Some of the most important aspects in the study of the fragmentation of rock due to the action of TBM disks concern the abrasiveness of the rock and the wear of the tools. The wear of the disks in fact means that they have to be substituted, with consequent effects on the efficiency of the excavation, on the speed of advancement and therefore, on the times and costs of constructing the tunnel. After having conducted a detailed examination of the methods that have become established in scientific literature to assess the degree of abrasiveness of rock and the potential speed of tools wear, the formulas that allow an estimation to be made of the mean advancement velocity of the excavation machine are presented, considering the effect of wear on the tools and the necessity of substituting them. By applying the Barton method to four different types of rock, for three types of tunnel diameter, it has been possible to obtain the trend of the global advancement velocity of a TBM with variations of the GSI index. It has been possible to note how the CLI parameter, which describes the potentiality of the rock to wear the disks, can influence the global advancement velocity of the TBM to a great extent. Data obtained during the recent construction of a tunnel in North Italy have made it possible to compare the currently available calculation methods and obtain the CLI parameter through back-analysis. A good agreement has been found, above all between the Barton calculation method and that of the Norwegian School, both of which have shown to be reliable systems for the forecasting of the wear of disks on a TBM and for the estimation of the advancement speed of the excavation machine.


The paper propose modelling and fabrication of friction stir welding end-effector for ABB IRB1410 robot. A dynamically developing version of pressure welding processes, join material without reaching the fusion temperature called friction stir welding. As friction stir welding occurs in solid state, no solidification structures are created thereby eliminating the brittle and eutectic phase's common to fusion welding of high strength aluminium alloys. In this paper, Friction stir welding is applied to aluminum sheets of 2 mm thickness. A prototype setup is developed to monitor the evolution of main forces and tool temperature during the operation. Pressure of a gripper plays a major role for tool rotation and developing torque.  Fabrication of the tool has done. Force calculations are done by placing the sensors on the outer surface of gripper. Methods of evaluating weld quality are surveyed as well. Full Text: PDF DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijra.v5i2.1007


Miss Slade is a recluse who lives in an old caravan in Blackberry Bottom. When newcomers move into the nearest house, she gradually starts to rejoin the village community. But what no one knows is that Miss Slade keeps all her money buried in a milk churn. Is it safe?


A research study was in progress in a Czech district (100,000 inhabitants) in the years 1961-1972 with the aim to analyze the epidemiological situation of tuberculosis and the impact and effectiveness of control measures. Most of the conclusions are still valid and have their role in present tuberculosis programmes in Czechoslovakia or in other countries, too. There were recommended sensitive epidemiological indices and methods by which the actual situation should be characterized, changed or monitored: direct smear-positive cases and their importance, reevaluation of BCG vaccination and revaccination, as well as of case-finding and economic aspects of chemotherapy. The study built up fundamental prerequisites of a modern approach to tuberculosis control.


Abstract The computer processing time required for raytracing and hypocenter determination in a 3D inhomogeneous velocity structure is too great for the method to be used to locate a large number of hypocenters or for interactive processing. In this study, hypocenter determinations were conducted using 3D travel-time tables (3D-TTs) to reflect travel times of a 3D inhomogeneous velocity structure in event locations, and the results were compared with those achieved using the 3D raytracing method. The use of 3D-TTs reduced the calculation time by a factor of about 1800 compared with the raytracing method. Whereas minor differences between interpolated travel times and the raytracing method caused some corresponding location differences, the travel-time table was effective for correction of hypocenter locations according to an inhomogeneous velocity-structure model.


Abstract Spatiotemporal variation and metabolic activity of the microbial community were studied in coarse-grained Middle Atlantic Bight shelf sediments in relation to pools of dissolved and particulate carbon. Algal cells were present 8->70 mum) fraction of the sediment held the major share (61-98%) of benthic bacteria. Bacterial and algal cell abundances, exoenzymatic activity, and [DOC] generally showed higher values in May/July 2001 than in August/December 2000. Carbohydrates and proteins were hydrolyzed at potential rates of 1-12 nmol cm(-3) h(-1) (beta-glucosidase) and 3-70 nmol cm(-3) h(-1) (aminopeptidase), respectively. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analyses of the benthic microbes assigned 45-56% of DAPI-stained cells to Eubacteria and less than 2% to Eukarya. The prokaryotic community was dominated by planctomycetes and members of the Cytophaga/Flavobacterium cluster. Near the sediment surface, iodonitrotetrazolium violet reducing cells, that are considered actively respiring, amounted to 15-29% of total bacteria. Despite a low organic content (particulate organic carbon <0.03%) and relatively low bacterial abundances (<10(9) cm(-3)), the Middle Atlantic Bight shelf sediments showed organic matter turnover rates that are comparable to those found in organic-rich finer-grained deposits. Our findings suggest a high biocatalytic filtration activity in these coarse permeable sediments.


Objective: A prospective, observational study in Dhaka Medical College Hospital was carried out to assess the efficacy of loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) of the transformation zone of cervix as an outpatient procedure as diagnostic and therapeutic purpose during visit of patients with the report of CIN II or CIN III on histopathology. Method: One hundred women over a period of one year from 1 st January to 31st December 2011 were treated with LEEP as an outpatient procedure. Among these women 63 patients were CIN II and 37 patients were CIN III on histopathology report. LEEP were done under local anaesthesia. All patients were followed up for one year with colposcopy and also histology where appropriate. Results: In all cases, the specimens obtained were adequate for histopathological assessment and in 98 (98%) cases the lesion had been completely excised. Two cases of CIN III required a second excision. One patient needed cervical sutures to achieve haemostasis following the excision. One patient was admitted in the hospital with primary haemorrhage. Two patients were admitted with secondary haemorrhage. Conclusion: LEEP under local anaesthesia is an effective technique. It enables the treatment of patients with cervical intraepithelial neaplasia and exclusion of invasive cancer in a subsequent visit. Thus adequate tissue is made available for accurate diagnosis, thereby improving the accuracy of treatment. Bangladesh J Obstet Gynaecol, 2012; Vol. 27(1) : 5-8


Electric transmission and distribution systems are subject not only to natural occurring outages but also to intentional attacks. These lasts performed by malicious agents that aim at maximizing the load shedding of the system. Intentional attacks are counteracted by the reaction of the system operator which deploys strategies to minimize the damage caused by such attacks. This paper presents a bilevel modeling approach for enhancing resilience of power systems with high participation of distributed generation (DG). The model describes the interaction of a disruptive agent that aims at maximizing damage to a power system and the system operator that resorts to different strategies to minimize system damage. The proposed mixed integer nonlinear programming model is solved with a hybrid genetic algorithm. Results are presented on a benchmark power system showing the optimal responses of the system operator for a set of deliberate attacks. It was observed that the higher the participation of DG the lower the impact of the attacks was. The presence of DG also influenced the optimal strategies of the attacker which in some cases deviated from optimal attack plans to suboptimal solutions. This allows concluding that the presence of DG benefits the power system in terms of less expected load shedding under intentional attacks.


The paper discusses connexions between optimality and passivity-like properties in discrete-time. The problem is set in the framework of differential/difference representations of discrete-time dynamics. The Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equality is specified and the optimal control is implicitly described. Some particular cases for which explicit control solutions can be built are analyzed. An example concludes the paper.


Postsurgical infection of orthopedic fixation materials is considered to be the main cause of fixation failure. To address the problem, clinical treatment often relies on long-term antibiotics, secondary surgery, and so forth, which cause pain and suffering to patients. Constructing a light-responsive surface structure on the implant has attracted widespread attention for the management of postsurgical infections because of its noninvasiveness and controllability. Nevertheless, the application of light-responsive structures on implants is still limited by their unsafety and instability. In this work, a black titanium oxide layer with a multilevel structure and lattice defects was in situ constructed on a titanium alloy through pulsed laser ablation treatment. Under the synergistic effect of the multilevel structure and crystal defects, the surface of the titanium alloy exhibited good near-infrared light-responsive photothermal ability. The black titanium oxide multilevel structure reached high antibacterial efficiencies of about 99.37 and 99.29% against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli under 10 min near-infrared light irradiation. Furthermore, the black titanium oxide layer possessed similar biocompatibility compared with the titanium alloy. This near-infrared light-responsive photothermal therapy based on the construction of a multilevel structure and introduction of lattice defects provides an effective strategy for clinical postsurgical infections of orthopedic fixation.


The paper presents the results of quantitative content of HBsAg investigation in patients with HIV/chronic hepatitis В coinfection compared with the presence/absence of hepatitis В virus DNA and alanine aminotransferase level in the blood. It has been found that in patients with HIV/chronic hepatitis В coinfection, who receive treatment, the absence of hepatitis В virus DNA is significantly associated with a reduced HBsAg level, and especially with increasing duration of treatment. When compared with the content of alanine aminotransferase, it has been revealed that HBsAg level significantly increased only in patients who did not receive antiviral treatment and have alanine aminotransferase level above normal. Thus, quantification of serum HBsAg can be considered as reliable additional criterion for monitoring the treatment of patients with HIV/chronic hepatitis В coinfection using nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.


Mountain pine beetle infestations are spatially correlated; current (green) attack is often located near previous (red) attack. This spatial correlation between the green and red attack stages enables operational survey methods, as detection of red attack trees—typically from an airborne survey such as a helicopter GPS survey or aerial photography—guides the location of subsequent ground surveys for green attack trees. Forest managers, in an attempt to understand beetle movement and infestation patterns, hope to utilize remotely sensed data to detect and map green attack trees, with the expectation that the spatial extent, accuracy, and timeliness afforded by remotely sensed data will greatly improve the efficacy of beetle treatment and control. In this communication, we present the biological, logistical, and technological factors that limit the operational utility of remotely sensed data for green attack detection and mapping. To provide context for these limitations, we identify the operational information needs associated with green attack and discuss how these requirements dictate the characteristics of any potential remotely sensed data source (e.g., spatial, spectral, and temporal characteristics). Based upon our assessment, we conclude that the remote detection of green attack is not operationally viable, and is unlikely to become so unless the limiting factors we have identified are altered substantially or removed.


