In this paper, we investigate the effect of two important family characteristics - gender and birth order- on intra-household investments in, and educational outcomes of, children in Kenya. We measure intra-household education investments in children by household's decision to enrol children in private schools and educational outcomes by two variables, completed years of education and relative grade attainment. We use a large household survey data that allows us to apply the family fixed effects models that address the potential endogeneity of children's gender and family size as well as factors that are unobservable at the household level. Although we do not find an intra-household gender preference in terms of investments in children's education, there is a female advantage in terms of the two measured education outcomes. Such female advantage is in contrast with literature generally reported from developing countries. It is, however, in line with global trends which show that more girls are getting educated and the gender gap in education has narrowed considerably. Regarding birth order effects, we find significant negative birth order effects on private enrolment, completed years of education and relative grade attainment. The negative birth order effects are not in line with the evidence from many other developing countries but are in line with results from developed countries. Our results are robust to different sample restrictions. We find that household wealth plays a significant role in propagating the birth order but not the gender effects we observe.


Bioinformatics is one of the emerging trends in today's world. The major part of bioinformatics is dealing with DNA. Analysis of DNA requires more memory and high efficient computations to produce accurate outputs. Researchers use various bioinformatics algorithms for sequencing and pattern detection techniques, but still now it takes enormous amount of time for computations. In our method we are going to propose a time, memory and speed optimized algorithms for efficient repetitive finding in genomes and proteins. Then, another major aspect is the hardware implementation. It is a platform which reduces the complexity of process further. Therefore, we have proposed to implement the optimized algorithm in the reconfigurable and user friendly FPGA platform. Thus, our proposal mainly focuses on an efficient and optimized computation, analysis and sequencing of DNA pattern. The distinct feature is reducing the time consumption from several hours to few seconds. Keywords: DNA, sequencing, bioinformatics, efficient computations, repetitive finding, optimized sequencing. African Journal of Biotechnology , Vol 13(31) 3344-3351


Article history: Received March 5, 2015 Received in revised format August 16 2015 Accepted October 13 2015 Available online October 15 2015 This study examines the emotional intelligence (EI) of nurses by differentiating inter-personal and intra-personal dimensions, and explores the measures taken by them to maintain emotional stability. Further, it investigates the relationship of demographic factors (age, gender and year of experience) of nurses with their emotional stability. The case organization is a well performing private hospital located closer to the metropolitan city. Study collects data through both quantitative (survey) and qualitative means (discussion, observation, and interviews) using a sample of 40 nurses selected conveniently from different ranks. The study finds that the level of EI of nurses in case hospital is slightly high, and their inter-personal skills are higher than intra-personal skills. They maintain emotional stability by means of emotion gaps, emotional shifts and sharing. Findings suggest that both inter-personal and intra-personal dimensions of EI will not be equally important for nurses in dealing with patients, and the level of EI required in the job is not equal among different ranks of nurses. Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 5 © 201


Abstract Background Lung cancer screening (LCS) decreases lung cancer mortality. However, its benefit may be limited by nonadherence to screening. Although factors associated with LCS nonadherence have been identified, to the best of our knowledge, no predictive models have been developed to predict LCS nonadherence. The purpose of this study was to develop a predictive model leveraging a machine learning model to predict LCS nonadherence risk. Methods A retrospective cohort of patients who enrolled in our LCS program between 2015 and 2018 was used to develop a model to predict the risk of nonadherence to annual LCS after the baseline examination. Clinical and demographic data were used to fit logistic regression, random forest, and gradient-boosting models that were internally validated on the basis of accuracy and area under the receiver operating curve. Results A total of 1875 individuals with baseline LCS were included in the analysis, with 1264 (67.4%) as nonadherent. Nonadherence was defined on the basis of baseline chest computed tomography (CT) findings. Clinical and demographic predictors were used on the basis of availability and statistical significance. The gradient-boosting model had the highest area under the receiver operating curve (0.89, 95% confidence interval = 0.87 to 0.90), with a mean accuracy of 0.82. Referral specialty, insurance type, and baseline Lung CT Screening Reporting & Data System (LungRADS) score were the best predictors of nonadherence to LCS. Conclusions We developed a machine learning model using readily available clinical and demographic data to predict LCS nonadherence with high accuracy and discrimination. After further prospective validation, this model can be used to identify patients for interventions to improve LCS adherence and decrease lung cancer burden.


Sustainable rural development is vital to the economic, social and environmental viability of nations. It is essential for poverty eradication since global poverty is overwhelmingly rural. Rural development should be viewed as the core of any viable strategy for national development in developing countries where an average 2/3 of the population live in rural areas. It is important for agriculture to keep rural population in place by developing the rural and increasing its attractiveness. Agriculture is the primary means of living in countryside throughout the world. Therefore, it is evident that agricultural supports are effective in reducing poverty in rural parts of the country and ensuring sustainability. Turkey's agricultural economy is among the top ten in the world, with half of the country consisting of agricultural land and nearly a quarter of the population employed in agriculture. But, the rapid industrialization of Turkey after 1930's and government policies caused agriculture's share to decline in overall income. This caused the fall of economic standards of the farmers and contributed to emigration from rural to urban areas. Agricultural supports given to producers are important in order to keep the rural population in place. However in Turkey, agricultural supports meet a small portion of the input cost of the producer and the increase in input prices is higher than the increase in product prices. Some years, supports are insufficient for producers. According to the agreement with the IMF's agricultural support, it is limited to 1% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). But the producers have taken only the half of their support. These supports must be increased for protecting producers. Because the input prices are very high in Turkey and producers are affected negatively. Supports should increase the farmer's income and resolve the structural problems of the sector in order to build a sector that is competitive and independent. However, such supports are not alone sufficient in explaining farmer welfare and rural poverty. There are several natural, economic, social, cultural, and even political factors affecting agricultural and rural welfare levels. The sources allocated to rural development projects that contribute to reverse the migration trends by improving the working and living conditions in rural spaces must be increased. Because developing the farmer means developing the agriculture, economy and country. Therefore, it is extremely important to implement consistent and sustainable agricultural policies in agriculture. In this research, the current situation of agricultural support policies, their effects to farmers and to sustainable rural development were evaluated and solutions were offered regarding these problems.


With the advent of multiple PCs and smart appliances into the modern houses, home networking is becoming increasingly important. Caching at the home Internet gateway is an effective way to maximize the performance of home networking. In this paper, we present an efficient caching scheme that allows the sharing of caches among nearby home Internet gateways. Our new scheme reduces the duplicated copies of the same data items in total shared caches. It also reduces the message overhead of existing cache sharing schemes significantly. Prototype implementation and trace-driven simulations with actual Internet access traces show that the proposed cache sharing scheme outperforms the two well-known Web cache sharing schemes, the Internet cache protocol (ICP) and the cache array routing protocol (CARP) in terms of various performance measures.


AbstractOne of them is the problem of disease Argulus sp. is ektoparasite which often attacked in activity of good conducting of sea water and also freshwater. Argulus sp. attacking at part of fin, husk, gill and entire all its body exterior of him. attacked by fish is Argulus sp. will seen is thin, often rub body and arise red pock which later can generate secondary infection. Utilize to prove the existence of bacterium which emerge effect of lession (secondary infection) which because of bite of Argulus sp. that is by identifying bacterium and biochemical test. Media which used in identifying bacterium for example that is TSA (Tryptic Soy Agar), TSIA (Triple Soy Iron Agar), MIO (Motility Indol Ornithin), O/F medium (Oksidative/Fermentative), sugar test medium (maltosa, laktosa, arabinosa, inositol, manitol, sukrosa). Target of this research is to know the existence of gram negative bacterium and gram negative bacterium any kind of which is found at fish hurt of gold fish (Carassius auratus) effect of infestation by ectoparasite Argulus sp. Research which is use descriptive method. That is with infestation of Argulus sp. into containing aquarium of gold fish counted 1 tail and Argulus sp. counted 5, 10, 15, 20 tail. After Argulus sp. patch all at gold fish is later then perceived until gold fish arise lession effect of bite of Argulus sp. is afterwards identifyed by bacterium to know the bacterium that were formed on gold fish lesions. The result showed that the lesions of gold fish, isolation at TSA medium and identified by biochemical test to diagnose bacteriums found on gold fish lession. Identifications of the three gram negative bacterium as follow : Aeromonas hydrophilla, Pseudomonas flourescens, Flexibacter columnaris while for the Edwardsiella tarda was not be found in this study


The scarcity of studies on bioluminescent bacteria in fish species along the coastal and marine environment of Nigeria prompted the assessment of abundance of bioluminescent bacteria and possible isolation on three common coastal fish species ( Drepane africana , Sardinella maderensis and Mugil cephalus ) displaying luminescence. The population of the luminescent bacteria among the three fish species ranged from 2.95×10 5 to 6.68×10 6 cfu ml -1 and the corresponding percentage to the heterotrophic bacteria was between 0.01 and 0.34 %. The surface water had 2.00×10 5 cfu ml -1 with 0.20 % ratio to heterotrophic bacteria. The predominant luminescent bacteria observed were gram-negative short rod. Further study of these bacteria showed that growth and light emission occurred concurrently without the exhibition of lag phase; however, maximum luminescence was observed at mid-exponential growth phase suggesting quorum sensing phenomenon. The 16S rRNA gene sequence showed 92.81 % homology to Vibrio campbelli , Vibrio harveyi and Vibrio rotiferianus . This study highlights the occurrence of bioluminescent bacteria in skin of tropical coastal fish species in Nigerian coastal waters and also serves as a fundamental basis for future studies on the biotechnological application of this unique characteristics.


