The occurance of emerging contaminants in water had become an environmental concern since global climate change is causing water to become a scarce resource globally. Veternary antibiotic sulfamethoxazole (SMX) is one of emerging pollutants of interest in this study. The main concern with the presence of antibiotics in aquatic environment is that they can provoke antibiotic resistance which bear ecological and human health risks. Hence, investigations on the adsorption capacity of zeolite Y on SMX in the presence of caffeic acid (CA) and vanillin (VNL) were carried out.The experiments were conducted at room temperature in a wide pH range 5-8. Results indicated that CA is marginally adsorbed by zeolite Y at all pH investigated. Whereas SMX and VA were adsorbed by zeolite Y, the adsorption was inversely affected by pH, adsorption increased as the pH decreases. Both compounds demonstrated a quick kinetics, where these compounds were adsorbed within 1 min. Therefore VNL can compete with SMX for zeolite adsorption sites (i.e. pores). However, since the adsorption of SMX is irreversible whilst that of VNL is reversible, therefore SMX should be retained more firmly by the zeolite.
Another water pollutant investigated in this study was heavy metals (Cu and Zn). Water pollution by heavy metals cause both environmental and health problems throughout the world, due to their toxicity and poor biodegradability. The peel waste of banana (BP), orange (OP), pineapple (PP) and potato (PoP) were used as adsorbent. The river water spiked with Cu and Zn were percolated in a 1 g peel glass column. The results indicated that BP adsorbed up to 17.8 and 23.5 mg/g for Cu and Zn, respectively. The eluates of the adsorption experiments were used to grow lettuce on hydroponics. BP eluates significantly obtained higher biomass yield of lettuce leaves and roots compared to tap water.


One of the major components of the life quality is represented by the active lifestyle. The school educative programs should build up a series of competences allowing the young people to practice physical exercises also in their leisure time. The positive effects of this kind of activities will be reflected at all personality levels (physical, cognitive, emotional, and social). But nowadays, one of the most alarming aspects concerning the young people lifestyle is the increased tendency to adopt sedentary habits early at the age. That is the reason for why in this paper we approach the necessity to identify an evaluation model of the teenagers' activism. The novelty of this evaluation approach is conferred by the missing demarches interested in calibrating the biomonitoring equipment's that measure the indicators of the active lifestyle at adolescents' level (heart rate, number of steps/day, number of calories, active time, distance). We have chosen this target group because, in some previous studies, there were identified a decreasing tendency of their cardiovascular fitness and an increasing tendency to become overweight. This information is also presented in the literature, often being associated with the analysis of other diseases. Starting from the aspects mentioned above, we present in this paper how it is possible to integrate a technological component represented by a Smart Sport Watch (designed with integrated GPS and heart rate monitor), in a evaluation model designed to objectify the adolescents' active lifestyle and to offer a functional model able to put the basis for a referential database specific for this population.


1. The spectral, spatial and temporal properties of receptive fields of dark-adapted, on-off retinal ganglion cells in the intact eye of the plaice, have been analysed by recording responses from their axon terminals in the superficial layers of the contra-lateral optic tectum with indium micro-electrodes. 2 Two cell-types have been identified on criteria of discharge patterns. The first type gives spectrally opponent "on-off" responses to coloured stimuli, with no subdivision of receptive fields into centre and periphery. On and "off" response-components are mutually inhibitory. The second type gives slow-adapting, "on-off" or "off" responses for different stimulus positions within the receptive field, with centre-surround or adjacent field patterns. Only "on-off" centre, off"-surround cells, or "off"-centre, "on-off" surround cells have been found, "On-off" centre cells exhibit mutual antagonism between field centre and surround. "Off"-centre cells possess inhibitory centres. This cell-type gives only weak opponent, or possibly non-opponent responses. 3. Moot cells of each type receive rod input in addition to input from cones. At stimulus intensities suprathreshold for cones, response-components give spectral maxima or more of four wavelength ranges; blue, 440-460 mum; blue-green, 470-490 mum; green, 510-540 mum; and orange, 560-590 mum. No cello give red sensitivity maxima. At low stimulus intensities all cells with rod input give a single spectral peak between 520 and 530 mum.


The present study was aimed at formulation, performance evaluation and stability studies of new vesicular drug carriers system called protransfersomes bearing norgestrel. Protranfersomes of norgestrel were prepared and extensively characterized for drug loading, vesicular shape, vesicular size and size distribution, entrapment efficiency, degree of deformability, transit time, rate of hydration, drug diffusion across rat skin and stability study at 4o and at room temperature. The effects of various parameters such as type of alcohol, type of surfactant and amount of drug of formulation on transdermal permeability profile were assessed. In vitro flux, permeability coefficient and release rate pattern of norgestrel was calculated for transdermal delivery of norgestrel. In the release rate study, no lag phase could be detected and the release of norgestrel from proposed formulation through rat skin was found to be constant but slow (sustained release). Entrapment efficiency was found to be nearly 95% and it depends on the type of surfactant and concentration of surfactant. After one month storage of formulation in liquid crystalline nature, drug content and other characteristic parameters were not changed. Proposed system also cornpared for in vitro performance with well-known vesicular system proliposomes, and shows better skin permeation. Results indicate that the protransfersomal formulation for transdermal drug delivery of norgestrel provides effective contraception, better stability, higher entrapment efficiency, ability as a self penetration enhancer, easy to scale up and better for transdermal delivery as compared to proliposomes.


Abstract Amphibole fractionation during the early evolution of arc magmas has been widely inferred on the basis of distinctive geochemical fingerprints of the evolved melts, although amphibole is rarely found as a major mineral phase in arc volcanic rocks, so-called cryptic amphibole fractionation. Here, we present a detailed case study of xenoliths of amphibole-rich cumulate from the Zhazhalong intrusive suite, Gangdese arc, which enables an investigation of this differentiation process using a combination of petrological observations and in situ geochemical constraints. Evidence that the xenoliths represent fragments of igneous cumulates includes: (1) the presence of an amphibole-dominated crystal framework; (2) mineral and whole-rock Fe–Mg exchange coefficients; (3) rare-earth element patterns that are similar in the amphiboles and the xenoliths; (4) the compositions of basaltic to andesitic liquids in equilibrium with amphiboles; and (5) enrichment of the xenoliths in compatible elements and depletion in incompatible elements. The amount of trapped liquid based on La, Ce, and Dy abundances varies from ~12 to ~20%. Actinolitic cores within amphibole grains likely represent reaction between olivine precursor and hydrous melt, as evidenced by their high Cr and Ni contents. Amphibole thermometry and oxybarometry calculations indicate that crystal accumulation occurred over temperatures of 857–1014 °C, at mid-crustal pressures of 312 to 692 MPa and oxygen fugacity between 0.4 and 1.9 log units above the nickel–nickel oxide buffer. Quantification of the major-element compositions of the parent liquids indicates that the Zhazhalong amphibole cumulates crystallized from basaltic to andesitic magmas, probably with a shoshonitic affinity, and with SiO2 contents of 46.4–66.4 wt%. Appropriate partition coefficients, calculated using a parameterized lattice strain model and an empirical partitioning scheme, were employed to calculate the trace-element compositions of the liquids in equilibrium with amphibole. Our results confirm that Dy/Yb and Dy/Dy* ratios, which decrease with increasing degrees of differentiation, can be used as robust signatures of amphibole fractionation. This work presents a direct snapshot of the process of amphibole fractionation and provides a natural example of the hidden amphibole "sponge" in arc crust. In particular, this study also suggests that some appinites likely represent amphibole-rich cumulates, which may help to explain the genesis of other unusual but petrologically significant rocks.


The MEDIDEV service combines a central product catalog featuring basic information with Internet-connected websites and online catalogs hosting the detailed information. This approach is compatible with the manufacturers' requirement to maintain control over the detailed information of their products. At the same time, it allows the end user to efficiently choose from a potentially long list of products-those which mostly satisfy his requirements-and then to get more detailed information in the corresponding linked websites and on-line catalogs. The manufacturers have two alternative ways for updating the information stored in the Portal. They can use a human-operated and HTML-based interface or an automated and CORBA-based interface. Thus, the timeliness and consistency of the Portal information is ensured. The adoption of Internet standard technologies (Java, CORBA, XML) has maintained a high level of platform independence and interoperability. The current version has been developed for Windows NT, while the final version is currently ported to a HP UNIX machine. Special care has been taken to support both major Internet browsers: Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The implementation of XML for the data presentation has led to a reduced and optimized transmission of data from the Portal to the user's browser. Only the new data are transmitted as XML documents each time, while formatting information is once loaded at the browser. The separation of data from the formatting information leads to another advantage. It is a common practice today for horizontal portals, which are targeting a wide variety of interests, to subcontract content from other, more specialized portals or sites (vertical portals). The MEDIDEV Portal can provide its data to other sites as XML documents that will be parsed and displayed with their own look and feel. This opens up new marketing opportunities.


Online trust has been discussed for more than 10 years, yet little practical guidance has emerged that has proven to be applicable across contexts or useful in the long run. 'Trustworthy UI design guidelines' created in the late 90ies to address the then big question of online trust: how to get shoppers online, are now happily employed by people preparing phishing scams. In this paper we summarize, in practical terms, a conceptual framework for online trust we've established in 2005. Because of its abstract nature it is still useful as a lens through which to view the current big questions of the online trust debate - large focused on usable security and phishing attacks. We then deduct practical 10 rules for providing effective trust support to help practitioners and researchers of usable security.


Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) enables the transfer of models trained on source domains to unlabeled target domains. However, transferring complex time series models presents challenges due to the dynamic temporal structure variations across domains. This leads to feature shifts in the time and frequency representations. Additionally, the label distributions of tasks in the source and target domains can differ significantly, posing difficulties in addressing label shifts and recognizing labels unique to the target domain. Effectively transferring complex time series models remains a formidable problem. We present Raincoat, the first model for both closed-set and universal domain adaptation on complex time series. Raincoat addresses feature and label shifts by considering both temporal and frequency features, aligning them across domains, and correcting for misalignments to facilitate the detection of private labels. Additionally, Raincoat improves transferability by identifying label shifts in target domains. Our experiments with 5 datasets and 13 state-of-the-art UDA methods demonstrate that Raincoat can improve transfer learning performance by up to 16.33% and can handle both closed-set and universal domain adaptation.


This special virtual theme issue presents eight articles on "methods" selected from Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) issues published between 2007 and 2016. This collection was selected from articles that focused on developing and assessing the quality of a (new) research method or technique, or articles that examined methodological innovations as part of a study on a substantive issue. A scan of the articles in JMCQ over the 10-year period under study revealed that about 7% (n = 28) focused on advancing research methods or data analysis techniques. The articles selected are prime examples of JMCQ's method articles and deserve renewed attention because of their inspiring approach and the insights they provide. We introduce them briefly below under three categories: methodological issues in content analysis; methodological issues in surveys, interviews, and focus groups; and measurement and scale development.


Severe sepsis and trauma complicated with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) are among the leading causes of death in intensive therapy units, with mortality rate exceeding 50%. The outcome is not determined only by infection or trauma, but also by the intensity of immuno-inflammatory response, which is essential for host defence, but if uncontrolled leads to MODS. Pro-inflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-alpha--TNF-alpha, IL-1, IL-8, IL-12, IFN-gamma, etc.) represent a part of this immuno-inflammatory response to an insult. The results of the clinical investigation of correlation between pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-8, IL-12, TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma), the outcome (survivors, non-survivors), and the severity (systemic inflammatory response syndrome--SIRS--less severe, and MODS--more severe) in polytraumatised patients with sepsis are presented in this paper. Mean values of IL-8 were 1.3-fold higher in non-survivors (p<0.05), and 60-fold higher in MODS group (p<0.01). Mean values of IL-12 were 1.6-fold higher in survivors (p<0.01), while the values between SIRS and MODS group did not differ significantly; mean values of TNF-alpha were 3-fold higher in survivors (p<0.05), and 46-fold higher in MODS group (p<0.01). Mean values of IFN-gamma did not differ significantly between the two groups regarding the outcome and severity. The obtained results indicated that IL-8 was a reliable predictor of lethal outcome and MODS (p<0.01), IL-12 a reliable predictor of survival (p<0.05), and TNF-alpha a reliable predictor of survival (p<0.05) and MODS (p<0.01).


Douglas Biber, Regents' Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University, authors this article
 exploring the connections between register and a text-linguistic approach to language variation. He has spent the last 30 years
 pursuing a research program that explores the inherent link between register and language use, including at the phraseological,
 grammatical, and lexico-grammatical levels. His seminal book Variation across Speech and Writing (1988, Cambridge University Press) launched multi-dimensional (MD) analysis, a
 comprehensive framework and methodology for the large-scale study of register variation. This approach was innovative in taking a
 text-linguistic approach to characterize language use across situations of use through the quantitative and functional analysis of
 linguistic co-occurrence patterns and underlying dimensions of language use. MD analysis is now used widely to study register
 variation over time, in general and specialized registers, in learner language, and across a range of languages. In 1999, the
 Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al.) became the first comprehensive descriptive
 reference book to systematically consider register variation in describing the grammatical and lexico-grammatical patterns of use
 in English. Douglas Biber's quantitative linguistic research has consistently demonstrated the importance of register as a
 predictor of language variation. In his own words, "register always matters" (Gray
 2013: 360, Interview with Douglas Biber, English Language & Linguistics).


Purpose – The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between the level of Earnings Opacity and a company's informational environment, specifically considering accounting standards and the legal origins of the system. Design/methodology/approach – The sample consisted of publicly traded companies from 20 countries classified as emerging, based on agency Standard & Poor's index. The sample included data from 2004 to 2013. In order to compare the indicators among the group of countries, taking into account their institutional characteristics, the Mann-Whitney test and the Kruskal-Wallis test were performed. Findings – The assessment of the informational environment measures' behavior in emerging countries revealed that these measures were correlated, suggesting that, despite different behaviors, opacity proxies share information. The fact that earnings opacity was lower in countries that had already adopted international standards during the analyzed period was also observed. In the same sense, a higher level of income smoothing was detected in countries of French code law origins. Originality/value – This article contributes to the understanding of the relationship between the characteristics of an accounting informational environment and the levels of opacity of the information emitted by accounting. Thus, this article has helped managers, investors and regulators to understand users' needs and how country-specific characteristics change their perspectives.


Discontinuity in dynamical system is caused by natural phenomenon or control actions engineered by control design such static friction, contacting collision, switching and variable structure control et al. The dynamical systems with the discontinuities are usually described by the differential equations with disconti8nous right hand side. That is, the vector field defining the dynamical system maybe a function which is discontinuous on the state or the time. For this kind of systems, to establish an analysis and synthesis framework, the most fundamental issue we must face is the notation of solution, and then the uniqueness and convergence. This talk will focus on these fundamental issues and on extending the basic results to control design. First, a brief review of the analysis of discontinuous dynamical systems will be addressed, and then the Filippov-framework for stability analysis of discontinuous systems will be surveyed shortly. Base on the fundamental results, two control design issues will be addressed. Finally, some challenging problems in control of mechanical systems and automotive powertrain systems with the discontinuous dynamical system theory will be introduced with physical background.


Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a rare pediatric inflammatory disorder characterized by immune cell hyperactivation, cytokine storm, and the production of autoantibodies. The mechanisms underlying such immune dysregulation still need to be unraveled. In this issue of the JCI, Benamar et al. demonstrated the critical role of the Notch receptor 1/CD22 (Notch1/CD22) axis in Tregs, which, when activated, impairs Treg functions and promotes inflammation. They showed that the Notch1/CD22 axis contributed to dysregulated immune responses in MIS-C. These findings may have implications for MIS-C and many other inflammatory diseases.


The distance geometry problem asks to find a realization of a given simple edge-weighted graph in a Euclidean space of given dimension K, where the edges are realized as straight segments of lengths equal (or as close as possible) to the edge weights. The problem is often modelled as a mathematical programming formulation involving decision variables that determine the position of the vertices in the given Euclidean space. Solution algorithms are generally constructed using local or global nonlinear optimization techniques. We present a new modelling technique for this problem where, instead of deciding vertex positions, formulations decide the length of the segments representing the edges in each cycle in the graph, projected in every dimension. We propose an exact formulation and a relaxation based on a Eulerian cycle. We then compare computational results from protein conformation instances obtained with stochastic global optimization techniques on the new cycle-based formulation and on the existing edge-based formulation. While edge-based formulations take less time to reach termination, cycle-based formulations are generally better on solution quality measures.


What will it take to compete and win in a dynamic, digital world? We've got 21 innovation imperatives to help you prepare, equip and evolve to compete and grow in the 21st century. At the top of the list - taking advantage of opportunities presented by bi


Slope project is often appearing in rock and soil engineering such as water conservancy, mine, highway and railway etc. And deposit slope is a special natural one. For probing into slope failure mechanism and prestressing loss of anchorage cable in deposit body, this paper researches it by numerical simulation. Study result shows: First, three leading influence factors, which are deposit slope lithology and structure, in-situ stress, and groundwater, may induce slope failure; Second, slope failure patterns chiefly includes landslide along the interface between bed rock and deposit, and part circular slippage in shallow deposit body; Last, it appears prestressing positive loss and negative loss of anchorage cable in study area, especially the latter occurs because of the slide interface existing in deposit body, and changing technical parameters of anchorage cable can partly improve prestressing loss.


Expert contributions examine the contextual factors that affect implementation of more sustainable technology and innovation practices, offering a number of empirical methodologies to describe and explain these multidimensional influences. What emerges is a compelling argument in favor of balanced strategies that merge profitability concerns with ecological consciousness, allowing for controlled sustainable development and stable, long-term economic success. Discussion of companies in both developed and emerging countries makes this book useful on a truly global scale.


A lot of practical problem, such as the scheduling of jobs on multiple parallel production lines and the scheduling of multiple vehicles transporting goods in logistics, can be modeled as the multiple traveling salesman problem (MTSP). Due to the combinatorial complexity of the MTSP, it is necessary to use heuristics to solve the problem, and a discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm is employed in this paper. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) in the continuous space has obtained great success in resolving some minimization problems. But when applying PSO for the MTSP, a difficulty rises, which is to find a suitable mapping between sequence and continuous position of particles in particle swarm optimization. For overcoming this difficulty, PSO is combined with ant colony optimization (ACO), and the mapping between sequence and continuous position of particles is established. To verify the efficiency of the DPSO algorithm, it is used to solve the MTSP and its performance is compared with the ACO and some traditional DPSO algorithms. The computational results show that the proposed DPSO algorithm is efficient.


Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are widely used in computer vision, natural language processing, and so on, which generally require low power and high efficiency in real applications. Thus, energy efficiency has become a critical indicator of CNN accelerators. Considering that asynchronous circuits have the advantages of low power consumption, high speed, and no clock distribution problems, we design and implement an energy-efficient asynchronous CNN accelerator with a 65 nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process. Given the absence of a commercial design tool flow for asynchronous circuits, we develop a novel design flow to implement Click-based asynchronous bundled data circuits efficiently to mask layout with conventional Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools. We also introduce an adaptive delay matching method and perform accurate static timing analysis for the circuits to ensure correct timing. The accelerator for handwriting recognition network (LeNet-5 model) is implemented. Silicon test results show that the asynchronous accelerator has 30% less power in computing array than the synchronous one and that the energy efficiency of the asynchronous accelerator achieves 1.538 TOPS/W, which is 12% higher than that of the synchronous chip.


Ulcerative inflammation of the cornea occurs in the perilimbal cornea, and is associated with autoimmune collagen vascular and arthritic diseases. Rheumatoid arthritis is the most frequent underlying disease. The tendency for peripheral location is due to the distinct morphologic and immunologic characteristics of the limbal conjunctiva, which provides access for circulating immune complexes to the peripheral cornea via the capillary network. Deposition of immune complexes in the terminal ends of limbal vessels initiates immune-mediated vasculitis, and causes inflammatory cell and protein leakage due to vessel wall damage. Development of peripheral ulcerative keratitis associated with systemic disease may represent worsening of a potentially life-threatening disease. Accompanying scleritis, particularly the necrotizing form, is usually observed in severe cases, which may result in corneal perforation and loss of vision. Although first-line treatment with systemic corticosteroids is indicated for acute phases, immunosuppressive and cytotoxic agents are required for treatment of peripheral ulcerative keratitis associated with multisystem disorders. Recently, infliximab, a chimeric antibody against proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha, was reported to be effective in cases refractory to conventional immunomodulatory therapy. The potential side effects of these therapies require close follow-up and regular laboratory surveillance.


In South Africa, the under-resourced and socially challenging contexts in which the majority of schools function, calls for leadership that has the vision to look beyond seemingly insurmountable problems. South African school leaders must develop the capacity to envisage and create schools that function well, in spite of the daunting environmental challenges. To facilitate the development of leaders capable of doing this, we engaged ten schools, and 24 school leaders, in an action research project. In this article we provide qualitative evidence that engagement with a systematic process of critical reflection and action facilitated epistemological and ontological shifts within the participating school leaders, contributing to changed perceptions and leadership practices. Critical reflection on the values underpinning this transformation also provided them with standards against which they can gauge the quality of their future leadership practices, thereby promoting sustainable development and improvement within their school communities.


The aim of the work described in this thesis was to develop and evaluate two rapid, colloidal gold-based, immunochromatographic assays, a 'cassette' and 'wick' type, both for the qualitative detection of the glycoprotein hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) in human urine and serum. hCG is present in large quantities in the urine and serum of pregnant women and thus, provides a means for diagnosing pregnancy. A key element of this work was to develop assays, which would be capable of competing strongly in this market.

The outcome of this project was a highly sensitive and specific cassette and wick hCG assay, having the capability to detect as low as 25 IU/L hCG on the first day of a missed period. These assays also had the capacity to detect levels up to 250,000 IU/L hCG before a 'hook' effect was observed. This analytical range was equal to the majority of the tests already on the market. Evaluation of the two assays yielded 100% sensitivity and specificity for the cassette assay with urine samples and 98.5% sensitivity and 100% specificity for serum samples. A sensitivity of 99.4% (urine) and 100% (serum) and a specificity of 100% (urine) and 98% (serum) were obtained for the wick assay. It should be emphasised that these assays are limited to the qualitative detection of hCG and subsequently, all positive results should be confirmed by a doctor. It is a measure of the success of the assays that predicted sales for the first six months of 2000 are estimated at -$60,000 for the cassette assay and -$100,000 for the wick assay.


In this paper we examine a suite of systems for content-based indexing and browsing of digital video and we identify a superset of features and functions which are provided by these systems. From our classification of these we have identified that common to all is the fact of being predominantly technology-based, with little attention paid to actual user requirements. As part of our work we are developing an application for content-based browsing of digital video which will incorporate the most desirable but achievable of the functions of other systems. This will be achieved via a series of continuously refined demonstrator systems from Spring 1999 onwards which will be subjected to analysis of performance in terms of user.


This article starts with the observation that, despite many solid reasons pointing in the opposite direction, many investors continue to hold overly concentrated positions, particularly with respect to low basis, at times legacy stocks. The authors then remark that investors that do understand the need for protection and/or diversification are faced with multiple strategies for accomplishing their goal. Although charitable and/or gifting strategies (charitable remainder trusts, private foundations, donor advised funds, etc.) are viable alternatives, they focus on increasing the tax efficiency of variable prepaid forwards (VPFs), one of the most commonly used financial strategies. Their purpose is to explore the concept that integrating VPF hedging strategies with a tax-enhanced reinvestment portfolio may improve the effectiveness of the VPF as a diversification strategy. Using an actual (but disguised) case study, the authors present a realistic investor scenario and then illustrate how the combination of a VPF with a tax-enhanced reinvestment portfolio can improve the overall effectiveness of the diversification strategy.


Support vector machines (SVMs) are a non-probabilistic binary linear classifier in machine learning techniques and are supervised learning algorithms that classify, predict, recognise and analyse patterns. This technique was developed in early 1990s.Training algorithms of support vector machines help build a model that assigns new examples into one class or the other when a set of training examples is recycled in the training process. This feature in SVM has attracted many of researchers to develop SVM methods and their applications. In this paper work support vector machines are used to tackle electrical faults in single phase circuits. Support vectors machines are evaluated against Simple Linear Regression techniques. Support vector machines outperformed Simple Linear Regression techniques.


Computer networks have long become the backbone of Enterprise Information System. The substantial share of the security problems are still encountered in Enterprise Network. Cyber espionage can effect Ethical, Military, Political and Economic interest anywhere. To provide secure computer networks, it is necessary to measure the relative effectiveness of security solution in the network. A network security metric enable a direct measurement and comparison of the amounts of security provided by different security solutions .In this paper we propose a novel security metric Zero Day Vulnerability Prevention Framework consists of bunches of algorithms. The above framework detects and prevents unknown vulnerabilities in Enterprise IP networks. It also protects the behavior of the sessions performed by the user from the huge range of attacks. It helps in monitoring database requests and prevents the attacks. The proposed framework also implements worm and virus detection to evaluate malware from the data. The system also presents scoring to the vulnerabilities and finally it performs security analysis with the help of Topological Vulnerability Analysis (TVA) tool. KeywordsNetwork Security; Enterprise IP networks; Zero day vulnerability prevention framework; Worm and virus detection; CAULDRON __________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________


: The results of combined histochemical, immunomorphological, and immunological studies on biopsy, operation, and autopsy materials from 184 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, 41 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, 66 patients with systemic sclerodermia. 35 patients with periarteritis nodosa are summarized. The main morphological changes in rheumatic diseases were found to be due to immunopathological reactions manifested as immune inflammation. According to the pattern of immunopathological mechanism, early and late immune inflammation manifested by humoral and cellular immunopathological reactions are distinguished. The predominant localization of lesions typical of each rheumatic disease, and the chronic self-maintaining pattern of inflammation are discussed.


In this paper, the authors had a research on the winter wheat yield estimation using retrieved LAI from remote sensing in typical 11 counties in Huanghuaihai Plain in North China. In order to improve the quality of data and reduce error of yield estimation, Savitzky-Golay filter (S-G filter) was used to smooth the NDVI series to reduce influences of cloud contamination and abnormal data. At the same time, Gaussian model was used to simulate daily crop LAI to get average LAI at each growth stage. Using these average LAI, the authors established relationships between LAI and yield of winter wheat at main growth stage. After optimization of yield estimation model, the best period of time and best model was selected out. Finally, the authors depended on retrieved LAI from MODIS-NDVI to estimate winter wheat yield. The results showed that average relative error was 1.21% and that RMSE was 257.33 kg ha−1 comparing predicted yield with ground truth data. We draw a conclusion that we could accurately get winter wheat yield about 20–30 days ahead of harvest time.


The secretion of monoclonal antibody in both batch and continuous cultures was studied. It was found that when hybridoma cells were continuously cultivated in a simple lab scale fermenter, they secreted less antibody than cells grown in stationary culture, even though the cell densities were the same. It appeared that monoclonal antibody was retained by the hybridoma cells in the fermenter, and in order to investigate this, membrane work was carried out. The effects of three ionophores on the hybridoma cells was studied. It was found that Valinomycin and Gramicidin were very toxic and killed the cells within a short period of time. Monensin was found to be less toxic, and although cell growth was inhibited, it appeared that this ionophore increased the secretion of monoclonal antibody from the cells.


This study aims at examining the influence of Dornyei's (2005, 2009) L2 Motivation Self System three main components, as well as integrativeness, instrumentality prevention, and intended effort, on prospective teachers' motivated behaviour. A total of 75 first-year pre-service school teachers at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) completed a questionnaire based on Taguchi, Magid & Papi (2009). The results confirm that student teachers show a positive disposition towards the learning of English as a foreign language. The L2 learning experience seems to play a major part in arousing students' motivation. The data also indicate that future teachers place more emphasis on integrative reasons (i.e. Ideal L2 Self and integrativeness) than on pragmatic or utilitarian motives (i.e. Instrumentality prevention and Ought to L2 Self) for learning the target language. In fact, integrativeness shows the strongest correlation with intended effort. T-test results also reveal that female participants seem to be more committed and dedicate more time and effort to learn the L2 than their male counterparts. Finally, the data show that university English majors appear to be more intrinsically motivated than non-English majors


Dupuytren's contracture in women is similar to that in men. A limited fasciectomy is the operative procedure of choice for women with Dupuytren's contracture. The most significant difference between men and women is the higher incidence of a flare reaction in women following the operation. This must be considered when contemplating such procedures because the flare is associated with a greater risk of residual joint stiffness.


