BACKGROUND
Recent incidents of school violence have heightened the need to identify societal, interpersonal, and adolescent characteristics that contribute to weapon carrying.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the prevalence of weapon carrying at school and to determine associated risk factors for adolescent males and females.

DESIGN
A cross-sectional study using the 1994-1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data.

PARTICIPANTS
A nationally representative sample of 6504 adolescents and their parents.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Whether adolescents have ever carried a weapon at school.

STATISTICS
chi(2) Analyses and hierarchical regressions were done using SPSS (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Ill) and SUDAAN (Research Triangle Park, NC) software. Regression models included demographic, intrinsic, and extrinsic factors.

RESULTS
Of the overall sample, 9.3% (n = 595) reported having carried a weapon at school. Of these, 77% were male (male vs female adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 3.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.3-4.1). Substance use, school problems, perpetration of violence, and witnessing violence were significantly associated with weapon carrying for both males and females. However, for males, extrinsic factors were more important in mediating the effects of substance use and perpetration of physical violence on school weapon carrying, while intrinsic factors mediate these variables for females.

CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that interventions for violence prevention for males and females need to be targeted toward different areas.


The acquisition and analysis of high resolution oneand twodimensional solid-state NMR spectra without chemical shift frequencies are described. Many variations of Shiftless NMR spectroscopy are feasible. A two-dimensional experiment that correlates 13Cα-15N dipole-dipole and 1H-13Cα dipole-dipole couplings in single crystal and powder samples of the model peptide, 13Cα, 15N-acetylleucine, is demonstrated. In addition to the resolution of resonances from individual sites in a single crystal sample, the bond lengths and angles are characterized by the two-dimensional powder pattern obtained from a polycrystalline sample. Pake doublets, which result from the dipole-dipole interactions between nuclei, are among the most distinctive and thoroughly analyzed features of solid-state NMR spectra. Immediately following the initial demonstrations of the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance, the first application of NMR to a chemical problem described the effects of the local magnetic fields resulting from dipole-dipole couplings between two neighboring nuclei on the spectra1. Since the frequency splittings between the doublets could be used to distinguish between molecules with different orientations in the magnetic field, this established NMR as a high resolution method. And since these frequencies depended only upon the positions of the atomic nuclei, as manifested in their through-space (1/r3) and angular dependencies (3cos2θ−1), this established NMR as a structure determination method. The classic Pake doublet also reveals the complementary nature of spectra obtained from single crystal and polycrystalline samples whose lineshapes can be analyzed in terms of structural and motional factors2. The discovery of frequency shifts due to differences in local electronic environments came later3. Subsequently, with the development of homogeneous and stable high field magnets, the chemical shift became the principal source of the frequency dispersions and empirical correlations essential for chemical analysis. The complex theoretical dependence of chemical shift frequencies on local electronic factors4 limits their usefulness in more fundamental investigations. However, with the availability of large databases of protein resonances, isotropic chemical shift frequencies measured in both solution-state NMR and MAS (magic angle spinning) solid-state NMR spectra now serve as valuable constraints in structure determinations5. The anisotropic chemical shift frequencies observed in solid-state NMR spectra of aligned samples provide valuable input for the calculation of protein structures6. However, the site-to-site variabilities among the principal elements and their orientations in the molecular frame, which are only now being quantified in proteins7, compromise the contributions of the anisotropic chemical shift frequencies to structure determination. In practice, the chemical shift frequencies are typically the largest source of error in the calculations of the three-dimensional structures of proteins in membranes and other supramolecular complexes. *Corresponding Author: email@example.com. NIH Public Access Author Manuscript J Chem Phys. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2013 September 03. Published in final edited form as: J Chem Phys. 2008 February 7; 128(5): 052312. doi:10.1063/1.2816786. N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript SLF (separate local field) spectroscopy8 is a method for measuring individual dipole-dipole coupling frequencies. Each resonance in a two-dimensional SLF spectrum is characterized by the frequencies associated with a local field due to heteronuclear dipole-dipole coupling between bonded nuclei (e.g., 1H-13C or 1H-15N) and the chemical shift of the observed nucleus (e.g. 13C or 15N). PISEMA (polarization inversion spin exchange at the magic angle)9 and other high resolution SLF experiments10 are capable of yielding fully-resolved solid-state NMR spectra of uniformly 15N labeled proteins. We have recently introduced an experiment for proton-detected separated local field spectroscopy11, which provides both increased sensitivity and background for the experiments described in this Communication. Since both the dipolar coupling and chemical shift frequencies measured from these spectra are orientationally dependent, they can be used as input for the calculation of threedimensional structures of proteins. However, the reliability and precision of the dipolar coupling frequencies make them especially useful for the direct analysis of secondary structure and any deviations from ideality12. The limitations of the chemical shift frequencies in structural analysis can be ameliorated by determining the chemical shift tensors for each atomic site, but at the cost of a considerable extra burden on the experimental studies of macromolecules. A simpler approach is to simply eliminate the chemical shift in NMR spectroscopy, and rely only on dipolar couplings. The potential of Shiftless NMR spectroscopy for structure determination is implicit in the original Pake experiment1; however, experimental implementation for proteins starting from the concepts and practice of SLF spectroscopy has required many developments. We have only recently been able to demonstrate "indirect" proton-detection of frequency-encoded magnetization from 13C or 15N in stationary samples11, which is an essential element if extra time domains (and frequency dimensions) are to be avoided. The pulse sequences diagrammed in Figure 1 incorporate windows within the otherwise continuous 1H irradiations used to effect homonuclear decoupling as the magnetization undergoes heteronuclear spin-exchange. The detection of frequencies from multiple heteronuclear 1H-15 dipole-dipole couplings enable high resolution Shiftless NMR spectra to be recorded, as shown in Figure 2B. Further, by detecting these dipole-dipole coupling frequencies in the direct t2 dimension, it is possible to arrange for the evolution of different heteronuclear dipole-dipole couplings during t1, yielding two-dimensional spectra where both frequency axes are dipole-dipole couplings. The evolution during t1 is restricted to 13C-15N heteronuclear dipole-dipole couplings using methods we previously demonstrated in conventional two-dimensional triple-resonance SLF experiments13. In this example, the 13C-15N couplings modulate the 15N magnetization during t1 followed by 1H-15N heteronuclear spin-exchange during t2. This yields the two-dimensional spectrum in Figure 2C where both frequency axes are heteronuclear dipolar couplings. Notably, there are no chemical shift frequencies in the spectra in Figure 2. The four two-dimensional spectra in Figure 3 illustrate the connections between SLF and Shiftless NMR experiments as well as between the covalently bonded 13Cα and 15N amide sites of the model peptide sample shown in Figure 2A. Figure 3A and C are twodimensional SLF spectra. Each spectrum has four resonances because the unit cell of the crystal contains four molecules with unique orientations. The spectra are symmetric about the zero frequency of the dipolar coupling dimension, therefore the unique spectroscopic information is contained in half of the spectrum. Each amide resonance in Figure 3A is characterized by a pair of 15N chemical shift and 1H-15N heteronuclear dipole-dipole coupling frequencies. Correspondingly, each alpha-carbon resonance in Figure 3C is characterized by a pair of 13C chemical shift and 1H-13C heteronuclear dipole-dipole coupling frequencies. There are no spectroscopic connections between the data in Figure 3A and those in Figure 3C because the local fields are separated by their respective 15N and 13C nuclei. The connections illustrated with the dashed lines between the data in the other Wu and Opella Page 2 J Chem Phys. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2013 September 03. N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript panels of Figure 3 result from the chemical bond that establishes the close spatial proximity and heteronuclear dipole-dipole coupling between the 13Cα and 15N amide nuclei in each unique molecule in the unit cell. The two-dimensional Shiftless spectra in Figure 3B and D also have four resonances. However, since both axes are heteronuclear dipolar coupling frequencies, there are four quadrants symmetrically arranged about the respective zero frequencies. One quadrant from a spectrum similar to that in Figure 3B is shown in Figure 2C. Since the sample is the same for both experiments, they have the same 13C-15N dipole-dipole couplings, as demonstrated by the vertical lines that serve to cross-assign the resonances in the panels. The horizontal lines connect the resonances in the SLF spectra to those in the Shiftless spectra by their 1H-15N or 1H-13C dipole-dipole couplings. Figure 4 compares experimental and simulated two-dimensional Shiftless NMR spectra of a polycrystalline sample of 13Cα, 15N labeled N-acetyl-leucine (Figure 2A). In these spectra, the 13Cα-15N dipolar couplings are correlated with the 1H-13Cα dipolar couplings (Figure 4A). The spectrum is scaled to the maximum coupling where the relevant bond axis is parallel to the field, D//. The magnitudes of the maximum dipolar couplings, as readily measured from the frequencies of the half maximal discontinuities, are 23.2 kHz and 0.96 kHz for the 1H-13Cα and 13Cα-15N bonds, respectively. These values correspond to bond lengths of 1.09 A for 1H-13Cα and 1.47 A for 13Cα-15N. The relative orientations of pairs of dipolar vectors can be determined from the comparison of the experimental twodimensional powder spectrum in Figure 4A to the simulations in Figure 4B. This indicates that the angle between the 13Cα-15N bond and the 1H-13Cα bond is about 110°,. Results from X-ray crystallography14 concur with these findings, with an angle of 109°. With individual calibrations of the experimental scaling factors of the pulse sequences, bet


Unsupervised contrastive learning for indoor-scene point clouds has achieved great successes. However, unsupervised learning point clouds in outdoor scenes remains challenging because previous methods need to reconstruct the whole scene and capture partial views for the contrastive objective. This is infeasible in outdoor scenes with moving objects, obstacles, and sensors. In this paper, we propose CO^3, namely Cooperative Contrastive Learning and Contextual Shape Prediction, to learn 3D representation for outdoor-scene point clouds in an unsupervised manner. CO^3 has several merits compared to existing methods. (1) It utilizes LiDAR point clouds from vehicle-side and infrastructure-side to build views that differ enough but meanwhile maintain common semantic information for contrastive learning, which are more appropriate than views built by previous methods. (2) Alongside the contrastive objective, shape context prediction is proposed as pre-training goal and brings more task-relevant information for unsupervised 3D point cloud representation learning, which are beneficial when transferring the learned representation to downstream detection tasks. (3) As compared to previous methods, representation learned by CO^3 is able to be transferred to different outdoor scene dataset collected by different type of LiDAR sensors. (4) CO^3 improves current state-of-the-art methods on both Once and KITTI datasets by up to 2.58 mAP. Codes and models will be released. We believe CO^3 will facilitate understanding LiDAR point clouds in outdoor scene.


