The drug delivery potential of the molecular hosts cucurbit[n]uril (CB[n]) and CB[n]- type derivatives has been explored by a number of researchers worldwide. These hosts can act as drug delivery vehicles either in their simplest form as drug@host or in more complex forms such as nanoparticles, where the structural integrity of the nanoparticle is maintained and supported by secondary molecular interactions with molecular hosts, while the drug is held within the structure. A large number of drugs and bioactive molecules (>90) have been investigated, however, the primary interest discussed in this chapter relates to results from cell cultures and animal models. The usual protocol of initial evaluation of drug delivery through in vitro analysis for both diseased and healthy cells has revealed positive and encouraging outcomes. The progression of drug delivery studies to ex vivo and in vivo using only the free-hosts to evaluate their toxicology has demonstrated high biocompatibility with healthy tissue and animal models. Some pharmacokinetics is also discussed with and without drug association. Further to these studies positive pharmacological outcomes have also been reported in animal models, in particular for the reduction of toxicity, while maintaining pharmacological activity. Other features such as, increased bioavailability, drug retention and targeted delivery are also highlighted with reported examples. In contrast to examples of drug delivery, sequestration is also presented as a method of encapsulation, deactivation and excretion as an aid to anaesthesia recovery.


━━ Objective. We reviewed the clinical outcomes of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) treated at our institution. Methods. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 27 patients with MPM treated at our institution in the period from April 2005 to April 2013. Results. The patient characteristics were as follows: male female=26 1; age=35-76 years (median, 62); histology: epithelioid biphasic sarcomatoid=23 2 2; location, right left=14 13; clinical stage (IMIG) IA IB II III IV=3 5 4 9 6. The initial treatment was surgery chemotherapy best supportive care in 15 11 1 cases, including 14 patients treated with extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) and one patient treated with tumor resection. After EPP, three patients received adjuvant chemotherapy, five received hemithoracic radiotherapy (H-RT) and two received both. The median survival time (MST) of all patients was 21.8 months overall, compared to 30.7 months in the patients who received EPP. The patients who received H-RT after EPP demonstrated a significantly longer MST than those who did not (37.3 months vs. 12.0 months; p=0.04). Conclusions. The use of H-RT after EPP is associated with a better prognosis. (JJLC. 2015;55:2-8)


Atrophy of the alveolar process can be avoided by intentionally preserving dental roots in patients with ideal parodontal and pulpar health conditions. This article illustrates results with a representative case history.


Purified arylsulfatase A (EC 18.104.22.168) from human urine was radioiodinated under conditions that caused no significant loss of antigenic activity. We used this labeled arylsulfatase A (specific radioactivity 4-7.5 Ci/g) together with nonlabeled enzyme and rabbit antiserum produced against homogeneous enzyme to develop a radioimmunoassay for arylsulfatase A in urine. A solid-phase, second-antibody technique (Immunobead Second Antibody; Bio-Rad Laboratories) was used to separate free enzyme from antigen-antibody complexes. The working range of the assay was 0.1-4.0 ng of enzyme; within- and between-assay CVs were around 10%, and the analytical recovery was 105.5% (SD 7.7%). The lower limit of detection was 0.08 ng of arysulfatase A per assay, substantially less than that of typical activity-based assays. Over a wide range of urinary arylsulfatase A activities, results by this method agreed well (r = 0.99) with those obtained by activity assays. We measured the enzyme in urines of 59 healthy volunteers and 92 patients with different diseases, including a group of colorectal cancer cases, to determine whether this could serve as a reliable marker for cancer of the colon; however, urinary excretion of arylsulfatase A by most patients with colon cancer was within normal limits.


An investigation to characterize the effect of entrainment in a confined jet impingement arrangement is presented. The investigated configuration shows an impingement-cooled turbine blade passage and holds two staggered rows of inclined impingement jets. In order to distinctly promote thermal entrainment phenomena, the jets were heated separately. A steady-state liquid crystal technique was used to obtain near-wall fluid temperature distributions for the impingement surfaces under adiabatic conditions. Additionally, flow field measurements were undertaken using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Furthermore, compressible Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulations carried out with ansys cfx using Menter's shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model accompany the experiments. Distributions of effectiveness, velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy detail the complexity of the aerothermal situation. The study was conducted for a jet Reynolds number range from 10,000 to 45,000. The experimental and numerical results are generally in good agreement. Nevertheless, the simulations predict flow features in particular regions of the geometry that are not as prominent in the experiments. These affect the effectiveness distributions, locally. The investigations reveal that the effectiveness is independent of the temperature difference between the heated and cold jet as well as the jet Reynolds number.


We obtain an implicit equation for the correlation dimension which describes clustering of inertial particles in a complex flow onto a fractal measure. Our general equation involves a propagator of a nonlinear stochastic process in which the velocity gradient of the fluid appears as additive noise. When the long-time limit of the propagator is considered our equation reduces to an existing large-deviation formalism from which it is difficult to extract concrete results. In the short-time limit, however, our equation reduces to a solvability condition on a partial differential equation. In the case where the inertial particles are much denser than the fluid, we show how this approach leads to a perturbative expansion of the correlation dimension, for which the coefficients can be obtained exactly and in principle to any order. We derive the perturbation series for the correlation dimension of inertial particles suspended in three-dimensional spatially smooth random flows with white-noise time correlations,...


1. The resting position and response to vibrations differ in Arancidae and Uloboridae according to the consistency of the spiral thread. 2. Repeated rhythmic recurrence of the vibration stimulus brings about waning of the response. 3. Response decrement to vibrations of the web is not caused by motor fatigue. 4. The process of response waning is gradual. During the first phase, a slowing down of the response takes place; during the later phase, partial activities disappear and, finally, the responses wane completely. Response waning shows fluctuations. 5. Displacement activities and short latencies of the released responses during the phase of response decrement indicate a high level of sensitivity to vibrations. 6. Renewed release of the response after changing the vibration place proves that the extinction was not caused by adaptation of the receptors to a given vibration intensity. 7. Delayed returns to the hub, delayed responses, turns in the direction opposite to the vibrating radius, returns to the resting position before removal of the vibrating needle, and release of incomplete responses at short latency periods suggest the appearance of inhibiting impulses. 8. The recovery level after a 24-hour interval decreases during successive days of the experiment, independently of the number of tests. 9. Changes in the rate of response decrement and in the recovery level on successive days of the experiment indicate the preservation of long-lasting representations from one day to the next. 10. Rise of the threshold level causes weakening and slowing down of the response, while the appearance of inhibiting impulses brings about waning of the response to vibrations.


A small subset of celiac disease (CD) patients becomes refractory to a gluten-free diet with persistent malabsorption and intestinal villous atrophy. Diagnosis of this condition defined as refractory celiac disease (RCD) is made after exclusion of other small bowel diseases with villous atrophy. RCD has been subdivided into two subgroups according to the normal or abnormal phenotype of intraepithelial lymphocytes. Whereas normal RCD is hardly distinguishable from active CD, abnormal RCD has a severe clinical presentation and a very poor prognosis. We precisely describe below the different types of RCD and propose diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines for its clinical management.


"I will impart a knowledge of the art to my sons and those of my teachers and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine but to none others" states the Hippocratic Oath. Our own social organization differs widely from that in which this oath was formulated. The factory has replaced the trade guild, standardized quantity production for the average, works of art for the individual. Skill of eye and hand, skill in the choice of means in the midst of complexity, skill in personal service are, however, as essential in medical practice today as they were in ancient Greece. The preservation of medicine as an art requires close association of master and apprentice. The pedagogic obligations of the Hippocratic Oath are not outgrown. In the endeavor to improve medical education in this country, its control has passed from the medical profession to the


this paper the acoustic signature from a supersonic nozzle is measured and compared to the result of a program developed for a gas turbine noise prediction. In order to measure the jet Mach Number, the pressure and temperature at the settling chamber was measured along with pressures from a pitot-tube placed near the exit. The results are also compared to the ones obtained with a shadow graph technique. Jet noise produced by an imperfectly expanded jet contains shock associated noise, which consist of broadband noise and screech tone noise. For subsonic condition, the directivity is dominant to the downstream direction due to turbulence mixing noise. For supersonic conditions, however, the directivity is dominant toward upstream direction due to shock associated noise. The comparison with a jet exhaust noise prediction code shows good agreement at supersonic conditions but needs to be improved at subsonic speeds.


In this lecture, we present some results on Gaussian (or Rademacher) random series of trace class operators, mainly due jointly with F. Lust-Piquard. We will emphasize the probabilistic reformulation of these results, as well as the open problems suggested by them. We start by a brief survey of what is known about the problem of characterizing a.s. convergent (Gaussian or Rademacher) series of random vectors in a Banach space. The main result presented here is that for certain pairs of Banach spaces $E,F$ that include Hilbert spaces (and type 2 spaces with the analytic UMD property), we have $$ R(E\hat\otimes F) =R(E)\hat\otimes F + E\hat\otimes R(F) $$ where $R(E)$ denotes the space of convergent Rademacher series with coefficients in $E$ and $E\hat\otimes F$ denotes the projective tensor product.


