Summary There is considerable interest at present in the use of biological markers, both as maturity parameters for oils and sediments, and oil-oil and oil-source rock correlations. Earlier work on biomarkers concentrated on the distribution of steranes and triterpanes; but with new analytical techniques becoming available other biomarker classes are under investigation, such as aromatics, sulphur compounds and porphyrins. Porphyrins in oils and sediments are probably derived from chlorophylls in algae or photosynthetic bacteria. Until recently, little was known about the structure of geological porphyrins, but now several compounds have been isolated, purified and characterized. Two main types of porphyrins are present, DPEP and ETIO, and it has been shown that with increasing thermal maturity the relative concentration of ETIO-porphyrins increases with respect to DPEP-porphyrins. Thus a measure of ratio (1) in sediments and oils should reveal the thermal maturity of these samples. A suite of oils and related source rocks have been examined, and their porphyrin distributions recorded. Porphyrins show large changes in ratio (1), ranging from 0.8, in the least mature oils, to zero in the most mature oils. Changes in molecular distribution were similar in the sediment extracts, and porphyrins seem to be useful maturation parameters in the range %Ro 0.3 to 0.8; after which they are thermally destroyed.


The ability to migrate applications among computers of different vendors and different sizes (from PCs to supercomputers) as operating needs change and grow is discussed. The questions many utility practitioners have been asking about open systems, standards, architectures, and available choices are addressed. These questions are fundamental to providing a computational application environment in which the tools required for intelligent and adaptive power system control can be operated. These tools are being designed for standards-driven, open-hardware platforms. The open systems movement is discussed, and open systems are defined. The role of standards is examined. Two open EMS architectures favored by leading EMS suppliers are discussed.<<ETX>>


Abstract Nacre, the iridescent material found in pearls and shells of molluscs, is formed through an extraordinary process of matrix-assisted biomineralization. Despite recent advances, many aspects of the biomineralization process and its evolutionary origin remain unknown. The pearl oyster Pinctada fucata martensii is a well-known master of biomineralization, but the molecular mechanisms that underlie its production of shells and pearls are not fully understood. We sequenced the highly polymorphic genome of the pearl oyster and conducted multi-omic and biochemical studies to probe nacre formation. We identified a large set of novel proteins participating in matrix-framework formation, many in expanded families, including components similar to that found in vertebrate bones such as collagen-related VWA-containing proteins, chondroitin sulfotransferases, and regulatory elements. Considering that there are only collagen-based matrices in vertebrate bones and chitin-based matrices in most invertebrate skeletons, the presence of both chitin and elements of collagen-based matrices in nacre suggests that elements of chitin- and collagen-based matrices have deep roots and might be part of an ancient biomineralizing matrix. Our results expand the current shell matrix-framework model and provide new insights into the evolution of diverse biomineralization systems.


Local governments are key to establishing public policies linked to the 2030 Agenda. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), public innovation is essential, and one of the essential pillars is transversality and partnerships (internal and external). This implies a transformative political, technical, and institutional culture that some authors have called, in the case of Andalusia, Spain, a "culture of solidarity", as many of the elements of the 2030 Agenda are established within local organizations. This article aims to answer the question: Do Andalusian local authorities have an organizational culture and structure that facilitates the localization of the SDGs? To do so, it analyzes the conditioning factors, facilitators, and barriers that exist in local governments to advance in the mainstreaming of the localization and development processes of the 2030 Agenda in their territories. A study has been carried out on the perception of local technicians and the assessment of their own organization aligned with the 2030 Agenda. The results obtained indicate that local governments in Andalusia have made efforts to establish social actions and policies against poverty. The 2030 Agenda is perceived as an opportunity to transform local entities, with more open, collaborative, transversal, and interconnected institutions.


In his Religio Medici, Sir Thomas Browne writes, "to call our selves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgment...told me there was a reall truth therein. For first we are a rude mass...next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits." This blurring of the boundaries between life forms, coupled with a disavowal of the notion that humans exist apart from other life forms, is what I wish to explore in Shakespeare's oft-overlooked tragedy, Timon of Athens. More specifically, this paper argues that, in terms of how Timon describes himself (or is described by others), we see a clear progression from man to beast to plant to dirt. As such, the play essentially reverses the sequence proposed by Sir Thomas Browne. The reason behind the reversal is straightforward enough: Timon wants to position himself as "Misanthropos" (IV.iii.52). But hating mankind proves insufficient for Timon and his anger eventually leads to a rejection of the mammalian system as a whole.


Recently, perfectly matched layer (PML) as an absorbing boundary condition has found widespread applications. The idea was first introduced by Berenger for electromagnetic waves computations. In this paper, it is shown that the PML equations for the linearized Euler equations support unstable solutions when the mean flow has a component normal to the layer. To suppress such unstable solutions so as to render the PML concept useful for this class of problems, it is proposed that artificial selective damping terms be added to the discretized PML equations. It is demonstrated that with a proper choice of artificial mesh Reynolds number, the PML equations can be made stable. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate that the stabilized PML performs well as an absorbing boundary condition. In a ducted environment, the wave mode are dispersive. It will be shown that the group velocity and phase velocity of these modes can have opposite signs. This results in a band of transmitted waves in the PML to be spatially amplifying instead of evanescent. Thus in a confined environment, PML may not he suitable as an absorbing boundary condition.


Graph sampling theory extends the traditional sampling theory to graphs with topological structures. As a key part of the graph sampling theory, subset selection chooses nodes on graphs as samples to reconstruct the original signal. Due to the eigen-decomposition operation for Laplacian matrices of graphs, however, existing subset selection methods usually require high-complexity calculations. In this paper, with an aim of enhancing the computational efficiency of subset selection on graphs, we propose a novel objective function based on the optimal experimental design. Theoretical analysis shows that this function enjoys an $\alpha$-supermodular property with a provable lower bound on $\alpha$. The objective function, together with an approximate of the low-pass filter on graphs, suggests a fast subset selection method that does not require any eigen-decomposition operation. Experimental results show that the proposed method exhibits high computational efficiency, while having competitive results compared to the state-of-the-art ones, especially when the sampling rate is low.


Customer complaint has been the important feedback for modern enterprises to improve their product and service quality as well as the customer's loyalty. As one of the commonly used manners in customer complaint, telephone communication carries rich emotional information of speeches, which provides valuable resources for perceiving the customer's satisfaction and studying the complaint handling skills. This paper studies the characteristics of telephone complaint speeches and proposes an analysis method based on affective computing technology, which can recognize the dynamic changes of customer emotions from the conversations between the service staff and the customer. The recognition process includes speaker recognition, emotional feature parameter extraction, and dynamic emotion recognition. Experimental results show that this method is effective and can reach high recognition rates of happy and angry states. It has been successfully applied to the operation quality and service administration in telecom and Internet service company.


While criteria for Schenkerian analysis have been much discussed, such discussions have generally not been informed by data. Kirlin [Kirlin, Phillip B., 2014 "A Probabilistic Model of Hierarchical Music Analysis." Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts Amherst] has begun to fill this vacuum with a corpus of textbook Schenkerian analyses encoded using data structures suggested byYust [Yust, Jason, 2006 "Formal Models of Prolongation." Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington] and a machine learning algorithm based on this dataset that can produce analyses with a reasonable degree of accuracy. In this work, we examine what musical features (scale degree, harmony, metrical weight) are most significant in the performance of Kirlin's algorithm.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a widespread human pathogen, which accounts for serious infections in the hospital, especially for lung infection in cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. P. aeruginosa infection is closely associated with its motility and biofilm formation, which are both under the regulation of the important transcription factor FleQ. However, the upstream regulatory mechanisms of fleQ have not been fully elucidated. ABSTRACT FleQ plays a crucial role in motility and biofilm formation by regulating flagellar and exopolysaccharide biosynthesis in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It has been reported that the expression of FleQ is transcriptionally downregulated by the virulence factor regulator Vfr. Here, we demonstrated that a LysR-type transcriptional regulator, OsaR, is also capable of binding to the promoter region of fleQ and repressing its transcription. Through gel shift and DNase I footprinting assays, the OsaR binding site was identified and characterized as a dual LysR-type transcriptional regulator box (AT-N11-AT-N7-A-N11-T). Mutation of the A-T palindromic base pairs in the fleQ promoter not only reduced the binding affinity of OsaR in vitro but also derepressed fleQ transcription in vivo. The OsaR binding site was found to cover the Vfr binding site; knockout of osaR or vfr separately exhibited no effect on the transcriptional level of fleQ; however, fleQ expression was repressed by overexpression of osaR or vfr. Furthermore, simultaneously deleting both osaR and vfr resulted in an upregulation of fleQ, but it could be complemented by the expression of either of the two repressors. In summary, our work revealed that OsaR and Vfr function as two transcriptional repressors of fleQ that bind to the same region of fleQ but work separately. IMPORTANCE Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a widespread human pathogen, which accounts for serious infections in the hospital, especially for lung infection in cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. P. aeruginosa infection is closely associated with its motility and biofilm formation, which are both under the regulation of the important transcription factor FleQ. However, the upstream regulatory mechanisms of fleQ have not been fully elucidated. Therefore, our research identifying a novel regulator of fleQ as well as new regulatory mechanisms controlling its expression will be significant for better understanding the intricate gene regulatory mechanisms related to P. aeruginosa virulence and infection.