There is relatively little research into the housing experience of refugee immigrants to Australia as a category or into variations in their housing careers according to cultural backgrounds. To address this issue, data from the 1999/2000 Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, the most recent available survey to include refugee immigrants, are used to examine the housing and related circumstances of the nine largest groups of refugees during their first 18 months of resettlement. Most resettled into the private rental market and were satisfied with their housing situation. Statistical analysis suggests that differences in individual characteristics rather than cultural backgrounds are for most groups the major cause of variations in housing experience.


Background Inflammation constitutes a major component of ischemic stroke pathology. The prognostic value of "neopterin" and soluble CD40 ligand (sCD40L), as a potential biomarker of ischemic stroke, has been less extensively studied. Objectives of the study This study aims at assessing the serum levels of neopterin and sCD40L in acute ischemic stroke (AIS), to clarify its association with the severity, etiology, and risk factors of stroke, and to evaluate their relationship with the stroke functional outcome in our study sample within 90 days of follow-up. Study sample This case–control study was conducted on 100 patients with first-ever acute onset ischemic stroke and 25 control subjects. Methods Participants were subjected to full history taking and detailed clinical and neurological examination. Brain imaging was performed after hospital admission. Blood tests were drawn for assessment of neopterin and sCD40L on the first day of admission. Results High levels of neopterin and sCD40L was reported. Their levels were significantly higher in relation with survival status. There was a relationship between AIS and sCD40L levels and the severity of the stroke. Within 3 months of follow-up, these biomarkers were associated significantly with poor functional outcome, within a 90-day follow-up period, and mortality. These biomarkers were highly associated in patients with small vessel occlusion as an etiology for AIS. Conclusion Neopterin and sCD40L levels increased after AIS. Both biomarkers were strong and independent predictors of 90-day unfavorable clinical outcome and death in patients after AIS.


Until recently, students of development have put much more energy into understanding the causes and consequences of absolute poverty than of inequality. But globalization --with its new opportunities for winners and losers, and its new insecurities and competitive pressures --is changing that. Nowhere is the issue of inequality more worrying than in Latin America, the setting for many of the world's most unequal societies. This book presents a dozen ideas or "tools" meant to make life in Latin America more equitable and fair for the great majority of its people. It suggests policies and programs for making tax structures more progressive; giving small businesses a chance; protecting labor mobility and workers' rights; tackling corruption head on; and raising the levels of quality, efficiency, and equity of the education systems. Change and reform in the direction of greater fairness will require not only political leadership and technical know-how on the part of government officials and legislators, but support and input from the progressive business community, the increasingly effective and vocal civil society, and students and intellectuals.


Image classification is a crucial problem for many image processing problems. Images that have close textures are challenging to be classified with high accuracy rate. Especially in natural images, classification is a difficult problem when considered independently from the color. In this study, seeds are classified based on textural features obtained from a database with 22 grades of seed. Feature extraction is achieved with the 3 basic feature extraction methods. The attributes are classified by neural network separately and the features yielding the best results are selected. Feature vectors from chosen method are further classified with random forest method. Random forest can be used for data classification with tree structure which has attributes like the number of trees, depth and the number of branches. As a result of experimentations, it is observed that the local binary pattern outperforms other feature descriptors in recognition rate after neural network classification and accuracy rates are further improved after classifying the same attributes with random forest. Seed type and/or defects could be classified with an average error rate of 0.454%.


The research aims to explain the role of cloud computing technology in facilitating the application of international financial reporting standards in Iraqi banks, by preparing a checklist that included a set of paragraphs to measure the level of application of IFRSs. In those banks and then the need to use cloud computing technology, and the researchers reached a set of conclusions, including, that cloud computing technology has a role in facilitating the application of international financial reporting standards in the banks, the research sample, because of the ease it provides in preparing and saving accounting information and the possibility of accessing it in any time and from any place where the Internet service is available. The research also found that there is a shortage in the field of local knowledge and professional expertise. In addition to the difficulty of benefiting from international experiences that have succeeded in applying international financial reporting standards due to the difficulty of viewing and analyzing data prepared manually or traditionally, due to the dependence of most of the research sample banks on traditional means in managing their financial activities, which makes it difficult to upload them to the cloud and present them to experts to benefit from Their expertise that facilitates the application of international financial reporting standards. The research recommended the need to take advantage of the capabilities and capabilities provided by cloud computing technology in facilitating the application of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in the research sample banks and reaping the benefits accrued, as well as benefiting from the experiences of international banks that have succeeded in the field of applying international financial reporting standards, especially in Arab countries. This is due to its proximity to the local environment by developing human resource skills and moving away from traditional means in preparing, preserving and communicating accounting information.


A selection of the best of the papers presented at the 1986 Comparative Drama Conference held at the University of Florida, under the auspices of the Department of Classics. Contents: Leon and lena (lenz): Iridescent Reality; Hamletmaschine on Two Stage: Heiner Muller's Allegories and the Problem of Translation; Eliot, "Epipsychidion", and the Post-Modern Wasteland: Allusion in Simon Gray's Butley and Peter Gill's Mean Tears,; Schiller and Tamayo: The Influential Essay; Craig and Duse in the Charnel-House "Rosmersholm"; Dramatic Contraries: The Paine Histories of Hanns Johst and Howard Fast; Suicide Notes in Euripides' Hippolytus; Your Lips Are Better Than Weather: Primitive Psychology in Nikolai Gogol's Inspector General; Sanskrit Drama and Fin-De-Siecle Germany Frank Wedekind's Sonnenspektrum and Lion Feuchtwanger'Vasantasena; The Performance Text: Sophocles and Buchner Made Contemporaneous; How Myth Means and Functions; Man and Superman: Drama as Clash Between Social and Spiritual Exigencies; Making Serious Money: Caryl Churchill and Post-Modernist Comedy; The Through-Line of Meaning: The A-Effect in Mother Courage and Brecht.^ R Co-published with the University of Florida, Department of Classics, Comparative Drama Conference.


This study describes a novel Brønsted acid-catalyzed allylboration method suitable for the most difficult, electronically deactivated allylboronate and aldehyde substrates. This method circumvents the use of metal ions, and rather employs a simple and cheap catalyst, triflic acid. Its usefulness as a complementary allylboration variant was demonstrated with a four-step, stereodivergent synthesis of all four diastereomers of eupomatilone-6 from a single allylboronate. A thorough proof of stereochemistry supported by as many as five X-ray crystallographic structures brings an end to the ambiguity of the original stereochemical assignments. Further to the TfOH-catalyzed allylboration, the synthetic route featured a number of remarkable observations: the surprising reactivity of 2-bromo-3,4,5-trimethoxybenzaldehyde, the subtle reagent control observed in the hydrogenation of an alpha-exo-methylene lactone intermediate, and the success of a difficult case of Suzuki biaryl coupling using Buchwald's conditions.


As food safety is an ever more prominent global issue, the demand for rapid, simple, sensitive, and low-cost biosensor technology is continuously increasing. Evanescent wave fluorescent immunosensor technology shows enormous potential to detect chemical and biological analytes for food safety. This chapter discusses the underlying principles and configurations of an evanescent wave fluorescent immunosensor. We also review the applications of this technique in monitoring milk contaminants.


Accelerated aging occurs in HIV-infected persons HIV, despite ART, as seen by earlier onset of chronic inflammatory diseases and HIV-associated non-AIDS (HANA) conditions than in non-HIV-infected individuals. In the rhesus macaque SIV model, we reported earlier that increasing monocyte turnover associated with tissue macrophage death predicted onset of terminal disease progression. Here, we hypothesize that macrophage dysregulation contributes to accelerated aging that occurs during SIV infection. We compared macrophage populations of the lung in older and younger uninfected and SIV-infected rhesus macaques. We observed that the ratio of alveolar macrophages (AM) to interstitial macrophages (IM) was significantly lower in chronic SIV-infected younger macaques and older uninfected monkeys compared to uninfected young macaques. The mechanisms differed, however, because the lower ratio in the older uninfected monkeys was due to lower numbers of AM while the shift during SIV infection of younger adults was due to increasing numbers of IM. Functionally, AM of older vs younger uninfected animals exhibited higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokine secretion (TNFα, IL12) during incubation in medium yet produced lower levels of cytokines after induction with LPS ex vivo. During the acute phase of SIV infection, we observed a higher turnover of monocytes and IM in older compared to younger macaques. This suggests that AM become dysregulated during aging and SIV/HIV infection.


