Federal governments considering potential regulatory actions compare the estimated costs and benefits of alternative potential actions. Appropriate decisions can be made only if both costs and benefits are accurately and completely assessed. Unfortunately, the quantification of benefits is severely limited by the state of current methods, data and knowledge. Consequently, incomplete analyses are done, and the appropriate comparison of costs and benefits is impossible. For valuing children's health effects in particular, additional complications arise. For instance, because classical economic benefit analysis uses a human capital approach, i.e., time lost' to persons due to adverse health is valued based on the current wage rates (productivity losses), the children's time losses are valued at zero. And because cost-of-illness studies only include the lost time of individuals suffering illness, the time lost to children's caretakers is also omitted. Other omissions exacerbate the underestimation. For instance, many birth defects are associated with an increased risk of physiologically related (but etiologically unrelated) conditions, such as increased ear infection rates among children with cleft lips or palates. These events tend to be underestimated in cost-of-illness studies. Another omission is the disproportionate academic underachievement of children with birth defects, compared to siblings and other control groups. This effort seeks to fill in some of the gaps related to the monetization of one class of birth defects associated with numerous environmental exposures: cleft lip and/or palate.


In everyday practice of a dermatologist for years there has been a steady increase of patients struggling with skin disorders in the course of acne vulgaris from its mild to medium intensification. Thus the role of an effective therapy, fast, mild, and with the least side effects possible, is crucially important. The solution is a topical combined treatment which additionally allows for a comfort of use which in turn guarantees so very important good patient-doctor cooperation. The choice of the type of preparation becomes the basic dilemma. It is the reason behind numerous researches on groups diversified in terms of patients' age, background, residence, severity of the dermatosis and its cause. Thanks to the gathered information concerning the clinical response to topical application of substances such as, among others, antibiotics, benzoyl superoxide or adapalene in both monotherapy and combined treatment, and comparing combined preparations available on the market, pointing to the most suitable one presents far less difficulty. The data presented by the analyzed literature shows, primarily, the superiority of introducing combined treatment over singular substances. The authors agree on the benefits of applying combined preparations containing clindamycin and benzoyl superoxide in concentration of 5% or 3%, which everyday application guarantees therapy's safety and the proper choice of a medium minimizes side effects, in turn helping with maintaining skin being treated. Better tolerance combined with effectiveness in case of patients with especially sensitive skin should characterize 3% form and it is the one recommended. Complying with the described methods of treatment directly influences the satisfaction of both patients and doctors.


The overarching purpose of this thesis was to investigate the beneficial effects of congruent visual, auditory, and tactile presentation on navigation performance. Overall, the results show that multisensory presentation is advantageous. An important aspect of this finding is that multisensory performance was always equal to or higher than the best unisensory 102 Chapter 8 performance. Therefore, we expect that presenting multisensory information in virtual environment applications has only positive effects. Of course, the cost of implementing multisensory environments (e.g. investment) should be lower than the benefits (e.g. reduction of training time; return on investment). While we report positive effects of multisensory presentation in all chapters of this thesis, we have only conducted a single experiment which shows that multisensory presentation actually improves navigation. It is yet unclear to what extent the effects of this experiment will carry over to a wider range of virtual environmental applications. Further research is required to provide adequate guidelines when and when not the implementation of (congruent) multisensory presentation is advisable. We have two comments relevant to this issue. Firstly, the investigation of multisensory presentation in virtual environments in this thesis was limited to local landmarks (i.e. landmarks that are only observable from their immediate surroundings). Many more elements in a virtual environment can be made multisensory and the benefits thereof need not necessarily be the same to those for multisensory local landmarks. Global landmarks (i.e., landmarks that are observable from any location within a large area; e.g. a church tower), environments (e.g. urban or rural), and displacement (e.g. footsteps and/or engine sounds) can all easily be presented congruently in audition and vision. Displacement could also be presented to touch. Even if memory and navigation benefits for these elements are not as large as those we report for local landmarks, the benefits may all add up when everything is presented congruently in multiple sensory modalities. A second and final consideration for the implementation of congruent multisensory presentation is that sensory channels only have a limited bandwidth. This means that if, for example, one chooses to use auditory and/or tactile modalities to present information complementary and congruent with the visual modality - and the auditory and tactile resources are used to the full extent - that the auditory and tactile modalities cannot be used to convey other and perhaps more beneficial information. For instance, the presentation of auditory information may interfere with our ability to communicate. On the other hand, multisensory presentation gives the navigator the option to ad hoc use a sensory modality for other purposes without fully reducing navigation performance. In conclusion, our experiments show that multisensory presentation benefits perceptual, memory, and navigation performance. In addition, our experiments have provided further insight in the mechanisms underlying multisensory interactions. They imply that the presentation of multisensory information in virtual environments may help to overcome some of the current difficulties associated with navigating virtual environments. We expect that multisensory presentation increases a navigator's ability to learn information about the environment and helps him or her to select better routes, thus improving the navigator's ability to find his way in a virtual environment.


Biofuels developed from biomass crops have the potential to supply a significant portion of our transportation fuel needs. To achieve this potential, however, it will be necessary to develop improved plant germplasm specifically tailored to serve as energy crops. Liquid transportation fuel can be created from the sugars locked inside plant cell walls. Unfortunately, these sugars are inherently resistant to hydrolytic release because they are contained in polysaccharides embedded in lignin. Overcoming this obstacle is a major objective toward developing sustainable bioenergy crop plants. The maize Corngrass1 (Cg1) gene encodes a microRNA that promotes juvenile cell wall identities and morphology. To test the hypothesis that juvenile biomass has superior qualities as a potential biofuel feedstock, the Cg1 gene was transferred into several other plants, including the bioenergy crop Panicum virgatum (switchgrass). Such plants were found to have up to 250% more starch, resulting in higher glucose release from saccharification assays with or without biomass pretreatment. In addition, a complete inhibition of flowering was observed in both greenhouse and field grown plants. These results point to the potential utility of this approach, both for the domestication of new biofuel crops, and for the limitation of transgene flow into native plant species.


Process reuse (the ability to construct new processes by assembling already built ones) and process harvesting (the ability to build generic processes
that may be further reused, from existing ones) are two crucial issues in
process technology. Both activities involve defining a set of mechanisms,
like abstraction, adaptation, composition, etc. which are appropriate to
achieve their goals. In this report, we define a general framework to
process reuse and harvesting that proposes a complete set of mechanisms to
deal with both activities. This general framework is particularized to the
context of a process modelling language to model software processes, called
PROMENADE. A definition of the identified reuse and harvesting mecha-nisms
is proposed in the context of PROMENADE. Finally, two process reuse case
studies which composes various reuse mechanisms are presented.


Lynch syndrome (LS) is the most prevalent cancer predisposition syndrome in which germline mutation in one of four DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2 causes significantly increased lifetime risks of colorectal, endometrial, ovarian, and other cancers. Whether or not breast cancer is part of LS tumor spectrum is currently debated. Moreover, the reasons for organ selectivity in germline mutation carriers are unknown. We have reported that breast carcinoma from LS individuals resembles common breast carcinoma in many respects, but differs with respect to genomic instability (Lotsari et al. 2012, Cancer Res.). To extend these preliminary observations, we are now carrying out an in-depth investigation into the spectra of somatic mutations in LS and sporadic breast carcinomas. All available breast carcinomas among 300 LS families from the nation-wide Hereditary Colon Cancer Registry of Finland have been identified and the tumors investigated for MMR status, DNA methylator phenotype, mechanisms of two-allele inactivation for MMR genes, and somatic mutation status. For the latter, we use massive parallel sequencing as described in our recent publication (Porkka et al. 2017, Oncotarget). To define the unique vs. shared molecular features of LS breast tumorigenesis, profiles of somatic alterations in LS breast carcinomas are compared to those of established LS spectrum carcinomas (colorectal and ovarian) as well as sporadic breast carcinomas with sequence information available from large electronic data-sets. Of 14 LS breast carcinoma samples, 9 (64 %) were MMR-deficient and 5 (36 %) MMR-proficient. This contrasts with LS colorectal and ovarian carcinomas, all of which were MMR-deficient (p=0.0012). MMR-deficient LS breast carcinomas harbored an average of 783 non-synonymous mutations and MMR-proficient tumors 555 mutations (statistically non-significant). In contrast to colorectal and ovarian carcinomas, in which loss of heterozygosity (LOH) or somatic MMR gene mutation provided a second hit consistent with two-hit inactivation in 89 % (25/28) of the tumors, a detectable second hit (mainly LOH) was present in only 43 % (6/14) of breast carcinomas (p=0.0025). Genes harboring high-frequency mutations in at least one-third of tumors were regarded candidates for driver genes. There were 133 such genes in LS colorectal carcinomas, 10 in ovarian carcinomas, and 18 in breast carcinomas. Genes involved in epigenetic regulation were significantly enriched in all three tumor types. In addition, a significant enrichment of NOTCH signaling associated genes characterized LS breast carcinomas. This research is likely to shed light to the mechanisms of organ-specific cancer susceptibility in germline carriers of MMR gene mutations. Our results are expected to guide the surveillance and other clinical management of LS individuals with breast carcinoma. Citation Format: Noora Porkka, Alisa Olkinuora, Satu Maki-Nevala, Samuli Eldfors, Paivi Peltomaki. Tumorigenesis in Lynch syndrome: Somatic mutation profiles compared to sporadic counterparts [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5369.