In situ X-ray scattering monitoring is carried out during temperature annealing on different densified SiO2 glasses. Density fluctuations and intermediate range coherence from X-ray scattering (small-angle X-ray scattering) and diffraction (wide angle X-ray scattering) evidence a maximum in their evolution at the same relaxation time. These extrema confirm the existence of an intermediate transitory disordered state between the two more ordered high and low density amorphous states. We propose that the existence of this transitory state confirms the existence of two mega basins in the energy landscape and therefore an amorphous-amorphous transition. Including older Raman results, we show that this intermediate disorder state implies similar mechanisms at all length scales from a few angstroms to 5 nm.


The automatic extraction of ontologies from text and lexical resources has become more and more mature. Nowadays, the results of state-of-the-art ontology learning methods are already good enough for many practical applications. However, most of them aim at generating rather inexpressive ontologies, i.e. bare taxonomies and relationships, whereas many reasoning-based applications in domains such as bioinformatics or medicine rely on much more complex axiomatizations. Those are extremely expensive if built by purely manual efforts, and methods for the automatic or semi-automatic construction of expressive ontologies could help to overcome the knowledge acquisition bottleneck. At the same time, a tight integration with ontology evaluation and debugging approaches is required to reduce the amount of manual post-processing which becomes harder the more complex learned ontologies are. Particularly, the treatment of logical inconsistencies, mostly neglected by existing ontology learning frameworks, becomes a great challenge as soon as we start to learn huge and expressive axiomatizations. In this chapter we present several approaches for the automatic generation of expressive ontologies along with a detailed discussion of the key problems and challenges in learning complex OWL ontologies. We also suggest ways to handle different types of inconsistencies in learned ontologies, and conclude with a visionary outlook to future ontology learning and engineering environments.


Two genetically engineered variants of the Bacillus licheniformis beta-lactamase gene were expressed in Escherichia coli. One variant coded for the exo-small mature enzyme without the signal peptide. The other coded for the exo-large mature enzyme preceded by 10, mostly polar, residues from an incomplete heterologous signal. As observed following the extraction by a lysozyme-EDTA treatment, the signal-less variant was exported to the periplasm with nearly 20% efficiency, whereas the variant with the N-terminal extension was translocated to a lesser degree; interestingly, nearly all of the former and half of the latter were extracted by osmotic shock, which may be of importance for our understanding of cellular compartments. The fact that a signal-less protein is translocated with substantial yields raises questions about the essential role of signal peptides for protein export. As folding and export are related processes, we investigated the folding in vitro of the two variants. No differences were found between them. In the absence of denaturant, they are completely folded, fully active and have a large DeltaG of unfolding. Under partially denaturing conditions they populate several partially folded states. The absence of significant amounts of a non-native state under native conditions makes a thermodynamic partitioning between folding and export less likely. In addition, kinetic measurements indicated that these B. licheniformis lactamases fold much faster than E. coli beta-lactamase. This behavior suggests that they are exported by a kinetically controlled process, mediated by one or more still unidentified interactions that slow folding and allow a folding intermediate to enter the export pathway.


The disposition of (+)- and (-)-propranolol and their glucuronic acid conjugates, (+)-POG and (-)-POG, in plasma was determined in 5 dogs following single 160 mg oral doses of stable isotope labeled racemic propranolol. Each animal received one dose of the racemate with the (+)-isomer labeled with two deuteriums and one dose with the (-)-isomer labeled. The isomers were separated and measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. No stable isotope effect was detected. The area under the plasma concentration - time curve (AUC) for (-)-propranolol was only 54 +/- 10 per cent (mean +/- SD; n = 10) of the AUC for (+)-propranolol. The AUC of (-)-POG exceeded the AUC of (+)-POG by 4.02 +/- 1.22 times (mean +/- SD: n = 10). The time to peak plasma concentration (3.9-4.3 hr) and the half-life (1.6-1.9 hr) were identical for both isomers of propranolol as well as of POG. These results demonstrate a significantly lower oral bioavailability of (-)- as compared to (+)-propranolol in the dog, which appears to be associated with stereoselective presystemic glucuronidation of (-)-propranolol.


Metallic contacts in hip replacements are susceptible to wear and corrosion processes which lead to the release of particles and metal ions. Adverse local tissue reactions (ALTRs) and systemic manifestations to solid and soluble debris can be debilitating for the patients. It is believed that particles originating from CoCrMo taper junctions trigger more severe body reactions compared to debris from MoM hip bearings. The body9s reaction is highly dependent on particle characteristics, such as size, morphology, composition and aggregation state, which can reflect the specific wear and corrosion conditions at the site of release. Here we proposed to investigate wear and corrosion flakes collected from around CoCrMo tapers at the time of revision. The particles were initially characterised with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). This revealed the microstructure of the corrosion products, which appeared to be made of smaller metallic aggregates, entrapped in a biological matrix. The in depth characterisation of the particles released from the organo-metallic composite, was performed with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), both fitted with EDX. The investigation revealed clusters and individual nanoparticles, as small as 3 nm, which represent the building blocks of the large corrosion flakes, reported and characterised in the past mainly with low resolution microscopy techniques. The majority of the particles consisted of Cr and O, potentially in the form of chromium oxides, with little evidence of Co and Mo. Particles size distribution (PSD) provided by STEM and TEM characterisation showed statistically different results. The STEM technique was able to resolve tiny particles found in close proximity and provided a PSD shift towards the smaller end of the size range. The study is the first to show microscopy evidence of Cr rich nanoparticles (3–60 nm) released in vivo from the modular taper interface, which can have important health implications caused by their increased potential to disseminate and corrode within the body.


We report on the synthesis and structural characterization of four arylarsonate- and phosphonate-capped polyoxomolybdates that exhibit different organic substituents in the para position of the phenyl group. The reaction of arylarsonates (RAsO3, wherein R = 4-BrC6H4 or 4-N3C6H4) with molybdate in aqueous pH 3.5 media resulted in the cyclic hexamolybdates [(BrC6H4As)2Mo6O24]4- (Mo6As2La) and [(N3C6H4As)2Mo6O24]4- (Mo6As2Lb), whereas the reaction of arylphosphonates (R'PO3, wherein R' = 4-O2CC6H4 or 4-O2CC6H4CH2) with molybdate in aqueous pH 3 media resulted in the cyclic pentamolybdates [(O2CC6H4P)2Mo5O21]6- (Mo5P2Lc) and [(HO2CC6H4CH2P)2Mo5O21]4- (Mo5P2Ld), respectively. Polyanions Mo6As2La and Mo6As2Lb comprise a ring of six MoO6 octahedra that is capped on either side by an organoarsonate group, whereas Mo5P2Lc and Mo5P2Ld consist of a ring of five MoO6 octahedra that is capped on either side by an organophosphonate group, with the organic arms protruding away from the metal-oxo core of the polyanions. All four polyanions Mo6As2La, Mo6As2Lb, Mo5P2Lc, and Mo5P2Ld have been characterized in the solid state by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, IR spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric and elemental analysis and in solution by multinuclear NMR (31P, 13C, and 1H). The synthetic procedure of (4-bromophenyl)arsonic acid, BrC6H4AsO3H2, is reported here for the first time.


Vitamin A deficiency is of public health importance in Sri Lanka. Carotenoids are a significant source of provitamin A. The objective of this study was to analyse the carotenoid composition of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus sinhala: Waraka) kernel using MPLC and visible spectrophotometry and to determine the bioavailability and bioconversion of carotenoids present in jackfruit kernel by monitoring (i) the growth and (ii) levels of retinol and carotenoids in the liver and serum of Wistar rats provided with jackfruit incorporated into a standard daily diet. Carotenoid pigments were extracted using petroleum ether/methanol and saponified using 10% methanolic potassium hydroxide. Six carotenoids were detected in jackfruit kernel. The carotenes β-carotene, α-carotene, β-zeacarotene, α-zeacarotene and β-carotene- 5,6-epoxide and a dicarboxylic carotenoid, crocetin, were identified, corresponding theoretically to 141.6 retinol equivalents (RE) per 100g. Our study indicated that jackfruit is a good source of provitamin A carotenoids, though not as good as papaya. Serum retinol concentrations in rats supplemented with jackfruit carotenoids were significantly higher (p = 0.008) compared with the control group. The same was true for liver retinol (p = 0.006). Quantification was carried out by RP-HPLC. These results show that the biological conversion of provitamin A in jackfruit kernel appears satisfactory. Thus increased consumption of ripe jackfruit could be advocated as part of a strategy to prevent and control vitamin A deficiency in Sri Lanka.  2004 Society of Chemical Industry


The upper bound on the mass of the lightest Higgs boson is provided in the supersymmetric standard model with multi-Higgs doublets, up to two-loop order. Relatively large corrections are expected from the experimentally unconstrained extra Yukawa couplings. We calculate it including the two-loop leading-log contributions as a function of the scale $\Lambda$, below which the theory remains perturbative. Even for $\Lambda=10^{4}$ GeV, we obtain the upper bound of 140 GeV, which is heavier than that of the MSSM by 10 GeV.


Magnesium alloys are the lightest structural metal. The lightness is the main reason for the interest for Mg in various industrial and clinical applications, in which lightweight structures are in high demand. Recent research and developments on magnesium Mg alloys are reviewed. A particular attention is focused on binary and ternary Mg alloys consisting mainly of Al, Zn, Mn, Ca and rare earth (RE) elements. The effects of different alloying elements on the microstructure, the mechanical and the corrosion properties of Mg alloys are described. Alloying induces modifications of the microstructural characteristics leading to strengthening mechanisms, improving then the ductility and the mechanical properties of pure Mg.


