Despite problems of violence domestically, Brazil has played a key leadership role as part of MINUSTAH peacekeeping operations in Haiti since 2004. This article addresses how Brazil's international military engagement is shaping domestic approaches to urban security, and what may be the implications of the use of military strategies, operations, and norms to address issues of public security in Brazilian cities. It is argued that current approaches toward urban security employing military-trained peacekeepers actually represent a continuation of old paradigms, yet these recent militarised approaches are likely evolving into newer and potentially more accountable forms by constraining indiscriminate use of force and establishing a positive state presence in marginal urban areas. As such, the article connects long-established issues of dealing with urban violence in Latin America with ongoing debates in the United States and beyond about post-counterinsurgency approaches to increasingly urban conflict settings. It reflects on potential lessons to be learned from the Latin American perspective, while showing also how these have changed over the last decade. The article concludes that despite the potential utility of force in some urban conflict settings, this approach could entail a normative shift towards legitimising forceful containment of violence, and hinder democratic consolidation in Brazil.


Abstract Given the increase of reconciliation processes initiated amid ongoing violence, this study focuses on community reconciliation and its relation to structural transformation, or social reconstruction through reforming unjust institutions and practices that facilitate protracted violent conflict. Drawing lessons from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, mixed-methods analyses include 8 in-depth interviews and 184 surveys. Four key dimensions of reconciliation – truth, justice, mercy and peace – are examined. In the interviews, participants prioritise reconstructing the truth and bringing perpetrators to justice as essential aspects of reconciliation. Notions of mercy and forgiveness are less apparent. For the participants, sustainable peace is dependent on structural transformation to improve livelihoods. These data, however, do not indicate how this understanding of reconciliation may relate to individual participation in reconciliation processes. Complementing the qualitative data, quantitative analyses identify some broad patterns that relate to participation in reconciliation events. Compared to those who did not participate, individuals who engaged in reconciliation initiatives report higher levels of personal experience with violence, live alongside demobilised paramilitaries, are more engaged in civic life and express greater preference for structural transformation. The paper concludes with policy implications that integrate reconciliation and structural transformation to deepen efforts to rebuild the social fabric amid violence.


Summary The display type and interactive interface are important elements of virtual reality for increasing the levels of user interest and immersion. With the advancements in hardware performance, virtual reality systems are being widely used in games, broadcasting, education and cultural contents. Accordingly, there is an increasing need for research regarding wireless interfaces that can provide users with the freedom of movement and the control of virtual reality. This paper explains the process of developing a ZA sensor that consists of Zigbee and an accelerometer for virtual reality interactions and proposes the means of controlling virtual reality systems using the ZA sensor. The paper also proposes a multidisplay method for implementing large displays and an active interaction technique using the ZA sensor to allow users to experience liberal movements.


Bagasse is a waste generated in abundance from the sugarcane industry. This investigation was planned to convert bagasse waste into a useful composite. For this purpose the bagasse waste was obtained from sugar cane juice producer. In this study, the extraction of bagasse fibers was done manually and they were treated with sodium hydroxide. The treated bagasse fibers had higher tensile properties as compared to untreated ones, so the alkali treated fibers were used as reinforcement for making composites. Hand lay-up technique was used to manufacture bagasse composite samples. The fiber length (1 inch and 2 inch) and fiber weight percentage (10 wt% and 20 wt%) were considered as variables. It was found that better tensile properties were obtained with higher fiber length (2 inch) and weight percentage (20 wt%). Bagasse-cotton fabric composites were also produced using cotton fabric as a base material and the bagasse fibers were sandwiched between a printed and plain cotton fabric. The idea was to consider these composites useful for sun-shades or for decorative purposes. It was also found that bagasse-cotton fabric reinforced composites had higher tensile strength and strain; however the modulus had reduced due to higher elongation of cotton fabrics. With the increase in the weight percentage the tensile properties had reduced this might be because during the composite manufacturing the epoxy resin had to pass through the fabric to wet the bagasse fiber out and they were not wetted out properly. This phenomenon needs further investigation.


In order to understand the reasons for women's underrepresentation in IS, we extended the IS Major Choice Goals Model, which identifies the major factors that influence students' pursuit of IS majors and careers. There were significant differences between female and male students in terms of self-efficacy, interests, and choice goals. Significant gender differences were also found in the relationships among the key determinants of the model meaning that females and males differed with respect to how they developed aspirations to major in IS. The relationship between self-efficacy and interest was stronger in females than in males, as well as the relationship between self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Self-efficacy influenced choice goals more strongly for males than it influenced females. The relationship between outcome expectations and interest was stronger in males than in females. Interest influenced choice goals more strongly for female students than it influenced male students.


It is consider that, from the standpoint of the law of conservation of energy, the process of converting sound wave falls on the boundary between two spaces in two, leaving the boundary, reflected and passage. It is assumed that the simultaneous presence of three waves is impossible, and that the process of converting one wave in two waves occurs instantaneously. Based on this concept, enter the following boundary conditions for the calculation of amplitudes (coefficients) of the reflected and passage waves. The initial phases of the reflected and passage waves coincide with the phase of the falling wave. The energy of the falling wave is equal to the sum of the energies of the reflected and passage waves. The normal component velocity amplitude of the particle of the liquid under the influence of the falling wave is equal to the sum of the normal component of particle velocity amplitudes of the reflected and passage waves. It was found that the character of dependence of the reflection coefficient on the angle of departure of the initial wave is the same as in the traditional formulas, but the coefficient of passage does not exceed unity. Calculations of reflection and passage coefficients for different values of the refractive coefficient at the boundary between two homogeneous spaces as well as the canonical form of the waveguide, wherein the speed of sound which is minimum at predetermined depth is carried out.


