Serotiny is a strategy in which the retention of mature seeds in parent structures allows plants to cope with environmental variability like heat, drought or fire. Although this phenomenon might be common in Cactaceae, and particularly in Melocactus, it has generally been scarcely addressed. The main goal of our work is to investigate if there are seeds hidden in the cephalium of Melocactus matanzanus and if there are, determine whether or not these seeds maintain their viability. We also discuss some advantages the cephalium may offer as diaspore after the death of individuals. Cephalia collected from dead individuals were divided into four slices and their seeds counted; we also assessed the viability and photoblastic response of the seeds by using growth chambers at 25/30°C, and by a cut test on the seeds that did not germinate. Our results showed retention of viable seeds of different ages in all slices of the cephalium. Seeds were photoblastic positive with germination between 11–22% and viability above 50% in the portion of the lots that did not germinate.


A planar hexanuclear cobalt ring was clamped by two bivacant α1-[PW10O37](9-) with the assistance of the pyridazine bridges to form a novel sandwiched Co(II)-polyoxometalate cluster compound, [Na(H2O)6][Co3(OH) (pydz)4(H2O)7][Co6(PW10O37)2(pydz)4(H2O)6]·43H2O (1; pydz = pyridazine).This cluster was identified by X-ray single-crystal diffraction, elemental analysis, Fourier transform IR and UV-visible spectroscopies, and cyclic voltammetry (CV). Structural analysis reveals that 1 comprises a hexahydrated sodium, a trinuclear [Co3(OH) (pydz)4(H2O)7](5+) cationic cluster, and an anionic [Co6(PW10O37)2(pydz)4(H2O)6](6-) sandwiched cluster, thus giving an intrinsical intercluster compound. The isolation of such cluster was dependent on the in situ transformation of trivacant [α-P2W15O56](12-) to α1-[PW10O37](9-) under the hydrothermal condition. The CV shows reversible multielectron waves from the redox of W(VI) in 1. Cluster 1 exhibits remarkable electrocatalytic activity toward the reduction of nitrite. Magnetism studies indicated a weak anti-ferromagnetic exchange interaction between Co(II) ions within 1.


Context. Merger debris is expected to populate the stellar haloes of galaxies. In the case of the Milky Way, this debris should be apparent as clumps in a space defined by the orbital integrals of motion of the stars. Aims. Our aim is to develop a data-driven and statistics-based method for finding these clumps in integrals-of-motion space for nearby halo stars and to evaluate their significance robustly. Methods. We used data from Gaia EDR3, extended with radial velocities from ground-based spectroscopic surveys, to construct a sample of halo stars within 2.5 kpc from the Sun. We applied a hierarchical clustering method that makes exhaustive use of the single linkage algorithm in three-dimensional space defined by the commonly used integrals of motion energy E , together with two components of the angular momentum, L z and L ⊥ . To evaluate the statistical significance of the clusters, we compared the density within an ellipsoidal region centred on the cluster to that of random sets with similar global dynamical properties. By selecting the signal at the location of their maximum statistical significance in the hierarchical tree, we extracted a set of significant unique clusters. By describing these clusters with ellipsoids, we estimated the proximity of a star to the cluster centre using the Mahalanobis distance. Additionally, we applied the HDBSCAN clustering algorithm in velocity space to each cluster to extract subgroups representing debris with di ff erent orbital phases. Results. Our procedure identifies 67 highly significant clusters ( > 3 σ ), containing 12% of the sources in our halo set, and 232 subgroups or individual streams in velocity space. In total, 13.8% of the stars in our data set can be confidently associated with a significant cluster based on their Mahalanobis distance. Inspection of the hierarchical tree describing our data set reveals a complex web of relations between the significant clusters, suggesting that they can be tentatively grouped into at least six main large structures, many of which can be associated with previously identified halo substructures, and a number of independent substructures. This preliminary conclusion is further explored in a companion paper, in which we also characterise the substructures in terms of their stellar populations. Conclusions. Our method allows us to systematically detect kinematic substructures in the Galactic stellar halo with a data-driven and interpretable algorithm. The list of the clusters and the associated star catalogue are provided in two tables in electronic format.


From 1991 to 1998 we vaccinated 4835 neonates against hepatitis B virus (HBV) and monitored their humoral response to the recombinant vaccine. In a sample of 184 of these babies we studied the association between HLA class I and II genomic polymorphisms and humoral response to the vaccine and the association between the response and immune-mediated diseases. A subgroup of 96 babies also underwent HLA class III (C4A and C4B) typing. Four levels of humoral response were identified, each with a peculiar MHC restriction. Different HLA products seem to act as agonists (C4AQ0 and HLA-DQB1(*)02) or antagonists (C4AQ0, HLA-DQB1(*)02, and HLA-DRB1(*)11, DQB1(*)0301) in lowering humoral response to HBV vaccine. The group of responders was characterized more for lacking "nonresponder" alleles than for having specific "responder" ones. Tolerance to HBV peptides may have clinical implications, possibly being a marker for babies with a genetic risk of immunopathologies. In fact, many of the poor responders carried from two to four HLA-DQ alpha beta heterodimers predisposing to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and celiac disease. Two true nonresponders suffered from allergies and two slow responders had transient episodes of hyperglycemia.


The main aim of present study is to show the effect of gravity, initial stress and magnetic field on the Rayleigh waves propagation in homogeneous orthotropic magneto-thermoelastic medium in the context of Three Phase Lag (TPL) model at two temperature. The governing equations of thermoelasticity have been solved by normal mode technique to deduce the frequency equation for Rayleigh wave with relevant boundary conditions. Special cases have been derived for isothermal and thermally insulated surfaces. Computer simulation is used for numerical discussion to show the effects of various parameters on phase velocity of Rayleigh waves. The variation in phase velocity corresponding to wave number has been demonstrated graphically in the presence of gravity, initial stress and magnetic field.


 Abstract: The dual-motor precision transmission mechanism (DMPTM) is an alternative way to eliminate backlash completely while ensuring the stiffness of the servo system. However, most of the established models of DMPTM are not accurate enough, which are not conducive to the optimization of system performance and the design of high-precision controllers. In this paper, based on the detailed linear model of the single components of the DMPTM, the dead zone model considering the time-varying stiffness is proposed to describe the backlash of the two transmission chain and the friction of the mechanism is depicted by Stribeck model. Then, a high-precision dynamic model of the DMPTM is formed. Finally, the model validation experiments of the open-loop and closed-loop are carried out in the time domain and frequency domain. The experimental results show that the proposed model can accurately describe the nonlinear characteristics of the mechanism. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the proposed model and the actual system is open-loop r >99.41% for open-loop and closed-loop r >83.7% for closed-loop, which are both better than the existing model. In the frequency domain, whether it is open-loop or closed-loop, the frequency response of the proposed model also reproduces the actual system well, which verifies the accuracy of the model.


Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a thermogenic effector abundant in most mammalian infants. For multiparous species such as rats and mice, the interscapular BAT deposit provides both an emergency "thermal blanket" and a target for nestmates seeking warmth, thereby increasing the cohesiveness of huddling groups. Sex differences in BAT regulation and thermogenesis have been documented in a number of species, including mice (Mus musculus)–with females generally exhibiting relative upregulation of BAT. It is nonetheless unknown whether this difference affects the behavioral dynamics occurring within huddles of infant rodents. We investigated sex differences in BAT thermogenesis and its relation to contact while huddling in eight-day-old C57BL/6 mouse pups using infrared thermography, scoring of contact, and causal modeling of the relation between interscapular temperature relative to other pups in the huddle (TIS rel) and contacts while huddling. We found that females were warmer than their male siblings during cold challenge, under conditions both in which pups were isolated and in which pups could actively huddle in groups of six (3 male, 3 female). This difference garnered females significantly more contacts from other pups than males during cold-induced huddling. Granger analyses revealed a significant negative feedback relationship between contacts with males and TIS rel for females, and positive feedback between contacts with females and TIS rel for males, indicating that male pups drained heat from female siblings while huddling. Significant sex assortment nonetheless occurred, such that females made more contacts with other females than expected by chance, apparently outcompeting males for access to each other. These results provide further evidence of enhanced BAT thermogenesis in female mice. Slight differences in BAT can significantly structure the behavioral dynamics occurring in huddles, resulting in differences in the quantity and quality of contacts obtained by the individuals therein, creating sex differences in behavioral interactions beginning in early infancy.


Surface temperature variations across the tropics exhibit different levels of spatial coherence, yet this is poorly characterized. Years of high temperature anomalies occurring simultaneously across large geographical regions have the potential to adversely impact food production and societal well‐being. Using cluster analysis of correlations between extensive temperature measurements from the last six decades, we find a major change occurs in the late 1970s. Two spatial clusters merge to a single dominant one, and therefore, warmer years are experienced at the same time across most tropical land regions. Noting this change occurs at the same time as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation shifts a warm phase, we investigate this potential driver by a range of coupled ocean‐atmosphere‐land climate models. These simulations verify that stronger spatial tropical land temperature coherence tends to occur in Pacific Decadal Oscillation warm phases, although model differences exist in projections of how climate change may modulate this dependence.


