OBJECTIVE
To determine the timing of and key factors in resident decision making to pursue either a career in general pediatrics or subspecialty training.

DESIGN
We used a 10-item fixed-choice questionnaire that focused on exploring how and when pediatric residents make career choices.

SETTING
The survey was administered to all categorical pediatric residents in the United States and Canada as part of the General Pediatrics In-Training Examination in 2007 and 2009. The 2007 level 1 residents and 2009 level 3 residents were matched by a unique person identifier to create a longitudinal data set.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 2305 individuals completed the survey as level 1 residents in 2007 and level 3 residents in 2009, representing a retention rate of 83.5%.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Change in individual and aggregate pediatric resident response over time.

RESULTS
A similar number of individuals planned to pursue fellowship training in 2007 and 2009 (1026 vs 1062). Among this group, 745 (72.6%) of the 2009 residents were the same individuals who had indicated that they planned to pursue fellowship training in 2007. A total of 258 (71.9%) of all residents who reported in 2007 that they intended to pursue careers in general pediatrics with little or no inpatient care were still planning to do so in 2009.

CONCLUSIONS
Most pediatricians make their decisions regarding pursuit of a career in primary care or to complete a fellowship before they ever enter residency training. It is unknown whether a similar timeline of decision making is consistent across specialties.


ABSTRACT This article examines tensions in the climate movement between solutions that involve individual consumption and behaviour changes and those involving more transformative systemic change. Although they are demanding system change, activists in Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion face accusations of hypocrisy based on their personal choices. This neoliberal appeal to hypocrisy is used to discredit, divide, and undermine the climate movement. Focusing specifically on Extinction Rebellion (XR), I examine how accusations of hypocrisy take form, how XR activists and supporters respond to accusations of hypocrisy, and how XR activists justify living a low-carbon lifestyle despite a strong belief that only system change can adequately address the climate crisis. Then I explore the disconnect between XR's focus on system change and their lack of specific goals that would drive forward the systemic changes necessary. While many activists call for 'system change' what is missing is an understanding of what kind of system change is necessary and how it might be achieved.


A novel electrochemical sensor based on electropolymerized ion imprinted poly (o-phenylenediamine) PoPD/electrochemical reduced graphene (ERGO) composite on glass carbon electrode (GCE) was fabricated for selective and sensitive determination of trace Cd(II) in water. ERGO was first deposited on the surface of GCE by electrochemical cyclic voltammetry (CV) scanning to enhance the electron transport activity at electrode surface. The ion imprinted polymer (IIP) of imprinted PoPD was then in situ electropolymerized on ERGO via CV scanning with oPD as functional monomer and Cd(II) ions as template, following removal of the template using electrochemical peroxidation method. The obtained imprinted PoPD/RERGO composites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray energy spectroscopy (EDS) for the observation of their morphologies and components. The electrochemical behavior of the imprinted PoPD/ERGO/GCE was performed by CV and SWASV. The fabricated sensor of the imprinted PoPD/ERGO/GCE showed a good selectivity toward target Cd(II) ions in the presence of other heavy metal ions. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the sensor exhibited a good linear relationship between SWASV stripping peak values and Cd(II) concentration in the range of 1 to 50 ng/mL, with the limit of detection as 0.13 ng/mL (S/N = 3). The proposed electrochemical sensor of imprinted PoPD/ERGO/GCE was successfully applied for trace Cd(II) determination in real water samples.


Background: Accommodation changes ocular parameters, such as the anterior chamber volume (ACV), anterior chamber depth (ACD), anterior chamber angle (ACA), and pupil diameter (PD), which can reflect a risk of angle-closure glaucoma. Previous studies of changes in ocular anterior segment parameters, have used high diopters or maximum amplitude. Here, we focused on normal accommodation at a reading distance of 30‒40 cm. The aim of this study was to assess changes in anterior segment parameters during a normal accommodative state, using a Scheimpflug imaging system.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 40 emmetrope subjects (mean ± SD of age: 22 ± 4.0 years) who met the inclusion criteria and provided informed consent were enrolled. Clinical history, refraction, amplitude of accommodation, slit lamp examination, Goldman applanation tonometry, and Pentacam investigations were performed on all subjects. Accommodative and non-accommodative targets were induced via the Pentacam. Two seconds were allowed for accommodation or relaxation prior to measurements in each eye.
Results: Eighty normal eyes were evaluated; a small but statistically significant change in ACV, ACA, and PD during accommodation (P < 0.01, < 0.01, and < 0.05, respectively) was observed. The ACD did not change substantially with accommodation (P = 0.29). The mean ± SD values of ACV, ACD, ACA, and PD before and after accommodation were 151.85 ± 24.04 mm3 and 145.38 ± 23.30 mm3, 2.87 ± 0.28 mm and 2.86 ± 0.27 mm, 35.06° ± 3.68° and 33.84° ± 3.72°, and 3.46 ± 0.57 mm and 3.41 ± 0.53 mm, respectively.
Conclusions: Accommodation changes ocular parameters, such as ACV, ACA, and PD, in healthy young emmetropes. Interestingly, the ACD remains unaltered during accommodation. Nevertheless, although these changes were statistically significant, they were not clinically significant in our study.


Three-dimensional global magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the solar wind–magnetosphere–ionosphere system are carried out to explore the dependence of the magnetospheric reconnection voltage, the ionospheric transpolar potential, and the field aligned currents (FACs) on the solar wind driver and ionosphere load for the cases with pure southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). It is shown that the reconnection voltage and the transpolar potential increase monotonically with decreasing Pedersen conductance (σP), increasing southward IMF strength (Bs) and solar wind speed (vsw). Moreover, both regions 1 and 2 FACs increase when Bs and vsw increase, whereas the two currents behave differently in response to σP. As σP increases, the region 1 FAC increases monotonically, but region 2 FAC shows a non-monotonic response to the increase of σP: it first increases in the range of (0,5) Siemens and then decreases for σP > 5 Siemens.


In the present work we study electronic transport properties of finite length single-wall carbon nanotubes. A simple model is used to describe the electrodes and the way they are attached to both ends of the CNT. Electronic transport calculations are carried out on three different levels of sophistication. Those are single orbital tight-binding, extended Hückel and density functional theory in combination with Greens function methods. Results are compared and discussed.


Herein, we report the antimalarial activity of nine 4-methoxychalcone derivatives 1a–i and an initial analysis of their ADMET properties. All compounds showed potent activity against the P. falciparum chloroquine-resistant clone W2, with IC50 values ranging from 1.96 µM to 10.99 µM, with moderate or low cytotoxicity against the HeLa cell line. The compound 1a (IC50 = 2.06 µM) had the best selectivity index (9.0). All the sulfonamide 4-metychalcone derivatives synthesized had cLogP values between 2 and 5 (mean value 3.79) and molecular weights (MWs) below 500. The substitution of the pyrrolidine group in 1i by a morpholine group in 1a reduced the cLogP value from 3.05 in compound 1i to 2.34 in compound 1a. Indeed, compound 1a had the highest LipE value. The binding free energy of compound 1a showed it to be the most optimal chalcone derivative for plasmepsin-2 (−7.3 Kcal/mol). The physicochemical properties and LipE analysis of the dataset allowed us to establish that compound 1a is the highest quality compound of the series and a potential oral lead candidate.


The article considers the various authors' views on the issue of monitoring the effectiveness and legality of public procurement, provides a comparative description of the methods of financial control, as a result of a general analysis, the authors give their own opinions on the implementation of control in order to prevent and prevent corruption in public procurement. Besides, the article considers how public procurement can contribute to sustainable development, what kind of international experience in budget allocation of public procurement for this purpose, which legal regulations for implementing anti-corruption measures are required, what factors faster and impede the implementation of sustainable public procurement in the development of digital economy in Uzbekistan.


Colony morphology variants isolated from natural and laboratory-grown biofilms represent subpopulations of biofilm cells that may be important for multiple aspects of the sessile lifestyle, from surface colonization to stress resistance. There are many genetic and environmental factors that determine the frequency at which colony morphology variants are recovered from biofilms. One of these factors involves an increased selection for variants in biofilms of Pseudomonas species bearing inactivating mutations in the global activator of cyanide biosynthesis/regulator of secondary metabolism (gac/rsm) signal transduction pathway. Here we characterize two distinct colony morphology variants isolated from biofilms of Pseudomonas fluorescens missing the gacS sensor kinase. These variants produced more biofilm cell mass, and in one case, this was likely due to overproduction of the exopolysaccharide cellulose. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolomics revealed distinct metabolic changes for each of the two phenotypic variants, and these changes involved amino acids and metabolites produced through glutathione biochemistry. Some of these metabolites are hypothesized to play a role in redox and metal homeostasis, and corresponding to this, we show that biofilm populations grown from each of these variants had a different ability to survive when exposed to toxic doses of metal ions. These data suggest that colony morphology variants that evolve during growth of P. fluorescens as a biofilm may have distinct metabolic capacities that contribute to their individual abilities to withstand environmental stress.


Objective: To study quality of life in asthmatic and epileptic children undergoing treatment.
Materials and methods: Study enrolled children attending the OPD or admitted in the hospital. Normal children or those having no chronic disease served as controls. Data was collected from the children and their guardians who had taken care of the child for at least six months by using a Peds QL questionnaire, appropriate for the age of the child.
Results: A total of 269 children including 75 asthmatics, 94 epileptics and 100 controls were enrolled from the OPD. The two samples were compared on four domains of quality of life: physical, emotional, social, and educational. Our major finding was that children with epilepsy had a relatively more compromised quality of life in the emotional, social, and educational domains. In contrast, children with asthma had a more compromised quality of life in the physical domain.
Conclusions: Children with chronic diseases have a relatively compromised quality of life and focusing simply on control of primary illness may not address the full range of child's emotional and behavioral difficulties. There is an opportunity to improve the lives of children with asthma and epilepsy.


