The transit time of water is an important indicator of catchment functioning and affects many biological and geochemical processes. Water entering a catchment at one point in time is composed of water molecules that will spend different amounts of time in the catchment before exiting. The next water input pulse can exhibit a totally different distribution of transit times. The distribution of water transit times is thus best characterized by a time‐variable probability density function. It is often assumed, however, that the variability of the transit time distribution is negligible and that catchments can be characterized with a unique transit time distribution. In many cases this assumption is not valid because of variations in precipitation, evapotranspiration, and catchment water storage and associated (de)activation of dominant flow paths. This paper presents a general method to estimate the time‐variable transit time distribution of catchment waters. Application of the method using several years of rainfall‐runoff and stable water isotope data yields an ensemble of transit time distributions with different moments. The combined probability density function represents the master transit time distribution and characterizes the intra‐annual and interannual variability of catchment storage and flow paths. Comparing the derived master transit time distributions of two research catchments (one humid and one semiarid) reveals differences in dominant hydrologic processes and dynamic water storage behavior, with the semiarid catchment generally reacting slower to precipitation events and containing a lower fraction of preevent water in the immediate hydrologic response.


Bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flugge) is the predominant pasture grass in Florida because it is well adapted to the extensive low-input cattle management typical of Florida's beef production. Creeping signalgrass [Urochloa humidicola (Rendle) Morrone & Zuloaga), syn. Brachiaria humidicola (Rendle) Schweick.] shares many of the desirable characteristics of bahiagrass, but no comparative grazing trials have been conducted. We measured calf body weight (BW) gains on signalgrass and bahiagrass from May to early August (weaning) and monitored cow BW changes from August through October over 4 yr. Calf BW at weaning averaged 250 kg on signalgrass and 235 kg on bahiagrass (P = 0.13), and calf average daily gain was 0.66 kg d -1 for signalgrass and 0.48 kg d -1 for bahiagrass (P = 0.07). Cows grazing signalgrass weighed more (P = 0.03) in October (564 kg) than cows on bahiagrass (513 kg) and had higher (P = 0.01) body condition scores (5.7 vs. 4.7, respectively)]. There was no difference between bahiagrass and signalgrass [8380 and 9580 kg dry matter (DM) ha -1 ] for forage accumulation from May through October, but forage mass was greater for signalgrass than bahiagrass from July to October. A problem with signalgrass was that 33% of annual forage DM accumulation occurred in a 28-d period beginning with the start of summer rain. Signalgrass had greater organic matter digestibility (545 g kg -1 ) than bahiagrass (476 g kg -1 ), but it always contained less crude protein (87 vs. 107 g kg -1 ). A freeze (-5°C) reduced signalgrass ground cover to ≈50% and delayed grazing in 1 of 4 yr. Forage production, nutritive value, and livestock gains on signalgrass equaled or exceeded those of bahiagrass, but poor cold tolerance, limited growth before May, and excessive growth in July are potential problems with signalgrass pasture production.


The myths of the maze, the goddess, and the descent to the underworld play a key role in the "Mines of Falun" by E. T. A. Hoffmann, "The Hungry Stones" by Rabindranath Tagore, and "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. All three works present images of women imprisoned within a labyrinthine underworld that represents the threat of madness; and in each case the myths become metaphors for poesis, hermeneusis, and psychogenesis. While the three myths are archetypes frequently found in world literature, it is rather rare to find them so intricately combined to fashion a complex allegory of writing, reading, and the birth of the self.(1) In Hoffmann's "The Mines of Falun," Elis, the romantic protagonist, descends into the mines of the Metal Queen, lured downward by the mysterious old miner, Torbern, who leads him through a "gate" ("dem Tore") on the road to the mines (930; 176). Torbern is what van Gennep would recognize as a threshold guardian, and what Karl Kerenyi would call a "Seelenfuhrer"--or psychopomp. As such, Torbern is associated with doorways (archaic icons of liminality and descent), which lead to the entrance to the mines. Elis stands in between identifies (sailor and miner, bachelor and husband), drifting in a marginal limbo, literally "standing at the door," neither in nor out (932). Though initially afraid to go down into the "hell like abyss" of the mines (927), Elis follows Torbern bravely to "the enormous gulf, like the jaws of hell itself," from which stupefying vapors rise, as if from a "hell-broth ... brewed down below" (930). He compares the mine entrance to the place where "Dante went down and saw the Inferno" (930); the miners themselves look like "diabolical creatures" (931). When Elis first goes down to work in the mines, the "uncanny" Torbern appears like a "black shadow," to strike his hammer with the force of "distant thunder," before disappearing "amongst the black labyrinths of the chasms" (934). Later Elis sees the "desolate crags" at the entrance to the Inferno as a "numberless horde or horrible monsters, the dire brood of hell" (936). Hence, Hoffmann's evocation of the underworld draws from Dante, Norse legend, and classical mythology: Torbern is a Virgilian guide, leading Elis into the Inferno; he is a type of Thor, swinging his hammer to strike fire and thunder; and he is a type of Hades, albeit servant to his Persephone, the Metal Queen who rules down below, and to whom Elis is irresistibly drawn. For the labyrinthine underworld of the cave is also the archetypal domain of the Earth Goddess. Eliade suggests that the cave was assimilated to the labyrinth and the goddess from prehistoric times: "To penetrate into a labyrinth or cavern was equivalent to a mystical return to the mother" ("Terre-Mere" 75; my trans.). By the same token, the "ores extracted from mines are in some ways embryos" (42), and "the kiln where enameling material was smelted (schmelzofen) was designated by the name of matrix or maternal bosom (Mutterschoss)" (38). Hence, Elis ultimately collapses into the arms of "the mighty queen" of the caves, who draws him "to her breast" (936). The alchemical dimensions of mining and the imagery of the Great Goddess emerge later in the story, when Elis resolves on his marriage night to go down into the caves in order to retrieve the "queen's heart," which he imagines as a "glorious red carbuncle" that is the maternal source of all "hearts and souls" (938). Like the image of the Goddess herself, the metallurgical operations leading to the forging of the philosopher's stone in alchemy are natural symbols of creative processes of poesis, a point Joyce would later make clear in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which closes with Stephen Dedalus's resolving to "forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race" (253). Other feminine symbols of creativity in "The Mines of Falun" include the notions of cooking and brewing (the vapors rising from the "hell-broth" brewed down below [930]), old Germanic symbols of the union of the loving and terrible aspects of the Goddess to be found in, for example, "Hansel and Gretel," or in the image of the "Black Witch" ("Schwarze Kochin") in The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. …


In this paper, we propose StereoPIFu, which integrates the geometric constraints of stereo vision with implicit function representation of PIFu, to recover the 3D shape of the clothed human from a pair of low-cost rectified images. First, we introduce the effective voxel-aligned features from a stereo vision-based network to enable depth-aware reconstruction. Moreover, the novel relative z-offset is employed to associate predicted high-fidelity human depth and occupancy inference, which helps restore fine-level surface de-tails. Second, a network structure that fully utilizes the geometry information from the stereo images is designed to improve the human body reconstruction quality. Consequently, our StereoPIFu can naturally infer the human body's spatial location in camera space and maintain the correct relative position of different parts of the human body, which enables our method to capture human performance. Compared with previous works, our StereoPIFu significantly improves the robustness, completeness, and accuracy of the clothed human reconstruction, which is demonstrated by extensive experimental results.


Objective: To determine the efficacy, side effect and acceptability of medical abortion using mifepristone 200mg orally and misoprostol 800μg vaginally in patients less than 49 days of gestation. Materials and methods: Seventy six women who requested termination of pregnancy up to 49 days of gestation were administered 200mg mifepristone orally followed 48 hours later by 800μg of misoprostol per vaginally. Results: Ninty six percent (96%) women had complete abortion with this regimen. There was no ongoing pregnancy. The average duration of per vaginal bleeding was 12-13 days. There were some side effects, which include abdominal pain, vomiting, fever etc. Conclusion: This mifepristone-misoprostol regimen is highly effective in terminating pregnancy in women up to 49 days duration with minimum side effects and this medical method may be advisable to practice as an alternative to surgical procedure where adequate skilled attendance is lacking. Bangladesh J Obstet Gynaecol, 2012; Vol. 27(2) : 44-49


ABSTRACT Learning in extremist settings is often treated as operational, with little regard to how aspiring participants in extremist settings engage with complex and abstract ideological material. This paper examines learning in the context of the amorphous network of digital channels that compose the extreme-right online milieu. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis, we explore how well the prevailing model of extremist ideological learning (in 'communities of practice') accounts for the behaviour of aspiring participants of Fascist Forge, a now-defunct extreme-right web forum. The findings suggest that some of the social aspects of communities of practice have been replicated in the online setting of Fascist Forge. However, for a combination of technical and ideological reasons, the more directed and nurturing aspects of learning have not. Several issues are raised about the role of ideological learning in online communities, notably the open accessibility of extremist material, the lack of ideological control leading to potential mutation and innovation by self-learners, and the role of digital learning in the preparation, shaping and recruitment of individuals for real world organising and activism.


