Going to college is a risky investment in human capital. However, we highlight two options inherently embedded in college education that mitigate this risk: (i) college students can quit without completing four-year degrees after learning about their post-graduation wages and (ii) college graduates can take jobs that do not require four-year degrees (i.e., underemployment). These options reduce the chances of falling in the lower end of the wage distribution as a college graduate, rendering standard mean-variance calculations misleading. We show that the interaction between these options and the rising wage dispersion, especially among college graduates, is key to understanding the muted response of college enrollment and graduation rates to the substantial increase in the college wage premium in the United States since 1980. Furthermore, we find that subsidies inducing marginal students to attend colleges will have a negligible net benefit: Such students are far more likely to drop out of college or become underemployed even with a four-year degree, implying only small wage gains from college education.


This Casenote/Comment is brought to you for free and open access by TU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tulsa Law Review by an authorized administrator of TU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com. Recommended Citation Julianne P. Hand, The Mixture and Derived-From Rules under RCRA: Is There Life After Shell Oil, 28 Tulsa L. J. 497 (1992).


The Wireless Sensor Networks of Coarse-resolution Pixel Parameters (CPP-WSN) was established to monitor the heterogeneity of coarse spatial resolution pixel, with consideration of different categories of land surface parameters in Huailai, Hebei province, China (40.349°N, 115.785°E). The observation network of radiation parameters (RadNet) in CPP-WSN was developed for multi-band radiation measurement and consisted of 6 nodes covering 2km*2km area to capture its heterogeneity. Each node employed four sensors to observe the five radiation parameters. The number and location of nodes in RadNet were determined through the representativeness-based sampling method. Thus, the RadNet is a distributed observation system with nodes work synchronously and measurements used together. The intercomparison experiment for RadNet is necessary and was conducted in Huailai Remote Sensing Station from 5th Aug to 10th Aug in 2012. Time series observations from various sensors were collected and analyzed. The maximum relative differences among sensors of UVR, SWR, LWR, PAR, and LST are 4.83%, 5.3%, 3.71%, 11%, and 0.54%, respectively. Sensor/parameter differences indeed exist and are considerable large for PAR, SWR, UVR, and LWR, which cannot be ignored. The linear normalization and quadratic polynomial normalization perform similar for CUV5/UVR, PQS1/PAR, CNR4/SWR, and SI-111/LST. As for CNR4/LWR, quadratic polynomial normalization show higher accuracy than linear normalization, especially in node2, node4, and node5. Thus, the LWR measured by CNR4 is proved to be nonlinear, and should be normalized with quadratic polynomial coefficients for higher precision.


The spreading of Covid19 as a global pandemic has tested countries around the world at many levels. From mental strength to economic resiliency and far stretching to include legality of issues. A year later, the world is still not in a better place. Malaysia, like others are fighting the thirds waves of the pandemic, believed to be more fatal than before. From March 2020 until to date, Malaysians have been placed under complete lockdown before that order was relaxed and tighten again when the numbers of infected patients and deaths skyrocketed. Now Malaysia is placed under emergency order and law. Strangely the emergency order is issued while the complete and conditional Movement Control Orders (MCO) are still in effect. Since an emergency is a situation where the country could not be managed under regular administrative system, it is important to know which parties that are majorly involved in currently running the country to fight Covid19 has the overriding power over the others, what are their rights or limitations. Between the emergency order, complete MCO and conditional MCO, which one should be prioritized and how long would Malaysia remain under emergency? The answer could be found by studying the sphere of influences in the public policy domain. The article is qualitative in nature; data is collected from legal documents, judicial precedents and article writings. The sphere of influences during emergency time is more complex than usual. The legislative and executive powers are concentrated to one or two party(s) with enormous authorities and expansive jurisdictions.


Ad hoc techniques were used to fit stand-level growth models for Sitka spruce in Ireland in the presence of sampling biases. Panel data, sourced by aggregation over a set of repeated measures experimental designs, admitted sampling biases when considered as a data set for yield modelling purposes. Remedial action towards sampling imbalances was taken, whenever possible, through the use of weighting techniques. Further action to address data omissions involved using data substitution. The growth component model used was the multivariate Bertalanffy-Richards model formulated by Garcia. The model allows aggregated state-space representations of stand development to be formulated and fitted. For stand simulations, growth equations were augmented with functions accepting state variables as arguments and compute basal area reduction during any thinning, stand volume and volume assortments.


Herein, a stepwise electrodeposition technique was used to synthesize the Pd based nanoparticles on indium-tin oxide (ITO) electrodes. First of all, Pd nanoparticles were electrodeposited on ITO via one step electrodeposition technique. Furthermore, Au was electrodeposited on Pd. Finally, Co was electrodeposited on Au and Pd electrodeposited ITO electrode via stepwise electrodeposition technique. Characterization of these electrodes was performed by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electrode microscopy (SEM) techniques. Considering the XRD pattern, well-defined ITO peaks, Pd, and Au fcc structure peaks are clearly visible for Pd based electrodes. On the other hand, Co has two main crystal structures such as face-centered-cubic (fcc) and hexagonal close-packed (hcp) phases. SEM images illustrates that spherical particles were obtained for these Pd based electrodes. Finally, formic acid electrooxidation activities of these electrodes were evaluated and enhanced electrooxidation activities were obtained.


B-algebras. Bounded Normal Operators in Hilbert Space. Miscellaneous Operators in Hilbert Space. Unbounded Operators in Hilbert Space. Ordinary Differential Operators. Linear Partial Differential Equations and Operators. Appendix. References. Notation Index. Author Index. Subject Index.


In his paper "Pour une Crisologie" (1976), Edgar Morin calls for the creation of a discipline capable of apprehending crises and reconciling and overcoming social life antagonisms. Although social sciences focused de facto on "crises" (social, economic, political . . . ), they haven't done that by adopting the perspective advocated by him. In their topics, they have not privileged the effectiveness of the crisis, but its potentiality, i.e., the risk (psychosocial, environmental . . . ).


By virtue of its ability to separate hematopoietic from fatty marrow, MR imaging is ideal for detecting marrow lesions. This article reviews the techniques of bone marrow imaging, interpretive pitfalls, anatomic variations with patient age, and the alterations in bone marrow signal occurring in a variety of pathologic conditions.


PURPOSE
We explore an automatic anatomical landmarks tracking reset method in the ultrasound liver sequences, with the goal to improve the robustness and accuracy of the tracking.

METHODS
The proposed tracking failure re-initialization method works as follows: before anatomic landmarks tracking is carried out, the image similarity coefficient is calculated (In our method, the complex wavelet structural similarity is used), between the region of interest (ROI) selected in current frame and the ROI in the first frame. If this similarity coefficient exceeds a set threshold, the positions of anatomical landmarks are reset to those which were input for the first frame. This provides a method to prevent accumulation of errors over long sequences, which can lead to erroneous tracking, and amounts to a sort of "automatic reset" of the tracking starting points based on initial a priori information.

RESULTS
The experiments are conducted to track the landmarks in the 5 volunteer B-mode ultrasound liver sequences. The results were evaluated by comparison with manual annotations of liver feature (vessels) throughout each image sequence which were provided after automated tracking was complete. Tracking accuracy was evaluated using the Euclidean distance between tracked points and manually annotated points which was summarized by the mean. The mean error for all ROIs in different sequences are about 1-1.5 mm with the proposed automatic reset method, while the error is about 2 mm without the automatic reset method.

CONCLUSION
Due to the periodic motion of the anatomical landmarks, the proposed image similarity-based automatic re-initialization method can improve the accuracy and robustness of the motion tracking in the ultrasound liver sequences. It may also be applied to other organs' tracking problem using ultrasound imaging.


One of the factors of male infertility is idiopathic oligospermia in which the causative factor is not known. A direct case control, two-centers, prospective, randomized controlled two-arm parallel group trial was carried out to investigate the safety and efficacy of trialed medicine in Shifa-ul-Mulk Memorial Hospital for Eastern Medicine at Madinat-ul-Hikmah, Hamdard University Karach-74600, Pakistan. An assessment was conducted on the coded herbal formula Spermox (Test drug) to treat idiopathic condition of oligospermia; the test drug spermox was compared with Fertilox (Control drug). The idiopathic pathogenic states of spontaneous origin were detected on 62 clinically diagnosed patients. The conclusive findings were significant as improvements were seen in clinical assessment and semen analyses parameters. The value of sperm count per milliliter in spermox was found more than 29 million in 26 patients (p 0-032). It revealed that Spermox is more effective in upgrading the semen quality and quantity when compared with Fertilox for the treatment of idiopathic oligospermia. This is clearly evident that Spermox (Test drug) possesses a more viable value for the treatment of idiopathic oligospermia in comparison to Fertilox (Control drug).

 Key words: Oligospermia, herbal medicine, male infertility, prospective, multicentre, randomized, clinical trial.