AbstractBackground: Lessons must be learned from the mistakes of the Covid pandemic. As we have seen, some countries are facing persistently high rates of covid-19 infection, but some countries such as China and South Korea can address the covid-19 problem when their country faces a surge in covid-19. This indicates that some countries facing persistently high infections may have used the wrong strategy, leaving them facing persistently high infections. The study will analyse what have been the main mistake since the Covid pandemic. Then create a system to solve the problem so that it can be used in future pandemic.Methods: Peter Chew's "Logical Science" system focuses on logical review. The main purpose of the logical review part is to determine whether the guidelines are false. For non-medical treatment guidelines, if the logical review part determines that the guidelines are not false, real-world evidence is needed to determine whether the guidelines are correct. Similar to Mathematical Induction, The goal of the base case is to determine whether the statement (rule, formula, etc.) is false. If the sentence is not false, you need to continue to the second case, the inductive step determines whether the sentence (rule, formula, etc.) is true. Results: Using Peter Chew's "Logical Science" system, we can find wrong guidelines earlier. It can prevent continued practice of wrong guidelines, leading to persistently high infections. As we have seen, Director-general of the Chinese Canter for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), George Gao said that in his view, a big mistake in the United States and Europe is that people do not wear masks. Therefore, early detection of wrong guidelines is important to reduce high infection rates. In fact, the important lesson we can learn from China's response to the covid-19 surge is that China will not wait for study evidence to apply non-medical prevention, such as Wuhan compulsory wearing masks on January 22, 2020.Conclusions: Prevention is better than cure. Instead of creating new medical treatment or vaccine for viruses or mutant viruses, it is better to create a system to prevent the spread of pandemic viruses. As we have seen, China and South Korea managed to solve the covid-19 surge in their countries without using vaccines in 2020. Therefore, the epidemic prevention system must be able to detect any wrong guidelines faster to prevent the use of the wrong guidelines from causing widespread spread of the virus. For pandemics, waiting for research evidence to implement non-medical prevention strategies is a big mistake, because the prime time to reduce the spread of the virus has been missed. It takes time to generate research evidence, and follow-up peer review also takes time, so the process of peer review research evidence allows the virus to spread widely, and some mutations may occur, making virus prevention more difficult to deal with.


This study explores the narrative of dreams as a basis of architectural design operation. This study positions its exploration within a dreamscape; or a surrealist situation that becomes the basis of architectural design. Current architectural discourse has explored design based on some structured and rigid operations. However, understanding dreamscape as a design medium positions the importance of explorative and unstructured operations as the basis of the alternative spatial narrative. Morpheus is a title of experimental architecture programming in this design study which is driven by a series of speculative dream operations. This study employs dream narratives to develop architectural programming languages, from the initial exploration to the materialisation of its architecture. In this study, architecture emerge as an experimental instrument based on speculative and unstructured operations of dreamscape, as an alternative method in constructing narrative relationships.


Ernestina Coast, Tiziana Leone, and Alankar Malviya find that gender-based violence is consistently under-reported and point to flawed government policies that assume married women are safe from violence.


Introduction of new inhibitory agents such as peptides, heterocyclic derivatives and nanoparticles (NPs) along with preventive proceedings are effective ways to deal with standard and drug-resistant strains of microorganisms. In this regard, inhibitory activities of some recently synthesized 4-thiazolylpyrazoles, imidazolidine- and tetrahydropyrimidine-2-thiones and magnesium oxide (MgO) NPs alone and in combination with nisin have been assessed against Aspergillus fumigatus. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were done via broth microdilution, disk diffusion and streak plate methods according to the modified Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Synergistic effects were also determined as fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) and fractional fungicidal concentration (FFC) values. Inhibitory potentials of all heterocycles and NPs against A. fumigatus were proved based on inhibition zone diameter (IZD) values in the range of 7.72 - 16.85 mm, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values in the range of 64.00 - 512 µg mL-1 and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) values in the range of 256 - 2048 µg mL-1. Tetrahydropyrimidine derivative 3f showed the best inhibitory properties. Inhibitory activity was not significant with nisin. While antifungal effects of major derivatives were improved by combination with it. The results indicated that the combined treatment of heterocycles used in the present study with nisin might be efficient for mold prevention and removal in foodstuffs or other products.


The limit idea is the basic idea of calculus. Almost all concepts in mathematical analysis are inseparable from the limit, but the limit is a concept that is difficult to understand accurately. By assuming that there is a certain point closest to the limit value, this paper provides a reasonable explanation for the infinitesimal paradox and a new answer to the question why the limit value is accurate in teaching. At the same time, this method is applied to the derivative and used to understand a common practical problem in mathematics. The analysis shows that this method is effective for the accurate understanding of limit problems.


There are many factors involved in motivating students to attend school. Students who are not motivated, hence, will usually decide not to be present in school. Based on several researches conducted, the rate of absenteeism among students increases annually. As a result, this problem will more or less adversely affect the school's reputation. Thus, this study is conducted to identify factors that cause students to play truant. A set of questionnaire was used to collect the information needed. The quantitative data was analyzed using Statistics Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to obtain descriptive statistics indices. The research findings were duly discussed.


An adjustable shop wrench to which thin plexiglass squares were mounted as jaws was used to sample unconsolidated sediments. The jaw opening could be set so as to match perfectly the thickness of the lamina to be sampled. Samples could be taken with little risk of contamination from adjacent strata and could be inspected before acceptance because of the transparency of the plexiglass slides.


Ensuring that advances in genomics are applied to the health improvement of people living in developing countries is an important contemporary challenge. In the near term, such advances are likely to alleviate infectious diseases, with longer-term benefits envisaged for chronic disorders. To ensure that benefits are shared by developing countries, attention must be paid to complex ethical, legal, social, and economic issues, as well as to public education and engagement. Creative and equitable international mechanisms and goodwill are needed to turn high hopes into reality and allow the use of genomics to reduce health inequities between rich and poor nations.


The recognition of 'fetal origins of adult disease' has placed new responsibilities on the obstetrician, as antenatal care is no longer simply about ensuring good perinatal outcomes, but also needs to plan for optimal long-term health for mother and baby. Recently, it has become clear that the intrauterine environment has a broad and long-lasting impact, influencing fetal and childhood growth and development as well as future cardiovascular health, non-communicable disease risk and fertility. This article looks specifically at the importance of the developmental origins of ovarian reserve and ageing, the role of the placenta and maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy. It also reviews recent insights in developmental medicine of relevance to the obstetrician, and outlines emerging evidence supporting a proactive clinical approach to optimizing periconceptional as well as antenatal care aimed to protect newborns against long-term disease susceptibility.


The oral anticoagulant phenindione [2-phenyl-1H-indene-1,3(2H)-dione] is associated with hypersensitivity reactions in 1.5 to 3% of patients, the pathogenesis of which is unclear. We describe a patient who developed a severe hypersensitivity reaction that involved both the skin and lungs. A lymphocyte transformation test showed proliferation of T-cells from the hypersensitive patient, but not from four controls on exposure to phenindione in vitro. Drug-specific T-cell clones were generated and characterized in terms of their phenotype, functionality, and mechanism of antigen presentation. Forty-three human leukocyte antigen class II restricted CD4+ αβ T-cell clones were identified. T-cell activation resulted in the secretion of interferon-γ and interleukin-5. Five of seven clones proliferated with phenindione alone, whereas two clones also proliferated with 2-phenylindene. Certain T-cell clones were also stimulated by R- and S-warfarin; computer modeling revealed that warfarin can adopt a phenindione-like structure. Phenindione was presented to T-cells via two pathways: first, bound directly to major histocompatibility complex and second, bound to a processed peptide. Our data show that CD4+ T-cells are involved in the pathophysiology of phenindione hypersensitivity. There may be cross-sensitivity with warfarin in some phenindione hypersensitive patients.


The aim of this master's thesis is to study what attitude public libraries in Sweden show towards video games. By using critical discourse analysis as both theory and method we analyse several texts emerging from a debate mainly discussed in blogs. Main topics in the debate are video games in the library, the purpose of the public library and Library 2.0. Our analysis focus on views expressed concerning the work and purpose of the public library, the librarian and the library user - and to identify the main visible discourses in the discussion.

Our findings consist of two discourses representing two different views in the debate. We call these two discourses the general educational discourse and the interactive discourse. The first one represents a traditional view of the library, the librarian, the library user, the quality in selection, and culture. The latter has a more user-centred view of the library's work and purpose, a will to include video games in the public library and the cultural arena, and a somewhat more post-modern, circumstantial view of quality.

We detect a power struggle between these two discourses where the different parties seek to define concepts central to the understandings of the public library, culture and literature. There is also a pattern here to be seen when new media is introduced to the society in general, which is reflected in the library practice as well. Usually a debate emerges concerning the moral and cultural aspects of the new media, which habitually leads to a moral panic. By pointing out the reoccurring reactions this paper identifies the circular discussions that arise in the public library when a new media, such as the video game in our case, is presented.


Several aspects have motivated the current interest of the Internet community for optical technologies. The first of these motivations is related to the necessity of a higher network capacity facing the rapid growth of the Internet traffic. Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is today a simple and cost effective solution to this difficulty. The second motivation refers to the necessity of introducing quality of service (QoS) in IP networks in order to facilitate voice, video and data services integration. Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is today considered as the most promising technique to introduce such QoS. The feasibility of optical switches and of optical routers has been demonstrated in various ACTS research programs. Thanks to these advancements, an extension of MPLS to optical switching fabrics is under study within various standardization bodies under the name of Generalized MPLS (GMPLS). In a first step, this paper aims at presenting the various approaches considered by the standardization bodies for new generation IP networks and optical networks. The overlay and peer-to-peer approaches to combine these two types of technologies are commented on, a particular interest being dedicated to the ITU-T vision with the optical transport network (OTN) definition. The rest of the paper focuses on the very open problems of traffic management and network planning in all-optical IP networks.