Business-to-Employee (B2E) portals are a key form of electronic business (e-business). B2E portals provide business with diverse services that allow employee to access a wide-range of electronic self service systems, conduct their tasks effectively and improve organization efficiency. This research seeks to understand the drivers and factors influencing the usage of B2E portals. Using previous literature, this research develops a theoretical model that includes a set of four factors; user characteristics, portal characteristics, usefulness and organization support. Empirical analysis was then utilized to test the model using data collected from a survey distributed among Royal Jordanian (RJ) Staff. Research results revealed that age, salary and computer skills have statistical significant effect on using RJ B2E Portal. However, gender, education, and Internet skills did not reveal any statistical significant effect on using B2E Portal. On the other hand, results indicated a statistical significant effect for portal characteristics, usefulness and organization support on RJ B2E portal use.


This study was aimed at optimizing the development parameters of a glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite for pipeline application. In this study, the Taguchi experimental design technique was applied to determine the best combination of process parameters (fiber content and orientation) for optimum tensile strength. The optimum tensile strength of 209.65MPa was reported at the fiber content of 50% and Fiber orientation of 45º. Analysis of variance also showed that in optimizing for high tensile strength, the glass fiber content and the fiber orientation are significant factors. The material at optimum tensile properties was applied in the simulation of the behavior of a high-pressured gas pipeline and results proved the reliability of the material in such application.


A compact neutron generator system has been developed for non-destructive analysis applications using 14 MeV neutrons. The system is based on a rugged sealed-tube Deuterium-Tritium fusion neutron generator used for oil-well logging measurements. The neutron generator system consists of a D-T generator in a compact, sealed housing connected via a cable harness to a power and control electronics module. A demountable, portable PC provides automated operation with input of the desired neutron output, pulse width and pulse frequency. The PC can be operated in a "slave" mode where the neutron output is controlled by an external data acquisition system. The neutron generator operates at 100 kV and produces an average neutron output of 2/spl times/10/sup 8/ neutrons/second. The system can be operated with a continuous neutron output or in a pulsed mode with a pulse frequency up to 15 kHz and a pulse width of 10 /spl mu/s or greater. The rise and fall times of the neutron pulse, measured with a plastic scintillator and photomultiplier, are under 1.25 /spl mu/s.<<ETX>>


In the next few years, computational, sensory, and communication capabilities will diffuse out of their present home in beige boxes on desktops and into everyday objects such as furniture, clothing, and other non-technological objects. As the cost of electronics continues to drop, the number of activated, networked devices will grow rapidly. Each device sharing a particular multiaccess channel will need a unique identifier for that channel. Present communication protocols such as Ethernet specify that the manufacturers must coordinate with one another in order to avoid assigning the same ID twice. The article explores methods by which the devices could coordinate with one another to manage ID assignment dynamically and automatically. In particular, the article is an investigation of distributed protocols that utilize physical sources of symmetry breaking to enable a network of initially identical units to acquire the unique identities required for point-to-point communication over a shared resource such as a bus or common RF band. It presents several protocols, compares their resource use (time, random bits, space, communication), and notes a trade-off among these measures of algorithm complexity.


The emergence of a novel strain of betacoronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has led to a pandemic that has been associated with hundreds of thousands of deaths. Research is ongoing around the world to create vaccines and therapies to minimise rates of disease spread and mortality. Crucial to these efforts are molecular characterisations of neutralising antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Such antibodies would be valuable for measuring vaccine efficacy, diagnosing exposure, and developing effective biotherapeutics. Here, we describe our new database, CoV-AbDab, which already contains data on over 380 published/patented antibodies and nanobodies known to bind to at least one betacoronavirus. This database is the first consolidation of antibodies known to bind SARS-CoV-2 and other betacoronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV. We supply relevant metadata such as evidence of cross-neutralisation, antibody/nanobody origin, full variable domain sequence (where available) and germline assignments, epitope region, links to relevant PDB entries, homology models, and source literature. Our preliminary analysis exemplifies a spectrum of potential applications for the database, including identifying characteristic germline usage biases in receptor-binding domain antibodies and contextualising the diagnostic value of the SARS-CoV binding CDRH3s through comparison to over 500 million antibody sequences from SARS-CoV serologically naive individuals. Community submissions are invited to ensure CoV-AbDab is efficiently updated with the growing body of data analysing SARS-CoV-2. CoV-AbDab is freely available and downloadable on our website at http://opig.stats.ox.ac.uk/webapps/coronavirus.


Chronic kidney disease (CKD), a global health concern, is highly prevalent among adults. Presently, there are limited therapeutic options to restore kidney function. This study aimed to investigate the therapeutic potential of breast milk mesenchymal stem cells (Br-MSCs) and their derived exosomes in CKD. Eighty adult male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned to one of six groups, including control, nephropathy, nephropathy + conditioned media (CM), nephropathy + Br-MSCs, nephropathy + Br-MSCs derived exosomes (Br-MSCs-EXOs), and nephropathy + Br-MSCs + Br-MSCs-EXOs. Before administration, Br-MSCs and Br-MSCs-EXOs were isolated, identified, and labeled with PKH-26. SOX2, Nanog, and OCT3/4 expression levels in Br-MSCs and miR-29b, miR-181, and Let-7b in both Br-MSCs and Br-MSCs-EXOs were assayed. Twelve weeks after transplantation, renal function tests, oxidative stress, expression of the long non-coding RNA SNHG-7, autophagy, fibrosis, and expression of profibrotic miR-34a and antifibrotic miR-29b, miR-181, and Let-7b were measured in renal tissues. Immunohistochemical analysis for renal Beclin-1, LC3-II, and P62, Masson trichome staining, and histopathological examination of kidney tissues were also performed. The results showed that Br-MSCs expressed SOX2, Nanog, and OCT3/4, while both Br-MSCs and Br-MSCs-EXOs expressed antifibrotic miR-181, miR-29b, and Let-7b, with higher expression levels in exosomes than in Br-MSCs. Interestingly, the administration of Br-MSCs + EXOs, EXOs, and Br-MSCs improved renal function tests, reduced renal oxidative stress, upregulated the renal expression of SNHG-7, AMPK, ULK-1, Beclin-1, LC3, miR-29b, miR-181, Let-7b, and Smad-7, downregulated the renal expression of miR-34a, AKT, mTOR, P62, TGF-β, Smad-3, and Coli-1, and ameliorated renal pathology. Thus, Br-MSCs and/or their derived exosomes appear to reduce adenine-induced renal damage by secreting antifibrotic microRNAs and potentiate renal autophagy by modulating SNHG-7 expression.


Abstract John Joly (1857–1933) was one of Ireland's most eminent scientists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who made important discoveries in physics, geology and photography. He was also a respected and influential diplomat for Trinity College, Dublin, and various Irish organizations, including the Royal Dublin Society. Measuring the age of the Earth occupied his mind for some considerable time — a problem he was to address using a diverse range of methods. His sodium method of 1899, for which he is best known, was hailed by many as revolutionary, but it was later superseded by other techniques, including the utilization of radiometric dating methodologies. Although Joly himself carried out much research in this area, he never fully accepted the large age estimates that radioactivity yielded. Nevertheless, Joly's work in geochronology was innovative and important, for it challenged earlier methods of arriving at the Earth's age, particularly those of Lord Kelvin. Although his findings and conclusions were later discredited, he should be remembered for his valuable contribution to this important and fundamental debate in the geological sciences.


Recent breakthroughs in Large Language Models (LLMs), such as GPT-3 and Codex, now enable software developers to generate code based on a natural language prompt. Within computer science education, researchers are exploring the potential for LLMs to generate code explanations and programming assignments using carefully crafted prompts. These advances may enable students to interact with code in new ways while helping instructors scale their learning materials. However, LLMs also introduce new implications for academic integrity, curriculum design, and software engineering careers. This workshop will demonstrate the capabilities of LLMs to help attendees evaluate whether and how LLMs might be integrated into their pedagogy and research. We will also engage attendees in brainstorming to consider how LLMs will impact our field.


Silicon microphotonics, a technology which merges photonics and silicon microelectronic components, is rapidly evolving. Many different fields of application are emerging: transceiver modules for optical communication systems, optical bus systems for ULSI circuits, I/O stages for SOC, displays, .... In this review I will give a brief motivation for silicon microphotonics and try to give the state-of-the-art of this technology. The ingredient still lacking is the silicon laser: a review of the various approaches will be presented. Finally, I will try to draw some conclusions where silicon is predicted to be the material to achieve a full integration of electronic and optical devices.


Independently, chronic cocaine use and HIV-1 viral protein exposure induce neuroadaptations in the frontal-striatal circuit; how the frontal-striatal circuit responds to HIV-1 infection following chronic drug use, however, has remained elusive. After establishing a history of both sucrose and cocaine self-administration, a pretest-posttest experimental design was utilized to evaluate preference judgment, a simple form of decision-making dependent upon the integrity of frontal- striatal circuit function. During the pretest assessment, male rats exhibited a clear preference for cocaine, whereas female animals preferred sucrose. Two posttest evaluations (3 Days and 6 Weeks Post Inoculation) revealed that, independent of biological sex, inoculation with chimeric HIV (EcoHIV), but not saline, disrupted decision-making. Prominent structural alterations in frontal-striatal circuit dysfunction were evidenced by synaptodendritic alterations in pyramidal neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex. Thus, the EcoHIV rat affords a biological system to model how the frontal-striatal circuit responds to HIV-1 infection following chronic drug use.