In the present investigation, free vibration analysis of functionally graded material (FGM) plate is performed incorporating higher order shear deformation theory in conjunction with C0 based finite element formulation. The cubic component of thickness term is incorporated in in-plane fields and constant variation of thickness is assumed for transverse component. The theory incorporates the realistic parabolic variation of transverse shear stresses thus eliminates the use of shear correction factor. Aluminium/Zirconia plate is considered for the analysis and the effective properties are assumed to have smooth and gradual variation in the thickness direction and remain constant in in-plane direction. The spatial variation of properties pertaining to homogeneous and FGM plate is estimated by means of power law, which is described by the four parameters. With respect to dynamic analysis, it is vital for an analyst to know whether the top of the plate is ceramic or metal rich, and inversely bottom of the plate is ceramic or metal rich. This phenomenon can be described by choosing the appropriate values of the parameters appears in the power law. In the study, prominence has been given to study the influence of power law parameters on frequency response of FGM plates so as to accomplish different combination of FGM profiles. Thin and moderately thick FGM plates are analyzed to generate the frequency values of the FGM plate. The imperative conclusions presented regarding the choice of parameter in the power law could be useful for designer to arrive for particular material profile of FGM plate.


Trained and dedicated anaesthetic assistance is regarded as an essential prerequisite for the delivery of a minimum standard of care. A recent report from the Scottish Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee sets out a strategy for recruitment, training and retention of anaesthetic assistants in Scotland.


ABSTRACT Bias-based bullying is a significant problem in the United States, including aggression targeting college students with minoritized social identities. Bystander responsiveness can help to buffer the effects, but social identity factors may influence how students respond to bias-based aggression among peers. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of a subsample (N = 7,291) of the 2018–2019 Healthy Minds Study to test correlations between racial, sexual, and gender identities and self-reported and hypothetical peer interventions. Students who identify with minoritized sexual and gender identities, across racial identities, are most likely to report past or intended interventions while students who identify as straight, cisgender, male, and White are least likely. Specifically, students with minoritized sexual and gender identities are 32% more likely than straight and cisgender peers to report that they had intervened in the past year and 36% more likely to indicate that they intend to intervene in the future. Experiences of discrimination and belonging are significant but separate covariates. Interventions to support peer responsiveness must attend to dynamics of power, oppression, and social identity to reach more students.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Partial or complete aniridia occurring after severe ocular trauma is a difficult therapeutic problem. Diaphragm intraocular lenses were developed for the correction of aniridia, but the safety and efficacy of implanting such lenses are not well established in traumatic cases because of very few reports, and the small number of cases studied.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Six patients, 4 men and 2 women with a mean age of 44 years, were treated for traumatic aniridia using pars plana vitrectomy and transscleral fixation of a black diaphragm intraocular lens. Total aniridia was observed in 3 eyes and partial aniridia in 3 eyes. Four eyes were aphakic and severe lens subluxation was seen in 2 eyes. Vitreous hemorrhage coexisted in 2 patients and bacterial endophthalmitis was present in 1 patient. Follow-up time ranged between 4 and 39 months (mean, 23 months).

RESULTS
Best-corrected visual acuity improved in 5 patients and 1 remained unchanged. Good visual acuity (20/20 - 20/40) was achieved in all cases and all lenses were well-centered. No severe complications were noted. Three of 6 patients required glaucoma topical medications pre- and postoperatively achieving good intraocular pressure control.

CONCLUSION
The management of traumatic aniridia using pars plana vitrectomy and implantation of scleral fixation black diaphragm intraocular lenses seem to be safe. Very good functional results and lack of severe complications are encouraging. Additional cases with a longer follow-up study are necessary to support our opinion.


The origin of so-called "subatomic" resolution in dynamic force microscopy has remained controversial since its first observation in 2000. A number of detailed experimental and theoretical studies have identified different possible physicochemical mechanisms potentially giving rise to subatomic contrast. In this study, for the first time we are able to assign the origin of a specific instance of subatomic contrast as being due to the back bonding of a surface atom in the tip-sample junction.


Solar collectors, in general, are utilized to convert the solar energy into heat energy, where it is employed to generate electricity. The non-concentrating solar collector with a circular shape was adopted in the present study. Ambient air is heated under a translucent roof where buoyant air is drawn from outside periphery towards the collector center (tower base). The present study is aimed to predict and visualize the thermal-hydrodynamic behavior for airflow under inclined roof of the solar air collector, SAC. Three-dimensional of the SAC model using the re-normalization group, RNG, k−e turbulence viscus model is simulated. The simulation was carried out by using ANSYS-FLUENT 14.5. The simulation results demonstrated that at same insolation; airflow, ground and air temperatures increase when the collector radius decreases towards the collector center. The ground temperature and air velocity increase, while airflow temperature decreases when the inclination angle increases from 0° to 20° due to changing in airflow movement. More decreasing in airflow temperature has been occurred when the inlet height increases from 0.1m to 0.25m. The simulation results were validated by comparing with the experimental data. In conclusions, the obtained results showed the capability of producing warm airflow to generate electricity in Baghdad city.


The identification of network applications is essential to numerous network activities. Unfortunately, traditional port-based classification and packet payload-based analysis exhibit a number of shortfalls. An alternative is to use Machine Learning (ML) techniques and identify network applications based on per-flow features. Since a lot of flow features can be used for flow classification and there are many irrelevant and redundant features among them, feature selection plays a vital role in performance optimizing. In this paper, we propose a wrapper-based feature selection method for IP flow classification using modified random-mutation hill-climbing (RMHC) and C4.5 algorithm (MRMHC-C4.5). The experiments show our approach can greatly improve computational performance without negative impact on classification accuracy.


Why is it that some athletes are able to withstand the pressures of competitive sport
and attain peak performances, whereas others succumb to the demands and under-perform? It
is the study of psychological resilience that aims to address this question. To significantly
advance psychologists' knowledge and understanding of this area, there exists an urgent need
to develop a sport-specific measure of resilience (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012; Galli & Vealey,
2008; Gucciardi, Jackson, Coulter, & Mallett, 2011). The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is
to investigate the assessment of psychological resilience in sport performers. To this end, the
thesis is split into five chapters. Chapter one reviews and critiques the various definitions,
concepts, and theories of resilience, and provides an overview of the research that has
specifically examined psychological resilience in sport performers. Chapter two reviews
psychometric issues in resilience research and its implications for sport psychology (part
one), and discusses psychological resilience in sport performers via a review of the stressors
athletes encounter and the protective factors that help them withstand these demands (part
two). Drawing on these reviews of resilience in sport, Chapter three (studies one-three)
describes the development and validation of the Sport Resilience Scale (SRS). More
specifically, Study 1 explores the content validity of a pool of items designed to reflect
psychological resilience in athletes, Study 2 examines the factorial structure of the SRS using
exploratory factor analysis, and Study 3 tests the factorial structure of the SRS via
confirmatory factor analysis, investigates whether the components of the measurement model
are invariant across different groups, and examines the relationship between the SRS and
other relevant concepts. Using the SRS, and based on Fletcher and Sarkar's (2012) grounded
theory of psychological resilience, Chapter four (studies 4 and 5) investigates resilience in
sport performers via an examination of moderation and mediation hypotheses. Specifically,
Study 4 tests whether the association between the stressors athletes encounter and athletes'
positive adaptation is moderated by the protective factors that athletes possess and Study 5
tests whether the association between the stressors athletes encounter and athletes' positive
adaptation is mediated by their cognitive appraisal processes. Lastly, Chapter five offers a
summary, discussion, and conclusion of the thesis. Overall, the research reported in this
thesis has developed the first valid and reliable measure of psychological resilience in sport
performers and has provided quantitative support for Fletcher and Sarkar's (2012) theoretical
model of sport resilience by illustrating the moderating role of protective factors and the
mediating role of cognitive appraisal.


Sanitation workers are the backbone of the public hygiene and waste management system. Despite providing an essential public service, their work is often unrecognised. A majority of the workers too are unaware of the social security and welfare schemes instituted by both the Central and State governments for their wellbeing, which prevents them from availing the benefits such as pension, differently-abled and education and women welfare assistance, among others. This document furnishes the details of the social security and welfare schemes implemented by the Central and State governments, the eligibility criteria and benefits, and how sanitation workers can access them.


THE LIPID pattern of blood and liver of mice infected with S. mansoni as well as in male and female worms was studied. Experiments were also carried out on non-infected and infected mice after treatment with Niridazole. It was found that Niridazole caused a significant increase in liver triglycerides and serum free acids. These changes were more pronounced in non-infected animals than in infected ones. The drug was found to reduce worm phospholipids and to increase their triglyceride level. The male worms were more affected than the female ones.


We report an excellent photoresponsive controlled release formulation based on a coumarin copolymer for pesticide 2,4-D. In the present work, acrylate and polyethylene glycol (PEG) based coumarin photoresponsive polymers were synthesised. The newly synthesised coumarin based polymers exhibited dual functionalities, namely as "fluorophores" and "phototriggers" for the controlled release of pesticide 2,4-D. The fluorescence properties of coumarin based polymers helped us to monitor the release of 2,4-D from the polymeric formulation. Release of the pesticide by coumarin based polymers was achieved on exposure to UV light. TGA results indicated that the coumarin polymer encapsulated pesticide has a good thermal stability compared to the free pesticide 2,4-D. A further leaching experiment also showed that the polymer encapsulated pesticide leaches slowly compared to the free pesticide 2,4-D. Bioassay studies in a plant suggest that the coumarin polymer encapsulated pesticide efficiently delivered 2,4-D inside the plant tissues (pumpkin plant Cucurbita maxima) improving its herbicidal activity. Our results indicated that use of a fluorescent coumarin polymer based delivery device for controlled release of pesticide by light holds great interest for field application.


