Endotracheal tube cuff volume and pressure require constant monitoring to prevent tracheal injury. Acquired tracheoesophageal fistula is common from complications of mechanical ventilation as a result of pressured necrosis of the tracheoesophageal wall by endotracheal tube cuff. It still represents a life-threatening condition, especially when the diagnosis is being delayed. We present our modest experience through an acquired TEF patient who had an excessively enlarged cuff diameter on chest radiogram in order to consider the potential of using radiological-measured cuff diameter as a simple technique for predicting tracheal damages. Although the cuff pressure was monitored with a manometer by the medical team, it was possible that the tube cuff was excessively enlarged. Proper procedures for preventing the tracheal damage by cuffs include the following: monitoring of endotracheal cuff pressure and volume, observation of cuff size on the chest radiogram, and being mindful and attentive for possibilities of misjudgements by manometer or medical teams.


Growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at low temperature is very important to the applications of nanotubes. In this paper, under the catalytic effect of cobalt nanoparticles supported by SiO2, CNTs were synthesized by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MWPCVD) below 500°C. It demonstrates that MWPCVD can be a very efficient process for the synthesis of CNTs at low temperature.


: Studies of vertical profiles of phytoplankton in the field combined with laboratory experi- ments demonstrated that reduction in phytoplankton concentrations in the near-bottom water layer, 5 to 10 cm in thickness on calm days, may play a significant role for the filter-feeding polychaete Nereis diversicolorin realizing its grazing capacity (estimated at 13.8 m3 m-' d-l in the shallow bay of Kertinge Nor, Denmark, in July 1994). Field-growth experiments were performed with worms transferred to U-shaped glass tubes placed at different heights (0, 4, 10 and 20 cm) above the seafloor. A considerably reduced specific growth rate of worms at the sea floor (0.2 * 1.1 'L d-l), compared to worms elevated just 10 cm above the sediment surface (2.5 k 0.8'Y" d.'), indicdtes that extremely meagre food cond~tions may be prevailing at the bottom. Experimental laboratory data on the development of vertical algal cell profiles were compared with predicted values obtained by means of a simple diffusion model. describes a boundary over through


We presented a 72-year-old male patient with a massive pulmonary artery tumor thrombosis (PATT) of 5.8 cm in diameter originating from two huge unresectable hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC, 8.3 and 5.5 cm) and multiple pulmonary metastases (PM). The patient was treated by percutaneous thermal ablation, and complete response was achieved. No severe complication was found during the treatment course. After a 6-year follow-up period for the primary HCC and a 14-month follow-up period for the PATT, no tumor progression was identified. The relevant literatures were presented and discussed. In conclusion, percutaneous ablation was a safe and effective treatment of PATT, as well as advanced HCC.


In this short series of articles we will be looking at popular culture and how we engage with it in early years settings. For example, do we turn our nose up at Peppa Pig books, or do we embrace them?


UNLABELLED
We treated a cohort of 116 patients with prostate cancer with three-dimensional conformal hypofractionated radiotherapy to a total dose of 52.8 Gy in 16 fractions (3.3 Gy per fraction). The correlation between acute and late gastrointestinal (GI) and genitourinary (GU) toxicity and dose-volume parameters was analysed. Comparison of observed incidence of toxicity and normal tissue complication probability calculated from dose-volume histograms (DVH) of all patients using radiobiological Lyman-Kutcher-Burman model was performed. The results of our study suggest that acute gastrointestinal toxicity ≥ grade 2 (G2) is the significant predictor of late toxicity ≥ G2 (p=0.006). Observed incidence of acute and late GI toxicities ≥ G2 was 9.7% and 11.5%, respectively. NTCPs of acute and late GI complications ≥ G2 were 11.3% and 2.5%. Observed incidence of late GU toxicity ≥ G2 was 14.2%, NTCP was 0.8%. Comparison of calculated probability of acute GI toxicity ≥ G2 and observed incidence indicates that parameters of radiobiological models are set appropriately. Comparison of observed incidence of late GI and GU complications ≥ G2 and calculated NTCPs shows the need of refinement of LKB model parameters for acute and late GI and GU complications ≥ G2.

KEYWORDS
prostate cancer, radiotherapy, acute and late toxicity, radiobiological modeling.


Purpose - E-Government, introduced in African countries under the banner of New Public Management (NPM), is envisaged to fundamentally aid in improving governance in developing countries. The imported model of EGovernment is therefore transferred to African countries as a panacea to bad governance by carriers such as international donor agencies, consultants, Information Technology vendors and Western-trained civil servants. Improved governance is expected to impact on the socio-economic development of these countries implementing E-Government, as an NPM instrument. This article recognizes that E-Government success, which is critically dependent on the World Wide Web, requires success frameworks that are context-dependent. This paper presents a framework for building E-Government infrastructures (NECE) in transition economies such as those in Africa. The above framework is based on a number different literatures sources and frameworks. It synthesizes literature sources on frameworks of nomadic information environments and those with a specific focus on E-Government as an E-Transformation response to the digital divide. The framework recognizes that the key technological drivers that underlie the development of computing technology are mobility, digital convergence, and mass scale. Dubbed the NECE (Nomadic E-Government Co-Evolutionary) framework, the critical dimensions focus attention on the macro level of building of Flexible Infrastructures; the meso level building of Nomadic Networks and the micro level building of Confident Communities. The critical linkages at the various levels focus on having in place the social, human resources, digital and physical resources that are necessary for addressing social exclusion of E-Government in developing countries. The new conceptualization of e-government presented in the NECE framework can be seen to have some practical implications. The NECE framework lays emphasis on the building an e-government infrastructure which is linked to the presence of various resources, which on the surface do not appear remotely connected to e-government. The conceptualization advocated for in the NECE framework recognizes that e-government is not only a technology solution, but also a social system that elevates the need for empowered individuals, communities and whole societies through the building of social, human, digital and physical resources. Thus the adoption of e-government should pay attention to the 'localities' within which the artifact is finding expression and that it is difficult to achieve successful implementation as long as it remains foreign and a myth.


Doctors too often say "no" or "don't know" to pregnant women who ask whether they can take certain drugs when pregnant because of a lack of evidence on the drugs' safety and effectiveness, an editorial in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin has said.1

The number of "indirect" deaths of new mothers in the United Kingdom—where pregnancy worsens a new or pre-existing medical or mental health problem—has almost doubled over the past 20 years and now exceeds the number of deaths directly caused by pregnancy by 50%, it said. The figures show that in 1985-7 there were 139 direct deaths (6.1 per 100 000 pregnancies) and …


A simple and convenient method of reducing monosaccharide assay is proposed. A Si(IV)–Mo(VI) solution (pH 4.9) was yellow due to the formation of the 11- and/or 12-molybdosilicate(VI) anions. By the addition of a reducing saccharide, glucosamine, the mixture turned to blue gradually, indicating that the Mo(VI) species was reduced by the saccharide to form a blue molybdosilicate anion. The molybdenum blue formation occurred more quickly when a water-miscible organic solvent, dimethyl sulfoxide, was added to the Si(IV)–Mo(VI) solution. Thus, 0.01% level glucosamine can be determined colorimetrically with microtiter plate. Oligochitosan would not interfere with the determination of the glucosamine at the same concentration. Also, a remarkable blue color development of the Si(VI)–Mo(VI) solution was observed by the addition of glucose. On the other hand, maltose, cellobiose, and water-soluble starch at the same concentration level gave no significant coloration of the reaction mixture. Thus, the present monosaccharide assay can be applied advantageously to evaluate the saccharification to produce glucosamine and glucose.


Anxiety is to gridlock that was not clear and spread, which relate to feeling not certain and not helpless. Many women's health is worried about her beby, feeling uneasy and guilty that she feels after giving birth to her first child because her own more attention to her beby. To take care of beby was not a difficult but often mother Primipara have concern in fostering baby. According to data collection that will be done at the end of 2012 in the community health center sukorejo Bangsalsari obtained 840 mother giving birth, consisting of 420 mother multipara and mother primipara. In The month of October survey in 2013 mother were obtained from 18 primipara that gave birt to take care of her beby, in both bathe, treat umbilical cord and giving water mother's milk less true. The aim of the research is to know the picture high anxiety mothers primipara in the care newly born baby in the community Health Center Sukorejo sub-district Bangsalsari Jember Regency.  This research is Descritive. The population in this research is mother primipara 1-7 days post in october the mothers 18 primipara. Loding technique a sample total product sampling as many as 18 mother her purifying primipara. Data collection using quistionnaries. Results of research most respondents age of 20-25 of 45 percent, from the factors education most respondents educated junior high school that is 56 percent, and a half- rsondens who  does not work ( IRT 50 percent. Most mother 78 percent primipara, anxiety at the time to treat newborn baby.  Therefore expected to health workers particularly midwives to improve service obstetric patients at the time that pregnant mother in the gave birth periodid not experience anxiety in fostering newly born baby.


