Abstract: Industrial problems about spare parts/production equipment replacement is one of the very important issue, because this issue relates to the cost that must be issued , both as a consequence of the replacement appliance, repair or the most fatal is the lost production due to the damage. PT Gajah tungal Tbk is a large company with a very much number and type of machines or production equipment. With the number reached 2,569 machines, of course, engine components / spare parts for these machines are very many and need to be replaced periodically to maintain reliability of these machines . Replacement engine components often occurs when the engine failure has occurred. The number of machines in the PT Gajah Tunggal Tbk requires an effective and efficient component maintenance system. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the replacement of machine components O - Ring Seal on Tube Splicing machines and motor on Tube Curing machine with weibull distribution.This study using software weibull 9 ++ for the determination of a suitable distribution and determine the optimal time replacement components of the O-ring Seal on Tube Splicing machine and Motor on Tube Curing machine. Then the results are applied to compare the cost of maintenance of the components in the event of replacement with the replacement schedule. The result shows that weibull distribution can help determine the reliability of the preventive maintenance engine components which impact to increases the efficiency of maintenance cost. Keywords: Preventive Maintenance, Reliability, Weibull Distribution.


Advances in the areas of QoS and IP multicasting have necessitated the need of integration of these two important features of Internet. Differentiated services (DiffServ) has been proposed as a scalable Solution for supporting QoS in the Internet. Coexistence of multicasting and DiffServ is promising since the DiffServ model can provide a scalable framework and may reduce the computational complexity to locate a QoS-satisfied multicast tree. In this paper, we have first identify the problems of provisioning multicasting in DiffServ domains. Next, we have proposed an efficient DiffServ-Aware Multicasting (DAM) scheme which has three novel features: weighted traffic conditioning (WTC), receiver-initiated marking (RIM) scheme, and Heterogeneous DSCP Headers encapsulation (HDE). The proposed technique solves many problems with the integration of DiffServ and multicasting while accommodating heterogeneous QoS requirements. The framework is scalable, flexible, and feasible. Moreover, existing QoS techniques can be incorporated into this framework. Performance evaluation through analysis and simulations demonstrate conformance of the QoS requirements and the potential benefits of DAM.


Stochastic heating refers to an increase in the average magnetic moment of charged particles interacting with electromagnetic fluctuations whose frequencies are smaller than the particles' cyclotron frequencies. This type of heating arises when the amplitude of the gyroscale fluctuations exceeds a certain threshold, causing particle orbits in the plane perpendicular to the magnetic field to become stochastic rather than nearly periodic. We consider the stochastic heating of protons by Alfvén-wave (AW) and kinetic-Alfvén-wave (KAW) turbulence, which may make an important contribution to the heating of the solar wind. Using phenomenological arguments, we derive the stochastic-proton-heating rate in plasmas in which $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\text{p}}\sim 1$ –30, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\text{p}}$ is the ratio of the proton pressure to the magnetic pressure. (We do not consider the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\text{p}}\gtrsim 30$ regime, in which KAWs at the proton gyroscale become non-propagating.) We test our formula for the stochastic-heating rate by numerically tracking test-particle protons interacting with a spectrum of randomly phased AWs and KAWs. Previous studies have demonstrated that at $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\text{p}}\lesssim 1$ , particles are energized primarily by time variations in the electrostatic potential and thermal-proton gyro-orbits are stochasticized primarily by gyroscale fluctuations in the electrostatic potential. In contrast, at $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}_{\text{p}}\gtrsim 1$ , particles are energized primarily by the solenoidal component of the electric field and thermal-proton gyro-orbits are stochasticized primarily by gyroscale fluctuations in the magnetic field.


The emergence of cross-cultural classrooms has been steadily increasing in Australian tertiary institutions, thus signifying a change in the student demographics. This change has acknowledged that a more flexible approach is needed in the way that the unit content is conveyed to the learner. Studies have indicated that students from different cultures responded variably in different learning environments, the two most clearly identifiable learning environments being instructor-centered and student centered. Students from various cultures have shown their levels of compatibility to these learning environments through their interaction and participation. However tertiary institutions are now expanding towards the online forum for delivery of units. Therefore to ensure that all students are able to participate in this new learning domain, preparations have to be made to accommodate all cultural types. Therefore with the importance on creating flexible learning environments for all students the blended learning approach has been selected for application.


Competitive landscape, informed consumers and stringent regulations have forced many manufacturing smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to focus on operational efficiency along with sustainability issues in recent years. While many manufacturing organisations have been taking lean initiatives for the past few years for operational excellence, an impulsive rush to adopt lean without a strategic deployment vision has led to scattered implementation of lean tools and projects without desired success. Many researchers and practitioners prescribe value stream mapping as a foundation for lean transformation initiatives; however, little empirical work is available on the symbiosis of lean and green paradigms to reap maximum benefits. This research, through a systematic methodology and a novel tool called Green Integrated Value Stream Mapping (GIVSM), integrates both paradigms in a case study on a U.K. packaging-manufacturing SME. Applying the GIVSM demonstrates that simultaneous deployment of lean and green paradigms have synergistic effect for improving both operational efficiency and environmental performance. In addition, continuous improvement framework with sustainable procurement is proposed to overcome the lean-green misalignments. This study also provides a guiding reference for practitioners to undertake similar improvement projects and identifies opportunities to expand this academic research on integrated lean-green approach into other industry sectors. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 29 May 2017 Accepted 13 November 2017


Mobile Wireless Communication presents the users with seamless communication where possible. TDMA is the Multiple Access Scheme used in GSM while 3G system uses W-CDMA. The former is designed majorly for voice and a little of data. Due to the increased in number of phone users and the services enjoyed by the users, subscribers have demanded for non-voice services, mobile extensions to fixed-line services and richer mobile content. This has caused the network operators to develop 3G system with the goal of providing a network infrastructure that can support a much broader range of services than existing systems. This paper presents a characterization of the two wireless systems performance based on their key performance indicators (KPIs). This Characterization was carried out around their TCH Availability, Call Drop Rate, Call Set-up Success Rate (CSSR), Handover Rate, and TCH Traffic. From the collected data, the two systems were analyzed and the analysis shown that W-CDMA provides a network infrastructure that can support a much broader range of services than existing systems (GSM) because the main forces behind development of the third generation systems (3G) have been driven by the second generation systems' low performance data services, incompatible service in different parts of the world, and lack of capacity.


In interdependent social groups, microfinance traps occur when conflicts arise between borrowers' affective ties related to family needs and instrumental ties related to obligations toward their loan group. Thus, the social capital that facilitates microfinancing can lead to conflicting obligations toward business needs and economic obligations toward family. Building on an inductive field study among female entrepreneurs in Tanzania, we conceptualize microfinance traps. By using relational contract theory to interpret the qualitative data, we argue that microfinance traps can be reduced by balancing role integrity, preserving norms and reciprocity, and harmonizing the social matrix toward the family and loan group.


We assess the human health and economic impacts of projected 2000–2050 changes in ozone pollution using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis - Health Effects (EPPA-HE) model, in combination with results from the GEOS-Chem global tropospheric chemistry model of climate and chemistry effects of projected future emissions. We use EPPA-HE to assess the human health damages (including mortality and morbidity) caused by ozone pollution, and quantify their economic impacts in sixteen world regions. We compare the costs of ozone pollution under scenarios with 2000 and 2050 ozone precursor and greenhouse gas emissions (using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario). We estimate that health costs due to global ozone pollution above pre-industrial levels by 2050 will be $580 billion (year 2000$) and that mortalities from acute exposure will exceed 2 million. We find that previous methodologies underestimate costs of air pollution by more than a third because they do not take into account the long-term, compounding effects of health costs. The economic effects of emissions changes far exceed the influence of climate alone.


Between 1870 and 1940, Americans redefined their perceptions, ideas, and cultural meanings of seafaring under sail. The Maritime Revival---a cultural phenomenon that took the workaday nineteenth-century maritime world and converted it into an archetypical exercise in essential Americanism---selectively picked stories, symbols, and specific lifestyles and elevated them to heroic status. Part of larger nineteenth-century revivalism, the Maritime Revival created an image of seafaring that was a small subset of the entire experienceas-lived. By the 1930s, Americans recognized a heroic, but lost, golden age of sailing ships that did not correspond to the maritime world that had once been a ubiquitous part of American life. This dissertation draws on American tonnage statistics, the writings of adventure-seeking young sailors, visual arts, and maritime preservation movements to illuminate how and why the Maritime Revival developed and matured between the Centennial and World War II. A conservative group of old-stock Americans believed seafaring represented essential American cultural values, and incorporated its symbols and aesthetics into a heritage movement. If initially engineered by eastern elites to insulate themselves from social changes, the Maritime Revival's redefined image of seafaring appealed to middleand working-class Americans. Many responded enthusiastically, and used it to participate in a culture cast as essentially American and patriotically important. Popular art, literature, historic ships, and museums celebrated square-riggers, and the romance and sublimity of the oceans. A variety of cultural forms, from fine arts to kitsch and advertisements, diffused the ideas of the Maritime Revival throughout American culture to people of all social classes. Not every piece of cultural output associated with ships and the sea, nor every aspect of contemporary maritime industry, nor every mariner, were part of the Maritime Revival. Some Americans embraced modernizing marine worlds, but Maritime Revivalists looked backwards to lament a passing era and acted to preserve the material and intellectual culture of seafaring's past. In so doing, they helped ease their own transition into the modern world, and created popularized images of sailors, ships, and lifestyles that profoundly influenced how Americans remembered the maritime past for most of the twentieth century.