This study proposes the potential methodological approach to be utilized by regulators when setting up a Long-Term Rate (LTR) for the evaluation of insurers' liabilities beyond the last liquid point observable in the market. Our approach is based on the optimization of two contradictory aspects – stability and accuracy implied by economic fundamentals. We use U.S. Treasury term structure data over the period 1985-2015 to calibrate an algorithm that dynamically revises LTR based on the distance between the value implied by long-term growth of economic fundamentals in a given year and the regulatory value of LTR valid in a year prior. We employ both Nelson-Siegel and Svensson models to extrapolate yields over maturities of 21-30 years employing the selected value of the LTR and compare them to the observed yields using mean square error statistic. Furthermore, we optimise the parameter of the proposed LTR formula by minimising the defined loss function capturing both mentioned factors.


Abstract This paper describes sectoral core–periphery gradients across Western European regions over the period 1975–2000, and it estimates the impact of EU membership on countries' internal geography. Overall, it is found that the centrality of European regions has been losing importance as a determinant for the location of employment. Central regions have gained employment share in none of the eight broad sectors analysed, whereas peripheral regions have significantly gained employment share in four of these sectors. Accession to the EU has favoured countries' peripheral regions in terms of manufacturing employment and their central regions in terms of service employment.


In the last decade, many research efforts have been done in order to increase the spectral efficiency of wireless communications. From now on, opportunistic resource allocations have emerged as the best way to reach this objective. They take into consideration the radio conditions in the allocation process. This allows to guarantee high system throughput and high Quality of Service (QoS). However, today, it is not sufficient anymore. Many climate problems have been underlined by the majority of world scientists and decreasing world greenhouse gas emission has become a necessity for the world's environment preservation. This requires to also reduce energy consumption in as much sectors as possible including wireless communication networks. This paper proposes to extend the opportunistic approach with the proposition of a new scheduling solution enables to significantly decrease the system energy consumption. Performance evaluations will show that the global energy consumption can be divided by 2 compared to existing schedulers without jeopardizing system efficiency.


The Implementation of Good Breeding Practice for Beef Cattle at PT Lembu Jantan Perkasa in Serang-Banten T. Safitri, R. Priyanto, and Henny .N Cow-calf production is fundamental to the other cattle production system, i.e growing of stocker and cattle finishing. Good Breeding Practices (GBP) for beef cattle is important for breeding goal achievement that is producing breeding animal. The scope of GBP in beef cattle farming includes four aspects: facilities, cattle breeding, environmental protection and supervision. The study aimed to examine the Good Breeding Practices for beef cattle at PT Lembu Jantan Perkasa (LJP) in Serang -Banten. Descriptive analysis was used to review the breeding operation in PT LJP Serang-Banten. The breeding parameters observed were calving interval, service per conception, conception rate, and calving rate. The result showed that in general the company had applied well GBP in its operation. There were several aspects that should be considered to improve the GBP operation those site plant building and security, replacement stock, and animal health. Calving interval are 408 days in 2009 and 372 days in 2010. Service per conception are 1,6 in 2009 and 1,5 in 2010. Conception rate are 78% in 2009 and 88% in 2010 and calving rate are 23% in 2009 and 84% in 2010.


Retirement patterns are very different among European countries in spite of similar trends in mortality. Some countries exhibit very early retirement while others manage to keep older individuals working. How much of these differences are driven by pension rules? How much by health differences across countries? How much by quality of work? This article sheds light on the relative weight of these popular explanations by exploiting the richness of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe


We study the motion of an electric charge in a medium over a finite spatial distance. We consider at first the motion described by continuous functions of time, that is, its velocity and all its time derivatives are continuous. If the velocity v of the charge is greater than the velocity cn of light in the medium, then the intensity of the radiation is proportional to the frequency in some angular region and decreases exponentially outside of it. If the motion has no jumps in the velocity but jumps in the acceleration, the exponential decrease changes to a reciprocal one with 1/ω. For a purely decelerated motion, when both the initial and the final velocities are greater than cn, the intensity of the radiation contains a plateau. For practical application, the case with a vanishing final charge velocity is important: the intensity of the radiation is then maximal at the Cherenkov angle θc that corresponds to the initial charge velocity whereas it decreases sharply for θ>θc. For this case, provided the velocity of the charge exceeds cn, the total intensity (obtained by integrating the angular intensity of the radiation over the solid angle) is a linear function of the frequency, even though the Tamm condition is strongly violated.


Abstract. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research/Bodeker Scientific (NIWA–BS) total column ozone (TCO) database and the associated BS-filled TCO database have been updated to cover the period 1979 to 2019, bringing both to version 3.5.1 (V3.5.1). The BS-filled database builds on the NIWA–BS database by using a machine-learning algorithm to fill spatial and temporal data gaps to provide gap-free TCO fields over Antarctica. These filled TCO fields then provide a more complete picture of wintertime changes in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The BS-filled database has been used to calculate continuous, homogeneous time series of indicators of Antarctic ozone depletion from 1979 to 2019, including (i) daily values of the ozone mass deficit based on TCO below a 220 DU threshold; (ii) daily measures of the area over Antarctica where TCO levels are below 150 DU, below 220 DU, more than 30 % below 1979 to 1981 climatological means, and more than 50 % below 1979 to 1981 climatological means; (iii) the date of disappearance of 150 DU TCO values, 220 DU TCO values, values 30 % or more below 1979 to 1981 climatological means, and values 50 % or more below 1979 to 1981 climatological means, for each year; and (iv) daily minimum TCO values over the range 75 to 90∘ S equivalent latitude. Since both the NIWA–BS and BS-filled databases provide uncertainties on every TCO value, the Antarctic ozone depletion metrics are provided, for the first time, with fully traceable uncertainties. To gain insight into how the vertical distribution of ozone over Antarctica has changed over the past 36 years, ozone concentrations, combined and homogenized from several satellite-based ozone monitoring instruments as well as the global ozonesonde network, were also analysed. A robust attribution to changes in the drivers of long-term secular variability in these metrics has not been performed in this analysis. As a result, statements about the recovery of Antarctic TCO from the effects of ozone-depleting substances cannot be made. That said, there are clear indications of a change in trend in many of the metrics reported on here around the turn of the century, close to when Antarctic stratospheric concentrations of chlorine and bromine peaked.


This paper proposes a multitoning method based on threshold modulation using a Modified Jointly Blue Noise Mask (MJBNM) to reduce banding artifacts. Since banding artifacts appear as uniform dot distributions around the intermediate output levels, such halftone patterns result in discontinuity and a visually unpleasing output in smooth transition regions. Therefore, to reduce these banding artifacts, the principal cause of banding artifacts is first analyzed. Based on the analytical results, the proposed method then arranges the dot distribution by introducing pixels to the neighborhood of the output levels through threshold modulation using an MJBNM, which takes into account the chrominance error and correlation between channels. Depending on the input value, the original threshold range of the MJBNM is first scaled linearly so that the minimum and maximum of the scaled range include some more pixels than the adjacent two output levels containing the input value. If an input pixel is inside the vicinity of any intermediate output level producing banding artifacts, the output is set to one of those output levels based on comparing the result to scaled threshold values and a threshold modulation parameter that determines the dot density. Otherwise, a conventional multitoning method is applied. As a result, the proposed method effectively decreases the appearance of banding artifacts around the intermediate output levels.


This study used LA-ICP-MS on a documented sample of modern teeth to sample from a continuous line across the cementum increments thus creating a temporal line graph of the elemental composition against distance. The knowledge of cementum was extended through (1) a more complete elemental composition analysis and (2) the relation of element distribution to the ultrastructure structure throughout the life of a tooth. This study was exploratory and demonstrated that lead, zinc, mercury, and barium follow the same general line of changes, and most likely represent changes in health and exposure to these metals in the general environment. Copper, manganese and vanadium varied very little. Technological limitations prevented the examination of element levels in any one annulation.


About one in seven accidents involving children occurs at school. Roughly 70% of these accidents involve children under the age of 12 years. Thus, primary school teachers may be confronted with accidents where first aid could improve the outcome. Despite the importance of first-aid knowledge among teachers, little is known about this topic. To fill this gap, we conducted case-based survey research on the objective and subjective first-aid knowledge of primary school and kindergarten teachers in Flanders, Belgium. An online survey was distributed to primary school and kindergarten teachers. It included 14 hypothetical first-aid scenarios in a primary school context to assess objective knowledge, along with one item to assess subjective knowledge. A total of 361 primary school and kindergarten teachers completed the questionnaire. The participants achieved an average knowledge score of 66%. Those who had completed a first-aid course had significantly higher scores. Knowledge regarding child CPR was amongst the lowest, with only 40% correct answers. Structural equation modeling showed that only previous first-aid training, recent experience with first aid, and subjective first-aid knowledge were linked to teachers' objective first-aid knowledge—particularly for basic first aid. This study shows that completing a first-aid course and completing a refresher course can predict objective first-aid knowledge. We therefore recommend that first-aid training and regular refresher courses should be mandatory in teacher training, given that a large share of teachers may need to apply first aid to a pupil at some point during their career.


