The paper reveals the experimental results of long-term agroecological monitoring of agricultural land, conducted by Tomsk state agrochemical service, and experiments on designing the measures to improve efficiency of acidic arable land. In Tomsk region, 83% of arable land is acidic and the degree of acidity increases annually. Every 10 years weighted average pH is reduced on 0.1-0.2 units; the area of acidic soils increases. There is an urgent need for liming these soils in order to improve efficiency of agricultural production in Tomsk region. According to the calculations, the region requires 3,248 million tons of chalky flour. The region has its own large deposits of limestone, for example Kamenskoe (61 million tons), located 50 km from Tomsk, where it is possible to produce valuable meliorant, increasing efficiency of agricultural production. The authors make case, that for successful development of agricultural production in Tomsk region, it is necessary to design and implement long-term target program "Chalking of acid soils in Tomsk region", which assumes compensation for agricultural producers for the part of the cost of liming; design and technical support of works; local production of limestone meliorants. Implementation of the acidic soil liming program will increase annual crop production in Tomsk region on 54.9 - 129.2 thousand tons of grain units, therefore it will increase annual income on 494.1 - 1162.8 million rubles (in 2017 prices), as well as ensure further increase in agricultural land fertility with high fertilizer efficiency, product quality and profitability.


Seizures and status epilepticus are among the neurological complications of cocaine overdose in humans. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the protective effectiveness and therapeutic index (separation between anticonvulsive and side effect profiles) of 14 newly approved and potential antiepileptic drugs using a murine model of acute cocaine toxicity and the inverted-screen test for behavioral side effect testing. Cocaine (75 mg/kg i.p.) produces clonic seizures (approximately 90% of mice), and conventional antiepileptic drugs have been reported to be either ineffective or only effective at doses producing significant sedative/ataxic effects. Clobazam, flunarizine, lamotrigine, topiramate, and zonisamide were ineffective against seizures up to doses producing significant motor impairment. In contrast, felbamate, gabapentin, loreclezole, losigamone, progabide, remacemide, stiripentol, tiagabine, and vigabatrin produced dose-dependent protection against cocaine-induced convulsions with varied separations between their anticonvulsant and side effect profiles: the protective index values (toxic TD(50)/anticonvulsive ED(50)) ranged from 1.26 (felbamate) to 7.67 (loreclezole), and gabapentin had the highest (protective index >152). Thus, several drugs were identified with greater protective efficacy and reduced motor impairment compared with classic antiepileptic drugs. Based on the proposed mechanism of action of these new anticonvulsants, it is noteworthy that 1) drugs that enhance gamma-aminobutyric acid-mediated neuronal inhibition in a manner distinct from barbiturates and benzodiazepines offer the best protective/behavioral side effect profiles, and 2) functional antagonists of Na(+) and Ca(2+) channels are generally ineffective. Overall, this study provides the first description of the effectiveness of new antiepileptic drugs against experimentally induced cocaine seizures and points to several drugs that deserve clinical scrutiny for this indication.


Main call for Cloud computing is that users only utilize what they required and only pay for what they really use. Mobile Cloud Computing refers to an infrastructure where data processing and storage can happen away from mobile device. Portio research estimates that mobile subscribers worldwide will reach 6.9 billion by the end of 2013 and 8 billion by the end of 2016. Ericsson also forecasts that mobile subscriptions will reach 9 billion by 2017. Due to increasing use of mobile devices the requirement of cloud computing in mobile devices arise, which gave birth to Mobile Cloud Computing. Mobile devices do not need to have large storage capacity and powerful CPU speed. Due to storing data on cloud there is an issue of data security. Because of the risk associated with data storage many IT professionals are not showing their interest towards Mobile Cloud Computing. To ensure the correctness of users' data in the cloud, we propose an effective mechanism with salient feature of data integrity and confidentiality. This paper proposed a mechanism which uses the concept of RSA algorithm, Hash function along with several cryptography tools to provide better security to the data stored on the mobile cloud.


We show that in a quantum wire the effective spin-orbit-induced internal magnetic field leads to a narrow spin-flip resonance at low temperatures in the absence of an applied magnetic field. An applied dc magnetic field perpendicular to and small compared with the spin-orbit field enhances the resonance absorption by several orders of magnitude. The component of the applied field parallel to the spin-orbit field separates the resonance frequencies of right and left movers and enables a linearly polarized ac electric field to produce a dynamic magnetization as well as electric and spin currents.


This paper describes and assesses "Show me your family and I will show you mine," an active learning technique used for engaging students with family development theory (FDT). Students draw pictures of their families at three different points in time: when they entered it, when they graduated from high school, and five years from now. After allowing time for interested students to share their drawings with the class, students are asked to reflect on a number of questions that help them apply theoretical assumptions and concepts to their own life experiences. Along with providing logistical details of the in-class activity, the authors assess the extent to which the activity helped students personally apply FDT theoretical concepts and assumptions in understanding their own families over time. Results suggest students are capable of analyzing their families at three points of time using an FDT theoretical lens and language, as well as reflecting on strengths and challenges of using the theory.


Local communities in Ghana are heavily reliant on agriculture for their livelihoods. However, they are increasingly shifting from engaging in agriculture to mining. This study was undertaken to assess the impact of mining (both small and large scale) on the livelihoods of community members of Kenyasi, Asutifi North District in Ghana. Data were collected from 201 farming households who were selected randomly and interviewed for a variety of information. The questionnaire responses received from the respondents were classified into items and each item's responses were tallied. The results of the studies show that the farmers' livelihood systems were affected by the mining operations occurring around their communities. Water pollution, displacement of farmers from their lands, degradation of agricultural lands, and an increase in social vices and higher dropout rates of students from schools are some of the reported consequences of the mining activities. The pollution of the water resources poses a serious threat to the health and livelihood systems of these farmers as they depend on the water resources for agriculture and domestic use. In this study, we project that there could be increased grievances over scarce land resource and food insecurity that could lead to conflicts in the mining areas. The lack of land resources could have a tremendous effect on the social, economic, and political climate of a country and must be considered and addressed as some of the most immediate threats to Ghana's national security.


This study performed observation of human brain activity in response to audio stimuli using Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography (ECVT). The observation was done by interpreting and examining 32-channels ECVT Brain Scanner's image. Hearing activity in brain was recorded while a single tone stimulus with three different frequencies −500 Hz, 1000 Hz, and 4000 Hz, was played into the right ear of each subjects. ECVT's measurement data then being reconstructed into permittivity distribution-displayed as brain image, by using average subtraction method and ILBP algorithm. Since ECVT has limitation on its spatial resolution and its original reconstructed image of brain cannot specifically show the exact location of the activated brain yet, it needs further processing. Image is processed by determining centroid distance from entire produced frames to get sliced area which is estimated as auditory cortex — activated brain area when human hears. By this method, we can get a sliced area with permittivity distribution reach maximum value, 1. The sliced area then being segmented by its colour on a scale range at 0.8–1 — shown by red colour. Images processed by centroid method are correlated with coefficient of correlation is higher than 0.5 in all stimulus conditions. It shows that ECVT can be considered as a promising technique for classification of activated brain area for neuroscience applications.


Abstract : On January 24, 2013, the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the rescission of the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule (DGCDAR). The 1994 DGCDAR restricted assignments of women to occupational specialties or positions in or collocated with direct ground combat units below the brigade level, in long-range reconnaissance and special operations forces, and in positions involving physically demanding tasks. The effect of this rescission will be to open previously closed occupations-including the United States Marine Corps (USMC) infantry-to women who can meet occupation-specific, gender-neutral standards of performance. This decision to rescind the DGCDAR could open more than 230,000 positions in the U.S. armed forces to women. The services were required to report their implementation plans to the Department of Defense (DoD) by May 2013, and they have until January 2016 to seek exemptions if they want any positions to remain closed to women. In response to this change in policy, the Marine Corps Combat Development Command asked RANDs National Defense Research Institute to assist in identifying the issues that may arise if women are integrated into the Marine Corps infantry, describe efforts that have been successful in addressing these issues in the past, and estimate the potential costs associated with integration. This research should be of interest to USMC and other DoD policymakers, as well as others interested in the potential implications of integrating women into the USMC infantry.


Food additive is a double-edged sword. It has merits and demerits. Food additives have such merits as improving sensory properties of foods, preventing deterioration and extending the shelf life, increasing varieties of foods, enhancing convenience of foods, facilitating food processing, and satisfying other demands. However, excessive and illegal use of food additives will exert adverse influence on food security. Therefore, it is required to take proper measures to bring merits of food additives into full play, and get rid of their demerits.


In this paper it is shown how higher-dimensional solitons can be stabilized by a topological phase gradient, a field-induced shift in effective dimensionality. As a prototype, two instable 2-dimensional radial symmetric Sine-Gordon extensions (pulsons) are coupled by a sink/source term such, that one becomes a stable 1d and the other a 3d wave equation. The corresponding physical process is identified as a polarization that fits perfectly to preliminary considerations regarding the nature of electric charge and background of 1/137. The coupling is iterative with convergence limit and bifurcation at high charge. It is driven by the topological phase gradient or non-local Gauge potential that can be mapped to a local oscillator potential under PSL(2,R).


