The analysis of EEG signals play a significant role in brain related studies. Accurate investigation and analysis of the EEG signals from a subject can interpret the inherent information about the intention of the person to some extent. The accuracy of such interpretation or detection can be of utmost importance for various brain computer interface (BCI) based applications. For instance, within the last decade, BCI has been widely investigated and employed to assist in the restoration of sensory and motor functions in paralyzed individuals. EEG typically contains numerous information about the cognitive thinking and intention of a person, particularly in terms of motor movements. Due to this, comprehensive methods of EEG signal arrangement and pattern recognition through signal classification techniques are required to precisely predict the intended set of movements. In this study, an EEG classification technique based on a combination of wavelet transform analysis and Neural Networks (NN) is presented. Daubechies wavelet decomposition (db8) has been employed to decompose the recorded EEG signals into four levels. These decomposed level details are then used to calculate the feature set which is input to NN classifier for further classification. A total of 6 features were used to perform feature wise classification, where Integrated EEG (IEEG) feature set has been found to possess the highest classification accuracy of 89.39 % with a NN classifier of 9 hidden layers. Whereas, a classification accuracy of 94.86 % was achieved when the features were arranged and cascaded horizontally in form of a dataset as input to a NN classifier of 5 hidden layers.


Fifth AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, Nov 12-15, 2006

A91

Introduction: Estrogen receptor negative [ER(-)] breast cancer is very aggressive, responds poorly to current treatments and has a poor prognosis. The NF-κB signaling pathway is strongly implicated in ER(-) tumorigenesis. Epidemiological studies show a chemopreventive effect for aspirin (ASA) against ER(+) but not for ER(-) breast cancers. Nitric oxide-releasing aspirin (NO-ASA) is a safer ASA consisting of an ASA molecule and a NO-releasing moiety linked via an aromatic spacer. We have observed that NO-ASA is very potent in inhibiting the growth of ER(-) breast cancer cells an effect which is modulated by NF-κB through induction of reactive oxygen species. Methods: Cell growth: MTT; Cell cycle phase distribution: Flow cytometry; Apoptosis:subdiploid (sub-G/G1) peak in DNA content histograms; NF-κB: electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA); Reactive oxygen species (ROS): 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein (H2DCFDA, probe for peroxides) or dihydroethidium (DHE, probe for superoxide anion) measured fluorescence by flow cytometry; Xenografts: Female athymic nude mice, 8-weeks-old, 2 groups (n = 10/group) gavaged daily with NO-ASA (100 mg/kg body weight) or vehicle. After one week, animals in both groups were implanted s.c. in the right flank with MDA-MB-231cells suspended in 50% Matrigel. After 4 weeks of treatment, mice were sacrificed, tumors excised, fixed in 10% buffered formalin for immunohistochemical studies. Results: NO-ASA inhibited the growth of MDA-MB-231 cells, an ER(-) human breast cancer cell line; at 24 and 48 hrs the respective IC50s were 4.5 ± 0.5 µM and 3.2 ± 0.3 µM, whereas for ASA was >2,000 µM at both time points. The ratio ASA/NO-ASA is >444, meaning that NO-ASA is at least 444 times more potent than traditional ASA. In cultured ER(-) breast cancer cells, NO-ASA treatment for 24 hrs showed the following: 1. There was a combined inhibition of cell proliferation, induction of apoptosis and induction of a G2/M cell cycle block, PCNA expression was reduced dose dependently, at 5 µM the reduction was 81 ± 2 % and at 15 µM it was 42 ± 5 %; 2. Activation of NF-κB was inhibited as demonstrated by three independent approaches: a) EMSA, b) translocation from the cytoplasm into the nucleus, c) effect on transfected reporter constructs; 3. Induction of oxidative stress as evidenced by increases in both H2DCFDA and DHE-derived fluorescence representing increases in intracellular levels of H2O2 and superoxide anion respectively. Xenografts: NO-ASA inhibits proliferation of ER(-) breast cancer cells in the nude mice xenografts (reduced PCNA expression), and induces apoptosis (increased number of TUNEL positive cells). NF-κB, activated in control xenografts is significantly inhibited by NO-ASA. Conclusions: NO-ASA inhibits NF-κB in vitro and in vivo ER(-) breast cancer xenografts, suggesting merit for further evaluation.


This article reports on a study which used the APOS (Action‐Process‐Object‐Schema) theory framework to investigate university students' understanding of limits of functions. The relevant limit concepts were taught to undergraduate science students at a university in Kwazulu‐Natal in South Africa. This paper reports on the analysis of students' responses to four types of questions on limits of functions. The findings of this study confirmed that the limit concept is one that students find difficult to understand, and suggests that this is possibly the result of many students not having appropriate mental structures at the process, object and schema levels.


Security is an important concern in the active networking paradigm because a breach in security can quickly compromise many systems in the network. The paper describes an extensible, reconfigurable security architecture that is flexible and accommodates a wide variety of security policies and mechanisms. It provides applications and users with the ability to create and enforce highly customized and situational policies dynamically, and is well-suited to the security issues in active networks. R.H. Campbell and M.D. Mickunas (1998) implement this architecture and allow the creation of dynamic security policies. Innovative applications use these policies in an exploration of the nature and scope of "dynamic security". The implementation facilitates research of interoperability and portability security issues. Based on the experience from this effort, we are investigating a unified model for security mechanisms that preserves security guarantees across domains.


The Arctic halocline is generally stable to the development of double-diffusive and dynamic instabilities – the two major sources of small-scale mixing in the mid-latitude oceans. Despite this, observations show the abundance of double-diffusive staircases in the Arctic Ocean, which suggests the presence of some destabilizing process facilitating the transition from smooth-gradient to layered stratification. Recent studies have shown that an instability can develop in such circumstances if weak static shear is present even when the flow is dynamically and diffusively stable. However, the impact of oscillating shear, associated with the presence of internal gravity waves, has not yet been addressed for the diffusive case. Through two-dimensional simulations of diffusive convection, we have investigated the impact of the magnitude and frequency of externally forced oscillatory shear on the thermohaline-shear instability. Simulations with stochastic shear – characterized by a continuous spectrum of frequencies from inertial to buoyancy – indicate that thermohaline layering does occur due to the presence of destabilizing modes (oscillations of near the buoyancy frequency). These simulations show that such layers appear as well-defined steps in the temperature and salinity profiles. Thus, the thermohaline-shear instability is a plausible mechanism for staircase formation in the Arctic and merits substantial future study.


Abstract Since the 1970s, a breeding colony of lesser snow geese (Chen caerulescens caerulescens L.) at La Pérouse Bay, Manitoba, has grown 8% annually. This increase has led to significant loss of plant cover in all major salt- and freshwater coastal habitats between 1976 and 1997. A series of transects established in 1976 was resurveyed in 1997. Exposed sediment, extent and type of vegetative cover, and aquatic areas were recorded along transects using a classification of 12 a priori classes. Five regions within the colony were identified, and changes in vegetation cover differed among these and depended on unique combinations of vegetation class and year. Grubbing by geese has led to loss of graminoid plants, especially in intertidal and supratidal marshes. Exposed sediments have largely replaced previously vegetated areas since 1976. Species characteristic of disturbed sites have colonized exposed sediment with the most abundant species varying according to soil conditions. In intertidal marshes, willow cover declined in association with the development of hypersalinity after loss of the graminoid mat, but willow cover increased at the base of well-drained beach ridges and in a river delta with ample winter snow accumulation and freshwater flow in spring that protected ground vegetation. Most of the expected successional trends associated with isostatic uplift and changes in soil organic matter failed to occur because of intense goose foraging throughout the 20 years. The likelihood of sustained recovery of plant communities in the immediate coastal zone is very low, as long as goose numbers continue to increase. Indirect effects of vegetation loss (e.g., hypersalinity) and subsequent erosion of exposed sediments following grubbing will delay plant colonization and retard succession.


The optimization of catalyst systems includes the variation of the content and combination of the precious metals used, catalyst production technology, especially selection of the promotors and washcoat preparation as well as substrate properties. The first study shows the effect of the Pt/Rh-raio on the performance of the catalysts. The second objective was to demonstrate the progress done by means of promotor technology and washcoat preparation for the European catalysts. The third study deals with the effect of precious metal concentration on catalyst performance and finally shows that it can be reduced from 50 g/cuft to 40 g/cuft.


This article deals with the problem of optimal allocation of capital to corporate bonds in fixed income portfolios when there is the possibility of correlated defaults. Under fairly general assumptions for the distribution of the total net assets of a set of firms we show that retaining the first few moments of the portfolio default loss distribution gives an extremely good approximation to the full solution of the asset allocation problem. We provide detailed results on the convergence of the moment expansion. We also provide explicit results for the inverse problem, i.e. for a given allocation to the set of risky bonds, what is the average risk premium required to make the portfolio optimal. Numerous numerical illustrations exhibit the results for realistic portfolios and utility functions.


PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability practices of Islamic and conventional banks, with the aim of evaluating whether their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies converge or diverge in response to formal and informal institutions in an emerging country.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on institutional theory, this study contextualizes the competitive scenario through the National Business System (NBS) framework, and showcases the CSR strategies employed by large conventional and Islamic banks in Turkey. CSR patterns are examined from different angles such as motivations, strategy, actions and institutional results.FindingsWithin the same institutional environment, Islamic and non-Islamic banks combine convergent and divergent models to accommodate institutional realities in their CSR policies. Islamic banks exhibit an implicit commitment to CSR that is mostly based on informal institutions, whereas conventional banks use explicit CSR strategies as a means to fill the voids in formal institutions. In addition, philanthropy-oriented CSR prevails in Islamic banks, as opposed to the CSR actions associated with core business that are followed by conventional banks.Social implicationsAn increased focus on formal institutions and explicit CSR actions by Islamic banks may further contribute to social well-being in emerging countries.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the paucity of research, from an institutional perspective, related to CSR practices amongst Islamic and conventional banks in emerging countries.


