Purpose – The purpose of the research is to show what cybercrime is and how the arsenal of cybercriminals has evolved and legal regulations that exist today no longer respond to the challenges that would make the fight against cybercrime effective. Design/methodology/approach – The author of the research searched for the latest legal and multidisciplinary literature on the issue of cybercrime. Using various scientific methods, the mentioned literature was analyzed and summarized to present the essence and problems of fighting against cybercrime. Findings – In the conditions of modern technological development, there are many benefits along with negative facts. Cyberspace is not a safe place for the majority of the population. During the search process, it appeared that, with the arrival of each new day, the arsenal of cybercriminals is getting richer, to which law enforcement agencies do not have an appropriate response. Consequently, the process of fighting cybercrime becomes difficult due to outdated legal regulations. Research limitations/implications – The research examined the latest opinions that are being debated in international legal circles. The problems that are on the agenda and which are important to solve have appeared. Accordingly, the paper offers the latest ways to correct the current situation, make recommendations and solve existing problems. Originality/value – Cyberspace is the most important space for many people, also for private and public structures. Solving the current issues on the agenda is important to make working in cyberspace safe for each person and organization.


Trypanosomosis is a worldwide disease that affects human and livestock populations with limited availability and high cost of trypanocides. The study aims to evaluate the possible in vitro and in vivo anti-trypanosomal activity of Thymus vulgaris (thyme), Mentha piperita (mint) and Elettaria cardamomum (cardamom) aqueous extracts against Trypanosoma evansi in experimentally infected rats using Intropar as a reference drug. The crude extracts of the selected plants were used in three concentrations (2500, 2000, and 1000 μg/ml). The in vitro trypanocidal activities were assessed regarding parasite motility, count, and infectivity. The in vivo susceptibility of T. evansi was evaluated by assessing the level of parasitemia in the experimental rats. The packed cell volume (PCV) was also monitored. Both the in vitro and in vivo experiments showed trypanocidal activity, of all the tested extracts, higher than that of Intropar. The in vitro trypanocidal effects were dose-dependent and represented by a significant reduction of the parasite count together with immobilizing effect within 3 hours incubation period, compared to the negative and positive controls (p< 0.05). The in vivo trypanocidal effects of the different concentrations of all the tested extracts were represented by the significantly lowered levels of parasitemia, compared to the negative control (NC) group with varying degrees; in a dose-dependent manner concerning the time. They exhibited also a significantly higher level in PCV recovery compared to the NC group (p < 0.05). This study initially confirmed the potent in vitro and in vivo trypanocidal effect of the three extracts, with a potentially promising future for the treatment of trypanosomosis.


The research was conducted to evaluate the morphological variability in fruits traits among the mulberry genotypes grown in Mulberry Germplasm Bank of Bangladesh Sericulture Research and Training Institute (BSRTI), Rajshahi, during 2018–2020. The aim of the research was to find out the genotypes accessibility for varietal improvement. Total 50 mulberry genotypes were morphologically characterized on fruit traits through this research. The experimental design was Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications and the plantation system was high bush. Each plot consists of 20 plants and unit plot size was 4 m × 5 m. Fruit colour, fruit taste and seed colour was determined. Nine distinct fruit colours such as reddish-black (23.33%), black-berry (18.33%), cream (10%), black (8.33%), white-cream (6.67%), pink (6.67%), pinkish (3.33%), orange (3.33%) and radish (1.67%) were observed among several germplasms. Remarkable variation was found in fruit taste such as sour sweet (28.33%), sweet (21.67%), light sweet (5%), light-sour sweet (5%) and deep sweet (5%), respectively. Five colored of seed viz: light yellow, light brown, yellowish brown, dark brown and blackish brown were observed among the germplasm. Length of the fruit diverse from 0.73 (BSRM-8) to 5.58 (BSRM-56 and widthfrom 0.52 (BSRM-8) to1.9 (BSRM-56),single fruit weight varied from 0.07 (BSRM-8) to 4.11 (BSRM-56), fruit weight per plant varied from 101.47 (BSRM-11) to 2250.43 (BSRM-56), seed setting (%) varied from 8.13 (BSRM-29) to 94.24 (BSRM-16), sprouting (%) varied from 36.67 (BSRM-22) to 96.67 (BSRM-38), rooting (%) varied from 13.89 (BSRM-22) to 98.33 (BSRM-10),achene number/fruit varied from 12.53 (BSRM-10) to118.10 (BSRM-56), seed number/fruit varied from 2.99 (BSRM-8) to 47.86 (BSRM-56) and 100 seed weight varied from 0.019 (BSRM-35) to 0.166 (BSRM-56), respectively. Results showed that the black-berry, sweet tasted fruited mulberry (BSRM-56), cream colored, sweet tasted fruited mulberry (BSRM-1) and white cream, sweet tasted fruited mulberry (BSRM-34) was promising on the basis of greatest fruit production potential to be appears for further commercial utilization. Generally, a wide range of variation was exhibited among the sampled and characterized genotypes.


Hypermedia as defined by Osgood (1987) is a tool for linking nonlinear information presented in the form of graphics, animation, video, and sound. One important question for instructional designers regarding hypermedia is how it can be used as an instructional or learning tool that enhances rather than inhibits learning. Creating hypermedia applications is a quick and easy alternative to creating courseware with older authoring systems and languages which took many hours to learn. This ease of application creation, combined with a tremendous increase in information available to our society, has resulted in a proliferation of hypermedia databases in school, university, and industry settings that is gradually moving into homes. Many of these databases are simply information media. This paper identifies important issues related to classifying a hypermedia-based information system appropriately. Based on a discussion of these issues, a call for systematic research which clarifies the role that hypermedia-based information systems can and should play in an instructional or learning environment is set forth.


Purpose: This study was done to evaluate the effect and retention of CPR training in nursing students. Methods: The participants were 64 nursing students enrolled in K University in Busan. Data were collected from April 3 to October 20, 2006 using a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using the SPSS/PC 12.0 statistical program. Results: The first hypothesis, that knowledge (t=-17.865, p=0.000) and skill (t=-11.216, p= 0.000) scored directly following the teaching program would be higher than before the program, was supported. The second hypothesis, that knowledge (t=-8.325, p=0.171) and skill (t=-9.812, p=0.062) scored directly after the teaching program would be higher than two months later, was rejected. The third hypothesis, that knowledge (t=-9.162, p=0.010) and skill (t=-6.019, p=0.023) scored two months after the program would be higher than four months after the program, was supported. The last hypothesis, that knowledge (t=9.169, p=0.210) and skill (t=-5.012, p=0.319) scored four months after the program would be higher than six months after the program, was rejected. Conclusion: Overall retention of CPR training among nursing students, without reinforcement, decreases most significantly between two and four months following initial training. Accordingly CPR training should be repeated with the same clients every four months.


Objectives ECG left ventricular hypertrophy (ECG-LVH) has been associated with left ventricular dysfunction and adverse prognosis, but little is known about the prevalence and prognostic significance of different levels of QRS duration in the presence of ECG-LVH in a general population. Design Population-based observational prospective cohort study. Participants Nationally representative random cluster of Finnish adult population. Methods We assessed the prevalence and long-term (median 15.9 years) prognostic significance of QRS duration in ECG-LVH, and compared the risk to individuals without ECG-LVH in a predominantly middle-aged random sample of 6033 Finnish subjects aged over 30 years (mean age 52.2, SD 14.6 years), who participated in a health examination including a 12-lead ECG. Main outcome measures Cardiovascular and all-cause mortality, incidence of heart failure (HF). Results ECG-LVH was present in 1337 (22.2%) subjects; 403 of these (30.1%) had QRS duration ≥100 ms and 100 (7.5%) had ≥110 ms. The increased risk of mortality in ECG-LVH became evident after a QRS threshold of ≥100 ms. After controlling for known clinical risk factors, QRS 100–109 ms was associated with increased cardiovascular (HR 1.38, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.88, p=0.045) and QRS≥110 ms with cardiovascular (1.74, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.82, p=0.025) and all-cause mortality (1.52, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.25, p=0.039) in ECG-LVH. The risk of new-onset HF was two-fold in subjects with QRS 100–109 ms and threefold in subjects with QRS ≥110 ms, even after adjustment for incident myocardial infarction within the follow-up. When the prognosis was compared with subjects without ECG-LVH, subjects with ECG-LVH but QRS duration <100 ms displayed similar mortality rates with or without ECG-LVH but higher rates of incident HF. Conclusions In ECG-LVH, the risk of excess mortality and new-onset HF markedly increases with longer QRS duration, but even QRS duration within normal limits in ECG-LVH carried a risk of HF compared with the risk in individuals without ECG-LVH.


Mathematics plays a vital role in academics as well as in the everyday lives of individuals. Moreover, it is considered the most complicated and tough academic subject among students due to its complexity. Whereas, in terms of teaching and assessment strategies, mathematical conceptualization is also one of the most challenging aspects among teachers. In the classroom, mostly pedagogical and traditional assessment practices develop students' negative attitudes towards mathematics. Similarly, assessment in mathematics is an integral part of teaching and learning, but it is usually viewed as a problematic part of the instructional task. There is considerable evidence that teachers' beliefs about mathematics assessment impact their teaching of mathematics. This study aims to identify the perceived approaches to assessment in the mathematics classroom and analyze the effective domains of assessment in the mathematics classroom by pre-service teachers in Khairpur. Therefore, to explore this perspective, this study has been conducted with pre-service teachers to analyze their perceptions regarding assessment practices for mathematics. The qualitative research methods employed in this study and the qualitative data collected through a structured interview protocol. The sample of study comprises five pre-service teachers from district Sukkur, Sindh. In an effort to address the research questions, thematic analysis has been used. Furthermore, the findings of this study indicated that the different perceptions of pre-service teachers about assessment in mathematics range from traditional to constructive, which highlights the importance of teaching approaches that focus on formative assessment in the math classroom along with summative assessment in a constructive way. It is recommended that formative assessment be used during the teaching and learning process of mathematics because formative assessment is more effective than summative assessment.Moreover, the study suggests that teachers should adopt some effective strategies for assessment of mathematics.


