INTRODUCTION
Gestational toxoplasmosis is frequent and severe. There is still debate about the benefits of treatment against ocular manifestations in the newborn. Spiramycin treatment is used for this purpose, unfortunately prenatal diagnosis is sometimes delayed and pregnant women are not treated.

OBJECTIVE
To describe the relationship between treatment with spiramycin during pregnancy in mothers with gestational toxoplasmosis and development of ocular toxoplasmosis in newborns.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We conducted a descriptive study of a case series. We evaluated a prospective cohort of patients diagnosed with gestational toxoplasmosis during three years at the Retinology Service at the Clínica Universitaria Bolivariana in Medellín.

RESULTS
Gestational toxoplasmosis was found in 23 mothers; 15 (65%) were treated during pregnancy with 3 g per day of spiramycin, eight (35%) patients were untreated. In the treated group just one newborn developed ocular toxoplasmosis (6.6%), in contrast with five (62.5%) of the eight patients who did not receive treatment. These results suggest that pregnancy treatment reduces the relative risk of ocular toxoplasmosis in the newborn by 96% (95% CI: 33 - 100%). Only two (14%) of the patients who were evaluated, had nervous system involvement related to toxoplasmosis in CT scan or cerebral ultrasound. These two patients also developed ocular pathology and were diagnosed at the time of birth, so they did not received antenatal treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
A protective effect was found against the ocular involvement in patients whose mother received treatment with spiramycin (OR=0.04;95% CI: 0.00-0.67), p<0.01 (Fisher's Exact Test).


The tensile strength behavior and recyclability of the paper prepared with the addition of polyamideamine-epichlorohydrin (PAE) were investigated. The dry and wet tensile strengths obtained with different PAE dosage were measured. The highest wet-to-dry strength ratio of 35% was obtained at 10 mg/g; above this addition level wet strength dropped slightly and then remained constant. The repulpability of strengthened paper was correlated directly with wet strength. The effect of electrolyte on tensile strength was also quantified by varying sodium chloride and calcium chloride concentration in the furnish stock. Without PAE, high salt concentrations (100 mM) reduced the tensile strength by 15-20%. At constant PAE addition level of 10 mg/g, low levels of salt addition (of either 10 mM NaCl or 10 mM CaCl2) slightly improved the strength; paper strength decreased at high salts concentrations. The cation valency and concentration in the process water were important variables which affected the efficiency of PAE. These results present the significance of developing sustainable wet strength agents that can be applied in demanding salty conditions while maintaining the product recyclability.


A comprehensive yet concise guide to performing and interpreting echocardiography. Written by three of the foremost clinical experts in the field, the authors provide first-hand experience of common as well as exotic conditions. This practical book guides the reader through the various forms of echocardiography (M-mode, 2-D, Doppler, colour flow, and transesophageal echocardiography, and transthoracic echocardiography). The text is illustrated to aid understanding. It includes colour scans, and useful pairings of anatomic drawings with scans to orient the novice. Also useful for reference are the tables of normal values. Unique to this book is the incorporation of TEE within discussion of each clinical entity, rather than as merely a separate chapter on technique. It is thus: A useful "hands-on" guide in the lab or clinic which features reference tables of normal values and draws on extensive case material to give a wide-ranging overview of many conditions.


This exhibit is based upon facts obtained in the research laboratory where the coronary blood vessels were dealt with directly. This direct approach has yielded information that could not be obtained in any other way. The facts thus established are new and different, and up to the present time they have received little or no attention from the medical cardiologist. If the treatment of coronary disease is going to improve, it must first change. It cannot improve if it remains static. Information presented here calls for changes in treatment, and it is our duty to decide what these changes should be. One of the facts established experimentally concerns the distribution of oxygen to various parts of the heart muscle. An electrical tracing taken from a uniformly cyanosed heart is the same as the tracing taken from a uniformly well oxygenated heart. Each of these hearts is electrically stable. When the


Inevitably, pigs will experience stressors that antagonize lean tissue accretion, appetite, and feed conversion. Depending on the production system and age of the pig, these stressors commonly include weaning transition, diet changes, vaccination, enteric and respiratory pathogen challenges, activation of the HPA axis, and social stress. Additionally, the morbidity and mortality that accompany these stressors may be exacerbated by the illegalization of sub-therapeutic antibiotic use for growth promotion (AGPs) by the Veterinary Feed Directive. However, morbidity and mortality may also be mitigated by diet ingredients via direct and indirect modes of action on gastrointestinal health and function. The gastrointestinal tract has the vital but conflicting functions of nutrient and water absorption, while simultaneously regulating host mucosal defenses against noxious luminal contents such as microorganisms and their toxins. This puts the gastrointestinal tract epithelium and splenic tissue at the front line of nutrition, growth, and health of the pig in the new age of antimicrobial resistance concerns. As part of the body's splanchnic tissues, the gastrointestinal tract is very metabolically active and has high utilization of luminal nutrients and energy. This utilization or "first pass metabolism" by intestinal epithelial and lamina propria cells can be a major determinant of the systemic or post-absorptive availability of glucose, essential and non-essential amino acids, and short and long chain fatty acids. This makes the gastrointestinal tract critically important to the growth and health of livestock and avian species. This paper will discuss the physiological impact of various stress challenges and nutrition on pig performance, gastrointestinal function and integrity.


We present the complete set of Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the binary neutron star merger GW170817 and its optical counterpart AT 2017gfo. Including deep template imaging in F814W, F110W, F140W, and F160W at 3.4 yr post-merger, we reanalyze the full light curve of AT 2017gfo across 12 bands from 5 to 1273 rest-frame days after merger. We obtain four new detections of the short γ-ray burst 170817A afterglow from 109 to 170 rest-frame days post-merger. These detections are consistent with the previously observed β = −0.6 spectral index in the afterglow light curve with no evidence for spectral evolution. We also analyze our limits in the context of kilonova afterglow or IR dust echo emission but find that our limits are not constraining for these models. We use the new data to construct deep optical and IR stacks, reaching limits of M = −6.3 to −4.6 mag, to analyze the local environment around AT 2017gfo and low surface brightness features in its host galaxy NGC 4993. We rule out the presence of any globular cluster at the position of AT 2017gfo to 2.3 × 104 L ⊙, including those with the reddest V − H colors. Finally, we analyze the substructure of NGC 4993 in deep residual imaging and find shell features that extend up to 71.″8 (14.2 kpc) from NGC 4993. The shells have a cumulative stellar mass of 6.3 × 108 M ⊙, roughly 2% of NGC 4993, and mass-weighted ages of >3 Gyr. We conclude that it was unlikely that the GW170817 progenitor system formed in the galaxy merger.


Using the parabolic approximation to the wave equation, the influence of head wave propagation along the water–sediment interface on the total field in a range‐independent environment can be computed analytically. Results from a numerical PE model are observed to agree nicely with the analytical solution for cw sources. The PE model may therefore be used with confidence to investigate various phenomena associated with head wave effects. A simple travel‐time geometrical model can be used to demonstrate that multiple arrivals in the time domain appear ahead of the direct path in the water column due to leaky head waves reflected by the sea surface back to the bottom at the critical angle. A broadband implementation of the PE model in shallow water numerically predicts these precursors quite accurately. Such precursors may not be easily distinguishable in practice and could lead to erroneous estimations of sediment sound speed. The effects of bottom loss and bathymetric range dependence has been investigated...


PURPOSE
In this study, the authors aimed to evaluate hypotheses that early sociocognition will predict later social communication and early phonology will predict later morphosyntax in clinically referred preschoolers.

METHOD
Participants were 108 children ages 9-11 years who had been referred to clinical services with concerns about language at age 2½-3½ years. Predictors at Time 1 (T1) were measures of sociocognition, word/nonword repetition, and receptive language. Outcome measures at Time 3 (T3) included a social communication questionnaire completed by parents and tests of nonword repetition, morphosyntax, and receptive language.

RESULTS
Group- and case-level analyses revealed early sociocognition to be the strongest predictor of social communication problems, which by T3 affected almost one third of the sample. At the group level, early phonology, which was a significant problem for the majority of children at T1, was a weak predictor of morphosyntax at T3. However, at the case level the majority of children with poor morphosyntax and nonword repetition at outcome had had very low repetition scores at T1.

CONCLUSIONS
In early language referrals, it is important to identify and address sociocognitive problems, a considerable risk for later social communication and autism spectrum disorders. The majority of early-referred children had phonological problems, often severe, but these require further investigation to determine their longer term significance for language.


We examine the fermionic entanglement in the ground state of the fermionic Lipkin model and its relation with bipartite entanglement. It is first shown that the one-body entanglement entropy, which quantifies the minimum distance to a fermionic Gaussian state, behaves similarly to the mean-field order parameter and is essentially proportional to the total bipartite entanglement between the upper and lower modes, a quantity meaningful only in the fermionic realization of the model. We also analyze the entanglement of the reduced state of four single-particle modes (two up-down pairs), showing that its fermionic concurrence is strongly peaked at the phase transition and behaves differently from the corresponding up-down entanglement. We finally show that the first measures and the up-down reduced entanglement can be correctly described through a basic mean-field approach supplemented with symmetry restoration, whereas the concurrence requires at least the inclusion of RPA-type correlations for a proper prediction. Fermionic separability is also discussed.


