The paper provides a review of the data available in the literature on the relationship of pain to the risk of OA progression. Network analyses and numerous studies, including those conducted at the V.A. Nasonova Research Institute of Rheumatology, have confirmed that pain syndrome is one of the significant predictors of knee OA progression. The major class of medications for OA pain includes nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The paper gives data on the efficacy of meloxicam in OA patients, which is widely used in both Russia and other countries of the world. Meloxicam is characterized by a good safety profile in the gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascular and renal systems. It is the drug of choice in patients with musculoskeletal diseases, in particular OA. Good results in severe pain syndrome have been shown by a step-by-step regimen of meloxicam when the injection formulation of the drug is used in the first days of treatment, and then, to consolidate what has been gained from therapy, its oral dosage form is administered in terms of concomitant diseases.


Co-edited conference proceedings and co-authored introduction.

An output from my involvement as a postdoctorate researcher on the ADAPT-r ITN, funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013.


Up to now, Healthcare System has been achieved throughout wired networks. On account of that, both patients and medical teams have needed to put up with all the inconveniences related to time and space. However, the age of the ubiquitous computing has come, and the system that can guarantee portability and mobility for patients and medical teams is required. In this paper, based on PDA and Wireless Sensor Network, Hardware Platform is designed in order to provide patients and medical teams with portability and mobility. Also, Remote Monitoring System is designed by using Wireless LAN Network.


Even though the development of mean-variance portfolio selection earned its inventor Harry Markowitz the Nobel Prize, the theory is usually perceived to be flawed in practical applications. Its main deficiency is that it builds on known asset return moments, although inputs have to be estimated in real life. Straightforward application hence tends to maximize errors: assets that appear to be better due to estimation errors will be overweight in portfolios, which leads to suboptimal portfolio choices. In other words, Markowitz portfolio selection is too powerful for the quality of its inputs (Scherer 2002). While increased precision of inputs obviously would lead to better portfolio choices, in this thesis we examine another way to improve results: increasing the resilience to faulty inputs. Therefore, we propose a diversification-aware approach that allows to conduct mean-variance portfolio selection under constraints on diversification. A minimum required level of diversification serves as single parameter to control sensitivity with regards to inputs, and limit cases are plain Markowitz efficient frontier portfolios on the one end, and the equal weights portfolio on the other. The single diversification parameter keeps the amount of manual decisions to a minimum, and the convex nature of the optimization problem allows fast and robust solving.

In an empirical application we show that this diversification-aware approach produces promising allocation decisions when used as part of a dynamic risk management strategy. In a backtest period of approximately 17 years, it achieves out-of-sample risk-return profiles close to the true, in-sample efficient frontier. Even more remarkable, results hold although asset return moments are obtained from an unreflected application of exponentially weighted sample moments to assets of multiple asset classes. This estimator is predestined to generate poor portfolio optimization inputs, as it is backward-looking only and treats highly heterogeneous assets equally. Still, backtest results are promising and hence indicate that diversification-aware portfolio choices have the potential to effectively deal with faulty inputs. In addition, dynamic risk management helps to considerably reduce drawdowns as compared to static portfolio weights, and hence results are promising even beyond a perspective on mean-variance utility only.

Dynamic strategies are set up with particular focus on real life feasibility, and hence should reflect some aspects that go beyond the usual academic requirements. In order to address a broad range of clients, the strategy is built to be scalable with regards to a spectrum of risk aversion levels. Furthermore, within each risk category clients are managed individually, in order to allow customization with regards to client-specific tax situations in a subsequent layer. The dynamic strategy hence has an additional optimization step based on relative tracking errors, designed to keep both trading costs and dispersion of client performances within bounds. This particularly cost-efficient implementation provides the dynamic risk management approach with enough scope for action. Again, tracking error optimization is formulated as convex optimization problem, such that it allows fast and robust solving.


Primary basaltic pyroclastic deposits compose volumetrically c. 35–50% of the Lower Palaeogene Vandfaldsdalen, Mikis and Haengefjeldet Formations within the lower volcanic series of the East Greenland flood basalt province. The eruption and emplacement mechanisms of these deposits can be used to evaluate the volcanotectonic evolution of continental break-up and initiation of flood basalt volcanism. We present a revised stratigraphy for the pre-volcanic sedimentary rocks and synvolcanic pyroclastic and epiclastic deposits and lavas from the Kangerlussuaq Basin, East Greenland. Primary basaltic pyroclastic deposits range from airfall tuffs to bomb beds, surge deposits and vent sites with cinder cones. Early volcanism was apparently restricted to localized basins and formed shield volcano structures 30–40 km in diameter that are characterized by a heterogeneous sequence of intercalated hyaloclastites, sediments, pyroclastic deposits and lavas. The lateral variation of deposit morphology reflects distance from source and indicates a migrating locus of volcanism along the axis of rifting towards the NE, paired with continued down-dropping of inactive volcanic centres. The complex stratigraphic architecture of the initial volcanic deposits reflects local tectonic and sedimentary processes interacting with regional flood basalt volcanism and continental rifting.


VMware vSphere 4TM offers Paravirtualized SCSI (PVSCSI), a new virtual storage adapter. This document provides a performance comparison of PVSCSI and LSI Logic. The experiment results show that PVSCSI provides better throughput and lower CPU utilization in virtualized environments where guest applications are very I/O intensive. The experiment results also demonstrate that, although PVSCSI provides better CPU efficiency, LSI Logic is able to provide wire-speed throughput, indicating that the storage adapter is not the limiting factor in I/O performance if the system is properly configured.


A biological method is usually used in many industries and water purification plants to treat organic waste water. Aerobic microorganisms in active sludge decompose organic compounds to lower molecular weight compounds with oxygen consumption in aeration tank. On many aeration systems, the oxygen supply into water limits the rate of waste water treatment. To improve the oxygen dissolution into water, the size of air bubbles may be reduced. If bubbles are crushed by some additional power devices such as pump or stirrer, however, the cost increases. Therefore, in this study, a novel aerator which consumes almost no additional power was developed to generate bubbles having a diameter smaller than 1 mm.When a gas is inputted from a round orifice into water, the bubbles grow very stably and their size is large. On the other hand, when the shape of the orifice is slit-like, instability is caused by bubble expansion. By using this natural phenomena, a uniform dispersion of submilli-bubbles was realized. Moreover, to design submilli-bubble dispersers, a semi-empirical bubble formation model is proposed.


ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to construct the mean control chart limits based on Shewhart, weighted variance and skewness correction methods using simple random sampling, ranked set sampling, median ranked set sampling and neoteric ranked set sampling designs. Type I Marshall-Olkin bivariate Weibull and bivariate lognormal distributions are used in the proposed mean control charts. The performance of the proposed control charts based on neoteric ranked set sampling designs is compared with their counterparts in ranked set sampling, median ranked set sampling and simple random sampling by Monte Carlo simulation. Simulation results revealed that the proposed mean charts perform much better than simple random sampling design.


There is a quote attributed to Hippocrates that reads, "Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food." It is easy to recognize the significance of this advice when working with patients with diabetes. Nutrition therapy has been recognized as a crucial component of diabetes management since the discovery of the disease.

General goals of diabetes nutrition therapy are to achieve and sustain blood glucose and blood pressure as near to normal as possible, as well as a lipid profile that decreases the risk for cardiovascular disease; to prevent chronic complications; to address individual nutrition needs; and to maintain the pleasure of eating.1 Although it is recommended that a registered dietitian (RD) experienced in diabetes medical nutrition therapy (MNT) take the lead role in providing nutrition care for individuals with diabetes,1 all health care professionals who see patients with diabetes play a contributing role in promoting healthful eating.

For busy clinicians, messages about healthful eating and physical activity often go unsaid because of the short duration of time actually spent face to face with patients. Health care professionals encountering patients with diabetes throughout their course of care can make a difference by reinforcing positive messages about healthful food choices and physical activity and sharing the belief that it is possible to make changes. These brief messages may be more important than clinicians realize.

Controversy surrounded the recent revelation from celebrity chef Paula Deen that she had been diagnosed with type …


For understanding the phase relationship between the breaking of wind waves and the generation of marine-aerosol at the sea surface, we use an experimental opticle particle counter for sea spray (OPC-SS) which is able to measure particle concentrations at a rate of 10 Hz in 8 size bins between 0.3 and 30 micro-meters . The OPC-SS is also equipped with triaxial accelerometer at a rate of 10 Hz for measuring the movement of a buoy. In this year, we are planning to test the OPC-SS at the Shiramaha Oceanographic Observatory Tower (Kyoto Univ.) and also in the Otsuchi Bay in front ot the International Coastal Research Center (the Univ. of Tokyo).


The aim of this study is to determine the attitudes of the sports science faculty students with pedagogical formation training towards the teaching profession and to make a comparison based on some characteristics. The research was conducted as a survey model. The research group was comprised of 353 students, who were attending to the Faculty of Sports Sciences in Erciyes University during 2018-2019 education year and who received pedagogical formation training. The research data were collected using the "Attitude Scale for the Profession of Physical Education Teaching". SPSS program was used in the analysis of the data. According to the results of the study, the attitudes of the sports science faculty students with pedagogical formation training towards the profession of teaching were determined to be at "medium level". Additionally, there was statistically no significant difference in the attitudes of the students in the research group towards the teaching profession concerning variables such as gender, age, active participation in sports, grade point average, and grade levels; but there was a statistically significant difference concerning the department and sport branch.