Despite significant improvements in safety performance of oil and gas industry, major accidents are still continue to occur. Human factors are the root cause of many accidents. Achieving a positive health and safety culture in an organisation is fundamental to managing health and safety effectively. The attitudes and decisions of senior managers are critical in setting the priorities of the organisation, therefore hands-on leadership is key in all cultures. Senior managers' role is not simply restricted to directing work and monitoring compliance with rules and regulations. They should act as leaders and facilitiators: they must encourage suggestions, motivate their staff and engage with the workforce to solve health and safety problems. They should make sure that health and safety is not viewed as a separate function, but as an integral part of productivity, competitiveness and profitability and that health and safety risks are recognised as part of business. Since senior managers influence the health and safety culture in the organisation, they must lead by example. Health and safety must be on the agenda at every board or management meeting. Health and safety performance is an important element of performance reviews, and managers are accountable for the health and safety performance of their departments. Long term goals for the control of major hazards and health and safety must be set as done for financial and production goals. Senior managers should meet the workforce regularly and discuss health and safety with them, and they should ensure that individuals who raise issues or make suggestions are provided with positive feedback on their contribution and are informed personally of the actions taken as a result of their input. Contracts should be awarded to companies which demonstrate a good health and safety performance. Senior managers should meet regularly with the managers of the contractors to review their health and safety performnce against clearly defined expectations. All incidents and near misses should be investigated fully to identify the underlying causes and follow up on the agreed actions, and senior managers must ensure that the investigation procedure consider all issues, including humann factors, and immediate as well as underlying management-related causes are identified without attributing blame and that corrective actions are taken to prevent the incident happening again. All the leadership issues mentioned here will be explained with working examples from Botas International Limited which is the BTC Pipeline Operator in Turkey and from other national&international sources.


Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) utilising hedonic and spatial analysis is well established in the field of property valuation for taxation purposes. In this role these approaches are deployed on large datasets of property attribute data and use prices in a sold sample to estimate value in the general population. With the emergence of the green agenda, much effort has been put into improving the energy efficiency of housing. A key policy has been the introduction of energy ratings which have become mandatory in several jurisdictions, with the aim of informing market choices. Many jurisdictions have also made efforts to improve knowledge of energy efficiency of housing stock, to better target funding and awareness campaigns aimed at encouraging upgrades. Some jurisdictions are now seeking to reward / encourage such activity via tax incentives. This research is based upon a project to bring together several large databases of property based data, held by a tax authority, an energy saving trust and a major social housing provider to establish a basis for statistical analysis. The aim is to estimate the energy efficiency of the entire housing stock of a jurisdiction using the type of attribute data commonly collected for taxation and energy management purposes. The research utilises regression analysis and spatial analysis to understand the pattern of energy inefficiency and to identify hot-spots of poor performance. The aim is to provide a methodology which may be broadly deployed to gain a deeper understanding of energy efficiency in the housing stock and to provide a data test bed to model the performance potential of a range of potential policy options.


Mid-infrared pulsed lasers operating around the 3 μm wavelength regime are important for a wide range of applications including sensing, spectroscopy, imaging, etc. Despite the recent advances in technology, the lack of a nonlinear optical modulator operating in the mid-infrared regime remains a significant challenge. Here, we report the third-order nonlinear optical response of gold nanorods (GNRs) ranging from 800 nm to the mid-infrared regime (2810 nm) enabled by their size and overlapping behavior-dependent longitudinal surface plasmon resonance. In addition, we demonstrate a wavelength-tunable Er3+-doped fluoride fiber laser modulated by GNRs, which can deliver pulsed laser output, with the pulse duration down to 533 ns, tunable wavelength ranging from 2760.2 to 2810.0 nm, and spectral 3 dB bandwidth of about 1 nm. The experimental results not only validate the GNRs' robust mid-infrared nonlinear optical response, but also manifest their application potential in high-performance broadband optoelectronic devices.


In view of the fact that a determination of the relative frequency with which bovine tuberculosis occurs in children of the same community has a very definite bearing upon the nature of the milk supply of that community, and also that, in some instances, the figures of other investigators have been somewhat too small to deduce final percentages of bovine infection in children, a study of the subject was undertaken in these laboratories. It was our chief object to ascertain the type of infection in each case, rather than to attempt to discuss at any length the morphologic and cultural characteristics of tubercle bacilli from bovine and human sources. Following the discovery by Theobald Smith, 1 in 1898, that two distinct types of tubercle bacilli could be recovered from tuberculous lesions in man, one of which was also pathogenic for cattle, and thus designated "bovine," and the other pathogenic only


AIM
To study changes in immune system of patients with various forms of chronic bronchitis (CB) and neurocirculatory asthenia (NCA).

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Neurological and immunological examinations were made in 84 patients with CB exacerbation and 51 control subjects.

RESULTS
It was found that 60% of CB patients had NCA. No negative effects of NCA on immune system in CB patients were registered. Suppression of immune system and secondary immunodeficiency occurred more frequently in CB patients without signs of NCA. 40% of CB patients had vagotonic NCA in which immunological disorders manifested most clearly.

CONCLUSION
Vegetative disorders in CB patients do not affect immunological system. Functional testing of autonomic nervous system is suggested for prediction of immune system condition.


The purpose of this work is to study the cognitive interferences philosophical and social sciences and humanities. The aim of the article is to analyze the cognitive interaction of historical anthropology and semiotics in the space of philosophical-cultural concepts Lotman. Methodology . The methodology of this work includes the theoretical approaches, such as system-structural method, interdisciplinary method, comparative and source study methods. Teoretical basis and results . Philosophy of Culture Lotman contains a large number of cognitive dimensions. Significant role in the cognitive universe of his work is semiotics and historical anthropology. However interaction of these semiotic components of Lotman creation little explored yet. The latter applies to the redesign of the historical-anthropological ideas and research scientist. Conclusions . Understanding the interaction of cognitive semiotics and historical anthropology in the space of culture philosophy of Lotman logically leads to the conclusion that the effectiveness of cognitive symbiosis methodological approaches these sciences. In particular, the cognitive structure allows us to study the underlying causes of the motives and actions of individuals and entire societies past. The realization of semiotic, historical and anthropological methods allows us to analyze the underlying mechanisms of the spiritual culture and social and cultural institutions of societies from different historical periods.


PURPOSE
Objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of using flattening filter free (FFF) beam with 0.5 cm multileaf collimator (MLC) leaves over conventional flattened beam with 1 cm leaf width MLC on the treatment plan quality in cranio-spinal irradiation (CSI).

METHODS
For five medulloblastoma cases (3 males and 2 females), who were previously treated by volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) technique using conventional flattened beam shaped by 1 cm width MLC leaves, four test plans were generated and compared against the delivered plan. These retrospective plans consisted of four different combinations of flattened and FFF beams from Elekta's Agility treatment head with 0.5 cm width MLC leaves. Sparing of organs at risks (OAR) in terms of dose to 5%, 50%, 75% and 90% volumes, mean and maximum dose were evaluated.

RESULTS
All plans satisfied the planning objective of covering 95% of PTV by at least 95% of prescription dose. Marginal variation of dose spillage was observed between different VMAT plans at very low dose range (1-5 Gy). Variation in dose statistics for PTVs and OARs were within 1% or 1 Gy. Amongst the five plans, the plan with flattened beam with 1 cm MLC had the highest number of MUs, 2.13 times higher than the plan with Agility MLC with FFF beam that had the least number of MUs. No statistically significant difference (p≥0.05) was observed between the reference plan and the retrospectively generated plans in terms of PTV coverage, cold spot, hot spot and organ at risk doses.

CONCLUSION
In the treatment of CSI cases by VMAT technique, FFF beams and/or finer width MLC did not exhibit advantage over the flattened beams or wider MLC in terms of plan quality except for reduction in MUs.


Electron-excited X-ray mapping is a key operational mode of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS). The popularity of X-ray mapping persists despite the significant time penalty due to the relatively low output count rates, typically less than 25 kHz, that can be processed with the conventional EDS. The silicon drift detector (SDD) uses the same measurement physics, but modifications to the detector structure permit operation at a factor of 5–10 times higher than conventional EDS for the same resolution. Output count rates as high as 500 kHz can be achieved with 217 eV energy resolution (at MnKα). Such extraordinarily high count rates make possible X-ray mapping through the method of X-ray spectrum imaging, in which a complete spectrum is captured at each pixel of the scan. Useful compositional data can be captured in less than 200 s with a pixel density of 160 × 120. Applications to alloy and rock microstructures, ultrapure materials with rare inclusions, and aggregate particles with complex chemistry illustrate new approaches to characterization made practical by high-speed X-ray mapping with the SDD.Note: The Siegbahn notation for characteristic X-rays is commonly used in the field of electron beam X-ray spectrometry and will be used in this article. The equivalent IUPAC notation is indicated in parentheses at the first use.In this article, the following arbitrary definitions will be used when referring to concentration (C) ranges: major: C > 0.1 (10 wt%), minor: 0.01 ≤ C ≤ 0.1 (1–10 wt%), and trace: C < 0.01 (1 wt%).


The article reconsiders an assumption on which political science relies : the similarity between one's place of residence and place of vote. Drawing from ethnographic, historical and statistical data, it emphasizes the continuous presence of non-resident voters and elected representatives in French small mountain communities. It analyzes the mobility of those who do not vote in their municipality of residence but in the one in which they are "natives" and the political mobilizations that support it.


