It is always sad when a long relationship ends. For the past 35 years ASTM, now ASTM International, has published the Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFS). Over this period, Abel Dominguez, Bob Gaensslen and myself have served as Editors of JFS and relied upon the wonderful staff of ASTM to help us. On behalf of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and the past and present Editors, I thank ASTM and all those in that organization who have been instrumental in making JFS what it is today—the leading forensic science journal in the world. In particular I would like to thank the following as they have been of valuable assistance to the present Editorial Office: Therese Blyler, Robert Dreyfuss, Qiu-Ping Gong, Kathe Hooper, Margaret Lawlor, Robert Meltzer, Roberta Storer. Beginning in January 2006, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. will publish JFS. From the reader's viewpoint there will be no change—you will receive the Journal every two months and have access to web-based papers through the AAFS website, or if a non-member through www.blackwellpublishing.com. JFS will look the same and contain the same high-quality papers that you are accustomed to reading.


The effect of negative information on consumer product evaluations has been studied heavily in the context purchase intentions and other preference-related measures. In this study, we examine the context (negative health hazard information on meat commodities), direction (positive and negative), and intensity (low and high) of information on consumer choice processes. We draw from the literature on Bayesian updating, choice processes and heuristics, as well as cognitive and information processing to propose a set of hypotheses and empirically test them using survey data. Our results indicate that under low intensity, information consumers tend to employ a non-compensatory type choice process with the health aspects of the product being nonsalient. In the case of high-intensity negative information, consumers employ a compensatory choice process and consider the health dimension of the product. These results are mainly attributed to variations in the allocation of consumer cognitive resources in the decision-making process as a result of the different types of information, changing it from peripheral to central, and affecting the decision strategy and choices. The results may provide insight into how to design better marketing and media strategies in response to unfavorable information about health hazards.


The Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a family of highly conserved pattern recognition receptors involved in the detection of pathogenic invasion and tissue damage. Activation of TLRs can occur through binding to pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) but also host derived damage associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), which are highly abundant in the OA joint (Sokolove and Lepus, 2013). Originally thought of as a disease of wear and tear, osteoarthritis (OA) is better described as a disease of chronic inflammation, with the production of pro-inflammatory and degenerative products perpetuating disease activity.
Resident joint cells can react through TLRs to these damage products and thereby induce the production and secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and matrix degradative enzymes. This study sought to identify TLR expression and activity within synovial fibroblasts categorised by joint location and cartilage sub-categorised by OA progression. TLR induced pro-inflammatory cytokine induction from these cells along with matrix degenerative enzyme production was analysed to determine the pathogenic contribution of the cell types. Significant differences in expression of TLR2, TLR3 and TLR4 were noted between hip and knee derived synovial fibroblasts. Increased expression correlated to a higher pro-inflammatory cytokine production from knee opposed to hip derived synovial fibroblasts. This difference in inflammatory cytokines production comparing knee to hip became even more apparent when observing spontaneous production from synovial membrane cultures that demonstrated TNF, IL-6 and IL-8 to be significantly higher in cultures from the knee opposed to hip. Knee synovial fluid was also noted to have a significantly lower level of MMP1 compared with hip derived samples supporting a hypothesis that knee and hip osteoarthritis pathogeneses may differ. Analysis of articular chondrocytes at different stages of disease progression demonstrated altered phenotypes. Chondrocytes isolated from regions of degeneration had an altered TLR expression pattern and subsequently produced significantly elevated IL-6 and MMP13 following TLR stimulation relative to those isolated from intact regions of cartilage.
These data suggest that TLR-induced cytokine secretion by synovial fibroblasts and chondrocytes potentially contribute to disease pathology and hypothetically have two separate phenotypes of disease progression. It also highlights the possible need for tailored treatment of OA dependent on joint location providing some explanation of differences in efficacy of trialled biologic therapies.


An interesting case of complete anuria of eight days' duration occurred in a young man of previous good health with the exception of occasional polyuria at varying intervals. Anuria may develop in four ways: (1) following intense congestion in acute nephritis; (2) in renal stone when calculi block both ureters; (3) when the suppression is perirenal, resulting from (a) fever and inflammatory processes, (b) acute poisoning by phosphorus, turpentine or lead, (c) collapse after operations or injuries and in the collapse stage of cholera and yellow fever; (4) hysteric anuria. The case which I propose to report does not come under any of these headings with the possible exception of the fourth. But the correctness of classifying this case under hysteric anuria I think is doubtful. The patient had at no time previously shown any hysteric tendencies; his family history on this score was entirely negative. The patient, G. M.,


Dynamic risk and protective factors serve to assess the violence risk level of (forensic) psychiatric patients and offer guidance to clinical interventions. Risk assessment scores on Historical Clinical Risk Management–20 (HCR-20) risk factors and Structured Assessment of Protective Factors for violence risk (SAPROF) protective factors at different treatment stages were compared with violent incidents during treatment for 399 multidisciplinary coded assessments on 185 male and female forensic psychiatric patients. At later stages of treatment, less risk factors and more protective factors were observed, and predictive validities were higher. The HCR-20 and SAPROF scores showed good overall predictive validity for inpatient violence. The combination of risk factors and protective factors was a good predictor of incidents of aggressive behavior for different groups of patients, such as patients with violent or sexual offending histories, patients with major mental illnesses or personality disorders, and patients with a high score on psychopathy. Implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.


Document-level relation extraction (RE) aims at extracting relations among entities expressed across multiple sentences, which can be viewed as a multi-label classification problem. In a typical document, most entity pairs do not express any pre-defined relation and are labeled as "none" or "no relation". For good document-level RE performance, it is crucial to distinguish such none class instances (entity pairs) from those of pre-defined classes (relations). However, most existing methods only estimate the probability of pre-defined relations independently without considering the probability of "no relation". This ignores the context of entity pairs and the label correlations between the none class and pre-defined classes, leading to sub-optimal predictions. To address this problem, we propose a new multi-label loss that encourages large margins of label confidence scores between each pre-defined class and the none class, which enables captured label correlations and context-dependent thresholding for label prediction. To gain further robustness against positive-negative imbalance and mislabeled data that could appear in real-world RE datasets, we propose a margin regularization and a margin shifting technique. Experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms existing multi-label losses for document-level RE and works well in other multi-label tasks such as emotion classification when none class instances are available for training.


This thesis analyses scalar supersymmetric field theories within the framework of the functional renormalization group (FRG). Classical physics on microscopic scales is connected to the effective model on macroscopic scales via the scale-dependent effective average action by a reformulation of the path integral. Three supersymmetric theories are explored in detail: supersymmetric quantum mechanics, the three-dimensional Wess-Zumino model and supersymmetric spherical theories in three dimensions. The corresponding renormalization group flow is formulated in a manifestly supersymmetric way. By utilizing an expansion of the effective average action in derivative operators, an adequate and intrinsically non-perturbative truncation scheme is selected. In quantum mechanics, the supersymmetric derivative expansion is shown to converge by increasing the order of truncation. Besides, high-accuracy results for the ground and first excited state energies for quantum systems with conserved as well as spontaneously broken supersymmetry are achieved. Furthermore, the critical behaviour of the three-dimensional Wess-Zumino is investigated. Via spectral methods, a global Wilson-Fisher scaling solution and its corresponding universal exponents are determined. Besides, a superscaling relation of the leading exponents is verified for arbitrary dimensions greater than or equal to two. Lastly, three-dimensional spherical, supersymmetric theories are analysed. Their phase structure is determined in detail for infinite as well as finitely many superfields. The exact one-parameter scaling solution for infinitely many fields is shown to collapse to a single non-trivial Wilson-Fisher fixed-point for finitely many superfields. It is pointed out that the strongly-coupled domains of these theories are plagued by Landau poles and non-analyticities, indicating spontaneous supersymmetry breaking.


A new permanent ELF measurement station has been deployed in Sierra Nevada, Spain. It is composed of two magnetometers, oriented NS and EW, respectively. At 10 Hz, their sensitivity is 19 μV/pT and the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) is 28 dB for a time‐varying signal of 1 pT, the expected field amplitude in Sierra Nevada. The station operates for frequencies below 24 Hz. The magnetometers, together with their corresponding electronics, have been specifically designed to achieve such an SNR for small signals. They are based on high‐resolution search coils with ferromagnetic core and 106 turns, operating in limited geometry configuration. Different system noise sources are considered, and a study of the SNR is also included. Finally, some initial Schumann resonance measurements are presented in order to validate the performance of the measurement station, including 1 h length spectra, daily variations of resonance amplitudes and frequencies for the different seasons, and a 3 day spectrogram.


Abstract For decades clinicians and researchers have been thinking and writing about the spectrum of schizophrenia disorders. Indeed both Kraepelin and Bleuler believed in schizophrenia as a spectrum, both in a clinical (individual) and hereditary (family) continuum, from just some exquisite personality traits to unquestionable chronic and debilitating psychosis. Other authors would put the schizophrenia spectrum disorders on different levels of continuum: developmental, psychofunctional, existential, and genetic. Here, we would like to present an historical chronology for the schizophrenia–schizoaffective–bipolar spectra plus a tridimensional model for these spectra: the first axis for categories (affective versus nonaffective psychoses), the second axis for dimensions (personality versus full blown psychosis), and a third axis for biomarkers (remission versus relapse). We believe that without the schizophrenia–schizoaffective–bipolar spectra concept in our minds all our efforts will keep failing one the hardest quest: searching for biomarkers in schizophrenia and related disorders.