The rapid increase in the population and fastest development in the industrial sector has increased the energy demand throughout the world. Frequent outages and load shedding has seriously deteriorated the efficiency of the electrical power distribution system. Under such circumstances, the implementation of Distributed Generation (DG) is increasing. Small hydel generators are considered as the most-clean and economical for generating electrical energy. These are very complex nonlinear generators which usually exhibits low frequency electromechanical oscillations due to insufficient damping caused by severe operating conditions. These DGs are not connected to the utility in many cases because, under varying load, they cannot maintain the frequency to the permissible value. This work presents detailed analysis of operating characteristics and proposes a hybrid frequency control strategy of the small hydel systems. The simulation and testing is performed in MATLAB, the results verified the improved performance with the recommended method. The proposed method conserves half of the power consumption. The control scheme regulates the dump load by connecting and disconnecting it affectively. The application of presented methodology is convenient in the deregulated environment, especially under the severe shortage of energy. The proposed model keeps the frequency of system at desired level. It reduces the noise, thereby improving the response time of the designed controller as compared to conventional controllers. The innovative scheme also provides power for small scale industrial, agricultural and other domestic application of far-off areas where the supply of utility main grid is difficult to provide. The recommended scheme is environmental friendly and easy to implement wherever small hydel resources are available.


Routine formulas (RFs) carry many functions in a language system. Thus, not only knowing them but also mastering their use is of major importance for the L2-learner. For this reason, it is important to also describe RFs adequately in learners' dictionaries. However, as previous research shows, there is a major discrepancy between lexicographical requirements and reality. Some demands for the way in which RFs should be presented can be derived from the list of criteria which are used to evaluate dictionary entries of RFs. Some of these requirements may be called phraseographical minima, the realization of some other requirements that have yet to be developed in detail. This article intends to show options on how to improve the lexicography of RFs in print dictionaries for L2-learners. Suggestions for the presentation of RFs in the lexicographical macro-, micro-, and medio-structure are made and discussed.


We examine whether increased transparency in the comparison of financial measures and nonfinancial measures (NFMs) influences nonprofessional investors' reactions to the risk of fraudulent financial reporting. We consider a comparison of key financial measures and NFMs to be transparent when the relevant information is presented in close proximity and formatted to provide an easy comparison of the individual measures. We manipulate the presence of an NFM red flag and the transparency of the comparison of financial measures and NFMs. We find that when the NFM red flag is present (i.e., higher fraud risk) and transparent, investors choose lower investment levels. However, without increased transparency, as is typical in the current reporting environment, we observe that investors are more likely to increase their investment levels in firms with elevated fraud risk. Additionally, we observe that the effect of transparency on investment levels is driven by investors with greater investing experience.


Three different experimental methods of neutron scattering have been employed in order to study the hydration problem in various forms of oriented DNA fibrils. It is found that the water of hydration forms an internal structure in the samples and that this structure is not very strongly coupled to the macromolecular surface. The existence of hydrogen bonds between water molecules is clearly demonstrated. Qualitative agreement between calculated structure factors and measured "elastic" diffraction patterns for a dry DNA sample is obtained. In order to reproduce the measured diffraction pattern for a wet sample it is not enough to include only the water molecules within the first hydration shell in a structure factor calculation. It is concluded that by employing the high resolution "elastic" diffraction technique it should be possible to obtain detailed information on the problem of hydration in DNA.


The interaction between hypoxia and RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is an emerging focus of investigation. However, alterations in m6A modifications at distinct hypoxia levels remain uncharacterized in gastric cancer (GC). Unsupervised hierarchical clustering was performed to stratify samples into different clusters. Differentially expressed gene analysis, univariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, and hazard ratio calculations were used to establish an m6A score to quantify m6A regulator modification patterns. After using an algorithm integrating Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and bootstrapping, we identified the best candidate predictive genes. Thence, we established an m6A-related hypoxia pathway gene prognostic signature and built a nomogram to evaluate its predictive ability. The area under the curve (AUC) value of the nomogram was 0.811, which was higher than that of the risk score (AUC=0.695) and stage (AUC=0.779), suggesting a high credibility of the nomogram. Furthermore, the clinical response of anti-PD-1/CTLA-4 immunotherapy between high- and low-risk patients showed a significant difference. Our study successfully explored a brand-new GC pathological classification based on hypoxia pathway genes and the quantification of m6A modification patterns. Comprehensive immune analysis and validation demonstrated that hypoxia clusters were reliable, and our signature could provide a new approach for clinical decision-making and immunotherapeutic strategies for GC patients.


Fracture repair is a complex and multifactorial process, which involves a well-programmed series of cellular and molecular events that result in a combination of intramembranous and endochondral bone formation. The vast majority of fractures is treated successfully. They heal through 'secondary healing', a sequence of tissue differentiation processes, from initial haematoma, to connective tissues, and via cartilage to bone. However, the process can fail and this results in delayed healing or non-union, which occur in 5-10% of all cases. A better understanding of this process would enable the development of more accurate and rational strategies for fracture treatment and accelerating healing. Impaired healing has been associated with a variety of factors, related to the biological and mechanical environments. The local mechanical environment can induce fracture healing or alter its biological pathway by directing the cell and tissue differentiation pathways. The mechanical environment is usually described by global mechanical factors, such as gap size and interfragmentary movement. The relationship between global mechanical factors and the local stresses and strains that influence cell differentiation can be calculated using computational models. In this thesis, mechano-regulation algorithms are used to predict the influence of mechanical stimuli on tissue differentiation during bone healing. These models used can assist in unraveling the basic principles of cell and tissue differentiation, optimization of implant design, and investigation of treatments for non-union and other pathologies. However, this can only be accomplished after the models have been suitably validated. The aim of this thesis is to corroborate mechanoregulatory models, by comparing existing models with well characterized experimental data, identify shortcomings and develop new computational models of bone healing. The underlying hypothesis throughout this work is that the cells act as sensors of mechanical stimuli during bone healing. This directs their differentiation accordingly. Moreover, the cells respond to mechanical loading by proliferation, differentiation or apoptosis, as well as by synthesis or removal of extracellular matrix. In the first part of this work, both well-established and new potential mechano-regulation algorithms were implemented into the same computational model and their capacities to predict the general tissue distributions in normal fracture healing under cyclic axial load were compared. Several algorithms, based on different biophysical stimuli, were equally well able to predict normal fracture healing processes (Chapter 3). To corroborate the algorithms, they were compared with extensive in vivo experimental bone healing data. Healing under two distinctly different mechanical conditions was compared: axial compression or torsional rotation. None of the established algorithms properly predicted the spatial and temporal tissue distributions observed experimentally, for both loading modes and time points. Specific inadequacies with each model were identified. One algorithm, based on deviatoric strain and fluid flow, predicted the experimental results the best (Chapter 4). This algorithm was then employed in further studies of bone regeneration. By including volumetric growth of individual tissue types, it was shown to correctly predict experimentally observed spatial and temporal tissue distributions during distraction osteogenesis, as well as known perturbations due to changes in distraction rate and frequency (Chapter 5). In the second part of this work, a novel 'mechanistic model' of cellular activity in bone healing was developed, in which the limitations of previous models were addressed. The formulation included mechanical modulation of cell phenotype and skeletal tissue-type specific activities and rates. This model was shown to correctly predict the normal fracture healing processes, as well as delayed and non-union due to excessive loading, and also the effects of some specific biological perturbations and pathological situations. For example, alterations due to periosteal stripping or impaired cartilage remodeling (endochondral ossification) compared well with experimental observations (Chapter 6). The model requires extensive parametric data as input, which was gathered, as far as possible, from literature. Since many of the parameter magnitudes are not well established, a factorial analysis was conducted using 'design of experiments' methods and Taguchi orthogonal arrays. A few cellular parameters were thereby identified as key factors in the process of bone healing. These were related to bone formation, and cartilage production and degradation, which corresponded to those processes that have been suggested to be crucial biological steps in bone healing. Bone healing was found to be sensitive to parameters related to fibrous tissue and cartilage formation. These parameters had optimum values, indicating that some amounts of soft tissue production are beneficial, but too little or too much may be detrimental to the healing process (Chapter 7). The final part of this work focused on the remodeling phase of bone healing. Long bone postfracture remodeling in mice femora was characterized, including a new phenomenon described as 'dual cortex formation'. The effect of mechanical loading modes on fracturecallus remodeling was evaluated using a bone remodeling algorithm, and it was shown that the distinct remodeling behavior observed in mice, compared to larger mammals, could be explained by a difference in major mechanical loading mode (Chapter 8). In summary, this work has further established the potential of mechanobiological computational models in developing our knowledge of cell and tissue differentiation processes during bone healing in general, and fracture healing and distraction osteogenesis in particular. The studies presented in this thesis have led to the development of more mechanistic models of cell and tissue differentiation and validation approaches have been described. These models can further assist in screening for potential treatment protocols of pathophysiological bone healing.


