Inequities in educational opportunities, resources, research, and meaningful discussion are widespread for American Indian and Alaska Native students in the overarching context of American education. From a policy perspective, many might question the relative non-existence of this population outside a few select education circles. We seek to determine and describe the baseline influential studies, organizations, information sources, and people for American Indian/Alaska Native education policy through the lens of indigenous education experts in the field. Methods include web-based surveys and citation index. The dearth of literature in this field is evidence enough that more can be done to meet the needs of this diverse and unique set of students. The study seeks to move American Indian/Alaska Native issues into the general education policy conversation and to serve as a catalyst for critical conversations about the education of American Indian and Alaskan Native students. By understanding the origins of education policy affecting American Indian/Alaskan Natives, this study advances critical scholarship and practice providing insight into the people themselves; what they value, who they trust, and what is most influential and important to them in terms of the future of their children.


In this paper, flocculation process was applied to the treatment of potato starch wastewater. The Influence of flocculent types, dosage of flocculants, pH, dosage of coagulant aid polyacrylamide (PAM) and sedimentation time on flocculation efficiency was studied, and principal factors of influence flocculation pretreatment of potato starch wastewater and the optimum flocculation conditions were determined by orthogonal experiment. On the optimum conditions which had the advantage of better treatment efficiency with chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rate of 40.55% , the suitable pH(7) in favour of the following biological treatment, high yield of sludge of 1.59g/L wastewater which could be used as animal feed or fertilizer and increase economic benefits.


A batch procedure was developed to allow rapid assessment of applicability of biological phosphorus removal (BPR) to a specific location and its wastewater. This procedure requires anoxic (anaerobic) and then aerobic phases in sequence with enriched cultures and takes approximately 4 to 8 hours. Sodium acetate was used to verify adequacy of available carbon source. This procedure was verified with data from two full scale plants, one using the A/O, the other the PhoStrip processes. Cases for both favorable and unfavorable to BPR are presented. Monitoring parameters found useful included D.O., orthophosphate, volatile acids, and COD. Volatile acid concentration in particular appeared to be a key element required for BPR. ORP and ATP was found useful to a lesser degree, due to their sensitivity to many environmental factors. This procedure is also shown to be a useful tool in detecting toxic impacts of the waste water on the cultures responsible for BPR. It is therefore recommended that this simplified procedure should be carried out in assessing the BPR feasibility in addition to evaluation of conventional parameters.


Colloids grafted with a corona layer of polymers show glassy behavior that covers a wide range of fragilities, with this behavior being tunable through variations in grafting density and grafting chain length. We find that the corona roughness, which is maximized for long chain lengths and sparse grafting, is directly correlated to the concentration-dependence of the system relaxation time (fragility). Relatively rougher colloids result in stronger liquids because their rotational motions become orientationally correlated across the whole system even at low particle loadings leading to an essentially Arrhenius-like concentration-dependence of the relaxation times near the glass transition. The smoother colloids do not show as much orientational correlation except at higher densities leading to fragile behavior. We therefore propose that these materials are an ideal model to study the physical properties of the glass transition.


We give the classification of quiver Hopf algebras with pointed module structures. This leads to the classification of multiple crown algebras and multiple Taft algebras as well as pointed Yetter-Drinfeld modules and their corresponding Nichols algebras. In particular, we give the classification of graded Hopf algebras on cotensor coalgebra T c kG(M) of kG-bicomdule M over finite commutative group algebra kG and tensor algebra TkG(M) of dimensional finite kG bimodule M over finite commutative group algebra kG with |G |= n, when k contains a primitive n-th root of 1 and the order of G is not divisible by char(k). In this case, we also give the classification of Yetter-Drinfeld kG-modules and Nichols algebras of Yetter-Drinfeld kG-modules. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 16W30, 16G10 keywords: Quiver, Hopf algebra, Hopf bimodule


This paper examines how schoolyard design in low resource communities can create a natural, restorative environment to not only foster learning, but also trauma recovery. Research has shown that nature can provide much needed cognitive restoration for children who have limited access to nature. However, there are no existing applications of sustainable schoolyard design in developing country contexts. We provide a case study of our schoolyard redesign project with More Than Me Academy (MTM), a girl's school in Monrovia, Liberia. MTM aims "to make sure education and opportunity, not exploitation and poverty, define the lives of the most vulnerable girls from the West Point Slum of Liberia." We used human centered design methods to uncover the cognitive and curricular needs of the students, staff, and community. Through this process, we discovered that the school needed enhanced caretaking (including safety, hygiene, and responsibility), opportunities for play and expression, restoration, and community. While the project was interrupted by the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia, we offer a guideline for how other multidisciplinary groups can approach redesigning a sustainable schoolyard to increase cognitive restoration in low resource contexts.


The rapidly expanding corpus of medical research literature presents major challenges in the understanding of previous work, the extraction of maximum information from collected data, and the identification of promising research directions. We present a case for the use of advanced machine learning techniques as an aide in this task and introduce a novel methodology that is shown to be capable of extracting meaningful information from large longitudinal corpora, and of tracking complex temporal changes within it.


OBJECTIVE
Delirium is a frequent syndrome in elderly hospital patients. Symptoms typically show a fluctuating course during the day, with patients exhibiting disturbances of their sleep-wake rhythm. Delirium is frequently underdiagnosed, especially the so-called hypoactive subtype. Devices measuring 24-hr motor patterns could contribute to the recognition of delirium. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, the results of a pilot study are presented, in which 24-hr motor patterns of delirious patients are measured with a wrist-actigraph. Second, studies reporting 24-hr motor patterns in delirious patients are systematically reviewed.

METHODS
The pilot study included 9 patients, 65 years or older, with a hip fracture in need of surgical repair. For the review, MEDLINE and Embase were searched for studies on motor activity assessment in delirious patients.

RESULTS
In the pilot study, the 24-hr activity rhythm was severely disturbed during delirium, and most actigraphic sleep parameter estimates indicated significantly worse sleep during delirious nights. The systematic search resulted in 10 papers. In 3 papers, the sleep-wake rhythm of delirious patients was significantly different from that of nondelirious patients. In 5 papers, delirious patients could be classified into delirium subtypes. In the 2 remaining papers, 24-hr motor patterns of delirium subtypes were not significantly different.

CONCLUSION
Activity patterns revealed differences between delirious and nondelirious patients and between the different subtypes, even in small samples of patients. Future studies, with preferably larger sample sizes, should confirm the potential of activity pattern measuring devices in the early detection of delirium.


Image‐guided therapies, including stereotactic radiosurgery, biopsy procedures, IMRT and image‐guided surgery are being used with increasing frequency. Although originally based primarily on CT data, image‐guided therapies now frequently use MR data alone, or in conjunction with CT data in the planning of or real‐time guidance of interventional procedures. Unlike CTimaging, the spatial accuracy of MRI data depends on both an appropriate QC program and the choice of appropriate image acquisition techniques. TG‐117 seeks to provide guidance regarding the optimization of imaging protocols and necessary QC procedures when MR systems are to be used to obtain data for procedures in which high spatial accuracy is critical. This lecture will provide a preview of TG‐117, reviewing the physical bases for spatial distortions due to both system hardware and interaction of the system with the patient, describing methods for reducing or eliminating effects of distortion in MR imaging including protocol optimization and correction strategies, and presenting examples of QC tests for MR systems used to obtain data for procedures requiring high spatial accuracy. Educational Objectives: 1. Understand the physical bases for spatial distortions. 2. Understand image acquisition optimization and correction strategies for minimizing or eliminating effects of spatial distortions. 3. Understand issues related to QC testing for clinical applications requiring high spatial accuracy.


We study the role of caches in wireless interference networks. We focus on content caching and delivery across a Gaussian interference network, where both transmitters and receivers are equipped with caches. We provide a constant-factor approximation of the system's degrees of freedom (DoF), for arbitrary number of transmitters, number of receivers, content library size, receiver cache size, and transmitter cache size (as long as the transmitters combined can store the entire content library among them). We demonstrate approximate optimality with respect to information-theoretic bounds that do not impose any restrictions on the caching and delivery strategies. Our characterization reveals three key insights. First, the approximate DoF is achieved using a strategy that separates the physical and network layers. This separation architecture is thus approximately optimal. Second, we show that increasing transmitter cache memory beyond what is needed to exactly store the entire library between all transmitters does not provide more than a constant-factor benefit to the DoF. A consequence is that transmit zero-forcing is not needed for approximate optimality. Third, we derive an interesting tradeoff between the receiver memory and the number of transmitters needed for approximately maximal performance. In particular, if each receiver can store a constant fraction of the content library, then only a constant number of transmitters are needed. Our solution to the caching problem requires formulating and solving a new communication problem, the symmetric multiple multicast X-channel, for which we provide an exact DoF characterization.


The conversion of agricultural lands to forests has increased worldwide over the past few decades for multiple reasons including increasing forest connectivity and wildlife habitat. However, previous land cover and competing vegetation often impede afforestation. We established 219 plots in 29 Quercus plantations on four previous land cover types (LCT): Clover, Soybeans, Woody Brush, and Herbaceous Weeds. Plantations were located in Illinois, USA and were sampled 15–18 years after planting. Sampling data for all trees (planted and volunteer) included species, diameter, and vine presence on the main bole of the tree. Free-to-grow status was recorded for all Quercus species and estimated cover of two invasive species, Elaeagnus umbellata and Lonicera japonica, was documented on each plot. There was a strong relationship between total tree density and invasive species cover across all sites. Stocking success was lower and E. umbellata cover was higher on Woody Brush sites compared to Clover and Soybean cover types. Additionally, significantly more free-to-grow Quercus saplings occurred in Clover and Soybean cover types compared to the Woody Brush sites. The results indicate that previous land cover plays a critical role in forest afforestation. Furthermore, while historically, volunteer tree species were thought to be detrimental to the development of planted species these results suggest that with the increasing prevalence of invasive species worldwide the role of volunteer species in afforestation should be reconsidered and silvicultural protocols adjusted accordingly.


