Deformable image registration is a fundamental technique in
computational neuroanatomy. An iterative multilevel block
matching technique with the use of several recent inventions is
proposed here. A symmetric multimodal similarity measure allows
to register subject images to an arbitrary digital brain atlas.
Smooth deformations produced by scattered data interpolation
based on compactly supported radial basis functions suppress
gross inter-subject differences and preserve the localized
anatomical variability which may be further studied with
selected automated morphometry methods. Four similarity
measures are tested in an experiment with image data obtained
from the Simulated Brain Database and a quantitative evaluation
of the algorithm is presented.


This paper introduces a new assessment technique to monitor the quality of coated steel sheet surfaces, mainly used in the construction industry, e.g. as cladding for commercial buildings, external surface composite panels or even domestic applications, so clearly the visual appearance is critical. Normally, these types of steel sheets are coil coated onto steel strips. After curing the coating is soft, when it has cooled to approximated 60 C it can be embossed with a pattern by application of pressure by a roller with the appropriately pattered surface. After embossing and further cooling the coated strip can be coiled and stored. However during the storing process the weight of the coil (of the order of several tonnes), can damage the soft surface by creating visible pressure marks. Sometimes the surface will relax back to the original embossed shape some time after the pressure has been relieved or with the help of heat treatment. On occasion however the surface does not recover and a visual defect remains, which leads to customer rejection.

In this paper, a new way to characterize coated surface of steel sheets, which combines wavelet filtering [1] with decomposed numerical analysis techniques [2] is presented. The wavelet filtering is based on complex wavelet, and it has very good metrological characteristics in the scale domain and provides shift-invariance and directions sensitive properties. In this research, this wavelet model is used to extract the information of structured texture of coated steel surfaces within the original emboss. The decomposed numerical description is used to qualify the variation phenomena of surface texture during storage and transportation. The results can be feedback to steel industry to significantly improve their coating techniques, storage and transportation.


The purpose of this research project was to use a qualitative approach to explore Critical Media Literacy (CML) with young girls by collaboratively analyzing Disney animated films. My goal was to provide a safe and encouraging space for children to share their perspectives and opinions of Disney animated female characters featured in The Little Mermaid (Ashman, Musker, & Clements, 1989), Cinderella (Disney, Geronimi, Jackson, & Luske, 1950), and The Princess and the Frog (Del Vecho, Clements, & Musker, 2009). I used CML as my theoretical framework as it provided an inquisitive approach to watching films, which, in turn, encouraged the participants to use critical thinking pertaining to the images of female characters in Disney. I also incorporated feminist theory as the majority of discussion revolved around the physical appearance of female characters as well as the participants' understandings of femininity. I conducted two focus groups with 4 young girls, aged 7 to 11, to gain insight into their understanding of Disney female characters. An inquisitive and collaborative approach to watching films revealed three themes: (a) powerful women in Disney are mean and ugly; (b) heterosexual relationships are paramount; and (c) Disney Princesses are always pretty and nice. I concluded by recommending the importance of CML and collaborative film-watching with young children as the simplicity of asking questions encourages young people to become aware of, challenge, and think critically about the media they are consuming. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY AND DISNEY iii


We consider a class of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) defined by analytic nonlinearities and study its singular solutions. The main assumption used is that the linearization of the DAE represents a Kronecker index-2 matrix pencil and that the constraint manifold has a quadratic fold along its singularity. From these assumptions we obtain a normal form for the DAE where the presence of the singularity and its effects on the dynamics of the problem are made explicit in the form of a quasi-linear differential equation. Subsequently, two distinct types of singular points are identified through which there pass exactly two analytic solutions: pseudo-nodes and pseudo-saddles. We also demonstrate that a singular point called a pseudo-node supports an uncountable infinity of solutions which are not analytic in general. Moreover, akin to known results in the literature for DAEs with singular equilibria, a degenerate singularity is found through which there passes one analytic solution such that the singular point in question is contained within a quasi-invariant manifold of solutions. We call this type of singularity a pseudo-centre and it provides not only a manifold of solutions which intersects the singularity, but also a local flow on that manifold which solves the DAE.


Minimally distinct border (MDB) settings were made for white-chromatic borders that varied from 1 to 32 arcmin in the space constant of Gaussian blur. The spectral characteristics, additivity, and variability of the MDB judgments remained essentially unchanged across all degrees of edge blur up to and including a space constant of 8 arcmin. For space constants of 16 and 32 arcmin, the variability of the settings increased dramatically, but no consistent trends toward changes in spectral characteristics or additivity were found. Predictions of visual response to edge blur were derived from Wilson and Gelb's six-channel model of spatial vision [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1, 124 (1984)]. The fits of these calculations to the data suggest that either a single low- to mid-spatial-frequency-tuned channel mediates MDB judgments over a wide range of variations of edge blur or else the channels that jointly mediate these judgments are importantly similar in their chromatic characteristics.


Digital Elevation Models provide an accurate description of scenes allowing change detection by radiometric independence measurements. The height information gives access to the changes in the 3D shape of a scene occurring between two dates. In this paper, a procedure to extract meaningful changes is proposed based on analysing this shape variation. Instead of filtering a difference map, a multilevel analysis of the difference map based on the theory of persistence is developed to make such analysis independent from a choice of threshold values.


Small RNA from a fungal pathogen is transferred to cells of a plant host where it silences the mRNA for defense proteins. [Also see Report by Weiberg et al.] Benjamin Franklin should have included infectious disease as a third certainty of life alongside death and taxes. We will always be plagued by pests and pathogens because they generally have shorter life cycles than their hosts, allowing them to evolve rapidly to avoid host defenses. The use of antibiotics, for example, may select for drug-resistant strains of bacteria and, in agriculture, the widespread cultivation of a disease-resistant crop is often followed by the appearance of resistance-breaking strains of the pathogen. Whenever a host acquires a novel defense, the pest will, eventually, evolve a corresponding counter-defense system. On page 118 of this issue, Weiberg et al. (1) describe a strategy in which a fungal parasite uses RNA to block a host's defense system


Spectroscopic and theoretical investigations of the self-assembly of a particular 1,3,5-benzene trisamide-based low molecular weight hydrogelator are described. This trisamide is pH-sensitive, and surprisingly forms a photoluminescent supramolecular hydrogel. Controlled gel formation in combination with the luminescence properties allows studying the self-assembly process in detail. The experimental results are confirmed by Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations, revealing that the photoluminescence originates from the formation of a supramolecular chromophore.


The improved performance of the sparteine surrogate compared to sparteine in a range of applications has highlighted the need to develop an approach to the (-)-sparteine surrogate, previously inaccessible in gram-quantities. A multi-gram scale, chromatography-free synthesis of the racemic sparteine surrogate and its resolution via diastereomeric salt formation with (-)-O,O'-di-p-toluoyl-l-tartaric acid is reported. Resolution on a 10.0 mmol scale gave the diastereomeric salts in 33% yield from which (-)-sparteine surrogate of 93 : 7 er was generated. This work solves a key limitation: either enantiomer of the sparteine surrogate can now be readily accessed.


Abstract Despite the prevalence of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro organisations, comparatively little is known about how such organisations approach occupational safety and health (OSH). Research has tended to present a negative picture of OSH practices in smaller organisations. This paper discusses some of the challenges to researching OSH in SMEs and micro organisations and how these challenges can be overcome. It draws lessons and experiences from a qualitative study involving 149 structured interviews, nine short-term ethnographies and 21 semi-structured interviews with owners and employees in SMEs and micro organisations from a broad cross-section of industry sectors in the UK, including construction, retail, healthcare, logistics and agriculture. Data from the study suggest that the established boundaries between micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are less meaningful in an OSH context – OSH practices are influenced more by the culture of the organisation, the type of work being undertaken and the sector that an organisation operates in. OSH practices in SMEs and micro organisations tend to reflect more informal characteristics of such organisations, with more emphasis (than many larger organisations) on tacit knowledge, learning by doing and improvisation. Such practices should not necessarily be assumed to be unsafe or incompatible with formalised OSH.


Victoria Wiet, "Dickens's Tableaux: Melodrama and Sexual Opacity in David Copperfield and Bleak House" (pp. 167–198)
 This essay examines the features and function of tableaux in two novels by Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850) and Bleak House (1853), in order to rethink the influence of melodramatic conventions on the form of narrative fiction, particularly the understanding of female sexuality that melodrama afforded novelists. Taking Dickens as an important example, literary critics have typically associated melodrama with ostentatious legibility, but recent scholarship on the theatrical tableau has illuminated the complex ways the melodramatic stage both produced and occluded revelation. Drawing on this work, I demonstrate that the adaptation of the tableau into the novel form increases the possibility of illegibility because readers necessarily rely on the narrator's description and interpretation of the material world. In David Copperfield and Bleak House, this remediation has particularly significant consequences for the representation of sexually compromised women. By inadequately revealing the sexual histories of suspected "fallen women," densely visual but opaque scenes featuring Annie Strong, Martha Endell, and Honoria Dedlock defer judgment on their characters, with Lady Dedlock's protracted illegibility preventing her plot from culminating in a decisive narrative or moral conclusion. Because the narrators of both novels depict these female characters as deliberately making themselves illegible, the novel tableau becomes an important way for Dickens to dramatize the fallibility of the omniscient and quasi-omniscient narrators of realist fiction.