In patients with unclear groin pain herniography has revealed hernia in 36% of the patients with a normal physical examination. Most of the hernias detected on herniography are of indirect, direct or femoral type. The former two are found predominantly among men and the latter among women. These types of hernia are defined herniographically according to their location and shape. Whether or not a hernia is present is usually obvious although small hernias may be obscured by pelvic bone and contrast medium in the inguinal fossae and pouch of Douglas. In most patients the hernias are conspicuous and easy to classify correctly. Problems may, however, arise in the precise definition of some types of hernia. In this respect positive contrast herniography contributes to the pre-operative evaluation in patients with inguinal hernia. The aim of the present report is to describe some less well-known herniographic findings. The clinical impact of the particular findings is discussed.


As a new generation of fluorophores, up-conversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) exhibit high penetration depth in tissues, low photodamage to biological samples, large Stokes shifts, sharp emission bands, free auto-fluorescence background and high photostability, thus making them an ideal kind of fluorescent labels for a variety of assay formats ranging from bio-imaging to cancer therapy. In this article, the method for the synthesis of biocompatible UCNPs, the recent progress regarding the UCNPs for multimodal targeted tumor imaging, drug delivery, photodynamic therapy (PDT), and photothermal therapy (PTT) are discussed on emphasis. The challenges and opportunities in this emerging field are also presented.


Comparative effectiveness research (CER) guidelines have been developed to direct the field toward the most rigorous study methodologies. A challenge, however, is how to ensure the best evidence is generated, and how to translate methodologically complex or nuanced CER findings into usable medical evidence. To reach that goal, it is important that both researchers and end users of CER output become knowledgeable about the elements that impact the quality and interpretability of CER. This paper distilled guidance on CER into a practical tool to assist both researchers and nonexperts with the critical review and interpretation of CER, with a focus on issues particularly relevant to CER in oncology.


GaAs/AlGaAs core-shell nanowires exhibit properties suitable for electronic and opto-electronic applications. In this work, individual parts of Au and self catalyzed nanowires are examined through microphotoluminescence and transmission electron microscopy. The focus of the work was to find the spatial origin of the various emission energies reported for GaAs nanowires. Parts of wires were selected by sputtering with a focused ion beam, selective deposition of Pt by a focused electron beam and probing sections with the laser beam in photoluminescence experiments. The Au catalyzed wires examined are predominantly of wurtzite crystal phase and of two structurally separable types, short and uniform or long with segments with a high density of stacking faults. The self catalyzed wires have a lower part with zinc blende crystal phase and an upper part with a high density of stacking faults, twinning and small segments of wurtzite phase. The emission from the wires have different spatial and structural origin relating to the varying morphology of the wires. It is found that the emission from the Au catalyzed wires comes from bound excitons and axial AlGaAs. The emission from self catalyzed wires comes from bound excitons or spatially indirect type II transitions relating to stacking faults and twins. It was also found that cutting the wires suppressed their radiative efficiency and that covering the wires with Pt induced surface plasmon resonance at the Pt/NW interface.


Visual object recognition is undoubtedly a complex process. This is testified by the many attempts to build robust computer vision systems that are capable of recognising objects across a range of views, under different lighting conditions and in different contextual environments (see Brady, 1997; Lowe, 1987 for examples). It is also a commonplace assumption in the computer vision community that visual recognition comprises a number of distinct steps-these include: edge extraction, grouping of local image features, segmentation of objects from the background and from other objects that may be present, formation of a structural description of the object, and accessing stored structural and semantic information from the description assembled from the image (e.g. see Biederman, 1987; Marr, 1982). If the brain follows similar steps to achieve recognition, and if these steps are at least to some degree localised in different neural regions, we might expect visual recognition to break down in a variety of ways, according to the nature of the component processes involved. In contrast to computational arguments for there being several necessary substages in object recognition, the neurological and neuropsychological literature on recognition disorders has traditionally adopted a dichotomous approach. This approach originates in the pioneering work of Lissauer (1890). Lissauer distinguished between two forms of recognition disorder or visual agnosia: apperceptive and associative. Apperceptive agnosia was diagnosed as an impairment that disrupts the formation of a normal percept for the visual stimulus,


AIMThe aim of the research is to review all qualitative research studies related to service-learning assessment in nursing education. BACKGROUNDRecent literature reviews have examined quantitative but not qualitative research studies on service-learning assessment in nursing education. METHODAn integrative review analyzed the results of published qualitative research of service-learning assessment. Articles included in this review were published in English in peer-reviewed journals from 1997 to 2014 and encompassed information on outcomes, assessment or evaluation, nursing education, and service-learning. RESULTSNine articles containing thematic analysis were included in the final review. Findings were synthesized into a higher order of analysis. Eight categories from that analysis were created: professional competency development, integration of knowledge for the professional nursing role, greater understanding of community strengths and needs, collaboration and teamwork, transformation and personal growth, civic engagement, emotions and adjustment, and culture awareness and competency. CONCLUSIONThe integrative review will aid in the development of measurement categories for further nursing service-learning assessment work.


Neuropsychiatric side effects have been reported with various systemic betablockers. Data submitted to the National Registry of Drug-Induced Ocular Side Effects appear to indicate similar adverse reactions secondary to topical ophthalmic timolol. One hundred sixty-three of 369 central nervous system cases (44%) reported depression, psychosis, confusion, and hallucinations following topical ophthalmic timolol administration. The psychiatric community should be aware that sudden changes in mental status or onset of common psychiatric conditions, such as depression, may be due to topical ocular timolol. Withdrawal of the drug usually results in disappearance of these effects in 1 to 7 days.


Particle versus density models and hybrid computations for ionization fronts To understand ionization fronts and the growth of streamer channels, both density and particle models have been developed. The streamer channel consists of an ionized interior with many charged particles that is efficiently approximated by continuous particle densities, and a pulled ionization front where the statistics of few single particles can create velocity fluctuation and might trigger inherent instabilities. The goal of the project is therefore to develop a computation scheme that is hybrid in space. We explain concepts and implementations of the kinetic Monte Carlo model and of the spatially coupled one-dimensional hybrid model. We compare results for planar ionization fronts which have been carried out within the PDE model, the Monte Carlo model, and the hybrid model.


Presently, geographical mobility strongly influences professional insertion. Although, when we ask pupils from rural environments about their future life and work environments, they appear to prefer countryside in their present life region and to be strongly reluctant to live in a big city, and even more in a foreign country. It makes wondering about the possibilities: precocious entry in the local labour market or migration towards more qualified jobs. Many factors can affect these future choices: what is the part of the origin family socioprofessional environment, the personal history of these young people who are or not from the region where they presently live, the regular or occasional frequency of their family travels, the representations they have of anchorage and territorial identity. The follow-up, from the so-called "CM2"(which corresponds to 5th grade) to the so-called "Seconde" (which corresponds to the second year at the Senior school) of a cohort of more than 2000 pupils who belong to various types of rural environments and who are interrogated five times, allows giving some answers to the question of territorial identity and geographical mobility projects among the pupils from rural environments.


In this study we have used the hypoxia-targeting MRI contrast agent GdDO3NI, (a nitroimidazole-based T1 contrast agent) to image the development of hypoxia in two types of rodent brain tumor models. Our results indicate a range of signal enhancements from 0-17% over baseline in the C6 and 9L tumors using GdDO3NI with clearance from contralateral brain and muscle tissue. This study further demonstrates the utility of GdDO3NI in non-invasive imaging of tissue hypoxia with high resolution.


In scanning probe microscopy, the scanner dynamically positions the sample relative to the probe, and the upper limit of the imaging speed is governed primarily by the first eigenfrequency of the scanner. The mechanical oscillations of the scanner-even when it operates far from resonance-give rise to image artifacts and negatively affect the image resolution. This paper analytically and experimentally investigates the scanner's dynamics at high scan rates upon scanning over a large area. At slow scan speeds, the frequency spectra of the microcantilever's deflection signal exhibit only the excitation frequency and its harmonics; in contrast, at high scan speeds, the spectra exhibit sidebands centered around the excitation harmonics and separated from them by the scanner's eigenfrequency. Exploiting this phenomenon, a scanner dynamics-based method is proposed to reconstruct the surface topography, and, thereby, to reduce the oscillation-induced image artifacts. The method is proven for a variety of sample surfaces at very high scan rates up to 59.2 Hz (corresponding to a linear speed of 4.74 mm/s) upon scanning over a 40 μm × 40 μm area and is successfully demonstrated to be able to virtually eliminate any image artifacts. A nearly ten-fold increase in the scan rate is demonstrated using even a legacy scanner, with no changes required to the hardware.


As networks and data transmission are becoming increasingly important for computational science, we are working on developing a visualization application that uses high-speed networks to aid scientists in their scientific exploration. However, we have identified a major issue in the performance of data transmission when rate-based UDP is used in parallel from multiple senders to a single receiver. This affects both video and raw data transmission. In this paper we identify the source of the issue in the traffic bursts caused by uneven pacing of data at the senders. Our experiments confirm that adding precise pacing at the data transmission source addresses the issue, improving the performance of data transfer and video streaming.


