We investigated the mechanism underlying oviposition habitat selection (OHS) in the mosquito Culiseta longiareolata. The putative outcome of a trade-off between the risk of predation and detrimental density dependence, OHS in this species presents an opportunity to test two competing alternatives: (1) a polymorphic scenario, in which a fixed proportion of females constantly avoid 'predator pools', while the remainder oviposits at random; and (2) a monomorphic scenario, in which all females oviposit in predator pools with a certain probability. We present a conceptual framework that demonstrates how a simple experimental design – whereby predator incidence in artificial pools is alternated between 0.25 and 0.75 – can distinguish between, or refute, the two scenarios. Given the proportional use, by ovipositing females, of predator-free pools observed under each treatment, and a bootstrap estimate of the ratio of daily oviposition rates, we find the monomorphic scenario twice as likely as the polymorphic.


Objectives: To establish retrospectively the relation between the histopathologic grade of colorectal liver metastasis and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of hepatic metastases of colorectal adenocarcinomas. Methods: The diagnoses of liver metastases were confirmed with biopsy, surgery, and follow-up imaging findings. Twenty-six patients with 94 liver metastasis were included in the study. Of 94 masses, 59 were poorly-differentiated adenocarcinoma, 18 were moderately-differentiated adenocarcinoma, and 17 were well-differentiated regarding the diameters, ADC values, and ratio index (RI) values. Kolmogorov-smirnov normality test, Kruskal-wallis analysis of variance, Mann-Whitney U test with Bonferroni correction, Spearman correlation analysis, and receiver operating characteristics curve methods were applied to evaluate the statistical relations. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in terms of ADC values and RI between poorly-differentiated adenocarcinoma and moderately-differentiated adenocarcinoma plus well-differentiated adenocarcinomas. Poorly-differentiated adenocarcinomas have the lowest ADC values and highest RI values among other groups. Conclusion: Use of ADC values alone can be executed for the diagnosis of focal hepatic masses and also can aid in the differentiation of benign and malignant hepatic lesions.


Background Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a sensitive and useful method for the detection of synovitis and joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. However, the patterns of MRI-detected bone erosion, bone marrow edema (BME), synovitis, and tenosynovitis have received insufficient attention. Objectives Therefore, this study evaluated the patterns of bone erosion, BME, synovitis, and tenosynovitis, and calculated the RA-MRI score (RAMRIS) of patients with RA at the carpal and metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joints using MRI. Methods MRI datasets from 43 RA patients were analyzed. All patients had undergone MRI of one wrist. In addition, 36 patients had MCP joint images taken, and 3 had also received MRI of the contralateral wrist and MCP joints. The MR images were evaluated for bone erosion, BME, and synovitis in consensus by 2 blinded readers according to the OMERACT RA-MRI score (RAMRIS). The MRI-detected tenosynovitis was evaluated based on Haavardsholm's tenosynovitis score. Results The capitate, lunate, triquetrum, and hamate bones were the most common sites of erosion and BME and showed the highest RAMRIS erosion and BME scores. Moreover, MRI-detected tenosynovitis was present in 78.3% of all patients with RA, and the extensor compartment 4 and flexor digitorum profundus and superficialis were frequently affected. Conclusions This study identified the distribution and prevalence of MRI-detected bone erosion, BME, synovitis, and tenosynovitis of the wrist and MCP joints in RA patients. The patterns of the MRI-detected abnormalities may help to select sites for the application of MRI protocols in clinical trials and practice. References Ejbjerg B, McQueen F, Lassere M, Haavardsholm E, Conaghan P, O'Connor P, et al. The EULAR-OMERACT rheumatoid arthritis MRI reference image atlas: the wrist joint. Annals of the rheumatic diseases. 2005;64 Suppl 1:i23–47. Ostergaard M, Edmonds J, McQueen F, Peterfy C, Lassere M, Ejbjerg B, et al. An introduction to the EULAR-OMERACT rheumatoid arthritis MRI reference image atlas. Annals of the rheumatic diseases. 2005;64 Suppl 1:i3–7. Conaghan P, Bird P, Ejbjerg B, O'Connor P, Peterfy C, McQueen F, et al. The EULAR-OMERACT rheumatoid arthritis MRI reference image atlas: the metacarpophalangeal joints. Annals of the rheumatic diseases. 2005;64 Suppl 1:i11–21. Haavardsholm EA, Ostergaard M, Ejbjerg BJ, Kvan NP, Kvien TK. Introduction of a novel magnetic resonance imaging tenosynovitis score for rheumatoid arthritis: reliability in a multireader longitudinal study. Annals of the rheumatic diseases. 2007;66(9):1216–20. Acknowledgements The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Disclosure of Interest None declared


In this study, high-resolution surface and radar observations are used to analyze 24 localized extreme hourly rainfall (EXHR; >60 mm h−1) events with strong urban heat island (UHI) effects over the Great Bay Area (GBA) in South China during the 2011–16 warm seasons. Quasi-idealized, convection-permitting ensemble simulations driven by diurnally varying lateral boundary conditions, which are extracted from the composite global analysis of 3–5 June 2013, are then conducted with a multilayer urban canopy model to unravel the influences of the UHI and various surface properties nearby on the EXHR generation in a complex geographical environment with sea–land contrast, topography, and vegetation variation. Results show that EXHR is mostly distributed over the urban agglomeration and within about 40 km on its downwind side, and produced during the afternoon-to-evening hours by short-lived meso-γ- to meso-β-scale storms. On the EXHR days, the GBA is featured by a weak gradient environment with abundant moisture, and a weak southwesterly flow prevailing in the boundary layer (BL). The UHI effects lead to the development of a deep mixed layer with "warm bubbles" over the urban agglomeration, in which the lower-BL convergence and BL-top divergence is developed, assisting in convective initiation. Such urban BL processes and associated convective development with moisture supply by the synoptic low-level southwesterly flow are enhanced by orographically increased horizontal winds and sea breezes under the influence of the herringbone coastline, thereby increasing the inhomogeneity and intensity of rainfall production over the "Π-shaped" urban clusters. Vegetation variations are not found to be an important factor in determining the EXHR production over the region.


It is possible to induce eosinophilia in congenitally athymic rats by infection with the parasite Ascaris suum. Athymic bronchial eosinophilia is associated with increased expression of IL‐5 and eotaxin mRNA, and with the presence of residual T cells and mast cells. Anamnestic mastocytosis is particularly pronounced and in this study we examine the relationship between mast cell degranulation and IgE production in athymic rats following infection. Incubation of peritoneal mast cells from athymic rats with anti‐IgE induced dose‐dependent degranulation, as measured by histamine release. However, the failure of mast cells from infected athymic rats to degranulate following incubation with all but one of the parasite antigens selected confirms the absence of a specific IgE response. In contrast, all agonists induced degranulation in euthymic rats. The only parasite‐derived factor to induce histamine release in all mast cells was Ascaris body fluid, which contains an element capable of inducing IgE‐independent degranulation. Furthermore, increased levels of rat mast cell protease II in athymic bronchoalveolar lavage fluid suggest degranulation of mast cells by IgE and allergen independent means in vivo. We believe that the development of eosinophilic lung inflammation in the absence of specific IgE makes this a prototype for investigating the immunological mechanisms underlying nonatopic asthma.


We study conductance of a single electron transistor (SET) with a ferroelectric (or dielectric) layer placed in the gate capacitor. We assume that ferroelectric (FE) has a retarded response with arbitrary relaxation time. We show that in the case of "fast" but still retarded response of the FE (dielectric) layer an additional contribution to the Coulomb blockade effect appears leading to the suppression of the SET conductance. We take into account fluctuations of the FE (dielectric) polarization using Monte-Carlo simulations. For "fast" FE these fluctuations partially suppress the additional Coulomb blockade effect. Using Monte-Carlo simulations we study the transition from "fast" to "slow" FE. For high temperatures the peak value of the SET conductance is almost independent of the FE relaxation time. For temperatures close to the FE Curie temperature the conductance peak value non-monotonically depends on the FE relaxation time. A maximum appears when the FE relaxation time is of the order of the SET discharging time. Below the Curie point the conductance peak value decreases with increasing the FE relaxation time. The conductance shows the hysteresis behavior for any FE relaxation time at temperatures below the FE transition point. We show that conductance hysteresis is robust against FE internal fluctuations.


This study aimed to investigate the association between retinal sensitivity and retinal microstructures in fundus autofluorescence (FAF) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) in patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and hyperautofluorescent (hyperAF) rings. This cross-sectional study included 44 eyes from 26 consecutive patients with RP. The morphological geometry of the hyperAF ring, such as three distinct FAF regions, hyperAF ring area, and longest diameter of the hyperAF ring on FAF, and the retinal microstructure, such as total retinal thickness (TRT) and outer retinal thickness (ORT), on OCT, were evaluated. A strong correlation of mean retinal sensitivity with hyperAF ring area (R = 0.8013, p < 0.001) and longest diameter of the hyperAF ring (R = 0.9072, p < 0.001) was observed. Segmented linear regression (SLR) analysis revealed breakpoints of 12.83 mm2 and 5.21 mm, respectively. ORT (R = 0.6551, p < 0.001) was more strongly correlated with retinal sensitivity than TRT (R = 0.2732, p < 0.001). SLR analysis revealed a breakpoint between the ORT and retinal sensitivity of 145.12 μm. In patients with RP and hyperAF rings, retinal sensitivity was strongly associated with the morphological geometry of the hyperAF ring. ORT, rather than TRT, strongly correlated with retinal sensitivity.