SUMMARY «Evaluation of work-related biomechanical overload: techniques for the acquisition and analysis of surface EMG signal». Objectives: The aim of this research was to obtain information concerning muscle fatigue and muscle activation levels by measuring quantitative parameters through the surface electromyographic signal, and use such information to integrate the OCRA (Occupational Repetitive Actions) method for risk assessment of upper limb biomechanical overload. Along with the main risk factors associated with the development of work-related upper limb musculoskeletal disorders (UL WMSDs) like posture, movement, frequency of action and organizational factors, this method also takes into account the muscular effort. Unlike the other risk factors that can be directly measured during inspections on farms, muscular effort is currently estimated only via a subjective assessment scale (Borg CR-10 scale). Methods: A new apparatus and new procedures were implemented for synchronized EMG and video acquisition, which guarantee a high degree of inter-and intra-subject repeatability, and an ad hoc software for data elaboration specifically for use in 'results representation'. The methodology was first tested in the laboratory on a group of 12 healthy subjects, studying a repetitive task, running in two different ways, (high/low OCRA index) and interspersed with isometric tests for an indirect measurement of dynamic fatigue. The methodology was then tested in a working environment to compare the muscular effort required during the use of different types of tools for pruning. Results: Results of the laboratory protocol showed onset of fatigue for Anterior Deltoid, Middle Deltoid and Brachial Triceps muscles only for the high-risk index mode, as demonstrated by the significance of the Bonferro-ni tests (p < 0.05) on MDF (Median Frequency) calculated from isometric tests. They also showed significant differences in terms of higher level of muscle activation, and thus required force, in the case of high OCRA index work task compared to the one at low risk (Wilcoxon, p <0.05) for all analysed muscle groups with regard to 10 th , 50 th and 90 th percentile of the APDF (Amplitude Probability Distribution Function). These results clearly defined the differences of subjectively perceived effort. The results of " field " application showed that the tested protocol was also easily exportable to a real working environment and that the numerical parameters extracted from the EMG signal can be a useful tool for evaluating effort levels of different muscles of the upper limb and for comparing different work


The mechanism(s) of olfactory transduction in invertebrates remains to be fully understood. In lobster olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs), a nonselective sodium-gated cation (SGC) channel, a presumptive transient receptor potential (TRP)C channel homolog, plays a crucial role in olfactory transduction, at least in part by amplifying the primary transduction current. To better determine the functional role of the channel, it is important to selectively block the channel independently of other elements of the transduction cascade, causing us to search for specific pharmacological blockers of the SGC channel. Given evidence that the Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchange inhibitor, KB-R7943, blocks mammalian TRPC channels, we studied this probe as a potential blocker of the lobster SGC channel. KB-R7943 reversibly blocked the SGC current in both inside- and outside-out patch recordings in a dose- and voltage-dependent manner. KB-R7943 decreased the channel open probability without changing single channel amplitude. KB-R7943 also reversibly and in a dose-dependent manner inhibited both the odorant-evoked discharge of lobster ORNs and the odorant-evoked whole cell current. Our findings strongly imply that KB-R7943 potently blocks the lobster SGC channel and likely does so directly and not through its ability to block the Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchanger.


This is a comprehensive, speculative, non-naturalist and historicist framework of a theory of law. I address the relationship between nature and law in general; the nature of law; the nature and taxonomy of legal things; the effect of the Enlightenment on legal theory; the relationship between science and law, and between law and history; the poverty and dangers of both positivism and natural law theory; and I address several philosophical issues that are concomitant to an understanding of law in general, including the role of the universal, the centrality of the vision of life; the relationship between life and consciousness (critiquing Nagel's new book in the process), consciousness and history, and history and law; sacrifice; evil, and the future, among other things. I explicitly place myself in the Aristotelian/Hegelian traditions. As a subtext, I grapple with containing the systematic problem science presents to legal/political order. By laying the groundwork for a renewal of legal theory outside of the constraints of positivism and natural law the framework also lays the groundwork for a reevaluation of the role science should play in the political/legal order, and therefore of science itself. The mechanism for these reevaluations is enabled by the specific grounding of the theory in the findings of neuroscience. Neuroscience teaches one of two irreconcilable things: either man has no free will; or there is a scope of free and real capacity for the mature human to make choices, to exercise free will (within constraints). The first of these two conclusions must be wrong because it contradicts not only experimental findings about man, but it contradicts the experience of every mature human. It is a philosophical conclusion based on Enlightenment metaphysics of science. If man has no free will, there is no basis for political order, for responsibility, etc., an argument we are familiar with but fail to understand and follow to its logical and historical implications, as now I do. I begin my argument with a theory of consciousness and freedom.


A new meaning to "Signature Analysis" as it relates to Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs) and releasing products to production is presented. This paper will expand the reader's skill set with advanced techniques to analyze data from ADCs that justifies device performance. The technique will also be a valuable tool to develop intellectual property that enhances an ADC product line performance. The concepts and calculations will benefit test engineers.


The aetiological role of immunodeficiency in acute septic arthritis of the hip in infancy, the management of the condition after the acute infection has subsided, and the special hazards of infection in the region of the hip joint in the older child are discussed. The principles of treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip are examined in relation to the maintenance of acetabular growth potential. The factors determining the outcome of treatment in Perthes' disease are discussed and a comparison of the result in a series of cases treated by femoral osteotomy with those in untreated controls is presented.


As part of FDA's MedWatch program, important changes to the safety labeling of drugs and therapeutic biologics, including boxed warnings, are posted on the agency's website. Boxed warnings are ordinarily used to highlight (1) an adverse reaction so serious in proportion to the potential benefit


Regression modeling in sensor networks is a difficult task due to (i) the network data is distributed among the nodes and (ii) the restricted capabilities of the sensor nodes, such as limited power supply and bandwidth capacity. Recently, some distributed approaches have been proposed based on gradient descent and Nelder-Mead simplex methods. Although in these methods, the energy consumption is low, but the accuracy is still far from the centralized approach. Also, they suffer from a high latency. In this paper, a two-fold distributed approach has been proposed for doing regression analysis in wireless sensor networks. After clustering the network, the regressor of each cluster is learned by the integration of particle swarm optimization and harmony search. Afterwards, cluster heads collaborate to construct the global network regressor using a weighted averaging combination rule. The experimental results show the proposed approach improves the accuracy and latency significantly while its energy consumption is considerably acceptable in comparison with its popular counterparts.


Different compositions of SiAlON materials have been prepared from separate nanopowders and their composites: Si3N4 – AlN, Si3N4, Al2O3 and Y2O3, produced by the method of plasma-chemical synthesis. Compositions have been pressure-less sintered in nitrogen medium up to 1750°C with a heating rate of 10°C/min and holding time for 2 hours or by spark plasma sintering (SPS) in vacuum at 1700°C with a heating rate of 100°C/min and holding time of 5 min. The densification behaviour of the materials at these sintering conditions depends insignificantly on the powder composition. It is possible to obtain dense ceramic materials with relatively fine-grained structure (200-300 nm) from nanosized powders at relatively low temperatures (1400 - 1600°C) with good mechanical properties.


The mechanisms governing the formation of transformation textures during the austenite-to-ferrite transformation are the subject of major debate. In this study, two extreme cases were examined: those of undeformed and deformed austenite. The first involves the transformation of austenite into Widmanstätten ferrite under "equilibrium" conditions in the Gibeon iron-nickel meteorite. This meteorite passed through the transformation at the rate of a few degrees per million years. Such cooling rates cannot of course be reached under laboratory conditions. The second concerns the transformation of hot rolled austenite after a quench into the bainite temperature range. These two behaviors were investigated by means of optical microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) techniques. The orientations of both the parent and product phases were measured and the orientation relationships are represented in Rodrigues-Frank (R-F) space. From the orientation of a particular FCC crystal, the crystallographic orientations of the product BCC crystals can be predicted according to the Bain, Kurdjumov-Sachs (K-S) and Nishiyama- Wassermann (N-W) correspondence relationships. Comparison of the predicted and measured orientations reveals that the Bain rotation is never observed; the K-S and N-W relationships are both observed and there is a continuous distribution of orientations between the exact K-S and N-W positions. The formation of preferred orientations under non-equilibrium conditions is scrutinized. These results are compared to recent models accounting for variant selection.


The unreacted equation of state (EOS) of energetic materials is an important thermodynamic relationship to characterize their high pressure behaviors and has practical importance. The previous experimental and theoretical works on the equation of state of several energetic materials including nitromethane, 1,3,5-trinitrohexahydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazacyclooctane (HMX), hexanitrostilbene (HNS), hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (HNIW or CL-20), pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), 2,6-diamino-3,5-dinitropyrazine-1-oxide (LLM-105), triamino-trinitrobenzene (TATB), 1,1-diamino-2,2-dinitroethene (DADNE or FOX-7), and trinitrotoluene (TNT) are reviewed in this paper. The EOS determined from hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic compressions are discussed and compared. The theoretical results based on ab initio calculations are summarized and compared with the experimental data.


This paper has assessed the impact of high-yielding short-duration pearl-millet hybrid on farmers' income in the arid region of Rajasthan. The decomposition of total change in net returns has shown that adoption of modern technology accounted for 86 per cent of the incremental net income, in which the share of varietal change was 58 per cent. This suggests that there is a considerable potential of raising farm income through widespread dissemination of modern pearl millet technology in Rajasthan.