Abstract Subglacial ecosystems have recently become of interest within the astrobiological community, as they represent a potentially habitable location in otherwise uninhabitable environments. We used data from Blood Falls, particularly the periodic discharge from the subglacial reservoir beneath Taylor Glacier, Antarctica, to construct an ecosystem model of the putative subglacial microbial community residing there using system dynamics modelling. The model results were, for the most part, within an order of magnitude of the geochemical field data. Productivity was quite low, at 6.4×10−5 g carbon l−1 yr−1. Based on the results, we draw the following conjectures for the search for life on Mars: A similar ecosystem would require a continual supply of oxidized iron for energy and generate significant amounts of reduced iron as a waste product, be relatively resilient to temporary disturbances, and, thermodynamically, would require at least 0.003 kJ mol l−1 of energy to survive at that level of productivity. These results may help to better identify the constraints and boundaries of ecosystems in extreme environments, on Earth and other planetary bodies.


LANGLOIS, JUDITH H., and STEPHAN, COOKIE. The Effects of Physical Attractiveness and Ethnicity on Children's Behavioral Attributions and Peer Preferences. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 1694-1698. The purpose of this study was to investigate the generality of stereotypes associated with physical attractiveness and to assess the relative contributions of attractiveness and ethnicity in determining children's attributions and peer preferences. Subjects were 120 male and female, kindergarten and fourth-grade, Black, Anglo, and Mexican-American children who were shown pretested photographs of an attractive and an unattractive stimulus child from each of the 3 ethnic groups. Each child was asked to rate the stimulus child on several dimensions including physical attractiveness, liking preferences, and behavioral characteristics. Children from all 3 ethnic groups responded primarily on the basis of physical attractiveness rather than ethnicity. Attractive stimulus children were liked more, were perceived as being smarter, were rated higher on sharing and friendliness and lower on meanness and hitting other children. The data suggest that stereotypes associated with physical attractiveness are stronger determinants of peer preferences and behavioral attributions than ethnic stereotypes.


This paper documents the extent and correlates of multiple partner fertility among parents in the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey in order to assess the opportunities and challenges that await marriage promotion policies which are attracting the attention of policy makers. We find that the majority of mothers who responded to the baseline and 12-month follow-up surveys are not first time mothers and the majority of mothers with two or more children have had at least one child with someone other than the father of their newborn. According to mothers? reports, fathers are equally likely to exhibit multiple partner fertility. While the descriptive analysis cannot speak to causation, our results are certainly consistent with the hypothesis that multiple partner fertility reduces the probability of marriage for mothers and fathers. Multiple partner fertility is rare among teenaged mothers, but fairly high among African American mothers and fathers, which may help to explain the low-marriage probabilities. Our results suggest that marriage promotion strategies will have their greatest opportunity among unwed mothers in their early twenties and the fathers of their children, but high rates of multiple partner fertility are expected to reduce the effective of such efforts among African Americans.


In this paper we study the behavior of a semi-active suspension witch external vibrations. The mathematical model is proposed coupled to a magneto rheological (MR) damper. The goal of this work is stabilize of the external vibration that affect the comfort and durability an vehicle, to control these vibrations we propose the combination of two control strategies, the optimal linear control and the magneto rheological (MR) damper. The optimal linear control is a linear feedback control problem for nonlinear systems, under the optimal control theory viewpoint We also developed the optimal linear control design with the scope in to reducing the external vibrating of the nonlinear systems in a stable point. Here, we discuss the conditions that allow us to the linear optimal control for this kind of non-linear system.


Limited research exists pertaining to field education coordinators' leadership and educational practice in general, or with respect to the specific topic of gatekeeping in social work education. This article presents the results of a Canadian study that investigates the experience and approach of field education coordinators in addressing student professional suitability concerns. This exploratory study consists of a focus group conducted with field education coordinators from across Canada, and an extensive web-based survey questionnaire administered to all current, and some former social work field education coordinators in Canada. In brief, the results of this study reinforce the perception found in social work literature that gatekeeping predominantly falls to the field component of social work education. Findings of the study provide insight into the location of field education within academia; and highlights the important leadership role undertaken by field education coordinators in supporting students, faculty liaisons, field educators, and university administration in addressing concerns related to student professional suitability. Implications for social work education are discussed.


The international relationships between nations and economic agents have evolved so rapidly that the services and products are being traded almost instantly. Nevertheless, a great amount of these services and products are quoted in different currencies; thus, it is necessary the use of financial products to trade these products and services without incurring in unnecessary risks. The use of financial derivatives in the financial market has been increasing over the last decade. Moreover, foreign exchange derivatives have become an essential tool for companies to hedge their exposure in a foreign exchange currency. Nonetheless, there has not been enough research about methodologies that emphasize in the mixing of strategies. In this document, we develop a methodology to hedge effectively. Hence, we propose the Limited-memory bfgs in order to find the optimal percentage of the position of the derivative based on simulations created by a garch model. In this paper, we show an example with an exporting Colombian company based on Colombia, which has an exposure in us American Dollars. In this example, we find that the methodology proposed has a lower Value at Risk than a strategy using derivatives operating in isolation.


In this study, experimental results of the PEM fuel cell stack, whose design and construction were belongs to us and uses hydrogen and dry air as fuel and oxidant, under humidification process are given. To measure the effects of operating variables, on the performance of a fuel cell, a fuel cell testing system which contains control and measurement systems in it, was built. It was also investigated the effect of humidification of anode and  cathode in fuel cell package, on stack performance. As a result, it was determined that, the potential obtained from fuel cell,  depends on the humidification process in great extent. The maximum potential was obtained by humidifying both anode and cathode (i.e. humidified hydrogen & dry air stream conditions). Moreover, effects of gas flow rate, air/fuel ratio and package temperature on performance were researched. It was found that the optimum air/fuel ratio is 20 at is 57 o C. Key Words: PEM Fuel cell, Stack performance, Membrane electrode assembly.


AIM
To establish the method of long-term potentiation (LTP) recording in hippocampus in anaesthetized mice in vivo.

METHODS
Mouse was anaesthetized and then placed in the stereotaxic apparatus. The recording electrode was located at the cell body layer of dentate granule cells and the stimulating electrode at the perforant path according to stereotaxic parameters. Then the LTP was evoked and recorded.

RESULTS
After optimizing of experimental factor, the LTP in PP-DG path in anaesthetized Balb/c mice was successfully recorded. The changes of synaptic plasticity were also observed in SAMP8 and SAMRI by using the optimized method. The results were coincident with the behavioral tests and LTP in hippocampal slices that we reported before.

CONCLUSION
The method of LTP recording in vivo in hippocampus in anaesthetized mice was successfully established and could be used to evaluate the synaptic plasticity in vivo.


CV. Yusti Karya as a construction company realizes that the ability to manage project finances is an important requirement for smooth project management. CV.Yusti Karya often has to manage several projects simultaneously in remote locations. This condition makes it difficult for the finance staff in the office to manage project financial allocations and also makes it difficult for project managers in the field and must report the status of project expenditures to the office. This difficulty drives CV. YustiKarya improved the project's financial management system from using spreadsheets to a web-based information system. Web-based information system will be developed using object-oriented methods. The object- oriented system development method was chosen because of its modular development capabilities and adapts to system requirements. The development of this system aims to enable Person in Charge (PIC) projects in the field to submit expenditures and can be immediately approved by the financial staff in charge. Online project finance management between project PICs and finance staff helps harmonize financial management. The Director can monitor the flow of the latest project finance developments online.


In order to evaluate the corrosion behaviour of some dental alloys to be applied as base-metal for PFM, electrochemical technique and metallurgical investigation were used. Potentiodynamic and potentiostatic tests were carried out under deaerated and aerated conditions in 1% NaCl solution. The results have shown that Ni-Cr alloy has a superior corrosion resistance under deaerated conditions, whereas Co-Cr alloy has a stronger tendency to passivation under aerated conditions. Fe-Cr alloy has demonstrated a poor performance. The results were analyzed on compositional and microstructural bases.


Migraine frequently co‐occurs with and is triggered by sleep disturbance, particularly insomnia, and the large majority of patients with chronic migraine (CM) have comorbid insomnia. Limited evidence suggests that behavioral regulation of sleep may reduce migraine frequency, but studies to date have not assessed the viability of stimulus control and sleep restriction interventions or included objective measurement of sleep parameters. The aim of this study, thus, was to pilot‐test the efficacy of a brief behavioral insomnia intervention for adults with CM and comorbid insomnia; headache diaries and actigraphy were included to assess outcomes throughout the trial.