This paper develops a small-scale two-country model following the new open economy macroeconomics paradigm. Under autarky, the model specializes to the familiar three-equation New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We discuss two challenges to successful estimation of DSGE models: potential model misspecification and identification problems. We argue that prior distributions and Bayesian estimation techniques are useful to cope with these challenges. We apply these techniques to the two-country model and fit it to data from the United States and the Euro area. We compare parameter estimates from closed and open economy specifications, study the sensitivity of parameter estimates to the choice of prior distribution, examine the propagation of monetary policy shocks, and assess the model's ability to explain exchange-rate movements.


Objectives Basic tools that measure a hospital's performance are required in order to benchmark or compare hospitals, but multispecialty institutional registries are rarely reported, and there is no consensus on their standard definitions and methodology. This study aimed to describe the setting up and first results of a hospital-wide surgical complication register that uses a minimal set of patient-related risk factors based on bedside data and produces outcomes data based on severity of complications. Design Cohort study. Setting Perioperative data related to all adult surgical procedures in a tertiary referral centre in Finland for 3 years (2016–2018) were included in the study. Complications were recorded according to a modified Clavien-Dindo classification, and the preoperative risk factors were compiled based on the literature and coded as numerical measures. The associations of preoperative risk factors with postoperative complications were analysed using the χ2 test or Fisher's exact test. Results In total, 19 158 operations were performed between 2016 and 2018. Data on complications (Clavien 0–9) were recorded for 4529 surgical patients (23.6%), and 779 complications were reported (Clavien 1–9), leading to an overall complication rate of 17.2%. Of these, 4.6% were graded as major (Clavien 4–7). Patient-related risk factors with the strongest association with complications were growing American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status Classification System score (p<0.001), growing Charlson Index (p<0.001), poor nutritional status (Nutritional Risk Screening 2002), p=0.041) and urgency of surgery (p<0.001). Conclusions We describe an inexpensive hospital-wide surgical complication monitoring system that can produce valid numerical data for monitoring risk-adjusted surgical quality. The results showed that only a few patient-related risk factors were sufficient to account for the case mix.


The Transformer self-attention network has recently shown promising performance as an alternative to recurrent neural networks in end-to-end (E2E) automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. However, Transformer has a drawback in that the entire input sequence is required to compute self-attention. We have proposed a block processing method for the Transformer encoder by introducing a context-aware inheritance mechanism. An additional context embedding vector handed over from the previously processed block helps encode not only local acoustic information but also global linguistic, channel, and speaker attributes. In this paper, we extend block processing towards an entire streaming E2E ASR system without additional training, by introducing a blockwise synchronous decoding process inspired by a neural transducer into the Transformer decoder. We further apply a knowledge distillation technique with which training of the streaming Transformer is guided by the ordinary batch Transformer model. Evaluations of the HKUST and AISHELL-1 Mandarin tasks and LibriSpeech English task show that our proposed streaming Transformer outperforms conventional online approaches including monotonic chunkwise attention (MoChA). We also confirm that the knowledge distillation technique improves the accuracy further. Our streaming ASR models achieve comparable/superior performance to the batch models and other streaming-based transformer methods in all the tasks.


This paper investigates the damping effect of loose particulate within the core of sandwich structures. Beam specimens fabricated from aluminum honeycomb core and IM7 carbon fiber face sheets with various amounts of loose particulate are experimentally examined. Both free vibration and forced vibration tests are performed. It is shown that a moderate amount of particulate can cause a large increase in damping. The effect of varying amounts of particulate is also investigated. Plate equations of motion with damping and inertia terms are derived to model the beam and compare with experimental results. Effective mass and effective viscous damping are generated by matching the theoretical model to the experimental data.


Vision is capable of providing an animal with a wealth of information very fast. Visually guided behaviours are numerous, ranging from foraging to navigation. Vision can be quite reliable in bright light, but the signals produced by the photoreceptors become progressively more unreliable with falling light intensities. In this thesis the usefulness of a novel virtual reality-based environment for insect vision research is reviewed, and the low-light vision of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, is assessed using the optomotor behavioural paradigm and intracellular photoreceptor recordings. The optomotor reaction is visual behaviour where an animal responds to a rotation of its environment by following the movement of its surroundings with its eyes or like insects by rotating its body in the direction of the movement. Placing the cockroach on a trackball in the middle of the virtual reality apparatus and projecting a rotating pattern of vertical stripes around it invariably causes an optomotor reaction if the cockroach is able to see the moving pattern. Presenting the cockroaches with the stimulus pattern at different low light levels and observing their abilities to follow the movement reveal the lowest light intensity at which they are able to use vision in guiding their behaviour. The compound eye photoreceptor signals at this behavioural threshold consist of singlephoton absorption events called 'bumps' at the extremely low rate of one bump every ten seconds. Furthermore, the role of the simple eyes or ocelli in the low-light vision of the cockroach is studied in the virtual reality by covering the compound eyes, the ocelli, or both. The ocelli seem to measure the light intensity and communicate this information to the compound eyes, and also have a direct effect on the general activity level of the cockroach.


The marine sponge Raspailia bouryesnaultae, collected in South Brazil, was selected for detailed investigation considering the results of a screening that pointed to an in vitro antiproliferative effect against non-small cells of human lung cancer (A549) and anti-herpes activity against Herpes Simplex virus type 1 (KOS and 29R strains) of ethanolic extracts. The fractionation and chemical investigation of the sponge's hexanic fraction led to the isolation and structural elucidation of six clerodane diterpenes. The main component was identified as the already-reported raspailol (1), isolated from a sponge of the same genus collected in New Zealand. The structure of a new diterpene (2) with a rearranged skeleton was established by high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and 1D and 2D Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) experiments, and named here as raspadiene. Furthermore, four diterpenes were elucidated as isomers of clerodane diterpenes previously obtained from plants, namely kerlinic acid (3), kerlinic acid methyl ester (4), annonene (5), and 6-hydroxyannonene (6). They differ in their stereochemistry, since these diterpenes are characterized by a trans ring fusion at the decalin moiety and the relative configuration of the two methyl groups at C-8 and C-9 in a cis relationship (type trans/cis). The Raspailia diterpenes have a cis ring fusion at the decalin moiety, and the two methyl groups at C-8 and C-9 are in a trans relationship (type cis/trans). The isolated compounds were evaluated for their potential antiproliferative effects on human cancer cell line A549, and it was observed that the diterpenes bearing a hydroxyl group at C-6 exhibited moderate cytotoxic activity, with 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) values lower than 25 μM. The evaluation of the potential anti-herpes activity against Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1, KOS and 29R strains) showed that the more promising results were observed for the new compound 2, since it inhibited HSV-1 (KOS and 29R strains) replication by 83% and 74%, respectively.


The research examines the interpersonal competence of student communication in the Business English study program. Interpersonal competence refers to the ability of individuals to collaborate and communicate in groups, both verbally and nonverbally. People with effective interpersonal skills will be sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others around them. This ability is a way to measure the quality of interpersonal communication, which includes knowledge of the rules of nonverbal communication, such as physical contact and intimacy, knowledge of interaction by context, attention to the person to whom to communicate, and attention to the amount. This is evidenced by the test results data of class A students of the Class of 2020, the average score obtained in the listening skill aspect is 53.56, the emotional intelligence aspect is 57.65, and verbal communication is 45. 47, communication in groups is 53.27, and the average score of students totalling 45 is 53.11. There are eleven students who are at a level below average, this happens because of several factors. Then the average score in class B class of 2020, in the aspect of listening skills is 53.35, emotional intelligence is 57.67, verbal communication is 47.47, and communication in the group is 53.28 while the total average number of res throughout is 53.44. There were 21 students who were in the below-average category out of a total of 43. Based on the data obtained, it shows


High blood pressure (BP) or hypertension is a major risk factor for adverse cardiovascular and renal outcomes. One of the effective ways to reduce these adverse outcomes is to control elevated BP and achieve target BP. Approximately half of the hypertensive patients receiving anti-hypertensive therapy do not reach their BP targets, especially the elderly who constitute a large proportion of the hypertensive population. Understanding the factors associated with target BP achievement is important in designing interventions to reduce adverse outcomes. Besides achieving the target BP, reducing visit-to-visit systolic BP (SBP) variability is also important, as it is directly associated with cardiovascular events, especially stroke particularly in hypertensive people aged less than 60 years. However, evidence on such relationship in the elderly is limited. There is also limited information on progression and new-onset of comorbid conditions such as diabetes and chronic kidney disease in the elderly who are receiving anti-hypertensive therapy. The objective of this thesis was to identify the barriers in achieving target BP in the elderly and the effect of visit-to-visit SBP variability on cardiovascular adverse outcomes. In addition, the thesis also explores the effect of anti-hypertensive drug treatment specifically angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) and thiazide diuretics on: (a) patients with diabetes including the development of new-onset of diabetes; and (b) renal function. The research also aimed to identify – (a) whether the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) equation or the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) equation for renal function estimation (i.e. estimated glomerular filtration rate, eGFR) performed better for mortality risk prediction in the elderly; and (b) the cost-effectiveness of ACEI compared to diuretic -based treatment in an elderly hypertensive population. Data from the Second Australian National Blood Pressure study (ANBP2) and its post-trial follow-up were used to address these objectives. In ANBP2 study, 6083 elderly hypertensive patients aged 65-84 years were randomized to receive either ACEI or thiazide-diuretic -based therapy and followed for a median 4.1 years. The post-trial ANBP2 study follow-up was conducted over an additional median of 6.9 years and data were linked with Australian National Death Index data to identify patient survival. The ANBP2 study provided the opportunity to identify factors affecting on-trial target BP achievement and the effect of visit-to-visit SBP variability on cardiovascular outcomes. It also provided information to assess the effects of antihypertensive therapy on diabetes and renal function including the cost-effectiveness of specific antihypertensives. The post-trial data were used to identify long-term effects of antihypertensive drugs on mortality in an elderly hypertensive population, including progression of comorbid conditions. Analysis of data in this group showed that along with clinical factors, demographic factors related to health service delivery such as care-seeking from the same physician were important determinants of attaining good BP control in elderly hypertensive patients. Further analysis demonstrated that higher visit-to-visit SBP variability was directly associated with cardiovascular events, especially stroke (Hazard ratio 2.78; 95% confidence interval 1.28-6.05) irrespective of target BP achievement. Higher SBP variability observed during ANBP2 study also predicted long-term post-trial fatal outcomes. A 44% higher incidence of newly diagnosed diabetes was observed in the elderly patients randomized to thiazide-diuretic based treatment compared to ACEI-based treatment. A rapid decline in renal function (eGFR >3 ml/min/1.73m2 per year) was also observed in those receiving diuretics. In addition, the study showed that compared to the MDRD equation the CKD-EPI equation performs better in the elderly for long-term mortality risk prediction. Finally, the cost-utility analysis suggested that treatment of hypertension with ACEI would be a cost-effective approach compared to diuretic use in this elderly hypertensive population. In summary, findings from the thesis have major implications for future public health interventions and health policy planning for the management of hypertension in the elderly especially considering the increasing burden of cardiovascular diseases. The findings indicate that reducing visit-to-visit SBP variability might be an important objective in treating hypertension in addition to the conventional aim of office BP lowering in elderly hypertensive. The findings also suggest that despite the higher treatment cost of ACEI compared to thiazide diuretic, treatment with ACEI provides greater benefits and is also cost-effective as it reduces the development of comorbidities especially diabetes.


