Background and purpose The association between annual household income and prognosis of ischaemic stroke remains debatable. We aimed to prospectively investigate the relationship between annual household income and prognosis at 3 months after ischaemic stroke. Methods We included 3975 participants from the China Antihypertensive Trial in Acute Ischemic Stroke. All participants were categorised into three groups according to annual household income per capita: <¥10 000 (Chinese Yuan Renminbi (RMB)), ¥10 000–19 999 and ≥¥20 000. The primary outcome was a composite outcome of death and major disability (modified Rankin Scale score ≥3) at 3 months after stroke onset, and secondary outcomes included major disability, death, and vascular events. A meta-analysis was conducted to incorporate the results of the current study and previous studies on the association of income level with outcomes after stroke. Results Within 3 months after ischaemic stroke, 1002 participants (25.20%) experienced primary outcome (880 major disabilities and 122 deaths). After multivariate adjustment, low annual household income level was associated with increased risk of the primary outcome (OR 1.60; 95% CI: 1.12 to 2.31; Ptrend=0.034) when two extreme groups were compared. The meta-analysis confirmed the significant association between income level and death or major disability after stroke (pooled relative risk for lowest vs highest income level, 1.31 (95% CI: 1.18 to 1.45)). Conclusions Low annual household income per capita was significantly associated with increased risks of adverse clinical outcomes at 3 months after ischaemic stroke, independently of established risk factors. Further studies from other samples are needed to replicate our findings due to a reason for excluding some patients who had a severe stroke in this study. Trial registration number ClinicalTrials.gov (http://wwwclinicaltrialsgov) Registry (NCT01840072).


Over the past 15 years, the use of electronic medical record systems in the healthcare setting has grown exponentially. Accurate input of patient data is critical to facilitate safe care and effective communication among all members of the healthcare team. To keep pace with the practice environment, nursing students must have the opportunity to document health-related information in an electronic medical record early in the educational program. The purpose of this project was to create a cost-effective electronic medical record system for undergraduate nursing students to learn appropriate documentation of patient-related findings. Patient-centered care, informatics, and safety were the focus topics from the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses project included in the development of this endeavor. Faculty worked in collaboration with the university's information technology department to develop an innovative electronic medical record to be used in physical assessment, which is the first course in the nursing curriculum. Positive feedback was obtained from students and faculty about the project. It is important to provide students with the opportunity to experience electronic documentation to effectively prepare them for the ever-changing practice environment.


Previously, we demonstrated that mitochondrial bioenergetic deficits preceded Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology in the female triple-transgenic AD (3xTgAD) mouse model. In parallel, 3xTgAD mice exhibited elevated expression of ketogenic markers, indicating a compensatory mechanism for energy production in brain. This compensatory response to generate an alternative fuel source was temporary and diminished with disease progression. To determine whether this compensatory alternative fuel system could be sustained, we investigated the impact of 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), a compound known to induce ketogenesis, on bioenergetic function and AD pathology burden in brain. 6-month-old female 3xTgAD mice were fed either a regular diet (AIN-93G) or a diet containing 0.04% 2-DG for 7 weeks. 2-DG diet significantly increased serum ketone body level and brain expression of enzymes required for ketone body metabolism. The 2-DG-induced maintenance of mitochondrial bioenergetics was paralleled by simultaneous reduction in oxidative stress. Further, 2-DG treated mice exhibited a significant reduction of both amyloid precursor protein (APP) and amyloid beta (Aβ) oligomers, which was paralleled by significantly increased α-secretase and decreased γ-secretase expression, indicating that 2-DG induced a shift towards a non-amyloidogenic pathway. In addition, 2-DG increased expression of genes involved in Aβ clearance pathways, degradation, sequestering, and transport. Concomitant with increased bioenergetic capacity and reduced β-amyloid burden, 2-DG significantly increased expression of neurotrophic growth factors, BDNF and NGF. Results of these analyses demonstrate that dietary 2-DG treatment increased ketogenesis and ketone metabolism, enhanced mitochondrial bioenergetic capacity, reduced β-amyloid generation and increased mechanisms of β-amyloid clearance. Further, these data link bioenergetic capacity with β-amyloid generation and demonstrate that β-amyloid burden was dynamic and reversible, as 2-DG reduced activation of the amyloidogenic pathway and increased mechanisms of β-amyloid clearance. Collectively, these data provide preclinical evidence for dietary 2-DG as a disease-modifying intervention to delay progression of bioenergetic deficits in brain and associated β-amyloid burden.


This study is concerned with the role that achievement goals may play in facilitating the psychological well-being of students. Specifically, we build on "goal theory" analysis of adaptive behavior in examining the relationship between task and ego goals, perceptions of school emphases on task and ego goals, and indices of well-being and disruptive behavior. Generally, task goals and perception of the school as emphasizing task goals were related to positive psychological well-being, and ego goals and perceiving the school as emphasizing ego goals were related to negative psychological well-being. This pattern was found for both African American and Euro-American students. However, path analyses pointed to possible different processes as operating for the African Americans and the Euro-Americans in the sample. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.


In order to quickly adapt to new data, few-shot learning aims at learning from few examples, often by using already acquired knowledge. The new data often differs from the previously seen data due to a domain shift, that is, a change of the input-target distribution. While several methods perform well on small domain shifts like new target classes with similar inputs, larger domain shifts are still challenging. Large domain shifts may result in high-level concepts that are not shared between the original and the new domain. However, low-level concepts like edges in images might still be shared and useful. For cross-domain few-shot learning, we suggest representation fusion to unify different abstraction levels of a deep neural network into one representation. We propose Cross-domain Hebbian Ensemble Few-shot learning (CHEF), which achieves representation fusion by an ensemble of Hebbian learners acting on different layers of a deep neural network that was trained on the original domain. On the few-shot datasets miniImagenet and tieredImagenet, where the domain shift is small, CHEF is competitive with state-of-the-art methods. On cross-domain few-shot benchmark challenges with larger domain shifts, CHEF establishes novel state-of-the-art results in all categories. We further apply CHEF on a real-world cross-domain application in drug discovery. We consider a domain shift from bioactive molecules to environmental chemicals and drugs with twelve associated toxicity prediction tasks. On these tasks, that are highly relevant for computational drug discovery, CHEF significantly outperforms all its competitors. Github: this https URL


Biomass being renewable, cost effective and abundantly available is an attractive feedstock for many competent industrial materials. The most important component in biopolymer class is polysaccharides, an almost inexhaustible polymeric raw material with fascinating structure and properties. However, due to the structural limitations, the metal uptake capacities of these materials of otherwise obvious choice for alternate material, is low and different polymer analogous reactions are needed to affect chemical modification of these materials. In the present isolation of cellulose from banana leaf aim to utilise the waste biomass for the removal of heavy metals in aqueous system. Preparation of polymer follows green chemistry protocol with respect to green solvent utilization and zero waste generation. The dried banana leaf were first cleaned by Soxlet extraction, alkali treatment and bleaching. Extracted cellulose has been functionalized with thiomer via thiourea reactions in high degree of modification. The prepared material have been characterized by some physical and chemical methods such as analytical determination, UV, FTIR, Zeta, SEM and EDX analysis. The analytical results supported highest sulphur content of 20.50% in thiomer. Synthesized green thiomer have been explored as arsenic ion sorbent at 60ppm. The result showed maximum sorption efficiency 70-75% for arsenic in aqueous system.


In contrast to the highly mutagenic pyrimidine(6-4)pyrimidone photoproduct, its Dewar valence isomer (Dewar product) has low mutagenic potential and produces a broad range of mutations [LeClerc, J. E., Borden, A. & Lawrence, C. W. (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88, 9685-9689]. To determine the origin of the mutagenic property of the Dewar product, we used experimental NMR restraints and molecular dynamics to determine the solution structure of a Dewar-lesion DNA decamer duplex. This DNA decamer duplex (DW/GA duplex) contains a mismatched base pair between the 3' T residue of the Dewar lesion (T6) and an opposed G residue (G15). The 3' T (T6) of the Dewar lesion formed stable hydrogen bonds with the opposing G15 residue. However, the helical bending and unwinding angles of the DW/GA duplex were much larger than those of a second duplex that contains the Dewar lesion and opposing A15 and A16 residues (DW/AA duplex). The DW/GA duplex showed poorer stacking interactions at the two bases of the Dewar product and at the adjacent A7 small middle dotT14 base pair than did the DW/AA duplex. These structural features imply that no thermal stability or conformational benefit is obtained by incorporating a G instead of an A opposite the 3' T of the Dewar lesion. These properties may thus facilitate the preferential incorporation of an A in accordance with the A rule during translesion replication and lead to the low frequency of 3' T-->C mutations observed at this site.


We examined that an estradiol-dominant state against progesterone could affect hematological parameters through hemodilution because estradiol is known to increase plasma volume via oncotic pressure. We performed a 2- and 3-week repeated oral dose study with mifepristone, a progesterone receptor antagonist, in female rats and examined erythrocyte counts, hemoglobin, hematocrit, plasma volume, levels of estradiol and progesterone, water intake, and water loss. Mifepristone treatment decreased some hematological parameters mildly and increased plasma volume. There were no remarkable changes in the balance of water intake and water loss through urination. Both estradiol and progesterone levels and the ratio of estradiol to progesterone increased. Therefore, our findings indicate that repeated mifepristone treatment increases estradiol levels and plasma volume, resulting in lower erythrocyte counts, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. The present study proved the possible contribution of estradiol to understanding the toxicological significance of mifepristone-induced hemodilution.


