The load forecasting has become an important role in the operation of power system, and several models by using different techniques have been applied to solve these problems. In the literature, the linear regression models are considered as a traditional approach to predict power consumption, and more recently, the artificial neural network (ANN) models have received more attention for a great number of successful and practical applications. This report introduces both linear regression and ANN models to predict the power consumption for Fortum in Ekero. The characteristics of power consumption of different kinds of consumers are analyzed, together with the effects of weather parameters to power consumption. Further, based on the gained information, the numerical models of load forecasting are built and tested by the historical data. The predictions of power consumption are focus on three casesseparately: total power consumption in one year, daily peak power consumption during winter and hourly power consumption. The processes of development of the models will be described, such as the choice of the variables, the transformations of the variables, the structure of the models and the training cases of ANN model. In addition, two linear regression models will be built according to the number of input variables. They are simple linear regression with one input variable and multiple linear regression with several input variables. Comparison between the linear regression and ANN models will be carried out. In the end, it finds out that the linear regression obtains better results for all the cases in Ekero. Especially, the simple linear regression outperforms in prediction of total power consumption in one year, and the multiple linear regression is better in prediction of daily peak load during the winter.


The paper outlines an approach to estimation and analysis of the futures basis in the U.S. cotton market under weakly rational expectations. Given the model specification derived from the underlying dynamic profit optimization problem of the dealers, the intermediary market model is estimated using the self-organizing state-space (SOSS) approach. Estimation results are used to evaluate the prediction power of the method and test the main assumptions about the existence and consistency of the subjective rational expectations incorporated in the model.


Purpose To evaluate clinical fundus photographs and angiograms in a consecutive series of infants with non-accidental trauma. Features of retinal non-perfusion, neovascularization, and tractional retinal detachment were assessed. Treatment methods, visual and anatomic outcomes were recorded. Methods Retrospective review of clinical notes, fundus photographs, and fluorescein angiograms of infants and children managed at two major children's referral centers between 1997 and 2004. Two enucleated eyes were also examined histologically. Results Thirteen eyes of seven patients were found on clinical examination to have peripheral or total retinal non-perfusion with neovascularization. This was confirmed with fluorescein angiography in ten eyes of five patients.Vascular remodeling with arterio-venous anastamosis was noted. Five eyes of three patients evolved to massive proliferative retinopathy and late hemorrhage leading to complex tractional retinal detachments from 6 to 18 months after the original injury. The presence of non-perfusion did not correlate with severity of injury or extent and location of hemorrhage on initial presentation. Visual outcomes were poor in many patients, ranging from 2/200 to no light perception. Interestingly, a set of enucleated eyes from a patient expiring shortly after shaking injury exhibited no peri- or intravascular inflammation on histological examination. However, the peripheral vasculature appeared to be reduced in diameter. Conclusion Peripheral or total retinal non-perfusion can be a sequela of non-accidental trauma in the shaken baby syndrome. Infants with this type of injury should have serial examinations and possibly fluorescein angiography as they may be susceptible to late vitreous hemorrhage and intractable retinal detachment. Further histological studies of eyes will prove to be invaluable in determining the mechanisms of non-perfusion in this syndrome.


The incidence and prevalent biotypes of G. vaginalis in patients with non-specific vaginitis from Bombay, was studied. Of 300 patients screened, 105 were diagnosed to have nonspecific vaginitis (NSV). G. vaginalis was isolated from 71 per cent patients with NSV; 34.6 and 29.3 per cent G. vaginalis were belonging to biotypes 5 and 1 respectively. In 55 per cent patient, G. vaginalis was associated with anaerobes. None of the isolated strains of G. vaginalis was sensitive to 5 micrograms metronidazole disc whereas 93 per cent of the strains were sensitive to 50 micrograms metronidazole disc.


In 2011 we published a paper showing that people update their beliefs to a greater extent in response to good news (e.g., learning that the likelihood of robbery is lower than expected) than bad news (e.g., learning it is lower than expected) (Sharot et al., 2011). This phenomenon, which can lead to increased optimistic beliefs, is absent in depression. Since then, our belief update task has been used by many others to test a wide range of questions related to belief formation and optimism. Most of these studies are rigorous and well conducted. However, a small number of researchers have used the task inappropriately, inserting new confounds and failing to control for other potential ones. This has resulted in the report of false findings which have muddied the literature and caused confusion. Given these incidents and the enthusiasm for using the task across different disciplines, the need for guidelines on how to use the belief update task correctly has become apparent. The belief update task can be a helpful tool in studying beliefs in domains ranging from climate change to health, but like any other task it must be used properly if valid conclusions are to be reached. We hope this guide will be helpful for scientists who would like to use the belief update task, as well as readers, reviewers and editors who are required to evaluate studies using this task.


Welcome to the Student Health and Counseling Services Nutrition Page. SHCS offers individual appointments, workshops and small group programs to discuss nutrition related issues. Whether you are looking for help with an eating disorder, management of elevated cholesterol, or meal planning tips SHCS Nutrition Services can help! Take a moment to browse through our resources and healthy recipes below. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to stay in touch [1].


Bioactive bone cement with mechanical properties higher than that of commercial polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) bone cement are strongly desired to be developed. In the present study, PMMA-based cement incorporated with nano-sized rutile particles was prepared. The PMMA-based cement (rutile content was 50 wt%) shows the compressive strength (136 MPa) higher than that of commercial PMMA bone cement (88 MPa). The hardened cement formed apatite on the surface in a simulated body fluid within 3 days. Therefore, this PMMA-based cement incorporated with rutile particles might be useful as cement for fixation of prostheses as well as self-setting bone substitutes, because of its high apatite forming ability and mechanical strength.


Reporting suicide is an important but challenging area of journalism practice. Learning how to report this complex, distressing subject is vital for journalists if they are to avoid contributing to the 800,000 annual suicidal deaths worldwide (WHO, 2019). Tuition on suicide reporting in higher education tends to be didactic and theoretical, focussing on media guidelines and codes of conduct. Thereafter, journalists' ability to implement this guidance is mixed. To address this, the authors devised the Responsible Suicide Reporting Model (RSR) which is grounded in news-work and embeds media guidelines within journalistic storytelling, consisting of a typology of suicide narratives and 'othering', ethical rules and a standard of moderation. This study tests the effectiveness of teaching the RSR Model using storytelling-as-pedagogy and problem-based learning. Firstly, we investigated students' perspectives on current educational offerings on suicide reporting through a survey of 229 students in the UK and Ireland who had no exposure to the RSR model. We then ran workshops with 80 students in the UK, teaching them the RSR model. The results showed that students with no exposure to the model–while they seemed to be aware of the theory of responsible suicide reporting–did not know how to implement it. Students who participated in workshops, where the RSR model was used, reported a greater understanding of responsible suicide reporting, believing they became better critically reflective practitioners.


A recognition of the fundamental and pervasive nature of decision making has resulted in the decision making process assuming an importance that is quite distinct from the detail of any particular problem. A logical and systematic approach developed over many years that shifted the emphasis away from the terminal act of selecting one course of action to an examination of the structure of the whole decision. This decomposition of decisions highlighted problems associated with various components. One such difficulty was the manner by which the consequences of selecting a course of action were to be represented. With monetary outcomes the use of the real value of money does not always represent a person's true preference pattern and Utility Theory has been put forward as a substitute by which direct preferences and attitudes towards risk can be codified and transformed into a numerical scale. In this study Utility Theory was viewed as a normative decision making aid and two sets of experiments, involving twenty-nine business managers, were carried out, firstly to create personal utility functions and secondly to gauge to what extent they were workable. A self administered utility test was specially developed to obtain pound-utile co-ordinates and a least squares regression approach adopted to fit a quartic function to them. This method avoided many problems experienced by previous researchers, particularly the length of time demanded of each subject and the mathematical description of the pound - utile relationship. As a test of the workable nature of the derived functions a second set of experiments were carried out where each manager was presented with twenty-four hypothetical business decision problems, contained in narrative form. Testing the effectiveness of the utility functions could not be done simply by comparing actual and prescribed behaviour alone as the functions were being looked upon as normative and not necessarily predictive of what each subject would do. The managers were therefore assigned to one of three groups. Group one were given details of their utility prescriptions prior to tackling the decision problems. Group two were given their prescriptions after they had provided answers to the decisions and were then given the opportunity to make any alterations and group three were given no information about their prescriptions, A significant variation was detected between the three groups with those having knowledge of their prescriptions displaying the smallest differences between actual and prescribed behaviour. While the timing of this knowledge did not seem to be important the managers, all mature executives, made considerable use of the information they were given. A wide monetary range was covered by the decision problems but for subjects, with knowledge of their prescriptions, the mean difference between actual and prescribed behaviour, over the twenty-four decisions, was as low as


Microcantilevers with polymer coatings hold great promise as resonant chemical sensors. It is known that the sensitivity of the coated cantilever increases with coating thickness; however, increasing this thickness also results in an increase of the frequency noise due to a decrease of the quality factor. By taking into account only the losses associated with the silicon beam and the surrounding medium, the decrease of the quality factor cannot be explained. In this paper, an analytical expression is obtained for the quality factor, which accounts for viscoelastic losses in the coating. This expression explains the observed decrease of the quality factor with increasing polymer thickness. This result is then used to demonstrate that an optimum coating thickness exists that will maximize the signal-to-noise ratio and, thus, minimize the sensor limit of detection


Personalized video highlight detection aims to shorten a long video to interesting moments according to a user's preference, which has recently raised the community's attention. Current methods regard the user's history as holistic information to predict the user's preference but negating the inherent diversity of the user's interests, resulting in vague preference representation. In this paper, we propose a simple yet efficient preference reasoning framework (PR-Net) to explicitly take the diverse interests into account for frame-level highlight prediction. Specifically, distinct user-specific preferences for each input query frame are produced, presented as the similarity weighted sum of history highlights to the corresponding query frame. Next, distinct comprehensive preferences are formed by the user-specific preferences and a learnable generic preference for more overall highlight measurement. Lastly, the degree of highlight and non-highlight for each query frame is calculated as semantic similarity to its comprehensive and non-highlight preferences, respectively. Besides, to alleviate the ambiguity due to the incomplete annotation, a new bidirectional contrastive loss is proposed to ensure a compact and differentiable metric space. In this way, our method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods with a relative improvement of 12% in mean accuracy precision.