In lakes and reservoirs, climate change increases surface water temperatures, promotes thermal stability, and decreases hypolimnetic oxygen. Increased anthropogenic land-use and precipitation enhance nutrient and sediment supply. Together, these effects alter the light and nutrient dynamics constraining phytoplankton biomass and productivity. Given that lake and reservoir processes differ, and that globally, reservoir numbers are increasing to meet water demands, reservoir-centric studies remain underrepresented. In the agricultural Midwest (United States), ubiquitous reservoirs experience eutrophy and hypolimnetic anoxia. Here, we explore influences of eutrophication and land-use on the proximate light and nutrient status of phytoplankton communities in 32 Missouri reservoirs. Light and nutrient status indicators include mixed layer irradiance, phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) stoichiometry/debts, photosynthetic efficiency, and photosynthetic-irradiance parameters. Contributing to the ongoing P vs. N and P management debate, we evaluate if phytoplankton biomass and productivity are constrained by light, P, N, or a combination thereof, across gradients of trophic status and land-use during two contrasting wet and dry summers. Despite agricultural prevalence, P-deficiency is more prominent than either N- or light-deficiency. In 2018, ∼46% of samples were P-deficient with ∼36% indicating neither light nor nutrient deficiency. Gross primary productivity per unit chlorophyll-a (GPPB) demonstrates negative relationships with nutrients, biomass, and turbidity, and positive relationships with light availability. GPPB is highest in oligotrophic reservoirs where light utilization efficiency is also highest. Overall, phytoplankton biomass and productivity appear constrained by P and light, respectively. If Midwestern reservoirs are precursors of future inland waters affected by climate change and eutrophication, our crystal ball indicates that both P and light will be important regulators of phytoplankton dynamics and subsequent water quality.


In a minority of cancer patients immunotherapy has shown the capacity to eradicate tumours leading to clinical remission and the promise of a cure. In the majority of patients however, a cure remains elusive due to active immune evasion by cancers; HLA-down-regulation and immunosuppression are two of the known mechanisms adopted by cancers to promote their survival and proliferation. To overcome these challenges we have developed bi-specific soluble biologics termed ImmTACs (Immune mobilising mTCR against cancer) to re-direct the immune system to recognise and kill cancers. Antigenic peptide fragments presented by HLA molecules on the surface of cancer cells constitute the largest class of cancer associated targets. T cells scan the HLA-peptide (pHLA) antigens being presented to them; sufficient recognition by the harboured T Cell Receptor (TCR) will result in T cell activation and killing of the antigen presenting cell. In cancer patients this process is inefficient partly due to the low affinity TCRs expressed by tumour specific T cells and the low abundance of pHLA on cancers. ImmTACs comprise a soluble TCR with an enhanced affinity for cancer associated pHLA (targeting end) fused to an anti-CD3 scfv, enabling potent T cell re-direction (effector end). Our pipeline constitutes a number of ImmTACs targeting various antigen pHLA complexes relevant to numerous cancer indications. IMCmage1 is a novel ImmTAC targeting MAGE-A3168-176 in the context of HLA-A1. MAGE-A3 is a well validated cancer testis antigen expressed in a variety of cancers including myeloma, NSCLC, prostate cancer, melanoma, bladder cancer, oesophageal cancer and others. IMCmage1 re-directs T cells from cancer patients or healthy donors to kill a range of MAGE positive cell-lines in vitro; this activity is observed against cells presenting as few as 40 epitopes per cell and is coupled with the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines including IFNα, TNFα, IL-2, MIP1α and others. We also demonstrate that IMCmage1 specifically targets and kills the myeloma associated population within CD138+ cells extracted from the marrow of a stage III myeloma patient. IMCmage1 specificity was confirmed by exposure to a panel of HLA-A1 MAGE negative primary cells derived from various organs such as the heart, skin, lung and others; no significant activity was detected. A phase I clinical trial in multiple myeloma to assess tolerability and establish a maximum tolerated dose is planned to commence in Q2 2012. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3528. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-3528


The extract of an Oriental medicine "bushi", Aconitum japonicum roots (raw), was fractionated monitored by the analgesic activity in the tail pressure test, leading to the isolation of a mixture of the aconitines but no other constituents as the active principles. The aconitines have been compared in a variety of animal tests for analgesic activity. As the results, the alkaloids have proved in the tail pressure method and the acetic acid-induced writhing method to show analgesic activity in decreasing order : mesaconitine > aconitine > hypaconitine, though they exhibited no significant activity in the hot plate method. Heating of the raw Aconitum roots at 100°, which is one of the processing procedures of the crude drug, has brought about a rapid decrease of the analgesic activity with concomitant decrease of the content of the aconitines, demonstrating that the benzoylaconines produced by hydrolysis of the aconitines showed little or no analgesic activity. Assay of the benzoylaconines has revealed a weak analgesic activity in the acetic acid-induced writhing test. On the basis of the present results, it is predicted that the clinical effectiveness of the crude drug is due to the aconitines (especially mesaconitine) and partly to the benzoylaconines.


The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of ATS instructors in Egypt related to implementing experiential learning in the form of internships. In July 2007, 90 ATS instructors attended workshops focused on conducting internship experiences. Self–perceived competency of ATS instructors to implement internships was assessed immediately following inservice training. Approximately a year later (June 2008), ATS instructors' self–perceived importance and application of internship competencies were assessed. A discrepancy score (Borich, 1980) was also calculated. Results indicated that: (a) at the conclusion of the initial workshop, ATS instructors felt competent to implement internship activities with their students; (b) a year later, ATS instructors felt that all the competencies had high importance, but their ability to apply the competencies was slightly lower; and (c) there were discrepancies on all competencies, with the largest discrepancies focused on explaining internships.


Epsom salt is chemical salt with mixture of magnesium and sulfate ions. Epsom salt and table salt are different in their chemical structure. Epsom salt plays various pharmaceutical effects in medical field, where it affects various body organs. It plays an important role in release of pain due to its effect on nerve and its characters' as antiinflammatory and treatment of muscle cramps. Also, Epsom salt has beauty influence on body care due to its effect on skin and feet. Not only Epsom salt has grade effect on health of human being but also it has effect on plants growth through its effect on soil, and insect. In this short communication we summarize the biological effects of Epsom salt.


The fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as postulated within self-determination theory was hypothesized to play an energizing role in identity formation, conceptualized as multiple dimensions of exploration and commitment. Two studies among high school and college students (N = 714) were conducted to investigate (a) the cross-sectional relationships between need satisfaction and the identity dimensions and (b) the direction of effects using cross-lagged analyses. Three competing longitudinal models were tested: a need satisfaction main-effects model, an identity main-effects model, and a reciprocal effects model. All 3 needs had meaningful relationships with the identity dimensions, and, although there was a predominance of paths from the needs to the identity dimensions, the reciprocal effects model received most support. Further, identity statuses (representing multivariate combinations of the identity dimensions) were meaningfully related to satisfaction of the 3 needs, with identity achievement scoring highest on all 3 indices of need satisfaction. Suggestions for future research and counseling implications are discussed.


Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) exchange between the atmosphere and a subalpine wetland located in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, at 3200 m elevation were measured during 1996–1998. Respiration, net CO2 flux, and CH4 flux were measured using the closed chamber method during snow‐free periods and using gas diffusion calculations during snow‐covered periods. The ranges of measured flux were 1.2‐526 mmol CO2 m−2 d−1 (respiration), −1056−100 mmol CO2m−2 d−1 (net CO2exchange), and 0.1–36.8 mmol CH4m−2 d−1 (a positive value represents efflux to the atmosphere). Respiration and CH4 emission were significantly correlated with 5 cm soil temperature. Annual respiration and CH4 emission were modeled by applying the flux‐temperature relationships to a continuous soil temperature record during 1996–1998. Gross photosynthesis was modeled using a hyperbolic equation relating gross photosynthesis, photon flux density, and soil temperature. Modeled annual flux estimates indicate that the wetland was a net source of carbon gas to the atmosphere each of the three years: 8.9 mol C m−2 yr−1 in 1996, 9.5 mol C m−2 yr−1 in 1997, and 9.6 mol C m−2 yr−1 in 1998. This contrasts with the long‐term carbon accumulation of ∼0.7 mol m−2 yr−1 determined from 14C analyses of a peat core collected from the wetland.


This paper introduces the problem of noncoherent detection for nonorthogonal multipulse modulation in the context of the synchronous multiuser Gaussian channel. Each user sends an M-ary information symbol by transmitting one of M possibly nonorthogonal waveforms. Furthermore, the M signals of one user are allowed to be correlated with the signals of all other users. A key idea proposed here is that of a noncoherent decorrelative receiver front end. Like its counterpart in single-pulse modulation, this front end eliminates multiuser interference. It therefore reduces the multiuser detection problem into decoupled single-user problems over equivalent noise-enhanced single-user channels. Each equivalent single-user channel is rather general and can be described as one where the waveforms employed are not only correlated, but are also of unequal energies. Several new results pertaining to the design and analysis of optimum and suboptimum noncoherent detectors for this single-user channel are obtained. In the multiuser channel, these detectors constitute the post-decorrelative processing units for each user.


The problem of food security in Indonesia is exacerbated by the high number of poverty in Indonesia. This is exacerbated by the high dependence of the Indonesian rice consumption has increased and the national rice production has decreased. The research objective is to map the village level food security based on the aspects of availability, aspects of food access and livelihoods and access to nutritional health. Methods of determining district purposively sample while the determination of villages using a Multistage Sampling. The study was conducted in Sidoarjo Regency as a regional industrial center, Jember regency as agricultural centers and Banyuwangi Regency as fishery centers.Results obtained from this study are: (1) The villages in Sidoarjo regency 60% in the category of food resistant, and 40% in the category of food insecurity. (2) The villages in Jember regency 57% in the category of food resistant and 43% in the category of food insecurity. (3) Villages Banyuwangi 72% in the category of food resistant and 28% in the category of food insecurity. Key words: mapping, regional, hold food, food security.