Abstract The nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB system is a promising anticancer target due to its role in oncogenesis and chemoresistance in preclinical models. To provide evidence in a clinical setting on the role of NF-kappaB in breast cancer, we aimed to study the value of basal NF-kappaB/p65 in predicting resistance to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and to characterise the pharmacodynamic changes in NF-kappaB/p65 expression following chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced breast cancer. Pre- and post-chemotherapy tumour specimens from 51 breast cancer patients treated with anthracycline- and/or taxane-containing neoadjuvant chemotherapy were assayed by immunohistochemistry for NF-kappaB/p65 subcellular expression. We studied NF-kappaB/p65, a well-characterised member of the NF-kappaB family that undergoes nuclear translocation when NF-kappaB is activated. Activation of NF-kappaB (i.e. nuclear NF-kappaB/p65 staining in pre-therapy specimens) was linked to chemoresistance. Patients with NF-kappaB/p65 nuclear staining in pre-treatment samples had a 20% clinical response rate, while patients with undetected nuclear staining had a 91% response rate to chemotherapy (P = 0.002). Notably, four patients achieved a complete histological response and none of them had pre-treatment NF-kappaB/p65 nuclear staining. Moreover, the number of patients with NF-kappaB/p65 activation increased after chemotherapy exposure. It is concluded that NF-kappaB/p65 activation assayed by immunohistochemistry is a predictive factor of resistance to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer patients. Moreover, NF-kappaB activation was inducible following chemotherapy in a proportion of breast cancer patients. These novel clinical findings strengthen the rationale for the use of NF-kappaB inhibitors to prevent or overcome chemoresistance in breast cancer.


This paper starts by describing the conjunction analysis which has to be performed using CSM data provided by JSpOC. This description not only demonstrates that Colli sion Avoidance is a 2-step process (close approach detection followed by risk evaluation for colli sion avoidance decision) but also leads to the conclusion that there is a need for Middle Man role. After describing the Middle Man concept, it introduces the French response CAESAR and the need for collaborative work environment which is implied by Middle Man concept. It includes a description of the environment put in place for CAESAR (secure website and dedicated tools), the content of the service, the condition for the distribution of the CNES software JAC and the advantages for subscribers.


A common method for solving Poisson's equation in electrostatics is to patch together two or more solutions of Laplace's equation using boundary conditions on the potential and its gradient. Other methods may generate solutions without the need to check these conditions explicitly, and reconciling these solutions with the appropriate boundary conditions can be surprisingly subtle. As a result, a student may arrive at paradoxical conclusions—even in the case of elementary problems—that seem to be at odds with basic physical intuition. We illustrate this issue by showing how the potential of a uniformly charged ring appears to violate continuity of the normal component of the electric field at a chargeless surface.


We report two cases of membranous obstruction of the inferior vena cava (MOIVC) in which we observed patchy calcification in the membrane. The location of the calcification in the membrane was confirmed histologically. This finding was found histologically in four of eight cases of MOIVC, and it is a useful finding in the CT diagnosis of MOIVC.


Magnetic fluids used in biomedicine have to be biocompatible and therefore the magnetic nanoparticles are modified by different biocompatible materials. In this work the magnetic nanoparticles Fe3O4 sterically stabilized by sodium oleate were prepared by coprecipitation method. Consequently they were modified with polyethylene glycol (PEG) of different molecular weights and different PEG to magnetite Fe3O4 feed weight ratios varying from 0.01 to 30 to produce biocompatible magnetic fluids (MFPEG). The morphology was observed by scanning electron microscopy. The magnetic nanoparticles coated with PEG showed almost spherical shape for all studied systems of MFPEG. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to study the adsorption of PEG on magnetic nanoparticles and to determine the maximal amount of PEG adsorbed on the magnetic nanoparticles. The increasing PEG molecular weight leads to the decrease in maximal PEG/Fe3O4 feed weight ratio. In vitro toxicity of the magnetic fluids using cells of skin cancer of mice B16 was tested with the aim to confirm the biocompatibility of the prepared magnetic fluids.


Lakes near Sudbury, Ontario, experienced widespread acidification and metal-contamination beginning in the late-19th century. These stressors caused extreme damage to regional aquatic systems and their catchments, with aquatic biota experiencing reduced species richness and, in some cases, extirpations. Emission control measures markedly improved pH, however biotic recovery continues to lag water quality improvements, prompting investigation into mechanisms leading to this phenomenon. Due to the lack of long-term monitoring data, I use paleolimnological approaches to examine temporal trends in cladoceran zooplankton, from pre-impact conditions, through the period of acidification/metal contamination, and following the implementation of emission controls. I assess the degree of biotic recovery that has taken place in these lakes, and review the mechanisms that continue to structure cladoceran assemblages. Lakes closest to Sudbury recorded increases of ~15-65% relative abundance of Chydorus brevilabris, concurrent with the late-1800s industrial development. The relative abundance of C. brevilabris remains elevated above pre-impact levels in two Sudbury lakes; however, in Middle Lake, which was neutralized with calcium carbonate, declines in C. brevilabris (to ~pre-impact levels) occurred following neutralization. Conversely, lakes located ~60 km southwest of Sudbury, in Killarney Provincial Park, experienced muted assemblage change, with minor (< ~5%) increases in grazers (e.g., Daphnia spp., Holopedium glacialis) occurring within the past ~40 years. Lakes in Sudbury and Killarney acidified to pH < ~5, however those in Sudbury additionally received high inputs of nickel and copper, which have toxic effects on aquatic organisms, including some Cladocera. Contamination with these metals may have been a primary driver of cladoceran assemblage change. Elevated metal concentrations likely continue to structure the cladoceran assemblages in the Sudbury lakes. In addition, many of the lakes contain altered food webs (e.g., large populations of yellow perch) as a legacy of the acid and metal contamination, acting as a potential barrier to recovery. Finally, warming air temperatures over the past ~40 years, which I link to increases in primary production, may alter the composition of cladoceran species found in these lakes, and therefore prevent a return to pre-impact conditions.


Even though it is well documented that privatization leads to an improvement in the performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) following divestiture, it is argued that the existing literature suffers from a misspecification measure because it does not consider the performance of control firms of similar pre-privatization situations, i.e. the performance of SOEs.In this study, I use accounting-based performance measures to evaluate the performance of newly privatized Egyptian firms versus the performance of SOEs. I document significant improvements in profitability, efficiency, and dividends, and insignificant decreases in leverage, employment, and risk, whereas capital expenditure and output show insignificant decreases following privatization. Matching sample firms (privatized) to control firms (SOEs), I document that privatized firms do not witness any significant improvement in their performance, which questions the benefits of privatization in Egypt.


We desired a facility for locating/analyzing syntactic artifacts in abstract syntax trees of C/C++ programs, similar to the facility grep or awk provides for locating artifacts at the lexical level. Prolog, with its implicit pattern-matching and backtracking capabilities, is a natural choice for such an application. We have developed a Prolog variant that avoids the overhead of translating the source syntactic structures into the form of a Prolog database; this is crucial to obtaining acceptable performance on large programs. An interpreter for this language has been implemented and used to find various kinds of syntactic bugs and other questionable constructs in real programs like Microsoft SQL server (450Klines) and Microsoft Word (2Mlines) in time comparable to the runtime of the actual compiler.

The model in which terms are matched against an implicit current object, rather than simply proven against a database of facts, leads to a distinct "inside-out functional" programming style that is quite unlike typical Prolog, but one that is, in fact, well-suited to the examination of trees. Also, various second-order Prolog set-predicates may be implemented via manipulation of the current object, thus retaining an important feature without entailing that the database be dynamically extensible as the usual implementation does.


Wheat is the most important cereal crop in global agricultural economy and is cultivated in diverse agroclimatic regions of the world. Breeding for disease resistance is the most economically and environmentally safe method to reduce crop losses. The long term success of breeding for disease resistance depends on the nature of the pathogen and the virulence spectra in the pathogen population, the availability, diversity and type of genetic resistance in the host and the methodology for screening and selection for resistance.

During 2013-2015, under conditions of an infection field at Dobrudzha Agricultural Institute - General Toshevo, Bulgaria, 680 common winter wheat lines were tested to a population of races of leaf rust P. triticina. Forty - two of the lines, which exhibited resistance under  field conditions, were tested to 9 pathotypes of the pathogen at seedling stage under controlled conditions. Some of the tested lines carried adult plant resistance (APR), while others had combination of race specific and race nonspecific resistance.

The combination of various mechanisms of resistance is of great importance for the durability of resistance. In this relation, the investigated 42 lines can be considered efficient sources of resistance which can be used in the breeding programs.


The micro-array profiling of micro-RNA has been performed in rat skeletal muscle tissues, isolated from male adult offspring of intrauterine plus postnatal growth restricted model (IPGR). Apparently, the GLUT4 mRNA expression in male sk. muscle was found to be unaltered in contrast to females. The over-expression of miR-29a and miR-23a in the experimental group of SMSP (Starved Mother Starved Pups) have been found to regulate the glucose transport activity with respect to their control counterparts CMCP (Control Mother Control Pups) as confirmed in rat L6 myoblast-myocyte cell culture system. The ex-vivo experimentation demonstrates an aberration in insulin signaling pathway in male sk. muscle that leads to the localization of the membrane-bound Glut4 protein. We have identified through a series of experiments one important protein factor SMAD4, a co-SMAD critical to the TGF-beta signaling pathway. This factor is targeted by miR-29a, as identified in an in vitro reporter-assay system in cell-culture experiment. The other micro-RNA, miR-23a, targets SMAD4 indirectly that seems to be critical in regulating insulin-dependent glucose transport activity. MicroRNA mimics, inhibitors and siRNA studies indicate the role of SMAD4 as inhibitory for glucose transport activities in normal physiological condition. The data demonstrate for the first time a critical function of microRNAs in fine-tuning the regulation of glucose transport in skeletal muscle. Chronic starved conditions (IPGR) in sk. muscle up-regulates microRNA changing the target protein expression patterns, such as SMAD4, to alter the glucose transport pathways for the survival. The innovative outcome of this paper identifies a critical pathway (TGF-beta) that may act negatively for the mammalian glucose transport machinery.