Assistive technology has a significant impact on helping students with communication disorders achieve their academic goals. Selecting an appropriate assistive technology for a student requires parents, educators, and other professionals take a comprehensive view, carefully analyzing the interaction between the student, the technology, the tasks to be performed, and the settings where it will be used. It is important for the researchers to have better understanding of this disability issues and develop their own tool. Foreign assistive technologies are expensive and not readily available for the student with communication disorders in Thailand. It is therefore desirable to design and develop such tools for the student in Thailand and determine its effectiveness on performance of the student. Consequently, this paper obviously is considered on a study to integrate usability testing into the design and development of two assistive technology tools called Thai Word Search program and Thai word prediction program. Thai Word Search program assists student with communication disorders to write any vocabulary that he/she cannot spell it correctly. However, Thai word prediction has its advantages for students with communication disorders as the function of word completion and word prediction. Finally, the study indicated that student with communication disorders in this study increase his ability in writing when using assistive technology more than without using assistive technology. The result for the first tool shows the value of p is 0.00001. Additionally, result for the second tool shows the value of p is 0.00027. Therefore both results are significant at p ≤ 0.05.


Abstract Mudstone-dominated marine successions are common in the geological record, yet a full understanding of their depositional processes is often hampered by a lack of generally accepted diagnostic criteria to distinguish between hemipelagic settling and deposition from a flowing medium. The Marnoso Arenacea Formation, a turbidite unit of Miocene age cropping out in the northern Apennines of Italy, offers the possibility to address some of these uncertainties. A relatively small (∼ 10%) but distinctive portion of the Marnoso Arenacea Formation is composed of white marlstone beds (WM beds) that have frequently been interpreted as due to hemipelagic settling of fine-grained particles (hemipelagites). The analysis of the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) revealed the presence in the WM beds of maximum susceptibility axes clustered within the depositional plane along the average paleoflow direction inferred from flute casts at the bases of the nearest turbidite beds, whereas the minimum susceptibility axes are oriented perpendicular to the bedding plane. This fabric is interpreted as largely sedimentary in origin (albeit a contribution from tectonic shortening cannot be excluded) and due to the alignment within the bedding plane of paramagnetic grains (e.g., muscovite) and possibly also ferromagnetic grains (magnetite) under low-velocity currents. The trend of the maximum susceptibility axes, and hence of the paleoflow direction, is approximately oriented NNW–SSE after correction for Apennines thrust-sheet rotation since the Miocene. These results suggest that the WM beds cannot be entirely due to hemipelagic settling, as often stated in the literature. A discussion of alternative depositional mechanisms leads us to conclude that the WM beds may have been deposited under the influence of contour currents and should therefore be referred to as muddy contourites.


The aim of this project is to add manipulation functionality to one of the NASA's Mars rovers through the integration of a robotic arm. The functionality is needed to enable retrieval of deployed communication bricks from the Martian surface. For this, a simple hook end-eector is designed and tested using a controller implemented on a computer.The manipulator is a ve degree of freedom robotic arm with revolute joints. It is a nonlinear MIMO system but can be approximated to be five highly decoupled linear SISO systems. The manipulator is controlled in joint space, where each joint follows a trajectory. The trajectory is generated as four sequential sub-trajectories, where the manipulator comes to rest at each transition point.We assume that the Martian surface is free of obstacles and that the manipulator can work in any position on the workspace. We also assume that the position of the hole on the communication brick is known. For controlling the end-eector in joint space, a trajectory-following PD-controller is constructed.When testing the controller the rst four joints (waist, shoulder, elbow and twist) follow the desired trajectory well. The last joint, wrist, follows the trajectory well for the rst period of time and then start to oscillate around the path curve. The controller was tuned by decreasing Kp value for the wrist joint. The reason for deciding to decrease Kp was to slow the system down and therefore gain an increased stability. Tuning resulted in a better behaving wrist joint controller which follows the desired trajectory in a satisfactory way. Oscillations in wrist have disappeared and the controller works as intended.We designed and manufactured an end-eector that was within the IRG price range. We established baseline communication with the manipulator, developed a standalone control software and implemented a software for collection of communication bricks. This controller was working properly and fullled the goal set at the beginning of the thesis to design a communication brick collecting manipulator.


Thi s article seeks to explore the role that leadership plays in both the perpetration and avoidance of mass atrocities. Many scholars have argued that leadership is pivotal to the outbreak of such violence but there is almost no scholarship which explores the role that political leaders play in mitigating or aggravating the risk of atrocities over time. Why is it that mass atrocities occur in some places but not in others, despite the existence of similar risk factors? By conducting a comparative analysis of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, this paper investigates the impact that the strategies of each leader had on the risk of mass atrocities. Both countries share similar colonial backgrounds, and display comparable structural risk factors commonly associated with genocide and other mass atrocities. Both Kaunda and Mugabe were key leaders in their countries' liberation struggles, and both leaders played pivotal roles during the crucial formative years of independence. Yet the two countries have taken dramatically diffe rent paths – while Zambia has remained relatively stable and peaceful, Zimbabwe has experience mass violence and repression.


Protecting Apollo sites is laudable. Making them U.S. National Parks is not. The U.S. Apollo Space Program was a premier technological accomplishment of the 20th century. Preserving the six historic landing sites of the manned Apollo missions, as well as the mementos and equipment still on the Moon from those and other U.S. (e.g., Ranger and Surveyor) and Soviet Union (e.g., Luna) missions is important. Some of the instruments on the lunar surface are still active, monitored, and provide valuable scientific information. But recent government and private-sector plans to explore and potentially use lunar resources for commercial activity raise questions about the use of the Moon and potential accidental or purposeful threats to the historic sites and scientific equipment there. Although some steps to protect these sites have been proposed, we suggest a better way, drawing on international, not U.S. unilateral, recognition for the sites.


Logic-based answer extraction techniques present a solution to retrieve and mark those exact passages in a document that directly answer a natural language query. In contrast to pure information retrieval techniques that treat content words as isolated terms, answer extraction techniques exploit syntactic information in a document to a certain degree and consider semantic relations between function words and content words. Minimal logical forms (MLF) - specially designed for this task - represent the semantic relations of the sentences and point to the textual information in the document. MLFs consist of existentially closed atomic formulas and use reification of objects, eventualities and properties as a building principle. On account of their simple design MLFs proved to be computationally tractable and incrementally extensible in our answer extraction system ExtrAns. Unresolved structural
ambiguities are represented by alternative MLFs. The theorem prover of ExtrAns finds all proofs for an (ambiguous) query and considers the frequency of a part of a MLF used during the proof as an indicator for the retrieval relevance. The actual retrieval relevance is reflected by selective highlighting in the document. The more often a part of a MLF that points to a specific phrase of a sentence is used for the proof, the more intensively this phrase is marked by the colouring scheme.


There are two perspectives which link Islam with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first perspective believes that the conflict in Palestine is an inter-religious conflict, namely Islam versus Judaism. The second perspective sees that the conflict in the region is not an interfaith battle, but rather a battle between two entities: the invaders and the colonized. However, this second perspective still uses religion as a foundation to defend the Palestinian people because the principle of opposing the tyrant does exist in the teachings of Islam. In this article, the author will present the Qur'anic texts about Israel. The author found, there are two types of the verses of the Qur'an that describe the Jews: first, as a group with various bad qualities; second, verses that describe the Jews positively.


Visual Abstract Fear is an emotional mechanism that helps to cope with potential hazards. However, when fear is generalized, it becomes maladaptive and represents a core symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Converging lines of research show that dysfunction of glutamatergic neurotransmission is a cardinal feature of trauma and stress related disorders such as PTSD. However, the involvement of glutamatergic co-transmission in fear is less well understood. Glutamate is accumulated into synaptic vesicles by vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUTs). The atypical subtype, VGLUT3, is responsible for the co-transmission of glutamate with acetylcholine, serotonin, or GABA. To understand the involvement of VGLUT3-dependent co-transmission in aversive memories, we used a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm in VGLUT3–/– mice. Our results revealed a higher contextual fear memory in these mice, despite a facilitation of extinction. In addition, the absence of VGLUT3 leads to fear generalization, probably because of a pattern separation deficit. Our study suggests that the VGLUT3 network plays a crucial role in regulating emotional memories. Hence, VGLUT3 is a key player in the processing of aversive memories and therefore a potential therapeutic target in stress-related disorders.


An increased expansion of renewable resources and biodiesel is observed and prognosed, since fossile energy resources are about to run out. Hungary achieved outstanding sunflower years in the recent years in worldwide comparison. In the future, the feedstock of biodiesel production can also be rape besides sunflower.According to the concept of harmonious development, the balance between nature, society, economy and human environments is represented by their mutual presumptive character. Research and development need to be aligned into this system. Our aim was to examine the advantages anddisadvantages of biodiesel production in different environments, using a model to do so. In order to maintain the harmony, the existing resources have to be managed properly, taking the correlations of the system into consideration. Targeted technological developments are necessary, similarly to the improvement of energy safety and efficiency.


