Traffic congestion has been one of the major issues that most urban areas are facing and thus, many solutions have been developed and deployed in order to mitigate its negative effects. Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) have been used over the past two decades to provide travelers with pre-trip or real-time traffic information. Most of the efforts have focused on providing timely traffic information at locations with regularly occurring congestion. ATIS can be used to provide travelers with pre-trip and on-route travel information necessary to improve trip decision making with respect to various criteria (e.g. minimizing delay, constraining travel to specific modes). Many jurisdictions within Canada and the United States have implemented the 511 travel information system that provides traffic information, road conditions and closures, traffic cameras, etc.
Several studies were conducted on vehicle routing optimization methods in ATIS. Most of them consider passenger vehicles as the only transportation mode in their routing algorithm. Others that include two transportation modes are mostly based on shortest path algorithms. However, a probabilistic based route optimization approach could better capture the stochastic characteristic of road traffic conditions. This research investigates an adaptive routing methodology for multi-modal transportation networks. A routing algorithm based on Markov decision processes is proposed to capture short-term traffic characteristics of transportation networks. Graph theory is used to model typical travel behavior within a multimodal network. This thesis proposes to use special network modeling elements, e.g. super nodes, to allow the integration of public transportation schedule into the model via the publicly available predefined timetables. The proposed routing algorithm applies an iterative function to select the optimal transportation mode/route through the network junctions along a given path.
The proposed methodology is applied to several real-world networks of motorized and non-motorized modes located in the central business district in Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal and Longueuil in Quebec. The networks include train, bus, streetcar, subway and bicycle transportation facilities. Microsimulation models of the networks developed in VISSIM and AIMSUN are used to estimate travel times along major arterials, for all transportation modes and for different traffic demands and congestion levels. The simulation models were calibrated using volume and speed data. The developed routing algorithm is applied to several scenarios in order to estimate optimal routes for a hypothetical traveler moving between two arbitrarily selected nodes in the network. The results identify the most efficient combination of transportation modes that the travelers have to use given specific constraints pertaining to traffic and transit service conditions. It is also shown that by applying the proposed algorithm to bus lines, transit agencies can have significant cost savings by rerouting their fleet.
The results of the proposed research have the potential to be integrated into various Intelligent Transportation Systems applications by combining available traveler information services. It can assist travelers in making more informed decisions regarding their travel plans and provide transportation agencies with an overall assessment of the system and its performance. For example, it can be used to minimize the impact of congested traffic conditions on the overall travel time and/or cost incurred by travelers as well as the operating cost of transit agencies.


Understanding the charge transport mechanisms in chirality-selected single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) networks and the influence of network parameters is essential for further advances of their optoelectronic and thermoelectric applications. Here, we report on charge density and temperature-dependent field-effect mobility and on-chip field-effect-modulated Seebeck coefficient measurements of polymer-sorted monochiral small-diameter (6,5) (0.76 nm) and mixed large-diameter SWCNT (1.17-1.55 nm) networks (plasma torch nanotubes, RN) with different network densities and length distributions. All untreated networks display balanced ambipolar transport and electron-hole symmetric Seebeck coefficients. We show that charge and thermoelectric transport in SWCNT networks can be modeled by the Boltzmann transport formalism, incorporating transport in heterogeneous media and fluctuation-induced tunneling. Considering the diameter-dependent one-dimensional density of states (DoS) of the SWCNTs composing the network, we can simulate the charge density and temperature-dependent Seebeck coefficients. Our simulations suggest that scattering in these networks cannot be described as simple one-dimensional acoustic and optical phonon scattering as for single SWCNTs. Instead the relaxation time is inversely proportional to energy (τ ∝ (E - EC)s, s = -1, EC being the energy of the first van Hove singularity), presumably pointing toward the more two-dimensional character of scattering events and the necessity to include scattering at the SWCNT junctions. Finally, our observation of higher power factors in trap-free, 1,2,4,5-tetrakis(tetramethylguanidino)benzene-treated (6,5) networks than in the RN networks emphasizes the importance of chirality selection to tune the width of the DoS. To benefit from both higher intrinsic mobilities and a large thermally accessible DoS, we propose trap-free, narrow DoS distribution, large-diameter SWCNT networks for both electronic and thermoelectric applications.


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/NASA Oceans Pathfinder sea surface temperature (SST) data are derived from measurements made by the advanced very high resolution radiometers (AVHRRs) on board the NOAA 7, 9, 11, and 14 polar orbiting satellites. All versions of the Pathfinder SST algorithm are based on the NOAA/National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service nonlinear SST operational algorithm (NLSST). Improvements to the NLSST operational algorithm developed by the Pathfinder program include the use of monthly calibration coefficients selected on the basis of channel brightness temperature difference (T4–T5). This channel difference is used as a proxy for water vapor regime. The latest version (version 4.2) of the Pathfinder processing includes the use of decision trees to determine objectively pixel cloud contamination and quality level (0–7) of the SST retrieval. The 1985–1998 series of AVHRR global measurements has been reprocessed using the Pathfinder version 4.2 processing protocol and is available at various temporal and spatial resolutions from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center. One of the highlights of the Pathfinder program is that in addition to the daily global area coverage fields, a matchup database of coincident in situ buoy and satellite SST observations also is made available for independent algorithm development and validation.


We propose a new model of self-organized criticality. A particle is dropped at random on a lattice and moves along directions specified by arrows at each site. As it moves, it changes the direction of the arrows according to fixed rules. On closed graphs these walks generate Euler circuits. On open graphs, the particle eventually leaves the system, and a new particle is then added. The operators corresponding to particle addition generate an Abelian group, same as the group for the Abelian sandpile model on the graph. We determine the critical steady state and some critical exponents exactly, using this equivalence.


The circular dichroism spectra are reported for tetraamminecobalt(III) complexes with the chiral amino alcohols 2-aminopropan-1-ol, 2- aminobutan-1-ol, 1-aminopropan-2-ol, 2-amino-1-phenyl-ethanol, ψ- ephedrine and ephedrine with the alcohol groups protonated (OH) and deprotonated (O-). The solvent dependence of the chemical shifts of the NH protons was investigated to determine the effects of stereoselective solvation on the circular dichroism, but, in contrast to some other related systems, the chemical shift difference between the two NH2 protons was relatively insensitive to solvent. Consistent with this, the circular dichroism spectra of the tetraphenylborate salts of the deprotonated complexes were found not to be markedly dependent on solvent. Tetraammine-{(-)-ψ-ephedrine)cobalt(III) and tetraammine{(-)- ephedrine}cobalt(III) were found to have the same signs of Cotton effects for the various d-d transitions, whereas bis{(-)-ψ- ephedrine}copper(II) and bis{(-)-ephedrine}copper(II) had opposite signs. This has been explained in terms of different conformer populations in the cobalt(III) and copper(II) systems.


This chapter gives an overview of different strategies used in green analytical chemistry for analysing organic pollutants in the environment. Although green analytical chemistry is not a new approach for environmental analysis, the present chapter presents innovations that have been achieved recently. The chapter also discusses analytical techniques that have not been covered in previous publications; these include the use of green solvents for sample preparation, recent developments for chromatographic separations, improvements in greening the interfaces for mass spectrometric analysis and biological techniques for sample preparation and detection. Some examples using green analytical techniques for the determination of organic pollutants in the environment are presented.


Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of trust, informational support and integrative behaviors in the effective outcomes of peer conflict in the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach
Deidentified secondary data were provided by a human resource management company that offers conflict resolution training. The authors studied a sample of 815 supervisors and middle-level managers (51% female; average age = 40) who reported their primary work experience was in the USA. Each respondent described a workplace conflict with a peer. A regression-based bootstrapping technique was used to test the hypothesized relationships between the constructs of trust, informational support, integrative behaviors and effective outcomes in peer conflict.

Findings
The relationship between trust and the use of integrative behaviors during peer conflict is conditional on the availability of informational support, such that those who solicit a third party's views are more likely to exhibit integrative behaviors during the conflict under study, even at relatively lower levels of trust in the conflict relationship.

Originality/value
In this study, the authors add to social interdependence theory and the role of integrative behaviors by proposing the importance of interpersonal trust and informational support, which may reduce uncertainty during peer conflict. The authors also extend existing literature on cooperation, cooperative approaches to managing conflict and integrative behaviors in the workplace by examining peer-to-peer organizational conflict.


Almost all patients with chronic asthma will derive benefit from self-measurement of PEF. Unquestionably, this is of value for educating patients about their disease and treatment, leading in turn to improved compliance. It will be several years before it becomes clear what proportion of patients are willing to manage their asthma themselves and are sufficiently competent in the interpretation of their measurement of PEF to do so safely. It remains to be seen what effect greater use of PEF measurement by patients will have upon present levels of morbidity and mortality from asthma.


The purpose of this study was to determine if loading post-restored teeth at different angles would affect their fracture resistance. Thirty maxillary central incisors were treated endodontically to within 5.0 mm of the apex. Standardized cast post and cores were fabricated using plastic #4 Parapost patterns. Post and cores were cemented using zinc phosphate cement, followed by crowns of average dimensions. Ten teeth each were loaded at 110, 130, and 150 degrees to the long axis of the tooth. Mean failure loads were: 110 degrees = 372.4 N +/- 140.8 (SD); 130 degrees = 597.6 N +/- 138.5 (SD); 150 degrees = 1274.3 N +/- 429.9 (SD). There were significant differences in fracture resistance between teeth tested at the following angles: 110 degrees versus 150 degrees (P < .0001), and 130 degrees versus 150 degrees (P < .0001), but not for 110 degrees versus 130 degrees (P = .2016). Mean failure loads increased as load angle approached parallelism to the long axis of the teeth. Significant differences in fracture resistance of post-restored teeth can occur as a result of load angle.


