NBA teams are reporting an erosion of their season ticket base over the last view years. As a
result, the sales areas of partial plans, group sales, and individual sales have been looked upon as
a way to financial compensate for the revenues lost. The primary use of this study was to
determine which marketing techniques were still successful, the pricing and expected tickets for
the 2009-10 season, the effects of the secondary ticket marketing, and the effect of employment
in the sales and marketing department. A questionnaire was electronically sent to all 30 of the
NBA directors of marketing.

The Recession- Is it Effecting the Marketing of Tickets for the National Basketball Association?
The recession and the shrinkage of disposal income for households has increased the competition
within the entertainment industry, professional sports teams are using a variety of marketing to
increase home game attendance (Burton & Cornilles, 1998). Ticket sales is an adjusted revenue
stream which is unlike many of the other revenue streams. Revenue streams that involve long
term contracts are as follows: naming rights of buildings, signage, television, radio, club box and
suites. Sport marketers are constantly searching new and improved techniques to increase the
bottom line. The importance of sport marketing was explained in the scholarly research of
Schlossberg (1996), Spoelstra (1997), and Mullin, Hardy, and Sutton (2000). Furthermore
former NBA executive with the Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, and the New Jersey
Nets Jon Spoelstra (1997), "ticket are the lifeblood of professional sports". The importance of
"butts in seats" effects other revenue streams such as the following: parking, concession,

Methods

In order to determine the best marketing techniques used during the 2008-2010 NBA

season, an expert panel of 5 individuals in the area of sports sales and marketing was asked to

examine the 20 marketing techniques that were used in the Dick and Dick (2007) article. The

subjects that were chosen because of their expertise were: John Nash, General Manager of the

Portland Trail Blazers; Frank Sullivan, Director of Group Sales of the New Jersey Nets; Pat

Williams, Vice President of the Orlando Magic; Jim Van Stone, Vice President of Sales for the

Washington Capitals; and Scott Loft, Vice President of Ticket Sales and Services for the Miami

Dolphins. These 20 techniques were sent to the NBA marketing directors who were asked to rate

each one on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very ineffective to 5 = very effective) in terms of the

effectiveness of each technique in increasing NBA home game attendance. The response rate

was 66%, with all 30 NBA teams responding. All of the panelists agreed that each used these 20

techniques to increase home game attendance at NBA games to some extent.

Results
Among all strategies that the sales personnel used, group sales strategies; face-to-face meetings; web-based offers; email offers; mini-season packages and data base mining are most effective. The use of external ticket-exchange software and booster clubs/special memberships are among the least effective.
Most franchises hire more than 10 full-time sales persons, some of the franchise have full-tine sales persons as many as 45. Seven of the franchises did not hire any part-time sales personnel. Other franchises kept some part-time sales personnel, of which two of them hired as many as 20 part-time sales persons. The number of full-time and part-time sales persons did not change during the 2008-09 season and are expected to remain the same for most of the franchises during the 2009-10 season.
Prices of season tickets, partial-season tickets and group tickets stayed the same for most of the franchises. Though, some of the franchises decreased prices of individual tickets to increase sales. Other changes the franchised made during 2008-09 include value-based packages, discounted prices, longer payment plan, group packages, cutting marketing investment in traditional media and shifted to internet based applications.
Most of the franchises believe that during 2009-10 season, the sales of group tickets will increase. Franchises' responses regarding the sales of season tickets, partial-season ticket, and individual tickets during 2009-10 vary greatly, with some anticipating the sales to drop while others expecting the sales to increase. Still some of the franchises think the sales will just stay the same compared to 2008-09 season.
The evidence shows that secondary ticket market does not help with the franchises' sales effort; sometimes it even has a negative effect on it. Few franchises believe the secondary ticket market has a positive effect on the franchises' sales effort.
The sales strategies franchises will employ during 2009-10 season include: flexible payment plan; value-based proposition; data base mining effort; training on sales team skill set; discounted or froze ticket prices; web-based marketing.

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In this study, we analyzed the development and effects of gender on basic number skills from third to ninth grade in Finland. Because the international comparison studies have shown slightly different developmental trends in mathematical attainment for different language groups in Finland, we added the language of education as a variable in our analysis. Participants were 4,265 students from third to ninth grade in Finland, representing students in two national languages (Finnish, n = 2,833, and Swedish, n = 1,432). Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the subtasks in the dyscalculia screener formed two separate factors, namely, number-processing skills and arithmetic fluency. We found a linear development trend across age cohorts in both the factors. Reliability and validity evidence of the measures supported the use of these tasks in the whole age group from 9 to15 years. In this sample, there was an increasing gender difference in favor of girls and Swedish-speaking students by grade levels in number-processing skills. At the same time, boys showed a better performance and a larger variance in tasks measuring arithmetic fluency. The results indicate that the gender ratio within the group with mathematical learning disabilities depends directly on tasks used to measure their basic number skills.


Summary of recent case law and legislative efforts regarding Internet intermediaries hosting user-generated content. Covers 47 U.S.C. Section 230 and 17 U.S.C. Section 512, as well as other peripheral issues.


In this study, lactic acid production by repeated batch fermentation using cell entrapped methods was compared. Barium alginate beads, agar gel and polyurethane foam cubes were employed as carriers to immobilize Lactobacillus casei subsp. casei for the purpose of L (+)-lactic acid production. Increasing concentrations of lactic acid during fermentation were better tolerated by barium alginate entrapped cells. Alginate beads had a considerable effect on lactic acid production and reduced the fermentation time by half. The volumetric productivity with barium alginate and agar immobilized cells were 0.625 and 0.425 (g/lh) respectively, whereas it was 0.375 (g/lh) for conventional free-cell fermentation. Beside biocompatibility, barium alginate immobilized cells exhibited good mechanical strength during repetitive fermentations and could be used in repetitive batch cultures for more than 40 days. The novelty of this study is lactic acid production by repeated batch fermentation with immobilized L. casei using polyurethane foam (PUF) in an economical culture medium composed of whey and corn steep liquor supplemented by glucose.


From the engineering point of view, prediction of driftwood motions around hydraulic obstacles in rivers is important. We carried out laboratory experiments to understand the driftwood behaviour around grid like obstacles and found out that there are two different patterns of the capturing process of driftwood: 2D (two-dimension) type and 3D (threedimensional) type. We proposed the governing parameter "Driftwood Richardson Number" for classifying the types of the driftwood capture. A numerical model to simulate driftwood motions based on the coupling of a Euler type three-dimensional flow model and a Lagrange type twodimensional driftwood model (3D-2D model) is proposed to analyse the driftwood behaviour around obstacles. The numerical model could predict well the flowing pattern of driftwood affected by the secondary current of the first kind in a meandering open channel. The numerical results with obstacles showed that the present 3D-2D type model is applicable only if the driftwood Richardson number is larger than 10, in which the driftwood capturing takes place in the 2D type.


In this paper, we introduce a new dataset consisting of 360,001 focused natural language descriptions for 10,738 images. This dataset, the Visual Madlibs dataset, is collected using automatically produced fill-in-the-blank templates designed to gather targeted descriptions about: people and objects, their appearances, activities, and interactions, as well as inferences about the general scene or its broader context. We provide several analyses of the Visual Madlibs dataset and demonstrate its applicability to two new description generation tasks: focused description generation, and multiple-choice question-answering for images. Experiments using joint-embedding and deep learning methods show promising results on these tasks.


Adolescents experiencing anxiety or depression exhibit cognitive biases favoring the processing of negative emotional information. It remains unknown whether common neurobiological processes underlie these biases across anxiety and depression. Here, brain imaging was acquired from typical, anxious, and depressed adolescents during an emotional-interference task. Functional connectivity patterns were assessed while adolescents were cued to attend to or ignore faces. Results revealed a shared dimension of anxious and depressive symptoms was associated with reduced changes in connectivity patterns between conditions in which adolescents needed to ignore or attend to fearful faces. These findings were exclusive to fearful faces and observed only for functional connections with a primary face-representation area (fusiform gyrus). Results suggested a failure to flexibly adapt communication patterns with sensory-representation areas in the presence of negative emotional information, which may reflect a common neurobiological mechanism explaining biases favoring such information shared among adolescent anxiety and depression.


Smectic liquid crystals can be made to form freely suspended films and bubbles, locally quantized in thickness by an integral number N of smectic layers, on which islands, circular regions of greater thickness than the surrounding film area, can be generated. Here we demonstrate that such islands can be manipulated using optical tweezers. We have investigated experimentally and theoretically the optical trapping forces on islands with radii in the range 1 < R < 100 µm and thickness N ~ 300 layers on background films and bubbles of Nf ~ 50 layers. With the trapping laser beam focused to a spot size small compared to the diameter of an island, the trapping force is found to be maximized when the edge of the island passes through the center of the beam, as predicted. The optical tweezer system will be used to study the static and dynamic interactions between islands.


