A Research Report Submitted To the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Examination Board in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of Diploma in Nursing Sciences


This paper examines whether nancial development facilitates economic growth by scrutinizing one rationale for such a relationship; that nancial development reduces the costs of external nance to rms. Speciically, we ask whether industrial sectors that are relatively more in need of external nance develop disproportionately faster in countries with more developed nancial markets. We nd this to be true in a large sample of countries over the 1980s. We show this result is unlikely to be driven by omitted variables, outliers, or reverse causality. A large literature, dating at least as far back as Joseph A. Schumpeter (1911), emphasizes the positive innuence of the development of a country's nancial sector on the level and the rate of growth of its per capita income. The argument essentially is that the services the nancial sector provides { of reallocating capital to the highest value use without substantial risk of loss through moral hazard, adverse selection, or transactions costs { are an essential catalyst of economic growth.


The association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) level and lung function changes in the general population remains unclear. We conducted cross-sectional (n=1220) and follow-up (n=869) studies to investigate the interrelationship of serum 25(OH)D, smoking and lung function changes in a random sample of adults from the Nord-Trøndelag Health (HUNT) Study, Norway. Lung function was measured using spirometry and included forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) % predicted, forced vital capacity (FVC) % pred and FEV1/FVC ratio. Multiple linear and logistic regression models estimated the adjusted difference in lung function measures or lung function decline, adjusted odds ratios for impaired lung function or development of impaired lung function and 95% confidence intervals. 40% of adults had serum 25(OH)D levels <50 nmol·L−1. Overall, those with a serum 25(OH)D level <50 nmol·L−1 showed worse lung function and increased odds of impaired lung function compared to the ≥50 nmol·L−1 group. These associations tended to be stronger among ever-smokers, including greater decline in FEV1/FVC ratio and greater odds of the development of impaired lung function (FEV1/FVC <70% OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.2–4.9). Associations among never-smokers were null. Results from cross-sectional and follow-up studies were consistent. There were no associations between serum 25(OH)D levels and lung function or lung function changes in never-smokers, whereas significant associations were observed in ever-smokers. Lower serum 25(OH)D levels are associated with greater lung function decline and impaired lung function in smokers http://ow.ly/MaUaq


Objective This study aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics and prognosis of pediatric idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis (IPH). Methods Pediatric IPH cases that were diagnosed at West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University between 1996 and 2017 were reviewed. Follow-up data from 34 patients were collected. Results A total of 107 patients were included (42 boys and 65 girls). The median age was 6 years at diagnosis. The main manifestations of the patients were as follows: anemia (n = 100, 93.45%), cough (n = 68, 63.55%), hemoptysis (n = 61, 57%), fever (n = 23, 21.5%), and dyspnea (n = 23, 21.5%). There were relatively few pulmonary signs. The positive rates of hemosiderin-laden macrophages in sputum, gastric lavage fluid, and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were 91.66%, 98.21%, and 100%, respectively. Seventy-nine patients were misdiagnosed. A total of 105 patients were initially treated with glucocorticoids, among whom 102 survived and three died. Among the followed up patients, two died and 32 survived, among whom 10 presented with recurrent episodes. Conclusions The classic triad of pediatric IPH is not always present. The rates of misdiagnosis and recurrence of IPH are high. Early recognition and adequate immunosuppressive therapy are imperative for improving prognosis of IPH.


Niobium when alloyed to hypoas well as hypereutectic iron has several beneficial metallurgical effects. It refines the eutectic cell size, graphite structure and also the lamellae spacing of the pearlite matrix. Nb affects the nucleation of graphite and can hence support inoculation. It also narrows down the temperature hysteresis between austenite and pearlite formation, which is important to cyclic heating. Finally, the ultra hard NbC particles formed lead to a markedly increased wear resistance of the material. The paper elucidates how these effects of Nb can be used to make brake discs with better properties and demonstrates processing benefits in the production of cast iron. Finally some examples of application in heavy trucks and recent passenger cars are given.


An entirely carbon-free multifunctional titanium suboxide doped with two metals has been developed as a novel fuel cell catalyst support. The co-functional Ti3O5Mo0.2Si0.4 (TOMS) support shows remarkably high electronic conductivity for a metal oxide. A Pt/TOMS catalyst was prepared and found to show excellent activity towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). This enhanced activity is attributed to a strong electronic interaction between the Pt nanoparticles and the TOMS support. Furthermore, this Pt/TOMS catalyst shows extraordinary durability in accelerated stress tests, losing only 10% of its active surface area over the 5000 cycle accelerated stress test. The fuel cell performance testing of the Pt/TOMS catalyst shows that practical fuel cell devices can be readily fabricated and achieve high performance, exceeding those of commercial catalysts. Thus, the proposed Pt/TOMS has the potential to be a viable carbon-free support that could be deployed in PEMFC technology as a near-term solution.


Prosumerization is the enabling of users to act as producers. Prosumerization of content for the mobile internet, in which users are consumers and producers of content, is a recent trend. However, user-generated mobile services are the next big step for mobile service provision emerging from the prosumerization of content. Benefits for platform and telecommunication providers can be significant, especially if information released by prosumers is used wisely by providers. This article derives implications for providers and their applied information technology. An architectural proposal is described which focuses on the usage of prosumers' information for internal business adaptations of providers as well as creation of feedback to the prosumers. Since prosumers as additional creative force in the development process move much closer to a provider's business, user-centricity has to go beyond improved customer relationship management.


Animating Africa within the field of African studies is presently deeply problematic. This is mainly because the power undergirding the construction of Africa within the field is wielded within the epistemic modes of Western intellectual thought. Consequently, unless Africanism is decolonised from that epistemological mode, African studies not only remains a colonised field of enquiry, but also continues to legitimise and validate the theses on Afro-pessimism. Its utilitarian value for the continent also remains ineffectual. Actualising the decolonisation of knowledge in this regard is no doubt an epistemological project. It is also a matter of intellectual and political struggles. This is mainly because the actual histories of the various disciplinary practices around which knowledge production takes place – on Africa – have a profoundly colonial genealogy. The task of working Africa's destiny out of that heritage is therefore a compelling task for postcolonial studies. How did Africa become the object of historical and scientific enquiries? Through what historical conditions did the African subject become the object of a possible knowledge system? How can African historical knowledge further African development? And how might African studies serve as an instrument of liberation and progress rather than domination? These questions are central to my attention in this article. Drawing on differend as an illustration of the opposing claims and premises around which knowledge production on Africa takes place, it underlines the Africa-driven interventions in this field and discusses some of the foremost attempts at combating the subjugation of endogenous knowledges on the continent.


We describe a heuristic method for solving the minimum makespan problem of job shop scheduling. It makes use of the disjunctive graph, and set the direction of the disjunctive arcs as decision variables. The decision variables, as micro bottlenecks, are cleared one by one, following the critical path algorithm. Once a new disjunctive arc is adopted all the implicit disjunctive arcs will be decided. The time complexity is O (n2). Computational testing is performed to solve the notorious ten machines /ten jobs problem in running time of 8.272 CPU seconds on a P-II 450 MHz PC, however, without finding an optimal solution. Finally, we verified the algorithm by testing a 100x30 (100 jobs/30 machines) problem, which may contribute to be one of the new benchmark problems.


We report several shape anisotropic molecules that contain two centrally placed 1,3,4-thiadiazole units, which vary from each other with respect to the number and length of the flexible chains at the termini. The number, position and length of the peripheral chains connected to the termini showed an impact on the thermal behavior of these compounds. The compounds with two terminal tails exhibited an enantiotropic smectic C phase, whereas the compounds with four terminal tails turned out to be crystalline. Surprisingly, among the compounds with six terminal tails, only the compound with a longer terminal chain exhibited a columnar phase with oblique symmetry. It is also to be noted that only compounds with six terminal chains exhibited gelation in long chain hydrocarbons. The xerogel of the hexacatenar with six n-decyloxy chains showed an entangled network of nanofibers of several micrometers in length. The aggregation behavior of the hexacatenar in the hydrocarbon solvent is mainly supported by the attractive π–π interactions of the aromatic cores and the van der Waals interactions offered by the peripheral flexible tails. The emission behavior is dependent on the number of peripheral tails and not on the length. Furthermore, one of the hexacatenars exhibited solvatochromic emissive behavior. This molecular design helps in the development of long molecular nanowires with a central conducting core and insulating peripheral sheath, which will be helpful for the application in organic electronic devices. The application potential of the columnar liquid crystal material was tested by the fabrication of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) either as a single emissive material or as a guest material in a host polymer. Higher efficiency and brightness were noticed in the host guest OLED, which exhibited a technologically important bright blue emission.


Please address all correspondence to: Dr Mireya Lozada, Instituto de Psicologia, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela. (email email@example.com)

Papers on Social Representations
Volume 23, pages 21.1-21.16 (2014)
Peer Reviewed Online Journal
ISSN 1021-5573
© 2014 The Authors
[http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/psr/]
Us or Them? Social Representations and Imaginaries of the Other in Venezuela
MIREYA LOZADA
Universidad Central de Venezuela
Polarisation, which seems to have established itself and spread worldwide as a mechanism for power and social control, has become more acute in Latin America, a region of long standing socioeconomic and political conflicts. In Venezuela, in the context of the "Bolivarian revolution", although political confrontation has encouraged social participation processes, it has also led to an acute social polarization and to controversial representations held in the imaginary of the enemy-Other, which generate rivalries and struggles between opposing groups, in a climate of emotional exacerbation, mistrust and collective fear. In this context, marked by polarisation and intergroup violence, there is a progressive fracture of symbolic practices, which hinders consensus, generating antagonistic relationships in a permanent struggle for positions of real or symbolic power. From the experience of research developed during the 2002-2013 period at the Universidad Central of Venezuela, and the experience derived from programs of mediation and psychosocial attention developed with different political groups, some lines of problematisation arise that I will set forth here. The article deals with the triad: polarisation, representation and social imaginaries, focusing on the controversial representations that emerge in a context marked by sociopolitical conflict.