An adverse drug reaction (ADR) is an unwanted, undesirable effect of a medication that occurs during usual clinical use. Adverse drug reactions happen nearly day by day in health care educate and can unfavourably influence a patient's quality of life, frequently causing significant morbidity and mortality. Much attention has been given to distinguishing the patient populations most at hazard, the drugs most commonly mindful, and the potential causes of ADRs


: We have simulated electrical and vagal stimulation of a central sino-atrial node cell. Both positive and negative chronotropic effects have been observed. The type of the effect is dependent on the phase of stimulation. Stimulation in early phases resulted in shortening of the cycle, while stimulation in late phases resulted in prolongation of the cycle.


Watermarking is used in several areas such as CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), as part of the rights management system for counterfeit prevention. Watermarking schemes need some additional features in order to be used in digital cinema. In fact, extra watermarks are added to movies by cinema projectors in projection time, which help identify the cinema hall in which the illegal copy has been recorded. But distortions caused by hand vibrations and the point of view angle make it difficult to recover the watermark. This makes it necessary to be distortion-resistant for the watermarking schemes used in digital cinema. On the other hand, theatre owners would like to locate the camcorder that has recorded the pirate copy. This requires watermarking schemes to be able to estimate the distance and angle using the distributed pirate copy. In this chapter, we present a review on watermarking techniques specifically designed to attack the aforementioned problems.


Background: Pulmonary Surfactant therapy is commonly used for the treatment of the respiratory distress syndrome. This therapy is usually given to preterm infants who are mechanically ventilated using an endotracheal tube; however, non-invasive ways of administration are in study and try to avoid mechanical ventilation by the application of surfactant to spontaneously breathing infants. A method of surfactant delivery using a gastric catheter trough the trachea during spontaneous breathing with nCPAP seems to be potentially effective, reducing the need of MV and the incidence of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, and requires more investigation.
Objective: The main aim of this study is to evaluate whether LISA technique is related to a lower need of MV and to a lower rate of BPD in extremely preterm infants with Respiratory Distress Syndrome than in infants treated with INSURE.
Design: This study has been designed as a multicenter, randomized, two group controlled clinical trial, in which the reference center will be Hospital Universitari Doctor Josep Trueta, during a period of time of two years and six months.
Methods: Preterm infants with GA<32weeks and with surfactant requirements, who can be stabilized with nCPAP in the delivery room, will be randomized to receive pulmonary surfactant therapy either by LISA procedure or INSURE technique. In both groups patients receive a dose of 200mg of Poractant α and will be followed up during a period of three months


We have performed density functional theory calculations on an oxo-iron porphyrin catalyst with chloride as an axial ligand and tested its reactivity toward propene. The reactions proceed via multistate reactivity on competing doublet and quartet spin surfaces. Close-lying epoxidation and hydroxylation mechanisms are identified, whereby in the gas phase the epoxidation reaction is dominant, while in environments with a large dielectric constant the hydroxylation pathways become competitive. By contrast to reactions with thiolate as an axial ligand all low-lying pathways have small ring-closure and rebound barriers, so it is expected that side products and rearrangements will be unlikely with Fe=O(porphyrin)Cl, whereas with Fe=O(porphyrin)SH some side products were predicted. The major differences in the electronic configurations of Fe=O(porphyrin)Cl and Fe=O(porphyrin)SH are due to strong mixing of thiolate orbitals with iron 3d orbitals, a mixing which is much less with chloride as an axial ligand. Predictions of the reactivity of ethylbenzene-h (12) versus ethylbenzene-d (12) are made.


Introduction: A 29 year old female of Pakistani origin was diagnosed with MDR-TB affecting cervical nodes, with pulmonary and laryngeal disease demonstrated on CT. Genotypic (and subsequent phenotypic) testing demonstrated pre-XDR resistance pattern with Izoniazid, Rifampicin, Ethambutol & Fluroquinolone resistance. Methods: Following commencement of induction regimen with Amikacin, Cycloserine, Prothionamide, Pyrazinamide, Linezolid and Clofazimine, borderline ototoxicity developed after 6 months, necessitating a switch from Amikacin to Bedaquiline. After around 10 months, Linezolid and Cycloserine were discontinued sequentially due to progressively debilitating peripheral neuropathy, PAS was subsequently added to the regimen which was poorly tolerated. PAS was substituted for Delaminid (used with Bedaquiline, Clofazimine and Pyrazinamide) despite concerns regarding potential cumulative QTc prolongation effects. Patient was counselled regarding risk of cardiac arrhythmias; fortnightly ECG monitoring was agreed to for three months, then monthly thereafter. Manual calculations of QTc were performed using Fredericia formula. Results: QTc rose maximally to 491 ms (89ms greater than baseline). Clinical and radiological monitoring demonstrated favourable improvement in condition. No further adverse events or toxicities were reported. The patient continues to tolerate the regimen well with no components of the regimen requiring discontinuation. Dicussion: Bedaquiline and Delamanid are rarely used together in combination due to risk of QTc prolongation; in this clinical case they were used with no concerns being raised regarding safety or tolerability. Our experience corresponds with the international data produced by Ferlazzo et al. Whilst further large volume safety data is awaited, compassionate use of alternative drug regimens within strict monitoring guidelines should be considered.


The therapeutic efficacy of pooled bovine colostrum for the control of cryptosporidiosis was investigated during murine acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in female C57Bl/6 mice. Mice were infected with LP-BM5 murine leukemia retrovirus for four months and then inoculated with Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts. Persistent cryptosporidiosis was established in all retrovirus immunosuppressed mice, while control mice were refractory to infection. Parasite colonization of intestinal villi was significantly (P < 0.05) reduced in immunosuppressed animals that received dietary supplemental pooled bovine colostrum compared with to those that did not receive colostrum treatment. Similarly, shedding of oocysts in the feces of immunosuppressed animals that received dietary pooled bovine colostrum was significantly (P < 0.05) reduced compared with those that did not at 26 days post-parasite challenge. Since the nonimmune bovine colostrum contained no anti-Cryptosporidium antibodies, this suggests that passively transferred antibodies alone are unlikely to have provided the improved resistance shown in this study.


Abstract Few data on the copper and zinc contents of convenience items and frozen foods have been reported in the literature. In this study, selected meats, frozen vegetables, and convenience items were analyzed for copper and zinc content by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Foods found to have the highest copper content tended to be highest in zinc as well. Beef liver was an outstanding source of both minerals. Protein foods were generally good sources of zinc, supplying more than 2 mg/100-gm serving. Foods containing more than 0.2 mg copper per 100 gm were considered to be good sources. Examples included chicken livers, garbanzo beans, frozen Mexican-style dinner, and frozen brownies. Most of the other foods analyzed contained relatively small amounts of copper and zinc. Nevertheless, the contribution of such foods to the total daily copper and zinc intake illustrates the desirability of including a wide variety of foods in the diet.


The objective of the present research investigation was to reveal the versatile nature of endophytic Aspergillus nomius EF8-RSM. The fungus was purified from Aloe vera, Western Ghats of Karnataka, India and sequence was submitted at NCBI under the accession number MN871698. The fungus successfully produced Indole acetic acid at the rate of 49.21±6.1 μg/ml and phosphate solubilization was confirmed with solubilization index (1.63). The fungus showed production of siderophore, ammonia and HCN. The fungus showed the production of cellulase, amylase, chitinase, xylanase, pectinase and gelatinase with R²= 0.2543. The fungus further showed the production of AgNPs within 5.86±0.41 h and AgNPs were showed spherical shape with 21 nm of size under SEM. We concluded that the present research investigation is the first report available from the Aloe vera for versatile nature of endophytic fungus.  Cite this Article Rohit Shankar Mane, Farzana Ashrafi Neela, Ankala Basappa Vedamurthy. Characterization of Endofungus Aspergillus nomius EF8-RSM Isolated from Aloe vera Western Ghats of Karnataka India. Research and Reviews: A Journal of Pharmaceutical Science . 2020; 11(1): 22–30p.


The residual phytase activity, phytic acid P content, and microstructure of the digesta along the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of broiler chickens fed a corn expressing microbial phytase was studied in a 14-d experiment. The phytase activity of the corn expressing phytase (CBP) was determined to be 660 phytase units/g and was incorporated into broiler diets at varying rates. One hundred forty-four 7-d-old male broiler chickens were grouped by weight into 8 blocks of 3 cages with 6 birds per cage. Three dietary treatments were randomly allotted to the cages within blocks. The corn-soybean meal-based diets consisting of low P and Ca (no added inorganic P) supplemented with 0 (control), 55, or 550 g/kg of CBP (substituting corn) were formulated to contain 0 (control), 36,300, or 363,000 phytase units/kg of phytase activity, respectively. Birds were fed the dietary treatments for 14 d when they were killed and digesta samples from the proventriculus and gizzard, jejunum, and ileum were collected. The residual phytase activity along the GIT increased linearly and quadratically (P < 0.01) with the addition of CBP to the control diets. There was a decrease (P < 0.01) in residual phytase activity as digesta moved distally along the GIT with CBP supplementation. Phytic acid P content significantly decreased (linear, P < 0.01; quadratic, P < 0.05) with CBP supplementation of the control diets. There was substantial degradation (linear and quadratic, P < 0.01) of phytic acid content caudally along the GIT of birds. Extensive cell wall degradation of digesta samples from the proventriculus and gizzard in broilers fed the highest level of CBP compared with birds fed the control diets was observed. The addition of CBP to control diets led to a rapid degradation of the cell walls of digesta and a marked reduction in phytic acid P concentration of digesta in broiler chicks.


