The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the radiosensitization caused by \#946;-lapachone, a novel anti-cancer drug. FSaII fibrosarcoma of C3H mice and A549 human lung cancer cells were used. Cells were exposed to a single or split-dose irradiation with or without \#946;-lapachone treatment and the clonogenic cell survival was determined. The effect of \#946;-lapachone on the radiation-induced DNA double strand breaks was studied with \#947;-H2AX method, and that on the radiation induced activation of NF-kB was determined. Molecular signals involved in cell death were studied with western blot analysis. Treating the cells with \#946; -lapachone for 2 h, starting immediately before irradiation, markedly increased the radiosensitivity of the cells as indicated by significant change in the shoulder and the slop of the radiation survival curve of the cells. \#946;-Lapachone suppressed the repair of sublethal radiation damage, as determined with split-dose irradiation method. Upon an exposure to 2 Gy irradiation, \#947;-H2AX expression, hallmark of DNA double strand breaks, marked increased till 2 h post-irradiation and declined, and \#946;-Lapachone significantly delayed the decay of \#947;-H2AX, indicating that \#946;-lapachone inhibited the repair of radiation-induced DNA double strand breaks. \#946;-lapachone inhibited the radiation-induced phosphorylation of IkB-\#945;, thereby inhibiting the activation of NF-kB. Phosphorylation of JNK by combination of \#946;-lapachone and irradiation was significantly greater than that caused by either of them alone. All these interaction between \#946;-lapachone and radiation could be reduced when cells were transfected with shNQO1, demonstrating that NQO1 plays critical role in the radiosensitization caused by \#946; -lapachone. Conclusion: \#946; -lapachone sensitizes cancer cells to radiation by inhibiting repair of DNA double strand breaks in NQO1 dependent manner. Acknowledgments: This work supported by grants of National Nuclear Technology Program (2007) from KOSEF, the Korea Health 21 RD 2009 Apr 18-22; Denver, CO. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; 2009. Abstract nr 2308.


Introduction: Profoundly impaired left ventricular (LV) function in patients undergoing femoral veno-arterial (VA) extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) can result in intra-cardiac stasis and thrombus formation. There have been several attempts to improve LV unloading in patients with peripheral VA-ECMO, either by improving contractility or by venting the LV. Methods: Data from all patients who underwent femoral VA-ECMO between 2007 and 2015 due to cardiogenic decompensation were retrospectively analysed regarding intra-cardiac thrombus formation. Results: In total, 11 of 281 patients (3.91%) with femoral VA-ECMO developed an intra- or extra-cardiac thrombus despite adequate anticoagulation therapy. None of the patients survived this serious complication. Conclusion: Management strategies for patients with femoral VA-ECMO support and severely impaired LV function must be reassessed to avoid insufficient LV unloading at an early stage of ECMO therapy. Early LV decompression should be considered in patients with insufficient unloading of the LV to prevent intra-cardiac thrombus formation.


The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) in Iran represent an important source of meat and milk products with high biological value. Given the importance of water buffalo in Iran and the prevalence of brucellosis as one of the most important zoonotic diseases in this ruminant species, this study summarized available data on history, epidemiology, diagnosis, and control of brucellosis in water buffalo from previous studies that have been carried out in Iran.  According to the documented data, there are three main groups of Iranian buffalo, including the Khuzestan ecotype (Khuzestan province); the Azary ecotype (Western/ Eastern Azarbaijan and Ardabil provinces); and the North ecotype (Gylan and Mazandaran provinces). Preliminary studies conducted on Iranian buffaloes either by serological or molecular tools reported that buffaloes' infection occurred due to natural exposure to a wild strain of Brucella abortus and Brucella melitensis. Previous studies dealing with brucellosis in Iranian buffalo are next to none. This review notifies the importance of reliable and detailed epidemiological investigations of Iranian buffaloes through continuous monitoring systems of the health status of buffalo populations. Continuous test and slaughter strategy, vaccination, and re-planning of veterinary activities are required to mitigate buffalo's role in disseminating and maintaining brucellosis in Iran.


Cybersecurity is referred to the process, technologies and practices for protection of devices, networks, data from damage and unauthorized access. Cybersecurity has always been important because military, government, financial and corporate organizations collect, store and process enormous amounts of data on computers and on the other devices. As the older threats are eradicated, newer threats are being added to the system by the adversaries. This project is aimed to provide a secure communication between a server and a client. Many cryptographic libraries are available for this purpose but many libraries do not have adequate documentation. Now a days it is necessary to monitor and regulate the data security systems for controlling unauthorized access and many of the attacks. Intelligent Vault is a cyber security tool to protect and monitor the available data. In the way of 360-degree security in automation, surveillance, Storage Intrusion Threat Intelligence and Real-Time Response through its Intelligent Vault. It sync's the data from the proxy systems. The data processing will be performed in R-client and R-server using Nervio-Guard package. Telemetry validation and Real time processing of Advance SecOps will be processed in Intelligent Vault.


The simplified incidence function model which is driven by the colored correlated noises is employed to investigate the extinction time of a metapopulation perturbed by environments. The approximate Fokker–Planck Equation and the mean first passage time which denotes the extinction time (Tex) are obtained by virtue of the Novikov theorem and the Fox approach. After introducing a noise intensity ratio and a dimensionless parameter R = D/α (D and α are the multiplicative and additive colored noise intensities respectively), and then performing numerical computations, the results indicate that: (i) The absolute value of correlation strength Λ and its correlation time τ3 play opposite roles on the Tex; (ii) For the case of 0 1 is the best condition, and there is one-peak structure on the Tex – D plot; (iii) For the case of −1 < A ≤ 0, D and its correlation time τ1 play opposite roles on the Tex in which R < 1 is the best condition and there is one-peak structure on the Tex – τ2 plot.


Purpose : In cases of colorectal cancer, to correlate the spiral CT staging with water enema with thepathologic staging according to the new AJCC classification. Materials and Methods : Ninety four patients withpathologically proven carcinoma of the colon who had un-dergone spiral CT with water enema were evaluated. CTscans were obtained after enema involving about 600-1,200mL of water. Scanning was performed from thediaphragmatic dome to the symphysis pubis using 10mm collimation thickness, 12mm table feed, and 10mmreconstruction interval. The TNM stage, as seen on spiral CT, was determined without reference to the pathologicresults. Staging was performed according to the new AJCC cancer staging manual(1997). The pathologic T-stage wasT1 in four cases(4.3%), T2 in 11(11.7%), T3 in 72(76.6%), and T4 in seven(7.4%). The pathologic N-stage was N0 in57 cases(60.6%), N1 in 25 cas-es(26.6%), and N2 in 12(12.8%). The pathologic M-stage was M0 in 90 cases(95.7%) andM1 in four(4.3%). Results : The detection rate of colon cancer using spiral CT with water enema was 97.9%. At theT-stage, pathologic correlation was good in 68.1% of cases(64/94). Nine patients(9.6%) were overstaged and21(22.3%) were understaged. At the N-stage, pathologic correlation was good in 54.3% of cases(51/94), with 27pa-tients(28.7%) overstaged and sixteen(17.0%) understaged. At the M-stage, pathologic correlation was good in95.7% of cases(90/94). Four patients(4.3%) were overstaged. Conclusion : The accuracy of staging of colorectalcarcinoma by spiral hydro-CT was 68.1% at the T-stage, 54.3% at the N-stage, and 95.7% at the M-stage. As seen onspiral CT with water enema, the T-stage tended to-wards understaging and the N-stage towards overstaging.


In adults, selective memory retrieval can both impair and improve recall of other memories. The study reported here examined whether children also show these two faces of memory retrieval. Employing a variant of the directed-forgetting task, we asked second, fourth, and seventh graders to study a list of target and nontarget words. After study, the participants received a cue to either forget or continue remembering the list. We subsequently asked some participants to recall the nontarget words before we tested their memory for the target words; for the remaining participants, we tested memory only for the target words. Prior retrieval of nontarget words impaired retrieval of to-be-remembered target words, regardless of children's age. In contrast, prior retrieval of nontarget words improved recall of to-be-forgotten target words in seventh graders, though not in fourth and second graders. These results suggest a developmental dissociation between the two faces of memory retrieval and indicate later maturation of the beneficial effect than of the detrimental effect of selective memory retrieval.


Abstract Infertility is currently a common problem with causes that are often unexplained, which complicates treatment. In many cases, the use of ART methods provides the only possibility of getting pregnant. Analysis of this type of data is very complex. More and more often, data mining methods or artificial intelligence techniques are appropriate for solving such problems. In this study, classification trees were used for analysis. This resulted in obtaining a group of patients characterized most likely to get pregnant while using in vitro fertilization.


Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) is a portable surface and submersible military instrument designed to transport diver from a combat swimmer unit or naval Special Forces underwater, over long distances. Although SDV usually carry a pilot, co-pilot, and combat swimmer team and their equipment, however it is possible only for two persons which are the pilot and co-pilot as the combat swimmer team. The paper has focused on the study of stability and seakeeping characteristics of the swimmer delivery vehicle for two persons in surfacing condition. The intact stability characteristics will be investigated at the various load cases and weight distribution configurations which are influenced by the heavy battery locations. Regarding the seakeeping performance analysis, the Bretschneider or ITTC formula with 2 parameters will be adopted as the wave spectrum at the wave parameters defined from the operational environment. The influence of the parameters on the  stability and seakeeping of the swimmer delivery vehicle are presented and discussed.