SUMMARY Lymnaea stagnalis heart ventricle muscle cells, isolated by enzymatic dispersion, are suitable for patch clamp recording. A channel has been identified which is primarily selective for potassium, although it also appears to conduct sodium. This channel is not blocked by 4-aminopyridine or tetraethylammonium but is sensitive to quinidine. The relationship between the membrane potential, the external potassium concentration and the channel currents, when compared with results obtained from whole cell recording, suggests that this channel could mediate a large part of the cell's resting conductance. The probability of this channel being open is increased by stretching the patched cell membrane. This has led to speculations about further possible functional roles for this channel.


Today, in production engineering we have already taken into usage complex virtual representations of the manufacturing environment were we can program, simulate, analyse and optimise key performances. Such systems are mainly working through keyboard/ mouse input while user feedback normally are direct visual through computer screen and text files. Such communication only relays on a limited spectre of our senses and the keyboard/mouse/screen systems cannot be said to be very human friendly, especially when the operator is expected to operate "out of office" in a unstructured, maybe dangerous or dirty, environment. In the near future we expect to see more advanced input/output devices like motion capturing and speech input systems while feedback will not be visual alone but include several other human senses. Combinatorial sensory information, interpreted by the human brain, becomes very handy when a stand alone sense is not enough to interpret the actual situation. Imitation of senses and feedback from virtual reality environments always meant a great problem. Realization of two (sight and hearing) out of the five human senses is indispensable. Simulation of these two senses is not complex issue; on the contrary the other three are quite challenging. This paper describes the development of a vibro-tactile glove which can provide sensory feedback from a virtual environment, either as a stand alone system but most important in combination with sight and audio feedback systems. Instead of implementing real force feedback, the focus is on tactile sensing, as an alternative way of achieving the same feedback. The glove contains six vibration motors on different locations on the hand. These locations include all five fingers, and the palm. Communication with the glove is wireless, enabling free movement for the user. The system is low cost and very small sized which allows for combining it with advanced input devices like a motion capturing suit.


Protective seam mining is one kind of most effective measure to reduce coal and gas outburst risk. The pressure relief angles along inclination (δm) are key parameters for evaluating the effect of protective seam mining. However, the numerical relation between δm and coal seam dip (a) is defined by discrete data and is difficult to determine δm accurately. In this study, the variations of δm with respect to seam dips are analyzed to derive analytical equations that can be used to accurately calculate δm. The relationship between δm and seam dip (a) can be expressed as parabolic or inverted parabolic curves. Mathematical equations for δm are derived by curve fitting technique. Furthermore, polynomial equations are determined as the most appropriate for δm calculation when the polynomial order is selected as 7, 6, 4 and 5 respectively. These derived equations are computationally solved and verified using actual and field test data of δm. with satisfactory consistency and accuracy. The equations are suggested as supplement and improvement for Detailed Rules on Prevention of Coal and Gas Outburst.


This work describes a 10-b 150-MSample/s 4-b-per-stage single-channel CMOS pipelined ADC incorporating improved gate-bootstrapping techniques for a wideband SHA and temperature- and supply-insensitive CMOS references. The proposed ADC is designed and fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m one-poly six-metal CMOS technology. The measured differential and integral nonlinearities are within 0.69 LSB and 1.50 LSB, respectively. The prototype ADC shows a peak signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) of 52 dB at 150 MSample/s. The ADC maintains the SNDR over 52 dB and 43 dB, respectively, for input frequencies up to the Nyquist frequency and 400 MHz at 140 MSample/s. The active die area is 2.2 mm/sup 2/ and the chip consumes 123 mW at 150 MSample/s.


We study the behavior of packet scheduling protocols in a temporary sessions model in which sessions come and go over time. We first show that, in this setting, the standard delay bound for the well-studied generalized processor sharing (GPS) protocol can be exceeded by an arbitrary amount. In extreme cases, GPS can actually be unstable. In contrast, we then show that it is possible to choose deadlines so that the earliest-deadline-first (EDF) protocol is always stable. We illustrate our results by analysis and simulations.


The detection and monitoring techniques for algal toxins and the causative harmful algal blooms (HABs) are essential for the protection of aquatic lives, shellfish safety, drinking water quality, and public health. Toward the development of fast, easy, and reliable techniques, much progress has been made during the last decade for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of algal toxins. This review highlights the recent progress and new trends of these analytical and monitoring tools, ranging from in-situ quick screening protocols for the monitoring of algal blooms to mass spectrometric analysis of trace levels of various algal toxins and structural elucidation. Solid-phase adsorption toxin tracking (SPATT) deployed in the field for the passive sampling of algal toxins has been recently validated, and improved ELISA-based methods with lower detection limits for more toxins have become commercially available for both screening and routine monitoring purposes. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry with several recent mass spectrometric innovations has expanded our understanding of traditional toxins, their metabolites along with newly discovered toxins of ecological importance. Several established in vivo and in vitro bioassays will continue to be used as benchmark toxicological testing of algal toxins; however, newly emerged molecular probing techniques such as real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) have extended our ability to trace algal toxins from causative organisms at the molecular level. New chemical and biological sensors, lab-on-chip and remote sensing of blooms being developed will hold promise for early warning and routine monitoring to better manage and protect our freshwater, coastal and marine resources from adverse impact by harmful algal blooms.


A new cyclic chiral azobenzene compound Azo-o-Bi was synthesized, which exhibits photochemically reversible cis-trans isomerization in both organic solvents and liquid crystal hosts. When doping into a nematic liquid crystal, it displays high helical twisting power (HTP, β) and a large change in HTP (Δβ) due to photoisomerization. Therefore, we are able to reversibly tune the reflection colors from near-IR to blue using irradiation with light. For weak UV light irradiation, a broadband reflection film with pitch gradients can be obtained with superior stability in the dark. This stability is associated with the cyclo-shape of the Azo-o-Bi and the high viscosity of the host liquid crystal. The latter reduces the diffusion contribution of isomers to a negligible level. The spatial and temporal control of the light irradiation can be used to photoaddress the CLC with RGB reflection colors and white-on-black reflective displays.


Objective: With the fast growth of technology globally, the need for more talented and skilled engineers across the world have also increased. But, what makes an engineer talented and skilled? What should be the goal of engineering education? Methodology: As engineering educators and engineering education researchers, how can we foster those engineers? When is the best time to start educating our future engineers? In order to address the global need, we should answer the questions mentioned above. Answering these questions requires knowing how engineering education community across the world are addressing this need. Results: In this position paper, we seek to answer these questions by reflecting on what we know about engineering education based on our experience of working in a developed country and the knowledge we gained during this time. Conclusion: At this point, we would like to invite all the members of this community to start the conversation of reform in engineering education as soon as possible. We need to start identifying the needs of our industry, plan to diversify engineering education, plan to design and create engineering programs for younger students, plan to educate teachers and engineering students for teaching young children, and plan to modify engineering programs in higher education. Although these research are not enough but can be a start point for collaboration.


estimation (Ch. 13),together with three short chapters on design and implementation. The opening chapters of the book cover the technical justification and theoretical basis of the delta model as a unifying tool for digital and analogue control systems analysis. These chapters were for me the most stimulating, since they required of the authors some considerable skill in arguing the 'unified delta' philosophy. To summarise, the book is a very good one and covers all relevant areas of modern control. However, it will not be readily accepted into mainstream undergraduate teaching because of the delta operator theme. It should, however, prove a popular book among control lecturers who want to add fresh interest to their course material. I strongly recommend the book to lecturers, researchers and practitioners who want a refreshingly different but practically relevant treatment of control theory and estimation. P. E. WELLSTEAD Control Systems Centre, UMIST


Neurotransmitter status in patients with idiopathic scoliosis can be an important tool in creating long-term management strategies in patients either not electing to pursue surgical treatment options, or those who wish to prevent scoliosis progression to surgical threshold. Idiopathic scoliosis patients seem to display common patterns of neurotransmitter imbalances not seen in nonscoliotic populations. Given the significant contribution of various neurotransmitter-mediated central nervous system pathways to postural control and feedback, treating neurotransmitter imbalances may be an important adjunct to non-operative treatments. This review provides a background on the postural functions associated with various neurotransmitters, as well as common treatments that may be used to facilitate neurotransmitter re-balancing.


The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration actively pursue an open science programme. Gravitational wave strain data are publicly released through the website http://www.gw-openscience.org along with the information and tools necessary to understand and use the data. This contribution will give an overview of past and current activities related to this topic, including the recent release of the Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers (GWTC-1) and will give a sense of its impact on science, teaching and other applications.


