Numerical model predictions of low Late Devensian sea levels around Britain are inconsistent with dated sea-level indicators contained in the geological record. Stratigraphies from the western Irish Sea Basin record high sea levels throughout the last deglacial cycle (21–13 ka bp) and onshore ice-marginal glaciomarine and marine sedimentation. Sedimentary evidence emphasizes the role played by delayed isostatic uplift coupled with rapid tidewater evacuation of ice from the basin. Drumli-nization and marine downdraw in the northern Irish Sea Basin records subglacial sediment transfer towards tidewater ice margins and headward extension of ice streams deep into the ice sheet around 14 ka bp.


Recent developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) have more impact on humans lifestyle and society, than ever before. However, in the most of the developing countries, still the potential of ICT has not been fully utilized, due to lack of infrastructure, limited resources and the higher cost. This ultimately possesses a burden on governments and regulating agencies to perform citizen's related matters inefficiently. This paper presents a simple and low cost but yet effective, IoT based system for the issuance of e-passports to the citizens. The proposed system mitigates the time consuming traditional practices and the unnecessary involvement of human resources, thus it provides a fast, simple and low cost solution to the regulating authorities. The whole process from applying for passport to verification of credentials and issuance of passport can be done with the kiosk installed across the metropolitans and remote areas. The system is integrated with sensors and the customized application provides a user friendly interface to the applicants. It is equipped with secure transmission of data while security mechanism is also incorporated within the system. Keywords— Internet-of-things, Service-Oriented Architecture, e-Passports, COAP.


Gender theory in general, and patriarchal theory in particular, have been explored in this research to describe the procedures, processes, norms, values and, most importantly, structures that define the subject. Patriarchal theory mostly perceives men as the abusers and women as the abused. However, the nuances and particularities of these oppressive structures have not been explored in detail. In this research, the reader is introduced to the various manifestations of how being privileged and underprivileged is constructed. This research focuses on processes and structures and it mostly explores alternative approaches towards political sociology and its intersection with gender theory.

The thesis adopts a multi-level analysis that involves the different manifestations of the ruler-subject binary at the societal and interpersonal levels of analysis. The so-called private and public spheres with their fluid identities have been analyzed after descriptions of internal mechanisms reproducing the social construction of oppression are understood. Similarities between analysis concerned with the household and the public sphere reflects on how binaries such as the masculine and feminine, and the ruler and the subject, reproduce, mirror and reinforce one another.

This research, therefore, focuses on structural and systematic ways of reproducing patriarchy as a system that affects the society in an inclusive way. This required and understanding of norms and values that have been analyzed as a reflection of processes that accommodate oppression. The intersection of these processes has led the author to argue that 'women are to men, what the citizen is for the state, in the context of Turkey'.

The feminization of the male political subject has been argued after presenting three chapters that represent my original contribution to knowledge. Through utilizing
interviews conducted by other scholars, I initially analyzed male and female statements on domestic violence in Turkey. Second, I analyzed written texts, including official documents, which inform the reader of state officials' views on gender inequality. Third, I have analyzed the relationship between the state and the citizen through the research I conducted, on police violence during the Gezi Park protests and other interviews include the research conducted with feminist and human rights laywers.

The similarities between the manner, processes and values between the male and female (as well as the ruler and the subject) led to a discussion that the male political subject is simultaneously masculine and feminine. The feminization of the male political subject represented an alignment between two spheres that reinforce one another, through mirroring the public and the private. These two systems created a contradiction within the subject often leading him to over-compensate his damage. Therefore, patriarchal relativity was introduced to discuss a perspective on over-compensation amongst subjects and agents that coincide and conflate within vertical patriarchy.

Accordingly, new concepts of patriarchy were needed to capture the nuances within a system that defines the subject at macro and micro levels. Throughout this research, the contributions produced by scholars during the past forty years over debates on patriarchal theory have been reproduced to a great extent.

This research has utilized a multi-level analysis through comparisons made by references to metaphors. Metaphoric reproduction is a rare approach within patriarchal theory, often different to utilizing a single theoretical framework. The employment of semi-structured and unstructured interviews with additional content analysis substantiates the author's subjectivity. This subjectivity reflects a feminist understanding of politics, political sociology, philosophy, and gender theory. As a result, political structures, processes, privilege, and vulnerability have been explored with a view understanding and empowering the marginalized.


Current water governance systems in Central Asian countries are shaped by recent water sector reforms and are past dependent. Since collapse of soviet system, countries of the region are implementing water policies, in line with their national development strategies. Moreover, agricultural reforms, socio-political changes have result new situation in rural areas which are having strong influence on everyday water management. The water management became a playground for different interest groups at all hierarchical levels. In this research, author has been applying institutional analysis, comparative study approach to understand system of water governance in different Central Asian countries. Author tried to link impact of the changes at local, national and regional levels on regional cooperation.


1. In the presence of normal coronaries, it is possible to find--or not CAI, in patients with arteriosclerose cardiopathy. 2. When coronary obstructions are present, we also could find a clear dominance of CAI. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that every patient of these series who suffered of trivascular coronary illness presented CAI. 3. When CAI shows in at rest ECG of a patient clearly showing ischemic cardiopathy, more often than not we also find important coronary obstructions, but when this sign is not present it doesn't necessarily mean that we should discard the possibility of a vascular disease, it only points to us the presence of a trivascular coronary pathology. 4. Frequently we find a CVP between normal levels when CAI is not present. 5. We found CAI in every patient showing dysinesia and also in most of the patients with dysinergia.


Introduction and purpose: Number of elderly population is increasing and according to WHO estimation, this number rise up to 22% in 2050. Elderly are prone to several challenges such as elder abuse due to aging population. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate nurses' perception of elder abuse in the city of Tehran. Materials and Methods: This Cross-sectional study was conducted by convenience sampling method to select 400 nurses from February to March 2014. Samples selected from nurses working in the emergency departments affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. A researcher-made questionnaire was used and the reliability was ensured using Cronbach's alpha (α =82%). SPSS version 13 was used to analyze the data via descriptive statistics. Findings: Findings from this study indicated that mean age of our participants was 40.12 (SD=7.05) years old. Nurses perceived financial and sexual elder abuse as the most frequent type of elderly abuse. Conclusion: Nurses spend a large amount of time with patients compared to other health care practitioners which represent nurses as the frontline in proving care to elderly. Therefore, it is necessary to expand our knowledge about elder abuse and different type of abuse.


: Actual follow-up investigations were made for a period of 5 yr and 10 months since February 1980 on 55 places of caisson and shield work. The maximum bottom pressure in caisson work was 3.6 kg/cm2 (4.6 ATA) and that of shield work was 1.6 kg/cm2. The number of exposures of workers was 23,737 in caisson work and 75,244 in shield work. The items of geomedical measurements were temperature (degrees C), humidity, dust, illumination, noise, oxygen, carbonic acid gas and others. In compressed air work, it is most important to prevent decompression sickness (bends) from the view of occupational health. The incidence of bends has decreased in recent years because of strict control by regulations. Environmental hygiene, however, has seldom been discussed in this field and little geomedical control has been made on compressed air work. In view of this situation, we have, therefore, studied, observed, and measured the hygienic factors of this work during the past five years. This investigation is without doubt the first of its kind in Japan and the areas covered most of the regions where compressed air works have been made in the past. From these results, it can be concluded as follows: The working temperature was controlled, but humidity was too high (nearly 90%). Illumination was insufficient. Dust was a problem, but high humidity played an important role in decreasing the volume. The environment was noisy. It is therefore natural that environmental studies should be continued and hygienic consideration be further emphasized in compressed air work.


The book offers a basic introduction to the theory of Cognitive Grammar, which claims that meaning resides in conceptualization, and that grammar is inherently meaningful, residing in the structuring and symbolization of conceptual content.


Mobile technologies offer novel opportunities for children to express themselves in-context, seamlessly, without disrupting the flow of their formal learning activities or informal play. Most contemporary mobile devices are equipped with multimedia support that can be used to create multimodal stories that represent the rich life narratives children experience, imagine, and want to share. The authors investigated these issues over a 9-month series of participatory design sessions in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab HCIL at the University of Maryland. In this article, the authors describe their work with children in designing mobile tools for story creation and collaboration. Throughout this work, they asked the following questions: What stories do children want to tell, and how do they want to convey them in a mobile context? The findings suggest the need for mobile technology-based applications that support children's unique storytelling habits, particularly interruptability and multimodality.


SARS-CoV-2 is a highly infectious virus known to cause severe acute respiratory syndrome in humans known as COVID-19. It is well established that the mode of transmission is through aerosol generation. Since the invasive procedures like endotracheal intubation place the anaesthesiologist and the operating room staff highly exposed to the risk of infection it is prudent to follow regional anaesthesia technique wherever possible. The present case is of a 34-year-old COVID 19 positive male patient who underwent emergency laparotomy in a service hospital of armed forces at 12000 feet above sea level under combined spinal and epidural anaesthesia supplemented with sedation using intravenous infusion of Ketamine. After the attachment of standard ASA monitor and taking in account of baseline readings patient was administered an 18-gauge epidural secured in the T12-L1 level with the catheter was fix at 12 cm on the skin. Sub arachnoid block was administered to the patient using 2.75 ml of 0.5 % Bupivacaine (heavy) and 25 mcg of Fentanyl in L2-L3 space using a 26-gauge spinal needle in sitting position. Once the height of the block was ascertained at T6 level by loss of temperature sensation the surgery commenced. Patient was administered with 3.0 mg of Morphine in epidural space for perioperative analgesia. For allaying intraoperative discomfort patient was sedation infusion of Ketamine of 0.6mg/kg/hr to keep the Ramsay sedation score between 3-4. The intraoperative period was uneventful, and the patient did not require any supplemental analgesia during the surgery. Post operatively the patient was pain free and comfortable with no features of hypopnea, post-operative nausea vomiting and shivering and was shifted to the post-operative care unit in the covid facility of the hospital.