BACKGROUND: We analyzed bleeding and thrombotic complications in COVID-19–associated ARDS requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). METHODS: This was a single-center observational study of adult subjects undergoing ECMO for COVID-19 (n = 67) or all other cause of ARDS (n = 60), excluding trauma patients. RESULTS: In the COVID-19 group, duration of invasive mechanical ventilation prior to ECMO was lower (2 [0–4] d vs 3 [1–6] d) and ECMO retrieval less frequent (71% vs 87%). No significant differences were found in Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II), or in the in-hospital survival predicted by the Respiratory ECMO Survival Prediction score. During the first 7 d of ECMO support, the COVID-19 group presented higher platelets and fibrinogen, lower activated partial thromboplastin time, but no differences in D-dimer. Thrombotic complications were similar between groups. Higher rates of severe bleeding, namely airway bleeding (37.3% vs 15.0%) and hemothorax (13.4% vs 3.3%), were found in COVID-19, with lower hemoglobin and higher red blood cell transfusions. COVID-19 ARDS was associated with longer ECMO duration (47 [17–80] d vs 19 [12–30] d) and absence of a statistically significant difference concerning in-hospital mortality. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19–associated ARDS requiring ECMO presented high rates of severe bleeding complications and a protracted course. Further studies are needed to clarify the risks and benefits of ECMO in severe COVID-19–associated ARDS.


The Multi-Agent System technology focuses mainly on four topics: cooperation and coordination, organization, communication, and negotiation of a set of intelligent software agents. Applying these techniques to a flock of robots is difficult due to restricted computational resources of the robots. Moreover, if the robots are mobile, the communication is wireless, and there are competing groups, then a dynamic protocol is needed to realize coordination tasks. The paper proposes a dynamic communication protocol which is capable of providing flexible, fast and fault tolerant communication for robot-based Multi-Agent Systems even in flawed communication environments.


The regulatory framework for mining operations is complex; the licensing process in particular typically involves several laws and a number of permits. This paper assumes that the regulatory framework is strongly influenced by the institutional framework of which it is part, and that it suffers from an institutional path dependence that may decrease the efficiency of the system as well as act barrier to the implementation of necessary environmental requirements. The paper provides: 1) a legal analysis of the regulatory framework governing mining operations in Sweden, Finland and Russia; and 2) a comparative analysis of the scope of the environmental assessment within the licensing process in the examined countries. The result of the analysis of the regulatory frameworks shows great similarity between the Swedish and the Finnish systems, both in terms of the overall structure and the implementation of substantive environmental rules. The Russian system differs in this respect, with more declarative rules and seemingly less substantive assessments. The results also indicate that the regulatory frameworks in all three countries show signs of institutional path dependence, but in very different degrees. Though Russia has indeed implemented major changes in the formal structure, very little has changed in practice. The Swedish regulatory framework for mining shows a deficient systematics and conflicting objectives, despite the implementation of a comprehensive environmental legislation. The recently reformed Finnish system seems to have a more holistic approach.


The reception and development of Darwin's ideas have displaced mankind from the central place in the Cosmos, becoming no more than another evolved animal. This work offers a criticalscientific critique of the dominant ideas in the field of scientific research and debate into the origins of Man. By means of an interdisciplinary analysis (science, philosophy, and theology) of the scientifically proven facts, it is concluded that specimens classified in the genus Homo constitute a single species whose morphological evolution (hominization) is posterior to its humanization.


This article conducts a preliminary examination of the "Long Twelfth Century" to gain a better understanding of the dynamic nature of the network and mechanism whereby trade overland and by sea was conducted in this important contact zone between China and Vietnam. Court-based tribute relations served as a focal point around which traditional Sino-Vietnamese political, economic, and cultural exchange revolved. With the shift from sea routes to overland connections in this period, it was trade issues, not tributary protocol, that would drive official Sino-Vietnamese exchanges in the early period of asserting and securing Vietnamese independence. Indeed, it was trade that stimulated relations throughout the period of the Song dynasty's decline.


The Vmin diagram is introduced to effectively visualize how the minimum energy consumption is related to the feed-component distribution for all possible operating points in a two-product distillation column with a multicomponent feed. The classical Underwood equations are used to derive analytical expressions for the ideal case with constant relative volatility and constant molar flows. However, the diagram can also be used for nonideal mixtures. The Vmin diagram is very insightful for assessing multicomponent separation in a single column and is even more powerful for complex column arrangements, such as Petlyuk columns (parts 2 and 3 of this series of papers).


As prior knowledge of objects or object features helps us make relations for similar objects on attentional tasks, pre-trained deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be used to detect salient objects on images regardless of the object class is in the network knowledge or not. In this paper, we propose a top-down saliency model using CNN, a weakly supervised CNN model trained for 1000 object labelling task from RGB images. The model detects attentive regions based on their objectness scores predicted by selected features from CNNs. To estimate the salient objects effectively, we combine both forward and backward features, while demonstrating that partially-guided backpropagation will provide sufficient information for selecting the features from forward run of CNN model. Finally, these top-down cues are enhanced with a state-of-the-art bottom-up model as complementing the overall saliency. As the proposed model is an effective integration of forward and backward cues through objectness without any supervision or regression to ground truth data, it gives promising results compared to state-of-the-art models in two different datasets.


Background: Intracerebral hemorrhage is simultaneously the most frequent and most debilitating manifestation of intracranial arteriovenous malformations (AVM), but its impact on success and complications of radiosurgery has not been rigorously assessed. In this case-control study, we define the effect of prior hemorrhage on AVM radiosurgery outcomes. Methods: From a prospective, institutional database of 1,400 AVM patients treated with Gamma Knife radiosurgery, unruptured and ruptured AVMs were matched in a 1:1 fashion, blinded to outcome, based on patient demographics, prior embolization (26.6% of each cohort), AVM size (mean volume of unruptured AVMs 3.7 cm3 versus ruptured AVMs 3.5 cm3, p = 0.195), Spetzler-Martin grade (Grade I 17.0%, Grade II 37.8%, Grade III 34.8%, Grade IV 10.4% for each cohort), and radiosurgical treatment parameters (mean prescription dose for unruptured AVMs 20.9 Gy versus ruptured AVMs 21.0 Gy, p = 0.837). There were 270 patients in each cohort. Matched statistical analyses were used to compare the baseline characteristics, obliteration rates, post-radiosurgery latency period hemorrhage risks, and incidences of radiation-induced changes (RIC) between the two cohorts. Results: The actuarial obliteration rates of the two cohorts were similar (unruptured AVMs: 38, 58, and 76% at 3, 5, 10 years, respectively; ruptured AVMs: 40, 60, and 73% at 3, 5, 10 years, respectively; p = 0.592). However, for embolized AVMs, complete obliteration was more likely to be achieved in unruptured lesions (unruptured AVMs: 25, 32, and 54% at 3, 5, 10 years, respectively; ruptured AVMs: 18, 27, and 42% at 3, 5, 10 years, respectively; p = 0.038). Prior AVM rupture resulted in a higher annual risk of post-radiosurgery latency period hemorrhage (ruptured AVMs 2.3% versus unruptured AVMs 1.1%, p = 0.025) but a lower rate of cumulative and symptomatic RIC (cumulative RIC: ruptured AVMs 30.4% versus unruptured AVMs 48.9%, p < 0.0001; symptomatic RIC: ruptured AVMs 7.0% versus unruptured AVMs 12.2%, p = 0.041, respectively). The rates of permanent RIC were similar between the unruptured (2.2%) and ruptured (1.9%) AVM cohorts (p = 0.761). The mean time interval to onset of RIC (unruptured AVMs 13.3 months versus ruptured AVMs 12.1 months, p = 0.783), and the mean duration of RIC (unruptured AVMs 22.0 months versus ruptured AVMs 21.7 months, p = 0.599) were not significantly different between the two cohorts. Conclusions: Prior AVM rupture significantly alters the risk of latency period hemorrhage and RIC following radiosurgery. These effects should be taken into consideration with the multidisciplinary management of AVM patients. Radiosurgery does not significantly alter the natural history of the hemorrhage risks of unruptured and ruptured AVMs unless obliteration is achieved.


The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has significantly disrupted education worldwide, including in Nepal. As of August 22, 2022, a total of 995,646 confirmed cases with 11,993 deaths were recorded in Nepal. The number has started rising again recently. To respond to the unprecedented educational disruption and learning loss, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, Government of Nepal, formulated various educational policies for the continuation of education during the pandemic. In this context, this article assesses the trend and impacts of this global crisis on the education sector in Nepal and the public policy response to tackle the pandemic. As the infection surged, leaving millions of children out of school, the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures were expanded rapidly, especially in the urban areas, and digital online content evolved. Even though the government was relatively new and inexperienced, it formulated targeted education policies and revised them following the fast-changing situation. We found some critical weaknesses in the policies and guidelines, especially at the implementation level. However, the policies signaled a transformation in school education in Nepal through increasing parental involvement, encouraging self-learning, and promoting broader collaboration in educational activities.


This paper explores the relationship between Mary, Sophia and the Eternal
Feminine in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Sergei Bulgakov.
It argues that Teilhard's poem to the Eternal Feminine is a meditation
on the Virgin Mary and reflected his own dedication to her. While Teilhard's
attention to wisdom is veiled and somewhat restricted, it flowers in
the theology of Bulgakov, who finds in Mary the expression of perfected
creaturely Sophia. Both authors have a high place for Mary and her cosmic
significance, though this is muted somewhat in Teilhard's account by his
strong attention to cosmic Christology. While Mary and nature have long
been associated in the Christian tradition, a Sophianic interpretation of her
importance allows for an ecological reading of Mary's significance that
goes beyond the interpretation of both Teilhard and Bulgakov.