Electronic nose (E-nose) and electronic tongue (E-tongue) can mimic the sensory perception of human smell and taste, and they are widely applied in tea quality evaluation by utilizing the fingerprints of response signals representing the overall information of tea samples. The intrinsic part of human perception is the fusion of sensors, as more information is provided comparing to the information from a single sensory organ. In this study, a framework for a multi-level fusion strategy of electronic nose and electronic tongue was proposed to enhance the tea quality prediction accuracies, by simultaneously modeling feature fusion and decision fusion. The procedure included feature-level fusion (fuse the time-domain based feature and frequency-domain based feature) and decision-level fusion (D-S evidence to combine the classification results from multiple classifiers). The experiments were conducted on tea samples collected from various tea providers with four grades. The large quantity made the quality assessment task very difficult, and the experimental results showed much better classification ability for the multi-level fusion system. The proposed algorithm could better represent the overall characteristics of tea samples for both odor and taste.


The efforts to make cloud computing suitable for the requirements of HPC applications have motivated us to design HPC Shelf, a cloud computing platform of services for building and deploying parallel computing systems for large-scale parallel processing. We introduce Alite, the system of contextual contracts of HPC Shelf, aimed at selecting component implementations according to requirements of applications, features of targeting parallel computing platforms (e.g. clusters), QoS (Quality-of-Service) properties and cost restrictions. It is evaluated through a small-scale case study employing a componentbased framework for matrix-multiplication based on the BLAS library.


Abstract The diabatic effects of latent heat release, boundary layer moisture and heat flux from the ocean surface and large-scale forcing due to upper-level systems are three physical processes affecting oceanic cyclogenesis. Detailed analyses of a major winter storm which occurred during the initial phase of the Air Mass Transformation Experiment in 1975 (AMTEX '75) indicated that the role of these three processes was vital to the Cyclone's development. To gain further insight into their influence, a control and three numerical experiments were performed using a multi-level moist primitive equation model with fine vertical resolution in the boundary layer. The simulation which included complete physics faithfully reproduced the major feature of the observed system. It was found that latent heating had a profound impact on the middle-level baroclinicity, the intensity and phase speed of the storm, and the vertical coupling within the simulated system. Without the surface moisture and heat source, the eff...


To the Editor. —Dr. Lowe has evolved a theoretical framework to support the concept that cholinergic blocking agents, such as atropine, produce a far greater incidence of post-iridectomy angle closure than do adrenergic mydriatics. However, Mapstone believes that the theoretical and mathematical assumptions made by Lowe concerning the mechanics of angle closure are not valid. 1 Our clinical work lends support to Dr. Mapstone's views. There is little doubt that cycloplegics reduce outflow facility and elevate intraocular pressure in susceptible eyes. 2,3 There can be no question that this phenomenon can occur in the absence of angle closure. 4 These observations, when added to Dr. Lowe's findings that post-iridectomy angle closure or pressure elevation was not generally found with adrenergic agents, lends further support to our studies. 5 Dr. Lowe's findings of post-iridectomy angle closure by iris crowding would be applicable in cases of plateau iris. In evaluating over 100


We introduce a new family of Fountain codes that are systematic and also have sparse parities. Given an input of k symbols, our codes produce an unbounded number of output symbols, generating each parity independently by linearly combining a logarithmic number of randomly selected input symbols. The construction guarantees that for any ε>0 accessing a random subset of (1+ε)k encoded symbols, asymptotically suffices to recover the k input symbols with high probability. Our codes have the additional benefit of logarithmic locality: a single lost symbol can be repaired by accessing a subset of O(log k) of the remaining encoded symbols. This is a desired property for distributed storage systems where symbols are spread over a network of storage nodes. Beyond recovery upon loss, local reconstruction provides an efficient alternative for reading symbols that cannot be accessed directly. In our code, a logarithmic number of disjoint local groups is associated with each systematic symbol, allowing multiple parallel reads. Our main mathematical contribution involves analyzing the rank of sparse random matrices with specific structure over finite fields. We rely on establishing that a new family of sparse random bipartite graphs have perfect matchings with high probability.


This article develops a conceptual integration of the dynamic capabilities and ambidexterity perspectives in order to understand how firms adapt to discontinuous change. Based on three illustrative case studies, it demonstrates that it is not possible to identify a universal set of dynamic capabilities. Rather, the distinct set of capabilities required depends on which of three modes of adaptation (structural separation, behavioral integration, or sequential alternation) has been prioritized. This article contributes a contingency perspective to dynamic capability research and offers guidance to managers about the alternative approaches they could take when seeking to adapt to environmental discontinuities.


A recent discovery have demonstrated that herbivore induced plant volatile compounds from apple tree infested with leafrollers were highly attractive to con-specific adult male and female leafrollers. However, this work has been conducted in New Zealand and Canada testing only low doses of kairomone. This study has been conducted in US to assess the attractiveness of higher doses of the six apple volatiles provisory identified in apple trees infested by tortricid larvaeto the leafroller, Pandemis pyrusana Kearfott. These volatiles included, β-caryophyllene, germacrene D, benzyl alcohol, phenylacetonitrile, (E)-nerolidol, and indole. No volatiles were attractive to P. pyrusana when used alone. However, traps baited with phenylacetonitrile plus acetic acid caught both sexes of P. pyrusana. Traps baited with the other volatiles plus acetic acid caught zero to only incidental numbers of moths, ≤ 1.0. Adding phenylacetonitrile to traps baited with pear ester, ethyl (E,Z)-2,4-decadienoate plus acetic acid significantly reduced catches of codling moth, Cydia pomonella (L.). However, adding phenylacetonitrile to traps baited with codling moth sex pheromone, pear ester, and acetic acid did not similarly reduce moth catches of C. pomonella. Interestingly, traps baited with phenylacetonitrile plus acetic acid caught significantly more P. pyrusana than traps baited with a commercial sex pheromone lure. The evaporation rate of the acetic acid co-lure was an important factor affecting catches of P. pyrusana with phenylacetonitrile, and studies are needed to optimize the emission rates of both lure components. Further studies are warranted to develop phenylacetonitrile and possibly other aromatic plant volatiles as bisexual lures for the range of tortricid pests attacking horticultural crops.


The goal of this project is to develop a pedestrian mobility aid for the elderly. In order for this type of assistive technology to be useful and accepted by its intended user community, it must enhance the abilities of users, not replace those abilities. This leads to an architecture in which the system must operate without hindering the user's ability to take direct action when they choose. The agent must select its own goals based on observations of its user's actions, and vary its level of autonomy from fully autonomous through cooperative (subordinating its goals to the goals of the operator), to completely passive. This is crucial not only because users may have diminished capacity to execute their actions, but because the ability of the agent to correctly interpret the user's goals is tied to its ability to act while still allowing the user to "feel in control". We present a mobility aid, i.e. a wheeled walker, which varies its goals and level of activity based on an estimation of its user's intentions. The assistive walker often takes no action, allowing the user to be fully in control. When the ease or safety of the user's travel is threatened, the walker attempts to influence the user's motion based on its belief in the user's goal. By varying the degree of autonomy, the walker can adjust to the user as their abilities change from day to day, or hour to hour. This prevents the walker from "trying to do too much", allowing the user to feel as if they are in control and not being lead.


The study investigated senior high school Integrated Science teachers' perception of classroom assessment practises. The study employed a descriptive survey research designed to collect data from 20 Integrated Science teachers in a Municipality and a District in the Bono Region of Ghana. A questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data on teachers' perception of classroom assessment in Science. The data collected were computed into means, standard deviations and percentages. The study revealed that Integrated Science teachers selected for the study have positive perceptions towards classroom assessment. It also revealed that teachers perceived classroom assessment as tests that teachers give to their students at specific time intervals. While the teachers perceived classroom assessment as tests positively, they showed limited ability to use different methods and tools to assess their students' for teaching. The most frequent methods the teachers used to assess their students' learning were summative, formative and portfolio assessment. The study recommended that the support of stake-holders be sought to foster alternative assessment approaches in Senior High Schools in the study area. In addition, to help Integrated Science teachers develop positive perceptions towards classroom assessment in Science, it is recommended that inservice programmes should be organised for the teachers in the study area periodically.


Although remarkable achievements, such as AlphaFold2, have been made in end-to-end structure prediction, fragment libraries remain essential for de novo protein structure prediction, which can help explore and understand the protein-folding mechanism. In this work, we developed a variable-length fragment library (VFlib). In VFlib, a master structure database was first constructed from the Protein Data Bank through sequence clustering. The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) profile of each protein in the master structure database was generated by HHsuite, and the secondary structure of each protein was calculated by DSSP. For the query sequence, the HMM-profile was first constructed. Then, variable-length fragments were retrieved from the master structure database through dynamically variable-length profile-profile comparison. A complete method for chopping the query HMM-profile during this process was proposed to obtain fragments with increased diversity. Finally, secondary structure information was used to further screen the retrieved fragments to generate the final fragment library of specific query sequence. The experimental results obtained with a set of 120 nonredundant proteins showed that the global precision and coverage of the fragment library generated by VFlib were 55.04% and 94.95% at the RMSD cutoff of 1.5 Å, respectively. Compared to the benchmark method of NNMake, the global precision of our fragment library had increased by 62.89% with equivalent coverage. Furthermore, the fragments generated by VFlib and NNMake were used to predict structure models through fragment assembly. Controlled experimental results demonstrated that the average TM-score of VFlib was 16.00% higher than that of NNMake.