James Joyce's near blindness, his peculiar gait, and his death from perforated ulcers are commonplace knowledge to most of his readers. But until now, most Joyce scholars have not recognized that these symptoms point to a diagnosis of syphilis. Kathleen Ferris traces Joyce's medical history as described in his correspondence, in the diaries of his brother Stanislaus, and in the memoirs of his acquaintances, to show that many of his symptoms match those of tabes dorsalis, a form of neurosyphilis which, untreated, eventually leads to paralysis. Combining literary analysis and medical detection, Ferris builds a convincing case that this dread disease is the subject of much of Joyce's autobiographical writing. Many of this characters, most notably Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, exhibit the same symptoms as their creator: stiffness of gait, digestive problems, hallucinations, and impaired vision. Ferris also demonstrates that the themes of sin, guilt, and retribution so prevalent in Joyce's works are almost certainly a consequence of his having contracted venereal disease as a young man while frequenting the brothels of Dublin and Paris. By tracing the images, puns, and metaphors in "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake," and by demonstrating their relationship to Joyce's experiences, Ferris shows the extent to which, for Joyce, art did indeed mirror life.


In the paper by Moreno-Villa et al. (see ibid., vol.145, no.6, p.675-81, 1998) it has been suggested that surface charges on insulating materials have a significant influence on the hydrophobicity levels of insulating materials, especially glass, ceramic and silicone rubber. In the comment we have investigated the possible influence of surface charge on the hydrophobicity levels of different insulating materials and found that surface charges do not play any significant role in the hydrophobicity levels, contrary to the claim by Moreno-Villa et al. To isolate the possible influence of the charging method on the hydrophobicity, we used three different charging methods, namely corona discharge, plasma treatment and triboelectric charging, to deposit charges on the insulating materials. In addition to depositing charges on the insulating surfaces, the corona discharge and plasma treatment produced significant reduction in hydrophobicity. However, the triboelectric charging method deposits large amounts of charges on the insulating materials without producing any significant change in the hydrophobicity level. From these experiments it appears that the presence of surface charges is not responsible for the hydrophobicity loss in insulating materials. Corona discharge and plasma treatment are known to produce surface modifications, and perhaps it is these surface modifications that are responsible for the surface hydrophobicity loss.


We construct statistical ensembles of modular Boolean networks that are constrained to lie at the critical line between frozen and chaotic dynamic regimes. The ensembles are maximally random given the imposed constraints, and thus represent null models of critical networks. By varying the network density and the entropic cost associated with biased Boolean functions, the ensembles undergo several phase transitions. The observed structures range from fully random to several ordered ones, including a prominent core–periphery-like structure, and an 'attenuated' two-group structure, where the network is divided in two groups of nodes, and one of them has Boolean functions with very low sensitivity. This shows that such simple large-scale structures are the most likely to occur when optimizing for criticality, in the absence of any other constraint or competing optimization criteria.


Lyme borreliosis is a complex infection, where some individuals develop so‐called 'chronic borreliosis'. The pathogenetic mechanisms are unknown, but the type of immune response is probably important for healing. A strong T helper cell type 1 (Th1)‐like response has been suggested as crucial for eradication of Borrelia and for avoiding development of chronic disease. Many studies aimed at altering the Th1/Th2 balance in Lyme arthritis employed mice deficient in cytokine genes, but the outcome has not been clear‐cut, due possibly to the high redundancy of cytokines. This study aimed at studying the importance of the Th1/Th2 balance in murine Borrelia arthritis by using the Th2‐deviating effect of subtoxic doses of inorganic mercury. Ninety‐eight C3H/HeN mice were divided into four groups: Borrelia‐infected (Bb), Borrelia‐infected exposed to HgCl2 (BbHg), controls exposed to HgCl2 alone and normal controls. Mice were killed on days 3, 16, 44 and 65 post‐Borrelia inoculation. Arthritis severity was evaluated by histology, spirochaetal load determined by Borrelia culture, IgG2a‐ and IgE‐levels analysed by enzyme‐linked immunosorbemt assay (ELISA) and cytokine‐secreting cells detected by enzyme‐linked immunospot (ELISPOT). BbHg mice showed less severe histological arthritis, but delayed eradication of spirochaetes compared to Bb mice, associated with increased levels of IgE (Th2‐induced) and decreased levels of IgG2a (Th1‐induced), consistent with a Th2‐deviation. Both the numbers of Th1 and Th2 cytokine‐secreting cells were reduced in BbHg mice, possibly explained by the fact that numbers of cytokine‐secreting cells do not correlate with cytokine concentration. In conclusion, this study supports the hypothesis that a Th1‐like response is required for optimal eradication of Borrelia.


A newly recognized Mnin restraining stepover is identified in the Permo-Mesozoic cover of the western part of the Late Palaeozoic Holy Cross Mountains Fold Belt (Poland), within a fault pattern consisting of dextral strikeslip faults. The formation of a large contractional structure at the Late Cretaceous – Cenozoic transition displays the significant role of strike-slip faulting along the western border of the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone, in the foreland of the Polish part of the Carpathian Orogen. Theoretical relationships between the maximum fault offsets/mean step length, as well as between the maximum fault offsets/mean step width allowed the estimation of the values of possible offsets along the Snochowice and Mieczyn faults forming the Mnin stepover. The estimated values suggest displacements of as much as several tens of kilometres. The observed offset along the Tokarnia Fault and theoretical calculations suggest that the strike-slip faults west of the Late Palaeozoic Holy Cross Mountains Fold Belt belong to a large strike-slip fault system. We postulate that the observed significant refraction of the faults forming the anastomosing fault pattern is related also to the interaction of the NW-SE-striking faults formed along the western border of the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone and the reactivated WNW-ESE-striking faults belonging to the fault systems of the northern margin of the Tethys Ocean.


The effect of a fully-premixed pilot flame on the velocity-forced flame response of a fully premixed flame in a single-nozzle lean-premixed swirl combustor operating on natural gas fuel is investigated. Measurements of the flame transfer function show that as the percent pilot is increased there is a decrease in the flame transfer function gain at all frequencies, a decrease in the frequencies at which the gain minima and maxima occurred, and a decrease in the flame transfer function phase at high frequencies.
 High-speed CH* chemiluminescence flame imaging is used to gain a better understanding of the mechanism(s) whereby the pilot flame affects flame dynamics and thereby the flame transfer function.
 Time-averaged flame images show that the location of the maximum heat release rate does not change with forcing frequency or percent pilot, although the flame extends further upstream into the inner shear layer with increasing percent pilot.
 Heat release rate fluctuation images show that significant heat release rate fluctuations occur in the inner shear layer, the outer recirculation zone, and the near wall region and that the primary effect of increasing the forcing frequency or the percent pilot is a shift of the heat release rate fluctuation from the near wall region to the inner shear layer. In addition, an increase in the percent pilot results in lengthening and narrowing of the inner shear layer and the near wall regions.
 The phase images show that the phase is less uniform as the frequency or percent pilot increase, resulting in greater interference between in phase and out of phase fluctuations which reduces the FTF gain. The phase images also show that the wavelength of the heat release rate perturbation travelling through the inner shear layer decreases with increasing frequency and percent pilot which suggests that the pilot flame alters the recirculation flow field.
 Flame transfer functions calculated for the heat release rate fluctuations in the inner shear layer, the near wall region and the outer recirculation zone show that the inner shear layer is the largest contributor to the global heat release rate fluctuation in the unpiloted flame and that the primary effect of the pilot flame on the reduction of the global FTF gain is a result of the pilot flame's effect on the inner shear layer.


The internal deformation and movement directions of Mass Transport Deposits (MTDs) are key factors in understanding the kinematics and dynamics of their emplacement. Although these are relatively easy to recover from well‐bedded sediments, they are more difficult to deduce from massive beds without visible strain markers. In order to test the applicability of using anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) to determine MTD movement, we compare AMS fabrics, with structural measurements of visible kinematic indicators. Our case study involves the structural analysis of slumped lake sediments extensively exposed in MTDs within the Dead Sea Basin. Structural analyses of MTDs outcropping for >100 km reveal radial transport directions toward the basin depocenter. We show that the AMS fabrics display the same transport directions as inferred from structural analyses. Based on this similarity, we outline a robust procedure to obtain the transport direction of slumped MTDs from AMS fabrics. Variations in the magnetic fabrics and anisotropies in fold‐thrust systems within the slumps match the various structural domains. We therefore suggest that magnetic fabrics and anisotropy variations in drill cores may reflect internal deformation within the slumps rather than different slumps. Obtaining magnetic fabrics from MTDs provides a viable way to infer the transport directions and internal deformation of MTDs and reconstruct the basin depocenter in ancient settings. The present results also have implications beyond the kinematics of MTDs, as their geometry resembles fold‐thrust systems in other geological settings, scales, and tectonic environments.


