This paper is based on a talk given at the conference on 'Analytic geometry of Bergman kemels" in Kyoto, december 2005. It reports on some results on the curvature of vector bundles that arise as direct images of line bundles from [3]. It also gives some precisions and applications of these results.


Surface texture can be perceived not only from tactile, but also from auditory and visual sensory cues. In our previous psychophysical study, we demonstrated that humans can recognize surface stickiness using only one kind of sensory modality without any difficulty. However, the brain regions that would be activated by non-corresponding sensory cues, for example, auditory and visual cues, remain unknown. In this human functional MRI study, we explored brain regions associated with surface stickiness perception in each of three different sensory modalities, and sought for common neural activities across modalities. In the tactile condition, participants actually touched a sticky surface with their right index finger. In the auditory and visual conditions, audio and video clips of tactile explorations of a sticky surface were presented and participants were asked to recall the perceived stickiness as vividly as possible. Our results, based on a general linear model analysis, showed that somatosensory cortices including postcentral gyrus, anterior insula, and anterior intraparietal sulcus were significantly activated across all modalities. Moreover, we observed significant activation of primary sensory regions of each modality. A follow-up conjunction analysis identified that postcentral gyrus, anterior intraparietal sulcus, precentral gyrus, and supplementary motor area were activated in common. These findings could deepen our understanding of the surface stickiness perception in the human brain.


The information content of academic citations is a subject to debate. This article views premature death as a tragic 'natural experiment', outlining a methodology identifying the 'citation death tax' – the impact of the death of productive economists on the patterns of their citations. We rely on a sample of 428 papers written by 16 well-known economists who died well before retirement, during the period 1975 to 1997. The news is mixed: for half of the sample, we identify a large and significant 'citation death tax' for the average paper written by these scholars. For these authors, the estimated average missing citations per paper attributed to premature death ranges from 40% to 140% (the overall average is about 90%), and the annual costs of lost citations per paper are in the range 3–14%. Hence, a paper written 10 years before the author's death avoids a citation cost that varies between 30% and 140%. For the other half of the sample, there is no citation death tax; and for two Nobel Prize-calibre scholars in this second group, Black and Tversky, citations took off over time, reflecting the growing recognitions of their seminal works.


Deep endometriosis infiltrating the rectum remains a challenging situation to manage, and it is even more important when ureters and pelvic nerves are also infiltrated. Removal of deep rectovaginal endometriosis is mandatory in case of symptoms strongly impairing quality of life, alteration of digestive, urinary, sexual and reproductive functions, or in case of growing. Extensive preoperative imaging is required to choose the right technique between laparoscopic shaving, disc excision, or rectal resection. When performed by skilled surgeons and well-trained teams, a very high majority of cases of deep endometriosis nodule (>95%) is feasible by the shaving technique, and this is associated with lower complication rates regarding rectal resection. In most cases, removing a part of the rectum is questionable according to the risk of complications, and the rectum should be preserved as far as possible. Shaving and rectal resection are comparable in terms of recurrence rates. As shaving is manageable whatever the size of the lesions, surgeons should consider rectal shaving as first-line surgery to remove rectal deep endometriosis. Rectal stenosis of more than 80% of the lumen, multiple bowel deep endometriosis nodules, and stenotic sigmoid colon lesions should be considered as indication for rectal resection, but this represents a minority of cases.


We present a simple projection-free primal-dual algorithm for computing approximate Nash-equilibria in two-person zero-sum sequential games with incomplete information and perfect recall (like Texas Hold'em Poker). Our algorithm is numerically stable, performs only basic iterations (i.e matvec multiplications, clipping, etc., and no calls to external first-order oracles, no matrix inversions, etc.), and is applicable to a broad class of two-person zero-sum games including simultaneous games and sequential games with incomplete information and perfect recall. The applicability to the latter kind of games is thanks to the sequence-form representation which allows one to encode such a game as a matrix game with convex polytopial
strategy profiles. We prove that the number of iterations needed to produce a Nash-equilibrium with a given precision is inversely proportional to the precision. We present experimental results on matrix games on simplexes and Kuhn Poker.


Congenital heart defects represent the most common group of human birth defects; they occur in 0.8-1% of live births and in 10% of spontaneously aborted fetuses. Heart defects seen in newborns typically represent specific morphogenetic defects of individual chambers or regions of the heart, with the remaining portions of the heart developing relatively normally. These developmental defects are commonly compatible with the intrauterine circulation, where the pulmonary circulation and systemic circulation work in concert, resulting in adequate embryonic growth and development. After delivery, however, significant cardiac symptoms develop. In many of these disorders, cyanosis is the earliest feature, while in others, cardiovascular collapse occurs before diagnosis. In this review, obstruction of the left and right sides of the heart are discussed. In these disorders, ventricular hypoplasia resulting in single ventricle physiologic characteristics is typical. The unaffected ventricle in these cases is usually morphologically and physiologically normal. These conditions include hypoplastic left heart syndrome and aortic coarctation on the left side, pulmonary stenosis, tetralogy of Fallot, and other complex right ventricle obstructive disorders. Many of these disorders occur in association with genetic syndromes identifiable by dysmorphic features. In some cases, the gene(s) has been identified or the genetic pathway has been defined. The purpose of this review is to discuss the molecular determinants of these obstructive disorders.


This work is devoted to the study of a posteriori error estimation and adaptivity in parabolic problems with a particular focus on spatial discontinuous Galerkin (dG) discretisations.
We begin by deriving an a posteriori error estimator for a linear non-stationary convection-diffusion problem that is discretised with a backward Euler dG method. An adaptive algorithm is then proposed to utilise the error estimator. The effectiveness of both the error estimator and the proposed algorithm is shown through a series of numerical experiments.
Moving on to nonlinear problems, we investigate the numerical approximation of blow-up. To begin this study, we first look at the numerical approximation of blow-up in nonlinear ODEs through standard time stepping schemes. We then derive an a posteriori error estimator for an implicit-explicit (IMEX) dG discretisation of a semilinear parabolic PDE with quadratic nonlinearity. An adaptive algorithm is proposed that uses the error estimator to approach the blow-up time. The adaptive algorithm is then applied in a series of test cases to gauge the effectiveness of the error estimator.
Finally, we consider the adaptive numerical approximation of a nonlinear interface problem that is used to model the mass transfer of solutes through semi-permiable membranes. An a posteriori error estimator is proposed for the IMEX dG discretisation of the model and its effectiveness tested through a series of numerical experiments.


Little attention has been directed in Canada to identifying stakeholders at the administrative policy level to whom relevant health services research information can be targeted. This article describes a case study in which key stakeholders (long-term care facility owners, operators, and care providers) were explicitly defined not only as targets of original research information to inform administrative public policy but also as collaborators in the research process and dissemination of results. The research involved development of a classification system to measure resident care requirements in the province's nursing homes and auxiliary hospitals. The classification system formed the basis of a new government administrative policy for allocating public funds to these facilities based on levels of care. The authors describe the rationale for involving stakeholders in the research process, the role of stakeholders as collaborators, and lessons learned from the Alberta experience. Examples are presented of how stakeholders can contribute to the health services research process and outcome: by providing experiential knowledge related to the research outcome, anticipating and overcoming potential problems with policy implementation, facilitating policy-oriented learning across stakeholder groups, assisting in the transfer of research information to wider stakeholder audiences, and promoting acceptance for policy change.


Dental caries is the most common problem in the world. Tooth and oral diseases are most common lessions in Indonesian society (60%). The purpose of this study was to find out the index of def-t PAUD students of Kelurahan Jati Padang city which is can be use to guide planning, actuating, controlling and evaluating dental health programme by Dentistry Faculty of Andalas University. The research has been used descriptive methode and used total sampling. Samples consist for def-t index was 13 girls and 20 boys and categorized based on WHO caries categorize. The result has been shown that def-t index PAUD studentsi is 5,18. The summarized from this research have been shown that def-t PAUD students in highly categorized.


DyCu (CsCl-type) orders antiferromagnetically at . By measuring magnetization curves, the (H, T) phase diagrams are established for magnetic fields applied along fourfold and threefold axes. On the basis of neutron diffraction experiments on single crystals, magnetic structures are associated with each of the phases seen. The spontaneous and field-stabilized structures are multiaxial, with moments pointing along threefold or twofold directions. The phase sequence in the ordered range of DyCu reveals antiferroquadrupolar couplings of trigonal symmetry.


Background After hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), polyoma-BK virus is associated with hemorrhagic cystitis and also with polyomavirus nephropathy (PVN). However, the true burden of post-HCT PVN is unknown because kidney biopsies are avoided due to their bleeding risk. The novel, noninvasive urinary PV-Haufen test detects PVN in kidney transplant recipients with greater than 95% positive/negative predictive values. We hypothesized that the detection of PV-Haufen in voided urine samples—a positive PV-Haufen test—was also clinically significant after HCT. Methods We examined 21 suitable urine samples from 14 patients (median age, 15 years; 71.4% male) who were selected from repositories for having varying degrees of BK viremia (range, 0-1.0 × 108 copies/mL), hemorrhagic cystitis (present/absent), and data on kidney function. Urine samples were obtained at a median of 88 days post-HCT. Results The PV-Haufen were detected in 5 of 14 patients (35.7%) and 7 of 21 (33.3%) urine samples, with histologic confirmation of PVN in 1 autopsy specimen. After a median of 285 days post-HCT, patients with PV-Haufen had an increased risk of dialysis-dependent renal failure (P < 0.05). All 3 dialysis-dependent patients had PV-Haufen and died. The presence of urinary PV-Haufen was not significantly correlated with hemorrhagic cystitis. From the 16 urines collected during BK viremia, 43.8% were PV-Haufen–positive, and 56.2% were negative. The PV-Haufen were not present in the 5 urines from patients without concomitant BK-viremia. Conclusions In this proof-of-concept study, a positive PV-Haufen test was only seen in some patients with BK viremia and was not associated with hemorrhagic cystitis. The detection of PV-Haufen suggests underlying PVN with an increased risk of kidney failure and dialysis.


