The supporting frame pedestal base construction technology plays an important role in the construction of steel structure quality of high-rise building, the attention is an important link in the construction of steel structure of the high-rise building. In this paper, the tower No. 1 CRE International Plaza is taken as the research object, to explore the optimization measures of high-rise steel structure frame column base construction technology support, hoping to provide reference to improve the quality of high-rise building. With the development of the social economy, the high-rise buildings in China stand up and become an important trend in the China's construction industry. The steel structure in the high-rise building has become more and more common, which has been widely recognized and applied, and its industrialization and commercialization trend is more obvious. Based on this, relevant personnel actively explore the optimization path of high-rise building steel structure construction quality, and further research in the aspects of steel structure reform, manufacturing, design, installation and so on, and urge high-rise steel structure to achieve a new high. At the same time, the construction technology of steel structure with complex structure and wide span is used to support the improvement of the construction quality of the high-rise buildings. As the construction process of CRE International Plaza No. 1 floor tower is taken as the research object, the application of support column base construction technology is discussed, hoping to provide reference for the better development of high-rise buildings [1]. 1. Advantages and disadvantages of steel structure in high building In recent years, the reason why steel structure has become popular in high building engineering is because of its unparalleled superiority in other structures. The author combines the experience of its own construction, and summarizes the advantages of the steel structure of the high-rise building, which is mainly shown as the following points: First of all, the steel structure of the high-rise building has some advantages, and it has its own excellent characteristics. Because of its special material, therefore, the construction quality of steel structure is more stable and lower weight, but the material distribution is uniform, and its high strength, high seismic level, its resistance to sudden impact force strong, once the housing construction has such properties, even encountered typhoons, earthquakes and other adverse weather conditions. The building does not collapse, can effectively protect the building. Secondly, although the strength of steel structure of high-rise building is high, but because of its lighter quality, smaller scale structures, so the convenient transportation and construction, greatly shorten the construction time, the construction time wasting in the uninstall and transport, save the above construction steel structure. For example, the building area of only 1000 square meters of building objects, only 5 workers can be built in just ten days, it can also be combined with concrete construction, and can reduce the construction cycle [2]. Third, because the quality of steel structure of high-rise building is more stable and lower weight, which covers an area of small, compared with the traditional construction materials, steel has 2018 International Conference on Medicine, Biology, Materials and Manufacturing (ICMBMM 2018) Copyright © (2018) Francis Academic Press, UK 127 increased at least 1.5 times the compressive and flexural strength, which can make full use of building space; in addition, steel recycling utilization rate is high, fewer side effects on human health, high safety, construction waste generated less, good effect of energy saving and environmental protection steel, both for environmental protection, human health or security plays an important role. Although steel has unparalleled advantages, it has to admit that steel structure can not be ignored. It is mainly reflected in the fire resistance of the steel structure of high building, which is compared with the comparison of concrete. When the temperature is higher and higher, the quality of its strength and elasticity of steel will fall greatly image construction effect, which is the steel structure of the high-rise building is currently still can not completely replace one of the causes of concrete and steel material; its corrosion resistance is poor, because the steel material of iron atoms in extremely chemical reaction with the oxygen in the air, in this process, the steel material is extremely prone to rust, which greatly affected the architectural aesthetic effect, reduce the service life of the building [3]. The high-rise building steel structure construction needs to focus on its advantages to be applied, and effective measures to avoid the expansion of its shortcomings, so that steel structure can really promote the construction quality of high-rise buildings, which is also the direction for related personnel in the field of construction. 2. Combined with the project research of high-rise steel structure supporting frame pedestal base construction technology The project site planning object for Cre International Plaza No. four from the ground floor to the ground 30, the total height reached 144 meters. It should be noted that the main structure of the building is a special concrete support, plus a frame scissors wall system, a total of 18 steel pipes, wherein the main steel pipe is branded on the thick raft, and the average section size of the steel pipe is 1600*40. In addition, in each pipe column base is thirty root length is eight hundred mm, weight of 27.76 bolts [4]. During the long construction period, there are some key points in the construction of the project. There are many difficulties encountered in the construction process. The following are the key points and difficulties that the author summed up based on his own construction experience. First of all, in the installation of steel in the development of construction site, to collect data on the application, in the actual measurement process, some devices can achieve good results, but some equipment control difficulty coefficient is big, like anchor bolt, anchor plate and the supporting frame, the error control in about three mm elevation support face. Secondly, the main structure of the building is a kind of special concrete pillar and frame shear wall system, a total of 18 steel tubes, each tube column column at thirty root length is eight hundred mm, the quality of bolts 27.76 kg, in the construction, the need to ensure that some are able to anchor pass through the anchor plate is vertical deviation accuracy for each root anchor the part of the construction project are higher, but also must ensure that each anchor does not appear when through the anchor plate tilt, support the accuracy and stability directly affect the construction quality of the anchor bolt can smoothly through the anchor plate. Third, also need to pay attention to is the need to be buried in the bottom of the concrete column bolt ahead of the material, not only requires each anchor does not appear in this situation through the inclined anchor plate, but also has high stability for anchor bolt and anchor bolt support requirements, to ensure that the thickness of raft anchor support in length three meters, and expand on the concrete casting, also need to pay attention to the position of the anchor bolt and anchor plate center deviation is not more than five mm. In addition, there are four rows of Steel No. 1 unit building raft bottom, a total of 36 bars, each bar length is nine meters, the total weight of 72 kg, taking into account the weight is heavy, so it needs two people together to complete handling; building 1, construction period is short so relevant to the needs of the construction personnel reasonable arrange the embedded anchor support frame insertion time, construction time and between raft rebar construction sequence, reasonable


Commercial tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) hybrids can be a good germplasm for obtaining new tomato inbred lines. The present study was aimed to investigate the stability of commercial F1 hybrids under climatic conditions of highlands, to estimate genetic parameters, and evaluate the breeding potential of F1 hybrids based on the agronomic performance of its F3 progeny. We employed a breeding scheme based on pedigree selection for the obtainment of 49 F3 families. Significant differences were found in most of the traits evaluated in both F1 and F3 generations, while in the F2 population only one variable showed significant differences. Heritability ranged from 0.07 to 0.29 for F1, and from 0.16 to 0.45 for F3. Most of the F1 hybrids exhibited values of stability across seasons in at least one trait. However, 'Loreto' and 'Reserva' only exhibited a high stability for yield. Genetic gains ranged from -8.40 to 72.95. Yield per plant was the traits with the highest gain. Based on genetic gains obtained by the F3 progeny, we concluded that 'Cid', 'Espartaco' and 'Loreto' have a high breeding potential for yield and other traits, which could be exploited by public tomato breeding programs.


Fuzzing is one of the most effective technique to identify potential software vulnerabilities. Most of the fuzzers aim to improve the code coverage, and there is lack of directedness (e.g., fuzz the specified path in a software). In this paper, we proposed a deep learning (DL) guided directed fuzzing for software vulnerability detection, named DeFuzz. DeFuzz includes two main schemes: (1) we employ a pre-trained DL prediction model to identify the potentially vulnerable functions and the locations (i.e., vulnerable addresses). Precisely, we employ Bidirectional-LSTM (BiLSTM) to identify attention words, and the vulnerabilities are associated with these attention words in functions. (2) then we employ directly fuzzing to fuzz the potential vulnerabilities by generating inputs that tend to arrive the predicted locations. To evaluate the effectiveness and practical of the proposed DeFuzz technique, we have conducted experiments on real-world data sets. Experimental results show that our DeFuzz can discover coverage more and faster than AFL. Moreover, DeFuzz exposes 43 more bugs than AFL on real-world applications.


It is satisfactory to find that the results by the carbon-monoxide method agree closely with those hitherto obtained by the aerotonometer m~thod. The reasons why Fredericq and Krogh have obtained no evidence in favour of the secretion theory are also evident. Still more satisfactory is it to find that the process of absorption of oxygen by the lungs is regulated, just as is the breathing itself, in accordance with the physiological requirements of the organism. But for the secretory process the blood would be very incompletely saturated during muscular work, when five, or even ten, times as much oxygen is absorbed as during rest. During rest, on the other hand, the secretory process is not required, and would be a waste of physiological effort.


Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were screened in two nearly isogenic lines (NILs) of tomato, one of which carried Tm-1 gene conferring resistance to tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) and the other carried its susceptible allele. Among 1030 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products generated by using 220 different 10-base oligonucleotide primers, 12 fragments were polymorphic between the NILs. Six markers arbitrarily chosen from these 12 fragments were examined whether they link to the Tm-1 in 125 BC1 plants. No recombinations were detected between the five markers and the Tm-1. The other one marker was also proved to link to the Tm-1, but their genetic distance was not determined due to some difficulty in distinguishing the RAPD band from the adjacent PCR products.


Summary

To determine the amounts of staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA), a novel and sensitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed. Protein A, which is produced by Staphylococcus aureus, interferes with the reaction between SEA and anti-SEA immunoglobulin G (IgG), resulting in a false-positive reaction. Chicken IgY was introduced as a capture antibody in the sandwich ELISA system, as IgY binds less efficiently to protein A. When the anti-SEA IgG antibody was used as the capture and detection antibodies (IgG-IgG ELISA), the background levels of protein A increased, thus resulting in a false-positive reaction. A 0.01 ng mL−1 concentration of protein A significantly increased the absorbance value of the blank wells. When the anti-SEA IgY antibody was used as the capture antibody, 1000 ng mL−1 of protein A did not affect the absorbance value. The ELISA system using anti-SEA IgY as a capture antibody and anti-SEA IgG as a detection antibody (IgY-IgG ELISA) showed a detection limit of <0.25 ng mL−1 and a creditability of R2 = 0.98. These findings demonstrate the advantage of chicken IgY for the detection of SEA by means of double-antibody sandwich ELISA.