With forecasted participation rate of 45.8 per cent in 2005, Malaysian
women have contributed significantly to the development of the Nation.
Thus, their well-being and basic human rights to have a safe and
conducive workplace should be assured: including from sexual
harassment. Sexual harassment is noted by the United Nations as a form
of discrimination and violence against women in various conventions that
Malaysia has acceded to; primarily the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Literature on
sexual harassment suggests that one in two women would experience
some forms of sexually harassing behaviour during her working life. This is a qualitative research involving 16 female respondents working in
the public sector. Observation is mainly drawn from interviews with the
respondents. In the interest of triangulation, informal interviews with their
friends and colleagues were also conducted. Besides that, key informants
also provided required background information. It is a study of power
relations between the harassers and the victims at public workplaces. The
research examines the incidences and reactions to sexual harassment
and the types of coping strategies employed by the respondents who are
in the subordinate positions in the organizational structure. The central
argument is that the issue of power and powerlessness is embedded in
the work culture which oppresses women's rights to have a safe and
conducive working environment. The study also seeks to examine the
factors influencing the types of coping strategies used by the respondents.
Findings revealed that no one reported a one-time harassment. Instead,
all the respondents faced numerous types of harassment for a
considerable length of time. As for types of coping, a number of coping
strategies were simultaneously used by the respondents as they saw fit
and most effective at that particular time. Some coping patterns emerged.
While there are some respondents who were empowered enough to stand
for their rights, most preferred to keep quiet as to avoid further
complications and repercussions at the workplace. This supports previous studies that women tend not to seek advocacy intervention. Only in
severe harassment cases that they did so. Respondents in this study
avoided advocacy-seeking since previous cases reported to higher
authority yielded no favourable response. There are some exceptional
cases where respondents went along with the harassers due to several
factors, including childhood upbringing and family background. The main
factors influencing their decision on coping strategies were power
differential, socialization and background, severity, personal
empowerment and personality, and office environment.
The study concludes that sexual harassment is an intricate form of sexual
violence and is mostly all about men in power and un-empowered women.
To minimize incidences of sexual harassment at public workplaces,
people need to have basic respect to others as found in the tenets of all
religion. Besides that, more gender sensitivity courses should be
conducted, with massive awareness campaign on the Sexual Harassment
Guideline introduced by the PSD in August 2005. Only then, more
harmonious and safer working environment could be achieved in the
public sector.


Clinico-diagnostic correlations were studied in 74 patients suffering small cell lung cancer. Metastases to the brain were mostly multiple (66.22%) affecting the posterior cranial fossa (75%), right hemisphere and subtentorial area (34.6%). Diagnosis made by neuro-oncological examination was confirmed in 90.54%, brain scan--77.78, computed tomography--84.91, ophthalmological examination--28.81, EEG--58.18 and emission tomography--80%.


Background The management of pain by GPs for residents of aged care facilities (ACFs) is very common. Aim To measure the prevalence and assess the management of pain in ACF residents, particularly those with dementia. Design & setting A retrospective review of ACF residents' medical records was undertaken at five southern Tasmanian (Australia) ACFs. Method Data extracted included results of the most recent assessment of pain and its management, frequency and treatment of pain incidents in the previous 7 days, demographics, and medical and medication history. Univariate analysis was used to identify variables associated with increased frequency of pain episodes. Results The final analysis included 477 residents. At least one episode of pain in the preceding 7 days was documented in 25.6% (n = 122) of residents' notes. Pain episodes were most commonly managed by analgesics (45.5%), massage (40.7%), and heatpacks (13.8%). Residents with dementia were not less likely to have pain identified during the past week (14% versus 20%; P = 0.09), but they were much less likely to have pain identified on their most recent pain assessment (P = 0.03). Conclusion GPs should carefully consider the suitability of using 'as required' analgesics. Furthermore, on admission to an ACF, GPs need to ensure a patient's medical history includes all pain or potentially pain-causing conditions, to ensure that a resident's pain assessment is complete. This is especially necessary for those with dementia, to ensure that staff remain vigilant about the possibility of the resident experiencing pain.


Abstract : This paper reports on the development of a computational linguistic theory of discourse structure. The Linguistic Discourse Model (LDM) is a comprehensive theory of the structural, semantic and pragmatic relations obtaining among clauses in a discourse which has as its goal to account for how a semantic and pragmatic interpretation of a discourse may be built up from its constituent clauses on a left to right, clause by clause basis. The model consists of a set of discourse grammars which specify the constituent structure of possible linguistically and socially significant discourse units including 'plans', 'lists', 'elaborations', 'stories', 'narratives', 'conversations', 'planning sessions', 'doctor/patient interactions', etc. A set of recursive rules of discourse formation specifies how units may relate to one another and a set of semantic interpretation rules assigns a semantic and pragmatic interpretation to each clause and to the emerging discourse. Under LDM analysis, discourse is shown to have a hierarchical structure: units which interrupt the forward development of units already begun are uniformly analyzed as embedded relative to those power of the theory is demonstrated with reference to numerous examples. Special attention is paid to the narrative.


The method for the diagnosis of the Pendred Syndrome in children by the Perchlorate discharge test using 123 I is described. The older child, who has the Pendred Syndrome and the obligatory hearing deficit, frequently has neither a goitre nor hypothyroidism, but other investigations (bone growth, scars and function tests) can also show changes. However a more certain diagnosis of this disorder in children is possible by the perchlorate discharge test using 123 I.


Data showing a trend that characterizes a change due to a shock to the system are a type of changepoint data, and may be referred to as shock-through data. As a result of the shock, this type of data may exhibit one of two types of transitions: gradual or abrupt. Although shock-through data are of particular interest in many areas of study such as biological, medical, health and environmental applications, previous research has shown that statistical inference from modeling the trend is challenging in the presence of discontinuous derivatives. Further complications arise when we have (1) longitudinal data, and/or (2) samples which come from two potential populations: one with a gradual transition, and the other abrupt. Bent-cable regression is an appealing statistical tool to model shock-through data due to the model's flexibility while being parsimonious with greatly interpretable regression coefficients. It comprises two linear segments (incoming and outgoing) joined by a quadratic bend. In this thesis, we develop extended bent-cable methodology for longitudinal data in a Bayesian framework to account for both types of transitions; inference for the transition type is driven by the data rather than a presumption about the nature of the transition. We describe explicitly the computationally intensive Bayesian implementation of the methodology. Moreover, we describe modeling only one type of transition, which is a special case of this more general model. We demonstrate our methodology by a simulation study, and with two applications: (1) assessing the transition to early hypothermia in a rat model, and (2) understanding CFC-11 trends monitored globally. Our methodology can be further extended at the cost of both theoretical and computational extensiveness. For example, we assume that the two populations mentioned above share common intercept and slopes in the incoming and outgoing phases, an assumption that can be relaxed for instances when intercept and slope parameters could behave differently between populations. In addition to this, we discuss several other directions for future research out of the proposed methodology presented in this thesis.


Phytophthora palmivora , Rhizoctonia sp. and two isolates of Fusarium spp. were identified and associated with the arracacha ( Arracada xanthorrhiza) corm rot in pathogenicity tests conducted in vitro and in vivo. In vitro tests revealed that these fungi were pathogenic to the corm. Fungi caused lesions to the corm under greenhouse conditions. Three major symptoms were observed: necrotized roots; necrotized roots with a dry, brown, hard injury to the internal corm tissue; and wet lesions with brown shades. The highest incidence of affected corms occurred with P. palmivora in combination with Rhizoctonia sp., and the lowest was observed in corms inoculated with Rhizoctonia sp. alone. The most severe symptoms were caused by P. palmivora alone and in combination with Rhizoctonia sp. In vitro tests were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of metalaxyl, etridiazofe thiophanate-methyl, and fosetyl-al against the isolated fungi at doses of 5 to 200 mg ai/kg. Among the fungicides tested, etridiazole thiophanate-methyl was effective against all fungi associated with corm rot. Micelial growth of P. palmivora was completely inhibited with metataxyl at all doses and by etridiazole thiophanate-methyl with doses of 20 or more mg ai/kg.


Objective Surveillance interval protocols after complete remission of intestinal metaplasia (CRIM) post radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in Barrett's oesophagus (BE) are currently empiric and not based on substantial evidence. We aimed to assess the timeline, location and patterns of recurrence following CRIM to inform these guidelines. Design Data on patients undergoing RFA for BE were obtained from prospectively maintained databases of five (three USA and two UK) tertiary referral centres. RFA was performed until CRIM was confirmed on two consecutive endoscopies. Results 594 patients achieved CRIM as of 1 May 2017. 151 subjects developed recurrent BE over a median (IQR) follow-up of 2.8 (1.4–4.4) years. There was 19% cumulative recurrence risk of any BE within 2 years and an additional 49% risk over the next 8.6 years. There was no evidence of a clinically meaningful change in the recurrence hazard rate of any BE, dysplastic BE or high-grade dysplasia/cancer over the duration of follow-up, with an estimated 2% (95% CI −7% to 12%) change in recurrence rate of any BE in a doubling of follow-up time. 74% of BE recurrences developed at the gastro-oesophageal junction (GOJ) (24.1% were dysplastic) and 26% in the tubular oesophagus. The yield of random biopsies from the tubular oesophagus, in the absence of visible lesions, was 1% (BE) and 0.2% (dysplasia). Conclusions BE recurrence risk following CRIM remained constant over time, suggesting that lengthening of follow-up intervals, at least in the first 5 years after CRIM, may not be advisable. Sampling the GOJ is critical to detecting recurrence. The requirement for random biopsies of the neosquamous epithelium in the absence of visible lesions may need to be re-evaluated.