Plant functional type (PFT) is a description of the main functional and structural characteristics of plant species, which ensure its vitality and adaptive capabilities. In practice, researchers choose a subset of these characteristics, based on a specific scientific task. We assessed the level of biological and ecological individuality and diversity of the whole community of the protected plant species towards plant functional types in Sumy region (Ukraine). At present, there are 150 species of protected vascular plants in Sumy region. The selection of key parameters to evaluate PFT of the protected and rare plant species has a significant limitation. The phytosozological literature contains no data which are usually taken into consideration for the widespread plant species. The biological and morphological parameters included life-form (4 levels), age (3 levels), root system (3 levels), presence and type of underground metamorphoses of the vegetative organs (5 levels), type of reproduction (5 levels). The analysis has shown that Euclidean distances are not equal to zero for a couple or a group of plant species. Each plant species has its own functional type which is characteristic only for it. Some six pairs or groups of species with the closest Euclidean distances in the range from .10 to .15 were revealed from a number of 150 examined plant species. Overall, only 13 species were considered as the similar by their functional type. The remaining 137 species have significantly large differences in their structure, biology, and ecology parameters. This result is consistent with the principle of structural and functional individuality of each of the taxonomic plant species. Based on this fact, the system of rare plant species protection in Sumy region should be individualised in accordance with the functional type of the specific protected plant species and its requirements for the ecological-coenotic environment.


Various affordable, operational technologies such as remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can significantly contribute to improved efficiency. The main focus of the project has been directed to the use of remote sensing to gain geological and geohazard information. This study examines the use of Remote Sensing (RS) technology in geological studies of Kainji area. Radar SAR images were used to classify the various geological fractures found in the area located in the Northern part of Nigeria. A wide variety of digital image processing techniques were applied such as the Principal Components (PC) analysis and ratioing. ERS-1 SAR image that has benefits of low resolution and cloud independence is used as data source to produce lineaments map after image processes such as edge enhancement, PCA and filters in an ILWIS 3.2 GIS environment. A total of 230 lineaments were observed using both a color composite image and the filtered images of the study area. The result indicates that the fractures in the area generally trend N-S, and E-W. There are also two prominent sets of fracture with both roughly oriented to NNE-SSW and most of the longer lineaments are concentrated in the NNW-SSE direction which implies that the lineament of the area are in the same direction with the tectonic forces that led to the fracturing of the outcrops. This was also shown and demonstrated by the direction of the digitized river channels.


The enormous increase in device connectivity for data and telecom devices places significant challenges on the packet processing techniques used in embedded systems such as IP stacks. Therefore, the traditional packet processing software cannot handle the line rate packet flow even for the most cutting edge devices. A solution to this problem is to allow applications to directly receive packets without passing through the normal kernel stack and drivers i.e. interface directly with the hardware. Two such open source libraries for Linux are PF_RING and Netmap. In addition Freescale has a similar technology called USDPAA.In order to satisfy the first goal of this project, a detailed analysis and evaluation of PF_RING, Netmap and USDPAA has been conducted in order to determine how they compare in relation to a number of criteria such as functionality, support, performance, ease of use, software/ hardware dependencies and project stability etc. Secondly based on the earlier work, a design is proposed that can be used to build and port an application to run on Freescale DPAA based hardware (P4080) on top of USDPAA.


Abstract:The hypothesis of a post-work society has provoked a newfound interest in the role of imagination in political thinking, made explicit by many authors who turned to the literary genres of utopian and sci-fi writing to sketch possible scenarios of a jobless future. This article proposes instead another mode of constructing political narratives, that of figuration. It reclaims three specific figures to demonstrate how it might be possible to build a public sphere of "unwork." The first is Bazlen, a fictional character of a writer who never wrote; the second is the collective figure of African American "othermothers"; and finally the third is Amy, the girl who gave flesh to Carol Gilligan's "ethics of care" proposition. Departing from these specific figures, the article tackles the problem of reimagining the labors (and pleasures) of social reproduction and creative action away from the work regime. It describes how processes of subjectivation sedimented in collective imaginary impact various modes of being together and naming social cooperation. The conclusions propose that the relationship between living labor and knowledge is a nexus that can escape the violence of capitalist relations only by understanding political action as a plural capacity of unwork.


Abstract Reproductive ecological traits such as success of fertilization, partitioning of sexes, the relative success of sexual versus asexual reproduction and dispersal distances are likely to considerably influence genetic structure within and among plant populations. In the liverwort Mannia fragrans both sexual and asexual reproduction can be frequently observed: sporophytes are produced abundantly every year and asexual propagation by fragmentation of thalli is also common. The aim of this study was to use ecological and molecular methods (ISSR markers) to separate the role of sexual and asexual components in shaping the partitioning of genetic variability within and among populations. In addition to genetic analyses conducted seasonally, sex expression and fertilization rates, sex ratios, regeneration from vegetative fragments and outcrossing was estimated in 3 populations of the species. Sex expression rates were high and, in spite of strongly female biased sex ratios, high fertilization rates were detected. However, capacity for regeneration from fragments was also high. Despite frequent spore production genetic diversity was low within populations. This is probably the result of the predominance of asexual reproduction s. 1. including crossing between genetically identical plants. Although recombination and mutation occasionally generates new haplotypes, these have little chance to spread because of the large spores mainly falling into their own patch, where chances for germination are low. Due to small size and isolation of the populations, genetic drift is likely to eliminate these haplotypes. Remote populations differed significantly, each being dominated by a few clones, reflecting negligible gene flow among them. Differences among individual populations can partly be related to differences in their reproductive behaviour and degree of isolation.


Two antibody method of aldosterone RIA kit was investigated. This kit was measured directly without extracting the aldosterone. On fundamental studies, stability of standard curve, reproductivity, recovery test and dilution test were obtained good results. On clinical studies, the diurnal variation of serum aldosterone concentration in normal child and adult was correlated well to that of concentration of cortisol and ACTH. The concentration of three hormones was the highest in the early morning and it was the lowest in midnight.


Most epidemiological studies suffer from misclassification in the response and/or the covariates. Since ignoring misclassification induces bias on the parameter estimates, correction for such errors is important. For measurement error, the continuous analog to misclassification, a general approach for bias correction is the SIMEX (simulation extrapolation) originally suggested by Cook and Stefanski (1994). This approach has been recently extended to regression models with a possibly misclassified categorical response and/or the covariates by Küchenhoff et al. (2005), and is called the MC-SIMEX approach. To assess the importance of a regressor not only its (corrected) estimate is needed, but also its standard error. For the original SIMEX approach. Carroll et al. (1996) developed a method for estimating the asymptotic variance. Here we derive the asymptotic variance estimators for the MC-SIMEX approach, extending the methodology of Carroll et al. (1996). We also include the case where the misclassification probabilities are estimated by a validation study. An extensive simulation study shows the good performance of our approach. The approach is illustrated using an example in caries research including a logistic regression model, where the response and a binary covariate are possibly misclassified.


Open source software (OSS) communities are dependent on the code contributions of developers who, in many cases, never meet face-to-face and collaborate primarily through technology-enabled means. With their fluid membership, such communities often rely on engaging the commitment of developers to their cause. Given the changing nature of OSS communities, developers face barriers in appreciating appropriate ways of contributing to the collaborative effort. Such uncertainty about how to contribute results in OSS communities losing developers as they devote their attention to other, more welcoming, communities. In this research, we draw upon uncertainty reduction theory to argue that developers have two alternative avenues at their disposal to gain certainty about how to contribute: passive and interactive. Leveraging the person–environment fit perspective, we argue that congruence and incongruence in the OSS values of a developer and an OSS community serve as an avenue for passive approaches to gaining certainty, to the degree that appropriate ways of contributing are encoded in these values. Further, leveraging social network theory, we argue that centrality within a community's communication network constitutes an avenue for interactive approaches for gaining certainty about how to contribute. Using polynomial regression analysis, we analyze survey and archival data from 410 developers in an OSS community. Results suggest that developer centrality moderates the impact of congruence and incongruence in OSS values on commitment. Moreover, commitment fully mediates the impact of OSS value congruence and incongruence on developer contribution activity. We discuss the implications of our findings for research and practice.


Levels of heavy metals in agricultural land can be reduced and neutralized with an inexpensive method, known as phytoremediation. The purpose of this study was to learn and know the ability Lindernia crustaceans , Digitaria radicosa , and Cyperus rotundus as fitoremediator for soil contaminated by gold mining waste containing mercury and its effects on growth and yield of maize The study was conducted in a glasshouse with sixteen treatments consisted of three plant accumulators, two soils contaminated with mercury, and two levels of organic matter application. The parameters measured were plant height, number of leaves, dry weight, crop N uptake,  Hg content, and uptake of Hg. The results showed that 10% of tailings contaminated soil (T1) contained Hg less than 20% of tailings contaminated soil (T2). The addition of organic material could assist in providing the nutrients needed by plants to improve soil fertility, so the potential for increased uptake and could reduce the content of Hg in tailing contaminated soil. Lindernia crustacea , Digitaria radicosa , and Cyperus rotundus are potential in reducing mercury concentration in tailing contaminated soils that in turn improved maize growth.