The achievement of volume geometry data from middle ear structures and surrounding components performs a necessary supposition for the finite element simulation of the vibrational and transfer characteristics of the ossicular chain. So far those models base on generalized figures and size data from anatomy textbooks or particular manual and one- or two-dimensional distance measurements of single ossicles, mostly obtained by light microscopy, respectively. Therefore the goal of this study is to create a procedure for complete three-dimensional imaging of real middle ear structures (tympanic membrane, ossicles, ligaments) in vitro or even in vivo. The main problems are their microscopic size with relevant structures from 10 micrometer to 5 mm, representing various tissue properties (bone, soft tissue). Additionally, these structures are surrounded by the temporal bone, the most solid bone of the human body. Generally there exist several established diagnostic tools for medical imaging that could be used for geometry data acquisition, e.g., X-ray computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. Basically they image different tissue parameters, either bony structures (ossicles), or soft tissue (tympanic membrane, ligaments). But considering this application those standard techniques allow low spatial resolution only, usually in the 0.5 - 1mm range, at least in one spatial direction. Thus particular structures of the middle ear region could even be missed completely because of their spatial location. In vitro there is a way out by collecting three complete data sets, each distinguished by 90 degree rotation of a cube-shaped temporal bone specimen. That allows high-resolution imaging in three orthogonal planes, which essentially supports the three-dimensional interpolation of the unknown elements, starting from the regularly set elements of the cubic grid with an edge extension given by the original two-dimensional matrix. A different approach represents the application of a micro- tomographic imaging device. Therefore an X-ray beam focused down to few microns passes the object in a tomographic arrangement. Subsequently the slices become reconstructed. Generally spatial resolution down to 10 micrometer may be obtained by using this procedure. But there exist few devices only, it is not available as standard equipment. The best results concerning spatial resolution should be achieved by applying conventional histologic sectioning techniques. Of course the target will become destroyed during the procedure. It is cut into sections (e.g., 10 micrometer thick), every layer is stained, and the image acquired and stored by a digital still-camera with appropriate resolution (e.g., 2024 X 3036). Three-dimensional reconstruction is done with the computer. The staining allows visual selection of bones and soft tissues, resolutions down to 10 micrometer are possible without target segmentation. But there arise some practical problems. Mainly the geometric context of the layers is affected by the cutting procedure, especially if cutting bone. Another problem performs the adjustment of the -- possibly distorted -- slices to each other. Artificial markers are necessary, which could allow automatic adjustment too. But the introduction and imaging of the markers is difficult inside the temporal bone specimen, that is interspersed by several cavities. Of course the internal target structures must not be destroyed by the marker introduction. Furthermore the embedding compound could disturb the image acquisition, e.g., by optical scattering of paraffin. A related alternative is given by layered ablation/grinding and imaging of the top layer. This saves the geometric consistency, but requires very tricky and time-consuming embedding procedures. Both approaches require considerable expenditures. The possible approaches are evaluated in detail and first results are compared. So far none of the above-mentioned procedures has been established as a standard tool for three-dimensional geometry data acquisition of the middle ear. Otherwise the establishment of a high-resolution imaging technique for those structures, even in vivo, would be of high interest in diagnostics, anatomy and middle ear modeling and research at all.


The aims of this paper are to find algebraic characterizations of Schreier loops and explore the limits of the non-associative generalization of the theory of Schreier extensions. A loop can have Schreier decomposition with respect to a normal subgroup if and only if the subgroup is the middle and right nuclear. In this case the conjugation by elements of the loop induces inner automorphisms on the normal subgroup if and only if the subgroup commutes with a suitable left transversal through the identity. Schreier loops which are Schreier extensions of the same loop by the same normal subgroups are characterized.


Measurements have been made of ultra-high-frequency (l80Mc/s) breakdown fields in hydrogen, nitrogen and neon, in a Rogowski-profiled spark gap, under conditions of pressure in which both the electron ambit and the mean-free-path were less than the gap width (0.494cm). The measurements were made with sustained fields and also with pulsed fields in overvolted conditions to obtain data on the variation of breakdown delays with overvoltage. The delays were measured by photographing an oscilloscope trace which displayed the gap voltage, and a range of 400 to 0.2 microseconds was observed with over voltages up to 100%. Breakdown was initiated during a pulse by irradiating the gas in the mid-gap region with a short (about 0.1 microsecond) burst of ultraviolet photons, A theory is proposed which determines the shape of the oscillograms, and hence gives breakdown delays. Good agreement was obtained between theoretical and experimental delays for hydrogen and nitrogen, but predicted delays were too short by factors up to ten for neon. A qualitative explanation is given for the anomalous results for neon. Maintaining voltages have been measured in hydrogen and nitrogen, as a function of the gas pressure, but were too low to measure in neon. In all three gases it is shown that the maintaining fields are consistent with losses by ambi-polar diffusion, although electrons which approach within one ambit of an electrode are driven into that electrode by the action of the field. Immediately after breakdown in overvolted conditions the voltage approached zero and then recovered to approach the maintaining voltage asymptotically. The recovery time- constants were of the order which might be expected if an initial excess electron population were being diminished by ambi-polar diffusion.


Our objective was to determine if increasing the ruminal butyrate concentration would improve the selective permeability of ruminal epithelia. Suffolk wether lambs (n = 18) with an initial BW of 47.4 ±1.4 kg were housed in individual pens (1.5 × 1.5 m) with rubber mats on the floor. Lambs were blocked by initial BW into 6 blocks and, within block, were randomly assigned to either the control (CON) or 1 of 2 butyrate supplementation amounts (i.e., 1.25% or 2.50% butyrate as a proportion of DMI). With the exception of butyrate supplementation, all lambs were fed a common diet (90% concentrate and 10% barley silage). After a 14-d feeding period, lambs were killed, and ruminal epithelia from the ventral sac were mounted in Ussing chambers. To facilitate the Ussing chamber measurements, only 1 lamb was killed on an individual day. Thus, the starting date was staggered so that all lambs were exposed to the same experimental protocol. In Ussing chambers, epithelia were incubated using separate mucosal (pH 6.2) and serosal (pH 7.4) bathing solutions. Then 1-14C-butyrate (74 kBq/10 mL) was added to the mucosal side and was used to measure the mucosal-to-serosal flux (J(ms-butyrate)) in 2 consecutive 60-min flux periods with simultaneous measurement of transepithelial conductance (G(t)). During the first (challenge) flux period, the mucosal buffer solution was either acidified to pH 5.2 (ACID) or used as a control (pH 6.2; SHAM). Buffer solutions bathing the epithelia were replaced before the second flux period (recovery). Total ruminal short-chain fatty acid and butyrate concentrations were greater (P = 0.001) in lambs fed 2.50% compared with those fed 0% or 1.25% butyrate. The J(ms-butyrate) was less for lambs fed 1.25% and 2.50% butyrate [3.00 and 3.12 μmol/(cm2·h), respectively] than for CON [3.91 μmol/(cm2· h)]. However, no difference (P = 0.13)was observed for G(t). An ex vivo treatment × flux period interaction was detected (P = 0.003) for J(ms-butyrate), where no differences were present between ACID and SHAM during the challenge period, but the Jms-butyrate was less for ACID than for SHAM during recovery. These results indicate that large increases in the ruminal butyrate concentration decrease the selective permeability of the isolated ruminal epithelia.


Ungulate browsing and lack of overstory disturbance have historically prevented aspen regeneration on the Northern Yellowstone Winter Range (NYWR). Aspen clones regenerate if sprouts are produced that grow into recruitment stems (>2 m tall) and replace the mature overstory. Beaver reintroduced in 1991 to Eagle Creek on the NYWR facilitated aspen restoration by removing overstory trees and increasing sprouting. However, intense ungulate browsing, primarily from the Northern Yellowstone elk herd, was preventing aspen recruitment in Eagle Creek as of 2005. Since 2005, wolf predation has contributed to a 56% decrease in this elk herd. We investigated the effects of beaver reintroduction, ungulate herbivory, and predator‐mediated declines in elk numbers on aspen regeneration in Eagle Creek from 1997 to 2012. Aerial photos of Eagle Creek in 2005 and 2011 showed that the aspen overstory has not been replaced 21 years after beaver reintroduction (p > 0.05). Sprouting and recruitment were investigated using 4‐m radius circular plots (n = 31) established throughout Eagle Creek in 1997 and monitored annually until 2012. Beaver activity stimulated sprouting in 71% of these plots. In 2012, 77% of the plots had ≥1 recruitment stem and 75% of the paired plots associated with exclosures (n = 16) had aspen stems with an average height ≥2 m. Recent increases in aspen recruitment in Eagle Creek indicate that aspen communities are regenerating. This has likely resulted from decreased ungulate browsing pressure on aspen saplings from 2005 to 2012. These findings are consistent with the predictions of a density‐mediated trophic cascade following wolf reintroduction.


Peter Eisenman's axonometric drawings of House VI portray the defining characteristics of what he considered the intellectual contribution of the architectural act. Fundamental to this interpretation of architecture was the perception that architecture should be polemically engaged with the conceptual arts. Eisenman's writing on conceptual architecture at this time can be contextualised by his reactions to a single catalogue: the 1970 Haags Gemeentemuseum catalogue to an exhibition of the sculptor Sol LeWitt. This theoretical milieu influenced the drawings for House VI. Evidenced in Eisenman's drawings are responses to the ideas and images seen in this catalogue. In response, Eisenman exploited an ambiguity found in the axonometric technique to define architecture's divergence from other conceptual arts while maintaining many of their material and spatial qualities. He extended the spatiality implicit in the conventions of architectural drawing through newly formed attitudes to seriality, media and geometry that went beyond the diagrams of Houses I-IV. For House VI, this achieved a new engagement for the viewer in developing a notion of conceptual architecture. It also repositioned the importance of architectural drawing and its relativity to realised architecture. This article examines the drawings of House VI for their diffusion of these complex visual and architectural effects.