The view that China has become increasingly assertive under President Xi Jinping is now a common trope in academic and media discourse. However, until the end of Xi Jinping's first term in March 2018, China had been relatively restrained in its use of coercive economic measures. This is puzzling given the conventional belief among scholars and practitioners that sanctions are a middle ground between diplomatic and military/paramilitary action.
Using a wide range of methods and data — including in-depth interviews with 76 current and former politicians, policy-makers, diplomats, and commercial actors across 12 countries and 16 cities — Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics: Rhetoric and Restraint in China's Diplomacy examines the ways in which China had employed economic sanctions to further its political objectives, and the factors explaining China's behaviour. This book provides a systematic investigation into the ways in which Chinese decisionmakers approached sanctions both at the United Nations Security Council and unilaterally, and shows how China's longstanding sanctions rhetoric has had a constraining effect on its behaviour, resulting in its inability to employ sanctions in complete alignment with its immediate interests.


Binarized statistical image features (BSIF) have been successfully used for texture analysis in many computer vision tasks, including iris recognition and biometric presentation attack detection. One important point is that all applications of BSIF in iris recognition have used the original BSIF filters, which were trained on image patches extracted from natural images. This paper tests the question of whether domain-specific BSIF can give better performance than the default BSIF. The second important point is in the selection of image patches to use in training for BSIF. Can image patches derived from eye-tracking experiments, in which humans perform an iris recognition task, give better performance than random patches? Our results say that (1) domain-specific BSIF features can out-perform the default BSIF features, and (2) selecting image patches in a task-specific manner guided by human performance can out-perform selecting random patches. These results are important because BSIF is often regarded as a generic texture tool that does not need any domain adaptation, and human-task-guided selection of patches for training has never (to our knowledge) been done. This paper follows the reproducible research requirements, and the new iris-domain-specific BSIF filters, the patches used in filter training, the database used in testing and the source codes of the designed iris recognition method are made available along with this paper to facilitate applications of this concept.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate voriconazole plasma level monitoring in immunocompromised children and determine the relationship of plasma levels with dose, safety and efficacy.

METHODS
We used a prospective study including all consecutive children with invasive fungal infection (IFI) treated with voriconazole between August 2008 and May 2010. IFI diagnosis and clinical outcome evaluation were based on European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer/Invasive Fungal Infections Cooperative Group and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Mycoses Study Group ('EORTC/MSG') definitions.

RESULTS
A total of 196 voriconazole plasma trough measurements from 30 patients (median age 10 years) obtained during 2135 days of voriconazole therapy were analysed. Nineteen patients (63%) presented with proven or probable IFI. Voriconazole plasma levels varied widely and 73% of patients required dose adjustment. The median voriconazole dose was 20 mg/kg/day and the median duration of therapy was 6 weeks. Age 5 was the smallest value defining two groups on which the correlation between dose and plasma levels had a different behaviour, and this relationship was especially significant for patients <5 years old (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient=0.38213, P=0.008). For patients <5 years old the median dose to achieve therapeutic levels was 38.0 mg/kg/day (12-40.0) and for those ≥5 years old it was 15 mg/kg (4-52). Voriconazole plasma levels showed a significant relationship with early outcome (P=0.0268), but not late outcome (P=0.2015). Overall mortality was 42% and a significant relationship with voriconazole therapeutic plasma levels was not demonstrated. A significant relationship was established between plasma levels above normal range and skin and neurological toxicity (P=0.0001), but this could not be demonstrated for liver toxicity.

CONCLUSIONS
Our study confirms the large variability in voriconazole trough plasma levels in children and a trend to non-linear pharmacokinetics in older patients. In addition, doses significantly higher than those recommended in younger children seem warranted and a significant relationship between plasma voriconazole above the normal range and some adverse events is confirmed.


In Darwin's Pious Idea , Conor Cunningham dissects a range of popular anti-theological, anti-Christian readings of Darwinian evolution. With knowledge and philosophical sensitivity, he points out their many errors and argues that Darwin's idea is both valid science and compatible with good theology. Ultra-Darwinism and modern Christian fundamentalism are both ravaged by his assault. Underlying his analysis is an acute awareness of the failure of modernity to produce a viable first philosophy, which leads to science—a truth discourse after all—falling into this metaphysical gap. Thus, secular 'naturalistic' science has become our first philosophy by default. Cunningham argues that this philosophically impossible situation can only be remedied by a return to theology as our first philosophy, and that such a return would make our science better. This paper finds Cunningham's arguments against pseudoscience to be both persuasive and timely. Yet, when it comes to Cunningham's valiant attempt to synoptically align the horizons of Darwinian evolution with orthodox theology, deep difficulties arise. Perhaps it remains the case that there is a profound imaginative dissonance between cosmology and teleology within a modern, naturalistic set of scientific assumptions, and cosmology and teleology are situated within a non-modern biblical perspective. And perhaps this dissonance is an essential one. Further, if modernity as a socio-cultural life-form is now characterised by the deep rejection of any first philosophy—and hence theology—in favour of resting on science itself for its imaginative orientation in the world, then forging an alliance between modern science and Christian theology may not be such a good idea for theology, however carefully it is done. So it seems that even after reading Cunningham's book, the question, 'can modern science be theologically salvaged?' remains live for the Christian theologian.


The paper contains the results of a study of a church related, treatment oriented, residential center for socially maladjusted male adolescents located at Dodge City, Kansas. The study involved an evaluation of educational, psychological, psychiatric, and sociological factors pertaining to 126 boys who had been served by the agency during the period 1960 through 1970. The study was conceived, designed, and implemented to relate to treatment theories and modalities appropriate to the residential treatment of adolescents with social maladjustment problems. It included the results of original research regarding the Dodge City program blended with concepts and ideas derived from the reading and analysis of published literature in the field.


Planning in financial markets is a difficult task as the method needs to dramatically change its behavior when facing very rare black swan events like crises that shift market regime. In order to address this challenge, we present a gradient boosting decision trees (GBDT) approach to predict large price drops in equity indexes from a set of 150 technical, fundamental and macroeconomic features. We report an improved accu-racy of GBDT over other machine learning (ML) methods on the S&P 500 futures prices. We show that retaining fewer and carefully selected features provides improvements across all ML approaches. We show that this model has a strong predic-tive power. We train the model from 2000 to 2014, a period where various crises have been observed and use a validation period of 3 years to find hyperparameters. The fitted model timely forecasts the Covid crisis giving us a planning method for early detection of potential future crises.


Numerous evidences from prevention studies in humans, support the existence of an association between green tea polyphenols consumption and a reduced cancer risk. Prostate cancer is one of the most frequently diagnosed male neoplasia in the Western countries, which is in agreement with this gland being particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress processes, often associated with tumorigenesis. Tea polyphenols have been extensively studied in cell culture and animal models where they inhibited tumor onset and progression. Prostate cancer appears a suitable target for primary prevention care, since it grows slowly, before symptoms arise, thus offering a relatively long time period for therapeutic interventions. It is, in fact, usually diagnosed in men 50-year-old or older, when even a modest delay in progression of the disease could significantly improve the patients quality of life. Although epidemiological studies have not yet yielded conclusive results on the chemopreventive and anticancer effect of tea polyphenols, there is an increasing trend to employ these substances as conservative management for patients diagnosed with less advanced prostate cancer. Here, we intend to review the most recent observations relating tea polyphenols to human prostate cancer risk, in an attempt to outline better their potential employment for preventing prostate cancer.


Public Relations see that competition as positive thing can be used to make PT. Nyonya Meneer better. The current competition is not something to be feared / avoid, instead of PT. Nyonya Meneer have to look at the positive and the competition was a sure thing that happened. Competition also can not be denied as the influence of the rapid advancement of science and technology development makes information flow and human needs have also increased.
 In an effort to face competition with other herbal industry Public Relations PT. Nyonya Meneer activities in cooperation with relevant institutions or agencies in the conduct of these activities.
 The purpose of this study aims to describe what acivities are undertaken PR (Public Relations) PT. Nyonya Meneer in the face of competition with other herbal medicine industry. In this study, the type that is used is descriptive research using a qualitaive in depth interviewes were Ms. Emi as Public Relations, Mrs. Dini as Public Relations Staff.
 From the survey results revealed that PT. Nyonya Meneer has a lot of Public Relations activities in order to face competition with other herbal medicine industry. Activities – these activities include visits of Students Receiving, School children, Nor Foreign Guests of Social Organizations and Researhers; Media Relations established with the various mass media such as the Kompas newspaper, Bernas Jogja, Indonesia and the Media; Event or Exhibition Products such as by Healthy Gymnastics held activities Nyonya Meneer, Nyonya Meneer Agent Gathering Event, participation in Hotel Ciputra enlive anniversary by opening a booth/stand.


INTRODUCTION:
 Intraoperative re-rupture of cerebral aneurysms is a frequent complication of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) treatment. Studies have demonstrated worsened outcomes after re-rupture, particularly in those treated with surgical clipping, for reasons that are unknown. We designed a study to test the hypothesis that worsened outcomes in these patients may be due to increased vasospasm. Detecting a higher incidence of vasospasm in this population would justify aggressive early treatment to prevent subsequent ischemic injury in those with intraoperative re-rupture after SAH.

 METHODS:
 All patients with aneurysmal SAH treated with open surgical clipping between 2006-2008 were examined at a single institution. Angiographic vasospasm was defined as narrowing of vessels seen on catheter angiography. Symptomatic vasospasm was defined as clinical deterioration after other causes had been excluded or radiographic evidence of infarction attributable to vasospasm.