Federated learning (FL) is a promising approach for learning a shared global model on decentralized data owned by multiple clients without exposing their privacy. In real-world scenarios, data accumulated at the client-side varies in distribution over time. As a consequence, the global model tends to forget the knowledge obtained from previous tasks while learning new tasks, showing signs of "catastrophic forgetting". Previous studies in centralized learning use techniques such as data replay and parameter regularization to mitigate catastrophic forgetting. Unfortunately, these techniques cannot adequately solve the non-trivial problem in FL. We propose Continual Federated Learning with Distillation (CFeD) to address catastrophic forgetting under FL. CFeD performs knowledge distillation on both the clients and the server, with each party independently having an unlabeled surrogate dataset, to mitigate forgetting. Moreover, CFeD assigns different learning objectives, namely learning the new task and reviewing old tasks, to different clients, aiming to improve the learning ability of the model. The results show that our method performs well in mitigating catastrophic forgetting and achieves a good trade-off between the two objectives.


It was shown that the treatment of erythrocytes with low concentrations of glutaraldehyde (0.01-0.1%) for 30-120 min to a variable extent the aggregation induced by 40-330 microM La3+. The effect of glutaraldehyde on the aggregation increased with concentration and time of fixation. La3+ ions decreased to a similar extent the electrophoretic mobility of intact erythrocytes and erythrocytes treated with 0.1% glutaraldehyde. No relationship was found between the change in the negative charge on the erythrocytes and the degree of their aggregation. Neuraminidase and trypsin were shown to decrease the surface charge on the erythrocytes and the aggregation of fixed erythrocytes.


Abstract: L'analisi di proporzionalita e coerete con l'originalismo? – While it is often thought that proportionality analysis (PA) and originalism are inconsistent with one another, this essay argues that the two approaches do not necessarily conflict.  The reason is that originalism and PA are focused on different things.  Originalism is an interpretive method that attempts to determine and apply the original meaning of a constitution.  PA, by contrast, is a method mainly for analyzing rights under the fundamental law.  If the original meaning of the constitution requires PA, then the two approaches will coincide.  If the original meaning requires something other than PA, then the two will conflict.  The real question, then, is not whether the two approaches conflict or coincide in general, but whether the original meaning of a particular constitution requires or permits PA.  This essay develops these points.  It starts by showing that originalism is not necessarily inconsistent with PA.  It then explores the changes in originalism in recent years and some of the different types of originalism.  It then explains how several constitutions throughout the world, which do not explicitly allow PA, might or might not, depending upon the details, be understood to require or permit PA.
Keywords: Constitutional interpretation; Originalism; Proportionality analysis.


Scene recognition with RGB images has been extensively studied and has reached very remarkable recognition levels, thanks to convolutional neural networks (CNN) and large scene datasets. In contrast, current RGB-D scene data is much more limited, so often leverages RGB large datasets, by transferring pretrained RGB CNN models and fine-tuning with the target RGB-D dataset. However, we show that this approach has the limitation of hardly reaching bottom layers, which is key to learn modality-specific features. In contrast, we focus on the bottom layers, and propose an alternative strategy to learn depth features combining local weakly supervised training from patches followed by global fine tuning with images. This strategy is capable of learning very discriminative depth-specific features with limited depth images, without resorting to Places-CNN. In addition we propose a modified CNN architecture to further match the complexity of the model and the amount of data available. For RGB-D scene recognition, depth and RGB features are combined by projecting them in a common space and further leaning a multilayer classifier, which is jointly optimized in an end-to-end network. Our framework achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on NYU2 and SUN RGB-D in both depth only and combined RGB-D data.


This paper studies the role of global input-output linkages in transmitting economic disturbances in the international economy. Our empirical results suggest that these sectoral spillovers are both statistically significant and of economic importance. We also provide evidence that it is not the interlinkages per se that matter for the international transmission but rather the presence of global hub sectors that are either large suppliers or purchasers of other sectors' inputs. When the links between these sectors and the rest of the global value chain are severed, the spillovers diminish strongly and eventually become statistically insignificant. This highlights the importance of the structure of the network for enabling spillovers and the prominent role played by hub sectors in the global economy. JEL Classification: E30, E32, F44, F62


This project analyses perceived effects of the evolving Northern Powerhouse agenda on one of its major cities, Leeds. It utilises interviews with local elite actors and members of third sector and policy communities to examine perceptions of the Northern Powerhouse's inception and impact. The project will further examine changing power dynamics between local and national government and private finance. This will be demonstrated by using classical power theories, particularly Steven Lukes' third dimensional power, which allows for impositions of structures inimical to local power to receive reluctant acquiescence. Three key areas of devolution, administrative, political and financial are examined through the prism of Lukes' theory. A perception of neo-liberal hegemony within local government is discussed and nascent opposition to this hegemony, redolent of overt conflict is evidenced. By using semistructured interviews with Leeds' elite actors the project helps to fill an identified gap in scholarly knowledge of the Northern Powerhouse agenda.


Anticoagulation with citrate at a rate of 0.68 mM/min in combination with a calcium and magnesium-free dialysate and i.v. supplementation of calcium and magnesium at rates of 0.18 mM/min and 0.08 mM/min respectively, was compared with low-dose heparin. The heparin dose was a loading dose of 2500 IU and a sustaining infusion of 750-1250 IU/h; or a loading dose of 1250 IU and a sustaining infusion of 500-750 IU/h until 1 h before the end of the dialysis if the patient was taking concomitantly coumarin anticoagulation for a Goretex shunt. Six chronic haemodialysis patients changed from heparin to citrate anticoagulation because they reported bleeding between dialyses. Heparin, after 2 h dialysis, induced a significant 10% prolongation of each patient's whole-blood activated clotting time (WBACT) as compared to the predialysis value; while the WBACT at the dialyser outlet was less than 3% prolonged as compared to the patient's WBACT. However, after 2 h citrate the patient's WBACT was not prolonged but the WBACT at the dialyser outlet was 20-100% longer, indicating a better anticoagulation of the extracorporeal system without systemic effects. With heparin the shunt pressure time (SPT), i.e. the time needed to stop bleeding from the puncture sites of the Goretex shunts, was 12 of 28 times 20 min or more. Citrate reduced these episodes by 75%. Thus citrate should be considered for chronic haemodialysis patients who are at risk of bleeding because of the concomitant use of anticoagulants.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


ABSTRACT The characterization of pathogenic properties of two infectious clones of Plum pox virus (PPV) isolates, pGPPV (D group) and pGPPVPS (M group), was investigated in their woody hosts (seedlings of Prunus spp.). The two clones differed in their ability to infect plum and peach cultivars, from no infection to local and systemic infection. The phenotype determinants were located with a set of chimeric viruses from the two clones. In plum, determinants of systemic infection were located in a genomic fragment encoding the P3 and 6K1 proteins, which might influence genome amplification or virus movement. The capacity of pGPPVPS to induce stable local and systemic infections in peach was not located accurately and might be influenced by multiple determinants carried by different regions of the genome, excluding those encoding the protein 1, the majority of helper component, nuclear inclusions a and b, and coat protein. We conclude that PPV infections of plum and peach are governed by different determinants.


Cationic polymers such as polyallylamine (PAA) having primary amino groups are poor transfection agents and possess a high cytotoxicity index when used without any chemical modification. In this study, PAA was modified with cholesterol in order to improve transfection efficiency and to reduce cytotoxicity. PAA polymers with molecular weights of 15 and 65 kDa were selected and grafted with cholesterol at percentages of 5, 10, 15, 30, and 50. After purification, the efficacy of the synthetic vectors was evaluated in terms of DNA condensation using the ethidium bromide test, buffering capacity, particle size, zeta potential, transfection efficiency, and cytotoxicity assay in Neuro2A cell lines. According to the ethidium bromide test, these vectors can condense DNA at moderate and high carrier to plasmid (C/P) ratios. The buffering capacity of the prepared vector in both molecular weights was less than unmodified PAA. Particle size measurements demonstrated that modified PAAs were able to form nanoparticles ranging in size from 125 to 530 nm. The vectors based on PAA 15 kDa demonstrated a better transfection efficiency than the vectors made of PAA 65 kDa. Cytotoxicity studies showed that toxicity of all vectors was less than PAA. Some cholesterol modified polymers composed of PAA (15 kDa) were suitable vectors for gene delivery with low cytotoxicity.


Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common congenital viral infection in neonates. Postnatal infection regarding infants rarely has significant clinical consequences. However, preterm may be at higher risk of developing symptomatic postnatal CMV disease. A multipara woman delivered vaginally a male preterm infant at 30 weeks' gestation who was suspected of early-onset sepsis in view of chronic leaking. The baby developed severe hypoxemia, and persistent pulmonary hypertension after delivery, with progressive deterioration and minimal effect of advanced ventilation, antibiotics, and pulmonary vasodilators. Sepsis screen and cultures for bacteria and fungi were negative. The baby was having enlarged liver and spleen which was noticed on day 15 of life. TORCH titer of the baby revealed CMV IgM and subsequently, CMV was isolated in the urine and in the blood plasma by polymerase chain reaction. Oral valganciclovir improved hematological parameters of the baby and respiratory support could be weaned. CMV being the most common intrauterine infection should be considered in differential diagnosis in unusual presentation of suspected sepsis and oral valganciclovir can be considered as good option for treatment.