A resource sharing in power line communications (PLC) for the home network is restricted by the channel assignment techniques which decide who has the right to gain access to send data. The channel assignment techniques include contention-free and contention-based. The former requires high synchronization due to the deterministic round-trip time. Besides, contention-based utilizes CSMA/CA techniques that allow stations in a network to compete for channel access and are suitable for decentralized network topology. However, a trade-off exists between the number of stations required to gain access versus system efficiency. Whilst some research has been carried out on CSMA/CA resource sharing techniques that allow only one user to transmit, there is very little work done on multiuser access to optimize system efficiency and reduce collisions in a network. The purpose of the current study was to review the CSMA/CA techniques for resource sharing to improve system efficiency in power line communications. In carrying out this study, a systematic literature review methodology to evaluate different related works and determine the most suitable approach to allow multiuser channel access was used. The study further demonstrated the impact multichannel access has on system efficiency. In addition, the study provides recommendations for future research.
Keywords: CSMA/CA; Medium access control; OFDMA; power line; resource sharing;


The research reported here examined the use of computer generated graphics as a means to assist humans to analyse text documents which have not been subject to markup. The approach taken was to survey available visualization techniques in a broad selection of disciplines including applications to text documents, group those techniques using a taxonomy proposed in this research, then develop a selection of techniques that assist the text analysis objective. Development of the selected techniques from their fundamental basis, through their visualization, to their demonstration in application, comprises most of the body of this research. A scientific orientation employing measurements, combined with visual depiction and explanation of the technique with limited mathematics, is used as opposed to fully utilising any one of those resulting techniques for performing complete text document analysis.

Visualization techniques which apply directly to the text and those which exploit measurements produced by associated techniques are considered. Both approaches employ visualization to assist the human viewer to discover patterns which are then used in the analysis of the document. In the measurement case, this requires consideration of data with dimensions greater than three, which imposes a visualization difficulty. Several techniques for overcoming this problem are proposed. Word frequencies, Zipf considerations, parallel coordinates, colour maps, Cusum plots, and fractal dimensions are some of the techniques considered.

One direct application of visualization to text documents is to assist reading of that document by de-emphasising selected words by fading them on the display from which they are read. Three word selection techniques are proposed for the automatic selection of which words to use.

An experiment is reported which used such word fading techniques. It indicated that some readers do have improved reading speed under such conditions, but others do not. The experimental design enabled the separation of that group which did decrease reading times from the remaining readers who did not. Measurement of comprehension errors made under different types of word fading were shown not to increase beyond that obtained under normal reading conditions.

A visualization based on categorising the words in a text document is proposed which contrasts to visualization of measurements based on counts. The result is a visual impression of the word composition, and the evolution of that composition within that document.

The text documents used to demonstrates these techniques include English novels and short stories, emails, and a series of eighteenth century newspaper articles known as the Federalist Papers. This range of documents was needed because all analysis techniques are not applicable to all types of documents. This research proposes that an interactive use of the techniques on hand in a non-prescribed order can yield useful results in a document analysis. An example of this is in author attribution, i.e. assigning authorship of documents via patterns characteristic of an individual's writing style. Different visual techniques can be used to explore the patterns of writing in given text documents.

A software toolkit as a platform for implementing the proposed interactive analysis of text documents is described. How the techniques could be integrated into such a toolkit is outlined. A prototype of software to implement such a toolkit is included in this research. Issues relating to implementation of each technique used are also outlined.


Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan's economy in terms of providing food and employment and foreign exchange earnings. It contributes 21.9 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP). The importance of sustainable agriculture practices for the farmers to a large extent depends upon the effective sources of information. It is believed that farmers do not often make visit to the research stations, however, they obtained required knowledge from different sources like mass media, fertilizer agency, fellow farmers, radio, television, extension personnel and contact farmers. It is imperative to communicate sustainable agriculture practices to the farmers through various sources of information. This study used a descriptive research methodology the universe of study consisted of six districts of Sindh province comprising Larkana, Naushehro Feroze, Shaheed Benazirabad, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Badin. A sample of 180 farmers was randomly selected for the study. A well structured interview schedule was used to collect information from the small farmers on their personal and socio-economic characteristics and sources of information. The study found that about 36.11% of the respondents were youth having age group (26-35 years), while 66.67% of the respondents were married, however a large percentage (44.44%) maintained a range of small farmers having land 13-25 acres of land and 66.67% of the respondents having their primary education. In addition 66.67% of the respondents having farming experience between 6 to 10 years. The results of the study showed that the most frequently used sources of information about Sustainable Agriculture were Television Broadcast, Neighboring Farmer, Fertilizer and Herbicide Dealer and Seed Dealer, while slightly over half the farmers reported using information about Sustainable Agriculture from Public Extension Agent, Private Extension Agent, Research Workers, Farm Magazine and Publications, Local Newspapers, Relatives and Extension Materials. On the basis of the results and conclusion drawn from the study it is recommended that Government should establish farmers radio and television station for dissemination of the agricultural programs for sustainable agriculture in Sindh province. Sustainable agriculture programs should be broadcast through television and radio programs. Neighbor farmers and fertilizer herbicide dealers should be educated for sustainable agriculture practices.


How can a humanoid robot autonomously learn and refine multiple sensorimotor skills as a byproduct of curiosity driven exploration, upon its high-dimensional unprocessed visual input? We present SKILLABILITY, which makes this possible. It combines the recently introduced Curiosity Driven Modular Incremental Slow Feature Analysis (Curious Dr. MISFA) with the well-known options framework. Curious Dr. MISFA's objective is to acquire abstractions as quickly as possible. These abstractions map high-dimensional pixel-level vision to a low-dimensional manifold. We find that each learnable abstraction augments the robot's state space (a set of poses) with new information about the environment, for example, when the robot is grasping a cup. The abstraction is a function on an image, called a slow feature, which can effectively discretize a high-dimensional visual sequence. For example, it maps the sequence of the robot watching its arm as it moves around, grasping randomly, then grasping a cup, and moving around some more while holding the cup, into a step function having two outputs: when the cup is or is not currently grasped. The new state space includes this grasped/not grasped information. Each abstraction is coupled with an option. The reward function for the option's policy (learned through Least Squares Policy Iteration) is high for transitions that produce a large change in the step-functionlike slow features. This corresponds to finding bottleneck states, which are known good subgoals for hierarchical reinforcement learning - in the example, the subgoal corresponds to grasping the cup. The final skill includes both the learned policy and the learned abstraction. SKILLABILITY makes our iCub the first humanoid robot to learn complex skills such as to topple or grasp an object, from raw high-dimensional video input, driven purely by its intrinsic motivations.