Study Design. Retrospective cohort comparative study. Objective. To evaluate presurgical and surgical factors that affect return to work (RTW) status after multilevel cervical fusion, and to compare outcomes after multilevel cervical fusion for degenerative disc disease (DDD) versus radiculopathy. Summary of Background Data. Cervical fusion provides more than 90% of symptomatic relief for radiculopathy and myelopathy. However, cervical fusion for DDD without radiculopathy is considered controversial. In addition, multilevel fusion is associated with poorer surgical outcomes with increased levels fused. Methods. Data of cervical comorbidities was collected from Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation for subjects with work-related injuries. The study population included subjects who underwent multilevel cervical fusion. Patients with radiculopathy or DDD were identified. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify factors that affect RTW status. Surgical and functional outcomes were compared between groups. Results. Stable RTW status within 3 years after multilevel cervical fusion was negatively affected by: fusion for DDD, age > 55 years, preoperative opioid use, initial psychological evaluation before surgery, injury-to-surgery > 2 years and instrumentation. DDD group had lower rate of achieving stable RTW status (P= 0.0001) and RTW within 1 year of surgery (P= 0.0003) compared with radiculopathy group. DDD patients were less likely to have a stable RTW status [odds ratio, OR = 0.63 (0.50–0.79)] or RTW within 1 year after surgery [OR = 0.65 (0.52–0.82)]. DDD group had higher rate of opioid use (P= 0.001), and higher rate of disability after surgery (P= 0.002). Conclusion. Multiple detriments affect stable RTW status after multilevel cervical fusion including DDD. DDD without radiculopathy was associated with lower RTW rates, less likelihood to return to work, higher disability, and higher opioid use after surgery. Multilevel cervical fusion for DDD may be counterproductive. Future studies should investigate further treatment options of DDD, and optimize patient selection criteria for surgical intervention. Level of Evidence: 3


Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) remains a key therapeutic strategy for treating patients with relapsed or refractory non‐Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphoma. Clonal hematopoiesis (CH) has been proposed as a major contributor not only to the development of therapy‐related myeloid neoplasms but also to inferior overall survival (OS) in patients who had undergone ASCT. Herein, we aimed to investigate the prognostic implications of CH after ASCT in a cohort of 420 lymphoma patients using ultra‐deep, highly sensitive error‐correction sequencing. CH was identified in the stem cell product samples of 181 patients (43.1%) and was most common in those with T‐cell lymphoma (72.2%). The presence of CH was associated with a longer time to neutrophil and platelet recovery. Moreover, patients with evidence of CH had inferior 5‐year OS from the time of first relapse (39.4% vs. 45.8%, p = .043) and from the time of ASCT (51.8% vs. 59.3%, p = .018). The adverse prognostic impact of CH was not due to therapy‐related myeloid neoplasms, the incidence of which was low in our cohort (10‐year cumulative incidence of 3.3% vs. 3.0% in those with and without CH, p = .445). In terms of specific‐gene mutations, adverse OS was mostly associated with PPM1D mutations (hazard ratio (HR) 1.74, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13–2.67, p = .011). In summary, we found that CH is associated with an increased risk of non‐lymphoma‐related death after ASCT, which suggests that lymphoma survivors with CH may need intensified surveillance strategies to prevent and treat late complications.


Fixing Evidence-Based Medicine requires transparency, strategic campaigning, and education When patients ask their doctor about the benefits and harms of a treatment, the doctor can only say what is likely to be true based on the volume and quality of evidence available. Poor research integrity misleads doctors, meaning what we tell our patients might simply be wrong. In 2001 a single misreported trial, study 329, led to millions of adolescents being prescribed an antidepressant that didn't work, and caused suicidal behaviour. This was entirely avoidable. I believe there are three fixes to such problems in evidence-based medicine: transparency; strategic campaigning; and education. Transparency so we know about missing data and poor methodology Half of all clinical trial results are never reported, and positive trials are twice as likely to be published as negative trials. This means we often don't learn about harms data, and the data we have are biased. Hidden documents mean we don't know when publication bias is happening: readers accept biased results, because they trust journals and authors to maintain reporting integrity. Transparent reporting fixes publication bias, allowing us to see the most accurate picture of the evidence available. Transparent trial registration, protocols, and editorial practices allow us to detect poor methodology and interpret the evidence accordingly. Such transparency has very real consequences: If all data had been transparently reported, study 329 would have shown the lack of efficacy and increases in harm of paroxetine, and thousands of lives may have been saved. Strategic campaigning to effect real-world change Outcome switching and publication bias remain prevalent, showing decades of prevalence studies do not in themselves solve these problems. Guardians of evidence-based medicine must be more strategic in fixing its flaws. There are strong financial, academic and personal incentives for trialists to comply with requests from journal editors. Appealing to editors to require full registration and transparent reporting is therefore likely to motivate trial authors in good practice. Incentives such as CONSORT and ICMJE do just this and provide a standard to which journals can be held accountable. Funding is arguably the biggest barrier to research. Plan S sets out 10 principles to improve research funded by public grants, including funders' research integrity requirements. Future projects should learn from this: researchers are likely to comply with such requirements to secure funding. Education so people know what to do Responses to correction letters in the COMPare project showed widespread misunderstandings around the reporting of trial outcomes. Education is needed to show doctors and patients what good trial reporting looks like, so they can make informed clinical decisions with the evidence available. In COMPare we did this through journal correspondence, leading to policy changes and extensive discussion in the clinical trials community. Education should be considered more broadly: teaching EBM at schools sets standards for the next generation of leaders; educating the public creates appropriate intolerance to poor research practice; and open discussion of existing research educates doctors and patients about poor research practice affecting clinical decisions.


BACKGROUND
the ectopic pregnancy is responsible for 10% of maternal mortality in the first quarter. Progress in transvaginal ultrasound; have revolutionized the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy, allowing her diagnosis earlier.

AIM
To evaluate the contribution of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy.

METHODS
A prospective study about 200 patients hospitalized for ectopic pregnancy between July 2009 and July 2011. All patients underwent a transvaginal ultrasound.

RESULTS
The average age was 25.4 years. The study of the endometrium showed an endometrial thickness of 10.1mm in 152 cases. An haematosalpinx was observed in 71% of cases. The average size was 30.5mm. Hemoperitoneum was observed in 64.5% of cases. An ectopic gestational sac with embryo was found in 9 cases (4.5%). In 51 cases no pathological sonographic signs were noted.

CONCLUSION
The transvaginal ultrasound is the method of choice in the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy. However the use of BHCG is still necessary.


The corrected modulus  = 18.31 ± 0.15 (external m.e.) previously derived from five independent primary distance indicators is confirmed by nine different secondary and tertiary indicators which give  = 18.20 ± 0.10 (internal mean error) on the same system of zero points and extinction corrections. Several recent, independent determinations from M supergiants, cepheids, and RR Lyrae variables are in poor agreement but jointly give  = 18.29 ± 0.24 (external m.e.). The total galactic and internal extinction in the LMC field derived by six independent methods is E(B - V) = 0.13 ± 0.012 and AV = 0.41 ± 0.04 (m.e.) of which ̃0m.3 is galactic and is internal. irrespective of extinction corrections the best current estimate of the apparent V-band modulus is μV = 18.6 ± 0.1.An apparent correlation between extinction corrections and absolute magnitudes of M supergiants in the LMC, recently presented by Humphreys, is discussed in Appendix A. The low extinction value derived from cepheids by Martin, White, and Feast is discussed in Appendix B. The zero point of the cepheid P-L-C relation is discussed in Appendix C.


We successfully anesthetized a 19-year-old female with type I glycogen storage disease for hepatectomy. She had hypoglycemia and severe metabolic acidosis before surgery. General anesthesia was performed with epidural anesthesia. We used acetated Ringer solution mainly as intraoperative fluids instead of lactated Ringer solution and controlled administration of glucose determining blood glucose. The patient's plasma lactate levels, pyruvate and base excess during and after operation, were unchanged compared with those before operation. Administration of sodium bicarbonate was not necessary. In the case of metabolic acidosis due to accumulation of lactate as in glycogen storage diseases, it was useful to use acetated Ringer solution for fluid therapy.


The KαL1 satellite spectrum of 29Cu was measured with a 5 inch Johansson crystal spectrometer after 2 MeV proton impact. The satellite spectrum was simulated by using Voigt profiles with a Lorentzian width which is obtained from the multiconfiguration Dirac–Fock (MCDF) calculations and convoluted with the Gaussian instrumental response function. A unique assignment of the strongest satellite transitions to visible structures in the experimental spectrum was based on a comparison of the predicted linear polarization of the transitions (using in calculations the intermediate coupling scheme) to their measured values. The simulated spectrum of the satellite transitions was fitted to the experiment. The fitted values of energies and relative intensities of the transitions are close to those obtained from the MCDF calculations. The alignment of the (1s2p)−2 double-vacancy state obtained from the measured polarization of the satellite spectrum is given by 𝒜20(1P 1) = −0.77(21) and 𝒜20 (3P) = −0.53(10) (values are not corrected for the Coster–Kronig transition). This is in agreement with the value reported for the KαL1 peak of Al.


Since the early 2000s, transfer of development rights has served as a compensatory regime to address the 'reserved land' issue in Taiwan, a planning challenge that has seen private owners remain uncompensated for land flagged by the government for public facilities. This article investigates two aspects of the implementation of transfer of development rights in Taiwan. First, it examines the local adaptation process by which the use of transfer of development rights has been diverted from its original function of historical preservation. Second, it maps the spatial impact of this compensation process, using Sanchong District in New Taipei City as a case study. We demonstrate that trends of high-end developments in prime locations and 'piecemeal transfer' in the city's older, inner neighbourhoods show worrisome patterns of uneven development. We conclude that the neoliberal effects generated by the transfer of development rights policy have complicated the planning challenge the policy was initially intended to resolve.


In recent years, an increasing number of Brazilian companies have begun to operate abroad. Several factors contributed to this – most importantly, a new approach adopted by the Brazilian government that directly promotes international expansion through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). The purpose of this paper is to provide a long-term perspective on how these economic groups were created, as well as their activities from 1970 to 2013. In order to understand the internationalization of Brazilian companies and their operations during the early 21st century, this article seeks to answer questions such as: what advantages does Brazil have for the creation of multinational companies? What advantages were developed by the companies themselves that make them competitive on the international market? A preliminary conclusion derived from this analysis is that it was the combination of the advantages provided by Brazil and those developed by the companies themselves that led to these capacities and competitiveness on the international level.