Abstract Consumers of dietary supplements should be made aware of the benefits and risks of these products. This case study therefore aimed to identify the content of the risk-benefit information provided during the purchase of St. John's wort supplements and how consumers perceive this information. Fifteen participants visited a shop to purchase St. John's wort supplements after which they were interviewed on the provided information during the visit. This case study shows that the spontaneous information provision is not consistent in Dutch drugstores and health food shops. The provided information was either very detailed, or no information was given at all. The perceived reliability of information was mainly determined by the authority of the employee and the type of shop where the product was purchased. Information consistency at the moment of purchase is of influence in the perceived value of it.


New relations involving the Riemann, Ricci and Einstein tensors that have to hold for a given geometry to admit Killing–Yano tensors (KYTs) are described. These relations are then used to introduce novel conserved 'currents' involving such KYTs. For a particular current based on the Einstein tensor, we discuss the issue of conserved charges and consider implications for matter coupled to gravity. The condition on the background geometry to allow asymptotic conserved charges for a current introduced by Kastor and Traschen is found and a number of other new aspects of this current are commented on. In particular we show that it vanishes for rank (D − 1) KYTs in D dimensions.


Abstract Ensuring affordable and equitable access to safe water for all in urban areas is a major water management challenge for Bangladesh. Both the availability and the quality of water are declining in the poor urban areas, especially in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Lack of access to affordable drinking water in the slums of Dhaka metropolitan area (DMA) poses a major challenge for Bangladesh to achieve target 6.1 of the United Nations sustainable development goals which aims to provide equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030. The aim of this research is to address the following question: Are slum dwellers in Dhaka metropolitan area capable for paying for Dhaka water supply and sewerage authority's (DWASA) services? This study focused on three slums in Dhaka metropolitan area namely Korail slum, Godown slum and Tejgaon slum to determine the current water price in these slums and to compare it with the water price of DWASA. Results show that for domestic water use slum dwellers are paying about 7 to 14 times higher than the legal connection holders covered by DWASA. Slum dwellers are spending about 12 to 15% of their average monthly income for domestic water supply, whereas in most of the countries, legal connection holders are spending less than 5% of their average monthly income for the same purpose. For secure water supply, all the respondents in these three slums are willing to pay 3.4 times more than the current water price of DWASA. Finally, it is concluded that the slum dwellers of the three selected slums in Dhaka metropolitan area are capable to pay for DWASA services. Keywords : Water pricing, affordability, slum dwellers, Dhaka metropolitan area, Dhaka water supply and sewerage authority Cite this Article Muhammad Mizanur Rahaman, Tahmid Saif Ahmed. Affordable Water Pricing for Slums Dwellers in Dhaka Metropolitan Area: The Case of Three Slums. Journal of Water Resource Engineering and Management . 2016; 3(1): 15–33p.


Background African women affected by breast cancer (BC) have high parity with five children or more, are relatively young at first full term pregnancy (FFTP), are diagnosed at a young age and are often premenopausal at diagnosis. While several studies have assessed the role of reproductive factors for BC risk among African women, none of them have assessed whether there is dual effect of age at full term pregnancy (FTP). In this communications, using a large dataset from an on-going hospital-based case-control study, we examine the role of age at full term pregnancy on breast cancer risk among African women. Methods The study includes sites in Nigeria (University College Hospital, Ibadan), Cameroon (Yaounde General Hospital) and Uganda (Breast Clinic of Mulago Hospital of Kampala). It was initiated in 1998 in Nigeria and extended to Cameroon and Uganda in 2011. Cases were consecutive females diagnosed with invasive BC. Controls were recruited from the community or within the hospital and have never being diagnosed with any cancer. Cases and controls were aged 18 years or more and gave informed consent. Full term pregnancy was defined as a pregnancy that lasted at least 7 months and included both live birth and stillbirth. Logistic regression models were used to assess the effects of age at first and second FTP, and their interaction with current age on BC risk. Age at menarche, parity, body mass index and hormone contraception use were included in the models. Results The study includes 1668 cases and 2399 controls recruited between 1998 and May 2013. Mean duration of live birth was 9 months (SD±0.52) and 8.8 months (SD±0.66) for a stillbirth. Overall, the mean age at FFTP was 23 years (SD±4.91) for both cases and controls. Compared to nulliparous women, parous women who had FFTP at 20 years have increased risk (OR = 1.59, CI 95%, 1.16-2.21) to develop BC in the year following the pregnancy. Up to 5 years following the FFTP, this OR is 1.38 (CI 95%, 1.06-1.80) while it is 0.77 (CI 95%, 0.62-0.95) 25 years later. This observation was also true for parous women who have had their FFTP at 25, 30, or 35 years. Moreover, a similar pattern was observed when comparing uniparous women to women with 2 or more children. Conclusion Our results show a transient increase in risk of BC after a full term pregnancy which declined and became protective over time. This observation is consistent with the effect of pregnancy on BC that has been described in other populations and may partially explain the current profile of breast cancer among African women. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2013;73(24 Suppl): Abstract nr P3-06-13.


A robot system used for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has been developed in this paper. The system contains a surgeon console and a patient cart which is a surgical robot with two manipulators. By using the two master hands of the console, the surgeon can control the instruments and the arms to complete the operation accurately. In this paper, we mainly focused on the design and optimization of the robot arm. Based on the considering of the actual requirements of the minimally invasive surgery, incision positioning and instrument positioning mechanisms has been designed, which have seven degree of freedom in all and can provide enough workspace for MIS operation. According to the characteristics and actual movement of the surgical robot, the forward and inverse kinematics was also analyzed. Moreover, to make sure the robot has a good dexterity degree and high operable performance, the dexterous index is constructed by using the singular value of the Jacobian matrix and an optimization model was build. The robot's structure parameters were optimized by using sequential quadratic programming.


The stratigraphic section at the Baliza Monte Hermoso (near Punta Tejada, 17 km to the west of Pehuen-co, provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina) has been known since Darwin 's voyage. The section is remarkable because the typic Montehermosan and the lower par! of Chapadmalalan crop out there and abundant mammals are recorded. Recently, Zavala (1993) and Zavala and Navarro (1993) revised the geology of the area. We disagree in several points with the conclusions of those authors: 1) we accept the biostratigraphy as a base for chronostratigraphic units, and 2) we found a clear biostratigraphic pattern at the section of Baliza Monte Hermoso with two Pliocene zones. These biostratigraphic units are the material basis for the Montehennosan and possibly for the lower Chapadmalalan. We also discuss the correlation of the Monte Hermoso Formation with other units in Buenos Aires province.


Sedatives are administered during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy to ensure patient safety, reduce the metabolic rate and correct the oxygen supply-demand balance. However, the concentrations of sedatives can be decreased due to absorption into the circuit. This study examined factors affecting the absorption of a commonly used sedative, midazolam (MDZ). Using multiple ex vivo simulation models, three factors that may influence MDZ levels in the ECMO circuit were examined: polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tubing in the circuit, use of a membrane oxygenator in the circuit, and heparin coating of the circuit. We also assessed changes in drug concentration when MDZ was re-injected in a circuit. The MDZ level decreased to approximately 60% of the initial concentration in simulated circuits within the first 30 minutes. The strongest factor in this phenomenon was contact with the PVC tubing. Membrane oxygenator use tended to increase MDZ loss, whereas heparin circuit coating had no influence on MDZ absorption. Similar results were obtained when a second dose of MDZ was injected to the second-use circuits.


The 2007 Antarctic ozone hole is reviewed from a variety of perspectives, making use of various Australian data and analyses. The 2007 ozone hole was relatively modest, particularly in comparison to that of 2006, due in part to a disturbance to the polar vortex in early September that led to an influx of ozone-rich air. Ozone depiction was still severe however in the lower stratosphere. The long-term outlook for recovery is described, with Antarctic ozone currently forecast to return to 1980 levels around the period 2055-2080.


In this paper the architecture and performance of a co-integrated 60 GHz on-chip wireless energy harvester and ultra-low power (ULP) radio in 65-nm CMOS are discussed. Integration of an on-chip antenna with wireless power receiver and wireless data transfer module is the crucial next step to achieve compact and high efficiency fully-integrated monolithic wireless sensor nodes. A single-pole-single-throw 60 GHz RF switch is proposed and simulated to decouple the power harvesting and data transfer module. The designed on-chip RF switch has -2 dB insertion loss in EM simulations, and achieves -18 dB isolation between the energy harvesting module and the data transfer module. A single on-chip monopole antenna for power reception and data transfer is proposed with an adapted layout to reduce power coupling to undesired substrate modes. The simulated antenna shows a gain of -1.68 dBi. The power harvesting performance of the co-integrated antenna, switch and Dickson type multistage rectifier is simulated and leads to a DC output voltage of 1.2 V for -5 dBm input power at 60 GHz. With 15 dBm power transmitted to the tag at 30 GHz, the output voltage is 1.14V in the measurement. This paper is the first to demonstrate the 30 GHz mm-wave wireless energy harvesting with fully on-chip wireless energy receiver.