It is shown that any anisotropic and inhomogeneous cosmological solution to the lowest-order, four-dimensional, dilaton-graviton string equations of motion may be employed as a seed to derive a curved, 3-brane cosmological solution to five-dimensional heterotic M-theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau 3-fold. This correspondence formally relates a weakly coupled string cosmology directly with a strongly coupled one. The asymptotic behaviour of a wide class of spatially homogeneous braneworlds is deduced. Similar solutions may be derived in toroidally compactified massive type IIA supergravity.


This thesis is a detailed study of how two error correction schemes affect the precision of shaft position estimation in state-observer techniques for sensorless control surface-mounted Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSM), variance correction and variable PI regulation. A novel sensorless estimation technique based on Linear Kalman Filter (LKF) through constant variance correction is proposed and compared with the conventional Flux Linkage Observer (FLO) method and other state-estimation sensorless control techniques namely, Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), variable variance correction, Single Dimension Luenberger (SDL) observer and Full-Order Luenberger (FOLU) observer both through variable PI regulation. These five sensorless control techniques for PMSM are successfully implemented in the same lab-based hardware platform, i.e. full digital float-point-type DSP control inverter-fed PMSM system. Experiments are reported on each sensorless method covering position estimation, speed response, self-startup and load behaviour. Intensive analysis has also been carried out on the impact of error correction of estimated position on the steady/dynamic PMSM characteristics with different sensorless approaches. The experiment demonstrates that the novel Linear Kalman Filter can achieve the minimum average position estimation error throughout the electrical cycle of the five sensorless estimation techniques during no load operation at rated speed and also makes PMSM capable of self-startup for any initial rotor position except the dead area. A speed response experiment for LKF shows that individual speed estimation can be extracted directly from LKF state estimation for sensorless control PMSM. Experiments on the five sensorless methods proves that position error correction scheme is the dominating factor for state estimation sensorless control PMSM and better dynamic/steady control performance can be achieved using a variance correction scheme applied in EKF/LKF than with variable PI regulation applied in SDL/FOLU. The thesis also concludes that the novel Linear Kalman Filter is an optimised cost-effective sensorless estimation method for the PMSM drive industry compared with classic and Flux Linkage observers/Extended Kalman Filters.


Fmoc-diphenylalanine (FmocFF or FmocPhePhe) is an important low molecular weight hydrogelator. Gelation can be induced by either lowering the pH of an aqueous solution of FmocFF or by the addition of water to a solution of FmocFF in a solvent such as DMSO. Despite the volume of literature on FmocFF, the mechanical properties reported for the gels vary significantly over four orders of magnitude and the origins of this variability is unclear. Here, we study systematically the mechanical properties of FmocFF gels prepared with different protocols. We demonstrate that the final pH of the gels is the principal determinant of the mechanical properties independently of the method of gel formation. We also show that additional variability arises from experimental factors such as the fraction of DMSO or the nature of the buffers used in selected systems.


We show that a strong well‐based cylindrical algebraic decomposition P of a bounded semi‐algebraic set S is a regular cell decomposition, in any dimension and independently of the method by which P is constructed. Being well‐based is a global condition on P that holds for the output of many widely used algorithms. We also show the same for S of dimension at most 3 and P a strong cylindrical algebraic decomposition that is locally boundary simply connected: this is a purely local extra condition.


The stress distribution in the vicinity of connections in a bolted steel angle is non-uniform because of the coupled effects of connection eccentricity, shear lag and stress concentrations. Although, some  researchers have attempted finite element analysis, stipulations in various codes and specifications regarding the design of angle tension members are primarily based on the experimental studies. Only a couple of previous studies has included geometric as well as material non-linear effects in such finite element analysis. This paper presents the state-of-the-art review of finite element techniques used in modelling the angle tension members with bolted connections. This review is followed by a non-linear finite element analysis so as to obtain the stress distributions in the vicinity of connections, at design loads. This stress distribution is then evaluated to draw several realistic conclusions.


Treatment with osmoactive agents such as mannitol or hypertonic saline (HTS) solutions is widely used to manage or prevent the increase of intracranial pressure (ICP) in central nervous system (CNS) disorders. We sought to evaluate the variability and mean plasma concentrations of the water and electrolyte balance parameters in critically ill patients treated with osmotic therapy and their influence on mortality. This cohort study covered patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU) from January 2017 to June 2019 with presumed increased ICP or considered to be at risk of it, treated with 15% mannitol (G1, n = 27), a combination of 15% mannitol and 10% hypertonic saline (HTS) (G2, n = 33) or 10% HTS only (G3, n = 13). Coefficients of variation (Cv) and arithmetic means (mean) were calculated for the parameters reflecting the water and electrolyte balance, i.e., sodium (NaCv/NaMean), chloride (ClCv/ClMean) and osmolality (mOsmCv/mOsmMean). In-hospital mortality was also analyzed. The study group comprised 73 individuals (36 men, 49%). Mortality was 67% (n = 49). Median NaCv (G1: p = 0.002, G3: p = 0.03), ClCv (G1: p = 0.02, G3: p = 0.04) and mOsmCv (G1: p = 0.001, G3: p = 0.02) were higher in deceased patients. NaMean (p = 0.004), ClMean (p = 0.04), mOsmMean (p = 0.003) were higher in deceased patients in G3. In G1: NaCv (AUC = 0.929, p < 0.0001), ClCv (AUC = 0.817, p = 0.0005), mOsmCv (AUC = 0.937, p < 0.0001) and in G3: NaMean (AUC = 0.976, p < 0.001), mOsmCv (AUC = 0.881, p = 0.002), mOsmMean (AUC = 1.00, p < 0.001) were the best predictors of mortality. The overall mortality prediction for combined G1+G2+G3 was very good, with AUC = 0.886 (p = 0.0002). The mortality of critically ill patients treated with osmotic agents is high. Electrolyte disequilibrium is the independent predictor of mortality regardless of the treatment method used. Variations of plasma sodium, chloride and osmolality are the most deleterious factors regardless of the absolute values of these parameters


This paper deals with photography's wider integration in art, and its role in current Western-art institutional frameworks and their wider cultural/geographical inclusiveness.
Arguably, photography's presence in art, in the past fifty or more years, was defined by the work of artists that used photography to challenge art institutions and address issues of identity, and also by the increased discursive interest in the social functions of art. Three recent developments illustrate photography's eventual de-marginalisation in art: a) the aggressive collection of photography by art museums; b) the appointment of photography curators, e.g. at Tate Modern in 2011; c) and the eventual inclusion of photography exhibitions in art museums such as the National Gallery in London in 2013. This refers to photography meant to be art, but also reportage, advertising. Photography's integration, which is residually linked to its development as a marginalised medium dealing with marginalised subjectivities, is perceived as institutional liberalism. However, this integration is also seen to neutralise photography's inherent tensions and referential relationship to the world. This is because the presence of the work in an art-gallery highlights the work's materiality and obscures cultural difference. Art as a discourse for the analysis of all photography coincides with the parallel decline of the authority of semiotics, narratology, psychoanalysis and post-Marxist critique in photography theory.
Through examples of photographs and recent exhibitions, this paper intends to explore the effects and possible wider reasons behind current discursive trends. These trends seem to illustrate a tension between embodied subjectivities, globalising and de-centring forces in late/advanced capitalism.


Although systemic failure continues to plague patients receiving combined-modality treatment for limited small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), improvements in chemotherapy, including use of cisplatin/etoposide-based regimens, and radiotherapy have produced increases in median, 2-year, and 5-year survival over the last decade. Employing more conservative volumes of radiotherapy in more aggressive ways, today about 50% of SCLC patients will survive 2 years and 30%, 5 years. Moreover, integrating radiotherapy with chemotherapy early in the course of treatment can potentially eliminate resistant clones. The various factors in radiotherapy, including dose, volume, fractionation, and timing, therefore deserve scrutiny in the reporting and design of clinical trials.


An inevitable collision state (ICS) for a robotic system is a state for which, no matter what the future trajectory followed by the system is, a collision with an obstacle eventually occurs. The ICS concept takes into account both the dynamics of the robotic system and the future motion of the moving objects of the environment. For obvious safety reasons, a robotic system should never ever end up in an ICS hence the interest of the ICS concept when it comes to safely drive robotic systems in dynamic environments. In theory, determining whether a given state is an ICS requires to check for collision all possible future trajectories of infinite duration that the robotic system can follow from this particular state! In practise, it is fortunately possible to build a conservative approximation of the ICS set by considering only a finite subset of the whole set of possible future trajectories. The primary contribution of the paper is a general principle to select the subset of trajectories based upon the concept of imitating maneuvres, i.e., trajectories leading the robotic system to duplicate the behaviour of the environment objects (fixed or moving), it is shown how a good approximation of the ICS set can be obtained. The second contribution of the paper is an ICS-Checker for a car-like vehicle moving in a dynamic environment. This ICS-Checker integrates the above-mentioned selection principle. It is efficient and could be used in practise to compute truly safe motions for a car-like vehicle amidst moving objects.