Scene graph generation aims to interpret an input image by explicitly modelling the objects contained therein and their relationships. In existing methods the problem is predominantly solved by message passing neural network models. Unfortunately, in such models, the variational distributions generally ignore the structural dependencies among the output variables, and most of the scoring functions only consider pairwise dependencies. This can lead to inconsistent interpretations. In this article, we propose a novel neural belief propagation method seeking to replace the traditional mean field approximation with a structural Bethe approximation. To find a better bias-variance trade-off, higher-order dependencies among three or more output variables are also incorporated into the relevant scoring function. The proposed method achieves the state-of-the-art performance on various popular scene graph generation benchmarks.


In this paper, we present a novel method for multidimensional damage identification based on a dynamical systems approach to damage evolution. This approach does not depend on the knowledge of particular damage physics, and is appropriate for systems where damage evolves on much slower time scale then the directly observable dynamics. In an experimental context, the phase space reconstruction and locally linear models are used to quantify small distortions occurring in a dynamical system's phase space due to damage accumulation. These measurements are then related to the drifts in damage variables. A mathematical model of a harmonically driven cantilever beam in a force field of two battery-powered electromagnets is used to demonstrate validity of the method. It is explicitly demonstrated that an affine projection of the described damage metric accurately tracks the two competing damage processes. For practical damage identification purposes, the tracking data is analyzed using the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and optimal tracking (OT) methods. Both methods correctly identify the two dominant damage modes. However, the OT is more impervious to changes in fast-time dynamics and provides a significantly better signal-to-noise ratio. The OT-based damage observer is demonstrated to be within a linear transformation from the actual damage states.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


Spectrum sensing over a wide bandwidth increases the probability of finding unutilized spectrum for cognitive radios. The hardware realization of wideband sensing is challenging because strong primary users introduce large dynamic range and spectral leakage in adjacent unused bands. This paper proposes a multitap-windowed frequency power detector with adaptive threshold and sensing time to address the above challenges. The suppression of spectral leakage is achieved by multitap-windowed FFT processing, which also enables reduced sensing time. The sensing time and detection threshold are adapted according to the channel-specific spectral leakage, which results in a reliable wideband signal detection within constrained sensing time. Our simulations with a 20 dB interferer-to-noise ratio (INR) indicate a 2× improvement in detection rate compared to conventional power detectors. An order-of-magnitude improvement in sensing time is achieved in the presence of 30-dB INR interferers while maintaining a false-alarm rate of 0.1 and a detection rate of 0.9. The proposed algorithms are realized in an FPGA to demonstrate real-time operation with a latency below 10 μ s. Experimental results from a radio testbed closely match the numerical simulations. An ASIC architecture for a 200-MHz bandwidth is estimated to occupy 0.98 mm2 and dissipate 25 mW from a 1-V supply in a standard 65-nm CMOS technology.


ABSTRACT What ideas and concepts might be used to reinvigorate a progressive approach to Australian foreign policy? In contrast to the clarity of the international vision provided by right-wing movements, there is uncertainty about the contours of a progressive approach to contemporary Australian foreign policy. This article outlines the basis of a 'progressive realism' that can challenge right-wing accounts. Progressive realism combines a 'realistic' diagnosis of the key dynamics that underpin contemporary world politics with a 'progressive' focus on the redistribution of existing power configurations. Taken together, these two building blocks provide the foundations for a left-of-centre foreign policy agenda. We apply progressive realism to four policy areas: pandemic politics, aid and infrastructure in the Pacific, climate change, and a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. This analysis, in turn, highlights the challenges and opportunities for progressive political actors in crafting foreign policy both within and beyond Australia.


Prolonged exposure of rat islet beta-cells to 10 mmol/liter glucose has been previously shown to activate more cells into a glucose-responsive state (>90%) than has exposure to 6 mmol/liter glucose (50%). The present study demonstrates that this recruitment of more activated cells results in 4- to 6-fold higher levels of proinsulin I and proinsulin II messenger RNA (mRNA). However, only the rate of proinsulin I synthesis is increased. Failure to increase the rate of proinsulin II synthesis in the glucose-activated cells results in cellular depletion of the insulin II isoform, which can be responsible for degranulation of beta-cells cultured at 10 mmol/liter glucose. Higher glucose levels (20 mmol/liter) during culture did not correct this dissociation between the stimulated insulin I formation and the nonstimulated insulin II formation. On the contrary, the rise from 10 to 20 mmol/liter glucose resulted in a 2-fold reduction in the levels of proinsulin II mRNA, but not of proinsulin I mRNA; this process further increased the ratio of insulin I over insulin II to 5-fold higher values than those in freshly isolated beta-cells. The present data suggest that an elevated insulin I over insulin II ratio in pancreatic tissue is a marker for a prolonged exposure to elevated glucose levels. The increased ratio in this condition results from a transcriptional and/or a posttranscriptional failure in elevating insulin II formation while insulin I production is stimulated in the glucose-activated beta-cells.


An integrated management system was developed for the efficient operation of a storm water treatment unit to assist in the management of urban river water quality and flow. The SWMM hydrological model was calibrated and then used to predict the hydrograph and concentration graphs of surface runoff from a storm events based on weather forecasts. These results are used to decide how to operate the first flush treatment unit in the field by comparing water quality in the unit with that in runoff. This water quality monitoring system will also be used to reflect real-time field conditions, which will be used to improve the efficiency of the treatment system. The first flush treatment unit can be installed underground to use for storage of storm water. The system was tested against field data collected in a sub-basin of the Gwanpyung-cheon stream in Daejeon, Republic of Korea. Continuous monitoring results indicated that the first 4 hours of surface runoff exhibit higher concentrations than normal levels in the study site, and these levels can be used to determine the necessary volume for efficient treatment. When settling in the treatment system over 24 hours, the average removal efficiencies for TSS, TP and TN were 87.4%, 57.3%, and 43.6%, respectively.


In system theory, characterization and identification are fundamental problems. When the plant behavior is completely unknown, it may be characterized using certain model and then, its identification may be carried out with some artificial neural networks(ANN) like multilayer perceptron(MLP) or functional link artificial neural network(FLANN) using some learning rules such as back propagation (BP) algorithm. They offer flexibility, adaptability and versatility, so that a variety of approaches may be used to meet a specific goal, depending upon the circumstances and the requirements of the design specifications. The primary aim of the present thesis is to provide a framework for the systematic design of adaptation laws for nonlinear system identification and channel equalization. While constructing an artificial neural network the designer is often faced with the problem of choosing a network of the right size for the task. The advantages of using a smaller neural network are cheaper cost of computation and better generalization ability. However, a network which is too small may never solve the problem, while a larger network may even have the advantage of a faster learning rate. Thus it makes sense to start with a large network and then reduce its size. For this reason a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based pruning strategy is reported. GA is based upon the process of natural selection and does not require error gradient statistics. As a consequence, a GA is able to find a global error minimum. Transmission bandwidth is one of the most precious resources in digital communication systems. Communication channels are usually modeled as band-limited linear finite impulse response (FIR) filters with low pass frequency response. When the amplitude and the envelope delay response are not constant within the bandwidth of the filter, the channel distorts the transmitted signal causing intersymbol interference (ISI). The addition of noise during propagation also degrades the quality of the received signal. All the signal processing methods used at the receiver's end to compensate the introduced channel distortion and recover the transmitted symbols are referred as channel equalization techniques.When the nonlinearity associated with the system or the channel is more the number of branches in FLANN increases even some cases give poor performance. To decrease the number of branches and increase the performance a two stage FLANN called cascaded FLANN (CFLANN) is proposed.This thesis presents a comprehensive study covering artificial neural network (ANN) implementation for nonlinear system identification and channel equalization. Three ANN structures, MLP, FLANN, CFLANN and their conventional gradient-descent training methods are extensively studied. Simulation results demonstrate that FLANN and CFLANN methods are directly applicable for a large class of nonlinear control systems and communication problems.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and has become a growing health concern in aging societies. β-amyloid (Aβ) formation in vulnerable brain regions, such as the hippocampus and cerebral cortex is a major neuropathological feature of the disease. Currently, there is no specific drug available for the treatment of AD. However, due to its high antioxidant activity, aged garlic extract (AGE) has been widely used to prevent chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. A number of studies on the benefits of AGE against cognitive and memory deficits have also been published. This review aimed to summarize the information related to the effects of AGE on learning memory in order to obtain a better understanding of its mechanisms of action. This review also presents an overview of the pathogenesis of AD, and summarizes the main ingredients and neuroprotective effects of AGE against cognitive and learning memory deficits. The mechanisms of action of AGE are also discussed.


In this paper we describe an approach to use formal analysis tools in conjunction with traditional testing to improve the efficiency of the test generation process. We have developed a technique for the construction of combinatorial test suites, featuring expressive constraints over the models under test and cross coverage evaluation between multiple coverage criteria: combinatorial, structural and fault based. Our approach is tightly integrated with formal logic, since it uses formal logic to specify the system inputs (including the constraints), test predicates to formalize testing as a logic problem, and applies the SAL model checker tool to solve it, and hence to generate combinatorial test suites. Early results of experimental assessment are presented, supported by a prototype tool implementation.


The conjugation between inflammation and hypersensitivity is analysed. In human pathology, these processes have been shown to be closely associated and to be in the cause-and-effect relationship, immunity being the connecting link between them: immune responses generated in inflammation for elimination of the injurious agent and reparation may, upon distortion of the inflammation kinetics, become responses of "sick immunity" or hypersensitivity responses leading to damage and immune inflammation. The problem of conjugation of inflammation and hypersensitivity with immunity covers a wide range of aspects of morphology, molecular biology, immunology, and genetics. The understanding of this conjugation will give an insight into immunopathology represented in all branches of the modern clinical science.