A Study has been carried out to understand the opportunities, growth and problems of women in business in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Chandigarh. Besides, an attempt has been made to identify the basic problems faced by them in dealing with family and the society. Chi-square test has been used for analysis of the economic performance of women entrepreneurs. The parameters of the study include the amount of financial leverage taken, rate of growth, their market share and the various sources of finance. Similarly, the financial support provided by the banks & other financial agencies has also been analysed in order to get an idea about their financing needs & fulfillment of the same. ABSTRACT


Computer analysis of M-mode echocardiograms has been used for evaluation of left ventricular function. Ventricular dimensions and velocities of heart wall movement have been measured. In addition, a non-invasive estimate of ventricular wall stress has been obtained using the systolic cuff blood pressure combined with echocardiogram data, and simultaneous apex cardiography has been employed to look for any disruption in the timing of changes in ventricular dimension and wall stress. Various parameters have been calculated from the data to provide a quantitative indication of changes in the ventricle. A study has been carried out of 117 patients divided into four groups; one of normal subjects and the others containing patients with ischaemic heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and dilated cardiomyopathy. Abnormal features of the echocardiograms have been evaluated from comparisons with data for normal subjects. Relationships between the quantities measured have been studied to give a fuller understanding of changes taking place in the ventricle, so that the data can be employed as the basis for a non-invasive assessment of ventricular function.


The recollection of environmental cues associated with threat or reward allows animals to select the most appropriate behavioral responses. Neurons in the prelimbic cortex (PL) respond to both threat- and reward-associated cues. However, it remains unknown whether PL regulates threat-avoidance vs. reward-approaching responses when an animals' decision depends on previously associated memories. Using a conflict model in which male Long-Evans rats retrieve memories of shock- and food-paired cues, we observed two distinct phenotypes during conflict: i) rats that continued to press a lever for food (Pressers); and ii) rats that exhibited a complete suppression in food seeking (Non-Pressers). Single-unit recordings revealed that increased risk-taking behavior in Pressers is associated with persistent food-cue responses in PL, and reduced spontaneous activity in PL glutamatergic (PLGLUT) neurons during conflict. Activating PLGLUT neurons in Pressers attenuated food-seeking responses in a neutral context, whereas inhibiting PLGLUT neurons in Non-Pressers reduced defensive responses and increased food approaching during conflict. Our results establish a causal role for PLGLUT neurons in mediating individual variability in memory-based risky decision making by regulating threat-avoidance vs. reward-approach behaviors.


This work is based on the amplitude correlation analysis of the signals from a poloidal Mirnov-coil array on the Wendelstein 7 Advanced Stellarator (W7-AS). The motivation behind this work is an earlier finding, that changes in the RMS amplitude of Mirnov-coil signals are correlated with the amplitude of small scale density turbulence measured by CO2 Laser Scattering. Based on this and other measurements, the hypothesis was set, that some of the magnetic fluctuations are caused by transient MHD modes excited by large turbulent structures. The statistical dependencies between the power modulations of different eigenmodes can provide information about the statistics of these structures. Our amplitude correlation method is based on linear continuous time-frequency representations of the signal, we use Short-Time Fourier Transformation (STFT) with Gabor-atoms to map the signal onto the time-frequency plane, as two dimensional power density distributions. From these transforms we can recover the power modulation of different frequency bands. Provided the selection of the resolution of the transforms and the limits of the frequency bands were correct, the time series calculated this way resembles the original power fluctuation of the selected eigenmode. The only distortion introduced is a convolution smoothing by the time-window used in the transformation. Detailed correlation analysis between different bandpowers of the Mirnov-coil array signals were carried out and presented in bad and good confinement states. In order to reveal the true structure and cause of magnetic fluctuations Mirnov-coil diagnostic signals were also compared with Lithium beam and CO2 Laser Scattering measurements. In our analysis we have found, that there was a strong and systematic difference in the cross-correlations of power bands between different confinement states.


Visible-infrared cross-modality person re-identification (VI-ReID), whose aim is to match person images between visible and infrared modality, is a challenging cross-modality image retrieval task. Most existing works integrate batch normalization layers into their neural network, but we found out that batch normalization layers would lead to two types of distribution gap: 1) inter-mini-batch distribution gap— the distribution gap of the same modality between each mini-batch; 2) intra-mini-batch modality distribution gap—the distribution gap of different modality within the same mini-batch. To address these problems, we propose a new batch normalization layer called Modality Batch Normalization (MBN), which normalizes each modality sub-mini-batch respectively instead of the whole mini-batch, and can reduce these distribution gap significantly. Extensive experiments show that our MBN is able to boost the performance of VI-ReID models, even with different datasets, backbones and losses.


The RFID system, a core technology used in building a ubiquitous environment utilizing radio frequency identification, is an alternative to bar-codes. The RFID system has become very popular, with various strengths such as recognition speed and non-touch method. However, there are some problems remaining as the low- cost tag can be operated through query, which leads to information exposure and privacy encroachment. Various approaches have been used to increase security of the system, but the low-cost tag, which has about 5 K-10 K gate capabilities, can only allocate 250-3 K gate to security. Therefore, the current study will provide a reciprocal authentication solution that can be used with low-cost RFID systems, by separating 64 bit keys and minimizing calculations. Existing systems divided a 96 bit key into 4 parts. However, the proposed system reduces the key to 32 bits, and reduces the communications down to 5 from 7. Also, one additional random number is added to the existing two numbers to increase security. To improve the previous system, which only provided XOR calculations, an additional hash function was added. The added procedure does not increase effectiveness, compared to the XOR calculation, but does provide more security to the RFID system, which can be used in remote distances.


The two-minute walk test (2MWT) is less well validated than the well-known six-minute walk test (6MWT) as a field walking test in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The primary objective of this study was to compare the accuracy of the 2MWT to the 6MWT in detecting exercise-induced oxygen desaturation in patients with severe COPD. Twenty-six patients with COPD (age: 61 ± 10 years, forced expired volume in one second: 37 ± 10%) that were normoxemic at rest performed a 2MWT and a 6MWT under normal ambient conditions on two consecutive days in random order. Oxygen saturation, total walking distance, heart rate, breathing frequency, dyspnea, and leg fatigue were evaluated. Average walking distances were 150 m (95% confidence interval (95% CI): 134–165 m) and 397 m (95% CI: 347–447 m) for the 2MWT and 6MWT, respectively (r = 0.80, p < 0.0001). The difference in minimum oxygen saturation during the 2MWT (83%, 95% CI: 81–86%) and 6MWT (mean 82%, 95% CI: 80–84%) was not statistically different and the data strongly correlated between the groups (r = 0.81, p < 0.0001). Other measurements from the 6MWT, including heart rate, breathing rate, and levels of perceived exertion were also comparable in 2MWT. The 2MWT showed comparable validity in detecting exercise-induced oxygen desaturation in patients with severe COPD compared to the 6MWT.


For missions in Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR) maps are often a core deliverable. Hence it is of high interest to assess the quality of maps in a simple and efficient way. Since SSRR is mostly taking place in unstructured environments, 3D mapping has become more and more important. Here a method to evaluate the quality of 3D maps is presented that extends the previously developed 2D Fiducial approach to the third dimension. The artificial features are identified and located in 2D cross-sections of the map as well as in the 3D maps. It is then attempted to proof this concept using a ground truth map and robot generated maps from the RoboCup Rescue competition 2013 in Eindhoven.


Although the vast majority of research focuses on differences across races, recent research has also considered disparities within racial groups. Intraracial discrimination or colorism is defined as a bias between members of the same racial group. Prior research has found a strong relationship between skin tone of African American men and economic outcomes. This article examines the relationship between skin tone and compensation for a sample of highly paid African American men, namely, professional basketball players. One innovation is to use an objective measure of skin tone. The authors find only weak support for customer discrimination and no support for employer discrimination based on skin tone.


2012 was a year of significant developments for Kosovo: on 24 February, Serbian and Kosovo-Albanian negotiators reached an EU-mediated agreement on the representation of Kosovo in regional fora. Whereas this agreement enabled Serbia to gain the coveted status as EU candidate in March, it opened the way for Kosovo to participate in international meetings at regional level as an entity in its own rights. As stipulated in this agreement, the European Commission on 10 October also delivered a Feasibility Study on the conclusion of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) between Kosovo and the EU, which concluded that there would be no legal obstacles for the EU to sign an SAA (a mandatory pre-requisite for EU accession) with Pristina, in spite of the non-recognition by five EU Member States. However, it can be asked whether these measures were genuine diplomatic victories for Pristina or just rather symbolic measures without a real potential of opening a realistic accession perspective for both Kosovo and Serbia.


Background Several genes besides HLA-B27 have shown to confer a predisposition to develop of the disease and different clinical manifestations within the spectrum of spondyloarthritides (SpA). A specific polymorphism of the enhancer HS1.2A of the Ig Heavy 3' regulatory region was previously described as associated to autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis,1 systemic sclerosis2 and systemic lupus erythematosus3, while no genes related to the regulation of the autoimmune response have been yet identified to be associated with SpA. Objectives To evaluate the frequency of polymorphisms in the enhancer HS1.2A of the Ig Heavy 3' regulatory region in patients with axial-SpA from two different italian cohorts, and to identify a correlation of this genetic factor with a specific phenotype or with a different clinical presentation of the disease. Methods We evaluated 153 patients from the Rheumatology Division of the Catholic University in Rome (Cohort 1) and 75 patients from the University of Padua (Cohort 2), for a total of 228 patients, all with a diagnosis of axial SpA according to the ASAS criteria. The patients were differentiated, according to their clinical phenotype, in ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic spondyloarthritis, IBD-associated spondyloarthritis or undifferentiated spondyloarthritis. BASDAI, CRP and ASDAS-CRP were used to asses the inflammatory burden and the disease activity at the clinical presentation. Selective polymerase chain reaction of the region containing polymorphic HS1.2A alleles was performed4 on all patients after informed consent and on 573 healthy subjects, matched for age, sex, and from the same geographical area, that were enrolled as control group. Results The frequency of allele *2 of the HS1.2A enhancer in SpA patients from both the Cohort 1 and the Cohort 2 was significantly increased compared to healthy controls [Cohort 1: 64.7% vs 40.8%, p<0.001; OR 2.32 (1.85-2.90); Cohort 2: 58% p<0.001; OR 1.85 (1.36-2.5)] and also the percentage of homozygotes for that allele (genotype 2/2) [Cohort 1: 40.9% vs 15.7%, p<0.001; OR 2.67 (2.00-3.56); Cohort 2: 30.7%; p<0.001; OR 1.10 (1.30-3.00)]. No association was found with the polymorphism and the different SpA subtypes or the clinical manifestations of the disease. The patients that carried allele 2 of HS1.2A (both in homozygosis or heterozygosis) were comparable considering age of onset, inflammation or disease activity to subjects not-carriers of the allele. Conclusions Our data show an association of SpA with the allele 2 of the gene enhancer HS1.2A, similarly for what already observed in other autoimmune diseases. The presence of this specific polymorphism of gene HS1.2A might be a marker of autoimmunity or a sign of possible B cell involvement in SpA. References Tolusso B et al., Ann Rheum Dis 2009 Frezza D et al., Ann Rheum Dis 2007 Frezza D et al., Ann Rheum Dis 2012 Giambra V et al., Gene 2005. Disclosure of Interest None declared


