As human beings are becoming more and more aware of importance of the environment, resorts to clean energy have provoked great interest for the past decades. As a sort of clean power, wind has been widely considered as an ideal energy source to generate electricity. That is why the offshore wind farm plans have been drawn up, specifically in North Sea in Europe. Besides, in order to comply with marine spatial planning which aims to make use of marine resources sustainably, seaweed aquaculture will also be operated among wind farm zone under wind turbines, which provides the food necessity for mankind. The introduction of seaweed aquaculture may have influences on local hydrodynamics as seaweed attenuates waves, which may further affect the environment. This effect has not been understood. Therefore this study is conducted to investigate the impact of seaweed aquaculture on wind waves. As a relatively young sector, few studies have been found on the effect of floating vegetation on waves. Since there is no ready-to-use hydrodynamic model which can deal with floating seaweed, it is required to set up a numerical model and calibrate this model with experimental data. In this research the wave modelling program SWAN is used owing to the fact that there exists a vegetation model in SWAN. In this model the vegetation is schematised as stiff cylinders mounted at the bottom. The energy dissipation by vegetation is calculated as work carried out by the drag force induced by cylinders. However, the function of this vegetation model in SWAN is somewhat different from what is required for this study. • Firstly, the SWAN deals with bottom-mounted vegetation while in this research floating vegetation is addressed. • Secondly, in SWAN model stiff objects are considered while in current research the vegetation possesses flexibility. With flexibility the drag force will become smaller as the relative velocity between water particle and vegetation gets smaller. On the other hand, the inertial force may have an impact on the wave energy dissipation. Considering these two differences, corresponding measures need to be taken to meet the requirement of this study. To model the floating vegetation, the original vegetation model has been modified. In the beginning, the floating vegetation model is achieved by dividing the vegetation into two vertical layers and making the lower layer virtual. There is drawback in this model: only flatbed can be applied. For sensitivity analysis and calibration this model works well, but it is not applicable in the case study as non-flat seabed is implemented in the model setup. It leads to a second modification in the SWAN model. The method is to alter the interval of integration of dissipation term by vegetation, which results in further change in the source code. To account for the flexibility, the bulk drag coefficient is adjusted. This parameter accommodates the influence of flexibility of vegetation and uncertainty of other parameters related to the model. To test this floating vegetation model a sensitivity analysis is performed. Relevant parameters in this model are varied to see its individual influence on the wave dissipation. It has been observed that a larger wave height results in a higher dissipation rate. The opposite has been seen for wave period. Wave with a larger peak period gives a smaller wave height behind the vegetation field. It has been also demonstrated that larger vegetation length, larger vegetation diameter and larger vegetation density give rise to greater dissipation rates. In addition, spectrum analysis shows that the energy dissipation rate varies along the frequency domain with the greatest magnitude of energy dissipation observed at around the peak frequency. To calibrate this model the experimental data is used, obtained from flume test in Technology University of Braunschweig. The calibration is conducted by adjusting the bulk drag coefficient until that the floating vegetation model describes the experiment data. By this method a fitted drag coefficient is obtained for each wave condition. It has been verified that drag coefficient depends on both the wave condition and vegetation parameters. The relation between wave condition and vegetation characteristic is indicated by KC-number or Reynolds number. Through this calibration a relation between drag coefficient and Reynolds number or KC-number is obtained. With the calibrated model, a case study is conducted in the North Sea. The dominant wave data for the period 1991-2010 is used, as well as corresponding wind information. The vegetation parameters (vegetation density, vegetation width and vegetation length) are set according to local cultivation. With this information and the drag coefficient function obtained from the calibration stage, the drag coefficient for the field condition is obtained. Implementing all relevant input parameters in the model, the result shows that the dissipation is species specific. Also from the results it is shown that wave attenuation occurs mainly in the local scale. Behind the vegetation field waves develop due to the directional spreading. At the South boundary 85% of the wave height remains. Reflecting on the uncertainty associated with this study, such as measurement data, calibration of drag coefficient and parameterising the vegetation diameter in the field condition, it is still questionable whether seaweed aquaculture has a significant impact on the wind waves or not.


Ralstonia solanacearum has worldwide economical importance because of its destructive and soil-borne nature. Clearly chemical measures have lost their attractiveness because of development of resistant strains and undesirable effects on our environment. Consequently, biological control of pathogens is gaining great importance worldwide. To investigate for proper biocontrol agents and to obtain antibacterial antagonists from Iranian soil Actinomycetes, a vast survey was performed. Over 170 isolates of soil Actinomycetes were isolated and screened among which one isolate showed high level of activity in Agar disk and Well diffusion methods against R. solanacearum. It was identified as Streptomyces coralus strain 63. High concentration of antibacterial agent was detected at 8-11th day in shake cultures. Longevity in vitro of the active crude in soluble state determined about 40 days at room temperature. In thermal inactivation point studies, active crude retained activity up to 93°C. Antibacterial activity of the antagonists found in this study highlights their importance as candidates for further investigation in biological control of tested pathogenic bacteria.


Care, welfare and community are three key concepts in contemporary social policy. It includes a wide-ranging collection of articles by leading writers and researchers, some previously published, some newly commissioned. It also has first-hand accounts by users and providers of care and welfare in the community. Groups covered include people with mental health problems, homeless people, older people, people with learning difficulties and people with impairments. The focus throughout is on how policies and practice can be developed appropriately and sensitively through an understanding of current issues.


We propose a novel framework and a solution to tackle the continual learning (CL) problem with changing network architectures. Most CL methods focus on adapting a single architecture to a new task/class by modifying its weights. However, with rapid progress in architecture design, the problem of adapting existing solutions to novel architectures becomes relevant. To address this limitation, we propose Heterogeneous Continual Learning (HCL), where a wide range of evolving network architectures emerge continually together with novel data/tasks. As a solution, we build on top of the distillation family of techniques and modify it to a new setting where a weaker model takes the role of a teacher; meanwhile, a new stronger architecture acts as a student. Furthermore, we consider a setup of limited access to previous data and propose Quick Deep Inversion (QDI) to recover prior task visual features to support knowledge transfer. QDI significantly reduces computational costs compared to previous solutions and improves overall performance. In summary, we propose a new setup for CL with a modified knowledge distillation paradigm and design a quick data inversion method to enhance distillation. Our evaluation of various benchmarks shows a significant improvement on accuracy in comparison to state-of-the-art methods over various networks architectures.


Purpose : The purpose of this study is to compare the effect of Ulmus(root-bark) dressing with vaseline gauze dressing on burn wound(third degree) in rats. Method : Ten male Sprague-Dawley rats were used in the study. The rats were anesthetized with Ketamine l00mg/kg. burn wounds were made for each animal by specially designed apparatus. Ulmus dressing was applied once a day for 4 weeks in the experimental group(n=5), vaseline gauze dressing in the control group(n=5). The wounds were photographed and excised. Result : After 10 days of dressing, size of burn wounds of Ulmus dressing group decreased significantly compared to that of vaseline gauze dressing group. After 10 days of dressing, degree of inflammatory infiltration was shown lower in Ulmus dressing than in vaseline gauze group. There was no significant difference after dressing at day of 19 and 27 in degree of inflammatory infiltration.


Abstract During the last decades, social mechanisms have been broadly discussed in general sociology, but, in family sociology, they seem to be non-existent. Therefore, the first aim of this paper is to show that., although the term can hardly be found, prominent theoretical ideas use more or less explicitly mechanistic explanations. Focusing on the determinants of separation can show that all arguments connect (structural) input with (social) outcome and search for theoretical explanations in the sense of social mechanisms. We will demonstrate how macro-structural traits are mechanistically connected with individual variables and how they lead to a stable or fragile partnership. As often mentioned, "mechanism-based storytelling" (Hedström/Ylikoski 2010, 64) should be accompanied by empirical research. Therefore, in a simple statistical model in the second part, we will show the results of our testing of some examples of well-known variables for the explanation of separations. It will show how correlations can be mechanistically explained and not simply statistically described.


The California Department of Corrections (CDC) has big problems. It houses more prisoners than any other state's corrections system: 160,000 inmates in 33 prisons and over 50 other facilities. The costs are enormous, including an average of about $30,000 per inmate per year and about $150,000 for each new cell built. The prisons are also very difficult to run. Each year about 25% of the inmates engage in some form of misconduct serious enough to document, and 2.5% commit an offense that would probably be a felony in the outside world. One of the ways in which the CDC attempts to make the best use of its resources is to assign prisoners to facilities with varying levels of "security." Higher levels of security place more restrictions on inmates because greater human and physical resources are brought to bear. There are higher staff to inmate ratios and physical surroundings that reduce the chances of serious infractions. For example, in some high security facilities, inmates are housed one to a cell and are only allowed into the exercise yard in small groups. However, higher security facilities are more costly to build and run. It is important, therefore, to place each inmate in the least restrictive setting necessary to insure the well-being of that inmate, other inmates, and CDC personnel. This paper discusses the implementation of a very large, randomized field experiment testing two different procedures through which inmates could be assigned to facilities with different security levels. By most any measure, the experiment was implemented in a textbook fashion and led to useful results. The question addressed is how this success was achieved.


BACKGROUND
Ghrelin, a peptide mainly derived from the stomach, plays a pivotal role in the regulation of food intake, energy metabolism, and storage, as well as in insulin sensitivity. Ghrelin circulates in acylated (A-Ghr) and nonacylated (NA-Ghr) forms, and their potential differential associations with insulin resistance (IR) in childhood obesity remain undefined.