Abstract— We surveyed the impact crater populations of Venus and the Moon, dry targets with and without an atmosphere, to characterize how the 3‐dimensional shape of a crater and the appearance of the ejecta blanket varies with impact angle. An empirical estimate of the impact angle below which particular phenomena occur was inferred from the cumulative percentage of impact craters exhibiting different traits. The results of the surveys were mostly consistent with predictions from experimental work. Assuming a sin2θ dependence for the cumulative fraction of craters forming below angle θ, on the Moon, the following transitions occur: >˜45 degrees, the ejecta blanket becomes asymmetric; >˜25 degrees, a forbidden zone develops in the uprange portion of the ejecta blanket, and the crater rim is depressed in that direction; >˜15 degrees, the rim becomes saddle‐shaped; >˜10 degrees, the rim becomes elongated in the direction of impact and the ejecta forms a "butterfly" pattern. On Venus, the atmosphere causes asymmetries in the ejecta blanket to occur at higher impact angles. The transitions on Venus are: >˜55 degrees, the ejecta becomes heavily concentrated downrange; >˜40 degrees, a notch in the ejecta that extends to the rim appears, and as impact angle decreases, the notch develops into a larger forbidden zone; >˜10 degrees, a fly‐wing pattern develops, where material is ejected in the crossrange direction but gets swept downrange. No relationship between location or shape of the central structure and impact angle was observed on either planet. No uprange steepening and no variation in internal slope or crater depth could be associated with impact angle on the Moon. For both planets, as the impact angle decreases from vertical, first the uprange and then the downrange rim decreases in elevation, while the remainder of the rim stays at a constant elevation. For craters on Venus >˜15 km in diameter, a variety of crater shapes are observed because meteoroid fragment dispersal is a significant fraction of crater diameter. The longer path length for oblique impacts causes a correlation of clustered impact effects with oblique impact effects. One consequence of this correlation is a shallowing of the crater with decreasing impact angle for small craters.


Many individuals with intellectual disability will at some time in their lives engage in problem behaviors that may place them and others at risk, and reduce their opportunities for healthy psychosocial functioning. These behaviors may reach severe proportions in both intensity and frequency, necessitating intervention. Both psychiatrists and behaviorists are often approached regarding negative behaviors in intellectual disability, and each discipline offers key tools in behavioral assessment and resolution. We believe that the coordinated effort of these two disciplines affords the most comprehensive and efficacious method of assessing, understanding and treating a wide range of problem behaviors and associated psychiatric pathology in individuals with various forms of intellectual disability. This paper briefly reviews the background of problem behaviors in intellectual disability and treatment of such disturbances through separate psychiatric and applied behavioral modalities, followed by the proposed coordinated neurobehavioral model. A case series ensues, describing the successful application of the neurobehavioral model to the severe problem behaviors demonstrated by three individuals with intellectual disability related to autism, Cornelia de Lange syndrome and traumatic brain injury.


Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine), the most commonly used herbicide worldwide, degrades relatively rapidly in soils under most conditions, presumably by microbial processes. The most frequently detected degradation product in soil and water is AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid). We report the first evidence for an abiotic pathway of glyphosate and AMPA degradation under environmentally realistic conditions. Both glyphosate and AMPA degraded at 20 degrees C in dilute aqueous suspensions of birnessite, a manganese oxide common in soils, as evidenced by the accumulation of orthophosphate in solution over a period of several days. It is concluded that the abiotic degradation involved C-P bond cleavage at the Mn oxide surface, although evidence for C-N bond cleavage in the case of glyphosate and sarcosine, a likely degradation product of glyphosate, was found. The degradation of glyphosate was faster than that of AMPA, and higher temperature (50 degrees C) resulted in faster degradation of both glyphosate and AMPA. The addition of sulfate to the solution had no marked effect on the reaction rate, although Cu2+ addition inhibited degradation. As this metal ion complexes strongly with glyphosate, the inhibition can be attributed to the ability of Cu2+ to limit glyphosate coordination to reactive oxidation sites at the Mn oxide surface. Using a similar experimental design, we were unable to detect glyphosate degradation in an equimolar solution of MnCl2 (0.5 mM). However, we demonstrated that the oxidation of Mn2+ is enhanced both in solution and on an inert surface, in the presence of glyphosate (4:1 Mn-glyphosate molar ratio). This result suggests that the oxidative breakdown of glyphosate in the presence of Mn2+ may ultimately occur following the spontaneous oxygen-mediated oxidation of manganese.


Towards the goal of site-specific cancer therapy to reduce the side-effects, my thesis work is mainly focused to synthesize the different amphiphilic polymeric architecture for the purpose of theranostics, a combined system which carries both imaging modalities and chemotherapeutic agent into a single molecule. For that first I have developed two different imaging agents (contrast and optical) and then both of these were utilised to develop different theranostic molecules for efficient cancer therapy. So, towards that aim, my chapter 2 has described the synthesis of a site-specific dual imaging agent. Magnetic metal cobalt carbonyl has been attached to the terminal alkyne of norbornene monomer covalently by Nicholas reaction for the purpose of contrast imaging. Next, in my chapter 3, I have focused to develop different theranostic agents for site-specific cancer therapy. The small molecule chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin and camptothecin suffers from non-specific reaching to the tumour site, and also camptothecin suffers from the poor aqueous solubility. A new class of norbornene based copolymer, Nor-Dox-Cob-Btn is proposed as potential theranostics agent for tumour diagnosis. Three different monomers nor-cobalt (contrast agent for MRI imaging), nor-doxorubicin (hydrazone linked for therapeutic purpose) and nor-peg-biotin (for aqueous solubility and site-specific therapy) has been synthesized and copolymerized (Nor-Dox-Cob-Btn) which further form capsule like nano-aggregate in aqueous solution by stabilizing hydrophobic units into its core. In an anther work, a new class of nano-theranostic agent, Pnr-Cbt-Cpt-Pg-Bn, is proposed for the effective delivery of camptothecin. In my chapter 4, I have focused to design and synthesize a nano-carrier, functionalized with chemotherapeutic agent (chlorambucil) and emissive agent pyrene with same pH responsive ester linker to the norbornene backbone. This particular design will help to solve the issues faced by chlorambucil as it suffers from aqueous solubility and as well as the non-emissive nature make it difficult to track, thus become difficult to monitor the therapeutic pathway. In my chapter 5, I have focused on the development of a dual imageable theranostic system for the site-specific delivery of platinum (Pt) analogue such as different analogues (e.g. cis-platin, carboplatin etc.) shows anti-cancer activity towards variety of cancers, suffers from site-specificity and also non-emissive nature of it make difficult to track the therapeutic pathway. To synthesize different pro-drug for theranostic application, so far I have used different pH responsive linkers which get cleave in acidic stimuli generally present in cancerous environment. But in physiological condition there is always pH variation in different cellular compartment (e.g. early endosomal pH 6.3 and late endosomal pH 5.5, whereas lysosomal pH is 4.7). Theses pH gradient actually destabilize the nano-carrier bearing different pH responsive linker, causing for drug leakage. Which further causes for poor therapeutic efficacy with unwanted side-effects. To deal with that, in my chapter 6 I have focused on to develop a specific peptide linked drug which will be cleaved only in presence of lysosomal protease Cathepsin B, overexpressed only in cancer cells. A specific cathepsin B cleavable norbornene based valine-citrulline linker was developed, which was further linked with a spacer containing doxorubicin. The drug release study showed quick release of doxorubicin in presence of Cathepsin B. The in vitro studies confirm the efficient uptake of nano-carrier at the cellular level and showed pronounced cytotoxicity.


California brown shrimp (Penaeus californiensis) fed a diet low in or without added L-ascorbic acid, developed blackened lesions (after 6 to 8 weeks in the subcuticular tissues of the general body surface, in the walls of the esophagus, stomach and hindgut, and in the gills and gill cavity. The condition has been previously observed in tank and raceway-reared P. californiensis and P. aztecus, often in epizootic proportions, and has been named black death disease.

The disease has only been observed in postlarval and juvenile shrimp fed alginate-bound artificial diets in tanks or raceways that received no sunlight and contained no plant material. Handling and other stress factors often precipitated epizootics in apparently healthy groups of shrimp. Once clinical signs of the disease became apparent, affected shrimp ceased feeding, and death usually followed within 24 to 72 hours. Opportunistic bacteria such as Vibrio spp. and Pseudomonas spp. often, But. not always, produced a terminal septicemia in affected shrimp. Mortalities of 1 to 5% per day due to this disease were observed on several occasions in tank and raceway-reared P. californiensis in 1974 and 1975 at Puerto Penasco, Mexico.

Histopathology showed the blackened lesions to be, composed of masses of hemocytes and necrotic tissue. The black pigmentation of the lesions was due to melanin deposited in areas of heavy hemocyte infiltration, particularly near the centers of developing hemocyte nodules. No parasites or bacteria could be demonstrated in the centers of these nodules.