OBJECTIVES
The aim of this clinical study was to determine the effectiveness of progressive loading procedures on preserving crestal bone height and improving peri-implant bone density around maxillary implants restored with single premolar crowns by an accurate longitudinal radiographic assessment technique.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Twenty-three HA-coated, endosseous dental implants were placed in 20 subjects and permitted to heal for 5 months before surgical uncovering. The implants were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Following a conventional healing period, the control group implants were restored with a metal ceramic crown and the experimental group implants underwent a progressive loading protocol. The experimental group was progressively loaded by increasing the height of the occlusal table in increments from a state of infraocclusion to full occlusion by adding acrylic resin to a heat-processed acrylic crown. The progressively loaded crowns were placed in infraocclusion for the first 2 months, light occlusion for the second 2 months, and full occlusion for the third 2 months. At this point, a metal ceramic crown replaced the acrylic crown. Standardized radiographs of each implant were made at the time of restoration, then after 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months of function. Digital image analysis and digital subtraction radiography were used to measure changes in crestal bone height and peri-implant bone density.

RESULTS
The mean values of crestal bone height loss at 12 months were 0.2+/-0.27 mm for the progressively loaded implants and 0.59+/-0.27 for the conventionally loaded implants, and when tested with repeated-measure ANOVA across the time periods, the differences were statistically significant (P< or =0.05). The progressively loaded group showed a trend for higher bone density gain in the crestal area than the conventionally loaded group, but the conventionally loaded group showed a trend for higher bone density gain at the apex of the implants.

CONCLUSION
The peri-implant bone around progressively loaded implants demonstrates less crestal bone loss than the bone around implants placed conventionally into full function. The peri-implant density measurements of the progressively loaded implants show continuous increase in peri-implant bone density by time.


An architecture for the evolution of trust: definition and impact of the necessary dimensions of opinion making 9.1. Introduction The evaluation of algorithm performance, computational techniques and methods is full of scores of trust. 1 These scores generally rate to the method rather than its output. That is, while it is acknowledged that automated processing yields uncertainty and imprecision, classic measurements usually characterise the way in which the information is constructed, rather than qualifying the degree of trust that should be invested in that piece of information. Although it is generally sufficient to know that an extraction algorithm is effective, say, eight times out of ten, or that its production is in line with expectations in the same proportions, once one starts dealing with sensitive data, at the root of potentially tragic decisions, one may wish to measure how much to trust the information item rather than a uniform doubt on its construction. Such a measurement should vary with the contents of the information itself, instead of on the basis of the tools used to produce it. Furthermore, if the elaboration method for this trust indicator is explained, legible or even adaptable, the user can then learn to grasp the system and use its indications in the rest of his intervention. To reach such a goal, it is necessary to introduce a distinction between score, the expressed degree of trust, and scoring, the method used to evaluate trust.. Chapter written by Adrien REVAULT D'ALLONNES. 1 See Chapter 2 for a detailed analysis of the notion.


To the Editor.— This is in reference to the question of whether there are valid instances in which combined use of different antipsychotic agents is indicated, eg, chlorpromazine and haloperidol. 1 I don't believe that Kimball and Glass explained the rationale of many of the psychiatrists who combine antipsychotics and consequently have to defend this practice from reviewers whose guidelines label it an indicator of inappropriate prescribing. The guidelines are based on the statements of authorities in psychopharmacology cited by the respondents that combined use is "seldom indicated" 2 and has "no rational basis." 3 My letter is intended to describe the rational basis for combined use and some of the indications. The indications are based on two facts. The first, mentioned by the respondents, is that many of the antipsychotics have different adverse effect profiles. The second, which they did not mention, is that the most frequent effects are


The possibility of a periparturient rise (PPR) in the excretion of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts and Giardia duodenalis-type cysts and its implications in the epidemiology of these 2 pathogens were investigated. Fecal samples were taken from 32 lambing ewes every 2 wk from 4 wk before lambing until 8 wk after the start of lambing. Samples from both ewes and lambs were examined with a quantitative immunofluorescence assay. Excretion of Giardia sp. cysts by ewes increased at 2 wk prepartum, peaked at zero and 4 wk postpartum, and returned to low levels at 6 and 8 wk postpartum. Some ewes also excreted C. parvum oocysts at the start of lambing. Excretion rates and intensities of Giardia sp. cysts by lambs were high, whereas those of C. parvum oocyst excretion were light. The PPR in excretion of Giardia sp. cysts by ewes was considered to be the major source of giardiasis for lambs. Excretion of C. parvum oocysts by ewes at parturition also played a role in initiating cryptosporidiosis in lambs.


In 2000, three subspecific groupings within the fungal pathogen Claviceps purpurea (Fr.) Tul were discovered. These groups are habitat specialized, where group 1 (G1) is found on terrestrial grasses, G2 is found in freshwater environments and G3 is found in salt marsh habitats. An intraspecific comparison of 43 G3 isolates, seven G1 isolates, and two G2 isolates using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis support the recognition of three discrete groups within C. purpurea and showed high genetic variability between groups, with only 1.8% of markers shared between all isolates. For isolates collected in salt marshes (G3), there was less diversity and four primary clusters were strongly supported by bootstrap: 1) Northeastern USA plus Western Europe, 2) Southeastern USA, 3) Argentina, and 4) Pacific Coast ofthe USA. Distich/is spicata was identified as the first non-Spartina host to G3 C. purpurea. Maritime C. purpurea (G3) is present at very high rates on the native Spartina foliosa on the outer coast of the San Francisco Bay, California. Invasive S. alterniflora is host to maritime ergot in its native range (Atlantic Coast of the USA) but along with hybrid Spartina (S. alterniflora x S.foliosa), is almost ergot free in the San Francisco Bay. Rates of infection were consistent over a three-year period and greenhouse inoculations showed no differences in susceptibility among Spartina plants. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the pathogen caused a 68% reduction in seed production and negatively effected seed quality by reducing seed weight. All three sub-specific groups of C. purpurea were found on grasses in Willapa Bay, Washington. Phenetic analysis of AFLP markers suggests that maritime C. purpurea in Washington is most closely related to Southeastern USA isolates. More research is necessary to determine if a climate adapted isolate would be an effective biological control agent for invasive Spartina. Host resistance cannot explain the low incidence of ergot throughout Willapa Bay. Terrestrial grasses, specifically cereal grains, are susceptible to G3 C. purpurea under controlled conditions. In natural systems, the host range seems to be more limited.


As societies have become more differentiated, policy issues are increasingly being analysed using concepts and ideas from the complexity sciences. Policy change involving diverse stakeholders interacting with one another in ways that are shaped by power and politics are increasingly characterised by contestation and unpredictability. Stakeholders other than researchers are collecting information and producing their own knowledge to add new perspectives to those of, and contest the power given to, researchers and their advice. Against this backdrop, I argue that traditional approaches to communicating research to policymakers are inadequate. Researchers now share the field of knowledge production and communication with many others, and where appropriate, those who view their role in relation to policy, should be prepared to engage with stakeholders affected by policy issues and expose their findings to human interaction, review and scrutiny by others.


This opening Chapter of the edited volume 'Pluralism in International Criminal Law' (Oxford University Press, 2014) presents 'pluralism' as an overarching conceptual framework for international criminal justice. The Chapter provides an overview of the previous debates on (global) legal pluralism, fragmentation, and diversification of law as they have been framed in different legal disciplines. It examines the interpretations of these concepts in their disciplinary contexts and makes a vocabulary choice for international criminal justice. It is argued that the category of 'pluralism' is more suitable than 'fragmentation'; it more accurately reflects the nature and origin of international criminal law and procedure and also better captures the diversity and complexity of this field. The discursive transition to 'pluralism' reflects not merely a semantic change but a wholesale paradigm shift; this shift enhances the explanatory force of the proposed framework. The Chapter connects previous debates on pluralism and fragmentation to various forms of legal and normative diversity in international criminal justice and draws an inventory of pluralist perspectives on international criminal law and procedure. It shows that these bodies of law are pluralistic in many different ways and identifies some of the risks and advantages of pluralism. The classic 'legal pluralism' perspective is useful in describing the confluence of legal regulations drawn from sources pertaining to different legal orders in the jurisdictional sphere of international and hybrid tribunals, but it does not capture all of the relevant facets of pluralism in international criminal justice. The Chapter presents the additional 'extrinsic' and 'intrinsic' dimensions of pluralism and outlines several pluralism-based perspectives that fall within those dimensions and are instrumental in explaining the diversified and at times troubled nature of international criminal justice. It concludes by introducing the chapters in the edited volume and by proposing a research agenda.


The aim of this study is to verify the potential of top management characteristics for small enterprise (SE) default prediction modelling. Logistic regression was applied to a sample of 423 Italian SEs, as defined in the Base Capital Accords (firms with a turnover below 5 million Euro) in order to develop a SE default prediction model based on both financial ratios and SE top management characteristics. The predictive power of this model was then compared to that of a second model whose predictive variables were exclusively represented by balance sheet financial ratios. The main findings are: i) managerial characteristics significantly improve the SE default prediction accuracy rates; ii) the smaller is a firm the higher is the increase in prediction accuracy that can be obtained by using managerial characteristics as default predictors; iii) SEs belonging to different size groups need to be treated with different prediction models; iv) SE management's over-confidence in its ability to control the outcome of all events, especially external events, reduces a firm's capacity to survive.