In this study, several feature combinations are studied to analyse their relevance for online signature verification. Different time functions associated with the signing process are analysed in order to provide some insight on their actual discriminative power. This analysis could also help forensic handwriting experts (FHEs) to further understand the signatures and the writer's behaviour. Among the different feature combinations analysed, a set of features which seems to be relevant for signature analysis by FHEs is particularly considered. The feasibility of developing a system which could complement the FHEs work is evaluated. Two different approximations of the analysed time functions are proposed, one based on the Legendre polynomials and another based on the wavelet decomposition. The coefficients in these orthogonal series expansions of the time functions are used as features to model them. Two different signature styles are considered, namely, Western and Chinese, of one of the most recent publicly available signature databases. The experimental results are promising, in particular for the features that seem to be relevant for the FHEs, since the obtained verification error rates are comparable with the ones reported in the state-of-the-art over the same datasets.


Hedgehog proteins are lipid-modified secreted signaling molecules that regulate tissue development and homeostasis. Lipids contained in circulating lipoproteins repress the Hedgehog signaling pathway in the absence of Hedgehog ligand, but the identity of these lipids is unknown. Here, using biochemical fractionation and lipid mass spectrometry, we identify these inhibitory lipids as endocannabinoids. Endocannabinoids are present in lipoproteins of both flies and humans, and repress the pathway in both mammalian signaling assays and Drosophila wing imaginal discs. In Drosophila, endocannabinoids are required in vivo to keep the levels of Smoothened and full-length Cubitus interruptus (Ci155) low in the absence of Hedgehog. Furthermore, elevating their endogenous levels inhibits Hedgehog-dependent accumulation of Smoothened and Ci155. Interestingly, cannabis-derived phytocannabinoids are also potent pathway inhibitors in flies and mammals. These findings constitute a novel link between organismal metabolism and local Hedgehog signaling, and suggest previously unsuspected mechanisms for the broad physiological activities of cannabinoids.


Automatic speaker verification (ASV) systems are highly vulnerable against spoofing attacks, also known as imposture. With recent developments in speech synthesis and voice conversion technology, it has become important to detect synthesized or voice-converted speech for the security of ASV systems. In this paper, we compare five different classifiers used in speaker recognition to detect synthetic speech. Experimental results conducted on the ASVspoof 2015 dataset show that support vector machines with generalized linear discriminant kernel (GLDS-SVM) yield the best performance on the development set with the EER of 0.12 % whereas Gaussian mixture model (GMM) trained using maximum likelihood (ML) criterion with the EER of 3.01 % is superior for the evaluation set. Index Terms: spoof detection, countermeasures, speaker recognition


Personalized medicine is a medical procedure that receives considerable scientific and commercial attention. The goal of personalized medicine is to assign the optimal treatment regime for each individual patient, according to his/her personal prognostic information. When there are a large number of pretreatment variables, it is crucial to identify those important variables that are necessary for treatment decision making. In this paper, we study two information criteria: the concordance and value information criteria, for variable selection in optimal treatment decision making. We consider both fixed-$p$ and high dimensional settings, and show our information criteria are consistent in model/tuning parameter selection. We further apply our information criteria to four estimation approaches, including robust learning, concordance-assisted learning, penalized A-learning and sparse concordance-assisted learning, and demonstrate the empirical performance of our methods by simulations.


The memory is typically studied by cognitive psychology and neuroscience. This research builds on a book by Piaget which is dedicated to the study of this phenomenon based on constructivist paradigms and it replicates one of his experiments, making an adaptation of the levels of analysis. The purpose that guided this study was to identify the role of schemas in a memory experiment in a broad sense, based on Piaget's theory. The six study participants who contributed at the time of the survey were aged between 61 and 67 years and had at least high school. (1) the adjustment of the levels of analysis met the classification of memory in the experiment, (2) it was possible to identify through the clinical method, the contribution of schemes constructed throughout life as a resource for information retrieval, which may contribute to future studies about intervention on the memory of the elderly.


I begin by distinguishing constant properties of consciousness (a focus and periphery, constant movement, a point of view, and the need for background orientation) from variable properties (the different sources of conscious experience, immediacy vs. displacement, factuality vs. fictionality, degrees of interestingness, and verbality vs. nonverbality). Foci of active consciousness are seen as reflected in language in intonation units. Within them, ideas are expressed differently depending on their activation cost, characterizable in terms of given, accessible, or new information. By hypothesizing that each focus of consciousness is limited to one new idea, it is possible to achieve a clearer understanding of lexicalization and related phenomena. Coherent chunks of semiactive information are reflected in language as discourse topics, within which decisions regarding intermediate levels of coherence lead to sentences. Immediate and displaced consciousness have distinct properties, which are sometimes exploited by fiction writers with the pretense of displaced immediacy, a style of language that highlights a basic distinction between spatiotemporal adverbs and tense. It is concluded that we need to take consciousness seriously if we are to understand more fully a variety of linguistic phenomena, including pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, tense, person, sentences, paragraphs, and prosody.


Erba et al. (Reports, 23 July 2010, p. 428) attributed calcareous nannofossil morphology and assemblage changes across Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a to the effects of surface ocean acidification. We argue that the quality of carbonate preservation in these sequences, the unsupported assumptions of the biotic response to acidity, and the absence of independent proxy estimates for ocean pH or atmospheric pCO2 render this conclusion questionable.


The vascular endothelium synthesizes and releases a spectrum of vasoactive substances and therefore plays a fundamental role in the basal and dynamic regulation of the circulation. Nitric oxide (NO)—originally described as endothelium-derived relaxing factor—is released from endothelial cells in response to shear stress produced by blood flow, and in response to activation of a variety of receptors. After diffusion from endothelial to vascular smooth muscle cells, NO increases intracellular cyclic guanosine-monophosphate concentrations by activation of the enzyme guanylate cyclase leading to relaxation of the smooth muscle cells. NO has also antithrombogenic, antiproliferative, leukocyte-adhesion inhibiting effects, and influences myocardial contractility. Endothelium-derived NO-mediated vascular relaxation is impaired in spontaneously hypertensive animals. NO decomposition by free oxygen radicals is a major mechanism of impaired NO bioavailability. The resulting imbalance of endothelium-derived relaxing and contracting substances disturbs the normal function of the vascular endothelium. Endothelin acts as the natural counterpart to endothelium-derived NO. Besides its arterial blood pressure rising effect in humans, endothelin-1 induces vascular and myocardial hypertrophy, which are independent risk factors for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Current therapeutic strategies concentrate mainly on lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and an impressive reduction in the risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has been achieved. Inflammatory mechanisms play an important role in vascular disease and inflammatory plasma markers correlate with prognosis. The production of reactive oxygen species under pathological conditions may represent an important inflammatory trigger. Novel therapeutic strategies specifically targeting inflammation thus bear great potential for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerotic vascular disease. In this context, the vascular actions of flavanol-rich cocoa, particularly with regard to enhanced NO synthesis and endothelial function observed in humans following consumption, warrants further attention. This review discusses pharmacological and dietary intervention.


In 2000, Arizona and Maine implemented full public funding for state legislative elections, and Connecticut will do so in 2008. Candidates who opt to accept public funding receive grants that pay for the entire cost of their campaigns. Advocates of these so-called clean elections argue that the programs reduce quid pro quo corruption, increase electoral competitiveness, and open up the process to candidates who lack access to traditional fundraising networks (Phelps 2004). Critics respond that the Maine and Arizona public funding programs have achieved nothing, save for imposing unjust burdens on candidates who refuse to participate (Basham and Zelder 2005).


The popularity of designer drugs has increased over the past few years as users seek new, cheap and sometimes "legal" ways to get high. This case report focuses on a case that happened in the City of Henderson, Nevada, which involved the designer drug methoxetamine. Methoxetamine is a psychoactive compound that is structurally related to ketamine and reported to have similar effects. These effects include analgesia, cardiovascular and respiratory stimulation, and enhanced skeletal muscle tone. Presented here is a case of a 33-year-old female who was pulled over after almost colliding with a marked police motorcycle, causing the police officer to avoid the collision by running onto a pedestrian sidewalk. Upon stopping the vehicle and questioning the passengers, the officer learned that the driver of the vehicle had ingested methoxetamine earlier in the day. After the driver was taken into custody, a blood sample was drawn and sent to the laboratory for analysis. Initial screening of the blood sample showed presumptive positive results for the amphetamine enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The next day, a full scan screen of the blood sample was performed using the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and methoxetamine and dextromethorphan were detected. Since the laboratory did not have the ability to confirm methoxetamine, the sample was sent to NMS Labs for analysis. The results from NMS Labs showed a methoxetamine concentration of 160 ng/mL. To date, this is the first DUI case in the state of Nevada where methoxetamine was detected and confirmed. A short time after the NMS results were received, a full SWGTOX validation was performed on a new GC/MS method to confirm methoxetamine along with five synthetic cathinone analytes. After the GC/MS analysis validation was complete, the sample was subsequently reanalyzed for methoxetamine in the toxicology laboratory at the Henderson Police Department Forensic Science Laboratory and the result that attained was 151 ng/mL, which was in line with the result from NMS Labs.