Cognitive radio presents a new approach to wireless spectrum utilization and management. In this work, the potential performance improvement gained by applying cognitive radio to multiple-provider wireless systems is investigated. It is shown that virtual wireless networks can be created, utilizing only the residual wasted bandwidth of the primary service providers. These virtual networks are able to support large volumes of users, while still ensuring that QoS reliability requirements, such as blocking and dropping guarantees, are achieved. A Markov chain-based analysis of classic and cognitive systems is complemented by simulations in order to present a quantified perspective of the potential benefits of cognitive radio techniques.


This article examines the presence of cyber-religion, the worldwide increasing use of the Internet for religious purposes, in which religion is migrating online as its strategies of adaptation and shaping a new environment. It aims to look at the phenomenon of religious migration to virtual world and its possible implications for secularization thesis. The article argues that the massive emergence of online religion serves a (another) counterpoint to the prediction of the end of religion in modern society as proposed by the proponents of secularization theory. It also claims that religious use of the Internet among religion surfers has no significant impacts on the real world organized religions and their religious communal identity.


Punctures of the pelvic crest made in 45 patients with CLL (25 men, 20 women, mean age 58.7 years) were classified according to the type of lymphatic bone-marrow infiltrations which can be identified histomorphologically. Four different types were distinguished: 1. interstitial type (lymphatic infiltration of bone-marrow tracts, with lipocytes being present) - 11 cases 2. nodular type (nodular infiltration, free bone-marrow tracts) - 5 cases 3. mixed type (combination of interstitial and nodular type) - 11 cases 4. diffuse type (original haematopoiesis and fat cells have been displaced, type A: purely diffuse type; type B: diffuse + nodular) - 18 cases The statistical analysis of survival curves reveals significant differences in the probability for survival to be met with in types with morphologically limited bone-marrow infiltration in the sense of a proceeding deterioration of prognosis in the following order: interstitial, nodular, mixed, and diffuse type. In addition, a statistically significant correlation existing between the non-diffuse infiltration types and clinical early stages (RAI 0 to II) on the one hand, and the diffuse type and clinical late stages (RAI III and IV) on the other hand, could be identified. In the course of CLL the different types of lymphatic bone-marrow infiltration apparently reflect different degrees of lymphocyte accumulation or proliferation respectively. Because of their significance the histomorphological bone-marrow findings should be included in the therapy planning for CLL.


The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as an enormous challenge facing China today. Preventive Medicine physicians and Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers try to improve the ability to early automatic warning of coronavirus infections, promote epidemic prevention, and reduce medical costs using deep learning methods. In this work, we build an extensive database of chest computed tomography (CT) scans with image data from domestic and international open-source medical datasets. Swin Transformer is chosen as the backbone network to establish a model (STCovidNet) for the prediction of COVID-19. We then compare the performance of our technique against that of Vision Transformer (ViT) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Next, to visualize our model's high-dimensional outputs in 2-dimensional space, we apply t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) as the dimension-reduction strategy. Finally, we employ gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) to present a class activation map. The results indicate that STCovidNet's performance surpasses ViT and CNN with a 0.9811 AUC and 0.9858 accuracy score. Our network outperforms previous techniques to reduce intra-class variability and generate well-separated feature embedding. The CAM figure illustrates that the decision region corresponds to radiologists' detecting spots. The suggested method can be an effective way of catching COVID-19 instances.


In a standard text on open and distance learning, computer conferencing appears with advantages and disadvantages that rely on the capacity of the conference to 'facilitate' students and staff working together (Mason, 1994). Co-operation or collaboration are seen as unproblematic outcomes of the use of the computer conference. Hiltz noted that collaboration is both technically facilitated and becomes a moral requirement that involves a respecification of the teacher's role (Hiltz and Benbunan-Fich, 1997, p. 1). The outlook that associates collaborative learning with computer conferencing can be found throughout a wide range of literature (Mason and Kaye, 1989; Harasim, 1990; Kaye, 1992; McConnell, 1994; Harasim et al., 1995; O'Malley, 1995; Jonassen, 1996). DOI: 10.1080/0968776990070204


In this paper, a sensitive and simple technique for parasitic interconnect capacitance measurement with 0.01 fF sensitivity is presented. This on-chip technique is based upon an efficient test structure design. No reference capacitor is needed. Only a DC current meter is required for its measurement. We have applied this technique to extract various interconnect geometry capacitances and compared the results to those from 3D simulations.


With the aid of a monoclonal antibody-based ELISA assay, the fibronectin binding properties of poly(styrene) bacteriologic and tissue culture petri plates were studied. After treatment of the plastics with serum, both the rate of fibronectin binding and the maximum amount of fibronectin bound were found to be lower for bacteriologic than tissue culture plates. In contrast, when treated with purified fibronectin rather than serum, bacteriologic and tissue culture plates bound fibronectin equally well. Thus, serum proteins are more effective in inhibiting fibronectin binding to bacteriologic petri plates than to tissue culture dishes. The fibronectin binding properties of plastic substrata could be enhanced by oxidation with H2SO4 or diminished by dissolution and recasting of tissue culture dishes. Thus, the fibronectin binding properties of bacteriologic and tissue culture dishes can be interconverted. Plastics with enhanced fibronectin binding properties (tissue culture plates) were found to be hydrophilic and good substrates for cell attachment and growth while plastics with decreased fibronectin binding characteristics were found to be hydrophobic and poor substrates for cell attachment and growth. The cell-adhesive properties of bacteriologic and tissue culture plastic substrata were found to vary during incubation with cells. While cells remained firmly attached and spread on tissue culture plastics over a period of 5 days or more, previously attached cells gradually detached from bacteriologic plastics at incubation times beyond 12 h. The gradual detachment of cells from bacteriologic plates probably explains the poor properties of bacteriologic plastics for the growth of anchorage-dependent cells, in particular.


In this paper we compare the in-sample fit and out-of-sample forecasting performance of no-arbitrage quadratic and essentially affine term structure models, as well as the dynamic Nelson-Siegel model. In total eleven model variants are evaluated, comprising five quadratic, four affine and two Nelson-Siegel models. Recursive re-estimation and out-of-sample one-, six- and twelve-months ahead forecasts are generated and evaluated using monthly US data for yields observed at maturities of 1, 6, 12, 24, 60 and 120 months. Our results indicate that quadratic models provide the best in-sample fit, while the best out-of-sample performance is generated by three-factor affine models and the dynamic Nelson-Siegel model variants. However, statistical tests fail to identify one single-best forecasting model class. JEL Classification: C14, C15, G12


Some theorems in graph theory, which have received little use in circuit theory, are used to derive constraints on the voltage, current, and power associated with the elements in a dc-to-dc conversion network. The result is an insight into the necessary roles of the switches and reactances in the network. The application of the graph theorems to this problem shows their flexibility, and it is expected that they will prove useful in other areas of circuit theory.


It is a firmly established fact that morbid processes affecting the motor cortex of the brain may produce convulsions of the muscles of the opposite side of the body. These convulsive seizures are the symptoms of motor irritation. Such localized convulsions are, therefore, referred to as "cortical epilepsy" or jacksonian convulsions. It is generally believed, however, that typical jacksonian seizures do not occur when the subcortical parts of the brain, such as the corona radiata, alone are involved, and that when jacksonian attacks have occurred as the result of cortical irritation, subsequent destruction of the motor cortex or of the subcortical motor pathways will bring about cessation of the convulsions. It was this belief that led Hughlings Jackson to suggest excision of the motor cortex for the cure of certain cases of epilepsy. Since endotheliomas may originate in the meninges and involve the brain, not by infiltration, but by contiguity


The software-defined networking (SDN) paradigm allows network operators to conveniently deploy network services through a centralized controller. Recent interest in SDNs has fueled the implementation of a variety of network services on controllers written in different languages and supported by different organizations. Given the large number of network services and their increasing complexity, no single controller can provide all network services. Even if a controller provides all the desired services, it is unlikely to have the best-in-class implementation of all those services. To address this problem, we propose a framework for composing a control plane using controllers from different vendors. The framework applies services implemented on heterogeneous controllers to the same network traffic. Allowing network operators to deploy services implemented on heterogeneous controllers prevents vendor lock-in at the control plane. Furthermore, network operators can quickly deploy a new service by integrating a controller (possibly supplied by a different vendor) into the framework. Our framework is designed to operate in a way that is transparent to the controllers and does not require additional standardization.


A method is presented for calculating the aerodynamic heating and shear stresses at the wall for tangent ogive noses that are slender enough to maintain an attached nose shock through that portion of flight during which heat transfer from the boundary layer to the wall is significant. The lower entropy of the attached nose shock combined with the inclusion of the streamwise pressure gradient yields a reasonable estimate of the actual flow conditions. Both laminar and turbulent boundary layers are examined and an approximation of the effects of (up to) moderate angles-of-attack is included in the analysis. The analytical method has been programmed in FORTRAN IV for an IBM 360/91 computer.


Several EEG studies have reported an early component of the visual evoked potential. However, it is controversial whether this component is cortical or subcortical. Our study has aimed to clarify this problem using MEG and EEG in nine normal volunteers. A total of 4000 stimuli were presented to the monocular visual hemifield through a light-proof stimulating goggle and the visual evoked magnetic field and visual evoked potential was measured above the occipital lobe. The early component was observed in three of the nine subjects. The latency ranged from 40 to 45 ms in MEG and from 39 to 47 ms in EEG. The result of dipole localization analysis showed that its origin was cortical, and specifically, the striate cortex.