In this study, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is hypothesized to examine the connection among SO2 emission, economic growth, trade liberalization, energy consumption and population density in Pakistan with annual data from 1970-2008. The co integration analysis using Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach is used. The outcomes support the hypothesis both in short-run and long-run and inverted U shaped relationship is found between SO2 emission and growth. Interestingly we found trade support the environment positively and population contributes to environmental degradation in Pakistan. The energy consumption and growth are the major explanatory variables which contribute to environmental pollution in Pakistan. Moreover, the time series data analysis is utilized and the stability of variables in estimated model is also evaluated.


Abstract The Centre for Mountain Studies (CMS) is located at Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland. Since its establishment in 2000, staff and students at the CMS have been active in research and knowledge exchange activities at all scales, from the local, in Scotland, to the global. Projects in Scotland have focused mainly on estates, wild land (see below), and forests. Work across part, or all, of Europe has addressed mountain foods (see below), adaptation to climate change, large-scale regional planning, and the characterization of Europe's mountains. At the global scale, the CMS has been involved in activities relating to sustainable mountain development, global change, interdisciplinary research, and biodiversity conservation. The CMS also runs a part-time online MSc in Sustainable Mountain Development. This article summarizes some recent and ongoing activities. More information, including additional published references, is available on the CMS website.


Modern software systems are usually highly configurable, providing users with customized functionality through various configuration options. Understanding how system performance varies with different option combinations is important to determine optimal configurations that meet specific requirements. Due to the complex interactions among multiple options and the high cost of performance measurement under a huge configuration space, it is challenging to study how different configurations influence the system performance. To address these challenges, we propose HINNPerf, a novel hierarchical interaction neural network for performance prediction of configurable systems. HINNPerf employs the embedding method and hierarchic network blocks to model the complicated interplay between configuration options, which improves the prediction accuracy of the method. In addition, we devise a hierarchical regularization strategy to enhance the model robustness. Empirical results on 10 real-world configurable systems show that our method statistically significantly outperforms state-of-the-art approaches by achieving average 22.67% improvement in prediction accuracy. In addition, combined with the Integrated Gradients method, the designed hierarchical architecture provides some insights about the interaction complexity and the significance of configuration options, which might help users and developers better understand how the configurable system works and efficiently identify significant options affecting the performance.


There is a higher Human Papilloma Virus peak prevalence in younger women (18 - 25 years) of university age. The undergraduate university students are more at a risk of acquiring cervical cancer because they are at the stage of exploring which predisposes them to risky behavior like early sexual intercourse and multiple sexual partners among others. This creates a need for cervical cancer screening in the population. The facilitators and barriers to cervical cancer screening have been studied in the Ugandan general population but little is known among University students which this study is taking interest. Objective: This study is aimed at determining the facilitators, barriers and background factors associated to cervical cancer screening among female undergraduate students in Makerere University. Methods: Four hundred twenty-two (422) female undergraduate students of Makerere University who fit the eligibility criteria were recruited in this descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study. A self-administered semi structured questionnaire was administered to these participants chosen by convenient sampling. Data collected was analyzed using SPSS version 23 software and logistic regression models was used. Results: Less than a half of (21.1%) of the participants had ever screened for cervical cancer. At multivariate analysis, only year of study and married status were associated to cervical cancer screening with a P-values were of (0.015) and (0.001) with a (1.173 - 4.261) and (1.594 - 6.130) 95% CI respectively. The facilitators agreed upon by participants included: Access to free cervical cancer screening services, adequate knowledge about cervical cancer screening and advice from a friend, family or physician among others. The reported barriers to screening were fear of bad result, low risk perception and fear of embarrassment among others. Conclusions and Recommendations: Among the female undergraduate students of Makerere University, only 21.1% had screened for cervical cancer. Therefore, there is a critical need for university based cancer education campaign on cervical cancer and the benefits of screening. Screening services should be integrated into the existing university medical services.


Adaptive Multilevel Splitting (AMS for short) is a generic Monte Carlo method for Markov processes that simulates rare events and estimates associated probabilities. Despite its practical efficiency, there are almost no theoretical results on the convergence of this algorithm. The purpose of this paper is to prove both consistency and asymptotic normality results in a general setting. This is done by associating to the original Markov process a level-indexed process, also called a stochastic wave, and by showing that AMS can then be seen as a Fleming-Viot type particle system. This being done, we can finally apply general results on Fleming-Viot particle systems that we have recently obtained.


One hundred and eighty-three patients with early colorectal cancer (mucosal or submucosal carcinoma) were treated endoscopically or surgically from 1962 through 1984 at our hospital. Regional lymph node metastasis was recognized in 6 among 98 submucosal cancers. Lymphatic vessel permeation of cancer cells was also found in 31.8% of submucosal cancers. Local recurrence was observed in 3 patients with submucosal cancer. From our experience, the policy of treatment for early cancer was discussed and proposed. If the growth is pedunculated or small sessile polyp endoscopic polypectomy should be performed and bowel resection must be subsequent when histological examination of resected specimen showed massive cancer invasion to the stalk or submucosal layer. If the growth does not have stalk and is diagnosed early cancer, bowel resection with dissection of surrounding tissues should be recommended for high security, because these growth has more frequently submucosal invasion. For early rectal cancer, transanal or trans-sacral local wedge excision for mucosal or submucosal minute invasion cancer and trans-sacral sleeve resection with dissection of mesorectal tissues for submucosal invasive cancer. When histological examination of resected specimen showed unexpectively more massive invasion near to or into propria muscle layer, more wide bowel resection must be subsequent. If sm massive cancer locates near to anal canal, limited Miles' operation must be also in mind, preserving voiding and sexual functions.


Second-order semantic parsing with end-to-end mean-field inference has been shown good performance. In this work we aim to improve this method by modeling label correlations between adjacent arcs. However, direct modeling leads to memory explosion because second-order score tensors have sizes of $O(n^3L^2)$ ($n$ is the sentence length and $L$ is the number of labels), which is not affordable. To tackle this computational challenge, we leverage tensor decomposition techniques, and interestingly, we show that the large second-order score tensors have no need to be materialized during mean-field inference, thereby reducing the computational complexity from cubic to quadratic. We conduct experiments on SemEval 2015 Task 18 English datasets, showing the effectiveness of modeling label correlations. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/sustcsonglin/mean-field-dep-parsing.


Sudden death occurs in patients after repair of congenital heart disease. In those with tetralogy of Fallot, or a similar lesion, ventricular tachycardia has been hypothesized as the major arrhythmic mechanism for sudden death. It would be desirable to identify individuals at risk for sudden death, to determine which arrhythmia would be likely to cause sudden death, and to treat those individuals with an appropriate antiarrhythmic to prevent sudden death. For the last 10 years, physicians have been treating patients with antiarrhythmic drugs, based on a number of criteria, the most common of which is the presence of premature ventricular contractions.1,2 The practice has recently been called into question by the CAST trial. It is the purpose of this paper to review the evidence that repair causes ventricular arrhythmias, that ventricular arrhythmias cause sudden death, and that ventricular arrhythmias should be treated prophylactically.


Intravenous leiomyomatosis is an uncommon vascular tumor that may be seen with potentially life-threatening symptoms resulting from intracardiac extension. This tumor is frequently misdiagnosed and treated without appropriate preoperative imaging and planning, which at times leads to inadequate treatment and incomplete resections. The appropriate therapy is complete excision of the tumor. We describe a patient who was treated with a new approach involving a single-stage operation without the need for median sternotomy, cardiopulmonary bypass graft, or hypothermic arrest by resection of the tumor from the point of attachment in the abdominal portion of the inferior vena cava.


Muscle contraction and insulin induce glucose uptake in skeletal muscle through GLUT4 membrane translocation. Beneficial effects of exercise on glucose homeostasis in insulin-resistant individuals are known to be due to their distinct mechanism between contraction and insulin action on glucose uptake in skeletal muscle. However, the underlying mechanisms are not clear. Here we show that in skeletal muscle, distinct Ca2+ second messengers regulate GLUT4 translocation by contraction and insulin treatment; d-myo-inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate/nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP) and cyclic ADP-ribose/NAADP are main players for insulin- and contraction-induced glucose uptake, respectively. Different patterns of phosphorylation of AMPK and Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II were shown in electrical stimuli (ES)- and insulin-induced glucose uptake pathways. ES-induced Ca2+ signals and glucose uptake are dependent on glycolysis, which influences formation of NAD(P)-derived signaling messengers, whereas insulin-induced signals are not. High-fat diet (HFD) induced a defect in only insulin-mediated, but not ES-mediated, Ca2+ signaling for glucose uptake, which is related to a specifically lower NAADP formation. Exercise decreases blood glucose levels in HFD-induced insulin resistance mice via NAADP formation. Thus we conclude that different usage of Ca2+ signaling in contraction/insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle may account for the mechanism by which exercise ameliorates glucose homeostasis in individuals with type 2 diabetes.


An experiment on Tinda Gourd cv. local was conducted at the experimental area of Faculty of Agriculture, Gomal University, D.I. Khan during 1995 to determine the best date of sowing for obtaining high yield. Experiment comprises six dates of sowing viz. 28th Feb., 10th March, 20th March, 30th March, 9th April and 19th April, 1995. The parameters in this regard were days taken to germinate, flowering, fruit setting, maturity of first fruit, vine length (cm), fruit weight (g), number of fruits per vine and yield (tones/ha). The results obtained were significantly differed at 5% level of probability. The studies pertaining effect of different sowing dates showed that early seed sowing of Tinda speed up the germination days, flowering, fruit setting, maturity of first fruit and vine length. The yield results indicated that March is the best date of the sowing Tinda gourd under the agro-climatic conditions of D.I. Khan. This study also revealed early sowing to give better yield performance than late sowing.