This dissertation is composed of two parts. The first part was developed at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Evandro Vidor Lins de Mello and addresses the temperature dependence of the superconducting gaps in ironbased superconductors. The second part was developed at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH) during a visiting year under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mafred Sigrist. This part concerns the effect of vortices on the superconducting properties of a three-layer system. The following paragraph is the abstract of part one. The last paragraph is the abstract of part two. The temperature dependence of the multiple superconducting gaps in the typical high-Tc iron-based superconductor Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 is studied. These multiband ironbased superconductors display multiple superconducting gaps with different coupling ratios 2Δ0/kBTc, but a single Tc. The guiding question throughout this project is: is it possible to reproduce the various coupling ratios and single Tc observed in Fe-based superconductors within a weak-coupling Bogoliubov-deGennes theory? This dissertation proposes two distinct mechanisms through which it is possible to reproduce the temperature dependence of the multigap structure of Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2. The first proposal shows how intrinsic charge inhomogeneity might lead to a temperature dependent Cooper pairing potential. The second proposal uses arguments from inhomogeneous superconductivity applied to multiband superconductors to introduce a temperature dependent chemical potential. In part two, we investigate the pair-density wave phase of multilayer superconductors in the context of a Ginzburg-Landau theory. In multilayer systems, due to local inversion symmetry breaking at the outer layers, a Rashba spin-orbit coupling is induced. This combined with a perpendicular Pauli limiting magnetic field stabilizes a pair-density wave (PDW) phase, which is achieved through a first-order phase transition. The PDW phase is robust against magnetic fields. The central issue discussed in this dissertation is whether orbital limiting (on top of dominant paramagnetic limiting) destroys the PDW phase. We find that orbital limiting does not destroy the the PDW phase and investigate the behavior of a single vortex core through the first-order BCS-PDW phase transition. As a subproject, we also study the paramagnetic effect on the reversible magnetization curves of high-κ type II superconductors by generalizing a circular cell method within a Ginzburg-Landau theory.


Objective: To investigate the relationship between the expression of voltage-gated sodium channel subtype Nav1.5 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and the occurrence and lymph node metastasis of OSCC. Methods: Totally 10 samples of normal oral mucosa tissue as control group, 26 samples of OSCC as the experimental group was divided into non-metastatic group (n=16) and metastatic group (n=10) according to the presence or absence of lymph node metastasis. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR), Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to detect the expression of Nav1.5 in control group and experimental groups at mRNA and protein levels. The data were analyzed by one-way analysis. Results: The expression of Nav1.5 mRNA in the experimental group (non-metastatic group: 2.311±0.134, metastatic group: 4.462±0.362) was higher than those in the control group (1.054±0.162) (P=0.037; P=0.029), and the metastasis group was significantly higher than the non-metastasis group (P=0.031). Western blotting showed the expression of Nav1.5 in experimental groups (non-metastatic: 0.143±0.005, metastatic: 0.253±0.015) was up-regulated significantly compared with control group (0.080±0.010) (P=0.034, P=0.026), and the metastasis group was significantly higher than the non-metastasis group (P=0.033). The immunohistochemistry show the positive expression rates of Nav1.5 in normal and OSCC tissues were 1/10 and 92% (24/26). The differences were statistically significant (P=0.016), and the metastasis group was significantly higher than the non-metastasis group (P=0.028). The ELISA results revealed that the level of Nav1.5 in control was control group (0.834±0.103) μg/L, in non-metastasis group was (1.578±0.167) μg/L, in metastasis group was (3.882±0.422) μg/L (P=0.041; P=0.032), and the metastasis group was significantly higher than the non-metastasis group (P=0.030). Conclusions: Nav1.5 was highly expressed in poorly differentiated OSCC and the expression was significantly different with or without lymph node metastasis. Nav1.5 may be involved in the occurrence and metastasis of OSCC.


Robotic manipulators for Robot-assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery (RMIS) pass through small incisions into the patient's body and interact with soft internal organs. The performance of traditional robotic manipulators such as the da Vinci Robotic System is limited due to insufficient flexibility of the manipulator and lack of haptic feedback. Modern surgical manipulators have taken inspiration from biology e.g. snakes or the octopus. In order for such soft and flexible arms to reconfigure itself and to control its pose with respect to organs as well as to provide haptic feedback to the surgeon, tactile sensors can be integrated with the robot's flexible structure. The work presented here takes inspiration from another area of biology: cucumber tendrils have shown to be ideal tactile sensors for the plant that they are associated with providing useful environmental information during the plant's growth. Incorporating the sensing principles of cucumber tendrils, we have created miniature sensing elements that can be distributed across the surface of soft manipulators to form a sensor network capable of acquire tactile information. Each sensing element is a retractable hemispherical tactile measuring applied pressure. The actual sensing principle chosen for each tactile makes use of optic fibres that transfer light signals modulated by the applied pressure from the sensing element to the proximal end of the robot arm. In this paper, we describe the design and structure of the sensor system, the results of an analysis using Finite Element Modeling in ABAQUS as well as sensor calibration and experimental results. Due to the simple structure of the proposed tactile sensor element, it is miniaturisable and suitable for MIS. An important contribution of this work is that the developed sensor system can be "loosely" integrated with a soft arm effectively operating independently of the arm and without affecting the arm's motion during bending or elongation.


This work aims to validate the dispersion parameters of hydrodynamic models for the short term (hour to week), and short distances (100 m - 30 km), by using high precision and high frequency measurements of tritium obtained in the release plume. An instantaneous 2D hydrodynamic model has been developed with a mesh size of 110m and an area of 50x50 km. More than 7,000 samples have been collected and measured for tritium concentrations in 2002 and 2003. Currents and bathymetric measurements, as well as drifters observations complete these measurements. Results confirm the efficiency of the hydrodynamic model, main differences being attributable to bathymetry incertitudes. After calibration, the model gives accurate results during six hours following a release. The obtained field database represents an exceptional tool for hydrodynamic models validation in realistic conditions of releases, tide and wind, in an area where the current dynamic is particularly strong (more than 5 m/s during high tides). The dispersion parameters obtained will be applied for other hydrodynamic models covering continental macro-tidal seas. Such models will be used to simulate soluble pollutants dispersion, with known uncertainties, in realistic chronic or accidental release conditions.


Objective: To identify and describe the certainty of evidence of gynecology and obstetrics systematic reviews (SRs) using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Method: Database searches of SRs using GRADE, published between 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2020, in the 10 "gynecology and obstetrics" journals with the highest impact factor, according to the Journal Citation Report 2019. Selected studies included those SRs using the GRADE approach, used to determine the certainty of evidence. Results: Out of 952 SRs, ninety-six SRs of randomized control trials (RCTs) and/or nonrandomized studies (NRSs) used GRADE. Sixty-seven SRs (7.04%) rated the certainty of evidence for specific outcomes. In total, we identified 946 certainty of evidence outcome ratings (n = 614 RCT ratings), ranging from very-low (42.28%) to low (28.44%), moderate (17.65%), and high (11.63%). High and very low certainty of evidence ratings accounted for 2.16% and 71.60% in the SRs of NRSs, respectively, compared with 16.78% and 26.55% in the SRs of RCTs. In the SRs of RCTs and NRSs, certainty of evidence was mainly downgraded due to imprecision and bias risks. Conclusions: More attention needs to be paid to strengthening GRADE acceptance and building knowledge of GRADE methods in gynecology and obstetrics evidence synthesis.


Abstract Laboratory experiments reveal an approximate inverse dependence of the azimuthal wavenumber upon the radial temperature gradient, in the steady Rossby regime. To verify the occurrence of a similar relationship in the atmosphere, it being an unsteady system, we define an average zonal wavenumber n and correlate it with the meridional temperature gradient ΔT. The values of the correlation coefficient r(n,ΔT) vary considerably from month to month and therefore are unreliable. The values of r(n,ΔT), where the bars denote averages over a month, are very small except in the vicinity of 35°N. Linear baroclinic theory shows that there is a functional dependence between the zonal wavelength of the most rapidly amplifying waves and static stability S. In the case of the atmosphere r(n,S) is as unreliable as r(n,ΔT), but r(n,S) is considerably superior to r(n,ΔT). Therefore, the meridional and vertical temperature gradients in the atmosphere must be decoupled, at least at 45 and 55°N where r2(n,S) is very l...


Fatigue is one of the primary reasons for failure in structural materials. It has been demonstrated that carbon nanotubes can suppress fatigue in polymer composites via crack-bridging and a frictional pull-out mechanism. However, a detailed study of the effects of nanotube dimensions and dispersion on the fatigue behavior of nanocomposites has not been performed. In this work, we show the strong effect of carbon nanotube dimensions (i.e. length, diameter) and dispersion quality on fatigue crack growth suppression in epoxy nanocomposites. We observe that the fatigue crack growth rates can be significantly reduced by (1) reducing the nanotube diameter, (2) increasing the nanotube length and (3) improving the nanotube dispersion. We qualitatively explain these observations by using a fracture mechanics model based on crack-bridging and pull-out of the nanotubes. By optimizing the above parameters (tube length, diameter and dispersion) we demonstrate an over 20-fold reduction in the fatigue crack propagation rate for the nanocomposite epoxy compared to the baseline (unfilled) epoxy.


A METHOD FOR FIELD INSTALLATION OF ACCESS TUBES FOR NUCLEAR DEPTH MOISTURE AND DENSITY EQUIPMENT IS DESCRIBED. AFTER REVIEW OF PREVIOUS INSTALLATION METHODS, IT WAS CONCLUDED THAT A SPECIAL DRILLING UNIT WAS REQUIRED TO AUGER THE HEAVY CLAYS ENCOUNTERED IN OKLAHOMA. THE EQUIPMENT IS DESCRIBED IN DETAIL, AS IS THE EXACT PROCEDURE USED IN FIELD INSTALLATION OF ACCESS TUBES BENEATH HIGHWAY PAVEMENTS. USING THE EQUIPMENT AND METHODS DESCRIBED IN THIS REPORT, 30 TEST SITES OF THREE ACCESS TUBES EACH WERE INSTALLED DURING THE SUMMER OF 1966. MORE TEST SITES ARE PLANNED FOR FUTURE INSTALLATION. /AUTHOR/


Climate change challenges societal functioning, likely requiring considerable adaptation to cope with future altered weather patterns. Machine learning ( ML ) algorithms have advanced dramatically, triggering breakthroughs in other research sectors, and recently suggested as aiding climate analysis ( Reichstein et al 2019 Nature 566 195 – 204, Schneider et al 2017 Geophys. Res. Lett. 44 12396 – 417 ) . Although a considerable number of isolated Earth System features have been analysed with ML techniques, more generic application to understand better the full climate system has not occurred. For instance, ML may aid teleconnection identi fi cation, where complex feedbacks make characterisation dif fi cult from direct equation analysis or visualisation of measurements and Earth System model ( ESM ) diagnostics. Arti fi cial intelligence ( AI ) can then build on discovered climate connections to provide enhanced warnings of approaching weather features,


ABSTRACT Calcium chloride is a relatively harmless chemical that is frequently used as a dehumidifying agent. However, there have been rare reports that the accidental ingestion of this substance can cause gastric necrosis. We describe such a case of gastric necrosis in a 66-year-old woman who had accidentally ingested calcium chloride. Our findings indicate that the gastric necrosis in this patient was probably attributable to heat generated by the calcium chloride solution in the stomach. When ingested in large amounts, calcium chloride thus has the potential to cause gastric necrosis.