In this paper, we consider the design of integrated radar and communication systems that utilize weighted pulse trains with the elements of Oppermann sequences serving as complex-valued weights. An analytical expression of the ambiguity function for weighted pulse trains with Oppermann sequences is derived. Given a family of Oppermann sequences, it is shown that the related ambiguity function depends only on one sequence parameter. This property simplifies the design of the associated weighted pulse trains as it constrains the degrees of freedom. In contrast to the single polyphase pulse compression sequences that are typically deployed in radar applications, the families considered in this paper form sets of sequences. As such, they readily facilitate also multiple-access in communication systems. Numerical examples are provided that show the wide range of options offered by Oppermann sequences in the design of integrated radar and communication systems.


Prosthetic paravalvular leaks (PVLs) are associated with congestive heart failure and haemolysis, for which the standard treatment is open-heart surgery with the attendant risks to the patient. Transcatheter closure has emerged as an alternative. Patient selection criteria for the best option are needed. We aimed to identify predictors of clinical success after transcatheter PVL closure.

 We aimed to identify predictors of clinical success after transcatheter PVL closure.

 Consecutive patients referred to 24 European centres for transcatheter PVL closure in 2017–2019 were included in a prospective registry (Fermeture de Fuite ParaProthétique, FFPP). Clinical success was absence of any of the following within 1 month: re-admission for heart failure, blood transfusion, open-heart valvular surgery, and death.

 We included 216 symptomatic patients, who underwent 238 percutaneous PVL closure procedures on the mitral (64.3%), aortic (34.0%), or tricuspid (1.7%) valve. The prosthesis was mechanical in 53.3% and biological in 45.3% of procedures. All patients were symptomatic with heart failure, haemolytic anaemia, and the association of both conditions in 48.9%, 7.8% and 43.3%. One, two and three PVL were addressed during the same procedure in 69.6%, 26.6% and 3.8% respectively. Mitral and aortic PVL were severe in 35.3% and 13.8% (p<0.001). PVL was punctiform or extended to 1/8 or 1/4 of valve circumference in 18.6%, 52.4% and 28.1% of cases. A total of 331 devices were implanted. More than one device (up to 5) was implanted in 34.2% of procedures. Vascular plug 3, muscular ventricular septal defect occluder, vascular plug 2 and paravalvular leak device were the most frequently used devices, implanted in 45.0%, 16.0%, 14.2% and 13.6%, respectively. Successful device(s) implantation(s) within the leak and leak reduction ≤ grade 2 occurred in 85.0% and 91.4% of patients with mitral and aortic procedures, respectively (p=0.164), with major intra-procedural adverse event rates of 3.3% and 1.2%, respectively (p=0.371). The clinical success rates were 77.8% and 88.9% following mitral and aortic procedures, respectively (p=0.01). By multivariate logistic regression analysis, technical failure, mechanical valve and haemolytic anaemia were independently associated with absence of clinical success (odds ratios [95% CIs]: 7.7 [2.0–25.0], p=0.002; 3.6 [1.1–11.1], p=0.036 and 3.7 [1.2–11.9], p=0.025; respectively).

 Transcatheter PVL closure is efficient and safe in symptomatic patients but is more challenging and associated with an increased risk of clinical failure when performed in patients with hemolysis and/or on a mechanical valve.

 Type of funding sources: Private hospital(s). Main funding source(s): The study is promoted and financially supported by Groupe Hospitalier Paris Saint Joseph


Operating speed prediction models have been proposed as a candidate method to assess design consistency on highways and streets. A significant number of operating speed prediction models exist for passenger cars on two-lane rural highways. Few models exist for passenger cars on multilane highways, while the literature is scant for operating speed models for trucks on multilane highways. This research uses a systems modeling approach to predict passenger car and truck operating speeds on multilane highways with combinations of horizontal curves and steep vertical grades. Mean operating speeds were modeled as a function of several geometric design features and the traffic control devices present at each study site. Further, the possible endogenous relationship between passenger car and truck speeds was investigated. The findings indicate that the radius of horizontal curve appears to have a larger influence on passenger car operating speeds than truck speeds. Vertical grades appear to have a more significant influence on truck operating speeds than on passenger car speeds. Increasing the right shoulder width is associated with higher passenger car operating speeds, but the lane width was not statistically significant in the passenger car speed models. Increasing the lane width, however, was associated with higher truck operating speeds; the right shoulder width was not associated with truck operating speeds. Higher posted speed limits were associated with higher truck and passenger car operating speeds. An endogenous relationship between truck and passenger car operating speeds was found.


Introduction: Increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) is often associated with vascular pathophysiological conditions. Our recent findings demonstrated that whereas short-term (4 weeks) increase in NADPH oxidase-derived endothelium (EC)-specific ROS improved coronary endothelial function, long-term (16 plus weeks) increase in ROS had adverse effects.

Hypothesis: We tested the hypothesis that short-term (four to eight weeks) increase in EC-ROS induces AMPK-FOXO1-mediated expression of SOD2 and thus exert protective effects on EC mitochondria; whereas long-term (16 to 20 weeks) increase in EC-ROS results in nitrotyration and inactivation of MnSOD leading to mitochondrial membrane potential loss and mitophagy leading to oxidative damage to EC.

Methods: Our binary (Tet-ON/OFF) conditional transgenic mouse (Tet-Nox2:VE-Cad-tTA) induces 1.8±0.42-fold increase in NADPH oxidase-derived ROS in endothelium. Using these animals, we have examined the effects of short-term vs. the long-term effects of ROS on EC signaling, mitochondrial activity, EC proliferation, and coronary endothelial function (microvessel reactivity).

Results: We demonstrate that whereas EC-dependent coronary vasodilation was significantly increased after short-term increase in ROS, coronary vasodilation was drastically reduced after long-term increase in EC-ROS in Tet-OFF Nox2 mice compared to the control littermates. Using EC isolated from mouse heart, we demonstrate that, whereas Nox2-derived both short-term and long-term increase in ROS increased activation of AMPK and eNOS, and nitric oxide (NO) synthesis, long-term increase in ROS abrogated these positive effects due to increased peroxynitrite levels and nitrotyration of MnSOD. We also show that long-term ROS increase results in mitochondrial membrane potential loss, reduction in mitochondrial content and EC proliferation.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that whereas short-term increase in ROS is beneficial for EC function, long-term increase in ROS results in EC mitochondrial damage, reduction in EC proliferation, and inhibition of endothelial function. Ongoing LAD ligation studies are being carried out in the lab to examine the effects of endothelial ROS on myocardial preservation.


A high intercept points, cost-effective, and power-efficient switching FET double balanced mixer (DBM) is reported. The Switching FET DBM demonstrated in this work offers input intercept points (IIP3) and conversion loss typically 44 dBm and 8.5 dB respectively with 15 dBm LO power for the frequency band (RF: 900-2150 MHz, LO: 850-1950 MHz, IF: 50-200 MHz). The measured interport isolation is typically better than 30 dB for broadband applications, and the circuit topology is not limited to these frequencies, and can be easily extended for present and later generation of communication systems.


The present article applies and compares three split-window (SW) algorithms, which allowed the estimation of sea surface temperature using data obtained from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series of satellites. The algorithms were validated by comparison with in situ measurements of sea temperature obtained from a hydrographical buoy located off the coast of northern Chile (21°21'S, 70°6'W; Tarapacá Region), approximately 3 km from the coast. The best results were obtained by the application of the algorithm proposed by Sobrino & Raissouni (2000). The mean and standard deviation of the differences between the temperatures measured in situ and those estimated by SW were 0.3º and 0.8ºK, respectively.


The purpose of the studywas to assess the state of the pancreas in children, taking into account the indicators of pancreatic elastase of blood serum and feces.Materials and methods.A study of pancreatic elastase was carried out in 115 children aged 7-15 years with combined gastroduodenal and biliary pathology.Results.In a comprehensive assessment of the structural and functional state of the pancreas, it was found that in 26.5% of cases there were functional and 45.2% structural changes: chronic pancreatitis - 9.6% of patients, recurrent pancreatitis - 9.9%, reactive pancreatitis - 25.7% of children, dysfunctional disorders - 26.5% of patients. Findings. The studied method has 100% sensitivity and 98% specificity in the differential diagnosis of functional and structural changes in the pancreas. The coprological test allows a quantitative determination of the elastase-1 level, reflecting the degree of pancreatic insufficiency.Conclusion.Using this test for quantitative determination in serum provides an opportunity to assess the level of enzymemia in reactive pancreatitis. In accordance with modern concepts, pancreatic elastase can be considered as the "gold standard" for diagnosing chronic pancreatitis, a marker for the exocrine function of the pancreatic gland (scatological test) and as an indicator of reactive pancreatitis (definition of serum elastase-1).


Objectives:To estimate the prevalence of, and identify factors associated with, HIV testing in Britain. Design:A large, stratified probability sample survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles. Methods:A total of 12 110 16–44 year olds completed a computer-assisted face-to-face interview and self-interview. Self-reports of HIV testing, i.e. the timing, reasons for and location of testing, were included. Results:A total of 32.4% of men and 31.7% of women reported ever having had an HIV test, the majority of whom were tested through blood donation. When screening for blood donation and pregnancy were excluded, 9.0% of men and 4.6% of women had had a voluntary confidential HIV test (VCT) in the past 5 years. However, one third of injecting drug users and men who have sex with men had a VCT in the past 5 years. VCT in the past 5 years was significantly associated with age, residence, ethnicity, self-perceived HIV risk, reporting greater numbers of sexual partners, new sexual partners from abroad, previous sexually transmitted infection diagnosis, and injecting non-prescribed drugs for men and women, and same-sex partners (men only). Whereas sexually transmitted disease clinics were important sites for VCT, general practice accounted for almost a quarter of VCT. Conclusion:HIV testing is relatively common in Britain; however, it remains largely associated with population-based blood donation and antenatal screening programmes. In contrast, VCT remains highly associated with high-risk (sexual or drug-injecting) behaviours or population sub-groups at high risk. Strategies to reduce undiagnosed prevalent HIV infection will require further normalization and wider uptake of HIV testing.