Kampfite, ideally Ba6[(Si,Al)O2]8(CO3)2Cl2(Cl,H2O)2, is a newly identified mineral species found in barium-silicate-rich deposits at Big Creek and Rush Creek, Fresno County, California. It forms irregular masses up to 10 mm in size enclosed in quartz-rich portions of the sanbornite-bearing rock. It is light blue-grey, with one perfect cleavage on {001}. Other physical properties are: brittle, translucent, nonfluorescent, vitreous luster, white streak, hardness 3, uneven fracture. Kampfite is uniaxial negative, ω 1.642(2), e 1.594(2), nonpleochroic. It is hexagonal, with unit-cell parameters refined from powder data: a 5.244(2), c 29.83(1) A, V 710.5(4) A3, and Z = 1. The strongest seven lines of the X-ray powder-diffraction pattern [ d in A( I )( hkl )] are: 14.67(100)(002), 3.883(100)(104), 3.357(50)(106), 2.988(60)(0010), 2.887(50)(108), 2.616(70)(110), and 1.969(50)(1110). Precession photographs show that possible space-groups are P 63/ mmc , P 62 c , P 63 mc , P 31 c and P 31 c . The empirical formula of kampfite (based on the average of three electron-microprobe analyses, normalized on 26 anions) is: (Ba5.83Na0.04Ca0.02)∑5.89[(Si5.18Al2.36)∑7.54O15.08](CO3)2Cl2[(H2O)Cl0.45]∑1.45. The calculated density is 3.51 g/cm3. All crystals studied contain inclusions or are multiple. Thus, it was not possible to unambiguously determine the correct space-group or precise details of the structure. However, the preliminary results show that the structure is based on double layers of tetrahedra, [ T 4O8]∞, consisting of six-membered rings, with three layers of Ba polyhedra connecting the layers of tetrahedra. Kampfite is part of the monteregianite-(Y) – wickenburgite series (Strunz classification) and is structurally and chemically similar to cymrite. The mineral name honors Anthony R. Kampf, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, for his many significant contributions to the study of new and rare minerals.


Image denoising plays an important role in the image pre-processing. There are many methods to solve the problem of image denoising. In this paper, we will propose a new method which based on the K-SVD algorithm by learning dictionary from the noisy image itself. From this Over-complete dictionary, we can describe the image's content effectively. Combine with the sparse representation coefficients which we can get from the pursuit algorithm, we can get the denoised image at last. Experiments result shows that: compared with other methods of image denoising, our method gets a superior result.


textabstractThis shea case study is part of a larger Partnerships Resource Centre (PrC) project elaborated in tandem with two Dutch non-governmental organisations (NGOs); ICCO and Oxfam Novib. The endeavour of this 'action research' project is to combine the expert knowledge of development practitioners and the scholarly knowledge of researchers for capturing lessons in the setup and operations of value chain partnerships (VCPs).
 Partnerships can be defined as voluntary, collaborative arrangements between actors from two or more domains of society, i.e. state, market and/or civil society, which have an institutionalized, yet non-hierarchical structure and strive for a sustainability goal (Glasbergen et al., 2007). The typical goal of value chain partnerships is smallholder inclusion into value chains by removing or mitigating institutional barriers to value chain upgrading.

The project involves a multiple case study of three relevant value chain partnership cases (two ICCO, one Oxfam Novib) and has two related objectives. First, it aims to support the value chain partners in strengthening their Theories of Change (ToC) that they have developed with respect to the their value chain partnership case. Second, the case study offers an opportunity to further develop a theory-laden partnership evaluation approach.


ABSTRACT Introduction: The introduction of calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) has greatly improved graft survival in the past three decades. However, long-term graft survival is still limited due to chronic allograft injury and side-effects of immunosuppressive medication. Areas covered: The present overview gives an update on pharmacotherapeutic strategies after kidney transplantation. The main focus is on CNI-sparing regimens using co-stimulatory blockade and on new substances on the horizone. Expert opinion: CNI sparing regimens are well-established. Complete CNI avoidance after kidney transplantation was often associated with impaired graft survival until the approval of the co-stimulation blocker belatacept for de novo immunosuppression after kidney transplantation. Concerns still exist with respect to severe T-cell-mediated rejection episodes in the early phase after transplantation. Thus, a triple drug regimen with CNI, mycophenolic acid and steroids still represents the gold-standard of immunosuppressive therapy. Alternative substances expand the possibilities of tailoring individual immunosuppression for different indications such as biopsy-proven CNI toxicity, polyoma virus BK nephropathy or CNI-triggered thrombotic microangiopathy. However, a change of the immunosuppressive therapy must always be balanced against each patient´s individual immunological risk in order to address the importance of chronic antibody-mediated rejection driven by donor specific antibodies (DSA).


The structure and reactivity of 3-hydroxypyridine and its derivatives in electrophilic substitution are considered and the problems concerning the mechanism and direction of electrophilic substitution in 3-hydroxypyridines are discussed as a function of the type of reaction, its conditions, and the nature of the substituent in the 3-hydroxypyridine ring. The reactivities of 3-hydroxypyridines are compared with the results of theoretical calculations by the H?ckel molecular orbital and the Pariser?Parr?Pople method. Data for the biological activities of various 3-hydroxypyridine derivatives are presented. The bibliography includes 117 references.


It has not been possible to obtain in vitro expression of the positively regulated malE gene encoding the periplasmic maltose-binding protein (MBP) of Escherichia coli. To facilitate in vitro malE expression, we constructed plasmids that place the malE gene under transcriptional control of the lacUV5 promoter-operator. These plasmids could be grouped into three classes, based upon their ability to complement in vivo a chromosomal malE deletion in the presence or absence of isopropyl thiogalactoside. In the one class I plasmid analyzed, the lacUV5-malE junction was just 3' to the malE ATG initiation codon, and this plasmid did not complement the malE deletion. Class II and class III plasmids retained various amounts of the malE promoter. MBP synthesis was solely under control of the lacUV5 promoter in the class II plasmids, and MBP synthesis was under control of both the lacUV5 and malE promoters in the class III plasmids. A malE mutation that renders the MBP signal peptide export defective was genetically recombined onto one of the class II plasmids. The in vivo synthesis and export of plasmid-encoded MBP were studied in the presence and absence of isopropyl thiogalactoside and maltose and in a strain harboring a prlA mutation that suppresses the malE signal sequence mutation and is thought to alter the export machinery of cells. In addition, both class II and class III plasmids programmed the synthesis of precursor MBP in an in vitro-coupled transcription-translation system. When precursor MBP was synthesized in vitro in the presence of E. coli membrane vesicles, a significant portion of wild-type precursor MBP, but not export-defective precursor MBP, was converted to a form that migrated on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels identically to mature MBP synthesized in vivo.


In the framework of the European I_SMART project, we have designed and made new SiC-based nuclear radiation detectors able to operate in harsh environments and to detect both fast and thermal neutrons. In this paper, we report experimental results of fast neutron irradiation campaign at high temperature (106 °C) in quasi-realistic working conditions. Our device does not suffer from high temperature, and spectra do show strong stability, preserving features. These experiments, as well as others in progress, show the I_SMART SiC-based device skills to operate in harsh environments, whereas other materials would strongly suffer from degradation. Work is still demanded to test our device at higher temperatures and to enhance efficiency in order to make our device fully exploitable from an industrial point of view.


Left-turn forbiddance (with right-hand traffic) is a common operation strategy at intersections to improve efficiency. However, existing studies on left-turn forbiddance are often based on local conditions at a single intersection. This study is a first attempt to examine the optimal locations of left-turn forbiddance for multiple intersections along urban arterial roads, and to incorporate traffic redistribution along the arterial road due to left-turn forbiddance. We optimize the selection of locations to prohibit left-turn along arterial roads, the cycle length, and the green ratio to improve the effective capacity of the arterial road while the detour distance due to left-turn traffic redistribution is incorporated. We propose two mixed integer nonlinear programing models with different approaches to determine the green ratio. These are then tested with Weier Road in Jinan, China. We also compare system performances under the proposed models, current signal settings in place, and the Synchro-based model.