In the present study, groundwater samples were collected from ten boreholes in the Phalombe plain, Southern Malawi. The main objective was to assess the suitability of the borehole water for human consumption. Physicochemical and bacteriological parameters of the groundwater samples were determined using standard methods. Results were compared to the World Health Organization (WHO) and Malawi Standard (MS) drinking water guidelines to assess suitability. All analyses for physicochemical parameters were within acceptable limits except for fluoride concentration levels which were above WHO recommended limit of 1.5 mg/L in twoboreholes (Lihaka Primary School, 2.9 mg/L and Phalombe T.C, 2.0 mg/L). Trace metal contamination was below detection limits with atomic absorption spectrometry. Feacal coliform units exceeding WHO tolerated limits of 0 cfu/100 mg/L were observed in five groundwater samples from Lihaka Primary School (11 cfu/100 mL), Migowi trading center (4 cfu/100 mL), Phalombe T.C (77 cfu/100 mL), Thetheleya Village (73 cfu/100 mL), and Mpasa T.D.C (102 cfu/100 mL) boreholes. It was concluded that not all the borehole water is safe for human consumption. The presence of feacal coliform in some boreholes is indicative of health risk to the inhabitants of the geographical location. The study recommends mobilization of onsite possible means of treatment of groundwater such as boiling and use of chlorination tablets so as to prevent possible adverse health effects. Keywords: Bacteriological, Borehole, Malawi, Phalombe Plain, Water quality, WHO/MS drinking water guidelines


Currently, no study of subthalamic nucleus (STN) stimulation has compared continuous stimulation with a period of short‐term stimulation, which is frequently employed in the clinic and in research studies. Therefore, this study examined the effects of STN stimulation over 90 min (short) and greater than 3 months (long) on the cardinal signs of Parkinson's disease. The 90 min time period immediately followed a 12 hour withdrawal from both STN stimulation and medication. Ten PD patients who received STN stimulation were studied. Bradykinesia, rigidity, and tremor were evaluated using the UPDRS and motor control measures which included peak velocity (bradykinesia), work (rigidity), and amplitude (tremor). Results showed no difference between 90 min and greater than 3 months of STN stimulation for the UPDRS or motor control measures. This finding confirms that the treatment efficacy that is derived from a relatively short time course of stimulation generalizes to longer time periods of high frequency STN stimulation that patients experience in their daily lives. As such, it is reasonable to evaluate the effect of DBS after 90 min of stimulation in clinical trials and research studies. © 2008 Movement Disorder Society


Background: Accurate diagnosis, reporting of caries and its consequences, is absolute mandate for planning an efficient, effective community health-care program. Literature reports indicate shortcomings of existing caries assessment tools. Caries assessment spectrum and treatment (CAST) is novice caries quantification tool, which quantifies the entire spectrum of carious lesions. This tool records give an insight into the status of restorations along with various progressive developmental stages of dental caries. This instrument has been validated for face, content, and construct by an expert group, and currently, its usage is on the rise. Aim: The aim of this study was to report the reliability of this assessment tool with regard to the primary and permanent dentition of school children and adults belonging to a south Indian district. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out by two trained and calibrated examiners by examining 192 school children in the age-group between 4 and 6 years and 262 adults between 19 and 69 years. The study sample was reexamined by the same examiners after a gap of 4 weeks. The κ coefficient values and percent of agreement were calculated for the data recorded from the study subjects. Results: The analyzed data showed moderate intra-examiner and inter-examiner reproducibility for either of the dentition as revealed by κ coefficient values (0.80–0.89). Inter- or intra-examiner agreement was found to be substantial to almost perfect (percent agreement above 90%) with respect to both the age-groups. Conclusion: The CAST tool seems quite promising to be the future for quantifying caries spectrum for a community or an individual.


The purpose of this Libguide is to document ongoing and completed projects and to provide resources for the library from the Marketing & Outreach Committee.


Afrikaans originated in the variants of Dutch that developed at the southern tip of Africa during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century, when English began to overtake Dutch as the high-function language in the Cape, proponents of Dutch and Afrikaans put up a resistance, and during the 20th century the functions of Afrikaans expanded until it could take its place alongside Dutch and later stand with equal status next to English. As an official language Afrikaans reached back to Dutch a second time to develop into a full-fledged language. But its heyday could not last indefinitely. In recent decades the milieu of Afrikaans speakers has changed radically. Political upheaval, technological advances, new areas of specialisation, the lightning pace of new developments have thrust Afrikaansers into the thick of the world-wide explosion of knowledge which demands efficient communication. A third reversion to Dutch is out of the question. The path between Afrikaans and Dutch has become overgrown; few present-day users of Afrikaans still walk along it. Likewise, to the average Dutch man and woman, Afrikaans today is a distant language. In the multilingual South Africa, where English dominates, the effect of the contact with English on Afrikaans is undeniable. A serious threat to Afrikaans is its loss of status in the judiciary, the administration, education and as a scientific language. Against this backdrop the Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (HAT) – a household name among Afrikaans speakers, comparable to the Dutch "Dikke van Dale" – is subjected to scrutiny: After its "golden age", how well has the HAT kept pace with Standard Afrikaans in transition? Can it keep in step with the unstoppable, irreversible changes of the time and in the language today? Or will Afrikaans"s flagship dictionary, in a decade or so, lose its relevance for the Afrikaans user?


We discuss when the use of entangled photon pairs in an imaging system can be simulated with a classically correlated source. In particular, we consider two recently proposed schemes with 'bucket detection' of one of the photons. We argue that these schemes give identical results for entangled states as for appropriately prepared classically correlated states.


Wear is one of the most important factors affecting roller bearing performance and in determining bearing lifetime. Bearing life has traditionally been defined by the onset of spalling (ISO 281), but this definition does not always reflect operational conditions as bearing wear can also represent a failure criterion such as run-out. Therefore, bearing life is predicted according to the bearing run-out amount. Bearing wear was modeled based on Archard wear model and Cockroft-Latham damage model which were incorporated as part of an FE wear and run-out simulation. The wear models were modified in order to increased reliability of the bearing life prediction. Also, accelerated life testing was used for testing in a short time, and the amount of bearing run-out was measured in the testing. Experimental testing was also performed to confirm the integrity of the methodology and validate the simulation results and showed good correlation with the simulation results. The simulation model was also used to predict the bearing life under spalling and was compared to test data obtained using ISO 281 and was also found to provide good agreement.


The spatial structure of surface currents collected using a Doppler Radar system off the Florida Keys has been investigated. Surface current vectors were acquired within a rectilinear grid containing 700 nodes, where each node was spaced 1 km apart. Principal component analyses indicate that at least 63% of the variance of the surface currents at the 700 nodal locations can be accounted for by only three principal components. The principal modes of circulation during two separate experiments were extracted and found to be basically the same, although the first two modes were reversed between the two experiments. Coherence spectra were determined for nodal spacings between 1.76 km and 10.48 km, and the results of these analyses indicate that over most of the experimental area, approximately 60% of the variance is coherent over separations of 10.48 km. Application of a synoptic time-series model indicates that accurate prediction of the mean currents over each of the 65-h subrecord lengths was the dominant factor in controlling model performance, and that on the order of 10% error could be expected in using the time-series model to predict the low-frequency fluctuations. This indicates that time-series modeling of surface currents may be feasible and useful in estimating the long-term mixing characteristics of contaminants transported in the surface layer.


We have carried out an empirical study of the seasonal cycle of nitrous oxide (N2O) using the data archived by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (NOAA‐CMDL) Global Cooperative Air Sampling Network from 1977 to 2000. In order to isolate the seasonal cycle, we first detrended the data using least square polynomial fits. The remaining variability was averaged to extract the seasonal cycle, which has an amplitude of about 0.8 ppbv. The statistical significance of the seasonal signal was established using the multitaper method and Welch's method for power spectrum analysis.


In charting the "territory between speech and song," Cummins (2020) identifies various forms of vocal behavior involving "multiple people uttering the same thing at the same time"—what the author calls "joint speech." I interrogate this conceptual framework in light of specific examples both musical and linguistic, which suggest a usefully expanded category: "collaborative vocality." At the same time, I also propose a distinctly musical account of joint speech that ultimately affirms the conventional separation between music and language. Central to this account is an analysis of the unique character of singing and an insistence on the centrality of pleasure in musical experience.


The project is designed to develop a density based dynamic traffic signal system using raspberry pi. The signal timing changes automatically on sensing the traffic density at the junction. Traffic congestion is a severe problem in many major cities across the world and it has become a nightmare for the commuters in these cities. Conventional traffic light system is based on fixed time concept allotted to each side of the junction which cannot be varied as per varying traffic density. Junction timings allotted are fixed. Sometimes higher traffic density at one side of the junction demands longer green time as compared to standard allotted time. The image captured in the traffic signal is processed and converted into grayscale image then its threshold is calculated based on which the contour has been drawn in order to calculate the number of vehicles present in the image. After calculating the number of vehicles we will came to know in which side the density is high based on which signals will be allotted for a particular side. Raspberry pi is used as a microcontroller which provides the signal timing based on the traffic density.