The purpose of this study is to determine whether, from a public policy standpoint, divestitures constitute an effective antitrust remedy in bank merger cases. A number of findings emerge from the study: Divested branches have a remarkable survival record; structural changes effected by divestitures tend to persist over time; larger buyers of divested branches tended to be more successful than smaller buyers; divestiture of the target institutions' branches rather than those of applicants proved preferable from an antitrust standpoint; and divested branches selected by the Department of Justice do not perform better than others. The findings suggest that divestitures of bank offices have generally provided an effective public policy remedy


The community phenomenon has been recognized in various sciences, including business studies, whereby the latter have been focused on studying brand communities from a customer perspective in the b2c market. Until recently, the brand community's importance for companies within b2b industries has however been neglected, especially regarding its original real-life setting. This study thus aims to explore the existence of firm-hosted offline b2b brand communities by investigating their constitution, characteristics and their potential value for the hosting firm. In order to do so, this paper investigates a certain type of b2b customer events, creating a new perspective for offline community research. By applying a qualitative research method, combining inductive and deductive approach and conducting semi-structured interviews, this paper explores the offline b2b brand community through the lens of the multinational company Ericsson. This study develops a theoretical framework of offline b2b brand communities based on related community studies from the b2b and b2c industries. Findings indicate that even in today's web-enhanced world, offline communities can be of value for the hosting firm, since they are likely to foster the development of trust by customers towards the company as well as information exchange and knowledge development. The study further argues that offline b2b brand communities provide subsequent benefits of long-term relationships and product/service improvement to the hosting firm in the long run.


With the advent of the Web2.0 era, social media can achieve the rapid transmission of information and reduce the information asymmetry. In our study, we selected social media of Sina Weibo because of its wide use in China. Through text mining technology, this paper we extracted total 22504 tweets related to real estate industry. We succeeded in classify microblog accounts and two clusters of social media users are selected: individual investors and official media. Based on two dimensions of attention and emotion, this paper discusses the influence of different users on the stock market. Interestingly, the empirical results show that (1) there is an inverse U-shaped curve between attention and stock return for both official media and investor which support the over-attention underperformance hypothesis. (2) We also find that both daily sentiment of official media and investor are positively correlated to stock return. Our study contributes to a better understanding of emotion and stock market, particularly based on Chinese microblog.


Embeddings have been one of the most important topics of interest in NLP for the past decade. Representing knowledge through a low-dimensional vector which is easily integrable in modern machine learning models has played a central role in the development of the field. Embedding techniques initially focused on words but the attention soon started to shift to other forms. This tutorial will provide a high-level synthesis of the main embedding techniques in NLP, in the broad sense. We will start by conventional word embeddings (e.g., Word2Vec and GloVe) and then move to other types of embeddings, such as sense-specific and graph alternatives. We will finalize with an overview of the trending contextualized representations (e.g., ELMo and BERT) and explain their potential and impact in NLP.


We address the task of Named Entity Disambiguation (NED) for noisy text. We present WikilinksNED, a large-scale NED dataset of text fragments from the web, which is significantly noisier and more challenging than existing news-based datasets. To capture the limited and noisy local context surrounding each mention, we design a neural model and train it with a novel method for sampling informative negative examples. We also describe a new way of initializing word and entity embeddings that significantly improves performance. Our model significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods on WikilinksNED while achieving comparable performance on a smaller newswire dataset.


Innovation is essential to transform healthcare delivery systems, but in complex adaptive systems innovation is more than 'light bulb events' of inspired creativity. To achieve true innovation, organisations must adopt a disciplined, customer-centred process. We developed the process of Agile Innovation as an approach any complex adaptive organisation can adopt to achieve rapid, systematic, customer-centred development and testing of innovative interventions. Agile Innovation incorporates insights from design thinking, Agile project management, and complexity and behavioural sciences. It was refined through experiments in diverse healthcare organisations. The eight steps of Agile Innovation are: (1) confirm demand; (2) study the problem; (3) scan for solutions; (4) plan for evaluation and termination; (5) ideate and select; (6) run innovation development sprints; (7) validate solutions; and (8) package for launch. In addition to describing each of these steps, we discuss examples of and challenges to using Agile Innovation. We contend that once Agile Innovation is mastered, healthcare delivery organisations can habituate it as the go-to approach to projects, thus incorporating innovation into how things are done, rather than treating innovation as a light bulb event.


For hard machining metal materials with high rigidity,high strength or high toughness, the method of electrochemical mechanical complex machining is proposed. A NC high-speed machine tool for carving and milling is transformed into a NC electrochemical mechanical complex machine tool in which complex tool-electrodes, particular tool holders, a new rotary table, a protective flume for electrolyte and pipelines are made and assembled, so that machine tool can achieve a series of machining, such as milling, drilling, grinding and polishing by utilizing complex tool-electrode motion generated by NC. For 304 stainless steel orthogonal experiment is carried out, and five principal process parameters that are spindle rev, feed speed, voltage, pressure of electrolyte and depth of cut, are investigating in the method of NC Electrochemical Mechanical complex machining. The optimization process parameters are obtained.


The zinc finger transcription factor Gli3 is an important mediator of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling. During early embryonic development Gli3 participates in patterning and growth of the central nervous system, face, skeleton, limb, tooth and gut. Precise regulation of the temporal and spatial expression of Gli3 is crucial for the proper specification of these structures in mammals and other vertebrates. Previously we reported a set of human intronic cis‐regulators controlling almost the entire known repertoire of endogenous Gli3 expression in mouse neural tube and limbs. However, the genetic underpinning of GLI3 expression in other embryonic domains such as craniofacial structures and internal organs remain elusive. Here we demonstrate in a transgenic mice assay the potential of a subset of human/fish conserved non‐coding sequences (CNEs) residing within GLI3 intronic intervals to induce reporter gene expression at known regions of endogenous Gli3 transcription in embryonic domains other than central nervous system (CNS) and limbs. Highly specific reporter expression was observed in craniofacial structures, eye, gut, and genitourinary system. Moreover, the comparison of expression patterns directed by these intronic cis‐acting regulatory elements in mouse and zebrafish embryos suggests that in accordance with sequence conservation, the target site specificity of a subset of these elements remains preserved among these two lineages. Taken together with our recent investigations, it is proposed here that during vertebrate evolution the Gli3 expression control acquired multiple, independently acting, intronic enhancers for spatiotemporal patterning of CNS, limbs, craniofacial structures and internal organs.


The security of the most popular asymmetric cryptographic scheme RSA depends on the hardness of factoring large numbers. The best known method for factorization large integers is the general number field sieve (GNFS). Recently, architectures for special purpose hardware for the GNFS have been proposed. One important step within the GNFS is the factorization of mid-size numbers for smoothness testing, an efficient algorithm for which is the elliptic curve method (ECM). Since the smoothness testing is also suitable for parallelization, it is promising to improve ECM via special-purpose hardware. We show that massive parallel and cost efficient ECM hardware engines can improve the cost-time product of the RSA moduli factorization via the GNFS considerably. The computation of ECM is a classical example for an algorithm that can be significantly accelerated through special-purpose hardware. In this work, we present an efficient hardware implementation of ECM to factor numbers up to 200 bits, which is also scalable to other bit lengths. For proof-of-concept purposes, ECM is realized as a software-hardware co-design on an FPGA and an embedded microcontroller. This appears to be the first publication of a realized hardware implementation of ECM, and the first description of GNFS acceleration through hardware-based ECM.


Vinorelbine (VNR) is a semi-synthetic vinca alkaloid known to exert its antitumour activity by interfering with the polymerisation of tubulin. It has shown a broad spectrum of activity in some advanced carcinomas of lung, breast and ovary. This report demonstrates for the first time the antiproliferative effect of VNR and its molecular mechanism in human osteosarcoma in vitro. TP53 wild-type HOS cells and TP53 mutated MG-63 cells were chosen for this study. In each cell line, VNR caused a significant dose- and time-dependent growth inhibition and induced apoptotic death independent of TP53 status. Phosphorylation and/or alteration of Bcl-2 were not induced by VNR, thereby indicating a new pathway utilised by the drug to induce apoptosis in this tumour in vitro. VNR produced a down-regulation of cyclin D1 and an up-regulation of p53 expression in TP53 wild-type HOS cells, whereas no alteration in cyclin D1 expression was evident in the TP53 negative MG-63 cells. These data suggest a new potential use for Vinorelbine as a therapeutic agent against human osteosarcoma.


Background: 33.8% of Americans are obese, and this is a growing number. However, a number of obese persons do not perceive themselves to be obese and many more under-report their weight. Furthermore, an even larger number of obese persons' weight is not acknowledged by their physician, nor are they given a diagnosis of obesity. This review examines the effects of the simple tool of BMI on weight loss. Method: An exhaustive search of available medical literature was performed using Medline (OVID), CINAHL, EBMRmultifile, and Web of Science using obesity, perception, and weight loss as key words. BMI, counseling, and physician advice were then added to refine the search. A modified form of the GRADE tool was used to evaluate the articles. Results: The search resulted in 243 articles. After duplicates and unrelated articles were excluded, six articles that meet the search criteria remained and were included in the review. The intervention was physician acknowledgement of weight status based on BMI. The primary outcome was report of weight loss. Overall, those patients who recalled a weight discussion with their physician were between 138% and 171% more likely to report weight loss, as compared to those who did not recall a weight discussion. The quality of three studies was moderate, and the other three studies was low. Conclusion: Use of BMI advice is fast. It appears to have a positive effect on patients' attempts to lose weight, although the quality of the evidence is moderate to low. More stringent studies that remove confounding variables and biases should be conducted. In the meantime, however, patients should be made aware of and educated about BMI.