The rise of the first implicit ideas in the field of behavioural finance is examined from a historical point of view, taking into consideration the evolution of economic theories. The first documented manifestation of irrational behaviour on a market level, which took place during the 17th century, is presented. The foundations of Daniel Bernoulli's Decision theory from the 18th century are systemized in regard to the implementation of behavioural aspects and the reference to the contemporary Prospect theory. The classical and early neoclassical schools of economic thought, where the idea that economic decisions are also being influenced by emotional stimulus can be found in the works of economists like Hermann Heinrich Gossen, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras and Edgeworth, are examined. The neoclassical school of economics, where the representatives of marginalism limit the idea of the complexity of human nature, is also analysed. In conclusion, a short description of some of the contemporary aspects of the science of behavioural finance is made.


Abstract Objective and methods: This study predicted the nature of chitosan interactions and effects of this interaction on drug release mechanism in simvastatin-loaded chitosan nanoformulation using molecular docking, spectroscopic and thermal analysis. Significance: This work explains in depth the molecular mechanism of simvastatin and chitosan bond formation in nanoformulation. Results: The effective encapsulation and sustain release properties of chitosan were indicated by increase in melting endotherm of simvastatin. Intermolecular hydrogen bond between third hydroxyl group pyranone ring of simvastatin and amino group of chitosan represented the stability of active lactone moiety that was not cleaved during formulation which is prerequisite for biological activity. UV–vis spectroscopic characterization, shift in infrared vibration wavenumber of simvastatin and chitosan, ligand titration, 1HNMR and 13C-NMR analyses confirmed this interaction pattern. The pharmacokinetic evaluation in mouse model revealed the sustain release property of nanoformulation. Conclusion: Thus formation of intermolecular hydrogen bond in nanoformulation contributed to modified physicochemical properties and improved in vivo performance of simvastatin.


Aims: Design of technical methods for the determination of Furosemide in its pure and pharmaceutical dosage form using spectral methods.
Study Design: planned and executed to estimate Furosemide by using Visible spectrophotometric in pure and pharmaceutical dosage form.
Place and Duration of Study: Laboratory of Analytical Research, chemistry department, college of Science, University of Mosul ,Mosul-Iraq, during the period of April 2021 to August 2021.
Methodology: Furosemide, the commercially known drug Lazix, which is important in the treatment of heart diseases and high blood pressure. This study was carried out using JASCO V – 630, double-beam computerized UV-Visible spectrophotometer, with 1 cm matched cell, and HANA pH meter was used for reported pH readings.
Results: The reaction between Furosemide and bromo-phenol blue, xylenol orange, and chromazorol S. The decreasing in the intensity of the resulted colored complex was measured using bromo-phenol blue, xylenol orange, While the increasing of the color intensity was measured in the method (C). These three methods were based on charge transfer reaction. The limits of Beer's law for method (A) 0.4-32µg. mL-1, method (B) 1-32 and method (C) were 0.8-32 depending on the level of concentration, while the values of the molar absorption coefficient 1.4×104, 2.1×104 and 1.57×104 l.mol-1.cm-1 for the first, second and third method respectively. Sandel's significance also was calculated for these three methods, 0.0157 μg.cm-2 for the first method, 0.0236 μg.cm-2 for the second method, while the third method was 0.0210 μg.cm-2. The method has been successfully applied for the determination of furosemide in its pure form and in some of its pharmaceutical preparations
Conclusion: The proposed methods were validated in terms of linearity, range, Accuracy, precision, Specificity, Robustness. The proposed methods were successfully applied to the estimation of Furosemide in pharmaceutical dosage form, method (B) was experimentally considered as a best method depending on the best values of molar absorptivity, stability of the resulted complex, and the linearity of the method (B) .


Routine outcomes monitoring (ROM) and the use of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) are two research-supported practices that have potential to improve client outcomes in mental healthcare, including youth psychotherapy, but are largely underutilized in routine practice. The innovative developments of measurement feedback systems (MFSs) and "core components" approaches to cognitive and behavioral therapy (CBT) have each shown potential to overcome important barriers that limit uptake and use of ROM and EBTs, respectively. However, other critical barriers remain yet unaddressed, including clinician perceptions of the net benefits of using MFSs, MFS dependence on client-report measures, and difficulty achieving EBT integrity. Combining MFS technology and core components approaches to CBT may hold unique potential to address these remaining barriers. Purpose: The current study evaluates the potential for implementation of a novel MFS, the CBT Tracker, which integrates measurement and feedback about both client outcomes and treatment integrity to core components of youth CBT. Methods: A convergent parallel mixed methods design was employed to evaluate the CBT Tracker in relation to seven implementation outcomes: acceptability, appropriateness, feasibility, adoption, fidelity, penetration, and sustainability. A diverse sample of 36 community therapists were asked to pilot the CBT Tracker while providing up to six sessions of CBT to a youth client in routine practice. Therapists completed a background questionnaire at enrollment and a semi-structured qualitative interview at conclusion of study participation. Qualitative content analysis of interview transcripts was employed to assess clinicians' perceptions of the CBT Tracker in relation to the target implementation outcomes and identify specific implementation determinants. Quantitative analyses examined adoption, penetration, fidelity, sustainability, and determinants of these outcomes, as indicated by participants' use of the CBT Tracker during the study and associations between use and participant background characteristics. Results: Findings provide proof of concept that EBT integrity feedback can be integrated into an MFS in a way that is acceptable, appropriate, and feasible in diverse, usual care clinical settings. Findings further support the potential of such an MFS to simultaneously support implementation of EBTs and ROM in routine care. However, many barriers to adoption, penetration, fidelity, and sustainability were also identified, and findings indicate that the CBT Tracker may need to be augmented with multiple contextually-responsive implementation strategies in order to achieve widespread implementation.


Introduction Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and gambling disorder (GD) share similar clinical characteristics but show different brain functional connectivity patterns. Bupropion is known to be effective for the treatment of patients with IGD and GD. We hypothesized that bupropion may be effective for the treatment of Internet-based gambling disorder (ibGD) and IGD and that the connections between the default mode network (DMN) and cognitive control network (CCN) would be different between ibGD and IGD patients after 12 weeks of bupropion treatment. Methods 16 patients with IGD, 15 patients with ibGD, and 15 healthy subjects were recruited in this study. At baseline and after 12 weeks of bupropion treatment, the clinical symptoms of patients with IGD or ibGD were assessed, and brain activity was evaluated using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results After the 12-week bupropion treatment, clinical symptoms, including the severity of IGD or GD, depressive symptoms, attention, and impulsivity improved in both groups. In the IGD group, the functional connectivity (FC) within the posterior DMN as well as the FC between the DMN and the CCN decreased following treatment. Moreover, the FC within the DMN in the IGD group was positively correlated with changes in Young Internet Addiction Scale scores after the bupropion treatment period. In the ibGD group, the FC within the posterior DMN decreased while the FC within the CCN increased after the bupropion treatment period. Moreover, the FC within the CCN in the ibGD group was significantly greater than that in the IGD group. Conclusion Bupropion was effective in improving clinical symptoms in patients with IGD and ibGD. However, there were differences in the pharmacodynamics between the two groups. After 12 weeks of bupropion treatment, the FC within the DMN as well as between the DMN and CCN decreased in patients with IGD, whereas the FC within the CCN increased in patients with ibGD.