Abstract A general theory of personality and its development is described in terms of four quantitative dimensions of temperament and three quantitative dimensions of character. The four temperament dimensions (harm avoidance, novelty seeking, reward dependence, and persistence) are moderately heritable, moderately stable throughout life, and invariant despite sociocultural influences. The three character dimensions (self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence) mature in a stepwise manner from early childhood throughout adulthood. Transitions between levels of maturity are nonlinear functions of temperament, specific genetic influences, social learning, and random life events. Personality development is quantitatively formulated in terms of nonlinear dynamics of a complex adaptive system. The psychosocial interpretation of personality as a fitness-optimizing process is described and illustrated in terms of available data about the development of different personality configurations. Several quantitative predictions of this theory of personality development are tested, including the sequence of emergence of the different character dimensions, individual differences in the development of stable temperament configurations, and the effects of sociocultural influences. The theoretical predictions agree with available empirical data and suggest many hypotheses for future developmental research, including etiological, dynamic, and therapeutic studies.


In recent years, circular saw blades with thinner kerfs have been in high demand for improvement of the production yield of wood-based materials and the reduction of sawdust. In the case of ripping of solid wood, the number of teeth of a circular saw blade is normally set to 40 or 50, with a diameter of 305 mm, which allows less cutting resistance and smooth exhausting of sawdust. However, at certain rotational speeds, self-excited alternate-tooth vibration can easily occur in circular saw blades with such thin kerfs and so few teeth. Therefore, the cutting surface quality tends to be worse. In this study, the mechanism of this self-excited alternate-tooth vibration was clarified. The vibration mode and frequency were predicted by the finite element method. In addition, a circular saw blade with a body thickness 1.5 mm and 50 teeth was employed for wood-cutting experiments. The rotational speed range of the self-excited alternate-tooth vibration modes and their frequencies were investigated. When a double of the tooth passage frequency was slightly higher than the frequencies of the alternate-tooth vibration modes, an alternate-tooth vibration of the regenerative chatter type was excited, owing to the forces on the sides of the tooth.


An ethnographic study examined 2 case study students, "Nick" and "John," as they engaged in an integrated literature-United Sates history class cotaught by an English and a social studies teacher in a high school in New York state. The emergent critical perspectives and pluralistic understandings of Nick and John were examined as they were invited into a problem-posing pedagogy and thereby into the dance of creative and critical thinking. Nick engaged in the "stretching" and moving invited in the class to expand his intellectual horizons and learn from multiple perspectives. John, on the other hand, frequently referred to his fundamentalist religious stance and held fixed opinions, resisting much of the multicultural literature and some of the classroom dialogue. Nick opened himself up to the dialogic dance and grew by leaps and bounds toward productive citizenship, the communal dance of the human race. John, on the other hand, entered on the fringes and seems to have left the same way. It seems that he never had any desire or ability to know the joy of dancing with other partners, to be part of the community of learners, to experience the possibilities of expanded humanness. (Contains 44 references and 3 notes.) (RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************


Over two years, 9892 mid-stream urine samples from patients attending the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi were cultured. Significant bacterial growth was seen in 23.5% samples. Further identification of these organisms revealed 40% of E. coli, 16% Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 11% Klebsiella aerogenes, 5.0% Enterobacter sp., 13% Proteus sp., 4.0% Serratia liquifaciens, 1.0% Acinetobacter sp., 3.0% Citrobacter sp., 4.0% Enterococci, 0.5% Staphylococcus aureus. Results of sensitivity tests performed with antibiotics Ampicillin, Cotrimoxazole, Nitrofurantoin, Nalidixic acid, Gentamicin, Amikacin, Pipemedic acid, Cefotaxime, Azactam and Carbenicillin did not reveal any distinct pattern.


Forest species, in general, present a slow growth, which results and profits can manifest themselves in the long run, it becomes necessary the study and discovery of new species that may provide raw materials and return on invested capital more immediate, being that the Melia azedarach wood is a potential option. In the absence of information about, the objective of this paper is to determine its physical properties: basic density and shrinkage of the Melia azedarach species in the Itapeva-SP region. The data obtained in this study allow to classify wood Melia azedarach as wood of average density and good dimensional stability. Feature that makes it ideal for its use in furniture industry. The low amount of research related to quality of this wood prevents the commercial use of it to achieve its full potential harnessing its effectively, and essential investments in this field.


OBJECTIVE
Understand the learning experiences on health promotion and prevention of nursing interns during their community practice.

METHOD
This is a descriptive-interpretative study, with a qualitative approach, obtaining data from 19 nursing interns from a public university in Lima-Perú, using 3 focus groups.

RESULTS
Three categories were structured: considering the importance of the nursing teacher in their training; experiencing complexity in training for the prevention and promotion of health in the community; and considering the preventive-promotional area as a future professional practice.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The students perceived the complexity of community practice in the prevention and promotion of health. They stated that teachers and students should know the context where they develop their practices and that teacher's exercise leadership in the community. The inclination of some nursing interns for their future professional practice in this area was also evident.


Abstract We review the recent archaeomagnetic studies carried out on the territory of Slovakia, focusing on the comparison of methodological approaches, discussing pros and cons of the individual applied methods from the perspective of our experience. The most widely used methods for the determination of intensity and direction of the archaeomegnetic field by demagnetisation of the sample material are the alternating field (AF) demagnetisation and the Thellier double heating method. These methods are used not only for archaeomagnetic studies but also help to solve some geological problems. The two methods were applied to samples collected recently at several sites of Slovakia, where archaeological prospection invoked by earthwork or reconstruction work of developing projects demanded archaeomagnetic dating. Then we discuss advantages and weaknesses of the investigated methods from different perspectives based on several examples and our recent experience.


This article presents the local gender contract of a smallholder irrigation farming community in Sibou, Kenya. Women's role in subsistence farming in Africa has mostly been analyzed through the lens of gender division of labor. In addition to this, we used the concept of 'local gender contract' to analyze cultural and material preconditions shaping gender-specific tasks in agricultural production, and consequently, men's and women's different strategies for adapting to climate variability. We show that the introduction of cash crops, as a trigger for negotiating women's and men's roles in the agricultural production, results in a process of gender contract renegotiation, and that families engaged in cash cropping are in the process of shifting from a 'local resource contract' to a 'household income contract.' Based on our analysis, we argue that a transformation of the local gender contract will have a direct impact on the community's adaptive capacity climate variability. It is, therefore, important to take the negotiation of local gender contracts into account in assessments of farming communities' adaptive capacity.


The performance of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms deteriorates appreciably in solving many-objective optimization problems (MaOPs) which encompass more than three objectives. One of the known rationales is the loss of selection pressure which leads to the selected parents not generating promising offspring toward Pareto-optimal front (PF) with diversity. Estimation of distribution algorithms sample new solutions with a probabilistic model built from the statistics extracting over the existing solutions so as to mitigate the adverse impact of genetic operators. In this paper, an improved regularity-based estimation of distribution algorithm is proposed to effectively tackle unconstrained MaOPs. In the proposed algorithm, diversity repairing mechanism is utilized to mend the areas, where need nondominated solutions with a closer proximity to the PF. Then favorable solutions are generated by the model built from the regularity of the solutions surrounding a group of representatives. These two steps collectively enhance the selection pressure which gives rise to the superior convergence of the proposed algorithm. In addition, dimension reduction technique is employed in the decision space to speed up the estimation search of the proposed algorithm. Finally, by assigning the Pareto-optimal solutions to the uniformly distributed reference vectors, a set of solutions with excellent diversity and convergence is obtained. To measure the performance, NSGA-III, GrEA, MOEA/D, HypE, MBN-EDA, and RM-MEDA are selected to perform comparison experiments over DTLZ and DTLZ− test suites with 3-, 5-, 8-, 10-, and 15-objective. Experimental results quantified by the selected performance metrics reveal that the proposed algorithm shows considerable competitiveness in addressing unconstrained MaOPs.


We present a model of growth for the case of two economies with integrated markets and where transportation costs in the form of iceberg costs are imposed. These costs will have negative impact on growth rates after integration, but will play a key role, together with scale factors, on the location of the firms of the intermediate sector. It is shown, however, that the final effect of the integration of markets over growth rates is positive, because of the increase in the number of intermediate factors available and the increase in the size of markets. The welfare effect of integration is ambiguous. It will depend on discount rates and the level of per capita consumption right after integration, which is a function of the endowments of each country. A simulation of the model for the case of Argentina and Brazil is also presented.


