Gold-bearing quartz veins in the southern part of the Mother Lode, California, formed from fluids which contained Si, K, CO 2 , Ca, S, and metals and which were focused into permeable fault zones. In the Coulterville district of the Mother Lode, these fluids altered serpentinite to a talc-chlorite-magnesite-quartz assemblage which is crosscut by veins containing quartz, dolomite, sericite, sulfides, tellurides, and gold. Textural relationships among the vein-filling minerals reveal that galena, tellurides (Pb, Ni, Ag, Au-Ag), and native gold precipitated last among the vein minerals.Observations from the Oro Rico and McAlpine mines, Coulterville district, indicate that these deposits were subjected to deformation during and after their formation. Fluid inclusions in the milky vein quartz exhibit only a narrow range in T (sub m ice ) but a large range in T h which probably reflects posttrapping deformation. Microthermometry of fluid inclusions from vug-filling quartz in the Alleghany district, in the northern portion of the Mother Lode, reveals low-salinity ( 2 -H 2 O fluids with T (sub mco 2 ) = -56.7 degrees C, T (sub m clathrate ) = 9.5 degrees C, and T (sub h total ) = 150 degrees to 200 degrees C. Visual estimates of CO 2 content indicate a maximum of 10 mole percent CO 2 . In contrast, inclusions from vug-filling quartz in the Coulterville district are filled with low-salinity, low T h (110 degrees -140 degrees C), H 2 O-rich fluids which were probably later than, and unrelated to, the gold-mineralizing fluids.Oxygen isotope values of vein quartz from the southern Mother Lode indicate formation by 18 O-enriched fluids in the range 6 to 11 per mil (vs SMOW). These values are similar to estimates of 8 to 15 per mil from vein quartz of the Alleghany district (Taylor, 1981; Boehlke and Kistler, 1986). The average delta 13 C values for magnesite and dolomite of -4.5 + or - 0.6 per mil (vs PDB) from the southern Mother Lode are identical to results from the Alleghany district 200 km to the north (Rosenbaum and Taylor, 1984). These data suggest either a single or well-mixed source of oxidized carbon for the fluids. Oxygen isotope compositions of magnesite, calculated using an experimentally derived "phosphoric acid fractionation factor" at 50 degrees C of 1.0096, are enriched in 18 O relative to coexisting dolomite as predicted for isotopic equilibrium.The chemistry of the Mother Lode ore-forming fluids is characterized by several approaches. With an X (sub CO 2 ) estimate of 0.1 from fluid inclusions, quartz-magnesite assemblages in the Coulterville serpentinite alteration zones limit the temperature of formation to below 325 degrees C for P 2 -H 2 O fluid, coupled with the assumption of trapping temperatures of 300 degrees C, suggests minimum trapping pressures of 1,000 to 2,000 bars. Assuming equilibrium, the assemblage of daughter minerals described by Coveney (1981) indicates neutral pH conditions of 5.5 to 6.0 at the prevailing P-T conditions. Sulfide mineral stabilities imply that H 2 S was the dominant sulfur species and that a (sub O 2 ) of the mineralizing fluids was in the range 10 (super -32) to 10 (super -35) .Our preferred model for the formation of the Mother Lode vein system involves magmatic activity associated with a subducting slab. In this model, generation of ore-forming fluids is possible by a variety of mechanisms including metamorphic devolatilization reactions in rocks adjacent to the plutons, direct magmatic input, and deep circulation of meteoric water. Any of these mechanisms is possible given the available data on the Mother Lode deposits.


Highly active local strains of B. sphaericus were used along with the reference strains 1593 and 2297 to optimize the biocide production. The optimum conditions were as follow: 20% of total flask volume, pH 7.0,inoculum size 3-5×104 cfu / ml, 30° C and 200 rpm/5 days. Glycerol was the best C source at 0.5%; a greatsuppression up to >80% with propionic acid. All tested strains failed to synthesize biocide in the presence of   inorganic N as a sole source; beef extract gave the supreme yield. Mg2+ was necessary for maximal productivity;however, Ca2+ damaged the  fermentation. The uppermost productivity was achieved from 25 g/l fodder yeast, 500 ml/l corn steep liquor and 0.3 g/l MgSO4 as a medium. Chicken feather at 30 g/l proved to be an excellent monocomponent; a superlative improvement was achieved when feather (3.0%) supplemented with 0.03%  of MgSO4.


Food poisonings caused by Clostridium perfringens and Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) occur frequently worldwide; however, no vaccine is currently available. Therefore, we aimed to develop a bivalent vaccine against C. perfringens and STEC infections. Although it has been considered that the C-terminal region of C. perfringens enterotoxin (C-CPE) could be a good vaccine antigen to block the binding to its receptor, it was insufficient for induction of a protective immune response because of the low antigenicity. However, the fusion of C-CPE with Stx2 B subunit (Stx2B) augmented the antigenicity of C-CPE without affecting the antigenicity of Stx2B. Indeed, high levels of C-CPE-specific neutralizing IgG were found in the serum of mice immunized with the fusion protein Stx2B-C-CPE. Additionally, comparable and substantial levels of Stx2B-specific neutralizing IgG were induced in mice receiving Stx2B-C-CPE or Stx2B alone. These antibody responses against C-CPE and Stx2B lasted for at least 48 weeks, which were sufficient for protective immunity in vitro and in vivo, indicating that Stx2B-C-CPE could induce long-term protective immunity. As an underlying mechanism, ex vivo stimulation with Stx2B, but not with C-CPE, induced cytokine production from splenic T cells collected from mice immunized with Stx2B-C-CPE, suggesting that Stx2B-specific, but not C-CPE-specific, T cells were induced by the immunization with Stx2B-C-CPE and plausibly promoted immunoglobulin class switching of both Stx2B- and C-CPE-specific B cells from IgM to IgG. These findings collectively indicate that Stx2B-C-CPE is a T-cell-antigen-supplement-type bivalent vaccine, which could be an efficient against C. perfringens and STEC infections.


Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) have become the most popular measures of market risk in Financial and Insurance fields. However, the estimation of both risk measures is challenging, because it requires the knowledge of the tail of the distribution. Therefore, tools from Extreme Value Theory are usually employed, considering that the tail data follow a Generalized Pareto distribution (GPD). Using the existing relations from the parameters of the baseline distribution and the limit GPD's parameters, we define highly informative priors that incorporate all the information available for the whole set of observations. We show how to perform Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm to estimate VaR and CVaR employing the highly informative priors, in the case of exponential, stable and Gamma distributions. Afterwards, we perform a thorough simulation study to compare the accuracy and precision provided by three different methods. Finally, data from a real example is analyzed to show the practical application of the methods.


The paper discusses pre- and intraoperative application of different guiding techniques (frameless neuronavigation, fMRI, electrophysiological monitoring). We performed comparative analysis of different combinations of these methods. 74 patients with intracerebral tumors involving eloquent areas (sensorimotor cortex in 56 and speech zones in 18) were operated. In 9 cases 'awake surgery' was applied. We found that frameless navigation combined with brain mapping allows to optimize planning of surgical approach and to decrease postoperative neurological deficit. Also in certain cases 'awake craniotomy' can be replaced by fMRI and neuronavigation.


Background: Undergraduate teaching of General Practice/Family Medicine (GP/FM) must ensure students acquire the necessary competencies and skills to perform an adequate GP/FM consultation with adequate annotations (the SOAP model) and classifications. So aimed to study and to correlate students' evaluation by tutors and patients in specific consultations in the formal practical evaluation of GP/FM Curricular Unit of the Integrated Masters on Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (IMM-FMUC) in the academic years of 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.Methods: Observational study of the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years of the assessment grids for tutor's evaluation of SOAP performance and fluency in consultation and for patient's evaluation of the student 'performance, in the convenience sample of those who chose to be so evaluated.Results: We studied a population of 435 (67,7%) out of a universe of 646 students, 125 (28,7%) males, ns by sex and academic year who performed this evaluation. In a mark up to 20 from tutors, difference was found for Plan (P) mark, higher in 2018-2019 (18,38±2,18vs18,54±2,11, p=0,005) of the SOAP methodology evaluation. Patients' evaluation was not different 19,34±1,70vs19,35±1,40, p=0,091. A positive significant correlation was found between tutors and patients marks (ρ=0,278; p<0,001), as well as between tutor mark and final mark (ρ=0,958; p<0,001) and patient and final marks (ρ=0,465; p<0,001). Final marks were not different in both years, 18,61±1,38vs18,78±1,15, p=0,158.Conclusions: This innovative model of evaluation of student's performance in medical appointment, showed a significant positive moderate correlation between patients' and tutors' marks in the setting of GP/FM at the IMM-FMUC, and was not different between years. Yearly evaluation must be continued.


Memory CD8 T cell responses are essential in establishing long-lasting immunity, as these responses confer protection from repeated infections. Various factors have shown to influence the generation of memory CD8 T cells, suggesting that the process of memory differentiation is not fixed and can be manipulated. Here, we asked whether the timing of stimulation (or recruitment) of primary memory CD8 T cells impacts the generation and differentiation of secondary memory CD8 T cell responses after bacterial and viral infections. We show that despite decreased secondary expansion, the differentiation of primary memory CD8 T cells into populations with the long-term secondary memory phenotype (ex. CD62Lhi, CD27hi) and function (ex. tissue distribution, IL-2 production, antigen-driven proliferative expansion) is facilitated by late recruitment into the immune response. Additionally, we show that the expression of survival factors and transcription factors known to be involved in memory CD8 T cell differentiation (ex. Bcl2, Eomes, Tcf1) is increased in late-stimulated secondary effector CD8 T cells. Thus, these data suggest that the timing of antigen-stimulation modulates the program of secondary memory CD8 T cell differentiation, which may have relevance for the design of future prime-boost vaccine protocols.