ABSTRACT In this study, simultaneous transesterification and esterification of high acid value sunflower oil to fatty acid methyl esters was studied using Amberlyst 46 as a heterogeneous catalyst. The influence of reaction conditions such as molar ratio of methanol/oil, reaction time, and reaction temperature was investigated. The highest fatty acids methyl esters yield of 75.8% was obtained in presence of 6 wt% oleic acid content under reaction conditions of 20 wt% Amberlyst 46 catalyst amount, 6/1 methanol/oil molar ratio, reaction temperature of 130°C, and reaction time of 10 h.


The elasticity of aggregate supply is one key to understanding the degree to which policy-induced increases in demand for biofuel feedstocks or agricultural CO2 offsets will result in higher prices or expanded supply. In this paper we report land supply elasticities for the United States and Brazil estimated directly from the observed changes in cropland and estimated changes in expected returns. The resulting aggregate implied land-use elasticities with respect to price are quite inelastic in the United States and more elastic in Brazil (0.007-0.029 and 0.382-0.895, respectively). However, with pasture land included in Brazil, implied elasticities become much less inelastic (0.007-0.245).


Many real-world markets are competitive only in smalls, taken to mean that price taking applies only to small orders. Starting from this observation, a theory of equilibration is derived where orders are optimal merely in a local sense. Prices are assumed to adjust in the direction of the order imbalance. In the context of financial markets populated with mean-variance optimizing agents, the theory predicts that a security's price will correlate with excess demands in other securities, and the sign of this correlation is the same as that of the covariance of the final payoffs. In the short run, prices tend to a local equilibrium where the risk-aversion weighted endowment portfolio (RAWE) is mean-variance optimal. Relative to the market portfolio, RAWE overweighs securities that are held disproportionally by more risk averse agents; RAWE puts less weight on securities that are held primarily by more risk tolerant agents. Throughout equilibration, portfolio separation is violated generically, and violations are more extreme when payoff covariances are positive. For a variety of patterns of initial allocations (including identical initial holdings), the equity premium is larger at the outset than at (CAPM) equilibrium. All these implications are confirmed in experiments.


Myeloma bone disease (MBD) is one of the clinical features of multiple myeloma, which contributes to the attenuation of osteoblast function. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells exhibit a high potential for differentiation into osteoblasts. A number of studies have reported that microRNAs (miRs) serve a vital role in mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) osteogenesis; however, the role of miR-221-5p in the osteogenic differentiation of MBD-MSCs remains unclear. The present study revealed that the osteogenic differentiation capacity of MBD-MSCs was reduced compared with that of normal (N)-MSCs. Further experiments demonstrated that miR-221-5p expression was downregulated in N-MSCs following osteoblast induction while no obvious alterations in expression levels were observed in MBD-MSCs. The inhibition of miR-221-5p promoted the osteogenic differentiation of MBD-MSCs. Bioinformatics, luciferase reporter assays, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR and western blotting assays indicated that smad family member 3 (smad3) was a direct target of miR-221-5p in MBD-MSCs. A negative association was identified between the expression levels of smad3 and miR-221-5p. Investigations of the molecular mechanism indicated that suppressed miR-221-5p could regulate the osteogenic differentiation of MBD-MSCs by upregulating smad3 expression. It was also identified that the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway was activated following miR-221-5p inhibition, and this increased the osteogenic differentiation capacity of MBD-MSCs. The present study may improve the understanding regarding the role of miR-221-5p in the regulation of osteogenic differentiation, and may contribute to the development of a novel therapy for MBD.


We describe the synthesis of matrix supported hydrogel structures based on amine containing poly(2-oxazoline)s and their use to bind and release genetic material for potential applications in diagnostics or pathogen detection. Amine containing poly(2-oxazoline)s were synthesized by copolymerization of 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline with a monomer bearing a tert-butyl oxycarbonyl (Boc) protected amine group in the 2-position and subsequent deprotection. The statistical copolymers were used to generate hydrogels and matrix supported hydrogels by cross-linking of a certain fraction of the amine groups with epichlorhydrin. Supported structures were prepared by soaking porous polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP) filter materials in a copolymer/epichlorhydrin solution, which was cross-linked upon heating. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the composites revealed a bead like structure of the gel phase, which could be attributed to a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior of the initial polymer prior to gelation. The dependency of the LCST behavior on the content of amine groups was investigated. Swelling values and the ratio of hydrogel per composite was determined using water sorption analysis. Subsequently, the ability of the systems to absorb and release labeled DNA was tested. Uptake and stimulated release, triggered by changes in pH, temperature, and heparin concentration, were investigated using fluorescence microscopy. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) proved the successful recovery of the DNA, demonstrating the potential of the presented system for a broad range of molecular biological applications.


This article describes characteristics of the elderly population in China. Data were obtained from the 1995 1% national sample survey. In 1995 the population aged 60 years and older was 113.95 million persons or 9.43% of total population. The population aged 65 years and older comprised 6.41% of total population. The population aged 80 years and older was 0.82% of total population. The child dependency ratio was 41.45%. The aged dependency ratio was 14.76%. The total dependency ratio was 56.41%. The aged-child ratio was 35.43%. 60.76% of the elderly are ages 60-69 years. The sex ratio of the elderly was 92.85 females/100 males. It was 106.82 for elderly aged 60-64 years and 33.82 for elderly aged 90 years and older. Chinas elderly were largely illiterate or semi-literate. Illiterates were 15.4% of the elderly in cities 5.57% of the elderly in towns and 78.84% of the elderly in townships. Semiliterates were 25.50% in cities 7.18% in towns and 67.325 in townships. Primary educated were 24.97% in cities 8.55% in towns and 66.48% in townships. Junior middle schooled were 44.43% in cities 14.65% in towns and 40.93% in townships. Higher educated were 81.79% in cities 10.22% in towns and 7.98% in townships. Most of Chinas elderly lived in rural areas. The elderly aged over 60 years were 10.22% of city populations 8.86% of town population and 9.27% of township populations. 64.45% of the elderly lived with spouses. 33.44% were widows. The average household size among the elderly was 3.83 members. 15.08% lived alone. Slightly more lived alone in towns. More females lived alone than males in both urban and rural areas.


This paper presents an insight into the performance degradation in Gilbert mixer due to the voltage stress-induced hot carrier effects. Analytical analysis relates the performance degradation with the model parameter shifts caused by voltage stress. The stress-induced parameter shifts are examined experimentally. Performance degradation in mixer is investigated through Spectre-RF simulation with the models extracted from measured data.


A series of monoclonal antibodies was produced against sporozoites of the OS strain of Plasmodium inui, a simian quartan malaria parasite, and used to characterize the circumsporozoite protein of this parasite. The results confirm that the immunodominant epitope of the circumsporozoite protein of P. inui is immunologically distinct from those of 2 other quartan parasites, the human P. malariae and simian P. brasilianum, which are identical.


The multiple-dose (200 mg levodopa t.i.d.) pharmacokinetic profile of two controlled-release products of levodopa (Madopar HBS and Sinemet CR) was compared to conventional Madopar capsules in 18 healthy volunteers in a cross-over, randomized design. A pronounced controlled-release profile of the Madopar HBS and Sinemet CR product was demonstrated compared to conventional Madopar capsules with a significant (p < 0.001) decrease (-40 and -55%) in Cmax and a significant (p < 0.001) increase (+237 and +256%) in morning Cmin for the 200 mg t.i.d. dosage schedule. Almost equivalent bioavailability (85-90%) of levodopa was demonstrated for the controlled-release formulations relative to that of conventional Madopar capsules. The Madopar HBS formulation was bioequivalent with Sinemet CR with respect to levodopa, but it exhibited a moderately higher fluctuation index compared to Sinemet CR as a result of somewhat higher Cmax and lower Cmin values for the Madopar HBS formulation. 3-OMD (a metabolite of levodopa) levels were significantly (p < 0.05) higher for Madopar HBS and Madopar compared to Sinemet CR. The higher 3-OMD levels for the levodopa/benserazide combinations are consistent with a more potent decarboxylase inhibitory activity of benserazide as compared to carbidopa. The number of adverse events was highest for conventional Madopar (n = 18) compared to the controlled-release formulations (n = 12 for Sinemet CR and only 2 for Madopar HBS). A more efficient inhibition of dopamine formation from levodopa (resulting in higher 3-OMD levels) by Madopar HBS was consistent with the superior tolerability (especially for initial nausea) observed for the Madopar HBS formulation as compared to Sinemet CR.


We examine the long run operating and stock price performance of UK open offer firms in the context of the earnings management hypothesis. We find that in the pre-offer period offer firms report significant improvements in their operating performance unrelated to cash flow performance. Results on return performance show that offer firms outperform various benchmarks in the pre-offer year but underperform up to four years after the offer. Regression results show that pre-offer discretionary current accruals predict the long-run post-offer return underperformance but do not predict the short-run reaction to SEO announcements. Our findings are more consistent with the earnings management hypothesis than with either the timing hypothesis or the managerial response hypothesis and suggest that investors do not take full account of the information available at the time of open offers.