Education, which has an important role in European Union's expanding and assuring its continuity, is a key factor for the success of the politics that the Union tries to realize. Although European Union frees each member country in applying the proper models for their own socio-economic structure, it has determined indicators that have to take place within national systems. The main approach of the Union is in the direction of putting each member country's their own education systems into an order not contradicting the general principles and indicators determined. Turkey is giving great emphasis on various arrangement studies in education area with the name of European Union member country. In this study, the condition of Turkey is tried to be analysed from the aspect of indicators European Union has determined related to education.


fisheries in Fakfak Regency. This study used a survey method with direct interview techniques for respondents consisting of fishermen, collectors, retailers, wholesalers and processed fisheries traders. The results showed that, the largest income average of capture fisheries marketing institutions in Fakfak district was at large merchant institutions with a level of income of Rp. This is because large traders sell fish in very large quantities with the aim of selling outside the city of Fakfak. A very large cost is proportional to the income received by large traders. However, the lowest income is obtained by retail traders. Fishermen who have higher income from retailers and collectors are also associated with production costs that are not too large when compared to the purchase costs incurred by traders. The average production cost incurred by fishermen is Rp 2,392,272 which consists of fuel costs, storage costs and consumption costs.


The interest to improve the mechanical properties and decrease shrinkage or expansion defects in grey cast irons, the inoculation is an important issue for component manufactures. The inoculation, growth of graphite and eutectic structure, are related to those demands. The paper will show a study of the effect of some inoculants on the graphite nucleation and eutectic microstructure in grey cast iron. The procedure to achieve this was to study the influence of inoculants and cooling rate on the eutectic microstructure. Six inoculants were chosen with a base of Fe-Si-Ca-Al with additions of Sr, Ba, Zr, Ti, RE and C at different proportions. Two of the inoculants were investigated at three different levels of additions. The inoculants gave eutectics with great variety of microstructure. The experimental equipment was designed to produce cast samples under controlled thermal conditions and equipped with thermocouples. To study the influence of cooling rate on the eutectic nucleation, the mould was equipped with three different cooling conditions. In order to measure the eutectic cell size the samples were colour etched. The measurements were made near the thermocouples to relate the eutectic cell size and cells/area with the cooling curves. The microstructure, cell-size and cooling curves were used to model the nucleation behaviour of the investigated compositions and solidification behaviour. The investigation showed that the type and amount of inoculation influenced the number of potent nuclei of graphite eutectic and the fading followed Lifshitz-Slyosov-Wagner (LSW) theory of ripening.


This paper proposes a procedure for predicting the actual wind speed for flow over complex terrain with CFD. It converts a time-series of wind speed data acquired from field observations into a time-series data of actual scalar wind speed by using non-dimensional wind speed parameters, which are determined beforehand with the use of CFD output. The accuracy and reproducibility of the prediction procedure were investigated by simulating the flow with CFD with the use of high spatial resolution (5 m) surface elevation data for the Noma Wind Park in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The errors of the predicted average monthly wind speeds relative to the observed values were less than approximately 20%.


This study presents an analysis of research about US-China Policy on global trade, between 2015 and 2019. The research methodology was supported by a bibliometric analysis using Web of Science(WOS) and Scopus, broadening the understanding about the subject and understanding that there is a certain orientation of these studies for Policy. This article presents a demonstration of how research in US-China Policy on Global Trade has been treated by researchers in a global perspective. The research questions that guide this research were: RQ1: What were the main keywords present in studies of US-China Policy on Global Trade?; RQ2: Which sectors were studied on US-China Policy on Global Trade studies?; and RQ3: Which technologies were studied on US-China Policy on Global Trade studies? The main findings of this research are the trends identified on the studies analysed, namely, the most cited keyword that emerged from the literature review.


We consider the analytically asymptotic evolution of a pulse governed by the nonlinear Schrodinger equation with an additional term that accounts for the Raman intrapulse scattering. This term is taken in the simplest quasi-instantaneous approximation. First we find an asymptotic analytical solution describing a tail generated by action of the Raman term. An important result is that this solution always remains essentially nonlinear, which drastically changes its structure compared with the known linear approximations based on the Airy functions. It is shown that a minimum temporal scale of the tail increases with the propagation distance, so that the quasi-instantaneous approximation for the Raman term remains valid. Our solution may directly apply to the description of the tails discovered in recent numerical and laboratory experiments. Next, we consider a late asymptotic stage of evolution of a Raman-driven localized pulse. We demonstrate that, beyond the well-known approximation in which the pulse (soliton) is regarded as a mechanical particle driven by a constant force, the pulse propagating in a long lossless fiber will slowly decay into the oscillating tail generated behind it. Using the analytical solution for the tail, the conservation of energy, and some natural assumptions, we predict that, asymptotically, the peak power of the soliton will vanish inversely proportionally to the traveled distance. A real optical fiber should allow for the predicted process if it is much longer than several soliton periods, which may be realistic for the ultrashort solitons. Finally we demonstrate that, in the model incorporating gain and losses, the tail can trigger a long-term instability of the solitary pulse, which has been observed in numerical simulations.


This special issue of the International Journal of Web Portals (IJWP) is on "The Internet and New Technologies". The special issue originates from the best papers of the IADIS International conference on Internet Technologies & Society (ITS 2010) held in Perth, Australia, 29 and 30 November and 1 December 2010 (http://www.its-conf.org/2010/). Authors of these selected best papers have been asked to revise and expand their original papers and these submissions have been peer-reviewed. We would like to thanks the following reviewers for their work reviewing the papers for this issue:


The quantitative evaluation of damage in woven composites using mode selective excitation of Lamb waves is reported in this paper. PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) comb sensors are used to generate and detect a single plate mode. The top electrode is a single set of equidistant fingers connected in parallel to the same potential while the bottom electrode is kept at ground. First, a pair of such sensors is used to generate and detect a single plate mode. Group velocity changes of a wave packet traveling through the damaged area are used for quantitative damage estimation. Second, a new electrode configuration is used in order to improve the receiver signal. The proposed configuration referred to as continuous sensors, is used in structural health monitoring (SHM) for detection of growing cracks. Theoretical and experimental results are presented. In addition, an analog circuitry to actuate the structure at high frequency (~1MHz) based on energy tapped from a vibrating cantilever beam (~20Hz) is developed, towards a high-frequency energy-harvested SHM.


Many solar systems in the universe may be expected to contain rocky planets that have accreted organic compounds. These compounds are likely to be universally found. In addition, the chemistry of sulfur, phosphorus, and iron is likely to dominate energy transductions and monomer activation, leading to the eventual emergence of polymers. Proteins and polynucleotides provide living matter with function, structure, and information. The conceptual puzzle regarding their emergence is discussed. The fitness of various elements to serve various roles is analyzed from the viewpoint of electron orbitals. Elements with d orbitals are of central importance.


A reduced dynamics representation is introduced which is tailored to a hierarchical, Mori-chain type representation of a bath of harmonic oscillators which are linearly coupled to a subsystem. We consider a spin-boson system where a single effective mode is constructed so as to absorb all system-environment interactions, while the residual bath modes are coupled bilinearly to the primary mode and among each other. Using a cumulant expansion of the memory kernel, correlation functions for the primary mode are obtained, which can be suitably approximated by truncated chains representing the primary-residual mode interactions. A series of reduced-dimensional bath correlation functions is thus obtained, which can be expressed as Fourier-Laplace transforms of spectral densities that are given in truncated continued-fraction form. For a master equation which is second order in the system-bath coupling, the memory kernel is re-expressed in terms of local-in-time equations involving auxiliary densities and auxiliary operators.


Athletic competition should be to perform one's best regardless of result. In an age of result-based endorsements and appearance fees, it is not surprising that doping remains a persistent problem in amateur athletics. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) with World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) has been a positive force in "cleaning up" athletics. Yet, doping violations and National Olympic Committee (NOC) actions persist which betray innocent athletes. This case report addresses a complex pre-Olympic doping violation during the 2008 US Olympic Swimming Trials in which Jessica Hardy, who qualified in three events, tested positive for the anabolic agent clenbuterol, was nonetheless named to the US Olympic Team, lost her arbitration and then withdrew from the Olympic Team post credentialing deadline. This resulted in three qualified and "clean" swimmers (Tara Kirk, Lara Jackson, and Amanda Weir) being inappropriately excluded from the Olympics. Ethical recommendations to prevent future recurrences of inappropriate exclusions of athletes (correction of flawed selection criteria, improved communication regarding positive doping samples, credentialing of appropriate alternates in all sports), comparison of the original 2003 WADC (optional provisional suspension, 7.5) versus 2009 WADC (mandatory provisional suspension for positive "A" Sample Analytical Finding for an anabolic agent, 4.2.2/7.5.1) regulations, and post-Olympic considerations for the injured athletes are


The dc behavior of a clamped-mode, series-resonant converter is characterized systematically. Given a circuit operating condi- tion. the converter's mode of operation is determined and various circuit parameters are calculated, such as average inductor cur- rent (load current), rms inductor current, peak capacitor volt- age, rms switch currents. average diode currents. switch turn-on currents, and switch turn-off currents. Regions of operation are defined and various circuit characteristics are derived to facilitate the converier design.


Fatigue cracking in steel girder web penetration details is so dangerous that it can break steel girders. A one-meter-long crack was detected in Yamazoe Bridge in 2006. Since a number of highway bridges with such web penetration details may exist in Japan, it is of urgent importance to understand these fatigue-strength properties. However, few fatigue tests have been reported on steel girder web penetration details. The purpose of this study is to clarify fatigue behavior of steel girder web penetration details with a slit through fatigue tests of specimens with these details. We designed and fabricated girder specimens that have steel girder web penetration details, in which cross-beam bottom flanges are connected to each top or bottom surface of a slit by welding. First, we conducted static loading tests to understand the stress distributions around web penetration details. Second, we conducted fatigue tests to examine fatigue crack initiation and propagation behavior and fatigue strength.