In the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) accident, hydrogen generated by oxidation reaction of the cladding and water etc. was leaked into the NPS building, and finally led to occurrence of hydrogen explosion in the building. This resulted in serious damage to the environment. To improve the safety performance of the NPS, especially on the hydrogen safety under severe accident conditions, a simulation code system has been developed to analyze hydrogen behavior including diffusion, combustion, explosion and structural integrity evaluation. This developing system consists of CFD and FEM tools in order to support various hydrogen user groups consisting of students, researchers and engineers. Preliminary analytical results obtained with above mentioned tools, especially with open source codes including buoyancy turbulent model and condensation model, agreed well with the existing test data.


Reuse and recycling are better options to derive energy or value added products from waste substances and to minimize the disposal problems. Transformer oil is generally used as a coolant in welding transformers, power transformers and electromotive units. After a prolonged use in these devices, the transformer oil becomes waste and is disposed of. The disposal of used transformer oil (UTO) causes an environmental pollution. However, the UTO has properties that are similar to that of diesel fuel with a marginally higher viscosity and lower calorific value. The present investigation is aimed to reuse the UTO as a possible source of energy to run a small powered, single cylinder, four stroke, air cooled, direct injection (DI) diesel engine. Different techniques such as blending, operating the engine with different injection timings, nozzle opening pressures, compression ratios, preheating and dual fuel mode were adopted to study the engine behavior in terms of combustion, performance and emission when the engine is fueled with the UTO. The results are analyzed and compared with diesel operation of the same engine and presented in this thesis. Initially, UTO and six of its diesel blends on varying the UTO concentration from 10% to 60%, at a regular interval of 10% by volume basis was used. Increase in thermal efficiency with significant improvement in reduction of smoke was observed for UTO and its diesel blends compared to that of diesel. The nitric oxide (NO)emission was found to be higher for UTO and its diesel blends than that of diesel.Ignition delay was marginally shorter for the UTO and its diesel blends than diesel.The higher NO emission was due to advancement of injection timing as a result of bulk modulus characteristics of the UTO.Secondly, UTO was operated at different injection timings of advanced and retarded injection timings for maximum of 3 degree crank angle (oCA) at a regular interval of 1.5 oCA from the original injection timings of 23 oCA bTDC. When compared to the standard injection timing of 23obTDC and other injection timings tested for UTO, the retarded injection timing of 20obTDC resulted in a reduction in the NO emission by about 1.4% at an expense of smoke emission and brake specific energy consumption by about 6.7% and 1.1% respectively at full load. The ignition delay of UTO overall


Accurately capturing the quantifier scope behaviour of coordinated NPs can be problematic for some underspecified semantic representations. We present an extension to hole semantics that allows a natural representation of sentences containing NP coordination, and which correctly captures the quantifiers' scoping behaviour. We demonstrate that existing efficient algorithms developed to solve constraints on semantic construction also apply to the proposed extension. This allows NP coordination to be represented in practical systems for semantic underspecification.


Efficient and precise genome editing requires a fast, quantitative, and inexpensive assay to assess genotype following editing. Here, we present ICE (Inference of CRISPR Edits), which enables robust analysis of CRISPR edits using Sanger data. ICE proposes potential outcomes for editing with guide RNAs, and then determines which are supported by the data via regression. The ICE algorithm is robust and reproducible, and it can be used to analyze CRISPR experiments within days after transfection. We also confirm that ICE produces accurate estimates of editing outcomes across a variety of benchmarks, and within the context of other existing Sanger analysis tools. The ICE tool is free to use and open source, and offers several improvements over current analysis tools, such as batch analysis and support for a variety of editing conditions. It is available online at ice.synthego.com, and the source code is available at github.com/synthego-open/ice.


ABSTRACT Purpose: A 2014 study found that the Lumbar Spine Instability questionnaire predicts response to two different types of exercise therapy. This is the first decision tool that has predicted response to exercise for chronic low back pain. The objective of this study was to evaluate the Lumbar Spine Instability questionnaire using Rasch analysis. Methods: Baseline data from patients included in a randomized controlled trial with chronic non-specific low back pain were included. Rasch Measurement Theory was used to assess the ordering of items along a common scale, data-to-model fit, Person Separation Index, unidimensionality and Differential Item Functioning. Results: Responses from 172 patients (102 females) underwent Rasch analysis. All Lumbar Spine Instability questionnaire items had fit residuals between ± 2.5 and Chi-Square values were non-significant with Bonferroni corrections. The Lumbar Spine Instability questionnaire demonstrated a Person Separation Index of 0.64, which is below the recommended cut-off of 0.7. Differential Item Functioning by different pain levels was identified for one item. Conclusion: The Lumbar Spine Instability questionnaire was found to be unidimensional, suggesting that the use of a summary score is appropriate. However, the low Person Separation Index value suggests that more items may be needed to increase the questionnaire's ability to discriminate among individuals with high and low clinical instability.


Abstract Background: A number of lasers and light-based devices have been reported as promising treatment options for acne vulgaris. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of fractional microneedle radiofrequency (MRF) device treatment compared to CO2 fractional laser system (FS) for the treatment of acne vulgaris. Methods: Twenty healthy subjects underwent full-face treatment for acne vulgaris with CO2 FS and MRF device. For each subject, two passes of CO2 FS with a pulse energy setting of 80 mJ and a density of 100 spots/cm2 were used on one side, and two passes of MRF device with a intensity of 8, density of 25 MTZ/cm2, and a depth of 1.5–2.5 mm were used on the other. Patients were evaluated 3 months postoperatively and were also photographed. Results: Most of the patients improved based on clinical and photographic assessments 3 months after the treatment. No significant differences in physician-measured parameters, patient ratings, or intraoperative pain ratings were found, although downtime was significantly longer for the CO2 FS treated side. Conclusions: MRF device and CO2 FS can be used for acne vulgaris patients and MRF device is more convenient than CO2 FS because of its short downtime.


As partners, we were guided by a belief in the capacity for neurological, social, and emotional plasticity over the lifespan. Such development, we hypothesized, required a host of contextual changes to care staff practices and client opportunities. The physical environment also needed consideration and restructuring. The team, informed by clients and families, proposed some changes in physical environments, but to actually design new environments that meet all the sensory needs of adults with ASD, we asked VCU's Department of Interior Design to actualize individual specifications. Pragmatic and cost effective changes required considerable thought, investment, and expertise from all partners. What is more, a process for melding group strengths to encourage meaningful change for all our stakeholders will take careful planning and additional resources.


The article examines the importance of imagination in adult–child relationships in 21st-century experiential learning, where ICE is an acronym for Imagination Creativity Education. It explores, through hermeneutic phenomenology, the impact of imagination in the life-experiences of three school-aged children through the wonder of toying through shining new light on the autism spectrum, and through the debilitating effect of unbridled imagination. Life-experience is recognized as a foundational principle of imagination, and imagination is recognized as the catalyst for creative inquiry. The article discusses the vocative voice in children that calls out in its vulnerability to educators to act with appropriate, intentional, and responsible pedagogical relationality. The article concludes by highlighting the impact that imagination potentially holds for the future of education.


In the article gas movement in elastic pipelines is considered. The following things are taken into account in the present model: distribution of sound waves in gas, elastic and viscous properties of elastic pipelines, and friction of gas on the pipeline wall. The elastic properties of pipeline's material are simulated by the rheological model of Kelvin - Foight. The received system of the equations of gas movements and deformations of the pipeline is solved by a method of the characteristics. Nonlinear algebraic equations are solved by Newton method. Movement of gas (air) in pipelines made from polyvinilchloride (PVC) is considered.


For many decades in Tunisia, there has been a robust link between natural resource management and contentious national and local politics. These disputes manifest in the form of protests, sit-ins, the disruption of production and distribution and legal suits on the one hand, and corporate and government response using coercive and concessionary measures on the other. Residents of resource-rich areas and their allies protest the inequitable distribution of their local natural wealth and the degradation of their health, land, water, soil and air. They contest a dynamic that tends to bring greater benefit to Tunisia's coastal metropolitan areas. Natural resource exploitation is also a source of livelihoods and the contentious politics around them have, at times, led to somewhat more equitable relationships. The most important actors in these contentious politics include citizens, activists, local NGOs, local and national government, international commercial interests, international NGOs and multilateral organisations. These politics fit into wider and very longstanding patterns of wealth distribution in Tunisia and were part of the popular alienation that drove the uprising of 2011. In many ways, the dynamic of the contentious politics is fundamentally unchanged since prior to the uprising and protests have taken place within the same month of writing of this paper. Looking onto this scene, commentators use the frame of margins versus centre ('marginalization'), and also apply the lens of labour versus capital. If this latter lens is applied, not only is there continuity from prior to 2011, there is continuity with the colonial era when natural resource extraction was first industrialised and internationalised. In these ways, the management of Tunisia's natural wealth is a significant part of the country's serious political and economic challenges, making it a major factor in the street politics unfolding at the time of writing.


Although regarded as a promising treatment for type 1 diabetes, clinical islet transplantation in the portal vein is still hindered by a low transplantation outcome. Alternative transplantation sites have been proposed, but the survival of extra‐hepatically transplanted islets of Langerhans critically depends on quick revascularization after engraftment. This study aims at developing a new 3D scaffold platform that can actively boost vascularization and may find an application for extra‐hepatic islet transplantation. The construct consists of a 3D ring‐shaped polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold with heparinized surface to electrostatically bind vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), surrounding a hydrogel core for islets encapsulation. Heparin immobilization improves the amount of VEGF retained by the construct, up to 3.6 fold, compared to untreated PCL scaffolds. In a chicken chorioallanthoic membrane model, VEGF immobilized on the construct enhances angiogenesis in close proximity and on the surface of the scaffolds. After 7 days, islets encapsulated in the alginate core show functional response to glucose stimuli comparable to free‐floating islets. Thus, the developed platform has the potential to support rapid vascularization and islet endocrine function.