Since the European Monetary System was instituted in March 1979, there has been a dramatic reduction in the inflation rates of member countries This development is widely attributed to the EMS itself. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the theoretical and empirical basis for such a claim is far from conclusive. On the theoretical side, the paper develops a model which highlights two issues. First, changes in the "rules" of the exchange rate system need not coincide with changes in expectations about Central Bank behavior. In fact, I expectations in France do not seem to have changed until policy makers "got tough" in 1982-83. Second, different researchers have made quite different I assumptions about exactly what "rules" the EMS imposes. The paper shows that how the system works matters in terns of the effect joining will have on inflation. On the empirical side, the paper shows that effects which have been attributed to the EMS are in large part due to the global deflation since 1979 and to the fact that EMS members had relatively low inflation before 1979. However, even these estimates should be interpreted with caution. They are very sensitive to time period and to which non EMS countries are included in the sample.


In this paper we introduce the Generalized Bayesian Committee Machine (GBCM) for applications with large data sets. In particular, the GBCM can be used in the context of kernel based systems such as smoothing splines, kriging, regularization networks and Gaussian process regression which —for computational reasons— are otherwise limited to rather small data sets. The GBCM provides a novel and principled way of combining estimators trained for regression, classification, the prediction of counts, the prediction of lifetimes and other applications which can be derived from the exponential family of distributions. We describe an online version of the GBCM which only requires one pass through the data set and only requires the storage of a matrix of the dimension of the number of query or test points. After training, the prediction at additional test points only requires resources dependent on the number of query points but is independent of the number of training data. We confirm the good scaling behavior using real and experimental data sets.


Dancer, Nun, Ghost, Goddess explores the Tale of the Heike episode of the dancers Giō and Hotoke, which first appeared in the fourteenth century and went on to inspire, in often unpredictable ways, countless artistic productions in subsequent centuries.


The middle Cretaceous oceans were characterized by widespread anoxia, high sea levels, reef/carbonate-bank extinctions, and, at least in the Pacific, by intense widespread mid-plate volcanism. The demise of reefs on numerous Pacific atolls has left a large number of guyots. This synthesis explores the possibility that the middle Cretaceous demise of mid-Pacific and other carbonate-bank communities, and related extinctions elsewhere, reflects sporadic, possibly volcanogenic, upwelling of anoxic water. The upwelling would have had to be rapid enough to overwhelm surface reoxygenation, and frequent/widespread enough to suppress recolonization. According to the Hallock-Schlager hypothesis, upwelling of nutrient-rich waters destroyed the carbonate-bank communities; nutrient excess and anoxia may well have worked together. The globally widespread presence of at least mid-depth anoxia (±H 2 S?) is reasonably well established (the Cenomanian/Turonian "Oceanic Anoxic Event" perhaps was an extreme example), as is the mortality of modern benthic invertebrates at O 2 levels below about 0.15 ml/l. Recolonization times for modern reef corals imply that upwelling catastrophes, if localized, need have recurred on approximately decade time scales. Previously postulated Cretaceous sea-level fluctuations, raising sea level at rates on the order of 5-10 m in 10 4 -10 5 yr, would then have sufficed to carry the intermittently stressed reef surfaces below the ∼5- to 10-m-deep high-carbonate-production zone, below which reef recovery chances diminish. Thus, the episode of frequent (localized but widespread) upwelling events need have lasted only about 10 4 -10 5 yr. Although intermittent deep-water ventilation is known to have occurred on Milankovitch time scales during the Cretaceous, thereby bringing anoxic and/or nutrient-rich waters to the surface, geologic (and ocean modeling) evidence is necessary to establish whether a significant amount of rapid upwelling did (or could) occur. Because mid-plate submarine volcanism was widespread and intense in the middle Cretaceous Pacific, volcanogenic/hydrothermal heating and entrainment of nutrient-rich anoxic waters is one possible mechanism for catastrophic buoyant upwelling, rudistid bank extinction, and guyot formation. The efficacy of this process depends principally on the buoyancy (that is, heat energy) flux and the buoyancy (Brunt-Vaisala) frequency. Typical hydrothermal plumes along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge axis rise only to 150- to 400-m heights above the sea floor, but "megaplumes" rising 1,000 m are known. Simple plume models imply that only basalt eruptions comparable to the largest historically known would be sufficiently energetic (10 12 -10 14 J/s) to bring bottom water to the ocean surface from normal Mid-Oceanic Ridge axial depths (3 km) over much of the present ocean; however, these models are conservative through neglect of momentum overshoot and gas exsolution. To the extent that higher eruption rates and lower Brunt-Vaisala frequencies (due to lower vertical temperature gradients) prevailed in the middle Cretaceous Pacific, anoxic deep waters would more readily have reached the ocean surface. Most Cretaceous guyots are now in the North Pacific but were carried across the equator by Pacific plate motion; normal tendencies to upwelling and oxygen deficiency along the equator would have made the carbonate banks most vulnerable during their equatorial transit.


BACKGROUND
With the advent of new bone cements with different viscosities, it is important to understand how they respond to different cementing techniques. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the high viscosity (HV) bone cement intrusion characteristics comparing negative pressure intrusion technique (NPI) and finger-packing technique in a cadaveric proximal tibial bone.

METHODS
Soft tissues were removed from twenty- four fresh frozen cadaver proximal tibiae, and standard arthroplasty tibial cuts were performed. Palacos-R (Zimmer, Warsaw, IN) and Simplex-HV (Stryker Howmedica Osteonics, Mahwah, NJ) bone cement were used. Each tibia was randomly assigned to receive one of the two bone cements with finger-packing technique and NPI technique. Forty-five Newton weight was applied along the long axis of the tibia during cement-setting phase. Once the cement had cured, sagittal sections were prepared and analyzed for cement penetration depth using digital photography and stereoscopic micrographs. Area of interest (AOI) for each specimen was also used to quantitatively evaluate the area of cement penetration.

RESULTS
When using Palacos-R, significant dif ferences were detected in cement penetration between the two cementing techniques. On the other hand, when using Simplex-HV, cement penetration was not significantly increased with finger-packing technique when compared to NPI technique. When comparing the two high-viscosity bone cements when using NPI cementing technique, significant differences were detected at Zone 4, where Simplex-HV penetrated deeper than the Palacos-R. When finger-packing technique was used with Simplex-HV, significant differences were detected in bone cement penetration at Zones 3-5. When looking at AOI, no significant differences were found between the Palacos-R and Simplex-HV bone cements in terms of penetration depths with NPI technique. Higher penetration depths were achieved with Simplex-HV bone cement compared to Palacos-R cement in finger packing technique.

CONCLUSION
The data demonstrated that the combination of different bone cement formulations and the cementing technique has a significant effect on cement penetration into the cut bone surface.


This article presents recent patents and advances on electrical methods for particle manipulation in a microfluidic environment. At microscale, electric fields have unique advantages in performing analytical functions such as manipulation of biological molecules and cells. The advent of AC electrokinetics in recent years further promotes the development of laboratory on a chip, providing versatility and flexibility to interface with many current methods and technologies in multiple biological, chemical and physical disciplines. This article gives an overview of AC electrical principles and their applications, with an emphasis on particle manipulation by electric fields.


FU Orionis-type objects (FUors) are low-mass young eruptive stars that represent an evolutionary phase characterized by episodic periods of increased accretion rate from the disk to the star. Theory predicts that a circumstellar envelope, the source of continuous mass infall onto the disk, is necessary for triggering such accretion bursts. We study the spatial and velocity structure of envelopes around FUors by means of molecular line observations at mm wavelengths. We target three prototypical FUors and an object possibly in a pre-outburst state. We present archival PdBI interferometric observations of the J=1-0 line of 13CO at 110.2 GHz. For three of our targets, these represent the first mm interferometric observations. The data allow the study of the molecular environment of the objects on a spatial resolution of a thousand AU and a velocity resolution of 0.2 km/s. Strong, narrow 13CO(1-0) line emission is detected from all sources. The emission is spatially resolved in all cases, with deconvolved sizes of a few thousand AUs. For V1057 Cyg and V1331 Cyg, the emitting area is rather compact, suggesting that the origin of emission is an envelope surrounding the central star. For V1735 Cyg, the 13CO emission is offset from the stellar position, indicating that the source of emission may be a small foreground cloud, also responsible for the high reddening of the central star. The 13CO emission towards V1515 Cyg is the most extended in the sample, and coincides with the ring-like optical reflection nebula associated with V1515 Cyg. We suggest that mm interferometric observations are indispensable for a complete understanding of the circumstellar environment of FUors. Any theory of the FUor phenomenon that interprets the geometry of the circumstellar structure and its evolution using single beam measurements must be checked and compared to interferometric observations in the future.


Concerns over the growth of emissions and global warming in the developed world have been rising steadily over the past few years. Buildings hold the key to obtain and maintain long term energy savings and sustainability, as the building sector accounts for a significant percentage of the energy usage today. It is important to assess energetic performance of buildings in order to provide owners and specifiers economic data allowing the choice of an appropriate renovation program for an existing building or provide a comparison for systems selection for new constructions. Choosing energy efficient fenestration systems can play an important role in minimizing energy costs (heating and lighting) for the building. This study investigates the energy consumption of commercial buildings with varying climatic conditions and materials. Fenestration systems evaluated are mechanically fixed glazed curtainwall systems compared to Silicone Structural Glazed system. Simulations are performed using Therm and Window software from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and EFEN software from Carli Inc. Results show that low U values in combination with low air infiltration rates provide the lowest energy consumption resulting in best performance.