Building change detection is a major issue for urban area monitoring. Due to different imaging conditions and sensor parameters, 2-D information delivered by satellite images from different dates is often not sufficient when dealing with building changes. Moreover, due to the similar spectral characteristics, it is often difficult to distinguish buildings from other man-made constructions, like roads and bridges, during the change detection procedure. Therefore, stereo imagery is of importance to provide the height component which is very helpful in analyzing 3-D building changes. In this paper, we propose a change detection method based on stereo imagery and digital surface models (DSMs) generated with stereo matching methodology and provide a solution by the joint use of height changes and Kullback-Leibler divergence similarity measure between the original images. The Dempster-Shafer fusion theory is adopted to combine these two change indicators to improve the accuracy. In addition, vegetation and shadow classifications are used as no-building change indicators for refining the change detection results. In the end, an object-based building extraction method based on shape features is performed. For evaluation purpose, the proposed method is applied in two test areas, one is in an industrial area in Korea with stereo imagery from the same sensor and the other represents a dense urban area in Germany using stereo imagery from different sensors with different resolutions. Our experimental results confirm the efficiency and high accuracy of the proposed methodology even for different kinds and combinations of stereo images and consequently different DSM qualities.


There are many collection and application sources of identity theft. The Internet is one of the vulnerable medias for identity theft and is used, especially, as an application source of identity theft. This current chapter has twofold objectives. As the first objective, it develops a conceptual framework to prevent/ control identity theft of E-Commerce (EC) in conjunction with different sources if identity theft. From this framework and shedding light on the recent literature of sources of identity theft, the authors identify global laws, controls placed on organizations, publications to develop awareness, technical management, managerial policy, risk management tools, data management, and control over employees are the potential measuring items to prevent identity theft in EC. All EC organizations are struggling to control identity theft. This chapter argues that control mechanism of identity theft has both positive and negative impact on EC. This chapter sets its second objective to explore the integrative effect of overall identity theft control mechanism on consumer trust, the cost of products/services, and operational performance, all of which in turn contribute to a purchase intention using E-Commerce (EC). A case study in banking sector through a qualitative approach was conducted to verify the proposed relations, constructs, and measuring items. Control Mechanism of Identity Theft and Its Integrative Impact on Consumers' Purchase Intention in E-Commerce


In this project, the human work is made simple and is very helpful for those who don't have time and need a labour to look after their greenhouse. The other main objective of the project is to bring agriculture possible irrespective of any seasonal change since it is very mandatory for any living being to survive. For any application in the industries there are many parameters to be handled, likewise even in greenhouse many parameters should be monitored regularly. Thus this project helps to those who like to build their own greenhouse but don't have time to look after it regularly and here in my project the greenhouse is built using glass and it can be placed in any place. The power is supplied to the loads from solar panel along with the battery and an inverter. This application is used to save the power, water usage, human work etc., in the greenhouse based on sensors. Here I have used a number of sensors and motors in order to make the greenhouse fully automated and that is going to be a SMART one for future agriculture. The temperature of both the inside and outside of the greenhouse is measured using a temperature sensor. A soil moisture sensor to check whether the plant is in need of water or not. LED is used in order to sense the light and the tube light is switched accordingly. The ultrasonic sensor is used to calculate the plant's height and how far it has evolved, as well as to perform other tasks such as water level-based automatic switching of the motor pump that supplies water to the greenhouse. DHT11 is used to keep track of the values. A PIR sensor is used to detect human activity, and the information is sent to the web page. All the outputs of sensors are sent to the controller which here used is a Node MCU, and based on that certain loads are activated through relay driver. Here IoT is used such that the values of certain parameters are made to display in a webpage. In order to make some things easier it is designed in such a way that the green house can also be controlled manually from remote by logging into the webpage and switching certain loads. By doing so in case of any malfunctioning of the greenhouse automatic circuitry part, we can control and switch off it until it is repaired. Thus by this project electronic devices and innovations help agriculture to become easier and possible irrespective of any seasonal change.


Cerebellar stellate cells form inhibitory synapses with Purkinje cells, the sole output of the cerebellum. Upon stimulation by a pair of varying inhibitory and fixed excitatory presynaptic inputs, these cells do not respond to excitation (i.e., do not generate an action potential) when the magnitude of the inhibition is within a given range, but they do respond outside this range. We previously used a revised Hodgkin–Huxley type of model to study the nonmonotonic first-spike latency of these cells and their temporal increase in excitability in whole cell configuration (termed run-up). Here, we recompute these latency profiles using the same model by adapting an efficient computational technique, the two-point boundary value problem, that is combined with the continuation method. We then extend the study to investigate how switching in responsiveness, upon stimulation with presynaptic inputs, manifests itself in the context of run-up. A three-dimensional reduced model is initially derived from the original six-dimensional model and then analyzed to demonstrate that both models exhibit type 1 excitability possessing a saddle-node on an invariant cycle (SNIC) bifurcation when varying the amplitude of Iapp. Using slow-fast analysis, we show that the original model possesses three equilibria lying at the intersection of the critical manifold of the fast subsystem and the nullcline of the slow variable hA (the inactivation of the A-type K+ channel), the middle equilibrium is of saddle type with two-dimensional stable manifold (computed from the reduced model) acting as a boundary between the responsive and non-responsive regimes, and the (ghost of) SNIC is formed when the hA-nullcline is (nearly) tangential to the critical manifold. We also show that the slow dynamics associated with (the ghost of) the SNIC and the lower stable branch of the critical manifold are responsible for generating the nonmonotonic first-spike latency. These results thus provide important insight into the complex dynamics of stellate cells.


Climate changes alter regional hydrologic conditions and results in a variety of impacts on water resource systems. Such hydrologic changes will affect almost every aspect of human well-being. The economy of Ethiopia mainly depends on agriculture, and this in turn largely depends on available water resources. The aim of this study is to assess the impacts of climate change on surface water resource availability of upper Awash River basin by using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model and Regional climate model. This studies were present the results on downscaling of large scale atmospheric variables simulated with regional climate model (RCM) to meteorological variables at local scale in order to investigate the hydrological impact of a possible future climate change scenario for three Bench mark year 2020, 2050 and 2080 under A1B emission scenario from ECHAM5 model was used in this work. Bias-correction methods have been developed to adjust RCM climate variables. Average annual maximum temperature changes for the upper awash sub-basin were 2020: 0.53 °C, 2050 1.18 °C, and 2080: 1.87 °C relative to the historical climate. Average annual minimum temperature change for were 0.58°C, 0.82 °C and 2.14 °C in 2020, 2040 and 2080 respectively. Basin-average annual rainfall based on the CCLM downscaling were 2.4, -2.14 and -10.109% for future periods of 2011-2040, 2041-2070 and 2071-2100 respectively. The annual reduction of stream flow for Upper Awash sub-basin for A1B scenario is 2.46 %and 18.14% in 2050s and 2080s respectively. But for the time period of 2020s the stream flow increased by 4.9% for A1B scenario The simulated flow at: 2041-2070 and 2071-2100 with scenario from RCM shows reduction of runoff by 1.52% and 3.52% in the sub-basin and it is directly related to the reduction and increment in precipitation, but the annual runoff increase in 2020 by 8%. Model result shows that about 44.36% of annual rainfall contributes to stream flow as surface runoff. The paper was also including potential strategy recommendations to communities, policy and decision makers for planning adaptation measures in the water sector of the study area.


Abstract In 2008, using a model of compression brain ischemia, we presented the first evidence that mitochondria-targeted antioxidants of the SkQ family, i.e. SkQR1 [10-(6′-plastoquinonyl)decylrhodamine], have a neuroprotective action. It was shown that intraperitoneal injections of SkQR1 (0.5–1 μmol/kg) 1 day before ischemia significantly decreased the damaged brain area. Later, we studied in more detail the anti-ischemic action of this antioxidant in a model of experimental focal ischemia provoked by unilateral intravascular occlusion of the middle cerebral artery. The neuroprotective action of SkQ family compounds (SkQR1, SkQ1, SkQTR1, SkQT1) was manifested through the decrease in trauma-induced neurological deficit in animals and prevention of amyloid-β-induced impairment of long-term potentiation in rat hippocampal slices. At present, most neurophysiologists suppose that long-term potentiation underlies cellular mechanisms of memory and learning. They consider inhibition of this process by amyloid-β1-42 as an in vitro model of memory disturbance in Alzheimer's disease. Further development of the above studies revealed that mitochondria-targeted antioxidants could retard accumulation of hyperphosphorylated τ-protein, as well as amyloid-β1-42, and its precursor APP in the brain, which are involved in developing neurodegenerative processes in Alzheimer's disease.