Background The influences of low‐carbohydrate diets in cardiovascular disease are controversial. Few studies have examined the relationship of carbohydrate intake and risk of incident atrial fibrillation (AF). We aimed to evaluate the association between carbohydrate intake and the risk of incident AF in the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) Study. Methods and Results We included 13 385 participants (age, 54.2±5.8 years; 45.1% men and 74.7% white) who completed a dietary questionnaire at baseline (1987–1989) in the ARIC Study. The primary outcome was incident AF, which was identified by ECG performed during study examinations, hospital discharge codes, and death certificates. We used multivariable Cox hazard regression models to assess the association between carbohydrate intake and incident AF. We further explored the effects of specific food source (animal versus plant based) used to replace carbohydrate intake in the low‐carbohydrate intake setting. During a median follow‐up of 22.4 years, 1808 cases (13.5%) of AF occurred. The hazard ratio for incident AF associated with a 1‐SD (9.4%) increase in carbohydrate intake as a percentage of energy intake was 0.82 (95% CI, 0.72–0.94), after adjustment for traditional AF risk factors and other diets factors. Results were similar when individuals were categorized by carbohydrate intake quartiles (hazard ratio, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.49–0.84; comparing extreme quartiles). No association was found between the type of protein or fat used to replace the carbohydrate and risk of incident AF. Conclusions Low‐carbohydrate diets were associated with increased risk of incident AF, regardless of the type of protein or fat used to replace the carbohydrate.


BACKGROUND
Smoking is known to be a strong risk factor for premature atherosclerosis, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and sudden cardiac death. According to a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2000 - 2001 in China, the prevalence of smoking among the Chinese men was 60.2%, the highest prevalence in the world. Up to date, the relationship between smoking and AMI in Chinese male smokers is still unclear. This study analyzed the baseline characteristics for male smokers hospitalized with AMI and investigated the effect of cigarette smoking on their clinical outcomes.

METHODS
A total of 890 men aged 18 years or over with AMI were prospectively recruited from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2009 from Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital. Patients were grouped into smokers and nonsmokers. The relationships between baseline characteristics and clinical outcomes were tested using either the chi-square test for trend for discrete variables or analysis of variance for continuous variables.

RESULTS
Smokers accounted for 66.7% (594), more than twice of nonsmokers (296 (33.3%)), and were averaged 7 years younger ((56.61 ± 11.44) vs. (63.61 ± 11.62) years, P < 0.001). Smokers had the higher rate of TIMI flow grade 2 or 3 after thrombolytic therapy (42.4% vs. 24.5%, P = 0.002), 1 vessel disease (25.5% vs. 14.5%, P = 0.003) than nonsmokers. Smokers had better in-hospital outcome with lower in-hospital mortality rate than nonsmokers (6.2% vs. 10.8%, P = 0.023).

CONCLUSIONS
Male smokers suffered from AMI in this study presented an average of 7 years earlier than nonsmokers and were more than twice as likely to have AMI as nonsmokers in China. Smoking appeared to result in earlier infarction, especially ST elevated myocardial infarction in otherwise healthier patients who are likely to survive.


In nine children epileptic seizures were treated with Diazepam given intrarectally. A total of forty one epilepticcrisis occurred in these children and were evaluated for this study. In all patients seizures were controlled in a meantime of 3.2 minutes considering the best response and 3.9 minutes averaging all forty one treatments; seizurestreated five minutes or earlier after their start were controlled faster than those treated later. Immediately recurrentseizures were seen only in 2.5% of all seizure crisis treated this way, that is a low recurrence rate for this type ofpatients. No undesired effects of Diazepam were seen even though three patients were simultaneously receivingmaintenance doses of phenobaibital. Intrarectal administration of Diazepam is a good and harmless alternative tothe intravenous route with low immediate seizure recurrence rate, in the emergency treatment of seizure spells.(Key words: Diazepam. Rectal Administration. Acute Managment. Epileptic Seizures.).


This communication presents the first functionalization of a hydrogen-terminated silicon-rich silicon nitride (Si3Nx) surface with a well-defined, covalently attached organic monolayer. Properties of the resulting monolayers are monitored by measurement of the static water contact angle, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS). Further functionalization was performed by reaction of Si3Nx with a trifluoroethanol ester alkene (CH2=CH-(CH2)8CO2CH2CF3) followed by basic hydrolysis to afford the corresponding carboxylic acid-terminated monolayer with hydrophilic properties. These results show that Si3Nx can be functionalized with a tailor-made organic monolayer, has highly tunable wetting properties, and displays significant potential for further functionalization.


This study is an investigation into underage labour in Nigeria with specific focus on street hawkers in Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State. The study employed a cross-sectional descriptive study in which one hundred and fifty (150) hawkers and fifteen (15) adult traders constituted the sample. The data was obtained via the use of questionnaire and in-depth interview while the data was analyzed using student 't' test statistic. The three research hypotheses that guided the study were tested at 5% level of significance and the result revealed that there is a significant relationship between poor parental economic background and involvement of underage in street hawking, parental/guardian occupation does not significantly influence the involvement of underaage in street hawking and there is a significant relationship between street hawking and academic performance of the underage. The study concluded that government and Nigerians should therefore, practically demonstrate their commitment to the global fight against child labour in which street hawking amongst underage has become a social stigma to the country especially in the major towns and cities through poverty eradication to enable each household carter for their family needs contrary to the current practice where children engage in street hawking to help boost their family financial status while free compulsory basic education to all children with free meals should be introduced/provided by the government to cater for children from poor socio-economic background while public enlightenment campaign against street hawking should be vigorously pursued.


Like many other hospitals, Leiden University Medical Center organizes preoperative screening for elective surgery patients in an outpatient clinic. The screening process involves a visit to the secretary, nurse and anesthesiologist. Patients either have an appointment or arrive on walk-in basis. Appointments originate partly from patients sent away previously by the secretary because it is too busy for instant evaluation, and partly from patients that need further preparation prior to their visit to the anesthesiologist. This preparation consists mainly of acquiring patient information from other doctors and/or hospitals. After the
patient's visit a significant amount of back-office activities has to be performed by staff. Prolonged patient waiting times and increasing workload for staff call for an improvement in the design of the clinic. By using a multi-class open queuing network model, critical factors influencing patient waiting time and staff workload are identified. Among these critical factors are the scheduling
of appointments during periods of high walk-in arrivals, conflicting tasks to be performed by the secretary and ill preparation of appointment patients. Uncertainty about the medical condition of the patient results in long consultation times at the anesthesiologists. Furthermore
patients can only be approved for surgery by the anesthesiologist if all test results are available. Since testing for appointment patients is carried out during the appointment and not during the first visit, test results become available a few days after the appointment, resulting in a list of patients to be approved. These patients have to be approved by another anesthesiologist than the one who performs the consultation. This causes irritation among
the anesthesiologists since they consider it very undesirable to (dis)approve a patient they did not see themselves. Mid-2007 a new working routine resulting from this analysis was introduced at the clinic. The new working routine comes down to scheduling appointment patients during
periods of low walk-in demand, and the nurse dismissing patients after she evaluated them, instead of the secretary sending patients away prior to any evaluation. If necessary, the nurse takes blood samples from the patient and decides if other measures should be taken prior to surgery. These test results are available when the appointment takes place, and therefore the anesthesiologist can immediately decide if the patient can undergo surgery. Patients are dismissed by the nurse if there are four or more patients already waiting
for the anesthesiologist. A queuing model is used to enable a trade-off between patient waiting time for the anesthesiologist and the number of patients dismissed per hour by the nurses. Unfortunately the results of the model are inconclusive, so the current boundary of four patients is maintained. Subsequently a simulation study is performed to provide guidelines for the opening hours of the clinic. The current practice of the one hour closing for lunch results in long waiting times and discomfort for patients arriving around the lunch break. Various configurations for lunch are tested with the simulation model. An alternative
set-up for lunch based on the outcomes of the simulation study, namely no closing and staff members having lunch in shifts based on profession, has been implemented recently.
Preliminary experiences with the new routine, appointment system, and opening hours are very positive.


Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering (AORE) aims at improving separation of concerns in the problem space by offering new ways of modularising requirements. Over recent years several AORE approaches have emerged by evolving contemporary requirements approaches such as viewpoints-, scenarios- and goal-based models. Due to the novelty of these techniques, there is a lack of systematic comparative studies analyzing the benefits and drawbacks they can offer to the requirements engineering practice. This paper presents a case study contrasting four eminent AORE approaches in terms of time effectiveness and accuracy of their produced outcome. We address challenges related to the heterogeneous definitions for AORE model concepts as well as the fact that they perform similar general requirements process activities in different ways. In order to address these challenges, we provide a mapping of the AORE approaches onto general RE activities and provide a common naming scheme. The case study results show that specification of aspect compositions in AORE presents an effort bottleneck that has to be carefully weighed against the added benefits of modularity and analysis of systemic properties offered by AORE. Consequently, our study provides an initial yet significant stepping stone towards improving the evaluation of AORE approaches and understanding their contribution to requirements engineering.


(Received 20 October 2012 ; in final form 24 July 2013) Abstract In this paper, we investigate the superconducting proximity effect for a superconductor with three types of singlet, OSP and ESP triplet pairings in contact with a clean ferromagnetic region. Using the quasiclassical Green's function approach, we calculate the superconducting pair amplitude function in terms of the characteristic parameters of the system and compare penetration of these superconducting correlations inside the ferromagnetic region. We show that the ESP triplet correlations have a long range thermal penetration compared with the singlet and OSP triplet correlations inside the ferromagnetic region.


