Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy (EBP) for repeated suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injury and Borderline Personality Disorder. There has been little research on the effectiveness or implementation of DBT via telehealth. However, literature has demonstrated that other EBPs delivered via telehealth are just as effective as in person. DBT differs from these EBPs in complexity, inclusion of group sessions, length of treatment, and focus on individuals at high risk for suicide. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused mental health care services across the country and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to transition to telehealth to reduce infection risk for patients and providers. This transition offered an opportunity to learn about implementing DBT via telehealth on a national scale. We conducted a survey of DBT team points of contact in VA (N = 32) to gather information about how DBT via telehealth was being implemented, challenges and solutions, and provider perceptions. The majority reported that their site continued offering the modes of DBT via telehealth that they had offered in person. The predominant types of challenges in transitioning to telehealth were related to technology on the provider and patient side. Despite challenges, most providers reported their experience was better than expected and had positive perceptions of patient acceptability. Skills group was the more difficult mode to provide via telehealth. Providers endorsed needing additional tools (e.g., means to get diary card data electronically). Multiple benefits of DBT via telehealth were identified, such as addressing barriers to care including distance, transportation issues, and caregiving and work responsibilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


Television is an audiovisual since it serves such things that could be captured through eyes (visual) and could be heard through ears (audio). Which with these conditions, it could be produced perception also opinion of what have
seen and heard. The statement of problem in this study is, how is the people' s perceptions to the Bina Agama Islam talk show on Lombok TV. The purpose of this study is,
to know the people' s perceptions in Dusun Sedayu Tengah, Desa Kediri, Kecamatan Kediri, Kabupaten Lombok Barat to the Bina Agama Islam talk show on Lombok TV. The research method on this study was qualitative, which was study of taking samples of a population, observation, and interview as the research instrument. The research design was descriptive, which was a study of exploration and clarification about some phenomena or the social reality in the way of describing some variables related to the problems and units of the study. The population of this study was people of RT.01 Dusun Sedayu Tengah, Desa Kediri,
Kecamatan Kediri, Kabupaten Lombok Barat. This study was using samples total of 25 ppopulations. The data was collected through interview. In this study, the writer used the uses and gratification theory, which it assumed that the users have an alternative choice to satisfying their needs. The media consumers have a freedom to decide how (through which media) they use the media, also how the media impact to themselves. Mass media becomes a main tool that should be exists in it. Mass media has widened humans the way of thinking and feeling (both in individual and
groups). Mass media is such a tool of the mass communication that serves us a chance to record and send both information and experience vastly to the audiences
and the heterogents. The existence of a local television gives another kinds of choice to the media consumer in deciding the information needs around and at the
outside of our environment. Based on the study above, it was founded that the people percepted the show as a show that can add people' s information of religion, as a place to save people' s critics of their religion experiences in their daily life and how they implemented the solutions to the society life. By the existence of the local TV,
people could have a choice to watch anything around the social life, especially in Lombok. While the people' s were active in choosing media, it was caused by the emotional approach with someone or a respected person in Lombok. The
interested thing in talking about religion was, people could interact directly and gave opinions objections, or suggestions as a social control in having a social
relation.


The experimental and theoretical methods of determination of gas-phase basicities, proton affinities and protonation entropies are presented in a tutorial form. Particularities and limitations of these methods when applied to polyfunctional molecules are emphasized. Structural effects during the protonation process in the gas-phase and their consequences on the corresponding thermochemistry are reviewed and classified. The role of the nature of the basic site (protonation on non-bonded electron pairs or on pi-electron systems) and of substituent effects (electrostatic and resonance) are first examined. Then, linear correlations observed between gas-phase basicities and ionization energies or substituent constants are recalled. Hydrogen bonding plays a special part in proton transfer reactions and in the protonation characteristics of polyfunctional molecules. A survey of the main properties of intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonding in both neutral and protonated species is proposed. Consequences on the protonation thermochemistry, particularly of polyfunctional molecules are discussed. Finally, chemical reactions which may potentially occur inside protonated clusters during the measurement of gas-phase basicities or inside a protonated polyfunctional molecule is examined. Examples of bond dissociations with hydride or alkyl migrations, proton transport catalysis, tautomerization, cyclization, ring opening and nucleophilic substitution are presented to illustrate the potentially complex chemistry that may accompany the protonation of polyfunctional molecules.


Asexuality has major theoretical advantages over sexual reproduction. Nevertheless, obligately asexual metazoan lineages seldom endure over evolutionary time. The Red Queen hypothesis posits that their limited capacity to generate genetic novelty leads to extermination by rapidly evolving parasites and pathogens. At first glance, rotifers of the class Bdelloidea appear to contradict this view: they have reproduced asexually for over 30 Myr without being overwhelmed by parasites. However, there are special ecological conditions under which Red Queen models can accommodate this unusual outcome. If hosts disperse rapidly within a structured metapopulation during a parasite-free life stage, then in principle they can become spatiotemporally decoupled from coevolving antagonists, and persist without sex. Intriguingly, bdelloid rotifers form dormant propagules when desiccated, which disperse easily by wind. In previous experiments, 7 days of desiccation and wind dispersal removed a fungal parasite from populations of one bdelloid species, allowing them to disperse independently. Here, I extend this finding to two additional bdelloid species and five more fungal parasites, and demonstrate its robustness under various desiccation regimes, and in the presence of multiple parasites. Results support the hypothesis that the unusual physiology of anciently asexual bdelloid rotifers helps them escape fungal parasites in space and time. © 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 104, 564–574.


This guide provides a general overview of research resources in Computer Science, Gaming, Information Security; which includes online databases, journals, books, websites & other resources, finding tools and news.


Background: One of the important indicators of development of human societies is justice, which also encompasses the notion of educational justice as one of its most important components. This study aimed to explore a new perspective of the concept of educational justice and its dimensions from the viewpoint of postgraduate students.
Methods: This qualitative investigation was conducted through conventional content analysis. Participants of the study, postgraduate students at a medical school, were selected from among male and female students using purposive sampling. Data collection was performed in focus groups based on the general question, "What is your understanding of the concept of educational justice and injustice?" Content analysis was used for data extraction and data analysis.
Results: A total of 20 PhD students participated in four focus groups in this research. The concepts that emerged were categorized into three major themes, nine categories, and four subcategories. "Just education" consisted of five categories: efficient curriculum, learner development, just behavior of instructors, fair assessment, and just environment. Four subcategories: competent instructor, efficient instructor recruitment, creating learning opportunities, and professionalism were included under the category of just behavior of instructors. Other categories including research supervision ability and student research funding, which fell under the main theme of fair research, and finally the theme of just management of resources included two categories, fair distribution of facilities and fair allocation of financial resources.
Conclusion: This study's findings depict the importance and necessity of efficient curriculum, learner development, justice of professor, justice of base research and fair management of resources.


Ultrasonography has a vital role to play in the management of children with urinary tract infection as it helps not only in assessing the urinary tract, but also in excluding complication that may arise from the diseases such as a urinary tract stone formation. We report a case of a 10 year old boy with giant vesical calculus to the alert pediatricians to the likelihood of bladder calculus complicating urinary tract infection in our environment and the usefulness of imaging modality both in the clinical work-up and the follow up in order to reduce delay in patient management. It is also presented to alert general practitioners that simple non-invasive and cheap ultrasound has a role to play in making a diagnosis and management.


The concept of evolution is central to biology. As empirical and natural phenomena, evolution and evolutionary processes constitute the primary study objects for a number of disciplines within the biological field of study. Furthermore, the concept comprises the fundamental cornerstone in the theoretical framework, the theory of evolution, which is assumed to unite all of the life sciences. It may therefore be worthwhile to attempt to describe in detail what conceptional variations in the understanding of the term that may exist among students in biology. In this study, written responses were collected from students attending the Bachelor Programme in Biology at Uppsala University during 2012. The responses were subjected to a reading aimed at elucidating qualitatively different categories of understanding and the interrelationship of these categories. The theoretical underpinnings of this reading have been inspired by hermeneutics and theoretical developments of phenomenography. The findings outline qualitatively different notions of the concept of evolution that ranges from definitions of an isolated entity to more sophisticated evaluations that reveal an interest in discussing the limits and validity of evolutionary explanations within and outside the scientific domain.


Discrete cosine transform (DCT) is applied widely in the field of signal processing. But the transform operation is complicated, and a large amount of multiply operation and addition operation affect largely the transform efficiency. To overcome such drawback, a new method based on parallel operation is proposed in the paper. First, a new transform matrix and a sort of new matrix operation principle are defined in the interest of convenient parallel operation. Then, DCT is accomplished by parallel operation tidily based on the new transform matrix and the new matrix operation principle. The theoretical analysis shows that the computation sum of the proposed method to compute DCT only needs one equivalent multiplication and a few equivalent additions, and the operation efficiency relative to other fast algorithm is improved markedly.


One of the central concerns of the literature studying firms' growth is the need for understanding the rationale underlying the growth process from the company perspective. The appearance of novel patterns of firms' growth is linked to the emergence of new paradigms for the organization of industrial and manufacturing processes (that is, industrial revolution). The paper discusses evidence from a sample of fast-growing large companies taken from the Fortune 500 ranking. Results show patterns of firms' growth more in line with traditional sectors which are fueled by scale and scope economies, and other patterns, observed more often in the case of high-tech "new economy" companies, which are instead fueled by network effects and platformization strategies. We label the latter phenomenon "metamorphosing," a pattern of growth characterized by a constant reshaping of horizontal and vertical boundaries by the firm which aims at taking advantage of market opportunities by exploiting its keystone position in platform-based business.