Studies suggest that, pursuant to the implementation of SFAS 133, even sophisticated users of financial statements find it difficult to comprehend earnings implications of hedging derivatives. Moreover, due to stringent hedge accounting requirements under these standards, many economic hedges do not qualify for hedge accounting and are deemed "ineffective" for financial reporting purposes. Motivated by these considerations, we investigate the impact of hedging on earnings predictability by analyzing hand-collected hedging data from two industries that extensively use derivatives to manage price risks: the oil-and-gas exploration and production industry and the airline industry. In contrast to extant evidence, we find that overall hedging derivatives improve income predictability and increase (decrease) analysts' forecast accuracy (dispersion). We also show hedges deemed ineffective for hedge accounting can increase earnings volatility and significantly impair earnings predictability. This finding lends support to concerns expressed by some corporate managers and industry experts against stringent hedge accounting requirements.


The fluorescent probe ROFRET contains a Bodipy molecular rotor connected via a short triazolebased spacer to a fully alkylated Bodipy. Förster resonance energy transfer takes place from the rotor to the other Bodipy, and is enhanced to a limiting value as the viscosity of the solvent increases. Time-resolved spectroscopy and steady-state studies are consistent with both a forward and reverse energy transfer, and delayed fluorescence.


The concentration of copper (Cu), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) in the roadside soil of Doha was evaluated. Three different roads were selected for the study namely, Mesrif street, Salwa road and Cornish street representing low, medium and high traffic volume, respectively. The roadside soil samples were collected during summer and winter seasons. The average concentration of Cu, Pb, Zn, and Cd was 10.76 ppm, 27.93 ppm, 190.07 ppm and 0.16 ppm, respectively. Pearson's correlation coefficient showed a high correlation between Cu and Zn in the summer and a high correlation between Zn and Cd in the winter. This high correlation indicates that the sources of the heavy metals were the same. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a significant relationship between traffic volume and season and Zn and Cd concentration.


This paper explores how Australian Indigenous people express their mutual life‑giving bonds with other‑than‑humans such as animals, plants, natural features, and land in terms of kinship relationships. I will describe an 'ontology of connectivity' and a 'mutuality of being' among living beings in terms of reciprocal responsibility, interdependence, cooperation and care. In reference to my ethnographic research in Northeast Arnhem Land, I insist on the priority of relating, and on the affective nature of multispecies relationships, and illustrate how these are celebrated, maintained and reactivated through ceremonial songs, as well as new forms of music.


We developed and implemented optimization-based decision support systems (OBDSSs) to support production planning at CTI (an appliance-manufacturing firm) using new methodologies and tools based on structured modeling. These tools can reduce the time and cost required to build such systems. We released different versions of these systems, which progressively incorporated new production processes and several other enhancements. Our development strategy included close interaction with CTI's decision makers, a well-structured training program and follow-up, and short response times for releasing new versions of the software. We estimate use of our system increased profits by 13 to 24 percent, depending on the model version applied, an increase of between $3 to $6 million per year.


One method of design the LFSR-based stream ciphers is using irregular clock that it is most famous structures. In recent years became a springboard technique called clock control that improves efficiency compared to generators has become tighter. In this way, instead of several clock has been changed and values, in the state through the middle. Per basic polynomials, a jump in the index jump is still there. It is clear that for the length of each LFSR, there are several initial polynomials that same period, but the size of the jump index is different. In this paper, by analyzing the correlation attack on generators springboard, it was concluded that the selection of index jump polynomials with maximum results in minimum correlation between output and input sequence is productive. So in the design of stream ciphers with a springboard generation structure, in terms of correlation attacks, the polynomial with most rate of jump up the index is priority.


Purpose of the study: To explore the aging experience of the "over 60" group of singles who have never been married and have no children. How they experience their aging process in terms of their singlehood and vice versa. Design and Methods: A qualitative-phenomenological approach was adopted. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 participants aged 60 to 87. Results: Four major themes emerged: (a) "How come I stayed single?" (b) Between loneliness, aloneness and solitude. (c) "I have to take care of myself in old age." (d) The self behind prejudices and stereotypes. Implications: As the normative expectation is to live with partners, children, and grandchildren, they need to account for their alternative choice and give meaning to being a never married single. This meaning is expressed by constructing their self-identity and accepting their way of life.


Genetic programming based hyper-heuristics have been an suitable approach to designing powerful dispatching rules for dynamic job shop scheduling. However, most current methods only focus on a single objective while practical problems almost always involve multiple conflicting objectives. Some efforts have been made to design non-dominated dispatching rules but using genetic programming to deal with multiple objectives is still very challenging because of the large search space and the stochastic characteristics of job shops. This paper investigates different strategies to utilise computational budgets when evolving dispatching rules with genetic programming. The results suggest that using local search heuristics can enhance the quality of evolved dispatching rules. Moreover, the results show that there are some differences in evolving rules for single objectives and for multiple objectives and that it is difficult to efficiently estimate the Pareto dominance of rules.


Summary: Strains of Escherichia coli were opsonized in human colostrum via heat stable opsonins and the classic complement pathway, but colostrum lacked capacity to opsonize E. coli via the alternative pathway. There was no bacteriostatic activity against serum sensitive E. coli strains, although specific antibodies against the strains were present. Neutrophils suspended in colostrum had normal chemotaxis and this was not altered by treating the colostrum with HCI.Speculation: Possibly the migration of neutrophils to the intestinal wall and lumen in response to cytotaxic factors may be enhanced by colostrum. Milk derived opsonins may enhance phagocytosis. Human breast milk may, thus, play a role in the defense against bacteria in the gut of the nursed infant and locally in the mammary gland by promoting neutrophil chemotaxis and phagocytosis.


This paper reviews transport policy, implementation and its impact in Bangkok. Bangkok has not done any special measures in its transportation system. Many ambitious policies have been planned like the exclusive bus lane and the automatic location system for buses. However, they have only reached the experimental level and have not reached full implementation because of financial constraints and political conflicts. Only the ring road, expressway, overpass, underpass, truck ban, BTS and MRT have been successfully implemented.


Detection of pyrrolidonyl-aryl-amidase activity (PYR) is an important tool to identify gram-positive cocci, such as staphylococci, enterococci, streptococci, and other related genera. However, only few studies evaluating its usefulness with gram-negative rods have been published. Thus, a prospective study including 542 and 215 unique clinical isolates of Enterobacteriaceae and non-fermentative gram-negative rods, respectively, was undertaken. Strains were identified by conventional methods. PYR test was performed using a commercial kit, according to the manufacturer recommendations. Positive results were uniformly obtained for the PYR test with the following species: Citrobacter spp, Klebsiella spp, Enterobacter aerogenes, Enterobacter agglomerans group, Serratia marcescens and S. odorifera. On the other hand, negative results were uniformly displayed by E. coli (including inactive E. coli), Protease group, Salmonellia spp, Shigella spp, Acinetobacter spp, Burkholderia (Pseudomonas) cepacia and Flavobacterium spp. Variable results were shown in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Stenotrophomonas (xanthomonas) malthophilia, Kluyvera cryocrescens, and Enterobacter cloacae. PYR test proved to be a reliable and simple tool to rapidly distinguish certain species belonging to Enterobacteriaceae (ie. Citrobacter freundii from Salmonella spp, and inactive E. coli from K. ozaenae). Further studies, including a wide diversity of species, are required to assess usefulness of the PYR test for the identification of non-fermentative gram-negative rods.


Waste metal powder usually obtains by metal cutting process and this metal powder commonly disposes. This research proposes a technique or method to reuse this metal powder. However, there are many challenges in using this waste metal powder which are the waste metal powder mix with oil and it is needed to obtained small size of metal powder. This challenge can be solve by pyrometallurgy and filtering process. This research use powder metallurgy process in order to reuse this metal powder. Compaction pressure and sintering are an important in powder metallurgy process, which affects the final performance of the part. This study investigates the compaction pressure and sintering on mechanical properties of waste metal powder which get from cutting the metal. The correlation between the density and mechanical properties of the fabricated porous parts are intensively studied. It is found that the compaction pressure and sintering time will affect the mechanical properties of the waste metal powder.


Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) is usually used as an inhibitive assay for insecticides. A lesser-known property of AChE is its inhibition by heavy metals. In this work, we evaluate an AChE from brains of Clarias batrachus (catfish) exposed to wastes from aquaculture industry as an inhibitive assay for heavy metals. We discovered that the AChE was inhibited completely by Hg2+, Ag2+, Pb2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Cr6+ and Zn2+ during initial screening. When tested at various concentrations, the heavy metals exhibited exponential decay type inhibition curves. The calculated IC50 (mg/L) for the heavy metals Ag2+, Cu2+, Hg2+, Cr6+ and Cd2+ were 0.088, 0.078, 0.071, 0.87 and 0.913, respectively. The IC50 for these heavy metals are comparable, and some are lower than the IC50 values from the cholinesterases from previously studied fish. The assay can be carried out in less than 30 minutes at ambient temperature.