I read with great interest the article by Martins et al. regarding the generation of artifact and the influence of machine settings on measurements approximating to 'flow' using the commercially available Virtual Organ Computer-aided AnaLysis (VOCAL TM ) three-dimensional (3D) perfusion analysis technique1. These findings mirror those of our research group when evaluating nonstandardized power Doppler in two-dimensional (2D) imaging2, and reflect concerns that I have had and have expressed for many years regarding the validity of VOCAL quantification of flow. Close attention should be paid to the findings of this research group before other teams embark upon the use of this technology for quantification of flow. Early work using 2D power Doppler suggested that integration of amplitude could be used to approximate to flow3. As previously described in an Opinion in this journal, the influence of machine settings and attenuation necessitated a method for internal image standardization4. This internal standardization generated the index 'fractional moving blood volume' allowing for the effects of gain, depth, etc., to be minimized. A complex mathematical technique to perform this was devised by Rubin et al.5 using the cumulative powerdistribution function to remove the influence of clumped red blood cells or rouleaux, and to standardize tissue flow measurements against a local value for 100% flow. This technique has been used in multiple publications from Dr Hernandez-Andrade and colleagues6,7, although these findings have not yet been replicated by other research groups. Whether or not this precise form of standardization is required has been questioned by a previous publication8, but the need for standardization to remove the influence of machine settings, including gain, has not. The advent of purpose-designed 3D ultrasound machines with software to measure indices approximating to flow meant that numbers could be generated for 'flow' or 'perfusion' without complex offline calculations or software programs. This has proven appealing in its simplicity and has resulted in an explosion of publications related to perfusion measurement in both gynecology and obstetrics, as described by Martins et al.1. Unfortunately, it seems that the influence of machine settings, and the need for standardization, was forgotten in the rush to exploit this more simplistic modern technology. It is essential that a distinction is made between studies using standardized 2D quantification, which have been shown to be useful for measurement of flow both in flow models and in the fetus6,7, and those using non-standardized 3D indices, which, as shown by Martins et al., may have no true correlation with flow. Of great concern is the fact that Martins et al. state that the gain used is directly correlated with all the VOCAL indices. This would mean that aside from gynecological applications (with little intervening tissue and predefined gain and scale settings), the influence of gain (and therefore depth and time-gain compensation) renders VOCAL measurements practically meaningless, or at best as meaningful as non-standardized 2D quantification. I disagree strongly with the first statement in the Discussion that '3D ultrasound can be used to reliably acquire and quantify. . .power Doppler information', because the true correlation between VOCAL and flow/perfusion is highly questionable based upon this paper. The authors advise the use of the lowest gain setting to remove artifact, although this introduces a subjective level to the evaluation of perfusion using these techniques. The statement by Martins et al., that it is probably best to set the gain somewhere near the middle of its range, underlines the fact that this is an imprecise technique with poor scientific validity. It is much more advisable to internally standardize whilst excluding flash artifact from images because an excessive reduction in gain will reduce the apparent perfusion as signals fall below the wall filter level of the ultrasound machine. Further study is needed to determine whether or not automated measures of 3D flow (VOCAL) have any true meaning, or whether all power Doppler imaging, whether in 2D or 3D, requires internal standardization to truly approximate to tissue perfusion.


Over the past 30 years, many states have abolished parole boards, which traditionally have had the discretion to release inmates before the expiration of their full sentence, in favor of fixed-sentence regimes in which the original sentence is binding. However, if prison time lowers recidivism risk and if parole boards can accurately estimate inmates' recidivism risk, then relative to a fixed-sentence regime, parole can provide allocative-efficiency benefits (costly prison space is allocated to the highest-risk offenders) and incentive benefits (prisoners know they must reduce their recidivism risk to gain an early release, so invest in their own rehabilitation). Exploiting quasi-experiments from the state of Georgia, I show that prison time reduces recidivism risk and that parole boards set prison time in an allocatively efficient manner. Prisoners respond to these incentives; after a reform that eliminated parole for certain offenders, they accumulated a greater number of disciplinary infractions, completed fewer prison rehabilitative programs, and recidivated at higher rates than inmates unaffected by the reform. I estimate that eliminating parole for all prisoners would increase the prison population by 10% while also increasing the crime rate through deleterious effects on recidivism. JEL Codes: H76, K14, K40. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.


This paper explores the impact of post-socialist transformation of the Czech society upon the health of newborns from different socioeconomic groups. We use six different measures of child health – various constructs based on birth weight, length of gestation, and vitality – as dependent variables and mother's educational attainment as the key predictor. We use birth certificate data about all singleton births in 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2007 (N=912,591). We estimate random-intercept multi-level models and report observed trends in health inequality by maternal education. We consistently and persistently observe large gaps in health between children born to mothers with elementary education on the one hand and all other children on the other hand. While trends are not entirely congruent across all measures of child health, we find more evidence of growing inequality than of declining or stable inequality. Inequality grew mostly in the 1990s and then stabilized or even declined. We offer two tentative explanations for observed growth in inequality: selective adjustment hypothesis and selective childlessness hypothesis.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate what influences patients' health care decisions and what the implications are for the provision of information on the quality of health care providers to patients.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING
Dutch patient samples between November 2006 and February 2007.

STUDY DESIGN
Discrete choice experiments were conducted in three patient groups to explore what influences choice for health care providers.

DATA COLLECTION
Data were obtained from 616 patients with knee arthrosis, 368 patients with chronic depression, and 421 representatives of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
The three patients groups chose health care providers on a different basis. The most valued attributes were effectiveness and safety (knee arthrosis); continuity of care and relationship with the therapist (chronic depression); and expertise (Alzheimer's disease). Preferences differed between subgroups, mainly in relation to patients' choice profiles, severity of disease, and some background characteristics.

CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that there is substantial room for (quality) information about health care providers in patients' decision processes. This information should be tailor-made, targeting specific patient segments, because different actors and factors play a part in their search and selection process.


The transition to impersonal exchange and modern economic growth has depended on the emergence of courts that enforce contracts efficiently. This paper shows that Islamic courts of the Ottoman Empire exhibited biases that would have limited the expansion of exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly those between Muslims and non-Muslims. It thus explains why economic modernization in the Middle East required the establishment of secular courts. In quantifying Ottoman judicial biases, the paper also discredits the view that these courts treated Christians and Jews fairly as well as the counter-view that they ruled against non-Muslims disproportionately. Biases against non-Muslims were in fact institutionalized. By the same token, non-Muslims did relatively well in adjudicated interfaith disputes, because they settled most conflicts out of court in anticipation of judicial biases. Islamic courts also appear to have exhibited biases in favor of state officials. The paper thus refutes the Islamist claim that reinstituting Islamic law (sharia) would be economically beneficial.


This article focuses on the reconstruction of fabrics based on archaeological finds. When a woman's grave from the late twelfth century AD (Kukruse Burial VI) was unearthed at Kukruse in eastern Estonia, archaeologists involved experts from various fields in studying the materials that were found in the grave – from natural scientists to textile researchers. A set of clothing was reproduced from what was found in the grave of the "Kukruse Woman". The grave that served as the basis for this study featured plentiful amounts of jewellery and bronze embellishments, but textile remains were extremely scarce. It was for this reason that, when it came to weaving the fabrics, other archaeological textile finds that date back to the same period had to be relied on to a degree. The aim was to achieve a visual resemblance to the historic fabric. When weaving the woollen fabrics, the yarn used was from the wool of an ancient Estonian sheep breed, the native Kihnu type, which was spun in a way that is customary for contemporary woollen mills. In order to obtain the required shade of blue, synthetic dyes were used on the yarn. The tools used met the needs of a modern weaver and increased the efficiency of the work. This article interprets handicraft skills on the basis of the crafter's personal experience, primarily from a weaver's perspective. Reconstructing an ancient fabric includes not only reproducing the item itself, but also the process of studying and recreating in herited skills that had since been lost.


Past changes in global industrial aerosol emissions have played a significant role in historical shifts in African rainfall, and yet assessment of the impact on African rainfall of near-term (10–40 yr) potential aerosol emission pathways remains largely unexplored. While existing literature links future aerosol declines to a northward shift of Sahel rainfall, existing climate projections rely on RCP scenarios that do not explore the range of air quality drivers. Here we present projections from two emission scenarios that better envelop the range of potential aerosol emissions. More aggressive emission cuts result in northward shifts of the tropical rainbands whose signal can emerge from expected internal variability on short, 10–20-yr time horizons. We also show for the first time that this northward shift also impacts East Africa, with evidence of delays to both onset and withdrawal of the short rains. However, comparisons of rainfall impacts across models suggest that only certain aspects of both the West and East African model responses may be robust, given model uncertainties. This work motivates the need for wider exploration of air quality scenarios in the climate science community to assess the robustness of these projected changes and to provide evidence to underpin climate adaptation in Africa. In particular, revised estimates of emission impacts of legislated measures every 5–10 years would have a value in providing near-term climate adaptation information for African stakeholders.