Abstract : It is difficult to find reliable industrial and occupational histories of individuals who have been identified as suffering from particular diseases, such as cancer. State Employment Security Agencies (SESA) maintain records of employment of all workers covered by Unemployment Insurance. To determine the availability of useful data maintained by these agencies, SESA in twelve states were visited and the characteristics and availability of archived data were verified. A telephone survey was also conducted to determine the characteristics and availability of death certificates and other health data in those states. The period and form of storage of archives varied from state to state; Texas and New Mexico maintain data on microfilm going back more than forty years. Colorado has records on computer tape going back to 1968. Computer tape storage in other states covers periods ranging from two to ten years. Details about the characteristics and availability of matchable health and unemployment data from twelve states are presented in this report.


The research was conducted to study the comparison of farmers' weed management practice in rice with chemical control and Sesbania co-culture. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications and five different weed management practices. The five treatments were Farmers' practice (two hand weeding first at 28 DAS and another at 40 DAS), Chemical practice (Bispyribac sodium as post emergence @ 25 g a.i. ha-1 at 25 DAS), Sesbania co-culture (100 kg Sesbania ha-1 and knocking down at 28 DAS), Weed free (Hand removal of weeds at 10 days' interval) and Weedy check (No weed management). The individual plot size was 5 x 4 m2. The Sesbania co-culture and farmers' practice were found more or less similar performance for all observed parameters but as better as compared to weedy check and chemical treatment. Sesbania co-culture was found less costly than farmers' practice for weed management. The experiment clearly demonstrated the importance of brown manuring on effective control of weeds in rice field under dry direct seeded rice.Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 6(3): 265-269


Clinicians in chronic pain services are facing the need to develop meaningful and methodologically adequate measures, not only to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions and to assure quality, but also to support the continued funding and future development of such services. Explores the problems inherent in assessing outcomes in chronic pain. These include the complexity of the chronic pain syndrome itself, the multidimensional nature of interventions and the challenges of defining outcomes in the chronic illness syndrome. The complexity and challenges of assessing outcomes may lead to some reticence in facing the challenges but it is the responsibility of the clinicians to continue developing measures and to communicate to purchasers and other stake holders the complexity of assessing outcomes in chronic pain.


The physics in two-dimensional (2D) systems is very different from what we observe in three-dimensional (3D) systems. Thermal fluctuations in 2D systems are enhanced, and they prevent the conventional Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) at non-zero temperatures by destroying the long-range order. However, a phase transition to a superfluid phase is still expected to occur in a 2D system along with an emergence of a quasi-long-range order, explained by the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) mechanism. Within the BKT mechanism, a universal jump of the superfluid density in a 2D Bosonic system was theoretically predicted by Nelson and Kosterlitz, and was first observed in 2D \textsuperscript{4}He films by Bishop and Reppy. Recent experiments in trapped ultracold 2D Bose gas systems have shown signatures of the BKT transition, and its superfluidity. However, the universal jump in the superfluid density was not observed in these systems. Here we report the first observation of the universal jump in the superfluid density using an optically trapped ultracold 2D Bose gas. The measured superfluid phase space density at the BKT transition agrees well with the predicted value within our measurement uncertainty. Additionally, we measure the phase fluctuations in our density profiles to show that the BKT transition occurs first, followed by the BEC transition.


In this article, we study protest participants in the May 2006 immigration rights marches in Los Angeles. Analysis of original survey data of 876 march participants yields five main results. First, despite substantial dispute among organizers on how to frame the marches, we find protest participants were similar across march locations organized by different coalitions. Second, we find Spanish-English bilingual participants seemed to benefit from being in two media environments, as they reported more information sources about the protest events than monolingual participants. Third, women reported hearing about the protest events from more information sources, and Spanish-English bilingual women reported hearing from more information sources than any other group, suggesting they acted as social connectors behind the massive participation. Fourth, we confirm the importance of Spanish-language radio as an information source, but our data also point to the significance of television and English-language radio. Finally, analyzing data of first-time protesters, we estimate the immigrant rights marches newly politicized 125,000 people in Los Angeles who spoke Spanish and not English. movements


This essay outlines some of the major social-science based understandings in the fields of risk assessment, risk perception, and risk communication emphasizing the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of these various approaches to "thinking about" risk. The essay emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the role that scientific expertise about risk should and should not play in democratic societies. It concludes with a brief overview of how these findings might apply to the specific case of agbiotech, particularly in light of cultural understandings about the role of science in modern life.


Abstract Action and perception are tightly coupled systems requiring coordination and synchronization over time. How the brain achieves synchronization is still a matter of debate, but recent experiments suggest that brain oscillations may play an important role in this process. Brain oscillations have been also proposed to be fundamental in determining time perception. Here, we had subjects perform an audiovisual temporal order judgment task to investigate the fine dynamics of temporal bias and sensitivity before and after the execution of voluntary hand movement (button-press). The reported order of the audiovisual sequence was rhythmically biased as a function of delay from hand action execution. Importantly, we found that it oscillated at a theta range frequency, starting ∼500 ms before and persisting ∼250 ms after the button-press, with consistent phase-locking across participants. Our results show that the perception of cross-sensory simultaneity oscillates rhythmically in synchrony with the programming phase of a voluntary action, demonstrating a link between action preparation and bias in temporal perceptual judgments.


Previous literature has noted the connection between sport and corporate environmentalism, especially that which has positioned the sport mega-event as a facilitator of "sustainable" development. David Chernushenko (1994) was the first environmentalist to propose a model of ecologically sustainable development for sport and recreation management, which was criticized for the notable appeal to neoliberalcapitalist advancement. Due to eco-driven protests in Denver (1974), Toronto (1989), and Rome (1997), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) amended the Olympic Charter to reflect growing environmental concern. Yet the IOC model has—much like the work of Chernushenko—continued to favor finance. Recent literature has documented the extent to which the Olympic pillar of "sustainability," intended to "integrate sustainable development into their policies and activities," has allowed for deceptive corporate marketing to merely greenwash the Games. It is from this context that the Aedes aegypti or Yellow Fever mosquito rapidly emerged—now host to Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, Mayaro, and other viruses. We borrow from Lauren Berlant the notion of "cruel optimism" to describe structural/institutional ideologies (e.g., allegiance to the monogamous, heteronormative family) that facilitate capitalist expansion, even in the midst of (environmental) crisis.3 While the literal destruction of the cityscape (whether sport-prompted or not) has cemented an economic logic into the physical landscape and modern mind, we contend that scientific-technological communities need to (more carefully) protect and privilege the pre-existent "nature-made" strategies of sustainability. So, to make an authentic commitment to the environment, the IOC—as emblematic of an international conglomerate repeatedly encouraged to rewrite and recreate sovereign law—would need to legally enforce the protection of local ecologies as it has legally enforced the protection of corporate sponsorship and the Olympic brand.


Chronic widespread pain (CWP) including fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) has a high prevalence and is associated with prominent negative consequences. CWP/FMS exhibits morphological and functional alterations in the central nervous system. The importance of peripheral factors for maintaining the central alterations are under debate. In this study, the proteins from biopsies of the trapezius muscle from 18 female CWP/FMS patients and 19 healthy female controls were analyzed. Pain intensity and pressure pain thresholds (PPT) over the trapezius muscles were registered. Twelve proteins representing five different groups of proteins were important regressors of pain intensity in CWP/FMS (R2=0.99; P<0.001). In the regression of PPT in CWP/FMS, it was found that 16 proteins representing six groups of proteins were significant regressors (R2=0.95, P<0.05). Many of the important proteins were stress and inflammation proteins, enzymes involved in metabolic pathways, and proteins associated with muscle damage, myopathies, and muscle recovery. The altered expression of these proteins may reflect both direct and indirect nociceptive/inflammatory processes as well as secondary changes. The relative importance of the identified proteins and central alterations in CWP need to be investigated in future research. Data from this and the previous study concerning the same cohorts give support to the suggestion that peripheral factors are of importance for maintaining pain aspects in CWP/FMS.


Objective – To examine provider pessimism by comparing user and provider perception of the same instant messaging reference transaction.

Design – Instant messaging users and providers completed post-reference transaction surveys which were analyzed using the pair perception comparison method.

Setting – A large research university in the United States.

Subjects – Two hundred undergraduate journalism students (users of the instant messaging service) and 51 Master of Library Science (MLS) students enrolled in a reference services class (providers of the instant messaging service).