 RESULTS:
 We identified 241 consecutive patients that included 41 with intraoperative re-rupture (17%). Average age was 54 ± 13 years and 69% of the patients were female. Hunt Hess scores between the group with intraoperative re-rupture and without were similar (2.1 ±1.3 vs. 2.4 ± 1.3, p = 0.09). Modified Fischer scores were also similar between the two groups (2.8 ±1.2 vs. 2.8 ± 1.2, p = 0.66). Time from rupture to definitive treatment was not significantly different (3.5 days ± 3.2 vs. 3.5 days ± 3.2, p=0.9). Patients in both groups had similar histories of smoking (58% vs. 50%, p=0.47) and HTN (49% vs. 53%, p=0.72). Angiographic vasospasm was seen in 61% of the group without re-rupture and 63% in the group with re-rupture (p=0.83). Symptomatic vasospasm was seen in 38% of patients without re-rupture and 49% of patients with re-rupture (p=0.26). In-hospital mortality was higher in the group with intraoperative re-rupture (20% vs. 9%, p<0.05).

 DISCUSSION:
 Our results corroborated previous findings of worsened outcomes after intraoperative re-rupture in SAH patients treated with surgical clipping, but did not show a significant difference in rates of vasospasm. These findings indicate that the worsened outcome of these patients is likely secondary to other, as yet known, causes.


Determining the drivers of diversity is a major topic in biology. Due to its high level of micro-endemism in many taxa, Madagascar has been described as one of Earth's biodiversity hotspot. The exceptional Malagasy biodiversity has been shown to be the result of various eco-evolutionary mechanisms that have taken place on this large island since its isolation from other landmasses. Extensive phylogenetic analyses have, for example, revealed that most of the dung beetle radiation events have arisen due to allopatric speciation, and adaptation to altitudinal and/or longitudinal gradients. But other biotic factors, that have yet to be identified, might also be at play. Wolbachia is a maternally transmitted endosymbiotic bacterium widespread in insects. The bacterium is well-known for its ability to modify its host reproductive system in ways that may lead to either discordance patterns between the host mitochondrial and nuclear phylogenies, and in some cases to speciation. Here, we used the MultiLocus Sequence Typing system, to identify and characterize five Wolbachia strains infecting several species within the Nanos clypeatus dung beetle clade. We discuss the implications of these Wolbachia strains for the evolution and diversification of their dung beetle hosts in Madagascar. (Less)


Even with several thousand Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) blazar detections, the γ-ray emission mechanism is poorly understood. We explore correlated optical/γ-ray flux variations for 178 Fermi-LAT blazars regularly monitored by the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, the Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System, and the Steward Observatory. Out of the 178 sources, 121 show a measurable (>1σ) discrete correlation function peak. Using the derived time lags and Bayesian block light-curve decompositions, we measure the fraction of common and orphan flares between the two bands. After accounting for sampling and sensitivity limitations we quantify for the first time the true orphan flare rates of optical and γ-ray flares: 54.5% of optical and 20% of γ-ray flares are orphan events. Both the intraband temporal relation and the small orphan γ-ray flare fraction point toward leptonic processes as the likely mechanisms for the high-energy emission. Motivated to discriminate between synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) and external-Compton dominance in individual sources, we use the flux–flux variations to determine the slope m of the log fopt–log fγ dependence. The slope distribution suggests a bimodal population with high and intermediate synchrotron peak objects showing larger m than low synchrotron peak objects. We find that m is naturally decreased through pollution from the orphan (typically optical) flares and develop a method to statistically recover, given the sources' measured orphan flare rate, the intrinsic m. While source classes show composite behavior, the majority of BL Lac objects favor m = 2, indicating an SSC origin for the γ-rays. No preference for either m is found in flat spectrum radio quasars.


Summary/Abstract Street-seized crack cocaine samples are cut with diverse impurities which may be very harmful to health. Harm reduction experts say that interventions are urgently needed to reduce the harmful behaviours associated with drug abuse. In this multidisciplinary approach, a successful intervention, Promoting Inhaled Pleasure Easily and Safely (PIPES), has been designed and tested in pilot studies. PIPES informs crack smokers about the crack sample content, efficiency of crack delivery, and the harms associated with different home-made smoking tools and cutting agents. Crack samples were profiled by spectroscopic and chromatographic methods. In an attempt to track crack sources, PCA of the 1H NMR spectroscopic data clustered samples of similar contents together. A laboratory crack smoking model was optimised to measure the emitted and recovered doses of cocaine and cutting agents from common crack smoking devices. Seized samples contained 24% cocaine base and 32% phenacetin. A medical inhaler delivered the highest dose of cocaine and phenacetin into the apparatus, then a glass pipe (shooter), and then tin cans. The analytical results and the harms associated with each smoking device and toxic phenacetin were used to design PIPES, an educational intervention that was delivered by harm reduction workers to crack smokers. Users showed: a lack of knowledge of cutting agents and the harms associated with different pipes and cutting agents, their reasons for sharing pipes, and their attitudes to share knowledge and receive more information about cutting agents and pipes. The results of this applied research should be more widely known and used.


Background As in other countries, many of the New Zealand (NZ) national fatal injury indicators are derived from the underlying cause of death (UCoD) as captured in the national Mortality Collection (MC). Recent work in NZ, similar to work in Sweden and Australia, has exposed apparent contradictions between hospital data and the MC: for many of the injury cases that died in hospital, the UCoD recorded on the MC was a medical cause. Aim To investigate the current and alternative methods of identifying injury deaths. Methods NZ hospital discharges, with a principal diagnosis (PDx) of injury, were linked to the MC. Gross mismatches between PDx and the UCoD were described for people injured in the period 2000–2004, by selected variables (eg, age, sex, external cause, intent, PDx). Taking cognisance of (1) WHO coding rules for mortality, (2) definitions of injury death used by injury epidemiologists and (3) identified mismatches, alternative definitions of injury death were proposed. Results Of the 1713 people discharged from hospital with an injury PDx who died within 7 days of their injury, 39% did not have an injury UCoD. Of the 5900 who died within 3 months of their injury, the corresponding figure was 66%. There was variation in the percentage with non-injury UCoD by age, sex, external cause, intent and PDx. Conclusion Alternative theoretical and operational definitions of injury death are clearly needed. Definitions that capture relevant cases for epidemiologists, prevention practitioners and policy makers have been proposed.


The food plants of nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) were studied by direct field observations between July 2010 and June 2011 in Van Vihar National Park, Bhopal with an aim to explore the composition of diet, preferable browse plant species and seasonal variation in diet consumption. The results have shown that food plants of nilgai consists of diverse species of plants (123 plants species). On an average, grass formed major proportion (41.66%), followed by fallen leaves, flowers and fruits (36.00%), browse (16.66%) and herbs, shrubs etc (5.66%). Among the preferred browse species zizyphus mauritiana had the highest preference rating (5.5). The diet of the nilgai varied from season to season. Extension of the area of the National Park, creation of more grass plots and plantation of more trees would make more grass and browse species available to nilgai ultimately leading to an increase in its population.


Late-time dominance of entanglement islands plays a critical role in addressing the information paradox for black holes in AdS coupled to an asymptotic non-gravitational bath. A natural question is how this observation can be extended to gravitational systems. To gain insight into this question, we explore how this story is modified within the context of Karch-Randall braneworlds when we allow the asymptotic bath to couple to dynamical gravity. We find that because of the inability to separate degrees of freedom by spatial location when defining the radiation region, the entanglement entropy of radiation emitted into the bath is a time-independent constant, consistent with recent work on black hole information in asymptotically flat space. If we instead consider an entanglement entropy between two sectors of a specific division of the Hilbert space, we then find non-trivial time-dependence, with the Page time a monotonically decreasing function of the brane angle -- provided both branes are below a particular angle. However, the properties of the entropy depend discontinuously on this angle, which is the first example of such discontinuous behavior for an AdS brane in AdS space.


Jerusalem is a city, a place, a mental construction, a biblical-mythical memory. Once Jerusalem has been all this at the same time, then Jerusalem can be all this time and again by active remembrance within the context and problematic nature of the present. Through the centuries Jerusalem has been visited, sought after, used, reused, appropriated, and it has acted as a point of reference on many levels. The city has become part of different cultural figurations in different periods and places. However politically explosive, a reference to this city is ultimately pointing back to the Jerusalem of the Bible. The city, or even only its name, can be an experience of divine presence, as much as it can be a source of conflict deriving from the same claim that it is the Holy City – a claim that is forever contested and reasserted. From Early Christian times on, a great variety of legitimizations have been constructed by emphasizing myriad aspects of this source, by way of more or less orchestrated memory processes. The contributions in this book refer, explicitly or implicitly, to dimensions of cultural memory, the way in which the past is remembered, appropriated and represented. Memory takes a vital part in the dynamics of culture. It recaptures, recycles, reshuffles and re-mediates cultural practices. It uses language, texts, images and buildings in order to develop, preserve and continue cultural identities. Cultural memory is thus a mediated memory. Its media are not so much vessels of memory in which memory passively resides but objects or manifestations through which memories are produced, shared, and given meaning.1 They select and organize representations of the past in such a way that they can be meaningful in the (historical) present, though such redirections may lead to conflicts among groups with different or antagonistic experiences.2 Cultural memories are thus negotiated, present-oriented and relative, and they depend upon processes of exchange and transfer. In this book, readers can find various examples of these processes throughout a range of historical periods and artistic media. This collection of studies on Jerusalem in art and architecture is the result of a joint project by researchers of the Department of Art History at Radboud University Nijmegen. In May 2011 and September 2012 two symposia served as mid-term reviews at which the preliminary results were presented. Specialists in various fields such as the history of painting, sculpture, architecture, book illumination, and applied arts, from Early Christian times to the present, ar-


Quantum-state-resolved differential cross sections of the O(D-1)+HD -> OH+D reaction at the collision energy of 7.11 kJ/mol has been determined experimentally and theoretically. The results of the time-dependent wave-packet calculations are overall in good agreement with the crossed beam scattering data, providing a benchmark example of an asymmetric insertion reaction at the state-to-state scattering level. The good agreement between experiment and theory suggests that the underlying ground potential energy surface is generally correct and that the nonadiabatic effect involving the electronic excited pathway is apparently small in this system.