This study investigates the sorption of heavy metallic ions (HMIs), specifically lead (Pb2+),
copper (Cu2+), iron (Fe3+), nickel (Ni2+) and zinc (Zn2+), by natural zeolite (clinoptilolite). These HMIs are combined in single-, dual-, triple-, and multi-component systems. The batch mode experiments consist of a total initial concentration of 10 meq/L normality for all systems, acidified to a pH of 2 by concentrated nitric (HNO3) acid. A zeolite dosage of 4 g per 100 mL of synthetic nitrate salt aqueous solution is applied, for a contact period of 5 to 180 min. Existing kinetic models on HMIs sorption are limited for multi-component system combinations. Therefore, this study conducts kinetic analysis by both reaction and diffusion models, to quantify the sorption process. The study concludes that the process correlates best with the pseudo-second-order (PSO) kinetic model. In the multi- component system combining all five HMIs, the initial sorption rate and theoretical equilibrium capacity are determined as 0.0033 meq/g.min and 0.1159 meq/g, respectively. This provides significant insight into the mechanisms associated with the sorption process, as well as contributing to the assessment of natural zeolite as a sorbent material in its application in industrial wastewater treatment.

Keywords: sorption; kinetics; modelling; natural zeolite; heavy metallic ions; ICP-AES


Uncertainty quantification seeks to provide a quantitative means to understand complex systems that are impacted by uncertainty in their parameters. The polynomial chaos method is a computational approach to solve stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) by projecting the solution onto a space of orthogonal polynomials of the stochastic variables and solving for the deterministic coefficients. Polynomial chaos can be more efficient than Monte Carlo methods when the number of stochastic variables is low, and the integration time is not too large. When performing long-term integration, however, achieving accurate solutions often requires the space of polynomial functions to become unacceptably large. This dissertation presents an alternative approach, where sets of empirical basis functions are constructed by examining the behavior of the solution for fixed values of the random variables. The empirical basis functions are evolved over time, which means that the total number can be kept small, even when performing long-term integration. We introduce this method of empirical chaos expansion, and apply it to a number of model equations, demonstrating that the computational time scales linearly with the final integration time. That is not the case for polynomial chaos in general, since achieving accuracy for long-term integration usually requires larger polynomial bases, causing a nonlinear scaling with the final integration time. We also present an analytical method that uses the dynamics of the SPDE to predict the evolution of the empirical basis functions and demonstrate how it can be applied to evolve the empirical basis functions without needing to resample realizations of the original SPDE.


Abstract Inconel 718 alloy was tested. A new type of specimens of variable cross-sectional area measuring part was used for the tests. This provided a continuous distribution of plastic strain in that part of the sample. The proposed method enables to replace a series of specimens by one specimen. The degradation of the material was obtained by static tensile test and the creep test. The permanent deformation that varies along the specimen axis allows for an analysis of damage induced by a plastic deformation. The degradation of the alloy corresponds with the changes of acoustics properties of the material - attenuation of ultrasonic waves. It allows to detennine the degree of damage to the material using a non-invasive - ultrasonic method. Using the damage parameter proposed by Johnson allows to obtain correlation between the non-destructive results and a damage degree of the material. The presented testing method delivers information about changes in the material structure caused by permanent deformation.


The novel oxonitridoaluminosilicates (sialons) Sr3Ln10Si18Al12O18N36 (Ln = Ce, Pr, Nd) were obtained by the reaction of the respective lanthanide metals with Si(NH)2, SrCO3, and AlN using a radiofrequency furnace at temperatures between 1550–1650°C. The crystal structures of the isotypic sialons were determined by single-crystal X-ray investigations (Sr3Ce10Si18Al12O18N36: I3m, Z = 2, a = 1338.2(2) pm, R1 = 0.0333; Sr3Pr10Si18Al12O18N36: a = 1334.54(6) pm, R1 = 0.0296; Sr3Nd10Si18Al12O18N36: a = 1332.85(6) pm, R1 = 0.0271) and in the case of Sr3Pr10Si18Al12O18N36 with powder neutron diffraction as well. The three-dimensional sialon network is built up by SiON3, SiN4, and AlON3 tetrahedra. Besides the bridging O and N atoms of the sialon network there are isolated O2− which are tetrahedrally coordinated by Sr and Ln. The crystallographic differentiation of Si/Al and O/N seemed to be possible by a careful evaluation of the single-crystal X-ray diffraction data combined with lattice energy calculations using the MAPLE concept (Madelung Part of Lattice Energy). In the case of Sr3Pr10Si18Al12O18N36 the differentiation of O and N and the proposed ordering was completely confirmed by powder neutron diffraction.


The tremendous increase of computation-heavy applications has posed great challenges in terms of enhanced service coverage and high-speed data processing in the Fifth Generation (5G) networks. As responding, the integrated fog and cloud computing (FCC) system has been expected as an efficient approach to support low-latency and on-demand computing services. This work considers the computing resource market in an FCC system operated by one cloud computing service provider (CCP) and multiple fog computing service providers (FCPs), in which the CCP shares its cloud computing resource among FCPs and itself to serve users with computational tasks. To facilitate the resource trading between the CCP and FCPs, a Stackelberg differential game based resource sharing mechanism is proposed. In this mechanism, performance discrepancy is introduced as a penalty factor to denote the mismatch between the resource supply and demand, which will encourage all computing providers (CPs) to make their trading decisions that can truthfully reflect their resource capacity and requirements. In addition, an evolutionary game based replicator dynamics is established to analyze the users' service selection among CPs. Based on the established hierarchical game framework, interactions between user selection and computing resource sharing are investigated. The performance of the designed resource sharing mechanism is validated in the simulations, which also reveal the convergence and equilibrium states of user selection, resource pricing and resource allocation.


In this report, an experimental approach and newly designed apparatus for liquid ventilation of preterm animals are described. Findings of age-related changes in cardiopulmonary function of this animal preparation are presented. Thirty-one lambs, 102-137 days gestation (term 147 +/- 3 days), were studied. The carotid artery, jugular vein, and trachea of the exteriorized fetus were cannulated under local anesthesia. Immediately after cesarean section delivery, ventilation commenced; warmed (39 degrees C) and oxygenated (PIO2 greater than 500 Torr) liquid fluorocarbon (RIMAR 101) was delivered to the lung by a mechanically assisted liquid ventilation system. Skeletal muscle paralysis, low-dose exogenous buffering, and thermal support were maintained during the 3-h experiment. Pulmonary gas exchange, acid-base status, and cardiopulmonary and metabolic function were assessed. By utilizing these techniques, effective arterial oxygenation, CO2 elimination, acid-base status, and cardiovascular stability were supported independent of gestational age. The results demonstrate a developmental increase in specific lung compliance and mean arterial pressure and decrease in heart rate and systemic O2 consumption per kilogram with advancing gestational age. These findings demonstrate that liquid ventilation negates the dependency of effective pulmonary gas exchange on surfactant development, thereby extending the limits of viability of the immature extrauterine lamb. As such this new experimental approach is useful for the study of physiological development over an age range previously limited to fetal animal preparations and, therefore, may provide insight regarding adaptation of the premature to the extrauterine environment.


The discovery of unexpected behaviors in databases is an interesting problem for many real-world applications. In previous studies, unexpected behaviors are primarily addr essed within the context of patterns, association rules, or seque nces. In this paper, we study the unexpectedness with respect to th e fuzzy recurrence behaviors contained in sequence database s. We first propose the notion of fuzzy recurrence rule, and then present the problem of mining unexpected sequences that con tradict prior fuzzy recurrence rules. We also develop, UFR,an algorithm for discovering the sequences containing unexpe cted recurrence behaviors. The proposed approach is evaluated w ith Web access log data.


For the problem of feature redundancy of emotion recognition based on multi-channel physiological signals and low efficiency of traditional feature reduction algorithms on great sample data, a new chaotic particle swarm optimization algorithm (TM-CPSO) was proposed to solve the problem of emotion feature selection by combining tent map based chaos search mechanism and improved particle swarm optimization algorithm. The problem of falling into local minimum can be avoided by mapping the search process to the recursive procedure of the chaotic orbit. The recognition rate and efficiency was increased and the algorithm's validity was verified through the analysis of experimental simulation data and the comparison of several recognition methods.


Anodic electrochemistry is a powerful tool for generating radical cation intermediates and initiating new cyclization reactions. Like most electrochemical reactions, the transformations involve umpolungs. In this review, recent studies examining the intramolecular coupling of radical cations derived from enol ethers, vinyl sulfides, and ketene acetals with carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen trapping groups are discussed to highlight their synthetic potential. 1 Introduction and Background 2 Arteannuins: A Backdrop for Discovery 3 A Detour: Ketene Acetals as Anodic Olefin Coupling Partners 4 Continuing the Detour: Ineleganolide and a Revised Working Model 5 Extending the Model: Nitrogen Trapping Groups 6 Back to Arteannuins: Completing the Ring Skeleton 7 Lactone Targets and a Couple of Final Points 8 Conclusions.


Covering employment and wage gender gaps, participation of women, fertility, and the welfare of children, this insightful volume discusses how the trend towards greater participation of women in labour markets interacts with gender differences in pay. It focusses on the scope for increasing the number of women in the labour force without negatively affecting the development of their children. The need for this volume has become self evident. At the Spring 2000 Lisbon meeting of the European Council the Heads of Governments of the EU agreed to accelerate the greater participation of women in the labour market. However, neither in Lisbon nor in the subsequent Spring European Councils of the EU was it discussed how to achieve this target - and the trade-offs that would be involved in increasing the participation of women in paid employment. Policies for increasing participation must involve some losers, or they would already have been implemented everywhere. If distributional considerations and policy trade-offs are ignored, it is only possible to set virtual targets, neglecting the reforms needed to achieve them. This book sets out a better informed policy debate about these issues, paving the way to more realistic targets and ways to achieve them.