The main purpose of the study was to investigate maternal prenatal attachment in Sweden and Poland, to analyse its diverse aspects, links to age, parity, planning and complications of pregnancy. Women in the third trimester of gestation filled in the Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI) and provided some demographic and medical data. Factor analyses were performed on PAI items for both samples and scores for samples' factors were compared using ANCOVA and two‐way ANOVA. Correlates of attachment were examined with Pearson r and multiple regression analysis. Five factors were extracted which explained 53.9% (Swedish data) and 51.9% (Polish data) of variance. Items with the highest loading were similar in both samples. Total PAI scores given by Polish women were higher. Polish mothers gave scores that indicated more intense interactions with unborn children, they also more often shared their opinions about the baby with others. Swedish mothers more often attributed traits and showed affection. Swedish and Polish mothers showed evidence of fantasising about their unborn babies to a similar degree. Total PAI scores and factor scores were similar in planned and unplanned pregnancies. Polish mothers had lower total scores in complicated pregnancies and Swedish mothers in uncomplicated pregnancies. When both samples were analysed together the best predictors of attachment intensity were age and nationality, but they explained only 5.2% of variance in total scores. Despite several differences the findings indicate similarities in the way relationships with an unborn child are conceptualised by Swedish and Polish mothers.


Background It is usually considered that the upper airway epithelium is composed of multiciliated, goblet, secretory and basal cells, which collectively constitute an efficient first line of defense against inhalation of noxious substances. Upon injury, regeneration of this epithelium through proliferation and differentiation can restore a proper mucociliary function. However, in chronic airway diseases, the injured epithelium frequently displays defective repair leading to tissue remodeling, characterized by a loss of multiciliated cells and mucus hyper-secretion. Delineating drivers of differentiation dynamics and cell fate in the human airway epithelium is important to preserve homeostasis. Results We have used single cell transcriptomics to characterize the sequence of cellular and molecular processes taking place during human airway epithelium regeneration. We have characterized airway subpopulations with high resolution and lineage inference algorithms have unraveled cell trajectories from basal to luminal cells, providing markers for specific cell populations, such as deuterosomal cells, i.e. precursors of multiciliated cells. We report that goblet cells, like secretory cells, can act as precursors of multiciliated cells. Our study provides a repertoire of molecules involved in key steps of the regeneration process, either keratins or components of the Notch, Wnt or BMP/TGFβ signaling pathways. Our findings were confirmed in independent experiments performed on fresh human and pig airway samples, and on mouse tracheal epithelial cells. Conclusions Our single-cell RNA-seq study provides novel insights about airway epithelium differentiation dynamics, clarifies cell trajectories between secretory, goblet and multiciliated cells, identifies novel cell subpopulations, and maps the activation and repression of key signaling pathways.


The purpose of this research was to examine how families adapt and respond to an aggressive child with mental illness. This article presents findings from a qualitative study of four families, which were selected as typifying the experiences of a larger sample of 14 families; each family included a child with mental illness and a history of violent behavior. The analysis revealed a five-stage pattern in how families perceived and responded to victimization and their child or sibling's mental illness. The study suggests that families with a violent child with mental illness and other healthy children cannot live through episodes of violence without removing the child with mental illness from the home or suffering considerable damage to the family. The article concludes with recommendations for mental health practitioners and family intervention specialists.


Capture efficiency (CE) of exhaust from a natural gas cooking range was quantified for three common designs of residential range hoods in laboratory experiments: (A) microwave exhaust combination; (B) short hood with grease-screen-covered air inlet at bottom; and (C) deep, open hood exhausting at top. Devices were evaluated at varying installation heights, at highest and lowest fan settings, and with the hood installed 15 cm away from back wall with intent to improve CE for front burners. Each configuration was evaluated for the oven and for three cooktop burner combinations (two back, two front, one front and one back). At highest fan settings and standard installation against the wall, Hoods A and C captured back cooktop burner exhaust at > 90 percent and Hood B at > 80 percent. In this configuration, CE for front burner exhaust was 73-78 percent for Hoods A and C but only 46-63 percent for Hood B. CEs followed similar patterns but were substantially lower on the lowest fan speed. Installing the hood away from the wall improved CE for oven and front burners on Hood A at low speed, but substantially reduced CE for back burners for all hoods at low and high speed.


Introduction Sepsis as a result of bacterial translocation from the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is a known associate of morbidity and mortality in patients with severe burns. This translocation is influenced by the GIT flora. A less investigated mechanism that seems to contribute to sepsis in burns is bacterial translocation the passage of microorganisms and/or their products from the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) lumen. Retrospective study of burn injuried patients admitted in the burn care unit  Dr.Soetomo Hospital Surabaya, 14.1% patients were died. Within periode June 2009-June 2011 about 60% of mortality rate from burn patients (10,38%) due to sepsis.
In Burn injury, there is an increase of intestinal permeability reperfusion resulted in an increased  risk of bacterial translocation and endotoxemia, histological lesions in mucosa and decreased levels of IgA and mucin. Oral consumptions of Bifidobacteria supplement can reduce the ratio of the balance of aerob bacteria, endotoxemia and mucosal lesions and reduce the symptoms of digestive disorders such as diarrhea in burn patients. Several treatment options were investigated to decrease bacterial translocation, among them a per os supplement of lactobacillus bacteria.
Objective Our study aimed to assess the effect of the probiotic single strain Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria supplementation to increased the secretory IgA in intestines in burn patients.
Method An experimental study, double blind clinical trial. Clinical trial was carried out in minimal 16 burn patients. They were divided into 2 groups, 1 group ingested daily Lactobacillus supplement probiotic and the other took Bifidobacteria supplement probiotic, both for 14 days. Treatment was started on day 4 post burn injury. The degree of secretory IgA was evaluated on day 4 (before treatment) and day 14 from faecal specimen. Data will be compared with results from previous research.


A one dimensional (1D) perovskite-type (C6H7NBr)3[CdBr5] (abbreviated 4-BAPC) was synthesized by slow evaporation at room temperature (RT). 4-BAPC crystalizes in the monoclinic system with the space group P21/c. The 1D inorganic chains are formed by corner sharing CdBr6 octahedra. Thermal measurement shows that 4-BAPC is stable up to 190 °C. Optical characterization demonstrates that the grown crystal is an indirect bandgap material with a bandgap value of 3.93 eV, which is consistent with theoretical calculations. The electronic structure, calculated using density functional theory, reveals that the valence band originates from a combination of Br-4p orbitals and Cd-4d orbitals, whereas the conduction band originates from the Cd-5s orbitals. The photoluminescence spectroscopy shows that the obtained material exhibits a broad-band white light emission with extra-high CRI of 98 under λexc = 380 nm. This emission is mainly resulting from the self-trapped exciton recombinations within the inorganic CdBr6 octahedron, and the fluorescence within the organic conjugated ammonium salt.


Non-obvious hysteresis and higher steady-state power conversion efficiency (PCE) were demonstrated by simply employing hematite (α-Fe2O3) as the electron transporting layer (ETL) to replace the conventional titania (TiO2) ETL in planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells. The achieved higher built-in potential across the perovskite layer for the devices using α-Fe2O3 ETLs led to more efficient charge extraction/transport and less charge recombination than using TiO2 ETLs. As a consequence, a significant reduction in the charge accumulation at the perovskite/α-Fe2O3 interface made the device much less sensitive to the scanning rate and direction, i.e., lower hysteresis. Furthermore, α-Fe2O3 based devices displayed good stability over 30 days of storage time with exposure to ambient air, owing to the higher crystalline quality and uniform grain size of the perovskite films deposited on α-Fe2O3 ETLs than on TiO2 ETLs.


Summary "We can speak of cure for Hodgkin9s disease when in time—probably a decade or so after treatment—there remains a group of disease-free survivous whose progressive death rate from all causes is similar to that of a normal population of the same age and sex constitution." Analysis of survival curves for patients with Hodgkin9s disease indicates that even for patients with Stage I and II disease there is excessive mortality per unit time as compared to the control population for at least 10 years after treatment. Thus, while the above definition is acceptable, the lag period required for the evaluation of potentially curative treatment is very long. In an attempt to determine the presence and degree of curative treatment in a shorter time, the relapse-free interval following treatment has been studied. For patients with Stage I and II disease, at least 80% of those destined to relapse do so within 4 years and in excess of 90% do so within 10 years. These are average data from a number of studies including those where case accural started in 1932 to those where case accrual started as late as 1957. For those studies where the major case accural occurred prior to lymphagiography staging, late relapses (between 4 and 10 years) are somewhat more common than in later series. This is probably because the retroperitoneal area is relatively "silent" and it may take several years for such relapses to become clinically evident. In contrast for studies wherein case accrual occurred after th eintroduction of lymphangiography, there is evidence that relapse after the 4th year is rare and may occur in less than 5% of patients. While the data are preliminary, there is evidence that the relapse-free interval of patients with Stage III and IV disease treated with total nodal radiotherapy or intensive combination chemotherapy follows a qualitatively similar curve. Finally, there is evidence that the relapse-free curve may be influenced by the histopathological type of Hodgkin9s disease. Lympocyte-predominant Hodgkin9s disease is cytokinetically slow moving, and late relapses would appear to be more common than for mixed cellularity and nodular sclerosis. These data plus the distribution of replapses during the first 4 years can be used to make relatively precise estimates of cure rates within 5 years following treatment. The use of such data in clinical trails is discussed.


There is a dearth of research on the experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth in schools in the Republic of Ireland. The current study assessed the school-based experiences of twenty five (N = 25) participants in the BeLonG To LGBT youth group in Dublin city using a mixed design survey instrument. The majority (n = 19) of respondents reported experiencing problems in school related to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity; eleven (n = 11) respondents reported that homophobia impacted negatively on their studies while at school; and one fifth of respondents (n = 5) left school early, citing negative reactions to their sexual orientation or gender identity as one of the main reasons they left. The majority (n = 18) of respondents did not consider their school a safe space to be LGBT.