There is growing interest in the role that life-history traits of hosts, such as their 'pace-of-life', play in the evolution of resistance and tolerance to parasites. Theory suggests that, relative to host species that have high syntopy (local spatial and temporal overlap) with parasites, host species with low syntopy should have lower selection pressures for more constitutive (always present) and costly defences, such as tolerance, and greater reliance on more inducible and cheaper defences, such as behaviour. Consequently, we postulated that the degree of host-parasite syntopy, which is negatively correlated with host pace-of-life (an axis reflecting the developmental rate of tadpoles and the inverse of their size at metamorphosis) in our tadpole-parasitic cercarial (trematode) system, would be a negative and positive predictor of behavioural resistance and tolerance, respectively. To test these hypotheses, we exposed seven tadpole species to a range of parasite (cercarial) doses crossed with anaesthesia treatments that controlled for anti-parasite behaviour. We quantified host behaviour, successful and unsuccessful infections, and each species' reaction norm for behavioural resistance and tolerance, defined as the slope between cercarial exposure (or attempted infections) and anti-cercarial behaviours and mass change, respectively. Hence, tolerance is capturing any cost of parasite exposure. As hypothesized, tadpole pace-of-life was a significant positive predictor of behavioural resistance and negative predictor of tolerance, a result that is consistent with a trade-off between behavioural resistance and tolerance across species that warrants further investigation. Moreover, these results were robust to considerations of phylogeny, all possible re-orderings of the three fastest or slowest paced species, and various measurements of tolerance. These results suggest that host pace-of-life and host-parasite syntopy are powerful drivers of both the strength and type of host defence strategies against parasites. Future research should evaluate how often and how strongly host pace-of-life and host-parasite syntopy are correlated and which is the better predictor of the strength and type of host investments in anti-parasite defences.


This paper presents a new algorithm developed to minimize the torsional effects in asymmetric tall buildings, through arriving at all possible orientations of rectangular columns that have different lateral stiffnesses and strength in two principal directions. The most suitable combination of different orientations of such columns are chosen for the design, which leads to minimum torsional effect. The developed algorithm is coded in MATLAB and the eccentricity of a given asymmetric tall building is minimized through the proposed algorithm. Three‐dimensional model of the building is constructed and its modal analysis is performed to obtain mode shapes using SAP2000 finite element program. Finite element model of the building is updated to eliminate the torsional moments by applying developed algorithm. Earthquake behaviour of the building is investigated using 1999 Kocaeli earthquake before and after this geometrical design. It is seen from the analysis results that the torsional moments are almost eliminated and the maximum principal stresses on shell elements are extremely reduced after system design depending on the proposed algorithm. In addition to this, it is realized that structural modal behaviour of the building is changed from torsional to translational. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


China's bilateral trade in food and agricultural products has grown dramatically since the country's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, the country faces significant problems related to sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) compliance because of increasing concerns about food safety, stricter SPS requirements in trade, and competitiveness in export markets. China's food and agricultural industry will need to address the SPS issues and make significant changes in production and distribution methods in order to gain wider access to world markets. This study provides a systematic and comprehensive analysis of current Chinese SPS conditions, the food safety regulatory system, production environment, inspection technology, and information systems. In addition, China's progress on resolving SPS problems and ability to adjust to the current SPS measures it faces in world markets are discussed.


The nanofibres created by electrospinning technique are currently used for a variety of applications in tissue engineering; and Gelatin and Polyurethane Shape-Memory (SMPU) have important results in biomedicine. Similarly, carbon nanotubes combined with other biomaterials change important properties, opening new opportunities for biomedical applications. In this work, we constructed scaffold using electrospinning technique based in bovine-hide gelatin, SMPU and both materials hybrid with carbon nanotube. Morphology and cytotoxicity were evaluated and mechanical properties for two materials were obtained in scaffold building. Morphological, mechanical and citotoxic properties of the electrospun fibers were found to be dependent of alteration in materials concentration, electrospinning conditions and MWCNT concentration. According to morphological, cytotoxic and mechanical analysis, SMPU more MWCNT were the best material, with nanofibers of 451 nm, tensile strength of 1.912 MPa, and a high ratio surface volume.


This paper deals with the issues faced by those who endeavor in measuring sustainability in supply chains (SC) by using a comprehensive approach. Elkington´s Triple Bottom Line (TBL) divide sustainability in three aspects: environmental (E), economic and social (E2S). Firms publish their business (including SC) sustainability impacts through Corporate Social Responsibility reports (CSR). According to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a CSR framework, reported information should be sufficiently accurate/detailed towards performance, but reports are rather qualitative. Fast fashion (FF) is a recent phenomenon of production/promotion of cheap/readily disposable clothes. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is the adequate tool to identify best practices regarding sustainability (multidimensional) and supply chains in FF. To allow comparability and tackle lack of quantitative data, TBL clusters (output) are proposed: for each Disclosure, a three layers scoring scale: absence (1), qualitative only (2), 2nd layer plus quantitative (4). This work´s main contribution is the use of DEA as a powerful tool to measure sustainability in SC and the TBL clusters link all dimensions in an innovative way. Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis, Sustainability, Supply Chains, Triple Bottom Line, Fast Fashion


Ice accretion on wind turbine blades modifies the sectional profiles and causes alteration in the aerodynamic characteristic of the blades. The objective of this study is to determine performance losses on wind turbines due to the formation of ice in cold climate regions and mountainous areas where wind energy resources are found. In this study, the Blade Element Momentum method is employed together with an ice accretion prediction tool in order to estimate the ice build-up on wind turbine blades and the energy production for iced and clean blades. The predicted ice shapes of the various airfoil profiles are validated with the experimental data and it is shown that the tool developed is promising to be used in the prediction of power production losses of wind turbines.


The strong, neutral, or weak (SNoW) face impostor pairs problem is intended to explore the causes and impact of impostor face pairs that are inherently strong (easily recognized as nonmatches) or weak (possible false matches). The SNoW technique develops three partitions within the impostor score distribution of a given data set. Results provide evidence that varying degrees of impostor scores impact the overall performance of a face recognition system. This paper extends our earlier work to incorporate improvements regarding outlier detection for partitioning, explores the SNoW concept for the additional modalities of fingerprint and iris, and presents methods for how to begin to reveal the causes of weak impostor pairs. We also show a clear operational difference between strong and weak comparisons as well as identify partition stability across multiple algorithms.


We formulate a general cointegrated vector autoregressive (CVAR) model that nests both a class of consumption Euler equations and various Keynesian type consumption functions. Using likelihoodbased methods and Norwegian data, we find support for cointegration between consumption, income and wealth once a structural break around the financial crisis is allowed for. That consumption cointegrates with both income and wealth and not only with income points to the empirical irrelevance of an Euler equation. Moreover, we find that consumption equilibrium corrects to changes in income and wealth and not that income equilibrium corrects to changes in consumption, which would be the case if an Euler equation is true. We also find that most of the parameters stemming from the class of Euler equations are not corroborated by the data when considering conditional expectations of future consumption and income in CVAR models. Only habit formation seems important in explaining the Norwegian consumer behaviour. Our preferred model is a dynamic Keynesian type consumption function with a first year marginal propensity to consume out of income close to 25 per cent.


Pseudomonas diminuta (ATCC 19146) has been typically used in the bacterial challenge test for validation of the sterilizing filtration process. Cell size is critical for determining the retention characteristics of membrane filters with pore-size of 0.2 μm. The changes of cell sizes after osmotic shocks at 150, 260, 500, and 700 mosM were measured by a particle size analyzer and the changes of their buoyant densities were analyzed with a Percoll gradient. The results indicated that there were no significant differences when cells were cultured in 26() mosM medium and osmotically shocked at 500 and 700 mosM. However, the osmotically shocked cells at 150 mosM showed a 38% increase of the cell size compared to the cells at 260 mosM. From these study, we concluded that the worst case condition for validation of a sterilizing filter would be 500 mosM, not because of changes in the cell size, but due to decrease in cell viability under those conditions.


Abstract Brazil and Russia rank first and second globally by the amount of renewable freshwater resources. Despite the significant challenges to municipal water use and water quality for the population, even in the timespan of 30 years these countries will be most protected from water stress. At the same time, China and India - countries with vast water resources, meet growing water challenges being the first and second in terms of world population and the world's first and third economy according to PPP with prospects for further growth. South Africa is the flagship of BRICS on the African continent - the water-deficient country that is mostly affected by the physical shortage of water resources. This article aims to systematize possible areas of deepening cooperation in BRICS through the water agenda. It seems necessary to firstly assess the significance of the water factor for the member-states, than to characterize the current level of dialogue and applied interaction on water issues in BRICS. Secondly, the article compares international approaches to the water problem and, based on this, in the third part, analyzes the possibilities of BRICS to develop cooperation through the water agenda. As a result, the article concludes that, despite the objective physical prerequisites for water dialogue in BRICS as a strategic direction for the development of an organization, the formats that have emerged today clearly consider water cooperation in a rather limited aspect. The article suggests that the perspectives associated with a comprehensive agenda must be built on nexus concepts like water-food-energy-climate-sustainability nexus etc. Virtual water and the exchange of water technologies, and the creation of common water-technology clusters deserve a special place on the agenda as well as specially designed programmes by the BRICS New Development Bank.