After an initial phase characterized by the introduction of timely and drastic containment measures aimed at stopping the epidemic contagion from SARS-CoV2, many governments are preparing to relax such measures in the face of a severe economic crisis caused by lockdowns. Assessing the impact of such openings in relation to the risk of a resumption of the spread of the disease is an extremely difficult problem due to the many unknowns concerning the actual number of people infected, the actual reproduction number and infection fatality rate of the disease. In this work, starting from a compartmental model with a social structure, we derive models with multiple feedback controls depending on the social activities that allow to assess the impact of a selective relaxation of the containment measures in the presence of uncertain data. Specific contact patterns in the home, work, school and other locations for all countries considered have been used. Results from different scenarios in some of the major countries where the epidemic is ongoing, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, are presented and discussed.


A modified intramedullary pin technique for surgical repair of distal femoral physeal fractures in dogs and cats provided stability at the fracture site and allowed early range of motion. The fixation and stability of this technique was compared with that achieved with a multiple pin technique. Fixation failure did not occur in 11 animals treated by the modified intramedullary pin technique, whereas there were 2 failures in 13 patients treated by a multiple pin technique.


Streamflow time series are commonly derived from stage‐discharge rating curves, but the uncertainty of the rating curve and resulting streamflow series are poorly understood. While different methods to quantify uncertainty in the stage‐discharge relationship exist, there is limited understanding of how uncertainty estimates differ between methods due to different assumptions and methodological choices. We compared uncertainty estimates and stage‐discharge rating curves from seven methods at three river locations of varying hydraulic complexity. Comparison of the estimated uncertainties revealed a wide range of estimates, particularly for high and low flows. At the simplest site on the Isère River (France), full width 95% uncertainties for the different methods ranged from 3 to 17% for median flows. In contrast, uncertainties were much higher and ranged from 41 to 200% for high flows in an extrapolated section of the rating curve at the Mahurangi River (New Zealand) and 28 to 101% for low flows at the Taf River (United Kingdom), where the hydraulic control is unstable at low flows. Differences between methods result from differences in the sources of uncertainty considered, differences in the handling of the time‐varying nature of rating curves, differences in the extent of hydraulic knowledge assumed, and differences in assumptions when extrapolating rating curves above or below the observed gaugings. Ultimately, the selection of an uncertainty method requires a match between user requirements and the assumptions made by the uncertainty method. Given the significant differences in uncertainty estimates between methods, we suggest that a clear statement of uncertainty assumptions be presented alongside streamflow uncertainty estimates.


A temperature-driven, mechanistic model predicting the development of Erysiphe necator chasmothecia in vineyards was developed and validated in 38 vineyards in the Po Valley (northern Italy), Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany), and South Australia between 2005 and 2011. The model, which begins operating when the first ascocarp initials are formed, predicts on a daily basis the proportions of chasmothecia at the yellow, brown and black maturity stage. The initialization date was estimated with an iterative procedure that minimized the residuals of predicted versus observed values. In all vineyards, a drop to more favourable temperatures for ascocarp production over 2–4 days in the week or in the 2 weeks before the model initialization date probably triggered chasmothecia production. Model predictions provided a good fit of observed data (coefficients of determination, model accuracy, efficacy and efficiency were all ≥0·90), with some overestimation. When predicted production of black chasmothecia (on leaves) was compared with observed dispersal of chasmothecia from vines, lack of splashing rain was probably the main cause of overestimation. When observed numbers of yellow, brown or black chasmothecia on leaves were compared with model predictions, removal of the developing chasmothecia by rainfall was probably the main cause of overestimation. Inclusion of the effect of rainfall on the removal of immature and mature chasmothecia from the powdery mildew colonies could improve the model. The model could be used to time the application of fungicides or biocontrol agents for reducing ascocarp formation and reducing primary inoculum in the following season.


The economic structure changes are overviewed from point of employment conditions in Saudi Arabia, because the economic growth is based on skilled level of labour forces and in the same time on the innovation development. The mining sector of fossil energy in Saudi Arabia is basic principle sector, but the Saudi economy needs to extent its economic structure in order that most of population of the country can obtain jobs for employment. In general the mining sector is very efficient and productive in Saudi Arabia, which means based on the innovation development this sector provides considerable share of the GDP and export-price income for the country. The study uses analyse methods based on the statistical data and their compares, which emphasizes the economic structure of Saudi Arabia concerning different economic sectors. The data can provide overview on shares of some main economic branches and their roles in employment issues and GDP production. The mining and quarrying sector provided jobs for 1.78% of all employees in 2000 and 1.6% of them in middle of 2000s in Saudi Arabia. In the same time the mineral products had 88.3% share of all export of Saudi Arabia in 2000-2002 and 88.0% of all export by middle 2000s in million riyals. This means that the export price income after selling crude oils and other mining products ensured 2354 riyal per employee of this sector in 2000-2002 and 4357.4 riyal per employee of this sector in middle 2000s. In general in Saudi Arabia the mining sector based on the crude oil withdraw could be efficient and productive, because of the high world market price can provide enough highly export-price income for the country with using less number of employees in this sector than in the other one. Less than 2% of all employees produced 88% of all export of Saudi Arabia in 2000s. Even the share of employees in the mining and quarrying sector has decreased since 2000s, but its share of export value remained at almost same level in Saudi Arabia. Even the share of employees in the mining and quarrying sector has decreased since 2000s, but its share of export value remained at almost same level in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabia should develop the manufacturing industries in order to produce highly value added products leading to higher export price income, than to sell only crude oil to the world market. Also manufacturing value added production helps Saudi Arabia to become diversified economy less sensitive from effects of the world economy.


In 1999, 437 intestinal cestode cases were registered in Poland. Among them 369 were caused by Taenia saginata, 7 by T. solium, 35 by Taenia sp., 3 by Hymenolepis nana and 2 by Diphyllobothrium latum and 39 cases of echinococcosis were also registered. The obtained results confirmed the decreasing frequency of infection with intestinal cestodes in Poland.


INSAT-3D, an advanced meteorological satellite of ISRO carrying Imager and Sounder payloads is designed for acquiring data required for detailed climatological applications. At established data centres, Raw (L-0) data is processed to generate systematically corrected (Level-1) and geo-physical (Level-2) products which are further disseminated for use in climate related studies. Data quality evaluation (DQE) of basic data products of INSAT-3D is being operationally carried out at MOSDAC, Ahmedabad to monitor in-orbit sensor health, quantify data quality and provide feedback to various missions teams for corrective actions. DQE methodology and quality parameters have been defined keeping in view repeatability of data acquisition and quality requirements of meteorological data. In this paper, we have described INSAT-3D Quality Analysis System (i3dQAS) designed to facilitate effective data quality monitoring through web based portal. Overall context of i3dQAS in a typical data centre set-up, major objectives and design aspects to highlight the architectural and functional view of system are described. Utility of i3dQAS for mission monitoring is described through analysis scenarios for monitoring payload health and geometric accuracy of Imager.


The major aim of the midcourse guidance design is to save the energy while to enhance the engagement accuracy. The guidance law has to shape an appropriate flight trajectory for favorite engagement altitude and attitude. In this paper, the missile's flight trajectory is shaped by combining an adaptive fuzzy inference system with the Spline-4 guidance law. Extensive numerical simulations show that our proposed guidance law offers satisfactory engagement performance.


AbstractTitle: Brand Building – Differences between how business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies build their brands.Authors: Louise Lonnqvist and Sofia StiernaSupervisor: Svante AnderssonLevel: Master thesis, Independent project in business administration (30 credits), Spring 2014Keywords: Brand, Brand Building, Brand Equity, Business-to-business, Business-to- consumer.Research questions: Q1: How can the brand building process differ between business-to- business companies and business-to-consumer companies? Q2: How can brand equity differ between business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies?Purpose: The purpose with this study is to investigate the differences between how business- to-business and business-to-consumer companies build their brands. First the differences in the brand building process are going to be investigated. Furthermore, this leads to an investigation in how brand equity differs between business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies.Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework starts with an explanation about what a brand is and an explanation of the differences between business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies. Furthermore, relevant theories about the brand building process and brand equity are discussed.Methodology: A qualitative method and abductive approach were used in order to answer the research questions. Personal interviews were conducted with three business-to-business companies and three business-to-consumer companies in order to get a view over the brand building.Empirical data: The empirical findings from the six interviews based on the theory are presented.Analysis: The analysis is based on the theoretical framework together with the empirical data.Conclusion: We have come up with the conclusion that all companies have their own brand building process and it does not matter if it is a business-to-business company or a business- to-consumer company, no major difference have been found. It is not important exactly how the brand building process looks like and which stages that are included, the key is that companies work with brand building in some way, although more studies are required in order to confirm the results. Furthermore, the two brand equity factors external brand loyalty and perceived quality are more important for business-to-business companies and the business-to-consumer prefer a combination of all the factors.