Different cytogenetic techniques were used to analyze the chromosomes of white-bellied rat, Niviventer confucianus from Mt. Tai and Jinan, Shandong Province and Ningshan, Shaanxi Province of China. Shandong populations have 2n = 46 chromosomes with 4 metacentric, 2 subtelocentric, 16 telocentric pairs of autosomes and the submetacentric X and telocentric Y. The chromosomal arm number (NF) of the two populations was 56. Shaanxi population has 2n = 46 chromosomes with 4 metacentric, 1 submetacentric, 1 subtelocentric and 16 telocentric pairs of autosomes and the submetacentric X and telocentric Y. The karyotype of Ningshan population showed NF = 58. As the result of the comparison of C- and G-banding patterns, and compare with other species in the genus Niviventer, we suppose that the chromosomal evolution of Niviventer involved in pericentric inversion and heterochromatin growth. The submetacentric chromosomes of Shaanxi population would be originated from the growth of heterochromatin of the subtelocentric chromosome of Shandong population.


Purpose: As the molecular target of irinotecan, TOP1 is a plausible predictive marker for irinotecan chemotherapy. Recently clinical studies have demonstrated that high TOP1 expression in cancer cells was predictive for benefit from irinotecan chemotherapy. Because sumoylation has been implicated in the regulation of protein stability and activity, TOP1 sumoylation may competitively inhibit TOP1 ubiquitination and degradation and lead to increased sensitivity to irinotecan. Thus, we investigated whether SUMO1 and UBC9 genotypes affect tumor response and toxicities in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with irinotecan and cisplatin (IP) chemotherapy. Experimental design: SUMO1 and UBC9 SNPs were selected based on Japanese Hapmap genotyping data (http://www.hapmap.org) and tagging SNP selection were performed with Tagger program (http://www.broad.mit.edu/mpg/tagger) with linkage disequilibrium bin tagging approach. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood samples and genotyped for SUMO1 −8348A>T, −1901C>G, −150G>A, and UBC9 390C>A, −207G>A, 10920C>G. To clarify the independent effects of those polymorphisms on tumor response and toxicities, well known genotypes such as UGT1A1*6, UGT1A1*28, UGT1A9*22, SLCO1B1 521T>C, ABCC2 −24C>T, ABCC2 3972C>T, ABCG2 34G>A genotypes were also examined and correlated with tumor response and toxicities. Immunohistochemistry for SUMO1 and UBC9 was performed on 42 tumor samples and correlated with genotypes. Results: There were 147 patients included in this analysis, including 115 men and 32 women with a median age of 61 (range, 29 to 77 years). Of 147 patients, 143 were assessable for tumor responses to IP chemotherapy. The overall response rate (ORR) was 43%; 61 had partial responses; 47 had stable diseases; and 35 had progressive diseases. Among SUMO1 and UBC9 polymorphisms examined, only the UBC9 10920C>G was associated with tumor responses. Patients with the UBC9 10920CG genotype had a significantly higher ORR than those with homozygous CC (81% v 37%, P = 0.0002). In a multivariate logistic analysis using the associated factors with P Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3592.


Various tools have recently been proposed to automate the hardware design of neural and fuzzy controllers. Some of the approaches these tools use are digital, analog, or mixed-signal. The digital tools provide an HDL file with a description of the controller on hand. This file is later processed by using a commercial HDL synthesizer. However, these tools have not paid attention to the optimization of the controller architecture. In most cases, this architecture is fixed, or the designer has to make a selection among a fixed set of alternatives. AFAN is unique as it uses a high-level approach to architecture optimization, instead of considering the micro-operations to be performed in the controller. It includes both fuzzy and neural systems. By using backpropagation, AFAN is able to include the necessary hardware for controller learning. AFAN accounts for user requirements like controller resolution, speed, and gate complexity to select the controller architecture that best accommodates the set of user requirements. AFAN then produces a VHDL file containing the hardware description of the controller with the selected architecture.


The Semantic web offers the intelligent algorithms that could logical analyze scholarly data and retrieve accurate results in scientific research queries. It is based on the generation of ontologies that describe particular knowledge domains. The building of a new ontology is a challenging and demanding approach. Herein, we enable the Hirsch index (h-index) to define the critical terms needed for the description of the cardiology domain. To this end we generated a master vocabulary to describe cardiology derived from relative textbooks by allowing duplicates. More than 56,000 unique terms were collected. The frequency of appearances of each term was used as the sole criterion for the evaluation of its importance in the cardiology domain description. The power regression (log-log) model best fits to these data compared to different nonlinear regression models. Therefore, we apply the h-index function to define the sufficient number of the multiple appeared cardiology terms that could describe this particular scientific field. We found that the hindex for the cardiology terms is 68, indicating the number of terms appearing equally or more than 68 times in the corpus of cardiology textbooks. The definite integral of the power function between the terms and their repeats for the 68 terms was found to represent 70% of the total area under curve. Thus, approximately 1.5‰ of the unique terms indexed in the Cardiology textbooks may be used as the core for the development of a cardiology ontology. We propose that this methodology may serve as a road map in similar librarian applications. Key-Words: Semantic web, ontology, bibliometrics, non-linear regression, cardiology


This exploratory qualitative case study reports the impact of using a public-speaking structure (Powerful Oral Language Lab [POLL]) in teaching preservice Chilean English pedagogy students. It describes how this task-based method of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher training is related to language strategic competence. Twenty students from Year 4 of an EFL teacher training program in Chile participated in structured oral language training. Facilitated by the instructor, they engaged in weekly POLL meetings to use their English in an intense, but fun-filled, socially situated, learning environment. Six months after their POLL experiences, 15 completed their practicum, and 14 completed their practicum and were interviewed about how POLL might relate to their strategic competence as an English teacher and learner. Findings suggested positive effects of POLL and, more important, self-perceived positive changes in their strategic competence during their teaching. Univocally, participants maintained that POLL built their self-confidence and self-esteem as learners and pre-teachers of English in a Spanish-speaking country.


The $2$-adic complexity has been well-analyzed in the periodic case. However, we are not aware of any theoretical results on the $N$th $2$-adic complexity of any promising candidate for a pseudorandom sequence of finite length $N$ or results on a part of the period of length $N$ of a periodic sequence, respectively. Here we introduce the first method for this aperiodic case. More precisely, we study the relation between $N$th maximum-order complexity and $N$th $2$-adic complexity of binary sequences and prove a lower bound on the $N$th $2$-adic complexity in terms of the $N$th maximum-order complexity. Then any known lower bound on the $N$th maximum-order complexity implies a lower bound on the $N$th $2$-adic complexity of the same order of magnitude. In the periodic case, one can prove a slightly better result. The latter bound is sharp which is illustrated by the maximum-order complexity of $\ell$-sequences. The idea of the proof helps us to characterize the maximum-order complexity of periodic sequences in terms of the unique rational number defined by the sequence. We also show that a periodic sequence of maximal maximum-order complexity must be also of maximal $2$-adic complexity.


Text mining is becoming vital as Web 2.0 offers collaborative content creation and sharing. Now Researchers have growing interest in text mining methods for discovering knowledge. Text mining researchers come from variety of areas like: Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistic, Machine Learning, and Statistics. A typical text mining application involves preprocessing of text, stemming and lemmatization, tagging and annotation, deriving knowledge patterns, evaluating and interpreting the results. There are numerous approaches for performing text mining tasks, like: clustering, categorization, sentimental analysis, and summarization. There is a growing need to standardize the evaluation of these tasks. One major component of establishing standardization is to provide standard datasets for these tasks. Although there are various standard datasets available for traditional text mining tasks, but there are very few and expensive datasets for blog-mining task. Blogs, a new genre in web 2.0 is a digital diary of web user, which has chronological entries and contains a lot of useful knowledge, thus offers a lot of challenges and opportunities for text mining. In this paper, we report a new indigenous dataset for Pakistani Political Blogosphere. The paper describes the process of data collection, organization, and standardization. We have used this dataset for carrying out various text mining tasks for blogosphere, like: blog-search, political sentiments analysis and tracking, identification of influential blogger, and clustering of the blog-posts. We wish to offer this dataset free for others who aspire to pursue further in this domain.


Background: The anesthesiologist's emerging role as a perioperative physician has challenged the field to broaden its scope of practice to meet the demands of the patient undergoing surgery today. This brief report aims to identify the indications, clinical impact on management decisions, and perioperative focused cardiac ultrasound accuracy in patients scheduled for non-cardiac surgery. Methods: A review from the Department of Anesthesia Perioperative Echocardiography database on transthoracic echocardiography was performed, including clinical, demographic, indications, therapeutic impact, and accuracy from February 1, 2017 to October 10, 2019. Results: A total of 220 FoCUS exams were identified. FoCUS was performed in 55% males and 45% females. The average age was 66.5 years, and 68% of patients were designated ASA 3 classification. The majority underwent thoracic procedures with a history of cardiovascular disease for hemodynamic instability in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU). In this group, 94% had a change in management. New findings in 9 patients resulted in pre-induction management change. FoCUS was also performed intraoperatively to differentiated hemodynamic instability, significantly altering care. Postoperatively, new wall motion abnormalities findings escalated care to the cardiology service. Immediate assessment of hemodynamic instability altered care and postoperative recovery location in a significant number of patients. In all cases, FoCUS was used to guide management in the differential diagnosis of the acute event and to assess treatment response. Conclusion: This review demonstrates that FoCUS is an excellent clinical adjunct in the perioperative period. Diagnostic accuracy and efficiency by pattern recognition helped answer clinically significant questions and guide management. The non-invasive approach of POCUS and its rapid adaptation makes it an exciting area of future research.


