OBJECTIVE
Documentation of main adverse effects, their magnitudes and relationship to contrast concentrations in patients subjected to myelography under basic radiographic facilities. Use of the acquired data for better patient management in the future.

DESIGN
In a prospective double blind study consecutive admitted neurological patients of age range seven to 77 years were subjected to myelography with different concentrations of Omnipaque (300* cervical, 240* thoracic and 180* lumbar) under limited radiographic facilities by radiologists (cases). Thirty admitted patients of about the same age range with justified medical problems were subjected to diagnostic lumbar puncture by different physicians (controls). The main adverse effects were assessed in both groups (subjects) by a neuro-physician unaware of subject status. Patients primarily admitted to the hospital with headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and convulsions and subjected to lumbar puncture were excluded from the study.

SETTING
Cases and controls were derived from patients referred from variable regional hospitals scattered throughout the country.

SUBJECTS
110 consecutive neurological cases referred to the Radiology Department for myelography between December 1989 and January 1991. Thirty consecutive qualifying diagnostic lumbar puncture patients managed at the same period.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Development of symptoms including headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and convulsions and evaluation of their magnitude subjectively quantitated from mild (+) and moderate (+2) (tolerable) to severe (+3), (intolerable) among the cases and controls.

RESULTS
Overall, symptoms in all magnitudes (mild to severe) occurred in 63.6pc of cases compared to 36.7pc of controls (p < 0.05). Concentrations of 300 and 180 were more associated with the effects (p = 0.017 and 0.016 respectively) while the 240 concentration was relatively safe causing no more adverse effects than a diagnostic lumbar puncture (p = 0.137). In severe magnitudes (intolerable) the same effects occurred in 20.9pc of cases compared to 6.7pc of controls (p < 0.05); differences in contrast concentrations did not significantly feature (p = 0.59: Omnipaque 300; p = 0.063: Omnipaque 240 and p = 0.061; Omnipaque 180).

CONCLUSION
Even with limited radiographic facilities, myelography with Omnipaque 240 is relatively safe; being associated with no more adverse effects than a medical diagnostic lumbar puncture; thus the contrast concentration of choice for myelography under sub-optical radiographic set up. With the 180 and 300 concentrations, the procedure is associated with tolerable adverse effects not significantly differing from those arising from the same procedure performed under ideal radiodiagnostic establishments.


Three-dimensional (3D) models of outdoor scenes can be widely used in a number of fields such as object recognition, navigation, scenic simulation, and mixed reality. Such models are often made manually with high cost, so that automatic 3D reconstruction has been widely investigated. In related works, a dense 3D model is generated by using a stereo method. However, such approaches cannot use several hundred images together or dense depth estimation of large constructs and urban environments because it is difficult to accurately calibrate a large number of cameras. This paper proposes a dense 3D reconstruction method that uses multiple image sequences. First, our method estimates extrinsic camera parameters of each image sequence, then reconstructs a dense 3D model of a scene using an extended multi-baseline stereo and voxel voting technique.


Augmentation of the therapeutic effectiveness of 3′,5′-dichloroamethopterin (DCM) against the M46R resistant variant of leukemia L1210 was demonstrated in mice preinoculated with the sensitive line of leukemia L1210. The increases in survival time were almost as extensive as those observed on treatment of the sensitive leukemia L1210 alone.

The augmentation of therapy for the M46R resistant variant in L1210-pretreated mice appeared to be dependent upon a schedule of continuous therapy.

In experiments in which the sensitive leukemia and the M46R resistant variant were inoculated concomitantly, no augmentation of therapy was obtained.

The employment of resistant sublines of tumor as tools in the study of the interrelationships of host-tumor factors in chemotherapy is discussed.


Three Simple, precise and economical UV methods have been developed and validated for the quantitative for the estimation of Meloxicam in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage forms. Meloxicam has the absorbance maxima at 360 nm (Method A), and in the first order derivative spectra and second order derivative spectra, shows sharp peaks at 338 nm (Method B), 281nm (Method c) respectively. Beer's law was found to be obeyed in the concentration range of 5-25 μg/mL for the Method A, B and C. The developed method was validated according to ICH guidelines and was found to be accurate and precise. The proposed method can be successfully applied for the estimation of Meloxicam in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage forms. Results of the analysis were validated statistically and by recovery studies.


Digitisation has been a hot topic in newspaper librarianship for some years now; it came as a godsend for many bulky and space-consuming collections. The major part of this volume comprises the papers given at the international conference on newspaper digitisation held at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City (May 2006) and presents the state of the art, including experiences from current British and North American projects. This material is complemented by presentations from the World Library and Information Congress in Seoul (August 2006), focusing on the East Asian Newspaper situation.


OBJECTIVES. Our goal was to describe the prevalence of any, occasional, and regular breast milk expression, mothers' reasons for expressing their milk, and sociodemographic factors associated with breast milk expression. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS. Breastfeeding mothers participating in the 2005–2007 Infant Feeding Practices Study II formed the cohort for these analyses, which were conducted among those with infants in 3 age groups: 1.5 to 4.5 months (n = 1564); >4.5 to 6.5 months (n = 1128); and >6.5 to 9.5 months (n = 914). For the analyses we used frequency and stepwise multiple logistic regression procedures. RESULTS. Eighty-five percent of breastfeeding mothers of infants in the youngest age group had successfully expressed milk at some time since their infant was born. When asked only about the previous 2-week period, 68% of the breastfeeding mothers of infants in this youngest age group had expressed milk, with 43% having done so occasionally and 25% on a regular schedule. Approximately one quarter of breastfeeding mothers of infants in the 2 older infant age groups also expressed milk on a regular schedule. The percentage of mothers expressing milk decreased with increasing infant age. Mothers expressed milk for various reasons. The most frequently cited reason was to get breast milk for someone else to feed their infant. In all 3 age groups, reporting any breast milk expression, compared with none, was positively associated with maternal employment, higher income, lack of previous breastfeeding experience, and living in the Midwest versus the West. In all 3 age groups, expressing milk on a regular schedule, compared with occasionally, was positively associated with maternal employment and the use of an electric versus manual breast pump. CONCLUSIONS. Breast milk expression is a very common practice. It is associated most strongly with maternal employment, a recognized barrier to breastfeeding.


An interview with British avant-garde filmmaker John Akomfrah, focusing on his 1986 feature (made as part of Black Audio Film Collective) about riots in the U.K., Handsworth Songs, and his latest work, The Nine Muses, a blend of archive footage, mysterious landscape shots, and poetic voiceover.


Cement is a widely used mixture in construction. A corrosive alkali, calcium hydroxide, is liberated as water is added to the lime present in the cement mixture. Skin contact for prolonged periods produces deep chemical burns with thick eschar formation. Five cases of chemical burns to the lower extremities following contact with the cement mixture are presented. When full-thickness burns were present, long periods of hospitalization were necessary for eschar separation prior to skin grafting. Early excision of full-thickness caustic burns with immediate skin grafting diminished the length of hospitalization and returned the patient to work sooner.


The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) as a prognostic factor for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).   Patients with NSCLC (n = 154) treated with gefitinib were recruited over a 5-year period for this study, and served as the observation group (79 males and 75 females, mean age = 53.74 ± 10.86 years). The control group (normal healthy individuals) consisted of 30 males and 22 females, aged 44 - 64 years (mean age = 54.12 ± 9.83 years). The follow-up lasted 5 years, or until the patient relapsed and died. The plasma level of cfDNA was determined in patients 1 day before treatment, 3 days after treatment, and on the 28th day of treatment.Based on the cfDNA expression level, NSCLC patients were subdivided into high-expression and low-expression groups, and differences in survival were compared. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed on factors affecting patients survival using COX. Total effectiveness was significantly higher in observation group (49.35%) than in control group (13.95 %) (p<0.05). The extent of disease control wasalso significantly higher in the observation group (93.51 %) than in control group (p<0.05). Plasma cfDNA level of NSCLCpatients was significantly higher than that of control group before treatment, but was significantly and time-dependently reduced after gefitinib treatment (p<0.05). Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) level increased with severity of disease (p<0.05). Patients in cfDNA low-expression group had significantly higher chances of survival than those in the high-expression group (p<0.05). The results of Cox multivariate analysis showed that pathological severity and cfDNA concentration were independent factors affecting prognosis of NSCLC (p<0.05). Plasma cfDNA is a potential prognostic index in patients with NSCLC.


This article proposes a reading of Mehdi Charef's Le Harki de Meriem ['Meriem's Harki'] (1989) and its 2016 edition that focuses on the text's discursive and paratextual practices employed to represent Franco-Algerian historical and cultural heritage. This non-linear narrative presents a family saga over the course of the twentieth century, revealing in the process key episodes of the mutual and turbulent history of colonial Algeria and postcolonial France. Through a discussion of passages and editorial work that relate the novel with historical events, I will trace patterns of critique that emphasize their concern with history as a source of knowledge. Such a dialectical analysis will in turn provide a reading paradigm that paves the way into a hybrid France that fragments both the French national grand narrative and Franco-Algerian memory.