This text passes to geologic investigation of Chongzuo area and plant location Investigation,around the karst,the karst is main engineering geology problem of plant location.Based on the distributing characteristic of development condition and development history and karst shape,analyse the karst development character of plant location area,give appraisement and induction for engineering geology condition of the factory construct general rule of karst project.


with numerical procedures, we make a modification to I[n this paper, we consider the problem of finding the constrained maximum likelihood estimate of a covariance matrix, which is known to be ]positive definite and Hermitian Toeplitz. We propose a new approach based on the method of outer approximations. The proposed algorithm is demonstrated with an example.


A practical and simple self-indexing data structure, Partitioned Elias-Fano (PEF) Compressed Suffix Arrays (CSA), is built in linear time for the CSA based on PEF indexes. Moreover, the PEF-CSA is compared with two classical compressed indexing methods, Ferragina and Manzini implementation (FMI) and Sad-CSA on different type and size files in Pizza & Chili. The PEF-CSA performs better on the existing data in terms of the compression ratio, count, and locates time except for the evenly distributed data such as proteins data. The observations of the experiments are that the distribution of the φ is more important than the alphabet size on the compression ratio. Unevenly distributed data φ makes better compression effect, and the larger the size of the hit counts, the longer the count and locate time. Keywords—Compressed suffix array, self-indexing, partitioned Elias-Fano, PEF-CSA.


This paper examines some of the problems of developing software for minicomputers (or microcomputers). Practical solutions to these problems, involving the use of maxicomputers, are described both generally and by a specific example. Areas examined include source program input and editing, compilation and assembly, loading and finally debugging. In addition, performance measurement of application software is discussed.


Purpose

Team cognition is known to be an important predictor of team process and performance. DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus (2010) reported the results of an extensive meta-analytic examination into the role of team cognition in team process and performance, and documented the unique contribution of team cognition to these outcomes while controlling for the motivational dynamics of the team. Research on team cognition has exploded since the publication of DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus' meta-analysis, which raises the question: to what extent do the effect sizes reported in their 2010 meta-analysis still hold with the inclusion of newly published research? The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors updated DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus' meta-analytic database with newly published studies, nearly doubling its size, and reran their original analyses examining the role of team cognition in team process and performance.

Findings

Overall, results show consistent effects for team cognition in team process and performance. However, whereas originally compilational cognition was more strongly related to both team process and team performance than was compositional cognition, in the updated database, compilational cognition is more strongly related to team process and compositional cognition is more strongly related to team performance.

Originality/value

Meta-analyses are only as generalizable as the databases they are comprised of. Periodic updates are necessary to incorporate newly published studies and confirm that prior findings still hold. This study confirms that the findings of DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus' (2010) team cognition meta-analysis continue to generalize to today's teams.


—Optical Network-on-Chip (ONoC) is a promising communication medium for large-scale Multiprocessor System on Chip (MPSoC) with advantages in terms of throughput and latency. ONoC can support multiple transactions at the same time on different wavelengths by using Wavelength Division Multiplexing. However, sharing the same waveguide for simultaneous communications leads to inter-channel crosstalk noise due to the short wavelength spacing between optical signals and resonance frequency of the Microring Resonator (MR). This problem impacts the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the optical signal, which leads to an increase in the Bit Error Rate (BER) at the receiver side. To limit crosstalk noise during communication between parallel application tasks, we propose a strategy to allocate the wavelengths by evaluating the loss induced by spatio-temporal communication conflicts. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the crosstalk of optical signal.


The pylon is an essential part of lower limb prosthetics. It is usually made of titanium, aluminum, and steel. However, it is expensive and difficult to be available in developing countries, especially for children who suffer from amputation. Moreover, they constantly need new pylon pieces during close periods due to the growth and increase in the child's length.This study aims to design an adjustable pylon that can change in length to suit the increase in the length of the healthy leg of the child without the need for a new pylon and reduce the economic cost.In this study, an adjustable pylon model was designed using the CAD software (Solid work) and work to manufacture the pylon from low-cost materials (carbon fiber filament) capable of bearing the amputee's weight, and manufacturing printed parts by using additive manufacturing technical (CREALITY CR20 3D printer).The results showed that the pylon is successful in design and strength as it bears the patient's weight without any failure or buckling, and the proof that the maximum amount of stress generated is 27.8 MPa, which is far from the value of the yield stress.The design of the adjustable pylon prototype offers good strength and ability to bear the patient weight, reducing the cost and time of manufacturing.


Both benzylic cations and anions are strongly stabilized by chromium tricarbonyl complexation, while benzylic radicals are largely unaffected. Density functional theory calculations were performed on primary, secondary, and tertiary benzylic species to explore the effect of substitution on the stabilizing ability of the chromium tricarbonyl moiety. Complexed 1-indanyl species were also examined to elucidate the effect of conformational restraint. It was found that the strong stabilization of benzylic anions and the slight destabilization of benzylic radicals by chromium tricarbonyl are insensitive to skeletal changes. Chromium-complexed benzylic cations, however, are highly sensitive to changes in the organic framework, with increased substitution or constriction of conformational mobility eroding the effect of the metal. 2-Indanyl species were also examined to study the effect of the chromium tricarbonyl fragment on homobenzylic species. It was found that the metal fragment stabilizes distant anions by field and inductive effects and cations by a direct interaction of the metal with the cationic carbon. Homobenzylic radicals, however, do not interact with the chromium tricarbonyl moiety and suffer a slight inductive destabilization.


In this case study, the process of nutritional diagnosis and intervention conducted at a hospital on a malnourished patient who underwent treatment for a chronic illness (chemotherapy for cancer treatment) was recorded. The patient received his first round of chemotherapy for colorectal cancer, and then a second round after the cancer metastasized to the liver. The patient was malnourished and had experienced weight loss (17% loss in the most recent 3 months) due to side effects of chemotherapy including stomatitis, nausea, and vomiting. Nutritional diagnosis and intervention via the nutrition care process were implemented through two screening rounds, and the quantity of oral intake increased from 28% to 62% of the recommended daily intake. The patient required continuous monitoring and outpatient care after hospital discharge. It is speculated that if a more active patient education and dietary regimen with respect to chemotherapy side effects had been offered after the patient's first chemotherapy cycle, it might have been possible to treat ingestion problems due to stomatitis during the second cycle of chemotherapy and prevent the weight loss. Henceforth, patients receiving chemotherapy should be educated about nutrition management methods and monitored continuously to prevent malnutrition.


As water quality models and their implementation have become increasingly diverse, complex and proprietary, a need for more thorough understanding of the differences between each alternative arises. The work presented here proposes a novel visualization paradigm for water quality applications which can be used to understand difference between implementations of identical and different conceptual models. A proof-of-concept visualization tool was developed and tested again three scenarios for four different conceptual models of biochemical kinetics. Results show representative figures illustrating how the approach can communicate differences in model complexity and dynamic behaviour. The proposed tool should help ensure more suitable application of water quality models in varied contexts. A discussion of quantifying model complexity in a single metric is also presented, and recommendations are made on the selection of various representational forms for communicating and exploring specific model characteristics.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to challenge how we have traditionally thought about organisations and introduce two frameworks to enable us to understand how change in organisations might be facilitated better. Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses organisations as complex adaptive systems and uses complexity theory to inform two new frameworks for facilitating organisational learning and change. Findings – In order for organisational learning to occur we need to change our mind-set of how we see organisations and to think of learning not just as individual but also as generative "communicative action" that emerge out of collaborative relationships. Research limitations/implications – The frameworks proposed are grounded in organisational learning literature and the experience of the author. The proposed agenda for organisational learning has yet to be acted upon and evaluated. Practical implications – The frameworks can be used to enhance understanding of learning and change in organisations. The agenda for enabling organisational transformation identifies key steps to put the ideas developed in the paper into practice. Social implications – The approach advocated for use within organisations is one of empowerment and collaboration rather than top down direction. Originality/value – The paper introduces new frameworks and a practical agenda to bring about organisational transformation through work-applied learning.


Internet brings not only efficiency and convenience, but also challenges to competition authorities all over the world. In obvious contrast to vibrant concentrations in the digital economy in China, the Chinese competition authority has only officially reviewed few cases, due to the variable interest entity structure, incompetence of the turnover-based notification threshold, and lack of experiences in solving new competition concerns brought by access to certain data set, privacy protection, innovation competition and leveraging effect. With establishment of the State Administration for Market Regulation, due attention has been and will continue to be paid to specific characteristics of digital economy from perspectives of both legislation and enforcement. Whether the SAMR would keep open to behavioral remedies deserves further observations. In order to facilitate the SAMR applying anti-monopoly laws and regulations to concentrations in the digital economy more properly and efficiently, the authors of this paper would suggest empowering qualified local competition agencies to review certain concentrations, amending anti-monopoly rules, strengthening knowledge management, establishing independent technical expert group and maintaining international communications.