We propose a distributed positioning algorithm to estimate the unknown positions of a number of target nodes, given distance measurements between target nodes and between target nodes and a number of reference nodes at known positions. Based on a geometric interpretation, we formulate the positioning problem as an implicit convex feasibility problem in which some of the sets depend on the unknown target positions and apply a parallel projection onto convex sets approach to estimate the unknown target node positions. The proposed technique is suitable for parallel implementation in which every target node in parallel can update its position and share the estimate of its location with other targets. We mathematically prove convergence of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results reveal enhanced performance for the proposed approach compared to available techniques based on projections, especially for sparse networks.


During the last two decades, problems related to high-energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the transportation sector have arisen. Therefore, several alternatives have been investigated, in order to reduce the dependence on the conventional fuels that are used by land transportation modes. One of these promising alternatives is the electric vehicles (EVs), which seem to be the future replacement for conventional vehicles. Thus, this study aims to quantify the energy and the environmental implications of EVs in Palestine in 2030, considering that the current percentage of EVs is almost 0%. In this study, the needed parameters related to the number of vehicles and energy costs by source in Palestine were collected. Then, several prediction models have been developed in order to determine the energy and environmental implications of EVs in 2030, considering that 10% of conventional vehicles could be replaced by EV during the next 10 years (2020–2030). The results have showed that this could save USD 464.31 million in operating energy costs during 2030 (one year of saving). More specifically, this number is almost equal to 3.18% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Palestine in 2018. Furthermore, significant amounts of GHG emissions could be reduced. The reduction (during 2030) in NH4, N2O, and CO2 emissions could be around 10.51%, 10%, and 6.86%, respectively.


Bone marrow transplant has proved to be an effective treatment in some hereditary metabolic diseases and, especially, in mucopolysdaccharidosis (MPS). A 9-year-old girl, of consanguineous parents, with MPS Type I, Hurler-Scheie syndrome, received a BMT from her heterozygous, HLA-compatible mother. -L-iduronidase activity in leukocytes and fibroblasts was undetectable and glycosaminoglycans (GAG) excretion in urine was very high. BMT conditioning treatment consisted of Busulfan (16 mg/kg) and Cyclophosphamide (120 mg/kg); clinical course was uneventful. Sixty days post-BMT iduronidase activity in leukocytes was similar to that of the donor and GAG levels were normal at 12 months. Echocardiography showed regression in hypertrophic myocardiopathy. Previously enlarged and vacuole-filled skin fibroblasts became reduced in size and vacuole content. The most notable clinical effects were: improved facial features, increased height, disappearance of visceromegalies, gradual clearing of corneal opacities with improved vision and reduced joint stiffness. It is concluded that the gradual deterioration in patients with MPS-I may be arrested and many clinical features improved by BMT.


OBJECTIVE
Alcohol-related blackouts (ARBs) are anterograde amnesias related to heavy alcohol intake seen in about 50% of drinkers. Although a major determinant of ARBs relates to blood alcohol concentrations, additional contributions come from genetic vulnerabilities and possible impacts of cannabis use disorders (CUDs). We evaluated relationships of genetics and cannabis use to latent class trajectories of ARBs in 829 subjects from the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA).

METHOD
The number of ARBs experienced every 2 years from subjects with average ages of 18 to 25 were entered into a latent class growth analysis in Mplus, and resulting class membership was evaluated in light of baseline characteristics, including CUDs. Correlations of number of ARBs across assessments were also compared for sibling pairs versus unrelated subjects.

RESULTS
Latent class growth analysis identified ARB-based Classes 1 (consistent low = 42.5%), 2 (moderate low = 28.3%), 3 (moderate high = 22.9%), and 4 (consistent high = 6.3%). A multinomial logistic regression analysis within latent class growth analysis revealed that baseline CUDs related most closely to Classes 3 and 4. The number of ARBs across time correlated .23 for sibling pairs and -.10 for unrelated subjects.

CONCLUSIONS
Baseline CUDs related to the most severe latent ARB course over time, even when considered along with other trajectory predictors, including baseline alcohol use disorders and maximum number of drinks. Data indicated significant roles for genetic factors for alcohol use disorder patterns over time. Future research is needed to improve understanding of how cannabis adds to the ARB risk and to find genes that contribute to risks for ARBs among drinkers.


This guide will tell you how to search for and find articles, using the resources that the Zach S. Henderson Library makes available to you.


Burn‐induced tissue loss is partly related to secondary expansion of necrosis into vital dermis neighboring the initial burn injury. An important factor herein is the severe loss of perfusion of the burn wound, probably caused by microvascular damage induced by the intense local inflammatory responses as well as burn‐induced hypercoagulation. We hypothesize that the formation of neutrophilic extracellular traps (NETs) play an important role in this. The purpose of this study was to investigate postburn intravascular thrombosis, NETs formation and the coagulant state in the microvasculature of burns in both animal models and patients. We used two in vivo burn wound models: rats and pigs. In rats, the entire wound was excised at day 14 postburn and in pigs burn wound biopsies were collected at different time points up to 60 days postburn. To confirm the data in patients, eschar from the burn wound was obtained from burn wound patients at different time points after wounding. The number of intravascular thrombi, the presence of intravascular NETs and the number of tissue factor (TF) positive blood vessels in the burn wound was determined. In rats, a significant increase in intravascular thrombi and TF expression was observed 14 days postburn, that in majority coincided with NETs. In pigs, a significant increase in intravascular thrombi and TF expression was found over time up to 60 days postburn, that in majority coincided with NETs too. Also in eschar of burn wound patients, a significant increase in intravascular thrombi was noted, that in majority coincided with NETs, already 0.5 days postburn and remained elevated up to 46 days postburn. This study shows the presence of NETosis in microcirculatory thrombosis of burn wounds and a switch in the microcirculatory endothelium toward a procoagulant phenotype.


Association rule discovery and classification
are common data mining tasks. Integrating association
rule and classification also known as associative
classification is a promising approach that derives
classifiers highly competitive with regards to accuracy to
that of traditional classification approaches such as rule
induction and decision trees. However, the size of the
classifiers generated by associative classification is often
large and therefore pruning becomes an essential task.
In this paper, we survey different rule pruning methods
used by current associative classification techniques.
Further, we compare the effect of three pruning methods
(database coverage, pessimistic error estimation, lazy
pruning) on the accuracy rate and the number of rules
derived from different classification data sets. Results
obtained from experimenting on different data sets from
UCI data collection indicate that lazy pruning algorithms
may produce slightly higher predictive classifiers than
those which utilise database coverage and pessimistic
error pruning methods. However, the potential use of such
classifiers is limited because they are difficult to
understand and maintain by the end-user.


The contemporary world is characterized by rapid technological progress, increase in work pace and flow of new information. These all lead people to overall exhaustion and stress. Stress is a so-called excess or overthe-limit load. The objective of this report is to describe and investigate stress and its management in the social work environment and on the basis of the results of an analysis to propose solutions of the detected problems. To detect stress management we used the SVF 78 (Stress Coping Questionnaire) on the sample of 121 respondents.


Cast-steel joints characterized in strong adaptability are widely applied in various long span spatial structures. At present, there is no national design specification available on cast-steel joints. Therefore, it is quite a necessity to conduct full-scale test or model test on cast-steel joints suffering complicated forces. This Paper has, taking Nantong Sports Exhibition Center as an example, conducted the experimental study of some important joints, and compared with elastic-plastic nonlinear finite element analysis result. According to the result, the fracture morphology of joints, stress distribution and bearing capacity of joints obtained from the elastic-plastic nonlinear finite element analysis are consistent with those of measured result, proving that the analysis theory applied in engineering design is basically suitable for the actual working condition of cast-steel joints and the joints are sufficiently safe.


Mosul Dam is a Multipurpose Project on the River Tigris in Iraq with 11.11 billion m 3 storage capacity. It is used to store the water for irrigation, hydropower generation, and flood control. As in other dams in the world, this dam also have sedimentation problem. Sediment accumulation in its reservoir can effect the dam operation (pumping station, hydropower plants, and bottom outlets) and it will definitely shorten the life span of the dam. In this study, the SWAT (soil and water assessment tool) under GIS (Geographical Information System) was applied to simulate the yearly surface runoff and sediment load for the main three valleys on the right bank of Mosul Dam Reservoir. The simulation considered for the twenty one years begin from the dam operation in 1988 to 2008. The resultant values of the average annual sediment load are 35.6×10 3 , 4.9×10 3 , and 2.2×10 3 ton, while the average values of sediment concentration are 1.73, 1.65, and 2.73 kg/m 3 for the considered valleys one, two and three respectively. This implies that significant sediment load enters the reservoir from these valleys. To minimize the sediment load entering the reservoir, a check dam is to be constructed in suitable sites especially for valley one. The check dam can store the runoff water and trap the sediment load, and then the flow can be released to the reservoir.


One of the central principles of research ethics is that the benefits and burdens of research with human participants should be equitably distributed. This principle has important implications for where research will be conducted, how participants will be recruited, what questions will be investigated, and who will control the distribution of any innovations that result. In the context of Covid-19, key issues include providing support to clinical trials in low- and middle-income countries, without taking needed resources away from other critical clinical and public health needs; designing recruitment strategies likely to generate sufficient enrollment from groups that have been disproportionately burdened by the virus, such as African Americans; supporting studies designed to improve outcomes in high-risk environments, such as nursing homes and group homes for the developmentally disabled; and ensuring that the medical products resulting from research are made available throughout the world at an affordable price. If clinical trials are not designed with equity considerations consciously in mind, the response to the pandemic may further exacerbate disparities in health status between population groups.