Background: Lipid metabolites may partially explain the inverse association between the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) and cardiovascular disease (CVD).Objective: We evaluated the associations between 1) lipid species and the risk of CVD (myocardial infarction, stroke, or cardiovascular death); 2) a MedDiet intervention [supplemented with extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) or nuts] and 1-y changes in these molecules; and 3) 1-y changes in lipid species and subsequent CVD.Design: With the use of a case-cohort design, we profiled 202 lipid species at baseline and after 1 y of intervention in the PREDIMED (PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea) trial in 983 participants [230 cases and a random subcohort of 790 participants (37 overlapping cases)].Results: Baseline concentrations of cholesterol esters (CEs) were inversely associated with CVD. A shorter chain length and higher saturation of some lipids were directly associated with CVD. After adjusting for multiple testing, direct associations remained significant for 20 lipids, and inverse associations remained significant for 6 lipids. When lipid species were weighted by the number of carbon atoms and double bonds, the strongest inverse association was found for CEs [HR: 0.39 (95% CI: 0.22, 0.68)] between extreme quintiles (P-trend = 0.002). Participants in the MedDiet + EVOO and MedDiet + nut groups experienced significant (P < 0.05) 1-y changes in 20 and 17 lipids, respectively, compared with the control group. Of these changes, only those in CE(20:3) in the MedDiet + nuts group remained significant after correcting for multiple testing. None of the 1-y changes was significantly associated with CVD risk after correcting for multiple comparisons.Conclusions: Although the MedDiet interventions induced some significant 1-y changes in the lipidome, they were not significantly associated with subsequent CVD risk. Lipid metabolites with a longer acyl chain and higher number of double bonds at baseline were significantly and inversely associated with the risk of CVD.


The main problems with several existing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) power footprint investigations are: too limited (geographical and temporal) system boundary, overestimation of power saving potential in the next decade, assume that historical power use can predict future global power use in the next decade despite unprecedented data traffic growth, assume that Mooret's law relation to digital circuitry can continue "forever" and that no problems with extra cooling power will occur for several decades. The highly variable outlooks for the future power consumptions depend on "starting values", disruptions, regional differences and perceptual estimations of electricity intensity reductions and data traffic increase. A hugely optimistic scenario which takes into account 20% annual improvement of the J/bit in data centers and networks until 2030 is presented. However, the electric power consumption of the present ICT scope will be significant unless great efforts are put into power saving features enabling such improvements of J/bit. Despite evident risks, it seems though that planned power saving measures and innovation will be able to keep the electricity consumption of ICT and the World under some kind of control. The major conclusion is based on several simulations in the present study that future consumer ICT infrastructure cannot slow its overall electricity use until 2030 and it will use more than today. Data traffic may not be the best proxy metric for estimating computing electricity. Operations and J/operation seem more promising for forecasting and scaling of bottom-up models.


In this study, we proposed Robust Variance Inflation Factors (RVIFs) in the detection of multicollinearity due to the high leverage points or extreme outliers in the X-direction. The computation of RVIFs is based on robust coefficient determinations which we called RR2 (MM) and RR2 (GM (DRGP)). The RR2 (MM) is coefficient determination of high breakdown point and efficient MM-estimators whereas RR2 (GM (DRGP)) has been defined through an improved GM-estimators. The GM (DRGP) is a GM-estimator with the main aim as downweighting high leverage points with large residuals. It has been introduced by employing S-estimators as initial values, Diagnostic Robust Generalized Potential based on MVE (DRGP (MVE)) as initial weight function and an Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares (IRLS) has been utilized as a convergence method. The numerical results and Monte Carlo simulation study indicate that the proposed RVIFs are very resistant to the high leverage points and unable to detect the multicollinearity in the data especially RR2 (GM (DRGP)). Hence, this indicates that the high leverage points are the source of multicollinearity.


The present study was performed to evaluate the role of Aloe vera L. leaf extract (AvLE) on some physiological and cytogenetical parameters of Allium cepa L. seeds exposed to salinity. The radicle length of the seeds germinated in the medium with AvLE alone increased as compared with ones of the control seeds germinated in distilled water medium, while their radicle number and fresh weight reduced according to the control. In addition, the germination percentage of the mentioned seeds statistically was the same as the control seeds. Furthermore, the seeds germinated in the media containing 0.1 mg/L AvLE alone showed a significant increase of mitotic index, although they exhibited a higher number of chromosomal aberrations and micronucleus (MN) formation as compared with the seeds germinated in control conditions. On the other hand, salt stress considerably inhibited the seed germination and seedling growth of A. cepa. Moreover, salinity markedly decreased the mitotic index in root tip meristems of the seeds and increased the number of chromosomal aberrations. The negative effect of salt on the seed germination, seedling growth, mitotic activity and MN formation was alleviated in dramatically varying degrees by AvLE application. In contrast, the detrimental effects of salt on the chromosomal aberrations greatly increased with this treatment. Consequently, we reported that the application of AvLE alone induced chromosomal aberrations and MN formation, which are an indicator of genotoxicity, and had cytotoxic activity in normal conditions. However, the frequency of MN is greatly reduced in root tip cells of the seeds germinated in the medium containing 0.1 mg/L AvLE +0.15 M NaCl.


In this article, I argue that the 2009 film, Vision: From the Life of Hildegard of Bingen, presents an example of feminist filmmaking that seeks to draw viewers into spiritual identification with the protagonist, 12th-century mystic Hildegard, through its narrative and formal techniques, encouraging the audience to share in Hildegard's visionary experiences. The film does so in an explicitly feminist way, drawing upon unconventional visual and sonic aesthetics to highlight the power and authority of Hildegard's spiritual experiences. In particular, Vision's use of music and sound points toward a conception of feminine spirituality that values the subjective, experiential, and holistic. Ultimately, Vision offers an example of a feminist film that interacts positively with religion and demonstrates how the cinema can open up a space for the religious and spiritual experiences of women to not just be seen or heard, but experienced.


I suspect that within most of us there is a fascination with the peculiarities of other people's lives: witness the popularity of television shows depicting the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" and supermarket tabloids. Such fascination—served up with greater sophistication and historical accuracy—is the fare of Richard Gordon's latest book, an account of the maladies of 39 famous patients throughout history, each of whom has a chapter in this slender volume. The chapters stand alone, making it a good bedside book. That said, I doubt that Sir William (Osier) would have included it in his "bedside library for medical students,"1 the intent of which was to impart to the student the education, "if not of a scholar, at least of a gentleman." Nevertheless, it's a good read. Gordon is a British physician who has published two score books, including the famous Doctor in the House series, adapted for stage


Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) have been analysed in Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) as complex predicates with all the verbs sharing all the arguments in the construction (Bodomo 1997, 2002). In this paper, I argue that the complex predicate analysis amounts to an overgeneralization of the sharing relations that usually characterise the verbs in an SVC, since there are instances where some arguments are not shared. In its place, I propose an analysis in which shared arguments are put into the functional structure of the parent VP so that its properties can be inherited by any verb that shares that argument. Any argument that is not shared will occur with the verb with which it is associated only in the functional structure of that verb.


Approximate nearest neighbour search (ANNS) in high dimensional space is a fundamental problem in many applications, such as multimedia database, computer vision and information retrieval. Among many solutions, data-sensitive hashing-based methods are effective to this problem, yet few of them are designed for external storage scenarios and hence do not optimized for I/O efficiency during the query processing. In this paper, we introduce a novel data-sensitive indexing and query processing framework for ANNS with an emphasis on optimizing the I/O efficiency, especially, the sequential I/Os. The proposed index consists of several lists of point IDs, ordered by values that are obtained by learned hashing (i.e., mapping) functions on each corresponding data point. The functions are learned from the data and approximately preserve the order in the high-dimensional space. We consider two instantiations of the functions (linear and non-linear), both learned from the data with novel objective functions. We also develop an I/O efficient ANNS framework based on the index. Comprehensive experiments on six benchmark datasets show that our proposed methods with learned index structure perform much better than the state-of-the-art external memory-based ANNS methods in terms of I/O efficiency and accuracy.


In inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), short transient signals originating from individual nanoparticles are typically recorded in a time-resolved measurement with reduced dwell times in the millisecond time regime. This approach was termed single-particle ICP-MS in the past and used for particle counting and sizing but is not without limitations. In this work, a home-built data acquisition unit (DAQ) specifically tailored to the needs of single-particle ICP-MS applications was developed to study and alleviate some of these limitations. For best comparison, data were acquired simultaneously with both techniques. Each experiment was carried out as a conventional time-resolved measurement, while the DAQ directly probed the instrument's detection circuitry. Our DAQ features dwell times as low as 5 μs during continuous data acquisition and can be operated for virtually unlimited measurement time. Using a time resolution much higher than the typical duration of a particle-related ion cloud, the probability of measurement artifacts due to particle coincidence could be significantly reduced and the occurrence of split-particle events in fact was almost eliminated. Moreover, a duty cycle of 100% of the counting electronics improves the method's accuracy compared to the acquisition system of currently available ICP-Q-MS instruments. Fully time-resolved temporal profiles of transient signals originating from single gold nanoparticles as small as 10 nm are presented. The advantages and disadvantages of millisecond versus microsecond dwell times are critically discussed including measurement artifacts due to particle coincidence, split-particle events, and particle number concentration.