Epothilones are a kind of poliketide macrolide with antifungal and anticancer bioactivity which are attracting more and more attention. In this paper we compared the extraction effects of epothilones with several organic solvents by comparing the recovery rates and purities. Result shows that chloroform and dichloromethane are more suitable for the extraction of epothilones than methanol which is universally used. Then we analyzed the HPLC and TLC results of the different solvents extract, and optimized the extraction method by using chloroform and ether. The final recovery rate and purity increase 114.2% and 21.53 times than methanol.


In this work, we present an end-to-end framework to settle data association in online Multiple-Object Tracking (MOT). Given detection responses, we formulate the frame-by-frame data association as Maximum Weighted Bipartite Matching problem, whose solution is learned using a neural network. The network incorporates an affinity learning module, wherein both appearance and motion cues are investigated to encode object feature representation and compute pairwise affinities. Employing the computed affinities as edge weights, the following matching problem on a bipartite graph is resolved by the optimization module, which leverages a graph neural network to adapt with the varying cardinalities of the association problem and solve the combinatorial hardness with favorable scalability and compatibility. To facilitate effective training of the proposed tracking network, we design a multi-level matrix loss in conjunction with the assembled supervision methodology. Being trained end-to-end, all modules in the tracker can co-adapt and co-operate collaboratively, resulting in improved model adaptiveness and less parameter-tuning efforts. Experiment results on the MOT benchmarks demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.


Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the common diseases of brain and has brought the growth of teenagers and even the adult indelible damage. It is very different to classify the ADHD symptoms and normal by the existing research. In this paper, the contributions are as two aspects: one is that the attributes of brain network of the resting state fMRI data have been calculated to discriminate three categories ADHD from the controls. And the average accuracies of various categories are 42.49% and 63.46% on the ADHD-200 datasets of NYU and KKI respectively, which is better than the average best imaging-based diagnostic performance of 35.19% and 61.90% achieved in the ADHD-200 global competition. The other one is that we put forward a new method named G-algorithm to construct the whole brain network, which based on certain rules. The same or even better classification results have been achieved by this method, which also verifies its feasibility and effectiveness.


 Abstract — Quality is the life of embedded systems, and the testing is a basic guarantee for stable and reliable operation of the embedded systems. Testing is an important part in the development of any system as it represents the ultimate verification and validation of specification, design and code. The goal of testing is to design a series of test cases that has the highest likelihood of finding most of the errors with a minimum amount of time and effort. The techniques used to test the embedded systems provide systematic guidance for designing tests that exercise the internal logic of Embedded System components and test the input and output domains of the program to uncover errors in program function, behavior and performance. Simulation can be used as an alternative to the actual target system for a significant portion of the testing effort, saving developers time and money, as well as increasing test coverage and providing better debugging facilities, it becomes much more necessary to construct embedded systems testing environment.


Cerebral organoids recapitulate human brain development at a considerable level of detail, even in the absence of externally added signaling factors. The patterning events driving this self‐organization are currently unknown. Here, we examine the developmental and differentiative capacity of cerebral organoids. Focusing on forebrain regions, we demonstrate the presence of a variety of discrete ventral and dorsal regions. Clearing and subsequent 3D reconstruction of entire organoids reveal that many of these regions are interconnected, suggesting that the entire range of dorso‐ventral identities can be generated within continuous neuroepithelia. Consistent with this, we demonstrate the presence of forebrain organizing centers that express secreted growth factors, which may be involved in dorso‐ventral patterning within organoids. Furthermore, we demonstrate the timed generation of neurons with mature morphologies, as well as the subsequent generation of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Our work provides the methodology and quality criteria for phenotypic analysis of brain organoids and shows that the spatial and temporal patterning events governing human brain development can be recapitulated in vitro.


A three-dimensional, time-dependent numerical model of free-surface flows and heat transfer including phase change has been used to simulate the impact of a liquid droplet on a solid particle and to predict the size of the void under the solid particle caused by incomplete filling by liquid landing on top of it. The solid particle was considered to be a protrusion on the substrate. Fluid flow in the impacting liquid droplet was modeled using a finite difference solution of the Navier-Stokes equations in a 3D Cartesian coordinates assuming laminar, incompressible flow. Heat transfer in the liquid droplet was modeled by solving the energy equation, assuming densities of liquid and solid to be constant and equal to each other. The free surface of the liquid droplet was assumed to be adiabatic. The porosity in this simulation was defined as the volume of the incompletely filled void under the solid particle to the volume of the solid particle. The simulation was repeated with different process parameters, and the results showed that process paramters play significant roles in determining the amount of porosity. A correlation is found to express the porosity as a function of the process parameters.


Currently, favorable conditions are being created in the Russian Federation for the development and effective use of telemedicine in healthcare. Options for the use of information and communication technologies in pediatric dentistry are: telemedicine consultations, consultations, distance education of medical workers, medical education and preventive activities among the child population. The aim of the research as part of the dissertation work, the research was aimed at studying the attitude of dentists to the use of telemedicine technologies in pediatric dentistry. Materials and methods. The process of studying the attitude and readiness of pediatric dentists to use telemedicine technologies was aimed at identifying individual (micro) and conceptual (meso- and macro) factors affecting the use of medicine in pediatric dentistry. The study included a semi-formal interview and questionnaire. Results. As a result of the research on the sections: Telemonitoring – remote monitoring of patients, including outpatient management of patients; storage and transmission of medical data; interactive telemedicine, it was found that doctors in Tver and the Tver region have both positive and negative beliefs and opinions that can promote or hinder their use of telemedicine in their professional practice. Conclusions. Research with the participation of pediatric dentists will help both developers and managers of medical institutions to understand the limitations and advantages of technologies from the point of view of practicing pediatric dentists, will allow predicting its development. The results of this study will contribute to solving the problems of implementing telemedicine services, contribute to the rational development of telemedicine platforms in pediatric dentistry in Tver and the Tver region.


AIM
To analyze the application of microbubble contrast technology in the treatment of ophthalmic diseases, mainly analyzing its advantages and existing problems.

METHODS
A total of 30 representative literatures about the application of ultrasound contrast agent in gene targeted therapy at home and abroad were collected, and focusing on sorting out the literature reporting the treatment of ophthalmic diseases with microbubble contrast technology in recent years, then recalling its advantages and problems, finally making reasonable assessment on existing problems and proposing possible solutions to the problems.

RESULTS
DUE TO ITS UNIQUE SAFETY AND EFFICACY, THE TREATMENT OF OPHTHALMIC DISEASES WITH MICROBUBBLE CONTRAST TECHNOLOGY HAS INCREASINGLY DRAWN THE ATTENTION OF CLINICIANS, BUT TWO RELEVANT ISSUES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED: first, the nature of contrast agent and the choice of corresponding ultrasound parameters; second, relative incidence of tissue bleeding, intravascular hemolysis, moderate or severe allergy as well as other side effects.

CONCLUSION
Microbubble may become the carrier of targeted therapy, and as a kind of new non-invasive delivery system, the ultrasound contrast agent has broad application prospects, but its application in ophthalmic research is still in its initial stage and the safety of contrast-enhanced ultrasound still needs further study.


- This paper explored the contemporary affirmation of the recent literature in the context of face recognition systems, a review motivated by contradictory claims in the literature. This paper shows how the relative performance of recent claims based on methodologies such as PCA and ICA, which are depend on the task statement. It then explores the space of each model acclaimed in recent literature. In the process, this paper verifies the results of many of the face recognition models in the literature, and relates them to each other and to this work. Abstract - This paper explored the contemporary affirmation of the recent literature in the context of face recognition systems, a review motivated by contradictory claims in the literature. This paper shows how the relative performance of recent claims based on methodologies such as PCA and ICA, which are depend on the task statement. It then explores the space of each model acclaimed in recent literature. In the process, this paper verifies the results of many of the face recognition models in the literature, and relates them to each other and to this work.


Signaling from the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) family of proteins is dependent on a well-orchestrated series of interactions between family members to form either homo- or heterodimers. The heterodimeric complex formed by HER2 and HER3 is a particularly potent oncogenic signaling unit that can act as a driver of cancer growth and has also been shown to rescue a large number of cancers from a variety of targeted agents. The currently available therapies targeting HER2, such as Lapatinib or ado-trastuzumab emtansine, have dramatically improved patient outcomes in the clinic but preferentially target the protein in its monomeric state. Because of this, increasing the concentration of the HER2/HER3 heterodimer, either by growth factors or increasing the concentrations of HER2 and HER3 at the membrane, significantly diminishes their activity. In order to find a next generation inhibitor of the active HER2/HER3 oncogenic complex we screened 1 million small molecules against an engineered Ba/F3 cell line dependent on ligand stimulated HER2/HER3 signaling for survival. The removal of non-selective inhibitors using alternative Ba/F3 cell lines resulted in the identification of a single core scaffold hit. A medicinal chemistry campaign enabled by a co-crystal structure of a hit compound complexed to EGFR led to the development of a molecule capable of inhibiting the active state of HER2. As a result, this next generation HER2 inhibitor is capable of inhibiting growth factor stimulated HER2/HER3 heterodimers and mutationally activated forms of HER2, which are resistant to current clinical small molecule HER2 inhibitors. Citation Format: Chris J. Novotny, Sirkku Pollari, Jin H. Park, Mark A. Lemmon, Peter G. Schultz, Weijun Shen, Kevan M. Shokat. Overcoming resistance to HER2 inhibitors through cell based screening. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3904.


