For years Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been widely used across many branches of engineering including the Aerospace, Automotive, Biomedical Chemical, Marine, Oil, Gas, Petrochemical and Power Generation industries. One dimensional (1D) CFD allows engineers to understand how flow rates and pressures may change within a network flow system of interconnected components. In contrast, three dimensional (3D) CFD allows design engineer to understand how detailed flows interact with all manner of complex geometry. Of course, 1D calculations are much faster, only a few minutes, when 3D CFD may take hours or days. Co-simulation of a 1D with a 3D model will potentially offer the best of both worlds. It enables the sharing of boundary data between 1D and 3D models in a single or multi-domain system to facilitate the simulation of the overall fluid system coupled with more detailed CFD simulation of 3D flows within a critical part of the network. In March 2010, NAFEMS organised in Gaydon (UK) a seminar to present the state-of-the-art of the links. Most speakers (ANSYS, CD-adapco, LMS, Flowmaster, AVL, SCAI) presented the various possible links between 1D (Flowmaster, Amesim, GT Power...) and 3D tools (Fluent, CFX, STAR-CCM+, FIRE...). Some industrials also showed examples, but most of them only referred to simplistic applications, only to demonstrate the capabilities of the link. We are now nearly 10 years later, tools and editors have changed, or merged. Is 1D and 3D co-simulation now a reality? We saw in 2010, that the 1D codes were driven by the engine approaches, in automotive and aerospace sectors, but most of the other industries were interested by co-simulation. 1D-3D links were already 10 years old (Fluentlink for Flowmaster arrived in 2001), but a lot of work was still to be done. The CFD Working Group (namely David Kelsall and the author) were involved in the 2010 seminar. All the speakers have been contacted and agree to show that 1D3D is now a reality.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the imaging performance of 39- and 52-ring time-of-flight (TOF) PET/CT scanners. We also assessed the potential of reducing the scanning time using a 52-ring TOF PET/CT scanner. Methods: PET/CT scanners with 39- and 52-ring lutetium oxyorthosilicate detectors were evaluated. The axial fields of view were 16.2 and 21.6 cm, respectively. We used a National Electrical Manufacturers Association International Electrotechnical Commission body phantom filled with an 18F solution containing background activity of 5.31 and 2.65 kBq/mL for the studies. The sphere-to-background ratio was 4:1. The PET data were acquired for 10 min in 3-dimensional list mode and then reconstructed with both ordered-subsets reconstruction maximization and ordered-subsets reconstruction maximization plus point-spread function plus time-of-flight algorithms. PET images with different acquisition times were reconstructed (from 1 to 10 min). The image quality was physically assessed using the sensitivity, noise-equivalent counting rate, coefficient of variation of background activity, and relative recovery coefficient. Results: The total system sensitivities of the 39- and 52-ring scanners were 5.6 and 9.3 kcps/MBq, respectively. Compared with the 39-ring scanner, the noise-equivalent counting rate of the 52-ring scanner was 60% higher for both the high-activity and the low-activity models. The recovery coefficient was consistent, irrespective of the number of detector rings. The coefficient of variation of the 52-ring scanner using a 3-min acquisition time was equivalent to that of the 39-ring scanner using a 4-min acquisition time. Conclusion: The image quality of the 52-ring scanner is superior to that of the 39-ring scanner. The acquisition time per bed position of the 52-ring system can be reduced by about 25% without compromising image quality. In addition, the number of bed positions required is 25% lower for the 52-ring system. Finally, the examination time required for a whole-body PET scan is considered to be reduced by about 40% if the 52-ring scanner is used.


Giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis) are important predators on the reefs of the tropical Indo-Pacific and research into their spatial ecology is needed to improve our understanding of their behavior and assist fisheries management. We used active acoustic telemetry to describe the fine-scale movements of giant trevally at Tetiaroa Atoll, including their home range, site fidelity, habitat use and spatial overlap with a small (21 km2) Marine Protected Area (MPA). The home ranges of giant trevally were small but varied among individuals (Minimum Convex Polygon 𝑋𝑋 = 3.2 ± 2.5 km2). All giant trevally exhibited site fidelity to their respective home ranges with a 31% average overlap in daily space use, but there was limited overlap in home ranges among individuals, with intra-individual spatial overlap significantly greater than inter-individual overlap (t = -4.93, df = 16.87, p-value = <0.001). There was only modest overlap (19 ± 19%) of giant trevally home ranges within the MPA and high spatial overlap of home ranges with deep lagoon habitats (90 ± 0.09 %). Our results indicate that MPAs could be an effective tool for the conservation of this species if they are implemented on an atoll-wide scale. However, in the case of managing recreational catch-and-release fisheries, rotational smallscale temporal closures could be effective in regulating the angling pressure imposed upon giant trevally, provided post-release mortality is minimized. The results of this study provide the first detailed account of habitat use in this species and highlight the need for additional research on the factors contributing to the survival of caught-and-released giant trevally in predator dominated atolls, especially as their popularity as a target of recreational fisheries continues to grow, and fishing operations and agencies are faced with the need to manage their fisheries.


This article attempts to identify specific features of some commonly used Russian fruit and berry raw materials (raspberry, dewberry, gooseberry, dogrose, strawberry, cherry, kiwi, bananas) by estimating the content of total protein, its fractional and amino acid composition. It has been proven that among the studied fruit and berry raw materials, the most protein-rich fruit is banana (0.92%), while the lowest mass fraction of protein is observed in kiwifruit and cherries (0.49 and 0.51%, respectively). Further, in the rest of the fruit and berries, the mass fraction of protein is in the range between 0.53 and 0.81%. Studying the generic peculiarities showed that out of the studied raw materials, raspberries and gooseberries were rich in albumin (the mass fraction was 0.24 and 0.25%); the maximum number of glutelins was observed in gooseberry and banana (the mass fraction was 0.52 and 0.63%, respectively). In cherry and kiwi, the lowest albumin content was observed (0.09 and 0.07%, respectively). Despite the low mass fraction of globulins in the samples of raw materials, it was maximum in banana (0.09%), which, together with the high content of glutelins, ensured high enough contents of total protein (0.9%) in it. The experimental data obtained during analysis of protein in fruit and berry raw materials revealed that these fruits contain both nonessential (valine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, methionine, threonine, tryptophan, phenylalanine) as well as essential (alanine, arginine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine, histidine, proline, serine, tyrosine, cysteine) amino acids, and the content of these are varies as per the fruits types. * Corresponding author KEYWORDS


The Dublin regime – in short – determines which EU Member State is responsible to examine an application for asylum. The former Dublin Convention was signed in 1990 and first came into force in 1997. Today, 22 years and several legislative generations later, the Dublin regime is determined by the Dublin-III Regulation. After the 2015 so called 'migration crisis' and the collapse of legal principles in the Regulation, European legislators called for a reform of the Dublin system. Beside the will to reform the whole Common European Asylum System (CEAS), special focus lies on the reform of the Dublin-III Regulation. Therefore, the Commission issued its proposal for a new Dublin-IV Regulation. The proposal led to enormous controversies not only in the academic world but also in the European Institutions themselves. The aim of this article is first to analyse the Dublin-IV proposal against the background of fundamental and human rights with the incorporation of relevant case law of the ECJ and the ECtHR. The analysis will show several such violations and contradictions to the relevant jurisdiction. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that the European Institutions are far from consent with regards to the Commission's proposal. By showing the different approaches of the Institutions and of the academic world, finally, this article will provide guidelines on how to reform the Dublin regime adequately and in accordance with fundamental and human rights.


Pipelining is a widely used technique that query execution engines employ to improve individual query execution times. In recently proposed settings, pipelining is used as an alternative to materialization to evaluate query plan graphs, where nodes in a query plan can have multiple parents. Such scenarios include shared table scans, runtime operator sharing, parallel sorting, and pipelined Multi-Query Optimization (MQO) plans. While pipelining in query graphs can increase performance, it can also lead to runtime deadlocks. The existing deadlock solutions focus on total deadlock prevention by statically deciding between pipelining and materialization, and apply only to MQO. The lack of runtime information leads to highly conservative decisions. Formally, this conservatism makes it NP-hard to find an optimal pipelining strategy that materializes a minimum cost set of nodes in a query graph. We propose a novel dynamic scheme for detecting and resolving deadlocks in pipelined query graphs. Instead of statically determining what nodes to materialize, we pipeline every pipelinable operator in the query plan, resolving deadlock when it arises by materialization. At runtime, more information about producerconsumer behavior is available and as a result, the problem of detecting and resolving deadlock becomes polynomial time solvable, where each particular deadlock resolution is of minimum cost. Our techniques are applicable to any system that uses pipelined query graphs. An evaluation on TPC-H and Wisconsin benchmarks demonstrates cases where our approach eliminates all unnecessary materializations, and minimizes the overall query execution cost.


Dynamic behaviour of nonlinear free vibration of circular plate resting on two-parameters foundation is studied. The governing ordinary differential equation is solved analytically using hybrid Laplace Adomian decomposition method. The analytical solutions obtained are verified with existing results in literature. The analytical solutions are used to determine the influence of elastic foundation, radial and circumferential stress on natural frequency of the plate. Also, the radial and circumferential stress determined. From the results, it is observed that, increase in elastic foundation parameter increases the natural frequency of the plate. It is recorded that the modal radial and circumferential stress affect the extrema mode of the plate. It is hoped that the present study will contribute to the existing knowledge in the field of vibration analysis of engineering structures.