Welcome to the September issue of Inroads. This issue is bursting at the seams with content including columns from many of our fabulous columnists and comprehensive articles from leaders in computing education. If it is September, it is time for the report on the ACM national (US) survey of non-doctoral-granting departments in computing! The ACM-NDC is intended as a complement to the Computing Research Association (CRA) Taulbee Survey of doctoral-granting departments in computing. Like the Taulbee, ACM-NDC provides data relevant to trends in student enrollment, degree production, faculty demographics and faculty compensation for non-doctoral granting academic departments, with appropriate comparisons to the data in the Taulbee survey. This report always sheds light on current national trends in the United States. Also included is the second of several installments of a report, commissioned by the CRA. This report is long so we have chosen to present the results serially in Inroads over several issues. September's installment, Generation CS: The Mixed News on Diversity and the Enrollment Surge, includes the diversity findings. As the September issue goes to press, the two of us celebrate making it halfway through our threeyear term as co-editors of Inroads. In the last year, we have focused efforts on expanding the Inroads Editorial Advisory Board (EAB), and these efforts continue. So, we are pleased to welcome another new EAB member, Alison Derbenwick Miller, Vice President, Oracle Academy. The EAB is an essential part of Inroads delivering on its mission. We read with interest Moshe Y. Vardi's editor's letter, Ten Years at the Helm of Communications of the ACM, in the June 2017 CACM, and found his observations align exactly with ours on the role of the EAB. Vardi notes that the "quality and commitment of the Editorial Board is the real key to the success of the revitalized Communications" particularly in being "not merely reactive, but strongly proactive, continually seeking topics and authors for high-quality articles." Likewise, we encourage our EAB members to play a similar role for Inroads, so thank you EAB for your service, and we look forward to the second half of our journey together! To Alison, thank you for joining the EAB, and to the CS community, keep those nominations coming in. We continue to build the size of the EAB so it can be the most effective and representative board that it can be. Inroads would not be successful without the support of those who regularly volunteer their time in its production. We would like to take a moment to acknowledge columnist Henry Walker, who has contributed high-quality content to Inroads over many, many years. In June 2016, Henry's column Using the hill-climbing algorithm with curricula and courses, brought his column count to fifty! Henry's column this month will be his fifty-fifth. Quite a milestone achievement! Thank you, Henry, for being a steadfast supporter of Inroads for so many years. Finally, a note about this issue's Back Page: when Back Page Editor John Barr sought artwork to accompany a pioneers-in-computer-science crossword puzzle, he found wonderful pieces by Amy Whitaker of Tulsa, Oklahoma, an artist who creates work in 'Java,' literally, by painting with coffee! Amy's portrait of Grace Hopper appears in this issue's Back Page; the planned crossword puzzle and another 'Java' painting will appear in the December Inroads. John continues to build the Back Page into exactly what we hoped it would be: a source of humor, entertainment, and computing wonder. Thank you, John, for all your creative work. If you have suggestions for items to appear on the Back Page, please contact John. 


A b S tract Study Overview: Interns', anxiety about computer use ("computer anxiety") and their attitudes toward medical computer applications were determined by a standardized questionnaire. Participants were surveyed before and after three months of differential exposure to three clinical information systems (CISs), including one with provider-entered encounters. Population: Fifty-one interns completed both surveys. Their average age was 27 years. Thirty-three percent were female, 7% were African American, and 8% were foreign graduates. Results: The most common previous exposures to computers were for literature searching and retrieval of patient information (both 92%). Factors that commonly emerged as predictive of anxiety about computer use included self-rated skills, typing ability, and computer attitudes. Factors predictive of attitudes toward computers included self-rated skills, typing ability, maximal frequency of prior computer use, computer ownership, and computer anxiety. Factors that were not predictive of computer anxiety or attitudes toward computers included age, gender, and physician input of data. Conclusion: Identification of markers for negative psychological reactions to computer use may allow development of interventions to improve acceptance of computer base patient records (CBPRs).


In the design of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), energy conservation is a goal at all system levels, from the application down to the hardware. This paper focuses on network-level opportunities for energy conservation, with emphasis on the multi-hop transmissions, topology control and routing-level issues. Specifically, the paper considers energy efficient information broadcasting in WSNs deploying co-operating nodes which by adjusting their transmission ranges minimize the total transmitted power in the network. To this end, the design of routing protocols with a single relay is proposed for multiple multicast sessions in a network with randomly distributed nodes. The protocols take advantage of topological diversity created by adapting the transmission power and exploit the benefits of network coding in a system where nodes are periodically generating data packets. Energy efficiency of the conventional, store-and-forward, and network coding based relaying schemes is analyzed in different propagation conditions and for various node densities.


In this paper, I have made a case for using creative approaches to facilitate educational transitions. I have presented examples from research and practice which suggest that creative activities can be used in multiple ways to portray children and young people's voices. I argue that these voices, as well as the process of being heard, can help modify existing transition practices, identify new transition practices, and enhance children and young people's ability to manage change. Theories of self-esteem, resilience, and emotional intelligence have been used to explain the psycho-social processes that a child, or young person, goes through during transitions, as well as how creative approaches can be used to support these processes.


Low-complexity and flexible spectrum sensing is one of the challenging tasks in a cognitive radio (CR). Most of the work on energy-detection-based spectrum sensing presented in the literature employ a filter bank (FB) to split the wideband input signal into several subbands and detect the spectrum by computing the energy of subbands. However, for a mobile CR handset, a filter-bank-based spectrum sensing is not an area- and power-efficient scheme. In this paper, a novel spectrum-sensing scheme based on a reconfigurable digital downconverter (RDDC) and a reconfigurable filter based on coefficient decimation is proposed for mobile CR handsets, which has very low complexity and high flexibility compared to conventional FB approaches. The basic idea is to rotate the spectrum using an RDDC and filter the desired portion of the spectrum using the reconfigurable filter, which then results in very low complexity. The implementation results on Virtex-4 field-programmable gate array show that our method offers significant reductions in gate count, power consumption, and delay over conventional discrete Fourier transform FB-based spectrum sensing.


In view of the low execution efficiency and poor practicability of the existing neighbor-finding method, a fast neighbor-finding algorithm is put forward on the basis of Square Non-symmetry and Anti-packing Model (SNAM) for binary-image. First of all, the improved minor-diagonal scanning way is applied to strengthen SNAM's adaptability to various textures, thus reducing the total number of nodes after coding; then the storage structures for its sub-patterns are standardized and a grid array is used to recover the spatial-position relationships among sub-patterns, so as to further reduce the complexity of the neighbor-finding algorithm. Experimental result shows that this method's execution efficiency is significantly higher than that of the classic Linear Quad Tree (LQT)-based neighbor-finding method.


Specific, anti-peptide antibodies against the five known mammalian facilitative D-glucose transporter isoforms (GLUT1-5) were used to investigate the transporter content of lactating rat mammary gland. Western blots of gland homogenate showed the apparent presence of GLUT1 and GLUT4. However, in isolated epithelial cells only GLUT1 was present, a result which indicated the mammary GLUT4 is present within adipocytes. The putative GLUT1 glucose transporter was recognised by antibodies against several hydrophilic regions of human erythrocyte GLUT1 and endoglycosidase F digestion decreased its apparent Mr from 50,000 to 42,000, a value essentially identical to that of the deglycosylated human protein. Its identity as a glucose transporter was confirmed by the ability of anti-GLUT1 antibodies to immunoprecipitate a mammary protein of apparent 50,000, which could be photolabelled in a D-glucose-sensitive fashion by the transport inhibitor [4-3H]cytochalasin B. Immunocytochemical staining of sections confirmed that the primary location of GLUT1 in the mammary gland is the epithelial cell. Sub-cellular fractionation experiments showed that the transporter is not only located at the cell surface, but also within the Golgi. However, quantitative Western blotting indicated that GLUT1 could only account for about half of the D-glucose-sensitive cytochalasin B binding sites in Golgi vesicles, suggesting the presence of a second, so far unidentified, glucose transporter isoform. Developmental changes in transporter expression in the gland were investigated both at the level of protein and mRNA. GLUT1 protein levels became detectable in the epithelial cells during the final 24-48hr of pregnancy, rose to a peak immediately following parturition, then fell slightly at the time of peak lactation. No major changes in GLUT1 mRNA were observed, implying a post-transcriptional control of GLUT1 expression. Removal of the litter for 24hr at peak lactation resulted in a total loss of GLUT1, suggesting feed-back inhibition influencing GLUT1 expression. The hormonal basis of these changes was investigated using explant culture of alveoli from mid-pregnant mammary gland. These experiments indicated that GLUT1 expression was dependent upon a lactogenic hormone, prolactin. Insulin and cortisol were also required for explant viability, but neither alone could stimulate synthesis of GLUT1.


Since the first exchange-traded fund began trading in 1993, the ETF form has attracted enormous investment flows. However, this triumph of the ETF has been overwhelmingly limited the world of passive investment. Due to a mix of recent market innovation and regulatory change, this state of affairs is changing today. As I explain in this Article, there is much reason to believe that the actively managed ETF is now set to emerge as a significant feature of the investment landscape. And this emergence has important implications for, among others, the main parties that play key roles in protecting investors (namely, the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as investment intermediaries).