OBJECTIVE
We investigated the associations of ghrelin forms with IR in normal weight and obese children and the impact of metabolic syndrome (MS) on their plasma values.

DESIGN
A total of 210 children in four subgroups of normal weight/obese children with and without components of MS were studied. Fasting blood glucose, insulin, lipid profile, and acylated and total ghrelin were examined. IR was determined by a homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) of IR.

RESULTS
In the entire population, plasma insulin and HOMA-IR were associated negatively with T-Ghr and NA-Ghr, but positively with the ratio of A/NA-Ghr after adjustment for age, gender, and Tanner stage. Obese metabolically abnormal children had lower T-Ghr and NA-Ghr, but comparable A-Ghr and a higher A/NA-Ghr ratio than obese metabolically normal subjects. Compared with lean healthy children, lean metabolically abnormal subjects had higher A-Ghr and the A/NA-Ghr ratio, but comparable T-Ghr and NA-Ghr. A multiple regression analysis showed that A-Ghr and the A/NA-Ghr ratios were positively associated with HOMA-IR, independent of age, gender, Tanner stage, and body mass index (or waist circumference) and other components of MS.

CONCLUSIONS
A-Ghr excess may negatively modulate insulin action in obese and nonobese children, and may contribute to the association of IR and MS.


Yield decrease caused by crop water deficit, especially in low scale farms and established orchards at semi-arid regions, results in a significant decrease in agricultural productivity. In this study an optimal water release of the reservoir based on prioritization in water allocation to the crop sensitive growth periods was linked to a non-linear optimization model in order to enhance the net income in a given cropping pattern. The proposed model by optimal water allocation for each growth stage of the crop reduced the impact of the imposed water stress in the dry season and increased the net income. The LINGO software has been used to evolve the optimal amounts of both water and land for the existing crops. The proposed model was applied for Razmgan area a semi-arid region which is located 10 km south of the Shirvan city, northern Khorasan province, Iran. Various scenarios of the water release from the existing auxiliary reservoir, to remove/reduce the imposed water-stress during the crop growth stages have been explored. Results show in the optimal case, whole of the existing water deficit is removed in months of July, August, September, October and November, only 13% of the deficit remains in month of May and in month of June the amount of deficit decreases to 42.16%. Also the proposed model is efficient and annual net income will increase to 26.21%, moreover, the total water consumption will decrease to 10.71% than the current status.


In spite of the large effort behind the development of the WBEM and CIM standards for the management of distributed systems, there has been very little work addressing security in those standards. In this paper we present a Role-based Access Control (RBAC) policy language to render finegrained access control policies for WBEM and CIM. The language is an extension of CIM-SPL, a preliminary DMTF policy language standard. The CIM-SPL RBAC extension fully complies with the WBEM standards. Access control policies can be specified for CIM object constructs according to the standard NIST RBAC model as well as with an extended model adapted for CIM. This extension provides a policy-based RBAC mechanism in the WBEM infrastructure.


This study describes the preparation of a multifunctional adsorptive catalyst by the incorporation of ligand groups within the channels of magnetic amphiphilic nanocomposites and attached with Pd nanoparticles. It was clearly demonstrated that Pd2+ was adsorbed by ligand-functionalized materials in water, and then Pd2+ was coordinated with ligand groups. Finally, the Pd nanoparticles were produced via an in situ reduction of Pd2+ by ligand groups through a simple hydrothermal process. Moreover, amphiphilic nanomaterials are viewed as excellent collectors of hydrophobic contaminants in water. The immobilized catalytic active sites with ligand-functionalized nanocomposites were allowed for maximal exposure to the reactants with minimal leaching of the Pd nanoparticles. The unique amphiphilic nanocomposites enabled selective oxidation of alcohols to proceed efficiently in water under aerobic conditions. Moreover, this nanocomposite catalyst could be completely recovered using an external magnet due to the superparamagnetic behavior of Fe3O4 and can be recycled with sustained selectivity and activity.


The lessons related to mother tongue education in schools are given by classroom teachers in primary school and by Turkish teachers in secondary school. In this sense, it is necessary to include courses that will contribute to the good and effective use of the mother tongue in Turkish and classroom teaching undergraduate programs. It can be said that the practice hours in undergraduate programs should be increased in order to improve the prepared speaking skills of teacher candidates. In addition, determining the prepared speech performance levels of teacher candidates is also important in terms of the quality of practice activities. In this way, the teacher candidate can have information about their state and keep track of their development. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to develop a rating scale for the evaluation of teacher candidates' prepared speaking skills. For that reason, the research was designed according to the screening model. The study group of the study consisted of the thirdyear students of the Turkish Education department who were studying at the education faculty of a state university and took the "Speaking Education" course in the spring semester. In order to determine the validity of the measurement tool, the scope and criterion validity were examined. In order to determine the reliability of the assessment tool, Kendall's W test and variance analysis were applied to the evaluations of three different independent raters. Results of study obtained within the scope of validity and reliability studies are strong evidence showing that the rating scale is valid and reliable.


Background: There is a growing need for hospital supervisory boards to support hospital management in different areas, including (financial) monitoring, resource provision, stakeholder relationships, and strategic decision-making. Little is currently known about how boards' emphases on these various governance objectives contribute to performance. Purpose: Using a dominant logics perspective, this article aims to detect the governance logics that hospital boards emphasize, to determine whether there are distinct clusters of hospitals with the same sets of emphases, and to show how cluster membership relates to board characteristics and financial performance. Methodology: Using factor analysis, we identify latent classes of governance objectives and use hierarchical cluster analysis to detect distinct clusters with varying emphasis on the classes. We then use multinomial regression to explore the associations between cluster membership and board characteristics (size, gender diversity, and occupational diversity) and examine the associations between clusters and financial performance using OLS regression. Results: Classes of objectives reflecting three governance theories—agency theory, stewardship theory, and stakeholder theory—can be distinguished, and hospitals can be divided into four clusters based on their board's relative emphasis on the classes. Cluster membership is significantly associated with board characteristics. There is also a significant association between cluster membership and hospital financial performance, with two of three groups performing significantly better than the reference group. Conclusion: High performance in hospitals can be the result of governance logics, which, compared to simple board characteristics, are associated with better financial outcomes. Practice implications: Hospitals can influence the emphasis placed on different governance objectives and enhance organizational success by creating boards that are small enough to be effective yet diverse enough to profit from a wide variety of expertise and experience.


The causes of ischemic stroke in young patients are difficult to find, in spite of systematic investigations directed to rule out heart etiology, alterations in coagulation or any other type of vascular disease; hence the «cryptogenic» definition. There have been speculations regarding the potential role of right-to-left intracardiac shunts as a path for paradoxical embolisms that result in ischemic cerebral disease. Transesophagic echocardiography with peripheral venous injection of saline contrast has shown to be the preferred method for the diagnosis of patent foramen ovale and right-to-left shunt. Prospective studies using acetylsalicylic acid or warfarin have not shown significant reduction of recurrent strokes. Even though both surgical and percutaneous closure of the patent foramen ovale have shown to decrease the rate of subsequent embolic episodes, their indication remains under discussion, at least until the appearance of randomized clinical trials, now under development. However, the cases of recurrent paradoxical embolism and those in professional scuba divers, both with intra-atrial septum aneurysm and an associated patent foramen ovale, are the only unequivocal indications for percutaneous closure. Successful closure, defined by transesophagic echocardiography, seems to predict lack of recurrent embolic events. As the complication rate of device implantation may decrease and these devices become technologically simple, percutaneous closure will prevail over surgical closure.


Agile processes are now widely practiced by software engineering (SE) teams, and the agile manifesto claims that agile methods support responding to changes well. However, no study appears to have researched whether this is accurate in reality. Requirements changes (RCs) are inevitable in any software development environment, and we wanted to acquire a holistic picture of how RCs occur and are handled in agile SE teams in practice. We also wanted to know whether responding to changes is the only or a main reason for software teams to use agile in their projects. To do this we conducted a mixed-methods research study which comprised of interviews of 10 agile practitioners from New Zealand and Australia, a literature review, and an in-depth survey with the participation of 40 agile practitioners world-wide. Through this study we identified different types of RCs, their origination including reasons for origination, forms, sources, carriers, and events at which they originate, challenging nature, and finally whether agile helps to respond to changes or not. We also found that agile teams seem to be reluctant to accept RCs, and therefore, they use several mitigation strategies. Additionally, as they accept the RCs, they use a variety of techniques to handle them. Furthermore, we found that agile allowing better response to RCs is only a minor reason for practicing agile. Several more important reasons included being able to deliver the product in a shorter period and increasing team productivity. Practitioners stated this improves the agile team environment and thus are the real motivators for teams to practice agile. Finally, we provide a set of practical recommendations that can be used to better handle RCs effectively in agile software development environments.


Tourism is an activity that can have a truly major impact on sustainable development. EU recorded in excess of 440m visitor arrivals in 2005. Tourism, directly and indirectly, accounts for around 10% of European GDP and 20m jobs. Europeans account for over half of all international travel, and visits by Europeans provide an important source of income for many developing countries. In 2005 the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) identified an agenda of 12 aims for sustainable tourism. The EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) has three key objectives: Economic prosperity, Social equity and cohesion and Environmental protection. Tourism businesses could function properly under the sustainability model and they have mentioned "environmental education programmes" and "establishment of co-operation and partnerships among local, regional and state stakeholders and authorities" as the most sustainable actions. The standard is and must be applicable to any organization that wishes to (a) Increase the environmental responsibility of tourism enterprises, (b) Increase the capacity of local administration on monitoring sustainable tourism, (c) Create a transactional network of shared planning and management policies for sustainable tourism, (d) Exchange best practices and knowledge in the field of sustainable tourism. This paper briefly describes the general requirements of MESST.