Abstract Due to the fact that the Orthodox Church considers marriage a sacrament, this can only be concluded on the basis of ακρίβεια, when both spouses are orthodox. This case study is looking into the Orthodox Church marriage registers from Sighişoara for marriages of people of other confessions as well as into the baptismal registers, if the non-orthodox were baptized or confirmed (chrismation). From this qualitative case study, one can conclude that, in terms of marriage ceremony and baptism, in the Orthodox Church in Sighişoara/Schäßburg κατ' οικονομίαν has been dealt with. Children of non-Orthodox parents have been baptized, and non-Orthodox couples have been married without the non-Orthodox being confirmed to Orthodoxy, let alone be (re)baptized.


We study the properties of spatial equilibrium in an economy where locations have heterogeneous endowments and the labour market is subject to matching frictions. Both workers and firms make endogenous location decisions, which, in turn, determine the spatial distribution of unemployment, wage and firm density, as well as city population. We explain why diverse urban configurations may coexist in a country without any impediment to labour mobility, and in particular, why homogeneous workers, free to move at will, may be subject to spatial stickiness while welfare is not equalized across space. We also introduce a typology of cities based on the productivity of their local amenities, which describes the co-movement of local economic outcomes and we show that the introduction of commercial real estate induces an asymmetry between urban decline and urban growth. Positive (negative) productivity shocks are more (less) likely to increase (decrease) population than rent, rent than wages, and wages than employment.


New types of thermoelectric materials characterized by highly anisotropic Fermi surfaces and thus anisotropic Seebeck coefficients are reviewed. Early studies revealed that there is an induced voltage in high TC oxide superconductors when the surface of the films is exposed to short light pulses. Subsequent investigations proved that the effect is due to anisotropic components of the Seebeck tensor, and the type of materials is referred to atomic layer thermopile (ALT). Our recent studies indicate that multilayer thin films at the nanoscale demonstrate enhanced ALT properties. This is in agreement with the prediction in seeking the larger figure of merit (ZT) thermoelectric materials in nanostructures. The study of ALT materials provides both deep insight of anisotropic transport property of these materials and at the same time potential materials for applications, such as light detector and microcooler. By measuring the ALT properties under various perturbations, it is found that the information on anisotropic transport properties can be provided. The information sometimes is not easily obtained by other tools due to the nanoscale phase coexistence in these materials. Also, some remained open questions and future development in this research direction have been well discussed.


Nuclear receptors (NRs) constitute a large and highly conserved family of ligand-activated transcription factors that regulate diverse biological processes such as development, metabolism, and reproduction. As such, NRs have become important drug targets, and the identification of novel NR ligands is a subject of much interest. The retinoid X receptor (RXR) belongs to a subfamily of NRs that bind vitamin A metabolites (i.e. retinoids), including 9-cis-retinoic acid (9-cis-RA). However, although 9-cis-RA has been described as the natural ligand for RXR, its endogenous occurrence has been difficult to confirm. Recently, evidence was provided for the existence of a different natural RXR ligand in mouse brain, the highly enriched polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (Mata de Urquiza et al. (2000) Science 290, 2140–2144). However, the results suggested that supra-physiological levels of DHA were required for efficient RXR activation. Using a refined method for ligand addition to transfected cells, the current study shows that DHA is a more potent RXR ligand than previously observed, inducing robust RXR activation already at low micromolar concentrations. Furthermore, it is shown that other naturally occurring PUFAs can activate RXR with similar efficiency as DHA. In additional experiments, the binding of fatty acid ligands to RXRα is directly demonstrated by electrospray mass spectrometry of the noncovalent complex between the RXR ligand-binding domain (LBD) and its ligands. Data is presented that shows the noncovalent interaction between the RXR LBD and a number of PUFAs including DHA and arachidonic acid, corroborating the results in transfected cells. Taken together, these results show that RXR binds PUFAs in solution and that these compounds induce receptor activation, suggesting that RXR could function as a fatty acid receptor in vivo.


We propose a novel method of constructing exact Hilbert transform (HT) pairs of wavelet bases using fractional B- splines and state necessary and sufficient conditions for generating such wavelet pairs. In particular, we demonstrate how HT pairs of biorthogonal wavelet bases of L2 (K) can be constructed using well-localized scaling functions with identical Riesz bounds. Finally, we illustrate this concept by constructing a family of analytic Gabor-like wavelets that exhibit near optimal time-frequency localization.


This paper presents an experimental study of two mechanisms for managing common pool resources. Decentralized peer punishment (swords) has been shown to increase cooperation in related social dilemmas, but only with linear private benefits and costs of public goods provision. We investigate the effectiveness of this mechanism for a more realistic nonlinear public goods environment, in isolation and in combination with nonbinding communication and informal agreements (covenants). The results show that swords do not increase cooperation or yield from the public resource, regardless of whether covenants are also possible. Covenants are significantly more effective in solving the social dilemma, and importantly peer punishment is unnecessary if communication is possible.


This investigation indicated that the chromosome aberration of lymphocytes in inhabitants influenced by mercury- or methylmercury-polluted water was higher than that in control persons although the difference was not significant; but the SCE of them was significantly higher than the control. Both endpoints had a tendency of decreasing with the distance away from the polluted river water. Smoking and age did not have any effect. It was suggested that the polluted river water by mercury or methylmercury compounds could have some cytogenetic effects, although other factors cannot be excluded.


A collaborative study was conducted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) dichloromethane extraction method for determining volatile N-nitrosamines in baby bottle rubber nipples. Following dichloromethane extraction, N-nitrosamines were determined by gas chromatography-thermal energy analysis. Six pairs of blind duplicate rubber nipple samples representing 6 lots were analyzed by 11 collaborating laboratories. All samples were portions taken from equilibrated composites of cut-up rubber nipples obtained from manufacturers in the United States. Recoveries of the internal standard (N-nitrosodipropylamine) at approximately 20 ppb ranged from 10 to 120%. Reproducibility relative standard deviations (RSDx) were between 35 and 45% for N-nitrosamine levels from 10 to 20 ppb. However, when data from laboratories with recoveries less than 75% were excluded (this is now specified in the method), RSDx values were between 11 and 32% for N-nitrosamine levels from 6 to 26 ppb. Values were consistent with or better than those reported for other analytical techniques designed to quantitate trace contaminants at the low ppb level, e.g., aflatoxin in foods. The method has been adopted official first action for the quantitation of volatile N-nitrosamines in baby bottle rubber nipples.


It has been recognized that long-term effects ex- ist in the interaction with robotic technologies. Despite this recognition, we still know little about how the temporal ef- fects are associated with domestic robots. To bridge this gap, we undertook a long-term field study. We distributed Roomba vacuuming robots to 30 households, and observed the use over six months. During this study, which spans over 149 home visits, we identified how householders accepted robots as a part of the households via four temporal stages of pre-adoption, adoption, adaptation, and use/retention. With these findings, we took the first step toward establishing af ramework, Domestic Robot Ecology (DRE). It shows a holistic view on the relationships that robots shape in the home. Further, it articulates how those relationships change over time. We suggest that DRE can become a useful tool to help design toward long-term acceptance of robotic tech- nologies in the home.


The incidence of humeral osteomyelitis is relatively rare as compared to incidence of lower limb osteomyelitis. Despite having no guideline in the management of humeral osteomyelitis, surgeons have utilised their experience in managing lower limb osteomyelitis to treat humeral osteomyelitis. By adhering to principles including thorough debridement of necrotic bone and soft tissue, staged bony and/or soft tissue reconstruction, and targeted antimicrobial therapy, a good outcome can be achieved in the management of humeral osteomyelitis. We report a case of Cierny-Mader type IV proximal humeral osteomyelitis after a severe crush injury of the left shoulder and its subsequent two-stage reconstruction using internal fixation and pedicled Latissimus dorsi musculocutaneous flap.


Newspaper print (coldset), because of the most economic production, became quantitatively the most used print technology for the daily, weekly and monthly printed media on the market. A variety of different factors affect the appearance and quality of printed product, some of which are of crucial importance and should be monitored during the whole print run - print density and dot gain of screen elements. Newspaper print can be considered of satisfactory quality if all of the screen elements were reproduced correctly. In this research the influence of geometrical and optical deformation of hybrid screen elements on the printing quality was analyzed, results of the valorised deformation of halftone values that are in a direct connection to gained quality were compared. Also, the printing densities in the print run were analyzed by densitometric and spectrophotometric methods. The emphasis in this research is on the cyan colour component, since these screen elements clearly show the influence of impurities in printing substrate on deformation of screen element and dot gain. The observed characteristics were valorised by scientific methods and presented by graphic overviews. The impact of prevailing, recycled printing substrate on printing quality was determined.