Defense-in-Depth is the basis of safety design of nuclear plants, and refined and strengthened year by year. Nowadays, the importance of it has been further highlighted triggered by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.Accidents described previously have been shown it could not care enough to uncertainty related to design, construction, maintenance and operation has exposed. It's the lessons learned of that is to say to reduce uncertainty of design is the use of risk informed is essential. Therefore, the establishment of the design approach that uses risk informed consideration of the Defense-in-Depth is an important theme.Defense-in-Depth is a measure which prevents the increase of the event frequency and core damage in consideration of the degree of safety margins, redundancy, diversity and consideration of radiation safety due to core damage and security.The plant designers and utilities have made efforts to ensure safety utilized conventional design technique, which means deterministic, and risk information, in order to incorporate Defense-in-Depth concepts.To consider Defense-in-Depth in the design phase, various requirements should be taken into consideration. It has been coming to be able to perform more rational and quantitative judgment by utilization of risk information.In that case, while the designers of various fields will work in cooperation to ensure safety, if there are common utilization schemes for risk information among designers, more efficient and rational design works can be advanced in consideration of Defense-in-Depth. However, conventionally, it is hard to say that such schemes have functioned in order that designers may advance design works in collaboration.This research intends to generate the schemes which advance design works in sharing the same risk information databases, which mean various risk indications etc), in other words, the schemes which will become lingua franca for utilizing risk information, in case of nuclear plants designs.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


We introduce a few-shot transfer learning method for keyword spotting in any language. Leveraging open speech corpora in nine languages, we automate the extraction of a large multilingual keyword bank and use it to train an embedding model. With just five training examples, we fine-tune the embedding model for keyword spotting and achieve an average F1 score of 0.75 on keyword classification for 180 new keywords unseen by the embedding model in these nine languages. This embedding model also generalizes to new languages. We achieve an average F1 score of 0.65 on 5-shot models for 260 keywords sampled across 13 new languages unseen by the embedding model. We investigate streaming accuracy for our 5-shot models in two contexts: keyword spotting and keyword search. Across 440 keywords in 22 languages, we achieve an average streaming keyword spotting accuracy of 87.4% with a false acceptance rate of 4.3%, and observe promising initial results on keyword search.


In this work, we propose the complexity-guided slimmable decoder (cgSlimDecoder) in combination with skip-adaptive entropy coding (SaEC) for efficient deep video compression. Specifically, given the target complexty constraints, in our cgSlimDecoder, we introduce a set of new channel width selection modules to automatically decide the optimal channel width of each slimmable convolution layer. By optimizing the complexity-rate-distortion related objective function to directly learn the parameters of the newly introduced channel width selection modules and other modules in the decoder, our cgSlimDecoder can automatically allocate the optimal numbers of parameters for different types of modules (e.g., motion/residual decoder and the motion compensation network) and simultaneously support multiple complexity levels by using a single learnt decoder instead of multiple decoders. In addition, our proposed SaEC can further accelerate the entropy decoding procedure in both motion and residual decoders by simply skipping the entropy coding process for the elements in the encoded feature maps that are already well-predicted by the hyperprior network. As demonstrated in our comprehensive experiments, our newly proposed methods cgSlimDecoder and SaEC are general and can be readily incorporated into three widely used deep video codecs (i.e., DVC, FVC and DCVC) to significantly improve their coding efficiency with negligible performance drop.


Infocide, the purposeful retraction and deletion of an online identity, is accompanied by a confusing set of neologisms such as cybersuicide and information suicide. I distinguish and identify these variations as a form of cyberlanguage. I then explore the complexities of infocide in open content communities (e.g., Python, Wikipedia, Ruby, Debian and Ubuntu) with respect to reasons, enactment, and community reactions. I find that infocides are often prompted by the exhaustion of maintaining an online life, by discontent towards an online community, and over privacy concerns that one's real and online identifies have intersected. While some infocide is concise and complete, infocide is occasionally graduated, such as when one removes aspects of one's identity including advanced status and capabilities (e.g., as an administrator). Because of the temptation to return to one's former identity, infocide is sometimes made irreversible, such as by changing one's account password to a random string. An equally interesting aspect of infocide is a community's reaction. I explore the responses of gratitude, sleuthing (attempting to identify more information, including motivation, about the exit), drama, and the preservation of contributions about the exit.


Summary Degradation of rock under marine conditions can be ascribed to three general mechanisms; spalling, abrasion and large scale, catastrophic fracture. The physical disaggregation of a rock fabric can be assessed in terms of the forces of 'attack', such as salt crystallization pressure and rock impact forces, acting against the coherence of the rock fabric. This coherence (and hence durability) is examined in terms of fracture toughness (K1C) and the Griffith fracture criteria for brittle solids which relate the maximum length of discontinuities present in a rock to its tensile strength. The relationship of tensile to compressive strength is reviewed and their relative merits are discussed. The use of standard engineering tests in the assessment of potential rock durability is also examined.


In recent years, development of energy conversion systems using hydrogen as an energy source has been accelerated globally. Even though hydrogen is an environment-friendly energy source, safety and effectiveness issues in storage, transportation, and usage of hydrogen should be clearly resolved in every application. Therefore, sensors for detecting hydrogen leakage, especially for fuel cell electric vehicles, should be designed to have much higher resolution and accuracy in comparison with conventional gas sensors. In this study, we conducted to determine the design parameters for the semiconductor hydrogen sensor with optimized sensing conditions under the thermal distribution characteristic and thermal transfer characteristic. The heat generation study on power supply voltage was studied for correlation analysis of thermal energy according to the power supply voltage variation from 1.0 voltage to 10.0 voltage every 0.5 voltage. And we studied for the temperature coefficient of resistance with hydrogen sensor.


Introduction Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in the United Kingdom. Colonoscopy is recommended first line investigation for CRC. Most studies recommend counselling patients undergoing colonoscopy about a "miss rate" of up to 6%.1The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the frequency of post colonoscopy colorectal cancer (PCCRC) in a District General Hospital. Method Data for all patients with a new diagnosis of CRC were obtained from our local colorectal cancer services between Jan 2011 to Sept 2014. We identified all patients who have had colonoscopy within 36 months of a CRC diagnosis. PCCRC was defined as those who had colonoscopy within 6–36 months of diagnosis, whereas the cancers were classified as "detected" if diagnosis was made within 6 month of preceding colonoscopy. Patients with incomplete colonoscopy were excluded. Results 494 patients were diagnosed with CRC. Of these, 161 patients had a colonoscopy within 36 months preceding diagnosis. 2.5% (4/161) patients were found to have PCCRC. 75% were male and mean age of the patients was 77 years (range 61–86 years). Bowel preparation was reported to be good in all procedures. The location of the PCCRC was sigmoid (2), descending colon (1) and transverse colon (1). The indication for colonoscopy was anaemia (2), bleeding per rectum (1) and Crohn's colitis surveillance (1). Only 1 colonoscopy detected colonic polyp, tubulovillous adenoma with high grade dysplasia; however this was not followed up as per guidelines. The mean time between colonoscopy and definitive colon cancer diagnosis was 30 months (range 19–36 months). All patients with PCCRC died with a mean survival time of 376 days from the time of cancer diagnosis. Two of these four patients had metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis with one of the patient had extensive metastasis and died within 16 days of diagnosis. Conclusion In our study, rate of PCCRC was 2.5%, although this rate is low compared to most studies2but it has serious implications and may lead to diagnosis at an advanced stage. It is prudent to audit the miss rate of colonoscopy to improve colonoscopy quality and the rate of PCCRC occurrence should be incorporated as a quality indicator of a colonoscopy service Disclosure of interest None Declared. References Bressler B, Paszat LF, Chen Z et al. Rates of new or missed colorectal cancers after colonoscopy and their risk factors: a population-based analysis. Gastroenterology 2007;132:96–102 Morris EJ, Rutter MD, Finan PJ et al. Post-colonoscopy colorectal cancer (PCCRC) rates vary considerably depending on the method used to calculate them: a retrospective observational population-based study of PCCRC in the English National Health Service. Gut2014. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2014-308362


In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, some Punjabi men have supported their mental health through digital peer support interventions. However, there is little research which reflects upon the impact of peer support education for people who identify as culturally, linguistically, or geographically Punjabi. This review aims to map, discuss and appraise the scholarly literature concerning Punjabi communities and peer support education. Open-source articles published in English were sought through Google Scholar due to broadest accessibility. Screened articles were analysed for common themes, summarised, and critically appraised alongside a case study reflection. The findings show that there is a distinct lack of literature which could help to develop and evaluate digital peer support education for Punjabi populations and that future research is warranted. Despite this, some existing research can provide scholarly foundations for such work. Further practice and evaluation is required to understand the potential possibilities and pitfalls for peer support education in Punjabi and racialized communities more broadly. Future research should take a specific focus on the potential for impact in peer support for Punjabi communities to explore the unique needs of the population. Without such research we risk being unable to develop precise and specific peer support interventions which may exacerbate existing inequities within mental health more widely.


This article analyzes the relation between GDP per capita (CPIBpc) and access to tertiary education, seen from the perspective of growth rate of the number of enrollments (TCMes) in higher education in Colombia for the period (1971-2016). By using a VEC model and assuming everything else constant, it is concluded that TCMes Granger caused the Colombian GDP per capita and vice-versa, therefore, the existence of a long run relation between both variables is verified. This result helps to explain the dynamics of Colombian economic growth per capita of the last forty-five years and the impact of the accumulation of human capital on it.


Abstract Expressionism famously shifted the center of the advanced art world from Paris to New York. The triumph of Abstract Expressionism, and its subsequent abrupt decline in the face of Pop Art, are familiar tales in the literature of art history. Econometric analysis of evidence from auction markets now provides a basis for dating precisely the greatest innovations of the leading Abstract Expressionists, and of the leaders of the cohort that succeeded them. These data demonstrate how fundamentally each of these revolutions affected the nature of painting, by showing how greatly the creative life cycles of the experimental old masters of Abstract Expressionism differed from those of the conceptual young geniuses who followed them. The innovations of the Abstract Expressionists were based on extended experimentation, as they searched for novel visual images; Pop artists rejected this open-ended search for personal forms, and instead treated painting as the impersonal transcription of preconceived ideas. Accumulation of experience was critical for the Abstract Expressionists, who produced their most valuable art late in their lives, whereas lack of experience allowed the next generation the freedom to imagine radically new approaches, and they produced their most valuable art early in their careers.