There is a need for novel diagnostic and treatment systems to overcome the limitations with todays modalities. Microwave and THz based system has the potential to become both sensitive and specific in several applications. In this paper we discuss several applications that are currently being developed at the Chalmers University of Technology.


Hematological profile of Plasmodium falciparum infected patients in Ile- Ife, southwest Nigeria was analyzed across 60 blood samples. Forty of these samples were from confirmrd P. falciparum infected patients attending outpatient clinic at Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile-Ife, while 20 were from apparently healthy individuals not infected with malaria parasites (control). Standard methods were used to determine the haematocrit, erythrocytes sedimentation rate (ESR), plasma and whole blood viscosity and fibrinogen concentration (clot weight). There were statistically significant differences between the mean ± SD of infected and control subjects in the haematocrit levels (32.58±8.10 and 42.90±7.76) respectively ERS (24.38±3.00 and 8.20±1.91) and plasma fibrinogen concentration (5.09±1.23 and 3.16±0.73) (p 0.05). The above results showed that Plasmodium falciparum infected patients are at risk of thrombosis. Keywords: Plasmodium falciparum , blood, Hematological, malaria International Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences, 6(2): 236-238, 2010


Knowledge and concerns of the bad health implications of high fat intake in consumers has resulted in a rising demand for low-fat foods. Consequently, the use of sweet pre-treatment as alternative food source is gaining attention among producers and consumers. The study of reducing oil uptake of fried banana chips using sweet pre-treatment was done. In the preparation of fried banana chips, the sliced banana was blanched at 80oC. Then, the sliced banana was dipped in the treatment for 4 g, 8 g and 12 g of sugar solution. Next, the sliced banana was deep fried at temperature 180oC for 5 minutes. The result showed increased in percentage of moisture reduction (86.65 %, 86.99%, 88.37% and 90.51%) for control and other three fried banana chips as the concentration of sugar used for treatment was increased. For fat content, it showed a decreased in percentage (0.66%, 0.63%, 0.62% and 0.54%) as the sugar concentration used for the treatment was increased. Sugar treatment does not affect the colour of fried banana chips as p-value for lightness (L*) is 0.426 and the p-value for yellowness (b*) is 0.468. This showed that the null hypothesis was accepted and there was no significant difference in lightness and yellowness of all four fried banana chips. Finally, sensory evaluation showed that there was a significant difference in crispiness, colour, sweetness, oiliness and overall acceptance between all four fried banana chips. As the conclusion, sweet pre-treatment gives positive effect on reducing fat content in fried banana chips and can be used as one of the alternative method in producing banana chips with lower amount of fat.


OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that patients with unstable coronary syndromes show accentuated compensatory vessel enlargement compared with patients with stable angina, and that this may in part be related to increased coronary artery distensibility. DESIGN AND PATIENTS In 23 patients with unstable coronary syndromes (10 with non-Q wave myocardial infarction and 13 with unstable angina), the culprit lesion was investigated by intravascular ultrasound before intervention. The vessel cross sectional area (VA), lumen area (LA), and plaque area (VA minus LA) were measured at end diastole and end systole at the lesion site and at the proximal and distal reference segments. Similar measurements were made in 23 patients with stable angina admitted during the same period and matched for age, sex, and target vessel. Calculations were made of remodelling index (VA at lesion site ÷ VA at reference site), distensibility index ([(ΔA/A)/ΔP] × 103, where ΔA is the luminal area change in systole and diastole and ΔP the difference in systolic and diastolic blood pressure measured at the tip of the guiding catheter during a cardiac cycle), and stiffness index β ([ln(Psys/Pdias)]/(ΔD/D), where Psys is systolic pressure, Pdias is diastolic pressure, and ΔD is the difference between systolic and diastolic lumen diameters). Positive remodelling was defined as when the VA at the lesion was > 1.05 times larger than at the proximal reference site, and negative remodelling when the VA at the lesion was < 0.95 of the reference site. RESULTS Mean (SD) LA at the lesion site was similar in both groups (4.03 (1.8) v4.01 (1.93) mm2), while plaque area was larger in the unstable group (13.29 (4.04) v 8.34 (3.6) mm2, p < 0.001). Remodelling index was greater in the unstable group (1.14 (0.18) v 0.83 (0.15), p < 0.001). Positive remodelling was observed in 15 patients in the unstable group (65%) but in only two (9%) in the stable group (p < 0.001). Negative remodelling occurred only in two patients with unstable symptoms (9%) but in 17 (74%) with stable symptoms. At the proximal reference segment, the difference in LA between systole and diastole was 0.99 (0.66) mm2 in the unstable group and 0.39 (0.3) mm2 in the stable group (p < 0.001), and the calculated coronary artery distensibility was 3.09 (2.69) and 0.94 (0.83) per mm Hg in unstable and stable patients, respectively (p < 0.001). The stiffness index β was lower in patients with unstable angina (1.95 (0.94) v 3.1 (0.96), p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Compensatory vessel enlargement occurs to a greater degree in patients with unstable than with stable coronary syndromes, and is associated with increased coronary artery distensibility.


Recently, the orthogonal time frequency space (OTFS) modulation is proposed for 6G wireless system to deal with high Doppler spread. The high Doppler spread happens when the transmitted signal is reflected towards the receiver by fast moving objects (e.g. high speed cars), which causes inter-carrier interference (ICI). Recent state-of-the-art OTFS detectors fail to achieve an acceptable bit-error-rate (BER) performance as the number of mobile reflectors increases which in turn, results in high inter-carrier-interference (ICI). In this paper, we propose a novel detector for OTFS systems, referred to as the Bayesian based parallel interference and decision statistics combining (B-PIC-DSC) OTFS detector that can achieve a high BER performance, under high ICI environments. The B-PIC-DSC OTFS detector employs the PIC and DSC schemes to iteratively cancel the interference, and the Bayesian concept to take the probability measure into the consideration when refining the transmitted symbols. Our simulation results show that in contrast to the state-of-the-art OTFS detectors, the proposed detector is able to achieve a BER of less than 10−5, when SNR is over 14 dB, under high ICI environments.


Stannniocalcin (STC) is a polypeptide hormone that was originally identified in bony fishes as a systemic regulator of mineral metabolism, and is best known for its regulatory effects on calcium/phosphate transport by the gills, gut and kidneys. The mammalian homolog to fish STC was discovered in 1995 and has resulted in progressively growing interest ever since as to its possible role in humans. Moreover, new discoveries in the mammalian STC field are resulting in significant reappraisals as to its role in fishes. Perhaps the most significant of these has been the discovery of a second gene encoding stanniocalcin-related protein, or STC-2, first in mammals and subsequently in fish. This review covers the comparative endocrinology of the STCs in fishes and mammals from the perspectives of structure, function and regulation. It then delves into some of the newer aspects of STC-1/STC-2 biology that have been uncovered using both classical and transgenic approaches. Of these, one of the most intriguing discoveries relates to the receptor-mediated sequestration of STC by target cell organelles. The functions of other newly discovered mammalian and fish STC variants are also discussed, as is the recent discovery of STC-related homologs in invertebrates. Based on our current state of knowledge, it is apparent that STC has an ancient lineage and that the STC family of proteins is proving to have significant roles in metabolism, reproduction and development.


The interaction of potassium bismuth citrate (PBC) with polysaccharides of various structures – dextran (linear) and arabinogalactan (branched) was investigated. The NMR method revealed the donor-acceptor character of the interaction of dextran with PBC in water solutions. Synchrotron radiation and transmission electron microscopy was show the formation of the anisotropic PBC-nanocrystals the covered of dextran layers.


IN contrast with recessive macular dystrophy of the type described by Stargardt (1917), dominant macular dystrophy is not a well-recognized entity, nor are its features clearly defined. The present record of three families suggests that the affection may be symptomatically silent, or at any rate not particularly clamant, but that nevertheless it is sufficiently definite to be fairly readily diagnosed.


Large, distributed IT infrastructures providing business-critical services have to protect themselves against internal and external threats and adapt to changing environmental parameters, as workload. Most widely applied, structural resilience mechanisms use some form of local static redundancy deployed to each critical resource for failover. However, recently both large-scale interconnected distributed systems and virtualization enable on-line structural reconfiguration exploiting a globally managed spare capacity as on- demand failover resource. In this paper, we present system and service resilience as a control problem and briefly describe how classes of the widely used, but vague notion of 'IT metrics' map to the concepts of generic control with a special emphasis on the control aspects of structural reconfiguration as a generic resilience mechanism. Most importantly, we introduce some initial metrics that aim at measuring the self-healing capability of systems employing structural reconfiguration.


This study aimed to determine the seasonal variation patterns in the physical activity of older subjects from two different studies in Canada and the United States. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for total participation time by four seasons for the US sample. Analysis revealed a significant main effect for season, with the four activities that accounted for the majority of physical activity participation time largely responsible for extreme swings in the total participation time across season. Repeated measures ANOVA also was used to analyze total participation frequency in the Canadian (Saskatchewan) sample. Analysis again confirmed a significant main effect for season. As in the US sample, activities largely dependent on tolerable weather conditions were most affected by cold seasons.


We present and evaluate a reinforcement learning-based RWA algorithm for all-optical networks subject to physical impairments. The technique is suitable for decentralized networks and is compared with other techniques with similar computational complexity.