The binding stoichiometry and affinities of the Shiga toxins, Stx1 and Stx2, for a series of uni- and oligovalent analogs of the Pk-trisaccharide were measured using the direct electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ES-MS) assay. Importantly, it is shown that, for a given ligand, Stx1 and Stx2 exhibit similar affinities. The binding data suggest a high degree of similarity in the spatial arrangement and structural characteristics of the Pk binding sites in Stx1 and Stx2. The results confirm that both toxins recognize the alpha-D-Galp(1-->4)-beta-D-Galp(1-->4)-beta-D-Glcp carbohydrate motif of the cell surface glycolipid Gb3. This, taken together with the results of the chemical mapping study, suggests that the nature of the Pk binding interactions with Stx1 and Stx2 are similar. The affinities of Stx1-B(5) and Stx2 for the multivalent ligands reveals that site 2 of Stx2, which shares the same spatial arrangement as site 2 in Stx1, is the primary Pk binding site and that site 1 of Stx1 and of Stx2 can also participate in Pk binding.


Abstract: In the Silurian, the most common hosts of endobiotic rugose corals were stromatoporoids followed by tabulate corals. Here we describe the relationship between rugose corals and a bryozoan. Solitary rugosans and the cystoporate bryozoan Fistulipora przhidolensis Kopajevich, 1990 formed a symbiotic association in the late Silurian (Pridoli) of Saaremaa, Estonia. The syn vivo nature of the association is indicated by complete intergrowth of both organisms and the perpendicular orientation of the rugosans to the bryozoan growth surface. There are one to seven endobiotic rugosans per bryozoan colony. This is the first detailed study of coral-bryozoan symbiosis from the Silurian; all previous reports describe Late Ordovician, Devonian, or Cenozoic material. The lack of malformations and decrease in the size of bryozoan zooids near the rugosans suggest there were no strong negative effects of the rugosans on the bryozoan. The rugosans likely benefited from their association with the bryozoan, which served as an anchor to stabilize them in hydrodynamically active waters, and the bryozoan may have benefited by protection against some types of predators. The associations described here were most likely mutualistic.


In starting a business, a marketing strategy is one of the most important things. There is a lot of competition in doing business, so the marketing strategy must be carried out as well as possible so that the results are in accordance with the plan and can win the market. For this reason, it is necessary to conduct research on marketing strategies in terms of Islamic economics. With this background, business people must pay attention to marketing strategies in order to compete with other business people in accordance with sharia economic principles. The problem in this study is how the marketing strategy of Mbah Darsih's Angkringan restaurant in facing business competition and whether the marketing strategy of Mbah Darsih's Angkringan restaurant is in accordance with Islamic economic principles. The aim is to find out the marketing strategy used by Mbah Darsih's Angkringan restaurant and the suitability of the marketing strategy used with Islamic business principles. The data in this study were obtained from the results of interviews, observations, and documentation. The results obtained in this study Angkringan Mbah Darsih restaurant using a strategy commonly called the marketing mix where Angkringan Mbah Darsih is very concerned about product quality, promotional activities, price, and place. Angkringan Mbah Darsih in implementing its marketing strategy in accordance with Islamic business principles, namely siddiq, amanah, tabligh, fathonah. The shortcomings of Mbah Darsih's Angkringan restaurant in carrying out its strategy are the lack of consistency in carrying out promotional activities and the lack of available parking space.


Reverse engineering (RE) of user interfaces (UIs) plays an important role in software evolution. However, the large diversity of UI technologies and the need for UIs to be resizable make this challenging. We propose ReverseORC, a novel RE approach able to discover diverse layout types and their dynamic resizing behaviours independently of their implementation, and to specify them by using OR constraints. Unlike previous RE approaches, ReverseORC infers flexible layout constraint specifications by sampling UIs at different sizes and analyzing the differences between them. It can create specifications that replicate even some non-standard layout managers with complex dynamic layout behaviours. We demonstrate that ReverseORC works across different platforms with very different layout approaches, e.g., for GUIs as well as for the Web. Furthermore, it can be used to detect and fix problems in legacy UIs, extend UIs with enhanced layout behaviours, and support the creation of flexible UI layouts.


AIM
To determine the ability of different irrigation solutions to biomechanically remove Enterococcus faecalis biofilm from a novel artificial root canal model during chemomechanical preparation.

METHODS
High resolution micro-computer-tomography scans of a mandibular molar's mesial root were used to produce 50 identical 3D-printed resin root canal models. These were cultured with E.faecalis over seven days to generate biofilm and subjected to chemomechanical preparation using: saline; 17% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or 2% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) alongside positive/negative controls (n = 10). Canals were prepared to 40/.06 taper, with 1 mL irrigation between instruments, followed by 5 mL penultimate rinse, 30 s ultrasonic activation and 5 mL final rinse. Residual biofilm volume (pixels) was determined following immunofluorescent staining and confocal-laser-scanning-microscopy imaging. Statistical comparisons were made using Kruskal-Wallis with post-hoc Dunn's tests (α ⟨0.05).

RESULTS
In all canal thirds, the greatest biofilm removal was observed with NaOCl, followed by EDTA and saline. The latter had significantly higher E.faecalis counts than NaOCl and EDTA (P ⟨0.01). However, no statistical differences were found between EDTA and NaOCl or saline and positive controls (P ⟩0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Within limitations of this model, 17% EDTA was found to be as effective as 2% NaOCl at eradicating E.faecalis biofilm following chemomechanical preparation. Further investigations with multi-species biofilms are encouraged.


Innovation in Music: Performance, Production, Technology, and Business is an exciting collection comprising of cutting-edge articles on a range of topics, presented under the main themes of artistry, technology, production, and industry. Each chapter is written by a leader in the field and contains insights and discoveries not yet shared.

Innovation in Music covers new developments in standard practice of sound design, engineering, and acoustics. It also reaches into areas of innovation, both in technology and business practice, even into cross-discipline areas. This book is the perfect companion for professionals and researchers alike with an interest in the Music industry.


Abstract Is executive compensation influenced by the composition of the board of directors? About 8% of chief executive officers (CEOs) are reciprocally interlocked with another CEO—the current CEO of firm A serves as a director of firm B and the current CEO of firm B serves as a director of firm A. Roughly 20% of firms have at least one current or retired employee sitting on the board of another firm and vice versa. I investigate how these and other features of board composition affect CEO pay by using a sample of 9,804 director positions in America's largest companies. CEOs who lead interlocked firms earn significantly higher compensation. Also, interlocked CEOs tend to head larger firms. After controlling for firm and CEO characteristics, the pay gap is reduced dramatically. However, when firms that are interlocked due to documented business relationships are considered not interlocked, the measured return to interlock is as high as 17%. There also is evidence that the return to interlock was higher in the 1970s than in the early 1990s.


Silicone-based Magnetorheological Fluids (MRFs) were prepared with 10% volume fraction of carbonyl iron powder. Rheometer Physica MCR 301 was used to test the rheological performances of MRFs.The experimental results show Bingham model and Casson model could well describe rheological behaviors of MRFs. Shear stress of MRFs increases but apparent viscosity is significantly decreased and tends to be stable with the increase of shear rate in the presence of magnetic field. The results also show that MRFs are shear thinning fluids. The dependence of shear stress on magnetic field was tested under the condition of constant shear rate and increasing magnetic field, shear stress of MRFs increases remarkably.


We present CCD spectrophotometry of the nearby spiral galaxy M 33 using images obtained with National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) 60/90 cm Schmidt telescope in a broad U-band and 13 intermediate-band filters from 4000 to 10 000 A. The observations cover the whole area of M 33, with a total integration of 39.08 h from September 23, 1995 to August 28, 2000. The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for each area of M 33 are obtained. With the aid of an evolutionary synthesis model, PEGASE (Fioc & Rocca-Volmerange 1997, 2000), we compute theoretical SEDs for three kinds of star formation rate (SFR) histories. From best fits on templates of PEGASE and observed SEDs by the χ 2 -minimization procedure, we find that both the constant and exponentially decreasing (hereafter Exp, τ = 12 Gyr) SFR give good agreement between models and observations. We then obtain age distributions (when the observed stellar population formation began) and evolutionary histories of M 33 for the two models. For the constant SFR, an age gradient is clearly found between stellar populations of the central regions and of the outer regions. The stellar populations in its central regions are older than 10 Gyr; stars in the outer regions are younger, about 7 Gyr and the youngest components in the spiral arms are less than 5 Gyr. The Exp SFR gives a similar age distribution, but with absolute ages that are smaller by ∼2 Gyr. We conclude that M 33 has been forming stars continuously for most of its lifetime, with the interior having built up its stellar populations several Gyr earlier than the outer parts.