Insertable head gradient coils offer significant advantages such as high gradient strength and fast gradient switching speed owing to shorter distances to the target region of interest than whole-body cylindrical coils. To produce superior gradient performance, the local head coil is typically designed with an asymmetric configuration to accommodate both the shoulders and head of a patient, leading to tough dimensional constraints and practical limits to the coil implementation. In this paper, we propose a new cone-shaped model to improve the performance of the asymmetric head coils and to mitigate patient claustrophobia. The primary coils are designed with a larger diameter at the patient end for access and a smaller diameter at the service end to bring wires closer to the human head, while the secondary coils are arranged on a cylindrical former to improve coil efficiency. Two cases are studied in this paper. Case I: inner bore size at the patient end (diameter 42 cm) is fixed as the design reference. In this case, inner diameters at any other position vary with the conical tilting angles. Compared with a set of conical gradient coils designed with tilting angles ranging from 0 to 14°, it is found that the optimal coil performance is achieved at the tilting angle of 14°. The key performance parameters have been improved by 100%–200% for the transverse coils, and about 50% for the longitudinal coils compared with the cylindrical counterpart with the reference bore size (that is, the same diameter of 42 cm). The conical coils also produce less heat in the gradient structure and lower acoustic noise in the field of view. Case II: inner bore size at the iso-centre (diameter 34 cm) is set as the design reference. It is also found that, compared with 34 cm diameter cylindrical coils, the conical transverse coil performance has been improved at an angle of 14°. The key coil performance increases by 20%–50% for transverse coil but decreases by 20%–40% for the longitudinal coil. However, compared with the tight cylindrical structure (e.g. 34 cm diameter), the tilting angle will provide patient-friendly space for imaging and handling, which can be critical for fMRI and other brain studies.


Laboratory specimen preparation methods can significantly influence the dynamic shear-induced volumetric response of sands. In this study, a medium dense to very dense Ottawa sand (relative density, DR = ∼60–95 %) was systematically tested using a multidirectional cyclic direct simple shear device to evaluate the influence of specimen preparation on drained cyclic volumetric strain. Both unidirectional and bidirectional cyclic loads were applied to specimens created using four preparation techniques: dry funnel deposition, dry soil raining, dry funnel deposition followed by table vibrations, and dry funnel deposition followed by cyclic shearing. The results indicate that as DR increases, the effect of specimen preparation on volumetric strain decreases. Specifically, the results illustrate that volumetric strain of medium dense sand (DR = 57–74 %) is affected by specimen preparation, which is consistent with the literature. In contrast, dense to very dense specimens (DR > 80 %) exhibited comparable volumetric strain independent of the specimen preparation method. This observation is consistent for both unidirectional and bidirectional cyclic loading.


The current study was designed to investigate the safety and effectiveness of neoadjuvant therapy in patients with borderline resectable pancreatic cancer. The study was a retrospective case control with propensity score similarity. From January 2017 to June 2022, data regarding 70 patients who had received radical resection of pancreatic cancer at the department of hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery of first affiliated hospital of Huzhou university was acquired. The neoadjuvant therapy group consisted of 35 patients who underwent neoadjuvant therapy before surgery. Patients who received extensive surgical resection were included in the control group directly. The effect of the neoadjuvant therapy group was evaluated before the operation and serum tumor markers carcinoembryonic antigen, cancer antigen 125 and cancer antigen 19-9 levels were compared before and after neoadjuvant therapy. Comparative analyses of perioperative surgical variables, postoperative pathological symptoms and postoperative complications were performed between both groups. Among the patients without complete remission or progressive disease after neoadjuvant therapy, 13 cases (37.14 %) were evaluated as partial response and 22 cases (62.86 %) were assessed as stable disease. After neoadjuvant therapy, serum levels of cancer antigen 19-9, cancer antigen 125 and carcinoembryonic antigen indexes revealed a significant (all p<0.05) downward trend. There were no statistically significant differences (all p>0.05) between the two groups regarding surgery type, operation duration, intraoperative blood loss, number of cases requiring blood transfusion, or postoperative hospital stay. Neoadjuvant treatment patient's tumor diameters and the number of removed lymph nodes were significantly less (p<0.05) than those of the control group and their R0 resection rates were significantly greater (p<0.05) than those of the control group. There was no substantial variation in the frequency of complications between both groups (p>0.05). Preoperative neoadjuvant therapy for patients with minimally resectable pancreatic cancer can lower tumor marker levels. Moreover, it can produce a specific curative impact without raising surgical risk levels and boosting the R0 resection rate, which is safe and appropriate.


The diffusion of telemedicine services in Australia over the last four years has been uneven. Some of the major barriers to the adoption of telemedicine relate to the nature of the industry, including its immaturity, the limited telecommunications infrastructure, the lack of appropriate dialogue between vendors and buyers about solutions required, and the lack of partnerships in the industry. Remuneration is only one barrier. There are, of course, other substantial organizational, financial and attitudinal barriers to the adoption of telemedicine. Further development of telemedicine in Australia will require detailed assessment of these matters.


Williams R, Herman W, Kinmonth A-L, Wareham NJ. The evidence base for diabetes care . Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2002.

At nearly 800 pages, this book provides a readable text and a detailed explanation of the scientific underpinning of current diabetes research and management. The book is edited by a transatlantic team and individual chapters are authored by leading researchers. The book contains reviews of the evidence for prevention, diagnosis, and management of diabetes and its complications. Scientific and clinical perspectives are combined to point the way for future progress. The strengths lie in its academic rather than clinical focus, which provides a basis for understanding rather than a set of clinical guidelines or a textbook of how to care for people with diabetes.

The structure of …


Soil water retention (SWR) is an important soil property related to soil structure, texture, and organic matter (SOM), among other properties. Agricultural management practices affect some of these properties in an interdependent way. In this study, the impact of management-induced changes of soil organic carbon (SOC) on SWR is evaluated in five long-term experiments in Europe (running from 8 up to 54 years when samples were taken). Topsoil samples (0–15 cm) were collected and analysed to evaluate the effects of three different management categories, i.e., soil tillage, the addition of exogenous organic materials, the incorporation of crop residues affecting SOC and water content under a range of matric potentials. Changes in the total SOC up to 10 g C kg−1 soil (1%) observed for the different management practices, do not cause statistically significant differences in the SWR characteristics as expected. The direct impact of the SOC on SWR is consistent but negligible, whereas the indirect impact of SOC in the higher matric potentials, which are mainly affected by soil structure and aggregate composition, prevails. The different water content responses under the various matric potentials to SOC changes for each management group implies that one conservation measure alone has a limited effect on SWR and only a combination of several practices that lead to better soil structure, such as reduced soil disturbances combined with increased SOM inputs can lead to better water holding capacity of the soil.


The authors evaluated a flexible vaginal localizer contrast tampon for radiation therapy simulation. In 51 patients, the degree of cervical or vaginal cuff displacement secondary to the contrast tampon was evaluated by comparing simulation radiographs (with tampon) and initial portal radiographs (without tampon). The same comparisons were made on the radiographs obtained in 25 control subjects who underwent simulation without a tampon. Mean displacement in the group who underwent simulation with a tampon was minimal (< or = 5 mm in each direction) and similar to that in the control group. This technique provides reliable cervical and vaginal cuff localization.


Abstract The American Meteorological Society's DataStreme Project is a Society effort to educate K–12 teachers in meteorology. The course utilizes a combination of printed material, Web-based information, and real-time meteorological data in a distance learning format. Learning is facilitated by a Local Implementation Team (LIT). The following paper discusses the program from the perspective of the eastern Iowa LIT.


The variation of the stress in the bolted surrounding rocks structure of the roadway driven along goaf in a fully mechanized top coal caving face with moderate stable conditions are studied by using numerical calculation. The essential deformation characteristics of the surrounding rocks in this kind of roadway are obtained and the key technology of bolting support used under these conditions is put forward.


The supercritical fluids (SCFs) have been widely used for material synthesis and processing due to their remarkable properties including low viscosity, high diffusivity and low surface tension. Carbon dioxide is one of the suitable solvents in SCFs processes in terms of its advantages such as easy processibility (with low critical temperature and pressure), inexpensive, nonflammable, nontoxic, and readily available. However, it has generally low solubility for high molecular weight polymers with the exception of fluoropolymers and siloxane polymers. Therefore, hydrocarbon solvents and hydrochlorofluorocarbons have been used for various SCFs process by its high solubility for high molecular weight polymers. In this report, a PMMA/clay nanocomposites were fabricated by using supercritical fluid process. The Na+-MMT(montmorillonites)was modified by a fluorinated surfactant which is able to enhance compatibility with the chlorodifluoromethane(HCFC-22) and thus, improve dispersability of the clay in the polymer matrix. The PMMA/fluorinated surfactant modified clay nanocomposite shows enhanced mechanical and thermal properties which characterized by X-raydiffraction(XRD), Thermo gravimetric analysis(TGA), Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM).


ABSTRACT The study of labeling selectivity and mechanisms of fluorescent organelle probes in living cells is of continuing interest in biomedical sciences. The tetracationic phthalocyanine-like ZnTM2,3PyPz photosensitizing dye induces a selective violet fluorescence in mitochondria of living HeLa cells under UV excitation that is due to co-localization of the red signal of the dye with NAD(P)H blue autofluorescence. Both red and blue signals co-localize with the green emission of the mitochondria probe, rhodamine 123. Microscopic observation of mitochondria was improved using image processing and analysis methods. High dye concentration and prolonged incubation time were required to achieve optimal mitochondrial labeling. ZnTM2,3PyPz is a highly cationic, hydrophilic dye, which makes ready entry into living cells unlikely. Redox color changes in solutions of the dye indicate that colorless products are formed by reduction. Spectroscopic studies of dye solutions showed that cycles of alkaline titration from pH 7 to 8.5 followed by acidification to pH 7 first lower, then restore the 640 nm absorption peak by approximately 90%, which can be explained by formation of pseudobases. Both reduction and pseudobase formation result in formation of less highly charged and more lipophilic (cell permeant) derivatives in equilibrium with the parent dye. Some of these are predicted to be lipophilic and therefore membrane-permeant; consequently, low concentrations of such species could be responsible for slow uptake and accumulation in mitochondria of living cells. We discuss the wider implications of such phenomena for uptake of hydrophilic fluorescent probes into living cells.