Changes in combined oral contraceptives (OCs) include reduction in the estrogen and progestogen dose and recourse to the third generation, less androgenic progestogens. They retain the efficacy and convenience of OCs while reducing the metabolic and cardiovascular effects and the need to identify contraindications and subjects at risk. OCs sometimes cause menstrual cycle problems: spotting and intercurrent bleeding or bleeding at any time other than menstruation (metrorrhagia). OCs cause loose and edematous stroma in the endometrium where glands maintain a proliferative-like phase throughout the cycle. Many dilated capillaries with hyperplasia of the endothelial cells rise to the surface. Forgetting or failure to take OC pills are often responsible for intercurrent bleeding. It is hard to determine what OCs cause less bleeding than other OCs. The third generation progestogen, gestodene, appears to have better cycle control than the two other third generation progestogens (desogestrel and norgestimate). It is not clear whether triphasic OCs with second generation progestogens are better than monophasic third generation OCs. The OC with low dose ethinyl estradiol (20 mcg) (Mercilon) has as low a bleeding rate as does the OC, Varnoline (30 mcg). Menstrual cycle disturbances rarely happen. Providers must emphasize to new OC users the possibility of spotting or intercurrent bleeding, especially during the first cycle. Providers must also inform them that these disturbances do not affect the effectiveness of the OCs and that they should not stop taking OCs if they are concerned about bleeding. Providers must instruct them what to do if they forget to take a pill(s). Providers should schedule an appointment after a new OC user has completed the third OC packet. They should do a gynecologic exam to search for a genital infection, endo-uterine polyp or fibroma, and hyperplasia of the endometrium. If bleeding persists during the third cycle, the client should change contraception.


Croatian Academy of Medical Sciences was established in 1961 as the Commission for Scientific Research of the Croatian Medical Association Main Committee. In 1983 was separated from the Croatian Medical Association and became an independent organization--Croatian Academy of Medical Sciences. The Academy is a society of chosen scientists dealing with promotion of medical sciences to improve public health. To introduce Croatian medicine to the world the Academy publishes journals Acta Medica Croatica, Socijalna psihijatrija and Croatian Medical Journal.


We evaluated plantar responses after 75 epileptic seizures and 21 psychogenic seizures in 53 patients undergoing video-EEG monitoring. Extensor plantar responses (EPRs) were found after 27% of epileptic seizures in 42% of patients with epilepsy. EPRs were not found after psychogenic seizures but were seen after 52% of tonic-clonic seizures. Unilateral EPRs were usually contralateral to the side of seizure onset.


Sir. We read with interest the article published by Con Kelleher et al.' (Vol 104, December 1997). A number of different quality of life questionnaires are now available. They can be either general health questionnaires such as the Short Form 36 or they can be more disease specific and related to urinary continence such as the questionnaire presented by Kelleher et al. Other groups have also published incontinence disease-specific quality of life questionnaires?". Some of these have also been tested for psychometric validity, reliability, internal consistency and stability2. We fully recognise the importance of such questionnaires because outcome is often determined by the surgeon performing the operation and is measured in terms of surgical success. Surgical success often has little to do with patient satisfaction especially where the complication rate of a procedure is high or the side effects of a treatment are numerous (eg, although 85-90% of women undergoing colposuspension are cured of their incontinence only 50% are cured and complication free'). Difficulty arises when different centres each develop their own questionnaire. The result is a large number of relatively small trials with no nationally agreed standardisation. If we are to make progress in the field of urogynaecological research we need an agreed method of standardising quality of life and other measures of outcome. A body, such as the International Continence Society, should be seen to lead the way in this important area.


Background Gas Transfer (GT) is routinely used in the assessment of ventilatory function. This study evaluates the predictive power of six minute walk (6MW) for the estimation of gas transfer, where there are issues with technical reliability or test performance. Aim To identify the strongest 6MW predictors of GT, and determine if ATS/ERS disease classification altered predictor significance. Methods Technically reliable, same-day lung function and 6MW results were compared in clinically stable patients (n=84), using the same pulmonary function equipment and 6MW track. Oxygen and short acting bronchodilators had been withheld prior to testing following intervention cessation guidelines. Disease classifications were based on ATS/ERS interpretation strategies. Voluntary consent and ethics submission were required. Results 46 males and 38 females, aged 68 (SD = 10.1), BMI 30.6 (SD = 5.8) performed same day gas transfer and 6MW. Study included 43 obstructive, 19 restrictive, 16 mixed, and 6 normal individuals. Co-linearity adjusted multiple regression identified a predictive model based on distance walked (DW), BMI, gender, age, recovery time, lowest oxygen saturation, and total time walked (P 2 = 0.65), while only DW and BMI predicted gas exchange impairment and transfer coefficient. Disease classification did not affect the significance of predictor variables, although 6MWD was a greater predictor for patients with obstructive disease (0.82, R 2 = 0.72). Conclusion 6MW may be used to estimate GT, DW being the most important variable, with greater relevance in obstructive patients.


This paper considers the power allocation problem in a relay-assisted Time-Division-Duplex-based multiple-cell system. In such a system, the achievable data rate of each user is not only coupled with those of others due to the inherent dynamic spatial frequency reuse therein, but also coupled between consecutive time slots due to the required two-hop transmission, which results in the so-called "spatial-coupling" and "time-coupling" nature, respectively. To address both of the two coupling effects in a relay assisted TDD cellular system, we formulate an optimal power allocation problem for the asynchronous scenario of the system where different cells work independently. We observe that the problem is non-convex and NP-hard, but can be converted to Geometric Programming (GP) problems and solved by interior-point methods. In case there is no central controller and/or massive information exchange among cells is prohibitive, game theory is employed to derive the distributed solutions. Finally, we validate the proposed algorithms by extensive simulations.


7 cirrhotic (M = 3, F = 4, mean age 55, range 35-74) and 7 healthy subjects (M = 6, F = 1, mean age 24, range 23-40) were studied. 2.5mg% nitroglycerin were administered per os. This drug is quite completely metabolized in its first pass through the liver (first pass effect). Peripheric vascular effect of nitroglycerin was evaluated by venous occlusion strain-gauge plethysmography, ECG-coupled (Rest Flow measurement RF, in ml/min/100 ml). No statistically significant differences were found between pre-drug RF in the two groups and between pre and post-drug measurements in healthy subjects. Post-drug RF decreased in cirrhotic subjects when compared either to pre-drug values or to post-drug values in normal subjects (statistically significant after the third minute, p ranging less than 0.05 and less than 0.001). The different peripheric vascular effect found in the two groups was considered as a consequence of the increased drug bioavailability in cirrhotics, caused by portosystemic shunts.


To quantitatively assess the geometric changes in mitral valve apparatus in mitral regurgitation (MR) by dualsource computed tomography (DSCT) and to analyze its impact on MR.The study subjects consisted of 20 controls, 20 patients with mild MR, and 30 patients with moderate to severe MR, all of whom underwent DSCT. The geometric parameters of the mitral valve were measured by CT and compared among the 3 groups. The correlations between DSCT measurements and MR severity were also analyzed.As regurgitation worsened, our results showed progressive enlargements of the mitral annular area, anteroposterior diameter, and mitral valve tenting area at the central level. Moreover, a higher mitral valve sphericity index and longer distance between the heads of the papillary muscles reflected a more outward displacement of the papillary muscles. The mitral annular area and tenting area at the central level had strong correlations with regurgitation severity.DSCT is available to quantitatively assess mitral valve morphology and provide additional information regarding its geometry. The mitral annular area and tenting area at the central level were the strongest determinants of MR severity.


In manufacturing the solutions found for scheduling problems and the human expert's experience are very important. They can be transformed using Artificial Intelligence techniques into knowledge and this knowledge could be used to solve new scheduling problems. In this paper we use Decision Trees for the generation of new Dispatching Rules for a Single Machine shop solved using a Genetic Algorithm. Two heuristics are proposed to use the new Dispatching Rules and a comparative study with other Dispatching Rules from the literature is presented.


We report the characterization of the dominant-negative CLA4t allele of the budding yeast CLA4 gene, encoding a member of the p21-activated kinase (PAK) family of protein kinases, which, together with its homologue STE20, plays an essential role in promoting budding and cytokinesis. Overproduction of the Cla4t protein likely inhibits both endogenous Cla4 and Ste20 and causes a delay in the onset of anaphase that correlates with inactivation of Cdc20/anaphase-promoting complex (APC)–dependent proteolysis of both the cyclinB Clb2 and securin. Although the precise mechanism of APC inhibition by Cla4t remains to be elucidated, our results suggest that Cla4 and Ste20 may regulate the first wave of cyclinB proteolysis mediated by Cdc20/APC, which has been shown to be crucial for activation of the mitotic exit network (MEN). We show that the Cdk1-inhibitory kinase Swe1 is required for the Cla4t-dependent delay in cell cycle progression, suggesting that it might be required to prevent full Cdc20/APC and MEN activation. In addition, inhibition of PAK kinases by Cla4t prevents mitotic exit also by a Swe1-independent mechanism impinging directly on the MEN activator Tem1.


Resource-based learning or problem-oriented learning are teaching methods that are becoming more and more common in schools today. In order to make these teaching methods work there is a demand ...


The increased sophistication of modern turbine and boiler control systems along with the emergence of a deregulated power industry have introduced new challenges in both the implementation of controls and the modeling of turbine response to power grid frequency excursions. Past modeling assumptions may no longer be valid when such aspects as steam supply pressure, coordinated boilerlturbine controls, and application (or non-application) of speed control loops are considered. This paper provides a summary of some of the discussion topics presented in this area regarding steam turbines, combustion turbines, and combined cycle applications.