The attributions of naive perceivers regarding the voluntary or involuntary nature of a target couple's family size were investigated, along with the personality characteristics ascribed to persons with families of varying sizes. Undergraduate students (N = 274) read one of 24 paragraphs describing a couple who varied with respect to number of children and male/female employment status. Targets were rated on 28 personality characteristics and 7 relationship quality statements. Participants provided attributions for the couple's family size and completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974). Results indicated that, overall, perceivers attributed family size to voluntary factors. Childless individuals were rated less positively regardless of the attributions made for their childlessness. Parents of any size family were perceived similarly. The Bem classification of the perceiver was unrelated to judgments. Applications to understanding the support needs of infertile couples are discussed.


A manifestly gauge-invariant formulation of the coupling of the Maxwell theory with an Einstein-Cartan geometry is given, where the spacetime torsion originates from a massless Kalb-Ramond field augmented by suitable U(1) Chern-Simons terms. We focus on the situation where the torsion violates parity, and relate it to earlier proposals for gravitational parity violation.


Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) remains the preeminent American perennial (C4) bioenergy crop for cellulosic ethanol, that could help displace over a quarter of the US current petroleum consumption. Intriguingly, there is often little response to nitrogen fertilizer once stands are established. The rhizosphere microbiome plays a critical role in nitrogen cycling and overall plant nutrient uptake. We used high-throughput metagenomic sequencing to characterize the switchgrass rhizosphere microbial community before and after a nitrogen fertilization event for established stands on marginal land. We examined community structure and bulk metabolic potential, and resolved 29 individual bacteria genomes via metagenomic de novo assembly. Community structure and diversity were not significantly different before and after fertilization; however, the bulk metabolic potential of carbohydrate-active enzymes was depleted after fertilization. We resolved 29 metagenomic assembled genomes, including some from the 'most wanted' soil taxa such as Verrucomicrobia, Candidate phyla UBA10199, Acidobacteria (rare subgroup 23), Dormibacterota, and the very rare Candidatus Eisenbacteria. The Dormibacterota (formally candidate division AD3) we identified have the potential for autotrophic CO utilization, which may impact carbon partitioning and storage. Our study also suggests that the rhizosphere microbiome may be involved in providing associative nitrogen fixation (ANF) via the novel diazotroph Janthinobacterium to switchgrass.


We propose a sequence-to-sequence singing synthesizer, which avoids the need for training data with pre-aligned phonetic and acoustic features. Rather than the more common approach of a content-based attention mechanism combined with an autoregressive decoder, we use a different mechanism suitable for feed-forward synthesis. Given that phonetic timings in singing are highly constrained by the musical score, we derive an approximate initial alignment with the help of a simple duration model. Then, using a decoder based on a feed-forward variant of the Transformer model, a series of self-attention and convolutional layers refines the result of the initial alignment to reach the target acoustic features. Advantages of this approach include faster inference and avoiding the exposure bias issues that affect autoregressive models trained by teacher forcing. We evaluate the effectiveness of this model compared to an autoregressive baseline, the importance of self-attention, and the importance of the accuracy of the duration model.


Native microalgal species may offer a favorable combination of both wastewater treatment and biofuel production. In this research, a green microalgae, Chlamydomonas debaryana, was isolated from a local lagoon, screened for its lipid content using flow cytometry, and further identified with microscopic observations and DNA sequence analysis. When using swine wastewater as a medium, the biomass yields were between 0.6 and 1.62 g/L, giving a median value of 1.11 g/L. By increasing mass transfer rates and providing sufficient light intensity, the microalgal growth was intrinsically enhanced. The growth of C. debaryana reduced most nutritional contents of the wastewater except iron. When combining the microalgal growth and nutrient removal, C. debaryana was able to utilize 1.3 to 1.6×103 mg COD (chemical oxygen demand)/g biomass, 55 to 90 ppm ammonia/g biomass, and 48 to 89 ppm phosphorous/g biomass, The lipid content of C. debaryana was 19.9 ± 4.3% of cell dry weight. The transesterified microalgal oil mostly consisted of 14 kinds of fatty acids, ranging from C5 to C22, which can be refined into renewable jet fuel or used as sources of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.


A range of imine complexes has been prepared which possess planar chirality associated with the attached tricarbonyl(1,2-disubstituted arene)chromium moiety. Nucleophilic addition to the imine group of these complexes occurs with high diastereoselectivity, providing an efficient route to the asymmetric synthesis of chiral amines. The stereochemical outcome of the additions may be rationalized in terms of a favoured conformer for the complexes, with nucleophilic attack occurring on the face of the imine anti to the sterically demanding Cr(CO)3 group. Related studies have also been carried out on imine complexes in which the chiral auxiliary is instead a carbon centre attached to the imine N atom. In these latter systems high diastereoselectivity was also observed, but was not superior to that achieved with the related free amines.


Partial substitution of for has been studied on the high- superconducting materials of the Bi-Pb-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system (2223 phase). D.c. electrical resistivity, critical current density and a.c. magnetic susceptibility were measured by means of the standard four point probe technique and the inductance method, respectively. It was found that small substitution of enhanced slightly the critical transition temperature and decreased the critical current density. A significant change in the atomic concentration of each component with the substitution of was observed by XPS scan.


Although wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are powerful in monitoring physical events, the data collected from a WSN are almost always incomplete if the surveyed physical event spreads over a wide area. The reason for this incompleteness is twofold: i) insufficient network coverage and ii) data aggregation for energy saving. Whereas the existing recovery schemes only tackle the second aspect, we develop Dual-lEvel Compressed Aggregation (DECA) as a novel framework to address both aspects. Specifically, DECA allows a high fidelity recovery of a widespread event, under the situations that the WSN only sparsely covers the event area and that an in-network data aggregation is applied for traffic reduction. Exploiting both the low-rank nature of real-world events and the redundancy in sensory data, DECA combines matrix completion with a fine-tuned compressed sensing technique to conduct a dual-level reconstruction process. We demonstrate that DECA can recover a widespread event with less than 5% of the data (with respect to the dimension of the event) being collected. Performance evaluation based on both synthetic and real data sets confirms the recovery fidelity and energy efficiency of our DECA framework.


This paper has as objective to analyze the influence of compressive strength of concrete in columns during the dimensioning of a multi-story building, making use of CAD/TQS computational tool. The strengths of columns were varied by a ratio of 5 MPa, from 35 MPa to 90 MPa, and the other structural elements remained with strengths of 35 MPa. We analyzed horizontal deformation, stability parameters, optimal sections, as well as quantity take-off and cost estimation for the main materials to be employed (concrete, steel, formworks). The results were satisfactory, since the made a possible reduction of 32% in total column area, as well as a reduction in quantity of materials and, mainly, total construction cost, granting more durability without more expenses and, mainly, without lowering structural safety.


A reliable design of geotechnical structures requires an appropriate estimation and consideration of the parameter's uncertainties. Traditional design codes account for the uncertainties by using conservative factors. This paper presents a reliability-based analysis of the seismic internal stability of geosynthetic reinforced earth retaining walls. The deterministic computation of the structure safety factor is based on the upper bound theorem of limit analysis. The discretization technique is used to generate the rotational failure mechanism so that the seismic loading could be implemented by the pseudo-dynamic approach. The considered uncertainties involve the soil shear strength parameters, seismic loading and reinforcement strength parameters. The Sparse Polynomial Chaos Expansion combined with Monte Carlo Simulation is the reliability method considered to carry out the probabilistic analysis. The influence of the correlation between the soil parameters and the random variables distribution type on the probabilistic results are investigated and discussed. A global sensitivity analysis is performed in order to specify the contribution of each random variable on the reinforced earth retaining wall safety factor.


BACKGROUND
Whether proadrenomedullin (ProADM) improves the performance of the Risk of Early Admission to ICU (REA-ICU) score in predicting early, severe community-acquired pneumonia (ESCAP) has not been demonstrated.

METHODS
Secondary analysis was completed of the original data from 877 consecutive patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) enrolled in the Procalcitonin-Guided Antibiotic Therapy and Hospitalization in Patients With Lower Respiratory Tract Infections (ProHOSP) study, a multicenter trial in EDs of six tertiary-care hospitals in Switzerland. ESCAP was defined by either the requirement for mechanical ventilation or vasopressive drugs or occurrence of death within 3 days of ED presentation.

RESULTS
Eighty patients (9.1%) developed ESCAP (47 required mechanical ventilation, 19 vasopressive drugs, and 16 died) within 3 days of ED presentation. They had a higher median ProADM value (2.18 nmol/L vs 1.15 nmol/L, P < .001). Combining ProADM testing with the REA-ICU score improved the area under the curve (0.81) compared with either parameter (ProADM [0.73] or REA-ICU score [0.76], P < .001) and resulted in a net reclassification improvement of 0.20 (P < .001). A ProADM value ≥ 1.8 nmol/L or assignment to REA-ICU risk classes III-IV predicted ESCAP with a sensitivity of 76.3% and a negative predictive value of 96.7%. Excluding 21 patients with major criteria of severe CAP on presentation showed similar results.

CONCLUSION
These study findings demonstrate that the addition of ProADM to the REA-ICU score improves the classification of a substantial proportion of patients in the ED at intermediate or high risk for ESCAP, which may translate into better triage decisions.


Selecting the step size for the Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithm (MALA) is necessary in order to obtain satisfactory performance. However, finding an adequate step size for an arbitrary target distribution can be a difficult task and even the best step size can perform poorly in specific regions of the space when the target distribution is sufficiently complex. To resolve this issue we introduce autoMALA, a new Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm based on MALA that automatically sets its step size at each iteration based on the local geometry of the target distribution. We prove that autoMALA has the correct invariant distribution, despite continual automatic adjustments of the step size. Our experiments demonstrate that autoMALA is competitive with related state-of-the-art MCMC methods, in terms of the number of log density evaluations per effective sample, and it outperforms state-of-the-art samplers on targets with varying geometries. Furthermore, we find that autoMALA tends to find step sizes comparable to optimally-tuned MALA when a fixed step size suffices for the whole domain.