Eukaryotic cells have both membranous and membraneless organelles. While the formation mechanism of membranous organelles is well understood, the formation mechanism of membraneless organelles remains unknown. Many biomolecules in the cytoplasm transition from the liquid phase to the agglutinated phase are known as liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). The biomolecular agglomerates' physical properties enable them to function as dynamic compartments that respond to external pressures and stimuli. Scientists have gradually recognized the importance of phase separation during viral infections. LLPS provides a powerful new framework for understanding the viral life cycle from viral replication to evasion of host immune surveillance. As a result, this review focuses on the progress of LLPS research in viral infection and immune regulation to provide clues for antiviral therapeutic strategies.


Abstract In this article, we explore the possibilities for a transformation toward more sustainable energy usage by engaging with mundane activities, such as doing the laundry. Across European households, laundry practices rely on social norms and material arrangements, which makes these practices rather "sticky" and resistant to change. Through the lens of consumption corridors, and accounting for wellbeing in relation to the basic needs of participation, health, and autonomy, we study laundry practices and their transformation in 73 Finnish and Swiss households that took part in a challenge to reduce their weekly wash cycles by half over a four-week period in autumn 2018. By using both qualitative and quantitative data, we analyze how participants defined minimum and maximum standards for cleanliness and convenience, for themselves and for others, over the course of the challenge period. Specifically, we consider how the sequencing of tasks associated with "doing the laundry" changed, as well as the significance of social relations and sensations in representations of social norms. The participants' experiences helped uncover how setting limits toward consumption corridors can be achieved, whereby reductions in consumption can result in sustainable wellbeing.


Thomae's conceptualization of cognitive appraisal is tested in a mediation model of centenarian coping, adaptation, and social integration. Eight men and 32 women between 100 to 104 years were assessed with a semi-structured interview. On the basis of the interviews, indicators of functional health, cognitive appraisal, coping behavior, and social integration were rated. In addition, functional health was evaluated by observational methods, including a physician's rating. Testing of structural equation models indicated that cognitive appraisal is an important mediator between an emerging situation and the subsequent reactions in centenarians and that coping behavior is a substantial predictor of social integration. Even at the end of the human lifespan adaptational processes are generally efficient, albeit with some limitations. Similar to other adult age groups, very old adults use a variety of psychological processes to cope with tasks and stress.


B.P.S. Women University, Khanpur Kalan (Sonipat), Haryana, India Abstract - Marriage as an institution in India has strong spiritual connotations. It goes beyond the mere satisfaction of physical desires-one of the four goals of human life i.e. Dharma (conducting one's duty with compassion and righteousness), Artha (earning money), Kama (satisfying physical desires) and Moksha (liberation). These goals have been sanctioned by the Hindu scriptures which complete the cycle of life. The present generation in India and elsewhere has indulged in pursuing Artha and Kama so much, that they seem to have neglected the other main two goals of life-Dharma and Moksha. It is by incorporating these into life that the Kama may be meaningful. The present paper explores the religious connotation of the term 'Kama' in Hinduism keeping in view Maharshi Ramana's poetry. It considers the metaphor of marriage in a spiritual sense and relates the usage of this metaphor to other poets in Indian religious tradition. It is in this perspective that metaphor of marriage is to be seen portraying the higher concept of union of soul-bride and God- bridegroom.


In this study, the Fourier transform, wavelet transform and turbulence filter methods have been applied to coaxial jet flows for various downstream positions in the inner and outer mixing regions. The data were obtained from cross-wire measurements, so axial and radial velocity components were acquired. Attention is focused on the characteristics of these signals in the initial region of the jet-flow field. The effects of some basic mechanisms of the vorticity dynamics on the velocity time histories, and on different statistical and spectral quantities, are studied.


With the objective to gain more fundamental understanding of the influence of pore structure on the low-temperature reduction behavior of iron ore agglomerates, laboratory-scale induration experiments were performed using pure hematite compacts doped with naphthalene as a porosity-generating agent. The pore structure was thus controlled up to 60 % porosity and 1.4 mm pore diameter, and no mineralogical changes were observed in these ranges after induration. The cold strength of indurated compacts was higher with pores smaller than 0.125 mm in diameter, as well as with pores larger than 1 mm. Changes in the cold crushing behavior of indurated compacts are discussed based on matrix length and distribution theory. Reduction tests in CO-CO2-N2 gas at temperatures in the range of 350-800°C revealed high strength after reduction of compacts with fine pores less than 0.125 mm in diameter. Reasons for this high strength were the isotropic stress distribution within the compacts, as well as lower expansion due to development of a complex reduction front.


Critical Care Pharmacotherapeutics provides groundwork for pharmacy students and residents in critical care through 16 easy-to-read chapters. This book is not intended to be an all-inclusive reference for practicing pharmacists. However, it provides an outline of critical care pharmacy. Compared to other critical care textbooks, this book is not as extensive, but it is written specifically toward the profession of pharmacy, while most other textbooks target physicians or nurses. As an introduction to critical care pharmacy practice, this textbook is an easier read and less intimidating than larger, more inclusive references.

The chapters within this book each discuss a different topic or disease state that may be encountered in a critical care situation, along with learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter. The first chapter of this book explains the role of a pharmacist in the critical care environment. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 discuss the fundamental aspects of a critical care patient, including illness scoring systems, intravenous devices, chest tubes, hemodynamic monitoring, and ventilation.

The next 4 chapters provide material regarding monitoring and supportive measures that should be considered in all critically ill patients. In chapter 5, the author discusses analgesia, sedation, and delirium, with focus on therapeutic considerations, monitoring of pain, and sedation management. Chapters 6 and 7 provide an overview of the management of acid-base abnormalities, fluid replacement, and electrolyte management. The 8th chapter presents the causes and pharmacologic management of high blood pressure.

Chapters 9 through 11 focus on sepsis, acute coronary syndrome, and acute kidney injury. Chapter 12 explains the role of nutrition in disease management, including how to calculate energy requirements, malnutrition, enteral feeding, and a step-by-step approach to writing an order for parenteral nutrition. Chapter 13, which discusses infection, details the likely organisms depending on body compartment and empiric coverage for certain disease states. The next 2 chapters introduce hematologic conditions and neurologic disease or dysfunction. The final chapter of this textbook introduces issues that may be encountered in pediatric patients, along with the differences in treatment of a child and an adult. The author also provides an alphabetized list of abbreviations used in the book and the associated chapter.

This textbook has several strengths, including chapters introducing several aspects of critical care that are commonly not covered in-depth in pharmacy education curricula. The chapter regarding hematologic conditions, for example, explains different conditions and introduces blood products, which may only be briefly introduced during pharmacy school. Also, the typical pharmacy program focuses on adults with little emphasis on pediatrics. This book, however, introduces issues that are more likely to be faced in a pediatric patient and the differences in treating a child.

Although there are many excellent aspects of this textbook, a few things are lacking. Students would benefit from examples or cases at the end of each chapter that could be used as an assignment or during class discussion. Questions at the end of each chapter would also be useful to indicate understanding of material.

Critical Care Pharmacotherapeutics would be an excellent textbook for use in a third-year pharmacy program elective course in critical care. It is not intended as an all-inclusive textbook and should be used in addition to current treatment guidelines to provide the best care for patients. Because the textbook provides an overview and is not extremely in-depth, it is appropriate for the intended audience of pharmacy students and residents. It is an affordable textbook and would be beneficial to any pharmacy student considering critical care or preparing for an advanced pharmacy practice experience.


Imaging in small animal models of lung disease is challenging, as existing technologies are limited either by resolution or by the terminal nature of the imaging approach. Here, we describe the current state of small animal lung imaging, the technological advances of laboratory-sourced phase contrast X-ray imaging, and the application of this novel technology and its attendant image analysis techniques to the in vivo imaging of the large airways and pulmonary vasculature in murine models of lung health and disease.


Introduction ince Marshall Urist's original description, in 1965, of the potential of demineralized bone matrix to induce bone formation, the medical community has anticipated the development of osteogenic therapies. Following this discovery, researchers sought to identify and isolate these growth factors, specifically bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). Reddi and Huggins first characterized these important molecules involved in bone formation in 1973, and, in 1982, Sampath and Reddi developed a rat subcutaneous assay for BMP activity that measures bone formation. They found that BMPs initiate the bonehealing cascade through the recruitment of and interactions with mesenchymal stem cells found in surrounding tissues, including fascial planes, periosteum, peripheral blood, bone marrow, and cancellous bone. Several, but not all, of the fifteen human BMPs described to date have been found to bind to stem-cell receptors, triggering proliferation and differentiation, and to result in bone regeneration and repair. Once various BMPs were successfully isolated, a variety of animal models were used to test their efficacy in musculoskeletal applications. Early studies included bone-defect models as well as models of cartilage development, spinal fusion, and maxillofacial restoration. The healing of critical-sized defects in long bones was assessed in a variety of animal species, including rabbits, sheep, dogs, and primates (Figs. 1-A and 1-B). New insights into the nature of bone biology and the ability to manufacture proteins through recombinant gene technology have led to the commercialization of two BMPs: BMP-7 (OP-1; Stryker, Kalamazoo, Michigan) and BMP-2 (Infuse; Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Memphis, Tennessee). In addition, other BMPs or BMP-combination products are being evaluated clinically; these include various isolates of animal and human BMP implants, BMPx (Sulzer Biologics, Wheat Ridge, Colorado), BMP-9, and others. While current use is limited to approved applications in the spine and the treatment of traumatic S