This thesis is an exploration of the classed and gendered trajectories that lead to 'revolving door' incarceration for a group of men from working class backgrounds. Considering that men commit most crime and, in the UK, account for over 95% of the prison population, there is relatively little scholarship that explores the links between masculinity and crime and almost a dearth of ethnographic enquiry into the links between the social construction of masculinities and incarceration. In response, this study, employing qualitative in-depth life history interviews with thirty male prisoners housed in an East Yorkshire prison, examines the cyclical interrelations between cultural representations of masculinity, place, schooling, employment, crime and incarceration. Influenced by Connell's theoretical framework, including the relational concept of protest masculinities, and by the Teesside School's work on transitions and alternative careers, the main aim of this research is to examine if, and to what extent, significant cultural and institutional spaces were complicit in the construction and maintenance of versions of protest masculinities. The study reveals that masculinities negotiated over interconnecting sites of deprived neighbourhoods, inadequate children's residential 'care' homes and failing schools better prepared most respondents to serve time in prison than to work in contemporary deindustrialised labour markets. Formative teenage years spent negotiating impoverished prison regimes and living up to extreme prison masculinities contributed to many of the respondents spending more time inside prison than 'on the out'. The thesis concludes with recommendations for policy approaches to better facilitate crucial sites, such as schools and prisons, undoing, rather than reinforcing, troubling gender performances for young boys and men like these respondents. Reducing rising male prison populations, mainly made up of men from deprived neighbourhoods, might be more effectively tackled through innovative, gender informed, policy, ensuring that institutional spaces of learning, 'care', punishment and rehabilitation work harder to open up more positive avenues to doing masculinity.


Uncinia Pers., Syn. Pl. 2 (1807) 534; Boeck., Linnaea 41 (1877) 339—352; Clarke, J. Linn. Soc. Bot. 20 (1883) 389—403; Kuk., Pfl. R. Heft 38 (1909) 50—67; Nelmes, Kew Bull. (1949) 140—145; Hamlin, Dom. Mus. Bull. 19 (1959) 1—88, t. 1—11 (New Zealand spp.); Edgar, Fl. of New Zealand 2 (1970) 215—235 (New Zealand spp.) Perennial monoecious herbs, glabrous (or with hispid utricles). Stems central, tufted or approximate on a more or less creeping rhizome, erect or ascendent, sharply trigonous to subterete, striate, smooth, or scabrid below the inflorescence. Leaves narrowly linear, flat or involute, more or less scabrid on margins and nerves; basal sheaths bladeless, often disintegrating into fibres. Inflorescence a single, bisexual, terminal spikelet; male part above, shorter than the lower female part. Glumes spirally arranged, ovate to oblong, concave, persistent or caducous, all flower-bearing, the lowest often produced into a setaceous to foliaceous bract. Male flowers naked, consisting of (1) 2 or 3 stamens with linear (or dilated, New World spp.) filaments and linear anthers; connective shortly produced. Female flowers naked, enclosed in a bottle-shaped, obtusely trigonous organ (utricle, perigynium) which is closed up to the truncate top, hispid or (in all Malesian and Australian spp.) glabrous. Style incrassate at the base; stigmas 3, exserted from the utricle. Rhachilla (see note 1) reduced to a rigid bristle below the nut and produced far beyond the mouth of the utricle, hooked at the top. Nut trigonous.


Abstract Objective: Insomnia is associated with elevated inflammation; however, studies have not investigated if this relationship is confounded with depression and neuroticism, which are associated with insomnia and inflammation. The current study examined the association of insomnia symptoms with C-reactive protein (CRP) and with interleukin-6 (IL-6), independently and after controlling for depressive symptoms and neuroticism. Design: Fifty-two young adults (mean age = 25.2 ± 3.9 years, 52% female) completed a baseline survey to assess psychological characteristics, followed by a plasma blood draw. Main outcome measures: Plasma CRP and IL-6. Results: When examined alone, insomnia symptoms were significantly associated with elevated CRP (β = 0.52; R2 = 0.27), as was neuroticism (β = 0.41, R2 = 0.17), but not depressive symptoms (β = 0.21, R2 = 0.05). The association between insomnia symptoms and CRP remained significant when depressive symptoms and neuroticism were entered into the model simultaneously; this model did not explain more variance than the model with insomnia symptoms alone. No variables were associated with IL-6. Conclusions: Results suggest that insomnia symptoms are independently associated with elevated CRP in young adults, even after controlling for presumed overlapping psychological constructs. Findings highlight the potential importance of treating insomnia to reduce systemic inflammation.


This article relates two topics of central importance in modern astronomy - the discovery some fifteen years ago of the first planets around other stars (exoplanets), and the centuries-old problem of understanding the origin of our own solar system, with its planets, planetary satellites, asteroids, and comets. The surprising diversity of exoplanets, of which more than 500 have already been discovered, has required new models to explain their formation and evolution. In turn, these models explain, rather naturally, a number of important features of our own solar system, amongst them the masses and orbits of the terrestrial and gas giant planets, the presence and distribution of asteroids and comets, the origin and impact cratering of the Moon, and the existence of water on Earth.


Is there late maturation of skill learning? This notion has been raised to explain an adult advantage in learning a variety of tasks, such as auditory temporal-interval discrimination, locomotion adaptation, and drawing visually-distorted spatial patterns (mirror-drawing, MD). Here, we test this assertion by following the practice of the MD task in two 5 min daily sessions separated by a 10 min break, over the course of 2 days, in 5–6-year-old kindergarten children, 7–8-year-old second-graders, and young adults. In the MD task, participants were required to trace a square while looking at their hand only as a reflection in a mirror. Kindergarteners did not show learning of the visual-motor mapping, and on average, did not produce even one full side of a square correctly. Second-graders showed increased online movement control with longer strokes, and robust learning of the visual-motor mapping, resulting in a between-day increase in the number of correctly drawn sides with no loss in accuracy. Overall, kindergarteners and second-graders producing at least one correct polygon-side on Day 1 were more likely to improve their performance between days. Adults showed better performance with improvements in the number of correctly drawn sides between- and within-days, and in accuracy between days. It has been suggested that 5-year-olds cannot learn the task due to their inability to detect and encapsulate previously produced accurate movements. Our findings suggest, instead, that these children lacked initial, accurate performance that could be enhanced through training. Recently, it has been shown that in a simple grapho-motor task the three age-groups improved their speed of performance within a session and between-days, while maintaining accuracy scores. Taken together, these data suggest that children's motor skill learning depends on the task's characteristics and their adopting an efficient and mature performance strategy enabling initial success that can be improved through training.


Novel core-shell composites have been developed by immobilization of non-luminescent europium(III) complexes onto the surface of silica shells that are coated on the surface of luminescent dye-loaded zeolite L nano-crystals. The obtained core-shell composites were used for the ratiometric detection of dipicolinic acid (DPA) molecules. The dyes located in the channels of the zeolite L host are protected from any interaction with the environment of the particles and therefore provide a stable reference signal which can eliminate the need for instrument-specific calibration curves for DPA quantification in an analyte.


Purpose: This study was to investigate intensive care unit (ICU) nurse's knowledge and nursing performance on the intensive care unit syndrome. Method: A survey questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 123 nurses in a university hospital. Data were collected from August 1st to August 25th, 2009. Data were analyzed using SPSS/WIN 12.0. Results: The mean score for knowledge and nursing performance were66.96 and 74.97 respectively. According to the general characteristics, there were significant differences in knowledge depending on marital statu s, education level and career length and in nursing performance depending on their age, education level and career length. The correlation between knowledge and nursing performance was a significant positive one. Conclusion: Comprehensive educational programs are needed to decrease accident rates related to ICU syndrome and to improve the health of ICU patients.


This study tries to establish the existing connection between the excessive using of air cushion sole trainers and the production of ankle sprains in common population, because it has been observed theirs increase in children population. So, this study tries to determine the unstability or the stability of this kind of shoe.


Quantum error correction is necessary to perform large-scale quantum computations in the presence of noise and decoherence. As a result, several aspects of quantum error correction have already been explored. These have been primarily studies of quantum memory[1, 2], an important first step towards quantum computation, where the objective is to increase the lifetime of the encoded quantum information. Additionally, several works have explored the implementation of logical gates[3-5]. In this work we study a next step - fault-tolerantly implementing quantum circuits. We choose the $[[4, 1, 2]]$ Bacon-Shor subsystem code, which has a particularly simple error-detection circuit. Through both numerics and site-counting arguments, we compute pseudo-thresholds for the Pauli error rate $p$ in a depolarizing noise model, below which the encoded circuits outperform the unencoded circuits. These pseudo-threshold values are shown to be as high as $p=3\%$ for short circuits, and $p=0.6\%$ for circuits of moderate depth. Additionally, we see that multiple rounds of stabilizer measurements give an improvement over performing a single round at the end. This provides a concrete suggestion for a small-scale fault-tolerant demonstration of a quantum algorithm that could be accessible with existing hardware.