This study was conducted to evaluate the muscles of the brisket region of the Eastern Anatolian Red (EAR) bulls in different ages subjected to different housing conditions and feeding style, and to determine the relationships among carcass traits, meat colour parameters and carcass measurements. Totally 25 bulls between 15 and 24 m of age were allocated to five groups (G1,G2,G3,G4,G5) according to feeding type, housing condition and age. The bulls were weighed fourteen days apart, feed consumption measurements were taken every morning, and slaughtered after 130 days of fattening. The differences were significant among G1-G3 for pelvic fat, total groups for conformation, among G1,G2-G3,G4,G5 for marbling, among G1,G2,G3-G4,G5 for LD area, among G1-G3,G5 for degree of fatten, among G1,G5-G2 for fat thickness over (LD) Longissimus Dorsi. The differences were significant in terms of meat colour parameters such as lightness (L*) in G1,G2,G3-G4,G5 and hue value (H*) in G1-G2,G3,G4,G5. Also, the differences among the groups are significant in terms of carcass length and width of the round. The correlation coefficients of carcass characteristic, colour score and conformation are negative with lightness (L*) and yellowness (b*). Degree fatten had a positive correlation with marbling score. Conformation were positively correlated with carcass length. Carcass ribeye area and L* showed a more desirable result in the G4 and G5 groups compared to other groups. Assessing the accumulated data of carcass traits with carcass components including carcass measurement during the slaughter or later phases of slaughter, it may be possible to use as a marker for the determining beef quality in EAR bulls.


Higher education institutions are increasingly investing in community-university partnerships as a mechanism for strengthening relationships with the local community, expanding experiential learning (EL) opportunities for students, and supporting faculty in community engaged scholarship (CES). This organizational improvement plan (OIP) examines how a research-focused university can institutionalize CES so that faculty members feel supported and rewarded for their efforts to link teaching and research to community priorities. Using both transformational and distributed leadership approaches, as well as Kotter's (1996) change model, in combination with Norris-Tirrell, LambertPennington, and Hyland's (2010) social movement model, the proposed change plan focuses on organizational structure, and suggests two key changes are necessary: moving the CES office from the student affairs unit to academic affairs, and hiring or appointing a new senior academic leader to oversee the priority. Given the complexity of large-scale, university-wide change, the OIP will ultimately include three change cycles; however, this document outlines the first cycle, and strategically builds on the existing success of CES at the institution.


Introduction: Bone formation marker osteocalcin (OC) and bone resorption marker C-terminal telopeptide of type 1 collagen (CTX) can be used to detect or to monitor the early responses of the skeleton to physical activity. Literature suggests that it is likely that higher body mass index (BMI) has positive effect on bones and can postpone onset of osteoporosis. Aim of the Study: The aim of this study is to: 1. Determine the effect of aerobic physical acitivity on OC and CTX in young women 2. Investigate correlation of OC, CTX and BMI in young women engaged into structured aerobic excercise Material and methods: Study included 64 healthy young women, aged 19 to 25 years, devided into two groups: intervention group (n=32) and control group (n=32). The study duration was six weeks with follow-up period of four weeks. The intervention group underwent structured aerobic physical activity program for six weeks, but the control group did not receive such program. Level of OC, CTX and BMI were measured at baseline, after 6-week aerobic program, and after 4-week follow up (only intervention group). Results: There was significant increase of OC level after 6-week aerobic program, while level of CTX did not changed. OC level was at its maximum immediately after finishing the program in the participants with normal BMI (p<0.001). There was no statistically significant interaction of BMI and CTX level. Conclusion: Aerobic physical activity increases level of osteocalcin, suggesting that it has positive influence on bone formation in young women, primarily in women with normal BMI.


In this preliminary study, the silver nanoparticle (Ag NP)-based dressing, Acticoat™ Flex 3, has been applied to a 3D fibroblast cell culture in vitro and to a real partial thickness burn patient. The in vitro results show that Ag NPs greatly reduce mitochondrial activity, while cellular staining techniques show that nuclear integrity is maintained, with no signs of cell death. For the first time, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analyses were carried out on skin biopsies taken from a single patient during treatment. The results show that Ag NPs are released as aggregates and are localized in the cytoplasm of fibroblasts. No signs of cell death were observed, and the nanoparticles had different distributions within the cells of the upper and lower dermis. Depth profiles of the Ag concentrations were determined along the skin biopsies. In the healed sample, most of the silver remained in the surface layers, whereas in the unhealed sample, the silver penetrated more deeply. The Ag concentrations in the cell cultures were also determined. Clinical observations and experimental data collected here are consistent with previously published articles and support the safety of Ag NP-based dressing in wound treatment.


Abstract:"Exit" is a poem about sickness and recovery, and the urge to escape the conditions and bodies by which we are bound. I'm taken by the ideas of genetic memory (the common experiences of a species becoming part of its genetic code) and tropism (the turning or orienting of an organism in a particular direction in response to an external stimulus) as both theories for explaining the migratory patterns of the monarch and, in this particular application, for understanding the human body in the context of eating disorders and addiction. In the case of the monarch, leaving is a kind of returning, arriving somewhere it's yet been, but still returns to year after year, generation after generation, 'guided' by something—genetic impulse, maybe, or light; for the speaker, though remaining contained by the same body, a kind of exit-and-arrival is experienced in the process of recovery, in the


The NIa protein of plant potyviruses is a bifunctional protein containing an N-terminal VPg domain and a C-terminal proteinase region. The majority of tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV) NIa molecules are localized to the nucleus of infected cells, although a proportion of NIa is attached covalently as VPg to viral RNA in the cytoplasm. A suboptimal cleavage site that is recognized by the NIa proteinase is located between the two domains. This site was found to be utilized in the VPg-associated, but not the nuclear, pool of NIa. A mutation converting Glu-189 to Leu at the P1 position of the processing site inhibited internal cleavage. Introduction of this mutation into TEV-GUS, an engineered variant of TEV that expresses a reporter protein (beta-glucuronidase [GUS]) fused to the N terminus of the helper component-proteinase (HC-Pro), rendered the virus replication defective in tobacco protoplasts. Site-specific reversion of the mutant internal processing site to the wild-type sequence restored virus viability. In addition, the trans-processing activity of NIa proteinase was tested in vivo after introduction of an artificial cleavage site between the GUS and HC-Pro sequences in the cytoplasmic GUS/HC-Pro polyprotein encoded by TEV-GUS. The novel site was recognized and processed in plants infected by the engineered virus, indicating the presence of excess NIa processing capacity in the cytoplasm. The potential roles of internal NIa processing in TEV-infected cells are discussed.


Noise reduction, Thresholding function, Image de-noising, Wavelet transform. Noise reduction is still a challenging problem for researchers. Many algorithms have been published in this subject and each finding has its own benefit and restriction. In this paper, a review of noise removing using some unique thresholding functions is conducted. All of these techniques used wavelet transform combined with thresholding functions for image de-noising. Their proposed thresholding functions have some properties like nonlinearity, continuity and smoothness. These functions were introduced to overcome the standard soft and hard thresholding functions and also to improve the performance analysis and enhance the visual quality of the images in terms of obtaining higher peak signal to noise ratio. Therefore, we can call these functions as improved version of standard soft and hard thresholding functions.


Aim of this study is to determine fibronectin concentration in the different biological materials to study its changes in the anatomic districts where the cell interactions in which FN participates do occur. The traditional immunoturbidimetric method and the nephelometric method are compared. An alternative method using a support for the collection of very small samples is proposed and the results obtained are discussed. This approach with solid phase immunonephelometry can be used both in amounts of biological fluids too small for traditional methods and in concentrations < 4.5 mg/dL. It is hoped that less complex techniques will be studied, allowing routine tests that can be performed by all laboratories. Unfortunately, at present this method is still investigated, however, it would be useful to adopt it in case of difficult sample collection.


The central nervous system encodes information in sequences of asynchronously generated voltage spikes, but the precise details of this encoding are not well understood. Thorpe proposed rank-order codes as an explanation of the observed speed of information processing in the human visual system. The work described in this paper is inspired by the performance of SpikeNET, a biologically inspired neural architecture using rank-order codes for information processing, and is based on the retinal model developed by VanRullen and Thorpe. This model mimics retinal information processing by passing an input image through a bank of Difference of Gaussian (DoG) filters and then encoding the resulting coefficients in rank-order. To test the effectiveness of this encoding in capturing the information content of an image, the rank-order representation is decoded to reconstruct an image that can be compared with the original. The reconstruction uses a look-up table to infer the filter coefficients from their rank in the encoded image. Since the DoG filters are approximately orthogonal functions, they are treated as their own inverses in the reconstruction process. We obtained a quantitative measure of the perceptually important information retained in the reconstructed image relative to the original using a slightly modified version of an objective metric proposed by Petrovic. It is observed that around 75% of the perceptually important information is retained in the reconstruction. In the present work we reconstruct the input using a pseudo-inverse of the DoG filter-bank with the aim of improving the reconstruction and thereby extracting more information from the rank-order encoded stimulus. We observe that there is an increase of 10 - 15% in the information retrieved from a reconstructed stimulus as a result of inverting the filter-bank.


What role does trade play in international technology transfer? Do technologies introduced by multinational firms diffuse to local firms? What kinds of policies have proved successful in encouraging technology absorption from abroad and why? Using these questions as motivation, this article surveys the recent trade literature on international technology transfer, paying particular attention to the role of foreign direct investment. The literature argues that trade necessarily encourages growth only if knowledge spillovers are international in scope. Empirical evidence on the scope of knowledge spillovers (national versus international) is ambiguous. Several recent empirical plant-level studies have questioned earlier studies that argued that foreign direct investment has a positive impact on the productivity of local firms. Yet at the aggregate level, evidence supports the view that foreign direct investment has a positive effect on economic growth in the host country.