Developing software inside an organization can be a valuable experience for students in their early careers as software engineers. Delivering code written by more than one person means extra work on organizing, communicating, tracking progress, and assessing results. As skills like team management, leadership, teamwork, and communication are not taught as a main course in computer science or engineering universities, a good question to ask is how students learn to be effective? An adequate assumption would be that they see successful companies as models. If a corporation developing software projects uses a certain set of tools, schemes, and concepts to organize their work, then the same things should work for student projects as well. However, even if programs and strategies designed for good teamwork and management have the best intentions in mind, this assumption is not always true. This could result in a poor organization with limited performance. As such consequences are to be avoided, a study focusing on identifying good practices for students could establish the needs of voluntary student organizations in order to meet them without the unnecessary corporate overhead. To correctly assess student voluntary organization status, data describing several team management strategies have been collected both via forms and interviews. The following paper presents a research conducted on student voluntary organizations. This work identifies key tools and management practices that are commonly used by teams of students and how they compare to the tools used inside a company with paid employees. The final purpose is to identify good management practices inside student voluntary organizations that can be used as a reference by students when establishing new teams. The paper starts by analyzing each side's motivation for working inside a company/organization, continues with setting key performance metrics for collecting data, and ends with a comparative discussion. This study's contribution represents a series of recommendations of tools and approaches that suit student voluntary organizations the most.


Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged to be a salient driver for digital innovations. However, there is very limited research into how firms should manage their AI innovations. To fill this gap, we examine the comparative radicalness and process-orientation between AI and non-AI innovations. Prior research suggests that such attributes of innovations require firms to adopt very specific organizing principles. That is, the ways in which firms approach radical innovations will differ from those used in incremental innovations, and the organizing logic for new product innovations will also depart from that for new process innovation. We conduct an inductive exploratory study using a large U.S. patent data set and a multi-method research design. Results from our analysis reveal that AI innovations are significantly less radical and more process-oriented than their similar non-AI counterparts. Theoretical and managerial implications of our findings are discussed.


This paper evaluates farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for the vegetative propagated orange fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) planting material that is many times considered as a public good. Famers' WTP for OFSP vines was elicited by conducting a real choice experiment (RCE) among 121 small sweetpotato growers in central Mozambique with prior experience growing OFSP but with no participation in OFSP vine distributions in the previous 3 years of the experiment. Results reveals a higher farmers' willingness to pay for OFSP varieties (US$0.07-0.12) compared to the non-orange planting material (US$ 0.03) and compared to the traditional subsidized price of clean sweetpotato vines (US$ 0.06) used in Mozambique. These results may encourage formation of a network of private vine multipliers that would supply permanently OFSP planting material in wider areas.


The authors suggest extending the list of conventionally studied general pathological processes with psychosomatic and mental variants of pathology. These variants are relatively new in respect to evolution, are characteristic only for man and, in much lesser degree, for higher animals and have gained recognition in the last 50-100 years by defining the modern specificity of the nosological principle in medicine. The analysis of psychosomatic and psychic aspects of diseases may be of key importance for further development of general human pathology as a science.


I address the commentators' calls for clarification of theoretical terms, discussion of similarities to other proposals, and extension of the ideas. In doing so, I keep the focus on the purpose of memory: enabling the organism to make sense of its environment so that it can take action appropriate to constraints resulting from the physical, personal, social, and cultural situations.


Since 2005, a single dose of tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine has been recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for adolescents and adults (1,2). After receipt of Tdap, booster doses of tetanus and diphtheria toxoids (Td) vaccine are recommended every 10 years or when indicated for wound management. During the October 2019 meeting of ACIP, the organization updated its recommendations to allow use of either Td or Tdap where previously only Td was recommended. These situations include decennial Td booster doses, tetanus prophylaxis when indicated for wound management in persons who had previously received Tdap, and for multiple doses in the catch-up immunization schedule for persons aged ≥7 years with incomplete or unknown vaccination history. Allowing either Tdap or Td to be used in situations where Td only was previously recommended increases provider point-of-care flexibility. This report updates ACIP recommendations and guidance regarding the use of Tdap vaccines (3).


Making the State on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier: Chinese Expansion and Local Power in Batang, 1842-1939 William M. Coleman, IV This dissertation analyzes the process of state building by Qing imperial representatives and Republican state officials in Batang, a predominantly ethnic Tibetan region located in southwestern Sichuan Province. Utilizing Chinese provincial and national level archival materials and Tibetan language works, as well as French and American missionary records and publications, it explores how Chinese state expansion evolved in response to local power and has three primary arguments. First, by the mid-nineteenth century, Batang had developed an identifiable structure of local governance in which native chieftains, monastic leaders, and imperial officials shared power and successfully fostered peace in the region for over a century. Second, the arrival of French missionaries in Batang precipitated a gradual expansion of imperial authority in the region, culminating in radical Qing military intervention that permanently altered local understandings of power. While short-lived, centrally-mandated reforms initiated soon thereafter further integrated Batang into the Qing Empire, thereby demonstrating the viability of New Policy reforms and challenging the idea that the late Qing was a failed state. Finally, I posit that despite almost two decades of political, economic, and social upheaval in the post-Qing period, Nationalist officials' ability to repel central Tibetan attempts to assert their authority over Batang while effectively denying multiple movements for autonomous self-rule by local Batang political activists who were also Nationalist Party representatives directly contributed to Batang's incorporation into the Nationalist state. This analysis of Batang's transition from an imperial domain of the Qing Empire to a county in the newly created province of Xikang in 1939 highlights China's desultory and still incomplete transition from empire to nation.


In a decentralized storage system, agents replicate each other's data to increase availability. Compared to organizationally centralized solutions, such as cloud storage, a decentralized storage system requires less trust in the provider and may result in smaller monetary costs. Our system is based on reciprocal storage contracts that allow the agents to adopt to changes in their replication partners' availability (by dropping inefficient contracts and forming new contracts with other partners). The data availability provided by the system is a function of the participating agents' availability. However, a straightforward system in which agents' matching is decentralized uses the given agent availability inefficiently. As agents are autonomous, the highly available agents form cliques replicating data between each other, which makes the system too hostile for the weakly available newcomers. In contrast, a centralized, equitable matching is not incentive compatible: it does not reward users for keeping their software running. We solve this dilemma by a mixed solution: an "adoption" mechanism in which highly available agents donate some replication space, which in turn is used to help the worst-off agents. We show that the adoption motivates agents to increase their availability (is incentive-compatible), but also that it is sufficient for acceptable data availability for weakly-available agents.


In high-speed trains, vibration has long been an inevitable problem caused by many ambient effects, including wheel polygonization, rail defects, imperfect suspension systems, aerodynamic instabilities, meteorological conditions, and topographical variations, which can disturb the dynamic response and interior noise levels. These factors can be either correlated with or independent of each other. Excessive vibration levels of high-speed trains can lead to a series of problems related to ride comfort, train stability and track deterioration. Naturally, vibration and noise are interacted with each other, in which noise can be transmitted through air-borne and structure-borne paths to the interior of high-speed trains. The variation of noise levels is very sensitive as highspeed trains pass through various topographical terrains. Besides, aerodynamic noise becomes dominant as the speed of trains increases or trains travel through tunnels. Tracing the source that generates anomaly noise responses can give an important clue for monitoring operational safety and detecting adverse status. Pilot studies for the online monitoring of noise in the bogie of a high-speed train running on a railway in China have been conducted. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between ambient vibration induced by the rail-wheel interaction and noise measured from the bogie. The dynamic behaviour of high-speed trains is analysed in relation to the topographical variations (e.g., tunnels, viaducts, and plain area). Noise levels of the bogie are also investigated among various types of environmental conditions. Furthermore, the frequency response function is adopted to explore the correlation between the detected noise and ambient vibration using those on-board monitoring data


Relative humidity is an important micro-climate parameter in radiant cooling environment. Based on the human thermal comfort model, this paper studied the effect on PMV index of relative humidity, and studied the relationship of low mean radiant temperature and relative humidity, drew the appropriate design range of indoor relative humidity for radiant cooling systems.The results show that high relative humidity can compensate for the impact on thermal comfort of low mean radiant temperature, on the premise of achieving the same thermal comfort requirements. However, because of the limited compensation range of relative humidity, together with the constraints for it due to anti-condensation of radiant terminal devices, the design range of relative humidity should not be improved, and it can still use the traditional air-conditioning design standards.


The aim of this study is to evaluate whether the addition of tarragon in the diet of broiler chickens affects their performance and histological structures of internal organs. A total of 240 day-old Ross 308 male broiler chickens were used. The experiment included four treatment groups, with six replications per treatment. The experiment lasted 42 days and the chickens were provided with feed and water ad libitum. Experimental groups were given basal diet only (control group), basal diet + 0.1% tarragon powder (T1 group), basal diet + 0.2% tarragon powder (T2 group) and basal diet+ 0.5% tarragon powder (T3 group). The tarragon additive did not affect the values of the daily feed intake (DFI) and feed conversion rate (FCR) during the trial periods, while the highest daily weight gain (DWG) was recorded in the control group (P<0.05) on days 29-35 and 36-42. The longest jejunum villi was observed in the T2 group (P<0.05). The results indicate that different amounts of tarragon powder additive did not affect the DFI and FCR as performance parameters, while they had a negative impact on DWG. In addition, the livers, kidneys and intestinal tissue structures did not change. Therefore, the tarragon powder had no negative effects on the health of chickens.


The purpose of this article is to identify which, if any, segments of the movie business have suffered from digital piracy. We use a sample of 620 university members including undergraduate students, graduate students and professors to assess the effect of digital piracy on legal demand. A large percentage of respondents get pirated movies from a variety of channels (on P2P networks, intranet, by physical means. . . ). Surprisingly, approximately one third of the pirates declared that watching pirated movies increased their demand for films (for instance, it led them to rent or purchase videos that they would not have rented or purchased otherwise). Using regressions analysis, we find no impact of piracy on theater attendance, and a strong impact on video rentals and purchases. However, movie piracy has no impact on video rentals for respondents who use pre-paid pricing schemes at video-stores.