A23 A sensitive, specific method for noninvasive detection of tumor chemoresponsiveness in vivo would aid go/no go decision making in cancer drug development, facilitate clinical management decisions and spare cancer patients ineffective, toxic therapy. We discovered that the La/SS-B ribonucleoprotein is overexpressed in malignant cells, and may be a suitable radio-immunodiagnostic target. La is an RNA binding protein that chaperones transfer and ribosomal RNA products of RNA polymerase III, and enables cap-independent translation of messenger RNA during apoptosis. Upon apoptosis induction, La translocates from nucleus to cytoplasm where it is detected using the 3B9 monoclonal antibody (mAb), which enters late apoptotic cells in vitro. Binding of 3B9 to apoptotic tumor cells in vitro was specific, rapid, saturable, induced by DNA damage and fixed by transglutaminase 2 activity. These in vitro characteristics of 3B9 binding partly explain augmented 3B9 binding to apoptotic tumor cells in vivo that we observe using the murine EL4 lymphoma model.
 Treatment of EL4-bearing mice with cyclophosphamide/etoposide (CE) chemotherapy caused EL4 cell apoptosis and associated induction of La in apoptotic tumor cells. To demonstrate antigen-specific tumor targeting, 3B9 or its Sal5 isotype control mAb were intrinsically labeled with Carbon-14 (14C), and 3B9 dose-dependent uptake of 14C-3B9 was evident after CE chemotherapy. Then, DOTA-conjugated 3B9 was labeled with Indium-111 (111In), and 20% (±1%) of the injected dose per gram of tissue (ID/g) was bound in control EL4 tumors indicating the presence of necrotic cells. However, in CE-treated mice, significantly more 111In-DOTA-3B9 accumulated in EL4 tumors 48h after apoptosis induction (42±1% ID/g). After CE, EL4 tumor uptake of 111In-DOTA-3B9 in vivo directly correlated with the apoptotic index measured by activated caspase-3 immunohistochemistry, and inversely correlated with the necrotic index measured using morphologic criteria.
 Accumulation of radioactivity in other organs reflected blood pool activity because tumor: organ ratios were ≥10 for chemosensitive organs such as small intestine and bone marrow 48h after CE chemotherapy. Tumor accumulation of 111In-DOTA-3B9 48h after CE chemotherapy was similar although more rapid when mice were given 3B9 24h after (t½, 4.6±0.2h) rather than concurrently (t½, 15±0.1h) with chemotherapy. To examine tumor: background ratios, DOTA-conjugated 111In-labeled Fab2 fragments of 3B9 or control Sal5 mAb were studied, and tumor accumulation of 111In-DOTA-3B9 Fab2 was specific and very rapid (t½, 2.7±0.3h). Moreover, after injection of mice with D-lysine to block renal tubular re-absorption of Fab2, apoptotic tumor-specific signals were clearly imaged and, when expressed as the ratio of pixels/cm2 in tumors of CE-treated mice/untreated mice, were 7.85±0.44 and 1.61±0.02 for 3B9 Fab2 and IgG, respectively. We shall examine other parameters such as the dose and timing of radiolabeled 3B9 in order to optimize imaging of tumor apoptosis.
 In conclusion, robust, early identification of tumor response to DNA-damaging anti-neoplastic treatment remains an area of unmet medical need. We found that La-specific mAb specifically accumulated in apoptotic tumors. Our results support the clinical development of radiolabeled La-specific mAb as a radio-immunodiagnostic agent.


The purpose of the study is to show the need for the development of standard materials which can be used for flight training and pilot practical tests in the future. In this paper the flight training and evaluation references of flight training institutes certified by the Ministry of Construction and Transportation(MOCT) are compared with references of the international organization such as ICAO and FAA. As a result it is found that the flight schools certified by the MOCT have used different references for flight training and evaluation. Therefore, this study suggests creation and operation of an expert advisory group to develop new standards for flight training and evaluation, so called " Flight Training Manual", in Korea.


The radioallergosorbent test (RAST) was used to compare the IgE binding of egg white and yolk, and allergenic proteins were detected by immunoelectrotransfer ('Western blotting'). The main allergens were found in egg white, but for a large proportion of the egg-sensitive patients, yolk contained specific IgE-binding constituents. For blood sera from 36 patients, there was a positive correlation between the results of RAST for egg white and for yolk. Lysozyme was found to be an allergen for some patients. The effect of heating on the allergenicity of egg white was examined and the allergenicity of hen egg white was compared with that of a duck egg. The allergens in yolk were associated with each of the three yolk fractions, and several of the proteins in the low-density lipoprotein fraction bound IgE.


Public participation is practiced widely in modern water management, but its effect on residents' subjective quality of life (QOL) or happiness has not been revealed. In this research, using the difference-in-difference (DID) model, the effect of participation in water management on residents' subjective QOL or happiness is empirically researched based on data from China. The results show that the positive effect of participatory water management on residents' happiness is quite significant and the extra effect of participation behavior on the participant's happiness is outstanding with the coefficients 0.073 and 0.036 respectively which pass the significance test. In addition, according to the regression coefficients of controlled variables, four demographic variables, namely the age, health, education and income, also produce significant effects on residents' happiness. It is concluded that both the result and procedure of participatory water management can really improve the participants' happiness. Extensive participation should be enhanced actively so as to increase residents' happiness.


Perturbations of electric and magnetic fields with periods of the order of 1 second are commonly observed in the auroral region by satellites and sounding rockets. The events are often accompanied by magnetic field aligned electron precipitation. The observations have been interpreted as inertial Alfven mode waves. A variety of theories, some of which are surveyed here, have been suggested to describe such events. Recent observations of Alfvenic activity by sounding rockets and satellites are presented and their implications for the theoretical models are discussed.


A defected ground structure (DGS) is used to suppress mutual coupling between elements in a microstrip array and eliminate the scan blindness in an infinite phased array. Two kinds of DGSs, namely back-to-back U-shaped and dumbbell-shaped DGSs, are analysed and compared. The analysis indicates that the back-to-back U-shaped DGS is better at suppressing propagation of surface waves in microstrip substrate. A two-element microstrip array with back-to-back U-shaped DGS is designed and the array characteristics against different element distances are studied. The results show that the degree of the mutual coupling suppression is increased when the element distance is reduced. However, compared with the traditional array, a higher gain and lower side lobes are obtained when a larger element spacing is selected. The scan blindness of an infinite microstrip phased array in E-plane is studied by simulation, and the calculation demonstrates that the scan blindness can be eliminated by applying a back-to-back U-shaped DGS to the infinite phased array.


In businesses with heavy capital investments, the effective management of assets is crucial, in particular in the fleet rental business where assets are the major source of revenues. One important question in this regard concerns the replacement of used assets and the purchase of new assets. Thus, the objective of this study is to evaluate performance effects of asset replacement strategies. In order to maximise net cash flow of a rental company for construction machinery, a range of scenarios investigating the timing and nature of policies for replacing the fleet are analysed. Simulation findings are then discussed to generalise results beyond the insights for the case study company.


Gartner defines content-aware DLP technologies as those that perform content inspection of data at rest or in motion, and can execute responses — ranging from simple notification to active blocking — based on policy settings. To be considered for this Magic Quadrant, products must support sophisticated detection techniques that extend beyond simple keyword matching and regular expressions, and must be considered enterprise DLP solutions, as described below.


Mandatory network unbundling is one of the foremost topics in regulatory economics today. The concept has crucial importance in the deregulation of many previously regulated industries including telecommunications, gas, electricity and railroads. Moreover, the topic has emerged as one of the more prominent issues associated with the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunication Act in the United States. Upon initial examination, establishing the correct costing standards and/or determining the correct input prices would seem important for sending the correct price signals to the entrants for their efficient make-or-buy decisions. Sappington (AER, 2005) uses a standard Hotelling location model to show that input prices are irrelevant for an entrant's make or buy decision. In this first essay, we show that this result is closely related to the degree of product differentiation when firms are engaged in price competition. Specifically, it is shown that input prices are irrelevant when firms produce homogeneous products, but are relevant for make-or-buy decisions when the entrant and incumbent produce differentiated products. These results suggest that, in general, it is important for regulators to set correct prices in order to not distort the entrants' efficient make-or-buy decisions. The second essay investigates optimal access charges when the downstream markets are imperfectly competitive. Optimal access charges have been examined in the literature mainly under the condition where only the incumbent has market power. However, network industries tend to exhibit an oligopolistic market structure. Therefore, the optimal access charge under imperfect competition is an important consideration when regulators determine access charges. This essay investigates some general principles for setting optimal access charges when downstream markets are imperfectly competitive. One of the primary objectives of this essay is to show the importance of the break-even constraint when first-best access charges are not feasible. Specifically, we show that when the first-best access charges are not feasible, the imposition of the break-even constraint on only the upstream profit of the incumbent is superior to the case where break-even constraint applies to overall incumbent profit, where the latter is the most commonly used constraint in the access pricing literature. Bypass and its implications for optimal access charges and welfare are also explored. The third essay is empirical in nature and investigates two primary issues, both relating to unbundled network element (UNE) prices. First, as Crandall, Ingraham, and Singer (2004) suggested, we will empirically test the stepping stone hypothesis using a state-level data set that spans multiple years. To do this, we will explore the effect of UNE prices on facilities-based entry. Second, in light of those findings, we will investigate whether the form of regulation (e.g. price cap and rate of return regulation) endogenously affects the regulator's behavior with respect to competitive entry. Lehman and Weisman (2000) found evidence that regulators in price cap jurisdictions tend to set more liberal terms of entry in comparison with regulators in rate-of-return jurisdictions. This paper investigates whether their result is robust to various changes in modeling, including specification and econometric techniques. THREE ESSAYS ON REGULATORY ECONOMICS


Mobile App based ultrasound is very useful in the setting of the current coronavirus pandemic in all hospital wards. We have used this for videoconference (we called videovisit) between severely ill patients and family and for clinical ultrasound evaluation during the Covid 19 outbreak.