For the ALICE heavy-ion experiment a large computing cluster will be used to perform the last triggering stages in the High Level Trigger (HLT). For the first year of operation the cluster consisted of about 100 multi-processing nodes with 4 or 8 CPU cores each, to be increased to more than 1000 nodes for the coming years of operation. During the commissioning phases of the detector, the preparations for first LHC beam, as well as during the periods of first LHC beam, the HLT has been used extensively already to reconstruct, compress, and display data from the different detectors. For example the HLT has been used to compress Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) data by a factor of 15, lossless, on the fly at a rate of more than 800 Hz. For ALICE's Time Projection Chamber (TPC) detector the HLT has been used to reconstruct tracks online and show the reconstructed tracks in an online event display. The event display can also display online reconstructed data from the Dimuon and Photon Spectrometer (PHOS) detectors. For the latter detector a first selection mechanism has also been put into place to select only events for forwarding to the online display in which data has passed through the PHOS detector. In this contribution we will present experiences and results from these commissioning phases.


One of the main enablers of dynamic spectrum access is fast and reliable spectrum sensing. Acquiring the occupation status of a spectral band can be accomplished in different ways, one of which is called cyclostationary spectrum sensing. The aforementioned method exploits the prior knowledge of periodicities inherent in most man-made signals for the purpose of detecting their presence in a set of sample data. One prerequisite for the detection is the knowledge of the signal's cyclic autocorrelation (CA), which can be estimated from a finite amount of time-domain samples. This work introduces a new method for estimating the CA using a very small amount of time-domain samples, i.e. a short observation time. This is accomplished by modeling the desired CA vector using a custom dictionary describing its known properties and recovering it by solving a convex optimization problem.


ABSTRACT This paper considers the support networks of older people in populations with a preponderance of multigenerational households and examines the most vulnerable network types in terms of loneliness and isolation. Current common typologies of support networks may not be sensitive to differences within and between different cultures. This paper uses cross-sectional data drawn from 590 elders (Gujaratis, Punjabis and Sylhetis) living in the United Kingdom and South Asia. Six variables were used in K-means cluster analysis to establish a new network typology. Two logistic regression models using loneliness and isolation as dependent variables assessed the contribution of the new network type to wellbeing. Four support networks were identified: 'Multigenerational Households: Older Integrated Networks', 'Multigenerational Households: Younger Family Networks', 'Family and Friends Integrated Networks' and 'Non-kin Restricted Networks'. Older South Asians with 'Non-kin Restricted Networks' were more likely to be lonely and isolated compared to others. Using network typologies developed with individualistically oriented cultures, distributions are skewed towards more robust network types and could underestimate the support needs of older people from familistic cultures, who may be isolated and lonely and with limited informal sources of help. The new typology identifies different network types within multigenerational households, identifies a greater proportion of older people with vulnerable networks and could positively contribute to service planning.


Objective: The rate of pancreatic lesions has increased in recent decades due to the widespread use of advanced imaging techniques. Nowadays, a significant proportion of cases are incidentally discovered in asymptomatic patients and cytology is an important tool for the diagnosis and multidisciplinary management of these cases. Study Design: In this study we retrospectively review the experience with pancreatic fine-needle aspiration cytology in the last 17 years at a single large tertiary hospital in Madrid, Spain. Results: Our results indicate that more than 60% of pancreatic malignant lesions are cytologically confirmed before surgery and 30% of the patients are asymptomatic. Despite this, we have noted that the total number of malignant lesions surgically resected in our hospital has basically remained unchanged over the years, because incidental diagnosis is not always synonymous with resectability and a substantial number of patients are already metastatic at the time of diagnosis. Our series also shows an increase in the number of neuroendocrine tumors, which now represent almost 20% of all cytological diagnoses at our hospital. The sensitivity in our series is 70% and the false negative rate remains 30%, despite sample quality control by experienced cytologists and standardized technical conditions. Fibrosis and necrosis are the 2 features of the primary tumor that significantly and negatively influence the accuracy of cytologic diagnosis. Conclusion: We herein report our experience with cytologic diagnosis of pancreatic lesions in a single tertiary hospital. Our results confirm that cytology is a safe, reliable, and important tool for pancreatic lesion diagnosis and management.


The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) puts higher demands on critical care medicine. Lots of studies have been conducted to solve COVID-19-related problems. Therefore, we reviewed the annual progress for COVID-19-related issues including antivirals threapies, respiratory support and immunomodulatory therapies and other critical issues, including the effect of antibiotic on mitochondrial damage and its relationship with sepsis, the goal and direction of antimicrobial de-escalation, drug prophylaxis of constipation, bleeding in gastrointestinal disorders and management of critical illness in the informalization era and so on. We hope to provide reference for clinical and scientific research work of the intensivists.


This article contributes to the theory of rhetorical institutionalism ( Green & Li, 2011 ) by considering the relationship between institutional entrepreneurs and the institutional fields in which they operate as configured by rhetorical strategies. Thus, we posit that the legitimacy of institutional entrepreneurs and institutional fields, respectively, is an inherently rhetorical construct ( Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005 ), whereby rhetorical engagement becomes central to the establishment, maintenance, and reform of institutions ( Brown, Ainsworth & Grant, 2012 ; Green, Babb & Alpaslan, 2008 ). Working with an illustrative case of the Co-operative Bank's financial distress and leadership scandal, we identify three particular strategies of rhetorical engagement with competing institutional logics, which we label convergence, conflict, and divergence. Thus, we add to the theory of rhetorical institutionalism by arguing, broadly, that institutional fields are arenas of rhetorical engagement between competing institutional logics and identifying, more specifically, three rhetorical strategies for constituting institutional legitimacy.


Commentary on the paper by Dye et al (see page 368)

Mercury (Hg) is a toxic heavy metal occurring in several physical and chemical forms. Elemental mercury (Hg) emitted to the atmosphere is converted to soluble forms, deposited into soil and water, and methylated. Methylmercury (MeHg) bioaccumulates up the aquatic food chain and reaches the human diet.1,2 Fish and dental amalgam are two major sources of human exposure to organic and inorganic Hg, respectively.

Even when dental mercury amalgam (at present about 50% mercury by weight) was introduced more than 150 years ago there was concern about its toxicity. After several "amalgam wars", the safety of dental amalgam was established, however, and no uptake of mercury was supposed to occur from amalgam fillings. The debate was revived more than two decades ago in Europe, and then in North America. In the 1980s several studies confirmed that dental amalgam is a significant source of exposure to mercury in humans, mainly by inhalation of Hg.1,2 New assessments of exposure and risk were made by national bodies.3,4 Usually the conclusions were that dental amalgam is a source of low level exposure to mercury, but there is no evidence of adverse health effects at these levels. In some countries strong anti-amalgam groups have formed, and policy has changed, aiming at decreasing or abolishing the use of dental amalgam.

The scientific discussion has focused on two questions: What is the dose? Could it cause symptoms and/or disease?

In this issue, Dye and coworkers present recent data on urinary mercury (U-Hg) in a representative sample of about 1600 US women aged 16–49 years from the NHANES study of 1999–2000.5 This is an important piece of information on …


Fractional order PID, which involve integration and differentiation of non-integer order, is increasingly being used in the fields of control system, robotics, signal processing and circuit theory. Based on neural network, this paper introduce a new approach for design fractional order PID controller. A self-learning PID controller with five dimension parameters is realized by using parameter turning strategy of RBF neural network. Further apply the fractional order PID controller to a typical FOLPD process like pulp consistency control system. In particular, pulp consistency system is a typical FOLPD process. The simulation results show that this kind of controller has a better effect for pulp consistency system than traditional PID and PIDNN controller.


Hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiN:H) and silicon carbonitride (a-SiCN:H) films grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) are widely investigated for their interesting optical and electrical properties [1]. In this work, we discuss the effect of the deposition power on SiN-based films during plasma deposition. The influence on the optical and mechanical properties of the films was investigated. In order to study this issue on a broader basis, two types of plasmas were applied to deposit 0.5 to 1.5 μm a-SiN:H and a-SiCN:H films. First, a-SiN:H and a-SiCN:H films were deposited by electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) PECVD using the same deposition parameters for all films. During the deposition process, the carbon content in the a-SiCN:H thin films was introduced into the chamber through a pure CH4 gas source to avoid any perturbation on the deposition pressure. Second, a-SiN:H films were deposited by a capacitively coupled plasma reactor CCP PECVD using a SiH4/NH3/N2/Ar precursor mixture. In both deposition processes, the ion bombardment energy was tuned only by the deposition power. The mechanical properties of the films were determined ex-situ by profilometry to evaluate the residual stress using the wafer curvature method and by nanoindentation to determine Young's modulus and hardness of the films. The thickness and the refractive index were measured by variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry (VASE). It was observed that the evolution of the residual stress according to the deposition power in the ECR PECVD was different from the CCP PECVD. Besides, we notice a slight increase in the refractive index when the residual stress becomes more compressive as illustrated in figure 1 for a-SiN:H and a-SiCN:H films. Through this discussion, we try to have a better understanding of the different interactions taking place when the deposition power increases in terms of ion bombardment energy. Then, we will study the effect of ion bombardment on the film structure based on the composition and structure of the films and the hydrogen bond concentration measured by Fourier transmission infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). In addition, we have also investigated the influence of carbon incorporation on a-SiN:H thin film properties. We notice a decrease in the refractive index and an increase in the compressive residual stress caused by the carbon incorporation.[1] A. Abdelal, Z. Khatami, and P. Mascher, "Optical and Electrical Properties of ECR-PECVD Grown SiCN Thin Films," ECS Meet. Abstr., vol. MA2018-01, no. 17, p. 1189, Apr. 2018, doi: 10.1149/ma2018-01/17/1189.Figure 1


This article examines the evolution and potential of the water agenda of BRICS. The members of this international association of major countries of South America, Eurasia, Asia and Africa are rich in water resources and population. The development of water resources extends beyond their borders to projects in other countries through the activities of a major development institution, the New Development Bank of BRICS. Such conditions suggest some anticipation of a global and comprehensive view on the part of BRICS on the issues relating to water resources. However, the hypothesis of this article is opposite: despite the unique potential of the BRICS water strategy, it remains non-specific, focused on the lower common denominators for the member countries such as cleanliness, sanitation and water management. To account for this, the authors take the position that the bureaucratic logic of basic common interest downgrades strategic vision. This is reflected in the growing gap between the multifaceted nature of the issues related to water resources in the world and the narrowly specialized approach of BRICS association which perceives water de facto without its resource and global function. To study this, the authors analyze the water portfolios of the BRICS member countries and compare the national water agendas based on an analysis of policy documents. They then systematize water initiatives under the auspices of the BRICS and, finally, calculate virtual water flows and their structure between the BRICS countries using agricultural products trade as an example. The conducted analysis allows the authors to identify a wide gap between the current and potential water agenda of the BRICS. The authors then propose a number of initiatives that can create added value for the BRICS as an association both for its member countries and for developing countries facing water resource challenges. The authors assert that such a new approach, based on a profound understanding of the resource function of water as a commodity with global value, has all the potential to be implemented by BRICS.