Cellulosomes in Clostridium cellulovorans are assembled by the interaction between the repeated cohesin domains of a scaffolding protein (CbpA) and the dockerin domain of enzyme components. In this study, we determined the synergistic effects on cellulosic and hemicellulosic substrates by three different recombinant mini-cellulosomes containing either endoglucanase EngB or endoxylanase XynA bound to mini-CbpA with one cohesin domain (mini-CbpA1), two cohesins (mini-CbpA12), or four cohesins (mini-CbpA1234). The assembly of EngB or XynA with mini-CbpA increased the activity against carboxymethyl cellulose, acid-swollen cellulose, Avicel, xylan, and corn fiber 1.1-1.8-fold compared with that for the corresponding enzyme alone. A most distinct improvement was shown with corn fiber, a natural substrate containing xylan, arabinan, and cellulose. However, there was little difference in activity between the three different mini-cellulosomes when the cellulosomal enzyme concentration was held constant regardless of the copy number of cohesins in the cellulosome. A synergistic effect was observed when the enzyme concentration was increased to be proportional to the number of cohesins in the mini-cellulosome. The highest degree of synergy was observed with mini-CbpA1234 (1.8-fold) and then mini-CbpA12 (1.3-fold), and the lowest synergy was observed with mini-CbpA1 (1.2-fold) when Avicel was used as the substrate. As the copy number of cohesin was increased, there was more synergy. These results indicate that the clustering effect (physical enzyme proximity) of the enzyme within the mini-cellulosome is one of the important factors for efficient degradation of plant cell walls.


The paper focuses on the problems of temporal functioning of obese individuals and of individuals prepared for bariatric treatment. The experience of time heavily weighs on many areas of human functioning, everyday activity, planning and achieving goals, engaging in pro-health behaviours, and in consequence on the quality of life and on physical health. Contingent on numerous factors, obesity may be related to focusing on particular aspects of time perspective. The aim of the study was to determine the specificity of particular temporal dispositions in individuals prepared for bariatric surgery, and thus to devise suit-able post-op psychological interventions. The study sample comprised 28 individuals (60.7% women, mean age M = 43.82 years, SD = 10.01, BMI M = 44.83 kg/m 2 , SD = The data were collected individually with the following pen-and-paper questionnaires: the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, the Dark Future Scale, and the Polish adaptation of Snyder's Adult Hope Scale, which is named the Hope for Success Questionnaire. The results showed the prevalence of present hedonistic time perspective in the obese. With regard to future anxiety or the hope for success, no significant deviations from the general population were observed. The results indicate that this group is in need of temporal psychotherapy aimed at balancing the time perspective. The results may also be interpreted through the lens of contextual determinants connected with task orientation preceding the surgery. asso-TP in bariatric


This article examines the labour renewal strategies implemented by Central de Los Trabajadores de la Argentina. It argues that union organizing is conditioned by historical legacies and structural constraints, while social movement unionism, which for the most part promotes building alliances with community groups, can be achieved by taking advantage of political opportunities and mobilizing resources. To maintain these alliances, trade unions and social movement organizations need to build institutionalized partnerships and compensate for their individual weaknesses. The article also argues that organizing the unorganized and building alliances with the community are not a substitute for each other. It is also argued that labour's power derived from its location in the economic system still stands as an essential source of labour renewal.


High school students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often struggle in the complex social and academic secondary environment. Current literature suggests postsecondary success is limited for adults with ASD, but little is known about the high school experiences of individuals with ASD that may be impacting their postsecondary outcomes. Focus groups with multiple stakeholders were used to examine challenges facing high school students with ASD and their service providers. Through qualitative analysis, three themes emerged that illuminate challenges posed in the high school setting for students with ASD: (1) inconsistencies, many of which are intrinsic to the secondary environment, (2) difficulties with interpersonal connections, and (3) knowledge/process breakdowns. The findings demonstrate the misalignment or "crack" that exists between the nature of high schools and the needs of students with ASD as they prepare for success in postsecondary environments.


This article argues that Lady Anne Clifford's 1616–1619 diaries, which chronicle not only her lawsuit to inherit her family lands and titles but also her daily practices, form part of Clifford's lifelong obsession with legal and extralegal ways of establishing herself as a landowner. While her records of frequent walking and praying "abroad," or outdoors, and of her prodigious reading may seem distinct from her famous lawsuit, they possess a genealogical significance that signals her profound connection to her property. Clifford's archives reveal her extensive knowledge of English common law, the legal system that backed her claims. Her enduring engagement with English common law influences the generic form of the diaries, with their repetitive documentation of her land-based practices. Just as common law garnered authority and meaning through its status as "custom," Clifford's diaries express the hope that her own customs would one day obtain the force of law. In this way, Clifford's diaries evince a unique instance of what J. G. A. Pocock has called "the common-law mind."


BACKGROUND
Patients who have become triple class experienced (TCE) are at a high risk of exhausting available treatment options. This study aims to investigate factors associated with becoming TCE and to explore the effect of becoming TCE on survival. We also project the prevalence of TCE in Australia to 2012.

METHODS
Patients were defined as TCE when they stopped a combination antiretroviral treatment (cART) that introduced the third of the three major antiretroviral classes. Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate factors associated with TCE and the effect of TCE on survival. To project TCE prevalence, we used predicted rates of TCE by fitting a Poisson regression model, together with the estimated number of patients who started cART in each year in Australia, assuming a mortality rate of 1.5 per 100 person-years.

RESULTS
Of the 1498 eligible patients, 526 became TCE. Independent predictors of a higher risk of TCE included current CD4 counts below 200cellsμL(-1) and earlier calendar periods. No significant difference in survival was observed between those who were TCE and those who were not yet TCE. An increasing number of patients are using cART in Australia and if current trends continue, the number of patients who are TCE is estimated to increase from 2800 in 2003 to 5000 in 2012.

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that the prevalence of TCE in Australia is estimated to plateau after 2003. However, as an increasing number of patients are becoming TCE, it is necessary to develop new drugs that come from new classes or do not have overlapping resistance.


Young, politically motivated, and technologically savvy individuals have been instrumental in bringing about social change through the first decades of the twenty-first century. These tech-savvy "disruptors" anonymously champion counter-hegemonic discourse and ideology by manipulating networked forms of communication. The shielding effects of these anonymous interactions also pose significant challenges for the observation and study of disruptors. The current study proposes that elements of the theory of self-efficacy, particularly mastery experiences, can be leveraged to anonymously locate disruptors from a generalized sample based on their. It employs an adapted version of the Computer Self-Efficacy Scale with a large non-random sample to test this hypothesis. Principal component analysis of the scale identifies three components in the scale — "simple," "moderate," and "difficult" task efficacy — that account for a majority of the variation in the sample. Components are then compared with other measures of technological skill and internet usage characteristics to better confirm the scale's effectiveness in locating disruptors.


This research explored the potential use of webinars as a method of course delivery in the College of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology. In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of students to gain insights into their experience with webinars and to delve into how they interacted with the webinar, whether they would prefer this mode of delivery in the future and to assess their overall perceptions of webinars. Findings indicated that students found the webinar to be a novel and innovative way for delivering course content, however students reported having connectivity issues and at times encountered audio problems. Furthermore, all students described multi-tasking while taking part in the virtual classroom. The in-depth interviews also explored whether students believed webinars could wholly replace the traditional lecture and the sample of students interviewed here felt that webinars lack certain qualities that make this an unlikely possibility. Recommendations to the Institute include exploring the possibility of using webinars in situations where the traditional lecture is not possible (i.e. a contingency method of delivery), or to use webinars as part of a blended learning model, whereby webinars are not the sole method of course content delivery but are used in tandem with the traditional, face-to-face lectures.


A survey of corporate-level senior research and development managers in twenty-seven of Spain's largest hotel chains found a general bias toward innovation, as the majority have formal R&D departments and offer rewards for innovative concepts. Considering a framework that includes four types of innovation (i.e., product innovations, process innovations, enhanced knowledge of market, and management innovations), the survey found that the chains focused the greatest innovation efforts on improving management. However, the innovations most frequently mentioned involve enhanced knowledge of the market, including the use of new sales channels and communication improvements. Case studies of four hotel concepts depict innovations intended to be singular, that is, hard to duplicate. NH Hoteles uses its customer data center to segment customers and create targeted communications and special offers; Hoteles Hesperia has allied with Michelin-rated chefs to upgrade its hotel restaurants both in terms of menu and image; Chic&Basic has installed modest-price but high-quality inns in center-city locations that usually host luxury hotels or poor quality guest accommodations; and Marqués de Riscal has developed City of Wine, in the Rioja region of Spain, complete with a Frank Gehry–designed hotel operated by the Starwood Luxury Collection.


Brazil's successful prosecutorial civil action against polluters could be a regulatory example for the Global South. This paper analyses whether such regulation could also develop without the major political, institutional, and legal reforms that spurred it in Brazil. To do so, it analyses China, where similar reforms have so far not occurred, but where recently prosecutors have started to initiate civil litigation against polluters. It finds that prosecutorial civil litigation in China has only a limited regulatory effect or potential. Prosecutors in China are influenced by conflicting incentive structures that reward one-off lower level test cases with an innovation bonus, while structurally stimulating a focus on general crime fighting. Ironically, as a result of such incentives, the recent legal reform, towards providing standing for prosecutors in public interest litigation, will in contrast to Brazil, decrease instead of increase the regulatory effect of these cases. These findings have implications for understanding how the interaction between regulatory independence, legal reform and regime type shapes possibilities for regulatory innovation in the Global South.


The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been through two recent wars (1996-1998). In addition to a death toll estimated at over four million, more than 50000 persons were subjected to sexual violence particularly in Eastern regions. Rape was used as a weapon of war by men in uniform and fighters from countries with a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Experts have estimated the prevalence of HIV/AIDS to be up to 60% among soldiers and fighters in the region. Sexual violence against women has impacted public health by spreading sexually transmissible diseases including HIV/AIDS, causing unwanted pregnancies, leading to the gynaecological complications of rape-related injuries, and inflicting psychological trauma on the victims. Officials in the DRC must set up appropriate structures to cope with the medical, psychosocial and legal effects of sexual violence.