The General Intensional Programming System (GIPSY) has been built around the Lucid family of intensional programming languages that rely on the higher-order intensional logic (HOIL) to provide context-oriented multidimensional reasoning of intensional expressions. HOIL combines functional programming with various intensional logics to allow explicit context expressions to be evaluated as first-class values that can be passed as parameters to functions and return as results with an appropriate set of operators defined on contexts. GIPSY's frameworks are implemented in Java as a collection of replaceable components for the compilers of various Lucid dialects and the demand-driven eductive evaluation engine that can run distributively. GIPSY provides support for hybrid programming models that couple intensional and imperative languages for a variety of needs. Explicit context expressions limit the scope of evaluation of math expressions (effectively a Lucid program is a mathematics or physics expression constrained by the context) in tensor physics, regular math in multiple dimensions, etc., and for cyberforensic reasoning as one of the use-cases of interest. Thus, GIPSY is a support testbed for HOIL-based languages some of which enable such reasoning, as in formal cyberforensic case analysis with event reconstruction. In this paper we discuss the GIPSY architecture, its evaluation engine and example use-cases.


In this paper, I make use of data from the 2000 follow-up of the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) post-secondary education transcript files to extend what is known about the value of education at community colleges. I examine the effects of enrollment in community colleges on students' subsequent earnings. I estimate the effects of credits earned separate from credentials because community colleges are often used as a means for students to engage in study not necessarily leading to a degree or certificate. I find consistent evidence of wage and salary effects of both credits and degrees, especially for women. There is no substantial evidence that enrollment in vocational rather than academic coursework has a particularly beneficial effect, however.

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~marcotte/Earnings Effects of Community College.pdf


Objective: This experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of diets and enzyme supplementation on the live weight (LW), feed intake (FI), feed conversion ratio (FCR), viability, leg bone quality and meat yield traits of broilers. Materials and Methods: In a 2×2 factorial experiment, having two diet types [corn-soya meal (CSM) based and corn-wheat-soya (CWS) based] and two enzymes levels (with or without), Broiler chicks (n = 112; Ross308) were assigned to four dietary treatments (CSM-, CSM+, CWSand CWS+) with four replicates, seven chicks per replicate in a CRD. The chicks were fed on the ready-made broiler diet up to 25 days, after that formulated diets were supplied the birds ad libitum up to 45 days. All the diets were iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous in nature and supplemented with or without enzymes in mash form. Results: Data revealed that diets (CSMand CWS-) had no significant effect (p>0.05) on the LW, FI and FCR of broilers but enzymes (CSM+ and CWS+) increased (p<0.5, p<0.01) the LW and FI on day 45. Enzyme, diet and their interaction had no influence (p>0.05) on the viability, latency-to-sit (LTS), gait-scoring (GS) and bone traits of broilers. Diet and their interaction had no influence (p>0.05) on the bone quality traits of broilers except for enzyme. The mineral concentration (Ca%) and other bone traits were increased (p<0.05) by enzymatic diets. The results of dressing percentage, drumstick weight, thigh weight, breast weight, wing weight, back weight, shank weight and neck weight percentage of broilers were unaffected (p>0.05) by enzyme, diet and their interaction. Enzyme and diet had no influence (p>0.05) over the breast weight but its interaction influenced (p<0.05) the breast weight (%) of birds. Giblet and back weights (%) were influenced (p<0.05) by the diet only. Conclusion: It could be concluded that broilers might respond positively to enzymatic diets at the later stage of production.


This paper investigates the deterioration of reinforced concrete with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) anode after polarization. The steel in the concrete was first subjected to accelerated corrosion to various extents. Then, a polarization test was performed with the external attached CFRP as the anode and the steel reinforcement as the cathode. Carbon fiber reinforced mortar and conductive carbon paste as contact materials were used to adhere the CFRP anode to the concrete. Two current densities of 1244 and 2488 mA/m2, corresponding to the steel reinforcements were applied for 25 days. Electrochemical parameters were monitored during the test period. The deterioration mechanism that occurred at the CFRP/contact material interface was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The increase of feeding voltage and the failure of bonding was observed during polarization process, which might have resulted from the deterioration of the interface between the contact material and CFRP. The formation and accumulation of NaCl crystals at the contact material/CFRP interface were inferred to be the main causes of the failure at the interface.


Background: The global incidence of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is increasing, with increasing suicide reports. However, the bibliometric analysis of global research on PMS and PMDD is rare. We aimed to evaluate the global scientific output of research on PMS and PMDD and to explore their research hotspots and frontiers from 1945 to 2018 using a bibliometric analysis methodology. Methods: Articles with research on PMS and PMDD between 1945 and 2018 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). We used the bibliometric method, CiteSpace V and VOSviewer to analyze publication years, journals, countries, institutions, authors, research hotspots, and trends. We plotted the reference co-citation network, and we used keywords to analyze the research hotspots and trends. Results: We identified 2,833 publications on PMS and PMDD research from 1945 to 2018, and the annual publication number increased with time, with fluctuations. Psychoneuroendocrinology published the highest number of articles. The USA ranked the highest among the countries with the most publications, and the leading institute was UNIV PENN. Keyword and reference analysis indicated that the menstrual cycle, depression and ovarian hormones were the research hotspots, whereas prevalence, systematic review, anxiety and depression and young women were the research frontiers. Conclusions: We depicted overall research on PMS and PMDD by a bibliometric analysis methodology. Prevalence and impact in young women, systematic review evaluations of risk factors, and the association of anxiety and depression with menstrual cycle phases are the latest research frontiers that will pioneer the direction of research in the next few years.


: Transdermal drug delivery offers an attractive alternative to the conventional drug-delivery methods of oral administration and injection. Apart from the convenience and noninvasiveness, the skin also provides a "reservoir" that sustains delivery over a period of days. It offers multiple sites to avoid local irritation and toxicity, yet it can also offer the option of concentrating drugs at local areas to avoid undesirable systemic effects. However, at present, the clinical use of transdermal delivery is limited by the fact that very few drugs can be delivered transdermally at a viable rate. This difficulty is because the stratum corneum of skin acts as an efficient barrier that limits penetration of drugs through the skin, and few noninvasive methods are known to significantly enhance the penetration of this barrier. In order to increase the range of drugs available for transdermal delivery, the use of nanocarriers has emerged as an interesting and valuable alternative for delivering lipophilic and hydrophilic drugs throughout the stratum corneum with the possibility of having a local or systemic effect for the treatment of many different diseases. These nanocarriers (nanoparticles, ethosomes, dendrimers, liposomes, etc) can be made of a lot of different materials, and they are very different in structure and chemical nature. They are too small to be detected by the immune system, and furthermore they can deliver the drug in the target organ using lower drug doses in order to reduce side effects.


The semiconductor industry expects the performance of microprocessors to continue at its current rate of improvement, i.e. clock rates should double every two to three years. This is a commendable goal, but it is also fair to question whether this is an achievable goal. The fundamental problem is that as ground rules are reduced, the natural tendency is to make smaller conductor cross-sectional areas. The result is a high resistance line that exhibits slow wave propagation effects (Ho et al, 1982). This reduces the general performance expectations. As circuits become faster and denser on the chip, line delays become greater than expected. This problem is analyzed and potential chip and packaging solutions are offered. Clock rate predictions for various design and process options are made. A tactical recommendation to consider a total packaged electronics solution is presented.


The thermal conductivities of individual single crystalline intrinsic Si nanowires with diameters of 22, 37, 56, and 115 nm were measured using a microfabricated suspended device over a temperature range of 20–320 K. Although the nanowires had well-defined crystalline order, the thermal conductivity observed was more than two orders of magnitude lower than the bulk value. The strong diameter dependence of thermal conductivity in nanowires was ascribed to the increased phonon-boundary scattering and possible phonon spectrum modification.


The near-bit geosteering drilling technology is a new high-tech .It integrats the techniques of drilling, logging and reservoir engineering. The paper introduced the application of this technology in oil exploration. CGDS is a kind of production of this technology applications. The paper introduced the structure ,function, parameters of CGDS production and its application in oil field. CGDS is recognized as the high and new technique in 21 century which ensures you to achieve the best place of a wellbore within a reservoir by providing geological, engineering parameter measurements and while drilling monitoring. With excellent ability of identification of hydrocarbon reservoir and direction guide, CGDS assists you to adjust and control the wellbore trace in real time according to the information of formation features. Through the introduction of this instrument,We can know more about the near-bit geosteering drilling technology The application prospect and development trend of the geosteering drilling system were also discussed.