Methods – The authors created a research help webpage from which users could access the instant messaging service. Prior to service availability, providers received reference instruction and demonstrated reference aptitude through in-class activities. The authors briefed providers on the project and provided a wiki containing resources they might need during reference transactions. Providers worked in two-hour shifts, and two providers were available during each shift. The service was available for one week while potential users completed a journalism assignment. The authors asked both users and providers of the service to complete an online survey at the conclusion of the reference transaction. Users and providers completed different surveys, but both types included the following four elements: questions to aid in matching a user to a provider; questions about satisfaction with the service based on guidelines put forth by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA); open-ended questions about the reference transaction; and questions regarding demographics, prior reference service usage, and knowledge of instant messaging. There were 55 valid reference transactions, and from those, the authors matched 26 pairs of user and provider surveys. The authors analyzed paired surveys to (a) compare the user's perception of the reference transaction with the provider's guess about the user's perception and (b) compare the provider's self-perception of the reference transaction with the provider's guess about the user's perception. The authors introduced the pair perception comparison method for the analysis using two-tailed paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests.

Main Results – Analysis of background information showed that users were younger on average than providers and used instant messaging more frequently. Even so, most users and providers felt comfortable with instant messaging.

When providers were asked to guess how satisfied overall they thought the user was with the reference transaction, they reported on average that the user was less satisfied than the user actually was. These results were statistically significant. The authors found no significant difference between the providers' overall satisfaction with the service they provided and their guesses about the users' overall satisfaction.

The authors also analyzed the matched pairs on 14 specific aspects of satisfaction gathered from surveys. When comparing the users' satisfaction with the service they received and the providers' guesses about the users' satisfaction, the providers underestimated the users' satisfaction on average for all 14 dimensions. The authors found statistically significant differences with regard to 7 of the 14 dimensions: tempo, ease of use, friendliness, understanding, accuracy, follow up, and spelling. When comparing the providers' satisfaction with a given reference transaction and their guesses about the users' satisfaction with the same reference transaction, the authors found significant differences for 3 of the 14 dimensions: interest, resource type, and accuracy.

Conclusion – This study has shown for instant messaging reference what other studies have shown for face-to-face reference—that provider pessimism exists. Whatever the environment, providers of reference tend to judge themselves more harshly than the people they are helping judge them. Based on a review of the literature, the authors further note that both expert and novice reference providers experience such pessimism. The authors are hopeful that providers will view these results as evidence of their own competence during instant messaging reference transactions.

The results of this study provide valuable information for training instant messaging providers. For example, the fact that providers thought users were less satisfied with the tempo of the reference transaction than they really were suggested to the authors that instant messaging providers need not be so concerned about giving a quick answer. An accurate answer is more desirable. In the same vein, providers thought that users were more concerned with spelling than they really were. Both of these cases, and others gleaned from the results, provide insight into what aspects of the reference transaction providers should spend their time and effort on.

Finally, the authors introduced the pair perception comparison method to compare feedback from matched pairs on individual reference transactions, a methodology not used in any earlier studies. They deemed this method to be an effective way to uncover biases and false assumptions.


Contemporary Art and Anthropology takes a new and exciting approach to representational practices within contemporary art and anthropology. Traditionally, the anthropology of art has tended to focus on the interpretation of tribal artifacts but has not considered the impact such art could have on its own ways of making and presenting work. The potential for the contemporary art scene to suggest innovative representational practices has been similarly ignored. This book challenges the reluctance that exists within anthropology to pursue alternative strategies of research, creation and exhibition, and argues that contemporary artists and anthropologists have much to learn from each others' practices. The contributors to this pioneering book consider the work of artists such as Susan Hiller, Francesco Clemente and Rimer Cardillo, and in exploring topics such as the possibility of shared representational values, aesthetics and modernity, and tattooing, they suggest productive new directions for practices in both fields.


Nutritionally balanced ingredient blends for catla ( Catla catla ), belonging to the family Cyprinidae, were extruded using single screw extruder. The extrusion was carried out at five levels of soy white flakes content (21%, 29%, 40%, 52%, and 59% db), five levels of moisture content (15, 19, 25, 31, and 35% db) and five levels of barrel temperature (100, 110, 125, 140, and 150 oC) using three different die nozzles (having L/D ratios 3.33, 5.83, and 7.25). Blends with net protein content of 32.5% contains soy white flakes, along with high protein distillers dried grains (HP-DDG), corn flour, corn gluten meal, fish meal, vitamin, and mineral mix. A central composite rotatable design (CCRD) and  response surface methodology (RSM) was used to investigate the significance of independent and interaction effects of the extrusion process variables on the extrudates physical properties namely pellet durability index, bulk density, water absorption and solubility indices and expansion ratio. Quadratic polynomial regression equations were developed to correlate the product responses and process variables as well as to obtain the response surfaces plots. The independent variables had significant ( P < 0.05) effects on physical properties of extrudates: (i) higher soy white flakes content increased the pellet durability index and water absorption index, but decreased the water solubility index, (ii) higher temperature decreased pellet durability index, bulk density and water solubility index, (iii) increased L/D ratio from 3.33 to 7.25 increased the pellet durability index, expansion ratio but decreased the bulk density of the extrudates.


Cancer cells prefer to metabolize glucose through aerobic glycolysis, known as the Warburg effect. It plays a crucial role in proliferation and progression of cancer cells. However, the complete mechanism remains elusive. In recent studies, the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling has been discovered to have roles in cancer‑associated changes in metabolism. In this study, we find that the ginsenoside 20(S)‑Rg3, a pharmacologically active component of the traditional Chinese herb Panax ginseng, inhibits glycolysis in ovarian cancer cells by regulating hexokinase 2 (HK2) and pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2). We also show that 20(S)‑Rg3 regulates HK2 through downregulation of p‑STAT3 (Tyr705). Furthermore, overexpression of STAT3 in ovarian cancer cells weakened the suppression of Warburg effect induced by 20(S)‑Rg3. Importantly, 20(S)‑Rg3 treatment represses HK2 expression in nude mouse xenograft models of ovarian cancer. Taken together, our results show that 20(S)‑Rg3 inhibits the Warburg effect by targeting STAT3/HK2 pathway in ovarian cancer cells, highlighting the potentiality of 20(S)‑Rg3 to be used as a therapeutic agent for ovarian cancer.


Context. Many toddlers in the United States have their hemoglobin (Hb) measured periodically. Is this worthwhile? Objective. To determine if the presence of anemia correctly diagnoses iron deficiency (ID) and if the absence of anemia correctly rules out ID in young children. Methodology. An analysis of data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (1988–1994) was performed. Subjects were children 12 to 35 months old for whom complete blood counts and cardinal measures of iron nutrition (ferritin, transferrin saturation, and free erythrocyte protoporphyrin) were reported. Results. In the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III, the prevalence of ID ranged from 6% to 18% in various subpopulations of toddlers. In the general population, the positive predictive value of Hb concentration ([Hb]) <110 g/L for ID was 29% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 20–38%), and the sensitivity was 30% (95% CI: 20–40%). Changing the diagnostic cutoff point to [Hb] <107 g/L resulted in a positive predictive value of 38% (95% CI: 24–52%) but lowered the sensitivity to 15% (95% CI: 7–22%). Conclusions. ID remains common in the United States. In agreement with other reports, anemia in toddlers in developed countries is more likely to be due to causes other than ID. Conversely, most children with ID are not anemic. Many false-positive and false-negative results render the measurement of Hb a screening test of relatively little value. The current detection strategy needlessly treats and retests many children without ID and leaves many iron-deficient toddlers unattended.


This
study assessed the feasibility of utilizing activated carbon and clay minerals
for treating water impacted with the bittering agent denatonium benzoate (DB).
Our specific study objectives were to 1) evaluate denatonium ion sorption to
smectite clay minerals (bentonite and hectorite) and activated carbon (powdered
and granular) at constant pH and ionic strength and 2) examine the impact of pH
on denatonium ion sorption to each solid material. The experimental results
indicated that high doses (33,000 mg/L) of as-received granular activated
carbon and as-received clay minerals completely removed denatonium from aqueous
solutions containing 100 - 1000 mg/L denatonium benzoate. Powdered activated
carbon at doses of 5 - 100 mg/L exhibited favorable monolayer sorption of
denatonium ions from a pH 6.95, 70 mg/L aqueous denatonium benzoate solution
with a Langmuir separation factor (r)
of 0.481, a maximum sorption capacity (Sm)
of 74 mg/g, and a Langmuir constant of 15.3 L/g. A maximum removal of 23% of
denatonium was achieved at the highest powdered activated carbon dosage
employed. Denatonium ion removal with peroxide treated bentonite and peroxide
treated hectorite did not result in complete removal of the ion and exhibited
favorable sorption as evidenced by Freundlich 1/n values ranging from 0.803 to 1.194; Freundlich constants (Kf) ranged from 8 ng/L to 575
ng/L. Denatonium ion sorption to peroxide treated bentonite appeared to depend
on pH while hectorite sorption of denatonium ions was independent of hydrogen
ion concentrations. For powdered activated carbon adsorption, as pH increased
denatonium ion sorption decreased. Overall, the work demonstrates that
denatonium can be effectively removed from water via activated carbon or clay
mineral sorption.


Similar to other chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis the distribution of macrophage subtypes seems to be disturbed in post-traumatic osteomyelitis. This atypical distribution is clearly locally restricted in osteomyelitis. 27E10-positive macrophages found only during the acute phase of inflammation were reduced in 39%, the 25F9-positive subtype, predominating in the late stage of inflammation, was missing in 33%. The antiinflammatory macrophage RM3/1 was decreased in 40% of the osteomyelitis biopsies. Local suppression of macrophage subsets has to be discussed as one of the reasons for the persistence of chronic inflammatory processes in osteomyelitis.


