recruited to SGs, suggesting that SGs effect a process of mRNA triage, by promoting polysome disassembly and routing mRNAs to cytoplasmic domains enriched for HuR and TTP. This model reveals connections between the eIF2alpha kinase system, mRNA stability and cellular chaperone levels.


In this study we have investigated the efficacy and safety of cyclosporin A (CyA) in a group of pediatric patients with juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA, 9 cases) and polymyositis-dermatomyositis (PM-DM, 3 cases). Of the 9 JCA patients, 7 had the systemic and 2 the polyarticular form of the disease. All of the patients received CyA after the failure of corticosteroids and/or cytotoxic drugs. CyA was administered for 9 to 48 months at a mean dose of 5 mg/kg/day. Ten patients received corticosteroids with CyA. The results of CyA treatment were satisfactory overall, both in the PM-DM patients and in the JCA patients, as assessed by clinical and laboratory evaluation. CyA-related side effects included alopecia, hypertension, hypertrichosis, tremors, and hirsutism. One JCA patient developed polyserositis with hypoproteinemia of unknown origin while receiving CyA. CyA blood levels did not correlate with clinical efficacy and/or side effects. This study suggests that CyA represents a promising agent for the treatment of JCA and childhood PM-DM.


The application of pulse holographic interferometry in investigating the stress state by dynamic photoelasticity is discussed. The polarized-holographic set-up with three pairs of reference beams having the orthogonal polarizations has been developed. The space-time control of reference beams allows to record the interferograms of absolute retardations for three moments at a single hologram.


In recent years, architectural knowledge management has demonstrated its potential to improve software development and evolution practices; various tools and research prototypes now exist for documenting architectural knowledge. However, capturing such knowledge is not enough: according to practitioners' feedback, a certain amount of knowledge postprocessing is required to make the captured knowledge consumable and stimulate reuse. In our previous work, we created a method for enhancing knowledge about the past (decisions made) into architectural guidance for the future (decisions required). However, additional concepts are required to let our method benefits from recent advances in architectural knowledge management tool engineering. In this paper we establish requirements for post-processing architectural knowledge captured on projects and enhancing the knowledge into architectural guidance. The requirements are derived from literature and industrial experiences. Next, we analyze existing tools with respect to these requirements. Finally, we establish a vision for an integrated method and tooling for architectural guidance modeling and outline a roadmap for future research and tool development towards this vision. Keywords— Architectural knowledge; decision reuse; architectural synthesis; design guide; knowledge management tool


Introduction: Assessment tools of academic achievement in the field of surgery have always been received considerable attention. The issue that has received less attention is that which one of these methods has higher efficiency to cover appropriately educational objectives in surgical groups. This survey aimed to evaluate the results of three examinations (including OSCE, in-group educational assessment, final improvement examination) of neurosurgical assistants of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2009-2010. Methods:In this retrospective cross-sectional study, results of examinations (OSCE, the annual improvement examination and in-group educational assessment) of neurosurgical assistants of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences were investigated. Scores from all three tests were extracted and analyzed. The 1-4 academic -years' scores of 15 individuals from 18 residents were analyzed. Results: The results of these exams showed that there is a significant difference between the scores in OSCE, the annual improvement examination and in-group educational assessment. This difference for the results of ingroup exam was significant in comparison with the two other exams (p=0.000), but the results did not show significant difference (p=0.21) for annual improvement examination in comparison with OSCE. In addition, high grade residents' score in OSCE and in-group was somehow similar and their mean rank was close together. But their scores in in-group exams showed considerable difference. Conclusion: Although annual improvement examination will be held as MCQ, and measures scientific and cognitive assistants' ability and OSCE essentially assess psychomotor capabilities, but accurate planning and applying the MCQ is effective on its result. Holding annual improvement examination as focused, its proper conducting by Medical Education Development Center, participating all professors in designing questions, proper questions distributing of all references, applying two axes table tables for designing questions, its quality, adherence to the principles of designing question, using more than 70 percent questions in the taxonomy of two or three are factors which are effective for closing this test to the standard tests and making an accepted tests for assessing academic progress and differentiating assistants.


By combining the notions of interval-valued m-polar fuzzy graphs and m-polar fuzzy graphs, the notion of m-polar cubic graphs is first introduced. Then, the degree of a vertex in m-polar cubic graphs and complete m-polar cubic graphs is defined. After that, the concepts of direct product and strong product of m-polar cubic graphs are given. Moreover, weak isomorphism and co-weak isomorphism are defined, and examples are given to prove that weak isomorphism and co-weak isomorphism are not an isomorphism. Finally, the notion of complement m-polar cubic graphs and weak complement m-polar cubic graphs is presented.


Planar spin transport in disordered ultrathin magnetic bilayers comprising a ferromagnet and a normal metal (typically used for spin pumping, spin Seebeck and spin-orbit torque experiments) is investigated theoretically. Using a tight-binding model that puts the extrinsic spin Hall effect and spin swapping on equal footing, we show that the nature of spin-orbit coupled transport dramatically depends on the ratio between the layer thickness d and the mean free path λ. While the spin Hall effect dominates in the diffusive limit (d≫λ), spin swapping dominates in the Knudsen regime (d≲λ). A remarkable consequence is that spin swapping induces a substantial fieldlike torque in the Knudsen regime.


Purpose: To review the literature on pararenal endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) to determine the frequency and clinical relevance of chimney graft occlusions. Methods: A comprehensive search of the English-language literature abstracted in the Medline and the Cochrane Library databases was performed to identify case series involving pararenal aortic pathologies (degenerative aneurysms, penetrating atherosclerotic ulcers, type Ia endoleaks, and para-anastomotic aneurysms) treated with EVAR and chimney grafts; thoracoabdominal, iliac, or aortic arch chimney graft placements were excluded, as were case reports in which the total number of chimney grafts implanted at the reporting center could not be determined. The literature search identified 83 studies regarding chimneys/snorkels for pararenal pathologies published between January 2007 and March 2014. Of these, 7 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Results: There were 15 (4.5%) occlusions in the overall 334 renovisceral vessels in which chimney grafts were deployed. The mean time to chimney graft occlusion was 3.5 months (range 1–270 days) over a mean follow-up of 1.4 months (range 9–24). The target arteries were the renal artery (n=12) and the superior mesenteric artery (SMA; n=3). Seven patients were asymptomatic, and no description was given in 5 cases. In the other 3 patients, the symptoms were acute renal failure, intestinal ischemia, and malignant hypertension. The treatment strategy included open conversion and iliorenal bypass (n=1), exploratory laparotomy to revascularize the SMA (n=1), hemodialysis (n=1), placement of bare metal stents (n=4), conservative treatment (n=2), and unknown (n=6). One (6.7%) patient died (an occluded SMA). Two patients with renal chimney occlusion suffered from temporary renal function deterioration. Conclusion: The present analysis identified a low rate of chimney graft occlusions, which appear to occur generally a few months after placement. Involvement of the renal artery had no severe clinical consequences, while occlusion of the SMA can be associated with life-threatening complications. More detailed information regarding occluded chimney grafts will be needed in future publications to help identify the causes.