CCG-2961 incorporated 3 new agents, idarubicin, fludarabine and interleukin-2, into a phase 3 AML trial using intensive-timing remission induction/consolidation and related donor marrow transplantation or high-dose cytarabine intensification. Among 901 patients under age 21 years, 5-year survival was 52%, and event-free survival was 42%. Survival improved from 44% between 1996 and 1998 to 58% between 2000 and 2002 (P = .005), and treatment-related mortality declined from 19% to 12% (P = .025). Partial replacement of daunomycin with idarubicin in the 5-drug induction combination achieved a remission rate of 88%, similar to historical controls. Postremission survival was 56% in patients randomized to either 5-drug reinduction or fludarabine/cytarabine/idarubicin. For patients with or without a related donor, respective 5-year disease-free survival was 61% and 50% (P = .021); respective survival was 68% and 62% (P = .425). Donor availability conferred no benefit on those with inv(16) or t(8;21) cytogenetics. After cytarabine intensification, patients randomized to interleukin-2 or none experienced similar outcomes. Factors predictive of inferior survival were age more than 16 years, non-white ethnicity, absence of related donor, obesity, white blood cell count more than 100 000 x 10(9)/L, -7/7q-, -5/5q-, and/or complex karyotype. No new agent improved outcomes; experience may have contributed to better results time.


The modification of tubulin cystine and cystine residues to S-sulfocysteines caused a distinct separation of the alpha and beta subunits in a continuous sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel system. The well-separated subunit bands permitted investigation of the phosphorylation of alpha and beta tubulin subunits. The incubation of tubulin fraction with [gamma-32P]ATP demonstrated that both subunits were phosphorylated in vitro. The incorporation of 32-PO4 into sea urchin eggs, however, failed to cause phosphorylation of tubulin in vivo.


This study describes the development, administration, and results of an exploratory, 30item instrument to assess aspects of transformative learning attributable to an educational program. The instrument, TRansformative Outcomes and PrOcesses Scale (TROPOS), assesses four subscales associated with transformative learning: criticality, attitude toward uncertainty, social support, and transformative outcomes. Potential instrument items were derived from a literature review. A panel of experts evaluated these items for inclusion in the study. Study participants were alumni of the same master's degree program who graduated during the past 10 years, 2007-2016 (N=119). This study examined overall instrument reliability (α = 0.884) and subscale reliability; correlation between criticality and transformative outcomes was determined (r = 0.541) as well as by subscale; regression analysis was performed between transformative outcomes and the remaining three subscales (r = 0.593). Analysis found no statistically significant difference in alumni responses by year of graduation. Further analysis detected alumni in their 20's reported increased transformative outcomes scores relative to other age groups by decade (sig. = 0.021). Preliminary differences in subscale scores by gender emerged. TROPOS is intended to serve as an instrument for researchers to conduct replication studies to examine external validity and for researchers to propose new subscales to expand the instrument's scope. This study raises subtle questions concerning processes underlying transformative learning, particularly by indicating potential constraints in critical reflection's prominence as well as through reinforcing the potential for additional moderating or mediating constructs accounting for transformative learning outcomes.


And as it often happens in Iraq in times of internal turbulence, a general wave of looting swept the north. Assyrian villages were looted by Kurdish and Arab tribesmen and by neighbouring villages, with the Yezidis joining the Kurds and Arabs in this general free-for-all. Sixty Assyrian villages, according to Stafford, were looted in this way and completely or partially destroyed, resulting in a total estimated loss to the Assyrians of at least £50,000. Stafford, however, also records that there was not a single act of aggression against any Assyrian village until 8 August, even the defenceless villages of the men who had gone to Syria with Yaqu not being touched before this date.1 Still, some of the acts committed by the Iraqis subsequent to the attack on them and to their discovery of the atrocities committed by the Assyrians are nothing but black and terrible. But even these were to pale beside what was to happen at Summayl.


The present paper numerically investigates the micromagnetic behavior of permalloy nanostrips, starting from the space-time integration of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. The analysis is performed on objects with variable longitudinal size of the order of some hundreds of nanometers. The attention is focused on the role of geometrical properties (e.g., scaling factor and end shape) and of thermal agitation on magnetization reversal processes. The thermal effects are included in the model following the Langevin approach.


As one of the most promising hole-transporting materials for perovskite solar cells (PSC), NiO is widely used in the inverted p–i–n cell structure due to its high stability, decent hole conductivity, and easy processability for hysteresis-free cells. However, the efficiency of NiO-based PSCs is still low, due largely to the poor perovskite/NiO interface. Herein, a sulfur-doping strategy to modify NiO surface via ion exchange reaction by a simple and scalable chemical bath deposition technique is introduced, which greatly improves the photovoltaic (PV) performance of the derived devices. A systematic investigation is shown where sulfur doping leads to favorable interfacial energetics with a reduced V loss. Sulfur doping at the interface also improves the contact between NiO and perovksite and facilitates the formation of high-quality perovskite films. Carrier dynamics studies demonstrate reduced defect states and trap-assisted recombination with sulfur doping, which promote the PV performance of the devices. These merits contribute concurrently to low-loss charge transfer across the perovskite/NiO interface and facilitate charge transport through the perovskite films, leading to a high champion efficiency of 20.43% of the p–i–n structure solar cell devices.


In view of potential demand for skilled engineers and competent researchers in the biofuels field, we have identified a significant gap between advanced biofuels research and undergraduate biofuels education in chemical engineering. To help bridge this gap, we created educational materials that systematically integrate biofuels technologies into undergraduate chemical engineering curricula. The modular approach we used aims to address some of the major obstacles of introducing biofuels education into chemical engineering curricula, such as the lack of appropriate learning materials and challenge associated with adding new courses or changing curricula. Specifically, we create independent modular learning materials that are compatible with existing curricula for easy adoption, meaning that no new courses or textbooks changes are needed. An instructor can simply use the examples and problems provided by the modules to replace or supplement some of the textbook examples and homework problems. In addition, due to the complex nature of the many advanced biofuels processes and most students' limited exposure to biofuels, we have also created a series of web modules to accompany the classroom modules. Both classroom and web modules are publically available through the project website: www.BiofuelsAcademy.org. We present the project in a series of two papers: the current paper focuses on the motivations and basic ideas of the project, as well as the developed classroom modules and web modules; and the second paper focuses on the classroom implementation of the developed materials and project assessment.


After the decentralisation, water supply systems in several municipalities of Cochabamba department,
Bolivia are being managed by different local institutions. The main aim of this study was to make a
comparative evaluation of the sustainability of three water supply systems in Cochabamba, Quillacollo
and Tiquipaya municipalities of Cochabamba. Based on the results of extensive field data collection and
sustainability scoring system developed, technical, financial, social, institutional, and environmental
aspects of these three water supply systems were analysed. Sustainability analysis showed that SEMAPA
Cochabamba has the highest score in all sustainability aspects followed by COAPAT Tiquipaya and
EMAPAQUI Quillacolo. Furthermore, the technical aspect is the weakest in all the three water supply
systems. Lessons learnt from this study could be used to improve the sustainability of water supply
systems in these municipalities and would be helpful to analyse water supply situations in other
municipalities in Bolivia.


We leveraged chemical-induced changes to microwave signal propagation characteristics (i.e., S-parameters) to characterize the detection of aliphatic alcohol (methanol, ethanol, and 2-propanol) vapors using TCNQ-doped HKUST-1 metal-organic-framework films as the sensing material, at temperatures under 100 °C. We show that the sensitivity of aliphatic alcohol detection depends on the oxidation potential of the analyte, and the impedance of the detection setup depends on the analyte-loading of the sensing medium. The microwaves-based detection technique can also afford new mechanistic insights into VOC detection, with surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks (SURMOFs), which is inaccessible with the traditional coulometric (i.e., resistance-based) measurements.


This book is the first to focus specifically upon the relationship between refugees and intercultural transfer over an extensive period of time. Since circa 1830, a series of groups have made their way to Britain, beginning with exiles from the failed European revolutions of the mid-nineteenth century and ending with refugees who have increasingly come from beyond Europe. The book addresses four specific questions. First, what roles have individuals or groups of refugees played in cultural and political transfers to Britain since 1830? Second, can we identify a novel form of cultural production which differs from that in the homeland? Third, to what extent has dissemination within and transformation of the receiving culture occurred? Fourth, to what extent do refugee groups, themselves, undergo a process of cultural restructuring? The coverage of the individual essays ranges from high culture, through politics and everyday practices. The volume moves away from general perceptions of refugees as 'problem groups' and rather focuses on the way they have shaped, and indeed enriched, British cultural and political life. This book was previously published as a special issue of Immigrants and Minorities.


TO THE EDITOR: With the increasing use of sugammadex owing to its advantages, there have been increasing reports on catastrophic adverse events, such as anaphylaxis, severe bradycardia, and cardiac arrest. We read with interest the paper titled "Sugammadex associated profound bradycardia and sustained hypotension in patient with the slow recovery of neuromuscular blockade-A case report." We have some points that we would like to discuss. The post-tetanic count (PTC) mode of stimulation was created to evaluate the intensity of the neuromuscular blockade when no twitch response was present in the train-of-four (TOF) stimulation. After applying PTC stimulation, it takes at least 10 min to obtain a response to an accurate TOF stimulation [1]. The result showing a PTC of 10 and a TOF count (TOFc) of 0 simultaneously may indicate inaccurate monitoring of the neuromuscular function for the intensity and interval of the PTC nerve stimulation. In cases of a PTC of 10 and TOFc of 0, how much sugammadex should be administered? Is the sugammadex dose of 2.667 mg/kg (200 mg) for a body weight of 75 kg sufficient? [2,3]. As the authors described in the Discussion section, the incidence of side effects following the use of sugammadex would depend on the dose [3,4]. The patient had already developed profound bradycardia as a side effect of sugammadex. However, the authors administered a second sugammadex dose of 200 mg. What was the rationale behind this second dose? As the authors mentioned in the Discussion section, anticholinesterase is probably safer. In this case, waiting for a natural recovery of the neuromuscular function might have been safer.