Non-structural protein 3 (NS3) derived from Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is essential for viral proliferation and has two functional domains; trypsin-like serine protease and helicase. Recently we obtained three types of RNA aptamers (G9-I, -II and -III) bound to NS3 protease domain (delta NS3) by in vitro selection and confirmed their strong inhibition for protease activity. These aptamers have a common sequence, 5'-GA(A/U)UGGGAC-3', forming a loop structure by Mulfold secondary structure modeling. G9-I shows a three-way junction and G9-II and -III have four-way junction structures. To characterize the active structure of these aptamers, we applied modification interference analysis using nucleotide analogs and identified common important nucleotides in these three aptamers.


Fetal Atrial Flutter. In the context of a large program of prenatal echocardiographic detection of fetal heart disease, special attention was paid to the in utero detection and identification of fetal heart rate disorders. This article focuses on 18 cases of tachycardiac fetuses. It provides information on how to identify the nature of the detected tachycardia, the hemodynamic consequences of tachycardia, the particular characteristics of fetal atrial flutter. and the efficacy of the transmaternal treatment of fetal tachycardia. U also describes an original way to grade and score the degree of fetal heart failure that proved useful for the assessment and monitoring of in utero therapeutic procedures. The results presented stress the efficacy of digoxin for fetal atrial flutter as well as the usefulness of prenatal echocardiography in the assessment of anatomical, functional, and rhythmic conditions of the fetal heart.


Fitness tracking social networks such as Strava allow users to record sports activities and share them publicly. Sharing encourages peer interaction but also constitutes a risk, because an activity's start or finish may inadvertently reveal privacy-sensitive locations such as a home or workplace. To mitigate this risk, networks introduced endpoint privacy zones (EPZs), which hide track portions around protected locations. In this paper, we show that EPZ implementations of major services remain vulnerable to inference attacks that significantly reduce the effective anonymity provided by the EPZ, and even reveal the protected location. Our attack leverages distance information leaked in activity metadata, street grid data, and the locations of the entry points into the EPZ. This yields a constrained search space where we use regression analysis to predict protected locations. Our evaluation on 1.4 million Strava activities shows that our attack discovers the protected location for up to 85% of EPZs. Larger EPZs reduce the performance of our attack, while geographically dispersed activities in sparser street grids yield better performance. We propose six countermeasures, that, however, come with a usability trade-off, and responsibly disclosed our findings and countermeasures to the major networks.


This paper proposes a method of stiffness design for a spatial Three Degrees of Freedom (3DOF) serial compliant manipulator with the objective of protecting the compliant joint actuators when the manipulator comes up against impact. System dynamic equations of serial compliant manipulators integrated with an impact model are linearized to identify the maximum joint torques in the impact. Based on this, a general procedure is given in which maximum joint torques are calculated with different directions of end-effector velocity and impact normal in the manipulator workspace based on a given magnitude of end-effector velocity. By tuning the stiffness for each compliant joint to ensure the maximum joint torque does not exceed the maximum value of the actuator, candidate stiffness values are obtained to make the compliant actuators safe in all cases. The theory and procedure are then applied to the spatial 3DOF serial compliant manipulator of which the impact configuration is decomposed into a 2DOF planar serial manipulator and a 1DOF manipulator with a 2DOF link based on the linearized impact-dynamic model. Candidate stiffness of the 3DOF serial compliant manipulator is obtained by combining analysis of the 2DOF and 1DOF manipulators. The method introduced in this paper can be used for both planar and spatial compliant serial manipulators.


[1] This article addresses gender and popular music-making in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand, a moderately prosperous provincial city (population 130,000) which services a large rural sector (the Waikato). Starting from the observation that few women enrol in tertiary commercial music courses in Hamilton, I aim to examine both the pedagogical experiences and perceptions of students relating to these courses, but also the background of beliefs and practices relating to gender and music in Hamilton, focusing on the live original music scene and its participants. My research question is 'what factors enable or disable women's participation in original popular music performance in Hamilton?' I have used mainly qualitative approaches (interviews with students, participants, participant observation at live music events) and some quantitative research (statistical analysis of gender participation in NZ tertiary education). Precedents include Lucy Green's Music Gender Education (1997) and Sara Cohen's Rock Culture in Liverpool (1991), which employed a mixed methodology to research similar issues in the UK. My theoretical approach starts from a position similar to Green: critical theory that aims to reveal and interpret ideological patterns of power within everyday experience, specifically in relation to ideologies of gender and music. However, while critical theory is excellent at identifying constraints, problems and contradictions, it's not always clear how it can set out a positive agenda, other than by addressing the problems it identifies. It doesn't always engage with how people dwell within and work with contradictions, rather than trying to 'solve' them. Some of the strategies I describe later that enable women's music-making could be interpreted as critical responses to social problems, but others do not work so much with or against dominant discourses but alongside them--that is, agents or groups develop effective strategies to make music 'on their own terms' but without necessarily defining themselves against someone else's terms. In the latter part of the essay I consider Gustav Holter's theory of public/private spheres and, briefly, Foucault's concept of resistance as alternatives to critical theory's emphasis on ideology. Background [2] This is the first study of gender participation in popular music-making in New Zealand. Both men and women were approached--however, mostly women responded, so by default (which certainly begs interpretation), it has become mostly a study of women's participation in music-making. I should also state here a personal agenda--as a popular musician who has played with both men and women (including some of the participants), I was interested in what factors encouraged or inhibited women's participation. I also teach media arts at one of the main research sites, Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec). I have defined popular music-making as participating in the production of popular musical performances primarily in public spaces as musicians or sound engineers. My focus is on musicians who compose, sing or play, or facilitate that process. This connects the two sites of my research: in both cases 'playing, singing and producing self-written music' is the dominant mode of musical performance and production. The two main research sites are Wintec's Commercial Music programme and the local live original music scene. 'Original' designates performers who play mainly their own material, as opposed to covers bands. Typical performance settings include pubs, cafes, parties and the University of Waikato, whose student radio station (Contact FM) is probably the most active supporter of local live original music, along with the Htown website (http://htown.co.nz), an online forum which advertises gigs and promotes discussion of music. However, these are both small operations, and do not offer equal coverage of all types of local music. [3] The Hamilton live original music scene is small, fragmented and suffers from a lack of venues. …


Abstract The recently developed inelastic X-ray scattering technique opens a new kinematic region at the observation of molecular liquids vibrational dynamics over the lengthscales of the interparticle separation. We illustrate the capabilities of this powerful technique through the results obtained from liquid glycerol. A detailed analysis of the high-frequency vibrational dynamics of this system at ambient temperature is reported. New results in the study of structural relaxational dynamics in the high-temperature range (up to T = 560 K) are also discussed.


Cut-generating linear programs (CGLPs) play a key role as a separation oracle to produce valid inequalities for the feasible region of mixed-integer programs. When incorporated inside branch-and-bound, the cutting planes obtained from CGLPs help to tighten relaxations and improve dual bounds. However, running the CGLPs at the nodes of the branch-and-bound tree is computationally cumbersome due to the large number of node candidates and the lack of a priori knowledge on which nodes admit useful cutting planes. As a result, CGLPs are often avoided at default settings of branch-and-cut algorithms despite their potential impact on improving dual bounds. In this paper, we propose a novel framework based on machine learning to approximate the optimal value of a CGLP class that determines whether a cutting plane can be generated at a node of the branch-and-bound tree. Translating the CGLP as an indicator function of the objective function vector, we show that it can be approximated through conventional data classification techniques. We provide a systematic procedure to efficiently generate training data sets for the corresponding classification problem based on the CGLP structure. We conduct computational experiments on benchmark instances using classification methods such as logistic regression. These results suggest that the approximate CGLP obtained from classification can improve the solution time compared to that of conventional cutting plane methods. Our proposed framework can be efficiently applied to a large number of nodes in the branch-and-bound tree to identify the best candidates for adding a cut.


This study examined the effects of rapid palatal expansion (RPE) and maxillary protraction headgear therapy in 18 patients with a skeletal Class III malocclusion (11 girls and seven boys; mean age 10.9 years) on upper airway dimensions compared with an untreated control group (nine girls and eight boys; mean age 10.9 years). Pre- and post-treatment cephalometric radiographs were traced and analysed at similar time intervals. The average treatment time was 6.94 +/- 0.56 months. Wilcoxon's test was used for intragroup comparisons and the Mann-Whitney U-test for intergroup comparisons. A significant increase occurred in the maxillary forward position. Mandibular forward movement and downward and backward rotation were inhibited. In addition, the upper incisors were proclined (P < 0.001), and the lower incisors were significantly retroclined (P < 0.05). When the treatment and control groups were compared, the upper airway linear measurements (pns-ad1, pns-ad2, APW-PPW, APW'-PPW') and the nasopharyngeal area had increased in the treatment group. These results demonstrated that maxillary expansion together with protraction of the maxilla improved naso- and oropharyngeal airway dimensions in the short term.


Using data collected from 164 French employees of a transportation institute and 1904 residents of the U.S. San Francisco Bay Area, we operationalize a segmentation of mobility patterns based on objective, subjective, and desired amounts of mobility by various modes and overall. We define a multimodality index from basic concepts of information theory, and we especially focus on the degree of multimodality in an individual's current modal mix and desired changes to that mix. The clusters that result showed some similarities and some differences across countries, where the latter are likely due to disparities in the sampling strategies and in the land use/transportation/ cultural milieux. In both cases, however, the clusters have useful policy implications, enabling us, for example, to distinguish car users who might be inclined to reduce car use and increase transit use from those who are largely content with their current modal baskets.