The Observations of Electric-field Distributions in the Ionospheric Plasma—A Unique Strategy C (OEDIPUS-C) rocket payload was launched from Poker Flat, Alaska, into an evening aurora at 0638 UT, on November 7, 1995. The payload included a tethered HF transmitter-receiver pair which acted as a topside sounder. The bistatic (two-point) configuration allowed an in situ calibration of the radiated power. The conditions in the magnetosphere and ionosphere during the experiment were monitored by a ground-based network of instruments and by instruments on the GOES 7 satellite in a geosynchronous orbit. In this paper we present results of the data analysis of topside ionograms that were obtained during the down-leg flight of OEDIPUS-C (OC). The relatively low altitudes through which OC carried out topside sounding make the resulting ionograms a novel data set. Ionospheric reflections of the 10-W transmissions were detected at payload heights between 780 and 160 km on the down leg. Near apogee at 824 km, extremely low electron densities (∼100 cm−3) were observed. The monotonic rise in electron density at the payload from apogee to reentry clearly showed that there was no ionospheric F layer peak. The topside-sounding echoes came from all heights between the payload and the E layer peak around 100 km altitude. Strong X-mode ionospheric reflections plus strong O-mode ground reflections were observed. OC thus has provided a close-hand view of a thick, highly structured, auroral E layer sounded at small ranges. The RF signal was efficiently guided along the magnetic field aligned density depletions that were located at the equatorward edges of auroral arcs. Large pulse-to-pulse variations in the amplitude of the ionospheric reflection are not explained by ducting in the geometric-optics sense.


SUMMARY
A morphological and physiological description of the type strain of Pseudomonas maltophilia Hugh and Ryschenkow 1960 is presented. Photomicrographs record formalin treated and nontreated polar multitrichous flagella in stained preparations. A brief review is presented of several nomenc laturally unacceptable names which have been applied to strains of P. maltophilia.


A is in the primary of a coagulopathy massive transfusions. coagulopathies after of 20–25 units of Acid-Citrate-Dextrose in acutely soldiers. major therapeutic choice for coagulopathies in massive transfusions. dilutional thrombocytopenia (50,000/mm 3 ) is a primary component of treating coagulopathies associated with massive blood transfusions.


Evaluation and improvement of the e-learning process are getting more and more attention. There are tools and methods available, but none of them is a solution to everything. A new Colour code method for understanding students' learning process has been introduced in the previous papers. The method uses three colour codes: red for "problem", yellow for "work in progress" and green for "job done", and previous research in classroom showed that this system works. The next step was taken to implement the method in the computer-based learning management system (LMS). For this purpose, edX learning platform was chosen. In this paper, an overview of edX learning platform and e-learning course evaluation methods and strategies is given, as well as a description of method and implementation. The main conclusions are that edX platform is suitable for the new tool and code block generation, as well as for sharing this code with others; the colour buttons worked as predicted, the data are gathering and gives an insight of which learning items get the most attention by learners, rating by the usage of colour buttons. 45% of students that attended e-learning course at least once, used colour buttons as well. The most used button was the green button "done" (67.2% of all pushes), the second largest was orange "process" (25.4%), but the least used was red "problem" button (7.4%). Mostly the codes were used in online tests (75%), but some part went to peer assessment (9%), informative learning materials (8%) and homeworks (5%).


This dissertation is concerned with quality factors affecting academic performance of students in secondary schools in Tanzania mainland case of selected Public Secondary Schools in Tanga. The study rests on the following objectives: to identify quality factors available in secondary schools that affect academic performance of students and to examine the role of quality factors on academic performance of students in secondary schools in Tanga. Finally, the study was aimed to establish quality factors strategies the schools need to put in place to realize good students' academic performance in secondary schools. Data collection methods comprised interviews, focus group discussion and documentary review. The data collected were analysed thematically. The findings of the studyrevealed various quality factors were available in secondary school, poor school infrastructures, shortage of curriculum materials and shortage of science teachers. Some of the reasons which account for this disparity are such as lack of fund, political influence, poverty, lack of strong school board to monitor implementation and lack of education and awareness to parents. The quality factors have the role to play in providing good education to children. However, most of the schools lacked important infrastructure such as library and laboratories which were not finished and many buildings were poorly built and uncompleted. Also,regardless of the teaching and learning to be poor caused by lack of necessary materials, quality in school could be improved through these strategies; building infrastructure, school inspection, self-assessment, teaching and learning materials, teachers ratio, parents' participation as well as the in service training. Recommendations to attain quality in secondary schools are attached.


The unpleasant experience of long queue while waiting to check-in at hotel is a common problem faced by guests especially during holidays. As such, various self-service technologies (SSTs) were introduced over the years by researchers with the aim to increase the avenues of checking-in guests. Self-check-in kiosk is an invention that allows guests to check-in themselves using bar codes that were sent to them in advance. Although bar codes are able to reduce guests' waiting time, it cannot be used to unlock hotel rooms. This makes mobile device a better medium for hotel check-in and access control system. Despite mobile device is very convenient and easy to operate, guests would have to own the specific type of mobile device such as near-field communication smartphone and its customized application before using the system. This makes the solution not user-friendly to guests. Therefore, a novel encrypted quick response scheme is presented to extend the existing SST to unify the process of check-in and room access control. The proposed scheme uses quick response codes and cryptography techniques to generate secure hotel keys that can be printed or stored inside a smartphone, thus, supporting a wide range of guests.


The authors formulate an equivalence principle for the ANAIS experiment and show that the observed trajectory followed by a rigid sphere on the billiard table is a geodesic curve in a nonEuclidean space.


As one of the traditional industrial cities in China, Zigong City rose and set up the city government by salt industry. The remains of salt industry can be found everywhere in the city, and 37 salt industry heritage properties are listed into the heritage protection lists of state, province and city levels. The typical technology of well salt mining has contributed greatly to the human civilization, and its well drill skill is the embryonic form of modern oil and gas well. The salt industry distribution made up the frame of Zigong City and influenced every aspect of the local community life. With the world heritage perspective, this paper discusses the historical geographical background and current conservation situation of salt industry in Zigong City, comparatively analyses with similar salt heritage property within the World Heritage List and salt cites in China, and proposes the suggestion for protecting the salt industry heritage in Zigong City.


Systematic clinical assessment and careful monitoring of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) can be used to identify a cohort of patients that benefit from medical intervention and almost certainly improve long-term outcomes. One of the major limitations of the current approach is a lack of predictive power of individual risk factors, which means that many patients receive therapy. The aim of this review is to highlight other aspects of the disease, assessed using old and new medical technologies, that appear to provide new prognostic information. The hope for the future is that their incorporation in new risk algorithms will improve treatment for all HCM patients with the disease, irrespective of their vulnerability to adverse complications.


Rail plays an important role in hazmat transportation, transporting over two million carloads of hazardous materials (hazmat) in the United States annually. Compared with a truck trailer carrying a single hazmat car, a train has much more severe consequence of hazmat release due to carrying multiple connected hazmat cars (e.g., 50 to 120 flammable liquid cars). It is of high priority for the government and railroad companies to enhance the railroad hazmat transportation safety since the train accidents can cause severe railroad hazmat release incidents. Based on the data provided by Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S.DOT), there are over 300 accident causes, including infrastructure failure defects, rolling stock failures, human errors, weather conditions, etc. It is significant to understand the relationship between hazmat transportation risk and accident cause to provide guidance for developing, evaluating, and prioritizing accident prevention strategies, thereby mitigating hazmat transportation risk. Therefore, this paper reviews the literature on rail transport of hazmat release risk analysis in order to capture the event chain leading to hazmat release, possible risk factors, and the state of the art on existing risk analysis methodologies.
 We reviewed the related references based on a five-step process: (1) train accident occurrence, (2) number of cars derailed, (3) number of hazardous material cars derailed, (4) number of hazmat cars releasing, and (5) release consequences. First, many severe hazmat release incidents are caused by train accidents, particularly train derailments. Prior research found that over 70% of freight train mainline derailments were caused by either infrastructure defects or rolling stock failures. Possible strategies for reducing the probability of train accidents include the prevention of track defects, equipment condition monitoring to reduce in-service failures, and the use of more advanced train control technologies to reduce human error. Second, number of cars derailed is an important factor causing hazmat releasing. Based on the reviewed literature, the total number of cars derailed depends on accident cause, speed, train length, and point of derailment. Third, the literature implied that the total number of hazmat cars derailed is related to train length, number of hazmat cars and non-hazmat cars in a train, and their placement. Fourth, the number of hazmat cars releasing contents is influenced by hazardous materials car safety design, accident speed, etc. Finally, the consequences of a release can be measured by different metrics, such as property damage, environmental impact, traffic delay, or the affected population. Geographical information systems (GIS) can be used for consequence analysis integrated with other databases such as census and rail network data.


In very deep submicron technologies, limiting the growing on-chip power consumption in memories is a major challenge for embedded system designers. Embedded processors that contain cache memories open an opportunity for the low-power research community to model the impact of cache energy consumption and throughput gains. Power consumption is as important as performance in battery-powered embedded systems and in future, embedded processors are to process more computation-intensive applications with limited power budgets. Therefore, power consumption of theses processors will become more critical. According to the high contribution of memory access power in total power consumption of embedded systems, memory architecture of embedded systems strongly influences the system design objectives. Therefore, the embedded system designer requires a comprehensive design space exploration for memory architecture. In this paper we explore the design space of cache in embedded processors to find out the cache sizes which have the optimum performance/power consumption in embedded applications.