Paraurethral cysts are rare and occur with obstruction of the Skene duct. In this case, we aimed to present a paraurethral cyst in a baby girl. A 4-day-old newborn was consulted for pediatric urology because of an interlabial mass. In genital examination, a noninvasive mass measuring 2 × 1.5 cm was observed in the interlabial region, and the introitus was completely closed. Ultrasonography showed a cystic lesion localized on the right side of the urethra with a smoothly contoured, thin-walled, hypoechoic structure. The patient underwent puncture under sterile conditions. The content of the mass was mucoid and clear fluid. Paraurethral cysts are often asymptomatic and benign. There is no definitive consensus on treatment.


Bacterial colonies benefit from cellular heterogeneity, with cells differentiating into diverse states of physiology and gene expression. As colonies grow, such cells in distinct states arrange into spatial patterns. To uncover the functional role of these emergent patterns, we must understand how they arise from cellular growth, phenotypic inheritance, and mechanical interactions among cells. Here we present a simple, agent-based model to predict patterns formed by motile and extracellular matrix-producing cells in developing populations of Bacillus subtilis bacteria. By incorporating phenotypic inheritance, differential mechanical interactions of the two cell types, and the escape of peripheral motile cells, our model predicts the emergence of a pattern: matrix cells surround a fractal-like population of interior motile cells. We find that, while some properties of the emergent motile-matrix interface depend on the initial spatial arrangement of cells, the distribution of motile cells at large radii are a product solely of the model's growth mechanism. Using a box-counting analysis, we find that the emergent motile-matrix interface exhibits a fractal dimension that increases as biofilms grow but eventually reaches a maximum as the thickness of the peripheral layer of matrix exceeds the capacity of the inner cells to push matrix cells out of the way. We find that the presence of the fractal interface correlates with a larger colony growth rate and increases the local proximity of motile and matrix cells, which could promote resource sharing. Our results show that simple computational models can account for morphological features of active systems like bacterial colonies, where colony-level phenotypes emerge from single cell-level properties and cells modifying their own environment. Author summary Like cells in our bodies, bacterial cells can differentiate into different cell types, which perform different roles in colonies. During the growth of Bacillus subtilis colonies, motile cells, which can swim, and matrix cells, which produce sticky polymers to adhere cells together, form reproducible spatial patterns. Multiple factors could drive the formation of these patterns, including inheritance of the motility and matrix states as cells divide, and different mechanical interactions between different cell types as they push each other around during growth. We created an agent-based computational model, in which we represent bacterial cells as occupying squares within a grid. We find that through inheritance of motile and matrix state and greater resistance to physical pushing by matrix cells, our model produces patterns similar to those observed in experiments—an exterior population of matrix cells surrounding an interior group of motile cells with fractal arms that branch into the outer matrix layer. Our results show that simple models can account for complex phenomena like the growth of heterogeneous bacterial colonies.


The aim of this study is to analyse the environmental quality of a tract of the Adriatic coastal systems using floristic and vegetation parameters. The study area includes the Abruzzo (67 km) and Molise (35 km) coasts and comprises 19 quadrants (Base Units) following the European Cartographic system; however, only 9 quadrants showed a representative coastal habitat. 26 vegetation types (phytosociological associations) were identified and the environmental quality was defined using the following parameters: community rarity, azonality, psammophilous sequence, species distribution, and the occurrence of endemic species, endangered species and alien and ruderal taxa. Results show that the analysed coastal systems are not always well preserved from human disturbance, even if in some quadrants the coastal communties zonation is almost complete with high values of environmental quality.


Macromolecular crowding in cells is recognized to have a significant impact on biological function, yet quantitative models for its effects are relatively undeveloped. The influence of crowding on protein-protein interactions is of particular interest, since these mediate many processes in the cell, including the self-assembly of larger complexes, recognition, and signaling. We use a residue-level coarse-grained model to investigate the effects of macromolecular crowding on the assembly of protein-protein complexes. Interactions between the proteins are treated using a fully transferable energy function, and interactions of protein residues with the spherical crowders are repulsive. We show that the binding free energy for two protein complexes, ubiquitin/UIM1 and cytochrome c/cytochrome c peroxidase, decreases modestly as the concentration of crowding agents increases. To obtain a quantitative description of the stabilizing effect, we map the aspherical individual proteins and protein complexes onto spheres whose radii are calculated from the crowder-excluded protein volumes. With this correspondence, we find that the change in the binding free energy due to crowding can be quantitatively described by the scaled particle theory model without any fitting parameters. The effects of a mixture of different-size crowders-as would be found in a real cell-are predicted by the same model with an additivity ansatz. We also obtain the remarkable result that crowding increases the fraction of specific complexes at the expense of nonspecific transient encounter complexes in a crowded environment. This result, due to the greater excluded volume of the nonspecific complexes, demonstrates that macromolecular crowding can have subtle functional effects beyond the relative stability of bound and unbound complexes.


Background: The objective of this randomized prospective study was to compare the efcacy of 50 mcg vaginal misoprostol and 3 mg
dinoprostone, administered every nine hours for a maximum of three doses, for elective induction of labor in nulliparous women with an
unfavorable cervix and more than 40 weeks of gestation. Material And Methods: One hundred and sixty-three pregnant women with more than
285 days of gestation were recruited and analyzed. The main outcome measures were time from induction to delivery and incidence of vaginal
delivery within 12 and 24 hours. Admission rate to the neonatal intensive care unit within 24 hours post delivery was a secondary outcome. Results:
The induction-delivery interval was signicantly lower in the misoprostol group than in the dinoprostone group (11.9 h vs. 15.5 h, p < 0.001). With
misoprostol, more women delivered within 12 hours (57.5% vs. 32.5%, p < 0.01) and 24 hours (98.7% vs. 91.4%, p < 0.05), spontaneous rupture of
the membranes occurred more frequently (38.8% vs. 20.5%, p < 0.05), there was less need for oxytocin augmentation (65.8% vs. 81.5%, p < 0.05)
and fewer additional doses were required (7.5% vs. 22%, p < 0.05). Although not statistically signicant, a lower Caesarean section (CS) rate was
observed with misoprostol (7.5% vs. 13.3%, p > 0.05) but with the disadvantage of higher abnormal fetal heart rate (FHR) tracings (22.5% vs. 12%,
p > 0.05). From the misoprostol group more neonates were admitted to the intensive neonatal unit, than from the dinoprostone group (13.5% vs.
4.8%, p > 0.05). One woman had an unexplained stillbirth following the administration of one dose of dinoprostone. Conclusions: Vaginal
misoprostol, compared with dinoprostone in the regimens used, is more effective in elective inductions of labor beyond 40 weeks of gestation.
Nevertheless, this is at the expense of more abnormal FHR tracings and more admissions to the neonatal unit, indicating that the faster approach is
not necessarily the better approach to childbirth


The region of Jakarta and its vicinity is one of the least understood geological domains in Java Island, Indonesia. Yet, the region is one of the few places which are often impacted by earthquakes from the Indo-Australian Plate subduction zone as well as on land active faults. In this study, a borehole seismic experiment was designed to unravel the seismic activity of the Baribis Fault, which continues and leads to Jakarta. This passive source experiment was composed of seven broadband instruments that extended across the Jakarta region and surrounding areas. The experiment recorded seismic data from the end of July 2019 to August 2020. We located 91 events of hypocenter location determination of the data recording; one event was located closely to the Baribis Fault line that continues to Jakarta and was felt in Bekasi (Southeast of Jakarta) at up to II-III on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale. The focal mechanism solution of this event shows an oblique thrust fault type. This event is evidence that the Baribis Fault is active.


ABSTRACT
 Extreme weather events like the heat wave of 2018 reinforce public attention for climate change. Social media platforms facilitate, define and amplify debate about this topic. They give rise to counterpublic spaces through which counterpublics such as climate sceptics get a stage they would not easily get in mainstream media. Previous research suggests that sceptics use these spaces as safe havens, but also as bases for interventions in the hegemonic debate. Applying a multideterminant frame model, we analyse the Twitter debate among climate change 'sceptics' and 'believers'. We study all tweets in which the heat wave was related to climate change and which were shared by Dutch and Flemish users between 28 July 2018 and 4 August 2018. Laying bare the worldviews underlying the frames of sceptics and non-sceptics, we first demonstrate the diversity of – unilaterally interacting – ideological interests. Building upon this analysis of the scope of the debate and analysing its form, we show that both groups mostly use similar antagonistic strategies to delegitimize and denaturalize their out-groups. We argue that these interventions promote polarization rather than a constructive agonistic debate. As such, this study refutes previous studies that consider sceptic frames as deconstructive and non-sceptic frames as constructive.


As the 5G technology is expected to impact the mobile network and associated ecosystems, appropriate guarantees for the service quality can maximize the ability of Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and Network Services (NS). This implies the utilization of Service Level Agreements (SLA) to ensure that the NSs are provided in an efficient and controllable way. However, the complexity of determining resource provision policies in such multimodal environments as well as the characteristics and properties of various VNFs and NSs, results to custom SLAs that do not consider all aspects of the 5G environment. In this paper we propose an SLA Management Framework to map high-level requirements expressed by users, to low-level resource network parameters to improve the service provider's ability to meet the corresponding SLA commitments. In addition, we consider a mechanism for dynamic SLA Templates generation with initial Service Level Objectives (SLO) tailored to each service provider.