Here, accessibility to near-shore and offshore marine sites is evaluated based on wave and ice conditions. High-resolution third-generation wave model results are used to examine the operation and maintenance conditions for renewable energy sources with a focus on wave energy. Special focus is given to the wave field and ice characteristics for areas within the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone including analysis of return levels for extreme values for significant wave height, which provides guidance for dimensioning wave energy converters. It is shown that the number of weather windows and accessibility are influenced by distance from the coast and sea-ice conditions. The longest waiting periods for the closest weather window that is available for Operation and Maintenance (O&M) is in ice-free conditions shown to be strongly correlated with the fetch conditions. The sheltered Baltic Sea is shown to have very high accessibility if marine infrastructure and vessels are designed for access limits of significant wave height up to 3 m. In the northern basins, the waiting periods increase significantly, if and when the ice-conditions are found to be critical for the O&M activity considered. The ice-conditions are examined based on compiled operational sea-ice data over a climatic time period of 34 years. The results are location specific for the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone, but the analysis methods are transferable and applicable to many other parts of the world, to facilitate assessment of the most promising areas in different regions.


Empirical analyses that rely on micro-level panel data have found that exporters are generally less pollutant than non-exporters. While alternative explanations have been proposed, firm-level data has not been used to examine the role of destination markets behind the relationship between exports and pollution. In this paper, we argue that because consumers in high-income countries have higher valuations for clean environments than consumers in developing countries, exporters targeting high-income countries are more likely to improve their environmental outcomes than exporters targeting destinations where valuations for the environment are not high. Using a panel of firm-level data from Chile we find support to this hypothesis. A 10 percentage point increase in the share of exports to high-income countries is associated with a reduction in CO2 pollution intensity of about 16%. The results have important implications for firms in developing countries aiming to target high-income markets.


Many crystalline molecular rotors have been developed in the past decades. However, manipulating the rotational gesture that intrinsically controls the physical performance of materials remains a challenge. Herein, we report a series of crystalline rotors whose rotational gestures can be modulated by modifying the structures of molecular stators. In these dynamic crystals, the ox2- (ox2- = oxalate anion) behave as molecular rotators performing axial-free rotation in cavities composed of five complex cations, [MII(en)3]2+ (en = ethylenediamine). The structure of [MII(en)3]2+ that serves as a molecular stator can be tuned by varying the metal center with different ionic radii, consequently altering the chemical environment around the molecular rotator. Owing to the quasi-transverse isotropy of ox2- and multiple hydrogen-bond interactions around it, the molecular rotator exhibits unusual motional malleability, i.e., it can rotate either longitudinally in the compound of ZnII, or with a tilt angle of 42° in the compound of FeII, or even laterally in the compound of CdII. The atypical dynamic behavior demonstrated here provides a new chance for the development of exquisite crystalline molecular rotors with advanced tunable functionalities.


A new pitch extraction method named ACLOS (AutoCorrelation of LOg Spectrum) [Kunieda et al., ICASSP‐96, pp. 232–235 (1996)] is proposed. In this method, the fundamental frequency is estimated from the maximuum peak of the autocorrelation function of the log spectrum. ACLOS gives more robust and reasonable pitch information than other methods give. Quantitative evaluation of pitch extraction, however, has not been carried out. This paper presents a comparative performance of pitch extraction by ACLOS, the autocorrelation method, and the cepstrum method based on the assessment method employed by Rabiner [Rabiner et al., IEEE Trans. Acoust. Speech Signal Process. ASSP‐24, 399–418 (1976)]. In order to increase the robustness for noisy speech, ACLOS is modified. Clipping of the log spectrum before calculating the autocorrelation function is introduced, because noise remarkably affects the valley of the log spectrum in low SNR. Experimental results reveal that ACLOS can reduce the gross pitch error even if the ...


Series of samples of the composition Cu (Y1−xCax)Ba2Cu3O6+δ () have been prepared by a solid-state synthesis route. Precise oxygen content was determined for all the samples by iodometric titration. The c lattice parameter increases with increasing x, indicating successful substitution of Y3+ by the bigger Ca2+ ion. Resistivity (R) versus temperature (T) measurements show that the pristine sample (x = 0.0) is semiconducting down to 5 K. Induction of superconductivity is seen with increasing x. The x = 0.10 sample exhibits the onset of superconducting transition (Tconset) at 42 K without attaining a zero resistance superconducting transition temperature (TcR = 0) state above 5 K. For the x = 0.15 and 0.20 samples TcR = 0 is observed at 25 and 35 K with Tconset at 52 and 61 K, respectively. DC magnetic susceptibility measurements corroborated the findings from the resistivity measurements. Thermoelectric power (S) measurements in the temperature range of 5–300 K exhibit TcS = 0 at 25 and 35 K respectively for x = 0.15 and 0.20 samples. The room-temperature S value decreases with increasing x, indicating an enhanced number of mobile holes. Magneto-transport measurements in applied magnetic fields of 3 and 6 T show a broadening of the superconducting transition. These results will be useful in constructing a more complete phase diagram of the Cu (Y1−xCax)Ba2Cu3O6+δ system in terms of x and δ.


ABSTRACT
For the 2012 edition of EcoTrophelia, the authors of this abstract have developed a tasty
food snack based on sugar beet pulp, a by-product from sugar production from sugar beets.
The Healthy Snack
The developed product is some kind of a bread stick. It consists of pulp mixed with rye flour
and a little salt. The sugar left in the pulp and the added salt give the product a well
balanced taste suitable for more situations, both as e.g. cereals or as snacks. Beets are
known for their high content of fibers. Fibers are healthy to humans due to the satiety effect
they provide.
Business Aspects
Sugar production in Denmark is located on the South-East islands Lolland and Falster. This
region is lacking economical growth, why it would be naturally to invest and place the
production of this bread stick here. Further, the main raw material would be close by. It is
expected to be a sustainable business due to the intensified focus on healthy and tasty food.
Currently, sugar beet pulp is dried and then used for cattle feed. The process is energyintensive
and expensive. Therefore it is really value-adding to turn the pulp into human food.
Environmentally Friendly
Turning animal feed into human food is sustainable in this situation, where the raw material
is not even used fully across the globe. The tremendous amounts of energy used for drying
the pulp to feed pellets are also better spent on the baking of this bread product. Since the
product has a low water content and thereby low water activity there are only few
requirements for a packaging material. This allows choosing an eco-friendly material with
only few considerations on barrier properties etc.
Finally, this new resource utilization will direct growth to a Danish region often connected
with stories about industry shutdowns, high unemployment rates and socially low resourced
families. A new business venture like this would therefore provide a very positive social
impact on the environment.
Beet Snappers
The snack product is named Beet Snappers. Analyses have shown a sustainable market
potential in the EU with expectations on increased consumer demands on eco-friendly
foods. This product cannot claim to be organic. But it will, have low environmental impact
compared to comparable products due to:
- Vast animal feed supply turned into human food
- A production chain where, an evaporation step is skipped, saving energy
- The positive social impact when creating new jobs and growth
The important steps considered in the LCC performed are the material and manufacturing
stage. Use and disposal are hard to quantify since they take place in the human body.


This study aimed at identifying the behavior and attitudes that facilitated and the ones that damaged the teacher-student relationship experienced in a Nursing undergraduate program, from the students' point of view. We applied a questionnaire to sixteen students of a public university in the state of Ceara. Dialogue, friendship, flexibility and readiness on the part of the teachers of the program were mentioned as factors that favor the teacher-student relationship. Authoritarianism, intransigence and lack of flexibility were mentioned as prejudicial to this relationship. Thus, we can notice how relevant it is for teachers and students to be committed to the construction of a relationship that pursues the enhancement of the teaching-learning process. Keywords: Teaching; Nursing; Teacher-student relationship.


Abstract : This study investigated archeological and architectural sites at the Hillsdale Lake project in eastern Kansas. Investigation was directed toward the recovery of data pertinent to the identification of local cultures and time periods, the development of settlement patterns for each culture, the reconstruction of paleo-environments, and the development of models of ecological adaption for cultural systems through time. This report provides new information on Nebo Hill trade relationships, the definition of the Hertha Phase a Late Woodland manifestation and on the Pomona focus, Steed-Kisker complex and Great Bend Aspect. The architectural study focused on the development of a model describing the effects of the area's environment on the vernacular architecture and the chronology of types of structures in the project area. In addition, site types were cataloged. This volume discusses 35 sites.


The theory of fluctuation conductivity for an arbitrary impurity concentration including ultra-clean limit (Tτ ≫ √Tc/T – Tc) is developed. It is demonstrated that the formal divergency of the fluctuation density of states contribution obtained previously for the clean case is removed by the correct treatment of the nonlocal ballistic electron scattering. We show that in the ultra-clean limit the density-of-states quantum corrections are canceled by the Maki–Thompson term and only classical paraconductivity remains.


UDP-glucose is an essential metabolite for a variety of processes in the cell physiology in all organisms. In prokaryotes, it is involved in the synthesis of trehalose, an osmoprotectant, in galactose utilization via the Leloir pathway and it plays a key role in the synthesis of the components of the bacterial envelope, particularly the lipopolysaccharide and the capsule, which represent necessary virulence factors of many bacterial pathogens. UDP-glucose is synthesized in bacteria by the prokaryotic UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGP, EC 18.104.22.168), an enzyme belonging to the family of sugar:nucleotidyl transferases. Despite the ubiquitous distribution of UGP activity in all domains of life, prokaryotic UGPs are evolutionarily unrelated to their eukaryotic counterparts. Taken together, these features make of bacterial UGP an attractive target candidate for the discovery and development of new generation antibiotics. This review summarizes the current knowledge on structure and function of bacterial UGPs, underlying their potential as drug target candidates.