I think that the unprofessional and contemptuous note which characterizes President Little's communication should properly be passed here with mere recognition.

Studies in the relation of heredity to cancer susceptibility and to cancer resistance are made very difficult by several things.

1. Cancer is a disease of middle and late life and many potentially cancerous individuals may die of other causes before the occurrence of their potential cancers.

2. Irritations or lesions, gross or microscopic, seem to be instrumental in the causation of cancer. Apparently some such irritation has usually been added to hereditary susceptibility when cancer occurs. Individuals, therefore, susceptible by heredity, may never encounter the type of irritation or lesion fitted to induce cancer in the locally susceptible tissues. This could account for the low incidence of breast cancer in males. The conservative estimate of breast cancer occurrence in human males is about 1 per cent. Breast cancer susceptibility therefore cannot be sex limited as President Little thinks it to be. A more logical explanation would seem to be that male breast tissues are less subject to lesions than are those of females. Hence the less frequent occurrence of breast malignancy in males. The fact that susceptible tissues may never encounter the type of lesion to induce cancer may cause loss of valuable data. I have found that my males with breast cancer transmit it just as surely as do the females with breast cancer.


Yams (Dioscorea spp) are traditionally propagated by tuber with very low multiplication rate (less than 1:10 compared to 1:200 in some cereals). The use of the edible tubers, for propagation makes seed yam scarce and very expensive. Many methods for high ratio propagation were developed these included the "minisetts technique" generating up to 30 setts per tuber of 1kg; the vine cutting multiplication technique with up to 60 vines of one node per plant, the temporary immersion bioreactor system with well-developed tissue culture plantlets up to 100 per container fully developed in 6–8 weeks. In comparison to these methods the aeroponics system that has been applied successfully by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture for seed yam, has shown more advantages in terms of type and quantity of planting materials (tubers, bulbils and vines) generated. The basic principle of Aeroponics technology is to grow plants in a closed or semi-closed environment by spraying the plants' roots with a nutrient rich solution. The most important yams species used as foods D. rotundata (white yam), D. alata (water yam) and D. cayenesis (yellow yam), D. dumentorum (bitter yam), D. bulbifera (bulbil yam) were tested soilless aeroponics. Only vines of D. dumentorum did not grow. Vines of all the other 4 species grew profusely, developing good plants. D. bulbifera grew for more than 4 months and produced small bulbils before senescence. D. cayenesis, D. alata and D. rotundata are growing like perennial crops in aeroponics. These three species grew for 9, 21 and 28 months, respectively, in aeroponics. The vines of these species originating from field plants grow slowly in aeroponics but vines issued from plants in aeroponics produced roots and shoots easily in soil, sand, carbonized rice husk. Plants in aeroponics offered 3 different types of planting materials: tubers every 3 to 5 months, bulbils regularly starting in the second month and vine cuttings after establishment of canopy. The highest number of harvested materials was 3 tubers per plant ranging from 1 to 6. The tuber mass harvested in aeroponics ranged from 0.1 to 326 g/plant and up 40 bulbils (shoot born tubers) per plant at one harvest. Vines generated ranged from 110 to 300/plant with an average rooting of 99 %, of these 93.4 % to 96.4 % (mean 95.1 %) developed into normal plants.


Stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 (SCD1) is an essential regulator of fatty acid synthesis that affects cell membrane composition and may play a role in cancer cell metabolism. We have previously shown that SCD1 expression is increased by mTOR signaling and that SCD1 increases breast cancer cell growth in vitro. The purpose of this study was to determine protein levels of SCD1 in breast cancer and to determine whether there is an association between SCD1 levels and survival. Fine needle aspirates were collected from the primary breast cancers of 253 patients with Stage I-III breast cancer and protein lysates were prepared. SCD1 expression was analyzed using reverse phase proteomic array. Patient demographic and clinical characteristics including age, ethnicity, menopausal status, clinical stage, tumor grade, and tumor subtype were reviewed. Samples were divided into high or low SCD1 levels based on a cut-off determined from martingale residual plots and regression tree analysis. SCD1 levels were significantly higher in older patients and lower in triple negative (estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 negative) cancers, After adjusting for tumor subtype, tumor grade, age, and clinical stage, patients who had high SCD1 levels had significantly shorter relapse-free survival (RFS) (p=0.013) and overall survival (OS) (p=0.038). SCD1 level varies by breast cancer subtype and predicts significantly shorter RFS and OS. Future studies are needed to define the role of SCD1 in breast cancer and evaluate its potential as a therapeutic target. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 682. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-682


The productivity of winter oilseed rape cultivars is limited by various pests and diseases. The aim of this study was to determine the differences in the susceptibility of Lithuanian-grown winter rape cultivars to main fungal diseases, their yield performance, and their response to the fungicide application. A 2-factorial field experiment was carried out at the Institute of Agriculture of the Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry over 3 growing seasons (2007/08, 2008/09, and 2009/10). The influence of fungicide application and cultivar (15 cultivars during the first and second seasons, and 6 cultivars during the third season) on the incidence and severity of phoma stem canker, alternaria black spot, and sclerotinia stem rot, as well as on the seed yield and thousand-seed weight, was evaluated. Experimental findings indicated that the incidence and severity of fungal diseases varied considerably among the growing seasons. The incidence of basal phoma stem canker was significantly influenced by the cultivar during all 3 growing seasons; however, significant effect of the cultivar on the mean severity of basal canker was obtained only in 2009. Fungicide spray applications significantly decreased the incidence and severity of fungal diseases and significantly increased the seed yield of winter rape. Significant and positive yield response to the fungicide application was obtained for almost all tested cultivars during the first 2 seasons. Cultivars that were higher yielding without treatment (Insider, Sunday, Monalisa, Rally, and Titan) showed lower response to the fungicide application. The use of fungicides demonstrated the highest economic return from the cultivars Lirajet, Casino, Siska, Liprima, and Valesca.


Though rapid depletion of natural resources has become a global problem, most of the solutions developed to address it are based on studies done in the developed world. Moreover, the commercial sector is among the primary consumers of resources, yet research work has been mostly limited to residential users. We present a study exploring employees' perception, their beliefs and attitudes, towards environmental sustainability at workplaces in a developing region. To obtain broader context, we also conducted a focus group with the facility team members. Our study highlights that in spite of strong motivations to conserve, employees conservative actions are limited due to lack of controls, knowledge and responsibility. We identify new opportunities for design such as designing location specific buildings, removing inefficient choices, and building communal spaces, to facilitate conservation at workplaces.


By means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements, we unveil the electronic band structure of three-dimensional PbBi6Te10 topological insulator. ARPES investigations evidence multiple coexisting Dirac surface states at the zone-center of the reciprocal space, displaying distinct electronic band dispersion, different constant energy contours, and Dirac point energies. We also provide evidence of Rashba-like split states close to the Fermi level, and deeper M- and V-shaped bands coexisting with the topological surface states. The experimental findings are in agreement with scanning tunneling microscopy measurements revealing different surface terminations according to the crystal structure of PbBi6Te10. Our experimental results are supported by density functional theory calculations predicting multiple topological surface states according to different surface cleavage planes.


Recently, fully-implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHD) to enhance the hearing ability of auditory impaired persons have been developed in several countries. The implantable hearing device requires an external controller and a non-invasive power transmitter for recharging an internal battery of the device. This study shows the implementation of an inductively coupled control unit to be able to recharge the battery and transmit a control signal to the implanted device by designing the structure of coupled antennas and the data protocol using an on-off keying modulation. The implemented control unit has the advantages that it makes the implanted device reduce the power consumption and increase a recharging interval by externally supplying the power of a control signal receiver instead of using an internal battery. Through the experimental results, it has been verified that the implemented control unit has the performance of transmitting power and control signal to a F-IMEHD


ABSTRACT Mammalian RNA polymerase I (Pol I) complexes contain a number of associated factors, some with undefined regulatory roles in transcription. We demonstrate that casein kinase 2 (CK2) in human cells is associated specifically only with the initiation-competent Pol Iβ isoform and not with Pol Iα. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis places CK2 at the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) promoter in vivo. Pol Iβ-associated CK2 can phosphorylate topoisomerase IIα in Pol Iβ, activator upstream binding factor (UBF), and selectivity factor 1 (SL1) subunit TAFI110. A potent and selective CK2 inhibitor, 3,8-dibromo-7-hydroxy-4-methylchromen-2-one, limits in vitro transcription to a single round, suggesting a role for CK2 in reinitiation. Phosphorylation of UBF by CK2 increases SL1-dependent stabilization of UBF at the rDNA promoter, providing a molecular mechanism for the stimulatory effect of CK2 on UBF activation of transcription. These positive effects of CK2 in Pol I transcription contrast to that wrought by CK2 phosphorylation of TAFI110, which prevents SL1 binding to rDNA, thereby abrogating the ability of SL1 to nucleate preinitiation complex (PIC) formation. Thus, CK2 has the potential to regulate Pol I transcription at multiple levels, in PIC formation, activation, and reinitiation of transcription.