We introduce algorithms to design robust network codes in the presence of link failures for multicast in a directed acyclic network. Robustness is achieved through diversity provided by the network links and flows, while the maximum multicast rate due to max-flow min-cut bound is maintained. The proposed scheme is a receiver-based robust network coding, which exploits the diversity due to the possible gap of the specific receivers min-cut with respect to the network multicast capacity. An improved version of this scheme guarantees multicast capacity for a certain level of failures. In a multicast session, failure of a flow may not necessarily reduce the capacity of the network as other useful branches within the network could still facilitate back up routes (flows) from the source to the sinks. We introduce a scheme to employ backup flows in addition to the main flows to multicast data at maximum rate h, when possible. In a limiting case, the scheme guarantees the rate h, for all link failure patterns, which do not decrease the maximum rate below h. Here, the number of link failures may in general exceed the refined singleton bound.


A unified multilevel mixed-mode simulation capability for mixed analog/digital integrated circuits is described. First, a methodology for describing arbitrary analog or mixed analog/digital blocks at the behavioral level is proposed. In order to verify such models, a verification tool has been developed. The tools modgens and modgenz convert transfer functions H(s) and H(z), respectively, into state space representations in the time domain and generate behavioral models. Thus, the methodology allows digital, analog, and mixed analog/digital subcircuits to be described at various levels. While the analog portions of the circuit are simulated with high accuracy, the digital portions can be simulated in various models. Simulation is event-driven. For the behavioral analog models, block elimination with unique reordering and pivoting techniques are used to accommodate state variables. This capability has been integrated into the MOTIS3 design verification system. The simulation of representative mixed analog/digital simulation examples is described. >


A variety of challenges exist in the design of systems that can be used to host a wide variety of computer-generated actors (CGAs) that possess believable behaviors. The challenges arise in the areas of system architecture and design, knowledge-base design, decision-making mechanisms, and the distributed virtual environment (DVE) network interface. These challenges are especially significant if the DVE is to be used for training, because accurate training is essential to the ready application of training experience to real-world situations. The project described in this paper was undertaken to improve the quality of threat CGAs in DVEs utilized for aircrew training. In this paper, we describe the system and the reasons for its genesis. We present the system requirements, system architecture, component-wise decomposition of the system design, and structure of the major components of the decision mechanism. We conclude with a summary of our results to date and recommendations for further research.


Gulu hot spring is located on the west bank of Sangqu river,Gulu town,Nagqu county of Tibet.The elevation is about 4700~4750 m a.s.l.. It is still intensely activing. Consisted mainly by geyserite,the sinter formed a medium scale hot spring type Cs-deposit. It is the result of collision of Indian and Eurasian plates. On the basis of investigating the characteristics of the geology and geomorphology,this paper divided the sinter into,south and north areas,5 suites. Suite 1 is located in the south area and under the big geyserite platform. It cut across the Sangqu river and reaches its east bank and formes the fluvioglacial platform of the Penultimate Glacial Period (Paran Glacial Period ). Suite 2 consists of the big geyserite platform of the south area.Consists of conglomerate cemented by sinter,Suite 3 located under geyserite platform of the north area and cut across the Sangqu river and reaches the east bank too. Which Consists of the fluvioglacial platform of the Last Glaciation (Laqu Glacil Period)of the late Late Pleistocene. Suite 4 Consists of the geyserite platform of the north area and is divided into,south and north,two small parts separated by a small ditch. Everyone of the two parts consisted by several geyserite pyramids. Suite 5 consists of the geyserite pyramids that modern activing. According to nine U-series dates from Gulu geyserite and the characteristics of the geology and geomorphology,this paper divided Gulu Cs-deposit into five stages. Stage 1,although We have not get the dates temporarily,according to the position of geomorphology and stratigrphic sequence,which can be inferred that it is deposit after Ningzhong glacial period,maybe the early-middle stage of the largest International period (about 0.5~0.4 Ma).Stage 2 is 0.38~0.25 Ma BP. It is correspond from the late stage of the largest International period to the early stage of Paran glacial period. Stage 3 is about 0.22 Ma BP which is the early stage of Paran glacial period. Stage 4 is 108.6~17.2 ka BP that is formed from late stage of the Last Glaciation to the Laqu glacial period. Stage 5 is from 5.3 ka BP,to the present. From early to late stage,the content of SiO2 gradually falls,while contents of Cs rise. The reason is that impurity components are not expelled from crystals with the falling degree of SiO2 ordering.


Field-assisted-sintering technique (FAST) has been employed to obtain polycrystalline MgB2 samples, pristine and doped with 5 mol % SiC and B4C, using commercial MgB2 powder. The mass density of the samples is around 90% of the theoretical value. The response in magnetic field shows that the upper critical field and the irreversibility field are depressed by comparison with pristine MgB2. The latter has an upper critical field Hc2=14.37 T close to the values reported for the single crystals. Scaling analysis of the field dependence of the pinning force suggests that both addition of SiC and B4C stabilizes two well defined pinning regimes in FAST-processed MgB2. At low temperatures, T< 24 K (H≤5T), the pinning occurs at the grain boundaries whereas at higher temperatures there is a mixed pinning. These effects are supposed to be the combined result of relatively low level of C diffusion into the lattice of MgB2, specific features in formation of the grain boundaries during FAST processing and the influence of the added materials on morphology. At high fields (above 8.5T) and 4.2K, doped samples are superior to the pristine one from the critical current density viewpoint.


With the increasing number of images generated every day, textual annotation of images becomes impractical and inefficient. Thus, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has received considerable interest in recent years. For comparing images, CBIR uses generic image features which are traditionally either intensity-based (color and texture) or geometrybased (shape and topology); the latter is generally less developed than the former. A common limitation of the existing geometry-based retrieval systems is not considering simultaneously both shape and topology of image objects (or components) which may reveal important properties of the scene being analyzed. This work presents a geometry-based image retrieval approach for multi-object images. We commence with developing an effective shape matching method for closed boundaries. Then, a structured representation, called curvature tree (CT), is introduced to extend the shape matching approach to handle images containing multiple objects with possible holes. We also propose an algorithm, based on Gestalt principles, to detect and extract high-level boundaries (or envelopes), which may evolve as a result of the spatial arrangement of a group of image objects. At first, a shape retrieval method using triangle-area representation (TAR) is presented for non-rigid shapes with closed boundaries. The TAR is a 2D matrix that utilizes the areas of the triangles formed by the boundary points to measure the convexity/concavity of each point at different scales (or triangle side lengths). This representation is effective in capturing both local and global characteristics of a shape, invariant to translation, rotation, scaling and shear, and robust against noise and moderate amounts of occlusion. For matching, two algorithms are introduced. The first algorithm matches concavity maxima points extracted from TAR image obtained by thresholding the TAR. In the second matching algorithm, dynamic space warping (DSW) is employed to search efficiently for the optimal (least cost) correspondence between the points of two shapes. Then, a dissimilarity measure is derived based on the optimal correspondence. Experimental results using the MPEG-7 CE-1 database of 1400 shapes show the superiority of our method over


The present study investigates learning benefits from non-interactive videos and from interactive videos (videos with quizzes) in an introductory calculus course. The videos were produced especially for this course as pen-casts. Also, interplay of videos in the course curriculum and other course activities is evaluated. The theoretical background is that multimodal learning resources helps students both in motivation and cognitive achievements. The videos are one of the learning resources for preparing the lessons (flipped classroom) and for simultaneous use during exercise classes. Students evaluate how they benefit from the different video types and the use videos together with other course activities. Students experience a significantly larger learning outcome from the videos with interaction and that they reflect the awareness of their learning progress as they watch the videos. The videos correspond with the overall course curriculum and are superior to other learning resources available. The students interact with the videos as expected. The use of videos stimulates high level of reflection on both knowledge, study-process, and own use of learning resources (learning strategy).


ABSTRACT Nitrogen exerts a marked influence on the yield and quality of the onion. The present work was developed from June to October 2016, aiming to evaluate the yield and quality of two cultivars of onion under a system densified as a function of nitrogen doses in Mossoró, RN, Brazil. A randomized block design was used in a 2 x 7 factorial scheme, with four repetitions, corresponding to two cultivars (IPA 11 and Rio das Antas) and seven nitrogen doses (0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225 and 270 kg ha-1 of N), provided by fertigation, with four repetitions. The dose of 92 kg ha-1 of N provides the highest total and marketable yields of bulbs. Nitrogen fertilization increases the concentrations of N, chlorophyll a, b and total in the leaves of the onion, as well as the percentage of bulbs of classes 3 and 4 and the pungency, reducing the percentage of bulbs of class 2 and non-commercial. The doses of 108 and 82 kg ha-1 of N provide the highest rates of return for 'IPA 11' (R$ 2.07) and 'Rio das Antas' (R$ 2.41), respectively.


Amphibians have long been known to display wide variation in erythrocyte morphology across species, but within species there has been little attention given to individual variation in red blood cell morphology. We captured 49 red-backed salamanders ( Plethodon cinereus ) from central Pennsylvania, USA and used image analysis procedures to measure erythrocyte morphology (size and shape) on blood smears made from all individuals. We then statistically examined whether variation in snout-vent-length, sex, tail loss, or capture location influenced these cell variables. Only snout-vent-length affected erythrocyte size and shape, with increasing body sizes associated with increasing cell areas and increasingly rounder cells. Further, erythrocyte shape was also associated with a measure of body condition that was corrected for body size, such that individuals with high body condition scores had rounder cells. Given the oxygen-carrying role of erythrocytes in all vertebrates, we suspect this discovery is related to size-related changes in oxygen demand, since total oxygen consumption increases with body size in an allometric manner. While our results warrant further investigation to understand the mechanism, the association we found between cell roundness and both body size and condition nevertheless indicates this parameter could be used to assess the health state of plethodontid salamanders in future research, provided non-destructive sampling is employed. Our results also underscore the value of hematological investigations in the study of animal biology.


