Introduction. Basic Concepts of the Spectrum of a Graph. Operations on Graphs and the Resulting Spectra. Relations Between Spectral and Structural Properties of Graphs. The Divisor of a Graph. The Spectrum and the Group of Automorphisms. Characterization of Graphs by Means of Spectra. Spectra Techniques in Graph Theory and Combinatories. Applications in Chemistry an Physics. Some Additional Results. Appendix. Tables of Graph Spectra Biblgraphy. Index of Symbols. Index of Names. Subject Index.


The typing of S. aureus methicillin-resistant strains, isolated in different hospitals of Moscow; was carried out with the use of three collections of phages: the International Set of Phages; the set of phages of the International Center of S. aureus phage typing in London (L); and the experimental collection of phages of the Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow (M). In this study made with the use of both the phages of the International Diagnostic Set and phages L in the standard typing dose of 1 TP about 6% of the cultures under study proved to be sensitive. When the typing dose was increased to 100 TP the phages of the international diagnostic set lyzed 75.5% of the cultures. The typed strains were found to belong to phage types 77 (71.7%), 77/84/85 (19.6%) and 94/96 (6.5%). At a concentration of 100 TP phages L lyzed 83.7% of the cultures, but the dominating phage types could not be determined due to a great variety of phage markers. In contrast to the two preceding collections, the third phage collection M was composed in such a way that in the study of the investigated culture the specificity of its restriction modification was primarily evaluated and only then the presence of antiphage immunity was determined. This latter collection was used in the evaluation of 93.1% of the cultures. By the specificity of their restriction specification system the majority of them were classified with two new groups, heretofore not described. Only this collection M made it possible to differentiate epidemic and sporadic strains and to evaluate the epidemic situation in all 6 hospitals.


these bodies we shall be enabled to detect orbital motion of the smaller ones about the larger. If this were shown to exist, we should at once have the means of determining the mass of this cometary system. These changes may, however, be due to perspective. So far as we know, the phenomenon presented by this comet is extremely rare. It is needless to repeat the story of Biela's comet. In Í845 it separated into two distinct comets, which traveled side by side, and returning at the appointed time, they were seen to be widely separated—indeed, moving in distinctly separate paths ; they then disappeared, to be seen no more in the heavens. One of the comets of 1861 was seen double fora few days. Some companions were seen moving with the Great Comet of 1882, but no measurements were made. This covers our knowledge of multiple comets, or comets with companions, unless, indeed, we accept the evidence of the Chinese records, which possibly describe comets that consisted of two or more parts. Mt. Hamilton, September 30, 1889.


BACKGROUND
Future nursing shortages and advanced technological developments mean that robots and automated devices could play a valuable role in nursing, but little has been published on their use, and outcomes, to date.

AIM
This integrative review identified how robots are currently used in nursing and the outcomes of those initiatives.

DESIGN
This study used integrative review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.

DATA SOURCES
We searched the CINAHL, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases for peer-reviewed papers published in English from January 2010 to August 2018.

REVIEW METHODS
The five-stage review process by Whittemore and Knafl was used.

RESULTS
The 25 included papers showed that robots and automated devices were mainly used in nursing to deliver medication, monitor patients, and provide nursing treatments. The outcomes were evaluated in relation to patient safety, working time and workload, usability, and the end users' satisfaction. In addition, the costs, care outcomes, nurses' behaviour, and changes in working procedures were considered.

CONCLUSIONS
Robots and automated devices have the potential to develop nurses' work, but more research and critical evaluations are needed to find the most suitable devices and focus on the functions that will provide the best outcomes for nurses' work.


OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the dose distribution in different situations of high dose-rate endobronchial brachytherapy, focusing especially on high-dose volumes, and try to identify better or worse situations in terms of dose distribution to aid as guidance in the clinical practice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Theoretical study simulating high dose-rate endobronchial brachytherapy utilizing two catheters, varying the loading extent, angle between the catheters, prescription depth, and source step. With a prescription dose of 7.5 Gy, the volumes involved by the 100%, 150% and 200% isodoses (V100, V150 and V200, respectively) and V150/V100 and V200/V100 ratios were calculated. RESULTS: There was a volume enhancement with larger loaded lengths, increase in prescription depth and angles, with a tendency towards a proportionally smaller increase with larger angulations. In general, the V150/V100 and V200/V100 ratios were homogeneous, respectively around 0.50 and 0.30. CONCLUSION: Overall, the dose distribution in the standard situation was appropriate. No specific parameter that could be related to a higher toxicity was identified. The authors recommend a swift evaluation of the treatment quality through the analysis of the V150/V100 and V200/ V100 ratios.


Services such as energy supply, water supply and wastewater management or housing are part of daily life and are usually provided at the municipal level. They all play an important role in a transition towards sustainability. In this contribution, we report on findings from a project where sustainability innovations from three different domains were analysed. Cases included (1) innovative low-carbon heat grids using renewable sources or waste heat, (2) sustainable water management, and (3)  community housing addressing people of different ages. The case studies are based on a series of semi-structured interviews (n=69 from 16 cases), document analysis and expert workshops. The paper addresses the following topics: • Q1. What characterizes the innovation under study and how far is it developed? • Q2. What are the influencing factors that are relevant in supporting the implementation of the innovation or act as a barrier? • Q3. What are potential synergies between the three fields of action? Overall the housing niche seems to be the one that is most established while the level of diffusion is lowest for water projects (Q1). Furthermore, we find that all niche projects rely on municipal support, that strong networks are important to accelerate learning curves and windows of opportunities are a precondition for success (Q2). However, while some of the relevant factors are similar across the cases it is very difficult to create synergies in real life and is hardly ever achieved although such opportunities are conceivable (Q3).


For the first time, the experimental and theoretical evidence for the conversion of 4-nitrobenzenethiol (4-NBT) to p,p'-dimercaptoazobenzene (DMAB) in Ag and Cu sols by surface photochemistry reaction is obtained with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy. The SERS spectrum of 4-NBT in Cu sol is identical to that of DMAB produced from 4-aminothiophenol in Ag sol as reported in recent literature, thereby providing direct spectral evidence. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This article explores how dyads of 186 community-dwelling individuals with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or a related disorder (ADRD) and their caregivers (dyads) plan to respond to hurricane evacuation warnings in South Florida. Predictors of dyad evacuation for a category 1-3 storm include (1) a younger age of the person with an ADRD diagnosis, (2) the caregiver living in a different residence than the person with ADRD, (3) lack of hurricane shutters, and (4) lower income. A dyad is more likely to evacuate in a category 4 or 5 hurricane if there is (1) a younger age person with an ADRD diagnosis, (2) a more recent diagnosis of ADRD, (3) a residence in an evacuation zone, and if (4) they report needing a shelter. Emergency management teams, especially those who assist with special needs shelters or other outreach programs for people with cognitive disabilities, can use these guidelines to estimate service usage and needs.


Background

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory disease. Mucosal healing (MH) is inversely associated with clinical outcome. The albumin to globulin ratio (AGR) is known as chronic inflammation marker. While some evidence regarding an association between AGR and some chronic diseases has been reported, no evidence regarding association between AGR and UC exists. The aim of this study to evaluated the association between AGR and MH among Japanese patients with UC.
Methods

The study subjects consisted of 273 Japanese patients with UC. AGR was divided into quartiles on the basis of the distribution of all study subjects. One endoscopic specialist was responsible for evaluating MH, which was defined as a Mayo endoscopic subscore of 0 or 0–1. Age, sex, steroid use, body mass index, age at onset of UC, and anti-TNFα preparation were selected a priori as potential confounding factors.
Results

The mean age was 51.2 years, and the percentage of male patients was 59.0%. The percentage of MH was 26.4%. High AGR (1.483 < AGR ≤ 1.643) and very high AGR (> 1.643) was significantly positively associated with MH (OR 2.21 [95% CI: 1.12–4.47], p for trend = 0.001) after adjustment for confounding factors. No association between AGR and partial MH was found. The independent positive association between AGR and MH was found in only low C-reactive protein group.
Conclusion

Among Japanese patients with UC, AGR was significantly positively associated with MH, was significantly positively associated with MH especially in the low C-reactive protein group.


Oil-impregnated sintered bearings are widely used in various products. Friction reduction in them is still a large target for the related industries. In those bearings, lubricating oil exudes from the porous bearing body and lubricates the shaft and bearing surfaces. However, the amount of oil in those sliding areas is often insufficient leading to an unsatisfactory friction. Oil wettability of the shaft surfaces was found to have a large effect on the friction of those bearings. Low oil-wettable shaft could retain a larger amount of oil in the bearing clearances and indicated lower friction than highly wettable shaft. This is because a large contact-angle hysteresis between the oil and the low-wettable shaft surface allows the retention of large oil droplets in the bearing clearances. The control of oil-wettability of the shaft surface could be an effective means of reducing friction for oil-impregnated sintered bearings.


A method is introduced to evaluate time domain signals within RLC trees with arbitrary accuracy in response to any input signal. This method depends on finding a low frequency reduced-order transfer function by direct truncation of the exact transfer function at different nodes of an RLC tree. The method is numerically accurate for any order of approximation, which permits approximations to be determined with a large number of poles appropriate for approximating RLC trees with underdamped responses. The method is computationally efficient with a complexity linearly proportional to the number of branches in an RLC tree. A common set of poles is determined that characterizes the responses at all of the nodes of an RLC tree which further enhances the computational efficiency. Stability is guaranteed by the DTT method for low-order approximations with less than five poles. Such low-order approximations are useful for evaluating monotone responses exhibited by RC circuits.