Background: Among veterans with spinal cord injury (SCI), severe pressure ulcers (PrU) are treated by interdisciplinary rehabilitation teams in SCI units. Method: Cross-sectional survey administered to therapists attending a conference of the Therapy Leadership Council in SCI. Participants: Respondents included physical therapists (PTs; n 5 24) and occupational therapists (OTs; n 5 15). Main Outcome Measurements: Wound care practices as indicated by 75% or more of participants as ''usual practice.'' Results: In general, therapist involvement with wound care was initiated by physician order (eg, electrical stimulation) or postsurgery protocols. ''Usual practice'' after tissue healing included progressive range of motion; initial remobilization (first sitting after wound healing); progression of sitting time including assessment of skin tolerance; instruction in pressure relief maneuvers/techniques; and instruction in safe transfers. Practices in prevention of a new ulcer included education and evaluation of seating posture/ positioning. Conclusions: Results indicate that centers may delegate responsibilities for management of ulcers differentially by discipline. A limitation was that we were unable to determine whether these centers were the same or different for OT and PT respondents. Although sample size was small and some sites had multiple respondents, the survey showed a growing role for OTs and PTs in PrU treatment. Because 75% of each discipline reported that there were usual practices, including patient education and remobilization protocols, this area requires further study to determine the clinical outcomes in terms of preventing PrUs and recurrence.


The objective of this work was to develop a new formulation for a snack made by thermoplastic extrusion from a mixture of broken rice flour and broken common bean flour, and assess the nutritional, sensory and technological potential of the new product. The broken common bean flour was added to the broken rice flour at a rate of 30%, and the snack was produced in a pilot scale single screw extruder. The extrusion parameters were fixed using three extrusion zones (at 40, 60 and 85 °C); screw speed of 177 rpm; feed rate of 292 g.min-1; and a circular matrix with a diameter of 3.85 mm. The snack sample was submitted to physicochemical, technological and sensory analyses. A significant effect of adding the broken common bean flour was observed in increasing the levels of protein and fiber in the snack, when compared with only broken rice flour. With respect to the technological characteristics, a bulk density of 0.17 g.cm-3 was obtained, expansion rate of 7.75 and instrumental hardness of 435.98 g.f. The formulation was well accepted, with an acceptance rate of 76% for overall impression. It was concluded that it was possible to produce extruded snacks by incorporating 30% of broken common bean flour into broken rice flour, resulting in gluten free products with good sensory acceptance and adequate nutritional value.


This paper presents a simple model in which debt management stabilizes the debt-to-GDP ratio in face of shocks to real returns and output growth and thus supports fiscal restraint in ensuring sustainability. The optimal composition of public debt is derived by looking at the relative impact of the risk and cost of alternative debt instruments on the cost of missing the stabilization target. The optimal debt structure is a function of the expected return differentials between debt instruments, of the conditional variance of their returns and of the conditional covariances of their returns with output growth and inflation. We then explore how the relevant covariances and thus the optimal choice of debt instruments depend on the monetary regime and on Central Bank preferences for output stabilization, inflation control and interest-rate smoothing. Finally, we estimate the composition of public debt that would have supported debt stabilization in OECD countries over the last two decades. The empirical evidence suggests that the public debt should have a long maturity and a large share of it should be indexed to the price level.


Background: We have previously reported significantly improved disease-free survival (DFS) in premenopausal patients with endocrine-responsive early breast cancer receiving adjuvant zoledronic acid (ZOL) in ABCSG-12 (Gnant M, et al. NEJM. 2009;360:679–91). Other trials, such as ZO-FAST and the postmenopausal (>5 yr) subset analysis of AZURE, have demonstrated similar anticancer effects with ZOL. Now with >6 yr of follow-up in ABCSG-12, we report an overall survival (OS) benefit and preplanned subgroup analyses that more precisely define interactions between the ZOL benefit and patient/tumor characteristics. Methods: Premenopausal women with endocrine-receptor-positive early stage breast cancer (N = 1,803) were randomized to ovarian function suppression with goserelin (3.6 mg q28d) and tamoxifen (TAM; 20 mg/d) or anastrozole (ANA; 1 mg/d) ± ZOL (4 mg q6mo) for 3 yr. Endpoints included DFS and OS, both analyzed using logrank test and Cox models. Results: At median follow-up of 76 mo, patients receiving ZOL had a significant 27% reduction in the risk of DFS events (HR = 0.73; Cox P = .022) and a significant 41% reduction in the risk of death (HR = 0.59; Cox P = .027) vs no ZOL. Multivariate analyses showed a strong interaction between ZOL and patient age, but did not show any interactions between ZOL and ANA/TAM or any classic tumor parameter (eg, T, N, grade, ER). Among patients > 40 yr of age (n = 1,390) with presumed complete ovarian blockade, ZOL significantly reduced the risk of DFS events by 34% (HR = 0.66; Cox P = .014) and the risk of death by 49% (HR = 0.51; Cox P = .020); however, there were no significant DFS or OS benefits in patients Conclusions: Long-term follow-up of ABCSG-12 (76 months) confirms and extends previous results seen at 48 mo and 62 mo follow-up, and suggests that anticancer benefits of adjuvant ZOL result in highly significant DFS and OS benefits mainly in patients with a low-estrogen environment (ie, ovarian suppression and age >40 yr). These results are consistent with the significant DFS and OS improvements seen in the postmenopausal (>5 yr) cohort of the AZURE trial, and suggest that both estrogen deprivation and reduction of bone-turnover-derived growth factors in the bone marrow microenvironment are needed for sufficient suppression of dormant micrometastases. Taken together with the previously demonstrated bone-protective effects of ZOL, these DFS and OS benefits strongly suggest that adding ZOL to adjuvant endocrine therapy should be considered for premenopausal women with endocrine-receptor-positive early breast cancer. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr S1-2.


A hidden excitation focus (dominanta focus) was produced in the rabbit's CNS by threshold electrical stimulation of the left forelimb with the frequency of 0.5 Hz. As a rule, after the formation of the focus, pairs of neurons with prevailing two-second rhythm in their correlated activity were revealed both in the left and right sensorimotor cortices (with equal probabilities 29.3 and 32.4%, respectively). After "animal hypnosis" induction, the total percent of neuronal pairs with the prevalent dominanta-induced rhythm decreased significantly only in the right hemisphere (21%). After the termination of the "animal hypnosis" state, percent of neuronal pairs in the right cortex with prevailing two-second rhythm significantly increasead if the neurons in a pair were neighboring and decreased if they were remote from each other. Similar changes after the hypnotization were not found in the left cortex. Analysis of correlated activity of neuronal pairs with regard to amplitude characteristics showed that for both the right and left hemispheres, the prevalence of the two-second rhythm was more frequently observed in crosscorrelation histograms constructed regarding discharges of neurons with the lowest spike amplitude (in the right hemisphere) or the lowest and mean amplitudes (in the left hemisphere) selected from multiunit records.


Long-term anticoagulant therapy is the most effective measure to prevent ischemic stroke in patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF). However, the current anticoagulant therapy in Chinese patients with AF is unsatisfactory compared to those in developed countries. Disease management may help improve the treatment rate, reduce adverse events, and improve the compliance to warfarin anticoagulant therapy. The aim of this study was to compare and observe the impact of the disease management model of "Treatment-Education-Follow-up" (TEF) on anticoagulant therapy in patients with Stroke with AF (SAF). The patients and their families in group TEF were educated on anticoagulant therapy by providing them S-AF prevention and anticoagulant therapy handbooks and performing regular post-discharge telephone follow-up and outpatient observation. Conversely, the patients in the control group (group N) only received simple education; no other education and intervention from the doctors were provided during hospitalization. The mean follow-up duration was 1.5 y. The clinical data, 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale scores, and anticoagulant knowledge questionnaire scores were compared between the two groups. The persistence rate of long-term anticoagulant therapy (84.5% vs. 56.0%, P<0.05), international normalized ratio compliance rate (55.2% vs. 28.0%, P<0.05), and recurrence rate of thrombotic events (4.0% vs. 16.0%, P<0.05) in group TEF were statistically significant compared with those of group N. The medication compliance and anticoagulant knowledge in group TEF significantly improved. Clinical anticoagulation service-based TEF can significantly improve the efficacy and safety of and compliance to warfarin anticoagulant therapy.


Abstract Although papainlike enzymes are strongly inhibited by their natural tightbinding inhibitors of the cystatin superfamily, cathepsins B and L may still retain some residual proteolytic activity toward ZPheArgAMC in the presence of an excess of kininogen. This activity is abolished by adding E-64 or chicken cystatin. Cathepsins B and L show a single band of gelatinolytic activity when subjected to gelatinSDSPAGE. Adding high M kininogen, low M kininogen, Tkininogen, or chicken cystatin to cathepsin L results in additional intense bands of enzyme activity corresponding to the proteaseinhibitor complexes. Cathepsin B does not produce these additional bands. This gelatinolytic activity was inhibited by E-64, but not by EDTA, PMSF or Pefabloc. Cathepsin L also specifically generated kinins from high and low molecular weight kininogens in vitro, but cathepsin B did not. Tkininogen did not release any immunoreactive kinins when complexed with cathepsin L, as previously observed using tissue kallikreins. The ability of cathepsin L to generate vasoactive peptides raises the question of the physiological significance of this mechanism during inflammation.


Improved micronutrient intake contributes to delaying the progression of HIV into AIDS and to reducing HIV infection rates. Higher agrobiodiversity in the homegarden contributes to improving the nutritional status of farm households. Farm households with HIV/AIDS affected members observe a decrease in labor supply and productivity causing them to reallocate labor. The reallocation of labor may result in change in agrobiodiversity. Sharecropping is often used to alleviate labor shortage in agricultural production. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the implications of HIV/AIDS on agrobiodiversity through sharecropping arrangements. The study is based on a survey among 205 farm households in the Jimma zone of South Western Ethiopia. Results show that HIV/AIDS driven increase in sharecropping has a positive effect on perennial and overall agrobiodiversity in the homegarden. This offers additional intervention options to mitigate the impacts of HIV/AIDS among farm households.