The sustainability of transportation infrastructure depends on the adoption of new construction materials and technologies that can potentially improve performance and productivity. However, most agencies would like to evaluate these new materials and technologies at both the project and network levels before replacing the traditional ones. It also remains a challenge to reliably estimate the costs and lifetime performance of new construction materials and technologies because of limited implementation data. To address these issues, this paper presents a comprehensive bottom-up methodology based on Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) to integrate project- and network-level analysis that can fast-track the acceptance of new materials or technologies. Hypothesized improvement rates are applied to the deterioration functions of existing materials to represent the expected improved performance of a new material compared with a conventional material with relatively similar characteristics. This new approach with stochastic treatment allows us to probabilistically evaluate new materials with limited data for their future performance. Feasible maintenance and rehabilitation schedules are found for each facility at the project level and near-optimal investment strategies are identified at the network level by using a metaheuristic evolutionary algorithm while satisfying network-wide constraints. This provides an effective solution to many issues that have not been fully addressed in the past, including the trade-off between multiple objectives, effects of time, uncertainty, and outcome interpretation. A hypothetical bridge deck system from New Jersey's bridge inventory database is used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology in constructing a planning and management decision-support procedure.


Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is an established model to study fleshy fruit development and ripening. Tomato ripening is regulated independently and cooperatively by ethylene and transcription factors, including nonripening (NOR) and ripening-inhibitor (RIN). Mutations of NOR, RIN, and the ethylene receptor Never-ripe (Nr), which block ethylene perception and inhibit ripening, have proven to be great tools for advancing our understanding of the developmental programs regulating ripening. In this study, we present systems analysis of nor, rin, and Nr at the transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic levels during development and ripening. Metabolic profiling marked shifts in the abundance of metabolites of primary metabolism, which lead to decreases in metabolic activity during ripening. When combined with transcriptomic and proteomic data, several aspects of the regulation of metabolism during ripening were revealed. First, correlations between the expression levels of a transcript and the abundance of its corresponding protein were infrequently observed during early ripening, suggesting that posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms play an important role in these stages; however, this correlation was much greater in later stages. Second, we observed very strong correlation between ripening-associated transcripts and specific metabolite groups, such as organic acids, sugars, and cell wall-related metabolites, underlining the importance of these metabolic pathways during fruit ripening. These results further revealed multiple ethylene-associated events during tomato ripening, providing new insights into the molecular biology of ethylene-mediated ripening regulatory networks.


Regulation is a key part of product commercialisation, where different stakeholders must continually negotiate what are often conflicting regulatory drivers. High technology regulation is particularly problematic as is found in nanotechnology, and nanoparticle products, where there is much misunderstanding about what these products are and how they work. Nanotechnology is the application of small products, ranging between one hundred million and one billion times smaller than a metre, considered as the next 'industrial revolution'. At the vanguard of nanotechnology products, nanoparticles are examined in this study, where rapid technological advances are creating much debate within the discipline of law for how to best regulate the nuanced physicality of these products. Extant arguments have focused on how to regulate the R&D, production, sale, consumption and end-of-life of these products, with varying considerations of physicality which is pivotal to this endeavour. Critically, and fundamental to any discussion about regulating nanotechnology is whether these products sit inside of current regulations, or whether they require new regulatory approaches to more adequately capture their physicality. Confusingly, there has often been an erroneous presupposition that nanotechnology will function as a direct mirror of larger products, which is often not the case. On this basis, this study engages with the physicality of nanoparticles to build a foundation of knowledge, asking pivotal questions about regulation, to better inform academic and industrial regulatory discourses. Attention is given to regulatory frameworks including the Precautionary Principle, Regulation, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of CHemicals (REACH), and potential for nanotechnology registries for monitoring nanoparticle physicality. Importantly, for any collection of highly nuanced novel physical products as found within nanotechnology, there can be no 'one-size-fits-all' with in depth examinations being made with different specific sectors to draw out the major challenges related to the physicality of this wide ranging collection of products.


Abstract This paper addresses the question whether voluntary adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is associated with lower earnings management. Ball et al. (Journal of Accounting and Economics, 36(1–3), pp. 235–270, 2003) argue that adopting high quality standards might be a necessary condition for high quality information, but not necessarily a sufficient one. In Germany, a code-law country with low investor protection rights, a relatively large number of companies have chosen to voluntarily adopt IFRS prior to 2005. We investigate whether German companies that have adopted IFRS engage significantly less in earnings management compared to German companies reporting under German generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), while controlling for other differences in earnings management incentives. Our sample, consisting of German listed companies, contains 636 firm-year observations relating to the period 1999–2001. Our results suggest that IFRS-adopters do not present different earnings management behavior compared to companies reporting under German GAAP. These findings contribute to the current debate on whether high quality standards are sufficient and effective in countries with weak investor protection rights. They indicate that voluntary adopters of IFRS in Germany cannot be associated with lower earnings management.


BACKGROUND
Brown adipose tissue plays a pivotal role in mammal metabolism and thermogenesis. It has a great therapeutic potential in several metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are suitable candidates for brown adipose tissue formation de novo. Pparγ2 and C/ebpα are nucleic receptors known to mediate adipogenic differentiation. We hypothesized that overexpression of the Pparγ2 and C/ebpα genes in MSCs would lead to the formation of adipose tissue.

MATERIALS & METHODS
MSCs bearing the Luc reporter gene were transfected to overexpress Pparγ2 and C/ebpα. Differentiation of nucleofected cells was evaluated in vitro and in vivo following ectopic implantation of the cells in C3H/HeN mice.

RESULTS
After implantation, the engineered cells survived for 5 weeks and brown adipose-like tissue was observed in histological samples. Immunostaining and bioluminescent imaging showed new adipocytes expressing Luc and the brown adipose tissue marker, UCP1, in vitro and in vivo.

CONCLUSION
We show that gene delivery of transcription factors into MSCs generates brown adipose tissue in vitro and in vivo.


Habitability has been generally defined as the capability of an environment to support life. Ecologists have been using Habitat Suitability Models (HSMs) for more than four decades to study the habitability of Earth from local to global scales. Astrobiologists have been proposing different habitability models for some time, with little integration and consistency among them, being different in function to those used by ecologists. Habitability models are not only used to determine whether environments are habitable, but they also are used to characterize what key factors are responsible for the gradual transition from low to high habitability states. Here we review and compare some of the different models used by ecologists and astrobiologists and suggest how they could be integrated into new habitability standards. Such standards will help improve the comparison and characterization of potentially habitable environments, prioritize target selections, and study correlations between habitability and biosignatures. Habitability models are the foundation of planetary habitability science, and the synergy between ecologists and astrobiologists is necessary to expand our understanding of the habitability of Earth, the Solar System, and extrasolar planets.


Service-learning, also known as community-based learning, is considered a pedagogical tool in various disciplines at different levels, including tertiary education. It has proved its significant effects on social and academic aspects. Different institutions have incorporated service-learning in their language curricula in language education to create better exposure to the target language for learners. However, the research on the application of service-learning components in language learning has still been limited in Asia-Pacific countries, especially in Vietnam, where learners have fewer chances of serving a native community by using a target language like English. This paper reports on teachers' and students' perspectives on the impacts of a service-learning project incorporated in an English speaking course at a public university in Vietnam. The study used questionnaires for 117 second-year English-majored students, three focus-group discussions with 16 surveyed students, and semi-structured individual interviews with four subject teachers. The results reflect students' positive feedback on language competence, social awareness, personal traits and soft skills. The interviews with teachers reveal the progressive changes in students' presentation skills, self-confidence, and critical thinking skills. However, the main difficulties hindering the implementation of the project are the insufficient understanding of project procedures, the passive way of thinking, lack of financial support, and the limited exposure to English in authentic environments. This paper also brings about some practical implications for language teachers and researchers in similar educational contexts.


There is a growing body of research on the embodied emissions of individual buildings, but the results and methods remain mostly inaccessible and incomparable due to insufficient reported information, and differences in system boundaries, methods, and data used. This inhibits further utilization of the results in statistical applications and makes interpretation and validation of results difficult. The database tool presented in this paper attempts to mitigate these challenges by systematizing and storing all relevant information for these studies in a compatible format. The tool enables comparison of results across system boundaries, improves the transparency and reproducibility of the assessments, and makes utilization of the results in statistical applications possible. Statistical applications include embodied emission benchmarking, identifying emission drivers, and quantifying relationships between variables. Other applications of the tool include the assessment of embodied emissions of buildings and neighborhoods. This paper presents the tool and exemplifies its use with preliminary results based on a dataset of 11 buildings. Work is ongoing to expand the dataset, which will provide more comprehensive results.


Damned to silence or condemned to compliance: these are the two options open to writers in North Korea – the ultimate police State, whose panoptic perfection of power is a living example of what Bentham and Foucault theorized. So as an example of how literature reacts to policing, or how it participates in it, North Korea may seem like a dead-end, providing little that could generate discussion about the varied and complex interplay between disciplinary mechanism and artistic will-to-expression. For one might assume, what is there to say about the 1984-like party-sanctioned Newspeak novels that faithfully and unswervingly patrol the borders of socialist-realist-nationalistdidacticism? Or about theories that line up to embody the 'four legs good, two legs bad' literary school of the loyal Orwellian sheep? But while the North Korean political classes continue to posture in unsplendid isolation from the rest of the world, there has been a growing exploration of ordinary lives under total policing that have produced more nuanced readings. This chapter examines how totalitarian policing shapes emotional identity in a North Korean defector's memoir (by Shin DongHyuk) with reference to emotional authenticity, George Orwell and western ideals of public transparency.