In the western Atlantic young sea turtles in their surface-pelagic juvenile stage, a stage often described as the lost year(s), have been hypothesized to occupy habitat dominated by pelagic Sargassum macroalgae. But despite substantial indirect evidence, there has been no direct study of sea turtles within this community. To determine the importance of Sar- gassum to young sea turtles, we transected surface- pelagic habitat, measured relative abundance of sea turtles, recorded their behavior and association with surface features, and assessed their diet. On vessel transects in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off Florida (USA), we recorded 1884 turtles of 4 species—loggerhead sea turtle Caretta caretta, green turtle Chelonia mydas, hawksbill Eretmochelys im- bricata, and Kemp's ridley Lepidochelys kempii. Most (89%) were initially observed within 1 m of floating Sargassum. Turtles included both post-hatchlings (39 to 78 mm straight carapace length, SCL) and juveniles (130 to 280 mm SCL). Dive-profile data from overnight logs (18.5 to 23.1 h duration) of 3 juvenile Kemp's rid- leys showed that they spent an average of 97% (day) or 87% (night) of their time within 1 m of the surface. Juvenile turtles from which esophageal lavage and fecal samples were obtained showed a diet composed principally of Sargassum-community associates, pri- marily marine animals. Other items included marine plants (predominantly pelagic Sargassum), synthetic material (e.g. plastics), terrestrial plants (mostly wood), and terrestrial animals (flying insects). Plastics in diet samples averaged 13% of dry mass. Data support a description of pelagic Sargassum as a transient hot spot for young sea turtles and a focal point for threats, including debris ingestion and petroleum.


Identifying events happening in a specific locality is important as an early warning for accidents, protests, elections or breaking news. However, this location-specific event detection is challenging as the locations and types of events are not known beforehand. To address this problem, we propose an online spatiotemporal event detection system using social media that is able to detect events at different time and space resolutions. First, we exploit a quad-tree method to split the geographical space into multiscale regions based on the density of social media data. Then, we implement a statistical unsupervised approach using Poisson distribution and a smoothing method for highlighting regions with unexpected density of social posts. Further, event duration is estimated by merging events happening in the same region at consecutive time intervals. A post processing stage is introduced to filter out events that are spam, fake or wrong. Finally, we incorporate simple semantics by using social media entities to assess the integrity, and accuracy of detected events. The proposed method is evaluated using Twitter and Flickr for the city of Melbourne based on recall and precision measures. We also propose a new quality measure named strength index, which automatically measures how accurate the reported event is.


Abstract
This paper aims to study the behaviour of formality of 390 microenterprises (ME) and its impact, based on data from a survey that was conducted in the city of Casablanca. We explain, on one hand, the choice of the level of formality using an Ordered Probit model. On the other hand, we analyse the effect of registration and other factors on productivity, using the Stochastic Frontier Approach which considers the risk of self-selection. The results from the first model emphasize the effect of the entrepreneur's demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as those related to the ME and its environment. The Stochastic Frontier Approach allowed us to verify the existence of a differentiated efficiency bared on the level of formality. It also appears that the education level of the owner, gender and age of the employees, the main reason for business creation and its size, impact productivity.
Keywords Formality, informal sector, productivity, efficiency, microenterprises, Stochastic frontier analysis.


Dental anomalies of school children in Kandy, Sri Lanka are described in this report. The sample studied consisted of 683 children, between 13-16 years old, living in a low-fluoride area. In this sample, 42 percent had at least one anomaly, the most prevalent being enamel defects. Anomalies related to hypodontia and tooth form were to a large extent similar to the reports from the Western Hemisphere. Tetracycline staining of teeth found in 13 percent of the sample, however, raises concern. Hypoplasias, perhaps due to local infections or systemic disturbances during childhood illnesses, were expected to be higher than other published reports.


A combination of tunable bandpass/bandstop filter substrate integrated cavity filters is shown for high spectral isolation. Greater than 90 dB of isolation is shown, which is potentially useful for isolating small signals in the presence of large interferers. Both filters are created using the same substrate integrated evanescent-mode cavity resonators which are placed in series or in shunt by changing the cavity feeds. The resonators are tuned using deformation of a copper membrane induced by a piezo electric actuator. The bandstop filter is able to place deep nulls on the skirt of the bandpass filter function on both the high and low frequency sides. The notch can be tuned from 2.1% to 9.6% away from the center frequency of the band-pass filter. The bandstop filter is also designed with a tunable shape which allows for wider bandwidth isolation on demand.


This video shows how to place a patient on veno-venous ECMO. The author uses an Avalon catheter inserted into the right jugular vein. The Avalon catheter has an inflow lumen that takes blood from the IVC and SVC, and an outflow lumen that delivers blood towards the tricuspid valve. In this video, the author demonstrates the insertion of the Avalon catheter and the commencement of ECMO support.


Fast growing in communication technology has influenced global changes and challenges appear in the field of network security issues. Security solutions must be efficient and operate in a way to deal with threats, reject and stop the network intruders and Trojans. The simulated network of Salahaddin university new campus is planned to build on an area of (3000X3000) meter square. The network consists of many main and secondary devices. The network is mainly consisted of one core switch that provides a very high data transfer through connecting all the collected positions by a variety of cable medias to the entire network switches which are installed in each college location. The department of academic administration (presidency) of the university design is similar to the network designed in each college. The mentioned switch obtains the services from a router that isolates the network from the cloud which supports the services of internet to the network. The firewall is connected to the switch that connects the main server and cloud together. This paper focuses on undertaking a simulation to analyze and examine the performance of the whole network when two scenarios are implemented, the first is if firewall devices is used, the second is when firewall is not used, since the project of building Salahaddin University new campus is at the initial stage, therefore, the researchers think that, it is very important to figure out the drawbacks and deadlocks of using firewall upon each branch of the network and overall network performance before the submitting the final networks design that going to be implemented and installed, because this will indicate many differences on the construction, for example, the network panels ways, the cable collecting locations, network channels and many other device fixing things depending on the media types in addition of the demand of future expansion capabilities. The results show that the using or adding of firewall device to the university campus computer network, will improve the overall network performance though increasing the data stream on many network sections and sectors, also better results are obtained.


Analysis of Deaths Caused by Interplate and Intraplate Earthquakes. (May 2011) Pushkin Jogunoori, B.E., Birla Institute of Technology & Science, India Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. John M. Nichols Two kinds of earthquakes, interplate and intraplate, occur in the world. Interplate earthquakes occur at the plate boundaries and are common. Intraplate earthquakes occur within the stable continental land mass and are less common. Fatality models have been developed by a number of different research groups in the last decades to estimate losses in these types of events. This is a relatively new research area, with the added problem that a fatal event only occurs every fortnight or so, so that the data collection process is long term. This research study has two objectives; the first is to update the Generalized Poissonian distribution parameters for the period 2000 to 2009. The second is to establish the statistical properties of the set of fatal earthquakes for the world, for the interplate region, and intraplate region in the last decade and for the twentieth century. This work has not been previously completed and represents a potential insight into the cost effectiveness of current earthquake mitigation schemes. The key hypothesis is that fatal interplate earthquakes occur at a higher rate than fatal intraplate events. The results of the two analyses show that there is an increase in the average number of earthquakes and the average number of deaths caused by these earthquakes for this decade, indicating this decade has proved to be worse when compared to the earlier recorded earthquake


Research efforts to provide fast multicomputer interconnection networks for clusters of workstations (SANs) at low cost has lead to the design of network interfaces that support minimal standard functionality in the network interface and use powerful basic blocks that allow communication system designers to implement the functionality needed by different paradigms and systems using these basic blocks. These network interfaces usually encompass a general purpose processor, use simple switches to route packets to their destination, and allow for arbitrary network topologies. These characteristics result in the absence of reliability in the network interface hardware and the need to support routing for arbitrary, dynamic topologies in the communication system. There are many ways to deal with these problems. However, if performance is not to be compromised, these problems are highly non-trivial and many issues need to be considered. Data copies need to be avoided, algorithms and protocols need to be simple and memory requirements must be low, since the network interface has limitations in both network processor speed and memory. In this work we address these two issues by presenting the extensions we did to our communication system, called Virtual Memory Mapped Communication (VMMC), to support reliable communication in the network interface and dynamic system configuration. We propose and implement reliable communication in the firmware that runs on the network interface processor with minimal cost; less than 2.5 s for latency and less than 10% for all different types of bandwidth Moreover, we propose a new scheme for dynamically determining the network topology. This mechanism relies on the retransmission mechanism that is used to provide reliable communication. Since the support for dynamic system configuration is not on the common path, there is no effect on system performance when no changes in the system topology occur.


A /Tonthly variations of species composition and abundance of -^-^-zooplankton community in the Western harbour were studied during the period from April 1999 to March 2000 in relation to the effect of water circulation and the discharged waste waters. The results indicated significant role of freshwater species (39 spp.) in the zooplakton community (11 lspp.) in the harbour, providing the highest occurrence during the warm period (May- October) with the increase of discharged waters. However, spatially, the community structure showed a more or less homogenous distribution most of the year, reflecting the effect of water circulation pattern in the harbour. Except the relatively high density in July (48.4x103 ind./m3), the standing stock ( annual average: 26.7xl03 ind./m3) indicated low zooplankton production in the harbour. Copepods and tintinnids were the major component of the zooplankton stock, forming 46.4% and 24.8% of its total counts respectively, followed by freshwater ciliates and rotifers (7.5% and 7.2%). The abundance of total zooplankton as well as each group showed seasonal variations, with the exception of the minimum and maximum values, providing two periods of different production levels. The diversity index values revealed higher diversity of tintinnids than copepods.