Current guidelines for COVID-19 management recommend the utilization of various repurposed drugs. Despite ongoing research toward the development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, such a vaccine will not be available in time to contribute to the containment of the ongoing pandemic. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a framework for the rapid identification of novel targets for diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. We analyzed publicly available transcriptomic datasets of SARS-CoV infected humans and mammals to identify consistent differentially expressed genes then validated in SARS-CoV-2 infected epithelial cells transcriptomic datasets. Comprehensive toxicogenomic analysis of the identified genes to identify possible interactions with clinically proven drugs was carried out. We identified IFITM3 as an early upregulated gene, and valproic acid was found to enhance its mRNA expression as well as induce its antiviral action. These findings indicate that analysis of publicly available transcriptomic and toxicogenomic data represents a rapid approach for the identification of novel targets and molecules that can modify the action of such targets during the early phases of emerging infections like COVID-19.


LSI test systems built in the 1970s had compact, 60-pin test heads that presented devices under test with open wires leading to lumped-capacitive loads. Today's VLSI testers have 256-pin test heads with transmission lines leading from the DUTs to driver-comparator circuits that are as far away as 50 cm. Even though these automatic testers are adjusted to subnanosecond accuracy, reflections within the transmission lines can cause timing measurement errors up to 10 ns for MOS devices whose output impedances are not matched to the transmission lines. The authors offer the Advice circuit simulator (an AT&T proprietary version of SPICE) as one way to analyze errors due to transmission line problems before testing. They also discuss ways to correct timing errors. Finally, they recommend that very high speed ICs be designed to drive transmission lines that are terminated with matched resistors at the comparators.


One in three New Zealand women has experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) at some stage in their lives, with the vast majority of these women disclosing to a family member or friend at some stage during or after the relationship. Therefore, it is important to understand the dynamics involved with this disclosure. This study draws on feminist perspectives and a grounded theory methodology to examine six women's experiences with these dynamics. These women reported being very careful about when they disclosed, often going to great lengths to hide the abuse, and who they disclosed to. Furthermore, they explained that they felt a number of barriers to disclosure, both of a personal and social nature. They also described a number of different reactions they received, both negative and positive. In reflecting on their situations these women had come to a number of realisations, while during the interviews a number of observations were made, particularly regarding the strength they showed. In bringing their experiences together, it was clear that upon disclosure women require their family and friends to listen non-judgementally; help them to understand IPV; support the woman's decisions; and offer tangible support if necessary. However, negative experiences were not uncommon, and it was hypothesised that there are two forms of this: passive, which comes about through a lack of understanding; and active, which comes about through a conscious decision to be unsupportive. In concluding, it was suggested that widespread education be introduced, and public awareness campaigns be widened, to increase public understanding of IPV.


Algebraic multigrid (AMG) preconditioners for accelerators such as graphics processing units (GPUs) and Intel's many-integrated core (MIC) architecture typically require a careful, problem-dependent trade-off between efficient hardware use, robustness, and convergence rate in order to minimize time-tosolution. Several variants of AMG with fine-grained parallelism have been proposed recently, but a comparison across different hardware architectures is difficult since the proposed approaches are mostly focused on a single architecture. To address this deficiency, we derived implementations of recently proposed AMG variants in CUDA, OpenCL, and OpenMP and run extensive benchmarks. Our performance results for GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA as well as for Intel's Xeon Phi reveal the sweet spots of each accelerator architecture, helping practitioners to select the best AMG variant and hardware for a given problem.


Abstract This article describes an attempt to map snow cover accurately from other land covers using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) data of 500 m spatial resolution. The workflow includes reflectance modelling, computing snow-cover fraction (SCF) and establishing an empirical relationship between the SCF and normalized difference snow index (NDSI) to map snow cover at operational level. Regression relationships have been developed between the SCF derived from the linear mixture model (LMM) and snow obtained from the NDSI based on two criteria, namely: SCF greater than 0.0 and SCF greater than 0.1. The best regression equation has been selected by examining respective graph plots using statistical measures of mean absolute error, correlation coefficient, root mean square error (RMSE) and uncertainty analysis. The results have been validated against the actual SCF obtained from a high-resolution 15 m Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) visible and near infrared (VNIR) scene and covering a substantial range of snow cover of the same area. The selected regression model SCF = 0.25 + 0.35 × NDSI has been tested on other areas and validation efforts show that the pixel-level SCF relationship provides useful results as measured in independent tests against actual SCF obtained from ASTER scene.


Summary Feature selection for face representation is one of the central issues for any face recognition system. Finding a lower dimensional feature space with enhanced discriminating power is one of the important tasks. The traditional subspace methods represent each face image as a point in the disciminant subspace that is shared by all faces of different subject (classes). Such type of representation fails to accurately represent the most discriminate features related to one class of face, so in order to extract features that capture a particular class's notion of similarity and differ much from remaining classes is modeled. In this paper we propose a new method called "Double Discriminant Analysis" Which first performs PCA (Principal Component Analysis) to reduce the sample size and extract the features that separates individual class faces maximally. Then by projecting these samples over to the null space of within class matrix the intra class variance is reduced to extract the most discriminative feature vectors for which an Individual class oriented subspace is found for each class 'i' along which the intra class variance is minimum, and separates well from all the remaining classes. This individual subspace for each class 'i' found to express most discriminative power that helps in classification and thus developing an effective face recognition system.


The world is changing at breathtaking speed. Global challenges, from climate change to cyber crime, are growing increasingly complex. Emerging economic powers in Asia and Latin America are assuming greater roles in geopolitical matters. The shift of economic power to the east is creating new dependencies. In short, the ground rules of international cooperation are being rewritten.
The "Global Choices" publication series takes a closer look at these changes and how they affect politics, business and society. By facilitating an informed understanding of these changes, this series aims to contribute constructively to debates regarding the principles of a new global order and the reforms needed to improve international cooperation. "Global Choices" is also a call to action because globalization is not a
matter of immutable fate; its trajectory can be shaped. "Global Choices" therefore underscores the fact that the power to make sound choices lies within our hands.


This paper deals with digital control in read-only and recordable optical disc systems such as CD audio/video, CD-ROM, CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW. Since 1993, the rapidly growing data storage device market has forced fast system upgrades and new systems for extremely low market prices. Extensive system integration by means of special purpose ICs has minimized the number of external components and eliminated expensive adjustments during manufacturing by implementing auto-calibrating techniques.


Sarcoidosis has been reported to have a particular predilection for adults under the age of 40 years.w1 The incidence of sarcoidosis varies greatly by ethnicity and region, occurring in 3 to 20 per 100 000 for whites and 35.5 to 80 per 100 000 for blacks.1 Scandinavian populations have been reported as having a higher prevalence than other Caucasian regions.w2

The incidence of cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) also varies by the type of study performed, whether clinical or autopsy study, with clinical and autopsy reports ranging from 5–10% up to 27%, respectively.2 w3 Recently, Mehta et al observed almost 40% of patients with sarcoidosis had CS on advanced imaging (cardiac MRI or positron emission tomography (PET)).3

The aetiology of sarcoidosis remains unclear. Genetic, environmental, infectious, and immune dysregulation aetiologies have all been postulated.w4 Data from ACCESS (A Case-Control Etiologic Study of Sarcoidosis)4 indicated a relative risk of 4.7 for parents and siblings of sarcoid patients. While several genes or polymorphisms have been suggested,w5–w7 it is unlikely that sarcoidosis is a purely genetic disease. Rather, it may be a final common pathway of granulomatous disease caused by a heterogeneous group of agents in a genetically susceptible patient. The American Thoracic Society, the European Respiratory Society, and the World Association of Sarcoidosis and Other Granulomatous Disorders5 define sarcoidosis as a multisystem disorder of unknown cause.

The cardiovascular system is the third most frequently involved organ system in patients with sarcoidosis.w8 All parts of the heart can be affected, with the left ventricular free wall being the most common location (figure 1).6 The cardiac conduction systemw9 is also commonly affected. The hallmark of sarcoidosis is the presence of non-caseating, non-necrotising, granulomas (figure 2).7 w10 w11

Figure 1
Heart of a patient who underwent transplantation …


The paper presents a part of the research devoted to exploring the experience with ICT diffusion in Central and Eastern European countries. The interest was broaden by the ambition to identify some of the metrics for measuring ICT diffusion, possibly recognize the different patterns behind the dissemination of these new technologies, and sort out the factors for the adoption of services supported through the Internet. It was also important to scale down the role and the magnitude of each one of the factors. The paper is a summary of the research results and some pointers to future studies.


A numerical procedure for noise uncoupling is described. The procedure is applied to a Michelson interferometer and is effective in seismic and acoustic noise uncoupling from the output signal of the interferometer. Due to the low data flow coming from the instrumentation, this uncoupling can be performed in real time.


Abstract: While self-determination is a cardinal principle of international law, its meaning is often obscure. Yet international law clearly recognizes decolonization as a central application of the principle. Most ordinary people also agree that the liberation of colonial peoples was a moral triumph. This essay examines three philosophical theories of self-determination's value, and asks which one best captures the reasons why decolonization was morally required. The instrumentalist theory holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples were unjustly governed, the democratic view holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples lacked democratic representation, and the associative view holds that decolonization was required because subject peoples were unable to affirm the political institutions their colonial rulers imposed on them. I argue that the associative view is superior to competing accounts, because it better reflects individuals' "maker" interests in participating in shared political projects that they value. The essay further shows that if we accept the associative view, self-determination is not a sui generis value that applies to decolonization alone. Ultimately, our intuitions about decolonization can be justified only by invoking an interest on the part of persistently alienated groups in redrawing political boundaries. The same interest may justify self-determination in additional cases, such as autonomy for indigenous peoples, or greater independence for Scotland or Quebec.