Figurines from different contexts may be physically similar or they may resemble one another as assemblages. For instance, contexts of recovery may be similar or predominant themes may be shared. The question I am pursuing is how – or whether – such observations should affect our social interpretations. The challenge is to reformulate material similarities into social terms without overburdening them so heavily with partisan theory that our conclusions are from that point foreordained and archaeological evidence no longer matters. Our newly acquired contextualist strategy prompts us to begin by considering the resemblant traits in their original contexts, in interplay with other traits. We would then compare the resulting contextualizations. It is a promising strategy, but the way forward still seems difficult. Let us therefore jump to the end-products of analyses. Sometimes the social interpretations of similar figurines from unrelated contexts resemble one another. Is it possible to identify the source of such convergence? Let us consider a specific case. Five papers find that prehistoric figurines from different time periods in different parts of the world depict women at different stages of their lives. Patricia Rice argues that figurines of the European Paleolithic "represent women of different ages in proportion to their probable actual frequency in the population." According to Avi Gopher and Estelle Orrelle, Yarmukian pebble figurines from the Southern Levant some twelve millennia later comprise a record of age differences among females "from girlhood up to perhaps menopause."


Tuberculosis (TB) cases in Indonesia are most prevalent in West Java, East Java, and Central Java Provinces. TB cases in those provinces accounted for 38% of all incident TB cases in Indonesia. Transmission of the disease is influenced by environmental factors and unhealthy behavior. Environmental factors that affect the incidence of TB such as temperature, humidity, and natural lighting. This was an observational research, using case-control study design. Data then compared with the Regulation of Health Minister Republic Indonesia No. 1077 in 2011 about Guideline for Air Sanitation in the Home Space and Decision of Health Minister Republic Indonesia No. 829 in 1999 about Housing Health Requirement. Samples were taken by pusposive sampling with a sample size of 10 houses of pulmonary TB patients and 10 home instead of pulmonary TB patiens. Data collection using observation sheet and measurement. Air sampling using Microbial Air Sampler (MAS), then samplees sent to the laboratory for examination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. The result showed that most of the temperature, humidity, natural lighting, wide ventilation, and light intensity in the home of tuberculosis patiens not eligible. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was found in all TB home patients. People should maintain the cleanliness of the house by cleaning the floor with disinfectant and adding ventilation to improve air circulation and the sunlight can enter the room.


This is a guide to online and print resources for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying the art of Asia in general and especially Treasure Ships at the Art Gallery of South Australia..


The use of relativistic electron rings to stabilize plasmas against the interchange modes has been utilized in such devices as the Elmo Bumpy Torus (EBT) and the plugs of a Tandem Mirror device (STM). In the EBT case enhanced stability is reflected in higher betas (ratio of plasma to magnetic field pressures), while in the Tandem Mirror case symmetry in the plug magnetic geometry results in reduced particle diffusion across the magnetic field in the central cell. Regardless of the application, the question arises as to what effect would alpha particles generated by the Deuterium-Tritium (DT) reactions have on the stability of such ring-stabilized devices. In this paper the macroscopic stability of such systems is reexamined in order to assess the effect of alphas on the background interchange mode, the interacting interchange mode, and the high frequency compressional Alfven and coupled modes. A fluid description is used for the background plasma while a kinetic treatment is utilized for the hot electron species and alpha particles. It is shown that the Alphas tend to mildly destabilize the interacting interchange while stabilizing the background interchange due to their sizable Larmor radii. The destabilization is most pronounced at high alpha energies i.e., at birth, and near complete recovery of stability is achieved as these particles approach thermalization with the background ions. It is also shown that the alphas completely stabilize the high frequency modes.


Objectives To identify the optimal method for subcutaneous tissue management following midline abdominal incisions among patients with high thickness of subcutaneous fat (TSF). Methods A single-center prospective controlled trial among women undergoing elective gynecologic surgery by midline incision with TSF ≥ 3 cm. Incision was managed by suture approximation of Camper's fascia (group 1), closed suction drainage (group 2), or no intervention (control). Groups were compared for the incidence of four-week postop wound complications including surgical site infection (SSI), superficial wound dehiscence (SWD), and seroma; and baseline and perioperative factors were analyzed using multivariate regression. Results Among 145 patients included (43.4% suture, 29.7% drain, 26.9% control), the overall incidence of wound complications was 15.2% (SSI 8.3%, SWD 0.7%, seroma 6.2%). The incidence of SSI was higher with suture (14.3%) versus drain (4.7%) and control (2.6%), while seroma was more frequent in drain (11.6%) versus suture (3.2%) and control (5.1%); however, both results were not statistically significant. Wound complication was independently associated with hemoglobin level (OR = 0.58, p = 0.019) and the occurrence of intraoperative complications (OR = 8.67, p = 0.048). Conclusion There is no statistical evidence about the optimal method of wound closure in the study population. Specific risk profiles can be constructed with an emphasis on preoperative anemia and intraoperative complications.


We present a method for time-resolving the coherent precession of the spin of a single neutral exciton confined to an InAs/GaAs quantum dot. A pair of circularly polarized π pulses are used to pump and probe the exciton spin, rather than a pair of interferometrically stable π/2-pulses in a quantum interference type experiment, faster, technically simpler, measurements of the small 15 μeV exciton fine-structure can be made in the photocurrent regime. A small change in the fine-structure splitting with vertically applied electric-field is observed.


To satisfy experiment needs for Sandia's Advanced Reactor Safety Program, a programmable Transient Rod Withdrawal (TRW) mode has been developed for the Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR). The programmable mode is a modification of the existing continuous-withdrawal TRW mode and permits speed and direction changes during the pulse sequence. Basically, a TRW operation is similar to a routine pulse operation except that transient rods are mechanically withdrawn rather than pneumatically fired. Being a pulse-type operation, the TRW mode complies with pulse-mode safety system settings. Control system interlocks prevent the pneumatic firing of rods in the TRW mode. The hardware for the programmable TRW mode includes three ACRR transient rods, the ACRR timer, two rod programmers, a minicomputer and a summing circuit for position indication. Each ACRR transient rod is mechanically driven by a stepping motor (rated torque at 4.24 joules) and is capable of a maximum TRW speed of 26.7 centimeters/ second. The maximum reactivity insertion rate is $2.45/second with a transient rod bank worth of $3.00 and $3.47/second with a bank worth of $4.25, which is expected to be installed soon. The ACRR timer is a multifunctional timer used in all operating modes of the reactor. In the programmablemore » TRW mode, the timer starts the rod programmers and drops regulating rods to terminate the operation. Programmed withdrawal capability is provided by one of two rod programmers (a hardwire-based unit and a microprocessor-based unit). The hardwire unit has eight intervals in which speed, direction and distance are selected by switches on the front panel. The microprocessor-based unit has the capability of 64 intervals in which speed, direction, and distance or time can be specified. Programming this unit is accomplished from the front panel or by inputting data from an HP-9845. minicomputer via a digital I/O interface. Self-test programs in the software provide a continual check of an operating program. The rod position summing circuit provides a single output for analyzing transient rod position as a function of time. At this writing, approval for installation and initial testing of the TRW mode has been received from the Department of Energy. Mechanical tests are being performed to evaluate the rod drive performance under maximum transient conditions. The initial power tests will concentrate on achieving a 50 megawatt square-wave pulse for a 4-second duration. (author)« less


The diet of the main fish species was evaluated from three stretches located in the Capivara reservoir, Paranapanema River and from one stretch on Tibagi River, the latter under the reservoir influence. The diet of these species, by the percentage composition, with the food items grouped was distinct: detritus and aquatic insects in three stretches (Cinzas, Cruzalia and Porecatu); crustaceans and aquatic insects in Tibagi stretch. The fish species were grouped in six trophic groups, according to the main food items consumed determined by the Alimentary Index (IAi): carcinophagous, detritivore, herbivore, insectivore, omnivore and piscivore. All the six trophic categories have been identified among the fishes from the Tibagi stretch, five in Cinzas stretch, whereas four categories among fishes from Cruzalia and Porecatu. The generalist/oportunist species Astyanax altiparanae, Moenkhausia intermedia and Pimelodus maculatus were included in diferent trophic categories according to the stretch. Plagioscion squamosissimus, piscivore in Porecatu and Cruzalia, shifted to carcinophagy in the Tibagi and Cinzas stretches. The trophic structure and the abundance of the main fish species were different in each stretch, with the predominance of three species in each one, and always one of the introduced species figured among the three.