Climate change is a two‐way street during the Anthropocene: civilization depends upon a favorable climate at the same time that it modifies it. Yet studies that forecast economic growth employ fundamentally different equations and assumptions than those used to model Earth's physical, chemical, and biological processes. In the interest of establishing a common theoretical framework, this article treats humanity like any other physical process; that is, as an open, nonequilibrium thermodynamic system that sustains existing circulations and furthers its material growth through the consumption and dissipation of energy. The link of physical to economic quantities comes from a prior result that establishes a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and a historical accumulation of global economic wealth. What follows are nonequilibrium prognostic expressions for how wealth, energy consumption, and the Gross World Product (GWP) grow with time. This paper shows that the key components that determine whether civilization "innovates" itself toward faster economic growth include energy reserve discovery, improvements to human and infrastructure longevity, and reductions in the amount of energy required to extract raw materials. Growth slows due to a combination of prior growth, energy reserve depletion, and a "fraying" of civilization networks due to natural disasters. Theoretical and numerical arguments suggest that when growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to such externalities as natural disasters, and the risk is for an accelerating collapse.


Sometimes you just need to solve a problem and get on with your work. To that end, Visual Basic 2008 Recipes is a compendium of practical solutions for busy VB .NET programmers. Create time for the more interesting aspects of your VB .NET project by solving common problems with the practical solutions and dozens of code examples in this book. Important new .NET 3.5 technologies, such as Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) and Language Integrated Query (LINQ), are covered, and each chapter addresses a specific problem domain, including database access, multimedia, XML manipulation, networking, and security. The code is free to download so you can use the recipes immediately. Take advantage of quality, readymade solutions to common Visual Basic programming problems. Avoid the tedium of having to reinvent the wheel. Focus instead on the more interesting problems specific to your application. Learn from and be inspired by what the authors have done. Use their work as stepping stones to solve even more complex problems. What youll learn Cleanly separate userinterface logic from business logic through the use of .NET 3.5s WPF. Store data to and retrieve data from your relational database using LINQ. Manipulate XML data using LINQ. Make your programs dynamically configurable through the judicious application of reflection. Take advantage of multiple CPU cores by writing multithreaded applications. Integrate multimedia into your Visual Basic projects. Who is this book for? Visual Basic 2008 Recipes is written for Visual Basic developers who have at least some experience in developing Visual Basic solutions. The book contains recipes appealing to intermediate through advanced developers. Related Titles Accelerated VB 2008 Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in VB 2005 Beginning Object-Oriented Programming with VB 2005: From Novice to Professional


Background Probody® therapeutics are antibody prodrugs that are activated in the tumor microenvironment by tumor-associated proteases, thereby restricting the activity to the tumor microenvironment and minimizing 'off-tumor' toxicity. We report dose-escalation and single-agent expansion phase data from the first-in-human study of CX-072 (pacmilimab), a Probody checkpoint inhibitor directed against programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). Methods In the dose-escalation phase of this multicenter, open-label study (NCT03013491), adults with advanced solid tumors (naive to programmed-death-1/PD-L1 or cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 inhibitors) were enrolled into one of seven dose-escalation cohorts, with pacmilimab administered intravenously every 14 days. The primary endpoints were safety and determination of the maximum tolerated dose (MTD). In the expansion phase, patients with one of six prespecified malignancies (triple-negative breast cancer [TNBC]; anal squamous cell carcinoma [aSCC]; cutaneous SCC [cSCC]; undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma [UPS]; small bowel adenocarcinoma [SBA]; and thymic epithelial tumor [TET]); or high tumor mutational burden (hTMB) tumors were enrolled. The primary endpoint was objective response (Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors v.1.1). Results An MTD was not reached with doses up to 30 mg/kg. A recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) of 10 mg/kg was chosen based on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic findings in the expansion phase. Ninety-eight patients enrolled in the expansion phase: TNBC (n=14), aSCC (n=14), cSCC (n=14), UPS (n=20), SBA (n=14), TET (n=8), and hTMB tumors (n=14). Of 114 patients receiving pacmilimab at the RP2D, grade ≥3 treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) were reported in 10 patients (9%), serious TRAEs in six patients (5%), and treatment discontinuation due to TRAEs in two patients (2%). Grade ≥3 immune-related AEs occurred in two patients (rash, myocarditis). High PD-L1 expression (ie, >50% Tumor Proportion Score) was observed in 22/144 (19%) patients. Confirmed objective responses were observed in patients with cSCC (n=5, including one complete response), hTMB (n=4, including one complete response), aSCC (n=2), TNBC (n=1), UPS (n=1), and anaplastic thyroid cancer (n=1). Conclusions Pacmilimab can be administered safely at the RP2D of 10 mg/kg every 14 days. At this dose, pacmilimab had a low rate of immune-mediated toxicity and showed signs of antitumor activity in patients not selected for high PD-L1 expression. Trial registration number NCT03013491.


We derive generalization error (loss) bounds for orthogonal matching pursuit algorithms, starting with kernel matching pursuit and sparse kernel principal components analysis. We propose (to the best of our knowledge) the first loss bound for kernel matching pursuit using a novel application of sample compression and Vapnik-Chervonenkis bounds. For sparse kernel principal components analysis, we find that it can be bounded using a standard sample compression analysis, as the subspace it constructs is a compression scheme. We demonstrate empirically that this bound is tighter than previous state-of-the-art bounds for principal components analysis, which use global and local Rademacher complexities. From this analysis we propose a novel sparse variant of kernel canonical correlation analysis and bound its generalization performance using the results developed in this paper. We conclude with a general technique for designing matching pursuit algorithms for other learning domains.


Abstract. A continuum damage mechanics model has been derived within the framework of irreversible thermodynamics with internal variables in order to describe the behaviour of quasi-brittle materials under various loading paths. The anisotropic character induced by the progressive material degradation is explicitly taken into account, and the Helmholtz free energy is a scalar function of the basic invariants of the second order strain and damage tensors. The elastic response varies depending on the closed or open configuration of defects. The constitutive laws derived within the framework of irreversible thermodynamics theory display a dissymmetry as well as unilateral effects under tensile and compressive loading conditions. This approach verifies continuity and uniqueness of the potential energy. An application to uniaxial tension-compression loading shows a good adequacy with experimental results when available, and realistic evolutions for computed stresses and strains otherwise.


AROMATHERAPY AND MASSAGE FOR PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DIFFICULTIES. Helen Sanderson, Jane Harrison, Shirley Price. Hands-on Publishing 1991. 181pp. £8.95. ISBN 0 9518172 0 5. Aromatherapy and massage are two alternative therapies which are currently in vogue among professionals in education, health and social services. While indicating the need for aromatherapists and massage therapists, the authors believe that anybody can introduce the practice of these therapies into the lives of people with learning difficulties. The authors, who are arornatherapists (Helen Sanderson is also an occupational therapist) or massage therapists, advocate the use of John O'Brien's five key areas of experience choice, community presence, respect, capability and relationships when offering aromatherapy and massage to people with learning disabilities. The authors also deal with the importance of touch and smell, essential oils and techniques of aroma and massage therapies. They cite short case histories to illustrate the application of their work.


Teaching in on-line and collaborative situations requires a variety of responses including changes in pedagogy as instructors taking the role of facilitators of information while guiding students toward solutions. In order for online learning to be successful, therefore, teachers as well as learners will need to explore new roles in the teaching-learning relationship. In this paper, the authors propose to examine how educators can mediate instruction by first designing their course goals and objectives and then consider how the on-line environment can best serve the instructional objectives and plan appropriate activities and assessment. We seek to explore the use of online environments as the bridge between real world and reflective knowledge.


Aims: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is associated with impaired cognitive functioning. Glutamatergic pathways have been linked with cognition and are hypothesized to be disrupted in 22q11.2DS patients, possibly 'shifting' the excitatory (glutamate)/inhibitory (GABA) balance. Hence, the glutamate/GABA balance may constitute a target for pharmacological treatment. We aimed to examine alterations of glutamate/GABA metabolites in 22q11.2DS in vivo using riluzole, a compound with glutamate/GABA-modulating action, as pharmacological challenge. Methods: Seventeen 22q11.2DS patients and 20 matched healthy controls were enrolled in this randomized double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study. Glutamate and glutamine concentrations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum, as well as ACC GABA concentrations were obtained after placebo and after a single dose of 50 mg riluzole using 7-Tesla magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Within the 22q11.2DS group, the relationship between metabolite concentrations and cognition was examined. Results: No group differences were found in ACC and striatal metabolite concentrations following placebo. Riluzole numerically decreased ACC (η2 = 0.094) but not striatal glutamate concentrations as well as ACC GABA concentrations (η2 = 0.176) in all subjects. In both regions, riluzole did not alter glutamine concentration. No interaction effects were found. Although not significant after Bonferroni correction, ACC glutamate concentrations were inversely correlated with cognitive functions in 22q11.2DS patients. Discussion: We did not demonstrate altered ACC and striatal metabolite concentrations in 22q11.2DS. Nevertheless, these results suggest that glutamate and GABA can be modulated with a single dose of riluzole. Possibly, riluzole may have memory-enhancing effects in 22q11.2DS. Future studies should examine the long-term effects of riluzole on cognition.


This article describes the methods and materials used to easily and quickly capture excursive mandibular border movements. The novel method can be used for edentulous and dentulous patients and provides bilateral, three-dimensional record stability. It allows an uncomplicated method of setting a semiadjustable articulator.