The satellite oceanography reveals the rolls on Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories in India is limited by the availability of the satellite data during the cloudy days and for the cloudy areas, because of the inability of the passive sensors to pass through the clouds. However, there is a huge demand from the fishermen community to provide PFZ advisories on cloudy days / monsoon period also as the period corresponds to the peak fishing season. Keeping in view of the demand and availability of the optimally interpolated merged product from Altimetry, it is proposed to utilize 4 km SST product obtained from the AVHRR. In view of this, a comparative analysis has been carried out on the feasibility of utilization of the Altimetry product for identification of PFZ Advisories. The analysis is carried out the synergize study on existing in AVHRR SST product are really matching with the high resolution EKE and SSHA products derived from Altimetry. From the analysis it was found that the Altimetry product is suitable for identifying cold core generation of waters for PFZ advisories with certain limitations. Also persistence of the ocean color environmental variables is cross-verified with catch weight observed from In-situ observation. The overall analysis derived from ocean color and altimetry products for delineating potential fishing zones enhance flawless information for future research.


Abstract. In recent years, the interest in the prediction and prevention of natural hazards related to hydrometeorological events has grown due to the increased frequency of extreme rainstorms. Several research projects have been developed to test hydrometeorological models for real-time flood forecasting. However, flood forecasting systems are still not widespread in operational context. Real-world examples are mainly dedicated to the use of flood routing model, best suited for large river basins. For small basins, it is necessary to take advantage of the lag time between the onset of a rainstorm and the beginning of the hydrograph rise, with the use of rainfall-runoff transformation models. Nevertheless, when the lag time is very short, a rainfall predictor is required, as a result, meteorological models are often coupled with hydrological simulation. While this chaining allows floods to be forecasted on small catchments with response times ranging from 6 to 12 h it, however, causes new problems for the reliability of Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPF) and also creates additional accuracy problems for space and time scales. The aim of this work is to evaluate the degree to which uncertain QPF affects the reliability of the whole hydro-meteorological alert system for small catchments. For this purpose, a distributed hydrological model (FEST-WB) was developed and analysed in operational setting experiments, i.e. the hydrological model was forced with rain observation until the time of forecast and with the QPF for the successive period, as is usual in real-time procedures. Analysis focuses on the AMPHORE case studies in Piemonte in November 2002.


Chronic intoxication with dimethylnitrosamine (D.M.N.A.) in the rat induced an experimental cirrhosis which seems stable in time. The intoxication was done by forcible feeding either with 7 or 8 mg/kg of D.M.N.A., three consecutive days a week, for 9 weeks. Chronical intoxication resulted in 50% of hepatic cirrhosis in the 7 mg/kg group and 63% in the 8 mg/kg group. --The diagnostic of hepatic cirrhosis was done by pathological study on the left lobe. --In all cirrhotic rats, verified by histology, biological test were disturbed in a significant way, compared to untreated rats, but not to non cirrhotic intoxicated rats. There was no correlation between pathological anatomy and biology. --Cirrhosis persists after the intoxication but survival duration is much shorter in the group intoxicated with 8 mg/kg of D.M.N.A. --There was no difference in the constitution of cirrhosis between Wistar and Sprague Dawley strains. Therefore the best procedure to induce cirrhosis in rats is chronical intoxication by administration of 7 mg/kg of D.M.N.A. during 3 consecutive days a week for 9 weeks. Pathological study are the only reliable tests to determine the constitution of cirrhosis.


ABSTRACT A powerful discursive formation claims 'bad parenting' amongst the poor predisposes their children to educational underachievement. A small number of children in poverty succeeding within early education potentially undermines this construction of 'parent blame'. This requires an explanation which perpetuates the dominant discourse about deficiencies amongst the poor, one which suggests 'good parenting' is resource free, context-neutral and achievable once parents in poverty change their ways. This article argues the concept of active cultivation has gained traction because it offers this with its focus on 'the proximal' in child development. But, drawing on data from parents in poverty whose children 'beat the odds' in early education, it is argued active cultivation has limitations as an explanation, downplays the importance of resources connected to socio-economic status in parenting, and is part of a wider trope justifying political direction.


A simple quasi-switched-capacitor (QSC) step-down DC-DC converter with multiple output choice (9 V/5 V, 9 V/3.3 V, 9 V/2 V) is designed and implemented via complex-programmable-logic-device-based (CPLD) digital controller for low-power applications (input: 7.0-9.0 V, load: 50~400 Ohms). The integrated digital controller is implemented by combination with verilog CPLD and ADC/DAC chips to achieve the closed-loop control of QSC converter. Such a Verilog-based CPLD can make controller design more flexible, simple and reliable. In fact, SC circuit needs no inductive element, so I.C. fabrication is promising, and it is pretty suitable for low-power VLSI applications. An interleaved current-mode control is employed here from battery source interleaved charging to the series capacitors of different cells by a voltage-controlled current source, so the continuous input current comes into being, and it results in a good feature: low electromagnetic interference (EMI). Such a current-mode control is able to not only enhance output robustness against source variation/noise, but also keep regulation capability of converter with loading variation. Finally, the hardware experiments are illustrated to show the efficacy of the scheme designed, where some topics include: voltage conversion and output ripple percentage, output robustness against source variation, and regulation capability of converter with loading variation.


There are eight major categories of waste management, and each of them can be divided into numerous sub-categories. The categories include source reduction and reuse, animal feeding, recycling, composting, fermentation, landfills, incineration, and land application. Domestic waste is waste that is generated as a result of the ordinary day-to-day use of a domestic premise and is either taken from the premises by or on behalf of the occupier who generated the waste; without consideration (e.g., payment, reward or other benefit); or collected by or on behalf of a local government as part of a waste collection and disposal system. Objectives: • To assess the knowledge regarding the domestic waste management among the household in the selected community. • To assess the practice of the domestic waste management by the household in the selected community. Methodology: Research Approach Quantitative Research Study design: Descriptive design. Tool: Structured questionnaire Sampling Technique: convenient sampling. Research Setting: NC(E) Quarters of CHAFB. Result: The study revealed that 10% had a poor knowledge, 76.7% had a moderate knowledge and 13.3% had a good knowledge regarding domestic waste management. It also showed that 6.7% had poor practice, 53% had a moderate practice and 40% had satisfactory practice of domestic waste. Keywords: Knowledge, Practice, Domestic waste, domestic waste management, selected urban community.


Progress of medicine and technology is quick. Accumulation of knowledge is immense and advancement of surgical technologies is vast. Curriculum and methods of surgical education in medical school should be modified accordingly. Our society has not actively participated in surgical education in medical school but considering the importance of surgical education in medical school for the future of surgery and surgical practice, and society (JSS) should more actively participate in surgical education for medical students by starting a special committee for this particular purpose within the society. A desirable curriculum in surgical education in medical school is presented.


The spatial distribution of plants is often thought to be an indicator of underlying biotic and abiotic processes. However, there are relatively few examples of spatial patterns being analysed to detect an underlying ecological process. Using the spacing patterns being analysed to detect an underlying ecological process. Using the spacing of savanna trees in the southern Kalahari as an example, we applied methods of computer simulation modelling and point pattern analysis in an evaluation of their potential for identifying relevant pattern generating processes from snapshot pattern. We compared real tree patterns from the southern Kalahari, derived from aerial photographs, with patterns produced from computer simulation experiments in an investigation of the following questions: does the present pattern of tree distributions allow us to characterize (1) the relative importance of the major driving forces (e.g., competition for moisture, grass fire, herbivory), (2) the spatial dimensions and structures of the underlying processes, and (3) the actual dynamic status of the ecological system (a phase of decline, increase or constancy with respect to tree abundance)? The simulation experiments are based on a well established, spatially explicit, grid-based model that simulates the vegetation dynamics of the major life forms under a realistic rainfall scenario of the southern Kalahari and under the impact of grass fires, herbivory and the formation of localized clumps with increased tree seed availability. For a realistic range of parameters the simulation model produces long-term coexistence of trees and grasses with tree densities that correspond with long-term coexistence of trees and grasses with tree densities that correspond with densities observed in the field. Both real tree distributions derived from acrial photographs and tree pattern produced by the model are characterized by a tendency towards even spacing at small scales, clumping at intermediate scales and randomness or clumping at large scales. However, increasing the spatio-temporal correlation in the formation of seed patches in the model caused an increase in the tendency towards clumping in the tree distribution whereas an increase in seed patch numbers led to a decrease in clumping. Within single simulation runs the tree pattern could change in response to the variable rainfall sequences and the corresponding differences in grass fire frequency: periods of slightly increasing tree numbers caused by higher precipitation were characterized by an increase in tree clumping whereas periods of slightly decreasing tree numbers showed a tendency towards random or even tree spacing. Simulating the transition of an open savanna to a savanna woodland showed that the tree pattern in the transitional phase can be diagnostic of the underlying process: If the transition was caused by improved moisture conditions the transitional phase was characterized by increased clumping in the tree pattern. In contrast, a transition caused by an increase in the number of localized tree seed patches led to a characteristic even spacing of trees. Even though the simulated savanna clearly showed non-equilibrium dynamics, simulation results indicate that the tree population in the simulated area of the southern Kalahari is in a state of long-term tree-grass coexistence with the persisting structure of an open savanna system.