Thispaper reviews the arguments for and against the "Stability and Growth Pact." We find the theoretical debate to be inconclusive, as both externality and credibility arguments can be used to yield opposite and plausible conclusions. Empirical evidence in favor of a Pact-like rule is also scant. We therefore suggest the view that the Stability Pact is a public social norm, that countries obey in order to preserve reputation among the other members of the European Union. Using this extreme—but not implausible—hypothesis, we build a simple model similar in spirit to Akerlof's (1980) seminal work on social norms, and we show that reputation issues may cause the emergence of a stable but inferior equilibrium. Increased heterogenity generally has the effect of further reducing aggregate welfare; we conclude that the problems posed by the Pact/social norm are likely to increase following the enlargement, when a number of countries anxious to prove their "soundness" joined the club.


In this paper, a simple approach to generate the time-wavelength interleaved sampling clock for photonic A/D converters is proposed using commercially available mode-locked femtosecond fiber laser and optical wavelength/time division multiplexing (WDM/OTDM) techniques with low cost passive optical components. A time and wavelength mapping module is configured using specially designed wavelength division multiplexer and mechanical tunable fiber stretchers. OTDM modules with low optical insertion loss and flexibly configurable multiple factor are implemented with the fused-biconical optical fiber couplers. Experiment is carried out using 18 WDM channels and 128 times OTDM to demonstrate the generation of 83.9Gs/s time-wavelength interleaved sampling clock.


Crop seed size affects the competitive relationship between spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and wild oat (Avenafatua L.). However, the mechanisms associated with the process are not known. The effect of wheat seed size on wild oat competition was assessed by a mechanistic approach involving yield and its determinants in these species. Wheat plants established from large and small seed were evaluated under different seeding rates and wild oat densities during 1999-2001 near Kalispell, MT. Linear structural model systems based on ontogenic diagrams were constructed for each seed size class. Spikes m -2 and panicles m -2 had the greatest positive effect on yield within each species. For wheat, the impact of the two later-formed yield components on yield decreased in an ontogenic manner, whereas for wild oat, their relative contributions were similar in magnitude. Wheat plants derived from large seed had a noticeable negative effect on wild oat via a reduction in panicles m -2 and seed weight, whereas wheat established from small seed mainly affected wild oat panicles m -2 . Wild oat competition reduced wheat spikes m -2 and kernels spike -1 in both seed size classes. However, these reductions were less for plants derived from large seed, which demonstrated enhanced compensatory ability. In summary, nongenetic variations in crop seed size affected the competitive dynamics between these species, where the major crop-weed interference mechanism involved wild oat seed weight.


An experimental technique for conducting low speed impact of adhesively bonded automotive composite joints is presented. Based on the use of a modified drop tower, mode I, II, and mixed mode values for critical energy release rate were determined for a composite/epoxy system and used to create a fracture failure envelope. Because load measurements become erratic and unreliable at higher test rates, displacement-based relationships were used to quantify these energy release rates. Displacement data was collected with an imaging system that utilized edge detection to determine displacement profiles, end displacements, and opening displacements where applicable. Because of the resolution of the image-based approach used, determining crack length experimentally was extremely difficult. As a result, numerical methods were developed to objectively determine the crack length based on the available experimental data in mode I, II, and mixed mode I/II configurations. This numerical method uses a nonlinear fit to determine mode I crack lengths and a theoretical model based on cubic equations for mode II and mixed-mode I/II, where the coefficients of the equations are determined by using both boundary and transition conditions that are a result of the test setup. A double cantilever beam (DCB) geometry was chosen to collect mode I data, an end-loaded split (ELS) geometry was used for mode II, and a single leg bend (SLB) geometry was used for mixed-mode I/II. These geometries were used to determine the fracture characteristics of adhesively bonded automotive composites to create fracture failure envelopes as well as provide mode I, II, and mixed-mode I/II data to be used in finite element models. The chosen adhesive exhibited unstable, stick-slip crack growth, which resulted in very few data points being collected from each static DCB specimen as well as drastic drops in energy release rate between initiation and arrest points. Unstable growth also created issues in dynamic testing, as data points surrounding these "stick-slip" events were lost due to the insufficient sampling rate of the available imaging system. Issues also arose with differences between thick and thin composite adherend specimens. These differences could result from additional curing in thick adherend composite specimens due to the adherends retaining heat. DSC testing was conducted on uncured adhesive using a 2, 5, and 10 minute hold at the cure temperature, and significant additional curing was observed between the two and five minute cures. Due to the difference in relative stiffness between the 12 and 36 ply composite, the local loading rate at the crack tip was lower in the 12 ply adherends, possibly allowing for a larger plastic zone and thus a higher energy release rate. As a result, tests were conducted on 36 ply composite specimens at rates of 1 mm/min and 0.1 mm/min to determine if there were loading rate effects. This testing showed that higher initiation energy relase rates were found at the lower test rate, thus reinforcing the local loading rate theory. Due to issues with plastic deformation in aluminum adherends, mode II and mixedmode I/II data were collected using only composite adherends. Only one data point was collected per specimen as the crack propagated directly into the composite after initiating from the precrack, thus multiple tests were conducted to collect sufficient data for constructing a failure envelope.


Digital filter multiple access (DFMA) passive optical networks (PONs) are, for the first time to our knowledge, proposed and extensively investigated, where digital signal processing (DSP)-enabled, software-reconfigurable, digital orthogonal filtering is employed in each individual optical network unit (ONU) and the optical line terminal to enable all ONUs to dynamically share the transmission medium under the control of the centralized software-defined controller and the transceiver-embedded DSP controllers. The DFMA PONs fully support software-defined networking with the network control further extended to the physical layer. As digital filtering is the fundamental process at the heart of the proposed DFMA PONs, the filtering-induced tradeoffs among upstream transmission capacity, filter design flexibility, and filter DSP complexity are examined, based on which optimum filter design guidelines are identified for various application scenarios. Furthermore, the performance characteristics of the DFMA PONs are also numerically explored in terms of maximum achievable upstream transmission capacity, differential ONU launch power dynamic range, and ONU count-dependent minimum received optical power.


This paper presents a new model for calculating the reliability of large electric networks with transmission constraints. Generation loss of load probability (LOLP) and expected unserved energy (EUE) are calculated with and without transmission constraints and displayed for the system and for each load area over a wide range of load levels. A two step process first finds the cumulative probabilistic line flow distributions from incremental flows resulting from random generator failures and then performs load shedding as a heuristic process to remove line overloads. Convolution of states allows an extremely large number of generator states to be modeled in a reasonable amount of computation time. Test results for a large network and for the IEEE Reliability Test system (RTS) are discussed in the paper.


Burn injuries in newborns are particularly complex cases. Since these patients are rare, there is little experience and no existing standardized treatment. This report examines a case of accidental second to third-degree burning of the heel and toes on the left foot in a new-born girl. The burns covered an estimated 1% of the total body surface area (TBSA). After an initial debridement and 32 days of non-surgical wound therapy with Adaptic® fat gauze dressings, we were able to achieve an aesthetically and functionally satisfactory result including the complete preservation of all toes. Modern wound treatment following the principle of less frequent dressing changes allows the burn wound to have better re-epithelialization. New findings in stem cell research indicate that the high proportion of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in postnatal blood is also involved in the regeneration and healing of burns. To our knowledge, this is the first case report dealing with initial non-surgical combustion therapy in a newborn. In order to eliminate a scar contracture, we carried out a Z-plasty one year later.


The estimates of rheological thickness and total lithospheric strength for the Indian continental lithosphere have been obtained based on the representative rheological properties of upper crust, lower crust and upper mantle, and some of the available heat flow and heat generation data. The rheological thickness, computed at different locations in the Indian shield, shows lateral variation ranging from 79 km in the southern part to 65 km in the northern part for a strain rate of 10-14s-1. The total strength of the continental lithosphere is of the order of 1013Nm 1 for the same value of strain rate and decreases northward. The computations carried out for a range of strain rates show an increase in the rheological thickness and strength of the lithosphere with increasing strain rate. These results would be important in understanding the flexural response of the Indian continental lithosphere to surface and subsurface loading, and response to tectonic forces acting on it.


The amount of textual data has reached a new scale and continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. IBM's SystemT software is a powerful text-analytics system that offers a query-based interface to reveal the valuable information that lies within these mounds of data. However, traditional server architectures are not capable of analyzing so-called big data efficiently, despite the high memory bandwidth that is available. The authors show that by using a streaming hardware accelerator implemented in reconfigurable logic, the throughput rates of the SystemT's information extraction queries can be improved by an order of magnitude. They also show how such a system can be deployed by extending SystemT's existing compilation flow and by using a multithreaded communication interface that can efficiently use the accelerator's bandwidth.