Esport, which consists of video game competitions that fans can watch remotely or attend, is a rapidly growing industry. Although there is trepidation among traditional sport organizations about embracing esport, the popularity of esport with young consumers makes it attractive to sport practitioners. Some traditional sport entities have started to embrace esport. Specifically, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has made a concerted effort to incorporate esport into its brand. Certain NBA franchises (e.g., the Philadelphia 76ers) manage esport teams (e.g., 76ers GC) that compete in the NBA 2K League. The NBA esport teams consist of athletes/gamers who play NBA2K, a sport video game, and compete against other teams in the NBA 2K League. The NBA esport teams therefore act as brand extensions of each NBA franchise (the parent brand). Brand extensions are a common brand management strategy in sport; however, esport brand extensions of a traditional sport parent brand have yet to be studied. The purpose of this research was to test a brand extension model to examine (1) factors that may determine consumers' esport brand extension evaluations, (2) the relationship between evaluations and extension brand equity, and (3) the impact of identification on extension brand equity. As esport is likely to continue to grow in size and popularity, there is a practical need for sport practitioners to understand esport as a brand extension strategy to attract esport fans and consumers to the parent brand. Furthermore, despite an abundance of brand extension research there are inconsistencies in the theoretical explanations and dimensions that determine how consumers evaluate brand extensions. To assess the practicality of an esport brand extension strategy in traditional sport, and to assess differing theoretical explanations of the factors that influence consumer evaluations of brand extensions, this study examined how potential consumers responded to an esport brand extension of an individual NBA franchise that joined the NBA 2K League in 2019. Surveys were electronically distributed to potential respondents who are representative of the parent brand's target market and of the overall esport market. A conceptual model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) to determine the relationships between these factors. INDEX WORDS: Brand Equity, Brand Extension, esport, Social Identification EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF ESPORT BRAND EXTENSIONS ON BRAND EQUITY AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS


We examine how selected high school characteristics – including type of diploma – contribute to students' academic success in an American-type university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We find no robust evidence that US, UK, and UAE systems of high school diploma produce different outcomes, once we control for English proficiency. Irrespective of the type of diploma, high school grade is a strong positive predictor of future performance. We identify significant female, nationality, and family income effects. There is evidence that school ownership (private versus public) does not matter, and that graduates of coeducational schools perform better.


Dynamic diffusion MRI was used to visualize hyperacute stroke formation in the brain of a cynomolgus macaque. Under fluoroscopic guidance, a microcatheter was placed into the middle cerebral artery (MCA). The animal was immediately transferred to a 1.5T clinical scanner. Dynamic T2-weighted imaging during bolus injection of Oxygen-17 enriched water through the microcatheter mapped out the territory perfused by the MCA segment. Serial diffusion measurements were made using diffusion-weighted echo-planar imaging, with a temporal resolution of 15 seconds, during injection of a glue embolus into the microcatheter. The apparent diffusion coefficient declined within the lesion core. A wave of transient diffusion decline spread through peripheral uninvolved brain immediately following stroke induction. The propagation speed and pattern is consistent with spreading peri-infarct depolarizations (PID). The detection of PIDs following embolic stroke in a higher nonhuman primate brain supports the hypothesis that spreading depressions may occur following occlusive stroke in humans.


A preliminary pre-test questionnaire was developed based on the review of related literature on the theoretical constructs and the underlying factors. The preliminary pre-test questionnaire was tested on a sample of 30 respondents. Items that did not perform statistically were either refined or removed to improve the measurement scale before being administered to the targeted sample in the pilot study. The pre-test questionnaire consisted of 43 items with four demographic items to measure the four constructs as discussed in the literature review: (i) Transformational Leadership Style, (ii) Transactional Leadership Style, (iii) Nurse Educator Demographic Factors and (iv) Overall Job Satisfaction (Table 1). The number of items measuring the construct range from four to 20. In ensuring greater validity and reliability of measurements, DeVellis (1991) has suggested the use of interval scales to measure variables that were not directly observed. Thus, interval scale with 1, being "Strongly Disagree" to 10, being "Strongly Agree" was utilized to record the responses for leadership styles in the study.
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire

This section comprised of 45 items on nursing administrator transformational and transactional leadership styles that affected the overall job satisfaction of nurse educators. These items were adapted and modified from Avolio and Bass (2004) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X short form (rater form) to measure respondents (nurse educators) perceptions of their nursing administrator leadership styles which affected their (nurse educators) overall job satisfaction. The 45 items were utilized to measure the dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership attributes namely idealized influence (attributed), idealized influence (behavior), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individual consideration, contingent reward and management-by-exception (active). Each statement was accompanied by ten possible responses indicated by the interval scale from 1, "strongly disagree to 10, "strongly agree". Respondents were asked to rate the behaviors or attributes of their leaders that most reflected their perceptions of the constructs investigated.

The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire developed by Avolio and Bass (2004) is an individualized, computer generated report providing an in depth summary of how leaders' exhibit their behaviors along a quantum of leadership styles. The MLQ was designed to assess the perception of leadership style from the ineffective end (Laissez-faire leadership), whereby leaders avoided leadership responsibility and action to the effective end (Transformational leadership). However, this research will only study the transformational and transactional leadership styles only. The validity of the MLQ and its' report was described by Fleenor (2007) as having progressed the last 25 years from a number of research carried out in the private or public organizations ranging from high rank executives of major companies to non-supervisory project leaders. Fleenor (2007) when revising the MLQ for the BUROS Institute also asserted that generally, from the results of numerous studies, the MLQ was a valid measure of leadership style. This was further reaffirmed by Sheehan (2007) who described the MLQ as that based on comprehensive theory and have strong concept and validity. Further, the MLQ (5X) had been used extensively in nearly 200 studies including doctoral and masters' thesis around the world and tailored well into the portrayal of nursing administrators' leadership. Therefore, the researcher postulated that the MLQ can be used as a valid instrument with the focused audience.


Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson's 1963 paper, An Equilibrium Theory of Insular Zo‐ ogeography which led to their famous book, The Theory of Island Biogeography (MacArthur and Wilson 1967). These publications were instrumen‐ tal in a switch from a static, historically oriented biogeography, based in the direct interpretation of the data collected in the field, to a 'dynamic' equilibrium paradigm, based on a synthetic ap‐ proach to biogeographical processes. By their nature, the processes underlying biogeographic distributions and evolution on (remote) islands occur on large scales of time and space and remain among the most difficult to study and understand. Although some of the top‐ ics emphasized by MacArthur and Wilson still re‐ main relatively unexplored, recent advances in island theory demonstrate that we are moving towards a new synthesis, identifying and incorpo‐ rating aspects of the island systems that were not considered in the past. All the talks in the island biogeography session pointed in this direction. One of the first lessons taught to us by Wal‐ lace, decades before MacArthur and Wilson, is that comparisons among different archipelagos and biogeographic regions of the globe can offer significant insights and increase our understand‐ ing of the processes regulating biodiversity across time and space (see Wallace 1887). Daniel Car‐ stensen and colleagues compared the bio‐ geographical patterns of birds in Wallacea and the West Indies, adopting a network approach to detect biogeographical modules (i.e. sub‐regions of islands compartmentalized on the basis of a common avifauna) and the roles of each island according to its spatial location and the topology of the geographical network. They discussed the relative importance of island features and species richness on the local and regional fauna of the two biogeographical regions. Similarly, Silvia Aranda and co‐workers compared, within the framework of the Theory of Island Biogeography, the effects of area, isolation, geological age and climate on bryophyte species richness on Macaronesian Is‐ lands. They provided evidence that, in addition to area, it is necessary to quantify other variables that are also critical for the establishment of bio‐ diversity and at the same time have high explana‐ tory power (such as island age and climate), if we are to build up a more predictive science of spe‐ cies richness variation across island systems. However, island area remains the most powerful single variable in explaining variation in the number of species occupying an island and the species–area relationship (SAR) is one of ecology's few laws. Even and Kathleen Tjørve showed that we should consider with caution the common assumption that the power law of Arrhenius is appropriate for both sample‐area (mainland) SARs and isolate (island) SARs. Especially regarding iso‐ late SARs, they argue that the form of the rela‐ tionship is actually sigmoid when the finest scales are included. Based on this assumption, they pro‐ posed a new species–area model and presented results from different archipelagos and taxa. Fifty years ago E.O Wilson, studying Mela‐ nesian ants, coined the term 'taxon cycle' to de‐ scribe 'the inferred cyclical evolution of species [of Melanesian ants], from the ability to live in mar‐ ginal habitats and disperse widely, to preference for more central, species‐rich habitats with an as‐ sociated loss of dispersal ability, and back again' (Wilson 1961). However, the taxon cycle has, until recently, been difficult to test (see Rick‐ lefs and Bermingham 2002). Evan Economo and Eli Sarnat evaluated taxon cycle predictions with a new dataset on habitat distributions of the entire Fijian ant fauna and a community phylogeny for one of the genera present in that archipelago. They provided evidence that as lineages progress to higher levels of endemism, they undergo shifts from marginal to interior primary habitats, from ecological generalism to specialization, and from ISSN 1948‐6596 news and update


A high performance substitution box (S-Box) FPGA implementation using Galois Field GF (28) is presented in this paper. An optimum number of pipeline registers based on Spartan-3E FPGA is addressed in this paper. The design is fully synthesizable using Verilog and can easily be converted to ASIC implementation. As a result, a fast and area efficient implementation of pipelined S-Box was synthesized and implemented using Xilinx ISE v13.4 and Xilinx Spartan-3E XC3S2500E-4 FPGA as the target device. Hardware testing was performed and the results were verified and found to be identical to simulation results. The appropriate number of pipeline stages is found to be two stages in terms of LUTs needed and speed. The timing results from the `Place and Route' report indicate that the maximum clock frequency which can be applied to the design is 701.262MHz, with an output delay that is equal to 2 clock cycles.