To the Editor.— Fischl and colleagues 1 are to be commended for their study, which provides compelling evidence that use of condoms protects against the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in sexually active heterosexual couples. However, the authors' data suggest an additional conclusion that is of major potential significance to heterosexual couples but that is not clearly delineated in their report or given the emphasis I believe it deserves. It can be inferred from the authors' discussion that the seven male spouses who had a history of other heterosexual partners were all seropositive for HIV at entry into the study. It is also stated that after elimination of these seven subjects from the analyses, gonorrhea and syphilis were no longer significantly associated with seropositivity in men. Thus, it can be suspected that the presence of gonorrhea or syphilis in male spouses was probably a marker for having other heterosexual


Despite the increased use of time domain reflectometry (TDR) for measurement of soil water content and bulk
electrical conductivity (BEC), there are few public releases of software for TDR system control. The TACQ program,
under development since the early 1990s on a wide variety of soils, allows control of multiplexed systems supporting up to
256 TDR probes. The program is DOS-based to ease creation of low-power, embedded computer systems; and to
eliminate resource conflicts and timing difficulties inherent to multi-tasking, Windows-based operating systems. So that it
can be easily used in embedded systems, the program was written to run with as little as 640 kbytes of RAM and 1 Mbyte
of expanded memory, and with a variety of graphics standards and CPUs ranging from 80186 to Pentium. Embedded
computer systems based on the PC-104 specification have been implemented using TACQ; and the program has been
integrated into a supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) for irrigation scheduling and control. Using a
parallel port, the program controls multiplexers from both Campbell Scientific (Logan, Utah), and Dynamax (Houston,
Texas); and it allows reading of probes in any user-defined order if using the latter. The user has complete control over
multiplexer address assignments, interconnection of multiplexers, and probe locations on each multiplexer; including
individual settings for probe length, window width, averaging, distance to each probe, gain, and type of data acquired
(waveform, travel time, apparent permittivity, water content, relative voltages for bulk electrical conductivity, or a
combination of these). Interfaces to TDR instruments including Tektronix 1502 (modified), 1502B, and 1502C cable
testers are implemented through an RS-232 port. Concurrent temperature data may also be acquired (ComputerBoards
models CIO-DASx). System power control is implemented through the computer's own power management capabilities,
and through direct control of power to the TDR instrument and video subsystem where applicable, thus allowing creation
of very low-power systems. The program is stable and suitable for use in environmental measurement systems that are
unattended for long periods of time. Waveform interpretation methods are discussed in the second paper in this series.


This paper presents a scheme based on Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems (ANFIS) to generate trajectory for excavator arm. Firstly, the trajectory is predesigned with some specific points in the work space to meet the requirements about the shape. Next, the inverse kinematic is used and optimization problems are solved to generate the via-points in the joint space. These via-points are used as training set for ANFIS to synthesis the smooth curve. In this scheme, the outcome trajectory satisfies the requirements about both shape and optimization problems. Moreover, the algorithm is simple in calculation as the numbers of via-points are large. Finally, the simulation is done for two cases to test the effect of ANFIS structure on the generated trajectory. The simulation results demonstrate that, by using suitable structure of ANFIS, the proposed scheme can build the smooth trajectory which has the good matching with desired trajectory even that the desired trajectory has the complicated shape.


Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is important both as a food and feed crop in Zimbabwe. Its yield losses can be up to 100% when the crop is heavily infested by witchweeds [Striga asiatica (L.) Kuntze]. Witchweed resistant cultivars offer the most practical control option under smallholder (SH) farmer conditions and could become part of a sustainable integrated control strategy. Development of S. asiatica resistant cultivars by conventional breeding is slow and has been hampered by the lack of efficient and reliable screening techniques in breeding programs. Molecular markers that are linked to witchweed resistance can expedite the development of resistant cultivars through adoption of appropriate markerassisted selection (MAS) strategies. The objectives of this investigation were to study the inheritance or low germination stimulant (lgs) production in cultivar SAR 29 and to identify molecular markers that are linked to this trait. Low germination stimulant production is one of the recognised mechanisms of witchweed resistance. A segregating F2 population derived from crosses between cultivars SV-1 (high germination stimulant producer, Striga-susceptible) and SAR 29 (low germination stimulant producer, Striga-resistant) was used for this purpose. Parental and F2 genotypes were screened for lgs production using the agar gel technique (AGT). Maximum germination distance (MGD) was used as the index of resistance. Deoxyribonucleic acid was extracted from agar gel-screened F2s, and DNA bulks were createdfrom 16 resistant (MGD 25 mm) progeny. Bulked segregant analysis (BSA) was done using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Ninety-nine of the primers that were polymorphic between parent genotypes (10 SSR and 89 RAPD) were then used to screen a total of 77 segregating F2 progeny. Linkage analysis was performed using the computer software MAPMAKER 3.0b. Segregation ratios of high to low F2 stimulant producers did not differ significantly (P³0.05) from the expected ratio of 3:1. It was therefore deduced that a single recessive gene controlled lgs production in cultivar SAR 29. No molecular marker was found to be linked to the lgs locus. Instead, linkage analysis resulted in the construction of a molecular marker linkage map consisting of 45 markers that were distributed over 13 linkage groups (LGs). The other fifty-four loci, including the locus for lgs production, were completely unlinked and could not be assigned to any linkage group. The LGs consisted of 2-8 markers, identified at a LOD grouping threshold of 4.0. The map spanned a total distance of 494.5 cM, Haldane.


Percentage pre-schoolers with Free school meal entitlement, NI 2014/15. Numerator: Department of Education 2014/15.  Denominator: Department of Education 2014/15
Data are shown by Academic year i.e. 2014 represents the Academic year 2014/15. The information is collected through the annual school census exercise. Returns are provided from each school. Information collected relates to gender, free school meals entitlement (taken as pupils with a parent in receipt of Job Seekers' allowance or Income Support) and pupils with special educational needs. The data refers to the location of the school. The dataset is gathered annually at a specified date in early October. The dataset is collected from schools via the C2k administration system. The data goes through thorough validation checks before it is released. It is then merged with the CPD and aggregated information is checked and forwarded to NINIS.


In recent decades, the quality and safety of fruits, vegetables, cereals, meats, milk, and their derivatives from processed foods have become a serious issue for consumers in developed as well as developing countries. Undoubtedly, the traditional methods of inspecting and ensuring quality that depends on the human factor, some mechanical and chemical methods, have proven beyond any doubt their inability to achieve food quality and safety, and thus a failure to achieve food security. With growing attention on human health, the standards of food safety and quality are continuously being improved through advanced technology applications that depend on artificial intelligence tools to monitor the quality and safety of food. One of the most important of these applications is imaging technology. A brief discussion in this chapter on the utilize of multiple imaging systems based on all different bands of the electromagnetic spectrum as a principal source of various imaging systems. As well as methods of analyzing and reading images to build intelligence and non-destructive systems for monitoring and measuring the quality of foods.


We report the case of a patient with myotonic dystrophy who developed tachypnea and severe dyspnea without respiratory failure. Myotonia of inspiratory muscles was diagnosed on the grounds of marked prolongation of transdiaphragmatic pressure (Pdi) decay during sniffs. In view of the recognized sensory role of inspiratory muscles in dyspnea, it was hypothesized that antimyotonic therapy might relieve dyspnea in this patient. Procainamide therapy induced a decrease in half relaxation time of Pdi during sniffs and yielded a striking clinical improvement with cessation of tachypnea and dyspnea. Later, this beneficial effect was maintained by tocainide after procainamide was stopped because of a lupus syndrome. We conclude that myotonia of respiratory muscles can cause severe dyspnea that can be improved by antimyotonic therapy.


The authors reviewed a series of 7 cases of isolated and primitive hydatid cyst in the peripheral muscles. The disease was mainly diagnosed in young (average age 29.3 years) women of rural origin (87.7%), who consulted for a soft tissue tumor, evolving over at least 6 months, without alteration of the general condition. In 5 of the 7 patients, the tumor was located in the thigh and in 3 cases in the adductors compartment. The diagnosis was highly suspect on sonography. The surgical treatment consisted in a complete resection of the hydatic cyst with surrounding muscle tissue in 6 of the 7 cases, and in a subtotal removal of the surrounding tissues in one case which had adhesions of the surrounding tissues with the femoral vessels. With a follow-up of 19 months, neither clinical nor serological examination showed any recurrence or new sites.


The NiOx thin films were deposited by reactive direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering from a nickel metallic target in Ar + O2 mixed gases with the relative O2 content 5%. The effects of heat treatment on the microstructure and optical properties of NiOx thin films were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), atom force microscopy (AFM) and spectrometer respectively. In addition, the powders of the as-deposited NiOx thin films were investigated by thermal analysis. The results showed that the decomposition temperature of the as-deposited NiOx thin films was at about 262 ℃. After annealed at 400 ℃ for 30 min in air, the reflectivity decreased and transmittance increased obviously. XRD and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis show that no phase transformation occured during the heating process, the changes of optical properties were related to the decomposition of NiOx thin films. The activation energy of decomposition of NiOx thin films was 230.46 kJ/mol calculated by Kissinger formula, and the NiOx thin films have an excellent thermal stability. Its thermal stability and high optical contrast at 405 nm before and after annealing made it a good potential optical storage medium in write-once blue-ray disc.