This paper provides a general overview of the methodology implemented in onetep (Order-N Electronic Total Energy Package), a parallel density-functional theory code for largescale first-principles quantum-mechanical calculations. The distinctive features of onetep are linear-scaling in both computational effort and resources, obtained by making well-controlled approximations which enable simulations to be performed with plane-wave accuracy. Titanium dioxide clusters of increasing size designed to mimic surfaces are studied to demonstrate the accuracy and scaling of onetep.


By increasing fruit exposure to sunlight and influencing fruit development, leaf thinning in the fruit zone can improve grape quality and lower disease incidence; however, further investigations on the timing, varietal response and intensity are needed to optimize results and to better understand underlying physiologic responses. Fruit zone leaf thinning was applied at different timing and intensities to evaluate its effect on cluster health and fruit composition in Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Treatments consisted of control (C), pre-bloom leaf thinning (PB) and two levels of fruit-set leaf thinning (three leaves, PF3 and six leaves, PF6). In an additional project on Cabernet Sauvignon, two levels of hedging (17 node, NH and 12 node, H) were integrated with no leaf thinning (L) and fruit set leaf thinning (LR, three leaves). All leaf thinning treatments consistently reduced disease incidence compared to control vines in both varieties, with the reduction extent varying between 2017 and 2018. Yield was not negatively affected by leaf thinning treatments, even though PB reduced cluster compactness by decreasing the number of berries per cluster of Chardonnay in 2017. Control vines tended to have greater titratable acidity than defoliated vines, while Brix and pH responses varied between seasons. No direct positive correlation was found between sunlight exposure and norisoprenoids concentration. Post fruit set leaf thinning PF6 consistently increase free norisoprenoids at harvest, while prebloom defoliation never did. Heterogeneous responses were observed for bound and total norisoprenoids. In Cabernet Sauvignon free, bound and total 1,1,6-trimethyl-1,2dihydronaphtalene (TDN) was consistently increased by PF3. Hedging negatively influenced Brix and anthocyanins accumulation in 2017, and increased free norisoprenoids while decreasing the bound and total fraction. Results revealed that a high level of stress possiblt caused by excess sunlight and/or reduced photosynthesis might negatively affect norisoprenoids glycosylation. Optimizing grape cluster exposure to increase desirable aroma compounds and decrease disease severity


The efficiency, with which the lysis of 20 anaerobic bacterial samples [8 different bacterial species isolated from 4 colostrum and 4 infants (which are fed only by breast milk and from 3 to 30-day-old) faeces] were lysed, was tested using a reference or an improving method that involves higher levels of lysozyme (Sigma-Aldrich) and proteinase K solution (Sigma-Aldrich). Eight species were lysed with the efficiency of > 87% by the reference methods. Also, the lytic efficiency for Bifidobacterium bifidum BB-12 was > 90%. Accordingly, since the DNA samples isolated by the improved methods can reflect nearly the true genomic information in the microbial flora, the improved methods should be appropriate for genomic analyses, that is, not only for bacteria in the human intestine, but also for bacteria in other human samples, such as colostrum. The study reports that the extraction method used to produce DNA of suitable quantity and quality for subsequent PCR is based on detection applications. The procedures are reliable and reproducible, in typically planning a success rate of over 90%. In summary, it develops a fast and reliable genomic DNA extraction protocol for anaerobic bacteria.

 Key words: Lactobacilli, DNA isolation


First generation students are less likely to persist in college than their peers who have grown up in college educated families. This qualitative research study explores the experiences of 38 first generation students enrolled at four different community colleges in Northern and Central Oregon.
During my research into first generation students, I became convinced that there was a gap in examining the lives and self-reported experiences of these students in the community college environment. The majority of first generation research has been conducted on traditional aged first generation students at four-year universities, and this research is used to inform practices at community colleges where the populations are markedly different.
I chose to use the research methodologies of Narrative Inquiry and Phenomenology to examine first-hand the experiences of these students. In order to tell the stories of these students, I used Autoethnography to reflect upon my own personal experiences as a first generation student.
The study sought to provide answers to the following questions:
1. How do first generation community college students balance the academic rigours of college along with the external responsibilities they have outside college.
2. What are those external and internal factors that affect the persistence of first generation students in the community college setting?
The research was conducted using interviews, from which themes of shared experiences were developed. Some of these themes include factors that are tied to the success or persistence of first generation students, and provide unique insights into the lives of this population.
The purpose of this thesis is to expose the lived experiences of first generation students attending community college. My hope is that this study will raise a greater awareness of the needs of first generation students and in turn improve practices in higher education.


This article seeks to identify who in Slovenia remains digitally offline and how such a status relates to socio-demographic factors (e.g. gender, age and education), class and cultural capital. The author assumes that the absence of new technology should be addressed in relation to existing patterns of cultural consumption and media preferences, and she attempts to understand the problem of digital exclusion within the context of other types of structural inequalities. Since digital technology is understood not just as a technical tool but as a social phenomenon directly related to everyday practices, the individual's class position and cultural capital, digital exclusion is not viewed simply as a narrow problem of access. Instead of looking at the binary gap between technology haves and have-nots, the author takes the multilevel structure of digital access into account. The findings of a quantitative survey involving a representative sample of 820 residents in the two biggest Slovenian cities—Ljubljana and Maribor—show that, first, three types of digital exclusion exist: digitally unmotivated with high cultural capital; overall excluded with weak cultural capital; and digitally self-excluded with moderate cultural capital. Second, the study suggests that all three digital exclusion groups are, more than by class, divided by cultural engagement and media taste, which provides important possibilities for future research.


In this paper, we consider traffic grooming in WDM/SONET ring networks when the offered traffic is characterized by a set of traffic matrices. Our objective is to minimize the cost of electronic add/drop multiplexers (ADMs) in the network, while being able to support any offered traffic matrix in a rearrangeably nonblocking manner. We provide several methods for reducing the required number of ADMs for an arbitrary class of traffic matrices. We then consider the special case where the only restriction on the offered traffic is a constraint on the number of circuits a node may source at any given time. For this case, we provide a lower bound on the number of ADMs required and give conditions that a network must satisfy in order for it to support the desired set of traffic patterns. Circuit assignment and ADM placement algorithms with performance close to this lower bound are provided. These algorithms are shown to reduce the electronic costs of a network by up to 27%. Finally, we discuss extensions of this work for supporting dynamic traffic in a wide-sense or strict sense nonblocking manner as well as the benefits of using a hub node and tunable transceivers. Much of this work relies on showing that these grooming problems can often be formulated as standard combinatorial optimization problems.


We simulate the characteristics of the Galactic population of radio and γ-ray pulsars using Monte Carlo techniques. At birth, neutron stars are spatially distributed in the Galactic disk, with supernova-kick velocities, and randomly dispersed in age back to 109 yr. They are evolved in the Galactic gravitational potential to the present time. From a radio luminosity model, the radio flux is filtered through a selected set of radio-survey parameters. γ-ray luminosities are assigned using the features of recent polar cap acceleration models invoking space-charge-limited flow, and a pulsar death valley further attenuates the population of radio-loud pulsars. Assuming a simple emission geometry with aligned radio and γ-ray beams of 1 sr solid angle, our model predicts that EGRET should have seen seven radio-loud and one radio-quiet γ-ray pulsars. With much improved sensitivity, GLAST, on the other hand, is expected to observe 76 radio-loud and 74 radio-quiet γ-ray pulsars, of which seven would be identified as pulsed sources. We also explore the effect of magnetic field decay on the characteristics of the radio and γ-ray pulsar populations. Including magnetic field decay on a timescale of 5 Myr improves agreement with the radio pulsar population and increases the predicted number of GLAST-detected pulsars to 90 radio-loud and 101 radio-quiet (nine pulsed) γ-ray pulsars. The lower flux threshold allows GLAST to detect γ-ray pulsars at larger distances than those observed by the radio surveys used in this study.


This article examines the driving forces behind farmers' decisions to adopt improved pigeonpea and maize and estimates the causal impact of technology adoption on household welfare using data obtained from a random cross-section sample of 613 small-scale farmers in Tanzania. We use seemingly unrelated and recursive bivariate probit regressions to test the endogeneity and joint decision making of pigeonpea–maize production. A double hurdle model is used to analyze the determinants of the intensity of technology adoption conditional on overcoming seed access constraints. To address the impact of adoption on welfare, the article employs both propensity score matching and switching regression techniques. Results from bivariate probit models show that unobservable factors cause both decisions to be correlated but the finding does not support the conjecture that both decisions are made jointly. Overall the analysis of the determinants of adoption identifies inadequate local supply of seed, access to information, human capital, and access to private productive asset as key constraints for pigeonpea technology adoption. The causal impact estimation from both the propensity score matching and switching regression suggests that maize/pigeonpea adoption has a positive and significant impact on income and consumption expenditure among sample households.


