Background: Adolescence is a time of significant social and emotional changes, including changes in school and learning environment. Adolescents report high levels of academic stress, and mental health difficulties typically surface during this period of life. Furthermore, adolescents' expectancies, beliefs, and persistence regarding their schoolwork tend to decrease in lower secondary school. The stimulation of students' social and emotional competencies (SECs) has previously been shown to lower emotional distress, nurture academic performance, and build resilience in students. However, research on stimulating SEC has primarily been conducted among younger students. Moreover, relatively little is known about how specific SECs is related to academic efficacy beliefs (AEB), emotional distress, and academic stress during early adolescence. Aims: The overall aims and main research question of this thesis was how students perceive their SECs, and how they are related to AEB and emotional distress, as well as how SECs are experienced and whether they help coping with academic stress during the first year of lower secondary school. Moreover, this thesis is article based and consists of three studies: Study I had a cross sectional design and aimed to investigate the associations between relationship skills, emotional regulation, and structuring of school and homework with AEB and emotional distress. AEB had the role of an intermediate variable. Study II had a longitudinal design and investigated intraindividual changes in perceived relationship skills, emotional regulation, AEB, as well as perceived classroom relations i.e., emotional support from teachers, and collaborative peer relations changed during the first year of lower secondary school. This study also tested relationships between these changes by use of two structural models, where perceived relationship skills and emotional regulation through cognitive reappraisal were independent variables, perceived classroom relations intermediate variables and AEB dependent variable. Study III used focus group interviews to explore how an educational intervention addressing relationship skills, emotional regulation, mindfulness, growth mindset, and problem-solving was experienced by eighth grade students, and particularly to what degree the different components of the intervention helped students cope with academic stress. Methods: Studies I and II were quantitative and used students' responses to questionnaires as data sources. Survey data was collected at two time-points: T1 in September 2018 and T2 in March 2019 in grade eight. Study I used data from T1 and structural equation modeling (SEM) with latent variables implemented as the analytic tool. Multi-group analysis was used to inspect whether gender differences moderated the structural associations. Study II used data from the T1 and T2, and a latent change score (LCS) approach was implemented. Study III was a qualitative embedded single case study in which data were derived from three focus groups. The informants were adolescent students who had participated in ROBUST. A qualitative conventional content analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: In study I, relationship skills, emotional regulation, planning schoolwork, and structuring homework were cross sectionally associated with AEB. Moreover, high perceived relationship skills, emotional regulation, and AEB were associated with low emotional distress. Indirect associations may reflect that these SECs could play a role in reducing emotional distress via improving AEB. Perceived good relationship skills, emotional regulation, and structuring of homework had a stronger association with less emotional distress among females than male student. Emotional regulation and structuring of homework were also more strongly related to AEB among adolescent females. Study II's results indicate that relationship skills, emotional regulation, AEB, and classroom relations on average decrease during the first year of lower secondary school. The strongest decline was observed for emotional support from teachers and collaborative peer relations, whereas the weakest decline occurred for perceived relationship skills and emotional regulation. However, significant individual variations in change were found for all variables. The LCS structural model showed a strong and direct association between intra individual changes in emotional regulation and AEB. Links also occurred for changes in relationship skills with collaborative peer relations and emotional support from teachers and via this with AEB. Indirect associations were found for the SECs via classroom relations with AEB. Results from study III suggest that students perceived the SECs mindfulness, problem-solving, and growth mindset as helpful means of coping with academic stress. Emotional regulation and relationship skills were perceived as more challenging to utilize. Conclusions: Findings of this thesis suggest that the SECs relationship skills, emotional regulation through cognitive reappraisal, AEB, and classroom relations all decrease on average during the first year of lower secondary school. This further indicate a need for nurturing students SECs to support a more positive development. In this regard, students perceived relationship skills, emotional regulation through cognitive reappraisal, and planning and structuring schoolwork are likely to have a role in students' AEB in the beginning of lower secondary school. Moreover, positive AEB, perceived relationship skills, and emotional regulation may all serve to reduce emotional distress. Added to this, the findings also propose that during the first year of lower secondary school adequate emotional regulation through cognitive reappraisal may engender growth in AEB, and more positive development of relationship skills can enhance AEB via good collaborative peer relations and emotional support from teachers. Students' relationship skills may support the establishment of quality relations in the classroom that promote AEB and protect against emotional distress. Emotional regulation through cognitive reappraisal may aid in students' academic learning activities and facilitate more optimistic emotions that bolster their AEB. This further suggests that stimulating students' emotional regulation and relationship skills is key for growth in adolescents' AEB. However, a part of this thesis involved the development, piloting and adjustment of an educational intervention that stimulated students SECs in lower secondary school. The students who participated perceived the SECs emotional regulation and relationship skills as more challenging to utilize. Emotional experiences may be stronger and more negative in adolescence. Social relations may also be perceived as more demanding, and together the findings may reflect a need for adolescent students to gain more practical experience of these SECs to be perceived as supportive. Nevertheless, the young perceived mindfulness as reducing negative thinking about academic work by promoting a more accepting attitude toward stressful experiences. Problem-solving was perceived as supporting active efforts to cope with academic stress, and a growth mindset may have the potential to enhance optimism that supports beliefs about coping with challenging academic work. Thus, the findings support the notion that nurturing SECs can build resilience in adolescent students.


Introduction: The purpose of this study was to determine the dosage of inorganic fertilizers, soaking time of the inoculation of the legume bacteria strains which were suitable for the growth and yield of peanut in tidal lowland.
Materials and Methods: This research was conducted at tidal lowland in Sei Ular Village, Secanggang sub-District, Langkat District, North Sumatra from September to December 2019. The research used randomized block design in factorial. The first factor is the dose of inorganic fertilizers consisting of P0 = un-fertilizer (control), P1= urea 50 kg.ha-1 + TSP 180 kg.ha-1 + KCl 50 kg.ha-1, P2= urea 75 kg.ha-1 + TSP 205 kg.ha-1 + KCl 75 kg.ha-1, P3= urea 100 kg.ha-1 + TSP 230 kg.ha-1 + KCl 100 kg.ha-1. The second factor was the soaking time of the Bradyrhizobium japonicum bacterial strain consisting of T0= un-soaking time, T1= soaking time for 3 minutes, T2= soaking time for 6 minutes, and T3= soaking time for 9 minutes. Parameters were analyzed using ANOVA and BNJ analysis 5%.·
Results: The application of urea 50 kg.ha-1 + TSP 180 kg.ha-1 + KCl 50 kg.ha-1 significantly increased the plant height, number of leaves, and root volume and showed the highest number of active nodules, dry pods.plot-1 and seed weight.plot-1 compared to other doses. The seed soaking time with the Bradyrhizobium japonicum strain and their interactions showed insignificant differences in all parameters of peanut plants in tidal lowland.


This paper investigates the problem of state feedback controller design for the output regulation of SprottK chaotic system, which is one of the simple, classical, three-dimensional chaotic systems discovered by J.C. Sprott (1994). Explicitly, we have derived new state feedback control laws for the constant tracking problem for the Sprott-H system. The state feedback control laws have been derived using the regulator equations of C.I. Byrnes and A. Isidori (1990). The output regulation of the Sprott H chaotic system has important applications in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Numerical simulations are shown to illustrate the effectiveness of the control schemes proposed in this paper for the output regulation of the Sprott-H chaotic system.


1 SUMMARY South Africa is a signatory to the Rio Earth Summit Agenda 21 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development's, Johannesburg Plan of lmplernentation. These documents are the definitive guidelines towards sustainable development. As a local authority within South Africa, Ekurhuleni is therefore obliged to implement these sustainability principles as highlighted in Chapter 28 of Agenda 21, namely Local Agenda 21. Various tools are available to implement the Local Agenda 21 principles. The Municipal Systems Act, 32 of 2000, prescribes the compilation of an lntegrated Development Plan for all local authorities, part of this is a Performance Management System that measure performance in terms of specified indicators. Another management tool is the State of the Environment Report, which in turn identifies indicators in terms of which environmentally sustainable development can be measured. The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality's lntegrated Development Plan have been compared with the objectives set out in Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of lmplementation, to assess whether this document can be used as the Ekurhuleni Local Agenda 21 Strategy. It was found that the requirements for an lntegrated Development Plan are very similar to the requirements for a Local Agenda 21. The Ekurhuleni lntegrated Development Plan to a great extent complies with the Agenda 21 and Johannesburg Plan of lmplementation. In terms of sustainable development, the economic and social aspects, receive substantial attention, however the biophysical environmental aspect of sustainable development is not sufficiently integrated into all aspects of the lntegrated Development Plan. Neither are the target dates as specified in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation highlighted in the lntegrated Development Plan. By integrating the biophysical environmental aspects into the Ekurhuleni lntegrated Development Plan and setting target dates in line with the Johannesburg Plan of lmplernentation great strides will be made towards achieving sustainable development. If the further step is taken to combine the sustainability indictors as identified in the state of the Environment Report with the Performance Management System, the Ekurhuleni lntegrated Development Plan with its Performance Management System, can be accepted as the Ekurhuleni Local Agenda 21 Strategy. Key Terminology: Sustainable Development; lntegrated Development Plan; Agenda21; Local Agenda 21; Johannesburg Plan of lmplementation; State of the Environment Report; Performance Management System.