This prospective study was analyzed in 23 patients who were allowed to do immediate weight bearing after uncemented total hip arthroplasty. Immediate mobilization shortened the hospital stay and facilitated early rehabilitation of hip. Immediate mobilization was started on postoperative Day 3 rather than Day 7 without any adverse consequences to the patients. A series of 23 elderly patients of age more than 60 years, who were diagnosed with conditions such as avascular necrosis of hip, non union of fracture neck of femur, trochanteric non union and rheumatoid arthritis, underwent uncemented total hip replacement and immediate mobilization was started in our hospital. Patients were evaluated by Harris Hip Scoring Scale. All ambulated patients had painless hip and the mean Harris Hip Score was 85. There were no incidence of stem subsidence, acetabular component loosening, and heterotrophic ossification. This data concluded that early intensive rehabilitation yielded faster attainment of short-term functional milestones in fewer days.


The feasibility and desirability of endless economic growth is being increasingly questioned by scholars and activists. While envisioning alternative economic models is key to assure the sustainability and wellbeing of present and future generations, few studies have analysed what might be the role of 'innovation' in a post-growth era. Innovating has become the imperative for the survival and expansion of any form of organisation. But this 'innovate or die mania' underpins assumptions – such as technological determinism and productivism - that neglect the socially constructed character of technological development, its politics and its capacity to enable just and equitable societies but also dystopian technocratic futures. In this paper we posit that untangling innovation from growth is key to imagine a post-growth era. We show how alternative bottom up initiatives, promoted by a variety of different organizational forms, have challenged mainstream ideas about innovation and growth. These experiments provide a glimpse about what 'innovation without growth' could mean in terms of technology and social organization. We conclude by proposing new paths in research aimed at exploring under which conditions post-growth-oriented organizations can flourish and diffuse.


Triplicated P waveforms related to the 410‐km discontinuity from five intermediate‐depth earthquakes in the central Philippines are clearly recorded by the Chinese Digital Seismic Network, but some branches of the S‐wave triplications are obscure. Matching the observed P‐wave triplications with synthetics through a grid‐search technique, we obtain the best‐fit 1D P‐wave velocity model near the 410‐km discontinuity beneath the northeastern South China Sea. In such a model, a low‐velocity layer (LVL) is found to reside atop the mantle transition zone, and it is characterized by a thickness of 92.5±11.5  km and a P‐wave velocity decrement of 1.5%±0.1% compared with the IASP91 model. The relatively thick and weak LVL is possibly a response of a small amount of remnant hydrous partial melts after plume‐like upwelling.


Model based dependability analysis can be used to evaluate the effects of architectural choices on system level availability and reliability. In component based systems the dependability model is built typically from sub-models that are assigned to components or subsystems and represent the local fault occurrences and error propagation. We describe the design and application of a tool that is able to construct the system level dependability model from these sub-models automatically, on the basis of the architecture model of the system. In our tool currently UML architecture model and Stochastic Activity Networks dependability model formalism are supported.


The function of the nucleus as the principal seat of the oxidative processes in the cell was first suggested by the investigations of Spitzer (1) upon the location of oxidizing enzymes. These observations were given considerable support by Lillie (2), who studied the problem with the aid of dyes that underwent color changes upon oxidation. He found that "the coloured oxidation products are seen to be deposited chiefly in and about the nucleus, especially at the surface of contact between nucleus and cytoplasm." These studies were followed up by Warburg (3) in a series of observations upon the comparative rates of reduction of the hemoglobin in the blood of mammals and birds, incubated for some hours in sealed vessels. He found that there existed a very marked difference between the two: the non-nucleated cells of the mammals had a comparatively small consumption of oxygen, whilst the nucleated ones in avian blood possessed a vigorous oxidative metabolism. He further showed that in both mammals and birds the oxidative metabolism proceeded at a much greater rate in blood which contained many young cells staining in a basophilic manner with methylene blue. In fact it appeared doubtful whether the fully developed normally staining mammalian red blood cells consumed oxygen to any appreciable extent. The whole of the slight oxygen consumption of the normal blood of adult mammals would seem to be due to the small proportion of young reticulated and basophilic cells ordinarily in the circulation. The very large oxygen consumption of avian blood, especially after 179


Britain has a reputation for having a stock market-oriented corporate economy and there is an extensive literature maintaining that laws affording substantial protection to outside investors are needed for a thriving stock market. Historically, however, UK equity markets have not always flourished and, when they have, law's contribution has been open to question. This article considers the uneasy match between law and Britain's stock market development from when shares first began to trade publicly through to the present day, offering in so doing insights into the relationship between law and equity markets and current reforms intended to revive a flagging UK stock exchange.


Analyses and modeling of gravity data in the Dead Sea pull-apart basin reveal the geometry of the basin and constrain models for its evolution. The basin is located within a valley which defines the Dead Sea transform plate boundary between Africa and Arabia. Three hundred kilometers of continuous marine gravity data, collected in a lake occupying the northern part of the basin, were integrated with land gravity data from Israel and Jordan to provide coverage to 30 km either side of the basin. Free-air and variable-density Bouguer anomaly maps, a horizontal first derivative map of the Bouguer anomaly, and gravity models of profiles across and along the basin were used with existing geological and geophysical information to infer the structure of the basin. The basin is a long (132 km), narrow (7–10 km), and deep (≤10 km) full graben which is bounded by subvertical faults along its long sides. The Bouguer anomaly along the axis of the basin decreases gradually from both the northern and southern ends, suggesting that the basin sags toward the center and is not bounded by faults at its narrow ends. The surface expression of the basin is wider at its center (<16 km) and covers the entire width of the transform valley due to the presence of shallower blocks that dip toward the basin. These blocks are interpreted to represent the widening of the basin by a passive collapse of the valley floor as the full graben deepened. The collapse was probably facilitated by movement along the normal faults that bound the transform valley. We present a model in which the geometry of the Dead Sea basin (i.e., full graben with relative along-axis symmetry) may be controlled by stretching of the entire (brittle and ductile) crust along its long axis. There is no evidence for the participation of the upper mantle in the deformation of the basin, and the Moho is not significantly elevated. The basin is probably close to being isostatically uncompensated, and thermal effects related to stretching are expected to be minimal. The amount of crustal stretching calculated from this model is 21 km and the stretching factor is 1.19. If the rate of crustal stretching is similar to the rate of relative plate motion (6 mm/yr), the basin should be ∼3.5 m.y. old, in accord with geological evidence.


Ultra-wideband (UWB) is seen as the foundation of future pervasive, wireless personal area networks (WPANs). The ability to provide tremendous capacity without the expense of multiple antennas or the power of narrowband transmissions makes it ideal for low-cost high-speed wireless communications. The realization of WPANs that encompass these UWB properties, however, hinges on solutions to the following key challenges. The high data rates demanded of multimedia WPANs mean that spectral resources must be used efficiently. This requires an UWB device to be able to accurately estimate channel conditions. Unfortunately, current signal processing algorithms cannot be applied directly without prohibitively increasing receiver complexity given the tremendous bandwidth of UWB systems. The result is that first-generation UWB receivers are using simple zero-forcing (ZF) approaches that work poorly in short impulsive channels. Accordingly, this thesis proposes several low-complexity channel estimation techniques that perform comparably to optimal minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation. UWB WPANs must be reliable even when channels are highly frequency-selective or suffer from interference. With cost constraints limiting the current ECMA-368 UWB standard to low-complexity block-spreading and convolutional codes, this thesis adopts a holistic approach that exploits the interactions between diversity techniques to reduce packet error rates and improve error recovery. Furthermore, this iii thesis proposes and investigates the following novel heuristics for mitigating interference: adaptive sizing the overlap-add window so as to balance recovery of delayed signal energy with noise; adaptive changing the time-frequency interleaving pattern to avoid interfering signals; and adapting the degree of companding to minimize both nonlinear distortions from clipping and noise. The contributions of this thesis grant significant performance and reliability improvements whilst minimizing incremental complexity and maintaining backwards compatibility with existing UWB devices. Furthermore, specific recommendations to revise the ECMA-368 standard are justified through theoretical analyses and Monte Carlo simulations.


Adenoid cystic carcinoma of the nasopharynx is an occurrence with only 44 previously reported cases in the English literature. We report herein one additional case. This 62-year-old female patient suffered from right facial numbness for 1 year. A CT scan of the brain showed tumor shadow in right C-P angle. Subsequently, the patient underwent a temporal craniotomy. A mass was noted in medial temporal fossa, encasing the trigeminal nerve. The tumor was totally removed and pathologic examination showed a picture of metastatic adenoid cystic carcinoma. High resolution CT scan of nasopharynx after surgery revealed bulging of fossa of Rosenmüller, although no gross abnormality was found in the mirror examination of nasopharynx. Thus, nasopharyngeal biopsy was done resulting in a diagnosis of adenoid cystic carcinoma which was considered to be the primary site of origin. The patient received radiotherapy and she was followed up in our clinic.


Organizational performance is an important concept in strategy research.
In this paper, we interrogate the predominant focus on organizational
performance as an aggregate organizational-level dependent variable
and review three ways in which its role might be fruitfully reconsidered: (1)
broadening consideration of performance to more disaggregated levels of
analysis, (2) orienting research around the idea of performance as both input
and outcome and finally (3) recasting performance in terms of performativity.
We provide examples of research that has adopted each of these alternative
approaches. We then examine the contributions and drawbacks of each
perspective, before proposing an agenda for future research.