Should nonprejudiced reproducers genetically select embryos for light skin under background conditions of racism and colourism, given that darker skin will be disadvantageous for their child? Many intuit that there are strong moral reasons not to select light skin in these contexts. I argue that existing procreative principles cannot adequately account for this judgement. Instead, I argue that a more compelling rationale for this intuition is that such selection completes an instance of race or colour injustice. Given this, I propose a new, complementary principle-Procreative Justice-which holds that reproducers have strong pro tanto moral reasons to avoid completing race and colour injustices via their selection choices. While these reasons may be overridden by competing considerations, they nonetheless continue to exert normative force.


Replacement of most common semi-rigid roadside barrier system, based on steel w-beam guardrail, by a thermoplastic polymer composite as the guardrail material is considered. With this aim, production technology of E-glass fiber/low density polyethylene composite by a continuous thermoforming process from glass fiber roving, glass-fiber fabric, and polyethylene sheets is being developed. The tensile strength and deformability along the reinforcement direction of the composite material produced has been characterized, and the response upon vehicle impact of the respective restraint simulated numerically and tested experimentally.


Two basal diets M0 and V0 were formulated with marine and plant based ingredient composition. Seven experimental diets were prepared from the two basal diets namely M0, M100, V0, V30, V60, V100 and V150 by incorporating different levels of a micromineral premix (Cu, Fe, Mn, Se and Zn). Triplicate groups of rainbow trout (initial weight: 20 g) reared at 17°C were fed one of each diet to apparent visual satiation over 12 weeks. Among the V diet fed fish, growth and feed intake exhibited maximal response at V60 level of premix inclusion; Apparent availability coefficient of Fe, Cu and Zn decreased linearly with increasing level of premix whereas apparent availability coefficient of Mn and Se was unaffected. The available dietary concentration in basal V0 diet was for Fe, 20.6; Cu, 2.8; Mn, 6.5; Zn, 17.3 and Se, 0.195 (in mg/kg DM) and in the M0 diet for Fe, 63.3; Cu, 5.2; Mn, 2.9; Zn, 35.2 and Se, 0.87 (in mg/kg DM). In reference to NRC (Nutrient requirements of fish and shrimp. Washington, DC: National Research Council, The National Academies Press, 2011) recommendations, the V0 basal diet accounted for 34.3%, 92.9%, 53.9%, 115% and 130.2% and the contribution from M0 diet for 105.5%, 173.3%, 24.2%, 234.7% and 580% of the minimal dietary inclusion levels of Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn and Se to rainbow trout, respectively. However, data on whole body mineral contents showed that normal levels were maintained only for Cu and Mn through supply from basal V0 diet. For Zn and Se, available supply even from the highest supplemented diet (V150) was not sufficient to maintain normal body mineral levels of rainbow trout in the present study. On the whole, optimal dietary inclusion levels of microminerals are altered while using fishmeal-free diets for rainbow trout.


This note proves convexity resp. concavity of the ground state energy of one dimensional Schr\"odinger operators as a function of an endpoint of the interval for convex resp. concave potentials.


Vermejo Park Ranch is the largest of several ranching properties owned by billionaire philanthropist R. E. "Ted" Turner. By his design, its mission is to balance ecological sensitivity and economic sustainability using native species. The property manager and employees at Vermejo Park have taken this challenge seriously and now utilize an integrated approach to attain the dual objectives of conservation and cash flow. The centerpiece of this effort is a management tool and process that addresses the underlying ecological condition and history as well as the site potential and looks to influence natural processes to promote better nutrient cycling, water infiltration and flow, and target species dynamics. This presentation provides and overview of the natural resource context and challenges and current management efforts underway as well as a brief introduction to the Land Enterprise Economic Health Analysis used to preserve both environmental values and operating profits.


Given the lifelong therapy in haemophilia patients, insight in non‐adherence behaviour from a patient perspective is important to understand patients' difficulties with the following treatment recommendations. The aim of this study was to clarify the process underlying adherence (behaviour) to prophylactic treatment, from a patients' perspective. To develop a grounded theory, a qualitative study using individual in‐depth interviews was performed to understand experiences, perceptions and beliefs concerning adherence to prophylaxis. From two Dutch treatment centres, 21 adults with haemophilia using prophylaxis were interviewed. Patients were asked how they experience their task to administer prophylaxis and how they adhere to this. The interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed in an iterative process, leading to the development of the grounded theory. Adherence was determined by the position of prophylaxis in life. The position of prophylaxis was determined by the perception of prophylaxis and the ability to exert prophylaxis. Patients' perception was influenced by two main factors: acceptance of haemophilia and feeling/fearing symptoms. The ability to exert prophylaxis was influenced by understanding haemophilia and prophylaxis and planning/infusion skills. The combination of different perceptions and skills led to four main positions of prophylaxis in life: (i) prophylaxis integrated in life, (ii) prophylaxis according to doctors' advice, struggling with irregular situations, (iii) prophylaxis is too much to handle, (iv) prophylaxis is a confrontation with illness. The adherence level gradually decreased from position 1 to 4. This information can be used to design tailored interventions to promote adherence.


Abstract The North Carolina Agriculture Survey was designed to estimate the willingness to pay for agricultural research and extension programs. We find that North Carolina households are willing to pay between $218 and $401 million for food production programs and between $251 and $698 million for water quality programs annually. We find evidence of divergent validity and differences in the willingness to pay estimates from the single-bound and multiple-bound data.


An unusual complication of gallbladder empyema is its rupture into the liver forming giant multiloculated pyogenic abscesses. This condition is rapidly fatal in diabetic and immunocompromised patients.
We present a 79-year-old African American woman resident in New York City with a medical history of diabetes mellitus who presented at the ED with constitutional symptoms and right upper quadrant pain of a few days duration. She was tender and had a positive murphy's sign on clinical examination coupled with tachycardia and a low-grade fever. Laboratory findings of leukocytosis, and metabolic acidosis, lactic academia and elevated ketones with moderately deranged hepatic function tests and negative tumor markers. Management consisted of broad spectrum antibiotics and an urgent open cholecystectomy and drainage of multiple multi-loculated hepatic abscesses. A repeat ultrasonogram showed a remnant collection which was drained by interventional radiology and drains left in-situ. She was discharged after four weeks of parenteral antibiotics with repeat sonogram showing complete resolution of hepatic abscess.


The flower-like nanostructures of an Au core and Pd petals with the average size of 47.8 nm were fabricated through the successive reduction of HAuCl4 and Na2PdCl4 at room temperature. During the synthesis, Cacumen Platycladi leaf extract served as weak reductant and capping agent. Characterization techniques such as Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction characterizations were employed to confirm that the as-synthesized nanoparticles have the structure of core-shell. The obtained core-shell nanoflowers exhibited good surface enhanced Raman spectroscopic activity with Rhodamine 6G.