Prediction of bacteria-carrying particle dispersion and distribution released from personnel in an operating room has been simulated by means of computational fluid dynamics technique. This investigation is focused on the performance and influence of a local ultra-clean laminar ventilation system on the airflow field and the particle distribution in an operating room. A RNG k-e turbulence model was used to map the airflow field. Particle movement was simulated using Lagrangian DRW particle tracking method. It is shown that, MLAF can play a key role in the microorganism transmission over the instrument and operating tables. Counts of particles reveal obvious declining trends as the MLAF airflow speed increased.


We investigate the impact of pulse interleaving and optical amplification on the spectral purity of microwave signals generated by photodetecting the pulsed output of an Er:fiber-based optical frequency comb. It is shown that the microwave phase noise floor can be extremely sensitive to delay length errors in the interleaver, and the contribution of the quantum noise from optical amplification to the phase noise can be reduced ∼10  dB for short pulse detection. We exploit optical amplification, in conjunction with high power handling modified unitraveling carrier photodetectors, to generate a phase noise floor on a 10 GHz carrier of -175  dBc/Hz, the lowest ever demonstrated in the photodetection of a mode-locked fiber laser. At all offset frequencies, the photodetected 10 GHz phase noise performance is comparable to or better than the lowest phase noise results yet demonstrated with stabilized Ti:sapphire frequency combs.


With the fourth industrial revolution manufacturing industry faces new challenges. Small batches of personalized parts, where the geometry changes per part, must be produced in an economically viable manner. In such cases of mass personalization new manufacturing technologies are required which can keep manufacturing overhead related to change of part geometries low. These processes need to address the issues of extensive calibration and tooling costs, must be able to handle complex parts and reduce production steps. According to recent studies hybrid technologies, including electrochemical technologies, are promising to address these manufacturing challenges.
At the same time, glass has fascinated and attracted much interest from both the academic and industrial world, mainly because it is optically and radio frequency transparent, chemically inert, environmentally friendly and it has excellent mechanical and thermal properties, allowing tailoring of new and dedicated applications. However, glass is a hard to machine material, due to its hardness and brittleness. Machining smooth, high-aspect ratio structures is still challenging due to long machining times, high machining costs and poor surface quality. Hybrid methods like Spark Assisted Chemical Engraving (SACE) perform well to address these issues.
Nevertheless, SACE cannot be deployed for high-precision glass mass-personalization by industry and academia, due to 1) lack of process models for glass cutting and milling, relating SACE input parameters to a desired output, 2) extensive calibration needed for tool-workpiece alignment and tool run-out elimination, 3) part specific tooling required for proper clamping of the glass workpiece to attain high precision.
In this study, SACE technology was progressively developed from a mass-fabrication technology towards a process for mass-personalization of high-precision glass parts by addressing these issues. Key was the development of 1) an (empirically validated) model for SACE cutting and milling process operations allowing direct relation of the machining input to the desired machining outcome, enabling a dramatical increase of automation across the manufacturing process workflow from desired design to establishing of machinable code containing all necessary manufacturing execution information, 2) in-situ fabrication of the needed tooling and 3) the use of low-cost rapid prototyping, eliminating high indirect machining costs and long lead times.
To show the viability of this approach two novel applications in the microtechnology field were proposed and developed using glass as substrate material and SACE technology for rapid prototyping: a) fabrication of glass imprint templates for microfabricating devices by hot embossing and b) manufacturing of glass dies for micro-forming of metal micro parts.


The pre-computation of data cubes is critical for improving the response time of OLAP On-Line Analytical Processing systems. To meet the need for improved performance created by growing data sizes, parallel solutions for data cube construction are becoming increasingly important. This paper presents a new parallel data cube construction scheme based on an extendible multidimensional array, which is dynamically extendible along any dimension without relocating any existing data. The authors have implemented and evaluated their parallel data cube construction methods on shared-memory multiprocessors. Given the performance limit, the methods achieve close to linear speedup with load balance. The authors' experiments also indicate that their parallel methods can be more scalable on higher dimensional data cube construction.


Abstract Post-ischemic long-term potentiation (i-LTP) is a pathological form of plasticity that was observed in glutamate receptor-mediated neurotransmission after stroke and may exert a detrimental effect via facilitating excitotoxic damage. The mechanism underlying i-LTP, however, remains less understood. By employing electrophysiological recording and immunofluorescence assay on hippocampal slices and cultured neurons, we found that protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ), an atypical protein kinase C isoform, was involved in enhancing aminomethyl phosphonic acid (AMPA) receptor (AMPAR) expression after i-LTP induction. PKMζ knockdown attenuated postsynaptic expression of AMPA receptors and disrupted i-LTP. Consistently, we observed less neuronal death of cultured hippocampal cells with PKMζ knockdown. Meanwhile, these findings indicate that PKMζ plays an important role in i-LTP by regulating postsynaptic expression of AMPA receptors. This work adds new knowledge to the mechanism of i-LTP, and thus is helpful to find the potential target for clinical therapy of ischemic stroke.


Coptic-Arabic liturgical texts express the Easter mysteries in the rich idiom of the Scriptures and ancient Christian tradition, as seen in the Eucharistic Liturgies of St. Basil and St. Gregory, as well as in hymns and prayers of the Sixth and the Ninth Canonical Hours. They concentrate on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as connected to that of the Holy Mass. The liturgical texts profess, in accordance to the Creed, the Divine economy of salvation in the incarnation of the Son of God and his crucifixion for human sin, his death and descent to the hell as well as ascent to the Father. Prefigured in Isaac and the Suffering Servant, he is seen as establishing the Eucharistic Sacrament on Maundy Thursday to perpetualize the effects of his sacrifice for partici- pants in the Mass. His trial and his suffering before Pontius Pilate is contem- plated, along with his crucifixion, his acceptance of the Thief on the Right. The liturgical texts essentially confess Christ's death in the human body, his burial and descent to save the deceased, his resurrection and his ascension to sit with the Father. These points are succintly expressed in the ancient Trisagion. Fundamental is the connection between Christ's incarnation and the redemption as well as between his past work of salvation and its present effect in the Eucharist. Coptic liturgical texts unite catechesis of faith to acting out Christ's Easter mysteries where the salvatory events happen in the life of the participants.


Abstract The addition of a transmitted electron detector to a scanning electron microscope (SEM) allows the recording of bright and dark field scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) images and the corresponding in-lens secondary electron images from the same region of a thin sample. These combined imaging techniques have been applied here to the analysis of ultrathin sections of cells exposed in vitro to nanomaterials for toxicology investigation. Electron microscopy in general permits the exact nature of the interaction of nanomaterials and cells to be elucidated, and in addition the use of STEM mode in the SEM enables the easy identification and exclusion of artefacts produced by ultramicrotome sectioning. The imaging and analysis obtained by using the STEM mode in the SEM configuration from three different nanomaterial systems of importance (iron oxide nanoparticles, single-walled carbon nanotubes and cadmium selenide quantum dots) indicate that it is a simple, practical and cost-effective tool for nanotoxicological research.


The alloys based on the intermetallic phases from Ti-Al system are materials which, on the grounds of their resistance characteristics, could be widely used in automotive and aerospace applications. The insufficient oxidation resistance of this alloys could be increased by the coating silicon modification. The technology used in this investigation was the immersion in water-based slurry containing metal powders. MHI high-Nb (14 wt %) alloy has been used as the research material for the coatings produced. The water-based slurries containing Al and Si powders have been prepared with 0-80 wt % Si content. The diffusion treatment has been done at 950oC in 4h in the Ar atmosphere. The investigation has showed that the thickness of the coatings ranged from 30 to 40 m. The structure of the Si-modified aluminide coatings is as follows: (a) outer zone consisting of TiAl3 phase and titanium silicides, (b) middle zone consisting of columnar titanium silicides in phase TiAl3 matrix (c) the inner zone consisting of TiAl2 phase. The XRD phase analysis has confirmed Ti5Si3 creation and, in case of the high silicon content (above 20 wt %), also other silicides: types Ti5Si4,TiSi2,TiSi


BACKGROUND: Strawberry (Fragaria spp.) is prone to natural polyploidization. Strawberry shoots regenerated through tissue culture callus may exhibit variations in ploidy. Rapid and accurate ploidy estimation is important for basic research as well as cultivar improvement. OBJECTIVES: Ploidy-measurement methods are well established in strawberry and other plants. The objective of this work was to define the strengths and limitations to various ploidy-estimation tests. METHODS: Measurements were performed on a set of known diploids and polyploids as well as synthetic colchiploids. Comparisons were made using petiole size, stomatal size, leaf dimensions, and pollen diameter and compared to flow cytometry results. RESULTS: Simple methods like leaf proportions and stomatal size may vary greatly based on environmental factors. Pollen measurement proves reliable, but only within tetraploids arising from a single genotype. Measurements made with flow cytometry reliably indicated ploidy and revealed within-plant variation such as mixoploidy. CONCLUSIONS: Methods for measuring ploidy in Fragaria vary in complexity, ease, execution time and precision. This work defines the strengths and limitations of several methods, along with the considerations required for accurate comparisons between genotypes and ploidy levels.


: The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro effects of the addition of three essential oils, mainly cuminaldehyde, eugenol, and thymol to alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L.) silage on gas production, digestibility, and metabolic energy. The essential oils were added at 0 ppm (controls) and 100 ppm (group 1), 200 ppm (group 2), and 300 ppm (group 3) with three replications. The cumulative amount of gas resulting from the addition of the three essential oils at the 96th h of incubation was significantly lower than that of the control group (P < 0.05). The cumulative amount of gas production at the 96th h of incubation with thymol ranged from 184.63 mL/g to 217.38 mL/g. In conclusion, this study showed that the addition of different amounts of cuminaldehyde, eugenol, and thymol to alfalfa silage reduced the amount of in vitro gas production. Therefore, these treatments can potentially reduce environmental pollution from ruminal digestion. However, the use of increasing levels of essential oils reduced the amounts of digestible organic matter and metabolic energy. Additional studies are necessary to reveal the effects of these essential oils on in vivo ruminal fermentation by measuring changes in feed consumption and productivity.