Insurance disputes are typically governed by state law, and state insurance laws vary considerably, with some states being favorable to policyholders and others being unfavorable. With forum shopping, a plaintiff often has many choices regarding where it can bring a lawsuit, including multiple states in which to bring the case and whether to bring the case in federal or state court. Of the over 1000 COVID-19 business interruption insurance lawsuits filed thus far, more than 700 of them have been filed in, or removed to, federal court, with more than 250 of the cases filed as class actions. Many of them were also filed in states with insurance laws that are not favorable to policyholders.

Conventional wisdom provides that a plaintiff's chances of winning are generally much higher in state court than in federal court and that historically federal class actions against insurers have been successful only approximately twenty-five percent of the time. So, why were so many of the COVID-19 business interruption insurance cases filed in federal court in unfavorable states and as class actions when the historical chances of winning are so low in such forums, particularly as class actions?

This Essay provides some possible answers to that question. In doing so, it explores forum shopping considerations in general, the conventional wisdom regarding litigating in federal versus state court, and the empirical data regarding the odds of winning in state versus federal court.


We investigate the issue of distributed receiver cooperation in a multiple-relay network with memoryless independent fading channels, where the channel state information can't be obtained. The received signals at distributed receiving nodes are first compressed or quantized before being sent to the decoder via rate-limited cooperation channels for joint processing. We focus on the low SNR regime and analyze the capacity bounds using network equivalence theory and a multiple-layer binning peaky frequency shift keying (FSK). When the received signals at the relaying nodes are in low SNR regime and the cooperation rates are not sufficiently high, compressed/quantized observations at relaying nodes become useless and only decoding can help.


: A technique was devised for dividing the staghorn calculus with an osteotome after obtaining access to the stone by means of a partial nephrectomy aided by renal hypothermia. The advantages of the procedure are a better control of haemorrhage and a clean cut in the stone with removal of predetermined fragments and a diminished splinter formation. In 17 operations there were no complications of haemorrhage nor urinary fistula and, as yet, no recurrence of stone.


The study of 'dark tourism' has gained increasing traction over the past two decades or so. Visits to sites of, or associated with death, disaster, atrocity, or suffering are a pervasive feature within the contemporary tourism landscape. This thesis, therefore, critically examines dark tourism within the modern tourism industry in which 'dark' experiences are packaged-up and sold to consumers – a process known as 'commodification'. As a result, the study appraises the effects commodification has on the visitor experience at sites of dark tourism.
 Drawing upon a multidisciplinary approach, this thesis examines key relationships between dark tourism supplier and consumer in order to evaluate the visitor experience. This includes the notion of mortality and, in so doing, the research considers how the process of commodification affects encounters with the fragile state and inevitable demise of the human being. Moreover, this relates to the so-called 'sequestration of death' whereby death, in modern life, is removed from daily life in order to protect the Self from undue upsetting thoughts.
This thesis utilises a phenomenological research philosophy in order to understand the nature of visitor experiences. The study also adopts a supply-demand approach, and so through the instruments of semi-structured interviews and participant questionnaires, appraises the relationship between the provision and consumption of dark tourism experiences. The empirical research investigates two case studies within UK dark tourism: Lancaster Castle and the International Slavery Museum, Liverpool.
 Ultimately, this thesis argues that the commodification process denotes specific semiotics of a touristic and behavioural nature. In turn, this thesis offers an original blueprint model in which to locate commodification processes, which this study terms the 'Semiotic Framework of Dark Tourism Experience'. It is concluded that, using supply-side entities such as tour guides, shops, interpretative materials and other such items, suppliers of dark tourism sculpt the experience and direct visitor behaviour, but crucially do not fundamentally change the nature of experience by providing those phenomena. Rather, commodification within dark tourism provides a specific context in which to encounter death, mortality and atrocity within authentic and ontologically secure boundaries.


"Triple-negative" (TN) breast cancers, which are characterized by estrogen receptor (-), progesterone receptor (-), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (-), are typically associated with poor prognosis because of their aggressive tumor phenotypes. In recent years, the number of patients with breast cancers has remarkably increased, but there are only few available drugs for treatment of TN breast cancers. The development of novel drugs targeting TN breast cancer is urgently required. In the present study, we focused on the function of special AT-rich sequence binding protein 1 (SATB1) as a target molecule for the treatment of TN breast cancers. By recruiting chromatin remodeling enzymes and transcriptional factors, SATB1 regulates the expression of >1,000 genes related to cell growth and translocation. We synthesized a decoy DNA against SATB1, including the recognition sequence of SATB1. We examined the inhibitory effects of the decoy DNAs on cellular proliferation of a TN metastatic breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231). SATB1-decoy DNA inhibited the proliferation of MDA-MB-231 cells. Especially, it was significant that SATB1-decoy DNA drastically reduced the invasive and metastatic capacity of MBA-MB-231 cells. Further, in the case of MCF7 cells (SATB1-negative breast cancer cell line), SATB1-decoy DNA did not exhibit any inhibitory effect. These data suggest that SATB1-decoy DNA may be an effective candidate for use as a molecular-targeting drug for treatment of TN breast cancer.


The goal of New Testament textual criticism would appear to be simple enough: to restore the original text written by each author of the New Testament books. Upon examination, however, the notion of simplicity vanishes immediately and each of the key terms here—"restore," "original," "text," and "author"—has its problematic aspects, but more importantly the simply stated goal itself turns out to be inadequate. Grist for the text-critical mill consists of textual readings or variants, which for the relatively small collection of writings called the New Testament are not merely in the hundreds or thousands, or even the tens of thousands, but run to perhaps a third of a million. They stem from the nearly 5,500 Greek manuscripts, some 10,000 versional manuscripts, and innumerable patristic citations of New Testament passages.


Interleukin-19 (IL-19) acts as an anti-inflammatory cytokine in various inflammatory diseases. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a major neuroinflammatory disease in the central nervous system, but it remains uncertain how IL-19 contributes to MS pathogenesis. Here, we demonstrate that IL-19 deficiency aggravates experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a mouse model of MS, by promoting IL-17–producing helper T cell (Th17 cell) infiltration into the central nervous system. In addition, IL-19–deficient splenic macrophages expressed elevated levels of major histocompatibility complex class II, co-stimulatory molecules, and Th17 cell differentiation–associated cytokines such as IL-1β, IL-6, IL-23, TGF-β1, and TNF-α. These observations indicated that IL-19 plays a critical role in suppression of MS pathogenesis by inhibiting macrophage antigen presentation, Th17 cell expansion, and subsequent inflammatory responses. Furthermore, treatment with IL-19 significantly abrogated EAE. Our data suggest that IL-19 could provide significant therapeutic benefits in patients with MS.


We propose two Bayesian multinomial-Dirichlet models to predict the final outcome of football (soccer) matches and compare them to three well-known models regarding their predictive power. All the models predicted the full-time results of 1710 matches of the first division of the Brazilian football championship and the comparison used three proper scoring rules, the proportion of errors and a calibration assessment. We also provide a goodness of fit measure. Our results show that multinomial-Dirichlet models are not only competitive with standard approaches, but they are also well calibrated and present reasonable goodness of fit.


Electronic government and electronic participation continue to transform the public sector and society worldwide and are constantly being transformed themselves by emerging information and communication technologies. This book presents papers from the 14th International Federation for Information Processing's EGOV conference (IFIP EGOV 2015), and its sister conference, the 7th Electronic Participation (ePart) conference, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, from 30 August to 2 September 2015, with the support and sponsorship of the University of Macedonia. Through the years, both of these conferences have established themselves as leading scientific events in their field, providing a forum for scholars to present and discuss their work. Included here are 31 accepted ongoing research papers, grouped under the following headings: eParticipation; policy modeling; open government and smart cities; general e-government; and e-government services; as well as 6 Ph.D. colloquium papers, 5 accepted posters and 3 workshops. With their combination of scientific credibility and rigor and with high relevance to practice, the papers presented here will be of interest to all those whose work involves electronic government and electronic participation.


Mesoporous silicon carbide with and without SiC filler was prepared from the pyrolysis of polycarbosilane (PCS), and the relationship between pyrolysis and properties of micro/meso pores was investigated. The surface area of pyrolyzed PCS without filler significantly decreased from 268 to 0.5m2/g with increasing pyrolysis temperature, and disappearance of the micropores was observed. In contrast, the pyrolyzed PCS with filler showed the retention of micro/mesopores, regardless of pyrolysis temperature. In addition, high surface area ranging from 120 to 180m2/g and a bimodal pore distribution were observed in pyrolyzed PCS with filler. FT-IR showed the decomposition of Si-H, Si-CH3 and Si-CH2-Si in the PCS network during pyrolysis, which led to the evolution of hydrogen and methane gas. However, the obtained pores might be larger than the size of evolved gases. Thus, though micro/meso pores and large surface area were retained by the addition of filler, coalescence between pores could occur during pyrolysis.