Wavelet tree based watermarking algorithms are using the wavelet coefficient energy difference for copyright protection and ownership verification. WTQ (Wavelet Tree Quantization) algorithm is the representative technique using energy difference for watermarking. According to the cryptanalysis on WTQ, the watermark embedded in the protected image can be removed successfully. In this paper, we present a novel differential energy watermarking algorithm based on the wavelet tree group modulation structure, i.e. WTGM (Wavelet Tree Group Modulation). The wavelet coefficients of host image are divided into disjoint super trees (each super tree containing two sub-super trees). The watermark is embedded in the relatively high-frequency components using the group strategy such that energies of sub-super trees are close. The employment of wavelet tree structure, sum-of-subsets and positive/negative modulation effectively improve the drawbacks of the WTQ scheme for its insecurity. The integration of the HVS (Human Visual System) for WTGM provides a better visual effect of the watermarked image. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm in terms of robustness and imperceptibility.


Weather poses a serious threat to the library collection of all types. Knowing the environmental conditions in a library/archive is essential for planning the best strategy for the preservation of collections effectively. In order to control temperature and relative humidity at a fixed level, these should be measured and recorded systematically. The present study deals with the objectives of finding out the month-wise average temperature (both maximum and minimum) and relative humidity, all time record of temperature and relative humidity of the area under study, month-wise average sunlight hours of the area under study for the last ten years (2005–2014). Gives an outline about the reasons of deterioration of library collection, and proposes curative measures of the library collection anywhere in tropical areas, with special reference to Sriniketan, Birbhum district of West Bengal. Discusses some major guidelines for regulating environmental conditions in preserving library collection. The study is based on the ten years data collected from the Meteorological Department, Sriniketan, West Bengal. Annual Reports of Visva-Bharati have been used for collecting data like library collection, year of establishment, area of library. From the data analysis it was found that maximum temperature was 45.9oC on April 04, 2010 and minimum was 4.9OC on January 01, 2013. Relative humidity remains 58 to 85 in Sriniketan. During the period of study average lowest humidity was 58.15% in March and average highest humidity was 85.54% in September. A maximum sunlight hour was 11.2 hours on August 09, 2007. Findings of the study may help the authority of libraries of Visva-Bharati Library Network as well as respective Bhavan Administration to adopt the appropriate measures towards controlling temperature, relative humidity, etc. to protect their valuable library collection.


The purpose of this study is to find a description of the elements or religious values contained in the short stories of Kiss Aku di Ujung Subuh by Hamzah Puadi Ilyas. The method in this study is a descriptive qualitative research method. The religious value in the short story Kiss Aku di Ujung Subuh by Hamzah Puadi Ilyas shows that there is religious value in the aspect of belief in Allah, including believing in angels, the Day of Judgment, the prophet's ark, and believing in the Koran and hadiths; religious value in the aspect of awe of the majesty of God includes amazement at the aroma of wickedness, the power of God, and the creation of the universe; religious values in the aspect of the vibration of a personal conscience include a heart vibration of gratitude, cries of events, past memories, and dreams; religious values in the aspect of personal attitudes include the attitude of worship, prostrate, makeistigfar, dhikr, and read the Koran / juz-amma; and religious values in the aspect of mental intimidation include intimidation of the soul from karma, the core process of death, and the process of taking one's life. Based on the results of this study, it can also be seen that the religious value that appears most in the short stories of Ciinum Aku di Ujung Subuh by Hamzah Puadi Ilyas is personal attitude.

Keywords: Score; Religious; Short story; High school


"To automate and make simulation set-up easy and simple ICON has set up a cloud-based platform. This platform allows the user to set up, run and manage multiple design iterations to find the optimum solution. For this an App has been developed for efficient thermal CFD simulation of the brake disc cooling flows including its thermal effects, especially the prediction of the heat transfer coefficients. This allows analysis of the thermal performance of different cooling designs in short timeframes and increases the accuracy of thermal prediction to optimize the design's cooling potential at a minimum dimension of the disc. Once a design has been defined, ICON's novel BAF boundary conditions can be applied with advanced thermal models to integrate into a full vehicle model, to further refine the design in the final environment. This boundary condition allows to model the thermal distribution of the disc heat fluxes, while rotating this on a static CFD mesh. This helps to keep the run time of a simulation small while the accuracy remains high and thus makes it possible to run more design optimizations in the same timeframe. Moreover, using conjugate heat transfer not only the disc itself, can be assessed, but furthermore the domain can be expanded to predict the temperatures for example of the calliper, brake fluid, pistons or any heat shields surrounding the disc. The simulation model considers heat conduction, convection as well as radiation. With the help of ICON's advanced tools, the set-up of this complex thermal simulation can be made simple and enables simulating minutes of real time disc heat up and cool down cycles on a full vehicle simulation in a matter of hours. To demonstrate these methods on a non-confidential geometry, ICON has used the AeroSUV model provided by ECARA and modified it to include a realistic brake cooling system and front corner geometry. "


This research took a person × situation approach to predicting prejudice by looking at how social worldviews interact with real-world environmental factors to predict how people respond to immigrants within their local area. Taking a Dual Process Motivational approach, we hypothesized that a higher proportion of immigrants in the local community would be associated with negative attitudes toward immigration for respondents high in dangerous world beliefs. Conversely, we hypothesized that living in a highly affluent (as opposed to socioeconomically deprived) community would be associated with negative attitudes toward immigration for respondents high in competitive world beliefs. Both hypotheses were supported using regional information derived from national census data combined with representative survey data from a large telephone sample conducted in New Zealand (N = 6,489). These findings support the proposition that individual differences interact with specific features of the environment to predict people's levels of prejudice in distinct ways.


The paper aims to analyse the inclusiveness of position formation in the area of European affairs in the Czech Republic. It first offers a brief description of the Czech coordination mechanism in European affairs, and then analyses mutual relations and debate between the key institutions (Office of the Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and main Czech think-tanks in the area of European affairs (mainly Europeum, AMO, Evropske hodnoty). The openness of the system to accept outside expert input is manifested on some key cases, such as the Fiscal Compact, Czech Strategy in European Union, etc. The access of think-tanks to governmental institutions is found to be generally very good, although the reflection of their input by the decision-makers seems to be rather limited, which is attributed mainly to diverging opinions within the coordination system itself and the low salience of European affairs on political level.


The Alans, an Iranian-speaking people attested in the chronicles of the ancient world from the first century AD, played an important role in the Caucasian region until the Mongol invasion. They lived in the plains north of the mountain ridge, but after the Mongol invasion and the emergence of the Kabardian power in the region, they moved more and more towards the high mountains and began to live in the gorges of the Central Caucasus. But the memory of the Alan power persisted for long time and deriving from the Alans is still considered prestigious. For this reason, the Alan cultural heritage in this region is disputed up to the present day. This directly affects also the epos of the Narts, known in several languages of the region, which, although it was put in written form only from the nineteenth century, undoubtedly dates back to a very ancient period.


A comparative study of the reservoir fluid characteristics calculation of ten production wells of Los Azufres, Los Humeros and Cerro Prieto geothermal fields using two computer codes GeoChem (GeoSys.Chem) and WATCH is presented. GeoSys.Chem estimates the reservoir temperature and vapor fraction through quartz geothermometry and assuming enthalpy conservation, while the average temperature of quartz and Na/K geothermometers is employed in WATCH and vapor fraction is also calculated through enthalpy conservation. Both programs use the conservation of alkalinity (i.e., proton balance) for pH calculations. The difference in temperature (pressure) causes considerable effects on the calculated geothermal reservoir fluid characteristics of high enthalpy wells and negative (or near to zero) vapor fraction for low enthalpy wells. The calculated high concentration of CO2 in the secondary vapor discharged in the atmosphere at the weir box (up to 11,719 mmole/kg) suggests that the analysis of carbonic species in the geothermal waters is crucial. In the absence of good quality analysis of carbonic species it is suggested to consider the CO2 in the vapor sample at the separator and the total dissolved carbonic species concentration in the water sample (i.e., without considering the liberation of CO2 in the atmospheric vapor at the weir box) for the calculation of geothermal reservoir fluid composition.


Turkey has followed an "open door" policy towards refugees from Syria since the March 2011 outbreak of the devastating civil war in Syria. This "liberal" policy has been accompanied by a "humanitarian discourse" regarding the admission and accommodation of the refugees. In such a context, it is widely claimed that Turkey has not adopted a securitization strategy in its dealings with the refugees. However, this article argues that the stated "open door" approach and its limitations have gone largely unexamined. The assertion is, here, refugees fleeing Syria have been integrated into a security framework embedding exclusionary, militarized and technologized border practices. Drawing on the critical border studies, the article deconstructs these practices and the way they are violating the principle of non-refoulement in particular and human rights of refugees in general.