Given a probability distribution from which the energy spectrum of a random peptide is to be sampled, we derive a general expression for the probability that such a peptide will fold to a unique native state and for the probability distribution of the native energy. This latter result allows us to localize the energy of folding based on model parameters and is one advantage of our formulation. Evidence from both the lattice theory of proteins and protein threading experiments suggest that the energy spectrum for the compact states of a peptide chain is Gaussian in form. For this reason we have derived from the more general framework the specific formulas that apply in the Gaussian case, where one requires only the number of states and the variance of the Gaussian distribution in order to apply the theory. This simplicity allows us to perform calculations that we compare with calculations previously made by others based on statistical thermodynamics. We find qualitative agreement, but a significant correction to prior estimates of folding probability derived from the Gaussian assumption is necessary. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


ABSTRACT Broth culture of Trichomonas vaginalis is considered the "gold standard" for the diagnosis of trichomoniasis. Two studies were carried out to evaluate modified Columbia agar (MCA) for the isolation of T. vaginalis from clinical samples. Study I compared isolation on MCA to that on liquid medium with 889 vaginal samples. Out of 63 samples positive for T. vaginalis (7.1% of total), MCA identified 62 (98.4%) and broth identified 58 (92.1%). In study II, trichomoniasis was diagnosed within the scope of a screening program for a total of 39,585 men and women by culture on MCA and direct microscopy. Culture on MCA detected 199 (98.5%) and Gram staining detected 163 (80.7%) of 202 positive specimens. Wet-mount preparations used for symptomatic patients identified 103 (92.8%) of 111 cases. Culture of T. vaginalis from clinical samples on MCA is highly sensitive and reliable, as well as timesaving, and therefore suitable for screening of symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals.


Assessing the extreme events is crucial in financial risk management. All risk managers and financial institutions want to know the risk of their portfolio under rare events scenarios. We illustrate a multivariate market risk estimating method which employs Monte Carlo simulations to estimate Value-at-Risk (VaR) for a portfolio of 4 stock exchange indexes from Central Europe. The method uses the non-parametric empirical distribution to capture small risks and the parametric Extreme Value Theory to capture large and rare risks. We compare estimates of this method with historical simulation and variance-covariance method under low and high volatility samples of data. In general historical simulation method gives higher estimates of VaR for extreme events, while variance-covariance lower. The method that we illustrate gives a result in between the two because it considers historical performance of the stocks and also corrects for the heavy tails of the distribution. We conclude that the estimate method that we illustrate here is useful in estimating VaR for extreme events, especially for high volatility times.


In order to achieve secure access to fingerprint image, a symmetric fingerprint image encryption is proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithm is based on combination of scrambling and confusion processes. Chaotic map is used for the scrambling the addresses of the fingerprint image pixels while bit-level permutation is used to confuse the values of image pixels so as to enhance the security. Experimental results are carried out with detailed analysis to demonstrate that the proposed image encryption scheme possesses large key space to resist brute-force attack and possesses good statistical properties to frustrate statistical analysis attacks. Experiments are also performed to illustrate the robustness against malicious attacks like cropping, noising.


Frontiers of Macromolecular and Supramolecular Science is the name given to a symposium series created in 2008, under the name Frontiers of Macromolecular Science, and continued under the new extended name. This symposium is based only on invited plenary speakers and is held under the auspices of the Romanian Academy of Science, to celebrate the life and achievements of Professor Christofor I. Simionescu, who was Director of the Petru Poni Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry in Iasi, Romania, for 30 years (1970–2000). During this time, Simionescu promoted intense research activity and advanced the field of organic and macromolecular chemistry over several domains including the chemistry of wood, cellulose materials and polysaccharides, the synthesis of new initiators, new monomers and polymerizations, mechano-chemistry of polymers, plasma-chemistry and origins of life, electro-initiated polymerizations, and macromolecular charge-transfer complexes (CTC). He developed the chemistry for the synthesis of acetylenic macromolecular compounds and derivatives with photoconductive properties, and elaborated the conduction theory in organic compounds. As the name of the series implies, the symposia have featured, from the outset, frontier science. Importantly, participating plenary speakers have included the leaders of macromolecular science from the USA, Europe, and Asia. The symposia, which are typically held in the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, as well as in the Romanian Academy's Petru Poni Institute in Iasi, provide a fitting and continuing tribute to Professor Christofor I. Simionescu, the founding father of Macromolecular Science in Romania.


The under-drive brake piston is an essential part in the automatic transmissions of automobiles. This component is manufactured by forging after blanking from S55C plate with a thickness of 6mm. It is difficult to design the plate forging process using a thick plate approach since there will be limited material flow as well as large press loads. Furthermore, the under-drive brake piston has a complex shape with a right angle step, which often results in die unfill and abrupt increase in press load. To overcome these obstacles, a separate die for filling material sufficiently to the corner of the right angle step is proposed. However, this approach induces an uncontrolled workpiece surface between the dies, resulting in flash. This excess flash degrades the tool life in the final machining after cold forging as well as increases the cycle time to obtain the net-shape of the part. In the current study, we propose an optimum process design using a conventional die shaped with the benefit of finite element analysis. This approach enhanced the process efficiency without sacrificing the dimensional accuracy in the forged part. As the result, the optimum plate forging process was done with a two stage die, which reduces weight of by 6% compared with previous process for the under-drive brake piston.


Background: There are many clinical situations in which evidence-based guidelines cannot definitively determine the appropriateness of diagnostic catheterization. One specialty benefits management company has taken a two-step approach towards handling this ambiguity: first evaluating the appropriateness of orders using a rule-based decision support system, and then having reviewers provide additional input through the review process of a nondenial prior authorization program. When reviewers did not find a clear case for appropriateness, ordering physicians were engaged in a discussion with a peer physician. This program evaluation reports on the outcomes of diagnostic catheterization orders analyzed through this two-step process. Methods: Data from 2015 elective diagnostic catheterization orders submitted by one health insurer's Medicare Advantage plans were used for this program evaluation. The rates at which the rule-based system suggested orders were inadequately justified, potentially nonindicated, and potentially appropriate are presented. Rates of approval after review and information gathering by the review process are presented for the three groups of orders. Chi-squared tests were conducted to examine whether the classification of the orders by the rule-based system and the review system were independent of the plan type (HMO or PPO), the specialty of the ordering physician (cardiologist or noncardiologist), or state of residence of the patient (FL, KY, LA, OH, TX, or other). Results: There were 3,808 orders for elective diagnostic catheterization, and inadequate initial justification was provided for 699 (18.4%) of the orders. After inquiry through the review process, 509 (72.8%) of these orders were approved. Among the 344 (9.0%) orders deemed potentially nonindicated by the rule-based system, the review process approved 298 (86.7%). Of the 2,765 (72.6%) orders deemed potentially appropriate by the rule-based system, the review process approved 99.1% (2,740/2,765). Chi-squared tests did not show a significant association between plan type (p=0.18) or physician specialty (p=0.89) and the classification of the order by the rule-based system. However, there was a significant association between the classification of the order by the rule-based system and state of residence of the patient (p Conclusions: Rule-based decision support can be combined with a review process featuring peer discussion to determine whether care is appropriate when guidelines are ambiguous. Orders which are poorly justified are often supportable after gathering information on the patient's presentation. There may be state-based variation in the appropriateness of orders.


The size of a country's police force is of great public and political concern. In the 2006 national election campaign the opposition coalition promised that if they would be elected the number of police officers in Sweden would increase from about 17 500 to 20 000 by the year 2010. The coalition was elected and the political goal was achieved. The main question in this report is: What impact will such an increase of the number of police officers have on the crime rate?In this report previous research, mainly from the United States, is reviewed and thoroughly analyses of the relationship between police strength and domestic burglary, robbery, homicide and car related offences in Sweden are made. The data consists of a random sample of 145 municipalities studied between the years 2001 and 2008. A complementary data set consists of all 21 police forces in Sweden between 1995 and 2009. Through panel data analysis it is concluded that an increase of the local police by 10 percent would possibly reduce domestic burglary by 3 to 4 percent. No impact is found on robbery, car theft or homicide, however. More police officers also means that more drug offences are being registered and more crimes in general being cleared-up.The allocation of police officers is also briefly investigated in this study. About 30 percent of all police officers in Sweden are allocated to Stockholm County. This proportion has been fairly stable over the last 15 years. However, the population in this metropolitan area has increase by 20 percent since 1995, compared to about 3 percent in the rest of the country. One consequence is that the surplus of police officers per capita in Stockholm in relation to the number of officers per capita in the rest of the country has decreased substantially.


has evolved considerably over the past decades. Reported mortality rates have fallen as a result of a variety of factors, including earlier diagnosis and treatment of the acute event, improved management of complications such as recurrent ischaemia and heart failure, and general availability of pharmacological treatments such as aspirin, â blockers, and angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors. Most attention, however, has been focused on treatments that may restore antegrade coronary blood flow in the culprit artery of the patient with evolving acute myocardial infarction. The two methods to achieve this goal are thrombolytic treatment and immediate coronary angiography followed by primary angioplasty if appropriate.


Development of accurate -turn (beta-turn) type prediction methods would contribute towards the prediction of the tertiary protein structure and would provide useful insights/inputs for the fold recognition and drug design. Only one existing sequence-only method is available for the prediction of beta-turn types (for type I and II) for the entire pro- tein chains, while the proposed method allows for prediction of type I, II, IV, VII, and non-specific (NS) beta-turns, filling in the gap. The proposed predictor, which is based solely on protein sequence, is shown to provide similar performance to other sequence-only methods for prediction of beta-turns and beta-turn types. The main advantage of the proposed method is simplicity and interpretability of the underlying model. We developed novel sequence-based features that allow identi- fying beta-turns types and differentiating them from non-beta-turns. The features, which are based on tetrapeptides (entire beta-turns) rather than a window centered over the predicted residues as in the case of recent competing methods, provide a more biologically sound model. They include 12 features based on collocation of amino acid pairs, focusing on amino acids (Gly, Asp, and Asn) that are known to be predisposed to form beta-turns. At the same time, our model also includes features that are geared towards exclusion of non-beta-turns, which are based on amino acids known to be strongly detri- mental to formation of beta-turns (Met, Ile, Leu, and Val).