Abstract: Soil quality in the boreal mixedwood forest depends to a certain extent on the chemical, biochemical, and microbial properties of the forest floor. Given that forest floors are composed mainly of decomposing plant detritus, forest composition (i.e., stand type) should play a key role in determining soil quality. Stand age is also expected to control certain forest floor properties, due to the balance in the amount and quality of substrates introduced into, and lost from, the forest floor during stand development. Finally, mineral parent material should also be related to some forest floor properties, by controlling site nutrient capital which may affect litter quality. In order to compare the relative effects of these three factors, forest floor material was collected in the Abitibi region of northwestern Québec, from replicated (n = 3) treatment plots comprising a factorial array of three stand types (spruce/fir, aspen, and paper birch), three stand ages (57, 78-85, and 131 y-old), and two parent materials (clay and till). Forest floor samples were compared on the basis of 18 variables depicting i) chemical properties, ii) base cation status, iii) nitrogen cycling, and iv) microbial properties. All three sampling factors exerted a significant effect on some of the measured forest floor properties, but parent material had a significant effect on twice the number of forest floor properties as did stand type or stand age. Besides exerting an effect on nutrient capital, we propose that parent material also affects cation exchange capacity and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, which in turn influence litter quality and ecosystem productivity. Our results suggest, therefore, that a detailed classification of mineral parent materials might be a useful basis for interpreting and predicting soil quality in the mixedwood boreal forest.


This paper focuses on the problem of selecting the regularization parameter for linear least-squares estimation. Usually, the problem is formulated as a minimization problem with a cost function consisting of the square sum of the l2 norm of the residual error, plus a penalty term of the squared norm of the solution multiplied by a constant. The penalty term has the effect of shrinking the solution towards the origin with magnitude that depends on the value of the penalty constant. By considering both squared and non-squared norms of the residual error and the solution, four different cost functions can be formed to achieve the same goal. In this paper, we show that all the four cost functions lead to the same closed-form solution involving a regularization parameter, which is related to the penalty constant through a different constraint equation for each cost function. We show that for three of the cost functions, a specific procedure can be applied to combine the constraint equation with the mean squared error (MSE) criterion to develop approximately optimal regularization parameter selection algorithms. Performance of the developed algorithms is compared to existing methods to show that the proposed algorithms stay closest to the optimal MSE.


Data security on a computer network is essential, especially data that is confidential. Currently there are several alternative methods for data security on the network such as by encrypting data before it is sent, using digital signatures, installing a firewall so that no intruder from the outside that can get into the internal computer networks and others. Some of the solutions above can be used to improve security, but there are also weaknesses, such as the use of firewalls to prevent intruders from outside, but the intrusion cannot be prevented if data is intercepted by a person residing in the network itself. Cryptographic techniques are implemented on the communication protocol IPSec to get the security aspect. IPSec is a set of communications protocols that implement several cryptographic techniques to ensure security in communication through computer networks. One of solutions to improve data security in computer networks with TCP / IP is using IPSec. IPSec works by encrypting the data before it is sent automatically without the intervention of the sender. By using IPSec, so if data has been intercepted by a third party, the data is already encrypted so it is difficult to know the original data. IPSec is not a perfect communication protocols, but until now, the IPsec security protocol is still regarded as the best compared to other IP security protocols. And more important is the ease of implementation on a system, so that it can make computer users to think again of the importance of data security in a system. Keywords: computer network security, TCP/IP, IPSec, cryptography technique


The cytotoxicity of the biomaterials is a key issue that should be addressed prior to pre-clinical applications. This study was designed to evaluate and compare the cytotoxixity of two forms of bioactive glasses:nanopowder and micropowder. Human HGF1-PI53 gingival fibroblast cells were used to evaluate the cytotoxicity of 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 mg/ mL concentrations of the two bioactive glasses via MTT assay. The results were statistically analyzed using analysis of variance and Tukey's test. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results showed that two bioactive glasses had statistically significant differences at 5, 10, 15 and 20 mg/mL concentrations (p-value < 0.05) and there was no correlation between time and cell cytotoxicity of bioactive glasses (p-value > 0.05), using t-test and Spearman's correlation coefficient. We conclude that that cytotoxicity of nanopowder bioactive glass at concentrations ≤ 2 mg/mL was similar to micropowder bioactive glass at 24 and 48 h, however, it is more cytotoxic at concentrations ≥ 5 mg/mL in the first 48 h of applications.


Java 5 has introduced a number of new syntactical language features that make development faster, easier, and safer. However, at the same time, it has also introduced downward incompatibilities: code written for Java 5 cannot be used on pre-Java 5 platforms. This tool demonstration presents a number of source-to-source transformations that backport source code written for the Java 5 platform to legacy platforms. Developers who are, for different reasons, still bound to legacy platforms can benefit with help of this tool from the new language features, and they can use thirdparty components written for more recent platforms. Compared to existing tools, ours is the first that can backport all new syntactical Java 5 language features while the user maintains full control of the source code.


In this paper, we develop a model-based color halftoning method using the direct binary search (DBS) algorithm. Our method strives to minimize the perceived error between the continuous tone original color image and the color halftone image. We exploit the differences in how the human viewers respond to luminance and chrominance information and use the total squared error in a luminance/chrominance based space as our metric. Starting with an initial halftone, we minimize this error metric using the DBS algorithm. Our method also incorporates a measurement based color printer dot interaction model to prevent the artifacts due to dot overlap and to improve color texture quality. We calibrate our halftoning algorithm to ensure accurate colorant distributions in resulting halftones. We present the color halftones which demonstrate the efficacy of our method.


HIV cohort studies have provided useful information on the natural history of HIV infection and the effects of antiretroviral therapy. It has become increasingly common to combine data from several cohorts into one dataset in order to address certain specific questions with more statistical power than can be achieved with the individual studies. This requires each cohort to map data into a standard format before merging. Until recently, this standard format has differed for each such collaborative analysis. We have therefore developed the HIV Cohort Data Exchange Protocol (HICDEP), which is freely available at http://www.cphiv.dk/HICDEP.pdf. Once individual cohorts have set up a means of transfering data into this format, as and when required, this should greatly facilitate data merging for future joint analyses. The HICDEP incorporates data from HIV drug resistance tests, which have been particularly challenging for cohorts to integrate into databases.


This paper proposes a method for detecting generic classes of objects from their representative contours that can be used by a robot with vision to find objects in cluttered environments. The approach uses a mid-level image operator to group edges into contours which likely correspond to object boundaries. This mid-level operator is used in two ways, bottom-up on simple edges and top-down incorporating object shape information, thus acting as the intermediary between low-level and high-level information. First, the mid-level operator, called the image torque, is applied to simple edges to extract likely fixation locations of objects. Using the operator's output, a novel contour-based descriptor is created that extends the shape context descriptor to include boundary ownership information and accounts for rotation. This descriptor is then used in a multi-scale matching approach to modulate the torque operator towards the target, so it indicates its location and size. Unlike other approaches that use edges directly to guide the independent edge grouping and matching processes for recognition, both of these steps are effectively combined using the proposed method. We evaluate the performance of our approach using four diverse datasets containing a variety of object categories in clutter, occlusion and viewpoint changes. Compared with current state of the art approaches, our approach is able to detect the target with less false alarms in most object categories. The performance is further improved when we exploit depth information available from the Kinect RGB-Depth sensor by imposing depth consistency when applying the image torque.


Objectives To study the effect of Jinjiang granules on immune function in mice with hypoimmunity and to provide a basis for the application of Jinjiang granules in the early stage of clinical colds. Methods KM mice (half male, half female) were randomly divided into 6 groups. The mice were given the drug once a day (normal control group and model group were given with physiological saline). The mice were weighed once every 3 days. Weight was adjusted to the drug volume. All the groups except the normal group were injected with cyclophosphamide to establish the mice model of hypoimmunity for 3 days. On the seventh day, two hours later the thymus, spleen and intestinal mucosa were obtained after intragastric administration to detect SIgA, Gln, TNF-α and IL-1β. Results The mice models of hypoimmunity in mice succeeded. In the medication group the IL-1β and TNF-α levels improved and the SIgA and Gln levels were reduced to different degrees. In the treatment group there was a certain therapeutic effect on spleen and thymus tissue pathological changes. The best curative effect is the lentinan, followed by large dose of jinjiang group and medium dose of jinjiang group. Conclusions Jinjiang granules can improve the immune function of the mice models of hypoimmunity. It also improves intestinal immune function. It prevents colds when given as the initial medicine. Acknowledgements The Central Plains scholars (162101510003), the team of outstanding scientific and technological innovation in Henan province (TCJ2014-391), Henan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and deep processing of geoherbs Collaborative Innovation Centre (2012)188–2.


Abstract Maternal lineages grouped by several methods of classification using mitchondrial DNA sequence characteristics were evaluated with animal models. Maternal pedigrees for cattle from a selection experiment begun in 1968 were traced to the earliest female member in the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book , and foundation females were assigned to maternal lineages. Mitochondrial DNA displacement loop sequence data were available for 36 lineages; all cows within lineages were considered to be identical for useful DNA sequence polymorphisms. Maternal lineages were grouped according to base pair substitution at a single locus, clustering based on displacement loop sequences, or genotypes defined by sequence and restriction site differences. Base pair substitution (adenine to guanine) at nucleotide 169 defined two maternal lineage groups that differed significantly for fat yield and percentage and estimated milk energy. Clustering the 36 maternal lineages by using 16 mitochondrial DNA displace- ment loop sequence differences produced 24 groups that significantly influenced fat percentage and energy concentration in milk. Decreasing the number of clustered groups from 24 to 14 produced groups that differed at some polymorphic sites but remained identical for most. The F statistics for 14 groups were larger, but significant outcomes were observed for the same traits. Genotype groups previously defined by sequence and restriction fragment length differences did not have a significant effect on yield or composition of cows in 29 maternal lineages.