INTRODUCTION
Immunophilin ligands function by binding to receptor proteins such as FK506 binding proteins (FKBPs). FKBPs are studied for their roles in neuroprotection.

AIM
Compare the effect of FK506 (FK) and rapamycin (RAP) on erectile function (EF) recovery and FKBP expressions in penis and major pelvic ganglion (MPG) after cavernous nerve (CN) injury.

METHODS
Adult male rats were divided into four groups: sham surgery (CN exposure only) + vehicle; bilateral CN injury (BCNI; bilateral crush, 3 minutes with hemostat clamp) + vehicle; BCNI + FK (5 mg/kg/day, 5 days, sc); and BCNI + RAP (2 mg/kg/day, 5 days, sc). At both 24 hours (Day 1) or 1 week (Day 7) after BCNI, EF was assessed by intracavernosal pressure measurement and FKBPs 12, 38, 52, and 65 expressions were evaluated by Western blot analysis in collected penises and MPGs.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
EF and change in protein expressions of FKBPs in the rat penis and MPG after BCNI with and without immunophilin ligand treatment.

RESULTS
Both FK- and RAP-treated rats had preserved EF compared with vehicle-treated rats after BCNI. FKBPs changed variably following injury and treatment. In particular, in the penis at Day 1, FKBP 38 expression was decreased after BCNI and both FK and RAP attenuated this decrease. In MPG at Day 1, FKBP 38 expression was also decreased after BCNI and FK attenuated the decrease, while at Day 7, FKBP 38 expression was still decreased and RAP attenuated the decrease. Also, in the penis at Day 1, FKBP 65 expression decreased after BCNI and FK attenuated the decrease. In the MPG, FKBP 65 expression increased at both Days 1 and 7 with FK treatment.

CONCLUSIONS
Improved EF after BCNI, as shown with RAP, further suggests a role of immunophilin ligands as a protective therapy of CN injury associated erectile dysfunction. Our findings also suggest that select FKBPs, such as FKBP 38 and FKBP 65, may mediate these effects.


Introduction: Little is known about the risk of readmission after surgical stabilization of rib fractures (SSRFs). Materials and Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of the National Readmissions Database, a representative sample of all hospitalized patients in the US, from January 2012 to December 2014. All inpatient encounters with a primary trauma diagnosis of rib fractures were included in the study. Patients who underwent SSRF were compared to those who did not. Outcomes evaluated included readmission frequency and mortality. Results: There were 411,169 patients admitted after trauma with rib fractures from 2012 to 2014; of these, 382 (<1%) underwent SSRF. Among non-SSRF patients, ≥3 rib fractures (odds ratio = 1.41, 95% confidence interval 1.23–1.62) were associated with readmission. Compared to the non-SSRF group, patients undergoing SSRF had a greater incidence of flail chest (26% vs. 2%; P < 0.0001), were more likely to have an injury severity score >15 (55% vs. 37%; P < 0.0001), and more likely to have a coexisting diagnosis of respiratory failure (35% vs. 18%, P < 0.0001). Despite the increased severity of injury among patients having SSRF, there was neither a statistically significant increase in patient deaths (<1% for SSRF vs. 4% no SSRF, P = 0.03) nor readmissions (<1% for SSRF vs. 1% for non SSRF, P = 1.0). Conclusions: Long-term readmission rates for traumatic rib fracture patients are low. If nonoperative management is pursued, the presence of ≥3 rib fractures increases the risk of readmission. Patients requiring SSRF do not have higher readmission or mortality rates despite having a higher burden of injury during their initial hospitalization, suggesting the clinical benefit of surgical fixation.


In the past decade, real-time embedded systems became more and more complex and pervasive. From the user perspective, these systems have stringent requirements regarding size, performance and energy consumption, and due to business competition, their time-to-market is a crucial factor. Besides these requirements, system designers should handle the increasing dynamism that appears in resources required by modern applications, like object-based video coders. In addition, the new architectural features lately introduced in hardware platforms for increasing the average performance enlarge the gap between the average and the worst case execution time of the applications. Therefore, much work is being done in developing design methodologies for embedded systems to deal with the dynamism and to cope with the tight requirements. One of the most well known design methodologies is scenario-based design. It has been used for a long time in user-centered design approaches for different areas, including embedded systems. Scenarios concretely describe, in an early phase of the development process, the use of a future system. Usually, they appear like narrative descriptions of envisioned usage episodes, or like unified modeling language (UML) use-case diagrams which enumerate, from functional and timing point of view, all possible user actions and the system reactions that are required to meet a proposed system function. These scenarios are often called use-case scenarios. In this thesis, we concentrate on a different type of scenarios, so-called ap- plication scenarios, which may be derived from the behavior of the embedded system application. While use-case scenarios classify an application's behavior based on the different ways the system can be used, application scenarios classify application behavior based on the cost aspects, like quality or resource usage. Application scenarios are used to reduce the system cost by exploiting information about what can happen at runtime to make better design decisions. We have developed a general methodology that can be integrated within existing embedded system design methodologies. It consists of five design time / runtime steps: (i) identification that classifies an application into scenarios; (ii) prediction that generates a runtime mechanism used to find in which scenario the application is running, (iii) exploitation that enables more specific and aggressive design decisions to be made for each scenario, (iv) switching that specifies when and how the application switches from one scenario to another, and (v) calibration that extends and modifies the scenarios and their related mechanisms, based on the runtime collected information, to further improve the system cost and quality. To prove the effectiveness of our methodology, we developed several automatic trajectories that exploit application scenarios for low energy, single processor embedded system design, under both soft and hard real-time constraints. They can automatically classify the runtime behavior of the application into several application scenarios, where the cost (in terms of required processor cycles) within a scenario is always fairly similar. Moreover, a runtime predictor is automatically derived and introduced in the application, and at runtime it is used to select and switch between scenarios, so the different optimizations used for each scenario can be enabled. All of these trajectories are applicable to streaming applications with the dynamism mostly presented in the control variables. These applications are written in C, as C is the most used language to write embedded systems software. They detect and exploit scenarios to improve the cycle budget estimation for applications, reducing the over-estimation in number and size of computation resources in comparison to existing design methods. Moreover, by integrating the application with an automatically derived predictor and using it in the context of a proactive dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) aware scheduler, the amount of used energy is reduced with no or almost no sacrifice in the resulting system quality. This can be achieved by being conservative, as required for hard real-time systems, or by using a runtime calibration mechanism, which works well for soft real-time systems. Even though all the new information about scenarios and the mechanisms introduced in the application add an extra runtime overhead, our methods keep this overhead limited and under control, and generate a final implementation of the application that has a substantial average energy saving.


With the increase in energy demand, renewable energy has become a need of almost every country. Solar Energy is an important constituent of it and contributes a large portion in it. Forecasting the output power of a Photovoltaic (PV) system has always been a challenging problem in the power sector from the last few decades. The output power of a PV system depends upon several environmental factors such as irradiance (G), temperature (T), humidity (H), wind speed (W), provided the tilt angle is kept constant, among which the vital role is played by irradiance. Researchers have utilized several techniques to accurately predict the output power of PV module but every method has various pros and cons. In this paper, an experimental measurement dataset of 28296 samples with all the environmental parameters mentioned above are taken as the inputs and power as its output, of a Poly-Silicon (Poly-Si) PV module, is trained through Artificial Neural Network (ANN), to predict the output power accurately. The proposed ANN contains a layer size of 15 and training algorithm used is Levenberg-Marquardt. A detailed analysis and preprocessing of the data is carried out through Pearson's correlation method prior to training. The hyperparameters of Neural Network tuning are selected through heuristic method. The data division is done randomly with 70% dataset used for training, 15% dataset used for each validation and testing. The statistical results show that ANN accurately predicted the power output of PV module. The regression analysis values acquired are 98% and the MSE of all the three phases is 0.0604.


The beginning of the chapter is devoted to methods of receiving of metal powders— initial components for metal additive manufacturing. Initial materials are very important part of manufacturing, because their quality has an influence on stability of production process and quality of final product. There are various methods of metal powder synthesis. They may be separated conventionally on physical– chemical and mechanical ones. The physical–chemical methods are associated with physical and chemical transformations, and chemical composition and structure of the final product (metal powder) significantly differ from raw materials. The mechanical methods include various types of milling processes and jet dispersion melts by high pressure of gas or liquid (atomization). It is shown that the typical methods of quantitative estimation of powdered materials and some parameters for alloys that already were used in additive technologies. The next theme of the chapter is a review of additive technologies, initial materials for that is metal powders. At this moment, there are three main technologies that have found wide use for the production of metal parts from metal powders: binder jetting, directed energy deposition, and powder bed fusion. Each of them has unique peculiarity, advantag‐ es, and limitations that will be presented in the chapter.


Community-based nature management is becoming more common around the world. Nongovernmental nature organisations in the Netherlands, such as Natuurmonumenten, are responding to this trend by setting up communities. Since Natuurmonumenten has limited experience in this respect, this study aimed to provide insight in the processes and effects of the set-up of a nature community around two newly acquired nature areas in Delfzijl. The processes of the set-up of this community were studied by observing the community group and the Natuurmonumenten delegates, and by subjecting the delegates of Natuurmonumenten to a questionnaire. Further insights were gained by measuring the effects of the processes of the set-up of the community using a preand post-test among the community group and a control group. The observations indicated that the Natuurmonumenten delegates were very dedicated during the set-up of this community, while the community group was hesitant and somewhat non-active during most part of the set-up. A significant increase in the scores given in the questionnaires, measuring the effects of the process, was found after the set-up of the community in both the community group and the control group. This indicates that factors other than the set-up processes may have caused the significant increase. Even though a basis for a community was formed at the end of this study, it is advisable Natuurmonumenten tries to enhance community building processes during the set-up of similar communities in the future.