Biomass and total carbon in oak forests of Southern Colombian Andes: contributions to the REDD+ project-wide approach. Carbon estimations in tropical forests are very important to understand the role of these ecosystems in the carbon cycle, and to support decisions and the formulation of mitigation and adaptive strategies to reduce the greenhouse emission gases (GHG). Nevertheless, detailed ground-based quan- tifications of total carbon stocks in tropical montane forests are limited, despite their high value in science and ecosystem management (e.g. REDD+). The objective was to identify the role of these ecosystems as carbon stocks, to evaluate the contribution of the pools analyzed (aboveground biomass, belowground biomass and nec- romass), and to make contributions to the REDD+ approach from the project scale. For this study, we established 44 plots in a heterogeneous landscape composed by old-grown forests located in the Southern Colombian Andes. In each plot, all trees, palms and ferns with diameter (D) ≥ 15 cm were measured. In the case of palms, the height was measured for 40 % of the individuals, following the Colombia National Protocol to estimate biomass and carbon in natural forests. National allometric equations were used to estimate aboveground biomass, and a global equation proposed by IPCC was used for belowground biomass estimation; besides, palms' aboveground biomass was estimated using a local model. The necromass was estimated for dead standing trees and the gross debris. In the latter case, the length and diameters of the extremes in the pieces were measured. Samples for wood density estimations were collected in the field and analyzed in the laboratory. The mean total carbon stock was estimated as 545.9 ± 84.1 Mg/ha (± S.E.). The aboveground biomass contributed with 72.5 %, the below- ground biomass with 13.6 %, and the necromass with 13.9 %. The main conclusion is that montane tropical forests store a huge amount of carbon, similar to low land tropical forests. In addition, the study found that the inclusion of other pools could contribute with more than 20 % to total carbon storage, indicating that estimates that only include the aboveground biomass, largely underestimate carbon stocks in tropical forest ecosystems. These results support the importance of including other carbon pools in REDD+ initiatives' estimations. Rev. Biol. Trop. 64 (1): 399-412. Epub 2016 March 01.


in my local pharmacy, a basket of aciclovir ointment (Zovirax; Glaxo Wellcome, Boronia, Vic.) on the counter, and available to all and sundry for application to "cold sores". With newer antiviral preparations still not within our grasp, aciclovir remains our front line treatment for herpes simplex keratitis. I have written an anxious letter to the Health Department, pleading for restoration of the previous restricted availability of aciclovir, but the situation does not appear to have changed. Q


Humanoid robots will become part of our everyday lives. They have biologically inspired features and psychologically complex properties. How will children interpret these ambiguous objects, discriminating between living and nonliving kinds? Do the biologically and psychologically inspired characteristics affect children's understanding of the robots? How firm is the distinction that children make between living and nonliving objects? To address these questions, 120 children ranging three to five years initially viewed video clips that depicted humanoid robots interacting with a human experimenter on two different dimensions (mobility and, psychologically contingent behavior). The subjects then answered simple questions that probed their animacy judgments and property projections about the robot. The results showed that children's animacy assessments about humanoid robots differed by age. When judging the robot's life status, its mobility was important for four-year-olds and, the psychological contingency for five-year-olds. In terms of the robot's reasoning abilities, the majority of four-year-old children clearly understood biological properties, regardless of the robots' features. However, when reasoning about psychological properties, even five-year-olds occasionally relied on robots' features such as their contingent behaviors. Moreover, the children attributed some but not all animate properties to the robots. Although rent findings show that children possess naïve theories, they do not seem to have a consistent and logical theory of "aliveness," and they apparently develop the concept of a robot by acquiring knowledge about how this boundary object differs from living entities.


ABSTRACT A case study on the source separation of municipal solid waste (MSW) was performed in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan Province, China. The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of different separation methods and compare their effects with citizens' attitudes and inclination. An effect evaluation method based on accuracy rate and miscellany rate was proposed to study the performance of different separation methods. A large-scale questionnaire survey was conducted to determine citizens' attitudes and inclination toward source separation. Survey result shows that the vast majority of respondents hold consciously positive attitudes toward participation in source separation. Moreover, the respondents ignore the operability of separation methods and would rather choose the complex separation method involving four or more subclassed categories. For the effects of separation methods, the site experiment result demonstrates that the relatively simple separation method involving two categories (food waste and other waste) achieves the best effect with the highest accuracy rate (83.1%) and the lowest miscellany rate (16.9%) among the proposed experimental alternatives. The outcome reflects the inconsistency between people's environmental awareness and behavior. Such inconsistency and conflict may be attributed to the lack of environmental knowledge. Environmental education is assumed to be a fundamental solution to improve the effect of source separation of MSW in Changsha. Important management tips on source separation, including the reformation of the current pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) system, are presented in this work. Implications: A case study on the source separation of municipal solid waste was performed in Changsha. An effect evaluation method based on accuracy rate and miscellany rate was proposed to study the performance of different separation methods. The site experiment result demonstrates that the two-category (food waste and other waste) method achieves the best effect. The inconsistency between people's inclination and the effect of source separation exists. The proposed method can be expanded to other cities to determine the most effective separation method during planning stages or to evaluate the performance of running source separation systems.


Colchicine is a drug widely used for the management of many disorders, such as acute gout and Behçet's disease. It is also prescribed for the treatment of pericarditis, atrial fibrillation coronary artery diseases, and secondary amyloidosis. In case this drug is used at the early stages of coronavirus infection, its anti-inflammatory properties may reduce the severe inflammatory reactions related to a cytokine storm by affecting the inflammasome. The purpose of the present study was to determine the toxicity of Colchicine on testis in rats from different age groups for 10 days. A total of 27 male Wistar rats were divided into three groups. The rats in group I (control group) were administered distilled water by oral gavage. Group II consisted of young rats (5-6 months old) who orally received Colchicine 3 mg/kg body weight. Group III entailed rats of 14-16 months who were orally administered colchicine 3 mg/kg body weight. The testis of the treated groups was dissected and examined for histological changes and morphometrical analysis. The obtained results indicated that high doses of Colchicine (3 mg/kg body weight) could induce tissue damage to the testis, including degeneration and necrosis of both Sertoli and Leydig cells with irregular divisions of germinal epithelium, even when it was used for short periods (10 days). In the elderly treated rats, there were severe tissue damages, including degeneration and necrosis of germinal epithelium with irregular divisions of germ cells, necrosis of Sertoli and Leydig cells with sloughing of germinal epithelium toward the lumen of the tubule. Therefore, there is a need to conduct more studies to investigate the side effect of Colchicine as it is excessively used in the management of coronavirus.


Although the manipulation of exercise and dietary intake to achieve successful weight loss has been extensively studied, it is unclear how the time of day that exercise is performed may affect subsequent energy intake. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of an acute bout of exercise performed in the morning compared with an equivalent bout of exercise performed in the afternoon on short-term energy intake. Nine healthy male participants completed 3 trials: morning exercise (AM), afternoon exercise (PM), or control (no exercise; CON) in a randomized counterbalanced design. Exercise consisted of 45 min of treadmill running at 75% VO(2peak). Energy intake was assessed over a 26-hr period with the participants eating ad libitum from a standard assortment of food items of known quantity and composition. There was no significant difference in overall energy intake (M ± SD; CON 23,505 ± 6,938 kJ, AM 24,957 ± 5,607 kJ, PM 24,560 ± 5,988 kJ; p = .590) or macronutrient preferences during the 26-hr period examined between trials. Likewise, no differences in energy intake or macronutrient preferences were observed at any of the specific individual meal periods examined (i.e., breakfast, lunch, dinner) between trials. These results suggest that the time of day that exercise is performed does not significantly affect short-term energy intake in healthy men.