This article considers the entitlement of a foreign state to assert its jurisdictional immunity in respect of proceedings before the forum state's court in which an individual official of the foreign state is the named defendant and is outwith the limited class of high ranking officials benefiting from a personal immunity. In Jones v Saudi Arabia the House of Lords concluded that the legal test for establishing the requisite connection between the impugned acts of the foreign state official and the foreign state as a corporate entity should be supplied by the rules of attribution in the law of state responsibility. Other national courts have relied upon the mere fact of the foreign official's employment in the government of the foreign state. The thesis advanced in this article is that such approaches are wrong in customary international law: the foreign state is entitled to assert its jurisdictional immunity in respect of proceedings relating to acts of the foreign state official performed in the service of the foreign state but acts proscribed by international norms directed to the conduct of individuals cannot be charac- terised as acts in the service of the foreign state.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate corneal irregular astigmatism of patients with granular and lattice corneal dystrophy (GCD and LCD). 70 GCD, 35 LCD, and 23 control eyes were included. Anterior and posterior corneal topographic data obtained from anterior segment optical coherence tomography were expanded into four components via Fourier harmonic analysis. These components were compared with healthy eyes and the association between each component and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was investigated. Anterior and posterior components increased in LCD eyes, but none increased in GCD. Posterior components of GCD type 2 (GCD2), anterior and posterior of LCD type 1 (LCD1), posterior of LCD type IIIA (LCD 3A) and type IV (LCD4) significantly increased. BCVA was significantly associated with anterior and posterior components in LCD eyes but not in GCD. The anterior components of LCD1, anterior and posterior of LCD3A, and posterior of LCD4, but not the posterior of LCD3A, were positively correlated with BCVA. As conclusions, in GCD eyes, none of the components differed from those of the control and BCVA was not significantly associated with them. In LCD eyes, the anterior and posterior components increased, and BCVA was significantly associated with the anterior and posterior components.


This paper explores the analytic purchase and substantive concerns of what I am calling geographies of relatedness. Drawing on recent work in feminist anthropology which has reconsidered kinship as classificatory system and practice, and highlighting the attentiveness to sites, scales and contexts within this work, I suggest ways in which a focus on relatedness may shape approaches to established and emerging matters of concern in human geography. I consider first the foundational status but flexible meaning of 'blood' in kinship thinking, and the ways the flexibility of kinship can be curtailed and its foundational status reinstated in relation to the nation and the state. Second, I consider the geographies of relatedness that are constituted through and practised in the process of establishing degrees of biological connection, delimiting difference, mapping human 'diversity' and defining personal, collective and human origins at different scales and with different effects. A focus on geographies of relatedness, I argue, highlights the ways blood ties or similarly naturalized connections move between and connect categories of relatedness with different sizes, extents and configurations across space, as well as different temporalities. It suggests an alertness to new global mappings of human relatedness and difference and combines a critical attention to ideas of the 'nature' of human reproduction as foundational, original or primal in the natural order of the social, to ideas of 'place of origin': personal, national, ethnic, racialized, universal in their familiar and emergent forms.


Exploiting vulnerabilities on multimedia devices and implementations that are made for Small Office Home Office (SOHO) environments induce new risk trends. This happens due to usability and user friendliness taking precedence over the security on these implementations, but also due to market expansion and propagation that introduces a vast number of such devices to almost any SOHO network. This paper aims to identify, explore and analyse vulnerabilities and related attacks on such environments, focusing on specific devices manufactured by Sonos, as a proof-of-concept case study. The applied research has been done in such a way that can also be used for other SOHO devices. Real tests and attacks have been applied, in order to demonstrate and verify the proposed methodologies, as well as to evaluate all related results and findings. Finally, countermeasures and solutions for the identified vulnerabilities are proposed and evaluated.


In this paper we introduce a novel clustering algorithm based on the Memetic Algorithm meta-heuristic wherein clusters are iteratively evolved using a novel single operator employing a combination of heuristics. Several heuristics are described and employed for the three types of selections used in the operator. The algorithm was exhaustively tested on three benchmark problems and compared to a classical clustering algorithm (k-Medoids) using the same performance metrics. The results show that our clustering algorithm consistently provides better clustering solutions with less computational effort.


This paper investigates the impact of the shifts of labor across sectors on aggregate productivity growth through a decomposition of aggregate productivity growth in Singapore over the period 1965-2002. The static shift-share analysis is utilized to for this purpose. The results show that the shifts of labor paid off well in terms of their contribution to labor productivity especially for manufacturing in the 1985 era which was characterized by interventionist labor market policies of the government. On the other hand, the impact of labor shifts is negative in the post-1985 era which is characterized by a more liberalized labor market.


Techniques developed for protein blotting have been applied to the characterisation of allergen extracts. Such extracts, used for the diagnosis and therapy of allergic diseases, are highly variable in their content of active components. Protein blotting allows the direct identification of those components in an extract which bind human immunoglobulin E and cause allergic symptoms. It also allows the components to be defined in terms of molecular weight, isoelectric point and the frequency and intensity of IgE‐binding by individual allergens. Because of the large number of samples which can be handled in a single experiment, protein blotting of allergens allows the identification of the individual allergen recognition spectra of large numbers of allergic patients. The resolution of components, loss of antigenicity, and aspects of blocking and probing which are important in identifying IgE‐binding components are reviewed. A table of allergen sources investigated by protein blotting is included and important sources of allergens, such as pollens, mites and fungi are discussed in detail.


Purpose – Radio-frequency circuits often possess a multi-rate behavior. Slow changing baseband signals and fast oscillating carrier signals often occur in the same circuit. Frequency modulated signals pose a particular challenge. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The ordinary circuit differential equations are first rewritten by a system of (multi-rate) partial differential equations in order to decouple the different time scales. For an efficient simulation the paper needs an optimal choice of a frequency-dependent parameter. This is achieved by an additional smoothness condition. Findings – By incorporating the smoothness condition into the discretization, the paper obtains a non-linear system of equations complemented by a minimization constraint. This problem is solved by a modified Newton method, which needs only little extra computational effort. The method is tested on a phase locked loop with a frequency modulated input signal. Originality/value – A new optimal ...


The biosynthesis of the pyrrolyl moiety of the fungal metabolite rumbrin originates from pyrrole-2-carboxylic acid. In an effort to produce novel derivatives with enhanced biological activity a series of substituted pyrrole-2-carboxylates were synthesised and incubated with the producing organism, Auxarthron umbrinum. Several 4-halo-pyrrole-2-carboxylic acids were incorporated into the metabolite yielding three new derivatives: 3-fluoro-, 3-chloro- and 3-bromo-isorumbrin, which were generated in milligram quantities enabling cytotoxicity assays to be conducted. The 3-chloro- and 3-bromo-isorumbrins had improved activity against HeLa cells compared with rumbrin; 3-bromoisorumbrin also showed dramatically improved activity towards a lung cancer cell line (A549).


Since 1992, the UK Government has published so-called 'school league tables' summarising the average General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) 'attainment' and 'progress' made by pupils in each state-funded secondary school in England. While the headline measure of school attainment has remained the percentage of pupils achieving five or more good GCSEs, the headline measure of school progress has changed from 'value-added' (2002–2005) to 'contextual value-added' (2006–2010) to 'expected progress' (2011–2015) to 'progress 8' (2016–). This paper charts this evolution with a critical eye. First, we describe the headline measures of school progress. Second, we question the Government's justifications for scrapping contextual value-added. Third, we argue that the current expected progress measure suffers from fundamental design flaws. Fourth, we examine the stability of school rankings across contextual value-added and expected progress. Fifth, we discuss the extent to which progress 8 will address the weaknesses of expected progress. We conclude that all these progress measures and school league tables more generally should be viewed with far more scepticism and interpreted far more cautiously than they have often been to date.


The panorama of the Orthodox Churches in Sicily today is particularly relevant. Among the choirs present in Sicily, an important role has been taken by the choir of the church of St Alessandro of Comana (Moscow Patriarchate) in Palermo. The cooperation between the regent, Irina Nedoshivkina Nicotra, and the author of this abstract has given life to a concert activity structured as a dialogue with the city: these performances have been called "narrated concerts". A narrator accompanies the audience through the ritual, through the multilingual, musical, liturgical, symbolic and spiritual aspects of the chanting. In this performance, narration and chant alternate, mutually reinforcing each other, within the broader liturgical context evoked and re-enacted by the chants performed according to the process of ritual action. The peculiarity of the choir depends on its being composed by Italians (Orthodox and Catholics) and Russians. Through the narrated, the liturgical chant expands into the city enriching the Sicilian soundscape with repertoires and executive procedures absent until ten years ago.


A11 MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small non-coding RNAs (20-23 nucleotides) that negatively regulate gene expression at the translational level by base pairing to the 39 untranslated region of target messenger RNAs. More than 500 of miRNAs have been identified in humans and are evolutionally conserved from plants to animals. It has been revealed that miRNAs regulate various biological processes such as development, cell differentiation, cell proliferation, and cell death. Inappropriate expression of miRNAs has been found in cancer. Especially, the expression level of miRNAs that act like anti-oncogenes is frequently reduced in cancers because of chromosome aberrations. Here, we found that the expression of miRs-143 and -145, which are transcribed in the same primary miRNA, was down-regulated frequently in human colon cancers (miR-143; 45/62 (73%) cases, miR-145; 49/62 (79%) cases) and commonly in the other kinds of cancer cell lines tested. The transfection of each modified mature miRNA into the cells demonstrated a significant growth inhibition in human colon cancer DLD-1 and SW480 cells, and the target gene of miR-143 was determined to be ERK5 that is a growth-related MAPK. Since the presence of genomic loci (5q32) of the miRNAs was confirmed by PCR in the cell lines and the miRNAs were up-regulated during growth suppression, the transcription of the miRNAs seemed to be commonly disturbed in cancer cells. The anti-cancer effect of the miRNAs was demonstrated in mouse model. The available data suggest that miRNAs would be potentially useful as diagnostic and therapeutic tools.