This paper presents the participation of the Taaable team in the 2014 Computer Cooking Contest. The three challenges proposed this year are addressed. The basic challenge is addressed with a new version of the Taaable system, built on Tuuurbine, a generic case-based
reasoning system over RDFS. The mixology challenge which requires building recipes only by using a set of available foods is also directly addressed using Tuuurbine conjointly with Revisor, an adaptation engine implementing various revision operators. For the mixology challenge,
Revisor is used to compute ingredient substitutions and to adjust the ingredient quantities. The taste score is evaluated as the probability that the adapted cocktail is tasty, depending on the probabilities that the retrieved recipe and the adaptation performed are good. The text of the preparation is adapted using textual substitutions. Finally, the originality challenge addresses reasoning on knowledge built collaboratively by an e-community, taking into account the reliability of knowledge units.


In this study, the microbiomes linked with the operational parameters in seven mesophilic full-scale AD plants mainly treating food waste (four plants) and sewage sludge (three plants) were analyzed. The results obtained indicated lower diversity and evenness of the microbial population in sludge digestion (SD) plants compared to food digestion (FD) plants. Candidatus Accumulibacter dominated (up to 42.1%) in SD plants due to microbial immigration from fed secondary sludge (up to 89%). Its potential activity in SD plants was correlated to H2 production, which was related to the dominance of hydrogenotrophic methanogens (Methanococcus). In FD plants, a balance between the hydrogenotrophic and methylotrophic pathways was found, while Flavobacterium and Levilinea played an important role during acidogenesis. Levilinea also expressed sensitivity to ammonia in FD plants. The substantial differences in hydraulic retention time (HRT), organic loading rate (OLR), and total ammonium nitrogen (TAN) among the studied FD plants did not influence the archaeal methane production pathway. In addition, the bacterial genera responsible for acetate production through syntrophy and homoacetogenesis (Smithella, Treponema) were present in all the plants studied.


Phenomenal incident happened regarding Ryan, a gay who killed and mutilated his victims because of his jealousy. This phenomenal has made the author wants to know about a jealousy among gays, especially in Jakarta. The purpose of this study is to understand about psychodynamic of jealousy, and to give suggestion for intervention strategy development such as counseling for gays. Other purpose is to give description of jealousy of gay in Jakarta. This study used qualitative method. Depth interview and observation we used to collect data. The followings research results are: 1) mainly age of subjects became gay were not in line with theories status the phase of being a gay; 2) all subjects have no father figure or father as negative life-style influence; 3) all subjects are ego dystonic homosexsual, 4) all subjects were stimulated by emotional jealousy; 5) type of jealousy on all sibjects are suspicious jealousy.


Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are common in small amounts in the environment as a natural constituent of organic-rich rocks. They are mostly formed under oxygen-depleted conditions during burning of materials containing organic carbon. The samples, collected from peatlands which had been partially burned were analyzed for 17 unsubstituted PAHs. The profiles sampled encompassed: peat layer, burned peat layer and surficial newly formed turf-root layer. The average contents of determined PAHs in the burned peat layer is 0.114±0.048 ppm, and is similar to that in the underlying peats (0.101±0.039 ppm). The newly formed surficial root layer reveals concentrations nearly three times higher, i.e. 0.313±0.144 ppm. The PAH spectrum of both peat types practically includes only acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene and fluoranthene. The presence of hydrocarbons with higher molecular weight, i.e. pyrene and chrysene, was noted only in some samples of burned peats; perylene was recorded only in moss peats. The PAH spectrum of newly-formed turf–root layer is different, and is characterized by the presence of all determined 4-ring and partly 5-ring [benzo(b)fluoranthene and benzo(e)pyrene] hydrocarbons. The relatively poor spectrum of PAHs in the burned peat layer, and the presence of larger amounts and greater diversity of these compounds in the newly-formed surficial layer, may indicate that most of these hydrocarbons must have originated from airborne PAH deposition.


Purpose
This paper aims to assess the contemporary paradigm of urban utopia's ability to fulfil its goals and to evaluate its attainability in the first place. Its main question is: are contemporary urban utopias achievable? If not, is there an alternative?

Design/methodology/approach
In light of modern urban utopia's failure to achieve the "good city/society," skepticism regarding utopianism has prevailed. However, many scholars stress the significance of utopianism, calling for its revival. Recently, a new paradigm of urban utopia has emerged; one that stems from present capitalist urban conditions and requires resolving its ills. It puts great emphasis on rights as a means to accomplish the good society and the just city. This research critically examines contemporary urban utopia to evaluate its ability to fulfill its goals. It poses questions such as: Does capitalism facilitates achieving its goals? Could rights as a means achieve the good city/society? If not, is there an alternative? To answer these questions, a substantially different perspective, that of Islam (as a societal system), is used as a utopic paradigm that could open up new paths for developing an alternative utopia.

Findings
It is found that despite the focus of both the Islamic societal system and mainstream contemporary urban utopia is on the concept of rights, vital dissensions exist between the two models regarding the concept of rights per se. Hence, the urban utopia of the good city and society is achievable, yet, it cannot transpire within the capitalist kaleidoscope.

Originality/value
Recently, discussions on what constitutes the future city and the alternative conceptions to the (Western) post-Enlightenment approaches generally offered in the English language planning literature have been on the rise. Therefore, this paper contributes to this debate through critically assessing Western contemporary urban utopias from a non-Western perspective, that of Islam. It introduces an alternative model based on Islamic urbanism that could open doors for deeper thinking regarding the alternative future/good city.


Heterogeneous data collected by smartphone sensors offer new opportunities to study a person's mobility behavior. The mobility patterns extracted from the travel histories found in these data enable agents residing in mobile devices to model transitions between visited locations, so that upcoming trips can be predicted after observing a set of events, and assistance can be planned in advance. When several agents cooperate, the forecasted trips made by multiple users can provide a potential supply for shared mobility systems such as dynamic ridesharing. These trips must be sufficiently regular and frequent to be reliably announced as shareable trips. This paper describes a methodology to identify a predictable aggregate supply for ridesharing via mobility patterns discovered in users' travel histories. The methodology empirically quantifies measures like the regularity and frequency of these patterns on a dataset consisting of 967 users scattered across different geographical areas. The sample exhibits high heterogeneity with respect to these measures (hence, of predictability, regardless of the prediction method). This paper shows how frequency of trip patterns decreases, while regularity increases, when additional dimensions such as departure times are added to the analysis. It was concluded that the traveler flexibility with regard to accepting less regular trips is vital to discover a larger supply. These results provide insights to develop future applications able to take advantage of this approach, to increase ridesharing rates, allowing a critical mass to be more easily attained.


MOTIVATION
Predicting the association between microRNAs (miRNAs) and diseases plays an import role in identifying human disease-related miRNAs. As identification of miRNA-disease associations via biological experiments is time-consuming and expensive, computational methods are currently used as effective complements to determine the potential associations between disease and miRNA.

RESULTS
We present a novel method of neural inductive matrix completion with graph convolutional network (NIMCGCN) for predicting miRNA-disease association. NIMCGCN first uses graph convolutional networks (GCNs) to learn miRNA and disease latent feature representations from the miRNA and disease similarity networks. Then, learned features were input into a novel neural inductive matrix completion (NIMC) model to generate an association matrix completion. The parameters of NIMCGCN were learned based on the known miRNA-disease association data in a supervised end-to-end way. We compared the proposed method with other state-of-the-art methods. The AUC results showed that our method is significantly superior to existing methods. Furthermore, 50, 47, and 48 of the top 50 predicted miRNAs for three high-risk human diseases, namely, colon cancer, lymphoma, and kidney cancer, were verified using experimental literature. Finally, 100% prediction accuracy was achieved when breast cancer was used as a case study to evaluate the ability of NIMCGCN for predicting a new disease without any known related miRNAs.

AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
https://github.com/ljatynu/NIMCGCN/.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


A major task in quantitative SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) reconstruction is compensation for object-specific attenuation, which is usually nonuniform. Mathematically this task is expressed as the inversion of the attenuated Radon transform. Novikov had derived an explicit inversion formula for the attenuated Radon transform for parallel-beam collimation geometry. In our previous work, we extended his work to variable focusing fan-beam (VFF) collimators. A ray-driven analytical inversion formula for VFF reconstruction with nonuniform attenuation was derived. The drawback of ray-driven methods is that they are time consuming. In this work, we proposed a fast implementation method, which includes algorithm optimization and acceleration by the texture-mapping architecture of PC graphics/video card. We further investigated the noise properties and associated artifacts of the analytical inversion formula. The artifacts were remarkably reduced when more projections were sampled to mitigate the problem of wide bandwidth of the discrete Hilbert transform. The reconstruction from noisy data demonstrated the accuracy and robustness of the presented ray-driven analytical inversion formula with dramatic speed acceleration by the PC graphics/video card.


A foveolar splinter and macular wisps were reported previously in cases of spontaneous senile posterior vitreous detachment, old healed chorioretinitis, and following direct and indirect ocular concussion and whiplash injury. Since that report, a foveolar splinter and macular wisps were found, and optical sections of the retinal surface showing them were photographed, in cases of retinitis pigmentosa, juvenile macular degeneration, foveomacular retinitis, and following absorption of a small prefoveal hemorrhage. Probably, in these cases also, traction of the detaching posterior hyaloid membrane on the retina produced the splinter and wisps.