Part deformation has been a longstanding challenge for object parsing, of which the primary difficulty lies in modeling the highly diverse object structures. To this end, we propose a novel structure parsing model to capture deformable object structures. The proposed model consists of two deformable layers: the top layer is an undirected graph that incorporates inter-part deformations to infer object structures; the base layer is consisted of various independent nodes to characterize local intra-part deformations. To learn this two-layer model, we design a layer-wise learning algorithm, which employs matching pursuit and belief propagation for a low computational complexity inference. Specifically, active basis sparse coding is leveraged to build the nodes at the base layer, while the edge weights are estimated by a structural support vector machine. Experimental results on two benchmark datasets (i.e., faces and horses) demonstrate that the proposed model yields superior parsing performance over state-of-the-art models.


The results of free-stream wind tunnel experiments on semi-balanced skeg rudders are presented. The tests on these rudders are an extension to earlier tests on a parent skeg rudder, which were the subject of a separate report, and complete a series of tests on three skeg rudders having taper ratios of 0.59, 0.80 and 1.00. The experiments establish a better understanding of the working and performance of semi-balanced skeg rudders, and provide design data. Results are presented as lift and drag coefficients and centre of pressure for the rudder plus skeg combinations, for the rudders alone and skegs alone; complete ranges of rudder angles of attack were tested for selected positive and negative angles of attack on the skegs. Supplementary tests were carried out to determine the influences of Reynolds No., the size of the gap between rudder and tunnel floor, the transition strip and the effect of sealing the gap between rudder and skeg. In order to provide bases for comparison, the all-movable cases were simulated for each rudder by sealing the gap between rudder and skeg and varying the angles of attack on rudder and skeg simultaneously. The results for the all-movable cases compare very satisfactorily with existing published data. The results for the skeg rudders show that with increasing angle of attack, discontinuities occur in the growth of lift together with a large movement of centre of pressure. Sealing the gap between rudder and skeg was seen to lead to a significant improvement in the lift developed at higher rudder angles of attack. The results for the three skeg rudders are compared, and the flow breakdown accounting for the discontinuities in the skeg rudder characteristics is discussed.


Background— Hspa1a and Hspa1b genes encode stress-inducible 70-kDa heat shock proteins (Hsp70) that protect cells from insults such as ischemia. Mice with null mutations of both genes (KO) were generated, and their cardiac phenotype was explored. Methods and Results— Heart rate and blood pressures were normal in the KO mice. Hearts from KO mice were more susceptible to both functional and cellular damage by ischemia/reperfusion. Cardiac hypertrophy developed in Hsp70-KO mice. Ca2+ transients in cardiomyocytes of KO mice showed a delayed (120%) calcium decline and decreased sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium content. Cell shortening was decreased by 35%, and rates of contraction and relaxation were slower by 40%. These alterations can be attributed to the absence of Hsp70 because viral expression of Hsp70 in KO cultured cardiomyocytes restored these parameters. One mechanism underlying myocyte dysfunction could be decreased SERCA2a expression. This hypothesis was supported by a prolonged calcium decline and decreased SERCA2a protein. Viral SERCA2a expression restored contractility and Ca2+ transients. We examined the involvement of Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), p38-mitogen–activated protein kinase (p38-MAPK), Raf-1, and extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK) in SERCA2a downregulation and the cardiac phenotype of KO mice. Levels of phosphorylated JNK, p38-MAPK, Raf-1, and ERK were elevated in KO hearts. Activation of the Raf-1–ERK pathway in normal cardiomyocytes resulted in decreased SERCA2a. Conclusions— Absence of Hsp70 leads to dysfunctional cardiomyocytes and impaired stress response of Hsp70-KO hearts against ischemia/reperfusion. In addition, deletion of Hsp70 genes might induce cardiac dysfunction and development of cardiac hypertrophy through the activation of JNK, p38-MAPK, Raf-1, and ERK.


Based on first-principles calculations, multiferroic properties of orthorhombic manganites (RMnO3, R = La-Lu) with E-type ground state have been achieved by lanthanide contraction (chemical pressure) and/or external strain. Our research demonstrates that a smaller R radius within the octahedral voids in RMnO3 results in the increase in the tilts of the octahedra but only a gentle change in the Jahn-Teller (JT) distortion. The reduction of the intraplane octahedral rotation angle and the narrowed eg states and lifting t2g band edge are mainly responsible for the intraplane magnetic transition from ferromagnetic (La-Gd) to zigzag-like spin arrangement (Ho-Lu). In turn, the center-broken E-type RMnO3 bulk characterizes the dominated electronic polarization behavior, benefiting from their distortion response to small R substitution, which gives rise to the strong magnetoelectricity. Subsequently, we have figured out the strain strategy for obtaining an E-type transition in light rare-earth manganites (La-Gd) by imposing a series of hypothetical strains, where the small intraplane rotation angle (Θ) and large JT distortion favor the small aspect ratios of a/b and c/b, respectively. The strained LaMnO3 and GdMnO3 achieve E-type transitions successfully by imposing a modest compressive strain along the a- and c-axes and remaining free along the b-direction. Simultaneously, their polarization behaviors were comparatively studied. It was found that the size of the A-site rare-earth ions has a great influence on the external strain response, in addition to its effect on the magnetic phase transition.


In this chapter, we critically review the role of age-structured human capital in economic growth in the space-time domain and suggest (i) a theoretical framework for modeling growth interdependence across countries due to cross-country human capital accumulation and (ii) construct an empirical test for dynamic spatial growth correlations. Although (aggregate) human capital has been widely held as the engine of modern economic growth, the importance of age-structured human capital in growth generation is now recognized as inherently dynamic and that it unravels more about the explicit role of demographic process than its aggregate counterpart. Some cross-country studies using both aggregate and age-structured human capital have already depicted patterns that shows positive effect of human capital in economic growth. The main findings of this research are: cooperation in human capital accumulation policy across countries is welfare improving and that a dynamic correlation among countries growth processes exists which occur due to human capital accumulation differentials among them. We examine the case of four geographically clustered set of countries for empirical illustration.


Recent studies have documented the economically significant impact of bats as predators of agricultural pest insects. We used Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) of the cytochrome oxidase I gene to elucidate the diet of six species of bats based on faecal pellets collected from individuals and roosts in macadamia orchards at Levubu, Limpopo Province, South Africa. For five of these species, we compared the molecular data with published results from microscopic analysis of faecal pellets, culled parts and stomach contents. We provide the first description of the molecular diet of the large African molossid bat, Mops midas. Expectations from skull morphology and a single limited study of stomach contents were that this species should be a beetle-specialist. However, NGS revealed that the diet of M. midas contained a much higher prevalence and diversity of lepidopteran (81 taxa from 17 families) compared to coleopteran (two taxa) prey. While this result is predicted by the allotonic frequency hypothesis for a bat species with low echolocation frequency, it could also be explained by unequal PCR amplification, a constraint of amplicon sequencing. Apart from the above-mentioned species where our sample was probably unbiased (24 pellets from multiple roosts and occasions), sample sizes of the other five species were very low and therefore potentially biased (1–6 pellets). Nevertheless, these samples revealed for each bat species surprisingly many prey taxa spanning several insect orders, indicating that individual bats were capable of consuming a wide diversity of prey during one or two nights of foraging. Contrary to expectations, bats of all foraging groups (clutter, clutteredge and open-air) fed opportunistically on mostly-flightless cockroaches (Order Blattodea). About one third of all faecal pellets tested from five species of bats of all foraging groups contained DNA from the significant macadamia pest species, Nezara viridula (Order Heteroptera), indicating the value of intact bat communities in the biological control of pest stink bugs in macadamia orchards. Contrary to the general expectations of the allotonic frequency hypothesis, all six bat species studied fed predominantly on tympanate versus non-tympanate species of moths (57–75% of lepidopteran prey taxa), even those 'non-allotonic' bat species having intermediate echolocation peak frequencies that encompass the frequency sensitivity of hearing (tympanate) moths.


Abstract 3D city models are omnipresent in urban management and simulations. However, instruments for their evaluation have been limited. Furthermore, current instances are scattered worldwide and developed independently, hampering their comparison and understanding practices. While there are developed assessment frameworks in open data, such efforts are generic and not applied to geospatial data. We establish a holistic and comprehensive four-category framework '3D City Index', encompassing 47 criteria to identify key properties of 3D city models, enabling their assessment and benchmarking, and suggesting usability. We evaluate 40 authoritative 3D city models and derive quantitative and qualitative insights. The framework implementation enables a comprehensive and structured understanding of the landscape of semantic 3D geospatial data, as well as doubles as an evaluated collection of open 3D city models. For example, datasets differ substantially in their characteristics, having heterogeneous properties influenced by their different purposes. There are further applications of this first endeavour to standardise the characterisation of 3D data: monitoring developments and trends in 3D city modelling, and enabling researchers and practitioners to find the most appropriate datasets for their needs. The work is designed to measure datasets continuously and can also be applied to other instances in spatial data infrastructures.


In the age of human rights, the value of human rights strategy lies in its effective implementation. Nonetheless, the gap between human rights rhetoric and (non-)action around the world, especially in Turkey, causes serious discussions over the effectiveness of international human rights law and even over its existence. The role of the national human rights institutions in narrowing such a compliance gap has been well understood by human rights practitioners and scholars because compliance with international human rights law is eventually a domestic law issue. However, this article suggests that among these institutions, the Ombudsman institution is an effective but neglected compliance mechanism due to the fact that it lacks the power to issue legally binding decisions not only in Turkey but also in the world. With respect to Turkey, as the Turkish Ombudsman Act has recently passed by Parliament, this article also analyzes the effectiveness of the new Turkish Ombudsman prior to the establishment of the office.