Concrete has become as one of the common material in the construction sector, which makes it of great interest to the researchers in pursuit for the production of concrete with better properties. This is mainly because the existing concrete has several limitations in terms of strength, ductility, durability and resistance to cracking. To overcome this problem with the use of bioconcrete, it can self-heal and also posses other value added features like high durability, increased strength and less water absorption capacity. Even though several studies to date have been focused on the development of bioconcrete but the aspects of advantage and disadvantages using bioconcrete has not been discussed so far. The objective of this study is to review the positive and negative impacts of bioconcrete application in the aspect of strength, durability, permeability, recycling and its effects on human health. A systematic review has been used to review some of the relevant and recently published works in this area. The diverse advantages has been mainly covered like; increasing the concrete durability, increasing the concrete strength, increasing of concrete permeability, and ability of biological concrete for recycling. The effect of biological concrete on human health as one of the main disadvantages using bioconcrete has also been covered. The findings of this paper can be considered significant for the stakeholders in the construction sector, as well as the engineers in gaining insight towards the potential use of biological concrete in the field of construction, considering both the merits and demerits of using biological concrete. As a conclusion, the research paper highlights several advantages and disadvantages of bioconcrete that helps to predict the future commercial application of bioconcrete in the construction industry.


Diffraction microtomography in coherent light is foreseen as a promising technique to image transparent living samples in three dimensions without staining. Contrary to conventional microscopy with incoherent light, which gives morphological information only, diffraction microtomography makes it possible to obtain the complex optical refractive index of the observed sample by mapping a three-dimensional support in the spatial frequency domain. The technique can be implemented in two configurations, namely, by varying the sample illumination with a fixed sample or by rotating the sample using a fixed illumination. In the literature, only the former method was described in detail. In this report, we precisely derive the three-dimensional frequency support that can be mapped by the sample rotation configuration. We found that, within the first-order Born approximation, the volume of the frequency domain that can be mapped exhibits a missing part, the shape of which resembles that of an apple core. The projection of the diffracted waves in the frequency space onto the set of sphere caps covered by the sample rotation does not allow for a complete mapping of the frequency along the axis of rotation due to the finite radius of the sphere caps. We present simulations of the effects of this missing information on the reconstruction of ideal objects.


A growing number of game design and development programs in higher education are beginning to incorporate environmental considerations into their curricula. This aligns with the broader push for more responsible and environmentally conscious practices in game production, consumption, and education. This article introduces two ongoing European inter-university projects: the Erasmus+ Greening Games project and the Nordplus-funded Nordic Alliance for Sustainability in Gaming network. Using them as case studies, the article reflects on the lessons learned and the challenges encountered while implementing the projects' pilot stages, as well as their implications for environmentally conscious game design education more broadly.


This paper discusses how to effectively design a next-generation wireless communication system that can possibly provide very high data-rate transmissions and versatile quality services. In order to accommodate the sophisticated user requirements and diversified user environments of the next-generation systems, it should be designed to take an efficient and flexible structure for multiple access and resource allocation. In addition, the design should be optimized for cost-effective usage of resources and for efficient operation in a multi-cell environment. As orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) has turned out in recent researches to be one of the most promising multiple access techniques that can possibly meet all those requirements through efficient radio spectrum utilization, we take OFDMA as the basic framework in the next-generation wireless communications system design. So, in this paper, we focus on introducing an OFDMA-based downlink system design that employs the techniques of hybrid multiple access (HMA) and frequency group (FG) in conjunction with intra-frequency group averaging (IFGA). The HMA technique combines various multiple access schemes on the basis of OFDMA system, adopting the multiple access scheme that best fits to the given user condition in terms of mobility, service, and environment. The FG concept and IFGA technique help to reduce the feedback overhead of OFDMA system and the other-cell interference (OCI) problem by grouping the sub-carriers based on coherence band-widths and by harmonizing the channel condition and OCI of the grouped sub-carriers.


Public active green space standards, construction law No. 3194 of the plan to be built on the basis of 10 m² per person in the regulations "active green space" is defined as. Active green space should be appropriate size and balanced distribution in the city. The city should be able to achieve a regular and healthy environment with the development of the urban design concept. The selected research area of Duzce, Akcakoca city has quite a rich potential in terms of green areas, although the active green areas such as urban and neighborhood parks, playgrounds, playing fields seems to be inadequate in terms of quantity and quality. In this study, the distribution and amount of green space in the city and in the neighborhood scale, size and per capita rates in the city of Akcakoca were evaluated. The accessibility of urban green space in Akcakoca was evaluated based on effective services. The use and access of public to the green spaces on the city were determined by the surveys. Some proposals about the green areas have been developed in line with the elimination of current problems as in the study results


Infantile colic is a common and frustrating condition for parents and health care practitioners. A commonly held belief is that the condition is benign and only results in transient loss of parental sleep; however, a detailed study of the recent literature and clinical studies suggests that not all colic abates without residual consequences. In this article, we outline current understanding of the condition and suggest methods of intervention. In addition, we focus on the potential effect of colic on infant attachment; the later growth and development of the once-colicky child; the evidence that supporting and refuting commonly held beliefs, and areas of intervention.


This work focuses on the species associations of the Baronie Seamount (north-eastern Sardinia, Italy), according to variations in depth and time of day. The aim was to highlight the potential vertical movements of the species and to compare these results to existing data from a submarine canyon. Twenty-two samples were taken at different depths and times along two trawl lines over the seamount. A total of 94 species were caught; among these, 48 bony fish, 9 cartilaginous fish, 13 molluscs and 24 crustaceans were selected for analysis. Cluster analysis showed 3 groups in which both depth and time of day play an important role in grouping. Nine species showed some daily and nocturnal movement, probably linked to trophic requirements. The daily movements according to size and sex of the shrimps Aristaeomorpha foliacea and Aristeus antennatus were also studied. For these two populations, the analysis showed an uneven distribution and the diel cycle appears to involve only the females. These species seem to adapt their life cycle to the geomorphology of the sea bottom. The diurnal movements from the base of the seamount to the edge of the continental shelf increase the range of the species distribution. In fact, the seamount, due to its geomorphological conformation, offers these species the opportunity to very quickly span a considerable range of depths. These movements are known to occur in the continental shelf and slope, but in the seamount they are broadened and can be studied more easily.


This study offers a design procedure of optimum cable damper for multi-mode vibration control with nonlinear damper and also investigates the relation between mode and amplitude dependency. The proposed multi-mode damping index, which is defined as a potential energy loss ratio of cable vibration, is a main component of optimization problem of optimum nonlinear damper. In order to include the amplitude dependency of nonlinear damper, three types of multi-mode patterns such as ambient vibration, support excitation and rain-wind induced vibration are assumed. The optimum damper exponent depends on amplitude patterns. In case of ambient vibration, optimum factor is less than 0.5 and in case of support excitation or rain-wind induced vibration it is between 0.5 and 1.0.


The relationship between treatment with histamine-2 (H2)-receptor antagonists (cimetidine and ranitidine) and subsequent risk of gastric cancer was analyzed with data of a case-control study conducted in northern Italy between 1983 and 1991 on 628 incident cases of gastric cancer and 1776 control subjects who had been hospitalized for acute, nonneoplastic, non-digestive-tract disorders, with a specific focus on time-risk relationships and analysis of covariates. Previous use of H2-receptor antagonists was reported by 45 (7.2%) cancer patients and 68 (3.8%) control subjects; the corresponding multivariate relative risk (RR) was 2.1 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.4-3.8). A significantly elevated risk, however, was evident only among individuals (27 patients and 23 control subjects) who had started using the drug less than 5 yr before diagnosis (RR 3.8, 95% CI 2.1-6.1). The risk estimate declined to 2.1 (95% CI 1.0-4.2) for use starting 5-9 yr before diagnosis and to 0.4 (95% CI 0.2-1.2) for use starting greater than or equal to 10 yr before diagnosis. When the relationship between use of H2-receptor antagonists and gastric cancer risk was examined across strata of sex, age, and other selected covariates (educational level, tobacco use, and alcohol and coffee consumption), all RRs were greater than unity for use starting less than 5 yr before diagnosis, but there was no evidence of any consistent association for use starting in the more distant past. Furthermore, there was no evidence of heterogeneity in the RRs for H2-receptor antagonist use and gastric cancer across strata of the covariates examined.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


A case report of a 60 year old female brought by her family to medical consultation because they noticed decreased visual function 2 days prior to medical evaluation. The patient denies having altered visual function. Her visual acuity was of hand motion on both eyes with no ocular findings to justify this vision.The patient was told she needed a Goldmann perimetry test and brain magnetic resonance imaging and to be evaluated in 24 hours, nevertheless, the patient returns one week later with a visual capacity of 20/250 in both eyes. By that time, the Goldmann perimetry shows complete left homonymous hemianopsia and peripheral reduction of temporal 30° on the right eye and nasal 10° on the left eye with partial preservation of fixation point. Magnetic resonance imaging shows right occipito-temporal ischemic lesion with bilateral small vessel occipital ischemia. Treatment is indicated by neuro-ophthalmology service and the patients were diagnosed with visual anosognosia associated to occipital ischemia, with gradual improvement of visual function by reperfusion of central nervous system.