This paper evaluates the suitability of the MapReduce model for multi-core and multi-processor systems. MapReduce was created by Google for application development on data-centers with thousands of servers. It allows programmers to write functional-style code that is automatically parallelized and scheduled in a distributed system. We describe Phoenix, an implementation of MapReduce for shared-memory systems that includes a programming API and an efficient runtime system. The Phoenix runtime automatically manages thread creation, dynamic task scheduling, data partitioning, and fault tolerance across processor nodes. We study Phoenix with multi-core and symmetric multiprocessor systems and evaluate its performance potential and error recovery features. We also compare MapReduce code to code written in lower-level APIs such as P-threads. Overall, we establish that, given a careful implementation, MapReduce is a promising model for scalable performance on shared-memory systems with simple parallel code


The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented growth in the demand for data-driven real-time services. These services are fueled by emerging applications that require rapidly injecting data streams and computing updated analytics results in real-time (or near-real-time). In many of such applications, the computing resources are often shared for processing both updates from information sources and queries from end users. This requires joint scheduling of updates and queries because the service provider needs to make a critical decision upon receiving a user query: either it responds immediately with currently available but possibly stale information, or it first processes new updates and then responds with fresher information. Hence, the tradeoff between service performance (e.g., response time) and information freshness naturally arises in this context. To that end, we propose a simple single-server two-queue model that captures the coupled scheduling of updates and queries and aim to design scheduling policies that can properly address the important tradeoff between performance and freshness. Specifically, we consider the response time as a performance metric and the Age of Information (AoI) as a freshness metric. After demonstrating the limitations of the simplest First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) policy, we propose two threshold-based policies: the Query-k policy that prioritizes queries and the Update-k policy that prioritizes updates. Then, we rigorously analyze both the response time and the Peak AoI (PAoI) of the threshold-based policies. Further, we propose the Joint-(M, N) policy, which allows flexibly prioritizing updates or queries through choosing different values of two thresholds M and N. Finally, we conduct simulations to evaluate the response time and the PAoI of the proposed policies. The results show that our proposed threshold-based policies can effectively control the balance between performance and freshness.


Introduction: Close-loop VNS neurostimulator is able to detect episode of ictal tachycardia and identify it as pre-critical episode, therefore linked to onset of a crisis. In addition to standard VNS open-loop stimulation, this responsive device provides automatic stimulation produced in response to sudden increase in heart rate of at least 20% of the basic one. We wanted to show our experience with use of responsive Aspire SR 106 system in drug resistant pediatric epilepsy. Material and method: We selected 6 patients, 3 males and 3 females, 2 with Post Traumatic Epilepsy, 1 with Postanossic, 2 with Criptogenetic Epilepsy. Age at implantation was 13 + _ 4.4 years, duration of disease was 9 + -2 years. All patients underwent to implant of responsive Aspire SR 106: surgical procedure was not different from implantation of standard VNS system but position of generator was more medially. Stimulation started 15 days after implant and effective amplitude was achieved with increments of 0.50 mA every two weeks. Follow-up varied from 6 months to 12 months. Results: 1 patient presented complete resolution of seizures with control of both partial and generalized seizures, 3 patients reduction of seizures frequency > 50%, 1 patient reduction <50%, while 1 patient did not present substantial improvement. In responder patients was also detected significant reduction in seizures duration and thy declared themselves satisfied with the result. In one case there were side effects consisting of cough and dysphonia that limited the increase of stimulation amplitude. VNS had effects on QoL with reduction in anxiety, mood improvement, enhanced verbal recognition memory. Conclusions: Responsive VNS therapy may be considered in pediatric patients with medically refractory epilepsy who are not favorable candidates for resection. It is safe procedure with low morbidity. VNS decreases seizure frequency but also reduce their intensity and has favourable effect on patient's mood


Background: Many epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk factors relate to hormone exposure and elevated estrogen levels are associated with obesity in postmenopausal women. Therefore, we hypothesized that gene–environment interactions related to hormone-related risk factors could differ between obese and non-obese women. Methods: We considered interactions between 11,441 SNPs within 80 candidate genes related to hormone biosynthesis and metabolism and insulin-like growth factors with six hormone-related factors (oral contraceptive use, parity, endometriosis, tubal ligation, hormone replacement therapy, and estrogen use) and assessed whether these interactions differed between obese and non-obese women. Interactions were assessed using logistic regression models and data from 14 case–control studies (6,247 cases; 10,379 controls). Histotype-specific analyses were also completed. Results: SNPs in the following candidate genes showed notable interaction: IGF1R (rs41497346, estrogen plus progesterone hormone therapy, histology = all, P = 4.9 × 10−6) and ESR1 (rs12661437, endometriosis, histology = all, P = 1.5 × 10−5). The most notable obesity–gene–hormone risk factor interaction was within INSR (rs113759408, parity, histology = endometrioid, P = 8.8 × 10−6). Conclusions: We have demonstrated the feasibility of assessing multifactor interactions in large genetic epidemiology studies. Follow-up studies are necessary to assess the robustness of our findings for ESR1, CYP11A1, IGF1R, CYP11B1, INSR, and IGFBP2. Future work is needed to develop powerful statistical methods able to detect these complex interactions. Impact: Assessment of multifactor interaction is feasible, and, here, suggests that the relationship between genetic variants within candidate genes and hormone-related risk factors may vary EOC susceptibility. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 25(5); 780–90. ©2016 AACR.


Lead is a significant environmental pollutant in Portugal, mainly as a consequence of its use as an antidetonant in gasoline. Due to the vast annual gas consumption, evidence of lead emission has been found in the air, soil, plants, and water. Concentrations of lead in Lisbon waste waters average 0.15 mg/L, with occasional levels reaching 1.5 mg/L. The biodegradability of these waste waters is affected by lead. To understand the interaction between lead toxicity and protein concentrations, a study was initiated using selected strains of Proteus mirabilis and Klebsiella pneumoniae and synthetic effluents. The toxicity of lead to bacteria was noted by an increase in the cell's metabolic activity, and a greater induction of ATP and RNA contents. However, bacterial replication was evidently uninhibited by the lead content in the test medium. While high peptone content in the growth medium caused an increase in the cell's biosynthesis, increased lead concentrations in the growth medium resulted in a substantial loss of metabolic product. This complex interaction was apparently responsible for lead's toxicity to bacteria.


This article, from the perspective of cultural products, analyzes the role that the manufacture of cultural products plays in safeguarding national culture security, and from a critical perspective investigates the differences in the nature between the elite cultural products and mass cultural products as well as how the mutual transformation of the two affects the national culture security. Meanwhile, through the interpretation of the two production paths-cultural products replication and innovation,this paper also reveals the issues of national culture security involved in the development and utilization of cultural products.


Abstract Objective To report outcomes and late toxicity for a hypofractionated dose-escalated radiotherapy schedule in patients treated using intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for localised prostate cancer. Materials and methods Eighty-eight men with localised prostate cancer were treated with 57 Gy in 19 daily fractions over 4 weeks. A total of 70 out of 88 had high-risk disease. Overall survival, cause-specific survival and biochemical progression-free survival (bPFS, Phoenix definition) were reported. Toxicity was measured retrospectively using Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) criteria and assessed prospectively with a validated Late Effects in Normal Tissues Subjective, Objective, Management and Analytic (LENT/SOMA) patient questionnaire. Results At 5 years, overall survival was 84%, cause-specific survival 88% and bPFS 65%. In patients with high-risk disease, 5-year bPFS was 62%. There was no RTOG toxicity above grade III. LENT/SOMA questionnaires were returned by 74% patients. Median scores for bowel and urinary function were <1. Maximum bowel and urinary toxicity scores ≥2 were reported by 64% and 59% of patients, respectively. The median score for sexual function was 1·5, but nearly all (96%) patients recorded a toxicity score ≥2 for at least one question. Conclusions Dose-escalated hypofractionated radiotherapy delivered using IMRT has promising outcomes and acceptable late toxicity. This fractionation schedule is being compared with conventional treatment within an on-going multicentre phase III clinical trial.


ABSTRACT This paper presents the findings of an international Symposium held in New-York in 1958, organized by the Institute for Mediterranean Affairs aimed at producing a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. The Symposium included a panel of seventeen independent scholars that included political theorist Hannah Arendt. In this paper we examine the ways in which the proposed solution reflects Arendt's notion of human rights and her criticism of the universal dangers embedded in statelessness. We then examine the political thought of Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson), founding member of the Institute, and the ways it informed the basis for the solution—particularly his notions of liberal nationalism and civic identity. In light of the enduring relevance of the Palestinian Refugee Problem today, we suggest that the main theoretical elements of the proposal offer guidelines for a potential resolution.


A group of twenty-four bookbindings from the last quarter of the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century can be identified as very likely executed by bookbinders in Nijmegen. Most of these manuscripts and early printed books contain contemporary ownership inscriptions from people or religious institutions in Nijmegen. Most of the bindings were tooled between ca. 1475 and 1527 with characteristic separate tools whose impressions appear on the bindings in different combinations. The fastenings and the penwork added by hand also support the assignment of these bindings to a single group. Around 1527, the binders switched to the use of rolls, still found in use as late as 1548.


Motorcycle industries have been growing rapidly in the last five years, because people need motorcycle as a main transportation vehicle an d for investment, such as for delivery services, 'ojek', etc. Indonesian motorcycle industry domina ted by three big companies such as Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki. Now, the requirement from custom er not just product motorcycle, but they need motorcycle services. The Growing in motorcycle industry, make the condition in motorcycles services industry is more competitive. In the motorcycle services industry we can divide i nto authorized motorcycle services and non authorized motorcycles industries. So, not only in motorcycle industries need the competitive advantage, but in motorcycles services industry too . The competitive advantage is how to make customer loyal. The customer will loyal to the comp any, if they are satisfaction. The motorcycle services industries must have a good strategy to ha ve customer loyal to the company. One of the strategies is how the motorcycle service industries have a good relationship with their customer. For authorized motorcycle services industry have an advantage that they have customer relationship management. In this paper will explore r the relation of customer relationship management to customer loyalty for the customer in the authorized motorcycles services industries in Bandung. The research finding for customer motorcycle servic es industry in Bandung that customer relationship management to customer loyalty is 28.3 %. The customer loyalty is derived by other things, such as guarantee, quality and services.


Nonradiative relaxation in Dy-doped fluoroindate glass is measured and characterized in terms of the well-known exponential energy gap law. It is found that although three low-lying Dy transitions fit well with an exponential dependence on an energy gap, the overall magnitude of the Dy decay rate is an order of magnitude higher than that of other rare earth ions. It is also found that the nonradiative decay rates in InF3 glass are comparable to those in ZrF4 glass, contrary to expectations based on maximum phonon energy. These unexpected results have important implications for a potential 4 μm Dy:InF3 fiber laser.