Distinct activation of alkaline and trypsinlike proteinases, leucine aminopeptidase as well as inhibition of the antitryptic activity (ATA) occurred in the area of impaired skin and in peripheral blood of patients with psoriasis as shown by clinico-laboratory examinations. These data suggest the epidermal origin of the substance inhibiting the enzymatic activity. After administration into animals of homogenates of impaired skin obtained from the patients an increase in BAEE-esterase activity and a decrease in the ATA were observed in blood serum. A reverse correlation was found between the ATA of parakeratotic layer and amount of eosinophils in peripheric blood.


Bilateral ablation of dorsolateral frontal cortex in the newborn animal failed to produce the frontal lobe syndrome typical of the adolescent and adult stages. The crucial tests (delayed response, string tests, and discrimination learning) were performed 3 to 4 months postoperatively. At this time, no significant differences between normal animals and animals with prefrontal lesions were found.


Background: A remarkable decline in fertility rates has been observed in many countries, with a primary determinant being an increase in the use of contraceptives. However, the birth rate in Pakistan is still higher compared to the other countries of the region. Therefore, this study aims to assess the effect of demand- and supply-side factors associated with the use of contraceptive measures in Pakistan.Method: Secondary data analysis of four data series of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys (PDHS 1990–91, 2006–07, 2012–13 and 2017–18) were used. The data includes ever-married women aged 15–49 years who had given birth in the previous five years and participated in the family planning module of the PDHS. A total of 25,318 women were included in the analysis. Data were analysed by investigating the associations between independent variables (demand- and supply-side factors) and the use of contraceptive measures through unadjusted odds ratios (OR) and adjusted OR (AOR).Results: The results among demand-side factors indicated that in 2012–13, women without media exposure were less likely to use contraceptives and the trend remains almost constant for 2017–18 (AOR = 0.664, 95 % CI: 0.562–0.784) in 2012–13 and (AOR = 0.654, 95 % CI: 0.483–0.885) in 2017–18; however, they still show a lower likelihood of using contraceptives without media exposure. The results among supply-side factors indicated that absence of transport (2012–13) and limited visits by family planning workers over the previous 12 months (2006–07, 2012–13 and 2017–18) remained significant factors for not using contraceptive methods. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that certain demand- and supply-side factors are associated with the use of contraceptive measures in Pakistan. It highlights the need for the provision of family planning resources and further structural factors, particularly in remote areas.


Under physiological shear stress, neutrophils roll on P-selectin on activated endothelial cells or platelets through interactions with P- selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1). Both P-selectin and PSGL-1 are extended molecules. Human P-selectin contains an NH2-terminal lectin domain, an EGF domain, nine consensus repeats (CRs), a transmembrane domain, and a cytoplasmic tail. To determine whether the length of P- selectin affected its interactions with PSGL-1, we examined the adhesion of neutrophils to CHO cells expressing membrane-anchored P- selectin constructs in which various numbers of CRs were deleted. Under static conditions, neutrophils attached equivalently to wild-type P- selectin and to constructs containing from 2-6 CRs. Under shear stress, neutrophils attached equivalently to wild-type and 6 CR P-selectin and nearly as well to 5 CR P-selectin. However, fewer neutrophils attached to the 4 CR construct, and those that did attach rolled faster and were more readily detached by increasing shear stress. Flowing neutrophils failed to attach to the 3 CR and 2 CR constructs. Neutrophils attached and rolled more efficiently on 4 CR P-selectin expressed on glycosylation-defective Lec8 CHO cells, which have less glycocalyx. We conclude that P-selectin must project its lectin domain well above the membrane to mediate optimal attachment of neutrophils under shear forces. The length of P-selectin may: (a) facilitate interactions with PSGL-1 on flowing neutrophils, and (b) increase the intermembrane distance where specific bonds form, minimizing contacts between the glycocalyces that result in cell-cell repulsion.


Tracing white matter fiber bundles is an integral part of analyzing brain connectivity. An accurate estimate of the underlying tissue parameters is also paramount in several neuroscience applications. In this work, we propose to use a joint fiber model estimation and tractography algorithm that uses the NODDI (neurite orientation dispersion diffusion imaging) model to estimate fiber orientation dispersion consistently and smoothly along the fiber tracts along with estimating the intracellular and extracellular volume fractions from the diffusion signal. While the NODDI model has been used in earlier works to estimate the microstructural parameters at each voxel independently, for the first time, we propose to integrate it into a tractography framework. We extend this framework to estimate the NODDI parameters for two crossing fibers, which is imperative to trace fiber bundles through crossings as well as to estimate the microstructural parameters for each fiber bundle separately. We propose to use the unscented information filter (UIF) to accurately estimate the model parameters and perform tractography. The proposed approach has significant computational performance improvements as well as numerical robustness over the unscented Kalman filter (UKF). Our method not only estimates the confidence in the estimated parameters via the covariance matrix, but also provides the Fisher-information matrix of the state variables (model parameters), which can be quite useful to measure model complexity. Results from in-vivo human brain data sets demonstrate the ability of our algorithm to trace through crossing fiber regions, while estimating orientation dispersion and other biophysical model parameters in a consistent manner along the tracts.