Current approaches to the immunological control of enteric E. coli infections in pig herds concentrate on the provision of passive immunity for the neonate by multiple parenteral vaccination of the sow to stimulate colostral antibody production. Little account is taken of the kinetics of the animals' natural immune response. In particular the potential of the gut as a target organ for immunization has largely been ignored in practical disease control. A new approach to the problem, which combines oral with parenteral vaccination, stimulates a colostral antibody response closely mimicking a sow's natural response to infections and comparison between this and classical parenteral vaccination, using an acute E. coli infection model, demonstrated the greater protective efficacy conferred by the new protocol. The widespread use of this method of vaccination has been continuously monitored, using production parameters most relevant to the farming industry. From this evaluation of user experience and results of trials conducted in various locations, a new perspective is emerging which indicates the vaccine has a wider spectrum of biological activity than was expected. Production, health and environmental benefits are arising which could not have been predicted from a model merely concerned with the control of alimentary E. coli infection.


Calanchi, a type of Italian badlands created by a combination of water erosion processes and local geomorphological and tectonic controls, is a striking example of long‐term landscape evolution. In small temporal/spatial scales, the calanchi exhibit many of the geomorphic processes and landforms that may be observed in fluvial landscapes; hence, they may be considered as microbasins where geomorphic dynamics and landscape features can be related. The goal of this research is testing the use of simple morphometric variables for assessing sediment connectivity of calanchi landforms. In order to detect the morphological characteristics controlling the landscape connectivity of calanchi basins, 2 areas located in Sicily (Italy) were examined. The investigated features were identified on 119 calanchi basins and mapped using orthophotographs and 2‐m‐resolution digital elevation models. Application of Hack's law to the calanchi basins showed that the width/length ratio increases with the drainage area, suggesting that calanchi may have a limited connectivity of their hillslopes to the main channel. Moreover, the analysis of the drainage network composition suggested that calanchi are sediment removal systems more efficient than river basins. The empirical frequency distribution of the travel time, which is the ratio between the length and the square root of the hillslope steepness, of each cell of the calanchi digital elevation model was established. Finally, for each calanchi basin, an index of hillslope connectivity was devised. This was explored as a function of the sediment transport efficiency itself estimated by the travel time and the corresponding sediment delivery ratio of each calanco hillslope cell.


Cloud computing is the emerging field of the computer science and it is occupying the most of the areas in computers. It delivers on the emerging business essentials for agile, flexible and time-to-value performance. The performance and availability of cloud applications has a noticeable impact on user adoption and revenue of the cloud. The work on the performance analysis of the cloud using M/G/m/m+r queuing system till date gives the novel and approximate analytical model. It gives the relationship between the input buffer size and number of servers available. It also gives the performance indicators like mean number of tasks in the system, task blocking probability and immediate service probability. In existing model, the performance can be improved by breaking down the response time in the setup, execution, return and clean up time. In this paper we are proposing a solution for this constraint. This approach also will give the all performance indicators like above model.


Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET)/Clay hybrids were prepared via in situ polymerization, in which the clay was modified with 12-aminododecanoic acid (ADA). Three types of bifunctional compounds were introduced into the system, respectively, as compatibilizers between PET and ADA-Clay. The three compounds contain 1 degree, 2 degree, and 3 degree amino groups, respectively, that could form ionic complex with carboxylic acid of ADA. They also contain an ester group that could react with PET chains through transesterification. The results show that adding the compound with 3 degree amino group can improve clay dispersion significantly, while the ones with 1 degree and 2 degree amino groups are not effective compatibilizers. The possible underlying mechanism is discussed.


Time resolved photoluminescence and electroluminescence measurements are used to study changes in the emission characteristics of materials typically used in phosphorescent organic light emitting devices (PhOLEDs). Studies on archetypical PhOLEDs with phosphorescent material, fac‐tris(2‐phenylpyridine) iridium (Ir(ppy)3), show that the lifetime of triplet exciton is modified when in close proximity to a metal layer. Interactions with a metal layer ∼30–100 nm away, as is typically the case in PhOLEDs, result in an increase in the spontaneous emission decay rate of triplet excitons, and causes the exciton lifetime to become shorter as the distance between the phosphorescent material and the metal becomes smaller. The phenomenon, possibly the result of the confined radiation field by the metal, affects device efficiency and efficiency roll‐off behavior. The results shed the light on phenomena affecting the efficiency behavior of PhOLEDs, and provide new insights for device design that can help enhance efficiency performance.


Immunohistochemical expression of mutant p53 protein and human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 and 18 related E6 oncoprotein was studied in 36 biopsy proved anal cancers. Mutant p53 was detected in 61.1% cases. HPV 16 and 18 E6 protein was expressed in 22.2% cases, all of which were squamous cell carcinomas. Coexpression of both mutant p53 and E6 protein was found in only 5 cases (13.8%). In HPV 16/18 positive anal tumors, the degradation of p53 is accelerated by viral E6 oncoprotein. In HPV negative tumors, however, other mutagenic factors probably play a role in carcinogenesis.


PROLOG, CHILDREN AND STUDENTS edited by Jon Nichol, Jonathan Briggs and Jackie Dean Kogan Page, London/Nichols Publishing Company, New York, 1988 (£19.95). This book is based on the proceedings of the PROLOG in Education Group's 1st international Conference. It is a very unusual book in that its potential audience encompasses educationalists, psychologists, lectures, lecturers, teachers and all those in the Artificial Intelligence community. The book is divided into 5 parts:1. PROLOG across the curriculum 2. Teaching logic programming 3. Expert systems and knowledge-based tools 4. Pupils and cognition 5. 5th generation computing & curriculum development The first (and largest part) is mainly concerned with using PROLOG in the teaching of Classics, History, Geography, Ecology, Electronics and scientific investigation. These chapters seem to be mainly intended for the appropriate specialist. In the second part, there is an interesting chapter on teaching logical analysis with PROLOG. This propounded an interesting idea relating to teaching PROLOG to philosophy students: these students can be under the impression that Logic (in Philosophy) is purely formal, with no application to real inference and analysis. However, by teaching PROLOG to them, this attitude can be overcome in that it forces them to become rigorous in syntax. Also contained in this part is a particularly interesting chapter on learning with PROLOG-a new approach. This was because one of its co-authors (Ehud Shapiro) is the co-author of an exceedingly academic book on PROLOG (entitled The Art of PROLOG). This chapter, however, successfully demonstrates that PROLOG can be successfully taught at school level, even down to lower secondary school. The third part contains a useful chapter on APES (an Expert System Shell) applied to problem solving in Chemistry at secondary school level. This seemed to me to an excellent way of learning the type of Chemistry topics that used to be primarily taught by rote learning. The last two parts were mainly directed to the requirements of educationalists and psychologists, though there was a chapter on a research project in Denmark intended to accustom both teachers and students to having computers around and using them every day. In conclusion, I would say that the book is likely to be almost a compulsory buy for educationalists, lecturers and teachers who wish to learn about the application of PROLOG in education, though it is probably too simplistic for those engaged in the mainstream Artificial Intelligence fields.