Using private contractors to improve the management of instructional services will both improve the quality of education and persuade citizens to better support education financially, Mr. Doyle maintains. IN THE PAST year there has been an explosion of interest in the question of privatization of public schools, which encompasses everything from the old standby -- vouchers -- to such innovations as charter schools, home schooling, and the emergence of private management companies, such as John Golle's Education Alternatives, Inc., and Chris Whittle's Edison Project. Even the U.S. Senate is interested: the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), held a full day of hearings on 25 January 1994 on the topic of private sector management of public schools. More important, a number of urban superintendents have begun to explore private sector management as a realistic alternative to business as usual. The cities of Minneapolis, Miami, Baltimore, Hartford, and Washington, among others, have all considered this possibility. In light of these developments, we must ask ourselves, Is there a role for private sector management of public schools, and how might it play out? The short answer is that the role can and will be substantial -- eventually. There are really two elements to the question: demand and supply. First, what role will the purchasers of services play? That is, will school districts seize or reject the opportunity to use the services of private management companies? Second, what will be the response of the suppliers of management services? Will reliable and competent "education management" companies enter and remain in the market? Clearly, the two issues are interrelated. Indeed, considered together, they raise a third question: Will supply create its own demand? Not to be confused with supply-side economics, this issue, first formulated by French economist Georges Says in the early 19th century, goes directly to the heart of the concept of entrepreneurship, for which Says can also claim credit. By entrepreneurship Says meant the innovative combination of labor and capital to produce new ways -- often radically new ways -- of creating and bringing to market goods and services, most of which did not exist before the entrepreneur conceived of them. Interestingly, the central issue of entrepreneurship is not "risk-taking," as many people have come to think, but genuinely new ways to do things. Indeed, an entrepreneur may actually be risk averse; he or she may think of new ways to minimize risk. Most often the risk an entrepreneur runs is confronting convention. In the case of the schools, that means confronting institutional inertia. The importance of this problem cannot be overemphasized. There are 15,173 school districts in the nation, enrolling more than 40 million children; each of these districts is formally independent, though the degree of state control differs from one state to the next. What is most striking about this diverse system is its utter absence of real diversity. Although school districts are nominally independent, they are so nearly alike in organization and practices that it is almost impossible to tell one from another. The uniformity of the school system, once thought to be a virtue, is clearly a liability in the modern era. As Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has wryly noted, if one-quarter of the products made on an assembly line don't work when they reach the end of the line and another quarter fall off the line before the end, the solution is not to run the line faster or longer. Different production processes must be created. Put simply, the nation desperately needs new ways to conduct the business of educating the young, and entrepreneurship must be at the top of any list of reforms. There are two powerful, intertwined incentives to entrepreneurship: fame and fortune. …


The predominant small ruminant production system in Ethiopia is at the subsistence level with very low productivity despite a huge potential due to the large animal numbers and genetic diversity. Growing market demand both at local and export market and recent increased focus by the Ethiopian government considered as good opportunity to boost small ruminant productivity. Particularly local breeds in lowlands reared by pastoralists are highly preferred for export by slaughter houses and live animal exporters. Even though successful breeding programs and developed specialized breeds are available worldwide, importing and adopting large sized breeds and technologies has not been successful for the last four decades. Community based breeding programs, born from the previous lessons, have shown promising results in the highland smallholder system. However, flock mobility, very high temperature, frequent droughts and poor infrastructure in the pastoral system so far limits designing and implementation of community based breeding programs in pastoral areas. Tailoring these programs to fit the pastoral system considering its context need to be considered. Mapping of the mobility pattern, use of mobile extension and organized youth/community group to assist the breeding program during mobility are crucial.


The fact is that over 57% of the 2.9 million HIV positive people in India live in rural areas. India still has a rural base with 69% of its population living in rural areas. Young migrant workers and other highly mobile population essentially come from villages. Due to rural-urban continuum, rural population is also not lagging behind its urban counterpart in adopting high-risk behaviours. To face the challenge of HIV/AIDS in rural India is even more difficult due to poor literacy rates resulting in poor awareness, mostly engaged in unorganised sector and stigma associated with it. Link Workers Scheme (LWS) implemented in 100 villages each at Purulia & Murshidabad targeting youth, vulnerable and high risk population for prevention of STI/HIV/AIDS and improve service delivery linkages. Murshidabad & Purulia is a vulnerable district due to high migration, interstate border, trafficking, poverty, illiteracy and poor health care. Link Workers have been accepted as frontline development functionaries and are proving to be successful in reaching out to the target population. LWS successfully reached out 4861 HRGs and 146079 vulnerable young men and women in last two years. Referral services to ICTC, STI and TB have increased significantly and a total of about 18500 cases referred to health facilities for testing of HIV, 79% cases actually turned up for testing; more than 7800 STI cases identified, 64% reported; 2700 TB cases identified, 52% reported and utilised the services. About 3860 pregnant women identified in the project area and referred for HIV testing. The link-worker, through a due diligence process, keeps on motivating the person to access HIV/AIDS related services such as HIV testing, treatment of STIs, ART, treatment of opportunistic infections and minimise the gap between beneficiary and service delivery. This need to scalled up to arrest the spread of STI/HIV/AIDS in rural setting.


The catchment of the Groot Marico River in the North West Province has for centuries been a highly desirable tract of land for human settlement purposes. In many respects the river and its valuable water supplies, situated in a semi-arid region of South Africa, is an artefact that has been changed by human hands in the course of long history. Recently local residents were once again made aware of how important the river is for their existence when a mine prospecting company started exploring the catchment region for potential deposits of nickel. Geologists had been surveying the region for probably as long as three years before the local residents were told that the search was on for mineral deposits in a region that had become a desirable place of weekend residence for professional people from Gauteng. Civil society was mobilised to take strong stand against the 'evil' agents of mining activities. Once local residents organised themselves into activist groups, they sought support from previously disadvantaged people resident in the local informal settlement at Groot Marico, to support their case. For a number of understandable reasons the locals were not of the same intent as local property owners. They saw job prospects in the area. Only once the activists started explaining to the people and brought them into the ambit of negotiations, did the previously disadvantaged people realise what they stood to lose. This paper deals with aspects of an ethnic class divide in the local community. It is argued that in order to get all the residents to appreciate the river as an important artefact that needs to be protected and used responsibly, there is a need to develop a space of social learning where different forms of communication strategies are used to make people aware of the importance of the river and that it needs to be nurtured and protected for posterity.


Abstract There is a lack of evidence supporting the association between carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and acute kidney injury (AKI). Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the association between CO poisoning and AKI. From 2000 to 2011, we identified patients diagnosed with CO poisoning from the inpatient claims data. Patients aged below 20 years, who had a history of chronic kidney disease or end-stage renal disease before the index date and had incomplete medical information were excluded. Control patients without CO poisoning were randomly selected from all National Health Insurance beneficiaries, and the same exclusion criteria were used. The control group was frequency matched to patients with CO poisoning based on age, sex, and year of CO poisoning diagnosis. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were conducted to assess the effects of CO poisoning on the risk of AKI. The hazard ratios and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated in the models. Compared with the control cohort, patients with severe CO poisoning were 3.77 times more likely to develop AKI (95% CI = 2.20-6.46), followed by those with less severe CO poisoning (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.21, 95% CI = 1.61-3.03). The findings of this nationwide study suggest an increased risk of AKI in patients with CO poisoning.


OBJECTIVES
Historically, health care has relied on error management techniques to measure and reduce the occurrence of adverse events. This study proposes an alternative approach for identifying and analyzing hazardous events. Whereas previous research has concentrated on investigating individual flow disruptions, we maintain the industry should focus on threat windows, or the accumulation of these disruptions. This methodology, driven by the broken windows theory, allows us to identify process inefficiencies before they manifest and open the door for the occurrence of errors and adverse events.

METHODS
Medical human factors researchers observed disruptions during 34 trauma cases at a Level II trauma center. Data were collected during resuscitation and imaging and were classified using a human factors taxonomy: Realizing Improved Patient Care Through Human-Centered Operating Room Design for Threat Window Analysis (RIPCHORD-TWA).

RESULTS
Of the 576 total disruptions observed, communication issues were the most prevalent (28%), followed by interruptions and coordination issues (24% each). Issues related to layout (16%), usability (5%), and equipment (2%) comprised the remainder of the observations. Disruptions involving communication issues were more prevalent during resuscitation, whereas coordination problems were observed more frequently during imaging.

CONCLUSIONS
Rather than solely investigating errors and adverse events, we propose conceptualizing the accumulation of disruptions in terms of threat windows as a means to analyze potential threats to the integrity of the trauma care system. This approach allows for the improved identification of system weaknesses or threats, affording us the ability to address these inefficiencies and intervene before errors and adverse events may occur.


Geographic atrophy (GA) affects around 5 million individuals worldwide. Genome-wide, histopathologic, in vitro and animal studies have implicated the activation of the complement system and chronic local inflammation in the pathogenesis of GA. Recently, clinical trials have demonstrated that an intravitreal injection of pegcetacoplan, a C3 inhibitor, and avacincaptad pegol, a C5 inhibitor, both statistically significantly reduce the growth of GA up to 20% in a dose-dependent fashion. Furthermore, the protective effect of both pegcetacoplan and avacincaptad appear to increase with time. However, despite these anatomic outcomes, visual function has not improved as these drugs appear to only slow down the degenerative process. Unexpected adverse events included conversion to exudative NV-AMD with both drugs. Occlusive retinal vasculitis and anterior ischemic optic neuropathy have been reported in pegcetacoplan-treated eyes.


In the present article, the Authors spread their clinical understanding of genetics and biology of heart failure directly from the bedside investigation of biological systems dynamics through an original diagnostic method with the simple use of the stethoscope, i.e., assessing the splenic arrhythmia (Stagnaro, 1985a) or Morosini's syndrome (Stagnaro and Caramel, 2012a).