Abstract What happens if Jewish history is declared »Jewish heritage«? All over Europe remnants of historical Jewish sites are (described and) advertised as tourist attractions promising an authentic experience of the past. The Spanish town of Toledo with its historic synagogue buildings and its Sephardic Museum is but one example of this new trend. In Toledo, places, memory, and the marketing of Jewish history are strongly interconnected. This article reflects on the importance of geographic sites in turning heritage into something visible and »visitable«. Historical traces materialize memory, while at the same time the label »Jewish heritage« weaves them into major narratives and thereby increases their popularity.


Grinding operations are commonly used in machining industry as they offer high precision level for applications such as increasing the surface quality of parts, and even machining of hard alloy in the aviation and space technology, automotive, biomedical equipment and electronics. Super abrasive grinding operations has gained importance through increasing usage of super alloys in these sectors. Excessive temperature rise occurs on workpiece during hard metal grinding, which can cause residual stresses, micro cracks, surface burns etc. Process modeling is crucial for examining these effects to control them within optimization of grinding parameters in less costly and less time consuming way. Investigation of grinding operations has been held by researchers since the industrial revolution, and it became state of the art with its stochastic nature. At present there is no suitable method to identify process temperature and forces without calibration and experimental data. The advantage of these studies is that consistent model results according to the calibrated data, but nevertheless, the wide range of adaptability remained limited. The goal of this thesis is to define the geometrical identification of grinding operations and usage of these into thermomechanical and temperature modeling of the process as a whole model to reduce dependence on calibration via experimental data. In this content, the hypotheses of this study are that temperature calibration on the thermomechanical model can be solved via iteratively with the calculation of attained and resultant temperature values in it. Furthermore, geometrical approaches for wheel and grain geometry is crucial to develop comprehensible force and temperature modeling. Temperature and force parameters were investigated by the established models and experimental data. After all, comprehensive process models were established for wide range of usage. This thesis is divided into four chapters in these directions; starting with the geometrical investigation and followed by force modeling and temperature modeling and finally a review of them in the experimental verifications and discussions.


A multi-stage hierarchical fuzzy control system with a multi-echelon structure for depth of anaesthesia (DOA) is described in this paper. There are four echelons that monitor, control, interpret and assess the whole surgical operation. Echelon 1 is a measurement and control action level that involves: instrument sensing (Dinamap); anaesthetist observations [measurement of sweating (SW), lacrimation (LA) and pupil response (PR)]; and a syringe pump (Graseby pump). Echelon 2 is an interpretation level that involves: interpreting systolic arterial pressure and heart rate to provide the primary DOA; interpreting SW, LA and PR to provide the degree of lightness; and interpreting bolus drug effects to estimate the sensitivity of patients. Echelon 3 is a regulation level that involves: controlling the drug from either a hand-crafted anaesthetists' rule-base or a self-organizing fuzzy logic controller algorithm; planning the drug profile to avoid long recovery; and managing alarm situations. Finally, echelon 4 is an assessment level that assesses the whole surgical procedure according to the patient recovery time. Testing this system in clinical trials as an intelligent adviser has provided a preliminary proof-of-concept of the applicability of this hierarchical structure for DOA management.


To meet the rising demand for computer science (CS) courses, K-12 educators need to be prepared to teach introductory concepts and skills in courses such as Computer Science Principles (CSP), which takes a breadth-first approach to CS and includes topics beyond programming such as data, impacts of computing, and networks. Educators are now also being asked to teach more advanced concepts in courses such as the College Board's Advanced Placement Computer Science A (CSA) course, which focuses on advanced programming using Java and includes topics such as objects, inheritance, arrays, and recursion. Traditional CSA curricula have not used content or pedagogy designed to engage a broad range of learners and support their success. Unlike CSP, which is attracting more underrepresented students to computing as it was designed, CSA continues to enroll mostly male, white, and Asian students [College Board 2019, Ericson 2020, Sax 2020]. In order to expand CS education opportunities, it is crucial that students have an engaging experience in CSA similar to CSP. Well-designed differentiated professional development (PD) that focuses on content and pedagogy is necessary to meet individual teacher needs, to successfully build teacher skills and confidence to teach CSA, and to improve engagement with students [Darling-Hammond 2017]. It is critical that as more CS opportunities and courses are developed, teachers remain engaged with their own learning in order to build their content knowledge and refine their teaching practice [CSTA 2020]. CSAwesome, developed and piloted in 2019, offers a College Board endorsed AP CSA curriculum and PD focused on supporting the transition of teachers and students from CSP to CSA. This poster presents preliminary findings aimed at exploring the supports and challenges new-to-CSA high school level educators face when transitioning from teaching an introductory, breadth-first course such as CSP to teaching the more challenging, programming-focused CSA course. Five teachers who completed the online CSAwesome summer 2020 PD completed interviews in spring 2021. The project employed an inductive coding scheme to analyze interview transcriptions and qualitative notes from teachers about their experiences learning, teaching, and implementing CSP and CSA curricula. Initial findings suggest that teachers' experience in the CSAwesome PD may improve their confidence in teaching CSA, ability to effectively use inclusive teaching practices, ability to empathize with their students, problem-solving skills, and motivation to persist when faced with challenges and difficulties. Teachers noted how the CSAwesome PD provided them with a student perspective and increased feelings of empathy. Participants spoke about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on their own learning, student learning, and teaching style. Teachers enter the PD with many different backgrounds, CS experience levels, and strengths, however, new-to-CSA teachers require further PD on content and pedagogy to transition between CSP and CSA. Initial results suggest that the CSAwesome PD may have an impact on long-term teacher development as new-to-CSA teachers who participated indicated a positive impact on their teaching practices, ideologies, and pedagogies.


Abstract To identify prognostic factors for overall survival after recurrence (OSr) in endometrioid endometrial cancer (EC) patients and categorize patient subgroups that predict outcomes using these variables. Consecutive patients with recurrent endometrioid EC seen in our institution from 1989 to 2013 were retrospectively reviewed. Cox regression models were used to identify the clinicopathological factors associated with OSr. By summing scores proportionate to the hazard ratio (HR) for each significant variable, we stratified patients into 3 risk groups. Enrolled patients (n = 108) had a median time to recurrence of 15 (range, 3–163) months after initial treatment and a median OSr of 22 (range, 1–207) months. Twenty patients (18.5%) had locoregional recurrence, and 88 (81.5%) distant. One hundred three patients underwent salvage therapy; 51 (47.2%) received chemotherapy only, 22 (20.3%) received radiotherapy either alone or combined with chemotherapy, and 29 (26.9%) underwent salvage cytoreductive surgery. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that time to relapse after initial treatment, cancer antigen-125 level at recurrence, and the number of recurrent lesions were independent predictors of OSr. Incorporating these factors, we stratified patients into low-risk (n = 19), intermediate-risk (n = 43), and high-risk (n = 46) groups. The likelihood of cancer-specific death was higher in both the high-risk (HR = 8.948, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.498–22.893, P < .001) and the intermediate-risk (HR = 2.619, 95% CI = 1.002–6.850, P = .05) groups compared with the low-risk group. Incorporating 3 variables, recurrent endometrioid EC patients with a broad spectrum of outcome could be stratified according to OSr. This model may help predict outcomes in recurrent EC patients.


Objective To determine whether transdermal progesterone cream has any effect on vasomotor symptoms, mood, sexual response, cardiovascular lipid levels, or bone mineral metabolic markers. Design A parallel, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial comparing the effect of a transdermal cream containing a progesterone (32 mg daily) with a placebo cream. Eighty postmenopausal women in the Menopause Centre at the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney, were randomly allocated to receive either the progesterone cream or the placebo. They were evaluated using the Greene Climacteric Scale and the Menopause Quality of Life Questionnaire, as well as blood analysis for lipids and bone markers over a period of 12 weeks. Women were prescribed a cream containing either progesterone at 32 mg daily or a placebo cream for a period of 12 weeks. Results There was no detectable change in vasomotor symptoms, mood characteristics, or sexual feelings, nor was there any change in blood lipid levels or in bone metabolic markers, despite a slight elevation of blood progesterone levels. Conclusion The use of the transdermal route to administer progesterone at 32 mg daily does not seem to allow sufficient hormone to enter the body to achieve a biological effect on lipid levels, bone mineral metabolic markers, vasomotor symptoms, or moods.


Idiopathic isolated unilateral hypoglossal nerve palsy is a rarely observed finding in clinical practice. Cases of persistent idiopathic isolated hypoglossal nerve palsy are extremely rare, one similar case documenting only one other documented case in the literature.
Cases of this finding in patients with epilepsy further make this clinical finding a very rare entity. The presenting case is a 22 year old who complains of deviation of the tongue to the left side upon protrusion and atrophy of the left side of the tongue. The patient was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 10 and had been successfully controlled with medication remaining seizure free for over 10 years.