Advertising,considered as one of the most widespread manifestations of modern popular culture is taking effect in framing the identity of people.It is not only has been counted as an aid to the marketing and selling of goods,but also actively act function in the field of economic,social,and cultural utility.Business advertising is influencing the modern consumerist society.In contemporary consumerist society,person's identity and subjectivity constructed,performed,and presented through the act of consumption.In this essay,it tries to address the relationships among meaning of goods,the consumption culture;and explain how advertisement convey the messages of need,desire,taste,and social status.


This thesis presents a new theory and method for generating tests for digital integrated circuits (ICs). Unlike most previous test generation techniques, which use logic-gate models of ICs, our method uses hierarchical models containing large primitive modules such as ALUs and multipliers connected by multi-bit buses. Many modern ICs are composed of complex, previously designed modules that can only be tested by reusing tests that were computed when the modules were designed. Our method propagates stimulus signals to the inputs of each module, and propagates module responses to the IC's primary outputs.
We describe and evaluate a program we designed named PathPlan, one of the first test generators to use circuit and signal hierarchy and precomputed tests. PathPlan propagates symbolic references to precomputed tests along circuit paths. It is much faster than conventional test generators, and some of its features have already been applied commercially. However PathPlan and other hierarchical test generators described in the literature cannot generate tests for ICs whose bus structure is irregular, that is, when some buses are truncated.
We present a general theory of signal propagation that enables the development of hierarchical test generation programs for complex circuits with truncated buses. A special representation of a module's input-output behavior called a propagation function is defined to quantify the module's signal transmission properties. A propagation algebra is developed and used to combine propagation functions for modules into propagation functions for multi-module circuits. Several theorems governing the transparency of signal transmission in circuits are proved using this algebra. The algebra also forms the basis for an efficient, hierarchical error propagation method for test generation, and a novel design-for-testability strategy.
Finally, we describe a successor program to PathPlan called PathPlan2. This new test generator propagates module test stimulus signals as symbolic expressions, and implements the hierarchical error signal propagation method based on our theory to transmit module responses. It handles circuits with irregular bus structures and is more powerful and general than PathPlan, nevertheless, its performance is at least as good.


Abstract How closely integrated were the commercial centres of the Roman world? Were traders aware of supply and demand for goods in other cities, or were communities of traders in cities protectionist and working opportunistically? Widely traded commodities such as terra sigillata tablewares in the Eastern Mediterranean provide an ideal opportunity to explore the economic processes that underlie the archaeological evidence. Agent-based computational modelling allows various such processes to be explored, and also identifies areas for further investigation.


Molecular interaction (MI) is fundamental phenomena in nature. Chromatography is a tool to quantitatively measure the degree of molecular interactions. The qualitative explanation has been performed using solubility factors [1]. The quantitative explanation is achieved using computational chemical calculation (In silico). The molecular interaction forces are combination of solubility factors, and can be obtained as van der Waals, hydrogen bonding and electrostatic energy values after molecular mechanics (MM2) calculations. Simple study can be done using small molecules. The model analyses should help to quantitatively understand the chromatographic retention mechanisms. When one small molecule is replaced to a macro molecule, (chromatography model phase), we can quantitatively analyze chromatography retention time with the retention times of standard compounds. Furthermore, when the macro molecule is a protein, we can study affinity level of proteins. In addition, the apc calculated using MOPAC program indicates the enzyme reactivity. Prediction of boiling point, dissociation constant, and albumin-drug binding affinity were demonstrated as practical applications of in silico chromatography [2].


By using a photonic crystal fiber, a supercontinuum source with output power up to 1.7W, pumped by a passively mode-locked diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 picosecond laser is obtained. A spectral width of the supercontinuum is 1700 nm (500–2200 nm) with the 5 dB spectral width approximately 1000 nm (1200–2200 nm). This high power wide band supercontinuum source meets the demand of many applications such as optical coherence tomography, frequency metrology and wavelength-division-multiplexing systems. The evolution of the supercontinuum with the increasing pump power is presented and analyzed.


With the increasing advances in various industries such as aerospace, chemical and fluid transfer, manufacturing of bimetal noncircular tubes as their frequent use is more than ever important. In the present study, the squaring process of aluminum-copper bimetal pipes produced by explosive welding, using rolling process was studied. The effect of interface morphology on the microstructure and strength of the bond interface during the reshaping process was investigated by an optical microscope and shear strength test. Moreover, the presence and distribution of the intermetallic compounds at the interface was investigated by the electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis. The results show that the wavy form of the interface and the continuity and thickness of the intermetallic compound layer which is formed at the interface of the initial round pipes have a major importance during the reshaping process and effect on the mechanical properties and interface quality of the finished square tubes. Bond strength of tubes with wavy form interface and minimal intermetallic compounds at their interface, have not changed significantly before and after the forming process but the bond strength decreases by increasing the thickness of intermetallic compound layer and the drop in bond strength during the forming process is more severe for the tubes with thicker intermetallic compounds layer at their interface. Review History: Received: 16 November 2016 Revised: 30 January 2017 Accepted: 16 April 2017 Available Online: 23 April 2017


We discuss the viscous and star-forming evolution of self-gravitating galactic discs under modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) proposed by Milgrom. In contrast to Newtonian dynamics, no dark matter is necessary for the rotation curve to be flat at a large distance from the centre. Assuming that the time-scale of star formation is comparable to the viscous time-scale, we obtain, when most gas is converted to stars, an exponential-like distribution of stars and a nearly flat rotation curve, which are in agreement with observed properties of spiral galaxies. The results are similar to previous results obtained under Newtonian dynamics with a dark halo


Abstract— The proposed Sirente crater field consists of a slightly oblong main structure (main crater) 120 m in width and about 30 smaller structures (satellite craters), all in unconsolidated but stiff carbonate mud. Here we focus on the subsurface structure of the satellite craters and compare the Sirente field with known meteorite crater fields. We present a more complete outline of the crater field than previously reported, information on the subsurface morphology of a satellite crater (C8) 8 m in width, radiocarbon and thermoluminescence (TL) ages of material from this crater, and evidence for heated material in both crater C8 and the rim of the main crater. Crater C8 has a funnel shape terminating downwards, and evidence for soil injection from the surface to a depth of 9 m. The infill contained dispersed charcoal and small, irregular, porous fragments of heated clay with a calibrated age of b.p. 1712 (13C‐corrected radiocarbon age: b.p. 1800 ± 100) and a TL age of b.p. 1825 (calculated error ± 274). Together with previous radiocarbon age (b.p. 1538) of the formation of the main crater (i.e., target surface below rim), a formation is suggested at the beginning of the first millennium a.d. Although projectile vaporization is not expected in Sirente‐sized craters in this type of target material, we used geochemistry in an attempt to detect a meteoritic component. The results gave no unequivocal evidence of meteoritic material. Nevertheless, the outline of the crater field, evidence of heated material within the craters, and subsurface structure are comparable with known meteorite crater fields.