This paper proposes an alternative topology optimization method for the optimal design of continuum structures, which involves a multilevel nodal density-based approximant based on the concept of conventional SIMP (solid isotropic material with penalization) model. First, in terms of the original set of nodal densities, the Shepard function method is applied to generate a non-local nodal density field with enriched smoothness over the design domain. The new nodal density field possesses non-negative and range-bounded properties to ensure a physically meaningful approximation of topology optimization design. Second, the density variables at the nodes of finite elements are used to interpolate elemental densities, as well as corresponding element material properties. In this way, the nodal density field by using the non-local Shepard function method is transformed to a practical elemental density field via a local interpolation with the elemental shape function. The low-order finite elements are utilized to evaluate the displacement and strain fields, due to their numerical efficiency and implementation easiness. So, the proposed topology optimization method is expected to be efficient in finite element implementation, and effective in the elimination of numerical instabilities, e.g. checkerboards and mesh-dependency. Three typical numerical examples in topology optimization are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


Infrastructure-as-a-Service ("Cloud") data-centers intrinsically depend on high-performance networks to connect servers within the data-center and to the rest of the world. Cloud providers typically offer different service levels, and associated prices, for different sizes of virtual machine, memory, and disk storage. However, while all cloud providers provide network connectivity to tenant VMs, they seldom make any promises about network performance, and so cloud tenants suffer from highly-variable, unpredictable network performance.
 Many cloud customers do want to be able to rely on network performance guarantees, and many cloud providers would like to offer (and charge for) these guarantees. But nobody really agrees on how to define these guarantees, and it turns out to be challenging to define "network performance" in a way that is useful to both customers and providers. We attempt to bring some clarity to this question.


For the European abattoirs, the preferred carcass grading site is at the fifth rib, and cutting at the tenth rib as in Australia could lead to a lower economic value of the carcass. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare the grading scores of marbling and the meat and fat color on Musculus longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LTL) at the fifth and the tenth thoracic vertebrae. The consequences on the prediction of beef eating quality using the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) grading scheme were also evaluated for cull cows, which produce the majority of beef consumed in France. Carcasses from 208 French cattle, mainly Limousine cows, were graded according to the Australian Beef Carcase Chiller Assessment System (ABCAS) used for the implementation of the MSA system. The results indicate that there was no significant difference in the marbling score, between the fifth and the tenth ribs and hence in the MSA index and in the Global Quality [meat quality (MQ4)] scores calculated from marbling values from either the fifth rib or the tenth rib. However, the meat color at the tenth rib was significantly darker than that at the fifth rib (p < 0.01), and the fat color at the tenth rib was significantly yellower than that at the fifth rib (p < 0.001). The results of this study suggest that the grading of marbling can be conducted on M. LTL at the fifth thoracic vertebrae for routine use of the MSA system in France and, more generally, in Europe. However, further investigation and adjustment would be needed for other critical MSA scores (such as rib fat thickness) while respecting the European carcass quartering practices.


The objective of this study was to evaluate changes in the physical attributes of 'Palmer' mango coated with cassava starch biofilm. The fruits were selected, washed, sanitized and coated with the biofilm in the concentrations of 1%, 2% and 3% starch, except for the control (0%), being subsequently stored at 10 ± 0.5 °C and 60% relative humidity for 20 days. Assessments were made every five days to check weight loss, length and diameter, fruit firmness, solute leakage and color of the peel and pulp. The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design in a factorial 4x5 (coating concentrations x storage periods), with four replications. The results were submitted to analysis of variance and comparison of means by Tukey test at 5% probability. The cassava starch coating was characterized as a good alternative for maintaining the postharvest quality of the 'Palmer' mango in the concentrations from 2%, since it reduced the weight loss of the fruits and kept higher the firmness values, also being efficient in delaying the development of fruit peel color.


BACKGROUND
Almost all children with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) develop a scoliosis during childhood and adolescence. In the last decades, growth-friendly spinal implants have been established as an interim solution for these patients until definite spinal fusion can be performed. The effect of those implants on the final outcome has yet to be described.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the effect of prior growth-friendly spinal surgical treatment on the outcome after spinal fusion in SMA children in comparison to untreated SMA patients through the prospective study.

METHODS
A total of 28 SMA patients with (n = 14) and without (n = 14) prior surgical treatment with growth-friendly implants were included. Average surgical treatment prior to definite spinal fusion was 4.9 yr. Scoliotic curve angle, pelvic obliquity, spinal length, kyphosis, and lordosis were evaluated for children with prior treatment and before and after dorsal spondylodesis for all children.

RESULTS
The curve angle before definite spinal fusion averaged at 104° for SMA patients without prior treatment and 71° for patients with prior treatment. Spondylodesis reduced the scoliotic curve to 50° and 33°, respectively, which equals a correction of 52% vs 54%. Pelvic obliquity could be improved by spinal fusion in all patients with better results in the pretreated group. Results for spinal length, kyphosis, and lordosis were similar in both groups.

CONCLUSION
These data show the positive effect of prior growth-friendly surgical treatment on radiographic results of spinal fusion in children with SMA. Both scoliotic curve angles and pelvic obliquity showed significantly better values when patients had growth-friendly implants before definite spinal fusion.


We present multiwavelength optical linear polarimetric observations of 69 stars towards the young open cluster Berkeley 59. The observations reveal the presence of three dust layers located at distances of ∼300, ∼500 and ∼700 pc. The dust layers produce a total polarization P V ∼ 5.5 per cent. The mean values of polarization and polarization angles due to the dust layers are found to increase systematically with distance. We show that polarimetry in combination with the (U−B)–(B−V) colour–colour diagram yields a better identification of cluster members. The polarization measurements suggest that the polarization due the intracluster medium is ∼2.2 per cent. An anomalous reddening law exists for the cluster region, indicating a relatively larger grain size than that in the diffuse interstellar medium. The spatial variation of polarization and colour excess E(B−V) are found to increase with radial distance from the cluster centre, whereas θV and λmax are found to decrease with increasing radial distance from the cluster centre. About 40 per cent of cluster members show the signatures of either intrinsic polarization or rotation in their polarization angles. There is an indication that the starlight of the cluster members might have been depolarized because of non-uniform alignment of dust grains in the foreground dust layers and in the intracluster medium.


Convex-composite optimization, which minimizes an objective function represented by the sum of a differentiable function and a convex one, is widely used in machine learning and signal/image processing. Fast Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding Algorithm (FISTA) is a typical method for solving this problem and has a global convergence rate of $O(1 / k^2)$. Recently, this has been extended to multi-objective optimization, together with the proof of the $O(1 / k^2)$ global convergence rate. However, its momentum factor is classical, and the convergence of its iterates has not been proven. In this work, introducing some additional hyperparameters $(a, b)$, we propose another accelerated proximal gradient method with a general momentum factor, which is new even for the single-objective cases. We show that our proposed method also has a global convergence rate of $O(1/k^2)$ for any $(a,b)$, and further that the generated sequence of iterates converges to a weak Pareto solution when $a$ is positive, an essential property for the finite-time manifold identification. Moreover, we report numerical results with various $(a,b)$, showing that some of these choices give better results than the classical momentum factors.


We present a cell-based model of the Limulus lateral eye that computes the eye's input to the brain in response to any specified scene. Based on the results of extensive physiological studies, the model simulates the optical sampling of visual space by the array of retinal receptors (ommatidia), the transduction of light into receptor potentials, the integration of excitatory and inhibitory signals into generator potentials, and the conversion of generator potentials into trains of optic nerve impulses. By simulating these processes at the cellular level, model ommatidia can reproduce response variability resulting from noise inherent in the stimulus and the eye itself, and they can adapt to changes in light intensity over a wide operating range. Programmed with these realistic properties, the model eye computes the simultaneous activity of its ensemble of optic nerve fibers, allowing us to explore the retinal code that mediates the visually guided behavior of the animal in its natural habitat. We assess the accuracy of model predictions by comparing the response recorded from a single optic nerve fiber to that computed by the model for the corresponding receptor. Correlation coefficients between recorded and computed responses were typically >95% under laboratory conditions. Parametric analyses of the model together with optic nerve recordings show that animal-to-animal variation in the optical and neural properties of the eye do not alter significantly its response to objects having the size and speed of horseshoe crabs. The eye appears robustly designed for encoding behaviorally important visual stimuli. Simulations with the cell-based model provide insights about the design of the Limulus eye and its encoding of the animal's visual world.