Discovery of environment friendly agents for controlling alien invasive species (AIS) is challenging and in urgent need as their expansion continues to increase. Xanthium italicum is a notorious invasive weed that has caused serious ecological and economic impacts worldwide. For the purpose of exploring the possibility of utilizing herbicidal mycotoxins to control this species, three compounds, including a new compound, curvularioxide (1), a new naturally occurring compound, dehydroradicinin (2), and a known compound, radicinin (3), were isolated via activity-guided fractionation from the secondary metabolites of the pathogenic Curvularia inaequalis that was found to infect X. italicum in the natural habitats. All isolated compounds exhibited potent herbicidal activity on receiver species. It is noteworthy to mention that their effects on X. italicum in our bioassays were equivalent to the commercial herbicide glyphosate. Subsequent morphological analysis revealed that application of radicinin (3) severely hindered X. italicum seedlings' hypocotyl and root development. Malondialdehyde (MDA) content and the activity of catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) of the seedlings were also significantly different from the control, implying the occurrence of induced oxidative stress. Our results suggest that pathogens infecting invasive plants might be valuable resources for developing safer herbicides in controlling weeds. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.


This paper presents the vision-only navigation and control of a small autonomous helicopter given only measurements from a video camera fixed on the ground. The goal is to develop an alternative to traditional INS/GPS and on-board vision aided systems. The autonomous navigation and control of the helicopter is achieved using a nonlinear state estimator and a statedependent controller. A key difference to INS/GPS navigation is that measurements of the helicopter's accelerations and angular velocities are not directly available. The state estimation combines the vision measurements with a dynamic model of the vehicle in a recursive filtering procedure using a Sigma-Point Kalman Filter (SPKF). The estimation of the helicopter's current state (position, attitude, velocity, and angular velocity) is then fed back in real-time to a state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) controller to generate radio control commands to the helicopter. Simulations are provided comparing performance relative to INS/GPS navigation. Experiments also show that an accurate dynamic model of the vehicle is necessary for closed-loop stability. Our results indicate the feasibility of designing a vision-only estimation and control system capable of stabilizing and maneuvering a small unmanned helicopter. Other than simple on-board avionics for low level actuator control, the ground station is responsible for video capture, state-estimation, and state-feedback flight control.


Introduction: The low back pain is the most prevalent between the musculoskeletal disorders, and it is the most common reasons of absence from work. The flexibility, mobility, strength and endurance of the low back stability influence and the disharmony between these factors may result in low back pain. One of Maitland's technique, which alter these factors, is posteroanterior (PA) mobilization. Objective: To analyze the posterior chain's flexibility, low back's mobility, trunk extensor's endurance and low back extensors' muscle strength after performed one treatment session using the Maitland method on youth with low back pain. Method: For this research, sixteen women (22 ± 3.03 years) with chronic low back pain participated. All volunteers were evaluated according to their perception of pain, flexibility, mobility, muscular strength and muscular endurance. The treatment protocol was the application of PA mobilization on the five lumbar vertebrae, from caudal direction to cranial, of three series of one minute in each vertebra. The same procedures of the initial evaluation were performed after the immediate application of PA mobilization technique (revaluation 1) and 7 days after the protocol (revaluation 2). The data were analyzed by the Shapiro-Wilk's normality test; analysis of variance (ANOVA) repeated measures one-way with pos-hoc Bonferroni and Friedman's ANOVA with pos-hoc Wilcoxon, with the level of significance of 5% (p< 0,05). Results: After PA mobilization application, there were significant improvements in muscular strength (immediate post-treatment and past seven days) and muscular endurance (immediate post-treatment). There were no significant improvements in the other variables, such as, level of pain, and lumbar flexibility and mobility. Conclusion: The lumbar PA mobilization was effective for increasing muscular strength and endurance, with stabilization of the level of pain, flexibility and mobility.


Unlike Indo-European languages, Mandarin relies heavily on lexical tones to distinguish word identity. Using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm, this study examined 3-year-old Mandarin-speakers' ability to use Mandarin lexical tones in learning new words. Results showed that when children were presented with Tone 2 (rising) and Tone 4 (falling) pairs, children successfully learned both words. However, when children were presented with Tone 2 and Tone 3 (dipping) pairs, they learned the Tone 2 word but not the Tone 3 one. Children were then divided into two groups based on their learning performance on the Tone 3 word. Successful learning of Tone 3 words was observed in the high performers but not in the low performers, who consistently misused Tone 3 as Tone 2. This study showed that Mandarin-speaking 3-year-olds could use lexical tones to learn words under experimental conditions, and that the difficulty of Tone 3 acquisition may be related to its lower level of perceptual distinctiveness compared with other tones.


The section of Sitalakhsya River near heavily industrial zone of the District of Narayanganj has been studied for its water quality and potamoplankton dynamics. One year bimonthly sampling from DakhshinRupshi Station of the river was carried out. The air and water temperature of the river ranged from 25.6 - 34.0°C and 26.5 - 32.8°C, respectively. The temperature of water was lower than air by ca. 2.0°C. Water depth at the study station did not vary much but fluctuated only between 6.09 and 7.92 m. The Secchi disc transparency (Zs) varied from 0.2 - 0.6 m showing the lowest in March. Total dissolved Solids (TDS) load in water was 85 - 663 mg/l but the electrical conductivity varied from 110 - 910 μS/cm being the month of March as highest record. pH was alkaline and the fluctuations were negligible (7.2 - 7.4). Alkalinity peaked in March (6.65 meq/l) which dropped to 1.00 meq/l in August and October. Both dissolved oxygen (DO) and free carbon dioxide levels were low which varied from 0.37 - 2.43 and 0.04 - 1.93 mg/l, respectively. Among dissolved nutrients, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) showed a low value from May to December (89.48 - 127.70 μg/l). It, however, peaked during March (1265.94 μg/l). Soluble reactive silicate (SRS) concentration ranged from 7.01 - 82.11 mg/l, while the concentration of NO3-N ranged from 0.19 - 1.29 mg/l. The potamoplankton biomass as chl-a ranged from 3.38 - 24.52 μg/l, while its degraded product phaeopigment varied from 1.97 - 11.13 μg/l. The total density of potamoplankton showed their highest growth during December to March (2223 - 4293 ×103) and the lowest from May to October (181 - 785 ×103). The ranges of water quality and planktonic parameters recorded from the Sitalakhsya River are quite comparable with three other peripheral rivers of Dhaka Metropolitan City (DMC) namely, Balu, Turag, and Buriganga. But, low DO and poor transparency along with higher load of TDS made this river water quality relatively lower grading compared to others.
Dhaka Univ. J. Biol. Sci. 30(3 CSI): 487-497, 2022 (June)


SMEs comprise over 90% of African business operations and contribute to over 50% of African employment and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). SMEs sector has shown positive signs in South Africa, Mauritius and North Africa. In South Africa, SMEs constitute 55% of all jobs. Research such as Bowler et al. (2007) and Guler (2005, 2009) reveal that 40% of new business ventures fail in their first year, 60% in their second year, and 90% in their first 10 years of existence. It seems that a number of challenges have been identified as contributing to the failure of SMEs in South Africa and worldwide. The research problem of this study emanates from the current high business failure rate as well as marketing skills of ethnic South African SME owners. The research aims to establish the correlation between marketing skills of ethnic SME owners and business failure. 2000 questionnaires were posted to small business owners, 222 questionnaires were posted to each of the nine provinces of South Africa. The researchers acknowledge government's involvement in managerial training which focuses on basic literacy, numeracy and communication skills with development rather than a business focus. Training should also focus on administration, financial management, and marketing skills. Ethnic SME owners would then also be more equipped to make better-informed decisions, and to steer their business away from known pitfalls. The research established that there is a correlation between problems experienced by ethnic SME owners and their marketing skills. Improving the managerial skills of small business owners will solve unemployment problems and a stagnating economy.

 Key words: Ethnic SME owners, marketing and managerial skills, marketing training needs, entrepreneurship, South Africa ethnic entrepreneur, leadership.


Given corporate lobbying's double-edged nature, previous research has been interested in what motivates firms to engage in lobbying. In this study, we build on previous works to analyze how two types of aspiration, historical aspiration, which represents the level of performance firms aim to achieve given past self-performance, and social aspiration, which represents the level of performance firms aim to achieve given competitors' achievements, shape corporate lobbying decisions. Our premise is that when a firm's product market performance is below historical aspirations, then the firm is motivated to engage in lobbying because the benefits of lobbying outweigh the potential costs. However, when a firm's product market performance is below social aspirations, then decision-makers perceive that the potential challenges of lobbying outweigh the benefits and decide not to engage in lobbying. By examining automotive firms in the U.S. light vehicle market from 1998 to 2013, we find significant empirical support for our general premise. Using Tobit regression analysis, we find that automotive firms present diverging motivations for lobbying depending on whether they attend to historical or social aspirations for sales performance.


: The corticotropins from two species of whales, e. g. seiwhale (Balaenoptera borealis) and finwhale (Balaenoptera physalus) were subjected to hydrolysis by trypsin, chymotrypsin and pepsin. The peptide fragments were separated by gel-filtration through Sephadex and partition paper chromatography. The study of the amino acid sequence of the peptides obtained allowed to establish the primary structure of corticotropin from both species, which was found structurally identical to human corticotropin.