The objective of this exploratory study was to understand the discourse leading to the health intervention proposals approved during the Health Conferences held in Curitiba-PR between 1997 and 2007. The results show that the approved health interventions were related to epidemiological indexes, the funding of the system, the change of the health care model, and the participation of the organized social movement. To broaden the participation, discussions were carried out before the final session, in which the number of participants remained nearly constant. In the final remarks it was observed that no reviews were done regarding the determinants of the health-diseases process; there was a tendency to make individuals accountable for promoting changes in their reality, and the model of broadened participation allows for reflection on the representivity of social movements in the political decisions within the sector.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the University of Exeter Family Interventions (FIs) training programme for the South West region which was commissioned as part of the NHS England Access and Waiting Times standards (A&WTS) initiative for early psychosis. This programme (10 taught days and 6 months of supervised practice) is designed to maximise implementation in practice.

Design/methodology/approach
The programme introduces students to a flexible, widely applicable FI approach which integrates cognitive behavioural/psycho-educational and systemic approaches. It refreshes and develops CBT-based psycho-social intervention skills, so that clinicians feel confident to use them in family sessions and integrate these with foundation level family therapy skills. The approach facilitates engagement, and it is designed so that every session is a "mini intervention". This enables clinicians to offer standard NICE-concordant FI or a briefer intervention if this is sufficient to meet the particular needs of a family.

Findings
This paper provides details of the regional training programme and evaluates the first four training courses delivered to nine early intervention in psychosis teams. It considers how a combination of training a critical mass of staff in each service, ongoing supervision, regional events to maintain skills and motivation to deliver FI, and the national and regional auditing of FI as part of the A&WTS all contribute to clinical implementation.

Originality/value
The unique design of this programme maximises implementation in practice by virtue of its widely applicable integrated FI approach, the focus on ongoing skills development and by embedding it within regional and local service support structures.


Power of attorney document, also known as a letter of attorney, between the Lykke heirs and Peter Harton. The first page lists the individuals present during the document's creation. The second page describes the transaction between the Lykkes and Peter Harton, who is receiving a sizable amount of property, as well as the right to manage and control the property in any way he sees fit.


It is important that consumers and regulators can verify the provenance of large neural models to evaluate their capabilities and risks. We introduce the concept of a"Proof-of-Training-Data": any protocol that allows a model trainer to convince a Verifier of the training data that produced a set of model weights. Such protocols could verify the amount and kind of data and compute used to train the model, including whether it was trained on specific harmful or beneficial data sources. We explore efficient verification strategies for Proof-of-Training-Data that are compatible with most current large-model training procedures. These include a method for the model-trainer to verifiably pre-commit to a random seed used in training, and a method that exploits models' tendency to temporarily overfit to training data in order to detect whether a given data-point was included in training. We show experimentally that our verification procedures can catch a wide variety of attacks, including all known attacks from the Proof-of-Learning literature.


It is thought that both helper and effector functions of CD4 (cid:2) T cells contribute to protective immunity to blood stage malaria infection. However, malaria infection does not induce long-term immunity and its mechanisms are not defined. In this study, we show that protective para-site-specific CD4 (cid:2) T cells were depleted after infection with both lethal and nonlethal species of rodent Plasmodium . It is further shown that the depletion is confined to parasite-specific T cells because (a) ovalbumin (OVA)-specific CD4 (cid:2) T cells are not depleted after either malaria infection or direct OVA antigen challenge, and (b) the depletion of parasite-specific T cells during infection does not kill bystander OVA-specific T cells. A significant consequence of the depletion of malaria parasite–specific CD4 (cid:2) T cells is impaired immunity, demonstrated in mice that were less able to control parasitemia after depletion of transferred parasite-specific T cells. Using tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-RI knockout– and Fas-deficient mice, we demonstrate that the depletion of parasite-specific CD4 (cid:2) T cells is not via TNF or Fas pathways. However, in vivo administration of anti–interferon (IFN)- (cid:3) antibody blocks depletion, suggesting that IFN- (cid:3) is involved in the process. Taken together, these data suggest that long-term immunity to malaria infection may be affected by an IFN- (cid:3) –mediated depletion of parasite-specific CD4 (cid:2) T cells during infection. This study provides further insight into the nature of immunity to malaria and may have a significant impact on approaches taken to develop a malaria vaccine.


Menstrual hygiene refers to a constellation of personal sanitation during menstruation and it involves use of appropriate sanitary pads, regular bathing and changing of clothes. The sustenance of menstruation related monthly sanitation, places an extra burden on the socioeconomic status and academic activity of females. The study aimed at assessing the pattern of menstrual hygiene amongst girls of a tertiary institution in Benin. This cross sectional study was done using a pretested structured questionnaire amongst 125 students of a tertiary institution in Benin after ethical approval from the Ethics and Collaboration Committee. The study revealed that 95.6% of the subjects used appropriate sanitary pads while 81.46% disposed menstrual absorbents in the thrash, 9.27% washed and reused the menstrual absorbent and 7.95% disposed the used sanitary pads in the toilet and flushed. However, the remaining 1.32% disposed their sanitary pads in a nearby bush. The commonest source of information (33.40%) regarding menstrual hygiene was mothers, while fathers were the least source of information (2.51%), 55.20% of the subjects were knowledgeable about timed intercourse while 30.40% had no knowledge about the relationship between menstruation and timed intercourse. However, 14.40% had erroneous knowledge about timed intercourse. Although menstrual hygiene is far above average in this group of students studied, they should be educated on more appropriate environmental friendly disposal methods for their used sanitary pads. Keywords : Menstrual hygiene, Menstruation, Tertiary institution


Researchers have proposed different accounts of the development of prosocial behavior in children. Some have argued that behaviors like helping and sharing must be learned and reinforced; others propose that children have an initially indiscriminate prosocial drive that declines and becomes more selective with age; and yet others contend that even children's earliest prosocial behaviors share some strategic motivations with the prosociality of adults (e.g., reputation enhancement, social affiliation). We review empirical and observational research on children's helping and sharing behaviors in the first 5 years of life, focusing on factors that have been found to influence these behaviors and on what these findings suggest about children's prosocial motivations. We use the adult prosociality literature to highlight parallels and gaps in the literature on the development of prosocial behavior. We address how the evidence reviewed bears on central questions in the developmental psychology literature and propose that children's prosocial behaviors may be driven by multiple motivations not easily captured by the idea of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation and may be selective quite early in life.


We investigate whether quantum annealers with select chip layouts can outperform classical computers in reinforcement learning tasks. We associate a transverse field Ising spin Hamiltonian with a layout of qubits similar to that of a deep Boltzmann machine (DBM) and use simulated quantum annealing (SQA) to numerically simulate quantum sampling from this system. We design a reinforcement learning algorithm in which the set of visible nodes representing the states and actions of an optimal policy are the first and last layers of the deep network. In absence of a transverse field, our simulations show that DBMs train more effectively than restricted Boltzmann machines (RBM) with the same number of weights. Since sampling from Boltzmann distributions of a DBM is not classically feasible, this is evidence of supremacy of a non-Turing sampling oracle. We then develop a framework for training the network as a quantum Boltzmann machine (QBM) in the presence of a significant transverse field for reinforcement learning. The latter method further improves the reinforcement learning method using DBMs.


Easy sample preparation and measurement makes ellipsometry attractive for surface and film investigations; however, specialized numerical methods are normally required to relate measurements to unknown physical attributes of reflecting surfaces. Although solution techniques have been developed, the problem of data analysis is by no means solved. This paper presents an alternative method for computation of the thickness and optical properties of an absorbing film overlying a known substrate from ellipsometer data obtained at two light incidence angles. Tests for selected cases required no a priori knowledge of the film, in contrast to other methods.


ABSTRACT We present results from a series of laboratory experiments that illustrate the influence of changes in channel topography (depth or width) on the sedimentation patterns produced by steady, particle-laden currents. On a planar surface in a channel with constant width, such currents created deposits that thinned exponentially with distance. As long as a current was not blocked to produce a bore, topographic features consisting of constrictions, ridges, and sudden openings caused no significant deviation from exponential deposit thinning or discontinuity in thickness, even when there was a transition in flow regime caused by the topographic feature. Changes in the channel width did affect the distance over which the deposit thinned, with the deposits associated with wider parts of the channel thinning more rapidly with distance. In contrast, if the topographic change was large enough to partially reflect the flow, producing an upstream-propagating bore, then the deposit did not thin exponentially. The results are consistent with a model in which the current is assumed to be turbulent and well mixed. In this case, sedimentation occurs at a rate proportional to the channel width, the settling speed of the particles, and their concentration within the current, and inversely proportional to the current discharge. Such a model predicts that as a flow passes through a topographic control that does not produce a bore, the deposit continues to thin exponentially, even if the flow undergoes a transition from the subcritical to the supercritical regime. The results suggest that in natural systems changes in current speed and flow regime do not in themselves produce changes in deposit thickness or gradient in thickness unless the flow is partially blocked and a fraction of the flow is reflected upstream.


The cabbage whitefly Aleyrodes proletella (L.) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is an important pest of a wide range of vegetable Brassicas. Since the control of this pest is still challenging, new approaches such as the use of resistant cultivars are required. For this, we screened 16 commercialised Brussels sprout cultivars for resistance against this species. Antibiosis was tested with no-choice experiments in a climate chamber, using reproduction, mortality, longevity, developmental time and weight as parameters. Antixenosis was screened in three choice experiments with circular design in a greenhouse to detect cultivar preferences. A field trial with both antibiosis and antixenosis tests was done to verify results under natural conditions. Finally, for several cultivars, also the leaf glucosinolate concentrations were analysed. Cabbage whiteflies showed on certain cultivars significantly increased mortality, prolonged developmental times and reduced weights. Besides, some cultivars were significantly less infested. However, the incidence of antibiosis and antixenosis as well as the glucosinolate patterns were partly inconsistent. Although a number of moderately resistant cultivars could be identified, the detected resistance is certainly not strong and consistent enough as an exclusive measure of a plant protection strategy but might become a component of a multi-layered strategy against cabbage whiteflies.