One of the most innovative features of the CPTPP is its material on digital trade, especially its chapter on e-commerce which contains a number of provisions aimed at enhancing this vital sector of the economy by eliminating distortive trade barriers such as restrictions on data transfer and data localization requirements. Such provisions should be important to the CPTPP's two largest parties: Canada and Japan, both of which are highly advanced economies seeking to enhance their digital trade capacity across the Pacific Rim. This paper explores the main features of the CPTPP concerning digital trade from the perspective of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Canada and Japan. Such businesses have a poor track record of e-commerce uptake and may be disadvantaged relative to their larger competitors which enjoy dominance in the online marketplace. Whether or not the CPTPP will assist these businesses while striking the right balance between an open internet and safeguarding of issues such as privacy is a matter of some debate.


Grifola frondosa polysaccharide (GFP) is the extract of Grifola frondosa. In this study, 50 male wistar rats were separated into S + C, S + T, LG + T, MG + T and HG + T groups to study the effect of GFP on the immune function of heavy load exercising rats. In S + T group, blood neutrophil number, neutrophil phagocytic index and bactericidal capacity decreased significantly, and adhesion function showed remarkable increase after 8 weeks excessive exercise. Low, medium and high doses of GFP were administered to different groups based on gavage. After gavaging GFP during the eight weeks of excessive exercise, blood neutrophils in the MG + T group and HG + T group were 15.3% and 7.9% higher than in the S + T group. The blood neutrophil phagocytic indices in the MG + T and HG + T groups increased to 1.19 and 1.20, respectively, from 1.02 in the S + T group. The neutrophil bactericidal ability of blood cells in the MG + T and HG + T groups was also observed to be 46.6% and 45.6%, respectively, in comparison with 39.7% for S + T and 39.2% for LG + T group. Blood neutrophil adhesion function in the MG + T and HG + T groups was 57.4% and 57.6%, respectively. This is significantly lower than 65.6% in the S+T group. We demonstrate that feeding a medium or high dose of GFP can improve the neutrophil immune function of excessively exercising rats. A medium dose of GFP shows the most significant effect.


Data centers have been growing rapidly in recent years to meet the surging demand of cloud services. However, the expanding scale and powerful servers generate a great amount of heat, resulting in significant cooling costs. A trend in modern data centers is to raise the temperature and maintain all servers in a relatively hot environment. While this can save on cooling costs given benign workloads running in servers, the hot environment increases the risk of a cooling failure. In this article, we unveil a new vulnerability of existing data centers with aggressive cooling energy saving policies. Such a vulnerability might be exploited to launch thermal attacks that could severely worsen the thermal conditions in a data center. Specifically, we conduct thermal measurements and uncover effective thermal attack vectors at the server, rack, and data center levels. We also present damage assessments of thermal attacks. Our results demonstrate that thermal attacks can (1) largely increase the temperature of victim servers degrading their performance and reliability, (2) negatively impact on thermal conditions of neighboring servers causing local hotspots, (3) raise the cooling cost, and (4) even lead to cooling failures. Finally, we propose and evaluate effective server and data center level defenses to enhance thermal stabilities.


The Late Triassic of the back arc Domeyko Basin, Chile is characterized by the onset of marine sedimentation that persisted throughout the rest of the Mesozoic. Carbonate bulk samples from the Punta del Viento Limestone Formation have yielded a numerically small, but apparently widespread, conodont fauna including Epigondolella mosheri, Epigondolella englandi and Neogondolella steinbergensis. These specimens indicate a Rhaetian (Epigondolella mosheri conodont Biozone roughly equivalent to the Paracochloceras amoenum ammonoid Biozone) age for this unit. Their recovery represents the first record of conodonts from Chile, and also indicates a considerable potential for use in correlating sequence stratigraphic events within the Mesozoic Marginal Sea in Colombia, Peru and Chile.


A post processing-based Software Receiver is implemented in MATLAB for the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), also called as NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation). IRNSS is developed by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It provides navigation related services over India and its neighbouring countries and comes into operational status with the seven satellites in the desired orbits. This NavICSR (NavIC Software receiver) is useful for further research and development of the IRNSS/NavIC system. NavIC research community can analyse the NavIC signals, to carry out ionospheric studies and to develop new algorithms.

NavICSR is capable of processing the Digital ADC data of IF signals stored in the files for L5 and S band signals and provides the navigation solution to the users. It is configured to run for all quantization levels, sampling rates and real or IQ input IF data, up to the position fix. This is developed by modifying and adding the required algorithms to the existing Open-source GPS SDR for L1 C/A signals developed by Dennis M. Akos et al. The existing post-processing receiver's frame work is replaced with the developed time synchronous frame work in NavICSR, which aims to get real time execution speed in MATLAB on a standard normal PC. In the developed frame work, all the assigned tracking channels will process the data simultaneously in a time synchronous manner. Tracking channels work on one millisecond data and compute the receiver position for every millisecond then process the data of next millisecond. In the developed frame work the input IF data is processed continuously with a circular buffer and updates the navigation solution continuously. This paper mainly emphasises the modifications needed in GPS Software receiver to adopt to IRNSS and presents the position accuracies obtained with both signals at L5/S bands. Acquisition, Tracking and data decoding algorithms of NavICSR are briefly explained. Time synchronous frame work is analysed in this paper for the real time capability of the receiver with minimum sampling frequency, bandwidth and number of satellites in view. The preliminary results are shown in terms of Time to first fix (TTFF) and speed of execution. The experiments are carried out with the IRNSS IF data stored in a file with the real signals obtained from the IRNSS front-end. The Results shows that NavICSR is flexible and reconfigurable enough for prototyping and a base for further research and development. The speed to run this software receiver is half of the real time speed. i.e. it will take double time as compared to real time. It can be further improved easily for real time speeds by optimizing all modules individually, such as acquisition, tracking, data decoding, computation of pseudoranges, position of satellites and receiver using proposed framework.


We use the cosmo-OWLS suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, which includes different galactic feedback models, to predict the cross-correlation signal between weak gravitational lensing and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) y-parameter. The predictions are compared to the recent detection reported by van Waerbeke and collaborators. The simulations reproduce the weak lensing-tSZ cross-correlation, ξyκ(θ), well. The uncertainty arising from different possible feedback models appears to be important on small scales only (0θ ≲ 1 arcmin), while the amplitude of the correlation on all scales is sensitive to cosmological parameters that control the growth rate of structure (such as σ8, Ωm and Ωb). This study confirms our previous claim (in Ma et al.) that a significant proportion of the signal originates from the diffuse gas component in low-mass (Mhalo ≲ 1014 M⊙) clusters as well as from the region beyond the virial radius. We estimate that approximately 20% of the detected signal comes from low-mass clusters, which corresponds to about 30% of the baryon density of the Universe. The simulations also suggest that more than half of the baryons in the Universe are in the form of diffuse gas outside halos (≳ 5 times the virial radius) which is not hot or dense enough to produce a significant tSZ signal or be observed by X-ray experiments. Finally, we show that future high-resolution tSZ-lensing cross-correlation observations will serve as a powerful tool for discriminating between different galactic feedback models.


Self-organizing behaviour in cellular automata is discussed as a computational process. F ormallanguage theory is used to extend dynamical systems theory descriptions of cellular automata. The sets of configurations generated after a finite number of time steps of cellular automaton evolution are shown to form regular languages. Many examples are given. The sizes of the minimal grammars for these languages provide measures of the complexities of the sets. This complexity is usually found to be non-decreasing with time. The limit sets generated by some classes of cellular automata correspond to regular languages. For other classes of cellular automata they appear to correspond to more complicated languages. Many properties of these sets are then formally non-computable. It is suggested that such undecidability is common in these and other dynamical systems.


Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are regarded as a novel class of widespread endogenous non-coding RNAs, which may play important roles in tumorigenesis by regulating gene expression. Nevertheless, the characterization of circRNAs in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains largely unknown. This study aimed to investigate circRNA expression profiles in EOC. A total of 54 EOC specimens and 54 normal ovarian tissues (controls) were collected. circRNA-sequencing based circRNA expression profiles were identified in 4 EOC specimens and compared with 4 normal ovarian tissues. circRNA-sequencing data were validated by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) in the 54 EOC specimens and 54 normal ovarian tissues. The association between differentially expressed circRNAs and various clinicopathological features of EOC was determined using a non-parametric test. Univariate analysis was performed using the log-rank test. A total of 4,388 circRNAs (2,556 up- and 1,832 downregulated; fold change of ≥2 and P<0.05) were identified to be differentially expressed in the EOC specimens compared with the normal ovarian tissues. Of these, the levels of 6 circRNAs (circBNC2, circEXOC6B, circFAM13B, circN4BP2L2, circRHOBTB3 and circCELSR1) were confirmed by RT-qPCR. Our data further indicated that these 6 circRNAs were associated with various clinicopathological features of EOC. More importantly, we found that circEXOC6B and circN4BP2L2 may act as novel prognostic biomarkers in patients with EOC. On the whole, the results of this study indicate that differentially expressed circRNAs may participate in the pathogenesis of EOC and may thus have potential for use as novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for EOC. Future experiments with larger sample sizes are required to verify the current findings and illuminate the regulatory mechanisms of action of circRNAs in the tumorigenesis of EOC.