Abstract Background: A tri-modal distribution of age-at-onset emerged among females patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) in our database. This finding may be indicative of different gender-based disease mechanisms. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the files of 127 MG patients for the clinical, serology and thymus pathology according to their age at disease onset: ≤40 years (early-onset, EOMG), 40–70 years (intermediate-onset, IOMG) and >70 years (late-onset, LOMG). Results: EOMG was more common among females, and IOMG was more common among males. Ocular MG was more common among the male MG patients with an IOMG. Patients with EOMG had lower rates of positive anti-acetylcholine receptor (anti-AChR). IOMG females, but not IOMG males, had lower rates of positive anti-AChR. IOMG and EOMG females had high rates of thymic hyperplasia, while EOMG males had high rates of thymoma. Comorbidity with autoimmune diseases was common among females with IOMG and LOMG. Conclusions: The prevalence of IOMG was the reason for the trend reversal of MG prevalence between genders. The clinical features of patients with IOMG differed between genders in the rates of positive anti-AChR, follicular hyperplasia of the thymus and comorbidity with autoimmune diseases. This may suggest a different gender-based mechanism of immune intolerance towards AChR and other antigens.


The three life tasks of Adlerian theory are friendship, work, and love. This thesis examines the life task of work, looking at job satisfaction in particular. Although one may experience job satisfaction due to extrinsic reasons, this research identifies the outcomes for both intrinsic and extrinsic factors in relation to job satisfaction. There are numerous factors that come into play when looking at levels of job satisfaction. This thesis examines the factors of motivation type and job choice. Task significance and individual performance are also explored as crucial factors related to job satisfaction and the culture of an organization. With the current US economic situation, money and rewards are of high importance for many individuals, thus determining their job satisfaction based solely on extrinsic reasons. Passion and wanting to contribute to society in one's job may be getting pushed to the side due to extrinsic factors. However, for long-term job satisfaction and personal growth there should be some level of intrinsic motivation. Managers and hiring personnel need to understand that for long term success for an organization, it is vital to hire employees that want to be there for intrinsic reasons. Motivation and Job Satisfaction 3 Table of


This paper highlights the role of feedback in the identification and validation of a model, when that model is to be used for control design. Feedback reduces the uncertainty of the estimated model in frequency bands that are critical for control design. Thus, in the presence of noise, closed loop identification for control leads to less conservative robust control designs than open loop identification of validated full order models, followed by controller design.


Presented in this article is the template-free fabrication of nitrogen-doped hollow carbon spheres (N-HCSs) as electrode materials for high-performance supercapacitors based on scalable homopolymer vesicles, which are self-assembled from an amphiphilic homopolymer, poly(amic acid) (PAA). This homopolymer can be massively produced by simple stepwise polymerization at room temperature with a fast polymerization rate. For the first time, PAA homopolymer vesicles are carbonized to form N-HCSs with tunable porous structures and nitrogen contents (from 1.3% to 7.4%) by controlling the content of the cross-linker (melamine). This template-free method for fabricating N-HCSs is more environmentally friendly and does not involve tedious synthetic procedures compared to traditional template-based methods. More importantly, the N-HCSs exhibit excellent electrochemical performance with a very high specific capacitance (266.9 F g−1) after more than 1000 cycles when used as the active electrode material for the supercapacitor. The N-HCSs presented in this paper retain its specific capacitance as high as 84% at a very high current density (20 A g−1). Given the potential massive production and excellent electrochemical properties, the N-HCSs based on the carbonization of scalable PAA homopolymer vesicles are promising candidate electrode materials for energy storage devices.


Background: Thiopurine therapy, particularly thioguanine, has been associated with nodular regenerative hyperplasia (NRH) of the liver. Combination therapy of allopurinol and an adapted low-dose thiopurine leads to a pharmacokinetic profile that has similarities to that of thioguanine. Therefore, allopurinol–thiopurine combination therapy may also be associated with NRH of the liver. We assessed the prevalence of NRH in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treated with allopurinol–thiopurine combination therapy by liver biopsy specimen examination. Methods: An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted in a Dutch IBD-referral center. Adult patients with IBD, treated for at least 1 year with allopurinol–thiopurine combination therapy were eligible. All patients underwent a liver biopsy, after standard laboratory and thiopurine metabolite concentration assessments. Histopathology was assessed by an experienced liver pathologist. Results: Twenty-two patients with IBD were included. The mean duration of combination therapy at the time of the liver biopsy was 24.7 months (SD 5.7). NRH was observed in one of the biopsies (4.8%), any grade of nodularity was observed in 3 biopsy specimens (14%). Other findings included phlebosclerosis (24%), perisinusoidal fibrosis (81%), sinusoidal dilatation (43%), perivenular fibrosis (14%), and periportal fibrosis (29%). Around the time of biopsy, the median 6-thioguanine nucleotide and 6-methylmercaptopurine ribonucleotide concentrations were 705 pmol × 108 red blood cells (RBC) (interquartile range 498–915) and 355 pmol × 108 RBC (interquartile range 225–670). Conclusions: The prevalence of histologically assessed NRH in patients with IBD, who were treated with allopurinol–thiopurine combination therapy, was 5%. This percentage is in line with thiopurine-naive and thioguanine-using patients with IBD. None of the included patients had clinical symptoms or signs suggestive of (noncirrhotic) portal hypertension.


Spontaneous multiquantal events are recorded at many different boutons and varicosities for which there is evidence that the receptor patch at these individual synapses is saturated by the transmitter unit. In order to reconcile these observations, a model is considered in which calcium release from a ryanodine channel within a nerve terminal can reach adjacent active zones in single synapses in sufficient concentration to occasionally trigger exocytosis from adjacent zones synchronously, giving rise to multiquantal spontaneous events. It is shown that the spatial and temporal distribution of calcium concentration at the active zone after a spontaneous opening of a ryanodine channel can predict the amplitude and time course of observed calcium-activated potassium channel currents. Similar calcium transients are sufficient to give rise to multiquantal events. Such events suggest a multiunit hypothesis for secretion. 7 1998 Academic Press


Si films were deposited by inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition at room temperature with a mixture of SiH4/H2. The microstructure of the film was characterized with Fourier transform of infrared, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy. We found that SiH4 concentration strongly affects the structure of Si films and nano-crystalline film can be synthesized at room temperature by optimizing the silane concentration. The analysis for optical properties of the films suggested that the optical band gap EOPT of films are distinctively lower than those of amorphous Si films. It has been observed that the EOPT of sample decreases with the increasing of H content in film.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this research is to develop a computerized method to quantify carotid plaque neovascularization on contrast-enhanced ultrasound images and to compare the results with the histopathologic analysis of the plaque.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Twenty-seven patients (age range, 48-84 years; mean [± SD] age, 68.4 ± 9.72 years) were recruited before endarterectomy. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound examination of the carotid artery was performed by applying low mechanical index and harmonics with pulse inversion. An algorithm was developed that implemented several image processing methods to automatically quantify neovascularization and reconstruct the vascular tree in the atheromatous plaque. Neovascularization and the number of inflammatory cells seen on histopathologic analysis of the plaque after endarterectomy were compared with neovascularization determined by the computerized method. The mean (± SD) ratios of the ultrasound and histopathologic measurements were calculated.

RESULTS
In five patients, heavy calcification of the plaque prevented visualization of plaque texture. Intraplaque neovascularization on contrast-enhanced ultrasound images was significant in 19 patients and low in three patients. The ratio of the neovascularization area to the total plaque area on contrast-enhanced ultrasound images was well correlated with the same histopathologic ratio (R(2) = 0.7905) and with the number of inflammatory cells present in the plaque (R(2) = 0.6109). The histopathologic ratio and the number of intraplaque inflammatory cells also were well correlated (R(2) = 0.7034).

CONCLUSION
The newly developed method allowed quantification of the intraplaque neovascularization as a feature of vulnerability in the carotid plaque and proved to be highly correlated with histopathologic results.


Feature-based authentication schemes that verify wireless transmitter identities based on physical-layer features allow for fast and efficient authentication with minimal overhead. Hence, they are interesting to consider for safety-critical applications where low latency and high reliability is required. However, as erroneous authentication decisions will introduce delays, we propose to study the impact of feature-based schemes on the system-level performance. In this paper, we therefore study the queuing performance of a line-of-sight wireless link that employs a feature- based authentication scheme based on the complex channel gain. Using stochastic networks calculus, we provide bounds on the delay performance which are validated by numerical simulations. The results show that the delay and authentication performance is highly dependent on the SNR and Rice factor. However, under good channel conditions, a missed-detection rate of 10E−8 can be achieved without introducing excessive delays in the system.


Angiolymphoid Hyperplasia with Eosinophilia (AHLE) is a rare benign vascular disorder of unknown etiology. While World Health Organization recognizes it as a benign neoplasm, its progressive nature and high recurrence rate are consistent with being a locally malignant tumor. It may present as solitary or multiple nodules with more predilection to head and neck region, especially auricular area. Despite variety of available treatment options, high recurrence rate remains a compelling issue. The spectrum of these treatment modalities includes topical or systemic steroids use, intralesional injection of certain materials such as Bleomycin, Vinblastine or interferon, or even surgical excision. In our study, the authors present a case of middle-aged female with recurrent AHLE in left concha and preauricular region. Excision of the lesion with 4 mm of the normal surrounding skin, preserving auricular cartilage, was done while the resultant defect was covered by grafted Temporoparietal Fascia Flap. Our 1-year follow-up period showed aesthetically accepted outcome with no recurrence. The authors hypothesize that treating AHLE as a locally malignant tumor by excising the lesion with 4 mm safety margin decreases recurrence rates. Moreover, reconstruction by grafted temporoparietal fascia flap achieves a reasonable aesthetic outcome with minimal donor site morbidity.