Literatures of immigrants and diasporas involve the idea of a homeland, a place from where the displacement occurs and narratives of harsh journeys undertaken on account of economic compulsions. Essentially, a Diaspora is a minority community living in exile. interface, Issue 7: Immigrants and Diasporas in European Languages and Literatures addresses this concept with three papers that range across space and time from Russia to France, and from antiquity to present times.


Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies constitute the most powerful scientific advance of 21st century with a promise of fast and cost effective data generation in biology. Yet, up to date NGS studies remain often limited to laboratories with established resources. In the present study, we employed construction of ddRADseq library by using routine lab consumables (agarose gel electrophoresis: AGE thereafter) compared to high-tech NGS consumables (paramagnetic beads) during size selection. The ddRADseq library was constructed for sequencing size selected based on universally used paramagnetic beads, while remaining aliquot was used as a template to assess the feasibility of ddRADseq library construction using AGE for labs with limited resources. Both libraries were optimised for 15 PCR cycles indicating similarity in template intensity. Post-PCR quantification of the libraries was comparable (~10 ng.µL-1). Size distribution assessment revealed a cleaner pick at the ddRADseq library size selected manually based on AGE. Similarly, intercalating agent of Qubit confirmed the quantity of libraries was similar (>3 ng.µL-1). Although being more time consuming due to pre-electrophoresis preparations, serial wash and staining steps, ddRADseq library construction is achievable using routine lab consumables provided to supply the adaptors and PCR primers for the initial wet-lab work. These results manifest the feasibility of ddRADseq library generation for labs with limited resources.


The problem of boiler tube erosion is a very complex problem and present in practically all fossil fuel power plants burning low heating value coals irrespective of their particular design and operating characteristics. Predicting the rate of material degradation processes due to operating conditions is the essential feature for assessing the remaining lifetime. This clearly includes the knowledge of the type and kinetics of erosion phenomenon. In order to follow the erosion process and provide a reliable prediction of erosion rate and thus tube time to failure, models taking into account all relevant effects have to be developed. In this paper the is presented results of testing carried out on the evaporator hopper tubes of 350MW unit exposed to erosion and were used to assess their remaining life.


Despite its increasingly frequent appearance in medical journals, the subject of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is still an unwelcome visitor at most clinical hearths. Physicians, trying to do their best for their patients, remain skeptical about issues of cost and the threat of cutting corners. Cost-effectiveness analysis seems fit, perhaps, for planners and managers, but is it fit for the doctor cradling the trust of an individual patient? See also p 1571. The work of Stern et al 1 in this issue of theArchivesoffers eloquent testimony to the potential of CEA for guiding the decisions of the individual physician and patient. In exploring the relative value of topical and combination (topical plus systemic antibiotic) treatment of papulopustular acne, the authors illuminate the conflicting objectives that must be kept in mind, and show how systematic quantitative analysis can aid clear thinking about values, costs, and outcomes. Cost-effectiveness analysis, in general,


During Paleogene times up to 15 000 ft (4570 m) of clastic sediment was deposited in the Faeroe Basin, north of the Shetland Islands. A sequence stratigraphic study has shown that the Paleogene deposition in the Faeroe Basin was cyclic with prominent basinward and landward shifts in sedimentation. The correlation of major unconformity surfaces allowed the section to be subdivided into genetically related packages. The sequence stratigraphic study utilized approximately 5000 km of seismic data with a line density of approximately 10 × 20 km. Available well control was integrated into the study by means of synthetic seismograms. Limited palaeontological control utilizing largely dinocysts and radiolaria allowed the identification of 11 Paleocene/Eocene bioevents. The section was subdivided into nine Paleocene and six Eocene sequences, each separated by Type 1 unconformities. Four of the Paleocene and one of the Eocene packages had evidence of multiple Type 1 unconformities and these are described as sequence sets. Sequence development has been related to the tectonic subsidence history of the basin. Early in Paleocene times, rapid subsidence resulted in the deposition of thick sequences with distinct shelf, slope and basinal systems. Nine sequences were deposited with a combined maximum thickness of 12000 ft (3660 m). The following period, late Paleocene to early Eocene, was marked by slower subsidence; thin sequences and ramp systems with seven sequences were deposited with a maximum thickness of 2400 ft (730 m). More rapid subsidence during the late Eocene resulted in five sequences with distinct shelf, slope and basinal systems with a thickness of up to 3500 ft (1070 m). The periods of slower subsidence in the Faeroe Basin may have occurred in response to active rifting in other adjacent basins along the Atlantic margin. The distinct basinal systems which developed during times of more rapid subsidence were more likely to develop sand-prone basin floor deposits.


Pseudomonas sp. strain Y2 degrades styrene through oxidation to phenylacetic acid via the styABCD operon‐encoded enzymes, whose expression is induced in response to styrene by the StyS/StyR two‐component regulatory system. Further transformation of phenylacetic acid to tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates is mediated by the enzymes of paa catabolic genes, whose expression is regulated by the PaaX repressor. The first step of this paa degradation pathway is catalysed by paaF‐encoded phenylacetyl‐coenzyme A ligases that produce phenylacetyl‐coenzyme A. This metabolic intermediate, upon being bound by PaaX, inactivates PaaX‐mediated repression of both the paa genes and the styABCD operon. Strain Y2 is unique in having three paaF genes located within two complete copies of the paa gene clusters. Expression of both paaF and paaF3 is controlled by the PaaX repressor. Here we use specific mutants in combination with in vivo and in vitro assays to demonstrate that paaF2, adjacent to the StyS/StyR regulatory genes, belongs to the StyR regulon and is not subject to repression by PaaX. We propose that this unexpected styrene‐responsive regulatory strategy for the otherwise metabolically redundant PaaF2 auxiliary enzyme provides a system for rapid co‐ordinate de‐repression of the two sets of catabolic genes required for styrene degradation.


Survey operation to collect information about environmental parameters is an inevitable part in various cases. But manual data logging by human is dangerous in perilous places. This paper deals with design and implementation of a RF Controlled Robotic Environmental Survey Assistant System for remote survey operations, which can assist in remote data acquisition of environmental parameters like temperature, humidity and the presence and level of LPG gas in the air. Technically, two individual units make up the complete survey assistant system. First one is the wireless control unit for controlling and monitoring the survey process, whereas the second one is a remote controlled data collector robot unit which executes the survey process. The survey robot is equipped with sensor units required for measurement of temperature, humidity and combustible gas level as environmental parameters of the survey zone, ultrasonic sensor for obstacle detection in the path of the robot and GPS receiver for collecting information about position of the robot. A Radio Frequency (RF) Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) transceiver channel enables the communication between the robot and control panel. The robot can be operated in two different modes. In autonomous mode, the robot travels a random path depending on obstacle avoidance technique and stores or collects and broadcasts live data stream to the control panel. Each time the robot is set to autonomous mode, after completion of a limited time survey operation, the robot comes back to it's starting position where autonomous mode was started. Obstacle sensor units installed in the robot helps it to detect and avoid obstacles in its path. The real-time data visualization is achieved on a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) in the control panel and the mode of operation can be select from the control panel by operator.