One important requirement for a drilling fluid is the ability to transport the cuttings out of the borehole. Improved hole cleaning is a key to solve several challenges in the drilling industry and will allow both longer wells and improved quality of well construction. It has been observed, however, that drilling fluids with similar properties according to the API standard can have significantly different behavior with respect to hole cleaning performance. The reasons for this are not fully understood.This paper presents results from flow loop laboratory tests without and with injected cuttings size particles using a base oil and a commercial oil based drilling fluid. The results demonstrate the importance of the rheological properties of the fluids for the hole cleaning performance. A thorough investigation of the viscoelastic properties of the fluids was performed with a Fann viscometer and a Paar-Physica rheometer, and was used to interpret the results from the flow loop experiments.Improved understanding of the fluid properties relevant to hole cleaning performance will help develop better models of wellbore hydraulics used in planning of well operations. Eventually this may lead to higher ROP with water based drilling fluids as obtained with oil based drilling fluids. This may ease cuttings handling in many operations and thereby significantly reduce the drilling cost using (normally) more environmentally friendly fluids.The experiments have been conducted as part of an industry-sponsored research project where understanding the hole cleaning performance of various oil and water based drilling fluids is the aim. The experiments have been performed under realistic conditions. The flow loop includes a 10 meter long test section with 2″ OD freely rotating drillstring inside a 4″ ID wellbore made of concrete. Sand particles were injected while circulating the drilling fluid through the test section in horizontal position.Copyright © 2015 by ASME


In this paper, we present a unified, end-to-end trainable spatiotemporal CNN model for VOS, which consists of two branches, i.e., the temporal coherence branch and the spatial segmentation branch. Specifically, the temporal coherence branch pretrained in an adversarial fashion from unlabeled video data, is designed to capture the dynamic appearance and motion cues of video sequences to guide object segmentation. The spatial segmentation branch focuses on segmenting objects accurately based on the learned appearance and motion cues. To obtain accurate segmentation results, we design a coarse-to-fine process to sequentially apply a designed attention module on multi-scale feature maps, and concatenate them to produce the final prediction. In this way, the spatial segmentation branch is enforced to gradually concentrate on object regions. These two branches are jointly fine-tuned on video segmentation sequences in an end-to-end manner. Several experiments are carried out on three challenging datasets (i.e., DAVIS-2016, DAVIS-2017 and Youtube-Object) to show that our method achieves favorable performance against the state-of-the-arts. Code is available at https://github.com/longyin880815/STCNN.


Abstract In this Research Communication we evaluate the use of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) to identify 380 bacteria isolated from cases of bovine mastitis in Brazil. MALDI-TOF MS identifications were compared to previous identifications by biochemical tests and 16S rRNA sequencing. MALDI-TOF MS achieved a typeability of 95.5%. The accuracy of MALDI-TOF MS for the identification of Staphylococcus isolates was 93.2%. The agreement between MALDI-TOF MS and biochemical identification of Streptococcus agalactiae was 96%, however, the agreement between these techniques for identifying other catalase-negative, Gram-positive cocci was lower. Agreement in identifying Gram-negative bacteria at the genus level was 90.5%. Our findings corroborate that MALDI-TOF MS is an accurate, rapid and simple technique for identifying bovine mastitis pathogens. The availability of this methodology in some research institutions would represent a significant step toward increasing the diagnosis and epidemiological studies of bovine mastitis and other animal infectious diseases in Brazil.


Widespread adoption of sustainable energy sources is driving electricity grid operators to supplement hierarchical control regimes with market-based control that better motivates stakeholder involvement. However, to prevent market failures, such controls require testing before real-world implementation. The Power Trading Agent Competition is a competitive simulation of distribution grids that mirrors real-world scenarios and tests alternative policy and business scenarios. In Power TAC, broker agents acquire energy through bidding in a forward wholesale market to satisfy their customers' overall demand on an hourly basis. In addition, a balancing market is intended to resolve real-time energy imbalances caused by broker prediction errors using demand response resources. As part of the annual alignment process, we discovered that brokers in the 2015 competition were persistently buying insufficient energy on the wholesale market to satisfy their customer demand. Instead, the balancing market made up the deficit, charging brokers a premium over the wholesale price. Also, demand response resources were heavily underused. We studied the economic impact of this systematic imbalance on brokers and discovered that they were behaving rationally, given the prices they faced in the two markets. We present the process and results of this analysis, and show how the balancing market's pricing mechanism can be adjusted for the 2016 competition to make it rational for brokers to achieve an overall neutral imbalance.


The effect of diabetes mellitus on beta-adrenergic receptor number (B(max)), receptor-cyclase coupling and adenylate cyclase (AC) activity was determined in cerebral microvessels isolated from control and streptozotocin induced diabetic rats after 5 weeks of induction of diabetes. Scatchard analysis of [125I]iodocyanopindolol (ICYP) binding indicated that the B(max) (fmol/mg) in diabetic rat cerebral microvessels (63.8 +/- 4.8) (mean +/- S.E.M.) was not significantly different from the B(max) in control rats (56.5 +/- 6.9). Isoproterenol competition of [125I]ICYP binding sites indicated that the percentage of beta-receptors expressing high affinity binding was 53.9 +/- 0.45% in control rats and 47.5 +/- 2.3% in diabetic rats. The total isoproterenol-stimulated AC activity (pmol cAMP/mg) in diabetic rats (76.7 +/- 6.1) was significantly lower than that in control rats (118.4 +/- 11.2) (P less than 0.01). However, the net isoproterenol-stimulated AC activity (i.e. total minus GTP-stimulated AC activity) was not altered in diabetes. The net sodium fluoride (NaF) stimulated AC activity in diabetic rats (109.5 +/- 11.4) was significantly lower than the control rats (154.3 +/- 16.3) (P less than 0.05). It is concluded that diabetes mellitus in rats is associated with reduced post receptor activation of adenylate cyclase in cerebral microvessels while the beta-adrenergic receptor density, affinity and receptor-cyclase coupling are not significantly altered.


A study on background noise reduction (denoising) on EEG signals using wavelet transform is presented, assuming that extracted features are susceptible to common noise within classes; besides, the feature space separability is compared using a linear Bayesian classifier. An increment of 1% in the average recognition rate is reached performing noise reduction in the identification of two functional states.


The purpose of this study was to find some suggestions for reorganization of contents about particle concept of matter in Korean science curriculum. For the purpose of this study, authors analyzed features of Korean science curriculum and compared science curricula of Korea, USA, UK, Japan and Finland. From the result of this study, authors find some features and important suggestions about reorganization of contents about particle in science curriculum. First, the sequence of contents about particle concepts in 2009 Revised National Curriculum was similar to that in the 6th National Science Curriculum, And the feature of 2009 Revised National Curriculum showed the articulation of contents about particle concept, If contents about particle concept is increased in elementary science curriculum, the total articulation would be increased. Second, the presenting sequence of atomic structure-first and laws about atom-later should be changed to laws about atomic-first and atomic structure-later. This presenting sequence is grounded by science curricula of other countries, history of science and developmental psychology. And science curriculum of Korea was required specific extended concept statement like science curricula of USA or UK. Also, Korean science curriculum could benchmark Finnish science curriculum if we want to develop some integrated learning activities such as those in STS or STEAM program.


The authors describe and analyze two algorithms for maintaining cache coherence in multiprocessor systems with parallel communication channels and many processors. A distributed link-list relates all cache frames representing the same main memory block. Messages traverse the list to maintain list integrity, exclusive ownership, and consistent values. Memory access semantics are equivalent to a shared memory system without caches. Reference latency, efficiency of memory use, and hardware complexity are moderate and well-bounded. A brief comparison with the Scalable Coherent Interface illustrates some of the design tradeoffs associated with distributed directory algorithms.<<ETX>>


Copper(I)-catalyzed Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition between terminal alkynes and azides – also known as the copper (Cu)-catalyzed Azide-Alkyne Cycloaddition (CuAAC) – has been used in the syntheses of molecular compounds with diverse structures and functions, owing to its functional group tolerance, facile execution, and mild reaction conditions under which it can be promoted. Recently, rotaxanes of four different structural types, as well as donor/acceptor catenanes, have been prepared using CuAAC, attesting to its tolerance to supramolecular interactions as well. In one instance of a rotaxane synthesis, the catalytic role of copper has been combined successfully with its previously documented ability to preorganize rotaxane precursors, i.e., form pseudorotaxanes. The crystal structure of a donor/acceptor catenane formed using the CuAAC reaction indicates that any secondary [p ··· p] interactions between the 1,2,3-triazole ring and the bipyridinium p-acceptor are certainly not destabilizing. Finally, the preparation of robust rotaxane and catenane molecular monolayers onto metal and semiconductor surfaces is premeditated based upon recent advances in the use of the Huisgen reaction for surface functionalization.


In nine clones of Rumex acetosa L., a study was made on morphological variation of certain autosomes which are distinguishable from the others by a smallness of long arm. They range in arm ratio from 0.15+0.01 to 0.96+0.01 and show no difference in length of long arm, with a few exceptions. The autosome with arm ratio of 0.61 + 0.02 or more bears a heterochromatic segment in the distal part of one arm, while the remaining autosomes bear no heterochromatic segment. The decrease in arm ratio among all the autosomes studied is considered to be due to having lost, little by little, the heterochromatic segment, and further to having similarly lost the just inner segment. This segment appears as a hyaline band or a thin scarcely-stained thread at mid-prophase and seems to be slightly different in character from an euchromatic segment.


Abstract Access to affordable infrastructure services is necessary for sustainable development and poverty eradication, and provides major benefits in the area of health, literacy, and equity. In this study, the qualitative method of participant-driven photo-eliciting (PDPE) was used to investigate the access of infrastructural services for female-headed household groups in the informal settlement of Vingunguti in Dar es Salaam. Almost all the informants called water scarcity a critical issue that heavily affected their livelihood due to limited services and poor quality. There was a vast seasonal variation in the quality and quantity of water: The rainy season led to flooding in the area, and the water was prone to contamination by waste and sewage from pit latrines and the sewage dam; the dry season, on the other hand, was characterized by shortage of water. In the discussion that followed, the informants blamed the outbreak of various diseases in the settlement on the limited quantity of water, and its contamination. Photo-eliciting also tended to feature more informed participants by encouraging the informants to talk more exhaustively than while answering interview questions.


An innovative approach employing a neural network (NN) is presented to compute accurately derivatives and differential operators (such as Laplacian, gradient, divergence, curl, etc.) of numerical solutions of three-dimensional electromagnetic problems. The adopted NN is a multilayer perceptron, whose training is performed off-line by using a class of suitably selected polynomial functions. The desired degree of accuracy can be chosen by the user by selecting the appropriate order of the training polynomials. The on-line utilization of the trained NN allows us to obtain accurate results with a negligible computational cost. Comparative examples of differentiation performed both on analytical functions and finite element solutions are given in order to illustrate the computational advantages.