This article explores competing efforts to make sense of the 9/11 attacks within entries posted on the "Where Were You … September 11th, Two Thousand One" Internet archive. Open to written contributions for one year from 15 September 2001, the archive amassed more than 2,500 responses, with posters writing from over twenty different countries. The article begins by arguing that this repository of vernacular memories has potential to significantly broaden our understanding of how the events of 9/11 were interpreted beyond the dominant discourses of political and other elites. It then attempts to do this via a discursive analysis of three key themes traversing contributions to WhereWereYou. These relate, first, to efforts to position 9/11 within particular temporal horizons; second, to accounts of 9/11's essence and causes; and third, to articulated hopes, fears, and expectations around the attacks' future impacts. The article concludes by locating WhereWereYou within debates over the archive's status in contemporary social and political life. It argues that this specific archive's refusal to foreclose 9/11's meaning renders WhereWereYou a particularly interesting memory project for exploring the events of 11 September 2001, and for thinking through contemporary mnemonic practices more broadly.


The study mainly discusses performance measurements of interlibrary loan for university libraries in Taiwan. The purposes of the study are: 1) to explore the status of interlibrary loan services for university libraries in Taiwan; 2) to investigate the effect of electronic resources on interlibrary loan services; 3) to collect and analyze current data on the performance of ILL services of university libraries; 4) to identify and describe characteristics of low-cost, high-performing ILL operations. The study used questionnaire surveys and performance evaluation method with four performance measures to evaluate borrowing and lending services: cost, fill rate, turnaround time, and collection sufficiency. In 2014, the researcher sent questionnaires to 169 university libraries to collect the interlibrary loan operations and performance data in 2013. The study found electronic resources had influenced ILL services, and that 29 participants (27.1%) provided database ILL services, 28 participants provided e-journals ILL (26.2%), 5 participants (4.7%) provided e-book ILL services. With the implementation the NDDS ILL information system in 2013, the ILL service performance of 107 participants were assessed, the average ILL transaction per library was 993, the average ILL borrowing transaction per library was 484, and the average ILL lending transaction per library was 509. The borrowing unit cost was NT$165, and the lending unit cost was NT$129. The borrowing fill rate was 79%, and the lending fill rate was 82%. The borrowing turnaround time was 1.98 days, and the lending turnaround time was 1.54 days. As the ratio of requests received to requests sent out in interlibrary lending was 1.1, it showed that the collection of university libraries was sufficient and adequate. This study carried out a performance measurement of ILL service, constructed four performance measures and described the performance of ILL service for university libraries in Taiwan as costing less with a faster turnaround time, higher fill rate and a sufficient and adequate collection. The study is valuable because it proposed new performance measures and significant findings of effects of e-resources in interlibrary loan services.


Submitted for the MAR05 Meeting of The American Physical Society Impact of double-layer charging dynamics on induced-charge electro-osmotic flows KEVIN T. CHU, YUXING BEN, MARTIN Z. BAZANT, Department of Mathematics, MIT — Induced charge electro-osmotic (ICEO) flows depend crucially on a combination of diffuse layer charge build up and a non-trivial tangential electric field at the electrode surface. Moreover, since time-dependent fields are commonly used to drive ICEO flows, charging dynamics play a critical role in determining the magnitude and direction of the resulting fluid flow. Unfortunately, at strong applied fields, the traditional model of the electrochemical cell as a linear RC circuit breaks down and the impact of bulk diffusion on the charging cannot be ignored. To gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of diffuse layer charging, we consider the following simple problem: What is the response of a metallic sphere in an electrolyte solution to a suddenly applied uniform electric field. Even in the weak-field limit, we find that there is a non-trivial temporal and spatial dependence to the charge build up at the surface of the sphere, which may impact transient fluid flows. At strong fields, we find that surface conduction begins to be important as the diffuse layer builds up sufficient charge to induce surface diffusion and electromigration.


Hybrid opto-digital joint transform correlator (HODJTC) is effective for image motion measurement, but it is different from the traditional joint transform correlator because it only has one optical transform and the joint power spectrum is directly input into a digital processing unit to compute the image shift. The local cross-correlation image can be directly obtained by adopting a local Fourier transform operator. After the pixel-level location of cross-correlation peak is initially obtained, the up-sampling technique is introduced to relocate the peak in even higher accuracy. With signal-to-noise ratio ? 20 dB, up-sampling factor k ? 10 and the maximum image shift ? 60 pixels, the root-mean-square error of motion measurement accuracy can be controlled below 0.05 pixels.


The present dissertation examines the well-established research paradigm known as the illusion of control. Until now, researchers have employed one basic paradigm which has addressed the illusion of control as a unidimensional phenomenon. In Study 1, 91 female undergraduates were presented with three induction conditions used by previous researchers. Factor analyses showed that judgments from these tasks did not tap into a single process, but rather fell into two types of illusory judgments--beliefand contingency-based. In Study 2, 182 female undergraduates were exposed to the same three induction conditions used in Study 1 plus two additional contingency tasks. As in Study 1, the results from factor analyses demonstrated a multidimensional factor structure in which contingency judgments were differentiated from performance judgments. In addition, judgments based on time-line contingency tasks loaded separately from contingency judgments from the key and light task. Study 2 identified two groups of behavior. Participants' self-reported likelihood of voting in the 1996 presidential election and frequency of prayer were labeled as control-based behavior. Frequency of reading published horoscopes and giving higher validity rating to them were labeled as belief-based behavior. The results showed that the different illusion factors interacted differentially with desire for control and level of belief in the paranormal when predicting belief-based and control-based behavior. Judgment type also interacted differentially with desire for control and paranormal belief when predicting reports of overall happiness. Finally, methodological implications for future research were discussed.


Recent research has revealed an ever-growing class of microarchitectural attacks that exploit speculative execution, a standard feature in modern processors. Proposed and deployed countermeasures involve a variety of compiler updates, firmware updates, and hardware updates. None of the deployed countermeasures have convincing security arguments, and many of them have already been broken.
The obvious way to simplify the analysis of speculative-execution attacks is to eliminate speculative execution. This is normally dismissed as being unacceptably expensive, but the underlying cost analyses consider only software written for current instruction-set architectures, so they do not rule out the possibility of a new instruction-set architecture providing acceptable performance without speculative execution. A new ISA requires compiler updates and hardware updates, but those are happening in any case.
This paper introduces BasicBlocker, a generic ISA modification that works for all common ISAs and that removes most of the performance benefit of speculative execution. To demonstrate feasibility of BasicBlocker, this paper defines a BBRISC-V variant of the RISC-V ISA, reports implementations of a BBRISC-V soft core and an associated compiler, and presents a performance comparison for a variety of benchmark programs.


Objective Socioeconomic status (SES) is adversely associated with perinatal outcomes. This association is likely to be mediated by tobacco exposure. However, previous studies were limited to single perinatal outcomes and devoted no attention to environmental tobacco exposure. Therefore, this study aimed firstly to explain the role of maternal smoking in the association between maternal education and preterm birth (PTB), low birth weight (LBW) and small for gestational age (SGA), and secondly to explain whether environmental tobacco smoke mediates these associations further. Methods This study was nested in a population-based cohort study in the Netherlands, the Amsterdam Born Children and their Development (ABCD) cohort. Analyses were done in a sample of 3821 pregnant women of Dutch origin, using logistic regression analysis.


Background Otherwise healthy children who present for elective surgery with an upper respiratory infection (URI) may be at risk for perioperative respiratory complications. This risk may be increased in children with congenital heart disease who undergo cardiac surgery while harboring a URI because of their compromised cardiopulmonary status. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the incidence of peri- and postoperative complications in children undergoing cardiac surgery while harboring a URI. Methods The study population consisted of 713 children scheduled to undergo cardiac surgery. Of these, 96 had symptoms of URI, and 617 were asymptomatic. Children were followed prospectively from induction of anesthesia to discharge from the hospital to determine the incidence of postoperative respiratory, cardiovascular, neurologic, and surgical adverse events. Duration of postoperative ventilation, time in the intensive care unit (ICU), and length of hospital stay were also recorded. Results Children with URIs had a significantly higher incidence of respiratory and multiple postoperative complications than children with no URIs (29.2 vs. 17.3% and 25 vs. 10.3%, respectively;P < 0.01) and a higher incidence of postoperative bacterial infections (5.2 vs. 1.0%;P = 0.01). Furthermore, logistic regression indicated that the presence of a URI was an independent risk factor for multiple postoperative complications and postoperative infections in children undergoing open heart surgery. Children with URIs also stayed longer in the intensive care unit than children with no URIs (75.9 ± 89.8 h vs. 57.7 ± 63.8, respectively;P < 0.01). However, the overall length of hospital stay was not significantly different (8.4 vs. 7.8 days, URI vs. non-URI groups;P > 0.05). Conclusions The presence of a URI was predictive of postoperative infection and multiple complications in children presenting for cardiac surgery. Despite this, the presence of a URI does not appear to affect the patient's overall length of hospital stay nor the development of long-term sequelae.