Number theory is that branch of mathematics that is concerned with the properties of numbers. For this reason, number theory, which has a 4000 years of rich history, has traditionally been considered as pure mathematics. The theory of numbers has always occupied a unique position in the world of mathematics. This is due to unquestionable historical importance of the subject. It is one of the few disciplines having demonstrable results that predate the very idea of a university or an academy. The natural numbers have been known to us for so long that mathematician Leopold Kronecker once remarked, "God created the natural numbers, and all the rest is the work of man". Far from being a gift from Heaven, number theory has a long and sometimes painful evolution.
The theory of continued fractions begins with Rafael Bombelli, the last of great algebraists of Renaissance Italy. In his L'Algebra Opera (1572) , Bombelli attempted to find square roots by using infinite continued fractions. One of the main uses of continued fraction is to find the approximate values of irrational numbers.
Srinivas Ramanujan has no rival in the history of mathematics. His contribution to number theory is quite significant. G.H.Hardy, commenting on Ramanujan's work, said "On this side (of Mathematics) most recently I have never met his equal, and I can only compare him with Euler or Jacobi".
Pell's equation ,was probably first studied in the case .Early mathematicians, upon discovering that is irrational, realized that although one cannot solve the equation in integers,one can at least solve the "next best things". The early investigators of Pell equation were the Indian mathematicians
Brahmagupta and Bhaskara. In particular Bhaskara studied Pell's equation for the values and Bhaskara found the solution for .
Fermat was also interested in the Pell's equation and worked out some of the basic theories regarding Pell's equation. It was Lagrange who discovered the complete theory of the equation, .Euler mistakenly named the equation to John Pell. He did so apparently because Pell was instrumental in writing a book containing these equations. Brahmagupta has left us with this intriguing challenge: "A person who can, within a year, solve is a mathematician." In general Pell's equation is a Diophantine equation of the form , where is a positive non square integer and has a long fascinating history and its applications are wide and Pell's equation always has the trivial solution , and has infinite solutions and many problems can be solved using Pell's equation.


We estimate the contribution of agricultural supply shocks to inflation in Uganda. Using monthly data for the time period January 2000 to December 2012, we develop an empirical model for inflation processes in Uganda. The model is estimated as a single equation that includes lagged vector error correction terms from the money, external, and domestic agricultural markets. We include in our model a measure for shocks to the agricultural sector, the agricultural output gap, estimated as the monthly deviations of realized from potential agricultural output. The analysis is augmented by a VAR model that allows us to account for inflation persistence. Results indicate that disequilibria in the money, external and agricultural sectors feed into the Ugandan inflation process in the long run. Importantly, the agricultural sector is one of the important sources of inflation in the short run. Our findings have important implications for policy in Uganda. Specifically, policies geared towards improving agricultural productivity on the one hand and limiting supply rigidities on the other will be crucial in controlling inflation in Uganda


This now classic volume aims at a systematic presentation of the statistical methods used for the analysis of economic data. The properties of the various procedures are studied within the framework of theoretical stochastic models. Their relevance for inference on the economic phenomena is discussed at length. This third edition has been updated in many respects. Chapter 8 (Regression in Various Contexts) has been rewritten and now provides a full discussion of estimation in the linear models with a partially unknown covariance matrix, which introduces a systematic treatment of heteroscedasticity, random coefficients and composite errors. A new chapter has been added on simultaneous equation models that are non-linear with respect to the endogenous variables. The reader will also find new sections on shrunken estimators, on the choice of a model, on specification and estimation for distributed lag equations.


: Combinations of two nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors plus a third agent represent the current standard for antiretroviral therapy. Stavudine is a nucleoside analogue that demonstrates in vitro activity against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV-2 within an acceptable therapeutic index in a range of T lymphocyte and haematopoietic precursor cell lines. It is additive or synergistic in vitro with a number of other antiretrovirals including protease inhibitors in two and three way combinations and is active against zidovudine-resistant virus. It exhibits excellent oral bioavailability, with CSF penetration. In clinical use, stavudine exhibits antiretroviral activity as a monotherapy similar to zidovudine, and is of proven clinical benefit in zidovudine-pretreated patients. In combination with didanosine and/or nelfinavir it results in more substantial and durable responses in immunological and virological markers than reported with either drug alone. Comparative trials in zidovudine-experienced patients suggest a similar frequency of adverse events to that observed with zidovudine. Peripheral neuropathy is the most common dose-limiting toxicity with haematological and hepatic function disturbance being infrequent. Reasons for stavudine failure are not established, with no consistent genotypic pattern being associated with changes in stavudine sensitivity in vitro or in vivo. The role of stavudine is as a component of triple therapy regimens both in initial therapy and in patients with prior zidovudine experience.


As the environment changed, the inter-organizat ional in Supply chain has been transferred fro m simple relations to complex relations "Comp ound or Portfolio Relationships". The main pur pose of this research is to integrate external/int ernal resource and maintain flexible volatility o f inter-organization for helping organizations/fir ms could increase the competitive advantage fo r them. To survey the current researches which discuss inter-organization in supply chain; it c ould be found that most literatures are focused on each simple relationship or portfolio relatio nship about their types and features. Our resear ch uses multiple relative theory and interviews to perform the research. To develop theory mo del and analyse the nature of relations about c ompound relationships oriented and portfolio rel ationships oriented. The theoretical framework model concerns the influence of the difference selection factors between inter-organizational in supply chain. We hope this research will cont ribute to further studies and provide some sugg estions for implementing management of the rel ationship between supply chains.


The study assessed the extent of use of the orthodox and traditional treatment preventive measures against malaria among rural dwellers in Abia State. Primary data were collected using structured questionnaire from 180 respondents via multistage procedure. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics analysis. About 78% and 95.6% of the respondents were married and literates respectively. A mean age of 46 years, a mean monthly income of about ₦24,227.78 and a mean household size of about 5 persons respectively were recorded by the respondents. The result further revealed that the respondents employed different types of malaria treatment practices (100% of the respondents employed orthodox practices and 11.78% employed traditional practices).The extent of adoption of malaria preventive measures was low ( X= 2.2) and only about 45.4% of the respondents had a good knowledge level in the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices . The result equally revealed low (X= 1.78) attitudinal level by the respondents towards the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices. It equally, revealed a low (X= 1.98) practice level and gave the Relative Credibility Index (RCI) of the respondents over the use of traditional methods of controlling malaria as (RCI = 2.9). The study concludes that the respondents in the study area had a low Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) level over the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices. Therefore, the study recommends more awareness campaign by the health workers mostly in the rural areas in order to increase the KAP level of the rural dwellers in the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices as this will enormously reduce the devastating effects of malaria sickness in Nigeria and mostly in the study area,


Full-dose intramuscular hepatitis B vaccine was given to 42 staff in the dental and renal departments at Wellington Hospital. Immune levels of anti-HBs were obtained in 41 of 42 (98%) staff six months after the first dose of vaccine. In 3 of 38 (8%) staff given three doses of vaccine, anti-HBs levels fell to below the immune range 18 months after the first dose, and a fourth booster dose was given, with subsequent restoration of immune levels of anti-HBs. The commonest side-effect noticed was temporary soreness at the injection site, which occurred in 33% of doses. Two staff experienced positional vertigo after the first and second doses of vaccine, and the third dose was therefore omitted.


Background and objective: Admission to the cardiac care unit may cause physiological and psychological problems in patients. This study aimed to investigate the effect of hand reflexology on anxiety and physiological variables among female patients with acute coronary syndrome hospitalized in the cardiac care unit. Methods: This randomized placebo controlled clinical trial was conducted on 90 female patients hospitalized in the cardiac care unit in an urban area of Iran. The patients were chosen using a convenient sampling method and then were randomly assigned into intervention (n = 45) and placebo (n = 45) groups. While the intervention group received hand reflexology for 20 minutes, the placebo group received a simple touch of hand without the stimulation of reflexology points.  Demographic data was collected at the beginning of the study using face-to-face interviews with the patients. The anxiety level was assessed using the Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) immediately after the intervention and 30 min after the intervention. Also, physiological variables including respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation were measured before, immediately after the intervention and 30 minutes after the intervention. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the intervention and placebo groups before the intervention ( p > .05). The anxiety level in the intervention group was significantly lower than that of the placebo group immediately after the intervention and 30 minutes after the intervention ( p .05). Conclusions: Hand reflexology influenced the level of anxiety. Therefore, nurses can use hand reflexology as a method for reducing patients' anxiety along with other nursing interventions.


Forecasting of area/yield/production of crops is one of the important aspect in agricultural sector. Crop yield forecasts are extremely useful in formulation of policies regarding stock, distribution and supply of agricultural produce to different areas in the country. In this study the forecast values of area, yield and hence production of kharif pulses are found. ARIMA method should not be used for finding the forecasted values for the testing period as this would increase the uncertainty with the end period of testing data. The uncertainty will further increase for the next future periods for which we want to obtain the forecast values. So, in the present study, the regression models are tried for the purpose of forecasting as these models have no such limitation. The regression models used for the study are Linear, Quadratic, Cubic, Power, Compound and Logarithmic. The parametric co-efficients are tested for significance, the error assumptions are also tested and the model fit statistics obtained for different models are compared. Logarithmic model is found to be the best model for area under kharif pulse and power model for yield of kharif pulse. It is found that though there is increase in future areas, the decrease in future yield causes a slow increase in production of kharif pulse.


Researches have identified the importance of teacher-student relationship building to students' learning motivation, academic achievement, and teachers' well-being. Looking into Hong Kong context, Chinese language teachers tried various ways to build affective relationships with their students with multi-cultural background to help them adopt life in Hong Kong and learn Chinese more effectively. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships with multi-cultural students at risk and to capture the view on teacher-child relationships by eliciting information from teachers through interviews. The research questions were conveyed from Rytivaara & Frelin (2017) and amended with the context in Hong Kong to study: (1) How do the teachers narrate their relationships with their multi-cultural students? (2) How do the teachers narrate other adults regarding the multi-cultural students? (3) How do the teachers narrate change in their relationships with their multi-cultural students? Data for this study were drawn from 4 Non-Chinese speaking Students Development Officers from primary schools and secondary schools. Narrative analysis was applied to analyze the teachers' stories. It was found that positive teacher-student relationships shared the characteristics of peer relationship and family relationship, and the interaction with other stakeholders affected relationship building. In addition, the quality of teacher-student relationship will also affect the well-being and job satisfaction of teachers. Implications on teacher training and support network were reported in the findings. This research was expected to fill the research gap of researching teacher-student relationship with regard to the unique situation in Hong Kong with Chinese language teachers teaching multi-cultural students.