Author(s): Hargreaves, David | Abstract: The paradigm of verbal morphology in Kathmandu Newar involves a binary opposition of two sets of forms, the so-called conjunct/disjunct system. However, in its distributional properties, the system indexes a complex functional interaction between semantic representations and pragmatic principles:1) The construal of intentional action as a force dynamic with an appropriate mental representation,2) The deictic properties of speech acts and speech participant roles,3) An evidential principle requiring privileged access to internal states.In addition, related concepts of agency and causation are indexed via the system of ergative/absolutive nominal case marking and causative morphology. Although there is a fair degree of semantic overlap between notions of causation, agency and intentional action, the formal and functional properties of the three domains (verbal inflectional morphology, causative morphology and the ergative/absolutive case marking) exhibit significant degrees of formal and functional autonomy.


Mechanism of Action and Gold Nanoparticle Delivery of Pt(IV) Prodrugs of Cisplatin Yi Shi Syracuse University, December 2012 The antitumor effects of platinum(IV) complexes, considered prodrugs for cisplatin, are believed to be due to biological reduction of Pt(IV) to Pt(II), with the reduction products binding to DNA and other cellular targets. In this work we used pBR322 DNA to capture the products of reduction of oxoplatin, c,t,c-[PtCl2(OH)2(NH3)2], 2, and a carboxylate-modified analog, c,t,c[PtCl2(OH)(O2CCH2CH2CO2H)(NH3)2], 3, by ascorbic acid (AsA) or glutathione (GSH). Since carbonate plays a significant role in the speciation of platinum complexes in solution, we also investigated the effects of carbonate on the reduction/DNA-binding process. In pH 7.4 buffer in the absence of carbonate, both 2 and 3 are reduced by AsA to cisplatin (confirmed using 195 Pt NMR), which binds to and unwinds closed circular DNA in a manner consistent with the formation of the well-known 1, 2 intrastrand DNA crosslink. However, when GSH is used as the reducing agent for 2 and 3, 195 Pt NMR shows that cisplatin is not produced in the reaction medium. Although the Pt(II) products bind to closed circular DNA, their effect on the mobility of Form I DNA is different from that produced by cisplatin. When physiological carbonate is present in the reduction medium, 13 C NMR shows that Pt(II) carbonato complexes form which block or impede platinum binding to DNA. Another Pt(IV) complex, 1-adamantanemethylaminePt(IV), 4, which is also a potential prodrug of cisplatin was synthesized by tethering 1adamantanemethylamine to oxoplatin using a dicarboxylate linker. To achieve higher anticancer activity and better targeting, gold nanoparticle (AuNP) coated with the host ligand per-6-thio-βcyclodextrin, was synthesized as a drug delivery vehicle for complex 4. The results of cytotoxicity studies show that the loaded delivery vehicle inhibits the growth of human neuroblastoma cells and optical microscopy indicates that the nanoparticles localize in the nucleus of the cell. The binding of complex 4 and β-cyclodextrin is also investigated using 1 H NMR, and a model with a 1:1 stoichiometry with formation of adamantane dimers is proposed. To achieve better understanding of the effect of recovery time on cell cytotoxicity, the toxic effects of three metal complexes containing the 2,2'-bypyridine ligand, Cu(bpy)(NCS)2, 8, [Cu(bpy)2(H2O)](PF6)2, 9, and Zn(bpy)2(NCS)3, 10, were investigated toward human neuroblastoma cells (SK-N-SH) and ovarian cancer cells (OVCAR-3) using two different cytotoxicity assays. The cells were exposed to various concentrations of the compounds for 1 h and the percent inhibition of cell growth, I, measured for various times after exposure, i.e., as a function of the recovery time t. After developing the theory showing the relationship between I and t, the cytotoxicity data were analyzed to reveal that the two copper complexes, 8 and 9, cause the cells to divide at a slower rate than the controls during the recovery period, but the zinc complex, 10, had little or no effect on cell division during the recovery period. The usual metric for reporting cytotoxicity is IC50, which is the concentration of agent required to inhibit cell growth to 50% of the control population. However, since IC50 can depend on the recovery time, t, as is the case for 8 and 9, reporting IC50 for a single recovery time can hide important information about the long-time effects of a cytotoxic agent on the health of the cell population. Mechanism of Action and Gold Nanoparticle Delivery of Pt(IV) Prodrugs of Cisplatin


Eggplant, Solanum melongena L., is one of the major vegetable crops in the Sudan. Eggplant is infested by species of insect pests. However, the cotton jassid (Jacobiasca lybica) is the major one. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of botanical oils, castor bean seed oil, cotton seed oil and sunflower seed oil on the population of the cotton jassid in eggplant, cultivar Wizzo. Two field experiments were executed during season 2015/16 at two sites, the experimental farm in the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Gezira, and at Elalafoon on the eastern Bank of the Blue Nile, in Khartoum state. The experiments in both sites were arranged in Randomised Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications. The botanical seed oils at a concentration of 5% were applied at 7 days interval with four sprays. Post-treatment observations on number of jassid were taken after 2 days from the application. The results indicated that all oil treatments were apparently effective against the cotton Jassid compared to the untreated control. The study found that the cotton seed oil was more effective in reducing the number of jassid on eggplant ( 64 insects/100 leaves) followed by sunflower seed oil (132 insects/100 leaves), castor bean seed oil (140 insects/100 leaves) and the untreated control (312 insects/ 100 leaves) at Wad Medani site while, at Khartoum Site the cotton seed oil recorded high reduction of jassid population (92 insects/100 leaves) followed by castor bean seed oil (140 insects/100 leaves), sunflower oil (208 insects/100 leaves) and the untreated control (608 insects/ 100 leaves). This study suggests that, cotton seed oil can be used to reduce cotton jassid infestation on eggplant crop.


A survey was conducted during 2011 in the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Upper East regions of Ghana, West Africa, to identify the nematode taxa associated with tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). Eight nematode genera or species were encountered. They were: Helicotylenchus spp., Hoplolaimus indicus, Meloidogyne incognita, Pratylenchus brachyurus, Rotylenculus reniformis, Scutellonema spp., Tylenchulus spp. and Xiphinema elongatum. The Upper East Region (UER) had all eight nematode species, while the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions each had six nematode species only. Meloidogyne incognita was found in all the 21 farms sampled with a relative abundance of 36.8%, whilst Hoplolaimus indicus was the least abundant. Akomadan and Agogo, in the Ashanti region, were the greatest and least populated localities, respectively. Three species, M. incognita, P. brachyurus and R. reniformis were also extracted from tomato roots, with M. incognita being the most abundant and R. reniformis the least. Tomato cv. Petomech did not show galls in the three localities of the UER, but was severely galled at Akomadan in the Ashanti region.


Between 1933 and 1936 the Home Owners' Loan Corporation purchased more than a million delinquent mortgages from private lenders and refinanced those loans for the borrowers. Its primary goal was to break the cycle of foreclosure, forced property sales and decreases in home values that was affecting local housing markets throughout the nation. We find that the volume of HOLC lending was related to measures of distress in local (county-level) housing markets and that these interventions increased 1940 median home values and homeownership rates, but not new home building. "[A] tremendous surge of residential building in the [last] decade… was matched by an ever-increasing supply of homes sold on easy terms [and only]… a small decline in prices was necessary to wipe out this equity. Unfortunately, deflationary processes are never satisfied with small declines in values. They feed upon themselves and produce results out of all proportion to their causes… In the field of real estate finance, particularly, we have depended so much upon credit that our whole value structure can be thrown out of balance by relatively slight shocks. When such a delicate structure is once disorganized, it is a tremendous task to get it into a position where it can again function normally."1 Henry Hoagland, 1935


OBJECTIVES
Body fat, measured with body mass index (BMI), and obesity are associated with depressive symptoms. Among younger adults there is stronger evidence of obesity leading to depressive symptoms than of depressive symptoms leading to obesity, but the temporal relationship is unknown among older adults. This study utilized dual-change-score models (DCSMs) to determine the directional relationship between body mass and depressive symptoms among older adults.

METHOD
Participants (n=1743) from the Swedish Twin Registry (baseline age range 50-96 years) completed at least one assessment of BMI (nurse measurement of height and weight) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale (CESD). More than half the sample completed three or more assessments, scheduled at intervals of 2-4 years. DCSMs modeled the relationship of BMI and CESD across age, both independently and as part of bivariate relationships.

RESULTS
Depressive symptoms contributed to subsequent changes in BMI after age 70, while BMI contributed to subsequent changes in depressive symptoms after age 82. Thus, there is a reciprocal relationship that may change with age. The effect was more pronounced for women.

DISCUSSION
The association of BMI and depressive symptoms is bi-directional among older adults, and it appears to be affected by both age and sex.


The recent literature on the measurement of sustainable income has developed in two important ways for accounting of contribution of natural resource stocks. One set of studies directly addresses the problem of measuring genuine savings or extended wealth formation including changes in human resource capital and natural capital. The second set of studies uses the extended conventional national income accounting methods for accounting of changes in natural resource stocks and environmental extensions of inputoutput tables. This chapter describes the methodology of measuring genuine savings for a country and reviews the estimates available for different countries. It also suggests a way forward for measuring genuine saving for India.