Hands‐on dissections using cadaveric tissues for neuroanatomical education are not easily available in many educational institutions due to financial, safety, and ethical factors. Supplementary pedagogical tools, for instance, 3D models of anatomical specimens acquired with photogrammetry are an efficient alternative to democratize the 3D anatomical data. The aim of this study was to describe a technical guideline for acquiring realistic 3D anatomic models with photogrammetry and to improve the teaching and learning process in neuroanatomy. Seven specimens with different sizes, cadaveric tissues, and textures were used to demonstrate the step‐by‐step instructions for specimen preparation, photogrammetry setup, post‐processing, and display of the 3D model. The photogrammetry scanning consists of three cameras arranged vertically facing the specimen to be scanned. In order to optimize the scanning process and the acquisition of optimal images, high‐quality 3D models require complex and challenging adjustments in the positioning of the specimens within the scanner, as well as adjustments of the turntable, custom specimen holders, cameras, lighting, computer hardware, and its software. MeshLab® software was used for editing the 3D model before exporting it to MedReality® (Thyng, Chicago, IL) and SketchFab® (Epic, Cary, NC) platforms. Both allow manipulation of the models using various angles and magnifications and are easily accessed using mobile, immersive, and personal computer devices free of charge for viewers. Photogrammetry scans offer a 360° view of the 3D models ubiquitously accessible on any device independent of operating system and should be considered as a tool to optimize and democratize the teaching of neuroanatomy.


An experiment was established on a San Anton soil (Cumulic Haplustolls) in southern Puerto Rico to evaluate the effect of chicken manure (0, 5, 10 and 15 t/ha) and nitrogen fertilizer (0, 56, 112 and 168 kg/h) on some soil chemical properties and tomato production. Chicken manure was broadcast and incorporated into the soil whereas urea, the nitrogen source, was applied by fertigation. A significant lineal effect was observed in exchangeable Mg 2+ and K + , electrical conductivity and Olsen available P with chicken manure applications. In the check treatment (no manure), exchangeable Mg 2+  was 2.54 cmol c /kg; exchangeable K + , 0.99 cmol./kg; electrical conductivity, 0.79 mmhos/cm; and available P, 52.58 mg/kg. The application of 15 t/ha of chicken manure increased exchangeable Mg 2+  to 2.70 cmol c /kg, exchangeable K +  to 1.29 cmol c /kg, electrical conductivity to 2.22 mmhos/cm and available P to 83.98 mg/kg. Soil pH decreased significantly with the same treatment from 7.50 in the check treatment to 6.98 in the 15 t/ha chicken manure treatment. Chicken manure increased soil exchangeable NO 3 -  at a depth of 20 cm, but did not increase exchangeable NH 4 + .  Application of chicken manure did not increase tomato yield significantly; however, it increased significantly the number of large and medium fruits. It is suggested that an exchangeable NO 3 -  content of about 15 to 20 mg/kg is adequate for optimum tomato production in a San Anton soil.


This paper provides an historical perspective on the crisis of 2007-2008. The crisis is part of a perennial pattern. It has echoes in earlier big international financial crises which were triggered by events in the U.S. financial system. Examples include the crises of 1857, 1893 1907 and 1929-33. This crisis has many similarities to those of the past but also some important modern twists.


The paper presents a Petri net approach for the modelling of a CNC-milling machining centre. Next, by utilising fuzzy logic with Petri nets (fuzzy Petri nets), a technique based on 9 fuzzy rules is developed. The paper demonstrates how fuzzy input variables, fuzzy marking, fuzzy firing sequences and a global output variable should be defined for use with fuzRT Petri nets. The technique employs two fuzzy input variables, spindle speed and feed rate, throughout the milling operation in order to determine the quality of surface roughness. Additionally, a fuzzy Petri net is used with an artificial neural network for the modelling and control of surface roughness. Experimental results illustrate that the technique developed can be of benefit when the cutting tool has suffered damage throughout the milling operation. It also shows how the technique can react when the quality is high, medium or low. The surface roughness represents the quality specification of products from the CNC-milling machining centre.


Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP) represents the most common vasculitis in children. Typically, HSP manifests with palpable purpura and edema, usually following an urticarial or erythematous maculopapular eruption. Bullous HSP represents an uncommon presentation of "classic" HSP, exhibited by only 2% of affected children. We here present three cases of bullous HSP. This variant seems due to an excess of production of neutrophilic matrix metalloproteinase-9, a lytic enzyme that degrades basement membrane components, eventually leading to dermoepidermal detachment and blister formation. Notably, American College of Rheumatology (ACR), Paediatric Rheumatology European Society (PRES), European League against Rheumatism (EULAR), and Paediatric Rheumatology INternational Trials Organization (PRINTO) do not encompass blisters and/or bullae into HSP classification criteria. Outcome of bullous HSP does not differ from "classic" purpuric HSP. The former, however, demands special care measures: local pain control, topic antibiotic therapy, and protective dressings over areas of open or blistered skin.


In this paper we consider general l0-norm minimization problems, that is, the problems with l0-norm appearing in either objective function or constraint. In particular, we first reformulate the l0-norm constrained problem as an equivalent rank minimization problem and then apply the penalty decomposition (PD) method proposed in [33] to solve the latter problem. By utilizing the special structures, we then transform all matrix operations of this method to vector operations and obtain a PD method that only involves vector operations. Under some suitable assumptions, we establish that any accumulation point of the sequence generated by the PD method satisfies a first-order optimality condition that is generally stronger than one natural optimality condition. We further extend the PD method to solve the problem with the l0-norm appearing in objective function. Finally, we test the performance of our PD methods by applying them to compressed sensing, sparse logistic regression and sparse inverse covariance selection. The computational results demonstrate that our methods generally outperform the existing methods in terms of solution quality and/or speed.


Leaf Huang Ph.D.INTRAVESICAL THERAPY OF INTERSTITIAL CYSTITISPradeep Tyagi, Ph.D.University of Pittsburgh, April 4th, 2005Interstitial cystitis (IC) is an inflammatory disorder of bladder which affects middle-aged Caucasian women. Intravesical administration of drugs is a mainstay in its treatment either as adjunct to oral therapy or as second-line therapy. The vehicles currently used for this route of administration are ideally suited for hydrophobic drugs and typically maintain drug exposure in the bladder for very short duration of time. The present dissertation project was aimed at investigating the use of alternative vehicles for improving intravesical drug delivery of hydrophobic small molecular weight drugs such as capsaicin misoprostol in addition to the delivery of large molecular weight peptide nucleic acid (PNA) for antisense based therapy. The hydrophobic drugs selected for this study were delivered by intravesical route using liposomes, thermosensitive hydrogel and TAT peptide. The efficiency of drug delivery was assessed by measuring the physiological response of normal and diseased rat bladder by metabolic cages and the method of cystometrogram (CMG). Histology and immunohistochemistry of bladder and spinal cord sections was done to corroborate the response measured in the physiological measurement. Liposomes were demonstrated to be a superior vehicle for capsaicin and thermosensitive hydrogel was able to sustain the exposure of a hydrophobic drug in the bladder for prolonged time and increase the efficacy of misoprostol in rat model of cystitis induced by cyclophosphamide. An interesting observation made during the study was that liposomes in absence of drug were able to modulate physiological response of bladder and this observation was further investigated to define the charge on the lipid headgroup and the structural requirements of hydrophobic backbone in the lipids for reducing bladder hyperactivity induced by sequential infusion of protamine sulfate and high concentration of KCl. Overexpression of NGF in cyclophosphamide induced cystitis was downregulated in the urothelium of rat bladder using antisense based therapy with PNA, which was delivered with the aid of TAT peptide. Overall, the study concluded that liposomes cannot only be a treatment option but can also be used for delivery of hydrophobic drugs. The potential of hydrogels and cell penetrating peptides for intravesical drug delivery needs further investigation.


Owing to its single-molecule sensitivity, objective-based total-internal-reflection fluorescence microscopy has been used to study various biological phenomena, such as conformation changes of a single biomolecule and localization and movement of single molecules inside a cell. In the technique, fluorophores associated with biomolecules are excited by an evanescent field formed near the water/coverglass interface (typically, within 100 to 200 nm). Here, we characterized the axial profile of the evanescent field. By using a prism-based scheme and applying Snell's law, we experimentally measured the incident angle of the excitation light and calculated the penetration depth of the evanescent field. The penetration depth was also acquired experimentally by measuring the fluorescence from a fluorescent bead for the excitation light at various incident angles. These independent approaches permitted highly accurate characterization of the evanescent field profile. This field profile provided the information on the distribution of the evanescent field along the axial direction, which will be useful in studying with this technique various biological phenomena as it provides a means to probe the axial dimension precisely.


Abstract:Settler colonial–language ideologies serve as one tool of dispossession within settler colonial assemblages of genocidal accumulation. We focus on the role of settlers in learning, codifying, and teaching Indigenous languages in order to analyze the language ideologies at play when language becomes colonized alongside the colonization of land. We develop a comparative reading of Dakota and Lakota bilingual-language instruction through the materials of Stephen R. Riggs during the nineteenth century and Ann Nolan Clark during the mid-twentieth century in order to examine the instantiation and continuity of settler colonial–language ideologies. We contrast these ideologies with how language ideologies formed in Europe as a component of the formation of race, which naturalized a link between people and land through defining conceptions of the human and the rational political subject. However, in settler colonial contexts this link between people and land, through language, does not function in the same way. Instead, Indigenous peoples' land is imagined as terra nullius and Indigenous peoples as less than human. We propose the concept of domestication genocide to demonstrate how settler language ideologies link land, legibility, and animacy as a part of these language teaching programs.