Abstract Background Dysfunction in major stress response systems during the acute aftermath of trauma may contribute to risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current study investigated how PTSD diagnosis and symptom severity, depressive symptoms, and childhood trauma uniquely relate to diurnal neuroendocrine secretion (cortisol and alpha-amylase rhythms) in women who recently experienced interpersonal trauma compared to non-traumatized controls (NTCs). Method Using a longitudinal design, we examined diurnal cortisol and alpha-amylase rhythms in 98 young women (n = 57 exposed to recent interpersonal trauma, n = 41 NTCs). Participants provided saliva samples and completed symptom measures at baseline and 1-, 3-, and 6-month follow-up. Results Multilevel models (MLMs) revealed lower waking cortisol predicted the development of PTSD in trauma survivors and distinguished at-risk women from NTCs. Women with greater childhood trauma exposure exhibited flatter diurnal cortisol slopes. Among trauma-exposed individuals, lower waking cortisol levels were associated with higher concurrent PTSD symptom severity. Regarding alpha-amylase, MLMs revealed women with greater childhood trauma exposure exhibited higher waking alpha-amylase and slower diurnal alpha-amylase increase. Conclusions Results suggest lower waking cortisol in the acute aftermath of trauma may be implicated in PTSD onset and maintenance. Findings also suggest childhood trauma may predict a different pattern of dysfunction in stress response systems following subsequent trauma exposure than the stress system dynamics associated with PTSD risk; childhood trauma appears to be associated with flattened diurnal cortisol and alpha-amylase slopes, as well as higher waking alpha-amylase.


Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies secure a decentralized consensus protocol by incentives. The protocol participants, calledminers, generate (mine) a series of blocks, each containing monetary transactions created by system users. As incentive for participation, miners receive newly minted currency and transaction fees paid by transaction creators. Blockchain bandwidth limits lead users to pay increasing fees in order to prioritize their transactions. However, most prior work focused on models where fees are negligible. In a notable exception, Carlsten et al. [17] postulated that if incentives come only from fees then a mining gap would form —miners would avoid mining when the available fees are insufficient. In this work, we analyze cryptocurrency security in realistic settings, taking into account all elements of expenses and rewards. To study when gaps form, we analyze the system as a game we call the gap game.We analyze the gamewith a combination of symbolic and numeric analysis tools in a wide range of scenarios. Our analysis confirms Carlsten et al.'s postulate; indeed, we show that gaps formwell before fees are the only incentive, and analyze the implications on security. Perhaps surprisingly, we show that different miners choose different gap sizes to optimize their utility, even when their operating costs are identical. Alarmingly, we see that the system incentivizes large miner coalitions, reducing system decentralization. We describe the required conditions to avoid the incentive misalignment, providing guidelines for future cryptocurrency design.


This paper seeks to examine how Palestinian children's agency integrates Islamic religious idioms in daily life to combat Israeli oppression. While children are often seen as objects that are merely subjected to political and cultural processes, this research shows that children have agency and use their religious expression as a way to further their own political freedom and resist the imposing geopolitical agenda of colonialism. Since the inception of the war on terror that highlighted increased scrutiny and backlash against Islam in Western discourse, resistance through religion has become an integral part of Palestinian children's agency. The narratives of 28 Palestinian children demonstrate the claim that the children have agency in using the expression of Islamic idioms as resistance against Western perceptions and Israeli oppression.


The palm kernel cake (PKC) inclusion level in poultry diets is limited by the high indigestible polysaccharides content. Hence, PKC was subjected to an extrusion treatment to reduce the content of these components. The effects of extrusion on the total non-starch polysaccharides (T-NSP), fibre, monosaccharides, and mannooligosaccharides contents were evaluated according to the response surface methodology (RSM) with various temperatures, screw speeds, hopper speeds, and moisture contents. The optimum conditions observed according to the RSM were a temperature of 178 °C, screw speed of 100 rpm, hopper speed of 5 Hz, and moisture content of 75%. The T-NSP content was significantly reduced (p<0.05), from 63.3 ± 1.85% to 57.6 ± 0.89%, and the crude fibre content decreased (p<0.05) from 16.7 ± 0.68% to 13.5 ± 0.99%. The mannose, glucose, and fructose contents of the PKC increased (p<0.05) 2.9-, 1.9-, and 1.4-fold, respectively. The 1,4-β-D-mannobiose, 1,4-β-D-mannotriose, 1,4-β-D-mannotetraose, and 1,4-β-D-mannopentaose increased (p<0.05) 3.7-, 3.8-, 3.5-, and 32.8-fold, respectively. This study showed that extrusion enhanced the nutritive value of PKC.


We exploit both the high nonlinearity and holey structure of microstructured fibers to combine an ultra-broadband light source and a gas cell in a single microstructured fiber filled with acetylene.


The autonomous filling of creep-induced grain-boundary cavities by tungsten-rich precipitates has been studied for Fe-W alloys at various temperatures, loading conditions and creep rupture times. To this aim, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray nano-tomography were used. Additionally, the effect of local plastic deformation, followed by ageing processes, on the surface precipitation in these alloys has been studied by means of scanning electron microscopy, together with energy-dispersive spectroscopy. Finally, a diffusion-based finite element analysis has been performed to study cavity filling for different combination of diffusion mechanisms. From scanning electron micrographs it can be confirmed, that Fe-W alloys show damage-selective precipitation of the Laves phase (Fe$_2$W). Furthermore, the filling ratios of individual cavities are determined and it is found, that the autonomous healing strongly depends on the duration of the loading at of elevated temperature. From the quantitative analysis of the size and shape of the precipitates and cavities it is found, that the orientation of grain boundaries to the stress direction has an influence on the morphology of the induced-cavities, as well as, the filling ratio. The grain-boundary cavities orientated favourably for the cavity growth show low filling ratios, due to the fact, that their propagation proceeds with a higher rate than the solute transport. The critical volume of a cavity, that can be fully filled with solute atoms, is found to be of the order of 20$^4$ $\mu m^3$, while the average filling ratio for Fe-W alloys is found to be around 50\% for the sample loaded to 100\% of its lifetime. Moreover, the scanning electron micrographs of the indentation-deformed samples subjected to ageing revealed surface precipitates (Fe$_2$W), which existence has to be further researched. The hardness measurements of Fe-W samples showed that after 200 hours of ageing at 600$^\circ$C, the strength of the alloy is only reduced if the material has been pre-strained, but it remains constant for the solution heat treated specimens. This result shows, that the process of dislocation recovery dominates over work-hardening only in the case of a high dislocation density. Finally, the finite element analysis revealed, that during the diffusive cavity filling of an equilibrium-shaped void, three different diffusion profile regimes are plausible. Namely, a diffusive filling dominated by volume diffusion, which occurs for a relatively small spacing between neighbouring cavities and is independent of the ratio of bulk and grain-boundary diffusion. Secondly, a diffusive filling governed by volume diffusion with contributing grain-boundary diffusion, which occurs for relatively low ratios of bulk and grain-boundary diffusion. And ultimately, a diffusive filling governed by grain-boundary diffusion, which occurs for relatively high ratios of bulk and grain-boundary diffusion.


Anthocyanins are high-value plant antioxidants; they also determine biotic and abiotic stress resistance. The aim of our research was to study the allelic polymorphism of Antocyanin 1 orthologs in the vegetable Solanaceae crops of C. annuum and S. melongena. The search revealed the following closest genes in C. annuum: Myb113-like1 TF and Myb113like2 transcription factors and Myb1 in S. melongena. Exon amplicons of those genes were obtained and then sequenced in the pepper and eggplant samples with contrasting anthocyanin fruit coloration. Primers to the identified polymorphisms were developed and their correlation with the anthocyanin accumulation in fruits was studied. A close correlation was found between a minimum accumulation or the complete absence of anthocyanin synthesis in fruits with a single nucleotide deletion (Myb113-like1), and in the pepper samples, 2 SNP (Myb113-like2) was detected using the CAPS marker Myb 113-AccI. In the eggplant samples, the deletions of 6 and 26 bp were detected using the SCAR marker MybMel and the CAPS marker MybmelPst1. The disturbance of anthocyanin synthesis in pepper forms with 1Indel in Myb113-like1 TF was determined by a shift in the reading frame and SNPs in Myb113-like2 TF lead to amino acid substitutions: Lys → Arg and Thr → Lys. In the eggplant, a deletion of 6 bp leads to the loss of ala and arg in the protein; a deletion of 26 bp causes disorder during the mRNA maturation. The developed markers allow identifying the Myb-like TF alleles under study, resulting in anthocyanin synthesis disturbance in fruits. C. annuum and S. melongena samples with different alleles were selected for a further study and new varieties in agriculture.


Since carbon dioxide laser is
excellent for incision, hemostasis, coagulation, and vaporization of soft
tissues, it has been widely applied in clinical treatments as the laser knife.
In these days, flexible thin hollow optical fibers transmitting mid-infrared
light have been developed, and the application of carbon dioxide laser to
endoscopic therapy has become possible. However, it is expected that the
irradiation effect is influenced by the change in the laser power at the tip of
the hollow optical fiber due to the change in the transmittance by the bending
loss. The purpose of this research is to quantitatively evaluate the change in
the output power and therapeutic effect by bending the hollow optical fiber in
a gastrointestinal endoscope. The change in the transmittance of the hollow
optical fiber due to the insertion of the fiber into the endoscope and bending
of the head of the endoscope was measured. Then, the relationship between the
irradiated laser power and the incision depth for a porcine stomach was
investigated. As the results, the most significant decrease in the
transmittance of the hollow optical fiber was caused by the insertion of the
fiber into the instrument channel of the endoscope, and
bending of the head of the endoscope with the angle of 90° decreased the output
laser power and incision depth by 10% and 25%, respectively. Therefore, it was
confirmed that the bending loss of the hollow optical fiber due to the bending
of the head of the endoscope had no significant influence on the endoscopic
therapy using the carbon dioxide laser.