If the probability distribution model aims to approximate the hidden mother distribution, it is imperative to establish a useful criterion for the resemblance between the mother and the model distributions. This study proposes a criterion that measures the Hellinger distance between discretized (quantized) samples from both distributions. Unlike information criteria such as AIC, this criterion does not require the probability density function of the model distribution, which cannot be explicitly obtained for a complicated model such as a deep learning machine. Second, it can draw a positive conclusion (i.e., both distributions are sufficiently close) under a given threshold, whereas a statistical hypothesis test, such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, cannot genuinely lead to a positive conclusion when the hypothesis is accepted. In this study, we establish a reasonable threshold for the criterion deduced from the Bayes error rate and also present the asymptotic bias of the estimator of the criterion. From these results, a reasonable and easy-to-use criterion is established that can be directly calculated from the two sets of samples from both distributions.


Several years before his death John Stuart Mill wrote three essays. His stepdaughter Helen Taylor edited these interesting essays in 1874 in London. The article deals with some main problems which J. S. Mill analyzed in his texts, for example: the analysis of the concept of nature, considerations about the human nature and the role of understanding in the human knowledge, the problem of human rational and right action, the utility of religion (first of all of "religion of humanity"), the question of Naturam sequi as the fundamental principle of morals etc. To considerate or to reflect on these ideas is an excellent oportunity for author of article to think about weak and strong points of Mill´s philosophical doctrine as well as to speculate about the importance of such problems in recent thinking. In author´s opinion it is very good to take under considerations an older philosophical ideas for contemporary development of philosophical investigations and also it is the best celebration of philosopher´s anniversary. (Two centenary of the birth of J. S. Mill was in 2006.)


Summary The human herpesvirus 8 (HHV8) was initially described and characterised in Kaposi's sarcoma tissue. The virus was found in the lesion of most cases of Kaposi's sarcoma. Whilst there is a large body of evidence to implicate its role in the pathogenesis of Kaposi's sarcoma, it has recently been found that the virus may also be important in a number of other human neoplasias. This review will examine the molecular pathology of HHV8 in the pathogenesis of Kaposi's sarcoma and summarise the current evidence and postulated mechanisms in its role in other human neoplasias.


The current surge in food and fuel prices has sounded an alarm showing why providing a sustainable global energy supply and minimizing climate change are arguably two of the greatest challenges facing 21st-century society. With adequate research and proper implementation, the diverse and often unseen inhabitants of the microbial world--bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and archaea--can help address these challenges.


Real-time video streaming using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is experimentally demonstrated
along long-reach passive optical networks (LR-PONs) with different wired and wireless reaches. Experimental
tests using external and direct modulation with UWB wireless radiation in the 10- and 60-GHz bands are
performed. An ultra-bendable fiber is also considered for a last-mile distribution. The video quality at the
output of the optical fiber infrastructure of the LR-PON is assessed using the error vector magnitude (EVM),
and the link quality indicator (LQI) is used as a figure of merit after wireless radiation. An EVM below -17
dB is achieved for both externally and directly modulated LR-PONs comprising up to 125 km of optical fiber.
EVM improvement is observed for longer LR-PONs when directly modulated lasers (DMLs) are used because of the
amplitude gain provided by the combined effect of dispersion and DML's chirp. Compared with optical
back-to-back operation, the LQI level degrades to the maximum around 20% for LR-PONs ranging between 75 and
125 km of fiber reach and with a wireless coverage of 2 m in the 10-GHz UWB band. The same level of LQI
degradation is observed using the 60-GHz UWB band with a LR-PON integrating 101 km of access network, a
last-mile distribution using ultra-bendable fiber, and a 5.2-m wireless link.


We present our analysis of a significant data artifact in the official 2019/2021 ASVspoof Challenge Dataset. We identify an uneven distribution of silence duration in the training and test splits, which tends to correlate with the target prediction label. Bonafide instances tend to have significantly longer leading and trailing silences than spoofed instances. In this paper, we explore this phenomenon and its impact in depth. We compare several types of models trained on a) only the duration of the leading silence and b) only on the duration of leading and trailing silence. Results show that models trained on only the duration of the leading silence perform particularly well, and achieve up to 85% percent accuracy and an equal error rate (EER) of 15.1%. At the same time, we observe that trimming silence during pre-processing and then training established antispoofing models using signal-based features leads to comparatively worse performance. In that case, EER increases from 3.6% (with silence) to 15.5% (trimmed silence). Our findings suggest that previous work may, in part, have inadvertently learned thespoof/bonafide distinction by relying on the duration of silence as it appears in the official challenge dataset. We discuss the potential consequences that this has for interpreting system scores in the challenge and discuss how the ASV community may further consider this issue.


The reaction of barium chloride with 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid, H2pydc, in water led to the formation of a novel polymeric complex formulated as {[Ba2(Hpydc)2(pydc)(H2O)3].H2O.(H2pydc)}n (I). The crystal structure of (I) was characterized by X-ray diffraction methods. This polymeric complex was crystallized in the monoclinic system with space group P2/c, with four molecules per unit-cell. The unit-cell parameters are a = 15.320(3) Å, b = 6.902(1) Å, c = 19.930(4) Å; β = 97.39 (3). The unit-cell of this novel self assembled pyridine containing ligand system was constructed from eight and ten coordinate barium ions. Noteworthy, compound (I) consisted of neutral 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid, H2pydc, anionic Hpydc and pydc.


As the birthplace of Yangtze River, the Yellow River and Lancang Rive, Source Region of Three Rivers (SRTR) is an important resource for fresh water supplement in China. SRTR also has very obvious ecological function which forms ecological security barrier for China's Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The inland lakes here play an important role for the water cycle in the plateau. The monitoring results were extracted with TM data from 1976 to 2009. The results show that from 1976 to 2009 the lakes' area in SRTR dropped first and then expanded with 2000 as sector. The lakes area was 6778 km 2 in 2009, about 1.90% of the whole region, and increased than 1976 by 133.15 km 2 . Most of the large lakes above 80 km2 have the same change trend. The expanded lakes increased in number gradually, while the changes in the amplitude and time characteristics were different. From 1976 to 2000, the number of new lakes increased while died lakes dropped; and from 2000 to 2009 it is just on the contrary. In the study the index of lake change trend (ILCT) was adopted to contrast lake atrophy condition. With ILCT 24.55 there is an expansion trend for the lakes in SRTR during the last 35 years. The lakes with ILCT's absolute value greater than 1 were those merged with or disconnected from surrounding smaller lakes. Here the precipitation and snow melt are main supplies for the lakes. The change of lakes' area has well correlated with precipitation, and weak correlated with temperature from 1976 to 2009. But from 2000 to 2009, there has a strong correlation with precipitation, temperature. All these show from the side that the precipitation and snow melt are important factors to influence the lakes' change. The lakes have the coordination function for the good ecological environment in the region. The conclusions from the study can provide references in response to climate change research and rational utilization of water resources in SRTR.


The present study investigates the ameliorating effects of emodin on acute lung injury (ALI) induced by severe acute pancreatitis (SAP). An ALI rat model was constructed by sodium ursodeoxycholate and they were divided into four groups: SHAM, ALI, emodin and dexamethasone (DEX) (n=24 per group). Blood samples and lung tissues were collected 6, 12 and 24 hours after the induction of SAP‐associated ALI. Lung wet/dry ratio, blood gases, serum amylase and tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) were measured at each time point. The expressions of AQP1 and AQP5 in lung tissue were detected by immunohistochemical staining, western blotting and real‐time PCR. As the results show, there were no statistical differences in the levels of serum amylase, lung wet/dry ratio, blood gases indexes, serum TNF‐α and pathological changes between emodin and DEX groups. However, significant differences were observed when compared with the ALI group. AQP1 and AQP5 expressions were significantly increased and lung oedemas were alleviated with the treatment of emodin and DEX. The expressions of AQP1 and AQP5 were significantly decreased in SAP‐associated ALI rats. Emodin up‐regulated the expression of AQP1 and AQP5, it could reduce pulmonary oedema and ameliorate SAP‐induced ALI. Regulations on AQP1 and AQP5 expression had a great value in clinical application.


Hodgkin's disease is a common hematologic malignancy in young adults. The typical patient is a young adult male presenting with painless cervical adenopathy or a mediastinal mass on chest X-ray. If diagnosed early and aggressively treated, long-term survival rates are excellent. The subtypes of Hodgkin's disease are differentiated by pathologic examination of an affected lymph node. Chemotherapy, with or without adjuvant radiation, is the favored therapeutic regimen for most patients. A comprehensive approach to care, which incorporates psychosocial implications, can improve quality of life for Hodgkin's disease patients.