Background NSAIDs are the first choice for management of acute musculoskeletal pain. Acute musculoskeletal pain is often associated with trauma, surgery, musculoskeletal injuries like strains, sprains and over-use injuries Objectives The primary study endpoint was the estimate of the non-inferiority of the Test drug (Ketoprofen) vs. the Reference drug (Diclofenac). This was performed by assessment of the proportion of responders (response: 50% or more reduction of baseline VAS % (95%CI) at the end of treatment) in the two treatment groups. Methods This phase III, randomised, blinded, active-control and non-inferiority study involved 697 adults with acute muskuloskeletal pain. Participants were randomised in a double blind manner to receive with a 1:1 ratio one patch of SKP-021 containing 30 mg of ketoprofen or one patch of Voltadolâ containing 140 mg of diclofenac sodium twice a day for 7 days. The efficacy measures were the percentage change from baseline to day 7 for the participant's assessment of pain as measured by a 100mm VAS, other clinical symptoms: [pain at resting, pain on exercise, local hot feeling, tenderness, swelling, mobility limitation, difficulties in daily activities, evaluated by four step rating (0=none, 1=mild, 2=moderate, 3=severe)]; Physician and Patient Overall Rating on patient's overall status change since the start of the study. Results The study sample included 697 subjects, 426 F (61.1%) and 271 M (38.9%) ranging in age from 18 to 82 years (mean 51.6 median 53). No between groups differences were detected in baseline characteristics. Among the musculoskeletal diagnoses, there was a prevalence of muscular injury (77.8%), joint injury (19.1%) and tendon pain (3.2%), with no significant difference between the two groups. Day 7 percentage of responders was 51.9 (46.6 to 57.1 CI) and 50.6 (45.3 to 55.8 CI) for the ketoprofen and diclofenac groups, respectively (p=0.734). The improvement of clinical symptoms was statistically significant in both groups (p<0.001 for all symptoms). The analysis carried out by the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test did not show any statistically significant differences between groups in the changes from baseline. The mean time to response was 4.94 days for Diclofenac and 4.87 days for Ketoprofen. The Log-Rank test (p=0.228) did not show any statistically significant difference on the survival curves of the two groups.One hundred and twenty four subjects reported one or more AEs for a total of 183 events: 65 subjects from the Diclofenac (18.7%), 99 events; 59 subjects from the Ketoprofen (16.9%), 84 events. The frequencies of subjects experiencing at least one AE are similar between treatment groups (P=0.541). No serious or severe AEs were reported. No photosensitivity reactions were reported. Skin reactions were statistically lower in the ketoprofen arm. Conclusions The analysis of the data of this trial showed that the two formulations were equally effective and well tolerated in the treatment of acute musculoskeletal injuries. Disclosure of Interest : P. Sarzi-Puttini Grant/research support: restricted grant from multinational company, F. Atzeni Grant/research support: restricted grant from multinationalcompany, C. Damiani Grant/research support: restricted grant from multinationalcompany, R. Casale Grant/research support: restricted grant from multinational company, M. Barbagallo Grant/research support: restricted grant from multinational company, M. Cazzola Grant/research support: restricted grant from multinational company DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.3677


This paper will discuss the concept and application of risk management in the North Sea, a mature oil province which now presents increasingly high cost, marginal development prospects. Examples of an integrated approach to risk assessment in field development planning, involving both petroleum and well engineering disciplines, will be examined using case histories from both mature fields and new projects. The use of leading edge technologies in this process will be discussed, in the context of introducing risk and the quantification of possible upsides and downsides in the process of optimizing the overall economic return of a project.


Purpose : Eye movements are important factors for dynamic visual acuity (DVA) that refers to the ability to perceive fine details of a moving object. When tracking a moving visual stimulus, we often combine smooth eye movements with catch-up saccades. The velocity of saccade eye movements (up to 500-600 deg/s) is much faster than smooth pursuit (usually less than 50 deg/s). Even though a tracking ability using these two kinds of eye movements is thought to play a critical role in DVA, it is still uncertain whether better DVA is associated with an ability of catch-up saccades. The first purpose of this study was to quantitatively clarify the effects of vision training on DVA and eye movements. Therefore, we repetitively measured the eye movements during DVA training and attempted to determine the effects of visual training on saccade eye movements. The second purpose was to assess the concentration of serum and plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) level before and after vision training. BDNF is a member of the neurotrophin family of growth factors, which are related to the canonical Nerve Growth Factor. Previous studies have reported that moderate intensity exercise leads to increase in BDNF. However it is unknown whether BDNF level is correlated with eye movements. Therefore, we examined the correlation between BDNF level and eye movement parameters. Methods : DVA was evaluated by a moving visual target (Landolt ring) that was projected on the front screen (HI-10; Kowa, Japan). Eye movements were detected using a video based eye tracking system (Eye Link1000; SR research, Canada). We have performed measuring DVA in five subjects (mean age; 19.0±2.6, age range; 19 to 21 years old) and analyzed saccades eye movements quantitatively using custom analytical software (Matlab; Mathworks Inc., USA). Subjects were seated in front of a screen and put their jaw on a chin supporter of our device to stabilize the head. The subjects were asked to follow the Landolt ring moving across in front of their visual field and judge the direction of the slit. We analyzed saccade latency (msec), peak velocity (deg/sec), error (deg) and a correct response rate (%). The Landolt ring moved either from right to left or left to right with constant speed of 300 deg/s. A total of eight measurements were performed for each subject. We took blood samples from each subject before and after vision training and checked serum and plasma level of BDNF. Results : Our results demonstrated that saccade latency and error showed significant decreases and the correct response rate increased after training for five subjects. Especially for the result of correlation analysis, the correct response rate showed a correlation coefficient of 0.63 (p=0.021), indicating a stronger correlation than the other three parameters. In contrast, saccade peak velocity showed different results among subjects. For three subjects, the velocity increased while two subjects showed a decrease in velocity after training. The results of the analysis showed a significant positive correlation of the concentration of plasma BDNF level with velocity and the correct response rate. However, the results showed a significant negative correlation of the concentration of plasma BDNF level with latency and error. It was also revealed that the results of plasma and serum BDNF level were contrary to each other. Conclusion : Our study provided several lines of evidence showing that saccade eye movements, such as latency, error and peak velocity changed after vision training. Since our results showed that visual training improved DVA, better DVA could be associated with the tracking ability using catch-up saccades. We were also able to clarify that the plasma and serum BDNF possibly affected actual eye movements.


Electronic transport properties of a finite (7,0) carbon nanotube (CNT) coupled to Au (111) surfaces are investigated with a fully nonequilibrium Green's functions method combined with the density functional theory. The results show that the coupling effect between the CNT and Au electrode plays an important role in the transport properties, which leads to the formation of a high plateau in the transmission spectrum around Fermi energy. In addition, the current-voltage characteristic of the (7,0) CNT coupled to Au electrodes is different from an isolated (7,0) CNT.


Abstract This article interprets Newton's De gravitatione as presenting a reductive account of substance, on which divine and created substances are identified with their characteristic attributes, which are present in space. God is identical to the divine power to create, and mind to its characteristic power. Even bodies lack parts outside parts, for they are not constructed from regions of actual space, as some commentators suppose, but rather consist in powers alone, maintained in certain configurations by the divine will. This interpretation thus specifies Newton's meaning when he writes that bodies subsist 'through God alone'; yet bodies do qualify as substances, and divine providence does not extend so far as occasionalism.


The Chinese burgeoning Internet population will soon have an array of 3D virtual worlds in which to work and play. HiPiHi, Uworld and Novoking are considered as being the "Big3" local companies in this emerging market. Although some strategies of virtual worlds have been proven to be successful for attracting user acceptance in the western world, the effects of these strategies are questionable in the Chinese environment. For surviving in the Chinese environment, these three local companies have developed innovative strategies to attract Chinese users. Based on customer relationship management (CRM) and uses-and-gratifications (U&G) theories, this study compares the different strategies of these three virtual worlds, and explores which strategies can attract user acceptance in the Chinese environment.


Background: the current study investigated the level of salivary 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine & total antioxidant capacity in oral premalignant and malignant lesions in order to determine their diagnostic value for the malignant patients. Methods: A total of 120 subjects diagnosed with leukoplakia (n=30), oral lichen planus (n=30), oral squamous cell carcinoma (n=30) & healthy control subjects (n=30) were included in this study. Salivary samples from all participants were collected. 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine was measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay technique and the level of total antioxidant capacity had been measured by means of photometric system.Results: A significant higher salivary levels of 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine was observed in the group of oral squamous cell carcinoma in comparison to other groups. Comparing leukoplakia & oral lichen planus groups, no significant difference existed. Total antioxidant capacity showed its lowest value, with statistical significance, in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. As between different grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma, significant difference had been registered in 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine between grade III and the other two grades while for total antioxidant only statistical significance existed between grade I and III.Conclusion: Salivary 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine & total antioxidant capacity are noteworthy diagnostic markers that can be utilized in diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma.


Background

Spinal cord injury leading to paraplegia affects the mobility and physiological well-being of nearly one in a thousand people. Powered exoskeletons can temporarily restore the ability to walk. Their relevance in daily life is still limited because of low performance beyond even ground. Cybathlon is an international competition promoting improvements in assistive technology. In this article we present the latest design and results of testing of TWIICE One 2018, one of the competing devices in the 2020 race.
Methods

A person with a motor-complete spinal cord injury at thoracic level T10 participated as race pilot. Training ahead of the race took place over one week at a rate of 2-5 hours per week. Time to perform each of the 7 tasks of the competition was recorded together with the number of repetitions. Performance is compared over training time and against 2016 race results.
Results

Progression was observed in all tasks and accounted for by both user training and technology improvements. Final competition rank was second out of 7 participating teams, with a record time of 4'40" min. This represents an average of 40 % improvement with respect to comparable obstacles of the 2016 race, explaining the two ranks of improvement since then.
Conclusion

These results help understand which features had a positive impact on real life performance of the device. Understanding how design affects performance is a key information to create devices that really improve the life of people living with paraplegia.


It is shown that the invariant charge of quantum electrodynamics cannot change sign as a function of q2. Asymptotically, the invariant charge is given by a non-linear equation that has no real and negative solutions. Contrary to the indications from low-order perturbation theory, therefore, the invariant charge is everywhere non-negative, and the vacuum does not become unstable.


The third title in the WHITBY trilogy follows the adventures of Ben, Jennet and their white witch guardian, who have to summon all their strength to save the seaside town of Whitby, which is once again threatened by evil forces. Illustrated with black and white line drawings. Also available in paperback priced at 4.99, ISBN 0 7500 1581 0.