: Based on his own experience and literature on epilepsy study, the latest proposals of International League Antiepileptique, the authors reviews definitions related to epilepsy, such as cryptogenic epilepsy, idiopathic epilepsy, epileptic status, epileptic syndrome, epileptic encephalopathy and epileptic disease; proposes his own definitions of the above conditions resting on clinical and neurophysiological data.


Basic research has been carried out on the transport of a liquid drop and a soft body in an electrostatic travelling field. A conveyer consisting of parallel electrodes was constructed and a four-phase electrostatic travelling wave was applied to the electrodes to transport the drop on the conveyer. The following were clarified by the experiment. (1) Drops and soft bodies can be transported by virtue of the travelling wave in an insulative liquid that is insoluble to the drop, because the drop was charged on the conveyer by friction and driven by the Coulomb force. (2) A drop that covered less than three arrays of the parallel electrode can be transported in the travelling wave field. (3) A threshold voltage exists for the transport. (4) Although the transport was possible not only for insulative but also for conductive drops, the insulative drop can be transported efficiently. (5) The modes of transport can be classified into three categories, namely, a synchronous region where the motion of the liquid drop is in synchrony with the travelling wave, a delayed response regime, and a regime where transport does not occur. (6) Mixing of drops for a chemical reaction was demonstrated on the conveyer with scroll electrodes. A simple model was proposed to simulate the dynamics of the drop in the electrostatic travelling field.


Ergonomics has a vital part to play in the design of automobiles, not only in relation to person–machine interfaces, but also in relation to the whole design philosophy. As ergonomists, we believe that adoption of a more user–centred approach would lead to vehicles more fitted to the requirements of future driving populations. This paper reviews the climate in which automotive design is taking place and reports the findings from a survey investigating current approaches to design and ergonomics in European automotive companies. The results indicate an unsystematic approach to the incorporation of user issues and a need for designers' to be better equipped with ergonomics information. Two things need to happen before ergonomics can be incorporated more effectively into automotive design – a change in the process itself and a reformation in the way in which ergonomics information is presented to designers. It concludes by describing the development of Web–based ergonomics information resources and a design decision support system, ADECT (Automotive Designers' Ergonomics Clarification Toolset), which promotes user–centred design.


In this study, the in vitro spermostatic action, hemolytic action in combination of parabens of two essential oils (EOs) from Eugenia brejoensis Mazin (Myrtaceae, EbEO) and Myroxylon peruiferum L. (Fabaceae, MpEO) is reported, in addition to the first chemical characterization of MpEO. The EOs were obtained by hydrodistillation and characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Different concentrations of both EOs (25 to 400 µg/mL) were mixed with human ejaculate and sperm motility was assessed after 5, 15 and 30 min. A total of 44 compounds were identified in MpEO; the major components were spathulenol, α-pinene, caryophyllene oxide, limonene and β-elemene. Both EOs exhibited spermostatic action in a dose-dependent manner. The best results were obtained for EbEO at all treatment times, showing IC50 values of 454.75 µg/mL (5 min), 417.68 µg/mL (15 min) and 403.93 µg/mL (30 min). M. peruiferum also showed significant immobilizing potential with IC50 values of 620.39 µg/mL (5 min), 652.70 µg/mL (15 min) and 579.37 µg/mL (30 min). Both oils showed low cytotoxicity against human erythrocytes. This is the first report on human spermostatic action for EOs from E. brejoensis and M. peruiferum which has antimicrobial activity and low cytotoxicity. These results suggest the need for further research on toxicological aspects of both EOs and their components in order to develop new pharmaceutical preparations using them as leader compounds.

 Key words: Eugenia brejoensis and Myroxylon peruiferum essential oils, spermostatic activity, human spermatozoa.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the optimal surgical management of splenic injury encountered during colectomy.

DESIGN
Retrospective review from 1992 to 2007.

SETTING
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, a tertiary care center.

PATIENTS
A cohort of patients who sustained splenic injury during colectomy from 1992 to 2007.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Overall 30-day major morbidity and mortality and overall 5-year survival.

RESULTS
Of 13,897 colectomies, we identified 59 splenic injuries (0.42%). Of these, 33 (56%) were in men; there was a median age of 68 years (range, 30-93 years) and a median body mass index of 25.5 (range, 15-54). Thirty-seven injuries (63%) occurred during elective surgery, 6 (10%) occurred without splenic flexure mobilization, and 5 (8.4%) occurred during minimally invasive surgery. Injury was successfully managed by primary repair in 10 (17%), splenorrhaphy in 4 (7%), and splenectomy in 45 cases (76%). Four injuries (7%) were unrecognized and resulted in reoperation and splenectomy. Multiple attempts at splenic salvage were performed in 30 (51%); of these, 21 (70%) required splenectomy. More than 2 attempts at salvage was associated with splenectomy (P = .03). The 30-day major morbidity and mortality rates were 34% and 17%, respectively. Sepsis was the most common complication, with no confirmed episodes of postsplenectomy sepsis. Median survival after splenic injury was 7.25 years. There was no significant association between the surgical management of splenic injuries and short- or long-term outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS
Splenic injury is an infrequent but morbid complication. Splenic salvage is frequently unsuccessful; our data suggest that surgeons should not be reluctant to perform splenectomy when initial repair attempts fail.


Treatment of supraventricular tachyarrhythmias has undergone substantial change and development over the past decade. Pharmacological approaches to management of supraventricular arrhythmias have been supplanted by nonpharmacological techniques. These nonpharmacological techniques are the subject of the present review. The first part of this review will concentrate on the nonpharmacological techniques available for the treatment of supraventricular tachycardia, excluding Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, whereas Part 2 will concentrate on the surgical and the ablative procedures for management of tachycardias associated with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Pacing techniques for termination of supraventricular tachycardias are beyond the scope of this article and will not be included in the discussion.