The Covid-19 pandemic has first been identified in China at the end of 2019 and later has spread worldwide. In Malaysia, Covid-19 cases have increased drastically in March 2020 that caused the Government to implement a Movement Control Order (MCO) starting 18 March 2020 to curb the outbreak which has affected all sectors in the country including higher education institutions. The objective of this paper is to present the impact of MCO implementation on the electricity consumption on the university buildings particularly at Universiti Malaysia Perlis. The methodology processes involve comparing the energy usage in 2019 as baseline data with usage in 2020 as the assessed data. These data then been analyzed for every 3 months or quarterly for reporting. Based on the results, MCO implementation has shown positive impact to the energy conservation where 3,023 MWh of electrical energy has been reduced in 2020 which is 25.72% less than the same period in 2019. This condition has been extremely beneficial to the university's operations where RM 1.369 million of electricity bill has been saved. In the aspect of environmental sustainability, the amount of energy reduction is equivalent to more than 2,000 tonnes of CO2 avoidance at rated value 0.694 tCO2 per MWh. As a result from energy reduction, the BEI performance of the buildings has improved from 3-Star (moderately efficient) to 4-Star (efficient).


We describe and apply a simple prescription for defining connected structures in galaxy redshift surveys. The method is based upon two passes with a friends-of-friends group finder. The first pass uses a cylindrical linking volume to find galaxy groups and clusters in order to suppress the line-of-sight smearing introduced by the large random velocities of galaxies within these deep potential wells. The second pass, performed with a spherical linking volume, identifies the connected components. This algorithm has been applied to the Two-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS), within which it picks out a total of 7603 systems containing at least two galaxies and having a mean redshift less than 0.12. Connected systems with many members appear filamentary in nature, and the algorithm recovers two particularly large filaments within the 2dFGRS. For comparison, the algorithm has also been applied to A cold dark matter (ACDM) mock galaxy surveys. While the model population of such systems is broadly similar to that in the 2dFGRS, it does not generally contain such extremely large structures.


I present evidence that higher frequency measures of inflation expectations outperform lower frequency measures of inflation expectations in tests of accuracy, predictive power, and rationality. For decades, the academic literature has focused on three survey measures of expected inflation: the Livingston Survey, the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and the Michigan Surveys of Consumers. While these measures have been useful in developing models of forecasting inflation, the data are low frequency measures that are anachronistic in the modern era of high frequency and real-time data. I present a collection of 37 different measures of inflation expectations, including many previously unexploited monthly and real-time measures of inflation expectations. These higher frequency measures tend to outperform the standard three low frequency survey measures in tests of accuracy, predictive power, and rationality, indicating that there are benefits to using higher frequency measures of inflation expectations. Out of sample forecasts confirm the findings.


Ibrahim, Ayon Investigating the Use of Aptamers in Binding to the Human Follicle Stimulating Hormone Receptor (hFSHR). Department of Biological Sciences, June 2013. Advisor: Brian D. Cohen Oral contraceptive pills use high doses of hormone to suppress the reproductive arm of the endocrine system in women. However, these drugs can have harmful long term side effects such as increased risk of stroke, heart attack, and breast cancer. Therefore, it has become an important public health goal to look for alternative ways of providing contraception. Aptamers, oligonucleotides that bind to specific molecules due to their unique 3-dimensional structure, are one alternative that has yet to be explored. The goal of our research is to develop an RNA aptamer that will bind selectively to the hFSHR. We first incubated a large pool containing random sequence oligonucleotides with wild type HEK293 cells (which do not have hFSHR) as a counter-selection. Many of the RNA molecules bound to the protein receptors on the cell surface. The unbound molecules were then incubated with HEK293 cells expressing the hFSHR. The oligonucleotides that bound to the hFSHR were eluted, isolated, and then re-amplified. The process of selection was repeated while increasing stringency of binding each time. We were able to successfully perform SELEX on our RNA pool at 4°C and 22°C. We also conducted nanodrop experiments to confirm that our oligonucleotides are indeed binding specifically to the hFSHR. We hope to continue refining our aptamer at higher temperatures such as 30°C and 37°C, determine the exact nature of the oligonucleotide-protein binding complex, and eventually begin in vivo trials to determine efficacy.


Although neurologically normal individuals often exhibit leftward biases of perception and attention, known as pseudoneglect, factors such as lighting, spatial location and native reading direction have been found to modulate these biases. To investigate lighting and spatial biases in left-to-right and right-to-left readers search times were measured in a target finding task where lighting and target locations were manipulated. Target search times under upper-left lighting were significantly shorter than lower-left, upper-right and lower-right lighting among left-to-right readers. Right-to-left readers did not display the same leftward bias, even displaying significantly shorter search times under upper-right lighting than those of left-to-right readers. Significantly shorter search times for targets located in the upper-left quadrant (compared to other quadrants) were observed for left-to-right readers, while search times for upper-right located targets were significantly shorter for right-to-left readers compared to those of left-to-right readers. Participant scan times of stimuli divided into equal quadrants were monitored by an eye-tracking camera. Both groups displayed greater scan times in upper quadrants. These findings suggest that native reading direction modulates spatial and light perception biases resulting in weaker leftward, or a lack of lateral biases among right-to-left readers.


It has recently been suggested that hyperlinear palms seen in atopic dermatitis are actually a manifestation of concomitant ichthyosis vulgaris. Patients with atopic dermatitis were examined in our clinic for the presence or absence of ichthyosis vulgaris and/or hyperlinear palms. While 70 percent of the patients with atopic dermatitis and ichthyosis did have hyperlinear palms, only 29 percent of the patients with atopic dermatitis and hyperlinear palms had concomitant ichthyosis vulgaris. These findings do not support the suggestion that hyperlinear palms in atopic dermatitis are a manifestation of concomitant ichthyosis vulgaris.


Age differences in inference availability and memory were investigated using a speeded decision procedure and cued recall. Younger and older adults read passages that directly suggested either a target inference or an incorrect, competing inference before finally supporting the target inference. At critical points in a passage, subjects judged whether each of a series of words, including either the target or competing inference, was consistent with their current interpretation. Although both groups agreed on the final target inference, younger and older adults showed different patterns of inference availability and revision. Older adults showed broader and more sustained activation of alternative interpretations and also showed lower levels of inference recall. These findings are interpretable by a framework that proposes age-related breakdowns in inhibitory mechanisms that control the contents of working memory (Hasher & Zacks, 1988).


We present a new moving-iron electromagnetic actuator utilizing a single driving coil, a twisting axis as high-stiffness spring, and laminated permalloy material. We analyze its static and dynamic characteristics using the finite-element method, and then we present measurements of the real hysteresis loop and frequency response of the actuator based on a flash charge-coupled device (CCD) laser microangular displacement sensor. The results show that the actuator has angular displacement of plusmn0.0064 rad, low hysteresis of less than 5%, and amplitude frequency response (-3 dB) of 4.3 kHz. We have tested the actuator successfully in a gravure system.


Purpose To determine the birth prevalence of visually significant infantile cataract, using population-based comprehensive medical record retrieval, in a defined US population. Design Retrospective, population-based, medical record retrieval. Methods We reviewed records of all pediatric patients (0–17 years) coded as cataract during a 20-year period (1978 to 1997) using the resources of the Rochester Epidemiology Project. "Infantile cataract" was defined as a cataract diagnosed within the first year of life. "Possible infantile cataract" was defined as a cataract, diagnosed after the first year in a child born in Olmsted County, where there was no evidence of an acquired traumatic, acquired systemic, or acquired ocular etiology. Visually insignificant cataracts were excluded. Results Ten incident cases of visually significant infantile cataract were identified during the 20-year study period, yielding a birth prevalence of 3.0 per 10,000 live births (95% CI: 1.5–5.6 per 10,000). Five additional cases of visually significant "possible infantile cataract" were identified, diagnosed between the ages of 2 and 8 years. Inclusion of these "possible infantile cataracts" would result in an estimate of overall birth prevalence for visually significant infantile cataract of 4.5 per 10,000 live births (95% CI: 2.5–7.5 per 10,000). Conclusions Using population-based medical record retrieval methods, we estimate the birth prevalence of visually significant infantile cataract to be 3.0 to 4.5 per 10,000. Infantile cataracts are an important cause of visual impairment in children and these data are useful in planning clinical trials and allocating health care resources.


A total of 5447 contraction stress tests (CST) were performed on 3246 high-risk patients during pregnancy. Positive tests occurred in 102 patients (3.1%), 59 of whom had primary cesarean sections. Labor was induced in 40 patients (39.2%), and 17 developed cardiotocographic evidence of fetal distress. In 2 patients labor was terminated due to prolapse of the umbilical cord, and the remaining 21 patients did not develop fetal distress. Fetal distress was more common in patients with proved intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) and where the acceleration patterns were not noted during the CST. Only 23% of the patients delivered vaginally. The fetal loss was 100% in those infants weighing < 1000 g, but no infant weighing ≥ 2500 g died. The overall perinatal mortality was 8.7%. The incidence of late decelerations during labor, low 5-minute Apgar scores, and small-for-date infants was significantly higher in patients with positive stress tests than in a control group of 257 patients with negative stress tests done over the same period of time.


We cascade an existing image coder with carefully chosen error control coding, and thus produce a progressive image compression scheme whose performance on a noisy channel is significantly better than that of previously known techniques. The main idea is to trade off the available transmission rate between source coding and channel coding in an efficient manner. This coding system is easy to implement and has acceptably low complexity. Furthermore, effectively no degradation due to channel noise can be detected; instead, the penalty paid due to channel noise is a reduction in source coding resolution. Detailed numerical comparisons are given that can serve as benchmarks for comparisons with future encoding schemes. For example, for the 512/spl times/512 Lena image, at a transmission rate of 1 b/pixel, and for binary symmetric channels with bit error probabilities 10/sup -3/, 10/sup -2/, and 10/sup -1/, the proposed system outperforms previously reported results by at least 2.6, 2.8, and 8.9 dB, respectively.