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), today's growing epidemic, is the first cause of death in world-wide. Despite all the current researches, there are still many open questions, such as the well-localized origin of initial endothelial dysfunction and the relationship between genetic causes and environmental risk factors (about 300!) in atherogenesis. For example, not all patients with intense hyper-dyslipidemia are atherosclerotic, and there are individuals suffering of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), in spite of absent dyslipidemia and type 2 DM.

On the other hand, one wonders why a large number of patients with hyperinsulinemia-insulin-resistance, hypertension, hyper dyslipidemia live to old age without getting CVD. On the contrary, even without environmental risk factors for atherosclerosis (ATS), in several patients we can see the onset of AMI and stroke. Notoriously, CVD occurs even in individuals without common risk factors, while the CVD may be absent in smoking subjects with impaired blood counts and hypertension.


ABSTRACT We examine the impact of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on firm value using a sample of African listed firms selected over the 2000–2015 period. Our results show that the adoption of IFRS positively impacts firm value. We further find that the impact of IFRS adoption on firm value is more pronounced in environments where there is a greater commitment to the rule of law. Moreover, the increase in firm value is more pronounced for firms with a higher degree of financial constraints. Finally, additional results suggest that the benefits of fully implementing IFRS are higher than those arising from partial/modified adoption. Our results are robust to controlling for other factors that affect firm value and to alternative sampling procedures.


EMV is the international protocol implemented to secure the communication between a client's payment device and a PoS during a contact or an NFC purchase transaction. It guarantees several important security properties such as authentication, authorization and integrity. However, researchers, in various studies, have analyzed this protocol and have shown that it is vulnerable to several kinds of attacks. In this paper, we propose an innovative security protocol that solves the EMV vulnerabilities in the context of a new NFC payment architecture. The latter is designed in this work and is especially destined for small merchants, allowing to replace the use of a mobile PoS by an NFC smartphone: we suggest, for a small merchant, to take advantage of his NFC smartphone for use as an NFC reader, and then, directly as a PoS to accept NFC purchases from client payment devices. We check the accuracy of our proposal using the Scyther security tool.


Detailed description of the time course of muscular adaptation is rarely found in literature. Thus, models of muscular adaptation are difficult to validate since no detailed data of adaptation are available. In this article, as an initial step toward a detailed description and analysis of muscular adaptation, we provide a case report of 8 weeks of intense strength training with two active, male participants. Muscular adaptations were analyzed on a morphological level with MRI scans of the right quadriceps muscle and the calculation of muscle volume, on a voluntary strength level by isometric voluntary contractions with doublet stimulation (interpolated twitch technique) and on a non-voluntary level by resting twitch torques. Further, training volume and isokinetic power were closely monitored during the training phase. Data were analyzed weekly for 1 week prior to training, pre-training, 8 weeks of training and 2 weeks of detraining (no strength training). Results show a very individual adaptation to the intense strength training protocol. While training volume and isokinetic power increased linearly during the training phase, resting twitch parameters decreased for both participants after the first week of training and stayed below baseline until de-training. Voluntary activation level showed an increase in the first 4 weeks of training, while maximum voluntary contraction showed only little increase compared to baseline. Muscle volume increased for both subjects. Especially training status seemed to influence the acute reaction to intense strength training. Fatigue had a major influence on performance and could only be overcome by one participant. The results give a first detailed insight into muscular adaptation to intense strength training on various levels, providing a basis of data for a validation of muscle fatigue and adaptation models.


The government has done its best to solve cases of poverty in Indonesia. However, the efforts made by the government have been implemented but the government has not been able to complete optimally and thoroughly and prosper the Indonesian people, this becomes a prolonged problem. In this case the government issued Keluarga Harapan Program (PKH). Implementation of PKH program located in Kajhu village, Baitussalam sub district, Aceh Besar district due to Rumah Tangga Sangat Miskin (RTSM) so this should get special attention from the government. The method used in this research is qualitative method with descriptive research type. The results of the research say that PKH is able to eradicate poverty in Kajhu village and able to bring prosperity to the community, so that the community is very grateful for the existence of this PKH in the village, and reduce the existing poverty. Obstacles obtained are the manipulation / forgery of data by people who are not entitled to receive PKH funds.


Bile acids facilitate the absorption of lipids, and affect the development of various diseases by regulating intestinal flora structure and modulating immunity and metabolism. It is therefore important to quantitatively detect bile acids. Current analytical methods are still immature due to constituent complexity, structural heterogeneity and bioactive variability of bile acids. Detection of individual bile acids is of significance for pharmacological research, clinical diagnosis and disease prevention. Advances have been made in bile acid analysis from multiple sources including serum, bile, urine and feces, although several limitations still exist for bile acid quantification. Here we review research progress in conventional bile acid assays, including spectrophotometry, thin-layer chromatography, liquid/gas chromatography and liquid/gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Moreover, we emphasize the development of bile acid biosensors that may have promising prospects.


Context: Death is always considered as one of the major concerns of humankind. In spite of the diverse believes about the concept of death which are heavily influenced by the culture and traditions of societies, there are also commonalities regarding it. Aims: The aim of this study was to analyze the concept of human death by Walker and Avant concept analysis method. Setting and Design: This is a concept analysis and library study. Materials and Methods: To clarify the concept of death, the internet search of the Persian and English words death, dying 'dying patient, concept analysis and Walker and Avant was done in SAGE, PubMed, Medline, Google scholar, science direct, and Scopus databases and the related articles and book about death were reviewed. In the present study, it was attempted to extract the commonalities of death and clarify this concept further. To clarify the concept of death, the Walker and Avant model was used. Statistical Analysis Used: No statistical methods were used in this study. Results: The findings reveal that death is a metaphysical phenomenon with features such as a part of life from the beginning of creation; an ambiguous and sometimes horrific truth; too far; too close; certain and inevitable truth; universal for all beings; a necessity for excellence; divine blessing for man; passage to another world and irreversible. Conclusions: It seems that this concept requires more and more research, and deeper knowledge and appreciation regarding it can lead to more positive and logical attitudes toward it.


Abstract A series of lateritized footslope benches are observed on the isolated hill masses which rise to 500 m above the interior plain of Sierra Leone. Field observations and chemical analyses of samples indicate that each bench has a characteristic geochemistry controlled by its own topography, hydrological environment and leaching history. The benches are related, each inheriting material from above and providing material for the bench below. The material is transported both mechanically and in solution. As a result, the parent material of each bench is not only the bedrock (metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary rocks of Proterozoic age in the case of the Kasewe Hills), but also material which has undergone various degrees of lateritization. This cratonic region has been subjected to denudational processes since Mesozoic times at least. Denudational processes, especially etchplanation, are long continued, yet weathering, the development of breakaway slopes and subterranean flushing are patently continuing processes: these palaeosurfaces and palaeosoils may, therefore, be ancient in origin but they cannot be considered as being fossilized.


PREMISE OF THE STUDY
Understanding the drivers of speciation is a central task of evolutionary biology. Chromosomal rearrangements are known to play an important role in species diversification, but the role of rearrangements of holocentric chromosomes-chromosomes without localized centromeres-is poorly understood.

METHODS
We made numerous artificial crosses between Carex scoparia individuals of different diploid chromosome numbers and, for comparison, between individuals of the same chromosome number. We studied chromosome pairing and chromosomal rearrangements in the F1 individuals using light microscopy. We then estimated germination rates as a function of geographic distance, genetic distance, chromosome number differences in parents, and pairing irregularities in F1 individuals, using generalized least squares to fit alternative regression models.

KEY RESULTS
The most informative predictors of germination rates in the F1 generation are chromosome number differences and minimum number of chromosome pairing irregularities in the F1 individuals. Genetic and geographic distances between parents are not significant predictors.

CONCLUSIONS
Holocentric chromosomal rearrangements play an important role in postzygotic reproductive isolation in Carex through F1 hybrid inviability and sterility. Hybrid dysfunction seems to be a suitable model for chromosomal speciation when there are several chromosomal rearrangements between parents. However, we have not tested the hypothesis that genome rearrangements may also play an important role in suppressing recombination between cytogenetically divergent populations.