Reliability performances of seven equal-capacity optical asynchronous transfer mode switches based on different routing and buffering schemes are compared. Calculations are based on available reliability data for commercial components as well as expected life lengths for new components and systems. In general, for switching systems, the average downtime is required to be held below 3 min/year. However, our results indicate that the average downtime for the proposed configurations is much longer than requested, over ten times longer for the best case and over 1500 times longer for the worst case. Therefore, the multiplane structures (i.e., multiplying of the entire systems) have to be provided for the switching systems investigated here in order to satisfy reliability requirements.


Abstract. The latitudinal and seasonal variations of gravity wave (GW) potential energy density (EP), kinetic energy density (EK), and total energy density (ET), i.e, the sum of potential and kinetic energy densities in the tropospheric (typically 2–10 km) and lower stratospheric (typically 18–25 km) segments have been derived from 10 years (1998–2007) of radiosonde observations over 92 United States stations in the Northern Hemisphere. The latitudinal variation of EP in the lower stratosphere is in good agreement with satellite observations. However, EK and ET in the lower stratosphere are different from satellite observations and the difference is believed to be linked with the latitudinal dependence of GW sources. Our analysis reveals that GW energy properties exhibit distinctive latitudinal and seasonal variations. The upward-propagating GW energy in the troposphere is larger than that in the lower stratosphere at low latitudes but the opposite holds true at high latitudes. The transition latitude, where the upward- propagating energies in the two altitude regions are the same, occurs at 35° N throughout the year. So striking differences between GW activity in the troposphere and lower stratosphere are not likely explained only by the background wind Doppler shifting due to strong tropospheric jets. Our analysis indicates that the region around tropopause, roughly from 10 km to 18 km, is an important source region, especially at latitudes below 35° N. Our studies strongly suggest that in order to fully understand the global GW activity in the lower atmosphere, the GW kinetic energy and its geographical and seasonal variations should be included, and more attention should be given to GWs in the troposphere and GW sources within the intermediate region, especially the upper troposphere.


We tackle the problem of acting in an unknown finite and discrete Markov Decision Process (MDP) for which the expected shortest path from any state to any other state is bounded by a finite number $D$. An MDP consists of $S$ states and $A$ possible actions per state. Upon choosing an action $a_t$ at state $s_t$, one receives a real value reward $r_t$, then one transits to a next state $s_{t+1}$. The reward $r_t$ is generated from a fixed reward distribution depending only on $(s_t, a_t)$ and similarly, the next state $s_{t+1}$ is generated from a fixed transition distribution depending only on $(s_t, a_t)$. The objective is to maximize the accumulated rewards after $T$ interactions. In this paper, we consider the case where the reward distributions, the transitions, $T$ and $D$ are all unknown. We derive the first polynomial time Bayesian algorithm, BUCRL{} that achieves up to logarithm factors, a regret (i.e the difference between the accumulated rewards of the optimal policy and our algorithm) of the optimal order $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{DSAT})$. Importantly, our result holds with high probability for the worst-case (frequentist) regret and not the weaker notion of Bayesian regret. We perform experiments in a variety of environments that demonstrate the superiority of our algorithm over previous techniques.
Our work also illustrates several results that will be of independent interest. In particular, we derive a sharper upper bound for the KL-divergence of Bernoulli random variables. We also derive sharper upper and lower bounds for Beta and Binomial quantiles. All the bound are very simple and only use elementary functions.


Background and Objective: Quality control is one of the most important components in order to improve quality assurance in laboratories during analytical steps. For this purpose, coefficient of variation plays an important role. Due to the fast improvement in technology, application of inferential statistics for the comparisons of laboratory techniques, including instrument and chemicals and fast replacement of them would be technically essential. Materials and Methods: In this research study, we tried to determine the precision of one auto-analyzer with refrigerator and the other one without such facility for the analysis of glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol in 30 successive days and compared the coefficient of variations that are an important factor for analytical precision. Results: Comparing the means of aimed groups by paired t-test with P=0.05 in measurement of glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol showed that there was no significant difference between the two instruments. In determination of glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol by auto-analyzer with refrigerator, CV% of these analytes was 1.3%, 1.4%, and 0.9% respectively. By the auto-analyzer without refrigerator, the CV% of those analytes was 1.5%, 2.5% and 1.11% respectively. Conclusion: There is reasonably higher precision for auto-analyzer with refrigerator than the other one.


We describe three cases of sudden severe retinopathy in patients with acute pancreatitis. The relative times of the organ manifestations and comparisions with other published cases strongly suggest that pancreatitis was the cause of the retinal changes. This systemic complication is unknown to most physicians, but approximately 35 cases have been published. The pathogenesis is not wall known. We brickly discuss the signifiicance of this complication and several possible pathogenetic mechanisms


Post-instability arthropathy may commonly develop in high-risk patients with a history of recurrent glenohumeral instability, both with and without surgical stabilization. Classically related to anterior shoulder instability, the incidence and rates of arthritic progression may vary widely. Radiographic arthritic changes may be present in up to two-thirds of patients after primary Bankart repair and 30% after Latarjet procedure, with increasing rates associated with recurrent dislocation history, prominent implant position, non-anatomic reconstruction, and/or lateralized bone graft placement. However, the presence radiographic arthrosis does not predict poor patient-reported function. After exhausting conservative measures, both joint-preserving and arthroplasty surgical options may be considered depending on a combination of patient-specific and anatomic factors. Arthroscopic procedures are optimally indicated for individuals with focal disease and may yield superior symptomatic relief when combined with treatment of combined shoulder pathology. For more advanced secondary arthropathy, total shoulder arthroplasty remains the most reliable option, although the clinical outcomes, wear characteristics, and implant survivorship remains a concern among active, young patients.