Receptor kinases with extracellular leucine-rich repeat domains (LRR-RKs) form the largest group of membrane signaling proteins in plants. LRR-RKs can sense small molecule, peptide or protein ligands, and may be activated by ligand-induced interaction with a shape complementary SOMATIC EMBRYOGENESIS RECEPTOR-LIKE KINASE (SERK) co-receptor kinase. We have previously shown that SERKs can also form constitutive, ligand-independent complexes with the LRR ectodomains of BAK1-interacting receptor-like kinase 3 (BIR3) receptor pseudokinases, negative regulators of LRR-RK signaling. Here we report that receptor chimaera in which the extracellular LRR domain of BIR3 is fused to the cytoplasmic kinase domains of the SERK-dependent LRR-RKs BRASSINOSTEROID INSENSITIVE1, HAESA and ERECTA form tight complexes with endogenous SERK co-receptors in the absence of ligand stimulus. Expression of these chimaera under the control of the endogenous promoter of the respective LRR-RK leads to strong gain-of-function brassinosteroid, floral abscission and stomatal patterning phenotypes, respectively. Importantly, a BIR3-GSO1/SGN3 chimera can partially complement sgn3 Casparian strip formation phenotypes, suggesting that GSO1/SGN3 receptor activation is also mediated by SERK proteins. Collectively, our protein engineering approach may be used to elucidate the physiological functions of orphan LRR-RKs and to identify their receptor activation mechanism in single transgenic lines.


Introduction: Hypothyroidism is associated with significant neurocognitive deficits because hypothyroidism prevents the brain from adequately sustaining the energy consuming processes needed for neurotransmission, memory, and other higher brain functions. Hence, the study was done to assess the cognitive functions of newly diagnosed subclinical and clinical hypothyroid patients by evoked response potential P300. Materials and Methods: 75 patients each of newly diagnosed subclinical and clinical hypothyroid patients attending endocrinology clinic and 75 healthy age and sex matched euthyroid controls were considered for the study. P300 was recorded with Record Medicare System Polyrite, Chandigarh using auditory "oddball paradigm". The data was analyzed using ANOVA followed by post Tukey's test. Results: Newly diagnosed clinical hypothyroid patients showed a significant increase in P300 latency compared to control (P < 0.05) and subclinical cases (P < 0.01) while there was no significant difference between the P300 latency of subclinical cases and control group. Also, there was no significant difference in P300 amplitude among the three groups. Conclusion: P300 latency in case of newly diagnosed hypothyroid clinical cases is significantly increased compared to newly diagnosed subclinical cases and control.


The saw tooth grooves of blazed grating ruled by ruling engine are formed by diamond tool which presses on the aluminum film evaporated on the substrate of optical glass or metal. The real shape of ruled saw tooth groove is different from that of the ideal groove and the ruling process indicates that there are the zero order planes, similar to the flat tops, on the grating grooves. The results of Fourier analysis for the real ruled grating featuring the zero order plane structure shows that the flat top width is an important factor for grating efficiency. Additionally, bigger pressure value loaded on the diamond tool and bigger lateral pressure value on the aluminum film will be benefit to the improvement of grating diffraction efficiency. Based on the grating interferometer, the high precision positioning control system of ruling engine guarantees the accuracy of the grooves space. High density blazed grating whose space is 0.83μm is manufactured and its' grooves spaces are very equidistant and uniform under the view field of AFM. And the infrared blazed grating, whose diffraction efficiency in the first order is up to 97 percent, is ruled successfully also.


In this work, Jaya based PID controller tuning is presented for position control of DC servo-motor motor. The performance index considered is integral of squared error (ISE) of unit step input. The controller settings are obtained by minimizing the ISE using Jaya algorithm. The Jaya algorithm is used due to being simple and free from algorithm specific parameters. The simulation results are obtained for proposed method as well as for other existing techniques. The results show that the Jaya based tuning provides satisfactory response. Keywords— Integral of squared error, Jaya algorithm, PID controller, Position control, Servo-motor.


Abstract. The Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) operate a number of Fourier transform spectrometers (FTSs) that measure trace gases in the atmosphere by observing solar spectra. To guide the sunlight into the FTS, a solar tracker has to be placed outside. This device needs high-quality optical mirrors with good reflectance in the near and mid-infrared. More and more FTS stations are operated in remote locations with harsh environments. Optical mirrors are usually made for laboratory conditions and might not last very long there. At the TCCON site on Ascension Island which is operated by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC), several mirrors from different optical manufacturers were destroyed within weeks. To continue operation, the MPI-BGC had to develop rugged mirrors that could sustain the harsh conditions for months or even years. While commercially available mirrors are typically made from a substrate covered with a thin reflective coating, these rugged mirrors were made from stainless steel with no additional coating. Except for their lower reflectance (which can easily be compensated for), their optical properties are comparable to existing mirrors. However, their rugged design makes them mostly immune to corrosion and scratching. Unlike most coated mirrors, they can also be cleaned easily.


The cations [Mo(CO)3(η7-C7H7)]+ and [Mo(η6-C6H5Me)(η7-C7H7)]+ react with an excess of acetylacetone in dry tetrahydrofuran to form the seventeen-electron aqua-complex [Mo(acac)(H2O)(η7-C7H7)]+, from which the water molecule may be displaced affording the species [Mo(acac)L(η7-C7H7)]+(L = PEt3, PMe2Ph, PMePh2, P(OMe)3, AsMe2Ph, or py). 1,2-Bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane (dppe) reacts with the aqua-complex to give a dimolybdenum dication [Mo2(acac)2(dppe)(η7-C7H7)2]2+. Crystals of the title compound are monoclinic, space group P21/n, with a= 8.664(9), b= 18.997(4), c= 9.625(13)A, β= 112.39(8)°. The structure has been refined to R 0.059 (R′ 0.071) for 3 226 independent observed reflections to 2θ 65°(Mo-KαX-radiation) collected at ca. 215 K. All hydrogen atoms present have been located and positionally and thermally refined.The crystal structure is built up of two pairs of [Mo(acac)(H2O)(η7-C7H7)]+ cations and [BF4]– anions surrounding a symmetry centre and linked via two independent H ⋯ F contacts of 1.84(9) and 2.07(12)A. The cation features a formally MoI metal atom in an approximate octahedral geometry. The tetrafluoroboratecounter ion is essentially tetrehedral.


Bloom syndrome (BS) is a rare cancer-predisposing disorder in which the cells of affected persons have a high frequency of somatic mutation and genomic instability. BLM, the protein altered in BS, is a RecQ DNA helicase. This report shows that BLM is found in the nucleus of normal human cells in the nuclear domain 10 or promyelocytic leukemia nuclear bodies. These structures are punctate depots of proteins disrupted upon viral infection and in certain human malignancies. BLM is found primarily in nuclear domain 10 except during S phase when it colocalizes with the Werner syndrome gene product, WRN, in the nucleolus. BLM colocalizes with a select subset of telomeres in normal cells and with large telomeric clusters seen in simian virus 40-transformed normal fibroblasts. During S phase, BS cells expel micronuclei containing sites of DNA synthesis. BLM is likely to be part of a DNA surveillance mechanism operating during S phase.


Abstract Transportation networks in parks and recreation areas provide travelers recreation opportunities and often support multiple transportation modes (e.g., hiking, walking, biking). In recreation areas, the quality of transportation service may be monitored and evaluated differently than in traditional transportation contexts. However, few studies have examined approaches for defining and monitoring the quality of transportation service and recreation experiences. This study applies traffic monitoring models to monitor (1) the quality of transportation service through the Levels of Service (LOS) framework and (2) travelers' recreation experiences through the indicators and standards framework simultaneously on the Burlington Bike Path (BBP), a typical shared-use transportation recreation facility in Vermont. Results identify the temporal pattern of visitors use and the mode splits between cyclists and pedestrians. Moreover, study results show that the majority of travelers use the BBP for recreation or mixed purpose of recreation and commute. Study results build quantitative relationships between LOS and indicators and standards of quality that will help inform management of transportation in the context of recreation. The indicators and standards framework can help define the thresholds of acceptable levels of transportation service through the LOS framework. The relationships between LOS and the indicators and standards framework help build a robust and fully parameterized transportation planning and management framework for parks and recreation areas. Study results suggest quantitative guidelines that can be used to evaluate and monitor the quality of transportation performance for shared-use paths in parks and recreation areas.


Background: Escherichia coli is among the most common causes of diarrhoea in children below five years of age in developing countries. Diarrhoeal diseases rank the second most common cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Here we report the magnitude of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infection among underfives with diarrhoea in Mwanza, Tanzania. Methods: This study was carried out at Nyamagana and Sekou Toure hospitals in Mwanza, Tanzania. Between July, 2015 and March, 2016, children aged < 5 years with diarrhoea were included in the study. Demographics and relevant information were recorded. Stool specimens were cultured onto MacConkey and Salmonella-Shigella Agars. CHROMagar STEC was used to identify STEC. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed to all pathogenic bacteria using disc diffusion method. Results : A total of 304 children were include in the study. The mean (±standard deviation) age of the enrolled children was 1.4 (±1.03) years. Out of 304 diarrhoea cases, 32 (10.5%) were positive for STEC and 12 (3.9%) were due to other pathogenic bacteria ( Salmonella and Shigella species.). Of 32 STEC isolates, 22 (68.8%) and 20 (62.5%) were resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole respectively and 3 (9.4%) were found to produce extended spectrum beta lactamases (ESBL). Use of water from wells (p=0.006) was found to be the predictor of the presence of pathogenic bacteria. Conclusion: Clinicians should consider STEC as the potential pathogens causing diarrhoea in the region. More than 60% of pathogenic bacteria were resistant to commonly prescribed antimicrobials like amoxicillin/clavulanic acid and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. There is a need to emphasize on the provision of safe water, health education together with improvements in sanitation and personal hygiene as key strategies to reduce these infections.