The objective of this study was to evaluate a filter system to harvest plasma to assess failure of passive transfer (FPT) in newborn calves. Blood samples (n = 227) for serum and plasma harvesting were collected via jugular vein puncture from Holstein calves aged 1 to 7 d from 4 commercial dairy herds in Northeast Germany. Serum IgG concentrations were determined using a sandwich ELISA. Failure of passive transfer was defined as IgG concentrations <10 mg/mL and used as a gold standard. One handheld optical refractometer (Euromex Holland, Arnhem, the Netherlands) and 2 digital Brix refractometers (device 1: HI 96801 digital refractometer, Hanna Instruments, Woonsocket, RI; device 2: Misco PA201, Misco, Solon, OH) were used to analyze total proteins in serum or plasma. The colostrum uptake of the calf can thus be monitored and calves with FPT can be identified. Serum was obtained through centrifugation. Plasma was obtained through either a filter system or centrifugation. For plasma filtration, approximately 2 mL of lithium heparin blood was injected into the inlet reservoir of a plasma filter (2-Drop-Filter, Pharmadoc, Lübeck, Germany) using a disposable syringe. Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses were used to determine optimum thresholds for each of the 3 devices using different media. Sixty-seven (30%) calves had FPT. For the handheld optical refractometer, the optimum threshold was 5.6 g/dL [sensitivity 70.1%; specificity 80.0%; positive predictive value (PPV) 60.1%; negative predictive value (NPV) 86.2%; area under the curve (AUC) 0.85] using serum. For centrifuged plasma, the optimum threshold was 6.3 g/dL (sensitivity 82.1%; specificity 68.1%; PPV 52.5%; NPV 89.9%; AUC 0.84), and for filtered plasma, the threshold was 6.0 g/dL (sensitivity 56.7%; specificity 90.0%; PPV 70.9%; NPV 82.9%; AUC 0.80). For device 1, the optimum threshold was 8.9% Brix (sensitivity 82.1%; specificity 63.8%; PPV 48.7%; NPV 89.5%; AUC 0.81), 9.4% Brix (sensitivity 76.1%; specificity 73.7%; PPV 55.4%; NPV 87.8%; AUC 0.80), using serum and centrifuged plasma, respectively. For device 2, the optimum threshold was 8.7% Brix (sensitivity 74.6%; specificity 76.2%; PPV 57.4%; NPV 87.5%; AUC 0.83), 9.5% Brix (sensitivity 80.6%; specificity 70.6%; PPV 54.0%; NPV 89.5%; AUC 0.83), and 9.2% Brix (sensitivity 58.2%; specificity 87.5%; PPV 66.6%; NPV 83.0%; AUC 0.80) using serum, centrifuged plasma, and filtered plasma, respectively. Based on the AUC, the 3 devices yielded comparable test characteristics to identify calves with FPT. In conclusion, a filter system can be used to facilitate the evaluation of FPT as a point of care technique in calves without the need for serum centrifugation.


Abstract Chains of minimal degree rational curves have been used as an important tool in the study of Fano manifolds. Their own geometric properties, however, have not been studied much. The goal of the paper is to introduce an infinitesimal method to study chains of minimal rational curves via varieties of minimal rational tangents and their higher secants. For many examples of Fano manifolds this method can be used to compute the minimal length of chains needed to join two general points. One consequence of our computation is a bound on the multiplicities of divisors at a general point of the moduli of stable bundles of rank two on a curve.


Introduction: Homologous recombination repair (HRR) is a critical pathway for the repair of DNA damage caused by cisplatin or poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. HRR may be impaired by multiple mechanisms in cancer, which complicates assessing the functional HRR status in cells. Here, we monitored the ability of non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells to form subnuclear foci of DNA repair proteins as a surrogate of HRR proficiency. Methods: We assessed clonogenic survival of 16 NSCLC cell lines in response to cisplatin, mitomycin C (MMC), and the PARP inhibitor olaparib. Thirteen tumor explants from patients with NSCLC were subjected to cisplatin ex vivo. Cells were assayed for foci of repair-associated proteins such as BRCA1, FANCD2, RAD51, and &ggr;-H2AX. Results: Four cell lines (25%) showed an impaired RAD51 foci-forming ability in response to cisplatin. Impaired foci formation correlated with cellular sensitivity to cisplatin, MMC and olaparib. Foci responses complemented or superseded genomic information suggesting alterations in the ATM/ATR and FA/BRCA pathways. Because baseline foci in untreated cells did not predict drug sensitivity, we adapted an ex vivo biomarker assay to monitor damage-induced RAD51 foci in NSCLC explants from patients. Ex vivo cisplatin treatment of explants identified two tumors (15%) exhibiting compromised RAD51 foci induction. Conclusions: A fraction of NSCLC harbors HRR defects that may sensitize the affected tumors to DNA-damaging agents including PARP inhibitors. We propose that foci-based functional biomarker assays represent a powerful tool for prospective determination of treatment sensitivity, but will require ex vivo techniques for induction of DNA damage to unmask the underlying HRR defect.


The paper deals with the tasks of medical, social and psychial services for elderly patients in a special geriatric hospital. According to the different circumstances in life different ways of life are evident.


The objective of this study was to analyse the effects of land use/land cover change (1955 - 2008) and migration (1950 - 2008) on the hydrological processes and soil physical properties in the Gokcay river catchment. The study area is located in Cankiri province, Ilgaz district, and Gokcay river catchment (41°04'N, 40°55'E). The necessary data were obtained from forest stand maps (1955 and 2008) and evaluated with geographic information system in order to introduce the effect of this land use/land cover change on soil properties and to assess the patterns during a 53-years period. The largest change has been in the forest openings. The forest has decreased from 25 to 7%. These areas have been used as forest, agricultural and settlement areas. Five sites were sampled in an unchanged forest, cultivated areas, natural rangeland, and sites that were changed from cultivated area to rangeland 10 and 50 years ago. Bulk density, hydraulic conductivity, water stable aggregates, soil organic matter and total nitrogen decreased in cultivated soil as compared to the forest soil. The soil properties of the permanent rangelands and of the cultivated field, converted to rangelands 10 and 50 years ago, were similar. The result showed that it is important to understand effects of spatial and temporal changes of land use/land cover and demographic structure their effects on landscape pattern and soil properties to dis-close the implications for land use planning and management.

 Key words: Land use/ land cover, demographic processes, soil, catchment.


A close-packed monolayer of TiO2 nanocrystals was deposited on a conducting glass support using Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) techniques and fired. A close-packed mixed monolayer of eicosyl phosphonic acid (I) and the viologen. 1,1'-dieicosyl-4,4'-bipyridinium dichloride (II) was then deposited on the TiO2 substrate, also using LB techniques. At sufficiently high dilutions of II in II a single viologen molecule is adsorbed with a known orientation at the surface of each nanocrystal. The resulting assembly was incorporated as the working electrode in an electrochemical cell. Under open circuit conditions, bandgap excitation of a TiO2 nanocrystal results in electron transfer to a viologen molecule. No electron transfer between the viologen molecules adsorbed at different nanocrystals is observed. At a positive applied potential, electron transfer following bandgap excitation is largely suppressed. Considered are the implications of these findings for the development of practical devices based on modulatable function addressable on the nanometer scale.


This chapter considers the potential of the Comet assay [or single-cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE)] for evaluating the environmental impact of genotoxins in aquatic environments. It focuses on in vivo and in situ studies that have been carried out using various marine and freshwater sentinel species. A large number of the studies reviewed report that the Comet assay is more sensitive when compared with other biomarkers commonly used in genetic ecotoxicology, such as sister chromatid exchanges or the micronucleus test. The Comet assay is widely influenced by laboratory procedures, suggesting that standard protocols are required for both vertebrate and invertebrate species and tissues. However, there is still a wide variety of differing Comet procedures evident in the literature reviewed, making comparison between published results often very difficult. Standardization and inter-laboratory calibration of the Comet assay as applied to aquatic species will be required if the Comet assay is to be used routinely by national bodies charged with monitoring water quality.


Multi-terminal multi-dot devices have been put forward as versatile and performant setups for thermoelectric energy harvesting at the nanoscale. With a technique that encompasses and overtakes several of the usual theoretical tools used in this context, we explore a three-terminal Coulomb-coupled-dot device for refrigeration purposes. The refrigerator is monitored by either a voltage or a thermal bias. This comparative study shows that heat driven refrigerator is much underperforming than the power driven one, due to scarce on-dot charge fluctuations.


This paper outlines the difficulties with the current system of tiering in GCSE Mathematics exams, indicating both the problem of equality across tiers of the same grade and a particular problem in Mathematics, which with three tiers has a foundation tier on which it is not possible to gain a C grade.The authors outline a different system in which all candidates take basic papers on which all grades from G to C can be awarded and then an extension paper is available for the higher grades. This system has been tried out with a sample of pupils from a number of schools and a non-operational award was made. The authors describe the results of this and discuss potential difficulties with this system. Comparisons between the systems are made, showing that the established system of tiering is inherently unstable, while the proposed system, though not perfect, has much to commend it.