Abstract. In East Asia, soil dust is a major component of aerosols and is mixed with various pollutants during transport, resulting in large uncertainty in climate and environmental impact assessment and relevant policymaking. To diagnose the influence of soil dust and anthropogenic pollution on bulk aerosol, we conducted long-term measurements of mass, water-soluble ions, and carbonaceous compounds of PM10, PM2.5, and PM1 at Gosan Climate Observatory, South Korea, from August 2007 to February 2012. The principle component analyses of all measured species reveal that the impact of anthropogenic pollution, soil dust, and agricultural fertilizer accounts for 46 %, 16 %, and 9 % of the total variance, respectively. Particularly, the loadings of agricultural component were high in the warmer months with the least occurrence of high concentration events and have increased over time. In mode analysis of PM10, PM2.5, and PM1 mass concentrations, the mean + σ was comparable to the 90th percentile and thus, suggested as a robust criterion that determines the substantial impact of soil dust and haze pollution on particulate matter. The results of this study imply that non-combustion sources such as soil dust will impose constraints to the reduction of PM2.5 as well as PM10 concentrations. In addition, questions are raised as to whether the yearly average concentration is suitable for environmental standard in northeast Asian region.


Background: Ultrasonography is highly reliable in the management of women with early pregnancy complications. An endometrial cut-off < 15 mm with no retained products of conception has been used to classify complete miscarriage (CM) on transvaginal sonography (TVS). However despite a history of heavy vaginal bleeding, a proportion of these women have an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy (EP). We evaluated the need for hormonal follow up in women with a history and scan findings suggestive of CM. Materials and methods: Prospective observational study. 5918 consecutive women presented to the Early Pregnancy Unit − 223 (3.8%) were classified CM on the basis of a history of heavy vaginal bleeding and the above sonographic criteria. 56 were not pregnant and 24 were lost to follow up. 143 were included in the analysis. Serum human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) levels were taken at presentation and 48 hours later. All women were followed up until hCG < 5 U/L or a cyesis was visualised on TVS. Results: 131/143 (91.6%) CM confirmed according to hCG follow up. 8/143 (5.6%) confirmed to be EP requiring further treatment. 2/143 (1.4%) persisting pregnancies of unknown location (PUL) requiring methotrexate therapy. 2/143 (1.4%) intrauterine pregnancies – one blighted ovum and one ongoing IUP. If hCG levels rose, 10/12 (83%) required intervention. Conclusions: Diagnosis of complete miscarriage based on history and scan findings alone is unreliable, as up to 6% will have an ectopic pregnancy. If hCG levels do not fall, these women should be followed closely until the location of the pregnancy is confirmed.


Pervasive corruption and evasion often undermine the provision of public programs. I study a major policy change in fuel subsidy administration in India, which enabled a direct bank transfer of benefits to verified beneficiaries. This study exploits two quasi-experiments – a phase-wise policy roll-out and its unexpected termination under a universal fuel subsidy program, and a unique dataset combining 23 million transactions and black-market fuel prices. Increased enforcement decreased subsidized-fuel purchase, indicating a significant reduction in subsidy leakage. Reduced diversion of subsidized fuel further changed equilibrium black-market fuel prices, resulting in lower fuel tax evasion. This study illustrates how states can improve welfare delivery systems. JEL Codes: H26, O17, I38


Abstract Unconsolidated, highly porous, permeable siliceous sediments found in shallow-water pools on the middle and distal parts of Geysir's discharge apron are formed of cryogenic opal-A (COA), opal-A spheres, opal-A cement, silicified microbes, and detrital lithic grains. Silicified leaves and silica-coated grass stems and twigs are locally present with these pool sediments, and microbial mats commonly cover the sediment surface. Partially consolidated layers (< 0.5 cm thick) form when the constituent grains are bound together by filamentous microbes, exopolysaccharides, and/or opal-A cement. Most components of the sediment can be related to processes that are controlled largely by seasonal variations. Low temperatures in winter promote freezing of the medial to distal discharge waters and lead to formation of COA in ice. When the ice melts, the released COA grains become part of the pool sediments. Microbial mats trap and bind sediment and provide templates for silica precipitation during spring and summer, but become (semi-)dormant during the constant darkness that Iceland experiences during winter. When the waters are sufficiently supersaturated, opal-A precipitates as spheres in the water column and cement in pool deposits. In some pools, seasonal changes are evident from the alternation of "soft" and "hard" (partly cemented) laminae. Elsewhere, however, the distinction between the different time-dependent components is lost because they become superimposed on each other or as aperiodic changes in flow patterns affect different pools.


Although developed originally to account for 'traditional' rank levels of linguistic structure, Langacker's Cognitive Grammar (CG) offers a particularly congenial framework to work with in various forms of text and discourse analysis. Indeed, while the primary method of linguistic analysis in stylistics and critical discourse analysis has typically been provided by systemic functional linguistics, there is now a rapidly growing body of work applying CG in both of these traditions. In this chapter, I apply a CG lens to an ideological effect much studied in critical discourse analysis, namely mystification. I take as data for a case study a convenience sample of media responses to recent (2018) instances of state violence and mass fatality on the Gaza-Israel border in which a number of Palestinian protesters were killed. I show how central notions within the architecture of CG, including action chaining, profiling and trajector-landmark alignments, might account for the mystificatory qualities, experienced in readers' encounters with news texts, of certain textual features, including the use of intransitive verbs, agentless passive constructions and nominalisations.


We investigate the effectiveness of fiscal stimuli when banks are undercapitalized and have large holdings of government bonds subject to sovereign default risk. Deficit-financed government purchases then crowd out private expenditure and fiscal multipliers can turn negative. Crowding out increases for longer maturity bonds and higher sovereign default risk. We estimate a DSGE model with financial frictions for Spain and find that investment crowding out indeed leads to a negative cumulative fiscal multiplier. When monetary policy is exogenous, like at the ZLB or in a currency union, fiscal stimuli become more effective but multipliers are reduced when banks are undercapitalized.


Abstract. The evolution of physical, chemical and optical properties of urban aerosol particles was characterized during an extreme haze episode in Beijing, PRC, from 24 through 31 January 2013 based on in situ measurements. The average mass concentrations of PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 were 99 ± 67 μg m−3 (average ± SD), 188 ± 128 μg m−3 and 265 ± 157 μg m−3, respectively. A significant increase in PM1-2.5 fraction was observed during the most heavily polluted period. The average scattering coefficient at 550 nm was 877 ± 624 Mm−1. An increasing relative amount of coarse particles can be deduced from the variations of backscattering ratios, asymmetry parameter and scattering Angstrom exponent. Particle number-size distributions between 14 and 2500 nm diameter showed high number concentrations, particularly in the nucleation mode and accumulation mode. Size-resolved chemical composition of submicron aerosol from a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer showed that the mass concentrations of organic, sulfate, nitrate, ammonium and chlorine mainly resided on particles between 500 and 800 nm (vacuum diameter), and nitrate and ammonium contributed greatly to particle growth during the heavily polluted day (28 January). Increasing relative humidity and stable synoptic conditions on 28 January combined with heavy pollution on 28 January, leading to enhanced water uptake by the hygroscopic submicron particles and formation of secondary aerosol, which might be the main reasons for the severity of the haze episode. Light-scattering apportionment showed that organic, sulfate, ammonium nitrate and ammonium chloride compounds contributed to light-scattering fractions of 54, 24, 12 and 10%, respectively. This study indicated that the organic component in submicron aerosol played an important role in visibility degradation during the haze episode in Beijing.


Most studies of the relation between birth rank and disease assume that in the absence of any such relation the patients will be distributed evenly between the birth ranks for any size of sibship. However, even when sibships are complete, it can be predicted that sizeable distortions in birth rank distribution will result from changes in the birth rate of the population. On the whole, an increase in number of families being started will lead to an excess of early birth ranks in small sibships, and a reduction in family size will result in an excess of late birth ranks in large sibships. These distortions were found in a sample of 20,000 psychiatric patients, and can be accounted for by the corresponding changes in the British birth rate during the period when sibships of the patients were being born.


Film scholars, critics, filmmakers, and audiences all routinely employ intuitive, untutored "folk psychology" in viewing, interpreting, critiquing, and making films. Yet this folk psychology receives little attention in film scholarship. This article argues that film scholars ought to pay far more attention to the nature and uses of folk psychology. Turning to critical work on Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the article demonstrates the diverse and sometimes surprising ways that folk psychology is used in criticism. From an evolutionary perspective, the article defends the critic's and audience's interests in characters as persons. It also defends folk psychology against some of its most vocal detractors, and provides some guidance into how cognitive film theorists might employ folk psychology, arguing that such employment must supplement and correct folk psychology with scientific psychology and philosophical analysis. Finally, the article argues that the application of folk psychology to films is a talent, a skill, and a sensitivity rather than a science.