The coupling of a spin to an underlying substrate is the basis for a plethora of phenomena. In the case of a metallic substrate, Kondo screening of the adatom magnetic moment can occur. As the substrate turns superconducting, an intriguing situation emerges where the pair breaking due to the adatom spins leads to Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound states, but also intertwines with Kondo phenomena. Through scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we analyze the interdependence of Kondo screening and superconductivity. Our data obtained on single Fe adatoms on Nb(110) show that the coupling and the resulting YSR states are strongly adsorption site-dependent and reveal a quantum phase transition at a Kondo temperature comparable to the superconducting gap. The experimental signatures are rationalized by combined density functional theory and continuous-time quantum Monte-Carlo calculations to rigorously treat magnetic and hybridization effects on equal footing.


The study of the metamorphic and crystalline rocks has of late years attracted much attention, and the researches of Darwin, Sharpe, and others have brought forward many facts particularly interesting and important. It will probably, however, be admitted, that, notwithstanding the labours of these geologists, great difference of opinion exists as to the formation and structure of these rocks, and that at present we are not in possession of sufficient data to enable us to place the question upon a firm basis. It is therefore of importance that as many observations as possible be laid before geologists working at this subject; and it is consequently hoped that the present communication may not prove unserviceable in advancing the inquiry. The observations here brought forward have with a few exceptions been made during a residence of some years in Norway, where the foliated rocks play so important a part. The others are the result of some short excursions in Scotland made for the express purpose of comparison. For a long period, and it may be said until late years, it was the generally received opinion that the lines of foliation in rocks were lines corresponding in direction or identical with the lines of stratification, and were produced by the alteration of these lines by metamorphic action. This view of the case can no longer be considered tenable, and the observations of many geologists have shown that foliation frequently takes place at a different angle to that of stratification. Darwin seems to consider


the application of conventional traction supply system for urban railway transportation implies huge energy waste and electrical pollution, in which the energy regenerated from the braking of vehicles cannot be feedback into AC grid. What's more, its DC output voltage fluctuates seriously with external loads, and AC harmonics on the grid side forms electrical pollution to the outside. This paper proposes a novel traction supply system for urban rail transportation, based on a multi-paralleled structure of PWM rectifiers. Fully exerting the merits of the PWM rectifier, such as a controllable DC output characteristic, less harmonics on grid side, availability of unity power factor as well as the capability of bi-directional power flow, our novel system overcomes the defects of its conventional counterpart. Under the Phase-shift Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation (PS-SVPWM) mechanism, the equivalent switching frequency of the system can be further reduced. Another adopted mechanism in the system is balance control of the PWM rectifier modules' loads. A subsystem for remote control and monitoring of the system is also developed with Ethernet technology and virtual instrument theory. The design has been testified with experiments on a prototype set up in lab, and related results are given in the last part of this paper.


Drawing upon her experiences and upon primary literary sources (the latter including both critical writings and statements by dancer-choreographers), the author presents a descriptive account of the changes that occurred within modern dance over a period of about 20 years in the U.S.A.  That the body is the ultimate locus for the change is made evident in the analysis: a shift in attitude toward the body and a new understanding of its status within the dance become apparent. In essence, what was once spiritual becomes fleshly and what was once a subservient instrument becomes a full-fledged reality in its own right.  Some suggestions are made as to a possible relationship between the conceptual and the practical framework within which dancers changed dance and the phenomenological method.


Abstract The core of Cloud computing includes virtualization of hardware resources such as storage, network and memory provided through virtual machines (VM). The live migration of these VMs is introduced to obtain multiple benefits which mainly include high availability, hardware maintenance, fault takeover and workload balancing. Besides various facilities of the VM migration, it is susceptible to severe security risks during migration process due to which the industry is hesitant to accept it. The research done so far is on the performance of migration process; whereas the security aspects in migration are not fully explored. We have carried out an extensive survey to investigate the vulnerabilities, threats and possible attacks on the live VM migration. Furthermore, we have identified security requirements for secure VM migration and presented a detailed analysis of existing solutions on the basis of these security requirements. Finally, limitations in the existing solutions are presented. Keywords— Virtualization, Live VM Migration, Cloud computing, Cloud security, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)


Bats show pronounced and often‐adverse reactions to artificial illumination at night (ALAN) when commuting, roosting or foraging. ALAN also affects bat drinking activity, at least when lighting occurs over short intervals. We tested whether continuous illumination of drinking sites over 4‐h periods would lead bats to tolerate ALAN and resume drinking in the course of the night. We conducted our experiments in forest (Italy) and desert (Israel) sites to test whether in the latter habitat, where water is scarce, a greater motivation to drink might lead to less adverse bat reactions. We recorded 6853 drinking buzzes and 1647 feeding buzzes from 17 species and one species group. In the forest sites, species that hunt in open spaces or along forest edges showed little (P. pipistrellus and H. savii) or no (P. kuhlii and N. leisleri) drinking activity decrease, while those associated with forest interiors (Barbastella barbastellus, Plecotus auritus and bats in the genus Myotis) exhibited a strong negative response. In the desert sites, all studied species reduced drinking activity, yet in the desert populations of P. kuhlii we recorded stronger adverse reactions only far from human settlements. The harsh reactions that the desert bat species showed towards ALAN rule out any effect of a greater motivation to drink. Illumination had no effect on foraging by most species, except in the forest sites, where Pipistrellus kuhlii and Nyctalus leisleri increased foraging when the light was on, and in the desert sites, where Hypsugo bodenheimeri decreased foraging in such situations. The progressive human encroachment that is taking place in many world regions on both forests and especially deserts, where few sites for drinking are available, may jeopardize bat populations also through increased exposure to ALAN.


We present a new update of the list of birds of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, based on a thorough review of new records and evidences accumulated from February 2011 to July 2017. This is the fifth update since the first compilation based on a reasonably complete geographic coverage of the state, published by William Belton in 1978, and the second produced by a regional (informal) committee. It is also the first to widely use citizen science contributions available on shared portals and digital databases on the internet. 43 taxa were added, resulting in a final list with 704 species, 6.5% more than in the previous assessment in 2010. Two species were replaced due to taxonomic changes. Documentation for inclusions based on unpublished records is indicated or published here. We also updated the documentation of another 20 species previously included in the list. Inclusions represent mainly migrants recorded in the state as vagrants or irregular visitors (22), but also cases of recent range expansion (especially from the north) and previously overlooked resident or migratory taxa. The average rate of additions (over six species per year) was 30% higher than in the previous period and is expected to accelerate. The percentage of accepted species without documented records in the state decreased from 1.8% in 2010 to 0.7% in the current list. We attribute these results to a better spatial and temporal coverage of the state in recent years, mainly due to the increasing contribution of amateurs, who accounted for 60% of the new occurrences. In contrast, the percentage of species documented by museum specimens has decreased steadily over time (currently at 84%). Investment in scientific research and collection of voucher specimens in the state should keep pace with the growing interest birds arouse in society, due to the importance and usefulness of museum specimens.


Bone residing tumor cells cause osteolysis, characterized with severe bone pain, multiple fractures and hypercalcemia in patients. While it has been proposed that tumor cells activate osteoclasts and/or inhibit osteoblasts, leading to bone resorption, the mechanism underlying tumor-induced osteoclastogenesis activation in bone marrow microenvironment, which causes osteolytic bone lesions, is yet to be elucidated. P38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) is commonly constitutively activated in malignant osteolytic tumors. We hypothesize that constitutive activity of p38 MAPK in tumor cells might contribute to osteolytic bone lesions via regulating bone marrow microenvironment. For this purpose, we applied of small hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) to disrupt p38 MAPK activity in myeloma ARP-1 and bone metastatic breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells. To evaluate the role of tumor p38 MAPK in bone lesions, tumor cells with p38 MAPK-shRNAs or control vectors were intravenously injected to SCID mice. Lytic lesions in tibial bones were measured by radiograph and μ-CT, and further confirmed by histological examination. The results showed that lytic bone lesions were found in mice bearing of tumor cells with control vectors. In contrast, no or less bone lesions were found in mice with shRNA-expressing tumor cells. Moreover, decrease of osteoclast amounts covered bone surface, as well as circulating levels of collagen type I (bone resorption marker) and TRAP5b (active osteoclast marker), but increase of osteoblast amounts, and osteocalcin (bone formation marker) and ALP (active osteoblast marker), were found in those mice injected with shRNA-tumor cells. Noticeably, tumor p38 MAPK enhanced osteoclast differentiation and activity, as well as inhibited osteoblast maturation and function in vitro. However, disruption of p38 MAPK activity in tumor cells did not affect tumor growth and tumor cell homing to bone. We further identified that tumor p38 MAPK-derived monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) and dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) induced bone lesions via activation of RANK/RANKL-mediated NFκB, p38 MAPK and ERK1/2 signaling pathways. In conclusion, our results elucidate a novel mechanism that tumor p38 MAPK activity regulates bone marrow microenvironment and contributes to tumor-induced osteolytic bone lesions. Thus, inhibition of p38 MAPK signaling in tumor cells may have an important implication to treat bone lesions in patients with osteolytic tumors. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 558.