Post-mortem intraocular findings in two autopsy cases with traumatic intracranial haemorrhage were obtained using an ophthalmological endoscope. The endoscopy results clearly revealed the presence of intraocular haemorrhages and papilledema caused by intracranial haemorrhage. Post-mortem ophthalmological endoscopy offers several benefits. First, post-mortem intraocular findings can be directly observed in corpses with post-mortem clouding of the cornea. Secondly, the endoscopy only requires a 0.9 mm incision in the sclera and does not require the removal of the eye from the corpse, a procedure that should be avoided for ethical and cosmetic reasons. Thus, post-mortem opthalmological endoscopy is a useful method for obtaining intraocular findings in autopsies.


Arthrobacter sp. isolated from sewage oxidized ammonium to hydroxylamine, a bound hydroxylamine compound, a hydroxamic acid, a substance presumed to be a primary nitro compound, nitrite, and nitrate. The concentration of free hydroxylamine-nitrogen reached 15 μg/ml. The identification of hydroxylamine was verified by mass spectrometric analysis of its benzophenone oxime derivative. The bound hydroxylamine was tentatively identified as 1-nitrosoethanol on the basis of its mass spectrum, chemical reactions, and infrared and ultraviolet spectra. Hydroxylamine formation by growing cells was relatively independent of pH, but the accumulation of nitrite was strongly favored in alkaline solutions. The formation of hydroxylamine but not nitrite was regulated by the carbon to nitrogen ratio of the medium. The hydroxamic acid was the dominant product of nitrification in iron-deficient media, but hydroxylamine, nitrite, and 1-nitrosoethanol formation was favored in iron-rich solutions. Heterotrophic nitrification by Arthrobacter sp. was not inhibited by several compounds at concentrations which totally inhibited autotrophic nitrification.


Applications of sulfentrazone were applied to 2.75" mowed tall fescue under hot-humid desert conditions to assess post application response. A uniform decrease in color occurred shortly after application at the 0.375 lb. AI/A rate. The effect was short lived and tended to be minimal in split application treatments. Leaf cupping/twisting was exacerbated from applications of sulfentrazone, especially at the 0.375 lb. AI/A rate. At 0.125 and 0.250 lb. AI/ rates, the leaf cupping was much less noticeable. Percent plot showing the leaf cupping symptoms was also rate dependent and generally ranked with degree of effect. Leaf cupping dissipated rapidly after 14 days after treatment. Color changes were minor, while leaf cupping was the more noticeable symptom response on tall fescue from applications of sulfentrazone.


This paper addresses the problem of motion planning of tracked vehicles. It is shown that the force equilibrium perpendicular to the tracks introduces a non-integrable state dependent equality constraint, making the path planning problem nonholonomic. A method is then presented for computing the nominal driving track forces for motions along a specified path at desired speeds. It consists of selecting the angular speeds along the path that satisfy vehicle dynamics and the non-integrable constraint. The computation of the angular speeds is formulated as a parameter optimization, minimizing the violation of the equality constraint. The method is demonstrated for motions along a circular path.


Backgrounds: Accumulating evidences have demonstrated that CD55 can protect cells from complement-mediated attack, and is involved in tumor dedifferentiation, migration, invasiveness, and metastasis. However, the role of CD55 in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) has not been investigated. Aims: Our study aimed to analyze the expression of CD55 in gastric GISTs and its correlations with clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis. Materials and methods: A total of 118 gastric GIST patients were included in our study. CD55 expression in GIST tissue samples was evaluated using immunohistochemistry. Cumulative survival was conducted using the Kaplan–Meier method. Cox regression analyses were performed to identify factors associated with progression-free survival (PFS) for patients with gastric GISTs. Results: Of 118 gastric GISTs patients included in our study, 44 (37.3%) were positive for CD55 expression. Positive CD55 expression in gastric GISTs was closely associated with tumor size (13.52±7.35 vs 5.07±1.90 cm, respectively; P<0.001), Ki 67 labeling index (P=0.001), mitotic counts (P=0.005), NIH risk classification (P<0.001), PLR (P<0.001), and metastasis at initial diagnosis (P=0.002). Kaplan–Meier analyses revealed that tumor size (P<0.001), mitotic counts (P<0.001), Ki 67 labeling index (P<0.001), PLR (P<0.001), metastasis at initial diagnosis (P=0.031), and CD55 expression (P<0.001) were statistically significant risk factors affecting PFS of patients with gastric GISTs. Cox multivariate survival analysis showed that mitotic counts, Ki 67 labeling index, and CD55 expression were independent predictors of PFS for gastric GISTs. Conclusion: CD55 may be a potential prognostic marker in gastric GISTs patients.


Finding new ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate the analysis of gravitational wave data, and ensuring the developed models are easily reusable promises to unlock new opportunities in multi-messenger astrophysics (MMA), and to enable wider use, rigorous validation, and sharing of developed models by the community. In this work, we demonstrate how connecting recently deployed DOE and NSF-sponsored cyberinfrastructure allows for new ways to publish models, and to subsequently deploy these models into applications using computing platforms ranging from laptops to high performance computing clusters. We develop a workflow that connects the \texttt{Data and Learning Hub for Science} (DLHub), a repository for publishing machine learning models, with the Hardware Accelerated Learning (HAL) deep learning computing cluster, using funcX as a universal distributed computing service. We then use this workflow to search for binary black hole gravitational wave signals in open source advanced LIGO data. We find that using this workflow, an ensemble of four openly available deep learning models can be run on HAL and process the entire month of August 2017 of advanced LIGO data in just seven minutes, identifying all four binary black hole mergers previously identified in this dataset, and reporting no misclassifications. This approach, which combines advances in AI, distributed computing, and scientific data infrastructure opens new pathways to conduct reproducible, accelerated, data-driven gravitational wave detection.


【BACKGROUND: Effect of various light wavelength and plant defense molecules were evaluated on the hardness and the contents of free amino acid including ${\gamma}$ -aminobutyric acid (GABA) in soybean sprouts. METHODS AND RESULTS: Germinating soybean seeds were treated with various single wavelength of light (380, 440, 470, and 660 nm) or without light at $25^{\circ}C$ for six days. Soybean seeds were also treated with stress-signaling molecule ethephon or $H_2O_2$ at the same time. Soybean sprouts treated with 470 nm substantially raised the hardness almost two times than the control. The free amino acid contents were higher in 470 nm and $H_2O_2$ treated soybean seeds than the control. Nutritionally beneficial GABA contents were increased by the treatments of 470 nm, 440 nm, ethephon, and $H_2O_2$ . CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the hardness and the contents of amino acids can be regulated by stimuli, which stimuli could be composed of various wavelength and plant defense molecules. Especially, single wavelength 470 nm illumination has the effect of increasing GABA contents with increased hardness.】


In this study, the geographical and local topographic factors have been incorporated into geo-statistical approaches and also various models have been developed relating hail events to site position to assess of a hail hazard at high resolution in the Republic of Moldova. An assessment of the average number of hail days, frequency of a year with hail incidences and peak values by natural zones of Moldova has been derived based on the hail incidence records for 68-years (1949-2015). Hail Sensitive Areas (HSAs) at high resolution are delineated to design resilience for coping with this climate hazards at community level. The research findings ensure more effective use of the hail data and better understanding climatology of hail risk across the Republic of Moldova, and, therefore, facilitate decision making and determination of hail insurance rates throughout the country.


Public policy in the UK is placing increasing emphasis on health inequalities. The first signal of this renewed commitment came soon after the Labour government was elected. In 1997 it commissioned an independent review of health inequalities with a view to identifying priority areas for future policy development. The review was published as the Acheson Report (Department of Health, 1998a). In addition, the government released a consultation paper, Our Healthier Nation, which expressed the following key objectives (Department of Health, 1998b) - (i) to improve the health of the population as a whole by increasing the length of people's lives and the number of years people spend free from illness; (ii) to improve the health of the worst off in society and to narrow the health gap. This monograph looks at health inequalities in the UK from a health economics Perspective. Chapter 2 contains some evidence on health inequalities in the UK, and Chapter 3 briefly outlines the main arguments that have been put forward to explain the differences in health across social class. A normative justification for reducing health inequality is given in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 takes a closer look at whether inequalities in health across all types of groups are inequitable, and Chapter 6 discusses definitions of equity in health. Chapter 7 gives a critical appraisal of the Acheson Report. Chapter 8 looks at one way in which health economists may contribute towards taking the health inequalities debate forward. Chapter 9 concludes.


One of the main challenges faced by biodetection systems is the ability to detect and identify a large range of toxins at low concentrations and in short times. Cell-based biosensors rely on detecting changes in cell behaviour, metabolism, or induction of cell death following exposure of live cells to toxic agents. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for studying cellular biochemistry. Different toxic chemicals have different effects on living cells and induce different time-dependent biochemical changes related to cell death mechanisms. Cellular changes start with membrane receptor signalling leading to cytoplasmic shrinkage and nuclear fragmentation. The potential advantage of Raman spectroscopy cell-based systems is that they are not engineered to respond specifically to a single toxic agent but are free to react to many biologically active compounds. Raman spectroscopy biosensors can also provide additional information from the time-dependent changes of cellular biochemistry. Since no cell labelling or staining is required, the specific time dependent biochemical changes in the living cells can be used for the identification and quantification of the toxic agents. Thus, detection of biochemical changes of cells by Raman spectroscopy could overcome the limitations of other biosensor techniques, with respect to detection and discrimination of a large range of toxic agents. Further developments of this technique may also include integration of cellular microarrays for high throughput in vitro toxicological testing of pharmaceuticals and in situ monitoring of the growth of engineered tissues.