A design principle for the chemical unit cosubstitution of [Al3+–F−] for [Si4+–O2−] has been adopted to establish the phase relations between isostructural (Sr,Ba)3SiO5 and (Sr,Ba)3AlO4F, and solid solutions of (1 − x)Sr3SiO5–x(Sr,Ba)3AlO4F:Ce3+ with tunable luminescence properties have been prepared based on the comparative "one-step" and "two-step" methods. The structures and photoluminescence tuning of the (1 − x)Sr3SiO5–x(Sr,Ba)3AlO4F:Ce3+ phosphors were investigated, and it was found that enhanced emission intensities could be obtained using the two-step method with high crystalline quality. The emission peaks of the (1 − x)Sr3SiO5–x(Sr,Ba)3AlO4F:Ce3+ phosphors were blue-shifted from 520 to 490 nm upon increasing the content from x = 0 to x = 1.0, and the corresponding mechanism has been discussed. The results of the temperature-dependent luminescence properties further verified that the formation of a solid solution can improve the thermal stability of the photoluminescence. White light-emitting diode (w-LED) lamps were fabricated based on the as-prepared bluish-yellow emitting phosphors, and commercial red phosphors, combined with 415 nm NUV-emitting InGaN chips. The best packaged w-LED lamp gave CIE chromaticity coordinates of (0.38, 0.42) with a warm color temperature of 4277 K and a color rendering index of 86.3.


The fossil record of the Class Bivalvia is dominated by simple skeletons with relatively few characters, and induces much chance duplication of structure, mosaic evolution, parallelism, and convergence. Overall, there appears to have been a net increase in diversity that has not yet reached a limit. Considering the complex fluctuations in population size and selection pressures which characterized the history of many taxa, both the model of punctuated equilibrium and the Darwinian view of organic change as a slow, steady process seem simplistic. Evolutionary trends, well documented in many pelecypod groups, include shortterm, probably stochastic, repetition. Sustained trends are presumably products of sustained selection. Separate lineages commonly display similar sequences of morphological grades. In contrast to the vertebrates, many pelecypod superfamilies and orders are not clearly segregated into well defined adaptive zones. Trivial differences separate marginal members of some higher categories suggesting that they originated as ordinary species of ancestral taxa preadapted to radiate into a variety of similar niches. Strict cladistics and unweighted phonetics are inadequate guides to pelecypod phylogeny because they tend to ignore stratigraphic evidence. A more flexible evolutionary systematics is recommended that incorporates the chronological data of stratigraphy and palaeobiogeography.


The local extremes (i.e., peaks and pits) of the landscape‐elevation field play a critical role in the energy, water, and nutrient distribution of a region, but their statistical distributions in relation to landscape evolution have received limited research attention. In this work, we first explain how the spatial correlation structure of the elevation field affects the counts and frequency distributions of local extremes. We then analyze local extremes statistics for eight mountainous landscapes worldwide with diverse hydroclimatic forcings and geologic histories using 24 digital elevation models and compare them with complex terrain of the Erythraeum Chaos region on Mars. The results reveal that the spherical covariance structure captures the observed spatial correlation in these cases, with the peak frequency distribution agreeing well with the elevation frequency distribution. The ratio of the pit‐over‐peak (POP) count is linked to the degree to which the pit and peak frequency distributions match, and carries the mark of landscape aging. The relationship between the geomorphic development stage (quantified by the reduced fatness of the slope‐distribution tail) and the deviation of POP values from unity in old mountainous landscapes confirms that the evolution towards smoother topographies is atypically accompanied by reduced pit counts distinctive of organized valley and ridge patterns.


Abstract. The knowledge of the vertical distribution of atmospheric mercury (Hg) plays an important role in determining the transport and cycling of mercury. However, measurements of the vertical distribution are rare, because airborne measurements are expensive and labour intensive. Consequently, only a few vertical Hg profile measurements have been reported since the 1970s. Besides the Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container (CARIBIC) observations, the latest vertical profile over Europe was measured in 1996. Within the Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS) project, four vertical profiles were taken on board research aircraft (CASA-212) in August 2013 in background air over different locations in Slovenia and Germany. Each vertical profile consists of at least seven 5 min horizontal flight sections from 500 m above ground to 3000 m a.s.l. Gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and total gaseous mercury (TGM) were measured with Tekran 2537X and Tekran 2537B analysers. In addition to the mercury measurements, SO2, CO, O3, NO, and NO2, basic meteorological parameters (pressure, temperature, relative humidity) have been measured. Additional ground-based mercury measurements at the GMOS master site in Waldhof, Germany and measurements onboard the CARIBIC passenger aircraft were used to extend the profile to the ground and upper troposphere respectively. No vertical gradient was found inside the well-mixed boundary layer (variation of less than 0.1 ng m−3) at different sites, with GEM varying from location to location between 1.4 and 1.6 ng m−3 (standard temperature and pressure, STP: T  =  273.15 K, p  =  1013.25 hPa). At all locations GEM dropped to 1.3 ng m−3 (STP) when entering the free troposphere and remained constant at higher altitudes. The combination of the vertical profile, measured on 21 August 2013 over Leipzig, Germany, with the CARIBIC measurements during ascent and descent to Frankfurt Airport, Germany, taken at approximately the same time, provide a unique central European vertical profile from inside the boundary layer (550 m a.s.l) to the upper free troposphere (10 500 m a.s.l.) and show a fairly constant free-tropospheric TGM concentration of 1.3 ng m−3 (STP).


This paper presents a hybrid FEM-analytical model for the magnetic flux density, the force and torque of a Reaction Sphere (RS) actuator for satellite attitude control. The RS is a permanent magnet synchronous spherical actuator whose rotor is magnetically levitated and can be accelerated about any desired axis. The spherical actuator is composed of an 8-pole permanent magnet spherical rotor and of a 20-coil stator. Due to the highly complex geometry of the spherical rotor, consisting of 8 bulk permanent magnet poles with truncated spherical shape adjusted on the back-iron structure with truncated octahedral shape, a pure analytical approach is not possible. Therefore, in this article we adopt a hybrid approach in which FEM or measured derived values are combined with other boundary conditions on a known analytical structure to derive expressions for the magnetic flux density, the force, and the torque. The Laplace equation is solved by exploiting powerful properties of spherical harmonic functions under rotation to derive closed-form linear expressions for all possible orientations of the rotor. The proposed models are experimentally validated using a developed laboratory prototype and with finite element simulations.


Abstract Background: Only recently have complexity informed methods been viewed as a strategy for changing health care systems and care delivery. Aims: This article reports on participants' perceptions of being involved in a complexity informed educational approach to promote interprofessional collaboration in a system of care for children with disabilities. Methods: Over a one-year period, all employees within a network of eight community agencies participated in three day-long workshops. A subset of twenty-four employees participated in eight monthly facilitated discussion groups. The workshops and discussion groups focused on processes rooted in complexity sciences which value small-scale interaction to improve the quality of discovery and shared problem solving. Learning group members (n = 24) and their facilitators (n = 4) participated in interviews and focus groups at the end of the project. Results: Qualitative content analyses of the transcriptions of the interviews and focus groups revealed that participants identified tangible benefits of the process oriented approach. Challenges related to the lack of structure and emergent nature of the methods were identified. Conclusions: Lessons learned include incorporating a gradual shift to emergent methods, fostering ownership from the beginning of the process, providing ongoing training to facilitators, flexibility and use of small-group scenarios.


Background: Breast Cancer (BC) is a known global crisis. The World Health Organization reports a global 2.09 million incidences and 627,000 deaths in 2018 relating to BC. The traditional BC screening method in developed countries is mammography, whilst developing countries employ breast self-examination and clinical breast examination. The prominent gold standard for BC detection is triple assessment: i) clinical examination, ii) mammography and/or ultrasonography; and iii) Fine Needle Aspirate Cytology. However, the introduction of cheaper, efficient and noninvasive methods of BC screening and detection would be beneficial. Design and methods: We propose the use of eight machine learning algorithms: i) Logistic Regression; ii) Support Vector Machine; iii) K-Nearest Neighbors; iv) Decision Tree; v) Random Forest; vi) Adaptive Boosting; vii) Gradient Boosting; viii) eXtreme Gradient Boosting, and blood test results using BC Coimbra Dataset (BCCD) from University of California Irvine online database to create models for BC prediction. To ensure the models' robustness, we will employ: i) Stratified k-fold Cross- Validation; ii) Correlation-based Feature Selection (CFS); and iii) parameter tuning. The models will be validated on validation and test sets of BCCD for full features and reduced features. Feature reduction has an impact on algorithm performance. Seven metrics will be used for model evaluation, including accuracy. Expected impact of the study for public health: The CFS together with highest performing model(s) can serve to identify important specific blood tests that point towards BC, which may serve as an important BC biomarker. Highest performing model(s) may eventually be used to create an Artificial Intelligence tool to assist clinicians in BC screening and detection. Significance for public health This study could potentially identify important Breast Cancer (BC) biomarkers based on patients' routine anthropometric blood data. This will be attempted using correlation-based feature selection algorithm, together with highest performing machine learning model(s) from this study, and publicly available BC Coimbra Dataset from University of California Irvine database. The biomarkers may provide direction for clinicians to explore in future BC clinical trials. Trials will serve to validate biomarkers from this study and could be introduced in clinical settings globally as an easy, cost-effective first step for BC screening and detection. An Artificial Intelligence tool can eventually be created using highest performing model(s). Clinicians can input patient-specific biomarkers into the tool. The tool would output the likelihood of patients having BC, with a certain level of accuracy. This envisioned process could serve to eventually revolutionize the early prediction of BC in patients and consequently, a reduction in BC mortality rate.