The paper proposes a new tool for real-time assessment of measurement sets in the context of power-system-state estimation. This tool incorporates many functions including observability analysis and restoration, as well as identification of critical measurements and critical sets. Using only network-topology data, the proposed methodology updates the qualitative characteristics of the current available measurement set in real time. The identification of critical measurements and sets is done using only network topology and is completed before running any state estimation. Mapping the system states and using information concepts, a new state space is obtained where the relationship (information) between measurements and states is straightforward. This map is easily found via triangular factorisation of the Jacobian matrix. Starting from a base-case measurement set, every time a snapshot of measurements has to be analysed, only refactorisation has to be carried out. Sparse-matrix techniques speed up the process. The method was tested in the IEEE-14-bus system as well as in the Brazilian 383-bus system, proving to be reliable, fast, easy to implement and suitable for real-time operation.


The optoelectronic properties of macromolecular semiconductors depend fundamentally on their solid-state microstructure and phase morphology. Hence, it is of central importance to manipulate—from the outset—the molecular arrangement and packing of this special class of polymers from the nano- to the micrometer scale when they are integrated in thin film devices such as photovoltaic cells, transistors or light-emitting diodes, for example. One effective strategy for this purpose is to vary their molecular weight. The reason for this is that materials of different weight-average molecular weight (Mw) lead to different microstructures. Polymers of low Mw form unconnected, extended-chain crystals because of their non-entangled nature. As a result, a polycrystalline, one-phase morphology is obtained. In contrast, high-Mw materials, in which average chain lengths are longer than the length between entanglements, form two-phase morphologies comprised of crystalline moieties embedded in largely un-ordered (amorphous) regions. Here, we discuss how changes in these structural features affect exciton dissociation processes. We utilise neat regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) of varying Mw as a model system and apply time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy to probe the electronic landscape in a range of P3HT thin-film architectures. We find that at 10 K, PL originating from recombination of long-lived charge pairs decays over microsecond timescales. Tellingly, both the amplitude and decay-rate distribution depend strongly on Mw. In films with dominant one-phase, chain-extended microstructures, the delayed PL is suppressed as a result of a diminished yield of photoinduced charges. Its decay is significantly slower than in two-phase microstructures. We therefore conclude that excitons in disordered regions between crystalline and amorphous phases dissociate extrinsically with yield and spatial distribution that depend intimately upon microstructure, in agreement with previous work [Paquin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2011, 106, 197401]. We note, however, that independent of Mw, the delayed-PL lineshape due to charge recombination is representative of that in low-Mw microstructures. We thus hypothesize that charge recombination at these low temperatures—and likely also charge generation—occur in torsionally disordered chains forming more strongly coupled photophysical aggregates than those in the steady-state ensemble, producing a delayed PL lineshape reminiscent of that in paraffinic morphologies at steady state.


Devices utilizing spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) effect in the terahertz (THz) domain has attracted increasing attention because such devices can be potentially used in fast signal processing and storages. In this paper, we present a comprehensive mathematical model of the doubly corrugated SSPP (DC-SSPP) structure derived from full-field analysis. Based on the proposed model, a complete characterization of the structure is carried out and properties such as dispersion relationships and S-parameters are obtained. The results show the existence of slow light modes in the DC-SSPP structure. Discrete sub-wavelength transmission bands, and sometimes sharp transmission peaks with strong EM field localization can also be achieved under certain device designs. They are compared with the simulation results obtained from the CST software package developed by Computer Simulation Technology AG. The validation as well as limitations of the derived results is also discussed in detail.


In this paper we propose an analysis of the effects of the multiresolution fusion process on the accuracy provided by supervised classification algorithms. In greater detail, the rationale of this analysis consists in understanding in what conditions the merging process can increase/decrease the classification accuracy of different labeling algorithms. On the one hand, it is expected that the multiresolution fusion process can increase the classification accuracy of simple classifiers, characterized by linear or "moderately" non-linear discriminant functions. On the other hand, the spatial and spectral artifacts unavoidably included in the fused images can decrease the accuracy of more powerful classifiers, characterized by strongly non-linear discriminant functions. In this last case, in fact, the classifier is intrinsically able to extract and emphasize all the information present in the original images without any need of a merging procedure. These effects may be different by considering different fusion methodologies and different classification techniques. Several experiments are carried out by applying the different fusion and classification techniques to an image acquired by the Quickbird sensor on the city of Pavia (Italy). From these experiments it is possible to derive interesting conclusions on the effectiveness and the appropriateness of the different investigated multiresolution fusion techniques with respect to classifiers having different complexity and capacity.


The standard history of nineteenth century geometry began with Jean Victor Poncelet's contributions which then spread to Germany alongside an opposition between Julius Plucker, an analytic geometer, and Jakob Steiner, a synthetic geometer. Our questions centre on how geometers distinguished methods, when opposition arose, in what ways geometry disseminated from Poncelet to Plucker and Steiner, and whether this geometry was "modern'' as claimed.We first examine Poncelet's argument that within pure geometry the figure was never lost from view, while it could be obscured by the calculations of algebra. Our case study reveals visual attention within constructive problem solving, regardless of method. Further, geometers manipulated and represented figures through textual descriptions and coordinate equations. We also consider the debates involved as a medium for communicating geometry in which Poncelet and Gergonne in particular developed strategies for introducing new geometry to a conservative audience. We then turn to Plucker and Steiner. Through comparing their common research, we find that Plucker practiced a "pure analytic geometry'' that avoided calculation, while Steiner admired "synthetic geometry'' because of its organic unity. These qualities contradict usual descriptions of analytic geometry as computational or synthetic geometry as ad-hoc.Finally, we study contemporary French books on geometry and show that their methodological divide was grounded in student prerequisites, where "modern'' implied the use of algebra. By contrast, research publications exhibited evolving forms of geometry that evaded dichotomous categorization.The standard history of nineteenth century geometry began with Jean Victor Poncelet's contributions which then spread to Germany alongside an opposition between Julius Plucker, an analytic geometer, and Jakob Steiner, a synthetic geometer. Our questions centre on how geometers distinguished methods, when opposition arose, in what ways geometry disseminated from Poncelet to Plucker and Steiner, and whether this geometry was "modern'' as claimed.We first examine Poncelet's argument that within pure geometry the figure was never lost from view, while it could be obscured by the calculations of algebra. Our case study reveals visual attention within constructive problem solving, regardless of method. Further, geometers manipulated and represented figures through textual descriptions and coordinate equations. We also consider the debates involved as a medium for communicating geometry in which Poncelet and Gergonne in particular developed strategies for introducing new geometry to a conservative audience. We then turn to Plucker and Steiner. Through comparing their common research, we find that Plucker practiced a "pure analytic geometry'' that avoided calculation, while Steiner admired "synthetic geometry'' because of its organic unity. These qualities contradict usual descriptions of analytic geometry as computational or synthetic geometry as ad-hoc.Finally, we study contemporary French books on geometry and show that their methodological divide was grounded in student prerequisites, where "modern'' implied the use of algebra. By contrast, research publications exhibited evolving forms of geometry that evaded dichotomous categorization.


It has been demonstrated that a cytochrome b-containing ferritin is present in Azotobacter vinelandii. After DEAE cellulose chromatography and purification fractional precipitation by 50% of the saturated ammonium sulfate of the extract prepared from A. vinelandii cells, a hexagonal crystalline preparation is obtained. The protein contains 4--6% of nonheme iron. The protein molecule is made up of an electron dense iron core with a diameter of 70A and a protein shell with a diameter of 120A. The Fe core can be removed from the shell by the treatment with chelating and reducing agents. Electron micrographs and absorption spectra reveal that the protein shells are very similar before and after the removal of the core. The electrophoretic mobility and immunological properties of the Fe-free protein against the antibody of ferritin are very similar to those of the protein before the removal of the iron. From the above characteristics, it can be inferred that the protein belongs to ferritin. The protein part contains protoheme as prosthetic group and so it belongs to cytochrome b. Hence, the protein prepared from A. vinelandii is a kind of cytochrome b-containing ferritins. The possible role of the ferritin in biological nitrogen fixation is discussed in this paper.


The post Genocide Rwanda's financial sector has changed drastically, and banks' soundness and performance has considerably improved since 2005. Further liberalization of financial sector has facilitated development of a capital market and non-banking financial institutions with entry of new private and foreign banks. Yet, the collective performance of the banking sector in helping the country to achieve its economic growth objectives remains an unexamined aspect. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of credit policy on bank performance using data on selected Commercial Banks. Using a triangulation of methods such as quantitative data collection, questionnaire, and review of the existing literature, the paper evaluates the banking sector performance: its deepening over time, profitability, and efficiency in the light of post-liberalisation policies. The results obtained indicate that the Rwanda's commercial banks are getting vibrant. They tend to increase their accounts, to attract more customers and ameliorate their financial indices, thereby maximizing their profits. However, inadequate competition in the banking system has led to high spreads. Banks have unusually high and increasing average interest rate spreads and interest rate margins showing both highly poor competition and inefficiency. Bad debts still exist though declining and therefore banks should continue to improve their lending policies. The findings imply that Rwanda can accelerate its economic growth by improving its financial systems and vice versa.


Convolutional neural networks or standard CNNs (StdCNNs) are translation-equivariant models that achieve translation invariance when trained on data augmented with sufficient translations. Recent work on equivariant models for a given group of transformations (e.g., rotations) has lead to group-equivariant convolutional neural networks (GCNNs). GCNNs trained on data augmented with sufficient rotations achieve rotation invariance. Recent work by authors arXiv:2002.11318 studies a trade-off between invariance and robustness to adversarial attacks. In another related work arXiv:2005.08632, given any model and any input-dependent attack that satisfies a certain spectral property, the authors propose a universalization technique called SVD-Universal to produce a universal adversarial perturbation by looking at very few test examples. In this paper, we study the effectiveness of SVD-Universal on GCNNs as they gain rotation invariance through higher degree of training augmentation. We empirically observe that as GCNNs gain rotation invariance through training augmented with larger rotations, the fooling rate of SVD-Universal gets better. To understand this phenomenon, we introduce universal invariant directions and study their relation to the universal adversarial direction produced by SVD-Universal.