Individual DNA molecules were first stretched by a centrifugal force and adsorbed on a modified mica surface. Then, a liquid flow was guided across the surface along a direction perpendicular to the aligned DNA strands. Some nano-catenary-like patterns of DNA molecules were formed, which were revealed by atomic force microscopy. A physical mechanism called the ``s-suspension bridge'' model has been presented, by which the features of the catenary-like patterns of DNA molecules can be understood quantitatively quite well.


The objective this work was to evaluate the germination and vigour of coffee seed, cultivars Catuai Amarelo IAC 86 (C offea Arabica L.) and Apoata (C offea canephora Pierre) at different level of Al. The design was it randomized entirely with four repetitions, in a factorial outline two (cultivars) x 5 (0; 15; 30; 45 e 60 mg Al L -1 ) of Al concentration. The seeds were placed to germinate in paper-towel rolls, incubated under temperature of the 30 °C and absence of light. After 30 days was determined the germination, and the vigour obtained by the test length of the primary root. The germination and vigour of Catuai Yelow IAC 86 seeds were not influenced by the increase of the aluminum concentration, differing from Apoata cultivar that the presence of Al revealed sensible in the concentration of 60 mg Al L -1 .


Individuals living with cancer have a wide range of needs throughout the disease trajectory. To better meet them, the PQLC [French acronym of the Quebec Cancer Control Program] implemented the oncology nurse navigator (ONN) role. A first article presented the nature of the needs of individuals living with cancer and of the support provided by ONNs. This second article aims at gaining a better understanding of the ONN support function from the ONNs' own perspective and to complete an exploratory description of their support interventions for individuals living with cancer and their loved ones throughout the care trajectory. The sample includes ten ONNs. They reported doing support interventions for all the various types of needs, especially in the informational (44%) and practical areas such as coordinating appointments for exams, practitioners and various services (35%). The results also suggest that a needs assessment is a prerequisite to intervention. Lastly, all participants underscored the importance of the helping relation and trusting relationship to clarify their support function. These results are consistent with the findings of several recent articles on the psychosocial role of oncology nurses.


Thoracoabdominal nerves block through perichondrial approach (TAPA) is a novel block and provides abdominal analgesia. TAPA block targets the both anterior and the lateral branches of the thoracoabdominal nerves. Modified-TAPA (M-TAPA) was defined due to the need for blocking certain dermatomes depending on the surgical incision sites. In the literature, the knowledge about the efficiency and dermatomal coverage of M-TAPA is limited. In this case series, we want to report our experiences with this issue.


Theoretical Introduction Proteins can properly and correctly work only when they fold into their native structures. The possibility of observing the three-dimensional structure of a protein, through X-ray diffraction or NMR techniques, is essential to understand how a protein works and to rationally design potential ligands, capable of inhibiting or activating a biological target. We can, in fact, assume that structural data represent the milestone for reliable molecular modeling and computer-aided drug design approaches. Nevertheless, determining the exact structure into which a protein naturally folds is a very complex and time-consuming procedure. Thus, the molecule has to be purified, crystallized, exposed to X-radiation, and the diffraction diagram must be transformed into an intelligible electron density map. Unfortunately, some proteins are not easy to crystallize and others are not able to generate clear diffraction patterns after X-ray exposure, so, different computational approaches and simulations must be applied, in order to find new potential lead compounds. Actually, there are two different methods used to design new drugs: the ab initio approach and the in silico virtual screening. The first is based on the knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of the target binding pocket and aims to design drugs sterically and physicochemically complementary to the active site properties and shape. The second one is able to screen thousand of compounds belonging to a large database of known molecules, and to computationally evaluate their binding affinity toward the target protein (Lengauer 2003). If we are very lucky and we know both the three-dimensional structure of our biological target and of the potential lead compound, or at least of the potential chemical scaffold, we can simply apply structure-based drug design procedures, trying to improve the inhibition potency of the potential new drugs. If the protein structure is known, but we do not have any clue about the structure of a possible inhibitor, or activator, we can use combinatorial chemistry techniques to generate millions of molecules, to be subsequently virtually tested, with docking and scoring simulations. Knowing the structure of the receptor and the shape and chemical nature of the binding pocket, it is also possible to model a lead compound, in order to achieve an almost perfect geometrical and chemical complementarity, thus combining random virtual screening and rational drug design processes, or to choose a complete de novo design approach. On the contrary, ligandbased design can be used when only the ligand configuration is known, but the target structure is not available. Quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) investigation could represent a useful tool to improve the inhibition properties of a lead compound, computationally modifying its chemical properties. Moreover, QSAR techniques could elucidate also the chemical peculiarities of the binding pocket, driving to the prediction of a pharmacophore model. At last, when no structural information is available on either the biological target or the ligands, the unique possibility is to generate thousands of different chemical compounds through combinatorial chemistry and to experimentally screen them. Virtual screening is the computational in silico variant of highthroughput screening, and even if the accuracy of virtual predictions is usually lower than the accuracy of experimental measurements, virtual screening presents some benefits. The calculations, in fact, are cheaper and faster, and it is possible to test and model compounds not yet purchased or synthesized.


Extracted text; In 2012, there were almost 70 million dogs in America, which resulted in an increase in demand for pet services, including dog training (American Veterinary Medical Association, 2012). Based on statistics from the U.S. Pet Market Outlook 2013-2014, consumer spending for non-medical pet services will exceed $20 billion, growing at about 6.0% annually (Packaged Facts, 2013). Dog sports such as agility have become increasingly popular, which has increased the demand for dog training facilities and instructors that offer sports training classes in addition to traditional obedience classes (Kalter & Sprung, 2013). This growth in demand has led to an increase in the number of new ventures offering specialized training services. The purpose of this study was to conduct exploratory research in order to determine the market for dog training in Raleigh, North Carolina. By conducting industry and regional analyses that focus on the local consumer demands, how their needs are currently being met, and what the potential market is, a business model can be developed for the use of entrepreneurs in this niche service market. To help determine the market for dog training, a confidential survey was distributed to dog owners in Raleigh, North Carolina with questions focusing on five main topics: participant demographics, dog demographics, prior training, desired future training, and limitations. By having a better understanding of the market needs in the area, entrepreneurs can develop their business services around the customer demands and limitations and increase their likeliness of success.


ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. Marssonina rosae, Diplocarpon rosae SUMMARY. Recently, roses (Rosa spp.) that require relatively little maintenance have gained in popularity in the United States. One group of these roses is the Griffith Buck roses, which were selected to survive the extremely cold winters of the northcentral United States. Many of these roses were rated qualitatively as having disease resistance when they were released, but their resistance levels to black spot (Marssonina rosae) have not been quantified, compared with each other, or rated against other resistant or susceptible roses. In afield trial in Iowa in 2005 and 2006, 24 Griffith Buck roses that were originally described as disease resistant were compared with susceptible and resistant control cultivars for susceptibility to black spot. No fungicides were applied in either year. Plants were rated five times each year for black spot incidence, and also to assess overall plant appearance. Griffith Buck roses 'Carefree Beauty', 'Aunt Honey', 'Honeysweet', 'Earthsong', and 'Pearlie Mae' had significantly less black spot than many of the other cultivars. In addition, these cultivars also remained attractive and could be used in low-maintenance landscapes in the north-central United States, even under moderate black spot pressure.


The motion picture "AI" lets the AI profession squirm in the glory of misrepresentation. It's not fun, especially when one's field suffers from waves of innovation/hype/backlash. The problem is that the film "AI" reinforces the dream of the android just when many who work toward "truly" intelligent technologies are cutting loose from the dream's more surrealistic aspects. People are asking new questions: Is the Turing test really the right kind of standard? If not, what is better? Must we define intelligence in reference to humans? Must intelligent technology be boxes chock-full of this thing we call intelligence, or should it operate as a "cognitive prosthesis" to amplify or extend human perceptual, cognitive and collaborative capabilities? Must intelligence always be in some individual thing - either a headbone or a box - or is intelligence a system property that is definable only in terms of the triple of humans-machines-contexts?.


We conducted radio observations searching for OH 18-cm maser emission from a sample of 169 unclassified MIPSGAL compact Galactic bubbles. These sources are thought to be the circumstellar envelopes of different kinds of evolved stars. Our observations were aimed at shedding light on the nature of MIPSGAL bubbles, since their characterisation is a fundamental aid for the development of accurate physical models of stellar and Galaxy evolution. The maser emission is observatively linked to the last stages of the life of low- and intermediate-mass stars, which may constitute a significant fraction of the MIPSGAL bubbles. In particular OH masers are usually observed towards post-AGB stars. Our observations were performed with the Green Bank Telescope and, for each source, produced spectra around the four OH 18-cm transitions. The observations were compared with archive interferometer data in order to exclude possible contamination from nearby sources. The main result is that the OH maser emission is not a common feature among the MIPSGAL bubbles, with only one certain detection. We conclude that among the MIPSGAL bubbles the post-AGB stars could be very rare.