A Leishmania Microsatellite Database (LeishMicrosatDB) is reported for genome wise mining of microsatellites in six Leishmania species, using in silico techniques. This was created to provide parasitologists a platform to understand the genome characterization, mapping, phylogeny and evolutionary analysis. The present version of the database contains 1 738 669 simple sequence repeats of which 181 s756 repeats are present in compound form. The repeats can be sought in a chromosome using input parameters such as repeat type (mono- hexa), coding status, repeat unit length and repeat sequence motif. The genic repeats have been further hyperlinked with their corresponding locus id, and the database is appended with primer3 plus for primer designing of selected repeats with left and right flanking sequences up to 250 bp. Information on clustering and polymorphic repeats can also be retrieved. This database may also be adopted as a tool to study the relative occurrence and distribution of microsatellites across the parasitic genome. The database can enable a biologist to select markers at desired intervals over the chromosomes, and can be accessed as an open source repository at http://biomedinformri.com/leishmicrosat. Database URL: http://biomedinformri.com/leishmicrosat


As shown by Foias and Prodi in the limit of infinite times the solutions of the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations depend only on a finite number of modes, a number for which rigorous estimates can be obtained. A survey of these results is given together with further developments, notably in connection with the numerical approximation to the exact solutions.


This document describes technologies that enable an autonomous control of a vehicle. A basic explanation of the approach to designing a lateral controller is given as well as a description of several systems that are used for the orientation of a vehicle. Systems for lateral control (guide wire, magnetic, GPS) as well as for longitudinal and/or lateral control (picture processing, radar systems, electronic drawbar) are described.


The linear density, tenacity and its distribution, elongation and its distribution of a fiber in a PET multifilament (IN) and fibers in it (INTER) are investigated and compared. Tenacity unevenness of IN and INTER is almost equivalent. However, elongation unevenness of IN is considerable than it of INTER. Weibull distribution model fits well to tenacity of PET fibers.


SCOPE
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) deficiency occurs in obesity-related pathologies due to defects in the intestinal lumen. And expanding the L-cell population has emerged as a promising avenue to elevate GLP-1 secretion to tackle metabolic disorders. Curcumin (Cur), the principal active component of spice turmeric, possesses well-established anti-obesity properties. To clarify, the study investigates whether Cur promotes GLP-1 secretion built upon the L-cell expansion.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Cur (60 mg kg-1 ) is administered orally to male ob/ob mice for 8 weeks. Cur ameliorates obesity and impaires glucose tolerance through increasing energy expenditure in ob/ob mice, accompanied by the maintenance of crypt architecture and gut permeability. It refines the microbial structure and bile acid (BA) profiles, resulting in deoxycholic acid (DCA) accumulation by weakening the enrichment of Lactobacillus. Further analyses show radically different properties of Cur on the intestine function of TGR5 and FXR (i.e., activation and repression). Cur amplifies L-cell number to promote GLP-1 secretion in ob/ob mice.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that Cur may act as a natural TGR5 agonist and FXR antagonist to improve obesity by enhancing GLP-1 release from L-cell expansion via the gut microbiota-BAs-TGR5/FXR axis, and it may serve as a promising therapeutic agent to compensate obesity-related metabolic disorders.


Zipoy used spheroidal coordinates to construct a family of static axisymmetric gravitational fields included in Weyl's class. We calculate the mass moment source for the dipole solution using techniques previously developed for magnetic and angular momentum densities and compare it with the Newtonian analogue studied by Bonnor and Sackfield.


The physical development of newborns and infants is the most important parameter in assessing their health. However, the standards of anthropometric parameters, and most importantly their growth in premature babies, especially those born with low and extremely low body weight, are still controversial. Objective: to apply the methodology for measuring and assessing the main anthropometric indicators of newborns using the international standards of postnatal growth of premature babies INTERGROWTH-21st to resolve the issue of the feasibility of its adaptation and widespread introduction into neonatological and pediatric practice in the Russian Federation. 4876 children were born at Kulakov National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology (participant of the international project for the implementation of INTERGROWTH-21st standards in neonatological and pediatric practice) from 15.05.2018 to 26.11.2018. 439 (9%) of them were born premature, of which 376 children (89,3%) with gestational age confirmed by ultrasound were included in the study. There was a detailed file for each child to assess the environment and health of the mother, the course of pregnancy, childbirth, the state of health of the child from birth to discharge from the hospital. 2.1% of children classified by INTERGROWTH-21st as children with intrauterine growth retardation, according to Fenton charts, had normal intrauterine growth. When comparing the postnatal growth at discharge from hospital on the Fenton scale, more children were classified as children with impaired postnatal growth; the discrepancy between INTERGROWTH-21st and Fenton diagrams was 8%. At discharge, 52% of premature babies were exclusively breastfed, 28.8% of premature babies were at mixed feeding. Conclusion. On the one hand, the use of INTERGROWTH-21st scales helps to correct nutrition in case of delay in physical development, and, on the other hand, it reduces the risk of metabolic disorders associated with an aggressive desire to achieve rapid growth of a premature baby.


The principal achievement of this paper is the combinative use of two market institutions: public warehousing and commodity exchange and how their joint application is beneficial for the players on the grain market. Based on a theoretical foundation, a calculation model was developed in order to assist short and longterm marketing decisions. It allows all the three participants of the market: producers, consumers and traders, to use this model in order to establish their own business strategy. The model can be used to analyse factors influencing the establishment of price; therefore, it can be also used for policy-making decisions.


Using data from the Digest of Educational Statistics, this article argues that an intergenerational comparison is a more productive, progressive method to interpret data used to gauge the achievement gap. It applies this method by comparing the academic achievement scores and educational outcomes of African Americans over a nearly 70-year period, 1940-2008, and uses the metrics' National Assessment of Educational Progress average reading scores in fourth and eighth grade and high school and college completion-most often applied in assessing the achievement gap. It argues that since the inception of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), and the compensatory education programs that have grown out this act, African Americans have made some of the greatest strides in improving their educational performance and outcomes in virtually every measureable category used to assess the achievement gap. The intergenerational comparisons offered serve as a counterassessment to the traditional modes of analysis that compare the achievement scores and educational outcomes of white to minority students.


Myriad health inequities that sexual minority youths (SMYs) experience have been documented over the past several decades. Evidence demonstrates that these are not a result of intrinsic characteristics; rather, they result from high levels of adversity that SMYs experience. Despite the pervasive marginalization that SMYs face, there is also evidence of great resilience within this population. It seems likely that if a culture of marginalization produces health inequities in SMYs, a culture of acceptance and integration can work to produce resiliencies. We have described how promoting forms of acceptance and integration could work to promote resilient SMYs despite an overarching culture of marginalization. Building on SMYs' resiliencies may potentiate the effectiveness of health promotion interventions to reduce health disparities within this population.


Recent trends in the design of learning support systems are characterized by considering group interaction, by combining intelligent support with interactive learning environments, by providing reusable domain-independent components, and by using agent- structured architectures. Taking these trends into account, an open framework system has been developed for integrating distributed intelligent support components with an interactive and collaborative learning environment. Work in shared activity spaces with synchronized objects is facilitated by a specific user interface library and communication server. A modular architecture allows for flexibly plugging in intelligent components, e.g. for knowledge assessment and diagnosis, individual feedback, multiple student modeling, or simulated students as a partner. The intelligent subsystem is organized as a cluster of student modeling agents and is inspectable through a WWW interface. Our approach is exemplified by several applications, one providing individual feedback for physics exercises, a second one supporting the teacher in supervising a group of students in a math class, and, thirdly, a generic tool based on card networks for diverse domains.


Class struggle and the dispossessed
 How do we conceive of class and class struggle ? Orthodox Marxism has often been represented as understanding class as a relationship to production, a conceptualization reinforcing a sense of class struggle where the accent is placed on the conflictual relations within the workplace. Overt capitallabour conflict at the point of production does indeed constitute class struggle, but neither class nor class struggle can be reduced in Marxist terms to strikes, lockouts, and the like. Rather, as Marx's writings suggest, the origins of class formation lie in dispossession, and it is as the dispossessed that workers, waged and wageless, have routinely resisted both the exploitation and the oppression that is fundamental to capitalism's project. This project, in which accumulation through dispossession is driven by periodic crises, necessarily involves destruction and creates not only vast wealth but vast destitution. The working class is made as a productive force, divorced from ownership of the means of production, but it is also made amidst persistent crises, which lead to unemployment, the precariousness of labour, and the existence of reserve armies of labour. A comprehension of the origins of class in dispossession thus widens our understanding of class struggles, which take place at the point of production but which also develop in all manner of other ways, including struggles around space, against the state, and in the reproductive realm.


Tinea pedis (TP) may lead to the development of foot ulcers in diabetic patients; thus, its prevention in diabetic patients is important. TP occurs after dermatophytes on the skin scales of TP patients attach to the feet. Therefore, it is necessary to remove the scales and dermatophytes, and this can be performed using various methods, including foot washing. This study aimed to objectively examine the association between the presence of TP and foot-washing habits. We included 33 diabetic patients, and, of these, 17 had TP. The presence of washing residue on the feet was determined by applying a fluorescent cream to the participants' feet, and images of the feet were captured under ultraviolet light before and after foot washing. Our results showed that diabetic patients with TP had higher levels of washing residue on their feet than those without TP. The importance of washing feet to prevent TP needs to be emphasized through educational programs for diabetic patients. Furthermore, the development of an effective foot-washing technique is essential.