The hippocampus is critical for recollecting and imagining experiences. This is believed to involve voluntarily drawing from hippocampal memory representations of people, events, and places, including the hippocampus' map-like representations of familiar environments. However, whether the representations in such "cognitive maps" can be volitionally and selectively accessed is unknown. We developed a brain-machine interface to test if rats could control their hippocampal activity in a flexible, goal-directed, model-based manner. We show that rats can efficiently navigate or direct objects to arbitrary goal locations within a virtual reality arena solely by activating and sustaining appropriate hippocampal representations of remote places. This should provide insight into the mechanisms underlying episodic memory recall, mental simulation/planning, and imagination, and open up possibilities for high-level neural prosthetics utilizing hippocampal representations.


Objectives Despite increasing availability of global positioning system (GPS), no research has been conducted to analyze GPS data for exposure opportunities associated with time at indoor and outdoor microenvironments. We developed location-based and time-weighted spatial measures that incorporate indoor and outdoor time-location data collected by GPS. Methods Time-location data were drawn from 38 female subjects in California who wore a GPS device for seven days. Ambient standard deviational ellipse was determined based on outdoor locations and time duration, while indoor time weighted standard deviational ellipse (SDE) was developed to incorporate indoor and outdoor times and locations data into the ellipse measure. Results Our findings indicated that there was considerable difference in the sizes of exposure potential measures when indoor time was taken into consideration, and that they were associated with day type (weekday/weekend) and employment status. Conclusions This study provides evidence that time-location weighted measure may provide better accuracy in assessing exposure opportunities at different microenvironments. The use of GPS likely improves the geographical details and accuracy of time-location data, and further development of such location-time weighted spatial measure is encouraged.


We effortlessly grasp the correspondence between a drawing of an object and that physical object in the world, even when the drawing is far from realistic. How are visual object concepts organized such that we can both recognize these abstract correspondences and also flexibly exploit them when communicating them to others in a drawing? Here we consider the notion that the compositional nature of object concepts enables us to readily decompose both objects and drawings of objects into a common set of semantically meaningful parts. To investigate this, we collected data on the part information expressed in drawings by having participants densely annotate drawings of real-world objects. Our dataset contained both detailed and sparser drawings produced in different communicative contexts. We found that: (1) people are consistent in what they interpret individual strokes to represent; (2) single strokes tend to correspond to single parts, with strokes representing the same part often being clustered in time; and (3) both sparse and detailed drawings of the same object emphasize similar part information, although detailed drawings of different objects are more distinct from one another than sparse drawings. Taken together, our results support the notion that people flexibly deploy their abstract understanding of the compositional part structure of objects to communicate relevant information about them in context. More broadly, they highlight the importance of structured knowledge for understanding how pictorial representations convey meaning.


Author(s): Lindsey, Daniel Seneca | Advisor(s): Primeau, Francois | Abstract: Ice sheets interact dynamically with the ocean, losing mass through ocean-induced melt and the calving of icebergs. At ice sheet margins, ice shelves buttress flow of tributary glaciers making them a critical component of the overall ice sheet stress balance and, consequently, mass budget. With retreat of ice shelves seen in both Antarctica and Greenland, accurate modeling of ice shelf motion is important for forecasting future sea-level rise. Presently, most glacier models leave the calving front fixed in time with the implicit assumption that flow at the calving front is balanced by calving resulting in a stationary front. Numerically evolving a calving front is challenging in two ways, the first is due to the difficulty in applying the correct calving front boundary condition as the front shifts in time and the second lies in utilizing an appropriate numerical treatment for the calving process. Many factors influence calving including ocean-induced melt, surface melt-water hydrofracturing of crevasses, and wave energy triggering calving events. Of importance at some Greenland glaciers, melange, a mixture of icebergs and sea ice, can act to suppress calving rates by either preventing calved bergs from rotating away from the front or directly buttressing front strain rates.In this dissertation we utilize two mathematical techniques, the level-set method and diffuse-domain method, to develop an ice shelf model that allows for the temporal evolution of a calving front. Our ice-shelf model allows for mesh independent enforcement of the appropriate boundary condition thus allowing for continuous motion of the front within mesh elements. We validate this model in both a 1D domain and 2D idealized domain. We then apply these front-motion methods to the evolution of the Ross ice shelf and examine characteristics of flow through time. Our model captures key features of ice-shelf flow and produces a smooth evolution of the front. Finally, we use our ice shelf model to examine the potential for melange to buttress ice shelf calving front strain rates. We find that melange, if rheologically strong enough, of 100 m thickness shearing over 1 km can initiate a calving front advance of 490 m/a.


We propose an ensemble modeling framework to jointly characterize speaker and speaking environments for robust speech recognition. We represent a particular environment by a super-vector formed by concatenating the entire set of mean vectors of the Gaussian mixture components in its corresponding hidden Markov model set. In the training phase we generate an ensemble speaker and speaking environment super-vector by concatenating all the super-vectors trained on data from many real or simulated environments. In the recognition phase the ensemble speaker and speaking environment super-vector is converted to the super-vector for the testing environment with an affine transformation that is estimated online with a maximum likelihood (ML) algorithm. We used a simplified formulation for the proposed approach and evaluated its performance on the Aurora 2 database. In an unsupervised adaptation mode, the proposed approach achieves 7.27% and 13.68% WER reductions, respectively, when tested in clean and averaged noisy conditions (from 0dB to 20dB) over the baseline performance on a gender dependent system. The results suggest that the proposed approach can well characterize environments under the presence of either single or multiple distortion sources.


Abstract The investigation and conservation of the Vienna Genesis, a Late Antique manuscript on purple parchment, included the study of parchment production and purple dyeing in the sixth century. The process of parchment making and of purple dyeing was recreated and compared with the Vienna Genesis and other manuscripts from the sixth and eighth centuries. Parchment made from the hides of young lambs and dyed with orchil resembled the folios of the Vienna Genesis. The results of material analysis and the study of parchment technology influenced decisions for the conservation and storage of the manuscript. Fragile areas of ink and parchment were stabilised with strips of adhesive coated Japanese tissue paper. The single folios are stored in folders of Japanese paper and museum matboard within a sink mat.


Graph neural networks are a popular variant of neural networks that work with graph-structured data. In this work, we consider combining graph neural networks with the energy-based view of Grathwohl et al. (2019) with the aim of obtaining a more robust classifier. We successfully implement this framework by proposing a novel method to ensure generation over features as well as the adjacency matrix and evaluate our method against the standard graph convolutional network (GCN) architecture (Kipf&Welling (2016)). Our approach obtains comparable discriminative performance while improving robustness, opening promising new directions for future research for energy-based graph neural networks.


Proceedings: AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011‐‐ Apr 2‐6, 2011; Orlando, FL

Purpose: Triple-negative (ER-negative, PR-negative, HER2/neu-negative) breast cancer (TNBC) is a clinical challenge because of the lack of a specific therapeutic target. Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP)-1 is a nuclear enzyme involved in the detection and repair of DNA damage. In DNA repair-defective tumors, inhibition of PARP can cause genomic instability and cell death. Among the PARP inhibitors currently being assessed in clinical trials, recent results showed that, in a randomized phase II clinical trial of TNBC patients, BSI-201 when added to platinum-containing chemotherapy significantly improved the outcome of metastatic breast cancer patients relative to chemotherapy alone. Previously, we reported that the thiazolidinedione family of peroxisome proliferation-activated receptor-γ agonist could induce apoptosis in cancer cells by eliciting cellular responses indicative of energy restriction. Consequently, we used ciglitazone as a scaffold to develop novel energy restriction-mimetic agents (ERMAs) through structural optimization, which has yielded two lead compounds, CG-5 and CG-12. In prostate cancer cells, ERMAs could induce cell death and reduce the expression of BRCA1 protein. BRCA1 helps repair DNA double-stranded breaks through homologous recombination. BRCA1 deficiency has been reported to sensitize cells to PARP inhibition through synthetic lethality. We hypothesize that ERMAs can potentiate the anti-proliferative activity of PARP inhibitors (AZD-2281, AG-014699, ABT-888 and BSI-201) through the down-regulation of BRCA1 expression in TNBC cells.

Methods: TNBC cell lines, MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-231 and Cal-51 (all of which have functional BRCA1) were obtained from ATCC and DSMZ and maintained in low-glucose complete growth medium. Drug effects on cell viability were assessed by MTT assays. The expression of BRCA1, phosphorylated AMP-activated kinase (AMPK), and PARP cleavage in treated cells were examined by western blotting.

Results: The ERMAs CG-5 and CG-12 exhibited dose-dependent anti-proliferative activity against all TNBC cell lines tested with IC50 values of about 3 and 4 μM, respectively, after 72 h of treatment. These anti-proliferative effects were attributed to apoptosis as both compounds induced the cleavage of PARP. Moreover, AMPK was activated by both drugs indicative of energy restriction. BRCA1 levels were reduced dose-dependently in all three TNBC cell lines after treatment with CG-5 or CG-12.