A technique is described for surgery of the aging chin that I use in every rhytidectomy patient. A mentalis-periosteal flap is developed, advanced downward, and sutured in a "vest over pants" manner over the platysma muscle under the submental crease. The submental crease is obliterated by the double layer of muscle created by the muscle closure. The same technique is used in chin reductions and chin augmentations, as well as normal aging ptosis of the chin. Since muscle and fat are never excised, one can use this simple procedure on every face lift without fear of creating a contour deformity. This technique gives consistently good results but should only be used when combined with face lift surgery which includes a wide cervical dissection.


Objective To analyze the risk factors and build a clinical prediction model for hemodynamic depression (HD) after carotid artery stenting (CAS). Methods A total of 116 patients who received CAS in the Department of Vascular Surgery,Drum Tower Clinical College of Nanjing Medical University and the Department of Vascular Surgery,the Affiliated Suqian First People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from January 1,2016 to January 1,2022 were included in this study.The patients were assigned into a HD group and a non-HD group.The clinical baseline data and vascular disease characteristics of each group were collected,and multivariate Logistic regression was employed to identify the independent predictors of HD after CAS and build a clinical prediction model.The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn,and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the predictive performance of the model. Results The HD group had lower proportions of diabetes (P=0.014) and smoking (P=0.037) and higher proportions of hypertension (P=0.031),bilateral CAS (P=0.018),calcified plaque (P=0.001),eccentric plaque (P=0.003),and the distance<1 cm from the minimum lumen level to the carotid bifurcation (P=0.009) than the non-HD group.The age,sex,coronary heart disease,symptomatic carotid artery stenosis,degree of stenosis,and length of lesions had no statistically significant differences between the HD group and the non-HD group (all P>0.05).Based on the above predictive factors,a clinical prediction model was established,which showed the AUC of 0.807 and the 95% CI of 0.730-0.885 (P<0.001).The model demonstrated the sensitivity of 62.7% and the specificity of 87.7% when the best cut-off value of the model score reached 12.5 points. Conclusions Diabetes,smoking,calcified plaque,eccentric plaque,and the distance<1 cm from the minimum lumen level to the carotid bifurcation are independent predictors of HD after CAS.The clinical prediction model built based on the above factors has good performance in predicting the occurrence of HD after CAS.


The Brezis–Nirenberg equation and the scalar field equation on the three-dimensional unit ball are studied. Under the Robin condition, we show the existence and uniqueness of radial solutions in a unified way. In particular, it is shown that the global structure of solutions changes qualitatively when a parameter in the boundary condition exceeds a certain critical value.


The paper investigates the influence of the inlet boundary condition on the spatial evolution of natural rollwaves in a power-law fluid flowing in steep slope channels. The analysis is carried out numerically, by solving the von Kármán depth-integrated mass and momentum conservation equations, in the long-wave approximation. A second-order accurate scheme is adopted and a small random white-noise is superposed to the discharge at the channel inlet to generate the natural roll-waves train. Both shear-thinning and shearthickening power-law fluids are investigated, considering uniform, accelerated and decelerated hypercritical profiles as the unperturbed condition. Independently of the unperturbed profile and of the fluid rheology, numerical simulations clearly enlighten the presence of coalescence, coarsening and overtaking processes, as experimentally observed. All the considered statistical parameters indicate that the natural roll-waves spatial evolution is strongly affected by the unperturbed profile. Compared with the uniform condition, at the beginning of roll-waves development an accelerated profile reduces the growth of the roll-waves with a downstream shift of the non-linear wave interaction. The opposite behavior is observed if the roll wave train develops over a decelerated profile. The comparison with the theoretical outcomes of the linearized near wave-front analysis allows the interpretation of this result in terms of stability of the base flow. It is shown that once the coarsening process starts to take place, the roll-waves spatial growth rate is independent of the unperturbed profile. Present results suggest that an appropriate selection of the flow depth at the channel inlet may contribute to control, either enhancing or inhibiting, the formation of a roll-waves train in power-law fluids.


This paper discusses two different ways of achieving network security, IPSec as an end-to-end security service and firewalls as perimeter based security system. First an overview is made of the different security threats and their inter-relationships. Then the different security services as countermeasures to the different threats are discussed. A thorough investigation is then performed of the two security mechanisms IPSec and firewall technology regarding security services, functionality, and design. A comparison of the security services and functionality of IPSec and firewall is made. Finally, this paper concludes what impact IPSec as an end-to-end security service will have on the future role of firewalls.


ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) is a unique stakeholder in Arctic affairs. The EU is linked to the Arctic, affecting and affected by regional changes and developments, resulting in a multidimensional nexus of influences, impacts and overlapping agendas and stakeholders. As a global multi-level force and a major promoter of the concept of sustainable development the EU can also be a leader in setting standards for a more sustainable interaction between a major economy and the Arctic region. On the premise that the path towards a more comprehensive and integrated EU Arctic policy should focus on implementing more robust environmental policies in Europe, this paper argues that developing a distinct EU Arctic policy should only be regarded as secondary to building a – predominantly internal – regulatory framework that considers the ongoing changes in the Arctic. This article analyses the EU's capacity to be a global regulator and to set internal environmental standards with external influence on the Arctic. Specifically, this paper is concerned with the extent to which EU environmental policies and legislations can be regarded as contributing to the promotion of sustainable development in the Arctic with an analyses of the EU's energy-climate policy complex.


This study analyzed the effects of consumer knowledge and attitudes toward spending on environment-friendly agricultural products. Using data collected from 486 Ulsan housewives, results showed each score of consumer knowledge on and attitude to environment-friendly agricultural products was the middle level, and that mean monthly expenditure on environment-friendly agricultural products was 91,193 won. A multiple regression analysis was computed and indicated that higher spending on environmentally friendly agricultural products was related to high levels ofconsumer knowledge, positive attitudes to environment-friendly agricultural products, higher levels of household income, being a housewife in terms of occupation position, and post-graduate education levels. Furthermore, results also implied that consumer knowledge and attitudes to environment-friendly agricultural products were of greater influences than the demographic variables in their influence over spending on environment-friendly agricultural products.


In order to optimize biofuel (including bioethanol) production processes, various problems need to be solved, such as increasing the sugar content of raw materials/biomass to gain a higher yield of the product. This task can be solved in several ways, with their own advantages and disadvantages, and an integrated approach, such as using a combination of ripening agents and phytohormones or application of a superabsorbent polymer with at least one sugar-enhancing agent, can be applied as well. Here, we reviewed several methods, including pre- and postharvest factors (light, temperature, partial replacement of potassium with magnesium, etc.), genetic modifications (traditional breeding, phytohormones, etc.), chemical ripening methods (Ethephon, Moddus, etc.), and some alternative methods (DMSO treatment, ionic liquids, etc.). The aim of this review was to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date summary of methods of increasing the carbohydrate level in plants/biomass for bioethanol production.


This paper presents a novel oversampling technique addressing highly imbalanced distributions in benchmark and electroencephalogram (EEG) datasets. Presently, conventional machine learning technologies do not adequately address imbalanced data with an anomalous class distribution and underrepresented data. To balance the class distributions, an extended adaptive subspace self-organizing map (EASSOM) that combines a local mapping scheme and the globally competitive rule is proposed to artificially generate synthetic samples that focus on minority class samples and its application in EEG. The EASSOM is configured with feature-invariant characteristics, including translation, scaling, and rotation, and it retains the independence of the basis vectors in each module. Specifically, basis vectors that are generated via each EASSOM module can avoid generating repeated representative features that only increase the computational load. Several benchmark experimental results demonstrate that the proposed EASSOM method incorporating a supervised learning approach could be superior to other existing oversampling techniques, and three EEG applications present the improvement of classification accuracy using the proposed EASSOM method.


Severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection has been hypothesized to be a risk factor for the development of allergy and asthma, but epidemiologic studies in humans have been inconclusive. By use of a well-characterized murine model of RSV infection and allergic sensitization with ovalbumin, the effect of a preceding severe RSV infection on the development of the pulmonary allergic inflammatory response and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) was tested. The impact of prior allergic sensitization on RSV-induced illness, as measured by weight loss, also was evaluated. RSV infection before allergic sensitization decreased allergen-induced AHR, production of interleukin-13 in lung tissue, and lung eosinophilia. In contrast, allergic sensitization before RSV infection increased AHR and decreased RSV-related weight loss and lung levels of interferon-gamma but did not alter viral clearance. These data provide evidence that RSV-associated AHR occurs in hosts with allergic responses and that allergic inflammation is diminished when preceded by RSV infection.


A design of a metal reactor equipped with gas in- and outlet tubings and IR transparent windows is described. The IR cell approximates a wellstirred tank reactor and is suited for in situ kinetic investigations of catalytic reactions. While the catalyst, in contact with the reactants and products, is analyzed in situ by means of time-resolved FT-IR spectroscopy, the effluent gas stream is analyzed by gas chromatography mass spectroscopy. The reactor operates at temperatures up to 870 K; for applications of temperature-programmed desorption/reaction, linear heating rates between 1 and 20 K/min can be realized. Examples for applications are given.


The Swedish assessment culture has emerged in the meeting between the educational, scientific, bureaucratic and political needs and traditions. In this study we approach the assessment culture from the perspective of media debates, particularly focusing on daily newspapers. The aim is to understand the stakes that appear around educational assessment in public debate, hopes, fears and controversies, and to analyze this from the perspective of on the one hand the history of Swedish assessment culture, on the other a discursive perspective: what can and can not be said and what might the consequences/dangers of certain discourses be? Preliminary results show that grades and grading systems has dominated the debate while test and testing culture for a long time played a minor role, something that is beginning to change. However, even though grades have been in the center, the way grades have been discussed have changed. We argue that the educational assessment debate has become more inward-looking through the introduction of criterion referenced grading, not unlikely correlating to the regime of accountability policies dominating schooling in many countries. From the perspective of grades being "the basic currency" of education (perhaps challenged by school choice lately), we ask whether we can find topics concerning social justice in today's assessment debate. We also suggest ways of recontextualizing the debate around grades and tests. Why does for example the grading seem to be such a polarized topic in Swedish debated relative the international debate about assessment matters?