The central segment of the New Madrid seismic zone lies within a left step-over zone between two northeast-striking, right-lateral, strike-slip fault systems. Within this compressional step-over zone is the topographically and structurally high Lake County uplift, which includes the Tiptonville dome and Ridgely ridge. We believe these structures are a consequence of deformation in the hanging wall above the northwest-striking, southwest-dipping Reelfoot reverse fault. Reelfoot fault dips 73° from the surface to the top of the Precambrian at a depth of approximately 4 km. From 4 to 12 km depth, the fault dips 32° and is seismically active. Based on a fault-bend fold model, we believe that the Reelfoot fault becomes horizontal and aseismic at the top of the quartz brittle-ductile transition zone, at approximately 12 km depth. Our data indicate that the western margin of the Tiptonville dome-Ridgely ridge and the western margin of the Lake County uplift are bounded by east-dipping kink bands (backthrusts). Recent work suggests that the Reelfoot fault is responsible for the 7 February 1812, M 8 New Madrid earthquake. However, the Reelfoot fault has a surface area that is less than that necessary for an M 8 earthquake. A possible solution to this discrepancy between magnitude and fault plane area is that the associated backthrusts are seismogenic.


A simple and efficient method for the synthesis of some novel 2-pyrazoline derivatives is reported. Chalcones were prepared by conventional Claisen-schmidt condensation of piperonal and substituted acetophenones. Some new N1-substituted diaryl pyrazoline derivatives have been prepared by condensation of 3,5-diaryl-2-pyrazolines with chloroacetyl chloride followed by the reaction with morpholine. The structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by FTIR, 1H NMR, mass spectral data. The synthesized compounds have been screened for their antimicrobial activity against different micro-organisms. A significant level of activity was observed.


The aims of this article are: 1) to examine the associations between health provider-diagnosed depression and multimorbidity, the condition of suffering from more than two chronic illnesses; 2) to assess the unique contribution of chronic illness in the prediction of depression; and 3) to suggest practice changes that would address risk of depression among individuals with chronic illnesses. Data collected in a cross-sectional community health study among adult Mexicans (n= 274) living in a low income neighborhood (colonia) in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, were examined. We tested the hypotheses that individuals who reported suffering chronic illnesses would also report higher rates of depression than healthy individuals; and having that two or more chronic illnesses further increased the risk of depression.


Direct detection of low-energy electrons (500-2000 eV) with a novel back-thinned CMOS active pixel sensor (APS) is reported in this paper. The sensor was installed in a JEOL 6400F scanning electron microscope to quantitatively test its linearity and spatial resolution by a focused electron beam. The obtained results show good linearity at electron beam energy values from 500 to 2000 eV. The full-width at half-maximum spatial resolution was around 2 pixels, a limit set by charge diffusion in the epilayer. These results show that this CMOS APS sensor is appropriate for low-energy electron detection providing the benefits of direct detection for many applications.


This article emphasises the importance of consumer protection and calls on all the groups and sectors involved to adopt a positive, active attitude in defence of consumer rigths. Although the government has recently implemented important reforms in this area, existing legislation still needs to be perfected and swift mechanisms introduced that enable the consumer to effectively and efficiently defend his interests. On this point the authoress suggests a number of possible courses of action for suppliers, non-profitable private organizations –among which the important work being done by universities plays a leading role- and for the consumers themselves.


New crystalline nanostructured inorganic–organic hybrid materials containing isotactic polystyrene (iPS) are prepared by means of hydrosilylation coupling of vinyl-terminated iPS with octakis(dimethylsilyloxy)silsesquioxane (Q8M8H). The number average molar mass of the iPS chains varies between 2000 and 6000 g mol−1. As a function of the iPS/Q8M8H ratio, using excess reagent, the formation of linear or star-shaped hybrid architectures is achieved. Via fractionation, it is possible to isolate well-defined linear hybrids containing one iPS chain and seven ethyl groups per silica core (iPS-Q8M8E7) as well as star-shaped hybrids containing up to eight iPS side chains (iPS6-8-Q8M8). These new iPS/polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane hybrid materials crystallize when the number average molar mass of iPS side chain exceeds 5500 g mol−1. The hydrosilylation coupling reaction and the resulting linear iPS-Q8M8E7 and star-shaped iPS6-8-Q8M8 are characterized by NMR spectroscopy, size exclusion chromatography (gel permeation chromatography), and polarized light microscopy. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2013


An 81-year old lady presented to the emergency department 7 h after sudden onset of left loin and abdominal pain. Her past medical history was unremarkable, apart from hypertension. She had not smoked for 25 years. On examination, she was pale and obese, her pulse was 110 bpm, and her blood pressure was 110/40 mm Hg. There was also left flank and loin tenderness. Initial investigations, including urea and electrolytes, creatinine, amylase, full blood count, electrocardiogram (ECG), and chest and abdominal X-rays, were normal apart from an elevated creatinine at 160 µmol/l and a haemoglobin level of only 10.1 g/dl. The emergency room doctor made a provisional diagnosis of left renal colic and referred the patient to the urology service. The on-call urologist found that there was no previous history of renal tract disease, the patient's urine was negative for blood on testing, and the patient had developed a pulsatile mass on the left side of the abdomen. An urgent ultrasound scan was requested, but before the investigation could be performed, the patient's blood pressure dropped to 80/40 mm Hg. The patient was referred to the on-call vascular surgeon because of a suspected ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The patient's blood pressure stabilised at 100/40 mm Hg following administration of 500 ml colloid, and no further fluid was given. Ten units of packed red cells, as well as fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and platelets, were requested. After a discussion of the risks and benefits of surgery with the patient and the next of kin, the patient was taken to the operating theatre.


A 2-dimensional shape optimization method for permanent magnet configurations, which is based on a combination of nonlinear programming and field analysis with a complex representation technique of the 2-dimensional magnetic fields, has been developed. As a typical problem example, computational results for a segmented dipole magnet are presented. The results show that the objective function values are reduced significantly and a very uniform dipole field is obtained at the magnet center. The validity of the method is also discussed by comparison with the theoretically presumed solution.


Introduction The term "mixed or concomitant" pathologies in neurodegenerative disease means that, in addition to the hallmark lesions of a neurodegenerative disease entity, further pathological alterations can be observed in the same brain. The term mixed pathology was originally used when describing accompanying vascular pathology. Later, Lewy body pathology was also described as concomitant pathology when seen together with other neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, we classify neurodegenerative diseases according to the predominant protein that shows pathological depositions in the brain. During the diagnostic process, detecting hallmark lesions of a certain disease, like neuritic plaques in the cortex, spongiform change in the cortex, globose tangles in the brainstem nuclei or Lewy bodies in the brainstem or cortex, can lead to negligence of further lesions or performance of further stains. However, deposition of multiple proteins, in addition to co-occurrence of non-neurodegenerative pathology (e.g. vascular, metabolic), is a frequent event. In fact, overlapping neurodegeneration may be more the rule than the exception. This concept is supported by observations in genetic forms of neurodegenerative disorders where various proteins may show pathological deposits in the same brain [1–3]. Complex constellations of clinical symptoms (movement disorders and cognitive decline) may associate with the accompanying presence of diverse neurodegenerative disorders. There are several factors determining overlap between neurodegenerative disorders as proposed by Armstrong et al. [4]): (i) historical factors, which means that the original descriptions of key disorders were based on the descriptions of relatively small numbers of cases; furthermore, the original investigators interpreted these as 'syndromes' rather than distinct diseases; (ii) disease heterogeneity; (iii) age-related changes;(iv) apolipoprotein ɛ genotype, especially in cases with significant Aβ deposition but without further features of Alzheimer's disease (AD); (v) co-occurrence of common diseases, like AD and Parkinson's disease (PD), as both are more likely to occur in the elderly and thus are more likely to co-occur.


Background: Adansonia digitata leaves are edible and they contain a significant amount of mucilage that has shown potentials for  pharmaceutical application. However, there is paucity of information on this mucilage contained in its leaves.
Objective: This study aimed to determine a suitable method for extraction of Adansonia digitata mucilage (ADM) as well as to characterize its physicochemical properties.
Materials and Methods: ADM was extracted from the aqueous dispersion of the dried leaves powder of Adansonia digitata L. in water via  precipitation with ethanol. Physicochemical characterization of ADM was based on viscosity, chemical composition, particle size  characterization via QICPIC, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transforms Infrared (ATR -FTIR)  spectroscopy, Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), moisture content and Dynamic vapor sorption (DVS) studies as well as pH and  aqueous solubility tests. In addition to this, colour of the mucilage and thermal analysis via DSC were used as criteria for selection of the  most suitable method for extraction of ADM.
Results: Colour and thermal analysis revealed a level of purity in the extraction process. The irregular needle like structures of ADM  revealed by SEM was found to be mildly acidic with a high viscosity that is concentration dependent in aqueous medium. Thermal  characterization revealed a glass transition (Tg) and melting temperatures (Tm) of 55.61 °C and 179.10 °C respectively. Finger prints of  functional groups revealed azo aromatic groups and other chemical constituents of sugars including glucose, galactose, arabinose and  rhamnose, and sugar acid form of galacturonic acid were identified by NMR. Moisture sorption provided insight into water sorption  mechanism, processing, packaging and storage conditions of the mucilage.
Conclusion: Extraction of ADM via a heat free method  improved its colour and purity based on the technique used. The mucilage was found to be a highly viscous and hydrates rapidly with  good gelling properties. In addition its moisture sorption characteristics and glass transition temperature gave insight into its stability,  storage and packaging conditions. These properties reveal its potential for many pharmaceutical applications including binding, coating,  gelling agents as well as matrix forming.