OBJECTIVE
Consolidation of current research findings as well as the most important concepts regarding neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in rheumatoid arthritis.

DATA SOURCES
Relevant publications released from 2004 to 2018 were identified using PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and eLibrary databases. Primary search terms used were "neutrophil extracellular traps" or "NETs" in combination with "rheumatoid arthritis".

DATA SYNTHESIS
NETs are distinctive structures promoting capture and non-phagocytic cleavage of foreign substances. NETs usually consist of thin chromatin fibers decorated with various molecules of granular, cytosolic, and cytoskeletal origin. NETosis could develop in two ways: either with neutrophil death or when the viability of the cell prolongs. ROS generation and pronounced protein citrullination are essential during the initial phase of NETs formation. NETosis is considered to have certain immunological consequences, including DAMPs-mediated signalling, proinflammatory cytokine secretion, and contact of extensively modified self and foreign epitopes with antigen presenting cells. There are several putative pathogenetic links between NETosis, citrullination, neoepitope formation, and production of anticitrulline autoantibodies that can strongly influence rheumatoid arthritis progression. NET-induced vascular injury in rheumatoid arthritis could arise both directly from NETs and indirectly through enhanced thrombosis and atherosclerosis.

CONCLUSION
NETs are currently estimated as a possible influential factor of rheumatoid arthritis initiation and/or progression, especially in the context of vascular involvement. NETs can also serve as a source of novel antigenic biomarkers for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.


Pascal sees happiness (bonheur) as the ultimate goal of all human activity, but argues that experience shows it to be unattainable; our underlying condition is unhappiness. In the immediate, he argues, human activities are forms of diversion or distraction, by which we seek to screen from ourselves our unhappiness and mortality and to gratify our vanity. This analysis omits the role of pleasure, which he elsewhere identifies as the motive force of all volition. In order to reconcile this anomaly, we need to distinguish between the motive of our actions, the ultimate end they have in view, and the Supreme Good. The motive of our actions is pleasure, their ultimate end happiness, and the Supreme Good God, in union with whom authentic happiness consists.


In 2008 an experiment was set up on the field in Eerika experimental station (Estonian University of Life Sciences) as a 5-field crop rotation: red clover, winter wheat, pea, potato and barley undersown with red clover. The objective of the study was to measure the content of weed seeds in the soil and to evaluate the diversity of the species at the end of the period of converting to organic production. In conventional farming systems without fertilizer (Conv I) and conventional farming with mineral fertilizer (Conv II) herbicides were used for weed control. All the crops in Conv II system received P 25 kg ha-1 and K 95 kg ha-1, but the application rates of mineral nitrogen fertilizer differed. In organic systems (Org I – organic farming based on winter cover crop and Org II - organic farming based on winter cover crop and manure), the winter cover crops (ryegrass after winter wheat, winter oilseed rape after pea, winter rye after potato) were sown after the harvest and were ploughed into the soil as green manure in spring. The content of annual weed seeds was the lowest in red clover that had 17.7% less weed seeds in the soil of Org II system compared to control (Conv I). In winter wheat the content of winter annual weed seeds was 50–76% higher compared to other crops. By the end of 2009 the content of organic carbon (Corg %) in the soil had increased significantly in both organic systems which results in higher activity of organisms that decrease the viability of weed seeds.


Specialization on different host plants can promote evolutionary diversification of herbivorous insects. Work on pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) has contributed significantly to the understanding of this process, demonstrating that populations associated with different host plants exhibit performance trade‐offs across hosts, show adaptive host choice and genetic differentiation and possess different communities of bacterial endosymbionts. Populations specialized on different secondary host plants during the parthenogenetic summer generations are also described for the black bean aphid (Aphis fabae complex) and are usually treated as different (morphologically cryptic) subspecies. In contrast to pea aphids, however, host choice and mate choice are decoupled in black bean aphids, because populations from different summer hosts return to the same primary host plant to mate and lay overwintering eggs. This could counteract evolutionary divergence, and it is currently unknown to what extent black bean aphids using different summer hosts are indeed differentiated. We addressed this question by microsatellite genotyping and endosymbiont screening of black bean aphids collected in summer from the goosefoot Chenopodium album (subspecies A. f. fabae) and from thistles of the genus Cirsium (subspecies A. f. cirsiiacanthoides) across numerous sites in Switzerland and France. Our results show clearly that aphids from Cirsium and Chenopodium exhibit strong and geographically consistent genetic differentiation and that they differ in their frequencies of infection with particular endosymbionts. The dependence on a joint winter host has thus not prevented the evolutionary divergence into summer host‐adapted populations that appear to have evolved mechanisms of reproductive isolation within a common mating habitat.


The Behavior of beta 2-microglobulin (beta 2m) in various modes of blood purification was studied. Serum beta 2m concentration was 26.1 +/- 9.9 mg/L in 39 patients on maintained hemodialysis (HD) and 20.6 +/- 5.3 mg/L in 26 patients on CAPD. In both groups, beta 2m was significantly higher than normal (P less than 0.01) and it was positively correlated with the duration of dialysis. However, patients surviving more than three years would show lower beta 2m in the CAPD group than those in the HD group. The mean value of beta 2m clearance was 108 mg during hemofiltration (HF) with polyamide membrane and 38.5 +/- 14.4 mg daily in CAPD. Not only very little. beta 2m could be removed on HD but a rise of beta 2m was observed after the procedure, even if it was corrected for hemoconcentration. A negative correlation was found between delta beta 2m and delta osmolality after HD (r = 0.58, P less than 0.05), but delta beta 2m would be decreasing if a cuprophan membrane dialyzer was reused for HD, and the result was the same if using the same membrane in isolated ultrafiltration (P less than 0.01 in all). These results suggested that the rise of beta 2m during HD with cellulose membrane may be due to increased release of beta 2m owing to the poor biocompatibility of the membrane as well as the generation of beta 2m on account of reduced plasma osmolality.


In this paper we describe 2-stage blind detector, of which the second stage is based on the constant modulus algorithm (CMA). Simulations are oriented on MC-CDMA signals and the image transmission over 3-states channel enlarged with a complex AWGN noise. The channel model is assigned for Land mobile satellite communications.


We report a new approach to climate change detection and attribution using an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM), complementary to the traditional approach using coupled ocean‐atmosphere models (CGCM). Ensembles of simulations were run with an AGCM forced with the observed history of sea‐surface temperature (SST) and sea‐ice extent and repeated with a variety of forcing factors added incrementally. SST changes alone give a warming of only about 0.15°C in annual global land surface air temperature between 1950 and 1994. Addition of changing greenhouse gases, including off‐line calculations of tropospheric ozone, give a further warming of 0.15°C, still 0.2 °C less than observed. This deficit in warming derives from the Northern Hemisphere (NH) winter half‐year as the summer half‐year NH temperature is well‐simulated. In the lower stratosphere, little cooling is simulated using the observed changes of SST alone but increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases and decreasing the concentration of stratospheric ozone leads to a cooling close to that observed. Inclusion of changes to tropospheric ozone with other forcing factors, the first time this has been attempted, gives good simulations of tropospheric and stratospheric temperature changes; these are significantly more similar to observations than using SST variations alone. Despite the uncertainties, these simulations strongly indicate a discernible anthropogenic effect on the annual mean thermal structure of the atmosphere, the first time this has been shown in the presence of the observed variations of SST and sea‐ice extent.


Corrosion by liquid oxides is one of the most severe modes of degradations which limit the lifetime of the refractory linings. The study of the microstructures of corroded refractories provides essential information. However, the interpretation of the microscopic observations is difficult : - The refractories are multi-component and heterogeneous ceramics, - The microscopic observations are carried out at room temperature. They are not representative of the mineral and vitreous phases existing at high temperature, - During cooling, new solid phases appear by crystallization of liquid oxides. The composition of the vitreous phases also evolves with the temperature. Consequently, the information obtained is often limited. In this paper , we will present a method to analyse and interpret the microstructures of refractories after use. The concept of local thermodynamic equilibrium and the use of the phase rule make it possible to interpret the microstructures of corroded refractories, to explain the observed mineral zonation and to quantify the composition of the liquid phase at high temperature from chemical profiles established by S.E.M. Experimental data from corrosion of MgO-C, Al2O3-MgO and high alumina refractories will illustrate and validate this theoretical approach.


In an attempt to value soil natural capital, we use the inherent characteristics of soil and land valuation data to examine the relationship between soil characteristics and rural farmland values in the 6000ks2 Manawatu catchment in New Zealand. The study applies a hedonic pricing method to determine if the value of 'critical' inherent characteristics of soils are reflected in land values. We find empirical evidence that the examined characteristics of soil natural capital stock, e.g., particle size, drainage, potential rooting depth and profile available water, are in fact reflected in rural land values.


One of novel concepts to use the energy of high altitude winds is by launching a series of kite on a long rope and let them pull the rope thus driving the generator. A mathematical model of tethered kites system has been developed consisting of models of kites and of the cable that links them together and to the generator on the ground energy station. The model described is then investigated for stability in various wind conditions including random wind gusts which require stochastic stability problem statement.