A computational study has been performed to predict the heat transfer distribution on the blade tip surface for a representative gas turbine first stage blade. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions of blade tip heat transfer are compared with test measurements taken in a linear cascade, when available. The blade geometry has an inlet Mach number of 0.3 and an exit Mach number of 0.75, pressure ratio of 1.5, exit Reynolds number based on axial chord of 2.57×106, and total turning of 110 deg. Three blade tip configurations were considered; a flat tip, a full perimeter squealer, and an offset squealer where the rim is offset to the interior of the tip perimeter. These three tip geometries were modeled at three tip clearances of 1.25%, 2.0%, and 2.75% of the blade span. The tip heat transfer results of the numerical models agree well with data. For the case in which side-by-side comparison with test measurements in the open literature is possible, the magnitude of the heat transfer coefficient in the "sweet spot" matches data exactly and shows 20–50% better agreement with experiment than prior CFD predictions of this same case.


Abstract Objective: Compare the oral colonization profile of premature infants admitted at NICU before and after doing oral care routine with sterile water versus no intervention. Methods: It was a randomized clinical trial composed of 37 premature infants admitted at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with a birth weight (BW) <1500 g. They were distributed in two groups: the study group (SG) with 15 patients who received an oral hygiene with sterile water; and a control group (CG) (no intervention) formed by 22 patients. Primary outcome was oral colonization profile before and after doing oral care. Result: In the study group, the number of patients colonized by the Gram-positive bacteria at the beginning of the study was 53% versus 40% at the end (p=0.10). For Gram negative, 40% at the study's beginning versus 60% at the end (p=0.18). In the control group, the number of colonized patients for the Gram-positive bacteria at the onset of the study was 54.5% versus 32% patients at the end (p=0.24). For Gram negative, 32% patients at the start of the study versus 77% at the end (p = 0.003). Conclusion: There is a significant increase of the Gram-negative flora in those patients without oral care.


This student thesis in General Management addresses how leaders can bridge the gap between work groups and teams in geographically dispersed organizations and partially distributed teams. These types of organizational structures are increasingly common in the globalized world of business, and bring benefits to many organizations by for example connecting skilled workers regardless of their location through the means of information and communications technology. However, previous research within the field of work in dispersed settings has identified several challenges that these settings entail, including areas like for example group cohesion and motivation. If not handled, these challenges may have negative effects on team performance and organizational effectiveness. Previous studies have mostly targeted the challenges in isolation. The purpose of this study is to provide a holistic perspective, connecting different challenges in order to pinpoint reasons and effects. By identifying consequences that follow from being geographically dispersed and investigating how the challenges affect a real-world organization, the study aims to suggest countermeasures to deal with these consequences.Theory is built using Informed Grounded Theory, based on primary data from 21 in-depth interviews conducted at a Swedish high tech company. Through an analysis combining the primary data with secondary data stemming from relevant literature, the study presents conclusions including suggested countermeasures to overcome challenges imposed by work in dispersed settings. The study identifies communication as the key factor with possibility to affect group cohesion and motivation directly, and thereby also performance indirectly. Thoughtful use of different types of communication can in fact counteract challenges and lead to increased productivity and well-being. The study has implications for organizations that are planning for, or currently utilizing a dispersed organizational structure, and aids in understanding the collected effects of the challenges involved. The study is conducted at one company, which can be seen as a limitation. To counteract for this limitation, the researchers have put in effort to emphasize generalizable factors.


Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a malignant hematopoietic disorder caused
by indefinite proliferation and lack of differentiation of leukemia stem cells. Elucidation of signaling
pathways involved in leukemic stem cells are current strategies in treatment of leukemias. In this content,
nucleostemin (NS) plays a critical role in proliferation and self renewal of stem and cancer cells. In the
present study, effects of NS gene silencing on proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis in NB4 cell line
as an APL model have been studied for the first time.
Materials & Methods: NB4 cell line was cultured in the presence of 200 nM NS-siRNA and after
transfection with Nucleostemin specific siRNA nucleostemin gene expression pattern was evaluated by
Semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Trypan blue exclusion test and fluorescent microscopy were used to study
growth inhibitory and apoptotic effects, respectively. Differentiation was studied morphologically and
biologically using Wright-Giemsa staining and latex particle phagocytic activity, respectively.
Results: NS gene was highly expressed in NB4 cells. NS-siRNA transfection into NB4 cells at 200 nM
inhibited nucleostemin mRNA level up to 36.1% after 48h when compared to corresponding control cells.
Between 12-72 hours after transfection, the cell growth was decreased up to 35.1% and differentiation
characteristics such as decrease in nuclear cytoplasm ratio and ingestion of latex particles were observed,
confirmed that differentiation toward monocytic/macrophagic Linage.
Conclusion: According to differentiating and growth inhibitory effects of NS inhibition in NB4 cells, it
can be proposed as a new target for treatment of APL patients.


The ethics literature to date has suffered from an inadequate empirical base on which to support discussion about practice, policy and education. Research in the area of ethical decision-making has been inconclusive because of unclear conceptualisations of moral problems, and different methods to investigate the extent to which nurses are confronted with them. In particular, the contextual influences on the formation of moral conflicts and nurses' responses to them have not been explored. In cancer care, there is anecdotal evidence that such influences have a powerful effect on the interaction between individual nurses and perceived moral problems. The study aims to redress previous inadequacies by exploring individual nurses' engagement with perceived moral problems as they occur on an acute cancer unit. The surrounding influences and effects on patient care are studied as part of a fieldwork analysis involving 18 months of participant observation. The researcher worked alongside individual nurses in order to deepen understanding of their perception of moral conflicts. Findings involve the central concern that ethical decisions are not made, and that this can, in part, be attributed to nurses' evident pattern of emotional distancing. The function of emotion in enabling moral engagement is a central argument of this thesis. The lack of a credible ethical language in practice and the effects of hierarchical decision-making are also explored. Against a backdrop of the frequently mismanaged border between acute and palliative care, these issues appear to combine to leave patients and their relatives unsupported as death approaches. By studying ethical decision-making in the context of its application, this study can reliably suggest ways forward in practice. The implications are far-reaching and offer recommendations which improve on those contained in recent policy literature. They will be of direct relevance to those involved in pre- and post registration, and to those responsible for acute cancer services in the UK.


Flow diversion around subsurface cavities in unsaturated fractured media is important to numerous environmental and engineering applications. This paper provides analytical solutions to partial and complete flow diversion around cavities intersected by fractures under steady state conditions. It is focused on a typical trifracture junction located upstream from a cavity surface. Fractures are modeled as two‐dimensional porous media with an exponential relationship between the capillary pressure and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. The solutions show that the vertical distance between the fracture end and the nearest junction (Z) and the slope of the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (α) are by far the most important determinants of flow diversion. In fact, the product of Z and α enters the threshold flux and liquid entry flux equations as a dimensionless sorptive length (s). This relationship between Z and α is shown to have important implications for uncertainty and scalability of calibrated model parameters. The solutions given in this paper are expected to be directly applicable to cavities on the order of the fracture spacing.


New technologies give local journalists the opportunity to extend their agenda, adding the international context; however, for community participation it is crucial to be informed about the closest environment. Several Ukrainian local news sites in the situation of political instability and military conflict increase the number of news items about international/national issues, whereas a majority of others covers predominantly city/ regional events. On the basis of content analysis, news geography of two leading news sites of two Ukrainian cities Lviv and Odesa are studied and two types of local sites are discovered: local (with a high priority given to the local news) and non-local (with a priority placed on the international and national news). A clear correlation between the number of texts and exclusivity of news sources can be seen. Exclusivity is higher on the sites which see the local news items as their priority; however, quality of news remains problematic for both types. Readers are provided with a lot of unchecked and unbalanced content. As a result, functions of community integration and participation cannot be fulfilled properly by the local media, and defining other additional tools for civic engagement becomes a significant task.


The pre- and postoperative refraction results are reported in 99 patients receiving an anterior chamber lens of standard 19.0 D power after intracapsular cataract extraction. The mean refraction after the operation was -0.76 D, SD 2.13. Apart from eight patients with suspected lenticular myopia, 5% of the patients ended up with a refraction that differed more than +/- 5D from the preoperative value. This variation was due to variation in the power of the biological lens removed at surgery, the mean value of which was 22.8 D, SD 3.3. As a measure of the aniseikonia induced at surgery, the ocular magnification was calculated to increase 2.7%, SD 4.2%, as compared with the preoperative value. The variation should be considered in the discussion of whether a preoperative biometry and calculation of appropriate IOL power are recommended or not.