This article brings together two debates in bioethics more substantively than has been the case until now. One is the methodological debate over "principlism," i.e., the theoretical framework for analyzing and solving (bio)ethical problems proposed by Beauchamp and Childress in Principles of Biomedical Ethics (PBE). The other is the normative debate about reproductive ethics, i.e., procreative rights and obligations in a time of pervasive opportunities for making detailed choices about the properties and capacities of future people. The obvious point of bringing the debates together is to show how they can illuminate each other in fruitful ways consistent with the method of reflective equilibrium endorsed in PBE. Furthermore, discussions of reproductive ethics is almost absent in PBE, making it an interesting "test case" on how principlist theory can have an impact on and be affected by confrontations with new practices and considerations in biomedicine. Reproductive ethics is especially interesting due to the so-called non-identity considerations, which pose a challenge to common morality views on harm to and respect for persons. My focus is mainly on some methodological points about the import of concrete normative discussions for formulating basic normative principles. However, I unfold a number of substantial points in order to demonstrate this. It is my impression that most writers on principlism underestimate the effect of engaging with concrete problems. Specifically, I conclude that reflecting on procreative obligations provides strong reasons for specifying the basic principles in ways that uncover new dimensions of them and not just new applications.
Key words: principlism, reproductive ethics, non-identity problem, nonmaleficence, respect for persons


PURPOSE
To investigate whether chitosan application over colonic anastomosis line, provide reinforcement, and subsequently improve anastomotic healing.

METHODS
Forty eight Wistar albino female rats were used and were randomly divided into four groups, 12 rats in each: The control groups (1 and 3) received no further treatment. The experimental groups (2 and 4) received chitosan application over the colonic anastomosis. After sacrifying rats at the end of the experiment (either on day three or on day seven, depending on the group), colonic bursting pressure, a hihydroxyproline level and histopathologic characteristics of the perianastomotic tissue were examined.

RESULTS
At three days, chitosan and control groups had similar values for histopathologically. On day seven, chitosan group had significantly higher mean score of collagenization (p=0.007) and a significantly higher bursting pressure (p=0.038).

CONCLUSION
Our study emphasizes the positive effect of chitosan in the process of collagenation in colonic anastomosis healing.


Motivation to teach is a complex construct; often it is not observed directly but rather inferred from the teachers' behavioural indexes, such as verbalisations, task choices and goal-directed activities. It is related to what energises, directs and sustains teachers' behaviour as they move toward accomplishing their goals of student achievement. Metacognitive attitude is considered an interrelated concept to motivation to teach and refers to teachers' conscious awareness of their thought processes; it is considered as an essential component of the process of teaching for learning. It includes self-regulation (teacher self-regualted are able to transform their mental ability and teaching knowledge into teaching skills in the classroom with their students) and self-efficacy (it refers to teachers' beliefs about their own values, competencies, and accomplishments). The present study investigates the relation between work motivation and metacognitive attitude in a sample of Italian teachers, working in Primary, Middle and High School. Data analysis showed strong correlation between the two dimensions investigated, giving important suggestions about teachers' lifelong learning.


ABSTRACT:Muslim jurists have issued several fatwas (Islamic legal opinions) permitting gender-confirming surgery (GCS) for various groups of intersex and/or transgender people. However, these fatwas have been critiqued for conceiving of intersex and transgender individuals as diseased people who need treatment for an illness. By closely examining the legalhermeneutical arguments behind four widely cited fatwas on GCS—the fatwas of the Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League, the National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs, Shaykh Ṭanṭāwī, and Ayatollah Khomeini—this article argues that although the objection to the medicalization of the recipients of GCS in such fatwas is mostly correct, it is not always accurate, as it is not the case in Khomeini's fatwa. The present study, based on the legal-hermeneutical reasoning established in modern Shiʿi juristic scholarship, proposes a discursive space within Khomeini's fatwa that suggests that intersex and transgender individuals are not people who suffer from physical or mental illness, although they should be permitted to undergo GCS if they wish.


Serum tumors markers tests have five potential uses; the value of a given tests depends on its sensitivity and specificity. As a rule tumor markers have no use as screening tests except for alpha-fetoprotein in hepatocarcinoma which value has been established, for monitoring treatment and for detecting relapse. On the other hand the highest value for carcino-embryonic antigen tests lies on the early detection of colonic cancer relapse. Ca 19-9 assay has a high sensitivity and specificity in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and a high predictive value in unresectable disease. Low serum Testosterone/dihydrotestosterone ratio is useful in diagnosis pancreatic carcinoma. There is no useful marker for diagnosis of gastric cancer.


Previous research has shown that disseminated intravascular coagulation causes a depression in RE function. Fibronectin, a high-molecular-weight surface-binding glycoprotein, is known to modulate RE function by facilitating opsonic activity and is sensitive to proteolytic cleavage by plasmin, yielding FNDP. The present investigation suggests that isolated FNDP, generated in vitro by incubation with plasmin, can depress phagocytosis in vivo as well as in vitro. Phagocytosis in rats was determined by a clearance technique employing CR51-RBCs and in vitro by employing a monolayer of peritoneal exudate macrophages. The in vivo studies demonstrated significantly reduced hepatic phagocytosis after the injection of FNDP an delayed clearance of injected test particles. Macrophage uptake in vitro, supported by either normal rat serum or purified fibronectin, was significantly reduced when incubated with FNDP. These results suggest that depression of the RE system and phagocytosis during intravascular coagulation may be mediated in part by the formation of plasmin degradation products of plasma fibronectin.


A Dissertation Submitted in Partial / Fulfillment of the Requirements for Award of the Degree of Master of Public Administration (MPA) of Mzumbe University.


The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between growth rate, final mass, and larval development, as well as how this relationship influences reproductive trade-offs, in the context of a gregarious life-style and the need to keep an optimal group size. We use as a model two sympatric populations of the pine processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa, which occur in different seasons and thus experience different climatic conditions. Thaumetopoea pityocampa is a strictly gregarious caterpillar throughout the larval period, which occurs during winter in countries all over the Mediterranean Basin. However, in 1997, a population in which larval development occurs during the summer was discovered in Portugal, namely the summer population (SP), as opposed to the normal winter population (WP), which coexists in the same forest feeding on the same host during the winter. Both populations were monitored over 3 years, with an assessment of the length of the larval period and its relationship with different climatic variables, final mass and adult size, egg size and number, colony size, and mortality at different life stages. The SP larval period was reduced as a result of development in the warmer part of the year, although it reached the same final mass and adult size as the WP. Despite an equal size at maturity, a trade-off between egg size and number was found between the two populations: SP produced less but bigger eggs than WP. This contrasts with the findings obtained in other Lepidoptera species, where development in colder environments leads to larger eggs at the expense of fecundity, but corroborates the trend found at a macro-geographical scale for T. pityocampa, with females from northern latitudes and a colder environment producing more (and smaller) eggs. The results demonstrate the importance of the number of eggs in cold environments as a result of an advantage of large colonies when gregarious caterpillars develop in such environments, and these findings are discussed in accordance with the major theories regarding size in animals. (C) 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, 105, 340349.


Arbucsular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) are implicated as phyto-stimulators of various physiological processes of its symbiotic plants. The influences of AM fungi and water deficit on quantum yield of photochemistry (Fv/Fm) of photo-system II of cassava leaves were therefore investigated. Field experiment was conducted at Ajibode village while the semi-controlled experiment was conducted at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. One improved cassava clone (TMS 4(2) 1425) and a landrace (TME1) were investigated. The soil is Oxic Paleustalf in both fields and controlled experiments. The controlled experiments were arranged factorially in a complete randomized design, while the field experiment was a randomized complete block design. The plants were adequately watered at alternate days. After two months, one half of the plants in each treatment were subjected to water stress. All treatments were replicated three times. Results obtained from chlorophyll fluorescence probe indicated that inoculated AM fungi enhanced photochemical efficiency of light reactions of the photosystem II (PS II) in intact cassava leaf tissues both under irrigation and water stress conditions. Water deficit levels based on more negative leaf had adverse effects on chlorophyll fluorescence of both genotypes. However, the adverse effect of water stress was significantly reduced by AM inoculation. Fv/Fm values could be a potentially useful criterion in selecting for drought tolerance and AM fungi efficiency of cassava. Key word:AM fungi cassava (Manihot esculenta crantz) chlorophyll fluorescence chlorophyll pigments


Atmospheric corrosion is important to consider for energy production and transmission. Important and valuable information have been accumulated in this subject; however, the application of new knowledge obtained is not completed. In order to contribute to a decrease in economic losses caused by atmospheric corrosion in wind farms, studies toward application of this knowledge should be carried out. One of the most common reasons for the failure of coastal structures and infrastructures is deterioration failure which is the result of structure deterioration and lack of project maintenance. Atmospheric corrosion was evaluated at outdoor and indoor exposure sites located at different distances from the sea in a wind farm region. Carbon and galvanized steel, copper and aluminum specimens were exposed. Main pollutants and atmospheric parameters were measured. Significant differences between outdoor corrosivity determined by dose response functions established on ISO standard respecting direct weight loss evaluation were found. Estimation carried out using dose response functions overestimate corrosivity (excepting copper). Main factors causing outdoor corrosion are different to indoor. Very high outdoor and indoor corrosivity classifications were determined.