Light-activated protein domains provide a convenient, modular, and genetically encodable sensor for optogenetics and optobiology. Although these domains have now been deployed in numerous systems, the precise mechanism of photoactivation and the accompanying structural dynamics that modulate output domain activity remain to be fully elucidated. In the C-terminal light, oxygen, voltage (LOV) domain of plant phototropins (LOV2), blue light activation leads to formation of an adduct between a conserved Cys residue and the embedded FMN chromophore, rotation of a conserved Gln (Q513), and unfolding of a helix (Jα-helix) which is coupled to the output partner. In the present work, we focus on the allosteric pathways leading to Jα helix unfolding in Avena sativa LOV2 (AsLOV2) using an interdisciplinary approach involving molecular dynamics simulations extending to 7 μs, time-resolved infrared spectroscopy, solution NMR spectroscopy, and in-cell optogenetic experiments. In the dark state, the side chain of N414 is hydrogen bonded to the backbone N-H of Q513. The simulations predict a lever-like motion of Q513 after Cys adduct formation resulting in loss of the interaction between the side chain of N414 and the backbone C=O of Q513, and formation of a transient hydrogen bond between the Q513 and N414 side chains. The central role of N414 in signal transduction was evaluated by site-directed mutagenesis supporting a direct link between Jα helix unfolding dynamics and the cellular function of the Zdk2-AsLOV2 optogenetic construct. Through this multifaceted approach, we show that Q513 and N414 are critical mediators of protein structural dynamics, linking the ultrafast (sub-ps) excitation of the FMN chromophore to the microsecond conformational changes that result in photoreceptor activation and biological function.


This paper proposes a novel 3D piecewise planar reconstruction algorithm, which utilizes the statistical error between a particular frame and its prediction to refine a coarse 3D piecewise planar representation. The algorithm aims utilization of 3D scene geometry to remove the visual redundancy between frame pairs in any predictive coding scheme. This approach associates the rate increase with the quality of representation for determining an efficient description for a given budget. The preliminary experiments on synthetic and real data indicate the validity of the rate-distortion based approach.


In this paper, a compact, integrated, semiconductor-clad strip waveguide label-free biosensor is proposed and analyzed. The device is based on CMOS-compatible materials such as amorphous-Si and silicon oxynitride. The optical sensor performance has been modeled by a three-dimensional beam propagation method. The simulations indicate that a 20-μm-long device can exhibit a surface limit of detection of 3 ng/cm2 for avidin molecules in aqueous solution. The sensor performance compares well to those displayed by other photonic biosensors with much larger footprints. The fabrication tolerances have been also studied in order to analyze the feasibility of the practical implementation of the biosensor.


This paper is concerned with stability analysis and H infin decentralized control of discrete-time fuzzy large-scale systems based on piecewise Lyapunov functions. The fuzzy large-scale systems consist of J interconnected discrete-time Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy subsystems, and the stability analysis is based on Lyapunov functions that are piecewise quadratic. It is shown that the stability of the discrete-time fuzzy large-scale systems can be established if a piecewise quadratic Lyapunov function can be constructed, and moreover, the function can be obtained by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) that are numerically feasible. The H infin controllers are also designed by solving a set of LMIs based on these powerful piecewise quadratic Lyapunov functions. It is demonstrated via numerical examples that the stability and controller synthesis results based on the piecewise quadratic Lyapunov functions are less conservative than those based on the common quadratic Lyapunov functions.


We analyzed 27 solar wind (SW) intervals during the declining phase of cycle 23, whose source coronal holes (CHs) can be unambiguously identified and are associated with one of the polar CHs. We found that the SW ions have a temporal trend of decreasing ionization state, and such a trend is different between the slow and fast SW. The photospheric magnetic field, both inside and at the outside boundary of the CH, also exhibits a trend of decrease with time. However, EUV line emissions from different layers of the atmosphere exhibit different temporal trends. The coronal emission inside the CH generally increases toward the CH boundary as the underlying field increases in strength and becomes less unipolar. In contrast, this relationship is not seen in the coronal emission averaged over the entire CH. For C and O SW ions that freeze-in at lower altitude, stronger correlation between their ionization states and field strength (both signed and unsigned) appears in the slow SW, while for Fe ions that freeze-in at higher altitude, stronger correlation appears in the fast SW. Such correlations are seen both inside the CH and at its boundary region. On the other hand, the coronal electron temperature correlates well with the SW ion composition only in the boundary region. Our analyses, although not able to determine the likely footpoint locations of the SW of different speeds, raise many outstanding questions for how the SW is heated and accelerated in response to the long-term evolution of the solar magnetic field.


Chinua Achebe wrote his classic novel, Things Fall Apart in response to the stark negative portrayal of Africa and Africans by European Colonizers. This idea appears to have been conceived during his undergraduate days at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness appear to have negatively impacted and prompted Achebe to respond to the biased European colonial portrayal of Africa and Africans. That initial written response was Things Fall Apart! The characters, societies and views expressed in the novel essentially are universal to humankind. There may be variations here and there in  different social settings, but the novel portrays people in a communal  environment grappling with survival on a daily basis on planet earth. The  European colonizers painted a negative, one dimensional picture of Africa and Achebe felt challenged to set the records straight. In doing this, he  revealed both the beautiful and ugly in the African ethos. This essay  celebrates Things Fall Apart as a beacon of light at the end of the tunnel of colonialism. Achebe's text reaffirms African people's pride in their cultural heritage in the backdrop of attempts to dehumanize and portray them as savages by Europeans.


INTRODUCTION Measles is a highly contagious disease usually seen in childhood. It can prove fatal and is primarily controlled by vaccination (1). In this study, the authors aimed to determine the seroprevalence of measles antibodies in children six years and under in Eastern Turkey and to identify the relationship between measles seroprevalence and several socio-demographic characteristics, and to develop the best vaccination policy for measles. The study sample consisted of 840 children, up to six years of age, from three provinces (Erzurum, Erzincan and Kars). The cluster sampling method was used for selecting subjects of a predetermined number in the rural and urban areas (2, 3). A composite index was used to determine the socio-economic level of the family (4).


We studied the ring and linear schemes of erbium-doped fibre lasers in which passive mode locking was achieved with the help of saturable absorbers made of high-optical quality films based on cellulose derivatives with dispersed single-wall carbon nanotubes. The films were prepared by the original method with the use of nanotubes synthesised by the arc discharge method. The films exhibit nonlinear absorption at a wavelength of 1.5 μm. Pulses in the form of optical solitons of duration 1.17 ps at a avelength of 1.56 μm were generated in the ring scheme of the erbium laser. The average output power was 1.1 mW at a pulse repetition rate of 20.5 MHz upon pumping by the 980-nm, 25-mW radiation from a laser diode. The pulse duration in the linear scheme was reduced to 466 fs for the output power up to 4 mW and a pulse repetition rate of 28.5 MHz. The specific feature of these lasers is a low pump threshold in the regime of generation of ultrashort pulses.


The technique of hull block accuracy control is the main concern for modern shipbuilding. The method of no-excess block construction is introduced in Sevan Driller, the world's first cylindrical ultra-deep offshore drilling platform. According to the structural characteristics of the drilling platform and production capacity, the partition and construction programs of the hull blocks are proposed. Modeling and drawing for platform in the design stage is analyzed. In the manufacturing stage, the factors affecting the block accuracy include plate-cutting, plate alignment, marking, assembling and welding. Additionally, the range of accuracy controlling aspect and compensation values are confirmed. The application of no-excess block construction in this drilling platform results in the improved quality of the drilling platform, reduced shipbuilding costs and the shortened shipbuilding cycle.


Over the past ten years, there have been several initiatives in Malawi to strengthen the processes through which the design and content of policies, strategies, and programs in the agriculture sector that affect the nation's food security are established. Broadly linked to the operationalization in Malawi of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) of the African Union, the government of Malawi led a multi-stakeholder effort to develop the Agriculture Sector Wide Approach (ASWAp) for the period 2011 to 2015. This serves as the CAADP agricultural sector investment plan for the country. The implementation of the ASWAp is guided technically by multi-stakeholder Technical Working Groups (TWG), of which there are seven. The TWGs report to a higher-level Agricultural Sector Working Group (ASWG), whose membership is drawn from across the full range of stakeholders in Malawi's agriculture sector. The ASWG has onward links to the political leadership of Malawi. A key component of the implementation of ASWAp is a mutual accountability framework for monitoring and evaluating progress made. The regular meetings of the TWGs and the ASWG are components of this, while an annual agricultural Joint Sector Review (JSR) report provides a formal accounting of progress achieved and challenges that remain.


An analysis of 58 "unselected" penetrating wounds of the heart discloses the following: Twenty-one "lifeless patients" received immediate thoracotomy and repair; seven survived. Thirty-three with frank hemorrhage or progressive tamponade were treated by urgent cardiorrhaphy; 24 survived. Four were classified as having stable tamponade and were treated by pericardiocentesis; all four survived. Unfavorable influences on survival were gunshot wounds (as opposed to stab wounds), left ventricular wounds, coronary artery wounds, and associated abdominal injuries. Where available, cardiopulmonary bypass and circulatory assist devices should be kept on standby, for use in those patients with intracardiac and coronary injuries who would not survive without the help of extracorporeal circulation or postoperative support of a failing circulation.


In 2 experiments, the authors used a process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991) to separately examine the effects of aging on automatic and consciously controlled memory processes. In Experiment 1, a group of young adults in either a full-attention or divided-attention condition were compared with a group of elderly adults on a fame judgment task. Both age and divided attention had a detrimental effect on consciously controlled memory processing but left automatic processing intact. In Experiment 2, the same age-related pattern was found using a more demanding forced-choice recognition paradigm.