This dissertation quantifies and compares the mass of the ochre assemblages and the surface area of rock paintings from the same sites based on colour classification from the Later Stone Age assemblages of three rock shelters, De Hangen, Andriesgrond and Diepkloof in the Western Cape, South Africa. This work begins to bridge the gap that exists between the excavated archaeology and the examination of rock paintings which has been primarily focused on the iconography. The colours present in the rock art are quantified using a standardised colour system. A preference is shown for saturated 10R hues, based on the Munsell classification, in the fine line and handprinting rock art traditions, whilst the colonial era paintings may illustrate a more ad hoc approach, an interpretation bolstered by survey analysis. The colours of the ochres from the excavated assemblages do not match the colours seen in the rock paintings, the colours of the ochres being clustered more toward 2.5YR and 5YR Munsell hues. The concept of "ghost ochre" has been proposed in order to describe those ochres, in the colours shown to be preferentially used in the rock art, that have been utilised in their entirety and are accordingly absent from the archaeology. A proposed cause for this is that the primary ochre processing strategy employed by the inhabitants may have been that of pulverisation rather than grinding. Some experimental hearths were conducted to examine possible colour changes in buried ochres, and these samples were analysed by colorimetric means and by X-ray diffraction. Ultimately it has been demonstrated that the relationship between ochre and rock paintings from the same site is more complex than has been previously assumed. The findings in this thesis have implications for future research in rock art studies and analyses of LSA and MSA ochre assemblages.


The edge connectivity of a simple graph is the least number of edges whose removal disconnects the graph. We study the quantum query complexity of computing the edge connectivity of a simple graph with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges in both the adjacency matrix and adjacency array models. For classical randomized algorithms, $\Omega(n^2)$ and $\Omega(m)$ lower bounds are known for these models, respectively, showing that the trivial algorithm is optimal in terms of query complexity for both cases. In contrast, we show upper bounds of $\tilde O(n^{3/2})$ and $\tilde O(\sqrt{mn})$ on the quantum query complexity of computing edge connectivity in the adjacency matrix and adjacency array models, respectively. Our upper bound is tight up to logarithmic factors for the adjacency matrix model, while for the adjacency array model the best quantum query lower bound we know is $\Omega(n)$. Our upper bounds follow by combining a lemma on the structure of near-minimum cuts due to Rubinstein, Schramm and Weinberg (ITCS 2018) with a quantum sparsification algorithm by Apers and de Wolf (FOCS 2020).
For a weighted graph, instead of edge connectivity the relevant notion is the weight of a minimum cut, i.e. the minimum total weight of a set of edges whose removal disconnects the graph. For weighted graphs we show that in the worst case $\Omega(n^2)$ queries can be needed to compute the weight of a minimum cut by a quantum algorithm in both the adjacency matrix and adjacency array models, thus no quantum speedup is possible in this case.


Malaria is one of the three most dangerous infectious diseases worldwide (along with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis). In this paper we compare the disease dynamics of the deterministic and stochastic models in order to determine the effect of randomness in malaria transmission dynamics. Relationships between the basic reproduction number for malaria transmission dynamics between humans and mosquitoes and the extinction thresholds of corresponding continuous-time Markov chain models are derived under certain assumptions. The stochastic model is formulated using the continuous-time discrete state Galton-Watson branching process (CTDSGWbp). The reproduction number of deterministic models is an essential quantity to predict whether an epidemic will spread or die out. Thresholds for disease extinction from stochastic models contribute crucial knowledge on disease control and elimination and mitigation of infectious diseases. Analytical and numerical results show some significant differences in model predictions between the stochastic and deterministic models. In particular, we find that malaria outbreak is more likely if the disease is introduced by infected mosquitoes as opposed to infected humans. These insights demonstrate the importance of a policy or intervention focusing on controlling the infected mosquito population if the control of malaria is to be realized.


An aneurysm of the innominate artery could compress the tracheal lumen, and this requires special care. Intubation without intensive monitoring and antihypertensive agents could aggravate the hypercapnia and completely rupture the aneurysm. There are few reports on the airway management of tracheal compression that's caused by an innominate artery aneurysm. We report here on a patient who had a severe hypercapnia after endotracheal intubation above the stenotic area of the tracheal compression, which was caused by an artery aneurysm. Permissive hypercapnia was inadvertently enforced without our knowledge, but the patient recovered without any neurologic problems.


A series of novel hybrid compounds between tricyclic indeno[5,6-b] furan and imidazole has been prepared and evaluated in vitro against a panel of human tumor cell lines. The results suggest that the existence of benzimidazole ring and substitution of the imidazolyl-3-position with a naphthylacyl group were vital for modulating cytotoxic activity. In particular, hybrid compound 26 was found to be the most potent compound against 5 strains human tumor cell lines and more active than cisplatin (DDP), while compound 18 was more selective towards breast carcinoma (MCF-7) and colon carcinoma (SW480) with IC50 value 3.4-fold and 4.3-fold more sensitive to DDP.


The development and exploitation of several prominent Data mining techniques in numerous real-world application areas (e.g. Industry, Healthcare and Bio science) has led to the utilization of such techniques in machine learning environments, in order to extract useful pieces of information of the specified data in healthcare communities, biomedical fields etc. The accurate analysis of medical database benefits in early disease prediction, patient care and community services. The techniques of machine learning have been successfully employed in assorted applications including Disease prediction. The aim of developing classifier system using machine learning algorithms is to immensely help to solve the health-related issues by assisting the physicians to predict and diagnose diseases at an early stage. A Sample data of 4920 patients' records diagnosed with 41 diseases was selected for analysis. A dependent variable was composed of 41 diseases. 95 of 132 independent variables(symptoms) closely related to diseases were selected and optimized. This research work carried out demonstrates the disease prediction system developed using Machine learning algorithms such as Decision Tree classifier, Random forest classifier, and Naïve Bayes classifier. The paper presents the comparative study of the results of the above algorithms used.


Although the U.S. healthcare system has at its disposal some of the best technology in the world, information systems from the 1970s are still used in many cases. Pacific Bell's William Halverson analyzes the slow adoption of information technology in the healthcare industry.


[1] Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and cloud microphysics measurements with various levels of pollution over the Indian Ocean showed roughly linear relationships. Estimates of adiabatic cloud droplet concentrations make more useful comparisons than average droplet concentrations, which are reduced by entrainment and averaging artifacts. Adiabatic cloud droplet estimates indicate higher cloud supersaturations. As predicted, the supersaturations were suppressed by higher CCN and cloud droplet concentrations. However, the actual suppression of cloud supersaturations was not as great as these comparisons indicated because many small cloud droplets were below the detection limit of the Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probe (FSSP), especially in the polluted air. Predictions of droplet concentrations based on CCN spectra and updraft velocities matched estimates of adiabatic cloud droplet concentrations in the clean air but overpredicted adiabatic estimates of polluted cloud droplet concentrations largely because of the undercounting of smaller droplets in polluted air masses. Thus, when all things were considered, a reasonable level of closure was found between predictions of droplet concentrations and adiabatic estimates of cloud droplet concentrations.


We propose an efficient technique for slicing object-oriented programs. We use a dependence based intermediate program representation, which we have named Concurrent System Dependence Graph (CSDG) to represent object-oriented programs. The CSDG is an arc- classified digraph that represents various dependences like synchronization and communication dependences between statements. Our slicing algorithm marks and unmarks the executed nodes of CSDG appropriately during run time.


In social network analysis, the fundamental idea behind the notion of roles is to discover actors who have similar structural signatures. Actors performing the same role have similar behavioural and functional characteristics. Few examples of structural roles are bridge nodes, clique members and star centers. Role discovery involves partitioning the nodes in a network based on their structural characteristics. The notion of roles is complementary to the notion of community detection, which involves partitioning the network into cohesive subgroups. In this paper we propose a novel algorithm RID"Rs (Role Identification and Discovery using "-equitable Refinements): a graph partitioning approach for extracting soft roles in networks. RID"Rs discovers structural roles based on the global graph characteristics of a network. Evaluating the quality of roles discovered is nontrivial due to the lack of ground-truth role datasets, we present a novel framework for evaluating and comparing various role discovery approaches. We also demonstrate the e ectiveness of RID"Rs on diverse graph mining tasks: role identification/discovery and for finding top-k nodes that are most similar to a given node. Further, the empirical scalability analysis of our proposed algorithm on random power-law graphs shows that our approach is highly scalable.


The effects of long-range and short-range interactions on the early stress–strain response and dislocation density evolution in hexagonal close-packed (hcp) metals are studied using three-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamics (DD). To examine long-range interactions, the DD code is developed such that elastic stress fields between interacting dislocations are calculated by either enforcing elastic isotropy or considering the actual elastic anisotropic constants of the hcp metal. To improve treatment of short-range interactions, a set of local rules for the behavior of closely interacting dislocations is implemented. In particular, a new scheme for elastic repulsion in the event of repulsive short-range interactions is presented and found to have a significant effect on the stress–strain response and dislocation density evolution. Large-scale simulations are performed for three hcp single crystals (Hf, Mg and Zr) in c-axis tension to examine the effect of elastic anisotropy on the collective response of several interacting dislocations. It is found that departure from isotropic elasticity has a substantial effect on strain hardening, particularly for Hf.