INTRODUCTION Union Pacific Corporation is one of North America's leading transportation, computer technology and logistics companies, with operations in all 50 United States, Canada and Mexico. With headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, Union Pacific Corporation currently has over 52,000 employees, covers more than 36,000 miles of track in 23 states and has an annual payroll in excess of $3 billion. There are 1700 people in information technology alone with a budget of about $250 M. The company's web site at http://www.uprr.com provides a comprehensive corporate pi'ofile of the company. Science Applications International Corporation is the nation's largest employee-owned research and engineering company, providing information technology and systems integration products and services to government and commercial customers. SAIC scientists and engineers work to solve complex technical problems in telecommunications, national security, health care, transportation, energy, the environment, and financial services. With annual revenues of $4.7 billion, SAIC and its subsidiaries have more than 38,000 employees at offices in more than 150 cities worldwide. Intermodal units are critical for the sustained success of a railroad company and hence it is important to ensure that these units are in good working condition. As customers' demand more speedy and efficient transportation of goods, rail intermodal service--the movement of trailers or containers by rail and at least one other mode of transportation--is ideally suited to meet this demand. That is one of the reasons intermodal is the fastest growing segment of the railroad industry (my.uprr.com/pub/notes). Intermodal traffic has grown from 3 million trailers and containers in 1980 to 8.7 million in 1997 and accounts for more than 17 percent of rail revenues, second only to coal at 22 percent (www.aar.org). Intermodal transportation yields many powerful benefits (www.aar.org): * Fuel efficiency. Rail intermodal service on average uses less than half as much fuel as highway transport to move the same shipment the same distance. * Convenience and partnerships. Intermodal combines the door-to-door convenience of trucks with the long-haul economy of rail service. As a result, railroads, trucking companies and intermodal marketing companies are forming productive partnerships to combine the best of both modes. * Improved air quality. Moving a ton of freight by rail instead of truck results in less than one-third the emissions into the air. * Reduced traffic congestion. A single intermodal train can remove as many as 280 trucks from the highways. * Innovative technology. Intermodal technology, such as double-stack trains (one container on top of another) permit one train with two crew members to remove up to 280 trucks from the highway, reduce pollution and save energy. Railroad regulations require the inspection of all intermodal equipment (vans, containers, chassis) during yard entry and exit to ensure that damages to a unit are positively identified and charged to the responsible party ("Building the Systems ...," 1999). This is a very critical step if the railroad is to recover damage claims assessed by equipment owners and also to win disputes regarding the timing and extent of damage. In January of 1995, during a strategic planning exercise at the company, it became clear that there was room for improvement in the way the company managed and maintained its intermodal units. Reengineering current intermodal operational process and practices would help the company be more responsive to customer needs while increasing its operational efficiencies and profits. Due to increased global competitiveness, customers expected their transportation companies to be agile and responsive. After considerable discussion among top and middle management, the company established the following primary goals for the reengineering effort of intermodal operations: * Increase data accuracy * Reduce transaction processing time * Increase the rate of collections from damage claims * Increase accuracy of the damage inspection * Decrease number of yard personnel As the reengineering team began to look closely at the intermodal operations, it became evident that two processes were big bottlenecks in achieving desired efficiencies. …


: Abstract: In this study, same amount of potassium (240 kg . hm-2) was applied as basal dressing (treatment 1) and as 1/2 basal dressing + 1/2 top-dressing at day 75 after planting (treatment 2), aimed to investigate the effects of potassium fertilization period on the photosynthetic characteristics of edible sweetpotato and the starch accumulation in storage root. As compared with treatment 1, treatment 2 improved the leaf photosynthetic rate and sucrose-phosphate synthase activity and the storage root's adenosine diphosphate glucose pyrophosphortlase activity, enhanced the starch accumulation rate in storage root (with an average increment of 6. 7%), and increased the root tuber yield significantly by 8. 2%. Both of the potassium fertilization treatments improved the synthesis of sucrose in leaf and the transformation from sucrose to starch in storage root, as compared with no potassium fertilization.


We solve the problem of computing global conformal parameterizations for surfaces with nontrivial topologies. The parameterization is global in the sense that it preserves the conformality everywhere except for a few points, and has no boundary of discontinuity. We analyze the structure of the space of all global conformal parameterizations of a given surface and find all possible solutions by constructing a basis of the underlying linear solution space. This space has a natural structure solely determined by the surface geometry, so our computing result is independent of connectivity, insensitive to resolution, and independent of the algorithms to discover it. Our algorithm is based on the properties of gradient fields of conformal maps, which are closedness, harmonity, conjugacy, duality and symmetry. These properties can be formulated by sparse linear systems, so the method is easy to implement and the entire process is automatic. We also introduce a novel topological modification method to improve the uniformity of the parameterization. Based on the global conformal parameterization of a surface, we can construct a conformal atlas and use it to build conformal geometry images which have very accurate reconstructed normals.


This experimental study investigates the behaviour of banks in a large value payment system. More specifically, we look at 1) the reactions of banks to disruptions in t he payment system, 2) the way in which the history o f disruptions affects the behaviour of banks (path dependency) a d 3) the effect of more concentration in the payment system (heterogeneous market versus a homogeneous market). The game used in this experiment is a stylized version of a model of Bech and Garrett (2006) in which each bank can choose between paying in the morning (efficient) or in the afternoon (inefficient) . The results show that there is significant path depende ncy in terms of disruption history. Also the chance of disruptio n influences the behaviour of the participants. Once the system is moving towards the inefficient equilibrium, it does not easily move back to the efficient one. Furthermore, there is a clear leadership effect in the het rogeneous market. JEL codes: C92, D70, D78, E58


Currently transistor stuck-open (TSOP) faults in CMOS digital logic circuits are detected by two pattern tests consisting of an initialization pattern to set the output of a faulty gate followed by a pattern that detects a stuck-at fault. Some TSOP faults may not be detected by such two-pattern tests. One reason for this is that appropriate initialization patterns cannot be obtained using Boolean (steady state) analysis of the circuit. For some of these faults, required initialization may be possible using hazards (glitches) [10][13]. However, insuring that a test using hazard-based initialization actually detects the target fault requires accurate transient analysis of the circuit under test such as by SPICE. In this work we propose methods to augment test generation procedures to detect TSOP faults using traditional steady state Boolean analysis (called Boolean tests in this work). We also investigate the cause for the non-existence of test patterns for the faults not detected in benchmark circuits. In many such cases we found that the non-existence of test patterns is due to redundant gates that can be replaced by a constant 1 or 0. We present results on larger ISCAS-89 benchmark circuits to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods to generate tests to detect TSOP faults and the results of analysis for the non-existence of tests for the remaining faults undetected by Boolean tests.


We introduce new online and batch algorithms that are robust to data with missing features, a situation that arises in many practical applications. In the online setup, we allow for the comparison hypothesis to change as a function of the subset of features that is observed on any given round, extending the standard setting where the comparison hypothesis is fixed throughout. In the batch setup, we present a convex relaxation of a non-convex problem to jointly estimate an imputation function, used to fill in the values of missing features, along with the classification hypothesis. We prove regret bounds in the online setting and Rademacher complexity bounds for the batch i.i.d. setting. The algorithms are tested on several UCI datasets, showing superior performance over baseline imputation methods.


High-resolution interferometric airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images of Indonesian tropical rain forests have been acquired during the European Space Agency (ESA) Indonesian Radar Experiment (INDREX) 1996 campaign. Research efforts are directed toward development of automated canopy reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) image simulation is discussed as one of the tools to support development of such inversion algorithms. First, the relevant physics, observation geometry, and radar characteristics are described. It is assumed that a forest can be modeled as a cloud of uniformly distributed isotropically scattering elements located within crown volumes. These volumes were measured during a field experiment for a 7.2 ha plot. Simulated data comprise intensity, phase, as well as coherence images. These are compared, in a statistical sense, with real data acquired in C- and X-bands. The canopy attenuation was simulated over a range of values. The normalized second intensity moment, the mean coherence magnitude, the coherence histogram, and the autocorrelation function of coherence were taken as measures for comparison. It can be concluded that simulated and real C-band images compare well for an extinction coefficient in the range of 0.15-0.3 m/sup -1/. For X-band, the selected measures of agreement lead to contradictions, indicating that the physical assumptions made may be less valid than for C-band.


Abstract. A multi-trait repeatability animal model under restricted maximum likelihood (REML) and Bayesian methods was used to estimate genetic parameters of milk, fat, and protein yields in Tunisian Holstein cows. The estimates of heritability for milk, fat, and protein yields from the REML procedure were 0.21 ± 0.05, 0.159 ± 0.04, and 0.158 ± 0.04, respectively. The corresponding results from the Bayesian procedure were 0.273 ± 0.02, 0.198 ± 0.01, and 0.187 ± 0.01. Heritability estimates tended to be larger via the Bayesian than those obtained by the REML method. Genetic and permanent environmental variances estimated by REML were smaller than those obtained by the Bayesian analysis. Inversely, REML estimates of the residual variances were larger than Bayesian estimates. Genetic and permanent correlation estimates were on the other hand comparable by both REML and Bayesian methods with permanent environmental being larger than genetic correlations. Results from this study confirm previous reports on genetic parameters for milk traits in Tunisian Holsteins and suggest that a multi-trait approach can be an alternative for implementing a routine genetic evaluation of the Tunisian dairy cattle population.


During field research held in the coastal, fog-influenced zones of a Chilean desert (Paposo, 25 degrees 00 S; 70 degrees 26 W), the oribatid fauna has been studied. A species was found, related to Licnodamaeus, but separated from it by important differences. A new genus is described, Licnodamaeolus, based on this new species, named L. travei. This oribatid was found in very dry soils under Euphorbia lactiflua Phil.