Löffler et al. highlight the important potential of designer receptors exclusively activated by a designer drug (DREADD)–based technologies to study cell type–specific functions but cautions that the triggering DREADD ligand, clozapine-N-oxide (CNO) might, through potential conversion products, have bioactivity outside of the synthetic DREADD receptor system and maintains that Ray et al. did not control for such activity. We recount controls used in our work that indicated no discernible DREADD-independent effects of CNO on the homeostatic assays employed and discuss in this regard murine studies reporting CNO bioneutrality in other assays, the rapid renal clearance of N-oxides like CNO, and evidence of negligible conversion to clozapine (CN) in mice and rats.


Purpose: The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a constellation of interrelated risk factors of metabolic origin that appear to promote development of cardiovascular disease. It has become one of the most important topics for this decade because of marked increase in cardiovascular disease associated with risk factors. Paraoxonase (PON) is a family of three enzymes, PON1, PON2 and PON3, the gene which is located on chromosome 7. This is high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-associated enzyme with antioxidant activity. The objective of the present study aimed at measurement of PON1 activities in patients with MetS, to compare PON1 activities in patients with MetS with those in controls and assess its relationship with the lipoproteins in serum. Material and Method: Cases were included as per the criteria put forth by the International Diabetes Federation. Serum PON1 activities were measured using spectrophotometer. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 20.0. Result: Serum PON1 arylesterase and lactonase activities were found to be reduced significantly in patients with MetS than in controls. PON1 activities showed a positive correlation with HDL, fasting blood glucose and diastolic blood pressure. Linear regression analysis showed a significant correlation between PON1 activities and body mass index. Discussion: From the present study, it is clear that reduction in PON1 activities in MetS is mainly due either to abnormalities with synthesis or secretion of HDL cholesterol or oxidative stress as a consequence of excess production of the free radicals. This study also iterates that it is the quality and not the quantity of HDL cholesterol is important while studying the pathophysiology of MetS.


The differentiation, activation and expansion of T cells are dictated by their integrated response to a complex array of extracellular signals. Recent studies provide insight into how these signals are integrated and demonstrate a key role for cell shape in many aspects of T-cell signalling. T cells polarise during migration, antigen presentation and cell division to give rise to daughter cells that can have different cell fates. In each case, the polarity of the T cell facilitates this activity. This raises the possibility that adoption of a polarised state acts as a positive feedback mechanism to enhance responses to specific signals. Similarly, in asymmetric division of other cell types, the distribution of different molecules into each daughter can have profound consequences for proliferation, death and differentiation. The mechanisms of polarity regulation are far better understood in cells such as epithelial cells, neurons and neuronal precursors, and the fertilised zygote. With the emerging parallels between polarity in these cells and T cells, we should now be able to elucidate how polarity affects signalling and cell fate determination in T cells.


This article provides the first systematic examination of the ways 'talk about sex' is occasioned and managed by doctors and patients in real-life interactions in a National Health Service Gender Identity Clinic. Drawing on a corpus of 194 recordings of psychiatric assessment sessions, the article examines how parties initiate and develop talk about sex, and which strategies appear to work best for doctor–patient alignment. The analyses revealed that the most aligning methods were for clinicians to make transitions from asking questions about relationships in general to talk about sex, or to build opportunistically on patients' relationship talk. However, talk about sex that lacked specificity or which made inaccurate presumptions about patients' sex lives, generated misalignment between clinician and patient. I suggest that such misalignment is not intrinsically bad. Rather, it provides evidence for the virtues of a more nuanced understanding of patient-centred communication. The article concludes with a discussion of the importance of grounding communication skills training and clinical practice in recordings of actual consultations.


A context-aware service in ubiquitous computing environments aims to supply services according to a user's situation information that is dynamically occurring. The existing context-aware workflow systems provide a context-aware service based on a workflow that uses a user's situation information as services's transition condition. But they can't apply user's new service demands, which may be dynamically occurring even when a workflow is on going, to the workflow scenario. In this paper we propose a context-aware workflow system that can reconstruct autonomously and efficiently an initial workflow scenario according to user's dynamic service demands, and can adopt the new service demands into the initial workflow scenario without interrupting or deleting the on-going workflow services. The proposed system uses an incremental parsing method to provide context-aware services without interrupting of service through recognizing exactly the place holder that has to be changed in a workflow scenario and reconstructing only the part under the influence of the changes. Therefore, a user can apply his new service demands to a scenario document regardless of the time and the space, and he can be guaranteed to support the continuous execution of a context-aware service without the discontinuance of services according to the workflow scenario, which describes the new service demands.


The present study aims to evaluate the effects of feeding palm oil by-products based diets on different muscle fatty acid profiles in goats. Thirty-two Cacang × Boer goats were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments: (1) control diet (CD), (2) 80% decanter cake diet (DCD), (3) 80% palm kernel cake diet (PKCD) and (4) CD plus 5% palm oil (PO) supplemented diet (CPOD). After 100 days of feeding, four goats from each group were slaughtered and longissimus dorsi (LD), infraspinatus (IS) and biceps femoris (BF) were sampled for analysis of fatty acids. Goats fed the PKCD had higher (P<0.05) concentration of lauric acid (C12:0) than those fed the other diets in all the muscles tested. Compared to the other diets, the concentrations of palmitic acid (C16:0) and stearic acid (C18:0) were lower (P<0.05) and that of linoleic acid (C18:2 n-6) was higher (P<0.05) in the muscles from goats fed the CD. It was concluded that palm kernel cake and decanter cake can be included in the diet of goats up to 80% with more beneficial than detrimental effects on the fatty acid profile of their meat.


We present a formal distributed algorithm that can be used for the deployment of arbitrary routing policies in a network infrastructure that attempts to complete the ideas proposed by Griffin et al. We prove that our algorithm is based on a function that satisfies conditions proposed by Bertsekas. These conditions guarantee that the distributed version of the algorithm will converge and yield the same result as a centralized computation of the routing matrix. We also present a prototype in Haskell that illustrates the possibilities of defining policies and general computations on them.


This work explores the use of foot gestures for locomotion in virtual environments. Foot gestures are represented as the distribution of plantar pressure and detected by three sparsely-located sensors on each insole. The Long Short-Term Memory model is chosen as the classifier to recognize the performer's foot gesture based on the captured signals of pressure information. The trained classifier directly takes the noisy and sparse input of sensor data, and handles seven categories of foot gestures (stand, walk forward/backward, run, jump, slide left and right) without manual definition of signal features for classifying these gestures. This classifier is capable of recognizing the foot gestures, even with the existence of large sensor-specific, inter-person and intra-person variations. Results show that an accuracy of ~80% can be achieved across different users with different shoe sizes and ~85% for users with the same shoe size. A novel method, Dual-Check Till Consensus, is proposed to reduce the latency of gesture recognition from 2 seconds to 0.5 seconds and increase the accuracy to over 97%. This method offers a promising solution to achieve lower latency and higher accuracy at a minor cost of computation workload. The characteristics of high accuracy and fast classification of our method could lead to wider applications of using foot patterns for human-computer interaction.


In this thesis, we present efficient implementation techniques for probabilistic model checking, a method which can be used to analyse probabilistic systems such as randomised distributed algorithms, fault-tolerant processes and communication networks. A probabilistic model checker inputs a probabilistic model and a specification, such as "the message will be delivered with probability 1", "the probability of shutdown occurring is at most 0.02" or "the probability of a leader being elected within 5 rounds is at least 0.98", and can automatically verify if the specification is true in the model. Motivated by the success of symbolic approaches to non-probabilistic model checking, which are based on a data structure called binary decision diagrams (BDDs), we present an extension to the probabilistic case, using multi-terminal binary decision diagrams (MTBDDs). We demonstrate that MTBDDs can be used to perform probabilistic analysis of large, structured models with more than 7.5 billion states, way out of the reach of conventional, explicit techniques, based on sparse matrices. We also propose a novel, hybrid approach, combining features of both symbolic and explicit implementations and show, using results from a wide range of case studies, that this technique can almost match the speed of sparse matrix based implementations, but uses significantly less memory. This increases, by approximately an order of magnitude, the size of model which can be handled on a typical workstation.


Between 1974 and 1979 a total of 344 patients with testicular teratomas were treated at the West German Tumor Center, Essen. Brain metastases were encountered in 16 patients by means of neurologic symptoms as well as scintigraphy and computerized tomography. Cerebral involvement was closely related to preexistent lung metastases (n = 162) and the risk appeared to increase with the duration of pulmonal disease amounting to about 10% (16/162) in this group. Radiotherapy was the treatment of choice and produced objective and subjective improvement in 13 of 16 cases. Thus, long-term prognosis of patients with brain metastases was mainly determined by the preexistent metastatic involvement of the lungs.


This paper presents a brief overview of scalable video coding (SVC) with a focus on spatial scalability and its application to Advanced Terrestrial-DMB (AT-DMB). By adopting SVC with two spatial-layers and hierarchical modulation, AT-DMB provides standard definition (SD)-level video while maintaining compatability with the existing CIF-level video. In this paper, we suggest a layer-configuration and coding parameters of SVC which are well suit for an AT-DMB system. In order to reduce extremely large encoding time resulted by an exhaustive search of a macroblock coding mode in spatial scalability, we propose a fast mode decision method which excludes redundant modes in each layer. It utilizes the mode distribution of each layer and their correlations. Experimental results show that a simplified encoding model with the method reduces the computational complexity significantly with negligible coding loss.