As an elaboration of recent studies by Buell (1954, 1957) and Jenkinson (1956), the relation between the standard deviation of contour height and the vector standard deviation of geostrophic wind velocity is formulated, both for point values (variations in time) and for chart values (variations in space). The relation between wind and contour variances for a simple schematic contour pattern is examined, from the point of view of both space and time statistics. The relationship between the space variance of contour height ( S 2 ) and the space variance of the geostrophic wind ( s? 2 ) was evaluated over the Arctic (north of about 60° N) at the 500-mb level. A high degree of correlation was found to exist between these two quantities, although the form of the relationship ( s? 2 proportional to S ) did not agree with the results of previous studies (Buell, Jenkinson, loc.cit.) of time variances. However, a reanalysis of such data for northern latitudes yielded results virtually identical with those of the present study. In both cases, the standard error of estimate was too large to enable one to calculate accurately the wind variance from the height variance for synoptic purposes, but the relationships do allow climatological estimates (seasonal, etc.) to be made of the mean kinetic energy and of the size and amplitude of the dominant wave systems. DOI: 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1960.tb01309.x


We report a case of perirenal hematoma post ESWL in a patient with controlled hypertension and a previously undiagnosed stage T1 kidney neoplasm. The foregoing complication can be partly ascribed to the renal tumor. It must therefore be taken into account that a small kidney mass may be overlooked during urography and consequently an ultrasound study of the kidney should be done before the patient is submitted to X-ray-guided lithotripsy.


Siena, one of the major artistic centres of medieval and Renaissance Italy, is renowned for its striking architecture and its beauty as a city. This book is the first to focus on Sienese architectural and urban history during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Fabrizio Nevola offers a comprehensive picture of the city, describing in detail how the layout and appearance of Siena changed between 1400 and 1520, as political and social events triggered a variety of initiatives that transformed the city's urban core. Weaving together social, political, economic and architectural history, the book explores the role of key patrons in Siena's urban projects, including Pope Pius II Piccolomini and his family and, later, the quasi-despot Pandolfo Petrucci 'The Magnificent'. Nevola also considers how the government used architecture to forge a local identity and establish authority, the influence of important architects and architectural theorists, and the way that ritual events contributed in special ways to the changing face of the city. Enhanced with a beautiful collection of historic and new photographs, the book offers a fresh and engaging account of Siena's unique architectural achievements.


The story Confession occupies a special place in M. Gorky's creation. It was conceived and written during a period in which he of searched for God. According to the writer's plan, the work tells us of a person who walks in holy places, lives in monasteries and searches for God. In reference to the plot of Confession, it is worth noting that it was based on real sources, including the life of Gorky himself. In a way, the narrative was the result of the philosophical and artistic inquiries of the writer at the turn of the century.


Regenerative medicine holds promise to cure radiation-induced salivary hypofunction, a chronic side effect in patients with head and neck cancers, therefore reliable preclinical models for salivary regenerative outcome will promote progress towards therapies. In this study, our objective was to develop a cone beam computed tomography-guided precision ionizing radiation-induced preclinical model of chronic hyposalivation using immunodeficient NSGSGM3 mice. Using a Schirmer's test based sialagogue-stimulated saliva flow kinetic measurement method, we demonstrated significant differences in hyposalivation specific to age, sex, precision-radiation dose over a chronic (6 months) timeline. NSG-SMG3 mice tolerated doses from 2.5 Gy up to 7.5 Gy. Interestingly, 5–7.5 Gy had similar effects on stimulated-saliva flow (∼50% reduction in young female at 6 months after precision irradiation over sham-treated controls), however, >5 Gy led to chronic alopecia. Different groups demonstrated characteristic saliva fluctuations early on, but after 5 months all groups nearly stabilized stimulated-saliva flow with low-inter-mouse variation within each group. Further characterization revealed precision-radiation-induced glandular shrinkage, hypocellularization, gland-specific loss of functional acinar and glandular cells in all major salivary glands replicating features of human salivary hypofunction. This model will aid investigation of human cell-based salivary regenerative therapies.


Purpose

Most of the existing studies in e-governance context have attempted to measure public value of projects in terms of quality of services provided, cost effectiveness of public organizations and extent to which public organizations are able to meet their social objectives. However, it is also important to explore variables influencing public value to pursue for attaining high public value from such projects. This paper aims to attempt to explore such variables based on Situation-Actor-Process (S-A-P) framework. In India, physical presence of citizens is still required at many public centers established for delivering a variety of government services. A citizen at the time of his visit to a public service center faces a situation, deals with different actors and is subjected to a set of processes. At the end of the service cycle, the citizen develops a perception about public value of the e-governance project. The paper aims at exploring the likely influence of "Improved Situation", "Capability Level of Actors" and "Flexible Process Workflow" on "Public Value" of e-governance projects.

Design/methodology/approach

On the basis of a review of literature, variables likely to be influencing public value have been identified in terms of situation, actors and processes. A questionnaire was designed, and a survey conducted to measure public value and S-A-P-related variables in the context of two e-governance projects, namely, Passport Seva Project and Driving License Project in India. Survey data have been analyzed to study the influence of S-A-P-related variables on the public value of e-governance projects. Learning issues have been synthesized in terms of implications for practitioners as well as researchers for enhancing public value of e-governance projects.

Findings

The study has revealed that a citizen-centric e-governance project with observed high value of conceptualized S-A-P variables is expected to be characterized by high public value. The analysis has also reflected upon a need for an in-depth study to explore empirically validated linkages between S-A-P variables and public value of e-governance projects.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is based on a pilot study in the context of two citizen-centric e-governance projects. It is required to study more such projects for the purpose of validating the proposed framework and arriving at generalized findings.

Practical implications

The study results are expected to sensitize practitioners to keep in view conceptualized variables related to situation, actors and processes while planning for citizen-centric e-governance projects. This may result in improved situation at the public service centers, better performance of employees and more flexible processes which may further help to increase the public value of such projects.

Practical implications

E-governance projects can perform a vital role in improving public value. In the context of India, a key objective of e-governance projects is to improve the service delivery of citizen-centric projects. The findings of the pilot study, based on the select two citizen-centric e-governance projects in India, reflect upon the likely relationship between public value and S-A-P variables. Thrust on improving situational aspects, as conceptualized in this study, is expected to improve comfort level of citizens while taking benefit of IT enabled services of government organizations. Better capability of actors at public organizations is likely to build trust and confidence among citizens toward these services. Adoption of flexible processes by public organizations is expected to ensure seamless delivery of services to citizens through alternate options. Enhanced delivery of services satisfies the need for improved public value and create positive attitude among society toward public organizations. It contributes to satisfaction level of citizens in terms of saving of time, money and efforts.

Originality/value

A review of literature has revealed a few studies undertaken in recent past with focus on measurement of public value in e-governance context. This paper is based on a novel idea of exploring the likely relationship between conceptualized S-A-P-related variables and public value of citizen-centric e-governance projects. Recommendations based on learning issues are expected to trigger suitable interventions to generate high public value from such projects.


The object of research is the technology and technical means to clear the voids during the underground mining of ores in the disturbed arrays. One of the most problematic places is the filling of man-made voids that affect the occurrence and redistribution of the stress-strain state (SSS) of the rock mass. Their existence in the earth's crust provokes disturbance of the daily surface, as well as the influence of geomechanical and seismic phenomena, up to the level of earthquakes.Analytical researches, comparative analysis of theoretical and practical results by standard and new methods with the participation of the authors are performed. The peculiarities of the manifestation of mountain pressure in the rock massifs of a complex structure are considered, due to the intensity of the fracture structures (acoustic stiffness from 0.11 to 0.18 MPa/s, impact coefficient – 0.98). The conditions of manifestation of residual bearing capacity of disturbed rocks and translation of geomaterials into the volume compression mode were investigated (in the zone of disturbed rocks the attenuation coefficient decreases to 0.04–0.15 from the initial value of 0.25–0.35). The basic estimation of durability of workings and inhomogeneous rocks with a strength of 50–150 MPa at depths up to 600 m is shown, depending on the position of workings with respect to the elements of structural disturbance and the possibility of creating reliable structures. Conclusions have been made about the efficiency of the use of load-bearing structures from rocks of greater than 0.2 m in size and mechanical strength of more than 50 MPa, which allows to expose the roof without collapsing at spans of up to 50 m. the bearing layer of the rocks produced space can be filled by insulation or a hardener with a strength of up to 1.2 MPa. The research results can be used in the underground development of ore deposits of complex structure of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Kazakhstan and other developed mining countries of the world.


The scientific community still faces the challenge of developing strategies to cure HIV-1. One of these pursued strategies is the development of immunotherapeutic vaccines based on dendritic cells (DCs), pulsed with the virus, that aim to boost HIV-1 specific immune response. We aimed to review DCs-based therapeutic vaccines reports and critically assess evidence to gain insights for the improvement of these strategies. We performed a systematic review, followed by meta-analysis and meta-regression, of clinical trial reports. Twelve studies were selected for meta-analysis. The experimental vaccines had low efficiency, with an overall success rate around 38% (95% confidence interval = 26.7%–51.3%). Protocols differed according to antigen choice, DC culture method, and doses, although multivariate analysis did not show an influence of any of them on overall success rate. The DC-based vaccines elicited at least some immunogenicity, that was sometimes associated with plasmatic viral load transient control. The protocols included both naïve and antiretroviral therapy (ART)-experienced individuals, and used different criteria for assessing vaccine efficacy. Although the vaccines did not work as expected, they are proof of concept that immune responses can be boosted against HIV-1. Protocol standardization and use of auxiliary approaches, such as latent HIV-1 reservoir activation and patient genomics are paramount for fine-tuning future HIV-1 cure strategies.


