Objective ‐ Ultrasonographic assessment of carotid artery plaque morphology is widely used to identify patients at high risk for stroke. However, the reliability of plaque analysis in high‐grade stenosis is uncertain. We determined the interrater reliability of sonographic plaque morphology analysis in patients with severe carotid artery stenosis. Material and methods ‐ Duplex Doppler was performed on 114 patients with 80–99% stenosis of the internal carotid artery using a Siemens Quantum 2000 D with a handheld 7.5 MHz transducer. B‐mode pictures with and without color coding were printed on a Sony color video printer UP‐5000 W. Three raters independently evaluated plaque echolucency, heterogeneity, calcification, and surface structure. Interrater agreement was calculated by a jackknife procedure generating kappa values and two‐sided 95% confidence intervals. Results ‐ Kappa values and 95% confidence intervals were 0.05 (‐0.07 to 0.16) for plaque surface structure, 0.15 (0.02 to 0.28) for plaque heterogeneity, 0.18 (0.09 to 0.29) for plaque echogenicity, and 0.29 (0.19 to 0.39) for plaque calcification. The upper bounds of all of the confidence intervals were below the 0.40 level suggested for minimal reliability. Conclusion ‐ The low interrater agreement indicated that unaided visual assessment of static B‐mode pictures to assess plaque morphology in patients with severe carotid artery stenosis is not reliable. Other evaluation procedures and standardized criteria, as yet undeveloped, are needed to improve reliability.


Solubility of the racemic and optically active isomers of [Co(ox)en2]X, [CoCO3en2]X, cis-[Co(NO2)2en2]X and M[Co(edta)] in water was determined at 5–60 °C (X=Cl, Br, and I; M=NH4 and K). The correlation between solubility of the spontaneously resolved racemic complex and of the corresponding optically active isomer is discussed. Spontaneous resolutions were observed for [Co(ox)en2]X (X=Cl, Cl·H2O, and Br·H2O), cis-[Co(NO2)2-en2]X (X=Cl and Br) and M[Co(edta)]·2H2O (M=NH4 and K).


This is a qualitative case study of young womens' experiences of blogging about One Direction on the social media/microblogging platform Tumblr. The aim of this study was to find out what fan blogging is and why fans blog. We did this by creating an account on Tumblr where we invited young women between the ages of 16–29, who had active fan blogs dedicated to One Direction, to answer an open-ended questionnaire. With the help of the uses and gratifications approach we analyzed their answers of what they blog about, if they perceived their blogs as personal, how they chose their content, and what reasons they had for blogging. We found that the motivations for fan blogging were largely the same as previous studies have found for blogging in general, but the tools used to study blogging have become out-of-date. The categorization of blogging as either personal journaling or filter blogging does not take into consideration the larger spectrum of blogging practices that has evolved when different mediums and platforms converge, such as fan blogging on Tumblr.


AbstractThe need for tissue-engineered bone to treat complex craniofacial bone defects secondary to congenital anomalies, trauma, and cancer extirpation is sizeable. Traditional strategies for treatment have focused on autologous bone in younger patients and bone substitutes in older patients. However, the capacity for merging new technologies, including the creation of nanofiber and microfiber scaffolds with advances in natal sources of stem cells, is crucial to improving our treatment options. The advantages of using smaller diameter fibers for scaffolding are 2-fold: the similar fiber diameters mimic the in vivo extracellular matrix construct and smaller fibers also provide a dramatically increased surface area for cell-scaffold interactions. In this study, we compare the capacity for a polymer with Federal Drug Administration approval for use in humans, poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) from Delta polymer, to support osteoinduction of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) harvested from the umbilical cord (UC) and palate periosteum (PP). Proliferation of both UC- and PP-derived MSCs was improved on PLGA scaffolds. The PLGA scaffolds promoted UC MSC differentiation (indicated by earlier gene expression and higher calcium deposition), but not in PP-derived MSCs. Umbilical cord–derived MSCs on the PLGA nanomicrofiber scaffolds have potential clinical utility in providing solutions for craniofacial bone defects, with the added benefit of earlier availability.


Volatiles produced by Bacillus subtilis strain Tpb55 inhibited sporulation, mycelial growth and pigment biosynthesis of Alternaria alternata, a pathogen of tobacco brown spot. Under enclosed experiment conditions, the volatiles of Tpb55 showed 100% efficiency in control of tobacco brown spot. Compared with the control, volatiles of Tpb55 significantly increased the plant height, leaf blade length and fresh weight of tobacco, and no obvious adverse effect on tobacco was found. Results from this research showed that volatiles produced by Tpb55 effected well on the inhibition of pathogen, the control of disease and the promotion of tobacco growth. Bacterial volatiles provide a new source of compounds with antibiotic and growth-promoting features.


Multiple source signals impinging on an antenna array can be separated by time-frequency synthesis techniques. Averaging of the time-frequency distributions of the data across the array permits the spatial signatures of sources to play a fundamental role in improving the synthesis performance. This improvement is achieved independent of the temporal characteristics of the source signals and without causing any smearing of the signal terms. Unlike the recently devised blind source separation methods using spatial time-frequency distributions, the proposed method does not require whitening or retrieval of the source directional matrix.


In this paper we examine the reduction in the relative employment and wages of unskilled workers in the U.S. during the 1980's. We argue that a contributing factor to this decline was rising imports reflecting the outsourcing of production activities. In a theoretical model, we show that any increase in the Southern capital stock relative to that of the North, or neutral technological progress in the South, will increase the relative wage of skilled workers in both countries due to a shift in production activities to the South. Corresponding to this change in the relative wage is an increase in the price index of Northern activities within each industry, relative to that of the South. We confirm that this change in relative prices occurred for the U.S. and other industrialized countries relative to their trading partners. We also estimate that 15-33% of the increase in the relative wage of nonproduction (or skilled) workers in the U.S. during the 1980's is explained by rising imports.


To improve information retrieval speed, it is the key of minimizing traffic and every required visit peer on the view of reducing traffic, combining the merit of width first search won't lead to redundant and P2P network's dynamic feature, We advanced adopting width first search in local bound-Broad first minimum spanning tree search. It can reduce redundant search packet in some scope. Meanwhile, It won't occupy much network resource in message exchange because of scope is small. The way have good feature in expansibility and robustness. It can adapt to dynamic change in P2P network.


Article abstract The authors reviewed the medical records of seven patients with anti-GQ1b immunoglobulin G (IgG) who had no or minimal external ophthalmoplegia but showed ataxia. The clinical features of the patients were consistent with the ataxic form of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Anti-GQ1b IgG antibodies from the patients, as well as from those with Miller Fisher syndrome (MFS), were absorbed by GT1a. The finding that ataxic GBS and MFS have in common an autoantibody with the same fine specificity suggests that they form a continuous spectrum.


Sparse, group-sparse and online channel estimation is conceived for millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. We exploit the angular sparsity of the mmWave channel impulse response (CIR) to achieve improved estimation performance. First a sparse Bayesian learning (SBL)-based technique is developed for the estimation of each individual subcarrier's quasi-static channel, which leads to an improved performance versus complexity trade-off in comparison to conventional channel estimation. Then a novel group-sparse Bayesian learning (G-SBL) scheme is conceived for reducing the channel estimation mean square error (MSE). The salient aspect of our G-SBL technique is that it exploits the frequency-domain (FD) correlation of the channel's frequency response (CFR), while transmitting pilots on only a few subcarriers, thus it has a reduced pilot overhead. A low complexity (LC) version of G-SBL, termed LCG-SBL, is also developed that reduces the computational cost of the G-SBL significantly. Subsequently, an online G-SBL (O-SBL) variant is designed for the estimation of doubly-selective mmWave MIMO OFDM channels, which has low processing delay and exploits temporal correlation as well. This is followed by the design of a hybrid transmit precoder and receive combiner, which can operate directly on the estimated beamspace domain CFRs, together with a limited channel state information (CSI) feedback. Our simulation results confirms the accuracy of the analysis.


This article dwells on the academic and teaching activities of Vladimir A. Karelin (born 1952), a well-known teacher and historian who has studied the history of Russian-Norwegian relations. The main stages in his life are described, key areas and results of his research are characterized. V.A. Karelin is a prominent specialist on the history of Russia of the 19th and 20th centuries and the history of Russian-Norwegian relations. He has participated in a large number of international scientific projects with colleagues from the universities of Groningen (the Netherlands) and Tromsø (Norway), which resulted in the publication of study guides, scholarly articles, and a monograph on Svalbard. Moreover, he initiated the creation of the Barents Faculty at Murmansk State Pedagogical Institute (currently, Murmansk Arctic State University), which successfully carried out scientific, publishing and educational programmes aimed at developing international cooperation within the Barents Region.


ABSTRACT This monograph, one of a series on major problems in pathology, provides a cursory view of normal and diseased muscle. The easily read text contains well-reproduced micrographs.An initial chapter on normal muscle adequately summarizes the events occurring during embryonic myogenesis. A paragraph on muscle spindles lacks modern concepts of structure and function in this long-ignored but most important receptor.The description of denervation-induced ultrastructural changes should more forcefully emphasize the concept that most alterations depicted could well be nonspecific and disuseengendered.Sections on numerous neuromuscular disorders enumerate the classical light microscopic changes, which, I am afraid, have not served so well in the past to advance our understanding of neuromuscular pathophysiology. The author does, however, delineate some recently elucidated histochemical, ultrastructural, and electrodiagnostic changes.Neuromuscular disorders of any magnitude usually immobilize the involved part and thereby initiate disuse changes. Unfortunately, these changes, as observed by light or electron microscopy,


Future of dairy farmers depends on the successful raising of the young calves. Main objective of this trial is the doubling farmer income by dairy farming, reduce the calf mortality and to reduce the age at first calving. On the basis of statistical analysis its found that there is significant variation is noticed among all parameters such as variation in length, girth, height and body weight. The mortality percent determined for calf during the study period was 6.66 percent. In the present study the calf mortality recorded at unorganised dairy farm was relatively low perhaps can be attributed to both good management, feeding practices. It is important that the calf is given nutritious feed in the form of balance ration, multivitamin and fodder from its initial stage of rumen development. This will ensure good milk yield when it becomes a cow or produce better germplasm when its becomes a bull.