Media and communication studies scholars have been tracking the US digital terrestrial television (DTV) transition for over a decade, conducting research crucial for understanding the future of media systems. The existing research tends to focus on two areas. First, some scholars have used diffusion theory to consider issues of technological adoption, exploring the relative willingness of consumers to adapt to DTV. Second, others have examined how the transition has impacted the consumer electronics industry and the United States' precarious position in that global industry. Few, if any, have engaged critically with the ways that the federal government, trade organizations, and community groups have communicated with the public in an effort to prepare them for the digital TV transition. In this chapter, Lisa Parks adds a vital dimension to existing work in this area by exploring how technical information about DTV was communicated to the public in the months leading up to the transition. Examining a variety of materials, from press releases to news reports from public service announcements to video kinescopes that document the end of analog service, Parks considers how consumer-citizens were addressed by public outreach initiatives and how they negotiated the digital TV transition. She highlights three issues crucial for understanding this major infrastructural transition: (1) the way fixed-income and minority communities have been singled out in relation to television; (2) the uneven geographies of the transition; and (3) the way viewers and digital corporations have responded to the transition in its aftermath.

Keywords:

digital television;
infrastructure;
technology and society;
mapping;
ethnicity;
class


The possibility is studied of growing thin silicon oxynitride films by e-gun evaporation of SiO and SiO2 together with concurrent bombardment with low energy N2 + ions from a cyclotron resonance (ECR) source at room temperature of substrates. The degree of nitridation and oxidation of the films is investigated by means of X-ray spectroscopy. The optical characteristics of the films, their environmental stability and adhesion to different substrates are examined. The results obtained show than the films deposited are transparent. It is found that in the case of SiO evaporation with concurrent N2 + ion bombardment, reactive implantation of nitrogen within the films takes place at room temperature of the substrate with the formation of a new silicon oxynitride compound even at low ion energy (150-200 eV).


Various reducing agents have been evaluated for their potential usefulness in the preparation of 99mTc labeled radiopharmaceuticals for use in nuclear medicine. Adequate labeling of various radiopharmaceuticals was accomplished using formamidine sulfinic acid. Nitrogen-purging of solutions is not required, which is an advantage for in-house preparation. Tagging requires heating, however, so heat-labile material cannot be used. Various compounds that could not be labeled when stannous chloride was used, could be tagged with 99mTc when formanidine sulfinic acid was used as the reducing agent.


This thesis examines communist and post-communist press texts, as they are represented in the Russian newspaper Izvestiia. Taking a before-and-after approach, two case studies are performed, as well as compared and contrasted. The first examines articles documenting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Using the same newspaper title, the second investigates news coverage of the crisis over Ukraine in 2014. The study employs a Cold War framework to examine and correlate questions about the role and place of journalism then and now, by exploring both similarities and differences, from an explicitly linguistic angle. Applying a framing approach as a type of Critical Discourse Analysis, not only as a method of research, but also as a broader theoretical framework, the thesis aims to articulate a deeper understanding of the operational realities of Russian journalism and its troubled transition from Soviet to post-Soviet times, as well as to uncover its professional techniques in building imaginaries about Soviet and post-Soviet Russia and Russianness then and now.


In this paper we present a novel approach for the detection of low backscatter areas and areas with strong scatterers in marine SLC SAR images. The approach is based on the use of the three parameters of the generalized K probability density function. This speckle model embodies the Rayleigh scattering scene, which is descriptor of scenes dominated by Bragg scattering, the Rice scattering scene, which is descriptor of areas in which a dominant scatter is present, and the K-distribution, which is descriptor of non-Gaussian signal statistic which normally characterize the sea echo from free-area illuminated by an high-resolution radar. A large data-set of ERS 1/2 SLC SAR images, provided by the ESA under the CAT-1 Project C1P-2769, is employed. Results show the effectiveness of the approach.


This study conceptualizes multitasking in a tri-dimensional framework consisting of task, time and technology, and proposes an entropy measure called the Multitasking Entropy Index (MEI) to study multitasking behavior. Entropy indicates the level of disorder or heterogeneity in a system. In natural and social sciences, entropy measures have been used to study the dispersion of objects of interest. However, to date, these measures have not been applied to study human multitasking behavior. Multitasking is defined in terms of the focus shifts that occur when a person changes attention between ongoing tasks. MEI calculates the diversity of focus shifts that take place in a period of time. The index can also be applied to measure focus shifts across different technology devices. The results of an empirical test show the potential of the proposed index. The framework and index presented in this paper are poised to seed a new stream of research.


Within the context of human/multi-robot teams, the " help me help you " paradigm offers different opportunities. A team of robots can help a human operator accomplish a goal, and a human operator can help a team of robots accomplish the same, or a different, goal. Two scenarios are examined here. First, a team of robots helps a human operator search a remote facility by recognizing objects of interest. Second, the human operator helps the robots improve their position (localization) information by providing quality control feedback.


A new operator equation for periodic gravity waves on water of finite depth is derived and investigated; it is equivalent to Babenko's equation considered in [1]. Both operators in the proposed equation are nonlinear and depend on the parameter equal to the mean depth of water, whereas each solution defines a parametric representation for a symmetric free surface profile. The latter is a component of a solution of the two-dimensional, nonlinear problem describing steady waves propagating in the absence of surface tension. Bifurcation curves (including a branching one) are obtained numerically for solutions of the new equation; they are compared with known results.


OBJECTIVE
Despite professional recommendations to consider gender-affirming hormone and surgical interventions for transgender individuals experiencing gender incongruence, the long-term effect of such interventions on mental health is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to ascertain the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorder health care visits and antidepressant and anxiolytic prescriptions in 2015 as a function of gender incongruence diagnosis and gender-affirming hormone and surgical treatment in the entire Swedish population.

METHODS
This study used the Swedish Total Population Register (N=9,747,324), linked to the National Patient Register and the Prescribed Drug Register. Among individuals who received a diagnosis of gender incongruence (i.e., transsexualism or gender identity disorder) between 2005 and 2015 (N=2,679), mental health treatment in 2015 was examined as a function of length of time since gender-affirming hormone and surgical treatment. Outcome measures were mood and anxiety disorder health care visits, antidepressant and anxiolytic prescriptions, and hospitalization after a suicide attempt.

RESULTS
Compared with the general population, individuals with a gender incongruence diagnosis were about six times as likely to have had a mood and anxiety disorder health care visit, more than three times as likely to have received prescriptions for antidepressants and anxiolytics, and more than six times as likely to have been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. Years since initiating hormone treatment was not significantly related to likelihood of mental health treatment (adjusted odds ratio=1.01, 95% CI=0.98, 1.03). However, increased time since last gender-affirming surgery was associated with reduced mental health treatment (adjusted odds ratio=0.92, 95% CI=0.87, 0.98).

CONCLUSIONS
In this first total population study of transgender individuals with a gender incongruence diagnosis, the longitudinal association between gender-affirming surgery and reduced likelihood of mental health treatment lends support to the decision to provide gender-affirming surgeries to transgender individuals who seek them.


Possibility of federation improvement requires flexibility and adaptability of member federates. Moreover, to develop and convert a non-HLA(High Level Architecture) compliant model as a HLA federate and allow this federate to be integrated with a changeable federation, more time and efforts will be necessary. In this research, I proposed a method to design and implement a ROM (RTI Object Model) Framework as a solution to this problem. ROM completely separates RTI (Run-Time Infrastructure) programming and simulation programming therefore providing epochal efficiencies in cost and productivity to the development a HLA federate that supports a changeable FOM. That is, ROM contains two layers : 1) a management layer that manages RTI services between the RTI and the federate and 2) a Foundation Class layer that actually updates/reflects objects and interactions. These two layers allow federate developers to use more generalized HLA services and automates the iterative, low-level RTI programming process.


A study of the direction of arrival (DOA) matrix is presented. For the case of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) the standard DOA matrix usually yields poor performance. By means of the singular value decomposition (SVD) technique, with a cleaned or SNR enhanced data record, the author propose construction of the DOA matrix by the lower-rank Froebinius approximation. Two types of improved DOA matrices are given, and two improved algorithms for 2D angles of arrival are derived. Simulation results are provided.<<ETX>>


The invention relates to a device comprising a centering element (10) and at least one form-fitting element (12) for fixing a tool (14) that can be placed axially on an oscillatingly driveable shaft (16) of a hand-held machine tool (28). The centering element (10) is provided in order to center the tool (14) in relation to the drive shaft (16), and the form-fitting element (12) is used to determine a rotational position of the tool (14) relative to the drive shaft (16). According to the invention, the form-fitting element (12) is disposed radially outside the centering element (10).