Several studies on pregnancy-associated cancers have suggested an association with congenital anomalies in offspring. Previous studies have included maternal cancers diagnosed up to 2 years after pregnancy; however, long latency periods of some cancers mean that cancers diagnosed many years postpartum might have been present during pregnancy in a preclinical state. This paper considers the association between maternal cancers diagnosed from 2 years prior to pregnancy until the mother reaches 50 years of age, and congenital anomalies, as diagnosed at birth or within the first year of life. The current population-based study looks at associations of cancers in mothers with congenital anomalies in their children. Children were followed up from birth to diagnosis of a congenital anomaly, death, emigration or end of follow-up (whichever occurred first). A total of 56,016 children (2.6%) were considered exposed to a maternal cancer of any type; and they had a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.04 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.00, 1.09) compared with unexposed children. The greatest HR was seen among children whose mothers had been diagnosed with cancers before or during pregnancy (HR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.07, 1.75). Similar results were seen when paternal cancers were used as a 'negative control'. Statistically significant associations were seen for some specific congenital anomalies of organ systems (congenital anomalies of the musculoskeletal system [HR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.25]) and for some specific types of maternal cancer (leukaemia [HR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.61], The results of the main analyses suggest a small increase in risk of congenital anomalies in offspring of mothers diagnosed with cancer from 2 years before pregnancy, until the mother reaches 50 years of age; with the greatest increase seen for exposure in the pre-pregnancy and pregnancy period. These results may reflect shared causes for some cancers and some congenital anomalies. The similar results seen for paternal cancers indicate that the cause may be genetic or related to the families' social and environmental conditions.


Background: New Zealand's plantation forest industry is dominated by the exotic species radiata pine (Pinus radiata D.Don), which comprises approximately 90% of the net stocked area. However, there is interest in introducing new species to: (a) provide wood that is naturally decay-resistant as a substitute for wood treated with preservatives; (b) match species to the wide variety of environmental conditions in New Zealand; and (c) reduce reliance on P. radiata. Some Eucalyptus species are considered as potential alternatives to P. radiata, specifically those that can survive in resource-limited conditions and produce high quality wood. While Eucalyptus species are grown in plantations in many regions of the world, limited information is available on their growth in New Zealand. Eucalyptus globoidea Blakley is of particular interest and has been planted in trials throughout New Zealand. A complete set of preliminary growth and yield models for this species will satisfy the initial information requirements for diversifying New Zealand's plantation forest industry.
Methods: A set of growth and yield models was developed and validated, based on data from 29 E. globoidea permanent sample plots (PSPs) located mostly in North Island and a few in South Island of New Zealand. Trees were measured at different time intervals in these plots, with height and diameter at breast height (DBH) ranging from 0.1–39.8 m and 0.1–62.3 cm, respectively. An algebraic difference approach (ADA) was applied to model mean top height, basal area, maximum diameter, and standard deviation of DBH. Non-linear regression equations were used to project stand volume and height-diameter relationship, and Reineke's stand density index (SDI) approach was employed to model mortality.
Results: Mean top height, maximum diameter, and standard deviation of DBH were best fitted by Von Bertalanffy-Richards (SE=1.1 m), Hossfeld (SE=2.4 cm), and Schumacher polymorphic (SE=1.6 cm) difference equations, respectively. Basal area data were modelled with high precision (SE=6.9 m2 ha-1) by the Schumacher anamorphic difference equation. Reineke's SDI approach was able to explain the self-thinning as a reduction in the number of stems per hectare. Stand-level volume per hectare and height-diameter relationship models were precise when including site-specific variables with standard errors of 40.5 m3 ha-1 and 3.1 m, respectively.
Conclusion: This study presents a set of preliminary growth and yield models for E. globoidea to project plot-level growth attributes. The models were path invariant and satisfied basic traditional mensurational-statistical growth and yield model assumptions. These models will provide forest growers and managers with important fundamental information about the growth and yield of E. globoidea.


Visualization of high-dimensional data, such as text documents, is useful to map out the similarities among various data points. In the high-dimensional space, documents are commonly represented as bags of words, with dimensionality equal to the vocabulary size. Classical approaches to document visualization directly reduce this into visualizable two or three dimensions. Recent approaches consider an intermediate representation in topic space, between word space and visualization space, which preserves the semantics by topic modeling. While aiming for a good fit between the model parameters and the observed data, previous approaches have not considered the local consistency among data instances. We consider the problem of semantic visualization by jointly modeling topics and visualization on the intrinsic document manifold, modeled using a neighborhood graph. Each document has both a topic distribution and visualization coordinate. Specifically, we propose an unsupervised probabilistic model, called Semafore , which aims to preserve the manifold in the lower-dimensional spaces through a neighborhood regularization framework designed for the semantic visualization task. To validate the efficacy of Semafore , our comprehensive experiments on a number of real-life text datasets of news articles and Web pages show that the proposed methods outperform the state-of-the-art baselines on objective evaluation metrics.


To understand the detection capabilities of seismic stations and for reducing biases in ambient noise imaging, it is vital to assess the contribution of instrument self-noise to overall site noise. Self-noise estimates typically come from vault installations in continental interiors with very low ambient noise levels. However, this approach restricts the independent assessment of self-noise by individual end-users to assess any variations in their own instrument pools from nominal specifications given by manufacturers and from estimations given in comparative test papers. However, the calculation method should be adapted to variable installation conditions. One problem is that microseism noise can contaminate self-noise results caused by instrument misalignment errors or manufacturing limits; this effect becomes stronger where ambient noise is higher. Moreover, due to expected stochastic and time-varying sensor noise, estimates based on hand-picking small numbers of data segments may not accurately reflect true self-noise.

We report on results from a self-noise test experiment of Guralp seismic instruments (3T, 3ESPC broadband seismometers, Fortis strong motion accelerometer) that were installed in the sub-surface vault of the Eskdalemuir Seismic Observatory in Scotland, UK over the period October 2016–August 2017. Due to vault's proximity to the ocean, secondary microseism noise is strong, so we efficiently compute the angle of misalignment that maximises waveform coherence with a reference sensor. Self-noise was calculated using the 3-sensor correlation technique and we compute probability density functions of self-noise to assess its spread over time.

We find that not correcting for misalignments as low as 0.1° can cause self-noise to be artificially higher by up to ~15 dB at frequencies of 0.1-1 Hz. Our method thus efficiently removes the effect of microseism contamination on self-noise; for example, it restores the minimum noise floor for a 360s – 50 Hz 3T to -195 dB at 0.2 Hz. Furthermore, based on the analysis of our calculated probability density functions, we find at long-periods (> 30 s) the average self-noise can be up to 5 dB higher than the minimum noise floor. We discuss the validity of these results in terms of making direct comparisons with self-noise results from much quieter installations.


Human immunodeficiency virus/ Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV-AIDS) has become the most important infectious disease pandemic of this millennium. Nigeria with over 2.9 million people living with HIV (PLHIV) is at risk of increased burden and transmission of HIV. The country has the second largest burden of HIV infection in the world with young people at the center of the epidemic. The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a peer-led HIV-STI intervention program framed on the Information-Motivation-Behavioral skills model among undergraduate students at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in northern Nigeria. We utilized a randomedized controlled field trial design to investigate the impact of an HIV-STI intervention program on participants' HIV- and STI-related knowledge, sexual risk behaviors, attitudes towards HIV and STI prevention, and disentanglement of stigma. Participants were randomized to either the intervention group or the control group. An 8-hour integrate HIV-STI prevention program comprising of four structured modules was developed and delivered to the intervention group, while the control group received another 8-hour program on career development. Both programs were delivered by trained peers. Two-way repeated measure ANOVA was applied to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. The outcome measures were assessed at baseline, immediately post-intervention, at 3 months and 6 months post-interview. Respondents in the intervention arm showed significant improvements in HIV-related and STI knowledge, sexual risk behaviors and attitudes towards HIV-STI prevention. Conversely, there was no difference in tolerance towards PLHIV assessed using the stigma scale. There were significant main effects for group {F= 155.94, p= < 0.001, η20.401]; time [F = 248.35, p= < 0.001, η2= 0.516} and group x time interaction [F = 162.96, p= <0.001, η2= 0.412] for HIV-related knowledge, sexual risk behaviors, and attitude were also significant. The peer-led HIV-STI intervention program developed was effective in improving knowledge and attitudes towards HIV prevention and reducing sexual risk behaviors among Nigerian university students.