Four patients with typical signs of congenital muscular dystrophy (C.M.D.), as described in the literature, are reported. In two young sisters born from consanguineous parents the presenting signs were severe congenital hypotonia in one and hypotonia with arthrogryposis in the other. The two other cases were adult patients with a long standing disease, the onset haring been marked by a transient neonatal hypotonia in one and by a congenital torticollis in the other. All 4 patients had progressively increasing muscle retractions, with absent reflexes in three. C.P.K. was moderately increased in all patients. Electromyography demonstrated myopathic abnormalities in 3 cases, associated in 2 cases with misleading pseudo-neurogenic signs. MUscle biopsy showed non specific changes compatible with muscular dystrophy: fibrosis and/or fat involution was marked in all cases, while necrosis of fibers was rarely observed. Histoenzymology and morphometry confirmed the absence of lesion specificity and their results were variable from case to case. A review of 92 published cases demonstrated that the course of the disease is very variable. A fatal outcome occurs in 15% of cases, while the affection becomes worse or remains stable with about the same frequency. A progressive worsening of muscle retractions is a characteristic finding in C.M.D. Genetically, most cases are of recessive autosomic. The current nosology of C.M.D. is probably inadequate, the clinical picture including cases that are likely to be due to different mechanisms that 2 present methods of investigation cannot demonstrate.


Life transitions represent moments characterized by changes that can profoundly influence individual life trajectories and subjective well-being. Recently, career coaching has become an important method of helping people expand their self-awareness, facilitate personal development, and increase their performance in the school-to-work transition. Although previous studies have confirmed that one of the most important keys to the success of a coaching program is the quality of the relationship between coach and coachee, there is a lack of knowledge regarding how to objectively measure it. In this pilot study, we adopted a neuroscientific approach to introduce objective measures of the relationship between coach and coachee through the phases of a coaching session. A sample of 14 university students and a professional coach participated in career-coaching sessions while their affective states were measured by recording brain (EEG) and physiological (Skin conductance) activity. Electroencephalographic indicators of valence, arousal, and engagement showed differences between session phases, highlighting the possibility of a neurophysiological measurement of relational dynamics. Our results provide initial evidence that neurophysiological activity can be considered a way to understand differences in the coach-coachee relationship, thereby providing information on the effectiveness of coaching interventions and facilitating a better life transition from school to work.


There is a need for research that explores the effects of music lesson on intellectual, behavioral, and emotional functioning of at-risk students who attend regular public school. Some students might benefit more from a direct approach utilizing therapeutic goals and interventions in music therapy while others may be more profoundly impacted by an indirect approach such as piano instruction. It is worthwhile to compare the effects of music lessons and music therapy incorporating music instruction on non-musical behaviors of at-risk students. The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of piano instruction and music therapy incorporating piano instruction on academic achievement, classroom behaviors, and self-esteem in at-risk students. Participants were 32 at-risk elementary school students (2nd, 3 rd, and 4th graders). They were randomly assigned to one of 10 weeks of 30 minute, one-to-one training conditions: music therapy incorporated piano instruction (n=11), piano instruction (n=11), and no-training (n=10). Participants' language and math scores, Teacher's Ratings of Classroom Behaviors (TRCB), and Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory were measured. There was no statistically significant difference between the training conditions. The present study investigated the effect of two different forms of music instruction; music therapy and piano instruction for at-risk students. With the breadth of variables to be considered and the conclusions drawn by some studies that music may indeed have a significant impact on this particular population, further research is warranted.


The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of various factors like profitability, growth opportunity, financial leverage, assets tangibility, operating cash flows, age and size of firm on working capital requirements (WCR) of manufacturing SMEs in India.,The paper uses a panel data regression model with fixed and random effect estimations. The data utilized in this study includes financial data of 254 manufacturing SMEs operating in India for the period 2010 to 2014.,The overall results of the study indicate that operating cash flow, financial leverage, profitability, sales growth and asset tangibility are the key drivers of WCR for Indian manufacturing SMEs. Profitability of firm and sales growth are found to be positively related to WCR. In contrast, asset tangibility, operating cash flow and financial leverage are found to be negatively related to WCR.,This paper investigates firm-specific factors while ignoring external factors like GDP growth, business indicators and industry type. Further research can be done to assess the effect of these external factors on WCR.,This research contributes to the working capital literature by providing empirical evidence on determining factors of WCR in manufacturing SMEs.


Abstract Background: Video head impulse test (vHIT) is widely accepted as a test for the assessment of functional integrity of semicircular canals (SCCs). It allows for the evaluation of the functioning of all six SCCs independent of each other. It works on the principle of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). In individuals with vestibular pathologies, the VOR is impaired, and hence, the use of vHIT may provide vital information about the functional status of SCCs and the VOR pathway originating from them. Purpose: In the recent past, studies reported excellent test–retest reliability of vHIT in healthy individuals. However, these studies used analysis of variance or the nonparametric counterpart Wilcoxon signed-rank test, which are insufficient statistical methods for conclusions about test–retest reliability. Further, because vHIT assesses VOR function in individuals with vestibular pathologies, it is important to assess test–retest reliability in the pathological group as well. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate test–retest reliability of vHIT in healthy individuals and individuals with vestibular pathology. Research Design: Repeated measures. Study Sample: Twenty healthy individuals with no history of vestibular pathology and 20 individuals with known vestibular pathology were included. Data Collection and Analysis: Each participant underwent vHIT testing for all three SCCs of both sides on four different occasions. VOR gain and the presence of pathological saccades were noted and analyzed for each recording. Results: Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) revealed excellent test–retest reliability for VOR gain in both groups (ICC ≥ 0.76). Kappa coefficient analysis for the presence of refixation saccades demonstrated moderate to excellent agreement between test sessions (K ≥ 0.63) for the lateral canal. For the anterior and posterior SCC, there was large variability between sessions for refixation saccades. Conclusions: This study provides evidence about test–retest reliability of VOR gain and refixation saccades assessed using vHIT in healthy individuals and individuals with vestibulopathies. These findings suggest that both measures are highly reliable and replicable across test sessions, except refixation saccades in vertical canals which varied between sessions in some individuals.


Cellulase induction by β-glucodisaccharides was investigated by using non-cellulase-induced mycelia of Penicillium purpurogenum P-26, a highly-cellulase-producing fungus. Gentiobiose induced significant amounts of cellulase compared with cellobiose when nojirimycin was added to the induction medium to inhibit extracellular β-glucosidase activity. Thiogentiobiose (6-S-β-d-glucopyranosyl-6-thio-d-glucose), a sulfur-containing analog of gentiobiose, was more effective for cellulase induction than gentiobiose even in the absence of nojirimycin. Thiogentiobiose appeared to be a gratuitous inducer since it was not metabolized during cellulase induction. Gentiobiose was formed from cellobiose by the intracellular β-glucosidase of P. purpurogenum. These findings indicate that gentiobiose is an active inducer of cellulase for this fungus and may possibly be formed by intracellular β-glucosidase from cellobiose.


The residual vibration of flexible systems can be reduced by shaping the reference command with notch filters, low-pass filters, and input shapers. Since the introduction of robust input shaping, there has been substantial evidence that input shaping is better than both notch and low-pass filtering for suppressing vibration in mechanical systems. Much of this evidence is empirical comparisons between traditional filters and robust input shapers. Given the large variety of filters and shapers and the large number of design strategies and parameters, there is still some uncertainty as to which approach is better. This paper seeks to end this debate by proving that notch and low-pass filters are never better than input shapers for suppressing mechanical vibration. This paper expands on previous efforts by presenting a proof showing that input shapers suppress vibration more quickly than notch or low-pass filters. The problem of suppressing multi-mode vibration is also examined. Experimental results from a portable bridge crane verify key theoretical results.


This paper examines M.R. Carey's fascinating zombie novel, The Girl with All the Gifts. While scholars question whether or not a female-oriented apocalypse narrative can exist, as thegenre is essentially rooted in imbalanced gender dynamics of ancient texts, this paper uses an ecofeminist critique to posit that the zombie apocalypse represented by Carey is a challenge toward the patriarchal values running rampant in the genre. This ecofeminist critique, while superficially offering a comforting message about female empowerment, actually offers a serious warning in regards to the insidious patriarchal structures that facilitate apocalypses.


HEARING loss in the ageing patient is common. In recent Australian surveys, 26.6% of the population have some hearing impairment, while in the 70+ age group this prevalence rises to 87.5%. Deterioration of hearing with increasing age is not inevitable. As a case in point, the Mabaan people of Sudan are known to maintain a healthy diet, exercising daily, avoiding tobacco smoke and noisy environments; most of this population maintain their hearing in the normal range well into old age. The normal processes of ageing affect all subsections of the ear, but it is the effects on the inner ear and the resultant sensorineural hearing loss that causes elderly patients the most morbidity. Presbycusis is the term used to describe sensorineural hearing loss secondary to the ageing process and is presumed to be the result of multiple, repeated insults to a patient's cochlear function. Presbycusis is both a diagnosis of exclusion and an umbrella term for multiple presumed pathological processes. Damage to the cochlea occurs due to the age-related accumulation of genetic damage and gradual decline in the numbers of neural and supporting cells within the cochlea. Other possible causes of cochlear damage include: • Noise. • Repeated exposure to ototoxic medications. • Vascular pathology. • Inflammation from nearby middleear disease. The higher incidence and greater severity of presbycusis in men is thought to be largely due to the differences in noise exposure experienced by men and women in occupational and recreational activities. Cell population decline has been observed at all locations along the auditory pathway. Central changes leading to difficulty with hearing can be classified as primary or secondary. Primary changes include reduced volume of brain tissue involved in auditory processing. Lipofuscin accumulation has also been noted in ageing central auditory neurons, as it has in ageing tissues elsewhere in the body. This senescent change is in addition to other pathologies common in the elderly that affect brain health, such as arteriosclerosis or respiratory failure. Overall, these hearing-related changes are referred to as central effects of biological ageing and have been found to cause difficulty in judging the duration of sounds, perceiving gaps in sounds and localising sounds in space. Secondary brain changes occur in situations of auditory deprivation from hearing loss due to pathology anywhere in the ear. Hearing-lossinduced neuroplasticity, or central effects of peripheral pathology, can increase the sensitivity (decreased decibel threshold) of the deprived central auditory neurons, typically at the expense of frequency and temporal resolution. There is, however, evidence for beneficial neuroplasticity when auditory input is restored, such as with 'aiding' of a previously unaided ear (ie, use of a hearing aid or implanted device). cont'd next page Hearing loss in the ageing patient


This paper presents a review of the principal cardiovascular conditions which are associated with or cause certain neurological lesions. Included are conditions such as rheumatic and coronary heart disease, bacterial and non-bacterial endocarditis, dissecting aneurysm of the aorta, cardiac arrhythmias, hypertension, congenital heart disease, mitral valve prolapse, and carotid sinus hypersensitivity. The purpose of the review is to call attention to the neurological complications which may confront the physician in treating the patient who presents with any of the entities listed above, and to indicate the type of management which is currently favored for the complications.