Conclusion: The ERMAs CG-5 and CG-12 can reduce BRCA1 levels in TNBC cells. These findings provide a rationale for combining the ERMA-mediated ablation of BRCA1 with PARP inhibitors to induce TNBC cell death through synthetic lethality. Further study to address this hypothesis could lead to a new therapeutic approach for TNBC patients for whom available options are limited.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3505. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-3505


Cynodon transvaalensis Burtt-Davy (African bermudagrass) is valued as turf and for use in interspecific hybridization with C. dactylon (L.) Pers. var. dactylon to produce turf cultivars. Little information is available regarding the magnitude of genetic variation within the taxon. Accordingly, this study was undertaken to evaluate the genetic diversity among 14 C. transvaalensis accessions and to examine the phylogenetic relatedness of C. transvaalensis, two hexaploid (2n = 6x = 54) C. dactylon var. dactylon accessions, two C. transvaalensis by hexaploid C. dactylon var. dactylon interspedfic tetraploid (2n = 4x = 36) F 1 hybrids, and one putative tetraploid C. dactylon var. dactylon by C. transvaalensis triploid (2n = 3x = 27) F 1 hybrid. Fluorescence-labeled amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) DNA profiling was used to study the genetic relationships among these accessions. A total of 381 polymorphic AFLP markers were amplified from 13 primer combinations. The 14 C. transvaalensis accessions and the putative triploid F 1 hybrid clustered into one group and had genetic dissimilarity coefficients ranging from 0.01 to 0.51. The 14 C. transvaalensis accessions had genetic dissimilarity coefficients ranging from 0.01 to 034. The C. dactylon var. dactylon accessions and the two tetraploid F 1 hybrids clustered in the second group, with genetic dissimilarity coefficients ranging from 0.17 to 0.33. The tetraploid F 1 hybrids were more closely related to C. dactylon var. dactylon than to C. transvaalensis, while the opposite was true for the putative triploid F 1 hybrid. The results indicate the presence of genetic diversity in C. transvaalensis that could be exploited in intra- and interspecific breeding improvement.


Introduction/Background Endometrial cancer is the most common cancer of the female reproductive tract in developed countries. Peritoneal metastases from endometrial cancer as advanced stage disease or as a recurrence is not rare. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy in patients with peritoneal disease from endometrial cancer. Methodology A systematic search of the literature for articles published up to February 2019 was performed. All studies that reported outcomes after cytoreduction and hyperthermic intraperitoneal therapy for peritoneal metastases in patients treated for endometrial cancer were independently evaluated by two authors and the discrepancies were resolved by team consensus. Results A total of 6 studies were eligible for our review and were included in the present study. 63 patients were recruited by these studies. 11 patients were treated primary with debulking surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy while 52 patients underwent this procedure for recurrent disease after their primary treatment. Histologic type, FIGO staging, peritoneal carcinomatosis index, cytoreduction completeness, adjuvant treatment and mean follow up period were documented. Of 63 patients 21 (33.3%) were reported to be disease free at the time of study publication. Conclusion Cytoreduction and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy in selected patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis from endometrial cancer achieves promising outcomes concerning the disease free and overall survival. Disclosure Nothing to disclose.


Recently in speech synthesis field many new results have been achieved using innovative techniques based on machine learning such as HMM-Based (Hidden Markov Models), which has generated good results in several languages by reducing the dificulty and time to build new voices for TTS (Text To Speech) systems. This paper aims to present a framework for building custom TTS systems in Brazilian Portuguese, with the main goal of being simple enough to be easily used by the community in general, besides being free to use. Keywords— Hidden Markov Models, HMM, Speech Processing, TTS.


To the human vision, there exists in colour images a certain amount of perceptual redundancy since the human visual system (HVS) has limited sensitivity in discriminating colour signals of small differences. By measuring the perceptual redundancy inherent in colour images and shaping the coding distortion into the perceptual redundancy, colour images are expected to be represented more efficiently. Approaches to perceptually optimise the efficiency of image coders in compressing colour images with the perceptual redundancy estimated by a colour visual model are presented. The model estimates the perceptual redundancy for each colour pixel as a visibility threshold of colour difference in any colour space and in a spatial or frequency domain. Two existing image coders are modified to take advantage of the perceptual redundancy and simulated to inspect if their coding efficiency is improved. In the spatial domain, the JPEG-LS coder in the near-lossless compression mode is modified to make coding errors part of the perceptual redundancy in compressing colour images in the RGB space. In the wavelet domain, the JPEG2000 coder is refined by minimising the perceptible distortion involved in the rate control of the compressed image in the YC b C r space. Simulation results show that, in both cases, the performance of the perceptually tuned coder is superior to that of the un-tuned coder in terms of the bit rate required for achieving the same visual quality.


We present a system to convert any set of images (e.g., a video clip or a photo album) into a storyboard. We aim to create multiple pleasing graphic representations of the content at interactive rates, so the user can explore and find the storyboard (images, layout, and stylization) that best suits their needs and taste. The main challenges of this work are: selecting the content images, placing them into panels, and applying a stylization. For the latter, we propose an interactive design tool to create new stylizations using a wide range of filter blocks. This approach unleashes the creativity by allowing the user to tune, modify, and intuitively design new sequences of filters. In parallel to this manual design, we propose a novel procedural approach that automatically assembles sequences of filters for innovative results. We aim to keep the algorithm complexity as low as possible such that it can run interactively on a mobile device. Our results include examples of styles designed using both our interactive and procedural tools, as well as their final composition into interesting and appealing storyboards.


Nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists and other professionals or specialists come together to provide care to home residing patients, making continuous assessment, diagnosis and treatment possible beyond the walls of hospitals. Such teams of professionals are focused on each individual patient, and are virtual, i.e. they make decisions without being together physically, dynamically, i.e. professionals come and go as needed, and collaborate, as they combine their knowledge to provide effective care. Our system, coined DITIS, is a web based system that enables the effective management and collaboration of virtual healthcare teams and accessing medical information in a secure manner from a variety of mobile devices from anytime and anyplace, adapting the information according to various parameters like, user role, access right, device capabilities and wireless medium. This paper introduces the DITIS system, and identifies the needs and challenges of co-ordinated teams of multidisciplinary healthcare professionals (HCPs) functioning in a context awareness environment under the wireless environment. Pilot implementations of the systems as well as an evaluation study of the system are also briefly presented.


Both search-based and translation-based planning systems usually operate on grounded representations of the problem. Planning models, however, are commonly defined using lifted description languages. Thus, planning systems usually generate a grounded representation of the lifted model as a preprocessing step. For HTN planning models, only one method to ground lifted models has been published so far. In this paper we present a new approach for grounding HTN planning problems that produces smaller groundings in a shorter timespan than the previously published method.


The aircraft industry is an advanced, complex technological industry that has a strong impact on other industries and, for the nation as a whole, it is a strategically important industry for strengthening international competitiveness through technological superiority. Developed countries throughout the world have been promoting the aircraft industry as an engine of continuous growth and development of advanced technology. The importance of the industry is acute in areas of maintaining superior defense technology, promoting rapid-growth industries, and improving productivity. In Korea, the industry is now in a period of growth, but this growth is still insufficient in light of Korea's national economic potential and phase of development. We can see many countries that are similar to Korea in terms of economic scale or industrial level but have achieved significant advancement by pursuing a more active policy for their aircraft industry. Countries such as Taiwan, South Africa, and Brazil are good examples. These countries have already shown indigenous models of aircraft in the world market. In contrast, it is regretful that the Korean aircraft industry still remains at the level of simple fabrication or parts assembly though subcontracts with foreign manufacturers.


In the present contribution, characteristics of harmonic Gunn oscillators for applications at W-band frequencies are determined by systematic large signal simulations. Based on Monte Carlo (MC) calculations of real active device structures, an accurate full hydrodynamic model has been developed in order to maximize computation speed. An efficient convolution method is used to take the load impedance characteristic of practical resonant mounting structures into account. Investigations of fundamental and harmonic operation with impressed voltages or currents reveal an exceptionally broad range of emitted powers which easily explains varying experimental observations. Numerical results obtained by consistent simulations including the passive load agree well with measurements and allow a deep insight into actual operation principles of the whole oscillator circuit. A preliminary result indicates that even simple Gunn device structures enable power generation at D-band frequencies.


Maintaining healthy teeth and soft oral tissue is important. Clinical research has shown manual toothbrushes with end-rounded filaments to cause significantly less gingival abrasions than those without end-rounding. Tapered filaments are an alternative to end-rounded filaments, but there is no solid evidence for their effectiveness. For the interdental spaces that the toothbrush doesn't reach, the use of special oral hygiene aids is advised. Clinical studies of gingivitis patients have shown that both interdental brushes and plastic-rubber bristles reduce gingivitis after 4 weeks of use. Plastic-rubber bristles result in a significant improvement in the tendency for interdental bleeding compared with interdental brushes, and they cause less abrasion of the gingiva. Other factors that can potentially traumatise soft and hard oral tissue are oral piercings. Wearing oral piercings is not without risk. Tongue and lip piercings are associated with the risk of gingival recession, and tongue piercings are associated with tooth fractures. To prevent the risk of complications, patients should be discouraged from wearing oral piercings.


PURPOSES: This study is to develop Right-Turning Channelization Design Models of Semitrailer at Intersections by regression of vehicle tracking simulation. METHODS: Based on the literature review, it was indicated that right-turning channelization design guide of semitrailer is too complex and is not reflected turning speed and approach angle. To verify effectiveness of right turning semitrailer trajectories according to the changing turning speed and approach angle, vehicle tracking simulation was executed. And then, simulation results were analyzed for modeling design elements; minimum turning radius, swept path width, arc length, width of triangle island, of right-turning channelization using regression methods. RESULTS : When the turning speed is getting higher, minimum turning radius, arc length, width of triangle island increased and the approach angle lower, swept path width, arc length, width of triangle island reduced. The turning radius completely reflected by turning speed. CONCLUSIONS : In this research, it was investigated how much design elements are changed according to the turning speed and the approach angle of semitrailer. The developed right-turning channelization design models can help engineers to easy and comfortable design at various conditions.