Traditional geostatistical simulation methods assume that the first two order statistics are sufficient to model mineral deposits. However, these methods are not able to model some complex pattern present in geological environments and the spatial connectivity of high values. So, multiple-point simulation (MPS) methods were developed as an attempt to overcome these limitations. In this work a MPS approach based on wavelet analysis is applied to Olympic Dam deposit, to simulate both material types and grades. The method, termed wavesim, work as follows: first, it scans a training image with a template to generate a pattern database; then this database has its dimension reduced by applying wavelet analysis; after that, the patterns are divided into classes using k-means clustering algorithm, considering the approximate sub-band image; and finally the grid is simulated by comparing the conditioning data event in each node with the classes prototypes and choosing a pattern from that class. Olympic Dam's simulation results show that wavesim can be applied successfully to a large instance. The resulting simulated realizations are analysed and validated in terms of histograms, variograms and high-order statistics, the latter being performed by using high-order spatial cumulants (HOSC). Les Cahiers du GERAD G–2015–91 1


This study is conducted based on qualitative research design with descriptive analysis. The data are passive construction in Indonesian and English as used in the novel Laskar Pelangi written by Hirata (2008) and its translation The Rainbow Troops translated by Kilbane (2009). There are three research problems namely; (1) How the passive constructions found in the novel of Laskar Pelangi and its translation The Rainbow Troops, (2) What types of shifts occur fromSL io TL in translating passive constructions from Indonesia into English, (3) What types of procedure used by translator in translating passive constructions from Indonesia to English. The steps and procedures of discovering the answers of the three research problems are shown under the discussion of research method which includes: (1) the data source, (2) method and technique of collecting the data consisting of observation method and note-taking technique; (3) method and technique of analyzing the data. The results of the data analysis are summed up as follows. First, most passives are marked by the attachment of both prefIX di- (di + verb base and di + verb base + suffIX) and prefix ter- (ter- + verb and ter + adjective/noun) which are also translated into passive in English (be + past participle) + stated or implied agent by phrase and the rest are translated into actives.. Second, in translating Indonesian passives into English shifts referred to Catford (2000) inevitably take place on grammatical level, above all, on the aspect of tense, . since English has several tenses whereas Indonesian does not. Third, translation procedure referred to Vinay & Darbelnet (2000) that translating passive construction seems to be dominated by literal translation procedure namely 65 sentences (78,31%), the modulation procedure 13 sentences (15,66%) and transposition procedure 5 sentences (6,03%).


Many countries have relied on subsidies to promote the adoption of renewable energy technologies. We study a generous program to promote the adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems through subsidies on future electricity production, rather than through upfront investment subsidies. We develop and estimate a tractable dynamic model of technology adoption, also accounting for local market heterogeneity. We exploit rich variation at pre-announced dates in the future production subsidies. Although the program led to a massive adoption, we find that households significantly undervalued the future benefits from the new technology. This implies that an upfront investment subsidy program would have promoted the technology at a much lower budgetary cost, so that the government essentially shifted the subsidy burden to future generations of electricity consumers.


Microphysiological systems (MPSs) are in vitro models that can incorporate dynamic stimuli such as flow, pressure and contraction in cell culture, enabling the formation of cellular architectures and retrieving physiological function often absent in conventional 2D-cell culture. MPS applications saw a substantial growth in recent years, drawing attention from industry as a strategy to optimize pre-clinical drug-development purposes, as well as from biomedical research, to fill a gap between in vivo and in vitro models. Several MPS platforms are now available and are employed in the development of bone and kidney complex systems for urologic and orthopaedic research. These advances have enabled, for example, the in vitro modelling of bone regeneration and renal drug secretion, and have dramatic potential to improve research into both orthopaedic and urology cancers.


A new strictly anaerobic, alkaliphilic, moderately thermophilic, fermentative, spore-forming bacterium, strain K1T, was isolated from manure samples (pH 6-8). Cells were Gram-positive, straight, non-motile rods that grew at temperatures of 37-66 degrees C (optimum at 62 degrees C) and in a pH range of 8.0-10.5 (optimum at 9.5-9.7). The bacterium fermented D-glucose, sucrose, D-fructose, D-trehalose and starch as carbon and energy sources. It required vitamins and its growth is stimulated by yeast extract. The major metabolic products were H2 and acetate. Cells were catalase-negative and could reduce nitrate to nitrite. The G+C content of the DNA was 42.2 mol%. Based on the phenotypic properties and 16S rDNA sequencing and DNA-DNA hybridization data, strain K1T (= DSM 12423T = ATCC 700785T = VKM B-2193T) was assigned to the new genus Anoxybacillus gen. nov., as a representative of a new species, Anoxybacillus pushchinensis sp. nov. 'Bacillus flavothermus' strain d.y., which was found to be closely related to strain K1T, is described as Anoxybacillus flavithermus comb. nov. (type strain = d.y.T = DSM 2641T).


Sabung ayam tradition is one of tradition from Talang Mamak tribe at Talang Sungai Limau village. This tradition has been existed from years ago and it was inheritedfrom past generation. This game is played due to the belief of Talang Mamak people that this game is the order from God and should be preserved. This game will be conducted to celebrate a baby born, wedding reception, or somebody's death. In this research, the researcher was trying to find out the meaning of Sabung Ayam in commemorating a death. This research was conducted by qualitative method with purposive sampling technique that consist of batin, mangku and monti of Talang Mamak tribe at Talang Sungai Limau village. The meaning of sabung to Talang Mamak tribe is to help somebody who has something in purpose by giving anything He/She has. It can be money, chicken, egg, rice, etc. Sabung ayam has manifest funcition as entertainment, education and buid solidarity. However, it also has laten function as gambling preservation. Keywords : tradition, sabung ayam meaning, Talang mamak tribe


Receptivity in three-dimensional boundary layer ow to localized roughness elements over a at plate is studied by means of direct numerical simulations (DNS). The surface roughness is modeled by applying nonhomogeneous boundary conditions along the wall as well as considering as a surface deformation by inserting the bump shape into the numerical mesh. Under the assumption of the small amplitudes of the roughness, although dierent disturbances amplitudes are observed in the vicinity of the bump for the meshed and modeled case, the boundary layer response downstream of the roughness is independent if the way of the bump implementation. Dierent roughness heights are considered in order to compare the boundary layer response of two approaches. Also, the boundary layer is excited by random distributed surface roughness and the receptivity results are studied. Moreover, a simple model for natural roughness excites steady multi wavenumber crossow instabilities. A localised surface roughness i.e. control roughness is applied to stabilise the latter. The control mode which is subcritical with respect to transition aects the most steady unstable mode. Suppression of the most dangerous mode is observed through nonlinear interactions with the control mode.


A causal system for representing a musical stream and generating further expected events is presented. Starting from an auditory front-end which extracts low-level (e.g. spectral shape, MFCC, pitch) and mid-level features such as onsets and beats, an unsupervised clustering process builds and maintains a set of symbols aimed at representing musical stream events using both timbre and time descriptions. The time events are represented using inter-onset intervals relative to the beats. These symbols are then processed by an expectation module based on Predictive Partial Match, a multiscale technique based on N-grams. To characterise the system capacity to generate an expectation that matches its transcription, we use a weighted average F-measure, that takes into account the uncertainty associated with the unsupervised encoding of the musical sequence. The potential of the system is demonstrated in the case of processing audio streams which contain drum loops or monophonic singing voice. In preliminary experiments, we show that the induced representation is useful for generating expectation patterns in a causal way. During exposure, we observe a globally decreasing prediction entropy combined with structure-specific variations.


This paper investigates the dissemination of multiple pieces of information in large networks where users contact each other in a random uncoordinated manner, and users upload one piece per unit time. The underlying motivation is the design and analysis of piece selection protocols for peer-to-peer networks which disseminate files by dividing them into pieces. We first investigate one-sided protocols, where piece selection is based on the states of either the transmitter or the receiver. We show that any such protocol relying only on pushes, or alternatively only on pulls, is inefficient in disseminating all pieces to all users. We propose a hybrid one-sided piece selection protocol-INTERLEAVE-and show that by using both pushes and pulls it disseminates k pieces from a single source to n users in 9(k + log n) time, while obeying the constraint that each user can upload at most one piece in one unit of time, with high probability for large n. An optimal, unrealistic, centralized protocol would take k + log2 n time in this setting. For a soft upload constraint, the finishing time of INTERLEAVE is, with high probability, at most 3.2(k + log n). Moreover, efficient dissemination is also possible if the source implements forward erasure coding, and users push the latest released coded pieces (but do not pull). We also investigate two-sided protocols where piece selection is based on the states of both the transmitter and the receiver. We show that it is possible to disseminate n pieces to n users in n + O(log n) time, starting from an initial state where each user has a unique piece.


While recent neural encoder-decoder models have shown great promise in modeling open-domain conversations, they often generate dull and generic responses. Unlike past work that has focused on diversifying the output of the decoder from word-level to alleviate this problem, we present a novel framework based on conditional variational autoencoders that capture the discourse-level diversity in the encoder. Our model uses latent variables to learn a distribution over potential conversational intents and generates diverse responses using only greedy decoders. We have further developed a novel variant that is integrated with linguistic prior knowledge for better performance. Finally, the training procedure is improved through introducing a bag-of-word loss. Our proposed models have been validated to generate significantly more diverse responses than baseline approaches and exhibit competence of discourse-level decision-making.


In professional team sport, managing injury risk depends on the effective collaboration of technical/tactical coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, sports medicine practitioners and sport scientists within a multidisciplinary team (MDT). Yet, to date no research has examined how these professionals might co-ordinate their efforts. The aim of this study is to examine the processes and interactions utilized by a demonstrably effective MDT. The efficacy of the MDT was established by quantifying the injury burden of the team across two seasons. The MDT achieved a 60% reduction in team injury burden during the second season (first season 516, 95%CI 491 to 542 vs. second season 205, 95%CI 191 to 219 days/1000 hours). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with all MDT members to determine each individual's role within the injury prevention process and how these were co-ordinated between disciplines. Thematic analysis identified three key constructs that contributed to the MDT's success; 1) shared values, 2) expertise and 3) the effective operationalization of underpinning values and expertise. Shared values expressed by the MDT members included 'future performance is driven by healthy performers', and shared responsibility for injury prevention. All MDT members were experts in their own fields but identified that they had to learn how to be effective within the environment and required skill in building interpersonal relationships. The operationalisation of these principles took place through iterative plan-do-review cycles underpinned by sophisticated data collection and monitoring and the provision of time and resource to complete these operations. This research offers insights into "how" effective MDTs work to achieve injury reduction, and the models and processes presented will inform practice for other MDTs working in sport.