Background: Computerized baropodometry, a posturographic recording technique used in the diagnosis and assessment of plantar pressure, which records the pressure points exerted by the body on the plantar surface, is an accurate, objective and quantitative examination. Its record is used in the diagnosis and evaluation of plantar pressure, both in static and dynamic positions. Objective: Analyze the baropodometric profile of patients in a physiotherapy clinic. Methods: A cross-sectional study of documentary character of baropodometry exams registered in the database of a physiotherapy clinic in Teresina (PI), carried out from January 2015 to December 2018. Totaling 193 exams, which include the types of feet, peak plantar pressure and correlation between peak plantar pressure with age, weight, height and BMI. The collected data were analyzed statistically by the software Win Track version 12.0, and presented through tables and figures. In this research, all ethical precepts were carried out in accordance with the resolution of the National Health Council and was approved by the ethics committee. Results: There was a higher prevalence of hollow feet (96.89%), showing a greater occurrence of displacement of the center of gravity posteriorly to the right (46.11%), it was found that there was no satisfactory correlation of anthropometric parameters with peak plantar pressure (p>0.05). Conclusion: It was possible to observe that the examinations evaluated showed a higher prevalence of hollow feet and center of gravity posteriorized to the right. In addition, there was no satisfactory correlation between peak plantar pressure with the variables age, weight, height and BMI.


Echimys saturnus Thomas, 1928 is an echimyid rodent that has been recorded in lowland, premontane and montane forests in Ecuador and lowland forests in Peru. Here, we report five new records of this species in the Peruvian Yungas ecoregion. Our records come from Amazonas, San Martín, and Huánuco departments. The Huánuco specimen, collected at 3300 m a.s.l., constitutes the highest and the southernmost record for the species, extending its distribution range by 251 km south. Additionally, we provide some notes on the natural history and conservation status of the species.


While neural conversation models have shown great potentials towards generating informative and engaging responses via introducing external knowledge, learning such a model often requires knowledge-grounded dialogues that are difficult to obtain. To overcome the data challenge and reduce the cost of building a knowledge-grounded dialogue system, we explore the problem under a zero-resource setting by assuming no context-knowledge-response triples are needed for training. To this end, we propose representing the knowledge that bridges a context and a response and the way that the knowledge is expressed as latent variables, and devise a variational approach that can effectively estimate a generation model from a dialogue corpus and a knowledge corpus that are independent with each other. Evaluation results on three benchmarks of knowledge-grounded dialogue generation indicate that our model can achieve comparable performance with state-of-the-art methods that rely on knowledge-grounded dialogues for training, and exhibits a good generalization ability over different topics and different datasets.


The MICON is an electronic music stand extending Maestro!, the latest in a series of interactive conducting exhibits that use real orchestral audio and video recordings. The MICON uses OpenGL-based rendering to display and animate score pages with a high degree of realism. It offers three different score display formats to match the user's level of expertise. A real-time animated visual cueing system helps users with their conducting. The MICON has been evaluated with music students.


BACKGROUND
Spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) has been established as a clinically effective modality for the management of several musculoskeletal disorders. One major issue with the use of SMT is its safety, especially with respect to neck manipulation and the risk of stroke in the vertebrobasilar system.

OBJECTIVES
Our objectives were to quantify the strains and forces sustained by the vertebral artery (VA) in situ during SMT.

STUDY DESIGN
This was a cadaveric study.

METHODS
Six VAs were obtained from 5 unembalmed postrigor cadavers. The cephalad/distal (C0-C1) and caudad/proximal (C6-subclavian artery) loops of the VA were carefully exposed and instrumented with a pair of piezoelectric ultrasonographic crystals. The strains between each crystal pair were recorded during range of motion testing and diagnostic tests and during a variety of SMT procedures. The VA was then dissected free and strained on a materials testing machine until mechanical failure occurred.

RESULTS
SMT performed on the contralateral side of the cervical spine resulted in an average strain of 6.2% +/- 1.3% to the distal (C0-C1) loop of the VA and a 2.1% +/- 0.4% strain to the proximal (C6) loop. These values were similar to or lower than the strains recorded during diagnostic and range of motion testing. Failure testing demonstrated that the VAs could be stretched to 139% to 162% of their resting length before mechanical failure occurred. Therefore the strains sustained by the VA during SMT represent approximately one ninth of the strain at mechanical failure.

CONCLUSIONS
SMT resulted in strains to the VA that were almost an order of magnitude lower than the strains required to mechanically disrupt it. We conclude that under normal circumstances, a single typical (high-velocity/low-amplitude) SMT thrust is very unlikely to mechanically disrupt the VA.


Rapid technological advances and pressures of globalization have necessitated not only creation of innovation but faster innovation to gain or sustain competitive advantage. Open innovation paradigm answers this need by utilizing larger resources and expertise that firms involved in the open innovation process offer. The creation of open innovation, among other factors, depends on relative capacity, a firm's ability to retain knowledge outside its boundaries in the inter-firm relations. This conceptual paper first examines relative capacity and proposes its dimensions - realized and potential capacities. Secondly, the relation between relative capacity and creation of open innovation is addressed and how this relation can be affected by different external factors like regimes of appropriability and complementary assets is also discussed. Propositions are developed, managerial implications underscored and future research directions highlighted.


In this paper, a new master arm was developed as an input device of the remote control system for easy control of the industrial robot arm; it has a structure similar to the robot arm and is easy to wear. For control of the slave arm, related equations were derived about the joints between the master and slave arm; and thereby using them, the master arm control system was developed. Furthermore, a control simulator was developed for the convenient and accurate control of the slave arm. Experiments, about controlling the slave arm in applying the master arm, were performed to validate the developed simulator and the derived related equations.


The Serpent and the Swan is a history and analysis of animal bride tales from antiquity to the present. The animal bride tale, the author argues, is an enduring expression of humankind's need to remain close to and a part of nature.Boria Sax traces the idea of the animal bride through history by drawing upon legends and literary works from throughout the world. He pays particular attention to Eurasian sources which support his thesis that the animal bride theme originated among the serpent cults of Mesopotamia and southeastern Europe. Through time, the details of the animal bride theme changed as a result of mankind's changing perceptions of the natural world. In general, this study is an account of myths and beliefs that have surrounded animals--and women--during the rise of modern humankind. The Serpent and the Swan identifies and explains images of the animal bride that pervade, enliven, and enrich our culture. The bride becomes Eve taking an apple from the serpent, Medea casting spells, Cinderella riding to the royal ball in a pumpkin coach, and the Little Mermaid rising from the waves.The Author: Boria Sax, who holds a doctorate in German and intellectual history, is the author of The Frog King and The Parliament of Animals, among other books.


Before it engages with the specifics of articles gathered here under the title "Frontiers of Ecocriticism," this introduction to the second of two issues of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies/SITES devoted to this theme might fruitfully be conceived as an attempt to delineate the contours and evolution of the field, indeed to explore the very definition of what this field might be. In other words, while we are clearly interested in the practice of something called "ecocriticism," we find that examining its formation, evolution, and frontiers yields results that are pertinent to a clearer understanding of the scholarly and creative work it has prompted. Whether one thinks of ecocritical French and francophone Studies in North American universities or of literary studies in France and other francophone countries using a vocabulary of ecocritique, ecopo etique, zoopo etique, or ecologie, French ecocriticism describes domains of inquiry that not only intersect but also frequently diverge from and challenge canonical anglophone formulations of ecocriticism. What is more, French ecocriticism remains highly decentralized; it is, paradoxically, a large field to which very few scholars feel they entirely belong and, for reasons we will explore in more detail below, affiliations and affinities tend to coalesce around the secondary terms or so-called subfields of ecocriticism. In this spirit, "frontiers of ecocriticism" is not a call for a research collective to move forward with a unified program of research, but rather an invitation to work from the various margins that we occupy, to reflect on and renegotiate the borders and blind spots of ecocritical thought as


In Germany the drinking water is to be monitored regularly. The sampling frequencies and the scale of monitoring of the water supplies are provided by the Drinking Water Ordinance 2001. Taking into account the overall samples taken, the drinking water quality ranges from good to very good, and the requirements for the microbiological, chemical and physical standards have been largely satisfied, as set out by the Drinking Water Ordinance 2001. What concerns most parameters, unremarkable variations have been measured in more than 99 % of samples taken. The highest frequency of non-compliance (in 1 to 2 % of samples taken) has been found in the parameters pesticides and coliform bacteria. Some impairments of drinking water quality could be traced to house installation systems, which do not meet the commonly accepted technical rules. In general, potential danger to human health does not exist. This information is based on the report by the Ministry of Health about the quality of drinking water in Germany in the period 2002-2004.


The processes of electron–hole drop (EHD) formation and migration in silicon crystal containing a significant number of dislocations can have different features as compared with those in dislocation-free crystal. The results of a low-temperature photoluminescence study of EHD in silicon with dislocations presented here show that dislocations in silicon are centres of EHD condensation. In addition to the line for dislocation-free silicon with a maximum at 1.082 eV, the radiative spectrum of EHD in silicon with dislocations contains an additional line with a maximum at 1.078 eV that is due to the appearance of unusual EHD extended or 'spread' along the dislocation axis. The existence of cylindrical EHD on dislocations is confirmed also by the different character of the dependence of the EHD recombination radiation intensity on the excitation intensity and is demonstrated by model calculations.


This paper describes on-board decentralized data acquisition system that acquires and encodes the numerous sensor data distributed on the big flight vehicles efficiently. The system's sub-units which have one encoder unit and several remote units were designed and simulated according to the communication protocols and the control, sequence logics based on the FPGA chip. And we have made the functional verification of the acquisition, collection and formatting of remote analog and digital data for the manufactured hard wares.