Potential knowledge useful for traffic management optimization is hidden in a huge amount of data. Previous works use the prior data pattern labels to train the artificial neural network to attain the intelligent data mining models. The performance of the models suffers from the experts' experience. To relieve the impact of the human factor, a new hybrid intelligent data mining model is proposed in this work based on self-organizing map (SOM) and support vector machine (SVM). The SOM was firstly used to capture the clustering information of the database through an unsupervised manner. Then the identified samples were treated as input to train the SVM. To optimize the SVM model, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was employed to tune the SVM parameters and hence the satisfactory SVM data mining model was obtained. 2000 practical data sets from the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) were applied to the validation of the proposed mining model. The analysis results show that the proposed method can extract the underlying rules of the testing data and can predict the future traffic state with the accuracy beyond 97%. Hence, the new SOM-PSO-SVM data mining model can provide practical application for the ITS.


Value Chain analysis is one of the most important research in industrial Analysis. The value chain analysis method is applied in the medical biotechnology. The research results indicate that bio-economic and relative industries is in great increasing. Value chain theory indicates that the core to increase competitive advantages of Chinese bio-medical industry is to increase internal operation efficiency of industry value chain


NGN (Next Generation Network) architectures are constantly evolving towards solutions that allow the operator to provide QoS-guaranteed services in heterogeneous, multi-domain and multi-services networks. In this context, DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (DS-TE) is one of the most advanced technologies, which performs traffic engineering (IE) in a differentiated service environment by applying routing constrains with class granularity. This approach requires the definition of an efficient bandwidth constraint model to allocate the available link resources in a per Class Type (CT) basis, which influence both resource utilization and provided QoS. We analyze this problem and propose an algorithm to find the optimal mapping of service types into Class Types and the optimal bandwidth allocation for each of these. Herein, the optimality is expressed in terms of a cost function weighting both the expected satisfaction of the quality of service targets and the network resource utilization. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is analyzed considering a real context with expect near future combination of service requests from the end-users.


According to the relationship between energy consumption and economic development in different counties and societies, Apergis and Payne (2009) proposed four hypotheses—energy-driven growth hypothesis, energy-conserved growth hypothesis, bidirectional interaction hypothesis and energyneutral growth hypothesis, revealing the corresponding characteristics of the above relationship, which are unidirectional causality, two-way causality and weak correlation respectively. And Grossman and Krueger (1991) proposed the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in which the inverted u-shaped relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth is considered. Based on the above hypotheses, this paper brings the relationship among energy consumption, environmental pollution and economic growth into an overall framework for statically theoretical analysis, and the empirical research on the correspondingly dynamic relationship among three referred above is made by using the panel data model, established by the data of 30 provincial administrative units of China. Results show that 1) the economic development of China, which has been at the left of THE EKC in the long time term, has climbed up to the inflection point and stood at the stage II of EKC; 2) economic growth of China is gradually getting rid of the dependence on energy and the sacrifice to environment; the development of energy and environmental protection industrials will become the endogenous power of economic development of China; 3) the transformation of the pattern of economic development is building the dynamic equilibrium mechanism of energy consumption, environmental pollution and economic growth.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to expose two mechanisms by which pirated firms that market cultural goods can strategically use piracy to increase their profits.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors interpret several world examples through the lens of behavioral economics to identify mechanisms that can make pirates' initiatives profitable for the intellectual property rights holders. They also address two principal objections to "beneficial piracy".

Findings

First, intrinsically motivated pirates can be in a better position to shape consumers' preferences in a sense favorable to the firm profit. Second, pirates can generate strategic information that can help original producers to increase their profits.

Research limitations/implications

Fighting piracy can be perfectly justified from a legal viewpoint while constituting simultaneously a bad decision for a business viewpoint. Moreover, some pirates follow ethical rules that can lead to a symbiotic relationship with pirated businesses. Nevertheless, the generalization of our analysis must be undertaken with caution given that our arguments have been developed out of observations of particular institutional settings.

Practical implications

Distinguishing "good pirates" from "bad ones" can lead managers to reconsider the systematic disapproval of copyright infringement in favor of more nuanced approaches.

Social implications

Piracy can be useful under some circumstances for the pirated firm and even for the whole society, by increasing access to cultural goods.

Originality/value

The authors identify two mechanisms that can make piracy profitable for pirated firms. These insights can help managers to avoid a "one-size-fits-all" policy regarding piracy and to seek how to create conditions for a mutual and shared success.


This paper investigates the evolution of inflation dynamics in the five largest ASEAN countries between 1997 and 2017. To account for changes in the monetary policy frameworks since the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), the analysis is based on country-specific Phillips Curves allowing for time-varying parameters. The paper finds evidence of a higher degree of forwardlooking dynamics and a better anchoring of inflation expectations, consistent with the improvements in monetary policy frameworks in the region. In contrast, the quantitative impact of cyclical fluctuations and import prices has gradually diminished over time. JEL Classification Numbers: C22, E31, E5


This essay analyzes the concept of social capital and the insights offered by this approach for studying the nature and role of civil society in decision-making processes. To this end it examines some recent experiences of governance at the local level in order to highlight the new relevance of civil society for local development policies. The essay is organized into five parts. It starts from an analysis of the two main interpretative approaches to the concept of social capital: the relational and cultural approaches. It then moves on to describing some recent instances of local level governance - the so-called "territorial pacts" ("patti territoriali") and "strategic urban plans" ("piani strategici urbani") - in which civil society's role is particularly prominent. It highlights how, depending on the particular situation, different configurations (of relations) between public and private actors emerge and how different modes of democratic participation are thus enacted. It then puts into due relief the crucial role played by institutional actors in these innovative governance patterns, which differ from traditional modes of political participation. Lastly, it concludes by providing some methodological suggestions on the most appropriate way for utilizing the concept of social capital in empirical analyses on the role of civil society in the new models of governance.