Thrombin-activable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI) is a zymogen that inhibits the amplification of plasmin production when converted to its active form (TAFIa). TAFI is structurally very similar to pancreatic procarboxypeptidase B. TAFI also shares high homology in zinc binding and catalytic sites with the second basic carboxypeptidase present in plasma, carboxypeptidase N. We investigated the effects of altering residues involved in substrate specificity to understand how they contribute to the enzymatic differences between TAFI and carboxypeptidase N. We expressed wild type TAFI and binding site mutants in 293 cells. Recombinant proteins were purified and characterized for their activation and enzymatic activity as well as functional activity. Although the thrombin/thrombomodulin complex activated all the mutants, carboxypeptidase B activity of the activated mutants against hippuryl-arginine was reduced. Potato carboxypeptidase inhibitor inhibited the residual activity of the mutants. The functional activity of the mutants in a plasma clot lysis assay correlated with their chromogenic activity. The effect of the mutations on other substrates depended on the particular mutation, with some of the mutants possessing more activity against hippuryl-His-leucine than wild type TAFIa. Thus mutations in residues around the substrate binding site of TAFI resulted in altered C-terminal substrate specificity.


While the political and academic debate on how to address the tax challenges raised by the digitalized economy has been revolving predominantly around extending the right to tax of the source/market state, the most recent proposal - a global minimum tax - chooses a very different path. The idea of a global minimum tax system is to ensure a certain minimum level of taxation through strengthened CFC- and anti-base erosion rules; the underlying policy agenda being that zero or overall low taxation should not only be mitigated by granting more taxing rights to source/market states but by strengthening the residual taxing right of resident states. So far, technical details on how such a system should look like are still missing. Behind this background, the question has been raised in literature whether the US GILTI- and BEAT-rules, introduced in the course of the 2017 US tax reform, could serve as a blueprint for global reform. Taking both GILTI and BEAT as a starting point, this paper tries to develop a tentative tax policy decision tree highlighting crucial conceptual, technical and political issues legislators will have to find solutions for, when implementing such a global minimum tax regime. In doing so, the paper claims that a specific (BEAT-like) outbound regime supplementing the regime's inbound prong (i.e. GILTI-like rules) might be obsolete insofar as both overlap. An unaligned and parallel application of both, inbound and outbound elements, inherently leads to double taxation. From a policy perspective the implementation of a global minimum tax system along the lines of GILTI and BEAT would have two noteworthy side effects: not only would it mean a significant shift to the credit method and hence capital export neutrality, but would - as the name 'minimum tax system' indicates - also potentially mean the end of preferential regime for income from intangibles, e.g. patent boxes; a somewhat ironic effect considering that the third major change to the US international tax rules put into place in 2017, the Foreign Derived Intangible Income (FDII) rules introduced exactly such a preferential system. Moreover, the inherently unilateral nature of the rules such a global minimum tax system would be based upon (i.e. CFC- and anti-base erosion rules) would arguably decrease the relevance of tax treaties and lead to the problem that the existing treaty based mechanism for dispute resolution might become ineffective. Last but not least, implementing a minimum tax regime would require diligent manoeuvering around significant EU law concerns.


Monte Carlo methods are used to generate line spread functions describing dose distributions at a variety of depths within a homogeneous water phantom. The line spread function data are convolved with a step function that represents the edge of a primary radiation field. The dosimetric information beyond the edge of the field is reported in the form of tissue-air ratios for three different beam spectra in the diagnostic energy range.


Human Patient Simulators (HPS), electronically controlled mannequins as patient models, are increasingly being used in nursing education. However, no studies have validated the influence of systematic practice with HPS on clinical performance of nursing students. This pilot study attempted to identify the nursing clinical practice parameters influenced by HPS by evaluating the clinical performance of 12 senior second degree BSN students in five categories: safety, basic assessment skills, prioritization, problem-focused assessment, ensuing interventions, delegation and communication in a complex two-patient, simulated assignment. Students who practiced with the HPS in addition to their usual clinical training had significantly higher scores than the control group (usual clinical training alone) on Patient Identification (a subcategory of the safety category; p = 0.001), and on Assessing Vital Signs (a subcategory of the basic assessment category; p = 0.009). The control and intervention groups' performances were similar in every other category. Replication of this pilot with a larger sample is recommended.


OBJECTIVE
To describe a case of esophageal ulcer associated with the use of alendronate.

CASE REPORT
This is the fifth case ever described in the literature according to our bibliographic review. In our patient, the association between the drug and the esophageal lesions was masked by the presence of a hiatal hernia, potentially a cause of the esophageal lesion. The persistence of the lesions despite high doses of anti-reflux therapy called attention to the possibility of the relationship. The esophageal lesion healed soon after suspension of alendronate.

DISCUSSION
The authors present a review of the literature and point to the need for diagnostic investigation, to suspend such a drug from patients who experience dyspeptic symptoms while using it.


This work proposes Random Power line Synthesis (RPLS) as a quicker computational approach to solving RLC parameters of a modern smart grid transmission network. Since modern grid systems provide a holistic perspective of modern grid development, it is obvious that a transmission network that is ageing cannot serve the expanded load demand. The need to revoltionalize the traditional transmission model while exploiting basic electrical theories and principles in Smart Grid (SG) architecture necessitated this paper. This work seeks to address the RLC parameter modelling for SG template to provision dynamic power in Nigerian context. Other schemes of transmission RLC modelling were studied as well as outlining their limitations. Consequently, we then proposed a fuzzy smart grid framework for RLC computation and developed a proposed SG overhead transmission line from its conductor characteristics and tower geometry considering the RLC parameters of the conductor while applying RPLS to generate the parameter metrics. Keywords—RPLS; Smart Grid; Overhead; Conductor; RLC parameters.


Text-to-speech (TTS) systems are built on speech corpora which are labeled with carefully checked and segmented phonemes. However, phoneme sequences generated by automatic grapheme-to-phoneme converters during synthesis are usually inconsistent with those from the corpus, thus leading to poor quality synthetic speech signals. To solve this problem , the present work aims at adapting automatically generated pronunciations to the corpus. The main idea is to train corpus-specific phoneme-to-phoneme conditional random fields with a large set of linguistic, phonological, articulatory and acoustic-prosodic features. Features are first selected in cross-validation condition, then combined to produce the final best feature set. Pronunciation models are evaluated in terms of phoneme error rate and through perceptual tests. Experiments carried out on a French speech corpus show an improvement in the quality of speech synthesis when pronunciation models are included in the phonetization process. Appart from improving TTS quality, the presented pronunciation adaptation method also brings interesting perspectives in terms of expressive speech synthesis.


Efforts to reduce teenage driving fatalities can be categorized as: enhancing driving skills, constraining driving behaviour and limiting the exposure of young drivers to the road. This article uses state-year specific Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data on the motor vehicle fatalities of young adults aged 15–24 to estimate the effects of gasoline prices, beer taxes and the enactment of Graduated Drivers License (GDL) programmes over the 1985–2006 period. Results indicate that a 10% increase in gasoline prices reduce fatalities by 3.2–6.2%. The largest percentage reductions occurred among 15- to 17-year-old drivers. 10% higher beer taxes were estimated to reduce motor vehicle fatalities among young drivers by approximately 1.3%. In this case, there was virtually no effect on 15- to 17-year-old drivers. Finally, the introduction of more restrictive GDL programmes, those with a 6-month learner's permit phase and subsequent limits on early nighttime driving or on the number of passengers, reduced fatalities among 15- to 17-year-old drivers by 24%. The effects on 18- to 21-year-old drivers were smaller and the weakest GDL programmes had no effect on fatalities.


Catamenial pneumothorax is an unusual and rarely recognized entity that belongs to the thoracic endometriosis syndrome. The increase a number of published cases over the last years allows a more frequent diagnosis and understanding. We describe the story of a young woman with a recurrent right sided pneumothorax and discuss the different pathogenic mechanisms and current therapies. The rarity of the disease makes a prospective study very difficult. To this day, there is no consensus on a standardized therapeutic attitude.


A hashing technique is used as an arm collision warning algorithm for two armed robots which can be expected to be a factor 103 more efficient in memory resources than a direct geometrical calculation. Computational savings are also achieved.


Abstract Tolmetin, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, was found to be the etiologic agent in a case of drug-induced hemolytic anemia. A 35-year-old female who had ingested tolmetin sporadically in the past took two doses that resulted in acute hemolysis. Two days after taking the second dose, she had a hemoglobin of 7.0 g/dL, increased serum lactate dehydrogenase, reticulocytosis, and indirect reacting hyperbilirubinemia. The direct antiglobulin test was weakly positive with anti-lgG and anticomplement reagents. The patient's serum was nonreactive with reagent red cells in the absence of tolmetin, but addition of tolmetin to the serum resulted in strong agglutination of all reagent red cells tested. Serologic evaluation of this patient's serum indicated that tolmetin caused hemolysis by an immune complex mechanism. Hemolysis subsided and anemia improved spontaneously. Immunohematology 1992;8:17-18.


The enzymatic activities of 24 lactic acid bacteria strains have been studied. Lactobacilli strains exhibited the highest β-galactosidase and aminopeptidase activities. Acid phosphatase activity was high in lactobacilli and lactococci strains. Esterase activity was observed for leuconostoc and lactobacilli strains. The hydrophobicity test and the biogenic amines detection were also tested in some strains selected for their use as autochthonous starters in cheese manufacture. In general, all strains showed degrees of hydrophobicity greater than 70%, and were poor former of histamine and cadaverine and medium putrescine former. Tyramine production was medium in three strains and low in two strains of Lactococcus.