Offline signature verification is one of the most challenging tasks in biometrics and document forensics. Unlike other verification problems, it needs to model minute but critical details between genuine and forged signatures, because a skilled falsification might often resembles the real signature with small deformation. This verification task is even harder in writer independent scenarios which is undeniably fiscal for realistic cases. In this paper, we model an offline writer independent signature verification task with a convolutional Siamese network. Siamese networks are twin networks with shared weights, which can be trained to learn a feature space where similar observations are placed in proximity. This is achieved by exposing the network to a pair of similar and dissimilar observations and minimizing the Euclidean distance between similar pairs while simultaneously maximizing it between dissimilar pairs. Experiments conducted on cross-domain datasets emphasize the capability of our network to model forgery in different languages (scripts) and handwriting styles. Moreover, our designed Siamese network, named SigNet, exceeds the state-of-the-art results on most of the benchmark signature datasets, which paves the way for further research in this direction.


The enhanced cooperation procedure has recently acquired a new popularity with EU policy-makers. Yet, the use of enhanced cooperation has also come under scrutiny, with the ECJ being asked to rule for the first time on the matter in the legal challenges brought by Spain and Italy against the decision of the Council to authorize enhanced cooperation for the creation of a unitary patent protection regime. This article examines the Treaty rules on enhanced cooperation and seeks to provide a coherent reconstruction of the function of this procedure in the constitutional system of the EU. As the article argues, an historical and systematic interpretation of positive law suggests that enhanced cooperation is finalized toward multi-speed integration in the EU. As a result, Member States are allowed to resort to this instrument only when they disagree whether to act jointly at the EU level but not when they disagree how to do so. In light of this framework, the article critically examines Spain & Italy v. Council of the EU, dealing with the legality of enhanced cooperation in the creation of a unitary patent and concludes, contrary to the opinion of the AG and the judgment of the ECJ, that Spain and Italy were legally right in challenging the Council decision: despite their unreasonable position from a policy-making perspective, the Council had misused its powers in authorizing an enhanced cooperation in the case.


Melanoma is the most deadly skin cancer, and its incidence is growing. EZH2, a member of the Polycomb Group (PcGs) proteins family, plays an important biological role in the occurrence and development of melanoma. EZH2 germline genetic polymorphisms have not been yet evaluated in melanoma predisposition. Three hundred thirty sporadic Italian melanoma patients and 333 healthy volunteers were genotyped to analyse the association between EZH2 variants rs6950683, rs2302427, rs3757441, rs2072408 and melanoma risk. The functionality of rs6950683 alleles was investigated in keratinocytes (HaCat), melanoma cells (A375) and human embryonic kidney cells (HEK293), using promoter‐reporter assays. Genotype distribution of SNPs showed that rs6950683T and rs3757441C alleles were positively associated with melanoma risk (P = .003 and .004, respectively). Haplotype analysis revealed that TCCA and CCCG haplotypes were associated with a higher risk of melanoma (P = .02 and .04, respectively). Functional assays demonstrated that allele rs6950683T reduce promoter activity in the three cell lines analysed compared to C allele. rs6950683T and rs3757441C alleles in the EZH2 gene appear positively associated with melanoma risk in the analysed population. In addition, we demonstrated for the first time the functional role of rs6950683 upstream polymorphism on EZH2 gene expression regulation.


Aim: To determine the frequency of malignancy in solitary thyroid nodule. Methods: This study was carried out in the Outpatients and inpatient department of Surgery Ibn-eSiena Hospital, Multan from July 2013 to June 2014. A total of 124 patients were included in the study. Results: Majority of the patients i.e. 53(42.7%) were between 31-40 years, mean and SD was 33.45+6.32, 95 (76.6%) were female and 39(23.4%) were male. Malignancy in solitary thyroid nodule (on histopathology) shows 19(15.3%) were malignant and 105(84.7%) were benign. Stratification of malignant solitary thyroid nodule shows out of 19 malignant cases 6(31.9%) were between 13-20 years 2(10.5%) were between 21-30 years, 4(21.1%) between 31-40 years. Conclusion: It is concluded from the study that a remarkable proportion of solitary thyroid nodule (15.3%) was malignant, which emphasizes on the early diagnosis and adequate treatment.


Exoskeleton Robot is one of the most significant examples of human-oriented robotic devices. Nevertheless, the main challenge remains the complexity of their mechanical design and human-robot interfaces. This paper is an outcome of a research to model and to simulate the support of mobility of an elderly people using exoskeleton. Exoskeleton is developed in order to complement the corporal deficiencies of an elderly person in standing up and sitting down. When the natural joint torques is integrated with the exoskeleton's torque the result is in an overall torque that is comparable to that of a physically normal person. This work focuses on standing-up and sitting-down movements. Appropriate simulation models are formulated and their performances examined against measured data. The results with PID control show that at different speed of standing up and sitting down, the joint torques can be compromised. This is done within allowable limits.


As high-cost users of health care, people with disabilities or chronic conditions are particularly vulnerable to risk selection. Preferred risk selection, in which insurers avoid enrolling high-risk people, threatens their access to coverage. Adverse selection, in which high-risk people enroll in the most generous plans, compromises the financial viability of plans that are most responsive to their specific needs. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits some forms of risk selection, but does not prevent all disability-based distinctions in insurance practices. From a disability perspective, risk selection must be addressed in a manner that: (1) adequately reflects the health care costs of such individuals; (2) eliminates their need to engage in adverse selection; (3) does not stigmatize them; (4) preserves confidentiality of information; (5) uses substantial outcome measures to ensure quality; and (6) creates market conditions that discourage disability-based discrimination. A risk adjuster based on prior use/expenditures or on a diagnostic indicator sensitive to disability issues may be effective. Failure of reform to address risk selection may threaten the viability of a market-based health care system.


In order to evaluate the epidemiological characteristics of ulcerative colitis, we conducted a matched case-control study of ulcerative colitis. Fifty patients with ulcerative colitis diagnosed at three hospitals in Kyoto, Osaka and Hyogo Prefectures in Japan during 1984 and 1987 were interviewed about their habitual and pre-illness diets, personal habits, past histories and family histories. The results were compared to those for fifty healthy controls who were matched for sex and age (+/- 2 years) and participated in health-screening examinations in Kyoto or Osaka during the same period. Frequent intake of rice (4 or more bowls a day), bread (3 or more times a week), and green tea (7 or more cups a day) significantly increased the relative risk of ulcerative colitis. However, a past history of appendectomy was negatively correlated with the disease. There were no relationships between ulcerative colitis and consumption of animal foods and tobacco.


Entering the globalization era, education in Indonesia must follow competitive changes. All fields experienced shifts and challenges including educational institutions. Educational institutions will continue to experience changes and developments following the rapid development of information technology due to the influence of the entry of globalization era. The global demand demands the world of education to always adjust the development of technology to efforts in improving the quality of education. Many problems in the world of education include those related to the quality of education, such as the quality of graduates, the quality of teaching, and the quality of professionalism and teacher performance. It is also inseparable from leadership management, limited funds, facilities and infrastructure, educational facilities and media, resources, tools and materials, school climate, educational environment, and support from relevant parties. The purpose of the study was to determine and analyze the effect of teacher competence on the effectiveness of learning at the Pharmacy Pharmacy at Saraswati Denpasar. Denpasar. Teacher competency t test results obtained a significance level of 0.048 which is smaller and a significance of 0.05 means that teacher competence has a positive and significant effect on the effectiveness of Class X vocational pharmacy students in Denpasar. The results of this study were supported by the research. The results of the student discipline t test were obtained by obtaining a significance level of 0.004 which was smaller and significance = 0.05, meaning that student discipline had a positive and significant effect on the learning effectiveness of Class X students of SMK Saraswati Pharmacy Denpasar. The results of the t test of media facilities learning obtained significance level of 0.046 which is smaller and significance = 0.05 means the learning media means a positive and significant effect on learning effectiveness


. Improving the performance of nanocarriers remains a major challenge in the clinical translation of nanomedicine. Efforts to optimize nanoparticle formulations typically rely on tuning the surface density and thickness of stealthy polymer coatings such as poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). Here, we show that modulating the surface topography of PEGylated nanoparticles using bottlebrush block copolymer (BBCP) significantly enhances circulation and tumor accumulation providing an alternative strategy to improve nanoparticle coatings. Specifically, nanoparticles with rough surface topography achieve high tumor cell uptake in vivo due to superior tumor extravasation and distribution compared to conventional smooth-surfaced nanoparticles. Furthermore, surface topography profoundly impacts the interaction with serum proteins resulting in the adsorption of fundamentally different proteins onto the surface of rough-surfaced nanoparticles formed from BBCPs. We envision that controlling the nanoparticle surface topography of PEGylated nanoparticles will enable the design of improved nanocarriers in various biomedical applications.


This paper compares several recently proposed techniques for performing discriminant analysis in high dimensions, and illustrates that the various sparse methods dier in prediction abilities depending on their underlying assumptions about the correlation structures in the data. The techniques generally focus on two things: Obtaining sparsity (variable selection) and regularizing the estimate of the withinclass covariance matrix. For high-dimensional data, this gives rise to increased interpretability and generalization ability over standard linear discriminant analysis. Here, we group the methods in two: Those who assume independence between the variables and thus use a diagonal estimate of the within-class covariance matrix, and those who assume dependence between the variables and thus use an estimate of the within-class covariance matrix, which also estimates the correlations between variables. The two groups of methods are compared and the pros and cons are exemplied using dierent cases of simulated data. The results illustrate that the estimate of the covariance matrix is an important factor with respect to choice of method, and the choice of method should thus be driven by the nature of the problem at hand.