BACKGROUND Several scoring systems have been developed to predict the risk of rebleeding or death in patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB). These risk scoring systems have not been validated in a new patient population outside the clinical context of the original study. AIMS To assess internal and external validity of a simple risk scoring system recently developed by Rockall and coworkers. METHODS Calibration and discrimination were assessed as measures of validity of the scoring system. Internal validity was assessed using an independent, but similar patient sample studied by Rockall and coworkers, after developing the scoring system (Rockall's validation sample). External validity was assessed using patients admitted to several hospitals in Amsterdam (Vreeburg's validation sample). Calibration was evaluated by a χ2 goodness of fit test, and discrimination was evaluated by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS Calibration indicated a poor fit in both validation samples for the prediction of rebleeding (p<0.0001, Vreeburg; p=0.007, Rockall), but a better fit for the prediction of mortality in both validation samples (p=0.2, Vreeburg; p=0.3, Rockall). The areas under the ROC curves were rather low in both validation samples for the prediction of rebleeding (0.61, Vreeburg; 0.70, Rockall), but higher for the prediction of mortality (0.73, Vreeburg; 0.81, Rockall). CONCLUSIONS The risk scoring system developed by Rockall and coworkers is a clinically useful scoring system for stratifying patients with acute UGIB into high and low risk categories for mortality. For the prediction of rebleeding, however, the performance of this scoring system was unsatisfactory.


ABSTRACT Mimicking the natural design motifs of structural biological materials is a promising approach to achieve a unique combination of strength and toughness for engineering materials. In this study, we proposed a 2D computational model, which is a two-hierarchy hybrid composite inspired by the ultrastructural features of bone. The model is composed of alternating parallel array of two subunits (A & B) mimicking 'mineralized collagen fibril' and 'extrafibrillar matrix' of bone at ultrastructural level. The subunit-A is formed by short stiff platelets embedded within a soft matrix. The subunit-B consists of randomly distributed stiff grains bonded by a thin layer of tough adhesive phase. To assess the performance of the bioinspired design, a conventional unidirectional long-fiber composite made with the same amount of hard and soft phases was studied. The finite element simulation results indicated that the toughness, strength and elastic modulus of the bioinspired composite was 312%, 83%, and 55% of that of the conventional composite, respectively. The toughness improvement was attributed to the prevalent energy-dissipating damage of adhesive phase in subunit-B and crack-bridging by subunit-A, the two major toughening mechanisms in the model. This study exemplifies some insights into natural design of materials to gain better material performance.


The scope of the present Ph.D. thesis was to investigate the mechanics of collisions between icebergs and ship structures. Large reservoirs of oil and gas and new sailing routes in the Arctic area are two large motivations for the present research. Human activity in the Arctic demands well-designed naval architectures for facing different kinds of ice loads. According to modern design codes, ship and offshore structures are usually designed under the ultimate limit state (ULS) methods and checked with the accidental limit state (ALS) methods. The methods and assumptions presented in this thesis are only valid for ALS design. This thesis considers three topics related to the iceberg collisions with ship structures: external mechanics, internal mechanics and residual strength assessments. Collisions between icebergs and ship structures are quite complicated processes. For simplicity, this problem was split into its external and internal mechanics. External mechanics talks about the translational and rotational momentum balance. It is believed that the impact mechanics of iceberg collisions with ship structures should be presented in three dimensions. Thus, a new formulation of impact mechanics was proposed that describes the impact in three dimensions. All forces except for impact force are neglected. This new three-dimensional method degrades to existing two dimension (2D) method. It was successfully applied to the calculation of the demanded dissipated energy for iceberg and ship collisions. Internal mechanics deal with both deformations of icebergs and ship structures. Nonlinear finite-element analysis (NLFEA) was used in this research. The commercial code LS-DYNA 971 was used to assess the internal mechanics of both icebergs and ship structures. Deformations of both icebergs and ship structures should be well captured by numerical simulations. However, due to the difficulties of simulating ice, NLFEA is not straightforward. To facilitate such simulations, a plasticity-based material model for icebergs was developed in this thesis. Iceberg crack propagation was simulated by element erosion. An empirical failure criterion for detecting those failed ice elements is proposed. Numerical examples showed that the new iceberg model gives good results. The model was successfully implemented in LS-DYNA 971 through a user-defined subroutine. Subsequently, the integrated numerical analysis of iceberg-ship collisions was then successfully performed. Efforts were made to investigate the internal mechanics of both icebergs and ship structures during collision, such as local structural behaviours and ice failure. Two scenarios of iceberg-ship collisions were investigated: iceberg collisions with foreship and side-ship structures. In the first scenario, efforts focused on the investigation of the detailed internal mechanics of the icebergs and ship structures. The strength of ship structures was varied by adjusting the parameters of the steel material model, thereby varying the relative strength of icebergs and ship structures. A comprehensive discussion is based on the simulation results. The discussion addresses contact pressure, iceberg shapes and collision locations. In the second scenario, investigations focused on the influences of the iceberg shapes. Simple iceberg shapes representing "sharp" and "blunt" icebergs were used. The results show that "blunt" icebergs may behave as rigid bodies. Finally, the residual strengths of the ship structures after impact, which may be caused by the icebergs, was assessed. A simple plasticity method and a single stiffener model were developed to quantify the residual strengths of the damaged ship structures. In the simple plasticity method, elastic and rigid-plastic methods were combined to derive the end-shortening curve for damaged stiffeners. In the single stiffener model, proper boundary conditions were proposed. Both methods were verified against numerical simulations. Generally, good results were obtained. From this work, a rapid method to assess the residual strength of damaged ship structures is suggested.


This paper documents global trends in bank activity, consolidation, internationalization, and financial firm conglomeration, and explores the extent to which financial firm risk and systemic risk potential in banking are related to consolidation and conglomeration. We find that while there is a substantial upward trend in conglomeration globally, consolidation and internationalization exhibit uneven patterns across world regions. Trends in consolidation and conglomeration indicate increased risk profiles for large, conglomerate financial firms, and higher levels of systemic risk potential for more concentrated banking systems. We outline research directions aimed at explaining why bank consolidation and conglomeration do not necessarily yield either safer financial firms or more resilient banking systems.


The structural stability and the magnetocrystalline anisotropy (MCA) at MgO/Fe(001) interfaces with the incorporation of interfacial B atoms were investigated by using first-principles calculations. Total energy calculations predicted that the B atoms favored segregating to the interface. The calculated MCA energy for an ideal abrupt MgO/Fe interface (with no B atom) indicated that the magnetization strongly favored pointing along the perpendicular direction. However, when B atoms were incorporated at the MgO/Fe interfaces, the perpendicular MCA almost disappeared.


This paper introduces a new concept - space equalization - into mutual coupling calibration of a digital beamforming (DBF) array. Based on the concept, the combined optimization method (COM) is developed to minimize element pattern errors in specified narrow angles and keep global errors being suboptimum. By constructing the cost function of COM properly, the complete equations are derived for the calculation of the calibration matrix. Experimental results show that COM calibrates element errors efficiently in constrained narrow space and eliminates mutual coupling errors and channel gain and phase errors in a broad angle region.


From the time field project was introduced in the geography syllabus in Zambian High schools,it has continued to face challenges. A study conducted by Mundende (2007) pointed out that most teachers who were conducting field project were not trained and in some cases field project was undertaken without proper guidelines. The government introduced field project in high schools before students who were being trained in this component from UNZA could graduate. Therefore,most of the already practising teachers had not been trained in this component. Although Mundende's (2007) study pointed out on this challenge, the study did not indicate the performance of those trained geography teachers. Therefore, in order to be conclusive on the matter, this book provides information from a study that was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of UNZA trained geography teachers in executing the field project. Respondents were selected from Zambian High schools of Lusaka and Kafue districts. The book, in certain instances provides information on a comparision that was done between the trained geography teachers and the untrained geography teachers in their execution of this geography component.


This paper critically discusses the role of social media in the rise and fall of social movements. It goes beyond the techno-deterministic and optimistic view of social media and offers a different insight into how the very structure and architecture of social media platform direct and influence visibility and thus "online success" of social movements. It also discusses the role of Terms and Service and use policies of the platforms. Finally, it outlines the dependency of social movements' success on both offline and online factors and events.


Medicinal mushrooms are considered an unlimited source of polysaccharides (mainly β-glucans) and polysaccharide-protein complexes and possess various immunological and anticancer properties. In addition, their use in integrative medicine leads to a clear reduction of side effects in patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The literature reports a number of beneficial effects of using mushrooms as health supplements in patients affected by high-grade glioma. The effects of medicinal mushrooms on side effects in patients with brain cancer and a case study report are also described in this review.


The role of maternal vitamin A supplements in decreasing the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission has been examined in sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, there is no reduction in either mortality or HIV transmission in two recent studies. Contrary to expectations, one study reported an increased risk of transmission using vitamin A plus beta-carotene supplements.


 This project involves an evaluation of an improved Fresnel lenses solar energy concentrator. Its innovation consists of preventing forced convection heat losses at the receiver area. Heat losses by convection and by the transmittance and reflectance properties of the solar rays transmission of the material were calculated for the comparison of parabolic and Fresnel lenses solar energy concentrators. The expected efficiency of the Fresnel lenses concentrator within free convection conditions is 93%. An efficiency increment to 95% is noticed for vacuum conditions. Doing the same analysis for the parabolic concentrator the efficiency expectation is 95% within forced convection conditions. The efficiency expectations for both concentrators presents them as competitive choices for energy production. Key Terms  Free and Forced Convection, Reflectance, Thermal Efficiency, Transmittance.