In this paper we will discuss the current tensions that exist between UK anti-discrimination legislation and the professional and statutory regulatory bodies (PSRBs) that govern registration of health and social care practitioners in the United Kingdom. The tensions arise from aspirations for a work force that reflects the wider community and the need to safeguard patient safety. We present an overview of the relevant legislation and the requirements of the main health and social care professional statutory and regulating bodies, whose overall aim is safeguarding the general public. Four individual case studies, which have drawn on qualitative and quantitative data to explore some of the ensuing challenges and seek resolutions, are discussed and their outcomes synthesised to make recommendations. Conducting research with disabled participants requires specific considerations; we reflect on these in this paper and discuss our experiential learning.


Abstract : Qualification tests were performed to determine whether the in- service MIL-B-2427 Wood Box used for shipping and storage of MJU-28/B Target Flares could be utilized to contain properly dunnaged solid type hazardous materials weighing up to a gross weight of 23 kg (50.7 pounds). The tests were conducted in accordance with Performance Oriented Packaging (POP) requirements specified by the United Nations Recommendations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods, ST/SG/AC.10/1 and the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 49 CFR, Parts 107 through 178. The wood box has conformed to the POP performance requirements; i.e., it successfully retained its contents throughout the specified tests.


In 2010, the centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)004 and iPrEx trials (microbicide gel containing tenofovir and oral pill containing tenofovir–emtricitabine, respectively) demonstrated that antiretroviral preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) reduced the risk of HIV acquisition among high-risk individuals. To determine the facilitators and barriers to PrEP provision by health-care providers, we conducted an online, quantitative survey of Massachusetts-area physicians following the publication of the CAPRISA and iPrEx results. We assessed awareness and comprehension of efficacy data, prescribing experience, and anticipated provision of oral and topical PrEP among physicians, as well as demographic and behavioral factors associated with PrEP awareness and prescribing intentions. The majority of HIV specialists and generalist physicians were aware of data from these PrEP trials and able to correctly interpret the results, however, correct interpretation of findings tended to vary according to specialty (i.e., HIV specialists had greater awareness than generalists). In addition, provider concerns regarding PrEP efficacy and safety, as well its ability to divert funds from other HIV prevention resources, were associated with decreased intentions to prescribe both oral and topical PrEP. Findings suggest that a substantial proportion of physicians who may have contact with at-risk individuals may benefit from interventions that provide accurate data on the risks and benefits of PrEP in order to facilitate effective PrEP discussions with their patients. Future studies to develop and test interventions aimed at health-care providers should be prioritized to optimize implementation of PrEP in clinical settings.


To improve the wear-resistance of Ti600, and alleviate thermal stress as well under hyperthermal and excessive temperature difference condition, experiments of Ti-matrix FGM on Ti600 substrate by pulsed Nd:YAG had been carried out. The microstructures, microhardness and phase composition of FGM were investigated. And the friction wear properties of FGM, N-FGM and Ti600 substrate were examined in atmosphere. It was found that a rapidly solidified microstructure consisting of in situ synthesized TiC reinforced phase distributed on FGM substance evenly and dispersely in the form of globular grains had three main different shapes:bulky or imperfect arborescent crystal, fine or approximately equiaxial crystal and chopped fibriform crystal. With the increasing of original Cr3C2 content, the number and size of arborescent crystal increased obviously. The distribution of main alloy components was gradient and continuous, presenting the same composition and regularity to the originally preset alloy powder. FGM and N-FGM had an average hardness of approximately 1450, 4.5-5 times of Ti600 substrate, attributed to TiC primary dendrites. With the reducing of weight percentage of TiC, microhardness decreased gradiently and continuously. Meanwhile, the wear resistance of FGM and N-FGM was improved obviously. Friction coefficient, wear loss and wear rate decreased significantly, 0.3-0.5 times of Ti600 substrate.


The photodichroic silicate glass surface is a direct-read-after-write laser recording material which permits instant optical recording without processing of any kind. The required writing energy density at wega Hz rate and higher is 40 mj/cm2. An even, better writing sensitivity is expected for a preconditioned glass surface which is yet to be demonstrated at mega Hz rates. The inherent resolution. capability of this material is better than 2000 cycles/mm, which is consistent with the fine grain structure of the photodichroic silicate glass surface (grain size <0.02μm). The photodichroic silicate glass surface can be pre-recorded. with tracks of width fpm or less. It is potentially a pin-hole-free recording material due to the inherent homogeneity of the silicate glasses, and to the very small sizes of the photosensitive crystals, relative to the wavelength of light and the thickness of the pkotosensitive.glass surface layer. The physical effect of recording is irreversible, yet the recorded spots or bits are erasable. The erased 1-bit can be distinguished easily from the o-bit of course, not distinguishable in the normal read mode), when necessary. There is also a mechanism. to prevent erasing after recording and error corrections are completed. The writing is done with a polarized red light, and non-destructive read is done using a near infrared beam, with the recorded bits between crossed polarizers. The erasure is to re-expose with the wrice beam whose polarization direction has been rotated 45° with respect to the initial polarization exposure direction. In this manuscript, the physical effect of recording is discussed in detail, including the intensity dependent writing sensitivity, the threshold, effect, and the relationships among observed spot size, contrast and the writing energy iliensity. Recording in mega Hz rates as well as write-erase cycling are demonstrated. The read contrast of the recorded image is studied using video microscopy, and the transmission spectra of 1-bits between. crossed polarizers are measured. The origin. of the read contrast is discussed, and the experimental data on the spectra of dichroic absorption difference together with the associated birefringence are presented.


The paper analyses the relative importance of shocks to labor supply, aggregate supply, aggregate demand, monetary policy and immigration in explaining the course of the Israeli economy in 1989-2002. We use structural VAR with short-run and long-run restrictions in order to identify the structural shocks. We learn that variations in output were due mostly to shocks to productivity. (Unexpected) changes in the intensity of immigration play a significant role in explaining the variation of labor supply and contribute to the explanation of the shocks to aggregate supply. Temporary shocks to monetary policy play a relatively minor part in explaining deviations in labor and output supply, as was found in other studies for Israel and elsewhere. Our findings concerning the factors that affected actual growth during the period studied here are consistent with the actual decline in measured labor productivity during those years.


Various engineering project construction must go through planning and design, architecture construction, operation management and other stages. Each stage should carry out relevant measurements, including measuring project during the construction phase and initial operational phase which called construction surveying. Engineering Surveying is the key work during construction of architecture projects, which affecting the construction quality and operation process of architecture objects. A detailed surveying work should be conducted at the early stage of official start of architecture engineering, in order to grasp the geological conditions of construction site, and avoiding the occurrence of various diseases phenomenon during post-operation. Therefore, coordination between engineering units is needed to complete the surveying of architecture project together


Purpose of reviewWe review important new clinical observations in chronic pancreatitis made in the past year. Recent findingsTropical pancreatitis associates with SPINK1 and/or CFTR gene mutations in approximately 50% of patients, similar to the frequency in idiopathic chronic pancreatitis. Corticosteroids increase secretin-stimulated pancreatic bicarbonate concentrations in autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) by restoring mislocalized CFTR protein to the apical ductal membrane. Most patients with asymptomatic hyperenzymemia have pancreatic lesions of unclear significance or no pancreatic lesions. Common pitfalls in the use of diagnostic tests for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) confound interpretation of findings in irritable bowel syndrome and severe renal insufficiency. Further study is needed to improve the accuracy of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) to diagnose chronic pancreatitis. Celiac plexus block provides short-term pain relief in a subset of patients. SummaryResults of this year's investigations further elucidated the genetic associations of tropical pancreatitis, a reversible mislocalization of ductal CFTR in AIP, the association of asymptomatic pancreatic hyperenzymemia with pancreatic disorders, limitations of diagnostic tests for EPI, diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis by EUS and endoscopic pancreatic function testing and treatment of pain.


Abstract Purpose: To conduct an exploratory cost-effectiveness analysis of systemic treatment options for more advanced cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). Methods: A cost-effectiveness model compared systemic bexarotene, denileukin diftitox, interferon-α, methotrexate, pralatrexate, romidepsin, vorinostat, and extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) treatment of CTCL. Treatment effectiveness data were extracted from published studies and/or US product labeling. Overall response, the primary effectiveness measure, was defined as the proportion of patients achieving complete or partial response. Costs were based on wholesale acquisition cost (medications) and Medicare reimbursement rates (ECP, medication administration, adverse drug effect treatment). The perspective of the study was from that of a payer. Results: Methotrexate was the lowest cost option [mean $436; standard deviation (SD) $284], followed by interferon-α (mean $32,174; SD $27,582), denileukin difitox (mean $40,107; SD $18,598), and ECP (mean $40,985; SD $45,633). Other treatments had costs greater than $50,000, ranging from vorinostat ($65,958; SD $40,637) to bexarotene ($239,424; SD $178,881). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio per successfully treated patient was $396,725 (interferon) and $213,416 (ECP). Denileukin diftitox, romidepsin, and vorinostat were less effective and cost more than methotrexate. Conclusion: Methotrexate is the most cost-effective option for CTCL; however, its low cost is offset by its limited effectiveness in advanced stages of CTCL. ECP and interferon appear the next most cost-effective therapies.