Dendritic growth and retraction are important hallmarks of neuronal growth and injury respectively. It is therefore important to elucidate the regulators of dendritic growth. Previous studies have shown that a family of proteins known as Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) promote dendritic growth in sympathetic neurons and enhance dendritic outgrowth in central neurons. In this study, we identified free radical mediated signaling as potential regulator of dendritic growth in sympathetic neurons. Cultured sympathetic neurons from E21 rat pups were treated with BMP‐7 (5 ng/ml or 50 ng/ml), with or without antioxidants. Some of the antioxidants examined in this study include Diphenylene iodinium (DPI), Nordihydroguiaretic acid (NGA), Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Desferroxamine (DFO). Our results showed that BMP‐7 induced dendritic growth was inhibited by antioxidants in a dose dependent manner, without affecting axonal growth or cell numbers. Furthermore, DPI and DFO induced dendritic retraction whereas NGA prevented further growth of existing dendrites. These results suggest that low levels of free radicals are beneficial for maintenance of dendrites in sympathetic neurons. We are currently exploring the possible connections between BMP signaling and free radical signaling in sympathetic neurons. (Supported by the Saint Mary's College Summer Research Program)


In this thesis I lift the Curry--Howard--Lambek correspondence between the simply-typed lambda calculus and cartesian closed categories to the bicategorical setting, then use the resulting type theory to prove a coherence result for cartesian closed bicategories. Cartesian closed bicategories---2-categories `up to isomorphism' equipped with similarly weak products and exponentials---arise in logic, categorical algebra, and game semantics. I show that there is at most one 2-cell between any parallel pair of 1-cells in the free cartesian closed bicategory on a set and hence---in terms of the difficulty of calculating---bring the data of cartesian closed bicategories down to the familiar level of cartesian closed categories.
In fact, I prove this result in two ways. The first argument is closely related to Power's coherence theorem for bicategories with flexible bilimits. For the second, which is the central preoccupation of this thesis, the proof strategy has two parts: the construction of a type theory, and the proof that it satisfies a form of normalisation I call "local coherence". I synthesise the type theory from algebraic principles using a novel generalisation of the (multisorted) abstract clones of universal algebra, called "biclones". Using a bicategorical treatment of M. Fiore's categorical analysis of normalisation-by-evaluation, I then prove a normalisation result which entails the coherence theorem for cartesian closed bicategories. In contrast to previous coherence results for bicategories, the argument does not rely on the theory of rewriting or strictify using the Yoneda embedding. Along the way I prove bicategorical generalisations of a series of well-established category-theoretic results, present a notion of glueing of bicategories, and bicategorify the folklore result providing sufficient conditions for a glueing category to be cartesian closed.


In this paper, we seek to enable machine to answer questions like, given a clutch bag, what kind of skirt, heel and even accessory best fashionably collocate with it ? This problem, dubbed fashion collocation, has almost been neglected by researchers due to the large uncertainty lies in fashion collocation and professional expertise required to address it. In this paper, we narrow down the well-collocated samples to be fashion images shared on fashion websites, with which we propose an end-to-end trainable deep mixed-category metric learning method to project well-collocated clothing items to lie close but items violating well-collocation far apart in the deep embedding space. Specifically, we simultaneously model the intra-category exclusiveness and cross-category inclusiveness of fashion collocation by feeding a set of well-collocated clothing items and corresponding bad-collocated clothing items to the deep neural network, further a hard-aware online exemplar mining strategy is designed to force the whole neural network to be trainable and learn discriminative features at the early and later training stages respectively. To motivate more research in fashion collocation, we collect a dataset of 0.2 million fashionably well-collocated images consisting of either on-body or off-body clothing items or accessories. Extensive experimental results show the feasibility and superiority of our method.


The Oilfield is a cash flow dependent business, making the speed of decision-making very important. Our industry collects an incredible amount of data, but the volume of this data, coupled with inefficient oilfield software, slows down analysis and decision making. Critical decisions are delayed, and decision quality is affected.
 Smart Assistants like Siri and Alexa have become extraordinarily popular lately due to their ability to perform routine tasks and make information readily accessible. Considering the oil industry's drive towards enhanced speed and efficiency, there is a considerable upside in applying the concept of a Smart Assistant to oil and gas applications. This Smart Assistant for Oil and Gas would consolidate massive amounts of data, derive knowledge from it, automate workflows, and provide faster and consistent insights.
 This paper will look closely at a specific application of this Smart Assistant: analyzing flowback data from newly drilled wells. Engineers at Equinor have recently leveraged learnings from this Smart Assistant to increase efficiency in day-to-day tasks and realize results.


This work details the diversity and distribution of the genus Pisione Grube, 1857, Family Pisionidae Southern, 1914, on the Portuguese continental shelf. The study reports the first records for this region of the species P. guanche, P. inkoi and P. parapari, where previously P. remota was the only species reported. A detailed morphological study of the four species is presented, with a discussion of habitat preferences and biogeographic issues related to their distributional ranges. A total of 692 specimens were recorded at 48 sites. The four species coexist, with P. remota and P. parapari being the most abundant. A multivariate analysis based on morphological descriptors of 75 specimens showed a good separation of the four species. Pisione guanche and P. inkoi are characterized by a protruding notoacicula, longer in P. inkoi . These two species can be differentiated by the proportional length of the dorsal cirrus on parapodia 2 compared to parapodia 3, much longer in P. guanche, and by the number of distal teeth in the supra-acicular simple chaetae, bidentate in P. guanche and unidentate in P. inkoi . Of the four species, P. remota is the only one with an infra-acicular simple chaeta. The smallest intra-specific variability was found in P. parapari and the highest in P. guanche. The variability within species was much lower than the inter-specific variability which validated the four species of Pisione occurring in the Iberian Peninsula. This work set the meridional limit of P. inkoi and P. parapari, respectively in the western and the southern sector of the Portuguese continental shelf and the northern limit of P. guanche off the south margin of the Nazare Canyon. Pisione guanche is here recorded for the first time in the Lusitanian biogeographic province, increasing to five the number of species known for European continental waters. A taxonomic key for the European Pisione species is given.


Integrin-dependent cell adhesion to specific extracellular matrix molecules has been demonstrated to trigger dramatic changes in gene expression that can affect cell fate. However, little is understood about the molecular mechanism by which events at sites of cell– substratum adhesion are communicated to the cell interior to regulate the transcriptional apparatus. By analogy to classical mechanisms of cell surface receptor function, it seems likely that some components of the integrin-activated signal transduction machinery will be colocalized with cell adhesion molecules. Zyxin is a low abundance phosphoprotein that accumulates with integrins at sites of cell–substratum attachment. Here we show that zyxin exhibits a functional nuclear export signal that is required to keep zyxin concentrated in the cytoplasm and is sufficient to direct nuclear proteins to the cytosol. Furthermore, we demonstrate that native zyxin shuttles between the nucleus and sites of cell adhesion in fibroblasts and is thus an excellent candidate for relaying information between these two compartments.


Abstract Robinia pseudoacacia is one of the most problematic invasive alien species in Japan. Information on genetic diversity and population structure is urgently required in order to generate effective management strategies. To assist such efforts we have identified five chloroplast microsatellite (cpSSR) markers for R. pseudoacacia by amplifying noncording regions of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) using universal chloroplast primers. Among 857 individuals these cpSSR markers showed substantial polymorphism, with three to eight alleles per locus and gene diversity ranging from 0.387 to 0.713. These cpSSR makers will be useful for analyzing maternal lineages and population genetic structure of R. pseudo - acacia.


Introduction: CBCT uses have been expanded in many field of medical sciences. In the same way, it can be used to assess the position and anatomy of the genial tubercle during the management of OSA. The present study was planned to assess the utility and accuracy of the 3 D cone beam CT in locating the exact anatomical position of genial tubercle in the human skull.
Materials and Method: For the present study, 20 adult human cadaver head were randomly selected. All the cadaver underwent radiographic imaging with the cone beam CT. Based on the radiographic measurements, genial tubercle height, genial tubercle width, mandibualr height, distance from inferior border of mandible to genial tubercle and lastly mandibualr thickness were recorded.
Results: A total of 20 cadavers were obtained from the department of anatomy. We observed that there were difference in the measurements obtained from CBCT to that of calliper but however when the statistics were applied this difference was not found to be significant.
Discussion & Conclusion: No significant difference was seen between the two study group measurements cadaver dissections versus CBCT measurements. This radiographic technique may prove useful in preoperative planning for the mandibular osteotomy in genioglossus advancement procedures. In addition, this technique may allow for preparation of a pre-operative template to guide the surgeon. Future research will focus on the development of a simple surgical template to locate the genial tubercle accurately.