Purpose The aim of this study was to identify the signal intensity (SI) changes in the dentate nucleus (DN) and the globus pallidus (GP) on unenhanced T1-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images after multiple administration of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) in children and compare those changes between linear and macrocyclic GBCAs. Materials and Methods This retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board and the requirement for informed consent was waived. We identified 92 children who underwent at least 4 consecutive MR examinations exclusively using either linear GBCA (gadodiamide or gadopentetate dimeglumine, n = 41) or macrocyclic GBCA (gadoterate meglumine, n = 51). Signal intensity ratio changes in the DN to pons and GP to thalamus between the first and last MR examinations were calculated. Results The SI ratios in the linear group increased significantly between the first and last MR examinations (mean difference: DN to pons, 0.0461 ± 0.0480, P < 0.001; GP to thalamus, 0.0332 ± 0.0385, P < 0.001), but not in the macrocyclic group (mean difference: DN to pons, −0.0010 ± 0.0371, P = 0.855; GP to thalamus, 0.0007 ± 0.0294, P = 0.867). In the linear regression analysis, the numbers of administrations of gadodiamide and gadopentetate dimeglumine were highly associated with the differences in SI ratios (DN to pons, P < 0.001 and P = 0.003; GP to thalamus, P < 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively). Conclusion The SIs of the DN and GP on unenhanced T1-weighted images increased after serial administrations of linear GBCA, but not macrocyclic GBCA, in children. The number of linear GBCA administration had a linear association with the SI changes in the DN and GP.


The magnetic and electronic properties of the geometrically frustrated triangular antiferromagnet CuCrO2 are investigated by first principles through density functional theory calculations within the generalized gradient approximations (GGA)+U scheme. The spin exchange interactions up to the third nearest neighbours in the ab plane as well as the coupling between adjacent layers are calculated to examine the magnetism and spin frustration. It is found that CuCrO2 has a natural two-dimensional characteristic of the magnetic interaction. Using Monte—Carlo simulation, we obtain the Neel temperature to be 29.9 K, which accords well with the experimental value of 24 K. Based on non-collinear magnetic structure calculations, we verify that the incommensurate spiral-spin structure with (110) spiral plane is believable for the magnetic ground state, which is consistent with the experimental observations. Due to intra-layer geometric spin frustration, parallel helical-spin chains arise along the a, b, or a + b directions, each with a screw-rotation angle of about 120°. Our calculations of the density of states show that the spin frustration plays an important role in the change of d—p hybridization, while the spin-orbit coupling has a very limited influence on the electronic structure.


The feasibility of using novel ultrasound phased arrays consisting of array elements larger than one wavelength, minimizing the number of elements in an aperture through a combination of geometric focusing, directive beams, and sparse, random placement of array elements, for tissue ablation applications was examined both theoretically and experimentally. A hexagonally packed array consisting of 108 8‐mm‐diam circular elements mounted on a spherical shell was modeled theoretically, and a prototype array was constructed, to examine the feasibility of sparse random array configurations for focal surgery. A randomly selected subset of elements of the prototype test array (64 of 108 available channels) was driven at 2.1 MHz with a 64‐channel digitally controlled rf drive system. The performance of the prototype array was evaluated by comparing field data obtained from theoretical modeling of the array configuration to that obtained experimentally via hydrophone scanning. The results of that comparison, along w...


Recent studies showed changes in phytoplankton lipid composition during viral infection and have indicated roles for specific lipids in the mechanisms of algal virus-host interaction. To investigate the generality of these findings and obtain a better understanding of the allocation of specific lipids to viruses, we studied the intact polar lipid (IPL) composition of virally infected and non-nfected cultures of the prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis globosa G(A) and its lytic virus PgV-07T. The P. globosa IPL composition was relatively stable over a diel cycle and not strongly affected by viral infection. Glycolipids, phospholipids and betaine lipids were present in both the host and virus, although specific groups such as the diacylglyceryl-hydroxymethyltrimethyl-beta-alanines and the sulfoquinovo-syldiacylglycerols, were present in a lower proportion or were not detected in the virus. Viral glycosphingolipids (vGSLs), which have been shown to play a role in the infection strategy of the virus EhV-86, infecting the prymnesiophyte Emiliania huxleyi CCMP374, were not encountered. Our results show that the involvement of lipids in virus-algal host interactions can be very different amongst virus-algal host systems.


The archipelago of São Tomé and Príncipe is a major centre of endemism for vertebrates but, to date, arthropods remain poorly studied, with the exception of mosquitoes due to their medical and economic relevance. Previous studies, over 20 years old, recorded 26 species of mosquitoes for São Tomé and 14 for Príncipe, of which six and two were endemic to each island respectively. We collected mosquito larvae and adults on both islands and found three species as a first record, putting the number of mosquito species collected at least once on São Tomé at 29 and 15 for Príncipe. We compared the mosquito richness on São Tomé and Príncipe islands to 71 other oceanic islands represented within 20 archipelagoes worldwide. We used the general dynamic model of oceanic island biogeography and the associated ATT2 (for Area+Time+Time2) model to explain two different metrics: (i) the richness of the single‐island endemics and (ii) the richness of archipelago endemics. We also included other island characteristics in our model, such as isolation and latitude. Our data compilation and comparative analyses revealed an overall low richness of endemic mosquitoes on islands, with the highest number of single‐island endemics found on São Tomé Island. As predicted, we found a positive relationship between our two richness metrics and the general dynamic model ATT2, although the model with the area (A) alone also explained endemic richness. Isolation was also predictor of mosquito diversification.


This research aims to map the excellence owned by Kampoeng Durian in Ngrogung District Ngebel that uses SWOT to analyze tourism development strategy of Kampoeng Durian Ngebel through the Business Model Canvas (BMC) approach. This research was qualitative descriptive research methods using the Business Model Canvas framework, which was used to assess several variables in the tour Kampoeng Durian Ngrogung Village. The results showed that the tourism management Kampoeng durian need to conduct various development efforts in each component Business Model Canvas. Those were building business partners with various parties (key partner), adding business activities or operations in the business of Kampoeng Durian (key activities), doing durian fruit processing into various new products/processed products (value proposition), creating a special pricing program for tourists (customer relationship), providing easy road access to the tourism site of Kampoeng Durian Strategies by adding segments that will be served in a business (segment), Other resources in providing services to tourists. (key resource), promoting in various media (channels) and adding a business income source (revenue streams).
Keywords: Business Model Canvas; Kampoeng Durian; Ngebel Ponorogo; SWOT


A simulation based on Brownian dynamic for perikinetic flocculation of fine sediment under the ionization is presented. The Langevin equation is used as dynamical equation for tracking each particle making up a floc. Monte Carlo method was used for simulate random variation in particle movement. An initial condition and periodic boundary condition which conformed to reality well is used for calculation. In each cell 1000 particles of 10 m, 15m, 20m, 25m, 30m in diameter were served as primary particles. Floc growth is based on the thermal force and the electrostatic force. The electrostatic force on a particle in the simulation cell is considered as a sum of the electrostatic force from other particles in the original cell. The particles are supposed to be motion with uncharged and charged state in dispersion system. A comparison of the initial flocculent time and smashing time in sludge density 1010kg/m3, 1025 kg/m3, 1050 kg/m3, 1075 kg/m3, 1100 kg/m3 were present to show the effect of it on floc growth. The increase of sludge density deferred the flocculation rate. To study morphological shape of floc, the radius of gyration was revealed under different situations. On one hand the radius of gyration presented random variation with uncharged particle, On the other hand, the radius of gyration increases gradually with the increase of polar electrical charges on primal particle. Moreover, the morphological shape for the charged floc was more open than that of unchanged state. Finally, a series of experimental results are present, which is coincide with model well.


The purpose of this study is to examine how monetary integration affects the exchange rate pass-through, by testing whether monetary policy convergence in the euro area led to a convergence in terms of exchange rate pass-through. We conduct a comparative study between the "experiment group" (the euro area) and the "control group" (non-euro industrial countries). We find evidence for stronger convergence of exchange rate pass-through for the euro area economies as a group, especially around the 1980s. The group of non-euro industrial countries also had conditional convergence (convergence with permanent cross-sectional heterogeneity) in exchange rate pass-through, but its cross-sectional dispersion remains substantially larger compared to the euro area. This indicates that monetary integration affects the exchange rate pass-through. This has an important policy implication for the euro area, especially for the new member countries, as their exchange rate pass-through would not remain constant or purely exogenous; it should also converge to the euro area average as they work to achieve the Maastricht Criteria.


The flame retardant tris(2,3-dibromopropyl)phosphate (TDBP), once used in cotton sleep wear for children, is presently banned from commerce. It produces tumors in rodents in both a sex- and tissue-specific manner. The kidney is the main target for tumor formation in male and female rats, as well as in male mice. In contrast, tumors are formed in the liver of female animals. We have used lacI transgenic male B6C3F1 mice (Big Blue) to examine the induction of mutation in kidney, liver, and stomach after exposure to 150 mg/kg (2 days), 300 mg/kg (4 days), and 600 mg/kg (4 days) of TDBP. At the highest dose, the mutant frequency was approximately 50% above control values in the kidney (P < 0.01). A smaller increase was observed in the liver (P = 0.07), while no increase was seen in the stomach (P = 0.28). Sequence analysis of the recovered mutants showed a TDBP-specific change in mutation spectrum in kidney, which was not observed in liver and stomach. In kidney, a dose-dependent decrease in G:C-->A:T transitions, including at 5'-CpG-3' sites, was observed. This was accompanied by an increase in the loss of single G:C base pairs from approximately 3% to 15%. These results illustrate both the sensitivity and specificity of the lacI transgenic system in the analysis of tissue-specific mutation. This study also reinforces the importance of examining mutational spectra when mutant induction levels are low.