Neuroblastoma as a pediatric tumor develops in the sympathetic nervous system. DLG2 is a gene that encodes a member of the membrane-associated guanylate kinase (MAGUK) family and it resides in the chromosome region 11q. SK-N-AS is a neuroblastoma cell line with 11q deletion and consequently only one copy of the potential tumor suppressor gene DLG2. This study investigated synergistic effect by a combination treatment with 1,25(OH)2D3 and the vitamin A metabolite, retinoic acid. Separately, SK-N-AS cells was transfected with expression vector pcDNA3.1+‐DYK that contained the DLG2-gene, followed by monitoring cell proliferation and qPCR, investigating the expression of the genes DLG2, DLG3, DLG4, VDR and PDIA3. Simultaneously, effects of knocked-down of DLG2, by siRNA transfection was monitored. Transfection of expression plasmid with the DLG2 gene increased significantly gene expression in SK-N-AS cells with significant inhibition of the proliferation rate. Furthermore, silencing of DLG2 gene had no effect on the cell growth as well. Slower cell growth showed in combination treatment with 1,25(OH)2D3 (1nM) and 9-cis RA after 48 hours of treatment. Down-regulated VDR and possible missing RARRES3 could be the reason why SK-N-AS cell line showed resistance to the combination treatment with vitamin metabolites. All these results raised the question if another vitamin D synthetic analog could be a better choice for the future study of SK-N-AS cells. Moreover, overexpression of NAIP, large amounts of IGF-II, or not responsive RXR-VDR heterodimer to 1,25(OH)2D3 could be a potential explanation for the SK-N-AS cell unresponsiveness to the treatment.


Acute or chronic abdominal pain and tenderness of referred origin, from spinal or sacro-iliac strain, often so closely simulates that due to intra-abdominal disorder that the differentiation taxes the skill of the diagnostician. Orthopedists have for years called attention to this association of abdominal pain arising reflexly from spinal and sacro-iliac lesions. A thorough investigation of the subject by Carnett 1 in the past few years has not only accentuated this knowledge but definitely shown the relationship between certain types of abdominal pain and tenderness, clearly the result of skin hyperesthesia, due to nerve transmission from the abdominal parietes, explaining many operative failures in correcting abdominal pain of long standing. He has also devised several important tests that are helpful in differentiating abdominal pain reflexly of parietal origin. Recently a helpful test devised by Wachs, of vaginal palpation for sacro-iliac strain, has been added to the list. Two years ago,


Thirty-six shoulders with recurrent anterior dislocation or subluxation in thirty-four adolescent patients were treated with a modified Bristow procedure. The average length of follow-up was five years and ten months. Postoperatively, two patients had recurrent anterior subluxation on one occasion and none had recurrent anterior dislocation. The average loss of external rotation was 10 degrees. Despite the fact that young patients have a high rate of recurrence after anterior dislocation or subluxation of the shoulder, the modified Bristow procedure is an effective method of treating recurrent anterior instability of the shoulder in adolescents.


The planar solid oxide fuel cell (p-SOFC) is a promising configuration of a high-T fuel cell. Barium alumosilicate glass ceramics are suggested to use as sealants by many authors since these materials seem to meet the requirements to establish a hermetic and electrically insulating seal between the steel components of the SOFC. However, in long-term application, the formation of BaCrO4 may degrade the interfacial strength between glass-ceramics and metallic interconnect and disrupt the cell components. In this work, a series of barium-free glass-ceramics in the system of CaO-MgO-B2O3-Al2O3-SiO2 were prepared. The selected compositions were located within the constitutional range of åkermanite – forsterite –anorthite. The thermal properties including glass transition temperature (Tg) and crystallization temperature (Tc) of the produced glasses were measured. The effect of boron oxide additions was studied in order to optimize the softening and flow behavior. For the experiments, a hot – stage microscope was used. Some glass compositions were mixed with high – CTE akermanite powder in order to increase their CTE after sintering. The CTE of the investigated materials after sintering at 900 °C, 2 h, ranged from 10.5 to 11.8 10−6 K−1.


Abstract The present paper addresses how the commonly used Hertz formulas for contact stresses underestimate the actual stresses seen in practice due to temperature differentials, misalignments and other contruction-related defects. First, two failure cases of Swedish bridge roller bearings are analyzed and discussed; then, a detailed finite element (FE) model is used to investigate the accuracy of the traditional roller bearing design rules in view of issues such as abutment and girder deformability, misalignment imperfections and material nonlinearity. The bearing capacity of the studied rollers as provided by the manufacturer is used as reference. A rigorous FE model that accurately models girder, roller assembly and abutment provides the necessary information for the assessment of the related contact stresses, which were traditionally calculated by means of the Hertz analytical formulas. Numerical results first establish that roller bearings develop contact stress concentrations at the outer edges of the cylindrical drums. Second, it is established that the contact stresses are very sensitive to misalignment imperfections between the bridge girder and the abutment. Last, it is shown that the roller bearings develop inelastic deformation at relatively low loads in relation to the design load. These reasons, combined with the unlikelihood for roller bearings to shake-down, constitute the basis of the observed roller bearing failures.


We demonstrate that custom synthesized azobenzene-functionalized poly(amide imide) enables fabrication of tunable liquid crystal photonics devices. Firstly, it is shown that the studied azo poly(amide imide) exhibits a very large and stable photoinduced optical anisotropy arising from directional orientation of its azo chromophores due to irradiation with linearly polarized blue light. Secondly, it is proved that the polymer layers with light-induced anisotropy possess an excellent capability to align nematic liquid crystals. The azimuthal anchoring energy characterizing this capability is significantly higher than the highest anchoring energy reported so far for the class of amorphous azo polymers, reaching simultaneously the level of anchoring energies found for photo-crosslinking materials. Furthermore, we demonstrate that it is possible to inscribe a specific polarization hologram in the azo poly(amide imide) layers, and then to transfer the generated azo chromophore pattern to liquid crystal molecules brought into contact with the polymer substrates. As a consequence, a diffraction grating allowing for complete redirecting of the passing light from its initial propagation direction into the first diffraction order(s) is obtained. A specific form of the Euler–Lagrange equations regarding reorientation of liquid crystal molecules has been derived and then solved numerically in the case of biasing the structure with a low external electric voltage. The obtained results make it possible to predict and explain the device performance observed under experimental conditions.


BACKGROUND: Previous studies have focused on the development and evaluation of care bundles to reduce the risk of surgical site infection (SSI) throughout the perioperative period. A focused examination of the technical/surgical aspects of SSI reduction during CRS has not been conducted. This study aimed to develop an expert consensus on intraoperative technical/surgical aspects of SSI prevention by the surgical team during colorectal surgery (CRS). STUDY DESIGN: In a modified Delphi process, a panel of 15 colorectal surgeons developed a consensus on intraoperative technical/surgical aspects of SSI prevention undertaken by surgical personnel during CRS using information from a targeted literature review and expert opinion. Consensus was developed with up to three rounds per topic, with a prespecified threshold of ≥70% agreement. RESULTS: In 3 Delphi rounds, the 15 panelists achieved consensus on 16 evidence-based statements. The consensus panel supported the use of wound protectors/retractors, sterile incision closure tray, preclosure glove change, and antimicrobial sutures in reducing SSI along with wound irrigation with aqueous iodine and closed-incision negative pressure wound therapy in high-risk, contaminated wounds. CONCLUSIONS: Using a modified Delphi method, consensus has been achieved on a tailored set of recommendations on technical/surgical aspects that should be considered by surgical personnel during CRS to reduce the risk of SSI, particularly in areas where the evidence base is controversial or lacking. This document forms the basis for ongoing evidence for the topics discussed in this article or new topics based on newly emerging technologies in CRS.


An interesting GaAs based pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (PHEMT) with an electroless-plated (EP) surface treated gate is fabricated and studied. Based on the low-temperature and low-energy deposition conditions, the EP approach can form better metal-semiconductor (M-S) interface with the reduction in surface thermal damages and disordered-states. The material analyses of EP approach, including Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and scanning electron microscopic (SEM), are examined. The DC performance of EP-gate device is investigated. In addition, the temperature influences of the studied devices, at the temperature region of 300 to 500K, are studied. As compared with the conventional thermal evaporation (TE) approach, the EP-based device shows significantly improved DC characteristics over a wide temperature range (300-500K). Moreover, the EP approach also has advantages of easy operation and low cost.


An experimental investigation of the interaction between a lateral jet issuing from a missile body and the oncoming external flow is presented. The experiments were carried out in the ISL supersonic blow-down wind tunnel at a Mach number of 3. The test model was a cone-cylinder-flare body with a side jet nozzle located on the cylindrical section, representing a simple generic high-speed missile configuration. For this study, three distinct flow conditions were chosen which are characterized by a jet ejection pressure ratio of 50, 70 and 97, respectively. Flow velocity measurements were performed with the aid of a two-component laser Doppler velocimeter (LDV). In addition, flow visualization techniques were used in order to confirm the LDV results. Combined with previous surface pressure measurements, the present investigation yields a consistent picture of the jet-induced flow field comprising a separation zone and various shock waves upstream from the jet exit. This detailed knowledge of the flow structure is required for evaluating the performance of lateral jet control systems.