It is well-recognized that smoking is detrimental to the environment. However, much less is understood about smoking behavior from an environmental perspective with a focus on environmental concern (EC). This study aims to establish the association between EC and smoking frequency in smokers and test whether age and mental health moderate such an association. Obtained by analyzing data using regressions on smokers (N = 3,599) from Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), which is a representative sample in the UK, the results revealed that age and mental health moderate the association between EC and smoking frequency. This association is important to understand because smoking pollutes the environment, and very few studies have looked at smoking behavior from an environmental perspective.


Curvature properties of the characteristic connection on an integrable $G_2$ space are investigated. It is proved that an integrable $G_2$ manifold has closed torsion if and only if the Ricci tensor of the characteristic connection is equal to the covariant derivative of the Lee form and in this case the integrable $G_2$ structure is of constant type. It is shown, that a compact integrable $G_2$ manifold with closed torsion is Ricci flat if and only if either the norm of the torsion is constant or the Riemannian scalar curvature is constant. It is observed that any compact integrable $G_2$ manifold with closed torsion 3-form is a generalized gradient Ricci soliton and this is equivalent to a certain vector field to be parallel with respect to the torsion connection. In particular, this vector field is an infinitesimal authomorphism of the $G_2$ strucure. Compact examples with bi-$G_2$ structures or generalized integrable $G_2$ manifolds are given. It is shown that on an integrable $G_2$ space of constant type the curvature of the characteristic connection $R\in S^2\Lambda^2$ with vanishing Ricci tensor if and only if the three-form torsion is parallel with respect to the Levi-Civita and to the characteristic connection simultaneously. In particular, the conditions $R\in S^2\Lambda^2, Ric=0$ are equivalent to the condition that the curvature of the characteristic connection satisfies the Riemannian first Bianchi identity. In this case the torsion 3-form is harmonic.


The adulteration of herbal supplements is of growing importance, especially when they contain undeclared compounds like sibutramine that are unsafe drugs. Sibutramine was withdrawn from US and European markets in 2010. In this study, an HPTLC-UV densitometric method was developed for the quantification of sibutramine in herbal diet foods. Sample extracts were directly applied onto HPTLC silica gel plates and separated with a mobile phase made of a toluene–methanol mixture. Sibutramine was quantified at 225 nm and its unequivocal identification was confirmed by MS using a TLC-MS interface. During two surveys, 52 weight loss supplements obtained via the Internet were screened. Half of those were adulterated with sibutramine at amounts reaching up to 35 mg per capsule. The results of this validated HPTLC method were compared with those obtained by HPLC-UV and HPLC-MS/MS. The results were not significantly different with the three methods. Graphical Abstract


The aim of this study was to examine staff strategies for applying emergency procedures with patients who were violent or threatening. The study addressed those situations where verbal intervention, voluntary medication, and other interventions had been tried unsuccessfully and where staff found it necessary to apply emergency procedures in the shape of forced emergency medication (pharmacological restraint), physical restraint, and seclusion. The study was conducted in a 100-bed Norwegian university psychiatric hospital. By retrospectively examining hospital records we found there were 797 episodes of physical restraint, 384 episodes of pharmacological restraint, and 88 episodes of seclusion during a five and a half year period. The preferred emergency procedures varied significantly with patients' sex, age, and diagnoses. Physical restraint was preferred more often with male, younger, and nonpsychotic patients. Pharmacological restraint was preferred more often with female patients and older patients with a nonorganic psychotic disorder. Seclusion was preferred more often with older male patients with an organic psychotic disorder.


Some years ago I visited the World Heritage Site of Petra in Jordan, the ancient Nabatean City built into encircling red sandstone cliffs. Without any detailed knowledge of the Nabateans and their place in the history of the region, it is clearly an impressive place by virtue of its scale, by virtue of the craft of its construction and, particularly, by virtue of its seeming seclusion. I was especially struck by the way the site seems to have its own physical narrative, which blends the natural features of the deeply gorged cliffs with the creativity of its sixth century BCE founders in striving to hide this city from the rest of the world, and, also, the creativity of those who have long recognised the allure of the place to visitors. For most visitors, to reach this ancient site you have to walk, and the walk takes you from a relatively commonplace and bustling entrance of open, rough and stony land which promises little, through a high-sided and, at times, claustrophobic narrow gorge – known as the 'siq' – to a position where your sight is drawn from bare wall and dusty ground to a powerful vision; a true glimpse into another world. For as one moves out of the siq, one is faced with the sheer power of a monument; the magnificent facade of what is known as the Treasury, carved out of, and into, the solid wall of the high cliffs. This impressive monumentalism is repeated a number of times as the valley opens up to the skies, and one is able to wander through what feels like a hidden kingdom. But it is the drama of the first encounter with the Treasury as it is perceived as one emerges through the narrowness of the gorge which impresses the most and which causes the tourist cameras to click. My visit was technically not as a leisure tourist but as an academic engaged with the place as a heritage site and, though I remember feeling impressed, it was, in truth, hardly more than a fleeting affect.


The present research aims at building of a mathematical model using (Engineering Equation Solver) (EES) software to analyze the flow of the refrigerant R134a into two configurations of adiabatic capillary tubes (straight and helical coiled tubes) which are used widely in a household refrigerator, freezer and water cooler. The governing equations which depend on the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy have been coded in order to calculate the length of the single-phase flow region. Moreover, the two-phase region has been divided numerically depending on homogenous flow assumption after determining the boundary conditions and calculating the physical variables at each point of the numerical divisions by using successive substitution method using iteration loops. Finite difference scheme, the length of the two-phase region and the total length for the capillary tube have also been determined. The results show that the behavior of the flow is similar for both forms with regard to the distribution of variables (pressure and temperature drop, dryness fraction, velocity and entropy) over the whole length , while the helical coiled tube length for all cases is shorter than the straight tube at the same conditions. The main parameters that affect the size of capillary tube and the behavior of refrigerant through it have been shown. The tube length increased with the increase of (condenser temperature, degree of subcooling and tube diameter) and decreased with the increase of mass flow rate and roughness. The helical tube length increased by increasing coil diameter and coil pitch . The results of the present study agree with the experimental data of previous works with error not exceeding ±10% .


The paper investigated the process of spatial cognition through wayfinding taking into account the distinction between visibility and permeability relations. The study analyzed the Pinacoteca Art Museum in Sao Paulo by Paulo Mendes da Rocha, whose interior presents several visible but not permeable relations. Whereas permeability relations have been described using axial and convex maps, visual relations have been described using visibility graphs and overlapped isovists. Syntactical attributes of the spatial configuration have been measured, and a new correlation has been proposed. Different paths departing from the entrance have been and analyzed combining syntactical attributes and the visual information for the understanding of the configuration. The study has shown some evidence about the influence of visual information to the intelligibility of spatial configurations, suggesting the need for a methodological differentiation between visibility and permeability relations in wayfinding and spatial cognition.


Background: The observational study aimed to investigate the change and correlations of the spinopelvic parameters as well as the relationships with the related symptoms in unilateral developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) patients. Methods: The clinical data of 22 unilateral DDH patients and 20 healthy volunteers were collected from 2016 to 2021. All patients and volunteers were taken the antero-posterior pelvic radiograph and the frontal and lateral radiography of the whole spine as a routine examination. And the clinical symptoms, signs and functions were measured according to Oswestry Disability Index and Low Back Pain Scoring System. Then the t test and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data. Results: The Cobb(8.68±6.21°), L3(4.79±5.47°), CB(1.65±1.57cm), PT(15.02±9.55°) and TLK (7.69±6.66°) were significantly larger in the DDH patients, whereas LL(37.41±17.17°) were significantly smaller (P<0.05). As for the coronal spinopelvic parameters, CB was found to be associated with L3 (R=0.58, P<0.01). Of the sagittal spinopelvic parameters, SS was found to be associated with LL (R=0.48, P=0.02), and TLK was found to be related to ST and TK, respectively (R=0.49, P=0.02; R=-0.45, P=0.04). In terms of relations between the spinal and pelvic parameters, PI were found to be related to the SS (R=0.58, P<0.01). An analysis of relations revealed a correlation between the Oswestry Disability Index and Cobb(R=0.59, P<0.01), PT(R=0.49, P=0.02), TK(R=-0.46, P=0.03) and TLK(R=0.44, P=0.04). Furthermore, an analysis of relations revealed a correlation between Low Back Pain Scoring System and Cobb (R=-0.44, P=0.04), L3(R=-0.53, P=0.01), PT (R=-0.44, P=0.04), TK(R=0.46, P=0.03) and TLK(R=-0.43, P=0.05). Conclusion: The parameters are related to each other and compensate each other to maintain the balance of the coronal and sagittal planes of the spine. In addition, the change of some parameters is closely related to the quality of life of the patients, and can provide some clues for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of DDH.


Abstract The consumer price index was first used in 1707. In 1925 it became institutionalised when the Second International Conference of Labour Statisticians, convened by the ILO, promulgated the first international standards of measurement. These original standards have been revised three times and are currently under review. Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) compiles and disseminates different CPI aggregates, including the Consumer Price Index; the Core Index; CPIX; and the Food Price Index or CPIF. StatsSA has gone to considerable trouble in complying with international best practice in the calculation of the CPI. Nevertheless, three problems still remain, namely that StatsSA works with an unsatisfactory definition of rural areas, that no provision is planned for sales through informal sector outlets, and that no provision is made for food consumed away from home.