This study assessed the effect of an 8 week consumption of dried cranberry juice (DCJ) on 65 healthy young women. Basic biochemical and hematological parameters, antioxidant status, presence of metabolites in urine, and urine ex vivo antiadherence activity were determined throughout the trial. A 400 mg amount of DCJ/day had no influence on any parameter tested. A 1200 mg amount of DCJ/day resulted in a statistically significant decrease in serum levels of advanced oxidation protein products. This specific protective effect against oxidative damage of proteins is described here for the first time. Urine samples had an inhibitory effect on the adhesion of uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains, but no increase in urine acidity was noted. Hippuric acid, isomers of salicyluric and dihydroxybenzoic acids, and quercetin glucuronide were identified as the main metabolites. In conclusion, cranberry fruits are effective not only in the prevention of urinary tract infection but also for the prevention of oxidative stress.


Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease is a multisystem disorder characterized by multiple, bilateral renal cysts and is also associated with cysts in other organs, such as the liver, pancreas, and arachnoid membranes. Dermatomyositis is a disease which mainly involves the skin and muscles, although occasionally other organs are affected. In this report, a 56-year-old male patient with a four-year history of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease was presented. Renal failure was exacerbated by a coexisting dermato-polymyositis. Prednisone treatment with hemodialysis improved the situation. This is the first report renal failure in a patient with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease and dermato-polymyositis.


Superiority and Potential Development of Durio Germplasm in Central Kalimantan. Amik Krismawati. Indonesia is rich of genetic resources and biodiversity of Durio spp., but its development no so fastly as in Thailand. This is due to plant durio has not managed commercially and it grew hundred years and it origin from generative propagation, caused the durio plantation variety heterogen. To determine the performance and advantage of the diversity of genetic resources should be conducted observations of durio related species the characterization in each district centre. Observation and characterization of related species of durio e.i. Durio zibethinus M. (durian), Durio kutejensis H.B (papaken), Durio oxleyanus (kerantungan/taetungen), and Durio dulcis (layung) were conducted in four districts of Central Kalimantan from August 2004 to January 2005. Seasons fruity and yield of each species to variously among the durio and its related species. Differences among accesions were characterized by fruit type, fruit shape, fruit skin texture, fruit length, fruit skin colour, fruit flesh colour, and taste. The fruiting season and fruit production of each species also varied durio relatives.The result of characterization showed the related species of Durio are indigenous of Indonesia and potencially to development in the future.


Due to the difficulty of pipeline design and layout for complex mechanical products, a virtual reality-based method is proposed for pipeline design and routing in virtual environment. A parameter database is established for geometric design of pipelines according to their basic parameters in 3D models. Controlled-points and controlled-vectors are introduced to determine the position and direction of pipelines. Dynamic adjusting algorithm for straight pipelines and elbow pipelines in virtual environment are implemented respectively to joint and layout pipelines according to surrounding environment and features. A pipeline oriented virtual assembly environment system is developed, and some examples are given to demonstrate its function and validation.


A novel electrochemical sensor for highly sensitive and selective detection of dopamine (DA) was developed based on a graphene quantum dots (GQDs) and Nafion composite modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE). GQDs were synthesized by a hydrothermal approach for cutting graphene sheets into GQDs and characterized by TEM, UV-vis, photoluminescence, and FT-IR spectra. The GQDs had carboxyl groups with a negative charge, which not only provided good stability, but also enabled interaction with amine functional groups in DA through electrostatic interaction to enhance the specificity of DA. The interaction and electron communication between GQDs and DA can be further strengthened via π–π stacking force. Nafion was used as an anchoring agent to increase the robustness of GQDs on the electrode surface and sensor stability and reproducibility. The GQDs–Nafion composite exhibits a good linear range of 5 nM to 100 μM and a limit of detection as low as 0.45 nM in the detection of DA. The proposed electrochemical sensor also displays good selectivity and high stability and could be used for the determination of DA in real samples with satisfactory results. The present study provides a powerful avenue for the design of an ultrasensitive detection method for clinical application.


Summary Plants have no eyes or ears, yet they sense their environment, no lungs or gills, yet they exchange gasses, and no stomach or heart, yet they assimilate and move nutrients. To understand how plants work, it helps to look at then not from the perspective of animal physiology, but instead to start by considering the common ancestor of plants and animals, and then to compare the evolutionary plants each lineage followed. What opportunities and limitations did each evolutionary transition provide? In this lecture we focus on three monumental events in the evolutionary history of plants: the acquisition of the chloroplast, the transition to a multicellular body form, and the transition to life on dry land.


OBJECTIVE
With increasing survival rates, breast cancer is now considered a chronic condition necessitating innovative care to meet the long-term needs of survivors. This paper presents the findings of a pilot study on self-management for women diagnosed with breast cancer and their implications for Asian health care providers.

METHODS
A pre-test/ post-test pilot study was conducted to gain preliminary insights into program feasibility and barriers to participation, and to provide justification for a larger trial.

RESULTS
The study found the 4 week self-management program feasible and acceptable, with a favourable trend in quality of life. The recruitment barriers ranged from competing medical appointments, uncollaborative health providers, linguistic barriers and social-household concerns. Supporting facilitators identified were family, health professionals and fellow participants ("buddies"). Lessons from the study are discussed with regard to Asian health providers.

CONCLUSION
There is preliminary evidence that self management is a workable and potentially useful model even in an Asians entrenched-hierarchical medical model of care. The initial challenge was breaking down barriers in acceptancee of a collaborative stance. A clinical trial is now warranted to gather more evidence.


Body mass is a key parameter for understanding the physiology, biomechanics and ecology of an organism. Within paleontology, body mass is a fundamental prerequisite for many studies considering body size evolution, survivorship patterns and the occurrence of dwarfism and gigantism. The conventional method for estimating fossil body mass relies upon allometric scaling relationships derived from skeletal metrics of extant taxa. Yet the recent application of 3D imaging techniques (including surface laser scanning, computed tomography and photogrammetry) to paleontology has allowed for the rapid digitization of fossil specimens. Volumetric mass estimation methods based on whole articulated skeletons are therefore becoming increasingly popular. Volume-based approaches offer several advantages, including the ability to reconstruct mass distribution around the body, and their relative insensitivity to particularly robust or gracile elements, i.e., the so-called 'one bone effect'. Yet their application to the fossil record will always be limited by the paucity of well-preserved specimens. Furthermore, uncertainties with regards to skeletal articulation, body density and soft tissue distribution must be acknowledged and their effects quantified. Future work should focus on extant taxa to improve our understanding of body composition and increase confidence in volumetric model input parameters.


The paper is an empirical, corpus-based analysis of the functions of seem with different complementation structures and in impersonal constructions as well as in combinations with an experiencer. The focus is on describing how evidentiality (e.g. inferencing/observation or hearsay evidence) interacts with degrees of certainty or factivity of the construction. Other features are subjectivity and intersubjectivity (shared or non-shared information). Translations from English into Swedish have been used to get a more fine-grained picture of the degree of certainty expressed by seem and its relationship to the type of evidence. The different constructions with seem and their functions are explained in a grammaticalization perspective. Seem conforms to a number of principles such as layering and divergence (Hopper). Seem to is the most grammaticalized form and can be regarded as an evidential marker which is similar to the modal auxiliaries.


. A computational fluid dynamics investigation was carried out on a slender body catamaran to determine the effect of pressure and flow velocity changes for varied hull separations. The investigation was conducted using an NPL 4a model with a slenderness (length to breadth) ratio of about 11 together with the use of a commercial code (CFX) with hull separations of S/L = 0.3 and 0.4 along with a variation in Reynolds numbers of 2.86×105, 3.43×105, 4.01×105, and 4.44×105. Pressure and flow velocity around the hull were measured to obtain a fluid effect attributed to the influence of catamaran hull interference. A computational fluid dynamics investigation was carried out with the same configurations as those in the experimental tests. The overall results were in good agreement, with the order of discrepancy at about 1.76%; the computational fluid dynamics results were consistently lower than the experimental ones. Both tests demonstrated a viscous interaction between the hulls and, thus, the form factors for the demihull and catamaran were properly derived: (1+βk) was 1.420, indicating interaction effects of about 13.2%. The form factor for the catamaran was consistently higher than the demihull, suggesting some viscous interference between the hulls. The effect of catamaran hull interference variation can be recognized through the velocity augmentation ratio (σ), pressure change ratio ( ϕ), and the viscous interference factor (β). In addition, the β value is very helpful for finding out the interference of the hull on a catamaran when sophisticated experimental and numerical tools are not available.


The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept is a model of narcissism that disentangles its bright and dark sides by introducing two strategies: admiration and rivalry. Although it is promising and explains the functioning of the narcissist, little is known about the trigger mechanisms that would explain how the strategy of admiration or rivalry is chosen. Based on the circumplex of personality metatraits model, we locate narcissism on the Delta-Minus metatrait. In the metaphor of the narcissistic pendulum, the narcissist at the starting point represents behaviour typical of the Delta-Minus metatrait. The initial decision is influenced by the activity of the amygdala and after conscious assessment, the pendulum could move in the opposite direction if the situational assessment was inadequate.


The Fruit Belt is bordered by North Street on the north, Jefferson Street on the east, the Kensington Expressway on the south, and Michigan Street on the west. The Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) lies directly west of the Fruit Belt, across Michigan Street. Historically, the neighborhood was much larger, encompassing the area where the BNMC is now located, and stretching from Main Street in the West to Best Street in the north, and Genesee Street in the east. However, the construction of the Kensington Expressway and the BNMC, as well as other developments in the surrounding area, shrank the neighborhood to its current size.