Neurological disorders represent a major challenge for therapeutic interventions due to the sensitivity and complexity of the CNS and the requirement of the therapeutic agent(s) to have a long-term effect. Gene therapy applications have opened up new possibilities to specifically deliver not only drugs but also small 'drug factories' by non-viral or viral vectors to the target site of action. A number of studies have demonstrated the feasibility of the gene therapy approach in animal models, and the simultaneous engineering of safer and more reliable vectors has moved the technology one step closer to clinical administration. In particular, viral vectors can provide long-term expression extended over one year. Most promisingly, the discovery of RNA interference has provided a novel method of specific gene silencing, which presents the opportunity to develop new therapies for the treatment of neurological disorders.


Purpose: Dosimetric polymer gels (e.g. PAGAT [1]) undergo a change in opacity on exposure due to polymerisation and cross‐linking. Cone beam optical CT is a simple, inexpensive method to read exposed gels. To ensure accuracy of dosimetry using optical CT, it is necessary to account for the effect of light scattering in a dosimeter as a function of optical pathlength. In this paper we report the results of modelling of experiments using a simulated gel phantom. Method and Materials: As described earlier [2], opacity change in a dosimetric gel was simulated by adding known concentrations of Dettol™ to gelatin. A phantom composed of a cylindrical PETE vessel (9.5 cm diameter, 13 cm high) containing two regions of different turbidity (optical density OD) was produced; an outer, low turbidity region surrounding a funnel‐shaped, high turbidity region (simulating exposure). Different horizontal slices of the funnel phantom represent regions of uniform, high OD but with differing diameters (pathlengths). The phantom was scanned with a Vista Optical CT Scanner (Modus Medical Devices Inc.). Horizontal profile slices were obtained from the reconstruction (resolution; 0.25 mm per voxel), each containing circular slices of the funnel of differing diameter. Results and Discussion: Larger diameter slices of the funnel exhibited dishing artefacts — the central region of the slice showed an apparent reduction in OD, similar to the dishing artefact in X‐ray CT. Lower diameter slices were found to exhibit the opposite — "doming" artefacts where the central region showed an apparent increase in OD. These effects are modelled by taking into account the back‐reflection of scattered light.


Bacteria-driven biohybrid microbots have shown great potential in cancer treatment. However, how precisely controlling drug release at the tumor site is still an issue. To overcome the limitation of this system, we proposed the ultrasound-responsive SonoBacteriaBot (DOX-PFP-PLGA@EcM). Doxorubicin (DOX) and perfluoro-n-pentane (PFP) were encapsulated in polylactic acid-glycolic acid (PLGA) to form ultrasound-responsive DOX-PFP-PLGA nanodroplets. Then, DOX-PFP-PLGA@EcM is created by DOX-PFP-PLGA amide-bonded to the surface of E. coli MG1655 (EcM). The DOX-PFP-PLGA@EcM was proved to have the characteristics of high tumor-targeting efficiency, controlled drug release capability, and ultrasound imaging. Based on the acoustic phase change function of nanodroplets, DOX-PFP-PLGA@EcM enhance the signal of US imaging after ultrasound irradiation. Meanwhile, the DOX loaded into DOX-PFP-PLGA@EcM can be released. After being intravenously injected, DOX-PFP-PLGA@EcM can efficiently accumulate in tumors without causing harm to critical organs. In conclusion, the SonoBacteriaBot has significant benefits in real-time monitoring and controlled drug release, which has significant potential applications for therapeutic drug delivery in clinical settings.


The purpose of this review study was to give a literature overview of the definition of
plyometrics to explain the physiological principles that underlie plyometric training,
to analyse the literature of the past six years so as to determine the effects of
plyometric and combined programmes on a wide variety of performance components
and finally, to give exercise guidelines for compiling and presenting plyometric
programmes. The available literature that pertains to plyometric training and
programmes was analysed under two categories, namely: firstly, studies (11) that
dealt with the effects of plyometric programmes and exercises; and secondly, studies
(9) that dealt with the effects of combined plyometric programmes and exercises. The
results demonstrated that plyometric programmes have a significantly positive effect
on explosive power, flight time and maximal isotonic and isometric leg muscle
strength, average leg muscle endurance, isokinetic peak torque of the leg and
shoulder musculature, range of ankle motion, speed, electrical muscle activity,
ground contact time during sprinting activities and the amortization time during
execution of plyometric exercises. Studies of combined plyometric programmes
concluded that these programmes have a significantly more beneficial effect on leg
explosive power, flight and ground time between jumps, running economy, adductor
muscle activity area, mean and peak, golf club speed and driving distance, 3 km
running time, respiratory exchange ratio, maximal isometric strength, maximal
voluntary muscle contraction values, volley-ball spike execution, proprioception,
kinaesthesia, time to peak torque, amortization time and torque decrement of the
shoulder musculature and hamstring peak torque than sport specific or non
plyometric programmes alone. Some of these last-mentioned benefits can possibly
help improve the sport performances of volley-ball players, long distance and
tumbler athletes and of golfers. Keywords : Plyometrics; Plyometric training; Explosive power; Stretch-shortening
cycle; Physiology; Effects; Guidelines. South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation Vol. 29 (1) 2007: pp. 61-82


Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreversible blindness. Injury of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) accounts for visual impairment of glaucoma. Here, we report rapamycin protects RGCs from death in experimental glaucoma model and the underlying mechanisms. Our results showed that treatment with rapamycin dramatically promote RGCs survival in a rat chronic ocular hypertension model. This protective action appears to be attributable to inhibition of neurotoxic mediators release and/or direct suppression of RGC apoptosis. In support of this mechanism, in vitro, rapamycin significantly inhibits the production of NO, TNF-α in BV2 microglials by modulating NF-κB signaling. In experimental animals, treatment with rapamycin also dramatically inhibited the activation of microglials. In primary RGCs, rapamycin was capable of direct suppression the apoptosis of primary RGCs induced by glutamate. Mechanistically, rapamycin-mediated suppression of RGCs apoptosis is by sparing phosphorylation of Akt at a site critical for maintenance of its survival-promoting activity in cell and animal model. These results demonstrate that rapamycin is neuroprotective in experimental glaucoma, possibly via decreasing neurotoxic releasing and suppressing directly apoptosis of RGCs.


Background Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS), toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), and SJS/TEN overlap syndrome are severe drug-induced cutaneous adverse reactions with high mortality. Acute kidney injury (AKI) was a common complication in an SJS/TEN group and noted as an independent risk factor for mortality in patients with SJS/TEN. To determine whether AKI staging can predict the outcome of patients with SJS/TEN, we compared the discriminative power of an AKI KDIGO staging system with that of SCROTEN, APACHE II, APACHE III, and SOFA. Materials and methods We retrospectively analyzed the data of 75 patients who were diagnosed with SJS, TEN, or SJS/TEN overlap syndrome at a tertiary care university hospital between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014. The baseline characteristics, biochemical analysis data, medication use, and outcomes of the patients were assessed, and the discriminative ability for predicting mortality was determined for each prognostic model. Results Of the 75 patients, 23 (30.7%) had AKI, of whom 13 (56.5%) died during the index admission. Of the prognostic risk models analyzed, the KDIGO staging system showed similar discriminative ability in predicting in-hospital mortality as did the other models. In addition, combining KDIGO with other scoring systems yielded significantly more accurate risk prediction for in-hospital mortality compared with the other individual scores alone, as measured by net reclassification index. The patients with KDIGO stages 2 and 3 exhibited a significantly lower 1-year survival rate than did those with KDIGO stages 0 and 1. Conclusion AKI KDIGO staging has good discriminative ability and is easy to utilize for predicting mortality.


Multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 1 (MEN1, Wermer syndrome) – group o а heterogeneous inherited deseases, caused by hyperlasia or neoplasia of several endocrine glands. The phenotype of MEN1 is broad, and over 20 different combinations of endocrine and non-endocrine metabolic manifestations have been described. This case demonstrates multiple formations of endocrine organs, starting non-classical with macroprolactonoma resistant to dopamine agonists therapy, other endocrine disorders developed gradually eventually: hyperparathyreoidism and hypoglycemia caused by pancreas lesions, produced proinsulin in high levels.


Fully dense alloys based on Fe[sub 3]Al were produced by reaction synthesis from low cost elemental powders using hot pressing, hot isostatic pressing or Ceracon process. The reaction proceeds by outward spreading of a transient liquid phase from the initial aluminum particle site and precipitation of the compound phase from the liquid. Combustion synthesized material has a very fine grain size that is resistant to coarsening at high temperature because of a high density of fine oxides from the prior particle boundaries. The fine grain size results in approximately twice the yield strength in the reaction synthesized material compared to hot extruded pre-alloyed powder. Combustion synthesis has also been successfully applied to joining Fe[sub 3]Al and to forming coatings on carbon steel substrates. Combustion synthesis has been shown to be viable for fabricating trialuminides from elemental powder compacts. Al[sub 3]Ti, Al[sub 73]Ti[sub 24]Cr[sub 3] and Al[sub 67]Ti[sub 25]Cr[sub 8] were examined. Fully dense, homogeneous materials exhibiting an equiaxed grain structure were produced by conducting reaction and homogenization under pressure, or in a furnace at ambient pressure and subsequently densifying the porous preform by hot consolidation. The tetragonal DO[sub 22] structure was the primary reaction product for all compositions. Most ofmore » the Cr remained undissolved after reaction and a homogenization heat treatment at 1200C or above was used to put the Cr into solution and form the desired L1[sub 2] phase.« less


The serum methotrexate (MTX) concentrations were estimated in two groups of patients after 6-hour iv infusion of 1 g/m2 of MTX and leucovorin rescue. One group (seven patients) received 25 g of activated charcoal orally at 12, 18, 24, 36, and 48 hours, while the other group served as a control (eight patients). Pharmacokinetic analysis revealed a significant reduction in the area under concentration curve from 18 hours until the serum MTX levels reached 10(-8) M. The MTX concentrations were significantly lower in the group that received charcoal than in the control group, at 18, 24, 36, 48, 60, and 72 hours from the end of infusion. First and second half-life values for the control and the charcoal-treated groups did not differ significantly. The data suggest that charcoal aids in the elimination of MTX from the body by interruption of the enterohepatic circulation of the drug. Activated charcoal did not cause any undesirable effects.