In this paper we consider the problem of reducing energy consumption during the transmission phase in WLANs. We found that for a given network configuration, channel characteristics, and packet length, an optimum RF transmission power level exists which assures a minimum energy expenditure for the actually transmitted bit of information. Based on this observation, we present a packet length dependent power control mechanism. We performed discrete event simulations of an IEEE 802.11 LAN in ad hoc mode using a two state Markov channel model. The achieved simulation results indicate a significant potential for energy saving. We also present a workable approach for choosing the most energy-saving RF transmit power level which is based on the perceived packet error rate of a single mobile.


Growth patterns from birth to maturity were compared for 92 straightbred Herefords (H) and 299 Hereford crossbred (XB) cows. Crossbred cows were out of Hereford dams and were sired by bulls of two British [Angus (A) and Shorthorn (Sh)], two Continental [Charolais (C) and Simmental (S)] and two American dairy breeds [Brown Swiss (B) and Holstein (F)]. British XB and H cows differed only slightly in weight but both weighed less than Continental and dairy XB cows. Body condition also differed significantly among breed types; dairy XB were thinnest. Among XB individuals SH calves were heaviest (34 kg) and AH calves were lightest (30 kg) at birth. Birth weights of Continental XB were 2.6 kg more than those of British XB and 1.7 kg more than those of dairy XB. At weaning, all XB calves were heavier than straightbred H calves, but differences among XB types were not significant. However, on the average, Continental XB and dairy XB calves were heavier (28 kg) than British XB at 19 mo. At 32 mo, Continental and dairy XB weighed 41 and 23 kg more, respectively, than British XB. Although differences between the British XB and the Continental and dairy XB at some ages were not significant, no case existed where the latter two groups weighed less than British XB. Adjusting weight to a common condition score reduced phenotypic variance at all ages and changed the ranking of some breed types for weight, primarily by increasing predicted weights of dairy XB. Differences in growth curves were reflected by differences in mature weight and maturing rate. Asymptotic weights of Continental XB were highest, followed by those of dairy XB. British XB and H weighed least at maturity (average of 509 kg). The CH cows matured more slowly but grew to a heavier mature weight (592 kg) than SH cows (552 kg). Generally animals reached 95% of their mature weight between 68 and 80 mo of age.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of floral inductors in the floral differentiation of pineapple in the conditions of Rio Branco, AC, Brazil. The experimental design was a complete randomized block in factorial 3 x 2 x 2, with four replications, three pineapple cultivars combined (RBR-1, SNG-2 and SNG-3), two floral inductors (calcium carbide- CaC2 and (2 chloroethyl) phosphonic acid -ethefon) and two application times (10 and 12 months after planting). The plants induced with ethefon after 10 months presented larger floral differentiation (96.25%) when compared with CaC2 (62.92%). The floral differentiation was superior significantly in the plants induced after 12 months with CaC2 (85.42%) when compared with 10 months (62.92%).


This article discusses Nancy Abelmann's scholarship on the university and includes a new study of the South Korean media discourse on Chinese international students—a work she planned but could not undertake. Abelmann studied the university, viewing it as a window to society's particular desires and anxieties regarding the future. Her research on South Korean university students reveals their personal fervor and struggle to stay afloat amidst the country's rapid modernization and globalization. Her later work on the American university considers the struggles of Asian American and Asian international students, illuminating the new realities of a global educational market and exploring new ethics of sharing the same university. The study in the second part of this article demonstrates how South Korean universities and public discourse have attempted to "optimize" the increasing numbers of Chinese international students as financial and symbolic capital. The shift between 2001 and 2016 from maximizing to distancing shows that Korean universities were straddling a line between the desire to become global institutions and the realization that they are a second-choice destination in the global higher-education market.


1031 An 83-year-old woman is referred for lead extraction as a result of pacemaker pocket infection. She has a history of atrial fibrillation and complete heart block after an AV node ablation. A left-sided pacemaker was placed in 2007. One month before admission, she developed urosepsis, followed by an infection of the pacemaker pocket. Blood cultures revealed methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus. She was admitted to an outside institution where the device was removed, but the leads were left in place after a failed attempt to remove the leads with traction alone. A new single-chamber pacemaker was placed on the right side. On presentation to our institution, the patient appeared quite ill. Physical examination documented congestive heart failure and evidence of pocket infection at sites on both the right and left sides of the chest. Serum chemistry was significant for worsening renal function. A chest x-ray demonstrated a large right pleural effusion. The patient was taken to the hybrid operating room for further management. A transesophageal echocardiogram performed under general anesthesia showed a large pericardial effusion compromising ventricular filling, and a pericardial drain was placed. A temporary pacing wire was placed in the right ventricular apex via a femoral approach. The recently implanted right-sided pacemaker system could then be removed with traction under fluoroscopic guidance. The 2 left-sided leads were extracted with locking stylets and a laser sheath. Both wounds were extensively debrided, and bilateral wound vacuums were placed. An active fixation pacemaker lead was then placed via a right internal jugular approach and connected to a previously used, resterilized pacemaker to provide temporary/permanent right ventricular pacing. Finally, a right-sided chest tube was placed. The patient remained hospitalized for 2 weeks for management of her infected pacemaker sites and sepsis, with her initial care in the intensive care unit and with collaboration with medical teams from cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, and infectious disease. A new left-sided pacemaker system was subsequently placed, and the patient is doing well after discharge from the hospital. This recent case at our institution highlights many of the challenges encountered in managing patients with cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) infections. An early diagnosis and knowledge of indications for lead extraction are paramount to patient survival. Equally important is the overall management of the patient, including the procedural approach, pacing requirements, and wound care. Finally, successfully managing these often very complex patients can be done only through a team approach using a hospital's many resources. These aspects of CIED infection management are discussed in this review.


Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of zakat fund on the food expenditure of the households to assess the impact of zakat fund on the agricultural production of the households and to assess the opinion of the zakat recipients on food security status under zakat program. Design/methodology/approach - – Samples were selected for this study using the simple random sampling (SRS) technique. A total of 149 households were selected from 196 households. A survey was conducted during January to March 2011 among the project beneficiaries using questionnaire. The ordinary least squares technique was used to assess the impact of zakat on food security status of the zakat recipients. Heteroscedasticity problem was detected in this study which was corrected using White's method. Logit model was used to assess the opinions of the zakat recipients on their food security status under the Hasana project. Findings - – This study shows that amount of zakat provided to the poor recipients failed to create any significant influence on their agricultural production, food expenditure and food security status. The study also shows that household income, family members' involvement in agricultural activities and numbers of income-generating activities pursued by the households were the key determinants of households' food consumption. Originality/value - – This study helps in assessing the opinion of the zakat recipients about the effectiveness of the zakat program on their living standard in terms of household agricultural production and food security and also assisting in policy planning for alleviating rural poverty in Bangladesh through the zakat system.


Studies evaluating the influence of health literacy on patient behavior and outcomes suggest a positive relationship between health literacy and health knowledge, health behaviors, and health status. In Latin American countries, studies assessing health literacy are few, regional, and demonstrate considerable variation, with reported rates of adequate health literacy ranging from 5.0% to 73.3%. In this paper, we examine and explore the state of health literacy and efforts to promote it in Latin America. Key challenges to those efforts include socioeconomic inequality, social/geographic isolation, and cultural-, language-, and policy-related barriers, many of which disproportionately affect indigenous populations and others living in rural areas. Greater use of infographics, videos, and mobile apps may enhance health literacy and patient empowerment, especially when language barriers exist. This paper provides strategies and tools for tailored programming, examples of successful health literacy interventions, and policy recommendations to improve health literacy in Latin America, intending to spur additional discussion and action. Centrally organized collaboration across multiple sectors of society, with community involvement, will enhance health literacy and improve health and well-being across Latin America.


A technique for implementing Ada with reasonable effort on a piece of non‐standard hardware is described. The target machine is a single processing element in an experimental multiprocessor based on NS32000. A portable Ada front‐end compiler was used for retargeting, and the process of acquiring and evaluating the front end is described. Based on this experience, comments on the validation, quality and efficiency of Ada compilers are given, along with a detailed overview of the resultant system. The Ada system was built from scratch on the bare hardware. It has three main components: a code generator, a run‐time system and an Ada kernel. The code generator is table driven and generates symbolic NS32000 assembler. This code is then assembled and linked by commercially available components. The run‐time system and the kernel are implemented in assembly language and Concurrent Euclid and handle tasking, exceptions and scheduling. The result is a complete Ada implementation.