Abstract. The excitation of surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves guided by a columnar thin film (CTF) deposited on a one-dimensional metallic surface-relief grating was studied employing the rigorous coupled-wave approach, when the grating plane, the plane of incidence, and the morphologically significant plane of the CTF are all different. The incident plane wave in this grating-coupled configuration could be either p- or s-polarized. The absorptance was plotted against the polar angle of incidence at a fixed value of the free-space wavelength, and absorptance peaks were correlated with the solution of the dispersion equation of the underlying canonical boundary-value problem for SPP waves. Both p-polarized and s-polarized plane waves can excite SPP waves, provided that either the plane of incidence and/or the morphologically significant plane of the CTF do not coincide with the grating plane. None, one, or multiple SPP-wave excitations are possible, depending on the orientations of the grating plane and the morphologically significant plane with respect to the plane of incidence. The direction of propagation of an SPP wave thus excited may not wholly lie in the plane of incidence.


In the article, "Hippocampal Theta Oscillations Support Successful Associative Memory Formation," by Srinivas Kota, Michael D. Rugg, and Bradley C. Lega, which appeared on pages 9507–9518 of the December 2, 2020 issue, a typographical error was made in the abstract. The online version has been updated to remove the extraneous word "fails" from the second sentence: "For this reason, the contrast between study items that are later recollected with their associative pair versus those for which no association is made should reveal electrophysiological patterns in the hippocampus selectively involved in associative memory encoding."


The objective of this study was to prepare and characterize hybrid films based on layered silicates with a tetracationic porphyrin dye 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(N-methylpyridinium-4-yl)porphyrin (TMPyP) intercalated in the inorganic matrix. The properties of the TMPyP cations in the materials were compared with those of other systems (solutions, colloids) characterized mainly by absorption and fluorescence spectroscopies. Linearly polarized absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and fluorescence microscopy were used as well. Using appropriate layered silicate templates, applying the premodification of the inorganic component with hydrophobic alkylammonium surfactants and selecting an appropriate method, one can prepare the materials of broadly variable spectral properties of the dye. The spectral variation takes place while preserving the photochemical activity of TMPyP. The interpretations of spectral changes are based on the structural changes of the TMPyP molecules adsorbed on layered silicate surface related to the flattening of cationic pyridinium substituents.


Pain and Suicide in a Population-Based Sample Sarra Nazem Previous research suggests that individuals who experience chronic pain are at increased risk for suicidal behaviors. No studies, however, have specifically examined the association between headaches and fatal suicide behavior. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether gender moderates the relation between pain and suicide, and whether the relation is independent of the effects of depression. The present study aimed to characterize the relation between pain (headache, back, shoulder, and neck) and suicide. Data were obtained from two sources in the Swedish Twin Registry. A total of 42,928 individuals responded to headache questions in either 1967 or 1973 for the first data source. The second data source, which began in 1998, consisted of data from 40,912 individuals who responded to questions assessing for back, shoulder and neck pain along with 24,987 individuals who responded to headache questions. Survival analysis using Poisson regression was used to estimate the risk of suicide associated with pain variables. Analyses indicated that women who experienced headaches were two times more likely to die by suicide than women who did not experience headaches. Additionally, men who reported pain were almost four times more likely to die by suicide than men who did not report pain, even after controlling for depressive symptoms. The findings, obtained in one of the largest studies examining pain and prediction of suicide in a population-based sample, support that pain (including headaches) is associated with suicide, and suggest that gender may be an important moderator in the relation between pain and suicide.


Background Intracerebral hemorrhage, despite being less frequent than ischemic stroke, has a worst early outcome and poorer prognosis. Intracerebral hematoma (ICH) size is one of the important predictors of outcome. CT scan is the gold standard for diagnosis and follows up of ICH yet needs the patient to be moved to radiology department which can be difficult for some ICU patients. Bedside ultrasound can be a potential reliable tool for assessing ICH size. Aim Assessing the utility of ultrasound in diagnosing and predicting outcome of ICH Subjects and method Thirty patients with spontaneous ICH has been selected and diagnosed by CT scan of the brain. Brain transcranial sonography (TCS) was done just after the CT. Multiple clinical scales were done and correlated to hematoma size detected by TCS. Results The results showed excellent reliability for hematoma volume assessment using CT and TCS, intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) 95% CI 0.963 (0.923-0.983). Hematoma size by TCS showed a very good correlation to most of the clinical scales. Conclusion Bedside TCS can be a reliable tools for diagnosis and prediction of outcome of patients with ICH specially those who are difficult to be transported.


The 21st Century is witnessing a rapid rise of urbanization both in the developed and the developing world. Cities increasingly need to be able to do more with less in order to provide for the well-being of their citizens in a sustainable way. The promise of Smart City is an emerging ability to understand, to respond to, and to shape human activity at urban population and geographic scales so that a more agile, adaptive, and sustainable urban environment can be created (see Batty et al., 2012; Caragliu et al., 2011; Chourabi et al., 2012; Su et al., 2011 for early adoption of Smart City). To be effective, this requires the predictive power of data-driven modelling and city-scale computational simulations. Recently city-scale simulations are becoming possible thanks to a surge of development in the high-performance computing (HPC) domain including advanced hardware, computational and algorithmic techniques such as domain decomposition across multi-GPUs and multigrid techniques. Advanced high performance computing systems (a billion billion calculations per second) are now becoming available to performance city-scale simulations with micro-scale models of an individual objective (structure, people, vehicle, etc.) (e.g. Sanchez-Medina et al., 2010; Hori, 2011; Zia et al., 2012; Wijerathne et al., 2013; Pijanowski et al., 2014; Yoshimura et al., 2016; Johansen et al., 2017; Lu and Guan., 2017)


To illustrate the benefits of surgery in conjunction with neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC), and to evaluate risk factors affecting patient's survival. Forty-six LS-SCLC patients who received surgery in our center from September 2012 to December 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. Twenty-five patients with LS-SCLC diagnosed after surgery who received postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy were classified into control group, and 21 patients with LS-SCLC who received preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy were classified into observation group. The observation group were divided into subgroup 1 (negative lymph nodes) and subgroup 2 (positive lymph nodes). Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients were analyzed. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression were utilized to analyze independent risk factors affecting patient's survival. PFS and OS of patients in the control group and observation group had similar outcomes (P > 0.05). Subgroup 1 and subgroup 2 had similar PFS and OS (P > 0.05). PT2, pN2, BM, and two or more positive lymph nodes were significantly associated with poor PFS and OS (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the pT, number of lymph node positive stations and BM were independent risk factors affecting patient's survival (P < 0.05). Surgery combined with neoadjuvant chemotherapy can achieve long-term survival benefit for some patients with LS-SCLC. It is necessary to find a better plan that enables to select patients suitable for surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.


Prior to committing an offence for which they are ultimately found not criminally responsible (NCR), offenders may have contact with the health care and criminal justice systems. Understanding the frequency of these contacts can potentially help to prevent such offences by informing strategies for intervention. In particular, escalation in contact frequency could foreshadow the committing of an index offence. Inspired by real data, in this project, we investigate models that describe such escalation. In particular, we consider two classes of models: time-to-event models that are framed in terms of numbers of contacts in an interval, and time-between-events models that are framed in terms of times between two successive contacts. Both classes of models can incorporate predictor variables and between-subject heterogeneity (via random effects). The properties of the maximum likelihood estimators of the escalation rate and the performance of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of goodness-of-fit are assessed using simulations under various scenarios.


This article describes the various steps that were taken to organize and implement a five-week French summer institute for secondary teachers of French, involving a three-week stay in France and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the French Cultural Services. After outlining the reasons that led to the conception of the project, the author explains the objectives behind the program, the course content, and the administration of the Institute. Also described are budget considerations, participants' progress, the evaluation process, the video project developed by the participants, and the follow-up to the Institute. The article refers to obstacles encountered along the way and includes recommendations for similar projects. It should prove useful to anyone interested in organizing a summer institute abroad.


This paper presents a physics-informed machine learning approach to the derivation of a bottom-up coarse-grained model of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein from all-atomic molecular dynamics simulations. The machine learning procedure employs a force-matching scheme in the optimization of interaction parameters, where the force-matching scheme is combined in methodology with the initialization of the interaction parameters by the traditional iterative Boltzmann inversion method. The force-matched machine learning procedure is constructed based on two physics-informed layers: one is the Harmonic layer consisting of bond, angle, and dihedral terms as bonded potentials; the other is the Lennard-Jones layer consisting of the non-bonded Lennard-Jones potential. Coarse-grained validation simulations are performed with the learned parameters to test the derived bottom-up coarse-grained model. The simulations are able to reach the microsecond time scale with stability. The physics-informed learning approach yields simulation speeds nearly 40,000 times faster than conventional all-atomic simulations while maintaining comparable simulation accuracy. Additionally, through examination of the non-bonded Lennard-Jones parameters and the radial distribution function analysis, the learning approach matches pairwise distances of the ground-truth data with greater accuracy than the conventional iterative approach method.


This paper is a condensation of an unfinished report on accelerator cooling systems. When published, it will be made available to interested parties. It is based on approximately twenty years experience with a number of accelerators, on materials testing and engineering analysis, and on information obtained from other laboratories. 1. The relative cost of cooling depends on geographic location and atmospheric conditions, on cooling water supply temperature and temperature range, on the cooling method used, and on the degree of cooling-system centralization. 2. The cooling water supply temperature and temperature range affect the operating costs of other accelerator components. 3. Many materials are available for use in low-conductivity water systems. All have limitations.