This study is a philosophical analysis of the positivist separation thesis with regard to the role of law in society and the place of morality it. Like any other study in Philosophy, the study is a reasoned response to the claims made by the legal positivist doctrine about law and morality— a response that involves putting forward a counter claim and proceeding to advance reasons why we should believe or accept it. The study acknowledges that the law, through various judicial institutions like courts and tribunals, is the acceptable instrument for resolving disputes in modern society. However, the study argues that while the science of law as defined by the legal positivist doctrine claims that judicial systems are self-sufficient institutions for solving disputes in society that stand in no need of moral considerations when executing their functions, the contrary is the case in the sense that morality, philosophically defined, is the nourishment that judicial systems need in order to make them effective institutions for dispute resolution. In this respect, the study holds that contrary to the position held by legal positivism, judicial systems stand in need of moral considerations in order to be effective institutions for dispute-resolution. This position, which is backed by relevant scholarly authority, legal citations and practical examples, affords us a compelling account of why the law cannot exist independently of morality. The ensuing argument also affords us the opportunity to put forward suggestions on how to bridge the gap that is asserted to exist between legal positivism and natural law theory. The objective is to prescribe a new jurisprudence that seeks to improve the dispute-resolution functions of the Kenyan judicial system, thereby contributing to legal or judicial reforms in Kenya, or any other jurisdiction similar to Kenya's. The introductory chapter of the study has sought to define the central question of investigation by way of a hypothetical analysis, the objective of which is to highlight the ethical issues that make the debate about law and morality of great interest to philosophers.
In the succeeding chapters, the study attempts to put the institution of law and legal practice in an ethical perspective— expounding and giving meaning to jurisprudential theories like legal positivism and their ethical implication on the conduct of various actors in the legal profession. By use of dialectic reasoning, the study, in the fourth and fifth chapters, discusses the concept of morality in a manner that draws a critical distinction between morality from a sociological and philosophical perspective— a distinction that the study relies upon to critique and challenge the positivist position on law and morality.The rest of the chapters are of persuasive authority— discussing ethical issues that often arise in the great debate on law and morality. Such issues include the concepts of conflict of interest, moral dilemma, justice, liberty and legitimate authority. From the accumulated discussion, the study ventures the conclusion that; the dispute-resolution function of the Kenyan judicial system is better served when it embraces morality.


FPGAs are often considered for high-end applications that require embedded cryptography. These devices must thus be protected against physical attacks. However, unlike ASICs, in which custom and backend-level countermeasures can be devised, FPGAs offer less possibilities for a designer to implement counter-measures. We investigate "wave dynamic differential logic" (WDDL), a logic-level counter-measure based on leakage hiding thanks to balanced dual-rail logic. First of all, we report a CAD methodology for achieving WDDL in FPGA. An experimental security evaluation of the DES (or triple-DES) encryption algorithm in WDDL shows that the usage of positive logic is mandatory to resist to straightforward attacks. Second, we discuss how to reduce the size overhead associated with WDDL. The efficiency of some synthesizers is assessed. In the case of DES, we provide with an original heuristic to obtain substitution boxes smaller than those generated automatically with legacy ASIC synthesizers.


This paper intends to highlight key aspects of the Google Shopping Antitrust case in Brazil in order to shed light on the Brazilian perspective of its main findings, including some takeaways of its understanding of potential competition issues in the digital market. With this in mind, the paper will focus on three aspects of CADE's decision following the structure below (i). Theory of harm; (ii) Effects analysis and (iii) Remedies. At the end, final remarks will conclude the paper and try to inform readers on future perspectives of competition issues related to digital economy in Brazil.


Observing the isotopic evolution of snow meltwater helps in understanding the process of snow melting but remains a challenge to acquire in the field. In this study, we monitored the melting of two snowpacks near Baishui Glacier No. 1, a typical temperate glacier on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. We employed a physically based isotope model (PBIM) to calculate the isotopic composition of meltwater draining from natural snowpacks. The initial condition of the PBIM was revised to account for natural conditions, i.e., the initial δ18O stratigraphy of snow layers before melting. Simulations revealed that the initial heterogeneity of δ18O in snow layers as well as ice‐liquid isotopic exchange were responsible for most variations of δ18O in snow meltwater, whereas new snow and wind drift could result in sudden changes of the isotopic composition of the meltwater. The fraction of ice involved in the isotopic exchange (f) was the most sensitive parameter for the model output. The initial δ18O in the snowpack is mirrored in meltwater in case of small f and is smoothed with a large exchange fraction f. The other unknown parameter of the PBIM is the dimensionless rate constant of isotopic exchange, which depends on water percolation and initial snow depth. The successful application of the PBIM in the field might not only be useful for understanding snow melting process but might also provide the possibility of predicting the isotopic composition of snow meltwater and improve the accuracy of hydrograph separation.


Heavy colored scalar particles appear in a variety of new physics (NP) models and could be produced at the Large Hadron Collider. Knowing the total production cross section is important for searching for these states and establishing bounds on their masses and couplings. Using soft-collinear effective theory, we derive a factorization theorem for the process $pp\ensuremath{\rightarrow}SX$, where $S$ is a color-octet scalar, that is applicable to any NP model provided the dominant production mechanism is gluon-gluon fusion. The factorized result for the inclusive cross section is similar to that for the standard model Higgs production; however, differences arise due to color exchange between initial and final states. We provide formulas for the total cross section with large (partonic) threshold logarithms resummed to next-to-leading logarithm accuracy. The resulting $K$ factors are similar to those found in Higgs production. We apply our formalism to the Manohar-Wise model and find that the next-to-leading logarithm cross section is roughly 2 times (3 times) as large as the leading order cross section for a color-octet scalar of mass of 500 GeV (3 TeV). A similar enhancement should appear in any NP model with color-octet scalars.


We investigated the role of spot size on plume morphology during ultrafast laser ablation of metal targets. Our results show that the spatial features of fs LA plumes are strongly dependent on the focal spot size. Two-dimensional self-emission images showed that the shape of the ultrafast laser ablation plumes changes from spherical to cylindrical with an increasing spot size from 100 to 600 μm. The changes in plume morphology and internal structures are related to ion emission dynamics from the plasma, where broader angular ion distribution and faster ions are noticed for the smallest spot size used. The present results clearly show that the morphological changes in the plume with spot size are independent of laser pulse width.


Our purpose is to offer a means of arriving at an early and more definite knowledge of cardiac incompetency by calling attention to certain well marked pulsations in the peripheral veins. These are especially pronounced in the median basilic vein of the forearm and in the veins on the dorsum of the hands, and they occurred in all of a series of more than fifty cases in which a diagnosis of cardiac failure and tricuspid insufficiency had been made on other clinical and anatomic grounds. A large number of compensated controls did not show these pulsations. The relatively common occurrence of functional tricuspid insufficiency is not recognized by clinicians in general as often as it should be. This has been pointed out frequently by Mackenzie. 1 This fact was brought home to us when it was discovered that quite a large proportion of the average run of patients at our disposal


Our Biometric team was tasked with implementing a primary objective of a newly diagnosed Multiple Myeloma registry to describe practice patterns of common first-line treatment regimens and subsequent therapeutic strategies. This manuscript describes analytical visual methods we used to understand and summarize a complex data structure. We aim to present these methods in a cohesive holistic manner which threads together materials published over time, each with focused narrower objectives, deriving from this primary objective. Methods described in detail elsewhere are briefly revisited here to provide that holistic perspective and to provide details on subsequent variants in newer applications. These have also been used in clinical publications. The coding and graphical display related details corresponding to our Sankey plot clinical publication, for which our methods are unpublished, will also be provided.


The invention relates to a screw with a self-tapping thread of a hardened, alloy carbon steel with alloying and a hard tip. The tip has a hardness increase due to the alloy by additive takes place during heating of the screw and a Lochausformen thereby arising tempering.


This study experimentally reveals the self-biasing phenomenon in prism laser gyros. When the gyro operates in a specific double longitudinal mode and four-frequency oscillation state, the gyro can detect the normal angular velocity component of the Earth's rotation without dithering, the self-biasing status is induced. In this study, a laboratory platform of the self-biasing laser gyro is established. The two longitudinal modes oscillate on both sides of the gain curve. The intensity ratio of the strong and weak modes is about 1.4 to 1, and the coupling effects of these two modes with parallel linear polarization have been discussed using Lamb theory. Because the adverse effects of biasing technical are avoided, the self-biasing gyro has potential to challenge the strategic precision.


This paper evaluates and ranks the temporal dimensions, known as fourth dimension of urban design, of a number of places in a city by TOPSIS method. TOPSIS method is technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution. TOPSIS is one of the renowned methods for classical multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems that defines the positive ideal solution and negative ideal solution to maximize the benefit criteria and minimize the cost criteria. The best solution is a point that has the shortest distance from the positive ideal solution and the farthest distance from the negative ideal solution. Because of the vagueness of the input data, triangular fuzzy numbers are applied. In addition, Euclidian distance and a new positive and negative ideal solution are used in this paper. This technique is implemented in Marand, Iran to evaluate fifteen important places based on eight criteria of temporal dimensions. Closeness coefficient values verify the ranking order of fifteen important places, which is a vital decision for the urban managers.


ABSTRACT We present a hybrid philosophical/psychological argument in defense of 'free will.' The argument builds on the proposals in philosopher Christian List'sbook, Free will is real. We show that List's psychological account of free will – that it requires the ability to consider alternatives, to make a choice, and to enact that choice – has already been proven, via research into goal functioning. Thus, the real question is: 'can we use our free will wisely?' Self-concordance research and implicit/explicit motive discrepancy research suggest that sometimes, we can't. Ironically, the same fact that makes us free – that our choices are based on our imaginative capacities – also makes us free to be clueless, i.e., out of touch with ourselves or with reality. In building our argument we also discuss self-determination theory, the evolved symbolic self, system 1 versus system 2 functioning, and the hierarchical organization of human existence.