A column-type truss structure is generally unstable without diagonal bracing members. It is, however, mechanically stable in so-called hanging configuration due to the effect of gravitational force. This kind of structure can isolate an apparatus installed at its tip end from the influence of the vibration of the support ceiling, where the hanging truss structure is placed. The relationship between the stress and strain of the shape memory alloy (SMA) material in relatively high temperature condition has a hysteretic loop, which can be adopted for the purpose of vibration attenuation and isolation. A truss structure with bracing SMA wires in hanging configuration is expected to possess both of the abilities of vibration isolation and attenuation. In this study, optimal placements of SMA wires are obtained by a GA-based approach from the vibration isolation and attenuation points of view under the constraint condition of the number of the SMA wires. Crossover and mutation operators in order to deal with the constraint condition of the number of SMA wire members are proposed. The non-dominated Pareto fronts are obtained for the cases of various numbers of SMA wire members. On the basis of the calculations, it has been confirmed that the number and the placement of the SMA wires are significant factors on the effects of vibration isolation and attenuation. Most of the optimal configurations have one common feature that the SMA wires are distributed close to the middle of the hanging truss structures and there are few SMA wires at the truss units near the support ceiling as well as the peripheral end. The placements of SMA wires in optimal solutions show, however, a tendency of decentralization in the case of emphasis on vibration isolation.


Increasing the energy efficiency of the housing stock has been one of the largest challenges of the built environment in the Netherlands in recent decades. Parallel with the energy transition there is an ongoing revaluation of the architectural quality of pre-war residential buildings. In the past, urban renewal was traditionally based on demolition and replacement with new buildings. This has changed to the improvement of old buildings through renovation. Housing corporations developed an approach for the deep renovation of their housing stock in the period 1995–2015. The motivation to renovate buildings varied, but the joint pattern that emerged was quality improvement of housing in cities, focusing particularly on energy efficiency, according to project data files from the NRP institute (Platform voor Transformatie en Renovatie). However, since 2015 the data from the federation of Amsterdam-based housing associations AFWC (Amsterdamse Federatie Woningcorporaties) has shown the transformation of pre-war walk-up apartment buildings has stagnated. The sales of units are slowing down, except in pre-war neighbourhoods. Housing associations have sold their affordable housing stock of pre-war property in Amsterdam inside the city's ring road. The sales revenue was used to build new affordable housing far beyond the ring road. This study highlights the profound influence of increasing requirements established by the European Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) and the revised Housing Act of 1 July 2015, for the renovation of the pre-war housing stock. The transformation process to climate-neutral neighbourhoods inside the ring road is slowing down because of new property owners, making a collective heat network difficult to realize; furthermore, segregation of residents is appearing in Amsterdam.


The Kurganov scheme is a third-order semi-discrete central numerical algorithm. The high solution of the scheme is ensured by a piecewise quadratic non-oscillatory reconstruction which consists of the cell-average data. We employ a modification of the smooth limiter of reconstruction in a simple way. The modified limiter possesses rigorous positivity and the reformulation does not change the non-oscillatory property of reconstruction. In order to explore the potential capability of application of the modified Kurganov scheme to magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and resistive magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD) equations, two numerical problems are simulated in two dimensions (2D). These numerical simulations demonstrate that the modified Kurganov scheme keeps high precision and has stable reliable results for MHD and RMHD applications.


Background: Because cosmetic laser treatments are getting popular, post-laser wound care becomes more important. Currently, topical moisturizers are reported to be sufficient to accelerate re-epithelialization and reduce downtime in post-laser wound care. Objective: This study was performed to evaluate the effects of the moisturizer APDDR-1001 for post-laser wound care, after ablative fractional laser on the face. Methods: In this double-blind, split-face study, 41 patients with photo-aged face received ablative fractional laser. They were divided into two groups, APDDR-1001 and vehicle (group 1) or control moisturizer (group 2), which were applied to the opposite sides of the face for 1 week after the laser treatment. The treatment efficacy was evaluated by the transepidermal water loss (TEWL), erythema index, investigator's assessment for recovery in erythema and overall improvement of the wound. Subjects ranked irritating symptoms and overall satisfaction ratings in the overall improvement. Results: APDDR-1001 was well-tolerated and showed improvement in the erythema index and TEWL during the 7 days of treatment. In group 2, improvement in erythema graded by investigators was significantly higher for APDDR-1001 on day 3 (p<0.05). The overall improvement of wound ranked by investigators was significantly higher for APDDR-1001, compared with the controls in both groups. Subjective assessment demonstrated significantly less erythema (p=0.043), edema (p=0.041) and overall satisfaction ratings in the overall improvement (p <0.048) with APDDR-1001; however, no differences were detected in pain and edema between APDDR-1001 and vehicle (group 1). In group 2, subjects ranked 'much or very much improved' in 75 % of APDDR-1001 side and 55% of control moisturizer side. No significant differences in erythema, edema, pain and itching were reported between APDDR-1001 and control moisturizer in group 2. Conclusion: The moisturizer APDDR-1001 demonstrated effective improvements in wound healing and subjective symptoms after ablative fractional laser therapy. (Korean J Dermatol 2012;50(12):1017∼1026)


Magnesium silicates are thought to be the major components of the mantle of terrestrial planets and the core of giant planets (Guillot, 1999; Seager et al., 2007). However, the thermodynamic phase equilibrium in the MgO-SiO2 system is still not well studied at multi-megabar, including melting relations. A recent laser shock experience reported two discontinuous phase changes in MgSiO3 at 300-400 GPa (Spaulding et al., 2012), but an ab initio molecular dynamics study identified no clear transition in MgSiO3 liquid (Militzer, 2013). Boates and Bonev (2013), on the other hand, examined a decomposition reaction of liquid MgSiO3 into solid MgO and liquid SiO2 and reported that liquid MgSiO3 is dissociated at ~300 GPa. This result implies a possible incongruent melting. However, the reaction they considered is too simple and unrealistic. The detailed phase diagram in the MgO-SiO2 system is therefore required to be clarified at multi-megabar. In this study, we perform ab initio free energy calculations based on the thermodynamic integration method (Kirkwood, 1935) and determine the melting phase relation in this binary system.


1. Interspecific niche differences have long been identified as a major explanation for the occurrence of species-rich communities. However, much fieldwork studying variation in local species richness has focused upon physical habitat attributes or regional factors, such as the size of the regional species pool. 2. We applied indices of functional diversity and niche overlap to data on the species niche to examine the importance of interspecific niche differentiation for species richness in French lake fish communities. We combined this information with environmental data to test generalizations of the physiological tolerance and niche specialization hypotheses for species-energy relationships. 3. We found evidence for a largely non-saturating relationship (relative to random expectation) between species richness and functional evenness (evenness of spacing between species in niche space), while functional richness (volume of niche space occupied) peaked at moderate levels of species richness and niche overlap showed an initial decrease followed by saturation. This suggests that increased niche specialization may have allowed species to coexist in the most species-rich communities. 4. We tested for evidence that increased temperature, local habitat area, local habitat diversity and immigration affected species richness via increased niche specialization. Temperature explained by far the largest amount of variation in species richness, functional diversity and niche overlap. These results, combined with the largely non-saturating species richness-functional evenness relationship, suggest that increased temperature may have permitted increased species richness by allowing increased niche specialization. 5. These results emphasize the importance of niche differences for species coexistence in species-rich communities, and indicate that the conservation of functional diversity may be vital for the maintenance of species diversity in biological communities. Our approach may be applied readily to many types of community, and at any scale, thus providing a flexible means of testing niche-based hypotheses for species richness gradients.


The gamma-ray energy regime beyond 10 TeV is crucial for the search for the most energetic Galactic accelerators. The energy spectra of most known gamma-ray emitters only reach up to few 10s of TeV, with 80 TeV from the Crab Nebula being the highest energy so far observed significantly. Uncovering their spectral shape up to few 100 TeV could answer the question whether some of these objects are cosmic ray Pevatrons, i.e. Galactic PeV accelerators. Sensitive observations in this energy range and beyond require very large effective detector areas of several 10s to 100 square-km. While imaging air Cherenkov telescopes have proven to be the instruments of choice in the GeV to TeV energy range, very large area telescope arrays are limited by the number of required readout channels per instrumented square-km (due to the large number of channels per telescope). Alternatively, the shower-front sampling technique allows to instrument large effective areas and also naturally provides large viewing angles of the instrument. Solely measuring the shower front light density and timing (hence timing- arrays), the primary particle properties are reconstructed on the basis of the measured lateral density function and the shower front arrival times. This presentation gives an overview of the technique, its goals, and future perspective.


The lack of any markers for oligodendrocyte precursors that can be visualized within the intact CNS is a significant barrier to trials of transplantation of these cells which aim to enhance remyelination in multiple sclerosis. We have therefore asked whether dextran-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) can be used to label cells prior to transplantation and then visualized within the brain using MRI. We have shown that an oligodendrocyte precursor cell line CG-4 will take up dextran-coated SPIO particles in vitro. The label remains within the cells after transplantation into adult rat brain, as assessed by electron microscopy, and is visible by MRI as a reduction in signal intensity at the transplant site at both 1 and 7 days after surgery. We conclude that MRI detection of SPIO-labelled cells represents a promising and novel approach to the analysis of oligodendroglial cell behaviour following transplantation that has very significant advantages over currently available methods.


Economic conflict crimes are defined in this paper as violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, as well as domestic law, associated with military and political conflict and producing significant monetary as well as other forms of suffering for civilians. Criminologists are well positioned by disciplinary emphasis to document and explain military and political violence resulting in economic conflict crimes. Criminal victimization associated with the US-led invasion of Iraq imposed an enormous toll on civilians. Yet there is little attention by criminologists or others to the profound economic costs to Iraqis, whether through lost property, life, or opportunities. We cautiously estimate that the economic losses for households in the city of Baghdad alone were almost US$100 billion, and more than three times this amount for the entire country, with Sunni groups experiencing significantly greater losses than others. So far as we know, our article presents the first estimates of civilian losses from economic conflict crimes that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq. These losses were widespread and systematic, the hallmarks of crimes against humanity.


The reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) has become a moderately common practice in most countries; Hence, rejuvenating materials with RAP have earned publicity in the asphalt manufacturers, mainly due to the increasing raw material costs. In this study, the crumb rubber (CR) and waste frying oil (WFO) utilized as waste materials to restore the properties and enhance the rutting resistance of the RAP. Several physical, rheological, chemical properties of bituminous binders were tested. The result showed that the RAP bituminous binders incorporating WFO and CR decreased softening points and the increased penetration value; these translate to an increase in penetration index. Moreover, the viscosity of the WFO/CR combination reclaimed asphalt pavement binder showed better workability and stiffness, as well as a low storage stability temperature (less than 2.2 °C) with an acceptable loss upon heating. Without chemical reaction was observed between the waste-frying oil with the rubberized binder and the reclaimed asphalt pavement binder. Additionally, the WFO/CR rheological properties combined with the reclaimed asphalt pavement binder were comparable to the control sample. The incorporation of CR with WFO as a hybrid rejuvenator enhanced the rutting resistance. Therefore, the presence of WFO/CR has a considerable influence on the RAP binder properties while preserving a better environment and reducing pollution by reusing waste materials.


Although heterotaxia or transposition of the viscera has been known since 1643, when Petrus Severimus 1 reported one of the earliest authentic cases, failure of rotation of the stomach, which Nau prefers to designate as "incomplete embryonic diaphragmatic hernia," is very exceptional. In the latter type of case the stomach is situated above the liver. Several excellent contributions have been made on the subject of heterotaxia. Gruber, 2 in 1865, collected seventy-nine instances, and Kuchenmeister, 3 in 1893, increased the number of known cases to 149. Price, 4 in 1895, reported 190 cases from the literature, and Arneille 5 brought up the total to 254 in 1902. With the advent of the roentgen ray, the number of authentic instances of transposition of the viscera has grown prodigiously. On the other hand, there is a great paucity in the report of cases of nonrotation of the stomach. Poillard, 6 in 1903,


Spin-dependent transport properties of micro- and nano-scale electronic devices are commonly studied by electrically detected magnetic resonance (EDMR). However, the applied microwave fields in EDMR experiments can induce large rectification effects and result in perturbations of the device bias conditions and excessive noise in the EDMR spectra. Here we examine rectification effects of silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors exposed to X-band microwave irradiation and show that the rectification effects can be effectively suppressed by incorporating a global capacitive shunt covering the device. We demonstrate that the signal-to-noise ratio in the EDMR spectra improves by over a factor of ten in the shunted devices.


Traditional classroom teaching is difficult to satisfy students' personalized learning. The main work of the thesis constructs knowledge point model which using relational model and constructs student model according to the students' interest characteristics, it uses improved k-means algorithm to analyze students' learning interest characteristics to dig out the interests of different students, and provide the advice for teaching strategies, so as to meet the demand of students' personalized learning. Ultimately we improve the teaching quality of teachers and students to learn the effect of teaching optimization purposes.


Researching and forecasting the ever changing space environment (often referred to as space weather) and its influence on humans and their activities are model-intensive disciplines. This is true because the physical processes involved are complex, but, in contrast to terrestrial weather, the supporting observations are typically sparse. Models play a vital role in establishing a physically meaningful context for interpreting limited observations, testing theory, and producing both nowcasts and forecasts. For example, with accurate forecasting of hazardous space weather conditions, spacecraft operators can place sensitive systems in safe modes, and power utilities can protect critical network components from damage caused by large currents induced in transmission lines by geomagnetic storms.


Background
Adherence is generally associated with improved treatment outcomes in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. Different components of the patient profile have an impact on patient adherence. Capturing nonadherent patients by identifying modifiable risk factors in daily practice still remains a challenge. The objective of this study was to identify modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors for nonadherence in IBD patients.

Methods
Patients filled out questionnaires including demographic, clinical, and socioeconomic information and accessibility to gastrointestinal services. Psychological features were assessed using the Sense of Coherence, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, IBD-Self Efficacy, and Brief Illness Perception (BIPQ) questionnaires. Adherence to treatment was evaluated using the Morisky score.

Results
The study included 311 patients: 62.4% females, median age 34.78 years, 70.4% Crohn's disease (CD). Multivariate analysis was done in 3 sections: demographic and disease characteristics, communication with medical staff, and psychological aspects; all included sex and disease type. Ulcerative colitis (UC) patients were less adherent (odds ratio [OR], 1.792; OR, 1.915; OR, 1.748; respectively). Females were less adherent in 2 sections (OR, 1.841; OR, 1.751; respectively). Employment (OR, 2.449), low score in on the BIPQ-understanding of disease (OR, 0.881), and poor communication with the gastroenterologist (OR, 1.798) were also predictors of low adherence.

Conclusions
Nonmodifiable characteristics such as female sex and UC are associated with low adherence. Good communication with the treating physician and understanding the disease are modifiable factors associated with high adherence. Early intervention might improve patients' adherence.


Previous research has indicated that feedback evaluation depends on its embedded context, and feedback related negativity (FRN) is also context-dependent. However, it is still disputed whether feedback evaluation merely relies on the global context (the range of all possible outcomes in a block) or also on the local context (the range of possible outcomes on a given trial). Thus, the current study investigated whether the context-dependent effect could be extended from the global context to the local context. We assumed that if feedback evaluation is in a global context-dependent manner, then all non-reward feedback in a given block should elicit a related negativity; however, if feedback evaluation is in a local context-dependent manner, then a related negativity should be discovered for the relative unfavorable feedback compared to the relative favorable feedback in a given trial context. In this study, twenty-five healthy participants (17 females; M age = 21.96 years old) performed a cued time-estimation task while EEG was recorded. Gain (a "+" surrounded with a circle)/loss (a "−" surrounded with a circle) cues were presented trial-by-trial at the beginning of each trial to indicate the context of this trial. Participants needed to estimate one second and then received factual feedback in accordance with their performance. In the gain context, correct and incorrect responses resulted in gain (+ ¥4; gain-favorable feedback) and no-gain (¥0; gain-unfavorable feedback), separately. In the loss context, correct and incorrect responses resulted in no-loss (¥0; loss-favorable feedback) and loss (− ¥4; loss-unfavorable feedback), separately. The behavioral results indicated that larger trial-to-trial changes in time estimation were observed after relative unfavorable feedback than relative favorable feedback. The ERP results revealed that more negative FRN occurred after relative unfavorable feedback than relative favorable feedback in both the gain and loss contexts. In addition, there was no significant difference between gain-favorable and loss-favorable feedback or between gain-unfavorable and loss-unfavorable feedback. In addition, gain-unfavorable feedback elicited a more negative FRN than loss-favorable feedback, although, in fact, both were zero-value feedback. The above results indicate that feedback evaluation relies on the local context. Based on the previous literature, we infer that the task and facticity of feedback are key factors giving rise to the discrepancies of the results between the previous studies and the current study. In passive tasks (i.e., the participants do not need to react), the good-bad binary evaluation of FRN cannot be observed as well as the context dependence effect. In active tasks with false feedback, global context dependence is found. In active tasks with factual feedback, the context dependence extends to the local level.


Two problems are considered in the present paper as examples of the integral method formulated in part I (the preceding paper). The first concerns arcs in uniform flow, and it is shown that the only form of steady solution, if the conductance shape factor is taken to be a function of power level, is the fully developed arc. A known solution of the full differential equations provides a test of the adequacy of the result. Free recovery is briefly discussed. The second problem concerns steady arcs in nozzles. With the assumptions of constant shape factors and negligible radiation, a simple model is derived which provides insight into behaviour as a nozzle-blocking condition is approached.


This article describes major changes in legal education between 1870 and 1900 and uses the University of Pennsylvania's experience with coeducation as the primary example. Generally speaking, the late nineteenth century was an era in which masculine terms defined law students and the legal profession itself. Part I of this article describes the historical roots of the University of Pennsylvania Law Department in an era in which legal education mostly took place through clerkships and private study with practicing lawyers. In the 1870s and before, women in particular found it difficult to gain access to such legal education because the unique nature of the clerk-mentor relationship. Part II of this article explores the professionalization of legal education in the 1870s and beyond. Office-based education lost its dominance in legal education, due to the demise of the judicial circuit, specialization of legal practice, changes in technology, and increased demand for education from previously underrepresented groups. Although the decision in 1881 to admit a female law student was a landmark event in the history of the University of Pennsylvania, the Law Department remained a uniquely male sphere. Part III describes the school's masculine vision of legal education and the legal profession. Carrie Burnham Kilgore, the first female student, was permitted to attend law lectures, but she was excluded from most extracurricular activities. Part IV details the school's transition to the modern era. In the 1890s, more women began to enroll in the Law School. These women created opportunities for themselves, formed their own moot court club, and held the same kind of mock trials that their male counterparts did. In challenging the masculine nature of legal education, Kilgore and the women who followed her rightfully became shapers of law and defenders of liberty in their own right.