The emergence of Zika in the Americas is a stark reminder of how quickly public health challenges of infectious diseases can change. The need for a safe and effective vaccine is immediate. Yet, like the Ebola epidemic 2 years ago, we find ourselves without a vaccine to combat this latest threat. When surveillance points to a possible emergence of a new infectious disease of potential public health importance, we need procedural and funding mechanisms that can quickly identify candidate vaccines and drive research and development toward licensure and production. Even if such a vaccine is not yet licensed, having it ready for immediate large trials when a regional crisis occurs will be a major advantage over our current reactive system.


A striking structural pattern of pollination networks is the presence of a few highly connected species which has implications for ecological and evolutionary processes that create and maintain diversity. To understand the structure and dynamics of pollination networks we need to know which mechanisms allow the emergence of highly connected species. We investigate whether social pollinator species are highly connected in pollination networks, and whether network structure is affected by the presence of high proportions of social pollinator species. Social insects are abundant, with long activity periods and, at the highest level of social organisation, specialised foraging castes. These three attributes are likely to increase the number of interactions of social species and, consequently, their role in pollination networks. We find that social species have, on average, more prominent network roles than solitary species, a possible mechanism being the individual-rich colonies of social insects. However, when accounting for the shared evolutionary history of pollinators, sociality is only associated with highly interactive roles in Apidae. For apid bees, our structural equation analysis shows that the effect of sociality on species network roles is an indirect result of their high levels of interaction frequency. Despite the relative importance of sociality at a species-level, an increasing proportion of social species in pollination networks did not affect overall network structure. Our results suggest that behavioural traits may shape patterns of interaction of individual species but not the network-level organisation of species interactions. Instead, network structure appears to be determined by more general aspects of ecological systems such as interaction intimacy, patterns of niche overlap, and species abundance distributions.


Minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) is becoming more widespread with a documented improvement in postoperative morbidity based on level I evidence. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding the optimal MIE approach, conventional thoracoscopy/laparoscopy vs robotics as well as the ideal anastomotic technique. All patients who underwent MIE via an Ivor Lewis approach with a side-to-side stapled anastomosis were included. The thoracoscopy-laparoscopy (TL) group was compared to the robotic group with respect to perioperative outcomes using the entire cohorts and after 1:1 propensity score matching. Comparisons were made using the Mann-Whitney U and Fisher's exact tests. Between July 2013 and November 2020, 72 TL and 67 robotic Ivor Lewis MIE were performed. After comparing the two unadjusted cohorts and 51 propensity matched pairs, there was a decrease in Clavien-Dindo Grade 2 or above complications in the robotic vs TL group (59.7% vs 41.8% [P = 0.042], (62.7% vs 39.2% [P = 0.029]), respectively. In both analyses, there was a reduction in hospital length of stay (median of 8 vs 7 days, P < 0.001) and a trend toward less anastomotic leaks in the robotic group (Unadjusted: 12.5 vs 3% [P = 0.057], Propensity-matched analysis: 13.7% vs 3.9% [P = 0.16]), respectively. A clinically significant decrease in overall morbidity, cardiac complications and hospital length of stay was observed in the robotic Ivor Lewis cohort when compared with the TL group at a high volume MIE program. Side-to-side stapled thoracic anastomoses utilizing a robotic platform provides the best outcomes in this single institution experience.


Hydrogels capable of responding to physicochemical dynamics in vivo are of significant interest in a variety of advanced biomedical applications. Herein, we develop novel fully biodegradable, biocompatible, highly elastomeric and pH-responsive copolymer hydrogels by direct crosslinking of the poly(glycerol sebacate) (PGS) pre-polymer and gelatin via their inherent functional groups without the use of any crosslinking agents. The addition of hydrophilic gelatin to the hydrophobic PGS enables the design of hydrogels with both elastomeric properties and water swelling capability as well as pH-responsive behaviours. The copolymer hydrogels were highly flexible and stretchable, enduring complex deformations such as stretching and knotting. Their Young's moduli were in the range of 0.16–0.62 MPa, mimicking the values of some soft tissues. A three-dimensional tissue scaffold with interconnected pore structures was also fabricated which shows full shape recovery after compression, further demonstrating a high potential of these copolymers to be used in soft tissue engineering applications. The pH-responsive swelling ratios of the copolymer hydrogels were found to be up to 11-fold different in acidic and basic environments, which resulted in pH-dependent release profiles of a model drug. Moreover, a tunable biodegradation kinetics with an ultimate full degradation in 11 weeks in vitro and good cytocompatibility in the cell metabolic assay with mouse fibroblasts were also achieved with these copolymer hydrogels. The versatile multifunctionalities in these new copolymer hydrogels illustrate their great potential in soft tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery.


With the rapidly unfolding China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI ) and the ongoing reform of the State-owned enterprises (SOEs), the number of overseas acquisitions by the Chinese SOEs in various industrial and services sectors is gradually on the rise. These transactions have raised a number of questions in terms of the assessment of the economic concentrations' potential impact on competition and challenged the traditional assessment tools employed by the merger control regimes. The paper examines the evolving experience of Chinese SOEs' acquisitions in the European Union (EU), which are subject to ex ante assessment under both EU and national merger control regimes. The analysis of the merger assessment practice of the EU Commission culminating in the recent conditional approval of the ChemChina/Syngenta merger indicates that the traditional assessment tools, when applied to the acquisitions by Chinese SOEs, may no longer be adequate to grasp the essence of their corporate governance and decision-making. The review of the merger control practice of the national competition authorities (NCAs) also demonstrates the absence of a coherent assessment approach to the cases involving Chinese SOEs, which may lead to the inconsistent enforcement and strengthening of the foreign investment screening on grounds other than market competition.


This thesis concerns various aspects of the durability offibre optic sensors embedded in composite. Since repair orreplacement of embedded sensors is not generally possible, thefunctional reliability of embedded sensors is one of the mostimportant prerequisites for successful use. The main researchobjective was to investigate the interaction between the sensorand the composite, and how this is affecting the mechanical andoptical sensor response. Fibre optic sensors embedded incomposite structures induce local stress concentrations whenthe composite is subjected to mechanical loads andenvironmental changes such as temperature and moisture. Acomplex transfer of stresses through the interfaces between theembedded sensor and the composite occurs and can result inlarge local stresses in the composite and a significant changein the response of the embedded sensor. These stressconcentrations make the interfaces susceptible todebonding.The sensor performance was studied experimentally andnumerically. Some basic results were generated for the EFPI andBragg grating sensors. The phase-strain response was determinedduring static and fatigue loading. The results showed that thesensors were more reliable in compression than in tensilestatic and fatigue loading. Generally, the sensor reliabilityduring loading was significantly improved for the Bragg gratingsensors over that of the EFPI sensor, as an effect of thesensor geometry. This was also demonstrated in theinvestigations on impacts. Impacts do not necessarily result indamage in the composite, but might cause debonding or otherfailure modes in the sensor area. Large, local stressconcentrations occur at several positions in the EFPI sensor,which pointed out that this sensor type was not suitable forembedded applications.The shift in focus from the sensor concept based on the EFPIsensor to that based on the Bragg grating sensor manifesteditself in several studies. The calculated deformation fieldaround an embedded optical fibre was verified in experimentsusing a high-resolution moire interferometric technique.Furthermore, the improvement in the coating technology wasverified. A significant higher interfacial strength wasobtained with the silane-treated glass surface. The resultsindicated that at least a twofold improvement of the shearstrength was obtained.To simultaneously measure the in-plane strain components andthe temperature change, embedded Bragg grating sensors werearranged in a rosette configuration. The relationship betweenthe optical response from each sensor and the strains in thelaminate was numerically and analytically established.Damage lead to stress redistribution in the sensor region,which may influence the output from the embedded Bragg gratingsensor. The effect was numerically evaluated for interfacialdamage, and was compared to that of a sensor with undamagedinterface. The results showed that debonding might have asignificant influence, in particular for combined thermal andmechanical loading.Keywords: composites, fibre optic sensor, embedded, EFPIsensor, Bragg grating sensor, durability, fatigue, impact,strain measurement, interface, stress analysis


Non-islet cell tumor hypoglycemia (NICTH) is an exceedingly rare paraneoplastic condition and often its commonest presenting symptom is hypoglycaemia. Most cases of NICTH are associated with underlying mesenchymal or epithelial neoplasm. However our case is unique as NICTH was associated with well differentiated liposarcoma, which has never been described before. Most of the reported cases of NICTH were diagnosed on the basis of biochemical tests. However NICTH can also be a diagnosis of exclusion as highlighted by our case report. This case also highlights both the diagnostic dilemma and the surgical challenges in the management of such cases. The elderly lady presented with repeated episodes of loss of unconsciousness for which she was hospitalised twice. Her symptoms closely resembled that of a cerebrovascular accident patient. However CT brain did not reveal any brain lesion. However she also had spontaneous episodes of hypoglycaemia which led to further investigations. Ultrasonography abdomen revealed presence of huge retroperitoneal mass on FNAB which was malignant. Subsequently, she was put on dextrose drip and thorough investigations ruled out metastatic disease. She underwent laparotomy and the mass was excised enbloc. Postoperative recovery was smooth and the hypoglycaemia resoled spontaneously. Final histopathologic examination was suggestive of well differentiated liposarcoma. At the 6-month follow-up, she was free from hypoglycemic episodes. This case highlights that NICTH can be a difficult diagnosis given its propensity to mimic several other benign conditions. NICTH can also be caused by liposarcomas. Diagnosis by excluding all other causes of hypoglycaemia is also an option where costly biochemical tests are unavailable. Surgical excision is the main stay of treatment.