The essay sheds a light on mobile individuals, the motivation behind their movement, and their experience in foreign social contexts. It is based on group analytical and interdisciplinary discourses. The focus lies on possible changings of the collective in globalized worlds- approached by the view of individuals. What could imply the loss of the primary group and the perception of this loss for the individual. What are the mobile individuals (refugees and global players) looking to find abroad, what are the promises, the demands and necessities. Material: I am offering for discussion texts from an ethnopsychoanalytical study focusing on two very different groups of mobile individuals. On one hand, interviews with so-called "global players" or "job nomads" and on the other hand interviews with African refugees. The analysis of the material leads to the first hypothesis: The option offered by a globalised world to find an individual place and freedom everywhere in the world is associated with a lack of intersubjective spaces, a lack of embodiment in a group, less sharing of common meanings, rules and taboos. Keywords: Intersubjective space; Mobility; Global players; Refugees


Abstract A novel hardware-oriented image contrast enhancement algorithm is proposed in this study for intelligent autonomous vehicles. It utilizes a weighted filter and calculates the brightness values of an image based on the adjusted image. The brightness values are processed
 to either reduce or increase the brightness values of the points. To further improve the quality of an image, the algorithm implements a block-based pixel processing as opposed to a per image frame processing. The brightness values for each block or area in the image are used to improve the
 contrast of the image. This is accomplished by reducing or increasing the different brightness values of the pixel or lifting point in each block. Simulation results showed that compared with previously proposed algorithms, this work improved on the average discrete entropy by 1% and increased
 the average color enhancement factor by 8.5%. The proposed novel algorithm was realized using TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS cell process. The VLSI design has a total gate count of 6028 and operates with a frequency of 201 MHz and a power rating of 17.47 mW.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this paper is to assess patient satisfaction in Greek public hospitals.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH
In total, 367 patients participated in the study with a minimum of three days stay at the hospital. Measures included overall satisfaction, satisfaction with medical and nursing staff, satisfaction with room facilities, waiting times, extra costs. Information was also collected concerning sex, age, education, salary and length of stay in the hospital. Participants were also asked to indicate, in an open-ended question, the most positive and the most negative aspects of their care.

FINDINGS
Patients' bad experience with aspects of their care was not directly reflected in low levels of satisfaction. Patients had to wait long hours to get an appointment with a doctor or after their examination to be admitted to the hospital. Many patients had to rely on a personal nurse and to pay extra money to the medical and nursing staff. They considered lack of staff as the main drawback of the hospital. However, their overall satisfaction was very high.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS
These results raise concerns about how patients evaluate. Patients are expected to act as consumers who carefully evaluate the aspects of care they receive. However, the aspects of care which patients take for granted when they evaluate their experience with health care providers needs to be illustrated further. Patients' relationship with health care providers may reflect trust rather than rational choice.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE
This paper provides useful information on assessing patient satisfaction in Greek public hospitals which could be used elsewhere.


Grain growth and fragmentation are important processes in building up large dust aggregates in protoplanetary discs. Using a 3D two-phase (gas–dust) sph code, we investigate the combined effects of growth and fragmentation of a multiphase dust with different fragmentation thresholds in a time-evolving disc. We find that our fiducial disc, initially in a fragmentation regime, moves towards a pure-growth regime in a few thousands years. Time-scales change as a function of the disc and dust properties. When fragmentation is efficient, it produces, in different zones of the disc, Fe/Si and rock/ice ratios different from those predicted when only pure growth is considered. Chemical fractionation and the depletion/enrichment in iron observed in some chondrites can be linked to the size–density sorting and fragmentation properties of precursor dusty grains. We suggest that aggregation of chondritic components could have occurred where/when fragmentation was not efficient if their aerodynamical sorting has to be preserved. Chondritic components would allow aerodynamical sorting in a fragmentation regime only if they have similar fragmentation properties. We find that, in the inner disc, and for the same interval of time, fragmenting dust can grow larger when compared to the size of grains predicted by pure growth. This counter-intuitive behaviour is due to the large amount of dust that piles up in a fragmenting zone followed by the rapid growth that occurs when this zone transitions to a pure growth regime. As an important consequence, dust can overcome the radial-drift barrier within a few thousands years.


In 1993, Professor Frolik helped initiate The Elder Law Journal's first issue with his essay, The Developing Field of Elder Law: A Historical Perspective. Today, with the publication of the tenth volume of the Journal, Professor Frolik looks back over the past decade to reflect on the changes that have occurred within the field. In the past, he writes, Medicaid planning was thought by many to be the core of an elder law practice. This was not the case ten years ago, however, and it is certainly not true in the twenty-first century; elder law attorneys must practice in multifarious areas that, taken together, constitute late life legal planning. In his essay, Professor Frolik examines some of the fields that interface with elder law, such as estate planning, retirement planning, and health care. He concludes by describing some of the reasons that elder law's acceptance in the academy has been slow, despite its growth in private practice, and notes the difficulties young attorneys face in receiving elder law training.


Some social communities evident their own unique internal structure. In the paper we consider social communities composed of several cohesive subgroups which we call compound communities. For such communities, an extended generalized blockmodeling is proposed, taking into account the structure of compound communities and relations with external actors. Using the extension, the community protection approach is proposed and used in detection of spam directed towards an e-mail local society.


Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the association between two ethnic groups: Bumiputera directors and Chinese directors, on the incidence of accounting conservatism. Design/methodology/approach - A panel data analysis of financial statement data was conducted for 300 Malaysian listed firms between 2001 and 2007. Findings - The analysis shows that the ethnic groups influence the adoption of conservatism, but that the evidence is mixed, implying that there could be factors other than ethnicity which explained the directors' behaviour. Practical implications - The results provide a useful input to the proponents of harmonisation in financial reporting, in that Malaysian financial reports do not appear to be influenced by the ethnicity of participating groups. Originality/value - This is the first paper to measure empirically the impact of ethnicity on the incidence of accounting conservatism.


BACKGROUND
Papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) detection has been increasing explosively with the recent improvement and application of new diagnostic tools. However, the associations between clinical, histopathological, and molecular findings are often not fully evaluated in reaching a decision for the treatment of PTMC.

OBJECTIVE
To retrospectively evaluate the patients diagnosed with PTMC in terms of the clinical and histopathological features and the immunohistochemical findings of specific molecular markers, and thereby provide an association with the disease prognosis for the Korean patients.

DESIGN
We have reviewed the clinical records of patients who underwent surgery for thyroid cancer (during January 2000 to August 2006 interval) at St. Mary's Hospital, Seoul, Korea. The clinical and histopathological characteristics of 217 PTMCs were evaluated cross-sectionally after surgery, and immunohistochemical staining of p53, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), Ki-67, and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) for 87 isolated specimens was performed.

MAIN OUTCOME
The proportions of extrathyroid extension, lymphatic invasion, and lymph node metastasis cited were 31.9%, 19.2%, and 17.8%, respectively. However, distant metastasis was not noted. Fifty-three (27.1%) patients had multiplicity, and 39 patients (20.0%) had bilateral disease. A primary tumor larger than 5 mm was significantly associated with extrathyroid extension, lymphatic invasion, and lymph node metastasis. The absence of EGFR expression shown by immunohistochemical analysis was closely correlated with extrathyroid extension and lymph node metastasis, while the absence of COX-2 expression was associated with multiplicity and bilaterality.

CONCLUSION
Many patients with PTMC had clinical and histopathological poor prognostic factors. The expression of molecular markers, such as EGFR and COX-2, may have a role in the prognosis of PTMC. When considering all of the prognostic factors, a more tailored management approach appears to be necessary for patients with PTMC.


Necessary stereochemical requirements for an amino acid sequence segment to fold into an alpha-helix-turn-alpha-helix supersecondary structure are presented in sequence template form. The usefulness of the template is illustrated by alpha-helix-turn-alpha-helix predictions consistent with experimental data from the large T antigens of two polyoma viruses, simian virus 40 (segment 143-165) and mouse polyoma virus (segment 297-319), and the yeast transcription activator GCN4 (segment 256-278).


Introduction: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, clinically defined by expression of the biomarkers ER, PR, and HER2, with 15-30% of breast cancers overexpressing the HER2 protein. Antibodies to tumor antigens that are present in patient sera are potential biomarkers for early detection and prognosis of breast cancer. The purpose of this study is to identify a panel of novel serum biomarkers for the early diagnosis of HER2+ breast cancer. Methods: We screened sera from breast cancer patients for autoantibodies using custom nucleic acid programmable protein microarrays (NAPPA). Plasmid cDNAs encoding 10,000 full-length human proteins with c-terminal GST or FLAG tags were printed on arrays with anti-GST or anti-FLAG antibodies, and transcribed and translated in situ using HeLa expression lysate. Serum samples were obtained at diagnosis from patients with stage I-III HER2+ breast cancer classified by IHC and/or FISH testing (HER2+/ER-/PR-, 47%; HER2+/ER+/PR+, 48%; HER2+/ER-/PR+, 5%). Control sera were age-matched and obtained from women undergoing screening mammography or diagnostic mammography for benign breast disease. The microarrays were screened with sera from 29 cases and 29 controls. 850 antigens were selected, displayed in microarray format, and screened with an independent set of sera 27 cases, 29 benign breast disease controls, and 25 healthy controls. Bound IgG was detected by fluorescence. Results: From the initial 10,000 proteins, we identified 850 proteins using cutoff values of AUC (0.68), sensitivity (0.29), and pAUC (0.0075) at 94% specificity for further analysis. From these, 50 candidate autoantibody biomarkers for the detection of HER2+ breast cancer were identified based on visual analysis and statistical cutoff values of 15% sensitivity at 98% specificity and K-statistic (≥ 0.9). Conclusion: We identified a 50-autoantibody serum signature for the detection of HER2+ breast cancer. Blinded validation studies are ongoing. Citation Format: Benjamin A. Katchman, Rizwan Alam, Matthew S. Field, Jennifer Viloria, Garrick Wallstrom, Joshua LaBaer, Paul Engstrom, Karen S. Anderson. A protein microarray signature of autoantibody biomarkers for the detection of HER2+ breast cancers. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1318. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1318