Scaling concepts and renormalization group methods are applied to a simple linear model of human posture control consisting of a trembling or quivering string subject to damping and restoring forces. The string is driven by uncorrelated white Gaussian noise, intended to model the corrections of the physiological control system. We find that adding a weak quadratic nonlinearity to the posture control model opens up a rich and complicated phase space (representing the dynamics) with various nontrivial fixed points and basins of attraction. The transition from diffusive to saturated regimes of the linear model is understood as a crossover phenomenon, and the robustness of the linear model with respect to weak nonlinearities is confirmed. Correlations in posture fluctuations are obtained in both time and space domains. There is an attractive fixed point identified with falling. The scaling of the correlations in the front-back displacement, which can be measured in the laboratory, is predicted for both large-separation (along the string) and long-time regimes of posture control.


Over the past decades, the continued improvement in survival of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) has partly been attributed to improved nutritional status and aggressive treatment of respiratory exacerbations.1 Standard intravenous antibiotic treatment for an exacerbation lasts 14 days, and most centres follow this guideline.2 Some patients receive courses >14 days, usually for continuing symptoms or inadequate improvement in lung function. However, there is limited evidence to guide the optimum duration, and a Cochrane systematic review in 2008 found that there were no clear guidelines available and suggested that a multicentre, randomised, controlled trial was necessary.3 Courses that are too long are likely to lead to increased antibiotic resistance and possibly more allergic reactions.4 There may also be an increase in significant adverse effects, particularly from aminoglycosides. Additionally, there are increased financial …


The objective of this thesis was to compare and evaluate five different dry matter intake (DMI) models and to find factors important for DMI prediction based on data from studies conducted in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Differences between intake models and the input factors used for calculation of dry matter intake for lactating dairy cows are described. Five different systems for calculation of the dry matter intake (DMI) for dairy cows were evaluated. The systems described and evaluated are LFU (Lantmannen feed division), CNCPS (Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System), NRC (National Research Council), DFFS (Danish Fill Factor System) and NAAT (Norwegian AAT). The data used in the evaluation part originated from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. The data used in the meta-analysis was compiled for use in the development process of the new common Nordic feed evaluation system named NorFor.

The DMI prediction systems were compared using linear regression between DMI observed and DMI predicted by the different systems. Correlation analysis was used to select the factors' relationships.

The most important factors for DMI prediction, based on correlation analysis, are milk yield, week of lactation, concentrate proportion of feed and Neutral Detergent Fibre (NDF) content of feed. A conclusion from this work is a recommendation to the NorFor project group to choose the DFFS system as a basis to further develop their feed evaluation system, NorFor Plan.


Background : Workplace violence is gradually becominga concern in the most work environments. It is even so in the health sector and may be adversely affecting service delivery. However, in Nigeria there are limited data on the magnitude of the problem. This study was to determine the prevalence of workplace violence among nurses in General Hospitals, Osun State, Nigeria. Methodology : In this descriptive cross sectional study, data was collected via self-administered questionnaires among 200 consenting nurses of the Clinical Services Division of three selected hospitals to assess their level of awareness and experience of workplace violence. The responses of all 200 were returned and analyzed. Results : Most (89%) of the respondents were aware of workplace violence and majority had experienced (66% ) workplace violence with more than half (86%) of all violent incidents occurring at the Emergency and Out- Patient Departments and especially during the night shifts. Verbal abuse ( 55% ) was the most prevalent while sexual harassment (6%) was the least. Approximately (89.5% ) of the violence experienced were not reported due to the lengthy reporting process. Conclusion : There was work place violence among nurses in General  Hospitals in Osun State, Nigeria. The violence was both verbal and physical. It is recommended that there be increased public enlightenment and education on workplace violence among health workers and the public just as nurses are to be trained on client relationship Key words : Nurses, Workplace, Violence, Hospitals.


This paper develops a size-adaptive hybrid meshing scheme for Chemical Species Tomography (CST) that is driven by the customized spatial resolution of the sensing region. Traditionally, the entire sensing region in CST is uniformly discretized with the empirically determined density of the meshes. Such a discretization results in a) waste of computational efforts on the less spatially resolved location; and b) much severer rank deficiency. To solve the above-mentioned issues, we introduce, for the first time, a size-adaptive hybrid meshing scheme for CST. Driven by the spatial resolution, dense meshes are deployed in the region of interest (RoI) to detail the target flow field while sparse ones are deployed out of the RoI to fully consider the physically existing laser absorption. The proposed scheme is numerically validated using a CST sensor with 128 laser beams. The visual and quantitative metric comparisons show that the proposed hybrid-size meshing scheme outperforms the traditionally uniform-size meshing scheme, giving 35% lower image error and 38% less significant dislocation at a typical 35 dB signal-to-noise ratio in the RoI. The proposed hybrid-size meshing scheme significantly facilitates the reconstruction of the industrial combustion processes where the combustion zone is bypassed by cooling flows. In these scenarios, the proposed scheme can adapt a finer resolution to detail the combustion zone, while maintaining the integrity of the physical model by less resolved reconstruction of the bypass flows.


Our understanding of the mechanisms governing the structure and secular evolution galaxies assume nearly integrable Hamiltonians with regular orbits; our perturbation theories are founded on the averaging theorem for isolated resonances. On the other hand, it is well-known that dynamical systems with many degrees of freedom are irregular in all but special cases. The best developed framework for studying the breakdown of regularity and the onset is the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) theory. Here, we use a numerical version of the KAM procedure to construct regular orbits (tori) and locate irregular orbits (broken tori). Irregular orbits are most often classified in astronomical dynamics by their exponential divergence using Lyapunov exponents. Although their computation is numerically challenging, the procedure is straightforward and they are often used to estimate the measure of regularity. The numerical KAM approach has several advantages: 1) it provides the morphology of perturbed orbits; 2) its constructive nature allows the tori to be used as basis for studying secular evolution; 3) for broken tori, clues to the cause of the irregularity may be found by studying the largest, diverging Fourier terms; and 4) it is more likely to detect weak chaos and orbits close to bifurcation. Conversely, it is not a general technique and works most cleanly for small perturbations. We develop a perturbation theory that includes chaos by retaining an arbitrary number of interacting terms rather than eliminating all but one using the averaging theorem. The companion papers show that models with significant stochasticity seem to be the rule, not the exception.


In the data center network, mixed flows which have contradictory service requirements are transmitted simultaneously. Switches usually aggregate similar flows to the same queue after flow classification and schedule them using fair queuing and its extension schemes capable of flow isolation. These schemes implement diverse bandwidth allocation by assigning different weights to queues. Existing solutions rely on rich statistics such as packet arrival rate and delay to realize dynamic bandwidth allocation. However, many statistics are difficult to accurately measure or even obtain in real switches due to resource limitations. Providing differentiated services for mixed flows under such restrictions is still a challenge. To solve this issue, this paper proposed a reinforcement learning-based scheduling optimization (RLSO) mechanism. First, mixed flows scheduling is modeled as the Markov decision process (MDP) and Q-learning is used to find the approximate optimal solution with a few statistics. Second, the solution space is compressed to reduce the complexity of the algorithm and adapt to the limited performance of switches. Finally, the performance of the proposed mechanism is evaluated on a hardware testbed with workloads that include coarsegrained and fine-grained flows. The results show that RLSO can effectively schedule mixed flows.


Although suffering is a central issue in pain, there is only little research on this topic. The aim of this study was to assess suffering in an experimental context using various stimulation methods and durations, and to examine which psychological or psychophysiological measures covary with pain-related suffering. Twenty-one healthy volunteers participated in two experiments in which we used tonic thermal and phasic electric stimuli with short and long stimulus durations. The participants rated pain intensity, unpleasantness, and pain-related suffering on separate visual analog scales (VAS) and completed the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM), originally developed to assess suffering in chronic illness. We measured heart rate, skin conductance responses (SCRs), and the electromyogram (EMG) of the musculus corrugator supercilii. For both heat and electric pain, we obtained high ratings on the suffering scale confirming that suffering can be evoked in experimental pain conditions. Whereas pain intensity and unpleasantness were highly correlated, both scales were less highly related to suffering, indicating that suffering is distinct from pain intensity and unpleasantness. Higher suffering ratings were associated with more pronounced fear of pain and increased private self-consciousness. Pain-related suffering was also related to high resting heart rate, increased SCR, and decreased EMG during painful stimulation. These results offer an approach to the assessment of suffering in an experimental setting using thermal and electric pain stimulation and shed light on its psychological and psychophysiological correlates.


In digital broadcasting systems, like Eureka 147 DAB, it is possible to separate the actual service from the transmission system. Such a separation enables the distribution of any type of digital data to stationary, portable, or mobile terminals. However, a radio channel for mobile reception has certain characteristics to which existing multimedia services must adapt. We present a multimedia system model for digital broadcasting. We also discuss implementing this model within the broadcasting framework.


Organic production must be carried out following the EU regulations and their protocols. On the contrary, conventional cultivation instead can be carried out using the best agronomic approaches available and using the latest innovative resources. Organic cultivation is more widespread in permanent crops (olive and grape crops) than vegetable ones, and even less in protected cultivation systems, due to the high intensity production processes which render the application of organic growing protocols more complex. The comparison between the two systems of cultivation, organic and conventional, is difficult because the two cultivation methods are often carried out in different farms and hence in different environmental conditions. Cultivation using the two methods was conducted in a greenhouse from November to March 2017/2018. Results demonstrated that the total fruit yield zucchini squash in organic cultivation was not significantly different to the conventional one (43.2 Mg ha-1 and 46.4 Mg ha-1, respectively). The agronomic inputs (fertilizers, fungicides, and insecticides) were higher in the organic cultivation system than conventional one. The water use efficiency was higher in the conventional cultivation system (150.6 kg m-3 ha-1) compared to the organic one (147.6 kg m-3 ha-1). No statistically significant differences were found for the fruit number per plant and for the marketable fruit at the end of the growing period. Significant differences for the harvest period were only detected for fresh weight, shape index, firmness, and titratable acidity. In conclusion, this work demonstrated that the organic system required higher inputs compared to the conventional cultivation. The extensive experience of the grower allowed for comparable yields between the two systems.