Electrochemical energy storage (EES) devices have attracted immense research interests as an effective technology for utilizing renewable energy. 1D carbon-based nanostructures are recognized as highly promising materials for EES application, combining the advantages of functional 1D nanostructures and carbon nanomaterials. Here, the recent advances of 1D carbon-based nanomaterials for electrochemical storage devices are considered. First, the different categories of 1D carbon-based nanocomposites, namely, 1D carbon-embedded, carbon-coated, carbon-encapsulated, and carbon-supported nanostructures, and the different synthesis methods are described. Next, the practical applications and optimization effects in electrochemical energy storage devices including Li-ion batteries, Na-ion batteries, Li-S batteries, and supercapacitors are presented. After that, the advanced in situ detection techniques that can be used to investigate the fundamental mechanisms and predict optimization of 1D carbon-based nanocomposites are discussed. Finally, an outlook for the development trend of 1D carbon-based nanocomposites for EES is provided.


Biomedical electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and imaging (EPRI) are techniques allowing in vivo assessment of certain physiological parameters such as oxgen concentration, pH, tissues redox status, etc. By contrast with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), widely used in clinics, which uses the nuclear spin of endogen water's protons, in vivo EPR spectroscopy and EPRI need the use of a spin label (a free radical). This multidisciplinary work focuses on the development of new spin labels, of type triarylmethyl (TAM) radical, for biomedical EPR applications. We developed a water soluble phosphonated TAM radical used to measure pH in vivo in a physiological range while fluorinated TAMs were synthetized to asset oxygen concentration with high sensitivity using biocompatible perfluorocarbon formuations. The static and dynamic stereochemistry of TAM alcohols, alkanes and radicals were also studied. Theses molecules adopt a propeller shape conformation allowing to atropoisomeric conformations to occur that feature enantiomeric relationship. Due to high steric hindrance, the enantiomerization between the two enantiomers is restricted, a phenomenon which is responsible for the chiral properties of TAM compounds. Finally, we synthesized tumor targeted spin labels by binding the TAM radical to targeting moieties such as a small peptide containing the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence or a home made peptidomimetic of this sequence.


(3)H-labelled Pseudomonas endotoxin was incubated in vitro with blood from nontolerant and endotoxin tolerant calves. Formed elements were separated from serial samples of the incubated mixtures. The labelled endotoxin became associated with neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes, platelets and erythrocytes. Association of (3)H-endotoxin with formed elements of the blood occurred during the first five minutes of incubation and did not significantly change over the course of a three hour incubation period. Tolerance did not result in increased uptake of (3)H-endotoxin by formed elements of the blood. Tolerance of calves to endotoxin is apparently not due to increased uptake of endotoxin by formed elements of the blood. The Limulus amebocyte lysate assay was unreliable for the detection of endotoxin which was present in calf blood in vitro and requires further modification.


In recent years, there has been a tremendous increase in the interest in micro algal metabolites. A novel 11-kDa virucidal protein, named cyanovirin- N (CV-N) has been isolated and sequenced from cultures of filamentous blue green alga, Nostoc ellipsosporum. This compound irreversibly inactivated diverse T-lymphocyte-tropic (T-tropic), laboratory adapted strains of HIV type 1, HIV type 2 and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). A water based extract of Aphanizommon flosaquae containing high concentrations of phycocyanin inhibited the in vitro growth of one out of four tumor cell lines, indicating that at least some tumor cell types may be directly sensitive to killing by phycocyanin. Another fresh water blue-green alga, Phormidium tenue containing several diacyl-glycerol compounds effectively inhibited chemically induced skin tumors in mice. Studies on whole blue green algae in humans, mice, rats, cats and chickens have demonstrated their effect on phagocytosis, NK cell function and inflammation. Blue green algae in general contain a significant amount of carotenoids, namely beta carotene, lycopene and lutein, providing it good antioxidant properties. By their quenching action on reactive oxygen species, antioxidants carry intrinsic anti-inflammatory properties. Macrolides are one of the structural types often seen in Streptomyces-metabolites, and several major antibiotics belong to this class. Macrolides are also produced by blue green algae that include scytophycins from Scytonema sp. and tolytoxin from Tolypothrix conglutinata var. colorata. The coming years may witness some interesting developments in biotechnology of blue green algae which may give a new dimension to the therapeutic utilization of blue green algae.


A novel Cu reflow seed process which utilizes PVD technology components has been demonstrated for 64nm pitch dual damascene interconnects. Prior to Cu electroplating, small features can be partially filled with Cu by this newly developed Cu reflow seed process. More than 60% improvement of via-chain yield is obtained by Cu reflow seed compared to conventional seed. A sacrificial Cu underlayer was applied to reduce barrier damage effects during Cu reflow seed processing, successfully suppressing any line resistance increase. This Cu reflow seed process is a promising candidate for improving Cu fill properties of 64nm pitch interconnects and beyond.


The practitioners of activities such as bouldering or mountain climbing sometimes find themselves in the situation of needing textile equipment that offer protection without limiting the body mobility. Modern design implies a complex process, from concept, to modelling, to prototyping and testing. The paper presents a tutorial which is useful for training of all those involved in designing, modelling and manufacturing knee pads integrated into protective garments, using certain principles regarding ergonomics, impact force management, texture, weight etc. The use of modelling software such as Rhinoceros 3D and Grasshopper offer also a wide array of tools for creating a virtual model which be later evaluated in virtual strain tests.
The next step is creating a physical prototype, in order to test and compare materials, textures and physical parameters. This is where 3D printing technologies come in, compacting the physical modelling and prototyping process and offering designers, manufacturers or students a better control over the whole design and development process. Parameters such as material, infill, shell thickness can greatly influence an object's behaviour under strain tests. The fact that it can be build a minutely accurate scale prototype of a model in a very short time, without having to deal with the logistic or acquisition of expensive precision equipment, is especially relevant in the current context of the pandemic. This offers the possibility to create several prototypes of knee pads, made from plastics of varying degrees of rigidity, with differing infill percentage and layout, which will be further tested in order to assess their fit with the needs of climbers. In this context, 3D printing offers a new perspective in prototyping, providing a compact solution for most of the challenges in developing new functional or protective textile products.


An exact k-beta (dispersion) equation to within the dipole scattering approximation has been obtained for a 3D array of two different alternating magnetodielectric spheres. The dispersion equation has the form of equating to zero the determinant of a system of four homogeneous equations in the normalized scattered field coefficients. Computationally efficient expressions are obtained for the coefficients of the homogeneous equation system as functions of the sphere radii, permittivities, and permeabilities, the free-space electrical separation distance of the array elements (kd), and the electrical separation distance (betad) for the traveling wave supported by the array. For a given value of kd and an array of lossless scatterers the determinant equation can be solved for real betad by a simple search procedure. For an array of lossy scatterers betad is complex and a more difficult minimization in the complex plane is required to solve the determinant equation. The solution to the dispersion equation also yields values for the effective permittivity and permeability of the array regarded as a continuous medium. Computations were performed to investigate the performance of two-sphere arrays of lossless dielectric spheres, with the permittivities and radii of the two different dielectric spheres composing the array chosen so that the first magnetic dipole resonant frequency of one set of spheres equals the first electric dipole resonant frequency of the second set of spheres. Although it is shown that arrays composed of two different alternating purely dielectric spheres can behave as isotropic DNG media unlike arrays of identical dielectric spheres, the bandwidths are considerably narrower than those achievable with arrays of identical magnetodielectric spheres with appreciable permittivity and permeability close to each other. The practicality of using arrays of alternating two different purely dielectric spheres to fabricate DNG media depends on whether the narrow bandwidths are acceptable for the desired applications.


Data center networks with random topologies provide several promising features, such as near-optimal bisection bandwidth and flexibility of incremental growth. However, network failures are ubiquitous and significantly affect the performance of cloud services, such as availability and bandwidth. Existing random topology based data centers do not provide specific fault-tolerance mechanisms to recover the network from failures and to protect network performance from downgrading. In this work, we design FTDC, a faulttolerant network and its routing protocols. FTDC is developed to provide high-bandwidth and flexibility to data center applications and achieve fault tolerance in a self-fixing manner. Upon failures, the nodes automatically explore valid paths to deliver packets to the destination by exchanging control packets. FTDC is a generalized solution that can be applied to multiple existing data center topologies. Experimental results show that FTDC demonstrates high performance with very little extra overhead during network failures.


We have previously shown that ethanol or chloroform extracts of the leaves of Impatiens balsamina (LIB) have anti-tumor activity against the human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HepG2. The ethanol extracts were separated into five fractions according to polarity. An MTT assay indicated that two of the fractions had anti-tumor activity and that the petroleum ether fraction (PEF) was the most active. But the available quantities of both the PEF and chloroform fractions (CHF) were limited, precluding further study. The chloroform extract (CHE) shared almost all the same spots with the PEF and CHF and was plentiful enough to carry out further separations. Thus, the CHE was further separated into six sub-fractions (CHE1~6) by column chromatography. A MTT assay showed that only the CHE2 fraction had a strong tumor inhibition ratio (IC50 = 6.47±0.05 mg/L), which was superior to that of curcumin (IC50 = 13.95±0.11 mg/L). However, TLC revealed that CHE2 was not pure and still contained two more components. After further separation and purification, followed by TLC and MTT assay confirmation, the final active component was isolated and identified as 2-methoxy-1,4-naphthoquinone by m.p., UV, MS and 13C- and 1H-NMR data. This is the first report demonstrating that 2-methoxy-1,4-naphthoquinone has intensive in vitro anti-tumor activity against HepG2 cells.


Trace-driven simulation is commonly used by the computer architecture research community to pursue answers to a wide variety of architectural design issues. Traces taken from benchmark execution have been extensively studied to optimize the design of pipelines, branch predictors, and especially cache memories. Today's computer designs have been optimized based on the characteristics of these benchmarks. One important aspect that has been ignored in a majority of these trace-driven studies is the effect of the operating system interacting with the benchmark. It has been acknowledged that operating system overhead can introduce a level of interference that can limit the benefits of new designs. The reason why the operating system has been, for the most part, ignored in these studies is the lack of readily available tools that can generate kernel-laden traces. In this paper we describe two tracing systems that allow the capture of operating system and application traces. We have captured traces of both benchmark and commercial applications using these tools. We show the effects of including operating system activity while studying various architectural design tradeoffs. We have found that the operating system can increase the number of instructions captured in the trace (for a given time sample) by as much as 100X, can significantly modify the instruction mix, and produce different ranges of reference locality. The results of this study show that the inherent characteristics of the applications will dictate the amount of overhead introduced by the operating system.