This dissertation examines the effects of competition in the market for accounting services. I focus on the unique attributes that characterize public accounting and investigate whether competition helps or harms audit quality. I find that audit quality is highest when markets have an intermediate level of competition. Insufficient competition provides monopolist auditors little incentive to expend effort to improving audit quality while too intense competition erodes rents and pushes auditors to focus on alternate revenue streams, such as non-audit services. An oligopolistic market structure, with a small group of high quality audit firms, not only promotes healthy competition, that generates higher levels of audit quality, it preserves some rents for the competing firms and depresses the use of non-audit services, a tool shown to negatively impact audit outcomes. Further, I find that the training system used for integrating new auditors into the industry works to reinforce the oligopolistic market structure. In the first chapter, I investigate the relationship between local competition and audit quality. I document empirically that audit quality does not follow monotonically with competition. The highest levels of audit quality are produced within markets that are neither intensely competitive nor monopolistic. A balance between these two extremes forces auditors to expend effort to provide high quality audits while still be able to extract sufficient rents such that their focus is not disproportionately shifted to more differentiated services. In the second chapter, I study the role that non-audit services play within an audit firm's product mix in competitive markets. I empirically show that auditors respond to intensifying competition by increasing their emphasis on, and selling more, non-audit services. My results suggest that audit firms utilize their non-audit offerings to differentiate themselves as well as counterbalance reductions in audit fees. Additionally, my results show that the non-audit services old in competitive markets are more harmful to audit quality than those sold elsewhere. The results suggest that overly competitive audit markets push auditors to not only reduce their audit pricing, but also increase their use of non-audit services that degrade audit quality. In my third chapter, I examine how labor enters into public accounting. Through a two period matching model, I show how the centralized training of public accountants directs the flow of trained workers towards larger firms over smaller ones. This structure serves to further exacerbate the gulf between different tiers of public accounting firms, promoting an oligopoly in the output market. Over the long run, the model predicts that the growth of larger firms will outpace that of smaller firms. Smaller auditors will become boutique firms that cater to specialized clients. Further, I find that the efficiency of labor matchings is determined by the distinguishability of outputs between different worker types. If the outputs of different worker types are not sufficiently heterogeneous, then larger firms will have the incentive to free-ride on the training capacity of smaller firms. Fewer high ability workers will be trained by large auditors and overall audit quality will fall.


There is a range of local weather and climate-related factors that contribute to the degradation of cultural heritage buildings, structures and sites over time. Some of these factors are influenced by changes in climate and some of these changes manifest themselves though a speeding up of the rate of degradation. It is the intention of this paper to review this situation with special reference to the Nordic Countries, where typical trends resulting from climate change are shorter winters and increased precipitation all year round. An attempt is made to initially draw up a classification of materials and structures relevant to cultural heritage that are affected, with a proposed numeric scale for the urgency to act. The intention is to provide information on where best to concentrate cultural heritage site preservation resources in the future.


This paper describes a design optimization based on the fuzzy-based Taguchi method coupled with finite element analysis (FEA). The proposed approach takes advantage of both the Taguchi method and a fuzzy rule based inference system, which forms a robust and practical methodology in tackling multiobjective optimization problems. The proposed methodology is applied to the optimization design of a surface-mounted permanent magnet (SPM) motor. The experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed method.


Herein, a new strategy for the fabrication of a sensitive immunosensor capable of determination of CC Chemokine receptor 4 (CCR4) in complex serum samples is developed through the polymer modification on the disposable indium tin oxide electrode. Anti-CCR4 antibodies, which are utilized as sensing biomolecules, are covalently attached on the succinimide groups of polypyrrole polymer (PPyr-CSsg). The constructed immunosensor illustrates promising performances for the quantification of CCR4 antigen, with a linear detection range of 0.024-12 pg mL-1 and a low detection limit of 7.3 fg mL-1 , calculated at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. In addition, the impedimetric immunosensor displays a very successful analytical performance in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, repeatability, reproducibility, and long-term stability as well as successful applicability for the accurate quantification of CCR4 in human serum samples. The constructed immunosensor is successfully used for quantification of CCR4 antigen in human serums. In addition, the immunosensor displays only 27.54% loss in its initial signal after nine weeks storage at 4 °C. Moreover, the fabricated immunosensor is economical, highly sensitive, and selective for CCR4 antigen detection, and suitable for potential application in clinical diagnosis.


: This study aimed to evaluate the relevance of exosomes in laryngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer. The peripheral blood from 22 patients with head or neck cancer and 11 normal subjects were retrospectively analyzed. The exosomes were extracted and the shape was observed through an electronic transmission microscope. Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) was used to detect the particle concentration and particle size of the exosomes. The exosomes from the supernatant liquids of laryngeal cancer and hypopharyngeal cancer patients could be separated. They had a cup-shaped structure with the diameters within 30–100 nm. The protein concentration of exosomes from both types of cancer patients was significantly higher than from normal subjects ( p < 0.05). Using western blot, Cluster of differentiation (CD) 63 and CD 81 were detected in the exosomes, but protein calnexin was not detected. The particle concentration of exosomes of the patients was not significantly different from normal subjects ( p > 0.05). The particle diameter of exosomes from laryngeal cancer patients was larger than that from normal subjects ( p > 0.05) while that from hypopharyngeal cancer patients was significantly larger ( p < 0.01). In conclusion, exosomes were expected to be a potential non-invasive and simple tumor marker of body fluid for laryngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer.


A critical bottleneck in supervised machine learning is the need for large amounts of labeled data which is expensive and time-consuming to obtain. Although a small amount of labeled data cannot be used to train a model, it can be used effectively for the generation of humaninterpretable labeling functions (LFs). These LFs, in turn, have been used to generate a large amount of additional noisy labeled data in a paradigm that is now commonly referred to as data programming. Previous methods of generating LFs do not attempt to use the given labeled data further to train a model, thus missing opportunities for improving performance. Additionally, since the LFs are generated automatically, they are likely to be noisy, and naively aggregating these LFs can lead to suboptimal results. In this work, we propose an LF-based bi-level optimization framework WISDOM to solve these two critical limitations. WISDOM learns a joint model on the (same) labeled dataset used for LF induction along with any unlabeled data in a semi-supervised manner, and more critically, reweighs each LF according to its goodness, influencing its contribution to the semi-supervised loss using a robust bi-level optimization algorithm. We show that WISDOM significantly outperforms prior approaches on several text classification datasets.


Despite ongoing improvements in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) therapeutics, timely access to quality medical care likely impacts patient outcomes. Physical distance from specialty care and socioeconomic status (SES) may impact quality of care. In a nationwide population study we aimed to assess the impact of patient location and SES on IBD outcomes.

 This Epi-IIRN project utilized a meta-database incorporating patient data of all four health maintenance organisations (HMO) in Israel, representing 98% of the population. All patients identified on the incidence cohort were followed from diagnosis until end of 2018. Regions in Israel were defined as central (coastal plain and Jerusalem corridor), northern region and southern region. SES class were defined by postcode as per Israel bureau of statistics data from SES 1 (lowest) to SES 4 (highest). Primary outcome was steroid dependency, with secondary outcomes of biologic therapy use during first year of diagnosis, surgery, gastroenterology visits, hospitalizations and mortality. Analysis was performed separately for Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC).

 A total of 30,167 IBD patients (16,936 (56%) CD and 13,231 (44%) UC) were included: 74% of patients were in central region, 12% southern region and 14% northern region. 21% were in SES class 1 and 12% in SES 4.
 In CD, lower SES was associated with higher steroid dependency (37% vs 30%, p=0.002), higher surgery rates (21% vs 12%, p<0.001), more hospitalizations (2.4 vs 1.1, p<0.001), more emergency department (ER) visits (2.9 vs 1.9, p<0.001) and higher mortality (3.3% vs 2.5%, p=0.03). Regarding region, steroid dependency, hospitalization rate, ER visits and surgery rate were all lower in central regions compared to both northern and southern region (p<0.001 for both central vs northern, and central vs southern regions). Similarly, gastrointestinal specialized clinic visits were more frequent in central regions (p=0.01).
 In UC, lower SES was associated with lower frequency of gastrointestinal clinic visits (5.0 vs 8.5, p<0.001). This was associated with more hospitalizations (1.6 vs 0.7, p<0.001), ER visits (2.1 vs 1.6, p=0.002), surgeries (7.6% vs 5.0%, p=0.014) and higher mortality (5.1% vs 4.2%, p=0.026). By region, gastrointestinal clinic visits were more frequent, and ER visits, hospitalizations (all p<0.001) and surgeries (p=0.001) were all lower in central compared to both northern and southern regions.

 In this nationwide analysis we show deleterious impact of both lower SES and peripheral residence on outcomes of CD and UC. Policy makers should consider these data to facilitate improved access to medical care and maximize IBD outcomes in a standardized way.


We study the fact-checking problem, which aims to identify the veracity of a given claim. Specifically, we focus on the task of Fact Extraction and VERification (FEVER) and its accompanied dataset. The task consists of the subtasks of retrieving the relevant documents (and sentences) from Wikipedia and validating whether the information in the documents supports or refutes a given claim. This task is essential and can be the building block of applications such as fake news detection and medical claim verification. In this article, we aim at a better understanding of the challenges of the task by presenting the literature in a structured and comprehensive way. We describe the proposed methods by analyzing the technical perspectives of the different approaches and discussing the performance results on the FEVER dataset, which is the most well-studied and formally structured dataset on the fact extraction and verification task. We also conduct the largest experimental study to date on identifying beneficial loss functions for the sentence retrieval component. Our analysis indicates that sampling negative sentences is important for improving the performance and decreasing the computational complexity. Finally, we describe open issues and future challenges, and we motivate future research in the task.