The Middle Formative Cemetery of Topater 1 (ca. 500 bc–100 ad), located in the oasis of Calama, Northern Chile, presents an unusually diverse array and quantity of funerary offerings, distributed among the graves of more than 200 individuals. Among the offerings are the remains of several mummified camelids and camelid skeletal elements, primarily distal extremities and artefacts made from the bones of these animals. Taking only the first skeletonised anterior and posterior phalanges of Topater 1 camelids, we conducted univariate and multivariate osteometric analyses in order to assign the sample to the appropriate taxonomic groups. At the same time, we described all osteopathologies registered for the extremities in the collection. Of the 45 phalanges measured, 30 were of similar or greater size than contemporary reference llamas. Fourteen of the 164 samples of bone extremities presented pathologies, most of them first phalanges. These abnormalities included different degrees of exostosis and, less commonly, eburnation and lipping. Considering both lines of evidence, we conclude that the llamas sacrificed at the Topater 1 cemetery correspond to, at least, two very large and robust cargo llama morphotypes. When living, these animals would have transported goods as part of the intense exchange activity that was taking place during this period in the region extending from the Pacific coast to Northwest Argentina and perhaps even beyond. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In this paper, we suggest a practical method for measuring the difference between situation pictures obtained independently from each other. In previous work, we have considered the output of two independent tracking methods, while we here consider the output from a threat analysis/prediction system at two time instances. At two instances in time, a hypothesized threat analysis/prediction system generates future situation pictures, describing the world at the same future point in time. Qualitative and quantitative differences between the two future situation pictures are then detected. The detected difference map serves as an indication of the amount of unpredictability in the world; or alternatively, of the ability of the threat analysis/prediction system to model different areas in the future situation picture accurately. This could either be used as feedback in training a learning threat analysis/prediction system, or to inform a human user about the reliability of the future situation picture.


Objective/Background: To describe a structured, short-term, transfer training intervention for full-time pediatric wheelchair users, investigate the impact of training on transfer skills, and to examine similarities and differences in response to training compared to those seen in adult wheelchair users. Design: Randomized clinical trial. Methods: Participants were first randomized into an intervention (IG) or control group (CG). After completing surveys and demographic intake forms, all participants performed two sets of level transfers (from wheelchair to bench and back to wheelchair = one set) at three time points. Each time point composed of two transfer sets were scored using the Transfer Assessment Instrument (TAI) and averaged to produce a final transfer score per time point. No feedback or training were given to participants prior to time points one and two however the IG received structured training prior to transfer assessment # 3. TAI scores were compared at transfer assessment #3 using a Mann-Whitney test. Outcome measures: Transfer Assessment Instrument (TAI) and Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC). Results: Intervention group participants demonstrated significant improvements among TAI scores (9.06 ± 1.01) compared to the control group (7.15 ± 1.67), P = 0.030, d = 1.385. No significant differences were found among SPPC scores. Conclusion: Pediatric wheelchair users transfer skills were found to improve immediately after training with TAI score changes similar to those seen in adult wheelchair users after training. Such improvements may be a factor in long-term upper extremity preservation. Further testing is needed to examine the long-term impact of improved transfer skills.


A simple test structure is proposed for accurately extracting the substrate network parameters of a radio-frequency MOSFET with deep n-well implantation from two-port measurements. The test structure with the source, drain, and gate terminals all connected together is used as port one, while the bulk terminal as port two, making the substrate network distinctly accessible in measurements. A methodology is developed to directly extract the parameters for the substrate network from the measured data. The method is further verified by the excellent match between the measured and simulated output admittances on the extracted parameters for a 16-finger nMOSFET of common-source configuration operated in different bias conditions.


Clinical and laboratory parameters that may affect post-operative mortality and morbidity were studied in 215 patients operated on for obstructive jaundice. The cause of the bile duct obstruction was benign disease in 56.7% of patients and malignant disease in 43.3%. Overall postoperative mortality and morbidity rates were 21.9% and 33.5%, respectively. Eight risk factors were shown to be associated with increased mortality: age < 70 years; malignancy; leucocytosis < 15 000 cells/μl and fever < 38.5°C; haematocrit ≤ 30%; creatinine < 1.3 mg/dl; albumin ≤ 3 g/dl; bilirubin < 20 mg/dl; and serum alkaline phosphatase > 100 IU/l. The simultaneous presence of less than three risk factors was always associated with post-operative survival, but concomitant existence of seven or more risk factors indicated 100% mortality. Understanding the factors related to post-operative morbidity and mortality in patients with obstructive jaundice will better guide appropriate surgical or non-surgical management and lead to improved survival.


tllis contamination from culture media these precautions may prove unnecessary. On tlle otlher lhand, in the case of all those organisms which we lhave shown to be characterized by their ability in the living state to elaborate toxic derivatives from the media of artificial growth, these precautions cannot be neglected. In conclusion, although it is premature to indicate the practical lines of direct immunity research opened up by lthese experiments, it is impossible to ignore the suggestions they offer as to tlhe meaning of sensitization and the superiority of living vaccines over dead, as well as to the necessity for re-examination of tlle whole scheme of vaccine-therapy. And in the meanwllile, if they do no more than press home the necessity for fresh investigations into the true source and character of the natural antigens of disease they will faithfully have served their purpose. NOTE.-Since this paper was placed in type two articles on. experimental fever have appeared in a German periodical by Thiele and Embleton which might seem at first siglht to affect some of the conclusions reached in this communication.9 In the articles referred to, the authors-as so many have done before them-have fallen victims to the very fallacies which Dr. Penfold and I have already exposed in the Englislh journals.10 One of the fundamental errors, for example, in all study of experimental fever produced by injection is the assumption that water wllich is innocent of demonstrable infection at the time of injection must also be innocent of pyrogen, and that water collected direct from the condenser of a distilling apparatus in daily use and then filtered is necessarily pure water. In consequence, therefore, of failure to recognize this source of error these workers in many of their experiments unwittingly used impure water, as is clearly shown in their own protocols. This accident is alone sufficient to invalidate all the experiments and deductions based thereon, though there are other fallacies of almost equal imiiportance which I have fully described elsewhere.


P-glycoprotein (P-gp), the product of MDR1 gene, is a protein which mediates transmembrane transport of a great number of xenobiotics including cyclosporin A used as an immunosuppressive drug in patients with allogenic kidney grafts. The P-gp activity and expression is dependent on the MDR1 gene polymorphism in position C3435T of exon 26. In this study, C3435T polymorphism was analyzed in 116 patients with allogenic kidney graft treated with cyclosporin Aand 144 randomly selected healthy individuals. The prevalence of MDR1 gene genotypes 3435CC, 3435CT, 3435TT were also compared in patients after allogenic kidney graft with both acute and chronic graft rejection (48 patients with acute and 76 with chronic graft rejection) and control groups (respectively 139 and 112). The results of the study demonstrated that the allelic frequency and MDR1 genotype distribution were similar in all evaluated groups. It was revealed that MDR1 gene polymorphism was not a predisposing factor for terminal kidney failure leading to renal transplantation. Moreover, evaluation of C3435T polymorphism of MDR1 gene will probably not be useful for characterization of groups of patients at increased risk of acute and chronic kidney graft rejection.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To establish how common and impactful nursing and healthcare ageism is and whether proven interventions or prevention methods exist.

BACKGROUND
Ageism has been a concern since 1969 when it was first introduced as a concept for social reform. As ageism has been linked to lower quality health services and reduced health care access, it is imperative that healthcare and nursing ageism is prevented or identified and reduced or eliminated.

DESIGN
A qualitative narrative review of published research literature reviews using a scoping design to map all published reviews was undertaken. The EBSCO Discovery Service (providing access to articles in 271 databases, including MEDLINE and CINAHL) and Directory of Open Access Journals (providing access to over 9,000 open access journals) were used to find review articles. Using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and limited by English language and peer-review publications, 12 eligible reviews were identified and information from them was systematically identified, assessed and synthesised.

RESULTS
The 12 reviews did not provide clear and convincing information to determine how common and impactful nursing or healthcare ageism is, nor what can best be done to prevent or address it. Although each review had value since research literature was collected and discussed on nursing or healthcare ageism, the array of literature search and analysis methods, and diversity in conclusions reached about the evidence is highly problematic.

CONCLUSION
Research literature reviews offering a more balanced perspective and demonstrating greater care in finding and using quality evidence are needed.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
At this point in time, there is no clear understanding of how widespread and impactful nursing or healthcare ageism is, and what can best be done to prevent or address it. Nurses need to be aware that ageism may be common and impactful, and guard against it.


A method of synthesizing aperture antenna excitations to obtain optimum performance in the presence of aperture blockage is presented. The problem of optimizing the performance indices such as directivity and angular sensitivity is formulated as an N -dimensional minimization problem, with constraint on the sidelobe level. In most cases, the objective function is nonlinear with multiple minima which does not yield readily to gradient methods. A simplex search method is used in the study for optimizing the performance index. The sidelobe level (SLL) constraint has been incorporated using the penalty function method. The method is applied to circular monopulse aperture distribution with circular blockage to obtain maximum directivity factor (DF) in the sum mode and maximum angular sensitivity factor (ASF) in the difference mode, with sidelobe level constraint. The effect of blockage on the maximum directivity and maximum angular sensitivity is studied for various sidelobe level constraints.