This dissertation examines collecting Chinese antiquities in Korea during the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty (1392–1910) and its impact on visual and material culture. Through investigation of textual records and visual sources, it becomes apparent how collectors' passions for Chinese bronzes contributed to new types of pictorial objects and how painters incorporated aspects of Chinese bronzes in their paintings and embroidery in response to increasing demands and shifts in artistic conventions. The aim is to offer insight into the cultural significance of acquiring Chinese bronzes and to illuminate the intellectual and artistic motivations of literati during the late Chosŏn dynasty. Chapter One investigates the circumstances in which Chinese ritual bronzes were imported and revered, from the Koryŏ 高麗 (918–1392) through the Chosŏn dynasties. Ritual handbooks and illustrated catalogs reveal characteristics of Koryŏ and Chosŏn vessels, of bronze, celadon, and brass, that integrated ancient and archaistic models from Ming 明 (1368–1644) and Qing 清 (1644–1911) China. Chapter Two discusses the appreciation of Chinese antiques by the elite in Korea, who enriched their collections for their scholarly pursuits. Thus, collectors were a force in shaping the sociocultural environment along with the aesthetics that promoted new painting genres in the late Chosŏn dynasty. Chapter Three analyzes the ways in which Chosŏn artists appropriated motifs of Chinese bronzes and visualized patrons' desire for Chinese antiquities, focusing on screens of Antiques that feature Chinese bronze vessels and on screens of Books And Scholarly Utensils, also known as ch'aekkŏri. Chapter Four considers Chinese bronzes in collectors' portraits and in paintings of antiques and flowers. By comparing objects in these paintings to those in Chinese illustrated catalogs and archaistic bronzes, these two chapters explore possible pictorial sources, modified visual elements, and cultural transmission. Depicting Chinese antiquities enabled patrons to demonstrate their knowledge of Chinese culture as part of their own high cultivation and thereby to enhance their social prestige. The Chosŏn elite sought to claim their standing within their own society and to secure their status in East Asia through the reception of selected elements of Chinese culture and through the adaptation of these to their own traditions.


Trust recommender systems can depend on users' previous opinions and other trustworthy users' opinions on items suggest to them items they will like. However, it is very important to discern and find trustworthy users' opinions. In fact, it is easier for experts to find higher quality Web pages safely in search engines and trustworthy search histories are produced at the same time. Based on this observation, we firstly introduce a Trust Recommender Model (TRM) in this paper and it can recommend trustworthy Web pages to users through utilizing experts and their search histories based on experts' social networks. Then, we propose an approach to identify right experts for a given queries and a fast traversing experts' social network algorithm, which can be used to recommend trustworthy experts' search histories in real time. In addition, in order to illuminate and validate proposed methods and algorithm, a Web pages recommender system is implemented through extending the open source search engine "Nutch".


ABSTRACT Objective We aimed to evaluate the results of laparoscopic pyeloplasty with concomitant pyelolithotomy and compare results with a cohort of patients undergoing laparoscopic pyeloplasty without pyelolithotomy. Materials and Methods We retrospectively reviewed records of 43 patients undergoing transperitoneal laparoscopic Anderson-Hynes dismembered pyeloplasty between December 2012 and July 2018 at our department. Eighteen patients (42%) underwent laparoscopic pyeloplasty with concomitant pyelolithotomy. The results of patients with renal stones were compared with 25 matched patients undergoing laparoscopic pyeloplasty without concomitant renal stones. Demographic data, operative and stone parameters were compared between the groups. Results The groups were similar regarding to demographic characteristics. All operations were completed laparoscopically with no conversions to open surgery. In 3 cases without renal stones and 15 cases with renal stones, transposition of the ureter due to crossing vessels was performed. The mean stone size was 13±5.24 mm, and the median number of stones was 1 (1-18). The success of laparoscopic pyeloplasty with and without pyelolithotomy was 93.3% and 92.9%, respectively, as confirmed by negative diuretic renogram at postoperative 3rd months. Overall stone-free rate after laparoscopic pyelolithotomy was 93.3%. Mean operative time was 222.6765.71 minutes vs. 219.11±75.63 minutes for the pyeloplasty with concomitant pyelolithotomy vs. pyeloplasty, respectively (p=0.88). Conclusions Laparoscopic pyeloplasty with concomitant pyelolithotomy is a safe and effective intervention with associated good cosmetic results and high stone-free rates without significant increase in operative time or complications.


A cuboid is a geometric primitive characterized by six planes with spatial constraints, such as orthogonality and parallelism. These characteristics uniquely define a cuboid. Therefore, previous modeling schemes have used these characteristics as hard constraints, which narrowed the solution space for estimating the parameters of a cuboid. However, under high noise and occlusion conditions, a narrowed solution space may contain only false or no solutions, which is called an over-constraint. In this paper, we propose a robust cuboid modeling method for point clouds under high noise and occlusion conditions. The proposed method estimates the parameters of a cuboid using soft constraints, which, unlike hard constraints, do not limit the solution space. For this purpose, a cuboid is represented as a Gaussian mixture model (GMM). The point distribution of each cuboid surface owing to noise is assumed to be a Gaussian model. Because each Gaussian model is a face of a cuboid, the GMM shares the cuboid parameters and satisfies the spatial constraints, regardless of the occlusion. To avoid an over-constraint in the optimization, only soft constraints are employed, which is the expectation of the GMM. Subsequently, the soft constraints are maximized using analytic partial derivatives. The proposed method was evaluated using both synthetic and real data. The synthetic data were hierarchically designed to test the performance under various noise and occlusion conditions. Subsequently, we used real data, which are more dynamic than synthetic data and may not follow the Gaussian assumption. The real data are acquired by light detection and ranging-based simultaneous localization and mapping with actual boxes arbitrarily located in an indoor space. The experimental results indicated that the proposed method outperforms a previous cuboid modeling method in terms of robustness.


Niosomes are nonionic surfactant vesicles that have potential applications in the delivery of hydrophobic or amphiphilic drugs. But it has certain drawbacks like physical stability such as aggregation, fusion and leaking, and has shown some inconvenience in transportation, distribution and storage. A novel drug delivery system, Proniosomes, a dry formulation minimizes all such problems related to niosomes. These proniosomes are used to produce niosomes within minutes by the addition of hot water followed by agitation and such proniosome-derived niosomes are as good as or even better than conventional niosomes. Proniosomes can be prepared using suitable carrier among the different carriers such as maltodextrin, sorbitol,lactose,mannitol,magnesium aluminum silicate,microcrystalline cellulose. The present study involves comparison of such carriers and criteria for selection of suitable carrier for the preparation of the proniosomes.


Malignant gliomas are associated with extremely poor clinical outcomes in both humans and dogs, and novel therapies are needed. Glioma-bearing canine patients may serve as promising preclinical models for human therapies, including complementary medicine. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of mistletoe extract (Viscum album) alone and in combination with mebendazole in an in vitro model of canine high-grade astrocytoma using the cell line SDT-3G. SDT-3G cells were exposed to a range of concentrations of mistletoe extract alone to obtain an IC50. In separate experiments, cells were exposed to mebendazole at a previously determined IC50 (0.03 µM) alone or in conjunction with varying concentrations of mistletoe extract to determine the additive effects. The IC50 for mistletoe alone was 5.644 ± 0.09 SD μg/mL. The addition of mistletoe at 5 μg/mL to mebendazole at 0.03 µM led to increased cell death compared to what would be expected for each drug separately. The cytotoxicity of mistletoe in vitro and its additive effect with mebendazole support future expanded in vitro and in vivo studies in dogs and supply early evidence that this may be a useful adjunct therapeutic agent for use in glioma-bearing dogs. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first published report of Viscum album extract in canine glioma.


We consider the eigenvectors of symmetric matrices with independent heavy tailed entries, such as matrices with entries in the domain of attraction of $\alpha$-stable laws, or adjacencymatrices of Erdos-Renyi graphs. We denote by $U=[u_{ij}]$ the eigenvectors matrix (corresponding to increasing eigenvalues) and prove that the bivariate process $$B^n_{s,t}:=n^{-1/2}\sum_{1\le i\le ns, 1\le j\le nt}(|u_{ij}|^2 -n^{-1}),$$ indexed by $s,t\in [0,1]$, converges in law to  a non trivial Gaussian process. An interesting part of this result is the $n^{-1/2}$ rescaling, proving that from this point of view, the eigenvectors matrix $U$ behaves more like a  permutation matrix (as it was proved by Chapuy that for $U$ a permutation matrix, $n^{-1/2}$ is the right scaling) than like a Haar-distributed orthogonal or unitary matrix (as it was proved by Rouault and Donati-Martin that for $U$ such a matrix, the right scaling is $1$).


Constitutional law is plagued by meaning conflict at both the doctrinal and the theoretical levels. This article takes up two loci of such conflict and contest of constitutional meaning - the Necessary and Proper Clause (recently visited by the Supreme Court in the Comstock case) and the reasonable person device in the New Originalism - so that insight might be gained from the mutual comparison and illumination of their problems. In this process, dialogue replaces just "looking for one's friends" in constitutional argument as various voices are considered and not silenced so that a favored one may be privileged. The result of this reciprocal examination is a paired argument for a fiduciary, agency law model of the Necessary and Proper Clause and also for a Dialogic Originalism as a replacement for the currently fashionable reasonable person New Originalism.


Very little information is available on the quality of generic products and it has recently been reported that anaphylaxy shock occurred when a generic formulation of an injectable cefazolin sodium product was used in a patient before surgery.This suggests that the generic product contained impurities that caused such an adverse reaction.It is therefore important to determine the constituents of generic products and compare them with those of the original products.We analyzed the original cefazolin sodium product and 4 generics of it by means of high performance liquid chromatography in order to determine differences in quality between them.Three impurities were found in the original product and 4 in the generic products,respectively.However,the impurity content of all of the generic products was significantly higher than that of the original product and on analyzing synthetic samples of impurities which could possibly be contained in the cefazolin sodium products,the chromatographic peaks of three of them overlapped with the peaks observed in the chromatograms of the original and generic products.These results suggest that there can be great differences in quality between the original and generic products,and that the impurities might be cefazolin-related substances.We must therefore select generics based on an appraisal of the quality information available for them in order to minimize unexpected adverse reactions and achieve more cost effective and safe therapy.