Lymphoma is a well-recognized complication in patients infected with HIV. Although its incidence has declined since the advent of antiretroviral therapy, it remains higher than seen in the general population. Several recent studies have noted improvement in clinical outcomes with the use of modern chemoimmunotherapy regimens. In patients who experience relapse, however, fewer data are available on the role of immunotherapy and its impact on outcomes. This case report presents 2 patients with relapsed HIV-associated lymphoma who experienced a second complete remission after treatment with the immunotherapy agent brentuximab vedotin.


The three-axis road simulator is the test equipment which can simulate the standardized road conditions for the durability evaluation of automotive components such as suspensions. The road load data are collected and acquired from a vehicle test, and then these data are used to simulate road load conditions by the road simulator which consists of hydraulic actuators, link mechanism and servo controller. The link mechanism must be designed in consideration of the dynamic effect and interference during three axes motions in order to generate accurate motions. In this paper, the structural and kinematic analysis of the link mechanism is performed, and these results can be used for developing the three-axis road simulator. The three-axis road simulator provides considerable savings in cost, development time, and testing risk during developing automotive components.


Currently used design methods predict that the crack widths at the concrete surface will increase significantly with concrete cover Requirements concerning limitation of crack widths therefore make it difficult to use large concrete covers, which are otherwise desirable to reduce the reinforcement corrosion. For this reason, it would be more relevant to use the crack width in the vicinity of the reinforcing bars as an indicator. In this paper an experimental study to investigate how different parameters affect the crack width at the reinforcement level is presented. Axially loaded concrete prisms with central reinforcing bars were tested with a method that makes it possible to indirectly investigate crack widths near the reinforcement. Concrete cover bar diameter and concrete quality were varied. The test results show that the crack width close to the bar is affected only to a limited extent by concrete cover, bar diameter and concrete quality, as well as by the fact that steel stress is the dominating parameter. (Less)


The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway is activated             in a broad spectrum of human cancers, including colon cancer. The natural product             brassinin is a type of indole compound derived from cruciferous vegetables, and             has been shown to have anti-proliferative effects against cancer for both in vivo             and in vitro models. Here, we show for the first time that brassinin inhibits             cell growth in human colon cancer cells by arresting the cell cycle at the G1             phase via inhibition of the PI3K signaling pathway. Brassinin increased the expression             of p21 and p27, resulting in hypophosphorylation of the retinoblastoma gene (RB).             Knockdown of p21 or p27 by each siRNA significantly repressed G1 phase arrest             induced by brassinin. The increase of p21 and p27 was associated with inhibition             of the PI3K signaling pathway. In addition, exogenous expression of constitutively             active Akt represses the cell cycle arrest at G1 phase induced by brassinin. These             results suggest the possibility that brassinin inhibits the PI3K signaling pathway             and upregulates the expression of p21 and p27, thereby inducing G1 phase arrest.


The Internet has radically transformed access to and exchange of information, and it plays a fundamental role in today's society and economy. Yet it was difficult to imagine all the services offered today when the first tools necessary for its democratization were introduced thirty years ago. The blockchain, since the publication of the white paper of bitcoin as the first digital asset, has considerably broadened the range of its fields of application and its potential use cases in ten years; it could play, in different forms, a role comparable to that of the Internet in an area that the latter does not cover: trusted IT and legal transactions. Indeed, while the Internet is the privileged vehicle for the exchange of all digitized forms of information, it is not the guarantor, as a network infrastructure, of its uniqueness or its functioning. Blockchain technology has evolved from a niche subject to the hottest tech disruption buzzword, but there is still a lot of confusion about the subject. Without a clear understanding about what Blockchains are, their potential public sector potential impact is sometimes misunderstood or, more often, ignored. Questions related to their technical complexity, risk, security, and appropriateness often serve as obstacles to government officials' ability to truly engage with this emerging technology. In this article, we consider the key features and types of blockchain technology and describe the potential use of blockchain technology in the public sector. In general, the blockchain can be used in the public sector to address the following tasks: authentication, traceability and uniqueness. We have identified ten potential directions of using blockchain technologies in public sector: self-sovereign identity, contract and vendor management, notarization, aid management, secure data sharing, financial services and banking, voting, verifiable diplomas and certificates, energy utilities, copyrights.


We read with great interest your article on the survey of registrar training in the use of Kjelland's forceps in Australia. The importance of rotational forceps delivery in modern obstetrics in reducing caesarean section is well recognised. Your article is well timed to raise the training issues surrounding the contemporary use of rotational forceps delivery. However, we feel that the article used only three questions, which are inadequate and more information could have been gained if there were more questions. The information by the survey may have been better if questions related to the following were included: lack of trainers ⁄ training, availability of trainer round-the-clock, patient consent, medicolegal concerns and influence of previous poor outcome with Kjelland's forceps. There were no comprehensive answers to the question No:2 in the Table. The question related to training to undertake Kjelland's forceps delivery. We agree with the authors that in modern obstetrics, the lack of trainers ⁄ training is contributory to decreased use of rotational forceps; however, this issue was not adequately explored by the questionnaire. A more in depth questionnaire involving tick box answers might give an insight into the issues involved without compromising the response rate and might provide a guidance to address the training needs of the trainees ⁄ trainers. Of the final year trainees, 94% did not intend to use Kjelland's forceps in their future practice. The reasons for this could have been explored in more detail in the questionnaire. An insight into this would bring to light issues beyond training in the use of Kjelland's forceps.


In banking attention to customer and effort to satisfying his needs have great importance. The present study from purpose view is an applied and in terms of data collection, data analysis is descriptive study survey. This study examines the effect of social interaction and comfort on customer satisfaction and considering moderating effect of customer experience. The research population consisted of all customers of Parsian bank is which has accounts on these banks have benefited from their services. 384 numbers of questionnaires available due to the high volume of the sample population was distributed by simple random sampling. Comfort and social interaction are independent variables, customer satisfaction, the dependent variable and customer experience are the mediator variable. Research data were collected using standard questionnaires. This information is applied in the LISREL structural equation modeling analysis and confirmatory factor analysis according to the hypothesis, were analyzed. The results show a positive effect of customer experience on customer satisfaction, social interaction on customer satisfaction, social interaction on the customer experience, comfort on customer satisfaction and comfort on customer experience. It is hoped that the findings of this research is paving the way for future studies in order to improve banking.


Cutaneous sensitization to cocaine and related substances is not an infrequent occurrence. However, no case of bronchial asthma due to such a substance has been described as far as I can determine. The following case has been observed: J. F., a girl, aged 12 years, who had been under my care since January, 1931, on account of perennial asthma, had been completely relieved for the past fourteen months by treatment with pollen extract and by the elimination of some of the substances to which she was sensitive. Since she complained of frequent nose bleeding, she was referred to a rhinologist (Dr. F. B. MacMullen) for cauterization of the bleeding nasal area. July 1, 1932, the doctor touched the mucosa of the septum with a cocaine crystal for the purpose of anesthesia. Immediately the patient had a very severe paroxysm of asthma, the first one within fourteen months. August 10 the


Nineteenth-century visionary artist Georgiana Houghton believed in the healing qualities of her art, and she educated religious teachers and clergy about the nature of her spiritual images. This article examines Houghton's mediumistic paintings and seeks to demonstrate how her experimentation with vibrant colors and manipulation of form prefigured early modernist painting techniques. In addition, this analysis expands on how Houghton transformed her knowledge of the tenets of Spiritualism, which she amalgamated with her understanding of the science of botany to produce flower form spiritual portraits that she later developed into complex visionary abstracted pictures.


The rapid growth in mobile communications due to the exponential demand for wireless access is causing the distribution and maintenance of cellular networks to become more complex, expensive and time consuming. Lately, extensive research and standardisation work has been focused on the novel paradigm of self-organising network (SON). SON is an automated technology that allows the planning, deployment, operation, optimisation and healing of the network to become faster and easier by reducing the human involvement in network operational tasks, while optimising the network coverage, capacity and quality of service. However, these SON autonomous features cannot be achieved with the current drive test coverage assessment approach due to its lack of automaticity which results in huge delays and cost. Minimization of drive test (MDT) has recently been standardized by 3GPP as a key self- organising network (SON) feature. MDT allows coverage to be estimated at the base station using user equipment (UE) measurement reports with the objective to eliminate the need for drive tests. However, most MDT based coverage estimation methods recently proposed in literature assume that UE position is known at the base station with 100% accuracy, an assumption that does not hold in reality. In this work, we develop a novel and accurate analytical model that allows the quantification of error in MDT based autonomous coverage estimation (ACE) as a function of error in UE as well as base station (user deployed cell) positioning. We first consider a circular cell with an omnidirectional antenna and then we use a three-sectored cell and see how the system is going to be affected by the UE and the base station (user deployed cell) geographical location information errors. Our model also allows characterization of error in ACE as function of standard deviation of shadowing in addition to the path-loss.