This paper presents a comparative analysis between the control algorithms used for the three phase grid integrated solar PV system.The adaptive based Improved Second Order Generalized Integrator quadrature signal generator (ISOGI-QSG) control is compared with the most commonly used Synchronous Reference Frame Theory(SRFT). These control algorithms are mainly implemented to improve the power quality of the grid in terms of harmonic elimination, load balancing and power factor correction. From the performance evaluation, the ISOGI-QSG based control works satisfactorily under various dynamic conditions such as unbalanced load and distorted grid. The Incremental Conductance(INC) Maximum Power point Tracking(MPPT) technique is used to track the maximum power from the solar array. This is achieved through the effective extraction of crest power from an solar PV array and control the DC bus voltage. The performance evaluation of the both control algorithms are verified by simulation results and satisfactory results are obtained. It is observed that steady state and dynamic performance of ISOGI-QSG based control is superior than SRFT control.


SUMMARY
MNase-Seq and ChIP-Seq have evolved as popular techniques to study chromatin and histone modification. Although many tools have been developed to identify enriched regions, software tools for nucleosome positioning are still limited. We introduce a flexible and powerful open-source R package, PING 2.0, for nucleosome positioning using MNase-Seq data or MNase- or sonicated- ChIP-Seq data combined with either single-end or paired-end sequencing. PING uses a model-based approach, which enables nucleosome predictions even in the presence of low read counts. We illustrate PING using two paired-end datasets from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and compare its performance with nucleR and ChIPseqR.

AVAILABILITY
PING 2.0 is available from the Bioconductor website at http://bioconductor.org. It can run on Linux, Mac and Windows.


We derive two path integral Monte Carlo estimators for the derivative of the potential of mean force (PMF), which may be numerically integrated to yield the PMF. For the first estimator, we perform the differentiation on the exact path integral, and for the second, we perform the differentiation on the path integral after discretization. These estimators are successfully validated against reference results for the harmonic oscillator and Lennard-Jones dimer systems using constrained path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulations. Specifically, the estimators reproduce both the derivative of the PMF, as well as the PMF itself, for the model systems at multiple temperatures. In Paper II, these estimators are implemented alongside path integral molecular dynamics (PIMD) with a constrained path integral Langevin equation thermostat for use with more general systems and potentials.


The polycentric Mega-City Regions (MCR) have arisen through a long process of very extended decentralization from big central cities to new or adjacent smaller ones. It is an emergent urban phenomenon in the course of formation at the beginning of the 21st century. The concept of MCR emphasizes the role of the regions with one or more global cities (or world cities) in the globalization process, and considers that the knowledge-intensive producer service business operations and flows are associated with a polycentric pattern of urban development in each MCR. Recently, some new trends and characteristics have risen in the development of cities and towns in the Yangtze River Delta that has been the biggest economic core region of China. It is now universally accepted that Shanghai would become a global city in the context of the Yangtze River Delta and the Metropolitan Interlocking Region with the core of Shanghai being evolving into a Mega-City Region. This paper explores the concept and characteristics of Mega-City Regions, and provides a research on characteristics of the Yangtze River Delta Mega-City Region, which is defined in terms of contiguous FURs. The polycentricity of the MCR is measured by both rank size analysis and functional polycentric analysis. The MCR's functional characteristics are investigated by measuring functional connections between 16 main FURs, and their network characteristics are reflected by highway and railway networks and intra-regional producer service linkages. Further, the polycentricity is measured again by analyzing the network of functional linkages. And it is found that Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi and Hangzhou are the four main centers of the MCR. This finding may have some differences between the previous rank size analysis and functional polycentric analysis. Finally, it concluded that the Yangtze River Delta Mega-City Region that has 55 contiguous FURs with a population of more than 80 million and an area of 78,000 km2 is a polycentric network city region.


We have observed 79 two-photon transitions in Na2 by using cw dye-laser excitation. The transitions are enhanced by the near coincidence of the laser frequency with a suitable one-photon transition. Of these two-photon lines, 57 have been assigned to transitions from the X1∑g+ ground state to two recently reported 1∑g+ and one 1Πg state at 33000 cm−1. We discuss the spectral structures of the observed lines that arise from the requirements of near-resonant enhancement.


Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether parent report of family resilience predicted children's disaster-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general emotional symptoms, independent of a broad range of variables including event-related factors, previous child mental illness and social connectedness. Methods: A total of 568 children (mean age = 10.2 years, SD = 1.3) who attended public primary schools, were screened 3 months after Cyclone Larry devastated the Innisfail region of North Queensland. Measures included parent report on the Family Resilience Measure and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)–emotional subscale and child report on the PTSD Reaction Index, measures of event exposure and social connectedness. Results: Sixty-four students (11.3%) were in the severe–very severe PTSD category and 53 families (28.6%) scored in the poor family resilience range. A lower family resilience score was associated with child emotional problems on the SDQ and longer duration of previous child mental health difficulties, but not disaster-induced child PTSD or child threat perception on either bivariate analysis, or as a main or moderator variable on multivariate analysis (main effect: adjusted odds ratio (ORadj) = 0.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.13–2.44). Similarly, previous mental illness was not a significant predictor of child PTSD in the multivariate model (ORadj = 0.75, 95%CI = 0.16–3.61). Conclusion: In this post-disaster sample children with existing mental health problems and those of low-resilience families were not at elevated risk of PTSD. The possibility that the aetiological model of disaster-induced child PTSD may differ from usual child and adolescent conceptualizations is discussed.


ABSTRACT Palmichnium kosinskiorum Briggs and Rolfe, 1983, is a fossil trackway recovered from sandstones of the purported marine Shenango Formation along the banks of Spring Creek, in Elk County, Pennsylvania. Discovered in 1948, the type specimen is interpreted as a trail made by a lower Mississippian eurypterid. Recent field work has disclosed that the trackway of P. kosinskiorum was recovered from an allocthonous block of pebbly sandstone inconsistent with the character of the surrounding Shenango Formation. The P. kosinskiorum block is one of more than a dozen out-of-place giant boulders that train up the valley wall. These boulders can be traced back to an outcrop of the Pennsylvanian Pottsville Group located several hundred feet up the side of the Spring Creek Valley. Thus, it can be demonstrated that P. kosinskiorum originated from lower Pennsylvanian, not lower Mississippian bedrock. Palmichnium kosinskiorum was recovered from the top of a trough cross-bedded conglomeratic sequence, indicating that it was deposited in a high-energy fluvial environment of the Olean Conglomerate, a formation of the Pottsville Group. This purported depositional environment is consistent with other Upper Carboniferous eurypterid discoveries.


A fast method for the calculation of thermodynamic property mappings of alloy microstructures is presented. It uses surrogate interpolation models instead of the direct CALPHAD calculation of each data point. With the best algorithm, a speed-up of nearly 30 can be achieved compared to the direct method. If repeated calculations of similar microstructures are required, a speed-up of around 300 can even be realized. Different surrogate models have been evaluated. The universal kriging method gives the most accurate results, while polynomial surface response models turn out to generate larger interpolation errors. In order to minimize the number of calculation points of the surrogate interpolation model, the microstructure is classified into similar regions, in which the design points are chosen randomly. The algorithm is applicable independent of alloy composition. Within the paper, we present the application of the algorithm for two single-crystalline nickel-based superalloys.


Pd/InGaP hydrogen sensors based on the metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) and metal-semiconductor Schottky diodes have been fabricated and systematically studied. The effects of hydrogen adsorption on device performances such as the current-voltage characteristics, barrier height variation, hydrogen coverage, and heat of adsorption are investigated. The studied devices exhibit very wide hydrogen concentration detection regimes and remarkable hydrogen-sensing properties. Particularly, an extremely low hydrogen concentration of 15 ppm H/sub 2//air at room temperature can be detected. In addition, under the presence of oxide layers in the studied MOS device structure, the enhancements of barrier height and high-temperature operating capability are observed. The initial heat of adsorption for Pd/oxide and Pd/semiconductor interface are calculated as 355 and 65.9 meV/atom, respectively. Furthermore, the considerably short response times are found in studied devices.