To date, little information is known about the operation of the enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) process in tropical climates. Along with the global concerns on nutrient pollution and the increasing array of local regulatory requirements, the applicability and compliance accountability of the EBPR process for sewage treatment in tropical climates is being evaluated. A sequencing batch reactor (SBR) inoculated with seed sludge from a conventional activated sludge (CAS) process was successfully acclimatized to EBPR conditions at 28 °C after 13 days' operation. Enrichment of Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis in the SBR was confirmed through fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). The effects of operational pH and influent C:P ratio on EBPR were then investigated. At pH 7 or pH 8, phosphorus removal rates of the EBPR processes were relatively higher when operated at C:P ratio of 3 than C:P ratio of 10, with 0.019-0.020 and 0.011-0.012 g-P/g-MLVSS•day respectively. One-year operation of the 28 °C EBPR process at C:P ratio of 3 and pH 8 demonstrated stable phosphorus removal rate of 0.020 ± 0.003 g-P/g-MLVSS•day, corresponding to effluent with phosphorus concentration <0.5 mg/L. This study provides the first evidence on good EBPR activity at relatively high temperature, indicating its applicability in a tropical climate.


A firm that requires external financing can rely on either debt or equity, but both have an asymmetric information problem which may prevent obtaining financing. In the case of debt financing, the higher the level of informational asymmetry between the firm and the lender, the more difficult it will be for the lender to ascertain the firm's credit quality. In some cases, identifying a firm's quality may be so difficult that the lender may simply ration credit. Because of this asymmetry in lending and the possibility of credit rationing by banks, firms may decide to hold high levels of cash so they can take advantage of positive net present value (NPV) projects even when credit is tight. However, if a firm holds cash, it should not need as much bank financing as it otherwise would. Thus the bank may incur a cost by encouraging cash holdings, namely the loss of potential loans to those firms. Hence, Cash management is the process whereby the cash inflows and outflows are controlled so that current obligations will be met in time and any excess cash will earn income. Specifically, it aims at determining the level of cash holdings by Nepalese manufacturing enterprises. With this in mind, samples of Nepalese manufacturing firms have been used to conduct a study with secondary data. First, regression model is used to test for the existence of an optimal cash holding in this study. The study based on twelve manufacturing enterprises covering the period 1999-2012. The study is reveals that cash holdings are positively affected by the investment opportunity set and cash flows while negatively affected by asset's liquidity, interest rate, leverage and size in Nepalese manufacturing enterprises. The Journal of Development and Administrative Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1-2, pp. 1-14, 2014


Partial peripheral nerve injury in adult rats results in neuropathic pain-like hypersensitivity, while that in neonatal rats does not, a phenomenon also observed in humans. We therefore compared gene expression profiles in the dorsal horn of adult and neonatal rats in response to the spared nerve injury (SNI) model of peripheral neuropathic pain. The 148 differentially regulated genes in adult, but not young, rat spinal cords indicate a greater microglial and T-cell response in adult than in young animals. T-cells show a large infiltration in the adult dorsal horn but not in the neonate after SNI. T-cell-deficient Rag1-null adult mice develop less neuropathic mechanical allodynia than controls, and central expression of cytokines involved in T-cell signaling exhibits large relative differences between young and adult animals after SNI. One such cytokine, interferon-γ (IFNγ), is upregulated in the dorsal horn after nerve injury in the adult but not neonate, and we show that IFNγ signaling is required for full expression of adult neuropathic hypersensitivity. These data reveal that T-cell infiltration and activation in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord following peripheral nerve injury contribute to the evolution of neuropathic pain-like hypersensitivity. The neuroimmune interaction following peripheral nerve injury has therefore a substantial adaptive immune component, which is absent or suppressed in the young CNS.


Evaporative technology for lithium mining from salt-lakes exacerbates freshwater scarcity and wetland destruction, and suffers from protracted production cycles. Electrodialysis (ED) offers an environmentally benign alternative for continuous lithium extraction and is amenable to renewable energy usage. Salt-lake brines, however, are hypersaline multicomponent mixtures, and the impact of the complex brine-membrane interactions remains poorly understood. Here, we quantify the influence of the solution composition, salinity, and acidity on the counterion selectivity and thermodynamic efficiency of electrodialysis, leveraging 1250 original measurements with salt-lake brines that span four feed salinities, three pH levels, and five current densities. Our experiments reveal that commonly used binary cation solutions, which neglect Na+ and K+ transport, may overestimate the Li+/Mg2+ selectivity by 250% and underpredict the specific energy consumption (SEC) by a factor of 54.8. As a result of the hypersaline conditions, exposure to salt-lake brine weakens the efficacy of Donnan exclusion, amplifying Mg2+ leakage. Higher current densities enhance the Donnan potential across the solution-membrane interface and ameliorate the selectivity degradation with hypersaline brines. However, a steep trade-off between counterion selectivity and thermodynamic efficiency governs ED's performance: a 6.25 times enhancement in Li+/Mg2+ selectivity is accompanied by a 71.6% increase in the SEC. Lastly, our analysis suggests that an industrial-scale ED module can meet existing salt-lake production capacities, while being powered by a photovoltaic farm that utilizes <1% of the salt-flat area.


Responses to enslavement are automatically seen as struggles (heroic or otherwise), but in the case of the English Caribbean colonies, the claim was irately made by pro-planter factions, reacting to criticism, that the enslaved Africans were not struggling, they were happy and better off than the poor in England and the idea of hideous enslavement was a prejudiced distortion. Evidence presented was the universal singing, dancing and carousing of the enslaved. A conviction that is really at the base of this irate retort is that society is inescapably hierarchical, with happiness as the ideal for the lower classes and pride or valour as the ideal only for the rulers. The question that may be asked then is: What should the oppressed do – reject this view, fight and die valiantly if necessary or try to survive by amusing themselves and making the best of a bad situation? The fact that the most popular images of the Caribbean today are those of "play" (carnivals, Bob Marley, Rihanna, Usain Bolt), not heroism (as in Haiti) seems to show what option the enslaved in the English colonies chose. A Response to Enslavement addresses the dilemma that the enslaved Africans (mostly young people) faced and how they dealt with it. Peter Roberts examines the critical role of play in human existence as the basis for its role in their response to enslavement and suggests that in a world today where people resort to catastrophic acts of suicide to win their struggles, the choices of the enslaved present a viable alternative.


We developed and successfully tested a mobile version of the approach-avoidance task (AAT). Approach-avoidance motivations play an important role in a variety of health-related behaviours, ranging from addictions to eating behaviours. The classical AAT has long been a useful tool to measure as well as train these motivations. However, the hardware required to set up the AAT has so far restricted research to the laboratory. To overcome this limitation we developed a mobile version of the AAT which runs entirely on a regular smartphone.

Here, we tested 64 participants with both the classical AAT and the mobile AAT. Participants approached and avoided pictures of happy and angry faces by pulling or pushing a joystick (classical AAT) or a smartphone (mobile AAT) towards or away from themselves. Reaction times and reaction forces were measured.

The mobile AAT successfully detected a known approach-avoidance effect, in which participants pulled happy faces faster than angry faces, but pushed happy faces slower than angry faces (p<0.001, η2_partial=0.266). Additionally, with the mobile AAT, we were the first to detect an approach-avoidance effect on movement force. Participants used more force to pull happy faces than angry faces but less force to push happy faces (p=0.006, η2_partial=0.131).

Given these exciting results, we believe that the mobile AAT will provide a powerful tool for health professionals to research and to train approach-avoidance motivations in the field. One of these field studies, in which we measure approach-motivations towards healthy and unhealthy foods, is currently under way.


Security is an important challenge in internet based communication. In such a scenario, intrusion detection systems help to secure the data through the identification of normal and abnormal behaviors. In order to model these behaviors accurately and to improve the performance of the intrusion detection system, a temporal oriented heuristic genetic neural network (THGNN) is proposed in this paper. In this model, feature selection, structure design and weight adaptation are jointly in considered to analyze the interdependence of input features which helps to modify the network structure and connection weights. Moreover, the genetic algorithms are proposed to work with input nodes and hidden nodes. The crossover operator based on temporal constraints are introduced and considering the relationship between genotype and phenotype. Moreover, a temporal logic based adaptive mutation rate is applied, and the mutation operation is performed heuristically from time based weight adaptation, node manipulation. When the population is not evolved continuously for a time interval, the mutation rate is increased and the mutation type is changed. This temporal heuristic approach helps to perform weight adjustment effectively. Experimental results obtained using the KDD-99 dataset show that the proposed THGNN achieves better detection accuracy in terms of increased detection rate and decreased false positive rate. firstname.lastname@example.com


Determining economic and financialviability and socioeconomic impact of mounting a poultry farm lift line beeding and marketing in canal of broiler in the twon of florence


Respiratory illnesses are increasingly recognised as a growing concern for healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients. The recent hospital-based outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has once again highlighted the vulnerability of HCWs. The new epidemic of the 21st century resulted in tremendous economic and psychological impact with its high rates of mortality and nosocomial transmission. Even as the epidemic was brought under control within months, many details about the SARS coronavirus remained a mystery. The threat of another potential global outbreak continues to lurk in the background. Many valuable lessons have been learned through the SARS epidemic. It is, therefore, timely for us to review some of the respiratory pathogens that are well-known to cause nosocomial outbreaks. We need to be better armed to deal with future potential outbreaks and biohazardous situations. The importance of safeguarding the health of our medical staff and the community cannot be over-emphasised. In this paper, we review the incidence, transmission and various preventive strategies of respiratory illnesses in HCWs, in particular, new diagnostic tools, infection control management strategies, personal protective equipments, vaccination programmes and post-exposure prophylaxis.