In multiple sclerosis, experimental and histopathological studies point to fibrinogen as a link between a damaged brain blood barrier and the initiation of the inflammatory demyelination and neurodegeneration in both cortex and white matter. Nevertheless, although the widespread accumulation of fibrinogen as fibrin deposits within multiple sclerosis lesions is well documented on postmortem brain tissue, in vivo evidence is still lacking. Using a novel fibrin-specific positron emission tomography probe, 64Cu-FBP8, we were able to demonstrate in vivo fibrin deposition not only in active white matter multiple sclerosis lesions but also in the cortex of a few multiple sclerosis patients.


Rotigotine is a new, non-ergot dopamine receptor agonist (DRA) formulated as a transdermal drug delivery system. This article reviews the clinical efficacy and tolerability of Rotigotine transdermal patch in Parkinson's disease (PD) and discusses the results of clinical trials of Rotigotine in earlyand late-stage PD. The Rotigotine transdermal patch is efficacious in the treatment of PD. Drug-related adverse events (AEs) include side effects typical for DRA, which are generally mild or moderate in intensity. The most common AEs are local reactions that are mild or moderate. Once-daily administration of the rotigotine transdermal patch is effective in the treatment of patients with early-stage PD as monotherapy and in combination with levodopa in late-stage PD and in inadequate morning motor control despite antiparkinsonian treatment.


When it comes to breast cancer screening, science takes a backseat to the politics of fear. In fact, researchers can't even decide whether to recommend routine screenings for women in their 40s.


The renormalization group (RG) is a class of theoretical techniques used to explain the collective physics of interacting, many-body systems. It has been suggested that the RG formalism may be useful in finding and interpreting emergent low-dimensional structure in complex systems outside of the traditional physics context, such as in biology or computer science. In such contexts, one common dimensionality-reduction framework already in use is information bottleneck (IB), in which the goal is to compress an 'input' signal X while maximizing its mutual information with some stochastic 'relevance' variable Y. IB has been applied in the vertebrate and invertebrate processing systems to characterize optimal encoding of the future motion of the external world. Other recent work has shown that the RG scheme for the dimer model could be 'discovered' by a neural network attempting to solve an IB-like problem. This manuscript explores whether IB and any existing formulation of RG are formally equivalent. A class of soft-cutoff non-perturbative RG techniques are defined by families of non-deterministic coarsening maps, and hence can be formally mapped onto IB, and vice versa. For concreteness, this discussion is limited entirely to Gaussian statistics (GIB), for which IB has exact, closed-form solutions. Under this constraint, GIB has a semigroup structure, in which successive transformations remain IB-optimal. Further, the RG cutoff scheme associated with GIB can be identified. Our results suggest that IB can be used to impose a notion of 'large scale' structure, such as biological function, on an RG procedure.


Natural language processing covers a wide variety of tasks predicting syntax, semantics, and information content, and usually each type of output is generated with specially designed architectures. In this paper, we provide the simple insight that a great variety of tasks can be represented in a single unified format consisting of labeling spans and relations between spans, thus a single task-independent model can be used across different tasks. We perform extensive experiments to test this insight on 10 disparate tasks spanning dependency parsing (syntax), semantic role labeling (semantics), relation extraction (information content), aspect based sentiment analysis (sentiment), and many others, achieving performance comparable to state-of-the-art specialized models. We further demonstrate benefits of multi-task learning, and also show that the proposed method makes it easy to analyze differences and similarities in how the model handles different tasks. Finally, we convert these datasets into a unified format to build a benchmark, which provides a holistic testbed for evaluating future models for generalized natural language analysis.


This article explores the skillset required by a veterinary surgeon when dealing with population medicine problems in pigs. As with any clinical examination, the clinician needs to adopt a systematic approach. A systematic, consistent and disciplined approach to population medicine is essential to allow a veterinary clinician to form an objective assessment of the enterprise and, thereby, ensure that the health, welfare and wellbeing of the animals, stockpersons, farmers and owners are optimised. To illustrate the approach, this article focuses on six areas: biosecurity, animal flow, medicine controls, environmental medicine (water, food, floor and air), the animals themselves, and the people working with and caring for the animals.


The aim of this study is to determine some paddy varieties resistant to iron toxicity. Two different nutrient solutions were applied in the form of iron sulphate (FeSO4.7H2O) (Fe concentrations of I) 45 µM Fe (sufficient Fe), II) 3.50 mM Fe (toxic Fe) to paddy cultivars grown in sand media. Among the paddy cultivars grown at toxic iron level (3.50 mM Fe), the closest paddy cultivars in terms of investigated traits were identified as Hamzadere and Edirne cultivars, while the furthest cultivars were identified as Biga incisi and Ronaldo cultivars. Present findings revealed that Biga incisi and Edirne paddy cultivars were tolerant to toxic iron levels and Ronaldo paddy cultivar was the most susceptible to iron toxicity. Biga incisi and Edirne paddy cultivars formed a group and the best traits of these cultivars designating iron toxicity were identified as iron ratio transported to shoot, tolerance index to toxic iron level, shoot total iron content and leaf relative peroxidase activity. According to biplot analysis, Ronaldo paddy cultivar formed a different group and the best traits of this cultivar at toxic iron level were identified as iron ratio remained in roots and root cold-extractable Fe/Zn ratio.


This paper construes the structure of SNMP deeply, provides a solution to rapid development based on Windows platform, and puts forward a theoretical frame of SNMP program in VC++ environment.


BK virus (BKV), a human papovavirus, was inoculated iv into 3-week-old Syrian golden hamsters. Between 2 1/2 and 9 months after inoculation, 82% of the animals developed tumors. The induced neoplasms were ependymoma, carcinoma of the pancreatic islets, osteosarcoma, adenocarcinoma, angiosarcoma, angioma, lymphoma, and seminoma. Hypersecretion of insulin, glucagon, C-peptide, and calcitonin was detected in tumors of pancreatic islets. BKV etiology of tumors was supported by the following evidence: 1) No tumors with BKV-specific markers appeared in animals given injections of buffer, animals inoculated with BKV neutralized by anti-BKV-specific serum, or uninoculated controls; 2) BKV tumor (T) antigen was detected by immunofluorescence and complement fixation tests in tumors of animals inoculated with infectious BKV and in transplanted tumors; 3) antibodies to BKV T-antigen were detected in sera of animals bearing primary or transplanted tumors; 4) BKV could be activated by Sendai virus-mediated fusion of neoplastic cells with susceptible Vero cells; and 5) no endogenous hamster oncornaviruses were found in tumors.


Bursae or abscess cavities communicating with the hip joint were demonstrated by hip arthrography or by computed tomography (CT) in 40 cases. The bursae or abscess cavities were associated with underlying abnormalities in the hip, including painful hip prostheses, infection, and inflammatory or degenerative arthritis. Structures communicating with the joint capsule included iliopsoas bursae (13 cases), bursae associated with the greater trochanter (21 cases), ischiotrochanteric bursae created by abnormal articulation between the ischium and lesser trochanter (two cases), and abscess cavities not associated with a bursa (four cases). Symptoms may be produced directly as a result of infection or indirectly as a result of inflammation or pressure on adjacent structures. In cases of suspected infection, direct puncture and aspiration of the bursa or abscess cavity, in addition to joint aspiration, may be necessary to obtain organisms for culture as joint aspiration may not yield fluid. Hip arthrography can confirm a diagnosis of bursae and abscess cavities communicating with the hip joint in patients with hip pain or soft-tissue masses around the groin. Differentiation of enlarged bursae from other abnormalities is important to avoid unnecessary or incorrect surgery.


The changes of the composition of blood lipoproteins caused by menopause could also change the effect of hypolipidemic therapy. Using an experimental model we studied the changes of serum lipids and the effect of immediate or delayed treatment with simvastatin on atherosclerosis after surgical menopause. Female golden Syrian hamster aged 6 months were fed hypercholesterolemic diet during the whole study. Atherosclerotic changes in thoracic and abdominal aortas were assessed by stereomicroscopic method after 12 weeks. Four experimental groups were studied: sham-operated animals (n = 5), ovariectomized animals (n = 9), ovariectomized animals treated for 12 weeks (n = 10), and ovariectomized animals treated 4 weeks after ovariectomy for 8 weeks (n = 9). The dose of simvastatin was 10 mg/kg of body weight. After 12 weeks, ovariectomized animals had tenfold higher concentration of triglycerides in LDL fraction and significantly higher prevalence of atherosclerosis than animals without ovariectomy. Treatment with simvastatin substantially decreased the prevalence of atherosclerotic changes, but otherwise did not change individual serum lipids including LDL cholesterol. However, it improved proportions of pro- and antiatherogenic serum lipids mainly by the increase of HDL cholesterol. The timing of simvastatin treatment had no significant effect on atherosclerotic changes or lipid parameters. Simvastatin treatment partly prevented atherosclerotic changes induced by ovariectomy. This effect was not mediated by decrease of LDL cholesterol, but by increase in HDL cholesterol.


We describe a rare form of histiocytosis, characterized by numerous tumoral lesions of the skin appearing at birth and desappearing spontaneously within 2 month without visceral lesions and without systemic symptoms. Light microscopy shows histiocytes, some of which contain an irregular nucleus with a spumous cytoplasm surrounded by many red blood cells. Electron microscopy shows myelinoid inclusions in the histiocyte cytoplasm and "vermiform" bodies. In our opinion, a similar anatomoclinical entity was described for the first time and only once by Hashimoto and Pritzker.


Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) is a type of freshwater fish consumption with elongated and flattened body shape laterally and blackish white color. Tilapia originated from the Nile River and surrounding lakes. Now this fish has spread to countries on five continents with tropical and subtropical climates. Whereas in cold climates, tilapia cannot live well. ideal water temperature in tilapia enlargement ponds ranges between 27.7-29.3 ° C, where fish will grow optimally at water temperatures around 25-32 ° C.for the pH of the tilapia enlargement ponds range between 6, 4-8.5 and turbidity range of 3-19 NTU, because this high turbidity level has an effect on the amount of tilapia mortality. With the system that the researchers created, it was easier to determine a suitable fish pond to maintain as a life of tilapia with the help of the Internet of Things network system and reduce the failure rate in breeding and implementation of Thingspeak as a platform to display the results of data obtained by sensors and calculated with method calculation.
This system takes data with temperature sensors, pH and Turbidity, to find water temperature, acidity and alkalinity in water and turbidity of water. Then the data obtained is sent to the ESP8266 module network and sent to the thingspeak platform, the data that appears is inputted into the database to be processed using the SAW method, the results of the SAW method calculation are displayed by the system.
Implementation of the SAW (Simple Additive Weighting) Method for Detecting the Feasibility of Iot-Based Fish Ponds (Internet of Things) has been successfully implemented. So that it can rank tilapia ponds based on parameters of temperature, pH, turbidity.


In case of judging the stability of dike or dam structures which need hydraulic interception, the first thing to do is to examine whether a piping phenomenon occurred or not. Generally, dike or dam structures are constructed while layer compacting is executed, so permeability is likely to be anisotropic- different from each other in hydraulic conductivity in the horizontal direction [] and hydraulic conductivity in the vertical direction[]. This study looked into exit hydraulic gradient and Seepage velocity by conducting an Seepage analysis subsequent to various hydraulic conductivity ratios[k-ratio = ky / kx] and examined the influence on piping by comparing & examining critical Seepage Velocity based on critical hydraulic gradient in theoretical equation and critical Seepage Velocity in empirical equation. As the research result, it was found that hydraulic conductivity ratio operates as a very important factor in case the stability against piping occurrence is considered with the concept of critical hydraulic gradient, but relatively the hydraulic conductivity ratio is very low in its importance in relation to the concept of critical Seepage Velocity.


The engineering-geological features of the sands included in the pre-Quaternary continental terrigenous formations (red and gray-colored, coal-bearing and lignite-bearing, molasses and molasses coal-bearing), which are widespread in Russia, are characterized. The results of studying the composition, structure, condition and properties of these soils within the various regions of Russia are presented.


Abstract 3344 Background: Major bleeding remains the most frequent adverse effect of oral anticoagulant therapy. A rapid method of reversal is required for patients on warfarin who suffer acute bleeding or require emergency surgery. Octaplex is a prothrombin complex concentrate recently recommended for use by the National Advisory Committee for Blood and Blood Products of Canada (Canadian Blood Services) at a dose of 1000 IU of factor IX activity. It ensures rapid INR correction by providing vitamin K-dependent factors without a large volume load. The main goal of this study was to investigate both the efficacy and safety of Octaplex use in a tertiary care center in Quebec, Canada. Materials and Methods: A retrospective review was conducted on the charts of patients who received Octaplex for urgent warfarin reversal between 1 January 2009 and 31 October 2009. Data collected included INRs pre and post Octaplex administration, and documentation of any adverse events. Results: We identified 146 occasions when Octaplex was administered for urgent INR reversal. A total of 118 patients were included in the study with a median age of 77. The three most frequent indications for Octaplex were: 1) gastrointestinal bleeding, 2) intracranial hemorrhage, and 3) pre-procedural INR reversal. The majority of patients (90.7%) were treated with Octaplex at a dose of 1000 IU of factor IX activity, with a range of 500 IU to 5000 IU. The average mean pre-and post INRs were 4.00 and 1.65, respectively. Overall, 89.8% (130/146) of patients corrected to an INR 2.1), these patients tended to have a higher mean pre-INR value (5.28 vs. 2.69) and still achieved important absolute drops in INR (range 1.1–9.3, mean 2.91). Only 4 patients (2.7%) did not experience a reversal of their INR. Seventeen patients received second doses of Octaplex, 70.6% (12/17) of whom achieved a post INR Conclusion: Octaplex is efficient and appears to be safe in the urgent reversal of INR in patients taking vitamin K antagonists. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


This study proposes a novel control strategy for the provision of an active power reserve for variable-speed wind turbines. The proposed control strategy aims at maximising the rotational kinetic energy by jointly optimising the rotational speed and the pitch angle using differential evolution. The optimisation process takes into account the given frequency support power-reserve margin. Based on the optimisation results, a novel controller strategy is proposed and compared with other existing approaches. This comparison reveals that relative to existing methods at the same de-loaded power, the proposed method yields more rotational kinetic energy released into the system in the event of frequency deviations, thus increasing the frequency stability of the power system.


The aim of this paper is to present the way of calculating the beta factor in shallow markets. A shallow market means a market that has a low volume of transactions and low liquidity. In the present study, the sample is taken from three shallow European markets, namely shares of listed companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange, Spain and Ireland. All of the shares are listed in the General Index, a selection which is because this index includes most of the stock market capitalization and attributes market trends in terms of its trend. More specifically, the sample includes 60 stocks from each country with a 30-chip high and 30 low-caps. The stock study is for a period of 10 years with a split in two five years, one before and one amidst a crisis. The data used to conduct the study was derived from the DataStream data source.
The first major part of the work is the basic processing of the sample by creating two portfolios for each of the three countries separately. The criterion for dividing the shares of these two portfolios is the capitalization of the companies by dividing the shares into those with a high and low capitalization respectively on the basis of the average market capitalization per company on 31/12/2003. The two five years mentioned above extend from 2004 to 2008 and the other from 2012 to 2016. The separation of the sample takes into account initially the average for each company over the whole period and divides the sample based on the median of the average. Of the 9 total portfolios that have been created, the companies with extreme stock prices have been rejected, which were essentially outperforming in order to achieve a more symmetrical distribution in the sample. For better data processing, panels will be made to show the two basic dimensions of data, companies, and the time period.
In the second part of the paper we will present the various studies concerning the study of the calculation of the beta factors. These studies have been drawn from a wider range of articles dealing with the assessment of beta factors and the problems associated with it for more than thirty years. This section is divided into sub-chapters for each study showing the different methods of estimating the beta factors used and all the econometric constraints taken into account to enhance the reliability of the estimates. The analysis of these studies shows how the methods and models for calculating beta factors have evolved and highlights the main problems associated with this issue, especially in the case of shallow markets. This highlights a key issue that is the subject of reflection and in the first part of the work, which is no more than the error of the time span in estimating the beta coefficient which results precisely from the change in the measurement period.
In closing, a frequent phenomenon is that of lowering the marketability of some securities, which is the case as the beta factors of the securities are wrongly estimated. This fact supports the existence of the percentage of zero returns that a company's debt may pose due to low marketability. From the discussion of the conclusions drawn from the study of the job, but also on the basis of the above assumptions, it will be shown that portfolios containing low-capitalization companies are more prone to observe higher zero yields than portfolios containing companies with high capitalization. Moreover, this conclusion is reinforced, as will be seen, by the analysis of the various studies included in the second part of this paper.


Intermittent fasting has been practiced for centuries across many cultures globally. Recently many studies have reported intermittent fasting for its lifestyle benefits, the major shift in eating habits and patterns is associated with several changes in hormones and circadian rhythms. Whether there are accompanying changes in stress levels is not widely reported especially in school children. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of intermittent fasting during Ramadan on stress levels in school children as measured using wearable artificial intelligence (AI). Twenty-nine school children (aged 13-17 years and 12M / 17F ratio) were given Fitbit devices and their stress, activity and sleep patterns analyzed 2 weeks before, 4 weeks during Ramadan fasting and 2 weeks after. This study revealed no statistically significant difference on stress scores during fasting, despite changes in stress levels being observed for 12 of the participants. Our study may imply intermittent fasting during Ramadan poses no direct risks in terms of stress, suggesting rather it may be linked to dietary habits, furthermore as stress score calculations are based on heart rate variability, this study implies fasting does not interfere the cardiac autonomic nervous system.


The meiji period (1868–1912) in Japanese history is known traditionally as an era of bustling reform during which the leaders of the restored imperial government sought to discard a feudal and backward civilization and to replace it with the modernity of the West. No people, however, notwithstanding all their persistence, talents, and hopes can have worked as great a transformation in their national life as has been claimed for the Japanese during this period. There is no doubt that great and far-reaching reforms were inaugurated, but it is especially necessary, in assessing them, to distinguish between the initial plans and hopes of the Japanese, on the one hand, and the actual achievements, on the other. The fundamental institutional changes which were projected required in most instances the passage of at least a generation before a reasonable stage of progress was attained. Failure to bear in mind the gradual nature of these changes has often resulted in the presentation of distorted and anachronistic treatments of modern Japanese history.