A study of the prevalence of adult asthma (subjects over 18 years of age) has been carried out in the Puy-de-Dôme area over the past two years by means of a questionnaire sent out to all the doctors in the area. 1,130 asthmatics have been inventoried to this day (547 males and 583 females). A study of the geographical distribution carried out in terms of demographic data on thhe present time, but is certainly underestimated. Correspondence analysis shows up the influence of age on the severity of the attacks. Frequency calculation and the cumulated frequency of the answers to the question concerning the date of the onset of asthma, leads to the conclusion that there will probably be an important increase of cases of late asthma in the next few years. The socio-economic and professional (sick leave, change of job) effects of this type of asthma in adults are analysed.


We consider the vulnerability of fairness-constrained learning to small amounts of malicious noise in the training data. Konstantinov and Lampert (2021) initiated the study of this question and presented negative results showing there exist data distributions where for several fairness constraints, any proper learner will exhibit high vulnerability when group sizes are imbalanced. Here, we present a more optimistic view, showing that if we allow randomized classifiers, then the landscape is much more nuanced. For example, for Demographic Parity we show we can incur only a $\Theta(\alpha)$ loss in accuracy, where $\alpha$ is the malicious noise rate, matching the best possible even without fairness constraints. For Equal Opportunity, we show we can incur an $O(\sqrt{\alpha})$ loss, and give a matching $\Omega(\sqrt{\alpha})$lower bound. In contrast, Konstantinov and Lampert (2021) showed for proper learners the loss in accuracy for both notions is $\Omega(1)$. The key technical novelty of our work is how randomization can bypass simple"tricks"an adversary can use to amplify his power. We also consider additional fairness notions including Equalized Odds and Calibration. For these fairness notions, the excess accuracy clusters into three natural regimes $O(\alpha)$,$O(\sqrt{\alpha})$ and $O(1)$. These results provide a more fine-grained view of the sensitivity of fairness-constrained learning to adversarial noise in training data.


YBa2Cu3Oy thin films have been deposited in-situ on several substrate materials using pulsed excimer laser deposition. On the substrates, SrTiO3, MgO, LaA103, and yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ), excellent films were obtained. These films had high superconducting transition temperatures (91K) with narrow transition widths (≈0.5K), metallic conductivity in the normal state, low room-temperature resistivity ( ~250 µΩ-cm), high critical currents (~3x107 A/cm2 at 4.2K), c-axis orientation perpendicular to the plane of the film, and epitaxial alignment with the substrate. On the more technologically relevant substrates of A12O3 and Si, less optimal results were obtained. The transition temperatures were high (86-88K) and metallic conductivity way obtained in the normal state. However, the room-temperature and microwave surface resistivities were higher and the critical currents were lower than for the above benchmark substrates. These diminished transport properties correlate with the imperfect alignment and epitaxy of the YBCO and substrate. For A12O3 substrates, a narrow substrate-temperature window was found for the best in-situ YBCO films. The poorer transport properties correlate with the lack of registry of the YBCO a-b plane with the sapphire r-plane. For Si substrates, a buffer layer is required due to high reactivity even at substrate temperatures as low as 550 C. YSZ provides a good buffer, and our best results were obtained on clean, hydrogen-terminated surfaces rather than oxidized Si. The amount of Y2O3 in ZrO2 was varied, and the best films were obtained with x near 0.1 where (ZrO2)1-x(Y2O3)x is cubic. Epitaxial alignment of the YBCO with the Si was achieved, but there was a substantial spread in orientations, accounting for the diminished transport properties.


Cyclotides are a diverse and abundant group of ribosomally synthesized plant peptides containing a unique cyclic cystine-knotted topology that confers them with remarkable stability. Kalata B1, a representative member of this family of mini-proteins, has been found to inhibit the proliferation of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Analysis of T-cell proliferation upon treatment with chemically synthesized kalata B1 mutants revealed a region comprising inter-cysteine loops 1 and 2 of the cyclotide framework to be important for biological activity. Cytokine signaling analysis using an 'active' kalata B1 mutant [T20K], and the reference drug cyclosporin A (CsA) demonstrated that treatment of activated T-lymphocytes with these compounds decreased the expression of the interleukin-2 (IL-2) surface receptor as well as IL-2 cytokine secretion and IL-2 gene expression, whereas the 'inactive' kalata B1 mutant [V10K] did not cause any effects. The anti-proliferative activity of [T20K] kalata B1 was antagonized by addition of exogenous IL-2. Furthermore, treatment with [T20K] kalata B1 led to an initial reduction of the effector function, as indicated by the reduced IFN-γ and TNF-α production, but the levels of both cytokines stabilized over time and returned to their normal levels. On the other hand, the degranulation activity remained reduced. This indicated that cyclotides interfere with T-cell polyfunctionality and arrest the proliferation of immune-competent cells through inhibiting IL-2 biology at more than one site. The results open new avenues to utilize native and synthetically-optimized cyclotides for applications in immune-related disorders and as immunosuppressant peptides.


Email system since its inception has been a data exchanger between users over the internet. Email spam is the spoiler of the email system and a major concern towards the security and privacy related performance. Since Email Spam has to keep at lowest many researchers have given their definitions to handle this spam. The spam datasets used in the spam filtering area of study deal with large amounts of data containing irrelevant and/or redundant features. This redundant information has a negative impact on the accuracy and detection rate of many methods that have been used for detection and filtering. In this paper we propose a statistical feature selection approach combined with similarity coefficients are used to improve the accuracy and detection rate for the spam detection and filtering and prove the stability of detection rate, accuracy and false raising system.


To investigate the flow characteristics of water in a porous medium with a second, stagnant, immiscible liquid phase, we experimentally studied flow of water through a bed of glass beads containing stagnant silicone oil. For imaging, two magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques were used: the chemical shift imaging method and the phase-encoding method. Two-dimensional images both with and without the silicone oil showed that the water velocity profiles drastically changed because the stagnant silicone oil changed the pore structure. Significant changes in flow were also confirmed by composing eleven two-dimensional images of velocity profiles to visualize the three-dimensional How path and the stagnant silicone oil distribution in the porous media. A statistical method was developed to clarify the relation between pore structure and fluid flow. This method showed that, when stagnant silicone oil is present, but with the same net flow of water, the reduction in rate of flow from large, oil-blocked pores is compensated by an increase in rate of flow from the larger number of small pores.


The aim of this study to determine the potential of Coffea canephora by using chlorogenic acid (CGA)
compound associated with macrophages polarization in tuberculosis condition. Exploration of compound
by using the Knapsack database and Dr. Duke. Analysis of CGA by using a PASS server with the results
ranged score 0-1 probability to be active score. Molecular binding docking receptor and ligand were used
Autodock PyrXv9.5 and interactions between molecules using CLUSPRO 2.2. Potential activities of CGA
compounds was 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, feruloylquinic acid, and p-coumaroylquinic acid with Pa value
close to 1, this indicates that the accuracy of prediction of antioxidant activity was quite high. The results of
docking through the attachment pathway of several amino acids showed the potential for side methylation
activity 'which is able to reduced DNMT1 activity thereby suppressing the anti-inflammatory process.
Protein interactions based on affinity values were higher among DNMT1 and STAT1 bonds compared to
STAT6. The results of the study concluded that the active compound in Coffea canephora was involved in
the function of the immune system and it related to the inflammatory process. It is triggers the delivery of
antimicrobial cytokine signals and increased antioxidant, it is very necessary in healing tuberculosis disease
process.


Text compression algorithms are normally defined in terms of a source alphabet Sigma of 8-bit ASCII codes. The authors consider choosing Sigma to be an alphabet whose symbols are the words of English or, in general, alternate maximal strings of alphanumeric characters and nonalphanumeric characters. The compression algorithm would be able to take advantage of longer-range correlations between words and thus achieve better compression. The large size of Sigma leads to some implementation problems, but these are overcome to construct word-based LZW, word-based adaptive Huffman, and word-based context modelling compression algorithms.<<ETX>>


BackgroundParaconduit hernia is a relatively common long-term complication after esophagectomy which has the potential to cause great morbidity and even mortality. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between sarcopenia and muscle mass loss and paraconduit hernia after minimally invasive esophagectomy in esophageal adenocarcinoma patients who have received neoadjuvant treatment.MethodsAll minimally invasive esophagectomies done for patients with neoadjuvant-treated esophageal or esophagogastric junction adenocarcinoma at our institution between 2008 and 2018 were included in this study. Propensity score matching was utilized to minimize confounding effects of retrospective data analysis. Computed tomography scans were used to measure skeletal muscle mass and to quantify sarcopenia.ResultsThe incidence of paraconduit hernia was 14 out of 171 patients (8.2%). The hernia was surgically repaired in 10 (71.4%) of patients. A total of 23 (82.1%) patients in the matched group were sarcopenic before start of neoadjuvant treatments, 22 (78.6%) after neoadjuvant treatments and 24 (85.7%) at 6 months of follow-up. Skeletal muscle area, skeletal muscle index or prevalence of sarcopenia had no correlation with paraconduit hernia developement. Using the median change of skeletal muscle area between pre-neoadjuvant and 6 months follow-up visit as a threshold to divide the patients into two equal size groups yielded no significantly different survival curves using Kaplan-Meier analysis (p = 0.6).ConclusionParaconduit hernia is a relatively common complication after minimally invasive esophagectomy for neadjuvantly treated adenocarcinoma patients. Sarcopenia and muscle mass loss are not predictive factors for paraconduit hernia.