Investigations of how criminal justice actors contribute to variation in sentencing typically focus on the role played by the judge. We argue that sentencing should be viewed as a collaborative process involving actors other than the judge and that the role of the prosecutor is particularly salient. We also contend that the courtroom workgroup literature has suggested that sentences may vary depending on the particular judge and prosecutor to whom the case is assigned. By using a unique data set from three U.S. district courts (N = 2,686) that identifies both the judge and the prosecutor handling the case, we examine how the judge, the prosecutor, and the judge–prosecutor dyad contribute to variance in offender sentences. We do this by employing cross-classified random-effects models to estimate the variance components associated with judges, prosecutors, and judge–prosecutor interactions. The results indicate that disparity attributable to the prosecutor is larger than disparity from the judge. Moreover, the role that the judge plays is moderated by the prosecutor to whom the case is assigned, as the judge–prosecutor effect is consistently larger than other random effects across the models. We also find that results vary by judicial district.


If you go to a bookstore to look for information on a particular health problem you will have a choice between the "medicine" corner with scientific manuals for professionals and the "health" corner with all kinds of books about acupuncture, ayurveda, natural healing, homeopathy, nutrition, massage, and so on! How is it on the Net? Even a short tour will bring you a lot of "medical" information, but when you look for alternative approaches in the "health" corner you will be rather disappointed. Interesting sites are rare and the amount of information very sparse. In many cases the lists of therapists are seriously incomplete; professional therapists with long experience do not appear in them. Recommendations for alternative treatments are superficial and encourage the user to buy some specialties or some book. Many sites are inflated by just quoting other sites so that, in the end, the basic information is rather poor. As we know, "health" information is becoming increasingly important since patients want to take more responsibility for themselves. They look for alternative methods. Doctors too, as 46% of Swiss doctors use alternative methods in one way or another (Médecine et Hygiène, 1996). That is why we should not leave this part of the Internet in the hands of unqualified people. To some doctors, alternative medicine may seem a chaotic maelstrom of superstition and odd techniques. That is not so. Nearly every alternative therapy has a long tradition with its own rules and principles. All reliable therapists have undergone years of training and expect the same from their colleagues. Why should this search for quality not be present online? What is needed? Good quality information. The identity of the author must be clear (education, tradition, professional experience, training). As many schools claim to be "the only one", the user should be informed about the differences and conflicts between all the approaches. Ethical behavior must be encouraged: respect the right to be different, show respect and tolerance, act correctly regarding copyright. More good authors should put their articles on the Net to increase the amount of basic data available online (theory, case reports, FAQ etc.). The need to create a specific (virtual) team in order to establish quality criteria, screen, control and grade the online information about alternative medicine seems obvious. This team must include professional experts with specific knowledge and experience. A homeopath should evaluate homeopathy, an acupuncturist should evaluate acupuncture. Serious thought has to be given to creating a central data bank on alternative medicine, to provide quality information to different portals and websites, as well as to patients, doctors, educators and journalists.


BACKGROUND
In the United States, an estimated 4.5% of the population identifies as a sexual or gender minority (SGM). Efforts are underway to address this population's healthcare disparities. [A1] Objective: This review aims to highlight dermatologist's role in treating SGM patients, raise awareness about SGM-related stigma, and identify clinical interventions to improve SGM care.

METHODS
Articles were selected by review of literature from PubMed's database from 2000-2020.

RESULTS
The first intervention outlines methods to educate the healthcare team on the terminology used by the SGM community and how HIV epidemiology is a distinct topic through separate trainings. The second intervention emphasizes better communication with SGM patients in routine discussions, including the proper elicitation of a sexual history by avoiding heteronormative questioning. The last intervention discusses enhancing this population's clinical experience by updating clinical intake forms to include a fill-in-the-blank for patients' pronouns, refraining from gender-specific bathrooms, and advertising commitment to SGM care online.

CONCLUSION
Our review article highlights a dermatologist's integral role in SGM care. The review emphasizes three distinct intervention areas that aim to destigmatize sexual/gender identity in the workplace, promote cultural humility, and improve the therapeutic alliance between SGM patients with dermatologists.


ABSTRACT This paper describes the petrology and geochemistry of rocks from the Yap Trench acquired by three dives of the Jiaolong research submarine. Combining the geophysical data and submersible observations, this paper describes the geomorphology, shallow structures, and sedimentology of the Yap Trench and further discusses the tectonics and activities of this region. Two obvious slope breaks are found on the landward slope, and horsts and grabens with small fault offsets are observed in the ocean-ward slope of the trench. Peridotites sampled from the Yap Trench inner wall are highly depleted subduction-related mantle residues. Volcanic rocks in the northern segment of the trench have subduction-related characteristics that Yap fore-arc rocks underwent metasomatism during Cenozoic subduction. The rocks with remarkable lithologic difference from lithospheric mantle and upper crust sampled in the break slopes suggest that the slope break area may represent a lithologic boundary or transition zone. The landward slope of the Yap Trench was removed by subduction erosion as a result of collision with the Caroline Ridge. The bending of the down-going plate caused normal faults, horsts, and grabens with little or no sediments indicating that the Caroline Ridge is subducting beneath the Yap arc along the trench even though the convergence rate is very slow.


Some consider responding to survey questions as a sophisticated cognitive process whereby respondents go through, often iterative, steps to process the information provided to them by questions and response options. Others focus more on the interplay between questions and answers as a complex communication process between researchers and respondents, their assumptions, expectations and perceptions. In this article, cognitive and communication research is reviewed that has tested the impact of different question and answer alternatives on the responses obtained. This leads to evidence-based recommendations for market researchers, who frequently have to make decisions regarding various aspects of questionnaire design such as question length and order, question wording, as well as the optimal number of response options and the desirability or otherwise of a 'don't know' option or a middle alternative.


Economists have long been faced with the challenge of valuing goods and services that are not traded in markets. A variety of multiple-response stated-preference (SP) methods, which evolved independently in the area of consumer market research, also have been applied to nonmarket-valuation problems such as health-state value measurements. Unfortunately, distortions of the essential supply-demand relationships in such markets make it difficult to verify the validity of SP surveys using market data. However, because SP data include multiple observations for each respondent, it is possible to test a variety of hypotheses about consistency with welfare-theoretic principles and the use of judgment heuristics and learning and fatigue effects. This paper provides some results from two SP surveys eliciting health-state valuations. It focuses on the economic consistency of stated preferences. We show that with a few exceptions, subjects' stated preferences generally agree with welfare-theoretic requirements.


The photochemical degradation mechanisms of an azo dye Direct Red 4BS and Methyl Orange on hematite in the presence of H2O2 were investigated. The decolorization of azo dyes was attributed to the forming surface complex between specific bond of the dyes and hematite, which facilitate the electron transfer from hematite to azo bond. No mineralization of azo dyes occurred in the presence of visible irradiation, only chromogenic group destroyed in the photo-chemical reaction process. Surface complex between azo dyes and hematite will be destroyed under alkaline solution which suggested the active site or the formed surface complex had been destroyed by OH–. Chemical adsorption of the azo dyes on hematite was critical factor which affect the decolorization efficiency of the photoreaction.


In this paper, we report the development of TiO2 films by reactive electron beam evaporation, using a recently introduced Ti3O5 material as the starting material. During experiments, considerable effort was undertaken to optimize the deposition conditions for preparation of high quality TiO2 films. The processing window for preparation of high quality stoichiometric TiO2 was found to be quite narrow. The refractive index at 550 nm was approximately 2.41 for the samples. Combinations of spectroscopic ellipsometry and transmittance or reflectance spectrophotometry were used to measure and characterize the optical properties of the films. The surface morphology and microstructure were investigated by using atomic force microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy, respectively. The hardness and Young's modulus were calculated to be approximately 12 and 138 GPa by the nanoindentation measurements.


Existing models focus on specific aspects of distributed automation systems, e.g. communication aspects (IEC 61158) or application aspects (IEC 61131–3). Systems like IEC 61499 are directly dedicated to distributed applications but leave essential details of communication integration open. For the design of distributed automation systems it is necessary to understand the behavior of the complete system. This contribution introduces a concise model of distributed automation systems integrating communication layer of the OSI reference model with the non-distributed model of IEC 61131–3.


The aim of this programme of research was to add to the existing body of knowledge on the measurement of certain hormones in relation to exercise training, the response to high intensity training, and their potential influence on short-term performance. The initial studies demonstrated agreement between venous and capillary concentrations of an array of hormones, and agreement between venous and saliva concentrations of testosterone and cortisol following scaling of saliva concentrations, suggesting suitability of use in an applied exercise setting. In addition, to ensure accurate measurement of steroid hormone concentrations in saliva, it was shown that samples should be refrigerated immediately, transferred to a freezer within 24 h of collection, and analysed within 28 days. Assessment of the response to two exercise bouts of a different type within the same day indicated that it could be beneficial to perform resistance training in the afternoon preceded by interval exercise in the morning in order to stimulate a hormonal milieu that may be more conducive to stimulating muscle protein turnover. The robust increases seen in testosterone and cortisol following interval exercise performed in the morning in that study were also observed in the same cycling sprint interval protocol performed in females. In this study, the magnitude of change in DHT concentration was related to sprint cadence. In investigating the potential acute effects of hormones on performance, the penultimate study demonstrated a positive association between affect as an indicator mood and percentage testosterone concentration during high intensity cycling. Conversely, in the final study, no postactivation potentiation effect was observed to different exercise stimuli, thus no association was observed between hormone concentrations and strength and power performance. These data may suggest that the acute short-term effects of hormone concentrations on performance may be more related to mood and behaviour in the context of this research.