The characteristic of overall structure for CMOS image sensor has been studied in this research. A three-dimensional solid model of CMOS image sensor based on finite element ANSYS software is developed to predict the thermo-induced strain and the stress induced by moisture absorption. The predicted thermal-induced displacements were found to be very good agreement with the Moiré interferometer experimental in-plane deformation. The developed finite element 3D model, therefore, is applied to simulate the mechanism of thermal and hygroscopic stresses based on JEDEC pre-condition standard JESD22-A120. A series of comprehensive parametric studies were conducted in this research. The design rules for thermal optimization of CMOS image senor are summarized.


Platelet hyperactivity leads to thrombotic disease, underlying cardiovascular (CV) pathologies including stroke and myocardial infarction. Clinical data suggest that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have hemostatic effects, signifying a potentially novel mechanism to treat CV disease. SSRIs target the serotonin transporter (SERT), which maintains dense-granule serotonin (5HT) in platelets. Serotonin is also a platelet agonist, acting through 5HT2A receptors, yet the full role of 5HT in platelet physiology is not well understood. We hypothesized that SERT KO mice, mimicking chronic SSRI treatment, would exhibit a bleeding phenotype due to reduced platelet function. Consistent with previous reports, we demonstrated that SERT KO mice have decreased whole blood 5HT. There were comparable concentrations of the 5HT metabolite 5HIAA, suggesting that overall synthesis and metabolism of 5HT is unchanged. We next demonstrate that there is a bleeding phenotype in the SERT KO mice through a significantly increased tail-bleed time and increased thrombin time (TT) in whole blood. Additionally, SERT KO mice have reduced platelet retraction, a platelet function attributed to decreased RhoA activation. To determine if sub-chronic SSRI treatment alters platelet function, we treated both wild type and a hyperactive platelet (KI) mice with citalopram in drinking water for 6 days, one day exceeding the turnover rate of platelet production (15mg/kg/day). Activation of RhoA was examined to determine if reduced serotonylation leads to reduced platelet function. Collectively, these data suggest that genetic or pharmacological inhibition of SERT activity could lead to reduced platelet function. These findings may be due to a decrease in intracellular 5HT, as 5HT is still present for 5HT2A activation as determined by the presence of the metabolite. Future experiments will examine the mechanism of SSRI-mediated platelet activity attenuation, which may include reduced serotonylation of important signaling molecules.


Billing and rating of GPRS technology is analyzed. Billing dependence on the quality of services, billing algorithms and billing accuracy is reviewed. The part of accounted data that is beneficial to the end-user is experimentally evaluated. Comparison of data measured by customer and network equipment is experimentally done. When using consumer software, a measuring error (the difference between the data obtained by the consumer and the detailed bill presented by the service supplier) is ±5%. Calculating the amount of transferred data consumer software cannot be used, because many additional features of consumer equipment cause accounting errors. Metrological verification of determination of the amount of transferred data for mobile data networks are described. Various differentiated charges appear therefore account adequacy should be guaranteed for the customer. Service providers should take care of inspection of transferred data measuring since mobile data services are getting more and more popular. Ill. 3, bibl. 6 (in Lithuanian; summaries in Lithuanian, English, Russian).


Three simple, precise and economical UV methods have been developed for the estimation of pantoprazole in bulk and pharmaceutical formulations. Pantoprazole has the absorbance maxima at 290 nm (Method A) and in the first order derivative spectra, showed zero crossing at 290 nm, with a sharp peak at 282 nm when n=1 (Method B), Method C applied was Area Under Curve (AUC) for analysis of pantoprazole in the wavelength range of 286-296 nm. Drug followed the Beer's Lamberts range of 5-35, 10-100, 5-40 ;g/mL for the Method A, B and C, respectively. Results of analysis were validated statistically and by recovery studies and were found to be satisfactory.


This thesis addresses relationships between art, aesthetics and men?s associationfootball, and seeks to frame the latter as a source and locus of aesthetic variation and dissensus, in opposition to its typical presentation as a source of fleeting and purely physical pleasures. Its focus is the contemporary scene of global elite football, whose roots I argue can most effectively be traced back to the creation of the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions League in 1992.Through four chapters encompassing multiple case studies, I examine some of theaesthetic conceptions that are embedded within contemporary discourses around football, before analysing artworks and aesthetic practices that reproduce the game in various forms. Throughout the study, I am interested in bringing into focus the border- line between the cultural fields of art and football. I frame all of the objects, practices and artefacts that I analyse as sites of inter-section between these two rival sets of discursive formations, as well as offering theoretical and methodological reflections on the cultural dynamics that lead to these formations being considered as distinct fields in the first place. My principal research questions can be expressed as follows: what intellectual processes come into play when objects in the field of contemporary football approach the field of contemporary art and vice-versa, and what forces are active in each field that prevent this rapprochement from achieving total fulfilment?In order to approach these questions, my thesis is effectively divided into two halves.In the first half I use concepts derived from the study of art and visual cultures to bring to light some of the aesthetic debates that occur within football?s interpretative community. In chapter one I consider the manner in which aesthetics and sporting ethics become intertwined around the controversial issue of ?diving?, while in chapter two I demonstrate the ways in which the animated highlight GIF holds in suspension notions of novelty, boredom and individual genius. In the second half of the thesis I analyse a number of artistic projects which address football ? Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno?s film Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait, Maider L�pez?s participatory performance Polder Cup and Craig Coulthard?s landscape intervention Forest Pitch, among others ? by reading their aesthetic propositions against some of those that are rooted in the game itself. Addressing the functions that these works apply to the popular expressive content that already adheres to football can, I argue, be instructive in considering the cultural politics of contemporary art more generally. Finally, I conclude that contemporary football is a prominent site of complex aesthetic negotiations that warrants greater attention from the inter-discipline of visual studies.


The in vitro activity of piperacillin, cefoperazone, cefsulodin, ceftazidime, aztreonam and imipenem was studied against 44 isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa with 'intrinsic' resistance to ticarcillin in comparison with 20 ticarcillin-susceptible strains, by MIC determination and the disk diffusion test. The activity of the antibiotics, imipenem excepted, against the resistant strains was reduced when compared to the susceptible strains. The most significant reduction was found for aztreonam and the least significant for ceftazidime. When considering the breakpoints, all strains were intermediate with aztreonam and cefoperazone, but most of them remained susceptible to ceftazidime, piperacillin and cefsulodin.


Background: Major orthopedic surgeries carry a high risk of venous thromboembolism. Enoxaparin has been in use for this indication for a long time. Fondaparinux, a relatively new anticoagulant, has also shown favorable results. Till date, there are limited studies comparing the safety of fondaparinux with enoxaparin in Indian patients undergoing major orthopedic surgery. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the safety of fondaparinux with enoxaparin in the real-life setting. Materials and Methods: Patients who underwent hemiarthroplasty between January 2016 and December 2017, and who were administered fondaparinux or enoxaparin were retrospectively analyzed using patient case files, discharge database, and blood bank database. The safety was assessed based on the requirement of blood transfusion, need for reexploration, wound complications, any occurrence of bleeding, and death from all causes. Pearson's chi-square test was used using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software (IBM, India), version 16. Results: The safety profile of fondaparinux was comparable with enoxaparin with regard to occurrence of bleeding, transfusion requirements, wound complications, and need for reexploration. A higher proportion of patients on fondaparinux had to be given blood transfusion, though this difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.120). Conclusion: In patients who underwent hemiarthroplasty, safety of fondaparinux was comparable to enoxaparin in actual clinical experience.


In this paper we illustrate the application of the electromechanical impedance (EMI) technique, popular in structural health monitoring, to assess the stability of dental implants. The technique consists of bonding a piezoelectric transducer to the element to be monitored. When subjected to an electric field, the transducer induces low to high frequency structural excitations which, in turn, affect the transducer's electrical admittance. As the structural vibrations depend on the mechanical impedance of the host structure (in this case the implant secured to the jaw), the measurement of the PZT's admittance can infer the progress of the osseointegration process. In the study presented in this article we created a 3D finite element model to mimic a transducer bonded to the abutment of a dental implant placed in a host bone site. We simulated the healing that occurs after surgery by changing the Young's modulus of the bone-implant interface. The results show that as the Young's modulus of the interface increases, i.e. as the mechanical interlock of the implant within the bone is achieved, the electromechanical characteristic of the transducer changes. The model and the findings of this numerical study may be used in the future to predict and interpret experimental data, and to develop a robust and cost-effective method for the assessment of primary and secondary dental implant stability.


Somatostatin analogs (SSAs), which were initially used to control hormonal syndromes associated with neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs), have been successfully proposed as antiproliferative agents, able to control tumor growth in patients affected by gastroenteropancreatic (GEP)-NENs. The development of long-acting formulations of SSAs which require only weekly or monthly injections can improve patient compliance. In particular, lanreotide (LAN) Autogel®, which is a viscous aqueous formulation supplied in ready-to-use prefilled syringes, can be administered every 28–56 days. Since its introduction in the clinical practice, several studies evaluated the clinical utility of LAN Autogel in the medical treatment of GEP-NENs. Although there is no evidence of an overall survival benefit, these studies confirm the efficacy of LAN Autogel in terms of benefit in progression-free survival, and in more than half of cases, a reduction of tumor markers can be observed during treatment with this drug. Moreover, LAN Autogel is widely recognized to be effective in controlling tumor-related symptoms in the majority of patients affected by GEP tumors, especially in patients affected by carcinoid syndrome, improving considerably patients' quality of life.