The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is a fundamental property of concrete. It has long been known to have an effect on joint opening and closing in jointed plain concrete pavement, crack formation and opening and closing in continuously reinforced concrete pavement, and curling stresses and thermal deformations in both types of pavements. However, it has not been included as a variable either in materials specifications or in the structural design of concrete pavements. Hundreds of cores were taken from Long-Term Pavement Performance sections throughout the United States and were tested by FHWA's Turner–Fairbank Highway Research Center laboratory, using the AASHTO TP 60 test procedure. The CTE values were then assimilated into groups on the basis of aggregate types, and the mean and range of CTE were calculated. These results were then used in the new mechanistic–empirical pavement design guide to determine the significance of the measured range of CTE on concrete pavement performance. The CTE of the concrete was found to vary widely, depending on the predominant aggregate type used in the concrete. Sensitivity analysis showed CTE to have a significant effect on slab cracking and, to a lesser degree, on joint faulting. Its overall effect on smoothness was also significant. Given that CTE has not been used before in routine pavement structural design, the conclusion is that this design input is too sensitive to be ignored and must be fully considered in specifications and in the design process to reduce the risk of excessive cracking, faulting, and loss of smoothness.


In comparison with person re-identification (ReID), which has been widely studied in the research community, vehicle ReID has received less attention. Vehicle ReID is challenging due to 1) high intra-class variability (caused by the dependency of shape and appearance on viewpoint), and 2) small inter-class variability (caused by the similarity in shape and appearance between vehicles produced by different manufacturers). To address these challenges, we propose a Pose-Aware Multi-Task Re-Identification (PAMTRI) framework. This approach includes two innovations compared with previous methods. First, it overcomes viewpoint-dependency by explicitly reasoning about vehicle pose and shape via keypoints, heatmaps and segments from pose estimation. Second, it jointly classifies semantic vehicle attributes (colors and types) while performing ReID, through multi-task learning with the embedded pose representations. Since manually labeling images with detailed pose and attribute information is prohibitive, we create a large-scale highly randomized synthetic dataset with automatically annotated vehicle attributes for training. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of each proposed component, showing that PAMTRI achieves significant improvement over state-of-the-art on two mainstream vehicle ReID benchmarks: VeRi and CityFlow-ReID.


Rule Extraction and Insertion to Improve the Performance of a Dynamic Cell Structure Neural Network Osama Amhamed Elsarrar Artificial Neural Networks are extremely useful machine learning tools. They are used for many purposes, such as prediction, classification, pattern recognition, etc. Although neural networks have been used for decades, they are still often not completely understood or trusted, especially in safety and mission critical situations. Typically, neural networks are trained on data sets that are representative of what needs to be learned. Sometimes training sets are constructed in order to train the neural network in a certain way, in order to embed appropriate knowledge. The purpose of this research is to determine if there is another method that can be used to embed specific knowledge in a neural network before training and if this improves the performance of a neural network. This research develops and tests a new method of embedding pre-knowledge into the Dynamic Cell Structure (DCS) neural network. The DCS is a type of self-organizing map neural network that has been used for many purposes, including classification. In the research presented here, the method used for embedding pre-knowledge into the neural network is to start by converting the knowledge to a set of IF/THEN rules, that can be easily understood and/or validated by a human expert. Once the rules are constructed and validated, then they are converted to a beginning neural network structure. This allows pre-knowledge to be embedded before training the neural network. This conversion and embedding process is called Rule Insertion. In order to determine whether this process improves performance, the neural network was trained with and without pre-knowledge embedded. After the training, the neural network structure was again converted to rules, Rule Extraction, and then the neural network accuracy and the rule accuracy were computed. Also, the agreement between the neural network and the extracted rules was computed. The findings of this research show that using Rule Insertion to embed pre-knowledge into a DCS neural network can increase the accuracy of the neural network. An expert can create the rules to be embedded and can also examine and validate the rules extracted to give more confidence in what the neural network has learned during training. The extracted rules are also a refinement of the inserted rules, meaning the neural network was able to improve upon the expert knowledge based on the data presented.


The present article addresses syntactic variation within French, and is an example of a relatively recent shift in attitude towards variation in this language. It considers the status of the variation with respect to the mental grammars of speakers, in particular in the light of Massot's work suggesting that contemporary metropolitan France is characterised by diglossia, that is, a community of speakers with two (in this case massively overlapping but not entirely identical) 'French' grammars which co-exist in their minds, one stylistically marked High, the other Low. The article reviews one particular instance of variation and argues that Massot's model needs to be revised in order to account for the particular phenomenon of surface forms which can be generated by both putative grammars but which have a different linguistic status in each.


PZT thin films for memory applications are known to lack sufficient resistance versus polarization fatigue when used together with platinum. One possible solution for this problem is to use conductive oxides like La1-xSrxCoO3 (LSCO) as an electrode. In this paper LSCO thin films were deposited via RF magnetron sputter deposition (face to face configuration) from a single oxide target. Changing the layer beneath LSCO at 750 degrees C and an RF Power of 50 W on SiO2/Si, the film is slightly (100) textured. A. strong (111) texture is established in case of a TiO2/Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si. In contrary, a strong c-axis orientation could be observed on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si.


A combined mathematical model was developed for the regional-scale dynamics of gaseous admixtures and aerosols in the atmosphere. The model incorporates the following modules: thermo-hydrodynamic equations for meso-scale atmospheric processes in the non-hydrostatic approximation; transport of gaseous admixtures and aerosols, with allowance for photochemical transformation and binary homogeneous nucleation; and kinetic processes of condensation/evaporation and coagulation. Particular emphasis is given to the mechanisms of new-particle formation through binary homogeneous nucleation of drops of sulfuric acid and water vapor. By using this model, numerical experiments were performed to investigate spatio-temporal variations in the concentrations of gaseous admixtures and aerosols, as well as the formation of fine aerosol clusters in the Lake Baikal (Russia) and Antwerp (Belgium) areas due to strong industrial emission sources. The results of the numerical experiments are analyzed.


The movie evolves from the combination between message dissemination and moving picture that made through the utilization of camera, lighting, color and voice technologies. Show package of the movie becomes variable recently. People usually recognize the motive as a specific device for giving them a sense of entertainment and recreation due to its relatively affordability. The movie
itself plays role as communicator while the story content disseminated to the audience remains as a message given by communicator to the audience. Message from a move often tells about social reality though our daily life doesn't
seem reflecting the occurrence in the movie. Manipulative characteristic of the movie, therefore, persuades people to think in such way of the message given in the movie. It has been really adverse impact on the public. Animation Movie "Conan Detective" in subtitle of The Phantom of Baker Street represents an import animation movie with many interested audiences. Whole message content of animation movie Conan Detective shall be estimated to change, to modify or to form the character of the audiences.
Regarding to this background, problem determination relates to "How does theme inclination develop in animation movie Detective Conan written by Gosho Aoyama, subtitle of The
Phantom of Baker Street. Research considers a theory of message's content and form because the movie provides a
message given through its story plot to the audiences
with certain effect. Method used in this research concerns with content analysis. Quantitative descriptive approach aims at objectively, systematically, and quantitatively, describing the manifested communication content. A researcher may make an inference and identify it objectively and systematically. Research utilizes categorical structure referred to the category used by Flornoy and the author modifies it related to the demand of research. Measurement unit used will be the frequency of categorical appearance in every scene onanimation movie Detective Conan written by Gosho Aoyama, subtitle of The Phantom of Baker Street. Data analysis technique has been
frequency table to count the average (means). Toensure research's validity and reliability, the author needs validity and reliability tests. In the categorical reliability test, the author uses coding system, where the coder assists the author to measure the precision of author's judgment on theme inclination in animation movie Detective Conan written by Gosho Aoyama, subtitle of The Phantom of Baker Street. To measure it requires the author to use Holsty formula included within Scott formula.
Results of research indicate that the inclination percentage appears at 73 scenes at each category. Friendship theme category has the highest appearance frequency, about 38 times (50.05 %). Intelligence theme category appears about 10 times (13.69 %). Social theme category emerges 9 times (12.32 %). Violence theme turns up for 6 times (8.21 %). Theme of culture and technology shows up with frequency of 5 times (6.84 %). It may be
concluded that theme inclination appeared at animation movie Detective Conan written by Gosho Aoyama, subtitle of The Phantom of Baker Street submits to friendship theme.


Two-dimensional (2D) materials as saturable absorbers (SAs) have attracted intense interest for applications in pulsed laser generation because of their distinguishing optical properties. However, the existing methods of preparing SAs were insufficient. Here, we fabricated graphene oxide (GO) SAs by Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) methods for passively Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. The GO sheets were deposited on a quartz plate using the LB method. Two different LB-GO SAs grown under the surface pressure of 22 and 38 mN/m were obtained. Compared with the drop coating method, LB-GO SA exhibited more excellent uniformity, larger nonlinear performance and higher optical transparency. By inserting LB-GO SA into the Nd:YAG laser linear cavity, the short pulse duration of 156 ns and the average output power of 1.313 W were obtained. The slope efficiency was as high as 43.7%, due to low loss of the LB-GO SA. Our results illustrated a new way for preparing the SA using the LB technique.


In order to compare utilizable value of three kinds of neurotic criteria, we made of diagnosis study of 139 neurotics by criteria of neurotic epidemiological investigation. The diagnostic criteria of Chinese expert Xu Youxin' for several types of neurosis and diagnosis criteria of the Chinese medical association for neurosis respectively. The result showed that consistent rate of diagnosis used three kinds of diagnostic criteria was 73.38 per cent. It suggested that criteria studied was acceptive, especially for neurosis diagnosis of the Chinese medical association. A further study is needed which is useful to improve its sensitivity and specifity for diagnosis of neurosis.