: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the luteal function, as affected by gonadotropin, through the examination of luteinized human granulosa cells in culture. These cells, obtained from IVF patients stimulated by hMG (human menopausal gonadotropin)/hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), produced estrogen and progesterone under the effects of hCG and FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). This effect was clearly demonstrated in this study. The culture medium was renewed every 48 hours. Hormones, including androstenedione (100 ng/mL), FSH (100 ng/mL), and hCG (11 U/mL), were added to the culture medium. The levels of estradiol and progesterone were measured at each change of the culture medium. Study I showed, only on days 4-6, that the addition of FSH (100 ng/mL) produced a significant increase in the estradiol and progesterone production (p < 0.05), in either the presence or absence of androstenedione. The effect did not occur on days 0-2, or on days 2-4. In study II, FSH was added to the medium on a different schedule (days 2-4 and days 4-6). Again, only on days 4-6 was a positive result obtained, as in study I (p < 0.05), but no significant response was noted on days 2-4. Study III showed that the addition of hCG on days 2-4 produced a 10% increase (p < 0.05) in estradiol production and a 50% increase in progesterone (p < 0.01). On the other hand, on days 4-6, there was a 40% increase in estradiol and a 200% increase in progesterone (p < 0.01). Again, no significant response to hCG was obtained on days 0-2.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Dentoalveolar changes in adulthood have not been extensively documented. Such changes may have important implications for the long-term stability of orthodontic treatment. To analyse occlusal and dentoalveolar changes in adults from the age of 20 years to the age of 60 years. The material comprised 18 Swedish dentists, 16 men and 2 women, with no missing teeth and no prosthodontic or orthodontic treatment. Measurements were recorded on study casts made between 1949 and 1989 at the Department of Stomatognathic Physiology at the Faculty of Odontology in Malmö, thus documenting changes over an average period of 38.4 years. Malocclusion traits, overbite, overjet, dental arch length and width, and Little's irregularity index were registered. There was a significant increase in Little's irregularity index in the mandible (1.0 mm, P < 0.01) and a decrease in arch length in both jaws (0.5-0.9 mm, P < 0.05). The maxillary and mandibular intercanine widths decreased by 0.8 and 1.0 mm, respectively (P < 0.001). The malocclusion traits, overbite, and overjet remained unchanged during the observation period. The results confirm that dentoalveolar changes occur as a continuous process throughout adult life. The findings of potential clinical importance are decreases in arch length and depth, resulting in a decrease in intercanine width and an increase in anterior crowding. In clinical orthodontic practice, these findings have important implications for treatment planning and long-term stability after orthodontic treatment.


Part of the Tavistock Clinic Series, this book focuses on narrative and stories in Family Systems Therapy - particularly on how stories develop within the domain of a therapist's own theoretical, clinical and professional contexts. The aim is to allow the reader to understand the uses of stories in family therapy.This book offers a comprehensive overview of issues related to narrative which appear in a family therapy setting. Originally embarking on a joint project to share clinical experience, members of the Family Systems Group at the Tavistock Clinic discovered that what was common in their work was their emphasis on narrative. This discovery led in time to the development of a shared discourse about their diverse approaches to narrative which are carefully reflected in the contributions in this volume. Part One sets out the context of narrative with contributions on bilingualism and the family's experience of therapy, ending with a thought provoking critique of narrative. Part Two concentrates on applications of these ideas, providing analysis of multiple narratives in illness and loss, gender and language, neonatal care, adoption, divorce and refugee families.


Abstract The heterogeneity of the lamellar unit (LU) of arterial media plays an important role in the biomechanics of artery. Current two-component (fibrous component and a homogenous matrix) constitutive model is inappropriate for capturing the micro-structural variations in the LU, such as contraction/relaxation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), fragmentation of the elastin layer, and deposition/disruption of the collagen network. In this work, we developed a representative volume element (RVE) model with detailed micro-configurations, i.e., VSMCs at various phenotypes, collagen fibers, and elastin laminate embedded in the ground substance. The fiber architecture was generated based on its volume fraction and orientations. Our multi-scale model demonstrated the relation between the arterial expansion and the micro-structural variation of the lamellar unit. The obtained uniaxial response of the LU was validated against the published experimental data. The load sharing capacity of fibrous component and VSMCs of the LU were obtained. We found that the VSMC could take 30% of the circumferential load when contracted until the collagen fibers were recruited, while this value was less than 2% for the relaxed VSMC. In addition, the contribution of collagen fibers at low stretch levels was negligible but became predominant when straightened in high stretches.Moreover, aging effects by collagen deposition was modeled to estimate the arterial stiffening. It was revealed that the aortic stiffness is mainly controlled by collagen fibers, instead of VSMCs. Our findings could shed some light about the contribution of VSMCs in arterial stiffness which has been under debate in recent years.


A numerical model of a vacuum dewatering process was established with a level-set method to simulate two-phase flow in a two-dimensional paper sheet model with constructed volume forces representing flow resistance in a three-dimensional environment. Nine cases of various volume force representations were investigated by comparing numerical and experimental data. Based on the dry content and dwell time relation, the best model is obtained when accounting for in-plane flow resistance at the paper–wire interface. Compared to the other numerical cases, considering the blockage of the pore space, the top layer of the wire plays an essential role in determining the flow resistance during the vacuum process. To validate the maximum dewatering rate obtained in the model, new experimental data with a higher frequency of sampling are needed. The computational time for the two-phase flow models in this study is extensively reduced due to the removal of the internal structure. This distinction enables time-efficient simulations of the vacuum dewatering process in which several dewatering parameters such as the level of the vacuum, the influence of a moving vacuum pulse, and higher basis weights could be investigated.


Now that the presence of Huanglongbing (HLB) has been confirmed in California, protecting the state's citrus industry through early detection of disease is essential in curtailing its spread. Because 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' (Las), the putative causal agent of HLB, accumulates in its vector, the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri, Kuwayama, accurate testing of the insect is vital. Due to the fact that insect secondary metabolites interfere with downstream applications (1, 3) there is concern about the number of insects pooled in DNA extractions without compromising Las detection. The current USDA CPHST approved method of testing (2) limits the pooling size to five individual insects per extraction followed by the highly sensitive quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) detection technique. The QPCR reaction targets a region of the Las 16S ribosomal gene (4) and simultaneously the D. citri specific wingless (WGLS) gene (5) as an internal control for extraction efficiency. In contrast, the CDFA laboratory routinely pools up to 25 individual insects for DNA extraction, followed by the same QPCR detection. If pooling 25 individuals is indeed a safe practice all the labs currently limiting sample pooling to five individuals could save a substantial amount of time and money. We decided to approximate the pooling limit using single insect equivalents of DNA extracted from Las infected ACP from colonies at USDA-ARS in Fort Pierce, Florida pooled with intact ACP from clean UC Riverside, California, quarantine colonies. Depending on results we would follow these experiments with experiments using intact Las positive ACP.


With 23 papers on unrelated problems of clinical rheumatology, the editor, Dr. Allan St.J. Dixon, has selected his contributors so that all the topics are handled with authority and freshness. His contributors, mostly from England but some from the United States, include some senior clinicians such as Professor Bywaters who, with Dr. J. T. Scott, has contributed an excellent review on systemic diseases of connective tissue. Many of the papers


This paper situates Margarita Engle's verse novel, The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom (2008), in both the historical context it depicts (the various wars against Spain 1850–99) and the emerging field of human-plant studies (HPS). Noting that Cuba's indigenous population was destroyed by genocide and imported illnesses, the paper suggests that the island itself, as portrayed in Engle's poetry, has colluded in human politics and played an active role in determining who can lay claim to Cuban nativity. Human-plant studies provide a rationale for suggesting that, in Engle's The Surrender Tree, the flora of the island determines the progress of the wars of independence. This argument is extended to crystals, which also 'grow' but which are not deemed to be 'living', to suggest that, in The Surrender Tree, it is not the people who choose their nation and fight for its independence or to maintain Cuba's connection to an empire of nations, but rather that the island itself chooses its people.