Timetabling at High Schools High school institutions face a number of important planning problems during each schoolyear. This Ph.D. thesis considers two of these planning problems: The High School Timetabling Problem (HSTP) and the Consultation Timetabling Problem (CTP). Furthermore a framework for handling various planning problems is considered, known as the Generalized Meeting Planning Problem (GMPP). The view taken on these problems is that they are mathematical optimization problems, where the goal is to _nd the optimal solution (from the set of all feasible solutions). This view allows state-of-the-art methods from the _eld of Operations Research to be applied. This thesis is composed of three parts. The _rst part introduces the relevant methodologies of Operations Research, describes the considered optimization problems, summarizes the scienti_c articles and lists the scienti_c contributions of the thesis. The second part contains the main scienti_c papers composed during the Ph.D. study. The third part of the thesis also contains scienti_c papers, but these are included as an appendix. In the HSTP, the goal is to obtain a timetable for the forthcoming school-year. A timetable consists of lectures scheduled to time-slots, and each lecture has a number of resource requirements. The goal is to obtain a schedule such that the individual timetable for each resource ful_lls a number of requirements. Two versions of the HSTP are considered: The Generalized High School Timetabling Problem (GHSTP) (based on the publicly available XHSTT format for modeling instances and solutions of the HSTP) and the Danish High School Timetabling Problem (DHSTP). For both problems a complex Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) model is developed, and in both cases are empirical tests performed on a large number of real-life datasets, which show that the MIP model is a challenge to solve for a state-of-the-art generic MIP-solver. A heuristic based on Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) is developed for the GHSTP, and this heuristic was part of the _nal round of International Timetabling Competition 2011 (ITC2011). An ALNS heuristic is also developed for the DHSTP, and computational results show that this is currently the best known solution algorithm. Furthermore, the thesis shows the relation between the GHSTP and the DHSTP, and instances of the DHSTP are made publicly available in the XHSTT format. An extension of the Two-Stage Decomposition (TSD) method is also shown in this thesis, which makes the TSD capable of handling both the GHSTP and the DHSTP. In a TSD approach, a MIP model is split into two separate models which are solved in sequence, while maintaining optimality (as far as possible). This reduces the total amount of variables signi_cantly compared to the original MIP model. Whether or not the TSD is an exact solution method in the context of GHSTP and DHSTP is determined by certain characteristics of a given dataset. For both the GHSTP and the DHSTP, the TSD is capable of producing lower bounds, even though it might not be an exact method for the dataset at hand. For the DHSTP, the TSD is shown to be theoretically capable of producing near-optimal solutions for an arbitrary dataset, and computational results show that the TSD provides both better solutions and better bounds than the original MIP model. For the GHSTP, the TSD is an exact method for the majority of the considered datasets. However, in this case the computational results do not clearly show that the TSD outperforms the original MIP model. An algorithm hybridizing MIP and metaheuristics is developed and applied to both the GHSTP and the DHSTP. This algorithm is part of the recent trend called matheuristics, which is a promising class of solution approaches for many types of optimization problems. In the implemented matheuristic, a MIP solver is used as a low-level search mechanism, and an adaptive layer of the algorithm guides the search on the overall level. In terms of the GHSTP, this matheuristic has shown to be competitive with the winner of Round 2 of ITC2011. For the DHSTP, the algorithm outperforms the exact approaches, but not the ALNS algorithm when compared on a low time-limit. Given a time-limit of two hours, the matheuristic obtains solutions which are within 15.2% of optimum in average for 100 real-life dataset of the DHSTP. The CTP has not been described in the scienti_c literature before. The problem consists of scheduling meetings between a single student and a number of teachers to time-slots. The primary aim of a meeting is to allow the teachers to provide feedback to the student w.r.t. educational progress. A proof of NP-hardness is given, and a MIP model is developed. Also for this problem, an ALNS heuristic is shown to perform very well, producing solutions that are within 3% of optimum in average on 200 real-life datasets. The GMPP is a framework for handling a number of di_erent planning problems. The goal of the GMPP is to schedule meetings between certain resources to time-slots, such that no resource attends more than one meeting at any time. A model of the problem is proposed which is based on a Column Generation approach. A key feature of this model is that most problem-speci_c constraints are handled by the subproblem of the Column Generation algorithm. This leads to a Branch-and-Price algorithm for the GMPP which is independent of these problemspeci_c details, but still applicable to a range of optimization problems. As a test-case for the GMPP, the CTP is used. The Branch-and-Price algorithm obtains solutions within 3% of optimum in average on the same set of instances as the ALNS algorithm. The thesis show that real-world high school timetabling problems are a challenge to solve for exact methods, even with the recent advances of generic MIP solvers and when applying state-of-the-art techniques such as TSD. In a practical setting for these problems, the tests performed in this thesis show that heuristics in general produce the best solutions. However, exact methods which can provide bounds on optimum are valuable for evaluating the performance of the heuristics. For the CTP, the performance of an exact algorithm (the Branch-and-Price algorithm) is competitive with the performance of the tested heuristic (the ALNS heuristic). This shows that it is possible to use exact methods for CTP in a practical setting.


Bangladesh has already experienced the biggest catastrophe in the world due to arsenic contamination of drinking water. This study investigates the association of drinking arsenic-contaminated water (DACW) with both personal and household characteristics of 9116 household respondents using the household data of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2004. Here DACW means that arsenic level in the drinking water is greater than the permissible limit (50 microg/l) of Bangladesh. The overall rate of DACW was 7.9%. It was found to be significantly associated with education, currently working, and division of Bangladesh, either by cross tabulation or multivariate logistic regression analyses or both. Similarly, household characteristics -- namely television, bicycle, materials of the wall and floor, total family members, number of sleeping rooms, and availability of foods -- were significantly associated in bivariate analyses. Many household characteristics -- namely electricity, television, wall and floor materials, and number of sleeping rooms -- revealed significant association in the logistic regression analysis when adjusted for age, education and division. This study indicates that respondents from Chittagong division and lower socio-economic groups (indicated by household characteristics) are at significantly higher risk of DACW. These findings should be taken into account during the planning of future intervention activities in Bangladesh.


Financial soundness in the household sector matters for financial stability and for the real economy. The level of household debt in Korea raises concern about the financial soundness of the household sector due to its size, growth rate and quality. Against this backdrop, we assess the financial vulnerability of borrowers based on an analysis of credit bureau (CB) data, in which the actual credit activities of most individuals are recorded at a high frequency in Korea. We construct over-indebtedness indicators from the CB data and then assess the predictability of forthcoming defaults. Based on the over-indebtedness indicators, we show how borrowers are distributed in terms of over-indebtedness and how the over-indebted differ from average borrowers in terms of their characteristics. Furthermore, we show how the aggregate credit risk in the household sector would change under macroeconomic distress by analyzing how each borrower's credit quality would be affected by adverse shocks. The findings of this paper may contribute to assessing household debt vulnerability and to enhancing regulatory and supervisory practices for financial stability.


Micromilling is a straightforward approach to the manufacture of polymer microfluidic devices for applications in chemistry and biology. This fabrication process reduces costs, provides a relatively simple user interface, and enables the fabrication of complex structures, which makes it ideal for the development of prototypes. In this study, we investigated the influence of micromilling parameters on the surface roughness of a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) substrate. We then employed factor analysis to determine the optimal cutting conditions. The parameters used in all experiments were the spindle speed, the feed rate, and the depth of cut. Roughness was measured using a stylus profilometer. The lowest roughness was 0.173 μm at a spindle speed of 20,000 rpm, feed rate of 300 mm/min, and cut depth of 20 μm. Factor analysis revealed that the feed rate has the greatest impact on surface quality, whereas the depth of cut has the least impact.


Purpose Columbus, MT, has experienced an epidemic of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in recent months, particularly in adolescent youth. A community-based education program targeting junior high and high school-aged athletes was developed to inform them on prevention and treatment. Methods Since high school sports fit many of the risk factors associated with CA-MRSA, high school athletes seemed an appropriate target population. A search of the medical literature on CA-MRSA was performed and a PowerPoint presentation was developed emphasizing different aspects of transmission and prevention such as risk factors, common disease manifestations, and recent CA-MRSA case studies from the local area. This was presented to junior high and high school students during their annual sports physical at the Columbus Clinic. In addition, a pamphlet emphasizing prevention of disease spread within the high school sports setting was created and distributed to each athlete at the conclusion of their physical. An educational seminar on CA-MRSA was also presented to the local high school football and wrestling coaches. Summary Many athletes and parents in attendance showed great interest in the topic and were surprised that such infections can occur in healthy youth. They asked multiple cogent questions. The coaches displayed a willingness to implement suggestions and appeared to take the situation seriously. We also discussed other areas of possible implementation within the school, such as physical education classes, as an additional means to control cases of CA-MRSA within the town of Columbus.


Following the characterization of dihydroisocoumarin constituents, two secoiridoid glucoside complexes, called hydramacrosides A and B, were isolated from the leaves of Hydrangea macrophylla Seringe var. thunbergii Makino. The absolute stereostructures of hydramacrosides A and B were elucidated on the basis of chemical and physicochemical evidence, which included the application of the 13C-NMR glycosylation shift rule of 1,1'-disaccharides and the modified Mosher's method. Hydramacrosides A and B exhibited an inhibitory effect on histamine release from rat mast cells induced by an antigen-antibody reaction.


The goal of this paper is to establish a general approach for analyzing queueing models with repeated inhomogeneous vacations. The
server goes on for a vacation if the inactivity prolongs more than a vacation trigger duration. Once the system enters in vacation mode,
it may continue for several consecutive vacation. At the end of a vacation, the server goes on another vacation, possibly with a {\em
different} probability distribution, if during the previous vacation there have been no arrivals. However the system enters in vacation
mode only if the inactivity is persisted beyond a defined trigger duration. In order to get an insight on the influence of parameters
on the performance, we choose to study a simple $M/G/1$ queue (Poisson arrivals and general independent service times) which has
the advantage of being tractable analytically. The theoretical model is applied to the problem of power saving for mobile devices in
which the sleep durations of a device correspond to the vacations of the server. Various system performance metrics such as the frame
response time and the economy of energy are derived. A constrained optimization problem is formulated to maximize the economy of energy achieved in power save mode, with constraints as QoS conditions to be met. An illustration of the proposed methods is shown with a WiMAX system scenario to obtain design parameters for better performance. Our analysis allows us not only to optimize the system parameters for a given traffic intensity but also to propose parameters that provide the best performance under worst case
conditions.


The aerial parts of Micromeria juliana (L.) Bentham ex Reichb. were extracted with light petroleum, acetone and methanol, successively. The antioxidant activity of different concentrations of the extracts was evaluated using different antioxidant tests, namely total antioxidant (lipid peroxidation inhibition activity), DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging, ferric reducing power, and metal chelating. Total antioxidant activity was determined using the β-carotene-linoleic acid assay. Unexpectedly, the light petroleum extract exhibited strong lipid peroxidation inhibition activity. The extract was fractionated on a silica gel column and the antioxidant activity of the fractions was determined by the β-carotene-linoleic assay at 25 μg/mL concentration. The fractions that exhibited more than 50% inhibition activity were analysed by GC and GC/MS; thus, the structure of fourteen compounds were elucidated. In addition, acetyl- and butyrylcholinesterase inhibitory activities of the extracts were also determined in vitro. The light petroleum and acetone extracts were found to have mild butyrylcholinesterase inhibitory activity.


Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative pathogen that has become a worldwide concern due to the emergence of multidrug-resistant isolates responsible for various invasive infectious diseases. Biofilm formation constitutes a major virulence factor for K. pneumoniae and relies on the expression of fimbrial adhesins and aggregation of bacterial cells on biotic or abiotic surfaces in a coordinated manner. During biofilm aggregation, bacterial cells communicate with each other through inter- or intra-species interactions mediated by signallng molecules, called autoinducers, in a mechanism known as quorum sensing (QS). In most Gram-negative bacteria, intra-species communication typically involves the LuxI/LuxR system: LuxI synthase produces N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) as autoinducers and the LuxR transcription factor is their cognate receptor. However, K. pneumoniae does not produce AHL but encodes SdiA, an orphan LuxR-type receptor that responds to exogenous AHL molecules produced by other bacterial species. While SdiA regulates several cellular processes and the expression of virulence factors in many pathogens, the role of this regulator in K. pneumoniae remains unknown. In this study, we describe the characterization of sdiA mutant strain of K. pneumoniae. The sdiA mutant strain has increased biofilm formation, which correlates with the increased expression of type 1 fimbriae, thus revealing a repressive role of SdiA in fimbriae expression and bacterial cell adherence and aggregation. On the other hand, SdiA acts as a transcriptional activator of cell division machinery assembly in the septum, since cells lacking SdiA regulator exhibited a filamentary shape rather than the typical rod shape. We also show that K. pneumoniae cells lacking SdiA regulator present constant production of QS autoinducers at maximum levels, suggesting a putative role for SdiA in the regulation of AI-2 production. Taken together, our results demonstrate that SdiA regulates cell division and the expression of virulence factors such as fimbriae expression, biofilm formation, and production of QS autoinducers in K. pneumoniae.


Dental and oral hygiene problem is the leading cause of daily activities
 disruption in children such as missing school, bad learning concentration,
 appetite and nutritional intake. Knowledge of dental and oral hygiene should
 be given at early age in family by the parents. The aim of our work was to
 determine relationship between parents' knowledge and dental hygiene of the
 SDLB children (children with special needs). We undertook this research with
 analytical survey. A cross-sectional design was carried out. The sampling
 method was total sampling namely parents of children with special needs and
 the children as many as 80 people. Chi-Square test was performed to analyze
 the data. The results show that the knowledge of parents about dental and
 oral hygiene is not good (85%), while the dental and oral hygiene in
 children with special needs is poor (85%). Based on the Chi-Square Test, it
 produces a p-value of sig (2-sided) = 0.002 in the test, so it can obtain a
 p-value (probability value) from the test (p = 0.002 = 0.05) so that Ho is
 rejected. In conclusion, a relationship between parental knowledge and oral
 hygiene in children with special needs does exist.


How can we understand empires? Why have they exerted such influence throughout history? What are their determining structures and actors? Do we still live in a world of empires? Two decades after the imperial turn, this edited volume explores the state of recent scholarship on empires. It also invites new perspectives on this subject from political theory, intellectual history, global history and international relations, and high-lights not only the diversity of approaches and methods that can currently be used to conduct research into empires, but also their constant development.

With contribution by
David Armitage, Andreas Eckert, Eva Marlene Hausteiner, Ulrike von Hirschhausen, Sebastian Huhnholz, Ulrike Jureit, Jörn Leonhard, Samuel Moyn, Herfried Münkler, Stephan Stetter und Andreas Vasilache


A Phase 1, randomized, 1-day 5-period crossover study in adults with type 1 diabetes on CSII investigated whether pain is dependent on the site and/or depth of infusion of ultra rapid lispro (URLi) excipients.
 Forty participants (mean age 40.5 years; BMI 27.5) were randomized to 1 of 5 infusion site sequences consisting of the abdomen, arm, thigh, and buttock (6 mm cannula depth) , and abdomen (9 mm depth) . Basal infusion of sodium citrate, treprostinil, and magnesium chloride in diluent was initiated (1 U/h) and 15 unit-equivalent boluses were given at 3, 6, and 9 h after basal initiation. Participants rated local infusion site pain perception by the 0-100 mm validated visual analog scale (VAS) at 5 min before bolus and 1 and 15 min post bolus.
 An increased VAS score was occasionally reported at 1 min post bolus, more frequently for the arm. Most scores were ≤10 mm (little to no discomfort) while 7 of 577 were >45 mm (generally considered clinically meaningful pain) . VAS score distributions were similar between cannula depths (Figure) . After 15 min, scores were similar to pre bolus. No participants discontinued the study.
 Local infusion site discomfort after infusion of URLi excipients was reported by a subset of participants; it was transient, tolerable, and dependent on infusion site. Given differences among sites within individuals, patients may consider changing infusion site if they experience discomfort.

 D. A. Ignaut: None. T. Fukuda: Employee; Eli Lilly and Company. B. Ramanjineyulu: None. M. Ermer: None. M. S. Stoffel: None. E. Zijlstra: Speaker's Bureau; Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk. D. Paavola: Employee; Eli Lilly and Company, Stock/Shareholder; Eli Lilly and Company.

 Eli Lilly and Company


Author(s): Kim, SU; Perdue, B; Apblett, CA; Srinivasan, V | Abstract: © The Author(s) 2016. A mathematical model was developed to investigate the performance limiting factors of Mg-ion battery with a Chevrel phase (MgxMo6S8) cathode and a Mg metal anode. The model was validated using experimental data from the literature [Cheng et al., Chem. Mater., 26, 4904 (2014)]. Two electrochemical reactions of the Chevrel phase with significantly different kinetics and solid diffusion were included in the porous electrode model, which captured the physics sufficiently well to generate charge curves of five rates (0.1C-2C) for two different particle sizes. Limitation analysis indicated that the solid diffusion and kinetics in the highervoltage plateau limit the capacity and increase the overpotential in the Cheng et al.'s thin (20-μm) electrodes. The model reveals that the performance of the cells with reasonable thickness would also be subject to electrolyte-phase limitations. The simulation also suggested that the polarization losses on discharge will be lower than that on charge, because of the differences in the kinetics and solid diffusion between the two reactions of the Chevrel phase.


Steatosis quantification is an essential issue for accurate diagnosis and donor transplantation. However, manually quantification processes of steatosis by a pathologist have some difficulties because of time-consuming and tiring processes that can vary in inter and intra-experts. In recent years, deep learning studies have emerged with promising performance on steatosis quantification. On the other hand, deep learning models require a large amount of data, yet the steatosis dataset is insufficient for deep models. Thus, we propose deep learning model consisting of two steps that showed high performance even on a small number of steatosis datasets. The first step is unsupervised feature extraction with UNet. The second step is classification by using extracted features as an input for classification models. ResNet-50, EfficientNet B1 and MobileNetV2 networks are used for classification. As a result, the proposed deep models enable fully automated steatosis quantification with high AUC.


The management of the process induced variability, which is a matter of a few atoms or less, while warranting integrated circuit's functionality is now one of the major challenges in integrated system design. The fluctuation of key process parameters such as gate length, oxide thickness, threshold voltage, in addition to the variability related to local transistor environment and wires including circuit layout, pattern dependency and density appears as an important additional issue and technological solutions can no longer compensate for all the effects of scaling. Up to now, this increasing variability has led designers to introduce additional design margins which increases pessimism and thus reduces both timing and power performances. Within this context, to overcome the variability issue, good process control techniques combined with on-chip performance monitoring and compensation techniques appears as an interesting solution. This poster will present the integration of on-chip process sensors to ease the tracking over fab-to-fab, wafer-to-wafer and die-to-die variability, and also ease the implementation of diagnosis methodologies and process learning which resumes in closing the loop between system design and technology development


In scenarios of wireless source localization using sensor networks, the geometry of the sensor nodes in the network heavily influences the accuracy of the source location estimate. This paper thus considers the optimal sensor placement in three dimensions so that a source can be localized optimally from the Received Signal Strength (RSS) at various non-coplanar sensors, under Lognormal Shadowing. We assume that the source is uniformly distributed in a sphere and the sensors must be placed outside a larger concentric sphere to avoid proximity to the hazards posed by the source. The mathematical problem becomes one of maximizing the smallest eigenvalue or the determinant of the expectation of an underlying Fisher Information Matrix (FIM), or minimizing the trace of the inverse of this matrix, subject to the above constraint. We show that the optimality is achieved if and only if the expectation of the underlying FIM is a scaled diagonal, and provide methods for achieving this condition.


(Short communication)

I. Introduction This work is part of a general programme of research being undertaken at Birmingham on the magnetic fabric of Lower Palaeozoic rocks. The method used of estimating palaeocurrents and other stresses is reviewed by Khan and Rees (1968).

The outcrop of the Coniston Grit is shown on the Geological Survey Old Series Sheet No. 98. The grit consists of about a thousand metres of a rhythmic alternation of greywackes and subsidiary mudstones of turbidite facies (Furness et al., 1967). It passes downward into the Coniston Flags and upward into the Bannisdale Slates. These rocks were severely folded during the Caledonian orogeny: dips reach the vertical in many places and beds are locally overturned. Cleavage is strongly developed in the mudstones, usually as fracture cleavage, but true flow cleavage is occasionally to be seen in the fine-grained bands. The more massive greywackes, however, show little trace of strain and are not affected by cleavage.

The intention of the survey was to define a set of near-contemporaneous palaeocurrent directions; and the mapped top of the Coniston Grit was taken as a collecting horizon for this purpose. As this boundary is transitional in character the contemporaneity is probably not very precise, and a further complication is introduced by the folding on a scale smaller than that mapped. Collecting was therefore confined to the north-western limbs of the north-east-trending synclines in an attempt to deal with only one tectonic situation. Dips at the seventeen localities from which forty-two oriented samples ...