We describe a sensitive, large-area thin film transistor (TFT) sensor platform for real time detection of low-concentration protein analytes in solution. The sensing area is 7 mm by 7 mm. p-channel (pentacene) and n-channel (a naphthalenetetracarboxylic diimide, NTCDI) organic molecules were each used as semiconductors in conjunction with a newly designed receptor–antibody-functionalized top dielectric layer. This layer, incorporating both a fluorinated polymer and vapor-deposited hydrocarbon, provided maximum capacitive coupling and minimal interference from the aqueous analyte solution, and allowed convenient solvent processing of the antibody coupling layer. Additionally, a new antibody immobilization method was introduced, which led to high immobilization yield and surface coverage. Using glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) as a model protein analyte, this sensor platform demonstrated significant selectivity and recognition of target protein even in much more concentrated non-target protein backgrounds. The dose–response relationship yielded a Langmuir isotherm from which a reasonable affinity constant was calculated for the protein and antibody. A zeta potential measurement provided further evidence of the surface potential change being detected by the TFTs. We explicitly verified for the first time that the response is in fact predominantly from perturbations of TFT channel current. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most sensitive organic TFT (OTFT) protein sensor yet reported, and also the first demonstration of the expected opposite current responses by p- and n-channel semiconductors to the same protein.


The steering law models human motor performance and has been verified to hold for a single linear and/or circular path. Some extensions investigated steering around corners. Yet, little is known about human performance in navigating joined linear paths, i.e., successions of path segments with different widths. Such operations appear in graphical user interface tasks, including lasso operations in illustration software. In this work, we conducted several experiments involving joined paths. The results show that users significantly changed their behavior, and that this strategy change can be predicted beforehand. A simple model summing the two indexes of difficulty (IDs) for each path predicts movement time well, but more sophisticated models were also evaluated. The best model in terms of both of R2 and AIC values includes the ID of the crossing operation to enter the second path.


Rituximab (MabThera, Rituxan) is a chimeric IgG1 monoclonal antibody that specifically targets the CD20 surface antigen expressed on normal and neoplastic B-lymphoid cells. Rituximab is currently used in the treatment of both follicular and aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Despite its demonstrated clinical effectiveness, its in vivo mechanisms of action remain unknown and could differ by subtype of lymphoma. Rituximab has been shown to induce apoptosis, complement-mediated lysis, and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity in vitro, and some evidence points toward an involvement of these mechanisms in vivo. Rituximab also has a delayed therapeutic effect as well as a potential "vaccinal" effect. Here, we review the current understanding of the mechanism of action of rituximab and discuss approaches that could increase its clinical activity. A better understanding of how rituximab acts in vivo should make it possible to develop new and more effective therapeutic strategies.


The profitability of a rabbit farming system must consider the thermal environment that the animal will be exposed during the productive period. The goal of this study was to evaluate the physiological responses and behaviours of 26 New Zealand rabbits during seven days of their lives at three times a day. The experiment was carried out in rabbit house in the Federal University of Lavras at Lavras, Brazil. To characterize the thermal environment sensors were used to measure the dry bulb temperature and relative humidity at 48 points inside the rabbit house, at 6:00 a.m., 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. In addition, the temperature and humidity index (THI) was calculated. The respiratory rate and the superficial temperature of the rabbits' ears were measured. Behaviour evaluations were monitored in punctual record, with duration of two min/cage. Later an ethogram was made with the main behaviours identified. Similar data of behaviour and data of physiological responses were identified by using Ward's method of cluster analysis. It was observed the period of 6 a.m. showed more comfortable conditions of THI values than the others analysed. Besides, physiological responses presented better values at 6:00 a.m. in comparison to 12:00 and 6:00 p.m. Furthermore, in general, a similar behaviour was observed in the rabbits at 12:00 and 6:00 p.m., while at 6:00 a.m. was different. But rabbits demonstrated to be more comfortable at 6 a.m. maybe because at this time environment conditions were better than the rest of the day. Besides, it can be observed that rabbits were more active in sunrise and sunset than in the rest of the day.


The Glaciological Research Project in Patagonia (GRPP) 2006-2009 was carried out with several objectives at Glaciar Perito Moreno of the Hielo Patagonico Sur (HPS), in the area of the Hielo Patagonico Norte (HPN) and along the Pacific coast. At Glaciar Perito Moreno, hot water drilling was carried out at about 5km upstream from the terminus, reaching the glacier bottom at ca. 515m, in order to monitor subglacial water pressure. Good positive correlations among air temperature, subglacial water pressure and glacier flow speed were found. Based on 14C dating of tree and organic samples, it is proposed that Glaciar Perito Moreno made two Little Ice Age (LIA) advances at AD1600-1700 and ca. 130-100y BP (AD1820-50). Fan deltas located at the mouth of big rivers around Lago General Carrera (Buenos Aires) and Lago Cochrane (Pueyrredon), in the area east of the HPN, were investigated to elucidate their development. The variations of 21 outlet glaciers of the HPN elucidated from aerial surveys for 2004/05-2008/09 revealed an areal loss of 8.67km2 in four years. A general slowing down of retreats was observed with a few exceptions. Meteorological measurements at Glaciar Exploradores of the HPN from 2005 to 2009 indicate that air temperature ranged from 17.4°C to -10.5°C. The total annual precipitation was about 3000mm. Glacier surface melt was observed at two spots. Sediment and water discharges from the glacier showed that while water discharge fluctuated a lot, suspended sediment concentration was rather stable in summer. A single channel seismic profiling during the JAMSTEC MR08-06 cruise identified a probable submerged moraine formed before the last glacial maximum (LGM) in the Golfo de Penas, south of Taitao Peninsula. Piston coring along the Chilean coast further indicates that ice-rafted debris recorded the LGM and earlier Late Pleistocene events of the glacial advance.


Different melanocytic nevi have been reported as being associated with dermal cysts. Signet ring cell melanocytic nevus is a rare variant of melanocytic nevus characterized by cells with signet ring morphology within a common melanocytic nevus. This article describes an exceptional case of melanocytic nevus composed exclusively of signet ring cells over a trichilemmal cyst. Histologically, above the cyst, there was a small, symmetrical and sharply demarcated lesion showing a compound proliferation of small, round, monomorphous cells with signet ring morphology. Immunohistochemically, signet ring cells were negative for cytokeratin AE1/3, leukocyte common antigen, HMB-45, and CD34. Occasionally, isolated signet ring cells were positive for S-100 and melan A. Melanocytic nevus composed of signet ring cells should raise the differential diagnosis with other cutaneous tumors exhibiting signet ring cells. Previous cases of this entity reported in the literature are also reviewed.


Unlike traditional population models which are defined in terms of top-down parameters, individual-based models are bottom-up models in which population level behaviors are emerging from the interactions among individuals. Ecologists can use individual-based models to tackle new kinds of problems that are not easily solved by population models, so individual-based modeling has been fueled the desire of ecologists to understand natural complexity and how it emerges from the variability and adaptability of individual organisms. In this paper, we investigate the improvements that ecology has made from the individual-based models during the last five decades, and talk about the two primary challenges to individual-based modeling.


Global software development practices are shaped by the challenges of time and 'distance', notions perceived to separate sites in a multi-site collaboration. Yet while sites may be fixed, the actors in global projects are mobile, so distance becomes a dynamic spatial dimension rather than a static concept. This empirical study applies grounded theory to unpack the nature of mobility within a three site globally distributed team setting. We develop a model for mapping the movements of team members in local and global spaces, and demonstrate its operation through static snapshots and dynamic patterns evolving over time. Through this study we highlight the complexity of 'mobility' as one facet of 'space' in globally distributed teams and illuminate its tight coupling with the accompanying dimensions of accessibility and context awareness.


This study aimed to evaluate the quality of health care delivered in an Intensive Care Unit, concerning the use of pneumonia prevention and control measures in high-risk patients on mechanical ventilation. In this descriptive and exploratory research, 839 observations of patients under invasive ventilation care were carried out, between November 2009 and January 2010, using the Indicator of Evaluation of Adherence to Prevention and Control Measures in High-risk Patients (IRPR). Some isolated measures that compose the mentioned indicator reached rates close to 100%, but the general compliance rate with all prevention and control measures of ventilator-associated pneumonia was 26.94%. It is concluded that, although the evaluated practices are accomplished at the unit, systematic evaluations of the interventions is needed so as to permit the discussion and practice of other educational strategies by the health team.


Prolactin-secreting pituitary adenomas--prolactinomas--are the most common type of functional pituitary tumor. Treatment of hyperprolactinemia is indicated because of the consequences of infertility, gonadal dysfunction, and osteoporosis. Making the correct diagnosis is important because the first line of therapy is medical management with dopamine agonists. Medical therapy is effective in normalizing prolactin levels in more than 90% of patients, but longterm treatment may be required in some patients. Transsphenoidal surgery is usually indicated in those patients in whom medical therapy fails or cannot be tolerated, or in patients who harbor microprolactinomas. In experienced hands, a hormonal and oncological cure can be achieved in more than 90% of patients after transsphenoidal removal of microprolactinomas with minimal risks. Thus, surgery may be an option for microprolactinomas in a young patient who desires restoration of fertility and avoidance of long-term medical therapy. The authors review the diagnosis and management of prolactinomas, including medical therapy, surgical therapy, and stereotactic radiosurgery.