We describe matrix computations available in the cluster programming framework, Apache Spark. Out of the box, Spark comes with the mllib.linalg library, which provides abstractions and implementations for distributed matrices. Using these abstractions, we highlight the computations that were more challenging to distribute. When translating single-node algorithms to run on a distributed cluster, we observe that often a simple idea is enough: separating matrix operations from vector operations and shipping the matrix operations to be ran on the cluster, while keeping vector operations local to the driver. In the case of the Singular Value Decomposition, by taking this idea to an extreme, we are able to exploit the computational power of a cluster, while running code written decades ago for a single core. We conclude with a comprehensive set of benchmarks for hardware accelerated matrix computations from the JVM, which is interesting in its own right, as many cluster programming frameworks use the JVM.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the plasma concentrations and cardiac effects of endogenous digitalis-like substance (EDLS) before and after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB).

METHODS
29 adults patients with NYHA II - IV, who suffered from congenital and acquired heart diseases, were included in this study. The plasma EDLS levels were determined by radioimmunoassay before and at the end of CPB, 2 h, 6 h, 24 h and 3 days after operation.

RESULTS
The plasma EDLS concentrations in NYHA IV patients [(403 +/- 27) pg/mL] were significantly higher than those in II [(221 +/- 98) pg/mL] and III patients [(296 +/- 71 pg/mL), P < 0.01] before CPB. CPB could induce the release of EDLS. The EDLS concentrations in plasma increased to (683 +/- 371) pg/mL and (577 +/- 274) pg/mL at 2 h and 6 h respectively after CPB, and went back to normal at 24 h after operation. However, there was no relationship between plasma EDLS concentration and the time of ascending aorta blocked at 2 h or 6 h after operation (r = 0.0748 and 0.0393 respectively). Over 50% patients in the higher EDLS (> 1000 pg/mL) group are NYHA IV, and the ratio was significantly higher than that in lower EDLS group (< 999 pg/ mL, P < 0.05). There was no difference between higher and lower EDLS groups in respect of the requirement of inotropic support and blood pressure.

CONCLUSIONS
The EDLS release can be induced by heart failure and CPB. The plasma EDLS concentrations increase up to climax in 2-6 h after CPB. The higher plasma EDLS concentration may improve the cardiac function.


Books devoted to popularizing new developments in science most often present a basic problem for reviewing in a scholarly journal, and this book is not an exception to that rule. The problem is that in seeking to interest a wide range of individuals in the development of an area like evolutionary psychology, the author dramatically but incorrectly overstates the theoretical power of the new field. For instance, on pages fifteen and sixteen of the introduction, we are told that sexual liberation after the 1960s in industrialized countries, the surge in feminism, the entry of large numbers of women into professions, the embracing of short skirts, and the reemergence of the slender standard of attractiveness can all be explained "in terms of a relatively simple theory that relates evolved bodily signals and evolved relations between men and women to changes in the marriage prospects of each sex." Then we are told that unless we embrace this relatively simple theory, "we face the dismal prospect of concluding that changes in social trends for sexual behavior and romantic relationships are arbitrary and incomprehensible." Indeed, in the concluding chapter, we are told that before evolutionary psychology appeared, modern phenomena seemed to change arbitrarily, but now with the new magic model in hand, we can "find patterns where none previously existed" (p. 262). If only patterns of change in the modern social world were this clear and causes this discernible! Think of all the efforts that demographers, economists, cultural historians, sociologists, and non-evolutionary psychologists would be spared of even bothering to undertake. These caveat-free and Jehovah-like pronouncements occur throughout the book, and such theoretical imperialism will eventually give evolutionary psychology a bad name in the wider intellectual world. The position that a single theory can explain everything about complex cultural changes is pop psychology at its worst. These declarations mar what is otherwise a very informative and enjoyable summary of many strands of recent work in evolutionary psychology. The descriptions of natural and sexual selection, parental investment theory, marriage markets, the analysis of male and female strategies in a variety of behaviors related to sexuality and mating, the summaries of important works by leading evolutionary psychologists, all of these matters are presented in a clear and forthright manner. There are delightful presentations on beards, seduction, the hourglass figure, and a host of other enticing topics. I would highly recommend this work for an undergraduate class not familiar with the field, but looking for a user-friendly way to get a basic grasp on the key issues and research findings in this area. If all of the more specific topics were not enough for the students, the grandiose theoretical claims should be controversial enough to stir up lots of interesting discussion in the class. Of course, the reality is that evolutionary psychology is adding many new elements into the analysis of complex social changes and that true theoretical progress will come from the interdisciplinary merging of different but not really ultimately incompatible models. This book does not make such a contribution, but it does have other uses.


This study focused on the pulse shape evolution and spectral properties of the X-ray binary Her X-1 with regard to the well known 35-day cycle of Her X-1. A follow-up set of RXTE observations has been conducted in RXTE AO-2 phase and the two observation sets are being analyzed together. We presented results of early analysis of pulse shape evolution in "Proceedings of the Fourth Compton Symposium". More advanced analysis was presented at the HEAD meeting in November, 1997 in Estes Park, Colorado. A related study of the 35-day cycle using RXTE/ASM data, which laid out the overall picture within which the more detailed PCA observations could be placed has also been conducted. The results of this study have been published. A pair of papers on the detailed pulse evolution and the spectral/color evolution are currently being prepared for publication. Some of the significant results of this study have been a confirmation of the detailed pulse profile changes at the end of the Main High state in HerX-1 first observed by GINGA, observations of the pulse evolution in several Short High states which agree with the pulse evolution pattern predicted using a disk occultation model, observation of a systematic lengthening of the eclipse egress during the Main High state of the 35-day phase and observation of a new type of extended eclipse ingress during which pulsations cease to observed during the Short High state.


The etiology of acute confusional state in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus is broad, including hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, electrolyte imbalance as hyponatremia or hypercalcemia, cerebrovascular disease and drug intoxication among others. Herein, we present an 80‐year‐old female type 2 diabetic patient in an acute confusional state due to non‐convulsive status epilepticus (NCSE). Timely electroencephalogram at an emergency department when available is the only tool for the diagnosis of NCSE when clinically suspected. All clinicians must consider the possibility of NCSE in the differential diagnosis of acute confusional patients when diagnosis is uncertain.


To the Editor.—
 I was amazed and disappointed to read the concluding paragraph of Dr Wasserman's Letter to the Editor, `Lomotil Overdose,'1 wherein he states that Lomotil (diphenoxylate/atropine) intoxications "are rarely seen" now. The 1990 Annual Report of The American Association of Poison Control Centers National Data Collection System2 lists 1654 cases of diphenoxylate-atropine poisonings which include 1004 cases (61% approximately) involving children less than 6 years old, and two deaths. Talking about loperamide Dr Wasserman asks, "Will Imodium prove to be less dangerous to infants and young children than Lomotil? So far it seems that way."


This paper studies indoor Bluetooth network. wireless positioning using a network of Bluetooth signals. Fingerprints of received signal strength indicators are used for localization. Due to the relatively long interval between the available consecutive Bluetooth signal strength measurements, we propose a method of information filtering with speed detection, which combines the estimation information from the received signal strength (RSS) measurements with the prior information from the motion model. Speed detection is further assisted to correct the outliers of position estimation. The field tests show that the new algorithm proposed applying information filter with speed detection improves the horizontal positioning accuracy of indoor navigation with about 17% compared to the static fingerprinting positioning method, achieving a 4.2 m positioning accuracy on the average, and about 16% improvement compared to the point Kalman filter.