 Key words: Autochthonous starters, cheese, lactic acid bacteria, biogenic amines, enzymatic activity.


AMS-02 is wide acceptance high-energy physics experiment installed on the International Space Station in May 2011 and operating continuously since then. With a collection rate of approximately $1.7 \times 10^{10}$ events/year, and the combined identification capabilities of 5 independent detectors, AMS-02 is able to precisely separate cosmic rays light nuclei ($ \leq Z \leq 8$). Knowledge of the precise rigidity dependence of the light nuclei fluxes is important in understanding the origin, acceleration, and propagation of cosmic rays. AMS-02 collaboration has recently released the precise measurements of the proton and helium fluxes as function of rigidity (momentum/charge). The spectral indexes of both fluxes progressively hardens at rigidities larger than 100 GV. The rigidity dependence of the helium flux spectral index is similar to that of the proton spectral index though the magnitudes are different. Remarkably, the spectral index of the proton to helium flux ratio increases with rigidity up to 45 GV and then becomes constant; i.e. the flux ratio above 45 GV is well described by a single power law. Preliminary results about the spectral shape of other light nuclei have been shown during the conference and are here briefly introduced.


Adolescence: Psychosocial Perspectives , edited by Gerald Caplan and Serge Lebovici, 412 pp, $12.50, New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1969. Childhood and Adolescence , edited by Jules H. Masserman, 258 pp, $12.75, New York and London: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1969. Almost everybody talks or writes about teen-agers. Business men may welcome them as customers, but parents, police, educators, and commentators express distrust and disapproval. Recently, many psychiatrists have been reporting their observations and interpretations of adolescents. Offer directed an unusual research project in two suburban high schools. Seventy-three freshman boys, carefully selected as "model," free from outstanding problems, were studied intensively by interviews, psychological tests, family conferences, and school reports, and followed up through high school and early college years. The Psychological World of the Teen-Ager includes description of the procedures and findings. Most of these "normal" youths slowly developed heterosexual interests, communicated adequately with their parents, adjusted to high school,


In this paper we present a speech rate estimator based on so-called rhythmicity features derived from a modified version of the short-time energy envelope. To evaluate the new method, it is compared to a traditional speech rate estimator on the basis of semi-automatic segmentation. Speech material from the Alcohol Language Corpus (ALC) covering intoxicated and sober speech of different speech styles provides a statistically sound foundation to test upon. The proposed measure clearly correlates with the semi-automatically determined speech rate and seems to be robust across speech styles and speaker states.


The Kumamoto area, Kyushu, Japan has 1,041km in area and about 1milion in population. This area is a greatest area in Japan which depends on groundwater for all of drinking water. Quantity of this local groundwater use is about 200MCM during the year. It is understood that the main recharging area of groundwater exist in the rice field zone which have high infiltrate height ahead of 100mm/ day of the irrigated water located in the middle area of the Shira-River Basin. However, by decrease of the paddy-rice planting area by urbanization and an acreage reduction policy, the groundwater income and expenditure turned worse. Then Kumamoto city and four companies expended financial support to increase recharging water to underground by ponded water in the field from 2004. In this paper, the author reported the situation of recovery of groundwater by recharge and estimates the efficiency of recharge by statistical method. Keywords—Groundwater recharge, groundwater level, spring water, paddy field.


Neuropeptides are a diverse class of signalling molecules in metazoans. They occur in all animals with a nervous system and also in neuron-less placozoans. However, their origin has remained unclear because no neuropeptide shows deep homology across lineages and none have been found in sponges. Here, we identify two neuropeptide precursors, phoenixin and nesfatin, with broad evolutionary conservation. By database searches, sequence alignments and gene-structure comparisons we show that both precursors are present in bilaterians, cnidarians, ctenophores and sponges. We also found phoenixin and a secreted nesfatin precursor homolog in the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta. Phoenixin in particular, is highly conserved, including its cleavage sites, suggesting that prohormone processing occurs also in choanoflagellates. In addition, based on phyletic patterns and negative pharmacological assays we question the originally proposed GPR-173 (SREB3) as a phoenixin receptor. Our findings indicate that signalling by secreted neuropeptide homologs has pre-metazoan origins and thus evolved before neurons.


This paper aims to provide a critical analysis of the role of support in teenage motherhood. Family, partner and peer support are considered and literature emanating from both the USA and UK is reviewed. In summary the research literature indicates that family support is particularly important to teenage mothers and has been found to have a positive influence on parenting behaviours and practices. However, the mother–daughter relationship is not always a straightforward one and conflict between the two can diminish some of the positive impact. The research on partner support highlights how support from fathers and/or other male partners has been linked with improved financial and psychological outcomes for teenage mothers as well as having a positive influence on parenting behaviours. There is also evidence to suggest that support from partners may become increasingly important to teenage mothers over time and can be a valuable source of socializing participation and positive feedback. While the research available on peer support is much more limited it suggests that the emotional support of peers is perceived as being important by teenage mothers. Current research findings suggest that families, partners and peers tend to provide different, but complementary, forms of support for teenage mothers which, on the whole, appear to contribute to more positive outcomes for this group.


Data from the 1975 and 1995 Dutch surveys were used to analyze the relationship between television viewing and reading behavior and the changes in this relationship over time. The central question of the article is, How do specific reader types differ in their television viewing behavior? This question is answered by using latent class analysis to identify the set of mutually exclusive latent classes of readers and by estimating the probability that each reader type will display a specific kind of content-related television viewing behavior. Kinds of print media and television programs are differentiated by referring to the extent to which they each focus on kinds of information or entertainment or both. Five reader types were identified according to how each specifically combines various reading items. Analysis of their television viewing behavior shows the existence of five audience segments with distinct background characteristics. The results give empirical substance to the notions of media orientation and audience segmentation; they document the overall decline in reading.


This study assesses whether the stresses associated with parenting a child are indirectly related to adolescent self-concept through parenting behaviors. We examined longitudinal associations among mothers' and fathers' parenting stress at age 10, children's perceptions of parenting at age 10, and adolescents' self-concept at age 14 in 120 European American families. Mothers' and fathers' parenting stress was related to children's perceptions of acceptance and psychologically controlling behavior, and psychologically controlling behavior (and lax control for fathers) was related to adolescent self-concept. We further examined which domains of parenting stress and perceived parenting behaviors were associated with adolescents' scholastic competence, social acceptance, physical appearance, and behavioral conduct. Parenting stress was related to specific parenting behaviors, which were, in turn, related to specific domains of self-concept in adolescence. Parenting stress appears to exert its effects on early adolescent self-concept indirectly through perceived parenting behavior.


The smoothed round robin (SRR) packet scheduler is attractive for use in high-speed networks due to its very low time complexity, but it is not suitable for realtime applications since it cannot provide tight delay bound. In this paper, we present two improved algorithms based on SRR, namely SRRc and SRR#, which are based on novel matrix transform techniques. By transforming the irregular Weight Matrix of SRR into triangular and diagonal ones, SRR+ and SRR# are able to evenly interleave flows based on their reserved rates even in skewed weight distributions. SRR+ and SRR# provide bounded delay, whereas are still of low space and time complexities and are simple to implement in high-speed networks. The properties of SRR+ and SRR# are addressed in detail through analysis and simulations. SRR+ and SRR#, together with SRR and the recently developed G-3 scheduler [9] form a full spectrum of schedulers that provide tradeoffs among delay, time complexity, and space complexity.


Employing a sample of 26,473 firms across 42 countries from 1990 to 2013, we find that firms located in countries with higher individualism have higher stock price crash risk. Furthermore, individualism can be transmitted by foreign investors from overseas markets to influence local firms' crash risk, and can exacerbate the impact of firm risk taking and earnings management on crash risk. Moreover, the positive relation between individualism and crash risk is amplified during the global financial crisis and attenuated by enhanced country-level financial information transparency and the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards. JEL Classification: G14, G15


Sustainable development has improved the quality of life associate with requirement, production and processing of agricultural belongings among other things. Processing aim is to improve quality and concentration of products with their nutritional value influencing its cost also. Safflower oil is a value added product of safflower seeds which have biotechnological importance in the field of food and pharmaceutical industry. The presence of antinutritional factors (ANFs) like tannin, phytate and phenolic glucosides reduce the qualitative value of safflower seed oil. Different processing methodologies like boiling (temperature based pretreatment), decortications have been employed to reduce level of ANFs in safflower seeds. In our study, combinatorial effects of boiling and decortications have been employed to improve oil content in safflower seeds by reducing level of tannin. The boiling pretreatment was done with two sets of seed samples i.e. corticated and decorticated seeds. Each set was divided into four portions i.e. B10, B20, B30 and C. Samples B10, B20 and B30 were heated for 10 min, 20 min and 30 min respectively at 800C, while sample C served as the control for the experiment. The results showed an enhancement in percentage oil content by 1.16 fold and reduction in tannin content by 0.78 fold from B10 to B30 in corticated and decorticated set of seeds after boiling treatment. The combinatorial pretreatment methods using decortication with boiling treatment increase two fold oil content and 1.12 fold reduction in tannin content than control corticated


It is well known that PPs such as tea catechins have many chemical and physielogical t'unctions. They are known to be antioxidative,i) antibacter{al,2) antimutagenic,3) antitumorial,`} hypolipidimic,5' ancl hypotensive.5'6) Furthermore, as one chemical funct{on of PP$, a deodorizing efieet has been reported by Yasuda and Arakawa.7) Tea catechins and gailic acid adsorb methylmercaptan which contributes to bad breath. (}al]ocatechins showed high deodorizing activity, the activity order of these tea catechins being (-)-epigailocatechin gallate>(-)-epigallocat-