A simple and sensitive direct radioimmunoassay for tonin (EC.3.4.99.-) has been developed. This assay incorporates a modified and convenient poly(ethylene glycol) technique for separation of free from bound tonin. A rabbit antiserum in a final dilution of 1:160,000 was used and the purified tonin was labelled with 125I by using a lactoperoxidase method. It detects 20 pg of immunoreactive tonin per tube. Serial dilutions of rat submandibular gland extracts showed complete parallelism with tonin standard curves. No cross-reactivity with rat tissue kallikrein was seen. Intra- and inter-assay errors were 3.2 and 5.6%, respectively. Using this assay, immunoreactive tonin was detected in the rat submandibular gland as early as 3 weeks after birth (body wt. approximately 50-60 g). Tonin levels are shown to be dependent on age and sex with significantly higher levels in male than in female rats. Castration results in decrease of tonin levels and 17 alpha-methyltestosterone replacement reversed the level to higher than the sham-operated control rats. Cortisol treatment increased, but thyroxine or oestradiol had no effect, on tonin levels in the submandibular gland of castrated rats. This newly developed radioimmunoassay can now be used to measure low levels of tonin in various tissues and body fluids to address questions about its regulation and functional significance.


The use of the Nine Figure Picture Story within Gestalt play therapy for adolescent survivors of sexual trauma Sexual abuse of children and adolescents has reached pandemic proportions in Namibia. It is widely recognised that this traumagenic experience could have a profound and long-lasting effect on survivors. Nevertheless, few survivors in Namibia access therapy; often because of non-disclosure or non-reporting, being socioeconomically disadvantaged and the overburdened public sector therapists. This study set out to explore how adolescent survivors use the Nine Figure Picture Story (9FPS) embedded within the context of Gestalt Healing tasks. A variety of play therapy experiments was used to raise the clients' awareness and to evoke their therapy stories (as these relate to Gestalt therapy) and their trauma stories (by means of the 9FPS). The researcher-therapist hoped that the study would enhance the understanding of the meaning-making of sexually abused adolescent clients, and in doing so, contribute to therapeutic practice in Namibia and elsewhere. Research which aims to uncover personal meaning-making and hear the voice of the participants already suggests that the qualitative paradigm would be apposite. An exploratory case study was conducted in Namibia between August 2010 and November 2010. Two adolescent survivors of sexual abuse who met the eligibility criteria were drawn from the population by means of nonprobability sampling. The sample was heterogeneous: one participant was a survivor of chronic intrafamilial rape; the other of a single incident, extrafamilial child sexual abuse (CSA). The data corpus included six and ten recorded therapeutic sessions with the two clients respectively; transcribed intake and termination semi-structured interviews with the parents; the researcher's process and observation notes; and the clients' objets d'art and Therapy diaries. To capture the tapestry of CSA accurately and holistically, the stories of the two participants were first analysed individually and thereafter synthesised into a theoretical comparative analysis. Trustworthiness was enhanced by means of investigator, theory, data and methodological triangulation. A number of safety, beneficence and non-maleficence measures contributed to the ethicality of this sensitive research. The research uncovered that, despite their differences, the two participants presented with posttraumatic signs and patterns often reported in the literature. Most insightful was how the survivors disavowed the CSA to become "not me" (Joyce & Sills, 2006: 92). As it relates to neurobiological hypotheses, it was revealed that the tactile and visuospatial Gestalt play therapy, specifically the 9FPS, seemed to access and address the fragmented, non-sequenced and non-verbal trauma memory. It was found that the 9FPSs gave the unfinished business from the past a miniaturised dimension in the present and that the "differentiated unity" (Reynolds, 2005: 162) enhanced its assimilation into the self.


Abstract. Built-up area marks the use of city construction land in the different periods of the development, the accurate extraction is the key to the studies of the changes of urban expansion. This paper studies the technology of automatic extraction of urban built-up area based on object-oriented method and remote sensing data, and realizes the automatic extraction of the main built-up area of the city, which saves the manpower cost greatly. First, the extraction of construction land based on object-oriented method, the main technical steps include: (1) Multi-resolution segmentation; (2) Feature Construction and Selection; (3) Information Extraction of Construction Land Based on Rule Set, The characteristic parameters used in the rule set mainly include the mean of the red band (Mean R), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Ratio of residential index (RRI), Blue band mean (Mean B), Through the combination of the above characteristic parameters, the construction site information can be extracted. Based on the degree of adaptability, distance and area of the object domain, the urban built-up area can be quickly and accurately defined from the construction land information without depending on other data and expert knowledge to achieve the automatic extraction of the urban built-up area. In this paper, Beijing city as an experimental area for the technical methods of the experiment, the results show that: the city built-up area to achieve automatic extraction, boundary accuracy of 2359.65 m to meet the requirements. The automatic extraction of urban built-up area has strong practicality and can be applied to the monitoring of the change of the main built-up area of city.


Rectovaginal fistulas (RVF) are a difficult to treat perianal complication of Crohn's disease (CD) with a significant impact on quality of life. Management of RVF includes both medical and surgical interventions. Few studies have assessed real-world treatment patterns for CD-related RVF. This retrospective US cohort database analysis aimed to assess the rate of, and time to RVF episodes of care in CD, and describe treatment patterns.

 IBM Truven Health MarketScan® databases (Commercial and Medicare supplemental administrative claims [01/01/01 to 31/12/19]) were used. Adult females with a diagnosis code for CD, ≥1 medical claim with a RVF-specific diagnosis/procedure ICD-9/10 code on or after the date of first observed CD diagnosis, and ≥180 and ≥720 days of continuous health plan enrolment before and after index (date of first RVF-related code after first CD diagnosis date), respectively, were included. Treatment patterns were assessed during the 6 months pre-index (baseline period) and any time post-index. The first RVF episode of care (episode) started on the date of the first RVF-related code after CD diagnosis. RVF-related codes ≤90 days apart were considered as the same episode. Time to subsequent episodes was assessed by Kaplan–Meier (KM) analysis. Only descriptive statistics were reported for the proportion of patients with episodes and subsequent treatment patterns.

 Of 274 096 adult females diagnosed with CD during a continuous eligibility period, 2540 (0.9%) had a RVF-specific code. Overall, 963 patients met the inclusion criteria (median age: 46.0 years). The median follow-up (time between the index date and end of continuous health plan enrolment or data availability) was 48.5 months. During the follow-up period, 963 (100%), 430 (44.7%) and 217 (22.5%) patients had at least one, two or three episodes, respectively. KM analysis showed the probability of having a subsequent episode within 1, 2 and 5 years of their first or second episode (Figure). During the baseline period, 775 (80.5%) and 287 (29.8%) patients received non-biologic or biologic therapies, respectively, and 929 (96.5%) and 494 (51.3%) at any time post-index. At any time post-index, 587 (61.0%) patients had ≥1 RVF-related surgery.

 This study showed patients with CD-related RVF required recurrent episodes of medical and surgical care in a US real-world setting. In addition, post-index, an important proportion of patients were observed with biologics use (>50%) and nearly two-thirds of patients had RVF-related surgery. Patients with CD-related RVF had varied treatment patterns and more studies are needed to inform the standard of care for patients with RVF.
 Sponsor: Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Inc.


Imagination and Reading for Enjoyment: On students' space for creative action in the classroom.Anna-Lova Olsson & Moira von Wright, Orebro UniversityReading for enjoyment in school can be an act of subjective pleasure and thrill for the individual reader or listener, yet it also has an intersubjective dimension which is of educational importance. When students engage in communication with the surrounding, for instance verbalizing the reading experience in discussions or writings, its meaning is altered in ways which may be of fundamental importance for the development of the self/identity of the student (M. von Wright 2000). Classroom discussions and paper writing are the most common ways of dealing with the reading experiences, but they tend to rely on didactic traditions and habits that seldom challenge the students – or teachers- but rather keep the classroom in a safe order (see e.g. E. Hultin 2006; G. Molloy 2003).The paper deals with the educational role of 'reading for enjoyment', and it focuses on the possibility for student's to freely play with their imaginations and to share them through creative action in the classroom.The aim of the paper is to outline a basis for a coming study on the subject. True 'reading for enjoyment', so we argue, comprises of several dimensions such as the subjective imaginative play with roles and identities and the intersubjective creative action where these may be verbalized and "tried" and their meaning confronted. This, in turn, raises several questions about school practice: Can students claim space within the narrow genres of the classrooms in secondary school? Is it reasonable to think that this is a wider question of human flourishing, or is it foremost just a practical question of didactic arrangements?


Iron-containing mesoporous molecular sieves (Fe–MCM-41) synthesized by both direct hydrothermal (DHT) and template-ion exchange (TIE) methods have been characterized and used as catalysts for the liquid-phase epoxidation of styrene with diluted H2O2. The characterizations with XRD, diffuse reflectance UV–vis, ESR, and EXAFS suggest that iron cations are highly dispersed and tetrahedrally coordinated with oxygen in the DHT samples with iron content lower changes as meant? if not, please recast sentence for clarity than ca. 0.9–1.1 wt% (Si/Fe=105–86). This coordination environment is similar to that in a ferrisilicate zeolite with MFI structure and contributes to the increase in relative strong acidic sites, as indicated by NH3-TPD studies. On the other hand, the TIE samples mainly contain small iron oxide clusters. The conversion of styrene over the DHT catalyst increases significantly with increasing iron content up to 1.1 wt%. The selectivity to styrene oxide and the efficiency of H2O2 for the epoxidation can be improved by adding H2O2 slowly to keep the H2O2 concentration low during the reaction. As compared with the DHT catalyst, the TIE catalyst shows a much poorer performance for the epoxidation of styrene. It is suggested that the atomically isolated iron sites account for the epoxidation reaction with hydrogen peroxide. The iron cations incorporated inside the framework of MCM-41 do not leach during the reaction, whereas the small iron oxide clusters leach out into the liquid phase and do not contribute to the catalytic reaction.