This article presents a large scope of issues on early and late language plasticity that increase our understanding of the neurobehavioral dynamics of change, the main property of the learning brain. In their pioneering work, Bates and Kuhl have convincingly demonstrated that plasticity is intrinsic to development. Bates has provided new data on the impressive recovery of language in children with focal brain injury, highlighting that both hemispheres support the early phases of this change, contrary to previous assumptions. The fundamental reorganization of the early phonemic system around the age of 8 months proposed by Kuhl, combining neural commitment and social abilities, has powerful cascading effects for subsequent word learning. Our developmental crosslinguistic research on online sentence processing in monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals has revealed distinctive linguistic patterns of "cue cost", a multifactorial concept relevant for capturing the microplasticity of the processing system. Whatever the language, the shift around the age of 9 towards the canonical adult pattern indicates an efficient adaptive processing occurring with a small delay in bilinguals. Most salient, from childhood, bilinguals exhibit specific cue cost patterns with interactions. In older French adults, cue cost variability is mediated by processing speed which preserves online syntactic abilities but reveals plasticity limits in Alzheimer's patients.


The optimisation of noise properties is demonstrated in an interferometric fibre Bragg grating defined Fabry-Perot sensor system. The signal-to-noise ratio is maximised by matching the spectra of the two gratings and the path length differences of the two tandem interferometers. The environmental effects on the interrogation interferometer are monitored with a reference wavelength. A phase resolution close to the theoretical noise limit of −85 dB above 60 Hz is achieved with a corresponding strain resolution of 1.52 pɛ/Hz1/2 using a 4 m-long cavity.


T o provide an estimate of kangaroo numbers for harvest management, a survey was designed for an area of 29500 km 2 encompassing the agricultural and grazing lands of the Braidwood, Cooma, Goulburn, Gundagai and Yass Rural Lands Protection Board (RLPB) districts in south-east New South Wales. An aerial survey using a helicopter was considered more efficient than ground survey because of the size of the area, relatively high relief and dense tree cover, and the need for regular monitoring. Tree cover and landscape relief was used to stratify the five RLPB districts into areas of probable high, medium and low kangaroo density. Kangaroo density estimated from helicopter surveys conducted in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales was used to suggest densities and thereby allocate survey effort in each stratum. A survey comprising 735 km of transect line was conducted in winter 2003 with a target precision of 20%. The survey returned an estimate of 286600 ± 32300 eastern grey kangaroos for the whole of the proposed south-east New South Wales kangaroo-management zone. In 2004, a trial harvest of slightly less than 15% of this estimate was taken. Success of the trial will be determined by the impact of harvesting on the population's dynamics, by landholder and industry participation, and by the capacity to monitor population size, harvest offtake and compliance with regulations.


Persistent memory is an emerging technology which allows in-memory persistent data objects to be updated at much higher throughput than when using disks as persistent storage. Previous persistent memory designs use logging or copy-on-write mechanisms to update persistent data, which unfortunately reduces the system performance to roughly half that of a native system with no persistence support. One of the great challenges in this application class is therefore how to efficiently enable atomic, consistent, and durable updates to ensure data persistence that survives application and/or system failures. Our goal is to design a persistent memory system with performance very close to that of a native system. We propose Kiln, a persistent memory design that adopts a nonvolatile cache and a nonvolatile main memory to enable atomic in-place updates without logging or copy-on-write. Our evaluation shows that Kiln can achieve 2× performance improvement compared with NVRAM-based persistent memory with write-ahead logging. In addition, our design has numerous practical advantages: a simple and intuitive abstract interface, microarchitecture-level optimizations, fast recovery from failures, and eliminating redundant writes to nonvolatile storage media.


Digestion of food depends on three main factors: (i) the ingested food and the extent to which the food is susceptible to the effects of digestive enzymes, (ii) the activity of the digestive enzymes and (iii) the length of time the food is exposed to the action of the digestive enzymes. Each of these factors is affected by a multitude of secondary factors. The present review highlights the experimental results on the secondary factor, enzymatic activity and possible contribution of the fish gut microbiota in nutrition. It has been suggested that fish gut microbiota might have positive effects to the digestive processes of fish, and these studies have isolated and identified the enzyme-producing microbiota. In addition to Bacillus genera, Enterobacteriaceae and Acinetobacter, Aeromonas, Flavobacterium, Photobacterium, Pseudomonas, Vibrio, Microbacterium, Micrococcus, Staphylococcus, unidentified anaerobes and yeast are also suggested to be possible contributors. However, in contrast to endothermic animals, it is difficult to conclude the exact contribution of the gastrointestinal microbiota because of the complexity and variable ecology of the digestive tract of different fish species, the presence of stomach and pyloric caeca and the relative intestinal length. The present review will critically evaluate the results to establish whether or not intestinal microbiota do contribute to fish nutrition.


Liquid crystals are important components of optical technologies. Cuboidal crystals consisting of chiral liquid crystals-the so-called blue phases (BPs), are of particular interest due to their crystalline structures and fast response times, but it is critical that control be gained over their phase behavior as well as the underlying dislocations and grain boundaries that arise in such systems. Blue phases exhibit cubic crystalline symmetries with lattice parameters in the 100 nm range and a network of disclination lines that can be polymerized to widen the range of temperatures over which they occur. Here, we introduce the concept of strain-controlled polymerization of BPs under confinement, which enables formation of strain-correlated stabilized morphologies that, under some circumstances, can adopt perfect single-crystal monodomain structures and undergo reversible crystal-to-crystal transformations, even if their disclination lines are polymerized. We have used super-resolution laser confocal microscopy to reveal the periodic structure and the lattice planes of the strain and polymerization stabilized BPs in 3D real space. Our experimental observations are supported and interpreted by relying on theory and computational simulations in terms of a free energy functional for a tensorial order parameter. Simulations are used to determine the orientation of the lattice planes unambiguously. The findings presented here offer opportunities for engineering optical devices based on single-crystal, polymer-stabilized BPs whose inherent liquid nature, fast dynamics, and long-range crystalline order can be fully exploited.


In everyday life the production and broadcast of material goods, computer and management in global communication cannot be realized without an electrical power source, the output of which is associated with environmental and safety problems. Current methods for providing electricity departing from limited natural resources, such as oil, gas, coal, etc. Simultaneously every day we face not only with the increasing prices for them, but also the problem of environmental pollution, which brings their burning. Fortunately there is a solution, and it is the use of renewable energy sources, such as biomass, solar energy, wind power, etc. Because of the benefits obtained from their use on dozens of regions in the world are directed to the use of these resources, especially solar energy. This energy is collected through solar panels and back into thermal or electric energy. Systems that convert the energy of sunlight into electricity are called photovoltaic systems. In this paper we will focus on the structuring of data collection about technologies and parameters to use photovoltaic systems in Albania. In order that these data collected be managed with high efficiency, it is appropriate that they are stored in a DB. DB Design brings genuine analysis of the current situation, but the future forecast for our country can be done on its basis. So on the basis of the studying of the DB, can be judge the economic and ecological benefits that come from the use of solar energy. The consumer can judge the energy efficiency, technology used, methods of installation, etc. Responsible institutions can deal with completing the updates of data for the completion of a DB at the national level.


Dialysis is in empirical therapy of end-stage renal disease. Traditionally dialysis adequacy has been quantified referring to the Kinetics of urea but recent index of dialysis dose is the fractional clearance of urea expressed as Kt/v. Eighty end stage renal disease cases were enrolled in the study out of which 40 cases underwent two haemodialysis per week (Group A) and rest 40 cases three haemodialysis/week. Serum urea, Creatinine, Potassium registered a significant fall (P<0.001) along with improvement in systolic blood pressure and Haemoglobin concentration (P<0.05) in Group-B whereas Group A cases showed significant fall (P<0.001) in serum urea values only. Urea reduction ratio and Kt/v were found higher in Group B as compared to Group A (P<0.001) which was as per the recommendation of National Kidney Foundation Dialysis outcomes Quality Initiation (K/DOQI). ESRD cases undergoing HD twice a week is inadequate whereas three HD/week cases had better compliance and post dialysis clinical outcome.


Advancement in neural modeling requires the de- velopment of methods for deriving computational models from observed biological data. We propose general analysis techniques to construct distance measures that are applicable across a broad range of cell types. We investigate the use of multiple stimuli to evoke model behaviors characteristic of the underlying channel densities. We examine the use of frequency analysis on multiple membrane recordings to improve channel density optimization for two simple compartment models. Applying the Covariance Matrix Adaptation (CMA-ES) (1) to this problem yielded near optimal resuits. Solutions given by CMA-ES are equivalent to parameter distributions and serve as templates for neural model generation.