Reductions between problems, the mainstay of theoretical computer science, efficiently map an instance of one problem to an instance of another in such a way that solving the latter allows solving the former. The subject of this work is "lossy" reductions, where the reduction loses some information about the input instance. We show that such reductions, when they exist, have interesting and powerful consequences for lifting hardness into "useful" hardness, namely cryptography.
Our first, conceptual, contribution is a definition of lossy reductions in the language of mutual information. Roughly speaking, our definition says that a reduction C is t-lossy if, for any distribution X over its inputs, the mutual information I(X;C(X)) ≤ t. Our treatment generalizes a variety of seemingly related but distinct notions such as worst-case to average-case reductions, randomized encodings (Ishai and Kushilevitz, FOCS 2000), homomorphic computations (Gentry, STOC 2009), and instance compression (Harnik and Naor, FOCS 2006).
We then proceed to show several consequences of lossy reductions:
1. We say that a language L has an f-reduction to a language L' for a Boolean function f if there is a (randomized) polynomial-time algorithm C that takes an m-tuple of strings X = (x_1,…,x_m), with each x_i ∈ {0,1}^n, and outputs a string z such that with high probability, L'(z) = f(L(x_1),L(x_2),…,L(x_m)). Suppose a language L has an f-reduction C to L' that is t-lossy. Our first result is that one-way functions exist if L is worst-case hard and one of the following conditions holds:
- f is the OR function, t ≤ m/100, and L' is the same as L
- f is the Majority function, and t ≤ m/100
- f is the OR function, t ≤ O(m log n), and the reduction has no error
This improves on the implications that follow from combining (Drucker, FOCS 2012) with (Ostrovsky and Wigderson, ISTCS 1993) that result in auxiliary-input one-way functions.
2. Our second result is about the stronger notion of t-compressing f-reductions - reductions that only output t bits. We show that if there is an average-case hard language L that has a t-compressing Majority reduction to some language for t=m/100, then there exist collision-resistant hash functions.
This improves on the result of (Harnik and Naor, STOC 2006), whose starting point is a cryptographic primitive (namely, one-way functions) rather than average-case hardness, and whose assumption is a compressing OR-reduction of SAT (which is now known to be false unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses).
Along the way, we define a non-standard one-sided notion of average-case hardness, which is the notion of hardness used in the second result above, that may be of independent interest.


Soccer fans around the world adore the offensive style of play based on fast passing combinations, spectacular dribblings, and the art of beautifully shot goals. The question regarding this style of game is how to coach your team to embrace fast attacking soccer. How do you shape your training to cover all the technical and tactical basics? Peter Schreiner and Norbert Elgert, renowned German coaches, give the right answers, including systematical approaches. Every coach can easily shape his training programs with easy to use exercises, which are richly illustrated.


Teleoperated robots are controlled by human operators and allow us to act in environments that are inaccessible for reasons of safety, scale, or remoteness. Unfortunately, due to lack of tactile sense and dexterity and proprioception, task performance can suffer compared to direct object manipulation with the hands. Still, use of human controlled robot s is the only viable option for these dangerous or hard-to-reach applications, since robots do not yet have the capability to autonomously perform most unstructured tasks. This thesis presents new contributions in telerobotics that show the way to improved access and control. The target application domain is telerobotic surgery. A novel surgical robotic system is presented, the Raven II, which forms the basis of a collaborative telerobotic research network with open open source softwar e and tool interface. The robot is now in use at more than a dozen institutions and is a shared platform for developing and sharing new hardware, software, and methods.

Collaborating on telerobotics research requires agreement on a teleoperation protocol. To this end a new data interface was developed and tested for compatibility among fourteen master-slave teleoperation robots. Results of this study suggest avenues for a common internet standard for teleoperation robots.

To study performance with this system, beyond purely manual control, two types of computer assistance are studied: virtual fixtures and mixed autonomy. Virtual fixtures are spatially varying environment features that provide motion control assistance . Mixed autonomy combines autonomous robotic motion with human control or commands.

In this work, a new mixed autonomy method is presented based on a division of the workspace into regions that are either safe for computer assisted control, or require pure human control. The new method was evaluated experimentally and compared with novel virtual fixture implementations and pure manual control. Experimental evaluation used uni- and bi-manual peg-in-hole object grasping and manipulation tasks, and several metrics were reported. The aim of these experiments was to determine when and how computer assistance functions will help improve human control of robots. Results showed that performance on some sub-components of object manipulation was improved by the addition of computer assistance. However a performance detriment was measured, due to a mismatch of state information when control is switched from pure hu man to mixed human-computer operation.

Results of this research demonstrate ways to improve many high-value tasks being carried out today under telerobotic operation; successful application of this research may literally save lives in the operating room, disaster relief situations, nuclear environments and other critical applications.


In this work we present a constitutive model for High Temperature Shape Memory Alloys (HTSMAs), where the appearence of viscoplastic mechanisms during transformation influences the cyclic response of the actuator performance. Based on previous models developed for conventional SMAs, a Gibbs free energy potential is defined and the evolution equations for forward, reverse transformation, plasticity occuring during transformation, retained martensite and viscoplasticity are properly chosen. The calibration of the model is achieved with the help of experimental tests performed on TiPdNi alloy. The transformation behavior of the material is calibrated using fast load biased thermal cycling tests at selected stress levels with fast cooling/heating rate. The viscoplastic behavior of the HTSMA is captured with creep and uniaxial tests at appropriate temperature levels. Predictions of the model are compared with load biased thermal cycling tests at slow cooling/heating rate, where viscoplastic strains are significant.© 2010 ASME


The tokamak scrape-off (the region between the vacuum vessel wall and the magnetically confined fusion plasma edge), represents a source/sink for the hot fusion plasma. The electron densities and temperatures are in the ranges 1011-1013 cm−3 and 1-40eV respectively (depending on the size, magnetic field intensity and configuration, plasma current, etc.). Relatively low charge states of various impurities are formed here in a variety of atomic and molecular processes. Since it is very difficult to study these processes in situ, we looked for a way to simulate them under conditions similar to those of the tokamak scrape-off layer. In the work reported, the electron temperature and density have been estimated in a Penning Ionization Discharge by comparing its spectroscopic emission in the VUV with that predicted by a collisional radiative model. An attempt to directly compare this emission with that of the tokamak edge is briefly described.


Can low-temperature plasma technology play a role in medicine? This is a question that many investigators today are trying hard to give a positive answer to. It did not quite start out this way. Almost two decades ago, few ldquocuriousrdquo electrical engineers and physicists with the help of few ldquobraverdquo biologists/microbiologists asked themselves more basic questions: What happens to biological cells if they were exposed to low-temperature plasma? Will they die? Will they survive? If they survive, will they come out the same or somehow ldquoinjuredrdquo? If injured, will they be able to repair the damage and recover? What kind of damage? Which plasma agent causes the damage? etc. As will be shown in this paper, some of these fundamental questions have been partially or fully answered, but until today, a complete picture has yet to emerge. This is good and not so good. It is good because if we already knew all the answers, we would not be looking forward to a more exciting research. It is not so good because after all these years, we are still quite a ways from an implementable medical application. In this review paper, the present state of knowledge regarding the effects of cold plasma on bacteria cells (prokaryotes) and on eukaryotic cells (such as mammalian cells) will be presented. As medical applications where low-temperature plasma is showing signs of success, blood coagulation and wound healing will be described.


This paper proposes a conceptual model of the networked individual that articulates their agency and activity patterns within a digital community constituted through open social structures. The model is intended to visually assist the triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative analyses by providing clarity to the relationships between sets of variables and theoretical ideas that have been used to analytically describe the community under study; in this case, the community of people with common interests in reptiles and amphibians (aka Herpers). Drawing upon data collected from 1,498 survey respondents across 47 countries, and interviews and participant observation conducted across 12 countries, the model proposed in this paper aims to collapse the digital dualism inherent to many community studies. Conceptually, this model is derived from the environmental approach to community studies of early Chicago school scholars and is updated for the Internet age. Within this model, the research questions asking about the place, composition, boundaries and cohesion of the community are constructed from the results to provide the assumptions and parameters for the social ecology of the community and the action of the networked individual within it. It is proposed future research could validate this model within a similar network and continue to develop and refine the environmental approach to studying the imprint of a community as a way to describe and characterise contemporary community experience in the digital age.


A new technique that improves the spatial resolution and quantification limits of the measurement of lead isotope ratios in silicate glasses with <15 μg g−1 total Pb by LA-MC-ICPMS is presented. The new method provides the capability of making quantitative, in situ lead isotope measurements on tiny objects of geologic interest such as mineral growth bands, melt inclusions, and accessory minerals, even where they are lead poor. The method allows for the concurrent, static measurement of 204Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb, 208Pb along with 202Hg in five Channeltron ion counters. Standard-sample-standard bracketing using USGS BCR2-G as the calibrant is used to correct for instrumental mass bias. Accuracy and precision of the method was evaluated by replicate analyses of various MPI-DING reference glasses with low lead concentrations (∼1–11 μg g−1) and well-determined isotopic ratios. Spot sizes for in situ analyses were as small as 40–69 μm, providing better spatial resolution than previous LA-MC-ICPMS results reporting 204Pb. Measured lead isotope ratios for the MPI-DING reference glasses T1-G (11.6 μg g−1 total Pb) and ATHO-G (5.67 μg g−1 total Pb) agree within 0.10% and 0.15% respectively of the preferred values using 40 μm spots. For MPI-DING KL2-G (2.07 μg g−1 total Pb) and ML3B-G (1.38 μg g−1 total Pb) measured lead ratios agree within 0.75% of the accepted values with typical precisions of <1.9% (2RSD) using 69 μm spots; measured 207Pb/206Pb and 208Pb/206Pb are within 0.45% of preferred values with precisions of <0.50% (2RSD). These results demonstrate improvement over previous LA-MC-ICPMS data in terms of both quantification limits and spatial resolution, while retaining similar levels of accuracy and precision.