The thesis explores economic, political and social processes in former socialist countries with a case study in one of the biggest conurbations in Europe, Upper Silesia. The ongoing but selective economic processes of global and macro-regional economic integration have been identified as a main issue in geographical research. In particular the nexus between the global and the local seen as a dialectical relationship, composed of multiple and asymmetric interdependencies has stressed the necessity of utilising relational analysis in economic geography. The question emerges in what ways and to what extent increasing economic integration may lead to a socio-economic convergence of places or the development of 'indigenous capacities', spatial peculiarities and legacies to establish themselves in capitalist networks of production.

With empirical reference to the Polish conurbation of Upper Silesia and drawing on the analytical framework from Michael Storper's 'Holy Trinity' ("The Regional World", New York, 1997), this thesis analyses post socialist urban and regional transformations from three angles. 1. While Storper analysed mainly 'successful' regions in the West, the research tries to identify the main challenges that face any simple attempt to adapt western (theoretical) approaches within a post-socialist, Central East European context. 2. The thesis then identifies the fabric of political economic actors and the path dependent 'invention' of a region, here Upper Silesia, and analysis locally and regionally embedded and recombined informal institutions and their capacity for restructuring of an old industrial space. 3. While inter- and intra-regional competition is growing in an 'era of globalisation', the thesis finally investigates the scope for action and 'reflexive' interrelations between administrative, political and economic actors in an 'ordinary region' prior to the accession to the European Union.


Interspecific hybridisation in tuber-bearing species of Solanum is a common phenomenon and represents an important source of variability, crucial for adaptation and speciation of potato species. In this regard, the effects of interspecific hybridisation on retrotransposon families present in the genomes, and their consequent effects on generation of genetic variability in wild tuber-bearing Solanum species, are poorly characterised. The aim of this study was to analyse the activity of retrotransposons in interand intraspecific hybrids between S. kurtzianum and S. microdontum, obtained by controlled crosses, and the effects on morphological, genetic and epigenetic variability. For genetic and epigenetic analysis, SSAP (sequence-specific amplification polymorphism) and TMD (transposon methylation display) techniques were used, respectively, with specific primers for Tnt1 and Tto1 retrotransposon families (Order LTR, Superfamily Copia). The results indicate that at morphological level, interspecific hybrid genotypes differ from their parental species, whereas derived intraspecific hybrids do not. In both cases, we observed significant reductions in pollen grain viability, and a negative correlation with Tnt1 mobility. Both retrotransposons, Tto1 and Tnt1, were mobilised in the genotypes analysed, with mobility ranging from 0 to 7.8%. Furthermore, at the epigenetic level, demethylation was detected in the vicinity of Tnt1 and Tto1 in the hybrids compared with the parental genotypes. These patterns were positively correlated with the activity of the retrotransposons. The results suggest a possible mechanism through which hybridisation events generate genetic variability in tuber-bearing species of Solanum through retrotranposon activation.


This paper presents an end-to-end 3D convolutional network named attention-based multi-modal fusion network (AMFNet) for the semantic scene completion (SSC) task of inferring the occupancy and semantic labels of a volumetric 3D scene from single-view RGB-D images. Compared with previous methods which use only the semantic features extracted from RGB-D images, the proposed AMFNet learns to perform effective 3D scene completion and semantic segmentation simultaneously via leveraging the experience of inferring 2D semantic segmentation from RGB-D images as well as the reliable depth cues in spatial dimension. It is achieved by employing a multi-modal fusion architecture boosted from 2D semantic segmentation and a 3D semantic completion network empowered by residual attention blocks. We validate our method on both the synthetic SUNCG-RGBD dataset and the real NYUv2 dataset and the results show that our method respectively achieves the gains of 2.5% and 2.6% on the synthetic SUNCG-RGBD dataset and the real NYUv2 dataset against the state-of-the-art method.


We report the clinical and pathologic features of five children wih a botyroid rhabdomyosarcoma of the biliary tract. There were three boys and two girls ranging in age from 11/2 to 51/2 years at diagnosis. Obstructive jaundice was the usual presenting sign, often with fever and hepatomegaly. Of four tumors involving the common bile ducts, two extended into porta hepatis and adjacent liver parenchyma; the fifth tumor arose in the wall of the cystic duct. Each had a typical botryoid (grape-like) configuration with a cambium layer of tumor cells beneath biliary epithelium. Rhabdomyoblasts were identified in all cases and confirmed by ultrastructure in one. Our data, along with review of other cases reported in the English literature, indicate a rather guarded prognosis. Although metastases have developed in 40% of cases, death was usually due to the effects of local invasion by tumor. Aggressive adjuvant therapy currently in use for childhood rhabdomyosarcomas may lessen the high mortality associated with this tumor.


In today's world technology is advancing and changing rapidly and it is having a huge impact on our lives. Engineering notebook is a log book which is used by an engineer to record details about their projects, plans and laboratory work. The Digitize Engineering Notebook is an online web application that can be used instead of a paper notebook. The Digitize Engineering Notebook web application will allow users to store and retrieve records of data and images about previous and ongoing projects for easy access. The Digitize Engineering Notebook also allow users to create new projects edit existing projects online while working with their colleagues. This website consists front page with a welcome message, a menu for navigation and administrator privilege for website administration. Also, it contains secure user login function to ensure the user has correct access privileges on the website. Display a list of existing projects and allow users to create new projects. Ability to add team members to the project. There will be web forms to enter detail logs and list the log entries in chronological order. Project logs can be download into a Microsoft Word document and into a PDF document. The user will be able to print project logs. There will be a file uploader to upload files such as text documents, sketches, and drawings. The calendar will show the events related to each day. The search function will help to find log entries within few seconds. Discussion board will help to team members to express their ideas and communicate, discuss, argue about certain logs. This website will allow multimedia elements such as pictures and videos embedded in web pages.


This study aims at assessing the most prevalent type of poverty in rural Mozambique, and if the causes of chronic and transitory poverty are similar to recommended policy, strategies to address each of them caused by different factors. This paper concludes that, most poverty is transient (66%) than chronic (34%), unlike in earlier studies where the determinants of chronic and transient poverty are not necessarily similar. However, it is recommended to prioritize addressing the chronic poverty given its damaging and long-lasting effects. Also, it is believed that by addressing chronic poverty some synergies can be generated, which allow tackling of the transient poverty as well. The most important set of variables for transient poverty are the household landholdings, head's age, family and hired labor, land quality, and livestock. All these covariates tend to increase the transient poverty, except the family labor which is likely to decrease it. The same variables are important to chronic poverty, in addition to education especially in men, where the number of members with self-employment and widowed household heads has a negative effect on chronic poverty. Policies aimed at reducing chronic poverty should concentrate more on improving household characteristics such as investing in education, agricultural reform that encourages landholding expansion and energy such as human power or animal traction for farming while reducing transient poverty would call for policies oriented at allowing economically active families to earn income for their livelihoods.

 Key words: Chronic, transient, poverty, Mozambique, panel data.


Objective To establish the context in which maternal psychosocial well-being is understood in war-affected settings in Eritrea. Method Pretested and validated participatory methods and tools of investigation and analysis were employed to allow participants to engage in processes of qualitative data collection, on-site analysis, and interpretation. Findings Maternal psychosocial well-being in Eritrea is maintained primarily by traditional systems of social support that are mostly outside the domain of statutory primary care. Traditional birth attendants provide a vital link between the two. Formal training and regular supplies of sterile delivery kits appear to be worthwhile options for health policy and practice in the face of the post-conflict challenges of ruined infrastructure and an overstretched and/or ill-mannered workforce in the maternity health service. Conclusion Methodological advances in health research and the dearth of data on maternal psychosocial well-being in complex emergency settings call for scholars and practitioners to collaborate in creative searches for sound evidence on which to base maternity, mental health and social care policy and practice. Participatory methods facilitate the meaningful engagement of key stakeholders and enhance data quality, reliability and usability. Voir page 364 le re´sumeén français. En la pa´gina 365 figura un resumen en españ ol.


There has been a great deal of discussion in recent years focusing on the need for teachers to have leadership responsibilities and to participate in the decision-making processes within their respective schools. Unfortunately, these discussions are often filled with suggestions and recommendations that completely miss the point about teacher leadership. Leadership for teachers has little to do with titles and responsibilities, yet it has everything to do with their performance in the classroom. A true teacher leader is one who can create a classroom environment that fosters high achievement among the students. Teachers that can influence and gain the respect of their students are in essence bona fide leaders.


With an estimated global value of US$15.6 billion, farmed salmonids represent a precious food resource, which is also the fastest increasing food producing industry with annual growth of 7% in production. A total average of 3,594,000 metric tonnes was produced in 2020, behind Chinese and Indian carps, tilapias and catfishes. Lead producers of farmed salmonids are Norway, Chile, Faroe, Canada and Scotland, stimulated by increasing global demand and market. However, over the last 2 years, production has been declining, occasioned by effects of diseases as well as rising feed costs. Over the last year, production has declined sharply due to effects of covid-19. This chapter reviews the species in culture, systems of culture, environmental footprints of salmon culture, and market trends in salmon culture. Burden of diseases, especially Infectious pancreatic Necrosis, Infectious salmon anemia and furunculosis, as well as high cost of feed formulation, key challenges curtailing growth of the salmon production industry, are discussed. A review is made of the international salmon genome sequencing effort, selective breeding for disease resistance, and the use of genomics to mitigate challenges of diseases that stifle higher production of salmonids globally.