The advent of multicast and the growth and complexity of the Internet has complicated network protocol design and evaluation. Evaluation of Internet protocols usually uses random scenarios or scenarios based on designers' intuition. Such an approach may be useful for average case analysis but does not cover boundary-point (worst or best case) scenarios. To synthesize boundary-point scenarios, a more systematic approach is needed. In this paper, we present a method for automatic synthesis of worst and best case scenarios for protocol boundary-point evaluation. Our method uses a fault-oriented test generation (FOTG) algorithm for searching the protocol and system state space to synthesize these scenarios. The algorithm is based on a global finite state machine (FSM) model. We extend the algorithm with timing semantics to handle end-to-end delays and address performance criteria. We introduce the notion of a virtual LAN to represent delays of the underlying multicast distribution tree. Our algorithms utilize implicit backward search using branch and bound techniques and start from given target events. As a case study, we use our method to evaluate variants of the timer suppression mechanism, used in various multicast protocols, with respect to two performance criteria: overhead of response messages and response time. Simulation results for reliable multicast protocols show that our method provides a scalable way for synthesizing worst case scenarios automatically. Results obtained using stress scenarios differ dramatically from those obtained through average case analyses. We hope for our method to serve as a model for applying systematic evaluation to other multicast protocols.


Data on solubility of quartz in water are shown to obey equations of the type: log S%v=-a/T+2, where S%v is weight percent SiO 2 in solution at constant volume, a is a constant depending on specific volume, and T is the absolute temperature. The approximate solubility of quartz in near-neutral hydrothermal solutions in depth along a steep geothermal gradient is calculated.


A new 8-electrode prosthesis has been developed for individuals deafened by bilateral auditory nerve tumors (neurofibromatosis-2). Twelve patients have received the multichannel auditory brain stem implant at House Ear Institute since 1992, 11 of whom receive useful auditory sensations. Processor fitting includes scaling and ranking of electrode-specific pitch sensations, and determination of any nonauditory sensations. Two representative patients differing in experience and number of usable electrodes are compared in terms of range of auditory sensations and speech perception performance. An inexperienced patient with two electrodes using a new speech-processing strategy (Speak) performed comparably to an experienced patient with six electrodes using an earlier feature-extraction processor.


We study systems coupled linearly to a bath of oscillators. In an iterative process, the bath is transformed into a chain of oscillators with nearest neighbour interactions. A systematic procedure is provided to obtain the spectral density of the residual bath in each step, and it is shown that under general conditions these data converge. That is, the asymptotic part of the chain is universal, translation invariant with semicircular spectral density. The methods are based on orthogonal polynomials, in which we also solve the outstanding so-called "sequence of secondary measures problem" and give them a physical interpretation.


AIM To performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine any possible differences in terms of effectiveness, safety and tolerability between existing colon-cleansing products in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. METHODS Systematic searches were performed (January 1980-September 2016) using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, CENTRAL and ISI Web of knowledge for randomized trials assessing preparations with or without adjuvants, given in split and non-split dosing, and in high (> 3 L) or low-volume (2 L or less) regimens. Bowel cleansing quality was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included patient willingness-to-repeat the procedure and side effects/complications. RESULTS Out of 439 citations, 4 trials fulfilled our inclusion criteria (n = 449 patients). One trial assessed the impact of adding simethicone to polyethylene glycol (PEG) 4 L with no effect on bowel cleansing quality, but a better tolerance. Another trial compared senna to castor oil, again without any differences in term of bowel cleansing. Two trials compared the efficacy of PEG high-volume vs PEG low-volume associated to an adjuvant in split-dose regimens: PEG low-dose efficacy was not different to PEG high-dose; OR = 0.84 (0.37-1.92). A higher proportion of patients were willing to repeat low-volume preparations vs high-volume; OR = 5.11 (1.31-20.0). CONCLUSION In inflammatory bowel disease population, PEG low-volume regimen seems not inferior to PEG high-volume to clean the colon, and yields improved willingness-to-repeat. Further additional research is urgently required to compare contemporary products in this population.


Puncture alignments are found on Palaeolithic carvings, pendants, and other fully shaped osseous artifacts. These marks were interpreted as abstract decorations, system of notations, and features present on human and animal depictions. Here, we create an experimental framework for the analysis and interpretation of human-made punctures and apply it to a highly intriguing, punctured bone fragment found at Canyars, an Early Upper Palaeolithic coastal site from Catalonia, Spain. Changes of tool and variation in the arrangement and orientation of punctures are consistent with the interpretation of this object as the earliest-known leather work punch board recording six episodes of hide pricking, one of which was to produce a linear seam. Our results indicate that Aurignacian hunters-gatherers used this technology to produce leather works and probably tailored clothes well before the introduction of bone eyed needles in Europe 15,000 years later.


Equivalence and dominance relations used earlier in fault diagnosis procedures are defined as relations between faults, similar to the relations used for fault collapsing. Since the basic entity of diagnostic fault simulation and test generation is a fault pair, and not a single fault, we introduce a framework where equivalence and dominance relations are defined for fault pairs. Using equivalence and dominance relations between fault pairs, we define a fault pair collapsing process, where fault pairs are removed from consideration under diagnostic fault simulation and test generation since they are guaranteed to be distinguished when other fault pairs are distinguished. Another concept, which was used earlier to enhance fault collapsing, is the level of similarity between faults. We extend this definition into a level of similarity between fault pairs and discuss its use for fault pair collapsing. The level of similarity encompasses equivalence and dominance relations between fault pairs, and extends them to allow additional fault pair collapsing.


This paper aims to establish and expand the idea of punk gamification, in dialogue with the other two provocations in this issue of DigitCult. It starts by outlining the main criticisms that can be moved to the mainstream understanding of gamification, namely the fact that it is a tool to gain power over users and that it can hinder critical thinking by naturalising the users' actions. Subsequently, the paper argues for the necessity of a punk approach to gamification, based around the freedom of the users and on a non-utopian view of play. After having established the core idea of punk gamification, it proceeds by applying it to Alternate Reality Games, so as to underline the importance to include new forms of co-creation and participation. Finally, it engages with the figure of the "zombie" and with the playful practices related to it, positioning the latter among the strategies of urban gamification that can allow citizens to reclaim the environments of the city. In conclusion, punk gamification can be described as an effort of resistance against the neoliberal trend attempting to sanitize and domesticate play, and instead claim its disruptive and social potential.


Report of a 35-year-old man, who suffered for 20 years from pyodermia sinifica fistulans and finally died. Description of the typical symptoms and the present therapy of pyodermia sinifica fistulans ("hidradenitis suppurativa").


Non-natural amino acids can be incorporated into synthetic host defense peptides (HDPs) to modulate their susceptibility to proteolytic degradation. However, the impact of non-natural amino acids on the antibiofilm and immumodulatory activities of synthetic HDPs remains unclear. Using SPOT-synthesized peptide arrays, non-natural cationic amino acids of varying side chain lengths were incorporated into a synthetic HDP, IDR-1018, and the impact of these substitutions on the antibiofilm activity towards methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus biofilms was assessed. Multiply-substituted derivatives were designed that incorporated favourable non-natural cationic amino acid moieties throughout IDR-1018. The antibiofilm and immunomodulatory activities of these derivatives were assessed in vitro, revealing that the incorporation of non-natural amino acids modulated (either positively or negatively) these activities of IDR-1018. Furthermore, the tryptic stability of the IDR-1018 derivatives was assessed revealing that proteolytic stability was favoured for shorter cationic side chains and was influenced by the primary peptide sequence.


BACKGROUND
Subdeltoid bursitis has been reported as an adverse event after intramuscular vaccination in the deltoid muscle. Most published case reports involved influenza vaccine.

OBJECTIVE
To estimate the risk for subdeltoid bursitis after influenza vaccination.

DESIGN
Retrospective cohort study.

SETTING
The Vaccine Safety Datalink, which contains health encounter data for 10.2 million members of 7 U.S. health care organizations.

PATIENTS
Persons who received an inactivated influenza vaccine during the 2016-2017 influenza season.

MEASUREMENTS
Potential incident cases were identified by searching administrative data for persons with a shoulder bursitis diagnostic code within 180 days after receiving an injectable influenza vaccine in the same arm. The date of reported bursitis symptom onset was abstracted from the medical record. A self-controlled risk interval analysis was used to calculate the incidence rate ratio of bursitis in a risk interval of 0 to 2 days after vaccination versus a control interval of 30 to 60 days, which represents the background rate. The attributable risk was also estimated.

RESULTS
The cohort included 2 943 493 vaccinated persons. Sixteen cases of symptom onset in the risk interval and 51 cases of symptom onset in the control interval were identified. The median age of persons in the risk interval was 57.5 years (range, 24 to 98 years), and 69% were women. The incidence rate ratio was 3.24 (95% CI, 1.85 to 5.68). The attributable risk was 7.78 (CI, 2.19 to 13.38) additional cases of bursitis per 1 million persons vaccinated.

LIMITATION
The results may not be generalizable to vaccinations done in other types of health care settings.

CONCLUSION
Although an increased risk for bursitis after vaccination was present, the absolute risk was small.

PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Temperature and productivity appear as universal positive correlates of species richness. However, the strength and the shape of species-temperature (STR) and species-productivity (SPR) relationships vary widely, and the causes of this variation are poorly known. We analysed (1) published species richness data for multiple taxa sampled in various regions and (2) different clades within vertebrate classes globally, to test for the effects of spatial scale and characteristics of examined taxa and regions on the strength and direction of STRs and SPRs. There are striking differences in the variation of the relationships among types of data, between ectotherms and endotherms and also between STRs and SPRs. Some sources of this variation are of statistical nature (e.g. the relationships are stronger if the range of temperature or productivity variation is wider), but non-statistical sources are more important and illuminate the processes responsible for the origin of biodiversity patterns. The SPRs are generally stronger and less variable than STRs, and SPR variation is weakly related to the explored factors – the SPRs are stronger in warmer regions in ectotherms, while clade size is the only factor consistently affecting the strength of the SPR in endotherms. In contrast, STRs are weaker and more variable, and this variation is linked to region characteristics - most importantly, STRs are stronger in the regions where temperature positively correlates with productivity, indicating that productivity plays a role even in the STRs. The effect of temperature on species richness is thus complex and context-dependent, while productivity is a more universal driver of species richness patterns, largely independent of particular characteristics of given region or taxon. Productivity thus appears as the main proximate driver of species richness patterns, probably due to its effect on the limits of the number of viable populations which can coexist in a given environment.