Motivated by the recent synthesis of three-dimensional (3D) porous borocarbonitride (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2019, 58, 6033–6037), we propose a porous 3D-BC2N structure composed of BC2N nanoribbons. On the basis of detailed theoretical analysis and calculations, we find that the porous 3D-BC2N is dynamically stable with cohesive energy of 9.52 eV per atom and a Zener anisotropic factor of 2.72. This system exhibits a Pugh's ratio of 0.529 and hardness of 23.9 GPa, it also shows an indirect band gap of 2.056 eV with good absorption in ultraviolet regions. More importantly, the porous 3D-BC2N is found to be the first borocarbonitride with a negative Poisson's ratio of −0.08. Our study expands the borocarbonitride family with new features.


The development of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) offers opportunities to characterize cellular heterogeneity at unprecedented resolution. Although scRNA-seq has been widely used to identify and characterize gene expression variation across cell types and cell states based on their average gene expression profiles, most studies ignore variation across individual donors. Modelling this inter-individual variation could improve statistical power to detect cell type-specific biology and inform the genes and cell types that underlying complex traits. We therefore develop a new model to detect and quantify cell type-specific variation across individuals called CTMM (Cell Type-specific linear Mixed Model). CTMM operates on cell type-specific pseudobulk expression and is fit with efficient methods that scale to hundreds of samples. We use extensive simulations to show that CTMM is powerful and unbiased in realistic settings. We also derive calibrated tests for cell type-specific interindividual variation, which is challenging given the modest sample sizes in scRNA-seq data. We apply CTMM to scRNA-seq data from human induced pluripotent stem cells to characterize the transcriptomic variation across donors as cells differentiate into endoderm. We find that almost 100% of transcriptome-wide variability between donors is differentiation stage-specific. CTMM also identifies individual genes with statistically significant stage-specific variability across samples, including 61 genes that do not have significant stage-specific mean expression. Finally, we extend CTMM to partition interindividual covariance between stages, which recapitulates the overall differentiation trajectory. Overall, CTMM is a powerful tool to characterize a novel dimension of cell type-specific biology in scRNA-seq.


Introduction The similarity between a promise and a contract is so obvious that it is natural to suppose that there is much to be learned about one of these notions by studying the other, or even that the legal notion of a contract can be understood by seeing it as based on the moral idea of a promise. This article will examine some of the similarities between these two notions. These similarities are due to the fact that contract and promise arise in response to, and are consequently shaped by, some of the same underlying values. They are in this respect parallel ideas. But they respond to these values in different ways and are independent notions, neither of which is properly seen as based on the other. The law of contracts is clearly a social institution, backed by the coercive power of the state and subject to modification through judicial decisions and legislative enactments. Promising is also often seen as a social institution of a more informal kind, defined by certain rules which are not enacted but rather backed by moral argument and enforced through the informal sanction of moral disapproval. Many have argued that the wrong involved in breaking a promise depends essentially on the existence of a social practice of this kind. Hume, for example, maintains that fidelity to promises is "an artificial virtue," dependent on the existence of a convention of keeping agreements, and other accounts of this kind have been advanced in our own day by Rawls and others.


Computed tomography (CT) was performed prior to anticipated percutaneous bone biopsy in 19 patients. The CT results were categorized on the basis of how useful they were in prebiopsy planning. In four cases CT was not useful, in four cases it was confirmatory, and in 11 cases it was definitive. CT influenced the choice of biopsy site, needle type, or position in seven of the 11 cases, and it indicated that no biopsy should be performed in four cases. It is concluded that CT is useful in prebiopsy planning and management.


The question of whether methanol-fuelled engines can provide needed reductions in output of regulated exhaust pollutants without corresponding increases in formaldehyde levels is still not clearly answered. If ongoing engine development fails to bring formaldehyde down to diesel or gasoline engine levels, or if aldehyde output is separately regulated, catalytic exhaust after-treatment could be required for methanol-fuelled engines. This paper provides an overview of current industry philosophies, research work and testing regarding catalytic converters for methanol fuel, with particular emphasis on applications for heavy duty compression-ignition type engines.


In order to investigate a possible role of lectin activity of ricin in its absorption from the small intestine, we prepared two ricin derivatives. BMH-ricin, prepared by crosslinking A and B chains of ricin with 1,6-bismaleimidohexane, was nearly non-toxic but the lectin activity was unaltered. And, NBS-ricin, prepared by the oxidation of tryptophanyl residues of ricin with N-bromosuccinimide, was not only non-toxic but also non-lectinic. After the oral administration of ricin derivatives to rats, their interaction with the digestive tract and absorption into the circulatory systems have been compared with those of ricin, immunochemically and histologically. It was shown by immunostaining that ricin and BMH-ricin could bind to the intestinal mucosa, whereas NBS-ricin could not. No appreciable damage in the small intestine from rats treated with either BMH-ricin or NBS-ricin has been observed, in contrast to ricin treatment where severe impairment of the small intestinal tissues resulted after 5 h. Immunoreactive ricin in the liver has been determined with the ricin enzyme immunoassay (EIA). When compared at 48 h after oral administration, NBS-ricin was not detected, whereas BMH-ricin was found to be 38 micrograms/liver and ricin 100 micrograms/liver. From these results, it was inferred that the lectin activity of ricin plays an important role in the absorption of ricin from the small intestine and that the absorption of ricin protein was enhanced by its high toxicity.


In obesity, chronic membrane-localization of CD36 free fatty acid (FFA) translocase, but not other FFA transporters, enhances FFA uptake and intracellular lipid accumulation. This ectopic lipid accumulation promotes insulin resistance by inhibiting insulin-induced GLUT4 glucose transporter trafficking and glucose uptake. GLUT4 and CD36 cell surface delivery is triggered by insulin- and contraction-induced signaling, which share conserved downstream effectors. While we have gathered detailed knowledge on GLUT4 trafficking, the mechanisms regulating CD36 membrane delivery and subsequent FFA uptake in skeletal muscle are not fully understood. The exocyst trafficking complex facilitates the docking of membrane-bound vesicles, a process underlying the controlled surface delivery of fuel transporters. The exocyst regulates insulin-induced glucose uptake via GLUT4 membrane trafficking in adipocytes and skeletal muscle cells and plays a role in lipid uptake in adipocytes. Based on the high degree of conservation of the GLUT4 and CD36 trafficking mechanisms in adipose and skeletal muscle tissue, we hypothesized that the exocyst also contributes to lipid uptake in skeletal muscle and acts through the targeted plasma membrane delivery of CD36 in response to insulin and contraction. Here, we show that the exocyst complex is necessary for insulin- and contraction-induced CD36 membrane trafficking and FFA uptake in muscle cells.


Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the causative agent of tuberculosis, infects approximately one-third of the world's population. Recently, autophagy, an intracellular process that sequesters portions of the cytoplasm, including damaged or surplus organelles into autophagosomes and degrades them upon fusion with lysosomes, was found to be crucial in macrophages for controlling MTB ex vivo. Additionally, the autophagy pathway and proteins have been shown to be critical in immunity and inflammation. Despite the known roles of autophagy in killing intracellular bacteria and regulating the immune system it is unknown how autophagy controls MTB in vivo. Using Atg5f/f LyzM-Cre mice, we investigated the in vivo role of autophagy in macrophages in controlling MTB infection and shaping the immune response. Compared to wild-type mice, Atg5f/f LyzM-Cre mice displayed greater weight loss, lung pathology and death in a dose-dependent manner. An increase in neutrophils and macrophages was found in the lung of infected Atg5f/f LyzM-Cre mice whereas the wild type mice had an increase in CD4 and CD8 T cell infiltrates. In this context, luminex assay also revealed an increase in IL-1α, GM-CSF, IL-17 and CXCL1 in the lung lavage of the infected Atg5f/f LyzM-Cre mice when compared to the wild type mice. Taken together, these results show the importance of the autophagy pathway in macrophages in vivo in controlling MTB infection, and indicate a broader role in shaping the immune response.


Modular heap analysis techniques analyze a program by computing summaries for every procedure in the program that describes its effects on an input heap, using pre-computed summaries for the called procedures. In this article, we focus on a family of modular heap analyses that summarize a procedure's heap effects using a context-independent, shape-graph-like summary that is agnostic to the aliasing in the input heap. The analyses proposed by Whaley, Salcianu and Rinard, Buss et al., Lattner et al. and Cheng et al. belong to this family. These analyses are very efficient. But their complexity and the absence of a theoretical formalization and correctness proofs makes it hard to produce correct extensions and modifications of these algorithms whether to improve precision or scalability or to compute more information. We present a modular heap analysis framework that generalizes these four analyses. We formalize our framework as an abstract interpretation and establish the correctness and termination guarantees. We formalize the four analyses as instances of the framework. The formalization explains the basic principle behind such modular analyses and simplifies the task of producing extensions and variations of such analyses. We empirically evaluate our framework using several real-world C# applications, under six different configurations for the parameters, and using three client analyses. The results show that the framework offers a wide range of analyses having different precision and scalability.


Opioid substitution therapy (OST) is a well-recognised, evidence-based treatment for opioid dependence. Since the early 1990s, Australia has used a community-based general practitioner (GP) model ofprescribing, particularly within the state of Victoria, where over 85% of OST prescribing is undertaken by GPs in community settings. Yet the majority of GPs invited to complete the required OST training decline the offer, while of those who complete training, the majority prescribe to few or no patients. This study aimed to determine the reasons for this. Twenty-two in-depth interviews were conducted with Victorian GPs exploring the reasons why the majority declined training, and for trained GPs, why they prescribed to few or no patients in the first 12 months after training. General practitioners who declined to train were predominantly influenced by negative experiences with drug-seeking patients, although other secondary reasons also affected their decision. Some GPs who completed the training were prevented from prescribing by several structural and operational barriers, many of which could be addressed. Fear of deskilling with time became a further impediment. General practitioners who became regular prescribers were highly committed with lengthy general practice experience. Concerns exist about the recruitment process for OST prescriber training, where nearly all GPs decline the offer of training, and the barriers that prevent GPs prescribing after training. Action is needed to address barriers to GP OST training and prescribing, and further research is necessary to ascertain measures required to facilitate long-term prescribing.


There's something very confronting about these theatrically lit, stilted figures by Francis Upritchard on exhibition in Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art as part of the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. With their clothdraped bodies, flailing limbs and half-closed eyes aligned with yours, you can't quite tell if they are suspicious, malignant, benign, dreaming or just tired. The work of this New Zealand-born, London-based artist, has always teetered on the edges of mysticism, folklore and the tensions between utopian or dystopian guises. Upritchard mines the past and present to create these characters, sourced from folk tales like Robin Hood and the narratives of the Bayeux Tapestry. Different cultural mythologies and the traces of history and popular culture in everyday objects influence the artist's practice.


The possibility of using beech wood sawdust and hazelnut husk waste generated during the cultivation of Pleurotus ostreatus mushrooms as a filler in polycaprolactone (PCL)-based biocomposite films was investigated. Chemical and physical properties of the PCL biocomposites were determined. The beech sawdust and hazelnut husk were exposed to degradation for 73 d and 78 d, respectively, in slightly acidic environments at a relative humidity of 75%. The degraded materials caused the holocellulose and lignin contents in the PCL biocomposites to decrease, while the cellulose and α-cellulose contents increased. In general, as the lignocellulosic waste content increased, the tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EatB) values decreased and the tensile modulus (TM) and water absorption (WA) values increased. It was determined that the PCL biocomposite with the degraded beech sawdust absorbed more water than the composite with the undegraded beech sawdust. On the other hand, the PCL biocomposite with the degraded hazelnut husk absorbed less water than the composite with the raw hazelnut husk.


Background Nepal is in the midst of a disease transition, including a rapid increase of noncommunicable diseases. In order for health policy makers and planners to make informed programmatic and funding decisions, they need up to date and accurate data regarding cause of death throughout the country. Methods of improving cause of death reporting in Nepal are urgently required. Objective We sought to validate SmartVA-Analyze, an application which computer certifies verbal autopsies, to evaluate it as a method for collecting mortality data in Nepal. Method We conducted a medical record review of mortality cases at Dhulikhel Hospital, Kathmandu University Hospital. Cases with a verifiable underlying cause of death were used as gold standard reference cases. Verbal autopsies were conducted with caregivers of 48 gold standard cases. Result Of the 66 adult gold standard mortality cases reviewed, 76% were caused by cancer, cirrhosis, cardiovascular disease, COPD or injury. When assessing concordance between cause of death from verbal autopsy vs. gold standards, we found an overall agreement (Kappa) of 0.50. Kappa based on broader ICD-10 categories was 0.69. Cause-Specific Mortality Fraction Accuracy was 0.625, and disease specific measures of concordance varied widely, with sensitivities ranging from 0-100%. Conclusion Ongoing, countrywide mortality data collection is crucial for evidence-based priority setting in Nepal. Though not valid for all causes, we found SmartVA-Analyze to provide useful general cause of death data, particularly in settings where death certification is unavailable.


Due to technology scaling, the design of the conventional-type analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which uses an operational amplifier as one of its building blocks, becomes more difficult. In this brief, new techniques to design time-based ADC (TADC), which uses a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), are proposed. The VCO is followed by a time-to-digital converter, implemented in a ΣΔ architecture. A novel architecture, using a multibit, nonlinear internal quantizer and a feedback digitalto-time converter, implemented by using phase interpolation, is employed to compensate the nonlinear transfer curve of the VCO. Dynamic element matching and calibration are used to improve the robustness of the TADC against mismatch. The TADC uses an implicit sample and hold that relaxes the bounds on input frequency. A TADC implemeDue to technology scaling, the design of the conventional-type analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which uses an operational amplifier as one of its building blocks, becomes more difficult. In this brief, new techniques to design time-based ADC (TADC), which uses a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), are proposed. The VCO is followed by a time-to-digital converter, implemented in a ΣΔ architecture. A novel architecture, using a multibit, nonlinear internal quantizer and a feedback digital-to-time converter, implemented by using phase interpolation, is employed to compensate the nonlinear transfer curve of the VCO. Dynamic element matching and calibration are used to improve the robustness of the TADC against mismatch. The TADC uses an implicit sample and hold that relaxes the bounds on input frequency. A TADC implemented in 0.13-μm CMOS technology achieves a measured signal-to-noise + distortion ratio of 60.2 dB and a dynamic range of 11 b for a bandwidth of 2 MHz.nted in 0.13-μm CMOS technology achieves a measured signal-to-noise + distortion ratio of 60.2 dB and a dynamic range of 11 b for a bandwidth of 2 MHz.