Uptake of P(P-32) and Ca(Ca-45) by seedlings of Picea abies (L.) Karst and Betula pendula Roth, non-mycorrhizal or mycorrhizal with Paxillus involutus (Batsch: Fr) Fr. was studied. Seedlings were grown in unamended peat (pH 4.0) or in peat limed (CaO) to pH 5.1 or 6.1. A double-labelled (P-32 and Ca-45) complete nutrient solution was added to the peat 7 wk after planting. An 8 d period was allowed for uptake of the isotopes before the seedlings were harvested. Mycorrhizal colonization clearly increased the uptake of P(P-32) in the unlimed substrate and in the substrate limed to a pH of 5.1. At the highest lime rate, the uptake of P(P-32) was greatly reduced in both mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal seedlings. The difference in P uptake between mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal seedlings was small at this lime rate. The mycorrhizal colonization of the roots was not affected by liming. However, it is possible that the mycelial growth into the substrate was inhibited. The reduction in uptake could thus be an effect of a lower availability of P in combination with a decreased fungal uptake surface at the highest lime rate. The mycorrhizal effect on uptake of Ca was much smaller than its effect on uptake of P. Mycorrhizal colonization increased the Ca(Ca-45) uptake in the unlimed treatment, where the Ca content in the substrate was very small. In the limed substrates the uptake of Ca was as high or higher in the non-mycorrhizal than in the mycorrhizal seedlings.


High‐speed computers and digital signal processing have brought us to the point where it is possible to hear a convincing simulation of the acoustic environment of an auditorium. A number of researchers around the world have contributed for years to this field and they have now assembled the major pieces of the puzzle to make this powerful tool, called ''auralization,'' work well enough to judge acoustic quality. One needs a computer model of the acoustic space including placement of sources and receivers, an appropriate source signal, a binaural spatial transfer function from free‐field pressure to eardrum pressure, and a headset which has a known equalization function from the electrical signal to the wearer's eardrum. A typical auralization session first runs the room computer model gathering sound ray arrival data at one receiver from a source. This receiver signal is then convolved with the binaural HRTF to produce a binaural electrical signal for the headset, which is equalized to achieve flat subje...


Solid-state white light sources gain increasing interest due to their advanced characteristics compared to conventional lighting solutions. New design challenges are introduced in the remote phosphor set-up by the substitution of the efficiency-droop-limited LEDs with laser diodes (LDs) that exhibit peak efficiencies at much higher operating currents. Although laser-excited remote phosphor (LRP) systems have already been employed in some commercial applications, the bottleneck in their performance is identified in the down-conversion process within the phosphor material. The high intensity exciting laser beam in combination with the temperature-dependent properties of phosphors can lead to thermally induced instabilities in the system. For this reason, an opto-thermal simulation framework is developed to investigate the optical and thermal interdependencies and derive the LRPS optimization parameters. The optical analysis is performed with commercial ray-tracing software, where the optical heat losses are computed and subsequently used as the volume heat source in thermal analysis implemented by the finite element method (F.E.M.). The question now arises as to how to properly model the phosphor material in such a simulation scheme. The LED experience has produced a variety of phosphors for lighting applications, most commonly powders in some appropriate resin matrix, which are treated simulation wise as bulk diffusers. As the low thermal conductivity of resins is deemed critical for their use in LRPS, recent research focuses on resin free materials such as glass phosphors, single crystals, polycrystalline dense ceramics, etc. The different modeling approaches of such solutions are investigated here as the scattering properties and surface topology of the samples can vary.


Recent economic and international threats to occidental industries have encouraged companies to rethink their planning systems. Due to consolidation, the development of integrated supply chains and the use of inter-organizational information systems have increased business interdependencies and the need for collaboration. Thus, agility and the ability to deal quickly with disturbances in supply chains are critical to maintain overall performance. In order to develop tools to increase the agility of the supply chain and to promote the collaborative management of such disturbances, agent-based technology takes advantage of the ability of agents to make autonomous decisions in a distributed network. This paper proposes a multi-behavior agent model using different decision making approaches in a context where planning decisions are supported by a distributed advanced planning system (d-APS). The implementation of this solution is realized through the FOR@C experimental agent-based platform, dedicated to the supply chain planning for the forest products industry.


The ability to effectively reuse prior knowledge is a key requirement when building general and flexible Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents. Skill reuse is one of the most common approaches, but current methods have considerable limitations.For example, fine-tuning an existing policy frequently fails, as the policy can degrade rapidly early in training. In a similar vein, distillation of expert behavior can lead to poor results when given sub-optimal experts. We compare several common approaches for skill transfer on multiple domains including changes in task and system dynamics. We identify how existing methods can fail and introduce an alternative approach to mitigate these problems. Our approach learns to sequence existing temporally-extended skills for exploration but learns the final policy directly from the raw experience. This conceptual split enables rapid adaptation and thus efficient data collection but without constraining the final solution.It significantly outperforms many classical methods across a suite of evaluation tasks and we use a broad set of ablations to highlight the importance of differentc omponents of our method.


Aim: The most important goal in the treatment of cryptorchidism is to preserve the potential for fertility. This experimental study was performed to investigate the effect of propylthiouracil (PTU) on the undescended testes (UTs) of newborn rats. Materials and Methods: The experimental cryptorchidism model in newborn male rats consisted of 4 groups. The groups A (control) and B (PTU) underwent no surgical intervention, whereas in groups C (UT only) and D (treatment) UTs were produced by dissecting and suturing the future right scrotal area. In groups D and B, 0.1% (w/v) PTU was added to the drinking water of mother rats between 2 and 24 days. At the end of the 90th day rat body weights, testicular weights, Johnsen tubular biopsy scores (JTBSs), seminiferous tubule diameters (STDs), testosterone, and thyroid hormone levels were measured. Mann-Whitney U test was used for statistical analysis. Results: Mean testicular weight was similar between groups A, B and D, and statistically lowest in group C. Mean body weight was statistically higher in groups A and C compared with groups B and D. Mean testosterone levels showed no statistical difference between the groups. Mean JTBSs were statistically higher in groups A and B compared with groups C and D. The value in treatment group D was statistically higher compared to group C (p < 0.05). Mean STDs were statistically lowest in group C compared to other groups (p < 0.05). No difference was found between groups A, B, and D (p > 0.05). Both the mean free triiodothyronine and free thyroxine values between groups A and C and between groups B and D were similar. The values in groups A and C were statistically higher than those of groups B and D (p < 0.05). Conclusion: PTU-induced transient hypothyroidism in the newborn rat UT model shows protective effects on testicular growth parameters.


Understanding the dynamics of biochemical networks is a major goal of systems biology. Due to the heterogeneity of cells and the low copy numbers of key molecules, spatially resolved approaches are required to fully understand and model these systems. Until recently, most spatial modeling was performed using geometries obtained either through manual segmentation or manual fabrication both of which are time-consuming and tedious. Similarly, the system of reactions associated with the model had to be manually defined, a process that is both tedious and error-prone for large networks. As a result, spatially resolved simulations have typically only been performed in a limited number of geometries, which are often highly simplified, and with small reaction networks.


OBJECTIVE
Previous studies have shown the influence of subchondral bone osteoblasts (SBOs) on phenotypical changes of articular cartilage chondrocytes (ACCs) during the development of osteoarthritis (OA). The molecular mechanisms involved during this process remain elusive, in particular, the signal transduction pathways. The aim of this study was to investigate the in vitro effects of OA SBOs on the phenotypical changes in normal ACCs and to unveil the potential involvement of MAPK signaling pathways during this process.

METHODS
Normal and arthritic cartilage and bone samples were collected for isolation of ACCs and SBOs. Direct and indirect coculture models were applied to study chondrocyte hypertrophy under the influence of OA SBOs. MAPKs in the regulation of the cell-cell interactions were monitored by phosphorylated antibodies and relevant inhibitors.

RESULTS
OA SBOs led to increased hypertrophic gene expression and matrix calcification in ACCs by means of both direct and indirect cell-cell interactions. In this study, we demonstrated for the first time that OA SBOs suppressed p38 phosphorylation and induced ERK-1/2 signal phosphorylation in cocultured ACCs. The ERK-1/2 pathway inhibitor PD98059 significantly attenuated the hypertrophic changes induced by conditioned medium from OA SBOs, and the p38 inhibitor SB203580 resulted in the up-regulation of hypertrophic genes in ACCs.

CONCLUSION
The findings of this study suggest that the pathologic interaction of OA SBOs and ACCs is mediated via the activation of ERK-1/2 phosphorylation and deactivation of p38 phosphorylation, resulting in hypertrophic differentiation of ACCs.


Process conditions in glass furnaces, especially the settings of the combustion system, determine the rate of the evaporation processes at the glass melt surface. Reduction of volatilization to lower dust and heavy metal emissions, to minimize the refractory attack by the aggressive volatile components, and to limit depletion of volatile glass components at the glass melt surface is of great technological importance. This can be achieved by changes in burner design and burner positioning, optimizing combustion control and avoiding extreme glass surface temperatures. Such high local temperatures at the glass surface may lead to very high concentrations of PbO, NaOH or KOH vapors attacking the crown materials of the furnace. Evaporation model studies show the potential of process measures for the reduction of evaporation and minimizing depletion of alkali, lead or boron compounds at the glass melt surface. Sodium depletion down to 80% of the original content can take place at the glass melt surface, in lead silicate melting processes depletion may reduce the lead concentrations by more than 50%. Industrial tests support the results of modeling studies and show the effects of the settings of the combustion processes on glass-melt evaporation kinetics.