This thesis studies Production Scheduling in a multistage hybrid flowshop facility. It first states the general Production Planning and Scheduling problem and highlights some drawbacks of classical solutions. A theoretical decomposition-based approach is introduced whose main issue is to overcome non-efficient capacity utilization. By using Branch and Bound methods, an in-depth analysis of the scheduling part of the system is then carried out throughout the study and development of upper and lower bounds as well as branching schemes. Already-existing and new heuristics are presented and compared on different shop floor configurations. Five different heuristic approaches are studied. By scheduling the HFS one stage at a time the first approach uses different stage sequencing orders. The second and third approaches are mainly list heuristics. The second approach uses ideas derived from the multistage classical flowshop with a single machine per stage, while the third approach uses classical dispatching priority rules. The fourth and fifth approaches, respectively, use random scheduling and local search techniques. Statistical analysis is carried out in order to compare the heuristics and to select the best of them for each shop configuration. Already-existing and new lower bounds on the single stage subproblem are also presented and compared. Three new lower bounds are developed: a dual heuristic based bound, a partially preemptive bound and a heuristic for the so-called subset bound. Some of these lower bounds use a network flow algorithm. A new version of the "Preflow Push" algorithm which runs faster than the original one is presented. The best lower bounds are selected based on numerical tests. Two branch and bound algorithms are presented, an improved version of the sequence enumeration method and a generalization of the so-called interval branching method, along with several bounding strategies. Based on the upper and lower bound studies, several branch and bound algorithms are presented and compared using numerical tests on different shop floor configurations. Eventually, an Object Model for Scheduling Algorithm Implementations (OMSAI), that has been used for the computer implementation of the developed algorithms, is presented.


Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) training (Contraction - Relaxation method), in compared to the other methods of static and dynamic stretching exercises; has higher and safer effects on enhancement of hamstring muscle's flexibility, strength and endurance. Achieving the optimal combination of contraction and stretching phases in PNF training that can increase these factors of physical fitness is controversial. Therefore, this quasiexperimental study was conducted to determine and compare of the effects of combined phases of 5, 10, and 15 seconds of maximum voluntary isometric contraction and 10 seconds of passive stretching (up to pain threshold) in PNF training (Contraction - Relaxation method) on flexibility, strength, and endurance of hamstring muscle in nonathlete men. 40 men were selected from 55 non-athlete volunteer men of 20-25 years old eligible. The participants were divided into 4 groups, each with 10 men. The training was performed three times a week for 6 weeks, and each session lasted one hour according to the progressive overload principle. Muscle strength was measured by using One Repetition Maximum (1RM) test. Muscle endurance was measured by using number of repetitions with 70% of 1RM (70%*1RM) of hamstring muscle. Flexibility of hamstring muscle was measured with modified SRT (Sit & Reach Test). Within group's comparison were done with two tailed paired sample t-test. Between groups comparison were done with one-way ANOVA and Tukey Post Hock test. All tests significant level was set at P≤0.05. Between group's differences of muscle strength and endurance were significant in post-test (P ≤ 0.001*). Within group's difference of muscle strength were significant in 5sec (P ≤ 0.001*), 10sec (P ≤ 0.001*), and 15sec groups (P ≤ 0.001*). Within group's difference of muscle endurance was significant in 10sec (P ≤ 0.001*) and 15sec groups (P ≤ 0.001*). Between group's differences of flexibility was not significant in post-test (P = 0.155). Within group's difference of flexibility were significant in 5sec (P ≤ 0.001*), 10sec (P ≤ 0.001*), and 15sec groups (P ≤ 0.001*). Therefore, this training can increase the flexibility, strength, and endurance of hamstring muscle in non-athlete men.


Most studies on the impact of birth intentions on children's wellbeing do not separate the effect of pregnancy intention status from the socio-demographic characteristics associated with it. There is a lack of studies taking a multi-country comparative perspective. We analysed 60 Demographic and Health Surveys in Asia, Americas and Africa to examine the effect of birth intentions on infant mortality using sibling fixed-effects linear probability models accounting for confounding due to unobserved time-invariant family-level characteristics. Compared to wanted births, the probability of infant mortality was higher after an unwanted or mistimed birth, or both, in 44 countries. Particularly in West Africa, mostly mistimed pregnancies were associated with infant mortality, whereas in Americas unwanted pregnancies mattered more. These differences could be partly due to contextual variation in the concept and reporting of birth intentions. We show that the risk of infant mortality after an unwanted/mistimed pregnancy was higher in countries with low human development index and high overall infant mortality rate, highlighting the importance of taking context into account rather than pooling data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large-scale, cross-country comparative study to analyse the effect of birth intentions on infant mortality using a fixed-effects approach.


Since the 1970s, market restructuring has shifted many workers into workplaces heavily reliant on sales to outside corporate buyers. These outside buyers wield substantial power over working conditions among their suppliers. During the same period, wage growth for middle-income workers stagnated. By extending organizational theories of wage-setting to incorporate interactions between organizations, I predict that wage stagnation resulted in part from production workers' heightened exposure to buyer power. Panel data on publicly traded companies shows that dependence on large buyers lowers suppliers' wages and accounts for 10 percent of wage stagnation in nonfinancial firms since the 1970s. These results are robust to a series of supplementary measures of buyer power; instrumental variable analysis using mergers between buyers; corrections for selection and missing data; and controls for individual worker characteristics like education and occupation. The results show how product market restructuring and new forms of economic segmentation affect workers' wages. The spread of unequal bargaining relations between corporate buyers and their suppliers has slowed wage growth for workers.


Invertebrates are commonly ignored in conservation planning due to their vast diversity, difficulties with species identification, a poor understanding of their spatial patterns, and the impracticability of carrying out comprehensive sampling. Conservation planning for fauna is therefore often based on patterns of diversity and distribution of vertebrates, under the assumption that these are representative of animal diversity more generally. Here, we evaluate how well vertebrates act as umbrellas for invertebrate diversity and distribution in a highly diverse tropical savanna landscape, and we investigate the effect of vertebrate sampling intensity (i.e., number of surveys) on congruence results. We assessed congruence between each of the four classes of terrestrial vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) and twelve invertebrate families (representing four dominant invertebrate taxa: ants, beetles, flies, and spiders) by applying a range of modeling approaches to analyze patterns of cross‐taxon congruence in species richness and composition across sampling sites. To investigate drivers of congruence, we applied generalized and distance‐based linear models to identify environmental associations of richness and composition for each taxon, then examined variation in environmental associations across taxa. Vertebrate and invertebrate richness was weakly (<30%) associated, and ~60% of the significant associations were negative. Correlations in species composition between vertebrate and invertebrate taxa were also weak, with a maximum of 13% congruence. In most cases, pairwise correlation scores using data from single surveys of vertebrates were only marginally lower than those from multiple surveys. Poor among‐site congruence between vertebrates and invertebrates was reflected by marked variation among taxa in their environmental associations. Our findings show that vertebrates are poor umbrellas for invertebrates in the tropical savannas of northern Australia in terms of geographic patterns of diversity and distribution and that this is not just an artifact of low vertebrate sampling intensity. Our study is one of the most comprehensive regional analyses of the congruence of vertebrate and invertebrate diversity, and it significantly adds to the growing evidence that empirical data on invertebrate diversity and distribution are required for conservation planning that effectively protects all faunal diversity.


ABSTRACT The number of doctoral programs in nursing has been increasing. However, these programs tend to focus on preparing nurse scientists to conduct research, and many spend little time preparing doctoral students for the educator, clinical researcher, or administrator role. Leaders of doctoral programs have identified the need to prepare doctoral students in the functional roles they will assume upon graduation, in addition to the researcher role. This article describes a two‐course (six‐credit) sequence of courses within a research‐focused PhD in Nursing program that provides didactic and experiential knowledge about the role of the nurse scientist in academia and industry settings. Students are highly satisfied with the courses, and report that the experiences have provided them with important knowledge and skills as they assume the scientist role.


Layout is the fundamental element underlying any design project of any kind. When undertaking a new project, the first thing that must be decided on is the layout. Organised so as to encourage creativity, serendipitous discovery, and inspiration, "The Layout Book" is a great guide for both amateur and professional designers. The book includes techniques that can be used to enhance any layout, as well as insights into the factors that helped make each layout an effective piece. The styles covered in the volume range from traditional to cutting edge, and will enable any designer to become a more creative thinker and produce fantastic work.