A number of epistemological assumptions of quantum theory in its approach to the natural world (virtuality/actuality, interaction observer/ observed, unpredictability and statistical causality, wave-particle duality, the notion of information, etc.) are surprisingly close to the properties shown by the new digital textualities born with the computer age, and here generically referred as «cybertext». The purpose of this paper is to explore a connection between the quantum model and the semiotic model, not so much to reveal a simple homology, but rather to suggest a unified vision underlying the approach to the various levels of reality (material, biological, mental, cultural, and spiritual). This connection between the quantum view of matter and cybertext is terminally focused on unifying the triadic concepts of matter/energy/information with the key concepts of the semiotic triangle signifier/signified/meaning (or, in the domain of aesthetics, TAC: technology/art/consciousness).


.this as an exam of ntagio or yptian ophthalmia (distinct frOm gonorrhoeal ophthalmia, though either type might be complIcated by granular conjunctiva of trachoma). Such ai i outbreeak rasr-not uncommon on slavers (Harold Scott, 1938)a and since 'it noenfrequently resulted n blin looked upon with dread, by the crew. Pergens (1898), Talbot (1927) and Deplanche; (1931), found v-ery little trachoma among negroes in West Africa, although. albot found it endemic in North Cameon hel fetn Arabs e.g., 8 per cenit. in a Musulman school at Tibati. Revie ing the position in French Colonhties Motis (2 tated that little or no traEchoma had been fou(nd below 11M N. but tht it -was prevalenpt above this latitude. C Xt 0 He quoted cases at Dakar, 33 per cent. in schools at beoptim t'-. a,nd 10 pe'r cent. among conscripts from Lake Chad. Marq-ue' (1939) considered that the diseasoe had spread when, in 1936, he found reports of many cases below 11i N. (i.e., in all French Colonies along the coast from south of Daka'r to the Cameroons).


In the Social Web scenario, where large amounts of User Generated Content diffuse through Social Media, the risk of running into misinformation is not negligible. For this reason, assessing and mining the credibility of both sources of information and information itself constitute nowadays a fundamental issue. Credibility, also referred as believability, is a quality perceived by individuals, who are not always able to discern with their cognitive capacities genuine information from the fake one. For this reason, in the recent years several approaches have been proposed to automatically assess credibility in Social Media. Most of them are based on data‐driven models, i.e., they employ machine‐learning techniques to identify misinformation, but recently also model‐driven approaches are emerging, as well as graph‐based approaches focusing on credibility propagation. Since multiple social applications have been developed for different aims and in different contexts, several solutions have been considered to address the issue of credibility assessment in Social Media. Three of the main tasks facing this issue and considered in this article concern: (1) the detection of opinion spam in review sites, (2) the detection of fake news and spam in microblogging, and (3) the credibility assessment of online health information. Despite the high number of interesting solutions proposed in the literature to tackle the above three tasks, some issues remain unsolved; they mainly concern both the absence of predefined benchmarks and gold standard datasets, and the difficulty of collecting and mining large amount of data, which has not yet received the attention it deserves. WIREs Data Mining Knowl Discov 2017, 7:e1209. doi: 10.1002/widm.1209


Objective: In 2018, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Health Sciences Interest Group convened a working group to update the 2013 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Nursing to be a companion document to the 2016 Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education. To create this companion document, the working group first needed to understand how nursing faculty approached information literacy (IL) instruction. Methods: The working group designed a survey that assessed how nursing faculty utilized IL principles in coursework and instruction. The survey consisted of nineteen mixed methods questions and was distributed to nursing faculty at eight institutions across the United States. Results: Most (79%) faculty indicated that they use a variety of methods to teach IL principles in their courses. While only 12% of faculty incorporated a version of the ACRL IL competencies in course design, they were much more likely to integrate nursing educational association standards. Faculty perceptions of the relevance of IL skills increased as the education level being taught increased. Conclusion: The integration of IL instruction into nursing education has mostly been achieved through using standards from nursing educational associations. Understanding these standards and understanding how faculty perceptions of the relevance of IL skills change with educational levels will guide the development of a companion document that librarians can use to collaborate with nurse educators to integrate IL instruction throughout nursing curriculums at course and program levels.


High performance commercial imaging systems, such as camcorders and digital still cameras, employ charge-coupled devices to convert light energy to electrical signals. The output from the CCD requires automatic gain control before it can be applied to an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter where digitization takes place. Other processing is also required for viewing the output of the recorded image. The development described is an integrated circuit that contains many of the key features associated with processing the analog signals within a camcorder or a digital still camera.


The growing interest for Internet of Things (IoT) both in public and private sector has introduced many research challenges in the areas of computational science, machine learning, cyber security and networking. The primary factor for having a robust IoT application is to keep the network alive, i.e., to ensure there is sufficient number of nodes up and running. This enables necessary data sessions from source IoT nodes to destination IoT nodes required for data fusion and artificial reasoning for intelligent application running over this ad-hoc network. In this paper, we propose our autonomous wireless charger platform in which a autonomous network unit will traverse through the critical area of the network and charges the IoT devices to ensure the network is alive. We will present a cross-layered optimization framework which jointly performs wireless charging power management, scheduling, interference avoidance, and routing. Our objective is to maximize the minimum sessions bottle neck, while all the nodes are alive within a specific interval.


This paper begins with a review of major issues facing society today, observing how difficult they are to solve. After a review of the nature of the environment, introducing the concepts of relatedness and influence of time and space on innovation, thinking, cognition, intelligence, and creativity, the metaphoric concept of creative intelligence is postulated. The elements of creative intelligence are described along with other supporting elements like prior knowledge, imagination, energy, and awareness. The role of creative intelligence in developing entrepreneurial opportunities and solving ethical problems is then discussed.


Accompanying the expansion of modern beef production in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were technologies and methods that proponents assumed were applicable to all ecosystems. successes in Europe, the United States, and Argentina convinced ranchers, investors, and animal scientists that these could be applied in the tropical Americas with ease. This assumption contributed to a wave of foreign ranching investment in semi-tropical Mato Grosso, Brazil, beginning in the early twentieth century. However, such a view failed to consider the specific characteristics of such environments and led to difficulties for several ventures and a re-evaluation of the relationship between ecosystems and the type of ranching appropriate to them. Ultimately, local Brazilian practice and experimentation proved more successful in tropical and semi-tropical Brazil, forcing foreign ranching concerns to adapt their techniques. Following the logic of earlier decades, more recently cattle-raising practices developed in Mato Grosso and similar regions have been applied in the tropical Amazon, resulting in widespread ecological devastation. The uneven experiences of foreign entrepreneurs in Mato Grosso offer valuable lessons for understanding the application of modernization technologies to diverse ecosystems; such knowledge can lead to a more sustainable approach to meat production.


Abstract The shift towards distributed generation and microgrids has renewed the interest in forecasting algorithms and methods, which need to take into account the advances in information, metering and control technologies in order to address the challenges of forecasting problems. Technologies such as machine learning have been proven useful for short-term electricity load forecasting, especially for microgrids, as they can also take into account several types of historical data and can adapt to changes often encountered in small-scale systems and on a short time scale. In this paper, we present a flexible and easily customized modular toolbox, called Divinus, for electricity use profiling and forecasting in microgrids. Divinus may support a variety of machine learning algorithms for forecasting and profiling that can be used independently or combined. For demonstration purposes, we have implemented Self-Organizing Maps for profiling and k-Neighbors for forecasting. The testing of the platform was based on electricity consumption data of the Euripus campus of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Evia, Greece, from January 2010 till March 2018. The tests that have been carried out so far show that the platform can be easily customized and the algorithms examined yield high accuracy and acceptable mean errors for the case of a university campus energy profile.


I chose poetic performance narratives for writing up stories shared with me. I follow J. Brunner's (2002) proposal that, literary narrative [poetry], "subverts familiar expectations while respecting, even vivifying reality [thus poetic] narrative 'subjunctivizes' a subjunctivized world, though it may not be comfortable, is provocative." (51). The poetic performance narratives create a provocative reading to seduce the reader into the "uncomfortable" Other's world.  As R. Rosaldo understands, the highest task of writing, "is not to represent the event […] but to be the event itself" (2014:102). From the perspective of a resilient Latina woman—who in the USA is also an immigrant, academic, and non-native English-speaker—this decolonizing project is a celebration of struggles, difference, agency and multiplicity. As Bhabha (2005) indicates, the mestizo is a witness who has a different take on what s/he calls decoloniality.


As wearable fitness devices have gained commercial acceptance, interest in real-time monitoring of an individual's physiological status using noninvasive techniques has grown. Microneedles have been proposed as a minimally invasive technique for sampling the dermal interstitial fluid (ISF) for clinical monitoring and diagnosis, but little is known about its composition. In this study, a novel microneedle array was used to collect dermal ISF from three healthy human donors and compared with matching serum and plasma samples. Using a shotgun quantitative proteomic approach, 407 proteins were quantified with at least one unique peptide, and of those, 135 proteins were differently expressed at least 2-fold. Collectively, these proteins tended to originate from the cytoplasm, membrane bound vesicles, and extracellular vesicular exosomes. Proteomic analysis confirmed previously published work that indicates that ISF is highly similar to both plasma and serum. In this study, less than one percent of proteins were uniquely identified in ISF. Taken together, ISF could serve as a minimally invasive alternative for blood-derived fluids with potential for real-time monitoring applications.