Social media addiction has undergone a remarkable transformation among regular users, but limited research has been conducted on exploring the antecedents of addiction. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between continuance intention and addiction. Moreover, it investigates the moderating role of satisfaction and trust on the relationship between continuance intention and addiction. The developed conceptual model suggests that continuance intention is the antecedent of addiction, while satisfaction and trust act as moderators between continuance intention and addiction. The antecedents of continuance intention are emotional, informational, social, and hedonic values. A survey was conducted to collect data from 572 voluntary participants, and the analysis was performed using SPSS and AMOS. The statistical result showed the effects of emotional, informational, and hedonic values on Facebook use continuance intention, but the effect of social value was not supported. Results also confirmed a significant effect of continuance intention on Facebook addiction. Additionally, it confirmed the moderating role of satisfaction on the impact of continuance intention on Facebook addiction, but the moderating role of trust was not supported. The results of this study provide insight for Facebook users, managers, and policymakers regarding treatment and intervention for Facebook addiction. It discusses several theoretical and practical implications. In this research, we proposed a new model based on extending the associations between perceived value and continuance behaviours theory.


Abstract An early study by Cadwell, Merrill, Sloman, and Yost reports fatigue lives under several combinations of static axial load and cyclic simple shear. The results have practical importance because similar loading situations commonly arise in many rubber components. This paper presents an analysis of these experiments. The objective of the analysis is to compare two approaches for rationalizing the reported fatigue lives. The first approach is based on a scalar parameterization of the loading history (strain energy density). The second approach is based on a parameterization of the loading history that is specific to particular material planes (cracking energy density). The analyses illustrate that a plane-specific approach provides a more successful framework for addressing several commonly encountered features of complex loading histories: multiaxiality of loading, non-relaxing loading cycles (R ratio effects), and crack closure during part of a loading cycle.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of tympanostomy tube placement in controlling symptoms of intractable Meniere's disease. METHODS Fifteen patients with intractable Meniere's disease underwent tympanostomy tube placement in the affected ear. Post-operative changes in vertigo attacks and hearing level were recorded, and were evaluated according to American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery criteria. RESULTS At 12 months after treatment, 3 patients (20 per cent) showed complete control of vertigo, 7 (47 per cent) showed substantial control and 2 (13 per cent) showed limited control; 3 patients (20 per cent) required other treatment. At 24 months after treatment, 7 patients (47 per cent) showed complete control of vertigo, 3 (20 per cent) showed substantial control and 1 (7 per cent) showed limited control; 1 patient required other treatment 15 months after tympanostomy tube placement. CONCLUSION There is no definite pathophysiological explanation for the effect of tympanostomy tube placement in reducing vertigo attacks. This treatment is not effective for all patients with intractable Meniere's disease. However, tympanostomy tube placement might be an additional surgical therapeutic option to consider prior to contemplating other, more invasive treatments.


Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer‐related death for men in the United States. Despite the approval of several new agents for advanced disease, each of these has prolonged survival by only a few months. Consequently, new therapies are sorely needed. For other cancer types, immunotherapy has demonstrated dramatic and durable treatment responses, causing many to hope that immunotherapies might provide an ideal treatment approach for patients with advanced prostate cancer. However, apart from sipuleucel‐T, prostate cancer has been conspicuously absent from the list of malignancies for which immunotherapies have received recent approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. This has left some wondering whether immunotherapy will "work" for this disease. In this review, the authors describe current developments in immunotherapy, including approaches to engage tumor‐targeting T cells, disrupt immune regulation, and alter the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. The authors then describe the recent application of these approaches to the treatment of prostate cancer. Given the Food and Drug Administration approval of 1 agent, and the finding that several others are in advanced stages of clinical testing, the authors believe that immunotherapies offer real hope to improve patient outcomes for men with prostate cancer, especially as investigators begin to explore rational combinations of immunotherapies and combine these therapies with other conventional therapies. Cancer 2016;122:3598‐607. © 2016 American Cancer Society.


Compared with the traditional upstream dam slope construction method, the extrusion side wall technology has many advantages. such as less process steps, little interference, quick construction speed etc ,So it arouse more and more attention in the engineer design and construction fields . The technology of extrusion concrete side wall applied to the construction of concrete face rockfill dam in the Bailian river storage power station, machinery and equipment were used on the cushion material to form a concrete wall extrusion , which avoid the traditional process of Ultra-filled cushion material, rolling slopes, cut slopes and other complicated process, not only ensure the quality, but also improve the stress state of the panel.


This study explores how the interior layout of the workspace can affect employees' number of steps and face-to-face interactions. Eighteen participants were recruited for the study and the data was collected over ten business days. The participants completed self-report forms to report the number of steps and interactions they had daily. A positive relationship was found between distance and the number of steps and interactions. A negative correlation was found between depth, a construct of the space syntax theory, and the number of steps and interactions. The findings further examined whether the results support a social ecological model with the relationships between distance, depth, the number of steps and interaction, and moderate variables (personal, environmental, and organizational factors). Findings indicated that the number of steps, as a function of human behavior, was affected by distance and depth (as environmental factors), age and years of working (as personal factors), and work hours (as an organizational factor).


We investigate wave properties of low-frequency magnetic field fluctuations in Venus' solar wind interaction region based on the measurements made on board the Venus Express spacecraft. The orbit geometry is very suitable to investigate the fluctuations in Venus' low-altitude magnetosheath and mid-magnetotail and provides an opportunity for a comparative study of low-frequency waves at Venus and Mars. The spatial distributions of the wave properties, in particular in the dayside and nightside magnetosheath as well as in the tail and mantle region, are similar to observations at Mars. As both planets do not have a global magnetic field, the interaction process of the solar wind with both planets is similar and leads to similar instabilities and wave structures. We focus on the spatial distribution of the wave intensity of the fluctuating magnetic field and detect an enhancement of the intensity in the dayside magnetosheath and a strong decrease towards the terminator. For a detailed investigation of the intensity distribution we adopt an analytical streamline model to describe the plasma flow around Venus. This allows displaying the evolution of the intensity along different streamlines. It is assumed that the waves are generated in the vicinity of the bow shock and are convected downstream with the turbulent magnetosheath flow. However, neither the different Mach numbers upstream and downstream of the bow shock, nor the variation of the cross sectional area and the flow velocity along the streamlines play probably an important role in order to explain the observed concentration of wave intensity in the dayside magnetosheath and the decay towards the nightside magnetosheath. But, the concept of freely evolving or decaying turbulence is in good qualitative agreement with the observations, as we observe a power law decay of the intensity along the streamlines. The observations support the assumption of wave convection through the magnetosheath, but reveal at the same time that wave sources may not only exist at the bow shock, but also in the magnetosheath.


OBJECTIVE
To report long-term clinical outcome in dogs treated for single congenital extrahepatic portosystemic shunt (CEHPSS) with a ameroid ring constrictor (ARC) and to identify perioperative variables associated with outcome.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective, multi-institutional study.

ANIMALS
Dogs (n = 206) with CEHPSS.

METHODS
Medical records of dogs with CEHPSS treated by ARC were reviewed for perioperative and short-term (<1 month) data. Long-term follow-up information was obtained by telephone interview with referring veterinarians and/or owners. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate median survival time. Factors associated with short-term survival, outcome grade, and total survival time were identified.

RESULTS
Fifteen dogs died <1 month after ARC placement. Follow-up data were obtained for 112 of 191 dogs that survived >1 month; median follow was 54 months (range, 1-175 months) and 103 (92%) dogs had no clinical signs. Estimated median survival time was 152 months. Variables significantly associated with short-term survival included being intact and a low total white blood cell (WBC) count. Variables significantly associated with a successful outcome included having surgery later in the study period and negative postoperative nuclear scintigraphy. In the long-term survival analyses, intact dogs and those with higher WBC counts and occlusion pressures and lower bile acid concentrations were more likely to survive.

CONCLUSIONS
Dogs with CEHPSS treated by ARC generally have a good prognosis and prolonged postoperative survival.


Bamboo's ability to grow on nutrient-poor soils, with little requirement of silvicultural management, easy harvesting characteristics, vegetative propagation, fast growth, and a host of other desirable characteristics, make it a good candidate as an energy crop. Energy crops are cultivated solely for use as sources of energy through their conversion into alcohols. This study set out to determine the potential of moso bamboo to be used in the two-stage organosolv and alkali pretreatment for the production of bioethanol. Moso bamboo contains 63.3% (w/w) holocellulose and can serve as a low-cost feedstock for bioethanol production. After organosolv pretreatment (2% w/w H2SO4 in 75% w/w ethanol, 160 °C for 30 min), the bamboo was further delignified through pretreatment of sodium hydroxide (10% and 20% w/w) or calcium hydroxide (10% w/w), which resulted in about 96.5% (NaOH) and 85.7% (Ca(OH)2) lignin removal. The enzymatic hydrolysis of delignified cellulosic bamboo substrate with cellulase (15 FPU/g glucan) and β-glucosidase (30 IU/g glucan) showed 80.9% to 95.5% saccharification after 48 h incubation at 50 °C and pH 4.8. Fermentation of enzymatic hydrolysates with Saccharomyces cerevisiae resulted in about 89.1% to 92.0% of the corresponding theoretical ethanol yield after 24 h.