Introduction The inherent variability of the history and exam inpaediatrics make acute abdominal pain a diagnostic challenge. Investigations such as white-cell-count (WCC), C-reactive-protein and radiological studies have been advocated tohelp objectify management. Whilst Computed Tomography is accurate, the amount ofradiation involved renders it unacceptable and thus many view ultrasonographyas an acceptable alternative. But do these tests add value? Methods Retrospective review between 2002–2012. Data was collected for children under sixteen with acute abdominal pain undergoinginvestigation with ultrasound and haematological testing. For 2005,a retrospective review was conducted for children presenting with abdominalpain to obtain data on demographics, history and examination findings. Analysis for diagnostic accuracy was undertaken. Results 5000 records were reviewed, and 1744 records included. 6% of children developed appendicitis. Findingsof worsening pain, associated with nausea or vomiting yielded moderatesensitivities and specificities (combined values over 70%). Fever was non-specific. Localised tenderness is the most sensitiveexam finding and rebound tenderness is the most specific, both having values over 90%. WCC and CRP offer similar sensitivitiesand specificities, both producing results under 80%. Only 30% of ultrasounds visualisedthe appendix, significantly dampening the sensitivity below 75%. The incidence of appendicitis in thenon-visualised group was 8%. Conclusion No test is useful for ruling out appendicitis. Given thatthe incidence of appendicitis is higher in the non-visualised group, this isespecially so with ultrasonography. Clinical examination with senior input isthe most sensible strategy for managing children with acute abdominal pain.


Construction is frequently described as consisting of two independent supply chains, a material and an immaterial, knowledge producing, a simplification also used here. The paper argues however that in a knowledge economy, those are increasingly intertwined and moreover characterised by configuration by project. In such a setting creating value for the customers and the enterprises becomes dependent of the ability to organise and coordinate in the supply chains. That the configuration is not always successful can be demonstrated by studying the emergence of failures occurring in the supply chain. The paper presents case study work done in Danish construction. The method was to observe work at the construction site and interviewing actors following backwards upstream the supply chain to the origin of the failure. The building project followed generated 160 failures over a three-month observation period. These were compiled and analysed. The economic consequences are calculated to be 8% of the production costs. The analysis of relations in the supply chain both shows relations to materials and knowledge chains and their interaction. Most of the failures were generated in the knowledge stream and then occasionally transfer into the material stream. The paper proposes initiatives to strengthen partnerships in supply chains and especially at engineer to order production. The contradiction between the permanent enterprise organisation potentially capable of handling purchasing and the role of the project manager is discussed as a contradiction to overcome.


Future massive internet of thing (IoT) networks will enable the vision of smart cities, where it is anticipated that a massive number of sensor devices, in the order of tens of millions devices, ubiquitously deployed to monitor the environment. Main challenges in such a network are how to improve the network lifetime and design an e cient data aggregation process. To improve the lifetime, using low-power passive sensor devices have recently shown great potential. Ambient backscattering is a novel technology which provides low-power long-range wireless communication expanding the network lifetime signi cantly. On the other hand, in order to collect the sensed data from sensor devices deployed over a wide area, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been considered as a promising technology, by leveraging the UAV's high mobility and line-of-sight (LOS) dominated air-ground channels. The UAV can act as data aggregator collecting sensed data from all sensors. In this thesis, we consider medium-access control (MAC) policies for two sensor data collection scenarios. First, the objective is to collect individual sensor data from the eld. The challenge in this case is to determine how a large number of sensors should access the medium so that data aggregation process performed in a fast and reliable fashion. Utilizing conventional orthogonal medium access schemes (e.g., time-division vi multiple access (TDMA) and frequency-division multiple access (FDMA)), is highly energy consuming and spectrally ine cient. Hence, we employ non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) which is envisaged as an essential enabling technology for 5G wireless networks especially for uncoordinated transmissions. In Chapter 2, we develop a framework where the UAV is used as a replacement to conventional terrestrial data collectors in order to increase the e ciency of collecting data from a eld of passive backscatter sensors, and simultaneously it acts as a mobile RF carrier emitter to activate backscatter sensors. In the MAC layer, we employ uplink power-domain NOMA scheme to e ectively serve a large number of passive backscatter sensors. Our objective is to optimize the path, altitude, and beamwidth of the UAV such that the network throughput is maximized. In Chapter 3, we consider the scenario where there are a separate data collector and RF carrier emitter such that the former is a gateway on the ground and the latter is a single UAV hovering over the eld of backscatter sensors. Secondly, we consider a case where only a function of sensed data is of interest rather than individual sensor values. A new challenge arises where the problem is to design a communication policy to improve the accuracy of the estimated function. Recently, over-the-air computation (AirComp) has emerged to be a promising solution to enable merging computation and communication by utilizing the superposition property of wireless channels, when a function of measurements are desired rather than individual in massive IoT sensor networks. One of the key challenges in AirComp is to compensate the e ects of channel. Motivated by this, in Chapter 4, we propose a UAV assisted communication framework to tackle this problem by a simple to implement sampling-then-mapping mechanism.


General elections conducted in Nigeria have always attracted a mixed reaction from both internal and external observers over the nature of its conducts. Many Nigerians observed that, the 1999 and 2003 presidential elections were characterized by irregularities, fraud and violence, yet the results were respectively declared free and fair. To test the hypotheses formulated using Pearson"s Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) measurement technique, an attempt is made to ascertain the degree of association or otherwise between the election inputs and any other associational influence on the vote pattern of the electorates, between choice party and candidate"s popularity. The essence is that, Pearson"s Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) is a parametric technique used for determining the strength and the direction of the relationship between two variables X and Y. Keywords: Presidential, ballot, outcome, correlation


The Open Source Software movement has been growing exponentially for a number of years with no signs of slowing. Driving this growth is the wide-spread availability of libraries and frameworks that provide many functionalities. Developers are saving time and money incorporating this functionality into their applications resulting in faster more feature-rich releases. Despite the growing success and the advantages that open source software provides, there is a dark side. Due to its community construction and largely unregulated distribution, the majority of open source software contains bugs, vulnerabilities and other issues making it highly susceptible to exploits. The lack of oversight in general hinders the quality of this software resulting in a trickle down effect in the applications that use it. Additionally, developers who use open source tend to arbitrarily download the software into their build systems but rarely keep track of what they have downloaded resulting in an excessive amount of open source software in their applications and in their ecosystem. This paper discusses processes and practices that users of open source software can implement into their environments that can safely track and control the introduction and usage of open source software into their applications, and report on some preliminary results obtained in an industrial context. We conclude by discussing governance issues related to the disciplined use and reuse of open source and areas for further improvements.


The clade Pancrustacea, comprising crustaceans and hexapods, is the most diverse group of animals on earth, containing over 80% of animal species. It has been the subject of several recent phylogenomic analyses, but despite analyzing hundreds of genes, relationships within Pancrustacea show a notable lack of stability. Here, the phylogeny is estimated with expanded taxon sampling, particularly of malacostracans, using a precise tree-based approach to infer orthology. Our results show that small changes in taxon sampling have a large impact on phylogenetic estimation. By analyzing only shared orthologs between two slightly different taxon sets, we show that the differences in the resulting topologies are due to the effects of taxon sampling on the phylogenetic reconstruction method, not on ortholog identification. We compare trees resulting from our phylogenomic analyses with those from the literature to explore the large tree space of pancrustacean phylogenetic hypotheses and find that statistical topology tests reject the previously published trees in favor of the ML trees produced here. Our results reject several clades including Caridoida, Eucarida, Multicrustacea, Vericrustacea, and Syncarida. We recover a novel relationship between decapods, euphausiids, and syncarids that we refer to as the Syneucarida. With denser taxon sampling, we find Stomatopoda sister to this clade, which we name Stomatocaridea, dividing Malacostraca into three clades: Leptostraca, Peracarida, and Stomatocaridea. A new Bayesian divergence time estimation is conducted using 13 vetted fossils. We review our results in the context of other pancrustacean phylogenetic hypotheses and highlight the key taxa to sample in future studies.


A theory is presented which predicts the effect of surface roughness on the ellipsometric parameters of reflected light. This theory is valid for low values of gradient of the surface roughness and large values of the lateral correlation length of roughness. The theory is based on geometrical optics and provides an expression for the ratio of p-polarised to s-polarised reflectance which is very similar to that which was obtained by previous workers using scattering theory. It is found, for the first time, that a theory which is valid for long correlation length shows some similarity with results using the effective medium approximation. This geometrical theory also adds further weight to the argument that long-range roughness has only a very small effect on the ellipsometric parameters as measured by typical ellipsometers. An inconsistency in the differentiation of reflectivity with respect to surface roughness out of the plane of specular reflectance, as carried out by previous workers in the field, is pointed out.


LEIPZIG, Germany: The oldest known skeleton showing signs of leprosy has recently been found in India and may help unravel the myth of where the disease originated. In the journal PLoS ONE, Assistant Professor Gwen Robbins, an anthropologist at Appalachian State University in the US, and researchers in India describe a middle-aged adult male skeleton demonstrating signs of leprosy in skeletal material, such as tooth loss and root exposure.


This study aims to produce a teaching material in the form of student modules based on PMRI approaches for grade IV elementary schools. The research method used is development research using the 4-D model (define, design, develop, disseminate). Subjects in the study were grade four students of SD IT Salsabila Palembang. Based on the research results obtained a valid and practical module. Validity can be from the results of the assessment of material experts, media modules and languages. Practicality can be from the results of the assessment of students in the field test is limited to the mathematical modules students developed. Based on data from the questionnaire analysis of students at the stage of limited field test, a score of 313 obtained from a maximum total of 352 assessments, which presented to be 88.92% and it could be categorized that the module developed practically. The potential effect was seen from the results of the student's final ability test. From the results of data analysis that has done that the average final score of students is 80.88 which means that the learning outcomes of students classified as an outstanding category, it can be concluded that the student mathematics module based on the PMRI approach that has developed as a potential effect on student learning outcomes students.