Introduction & Context: Patients are at the heart of everything we do. Many elderly patients are asked to attend acute hospital for short duration appointments, when these can be performed closer to the patient, reducing stress, cost and anxiety.  Sligo University Hospital's (SUH) Cardiac Investigations Department serves a population of  213,000 .  Activity has increased by 67% in the past 10yrs, with increased service demand / waiting lists. Practice Change Implemented: SUH identified a need for the introduction of diagnostic tests into the community away from the acute hospital setting with an overall aim of providing integrated, easily accessed care.  Working with Sligo/Leitrim Community Services, this resulted in a jointly funded pilot project where this service was introduced for echocardiography, holter monitoring and pacemaker follow up across 3 separate sites within the community.   An average of 30-40 Cardiac Ultrasounds per month, 15 holters and 5 pacemaker checks take place within the community setting.  Aim and Theory of Change: The aim was to introduce a service to the community that would be patient focused, improve access /reduce waiting times.  In addition, the aim was to improve patient flow in hospital whereby there would be a focus on enhanced decision making and early discharge.  A key driver was demand for emergency beds - increase in numbers of patients on trolleys (by 26% from 2015).    Targeted Population and Stakeholders: In addition to being wholly patient focused, GPs have easier access to diagnostic tests which facilitates earlier identification of patients, leading to enhanced patient outcomes and reduced hospital stays.  Highlights: (innovation, impact and outcomes) Whilst this project originated as a relatively simple concept,  outcomes to date have been extremely positive:- The patient experiences all the positives of a locally provided, timely service GPs benefit from better service access and earlier results The hospital benefits from capacity focus on complex investigations in-house,and reduced waiting times.  Comments on sustainability: Due to successes, patient and GP feedback, it has been agreed to roll out the project across the region with a plan to extend further and to provide cross-border services in conjunction with CAWT.  Comments on Transferability: This initiative delivers immeasurable benefits both to the acute and community sectors in bringing services closer to the patient.  There are plans to roll this out further across the Western region.  Conclusions: Whilst this initiative was originally established as a pilot study, results confirm its validity.  A recent audit has shown saving of 250 beddays over a 6 week period.  This is having a positive impact on the numbers of patients accommodated on trolleys - crucial coming into the winter period. Lessons Learned: This is a true example of what can be achieved through a shared vision, commitment and joint working involving both hospital and community staff working together to achieve a joint aim.  It was necessary to embrace a different way of working which necessitated all members working together.  This also involved setting up a monitoring process to demonstrate the outcomes of the initiative.


The displacement of more than three million people in Pakistan has triggered one of the biggest emergency responses of the year. Four years after the launch of the UN-led humanitarian reform process, national and international response capacities appear to have improved on some fronts – but on the whole, humanitarian assistance still falls far short of being adequate, timely, impartial and appropriate.


Relationship between students' knowledge structure and problem-solving strategy was studied using a written test containing one complex stoichiometric problem based on the chemical equation and four simple problems similar to the steps of two known strategies (mole method and proportionality method) for solving the complex problem. Based on the strategy used in solving the complex problem students (N = 1072, grades 7-10) were divided into three groups: (1) mole method group; (2) proportionality method group; and (3) others (unidentified strategy or no strategy). The knowledge structure characteristic of each group was determined by using knowledge space theory. There was no significant difference between the success (ca. 70%) of the student groups applying any strategy (groups 1 and 2), but the achievement of the students not using any strategy (group 3) was significantly lower (ca. 20%). We found significant difference between the characteristic knowledge structure of the three groups. The knowledge structure of the group 3 is very similar to the experts' knowledge structure. However, the knowledge structure of the student groups using any strategy shows that students typically used these problem-solving strategies as algorithms instead of the conceptual understanding. For example in the characteristic knowledge structure of group 1 the knowledge necessary to solve the complex problem is built on both the proportionality and the molar mass, while in case of the student group 2 it is built on only one simple knowledge, the proportionality.


Considering that Mexican injuries prevention strategies have been focused on injuries caused by car accidents and gender violence, a whole analysis of the injuries registered are performed in this paper to have a wider overview of those agents that can cause injuries around the country. Taking into account the amount of information from both public and private sources, obtained from dynamic cubes reported by the Minister of Health, Big Data strategies are used with the objective of finding an appropriate extraction such as to identify the real correlations between the different variables registered by the Health Sector. The results of the analysis show areas of opportunity to improve the public policies on the subject, particularly in diminishing wounds at living place, public road (pedestrians) and work.


To evaluate the morphologic features, immunohistochemical profiles, and biological behavior of renal myopericytoma. Six cases of renal myopericytoma are retrospectively retrieved and analyzed by H&E and immunohistochemical staining. Clinically, patient's age ranged from 33 to 70 years (median, 56 years). Male to female ratio was 5:1. Five of the six patients were asymptomatic of the urinary tract, the remained one presented with abdomen pain. Grossly, all six tumors were solitary masses with sizes ranging from 1.8 to 7.3 cm of maximum diameter (mean, 4.4 cm). Five tumors were described as well-circumscribed, and 1 case was showed as ill-defined. Histologically, in all cases, numerous thin-walled vessels and a perivascular arrangement of ovoid, spindled or round myoid tumor cells were seen. However, a broad morphologic spectrum ranging from fibroma-like (3 cases), glomangiopericytoma-like (3 cases), angioleiomyoma-like (2 cases), glomoid- like (2 cases), and myofibroma-like (2 cases) components were observed. In addition, 1 neoplasm with immature cellular features and another infiltrating myopericytoma were found. A coexisting papillary adenoma was detected in 1 case. Nuclear atypia was seen in 2 cases. Immunohistochemically, SMA, caldesmon, and MSA were positive in all 6 cases, whereas CD34 and desmin was partial positive in 1 case, respectively. Ki67 index was aproximately 5% in 1 case but less than 2% in the others. All patients are free of disease by follow-up ranging from 14 to 66 months (mean, 38.7 months).


The main goal of the article is to assess the level of social capital of village heads (soltys) in Poland. The applied measure refers to formal membership of NGOs and political parties. The theory of social capital of Pierre Bourdieu was adopted as theoretical perspective. The study was conducted in 2014 and 2015 in two regions (voivodships) – Lubelskie and Wielkopolskie, which differ from each other in terms of history and social characteristics. The data comes from a quantitative research on 380 village heads and from auxiliary interviews with local governments' representatives. The results show a very high level of social capital of village heads, however, with a certain profile. The strictly social activity of soltys is significantly more common than the political activities (ca 70% of the leaders declared membership of NGOs while 15% of respondents were members of political parties). The crucial factor determining the level of the social capital of village heads is the social activity of their parents. As for Local Action Groups, the membership is related to village head's level of education and source of income. The activity of village heads in political parties bears relation to the sex, age and job status. A high level of social capital as well as strong social networks allow leaders to succeed in elections to local governments. Over 70% of village heads running for the seats in the municipal councils succeeded with being elected. The results of the study suggest that rural leaders from Wielkopolskie are endowed with more social capital compared to those from Lubelskie.


After analyzing and studying the existing sowing operation in forestry, a set of technological process of precision seeding based on optimal-control theory has been put forward and the prototype has also been designed and produced. This paper presents the general structure of the apparatus and analyses the working principle. An adjustable cell wheel feeding apparatus is designed to solve the problem of the uniformity of seeding. The theories of cooling mulching without adhesive on nutrition membrane and the process of membrane mulching are analyzed to set up the pressure model of the roll. After the experiments on the pressure of the roll and the analysis of the data, by the calculation of axial pressure transfer coefficient of the roll, has determined the best pressure of membrane mulching. At last, the test conditions of the prototype show that the frequency of failures is decreased, the damage rate of seeds is reduced, the seeding precision is improved, which satisfy the requirements of technical regulation on seeding in forestry and is beneficial to improve utilization ratio of good seeds.


We present a geographical distribution map of Bulinus truncatus based on historical and current localities in Spain and Portugal, that corresponds to the risk map of urogenital schistosomiasis for this freshwater snail. We reviewed samples of the species deposited at the Museu de Ciències Naturals of Barcelona and the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales of Madrid, together with our own data, including some unpublished contributions. This map will help determine the optimal area for this species and identify areas of greatest risk for urogenital schistosomiasis in the two countries. We emphasize that global change and climate change may favour the presence of both the vector (B. truncatus) and the parasite (Schistosoma haematobium) in Spain and Portugal.


The crystal structure of a major oxygen-insensitive nitroreductase (NfsA) from Escherichia coli has been solved by the molecular replacement method at 1.7-A resolution. This enzyme is a homodimeric flavoprotein with one FMN cofactor per monomer and catalyzes reduction of nitrocompounds using NADPH. The structure exhibits an alpha + beta-fold, and is comprised of a central domain and an excursion domain. The overall structure of NfsA is similar to the NADPH-dependent flavin reductase of Vibrio harveyi, despite definite difference in the spatial arrangement of residues around the putative substrate-binding site. On the basis of the crystal structure of NfsA and its alignment with the V. harveyi flavin reductase and the NADPH-dependent nitro/flavin reductase of Bacillus subtilis, residues Arg(203) and Arg(208) of the loop region between helices I and J in the vicinity of the catalytic center FMN is predicted as a determinant for NADPH binding. The R203A mutant results in a 33-fold increase in the K(m) value for NADPH indicating that the side chain of Arg(203) plays a key role in binding NADPH possibly to interact with the 2'-phosphate group.