In order to solve the problem of outlier detection of integrated energy security defense monitoring software, an automatic detection algorithm of virtual machine power anomaly in a cloud computing environment is proposed. The method is implemented through three main steps: data preprocessing, pattern recognition, and prediction of virtual machine power anomaly detection model. It is found through experiments that with the increase of node number, the convergent iterations of the model are less and RMSE is lower, but the increase of node number of the hidden layer will lead to a longer model running time. When the number of nodes reaches 100, the test results of the validation set are significantly improved, and the loss function of the validation set is minimal when the number of nodes is less than 30 iterations. Finally, the hidden layer of the model consists of 100 LSTM units, followed by a dense output layer with 1 neuron, and 0.2 loss, retrospection, and foresight equal to 1. Adam optimizer was used to train LSTM and stop it in advance after 50 iteration steps. Its parameters remained default, with a learning rate of 0.001 and attenuation of 0.9. It can be seen that this model can well predict the virtual machine power consumption data and effectively solve the problem of outlier detection of integrated energy security defense monitoring software.


Although there has been recent research into ways to design visual programming languages and environments, little attention has been given to systematic testing in these languages, and what work has been done does not address "power" features such as recursion. In this paper, we discuss two possible ways the "What You See Is What You Test" methodology could be extended to accommodate recursion. The approaches are presented in terms of their testing theoretic aspects and then implementation strategies and algorithms. Since the goal is to help the people using these languages, we also present an empirical study and use its results to inform our choice as to which of the two approaches to adopt.


1. Yoshikawa IT. Pneumonia, UTI and decubitiin the nursinghome:optimal management. Geriatrics 1989;44:32-43. 2. Alvarez OM, Childs EJ. Pressureulcers:physical,supportive and local aspectsof management. Clin Podiatr Med Surg 1991 ;8:869-90. 3. Romanko KP. Pressureulcers.Clin Podiatr Med Surg 1991;8:857-66. 4. Greenberg RN, Kennedy DJ, Reilly PM, Luppen KL, Weinandt WJ, Bollinger MR, et aI. Treatment of bone, joint and soft-tissueinfections with oral ciprofloxacin.Antimierob Agents Chemother 1987; 31:151-5. 5. Fong IW. The role of fluoroquinolones in the managementof skin, soft tissueand bone infections. Clin Invest Med 1989;12:44-9. 6. Weidekamm E, Portmann R, Partos C, Dell D. Single and multiple dose pharmacokinetics of fleroxacin. J Antimierob Chemother 1988;22 (supplD):145-54. 7. Bauer AW, Kirby WM, Sherris JC, Turck M. Antibiotic susceptibility testingby a standardized singledisk method.Am J Clin PathoI1966; 45:493-6. 8. Fuchs PC, Jones RN, Barry AL, Ayres LW, Gavan TL, Gerlach EH, et aI. Ro 23-6240 (AM 833) a new fluoroquinolone: in vitro antimicrobial activityand tentativedisk diffusion interpretive data.Diagn MierobialInfect Dis 1987;7:29-35. 9. Sugarman B. Pressuresores and underlyingbone infection. Arch Intern Med 1987;147:553-5. 10. Daltrey DC, Rhodes B, Chattwood JG. Investigation into the microbial flow of healing and non-healing decubitus ulcers. J Clin Pathol 1981;34:701-5.


Throughout history, people have often expressed controversial and conflicting interpretations of current events. In this unique resource, Joan Brodsky Schur reveals how compelling and engaging the study of history becomes when students use documents to imagine living through events in American history. Eyewitness to the Past examines six types of primary sources: diaries, travelogues, letters, news articles, speeches, and scrapbooks. Teachers will find interactive strategies to help students analyze the unique properties of each, and apply to them their own written work and oral argument. Students learn to express opposing viewpoints in documents, classroom interactions, and simulations such as staging congressional hearings, elections, or protests. They build crucial analytical thinking and presentation skills. Used together, the six strategies offer a varied and cohesive structure for studying the American past that reinforces material in the textbook, encourages creativity, activates different learning styles, and strengthens cognitive skills. Each chapter provides detailed instructions for implementing an eyewitness strategy set in a specific era of American history, and includes extensions for adapting the strategy to other time periods. In addition to the primary sources included in the book, examples of student work are presented throughout to aid teachers in evaluating the work of their own students. Rubrics and a list of resources are offered for each eyewitness strategy.


We have investigated the constitution and abundance of macrozoobenthos in Niyang River,the branch of the Yarlung Zangbo River,Tibet,based on season from 2008 to 2009,and taken quantitative analysis to study spatio-temporal characteristics of phytoplankton and their corresponding to environment using multivariate statistics method.The results are as follows:Firstly,the main macrozoobenthos in Niyang River are phryganea larvae,Radix sp.,chironomidae larvae.Secondly,based on the method of Duncan test method,there is no significant difference among four sampling sites and seasons as for total abundance,in addition,total abundance of the macrozoobenthos in Niyang River is descending with the elevation ascending.Thirdly,based on the PCA method,as for the sampling sites,the maximum and the minimum total abudance for the macrozoobenthos appear in sampling site Ⅳ and sampling site Ⅱ respectively,as for the seasons,the maximum and the minimum total abudance for the macrozoobenthos appear in the autumn and the winter respectively.Fourthly,based on the CCA method,the relationship between the environmental factors and the macrozoobenthos could be described as two reaches separately,which are the middle-upper reaches and the middlelower reaches.Last but not least,the paper chooses four factors among eleven environmental factors to explain their relationship with total abundance of macrozoobenthos,the four factors are total dissolved solids,total phosphorus,elevation,and season.The paper also suggests paying close attention to macrozoobenthos and the environment factors mentioned above owing to their important indication function,in order to warrantee the sustainable development of Niyang River aquatorium ecology.


Residual stresses in cold extruded parts play an important role in both component lifetime and succeeding in manufacturing performance. When a cold extruded part is used directly, the lifetime of the part depends on the residual stresses induced during cold extrusion. On the other hand, if the part is exposed to post operations such as machining, residual stresses may cause distortions. Despite their importance, there are only a few residual stress measurement methods to assess axial residual stresses in full cylindrical thick components of massive forming. As high-energy X-ray and neutron diffraction methods are less available and considerably expensive, the contour method may be an alternative providing the accurate assessment of residual stresses without requiring specialized facilities. In the present work, residual stresses in cold extruded rods are determined via the contour method for various extrusion ratios. The finite element analyses for the same conditions are also carried out to provide the comparison to the contour method. The results indicate that the contour method can be a valuable candidate for the measurement of axial residual stresses in cold extruded thick components.


The clear wood of aspen has inherent properties of merit. Several of these properties are familiar to a large proportion of the general public, for some of the common types of matches are made of this wood. The requirements of wood for matches are exacting in that the wood must combine straightness of grain, ease of splitting, ease of working, and toughness. To meet such rigid requirements, a wood must be suitable for other uses as well. The fact that aspen is not used more widely for other purposes lies not in the wood itself but in other factors, such as cost, distribution of stand, and availability in desired sizes and grades. Cost, demand, and harvesting and marketing practices change as conditions change. The fact that in the past some of these factors have been adverse to the utilization of aspen stands does not mean that the wood cannot be used more widely now and in the future at a reasonable cost and without sacrifice of the quality of the product.


The purpose of the this study was to examine the effects of 12 weeks of regular aerobic exercise training on hepatic enzymes in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. The subjects consisted of 13 middle-aged male type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients, all of whom had no other complications. Subjects participated in regular aerobic exercise training for 12 weeks, in which they started to exercise for min, at % (exercise intensity was increased gradually), per day, times a weeks. The results after 12 weeks were compared to baseline values. Weight and BMI, %body fat, and fasting glucose significantly decreased, and , exercise time (ET) significantly increased after 12 weeks of aerobic exercise training. On the other hand, there were no significant differences in hepatic enzymes of Albumin, Total bilirubin, Alkaline phosphatate, AST, and ALT after training compared to baseline values. Conclusively, 12 weeks of aerobic exercise training may result in a decrease of insulin resistance factors (Weight, BMI, % body fat, fasting glucose) and an increase of aerobic capacity, but hepatic enzymes did not significantly decrease in middle age T2DM patients.


This paper examines an approach to speaker adaptation called speaker cluster weighting (SCW) for rapid adaptation in the Jupiter weather information system. SCW extends the ideas of previous speaker cluster techniques by allowing the speaker cluster models (learned from training data) to be adaptively weighted to match the current speaker. We explore strategies for automatic speaker clustering as well as cluster model training procedures for use with this algorithm. As part of this exploration, we develop a novel algorithm called least squares linear regression (LSLR) clustering for the clustering of speakers for whom only a small amount of data is available.


In this paper, a semi-analytical thermal model of friction stir welding processes is developed in which the heat-generating regions are divided into many elements as point heat sources. The heat generation in each element involves the friction and plastic deformation, and the temperature rise caused by each element is calculated by solving the heat conduction equation of a moving heat source in a solid body. The heat loss through the top and bottom surfaces are considered in the model as heat sinks. The asymmetric distribution of the temperature is calculated through the whole process and over the whole volume of the workpiece by integrating the effects of all heat sources and sinks. The temperature-dependent material properties are updated by a numerical routine. The comparison between the calculated results and the experimental data clearly approved the validity of the proposed method for some aluminum and steel alloys.