Acupuncture is widely used as an alternative therapy with few side effects because of its simple manipulation and low cost. However, accidents may occur if the practitioner uses it improperly. Early in the Qin dynasty, the Canon of Medicine mentioned that improper use of acupuncture could cause injury to the body and even death, and it systematically described the occurrence and prevention of acupuncture accidents. Physicians in the successive dynasties frequently reported it, and realized that the manipulation skills were significantly important in preventing the occurrence of acupuncture accidents. Since the 1950s, acupuncture accidents had been effectively prevented because of the improving of acupuncture instruments, enhancing of the quality of the practitioners, popularizing of sterilization and disseminating of anatomic knowledge. Nevertheless, with the renovating of acupuncture techniques, new accidents may occur constantly. The prevention of acupuncture accidents still should be an arduous task for acupuncturists. Nowadays, acupuncture therapy is being used in more than 140 countries, and acupuncture accidents due to improper application are increasing. Prevention of acupuncture accidents has become a global issue deserving of great attention.


Treatment of 1,3-C6H4I2 with Pt(PEt3)4 in toluene leads to the isolation of [1,3-(Pt(PEt3)2I)2C6H4] (2). This complex has been characterized by 1H, 13C and 31P NMR and elemental analysis. The structure of 2 as well as that of [1,4-(Pt(PEt3)2I)2C6H4] (1) have been determined by single crystal X-ray analysis. As expected, the platinum centers of these derivatives adopt a square planar coordination geometry with the phosphine ligands in a trans arrangement. Treatment of compounds 1 and 2 with AgPF6 and subsequent addition of two equivalents
of NITpPy (NITpPy = [2-(4-pyridyl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxide]) results in the formation of [1,4-(Pt(PEt3)2(NITpPy))2C6H4]2+[PF6]−2 (3) and [1,3-(Pt(PEt3)2(NITpPy))2C6H4]2+[PF6]−2 (4), respectively. Compounds 3 and 4 have been characterized by +ESI/TOF, IR, UV and elemental analysis. Their structures have been determined by X-ray crystallography which confirmed the coordination of a NITpPy ligand at each platinum center. As in 1 and 2,
the platinum centers adopt a square planar coordination geometry with the phosphine ligands in a trans arrangement. As shown by EPR spectroscopy and SQUID magnetometry, intramolecular magnetic coupling of the coordinated NITpPy moieties does not occur.


"Mr. Russell's book is the first by a non-Korean to explain the rise of Korea's entertainment industries...the book could hardly be more approachable."--Wall Street Journal "For a country that traditionally received culture, especially from China but also from Japan and the United States, South Korea finds itself at a turning point in its new role as exporter."--The New York Times From kim chee to kim chic! South Korea came from nowhere in the 1990s to become one of the biggest producers of pop content (movies, music, comic books, TV dramas, online gaming) in Asia--and the West. Why? Who's behind it? Mark James Russell tells an exciting tale of rapid growth and wild success marked by an uncanny knack for moving just one step ahead of changing technologies (such as music downloads and Internet comics) that have created new consumer markets around the world. Among the media pioneers profiled in this book is film director Kang Je-gyu, maker of Korea's first blockbuster film Shiri; Lee Su-man, who went from folk singer to computer programmer to creator of Korea's biggest music label; and Nelson Shin, who rose from North Korea to the top of the animation business. Full of fresh analysis, engaging reportage, and insightful insider anecdotes, Pop Goes Korea explores the hallyu (the Korean Wave) hitting the world's shores in the new century. Mark James Russell is a freelance writer who lived in Korea for 13 years, specializing in Korean pop culture. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and other publications. He has also written extensively from around Asia, from Mongolia to Japan to Thailand. He currently lives in Spain.


Sleep disturbances accompany almost all mental illnesses, either because sound sleep and mental well-being share similar requisites, or because mental problems lead to sleep problems, or vice versa. The aim of this narrative review was to examine sleep in patients with delusions, particularly in those diagnosed with delusional disorder. We did this in sequence, first for psychiatric illness in general, then for psychotic illnesses where delusions are prevalent symptoms, and then for delusional disorder. The review also looked at the effect on sleep parameters of individual symptoms commonly seen in delusional disorder (paranoia, cognitive distortions, suicidal thoughts) and searched the evidence base for indications of antipsychotic drug effects on sleep. It subsequently evaluated the influence of sleep therapies on psychotic symptoms, particularly delusions. The review's findings are clinically important. Delusional symptoms and sleep quality influence one another reciprocally. Effective treatment of sleep problems is of potential benefit to patients with persistent delusions, but may be difficult to implement in the absence of an established therapeutic relationship and an appropriate pharmacologic regimen. As one symptom can aggravate another, comorbidities in patients with serious mental illness all need to be treated, a task that requires close liaison among medical specialties.


1930. About this time the patient developed acute mania and had to be transferred to a mental hospital, where he is still an inmate. In this case the femur was not the only bone affected with osteitis deformans. In all these cases the direction of the break was transverse. I was surprised at the rapidity with which union occurred in all the cases, even after the re-fractures; in three of the cases the fractures were spontaneous. In one case there was a calcified mass above the left iliac crest and calcification was present in the ischial bursme. The Wassermann reaction was negative in all cases, and the blood-calcium estimated in two cases was normal. An excessive amount of callus had formed in three cases. The functional result was good in all.


Silo container is a very important storage structure for coal, sand and other granular materials. Nonhomogeneous granular flow is sometimes found in ore discharging in mining engineering, but so far there are only limited studies to this topic, particularly for double opening silo. In views of that, it is necessary to figure out the details about the flow pattern behavior. In the present paper, four physical models are designed to investigate the flow patterns for silos discharge behavior with double openings. The opening spacing, height ratio, sand properties and automatic separated manners are considered in these laboratory tests. Meanwhile, twodimensional discrete element method is used to reproduce the flow behavior as well as to evaluate the dynamic wall stresses distribution on the silo hopper from bottom to top. It is found that the flow pattern is very sensitive to the spacing between openings under close opening silos. For the wide opening silos, the discharge efficiency would change nearly 30%. The arch effect in the dead zone and ore recovery are significantly influenced by the height /spacing ratio. The results from discrete element analysis can match well with the experimental study if suitable micro-parameters are used in the analysis.


OSIS-IHI (Ocean Structure Interaction Simulator – Ice-Hull Interaction) is a ship maneuvering in ice modeling software developed at OCRE for a marine simulator and ship performance assessment applications. A series of OSIS-IHI simulations is conducted to explain the maneuvering behavior observed of the USCGC Polar Icebreaker indicative design previously tested at the centre. The simulation is conducted with the original and a modified version of the USCGC Icebreaker Healy. The Icebreaker USCGC Healy was equipped with doublescrew conventional propellers. The hull geometry of the OSIS-Healy model is appropriately modified to mimic the hull form of two indicated design versions in question and its propulsion units replaced by twin pods prior to studying its maneuverability in order to shed light on the apparently poor maneuvering performance of the podded version of the indicative design. The modified version extends the mid-body leaving just 7.5 % of hull that constitutes the stern section. It is hypothesized that the extended mid-section cost large resisting moment against turning due to the increase of ice breaking at the aft shoulder and mid-body. This hypothesis is validated numerically to explain the poor maneuverability exhibited by the extended mid-body design, based on consideration of ice-hull interaction geometry and basic mechanics of ice breaking as well as existing anecdotal test evidences. This paper presents result of the simulation to explore effects of hull geometry and tightness of turns on ship maneuverability. Important insights gained are summarized and recommendation for further work given.


A survey is made of progress in the development and application of multidimensional methods for predicting the in-cylinder flows of reciprocating engines: also discussed is the relevance to combustion prediction. It is concluded that there have been significant advances in the numerical methodology, such that it is now possible to contemplate calculation of the complex three-dimensional flows found in production engine combustion chambers. The cost and effort involved is, however, likely to be high for adequate computational grid densities, and there remain some unresolved problems in the representation of inlet and exhaust flows. A second important conclusion is that as the accuracy of the numerical methods has improved, so has the agreement between predictions and measurements of the ensemble-average flow based on conventional turbulence models. Thirdly, the accurate prediction of the flow behavior during individual cycles, which is of interest in connection with cycle-to-cycle variations in combustion performance, is believed still to be outside the capabilities of current methodology. It is argued, however, that advances in this direction are likely to be accelerated if it is recognized that similar phenomena occur in simple stationary flows, such as are found in stirred combustion bombs.


This contribution shows how to modify classical autofocusing in optical microscopy to perform automated analysis of information content in image data generated by the instrument, even if dealing with thick specimen or working in confocal mode. The new approach is useful for finding 3D regions of interest prior to image acquisition, which enables the user to record precisely those places in space that contain useful image data. This results in shorter acquisition time and less memory consumption as compared to the acquisition of classical large rectangular volumes containing more background regions than object regions (especially for a sparse specimen and camera-based systems). The standard process of image focusing assumes unimodal behaviour of the focus function. In real world, however, this assumption is often not fulfilled and the objects normally do not lie in one plane. There may be interesting planes of focus present in the focus function plot, which are suppressed by other, more distinctive, planes that prevent the autofocus algorithm from detecting them. Therefore, our goal was to find all the interesting z-planes with rich in-focus information content (even those that are hard to detect by the human eye) for a given lateral region. A new technique is employed based on dividing the field of view into several sub-fields and applying the focus function to each of them independently. The separated results are then merged in order to gain a global view of the 3D regions of interest. We actually reduce the problem of finding more z-planes in one image to the problem of finding one z-plane in multiple images. In such a way, one can make use of automated focusing to obtain more accurate and reliable results as compared to those of manual focusing or standard unimodal autofocusing.