Keywords: Genial Tubercle, CBCT, Calliper, Obstructive Sleep Apnoea


Background The data retrieved with the online search engine, Google Trends, can summarize internet inquiries into specified search terms. This engine may be used for analyzing inquiry peaks for different medical conditions and symptoms. Objective The aim of this study was to analyze World Wide Web interest peaks for "ear pain," "ear infection," and "ear drops." Methods We used Google Trends to assess the public online interest for search terms "ear pain," "ear infection," and "ear drops" in 5 English and non–English-speaking countries from both hemispheres based on time series data. We performed our analysis for the time frame between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2019. First, we assessed whether our search terms were most relevant to the topics of ear pain, ear infection, and ear drops. We then tested the reliability of Google Trends time series data using the intraclass correlation coefficient. In a second step, we computed univariate time series plots to depict peaks in web-based interest. In the last step, we used the cosinor analysis to test the statistical significance of seasonal interest peaks. Results In the first part of the study, it was revealed that "ear infection," "ear pain," and "ear drops" were the most relevant search terms in the noted time frame. Next, the intraclass correlation analysis showed a moderate to excellent reliability for all 5 countries' 3 primary search terms. The subsequent analysis revealed winter interest peaks for "ear infection" and "ear pain". On the other hand, the World Wide Web search for "ear drops" peaked annually during the summer months. All peaks were statistically significant as revealed by the cosinor model (all P values <.001). Conclusions It can be concluded that individuals affected by otitis media or externa, possibly the majority, look for medical information online. Therefore, there is a need for accurate and easily accessible information on these conditions in the World Wide Web, particularly on differentiating signs and therapy options. Meeting this need may facilitate timely diagnosis, proper therapy, and eventual circumvention of potentially life-threatening complications.


Streptomyces tenebrarius H6 produces a complex of aminoglycoside antibiotics, such as apramycin, tobramycin and kanamycin B etc. To study the apramycin biosynthetic genes the genomic library from the Streptomyces tenebrarius H6 was established using E. coli/Streptomyces shuttle vector pKC505 by in vitro packing. The probability of finding a specific gene from the library composed of 3,000 colonies was over 99.9%. According to the highly conserved sequence of the genes involved in 6-deoxyhexose biosynthesis, primers were designed and 0.6 kb fragment homologous to strE gene was obtained by PCR. 30 positive clones were found from the genomic library of S. tenebrarius H6 with the 0.6 kb fragment as a probe. Overlapped regions were localized by Southern hybridization and putative sugar related biosynthetic gene cluster was mapped by restriction enzyme digestions. An ORF of dTDP-glucose-4,6-dehydratase gene consisted of 1,132 bp, designated as aprE, was obtained and submitted to GenBank under the accession number of AF306787. A DNA sequence highly homologous to strL coding dTDP-4-dehydrorhamnose reductase was found linked with aprE gene.


The present work is an effort to discover ethnopharmacological effects, such as anti-microbial, MIC, antioxidant assay, viz; total antioxidant, total phenolic contents, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and DPPH analysis. The crude extracts of bark and leaves of plant Spermadictyon suaveolens Roxb. was obtained in polar and nonpolar solvents viz; petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol and distilled water. The physical and chemical properties of plant extracts were determined like colour, texture, chemical nature and percentage yield. S. suaveolens bark extract in water exposed maximum yield, i.e. 2.3% The pathogenic bacterial and fungal strains used were including two gram positive bacteria ( Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis ), three gram negative bacteria ( Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae ) and three fungal strains( Aspergillus niger , Aspergillus oryzae and Fusarium solani ) . Maximum zone of inhibition of S. suaveolens was leaf methanolic extract against S. aureus , i.e. 32±9.60mm whereas petroleum ether extract of leaf displayed maximum zone against F. solani , 29±0.72mm. Methanolic extract of leaf of Spermadictyon suaveolens showed minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against gram positive S. aureus 0.03±0.0.01 at 0.9g/mL. Maximum percentage scavenging by DPPH assay was shown by the bark methanolic extract of S. suaveolens showed 78.317% at 500µg/mL. IC 50 values methanolic extract of bark of S. suaveolens 25.81µg/mL. Highest antioxidant activity was displayed by methanol extract of bark of S. suaveolens , i.e0.896±0.13. Leaf chloroform extract of S. suaveolens showed maximum FRAP value, i.e. 211µg/mL. Key words: antimicrobial, antioxidant assay, MIC, DPPH assay, IC 50.


JAK2V617F, a gain-of-function mutation in the tyrosine kinase JAK2, has been detected in most patients with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-negative classical myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). The identification of the JAK2 mutation in MPNs led to the development of JAK2 inhibitors, which suppress the symptoms of this disease. However, treatment with these inhibitors rarely leads to molecular remission and is associated with side effects caused by blockade of function of wild-type JAK2. In addition, resistance has been reported; therefore, a new therapeutic strategy based on understanding of MPN development is required. Here, we found that JAK2V617F dramatically upregulates cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter activity in HEK293T cells. By performing a reporter assay using luciferase, we found that a non-canonical AP-1 binding motif is responsible for this activation of the CMV promoter. By performing a series of biochemical analyses, including an electrophoresis mobility shift assay and a supershift assay with antibodies, we found that c-FOS, a member of the AP-1 family of proteins, bound to oligo duplex DNA containing the identified motif only when JAK2V617F was expressed. A reporter construct harboring the identified sequence alone showed a robust increase in reporter assay when JAK2V617F was induced, while mutation of the AP-1 binding motif abolished the response to JAK2V617F. The results showed that c-FOS overexpression alone is sufficient for activation of the promoter containing the non-canonical AP-1 binding site, demonstrating that c-FOS is a downstream target of JAK2V617F in CMV promoter activation. The activation of this reporter construct was also observed in leukemia cell lines UT-7/EPO and UT-7/GM when JAK2V617F is expressed, which implies that this activation is not limited to HEK293T cells. We found that the activation of AP-1 by JAK2V617F was partly due to robust induction of c-FOS mRNA (41 fold) followed by increase in c-FOS protein levels. In addition, we found that, the ubiquitin-proteasome protein degradation pathway responsible for c-FOS degradation was perturbed in HEK293T cells expressing JAK2V617F, which at least partly contributed to c-FOS protein accumulation and subsequent AP-1 activation. Multiple inhibitors of known downstream pathways of JAK2, such as the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-AKT signaling pathways, were analyzed using the reporter assay. The results showed that none of them suppressed JAK2V617F-dependent reporter activation. Furthermore, inhibition of the STAT pathway by expression of the dominant-negative form of STAT1, STAT3, or STAT5 failed to suppress AP-1 activation by JAK2V617F. Consistent with this observation, expression of the active form of STAT1, STAT3, and STAT5 did not affect AP-1 activity. Taken together, we conclude that AP-1 activation by JAK2V617F through c-FOS induction involves an unidentified molecular mechanism. Although our observation is limited to an in vitro system, our finding suggests that deregulation of AP-1 plays a role in MPN development. The AP-1 reporter assay system that we have established should be useful not only for screening novel compounds for MPN treatment but also in studying the novel pathway regulated by JAK2V617F, which would lead to the development of a novel therapeutic strategy against MPNs. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


In recent years, regardless of the diagnostic categories instead of disorder-specific approaches, the primary aspects of comorbidity among the prominent aspects of the transdiagnostic approach (TA), which advocates targeting these processes in treatment and identifying common processes underlying psychopathological signs and symptoms is important to solve the dilemma that will be treated as an subthreshold symptoms in order to offer treatment to people who do not fully meet any diagnosis.
Although there are many research articles on what are the transdiagnostic processes and the effectiveness of the TA, assessment tools that can be used to evaluate these processes collectively are limited to the Cognitive Behavioral Processes Questionnaire (CBPQ). Before this scale came into use, researchers tried to identify common processes with different methods. CBPQ was developed by Patel et al. as a self-report scale that allows to question the core processes previously defined in the literature, in line with the problematic areas that people face, based on the cognitive behavioral theory.
In this study, it was aimed to examine the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of CBPQ.


Playing music is about conveying emotions and the lighting at a concert can help do that. However, without a dedicated light technician, many bands have to miss out on lighting that will help them to convey the emotions of what they play. In this paper we aim to develop an intelligent system that detects the intended emotions of the played music and in real-time adjusts the lighting accordingly. Through state-of-the-art research on music and emotion, a row of cues is defined. This includes amount, speed, fluency and regularity for the visual and level, tempo, articulation and timbre for the auditory. By assessing such cues, the system is able to detect the intended emotion. Specific lighting designs are then developed to support these specific emotions. The results suggest that the intelligent emotion-based lighting system has an advantage over a just beat synced lighting and it is concluded that there is reason to explore this idea further.


Percutaneous subclavian implantation of an indwelling central venous catheter is an easy technique and provides convenient venous access for long-term intravenous therapy. Although rarely reported, spontaneous fracture of the catheter is an ominous complication which requires a prompt diagnosis and urgent treatment. We present a case of "pinch-off sign" resulting in a spontaneous fracture of an indwelling central venous catheter. A 49-year-old female breast cancer patient was admitted and Port-A-Cath was implanted for chemotherapy. Immediately after the implantation, fluid infusion and blood withdrawal was smooth until clinical "pinch-off sign" developed 3 weeks later. Chest X ray revealed no abnormal findings. Extravasation of antineoplastic drugs was noted 113 days after operation. Fracture of the indwelling catheter was found at the clavicle-rib junction. The fractured fragment was removed with a transvenous snare under fluoroscope. There was no hemodynamic derangement during the peri-operative period. Microscopy studies suggested that intermittent pressure on the catheter between the clavicle and the first rib may be responsible. The catheter wore on the medial side ue to a tearing and scissoring effect associated with free shoulder joint movement exerted additional forces on this wearing point which led to catheter fracture. The relationship between the spontaneous catheter fracture and "pinch-off sign" is reviewed. Our suggestions are: (1) By avoiding the traditional cannulation of the median subclavian vein, the lateral subclavian vein, infraclavicular axillary vein or internal jugular vein should be better routes for implantation. (2) Chest X ray (anterior-posterior and lateral view) should be examined routinely 3 weeks after the operation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Abstract Our topic concerns four relational modes of speaking and listening, and their relationship to truth and falsity. In a separate article, Part I introduced the topic and discussed the modes of diplomacy and integrity. The focus of Part II is on sincerity and authenticity, and on the interrelationship among all four modes and their differing functions in the totality of the clinical situation. Together the papers disentangle and address some of the technical issues that concern the relational group psychotherapist regarding topics of intersubjectivity, presentation of self, and self-disclosure. The four overlapping categories while nonexclusive are exhaustive; they supply conceptual references for the therapeutic stance one has adopted, allowing the therapist to be more aware of what he or she is doing and why.