We devise a new experimental game by nesting a voluntary contributions mechanism in a broader spectrum of incentive schemes. With it, we study tensions between egalitarianism, equity concerns, self-interest, and the need for incentives. In a 2x2 design, subjects either vote on or exogenously encounter incentive settings while assigned unequal incomes that are either task-determined or random. We find subjects' voting to be mainly self-interested but also influenced by egalitarian and equity concerns, which sometimes cut in opposite directions. Contributions, which seem mainly determined by boundedly rational responses to incentives, are influenced by egalitarian, equity and strategic considerations. JEL Codes: C91, C92, D31, D63, H41


Embedded systems tend to require more and more computational power. Many-core architectures are good candidates since they offer power and are considered more time predictable than classical multi-cores. Data-flow Synchronous languages such as Lustre or Scade are widely used for avionic critical software. Programs are described by networks of computational nodes. Implementation of such programs on a many-core architecture must ensure a bounded response time and preserve the functional behavior by taking interference into account. We consider the top-level node of a Lustre application as a software architecture description where each sub-node corresponds to a potential parallel task. Given a mapping (tasks to cores), we automatically generate code suitable for the targeted many-core architecture. This minimizes memory interferences and allows usage of a framework to compute the Worst-Case Response Time.


Many of the genome maintenance transactions require continuous progression of molecular motors along single or double stranded DNA (dsDNA) molecule. DNA, however, is rarely found in the cell in its bare form. Structural proteins organize dsDNA and control its accessibility to molecular machines of DNA replication, repair, recombination and transcription. Single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) is sequestered by ssDNA binding proteins, which protect it from degradation, modification and undesired transactions. Appreciation of how molecular machines compete with these stationary blocks and with each other for the access to DNA is important for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying genome maintenance. This understanding in turn establishes the molecular basis of various human diseases resulting from defects in molecular motors and their ability to navigate in crowded intracellular environments. By building upon our recent finding that it is possible for a helicase translocating on ssDNA to bypass a stationary bound protein without displacing it, we discuss potential outcomes of collisions between DNA helicases and ssDNA binding proteins. We then propose that the selective ability of some helicases to bypass or displace a specific ssDNA binding protein may be important for activation of these enzymes for particular DNA maintenance tasks.


The calculation of the electronic structure of chemical systems, necessitates computationally expensive approximations to the time-independent electronic Schrödinger equation in order to yield static properties in good agreement with experimental results. These methods can also be coupled with molecular dynamics, to provide a first principles description of thermodynamic properties, dynamics and chemical reactions. Evidently, the cost of the underlying electronic structure method limits the time frame over which a system can be studied, and hence, certain chemical processes may be out-of-reach using a particular method. Furthermore, when one is interested in designing new molecules with interesting properties, a systematic enumeration of an inordinately large chemical space is typically required. The combination of both expensive electronic structure calculations and large chemical spaces results in an insurmountable barrier in computational cost. The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in computational chemistry has, over the past 20 years, seen an explosion in interest and scope with respect to these two issues. Intelligent algorithms capable of efficiently sampling chemical spaces, coupled with machine learning (ML) techniques to cheapen the calculation of electronic structure evaluations, enable both rapid throughput to search for new molecules with particular properties and in the case of ML, an increase in the timescales that can be simulated via molecular dynamics. In this thesis, computer programs have been developed that enable the application of AI algorithms to chemical and biological problems. In particular, a versatile evolutionary algorithm toolbox called EVOLVE has been developed. As a first test-case study, genetic algorithms were used to efficiently sample the vast chemical sequence space of an isolated α-helical peptide, from which insights are gained to rationalise the stability of particular genetically optimised peptides in a variety of implicit solvent environments. Genetic algorithms were then applied to the compositional optimisation of training sets used in machine learning models of molecular properties. The resulting optimal training sets are shown to significantly reduce out-of-sample errors on all thermodynamic and electronic properties considered. Furthermore, they reveal that there are systematic trends in the distribution of these optimally-representative molecules. Inspired by the success of machine learning, an ML-enhanced multiple time step approach for performing accurate ab initio molecular dynamics was developed. Two schemes representing different force partitioning were investigated. In the first scheme, the ML method provides an estimation of the slow (high level) force components acting on a system, while in the second,


Drug delivery systems have opened various doors to fulfill the requirements of chemotherapy. It improves therapeutic effects of already efficient molecules by delivering it to the targeted site. Research area achieved a high peak in the aspect of lipid-based nano-drug delivery system. Conventional oral therapy has various problems especially lower oral bioavailability of a drug. To overcome such problems, researcher found a way in the form of solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs). Newest form of medication carrier system, that is, SLN concept firstly introduced in December 1991. It is a system of medication carrier over the traditional colloidal carriers. It mainly includes nanoparticles ranges of spherical stable lipid cells, scattered in fluid surfactant. It includes of nanometer ranges of spherical stable lipid cells, which are often scattered in fluid surfactant arrangement or in water. The main issues raised in previous type of carrier systems are poor water soluble and under development; absolutely having low bioavailability. In this type we have to prepare medicine with physiologically well tolerated lipids is the main advantage of this system to achieve good therapeutic outcomes. Lipid-based nanoparticles are SLNs which has size in between 10 and 1000 nm. This review will focuses on SLNs and their applications in various aspects. Applications comprise targeted therapy in brain tumors. Along with this treatment of metastatic breast cancer can also achieve using SLNs.


ID: 15936 Title: Dosimetric examination and verification of megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT) based IMRT treatment planning with Helical TomoTherapy Purpose: Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) planning using pre-treatment megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT) provides a viable solution to adaptive radiotherapy. A strategy was developed to assess the impact of MVCT image quality on treatment plans using Helical TomoTherapy. Methods: The Octavius phantom (PTW) was scanned with a Philips CT-scanner and the Helical TomoTherapy unit for kilovoltage CT (kVCT) and MVCT, respectively. MVCT images were acquired with three modes (slice thickness): coarse (6-mm), normal (4-mm) and fine (2-mm). Contours from existing head-and-neck plans were transferred from the Pinnacle treatment planning system to phantom images and IMRT plans were generated using the TomoTherapy planning station. Comparison between the kVCT-based plan (benchmark plan) and MVCTbased plans were conducted to evaluate dosimetric variations. Dose volume histograms (DVH) were examined for plan quality. Plans using MVCTs acquired with three modes were also evaluated for dosimetric differences. Additional plan evaluations were performed with retrospective dose reconstruction based on the delivered leaf sequences. Results: Isodose distributions of four plans are comparable despite the intrinsic difference between MVCT and kVCT images. No significant variations on the target coverage were found from DVHs. However, plan using coarse MVCT images gave largest dose deviations (> 50%) for critical structures from that of benchmark plan while the best agreement was observed between fine MVCT and kVCT. Plan parameters were found to be consistent among four plans. Comparisons between planning doses and reconstructed treatment doses revealed high fidelity delivery. Conclusions: IMRT planning using MVCTs proved to be equivalent with that using standard kVCT when fine imaging mode was selected. Target coverage on MVCT plans is comparable to that on the standard kVCT plan. MVCT thicknesses were shown to have impact on plan quality. Caution is needed when performing treatment planning with MVCTs.


In Germany there is a trend to so-called "natural" or "alternative" medical methods especially among young people of good education and higher income. Those persons are also the typical target group of the private person insurance so that it seems necessary to deal with such methods. While the original "classical" methods of naturopathy have been acknowledged in the scientific medicine for many years and are mainly used in the medical rehabilitation, the so-called "alternative" methods are further on controversial. In the first place, the risks of such unconventional methods are to be monitored, especially the danger of a wrong diagnosis in using unproved diagnostical methods and the danger of side-effects in therapy. Another problematical fact is that during an unconventional treatment the diagnosis of an intoxication by outdoor or indoor pollution or by amalgam of toothfillings is often made without standing a critical proof. Usually, an expensive therapy will follow with no end in sight. Furthermore, the diagnosis of a so-called intoxication of psychical disordered patients, especially those with a masked depression, can prevent a necessary medical or psychotherapeutic treatment. Disorders will be felt more and more as somatic and get a chronical course so that they are finally resistant to therapy.


This thesis explores the consequences of insomnia as a sleep disorder in later life with the aim of collecting available information on the topic. The three research questions that guided the objective of the study sought to examine how elderly people experience sleep, insomnia and its consequences as well as what nursing intervention tools could assist in insomnia management to improve the quality of life of elderly. Sleep disturbances effect daytime routines and functioning of older adults thereby impacting on their quality of life. Poor sleep hygiene has been mentioned as one the main contributing factor for sleep disorders. Behavior therapy has been considered as effective and recommended on its own or in combination with pharmacology. The trans-theoretical model (TTM) theory as a health promotion approach used in this study focuses on intentional change to acquiring a positive behavior. Qualitative literature review methodology was used to analyze 13 scientific articles through the inductive content analysis process to produce results. The findings of this research agree with the previous studies and the theoretical frame. Cognitive malfunctioning, social dysfunction, associated medical comorbidities as well as increased economic burden have been outlined as some of insomnia consequences. Nurses role in timely assessment, diagnosis and treatment is termed as crucial. Thus the need for Insomnia management resources, proper communication structures, team work, and education.


Jay Chou is one of the most significant singers in Chinese popular music history. One of Chou's greatest achievements is his implementation of the Chinese "Egao" culture in his music, which originated from Japanese Kuso culture. Such an approach not only created his unique style but also allowed him to adopt various musical techniques together seamlessly. By doing so, Chou created a style that references multiple traditional musical conventions without being bound by any of them. This study aims to examine the evolution of the Kuso culture as well as Chou's implementation of it. The development of Kuso is fostered by the popularization of the Internet in China and the popularity of Kuso artists such as Jay Chou. Chou's Kuso techniques can be used as an inspiration to reinterpret traditional art forms and cultures, but people should also be aware of its potential damages. The derivative nature of Kuso can become problematic to traditional arts and cultures, thus requiring Kuso artists to implement and develop Kuso cautiously.