The new era of digitalized knowledge and information technology (IT) has improved efficiency in all medical fields, and digital health solutions are becoming the norm. There has also been an upsurge in utilizing digital solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the unmet mental healthcare needs, especially for those unable to afford in-person office-based therapy sessions or those living in remote rural areas with limited access to mental healthcare providers. Despite these benefits, there are significant concerns regarding the widespread use of such technologies in the healthcare system. A few of those concerns are a potential breach in the patients' privacy, confidentiality, and the agency of patients being at risk of getting used for marketing or data harnessing purposes. Digital phenotyping aims to detect and categorize an individual's behavior, activities, interests, and psychological features to properly customize future communications or mental care for that individual. Neuromarketing seeks to investigate an individual's neuronal response(s) (cortical and subcortical autonomic) characteristics and uses this data to direct the person into purchasing merchandise of interest, or shaping individual's opinion in consumer, social or political decision making, etc. This commentary's primary concern is the intersection of these two concepts that would be an inevitable threat, more so, in the post-COVID era when disparities would be exaggerated globally. We also addressed the potential "dark web" applications in this intersection, worsening the crisis. We intend to raise attention toward this new threat, as the impacts might be more damming in low-income settings or/with vulnerable populations. Legal, health ethics, and government regulatory processes looking at broader impacts of digital marketing need to be in place.


PURPOSE: Optical tracking is a commonly used tool in computer assisted surgery and surgical training; however, many current generation commercially available tracking systems are prohibitively large and expensive for certain applications. We developed an open source optical tracking system using the Intel RealSense SR300 webcam with integrated depth sensor. In this paper, we assess the accuracy of this tracking system. METHODS: The PLUS toolkit was extended to incorporate the ArUco marker detection and tracking library. The depth data obtained from the infrared sensor of the Intel RealSense SR300 was used to improve accuracy. We assessed the accuracy of the system by comparing this tracker to a high accuracy commercial optical tracker. RESULTS: The ArUco based optical tracking algorithm had median errors of 20.0mm and 4.1 degrees in a 200x200x200mm tracking volume. Our algorithm processing the depth data had a positional error of 17.3mm, and an orientation error of 7.1 degrees in the same tracking volume. In the direction perpendicular to the sensor, the optical only tracking had positional errors between 11% and 15%, compared to errors in depth of 1% or less. In tracking one marker relative to another, a fused transform from optical and depth data produced the best result of 1.39% error. CONCLUSION: The webcam based system does not yet have satisfactory accuracy for use in computer assisted surgery or surgical training.


Orthogonal persistence in operating systems has been a topic of research for a number of years. Several commercial, as well as research projects, have implemented orthogonal persistence as an essential part of their design. Amongst these we can count the Annex software system developed at DSTO. In this technical note we consider the design and implementation of persistence in Annex against the background of two other capability-based, orthogonally persistent operating systems. This background is used to highlight the approach taken by the Annex system, and the reasons why such an approach was used. The description given discusses the current Annex prototype and explores the directions persistence in Annex will take in the future as a result of lessons learned.


BACKGROUND
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted all facets of health care in the United States, including the disruption of professional training for podiatry residents and students. In March 2020, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recommended pausing then modifying all clinical rotations. The podiatric community followed suit. In-person restrictions, cancellations of clerkships, limited clinical experiences, virtual didactic programs and reduced surgical cases for students and residency programs occurred for many months during the ongoing pandemic. These adaptations impacted the ability of podiatric students to complete clinical rotations and clerkships, which are pivotal to their academic curriculum and residency program application and selection.

METHODS
A survey was conducted by the Council of Teaching Hospitals (COTH) and sent out by the American Association of Colleges of Podiatric Medicine (AACPM). The 2021 post-interview surveys were sent out to all participants in the 2021 CASPR application and match cycle, both programs and candidates.

RESULTS
The COTH presents results and comments from the 2021 virtual interview experience and residency match. Data and anecdotal comments from the 2021 post-interview survey conducted by COTH, sent out by AACPM, are presented here.

CONCLUSIONS
Results from the surveys of program directors and candidates show a preference by both groups for in-person interviews despite the personal time demands and increased costs associated with travel.


Background and purpose: Glial cells seem to play role in synaptic plasticity because they have the ability to release trophic factors and gliotransmitters and respond to neurotransmitters. They also play important role in synaptic space homeostasis. In this study, the role of hippocampal glial cells in baseline synaptic response and short term synaptic plasticity were investigated. Materials and methods: In this experimental study, flourocitrate, glia inhibitor (1nmol/0.5μl), was microinjected intrahippcampally for inhibition of hippocampal glial cells. Baseline synaptic response and short term synaptic plasticity were evaluated by field potential recording. fEPSP was recorded from CA1 following Schaffer collaterals stimulation. After Input/Output curve construction, short term synaptic plasticity was induced by paired pulse stimulations. Results: Inhibition of glial cells by flourocitrate microinjection in CA1 did not have any effect on baseline synaptic response (P>0.05). Flourocitrate increased paired pulse index (PPI, control: 62.80%±5.48; flourocitrate treated: 87.19%±12.11) at 20 ms inter pulse interval (P 0.05). Conclusion: The results suggest that hippocampal glial cells functions did not influence the baseline synaptic response but affected short term synaptic plasticity in CA1 area of the hippocampus.


This chapter represents the first effort to characterize the cutaneous histologic changes that occur in response to chemotherapy. In preparing this chapter it became increasingly evident that there are significant gaps in our knowledge and that many of the known clinical reactions have not had careful histologic study. The readers of this chapter are encouraged to report adverse reactions they have encountered and include complete histologic descriptions of biopsied material.


We distinguish five Xanthomendoza species in Norway, viz., X. borealis, X. fallax, X. fulva, X. oregana, and X. ulophyllodes, based on morphology and molecular evidence. This paper gives an updated taxonomy of the Norwegian species of Xanthomendoza, and addresses previous misconceptions. Xanthomendoza ulophyllodes is reported as occurring in Norway. The species was previously misunderstood in Norway and removed from the Nordic checklist. We show that the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) is a useful barcode marker for the treated species. We provide a key and short descriptions of the species, with notes on specific issues, ecology, geographic distribution, illustrations, maps, and a DNA reference library (DNA barcoding).


Investigation has been made into various approaches for analyzing the vibration of plates with stepped thicknesses. First, attention has been paid to updating a classical approach for the analysis of such problems, correcting the boundary conditions cited in an earlier paper and dealing with the difficulties that can arise when calculating high order modes. Secondly, contribution has been made to improving the classical finite strip method (FSM) by replacing the "static" shape function of the strip element by a "dynamic" function. This leads to the development of a dynamic finite strip method which improves solution accuracy without compromising model size and which therefore is more efficient than the classical FSM. When compared with the finite element method (FEM), which is also considered here, the advantages of smaller model size and higher accuracy of the dynamic FSM are significant. In order to demonstrate the application of the above approaches, the modes of simply supported plates with uniform and stepped thicknesses have been analyzed. From this numerical study, it is noted that the updated classical approach can be used to obtain a solution for any order mode to any specified accuracy and is the most efficient approach considered in the present study. It is also noted that, compared with the FEM of similar solution accuracy, the dynamic finite strip method normally produces a much smaller model size, so that such calculations are significantly more efficient than for the FEM. The aim of this work is to establish methods for the analysis of stepped plates that might be used in optimization studies where speed of formulation and solution are at a premium. There are, of course, a number of other methods that could be used to tackle such problems, but they lie outside the scope of this work; see for example the papers of Liew and co-authors [1, 2].


Extracting document templates and generalizing the structure of similar documents from specific domains can significantly increase learner productivity when creating new documents. Moreover, from a generalizable point of view, the endeavour of manually creating a draft document can be a difficult and time-consuming task, whether we need to obtain a general form for a specific document, or to identify the main ideas of a set of scientific papers on the same subject. Thus, instead of starting from a blank page that can be frustrating in most cases, we propose an automated method of grouping semantically similar documents and identifying potential templates. This paper introduces the first steps towards building an automated method relying on advanced Natural Language Processing techniques that can be used to generate templates based on large collections by identifying patterns between and within documents. The underlying semantic model used is word2vec, a two-layered neural network that builds word embeddings and was trained using the general-purpose TASA corpus. The generated word vectors were then used to compute the document representations that consider normalized word occurrences; afterwards, an agglomerative clustering algorithm is applied. Each cluster produced one template formed of paragraphs chosen from the original collection. In order to evaluate the results of the proposed method, several experiments were conducted on collections from multiple domains. The results were analysed using charts for the similarity of documents and of paragraphs on one hand, as well as evolution graphs for the agglomerative clustering process, on the other hand. Overall, our automated process was efficient, and the results were encouraging in terms of proposing initial document templates. Further research paths include the anonymization of named entities and more in-depth comparisons in terms of document structure and syntax, besides semantic relatedness.


In modernity traditional Islam has been challenged by a separation from various spheres of life, first under colonial powers and then independent nation-states. Traditional patterns of religious authority have further been undermined by individualism and the pluralisation of sources of knowledge in an age of new media. In the context of migration to the West, some scholars have argued that modern Muslim identities are becoming more secularised and individualised. However, in a local case study of Sunni religiosity in the UK, I show that, overall, this is not the case in the city of Leeds. In Chapter 1 I examine a three-part typology of Muslim responses to modernity dwelling on the orientations of reformists and (neo)traditionalists. In Chapter 2 I outline the migrations which have seen South Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims and their associated (neo)traditional and reformist movements established in the UK. Chapter 3 offers an account of the qualitative methodology I used in researching the views of around 40 imams, scholars and members of the congregation across four different Sunni mosques in Leeds. In Chapter 4 I locate these mosques and their history, unpacking key ethnic and religious differences. Chapter 5 underlines the difficulty of establishing Muslim unity through case studies of the celebration of 'Eid al-Adha and the work of Leeds Muslim Forum. Chapter 6 argues that although not always the most expert in terms of authority, mosque imams are the key providers of religious advice to their congregations. Chapter 7 suggests that while most Sunni Muslims and religious experts in Leeds assert the importance of following a school of law (taqlid), they also affirm the desirability of use of ijtihad (independent reasoning) by a mujtahid (one qualified to exercise ijtihad) in the specific contexts of the UK. Overall, Sunni Muslim religiosity in Leeds remains deeply influenced by tradition, something reinforced by ethnicity and sect.