As known to the wider community, Indonesia with a variety of cultural and natural wealth which has fascinating characteristics of each different from one another. In the tourism sector, we see different tourist objects such as natural attractions such as mountains, beaches, lakes, waterfalls, and nature reserves. Development of a tourism potential in a region requires different tools and infrastructure that support in order to obtain good results with an effective and efficient business.
Of the many potential and business potential for tourism development, the party Inkomparda Department is authorized to publish and develop the tourism potential in their respective regions.
As a famous tourist spot is the beach Lakey Dompu district. Lakey Beach is famous for big waves and is suitable for surfers. Tourism Information Office Communications Dompu District be authorized to publish the tourism potential at the Regency. Based on the above, the formulation of the problem in this research is the publication of How the activities of Communications and Information Office of the Regional Tourism Dompu regency, West Nusa Tenggara tourism sector in the Regency publish?
The publication is a translation from German, and Dutch Publizistik Publicistiek which means knowledge. Publication thus can be interpreted as a science that teaches about the general statement about something (Onong EU, 1999: 8182). Publication activity is any activity or effort that relate to the delivery of information. Tourism is a journey undertaken for a while which was held from one place to another with the intention not for business purposes or to make a living in the place visited, but solely to meet the needs or desires of all kinds. (Oka A. Yoeti, 1990: 21). The tourism sector is a space or potential tourist attractions. The focus of research in this research is the publication activities of the Office of Communications and Tourism Information Dompu regency, West Nusa Tenggara in publicizing the tourism potential of the Regency.
This research using descriptive method, using a qualitative approach. This research was conducted Communication and Information Office of Tourism. When the research is in May
2010. In determining the informant used purposive sampling techniques and found as many as four informants who have met specified criteria. Data analysis techniques used in this study is to proceed by induction, interpretation and conceptualization. Inspection of data or the validity ofthe data used in this research is a source of triangulation.
Based on the analysis that has been done, researchers may conclude that the activity of the Office of Information Publication Communications Dompu NTB Regional Tourism District is intended to convey information to the public about the attractions found in the Regency and its supporting infrastructure. Publication made in accordance with the plan or strategic plan, which is owned by the Office of Information Communication Dompu Regional Tourism District, and who is authorized as the executor of the publication is the Regional Communications Development Sub Department, Sub Department of Tourism Potential, SubOffice of Tourism Development and Tourism SubOffice of Community Development has policy a publicity. While the media is used among other print media, electronic media, outdoor media and through direct communication.
The use of various media are in practice not yet walked maximally because human resources are still limited in the handle and the existence of institutions that are still new. From these results, it is expected for the Office of the District Tourism Information Communication Dompu to further enhance skills and its ability to publish tourism potential in the Regency. And is also expected to cooperate more with the mass media to be maximal to convey information to the public publications.


Photorefractive polymer composites have gained considerable attention due to their fascinating applications like 3D displays and 3D Telepresence. In this report, the performance of a novel PR polymer composite doped with graphene is studied. The addition of graphene laminates to a photorefractive composite results in up to threefold enhancement of space charge (SC) field build-up time. From our optical and electrical measurements, the faster build-up time is attributed to larger charge generation resulting from electronic interaction between graphene and the 7-DCST chromophores.


We use the spectra of 73 quasars (1.5 ≲ z ≲ 5) from the VLT UVES archive to catalogue and study narrow absorption lines (NALs) that are physically associated with (intrinsic to) the quasars. We identify 410 NAL systems containing C iv, N v, and/or Si iv doublets. Based on the assumption that only systems intrinsic to the quasar can exhibit partial coverage of the background source(s), we identify 34 reliably intrinsic NAL systems and 11 systems that are potentially intrinsic, as well as 4 mini-broad absorption lines (BALs) and 1 BAL. The minimum fraction of quasars with at least one intrinsic system is shown to be 38 per cent. We identify intrinsic NALs with a wide range of properties, including apparent ejection velocity, coverage fraction, and ionization level. There is a continuous distribution of properties, rather than discrete families, ranging from partially covered C iv systems with black Ly α and with a separate low-ionization gas phase to partially covered N v systems with partially covered Ly α and without detected low-ionization gas. Even more highly ionized associated and intrinsic absorption systems (O vi, Ne viii, and Mg x doublets) have been presented in separate studies; these may represent an extension of the above sequence. We also use the properties of the NALs in conjunction with recent models of accretion disc winds that predict the origins of the absorbing gas in order to determine the model that best characterizes our sample. Additionally, we construct a model describing the spatial distributions, geometries, and varied ionization structures of intrinsic NALs.


One hundred genotypes including F1 hybrids of temperate carrot were evaluated to investigate the genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient for eight characters. Analysis of variance showed highly significant differences for all the characters examined. High heritability in association with high genetic advance as percent of mean was observed for top length, gross weight/five plants and net root weight/five plants, indicating additive gene effects and emphasized the effectiveness of selection for these traits. The genetic correlations were higher than corresponding phenotypic ones for most characters implying inherent relationship among them. Net marketable root weight/plot expressed positive and significant genotypic association with top length (0.388), root girth (0.380), gross weight/five plants (0.516), net root weight/five plants (0.701) and gross weight/plot (0.873). Path analysis studies for net marketable root weight/plot revealed that gross weight/plot (0.721) is the most important yield contributing traits followed by net root weight/five plants (0.464) and number of marketable roots/plot (0.231). Hence, due emphasis should be given to these traits while selecting the genotypes for higher yield in carrot.


A popular approach to monitoring diseases and their diagnosis is through biological, pathological or immunological characterization. However, at a cellular level progression of certain diseases manifests itself through mechanical effects as well. Here, we present a method which exploits localised flow; surface acoustic wave (SAW) induced acoustic streaming in a 9 μL droplet to characterize the adhesive properties of red blood cells (healthy, gluteraldehyde treated and malaria infected) in approximately 50 seconds. Our results show a 79% difference in cell mobilization between healthy malaria infected RBCs (and a 39% difference between healthy and treated ones), indicating that the method can serve as a platform for rapid clinical diagnosis; where separation of two or more different cell populations in a mixed solution is desirable. It can also act as a key biomarker for monitoring some diseases offering quantitative measures of disease progression and response to therapy. c © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of 2015 ICU Metz.


: The purpose of this presentation is to review our experience in the correction of pectus excavatum deformity over the past 25 years, to draw attention to some details of importance in securing an excellent end result, and to describe a slight technical modification which improves the cosmetic effect of the surgical procedure. Seventy-five operations were performed between 1951 and 1975 at the North Middlesex Hospital, Regional Cardiothoracic Centre, Edmonton, London, according to the various techniques known during that period. Results were variable until the introduction, 10 years ago, of an operation combining extensive resection of costal-cartilages (34, 35) and stabilization of the sternum (2, 3). Of 37 operations performed during the last 10 years, 35 have given excellent long-term results. The cosmetic results in our hands have been achieved by the use of a stainless steel plate passed beneath the sternum and left in situ for not more than 6 months.


In this chapter, we consider the single machine scheduling problem with given release dates, processing times, and due dates with two objective functions. The first one is to minimize the maximum lateness, that is, maximum difference between each job due date and its actual completion time. The second one is to minimize the maximum completion time, that is, to complete all the jobs as soon as possible. The problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. We provide a polynomial time algorithm for constructing a Pareto-optimal set of schedules on criteria of maximum lateness and maximum completion time, that is, problem 1 ∣ r j ∣ L max , C max , for the subcase of the problem: d 1 ≤ d 2 ≤ … ≤ d n ; d 1 − r 1 − p 1 ≥ d 2 − r 2 − p 2 ≥ … ≥ d n − r n − p n .


: Insulin edema (IE) has been known for a long time as one of complications caused by insulin therapy, but even today its pathogenesis stays unclear, and epidemiology unknown. IE incidence in patients over 15 years of age receiving treatment in the year 2003 for diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in the city of Donetsk (adult population 858200) has been retrospectively studied according to clinical archives and national diabetics register data. Presented are three own observations on the development of IE after DKA treatment. 13 (17%) out of 76 DKA patients had IE. Keeping in mind reoccurring DKA incidents--16%. During IE the known duration of Diabetes Mellitus came out to be 5 years on average, and did not differ from insulin therapy duration, whereas the Diabetes Mellitus duration in non DKA group without edemas exceeded the continuance of insulin treatment by over two years (P < 0.05).


One of the most useful indicators of relative dispersion is the coefficient of variation. The characteristics of the coefficient of variation have contributed to its widespread use in most scientific and academic disciplines, with real life applications. The traditional estimators of the coefficient of variation are based on conventional moments; therefore, these are highly affected by the presence of extreme values. In this article, we develop some novel calibration-based coefficient of variation estimators for the study variable under double stratified random sampling (DSRS) using the robust features of linear (L and TL) moments, which offer appropriate coefficient of variation estimates. To evaluate the usefulness of the proposed estimators, a simulation study is performed by using three populations out of which one is based on the COVID-19 pandemic data set and the other two are based on apple fruit data sets. The relative efficiency of the proposed estimators with respect to the existing estimators has been calculated. The superiority of the suggested estimators over the existing estimators are clearly validated by using the real data sets.


Schistosomiasis is a chronic disease that affects ∼200 million people. The extended health impact of the disease has been estimated to exceed that of malaria or tuberculosis and to be nearer to that of HIV/AIDS. Within endemic areas, children carry the heaviest burden of infection. Infection/disease is controlled by the treatment of infected subjects with the anthelminthic drug praziquantel. Global initiatives from Partners of Parasite Control, including the World Health Organization (WHO), advocate regular school-based deworming strategies to reduce the development of severe morbidity, promote school–child health and development, and improve the cognitive potential of children. Until recently, preschool-aged children were excluded from schistosome treatment, creating a health inequity in affected populations. In 2010, the WHO updated their recommendations for the treatment of schistosomiasis in preschool-aged children (ie, children aged ≤5 years). This change was the culmination of several decades of research on schistosome epidemiology, immunology, and pathology in this age group. The recent development of a pediatric formulation of praziquantel (soon to enter clinical trials) should advance control efforts in preschool-aged children, with the goal of including these children in preventative chemotherapy (as currently occurs for soil-transmitted helminths). This review discusses the research work supporting the WHO revision of recommendations for treating preschool-aged children, as well as current barriers and knowledge gaps in pediatric schistosomiasis control.