The performance of a 6.5 GHz hybrid GaN Doherty power amplifier is reported. The amplifier is packaged in a plastic overmold QFN 9×9 package and includes discrete GaN transistors and integrated passive GaAs splitting, matching and combiner networks. Measured results, under continuous wave operation, at 6.5 GHz shows 18 dB gain, a P1dB of 42 dBm, and 21% PAE in 9 dB output power back off. These results are the first reported for a Doherty power amplifier that comes close to specifications for a typical point-to-point microwave link application. Furthermore, the presented hybrid approach is a step towards cost effective microwave Doherty power amplifiers.


4895 RTA 502 (5-nitro-2-(3-{4-[3-(8-methoxy-6-oxo-6H-2,10b-diaza-aceanthrylen-5-ylamino)propyl]piperazin-1-yl}-propyl)-2-aza-phenalene-1,3-dione) is a synthetic anti-tumor agent with excellent in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor activity, especially against colon, liver and pancreatic cancer. We probed the DNA expression profiles in two colon cancer cell lines, HCT116 (wt p53) and HT29 (mut p53) that had been exposed to RTA 502 in order to provide information on the mechanism of action of the drug. Biophysical and biochemical studies showed that RTA 502 binds reversibly to DNA in the major groove. Our operational hypothesis is that the drug/ DNA complex interferes with proteins involved in DNA repair and transcription by forming ternary complexes with critical proteins. We have previously reported that sensitive wt p53 cancer cell lines such as colon HCT116 and RKO or hepatoma HepG2 are killed through p53-mediated apoptosis. Cancer cell lines with mutated or null p53 (e.g colon HT29, pancreas ASPC1 or 10.05 and hepatoma Hep3B) are also killed by the drug, which indicates induction of a p53-independent cell death pathways. Gene expression profiles were developed from mRNA isolated from HCT116 and HT29 cells exposed to 100 nM RTA 502 for 4, 24, 48 and 72 h using the Affymetrix 2K array, and all genes altered more than +/- 3-fold were subjected to a bioinformatics analysis utilizing DAVID (Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery). Drug treatment of HCT116 cells triggers immediate stabilization of p53 protein (as evidenced by Western blots) and subsequent suppression or activation of a great number of p53-controlled genes involved in DNA damage response (e.g. CHK1, RAD54, H2AFX), DNA replication arrest (e.g. CDC6, CDC7, RRM2, MCM 2-7, CDT1, RFC3, PSF2), cell cycle arrest (e.g. CDKN1A, GADD45, BTG1, CDC2, CDC20) and apoptosis (e.g. TP53, TNF, FAS, BAX, CASP8). The changes in gene transcription are time dependent and coincide with changes in corresponding protein levels. RTA 502 treatment of HT29 cells induces slightly different profiles. Thus, more than 20 stress response genes (e.g. TGFB1, IL1R1, MDK, GPX3, MHC) are upregulated but, in contrast to HCT116, these are not p53-regulated genes. We found 37 cell cycle and replication arrest genes (e.g. PML, ORC, MCM 2, 4, 5 and 7, RRM2, CHK1) that were common to both lines, although the level of dysregulation varied. Finally, we found strong up-regulation of 10 genes in HT29 cells that were involved in TNF-dependent apoptosis. The array data support the mechanistic conclusion that RTA 502 affects the expression of cellular stress response genes and induces replication arrest in tumor cells, which eventually leads to the activation of p53-dependent and p53-independent apoptosis pathways.


Describes the structure of the Forest Inventory and Analysis Database (FIADB) and provides information on generating estimates of forest statistics from these data. The FIADB structure provides a consistent framework for storing forest inventory data across all ownerships across the entire United States. These data are available to the public.


This review provides a summary of research on the penetration of dyes into natural fibres. Emphasis is placed on the relationship between diffusion and the structural morphology of the fibres. The types of commonly dyed natural fibres, the methods of measurement of diffusion and the data that have been collected by the use of each method are reviewed. The applicability of general theories of dyeing to natural fibres is also examined. Recent developments that have led to the direct observation of penetration pathways in wool fibres are described, together with the insights obtained into diffusion phenomena. Areas for future work are briefly indicated.


The aetiology, clinical features, classification, prognosis of the disease were collected in both Siddha system as well as Modern system of medicine.
• The efficacies of the drugs, Kodiveli Chooranum as internal medicine, Maruthampattai Thylam as external medicine and Kuppaimeni Podi as dusting powder were observed during this study.
• Twenty children of different age group were treated in the In-Patient ward and fifty five cases were treated in the out-patientward of post graduate Kuzhandhai Marathuvam Department.
• The In-patients were treated for three to ten days depending upon the severity of illness. They were also advised to attend the Out patient department for further follow up.
• Routine laboratory investigations available in the college were done and the prognosis of the patients was noted daily.
• In this clinical study with 20 In-patients, 13 had good response (65%) and 7 had fair response (35%). In out-patients 76% showed good response, 18% showed fair response and 6% showed poor response.
• Clinically the drugs were free from adverse effect. The drugs were also studied by Biochemical analysis and pharmacological studies.
• The internal medicine Kodiveli Chooranam had significant Acute anti inflammatory, significant chronic Anti inflammatory, significant Anti – histaminic action and significant anti microbial activity against Group-A Streptococcous.
• The external medicine, Maruthampattai Thylam and Kuppaimeni Podi had significant acute anti inflammatory action.
• This ensures the efficacies of the drugs, which were also proved clinically.
CONCLUSION:
In this clinical study results were found to be satisfactory.
• 65% of cases showed good response and 35% of cases showed fair response in In-patients ward. 76% of cases showed good response 18% of cases showed fair response and 6% of cases showed poor response in outpatients ward in post graduate Kuzhandhai Maruthuvam Department.
• The trial drugs were very effective to the patients and there was no recurrence of symptoms.
• Clinically the drugs are free from adverse effects and so they are useful for long term therapy for pediatric age group.
• The drugs are also very cheap and easily available.
• So it is concluded that VARAL KARAPPAN controllable and curable disease with Kodiveli Chooranam, Maruthampattai Thylam and Kuppaimeni Podi along with good personal hygiene.


We provide AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS) photometry in the Landolt BV and Sloan g′r′i′ bands for all 425,743 stars included in the fourth RAVE Data Release. The internal accuracy of the APASS photometry of RAVE stars, expressed as the error of the mean of data obtained and separately calibrated over a median of four distinct observing epochs and distributed between 2009 and 2013, is 0.013, 0.012, 0.012, 0.014, and 0.021 mag for the B, V, g′, r′, and i′ bands, respectively. The equally high external accuracy of APASS photometry has been verified on secondary Landolt and Sloan photometric standard stars not involved in the APASS calibration process and on a large body of literature data on field and cluster stars, confirming the absence of offsets and trends. Compared with the Carlsberg Meridian Catalog (CMC-15), APASS astrometry of RAVE stars is accurate to a median value of 0.098 arcsec. Brightness distribution functions for the RAVE stars have been derived in all bands. APASS photometry of RAVE stars, augmented by 2MASS JHK infrared data, has been χ2 fitted to a densely populated synthetic photometric library designed to widely explore temperature, surface gravity, metallicity, and reddening. Resulting Teff and EB − V, computed over a range of options, are provided and discussed, and will be kept updated in response to future APASS and RAVE data releases. In the process, we find that the reddening caused by a homogeneous slab of dust, extending for 140 pc on either side of the Galactic plane and responsible for = 0.036 ± 0.002 at the Galactic poles, is a suitable approximation of the actual reddening encountered at Galactic latitudes |b| ⩾ 25°.


Genetic polymorphisms have the potential to predict disease susceptibility. This may be especially useful among individuals with a high-risk lifestyle, so that the genotyping could be adopted for disease prevention through modifications toward a lower-risk lifestyle. We started a program of free genotype announcements in a polymorphism study among health checkup examinees at the Nagoya University Hospital on June 9, 2003. Since such announcements remain controversial for fear of unexpected harmful effects and counseling system, the accumulated evidence on the association between disease risk and genotypes announcements in our study was reviewed in this article. The genotypes used were those of alcohol dehydrogenase 2 (ADH2) Arg47His, aldelhyde dehydlrogenase 2 (ALDH2) Glu487Lys, NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1) C609T, glutathlione S transferase M1 (GSTM1), glutathione S-transferase T1 (GSTT1), interleukin-1B (IL-1B) C-31T, and tumor necrosis factor A (TNF-A) T-1031C, angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) Ins/Del. Since showed a potential for widespread use in health checkups, the information on the above polymorphisms seems worth documenting. Although there have been no complaints from the participants to date, careful treatments are requested.


This paper introduces a channel algorithm of transversal passing through singularities for non-redundant manipulators. An approach to a singular configuration is monitored by examining singular values of the Jacobian matrix of the manipulator which attain their zero values at singularities. The algorithm forces to smoothly change singular values of the Jacobian matrix. It results in continuous joint coordinates without jerks and extensive errors in tracking a desired path in a task space. An apparent advantage of the channel algorithm is its simplicity and utilization of a basic Newton algorithm only. The algorithm introduced is illustrated with examples including macro motions of the PUMA manipulator.