Diabetes is a chronic, complex disease of lifestyle, known to mankind for thousands of years. It is a metabolic disease in which, elevated blood glucose ultimately leads to various clinical complications including, retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy, a variety of vascular diseases and, end organ failure. According to the experts, high blood sugar is just a symptom and not the cause for the disease. Major cause for this disease is, impaired insulin production, or insulin insensitivity. Diabetes is supposed to usually begin with insulin resistance, a condition in which, muscle, liver and fat cells do not use insulin efficiently. Sedentary nature, diet and excess weight, seem to contribute significantly to the development of diabetes. A quick Internet search on diabetes management reveals that by and large clinicians focus on fasting glucose, glucose intolerance, postprandial glucose peaks, or glycosylated haemoglobin (HBA1c) levels. Experts are of the opinion, that there is no cure for the diabetes, but it can be managed and controlled. The guidelines and guidance statements from professional societies, also emphasize heavily on the management of blood glucose levels and suggest that these levels be kept at as near to normal levels as possible, by balancing food intake and medication.In this short overview, we will discuss some salient features related to chronic complications of diabetes and express our point of view, on the two major players, hyperglycaemic load and dyslipidaemia, that contribute significantly to the chronic complications associated with diabetes.


At present, recognition of the Bangla handwriting compound character has been an essential issue for many years. In recent years there have been application-based researches in machine learning, and deep learning, which is gained interest, and most notably is handwriting recognition because it has a tremendous application such as Bangla OCR. MatrriVasha, the project which can recognize Bangla, handwritten several compound characters. Currently, compound character recognition is an important topic due to its variant application, and helps to create old forms, and information digitization with reliability. But unfortunately, there is a lack of a comprehensive dataset that can categorize all types of Bangla compound characters. MatrriVasha is an attempt to align compound character, and it's challenging because each person has a unique style of writing shapes. After all, MatrriVasha has proposed a dataset that intends to recognize Bangla 120(one hundred twenty) compound characters that consist of 2552(two thousand five hundred fifty-two) isolated handwritten characters written unique writers which were collected from within Bangladesh. This dataset faced problems in terms of the district, age, and gender-based written related research because the samples were collected that includes a verity of the district, age group, and the equal number of males, and females. As of now, our proposed dataset is so far the most extensive dataset for Bangla compound characters. It is intended to frame the acknowledgment technique for handwritten Bangla compound character. In the future, this dataset will be made publicly available to help to widen the research.


Accurately capturing the near field emission of complex luminaires is still very difficult. In this paper, we describe a new acquisition pipeline of such luminaires that performs an orthogonal projection on a given basis in a two-step procedure. First, we use an optical low-pass filter that corresponds to the reconstruction basis to guarantee high precision measurements. The second step is a numerical process on the acquired data that finalizes the projection. Based on this concept, we introduce new experimental setups for automatic acquisition and perform a detailed error analysis of the acquisition process.


The heavy metal lead (Pb) markedly augments the lethality of endotoxin in laboratory animals. Much of the tissue injury produced by endotoxin is thought to be mediated by cytokines. Thus, the effects of Pb on the regulation of interleukin-6 (IL-6), a proinflammatory cytokine that shows high correlation with symptoms of endotoxic shock, and the levels of corticosterone, a hormone produced to prepare the body to cope with stress, upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS; endotoxin) administration were investigated. After intravenous administration of LPS, the kinetics of IL-6 gene expression by Northern blot analysis revealed a rapid increase of IL-6 mRNA, which peaked by 2 h in the spleens and 3 h in the brains of B6C3F1 female mice, with or without Pb exposure. Peak production of IL-6 protein after LPS challenge was observed at 2 h in the spleens and 3 h in the sera regardless of Pb-treatment. However, Pb-exposed mice showed an altered kinetic profile of IL-6 appearance in the brain, in that the levels of IL-6 in the brains peaked at 4 h rather than 3 h, the peak for the control mice. Moreover, at two time points, the amounts of IL-6 were found to be higher in the brains of Pb-treated mice. Increases in IL-6 were detected in multiple areas of the brain, but Pb did not significantly enhance this level in any area. The observation of both IL-6 transcripts and protein in the brains of mice upon peripheral LPS administration is indicative of local de novo synthesis of IL-6 in the brain. IL-6 production in the brain may contribute to the centrally mediated effects of IL-6, since IL-6 in the brain is known to activate the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Upon LPS challenge, corticosterone levels peaked at the 2-h time point and stayed elevated for 6 h regardless of Pb exposure. The increases in brain IL-6 and its extended expression by Pb do not appear to have significantly altered the HPA axis on the basis of the corticosterone level, but brain IL-6 is known to affect multiple brain functions such as long-term potentiation.


Abstract : Sensor noise is an unavoidable fact of life when it comes to measurements on physical systems, as is the case in feedback control. Therefore, it must be properly addressed during dynamic system identification. In this work, a novel approach is developed toward the treatment of measurement noise in dynamical systems. This approach hinges on proper stochastic modeling, and it can be adapted easily to many different scenarios, where it yields consistently good parameter estimates. The Generalized Minimum Variance algorithm developed and used in this work is based on the theory behind the minimum variance identification process, and the estimate produced is a fixed point of a mapping based on the minimum variance solution. Additionally, the algorithm yields an accurate prediction of the estimation error. This algorithm is applied to many different noise models associated with three basic identification problems. First, continuous-time systems are identified using frequency domain measurements. Next, a discrete-time plant is identified using discrete-time measurements. Finally, the physical parameters of a continuous-time plant are identified using sampled measurements of the continuous-time input and output. Validation of the estimates is performed correctly, and the results are compared with other, more common, identification algorithms.


Melting point and bond length are employed to compare cohesive energy relations for metals, tetrahedral semiconductors, and carbides and nitrides that have the rocksalt structure. Cohesion largely is due to electron transfer in each case. However, the values for each of the three series deviate from a simple exchange relation in a different way. The deviation can be associated with semicovalent bonding in metals, electron spin‐pair bond delocalization in the semiconductors, and isolated C or N atoms in octahedral sites effecting an increase in the energy between first and second subset metal d states in the carbides and nitrides.


Cobb Seamount lies at 46{deg} 46'N, 130{deg} 48'W in the northeast Pacific 510 km due west of the Oregon coast. The isolated seamount rises 3000 m in a current field flowing from west to east. The seamount supports dense populations of fish and benthos. Collections and submersible observations of the benthic community produced a list of 117 species representing 13 phyla. The organisms present can nearly all be found on the North American Pacific coast, but the diversity is low. This paper presents an analysis of the larval dispersal modes of the benthos at Cobb Seamount. This remote seamount is dominated by species with either a short-lived or no planktonic larval phase. The preponderance of such larval strategies and the observation of abundant drifting kelp near the seamount suggest that rafting of adults may be an effective dispersal mode. The presence of a recirculating flow in the form of a modified Taylor cap appears important for trapping short-lived larvae on the seamount. However, because the water mass is replaced about every 17 days, medium and long-lived larvae would not be retained. The interplay between local currents, available dispersal vectors, and life-history strategies cannot be overlooked in the interpretation of marine biogeographic patterns.


Calf thyroid slices incubated with [U-14C]glucose synthesized protein-bound Glc3Man9GlcNAc2, Glc2-Man9GlcNAc2, Glc1Man9GlcNAc2, Glc1Man8GlcNAc2, and Glc1Man7GlcNAc2. Although label in the glucose residues of the last three compounds could be detected within 5 min of incubation, appearance of radioactivity in the mannose residues of the alpha-mannosidase-resistant cores of Glc1Man8GlcNAc2 and Glc1Man7GlcNAc2 took more than 30 and 60 min, respectively, to appear after label was detected in the same mannose residues of Glc1Man9GlcNAc2. The glucose residues were removed upon chasing the slices with unlabeled glucose. The last compound to disappear was Glc1Man9GlcNAc2. Calf thyroid microsomes incubated with UDP-[U-14C]Glc synthesized the five protein-bound oligosaccharides mentioned above. Although addition to GDP-Man to the incubation mixtures greatly diminished the formation of Glc3Man9GlcNAc2 bound either to dolichol-P-P or to protein, labeling of Glc1Man9GlcNAc2, Glc1Man8GlcNAc2, and Glc1Man7GlcNAc2 was not affected. Addition of kojibiose prevented deglucosylation of protein-bound Glc3Man9GlcNAc2 without affecting the formation of Glc1Man8GlcNAc2 and Glc1Man7GlcNAc2 and only partially diminishing that of Glc1Man9GlcNAc2. These results indicate that Glc1Man8GlcNAc2 and Glc1Man7GlcNAc2 were formed by glucosylation of the unglucosylated species and not be demannosylation of Glc1Man9GlcNAc2 and that probably part of the latter compound was formed in the same way.


Since the post-war era, artists have been exploring the use of embodied, artificial agents. This artistic activity runs parallel to research in computer science, in domains such as Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life. This thesis offers an account of a particular facet of this broader work — namely, a study of the artistic practice of agent-based, adaptive computational artistic installations that make use of Machine Learning methods. Machine Learning is a sub-field of the computer science area of Artificial Intelligence that employs mathematical models to classify and make predictions based on data or experience rather than on logical rules.

These artworks that integrate Machine Learning into their structures raise a number of important questions: (1) What new forms of aesthetic experience do Machine Learning methods enable or make possible when utilized outside of their intended context, and are instead carried over into artistic works? (2) What characterizes the practice of using adaptive computational methods in agent-based artworks? And finally, (3) what kind of worldview are these works fostering?