Main objective of the present project is to construct comprehensive suite of climate indices datasets (called ClimData), computed from reliable and up-to-date input data from one side and well elaborated and internationally accepted methodology from other. The gridded time series of the necessary parameters from the CARPATCLIM and E-OBS projects are used as input and the procedures from the STARDEX and ETCCDI initiatives are applied for computation of the Cis. Although similar sets are already available, partially from the row data vendors, they completeness are not full and/or are based on outdated data. In contrast, our intend is to provide consolidated database, based on the most recent source.
Daily maximum, minimum and mean temperatures as well as the daily precipitation sum (prec.) are core climatic parameters particularly involved in determining climate change impacts on society and ecosystems. The fact, however, that the relative sparseness of long digitally available records
of daily temperature and precipitation measurements hampers analyses of observed changes in climate extremes, is often emphasized. In the presented project we use two data sets: both of them are surface measurements-based, are in form of gridded database and, not at least, are free available.
First of the used data sets is CARPATCLIM (http://www.carpatclim-eu.org), which is a high-resolution homogeneous gridded database covering 1961-2010 for the Carpathian region (44oN-50oN and 17oE-27oE) with 0.1o horizontal resolution, containing all the major surface meteorological variables. The commonly used methods and software were the method MASH (Multiple Analysis of Series for Homogenization) for homogenization, quality control, completion of the observed daily data series; and the method MISH (Meteorological Interpolation based on Surface Homogenized Data Basis) for gridding of homogenized daily data series. Besides the common software, the harmonization of the results across country borders was promoted also by near border data exchange. CARPATCLIM is the most advanced validation database in the region at the moment. The second data set is the well known and widely used in the meteorological community E-OBS of the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECAD kriging of daily anomalies) after the quality control.
In the last decades was recognized that it is important to document the exact formulation of an internationally agreed suite of indices of climate extremes from daily precipitation and temperature data. The use of agreed indices allows comparison of analyses conducted in any part of the world and seamless merging of index data to produce a global picture as well. Such are the European
Commission funded CIRCE (Climate change and impact research: the Mediterranean environment, https://www.cmcc.it/projects/circe-climate-change-and-impact-research-the-mediterranean-environment) and STARDEX (STAtistical and Regional dynamical Downscaling of EXtremes for European regions, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/projects/stardex). STARDEX is focused on relatively moderate extremes rather than the most extreme events. The project uses in total 57 CIs calulated on annual and seasonal basis, 24 are temperature- and 33 precipitation-based. The STARDEX core subset consist of 10 indices. Additionally are calculated the slope of the linear trend by means of Least Squares Estimation (LSE) and, second, the statistical significance of trends with the Mann-Kendall (MK) test for each CI is analyzed. The MK test is a nonparametric and rank-based procedure, especially suitable for non-normally distributed data, data containing outliers and nonlinear trends. Consequently, this test is widely used in the geosciences as standard tool for trend significance estimation. The Commission for Climatology (CCl)/CLIVAR/JCOMM Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) (previously known as the Expert Team on Climate Change, Detection, Monitoring and Indices (ETCCDMI), (http://www.clivar.org/organization/etccdi/etccdi.php) defined a suite of indices that have subsequently become known as the 'ETCCDI' indices. These indices were chosen to sample a wide variety of climates and included indicators such as the total number of days annually with frost and the maximum number of consecutive dry days in a year. However, the definitions and usefulness of some of these indices, although meant to be globally valid, became the subject of discussion. As a result, definitions of some of them as well as their calculations were reconsidered. The ETCCDI-indices are obtained on Y-basis and monthly basis (M-basis) and the threshold-based ones that have to be calculated relative to a base period are calculated according to the bootstrap method.
ClimData encompasses the full suite of the STARDEX and ETCCDI Cis for all time scales, as well as the linear trend slope estimation and statistical significance, calculated in the case of the ETCCDI with external, purposely-build procedures. ClimData is intended to be convenient versatile for broad range of experts – meteorologists, climatologists, hydrologist which scientific interest includes Cis-based analysis.


ABSTRACT Enhancing resilience is key to reducing teacher attrition and addressing the challenges of the profession but scant research exists on resilience in regional and remote settings, where there is a shortage of quality, specialist and lead teachers. The aim of this study was to combine ecological and relational perspectives on resilience to examine pre-service and early career teacher resilience in the remote context of central Australia. The findings suggest that beginning teacher resilience in central Australia involves a particular set of enablers and constraints which are characterised by teachers' capacity to build connections to place, connections as a learner and connections in relationships. A transactional systems model is presented that articulates the dynamism of the resilience processes and offers a way to better understand the ecological interdependencies unique to a particular context and culture. This understanding will enable teachers, initial teacher educators, school leaders and policy makers to better address the challenges facing this profession.


We investigate the distribution of risk preferences and the frequency of expected utility violations along the gradient of market development. To do this, we collect experimental and survey data from a random sample of the population at four sites in Peru that differ in their level of competition and development. Similar to previous studies, we find that violations of expected utility theory are frequent. More importantly, however, violations are far less frequent the more competitive the market is. Also, our study suggests that experience in trade is not always associated with fewer behavioral anomalies. For instance, wholesale traders in an oligopolistic market with many years of experience are more likely to violate expected utility theory than entrepreneurs in an adjacent market with less experience. As hypothesized by Alchian (1950), it is in highly competitive markets where the evidence of rational behavior is found.


The effect of transmitting timing jitter and sampling jitter on a multipulse clutter cancellation system is analyzed, and explicit expressions are obtained for the net increase in the residue clutter power due to timing jitter. The increase in mean-square error is found to be proportional to the jitter variance, with the two jitters contributing almost equally. The system analyzed can have either a recursive or nonrecursive MTI filter, and the latter includes the familiar two- and three-pulse canceller as special cases. The increase in residue clutter power for a three-pulse canceller is about 4.8 dB worse than that for a two-pulse canceller. >


To investigate the 1918/19 influenza pandemic daily number of new hospitalizations in the only hospital in Florence (Central Italy) were analyzed. In order to describe the transmission dynamics of the 1918/1919 pandemic influenza a compartmental epidemic model was used. Model simulations show a high level of agreement with the observed epidemic data. By assuming both latent and infectious period equal to 1.5 days, the estimated basic reproduction number was R1 0 = 1.03 (95% CI: 1.00–1.08) during the summer wave and R2 0 = 1.38 (95% CI: 1.32–1.48) during the fall wave. Varying the length of the generation 2 panish flu eproduction number taly time or the estimation method, R0 ranges from 1.32 to 1.71. The hospitalization rate was found significantly different between summer and fall waves. Notably, the estimated basic reproductive numbers are lower compared to those observed in other countries, while the age distribution of deaths resulted to be consistent with the patterns generally observed during of the 1918–1919 pandemic. Our knowledge on past pandemics, as for the 1918–19 Spanish influenza, would help improving mathematical modeling accuracy and understanding the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of future pandemics.


The present paper deals with mutually unbiased bases for systems of qudits in $d$ dimensions. Such bases are of considerable interest in quantum information. A formula for deriving a complete set of $1+p$ mutually unbiased bases is given for $d=p$ where $p$ is a prime integer. The formula follows from a nonstandard approach to the representation theory of the group $SU(2)$. A particular case of the formula is derived from the introduction of a phase operator associated with a generalized oscillator algebra. The case when $d = p^e$ ($e \geq 2$), corresponding to the power of a prime integer, is briefly examined. Finally, complete sets of mutually unbiased bases are analysed through a Lie algebraic approach.


This project is an endeavour into Narrative Inquiry as a form of educational research. In attempts to explain how and why I have become the teacher that I am I have compiled significant parts of my life history to explain the relationship between a life spent mining and one spent teaching. It is my assumption that I have become who I am as a teacher because of the life that I have led living, working and learning in three mining communities of Canada. My work as an educator, building community in my school setting, is a direct reflection of my life's experiences. I began with the premise that long before I was bom my roots were established in mining through my grandparents and parents. The life they set for me was one of community. My own childhood, adolescence and adulthood have been shaped extensively by the towns in which I lived. Those influences enter my classroom and play a role in shaping my curriculum. The work is phenomenological in nature, narrative in style and from the perspective of the research subject. This multi-genre work utilizes poetry, narrative and exposition to present my life story. In writing through my life it became apparent that the communities I lived in not oiUy shaped my character but also created in me the desire to replicate or create similar community in my classrooms. This is evident far more in "how" I teach than "what" I teach.


Two datasets containing the first complete estimates of reach-scale nutrient, water use, dissolved oxygen, and pH conditions for the Pacific drainages of the United States were created to help inform water-quality management decisions in that region. The datasets were developed using easily obtainable watershed data, most of which have not been available until recently, and the techniques that were used provide a framework for integrating watershed data to assess waterquality impairment across other large hydrologic regions in the United States. These datasets were used to summarize regional nutrient and water-use conditions within impaired water bodies and to summarize regional dissolved oxygen concentrations and pH conditions for free-flowing stream reaches. Two examples are also presented that show how the datasets can be applied to specific water-quality management issues: (1) nutrient conditions in water bodies that have recently experienced problems with harmful algal blooms; and (2) dissolved oxygen and pH conditions in stream reaches likely to be populated by steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus) during their summer run. The nutrient and water-use estimates could help inform actions aimed at managing water-quality conditions in impaired water bodies while the dissolved oxygen and pH predictions could be useful as screening tools to identify water bodies experiencing potential impairment.


Private networks have become popular for secure data sharing and anonymous communication in many domains: enterprise environments, military, journalism, telecommunication, healthcare, to name a few. It has been used with or without internet connection. Its primary purpose is to provide confidentiality, bypass unlawful activities, and protect against common threats such as interception, modification, and censorship. In addition, several private network technologies exist to support secure communications. However, they mostly rely on encryption only. The transmitted data is classified into different confidentiality levels. This research presents a smart private network architecture scheme that transmits constraint-based classified packets. The main directive of this work is the proposed constraint. This constraint is meant to enforce that if two packets belong to the same confidentiality level, they can't be transmitted through the two routers simultaneously. Therefore, the studied problem is an NP-hard problem. This paper presents the following contributions: (i) proposes a new architecture paradigm for outsourcing a constraint-based multi-classified data sharing securely and transmitted through two routers; (ii) introduces several algorithms to prove the feasibility for this NP-Hard problem; and (iii) implements the algorithms solutions using C++ and compares their performance. Different metrics are used to measure the performance of the proposed algorithms. Randomized Longest Transmission time first algorithm RLT¯ scored the best algorithm with a percentage of 73.5% and an average gap of 0.002 according to the experimental results. It is remarkable worthy to note that the execution time of all the algorithms is less than 0.001 s.


Singing of songbird species is a behavior that integrates multiple sensory inputs and motor outputs, which primarily rely on interconnected neural circuits in the avian brain, the song control system. The nucleus HVC is of particular interest because of its integrative roles in the song control system. In the majority of Northern temperate songbird species, males sing predominately, and they often use their songs to attract female mates. In contrast, most Northern temperate female songbirds sing either rarely or only in certain contexts. The characteristics and functions of female songs are less clear. In the tropics, many species of females sing regularly and depending on species, their song complexity is less or comparable to that of males. However, the HVC volume is greater in males than females in all songbird species that have been examined.