BACKGROUND
Growth failure and poor nutritional status are common features in children with chronic diseases due to reduced appetite, malabsorption and increased nutritional requirements associated with some diseases. The provision of oral protein calorie supplements is one of a number of interventions used to improve nutritional status in these children. The use of these products, which are expensive, may be associated with a number of adverse effects, for example, they may effect development of normal eating behaviour patterns or lead to unpleasant symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhoea.

OBJECTIVES
To examine the evidence that in children with chronic disease, oral protein calorie supplements alter daily nutrient intake, nutritional indices, survival and quality of life and are associated with adverse effects, for example diarrhoea, vomiting, reduced appetite, glucose intolerance, bloating and eating behaviour problems.

SEARCH STRATEGY
All publications describing RCTs of the use of oral protein calorie supplements in children with chronic diseases were identified through comprehensive electronic database searches, handsearching relevant journals and handsearching abstract books of conference proceedings. The companies which market oral protein calorie supplements were also contacted.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials comparing use of oral protein calorie supplements for at least one month to increase calorie intake with existing conventional therapy, which may include nutritional advice on how to improve nutritional intake from food or no specific intervention, in children with chronic disease.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
The following outcomes were assessed: indices of nutrition and growth, anthropometric measures of body composition, calorie and nutrient intake (total, from oral protein calorie supplements and from food), eating behaviour, compliance, quality of life, specific adverse effects and disease severity scores, and mortality.

MAIN RESULTS
Three trials have been identified as being suitable for inclusion in the review and we are awaiting further data from one of these trials. All of these trials were carried out in children with cystic fibrosis. Few statistical differences could be found between the treatment and control groups apart from change in total fat intake at three months (weighted mean difference 69.20 [95% CI 11.05, 127.35]). However, this was based on the results of only one, small study. No trials have been identified which assess the effectiveness of oral protein calorie supplements in children with other chronic diseases.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Oral protein calorie supplements are widely used to improve the nutritional status of children with a number of chronic diseases. We have only been able to identify a small number of trials assessing these products in children with cystic fibrosis and have been unable to draw any conclusions based on the limited data extracted from these. We therefore recommend that a series of large, randomised controlled trials are undertaken investigating the use of these products in children with different chronic diseases. Until further data are available, we would suggest that these products are only used with caution.


As the usage of petroleum hydrocarbon products increases, soil contamination with diesel and engine oils is becoming one of the major environmental problems. To investigate the countermeasure to remediate soils contaminated with oils, bioremediation provide an effective and efficient strategy to speed up the clean-up processes. Three bacterial isolates capable of utilizing used engine-oil as a carbon source were isolated from contaminated soils using the enrichment technique. Three isolates were identified as Flavobacterium sp., Acinetobacterium calcoaceticum and Pseudomonas aeruginosa based on biochemical tests and 16S rRNA sequencing. The gavimetric analysis revealed that A. calcoaceticum and a consortium of the isolates were capable of utilizing 80 and 90% of used engine oil, respectively, under laboratory conditions at 30°C and 160 rpm with Bushnell-Haas media in a 4 week period. An increase in oil degradation is correlated to an increase in cell number indicating that the bacterial isolates were responsible for the oil degradation. All isolates were capable of degrading the nparaffin up to 80% in a 2 week period. The optimal temperatures at which biodegradation occurred at 30–37°C. The preference of nitrogen sources and minimal salts were different for different bacterial isolates. The results obtained demonstrate the potential for oil bioremediation of these isolates in situ and/or ex situ.


Objectives: Resiniferatoxin, the most potent agonist of inflammatory pain/vanilloid receptor/cation channel (TRPV1) can be used for neuron subtype specific ablation of pain generating cells at the level of the peripheral nervous system by Ca2+-excytotoxicity. Molecular neurosurgery is an emerging technology either to alleviate severe pain in cancer or treat/prevent different local neuropathies. Our aim was determining sensory modalities that may be lost after resiniferatoxin treatment. Methods: Newborn or adult mice were treated with resiniferatoxin, then changes in chemical and heat sensitivity were correlated with alterations of the cell composition of sensory ganglions. Results: Only mice treated at adult age became less sensitive to heat stimuli, while both treatment groups lost sensitivity to specific vanilloid agonists of TRPV1 and, interestingly, to allyl-isothiocyanate, a selective agonist of TRPA1. Our in vivo and post mortem analytical results confirmed that TRPV1 and TRPA1 function together and resiniferatoxin-mediated neurosurgery removes both sensor molecules Discussion: In adult mice resiniferatoxin causes: i) desensitization to heat and ii) sensitization to cold. Cold hyperalgesia, an imbalance in thermosensation, might be conferred by a prominent cold receptor that is expressed in surviving resiniferatoxin-resistant sensory neurons and compensates for pain signals lost with TRPA1 and TRPV1 double positive cells in the peripheral nervous system.


We have developed a model-based, distributed architecture that integrates diverse components in a system designed for lunar and planetary surface operations: an astronaut's space suit, cameras, all-terrain vehicles, robotic assistant, crew in a local habitat, and mission support team. Software processes ("agents") implemented in the Brahms language, run on multiple, mobile platforms. These "mobile agents" interpret and transform available data to help people and robotic systems coordinate their actions to make operations more safe and efficient. The Brahms-based mobile agent architecture (MAA) uses a novel combination of agent types so the software agents may understand and facilitate communications between people and between system components. A state-of-the-art spoken dialogue interface is integrated with Brahms models, supporting a speech-driven field observation record and rover command system. An important aspect of the methodology involves first simulating the entire system in Brahms, then configuring the agents into a runtime system Thus, Brahms provides a language, engine, and system builder's toolkit for specifying and implementing multiagent systems.


The study will analyze the costumes of the Scythians tribes who lived in the region of Altai in the 3-5 century BC. The purpose of this study is to prepare new material to re-examine the theory, which claims that the origin of the circular motives of korean costumes are to be found in the typology of the Scythian costumes. In this study, we analyzed the most recent reports of archaeological excavation about the unearthed clothes in the Pazyryk region and compared its information with european literature. The conclusion of this study is as follows: The jackets of the Pazyryk region are classified in two types, (1) opened jacket with narrow sleeve and (2) enclosed jacket with narrow sleeve. Trousers were separated by (1) narrow and (2) extreme wide trousers. The enclosed jacket of tunic form and extreme wide trousers are newly excavated. It proves, there was a vivid exchange between the Scythians and their neighboring cultures. It can be noted, that there existed a diverse Scythian culture of costumes, besides the commonly known clothing culture of the "Pazyryk–rider". Based upon the results of the previous research, it can be said that the opened jacket with narrow sleeve and narrow trousers are costume typologies which are common for all Scythian tribes of the whole Eurasian region. The hem of the edge of jacket is proven to be a connective element, which is common to all Scythian tribes.


Translation, rotation, and scaling are three commonly used geometric manipulation operations in image processing. Besides, some of them are successfully used in developing effective knowledge graph embedding (KGE) models such as TransE and RotatE. Inspired by the synergy, we propose a new KGE model by leveraging all three operations in this work. Since translation, rotation, and scaling operations are cascaded to form a compound one, the new model is named CompoundE. By casting CompoundE in the framework of group theory, we show that quite a few scoring-function-based KGE models are special cases of CompoundE. CompoundE extends the simple distance-based relation to relation-dependent compound operations on head and/or tail entities. To demonstrate the effectiveness of CompoundE, we conduct experiments on three popular KG completion datasets. Experimental results show that CompoundE consistently achieves the state of-the-art performance.


Background The inhibition of glycolysis prior to glucose measurement is an important consideration when interpreting glucose tolerance tests. This is particularly important in gestational diabetes mellitus where prompt diagnosis and treatment is essential. A study was planned to investigate the effect of preservatives and temperature on glycolysis. Methods Blood samples for glucose were obtained from consented females. Lithium heparin and fluoride-EDTA samples transported rapidly in ice slurry to the laboratory were analysed for glucose concentration and then held either in ice slurry or at room temperature for varying time intervals. Paired fluoride-citrate samples were received at room temperature and held at room temperature, with analysis at similar time intervals. Results No significant difference was noted between mean glucose concentrations when comparing different sample types received in ice slurry. The mean glucose concentrations decreased significantly for both sets of samples when held at room temperature (0.4 mmol/L) and in ice slurry (0.2 mmol/L). A review of patient glucose tolerance tests reported in our hospital indicated that 17.8% exceeded the recommended diagnostic criteria for gestational diabetes mellitus. It was predicted that if the results of fasting samples were revised to reflect the effect of glycolysis at room temperature, the adjusted diagnostic rate could increase to 35.3%. Conclusion Preanalytical handling of blood samples for glucose analysis is vital. Fluoride-EDTA is an imperfect antiglycolytic, even when the samples are transported and analysed rapidly provides such optimal conditions. The use of fluoride-citrate tubes may offer a viable alternative in the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus.


Hot dry rock (HDR) is a geothermal resource with a high temperature that is widely distributed and has good potential as a clean and renewable energy source. To determine underground electrical structures and to predict granite reservoir distributions, the wide-field electromagnetic (WFEM) method has been applied to explore deep mineral resources and has advantages such as explorations at greater depths and at high resolutions. In this study, a WFEM investigation was carried out for HDR exploration in Gonghe Basin within Qinghai Province. Six parallel survey lines, each spaced apart by 1 km, were designed for WFEM data acquisition. After data processing and inversion, we mapped the subsurface resistivity distribution and divided the inversion resistivity of HDR in the Qiabuqia area into four layers. From the WFEM results, we inferred the location of HDRs, which was verified using drilling wells. HDRs were found at a depth between 3200 m and 3705 m in the well. Furthermore, with the calibration of drilling well GR1, we provided the relationship between temperature and inversion resistivity. From this relationship, the exploration areas with mining potential can be determined.