Cardiac assist devices are classified into the traditional engineering categories of displacement and rotary pumps. Clinical use and indications of the various pump categories are outlined and a detailed description of the currently available systems is given. The first section deals with extracorporeal as well as implantable ventricular assist devices of the displacement type and is followed by a section on current developments in the field of total artificial hearts. The latter part of the article covers the rotary pump category from cardiopulmonary bypass applications to implantable systems, including specific design aspects of radial, diagonal and axial pumps.


This work refers in a conceptual and descriptive form the involved actions in the attempt to create certifi cations and stamps directed to the ecotourism. It aims to point the innumerable models of management, ethics codes, ambiental certifi cations and stamps in world-wide and national levels. Therefore, it was used a detailed and directed research considering a series of attempts and efforts of governmental, commercial and no-commercial organizations to establish world-wide and national lines of direction for Operators of Ecotourism and/or certifi cation and recognition of its products. A conclusion was taken at the end of the work that is necessary a standardization of the already existing programs so that the tourist can know what to choose in terms of ambiently sustainable product.


A survey examining the use of six dependence-producing substances (alcohol, tobacco, tranquilizers, marijuana, coca paste or "basuca," and cocaine) was conducted in Colombia in 1987. The survey population consisted of 2,800 urban residents in four cities (Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín) between the ages of 12 and 64. The results indicated that substantially more men than women were using all the substances involved except tranquilizers, that high proportions of study subjects used alcohol and tobacco, that 8.1% of the study subjects could be considered alcoholics, and that another 7.3% were at risk of becoming alcoholics. User prevalences of the three illegal substances (marijuana, basuca, and cocaine) were much lower, and the prevalence of marijuana users exceeded that of the other two drugs combined. However, 1% of the male study subjects reported using basuca within the past year. The high prevalence of basuca use has important public health implications, because the drug typically does great harm to its users within a short period of time.


Malformations of cortical development (MCD) form a spectrum of lesions produced by insult to the developing neocortex. Clinical presentation and electrophysiologic findings of MCD are variable and depend on the affected cortical area. We evaluated epilepsy, EEG, and response to antiepileptic treatment in patients with MCD with respect to the neuroimaging findings. We studied 101 patients, ranging between 1 month and 19 years of age. Fifty-four patients were diagnosed with polymicrogyria (PMG), 23 patients with lissencephaly, 12 patients with schizencephaly, and 12 patients with heterotopia. With regards to epilepsy and seizure type, 72/101 (71.3%) patients had epilepsy, and 62/101 (61.4%) patients presented with seizures. Overall, 32.7% of patients had generalized seizures, and 25.7% had complex partial seizures. Mean age at the onset of seizures was 2.7 +/- 3.4 years. The onset of epilepsy tended to be younger in patients with lissencephaly and older in patients with heterotopias. Of the cases, 79.2% had abnormal EEG (56.3% with epileptiform abnormality, 22.9% with non-epileptiform abnormality). EEG was abnormal in 44.9% (13/29) of the cases without epilepsy. EEG showed bilateral synchronous and diffuse epileptiform discharges in 90% of patients with lissencephaly. Patients with schizencephaly had mostly focal epileptiform discharges. Heterotopia cases had a high rate of EEG abnormalities (72.7%). Patients with PMG had epileptiform abnormality in 59.5% of the cases. Patients with heterotopias and PMG achieved better seizure control in comparison with the other groups. In conclusion, epilepsy is the most common problem in MCD. Epilepsy and EEG findings of patients with MCD are variable and seem to be correlated with the extent of cortical involvement.


The firing patterns of neurons in the basal ganglia are known to become more oscillatory and synchronized from healthy to parkinsonian conditions. Similar changes have been observed with local field potentials (LFPs). In this study, we used an unbiased machine learning approach to investigate the utility of pallidal LFPs for discriminating the stages of a progressive parkinsonian model. A feature selection algorithm was used to identify subsets of LFP features that provided the most discriminatory information for severity of parkinsonian motor signs. Prediction errors <20% were achievable using 28 of the possible 206 features tested. For all subjects, a spectral feature within the beta band was chosen through the feature selection algorithm, but a combination of features, including alpha-band power and phase-amplitude coupling, was necessary to achieve minimal prediction errors. There was large variability between the discriminatory features for individual subjects, and testing of classifiers between subjects yielded prediction errors >50%. These results suggest that pallidal oscillations can be predictive biomarkers of parkinsonian severity, but the features are more complex than spectral power in individual frequency bands, such as the beta band. Additionally, the best feature set was subject specific, which highlights the pathophysiological heterogeneity of parkinsonism and the importance of subject specificity when designing closed-loop system controllers dependent on such features.


Multimedia applications present new challenges to the current networking technology. One of them is Quality of Service (QoS) requirement. Due to the increasing dynamics of traffic introduced by multimedia applications, dynamic and flexible QoS (Quality of Service) control is needed to ensure both QoS satisfaction and resource efficiency. Because integrated service networks are designed to support a wide range of traffic classes, which have different service requirements, developing metrics to evaluate them is complex. Optical networks provides Quality of Service (QoS), guarantees are also resilient to failures. Supporting QoS connections requires the existence of routing mechanisms that computes the QoS paths, where these paths satisfy the QoS constraints. Resilience to failures, on the other hand, is achieved by providing, each primary QoS path, a set of alternative QoS paths, upon a failure of either a link or a node. We aim at to minimize the total bandwidth reserved on the backup edges. The above objectives, coupled with the need to minimize the global use of network resources, imply that the cost of both the primary path and the restoration topology should be a major consideration of the routing process. It turns out that the widely used approach of disjoint primary, restoration paths is not an optimal strategy. Hence, the proposed Multimedia Traffic Routing Algorithm for Optical Networks with Enhanced Performance Characteristics construct a topology, and this topology protects a portion of the primary QoS path. This approach guarantees to find a topology with optimal cost which satisfies the QoS constraints.