Objective
To investigate tear film lipid layer thickness (LLT) and its association with clinical symptom and sign in different types of dry eye patients.

Methods
A serial case-observational study was carried out.Three hundred and six eyes of 306 dry eye patients were included in Beijing Tongren Hospital from April to August 2016.Ocular surface disease index (OSDI) questionnaire, eyelid slit lamp examination, the measurement of tear film lipid thickness (LLT), tear film break-up time (TBUT), Schirmer Ⅰtest (SⅠt) and the infrared meibomian photography were performed on the patients.The 157 patients with OSDI >12 and eyelid score ≥2 served as the MGD group; 53 patients with OSDI >12 and SⅠt value﹤5 mm/5 minutes served as ADDE group; 96 patients with OSDI>12, eyelid score ≥2 and SⅠt value﹤5 mm/5 minutes served as MGD/ADDE group.Tear film LLT was detected with LipiView® ocular surface interferometer and the association of LLT with clinical characteristics of the patients was analyzed.This study protocol was approved by Ethic Committee of Beijing Tongren Hospital and written informed consent was obtained from each patient prior to any relative medical examination.

Results
Tear film LLT of the participants was normally distributed with the average was (60.41±18.57)nm.LLT in the MGD group, ADDE group, MGD/ADDE group were (57.04±18.26), (63.52±18.44) and (60.56±18.71)nm, respectively, with a significant difference among the three groups (F=2.347, P=0.035), and the LLT value was significantly lower in the MGD group than that in the ADDE group (t=2.077, P=0.039). The LLT value showed negative correlations with the severity of dry eye symptom, SⅠt and meibomian gland loss rate (r=-0.201, P=0.003; r=-0.146, P=0.005; r=-0.156, P=0.046). OSDI score was significantly correlated with LLT only in the MGD group (r=-0.285, P=0.000). No significant correlation was seen between LLT and SⅠt in all the groups (all at P>0.05). In the MGD/ADDE group and MGD group, the correlation between LLT and meibomian gland loss rate was significantly greater than the overall correlation (r=-0.335, -0.248, -0.156). The dry eye symptoms in OSDI questionnaire like foreign body sensation, eye pain, discomfort when watching TV or computer showed significant correlations with LLT (r=-0.243, -0.205, -0.223, -0.258, all at P<0.05).

Conclusions
The tear LLT is appeared to be varied in different types of dry eye.The LLT is thinner in the dry eyes with MGD and thicker in the dry eyes with ADDE.There are association between tear LLT and foreign body sensation, eye pain, discomfort when watching TV or computer.

Key words:
Dry eye; Tear film; Lipid layer thickness; Ocular surface disease index; Tear film break-up time; Schirmer I test; Case-observational study


We report on the discovery and the timing analysis of the first eclipsing accretion-powered millisecond X-ray pulsar (AMXP): SWIFT J1749.4–2807. The neutron star rotates at a frequency of ∼517.9 Hz and is in a binary system with an orbital period of 8.8 hrs and a projected semi-major axis of ∼1.90 lt-s. Assuming a neutron star between 0.8 and 2.2 M⊙ and using the mass function of the system and the eclipse half-angle, we constrain the mass of the companion and the inclination of the system to be in the ∼0.46-0.81 M⊙ and ∼ 74.4 ◦ − 77.3 range, respectively. To date, this is the tightest constraint on the orbital inclination of any AMXP. As in other AMXPs, the pulse profile shows harmonic content up to the 3rd overtone. However, this is the first AMXP to show a 1st overtone with rms amplitudes between ∼ 6% and ∼ 23%, which is the strongest ever seen, and which can be more than two times stronger than the fundamental. The fact that SWIFT J1749.4–2807 is an eclipsing system which shows uncommonly strong harmonic content suggests that it might be the best source to date to set constraints on neutron star properties including compactness and geometry. Subject headings: pulsars: general — pulsars: individual (WIFT J1749.4–2807) — stars: neutron — binaries: eclipsing


Two Gram-negative, rod-shaped, thermophilic bacterial strains, HC145(T) and HC148(T), were isolated from a compost sample from a compost facility in Ichon, Korea. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes of HC145(T) and HC148(T) and comparative analyses of the resulting sequences clearly showed that these strains had a phylogenetic affiliation to the genus Ureibacillus. The level of 16S rRNA similarity between the two novel strains was 98.4 % and the levels of sequence similarity between them and existing Ureibacillus species were 97.8-98.1 (HC145(T)) and 97.4-98.7 % (HC148(T)). The DNA-DNA reassociation values between the two strains and the type strains of Ureibacillus species ranged from 38 to 51 %. The polar lipid profiles for both isolates consisted of phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phospholipids and glycolipids of unknown composition. The major quinones were MK-8, MK-9 and MK-7, the peptidoglycan type was l-Lys<--d-Asp and the main cellular fatty acid was iso-C(16 : 0). The DNA G+C contents of strains HC145(T) and HC148(T) were 42.4 and 38.5 mol%, respectively. On the basis of the data from this polyphasic study, strains HC145(T) and HC148(T) represent members of the genus Ureibacillus, for which the names Ureibacillus composti sp. nov. and Ureibacillus thermophilus sp. nov., respectively, are proposed. The type strain of U. composti is HC145(T) (=KACC 11361(T) =DSM 17951(T)) and the type strain of U. thermophilus is HC148(T) (=KACC 11362(T) =DSM 17952(T)).


Extraction and product recovery are the most crucial steps in evaluation of valuable active compounds from various plant parts.In this study,extraction of gallic acid from Jatropha curcas stem bark was investigated.The aims of this study were to study the extraction parameters using four different extraction techniques,to estimate the kinetic studies of gallic acid,to optimize the ultrasonic-assisted extraction(UAE)parameters and to compare the efficiency of extraction techniques.Two conventional extraction techniques were employed such as shake flask extraction and Soxhlet extraction.Ultrasonic-assisted extraction(UAE)and microwave-assisted extraction(MAE)were the modern extraction techniques utilized.The effect of solvent composition, extraction time,extraction temperature and power for UAE and MAE were the extraction parameters used in the extraction studies.For the shake flask extraction and Soxhlet extraction,two parameters namely as effect of solvent composition and extraction time were evaluated.The extracts were further undergone analysis process.Quantification of gallic acid in the extracts was done using high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC).In general,all the extraction techniques were capable of isolating gallic acid from the bark,but the recovery obtained using modern techniques was higher than the conventional techniques.It was found that all the parameters studied had given significant effect towards the yield of gallic acid.Kinetic studies were done to estimate the washing coefficient and the slow extraction coefficient.Washing of extractive substances from the surface of plant particles phenomena is happening before it reaches equilibrium and then slow extraction process is happening until it reaches equilibrium.In optimization part, the parameters of UAE(solvent composition,extraction temperature and extraction time) were optimized using Box-Behnken Design(BBD).The optimal conditions were as follows: solvent composition of 49.97%, extraction temperature of 35.7oC and extraction time of 50.71 min.Under these conditions,the experimental yield of gallic acid was 21.6253 ± 0.0528% mg gallic acid/100g bark,which was agreed close to the predicted value 21.6367 mg gallic acid/100g bark.The efficiency of the extraction techniques increased in the following order:shake flask extraction >Soxhlet > UAE > MAE.


This research examines the existence of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) in samples of feedstuff. In this study a total of 90 animal feed samples consisting of barley, wheat bran, wheat pulp, canola meal, safflower meal, cottonseed meal and sunflower meal were assessed, using the HPLC technique. The results revealed that 36.67% of the feed stuff samples were contaminated but the contamination level was under the permissible level of AFB1 accepted by national standard. The range of contaminationwas from0.34 to 5.81 ppb. It was also found out that the contamination level was the highest in cottonseed and then in sunflower meal samples. The mean concentration ofAFB1 in the mentioned samples was, 3.47 and 0.21 ppb, respectively.


This paper reports on the testing of measures for evaluating different approaches to engaging citizens in projects that encourage them to adopt more sustainable energy use behaviours. It is a central notion of stakeholder theory that 'bottom-up' approaches, where individuals are actively involved rather than passive, are preferable to 'top-down' authority-led projects. But this general agreement on the need for participation of stakeholders in order to progress towards sustainable development exists alongside a dearth of evidence from comparative evaluations. A comparative study examined six distinct communication activities aimed at encouraging individuals to adopt more sustainable behaviours. Each used a variety of different approaches to communicate, some participative and others more top-down informational. Key theories from the fields of behavioural studies and communication were used to identify the variables to consider in this evaluation. Findings confirmed the added value of a bottom-up approach compared to other mechanisms and identified that the difference between the groups was in the extent to which they implemented their intentions to change behaviour, suggesting that participative methods offer a more supportive environment for this to take place. The measures used in this study may be useful to other evaluations comparing different communicative approaches.


There's a proposal making its way to the Greensboro City Council about which you probably haven't heard much. But you'll soon hear more, because the proposal is a bit controversial. The proposal's supporters hail it as an important step towards wage equity. Its opponents condemn it as a dangerous step towards socialism.


: Sensory and motor nerve conduction velocities in median and ulnar nerves of both upper limbs were examined in 30 forest-workers, felling trees with the aid of the mechanical saws, and demonstrating symptoms and signs of vibratory disease. A distinct decrease of the conduction velocity of sensory fibres and reduction of the nerve action potential amplitude of the examined nerves were found in these patients in comparison with the control group. Mean motor conduction velocity and distal motor latency of both nerves were included in the norm. No relationship occurs between the length of the work, time and the degree of the disorder of the sensory nerve conduction. The degree of the lesion of sensory fibres depends more on an individual susceptibility than on the length of the work time of workers exposed to local vibration.