In the case of fuzzy strength and fuzzy stress, it is difficult to obtain the accuracy fuzzy reliability since the membership function of fuzzy safety event is not known. A method for calculating the bounds of fuzzy reliability is proposed to determine this problem. Firstly, fuzzy strength and fuzzy stress are remodeled into random sets. Then, the limit state function of a structure with fuzzy strength and fuzzy stress is mapped into a random set by using the extension principle of random set. Finally, two limit cumulative distribution functions of fuzzy safety event are calculated and are used as the upper and lower bounds of fuzzy reliability. An example is given and it shows that the proposed method is effective when the theory of fuzzy probability proposed by Zadeh can not be directly used to calculate the fuzzy reliability with fuzzy strength and fuzzy stress.


SUMMARY Circular orientation cages have been used for several decades to record the migratory orientation of passerine migrants, and have been central to the investigation of the functional characteristics of the biological compasses used for orientation. The use of these cages offers unique possibilities to study the migratory behaviour of songbirds, but suffers from statistical limitations in evaluating the directions of the activity recorded in the cages. The migratory activity has been reported to vary, including complex multimodal orientation of migratory passerines tested in orientation cages irrespective of species studied. The currently applied circular statistical methods fail to describe orientation responses differing from unimodal and axial distributions. We propose for the first time a modelling procedure enabling the analysis of multimodal distributions at either an individual or a group level. In this paper we compare the results of conventional methods and the recommended modelling approach. Migratory routes may be more complex than a simple migratory direction, and multimodal behaviour in migratory species at the individual and population levels can be advantageous. Individuals may select the expected migratory direction, but may also return to safer sites en route, i.e. sites already known, which provide food and/or shelter in reverse directions. In individual birds, several directions may be expressed in the same test hour. At the species level, multimodal orientation may give an opportunity to expand the range or may refer to differential migration route preferences in different populations of birds. A conflicting experimental situation may also result in a different preferential orientation. In this paper we suggest a statistical solution to deal with these types of variations in orientation preference.


The problem of overburdening is increasing among informal caregivers. Some attention has been paid to relationship factors, positive effects of caregiving, and coping strategies in relation to caregivers' perceived burdens, as these factors might make valuable contributions. The aim of this study was to thoroughly explore the views, experiences, and interpretations of informal caregivers with regard to these factors, who lived in the southernmost part of the Netherlands. In this qualitative case study design, 26 informal caregivers were interviewed using a semistructured questionnaire. The respondents indicated that having a good relationship with the care recipient, experiencing positive effects of providing care, and using coping strategies reduced their burden. In the future, longitudinal research is warranted to determine the actual contribution of these factors.


This thesis explores the material, cultural, and political significance of the Enfield rifle in the British Empire from c. 1850 to 1870. Unravelling the weapon's links with imperial ideology and violence, it argues that the Enfield helped to produce discourses of race, gender, and civilisation during this era. Furthermore, it contends that these discourses shaped the ways in which Britons viewed the Enfield and influenced how they saw themselves. The rifle is best known for its well-chronicled role in the 1857 Indian Rebellion, where it was central to British narratives of the conflict. While acknowledging the Indian context, this thesis aims to draw the Enfield deeper into debates about British imperial culture, comparing the rifle's physical and discursive influence across a range of imperial spaces.  The Enfield rifle was one of the most important weapons of the nineteenth century. The product of a revolution in rifle technology, it amazed the British public and military with its accuracy and range. The weapon's invention prompted the introduction of large scale factory production techniques in Britain. It also stimulated a massive rethinking of military tactics and was a central component of the militarisation of British society during the 1850s and 1860s. The Enfield then had extensive use in conflicts including the Crimean War, the Indian Rebellion, the New Zealand Wars, and the American Civil War. It also found a home in the burgeoning Volunteer Movement in Britain and New Zealand.  Through its use in these arenas, the Enfield had a considerable physical impact on the British Empire, but it had even greater discursive significance. During the 1850s and 1860s, discussions about the Enfield's invention, production, and usage promoted ideas of rationality, modern science, and individualism. After the 1857 Indian Rebellion, the rifle came to epitomise British technological might and racial 'superiority' in the minds of Victorians. The Volunteer Force, established in 1859, embraced the Enfield as its weapon of choice and conceived of it as a weapon that embodied the Force's values of skill, education and respectability. In the New Zealand Wars however, the rifle failed to bring the decisive victories many settlers expected, and they began to disparage the weapon as a result. Nevertheless, the Enfield was still deeply implicated in the contested process of colonisation in New Zealand. Ultimately, the Enfield's role in these events transformed the weapon into a deeply raced and gendered object.


This paper introduces the concept of PsychoPhysio-Signal Processing (PPSP), which may partially combine psychology (e.g. psycho-physiology, neuro-psychology), urology, bio- engineering, applied mathematics (e.g. data analysis), and signal processing techniques to be helpful for design, model, manufacture, and analyze of theoretical and experimental systems for (human) sexual behaviors. For example, a real-time system is introduced to automatically detect movement artifacts existing in vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA) measures to eliminate time-consuming handy artifact removing.


Context. Understanding the initial properties of star forming material and how they affect the star formation process is a key question. The infalling gas must redistribute most of its initial angular momentum inherited from prestellar cores before reaching the central stellar embryo. Disk formation has been naturally considered as a possible solution to this "angular momentum problem". However, how the initial angular momentum of protostellar cores is distributed and evolves during the main accretion phase and the beginning of disk formation has largely remained unconstrained up to now.
Aims. In the framework of the IRAM CALYPSO survey, we obtained observations of the dense gas kinematics that we used to quantify the amount and distribution of specific angular momentum at all scales in collapsing-rotating Class 0 protostellar envelopes.
Methods. We used the high dynamic range C18O (2−1) and N2H+ (1−0) datasets to produce centroid velocity maps and probe the rotational motions in the sample of 12 envelopes from scales ~50 to ~5000 au.
Results. We identify differential rotation motions at scales ≲1600 au in 11 out of the 12 protostellar envelopes of our sample by measuring the velocity gradient along the equatorial axis, which we fit with a power-law model v ∝ rα. This suggests that coherent motions dominate the kinematics in the inner protostellar envelopes. The radial distributions of specific angular momentum in the CALYPSO sample suggest the following two distinct regimes within protostellar envelopes: the specific angular momentum decreases as j ∝ r1.6±0.2 down to ~1600 au and then tends to become relatively constant around ~6 × 10−4 km s−1 pc down to ~50 au.
Conclusions. The values of specific angular momentum measured in the inner Class 0 envelopes suggest that material directly involved in the star formation process (<1600 au) has a specific angular momentum on the same order of magnitude as what is inferred in small T-Tauri disks. Thus, disk formation appears to be a direct consequence of angular momentum conservation during the collapse. Our analysis reveals a dispersion of the directions of velocity gradients at envelope scales >1600 au, suggesting that these gradients may not be directly related to rotational motions of the envelopes. We conclude that the specific angular momentum observed at these scales could find its origin in other mechanisms, such as core-forming motions (infall, turbulence), or trace an imprint of the initial conditions for the formation of protostellar cores.


Objective The aims of this study were to describe the characteristics of women presenting with mesh-related complications and evaluate postoperative quality of life, sexual functioning, and patient-perceived outcomes. Methods This institutional review board–approved study included a retrospective chart review and a cross-sectional follow-up with validated questionnaires. Demographics and medical histories were collected from charts of women treated for mesh-related complaints between 2010 and 2014. Subjects completed follow-up validated questionnaires regarding health, sexual functioning, postoperative symptom improvement/severity, satisfaction, and regret with the decision to pursue treatment. Results Ninety-three charts were analyzed. Mean subject age was 55 years, median body mass index was 28.7 kg/m2, and median time from mesh placement to presentation was 2.7 years. Forty-nine had midurethral sling mesh only, 30 had prolapse-related mesh, and 14 had both. Forty-two subjects (48.9%) had mesh exposures, 19 involving prolapse-related mesh (52.4% transvaginal and 47.4% sacrocolpopexy). Surgical revisions were most often for exposure and pain. Seventy-five women were reached for follow-up; 71 agreed to participate, 53 (75%) returned the questionnaires. Thirty had sling revision, 22 had prolapse mesh revision, and 1 had both. Questionnaire results revealed no changes in health or sexual function after treatment. Postoperatively, subjects reported symptom improvement, low symptom severity, as well as high satisfaction and low regret with the decision to pursue surgical intervention. Conclusions Women with mesh complications presented 2 years after initial placement, most often complaining of exposure or pain/dyspareunia. Although no changes in health or sexual functioning were noted postoperatively, participants reported symptom improvement after revision and satisfaction with the decision to pursue treatment.