The characterization of NDE transducers involves an assessment of the bidirectional acoustoelectric conversion between electrical and acoustic terminals and an evaluation of the near and farfield radiation patterns. The internal details of the transducer are largely unknown and, consequently, the traditional techniques for analyzing the structures cannot be applied. Instead, the transducer may be characterized .as a hybrid two-port network whose parameters may be determined by relatively simple measurements taken at the electrical port when the acoustic loads are known. The radiation pattern involves measurement only in the region exterior to the transducer. There are several techniques which may be used to accomplish this task. Our aoproach has been to measure the acoustic field in the far-field region and then to reconstruct the field at the face of the transducer. Once we have the field at the transducer, an evaluation of the source may be readily determined from amplitude and phase contour plots or from gray scale or pseudo-color images.


ABSTRACT: Many patients with diabetes are anxious or fearful about the disease. These negative emotions stem in part from the fact that the patient is responsible for many facets of diabetes management, such as exercise, dietary modification, and blood glucose measurement. For example, failure to adhere to a regimen may engender guilt. Up to 30% of patients with diabetes are depressed, and hemoglobin A1c levels are higher in such patients. Even patients with good metabolic control may not be doing well psychologically. It is thus essential to ask about patients' concerns and fears, identify their psychosocial needs, and provide emotional support.


The grass carp, Ctenopharyngodon idella (Valenciennes), is one of the most extensively aquacultured freshwater fish in China. However, because of the lack of effective control measures and the high-density culture environment, considerable economic losses are caused by infection of C. idella with the parasitic ciliate, Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. The major histocompatibility (MH) DAB gene belongs to antigen-presented genes in the class II genomic region, which is associated with parasite resistance. To understand the relationship of the DAB gene with I. multifiliis infection in grass carp, the expression profiles of MH II-DAB were studied in tissues using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The results showed that expression of the MH II-DAB gene was up-regulated in head kidney after I. multifiliis infection, and the expression peak appeared earlier in the study (case) group than in the control group. The obvious up-regulation peak of MH II-DAB gene was found at days 2 and 4 in skin; at 12 h to day 4 in spleen; at 12 h and days 1 and 6 in gill; and at day 10 in blood, whereas the MH II-DAB gene was down-regulated in liver and intestines after I. multifiliis infection. These results have implications for better understanding C. idella resistance to I. multifiliis infection.


Design is often thought of as an activity seeking to change existing situations into preferred ones (Simon, 1969). But how are designers to discern what the nature of this "preferred" change should be? What would it mean to truly design ethically? In the admirable but naive quest to improve situations through design, it is possible to end up bypassing the ethical altogether. Design can aesthetically provide the appearance and sensation of ethicality without the inconvenience of actually having to be ethical. Ethical discomfort is anaesthetised through the process of aestheticising ethics: an/aestheticisation. Beginning with visual communication design, but maintaining a view to the applicability and importance of the argument for broader fields of design, this paper presents the case that there is hope for genuinely ethical design in an increasingly aestheticised world by drawing on German philosopher of aesthetics Wolfgang Welsch's suggestion that the root of ethics can be found to emerge from within the aesthetic itself. Design, which for so long has been a principal contributor to an/aestheticisation, contains within itself - precisely due its aesthetic nature - the potential to return feeling to a society which finds itself constantly numbed to true ethical being.


Acute fevers among American servicemen in South Vietnam were studied for a two-year period. The population included 524 patients with an acute fever of unknown origin (acute FUO) of at least four days' duration, and 269 patients who were given a tentative diagnosis of leptospirosis, scrub typhus or an arbovirus infection. Fifty-four per cent of the clinical diagnoses were serologically confirmed and 31 % of the patients with acute FUO were found to be infected with these same agents. Leptospirosis accounted for 20% of these acute fevers; scrub typhus and Japanese encephalitis were also common. Results of viral isolations and serologic testing for enteroviruses, rickettsiae, Toxoplasma, and influenza virus were of limited usefulness in the remaining patients. A correlation between the etiology of the acute FUO, seasonal incidence and environmental exposure was established. Epidemiologic data and laboratory reinforcement of clinical impressions resulted in a marked improvement in the accuracy of the attending physician's clinical diagnoses as the study progressed.


Facial composites are an important investigative tool and have been used in numerous high-profile cases (e.g. Yorkshire Ripper). Despite this, a great deal of research has indicated that composites often portray very poor facial resemblance to the suspect/target. While some of the difficulties with the older composite systems (e.g. Photofit and Identikit) were due to system design (see e.g. Ellis, Shepherd & Davies, 1975; Davies, Ellis & Shepherd, 1978; Laughery & Fowler (1980), the hit rate for composites constructed with more modern systems (e.g. E-FIT and PROfit) can still be very low (e.g. Frowd et al. 2005). While research has indicated that composite likeness can be improved at test by combining composites from multiple witnesses (e.g. Bennet, Brace, Pike, & Kemp 1999; Bruce, Ness, Hancock, Newman, & Rarity, 2002; Ness, 2003) research on improving composites during construction has produced mixed results.


On-line auction sites like eBay are very popular but have not been thoroughly researched, particularly with respect to bidding behavior and the reasons why consumers use auction sites. Drawing upon three different disciplines, this paper shows that propensity to bid in on-line auctions is influenced by acceptance of technology, involvement with auctions, and affinity for computers. In light of this, managers should make auction sites simple and accessible, develop and encourage involvement with their sites, and recognize that individuals who have a high affinity for computers and readily accept technology comprise a lucrative target market.


We examine optimal and other monetary policies in a linear-quadratic setup with a relatively general form of model uncertainty, so-called Markov jump-linear-quadratic systems extended to include forward-looking variables. The form of model uncertainty our framework encompasses includes: simple i.i.d. model deviations; serially correlated model deviations; estimable regime-switching models; more complex structural uncertainty about very different models, for instance, backward- and forward-looking models; time-varying central-bank judgment about the state of model uncertainty; and so forth. We provide an algorithm for finding the optimal policy as well as solutions for arbitrary policy functions. This allows us to compute and plot consistent distribution forecasts---fan charts---of target variables and instruments. Our methods hence extend certainty equivalence and "mean forecast targeting" to more general certainty non-equivalence and "distribution forecast targeting."


Most automated expressway incident detection algorithms were successfully developed using loop-based traffic occupancy from their local conditions. However, the performance of these algorithms was not satisfactory on sites that have installed a video-based detector system. Due to different traffic detector technologies and varying driving behaviors from one region to another, it is of interest to develop an algorithm that uses video-based data. This paper used a total of 160 incidents collected along the 15-km central expressway (CTE) in Singapore to develop two new dual-station algorithms: the combined detector evaluation (CODE) and the flow-based CODE algorithms. On average, the flow-based CODE algorithm yielded better performance than the CODE in terms of average reduced false alarms of about 16%. Measures were also taken to ensure that the algorithms were properly developed and assessed. It was found that the CODE algorithm can detect, on average, up to 57% of the incidents faster than those of existing detection methods on CTE.


The implementation of evidence-based social work practice is an international priority. Attitudes to evidence-based practice are instrumental in its dissemination and active implementation. This paper, the first of its kind, explores the nature and correlates of attitudes to evidence-based practice among social work practitioners in South Africa, based on a descriptive statistical analysis of data from a small online survey. In terms of results, the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale suggests that respondents' attitudes to evidence-based practice are generally positive. One exception is the requirements sub-scale, where performance indicates some resistance to a regulatory or authoritarian approach to the implementation of evidence-based social work practice. Furthermore, the limited evidence presented here shows that more experienced social work practitioners are less inclined to adopt prescribed evidence-based practice. Moreover, they find such practice less appealing, and are less open to implementing new structured and manualised interventions. With regard to recommendations, it is proposed that training in evidence-based practice be incorporated into continuous professional development programmes for social work practitioners. In addition, studies of this nature should be replicated on a more comprehensive and representative scale in South Africa and other developing countries.


Shell accumulations in the foreshore zone at Pine Knoll Shores, near the eastern end of Bogue Banks, contain a complex environmental and temporal mixture of molluscs, including Pleistocene estuarine species, subfossil marine Holocene material, and modern shells derived mostly from the adjacent shoreface. Mixed with these shells are the coralla of Astrangia danae, also mostly derived from the modern shoreface. The coral colonized mollusc shells from a variety of sources during varied intervals of exposure at the seafloor. Occurrence of the coral facilitates identification of pathways of shell transport and shell exposure intervals in modern nearshore environments. Astrangia danae is interesting in its own right because it is one of the only shallow-water scleractinians now living in the Cape Lookout area.


Probabilistic programs are widely used decision models. When implemented in practice, however, there often exists distributional ambiguity in these models. In this paper, we model the ambiguity using the likelihood ratio (LR) and use LR to construct various ambiguity sets. We consider ambiguous probabilistic programs which optimize under the worst case. Ambiguous probabilistic programs can be classified as ambiguous probability minimization problems (PM) and ambiguous chance constrained programs (CCP). We show that the ambiguous PM can be transformed to a pure PM under the nominal distribution, and that the ambiguous CCP can be transformed to a pure CCP with only the confidence level being rescaled from the original CCP. Our study indicates that ambiguous probabilistic programs with ambiguity modeled by LR essentially have the same complexity as the corresponding pure probabilistic programs and that risk and uncertainty have strong connections in probabilistic programs.