Acute coronary occlusion can occur following percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) upon return to the coronary care unit (CCU), and is sometimes life-threatening. To identify high-risk patients for acute occlusion following PTCA, we analyzed 11 patients with post-lab acute occlusion. All of the patients had some evidence of intimal tear or dissection at the site of dilatation. During the study period, 1343 patients (1998 lesions) with angina pectoris underwent PTCA. Of these, 331 vessels (17%) had some degree of intimal tear or dissection at the site of dilatation. From these 331, 50 patients (50 vessels) without evidence of acute occlusion were randomly selected to serve as the control group. Patients in the acute occlusion group had more extensive dissection (p < 0.05) and less water balance (drip-infused water-urine, ml) during angioplasty (p < 0.1) than those in the control group. Furthermore, a significantly higher percentage of patients in the acute occlusion group complained of chest discomfort upon arrival at the CCU (72% vs 8%, p < 0.0001). These variables may be useful in identifying high-risk patients for post-lab acute occlusion, particularly in the presence of an intimal tear or dissection at the target site.


We present the results of a spectral analysis of the central region of the mixed-morphology supernova remnant HB 9. A prior Ginga observation of this source detected a hard X-ray component above 4 keV, and the origin of this particular X-ray component is still unknown. Our results demonstrate that the extracted X-ray spectra are best represented by a model consisting of a collisional ionization equilibrium plasma with a temperature of ∼0.1–0.2 keV (interstellar matter component) and an ionizing plasma with a temperature of ∼0.6–0.7 keV and an ionization timescale of >1 × 1011 cm−3 s (ejecta component). No significant X-ray emission was found in the central region above 4 keV. The recombining plasma model reported by a previous work does not explain our spectra.


The lag-weighted lasso was introduced to deal with lag effects when identifying the true model in time series. This method depends on weights to reflect both the coefficient size and the lag effects. However, the lag weighted lasso is not robust. To overcome this problem, we propose robust lag weighted lasso methods. Both the simulation study and the real data example show that the proposed methods outperform the other existing methods.


Since 2000 intergovernmental relations in New Zealand have been evolving rapidly as a result of a significant shift in government policy discourse towards a strong central-local government partnership. New statutory provisions empowering local government to promote social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing have significant implications for the range of activities in which local authorities are engaged. In turn, this has consequences for the relationship between local government and central government. The effectiveness of the new empowerment and the prospects for further strengthening of the role of local government are critically examined. Despite some on-going tensions, and an inevitable mismatch in the balance of power between central and local government, it is argued that there is a discernible rebalancing of intergovernmental relations as a result of new legislation and central government policy settings which reflect a 'localist turn'. On the basis of developments since 2000 it may be argued that the New Zealand system of local government is evolving away from the recognised 'Anglo' model. However, further consolidation is needed in the transformation of intergovernmental relations and mechanisms that will cement a more genuine central-local government partnership.


Approximations made in day-ahead markets can result in suboptimal or even infeasible schedules for generating units and inaccurate predictions of actual costs and wind curtailment. Here we compare different optimal models of day-ahead markets based on unit commitment (UC) formulations, especially energy- vs. power-based UC; excluding or including startup and shutdown trajectories; and deterministic vs. "ideal" stochastic models to face wind uncertainty. The day-ahead hourly schedules are then evaluated against actual wind and load profiles using a (5-min) real-time dispatch model. We find that each simplification usually causes expected generation costs to increase by several percentage points, and results in significant understatement of expected wind curtailment and, in some cases, load interruptions


This article discusses the relationship to health, the factors that influence health-promoting behavior and adherence to treatment among the population. Defined levels at which formed health-preserving behavior. The aim is to study the features of health preservation and adherence of doctors at different stages of professional development. The article presents the results of research carried out during the grant "Health protectionand adherence among physicians at different stages of professional development." The study identified characteristics influence metapsychic processes on the formation of healthy behaviors and treatment adherence among students, interns / residents and physicians with experience.


Area coverage of large-scale marine protected areas (MPAs) (LSMPAs, > 100,000 km2) is rapidly increasing globally. Their effectiveness largely depends on successful detection and management of non-compliance. However, for LSMPAs this can be difficult due to their large size, often remote locations and a lack of understanding of the social drivers of non-compliance. Taking a case-study approach, we review current knowledge of illegal fishing within the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) LSMPA. Data stemming from enforcement reports (2010–20), and from fieldwork in fishing communities (2018–19) were combined to explore and characterise drivers of non-compliance. Enforcement data included vessel investigation reports (n = 188), transcripts of arrests (20) and catch seizures (58). Fieldwork data included fisher interviews (95) and focus groups (12), conducted in two communities in Sri Lanka previously associated with non-compliance in BIOT LSMPA. From 2010 to 2020, there were 126 vessels suspected of non-compliance, 76% of which were Sri Lankan. The majority of non-compliant vessels targeted sharks (97%), catching an estimated 14,340 individuals during the study period. Sri Lankan vessels were primarily registered to one district (77%) and 85% operated from just two ports within the fieldwork sites. Social Network Analysis (SNA) showed that 66% of non-compliant vessels were linked by social ties, including sharing crew members, compared with only 34% of compliant vessels. Thematic analysis of qualitative data suggested that perceptions of higher populations of sharks and social ties between vessels may both be important drivers. We discuss our findings within a global context to identify potential solutions for LSMPA management.


With the development of Industry 4.0 technology, modern industries such as Bosch's welding monitoring witnessed the rapid widespread of machine learning (ML) based data analytical applications, which in the case of welding monitoring has led to more efficient and accurate welding monitoring quality. However, industrial ML is affected by the low transparency of ML towards non-ML experts needs. The lack of understanding by domain experts of ML methods hampers the application of ML methods in industry and the reuse of developed ML pipelines, as ML methods are often developed in an ad hoc manner for specific problems. To address these challenges, we propose the concept and a system of executable Knowledge Graph (KG), which formally encode ML knowledge and solutions in KGs, which serve as common language between ML experts and non-ML experts, thus facilitate their communication and increase the transparency of ML methods. We evaluated our system extensively with an industrial use case at Bosch, showing promising results.


Pfizer is developing pregabalin, a follow-up compound to its GABA agonist gabapentin, for the potential treatment of several central nervous system (CNS) disorders including epilepsy, neuropathic pain, anxiety and social phobia [286425]. By December 2000, Pfizer anticipated filing an NDA for pregabalin for seven major indications (beginning with neuropathic pain and add-on epilepsy), with the FDA by the end of 2001. Filings for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social anxiety disorder and fibromyalgia are expected to take place in 2002, and filings for epilepsy monotherapy and panic disorders are expected to take place in early- and late-2003, respectively [336918], [393182], [399956]. By January 2001, pregabalin was in phase II development in Japan for the potential treatment of neuropathic pain, with an anticipated approval date of 2005 [394827]. However, following analysis by the FDA of a mouse study that showed incidence of a specific tumor type, Pfizer announced in February 2001, that it is restricting the use of pregablin in some clinical patients [398726] and it has frozen trials for neuropathic pain [398785]. In April 2001, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter predicted potential sales of $350 million in 2002, rising to $1750 million in 2006, with peak sales in excess of $2000 million [406923].


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Recent studies have highlighted the role of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) in carcinogenesis, and suggested that this class of genes might be used as biomarkers in cancer. We searched the human genome for novel genes including ncRNAs related to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

METHODS
An HCC-specific gene library was generated and screened for deregulated genes with 46 HCCs, 4 focal nodular hyperplasias, and 7 cirrhoses utilizing cDNA arrays. Sequencing of library clones identified a novel ncRNA as the most up-regulated gene in HCC. This gene was also cloned from different monkeys and characterized by quantitative RT-PCR, Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization. Structural and functional studies included comparative sequence and protein expression analyses, quantitative RT-PCR of polysomal preparations, and siRNA-mediated knockdown experiments.

RESULTS
The most up-regulated gene in HCC named highly up-regulated in liver cancer (HULC) was characterized as a novel mRNA-like ncRNA. HULC RNA is spliced and polyadenlyated, and resembles the mammalian LTR transposon 1A. It does not contain substantial open reading frames, and no native translation product was detected. HULC is present in the cytoplasm, where it copurifies with ribosomes. siRNA-mediated knockdown of HULC RNA in 2 HCC cell lines altered the expression of several genes, 5 of which were known to be affected in HCC, suggesting a role for HULC in post-transcriptional modulation of gene expression.

CONCLUSIONS
HULC is the first ncRNA with highly specific up-regulation in HCC. Because HULC was detected in blood of HCC patients, a potential use as novel biomarker can be envisaged.