Neuroacanthocytosis is a group of disorders, clinically characterized with movement disorders, self-mutilation and seizures. There is little information in the literature regarding the clinical and EEG findings of the accompanying seizures in this neurodegenerative disorder. A 46-year-old man who was diagnosed as chorea-acanthocytosis, a subgroup of neuroacanthocytosis, was investigated for severe drug resistant seizures. Continuous video-EEG monitoring revealed an active left temporal epileptogenic focus with left temporal rhythmic discharges detected during his complex partial seizures. T2-weighted cranial MRI indicated hyperintensity of the left amygdala as well as hyperintensity and atrophy of bilateral basal ganglia. We discuss the development of focal seizures in a patient who has a neurodegenerative disease, namely neuroacanthocytosis.


Background: Warts, the most common manifestation caused by human papillomaviruses. Treatment is needed because of risk of transmission, cosmetic point of view, multiple, painful, and disfigurement caused by warts.

Aims and Objectives: In this study, two techniques of autologous therapy are compared in terms of safety and efficacy. Falknor's needling and autoimplantation, both are minimally invasive procedures with the aim of treating one wart and inducing immunity against the viral infected cells.

Materials and Methods: Forty patients of clinically diagnosed cutaneous warts were randomly divided into two groups. In Group A, Falknor's needling was performed on a single lesion in each patient. In Group B, autoimplantation was done by harvesting a single lesion and then implanting the tissue in subcutaneous tissue of the patient at other body site.

Results: Data were analyzed using SPSS software v. 23 (IBM Statistics, Chicago, USA) and Microsoft Office 2007. Both the modalities showed excellent response (P = 0.504) in the treatment of warts with Grade 4 improvement in 85% (17 patients each) in both the modalities, with 5% of the patients showing Grade 2 and Grade 3 improvement each in needling group.

Conclusion: Both the modalities of autologous therapy are simple, easy to perform, safe, and cheap modalities with excellent results in the treatment of cutaneous warts.


Requirements elicitation is known as most acute knowledge intensive activity of the procedure of software. The quality of the requirements supports in the success of any software development. The review of literature reveals that scientists have prepared major supports by emerging various tools and methods of requirement elicitation process. However, there are still many challenges faced by requirements engineers in order to carry out requirements elicitation activity in the entire process. Some of the key challenges are poor communication between user and analyst, support tools and stakeholder involvement. These issues may lead to inefficient result and the end of the system development. The previous research history exposes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods may help in this regard by providing effective communication between user and analyst by proposing several methods/tools to computerize certain procedures up to a certain extent. The intention of this study is to classify the issues in every phase of the requirements elicitation and explore of AI techniques to solve these recognized challenges. Additionally, the study also discovers the connection between these challenges and their potential AI explanation/s through Venn-Diagram. This study is an addition towards our prior efforts and here, an attempt is made to incorporate and describe AI techniques in many requirements elicitation techniques.


Introduction. Listeriosis is a foodborne infection, especially dangerous for people in at-risk groups. Susceptibility to listeria infection is determined by a complex of reasons: environmental factors, host immune status, and pathogen virulence. The susceptibility to listeriosis can also be aggravated by previous infections, especially viral infections, which demonstrate a steadily increasing number of identified pathogens.The aim of our study was to present molecular and genetic characterization of pathogens causing sporadic invasive listeriosis in a megalopolis, primarily during the peak of influenza and ARVI incidence.Materials and methods. Listeria monocytogenes isolates were collected from 18 hospitalized patients at hospitals in Moscow, from November 2018 to October 2019. The first comparison group was represented by isolates from food products and fish preserves. The second comparison group included previously examined environmental isolates. The clinical isolates were examined by using multilocus sequence typing techniques, including the standard MLST scheme extended by loci of internalin genes. Isolates of the autochthonous genotype (ST7) were compared through whole-genome sequencing and subsequent analysis of the core genome (cgMLST).Results. In cases of invasive listeriosis, 44% of isolates were isolated from patients with listeriosis; 27% of isolates were obtained from patients with meningitis. L. monocytogenes of phylogenetic lineage II prevailed in these groups of cases that occurred when the epidemic threshold for influenza was crossed during the 2018/2019 season. Listeria pneumonia identified in the senior age group occurred during the season of autumn ARVI and was primarily caused by L. monocytogenes of phylogenetic lineage I. The examination of genomes of ST7 isolates demonstrated identity between the core genomes of bacteria isolated from the mother-infant pair. Out of ST7 food isolates most closely related to the clinical ones was the isolate from meat (23 locus differences, the common deletion in the MFS transporter locus). Analyzing invasive listeriosis, the comparison between the list of the identified genotypes and the data from European countries showed that each country had its own specific range of genotypes, though ST7 was detected in all the examined samples.Conclusions. Along with the monitoring of food manufacturing and storage, timely vaccination against seasonal respiratory infections and use of personal protective equipment in public spaces can reduce the risk of listeriosis incidence in at-risk groups.


To inform choices about the future of people who study public health and preventive medicine, the current status of public health is examined in terms of the public health sector in government. After tracing the major achievements of public health in the modern era, this paper explores the potential of public health and its core functions, which is realized by public health professionals working in the government sector. Finally, this article highlights the international dimension of public health, which is becoming increasingly important and therefore attracting many people who would like to take part.


We consider discrete dynamical systems whose phase spaces are compact metrizable countable spaces. In the first part of the article, we study some properties that guarantee the continuity of all functions of the corresponding Ellis semigroup. For instance, if every accumulation point of $X$ is fixed, we give a necessary and sufficient condition on a point $a\in X'$ in order that all functions of the Ellis semigroup $E(X,f)$ be continuous at the given point $a$. In the second part, we consider transitive dynamical systems. We show that if $(X,f)$ is a transitive dynamical system and either every function of $E(X,f)$ is continuous or $|\omega_f(x)|=1$ for each accumulation point $x$ of $X$, then $E(X,f)$ is homeomorphic to $X$. Several examples are given to illustrate our results.


Objective This study aims to identify the risk factors of physical violence against healthcare professionals in Nishtar Hospital Multan Pakistan. Study design Descriptive cross-sectional study Place and duration of study Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Nishtar Medical University Multan, Pakistan. The time span of study was from January 2016 to December 2017. Method A non-probabilistic strategy was used to select 200 healthcare professionalswho were serving at Nishtar hospital Multan Pakistan. We first obtained lists of all healthcare workers employed at our university hospital from hospital management and human resource department. We combined these lists, assigned a number to the name of each worker, and selected an average of 200 personnel from our university hospital. The study samples included doctors, nurses, and paramedical staff (e.g., medical technicians and administrative staff). All the members of study population were well informed of the purposes and methods of the study. Then we distributed the questionnaire. All the healthcare professionals responded as per their opinion and experiences and submitted it to a specified box. The dara were retrieved and analyzed by using computer program SPSS 20 version. Results Out of total study population a total of eighty six (43%) healthcare professionals reported that they were physically attacked in their hospital in the previous 12 months. Most of the time this illegal action was performed by the relatives of the patients (88 %), followed by the patient (12%); 73.6% of perpetrators young aged between 20 to 40 years of age. Pertaining to physical violence incidents, approximately 91% (n = 182) resulted in a physical injury, and 55.4% of respondents took two or three days of sick leave after sustaining that physical injury. Surprisingly, the reporting of workplace violence in hospitals to law enforcing agencies and higher authorities of hospital administration was considerably low (12.4%). Most of the healthcare professionals (87%) did not receive training on how to avoid workplace violence (n=174). The study showed that general nurses, aged 35 years or younger, were more likely to experience physical violence. Healthcare professionals with direct physical contact (washing, turning, lifting) with patients had a higher risk of physical violence compared to other health care workers. The lengthy and cumbersome legal and administrative delays in the procedures for reporting workplace violence were a major cause for physical violence. At work place, the reporting of incidence after psychological violence was protective than to waiting until an instance of physical violence takes palce. Conclusions Physical violence in hospitals is an occupational hazard for public health concern. Policy makers and higher authorities should introduce legal procedures and intervention to cope with this serious issue.


This series of two articles presents a model of play development for use in pediatric occupational therapy. Proposing to unify the theoretical approaches of sensory integration and occupational behavior, the model uses play as the unifying link between these two apparently different approaches. This first article reviews the major concepts of sensory integration and occupational behavior, in addition to discussing the differences and similarities between the two. General systems concepts are used as a framework upon which a model of play development is constructed. Three hierarchical levels of play are described--sensorimotor, constructive, and social--with each broken down into several developmental steps.


This paper considers the Gaussian half-duplex relay channel (G-HD-RC): a channel model where a source transmits a message to a destination with the help of a relay that cannot transmit and receive at the same time. It is shown that the cut-set upper bound on the capacity can be achieved to within a constant gap, regardless of the actual value of the channel parameters, by either partial-decode-and-forward or compress-and-forward. The performance of these coding strategies is evaluated with both random and deterministic switch at the relay. Numerical evaluations show that the actual gap is less than what analytically obtained, and that random switch achieves higher rates than deterministic switch. As a result of this analysis, the generalized degrees-of-freedom of the G-HD-RC is exactly characterized for this channel. In order to get insights into practical schemes for the G-HD-RC that are less complex than partial-decode-and-forward or compress-and-forward, the exact capacity of the linear deterministic approximation (LDA) of the G-HD-RC at high signal-to-noise-ratio is determined. It is shown that random switch and correlated nonuniform inputs bits are optimal for the LDA. It is then demonstrated that deterministic switch is to within one bit from the capacity. This latter scheme is translated into a coding strategy for the original G-HD-RC and its optimality to within a constant gap is proved. The gap attained by this scheme is larger than that of partial-decode-and-forward, thereby pointing to an interesting practical tradeoff between gap to capacity and complexity.