Cheese whey utilization is of major concern nowadays. Its high organic matter content, in combination with the high volumes produced and limited treatment options make cheese whey a serious environmental problem. However, the potential production of biogas (methane), hydrogen or other marketable products with a simultaneous high COD reduction through appropriate treatment proves that cheese whey must be considered as an energy resource rather than a pollutant. The presence of biodegradable components in the cheese whey coupled with the advantages of anaerobic digestion processes over other treatment methods makes anaerobic digestion an attractive and suitable treatment option. This paper intends to review the most representative applications of anaerobic treatment of cheese whey currently being exploited and under research. Moreover, an effort has been made to categorize the common characteristics of the various research efforts and find a comparative basis, as far as their results are concerned. In addition, a number of dairy industries already using such anaerobic digestion systems are presented.


INTRODUCTION: With the progression of innovation and its joint effort with health care services, the world has achieved a lot of benefits. AI procedures and machine learning techniques are constantly improving existing statistical methods for better results in the medical field. These improved methods will assist health care providers in providing intelligent medical services. OBJECTIVES: This Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among the other female cancers. This cancer is preventable with early diagnosis. This reason becomes the motivation of the research work. For efficiently and timely prognosis of cervical cancer require a computer-assisted algorithm METHODS: The work demonstrated in this paper contributes to the techniques of machine learning for diagnosing cervical cancer. The machine learning algorithms used in this research are K Nearest Neighbour, Support Vector Machine and Random Forest Tree. These classification algorithms are used with class balancing techniques including undersampling, Oversampling and SMOTE. RESULTS: The evaluation metrics used for comparative analysis includes accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, negative predicted accuracy, and positive predictive accuracy. The results show the Random Forest algorithm with SMOTE technique delivered more promising results over SVM and KNN for four target variables Schiller, Biopsy, Hinselmann , and Cytology respectively. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that with the limited amount of data which also suffers from the unbalancing problem the promising results drawn using the proposed model.


In order to investigate the effect of regulated deficient irrigation (RDI) on some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the three commercial grapevine cultivars (i.e. Keshmeshi, Sahebi and Sharabi), an experiment was set in split plot arranged in an RCBD design with three replications. In this experiment, irrigation treatments including 100 (as control), 80%, 60% and 40% crop evapotranspiration (ETc) were implemented in a period between onset of berries color change (veraison) to harvest of fruits. At the end of experimental period, some traits such as berry weight, berry length, berry diameter and cluster weight as well as some fruit quality traits such as total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA), flavonoids, anthocyanin, total phenol, and total antioxidant capacity were measured. The results of this experiment revealed that effect of RDI at different levels on yield, berry and cluster weight, berry length and diameter, TSS, TA, anthocyanin, phenol, and flavonoid was significant. Also, there was no significant difference between control and 80% ETc in terms of yield, berry diameter, TSS, and TA; and these treatment enhanced total phenol, anthocyanin and antioxidant activity in the three cultivars. In both years of experiment, RDI remarkably enhanced anthocyanin, flavonoids, antioxidant activity and phenolic concentration. Overall, the results indicated that 80% ETc might be sufficient to gain adequate yield in Keshmeshi, Sahebi and Sharabi without undermining the quality of fruit.


Many OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have implemented national suicide prevention strategies. An accurate forecast of future suicide rate, if available, will be useful for planning and evaluation of a suicide prevention strategy. Therefore, we have developed a simple forecasting model of suicide rate for 15 OECD countries. We use the experience curve model with the data from 1960 to 2005 to forecast suicide rate for each of the 15 countries. In the experience curve analysis, the independent variable is the cumulative population size and the dependent variable is suicide rate for each country. For the 15 countries, the application of the experience curve generates the averaged experience slope of 61.2%, implying a reduction of 38.8% in suicide rate as the cumulative population size is doubled. Using the estimated experienced equation, we forecast both suicide rate and the number of deaths from suicide in years 2010, 2020 and 2030 for each of the 15 countries. The use of the experience curve generates long-term future suicide rate which may be useful input in developing a national prevention strategy.


We present a detailed comparison of two types of sequence to sequence models trained to conduct a compositional task. The models are architecturally identical at inference time, but differ in the way that they are trained: our baseline model is trained with a task-success signal only, while the other model receives additional supervision on its attention mechanism (Attentive Guidance), which has shown to be an effective method for encouraging more compositional solutions. We first confirm that the models with attentive guidance indeed infer more compositional solutions than the baseline, by training them on the lookup table task presented by Liska et al. (2019). We then do an in-depth analysis of the structural differences between the two model types, focusing in particular on the organisation of the parameter space and the hidden layer activations and find noticeable differences in both these aspects. Guided networks focus more on the components of the input rather than the sequence as a whole and develop small functional groups of neurons with specific purposes that use their gates more selectively. Results from parameter heat maps, component swapping and graph analysis also indicate that guided networks exhibit a more modular structure with a small number of specialized, strongly connected neurons.


The soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) from Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) is a multicomponent enzyme system required for the conversion of methane to methanol. It comprises a hydroxylase, a regulatory protein, and a reductase. The reductase contains two domains: an NADH-binding and FAD-containing flavin domain and a ferredoxin (Fd) domain carrying a [2Fe-2S] cofactor. Here, we report the solution structure of the reduced form of the 98-amino acid Fd domain (Blazyk, J. L., and Lippard, S. J. Unpublished results) determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and restrained molecular dynamics calculations. The structure consists of six beta strands arranged into two beta sheets as well as three alpha helices. Two of these helices form a helix-proline-helix motif, unprecedented among [2Fe-2S] proteins. The [2Fe-2S] cluster is coordinated by the sulfur atoms of cysteine residues 42, 47, 50, and 82. The 10.9 kDa ferredoxin domain of the reductase protein transfers electrons to carboxylate-bridged diiron centers in the 251 kDa hydroxylase component of sMMO. The binding of the Fd domain with the hydroxylase was investigated by NMR spectroscopy. The hydroxylase binding surface on the ferredoxin protein has a polar center surrounded by patches of hydrophobic residues. This arrangement of amino acids differs from that by which previously studied [2Fe-2S] proteins interact with their electron-transfer partners. The critical residues on the Fd domain involved in this binding interaction map well onto the universally conserved residues of sMMO enzymes from different species. We propose that the [2Fe-2S] domains in these other sMMO systems have a fold very similar to the one found here for M. capsulatus (Bath) MMOR-Fd.


OBJECTIVES
Linezolid resistance mediated by the cfr gene represents a global concern due to its dissemination among multiresistant nosocomial pathogens such as MRSA and Enterococcus. In the present work, we have evaluated the in vitro transmission of cfr pSCFS7-like plasmids from two Staphylococcus epidermidis ST2 strains (SE45 and SE50) isolated in Spanish hospitals, to clinical MRSA and Enterococcus spp. isolates obtained in Japan, a country in which cfr has not been detected yet. We have also investigated alternative mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer involved in the spread of the cfr gene.

METHODS
MRSA (n = 16) and Enterococcus spp. (n = 8) clinical isolates were used as recipients in conjugative experiments. Bacteriophage-mediated transmission was tested using MR83a phage and N315, COL and Mu50 strains. A transformation assay was carried out using a natural competent strain derived from N315.

RESULTS
The SE45 strain was able to transfer the cfr gene to all strains tested, while transmission from SE50 was observed only to a few strains and with less efficiency. No transmission was observed to Enterococcus spp. isolates. Even though conjugation is thought to be the main mechanism of cfr dissemination, we have demonstrated that transduction can be considered an alternative pathway for transmission of the cfr gene between MRSA strains. However, the results suggest an absence of transmission by natural transformation.

CONCLUSIONS
Linezolid resistance mediated by cfr vectors, such as pSCFS7-like plasmids, can be efficiently transferred to clinical MRSA in Japanese isolates. After reaching the staphylococcal pool, the cfr gene could be spread among MRSA strains by either conjugation or transduction.


This data set is an LAZ (compressed LAS) format file containing LIDAR point cloud data. TASK NAME: USGS New Jersey CMGP Sandy Lidar 0.7 Meter NPS LIDAR lidar Data Acquisition and Processing Production Task USGS Contract No. G10PC00057 Task Order No. G13PD00854 Woolpert Order No. 073714 CONTRACTOR: Woolpert, Inc. This task is issued under Contract Number G10PC00057, as task order number G13PD00854. This task order requires lidar data to be acquired over several areas in New Jersey to include the entire counties of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, and Union and including Morristown National Historical Park are part of the New Jersey area of interest (AOI), and will be acquired as part of this task order. The total area of the New Jersey Sandy Lidar AOI is approximately 1312 square miles. The lidar was collected and processed to meet a maximum Nominal Post Spacing (NPS) of 0.7 meters. The NPS assessment is made against single swath, first return data located within the geometrically usable center portion (typically nearly 90 percent) of each swath. This acquisition was part of a larger effort designed to capture one other USGS task order AOI in New York. York.