Abstract—Cardiac parasympathetic activity reduces susceptibility to potentially lethal ventricular arrhythmias in heart failure and ischemic heart disease. This influence is mediated in large part by antagonism of the adverse cardiac effects of sympathetic overactivity ("indirect" parasympathetic activity) in addition to the "direct" effects of muscarinic stimulation. Nitric oxide modulates parasympathetic cardiac signaling in some animal models, but human data are lacking. We have investigated the influence of endogenous nitric oxide on cardiac responses to parasympathetic stimulation in healthy humans. In 18 volunteers, we studied chronotropic and inotropic responses to muscarinic stimulation, both before and after prestimulation with isoproterenol. Cardiac muscarinic stimulation was achieved using an intravenous bolus of the short-acting cholinesterase inhibitor, edrophonium. Responses were assessed during a background infusion of a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor (NG-monomethyl-l-arginine [l-NMMA]), placebo (saline), or phenylephrine (vasoconstrictor control) in a single-blind, random order, crossover protocol. l-NMMA did not affect chronotropic responses to edrophonium alone (direct parasympathetic activity). The decrease in heart rate attributable to "indirect" parasympathetic activity (derived by comparison with the effect of edrophonium during concurrent adrenergic stimulation) was substantially attenuated by l-NMMA in comparison to both control infusions. No modification of muscarinic inotropic responses by l-NMMA was apparent in comparison to the vasoconstrictor control. Nitric oxide exerts a powerful facilitating influence on indirect (antiadrenergic) but not direct human cardiac parasympathetic control. Stimulation of the endogenous nitric oxide pathway might enhance parasympathetic protection against the adverse influences of cardiac sympathetic overactivity.


Variable excesses of ^(36)S have previously been reported in sodalite in the Allende and Ningqiang meteorites and used to infer the presence of ^(36)Cl in the early solar system. Until now no unambiguous evidence of the major decay product, ^(36)Ar (98%), has been found. Using low fluence fast neutron activation we have measured small amounts of ^(36)Ar in the Allende sodalite Pink Angel, corresponding to ^(36)Cl/^(35)Cl = (1.9 ± 0.5) × 10^(−8). This is a factor of 200 lower than the highest value inferred from ^(36)S excesses in sodalite. High resolution I–Xe analyses confirm that the sodalite formed between 4561 and 4558 Ma ago. The core of Pink Angel sodalite yielded a precise formation age of 4559.4 ± 0.6 Ma. Deposition of sodalite containing live ^(36)Cl, seven million years or so after the formation of the CAI, appears to require a local production mechanism involving intense neutron irradiation within the solar nebula. The constraint imposed by the near absence of neutron induced ^(128)Xe is most easily satisfied if the ^(36)Cl were produced in a fluid precursor of the sodalite. The low level of ^(36)Ar could be accounted for as a result of residual in-situ ^(36)Cl decay, up to 1–2 Ma after formation of the sodalite, and/or later diffusive loss, in line with the low activation energy for Ar diffusion in sodalite.


In this paper, we study the problem of learning a repertoire of low-level skills from raw images that can be sequenced to complete long-horizon visuomotor tasks. Reinforcement learning (RL) is a promising approach for acquiring short-horizon skills autonomously. However, the focus of RL algorithms has largely been on the success of those individual skills, more so than learning and grounding a large repertoire of skills that can be sequenced to complete extended multi-stage tasks. The latter demands robustness and persistence, as errors in skills can compound over time, and may require the robot to have a number of primitive skills in its repertoire, rather than just one. To this end, we introduce EMBER, a model-based RL method for learning primitive skills that are suitable for completing long-horizon visuomotor tasks. EMBER learns and plans using a learned model, critic, and success classifier, where the success classifier serves both as a reward function for RL and as a grounding mechanism to continuously detect if the robot should retry a skill when unsuccessful or under perturbations. Further, the learned model is task-agnostic and trained using data from all skills, enabling the robot to efficiently learn a number of distinct primitives. These visuomotor primitive skills and their associated pre- and post-conditions can then be directly combined with off-the-shelf symbolic planners to complete long-horizon tasks. On a Franka Emika robot arm, we find that EMBER enables the robot to complete three long-horizon visuomotor tasks at 85% success rate, such as organizing an office desk, a file cabinet, and drawers, which require sequencing up to 12 skills, involve 14 unique learned primitives, and demand generalization to novel objects.


To date, large-scale population studies have failed to fully assess the health of sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. With the implementation of individualized healthcare, comprehensive patient information—including gender identity and sexual orientation (GI/SO)—are gaining recognition as critically important to designing holistic treatment plans and engaging patients. Historically, SGMs have been described in the context of existing health disparities, most commonly substance abuse and HIV/AIDS. The All of Us National Precision Medicine research project is a historic effort to gather health information from one million Americans and has emphasized engaging with populations historically underserved and underrepresented in biomedical research, including SGM populations. To increase SGM representation, better understanding of the barriers and facilitators to enrollment in public health research is necessary. This study explored the attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs of 23 self-identified SGMs regarding public health research across six focus groups in Pittsburgh, PA. Participants who had previously enrolled in All of Us were also asked specifically about their enrollment experience. Discussions were audio-recorded and evaluated using thematic analysis. Five themes were identified: (1) explicit invitations and clear messaging, (2) factors that tip the scales, (3) variation of SGM research accessibility, (4) barriers and facilitators to disclosing identity, and (5) personalization of the research experience. Participants acknowledged numerous social ecological factors that may influence their decision to enroll in a study, including SGM-specific advertising, well-trained staff who create a comfortable atmosphere, inclusive demographic questionnaires that allow for complete identity disclosure, and the ability to opt out of uncomfortable study components when possible. Based on participant recommendations, All of Us could consider adding same sex couples and gender non-binary individuals to advertising campaigns, clarifying the use of psychiatric records in medical records sharing, and engaging SGM community leaders in recruitment efforts. Beyond program-specific suggestions, the public health significance of this work is the reinforcement of the need for SGM-specific considerations in the design and implementation of research. Researchers can better engage SGMs through explicit invitations to participate, inclusive demographic questionnaires, and a trained staff who can engage with participants with a range of gender identities and sexual orientations.


Diagnostic procedures in pediatric dermatology are different and significantly more challenging than those in adult patients, especially on how to approach the patients. We need to acknowledge that pediatric patients have unique anatomical, physiological, and psychological aspects. Compared to adults, children have smaller procedure area, are less cooperative, and more difficult to understand. For these reasons, we should perform diagnostic procedures on children cautiously. Having extensive knowledge in this field can facilitate us to carry out an ethical, efficient, targeted procedure with less risk. This article reviewed the most appropriate, most comfortable, and least invasive diagnostic procedures for children. Some of the most commonly performed pediatric dermatology procedures highlighted in this article are potassium hydroxide examination, Gram staining examination, acid fast bacilli examination, skin test for allergies, and skin biopsy for children. We also discuss the process of obtaining a written informed consent from the parents who were involved in decision making process and play a crucial role in assisting physicians to calm their children during the diagnostic procedures.  Keywords: children, dermatology, diagnostic procedures


Today the entire world is in the exigency state-COVID-19 quarantine days. We should stay home to live. To avoid a fight over the spread of corona, the governments of all the countries have enforced a nationwide lockdown. Though the lockdown may have helped to control the spread of COVID, it has had a devastating impact on numerous domains like health, agriculture, education, global supply chains, trade, and various industries like automotive, power – electronics, travel, aeronautical, tourism industry…etc, which are the basic roots of the growth of a nation. This censorious situation can be wielded with the eminent technology "IoT". Anytime, Anything, Anywhere"- this is the most significant feature of IoT. Any real-world object can be transformed into an intelligent object by the technology "IoT". Because of the affordability and availability of smart devices, the entire world is more connected with IoT than ever before. From this standpoint, the authors have chosen five real-time areas health, education, industry, agriculture, and society. This survey initiates from the impacts of COVID in the above-chosen areas, how it diminishes the day-to-day events of human life, the vitality of IoT, how it helps to tackle the COVID issues without any quality degradation in this quarantine period. This systematic review completely appraises the innovations and contributions of IoT used by various researchers to defend the impacts of COVID and concludes with the pros and cons. A detailed exploration has been done in this article particularly on "IoT in COVID pandemic". This will be more useful to the researchers to acquire clear-cut knowledge about the power of IoT, in particular how IoT plays a significant role in the period of COVID and further assists them to travel towards an innovative and serviceable direction in their research.


Police reported crash data are the primary source of crash information in most jurisdictions. However, the definition of serious injury within police-reported data is not consistent across jurisdictions and may not be accurate. With the Australian National Road Safety Strategy targeting the reduction of serious injuries, there is a greater need to assess the accuracy of the methods used to identify these injuries. A possible source of more accurate information relating to injury severity is hospital data. While other studies have compared police and hospital data to highlight the under-reporting in police-reported data, little attention has been given to the accuracy of the methods used by police to identify serious injuries. The current study aimed to assess how accurate the identification of serious injuries is in police-reported crash data, by comparing the profiles of transport-related injuries in the Queensland Road Crash Database with an aligned sample of data from the Queensland Hospital Admitted Patients Data Collection. Results showed that, while a similar number of traffic injuries were recorded in both data sets, the profile of these injuries was different based on gender, age, location, and road user. The results suggest that the 'hospitalisation' severity category used by police may not reflect true hospitalisations in all cases. Further, it highlights the wide variety of severity levels within hospitalised cases that are not captured by the current police-reported definitions. While a data linkage study is required to confirm these results, they highlight that a reliance on police-reported serious traffic injury data alone could result in inaccurate estimates of the impact and cost of crashes and lead to a misallocation of valuable resources.