Objective: This study aimed to: (a) provide population-based estimates for the prevalence of mental disorders, including substance use, among undocumented Mexican immigrants; (b) assess for relevant comorbidities; and (c) identify sociodemographic, immigration and contextual vulnerabilities associated with meeting criteria for a disorder. Method: This cross-sectional study used Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) to collect and analyze data from clinical interviews with 248 undocumented Mexican immigrants residing near the California–Mexico border. The M.I.N.I. Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used as the primary outcome of interest. For all analyses, inferential statistics accounted for design effects and sample weights to produce weighted estimates. Logistic regression was used in multivariate analyses. Results: Overall, 23% of participants met criteria for a disorder (95% CI = 17.1; 29.0). The most prevalent disorders were Major Depressive Disorder (14%, 95% CI = 10.2; 18.6), Panic Disorder (8%, 95% CI = 5.0; 11.9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (7%, 95% CI = 3.4; 9.8). Approximately 4% of participants met criteria for a substance use disorder (95% CI = 1.2; 6.1). After controlling for covariates, being 18 to 25 years and experiencing distress from postmigration living difficulties were significantly associated with meeting criteria for a disorder. Conclusion: Undocumented Mexican immigrants are an at-risk population for mental disorders, particularly depression and anxiety disorders. Given that distress from postmigration living difficulties is associated with meeting criteria for a disorder, revisiting policies and developing new alternatives to facilitate access and provision of context-sensitive mental health services for this population is necessary to protect the human rights of these immigrants and that of their U.S. families.


The premise of the "hot topics" panel at the 2005 AALS convention was that the Rehnquist Court had in 2004 retreated from its bolder conservatism, asserting itself on the side of individual liberty against a federal government that had grown increasingly cavalier toward civil liberties during three years of a war on terror and two decades of a renewed war on crime. Proof of the premise was said to be found in a pair of Sixth Amendment cases, Crawford v. Washington and Blakely v. Washington, and also in the trilogy of terrorism cases, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Rasul v. Bush. This article argues that the premise of the panel was flawed, based as it was on a stereotypical yet false view of the Rehnquist Court. The Rehnquist Court's legacy was never about preferring law and order outcomes over civil liberties outcomes, or about siding with the government at the expense of individual criminal defendants. Rather, the Court's legacy - and it was only modestly and rather inconsistently successful in this - was the revival of an originalist constitutionalism that took seriously the limits on governmental power actually detailed in the text of the Constitution itself, while also preserving the textual commitment to separation of powers and federalism. With this legacy in mind, I contend in Part II of the Article that the Sixth Amendment cases - or more precisely, the position in those cases of Justices Scalia and Thomas, the Court's two most devoted originalists - are perfectly consistent with the Rehnquist Court's broader devotion to principles of constitutionalism. In Part III, I take up the trilogy of terrorism cases and argue that, contrary to popular understanding, those cases actually reflect a proper deference to the executive branch in the exercise of its war-making powers. Finally, I take up in Part IV what I consider to be one of the most interesting aspects of this group of cases: Justice Scalia's apparent invitation in the Hamdi case to revisit the current understanding of birthright citizenship, which has long ignored a crucial component of the Constitution's text. I contend that the subject to the jurisdiction part of the Citizenship Clause means allegiance-owing jursidiction rather than mere territorial jurisdiction, and that as a result the Constitution does not mandate citizenship for the children of temporary visitors to the United States, particularly those who are here illegally.


Wider discussions are held as to the contribution of community forestry program in Nepal to improve the forest condition and meeting the forest product requirements. This paper presents findings from a study of six Community Forest User Groups in far-western lowlands of Kailali and Kanchanpur in Nepal. The groups with natural and plantation forests have varied experiences in forest conservation and distribution of products. Some groups are resourceful in terms of availability of forest products from the natural forests. Others with plantation forests are product scarce from their own and depend on government managed forest and other sources to meet their demands. The role of concerned government authorities and federation of groups would be instrumental to analyse demand and supply, and make provisions for distribution of forest products within and outside groups and district. Key words : Community forest management, forest products, distribution, far-western low land doi: 10.3126/banko.v18i2.2170 Banko Janakari, Vol. 18, No. 2, 25-34


The behavioural response to a gradient of oxygen (aerotaxis) has been characterized in the archaeon, Halobacterium salinarium. When the gas surrounding a drop of H. salinarium strain S9-P culture was changed abruptly from 10% (v/v) O2 to 100% N2, the bacteria transiently increased the frequency of reversing before they adapted and resumed random swimming. When the gas was returned to 10% O2 the bacteria responded by swimming smoothly for approximately 45 s. Aerotaxis was strongest when respiration in H. salinarium was highest and when bacteriorhodopsin and halorhodopsin were not contributing to the proton motive force. Starvation for methionine of the auxotrophic H. salinarium essentially abolished the step-down aerotactic response. Methanol production from demethylation of methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins was transiently increased in H. salinarium S9-P by a step down or step up in oxygen concentration, as observed in methylation-dependent chemotaxis in H. salinarium. The taxis-negative and methyltransferase-deficient mutant, H. salinarium strain Pho72 did not exhibit changes in methanol release in response to aerotaxis or chemotaxis stimuli. This is the first report of an aerotactic response that is dependent on methylation of methyl-accepting chemotaxis proteins. Aerotaxis in Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium is independent of transducer methylation.


Empirical mode decomposition (EMD), a new self-adaptive signal processing method, has been recently developed for nonlinear and non-stationary time series analysis. In this paper, EMD method is described and applied in time-frequency analysis. Aiming at the problems of intrinsic mode function (IMF) criterion in the EMD method, neural network (NN) prediction model and wavelet packet transform (WPT) technology are simultaneously introduced into the EMD method to improve the border effect and to enhance the ability of signal analysis, and thus a hybrid EMD-based time-frequency analysis strategy is proposed. The simulated time series are exploited to verify the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid model. Experimental results indicate that the hybrid strategy gives a quite satisfactory performance when both NN prediction model and WPT method are employed.


This article describes the initial phase of incorporating drama-in-education classes into the practical language curriculum of a German university English department. It offers a brief overview of drama in (higher) education, before focusing on some recent developments in Germany and the UK: specifically the current increase of interest in Theaterpadagogik in Germany, and the incorporation of performative pedagogy in UK higher education, with the example of an initiative at the University of Warwick. The practical language curriculum of the University of Tubingen English Department, within which the drama classes are being run, is introduced. A report on one of the classes is provided, with a short example of a student-led presentation session. After investigating some student feedback from the class, the article concludes by suggesting that a drama approach offers solutions to some challenges posed by the curriculum, and explains a brief rationale for its further development in this context.


ABSTRACT The Internet provides a new source of information and a new discussion platform for public participation in planning processes. As geographic information systems (GIS) are an essential part of planning practice, equal access to public participation GIS (PPGIS) is crucial for successful stakeholder collaboration. Unfortunately, people with restricted access to computers, limited Internet skills, and poor map literacy could face potential exclusion. Although the older adults' age groups show the strongest growth among Internet users, their general Internet skills remain limited compared to those of younger age groups. Furthermore, little previous research has been conducted on older adults' usage of PPGIS, as current studies focus mainly on older adults' use of the Internet in general or (passive) web maps in particular; PPGIS usability studies generally target a wider audience. In this qualitative and descriptive study, we examine older adults' experience with a PPGIS survey and implement the findings into a final research survey design. The findings support previous results from other Internet or web map usability studies with older adults while, in addition, displaying similarities to the outcomes of general PPGIS usability studies, especially regarding cognitive abilities. Studying older adults draws attention to a vulnerable but growing Internet user group. As other age groups face similar challenges, we suggest that using older adults as a 'test group' for PPGIS usability could help improve the experience for the wider public.


Water is the vital resource on which life sustains and water becomes more valuable in this cold desert part of the northernmost region of India, called Ladakh which comprises of two districts, Leh and Kargil. Groundwater since ancient times in the form of springs provided ample water for the region and its contribution has increased manifold in the wake of recent spurt in bore well installations, especially, in Leh-Town. Due to increasing urbanization, with surge in a huge floating population in the absence of a sewerage link in summer tourism boom season, puts extra stress on the limited water resources of the area and with the rising living standards, grey and black water is being disposed off in the ground-pit or in septic tanks without any treatment. This may lead to pollution of groundwater resources especially, in the densely populated residential areas. For insuring sustainable development of groundwater, in the absence of any observation wells for constant monitoring of quality or quantity of groundwater and the unregulated installation of bore-wells makes this quality characterization very significant and helps in future management. The physico-chemical parameters like pH, electrical conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved solids, hardness, alkalinity, nitrates, fluoride, and chlorides were analyzed to meet the objective of the study. The results revealed that in general, the present status of groundwater quality is suitable for drinking purposes and out of 20 total samples evaluated, 75% of samples had NTU above desirable limit while 10% samples each recorded TDS and EC above desirable limits.


Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of 20-min applications of MTAD and 15% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) solutions during final irrigation on the demineralization of root canal dentin.
Methodology: Forty mandibular and maxillary single-rooted teeth were randomly divided into two groups. During initial irrigation following the use of each file, 2 mL of 2.5% sodium hypochloride (NaOCl) solution was applied to all teeth. During final irrigation, 5 mL of EDTA solution was applied to the teeth in Group 1 and 5 mL MTAD solution was applied to the teeth in Group 2. Both solutions were applied for 20 min. All teeth were then washed with 5 mL distilled water and dried with paper points. The teeth were buccolingually bisected along the long axes using hammers and chisels. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images were then obtained and scored.
Results: Mann–Whitney U tests revealed significant differences between the MTAD and EDTA groups (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: The EDTA solution produced more demineralized areas in the dentin tubules than the MTAD solution.
How to cite this article: Kaya S, Ayaz SG, Uysal I, Akkus Z. Comparison of the Impact of Long-Term Applications of MTAD and EDTA Irrigation Agents on Dentin Structure: A Scanning Electron Microscope Study. Int Dent Res 2011;2:60-64.
Linguistic Revision: The English in this manuscript has been checked by at least two professional editors, both native speakers of English.