This article examines the interpretation of the Goncourt narrative Madame Gervaisais : in the eyes of Zola, this mystical novel - to use Edmond's terms - is a work on hysteria. However, the mysticism of Madame Gervaisais, complacently evoked in the fiction as a sexual awakening favored by the Roman climate, is present, if we are to believe what Edmond's Journal says about it, in the writing process itself. Indeed, Edmond evokes Jules, relentlessly elaborating the style artiste of the novel to the point of experiencing it as if it were religious ecstasy. Hence the A. hypothesis : Madame Gervaisais's mysticism, which the author suggests is an unhappy consequence of this woman's sexual repression, functions as a metaphor for the stylistic activity of the artist author that Jules embodies. Madame Gervaisais inscribes itself, then, in a tension between scientific aspiration (and inspiration) on the one hand, and its autobiographical aspect, on the other, from whence results the ambivalence of this novel : simultaneously diagnosis (of the mystical madness of a woman) and symptom (of the artistic madness of a writer)


A tunable-diode laser operating in the 2120–2350-cm−1 wave-number region is used to probe a conventional cw N2O laser discharge. Absorption lines in more than 10 different vibrational bands are observed, enabling us to determine vibrational populations in all levels of concern to the dynamics of the 10-μm N2O laser. The populations in the three normal modes of vibration of N2O are found to follow Boltzmann distributions, with the ν1 and ν2 modes maintaining a common vibrational temperature under all discharge conditions. The factors limiting the small-signal 10-μm gain are investigated in detail, and it is found that electron deexcitation of the 00°1 level is much more important than N2O dissociation.


We generalize the notion of hidden conformal symmetry in Kerr/CFT to Kerr-(A)dS black holes in arbitrary dimensions.
We build the SL(2, R) generators directly from the Killing tower, whose Killing tensors and Killing vectors enforce the separability of the equations of motion.
Our construction amounts to an explicit relationship between hidden conformal symmetries and Killing tensors: we use the Killing tower to build a novel tensor equation connecting the SL(2,R) Casimir with the radial Klein-Gordon operator. For asymptotically flat black holes in four and five dimensions we recover previously known results that were obtained using the ``near-region'' limit and the monodromy method.
We then perform a monodromy evaluation of the Klein-Gordon scalar wave equation for all Kerr-(A)dS black holes, finding explicit forms for the zero mode symmetry generators.
We also extend this analysis to the large-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole as a step towards buliding a Large-D/CFT correspondence.


Events industry plays an important role in nowadays economy and can have a substantial impact for a successful business; in addition, sustainability-oriented tourism is becoming an important component of development and planning of a tourist destination. Thus, organizing sustainability-oriented events is crucial and should focus on the zero waste event management and consider as many elements of sustainable development as possible. The same stands for organizing sports events. The aim of this paper was to find out to which level the organizers of existing sports events in Slovenia are taking into account different domains of sustainable development. Answering to a common questionnaire the organizers gave us a feedback considering four main areas: environmental, social, cultural, and economic criteria. The plan was to determine the level of sustainability of three sports events and compare them to each other according to the outstanding areas as well as to draw the attention to the importance of organizing sustainability-oriented sports events and minimizing negative effects of those. Since the field of research is complex, dynamic, and has an interdisciplinary character the results were attained using the DEX software which supports a qualitative approach and allows the modelling of complex decision-making processes with a large number of parameters and alternatives. Such methodology enables the input of a preliminary set of sustainability criteria and can be used as a support when deciding on the evaluation of sustainability of events in general.


In this study, we examined the mechanism by which bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cells induced hyperreactivity of the trachea in vitro. As both interleukin-5 (IL-5) and substance P (SP) appeared to be involved, the effect of these mediators was examined in vivo. Tracheae were incubated with BAL cells from ovalbumin or saline challenged animals, and from naive animals, in the absence or presence of either IL-5, SP, or both. In addition, the effect of intra-airway application of IL-5, SP, both, or vehicle on tracheal hyperreactivity was examined. Incubation of tracheae with BAL cells from ovalbumin challenged animals induced an increase (30 +/- 10%) in the maximal response to histamine. The hyperreactivity could be completely inhibited by co-incubation with 5-lipoxygenase inhibitor, AA861. The hyperreactivity could be mimicked by incubation of tracheae with BAL cells from naive animals in the presence of IL-5 and SP. After in vivo administration of either IL-5 or SP, maximal responses to histamine were increased and amounted to 105 +/- 35 and 101 +/- 37%, respectively. Administration of IL-5 but not SP induced a significant increase in the number of eosinophils (67 +/- 22%) and eosinophil peroxidase (EPO) activity (94 +/- 33%) in BAL cells. The simultaneous administration of IL-5 and SP did not potentiate the hyperreactivity and eosinophilia observed with IL-5 alone. These data suggest that IL-5 is important in the recruitment of eosinophils, whereas both IL-5 and substance P are involved in the induction of airway hyperreactivity.


The public-oriented goals of the open government movement promise increased transparency and accountability of governments, enhanced citizen engagement and participation, improved service delivery, economic development and the stimulation of innovation. In part, these goals are to be achieved by making more and more government information public in reusable formats and under open licences. This paper identifies three broad privacy challenges raised by open government. The first is how to balance privacy with transparency and accountability in the context of "public" personal information. The second challenge flows from the disruption of traditional approaches to privacy based on a collapse of the distinctions between public and private sector actors. The third challenge is that of the potential for open government data—even if anonymized—to contribute to the big data environment in which citizens and their activities are increasingly monitored and profiled.


This brief presents a 10-bit 100-MS/s 1.2-V dual-channel pipelined CMOS analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The nine dual-channel pipelined stages share the operational amplifiers (op-amps) to optimize power and area. The proposed dynamic memory effect cancellation technique reduces the cross coupling caused by the residual charge in the op-amp sharing topology. The op-amp gain requirement of the dual-channel sample-and-hold circuit is also relaxed by the proposed memory effect cancellation technique. The prototype ADC achieves a peak signal-to-noise and distortion ratio of 56 dB for a 1-MHz input signal and a peak cross-coupling ratio of 67.4 dB at 100 MS/s while consuming 16.2 mW/channel from a 1.2-V supply. The prototype ADC occupies 1.96 mm2 using a 0.13-μm CMOS technology.


Background Pharmacist interventions are important to improve patient safety, avoid physicians prescriptions errors and reduce unnecessary expenses. Electronic assisted prescription is a differential factor to document pharmaceutical interventions, and to analyse their distribution and acceptability quickly and easily. Purpose To assess clinical pharmacist interventions made using a computerised physician order entry system (CPOE) for hospital patients and physicians' acceptance after electronic assisted prescription implementation. Material and methods A retrospective study of pharmaceutical interventions was conducted over 9 months (January 2016 to September 2016) after implementation of electronic assisted prescriptions. Differences between original prescriptions and pharmaceutical recommendations were reported to the physicians using the Farmatools application from CPOE. Types of recommendations, medical departments, pharmacotherapeutic group of drug involved, degree of acceptance and type of accepted pharmaceutical interventions were recorded. Results There were 863 pharmaceutical interventions. Withdrawal treatments proposals were 430 (49.8%): 378 (43.8%) for excessive treatment duration, 23 (2.7%) for therapeutic duplications, 22 (2.5%) according to an antibiogram, 5 (0.6%) for allergies and 2 (0.2%) for other reasons. There were 152 (17.6%) suggestions for therapy change: 83 (9.6%) according to an antibiogram, 41 (4.8%) for interactions, 21 (2.4%) according to therapeutic protocol change and 7 (0.8%) for others causes. Dose adjustment interventions were 133 (15.4%), due to 82 (9.5%) overdosing, 29 (3.4%) renal insufficiency and 22 (2.5%) under dosing. Proposals for modifying administration frequency were 117 (13.5%). Pharmaceutical interventions were detected in internal medicine (37.4%), surgery (10.3%) and pneumology (9.7%) departments, among others. Antimicrobials were the most frequent therapeutic group involved in recommendations (52.3%), followed by haematopoietic drugs (12%) and cardiovascular drugs (11.8%). There were 401 (46.5%) interventions accepted by physicians, 449 (52%) not accepted proposals and the rest were not evaluable. The most accepted suggestions were 158 (41.7%) treatment withdrawals for excessive duration, followed by 47 (57.3%) overdosage adjustment and 33 (39.7%) therapy change according to an antibiogram. Conclusion Almost half of the pharmaceutical interventions were withdrawal treatment proposals. Excessive duration was the main reason for suggesting withdrawal of treatment. The most frequent recommendations were recorded for the internal medicine and surgery departments. More than half of the interventions involved antimicrobials drugs. About half of the proposals were accepted. The most frequently accepted interventions were withdrawal of treatments due to excessive duration. No conflict of interest


The hybrid spectral problem where the field satisfies Dirichlet conditions (D) on part of the boundary of the relevant domain and Neumann (N) on the remainder is discussed in simple terms. A conjecture for the C 1 coefficient is presented and the conformal determinant on a 2-disc, where the D and N regions are semicircles , is derived. Comments on higher coefficients are made.


Because people tend to compare themselves with others from their own surroundings, even a person rich in absolute terms can feel poor in relative terms, if people from their reference group are richer. This phenomenon is called relative deprivation. Farmers in developed economies claim to be poor, because they compare themselves not with farmers from poor economies, but rather with other members of their own society who work outside of agriculture and whose incomes are usually higher. Feeling relatively deprived, farmers in developed economies demand stronger financial support and act intensively to convince policymakers to support them. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the relation between relative deprivation of farmers and support for farmers in countries with different development levels. Results of this study prove that levels of support for farmers are positively related with the average level of relative deprivation of farmers dependent on the size of farmer groups. Hence the idea of relative deprivation might provide additional political explanation of different levels of support for farmers in countries with different development levels.