The blenniids of the genus Scartichthys are one of the most common fishes of Central and South American Pacific coastal reefs. This being said, Scartichthys spp. remain difficult to identify in the field, and identification is particularly challenging across the ca. 6000 km where three of the four currently accepted species are known to occur in sympatry. A reason for this is that the main taxonomic characters from traditional taxonomy are indeed elusive. Additionally, At the same time, species can display multiple colour patterns in the field, depending on their ontogenetic stage, habitat association, and reproductive behaviour. Overall, molecular characterization is warranted to help address these issues. Here, we have used a novel approach to revise the genus by combining colouration, morphological, and molecular data of representative specimens of the four currently valid species and seven described colour patterns. From this, we show that only three of the four species should be considered as valid; Scartichthys gigas (Steindachner, 1876), S. variolatus (Valenciennes, 1836), and S. viridis (Valenciennes, 1836); while S. crapulatus Williams 1990 should be synonymized with S. viridis. In the same way, our analyses show that one of the colour patterns attributed so far only to S. gigas is characteristic of the juvenile stages of S. viridis. Our time-calibrated phylogeny shows that this genus is relatively young and that the estimated time of divergence between Scartichthys gigas and S. viridis is around 1.71 Ma. In comparison, the Desventuradas and Juan Fernandez Islands endemic S. variolatus diverged about 1.95 Ma. Our results help to clarify the taxonomy of Scartichthys. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The blenniids of the genus Scartichthys are one of the most common fishes of Central and South American Pacific coastal reefs. Here we provide an updated phylogeny of this genus, comparing for the first time morphological, coloration, and molecular data in combination to resolve a 30-year-old discord among ecologists and taxonomists and discuss the potential underlying evolutionary processes that led to their presentday distribution.


The paper presents a case study - part of the design research dialogues between the Interior Design Department of the Technological Educational Institution of Athens and the Budapest University of Craft and Design. It investigates the possibility of incorporating the powers of design driven emotions in theatrical performances – a special and specific field that emotions play a catalytic role. It is also an exchange of ideas and information on emotion influenced design and an alternative experience and approach to Hellenic theatrical performances through design education. The research team faced this new challenge in the applied research direction, by exploring connections within the areas of design, emotion, theater and modern technology. The use of modern technology played a vital and no-replaceable role. The participating students presented a silent Archaic drama, were design and emotion substitute the words, embodying actors and scenery, creating a magical and altogether mythical atmosphere, so that the eyes become gates for feelings and emotions.


Torpor is a hibernation like status which drops core body temperature, and continues for several hours. Although torpor is observed among a wide range of mammals, most of the body mass of torpor expressing species is less than 100 g, suggesting the size of the body would be a key factor of torpor expression. In the small animals, continuous heat production is essential to keep body temperature within a certain range. Thus, we hypothesized that torpor expression pattern would be affected by the capacity of heat production. We prepared mice with different capacities of shivering and nonshivering thermogenesis, two major heat producing systems in mice. To modulate the capacity of both thermogenesis, mice were acclimated to cool (18 °C) or warm (28 °C) ambient temperature. Mice deficient in uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), a protein that mediates non-shivering thermogenesis, were acclimated to cool ambient temperature to enhance capacity of shivering, but not non-shivering thermogenesis. By food deprivation, all mice in all groups expressed torpor. Although the time for induction and duration of torpor did not show any differences among the groups, the minimum body temperature during torpor in warm-acclimated mice was lower than that in cool-acclimated UCP1-knockout mice. Cool-acclimated UCP1-knockout mice did not show any significant difference in torpor expression pattern compared to cool-acclimated wild-type mice, indicating a minor role of non-shivering thermogenesis in torpor expression in our experiment condition.


This paper reviews the current research on the speciation and determination of mercury by various analytical techniques, including the atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), voltammetry, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), ICP-mass spectrometry (MS), atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS), spectrophotometry, spectrofluorometry, and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Approximately 96 research papers on the speciation and determination of mercury by various analytical instruments published in international journals since 2015 were reviewed. All analytical parameters, including the limits of detection, linearity range, quality assurance and control, applicability, and interfering ions, evaluated in the reviewed articles were tabulated. In this review, we found a lack of information in speciation studies of mercury in recent years. Another important conclusion from this review was that there were few studies regarding the concentration of mercury in the atmosphere.


Cities have long been the object of fascination within sociology. Key portions of sociological literatures on inequality and globalization, for instance, have focused on urban spaces as essential sites for the production and reproduction of social life, and urban sociology itself is one of the oldest fields in the discipline. For all of this prominence, however, locating the city itself in these literatures can be difficult. Much of our understanding of urban life and urban social problems is derived from a relatively small number of American cities. Moreover, cities are often relegated to a supporting role as a research site rather than an institution worthy of interrogation. This article reviews the path that has brought a specific set of cities to the fore of American sociological analyses. In response, broadening literatures to cities in the literal and figurative American South and producing deeper literatures of specific cities can give sociology the opportunity to produce more representative and contextually rich analyses of inequalities, urban social life, and urban form. The literature on St. Louis, Missouri, is presented as an example of what such a broader and deeper literature could encompass.


A new metastable binary compound with the skutterudite crystal structure has been synthesized from modulated elemental reactants, through an amorphous intermediate, using a novel low-temperature synthesis technique. The amorphous reaction intermediate undergoes nucleation at 87 degrees C, an extremely low temperature for solid-state reactions. When heated above 350 degrees C, the metastable phase NiSb(3) disproportionates into the thermodynamically stable phases NiSb(2) and Sb. Also, if the sum of the individual elemental layer thicknesses is greater than 30 A, a mixture of different phases forms. Simulation of the high-angle powder X-ray diffraction spectrum confirms that NiSb(3) is isostructural with CoSb(3).


Gesture recognition becomes a thriving research area in modern human motion recognition systems. The intensification of demands on efficient interactive human–machine-interface systems, commercial objectives, and many other factors contributes to fuel this revival dynamics. Understanding human gestures becomes essential for prevention and health monitoring applications. In particular, analyzing hand gestures is of paramount importance in personalized healthcare-related applications to help practitioners providing more qualitative assessments of subject's pathologies, such as Parkinson's diseases. This work proposes a novel deep neural network approach to forecast future gestures from a given sequence of hand motion using a wearable capacitance sensor of an innovative gesture recognition hardware system. To do this, we use an attention-based recurrent neural network to capture the temporal features of hand motion to unveil the underlying pattern between the gesture and these sequences. While the attention layers capture patterns from the weights of the short term, the gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network layer learns the inherent interdependency of long-term hand gesture temporal sequences. The efficiency of the proposed model is evaluated with respect to cutting-edge work in the field using several metrics. Note to Practitioners—In this article, the problem of human hand gesture recognition is analyzed using deep learning techniques. The proposed model uses input historical motion sequences collected from a wearable capacitance sensor to predict hand gestures. The model leverages the intrinsic correlation of motion sequences and extracts the salient part of the sequences by taking into consideration their temporal, complex, and nonlinear features. The approach studies the effect of different lengths of historical motion sequences in prediction outcomes. This allows for avoiding using cumbersome data collection, heavy data treatment, and high computational cost. The model performance is trained and assessed on real-world data by performing comparisons with alternative approaches, including well-known classifiers. The model yields very encouraging results and demonstrates that the proposed approach is quite competitive as it can reproduce typical activity trends for important channels. The present findings could help in the development of intelligent wearable devices for predicting hand gestures using a limited number of channels. This work could also help practitioners to provide a more qualitative appraisal of patients suffering from different pathologies such as Parkinson's diseases to personalized healthcare-related applications and to develop wearable gesture recognition devices on a large scale.


In this working paper us propose to carry out an interpretation of the aspects argumentative and economic of the law 002 of the Farc, or law of pays for the war. Our interpret this stratagem like part of the game of strategy politicians by means of which the insurgent group seeks to balance forces in it rocks it of negotiations. The laws 002 evidence the characteristics of to widespread threat that, contrary to other threat types, it achieves some superior effects of political interference. Us examines the threat from to vision instrumentalist of the rationality, and us show preliminarily how the threat constitutes to topic of political irrationality that dog have apocalyptic effects for the process of peace. Our exposition understands the following order: Introduction; 1) The law 002 in its context; 2) The war for other means; 3) The threat like political stratagem; 4) Threatens and irrationality; 5) Repercussions on the process of peace; Conclusions


MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF INSIDER TRADING Roseline Bilina Falafala In this thesis, we study insider trading and consider a financial market and an enlarged financial market whose sets of information are respectively represented by the filtrations F and G. The filtration G is obtained by initially expanding the filtration F. We also consider that we have a finite trading horizon. First, we show that under certain conditions the enlarged market satisfies no free lunch with vanishing risk (NFLVR) locally and therefore satisfies no arbitrage with respect to admissible simple predictable trading strategies. In addition, we generalize the structure of all the G− local martingale deflators and find sufficient conditions under which the enlarged market satisfies NFLVR. We apply our results to some recent examples of insider trading that have appeared in newspapers and by doing so, show the limitations of some previous works that have studied the stability of the NFLVR property under an initial expansion. Second, assuming the enlarged market satisfies NFLVR and markets are incomplete, we define a notion of risk and compare the risk of a market or liquidity trader to the risk of an insider trader. We prove that the risk of an insider is smaller than the risk of a market/liquidity trader under some sufficient conditions that involve their respective trading strategies. We find a relationship between the trading strategies of a market trader and of an insider when the risk neutral measure of the market is used. If an insider trades using the market risk neutral measure and not her own, then her trading strategy should involve not only the stock but also the volatility of the stock. Finally, assuming that the enlarged market satisfies NFLVR locally, we provide a way for an insider to price her financial claims. We also define a new type of process that we call a quasi-local martingale and prove that the stock price process under local NFLVR is one such process.


Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) play a crucial role in cancer progression, drug resistance and tumor recurrence. We have recently shown that the Notch pathway determines the tumor-regulatory role of experimentally created 'CAFs'. Here, we examined the status of Notch signaling in human melanoma-associated fibroblasts (MAFs) versus their normal counterparts and tested whether manipulation of the Notch pathway activity in MAFs alters their tumor-regulatory function. Using tissue microarrays, we found that MAFs exhibit decreased Notch pathway activity compared with normal fibroblasts in adjacent and non-adjacent skin. Consistently, MAFs isolated from human metastatic melanoma exhibited lower Notch activity than did normal human fibroblasts, demonstrating that Notch pathway activity is low in MAFs. We then investigated the effect of increasing Notch pathway activity in MAF on melanoma growth in co-cultures and in a mouse co-graft model. We found that activation of the Notch pathway in MAFs significantly restricted melanoma cell growth in vitro and suppressed melanoma skin growth and tumor angiogenesis in vivo. Our study demonstrates that the Notch signaling is inhibited in MAFs. Increase of Notch pathway activity can confer tumor-suppressive function on MAFs. Thus, targeting melanoma by activating Notch signaling in MAF may represent a novel therapeutic approach.


Ozone concentrations have been monitored at the Glacier Lakes Ecosystem Experiment Site (GLEES) in the Snowy Range of the Medicine Bow Mountains 55 km west of Laramie, Wyoming, USA. The site is located at 3,186 m elevation in a large subalpine meadow of a mature subalpine forest near timberline. Continuous ozone and meteorological monitoring are a part of the GLEES research to determine the effects of atmospheric deposition on alpine and subalpine ecosystems. Ozone monitoring has shown specific summer and winter diel ozone distribution patterns, typical of remote, rural, high elevation sites. The data show relatively high background ozone concentrations with little diel variation in winter. Stratospheric intrusions contribute to the ground-level ozone concentrations in the spring. Summer ozone patterns show diurnal photochemical peaks and significant night time concentrations suggesting lack of scavenging. The relationship of modeled leaf stomatal conductances, boundary layer conductances, canopy conductances and photosynthesis rates to ambient ozone concentrations and measured ozone flux was examined by using regression analysis. Ozone concentrations were also compared with wind, radiation, temperature, and humidity conditions at the site by using regression analysis. The data provide information on ozone concentration and environmental conditions at a remote, high elevation site typical of many wilderness areas of the western United States.


Steam or water injection has become the state-of-the-art abatement technique for NOx, with steam strongly preferred for combined-cycle application. In combined-cycle plants, the degradation of the plant efficiency due to steam injection into the gas turbine combustor provides a powerful incentive for minimizing this flow over the entire plant operating map.This paper presents the results of extensive tests carried out on a variety of gas turbine combustor designs. Both test stand and field test data are presented. The usual fuel in the tests is methane; however, some data are presented for combustion of No. 2 distillate oil and intermediate Btu gas fuel. Similarly, the usual inert injected is steam, but some water injection data are included for comparison.The results support the conclusions:1. Steam and water injection suppress NOx exclusively through thermal mechanisms, i.e., by lowering the peak flame temperature.2. Design changes have little effect on NOx suppression effectiveness of steam or water in jet-stirred or swirl-mixed combustors.3. Primary zone injection of steam in methane-fueled, jet-stirred combustors is equally effective whether the steam enters with an air stream or with the fuel stream.4. Water-to-fuel ratio corrected to equivalent energy content correlates NOx suppression effectiveness for turbulent diffusion flame combustors.Copyright © 1984 by ASME


We present results of numerical simulations of leading-edge acoustic receptivity for acoustic waves impinging on the leading edge of a finite-thickness flat plate. We use both compressible and incompressible flow solvers fitted with high-order high-accuracy numerical methods and independent methods of estimating the receptivity coefficient. The results show that the level of acoustic receptivity in the existing literature appears to be one order of magnitude too high. Our review of previous numerical simulations and experiments clearly identifies some contradictory trends. In the limit of an infinitely thin flat plate, our results are consistent with asymptotic theory and numerical simulations.


The odds of living a long and healthy life with HIV infection have dramatically improved with the advent of combination antiretroviral therapy. Along with the early development and clinical trials of these drugs, and new field of research emerged called viral dynamics, which uses mathematical models to interpret and predict the time‐course of viral levels during infection and how they are altered by treatment. In this review, we summarize the contributions that virus dynamics models have made to understanding the pathophysiology of infection and to designing effective therapies. This includes studies of the multiphasic decay of viral load when antiretroviral therapy is given, the evolution of drug resistance, the long‐term persistence latently infected cells, and the rebound of viremia when drugs are stopped. We additionally discuss new work applying viral dynamics models to new classes of investigational treatment for HIV, including latency‐reversing agents and immunotherapy.


Normal flat panel X-ray detectors are confined in imaging of curved surfaces and three-dimensional objects. Except that, their rigid panels provide uncomfortable user experience in medical diagnosis. Here, we report a flexible X-ray detector fabricated by the combination of a lead-free Cs2TeI6 perovskite film and a polyimide (PI) substrate. High-quality Cs2TeI6 polycrystalline films are prepared by a low-temperature electrospraying method. The resistivity even remained at the level of 1011 Ω·cm after 100 cycles of bending tests with a low bending radius of 10 mm. The resulting flexible Cs2TeI6 detectors exhibit better response stability than those based on rigid SnO2:F glass (FTO), which is attributed to the superior crystallization of films and the growth stress relief of flexible substrates. Furthermore, an X-ray sensitivity of 76.27 μC·Gyair-1·cm-2 and a detection limit of 0.17 μGyair·s-1 are achieved. A series of distortion-free clear X-ray images are obtained for objects with different materials and densities. These findings provide insights into flexible X-ray detectors based on perovskite films and motivate research in wearable X-ray detectors for medical radiography and dose monitoring.


HIGHLIGHTS Communities in the study area were heterogeneous concerning forest dependency, income and occupation. The different forms of capital assets were closely linked to co-management, with social capital having the most significant influence while human and manufactured capital had no role in the governance of co-management. Within social capital, local leaders played a dominant role over the other variables. Poor dependent people were less likely to be selected as participants, which undermined the essence of co-management. The impact of co-management on forest vegetation cover was found to be positive during the project period. However, a slight decrease was observed at the end of the project indicating a challenge of sustaining this approach. SUMMARY Co-management in the Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary was evaluated to assess how fairly capital assets were considered in the beneficiary selection, and to what extent it affected vegetation cover. A semi-structured questionnaire survey was employed to collect necessary information along with satellite images. The study revealed that many variables of social capital and a few variables of natural and financial capital played a significant role in the participant selection process. Analysis of dependency showed that the participants did not rely significantly on the forest both in terms of resource collection and their monetary value implying that the most dependent people were not adequately represented in the co-management team. The dominance of local leaders suppressed the voices of others in the management venture. An increase in forest vegetation cover was observed during the project period, although shortly after the end of co-management projects a slight deterioration of forest cover was noted. The findings of the study can serve as a guide in the future application of community forestry programmes in protected areas of Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world within similar socio-physiographic settings.


As part of our studies on the molecular mechanisms of mutation by carcinogens we have synthesized 12 oligonucleotides (15-mers) containing an O6-alkylguanine residue at a preselected position for use as primers in the enzymatic synthesis of biologically active DNA. Ten of these oligonucleotides are derived from a minus strand sequence carrying the modified nucleotide in the third codon of gene G of bacteriophage phi X174 DNA. Two others are derived from plus strand sequences carrying the modification in the 12th codon of the human Ha-ras protooncogene. During this work several potentially serious side reactions, which could complicate interpretation of mutagenesis data, were observed. This paper describes a detailed study of these reactions. Since we were unable to avoid undesirable side products, we developed simple chromatographic methods for detecting and removing them.


Agencification has been a recent trend on the agenda of public administration reforms in a number of countries. The concept of Agencification implies the rearrangement of the relation between the central government and the agencies as a result of delegation of tasks. Agencification process has been mostly driven by international organizations such as the OECD, IMF and the World Bank with the aim to introduce a "business-like" efficiency-oriented model in public sector in order to improve the performance and to raise the accountability. The following study explores the Agencification processes in the education sector of Georgia. Six agencies operating under the aegis of Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia have been examined. The empirical study shows that the relationship between the Ministry and the studied agencies goes beyond the classical model of principal-agent relationship and is based more on collaboration and cooperation principles. Shortcomings regarding the legal framework, old-fashioned performance measurement and performance management methods, constant reforms and structural changes put challenge to Agencification process. Furthermore, in the context of Georgia, there is no evidence that external actors – international organizations had an impact on the Agencification process in this very specific policy field. It was more an internal decision.


The government's flagship policy for hospitals to become foundation trusts has been blamed for staff cuts at one trust that compromised patient safety and led to some patients' deaths, according to the Healthcare Commission.

Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust "significantly" reduced staff in a bid to save money in its drive to become a foundation trust, which resulted in higher than normal death rates in emergency care, an investigation by the health watchdog has found.

The report said, "Its strategic focus was on financial and business matters at a time when the quality of care of its patients admitted as emergencies was well below acceptable standards."

Ian Kennedy, the commission's chairman, said, "This is a …


It is widely accepted that using a set of cellular neural networks (CNNs) in parallel can achieve higher level information processing and reasoning functions either from application or biologics points of views. Such an integrated CNN system can solve more complex intelligent problems. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for automatically constructing a multiple-CNN integrated neural system in the form of a recurrent fuzzy neural network. This system, called recurrent fuzzy CNN (RFCNN), can automatically learn its proper network structure and parameters simultaneously. The structure learning includes the fuzzy division of the problem domain and the creation of fuzzy rules and CNNs. The parameter learning includes the tuning of fuzzy membership functions and CNN templates. In the RFCNN, each learned fuzzy rule corresponds to a CNN. Hence, each CNN takes care of a fuzzily separated problem region, and the functions of all CNNs are integrated through the fuzzy inference mechanism. A new online adaptive independent component analysis mixture-model technique is proposed for the structure learning of RFCNN, and the ordered-derivative calculus is applied to derive the recurrent learning rules of CNN templates in the parameter-learning phase. The proposed RFCNN provides a solution to the current dilemma on the decision of templates and/or fuzzy rules in the existing integrated (fuzzy) CNN systems. The capability of the proposed RFCNN is demonstrated on the real-world defect inspection problems. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is effective and promising.