We studied cattle and deer diet quality within replicated grazing treatments of continuous and short-duration grazing at heavy and moderate stocking rates. The study was conducted at the Welder Wildlife Refuge, Sinton, Tex. from October 1987 to July 1989. We obtained cattle diet samples from esophageally fistulated steers. Deer diets were reconstructed using data obtained through the bite-count technique. Digestibility (IVDOM) and crude protein (CP) of cattle diets were similar between grazing systems and stocking rates. Digestibility of deer diets was affected by both grazing systems and stocking rate. Dietary CP and IVDOM of deer and cattle diets both differed among seasons. Dietary CP levels met maintenance requirements for deer throughout the study. Also, CP levels were high enough to meet low- to mid-gestation requirements. Deer dietary protein requirements for growth and lactation were never met regardless of grazing strategy. Although protein content of cattle diets was relatively low, these values satisfied cattle maintenance needs. Nursing cows, however, would not have met their requirement in any season sampled regardless of grazing system or stocking rates. Continuous grazing and moderate stocking rates may provide white-tailed deer the opportunity for selecting diets containing more desirable forbs and greater nutrient concentration. Less intensive rotational grazing at moderate rates may be preferred to maintain a relatively high seral stage.


Introduction. Application of renewable raw materials for manufacturing non-toxic components of polymer materials is of great practical interest. Cyclic carbonates on the base of epoxidated rubber tree oil could be seen as a promising alternative of fossil fuels. The ability of compounds containing cyclic carbonates to interact with primary amines and to form urethane and hydroxyl groups makes them rather efficient modifiers of amine-toughened epoxy compounds on the base of low-molecular diane oligomers. Introduction of cyclic carbonates enhances impact behavior of epoxy materials as well as their adhesion and strength properties. Materials and methods. Epoxy resin ED-20 was used for the research, as a cross-linking agent for cold toughening aminealkylphenol AF-2 was used; cyclic carbonates of epoxidated soy oils and rubber tree oil were applied as modifiers. Adhesional strength of bond joints has been determined in compliance with the GOST 28840-90, abrasive hardness of epoxy compound samples has been tested by the vertical optical caliper IZV-1. Results. When applying two-stage technology for obtaining epoxy cyclic carbonate compounds, there has been appeared a significant increase of adhesion to aluminum. This effect could be even more noticeable with increasing temperature during the stage of mixture of the amine toughener with the cyclic carbonate modifier. High viscosity of cyclic carbonate modifiers complicates the process of mixing components of the epoxy compound and correspondingly its application as a backing of glues and linings. The authors researched cyclic carbonates of epoxidated soy oil with various averaged functionality as modifiers. Application of epoxy materials CESO-75 as a modifier has proven to be more forward-thinking for the reasons of cost-efficiency and for operating and technological properties. CESO lowers the coefficient of static friction for epoxy materials together with enhancing their abrasion hardness. Conclusions. Cyclic carbonates of epoxidated plant oils (soy oil and rubber tree oil) as rather efficient non-toxic modifiers of epoxy polymers are of practical interest. They are produced on the base of annually renewable plant raw materials. Their application enables to enhance abrasion hardness and adhesion properties of epoxy compounds and also improve their antifriction properties.


In October 2019, President Trump reignited bipartisan criticisms on his foreign policy by lifting just-imposed sanctions on Turkey. Not only is Trump's foreign policy abandoning U.S. allies but it is allowing Russia to consolidate control of northern Syria and freeing terrorists who are intent on attacking Americans. Turkey's assault included roadside executions and many dead civilians, including children.


Foreign language learners typically experience considerable anxiety about taking listening tests. This study investigated how four forms of listening support (pre-teaching of content and vocabulary, question preview, and repeated input) affect the anxiety levels of college students in Taiwan taking a multiple-choice achievement test, which counts for their final grade in a required listening course. Participants included 160 students in four intact classes matched in listening ability. The instruments were a general listening anxiety questionnaire, short measures of task anxiety given just before and after the test, and post-test interviews. Prior the test, the test-takers were uniformly anxious but afterwards, there were significant differences in anxiety according to type of support and level of proficiency. A three-way interaction effect indicated that no single factor accounted for the changes in the learners' listening anxiety. It is concluded that strategy instruction may enhance the effectiveness of support in listening tests.


The concept of "efficient breach" - the idea that a contracting party should be encouraged to breach a contract and pay damages if doing so would be more efficient than performance – is probably the most influential concept in the economic analysis of contract law. It is certainly the most controversial. Efficient breach theory has been criticized from both within and without the economic approach, but the most prominent criticism is that it violates deontological ethics - that the beneficiary of a promise has a right that it be performed, so that breaching the promise wrongs the promisee. This essay argues that this criticism is misplaced, and that efficient breach theory, properly understood, is entirely consistent with parties' complying with their deontological obligations. Instead, the intuitive resistance that most people experience to the concept may be better explained by aretaic concerns - specifically, that failing to complete a contractual relationship is not conducive to virtuous character or to the maintenance of a flourishing community. While efficient breach can be squared with deontological ethics, it cannot be squared with virtue ethics unless one is prepared to argue that seeking efficiency is a virtue, or at least that it is not a vice.


Past counterfactual constructions of the type 'If she had shut the cage, the rabbit wouldn't have escaped' form part of a wider set of conditional constructions expressing hypotheticality in English. Past counterfactual constructions were elicited from a large representative sample of UK 6- to 11-year-old children. They produced a total of 36 different 'conditional-type' constructions (as well as a number of non-conditional structures) in response to the task. Despite this variety, developmental trends were seen in the data as well as evidence of possible sociolinguistic variants on the standard English form given above. Moreover, children's productions showed systematicity which revealed their tacit knowledge of the structure of conditional forms and their use. Wider implications, including children's variable control of grammatical features thought to be earlier-acquired, and the possibility that adult usage is far more variable than is suggested by traditional hierarchies of conditional forms, are also discussed.


In order to solve the problem of collision in engineering field, the dynamic equation of collision system was established based on FEM(finite element method) and contact element model. The present method can account for the influence of the nonlinear contact stiffness as well as the energy loss during collision process. Collision had been simulated using FEM and MSM(mode superposition method) separately with various contact stiffness, sphere masses and impact velocities. The results indicate that FEM can be used to solve the problem of collision. The two groups of time history curves of contact load have almost the same shape. Compared with the results by MSM, collision durations are relatively decreased by about 7%, and difference of peak value is no more than 4%. The method can be used for collision between two complex structures with nonlinear reaction. So, it has a wider application to simulation of collision damage in engineering field.


Background An ongoing challenge for smart homes research for aging-in-place is how to make sense of the large amounts of data from in-home sensors to facilitate real-time monitoring and develop reliable alerts. Objective The objective of our study was to explore the usefulness of a routine-based approach for making sense of smart home data for the elderly. Methods Maximum variation sampling was used to select three cases for an in-depth mixed methods exploration of the daily routines of three elderly participants in a smart home trial using 180 days of power use and motion sensor data and longitudinal interview data. Results Sensor data accurately matched self-reported routines. By comparing daily movement data with personal routines, it was possible to identify changes in routine that signaled illness, recovery from bereavement, and gradual deterioration of sleep quality and daily movement. Interview and sensor data also identified changes in routine with variations in temperature and daylight hours. Conclusions The findings demonstrated that a routine-based approach makes interpreting sensor data easy, intuitive, and transparent. They highlighted the importance of understanding and accounting for individual differences in preferences for routinization and the influence of the cyclical nature of daily routines, social or cultural rhythms, and seasonal changes in temperature and daylight hours when interpreting information based on sensor data. This research has demonstrated the usefulness of a routine-based approach for making sense of smart home data, which has furthered the understanding of the challenges that need to be addressed in order to make real-time monitoring and effective alerts a reality.


Documenting the inter-annual variability and the long-term trend of the glacier snow line altitude is highly relevant to document the evolution of glacier mass changes. Automatically identifying the snow line on glaciers is challenging; recent developments in machine learning approaches show promise to tackle this issue. This manuscript presents a proof of concept of machine learning approaches applied to multi-spectral images to detect the snow line and quantify its average altitude. The tested approaches include the combination of different image processing and classification methods, and takes into account cast shadows. The efficiency of these approaches is evaluated on mountain glaciers in the European Alps by comparing the results with manually annotated data. Solutions provided by the different approaches are robust when compared to the ground truth's snow lines, with a Pearson's correlation ranging from 79% to 96% depending on the method. However, the tested approaches may fail when snow lines are not continuous or exhibit a strong change of elevation. The major advantage over the state of the art is that the proposed approach does not require one calibration per glacier.


In this paper, the control of an electronic throttle valve based on second-order sliding-mode concepts is presented. The so-called twisting algorithm is chosen as the control law. It is shown that the tracking performance for discontinuous reference signals is significantly improved by introducing nonlinear damping by appropriately specifying the sliding surface. The control concept requires the measured plate angle as well as its time derivative, which is computed with the help of a robust exact differentiator. The effectiveness of the proposed concept, consisting of a twisting algorithm for control and supertwisting algorithm for differentiation, is demonstrated by experimental results.