The principal cause of human deaths in the world is primarily due to harmful pathogenic microbes as bacteria, a virus, and fungi. Searching for antimicrobial agents to prevent deaths with new structures and modes of action is an essential strategy of the research. Therefore, in the present study has been undertaken of thymidine and of its eleven acylated derivatives were employed as test chemicals for in vitro antibacterial evaluation against five human pathogenic bacteria. The compounds were also screened for antifungal functionality tests against two phytopathogenic fungi. It was observed that a good number of tested compounds exhibited moderate to good antimicrobial activities. It was also observed that these acylated compounds were more effective against the phytopathogenic fungi than those of the bacterial strains. Encouragingly, several tested chemicals showed better antibacterial and antifungal activities than the standard antibiotics employed. The minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) values of the compounds 3 (5´-O-butyrylthymidine), 7 (5´-O-palmitoylthymidine) and 12 (5´-O-4- dichloroacetylthymidine) were found to be 0.32 mg/ml and minimum bactericidal concentrations (MBC) values were found to be 0.63 mg /ml in each case. On the other hand, the minimum fungal concentration (MFC) was found to be (1.25 mg/ml) in the case of compound 7 (i.e., palmitoyl derivative) which may be used as antifungal active drug providing further investigation. In vitro MTT assays revealed that compounds 4 (5´-O-hexanoylthymidine) and 7 (5´-O-palmitoylthymidine) were effective against Ehrlich's ascites carcinoma (EAC) cells and IC50 values were found to be 920.88 μg/ml and 792.90 μg/ml, respectively. So these compounds may be targeted for future studies for their usage as broad-spectrum antibiotics.
J. Bio-Sci. 29(1): 11-22, 2021 (June)


In July 2012 OAE undertook a small open area excavation, on behalf of and funded by Cambridgeshire County Council and English Heritage, on the earthwork remains of Swavesey Priory (SM 38; TL36262 69429). The scheme was designed to determine the extent of disturbance caused by rabbit burrows to a building platform within the scheduled monument, record the archaeology in the affected area and reinstate it for use as grazing pasture for horses.
Little is known about Swavesey Priory, which was a small monastic house founded soon after the Conquest by Count Alan of Brittany and given to the Benedictine Abbey of Saints Sergius and Bacchus at Angers in France. In the 14th century its ownership passed to the Carthusian Priory at Coventry, after which it seems to have largely been reduced to the status of a rectory and manor until the Dissolution.
Machine excavation followed by limited hand excavation revealed an area of possible medieval floor/hearth and probable pits (not excavated), truncated by ditches and pits of late medieval date. Probable post-Dissolution evidence was represented by ditches and dumped deposits; later features include a brick drain of 18th century date. Rabbit burrowing was evident across much of the excavated area, although was most notable where the sandy natural was exposed and/or on the edges of features. Some 'historic' burrows had filled up naturally while voids and tunnels elsewhere were investigated and then infilled prior to backfilling.
Numerous finds including roof tile, pottery and animal bone were recovered during the excavation, in addition to many metal and stone 'small finds', several of which may have originated from the priory kitchen. The latter includes pieces from three stone mortars (mixing bowls), parts of a large copper-alloy bowl that had been patched and repaired, fragments of quernstone and a broken honestone. An iron key, probably from a cupboard rather than a door, in addition to part of a silver 'fede' ring with a clasped hand motif are other finds of note. The pottery assemblage provides evidence for shifting trade patterns from the medieval to late medieval periods and a possible change from more domestic/culinary activities to processes associated with dairying.
Despite the limited nature of the archaeological investigation, the work has demonstrated that, while the rabbit disturbance was extensive, the area was not as eroded or unstable as had been feared. As well as enabling the field to be returned to grazing that will aid the long term preservation of the site, this project has shown that well-stratified deposits and associated finds assemblages survive within this part of the scheduled area.
An open day held during the course of the excavation attracted a lot of interest from local people, with around 150 people attending tours. The site presents a good candidate for future non-intrusive and/or community work, particularly detailed earthwork survey, which may help to define which areas of the monument have been affected by quarrying and other later intrusive activities.


This article introduces a method utilizing deep learning in typical Multiple Hypothesis Solution Separation (MHSS)-based Integrity Monitors (IMs) of autonomous vehicle navigation systems, when conventional sensors, such as GNSS and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), are integrated with a camera. It is an innovative methodology to reduce the hypothesis space of sensor faults. In the proposed method, the measurement subsets to evaluate in MHSS are generated from the IMU/GNSS measurement set only, so that Fault Detection and Exclusion (FDE) in camera measurements takes place separately. In the investigated approach, anomaly prediction in state estimate error due to camera faults is performed based on raw images with a Deep Neural Network (DNN), and IM input is required only during the online refinement of predicted anomaly locations to reflect anomalies in the IM test statistic. This opens for the possibility to evaluate environment features and conditions that cause specific detected or undetected sensor faults. Experiments on the IMU/GNSS/Camera integration demonstrated that Protection Level (PL) bounding performance of the proposed IM, with limited hypothesis space and the individual camera FDE, is comparable to the MHSS IM informed by the full set of fault hypotheses. Despite the use case of the camera, the method can be directly extended to integrations with multiple auxiliary sensors, where each auxiliary sensor is evaluated individually for faults.


The nonlinearities observed in the behavior of rubber and polymeric materials are influenced not only by the far-field stress conditions but also by the morphology, microstructures, and changes at the meso-level such as kinks, crosslinking, and micro tearing. Considering constants temperature applications, the occurrence of microtearing has a significant contribution on the performance of polymers, soft tissues and other rubber-like materials. In this paper, a unified damage mechanics and nonlinear elasticity approach is presented to model nonlinear behavior of rubber-like materials under constant temperatures. The theory is cast within the general framework of the internal variable theory of thermodynamics with large deformations where the Clausius-Duhem inequality is provoked to develop general damage potential. The strain energy density function is formulated in terms of an effective Lagrangian strain tensor that evolves with cumulative damage as cracking and micro-tearing take places. Piola-Kirchhoff (PK) stress tensor is presented and a new form of the damage response tensor is proposed. The model prediction is illustrated against experimental results with good agreement.


The decays B þ c ! J= c D þ s and B þ c ! J= c D (cid:1)þ s are observed for the first time using a dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb (cid:2) 1 , collected by the LHCb experiment in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of ffiffiffi s p ¼ 7 and 8 TeV. The statistical significance for both signals is in excess of 9 standard deviations. The following ratios of branching fractions are measured to be B ð B þ c ! J= c D þ s Þ B ð B þ c ! J= c (cid:1) þ Þ ¼ 2 : 90 (cid:3) 0 : 57 (cid:3) 0 : 24 , B ð B þ c ! J= c D (cid:1)þ s Þ B ð B þ c ! J= c D þ s Þ ¼ 2 : 37 (cid:3) 0 : 56 (cid:3) 0 : 10 , where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. The mass of the B þ c meson is measured to be m B þ c ¼ 6276 : 28 (cid:3) 1 : 44 ð stat Þ (cid:3) 0 : 36 ð syst Þ MeV =c 2 , using the B þ c ! J= c D þ s decay mode.


Adequate nutrition is a medical priority. It has been estimated that more than half the children in the Chimbu District of Papua New Guinea are malnourished. A practical scheme combat poor nutrition there was based on emphasizing the value of breast-feeding and of locally grown foods. The daily menu given was the same, with three meals each day. The scheme's underlying principles can be adapted for any developing country or for migrant and other minority groups in a developed country.


The mutual fund industry in India presents an interesting scenario of 48 million investors, a large variety of product offerings and coexistence of private, public and foreign Asset Managing Companies. The study, adopting the classification of investors and categorization of funds by Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) empirically researches the investment patterns of the five investor groups in the eight fund categories; examines the portfolios of the investor groups to identify their propensity for specific fund categories and identifies the dominant investor groups in terms of quantum of investment and investor folios. Further, in order to examine the common thread among the investment patterns of the investor groups, ten hypotheses have been formulated and tested for statistical significance. The significant findings of the study have been that (a) Corporates are the dominant investor group in the Indian Mutual Fund Industry and they account for almost 48% of the total investment (AUM) in the industry and they are more oriented towards non-equity funds which offer high security & liquidity and hence their propensity towards Liquid/Money Market and Debt-oriented funds; The second dominant group in the industry is the Retail investors' group which accounts for almost 24% of the total investment (AUM) in the industry, while they account for 98% of the 48 million investors in the industry. The portfolio of this group is highly skewed towards equity oriented schemes (almost 80%) which offer high return, capital appreciation coupled with high risk and 18% of the portfolio accounts for Debt-oriented and Balanced funds. Often, the volatility in Indian stock markets and mutual funds is attributed to Foreign Institutional investors. The study brings to the fore that the FIIs account for only 0.62% of the total assets held by the industry and the FIIs are not in a position to influence the trading patterns in the industry. Statistical evidence has not been established to suggest that there are similarities in the investment patterns of the five investor groups. The mutual fund industry in India is moving more towards equity oriented funds as evident from the ratios of debt-oriented funds to equity-oriented funds during the two time-periods of study (2.4744:1 in March 2009 and 2.0582:1 in September 2009) and the trend may continue if Indian Stocks perform better in the coming years. The findings of the study have significant implications for AMCs and their fund managers in terms of structuring their product offerings, investment philosophies, asset allocation and marketing strategies.


SUMMARY: Mycobacterium smegmatis NCTC 8159 grew well in a minimal medium with succinate or acetamide as sole carbon source. Washed bacteria or cell-free extracts hydrolyzed 15 monocarboxylic amides, but not 4 related N-substituted amides. Formamide was the best substrate, followed by n-butyramide. Extracts of bacteria grown on acetamide hydrolyzed formamide about 60 times and butyramide about 20 times as rapidly as bacteria grown on succinate. Other short-chain fatty acylamides were also more rapidly hydrolyzed, but benzamidase activity was not similarly induced by growth on acetamide. Extracts of bacteria grown on succinate transferred acyl groups from propionamide, butyramide and nicotinamide to hydroxylamine, to form hydroxamates. Transferase activity, unlike aliphatic amidase activity in extracts was purified twofold and freed from transferase activity. Formamidase and butyramidase activities were not separated, and were similarly affected by heat and dithio-bis-nitrobenzoic acid. The amidase was induced by growth on acetate and on butyramide, but not on propionate, butyrate or benzamide, all of which were good growth-substrates. N-methylacetamide and N-acetyl-acetamide were non-substrate inducers of amidase for bacteria growing on succinate.