A case of calcification of vessels of the basal ganglia in an 18-year-old girl is described. The authors consider the clinical and radiological picture, the differential diagnostic criteria, and modern methods of the diagnosis of the syndrome of idiopathic non-atherosclerotic symmetrical calcification of the cerebral vessels. A review of the modern notions about the etiology and pathogenesis of calcification of vessels of basal ganglia is presented. Conversely to calcification of the cerebral vessels related to dysfunction of the parathyroid glands, etiopathogenetic aspects of the syndrome of idiopathic non-atherosclerotic calcification of the basal ganglia still remain obscure.


Ensemble data assimilation experiments were performed to assess the ability of satellite all-sky infrared brightness temperatures and different bias correction (BC) predictors to improve the accuracy of short-range forecasts used as the model background during each assimilation cycle. Satellite observations sensitive to clouds and water vapor in the upper troposphere were assimilated at hourly intervals during a 3-day period. Linear and nonlinear conditional biases were removed from the infrared observations using a Taylor series polynomial expansion of the observation-minus-background departures and BC predictors sensitive to clouds and water vapor or to variations in the satellite zenith angle. Assimilating the all-sky infrared brightness temperatures without BC degraded the forecast accuracy based on comparisons to radiosonde observations. Removal of the linear and nonlinear conditional biases from the satellite observations substantially improved the results, with predictors sensitive to the location of the cloud top having the largest impact, especially when higher-order nonlinear BC terms were used. Overall, experiments employing the observed cloud-top height or observed brightness temperature as the bias predictor had the smallest water vapor, cloud, and wind speed errors, while also having less degradation to temperatures than occurred when using other predictors. The forecast errors were smaller during these experiments because the cloud-height-sensitive BC predictors were able to more effectively remove the large conditional biases for lower brightness temperatures associated with a deficiency in upper-level clouds in the model background.


The Smart Grid, the next generation power grid, comes with promises of widely distributed automated energy delivery, self-monitoring, self-healing, energy efficiency, utility and cost optimization. However, as attacks on the current power grid and similar systems indicate, the Smart Grid will be vulnerable to all kinds of attacks and will even raise new security challenges, due to its complex nature. In this paper we analyze this complexity of the Smart Grid as a System of Systems, and the specific security challenges it raises. To address these challenges we propose a vision/framework based on principles of Software Engineering. This framework structures and brings together the research on Smart Grid security.


Ultrashort bowel syndrome (USBS) is a group of heterogeneous disorders where the length of small bowel is less than 10 cm or 10% of expected for the age. It is caused by massive loss of the gut which in the neonatal period can be a result of vanishing gastroschisis or surgical resection following mid-gut volvulus, jejunoileal atresia and/or extensive necrotising enterocolitis. The exact prevalence of USBS is not known although there is a clear trend towards increasing numbers because of increased incidence and improved survival. Long-term parenteral nutrition (PN) is the mainstay of treatment and is best delivered by a multidisciplinary intestinal rehabilitation team. Promoting adaptation is vital to improving long-term survival and can be achieved by optimising feeds, reducing intestinal failure liver disease and catheter-related bloodstream infections. Surgical techniques that can promote enteral tolerance and hence improve outcome include establishing intestinal continuity and bowel lengthening procedures. The outcome for USBS is similar to patients with intestinal failure due to other causes and only a small proportion of children who develop irreversible complications of PN and will need intestinal transplantation. In this review, we will summarise the available evidence focusing particularly on the epidemiology, management strategies and outcome.


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In the center of this dissertation is the question whether it is practically feasible to achieve deterministically good quality for traditional network services such as file transfer and Web browsing in multihop wireless mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Despite the straight forward benefits of MANETs such as quick installation due to the absence of wireline infrastructure, and the virtue of dynamic re-configuration, these networks mainly exist in research labs so far. One of the stumbling blocks which prevents MANETs from wide deployment and popularization, is the poor and unstable performance of the TCP protocol which underlies file transfer and Web traffic. In particular, the problem considered in this thesis is the severe unfairness between multiple TCP sessions in a wireless context. Overall, the thesis explores the operational range of MANETs in which the quality of network services is acceptable for an end user. The first part of our work reveals that this range is extremely narrow for the plain combination of TCP and wireless communication according to IEEE 802.11. The second part of this work studies the interactions of TCP and IEEE 802.11 assuming static routing in the network. It gives a systematic view on fairness in MANETs. The max-min fairness model from the wireline Internet is adapted to the specifics of the wireless environment. The resulting solution presented in this thesis is an adaptive distributed capacity allocation scheme for multihop wireless networks. It leads to a dramatic improvement of TCP performance and a significant extension of the operation range. The third part analyzes the effect of ad hoc routing on the quality of TCP sessions. The routing traffic itself is one of the reasons for unfair TCP communications. Finally, the thesis addresses implementation issues of the suggested fairness model. It describes a distributed protocol for the dynamic control of the network load, which is implemented both for a network simulator and a real-world operating system.


Marsdenia (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae, Marsdeniae) is represented by five species in the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula (vs. seven in the whole of the province), one of which is herein proposed as new to science.  The new species, Mardenia calichicola Carnevali & Juarez-Jaimes, is only known from a narrow strip of sub-xerophytic forests over calcareous, rocky soils along the northwestern edge in the Yucatan state of Mexico. Marsdenia calichicola is morphologically similar and likely related to M. gallardoae and M. trivirgulata . Among other characters, it differs from Marsdenia gallardoae by the presence of a corona composed of cushion-like calli (corolla lacking calli in M. gallardoae ) whereas M. trivirgulata has a glabrous or glabrescent corolla (vs. pubescent in M. calichicola ); additional characters are herein discussed. We provide pertinent iconography to aid in the identification of the new species plus a key to diagnose the three species in the M. trivirgulata complex. The conservation status of the new taxon is assessed against the IUCN criteria as CR. A distribution map and a key to the species of Marsdenia from the Yucatan Peninsula Biotic Province are presented.


Abstract In this Article I argue that the emerging public/private nexus of surveillance involves the augmentation of state power and calls for new models of constitutional constraint. The key phenomenon is the role played by communications intermediaries in collecting the information that the state subsequently accesses. These intermediaries are not just powerful companies engaged in collecting and analyzing the information of users and the information they hold are not just business records. The key feature of these companies is that, through their information practices and architecture, they mediate other relationships. I argue that this mediating function, and its underlying technological form, interacts with legal and social norms in ways that can lead to the erosion of constraints on state power. This Article maps two stories of erosion, rooted in two kinds of community displacement. The first involves the displacement of community participation in law enforcement and the emergence of "technological tattletales" where intermediaries cooperate with the state. Unlike citizen cooperation, this practice augments state power and undermines more traditional informal modes of constraint on state power. The second involves the displacement of national legal and political community. Communications intermediaries are often large multinational companies that operate in multiple jurisdictions and move their data to various datacenters across the world even as the individual data subject remains in one geographical location. Laws that treat nonresident aliens differently from residents and citizens can create "constitutional black holes" where the communications data of an individual is not protected by any constitutional constraints.


Today, the Federal Government has assignments for about half of what is considered to be "beachfront" spectrum. However, most agree that Government agencies, and the Government as a whole, use and manage spectrum resources inefficiently. As such, much attention is now focused on improving the Federal Government's efficiency in the use and management of its spectrum resources with the aim of freeing up spectrum which can be repurposed for the spectrum-constrained commercial sector. In this Paper, we first tackle Government spectrum use and demonstrate that the "ghost market" approaches commonly proposed to enhance public sector efficiency in spectrum such as a General Services Administration-type model to the recent spectrum sharing proposal by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology use may not, in the long-term, be effective. Next, we turn to Government spectrum management and present a general equilibrium model addressing spectrum assignment between public and private users using either auctions or leasing. We find that Government management of spectrum resources is not desirable beyond some minimum level. In fact, any proposal that contemplates the leasing of Government-managed spectrum to the private sector may be presumed to include "too little" auctioning of Government spectrum to the private sector in the form of exclusive licenses. We conclude that if the goal of spectrum use and management is economic efficiency, then policymakers should expand the private sector's management of the nation's scarce spectrum resources.