Charge pair photogeneration was investigated by ultrafast absorption spectroscopy for different excitation photon energies in poly[3-(2(')-methoxy-5(')octylphenyl)thiophene] (POMeOPT) film with and without an external electric field. Electric field-assisted charge pair photogeneration in POMeOPT occurs from vibrationally relaxed singlet excitons during their entire lifetime and charge pair formation takes place in this manner even in the absence of an external electric field. From our data there are no indications of hot exciton dissociation to charge pairs even when a large amount of excess energy is supplied to the excitons. To explain these observations we present a model with energy transfer to low-barrier dissociation sites as a key feature. (Less)


The New Books and Multimedia column contains brief reviews of new books in the computer communications field. Each review includes a highly abstracted description of the contents, relying on the publisher's descriptive materials, minus advertising superlatives, and checked for accuracy against a copy of the book. The reviews also comment on the structure and the target audience of each book. Publishers wishing to have their books listed in this manner should send copies and appropriate advertising materials to Ioanis Nikolaidis at the address below, with an indication that books are intended for the IEEE Network New Books and Multimedia column. Appropriate books will be reviewed in the column. Ioanis Nikolaidis Computing Science Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E8


SUMMARY: In this paper, the taxonomic composition of the fish larvae community in the Canary region in autumn 1991 is presented. In total, 8699 larvae belonging to 58 fish families were studied. 176 taxonomic groups were identified, 149 at species level and the rest were identified at a higher level. The most numerous family and the one that presented the greatest number of species was Myctophidae. The most frequently caught species was Cyclothone braueri. The taxonomic composition (at family level) of the fish larvae community, dominated by four mesopelagic families, was typical of oceanic regions of warm waters. The most remarkable feature of the fish larvae community was its high specific diversity.


PURPOSE
To use the pig brain as a large-animal model to examine the effects of high-dose single-fraction irradiation on MR images, T2 relaxation time, and histologic integrity.

METHODS
A total of 24 Meishan pigs were studied: 20 irradiated animals and 4 unirradiated controls. A high dose was delivered to the right hemisphere of the animals, using a 12-MeV electron beam. Ten animals received 40 Gy at the 90% isodose, and 10 animals received 60 Gy. Quantitative measurement of T2 relaxation time was compared with qualitative analysis of T2-weighted images and histologic studies.

RESULTS
Quantitative analysis revealed a reproducible increase of the T2 parameter within the irradiated areas. The T2 kinetic could be analyzed in two phases, which appeared before the visualization of ventricle compression, necrosis, and edema. The first is characterized by vascular inflammation and the latter by radiation necrosis and edema. Both are dose dependent.

CONCLUSION
These results underline the ability of quantitative MR for early diagnosis of brain radiation lesions in vivo.


The beta core fragment of hCG (βC-hCG) accounts for a large proportion of hCG immunoreactivity in the urine of pregnant women. It is often increased in the urine of patients with gynecologic tumors and may become an important diagnostic tool in early pregnancy and cancers. Despite the importance of βC-hCG, little is known about its stability in urine under conditions of differing pH and temperature. This study examined the effect of repeated freeze-thaw cycles; storage at room temperature, 4C, and –20C over several months; and the effect of alteration of urine pH. The two specific immunoassays for βC-hCG used do not significantly cross-react with intact hCG or the free α subunit. Despite different cross-reactivities of the antibodies to the free β subunit and higher immunoactivity when the radioimmunoassay was used, there was excellent correlation between the two assays in pregnancy urine. This suggests that there is little free β subunit in urine from pregnant women. In addition, this study evaluated the stability of intact hCG and β-hCG under identical conditions. No alterations in their irnmunoactivities were found under most conditions of storage. It is concluded that, for clinical purposes, βC-hCG as well as intact hCG and free β subunit are very stable molecules.


Different colorectal lesions have attracted different procedures in their management. One of the novel approaches that have been documented in recent times is endoscopic transcecal appendectomy (ETA). ETA is an endoscopic and less invasive approach to the excision of lesions within the appendix. The appendix is also completely resected in the process. The main aim of this paper is to establish some of the benefits and risks that come with ETA. The study was conducted from a systematic review perspective using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, which governs the implementation of systematic reviews. Key considerations in the PRISMA framework used in this article include identifying the articles, screening them, and determining their eligibility and their final inclusion or exclusion based on the specified criteria. To arrive at relevant articles, some keywords were used in the various search engines of the databases that were consulted. Some of the keywords that were used included ETA, endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR), endoscopic full-thickness resection (EFTR), endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD), adverse events, risks, safety, efficacy, and the appendiceal orifice. It was established that the key benefits of the ETA include the ability to avoid postoperative appendicitis and residual lesions in tissue. On the other hand, some risks that could come with ETA were found to include potential tumor seeding and postoperative bleeding. However, the key study limitation is that most of the referenced studies in this literature review are retrospective case series and case reports that are prone to selection bias. Furthermore, most ETA procedures in this literature review were performed by a few experienced and highly skilled endoscopists, making the ability to make such results generalizable to all endoscopists and patient populations a debatable issue. In the future, there is a need for more multicenter and large studies to be conducted with longer follow-up periods to ascertain the results obtained in this review. This will ensure a more informed decision-making process for or against ETA implementation in real-world clinical environments.


Storage management is important to the performance of DBMS. This paper gives a comprehensive overview of storage management in relational DBMS. The storage management is divided into three levels (logical, physical in-memory, and physical on-disk) and discussed separately. The logical level caches logical units (tuples or index values) of the DBMS based on the logical information to improve buffer pool usage efficiency. The physical in-memory level caches physical pages directly in the buffer pool to reduce disk accesses. Many algorithms have been designed for the general buffer or for the buffer pool of DBMS. Complex algorithms can achieve better performance than simple LRU or CLOCK algorithms. However, the overhead is high and the advantage diminishes when the buffer is big. The physical on-disk level borrows many techniques from file systems and storage systems. Because of the excellent potential write performance of log-structured organization, the Log-structured File System and related topics are discussed. Each level has its advantage and limitation for further improving performance. To achieve better performance of storage management systems of DBMS, all these three levels should be considered.


ABSTRACT Kim, Y.-T.; Cho, H.-R.; Uranchimeg, S.; Lee, S.O., and Kwon, H.-H., 2016. A hierarchical Bayesian model based nonstationary frequency analysis of extreme sea level under climate change along the shorelines in South Korea. Proceedings of the 14th International Coastal Symposium (Sydney, Australia). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 75, pp. 745–749. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Urban development and population increases have continuously progressed in the coastal areas in Korea; thus, it is expected that vulnerability towards coastal disasters by sea level rise (SLR) would accelerate. This study investigated the trend of the sea level data using Mann-Kendall (MK) test, and the results showed that the increasing trends of annual average sea level at 17 locations were statistically significant. For annual maximum extremes, seven locations exhibited statistically significant trends. In this study, nonstationary frequency analysis for the annual extreme data, together with average sea level data as a covariate, was performed. Nonstationary frequency analysis results showed that sea level at the coastal areas of the Korean Peninsula would be increased from a minimum of 60.33mm to a maximum of 214.90mm. The future mean sea level rise (MSLR) increases in the year 2100 estimated in this study suggested that rises in the sea level at the sea near the Korean Peninsula would be rather less compared with global MSLR by RCP(AR5) scenarios. Nevertheless, the SLR is still very high and we need to evaluate the risk for the marine structures and coastal areas due to the acceleration of the sea level and to prepare adaptation strategies at the national level. Furthermore, it is necessary to carry out a nonstationary frequency analysis considering the representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenario and more reliable information for acceleration characteristics as a future study.


Assembler Encoding is a neuro-evolutionary method in which a neural network is represented in the form of a simple program called Assembler Encoding Program. The task of the program is to create the so-called Network Definition Matrix which maintains all the information necessary to construct the network. To generate Assembler Encoding Programs and the subsequent neural networks evolutionary techniques are used. The performance of Assembler Encoding strongly depends on operations used in Assembler Encoding Programs. To select the most effective operations, experiments in the optimization and the predator-prey problem were carried out. In the experiments, Assembler Encoding Programs equipped with different types of operations were tested. The results of the tests are presented at the end of the paper.


ABSTRACT The search for inorganic ion exchangers that would be stable to ionizing radiation and elevated temperatures began with the advent of nuclear technology in the 1940's. Research has continued unabated since then producing many dozens of such compounds both synthetic and natural. Several of the important groups of these exchangers are described and their utility as highly selective sorbents described. A brief introduction to inorganic-organic products is presented with the emphasis that they permit the design of new types of exchangers. Many current and projected applications of these materials are described.


The finite element analysis of deformation of viscoplastic material involves contact between the tool and the workpiece. Here unilateral contact condition with the possibility of nodes originally in contact, losing contact subsequently, is analysed in non‐steady state forming processes. Friction has been taken into consideration through a potential function. Node to node contact is analysed and contact forces at the node are used to decide if the node is to be released. Two different algorithms are presented for treating the nodal contact condition. The one step explicit method with projections on the surface of contact was already implemented in the FORGE2® software. An implicit scheme is proposed and compared with the existing scheme. The advantages of this scheme are numerically shown by solving some examples. It is observed that the volume losses are reduced. This makes it possible to use larger time steps or increase the computational accuracy.