ABSTRACT Working in agriculture has been associated with an increased prevalence of psychological distress and mental health concerns. Farmers are also less likely than non-farmers to seek-help for their mental health. Previous research examining help-seeking among farmers has focused predominantly on male farmers, and has not included many of the Canadian agricultural commodity groups or provinces. The goal of this study was to explore perceptions of farmer help-seeking for mental health amongst farmers and people who work with farmers. The study objectives were to characterize the motivations and barriers to help-seeking behaviours. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 75 farmers and individuals who work with farmers in Ontario, Canada, between 2017 and 2018. Interviews were conducted in person, and by telephone when needed. Topics of discussion included farming stresses and their impacts; personal well-being; agricultural crises and mental health help-seeking; use of mental health supports; motivators and barriers to help-seeking; and perceived ideals for mental health supports. Thematic analysis was conducted collaboratively by three authors using inductive and deductive coding. Our analysis resulted in five themes around help-seeking motivations and barriers: 1) Accessibility of mental health supports and services; 2) Stigma around mental health in the agricultural community; 3) Anonymity and/or lack of anonymity in seeking support; 4) Farm credibility; and 5) Recommendations for implementing mental health services for the agricultural community. This study provides insights around how farming culture and the accessibility and delivery of services may influence help-seeking for mental health, and proposes strategies to break down barriers to help-seeking in this population.


This dissertation is made of four distinct chapters. In the first chapter, I consider an exogenous restriction on the ability of French trucking firms to extend payment terms to their clients. I find that they provide trade credit at the cost of lower investment, lower return on assets, and higher default risk. In the second chapter, I show that private equity funds with a longer horizon select younger companies at an earlier stage of their development. Companies which receive funding from funds with a longer horizon increase their patent stock significantly more than companies which receive funding from investors with a shorter horizon. The third chapter presents a joint work with Ron Kaniel and David Sraer. We use detailed brokerage account data to provide a quantitative exploration of the behavior of retail investors during the financial crisis of 2008. We show that investors who appear more sophisticated on these dimensions in the pre-crisis period were, in the post-crisis period, less likely to flee to safety, more likely to engage in liquidity provisions and to earn higher returns. In the fourth chapter, I develop the idea that households have an imprecise knowledge of their portfolio's exposure to systematic risk and that this leads them to make investment mistakes. This idea is tested in the context of the decision to actively trade rather than passively invest in the stock market


A complete analysis of orientifold compactifications involving Gepner models that are free fields (k=1,2) is performed. A set of tadpole solutions is found that are variants of a single chiral spectrum. The vacua found have the property that different families have different U(1) charges so that one family cannot obtain masses in perturbation theory. Its masses must come from instantons, allowing for a hierarchy of masses. The phenomenological aspects of such vacua are analyzed.


Since 2010, the de facto Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) demonstration product has been the PseudoGeostationary Lightning Mapper (PGLM) product suite. Originally prepared for the Hazardous Weather Testbed's Spring Program (specifically the Experimental Warning Program) when only four groundbased lightning mapping arrays were available, the effort now spans collaborations with several institutions and eight collaborative networks. For 2013, NASA's Shortterm Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center and NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory have worked to collaborate with each network to obtain data in realtime. This has gone into producing the SPoRT variant of the PGLM that was demonstrated in AWIPS II for the 2013 Spring Program. Alongside the PGLM products, the SPoRT / Meteorological Development Laboratory's total lightning tracking tool also was evaluated to assess not just another visualization of future GLM data but how to best extract more information while in the operational environment. Specifically, this tool addressed the leading request by forecasters during evaluations; provide a time series trend of total lightning in realtime. In addition to the Spring Program, SPoRT is providing the PGLM "mosaic" to the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) and Storm Prediction Center. This is the same as what is used at the Hazardous Weather Testbed, but combines all available networks into one display for use at the national centers. This year, the mosaic was evaluated during the AWC's Summer Experiment. An important distinction between this and the Spring Program is that the Summer Experiment focuses on the national center perspective and not at the local forecast office level. Specifically, the Summer Experiment focuses on aviation needs and concerns and brings together operational forecaster, developers, and FAA representatives. This presentation will focus on the evaluation of SPoRT's pseudoGLM products in these separate test beds. The emphasis will be on how future GLM observations can support operations at both the local and national scale and how the PGLM was used in combination with other lightning data sets. Evaluations for the PGLM were quite favorable with forecasters appreciating the high temporal resolution, the ability to look for rapid increases in lightning activity ahead of severe weather, as well as situational awareness for where convection is firing and for flight routing.


The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) located in Namibia. It was built to detect Very High Energy (VHE, >100 GeV) cosmic gamma rays, and consists of four 12 m diameter Cherenkov telescopes (CT1-4), built in 2003, and a larger 28 m telescope (CT5), built in 2012. The larger mirror surface of CT5 permits to lower the energy threshold of the array down to 30 GeV. The cameras of CT1-4 are currently undergoing an extensive upgrade, with the goals of reducing their failure rate, reducing their readout dead time and improving the overall performance of the array. The entire camera electronics has been renewed from ground-up, as well as the power, ventilation and pneumatics systems, and the control and data acquisition software. Technical solutions forseen for the next-generation Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory have been introduced, most notably the readout is based on the NECTAr analog memory chip. The camera control subsystems and the control software framework also pursue an innovative design, increasing the camera performance, robustness and flexibility. The CT1 camera has been upgraded in July 2015 and is currently taking data; CT2-4 will upgraded in Fall 2016. Together they will assure continuous operation of H.E.S.S at its full sensitivity until and possibly beyond the advent of CTA. This contribution describes the design, the testing and the in-lab and on-site performance of all components of the newly upgraded H.E.S.S. camera.


Nuclear medicine provides a number of sensitive, although unfortunately not always specific techniques, for the evaluation of foot pain and suspected infection. In most patients the 3 phase bone scan is the initial means of evaluation, with a labeled white cell scan included when osteomyelitis is suspected. Nuclear medicine studies must be interpreted with knowledge of the patient's history and symptoms and with close correlation to plain film findings. Attention to detail when acquiring images, possibly with the addition of SPECT or pinhole images in difficult patients, results in excellent anatomic localization in most patients.


Study Design. A retrospective cohort study. Objective. To evaluate anterior strut grafts in spinal fusion for thoracic/thoracolumbar kyphosis. Summary and Background Data. Autologous strut grafts harvested from the fibula, iliac crest, and rib are frequently used for treating severe kyphosis and kyphoscoliosis. However, a majority of the studies have presented mixed patient populations kyphosis and/or scoliosis, treated either with anterior or anteroposterior fusion. Very few reports have presented an evaluation of autologous strut grafts for anterior fusion with posterior instrumentation for the treatment of kyphotic deformities. Methods. A total of 23 patients comprised the study. Diagnosis was granulomatous infection (9 patients), congenital (6), posttraumatic (4), neurofibromatosis (1), ankylosing spondylitis (1), Scheuermann disease (1), and plasmacytoma of the vertebral body with pathologic fracture (1). Average age at surgery was 41 years (range 6−77). Indication for surgery was pain with or without progression in 15 patients and additional progressive neurologic deficit in the other 8. Anterior strut grafts consisted of the autologous fibula (9 patients), iliac (10), fibula and ribs (2), fibula and iliac (1), and fibula, iliac, and ribs (1). The fusion areas were thoracic (11 patients), thoracolumbar (11), and cervicothoracic (1). Anterior decompression was performed in 8 patients because of the presence of neurologic symptoms caused by cord compression. Dorsal fusion was performed in all patients with third-generation systems. Results. Average 4.2 vertebrae were fused anteriorly. Mean follow-up bracing time was 9.7 months. Average kyphosis measured 50.9° before surgery and 32.5 at a mean follow-up of 4.5 years (P < 0.0001). No graft breakages were noted at final follow-up. Solid fusion was achieved in all patients. No donor site complications were observed. Of the 8 patients presenting with neurologic deficits, 4 had full recovery, 3 had partial recoveries, and 1 had no improvement. Loss of postoperative correction >5° was observed in 3 patients. At final follow-up, 3 patients complained of occasional pain, and 1 complained of pain when lying on the back, particularly on hard surfaces. Conclusion. Adequate correction was maintained throughout an average follow-up of 4.5 years, and solid fusion was obtained in all patients. Anterior strut grafts, supplemented with posterior fusion with instrumentation provide a good treatment alternative for the treatment of kyphosis deformity of the spine as a result of various etiologies.


The electronic and magnetic properties of the ligand-decorated Fe6S8 cluster and fused superatomic dimer are investigated using first-principles density functional theory. It is shown that the redox properties of the Fe6S8 cluster can be effectively controlled by altering the nature of the attached ligands. Donor ligands such as phosphines reduce the ionization energy of the Fe6S8 cluster, whereas the acceptor ligands such as CO increase the electron affinity. Such variation in the redox properties of the Fe6S8 cluster is the result of the ligand-induced shift in the cluster's electronic levels, so the occupation number remains mostly unaffected, leading to a marginal change in the spin magnetic moment of the cluster. A combination of two identical Fe6S8 clusters decorated by unbalanced ligands results in a superatomic dimer with a massive dipole moment and a large spin magnetic moment. Donor ligands on one side of the superatomic dimer with acceptor ligands on the other cause significant intercluster charge transfer. The resulting superatomic dimer offers an interesting motif for spintronics-related applications.


We develop in this paper the stable theory for projective complexes, by which we mean to consider a chain complex of finitely generated projective modules as an object of the factor category of the homotopy category modulo split complexes. As a result of the stable theory, we are able to prove that any complex of finitely generated projective modules over a generically Gorenstein ring is acyclic if and only if its dual complex is acyclic. This shows the dependence of total reflexivity conditions for modules over a generically Gorenstein ring.