Objectives: Atrial width measurement is the representative method for evaluation of ventriculomegaly. However, ventricular shape varies and it is questionable to use the same rule for small brain before 20 weeks. The first aim was to create reference range of ventricular occupying ratio(VOR). The second aim was to evaluate VOR in ventriculomegaly cases. Methods: For the first study, 260 appropriately grown live singleton fetuses with no suspected structural and chromosomal defects between 18 and 30 weeks were enrolled. Whole brain volume dataset by transvaginal three-dimensional ultrasound was used. Volumetry of intracranial cavity volume, left and right lateral ventricle volume were calculated by virtual organ computer-aided analysis (VOCAL) with manual 15-degree rotation. Calculation was done as VOR(%)= (left ventricular volume + right ventricular volume / whole intracranial cavity volume) x 100. Intraexaminer/interexaminer test was done. Reference equations were constructed for VOR for gestational age. As the second study, ventricular volume, intracranial cavity volume and VOR in 8 cases with ventriculomegaly, were longitudinally calculated. The outcome of pregnancy and postnatal neurological prognosis were investigated. Results: The normal references were obtained with increase of ventricular volume and intracranial cavity volume and decrease of VOR with advanced gestational weeks. Intraexaminer and intraexaminer test showed intra-class correlation (95% confidence interval) of both more than 0.9. In the 8 Ventriculomegaly cases, intracranial cavity volume was along with reference range but lateral ventricular volume were all above 90 percentile. Six cases with decreasing VOR delivered at term and favourable prognosis at 5 months to 6 years. Two cases with increasing VOR were 3-month-old and still not evaluated. Conclusions: It is still difficult at present to conclude whether increase and decrease of VOR is related with fetal neurological prognosis or not. However, longitudinal VOR measurement may be one of assessment methods for evaluating ventriculomegaly.


Is the core provision of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional? Many people think the Act's preclearance requirement reauthorized by Congress last summer is invalid, primarily because jurisdictions subject to the statute no longer engage in the sort of blatantly unconstitutional conduct that prompted Congress to enact the statute forty years ago. Defenders of preclearance typically counter that the record Congress amassed to support reauthorization documents the persistence of unconstitutional conduct of sufficient scope for preclearance to remain a valid remedy. This Comment evaluates this claim, and the more robust vision of congressional power Professor Pamela Karlan presents in defense of reauthorization. She posits that a convergence of factors renders the power Congress exercised when it reauthorized VRA plenary, or at least close to it. Like Professor Karlan, I think that the legality of reauthorization should not hinge on the record of unconstitutional conduct Congress documented. In my view, however, it is not the factors Professor Karlan identifies, but instead the VRA as an operational statute that distinguishes it from other statutes for which an underlying record of unconstitutional conduct was required. And yet, I am not convinced that Congress enjoys, or should enjoy, as much power as Professor Karlan suggests, and, as a predictive matter, I would be surprised if a majority of the Roberts Court will think so either. This Comment offers a third approach to evaluate the validity of reauthorization, one that seeks to predict whether unconstitutional conduct would resume were the constraints of the VRA lifted.


Therapeutic proteins (TPs) have ranked among the most important and fastest-growing classes of drugs in the clinic, yet the development of successful TPs is often limited by unsatisfactory efficacy. Understanding pharmacokinetic (PK) characteristics of TPs is key to achieving sufficient and prolonged exposure at the site of action, which is a prerequisite for eliciting desired pharmacological effects. PK modeling represents a powerful tool to investigate factors governing in vivo disposition of TPs. In this mini-review, we discuss many state-of-the-art models that recapitulate critical processes in each of the absorption, distribution, metabolism/catabolism, and excretion pathways of TPs, which can be integrated into the physiologically-based pharmacokinetic framework. Additionally, we provide our perspectives on current opportunities and challenges for evolving the PK models to accelerate the discovery and development of safe and efficacious TPs. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT This minireview provides an overview of mechanistic pharmacokinetic (PK) models developed to characterize absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination (ADME) properties of therapeutic proteins (TPs), which can support model-informed discovery and development of TPs. As the next-generation of TPs with diverse physicochemical properties and mechanism-of-action are being developed rapidly, there is an urgent need to better understand the determinants for the ADME of TPs and evolve existing platform PK models to facilitate successful bench-to-bedside translation of these promising drug molecules.


ABSTRACT Fracture evaluation of welded joints in high-strength steels, with bainitic and martensitic structures, is presented and cracking mechanisms discussed. Hot cracks or microcracks formed during welding are further expanded as cold cracks on cooling. The cause of cracking is shown to be low temperature of weld solidification and deformation-induced contraction. Hydrogen can also be an important factor in this cracking.


Sequence to activity mapping technologies are rapidly developing, enabling the generation and isolation of mutations conferring novel phenotypes. Here we used the CRISPR enabled trackable genome engineering (CREATE) technology to investigate the inhibition of the essential ispC gene in its native genomic context in Escherichia coli. We created a full saturation library of 33 sites proximal to the ligand binding pocket and challenged this library with the antimalarial drug fosmidomycin, which targets the ispC gene product, DXR. This selection is especially challenging since it is relatively weak in E. coli, with multiple naturally occurring pathways for resistance. We identified several previously unreported mutations that confer fosmidomycin resistance, in highly conserved sites that also exist in pathogens including the malaria-inducing Plasmodium falciparum. This approach may have implications for the isolation of resistance-conferring mutations and may affect the design of future generations of fosmidomycin-based drugs.


In Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, Chaim Saiman responds to criticisms that Christians have leveled against Jewish law by analogizing halakhah to Christian theology. Where Christians reflect on the foundations of their religion through the process of theological arguments over the doctrines of the faith, the rabbis get at similar questions through the detailed discussion of concrete legal rules. The analogy that he draws is valid and insightful. However, it is incomplete. In part the halakhah is an effort to recapture what was lost to Judaism in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, namely a way of coming into the presence of God. This is what study of God's law allows the rabbis to do. The proper analogy in Christianity, I argue, is not theology but rather the sacrament of the Lord's supper. If we see Jewish law in terms of trying to recapture what was lost in the destruction of the Temple, then we have a new way of thinking about what it teaches us about law more generally. Robert Cover famously argued that the halakhah provides a model for how law creates meaning in society, what he called nomos. For Cover, however, authority is the enemy of nomos. The fuller understanding of the internal dynamics of Jewish law laid out by Saiman, however, suggests that authority – by gesturing toward transcendence – is integral to the ability of law to generate the kind of powerful meaning prized by Cover.


In modern aero-engines, the lubrication system plays a key role due to the demand for high reliability. Oil is used not only for the lubrication of bearings, gears, or seals but it also removes large amounts of the generated heat. Also, air from the compressor at elevated temperature is used for sealing the bearing chambers and additional heat is introduced into the oil through radiation, conduction, and convection from the surroundings. The impact of excessive heat on the oil may lead to severe engine safety and reliability problems which can range from oil coking (carbon formation) to oil fires. Coking may lead to a gradual blockage of the oil tubes and subsequently increase the internal bearing chamber pressure. As a consequence, oil may migrate through the seals into the turbomachinery and cause contamination of the cabin air or ignite and cause failure of the engine. It is therefore very important for the oil system designer to be capable to predict the system's functionality. Coking or oil ignition may occur not only inside the bearing chamber but also in the oil pipes which carry away the air and oil mixture from the bearing chamber. Bearing chambers usually have one pipe (vent pipe) at the top of the chamber and also one pipe (scavenge pipe) at the bottom which is attached to a scavenge pump. The vent pipe enables most of the sealing air to escape thus avoid over-pressurization in the bearing compartment. In a bearing chamber, sealing air is the dominant medium in terms of volume occupation and also in terms of causing expansion phenomena. The scavenge pipe carries away most of the oil from the bearing chamber but some air is also carried away. The heat transfer in vent pipes was investigated by Busam (2004, "Druckverlust und Warmeuebergang im Entlueftungssystem von Triebwerkslagerkammern (Pressure Drop and Heat Transfer in the Vent System in an Aero Engine's Bearing Chamber)," Ph.D. thesis, Logos Verlag, Berlin, Germany) and Flouros (2009, "Analytical and Numerical Simulation of the Two Phase Flow Heat Transfer in the Vent and Scavenge Pipes of the CLEAN Engine Demonstrator," ASME J. Turbomach., 132(1), p. 011008). Busam has experimentally developed a Nusselt number correlation for an annular flow in a vent pipe. For the heat transfer predictions in scavenge pipes, no particular Nusselt number correlation exist. This paper intends to close the gap in this area. As part of the European Union funded research programme ELUBSYS (Engine Lubrication System Technologies), an attempt was done to simplify the oil system's architecture. In order to better understand the flow in scavenge pipes, high speed video was taken in two sections of the pipe (vertical and horizontal). In the vertical section, the flow was a wavy annular falling film, whereas the flow in the horizontal section was an unsteady wavy stratified/slug flow. Heat transfer has been investigated in the horizontal section of the scavenge pipe, leaving the investigation on the vertical section for later. Thanks to the provided extensive instrumentation, the thermal field in, on, and around the pipe was recorded, evaluated, and also numerically modeled using ansys cfx version 14. Brand new correlations for two-phase flow heat transfer (Nusselt number) and for pressure drop (friction coefficient) in horizontal scavenge pipes are the result of this work. The Nusselt number correlation has been developed in such a way that smooth transition (i.e., no discontinuity) from two-phase into single phase flow is observed.


Although interview formats support rich data collection in conceptual change studies, interview formats limit sample sizes. This study explores the possibility of using constructed-response formats as an alternative or supplement for collecting similarly rich data across larger pools of subjects in conceptual change studies. While research in physics education has successfully employed a variety of constructed-response formats to explore important questions, less research has explored the comparability and interchangeability of the data collected through constructed-response and interview formats. The current study compares analyses of data collected using both constructed-response and interview formats across a common pool of subjects. At its core, the current study explores the degree to which the data sets collected through the constructed-response and interview formats support similar inferences when coded with the rubrics from a recent series of studies on knowledge structure coherence. The results suggest that larger samples of students can be analyzed using the constructed-response format for this type of study. Future research is recommended to explore minor but significant differences that were detected in terms of tertiary variables that contribute to the focal outcome variables.