Objective: To systematically locate, register, and abstract information used in comparing effects of various information services (computerized and noncomputerized) and utilization management interventions on the process and outcome of patient care. Design: Manual and electronic database searches located reports that met three main criteria: 1) randomized controlled trial; 2) information or utilization management intervention in the study group with no similar intervention in the control group; and 3) effect of the intervention on the process and/or outcome of patient care had been measured. Published reports were registered in the Columbia Registry. Results: Nearly 600 reports were collected from 24 countries and 189 different publications. Frequently tested interventions included patient or physician education, telephone follow-up, patient or physician reminders, and home care services. Frequently reported effect variables included hospitalization rate, length of stay, immunization rate, and mortality rate. Standardized formal tools were developed for the separation and abstraction of practical information and methodologic details from the collected trial reports. Conclusions: The registry provides a new source of information for meta-analyses, traditional reviews, and executive summaries of quality improvement of health services. The streamlined knowledge engineering process of quality evaluation and abstraction of critical information can generate helpful information for practitioners and researchers simultaneously. JAMIA. 1995;2:307-315. Randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) have achieved widespread recognition as sources of topquality scientific evidence of the difference made by particular clinical interventions.1,2 If the study de-, sign, data collection, and analysis are well planned, RCTs can reduce the risks of selection bias, nonstanAffiliations of the authors: Program in Health Services Management (EAB, MGS, SMA), Medical Informatics Group (EAB, JAM), School of Business (DAW), and Department of Family and Community Medicine (BGE), University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO. Supported in part by grant HS07715 from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and by a grant from the University of Missouri Research Board. Correspondence and reprints: E. Andrew Balas, MD, PhD, Program in Health Services Management, University of MissouriColumbia, 324 Clark Hall, Columbia, MO 65211. e-mail: medinfab@ mizzoul.missouri.edu Received for publication: 3/27/95; accepted for publication: 5/22/95. dard definitions, missing data, or multiple comparisons.3 New drugs cannot be marketed without demonstrating their efficacy and safety in such trials. Yet clinical information system developers and physician executives are often forced to make decisions affecting health services based on speculated benefits instead of high-quality scientific evidence. Deming's theory of continuous improvement depends on understanding and revising the production processes on the basis of data about the processes themselves.4 Likewise, quality improvement efforts in health care depend on measurable quality objectives and appropriate interventions and changes in the process. RCTs have direct relevance to health care quality improvement as they become increasingly important sources of information about the clinical value of various interventions (e.g., physician and patient education,5 interventions to promote cancer screening,6 computerized medical records,' and home care after hospital discharge.8). BALAS ET AL., Columbia Registry Unfortunately, searches for reports of RCTs often lead to incomplete and inconsistent results. Several studies have documented disappointingly low recall rates (the proportion of relevant items retrieved from a bibliographic database by a particular search strategy) in searches for clinical trials. For example, one study reported a 51% recall rate and another recovered only 29% of relevant trial reports stored in the MEDLINE database.","' In recent years there have been studies about improving the success rate of searches for RCTs.11,12 Reasons for the low recall are varied. The terminology used by investigators and National Library of Medicine indexers is continuously changing. Before 1980, the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term "Clinical Research" was synonymous with "Clinical Trials." In 1980, "Clinical Trials" was introduced as a MeSH term to replace "Clinical Research." In addition, there are periodicals in the medical informatics field that are not indexed in the MEDLINE database [e.g., MEDINFO proceedings and early Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC) proceedings]. Considering the significant number of computer trials in the SCAMC proceedings, the recent decision of the National Library of Medicine to index this periodical in the MEDLINE database seems to be justified and promises improved access. The addition to MeSH of publication types (e.g., randomized controlled trial) is also a potential tool for increasing access to desired trials. Despite this progress, published trials remain difficult to locate. Various trial registries have been established in attempts to improve access to published reports. Many of these registries deal with perinatal care, management for AIDS, or cancer treatment [e.g., the Oxford Perinatal Database, 13 the AIDS Clinical Trials Information Service, and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Control Intervention Studies14]. Some review papers contain valuable bibliographies of clinical trials:'" However, clinical trials testing information or utilization management interventions, a broad area critical to health care quality improvement and cost control, have not been the focus of any known registry. Once a clinical trial has been identified, the problem remains of discerning the practical message of reported results. While numerous technical details of research are necessary to ensure valid results, they can at times overwhelm the true practical message and different readers can draw different conclusions from trial reports. A recent study of the methods of randomized controlled trials 16 showed that there are marked differences in several aspects of health services research compared with conventional drug trials. Because of these differences, separating and abstracting practical information is an ongoing need of health care quality improvement. Thus, the primary goal of establishing the Columbia Registry of Information and Utilization Management Trials was to assist practitioners, clinical researchers, computer system developers, and health care administrators in comparing the effects of various information services and utilization management interventions on the process and outcome of patient care. To accomplish this goal, the best available evidence, i.e., the results of RCTs, has been systematically collected and processed. The methods used to create the Columbia Registry are described in this paper. Evolution of Eligibility Criteria To make the Columbia Registry relevant to the needs of health care quality improvement, careful attention was given to the eligibility criteria applied to potential reports. Such eligibility criteria are needed to guide all literature searches and to establish relevance. Eligibility criteria were defined on the basis of designs, interventions, and effect variables of specific studies. The design requirements of RCTs are well defined and widely accepted. However, the definition of other criteria requires special considerations. Four considerations have played a large role in the evolution of the eligibility criteria used for the Columbia Registry. Information intervention Originally, the registry was designed to include only trials using some form of computer intervention. Once the first 100 trials had been registered, it became clear that noncomputerized information interventions can be equally valuable. For example, reminders to physicians or patients can be generated by a computer system or by office personnel and the difference in the mechanisms of action might be insignificant. Therefore, all such trials were put in the general category of information interventions, which was further divided into a computer group and a noncomputer group. Examples of these groups include a trial of computer-based instructions to patients collecting a urine specimen" and a noncomputerized patient education encounter with new mothers to increase the pediatric immunization rate.18 Cost-benefit analysis RCTs allow practitioners to assess potential benefits and also the costs of alternative interventions. This information can have great practical significance for health care quality improvement. For this reason, one Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association Volume 2 Number 5 Scp / Oct 1995 309 might consider cost analyses as one of the criteria for registration. While most researchers make efforts to follow widely accepted medical and statistical protocols, they apparently do not use standard costing procedures, making interpretation difficult or impossible. For example, in a review of 100 studies that assumed that public spending for prenatal care was justified primarily by cost savings, the authors found that only 12 specifically addressed issues of cost. Significant methodologic problems were identified in all 12 cases."' In a study reviewing the cost-effectiveness of outpatient mental health care, a potential cost savings of $5,500 per client was suggested. In costing the mental health care services in three assertive case management program centers, however, the authors cited costs per client that ranged from $2,873 to $7,201. Costs were calculated based on 6-month budgets (including indirect costs and support personnel) divided by the maximum caseload.'" Essentially, the medical cost data cannot be trusted because the costing methods are not comparable. There is no consistency to costing methodology


The parameters and equations for calculating uncertainty of chromaticity coordinates in spectrophotometric tristimulus colorimetry have already been derived for the 10°-field standard-observer system. From the variability data for eleven optical filters obtained from two methods of spectrophotometric tristimulus colorimetry, the standard-observer-system method and the actual-observer method, two sets of chromaticity uncertainty ellipses are derived and intercompared. The similarity between corresponding ellipses of these two sets leads to the following conclusion: the system-derived uncertainty ellipses, based on the variances and covariances of the spectral tristimulus values of the large-field standard-observer system, can be used to estimate observer-derived chromaticity-uncertainty ellipses.The equations are the basis of the automatic-computer program and are used to compute uncertainty ellipses; they are given to aid anyone who wishes to arrange such a program in his laboratory. The fixed combinations of the spectral tristimulus values of their variances and covariances can be readily prepared by researchers who may wish to use desk calculators to compute uncertainty ellipses for actual-observer data or for standard-observer-system data, respectively.


Periodontitis is a common inflammatory disease characterized by a complex aetiology which is the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Genetic variants linked to periodontitis disease were already investigated, however little was known regarding the severity of this disease. Recently long runs of homozygosity were associated with several multifactorial diseases. Therefore, in our work, we tried to assess the role of runs of homozygosity (ROH) and periodontitis status. We found an association between the excess of homozygosity due to ROH and staging of periodontitis. More in detail, the total amount of homozygosity due to ROH is positively associated with increased severity of periodontitis (p = 0.0001). Regression tree analysis showed the impact of ROH burden in discriminating individuals with mild periodontitis stages I-II and periodontitis stages III-IV (p < 0.001). Furthermore, ROH mapping highlights several regions associated with a severe status of periodontitis (Odd Ratio > 1). Among them, we found a total of 33 genes. Interestingly, some of these genes were previously associated with granulocyte or platelet measures, both linked to the onset and the progression of periodontal disease. Our results suggest the not only single variants association test could help to risk assessment but even individual genomic features; furthermore, our ROH mapping highlighted the possible role of multiple genes in periodontal development.


INTRODUCTION. In 1777 Lavoissier showed that oxygen was absorbed from air during respiration and that it united with carbon in the body, forming carbon dioxid. This discovery caused many observers to determine the amount of oxygen consumed by normal animals and the amount of carbon dioxid given off by them. They also studied the relation of one to the other. When we consider the volume of carbon dioxid exhaled divided by the volume of oxygen consumed, this relation is known as the respiratory quotient. Generally more oxygen is consumed than carbon dioxid given off. The object of these experiments was to determine the influence of tuberculosis on the respiratory quotient. A number of secondary facts have been established or confirmed, incidentally METHODS. Some of the early experimenters (Black, Priestly and LaPlace) analyzed the air of a chamber before and after an animal had been confined in it. the objection to this


While it is not enough done in manual manner, recording is an important point to control the artificial insemination (AI) management. Then, there was an idea to carry out an arrangement of computerized AI recording and evaluation system. Its aim is to produce computer software in on-line system basis. Then it is useful in recording and evaluation of AI performance in 50 Kota district, West Sumatra as well as in decision support system. This survey and experiment combination methods used two questioners for two inseminators and four the Animal extension service officers. Secondary data were also collected from 50 Kota Animal extension services. Experiment used computers software of programming web (HTML and PHP) and database phpMyAdmin (MySQL). Variables consisted of several card, namely; (1) AI activity card, (2) pregnant inspection and infertility card, (3) Semen usage and liquid N2 stock card, (4) AI calving card which could be demonstrated by service/ conception (S/C), conception rate (CR) and calving rate indicators. The result showed that there was computer software in recording and evaluation of AI performance available for 50 Kota district. This system did recording of AI in a faster, valid, easy and qualified manner. After a local verification trial, a qualified system had been proved by using AI manual calculation comparison. Thus, this system will be more effective and efficient in AI recording and evaluation.