To address these questions, I examine the history of Machine Learning in both art and science, illustrating how artists and engineers alike have made use of these methods historically. I also analyze the defining scientific characteristics of Machine Learning through a practitioner's lens, concretely articulating how properties of Machine Learning interplay in media artworks that behave and evolve in real time. I later develop a framework for understanding machine behaviors based on the morphological aspects of the temporal unfolding of agent behaviors as a tool for comprehending both adaptive and non-adaptive behaviors in works of art. Finally, I expose how adaptive technologies suggest a new worldview for art that accounts for the performative engagement of agents adapting to one another, which implies a certain way of losing control in the face of the indeterminacy and the unintelligibility of alien agencies and their behaviors.


Digital tools play an important role in supporting front-line health workers who deliver primary care. This paper explores the current state of efforts undertaken to move away from single-purpose applications of digital health towards integrated systems and solutions that align with national strategies. Through examples from health information systems, data and health worker training, this paper demonstrates how governments and stakeholders are working to integrate digital health services. We emphasize three factors as crucial for this integration: development and implementation of national digital health strategies; technical interoperability and collaborative approaches to ensure that digital health has an impact on the primary care level. Consolidation of technologies will enable an integrated, scaleable approach to the use of digital health to support health workers.

PURPOSE
As this edition explores a paradigm shift towards harmonization in primary healthcare systems, this paper explores complementary efforts undertaken to move away from single-purpose applications of digital health towards integrated systems and solutions that align with national strategies. It describes a paradigm shift towards integrated and interoperable systems that respond to health workers' needs in training, data and health information; and calls for the consolidation and integration of digital health tools and approaches across health areas, functions and levels of the health system. It then considers the critical factors that must be in place to support this paradigm shift. This paper aims not only to describe steps taken to move from fractured pilots to effective systems, but to propose a new perspective focused on consolidation and collaboration guided by national digital health strategies.


A section of portland cement concrete (PCC) pavement on Interstate 5 near Tacoma was the site of an experimental installation of the URETEK® Method of undersealing and the URETEK® Process called Stitch-In-Time for restoring load transfer to PCC pavements. After six years, the average load transfer efficiency of the 15 movable Stitch-In-Time joints, called accumulator joints, is 38%. In contrast, the average load transfer efficiency of the dowel bar retrofit joints installed at the same time is 82%. The URETEK undersealing method is doing an excellent job of supporting all of the panels in the experimental section. However, there is considerable cracking and spalling in the locked joints that are located between accumulator joints indicating areas of high stress concentration. The Stitch-In-Time Process is not recommended as a viable method to restore load transfer in PCC pavements.


Eskisehir is a Phrygia city which is known as Dorylaion in Greek and Dorylaeum in Latin in documents and in mediaeval era, located at the centre of important roads, famous for its thermal baths and prosperous in commerce.Dorylaion-Şahoyuk had a major role in the Byzantine Empire defence against Seljuk Empire but it came under the dominance of Seljuks after the defeat of Byzantine Emperor Immanuel Kommonos by The Seljuk Sultan II. Kilicaslan in 1176.Odunpazari,which is the first residential area of the current Eskisehir,was located in a hilly and earthquake-resistant area where there were mostly Ottoman houses.In time,it slided to a plain land and became a city with narrow avenues lack of aesthetics and greenery.It is impossible for a city in this position to breathe. Governments,shifting education systems,culture and art have had destructive effects on urbanization more than constructive ones.Every mayor has made some contributions but most of them remained passive in designing.The ones who had wide perspectives of art were prevented because of their politic visions.Still,there are some who worked hard for their cities,implemented their revolutionary designs and they will go on. It will bi given in this article with comparison that how Yilmaz Buyukersen shaped the surface of city with magic fingers, how redesigned it and how he carried his experiences from past to the future. Keyword: Art policy city, Eskisehir


Cirrhosis of the liver is associated with altered cardiovascular regulation. Patients with cirrhosis often have decreased total peripheral vascular resistance despite increased sympathetic activity. To determine whether this reduction in effective sympathetic activity may be caused by an alteration in vascular adrenergic responsiveness, we studied nine patients with biopsy-proven cirrhosis and 12 age-matched control subjects. To assess human vascular adrenergic responsiveness, we used dorsal hand vein linear variable differential transformer techniques. Sensitivity for phenylephrine-mediated vasoconstriction was significantly reduced in patients with cirrhosis (median effective dose [ED50] for phenylephrine: cirrhosis, 1514 ng/min; control subjects, 282 ng/min; p = 0.026). In contrast, the effect of isoproterenol did not differ (cirrhosis: 89% +/- 15% of maximal nitroglycerin effect; control subjects 79% +/- 6%; ED50 for isoproterenol: cirrhosis, 38 ng/min; control subjects, 20 ng/min). These studies indicate that vascular alpha-adrenergic responsiveness in patients with cirrhosis is decreased, whereas beta-adrenergic responsiveness remains intact. A selective decrease in vascular alpha-adrenergic responsiveness may contribute to the decreased peripheral vascular resistance in cirrhosis.


In the existing studies on fault-tolerant scheduling, the active replication schema makes use of e + 1 replicas for each task to tolerate E failures. However, in this paper, we show that it does not always lead to a higher reliability with more replicas. Besides, the more replicas implies more resource consumption and higher economic cost. To address this problem, with the target to satisfy the user's reliability requirement with minimum resources, this paper proposes a new fault tolerant scheduling algorithm: MaxRe. In the algorithm, we incorporate the reliability analysis into the active replication schema, and exploit a dynamic number of replicas for different tasks. Both the theoretical analysis and experiments prove that the MaxRe algorithm's schedule can certainly satisfy user's reliability requirements. And the MaxRe scheduling algorithm can achieve the corresponding reliability with at most 70% fewer resources than the FTSA algorithm.


The effect of a whey protein‐ and carbohydrate (CHO)‐enriched diet on the rate of muscle glycogen resynthesis after a soccer match was examined. Sixteen elite soccer players were randomly assigned to a group ingesting a diet rich in carbohydrates and whey protein [CHO, protein, and fat content was 71, 21, and 8E%, respectively; high content of carbohydrates and whey protein (HCP), n = 9] or a group ingesting a normal diet (55, 18, and 26E%; control [CON], n = 7) during a 48‐h recovery period after a soccer match. CON and three additional players carried out a 90‐ and 60‐min simulated match without body contacts (SIM90 and SIM60). Muscle glycogen was lowered (P < 0.05) by 54, 48, 53, and 38% after the matches in CON, HCP, SIM90, and SIM60, respectively. Glycogen resynthesis during the first 48 h after the match was not different between CON and HCP, whereas glycogen resynthesis was slower (P < 0.05) during the first 24 h after SIM60 than SIM90 (2.88 ± 0.84 vs 4.32 ± 0.54 mmol/kg dw/h). In HCP, glycogen content in type II muscle fibers was still lowered 48 h after the match. In conclusion, glycogen resynthesis 48 h after a soccer match is not elevated by ingestion of a HCP diet. Furthermore, glycogen resynthesis does not appear to be impaired by body contacts during a match.


Aims. The interpretation of hard X-ray emission from galaxy clusters is still ambiguous and different proposed models can be probed using various observational methods. Here we explore a new method based on Fe-line observations. Methods. Spectral-line emissivities have usually been calculated by assuming a Maxwellian electron distribution. In this paper, a generalized approach to calculating the iron-line flux for a modified Maxwellian distribution is considered. Results. We calculated the flux ratio of iron lines for various possible populations of electrons proposed to account for measurements of hard X-ray excess-emission from the clusters A2199 and Coma. We found that the influence of the suprathermal electron population on the flux ratio is more significant in low temperature clusters (as Abell 2199) than in high temperature clusters (as Coma).


This article introduces a new methodology to estimate climate exposure at the household�s level with the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) as its building block. As the probability distribution of the SPEI is known, one can easily recover the marginal probability distribution of expected consumption. Furthermore, the approach is simple enough to accommodate quantile regressions and hence offer the opportunity to broaden the scope of the analysis to different categories of the population. I illustrate the methodology with a case study on Ethiopia. I find notably that while poor households in the most remote villages are almost as resilient to a 10-year return period drought as poor households living in the vicinity of a town (up to 20 km), the contrary is true for richer households: the ones living in remote parts of Ethiopia are much more at risk than their suburban counterparts.


As the diagnosis of these cancer cells at late stages causes greater pain and raises the likelihood of death, the initial-state cancer finding is crucial to giving the patient the proper care and reducing the risk of dying from cancer. The publication offers a chance to research breast and lung cancer detection techniques as well as various algorithms for cancer early detection. With the aid of various image kinds and test results data sets, hybrid approaches are utilized to identify lung and breast cancer based on the size and form of the cells. The basic concept of breast and lung cancer block diagram is also explained in this study, with an emphasis on the difficulties and potential future applications of cancer detection and diagnosis techniques.


ABSTRACT It is critical to understand how matters relating to water are reported, or ignored, among linguistically diverse media and to understand the possible influence this may have on the conception of water issues among ethnically diverse groups. This research analysed five daily newspapers published in Sydney between 2011 and 2012 in three languages (English, Chinese and Korean) and found that water issues were presented differently by newspapers across language divides in Sydney. These differences may contribute to diverse conceptual constructions of water problems and water management among ethnically diverse communities. After allowing for the influence of other variables, this research highlights the necessity to investigate media construction of water issues in various Non-English language publications as an important approach to improving situated and place-based water awareness in an ethnically diverse city.