In the first experiment of this thesis (p. 43), I described song features of spontaneously and rarely singing female canaries (Serinus canaria), a Northern temperate songbird species. I observed higher blood testosterone concentrations and greater HVC volume of singing females than that of non-singing females. The results suggest female canary singing is testosterone-dependent.

Subcutaneous testosterone implantation induces singing in female canaries. In the second experiment (p. 65), I implanted female canaries with testosterone for six time periods (T1h, T3h, T8h, T3d, T7d, and T14d) and studied changes of gene expression in the HVC. I observed approximately 2,600 genes regulated by testosterone after one hour and the regulation was dynamic throughout the experimental time window. I investigated putative biological functions of testosterone-regulated genes in the six time points by gene ontology (GO)-term enrichment analysis, and showed that the enrichment of angiogenesis began at T1h and the enrichment of neurogenesis began at T3h, with both processes continuing until T14d. Furthermore, genes associated with "GABA" and "spine" were enriched in T3d birds when the birds started singing, while the number of genes associated with "nervous system development" was highest in T14d birds, when the HVC volume was significantly greater than controls. Finally, using approaches integrating gene expression, HVC volume, circulating testosterone levels, and song characteristics, I identified a potential master regulator of testosterone-regulated changes.

Male canary songs vary seasonally. Breeding season songs are longer, louder, and more complex than non-breeding season songs. Non-breeding males implanted with testosterone sing songs resembling that of breeding season songs. In the third experiment (p. 81), I studied gene expression in the HVC of seven canary groups, females and males of breeding season and of non-breeding season, non-breeding season females and males treated with testosterone, and spontaneously singing female canaries. Hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis (PCA) showed that circulating testosterone levels and sex were the predominant variables associated with variation in the HVC transcriptomes. Comparison between natural singing canaries with testosterone-induced singing canaries of the same sex revealed large differences in the HVC transcriptomes. Moreover, the intersection of natural and testosterone-induced singing females shared little resemblance with males in terms of genes. GO-term enrichment analysis suggested functional overlap between sex-specific gene networks. However, although strong transcriptional changes in HVC correlate with the transition from non-singing to singing in both sexes, the type of transcriptional changes are sex-specific.

In the fourth experiment (p. 89), I studied sex differences in HVC gene expression between three songbird species: the canary, the blue-capped cordon bleus (Uraeginthus cyanocephalus), and the forest weavers (Ploceus bicolor). Cordon bleu females sing regularly with female-specific songs, whereas forest weaver females sing songs identical to males. I found substantial sex differences in HVC gene expression in all three species, and sex-biased genes differed between species. Surprisingly, the majority of sex-biased genes were on autosomes instead the sex chromosome Z. These results provide further evidence for sex differences in brain structure at the molecular and cellular levels in sexually reproductive animals.


Smart grid is widely considered to be a next generation power grid, which will be integrated with information feedback communications. However, smart grid communication technologies are subject to inefficient spectrum allocation problems. Cognitive radio networks can solve the problem of spectrum scarcity by opening the under-utilized licensed bands to secondary users. In this paper, adaptive cognitive radio spectrum sensing and sharing algorithms are developed for smart grid environments. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in comparison with other existing schemes.


This report provides details of the data analysis project into STEM and IT teacher numbers and subject uptake at level 3A education in Ireland. The focus concerns the quantity of teachers registered in STEM and IT subject areas plus an analysis of male and female student numbers up taking subjects in these areas. The project is considerate of on what is needed to "bridge the gap" between supply and demand of skilled STEM and IT graduates in the labour force. The aim is through seeking trends on teacher numbers and subject uptake at second level education. The development of a project plan was created to oversee and monitor the process. Initial stages involved the use of MS Excel with VBA and pivot tables. The analysis was performed using R Studio, WEKA and MS Excel PowerPivot. Each dataset was analysed separately before comparative analysis between the two. The teacher data was not normally distributed and therefore non-parametric tests were applied. The student data set was shown to be normally distributed and therefore recognised parametric tests were used. Overall, the results are similar. Teacher numbers and student's up taking STEM and IT subjects are rising. The relationship between males and females in both data sets showed strong correlation and similar variation. The data did highlight that the amount of female teachers registered in STEM and IT subjects is greater than males. However, the uptake by male students of subjects in STEM and IT at level 3A is higher than female uptake. Overall, it is important to consider these analyse in perspective through effect sizes of samples, rising population numbers and thus student numbers and the establishment of the Teaching Council in 2006 for more control over teacher registration.


The dissimilar channel angular pressing (DCAP or CCSS) based on the equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was numerically modeled and analyzed by means of a rigid-plastic two-dimensional finite element method. Multi-pass rolling is performed in two different manners; the feeding direction of samples into the DCAP-channel is maintained in Route A and the feeding direction is reversed in the Route B. The deformation of AA1100 sheets during the DCAP process comprises three distinct processes of rolling, bending and shearing. The shear deformation of an amount of 0.5 was concentrated at the corner of the DCAP-channel where the abrupt change in the direction of material flow occurred. Because differences in the shear deformation in Route A and Route B led to the different strain states throughout the thickness of the aluminum sheet, the strain history in the DCAP-channel was analyzed in various thickness layers by the shear and effective strain components.


A number of watersheds are selected from the Hydro‐Climate Data Network over southeastern United States to examine possible changes in hydrological time series, e.g. precipitation, introduced by changing climate. Possible changes in monthly precipitation are examined by three different methods to detect second order stationarity, abrupt changes in the variance and smooth changes in quantiles of the time series. An analysis of second order stationarity shows that precipitation in eight of the 56 watersheds display nonstationary behaviour. Change‐point analyses reveal that changes in the long‐term variance of monthly precipitation are only detected for a few sites. As a complementary analysis tool, quantile regression aims to detect potential changes of different percentiles of the monthly precipitation over time. Several sites show diverging trends in the quantiles, which implies that the range and thus variance of the data, is increasing. As distinct change‐points are not identified, this suggests that the effect is small and cumulative. Results are analysed in detail, and possible explanations are provided. This type of thorough analysis provides a basis for understanding the possible redistribution of water cycle. It also provides implications for water resources management and hydrological engineering facility design and planning. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This paper reviews some critical issues for addressing the structure of electricity tariffs for ulterior purposes of policy research agenda. Starting from economic principles behind electricity tariff design, this paper asks what options ahead Latin America has in terms of improving electricity tariff design from a heterogeneous status quo, where trade-offs among cost recovery, cost reflectivity and affordability stand out. Options look like an avenue for improving cost recovery through better wholesale market design and regulation; move outside excess volumetric pricing and towards fixed and capacity charges; reduce excessive increasing block pricing; promote metering and regulatory flexibility for menu pricing with optional schemes and guaranteed bills; foster flexibility for new customer clustering and pricing to accommodate innovation in the energy transition; attend affordability with lump sum transfers through differentiated fixed charges and taxes and reform taxation to coordinate tariff format reform across different regulatory jurisdictions. Above all these dimensions, countries should coordinate on common information standards on the level and structure of electricity rates.


The international community agrees that investing in education is vital for a country's development. An anomaly in the literature is that while education has a demonstrable positive impact on individual earnings, it has minimum economic impact on a country's income in aggregate. One of the reasons for this is that most studies account for increased enrollment while neglecting the impact of educational quality. As universal school access becomes a reality, there is growing interest among countries in determining the factors that influence the quality of education. This study uses data from one international educational assessment program to study the impact of family background and the interaction between public funding and public school management on reading, writing, and science test scores. I show that family background, particularly mother's education level, has a strong influence on performance. The study also suggests that school performance can be improved when public funding is allocated to privately managed schools.


The relevance of the study is due to the complexity of socio-cultural reality due to the aggravation of the contradiction between globalization and national-oriented processes, the increasing struggle of cultures, economies and ideologies, and the acceleration of scientific and technological progress. The purpose of the article is to consider sociocultural and anthropoecological distinctive features of pedagogical discourse. The author points out that anthropo-innovations, such as genetic engineering, cyborgization, cloning, integration with artificial intelligence, pharmaceutical advances, and GMO products threaten the existence of a person in his or her mental and physical integrity. The restriction of anthropological innovations is due to spiritual revival, reliance on traditional cultures, as well as the best cultural and pedagogical national experience, and is determined by the understanding of the soul as an integrating component of a person. In the Humanities, the description of an increasingly complex socio-cultural reality is closely related to its description in the context of various discursive plans. This approach is also promising for pedagogy. At the same time, modern trends in the development of the discursive approach "blur" the boundaries of pedagogical knowledge. The article presents a highly specialized definition of pedagogical discourse. During the study the following methods were applied: analysis of legal documents and scientific and methodical literature. It is proved that the pedagogical category "zone of proximal development" in its socio-cultural and anthropo-ecological contexts favors understanding of the distinctive features of educational and pedagogical discourse. It is concluded that orientation to the zone of proximal development of the individual contributes to the consistency of the sociocultural experience, including nationally oriented components, transmitted by the teacher, with the life experience of the student, favors his or her emotional involvement in the educational process.