A systematic review of how the personal digital assistants (PDAs) have been used in healthcare professions and medical education has been conducted in order to identify current usage of PDAs in both areas. The major aim of this research is to study the feasibility of incorporating PDAs into problem-based learning (PBL) medical education. A systematic review was conducted by exploring various databases on the use of PDAs in two major areas: the healthcare professions and medical education during the period 2000-2006. Results: The needs, patterns and functionalities of using PDAs in the medical profession have been identified and categorized into different areas. What remains is to how to best incorporate PDAs into a PBL approach to medical education at the University of Wollongong.


We propose a new class of learning algorithms that combines variational approximation and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation. Naive algorithms that use the variational approximation as proposal distribution can perform poorly because this approximation tends to underestimate the true variance and other features of the data. We solve this problem by introducing more sophisticated MCMC algorithms. One of these algorithms is a mixture of two MCMC kernels: a random walk Metropolis kernel and a block Metropolis-Hastings (MH) kernel with a variational approximation as proposal distribution. The MH kernel allows one to locate regions of high probability efficiently. The Metropolis kernel allows us to explore the vicinity of these regions. This algorithm outperforms variational approximations because it yields slightly better estimates of the mean and considerably better estimates of higher moments, such as covariances. It also outperforms standard MCMC algorithms because it locates the regions of high probability quickly, thus speeding up convergence. We also present an adaptive MCMC algorithm that iterates between improving the variational approximation and improving the MCMC approximation. We demonstrate the algorithms on the problem of Bayesian parameter estimation for logistic (sigmoid) belief networks.


Gross primary production (GPP) in climate change studies with multi- species and elevation variables are difficult to measure and simulate. Models tend to provide a representation of dynamic process through long-term analysis by using generalized parameterizations. Even, current approaches of modelling do not contemplate easily the variation of GPP at different elevations for different vegetation types in regions like páramos, mainly due to data unavailability. In these models information from cells is commonly averaged, and therefore average elevation, ecophysiology of vegetation, as well as other parameters is generalized. The vegetation model BIOME- BGC was applied to the Ecuadorian Andean region for elevations greater than 4000 masl with the presence of typical vegetation of páramo for 10 years of simulation (period 2000-2009). An estimation of the difference of GPP obtained using a generalized altitude and predominant type of vegetation could lead to a better estimation of the uncertainty in the magnitude of the errors in global climate models. This research explores GPP from 3 different altitudes and 3 vegetation types against 2 main climate drivers (Short Wave Radiation and Vapor Pressure Deficit). Since it is important to measure the possible errors or difference in the use of averaged meteorological and ecophysiological data, here we present a multivariate analysis of the dynamic difference of GPP in time, relative to an altitude and type of vegetation. A copula multivariable model allows us to identify and classify the changes in GPP per type of vegetation and altitude. The Frank copula model of joint distributions was our best fit between GPP and climate drivers and it allowed us to understand better the dependency of the variables. These results can explore extreme situations where averaged simplified approaches could mislead. The change of GPP over time is essential for future climate scenarios of the ecosystem storage and release of carbon to the atmosphere. Our findings suggest that a classification of the difference is highly important to be extended to cells that have similar properties.


Aim: We aimed to assess antioxidant status in Egyptian children with obesity and investigate the mutual relationship between oxidative stress markers, body composition, and metabolic pattern.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 52 obese and 20 healthy-weight children. Subjects underwent through clinical assessment. Serum lipid profile, fasting glucose, and serum insulin were measured in plasma. A range of antioxidant activities was tested. Steady state beta cell function (%B), insulin sensitivity (%S), and insulin resistance (IR) were calculated.

Results: Children with obesity had high prevalence of family history of obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes and 18 of them had hypertension. Sixteen (30.7%) children with obesity had high level (90th percentiles) of lowdensity lipoprotein (LDL-C) and triglycerides and 14 (24.9%) had low level (10th percentiles) of high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C). Plasma malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione-S-transferase (GST) were significantly higher, whereas catalase, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and vitamin E were significantly lower in children with obesity. Both MDA and GST correlated positively with anthropometric measures, triglycerides, fasting insulin, and HOMA-IR. Both catalase and TAC correlated negatively with anthropometric measures, and cholesterol. Furthermore, catalase correlated negatively with diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL, fasting insulin, and HOMA-IR, but positively with age.

Conclusion: There is a substantial burden of oxidative stress represented by the high level of oxidants (MDA, GST) and low level of antioxidants (catalase, TAC) in children with obesity necessitating improvement in the management of childhood obesity


With the continued spread of economic globalization, increasing strategy risks facing to enterprises cause widespread concern, evaluation of Enterprise Strategy Risk has important practical significance for scientific decision-making, resource optimizing, competitive advantage achieving and potential sustainable development. We use the improved AHP and entropy weight method to set up the business enterprise strategy risk fuzzy comprehensive evaluation index system and the model This paper focuses on building enterprise strategy risk evaluation index system and model, based on which, the strategy risk of EAST Technology company is evaluated as a case study. As a result, we can find that the risk rank of the company is relatively low, and the risk from high to low in the order is the risk of external environment, the risk business capability, the risk enterprise resource risk, and the risk of corporate culture.


Study Design. In vivo and in vitro experiments. Objective. To illustrate the further molecular mechanism of Cx43-mediated osteoblastic differentiation of ligament cells. Summary of Background Data. Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) is one of the main causes of myelopathy in Asians, but its etiology has not been clarified. We have previously found the mechanical stress can upregulate Cx43 expression in ligament cells, which transduces mechanical signal to promote osteoblastic differentiation. Methods. The posterior longitudinal ligaments were collected intraoperatively. Ligament fibroblasts were isolated and cultured, and an in vitro mechanical loading model was established. In vivo and in vitro expression levels of Cx43 protein were compared between OPLL and non-OPLL patients. The activation of nuclear factor (NF)-&kgr;B (p65) signal and related inflammatory responses were detected in ligament cells under mechanical loading. The mechanical stress-induced inflammatory response and osteoblastic differentiation of OPLL cells were investigated after the treatment with Cx43 siRNA or NFкB (p65) inhibitor. Results. We first confirmed higher Cx43 levels in both in vivo ligament tissue from OPLL patients and in vitro cultured OPLL cells. We also found NF&kgr;B (p65) signal and related inflammatory response were activated by mechanical stimulation. The activation of NF&kgr;B (p65) signal was dependent upon Cx43, as its knockdown reduced signal. Moreover, treatment with Cx43 siRNA or NFкB (p65) inhibitor significantly decreased the mechanical-induced inflammation response, but partly attenuated mechanical-stimulated osteoblastic differentiation of OPLL cells. Conclusion. Cx43-mediated NFкB (p65) signal played an important role in mechanical stress-induced OPLL by transduction of mechanical signal, while giving rise to the activation of inflammatory response in ligament fibroblasts Level of Evidence: N/A


Profilaggrin is a large phosphorylated protein (approximately 400 kDa in humans) that is expressed in the granular cells of epidermis where it forms a major component of keratohyalin. It consists of multiple copies of similar filaggrin units plus amino- and carboxy-terminal domains that differ from filaggrin. Proteolytic processing of profilaggrin during terminal differentiation results in the removal of these domains and generation of monomeric filaggrin units, which associate with keratin intermediate filaments to form macrofibrils in the stratum corneum. The amino-terminal domain contains two calcium-binding motifs similar to the EF-hands found in the S-100 family of calcium-binding proteins. In this report, we expressed the 293-residue amino-terminal pro-domain of human profilaggrin as a polyhistidine fusion protein in Escherichia coli, and characterized calcium binding by a 45Ca++ binding assay and fluorescence emission spectroscopy. Fluorescence measurements indicated that the profilaggrin polypeptide undergoes conformational changes upon the removal of Ca++ with ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid, demonstrating the presence of two calcium-binding sites with affinities for calcium that differ ninefold (1.4 x 10(-4) M and 1.2 x 10(-3) M). We suggest that this functional calcium-binding domain at the amino-terminus of human profilaggrin plays a role in profilaggrin processing and in other calcium-dependent processes during terminal differentiation of the epidermis.


A 42-year-old woman with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) fell and had immediate pain in her right thigh. Before this, she was occasionally ambulatory, using 2 canes to walk short distances. She had had multiple fractures as a child, undergoing intramedullary nailing of both her femurs and tibias, but as an adult had sustained only a single fracture 17 years previously, requiring fixation of a right femoral neck fracture with a Richards hip screw (Smith & Nephew Richards).

She was of short stature and had extreme varus bowing of both lower extremities. She was in severe pain and could not move her right lower extremity. The injured limb was slightly larger than the contralateral limb; however, both had a significant amount of adipose tissue. Further examination revealed multiple surgical scars along the length of the femur. Motor and sensory examinations of her right foot and ankle were normal, and there were strong symmetrical pulses. Radiographs revealed a transverse fracture distal to the previous hip screw implant (Fig. 1). The femur had a severe varus bow. The bone was osteopenic and the cortices were extremely thin.

FIG. 1. Admission anteroposterior (left) and lateral (right) radiographs of the femur in a 46-year-old woman with osteogenesis imperfecta. Internal fixation devices for proximal femoral fractures are in place.