We determine the fractal dimensionality D of the trajectories of a class of translationally invariant Markov processes. We also provide two simple operational measures to estimate D.


Historically, society has developed and presented the concept of 'disability' in negative terms. This in turn led to the identification of individuals/groups with some medical conditions as 'different' from the general population. However, this theory has more recently been challenged by the narrative of inclusion which has contributed to questioning the term 'difference' and has replaced it with 'diversity'.
Young people with cleft have previously been identified in society by their 'difference' due to speech and appearance issues. Existing literature, largely from medical professionals, suggested that young people with cleft underachieve. Studies to date have been mainly carried out using quantitative methods. These investigations suggested a number of areas of challenge – primarily linguistic, cognitive, self-concept and concerning the expectations of others. In contrast, this research set out to attempt to understand more deeply the reasons for the suggested underachievement using qualitative research methods to explore the social and educational lives of young people with cleft at three different stages in their development.
This research found that the narrative of underachievement among the young people with cleft involved in the study did not follow the pattern expected as it emerged from the medical literature. Overall individuality characterised the learning trajectory of the young people with cleft. All young people were making progress in their learning albeit at their own speed and as appropriate, with support. The experiences of learning at clubs/associations was more inclusive than those at school where no support was required and there were different expectations of adults supporting learning in clubs and schools. Labelling was a contentious issue but in individual cases this had negative consequences which were counterbalanced by friendship circles often formed at nursery school. This study highlighted teachers' lack of knowledge of this medical condition and its potential consequences for educational experiences in individual cases and a lack of interpersonal and inter-agency communication.
This study therefore challenges the deeply integrated societal stereotypes of young people with cleft. It highlights the importance of listening to children's voices and offers suggestions to both educational and medical professionals for improving the experiences of the young people concerned.


The Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge, under which wealthy individuals promise to leave a majority of their assets to charity, is an admirable effort to encourage philanthropy. However, the Pledge requires us to confront the paradox that the federal estate tax charitable deduction is unlimited while the federal income tax charitable deduction is capped. If a Giving Pledger leaves his wealth to charity, the federal fisc loses significant revenue since the Pledger thereby avoids federal estate taxation as charitable bequests are deductible without limit for federal estate tax purposes. Despite its laudable qualities, the Giving Pledge is a systematic (albeit inadvertent) threat to the estate tax base.The Giving Pledge requires the amendment of the federal estate tax to restrict an estate's charitable deduction to a percentage of the estate, just as the income tax charitable deduction is limited to a percentage of the taxpayer's income. In this fashion, the sensible compromise embedded in the income tax charitable deduction would be carried over to the federal estate tax to simultaneously encourage charitable giving while ensuring that all large estates pay some federal estate tax.The Giving Pledge need not be the death knell of the estate tax. It should instead be the catalyst to reform the tax by limiting the estate tax charitable deduction.


RIDA®COUNT kitsMeasurements of microbiological parameters are not currently widely used for protection, monitoring and preservation of caves although they indicate very well the recent human impact. Here we present a commercially available microbiological kit for cave ecologists, the RIDA®COUNT test kit (R-Biopharm AG, Germany), as a supplementary tool for research and show examples. Simultaneously, lists of microbial indicator groups and cave microhabitats, where this methodology may be applied, are presented. Indicators include certain clinically important human-associated microbes such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp. and Staphylococcus aureus that are easy to quantify with basic cultivation methodology. Relatively higher bacterial counts compared to yeast and moulds on RIDA®COUNT test plates indicate recent and pronounced human impact. Swab samples allow detection of gradients of surface microbial colonization and determination of the microbial load on footprints and fingerprints in caves. In our tests, RIDA®COUNT plates for enumeration of yeast and moulds revealed a similar microbial load between unwashed caving boots and human fingerprints on a metal fence. Similarly, total bacterial counts were comparable between these two surfaces, 5,890 CFU/100 cm2 for unwashed boots and 4,340 CFU/100 cm2 for fingerprints on metal fence. Bacterial counts on walking surfaces in show caves can exceed 10,000 CFU/100 cm2 (Postojna Cave). These examples show that quantification of microbial indicator groups revealed increased microbial load and possible biohazard in the underground. This procedure may be widely adopted as a part of a regular monitoring programme in caves.


Critical and sophisticated cyberattacks often take multitudes of reconnaissance, exploitations, and obfuscation techniques to penetrate through well protected enterprise networks. The discovery and detection of attacks, though needing continuous efforts, is no longer sufficient. Security Operation Center (SOC) analysts are overwhelmed by the significant volume of intrusion alerts without being able to extract actionable intelligence. Recognizing this challenge, this paper describes the advances and findings through deploying ASSERT to process intrusion alerts from OmniSOC in collaboration with the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR) at Indiana University. ASSERT utilizes information theoretic unsupervised learning to extract and update `attack models' in near real-time without expert knowledge. It consumes streaming intrusion alerts and generates a small number of statistical models for SOC analysts to comprehend ongoing and emerging attacks in a timely manner. This paper presents the architecture and key processes of ASSERT and discusses a few real-world attack models to highlight the use-cases that benefit SOC operations. The research team is developing a light-weight containerized ASSERT that will be shared through a public repository to help the community combat the overwhelming intrusion alerts.


The response of signal recipients depends on information found in the signal itself and on other information sources known collectively as context. Context is the set of events, conditions, and changeable recipient characteristics that modify the effect of a signal on recipients' behavior. Sources of contextual information include (a) the characteristics of the recipient and (b) sources external to the recipient (the signaler and the setting). Contextual information is most commonly used when the signal itself does not provide enough information for the recipient to behave adaptively. The signal's referent may be ambiguous or deceptive, or recipients may need additional information to fine-tune their responses. When animal signals were thought to be information poor, contextual information was seen as being critically informative. Animal signals are now known to be much more informative, but even information-rich systems, such as human language, depend heavily on contextual sources of information.


Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is a rare extraintestinal manifestation of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and the risk of poor clinical outcomes remains high in patients with delayed CVST diagnoses. This study aimed to highlight the need to recognize the critical nature of CVST complications in IBD and the challenges associated with managing concurrent conditions. We retrospectively reviewed previously reported cases of CVST in patients with IBD by searching the PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases for articles published between 2013 and 2020. Our search identified 35 cases of IBD complicated by CVST. The mean patient age was 24.6 years (range, 31 months-47 years; men > women, ratio, 1.18:1). CVST was 3.8 times more common among patients with ulcerative colitis than among those with Crohn's disease. Active IBD was reported in 91.4% of patients. The mean interval between IBD diagnosis and CVST occurrence was 3 years (range, 2 days-16 years). Headache was the most frequently reported symptom (85.7%), and involvement of multiple sinuses was reported in almost two-thirds of the patients. Corticosteroid therapy at the time of the CVST event was the most common prothrombotic risk factor, present in 57.14% of patients. The overall recovery rate after treatment was 77.14%; whereas the bleeding complication rate was 10%. This review provides essential information that can aid clinicians in making earlier diagnoses and promotes preventive strategies for CVST in patients with IBD. Given that CVST management can be challenging in these patients, a multidisciplinary approach is warranted.


Abstract Introduction Achieving complete remission (CR) improves outcomes in multiple myeloma (MM). We have shown that 50% of patients enrolled in Total Therapy (TT) trials achieve CR within one year of enrollment irrespective of risk as defined by the GEP70 risk signature. Nevertheless, the majority of patients with high risk (HR) MM show an early relapse with grim prognosis, while most standard risk (SR) patients tend to relapse late, most often years after completion of maintenance therapy. Evaluation of minimal residual disease (MRD) has been shown to be of prognostic relevance in patients in CR with MRD negativity being associated with better outcomes. Here we report the impact of next generation sequencing (NGS)-based MRD assessment in TT patients who have achieved at least a very good partial response (VGPR) at two different time points during their treatment protocol: first after auto stem cell transplant (ASCT at 4-8 months of enrollment) and secondly during maintenance therapy (12-24 months). Materials and methods In brief, our TT protocols incorporate induction therapy consisting of Velcade and Thalidomide in conjunction with chemotherapy (Cisplatin, Doxorubicin, Cytoxan, Etoposide) followed by ASCT, consolidation and three years of maintenance with Velcade, Revlimid and Dexamethasone. HR and SR were assigned using the GEP70 risk signature. For MRD testing, we included 119 patients who were treated on our TT3b -TT6 protocols and who achieved at least VGPR and had bone marrow samples available at 4-8 months post ASCT and 12-24 months into maintenance. Thirty-eight patients had HR MM (32%), 75 patients had SR MM (63%) and no GEP70 data was available for 6 patients (5%). For NGS-based MRD assessment (Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp), genomic DNA was amplified using locus-specific primer sets for immunoglobulin heavy-chain complete (IGH-VDJH) and incomplete (IGH-DJ) as well as for immunoglobulin κ locus (IGκ). The amplified products underwent sequencing and clonal gene rearrangements were analyzed. MRD levels were calculated at a sensitivity level of 1 x 10-5. PET-CT and/or MRI were obtained at same time point as MRD assessment to evaluate presence of focal lesions. Results Using MRD status post-ASCT and during maintenance as a predictor, there were significant differences for PFS and OS in HR and SR MM. In HR disease, MRD positivity post ASCT was associated with significantly worse clinical outcomes with 2 year PFS/OS at 33% and 52% for MRD positive patients compared to 82%and 83% in MRD negative patients. Further 5 year PFS and OS for the same patient group were 11% and 24% for MRD positivity compared to 45% and 75% for HR patients that had achieved MRD negativity. In contrast to the HR group, there was no significant difference between MRD positivity and negativity in SR patients at the time point post ASCT we have investigated. In this latter patient group a significant difference only became obvious later during maintenance with 5 year PFS and OS at 55% and 63% for MRD positive patients compared to 83% and 93% for MRD negative patients. Of the 54 SR patients that were MRD positive post ASCT, 25 (46%) became negative later during maintenance, while in HR disease only 4 of 21 MRD positive patients post ASCT became negative during maintenance (19%). Importantly, a stratified analysis of our MRD data showed that even during maintenance the majority of cases in the favorable CD-2 subgroup were MRD positive, indicating that MRD results should further be interpreted in the context of patients' molecular subgroup. Conclusions Our data suggest that HR patients that do not achieve MRD negativity after their first ASCT have a very high likelihood of disease progression and death within 24 months. In contrast, SR patients that are still MRD positive post ASCT tend to have continuing response to treatment and MRD testing only becomes prognostic during maintenance. Of interest is that a high proportion of HR patients that achieve MRD negativity post ASCT and a smaller proportion of MRD negative SR patients still relapse within 5 years of enrollment suggesting that remaining residual MM cells are not detected by molecular MRD testing. Imaging studies with PET-CT and MRI could further stratify these patients as they detect any residual focal lesions that are not assessed by molecular MRD testing. We have combined PET-CT/MRI data for all of the 119 patients that were included in this study and analyzed data will be presented at ASH 2016. Disclosures Carlton: Adaptive Biotechnologies: Employment, Equity Ownership. Kong: Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp: Employment, Equity Ownership. Moorhead: Adaptive Biotechnologies: Employment. Barlogie: Signal Genetics: Patents & Royalties. Davies: Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen: Consultancy, Honoraria; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria. Morgan: Univ of AR for Medical Sciences: Employment; Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria; Bristol Meyers: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen: Research Funding.