A Absolute Friends -John le Carre The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World -Lawrence Osborne Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror -Richard A. Clarke The Age of Shakespeare -Frank Kermode Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq -William Shawcross Aloft -Chang-rae Lee The Amateur Marriage -Anne Tyler American Desert -Percival Everett American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans -Eve LaPlante American Judaism: A History -Jonathan D. Sarna The Anatomy of Fascism -Robert O. Paxton. B The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus -Owen Gingerich The Bronte Myth -Lucasta Miller Buffalo Yoga -Charles Wright. C Caramba! A Tale Told in Turns of the Card -Nina Marie Martinez Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876 -William H. Rehnquist A Chance Meeting: Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854-1967 -Rachel Cohen Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage -David Moats Cocktails -D. A. Powell The Confessions of Max Tivoli -Andrew Sean Greer The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications -Paul Starr. D The Death of a Poet: The Last Days of Marina Tsvetaeva -Irma Kudrova Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde -Roger Scruton The Devil's Highway: A True Story -Luis Alberto Urrea The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square -James Traub The Dew Breaker -Edwidge Danticat. E Eventide -Kent Haruf. F The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality -Brian Greene Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul -Roy Porter For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs -Robert A. Heinlein Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism -Susan Jacoby From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East -Bernard Lewis The Full Cupboard of Life -Alexander McCall Smith. G Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy -Colin MacCabe The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the 1918 Pandemic -John M. Barry Greed -Phyllis Tickle. H Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom -Catherine Clinton Heaven Lake -John Dalton Hiding from Humanity: Shame, Disgust, and the Law -Martha C. Nussbaum. I Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories -Joan Silber The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel -James Wood The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America -Russell Shorto. J John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds -Eileen Warburton John Gardner: The Life and Death of a Literary Outlaw -Barry Silesky. L The Lady and the Unicorn -Tracy Chevalier The Last Crossing -Guy Vanderhaeghe Lightduress -Paul Celan Links -Nuruddin Farah Little Children -Tom Perrotta. M The Man in My Basement -Walter Mosley Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History -David Christian Martin Luther -Martin Marty The Maze -Panos Karnezis The Mountain Poems of Meng Hao-jan Mr. Paradise -Elmore Leonard. N Natalie Wood: A Life -Gavin Lambert Natasha, and Other Stories -David Bezmozgis New and Selected Poems -Michael Ryan A New World Order -Anne-Marie Slaughter Nothing Lost -John Gregory Dunne. O Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies -Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead -Clare Dudman Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy -Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon Our Kind: A Novel in Stories -Kate Walbert. P The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less -Barry Schwartz Plan of Attack -Bob Woodward The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity -Joseph Wilson Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement -Christine Rosen. Q Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart -John Guy A Question of Blood -Ian Rankin. R Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie -Ed Cray Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants -Robert Sullivan Re-enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West -Jeffrey Paine The Rest of Love: Poems -Carl Phillips The Return of the Dancing Master -Henning Mankell The Romans: From Village to Empire -Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J. A. Talbert The Rules of Engagement -Anita Brookner. S Sartre and Camus: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel That Ended It -Ronald Aronson Search Party: Collected Poems -William Matthews Somerset Maugham: A Life -Jeffrey Meyers Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life -Geoffrey O'Brien Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--and How It Changed the World -Carl Zimmer St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography -Philip Freeman Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar -Simon Sebag Montefiore The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann -Hanna Yablonka Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century -Graham Robb Sweet Land Stories -E. L. Doctorow. T The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity -Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber. U Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews -Marshall McLuhan. V Vanishing Point -David Markson The Vienna Paradox: A Memoir -Marjorie Perloff. W W. B. Yeats: A Life. Volume II: The Arch-Poet, 1915-1939 -R. F. Foster Washington's Crossing -David Hackett Fischer Waterborne -Bruce Murkoff Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity -Samuel P. Huntington Why I Wake Early -Mary Oliver With -Donald Harington Without Blood -Alessandro Baricco Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould -Kevin Bazzana The Working Poor: Invisible in America -David K. Shipler. X. Y A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck -Jane Smiley The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East -Abraham Rabinovich. (Part Contents).


Background The National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS) is the only patient-led charity in the UK focussing specifically on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with the key responsibility of raising awareness of the impact and burden of RA. There is a lack of information about the costs and impact of RA on work in the European community; in particular the wider societal costs such as people with RA not being able to perform their job to their best ability, losing days of work due to their RA condition, and the domino effect on caregiver employment. Objectives To quantify the burden of RA not only on the healthcare system, but also the wider societal costs associated with RA. Methods In 2016 NRAS undertook a partnership with the University of Chester's commercial economics partner HCD Economics who conducted the multinational Burden of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Socioeconomic Survey (BRASS). The study used a bottom-up approach to quantify the burden of disease for people living with RA across 10 European countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the UK. The study collected information from patients and physicians on factors associated with managing RA, plus RA sufferers' views on life and workplace impact. It collected information on the resource use and cost of patient care including treatment costs, hospitalisation, tests, and examinations. The wider societal costs included; cost of travel to appointments, requirements for aids/equipment, informal care (non-professional), ability in employment, early retirement due to RA. Work time missed, work and activity impairment were measured using the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI) questionnaire. Results Voluntary data were collected from 1782 patient forms, of which the average age was 55 years, 1274 (71%) were female and 833 (48%) were currently in work. This study found, on average, persons with RA lose one day of every 4 working days due to not being able to perform their job to their best ability, and completely miss 7% of work time over a 7 day period due to their RA (sample n of 646). In addition to not being able to perform their job to their best ability, almost a third of working persons with RA also had impairment in daily living activities such as shopping and work around the house (sample n of 735). This study also found family/friends have to care for 16% of RA sufferers. This care resulted in reduced employment or inability to work for 25% of family/friend caregivers (sample n of 121). Conclusions This study highlights the impact RA has on working life amongst both those with the condition and those providing support. It is hoped these metrics will allow the conversation to open and develop with employers and government on how adapting the workplace can increase productivity. Further research should also be undertaken on the economic impact both to the individuals, their carers and society. Acknowledgements The BRASS study was supported by unrestricted research grants from Eli Lilly and Pfizer. The study was approved by the University of Chester Ethics Committee. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Association rule mining is the process of discovering relationships among the data items in large database. It is one of the most important problems in the field of data mining. Finding frequent itemsets is one of the most computationally expensive tasks in association rule mining. The classical frequent itemset mining approaches mine the frequent itemsets from the database where presence of an item in a transaction is certain. Frequent itemset mining under uncertain data model is a new area of research. In this case the presence of an item is given by some likelihood measure. In this paper, we have developed a hyper structure based pattern growth method for frequent itemset mining from uncertain data. We have also developed a maximal clique based candidate pruning method for uncertain data. We have implemented and analyzed the performance of the well known algorithms for frequent itemset mining for both binary and uncertain data model. Our empirical results show that in case of dense binary datasets, FP-growth outperforms all other algorithms, whereas in case of sparse data H-mine outperforms other algorithms.


The National Archives of Singapore offers reference services to members of the public on questions related to Singapore's history and heritage. However, with only two reference officers stationed at the reference helpdesk at any one time, users may often have to queue to await servicing while the officers are busy attending to queries, telephone calls or retrieving physical documents. The Reference Enquiry Database was thus conceived to provide Web‐based access to ready reference information on frequently asked subjects by members of the public, thereby reducing waiting times for users, easing the workload of reference officers and allowing them more time to attend to more complex information needs. This paper provides the background and rationale for the system as well as discusses design and implementation issues.


Abstract Friedrich Schleiermacher made a biological fact of the human organism a foundational fact of his practical theology. He called this fact of human nature Affekt (affect) and defined it as the physical side of spiritual life. Schleiermacher used his work on aesthetics to delineate this 'affective' fact of human experience. By so doing, Schleiermacher explained the foundation of his theological revolution in Protestant thought in non-theological terms. The lack of scholarly attention to this non-theological aspect of Schleiermacher's theological work, his Affekt Theology , has made it difficult for scholars to understand the organic, structural foundation of modern theology as established by Schleiermacher. Scholars have also mistakenly concluded that his practical theology lacks an adequate experiential component. As I demonstrate in this essay, attention to the actual affective references in Schleiermacher's practical theology will give scholars a concrete way to describe the link between theological praxis and the organic structures of human experience.


Opioids are widely used drugs for treatment of pain and related disorders. Opiate addiction is a major public health concern in the United States causing significant increase in healthcare expenditure.  They produce euphoria and sense of well-being which makes them addictive to some people. Used in higher doses they can lead to cardiac or respiratory compromise. They also impair cognition leading to impaired decision making. Opioids exert their effects by acting on three different types of receptors mu, delta, and kappa located on neuronal cell membranes causing inhibition of neurotransmitter release. Prolonged use of these drugs can lead to physical dependence causing withdrawal symptoms if a person stops using them. Commonly used medications to treat opiate addiction are methadone, LAAM (longer acting derivative of methadone), buprenorphine, and naltrexone.


The research is concerned with pollution in general and air pollution in particular. Through description and analysis, the research tackles the most prominent methods and means used in order to reduce air pollution using modern technologies. It also tackles the extent of the impact of the built environment on the natural environment. Thereby, the research seeks to reduce this effect through the architectural designer's utilization of technology systems. Thus, the general research problem is formed; showing a lack of knowledge on how to deal with the pollution problems resulting from vehicle exhaust. Further, the research tackles the studies related to the special research problem, which is the lack of knowledge of modern techniques such as (biological filters) used in the buildings, its importance in dealing with air pollution resulting from vehicle exhaust, and its impact on the local environment. The aim of the research is to study and describe architectural buildings that use such technologies and demonstrate their importance in improving local environment. This is made by forming a methodology that includes two parts; the first is represented by air pollution, its sources and cause and the second is represented by studying the technologies, indicating their types and differences and how the architectural designer used it in buildings to reduce air pollution caused by vehicle exhaust. The research reached many conclusions and recommendations.