The recent proof by F. Guerra that the Parisi ansatz provides a lower bound on the free energy of the SK spin-glass model could have been taken as offering some support to the validity of the purported solution. In this work we present a broader variational principle, in which the lower bound, as well as the actual value, are expressed through an optimization procedure for which ultrametic/hierarchal structures form only a subset of the variational class. The validity of Parisi's ansatz for the SK model is still in question. The new variational principle may be of help in critical review of the issue.


The objective of this paper is to present a new and innovative fully automated tubular handling robot that can feed drill pipe and casing from pipe storage on ground to the well center of a land drilling rig in a fast, accurate and all-in-one operation.
 In recent years, experience has been gained with large electric robots for pipe handling both offshore and onshore. As reliability is confirmed, the robotic operations on rigs are expanded. The most recent development is a Pipe Feeder Robot for handling of pipe and subs all the way from pipe storage on the ground to the well center of the land rig, including spinning into the stick-up. The technology is based on qualified heavy-duty electric robots for pipe handling, but the new machine is configured in a way so that it can be transported from rig to rig without large interfacing work.
 The industry has great expectations with the introduction of robotics for red zone management and eliminating manual operations and human exposure to heavy machinery. Expected value would be a substantial saving in rig days due to fast, precise and consistent operations and removal of people out of harm's way. In addition to improved safety, reduced OPEX, less downtime and faster installation, the Pipe Feeder Robot lowers the noise and the carbon footprint due to higher energy efficiency and less GHG emissions. Also, the precise motion control of the robot enables digitalization of the drilling process.
 The paper will present performance data and results from test operations. The Pipe Feeder Robot picks up pipe (or casing), rotates from horizontal to vertical, and spins into the stick up in one operation, whereby hazardous handovers are avoided and a hands-free handling operation is created, replacing the work of four conventional operations. Reliability of robots in hostile environment will be analyzed with regards to field experience of similar technology from land rig drilling operations. Finally, the value to the users will be substantiated.
 The paper will provide test results and experience from the tests of a heavy-duty all-electric Pipe Feeder Robot. It will provide valuable input for decisions for the future use of industrialized robots in the oil and gas upstream industry.


Experimental studies of electron transport through gated vertical resonant tunneling structures have been seen to display complicated features in the measured I–V characteristics. The interpretation of the data has been difficult due to the lack of detailed knowledge of the lateral confining potential profile in different parts of the device as well as the associated tunneling properties. In this work we theoretically investigate the electron transport through laterally confined double-barrier resonant tunneling structures connected via narrow emitters and collectors to two-dimensional electron reservoirs. In particular we investigate the effects of variation of the lateral confining potential in different parts of the device. The calculated I–V spectra display complicated fine features which can be explained by the complex interplay between the density of states in the dot and the density of states in the narrow emitter and collector as the lateral confining potential is varied. The calculations may provide physical insight to the complicated features seen in the experiments.


Abstract In many species of social Hymenoptera, totipotency of workers induces potential conflicts over reproduction. However, actual conflicts remain rare despite the existence of a high reproductive skew. One of the current hypotheses assumes that conflicts are costly and thus selected against. We studied the costs of conflicts in 20 colonies of the queenless ant Diacamma sp. "nilgiri" by testing the effects of conflicts on labor and worker immunocompetence, two parameters closely linked to the indirect fitness of workers. In this species, the dominant female is the only mated worker (gamergate) and monopolizes reproduction. We experimentally induced conflicts by splitting each colony into two groups, a control group containing the gamergate and an orphaned group displaying aggressions until a new dominant worker arises. Immunocompetence was assessed by the clearance of Escherichia coli bacteria that we injected into the ants. Time budget analysis revealed a lower rate of labor and especially brood care in orphaned groups, supporting the existence of a cost of conflicts on labor. Fifteen days after splitting, a lower immunocompetence was also found in orphaned groups, which concerned workers involved and not involved in conflicts. We propose that this immunosuppression induced by conflicts could stem from stress and not directly from aggression.


Collective socialization (CS) is a set of neighborhood social processes that can act as a protective or risk factor for youths. CS can create trust and social cohesion reflecting the positive attributes of a neighborhood. Research emphasizes CS as a neighborhood influence, but other theoretical models suggest that CS simultaneously exists within other aspects of the social ecology as it works through the peer group and school components to influence outcomes in youths. The current study extends theories of CS by examining how multiple social ecology influences—peer, school, and neighborhood—are related to youths' wellbeing and school misbehavior. The School Success Profile data (N= 20,749 middle school and high school youths) were used to test the hypothesis that peer, school, and neighborhood CS processes are related to these outcomes. Structural equation models indicate that both positive and negative outcomes in youths are affected by multiple social ecology influences. The discussion provides suggestions for future research to inform interventions specific to the multiple aspects of the social ecology.


This paper presents the analysis for power consumption, mechanical vibration and acoustic noise characteristics of the Coreless and Slotless Brushless DC motor in Digital Lightening Processor(DLP) Motor with the Air-Dynamic Bearing. The Coreless BLDC motor has not the stator yoke as well as the stator slot to remove the unbalance force by the interaction between the stator yoke and Air-Dynamic Bearing clearance. The assembling tolerance and the processing error make the air-gap difference between the magnet and the stator yoke .which occurs the unbalanced electro-magnetic force in the Slotless BLDC motor. It imposes the air-dynamic bearing on the disturbance force and makes the Air-Dynamic Bearing vibrated and noised. Also, The attractive force between the magnet and the silicon steel stator yoke increases the power consumption. In this paper, the power consumption, mechanical vibration and acoustic noise of the Coreless BLDC motor and the Slotless BLDC motor with the silicon steel stator yoke are simulated, analyzed, and tested using the manufactured proto-type motors with Air-Dynamic bearing. The simulated and tested results present that the Coreless BLDC motor without the silicon steel stator yoke has the lower mechanical vibration and noise ,and lower power consumption than the Slotless BLDC motor with the silicon steel stator yoke in Digital Lightening Processor Motor with Air-Dynamic Bearing.


A probabilistic method for the evaluation of the performance and the reliability of wind-diesel energy systems with constrained wind generation is presented. The method computes the expected annual wind and diesel energy production as well as the system loss of load probability and expected unserved energy by processing the statistics of the wind speed and the system load demand. The performance of the method is demonstrated with computational results. >


This document summarizes the issues raised in a think-tank meeting held by professionals with expertise in pediatric Home Parenteral Nutrition. This nutritional technology enables patients to return home to their family and social environment, improves their quality of life and decreases health-care costs; however, it is complex and requires an experienced nutritional support team. Patient selection is normally made according to their underlying disease, the estimated duration of support and family and social characteristics. The patient''s family must agree to take on caregiver's responsibilities and should be able to perform treatment safely and effectively after receiving proper training from the nutritional support team. Close monitoring must be carried out to ensure tolerance and effectiveness of nutritional support, thereby avoiding complications. This nutritional treatment achieves, in most cases, recovery and intestinal adaptation in varying periods of time. In certain diseases, and when home parenteral nutrition becomes complicated, intestinal transplant may be recommendable, so referral to rehabilitation units and Intestinal Transplantation should be made early on.


The War on Drugs is effectively over. Drugs won. This essay addresses some of the mistakes we made in that futile effort. Allowing racism to motivate action and impede reform was a primary error. So was failing to understand that narcotics crime is simply different than other types of criminalized behavior in several fundamental ways. In whole, we largely addressed the narcotics trade as a moral failing rather than a market—and never got around to recognizing the size and shape of that market or to using market forces to control it. Ronald Reagan compared the War on Drugs to the Battle of Verdun, and he was right: fortunes were spent, many lives were lost, and nothing really changed.


Dietary fibre concentrates (DFC) obtained from fruit and vegetable by-products are powders, mainly obtained by dehydration, used in food formulations to increase nutritional value and to improve functional properties. The modifications of insoluble, soluble, and total dietary fibres (IDF, SDF, and TDF), physicochemical properties (solubility, swelling capacity, water/oil retention capacity, pH, and tapping density), and prebiotic potential of DFC from orange, mango, and prickly pear peels obtained by freeze-drying (FD) and convective hot air-drying (HA) were studied. In vitro faecal fermentation was used to evaluate the short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production as a prebiotic indicator. TDF in FD orange was 5.5 g·100 g−1 higher than that in the HA sample, whereas HA increased TDF in prickly pear (9.5 g·100 g−1). No differences in fibre composition were observed in mango DFC. The physicochemical properties mostly affected by dehydration treatment were solubility and swelling capacity. HA increased SCFA production in orange peel (48 mmol·g−1 higher) but decreased it in mango and prickly pear (15 and 19 mmol·g−1 lower). Butyrate production of HA orange DFC was comparable to that obtained with the positive control (4.5 mmol·g−1). No production of propionate or butyrate was observed after 6 h fermentation in mango samples, despite the high SDF content (≈20 g·100 g−1). A decrease of the SDF : TDF ratio produced by the drying method improved the SCFA production.


Fermentation of cell wall material in the hind gut of the Koala contributes only 9% of the animal's digestible energy intake. Exposure of the cell contents for digestion in the small intestine depends on an efficient dentition. The molars have been described as selenoid or subselenodont because of the curved cristae originating from the four main cones. Occlusion was reconstructed by wear facet and striation analysis and indicates that contact between the occluding teeth occurs with the cristae shearing past each other, with the lower teeth moving in an antero‐lingual direction. The ipsilateral condyle provides the fixed hinge and the arc through which the teeth on the ipsilateral side move explains the orientation of the upper fissures through which the lingual conids pass. Unlike Pseudocheirus with contralateral hinging, and a different arc of movement of lowers, there is no crushing component at the end of the occlusal stroke. 1986 The Zoological Society of London


The dramatic biogeographical variations in the secondary metabolites from Psammocinia aff. bulbosa have complicated our efforts to reisolate the two most cytotoxic of its metabolites, (+)-psymberin and (+)-cyclocinamide A. Reported now are the results of a new study that demonstrates our ability to repeatedly isolate these two compounds through targeted collection efforts. Additional study of the new sample of (+)-cyclocinamide A has enabled finalizing its biological activity and absolute stereochemistry as 4S, 7S, 11S, 14S.