Excessive risk-taking by systemically important financial firms was one of the leading causes of the financial crisis. Research suggests these firms may be no safer today than they were pre-crisis, and they may even be increasing their risk-taking. Risk-taking is inherently a corporate governance choice. Why would rational managers want their firms to engage in excessive, rather than appropriate, risk-taking?
The answers to that question might lie in corporate governance law, which fails to adequately address a new reality: risk-taking by systemically important firms can sometimes have systemically harmful consequences. This book chapter examines how governance alternatives to shareholder primacy might help to address that reality. It also considers how that regulation should be evaluated as a policy matter.
The chapter does not purport to provide definitive and complete answers. Instead, it focuses on trying to offer a framework, as part of an international research agenda, for analyzing and thinking about the answers.


The gap between receptive and productive English language skills is perceived to be unusually large among ESL students in the culturally segregated states of India. While the students' listening and reading comprehension skills strengthen with class lectures and reading assignments, their speaking and writing skills remain underdeveloped. The purpose of this study is to create an integrated teaching model to improve the English proficiency of management students in order to make them more employable. The model combines two models of curriculum design with two models of teaching methodology. Using the basic ESP model of curriculum design, the other models are incorporated into it to achieve three objectives, to reduce the unusually wide gap between receptive and productive language skills, to gain proficiency in business communication tasks and to improve identified language deficiencies. The model is applied to a sample of ESL management students. The business communication tasks required at the corporate level as well as the language deficiencies of the respondents are assessed and are used to create the course design. Their motivation and attitude levels are measured. Learner-centered assessment techniques and learning styles are analysed in order to incorporate these into the teaching learning process. Along with the teaching methodology suggested in the model, these inputs provide the entire framework for an intervention that aims to achieve the stated objectives.


We provide transatlantic evidence about the relation between social responsibility and resiliency in the banking industry. We analyse various measures of resiliency, an exposure measure (SRISK) and a contribution measure (Delta CoVaR) to systemic risk, as well as measures of systematic risk (beta) and insolvency risk (z-score). Social responsibility is measured by Thomson Reuters' ESG-scores and their subcategories, both according to the older Asset 4 and the present TR ESG Refinitiv classification. We find that the social aggregate score significantly enhances resiliency in all dimensions and in both classifications. On the level of subcategories, we identify significant common resiliency enhancing factor proxies for long-term orientation, such as product responsibility and workforce training, while short-term objectives proxied by shareholder orientation tend to relate to lower levels of resiliency. Looking deeper into the components of each ESG pillar, we also discover significant transatlantic differences mainly related to the different organization of labour markets as well as the board structure.


We propose to re-read Ricardo's theory of rent and its modern versions. Ricardo's dynamic approach follows the transformations of a long-term equilibrium with demand. Sraffa adopted the same framework while substituting a value criterion for a physical criterion to determine the incoming marginal method, but he did not state the law of succession of methods explicitly. This prevented him to realize that his critique opens the door to all complications of capital theory, with the consequence that the Ricardian dynamics fail when a divergence appears between profitability and productivity. Contemporary studies have cast doubts on the validity of some of Ricardo's and Sraffa's over-optimistic conclusions, but the abandonment of the dynamic approach does not allow them to explain the ultimate reason of the phenomena they have pointed at. Ricardo's method has been recently rediscovered by mathematicians.


. We propose a new attention mechanism, called Global Hierarchical Attention (GHA), for 3D point cloud analysis. GHA approximates the regular global dot-product attention via a series of coarsening and interpolation operations over multiple hierarchy levels. The advantage of GHA is two-fold. First, it has linear complexity with respect to the number of points, enabling the processing of large point clouds. Second, GHA inherently possesses the inductive bias to focus on spatially close points, while retaining the global connectivity among all points. Combined with a feedforward network, GHA can be inserted into many existing network architectures. We experiment with multiple baseline networks and show that adding GHA consistently improves performance across different tasks and datasets. For the task of semantic segmentation, GHA gives a +1.7% mIoU increase to the MinkowskiEngine baseline on ScanNet. For the 3D object detection task, GHA improves the CenterPoint baseline by +0.5% mAP on the nuScenes dataset, and the 3DETR baseline by +2.1% mAP 25 and +1.5% mAP 50 on ScanNet.


In order to characterize the domain Ω minimizing the normal stress on the boundary of a membrane, we are concerned with the shape derivative of the functional J(Ω) = ∫ 1 ∫∂ Ω (∂y/∂n) 2 g dx dt, where I is the time interval, y is the solution to the wave equation and g a weight coefficient. We first recall some results on the transformation of domains and investigate the shape derivative of the state. Then we compute the derivative of with respect to the domain. Eventually, we give a necessary condition of optimality which relies heavily on the oriented distance function and its properties around the neighbourhood of the boundary.


Abstract. This presentation deals with certain aspects of Solar System Cartography, in relation to the development of a web application for high school education. The Planet Tool is introduced, a web application for the visualisation of physical and orbital characteristics of the planets in our Solar System. A main principle of the Planet Tool is the reduction of the presented data down to the essential information, like it is also done in the process of map editing. The capabilities of client-side web technologies are used for the generation of interactive 2-dimensional vector graphics. A web page shows the orbits and the current positions of the planets in a heliocentric Cartesian coordinate system, projected into the ecliptic plane. The planets and the Sun have an equal size and are visible as small white dots. Hence, only the orbits have a consistent map scale. The uniform map symbols for the planets and the Sun were placed without the consideration of the resultant, different scale number for each celestial body. However, the true size of the planets and the Sun can be shown with two scaling options:The planets and the Sun are shown in the scale of the orbits. A strong zoom to a planet is necessary to make it visible. A detail view can also reveal the natural appearance of the celestial body.The planets and the sun are shown in a second map scale, which is independent of the orbits scale. With an enlargement factor of for instance 1000, all planets become visible and the surface of the Sun reaches almost the orbit of Jupiter. In addition to the introduced dual scale approach, the Planet Tool provides further important features for high school education. Beside the current positions (up-to-date), the planet positions can be shown corresponding to an arbitrary date. An animation of the planets shows the different orbital velocities and motions along the elliptical orbits. The different eccentricities of the orbits become apparent due to a comparison with heliocentric circles. Regarding the focus of this presentation, it can be stated that the application of two independent map scales allows an accurate and realistic cartographic depiction of the planets size in relation to their orbits and the sun. As 2-dimensional cartographic depictions always have known scales for all shown objects, they still have a high value for educational purposes. The interactive modification of specific parameters by the user improves the comprehension of facts which are difficult to grasp, like for instance the true size of the planets in relation to their orbits.


Stem cells/progenitors are being discovered in a growing number of adult tissues. They have been hypothesized for a long time to exist in the pituitary, especially because this gland is characterized by its plasticity as it constantly adapts its hormonal response to evolving needs, under the control of the hypothalamus. Recently, five labs have reported the presence of adult progenitors in the gland and shown their endocrine differentiation potential, using different in vitro assays, selection methods and markers to purify and characterize these similar cell populations. These will be discussed here, highlighting common points, and also differences. Thanks to these recent developments it is now possible to integrate progenitors into the physiology of the gland, and uncover their participation in normal but also pathological situations. Moreover, experimental situations inducing generation of new endocrine cells can now be re‐visited in light of the involvement of progenitors, and also used to better understand their role. Some of these aspects will also be developed in this review.


Biostimulants are products obtained from different raw materials that are used in cropping systems to produce in a more environment-friendly and sustainable way. New cultivation systems aim to reduce the inputs without compromising yield or quality of the final products. These aspects are important in conventional but mostly in organic farming, where the use of fertilizers is limited. Biostimulants have been used as plant stimulators of growth under both optimal and stressful conditions. These compounds can modulate crop physiology and biochemistry by improving the nutrient use efficiency and increasing the tolerance against abiotic stresses. In vegetables farms, biostimulants have been used for lowering the nitrate accumulation which afflicts leafy vegetables market. In stressful environments, biostimulants can activate the secondary metabolism, such as phenylpropanoid pathways, and enhance the concentration of several bioactive compounds with potential benefit also for human health. In floriculture, biostimulants have been applied to speed up the growing cycles and enhance the flower production and nutrient use efficiency.


This study analyzes 6,626 patents related to the medical instruments industry, and develops a subsequent patent analysis and performance assessment by means of DEA analysis. From the upper or lower ranking and comparing by DEA models this study found that the mix analysis could provide the results deeply with patents performance of DMUs in medical industries and worth to debate that would be difficult to see in traditional patent analysis. Finally, important elements that influence the performance of DMUs can also be found after sensitivity analysis. This study shows that less input may promote efficient performance while output is equal, but for traditional patent that would be different status with citation rate and R&D capacity. For medical industries' top companies, they would be more considerate the different character of each correlative variable which have impact for three above input at least for comparison with the others by average efficient score.


Background: There is inconsistency in heart rate variability (HRV) reported among shift workers. We aim to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on HRV in shift work nurses.

Methods: Fifty one healthy female nurses participated in this study. HRV was evaluated at 9 a.m. in two successive days before and after shift work at 24 hours following the initial HRV evaluation. The Power Lab 26T (ADInstruments, Australia) was used to record ECG was. Analysis of signals was performed using the MLS310/7 HRV Module of Lab Chart® software.

Results: Compared to baseline, shift work resulted in significant decrease in high frequency, total power, SDNN, and pNN50, with concomitant increase in low frequency/high frequency ratio.

Conclusions: Sleep deprivation can disrupt the autonomic control of heart rhythm and predispose to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.