The growth and processing of cassava (Manihot esculenta) in Africa produces a range of waste streams which are proving problematic due to their current mismanagement. Although a range of technical solutions exists to convert these waste streams into valuable products, there has been very little progress made in applying these solutions. This review provides a broad picture of the cassava waste issue in the context of African agriculture and bioprocessing. As an outcome of the review process the authors propose a simple and scalable two‐step process that biologically converts the waste streams into valuable products. The first step in the process is fermentation and distillation of the cassava waste to produce ethanol. The second step is the anaerobic digestion of the fermentation byproducts with other waste streams, including animal manure and human excrement, to produce biogas and biological fertilizers. Despite the scalability of this system, the focus of this review is the development of a conceptual system for rural smallholders to achieve multiple beneficial outcomes including treatment of multiple troublesome waste streams, production of a liquid biofuel, the provision of refrigeration through biogas powered absorption chillers, and the co‐production of organic fertilizers. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd


Teachers' attrition rate keeps rising every year and has been observed that mostly teachers from rural and remote parts of the country choose to resign voluntarily or go on long term leave. Teacher's attrition rate in 2018 is 4.4% and it has risen up to 5.2% in 2019 which is a serious concern to be looked at. Recruitment and retention of teachers in the remote and rural schools remains a significant challenge in low-income countries, including Bhutan, hampering the educational delivery services to the rural population and slows the progress of achieving Sustainable Development Goals.
For delivering quality educational services to the people and improving their outcomes, motivated teachers must be available at the right time and place. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors affecting teacher retention in the rural areas of Chhukha District based on policy and practice. A total of five domains were assessed regarding financial matters, career matters, personal and family matters, working and living conditions, and policy matters. In the past decade, there have been worrying signs that the intellectual quality of teachers is declining. Teachers who are already in schools and are highly qualified may be able to offset this trend if they are retained.
In order to better understand the key factors influencing rural schools' appeal and retention of teachers, this study was conducted. A satisfaction survey was also conducted to determine if their current place of employment offered them the policies, facilities, services, and support that they were seeking. In order to attract or retain teachers in remote and rural schools, the study findings, recommendations, and appropriate strategies were provided to relevant stakeholders for intervention. Therefore, more motivated teachers are available in remote Bhutanese regions. Consequently, teaching services will be of a higher quality. Gross National Happiness can ultimately be achieved by achieving this goal.


The L2 Civil Signal (L2CS) will be transmitted by modernized IIR(IIR-M), IIF and all subsequent GPS satellites. It contains two codes of different length; CM code contains 10,230chips, repeats every 20milliseconds and is modulated with message data, and CL code contains 767,250chps, repeats every 1.5second Z-count and has no data modulation. And the message data is encoded for Forward Error Correction (FEC). Although it has a good cross-correlation performance by the long code length, but the acquisition time should be long. Because the acquisition time is directly proportional to the code length and/or code period. Therefore it takes about 100 hours for L2C signal acquisition in case of 20ms integration. So, there should be a fast signal acquisition scheme. There are many methods to reduce the acquisition time, but most of them require the modification of the correlator. The L1 aiding method does not require any modifications and it can acquire the L2C signal as fast as the L1 signal. Finally, the L1 aiding method would be confirmed by experimental results in this paper and the acquisition and tracking of L1 and L2C signal also would be shown.


Source rocks possess complex heterogeneous matrices with soft organic matter, consisting mainly of kerogen, interspersed within a stiff inorganic mineral framework that varies in composition. There is not a clear understanding nor adequate knowledge of how geochemical properties influence the rock physics, especially when predicting a seismic response. While many attempts have been made to use seismic to empirically quantify these properties for the purpose of exploration, those attempts have often failed due to the complexity of the elastic properties of kerogen and the laminated geometry of the rock. This is due primarily to uncertainty over how these properties change with maturity as a result of burial and subsequent uplift. Therefore, knowledge of (1) the elastic properties of kerogen, (2) the amount and geometric distribution of organic matter within the rock matrix, and (3) the impact of kerogen maturity on its elastic properties is needed to predict a seismic response. An elastic property modeling method has been developed to address this challenge based on the integration of high-resolution microscopy, geochemical analysis, and velocity measurements. Using this approach, endmembers are obtained that allow for building rock-physics models that can predict elastic uncertainty from mineral heterogeneity and estimate the elastic properties of organic matter. Digital images, geochemical data, and velocity measurements coupled with maturity modeling suggest that bulk and shear softening of kerogen can help distinguish between maturity-induced seismic responses.


Changes in frequency such as those found in Risset tones have been associated with moving sound sources in the vertical plane (Pratt effect) and the horizontal plane (Doppler illusion). We investigated the reported origin and motion of unspatialized Risset tones presented monotically and diotically, and Risset tones simulated to be in the sagittal or coronal plane, approaching or receding, from above or horizontally. Independent of the artificial spatialization used (none, spatializing frequency components collectively or individually, elevated or not), upward glissandi were more likely to be judged as approaching than receding, and downward glissandi as receding than approaching, in most cases from the horizon. Glissandi associations with horizontal movements were more common in stimuli simulated on the sagittal plane than in stimuli simulated on the coronal plane. These findings suggest that the Doppler illusion is stronger than the Pratt effect, at least for Risset tones presented over headphones and simulated to be in the sagittal plane. These findings may contribute to better understanding of the association between auditory motion perception and changes in frequency.


Solid Freefonn Fabrication (SFF) is a class of manufacturing technologies aimed at the production of mechanical components without part-specific tooling or process planning. Originally used for creating modelsfor visualization, many industrial users of SFF technologies are realizing the greater potentialofSFF as legitimate manufacturing processes for producing patterns and, in some cases, functional.parts. Thus, SFF is becoming an important aspect of the product realization process in these industries. Solid Freefonn Fabrication arose from the dream of "push-button" prototyping, in which solid reproductions of three-dimensional geometric models are created automatically under computer control. Perhaps more than any other class of manufacturing technologies, computer software development has been an integral part of the emergence of SFF. As SFF technologies evolve toward the ability to create functional parts, computer issues gain more importance. This paper discusses three aspects of software design for SFF: processing of geometric data, global and local control of SFF processes, and computer-based analysis and design for SFF manufacturing. The discussion of geometric processing issues focuses on accuracy and completeness of input models, and the algorithms required to process such models. The interplay between the physics of SFF processing and the desired output geometry is discussed in terms of the development of model-based control algorithms for SFF. These two areas, geometric processing and control, are necessary for the practical implementation of any SFF technology. However, for SFF to realize its potential as an alternative for manufacturing functional parts, engineers must be provided with analysis and design tools for predicting mechanical properties, ensuring dimensional accuracy, choosing appropriate materials, selecting process parameter values, etc. For each of these three different but related areas of software design, the state-of-theart is assessed, contemporary research is summarized, and future needs are outlined.


Summary form only given. We propose CARUSO - a new SoC approach that emphasizes connectivity, autonomic computing principles, real-time, and ultra-low power requirements. The requirements shall be fulfilled by a multithreaded processor core within a reconfigurable SoC. A helper thread running with low priority in an own thread slot concurrent to the application implements an autonomic manager that monitors the application. A middleware decides if self-optimization, self-configuration, self-protection, or self-healing techniques must be triggered based on the autonomic manager's information and further application knowledge.


In this paper a statistical theory of turbulence in an incompressible fluid caused by the joint effects of gravity, and thermal instability, is developed. The mathematical theory is based on the equations of continuity and heat conduction and the Boussinesq form of the equations of motion in which the variations of density (resulting from the variations in temperature) are taken into account only in so far as they modify the action of gravity. By restricting oneself to a portion of the fluid far from the bounding surfaces one can treat the turbulence as approximately homogeneous and axisymmetric and use the theory of axisymmetric vectors and tensors recently developed by the writer (Chandrasekhar 1950a). A number of correlations between the various field quantities (such as the velocity components, fluctuations in temperature, etc.) at two different points in the medium are defined; and a closed system of equations for the defining scalars are derived for the case when the non-linear terms in the equations of motion and heat conduction can be neglected and a constant mean adverse temperature gradient is maintained. Under stationary conditions when the time derivatives of the various correlations are zero, there is an exact balance between the dissipation of kinetic energy by viscosity and the liberation of potential energy by gravity. A fundamental set of solutions of the equations governing stationary turbulence is obtained; these solutions, varying periodically in the vertical direction, enable a generalized Fourier analysis of the various correlation functions. According to these solutions, a Fourier analysis of correlations such as u/||(0) u'||(z) of the vertical velocities at two points directly above one another and separated by a distance z, cannot include wave-lengths less than a certain minimum value depending on the physical parameters and on the temperature gradient maintained. We may thus speak of a smallest size for the eddies. Further, it appears that the field of turbulence can be analyzed into two modes characterized by the kinetic energy being confined, principally, to the vertical or to the horizontal direction.


ABSTRACT: A comet model is derived based on the interstellar dust chemical composition in dense molecular and diffuse clouds resulting from their subsequent chemical interactions and UV photoprocessing. The collapsing presolar nebula leads to a porous aggregate model for comet nuclei, from which is derived certain physical properties that include thermal conductivity and tensile strength. The porous morphological structure is also shown to imply anomalous (expansion rather than contraction) behavior when subjected to strong shock waves, which is supported by recent shock experiments on (porous) carbonaceous chondrite material.


A very stable direct-current source is described which employs a SQUID operating in the near-zero flux state. This is brought about by coupling to the SQUID via an intermediate superconducting loop, which carries a persistent supercurrent. Current stabilities as high as 2*10-9h-1 have been achieved and a new upper limit of 10-26 Omega m for the resistivity of superconducting niobium has been set.


A PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY MINNA IN
PARTIAL FUFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF AWARD OF
BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (B.ENG) IN THE DEPARTMENT OF
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING.
NOVEMBER 2008