Background: While the lockdown strategies taken by many countries effectively limited the spread of COVID-19, those were thought to have a negative impact on older people. This study aimed to investigate the impact of lockdown on cognitive function and neuropsychiatric symptoms over a 1-year follow-up period in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Methods: We enrolled consecutive patients with MCI, probable AD or DLB who were receiving outpatient memory care before the COVID-19 pandemic and followed-up with them after 1 year by face-to-face during the COVID-19 pandemic to assess changes in physical activity, social contact, cognitive function and neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS). Results: Total 105 probable AD, 50 MCI and 22 probable DLB patients were included and completed the 1-year follow-up between October 31 and November 30, 2020. Among the respondents, 42% of MCI, 54.3% of AD and 72.7% of DLB patients had a decline in MMSE scores and 54.4% of DLB patients had worsening Neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) scores. Patients with DLB showed a more rapid decline of MMSE than those with AD. Diminished physical activity and social contact might have hastened the deterioration of cognition and the worsening of NPS. Conclusion: Social isolation and physical inactivity even after strict lockdown for at least 6 months were correlated with accelerated decline of cognitive function and NPS in patients with AD and DLB.


rates of insulin, because it would lead to an increase in the infusion rate of glucose. In contrast to their data (which used variable infusion rates of both insulin and glucose) we actually measured plasma insulin concentrations, which were reported to be in the supra-physiological range of 600– 800 pmol litre . We are not aware of any scientific evidence suggesting that the infusion rate of insulin described in our paper was too low. On the contrary, it cannot be excluded that their higher and varying insulin infusion rates may have led to a higher and more unpredictable rate of intracellular glucose usage, thus creating the necessity to check plasma glucose more frequently. To answer this interesting suggestion, a dose–response study in cardiac surgical patients is required. Such a study should be designed to investigate the effect of different high concentrations of insulin on the metabolic rate of glucose perioperatively.


The equivalent vehicle load factors which can consider the concentrated wheel load effect in slab design of parking garage structure are proposed. Based on the standard vehicle with total weight of 2.4 ton which is designed through the investigation of small to medium vehicle produced in Korea and the review of numerous foreign design codes for parking garage structure, the effects of moving vehicle loads on slab are analyzed using the finite element method. Besides, the relationships between the equivalent load factors and the sectional dimensions are established by regression analysis. The calculation of design forces can be easily accomplished without taking sophisticated numerical analysis for the moving vehicle load as the results obtained to the distributed load are multiplied by the proposed load factors in practice.


Dating Violence occurs in many forms and can be committed by anyone (Wekerle & Wolfe, 1999). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there are four core types of intimate partner violence: physical violence, sexual violence, threats of physical or sexual violence, and psychological/emotional violence. This study examines the relationship between current parental status and psychological aggression toward a partner. Data are drawn from the International Dating Violence Study collected from more than 14,000 students in 68 universities in over 30 countries worldwide (Straus, International Dating Violence Study, 20012006, 2011). Data were collected using two different scales the Personal and Relationship Profile (PRP) and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale 2 (CTS2). The data will be analyzed using the SPSS statistical package. The results and their implications for social work research, practice, and program development will be presented. PARENTAL STATUS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL AGGRESSION 4


Microwave signals in an entangled state can be generated and then spatially separated on a single chip, enabling quantum communication with microwave technology.


Due to the wide variety of devices used in computer network systems, cybersecurity plays a major role in securing and improving the performance of the network or system. Although cybersecurity has received a large amount of global interest in recent years, it remains an open research space. Current security solutions in network-based cyberspace provide an open door to attackers by communicating first before authentication, thereby leaving a black hole for an attacker to enter the system before authentication. This article provides an overview of cyberthreats, traditional security solutions, and the advanced security model to overcome current security drawbacks.


Federated learning is a distributed paradigm that allows multiple parties to collaboratively train deep models without exchanging the raw data. However, the data distribution among clients is naturally non-i.i.d., which leads to severe degradation of the learnt model. The primary goal of this paper is to develop a robust federated learning algorithm to address feature shift in clients' samples, which can be caused by various factors, e.g., acquisition differences in medical imaging. To reach this goal, we propose FedFA to tackle federated learning from a distinct perspective of federated feature augmentation. FedFA is based on a major insight that each client's data distribution can be characterized by statistics (i.e., mean and standard deviation) of latent features; and it is likely to manipulate these local statistics globally, i.e., based on information in the entire federation, to let clients have a better sense of the underlying distribution and therefore alleviate local data bias. Based on this insight, we propose to augment each local feature statistic probabilistically based on a normal distribution, whose mean is the original statistic and variance quantifies the augmentation scope. Key to our approach is the determination of a meaningful Gaussian variance, which is accomplished by taking into account not only biased data of each individual client, but also underlying feature statistics characterized by all participating clients. We offer both theoretical and empirical justifications to verify the effectiveness of FedFA. Our code is available at https://github.com/tfzhou/FedFA.


Fansub has played a significant role in recent years in introducing otherwise unavailable foreign AV content to China via file transfer on pirate websites that bypass or play cat-and-mouse games with both regulators and copyright holders. Fansub further provides opportunities for participants to preserve the integrity of the source content that challenges mainstream conventions and values. This article provides an overview of fansubbing in China and discusses the complex issues involving international IP law, China's selective compliance with such laws, and the Chinese government's censorship of media and entertainment content. Specifically, the article traces the evolution of Chinese piracy of Hollywood film and television from counterfeit to fansub to tease out the larger issues of access, advocacy, and copyright infringement. Neither the legal nor the political hazard has deterred die-hard fansubbers from their "transgressions." In discussing fansub motivations, the article further examines both the transgressive and affirmative experiences of Chinese fansub through the lens of the therapeutic effects.


ABSTRACT Lead (Pb) is a neurotoxic substance. While it is widely understood that Pb exposure in early childhood adversely impacts neurodevelopment and intelligence, other aspects of cognition that are negatively affected, and the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology underlying Pb-related cognitive impairment are not widely appreciated by clinicians. This critical review gives a broad synopsis of the current literature in the field. The means by which Pb enters the body, crosses the blood-brain barrier, alters brain structure and function, and consequently impacts measurable aspects of cognition are reviewed. We detail research relating exposure to Pb at various levels in early childhood to deficits in IQ, academic achievement, executive functioning, and cognition in general. Clinical disorders associated with early Pb exposure, common and uncommon routes of environmental exposure, and potential confounding variables are discussed. We discuss methods of statistically accounting for these issues in the context of potential means of relying upon existing research and specific individuals' known blood Pb levels to make reasonable calculations regarding Pb-related compromise of intellectual functioning for individuals in clinical settings.


MicroRNAs (miR), as important epigenetic control factors, reportedly regulate wound repair. However, our insufficient knowledge of clinically relevant miRs hinders their potential therapeutic use. For this, we performed miR and mRNA paired expression profiling in human acute wounds and chronic non-healing venous ulcers (VU) and presented our findings on a browsable web portal (http://22.214.171.124/shiny/miRNA_Xulab/). Integrative miR and mRNA-omics analysis unraveled miR-mediated gene regulatory networks in each repair phase of the wound repair process. Importantly, we identified 17 pathologically relevant miRs exhibiting abnormal expression in VU and displaying their targetome enriched in the VU gene signature. Study of the targetome and functions of eight clinically relevant miRs in skin cells revealed that the miRs upregulated in VU (i.e., miR-34a/c-5p, miR-424-5p, miR-450-5p, miR-7704, and miR-516-5p) promoted inflammation but inhibited proliferation. In contrast, the miRs downregulated in VU (i.e., miR-218-5p and miR-96-5p) were required for cell growth and activation. Moreover, we demonstrated miR-34a, miR-424, and miR-516 cooperativity in regulating keratinocyte growth and inflammatory response. Collectively, our study suggests that VU-dysregulated miRs cooperatively contribute to stalled wound healing characterized by failed transition from inflammatory-to-proliferative phase. Targeting cooperating miRNAs provide mew opportunity for development of clinically-relevant targeted therapy to attain higher therapeutic efficacy and specificity.


Hospital accreditation is an effective way to evaluate the quality of a hospital and important tool for improving the standard of the hospitals. Due to improve the quality of health services, hospital accreditation should be supported. Accreditation is a long-term process that demands commitment of the entire organization to work together. The health care professionals skepticism about the positive impact of accreditation programs is the most important barrier to implementation that program. This study aims to assess the perceptions of health professionals on the impact of hospital accreditation and implementation of change towards the delivery of quality patient care in Asian countries. We systematically searched five electronics databases from May 14th-21st 2018, for eligible systematic reviews in Asia region with English for language limitation. Five publications met the inclusion criteria. Findings from the included studies found positive perceptions of health professionals to hospital accreditation impact on improving the quality of health services. These studies have heterogenic variables to explore the health professional perception toward impact of hospital accreditation and quality of care. The implementation of hospital accreditation requires commitment, support, and motivation from government, leadership, and all human resources in the hospital. There are many factors affecting performance of accreditation such as quality of care, leadership, and culture. These factors need strategies to strengthen the way accreditation for improving quality of care, strengthen leadership, and culture. The findings are expected to provide valuable lessons for preparing or implementing accreditation.