SCUBA diving is an activity in which divers remain underwater for prolonged periods by using a self-contained breathing apparatus. Diving is safety critical because changing depth too rapidly or running out of oxygen before surfacing can result in life-threatening consequences. These risks are currently minimized by using a wrist-mounted, 'air-integrated' dive computer that monitors time, depth and air tank pressure (received through expensive wireless transceivers or a hose). These computers are costly for the average recreational dive. We present a hybrid systems model and safety proof for a SCUBA diving computer that estimates air consumption of the diver using commodity heart rate sensors, instead. We employ a mathematical model of oxygen uptake in response to exercise and thereby predict the time remaining for the air supply to be depleted, as well as obviate the need for a tank-mounted wireless transmitter or the cumbersome hose integrated computer for directly monitoring tank pressure. We formally verify a controller that ensures the diver can always surface without running out of breathable air.


The social thermoregulation hypothesis states that endothermic species will communally nest to reduce energy expenditures on thermoregulation. The hypothesis predicts that the frequency of communal nesting should increase with decreasing ambient temperature. The potential costs of communal nesting (e.g., increased predation risk, resource competition, cuckoldry, parasite/disease transmission, or infanticide) could decrease the frequency of communal nesting especially for asocial breeding females with dependent offspring. We examined the effects of ambient temperature and seasonal reproductive activities on the probability of communal nesting in Abert's squirrels (Sciurus aberti) in the Pinaleno Mountains, Arizona. Most squirrels nested consistently with the same partner in mixed-sex pairs. The proportion of individuals engaging in communal nesting increased with decreasing ambient temperature as predicted by the social thermoregulation hypothesis. The onset of the breeding season greatly reduced the proportion of individuals communally nesting. The negative relationship between ambient temperature and communal nesting supports the use of communal nesting in Abert's squirrels as a mechanism to reduce thermoregulatory costs during cold conditions. The abrupt drop in the frequency of communal nesting during the breeding season is likely due to female abandonment of this behavior. By avoiding communally nesting during the breeding season, females may prevent males from mating with them outside of mating chases, reduce resource competition, and protect offspring from infanticide, diseases, and parasites. Males may gain additional fitness benefits from nesting with females because familiarity with females increases dominance rank in mating activities.


This paper reports the techniques applied in developing high performance UWB antennas with miniaturized size, reduced ground plane reliance, and enhanced diversity. The fundamental idea about the design with reduced ground plane reliance is first reviewed. Next, the miniaturized antenna design with less ground plane effect is introduced. Last, the antenna which features the small size, less ground plane dependence, and also capable of providing enhanced diversity performance is presented.


One of the big challenges the science education faces is identifying whether learning has occurred when doing what is called "one-size-fits-all" type of activities. Thus, different strategies and approaches in teaching science have been proposed and used by educators to accommodate the complexity of the learners. The study covered the identification of multiple intelligences of Grade 8 students and its effect on multiple intelligence-based learning stations in teaching Biology. This study also determined to examine the efficiency and usability of Learning Station in teaching Biology and how it enhanced students' performance. The period of research covered the fourth quarter of Grade 8 Science, School Year 2017- 2018. In this view, the study employed the mixed- approach in research which comprised of descriptive and quasi-experimental one group research design. The Dominant Multiple Intelligences (MI) exhibited by Grade 8 students as assess showed that there were four (4) MI and these include Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, Musical and Existential. More so, topics in teaching Biology 8 that were considered or the basis in using developed learning station. Furthermore, the students' performance in every station based on their pre-test and post-test in terms of Mean Score, MPS, and SD showed that there is an increase in terms of the score from the post-test and pre-test. Considerably, the increase is significant. The assessment on comments and suggestions of the developed learning station showed that it is costefficient and economical, the language used is appropriate to users' age, great number of students to execute at a time and easy to store and transport, and have a maximum collaboration on shared products, and activities appropriate on classroom size.


PURPOSE
To determine the pathologic complete response rate, toxicity, and survival of patients with resectable squamous cell or adenocarcinoma of the esophagus treated with a 30-day preoperative chemoradiation regimen and surgical resection.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Fifty patients (16 squamous, 33 adeno, one undifferentiated) who had carcinoma of the esophagus (limited to the primary tumor and regional or celiac nodes) were treated with cisplatin 26 mg/m2/day continuous infusion days 1 through 5 and 26 through 30, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) 300 mg/m2/day continuous infusion days 1 through 30, and radiation 44 Gy, 2 Gy/fx in 22 daily fractions, days 1 through 30, followed by esophagectomy.

RESULTS
Forty-seven patients underwent esophagectomy (94% operability rate), and 45 had total gross removal of disease and negative margins of resection (90% resectability rate). Nineteen patients (40%) had a pathologic complete response (CR). Forty (80%) received 100% of the planned cisplatin dose, 29 (58%) received 100% of the planned 5-FU dose, and 40 (80%) received > or = 80% of the planned 5-FU dose. Forty-five (90%) received the planned 44-Gy radiation dose. Grade 3 or 4 neutropenia occurred in 60% of patients. The incidence of febrile neutropenia was 34%. There was one septic death during chemoradiation and no operative deaths. Weight loss requiring nutritional support occurred in 50% of patients, secondary to anorexia, dysphagia, and/or esophagitis. The survival of all registered patients at a median follow-up of 43 months was 2-year survival 58%, median 31.3 months. Survival analysis by histology showed no difference between the two histologic types (squamous vs adenocarcinoma). However, survival by pathologic response was significantly different: pathologic CR, 19 patients, 2-year survival 78%, median survival 58 months; and pathology positive, 28 patients, 2-year survival 46%, median survival 22.4 months. A Cox proportional hazards model and logistic regression analysis demonstrated a significant survival advantage for pathologic CRs and stage I disease versus higher-stage disease and a correlation between chemotherapy dose received and pathologic staging.

DISCUSSION
This 30-day chemoradiation regimen followed by surgery resulted in a high pathologic complete response rate, 40%, and apparent survival advantage for this group. The median survival rate of 31.3 months and 2-year survival rate of 58% suggest that this regimen may improve survival over surgical treatment alone. Randomized trials with large accrual and statistical power are necessary to confirm our results and to determine optimal treatment.


A Berry curvature investigation has been made on the magnetic modulated structures such as domain walls (DWs) and helimagnetic spin configurations. Results of the present study show that the geometry of the spin configuration and the direction of the magnetic field creating the spin precession are of crucial importance in the magnitude of obtained electromotive force. It has recently been recognized that the Rashba coupling increases significantly the electromotive force when this coupling is high enough to give predominant contribution in the magnetization dynamics. However, in the opposite case when the Rashba interaction has negligible contribution in the magnetization dynamics it was shown that the magnitude of the electromotive force decreases slightly by increasing the Rashba coupling strength. Therefore the effect of the Rashba interaction in the electromotive force of the moving DWs rests largely on the strength and also effectiveness of this interaction in the magnetization dynamics.


C. elegans animals mutant for the unc-119 gene exhibit movement, sensory and behavioral abnormalities. Consistent with a nervous system role, unc-119 reporter genes are expressed throughout the C. elegans nervous system. The UNC-119 protein has strong sequence similarity to the predicted protein from a human gene, HRG4/HsUNC-119, whose transcript is abundant in the retina. Using these similarities, we have identified a Drosphila homolog, DmUNC-119, which is expressed in the Drosophila nervous system. The predicted C. elegans, human and Drosophila gene products are conserved across two domains. Expression of portions of HRG4/HsUNC-119 or DmUNC-119, directed by the unc-119 promoter, can fully rescue the C. elegans unc-119 mutant phenotype. We tested the ability of portions of HRG4/HsUNC-119 to rescue, and found that its function in C. elegans requires the conserved carboxyl terminus, while the dissimilar amino terminus is dispensable. UNC-119, HRG4 and DmUNC-119 constitute members of a new class of neural genes whose common function has been maintained through metazoan evolution.


The ability of bankruptcy courts to recharacterize a putative debt claim as an equity interest in order to ensure that form does not prevail over substance is beyond cavil. There is considerable uncertainty, however, over whether this power derives from the inherent equitable authority of the bankruptcy courts to subordinate a purported claim to ensure attainment of system-wide objectives or from the courts' statutory authority to allow and disallow claims. The answer to that question has significant ramifications far beyond the question of debt recharacterization, implicating both the division of authority between state and federal law in bankruptcy cases and the policies and purposes of the bankruptcy regime. This Article takes the position that "subordination," not "disallowance," is the most accurate metaphorical concept for understanding recharacterization, and that by locating the source of the courts' authority under the statutory power to equitably subordinate claims, the issue will properly be resolved under a federal framework and with specific attention to the unique aims of the bankruptcy system.


Summary form only given. The dielectric particles in electromagnetic field are affected by force of light pressure, which are usually divided into gradient forces and scattering forces. Micromanipulation of particles and their spatial separation are possible, using of these forces (spatial separation require the localization of particle and then its transportation to another spatial region). It is more optimally to use the Bessel beams for the spatial separation of particles. The Bessel beams are characterized by smaller divergence then the Gaussian ones with equal power and width. Their application may increase the distance of transportation more than an order. In this paper the amplitude of gradient force acting on a transparent spherical particle in the field of the zeroth order Bessel beam is calculated. The obtained expression for gradient force amplitude, takes into account heterogeneity of acting radiation in the volume of particle. Optimal conditions (parameters of particle, liquid, and Bessel beam) for localization and transportation of a particle are determined using the solution of kinetic-equation. It was shown, that for some definite relationships between the particle size and the width of Bessel beam the localization region is shifted from the central maximum of the beam. It is cause by the equilibrium the gradient forces from the central maximum and from first interference ring of the Bessel beam. The qualitative comparison of the obtained results with known experimental data is performed.