There are differences in number and localization of nucleolus organizer regions (NORs) in genomes. In mammalian genomes, NORs are located on autosomes, which are often situated on short arms of acrocentric chromosomes and more rarely in telomeric, pericentromeric, or interstitial regions. In this work, we report the unique case of active NORs located on gonоsomes of a eutherian mammal, the Javan mouse-deer (Tragulus javanicus). We have investigated the position of NORs by FISH experiments with ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequences (18S, 5.8S, and 28S) and show the presence of a single NOR site on the X and Y chromosomes. The NOR is localized interstitially on the p-arm of the X chromosome in close proximity with prominent C-positive heterochromatin blocks and in the pericentromeric area of mostly heterochromatic Y. The NOR sites are active on both the X and Y chromosomes in the studied individual and surrounded by GC enriched heterochromatin. We hypothesize that the surrounding heterochromatin might have played a role in the transfer of NORs from autosomes to sex chromosomes during the karyotype evolution of the Javan mouse-deer.


Ligand shells of gold nanoclusters play important roles in regulating their molecular and electronic structures. However, the similar but distinct impacts of the homologous analogues of the protecting ligands remain elusive. The C2v symmetric monoarsine-protected cluster [Au13(AsPh3)8Cl4]+ (Au13As8) was facilely prepared by direct reduction of (Ph3As)AuCl with NaBH4. This cluster is isostructural with its previously reported stibine analogue [Au13(SbPh3)8Cl4]+ (Au13Sb8), enabling a comparative study between them. Au13As8 exhibits a blue-shifted electronic absorption band, and this is probably related to the stronger π-back donation interactions between the Au13 core and AsPh3 ligands, which destabilize its superatomic 1P and 1D orbitals. In comparison to the thermodynamically less stable Au13Sb8, Au13As8 achieves a better trade-off between catalytic stability and activity, as demonstrated by its excellent catalytic performance towards the aldehyde–alkyne–amine (A3) coupling reaction. Moreover, the ligand exchange reactions between Au13As8 with phosphines, as exemplified by PPh3 and Ph2P(CH2)2PPh2, suggest that Au13As8 may be a good precursor cluster for further cluster preparation through the "cluster-to-cluster" route.


PURPOSE
This study was undertaken to assess directly whether there is uveoscleral outflow in the mouse eye by monitoring the movement of intracamerally injected fluorescent dextran.

METHODS
After anesthesia, NIH Swiss mice received intracameral injection of 1.5 microL of 0.2 pg/microL 70-kDa dextran conjugated to tetramethyl-rhodamine and to lysine. After survival times of 10, 20, 60, and 120 minutes, the experiments were terminated by transcardial perfusion with 2% paraformaldehyde. The eyes were enucleated and embedded in paraffin, and sections were prepared. These sections were then analyzed by fluorescence microscopy.

RESULTS
Fluorescent tracer in the eyes of animals that survived for 10 minutes was prominent in the iris root and ciliary processes and was of moderate intensity in the adjacent sclera. Moderate intensity fluorescence also was observed in the trabecular meshwork and adjacent cornea. At 20 minutes, intense fluorescence was observed in the ciliary processes and the ciliary muscle. This fluorescence in the ciliary muscle extended from the posterior edge of the ciliary muscle's tail into the anterior choroid. At 60 minutes, the fluorescence in the choroid extended to the equator and adjacent sclera. The intensity of the fluorescence within the ciliary processes of these eyes was substantially reduced when compared with the 20-minute-survival eyes. At 120 minutes, label was observed only within trabecular meshwork and Schlemm's canal.

CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that at least a portion of aqueous outflow in the mouse eye is through the uveoscleral outflow pathway.


Purpose - The central objective of this paper is to assess the heritage values of two case study sites in the Kathmandu Valley using a living heritage approach by emphasising the role of the core community. The core community in a living heritage site is the community that created the site and maintained it over centuries, and will continue to do so into the future while adapting to change. Understanding the value of a site is important for the conservation of heritage because values help shape decisions on conservation. Assessment of heritage values helps to identify the values associated with heritage sites. Design/methodology/approach - A case study approach was employed for the research. Questionnaire surveys were conducted with the core community and stakeholders. Surveys of the stakeholders looked for any difference in opinion between them and the core community. The empirical data were collected at two living heritage sites located in Kathmandu and Lalitpur in Nepal. Findings - The findings of the paper provide insights for the conservation of living heritage in the Kathmandu Valley. It shows how the community perceives and assess the significance of heritage sites. It also shows the values considered important by the core community and stakeholders, and the values that have changed over the years. Aesthetic and architectural values were ranked high by the core community. Originality/value - The approach employed was adopted to assess heritage values by the core community. A living heritage site is dependent on the core community, so their perception of heritage value is important and should be the basis of conservation of living heritage. This paper provides a framework for conserving and managing heritage sites by the core community with support and guidance from wider community members and government authorities.


The first stage of adolescence generally occurs from the age of ten years to age 14, while the second phase spans the period 15-19 years. Both are important phases during which the growing individual requires considerable attention. The needs of adolescents, however, have never been fully understood by parents, society, policymakers, and health professionals, so they tend to be overwhelmingly neglected in health as well as in education and development programs. Many adolescents do not have adequate knowledge about the maturation process through which they are going, and little useful information is provided about those paltry health services which are available to them. First, adolescents need to be involved as partners in planning and implementing the health services which they will ultimately receive. Service providers then need to be trained, especially in listening skills, to provide the highest level of quality care. Adolescents should then be provided with relevant information on sexual matters within the appropriate cultural context, as well as nutrition education and education about the hazards of smoking and alcohol and drug abuse. Quality, confidential counseling must be ensured. Finally, coherent laws and policies must be developed and implemented with regard to marriage age, sexual and child abuse, abortion, and the fate of pregnant, unmarried adolescents.


We develop an index that effectively measures the level of social tension generated by income class segregation. We adopt the basic concepts of between-group difference (or alienation) and within-group similarity (or identification) from the income [bi]polarization literature; but we allow for asymmetric degrees of between-group antagonism in the alienation function, and construct a more effective identification function using both the relative degree of within-group clustering and the group size. To facilitate statistical inference, we derive the asymptotic distribution of the proposed measure using results from U-statistics. As the new measure is general enough to include existing income polarization indices as well as the Gini index as special cases, the asymptotic result can be readily applied to these popular indices. Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data suggests that, while the level of social tension shows an upward trend over the sample period of 1981 to 2005, government's taxes and transfers have been effective in reducing the level of social tension significantly.


Purpose: This is a pilot study to identify patient safety risk factors and strategies for patient safety management perceived by nurses. Methods: Data were collected and analyzed with an open questionnaire from April to May 2005, targeted on 100 nurses working in two hospitals. The issues were ``what are risk factors for patients, nurses, and other medical practitioners? How do they prevent with the aftermath of risk factors, causes of incidents?` For data analysis, types and frequency of risk factors were worked out, using the Australian Incident Monitoring System Taxonomy. Results: The types of patient safety risk factor perceived by nurses were as follows ; therapeutic devices or equipment, infrastructure and services (29.5%), nosocomial infections (16.3%), clinical processes or procedures (15.4%), behavior, human performance, violence, aggression, security and safety (12.2%), therapeutic agents (9.7%), injuries and pressure ulcers (8.7%), logistics, organization, documentation, and infrastructure technology (5.6%). Strategies for patient safety included training of prevention of infection, education about safety management for patients and medical professionals, establishment of reporting system, culture of care, pre-elimination of risk factors, cooperative system among employees, and sharing information. Conclusion: These results will be used to provide evidences for patient safety management and educational program.


The objective of the atmospheric dispersion research projects of INERIS are to develop models of flashing releases as encountered in realistic industrial environments. Equivalent source term models exist for flashing release in current long range dispersion models. Several factors can, however, invalidate simplified equivalent source models, especially in the very near field where obstacles can be found. To perform these objectives, INERIS took part in an European project called FLIE (Flashing Liquids in Industrial Environment). In this project, INERIS carried out large-scale experiments with propane and butane releases. The French ministry in charge of Environment also supported INERIS participation which dealt with the modelling of two-phase jets. This paper aims at presenting the large-scale experiments and the main results relative to the rain out observations. The experimental set-up is located in the INERIS test site. It allows performing propane and butane liquid releases at ambient temperature with a regulated pressure from the saturation pressure to 15 bar with an orifice (circular or rectangular shape) of an equivalent diameter from 10 mm to 25 mm. It is possible to realize free jets but also impinging jets by introducing obstacle at a maximum distance of 2 meters from the release point. To develop models requires experimental validation data. Up to now, little of experiments were carried out on a great scale with such a variety of measurements. The results revealed some new points related in particular to the rain-out which are seldom discussed in the literature and which can be useful to develop models of flashing releases. Another important lesson learnt is that pools formed by LPG release jets do not contain liquid exclusively but also a mixture with ice. This has a great influence on the pool evaporation.