Twelve-year-old Walter Mortinson, an inventor like his late father, dreams of going to Flaster Isle, where his dad worked under legendary inventor Horace Flasterborn. Sick of his mother's suppression of his inventions, Walter steals her hearse (she's a mortician) and invites a cute girl from class, Cordelia, to accompany him to the island. The story's distinctive third-person narration gives Walter's tale a comedic and sarcastic edge ("The two smiled at each other in such an adoring way that it happened to cause an onlooking chipmunk to suffer from indigestion"), replete with running jokes, as Walter's adventure retraces the path of the epic romance of his parents. Walter's imaginative creations give the story a delightfully steampunk feel, and there's plenty of enjoyable eccentricity in both style and setting. Not all is sunny, though: Cordelia seeks out Flaster Isle to have a legendary robot-doctor cure her hemophilia, which can make even scraped knees into a fatal event. When Walter returns home and convinces his mother that the drab town funerals should celebrate the things the deceased loved most, this story transforms itself into a celebration of life. Kids coping with the death of a family member may find solace in the journey that honors Walter's father, but all readers with a heart for adventure will appreciate this quirkily told tale. NB


Purpose: Medical treatments and medical decision making are mostly human based and therefore in risk of being influenced by cognitive biases. The potential impact could lead to bad medical outcome, unnecessary harm or even death. The aim of this comprehensive literature study is to analyse the evidence whether healthcare professionals are biased, which biases are most relevant in medicine and how these biases may be reduced. Approach/Findings: The results of the comprehensive literature based meta-analysis confirm on the one hand that several biases are relevant in the medical decision and treatment process. On the other hand, the study shows that the empirical evidence on the impact of cognitive biases on clinical outcome is scarce for most biases and that further research is necessary in this field. Value/Practical Implications: Nevertheless, it is important to determine the extent to which biases in healthcare professionals translate into negative clinical outcomes such as misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, or mistreatment. Only this way, the importance of incorporating debiasing strategies into the clinical setting, and which biases to focus on, can be properly assessed. Research Limitations/Future Research: Though recent literature puts great emphasis on cognitive debiasing strategies, there are still very few approaches that have proven to be efficient. Due to the increasing degree of specialization in medicine, the relevance of the different biases varies.


This works examine the responses of housing prices to the monetary policies in various Chinese cities. Thirty-five large and medium sized Chinese cities are classified into six clusters applying the minimum variance clustering method according to the calculated correlation coefficients between the housing price indices of every two cities. Time difference correlation analysis is then employed to quantify the relations between the housing price indices of the six clusters and the monetary policies. It is suggested that the housing prices of various cities evolved at different paces and their responses to the monetary policies are heterogeneous, and local economic features are more important than geographic distances in determining the housing price trends.


RNA modification has recently emerged as an important mechanism underlying gene diversity linked to behavioral regulation. The conversion of adenosine to inosine by the ADAR family of enzymes is a particularly important RNA modification as it impacts the physiological readout of protein-coding genes. However, not all variants of ADAR appear to act solely on RNA. ADAR1 binds directly to DNA when it is in a non-canonical, left handed, "Z" conformation, but little is known about the functional relevance of this interaction. Here we report that ADAR1 binds to Z-DNA in an activity-dependent manner and that fear extinction learning leads to increased ADAR1 occupancy at DNA repetitive elements, with targets adopting a Z-DNA structure at sites of ADAR1 recruitment. Knockdown of ADAR1 leads to an inability to modify a previously acquired memory trace and this is associated with a concomitant change in DNA structure and a decrease in RNA editing. These findings suggest a novel mechanism of learning-induced gene regulation whereby ADAR1 physically interacts with Z-DNA in order to mediate its effect on RNA, and both are required for memory flexibility following fear extinction learning.


Abstract Little is known about the differential experiences with violence among girls in conflict-affected societies based on their involvement in formal education. A quantitative survey was conducted with girls between the ages of 10–14 across 14 sites in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The prevalence of three forms of violence was estimated across four levels of participation in formal education, and multivariable mixed effects logistic regression models were used to compare girls' increasing levels of education to those who reported never attending school. Trend tests across the four levels of education were conducted for violence outcomes. Girls' higher levels of participation in formal education were significantly associated with lower reported rates of physical and sexual violence. Findings suggest a significant protective effect of formal education on girls from physical and sexual violence. Findings also suggest a significant relationship between girls' age and risk of experiencing physical and sexual violence.


Between January 1989 and December 1991 614 arthroscopic subacromial decompressions were performed for impingement syndromes. The first 100 cases represented our learning curve. The first 74 of the remaining 514 cases were available for evaluation and form the basis of the results presented here. Twenty (27.02%) patients were rated stage II in Neer's classification and 54 (72.98%) were rated stage III, 33 (44.59%) of them with a small full-thickness tear (less than 1 cm) and 21 (28.37%) with larger defects. Patients were evaluated pre- and postoperatively utilizing the ULCA shoulder score. The average follow-up was 7.9 months. The overall results were satisfactory in 67 cases (90.5%) and unsatisfactory in 7 cases (9.5%). Within the satisfactory group, 28 results (37.8%) were rated excellent and 39 (52.7%) were rated good. In the unsatisfactory group four results (5.4%) were rated fair and three (4.1%) poor. The results in advanced stage III (n = 21), with an average follow-up of 8.4 months, were satisfactory in 20 cases (excellent in 8 and good in 12) and unsatisfactory in one case. It is concluded that arthroscopic subacromial decompression is an effective treatment for both stage II and III impingement syndromes, producing acceptable results that are comparable to those of open procedures. Technically, it seems necessary to perform synovectomy of the ventral synovia in the glenohumeral joint, to resect the coracoacromial ligament completely and also to remove calcifications completely. Depending on the findings of a preoperative sonographic examination of the shoulder joint, the extent of the acromioplasty may be minimized.


John Holland's theory of career orientations advises people to select careers that are congruent with their personalities. Similarly, self-concordance theory, based in self-determination theory, advises people to select personal goals that match their autonomous interests and identifications. We compared the predictive efficacy of the two theories in two studies of undergraduates, using the six career areas of Holland theory (RIASEC: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional) as a common base. Multilevel logit modeling in Study 1 showed that both the Holland score and an aggregate self-concordance score predicted independent variance in the outcome variable, current career choices. These effects were replicated in Study 2. Supplementary analyses showed that the identified motivation subscale was the primary source of these effects. Thus, career counselors may want to consider assessing students' self-concordance for the six RIASEC domains, in particular their levels of identified motivation for those domains, in addition to assessing their Holland codes.


Objective: This study aims to find whether there are differences of clinical and laboratory features between anti-NMDAR encephalitis patients with and without brain atrophy. We also compare brain atrophy scale in anti-NMDAR positive patients with and without teratomas. Methods: Brain atrophy scales of 82 patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis were measured with the median temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) scale and the global cortical atrophy (GCA) scale. They were divided into two groups by brain atrophy status. In addition, 48 female patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis were divided into two groups with or without teratomas. Percentages of patients with brain atrophy were compared between these two groups. Results: 33 (40.2%) patients had brain atrophy. The GCA (+) group had higher percentage of patients with status epilepticus (p<0.001) than GCA (-) group and the MTA (+) group had higher percentage of patients with memory deficits (p < 0.001) than MTA (-) group. Higher percentages of severe infections were found in GCA(+) and MTA (+) groups than those in GCA(-) and MTA (-) groups (p=0.01 and p = 0.002, respectively). The percentage of patients needing ventilatory support was higher in MTA (+) group than that in MTA (-) group (p=0.015). The modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores of GCA(+) and MTA (+) groups were significantly higher when compared with GCA(-) and MTA (-) groups both at day one (p<0.001 and p=0.001, respectively) and at discharge (p<0.001 and p = 0.02, respectively). Patients in GCA (+) group had higher median length of hospital stay than those in GCA (-) group (p<0.001). The median onset-to-MR time of GCA(+) group was higher than that of GCA(-) group (p=0.034). Percentage of patients with limited response to treatment was higher in GCA (+) group than that in GCA(-) group (p<0.001). The median 25 hydroxyvitamin D3 level was lower in the GCA (+) group than that in GCA(-) group (p=0.001). Anti-NMDAR positive female patients with ovarian teratomas had higher percentage of GCA(+) than thoes without ovarian teratomas (P=0.006). Conclusions: Brain atrophy are not uncommon in patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis. MTA and GCA may be associated with severity and prognosis of anti-NMDAR encephalitis.


The quantitative role of the canopy size of nurse shrubs on microenvironment and native tree establishment in degraded tropical lands has been seldom studied. In a 21‐month field experiment, we aimed to test the effect of a native shrub with different canopy sizes on the early establishment of native trees as part of the effort of forest restoration in tropical China. We examined the microenvironment, and the seedling establishment and growth of two native trees: Castanopsis fissa and Syzygium hancei in both open space (OS) microsite and microsite under the canopy of the native pioneer shrub Rhodomyrtus tomentosa. Shrub microsite was further divided into large canopy (LC), and medium canopy (MC) microsite, based on the shrub leaf area indices. Results showed that relative to OS, LC had higher soil nutrient concentration and water content, and lower photosynthetic active radiation (PAR), while MC had lower PAR and higher soil exchangeable Mg, K, and Ca. Survival and growth were mostly enhanced, while water stress and photoinhibition reduced for C. fissa seedlings in MC and S. hancei seedlings in LC. It is found that the beneficial effects of the native shrub on seedling establishment and growth result mostly from the improvement in nutrient and water availabilities, the reduction in plant stress caused by harsh summer light, and the specific ecological requirements of different tree species. We suggest that different canopy sizes of native shrub R. tomentosa may be explored to target different native trees and hence promote forest restoration in degraded tropical ecosystems.