AIM
The aim of the present study was to compare the association of CD4 count with cariogenic oral flora indicators and dental caries in HIV-seropositive children receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART).

METHODS
A descriptive study was conducted among HIV-seropositive children receiving ART at Snehasadan Camillian Care and Support Center HIV/AIDS in Mangaluru, India. Demographic details and r recent CD4 counts were recorded. For dental caries, the Decayed, Missing, Filled Teeth (DMFT)/decayed, missing, filled/decayed, extracted, filled index was used. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22. Spearman's correlation was used to correlate CD4 count with dental caries and cariogenic oral flora indicators (mutans streptococci and lactobacilli).

RESULTS
The study population comprised 35 patients. Dental caries prevalence was 54.1% in deciduous teeth and 41.2% in permanent teeth. Age and DMFT showed a significant, positive correlation; age and dmft showed a negative correlation (P < .05). A weak, negative correlation was found between age and Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans), and also CD4 count; S. mutans and CD4 count and dmft were not found to be statistically significant (P < .05).

CONCLUSION
No statistically-significant correlation was found between CD4 count and cariogenic oral flora indicators in HIV-positive patients. The presence of a minimum number of restored teeth compared to decayed teeth suggests a lack of dental care being given to HIV-positive patients.


This paper presents a new method to assess default risk based on applying the CEV process to the KMV model. We find that the volatility of the firm asset value may not be a constant, so we assume the firm's asset value dynamics are given by the CEV process $\frac{dV_A}{V_A} = \mu_A dt + \delta V_A^{\beta-1}dB$ and use the equivalent volatility method to estimate parameters. Focus on the distances to default, our CEV-KMV model fits the market better when forecasting the credit risk compared to the classical KMV model. Besides, The estimation results show the $\beta>1$ for non ST companies while $\beta<1$ for ST companies, which means their difference in the local volatility structure: ST volatility is decreasing with respect to the firm's asset while non ST volatility is increasing.


To correlate structural features with glucoamylase properties, a structure‐based multisequence alignment was constructed using information from catalytic and starch‐binding domain models. The catalytic domain is composed of three hydrophobic folding units, the most labile and least hydrophobic of them being missing in the most stable glucoamylase. The role of O‐glycosylation in stabilizing the most hydrophobic folding unit, the only one where thermostabilizing mutations with unchanged activity have been made, is described. Differences in both length and composition of interhelical loops are correlated with stability and selectivity characteristics. Two new glucoamylase subfamilies are defined by using homology criteria. Protein parsimony analysis suggests an ancient bacterial origin for the glucoamylase gene. Increases in length of the belt surrounding the active site, degree of O‐glycosylation, and length of the linker probably correspond to evolutionary steps that increase stability and secretion levels of Aspergillus‐related glucoamylases. Proteins 29:334–347, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


An industry leading 28nm high-performance mobile SoC technology featuring metal-gate/high-k process is presented. The technology is optimized to offer wide power-to-performance transistor dynamic range and highest wired gate density with superior low-R/ELK interconnects, critical for next generation mobile computing/SOC applications. Through process and design optimization, historical trend is maintained for gate density and SRAM cell sizes. Variations control strategy through process and design collaboration is also described.


NDF-RT is the proposed source of drug classification information. We set out to construct a hierarchy of NDF-RT drug classes and RxNorm medications and evaluate it on medication records data. NDF-RT and RxNorm are distributed in different file formats, require different tools to manipulate and linking the two into a hierarchy is a non-trivial exercise. Medication data in RxNorm from two institutions was constrained by the hierarchy. Only 37% of records from one and 65% from another institution were accessible. We subsequently enriched the RxNorm mapping in NDF-RT by exploiting relationships between concepts for branded and generic drugs. Coverage improved dramatically to 93% for both institutions. To improve usability of the resulting hierarchy, we grouped clinical drugs by corresponding clinical drug form.


In this paper a method of calculating the mechanical forces in transformers, based on mutual reactance between coils, is presented. A formula for the mutual inductance between coaxial solenoids is developed and from this expression the formula for the mechanical force between concentric cylindrical transformer coils is derived. The same method is followed to obtain the formula giving the mechanical force between individual coaxial coils. The method is checked by calculations of reactance of complicated arrangements of coils. Tables are given to facilitate calculations.


A new residence-time distribution (RTD) function has been developed and applied to quantitative dye studies as an alternative to the traditional advection-dispersion equation (AdDE). e new method is based on a jointly combined four-parameter gamma probability density function (PD�). e gamma residence-time distribution (RTD) function and its �rst and second moments are derived from the individual two-parameter gamma distributions of randomly distributed variables, tracer travel distance, and linear velocity, which are based on their relationship with time. e gamma RTD function was used on a steady-state, nonideal system modeled as a plug-�ow reactor (P�R) in the laboratory to validate the e�ectiveness of the model. e normalized forms of the gamma RTD and the advection-dispersion equation RTD were compared with the normalized tracer RTD. e normalized gamma RTD had a lower mean-absolute deviation (MAD) (0.16) than the normalized form of the advection-dispersion equation (0.26) when compared to the normalized tracer RTD. e gamma RTD function is tied back to the actual physical site due to its randomly distributed variables. e results validate using the gamma RTD as a suitable alternative to the advection-dispersion equation for quantitative tracer studies of non-ideal �ow systems.


Assessment of secondary dentin apposition is an observable phenomenon widely used to estimate age. An integrative review was performed by searching the keywords "computed tomography AND age estimation AND pulp tooth volume ratio" and "microfocus x-ray AND age estimation AND pulp tooth volume ratio" in the electronic platforms Embase, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science, in July 2020. Studies included: complete articles with age estimation from human teeth by use of computed tomography or micro-computed tomography, written in English, without time restriction. Excluded studies: not written in English or not in form of an article, clinical cases, literature reviews, if did not realize age estimations or if age estimation is done in animals teeth. The search resulted in 32 different articles. With application of the above criteria only 26 were reviewed. Data collected included: reference, year, country, tooth type, number of subjects, number of teeth, age group, image type, measuring instrument/software, type of analysis, coefficient of determination, correlation coefficient with age and accuracy. These data provided a quick global comparison of various methodologies that use the pulp/tooth relation, being practical for researchers and forensic team to which method they can use accordingly to a specific case and its expected accuracy.


Visual optics for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has undergone several developments. Currently, visual optics only provides multiple single-light sources, which limit its applications. This study uses several single-light sources to achieve continuous-phase visual optics. This is combined with a liquid-crystal display (LCD) panel to develop an interactive instrument. Although light synthesis is a nonlinear process, the nonlinear problem is solved by increasing the number of light sources. The measurement data confirm that the phase is approximately linear. This interactive instrument is useful in the biomedical engineering field because it predicts user gaze location.


Major coastal flooding events over the last decade have led decision makers in the United States to favor structural engineering solutions as a means to protect vulnerable coastal communities from the adverse impacts of future storms. While a resistance‐based approach to flood mitigation involving large‐scale construction works may be a central component of a regional flood risk reduction strategy, it is equally important to consider the role of land use and land cover (LULC) patterns in protecting communities from floods. To date, little observational research has been conducted to quantify the effects of various LULC configurations on the amount of property damage occurring across coastal regions over time. In response, we statistically examine the impacts of LULC on observed flood damage across 2,692 watersheds bordering the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, we analyze statistical linear regression models to isolate the influence of multiple LULC categories on over 372,000 insured flood losses claimed under the National Flood Insurance Program per year from 2001 to 2008. Results indicate that percent increase in palustrine wetlands is the equivalent to, on average, a $13,975 reduction in insured flood losses per year, per watershed. These and other results provide important insights to policy makers on how protecting specific types of LULC can help reduce adverse impacts to local communities.


This paper presents an introduction~ to a model of a collaborative working environment which supports distributed team argumentation, negotiation, consensus building and rationalecapture. Based on a natural model of team deliberation, this model is the basis for the development of a system which enables team support and the capture of the design rationale in value added activities. The consensus model is the result of over fifteen years of studying and modeling design engineers by the authors and the integration of research results from the fields of negotiation and argumentation modeling, design rationale capture, decision theoretics, and engineering best practices.