The scintillation light distribution produced by photodetectors in positron emission tomography (PET) provides the depth of interaction (DOI) information required for high-resolution imaging. The goal of positioning techniques is to reverse the photodetector signal's pattern map to the coordinates of the incident photon energy position. By considering the DOI information, monolithic crystals offer good spatial, energy, and timing resolution along with high sensitivity. In this work, a supervised deep neural network was used for the approximation of DOI and to assess through Monte Carlo (MC) simulations the performance on a small-animal PET scanner consisting of ten 50 × 50 × 10 mm3 continuous Lutetium-Yttrium Oxyorthosilicate doped with Cerium (LYSO: Ce) crystals and 12 × 12 silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays. The scintillation position was predicted by a multilayer perceptron neural network with 256 units and 4 layers whose inputs were the number of fired pixels on the SiPM plane and the total deposited energy. A GEANT4 MC code was used to generate training and test datasets by altering the photons' incident position, energy, and direction, as well as readout of the photodetector output. The calculated spatial resolutions in the X-Y plane and along the Z-axis were 0.96 and 1.02 mm, respectively. Our results demonstrated that using a multilayer perceptron (MLP)-based positioning algorithm in the detector modules, constituting the PET scanner, enhances the spatial resolution by approximately 18% while the absolute sensitivity remains constant. The proposed algorithm proved its ability to predict the DOI for depth under 7 mm with an error below 8.7%.


Objective
This study investigated pre- and post-treatment tumor and lymph node dimension response rates and differences between side-effect profiles in patients with locally advanced inoperable nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving radiotherapy (RT) and concurrent chemotherapy (CT).

Materials and Methods
A total of 30 inoperable patients who had not previously received RT and having a mean age of 58.73±8.65 years with sufficient hematological reserves and normal hepatic and renal functions were included in the study. Those with pleural effusion, supraventricular lymph node metastasis, and N3 lymph node involvement were excluded. Group I (n=15) received a 21-day 75 mg/m2 cisplatin (D1) and 15 mg/m2 vinorelbine (D1, D8), whereas Group II (n=15) received 45 mg/m2 paclitaxel and AUC2 carboplatin weekly. RT was administered using a linear accelerator device with the 3D conformal RT technique at 6-18 MV energy with a 1.8-2 Gy fraction for 6-7 weeks.

Results
Patients were randomized into Group I receiving RT and concurrent cisplatin-vinorelbine and Group II receiving weekly paclitaxel-carboplatin CT. Pre- and post-treatment tumor and lymph node dimensions significantly differed in both groups (p<0.001 and p<0.01, respectively). No significant change was observed in post-RT tumor and lymph node dimensions in terms of applied CT regimens (p>0.05).

Conclusion
The significant response achieved with concurrent RT and CT in groups I and II in the local advanced stage of NSCLC is important for local tumor control. Responses to treatment in the group of two arms did not differ.


The enactment into law in January 1916 of the first installment of mandatory military service in modern British history was an event whose importance few scholars dispute. While invariably considered a significant break in the British political and military tradition, recent scholarship has tended to treat the passage of the first Military Service Act as an episode that has little new to tell us about the political rivalry within the coalition cabinet presided over by Herbert Henry Asquith since May 1915. No student of the compulsory service debate can deny that he has been warned off, as Lord Beaverbrook wrote in the late 1920s that close study of the politics of conscription in the Asquith coalition would be "tedious to the last degree." Most forbidding was the judgment of Lord Blake in his life of the Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law: "The question of conscription would indeed be a tedious topic to pursue through all its ramifications. The endless discussions, the attitudes taken by public men at various times, the compromises, the disputes, constitute a chapter in English history to which, no doubt in years to come dull history professors will direct their duller research students." Many historians of the world war who have found the subject less dull than implied above have concluded that it presents a straightforward story: the implementation of conscription came about because the traditional policy of voluntarism had proven insufficient to raise an army of adequate size. The episode has been judged essentially a triumph of the Tory right wing (with the collusion of the maverick Liberal David Lloyd George) over orthodox Liberalism.


Supervised deep learning requires a large amount of training samples with annotations (e.g. label class for classification task, pixel- or voxel-wised label map for segmentation tasks), which are expensive and time-consuming to obtain. During the training of a deep neural network, the annotated samples are fed into the network in a mini-batch way, where they are often regarded of equal importance. However, some of the samples may become less informative during training, as the magnitude of the gradient start to vanish for these samples. In the meantime, other samples of higher utility or hardness may be more demanded for the training process to proceed and require more exploitation. To address the challenges of expensive annotations and loss of sample informativeness, here we propose a novel training framework which adaptively selects informative samples that are fed to the training process. The adaptive selection or sampling is performed based on a hardness-aware strategy in the latent space constructed by a generative model. To evaluate the proposed training framework, we perform experiments on three different datasets, including MNIST and CIFAR-10 for image classification task and a medical image dataset IVUS for biophysical simulation task. On all three datasets, the proposed framework outperforms a random sampling method, which demonstrates the effectiveness of proposed framework.


Background: Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) is a group of heterogeneous myeloid clonal diseases originating from hematopoietic stem cells. It has been demonstrated that apolipoproteins A1(ApoA1) is associated with disease risk in many cancer types. However, there is a lack of evidence regarding the link between ApoA1 and MDS. This study was designed to investigate the prognostic value of ApoA1 levels in MDS patients. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 231 MDS patients to explore the prognostic value of the serum ApoA1 levels at diagnose. Patients were divided into high ApoA1 group and low ApoA1 group. The prognostic significance of it was determined by univariate and multivariate Cox hazard models.Results: MDS patients with low ApoA1 had significantly shorter overall survival (OS)(P<0.001) along with higher frequency of TP53 mutation(P=0.001). Based on univariate analysis, age (≥60 years), gender(male), lower hemoglobin level(<10g/dl), higher bone marrow blast percentage (>5%), poorer karyotype and higher IPSS-R score(P<0.0001) were significantly associated with OS. But low ApoA1 had no significantly for Leukemia-free survival (LFS)(P=0.359). Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis indicated that low ApoA1 level(≤1.02g/L) was also an independent adverse prognostic factor for OS in MDS(P=0.020). Conclusions: Decreased levels of ApoA1 could predict a poor prognosis independent of the IPSS-R and provide a novel evaluation factor for MDS patients.


The addition of Gd2O3 causes the glass system to be highly ionic resulting in increasing rigidity and the tendency of devitrification. Gd2O3 affects the strength governing the elastic properties of the glass. The elastic moduli of the prepared glasses are expected to increase with the addition of the Gd2O3 due to increasing net molecular weight of prepared glass resulting in strong connectivity and more compactness of the glass network. The objective of this present work is to study the elastic properties of TeO2-B2O3-ZnO doped Gd2O3 using a non-destructive ultrasonic technique. A series of {[(TeO2)0.7(B2O3)0.3]0.7(ZnO)0.3}1-x(Gd2O3)x glasses with x = 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05 mol were prepared by conventional melt-quenching method. Both longitudinal and shear ultrasonic velocities were measured using a pulse-echo method at a frequency of 5 MHz at room temperature. The elastic moduli (longitudinal modulus, shear modulus, Young's modulus and Bulk modulus), Poisson's ratio, Debye temperature, micro-hardness and softening temperature have also been quantified. The experimental results show that the elastic properties depend on the composition of the glass systems and the role of Gd2O3inside the glass network.


Let R be a commutative ring with identity and let R' denote the integral closure of R in its total quotient ring. The basic question that this paper is concerned with is: What finiteness conditions does the integral closure of a Noetherian ring R possess? Unlike the integral domain case, it is possible to construct a Noetherian ring R of any positive Krull dimension such that R' is non-Noetherian. It is shown that if dim R < 2, then every regular ideal of R' is finitely generated. This generalizes the situation that occurs in the integral domain case. In particular, it generalizes Nagata's Theorem for two-dimensional Noetherian domains.


Costa Rica's transport infrastructure sector has long suffered from insufficient and ineffective investment and maintenance spending, resulting in a congested and poor-quality transport network. Public spending has been below the OECD average and private sector participation is limited. The road network is extensive but of poor quality, railways are in disrepair and only slowly being reactivated after having been shut down in the 1990s, seaports quality and capacity are deficient. Internal transportation overly relies on private road vehicles as the public transport system, especially railways, is inadequate. As a result, the transport sector is the major source of greenhouse emissions. Major challenges hindering the sector performance are: excessive institutional fragmentation, which reduces transparency and accountability of public sector agencies, poor strategic planning, which results in haphazard infrastructure development and poor intermodal connections, aversion to private sector participation and absence of an infrastructure-project pipeline, which discourage private investment, poor project preparation and slow project execution due to no cost benefit analyses, unclear project selection criteria and insufficient stakeholder engagement.
This working paper relates to the 2016 OECD Economic Survey of Costa Rica (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-costa-rica.htm).


Objective: To evaluate the reliability of ultrasonographic (US) elastography of the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle and to define normal strain ratio and shear wave velocity (SWV) values in healthy infants. Methods: Two hundred healthy infants (mean age ± standard deviation, 1.64±1.78 month; 113 boys and 87 girls) were included in this prospective study. The thickness of bilateral SCM muscles was measured by B-mode ultrasonography, and the stiffness of SCM muscles was measured in both the longitudinal and transverse sections, symmetrical and extensional supine position, by using strain and shear wave elastography. The correlation between thickness and elastic values of the SCM muscle and the following possible influential factors were evaluated: sex, different sides of SCM muscle, different ultrasonic sections and different infant positions. Results: Both sex and the side of SCM muscle did not show significant correlation with the thickness or stiffness of the SCM muscle ( P > 0.05). The stiffness of SCM muscle in the longitudinal section was significantly greater than in the transverse section ( P < 0.05). The measurements of the SCM muscle in the stretching position were significantly greater than those in the symmetrical position ( P < 0.05). Conclusion: The stiffness of SCM measured by US elastography is affected by relative positions of the infants. Therefore, the factor should be taken into account when measuring the stiffness of SCM by US elastography. US elastography can evaluate the stiffness of SCM, which is helpful for clinical diagnosis and treatment of children with torticollis.