Multiple description coding (MDC) and forward error control (FEC) are two frequently used techniques for improving transport performance on lossy packet networks. Typically, these two techniques are used separately and independently with resulting performance dependent on network conditions, the choice of coding parameters and the applications being transported. In this paper we propose and analyze a joint MDC and FEC coding approach for delay-constrained applications on congested networks under some idealized modeling assumptions which are, nevertheless, sufficient to draw some qualitative conclusions. Specifically, for fixed delay constraints we show that under a range of operating parameters, there is an optimal FEC coding block size, channel coding rate and assignment of MDC rates which can achieve significantly improved end-to-end performance, compared to the performance achieved by using only MDC or FEC alone.


We report a patient with sickle cell anemia (homozygous Hb SS) and typical features of sickle chest syndrome but with no response to exchange transfusion. A right atrial thrombus was found, and antiphospholipid antibodies were detected in his blood. He responded to thrombolytic therapy. The relationship between right atrial thrombus and massive pulmonary embolus, and the implications of an additional thrombophilic state in sickle cell disease are discussed.


In whose interests should a corporation be run? Should corporate governance focus on protecting
the interests of only shareholders or should it expand its focus and consider the interests of other
stakeholder groups? For decades, debate has been made on this question among scholars of
corporate governance. Corporate governance literature commonly divides the world into two
spheres: the Anglo-American "outsider" system and the continental Europe or German-Japanese
"insider" system, each with a characteristic set of structural elements, ownership patterns, and
strengths and weaknesses. The traditional "Shareholder Model", which predominantly exists in
Anglo-America countries, argues that a firm should primarily focus on shareholders' wealth
maximization. On the other side, the "Stakeholder Model", which exists in German, Japan and
other Continental Europe, contends that a firm has other purpose in a society than maximization
of shareholders wealth so that it should focus not only on the interests of shareholders but also on
employees, customers, suppliers, local communities and other stakeholders. The purpose of this
research paper is to introduce each model and the theoretical debate that exists between them
with a final recommendation of the appropriate model for Ethiopia. It tries to evaluate both
models generally and in light of Ethiopia's corporate governance environment. The paper
recommends that Ethiopia should follow an eclectic approach in choosing between the two
models which can be represented by the "Enlightened Shareholder Value" approach.


By encompassing diagnostic multifunctions, microprocessor equipped pulse generators represent a marked improvement in the field of diagnosis and treatment. In this sense, bioelectrical data can be recorded over long periods, up to years, making a continuous follow-up possible. Changes in basic cardiac rhythm, pacemaker malfunctions, effect of parameter programming, even the assessment of antiarrhythmic therapy are some information that could be acquired. The screening function is particularly valuable for detecting sporadic arrhythmias and intermittent pacemaker malfunction which would otherwise go undetected. The limitation of this system lies in the fact that it does not render information on morphology and lacks the chronological correlation between recorded events.


In this article, I try to show how the principle of fair play provides insight into the problem of excessive incarceration. I also address the concern that democratic societies are especially susceptible to this problem because of their tendency to foster what has come to be called penal populism. My argument is that democracy leads to mass imprisonment only when an otherwise democratic polity neglects what Albert Dzur calls the "moral dimension" of government by the people. In particular, this moral dimension requires an understanding of the polity as a cooperative enterprise according to rules that specify the terms of fair play. Mass incarceration of the kind that now characterizes the United States is a sign that this polity is failing to play fair when it imprisons many of those who violate its laws.


Introduction: Breast cancer is a public health problem that is increasing throughout the world especially in developing countries. The study was aimed at assessing the knowledge of breast cancer and practice of breast self examination (BSE) among women in Ala (rural) community, in Akure North Local Government. Ondo state, Nigeria. Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out among women in Ala community in Akure North Local Government, Ondo State. The tool for data collection was a structured self administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS version window 21. Frequencies and percentages were used in the answering of the research questions. Results: One hundred women participated in the study. Their mean age was 26 years. A greater proportion of respondents (60%) had poor knowledge of BSE. nearly all the participants had knowledge of the existence of breast cancer. The most f r e q u e n t perceived c a u s e of breast c a n c e r was "hereditary" (55%). Breast cancer wa s attributed to witchcraft by (50%) of the participants. The risk factor most frequently indexed by respondents was "Excessive alcohol consumption" (65%). Overall (45%) of participants were partially aware of the causes of breast cancer. Although (60%) of respondents believed that breast cancer could be prevented with a vaccine, only (34%) recognized breast examination as a breast cancer prevention method. The major source of information for breast cancer and BSE among the respondents was the mass media. Only (13%) of respondents had practiced BSE. Conclusion: This study concluded that there was poor knowledge of BSE and with unsatisfactory practice among women in Ala community area of Akure Local Government. Ondo state Nigeria. It therefore, suggests that breast awareness campaign and self efficacy development is important for women in this community to aid early detection and better prognosis of breast cancer in this community, and this will have a multiplier effect on female secondary school girls. Also, Further studies need to explore what interventions could be best used to improve the uptake and practice of BSE and other methods for early breast cancer detection. Keywords; Breast cancer, Breast Self-Exam, Knowledge, Practices, Rural.


How a virus is neutralised depends upon several inter-acting factors. The most important of these, but by no means the only ones, are the interaction of a specific epitope, the properties of the cognate antibody, and the nature of the host cell. Variation in any one of these may change the mechanism by which neutralisation occurs and may obviate neutralisation altogether. The purpose of this article is to present an overview of neutralisation; for a more detailed discussion the reader should consult Dimmock' for references up to 1993 and more recent reviews2--'


Background/Aim: Demethoxycurcumin (DMC), a derivate of curcumin from natural plants, exerts antitumor effects on various human cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. Nevertheless, no reports have disclosed whether DMC can affect the growth of human cervical cancer cells in vivo. Therefore we investigated the antitumor effects of DMC on a HeLa cell xenograft model in nude mice in this study. Materials and Methods: Twenty-four nude mice were subcutaneously injected with HeLa cells. All mice were randomly divided into control, low-dose DMC (30 mg/kg), and high-dose DMC (50 mg/kg) groups and individual mice were treated intraperitoneally accordingly every 2 days. Results: DMC significantly reduced tumor weights and volumes of HeLa cell xenografts in mice, indicating the suppression of growth of xenograft tumors. Conclusion: These effects and findings might provide evidence for investigating the potential use of DMC as an anti-cervical cancer drug in the future.


Soft x-ray lasers in the 3.5–50 nm wavelength range have been developed in many laboratories. The shortest wavelengths and highest output irradiances have been produced using plasmas created by optical lasers as the lasing medium. The optical laser is focused into a line on a solid target and the x-ray laser action occurs by amplification along the line with sufficiently high gain that mirrors are not needed. Population inversions are produced by free-electron collisions exciting bound electrons into metastable levels in neon- and nickel-like ions. This topical review presents a summary of the atomic, plasma and propagation physics of x-ray lasers created in this way.


Criminalization of the criminal case of narcotics abuse by the judges are very diverse. The aim of research to find out and analyze why the disparity in the criminal verdict against narcotics abuse criminal case, how the implementation of the basic objective of sentencing disparity in the criminal verdict against narcotics abuse criminal case. Methods are juridical sociological approach using primary data from interviews with relevant parties associated secondary data of materials applicable laws or regulations. The results of the study, 1) criminal disparity in criminal narcotics abuse, cause by the impact of the crime of narcotics abuses, committing criminal background narcotic abuse, the persuasive principle of Presedent, The existence of freedom and independence of the judge in the 1945 Constitution, the laws existing judicial power, the theory of dissenting opinions, and the doctrine of res judicate hebetur pro veritate. 2) Implementation of the objective of sentencing in criminal disparity criminal case of narcotics abuse, contained in the formulation of a special minimum punishment in Act No. 35 of 2009, is to meet the demands of society and the effectiveness of the influence of general prevention. of punishment meted out, the final attempt of criminal law and serves as a special precaution, prevention against the perpetrators to obtain deterrence and rehabilitation for himself. Keywords: Narcotics abuse; Criminal Disparities; Objective Punishment.


Hydrology does not yet possess a generally agreed upon catchment classification system. Such a classification framework should provide a mapping of landscape form and hydro-climatic conditions on catchment function (including partition, storage, and release of water), while explicitly accounting for uncertainty and for variability at multiple temporal and spatial scales. This framework would provide an organizing principle, create a common language, guide modeling and measurement efforts, and provide constraints on predictions in ungauged basins, as well as on estimates of environmental change impacts. In this article, we (i) review existing approaches to define hydrologic similarity and to catchment classification; (ii) discuss outstanding components or characteristics that should be included in a classification scheme; and (iii) provide a basic framework for catchment classification as a starting point for further analysis. Possible metrics to describe form, hydro-climate, and function are suggested and discussed. We close the discussion with a list of requirements for the classification framework and open questions that require addressing in order to fully implement it. Open questions include: How can we best represent characteristics of form and hydro-climatic conditions? How does this representation change with spatial and temporal scale? What functions (partition, storage, and release) are relevant at what spatial and temporal scale? At what scale do internal structure and heterogeneity become important and need to be considered?