Various forms of auxiliary information are being sought to augment survey samples and adjust for possible nonresponse bias in key survey estimates. Auxiliary data options are typically limited in most general population surveys and there are questions concerning their utility for nonresponse bias evaluation and adjustment. Federal administrative databases provide a potentially rich source of auxiliary information for nonresponse purposes, but linking them to general population samples is usually restricted to surveys which draw their samples from population registers containing unique personal identity numbers which can be directly linked to federal databases containing more detailed substantive information. In this article, we examine the quality and selectivity of augmenting a federal administrative database to a general population survey when such a unique personal identifier is not available. We employ a series of standard linkage procedures that rely instead on non-unique and error-prone identifiers collected from the sampling frame to link a federal employment database to a general population survey in Germany. The quality and selectivity of the established links are evaluated using household- and person-level interview data in accordance with German data protection laws. We report a linkage rate of 60 percent for the entire sample under a strict linkage criterion, and 80 percent under a more relaxed criterion. We find that linkage rates vary across some household- and person-level characteristics that are likely specific to the particular administrative database used in this case study. We conclude with a general discussion of the practical implications of this work for survey organizations considering performing similar linkages and highlight some opportunities for future research.


Objective This study probes into site-specific cancer mortality inequalities by employment and occupational group among Belgians, adjusted for other indicators of socioeconomic (SE) position. Design This cohort study is based on record linkage between the Belgian censuses of 1991 and 2001 and register data on emigration and mortality for 01/10/2001 to 31/12/2011. Setting Belgium. Participants The study population contains all Belgians within the economically active age (25–65 years) at the census of 1991. Outcome measures Both absolute and relative measures were calculated. First, age-standardised mortality rates have been calculated, directly standardised to the Belgian population. Second, mortality rate ratios were calculated using Poisson's regression, adjusted for education, housing conditions, attained age, region and migrant background. Results This study highlights inequalities in site-specific cancer mortality, both related to being employed or not and to the occupational group of the employed population. Unemployed men and women show consistently higher overall and site-specific cancer mortality compared with the employed group. Also within the employed group, inequalities are observed by occupational group. Generally manual workers and service and sales workers have higher site-specific cancer mortality rates compared with white-collar workers and agricultural and fishery workers. These inequalities are manifest for almost all preventable cancer sites, especially those cancer sites related to alcohol and smoking such as cancers of the lung, oesophagus and head and neck. Overall, occupational inequalities were less pronounced among women compared with men. Conclusions Important SE inequalities in site-specific cancer mortality were observed by employment and occupational group. Ensuring financial security for the unemployed is a key issue in this regard. Future studies could also take a look at other working regimes, for instance temporary employment or part-time employment and their relation to health.


79 year old lady with newly diagnosed lung adenocarcinoma which was felt to be operable. She underwent a PET/CT which showed localised disease in the lung, but also highlighted several cutaneous lesions. She was referred to dermatology for diagnosis and biopsy to exclude cutaneous deposits of tumour. There was a past history of a previous lung adenocarcinoma excised in 2015. Examination showed several wart-like, papillomatous lesions to the skin, not typical of secondary deposits of tumour. Shave biopsy of a representative lesion was taken and histology showed a benign squamous papilloma. At review in oncology, the remaining lesions had completely resolved a few weeks later. There have been case reports of benign lesions showing unexpected FDG uptake. This case highlights the phenomenon and the need to obtain timely tissue diagnosis to prevent potentially life-saving treatment such as surgery in this case.


Anther culture is one of technological breakthrough in producing homozygous lines, which is an important genetic resource in plant breeding programs. Response of anther in various regeneration media is one of important basic information in developing anther culture method. The objective of this research was to investigate callus formation and evaluate the potential of using this cultivar in developing anther culture of anthurium. Anthers, yellow and reddish callus derived from anther culture of A. andreanum cv. Carnaval were used in the study. Eight regeneration media i.e. MMS + (1) 0.5 mg/l TDZ + 0.01 mg/l NAA,( 2)  0.5 mg/l TDZ + 0.05 mg/l NAA, (3) 1.0 mg/l TDZ + 0.01 mg/l NAA, (4) 1.5 mg/l TDZ + 0.02 mg/l NAA, (5) 1.0 mg/l 2,4-D + 1.5 mg/l TDZ + 0.01 mg/l NAA,(6) 0.75 mg/l 2,4-D + 2.0 mg/l TDZ + 0.05 mg/l NAA, (7) 0.75 mg/l 2,4-D + 1.0 mg/l TDZ + 1.0 mg/l BAP + 0.01 mg/l NAA, and (8) 0.25 mg/l 2,4-D + 1.5 mg/l TDZ + 0.75 mg/l BAP +0.02 mg/l NAA for yellow and reddish callus were investigated in this research. Factorial experiment was arranged in randomized complete block design with four replications. Results of this study indicated that callus formation was startedat ± 2.7 month after culture and observable by 3.5 month after culture. Average number of callus per anther was 3.6 per replication. Reddish callus grew faster than the yellow one. The callus cultured in MMS with 0.02 mg/l NAA gave high results of shoot initiation time , number of shoots primordia per explant, and average height of shoot primordial i.e. 8.5week, 10.8, and 0.78 cm respectively. Keywords:  Anther culture, callus formation and regeneration, and medium


Broad band THz radiation has great protential application in wireless communications due to the following features: high data transfer rate, good directionality, high safety, low scattering, high transmittance, and so on. However, many technical problems, such as how to avoid absorption by water vapor and finding the most promising windows of transparency, need to be resolved. In this paper we review several key techniques and latest achievements in the research on long-path THz transmission through the atmosphere. Future trends and application prospects are also discussed.


We report studies on magnetization dynamics in NiO nanoparticles of average size 5 nm. Temperature and time dependence of dc magnetization, wait time dependence of magnetic relaxation (aging) and memory phenomena in the dc magnetization are studied with various temperature and field protocols. We observe that the system shows memory and aging in field cooled and zero field cooled magnetization measurements. These experiments show that the magnetic behavior of NiO nanoparticles is similar to spin glasses. We argue that the spin glass behavior originates from the freezing of spins at the surface of the individual particles.


Two new analyses for a single-stage limiter were presented; one is an analytic approach based on the approximation of the voltage waveforms of a p-i-n diode in the limiter, while the other models the p-i-n diode by a p-n diode. The analytic expressions resulting from the analytic approach explicitly show the role of the diode parameters on the limiter performances, which can be used as a guide to select adequate p-i-n diodes for the limiter. The two analyses were verified using the large-signal p-i-n diode model developed by measurements. Our analysis was then extended to multistage limiters. Based on our analysis, we designed and fabricated a limiter with an insertion loss of 1.3 dB and a flat leakage of 11.7 dBm for a Ku-band input power of 20 W.


In the industry, it is a common practice to estimate continuous permeability by establishing a porosity-permeability relationship (poroperm) from conventional core analysis. For each new oilfield, core data is required to build a permeability model for this particular field. Due to reservoir heterogeneity, core derived poroperm can sometimes lead to biased predictions. This is particularly true for oilfields where core samples are scarce or provide a poor coverage of the reservoirs. Improving the accuracy of permeability models in these oilfields is key to better productivity estimation in the oilfield development planning.
 In 1984, Hearn et al. first proposed the concept of flow unit while studying Shannon reservoir in HartogDraw oilfield, Wyoming, USA. Since Hearn put forward the concept of reservoir flow unit, various Electrofacies classification methods have been proposed by different scholars (Hearn et al. 1984). Generally they can be divided into two categories. One is geological research method, which mainly uses geological cuttings and routine core analysis to calculate flow zone index (FZI) for reservoir classification (Xinlei et al. 2017; Elphick et al. 1999; Kohonen et al. 1982). This method improves the accuracy of permeability evaluation to a certain extent, but it mainly relies on routine core analysis data. Due to poor ductility, this method has certain limitations in the classification of uncored reservoirs. The other is the relatively popular artificial intelligence technology in the oil industry in recent years. With the rapid development of computer hardware, artificial intelligence as a new technology is becoming more and more popular. In particular, the machine learning algorithm represented by neural network has a long history in petroleum industry technology, which solves many problems in petroleum specialty and is favored by many petroleum engineers. Machine learning classifies electrofacies mainly by clustering analysis of logging curves through mathematical algorithms such as neural network classification, K-nearest neighbor classification (KNN) and Multi-Resolution Graph based Clustering (MRGC), and then the corresponding relationship between electrofacies and lithofacies is established by combining core analysis and cutting data. Since this method is based on continuous well logs, it has strong extensibility and is easy to learn from uncored wells (Xinlei et al. 2017).
 In this paper, we describe a novel workflow that predicts continuous permeability from conventional well logs, based on Electrofacies classification and core data collected in multiple oilfields. In this method, firstly, the MRGC is used to classify electrofacies of the logging curves in coring sections. Secondly, KNN algorithm is used to learn the results of electrofacies classification into uncored sections. Finally, the permeability model based on the electrofacies constraint is established. Compared with the neural network classification, the MRGC has the advantages of fast operation speed and stable operation results. The Neighbor Index (NI) parameter in the algorithm can quickly classify the sample data, and the Kernel Representative Index (KRI) parameter can select the optimal class from the results of multiple classifications(Yunjiang et al. 2018; Ting et al. 2018). Our study area consists of 13 oilfields with the same depositional environment and mineralogy. As a result, well log responses in these oilfields have similar characteristics. A total of 2122 core samples were collected in these oilfields and triple combo well logs are also available in the same wells.
 Based on routine core analysis and log feature analysis, we divide log responses into 6 electrofacies. Permeability models are then established for each electrofacies using core data and are used to make predictions in new wells without any core data. Using the proposed idea, we re-estimated the permeability and productivity in a producer well in the study area. The facies constrained permeability shows a much better match with core measurement compared to conventional methods. As a result of the improved permeability, the productivity index calculated by the workflow matches that estimated by the Drill Stem Test (DST).