Legend has it that a long-ago Chief Justice of Texas said, "No judicial selection system is worth a damn." This view has been all but proven by American experience; nothing else in American law matches this subject in terms of the volume of written debate and endless sweat spent working for change. The selection system for federal judges is unchanged but far from untroubled, and "the States have never used a common method...[O]ne can identify almost as many different methods...as there are States in the Union...Moreover, most States have changed the way they choose judges at some point in their history, often more than once." My focus is on judicial elections. Since I began work on them, I have adhered to agnosticism about methods of selection. One reason is this: My writing and work aim at making a difference, but to say anything new on this subject seems almost impossible, and for the last generation the battles to change selection methods have been futile. Of course past performance is no predictor of the future, but, as the chief justices formally resolved two years ago, "elections will stay in many and perhaps all of the states that have that system." People who advocate ending contestable elections always point to some pending bill in some state (lately, Nevada), but for over one hundred years, the hurdles in turning proposals into constitutional amendments have been all but insuperable. The endless debate does have new elements. Some "merit" systems have recently suffered unusual confrontations between governors and nominating committees. Also, we have new analyses drawing upon the actual operation of "merit" systems to argue that some are dominated (or even controlled) by the organized bar and that at least some actions have been partisan. Further, unless the Tennessee legislature does this spring what it refused to do in 2008, its "merit" system for appellate judges will terminate in June 2009. This would be the first time for any jurisdiction to return to contestable elections after ending them.


Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are precursors for mature gametes, which transmit genetic information to the next generation. Due to the importance of PGCs in many fields including developmental biology, genome editing, transgenesis, and conservation of avian genetic resources, a lot of research has focused on the cultivation of PGCs. Despite considerable progress in the establishment of specified culture media for the expansion of PGCs, a well-defined PGC culture medium has not yet been developed. This might be due to the complexity of the nutritional requirements of PGCs in the culture. Besides the nutritional needs including vitamins, amino acids, salts, carbohydrates, and growth factors, a certain source of energy must be provided to sustain growth and viability. Glutamine is a major energy source for cultured cells, which is commonly added in cell culture media at higher concentrations than other amino acids. However, glutamine is very labile and rapidly degrades in solutions such as culture media. This generates ammonia as a by-product, which is toxic to the cultured cells and can affect cell viability and protein glycosylation. Therefore, the stability of glutamine in culture conditions is another concern for the long-termed culture of PGCs. Here, we study the effect of glutamine stability on PGC culture using glutamine and GlutaMax (a commercial stabilized dipeptide form of glutamine). We found that the addition of GlutaMax in the medium promotes PGC proliferation. This effect might be exerted by minimizing toxic ammonia buildup that results in maximizing cell performance, and also increasing media stability.


New dyads, based on squarylium dye and substituted-triazine, were synthesized that exhibit an intramolecular photodissociative electron-transfer reaction. The compounds were used as a red-light photoradical generator. The photochemical activity of the dyad was compared to the corresponding unlinked systems (S+T) by determining the rate constant of electron transfer. The efficiency of the radical generation from the dyad compared to the unlinked system was demonstrated by measuring the maximum rate of free radical polymerization of acrylates in film. An excellent relationship between the rate of electron transfer and the rate of polymerization was found, evidencing the interest of this new approach to efficiently produce radicals under red light.


A storyboard is a sequence of images to illustrate a story containing multiple sentences, which has been a key process to create different story products. In this paper, we tackle a new multimedia task of automatic storyboard creation to facilitate this process and inspire human artists. Inspired by the fact that our understanding of languages is based on our past experience, we propose a novel inspire-and-create framework with a story-to-image retriever that selects relevant cinematic images for inspiration and a storyboard creator that further refines and renders images to improve the relevancy and visual consistency. The proposed retriever dynamically employs contextual information in the story with hierarchical attentions and applies dense visual-semantic matching to accurately retrieve and ground images. The creator then employs three rendering steps to increase the flexibility of retrieved images, which include erasing irrelevant regions, unifying styles of images and substituting consistent characters. We carry out extensive experiments on both in-domain and out-of-domain visual story datasets. The proposed model achieves better quantitative performance than the state-of-the-art baselines for storyboard creation. Qualitative visualizations and user studies further verify that our approach can create high-quality storyboards even for stories in the wild.


The environmental problems of cities have caused an increase in energy consumption in buildings, which can be slowed by improving the buildings' energy efficiency. Energy consumption in buildings is affected by the building envelope, and integration of the greenery with the building envelope will contribute in saving energy and increasing the buildings' energy efficiency. Therefore, the vertical greenery system (VGS) has received a lot of attention in recent decades as a model whose implementation can increase the energy efficiency of buildings. Defining the basic VGS system implementation will allow engineers to systematically approach the process of VGS system implementation and help them choose the best VGS system model for a selected site or building.


Studies of oral composition in epic poetry have traditionally focused on textual analyses. However, since oral epic is a sung genre, the relationships between text and music are fundamental to understanding oral composition. Does the music aid the singer in the composition of the text? What types of patterns are evident as singers combine text and music? What determines units of structure in the text and music? In an attempt to confront these and other questions, I will be analyzing the relationships between units of textual and melodic structure in the epic song repertoires of six contemporary Romanian traditional singers. Oral epic poetry is still a living tradition in Romania. Singers continue to sing their tales today as they have for centuries. The existence of traditional narrative poetries in the modern world, such as the Romanian genre, allows for extensive observation and documentation in investigations of both text and music. I argue in this article that Romanian epic singers sense fundamental structures of text and music as well as clear relationships between them, such that units in the text and music function and interact with remarkable consistency. Rhetorical-compositional devices serve to underscore textual units and are repeatedly reinforced by patterns within the music, creating structures characterized by unity of form and content. To demonstrate these points I will contrast the singing styles of professional gypsy singers with those of nonprofessional ethnic Romanian singers. The professional singers, who generally exhibit a more developed and crafted style, structure both the text and music of their songs with an artistry and logic that the non-professional singers less frequently display. After a brief introduction to the six singers whose songs are analyzed in this study and a short description of the Romanian epic, I will examine the various units of text and music and how they interact.


Online advertising has typically been more personalized than offline advertising, through the use of machine learning models and real-time auctions for ad targeting. One specific task, predicting the likelihood of conversion (i.e.\ the probability a user will purchase the advertised product), is crucial to the advertising ecosystem for both targeting and pricing ads. Currently, these models are often trained by observing individual user behavior, but, increasingly, regulatory and technical constraints are requiring privacy-preserving approaches. For example, major platforms are moving to restrict tracking individual user events across multiple applications, and governments around the world have shown steadily more interest in regulating the use of personal data. Instead of receiving data about individual user behavior, advertisers may receive privacy-preserving feedback, such as the number of installs of an advertised app that resulted from a group of users. In this paper we outline the recent privacy-related changes in the online advertising ecosystem from a machine learning perspective. We provide an overview of the challenges and constraints when learning conversion models in this setting. We introduce a novel approach for training these models that makes use of post-ranking signals. We show using offline experiments on real world data that it outperforms a model relying on opt-in data alone, and significantly reduces model degradation when no individual labels are available. Finally, we discuss future directions for research in this evolving area.


Ultrahigh magnetic fields up to 300 T (3 MG) have been generated by electromagnetic flux compression using only 63 kJ from a fast capacitor bank to implode aluminium liners, with 14.7 kJ from a slow capacitor bank needed to provide an initial magnetic field. With no initial field present, pulses of magnetic flux density having a time rate-of-change exceeding 3 × 108 T s−1 have been produced and measured, opening the way for a range of dynamic transformer applications. The outcome of the work suggests that, when using fast multi-MA banks, flux compression can be viewed as an alternative to the single-turn coil technique that will move the boundary of the magnetic fields well beyond 300 T without the need for significant additional investments.


Although T cells and B cells can respond immunologically to some tumors, whether and how they collaborate to control tumor growth is incompletely understood. To address this question we introduced a foreign antigen (HIV envelope), as a model for a tumor antigen, linked to C3d (AgC3d) in a tumor cell line and tested the fate of that line in isogeneic mice. AgC3d-positive tumors invoked antigen-specific antibodies and T cell-mediated IFN gamma secretion. Tumors expressing AgC3d grew more slowly than non-transfected cells and mice with tumors expressing AgC3d survived longer than mice with tumor alone. Slower growth of tumors was due to immunity directed against the viral antigen since AgC3d-positive tumors grew as fast as AgC3d-negative tumors in immune-deficient RAG-2 gammac-deficient hosts. Immunity and control of tumor growth required C3d since tumors expressing the antigen without C3d grew slower than tumors expressing AgC3d. Anti-tumor immunity depended on CR2 since tumors implanted in mice treated with CR2-Ig grew more rapidly than tumors grown in the absence of CR2-Ig. Control of tumors was not the direct result of C3d interaction with B cell CR2 as AgC3d-positive tumors grew slower and in some cases regressed in B cell deficient (JH-/-) mice than in wild type mice. Our findings suggest that C3d enables antigen specific responses by T cells and this response may be regulated by B cells.


We propose two principles of inductive reasoning related to how observed information is handled by conditioning, and justify why they may be said to represent aspects of rational reasoning. A partial classification is given of the probability functions which satisfy these principles.


This paper proposes an extension of the variational theory of complex rays (VTCR) to three-dimensional linear acoustics, The VTCR is a Trefftz-type approach designed for mid-frequency range problems and has been previously investigated for structural dynamics and 2D acoustics. The proposed 3D formulation is based on a discretization of the amplitude portrait using spherical harmonics expansions. This choice of discretization allows to substantially reduce the numerical integration work by taking advantage of well-known analytical properties of the spherical harmonics. It also permits (like with the previous 2D Fourier version) an effective a priori selection method for the discretization parameter in each sub-region, and allows to estimate the directivity of the pressure field by means of a natural definition of rescaled amplitude portraits. The accuracy and performance of the proposed formulation are demonstrated on a set of numerical examples that include results on an actual case study from the automotive industry.