Based on the practical engineering ,by using the 3D-FEM of elastic-plasticity, a reasonable model for simulation of tunnel excavation and shotcrete lining and rock bolts builds up, surrounding rock using Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model of ABAQUS, lining using Concrete Damaged Plasticity constitutive model, and bolt using elastic-plasticity constitutive model. By using strength reduction finite element method, analysis for safety coefficient of stability of surrounding rock with primary shotcrete lining and rock bolts under the four limit state criteria. It is concluded that the appearance of divergence of the computation may precede by displacement of characteristic points, The safety coefficient of the running-through of the plastic zone of the surrounding rock and the running-through of the plastic zone of the shotcrete and a great amount of rock bolts yielding are less than the divergence of the computation and displacement of characteristic points.


A majority 50-70% of aseptic meningo-encephalitis cases is caused by unknown aetiological agents.

In the course of this work a cytometric bead array (CBA) for simultaneous detection of antibodies against the following 15 neglected European arboviruses was developed: Batai virus (BATV), Bhanja virus (BHAV), Erve virus (ERVEV), Eyach virus (EYAV), Inkoo virus (INKV), Palma virus (PALV), Sandfly fever virus Naples (SFNV), Sandfly fever virus Sicilian (SFSV), Sandfly fever virus Turkish (SFTV), Tahyna virus (TAHV), tick borne encephalitis virus (TBEV), Toscana virus (TOSV), Tribec virus (TRBV), Uukuniemi virus (UUKV) and West Nile fever virus (WNV). These viruses belong to different virus families and are transmitted by ticks, mosquitoes or sandflies.
Arboviral proteins (N for Bunyaviruses, NS1 for Flaviviruses and VP6/VP7 for Reoviruses) were expressed, purified and coupled to different, optically distinguishable subpopulations of magnetic beads. The CBA was validated, the sensitivity was determined and cross reactivity was reviewed by fluorescent detection via MAGPIX-System. To compare the sensitivity of our CBA with other known detection methods, Immunfluorescence tests (IFT) on infected VeroB4 and VeroE6 cells were performed with the corresponding viruses.

The CBA cut-off was determined based on results from 45 uninfected reference human sera. 111 samples from patients with symptoms of aseptic meningitis or aseptic meningo-encephalitis of unknown aetiology from the Upper Rhine Valley areas and the Black Forest in Southwest-Germany were tested. 42 (38%) showed positive results. 31 (28%) showed signs of acute infection (IgM: positive / IgG: negative or IgM: positive / IgG: positive) for BHAV/PALV, ERVEV, EYAV, TRBV, TBEV, INKV/TAHV, WNV, SFNV/TOSV, SFSV/SFTV. 11 (10%) showed signs of passed infection (IgM: negative / IgG: positive) for SFNV/TOSV, INKV/TAHV, EYAV, TRBV. Most of these results were confirmed by IFT.

The established CBA allows the simultaneous detection of antibodies against up to 15 European arboviruses in patient material and can help to assess the impact of these viruses as aetiological agents of aseptic meningitis and aseptic meningo-encephalitis cases of unknown origin.


The poor state of the ocean and the transboundary nature of the marine environment require bold action by States coordinated across sectors and territorial boundaries in order to deal with the manifold challenges the ocean is facing—and with it humankind. Cooperation and coordination among States and stakeholders in marine regions have proven to be important levers for policy implementation and to strengthen ocean governance, yet remain challenging. Transparent and engaging stakeholder dialogue processes have the potential to provide guidance for the necessary transformation toward ocean sustainability and support the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for the ocean, SDG 14 and other interlinked ocean-related targets. The aim of this study is to review the challenges and opportunities of current collaborative efforts, namely multi-stakeholder dialogue and exchange processes, within and between marine regions to accelerate transformative action, contributing to these global goals. This paper builds on knowledge co-production and collaborative governance literature, and reviews experiences by stakeholders with ocean-related science-policy interfaces in an effort to strengthen regional ocean governance. As an exemplary case of such interfaces, this study assesses the Marine Regions Forum, a newly established inclusive dialogue and exchange platform for diverse actors from marine regions that aims to provide an informal space for joint learning and support regional action and international governance processes alike. Employing latent content analysis of interviews with experts, critical common barriers that hamper current collaborative efforts amongst stakeholders in marine regions are identified, such as fragmented governance frameworks, power and resource imbalances, and lack of meaningful stakeholder engagement. Pathways to address these challenges, such as through common goal orientation, contextualisation, inclusivity, trust building and meaningful continuous interactions are also identified. This paper concludes by discussing the value added of transparent and inclusive collaborative processes in the transformation of ocean governance toward achieving sustainability.


A system model for analyzing the effects of dispersion when multilongitudinal-mode laser diodes are used is presented. The analysis considers in a general manner the digital symbol statistics, the system pulse shaping, the laser diode spectrum, the laser diode extinction ratio, and mode partition noise. For mode partition noise, separate consideration is given to the statistics of the longitudinal-mode powers within a baud period and to the statistics between different baud periods. It is demonstrated that failure to separate the mode partition statistics in this manner can lead to underestimation of the dispersion penalty. By incorporating statistical models for the important system parameters, a statistical approach to route design is demonstrated. >


Nahum Tate and Henry Purcell's early modern opera Dido and Aeneas has been popular since the early nineteenth century. Librettist Nahum Tate inherited and adapted topoi representing fate, destiny, love, death, grief and piety among others from Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan and seventeenth-century literary sources. This article reconsiders Dido's traditional representation as a heroic victim reappraising her legacy. It argues that rather than simple reproducing the meeting between Dido and Aeneas in Virgil, Tate combined Ovid's heroine, Tertullian's 'monument to chastity' and other characterisations in Virgil's Aeneid (29–19 BCE); Ovid's Heroides (c. 5 BCE–8 CE); Chaucer's Legend of Good Women (14--); Douglas' Eneados (1513); Howard's Virgiles Æneis (1557); Phaer and Twynne's AEneidos (1573); Stanyhurst's Aeneis (1582); Marlowe's The Tragedie of Dido, Queene of Carthage (1594); Tertullian's Ad Nationes (published 1625) and Dryden's Aeneis (1697) transmogrifying Dido's portrayal. The list itself demonstrates the transmission of Dido's story from antiquity to the Early Modern era. 'When I am laid in earth' is part of Britain's national consciousness performed in an arrangement for brass band on Remembrance Sunday every year since the 1930s. Why does this piece of music still have so much significance? The article calls for Dido's re-evaluation as a phoenix rising again every year on the second Sunday in November — today's erstwhile symbol of remembrance.


For more than a decade, it has been recognized that the energy consumption in low power modes for electrical and electronic products is an important issue because it represent permanent loads (sometimes up to 24 hours per day) of a huge number of products. With the 1 W standby initiative of the International Energy Agency (IEA), several low power mode measurement campaigns have been led on a regular basis in a number of countries outside and inside Europe Union (EU). Based on these results and on the Energy-using Products Study Lot 6, the EU has prepared new regulation to limit the standby and off-mode power consumption of non-networked household electronic and electrical equipment, which is being applied since January 2010. The IEE project SELINA carried out a large scale monitoring campaign in shops in order to characterize the low power modes of new appliances being sold in the EU market. In order to ensure consistency of the collected data, a common measurement methodology was developed and the same high resolution measurement equipment was used by all partners. This publication analyzes the results of more than 6000 different equipments measured in the 12 EU countries involved in the project. Standby and off-mode values by product categories are analyzed and compared with data from other regions of the World. The measurements are also benchmarked against the new 2010/2013 EU standby and off mode regulation thresholds and the impact of the EU regulation is discussed. In parallel with the measurement campaign, an awareness study of the retailers was carried out. This survey helps to understand the customers' buying motivations and the influence of retailers' advice in their choices. An overview of the collected policies and initiatives to improve the low power mode energy consumption are reviewed.


have important implications in regard to other noxious substances at the present time readily available. Such difficulties should not dissuade the authorities from considering paraquat as a particular case. One could well argue that these other substances have not been involved in such serious poisonings as paraquat itself despite being under no greater restriction. This may well be in part because they are less toxic and more amenable to known forms of therapy. I have personally been concerned for some time about the apparent ineffectiveness of controls over the use and distribution of paraquat. My action in writing this letter was precipitated by two very recent but unrelated instances of children being accidentally poisoned by paraquat in the Edinburgh area. At the present time our community is being exhorted to care more about the quality of its life and its environment. I would make a plea to the medical profession to support a ban on the use of this highly dangerous weedkiller as I feel that this would be an important contribution in the field of preventive medicine.-I am, etc.,


In this paper, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel N × M wavelength selective switch (WSS) architecture based on the use of an Opto-VLSI processor. Through a two-stage beamsteering process, wavelength channels from any input optical fiber port can be switched into any output optical fiber port. A proof-of-concept 2 × 3 WSS structure is developed, demonstrating flexible wavelength selective switching with an insertion loss around 15 dB.