This paper presents an improved estimation technique for hybrid BIST test set generation. In a hybrid BIST approach the test set is assembled from pseudorandom and deterministic test patterns. The efficiency of the hybrid BIST approach is determined by the ratio of those test patterns in the final test set. Unfortunately, exact algorithms for finding the optimal test sets are computationally very expensive. And several heuristics have been developed to address this problem based on estimation methods. In this paper we propose an improved estimation technique for fast generation of the hybrid test set. The technique is based on fault simulation results, and experiments have shown that the proposed technique is more accurate than the estimation methods proposed earlier.


Gender disparities in wages and attainment caused by employer discrimination can come about by three very different processes: allocative discrimination, within‐job wage discrimination, and valuative discrimination. For the United States, it has been established that within‐job wage discrimination no longer is a major source of wage differences, while valuative discrimination potentially is. Less known is the role of allocative discrimination, especially in the hiring process, which we identify as the point where discrimination is most feasible. Our analysis uses personnel data on all entrants into a large U.S. service organization in the period 1978–86, focusing on managerial, administrative, and professional employees. We study the placement at initial hire and then follow job levels, wages, promotions, as well as departures, in years subsequent to hire.


We report on mid-rapidity mass spectrum of di-electrons and cross sections of pseudoscalar and vector mesons via $e^{+}e^{-}$ decays, from $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV $p+p$ collisions, measured by the large acceptance experiment STAR at RHIC. The ratio of the di-electron continuum to the combinatorial background is larger than 10% over the entire mass range. Simulations of di-electrons from light-meson decays and heavy-flavor decays (charmonium and open charm correlation) are found to describe the data. The extracted $\omega\rightarrow e^{+}e^{-}$ invariant yields are consistent with previous measurements. The mid-rapidity yields ($dN/dy$) of $\phi$ and $J/\psi$ are extracted through their di-electron decay channels and are consistent with the previous measurements of $\phi\rightarrow K^{+}K^{-}$ and $J/\psi\rightarrow e^{+}e^{-}$. Our results suggest a new upper limit of the branching ratio of the $\eta \rightarrow e^{+}e^{-}$ of $1.7\times10^{-5}$ at 90% confidence level.


The effects of pulsing solutions comprising biocides (1g Al2 (SO 4 ) 3 l-1, 0.4 ml HQS l-1, 0.6 ml NaOCl l-1, 0.6g Ca(ClO) 2 l-1), and tap water as control) on the vase life of rose ( Ro s a hybrida L. ) cut flower variety Upper Class which is Red colored intermediate flower was evaluated in laboratory experiment. The pulsing treatments were arranged in a CRD with four replications. The results depicted that treatments comprised NaOCl and HQS were able to prolong the vase life of the cut flower stalks up to 15.80 and 15.40 days respectively while Al 2 (SO 4 ) 3 did not offer statistically significant advantage over the use of ordinary tap water. Spectrometric analysis on solution turbidity of the vase solutions depicted the smallest value in cut flower stalks pulsed with NaOCl while the highest values were recorded in water, which is an indication of more bacterial proliferation or accumulation of plant exudates in the later cases. The amount of water passed through 5 cm long excised stem sections was the highest in stalks pulsed with Ca(ClO) 2 and NaOCl while the lowest was in those pulsed with Al| 2 (SO 4 ) 3 and water. Pulsing of the cut flower stalks with biocides also significantly increased vase solution uptake, and total soluble solid during vase life. The results of the present study clearly indicated significant improvement of the vase life of cut flower stalks by biocide pulsing treatment especially NaOCl and HQS. K e y words:  Cut Flowers, Intermediate Rose, Hydraulic Conductance, Solution Uptake, Physiological Characteristics


Until 2013, the National Osteoporosis Foundation guidelines did not include HIV infection and highly active antiretroviral therapy as osteoporosis risk factors that should trigger dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) screening for low bone mineral density (BMD) in older adults, but numerous data indicate that individuals with HIV infection are at early and increased risk for osteoporosis and fracture. For this reason, experts support the use of DEXA screening for HIV-infected postmenopausal women and men older than 50 years. Factors contributing to increased risk of low BMD in individuals with HIV infection include inflammation, effects of antiretroviral therapy, and numerous patient risk factors, including vitamin D deficiency. Workup for low BMD should include assessment for fracture risk and secondary causes of low BMD, including vitamin D deficiency, hyperparathyroidism, subclinical hyperthyroidism, hypogonadism, and phosphate wasting. Bisphosphonates are the preferred treatment to prevent fracture in low BMD but are not appropriate for treating osteomalacia, which is characterized by vitamin D deficiency and phosphate wasting. This article summarizes a presentation by Todd T. Brown, MD, PhD, at the IAS-USA continuing education program held in Atlanta, Georgia, in April 2013.


The ageing population of Europe is growing very fast. The Bridging Research in Ageing and ICT Development (BRAID) project aims at approaching this phenomenon and many of its arisen challenges. BRAID develops a comprehensive RTD roadmap for "ageing well" which identifies advanced ICT-based approaches and mechanisms to support the ageing European citizens. At its base, the BRAID roadmap consolidates the results from four previous roadmapping projects, the so-called feeder projects, namely the AALIANCE, CAPSIL, ePAL, and SENIOR, which have each focused on different specific aspects of ageing and technology. As such, BRAID creates one holistic roadmap for ageing challenges in European society. The first part of the work done in WP4 of BRAID is presented in this deliverable. Encompassing the analysis of both the input from the four feeder projects and the results produced by WP1 of BRAID, in WP4 so far a 1st general vision statement for BRAID is produced and it is instantiated into the four introduced "life settings" for ageing population, i.e. the independent living, healthy living, profession in life, and occupation in life. These life settings represent the main areas of life which are identified in BRAID as candidates for specific support when ageing. To develop the BRAID vision, a systematic approach is applied addressing: (i) the life settings and a large set of scenarios defined in relation to each life setting, as well as (ii) introducing five main driving forces which influence the achievement of the BRAID vision, namely the technological, societal, organizational, economic, and regulatory driving forces, and identification of a large set of trends in relation to each driving force. This document first introduces the systematic approach which is applied to building a consolidated well-conceived vision for BRAID from the four feeder projects. Following this approach, a first vision for BRAID is step by step developed through: setting the analysis framework of "life settings", building representative scenarios for the life settings, analysis of influencing drivers and trends, and then consolidation of these inputs into the 1st general vision and its four instantiations. Finally the developed vision went through its preliminary validation stage, through the involvement of the BRAID project consortium


By analyzing the core value system of the corporation according to the systematic viewpoints, the paper puts forward the value-assisted system which has close ties with the core value system, particularly analyses the features and the content of the value-assisted system and the positive impact which the construction of value-assisted management system of the enterprise has on the enterprise as well; further combining with the realization flow of the core value of the enterprise, the paper puts forward the steps and the methods to build the value-assisted systems on the basis of the core value system, so that the construction of the value-assisted management system can be operational and practical for the enterprise; finally establishes the evaluation model of the value-assisted management system based on cost analysis of the core value and the support value, which can help the enterprise evaluate own self logically in the process of the value-assisted management in order to reform and realize the core value of the enterprise.


Cancer classification and feature (gene) selection plays an important role in knowledge discovery in genomic data. Although logistic regression is one of the most popular classification methods, it does not induce feature selection. In this paper, we presented a new hybrid L1/2 +2 regularization (HLR) function, a linear combination of L1/2 and L2 penalties, to select the relevant gene in the logistic regression. The HLR approach inherits some fascinating characteristics from L1/2 (sparsity) and L2 (grouping effect where highly correlated variables are in or out a model together) penalties. We also proposed a novel univariate HLR thresholding approach to update the estimated coefficients and developed the coordinate descent algorithm for the HLR penalized logistic regression model. The empirical results and simulations indicate that the proposed method is highly competitive amongst several state-of-the-art methods.


The 2020 Private Antitrust Enforcement Report provides various empirical analyses of antitrust class actions litigated in federal court from 2009 through 2020. It addresses various topics, including the number of antitrust class action complaints filed each year, the amount of time on average to reach a settlement, the mean and median recoveries, the attorneys' fees and costs awarded, the total settlement amounts in each year and overall, the law firms that represented plaintiffs and defendants in antitrust class action settlements, and the cumulative totals for claims administrators involved in the settlement process. The Report also distinguishing private antitrust enforcement by particular industries, by type of claim—conspiracy claims (under Section 1 of the Sherman Act) as opposed to claims based on unilateral conduct (Section 2 of the Sherman Act)—and by type of plaintiff—whether claims were brought on behalf of direct or indirect purchasers. The plan is to provide similar information on an annual basis. We hope that these reports will prove of interest to the academy and the public and private sectors, and that the data they analyze will offer a firmer empirical basis than would otherwise be possible for private decisions and for public policy discussions, as well as for actions related to enforcement of the antitrust laws through private class actions.