Crowdfunding facilitates resource provision for a project from a large audience where individuals contribute in small amounts. Based on the premises of value co-creation and information asymmetry in reward-based and all-or-nothing crowdfunding models we hypothesize that if a project is successful it creates a value proposition and signals it efficiently. Drawing on a sample of 354 projects hosted by three platforms which operate on reward-based model in Turkey, this paper offers an explanation about what contributes to the success or failure of a project. It suggests that platform reputation, project quality and entrepreneurial capacity of the project owners are associated with the success of a project.JEL Codes: M130, M310, L15, L21, L26


Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) are people that have a strong influence and their opinions are listened to by people when making important decisions. Crowdsourcing provides an efficient and cost-effective means to gather data for the KOL finding task. However, data collected through crowdsourcing is affected by the inherent demographic biases of crowd workers. To avoid such demographic biases, we need to measure how biased each crowd worker is. In this paper, we propose a simple yet effective approach based on demographic information of candidate KOLs and their counterfactual value. We argue that it is effectiveness because of the extra information that we can consider together with labeled data to curate a less biased dataset.


The war in Iraq and the problematic military occupation of that country have called into question the adequacy of America's all-volunteer force. Politicians and others have expressed doubts about its equity and capability; some have called for the reinstatement of the draft. Yet over the past twenty years the all-volunteer military has become a technologically advanced force that has contributed to America's overall military advantage. This book analyzes current military pay and personnel policies and identifies changes needed to maintain and improve America's all-volunteer force.Filling the Ranks argues that to attract qualified and motivated volunteers, the armed forces need to offer better tangible inducements -- pay, benefits, and training -- to accompany such intangible rewards as pride in serving one's country. Many of the policies related to tangible rewards were established shortly after World War II and are no longer effective. Filling the Ranks presents detailed assessments of US military pay and personnel policies in light of the strategic, demographic, economic, and labor realities of the future. It identifies specific problems that today's military career patterns, training, pay, and benefits pose for officers and enlisted men and women in both active duty and reserve forces, discussing such issues as competition with the private sector for talent, the need to restructure compensation, and provision of family support. It offers recommendations for more flexible, adaptive, and effective policies and a blueprint for achieving them.


A simple, rapid and sensitive method has been developed for the analysis of fexofenadine (FEX) in pharmaceutical formulations, using a tris(1,10-phenanthroline)-ruthenium(II) [Ru(phen)(3)(2+)] peroxydisulphate chemiluminescence (CL) system in a multichip device. Various parameters that influence the CL signal intensity were optimized. These included pH, flow rates and concentration of reagents used. Under optimum conditions, a linear calibration curve in the range 0.05-5.0 µg/mL was obtained. The detection limit was found to be 0.001 µg/mL. The procedure was applied to the analysis of FEX in pharmaceutical products and was found to be free from interference from concomitants usually present in these preparations.


Helen Taylor made a unique contribution to the democratisation of history in Queensland. She gave us, in Abraham Lincoln's immortal words, History 'of the people, by the people, for the people'. In so doing, she loosened the stultifying stranglehold of both schools and universities — history's traditional domain. Since history appeared on the school curriculum, generations of children have undergone the arid and depressing experience of being adjudged 'not good at history' because of an inability to memorise a string of meaningless dates. The successful ones who went on to study the subject at university encountered a program that was academic and elitist in both content and purpose. Thought by many to be a worthy successor to the Classics for the training of fine minds, it was for a long time concerned almost exclusively with the activities of governments, the machinery of power in the domestic context and its external manifestations overseas, foreign policy and imperialism. Helen Taylor's notion of history was something very different.


An enneanuclear nickel(II) complex with a rectangular face-centered trigonal prism structure bridged by μ(2)-pyrazolate, μ(6)-CO(3)(2-) and μ(3)-OH(-) groups was synthesized. It displays cluster glass-like magnetic behavior assigned to the single molecule magnet properties of {Ni(9)} clusters and weak intercluster interaction.


Stress is found to significantly affect academics in universities all around the world. The present research examines the issue of stress at the workplace and its effects on the health and individual productivity of the academic administrators at Malaysian research universities ( MRUs). The pressure from requirements for research and development at MRUs also contributes to these problems. Based upon the survey of existing literature, stress at the workplace has a negative effect on health. The negative effects on health jeopardize individual productivity. The purpose of the present research is to determine the mediating effects of health on the relationship between occupational stressors and individual productivity. The respondents were selected based upon the proportionate stratified random sampling method. 300 questionnaires were collected from the academic administrators of 5 MRUs. A 100 per cent response rate was obtained. The research instrument used for the stress and health component was adopted from the ASSET (A Shortened Stress Evaluation Tool). Common occupational stressors in the workplace include work relationships; work-life balance; overload; job security; control; resources and communication; and pay and benefits. Meanwhile, health is represented by physical health and psychological well-being. Finally, the productivity of the academic administrators is based upon their common duties and responsibilities, which include teaching, supervision, publication, training, student service, administrative duties and social responsibility productivity. The aforementioned aspects of productivity are considered in the annual performance appraisal reviews of academic administrators performed by the MRUs. The stressors are analyzed dimensionally, while health and individual productivity are measured aggregately. The statistical techniques used in this study include multiple regression analysis and Sobel tests. The results show that certain occupational stressors are significantly, but negatively, related to health, such as work relationships, work-life balance, job security, control and aspects of the job (i.e., physical working conditions, type of tasks and the amount of satisfaction derived from the job). Additionally, certain occupational stressors are found to be significantly, but negatively, related to individual productivity, including work relationships; work-life balance; job security; control; resources and communication; and pay and benefits. Finally, the results indicate that health partially mediates the relationship between work relationships, work-life balance, job security, control and individual productivity.


This paper presents a radio-frequency (RF) based assistive technology for voice impairments (i.e., dysphonia), which occurs in an estimated 1% of the global population. We specifically focus on acquired voice disorders where users continue to be able to make facial and lip gestures associated with speech. Despite the rich literature on assistive technologies in this space, there remains a gap for a solution that neither requires external infrastructure in the environment, battery-powered sensors on skin or body-worn manual input devices. We present RFTattoo, which to our knowledge is the first wireless speech recognition system for voice impairments using batteryless and flexible RFID tattoos. We design specialized wafer-thin tattoos attached around the user's face and easily hidden by makeup. We build models that process signal variations from these tattoos to a portable RFID reader to recognize various facial gestures corresponding to distinct classes of sounds. We then develop natural language processing models that infer meaningful words and sentences based on the observed series of gestures. A detailed user study with 10 users reveals 86% accuracy in reconstructing the top-100 words in the English language, even without the users making any sounds.