For the gradient computation across the time domain in Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) training, two different approaches have been independently studied. The first is to compute the gradients with respect to the change in spike activation (activation-based methods), and the second is to compute the gradients with respect to the change in spike timing (timing-based methods). In this work, we present a comparative study of the two methods and propose a new supervised learning method that combines them. The proposed method utilizes each individual spike more effectively by shifting spike timings as in the timing-based methods as wells as generating and removing spikes as in the activation-based methods. Experimental results showed that the proposed method achieves higher performance in terms of both accuracy and efficiency than the previous approaches.


We propose a complete still image based 2D-3D mobile conversion system for touch screen use. The system consists of interactive segmentation followed by 3D rendering. The interactive segmentation is conducted dynamically by color Gaussian mixture model updates and dynamic-iterative graph-cut. A coloring gesture is used to guide the way and entertain the user during the process. Output of the image segmentation is then fed to the 3D rendering stage of the system. For rendering stage, two novel improvements are proposed to handle holes resulting from depth image based rendering process. These improvements are also expected to enhance the 3D perception. These two methods are subjectively tested and their results are presented.


There is an absolute requirement for C'1, C'2, C'4, C'3, and C'5 in releasing histamine from rat peritoneal mast cells sensitized with rabbit anti-rat gamma globulin. This conclusion is based upon the restoration of histamine-releasing capacity by adding highly purified complement components to sera deficient in one or more of these components. Of special advantage was the availability of sera from humans with inborn or acquired deficiencies in a single component. The p-nitrophenyl ethyl phosphonates block this reaction by inhibiting an antigen-antibody-activated esterase which exists in a phosphonate resistant precursor state until activated by the interaction of the sensitized mast cell and serum complement. There is almost complete disparity between the ability of the phosphonates to inhibit complement-dependent histamine release by rabbit anti-RGG and to inactivate C'1a. Even though C'1a is required for complement-dependent histamine release by rabbit anti-RGG, this is not the esterase being blocked by the phosphonates under the experimental conditions used. The pattern of inhibition by the phosphonates of the antigen-antibody-activated esterase required for complement-dependent, noncytotoxic histamine release is remarkably similar to that of the esterase required for homocytotropic antibody-mediated histamine release. One possible implication is that these two quite different modes of carrying out antigen-antibody-induced histamine release from rat peritoneal mast cells lead to activation of the same esterase and share a common pathway.


Users of online shopping platforms typically purchase multiple items at a time in the form of a shopping basket. Personalized within-basket recommendation is the task of recommending items to complete an incomplete basket during a shopping session. In contrast to the related task of session-based recommendation, where the goal is to complete an ongoing anonymous session, we have access to the shopping history of the user in within-basket recommendation. Previous studies have shown the superiority of neighborhood-based models for session-based recommendation and the importance of personal history in the grocery shopping domain. But their applicability in within-basket recommendation remains unexplored. We propose PerNIR, a neighborhood-based model that explicitly models the personal history of users for within-basket recommendation in grocery shopping. The main novelty of PerNIR is in modeling the short-term interests of users, which are represented by the current basket, as well as their long-term interest, which is reflected in their purchasing history. In addition to the personal history, user neighbors are used to capture the collaborative purchase behavior. We evaluate PerNIR on two public and proprietary datasets. The experimental results show that it outperforms 10 state-of-the-art competitors with a significant margin, i.e., with gains of more than 12% in terms of hit rate over the second best performing approach. Additionally, we showcase an optimized implementation of our method, which computes recommendations fast enough for real-world production scenarios.


In-fiber efficient light modulation using two concatenated long-period gratings (TCLPG), written in single-mode fiber, is reported. The device is compressed in the middle of both gratings against a corrugated surface, with a piezoelectric, producing a transfer of energy between cladding modes which results in modulated light transmission. The TCLPG operates at 1542 nm, with a bandwidth of 29 nm and an insertion loss of 0.3 dB. The modulation depth is 20 dB and the rise time is 7.5 ms at a repetition rate of kilohertz.


The diffusion coefficient of In in TiAl has been measured using ion implantation technique and secondary ion mass spectrometry. The diffusion coefficients of Fe and Pd in FePt have been measured at two compositions by radioactive tracer method. In order to clarify diffusion anisotropy, single crystal of each alloy was used. The In diffusion perpendicular to the [001] axis is faster than that parallel to the [001] axis. Such trend is similar to Ti diffusion previously measured in our group. The diffusion of Fe in FePt perpendicular to the [001] axis is faster than that parallel to the [001] axis at each composition, while the anisotropy of the Pd diffusion is different with composition. The predominant process of the diffusion in perpendicular to the [001] has been discussed on the basis of the expressions of the diffusion coefficients.


The Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 is undeniably the most important major event of Andrew Jackson's two presidential terms. Attempting to declare null and void the high tariffs enacted by Congress in the late 1820s, the state of South Carolina declared that it had the right to ignore those national laws that did not suit it. Responding swiftly and decisively, Jackson issued a Proclamation reaffirming the primacy of the national government and backed this up with a Force Act, allowing him to enforce the law with troops. Although the conflict was eventually allayed by a compromise fashioned by Henry Clay, the Nullification Crisis raises paramount issues in American political history. The Union at Risk studies the doctrine of states' rights and illustrates how it directly affected national policy at a crucial point in 19th-century politics. Ellis also relates the Nullification Crisis to other major areas of Jackson's administration-his conflict with the National Bank, his Indian policy, and his relationship with the Supreme Court-providing keen insight into the most serious sectional conflict before the Civil War.


. Chaskey is a Message Authentication Code (MAC) for 32-bit microcontrollers proposed by Mouha et al. at SAC 2014. Its underlying blockcipher uses an Even-Mansour construction with a permutation based on the ARX methodology. In this paper, we present key-recovery attacks against Chaskey in the single and multi-user setting. These attacks are based on recent work by Fouque, Joux and Mavromati presented at Asiacrypt 2014 on Even-Mansour based constructions. We first show a simple attack on the classical single-user setting which con-firms the security properties of Chaskey. Then, we describe an attack in the multi-user setting and we recover all keys of 2 43 users by doing 2 43 queries per user. Finally, we show a variant of this attack where we are able to recover keys of two users in a smaller group of 2 32 users.


Sexual desire may be "responsive," emerging from sexual arousal to sexually competent cues. Cues that elicit sexual arousal and desire differ, however, by gender and direction of sexual attractions. Further, relationship context cues are thought to be important for responsive desire, but this has not been tested directly. The current study examined gynephilic men's (n = 27) and exclusively (n = 23) and predominantly (n = 17) androphilic women's dyadic and solitary responsive sexual desire, as well as genital and self-reported arousal, to audio narratives varying by gender (male, female) of the sexual partner and relationship context (stranger, friend, long-term relationship). Consistent with previous literature, gynephilic men's solitary and dyadic desire were gender-specific (greater to female than to male sexual partners). Exclusively androphilic women's dyadic desire differentiated less to cues of gender than gynephilic men's, and their solitary desire did not differentiate by gender cues at all, replicating previous research. Androphilic women with some gynephilia reported a gender-nonspecific pattern of dyadic and solitary desire (i.e., responsive desire to both male and female narratives). No effect of relationship context was found for any groups. Results suggest that responsive sexual desire may be more closely associated with self-reported than genital arousal patterns.


The paper deals with a fundamental problem arising in the design of optimal networks-the maximization of the number of spanning trees. To make the problem computationally tractable, we consider a class of regular graphs. The problem is solved with the use of the evolutionary algorithm and compared to the 2-opt method. The problem-specific genetic operators are introduced, Various experiments with different graph structures have been performed, the results are reported and discussed. The influence of introducing some preliminary knowledge about the problem on the algorithm effectiveness is studied.


Biospecimen donation is key to the Precision Medicine Initiative, which pioneers a model for accelerating biomedical research through individualized care. Personalized medicine should be made available to medically underserved populations, including the large and growing US Hispanic population. We present results of a study of 140 Hispanic women who underwent a breast biopsy at a safety-net hospital and were randomly assigned to receive information and request for consent for biospecimen and data sharing by the patient's physician or a research assistant. Consent rates were high (97.1% and 92.9% in the physician and research assistant arms, respectively) and not different between groups (relative risk [RR] = 1.05, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.96 to 1.10). Consistent with a small but growing literature, we show that perceptions of Hispanics' unwillingness to participate in biospecimen sharing for research are not supported by data. Safety-net clinics and hospitals offer untapped possibilities for enhancing participation of underserved populations in the exciting Precision Medicine Initiative.