OBJECTIVE
In the presurgical evaluation of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), occasionally, patients do not experience spontaneous typical seizures (STS) during a stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) study, which limits its effectiveness. We sought to identify risk factors for patients who did not have STS during SEEG and to analyze the clinical outcomes for this particular set of patients.

METHODS
We conducted a retrospective analysis of all patients with DRE who underwent depth electrode implantation and SEEG recordings between January 2013 and December 2018.

RESULTS
SEEG was performed in 155 cases during this period. Eleven (7.2%) did not experience any clinical seizures (non-STS group), while 143 experienced at least one patient-typical seizure during admission (STS group). No significant differences were found between STS and non-STS groups in terms of patient demographics, lesional/non-lesional epilepsy ratio, pre-SEEG seizure frequency, number of ASMs used, electrographic seizures or postoperative seizure outcome in those who underwent resective surgery. Statistically significant differences were found in the average number of electrodes implanted (7.0 in the non-STS group vs. 10.2 in STS), days in Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (21.8 vs. 12.8 days) and the number of cases that underwent resective surgery following SEEG (27.3% vs 60.8%), respectively. The three non-STS patients (30%) who underwent surgery, all had their typical seizures triggered during ECS studies. Three cases were found to have psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. None of the patients in the non-STS group were offered neurostimulation devices. Five of the non-STS patients experienced transient seizure improvement following SEEG.

CONCLUSION
We were unable to identify any factors that predicted lack of seizures during SEEG recordings. Resective surgery was only offered in cases where ECS studies replicated patient-typical seizures. Larger data sets are required to be able to identify factors that predict which patients will fail to develop seizures during SEEG.


Background Severe hypoxic respiratory failure from COVID-19 pneumonia carries a high mortality risk. There is uncertainty surrounding which patients benefit from corticosteroids in combination with tocilizumab and the dosage and timing of these agents. The balance of controlling inflammation without increasing the risk of secondary infection is difficult. At present, dexamethasone 6 mg is the standard of care in COVID-19 hypoxia; whether this is the ideal choice of steroid or dosage remains to be proven. Objectives The primary objective was to assess the impact on mortality of tocilizumab only, corticosteroids only, and combination therapy in patients with COVID-19 respiratory failure. Methods A multihospital, retrospective study of adult patients with severe respiratory failure from COVID-19 who received supportive therapy, corticosteroids, tocilizumab, or combination therapy were assessed for 28-day mortality, biomarker improvement, and relative risk of infection. Propensity-matched analysis was performed between corticosteroid alone and combination therapies to further assess mortality benefit. Results The steroid-only, tocilizumab-only, and combination groups showed hazard reduction in mortality at 28 days when compared with supportive therapy. In a propensity-matched analysis, the combination group (daily equivalent dexamethasone 10 mg and tocilizumab 400 mg) had an improved 28-day mortality compared with the steroid-only group (daily equivalent dexamethasone 10 mg; hazard ratio (95% CI) = 0.56 (0.38-0.84), P = 0.005] without increasing the risk of infection. Conclusion and Relevance Combination of tocilizumab and corticosteroids was associated with improved 28-day survival when compared with corticosteroids alone. Modification of steroid dosing strategy as well as steroid type may further optimize therapeutic effect of the COVID-19 treatment.


During the inertia friction welding (IFW) process of superalloy GH4169, the main mechanism for microstructural evolution is dynamic recrystallization (DRX). In order to investigate the microstructural evolution during the process, a finite element (FE) model coupled with the DRX model of the alloy was developed on the platform of MSC.Marc. Equivalent strain was introduced into the DRX model to improve the computational precision. As a result, the IFW process with microstructural evolution was simulated. Simulated results reveal that DRX region is very small. Fully recrystallized region and fine grains appear near the weld line. Dynamically recrystallized fraction (DRXF) decreases and grain size increases with the increase of the distance from the weld line. Predicted results of microstructural distribution agree well with experimental ones.


A key challenge of data-driven social science is the gathering of high quality multi-dimensional datasets. A second challenge relates to the design and execution of social experiments in the real world that are as reliable as those within a controlled laboratory, yet yield more practical results. We introduce the Social Functional Mechanism-design and Relationship Imaging, or "Social fMRI" - an approach that enhances existing computational social science methodologies by bridging rich data collection strategies with experimental interventions.
In this thesis, we demonstrate the value of the Social fMRI approach in our Friends and Family study. We transformed a young-family residential community into a living laboratory for 15 months, through a very fine-grained and longitudinal data collection process combined with targeted experimental interventions. Through the derived dataset of unprecedented quality, the Social fMRI approach allows us to gain insights into intricate social mechanisms and interpersonal relationships within the community in ways not previously possible.
This thesis delivers the following contributions: (1) A methodology combining a rich-data experimental approach together with carefully designed interventions, (2) a system supporting the methodology - implemented, field-tested, and released to the world as an open-source framework with a growing community of users, (3) a dataset collected using the system, comprising what is, to date, the richest real-world dataset of its genre, (4) a very large set of experimental findings that contribute to our understanding of important research questions in computational social science in addition to demonstrating the methodology's potential. Among the results described in this thesis are the design and evaluation of a novel mechanism for social support in a health-related context, the observation that the diffusion of mobile applications relies more on the face-to-face interaction ties than on self-perceived friendship ties, and a gained understanding of the evolution of modeling and prediction processes over time and varying sample sizes. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)


OBJECTIVE
In the last two decades, attention has been focused on the design of continent urinary diversion and orthotopic neobladder in an attempt to find the ideal bladder substitute. The more commonly utilized techniques of orthotopic bladder replacement are described and the urodynamic aspects and complications are analyzed.

METHODS
The series of Studer, Hautmann, Kock, Pagano, Thuroff (Mainz Pouch) and Goldwasser and the relevant literature on this subject were reviewed.

RESULTS/CONCLUSION
To date, similar functional results have been achieved by the different techniques of bladder substitution, although different intestinal segments are utilized. A longer follow-up is warranted to determine which is the ideal technique of bladder substitution.


In a recent paper, Levine, McAdam, and Pearlman (2007) propose a new type of interest rate rule, which they denote a "Calvo-type" rule. The Calvo-type interest rate responds to the discounted sum of current and future rates of inflation. We show that a Calvo-type rule can be derived from a very different assumption than the one used by Levine, McAdam, and Pearlman (2007), namely a preference for interest rate smoothing. In addition to giving an alternative rationale for the Calvo-type rule, we provide additional empirical support for the specification.


Data from the Cicerone farmlet study were used to quantify the balance between pasture feed supply and the demand from grazing livestock, in terms of metabolisable energy (ME), on three differently managed farmlets (each of 53 ha) on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. Farmlet A had a high level of pasture renovation and higher soil fertility than the other two farmlets and employed flexible grazing management over eight paddocks. Farmlet B was designed to represent management 'typical' of the region and had the same grazing management and number of paddocks as farmlet A but moderate levels of pasture renovation and soil fertility. The third farmlet (C) had the same level of inputs as farmlet B but practised intensive rotational grazing over 37 paddocks. Regular measurements of the feed supply, namely herbage mass and quality, pasture growth and supplement fed and of feed demand were assembled to provide monthly estimates of the balance between feed supply and animal demand of all classes of livestock run on the experiment over its duration of 6.5 years. The significantly greater stocking rate, liveweight and reproductive rate of sheep reached on the higher input system (farmlet A) meant higher levels of ME were required to satisfy the nutritional demands of these animals. As only limited measurements were taken of animal intake, it was assumed that the supply of ME was derived from pasture growth and supplement fed. Using key livestock management dates and measurements of liveweights, the changes in the energy requirements of each class of animal were calculated and aggregated to provide an estimate of overall livestock energy demand over time. Subtracting the energy demand from the estimated energy supply provided a partial net energy balance. Measurements of the rates of change of green herbage during grazing events were found to be highly dependent on stock density with farmlets A, B and C recording rates of change of up to –50, –30 and –200 green DM/ha.day, respectively. Over a series of generally drier-than-average years, the ME supplied in pasture growth and through supplementation was at times inadequate to meet the energy demands of the livestock, resulting in periods during winter when the partial energy balance became negative. Similar feed deficits were observed for all three farmlets, suggesting that they were over-stocked to a similar extent. In spite of the divergence in the stocking rate supported by each farmlet, the similarity of the ME balances between farmlets suggests that no farmlet was subjected to bias because of decisions relating to feed supply and demand. The analyses presented suggest there is considerable potential for practical paddock and grazing management to be improved if more timely and regular assessments can be made of changes in the feed energy supply using satellite images of normalised difference vegetation indices and feed energy demand using calculations of the ME required by grazing livestock.


Polarization and Depolarization Current (PDC) testing is a non-destructive dielectric testing method to determine the conductivity and moisture content of transformer insulations. This research was carried out to find the dielectric responsive function and maximum conductivities of biodegradable and mineral transformer oils for comparative analysis. Each insulation oil with different moisture levels (dried, normal, or wet) was tested. The dried condition was achieved by processing the oil in a dry-out plant to evacuate the moisture. Normal condition refers to the oil as taken directly from the drum while wet condition is the oil after 200ppms of moisture have been added. The polarization and depolarization current at test DC voltage of 1000V was recorded for 10,000 seconds. Each test was repeated five to ten times to collect the most consistent PDC data and to check the repeatability of each PDC pattern. In the analysis, the PDC curve was plotted and the DC conductivity of the oil was calculated. It was found that the trends of the PDC response for the two transformer oils are different.