Unfortunately, patients with cancer continue to present themselves to the surgeon at an unduly late stage of the disease. The diagnosis of the primary lesion in late cases is usually obvious, and the main problem that confronts the surgeon is the detection of the early distant metastases which contraindicate operation. The more diligently and more intelligently that metastases are sought, the more commonly are they found, and futile operations on the primary lesion are prevented. Experience has shown that cancer exhibits a predilection to spread along certain pathways that differ with the various organs and tissues. In a few instances the blood stream plays the prominent role in conveying cancer cells to a distant focus, especially the lungs; but in the great majority of cases the dominant factor in distant cancer dissemination is lymphatic permeation, as described by Handley in his book on "Cancer of the Breast." I agree with


Technical advances are radically altering our concepts of normal prenatal craniofacial development. These include concepts of germ layer formation, the establishment of the initial head plan in the neural plate, and the manner in which head segmentation is controlled by regulatory (homeobox) gene activity in neuromeres and their derived neural crest cells. There is also a much better appreciation of ways in which new cell associations are established. For example, the associations are achieved by neural crest cells primarily through cell migration and subsequent cell interactions that regulate induction, growth, programmed cell death, etc. These interactions are mediated primarily by two groups of regulatory molecules: "growth factors" (e.g., FGF and TGF alpha) and the so-called steroid/thyroid/retinoic acid superfamily. Considerable advances have been made with respect to our understanding of the mechanisms involved in primary and secondary palate formation, such as growth, morphogenetic movements, and the fusion/merging phenomenon. Much progress has been made on the mechanisms involved in the final differentiation of skeletal tissues. Molecular genetics and animal models for human malformations are providing many insights into abnormal development. A mouse model for the fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), a mild form of holoprosencephaly, demonstrates a mid-line anterior neural plate deficiency which leads to olfactory placodes being positioned too close to the mid-line, and other secondary changes. Work on animal models for the retinoic acid syndrome (RAS) shows that there is major involvement of neural crest cells. There is also major crest cell involvement in similar syndromes, apparently including hemifacial microsomia. Later administration of retinoic acid prematurely and excessively kills ganglionic placodal cells and leads to a malformation complex virtually identical to the Treacher Collins syndrome. Most clefts of the lip and/or palate appear to have a multifactorial etiology. Genetic variations in TGF alpha s, RAR alpha s, NADH dehydrogenase, an enzyme involved in oxidative metabolism, and cytochrome P-450, a detoxifying enzyme, have been implicated as contributing genetic factors. Cigarette smoking, with the attendant hypoxia, is a probable contributing environmental factor. It seems likely that few clefts involve single major genes. In most cases, the pathogenesis appears to involve inadequate contact and/or fusion of the facial prominences or palatal shelves. Specific mutations in genes for different FGF receptor molecules have been identified for achondroplasia and Crouzon's syndrome, and in a regulatory gene (Msx2) for one type of craniosynostosis. Poorly co-ordinated control of form and size of structures, or groups of structures (e.g., teeth and jaws), by regulatory genes should do much to explain the very frequent "mismatches" found in malocclusions and other dentofacial "deformities". Future directions for research, including possibilities for prevention, are discussed.


A role for 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) or serotonin in sleep has been known for decades but was challenged by recent papers that concluded that the apparent sleep phenotype was secondary to defective thermoregulation. Those studies used mice lacking serotonergic neurons resulting from the loss of function mutations in the gene encoding the LIM homeobox transcription factor 1 (Lmx1b). Here we show that, while Lmx1b mutants failed to keep the physiologic body temperature, they exhibited more activities at the room and elevated temperatures. More importantly, we used mice deficient in the gene encoding tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (Tph2), which could not synthesize 5-HT in the brain. Tph2 mutants were capable of thermoregulation and keeping physiologic body temperature when the environmental temperature was reduced and exhibited significantly more activities at both the room and elevated temperatures. Electroencephalographic (EEG) recording also showed decreased sleep in Tph2-deficient mice. Our results indicate that 5-HT is important for sleep regulation but not thermoregulation.


A color interpolation algorithm is necessary to acquire color images of good quality with a digital still camera in which a single CCD image sensor is equiped. Since a color filter array is adopted, we must interpolate missing color values in the red, green, and blue channels at each pixel location. Inappropriate color interpolation causes color artifacts, resulting in degraded color resolution. A color interpolation algorithm with a variable color ratio is proposed by incorporating cross-channel correlation. The color ratio of weighted sums in the color channels is utilized instead of the weighted sum of color ratios, and the color ratio varies with respect to the cross-channel correlation at each pixel. The proposed algorithm is composed of initial color interpolation step and the updating step of the green channel, where the updating step is carried out iteratively. Furthermore, a minus weighted sum based on the external divide, a modified edge indicator function, and a 5×5 support region for the red and blue channels are also adopted to improve the performance. With the proposed algorithm, we have achieved improvements in the image quality especially along the edges and in the detail of the image by removing color artifacts. The superiority of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated in the experimental results.


In a paper published in this journal Martin Hinton aims to show that the struggle between Moti Mizrahi and me about whether arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments rests on misunderstandings (Hinton 2015). Let me emphasize that I generally appreciate Hinton's intention to settle the dispute between Mizrahi and myself in this way. 1 Furthermore, I also agree with Hinton's conclusion that if Mizrahi is interpreted in the way Hinton does, then Mizrahi's "claim becomes far less controversial, but also rather uninteresting" (Hinton 2015, 551)—to refer to the title of my former paper: just spilling out the water wouldn't be worth a paper in Informal Logic. 2 Let me therefore focus in this reply on the points where Hinton directly attacks my treatment of Mizrahi and also what Hinton takes to be my account of expertise. I will discuss the following criticism of Hinton: (1) that, at points, my attack on Mizrahi is unfair due to my misunderstanding of his intentions, (2) that the notion of expertise I use is self-contradictory/inconsistent, (3) that the argument for my view is circular, (4) that one of my examples—the example from soccer—is mistaken. In rebutting this criticism, I aim to clarify the background of my former paper in this journal.


Inflammatory or allergic conditions, as well as situations where healing and repair processes occur, are characterized by the presence of increased numbers of mast cells. Previous work on the effect of neuropeptides on mast cell mediator release showed that only substance P caused such release from intestinal mucosal mast cells [Shanahan, F., Denburg, J. A., Fox, J., Bienenstock, J. & Befus, A. D. (1985) J. Immunol. 135, 1331-1337]. Accordingly, we investigated the microanatomical relationship between mast cells and enteric nerves in normal rat intestine and parasite-infected rat intestine, in which mucosal mast cell hyperplasia occurs. Combined immunohistochemistry for neuron-specific enolase and staining with alcian blue at pH 0.5 was employed on paraffin-embedded sections of normal and Nippostrongylus brasiliensis-infected rat jejunum. Sixty-seven percent of intestinal mucosal mast cells were touching subepithelial nerves, and an additional 20% were within 2 micron of nerves. Assessment of the proportion of the lamina propria occupied by mast cells (12.5%), the average mast cell area (121 +/- 28 microns 2), and the density of enteric nerves (one per 788 +/- 151 microns 2) suggested that the association was 5 times greater than would be expected by chance alone (P less than 0.0001). In consecutive sections, the nerves in contact with mast cells were also shown to contain substance P and/or calcitonin-gene-related peptide. Electron microscopy confirmed this association: 8% of the mast cells in infected rats exhibited membrane-membrane contact with unmyelinated axons containing 70- to 170-nm dense-core vesicles, and an additional 31% were situated less than 250 nm from nerves. Other mast cells appeared to embrace nerve bundles through the projection of lamellopodia. These data provide systematic quantitative evidence that a structural foundation for communication between the immune and nervous systems exists in the rat gastrointestinal tract.


Abstract The additions of allylmagnesium reagents to carbonyl compounds are important methods in synthetic organic chemistry, but the mechanisms of these reactions are likely to be distinct from mechanisms followed by other organomagnesium reagents. Additions to alkyl aldehydes and ketones are likely to be concerted, proceeding through six-membered-ring transition states. These highly reactive reagents appear to react at rates that approach the diffusion limit, so chemoselectivity is generally low. Furthermore, reactions of allylmagnesium halides with carbonyl compounds are unlikely to follow stereochemical models that require differentiation between competing transition states. This Short Review discusses the current state of understanding of these reactions, including the structure of the reagent and unique aspects of the reactivity of allylmagnesium reagents. 1 Introduction 2 Reactions with Carbonyl Compounds 2.1 Reactivity of Allylmagnesium Halides 2.2 Selectivity of Addition 3 Structure of Allylmagnesium Reagents 3.1 Schlenk Equilibrium and Aggregation 3.2 Spectroscopic Studies 3.3 X-ray Crystallographic Studies 3.4 Computational Studies of Structure 4 Reaction Mechanism 4.1 Substrate-Dependent Mechanisms 4.2 Concerted Mechanisms 4.3 Single-Electron Transfer Mechanisms 4.4 Open, SE2′-Like Transition State 4.5 Computational Studies of Mechanism 5 Conclusion


This paper presents four signal-generation chips that comprise a fundamental-wave voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), an output buffer, and a divide-by-32 prescaler. The VCOs with contiguous tuning ranges cover almost the full waveguide band from 110 to 170GHz (D-band). The fastest VCO operates at up to 181GHz in combination with the prescaler. The VCOs run on 1.8V, draw ~35 mA, and achieve a single-sideband phase noise ranging from -92 to -82 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset frequency. Power consumption of the high-speed frequency divider in the first prescaler stage is 70mW. The circuits are based on an Infineon SiGe technology, which features HBTs with an fmax of 340 GHz.


This paper presents a high parallel macro block level layered LDPC decoder architecture for the quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes with various code rates and code lengths. LDPC codes defined in WiMAX standard with 6 code rates and 19 code lengths are chosen as the demonstration of this architecture. Based on the proposed dedicated matrix reordering strategy, this decoder costs 12–24 clock cycles per iteration for different code rates. Compared with the state-of-art work, this decoder reduces total memory bits to a great extent and achieves 2x–4.3x higher parallelism with 1.2x hardware cost. The synthesis result proves the low power potential of this architecture.