In order to assess the effect of corn processing on apparent digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, starch, and glycemic response in horses, four crossbreeding adult mares weighing 450±51.15 kg, and aging 36±5 month , were fitted in a 4x4 Latin square design during 44 days. The animals were fed four isocaloric diets, whose only difference was kind of processing of maize: grinding, rolling, flocculation or extrusion. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed in apparent digestibility of organic matter and acid detergent fiber, where the diet containing flaked corn showed better digestibility these nutrients than diets containing corn rolled and ground corn. The diet containing extruded corn showed glycemic response and the area under the curve higher than the other treatments, while inclusion of ground corn resulted in lower glycemic response and area under the curve, when compared to other diets. Extrusion and flocculation of corn are important tools for feeding horses with high energy requirement, by providing a greater energy balance, whose use should be careful to avoid problems associated with high rates of post-prandial glycemia.


Nowadays, due to the rapid development of technology, new methods of securing the confidential information transmitted over insecure channels must be designed. For this purpose, new cryptographic algorithms were developed to ensure both data confidentiality and authenticity, which are called algorithms for authenticated encryption. In 2013, the CAESAR (Competition for Authenticated Encryption: Security, Applicability, and Robustness) competition started, which has the purpose to create a portfolio that includes the best authenticated encryption algorithms for widespread adoption. In this context, it becomes extremely important for developers to fully understand these new algorithms in order to efficiently and correctly implement them in modern applications. In this paper, we present a new eLearning tool, called eAECrypt, for students, teachers, developers and other users that are interested in understanding advanced concepts regarding new designed cryptographic algorithms. Our instrument allows users to read detailed information about these algorithms, learn how to implement them step by step and how to evaluate their level of security. It is a complex tool, which includes a variety of authenticated encryption algorithms (more specifically, most of the candidates for CAESAR competition). It also provides flexibility so that users can customize their own cryptographic algorithms based on the already existing ones. Moreover, it allows users to analyze the cryptographic properties of these algorithms, to determine their efficiency (speed) and to combine them together in order to obtain a more secure algorithm. It is an easy-to-use tool, which offers the possibility to learn and fully understand complex algorithms that are commonly used in modern applications.


This book investigates how gender is present in the newly emerging principles on the sustainable management of water resources. The book also reviews how these genderspecified principles are currently applied in the water supply, sanitation and hygiene sector. Operationalization has developed farthest in new drinking water supply services. Participation of women alongside men in planning, design, maintenance and management has brought distinct benefits to the functioning and use of the systems and created more equal chances for training and functions of women and men. Yet a true gender balance, in which benefits, burdens and control are shared equitably for optimal service sustainability and development results remains to be achieved. In comparison, sanitation development and management lag behind. Yet improved sanitation has tremendous benefits in that it prevents the contamination of water and soil and improves public health. A gender approach in sanitation recognizes and responds to male-female differences in demand, work and opportunities in the different population strata. It helps redress the sanitation imbalance and offers new chances for men and women to jointly manage their own environment and programmes. While women have initially been bypassed in modern water and sanitation management, men have been neglected in hygiene improvements. In a gender approach in hygiene education the division of work, resources and decision-making between men and women is investigated and each sex is addressed on their own areas of authority, skills and responsibility. This prevents that additional and unpaid hygiene work goes only to women and girls and responsibilitilies of men for work, resource provision and own behaviour chance are overlooked. The use of a simple gender analysis instrument, which is described in the book's first chapter, has helped in analysing the above developments and is recommended for maintreaming gender as part of programme planning, appraisal and monitoring and evaluation.


Objective: To investigate the effect of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on acupuncture points and neck exercise in chronic neck pain patients. Design: A randomized clinical trial. Setting: Hospital-based practice. Subjects: Two hundred and eighteen patients with chronic neck pain. Interventions: Subjects were randomized into three groups, receiving either (1) TENS over the acupuncture points plus infrared irradiation (TENS group); (2) exercise training plus infrared irradiation (exercise group); or (3) infrared irradiation alone (control); twice a week for six weeks. Outcome measures: The values of verbal numeric pain scale, Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire, and isometric neck muscle strength were assessed before, at the end of the six-week treatment, and at the six-month follow-up. Results: Results demonstrated that after the six-week treatment, significant improvement in the verbal numerical pain scale was found only in the TENS group (0.60±2.54, p=0.027) and the exercise group (1.57±2.67, p<0.001). Though significant reduction in Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire score was found in all three groups, post-hoc tests showed that both the TENS and the exercise group produced better improvement (0.38±0.60% and 0.39±0.62% respectively) than the control group (0.23±0.63%). Significant improvement (p = <0.001 to 0.03) in neck muscle strength was observed in all three groups, however, the improvement in the control group was not clinically significant and it could not be maintained at the six-month follow-up. Conclusions: After the six-week treatment, patients in the TENS and exercise group had a better and clinically relevant improvement in disability, isometric neck muscle strength, and pain. All the improvements in the intervention groups were maintained at the six-month follow-up.


Palumbo-Liu explores the relation of literature and ethics, noting that literature is always about "something else." Drawing from a number of specific cases, including the Rohingya refugee crisis, he connects material histories with cultural practices that defy simple thematization. With reference to Anton Shammas, Bessie Head, and John Berger, he reflects critically on the practice of comparison as embedded in the ethics of knowledge production.


Hip joint surgeries are commonplace in our aging society. Robotic hip joint surgery is performed to cut bone precisely and is expected to be performed as minimally invasive treatment. Minimally invasive hip joint surgery needs operating space between muscle tissues and the bone around hip joint. In this paper a prototype of an articulated muscle-retracting robot for minimally invasive RAO (rotational acetabular osteotomy and one of the hip joint surgeries) is described. The muscle-retracting robot's role is to create an operating space between muscles and the surface of the bone for the other robot, whose role is to cut bone. The mechanical structure is very thin to follow a narrow path and tough enough to scrape and retract muscles around a hip joint. The prototype is designed based on the required specification from the previous experiments data. The prototype has 9 DOF, in which 3 DOF arms are capable of controlling the tip position and the force between muscle tissues and the surface of the bone. Evaluation of the prototype was done by using a compliant control as scraping method of muscle tissues from surface of the bone. The capability is revealed as a scraping length on a phantom of 140 mm around human hip joint model and on the living tissues of 27 mm in the crest of the ilium by magnitude of maximum force of 25 N. The scraped living tissues were a narrow part around the hip joint. We shall continue to research it and establish a stable control method to scrape tissues.


Nowadays, mathematics, sciences and physics in particular offers students a wide range of career opportunities and alternatives. Attracting students to mathematics and physics proves to be a more difficult job than in the past due to shrinking educational budgets as well as a wider range of career and job opportunities for non-science jobs (e.g.: lawyers, humanities, arts etc.). While a balance should exist between humanities and non-humanities subjects one should strengthen the teaching of sciences and in particular of mathematics and physics. As opposed to previous knowledge based teaching we show that a great opportunity exists from using the computer based teaching (elearning) to increase the effectiveness and attractiveness of physics curricula. At the same time, we show that simulation based modules are one of the best ways to use the computers in teaching physics and showing natural phenomena otherwise difficult or, even, impossible to show in classroom with conventional methods. Simulations range from the celestial motions that sometimes take billions of years to complete (hence impossible to observe during a standard 50 minutes class) to atomic level phenomena (flow of electric current) which are again difficult to observe due to their very small size and very fast speeds. We show a Runge-Kutta 4 based simulation toolset that can be used to integrate a wide array of differential equations that are at the basis physics phenomena like the ones mentioned above. We provide a description on how to structure the simulation and how to best use it in a classroom environment in an interactive way. Based on a survey of elearning and didactic literature we show that interactively exploring our world is one of the best ways to teach students without letting the boredom install in the classroom. Several physics simulation examples are shown together with the context in which they can be used along with a series of future capabilities/add-ons that can transform this material into self-learning material as well. We show the difference between the self-learn material and the teaching based on classroom material as well as how simulations can provide a bridge between these two sets. We structured our paper into 5 chapters with one conclusion chapter in which we draw conclusions on how to best use simulations both in class and for self-learning elearning content.


Complex networks are becoming an integral tool for our understanding of an enormous variety of natural and artificial systems. A number of human-designed network generation procedures have been proposed that reasonably model specific real-life phenomena in structure and dynamics. Consequently, breakthroughs in genetics, medicine, epidemiology, neuroscience, telecommunications, and the social sciences have recently resulted. A graph model is an algorithm capable of constructing arbitrarily sized networks, whose end structure will exhibit certain statistical and structural properties. The process of deriving an accurate graph model is very time intensive and challenging and may only yield highly accurate models for very specific phenomena. An automated approach based on genetic programming was recently proposed by the authors. However, this initial system suffered from a number of drawbacks, including an under-emphasis on creating hub vertices, the requirement of user intervention to determine objective weights, and the arbitrary approach toward selecting the most representative model from a population of candidate models. In this paper, we propose solutions to these problems and show experimentally that the new system represents a significant improvement and is very capable of reproducing existing common graph models from even a single small initial network.