Amino acid sequence analysis has been performed on three groups of heavy (H) chains of A/J mice. H chains derived from unimmunized animals were compared to anti-p-azophenylarsonate (anti-Ar) antibodies which were further subdivided into those possessing and those depleted of a cross-reacting idiotype (CRI). It was found that anti-Ar antibodies bearing the CRI are homogeneous through the first hypervariable region of the H chain. The same sequence was obtained for pooled antibody isolated from the ascites fluid of 18 A/J mice or from a single mouse. The H chains appear to belong to a minor V-H subgroup. In the first 30 positions Anti-Ar antibodies depleted of the CRI had the same sequence as those containing the CRI (with small amounts of heterogeneity at some positions), but contained a mixture of sequences in the first hypervariable region of the H chain. These studies indicate that antibodies with similar specificity and with identical framework sequences, but which differ in their hypervariable regions, contain different idiotypic determinants, and support the concept that the idiotypic determinants reside primarily within hypervariable regions.


Theory of IT adoption relies on the concept of users' choice. However, a substantial part of IT implementations is aimed at mandating adoption where usage is compulsory and non-usage has consequences. In these cases, full IT compliance is strived for, but seldom achieved. Previous research suggests that different patterns and relations assert itself in mandated settings. Thus, the factors influencing IT adoption (and IT compliance) in mandated settings are not the same as in voluntary settings. The existing literature however fails in identifying the motivational factors for IT compliance with a mandated IS. So far the discussion has to a large degree been reduced to what works best: carrot or stick? In this paper we extend the current literature of IT adoption for cases of mandated use. We do so by drawing on a case study of a mandated IS in a public university. This paper provides an initial framework for mandated IS that includes three contextual factors and five motivational factors which, in this case study, affected the level of IT compliance with a mandated IS.


Programmable industrial automation can help meet the socioeconomic needs for increased productivity and job enrichment in labor-intensive industries. Characterized by production flexibility and ease of setup for new products, programmable automation is especially adaptable to manufacturing a variety of products in variable lot sizes at mass-production costs. Programmable, automated hardware/software systems existing in industry today include numerical control of machine tools, computer-aided design and manufacturing, production information and control, and industrial robots. These systems are being advanced by ongoing research and development activities; one major activity entails the application of robots with sensors to material-handling, inspection, and assembly operations. The ultimate goal of programmable automation is an essentially unmanned, computer-integrated automatic factory.


College towns are known for their large student populations, strong human capital, and collaborative economic activity. Ideally, they are arenas to expand research and development, given the presence of vibrant academic institutions. One of the themes of this expansion is sustainability—-an urban growth objective that emphasizes ecological awareness and strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change. This does not necessarily denote environmental protection alone; it can include a number of goals, including social diversity. The literature shows that sustainability is a complex objective in an urban setting. Consequently, we focus on economic activity aimed at improving soft and hard infrastructure that is strategically aimed at smart growth. To that end, this paper evaluates the economic cost and effect of sustainability strategies in Denton and Austin, Texas. In particular, we look at walkability and public transportation strategies and how they have been instituted in these two college towns. Methodologically, we look at urban transportation design differences between these two cities. Using route maps and user data, we show why Denton's sustainability strategies are widely considered more successful than Austin's, despite the size differential in Austin's favor. These results can help governments, urban planners, and economists develop strategies to deal with the challenges of urban growth.


This Special reseaech has been performed on reviewing the educational and welfare barriers and problems from the scientific board members and scientific assistants' opinion. The research population consisted of all faculty members and the scientific board members at payam Noor University in Khuzestan Province in 2011; and 120 members were chosen through simple random sampling method. Moreover, in order to gaderhing data, a researcher-made questionnaire was used which contained two sections with 41 sub-questions; its external validity and reliability was estimated using Cronbach Alpha and experts' opinion(92/0 for the total). The research findings showed that the most problems among five subscales for the two groups were achieveing to professional skills ( =1/5), achieving the new sciences (CX=1/77), achieving to welfare services ( =1/87), educational structure ( = 2/8) and the organizational problems ( = 3/64), respectively. By T-test, the comparison between two groups showed there is significant differences between the View of them In area of accessing to new knowledge (t=2.51, P<0.01). According to the results, PNU has been not successful in the acquisition to new knowledge and professional skills, and it failed in providing welfare amenities, too. Moreover, the organizational and administrative problems were considered as the barriers to studied population promotion.


Teaching user-centred software design covers many aspects. One of the most important ones is task modeling. Since task modeling contributes largely to the ergonomic quality and acceptance of the resulting software, it is essential for task modeling concepts to be well understood by future software designers. To this end, this study aims at evaluating a task model (K-MAD) and its associated tool (K-MADe) as regards the task modeling training. This article describes the rationale of the study, the model and the software tool used, the teaching steps, and the experience feedback on the practical use of the software. The latter identifies the benefits and disadvantages of this practical use from the teaching point of view, but also from a practical standpoint, including in terms of evolution of the models obtained and of their edition.


The asteroid explorer Hayabusa-2, which is scheduled to be launched in 2014, is going to perform a global mapping mission after it arrives at the target asteroid. Although most of the global mapping sequence will be the same as that of its predecessor Hayabusa, several automation technologies are planned to be tested to reduce the workload of the operators. In particular, the structure from motion (SFM) and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) techniques are expected to significantly contribute to the automation of asteroid shape estimation and visual spacecraft navigation. These frameworks require automatic landmark tracking on the asteroid surface, but no previous work has discussed the method that should be used to track images of the asteroid taken in space, where the absence of scattering light causes dramatic changes in appearance. In this study, we evaluated the performances of SIFT, SURF, BRISK, ORB, Harris-Affine, Hessian-Affine and MSER for images of the asteroid. We found that SIFT is acceptable for use, while SURF, BRISK and ORB can be used with careful parameter tuning. The affine-invariant detectors might contribute to more accurate tracking, but using them is more challenging owing to an extra normalizing process.


This paper focuses on the implications of employing CORBA Middleware in today's wireless telecommunications services and applications developments. It seeks to understand what current opportunities exist to support the use of this technology and assesses some of the performance implications that might be encountered. Discussion also revolves around the use of Component Oriented Development techniques in this same vertical and observations are made as to the benefits and practical problems associated with pursuit of this methodology in wireless telecommunications development programmes. Interest in this topic was aroused after observing the continued development of wireless telecommunications technology (Third Generation - 3G) that allows users to maintain permanent but connectionless contact with more traditional Wide Area Network (WAN) & Local Area Network (LAN) based services. As the boundaries between cellular, wireless LAN and traditional fixed network technologies become increasingly blurred, trends are emerging that seek to extend and migrate the technologies that are currently employed on cabled and wireless LAN networks over to the cellular networks and mass market user equipment.


Wear mechanisms of the cutting tools are well investigated worldwide. Usually researchers use the cutting process itself, turning by single point cutting, as their investigation method, which includes turning a metal cylinder with a pre-selected work-material and predetermined cutting conditions. Thereafter the tool worn surface is examined by scanning electron microscopy in order to characterize the tool wear mechanisms and tool failure. However, this may be the most appropriate way to investigate the wear mechanisms which occur during machining since it simulates the real operation. Metal cutting involves extreme conditions such as high temperature and high-pressure and the different condition results in different wear modes on the insert's surface. The wear modes are overlapping and the transition boarder between them are not sharp making it difficult to obtain a detailed information of wear mechanisms. Because of these reasons many researchers try to refine the machining to a single condition e.g; high pressure, at the laboratory level in order to characterize the wear mechanisms and to get a more detailed information.In this thesis the wear tests of the cutting tool are performed by using a slider-on-flat-surface (SOFS) wear tester. SOFS involves a normal load, which applies to the sample and a tangential force that enables the sliding of the sample against a counterface. To enable conducting the wear tests in SOFS a newly design of tool holder was prepared. The wear tests were performed at different contact conditions and the stainless steel EN 1.4310 was used as the counterface material. After the tools were tested, the worn surface of the tool was examined by optical light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy in order to identify the wear rate and wear mechanisms.At low load the dominating wear mechanism was adhesive wear. The adhesive wear was induced by material pick-up during sliding i.e. material from the counterface was transferred to the insert's surface. Further sliding results in delamination of the insert surface and removal of a part of the coatings material.At high load the dominating wear mechanism was a combination of severe adhesive wear and fracture of the coating material. The fracture of the coating material occurred because of overloading. Coating defects promote crack formation under high load and these cracks propagate through the coating during sliding movement and result in microchipping of the coating material.This procedure does not simulate the metal cutting but it still gives an understanding of the behavior of the coating material when it is exposed to a high mechanical stress.


Abstract World‐wide declines in pollinators, including bumblebees, are attributed to a multitude of stressors such as habitat loss, resource availability, emerging viruses and parasites, exposure to pesticides, and climate change, operating at various spatial and temporal scales. Disentangling individual and interacting effects of these stressors, and understanding their impact at the individual, colony and population level are a challenge for systems ecology. Empirical testing of all combinations and contexts is not feasible. A mechanistic multilevel systems model (individual‐colony‐population‐community) is required to explore resilience mechanisms of populations and communities under stress. We present a model which can simulate the growth, behaviour and survival of six UK bumblebee species living in any mapped landscape. Bumble‐BEEHAVE simulates, in an agent‐based approach, the colony development of bumblebees in a realistic landscape to study how multiple stressors affect bee numbers and population dynamics. We provide extensive documentation, including sensitivity analysis and validation, based on data from literature. The model is freely available, has flexible settings and includes a user manual to ensure it can be used by researchers, farmers, policy‐makers, NGOs or other interested parties. Model outcomes compare well with empirical data for individual foraging behaviour, colony growth and reproduction, and estimated nest densities. Simulating the impact of reproductive depression caused by pesticide exposure shows that the complex feedback mechanisms captured in this model predict higher colony resilience to stress than suggested by a previous, simpler model. Synthesis and applications. The Bumble‐BEEHAVE model represents a significant step towards predicting bumblebee population dynamics in a spatially explicit way. It enables researchers to understand the individual and interacting effects of the multiple stressors affecting bumblebee survival and the feedback mechanisms that may buffer a colony against environmental stress, or indeed lead to spiralling colony collapse. The model can be used to aid the design of field experiments, for risk assessments, to inform conservation and farming decisions and for assigning bespoke management recommendations at a landscape scale.