Looking at the historical development of museums, it can be observed that due to the data they obtain, they have an effective role in defining social life practices of the term and economic, political conditions and socio-cultural understanding. Museum with an educational institution's mission, at the same time it is an obligation work so as to make up an organic tie with the society to improve urban identity and memory, and awareness of protection. In the complex historical urban societies that are about to disappear it is becoming more and more noticeable that organic ties are necessary and obligatory. Urban museums are defined especially by International Committee of Collection of City Museums and Activities which is a sub-committee of ICOM as "a museum model that aims to improve and strenghten the city identity in a planned way which reflects the past, present and future of the city ". As it can also be understood from the definition, especially city museums are dynamic institutions in terms of strenghtening the participation process of important actors (citizens) and in order to keep historical continuity going on. In this framework in our study, it will be made clear with cocrete data how Mardin Museum plays a role in projections related to future besides reflecting the past of the city. Studies done in the sense of protecting the historical urban identity with the reproduction-retransformation projects of incredients that make up of the urban planning and urban identity of Mardin Museum with an awareness to protect historical urcan area and urban identity will be discussed. In this study, first of all the history of Mardin Museum's background will be given .In second part, some information about the studies that Mardin Museum has completed and its future projects will be mentioned. In the conclusion of study the assessment of the mentioned projects and studies will be with a critical method. Furthermore, several recommendations will be presented for the protection of urban spaces. In this study it is aimed to create a functional awareness of the role of museums in cities that have a historical identity. It is thought that by presenting the studies which Mardin Museum carried out in the urban conservation area, it will set an example for similar applications in Turkey in terms of keeping the historical incredients that make up of the city alive.


It is well known that smoking as well as drinking is a factor of stomatopathy, however there are few investigations about comparison of oral flora between smokers and non-smokers. In this study, we isolated the oral flora of 30 smokers and 30 non-smokers and cultured them on blood agar plates. The isolated pathogenic microorganisms were tested for antibiotic susceptibility and resistance using the Kirby-Bauer antibiotic testing method. Each colony was stained using the Gram staining method and was identified by an automatic identifier, known as the VITEK system. We isolated 41 colonies from smokers' oral cavity, and they were sorted as 63% of Gram-positive cocci, 29% of Gram-negative cocci, 3% of Gram-positive bacilli, and 5% of Gram-negative bacilli by gram staining, whereas 38 colonies were isolated from non-smoters' oral cavity, and their proportions were 55% of Gram-positive cocci, 26% of Gram-negative cocci, 3% of Gram-positive bacilli, and 16% of Gram-negative bacilli. The VITEK system revealed specific distribution of bacteria species that Streptococcus mutans (6/41), Gemella morillorum (6/41), Streptococcus oralis (2/41), Streptococcus pneumoniae (1/41), Staphylococcus aureus (3/41), Streptococcus anginosus (1/41), Streptococcus intermedius (1/41), Streptococcus uberis (1/41), and Streptococcus sanguinis (1/41) in smokers oral cavity whereas Streptococcus sanguinis (8/38), Staphylococcus aureus (1/38), Staphylococcus auricularis (1/38), Streptococcus uberis (1/38), Streptococcus intermedius (1/38), Streptococcus mutans (1/38), and Streptococcus oralis (1/38) in those of non-smokers'. Three cases of Staphylococcus aureus from smokers produced Beta-lactamase and were identified methicillin-resistance Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). However one case of Staphylococcus aureus from non-smoker did not produce Beta-lactamase and was sensitive to methicillin. In conclusion, the distribution of oral flora was different between smokers' and non-smokers' oral cavity, especially Gemella morillorum and MRSA were predominantly found in smoker's oral cavity. These results are useful in the treatment and prevention of patients with stomatopathy caused by smoking.Keywords: antimicrobial susceptibility, non-smokers, oral cavity, smokers


OBJECTIVE
To assess the effect of pentoxiphylline (a potent inhibitor of tumor necrosis factor alpha) on survival, on systemic and portal hemodynamics, and on cardiac function in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis.

DESIGN
A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

SETTING
A single center using parallel groups of patients to compare pentoxiphylline with placebo.

PATIENTS
We recruited 24 patients with alcoholic cirrhosis (8 Child-Pugh B and 16 Child-Pugh C).

INTERVENTIONS
Patients were randomly assigned to receive pentoxiphylline (400 mg tid; n = 12) or placebo (n = 12) over a 4-week period.

OUTCOME MEASURES
The primary outcome was to extend short-term and long-term survival. Secondary outcomes included hemodynamic benefits (improvement in cardiac function and/or systemic vascular resistance index, or decrease in portal pressure).

RESULTS
Portal pressure and cardiac function remained unchanged and there were no significant differences in short-term or long-term survival between treatment and placebo groups. The group on pentoxiphylline increased systemic vascular resistance and decreased cardiac indices (from 1,721 +/- 567 to 2,082 +/- 622 dyn.sec(-1) cm(-5) m(-2) and from 4.17 +/- 1.4 to 3.4 +/- 0.9 l.m(-2), p = 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Although pentoxiphylline seems to provide some short-term hemodynamic benefits in patients with advanced alcoholic cirrhosis, this drug has no effect on survival or portal pressure in these patients.


Contemporary Peru is a society beset by a host of social, economic, and political problems. In the postwar period Peru has become a paradigm for the phenomena of rapid population growth, internal migration, hyperurbanization, and socioeconomic marginality. These phenomena converged to create the "barriada," a huge squatter settlement brought into being ordinarily by huge invasions of vacant lands in the outskirts of Lima. It is this great and growing marginal mass that weighs so heavily on the city and the country's economy. Their sheer numbers strain the city's resources and capacity to delivery services such as waste disposal. The central reality of the barriada is grinding poverty, which in turn manifests itself in street crime and a general and growing sense of personal insecurity that pervades Lima. For years now the Peruvian economy has been unable to absorb this growing marginal mass productively. There is massive unemployment and underemployment. As in so many cases in contemporary Peru, action to solve 1 problem may simply generate another, possibly more serious elsewhere. This is the essence of the conundrum that awaited Francisco Belaunde Terry when he assumed the presidency in June 1980 as the head of Peru's 1st democratically elected government in over 12 years. The Belaunde government's market-oriented approach to political economy is an adaptation to a more general trend. Essentially, the transition from military authoritarian rule to civil democratic rule between 1978-80 was very smooth. For the present, power was assumed by political forces committed in broad terms to the underlying socioeconomic system rather than to revolutionary transformations. A fundamental aspect of the context was the shift away from populism and toward capital concentration. The negative impact of this shift on the income levels of the majority was exacerbated by the economic crisis of the late 1970s and by the terms of an International Monetary Fund agreement. The tripartite council idea shows the penchant in Peru to seek corporatist type solutions to the problem of sociopolitical organization.


In Reply. —We agree with Dr Hergenroeder's contention that pediatricians should become more involved in problems of clinical nutrition. In our article, we chose not to recommend a specific BMI or percentile of BMI as a criterion for the diagnosis of obesity. Until a level of BMI is identified that is either associated with an increase in morbidity, or predictive of later morbidity or mortality, the specification of a diagnostic cutoff point for obesity during childhood remains somewhat arbitrary. 1 Rather than emphasizing the diagnosis of obesity, we recommend that clinicians use longitudinal assessments of BMI to monitor changes in weight relative to height and age, and that investigators continue to study the pattern of development of BMI and its relevance as a predictor of obesity. For example, Rolland-Cachera et al 2 have identified the timing of the adiposity rebound as a predictor of later obesity. Further research is needed to demonstrate


The aim of this study was to explore teachers' perceptions about student-related violent events in Trabzon, Turkey in 2006-2007. A semistructured interview form was constructed and administered to 10 teachers. For the data analysis, the constant comparative method was used. Results showed that teachers perceive bullying mostly as demanding rights through violence. The main factors which affect bullying were seen as students' socioeconomic status, their relationships with parents, visual media, and the Internet. It is suggested that teachers participate in projects which are aimed at preventing bullying and the curriculum for teacher trainees be redesigned so that they are more effectively educated about bullying.


We design learning rate schedules that minimize regret for SGD-based online learning in the presence of a changing data distribution. We fully characterize the optimal learning rate schedule for online linear regression via a novel analysis with stochastic differential equations. For general convex loss functions, we propose new learning rate schedules that are robust to distribution shift and we give upper and lower bounds for the regret that only differ by constants. For non-convex loss functions, we define a notion of regret based on the gradient norm of the estimated models and propose a learning schedule that minimizes an upper bound on the total expected regret. Intuitively, one expects changing loss landscapes to require more exploration, and we confirm that optimal learning rate schedules typically increase in the presence of distribution shift. Finally, we provide experiments for high-dimensional regression models and neural networks to illustrate these learning rate schedules and their cumulative regret.


Non-serving partners of personnel in the British military endure numerous challenges due to their association with the Armed Forces and complex systems of support exist to mitigate some disadvantages they might experience. Military research suggests that support-seeking can be stigmatised, limiting the effectiveness of existing support systems. However, it seldom engages with how stigma is produced, often obscuring reflection on normative and disciplinary power, rendering discussions politically anesthetised. Through the thematic analysis of welfare policy and provision, interviews with welfare-providers and military partners, this article develops understandings of stigma as a barrier to support-seeking, considering how it is produced and how it is productive of gendered militarised neoliberalism.


The objective of the paper is to develop deeper insight into how the firm's incentive systems are designed and, whether the CEOs compensation pay-to-performance schemes really align the incentives of executives and shareholders. Logit and Stepwise regressions on executive compensation data over 2004-2008 of 231 listed companies' belongings to four countries from the Anglo-American and the Euro-continental corporate governance models show that pay-to-performance incentives serve likely shareholders as they tend to create value. Moreover, sensitivity analyses point out that their effects on the long term total shareholder return are far from unanimous. They often depend on the context in which they are planned and executed. More specifically, they are even large than the property rights are stripped, the institutional ownership is less restricted, the governance quality is better, the investor protection is high, and the legal system is common law one.