Figure 1. Continued

With modern medical and surgical treatment of children with OI, we now commonly see fractures in adults with OI. These are often the result of minor trauma. The disease process in the patient presented here posed several difficulties for treatment. The patient was too heavy and the femoral canal was too large for most of the traditional flexible nailing and wiring techniques used in pediatrics, and too narrow and fragile for nails used in adult femoral fractures. In this patient, the severe bowing of her leg, the fragility of her bone as well as the small diameter and length of the femoral canal were important. It was impossible to use a traditional femoral intramedullary nail, so a flexible humeral nail was used for internal fixation of her femur (Flexnail; Synthes, Canada*). This nail is composed of intercalated segments that allow 5° of motion at each link. After insertion of the nail into the intramedullary canal of a long bone, an internal cable system within the nail is tightened. This action compresses the segments and diminishes the motion at each segment, thus increasing the rigidity of the nail. This nail is intended for use in acute and pathologic fractures of the humerus. It can be inserted in antegrade and retrograde fashion. It comes in 2 diameters, 7.5 and 9.0 mm, and standard lengths 180–300 mm. The nail has a potential 30ο bend to facilitate off-axis insertion. Because of its small diameter and flexibility during insertion, the nail theoretically can be inserted into a varus bowed femur having a small diameter canal without breaching the opposite cortex.

The diaphyseal screws of the patient's hip implant were removed through a previous lateral incision. Next, a distal anteromedial approach to the femur was chosen for the entry point of the nail allowing a 30ο angulation of the nail to the long axis of the femur. An awl was used to open the canal medially. The bone was very fragile, as in most OI patients, receiving medical therapy with bisphosphonates. The canal was reamed by hand using 6- and 8-mm reamers (Synream; Synthes Canada). A guide wire was placed in the canal until it reached the previous hip screw. The canal was reamed further using the 8.5-mm reamer. At all times fluoroscopy was used to ensure the canal was not breached.

A 7.5-mm х 210-mm flexible humeral nail was inserted (Fig. 2) from an anteromedial insertion point in the distal femur. The tensioning bolt was inserted to stiffen the nail. Stiffening the nail also functioned to realign the fracture fragments. After this, a distal transverse locking bolt was inserted. The small peripheral wires of the nail were advanced in a bouquet fashion for proximal fixation. Radiologically and clinically, the fracture was stable both rotationally and axially. Postoperative radiographs revealed a well-aligned femur (Fig. 3).

FIG. 2. Insertion of the flexible humeral nail through an anteromedial incision in distal femur. IH = insertion handle with locking bolt insertion screwdriver in place.

FIG. 3. Postoperative radiographs showing the flexible humeral nail in the femur. Tightening of the nail locking mechanism partially corrected the varus deformity.


High-throughput immunosequencing allows reconstructing the immune repertoire of an individual, which is a unique opportunity for new immunotherapies, immunodiagnostics, and vaccine design. Since immune repertoires are shaped by past and current immune events, such as infection and disease, and thus record an individual's state of health, immune repertoire sequencing data may enable the prediction of health and disease using machine learning. However, finding the connections between an individual's repertoire and the individual's disease class, with potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of short sequences per individual, poses a difficult and unique challenge for machine learning methods. In this work, we present our method DeepRC that combines a Deep Learning architecture with attentionbased multiple instance learning. To validate that DeepRC accurately predicts an individual's disease class based on its immune repertoire and determines the associated class-specific sequence motifs, we applied DeepRC in four large-scale experiments encompassing ground-truth simulated as well as real-world virus infection data. We demonstrate that DeepRC outperforms all tested methods with respect to predictive performance and enables the extraction of those sequence motifs that are connected to a given disease class.


The quality of development and its infrastructures have brought about major problems to the development process of the country's villages due to unfavorable and concentrated planning. Its various dimensions and structural complexity forms a basic limitation to the presentation of an appropriate model for the distribution of budgets. A first step to the solution of issus arisen from regional imbalances involves the identification and ranking of villages according to their economic, infrastructural, and communication, socio-cultural, public health, educational services. The methodology in this study is a combination of descriptive and analytic ones. The 22 indices studied belonged to one of the four sections of infrastructure and communication, public health, education and finally politics-office and the police.


Today's large-scale scientific research often relies on the collaborative use of a Grid or c-Science infrastructure (e.g. DEISA, EGEE, TeraGrid, OSG) with computational, storage, or other types of physical resources. One of the goals of these emerging infrastructures is to support the work of scientists with advanced problem-solving tools. Many e-Science applications within these infrastructures aim at simulations of a scientific problem on powerful parallel computing resources. Typically, a researcher first performs a simulation for some fixed amount of time and then analyses results in a separate post-processing step, for instance, by viewing results in visualizations. In earlier work we have described early prototypes of a Collaborative Online Visualization and Steering (COVS) Framework in Grids that performs both -simulation and visualization -at the same time (online) to increase the efficiency of e-Scientists. This paper evaluates the evolved mature reference implementation of the COVS framework design that is ready for production usage within Web service-based Grid and e-Science infrastructures.


The immature fruit of Rubus coreanus Miquel (bokbunja in Korean) is mainly consumed as a fruit wine due to its sour taste and low sugar content. The lees (LBW) remaining after the production of bokbunja wine are discarded as they have no specific usage. The aim of this study was to develop high-value-added biomaterials for functional foods and beauty/health products by investigating the anti-microbial, anti-oxidant, and anti-thrombosis activities of LBW using ethanol and hot water extracts and their subsequent organic solvent fractions. The ethyl acetate (EA) fraction of LBW extracts has a high polyphenol content (413?459 mg/g), and showed strong anti-microbial activity against gram-positive bacteria. The EA fraction also showed excellent radical-scavenging activity against DPPH anion, ABTS cation, and nitrite, with strong reducing power. The polyphenol-enriched EA fraction strongly inhibited thrombin, prothrombin, and blood coagulation factors. The butanol fraction showed a specific inhibition of coagulat on factors, as measured in activated partial thromboplastin time assay, which is linked to intrinsic blood coagulation. The butanol fraction also showed strong inhibition of platelet aggregation, at levels comparable to aspirin. The residue of the hot-water extract, which is produced by sequential solvent fractionation of the LBW extract, showed superior inhibition against platelet aggregation when compared to aspirin. Our results suggest that the LBW, which are currently discarded, are a promising source of novel functional foods and beauty/health products.


This paper reports comparative experiments with a new model-based adaptive force control algorithm for robot arms. This controller provides simultaneous position and force trajectory tracking of a robot arm whose tool tip is in point contact with a smooth rigid surface. The algorithm is provably stable with respect to the commonly accepted rigid-body nonlinear dynamical model for robot arms. Comparative experiments show the new adaptive model-based controller to provide performance superior to that of both nonmodel-based controllers and nonadaptive controllers over a wide range of operating conditions.


A comparison of student learning in a critical thinking exercise for technology decision-making occurred with the onset of coronavirus and the switch from face-to-face to distance with Zoom. Literature on explicit critical thinking skill sets is scant in any format, including distance learning. While face-to-face and Zoom have similarities, seizing this opportunity for comparison can set the stage to determine soundness of distance learning in critical thinking on a preliminary basis. The learning outcome, learning guide and assessment instrument remained the same for the exercise in both formats; student teams presented analyses of different technologies with assessment by 2 faculty as before. Forty students had not completed the exercise when the coronavirus shut down occurred. Students performed at as high a level using virtual/Zoom as with face-to-face.


An investigation of the characteristics of a wing with an aspect ratio of 9.0 and an NACA 65-210 airfoil section has been made at Mach number up to 0.925. The wing tested has a taper ratio of 2.5:1.0, no twist, dihedral, or sweepback, and 20-percent - chord 37.5-percent-semispan plain ailerons. The results showed that serious changes in the normal-force characteristics occurred when the Mach number was increased above 0.74 at angles of attack between 4 deg. and 10 deg. and above 0.80 at 0 deg. angle of attack.Because of small outboard shifts in the lateral center of load, the bending moment at the root for conditions corresponding to a 3g pull-out at an altitude of 35,000 feet increased by approximately 5% when the Much number was increased beyond 0.83 the negative pitching moments for the high angles of attack increased, whereas those for the low angles of attack decreased with a resulting large increase in the negative slope of the pitching-moment curves. A large increase occurred in the values of the drag coefficients for the range of lift coefficients needed for level flight at an altitude of 35,000 feet when the Mach number was increased beyond a value of 0.80. The wakes at a station 2.82 root chords behind the wing quarter-chord line extended approximately a chord above the wing chord line for the angles of attack required to recover from high-speed dives at high Mach numbers.


A joint decision feedback equalizer (DFE) and variable trace-back depth trellis decoding (VTD) scheme (VTD-DFE) is proposed for the ATSC DTV receivers. Compared with previous arts, error propagation can be further decreased by adopting a trellis decoder with a variable trace-back depth (TBD) for the decision device in the DFE. Convergence is also greatly speeded by using a slice error detector, which performs slice prediction according to the corresponding confidence value of the decision symbol provided by TCM decoding. Simulation results show that the proposed VTD-DFE leads to an improvement of convergence performance in terms of both the convergence speed and the stability, especially when SNR is low


Lantern fly(Lycorma delicatula) is a major invasive pest that causes withering symptom of agricultural crops by sucking tree sap and sooty mold symptom by producing honeydew. This study was conducted to investigate the occurrence pattern of lantern fly in grape orchards in Gyeonggi area and the effect of winter temperature on L. delicatula egg survival during 2010 to 2013. In Gyeonggi areas, overwintered L. delicatula eggs began to hatch from early May and nymphs peaked in mid May. Adults emerged from late July and laid eggs until early November. The survival of L. delicatula eggs during overwintering was largely affected by winter temperatures. The relationship between the number of days below a threshold temperature (x) in January and the survival rate of overwintering L. delicatula eggs (y) was using linear regression model. The best model selected by the lowest RSS (residual sum of square) between predicted and actual survival was y = -1.0486 x + 94.496 (R 2 = 0.7067) with –11°C of threshold temperature. These results should be helpful to conduct L. delicatula management programs, since the results provided relivable prediction for the winter survival of L. delicatula eggs and the phenology of egg hatch in the spring.