Multimodal image-text models have shown remarkable performance in the past few years. However, evaluating their robustness against distribution shifts is crucial before adopting them in real-world applications. In this paper, we investigate the robustness of 9 popular open-sourced image-text models under common perturbations on five tasks (image-text retrieval, visual reasoning, visual entailment, image captioning, and text-to-image generation). In particular, we propose several new multimodal robustness benchmarks by applying 17 image perturbation and 16 text perturbation techniques on top of existing datasets. We observe that multimodal models are not robust to image and text perturbations, especially to image perturbations. Among the tested perturbation methods, character-level perturbations constitute the most severe distribution shift for text, and zoom blur is the most severe shift for image data. We also introduce two new robustness metrics (MMI and MOR) for proper evaluations of multimodal models. We hope our extensive study sheds light on new directions for the development of robust multimodal models.


The Soft Gamma-ray Detector (SGD) is one of observational instruments onboard the ASTRO-H, and will provide 10 times better sensitivity in 60{600 keV than the past and current observatories. The SGD utilizes similar technologies to the Hard X-ray Imager (HXI) onboard the ASTRO-H. The SGD achieves low background by constraining gamma-ray events within a narrow field-of-view by Compton kinematics, in addition to the BGO active shield. In this paper, we will present the results of various tests using engineering models and also report the flight model production and evaluations.


People with dementia often have difficulty communicating. Nurses should ensure these difficulties are not due to physical problems such as a lost hearing aid. Taking time to understand them can help nurses to communicate effectively with people with dementia.


Research question: This paper investigates the impact that specific audit quality dimensions have upon European Union Banks' income smoothing behavior. Motivation: Although previous studies have investigated the characteristics of audit quality, little is known about the audit quality in the banking sector. Excessive risk taking and business complexity may further impair auditors' work and an audit's outcome may be conditioned upon banks' risk. Idea: We examine whether auditors' independence influences bank managers' decision to smooth income and whether this attribute depends on bank risk and systemic importance. We investigate the association between auditors' industry specialization and auditors' tenure with the level of Loan Loss Provisions Data: We use a sample of 133 banks from 26 European Union countries for the period 2006-2013. Tools: Similar to previous research, we use ordinary least squares analysis to test the results. Findings: Empirical findings provide evidence that the auditors' industry expertise limits management's discretion of high-risk banks to a greater extent relative to low risk banks. In contrast, our results imply that banks that retain the same auditor for a consecutive fiscal year are more likely to engage in income smoothing through LLPs. Furthermore, our study examines whether audit quality dimensions have different outcomes on income smoothing decisions between globally systemically important banks (GSIBs) and the rest of banks. Our results provide evidence that the impact of industry specialization and auditor tenure on EU banks accounting policy decisions differs between GSIBs and non-GSIBs. Contribution: Our analysis contributes in the existing body of research by focusing on the impact of audit quality on managements' accounting discretion and the influence of banks' special attributes on the audit process.


Continental sediments filling major extensional block-faulted basins in the rock record traditionally are ascribed to plate margin rifting. The Triassic Cuyo basin of central Argentina is such a continental sedimentary basin, which contains over 3,600 m of interbedded fluvial, lacustrine, and volcanic deposits and which produces about 98,000 BOPD. It, however, formed within a back-arc tectonic setting as a reentrant into the Pampean craton prior to the onset of compressional deformation. The southern half of this basin (about 9,000 km2) was studied using logs and cutting descriptions from 101 exploratory wells. The basin began as a series of subparallel fault blocks and accumulated at least 2,750 m of fining-upward detritus in its first cycle of sedimentation. Initial deposits were oxidized lithic conglomeratic units confined by elongated grabens. As faulting waned, high-gradient fluvial sandstones became prevalent (41%), derived primarily from reworking of interbedded felsic tuffs (29%). The end of tensional faulting is marked by widespread bituminous lacustrine shales that form the source beds for oil production. Broad basin subsidence, probably associated with lithospheric cooling, initiated a second episode of basin sedimentation in which tuffs and sediments containing fluvial sandstones (48%) markedly overlap the original basin boundaries. Sandy lag conglomerates of an intermontane brai ed-stream system cap the interval. These deposits were temporarily interrupted by valley basalt flows (Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous), which are similar in composition to diabase dikes of the underlying strata. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1449------------


Human-robot interaction through music in real environments is essential for humanoids, because such a robot makes people enjoyable. We thus developed a beat-tracking robot which steps, sings, and scats according to musical beats predicted by using a robot-embedded microphone, as a first step to realize a robot which makes a music session with people. This paper first describes the beat-tracking robot, and then evaluated it in detail at the following three points: adaptation to tempo changes, robustness of environmental noises including periodic noises generated by stepping, singing and scatting, and human-robot interaction by using a clapping sound. The results showed that our beat-tracking robot improved noise-robustness and adaptation to tempo changes drastically so that it can make a simple sound session with people.


Usage of code-switching in the scene of stand-up comedy is one of many creative strategies for comedians to deliver jokes and connect with a multilingual audience; however, not many employ this strategy, especially in Malaysia. Malaysian stand-up comedians rarely use code-switching in the delivery of their jokes as many use the local variety of English in achieving humour. Codeswitching enables comedians to reach out to the audience and ensures their jokes are delivered more effectively and appreciated by the audience. Centring upon the use of code-switching from English to Malay in two stand-up comedy performances by a well-known Malaysian artist, Harith Iskander, this paper delves into the frequently used forms and functions of code-switching found in the performances. Shana Poplack's categorisation of code-switching and Hoffman's functions of code-switching frame the basis of this descriptive analysis. Both the frameworks are used to determine the types of code-switching used and its functions. The findings show that intrasentential code-switching is the most used in one performance while tag switching is used most frequently in the other performance. The discrepancy of outcomes between the two performances is a result of language accommodation by the comedian for the target audience; the first performance is targeted to a Malay audience while the second performance has a more diverse audience. In terms of functions of code-switching in both performances, they differ only in frequencies; where code-switching is mostly used to talk about a particular topic and express group identity in the first performance while in the second, it mainly functions as interjection. The overall results show that the target audience influences the way code-switching is used by stand-up comedians in order to engage with them. The findings indicate that code-switching becomes less prominent when the audience is more diverse. This implies that the type of audience influences the extent and limits on code switching in stand-up comedy. This research can benefit stand-up comedians regarding the incorporation of code-switching in delivering jokes.


Asthma is one of the most common chronic non-communicable diseases, and characterized by airflow obstruction with variable respiratory symptoms and variable airflow limitation. Several risk factors that predispose to asthma and several triggers which are environmental factors that worsen asthma in a patient with established disease have been identified. Psychological factors can induce bronchoconstriction, and many asthmatics report worsening symptoms with stress and anxiety. We describe a patient with bronchial asthma who developed a severe asthmatic attack in response to intense anxiety. As the asthmatic attack became more severe, also the anxiety became more intense and progressed to a hysterical attack with "loss of consciousness". This was followed, almost immediately, by termination of her asthmatic attack. To the best of our knowledge, no similar case has been previously reported. J Med Cases. 2018;9(7):226-228 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jmc3092w


The results of studies of the properties of liquid crystals in a version of gas adsorption–absorption chromatography are surveyed. A general property of liquid crystals deposited on active adsorbent carriers, consisting in the possibility of extending the temperature range of the existence of their mesomorphic state, is revealed. The bibliography includes 94 references.


Mask manufacturers are facing major reticle metrology challenges, driving the need for
cost‐effective solutions that provide tighter registration specifications and on‐device
registration qualification.
E‐beam mask writers' local registration error may have a critical impact on the error
contribution of the reticles to wafer overlay, as it is very local and most likely is not
revealed with standard quality control schemes and sampling. The reticle error
signatures are, of course, writing‐strategy‐dependent, but may also be caused by
residual deflector alignment issues, thus leading to a very local but potentially critical
non‐correctable overlay error on the wafer. Since the e‐beam writer strategy does not
differ significantly between ArFi masks and EUV masks, we expect a similar error
signature for both mask types.
We will present data which demonstrates local registration errors that can be correlated
to the writing swathes of state‐of‐the‐art e‐beam writers and multi‐pass strategies,
potentially leading to systematic device registration errors versus design of close to 2nm.
Furthermore, error signatures for local charging and process effects are indicated by
local registration measurements resulting in systematic error, also on the order of 2nm.
A unique measurement methodology, Local Registration Metrology, is presented that
allows for dense sampling of reticle dies to characterize the local e‐beam registration
error. Several thousand sites in a region of interest with length and width of a few
hundred microns are measured. LMS IPRO metrology algorithms enable parallel
registration measurement of all individual sites for fast and accurate metrology. High
throughput allows completion of Local Registration measurement within a few minutes
instead of exceeding a day of measurement time with conventional registration
metrology strategies. This capability enables mask users to add local registration quality
control to ensure the local wafer pattern placement error contribution by a mask is
within the acceptable tolerance.
In addition, based on the results of Local Registration Metrology, e‐beam mask writer
corrections via feed forward can now be developed to significantly reduce local overlay
error on wafer caused by the reticles.