Intelligent health monitoring system of the long-span railway cable-stayed bridge requires the comprehensive knowledge of instrumentation, analytical and information processing technologies with the knowledge and experiences in design, construction, operation and maintenance of railway cable-stayed bridge for long-term monitoring the performance throughout its lifecycle. It is necessary to perform sensor-based structural monitoring for identifying the bridge conditions in order to assure the structural safety and to evaluate the operational performance. The considerations for deploying a proper monitoring system are appropriate sensor instrumentation, robust signal acquisition, reliable signal processing, and intelligent signal and information processing. The experience on developing an autonomous monitoring system in the one certain railway cable-stayed bridge newly constructed is introduced in this paper. Sensor and hardware instrumentation, signal transmission, signal acquisition and analysis are schematically described mainly. Experience through this work will be worthwhile lessons for other similar efforts.


A method for growing gallium nitride (GaN) crystals in supercritical ammonia using an autoclave is disclosed. Large surface area GaN crystals are created, which may include calcium, magnesium or vanadium or less than 1% indium.


Designed for tracking user goals in dialogues, a dialogue state tracker is an essential component in a dialogue system. However, the research of dialogue state tracking has largely been limited to unimodality, in which slots and slot values are limited by knowledge domains (e.g. restaurant domain with slots of restaurant name and price range) and are defined by specific database schema. In this paper, we propose to extend the definition of dialogue state tracking to multimodality. Specifically, we introduce a novel dialogue state tracking task to track the information of visual objects that are mentioned in video-grounded dialogues. Each new dialogue utterance may introduce a new video segment, new visual objects, or new object attributes and a state tracker is required to update these information slots accordingly. We created a new synthetic benchmark and designed a novel baseline, Video-Dialogue Transformer Network (VDTN), for this task. VDTN combines both object-level features and segment-level features and learns contextual dependencies between videos and dialogues to generate multimodal dialogue states. We optimized VDTN for a state generation task as well as a self-supervised video understanding task which recovers video segment or object representations. Finally, we trained VDTN to use the decoded states in a response prediction task. Together with comprehensive ablation and qualitative analysis, we discovered interesting insights towards building more capable multimodal dialogue systems.


The characterization of workloads used in memory systems analysis and evaluation is important to detect factors in programs which may or may not favor the performance of each potential system configuration. In this paper, by suggesting the use of simple and functional graphs, we demonstrate that it is possible to visually get, with considerable precision, a number of relevant information about memory access characteristics. The new proposed graphs are useful both to document related experiments, in terms of memory access patterns and locality of references in workloads, and to foresee the performance of distinct memory systems. Applications of locality analysis include the improvem ent upon algorithms for memory management and techniques for program optimization.


In this investigation, attempts are made to prepare nano adhesive bonding of high performance polymer such as Polybenzimidazole (PBI) (service temperature is –260 C to +400 C) for its essential applications to aerospace. In order to prepare high performance adhesive, nano adhesive is prepared by dispersing silicate nano particles into the ultra high temperature resistant epoxy adhesive (DURALCO 4703, the service temperature of the adhesive is –260 C to +325 C) at 10% weight ratio with the matrix adhesive followed by modification of the nano adhesive after curing under high-energy radiation for 6 hours in the pool of SLOWPOKE-2 nuclear reactor with a dose rate of 37 kGy/hr in order to essentially increase the crosslink density within the nano adhesive resulting in much improved cohesive properties of the adhesive. Prior to bonding, the surface of the Polybenzimidazole is ultrasonically cleaned by acetone followed by its modification under low-pressure plasma using nitrogen as process gas under RF glow discharge, in order to essentially increase the surface energy of the polymer leading to substantial improvement of its adhesion characteristics. First, the polymer surfaces are characterized by estimating surface energy and then the polymer surface is characterized by Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA). The thermal characteristics of the basic ultra high temperature resistant epoxy adhesive and the high performance ultra high temperature resistant radiation crosslinked silicate nano adhesive are carried out by TGA and DSC and the physicochemical characteristics of these adhesives are carried out by the studies under solid state NMR. The TGA studies clearly shows that for the basic adhesive, there is a weight loss of the adhesive of about 10% when the adhesive is heated up to 325 C resulting in deterioration of cohesive properties of the adhesive over the range of temperatures. However, in the case of the radiation crosslinked epoxy-silicate nano adhesive, there is a perfect 100% retention of weight of the adhesive when the adhesive is heated up to 325 C resulting in significant improvement of cohesive properties of the adhesive over the range of temperatures. In order to determine the joint strength, tensile lap shear tests are performed according to ASTM D 5868-95 standard. Considerable increase in the joint strength is observed, more than 15 times when the polymer surface is modified prior to joining. Joints prepared with the unmodified polymer show only a joint strength of 1 MPa and increases up to 15.50 MPa with the surface modified polymer. There is a further massive increase in joint strength up to 25 MPa, when the joint is prepared by nano silicate epoxy adhesive and further modification of the adhesive joint under high-energy radiation results a further significant increase in joint strength up to 30 MPa. Therefore, with all the combinations there is about 30 times increase in joint strength. In order 435 The 8 International Conference on Flow Processes in Composite Materials (FPCM8) Douai, FRANCE 11 – 13 July 2006 to simulate with aerospace climatic conditions, the joints are exposed to cryogenic (-80 C) and elevated temperature (+300 C) for 100 hours and further, thermal fatigue tests of the joints are carried out under 10 cycles by exposing the joint for 2 hours under the above temperatures. When the joint completely kept at ambient condition and the joint strength compared with those joints exposed to aerospace climatic conditions, it is observed that there is no difference in joint strength. Finally, to understand the behaviour of high performance silicate epoxy nano adhesive bonding, the fractured surfaces of the joints are examined by scanning electron microscope. It is observed that the joint essentially fails cohesively within the adhesive even when the joints are exposed to cryogenic, elevated temperature and thermal fatigue conditions. Therefore, this nano adhesive bonding of high performance polymer could be highly useful for structural application in future generation aerospace.


Background Cultural competence training in residency is important to improve learners' confidence in cross-cultural encounters. Recognition of cultural diversity and avoidance of cultural stereotypes are essential for health care providers. Methods We developed a multimethod approach for cross-cultural training of Internal Medicine residents and evaluated participants' preparedness for cultural encounters. The multimethod approach included (1) a conference series, (2) a webinar with a national expert, (3) small group sessions, (4) a multicultural social gathering, (5) a Grand Rounds presentation on cross-cultural training, and (6) an interactive, online case-based program. Results The program had 35 participants, 28 of whom responded to the survey. Of those, 16 were white (62%), and residents comprised 71% of respondents (n=25). Following training, 89% of participants were more comfortable obtaining a social history. However, prior to the course only 27% were comfortable caring for patients who distrust the US system and 35% could identify religious beliefs and customs which impact care. Most (71%) believed that the training would help them give better care for patients from different cultures, and 63% felt more comfortable negotiating a treatment plan following the course. Conclusions Multimethod training may improve learners' confidence and comfort with cross-cultural encounters, as well as lay the foundation for ongoing learning. Follow-up is needed to assess whether residents' perceived comfort will translate into improved patient outcomes.


Quantum computers have been the dream of many scientists for over thirty years but the fact such devices still consist of only a handful of quantum bits (qubits) highlights the fact that this is not a trivial concept. However the potential of powerful parallelisation, which could out perform classical computers remains a huge incentive for researchers. Interest in donors in silicon has grown since being put forward as a possible candidate for a qubit in 1998 by Kane. Group V atoms, such as phosphorus, substitute into the silicon lattice but possess an extra outer shell electron compared to the neighbouring silicon atoms. This electron orbits the donor much like a hydrogen atom trapped in a silicon crystal. Despite overlapping with thousands of silicon atom, the donor electron experiences very little interaction with its surroundings leading to long spin lifetimes and coherence times. In this thesis the orbital state of donor electrons is explored. Electrical detection is used as a method of reading out coherent and incoherent manipulations of donor orbits. This is due to the high sensitivity achievable with electrical measurements. This work looked the detection mechanism in low and high intensity regimes as well as exploring the dynamics of the electron donor system in the time domain. Such experiments are use to measure the saturation of absorption and the electron-ion recombination rate (a quantity for which a range of values have previously been reported). Finally, the first electrical detection of coherent control of orbital states in silicon donors is presented, with T2* found to be 30 — 50ps.


Nanotechnology promises employment, sustainability and health. The Dutch government invests heavily in it. But how do we achieve these promises? In preparation for a parliamentary debate about nanotechnology on 21 April 2010, the Rathenau Institute initiated a working visit of MPs to one of the most promising areas of its application: healthcare. This note sets out the promises, challenges and issues surrounding 'nanomedicine'.


We present a framework to quantify the radiation from tropical cyclones (TCs) in shortwave (SW, wavelength smaller than 3 micron) and longwave (LW, wavelength larger than 3 micron) portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The framework includes two stages: segmentation of TC clouds and calculation of the radiation effects attributable to TC clouds. The segmentation task is accomplished by an algorithm which takes a time series of brightness temperature images of TCs and uses image processing techniques to acquire segmentation for each image in a semisupervised manner. The radiation is calculated by combining the segmentation results with the cloud and earth's radiant energy system dataset via a coordinate-matching scheme due to their difference in resolution. The framework was implemented to analyze the net contribution of TCs to the upwelling radiation in 2016 and in summer months between 2015 and 2019 at regional and global scales. Results show that both the magnitude and the variability of radiation contribution by TCs are of an order of magnitude that could have a significant effect on the overall earth's energy balance.