Cancer is characterized by a deregulation of the cell cycle resulting in abnormal proliferation of cells that can bypass tightly regulated molecular checkpoints. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women, ~70% of cases displaying an estrogen receptor positive (ER+) phenotype. The aim of the present work was to generate a comprehensive overview of the biological mechanisms, molecular pathways and specific proteins involved in cell cycle progression in ER+ breast cancer cells. We focused on the G1-to-S phase transition of the cell cycle because major differences in cell proliferation mechanisms between normal and cancerous cells are observed at this point. We developed a large-scale proteomics strategy to enable the comparison of MCF-7 ER+ (cancer) and MCF-10A (non-tumorigenic) epithelial breast cells. Samples were analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) followed by a label-free quantitation approach, i.e., spectral counting, for differential protein expression analysis. The study was divided into three distinct parts: 1) qualitative profiling of MCF-7 cells arrested in the G1-phase and released into the S-phase of the cell cycle, 2) differential expression profiling of MCF-7 cells in G1 and S, and 3) differential expression profiling of the G1-phases of MCF-7 and MCF-10A cells. The qualitative evaluation of MCF-7 proteomic data resulted in the identification of >2700 proteins (p-score<0.001). A large number of these proteins were involved in cell cycle relevant processes, being representative of all hallmarks of cancer. Differential expression analysis of the MCF-7 G1 and S-phases resulted in the identification of >250 proteins with roles in DNA repair, transcription, translation, chromatin maintenance and signaling. The MCF-7/MCF-10 comparison revealed that major cellular processes that require DNA access, such as the ones identified in the MCF-7 analysis, are upregulated in the nucleus of MCF-7 cells during starvation, possibly allowing these cancerous cells to bypass the restriction point. Several proliferative and anti-proliferative markers were identified in both MCF-7 and MCF-10A cells.


BACKGROUND
Age-related reductions in serum dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) concentrations may be involved in bone mineral density (BMD) losses.

OBJECTIVE
The objective was to determine whether DHEA supplementation in older adults improves BMD when co-administered with vitamin D and calcium.

DESIGN
In year 1, a randomized trial was conducted in which men (n = 55) and women (n = 58) aged 65-75 y took 50 mg/d oral DHEA supplements or placebo. In year 2, all participants took open-label DHEA (50 mg/d). During both years, all participants received vitamin D (16 microg/d) and calcium (700 mg/d) supplements. BMD was measured by using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Concentrations of hormones and bone turnover markers were measured in serum.

RESULTS
In men, no difference between groups occurred in any BMD measures or in bone turnover markers during year 1 or year 2. The free testosterone index and estradiol increased in the DHEA group only. In women, spine BMD increased by 1.7 +/- 0.6% (P = 0.0003) during year 1 and by 3.6 +/- 0.7% after 2 y of supplementation in the DHEA group; however, in the placebo group, spine BMD was unchanged during year 1 but increased to 2.6 +/- 0.9% above baseline during year 2 after the crossover to DHEA. Hip BMD did not change. Testosterone, estradiol, and insulin-like growth factor 1 increased in the DHEA group only. In both groups, serum concentrations of bone turnover markers decreased during year 1 and remained low during year 2, but did not differ between groups.

CONCLUSION
DHEA supplementation in older women, but not in men, improves spine BMD when co-administered with vitamin D and calcium. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00182975.


The approach of training sequence models using supervised learning and next-step prediction suffers from known failure modes. For example, it is notoriously difficult to ensure multi-step generated sequences have coherent global structure. We propose a novel sequence-learning approach in which we use a pre-trained Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to supply part of the reward value in a Reinforcement Learning (RL) model. Thus, we can refine a sequence predictor by optimizing for some imposed reward functions, while maintaining good predictive properties learned from data. We propose efficient ways to solve this by augmenting deep Q-learning with a cross-entropy reward and deriving novel off-policy methods for RNNs from KL control. We explore the usefulness of our approach in the context of music generation. An LSTM is trained on a large corpus of songs to predict the next note in a musical sequence. This Note-RNN is then refined using our method and rules of music theory. We show that by combining maximum likelihood (ML) and RL in this way, we can not only produce more pleasing melodies, but significantly reduce unwanted behaviors and failure modes of the RNN, while maintaining information learned from data.


To the Editor.— In the issue of Oct 20, Dr. Hussey commented editorially on the controversy between Dr. Blumberg and Dr. Szasz on the ethics of experimenting without the full knowledge and consent of the subject. Obviously, tests on urine do no physical harm to the patient. However, "nil nocere" must be given wider interpretation. I have been advised by several attorneys that few, if any, states recognize a patient-physician privilege of confidentiality. Certainly Massachusetts specifically provides that physicians can be forced to testify over a patient's objection. Therefore, it is inescapable that drug (abuse) determinations, without the consent of the patient, can readily produce legal evidence against him. Dr. Blumberg's answer (quoted in the editorial), "Since our procedure did not affect the patients in any adverse way...." is therefore erroneous. I do not wish to put words into Dr. Szasz's mouth, nor do I wish to impugn Dr. Blumberg's


The plasmonic effect of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) enhances light absorption and, thus, the efficiency of organic bulk heterojunction solar cells with poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT): [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) as active layer. We report optimization of this enhancement by varying the attachment density of the self-assembled AuNPs on silanized ITO using N1-(3-trimethoxysilylpropyl)diethylenetriamine. Using finite difference time domain simulations, the thicknesses of poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT): poly (styrenesulfonate) (PSS) and P3HT:PCBM layers were suitably varied to ensure broadband optical absorption enhancement and minimal exciton quenching within the active layer. Our experimental results demonstrate that for solar cell structures with 20% surface coverage, absorption is increased by 65% as predicted by simulations. Further, we show that AuNPs increase the efficiency by 30% and that silanization of ITO positively impacts device performance.


The traditional control methods are not able to keep control performance in a high level because response speed becomes more important for industrial control. This paper presented a fast predictive control algorithm, which was easy and simple to calculate and the principle of algorithm was very clear and greatly improved the speed of response and calculation, as well as demonstrated the principles of fast algorithms and operation process of the algorithm. Finally, we analyzed the stability, dynamic characteristics and steady state characteristics of system, and used lead-lag correction link to improve the performance of system. The results of simulation demonstrated that all of methods and improved algorithms were feasibility.


U.S. Department of Defense experience with internal partnership programs has indicated that a lack of close supervision by medical treatment facilities can result in cost increases. The use of medical practice guidelines or standards is the subject of active investigation. The global guidelines tend to be too rigid or too vague to affect the provision of care. Their general acceptance can often be low. The use of clinical guidelines, with supervision by a clinic peer, has been determined to be a provider-friendly method of delivering cost-effective, high-quality care. Comparisons were made between the supervised partners against the total expenditures for ENT outpatient CHAMPUS care. The results indicated not only a savings but a reduction in the rate of cost increases by more than 250 percent. It is our feeling that specialty provider, peer-directed medical standards can be applied in a cost-effective manner. Their adoption as an organization-wide standard for referral can be an important tool in maintaining quality while containing costs.


Participants in the land market are usually hampered to browse and analyze the land price information due to the lack of information sources and available analysis tools. A service-oriented GIS-based web system was developed to provide a practical solution, its essential data sources contain basic geographic elements and benchmark land price (BLP)-related information. Core models for land price analysis were implemented, including land price index, spatial distribution, and parcel appraisal. The system was developed based on a four-level Browse Server (B/S) architecture using GIS and web service technologies, which enables the publishing, browsing, and analysis of the land price information via the Internet. With effective functionalities, the system has been employed in a project for updating BLP in a case study city located in China. The main advantage of the GIS-based web approach lies in its integration of spatial-temporal analysis models and web GIS technology, which allows more investors and administrators with limited domain knowledge to obtain further understanding on the change pattern and spatial distribution of land price by an online means. The experience in the case study city demonstrates that the approach has strong practicality for land price information services.


Ultrasonographic methods rely on piezoelectric effects that define the reflection of sound energy from either moving blood or tissue. Noninvasive imaging of cardiac structures has altered the practice of cardiology over the past decade. During recent years, Doppler echocardiography has brought important advances in the assessment of cardiac morphology and function. Doppler color flow mapping studies have greatly enhanced both structural and functional assessment and the evaluation of congenital and acquired cardiac diseases. Although two-dimensional echocardiography is an established tool in clinical cardiology, the image quality of conventional transthoracic approaches can sometimes be unsatisfactory for various reasons. In such cases, transesophageal echocardiography can provide important diagnostic information. Furthermore, some structures that are poorly visualized on standard precordial echocardiography can be observed better on the transesophageal approach.


Recently, several linear receiver algorithms have been developed for space-time block-coded multiaccess multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. All these techniques are based on the assumption that the channel state information (CSI) at the receiver side is perfect. However, in practical situations, the available CSI may be imperfect because of channel estimation errors and/or outdated training. In this paper, we develop new robust linear receiver techniques for joint space-time decoding and interference rejection in multiaccess MIMO systems that use orthogonal space-time block codes and erroneous CSI. The proposed receivers are based on worst-case performance optimization. They are shown to provide a substantially improved robustness against CSI mismatches as compared with the existing linear multiaccess MIMO receivers.


This paper will examine the educational experiences of teacher candidates and the use of teacher performance assessment (edTPA) to measure their quality, competence, and impact. It will situate edTPA within the national, politically-charged debate between the defenders and reformers of teacher education who advocate for the professionalization versus deregulation of the field, respectively. Their positions converge, however, in the collective belief and reliance on testing to measure educational inputs and outputs. Even the defenders are caught in a reactive stance to show through testing data the value and relevance of teacher preparation. The paper will also investigate the perspectives on edTPA of teacher candidates at a medium-sized, public university in the US Midwest. Using a survey of candidates who completed edTPA during the 2014-15 academic year, it will highlight candidate resistance to edTPA, even though they have been disciplined and immersed in a culture of testing throughout their K-12 and university education. Their resistance foregrounds three themes: (a) time and stress; (b) outsourcing of teacher evaluation; and (c) contradictions between curriculum and assessment in teacher education. Moreover, it will mobilize Michel Foucault's concepts of governmentality and critique to analyze the ruling logic and practices in education and the candidates' resistance under difficult conditions.