The SARS-CoV-2 epidemic requires dynamic action on the part of the entire health care system to provide infected patients whose condition requires hospitalization with access to appropriate medical care and infrastructure, including oxygen devices and ventilators. The demand for specialized inpatient care has increased rapidly and in many areas exceeds the resources available to date. Individual hospitals must make investment and organizational decisions to increase their capacity to handle patients with SARS-CoV-2. The aim of the article is to present the organizational and investment steps taken to establish and maintain an infectious hospital ward as well as the clinical and financial consequences of this decision. The study was conducted in a hospital ward that was launched at the end of October 2020 to care for patients with SARS-CoV-2. A case study method was used. The department was characterized taking into account its importance for: (1) the regional level of health coverage of the population, (2) the organization of the hospital's activities, (3) the financial and economic situation of the hospital.


Carcinogenesis is a multistep process and individual risk to development of cancer depends not only on environmental factors or extrinsic exposure to carcinogens but also on genetic susceptibility of an individual. In head and neck cancer, tobacco exposure and alcohol consumption are predominantly the most significant external factors for tumor formation. Individual's susceptibility to cancer may be partly explained by variability in enzymatic activities of metabolic genes. Mutations in genes concerned with production of enzymes for metabolism of tobacco products may lead to increased risk of carcinogenesis with respect to oral mucosa. Therefore variations in the expression of these genes due to heritable genetic polymorphisms might modulate the process of carcinogenesis by altering the exposure levels of tobacco derived carcinogens. Objective: This non systematic review summarizes current data available on the role of environment gene interaction in form of GSTM1 null polymorphism and oral carcinogenesis. Literature review: Relevant data was selected in order to summarize the studies conducted on GSTM1 null polymorphism and oral cancer. Conclusion: Relationship between GSTM1 null polymorphism in oral cancer needs to be established to confirm the role of environment gene interaction in oral carcinogenesis.


We obtain the solution of a generalized ABG STVG black hole with the nonlinear tensor field $B_{\mu \nu }$ in the scalar-tensor-vector gravity. This black hole is endowed with four parameters, the black hole mass $M$, the parameter $\alpha$ associated with the STVG theory, and the two parameters $\lambda$ and $\beta$ that are related to the dipole and quadrupole moments of the nonlinear tensor field, respectively. By analyzing the characteristics of the black hole, we find that the generalized ABG STVG black hole is regular when $\lambda \geqslant 3$ and $\beta \geqslant 4$, and we study the effects of the parameters $\alpha$, $\lambda$ and $\beta$ on the black hole horizon. We calculate the quasinormal mode frequencies of the odd parity gravitational perturbation for the generalized ABG STVG black hole by using the 6th order WKB approximation method and simultaneously by the null geodesic method at the eikonal limit. The results show that the increase of the parameters $\alpha$ and $\lambda$ makes the gravitational waves decay slowly, while the increase of the parameter $\beta$ makes the gravitational waves decay fast at first and then slowly. In addition, we verify that the improved correspondence between the real part of quasinormal frequencies at the eikonal limit and the shadow radius is valid for the generalized ABG STVG black hole.


New modified Fe3O4-Ba(or Sr)Fe12O19 nanoparticles were prepared by using an epitaxial technique for high density magnetic recording. Coercive force reduced from 6.5 kOe of M-type ferrite particles to minimal about 0.2 kOe of modified particles, and saturation magnetization increased from 62.2 to 82.6 emu/g at the same time. These parameters, Hc, σs, and particle size d, can be easily controlled by changing the content of coating material. The magnetic measurements have shown that the modified particles have an interface coupling between epitaxial layer and core particle. As a result of x-ray diffraction measurements, the reflection intensity of spinel phase increases and that of hexagonal magnetoplumbite phase decreases with the increasing number of Fe2+ ions. The shape of modified particles gradually changes from hexagonal platelike of M-type ferrite particles to square platelike of modified particles. The analysis shows that the Fe2+ ions in suspension directly combined with Fe3+ ions from R-block of core particle to form Fe3O4 layer.


Objective: (1) Describe the current literature on the relationship between EDS and SEP and (2) provide recommendations for consideration of SEP in sleep medicine and biomedical research. Methods: Databases Medline/Pubmed, Web of Science, Google scholar and Scopus were screened using PRISMA guidelines and 19 articles were included in the final synthesis. Results: All studies were cross-sectional. Among these studies, 21.05% (n = 4) are focused on children and adolescent and the lasting 88.95% (n = 15) focused on adults and old people. Age ranged between 8 and 17 years old for children/adolescent and ranged from 18 until 102 years old for adults. Main SEP measures presented in these studies were education, income, perceived socioeconomic status and employment. Sample size in these studies varied from N = 90 participants until N = 33865 participants. Overall, a lower educational level, a lower income and full-time employment were associated with EDS. EDS symptoms are prevalent in women, especially those with a low income or no job; and children and adolescents with difficult living conditions or people working part-time reported more sleep disturbances. Conclusions: SEP is already considered as an important determinant for many health outcomes, but if SEP is embedded in experimental design in psychosomatic research, biomedical research and clinical practice as a constant variable regardless of outcome; it will move forward future investigations.


In alliance to the emerging internet technologies and services, the field of questions answering was one of the most trending topics. It is being used in multiple applications ranging from search engines to smart and complicated home assistance devices. In this paper, we are proposing an enhanced method and system for question answering that serve Arabic language questions. This system provides accurate paragraph level answers that extract its information out of documents dataset in different fields. The proposed system uses Support Vector Machine (SVM), Single Value Decomposition (SVD), and Latent Semantic Index (LSI) to classify the query in two phases. The method has been tested on a set of queries in different fields (classes) against a documents dataset of size 10,000 documents in 10 classes. The testing shows promising and accurate output for each of the test cases. Average classification accuracy reaches 98% using document classification metrics.


Abstract Soil organic matter (SOM) contributes significantly to the chemical, physical and biological ecosystem functions of soil. It influences on plant growth, thus contributing to agricultural production, and performs environmentally valuable services such as carbon sequestration, regulation of the water cycle and detoxification of pollutants. Identification of the functions and services provided by SOM has a long and tumultuous history of scientific discoveries and struggles against false assumptions. This work reports the major steps of this history, with emphasis on two services secured by SOM: (1) the role of SOM in plant production and its connection to soil fertility and thence to the sustainability of cropping and farming systems; and (2) the recognition and assessment of the contribution of SOM to climate-change regulation. Finally, the work explores how SOM, as a multifunctional resource, may be allocated an economic value as a way of promoting its conservation.


We studied 40 patients with acute exacerbations of asthma to determine the efficacy of a 3-h intravenous infusion of aminophylline in patients who were already being treated with an inhaled beta-adrenergic agonist (metaproterenol). Each patient was treated with inhaled metaproterenol at hourly intervals for 3 h. In addition, patients were randomly assigned to therapy with either intravenous aminophylline or placebo. Neither the patient nor the house officers and nurses caring for the patient knew whether aminophylline or placebo was given. The FEV1 improved continually throughout the study to a similar extent in both treatment groups, but the patients treated with aminophylline had significantly more adverse effects (p less than 0.025, Mann-Whitney). There was no apparent benefit from aminophylline even in patients who presented to the emergency room with severe airway obstruction (FEV1 less than 0.8L) or with plasma theophylline levels less than 10 mg/L. We conclude that intravenous aminophylline adds to the toxicity but not the efficacy of inhaled metaproterenol in the treatment of acute exacerbations of asthma.


We have developed two ensembles of neural network classifiers in order to recognize actors' gender from their biological movements. One is the ensemble of modular MLPs (experts), the other is the ensemble of modular MLPs and an inductive decision tree which combines the output of experts. The human movement database consists of 13 males' and 13 females' movements, and contains 10 repetitions of knocking, waving and lifting movements both in neutral and angry style. Features have been extracted with 4 different representations such as the 2D and 3D velocities and positions, recorded from 6 point lights attached on body. We have compared the results of ensembles to the regular classifiers such as MLP, decision tree, self-organizing map and support vector machine. Furthermore, the discriminability and efficiency have been calculated for the comparison with the human performance that has been obtained with the same experiment. Our experimental results indicate that the ensemble models are superior to the conventional classifiers and human participants.


Purpose: We evaluated the influence of three different dosages of methotrexate (MTX) during consolidation on the incidence of testicular relapse in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Patients and Methods: One thousand one hundred forty-four boys with newly diagnosed ALL, enrolled in three consecutive trials of the Berlin-Frankfurt-Müinster group (ALL-BFM 81, 83. 86), were retrospectively evaluated for the influence of MTX on testicular relapse-free interval. The basic treatment design was similar in all trials. No intravenous MTX was used in trial ALL-BFM 81 in the group who received cranial irradiation (CRT) except for a part of standard risk patients. Four courses of intermediate dose MTX (IDM) (0.5 g/m2) were introduced for all patients in trial ALL-BFM 83 (IDM group), which were replaced by high dose MTX (HDM) (5 g/m2) in trial ALL-BFM 86 (HDM group). The median observation time was > 9 years. Results: The cumulative incidence of isolated testicular relapses was significantly higher in the CRT group as compared to the IDM and HDM groups (6.7% versus 2.5% and 2.3%. p = 0.02 and 0.01). HDM decreased neither the incidence nor the rate of isolated testicular relapses any further. Event-free survival (EFS) for boys was similar between trial ALL-BFM 81 and 86 (64% versus 69%, p = 0.35). but differed significantly between trials ALL-BFM 83 and 86 (61% versus 69%. p = 0.0078). Conclusion: The introduction of IDM reduced the incidence of isolated testicular relapses significantly by a factor two. but had no significant influence on overall survival. HDM did not result in a more effective prevention of testicular relapses, but resulted in better systemic control and hence better survival than IDM.