Automotive heat exchangers use louver fins for their high efficiency. However, the efficiency can significantly drop for constructional vehicles or heavy equipments due to dust deposited on the louver fins with narrow slits. Thus it is necessary to develop new fins that lead to less fouling, so that a better performance can be achieved after exposure to a dusty environment over long period of time. New wavy fins were considered in the study and numerically analysed to compare with louver fins in the areas of air-side pressure drop, heat release rate, and particulate deposition. In addition, an experiment was done on the pressure drop and the particulate deposition. The results showed that the wavy fins would be a better choice for long-term use due to the excellent dust-proof performance in comparison to louver fins, in spite of the initial inferior performance of heat release.


Video gaming has become a hugely popular activity within the space of the last few decades. The practice of playing video games can take a variety of forms, ranging from feeding coins into traditional amusement arcade machines to the use of dedicated video- gaming hardware or a personal computer and increasingly to mobile devices such as phones and personal organizers. Despite omission as a category in its own right in Aguiar and Hurst's (2007) large- scale study into the use of leisure time over the course of the last fi ve decades in the United States, video gaming is a pursuit that is arguably reaching some semblance of maturity in both market development and depth of cultural content. As a result, video gaming is now being taken seriously within the mainstream as a major commercial force in the entertainment industry and as an art form in its own right. In terms of revenues, video gaming has recently grabbed a number of headlines by recording hugely impressive sales fi gures, especially in the context of the performance of other, more traditionally heralded constituents of the entertainment industry and of the general economic downturn. For example, the 2008 game 'Grand Theft Auto IV' set a Guinness World Record for the highest ever entertainment earner within the fi rst 24 hours of release, selling 3.6 million units and generating $310 million in revenue (Guinness World Records Games Edition, 2008). By comparison, the fastest- selling boxoffi ce release ever was Spiderman 3 (generating $60 million revenue in 24 hours) and the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows generated $220 million revenue in the same time period. But how did the video games industry, once regarded as exclusively the domain of the 'geeky' teenage male, come to challenge other, more traditional forms of entertainment? What are the types of game available and how have these different types of game impacted upon usage patterns across demographics and global territories? This chapter will seek to answer some of these questions by detailing relevant aspects of the video- gaming industry from an economic perspective.


Around one trillion Euros is lost to tax evasion and avoidance every year in the EU. In this context, governments have increasingly been tempted to turn to cross-border audits to secure needed resources and expertise to assist in ensuring international compliance with various taxes and other sources of revenue. However to manage international tax compliance revenue authorities are faced with the significant problem of corruption. The aim of this paper is to examine whether joint audits have to be applied in order to increase the efficiency of revenue collection. In order to narrow the field of investigation, the article focuses primarily on the situation faced by the Romania and Moldova.


The problem of radiation from a semi-infinite parallel-plate waveguide, terminated by an infinite plane flange ('double wedge') is investigated in the k-representation. The problem is reduced to an infinite system (S) of linear equations. Part I deals with the case of a 'wide double wedge' (the width of the waveguide much greater than the wavelength). This may be considered as a perturbation of the problem of diffraction by a single rectangular wedge, the rigorous solution of which is known (Reiche 1912). In the k-representation, this solution satisfies an integral equation, which is a limiting form of system (S). This leads to an approximate solution of the wide double-wedge problem, which appears to be a very good approximation, except in the neighbourhood of critical frequencies of the waveguide. The diffraction patterns and the reflexion coefficient are evaluated in this approximation. The accuracy and limits of applicability of classical diffraction theory are discussed. In the neighbourhood of critical frequencies, strong reflexion appears. This is a new limiting case of the problem, which is connected with the theory of quasi-stationary currents. Neumann's iteration method is applied to system (S), in order to investigate the possibility that Kirchhoff's approximation is the first step of an accurate solution by successive approximations. The convergence of Neumann's series is discussed.


Hypertension is one of the most commonly recognized and treatable risk factors for Cardiovascular Diseases. A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of hypertension and its associated factors among Malaysian staff, aged 30 years old and above in Universiti Putra Malaysia. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The data were collected from 28th February 2010 to 5th May 2010 using a selfadministered, pre-tested questionnaire. Two blood pressure measurements were taken from all of the respondents. The respondents were defined as being hypertensive if they had a mean SBP of 140 mmHg and above, and/or a mean DBP of 90 mmHg and above, and/or by self-reports of medical diagnosis of hypertension and current treatment for hypertension with antihypertensive medication. The response rate was 73.2%. Among the respondents the overall prevalence of hypertension was 34.4%. Prevalence of hypertension was higher among males, less educated respondent, those with high family income, those with positive family history of hypertension and those who were obese, former smokers, and physically inactive. Hypertensive respondents were significantly older than normotensive respondents (50.5 vs 38.9 years; p<0.001). The results showed male respondents had significantly higher mean systolic (t= 5.787, p<0.001) and mean diastolic blood pressure (t = 5.962, p<0.001) than female respondents. Of the hypertensive respondents, 64.1% were aware of their condition, among those aware 86% were treated with antihypertensive drugs. However, there were only 45.3% of the treated hypertensive respondents with controlled blood pressure which is less than 140/90 mmHg. Results of logistic regression showed that the respondents at the age group of 40-49, 50-59 and ≥60 years were 5.55, 21.87 and 61.37 times more likely to have hypertension compared to respondents at age group of 30-39 years, respectively. Being male increased the odds of having hypertension by 87% compared to being female. Those with positive family history of hypertension were 5.25 times more likely to have hypertension compared to those with no family history. The odds of having hypertension increased by 3.54 and 11.37 times if a person were overweight and obese, respectively, compared to a normal/underweight person. Being former drinker and current drinker increased the odds of having hypertension by 2.23 and 7.14 times compared to being never drinker, respectively. This rather high prevalence of hypertension implies the importance of the need that university authority should put their effort into action, for example, by organizing an educational campaign for hypertension prevention and control among staff. Keywords: Prevalence, Hypertension, Associated factors, Malaysian staff UPM


We propose an inversion method of the direct wave amplitudes P , SV , and SH to determine the general moment tensor (MT) and estimate the associated uncertainties. This method is a generalization of the one we developed to determine the double-couple (DC) or fault-plane solution from sparse observations in reservoir contexts (Godano et al. , 2009). Like the previous one, it is based on a simulated annealing inversion algorithm. First, we test the reliability of this new method on synthetic data. The inversion allows retrieval of the expected moment tensor, but the analysis of the uncertainty associated with the solution shows that the resolution of the inversion is sensitive not only to the direct wave amplitudes but also to uncertainties in the velocity model and the event location. Next, we test the method on four induced microearthquakes recorded by the Soultz-sous-Forets hot-dry-rock (HDR) reservoir network. The inversion correctly converges for three events, and the obtained MTs display a dominant DC part (70 to 90%). The uncertainty associated with the non-DC part is relatively high. This prevents us from determining if the small non-DC part is significant or an artifact related to noise in the data and/or uncertainties in the velocity model and at the event location.


In this short essay, I respond to the Foreword article by Doreen Lustig and Joseph Weiler. This important article maps three subsequent waves of judicial review: (1) courts ensuring that domestic laws conform to the constitution; (2) courts ensuring that domestic laws conform to international law, and (3) courts re-asserting the primacy of the constitution over international law. The article's most important contribution is the mapping of the third wave, which is a response to the growing importance of international law in domestic legal orders, and entails national courts scrutinizing the constitutionality of international law along with the emergence of a judicial discourse that emphasizes national identity.
This response focuses on the nature of the third wave. Specifically, while I believe that the third wave is important and real, I develop two slightly different hypotheses about its nature. My first conjecture is that some features that Lustig and Weiler regard as part of third wave are so closely connected to the second wave that they might not represent a new wave at all. Specifically, while the importance of international law in domestic legal orders has increased, the vast majority of countries have long had constitutional safeguards in place to ensure the primacy of the domestic constitution. As a result, when courts review the constitutionality of international law, they are not doing anything new or unusual: they are merely fulfilling their long-standing constitutional duty. My second conjecture relates to the causes of the third wave. While Lustig and Weiler argue that the discourse of the third wave emerged in response to the problems of the first two waves, I hypothesize that it might instead reflect broader social change. Specifically, as populist movements have been swept into power by appealing to nationalist rhetoric, courts may be responding to these larger societal trends.


This paper is about an approach to the flexible utilization of old plans called adaptive planning. An adaptive planner can take advantage of the details associated with specific plans, while still maintaining the flexibility of a planner that works from general plans. Key elements in the theory of adaptive planning are its treatment of background knowledge and the introduction of a notion of planning by situation matching.


Abstract Temporal variation in the onset of breeding has been described for various species in a range of systems. Many of these studies have found a relationship between the timing of breeding and resource levels leading to a matching of life- history stages to resource abundance. However, most of this work has been conducted in northern hemisphere temperate zones—highly regular systems where temperature and other climatic factors have a predictable influence over food abundance. We present data gathered over two years on the timing of breeding in a nomadic mistletoe specialist, the Painted Honeyeater (Grantiella picta), relative to temporal variation in the abundance of its main food resource, fruit of the Grey Mistletoe (Amyema quandang), in an Australian semi-arid environment. Arrival and departure of the breeding population occurred either side of peak mistletoe fruiting in both years. Clutches were initiated on average on Day 66 of the breeding season (assigned as 1 October for both years) in 2004 (5 December) and Day 49 (18 November) during 2005, i.e. 17 days earlier in 2005. Abundance of mistletoe fruit peaked in January in both years but increased significantly earlier in 2005. Abundance of fruit was almost identical at the mean clutch initiation dates in both years, reaching comparable levels 19 days earlier in 2005. The timing of life-history stages followed the progression of fruiting phenology and was closely matched to resource levels despite marked differences in the temporal availability of fruit between years. Painted Honeyeaters appear similar to northern hemisphere passerines that use photoperiod to time their overall breeding season and then incorporate information from the local environment to fine-tune initiation of breeding. By cuing directly on the food resource, Painted Honeyeaters may avoid temporal mismatching in this highly unpredictable environment.