This chapter will focus on the safety and protection in utilization of radiation and nonradiation imaging modalities within a medical encounter in health institutional context. The challenges of ease of access on the one hand regarding a referral versus accessing of these imaging services. The roles and responsibilities of the diverse range of professionals in the medical encounter are in ensuring that an effective decision-making is made at each point in time. The importance of communication, coordination, collaboration, and alignment is in ensuring that the care and safety of the patient is not compromised. Thus, the chore essence of provider is patient-centered care, that is, from the point of the initiation of the referral to the outcomes of an effective medical treatment and management plan. The role of the imaging investigation and its value is outweighing the risks versus harm through these chains of events and beyond.


Person Search is a challenging task which requires to retrieve a person's image and the corresponding position from an image dataset. It consists of two sub-tasks: pedestrian detection and person re-identification (re-ID). One of the key challenges is to properly combine the two sub-tasks into a unified framework. Existing works usually adopt a straightforward strategy by concatenating a detector and a re-ID model directly, either into an integrated model or into separated models. We argue that simply concatenating detection and re-ID is a sub-optimal solution, and we propose a Hierarchical Online Instance Matching (HOIM) loss which exploits the hierarchical relationship between detection and re-ID to guide the learning of our network. Our novel HOIM loss function harmonizes the objectives of the two sub-tasks and encourages better feature learning. In addition, we improve the loss update policy by introducing Selective Memory Refreshment (SMR) for unlabeled persons, which takes advantage of the potential discrimination power of unlabeled data. From the experiments on two standard person search benchmarks, i.e. CUHK-SYSU and PRW, we achieve state-of-the-art performance, which justifies the effectiveness of our proposed HOIM loss on learning robust features.


The anthelmintic activity of papaya (Carica papaya Linn) latex against patent Ascaridia galli experimental infection with 1000 infectie eggs in chicken was studied. One week after a single dose of papaya latex 20% treatment of infected chicken, their EPG counts decreased. There was a significant, strong positive correlation between the percentage decrease of EPG counts and the single doses of papaya latex 20% given to the birds (r = 0,98; P H 0.05). There was also a very high, negative correlation between adult A. galli numbers recovered from the experimental birds and the single doses of papaya latex 20% (r=0,996; P=0,067). A single dose of 1447.89 mg papaya latex 20% completely freed the birds from A. galli infection while the untreated, infection controls harboured a mean number of 50 adult worms. The 100% effective dose (ED100) of papaya latex 20% per bird. The egg and body weights of treated, infected chicken improved to become similar to those of the untreated, unifected controls.


Mycobacterium kansasii was isolated from an area of cavitating pneumonia in a man with rheumatoid arthritis. Standard antituberculosis treatment, including isoniazid 300 mg daily, had to be stopped because of peripheral neuropathy. The patient, a slow acetylator, subjectively deteriorated despite withdrawal of isoniazid and treatment with pyridoxine 150 mg daily. Improvement occurred only after the pyridoxine had also been withdrawn. Pyridoxine may cause peripheral neuropathy and this case illustrates the need for caution in the use of this vitamin in the prevention and treatment of isoniazid induced peripheral neuropathy.


Consider two individuals, John and Mary, who each possess a number of concepts. How can we determine that John and Mary both have a concept of, say, Horse? John and Mary may not have exactly the same knowledge of horses, but it is important to be able to place their horse concepts into correspondence with one another, if only so that we can say things like, "Mary's concept of horse is much more sophisticated than John's." Concepts should be public in the sense that they can be possessed by more than one person (Fodor, 1998; Fodor & Lepore, 1992), and for this to be the possible, we must be able to determine correspondences, or translations, between two individuals' concepts. There have been two major approaches in cognitive science to conceptual meaning that could potentially provide a solution to finding translations between conceptual systems. According to an "external grounding" account, concepts' meanings depend on their connection to the external world (this account is more thoroughly defined in the next section). By this account, the concept Horse means what it does because our perceptual apparatus can identify features that characterize horses. According to what we will call a "Conceptual web" account, concepts' meanings depend on their connections to each other. By this account, Horse's meaning depends on Gallop, Domesticated, and Quadruped, and in turn, these concepts depend on other concepts, including Horse (Quine & Ullian, 1970). In this chapter, we will first present a brief tour of some of the main proponents of conceptual web and external grounding accounts of conceptual meaning. Then, we will describe a computer algorithm that translates between conceptual systems. The initial goal of this computational work is to show how translating across systems is possible using only withinsystem relations, as is predicted by a conceptual web account. However, the subsequent goal is to show how the synthesis of external and internal information can dramatically improve translation. This work suggests that the external grounding and conceptual web accounts should not be


Tomato cv. Liaoyuanduoli ( Solanum lycopersicum ) plants were cultivated in a greenhouse to allow sampling of the second fruit in the first cluster and comparison with tomato fruit that developed following para-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (PCPA) treatment. Sugar content, activities of sugar related enzymes and the effects of PCPA treatment on gene expression of soluble acid invertase (AI) during tomato fruit development were studied. Enhanced activity of AI and increased gene expression of soluble AI in pectinic tissues, pericarp and dissepiments were observed during fruit development, resulting in an increase in fructose and glucose levels. Following PCPA treatment, the activity of AI was amplified and gene expression of soluble AI was accelerated during the mature period of fruit so that fructose and glucose were increased. Upon ripening and following PCPA treatment, the activity of AI and gene expression of soluble AI in pectinic tissues were more pronounced than those in pericarp and dissepiments, but the concentrations of fructose and glucose in pectinic tissues were lower than in pericarp and dissepiments. PCPA appeared to affect vacuolar acid invertase activity by regulating corresponding gene expression, resulting in hexose accumulation in ripening tomato fruit.


In this paper, characteristics of Schottky Barrier (SB) NOR Flash memory devices are studied through simulation. SB Flash cell adopts source-side hot electron and hole injection (SSHEI/SSHHI) in programming and erasing, respectively, and higher P/E efficiency can be achieved as compared with conventional NOR Flash devices. We also show that the distribution of injected carriers in SB cells are tighter and more localized near the source or drain side, while reverse read is only slightly altered after programming. This represents a potential merit in scaled NROM devices which demands the elimination of interference between the two bits contained in a single cell.


The use of integrated PET/MRI systems in clinical applications can best benefit from understanding their technological advances and limitations. The currently available clinical PET/MRI systems have their own characteristics. Thorough analyses of existing technical data and evaluation of necessary performance metrics for quality assurances could be conducted to optimize application-specific PET/MRI protocols. This Symposium will focus on technical advances and limitations of clinical PET/MRI systems, and how this exciting imaging modality can be utilized in applications that can benefit from both PET and MRI.
Learning Objectives:
1.
To understand the technological advances of clinical PET/MRI systems
2.
To correctly identify clinical applications that can benefit from PET/MRI
3.
To understand ongoing work to further improve the current PET/MRI technology
Floris Jansen is a GE Healthcare employee.


Abstract A bulk peanut curing model was modified to indicate conditions which affect peanut quality. The model simulates changes in moisture content as affected by the temperature and humidity of the drying air. Equations were developed for simulating hourly changes in the ambient temperature. Conditions promoting mold growth and mycotoxin production were indicated when relative humidities in the dryer exceeded an upper limit. Poor milling quality was indicated by relative humidities below a lower limit based on extension recommendations. Cumulative time for each of these conditions was determined with various levels of ambient temperature, initial moisture and dryer control settings. A control scheme is given for setting the plenum thermostat. The results show that better control of the dryer operating conditions will maintain the quality factors at a satisfactory level.


Recently, Meta-Black-Box Optimization with Reinforcement Learning (MetaBBO-RL) has showcased the power of leveraging RL at the meta-level to mitigate manual fine-tuning of low-level black-box optimizers. However, this field is hindered by the lack of a unified benchmark. To fill this gap, we introduce MetaBox, the first benchmark platform expressly tailored for developing and evaluating MetaBBO-RL methods. MetaBox offers a flexible algorithmic template that allows users to effortlessly implement their unique designs within the platform. Moreover, it provides a broad spectrum of over 300 problem instances, collected from synthetic to realistic scenarios, and an extensive library of 19 baseline methods, including both traditional black-box optimizers and recent MetaBBO-RL methods. Besides, MetaBox introduces three standardized performance metrics, enabling a more thorough assessment of the methods. In a bid to illustrate the utility of MetaBox for facilitating rigorous evaluation and in-depth analysis, we carry out a wide-ranging benchmarking study on existing MetaBBO-RL methods. Our MetaBox is open-source and accessible at: https://github.com/GMC-DRL/MetaBox.


BACKGROUND
We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study to investigate the influence of hospital volume, delay of surgery, and both together on the long-term survival of postoperative cancer patients.

METHODS
Using information from the Korea Central Cancer Registry from 2001 through 2005 and the National Health Insurance claim database, we determined survival for 147 682 patients who underwent definitive surgery for any of six cancers.

RESULTS
Regardless of cancer site, surgical patients in low- to medium-volume hospitals showed significantly worse survival [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 1.36-1.86] than those in high-volume hospitals in multivariable analyses. Among the latter, treatment delays > 1 month were not associated with worse survival for stomach, colon, pancreatic, or lung cancer but were for rectal [aHR = 1.28; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.17-1.40] and breast (aHR = 1.59; 95% CI, 1.37-1.84) cancer. For patients in low- to medium-volume hospitals, treatment delay was associated with worse survival for all types of cancer (aHR = 1.78-3.81).

CONCLUSION
Our findings suggest that the effect of hospital volume and surgical treatment delay on overall survival of cancer patients should be considered in formulating or revising national health policy.