We consider channel decoding of redundant data with context based memory with the recently proposed class of nonsystematic split-LDPC codes. Methods based on denoising techniques and context estimation from universal source coding are used to extract redundancy between decoding iterations of split-LDPC codes. Simulation results show that the use of nonsystematic split-LDPC codes gains in most cases on standard systematic LDPC codes even without prior knowledge of the source statistics. Different context extraction methods are considered, including a novel approach that is used to capture different types of context based redundancy.


We report results from contingent valuation studies in each of two Tasmanian fisheries that estimate the value of a day's recreational fishing. Published studies estimating the economic value of recreational fishing in Australia and New Zealand are limited, although the economic and social benefits associated with this activity are sizable and the importance of understanding the behaviour of recreational fishers for the sustainable management of aquatic resources is well recognised. In our contingent valuation surveys, we use a double-bounded version of the dichotomous choice question, which improves the statistical efficiency of the estimates relative to those based on a single dichotomous choice question. We test and control for response bias, in the form of anchoring and a shift effect, that may occur in data collected using a double-bounded dichotomous choice (DBDC) elicitation format. We highlight the importance of identifying and correcting for response bias in DBDC models on a case-by-case basis. Our estimation results show that there is no significant difference in the willingness to pay for a day of recreational fishing across individuals who caught different number of fish in either fishery. This suggests that high and low catch fishers placed the same value on a day's fishing.


At present, the web-based collaborative learning is the main form of long-distance learning and it has been widely used in the distance learning domain. However, the main body-intelligence degree of the existing Web learning system is low; the existing system lacks to the support of the personal study, which has hindered the individual skill of the users. According to the question that exists in the collaborative Learning, I constructed the intelligent agent model of collaborative Learning which is composed of main control program, student proxy, teaching proxy and the information proxy based on the intelligent agent technology which belongs to the domain of Artificial Intelligence and I discussed emphatically how to effectively realize the personal study by using the machine learning and the data mining method. It can cause the web-based cooperative learning developing along the direction of intelligent and personal


This paper measures the effect of extensions of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on the unemployment rate using a calibrated structural model that features job search and consumption-saving decision, skill depreciation, UI eligibility, and UI benefit extensions that capture what has happened during the current downturn. I find that the extensions of UI benefits contributed to an increase in the unemployment rate by 1.2 percentage points, which is about a quarter of an observed increase during the current downturn (a 5.1 percentage point increase from 4.8 percent at the end of 2007 to 9.9 percent in the fall of 2009). Among the remaining 3.9 percentage points, 2.4 percentage points are due to the large increase in the separation rate, while the staggering job-finding probability contributes 1.4 percentage points. The last extension in December 2010 moderately slows down the recovery of the unemployment rate. Specifically, the model indicates that the last extension keeps the unemployment rate higher by up to 0.4 percentage point during 2011.


Background: The effect of naproxen on the treatment of neoplastic fever is still unclear. A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to investigate the effect of naproxen in the treatment of cancer fever or suspicion. Besides, the latest and most convincing evidence was provided for the earlier use of naproxen in treating cancer patients with fever of unknown origin. Methods:A literature review was conducted to identify all published studies on the naproxen for the treatment of neoplastic fever. Electronic databases (eg, PUBMED, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library) were searched until October 2018. Data were extracted, and the risk of bias was assessed by 2 authors independently. Standard meta-analyses on the rate of successful treatment were conducted using a random-effects model, and relative risks were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: A total of 15 studies, recruiting 582 participants, were included, which were 1 randomized controlled trial (RCT), 1 nonRCT, 3 cross-sectional studies, and 10 case-series studies. The result of our meta-analysis revealed that the success rate on the treatment of neoplastic fever using naproxen was 94.1% (95% CI: 87.6%–97.3%). The success rate of the suspected neoplastic fever was 79.8%; for fever of unknown origin, it also reached 67.7%. In this meta-analysis, the success rate was 98.1% (95% CI: 95.0%–99.3%) in the dosage of 250mg twice a day. Besides, a small dose of 125mg naproxen, 375mg twice a day and 250mg 3 times a day were also useful. The result of the subgroup analysis revealed that the difference was not statistically significant in the treatment success rate for solid tumors and hematologic malignant. Conclusions: The result of our meta-analysis suggested that naproxen exhibited a highly successful rate for the treatment of neoplastic fever. Besides, naproxen was also satisfactory in improving symptoms of suspected neoplastic fever and fever of unknown origin. The earlier use of naproxen might be able to mitigate cancer patient's suffering and enhanced their quality of life. These findings, however, rely primarily on observational data and should be interpreted rigorously. Further well-conducted trials are required to assess naproxen for the treatment of neoplastic fever. Abbreviations: AHRQ = Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, CI = confidence interval, IL = interleukin, NOS = Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, NSAIDs = nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, TNF = tumor necrosis factor.


Some patients have postoperative nutritional problems after a pancreatoduodenectomy. These problems have been attributed without objective evidence to the partial gastrectomy that is performed at the time of the pancreatoduodenectomy. The dumping syndrome has been implicated, and the results of this study determine, for the first time, the role of the dumping syndrome in pancreatic surgical procedures. Sixty-four dumping provocation tests have been performed upon patients with pancreatic disease or after pancreatic surgical treatment. Three patients had the dumping syndrome, and in eight, the result of the test was equivocal. Results of the present study demonstrate an incidence of dumping syndrome after pancreatoduodenectomy of 10 per cent; however, in none of these patients, was the dumping syndrome a significant problem. There was no instance of the dumping syndrome after pylorus-preserving or duodenum-preserving pancreatectomy. It is concluded that, contrary to previous assumptions, the dumping syndrome does not contribute to long term postoperative problems after pancreatic surgical procedures.


We must consider potential value, pricing, and sustainability of emerging gene therapies Imagine a young man with hemophilia A who no longer has to self-administer factor VIII replacement; an individual with sickle cell disease who is free of chronic pain and intermittent crises; a girl functionally blind since the age of 5 who can now see; or a baby rescued from a fatal, inherited neurodegenerative disease. For decades, gene therapy has tantalized us with such futuristic scenarios. However, these goals are now coming into focus, and it is the time to consider some of the consequences of success.


Objectives: The objective of the study was to assess the performance of the Finnish Diabetic Risk Score (FINDRISC) questionnaire for detecting and predicting risk of type 2 Diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in patients attending a primary health centre. Materials and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study comprising 1530 adult participants, age (>20 yrs) attending Outpatient department of a primary health centre located at Harwan, district Srinagar without a diagnosis of T2DM. The risk of developing T2DM was assessed using the validated and widely used FINDRISC. Total Risk Score of each participant was analysed and compared. Results: Data on 1530 participants with unknown diabetes mellitus were analysed.46% of participants were male, and 54% were females. About 55% of participants were literate, 20% were current smokers, 18% had a family history of diabetes mellitus, 15% had a family history of hypertension .48.03% of the study participants have FINDRISC score of less than 7, 28.69% of participants have FINDRISC score between 7-14. Only 3.07% participants have FINDRISC scores of >20. 12% of the participants had a moderate risk for type 2 diabetes of 17% to become diabetic in the next 10 years, and another 10.58% had a high or very high risk of 33-50% to become diabetic in the next 10 years. Conclusion: The FINDRISC questionnaire designed by Finnish diabetic association is a useful screening tool to identify unknown T2DM and estimates the probability of a person to develop diabetes within the next 10 years.


This chapter further develops the diagnosis of a revival of character in contemporary criminal law. First, it offers a more differentiated conceptual framework for identifying the waxing and waning influence of character in criminal law. In doing so it sets out, deliberately, from a broad definition of character as a pattern or practice of responsibility-attribution which is premised in whole or in part on an evaluation or estimation of the quality of the defendant's (manifested or assumed) disposition as distinct from his or her conduct. Second, drawing on this broad model of character, the chapter demonstrates the variety of ways in which contemporary criminal law is marked by a resurgence of character. Third, it sketches an extra-doctrinal explanation of why we have seen a resurgence of interest in and reliance on ideas of character responsibility: one which finds the roots of the ideology of responsibility which shapes the criminal law in broad practices of criminalization, themselves influenced by a political, economic, and social context. Finally, it draws some conclusions from this analysis for methodology in criminal law theory, and in particular for the appropriateness of a framework which locates its interpretation of criminal responsibility primarily within a conceptual analysis of legal doctrine in isolation from its context.


Pregnancy/lactation leads to a series of alterations in the woman's body to prepare for the baby development during pregnancy, as well as its care and nutrition after birth. These changes occur coordinated with brain alterations, in conjunction to signals produced by the embryo and the sensorial stimulation of the babies. This thesis investigated how the physical stimulus of babies can influence these brain alterations, as well as their importance for weaning - when the brain must return to its pre-gestational levels. The results reveal that bigger litters result in larger brain alterations, and the physical stimulation of the pups is necessary to promote a reversal in the brain alterations that occur during lactation. The results also suggest that additional care must be paid to mothers who are unable to breastfeed, as their brains may not return to basal levels after weaning.