Plasmaspheric ducts may execute Doppler oscillations driven by propagating ultra-low frequency (ULF) waves. We examined about 100 such events recorded over 1 year under magnetically quiet conditions at L = 2.5 using artificially generated whistler-mode VLF signals and ground magnetometers. Joint peaks in the VLF Doppler and magnetometer spectra occurred at the frequency expected for ULF waves generated by the ion-cyclotron instability in the upstream solar wind. The VLF Doppler shifts are most likely due to radial motion of flux tubes of a few kilometers, driven by the east-west electric field of propagating ULF waves. When the frequencies match, the incoming wave energy also couples to standing poloidal and azimuthal field line oscillations, producing field line resonance signatures in both the D and H components on ground-based magnetometers. The phases of the VLF and ULF oscillations are consistent with ionospheric rotation of the downgoing ULF wave field. Since the scale size of VLF flux tubes is significantly smaller than for ULF flux tubes, VLF Doppler observations can provide more precise spatial information on ULF wave fields in the plasmasphere. Furthermore, it should be possible to use ULF oscillations to monitor the formation of quarter wavelength mode standing field line oscillations when the conjugate ionospheres have different conductivities.


In consistent with the growing research activities regarding the Farm 4.0 concept, it is valuable to consider each possible chance of enhancement which is expected to contribute positively to the productivity and the safety of planned operations. Human centred design concept is becoming essential for the multitasking vehicles market, which promotes the research experiments aiming to understand the human behaviour inside the vehicle cabins to proceed with upgrading the design, planning and production procedures based on validated inputs leading to introducing reliable solutions for more productive and safety conduct of operations. The accurate and deep analysis of the operator behaviour inside the cabin will lead to a better understanding for the problems and issues need to be resolved in new designs in addition to providing the production planning (i.e. manpower planning and working shift period) with the necessary data to ensure achieving the maximum efficiency and effectiveness. In this research, the operator's glance behaviour inside the tractor cabin is studied during the harvesting operation to develop a model for the change of operator's focusing scheme along working hours.


We address the issues associated with figure completion, a perceptual grouping task. Endpoints and junctions play a critical role in contour completion by the human visual system and should be an integral part of a computational process that attempts to emulate human perception. A significant body of evidence in the psychology literature points to two types of completion, modal (or orthogonal) and amodal (or parallel). We provide a computational framework which implements both types of completion and integrates a fully automatic decision making mechanism for selecting between them. It proceeds directly from tokens or binary image input, infers descriptions in terms of overlapping layers and labels junctions as T, L and endpoints. It is based on first and second order tensor voting, which facilitate the propagation of local support among tokens. The addition of first order information to the original framework is crucial, since it makes the inference of endpoints and the labeling of junctions possible. We illustrate the approach on several classical inputs, producing interpretations consistent with those of the human visual system.


This paper presents a method to detect and distinguish single and multiple audio effects in monophonic electric guitar recordings. It is based on spectral analysis of audio segments located in the sustain part of guitar tones. Overall, 541 spectral, cepstral and harmonic features are extracted from short time spectra of the audio segments. Support Vector Machines are used in combination with feature selection and transform techniques for automatic classification based on the extracted feature vectors. A novel database that consists of approx. 50000 guitar tones was assembled for the purpose of evaluation. Classification accuracy reached 99.2% for the detection and distinction of arbitrary combinations of six frequently used audio effects.


Southern Africa supports a rich marine biota of 12 734 currently described marine species. Although the distribution and overall species-richness patterns of several component taxa are well documented, studies considering range sizes are absent. This study considers range size frequencies and distribution patterns of seven major marine invertebrate taxa. The most commonly observed pattern of size frequency distributions is bimodal, with a predominance of species with either small or large range sizes, and few taxa with intermediate-sized ranges. This pattern is displayed by prosobranch and opisthobranch molluscs, polychaetes and amphipods, and for all invertebrate taxa examined combined. Peaks in small range sizes are likely a reflection of the numerous poorly sampled and/or endemic species in the region, while the high number of species with large range sizes can be attributed to the large proportion of widespread tropical Indo-Pacific species within the regional fauna. Overall, the largest peaks of range-restricted endemic species occurred around False Bay, Port Elizabeth, Durban, St Lucia and Maputo Bay. These areas are all situated at or adjacent to recognised biogeographic breaks for invertebrate assemblages, but coincidentally also tend to also be areas of enhanced research and shipping activity. The Cape Point region supports the highest number of endemics, with 73 species restricted to ranges of <100 km and 28 species to ranges <200 km.


WenXiang tunnel ,one of the tunnels constructed for the ZhengXi Special passenger Railway in china. In this project we have carried out a series of research on optimizing the construction method for shallow and large-span tunnels in loess condition. According to the field monitoring of ground settlement, vault settlement and primary support stress of the tunnel section before tunnelling underneath the LianHuo Highway, the result indicates that soil settlement and primary support stress can not be controlled very well, and current construction program needs to be reformed since it can not meet construction safety requirement. Our synthetical analysis comprises the optimized methods have been used in construction, such as reducing excavation area, increasing excavation steps of pilot tunnel, reserving core soil, closing invert punctually, reinforcing primary support, etc. The security and reliability also has been verified by numerial analysis sofeware FLAC3D. From feedback of field implement and monitoring result, the effect of optimized method is significant; and all of these methods ensured this tough project implemented successfully. These results derived from our research are subject to a ceritain value that could be referred for future analogous project , in terms of controlling soil settlement and protecting surrouding building facilities.


This paper discusses a patron-driven acquisition program at the University of Denver. Instead of selecting books from YBP's slip approval plan, the Penrose Library will load MARC records for these titles and for a selection of electronic books from ebrary and EBL. All University of Denver students and faculty will be able to select the title and format (print or electronic) that best suits their needs, thereby allowing the library to expend its collection funds in a more user-oriented way. Through this demand-driven acquisition model, the library offers its users a much wider range of titles, while ensuring that more of the titles purchased are used.


We introduce a formula to compute an optimum 2-D shape-adaptive Karhunen-Loeve transform (KLT) suitable for coding pels in arbitrarily-shaped image segments. The efficiency of the KLT on a 2-D AR(1) process is used to benchmark two other shape-adaptive transforms described in literature. It is shown that the optimum KLT significantly outperforms the well known shape-adaptive DCT method introduced by Gilge et al. (1989) for coding Segments of arbitrary shape in intraframe coding mode. A statistical transform gain close to the Gilge-method can be achieved with a shape-adaptive DCT algorithm introduced by Sikora and Makai (see Proc. Workshop Image Anal. Image Coding, Berlin, FRG, Nov. 1993) which is implemented with much lower complexity. >


Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention to improve referral and treatment of pregnant smokers in routine practice, and to assess the incremental costs to the National Health Service (NHS) per additional woman quitting smoking. Design Interrupted time series analysis of routine data before and after introducing the intervention, within-study economic evaluation. Setting Eight acute NHS hospital trusts and 12 local authority areas in North East England. Participants 37 726 records of singleton delivery including 10 594 to mothers classified as smoking during pregnancy. Interventions A package of measures implemented in trusts and smoking cessation services, aimed at increasing the proportion of pregnant smokers quitting during pregnancy, comprising skills training for healthcare and smoking cessation staff; universal carbon monoxide monitoring with routine opt-out referral for smoking cessation support; provision of carbon monoxide monitors and supporting materials; and an explicit referral pathway and follow-up protocol. Main outcome measures Referrals to smoking cessation services; probability of quitting smoking during pregnancy; additional costs to health services; incremental cost per additional woman quitting. Results After introduction of the intervention, the referral rate increased more than twofold (incidence rate ratio=2.47, 95% CI 2.16 to 2.81) and the probability of quitting by delivery increased (adjusted OR=1.81, 95% CI 1.54 to 2.12). The additional cost per delivery was £31 and the incremental cost per additional quit was £952; 31 pregnant women needed to be treated for each additional quitter. Conclusions The implementation of a system-wide complex healthcare intervention was associated with significant increase in rates of quitting by delivery.


According a consortium of membranes manufacturers, it appears that 16 inches is the optimum diameter for membrane design in view of the tradeoff between cost savings and the additional risk and diminishing return associated with even larger modules and vessels. To increase the water productivity per membrane, some manufacturers provide new designed flow distributor (replacing common Anti-Telescoping Device) which allows working at very high flux. In this study, efficiency of such device is evaluated by following hydraulic and rejection performances of two 16 inch membranes installed in a potable water plant (surface water). In this work and in operating conditions applied (22 and 30 lmh), no influence of the specific flow distributor was observed.


This paper presents MeanderMaps: a non-speech Augmented Reality Audio (ARA) application for Apple iPhone that aids in navigation purposes by sonifying geospatial data. Users request directions to a specified location on a Google Map overlay, and MeanderMaps uses spatial auditory cues such as distance and direction to guide him/her to the destination. As the user travels to consecutive waypoints known as path nodes, auditory cues indicate whether an incorrect turn has been made or if the user is traveling in the wrong direction. Preliminary findings are reported using qualitative and quantitative methods, evaluating the overall sonification model in addition to individual audio cues that (a) worked, (b) worked somewhat well, and (c) needed to be improved. Future improvements and modifications to MeanderMaps are presented.