Emerging and reemerging pathogens are global challenges for public health. In recent times, corona viruses have become the most important virus worldwide because of the occurrence of more than 2 thousand deaths caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in China. Rapid spread of the infection occurred in many countries. However, most cases of mortality have occurred in China. The Center for Diseases Control and Prevention and World Health Organization maintain a website that is updated frequently with new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here we provide a brief introduction to corona viruses and also discuss the outbreaks of recently identified SARS-CoV-2.
Bangladesh J Med Microbiol 2019; 13 (2): 18-24


This paper presents two important problems that have to be solved in the development of in-vehicle embedded systems implementing critical functions. The first one concerns the optimal configuration of message set and is presented both for priority-based and TDMA-based protocols. The second one specifies a method for ensuring the safety of a TDMA-based communication system under perturbations.


For those entering the field of sexuality studies, there is often little advice or guidance on the many facets of the work, some of which are pleasurable and some of which are dangerous. Drawing from our personal and professional conflicts surrounding our work as feminist psychologists and sociologists studying women's sexuality, we extend Carole Vance's (1984) claims about pleasure and danger by arguing that, for the sex researcher, pleasure and danger are in fact inverted. That which should give us pleasure (e.g. having our work promoted to the public; teaching critical material about sexuality; thinking deeply about our personal relationships) ends up feeling dangerous, and that which should feel dangerous (e.g. saying and doing and working on taboo things; calling out homophobia, racism, classism, and sexism) ends up giving us pleasure. We examine several areas where we experience personal and professional costs and benefits of doing feminist sex research, including relationships with partners, communication with research participants, pedagogical challenges and conflicts, the interface between the sex-researcher identity and university/institutional practices, and, finally, our interface with the public world and the mass media. In doing so, we aim to use our personal experiences to highlight just a few of the areas that emerging sexuality researchers may encounter. In addition, we extend Vance's framework of pleasure and danger beyond the experiences of women having sex and into the realm of those seeking to understand, research, write about, theorize, and assess the complicated terrain of women's sexuality.


This paper examines the scheduling of a drug packaging operation which requires assigning resources to production lines during set-up in order to satisfy product specifications. We present mixed integer programming models of the problem and develop a Lagrangian heuristic to solve the models. Real data from a drug company and randomly generated data are used to test the models. Results show the efficacy of our solution approach to find good feasible schedules. We discuss some of the practical benefits and potential issues about the production schedules obtained using the models.


A machine learning (ML) object detection algorithm was developed to replace the original color-based image detection algorithm for the Dynamic Haptic Robotic Trainer Plus (DHRT+). This image recognition system was used for medical training in Central Venous Catheterization (CVC). This image tracking allows for the training system to provide accurate performance feedback to the user during the training process. The ML object detection algorithm was developed and evaluated using training data. The results indicate that increasing the training data set improves the detection system's accuracy. The system was found to have an overall precision rate of 90.9% and a recall rate of 81.69%. This new ML model will be implemented into the DHRT+ system and used to train medical residents.


Abstract Acute sstroke is the most common time-dependent disease attended in the emergency medical service (EMS) of Madrid (SUMMA 112). Community of Madrid has been one of the most affected regions in Spain by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. A significant reduction in acute sstroke hospital admissions has been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the same period 1 year before. As international clinical practice guidelines support those patients with suspected acute stroke should be accessed via EMS, it is important to know whether the pandemic has jeopardized urgent pre-hospital stroke care, the first medical contact for most patients. We aimed to examine the impact of the COVID-19 in stroke codes (SC) in our EMS among 3 periods of time: the COVID-19 period, the same period the year before, and the 2019-2020 seasonal influenza period. We compared the SC frequency among the periods with high cumulative infection rate (above the median of the series) of the first wave of COVID-19, seasonal influenza, and also with the same period of the year before.One thousand one hundred thirty SC were attended during the 3 periods. No significant reduction in SC was found during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reduction of hospital admissions might be attributable to patients attending the hospital by their means. The maximum SC workload seen during seasonal influenza has not been reached during the pandemic. We detected a nonsignificant deviation from the SC protocol, with a slight increase in hospitals' transfers to hospitals without stroke units.


We present the implementation of seizure detection algorithms based on a minimal number of EEG channels on a parallel ultra-low-power embedded platform. The analyses are based on the CHB-MIT dataset, and include explorations of different classification approaches (Support Vector Machines, Random Forest, Extra Trees, AdaBoost) and different pre/post-processing techniques to maximize sensitivity while guaranteeing no false alarms. We analyze global and subject-specific approaches, considering all 23-electrodes or only 4 temporal channels. For 8 s window size and subject-specific approach, we report zero false positives and 100% sensitivity. These algorithms are parallelized and optimized for a parallel ultra-low power (PULP) platform, enabling 300h of continuous monitoring on a 300 mAh battery, in a wearable form factor and power budget. These results pave the way for the implementation of affordable, wearable, long-term epilepsy monitoring solutions with low false-positive rates and high sensitivity, meeting both patient and caregiver requirements.


Although fabrication technologies of Microstructured Optical Fibres (MOFs) fibres have matured at an impressive rate over the past ten years, these fibres are widely perceived as "challenging" and some key issues are still outstanding in order to improve their manufacturability. One such issue revolves around methods to improve structural control during the fibre draw. Structural control is of particular importance for certain types of microstructured fibres, such as hollow core Photonic Bandgap Fibres (PBGFs) and Anti-resonant (AR) fibres (also known as Kagome fibres). These fibres exploit resonant and/or anti-resonant guidance mechanisms and thus their transmission properties depend on the structure to a much greater extent as compared to conventional fibres. Hollow core MOFs have been identified as promising media for applications such as low latency (speed-of-light-in-air) communications, fibre sensing (chemical sensing, gyroscopes, sensors based on distributed scattering), laser power delivery (both high-peak and high average). However the successful implementation of these fibres in advanced demonstrators leading to commercial devices has been hindered by high cost, poor consistency and, in some instances, by lack of fibres with sufficiently good properties. We are actively investigating methods to improve structural control during the fibre draw and methods for scaling up the current manufacturing yields. Here we present recent progress in the fabrication hollow core MOFs at the Optoelectronics Research Centre; in particular, we report the fabrication of ultra-low loss (~few dB/km), wide bandwidth (>150nm) Photonic Bandgap Fibres and anti-resonant Hexagram Fibres with broadband low loss transmission suitable for the delivery of extremely high peak optical powers.


This Research Full paper presents finding of factors influencing the use of mobile-based assessments in higher education. With the growing popularity of mobile learning in higher education, there exists a potential of using mobile devices to deliver various types of assessments. The study aimed to find out factors influencing the adoption of mobile-based assessments, perspectives on types of assessments suitable to deliver such assessments and challenges faced by academics and students in South Pacific in using these assessments. An online survey was created using the case study approach with a blend of quantitative and qualitative questions assisted by Technology acceptance (TAM) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) models. The factors from TAM and UTAUT considered for this study were perceived usefulness, behavioral intension to use, perceived trust and attitude by introducing output quality and social influence as external variables. The participants (n = 35) comprised of science, business and economics, arts, law, education and technical and further education academics from a higher education institute in the South Pacific. The study revealed that focusing on mobile assessment quality design and trust are the important factors for academics to accept mobile-based assessments in higher education. Furthermore, game-based, self-and peer, classroom polling, formative, adaptive and personalized assessments were the types of assessment preferred by academics to be delivered through the mobile devices. The major challenges identified for academics were connectivity, lack of skills in designing effective mobile-based assessments, lack of e-teaching pedagogy and student cheating issues. For students' the major challenges identified by academics were internet connectivity, device availability, distractions and device competency, readability and disability issues.


Introduction: Polymerase chain reaction testing at birth ("birth-testing") is suggested by new World Health Organization guidelines for rapid diagnosis of infants infected with HIV in utero. However, there are few data on the implementation of this approach in sub-Saharan Africa, and whether birth testing affects uptake of subsequent routine early infant diagnosis (EID) testing at 6–10 weeks of age is unknown. Methods: We reviewed 575 consecutive infants undergoing targeted high-risk birth testing in Cape Town, South Africa, and matched those testing HIV negative at birth (n = 551) to HIV-exposed infants who did not receive birth testing (n = 551). Maternal and infant clinical and demographic data, including EID testing uptake, were abstracted from routine records. Results: Overall, 3.8% of all birth tests conducted were positive while later EID testing positivity rates were 0.5% for those infants testing HIV negative at birth and 0.4% for those without birth testing. Infants who underwent birth testing were less likely to present for later EID compared with those without a birth test (73% vs. 85%; P < 0.001). This difference persisted after adjusting for maternal and infant characteristics (adjusted odds ratio, 0.60; 95% confidence interval: 0.41–0.86) and across demographic and clinical subgroups. Infants undergoing birth testing also presented for later EID at a significantly older age (mean age, 60 vs. 50 days; P < 0.001). Conclusions: While the yield of targeted high-risk birth testing in this setting appears high, neonates testing HIV negative at birth may be less likely to present for subsequent EID testing. For birth testing implementation to contribute to overall EID program goals, structured interventions are required to support follow-up EID services after negative birth test results.