Recent statistics compiled by the New Jersey Hospital Association show that the average hospital operating margin in New Jersey is about 0.8 percent, the lowest point in a decade. The average total margin, which measures overall profitability of a hospital including restricted funds, fell to 2.5 percent in 1997, the lowest point since 1992. Nearly 40 percent of the state's hospitals are losing money, and the average day's cash on hand--which measures a hospital's reserves--is 40 days, lower than both the Northeast and national averages. These financial realities could signal a difficult crossroads ahead.


The Gigatracker (GTK) is a hybrid silicon pixel detector developed for NA62, the experiment aimed at studying ultra-rare kaon decays at the CERN SPS. Three GTK stations will provide precise momentum and angular measurements on every track of the high intensity NA62 hadron beam with a time-tagging resolution of 150 ps. Multiple scattering and hadronic interactions of beam particles in the GTK have to be minimized to keep background events at acceptable levels, hence the total material budget is fixed to 0.5% X0 per station. In addition the calculated fluence for 100 days of running is 2 × 1014 1 MeV neq/cm, comparable to the one expected for the inner trackers of LHC detectors in 10 years of operation. These requirements pose challenges for the development of an efficient and low-mass cooling system, to be operated in vacuum, and on the thinning of read-out chips to 100 μm or less. The most challenging requirement is represented by the time resolution, which can be achieved by carefully compensating for the discriminator time-walk. For this purpose, two complementary read-out architectures have been designed and produced as small-scale prototypes: the first is based on the use of a Time-over-Threshold circuit followed by a TDC shared by a group of pixels, while the other uses a constant-fraction discriminator followed by an on-pixel TDC. The readout pixel ASICs are produced in 130 nm IBM CMOS technology and bump-bonded to 200 μm thick silicon sensors. The Gigatracker detector system is described with particular emphasis on recent experimental results obtained from laboratory and beam tests of prototype bump-bonded assemblies, which show a time resolution of less than 200 ps for single hits. c © 2011 CERN, for the benefit of the NA62 Collaboration. Published by Elsevier BV. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee for TIPP 2011.


Author(s): Sultana, Camille M. | Advisor(s): Prather, Kimberly A. | Abstract: Aerosols can influence the chemistry of the atmosphere as well as also impact global climate by directly scattering light and modifying cloud properties. Sea spray aerosols (SSA) are the second most abundant natural aerosol globally and have the potential to strongly influence atmospheric chemistry and scattering of solar radiation in marine regions. In this dissertation, an ATOFMS was utilized to characterize the chemistry of SSA, focusing on describing the mixing state of the population and also distributions of chemical components within particles. Existing paradigms describing SSA via single particle mass spectrometers (SPMS) were expanded upon and SPMS descriptions of SSA with results from offline spectromicroscopy and quantitative ensemble techniques were unifed. This research was facilitated by the development of a new SPMS data analysis toolkit, which enabled both script-based and visual data exploration all within a single programming environment. Utilizing this toolkit, ATOFMS depth profiling studies of supermicron SSA illustrated that much of the variation in SSA mass spectral signatures is likely due to inconsistent desorption of particles with core-shell morphologies, helping to unify online and offline descriptions of the SSA mixing state. In a study of SSA generated from a model seawater solution, the interpretation of single particle ion signatures were informed by complimentary offline microscopy images and quantitative chemical composition measurements. It was deduced that the high calcium signal and total negative ion yield were likely a product of the coordination of calcium to carboxylate in the desorbed and ionized particle. For the first time, depth profiling and size dependence analyses were coupled to isolate likely microbial ion signatures (BioSS) from within the SSA population. These new paradigms were applied to interpret SSA ATOFMS data sets from collaborative studies, where the influence of biologically mediated changes in seawater chemistry on SSA chemistry and climate impacts were explored. Concentrations of BioSS and warm ice nucleating particles were correlated, suggesting microbe-containing SSA may effectively nucleate ice in marine clouds. Finally, ATOFMS and aerosol mass spectrometry descriptions of SSA helped establish a mechanistic framework illustrating how SSA chemical composition is modulated not only by phytoplankton primary production but also by microbial degradation processes.


The development of efficient space-time rainfall downscaling procedures is highly important for the implementation of a meteo-hydrological forecasting chain operating over small watersheds. Multifractal models based on homogeneous cascade have been successfully applied in literature to reproduce space-time rainfall events retrieved over ocean, where the hypothesis of spatial homogeneity can be reasonably accepted. The feasibility to apply this kind of models to rainfall fields occurring over a mountainous region, where spatial homogeneity may not hold, is herein investigated. This issue is examined through the analysis of rainfall data retrieved by the high temporal resolution rain gage network of the Sardinian Hydrological Survey. The proposed procedure involves the introduction of a modulating function which is superimposed to homogeneous and isotropic synthetic fields to take into account the spatial heterogeneity detected in observed precipitation events. Specifically the modulating function, which reproduces the differences in local mean values of the precipitation intensity probability distribution, has been linearly related to the terrain elevation of the analysed spatial domain. Comparisons performed between observed and synthetic data show how the proposed procedure preserves the observed rainfall fields features and how the introduction of the modulating function improves the reproduction of spatial heterogeneity in rainfall probability distributions.


History and Objectives: Insertion of intragastric tube through nose in infants for evaluation of congenital abnormalities of nose, esophagus and stomach in early hours after birth can lead to some complications (Bradycardia, apnea and/or cyanosis) as a result of the stimulation of receptors of pharynx. This study was carried out to determine the complications in Javaheri hospital affiliated to Islamic Open University during the years 2000-2001. Materials and Methods: The clinical trial strategy of this study was carried out on 550 mothers and their infants. Infants were randomly divided into case and control groups. In control group, after controlling vital signs intragastric tubing was performed using standard method within 15 min post-partum and its effect on heart rate, number of breaths and skin color were evaluated. In case group, vital signs were recorded without tubing twice with an interval of one min. Results: Heart rate in case group was 151.6±14.5 and 150±19.7 (A change of 1.1%) for the first and second measurement respectively. In control group, heart rate was 152.8±14 that increased to 155.3±15.8 after tubing (A change 1.6%). Breath rate was 54.8±11.6 and 54.7±11.3 (A change of 0.2%) in case group for the first and second measurements respectively. In control group, breath rate was 53.6±10.8 that increased to 53.7±9.8 after tubing (A change of 0.2%). All of these differences were non-significant statistically. Central cyanosis was observed in 3 infants of case group one min after first examination (1.1%). Meanwhile, 7 infants had such a condition after tubing (2.6%). Conclusion and Recommendations: Intragastric tubing could not affect the infantile vital signs during the first hour post-partum. It is recommended to evaluate the effect of duration of tubing on the development of complications.


Directivity and gain in microphone array systems for hearing aids or hearable devices allow users to acoustically enhance the information of a source of interest. This source is usually positioned directly in front. This feature is called acoustic beamforming. The current study aimed to improve users' interactions with beamforming via a virtual prototyping approach in immersive virtual environments (VEs). Eighteen participants took part in experimental sessions composed of a calibration procedure and a selective auditory attention voice-pairing task. Eight concurrent speakers were placed in an anechoic environment in two virtual reality (VR) scenarios. The scenarios were a purely virtual scenario and a realistic 360° audio-visual recording. Participants were asked to find an individual optimal parameterization for three different virtual beamformers: (i) head-guided, (ii) eye gaze-guided, and (iii) a novel interaction technique called dual beamformer, where head-guided is combined with an additional hand-guided beamformer. None of the participants were able to complete the task without a virtual beamformer (i.e., in normal hearing condition) due to the high complexity introduced by the experimental design. However, participants were able to correctly pair all speakers using all three proposed interaction metaphors. Providing superhuman hearing abilities in the form of a dual acoustic beamformer guided by head and hand movements resulted in statistically significant improvements in terms of pairing time, suggesting the task-relevance of interacting with multiple points of interests.


Progressive postoperative gangrene of the skin is a rare disease which has been recognized as a clinical entity within comparatively recent times. Surgeons are indebted to Meleney for defining its characteristics and bacteriologic aspects. In Great Britain, Stewart-Wallace summed up the subject in 1935. Since publication of his paper, in which he recorded 37 cases collected in the period from 1908 to 1935, the condition has been reported about 40 times. It is still uncommon, for few surgeons have observed cases personally, and it is doubtful whether it is widely known, although it is now described in some textbooks (Dodd; Rose and Carless). This paper reports the cases of 2 patients under the care of one of us (J. W. H.). Strangely enough, these patients were treated coincidentally and were the first ones with this condition seen in an active surgical experience of thirty years. A new feature in the


An experiment was conducted to compare the growth and economics of adding organic acids to diets of broiler chickens. The organic acids were sorbic benzoic lactic and propionic acids. 150 day old Hubbard chicks were used. There were five treatments. Diet 1 which served as control contained no organic acid. Diets 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively contained 0.25% sorbic benzoic lactic and propionic acids. There were three replicates per treatment each having 10 birds. Completely randomized design (CRD) was used. Feed and water were provided ad libitum for eight weeks the experiment lasted. Live weight was significantly (P 0.05). Cost/kg feed was increased by organic acids. Feed cost per bird was significantly (P<0.05) increased by sorbic lactic and propionic acids. Benzoic acid significantly (P<0.05) reduced gross margin. Other organic acids posted similar gross margin as control. In conclusion propionic lactic and sorbic acids could be used in diets for broilers in terms of growth performance Keywords : broiler chickens, economics, growth, organic acids.