Standard analytical methods are often ineffective or even useless for design of nonlin - ear control systems with imprecisely known parameters. The use of fuzzy logic prin ciples presents one possible way to control such systems which can be used both for modeling and design of the control. The advantage of using this method consists in its simplicity and easy way of developing the algorithm, which in the phase of designing the controllers and also for modeling the features of the designed structures, allows the use of computer technology. Simplicity of the proposed structure (usually with the PI controllers) and determination of their parameters without any need for complex math ematical description present another considerable advantage of the used method. This chapter presents two typical examples of designing the control of nonlinear multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) systems from the field of mechatronic systems based on fuzzy logic principles.


A bidirectional two-hop relay network with decode-and-forward strategy is implemented using GNU Radio (software) and several USRPs (hardware) on Ubuntu (operating system). The relay communication system is comprised of three nodes; Base Station A, Base Station B, and Relay Station (the intermediate node). During the first time slot, Base Station A and Base Station B will each transmit data, e.g., a JPEG file, to Relay Station using DBPSK modulation and FDMA. For the final time slot, Relay Station will perform a bitwise XOR of the data, and transmit the XORed data to Base Station A and Base Station B, where the received data is decoded by performing another XOR operation with the original data.


Laser Doppler velocimetry uses the frequency shift produced by the Doppler effect to measure velocity. It can be used to monitor blood flow or other tissue movement in the body. Laser speckle is a random interference effect that gives a grainy appearance to objects illuminated by laser light. If the object consists of individual moving scatterers (such as blood cells), the speckle pattern fluctuates. These fluctuations provide information about the velocity distribution of the scatterers. It can be shown that the speckle and Doppler approaches are different ways of looking at the same phenomenon. Both these techniques measure at a single point. If a map of the velocity distribution is required, some form of scanning must be introduced. This has been done for both time-varying speckle and laser Doppler. However, with the speckle technique it is also possible to devise a full-field technique that gives an instantaneous map of velocities in real time. This review article presents the theory and practice of these techniques using a tutorial approach and compares the relative merits of the scanning and full-field approaches to velocity map imaging. The article concludes with a review of reported applications of these techniques to blood perfusion mapping and imaging.


The modern approach argue the real balance in the sense of zero deviations from a fixed point, could not exist in biological systems. The balance is part of the coordination and coordination capacity shown to be necessary in performing motor skills development, this based on capacity to learn, control and permanently adaptation.
The major interest in this paper is to establish trend data recorded on the position of the center of pressure analysis in subjects with different levels of sports activities practicing. For this purpose we have investigated the reproducible laboratory conditions a number of 62 subjects divided into two groups, a sample of 31 subjects consistent practitioners of the sport, but do not the level of performance and a sample of 31 athletes (shooting performance), with experience in the sports training and competition.
Postural stability was evaluated by software - POSTUROTEST, it can reveal information about the mechanism of postural control system. The center of pressure is the result of descending motor commands and combinations of mechanical properties of the ankle. This testing type is included into the category of tests oriented towards the sensorial organization, the method is also known under the name of "posturography". The test consists in keeping the body position on a platform, the eyes staring at a given target. The platform pressure sensors register the body movements (balance), while the tested person keeps his balance.
The results suggest that individual differences in postural balance are insignificant in relation to the appearance of somatic, physiological healthy person (statistically habitual) with regard significant changes can be observed in the case of athletes, they resort to achieve results performance to solutions for improving stability phenotypic developing the ability to maintain balance in sports sample specific positions.


The static var compensator (SVC) has fast dynamic characteristics that can support effective system voltage following disturbances. Keeping reactive power reserve in an SVC during steady-state operation is always needed to provide reactive power requirements during system dynamics. This paper presents a new SVC control strategy with two stages of regulation slopes and two voltage regulation controls, which are fixed-voltage reference control and variable (floating) voltage reference control. The aim of this control is to limit the reactive power output from the SVC to the desired value during the steady-state voltage range and compensate the reactive power requirement from the upstream networks via the coordination with the under-load tap changer (ULTC). However, when the voltage deviates the steady-state voltage range, the SVC will react to support the system voltage using the SVC reactive power reserve. When a disturbance results in a new operating point, with a steady-state reactive-power output, the variable voltage reference control effectively changes the SVC output slowly and returns it within the steady-state margin.


The development of fluid mechanics is briefly reviewed and the importance of fluid flows to heat and mass transport in nature as well as in science and engineering is outlined. The early theoretical developments are explained and it is indicated that the basic equations were already available at the end of the 18th century. Methods to solve these equations for engineering flows were not, however, developed until the second half of the 20th century. This was an important period for fluid flow research during which all the experimental fluid mechanics methods, particularly the optical methods, available today were also developed. The same is true for all the numerical methods that are used very successfully nowadays to solve scientific and engineering fluid flow problems. The Institute of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg has contributed extensively to these developments.Copyright © 2005 by ASME


The present work investigates the online vibration control of a cracked rotor-bearing system incorporated with AMB. A fatigue crack, which exhibits the opening and closure behavior of cracked faces while rotation, is introduced artificially in the shaft to understand the dynamic behavior of a cracked rotor system. For this, three-point bending tests were performed to obtain edge transverse crack in the shaft. An eight-pole electromagnetic actuator was used to apply control forces directly on to the shaft in the radial direction. The radial force was used to assist vibration suppression in the rotor. In order to achieve active control to mechanical vibration and other disturbances, a simple PID control strategy is used. Closed loop tests are conducted on the d-SPACE DS1202 platform using the differential driving mode of the PID controller to suppress the vibration of a shaft containing a transverse crack integrated with an AMB supported on two conventional bearings. The comparison of the dynamic behavior of the laboratory test rig with and without active magnetic bearing (AMB) with the numerically simulated data is analyzed. The vibration suppression is found to be achieved satisfactorily in the presence of the unbalance force, bow force, crack force, and with other forces on the rotor-bearing system.


Introduction: Acute viral hepatitis is a relatively common infection resulting in hospital attendance after foreign travel. Travellers and doctors are generally aware of hepatitis A and the fact that safe and effective immunisation is available. In contrast, there is no widely available vaccine for hepatitis E and most physicians' experience with this condition is limited. Over the last few years, the number of cases of hepatitis E has increased. Methods: We examined the prevalence of hepatitis A and E among patients presenting to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases between 2000 and 2009. Travel history, demographics and laboratory parameters of these patients were compared. Results: The annual incidence of hepatitis A remained static, while that of hepatitis E increased from 1 to 4. Hepatitis E was associated with older age, travel to the Indian sub-continent (ISC), and visiting friends and relatives (VFR). Peak ALT was similar between patients with hepatitis A or E, but as many as a third of those with hepatitis E developed a prolonged INR, compared to 11% of those with hepatitis A. In addition, patients with hepatitis E had a longer hospital admission by a median of 3 days. Conclusion: Hepatitis E is now the commonest cause of faeco-oral viral hepatitis at this centre, and is associated with laboratory features suggestive of more severe liver damage and longer hospital stay.


Despite their large numbers worldwide, surfers as a coastal interest group have largely been ignored during coastal management decision making. Surfers are however, increasingly being considered in coastal management decisions as the social, economic, and environmental benefits of high-quality surfing breaks are realised. Examples of surfing breaks that have been improved or compromised by coastal engineering are presented here to demonstrate the fragility of surfing breaks to coastal development. Integrated coastal zone management techniques are suggested as an approach to sustain recreational amenities associated with surfing breaks. Surfers can benefit from integrated coastal zone management practices that balance the coastal space requirements of various coastal user groups. This paper advocates detailed and standardised assessments of the environmental impacts that coastal activities can have on the quality of surfing waves as part of modern integrated coastal zone management practices. Baseline information must also be collected to develop an understanding of the physical processes around a surfing break. To facilitate baseline studies, and ongoing monitoring of surfing breaks, this paper identifies the types of surfing and oceanographic factors that need to be considered. The need for regional and central governments to strategically protect surfing breaks using legislation, reserves and coastal management plans is explored. It is recommended that further surfing research investigate ideal coastal management techniques for different resource management frameworks. ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: surfing reefs, coastal space, recreational space, coastal amenities, integrated coastal management (ICM), environmental impact assessment (EIA), geographic information system (GIS), coastal engineering, wave focusing, coastal development. Chapter Three: Surfing Break Sustainability


A simple, rapid, low cost and selective magnetic solid phase microextraction method using a magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (MMIP) combined with chemiluminescence (CL) was developed for the separation/preconcentration and determination of the furazolidone (FZD) antibiotic. The sorbent was synthesized using a bulk polymerization method. SiO2-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles were used as the magnetic supporter, FZD as the template, 4-vinylpyridine as the functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as the crosslinker and toluene as the porogen solvent. The synthesized MMIP was characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) analysis. The MMIP nanoparticles showed a sorption capacity as high as 49.6 mg g−1. Under the optimized conditions, the calibration graph was linear (R2 = 0.9991) over the range of 0.1–10.0 μg L−1 with a limit of detection of 0.027 μg L−1 for the preconcentration of 100 mL of the sample and 0.5 mL of eluent. The relative standard deviations (RSD%) at the 1.0 μg L−1 level of FZD (n = 6) for intra- and inter-day analysis were 4.7 and 5.4%, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied to the determination of trace amounts of FZD in poultry tissues and water samples.