Economic values as crops and medicinal plants. In recent years, the establishment of hairy roots cultures via Agrobacterium rhizogenes had provided numerous advantages to many plant studies including Capsicum species. Therefore, in this research, A. rhizogenes— mediated hairy roots cultures were studied with the expectation to provide a better understanding and alternative solutions regarding these species. The objectives were to induce and proliferate the putative hairy roots, callus, and regenerated plantlets of C. annuum and C. frutescens with variables factors such as hormones, media and explants. The volatile compounds present in cultures samples were also identified. Initially, the cotyledon, radical and hypocotyl explants were obtained from seedlings and co-cultured with isolated strains of A. rhizogenes (ATCC 15834, ATCC 43056, ATCC 13333 and ATCC 43057). The highest induction putative hairy roots were transferred as explants into liquid MS with 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 mg/L of IAA for proliferation. The explants were also cultured in 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 mg/L of each IAA, NAA, and 2,4-D for callus induction. In plant regeneration, the explants were cultured in solid MS containing 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 mg/L of BAP. Each treatment consisted of 20 replications and subcultured every two weeks. Proliferated hairy roots, callus, leaves, and stem from putative hairy roots explants were dried and extracted by using three types of solvents for GC-MS analysis. Findings showed that, the highest induction efficiency was achieved by using cotyledon explants which were ATCC 43056 for C. annuum and ATCC 15834 for C. frutescens. The presence of 1.0 mg/L IAA was suitable for putative hairy roots proliferation in both species. Meanwhile, 1.0 mg/ L and 1.5 mg/L of NAA for C. annuum and C. frutescens respectively, improved the callus induction. Through direct morphogenesis, the optimum concentration of BAP for plant regeneration were achieved in 1.5 mg/L for C. annuum and 1.0 mg/L for C. frutescens. Various beneficial compounds had been identified via GC-MS analysis for both C. annuum (33 compounds) and C. frutescens (37 compounds). More compounds were found in hexane extract compared to other solvents and proliferated putative hairy roots consisted more of compounds than other cultures. As a conclusion, A. rhizogenes—mediated hairy roots cultures can be used as an alternative tool to overcome recalcitrant. However, more further studies on additional factors were recommended in the future.


Anthropogenic nutrient loading to aquatic systems may increase atmospheric release of nitrous oxide (N₂O) greenhouse gas by enhancing denitrification and/or nitrification. High Si:N loading may favour diatom abundance, whereas low N:P loading may favour cyanobacteria dominance. Systems with diatom or green algal dominance may have greater export of organic matter to sediments, whereas systems dominated by cyanobacteria may have organic matter recycled within the water column due to differences in cell density and sinking. With increased export of organic matter to sediments, denitrification and N₂O production may be stimulated. In laboratory bench-scale microcosms, nitrous oxide production was affected by Si:N loading ratios as predicted, although N:P loading did not affect N₂O production in the manner predicted. However, the predicted effects of nutrient loading ratio on microphyte community composition were not supported by microscopy. Field mesocosm experiments indicated no significant relationship between N₂O production and nutrient loading ratios.


This document summarizes some of the activities being carried out by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to support integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. The document was prepared by the Integration and Trade Sector and the Infrastructure and Environment Sector, of the Vice Presidency for Sectors and Knowledge with input from the Office of the Vice President for Private Sector and Non-Sovereign Guaranteed Operations and the Country Departments. As such, it does not constitute a comprehensive official activity report of the IDB.


Patients infected with the new coronavirus COVID-19 have an increased risk of venous thromboembolic disease (VTEV) The present clinical practice guide of the Spanish Chapter of Phlebology and Lymphology and the Spanish Society of Angiology and Vascular Surgery, aims to give a series of recommendations on prophylaxis and treatment of VTE in patients infected with COVID-19, both at the hospital and outpatient, and advice on their clinical and ultrasound monitoring It is recommended that all hospitalized patients with COVID-19 infection, whether or not they have associated prothrombotic risk factors, should receive antithrombotic prophylaxis, if there is no contraindication In the case of outpatients, according to clinical profile and medical history, it is recommended to evaluate thromboprophylaxis with low molecular weight heparin (LMWH), in the absence of contraindication Given the diagnosis of DVT in a patient with COVID19, both hospitalized and outpatient, anticoagulant treatment with LMWH should be started at therapeutic doses There are no described pharmacological interactions of HPBMs with the drugs used against COVID19 High levels of D-dimer are a common finding in patients with COVID-19, so this parameter, in isolation, is not indicative for routine Doppler ultrasound Doppler ultrasound is recommended for a COVID-19 positive patient (with the necessary protective measures), to rule out DVT, only in patients with high clinical suspicion of DVT, and when one of the two clinical situations occurs: High risk of bleeding, or a sudden and unexpected increase in D-dimer levels ©Copyright 2020 SEACV


The Annot Sandstone turbidites of the Alpine foreland basin in SE France (Eocene-Oligocene: 40-32 Ma), provide an excellent case-study of tectono-sedimentary relations in a deepwater compressional system. The Annot outlier is a synclinal remnant previously interpreted as a static depocentre. A multi-disciplinary approach including geometrical and kinematic analyses and modelling demonstrates instead that this was a tectonically active turbidite depocentre where gentle thrust related folding controlled turbidite architecture.

Stratigraphic and new structural field data are integrated with previous sedimentological studies to build a 3D geometric model of the Annot depocentre. Derived thickness maps associated with paleocurrent measurements clearly illustrate three main phases in the evolution of depocentre topography. (1) Early turbidite flows were mainly trapped by oblique intrabasinal inherited structures. (2) Once these structures were buried, the NNW-SSE active syncline constituted the main topographic control. (3) Decreasing activity of this syncline is recorded by filling and flow bypass. The progressive stages of the accepted depositional model (flow ponding, flow stripping and flow bypass), for the Annot depocentre, may therefore have a tectonic origin.

The kinematic evolution of the synclinal depocentre was defined at different scales. Stratigraphic architecture records a decrease in bedding dips up through the turbidite succession on the western synclinal limb. Comparison with idealized case studies of the interaction of sedimentation with an active syncline indicates that this geometrical pattern corresponds to progressive westward migration of the synclinal hinge and depocentre. This tends to promote lateral rather than vertical stacking of sand bodies during turbidite sedimentation. Trishear kinematic modelling was used to simulate (in 2D) the rolling synclinal hinge. Stratigraphic surface geometries and turbidite depocentre migration define thrust and fold geometries at depth. The synclinal depocentre developed between two alternating or coeval fault propagation anticlines that exploited two detachment levels (Triassic evaporites and Cenomanian marls) in the underlying succession.


This study was designed to test the utility of mRNA-based RT-PCR to detect viable bacilli, indicating active tubercular involvement, and DNA-PCR to detect present or past infection in the diagnosis of active female genital tuberculosis (TB) infection. A total of 200 subjects with complaints of infertility were enrolled in the study. Multiple sampling was done. One hundred and forty-three endometrial aspirate (EA), 94 peritoneal fluid/peritoneal washing (PF/PW) and six cornual biopsy (CB) specimens were collected for diagnosis using microscopy, culture, RT-PCR and DNA-PCR and results were compared with laparoscopic findings. RT-PCR and culture were concordant [positive in four (2.8%) EA specimens] signalling sampling from the site of active infection. Smear microscopy showed a poor detection rate while DNA-PCR showed high positivity. Sixty-one (44.85%) EA specimens, nine (9.57%) PF/PW specimens and two (33.33%) CB specimens were positive by DNA-PCR. Genital TB causing infertility (localized or secondary to TB elsewhere) can be picked up early by DNA-PCR, when it can be completely cured prior to the appearance of florid disease.


Cloud computing will play a major role in the future Internet of Services, enabling on-demand provisioning of applications, platforms, and computing infrastructures. However, the cloud community must address several technology challenges to turn this vision into reality. Specific issues relate to deploying future infrastructure-as-a-service clouds and include efficiently managing such clouds to deliver scalable and elastic service platforms on demand, developing cloud aggregation architectures and technologies that let cloud providers collaborate and interoperate, and improving cloud infrastructures' security, reliability, and energy efficiency.


Markov chain Monte Carlo methods (MCMC) are iterative algorithms that are used in many Bayesian simulation studies, where the inference cannot be easily obtained directly through the defined model. Reversible jump MCMC methods belong to a special type of MCMC methods, in which the dimension of parameters can change in each iteration. In this study, we suggest Gibbs sampling in place of RJMCMC, to decrease the computational demand of the calculation of high dimensional systems. We evaluate the performance of the suggested algorithm in three real benchmark datasets, by comparing the accuracy and the computational demand with its strong alternatives, namely, birth-death MCMC, RJMCMC and QUIC algorithms. From the comparative analyses, we detect that Gibbs sampling improves the computational cost of RJMCMC without losing the accuracy.


Self-injurious behavior (SIB) is a broad term describing a behavior that causes (or potentially produces) physical harm to oneself. This behavior is described in individuals intellectual and developmental disabilities, including those with autism. SIB is a severe clinical condition that produces serious medical consequences and limits life opportunities for the persons and those who care for them. Research confirms that applied behavior analysis based approaches designed to identify controlling variables of SIB, can lead to effective interventions. Current knowledge indicates that across individuals, SIB varies along a continuum of relative environmental-biological influence. Additional research is needed to identify how medication can be used in concert with behavioral treatment, and to better understand the biological variables that are associated with the occurrence and maintenance of SIB.