A conceptual design of a switched television-distribution system based on analogue intensty-modulated (IM) transmission through optical-fiber waveguides is discussed. Transmission of two TV channels and provision of telephone or data service over two optical-fiber waveguides to each subscriber by frequency-division multiplexing is considered first and then other design options such as spatial-division multiplexing, inclusion of copperwire pairsfor the supply of electrical power and telephone or data service is reviewed. Thepresent state ofdevelopment of system components is also discussed and areas requiring further development are pointed out. Theoretical Calculation of the possible transmission distances for analogue IM transmission of baseband and frequency-division multiplexed video signals is described. The results show that if-3 dBm (0.5 mW) of optical power modulated by a baseband video signal to a peak modulationfactor of 80% is launched into an optical-fiber waveguide, a distance of approximately 15 km can be spanned without a repeater. It is concluded that in view ofthe distances that can be covered by low-loss optical-fiber transmission systems, a centrally switched optical television distribution system may well be attractive for applications not only to urban areas, but also to rural areas. It is further suggested that an economic analysis is needed to ascertain the practicality of such a system.


A study investigated the effectiveness of teaching formal grammar and grammatical structures on development of writing skills of learners of English as a Second Language (ESL), and examined possible differences between males and females in this regard. Subjects were 97 university ESL students, 48 males and 49 females enrolled in a school of education; two groups were formed, approximately matched in gender composition and English language skills. The experimental group (24 males and 22 females) received intensive grammar instruction for 12 weeks, during an ESL composition course. The control group (24 males and 27 females) aas given only the composition instruction. Grammar and composition post-tests were administered to all participants. Results indicate the experimental group males and females performed better on grammar than control group males, but there was no significant difference between experimental group members and control group females. Significantly better writing test performance was found for experimental group subjects overall, but not between experimental group females and control group males or between experimental group males and experimental group females. (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************


Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders all over the world. Available antiarthritic medications have only partial efficacy and their long-term use is associated with adverse events. Elaeagnus Angustifolia (EA) is a medicinal plant with analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. The present study evaluated the impact of two doses of EA extract compared with ibuprofen on the severity of disease in patients with knee OA. This study was designed as a randomized, double blind, active-controlled and parallel group trial. Patients with OA were randomized to receive 300 mg/day (n=33) or 600 mg/day (n=32) of EA aqueous extract, or 800 mg/day ibuprofen (n=32) for 7 weeks. EA extract contained 0.21 % (w/w) kaempferol according to HPLC. Efficacy of treatment was assessed using Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) of pain, Lequesne's Pain-Function Index (LPFI), and patient's global assessment (PGA) index. The amount of kaempferol in the extract was determined by HPLC method to be 0.21 % w/w. There were significant reductions in WOMAC, VAS, LPFI and PGA scores by the end of trial with all three interventions. Comparison of the changes in WOMAC, VAS and LPFI scores among the treatment groups did not reveal any significant difference between EA and ibuprofen, and between low and high doses of EA. EA was safe and well tolerated during the course of trial and no adverse event was reported. The present results suggest beneficial effects of aqueous EA extract in reducing the symptoms of OA with an efficacy comparable to that of ibuprofen.


Given the increased trend toward integrated global markets, the financial strategies used by foreign managers have become increasingly important areas of concern for multinational enterprises. This exploratory study evaluated the capital budgeting strategies of 159 foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based multinational enterprises. A logit regression model was used to test the likelihood that foreign subsidiaries would adopt sophisticated capital budgeting strategies given various firm-specific and company-specific factors. The results of this study indicated that ownership arrangement, financial leverage, and asset size were key factors related to the adoption of sophisticated capital budgeting strategies. INTRODUCTION Determining which firm-specific and environmental factors affect a firm's capital budgeting practices is a difficult task in any domestic market - this task is even more difficult in the international arena. In particular, there are various foreign issues associated with the political, economic and financial environments that can upset even the best laid plans. Thus, a clear understanding of a company's internal and external environments is necessary if it is going to be successful abroad. When multinational enterprises (MNEs) open offices in foreign markets, there are many options regarding how to manage their foreign subsidiaries. On one end of the continuum, they may choose to operate with a heavy hand. That is, they instruct their subsidiaries how and what to do and when to do it. At the other end of the continuum, they may allow their foreign subsidiaries to make their own decisions. In this case, it would be left up to the subsidiaries to design their own strategies and carry them out. The rationale behind this strategy is that since the subsidiaries are located in local markets, they should be equipped to handle the tasks. Today, many companies are utilizing a compromise between these two extremes by setting strategic goals at the home office and then allowing local managers to achieve the goals by implementing their own specific techniques. To determine how well foreign subsidiaries are performing, it is necessary to examine which financial decision models are being used by subsidiary managers. Unlike domestic capital budgeting analysis, there are more factors to consider when doing international analyses. Foreign influences that can affect the capital budgeting decision include complex cash flow estimates, foreign exchange rate changes, lack of standard accounting systems, financial risks and political uncertainties. The purpose of this study is to examine several additional factors that may affect the capital budgeting practices utilized by foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based MNEs. The findings based on responses generated from 159 foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based MNEs operating in 43 countries.1 The findings of this study show that ownership status and financial leverage are important factors which are related to the sophistication of capital budgeting techniques utilized by foreign subsidiaries. The analysis also shows that firm age and asset size are directly related to the source used to determine discount rates. Finally, the results indicate that publicly traded subsidiaries and asset size are positively associated with sophisticated risk-assessment strategies. This paper is composed of five parts. The first part briefly gives both a theoretical and practical overview of international capital budgeting analysis. The second part discusses the data collection techniques and the questionnaire design used in this study. The third part focuses on the logit regression model used in our analyses. The fourth section provides some important findings of our research. The last section offers some conclusions from this study. LITERATURE REVIEW Theoretical Issues on International Capital Budgeting Analysis Due to the complex environmental concerns abroad, capital budgeting analysis is more difficult for foreign projects than it is for local projects. …


Thermoplastics when they become thermally conductive, have a great potential to be used in thermal management applications due to their low cost, lightweight, and flexibility. Here, synthetic graphite and graphene are used as thermally conductive fillers to fabricate Polyphenylene Sulfide- (PPS) based composite materials with high thermal conductivity. Graphene and graphite added PPS composites were manufactured by using a twinscrew extruder and injection molding machine. Physical, thermal, mechanical, and morphological properties of the composites were investigated by several characterization methods including thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, thermomechanical analysis, scanning electron microscopy, thermal diffusivity measurement, and tensile and flexural tests, The in-plane and through-plane thermal conductivity coefficient of graphene (5 wt. %) loaded synthetic graphite (40 wt. %)/PPS composites are greatly improved to 26.45 and 5.02 W/mK, respectively compared to that of neat PPS. The outstanding in-plane thermal conductivity of graphene loaded graphite/PPS composites is attributed to the formation of an effective thermal conductive pathway due to the alignment of the layered structure of graphene and graphite fillers in the flow direction.


restoring normal iron levels; this diagnosis had to be considered in our patient as the first biopsies were compatible with this skin disorder. From a clinical point of view, the differential diagnosis must include other skin conditions that have been described in association with bariatric surgery, such as dermatosisarthritis syndrome, neutrophilic dermatosis attributed to the formation of circulating immune complexes produced in the blind loop of bowel, and acrodermatitis related to zinc deficiency. We also considered the perforating dermatoses, although no association with bariatric surgery has been reported. The increase in obesity in western society means that bariatric surgery will become more common. The conclusion from the present case is that patients undergoing bariatric surgery must be followed up closely by a multidisciplinary team that is aware of the nutritional risks and complications, as well as the appropriate therapeutic strategies that patients must follow for life.


Free-space optical (FSO) communication, considered as a last-mile technology, is widely used in many urban scenarios. However, the performance of urban free-space optical (UFSO) communication systems fades in the presence of system vibration caused by many factors in the chaotic urban environment. In this paper, we develop a dedicated indoor vibration platform and atmospheric turbulence to estimate the Bifurcated-Gaussian (B-G) distribution model of the receiver optical power under different vibration levels and link distances using nonlinear iteration method. Mean square error (MSE) and coefficient of determination ($R^2$) metrics have been used to show a good agreement between the PDFs of the experimental data with the resulting B-G distribution model. Besides, the UFSO channel under the effects of both vibration and atmospheric turbulence is also explored under three atmospheric turbulence conditions. Our proposed B-G distribution model describes the vibrating UFSO channels properly and can easily help to perform and evaluate the link performance of UFSO systems, e.g., bit-error-rate (BER), outage probability. Furthermore, this work paves the way for constructing completed auxiliary control subsystems for robust UFSO links and contributes to more extensive optical communication scenarios, such as underwater optical communication, etc.


The problem of combining join and semijoin reducers for distributed query processing is studied. An approach based on interleaving a join sequence with beneficial semijoins is proposed. A join sequence is mapped into a join sequence tree first. The join sequence tree provides an efficient way to identify for each semijoin its correlated semijoins as well as its reducible relations under the join sequence. In light of these properties, an algorithm for determining an effective sequence of join and semijoin reducers is developed. Examples are given to illustrate the results. They show the advantage of using a combination of joins and semijoins as reducers for distributed query processing. >


Fluids and electrolytes are basic components of the human body and essential for the survival of most species. Any imbalance can potentially lead to serious conditions and death. The replacement of fluids and electrolytes has been used since the ancient age. Modern medicine still requires certain degree of expertise in these areas, which ranges from simple replacement in patients with mild illness to a more complex management in critically ill or hospitalized patients. Training and education in the evaluation and management of patients with fluids and electrolyte abnormalities are fundamental for patient's outcomes. Severe sodium abnormalities are associated with increased morbid ity and mortality, and they are markers of poor outcomes. This review presents a concise discussion of frequently asked questions in the evaluation and management of patients with fluids and sodium abnormalities.