Tetrastichus howardi (Olliff) (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), a pupal parasitoid of a great number of Lepidoptera pests, has a great potential for biological control. To investigate the olfactory system of this parasitoid, we examined the morphology and ultrastructure of the antennal sensilla of both male and female T. howardi using scanning and transmission electron microscopic techniques. Antennae of male and female T. howardi were geniculate in shape, which consisted of scape, pedicel and flagellum with 5 and 4 flagellomeres, respectively. The sexual differences were recorded in the types, structure, distribution and abundance of antennal sensilla of T. howardi. Fourteen morphologically distinct types of antennal sensilla were found on the female antennae, while seventeen on the male antennae. They were: multiporous plate sensilla (MPS1‐4), chaetica sensilla (CH1‐3), multiporous trichodea sensilla (MTS), aporous trichodea sensilla (ATS1‐5), multiporous grooved peg sensilla (MGPS), coeloconic sensilla (COS), campaniform sensilla (CAS), terminal finger‐like hairy sensilla (TFI), cuticular pore (CP), and ventral sensory plaque (VSP). MPS4, ATS (3‐5), and VSP only occurred on the male antennae, while MPS2 and MPS3 only on the female antennae. The MPSs, MTS, MGPS, TFI, and CP may function as olfactory sensilla involving in detecting odor stimuli whereas the ATSs, CHs, and CAS may serve as mechanoreceptors. COS were presumed to play a role as chemo‐, thermo‐ or hygro‐receptor. The results could facilitate future studies on the biology of olfaction in T. howardi. Microsc. Res. Tech. 79:374–384, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Soil application of liquid cattle manure (LCM) (excrements plus urine, occasionally containing bedding material) can enhance plant growth and increase crop yield (Beauchamp, 1986; Culley et al., 1981; Evans et al., 1977; Kaffka & Kanneganti, 1996; Lithourgidis et al., 2007; Matsi et al., 2003; Motavalli et al., 1989; Sutton et al., 1986; Zhang et al., 2006; Zebarth et al., 1996). In most of the cases, crop yield increases are accompanied by increases in plant macronutrients concentration and/or uptake (Culley et al., 1981; Lithourgidis et al., 2007; Matsi et al., 2003; Motavalli et al., 1989; Sutton et al., 1986).


Organic–inorganic metal halide perovskites have led to remarkable advancements in emerging photovoltaics with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) already achieving 20%. In addition to solar cells, these perovskites also show applicability for lasing and LED applications. Here, we control perovskite crystal domain size and microstructure by guiding the growth through a highly ordered metal oxide honeycomb structure, which we form via colloidal monolayer lithography. The organic–inorganic perovskite material fills the holes of the honeycomb remarkably well leading to fully controlled domain size with tuneable film thickness. The honeycomb region is predominantly transparent, whereas the perovskite crystals within the honeycomb are strongly absorbing. We fabricate semi-transparent perovskite solar cells to demonstrate the feasibility of this structuring, which leads to enhanced open-circuit voltage and fill factor in comparison to unstructured partially dewet perovskite thin films. We achieve power conversion efficiencies of up to 9.5% with an average visible transmittance through the active layer of around 37%. The controlled microscopic morphology of perovskite films opens up a wide range of possible investigations, from charge transport optimization to optical enhancements and photonic structuring for photovoltaic, light emitting and lasing devices.


Design space exploration is introduced as one of the major tasks in embedded system design. After reviewing existing exploration methods at various layers of abstraction, a generic approach is described based on multi-objective decision making, black-box optimisation and randomised search strategies. The interface between problem-specific and generic parts of the exploration framework is made explicit by defining an interface called PISA. This specification and implementation interface, and the availability of a wide range of randomised multi-objective search methods, makes the proposed framework accessible to a wide range of exploration problems. It resolves the problem that existing optimisation methods cannot be coupled easily to the problem-specific part of a design exploration tool.


Heterotopic or ectopic mucosa is ongenital anomaly elucidated as the inhabitance of tissue outside its habitual locale. This tissue is discerned coincidentally and may be asymptomatic or with nonspecific gastrointestinal symptoms. Two categories of heterotopic tissue predominantly crop up in the gastrointestinal tract, PANCREATIC and GASTRIC. Isolated heterotopic gastric mucosa (HGM) can arise at all position's, anywhere along the gastrointestinal tract, from the oesophagus to the rectum. The incidence is sporadic but should be deliberated upon in the differential diagnosis of unexplained pain of the abdomen, bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract or weight loss. Once heterotopia is identified, suitable treatment can be instituted thereby diminishing the danger of complications. Heterotopic or Ectopic tissue is a congenital anomaly, attributed to abnormal embryologic development, of the existence of tissue apart from the typical location, with no neural, vascular, anatomic relation with the main body of an organ in which it customarily exists. Heterotopic gastric mucosa (HGM) was initially detailed by Ewell and Jackson in 1939. The congenital anomaly can be emulated by acquired transition (e.g. pyloric epithelial lining) in some organs e.g. lower oesophagus, duodenal bulb and gall bladder. HGM can appear at any location in the gastrointestinal tract, however, it is exceptional in the lower alimentary canal.


This paper describes the development of a waveguide radiometer to measure noise from millimeter wave electronic components from 75 GHz to 110 GHz. The radiometer will estimate the noise temperature of a device under test (DUT) based on comparison with room temperature and 77K noise standards. This is a standard physical approach in other NIST microwave radiometers. The radiometer is particularly amenable to performing noise temperature as well as noise parameter measurements for amplifier and transistor characterization. As wireless communications progresses towards millimeter wave systems, noise characterization of related components and subsystems becomes essential. We report our progress in radiometer design, construction and verification for millimeter wave noise metrology at NIST.


Fog computing has become the revolutionary paradigm and one of the intelligent services of the 5th Generation (5G) emerging network, while Internet of Things (IoT) lies under its main umbrella. Enhancing and optimizing the quality of service (QoS) in Fog computing networks is one of the critical challenges of the present. In the meantime, strong links between the Fog, IoT devices and the supporting back-end servers is done through large scale cloud data centers and with the linear exponential trend of IoT devices and voluminous generated data. Fog computing is one of the vital and potential solutions for IoT in close connection with things and end users with less latency but due to high computational complexity, less storage capacity and more power drain in the cloud it is inappropriate choice. So, to remedy this issue, we propose transmission power control (TPC) based QoS optimization algorithm named (QoS-TPC) in the Fog computing. Besides, we propose the Fog-IoT-TPC-QoS architecture and establish the connection between TPC and Fog computing by considering static and dynamic conditions of wireless channel. Experimental results examine that proposed QoS-TPC optimizes the QoS in terms of maximum throughput, less delay, less jitter and minimum energy drain as compared to the conventional that is, ATPC, SKims and constant TPC methods.


The genus Eryon was established by Desmarest (in Brongniart and Desmarest's 'Natural History of Fossil Crustacea:' Paris, 1822) for certain forms of Astacidœ, with extremely broad and flat carapaces, found in the Lithographic stone of Solenhofen, one of the earliest known geological localities on the continent, and perhaps the most prolific in its yield of organic remains. Only one species was then determined—the Eryon Cuvieri of Desmarest (Macrourites arctiformis of Schlotheim (1820), Locusta marina of Bajer (1757), and first figured by Knorr and Walch in 1755). Since that time Herr Germar, Count Minister, H. von Meyer, Professors M'Coy and Quenstedt have each contributed new species. Lastly, the late Dr. Albert Oppel, of the Royal Bavarian Museum, Munich, a Foreign Correspondent of this Society (whose early death we must all lament), has collected, revised, and added to our knowledge of this genus, so that in 1862 (the date of his book) the list of recorded species amounted to fourteen. Professor M'Coy was the first to record an English species of this genus, the Eryon Barrovensis, from the Lias of Barrow-on-Soar,Leicestershire. [See the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,'1849, p. 172.] But as his description varies in some points and is unaccompanied by a figure, I have ventured to delineate it by the help of the fine examples in the cabinet of the Rev. P. B. Brodie, F.G.S., and those in the British Museum. I also subjoin arevised description of it, and notices of other British species of this genus from


Background

Bud dormancy in deciduous fruit trees enables plants to survive cold weather. The buds adopt dormant state and resume growth after satisfying the chilling requirements. Chilling requirements play a key role in flowering time. So far, several chilling models, including ≤ 7.2 °C model, the 0–7.2 °C model, Utah model, and Dynamic Model, have been developed; however, it is still time-consuming to determine the chilling requirements employing any model. This calls for efficient tools that can analyze data.
Results

In this study, we developed novel software Chilling and Heat Requirement (CHR), by flexibly integrating data conversions, model selection, calculations, statistical analysis, and plotting.
Conclusion

CHR is a tool for chilling requirements estimation, which will be very useful to researchers. It is very simple, easy, and user-friendly.


In North America, the use of actuarial instruments is considered to be state of the art in the assessment of offender recidivism risk. One of these instruments is the "Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide" (SORAG), which was developed specifically for the use in sex offender risk assessment. The present review investigates the current state of knowledge regarding the instrument's validity specifically for its use in German-speaking countries. Overall the results speak for the instrument's good discriminatory power. However, this is not true to the same degree for all types of sex offender populations. The discriminatory power is especially good in the subpopulation of child molesters. Part of the present review is a German translation of the instrument authorised by the developers of the SORAG.