The mature adrenal cortex is dependent upon proopiomelanocortin (POMC)-derived peptides for the maintenance of its size, structure, and endocrine function. Recent studies in mice genetically deficient in POMC have suggested that early exposure to POMC-derived peptides might also be necessary for the development of a functionally competent adrenal. We examined adrenal morphology and function in an independent line of mice lacking all POMC-derived peptides (Pomc-/-). Adrenal glands were found in all mice, although the glands of Pomc-/- mice had markedly reduced weight compared with control animals (0.5 +/- 0.1 vs. 2.1 +/- 0.1 mg, respectively; P < 0.05) and had disrupted cortical architecture. In Pomc-/- mice, plasma corticosterone was undetectable, and plasma aldosterone was significantly reduced compared with wild-type mice (498 +/- 88 vs. 1845 +/- 168 nmol/liter, respectively; P < 0.001). Heterozygous mice (Pomc+/-) had smaller adrenal glands with significantly lower levels of corticosterone both basally and in response to CRH and ACTH than wild-type mice, indicating that two functional copies of the Pomc gene are necessary to support the fully normal function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Three-month-old Pomc-/- mice were treated for 10 d with a highly specific ACTH analog. This treatment restored adrenal weight, cortical morphology, and plasma corticosterone to the levels seen in wild-type littermates. In conclusion, murine adrenal glands can develop without exposure to endogenous POMC-derived peptides during fetal and neonatal life. Although such glands are atrophic and hypofunctional, exposure to ACTH alone can restore their size, morphology, and corticosterone secretion.


This work is a phenomenological attempt to predict the dynamical response of a sand heap due to rotation about its vertical axis. We have attempted experiments and we developed a model in order to describe the effect of the rotation on the pile's surface from a dimensionless force balance equation using Coulomb's law. We obtained good agreement between the experimental patterns and the theory, depending on the material through the solid friction angle, and we gave a plausible mechanism for the way in which the history of the pile is determined by dynamical (Froude number) and material (friction coefficient) parameters.


The influence of Pb excess on the properties of lead lanthanum titanate (PLT) ferroelectric thin films on Pt and LaNiO3 electrodes is studied in this paper. Electron probe analysis results show that there is still quite an amount of excess Pb in PLT films after annealing at 550 °C for one hour. The distribution of excess Pb in the films is investigated by an Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth profile. It is found that the bottom electrodes have significant effects on both the content and the distribution of excess Pb in the PLT films. Meanwhile, the bottom electrodes have great effects on the size of the grains and also on the distribution of the excess Pb. The excess Pb and its appearance at grain boundaries and accumulation at the interface between the film and bottom electrodes may act as pinning centres and have a pinning effect on domains, which can be observed by abnormal P-E hysteresis loops and abnormal C-V curves. The excess Pb content in the films and Pb accumulation at the interface is high in the PLT films deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si; their pinning is severe. This is one of the primary reasons why the films have a high fatigue rate. While LaNiO3 has absorbed most of the excess Pb in PLT films, the content of excess Pb in the films deposited on LaNiO3/SiO2/Si is very low: the pinning effect is hardly observed. This is one of the primary reasons that the films have good fatigue properties.


L is an extensible high-level intermediate language. Its intended application is the construction of compiler back-ends and run-time libraries for high-level programming languages with complex built-in data structures, such as Hilfinger and Colella''s FIDIL language. L provides a general-purpose abstract machine, Basil, and machinery for extending it. L has been used to define the abstract machine INFIDEL, described in a separate report. We call L a ``high-level'''' intermediate language for several reasons. First, the target machine of L is a generic processor, or multiprocessor, programmable in C. The ``assembly language'''' used by L is C. Second, L strives to be usable both as an intermediate language and a programming language. The typical extension of L is expected to have a large run-time library, also written in L. Many operators in the extended abstract machine are implemented by function calls to this library.


Partial hepatectomy (PHx) is a surgical intervention where a part of the liver is removed. Due to its extraordinary capacity to regenerate, the liver is able to regenerate about two-thirds of its mass within a few weeks. Nevertheless, in some patients regeneration fails. Understanding the principles and limitations underlying regeneration may permit to control this process and prospectively improve the regeneration. Here, we established a simulation model to mimic the process of regeneration in the liver lobe of a mouse. This model represents each hepatocyte individually and builds upon a previous computational model of regeneration of drug induced damage in a single liver lobule. The present study simulates entire liver lobes that consist of hundreds to thousands of lobules. It accounts for biomechanical control of cell cycle progression (Biomechanical Growth Control), which has not been considered in that previous work. The model reproduced the available experimental observations only if BGC was taken into account. Interestingly, the model predicted that BGC minimizes the number of proliferating neighbor cells of a proliferating cell resulting in a checkerboard-like proliferation pattern. Moreover, the model predicted different cell proliferation patterns in pigs and mice that corresponded to data obtained from regenerating tissue of the two species. In conclusion, the here established model suggest that biomechanical control mechanisms may play a significant role in liver regeneration after PHx.


This study explores the performance and relational role of toast intervention in Chinese dining contexts. The
 analysis of both interactional data and post-event interview data indicates that the detection of moral transgression and moral
 identification may outweigh the power relationship and social distance in the interactional practice, and that toast intervention,
 by default, is relationally constructive even in seemingly conflictive situations. As a complement to previous research on ritual
 communication, such as countering the heckler and bystander intervention which focus on genuine aggression, this study sheds light
 on the ritual act of toast intervention as 'mock intervention', which is a form of 'mock moral aggression' similar to ritual
 teasing. Thus, this study reveals the greater significance of moral identification compared to other contextual factors, and its
 role in explaining the relational consequences of toast intervention in Chinese dining contexts.


ABSTRACT The clay ceramics industry comprises materials used in construction (bricks, tiles, and expanded clay, among others), is of great importance for Brazilian economic development, and the industry is seeking new sources of raw material, mainly clay. The present work aims to characterize a clay deposit located in the central region of the state of Piauí, to make feasible its use as ceramic raw material, seeking to boost the clay ceramics industry. The chemical composition, the crystalline phases, and the plasticity of the clay were analyzed. Specimens were prepared by uniaxial pressing, dried in an oven at 110 °C, and then heated to 900 °C, 1000 °C, and 1100 °C. Bending strength, apparent porosity, linear shrinkage, water absorption, and mineralogical, macrostructural, and microstructural analyses were determined. The results showed an improvement in the indices with the increase in the firing temperature and that the samples showed a reddish coloration due to the presence of iron, as well as quartz and kaolinite. Thus, the clay deposit has the potential to become raw material for the clay ceramics industry in the state of Piauí.


Background: Soy phytochemicals, particularly isoflavones, are hypothesized to have anti-prostate cancer activity. Soy isoflavones are present predominantly as glucosides but when combined with β-glucosidase activity in almond meal, a greater conversion to aglycones has been observed. We hypothesized that soy bread will serve as an excellent source of soy polyphenols and that an aglycone-rich soy-almond bread (SAB) compared to a glycoside-rich soy bread (SB) will demonstrate greater bioavailability of soy isoflavones. Methods: SB and SAB were fed in a 20 week randomized phase II cross-over trial involving 32 men with asymptomatic metastatic prostate cancer and escalating prostate specific antigen (PSA). Isoflavones were quantitated by HPLC in soy breads and isoflavone metabolites in 24h urine. HPLC-tandem mass spectrometry evaluated isoflavone pharmacokinetics in plasma. Biomarkers were determined by chemiluminescence-based assays. Results: The aglycone composition in the SB and SAB was 18% and 78%, respectively. Compliance was 95±14%, toxicity rare and limited to grade I GI complaints (NIH_NCI criteria). Urinary isoflavone patterns over 24hours revealed that isoflavonoid metabolites were significantly greater with soy bread consumption. Plasma pharmacokinetics following a test meal showed that daidzein (p=0.028) and genistein (p=0.010) absorption was significantly faster from the aglycone-rich SAB. Interestingly, PSA doubling time was prolonged compared to pre-enrollment, in 60% of men (n=30) with soy intervention. Conclusions: Bread is an excellent vehicle for the delivery of soy phytochemicals with outstanding compliance. Modification of soy bread with a source of β-glucosidase may enhance the initial absorption rates of isoflavones. Food products, such as SAB, with consistent and stable composition of phytochemicals can be developed that are appropriate for long-term chemoprevention studies in humans or as an adjunct to therapy. Citation Format: Jennifer H. Ahn-Jarvis, Steven K. Clinton, Elizabeth M. Grainger, Kenneth M. Riedl, Steven J. Schwartz, Yael Vodovotz. Isoflavone pharmacokinetics and metabolism after consumption of soy and soy-almond bread in men with asymptomatic prostate cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-188. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-LB-188