There is need for detailed knowledge about the changes in the structure of the muscle fibers of the heart after an ischemic infarction. In order to improve the treatment of this illness, it is crucial to understand the adaptation of the structure. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is a non-destructive technique that can be used to reconstruct the structure of the fibers in the heart wall. The visualization of this vast amount of densely packed fibers is a challenging problem. In order to understand the structure, it is necessary to convey both the shapes of the fibers, and their mutual coherency. We propose to use line illumination and shadowing of fibers in order to improve the perception of their structure. Using these methods, we present an intuitive way to visualize the structure together with other properties, while avoiding cluttering. The presented methods were applied to a series of healthy and ischemic mouse hearts. These methods helped the user to gain insight in the fibrous structure of the heart.


Rhetoric, Scripture and Theology aptly describe the contents of this collection of essays from the 1994 Pretoria Rhetoric Conference. The conference marked a significant dialogue among scholars gathered from many nations to consider how rhetoric engages with the study of scripture and theology. South Africa provided a suitable context for such discussion. Although the contributors are not only from South Africa, the addressing of issues pertinent to a South African context shows through in many of the essays. Those that do not address particularly South African issues raise equally important issues regarding the topic of rhetoric and its relation to contemporary theological discourse.


Marathi Dalit writer, SharankumarLimbale, in his novel, Hindu, presents a powerful portrayal of India's social upheavals during the last decade and a half from a Dalit perspective. Based on Dalit and Savarna [other name of representing Caste Hindus] conflict in a village in Maharashtra, Laimbale'sHindu takes a measure of India's success and failures as a Nation in terms of the situation of Dalits in contemporary India.  The proposition of the paper is to discuss how the pathetic situation endured by Dalit women and that of women of caste Hindus [the sufferings being felt by the wife of the murdered and that of the murderer] is portrayed and further depicted.


The development of digital projects for eLearning means also creation of digital maps that can easily be transformed in animated maps for teaching military history. The essence of the new approaches in learning is the successful blending of new technologies with updates on pedagogical requests' and the aim of the paper is to present a perspective on the importance of digital maps as sheet of practice as a monitoring tool of students activity. This article approach a Learning Management System as case study involving learning elements and the use of multimedia support in the teaching activity for learning MILITARY HISTORY and the development of didactical games. The existence of such games can be base to create assessment tools and their use will increase the students' competences in military science.


OBJECTIVE
To design a new custom-made artificial semi-knee joint based on rapid prototyping(RP) technique and to explore a method to solve necroses of allocartilage in hemi-joint allotransplantation.

METHODS
Based on the extracted 3D contour image of the articular cartilage of femoral condyle, the custom-made artificial semi-knee joint was designed with Surfacer 9.0 image processing software. The artificial semi-knee joint design used the femoral condylar 3D contour of the patient as the outer face and the subchondral bone 3D contour of allograft bone as inner face. One dado for medullary nail and two for special designing cages which were used to fix the cartilage into the allograft were added on the inner face. After being converted into RP data format, the computer-assisted design was imported into the LPS600 rapid prototyping machine, and the prototype was achieved. Furthermore, the prototype could be modified by hand according to the design. Then the RP model was used as a positive mould to build up a silica gel negative mould, and the negative mould was sent to the factory to manufacture Ti-6A1-4V alloy articular cartilage through ordinary mould-melted founding process. Finally, the whole metal cartilage was completed after melting two special cages on it and polishing it.

RESULTS
A new custom-made artificial semi-knee joint was made and used to treat a 14-year old patient. The custom-made artificial semi-knee joint and the subchondral bone were a perfect match. The operative result was satisfactory. The patient could walk 5 weeks after operation. The bone healing of the auto-bone and allo-bone was achieved 6 months later. A follow-up period lasting 1 year showed that the knee joint played a good function.

CONCLUSION
The artificial semi-knee joint is a good match for the allograft bone and a good idea to solve necroses of allocartilage in hemi-joint allotransplantation.


Objectives
No estimates exist regarding the extent of prescription opioid use among US adults who are the primary caregivers to children.

Methods
Data were from Wave IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Respondents were age 24 to 32 years. We compared the prevalence of prescription opioid use in the last four weeks and medical conditions with the potential to precipitate use among parents (i.e., one or more children living in the household) and nonparents. We then examined demographics and substance use behaviors among parents with and without recent prescription opioid use.

Results
A significantly higher percentage of parents (6.7%) compared with nonparents (3.9%) had taken a prescription opioid in the last four weeks, but a significantly lower percentage of parents compared with nonparents reported medical conditions with the potential to precipitate use such as an injury in the last four weeks (2.8% vs 4.0%). A higher percentage of parents with recent prescription opioid use reported financial hardship (44.1% vs 28.2%) and met criteria for risky substance use behaviors such as prescription opioid misuse (26.3% vs 11.8%) compared with parents without recent prescription opioid use.

Conclusions
Results suggest notable prescription opioid use among young parents in the United States and that parents with recent prescription opioid use are more likely to have a history of inappropriate use of substances. These results highlight the need for additional research regarding the effects of prescription opioid use on parenting behaviors.


This document extends the DMARC (RFC7489) record format by defining an
additional tag. This new tag, the "fi" tag, is to be used in
conjunction with the "ruf" tag used for message-specific failure
reporting. It provides a Domain Owner with a simple way of requesting
limitation of the rate at which such reports are sent.


We have developed a new ice valve to close or open liquid flow in a mini/micro channel. Unlike the traditionally used valve, no moving elements are needed in this normally open system. By freezing the working fluid running inside the channel using a thermoelectric cooling device (TECD), the flow can be blocked due to ice formation. If switching the TECD to heating, the frozen liquid becomes thawed and flow in the channel resumes its running state again. Several experiments were carried out to characterize the working performance of the ice valve for a micro tube. A theoretical model was established to analyze the time response constant of the ice valve. Without any leakage, being very clean, and easily controllable through electricity, this ice valve may find significant applications in microfluidics or nanofluidics.


On the crossroads of ethnological theory, the Derridian spectralogical criticism and ethnography, and on the grounds of the ethnographic research carried out on our own among Huarpe adscript aborigines in the province of Mendoza, argentina, since 2004, this paper aims to explore the ways how ethnic ascription is made and how it is articulated. ethnographic records presented here show that when delimiting identity spaces, 'ghostly' mechanisms are sitting on the edge, and identifications are acknowledged/legitimated through them, as well as are 'spectral' rewritings done in the specific social practices. While the formal ethnical organization is woven in sedentary logic wefts, native practices are inscribed in a nomadic logic.


Effective integration of in vitro tests and absorption modeling can greatly improve our capability in understanding, comparing, and predicting in vivo performances of clinical drug products. In this case, we used a proprietary drug candidate galunisertib to describe the procedures of designing key in vitro tests, analyzing relevant experimental and trial data, and integrating them into physiologically based absorption models to evaluate the performances of its clinical products. By simulating the preclinical study result, we estimated high in vivo permeability for the drug. Given the high sensitivity of its solubility to pH, supersaturation may play an important role in the absorption of galunisertib. Using the dynamic dissolution test, i.e., artificial stomach-duodenum (ASD) model and simulation, we concluded galunisertib in solution or tablet products could maintain supersaturation during the transit in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). A physiologically based absorption model was established by incorporating these key inputs in the simulation of Trial 1 results of galunisertib solution. To predict the performance of three tablet products, we developed z-factor dissolution models from the multi-pH USP dissolution results and integrate them into the absorption model. The resultant biopharmaceutical models provided good prediction of the extent of absorption of all three products, but underestimated the rate of absorption of one tablet product. Leveraging the ASD result and optimization with the dissolution model, we identified the limitation of the model due to complexity of estimating the dissolution parameter z and its in vitro-in vivo correlation.


was considered. The mode of delivery was evaluated using receiver-operating characteristics curves and descriptive statistics. Results: 222 women were included in the study. The head-perineum distance was associated with spontaneous delivery with area under the curve 83% (95% CI 77–89%) and was associated with Caesarean with area under the curve 83% (95% CI 74–92%). In women with head-perineum distance ≤35mm, 7/181 (3.9%) were delivered by Caesarean versus 9/41 (22.0%) in women with head-perineum distance >35 mm (p <0.01). Ultrasound assessed position was occiput anterior (OA) in 73%. Only 3/138 (2.2%) of fetuses in OA position and head-perineum distance ≤35 mm versus 6/17 (35.3%) with non-OA position and head-perineum distance >35 mm were delivered by Caesarean. Conclusions: Ultrasound has the potential to predict mode of delivery in women with prolonged second stage of labour.


Most previous work about the hardware design of a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) intended to either improve its inference performance for real-time applications or to reduce its hardware cost. To our knowledge, there has been no attempt to design a hardware FLC that can perform an adaptive fuzzy inference for the applications of on-line adaptation. The purpose of this paper is to present such an adaptive memory-efficient FLC and its applications. Taking advantage of the adaptability provided by a symbolic fuzzy rule format and the dynamic membership function generator, as well as the high-speed integration capability afforded by VLSI, the proposed adaptive fuzzy logic controller (AFLC) can perform an adaptive fuzzy inference process using various inference parameters, such as the shape and location of a membership function, dynamically and quickly. Three examples are used to illustrate its applications, and the experimental results show the excellent adaptability provided by AFLC.