This work considers the compressed sensing (CS) of i.i.d. signals with sparse measurement matrices and belief-propagation (BP) reconstruction. In general, BP reconstruction for CS requires the passing of messages that are distributions over the real numbers. To implement this in practice, one typically uses either quantized distributions or a Gaussian approximation. In this work, we use density evolution to compare the reconstruction performance of these two methods. Since the reconstruction performance depends on the signal realization, this analysis makes use of a novel change of variables to analyze the performance for a typical signal. Simulation results are provided to support the results.


Approximately 70 000 patients are admitted to hospital each year in the UK because of acute upper gastrointestinal (UGI) bleeding, of whom 1 in 10 die as a direct result of bleeding. In recent years, there has been a revolution in the management of these patients, using endoscopic treatment of ulcer bleeding by injection, coagulation, or clipping and of varices by banding or gluing. When these measures are unsuccessful, trans-arterial embolisation may stop ulcer bleeding while TIPS may arrest bleeding from varices. Clearly the earlier these treatments can be applied in actively bleeding patients the better.

The evidence base for managing acute UGI bleeding is well established and forms the basis of current guidelines.1 2 In the large audit undertaken by the National Blood Service and the British Society of Gastroenterology it was found that not all units comply with guideline recommendations. Furthermore, while 60% of admissions for UGI bleeding in the UK occur out of normal working hours, only 55% of hospitals provided an out-of-hours emergency endoscopy service. Access to emergency interventional radiology is even more limited. There is therefore a large gap between published recommendations and the actual levels of service provision across the UK.

The Scope for Improvement project aspired to define a range of service arrangements to manage patients presenting with UGI bleeding. The report can be used by hospitals to support re-design of services to provide 24/7 diagnosis and management for patients developing UGI bleeding. It can be accessed at http://aomrc.org.uk/projects/upper-gastrointestinal-bleeding-toolkit.html. This paper describes the development and key recommendations of the Scope for Improvement project.

The project was overseen by a steering group representing relevant professional bodies (the British Society …


Many video object tracking systems use block matching algorithm (BMA) because of its simple computational structure and robust performance. The BMA, however, exhibits fundamental limitations resulting from non-rigid shapes and similar patterns to the background. The authors propose a combined shape and feature-based non-rigid object tracking algorithm, which is tightly coupled with an adaptive background generation to overcome the limit of block matching. The proposed algorithm is robust to the object's sudden movement or the change of features. This becomes possible by tracking both feature points and their neighbouring regions. Combination of background and shape boundary information significantly improves the tracking performance because the target object and the corresponding feature points on the boundary can be easily found. The shape control points (SCPs) are regularly distributed on the contour of the object, and the authors compare and update the centroid during the tracking process, where straying SCPs are removed, and the tracking continues with only qualified SCPs. As a result, the proposed method becomes free from potential failing factors such as spatio-temporal similarity between object and background, object deformation and occlusion, to name a few. Experiments have been performed using several in-house video sequences including various objects such as a moving robot, swimming fish and walking people. In order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed tracking algorithm, a number of experiments have been performed under noisy and low-contrast environment. For more objective comparison, performance evaluation of tracking surveillance 2002 data sets were also used.


The finite element alternating method (FEAM) was extended to obtain fracture mechanics parameters and elasto-plastic stress fields for 3-D inner cracks. For solving a problem of a 3-D finite body with cracks, the FEAM alternates independently the finite element method (FEM) solution for the uncracked body and the solution for the crack in an infinite body. As the required solution for a crack in an infinite body, the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method formulated by Li and Mear was used. For elasto-plastic numerical analysis, the initial stress method proposed by Zienkiewicz and co-workers and the iteration procedure proposed by Nikishkov and Atluri were used after modification. The extended FEAM was examined through comparing with the results of commercial FEM program for several example 3-D crack problems.


Resolution Independent Curved Seams in Clothing Animation Using a Regular Particle Grid. (August 2004) Jacob W. Foshee, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. John Keyser We present a method for representing seams in clothing animation, and its application in simulation level of detail. Specifically we consider cloth represented as a regular grid of particles connected by spring-dampers, and a seam specified by a closed set of parametric trim curves in the cloth domain. Conventional cloth animation requires the tessellation of seams so that they are handled uniformly by the dynamics process. Our goal is a seam definition which does not constrain the attached clothing panels to be of the same resolution, or even constant resolution, while not being a hindrance to the dynamics process. We also apply our seams to cloth defined on a regular grid, as opposed to the irregular meshes commonly used with seams. The determination of particles interior to the cloth panel can be done using wellknown graphics operations such as scan-conversion. Due to the particle-based nature of the simulation, the dynamics approach combines easily with existing implicit and explicit methods. Finally, because the seams are resolution independent, the particle density per clothing panel can be adjusted as desired. This gives rise to a simple application of the given seams approach illustrating how it may be used for simulation level of detail.


This thesis work consists of three aspects of research efforts:
I. Design, fabrication, and characterization of a CMOS-MEMS piezoresistive
accelerometer
2. Design, fabrication, and characterization of a CMOS-MEMS nano-Newton force
sensor
3. Observer-based controller design of a nano-Newton force sensor actuator system
A low-cost, high-sensitivity CMOS-MEMS piezoresistive accelerometer with
large proof mass has been fabricated. Inherent CMOS polysilicon thin film was utilized
as piezoresistive material and full Wheatstone bridge was constructed through easy
wiring allowed by three metal layers in CMOS thin films. The device fabrication process
consists of a standard CMOS process for sensor configuration and a deep reactive ion
etching (DRIE) based post-CMOS microfabrication for MEMS structure release. Bulk
single-crystal silicon (SCS) substrate was included in the proof mass to increase sensor
sensitivity. Using a low operating power of 1.67 mW, the sensitivity was measured as
30.7 mV/g after amplification and 0.077 mV/g prior to amplification. With a total noise floor of 1.03 mg/JHz, the minimum detectable acceleration is found to be 32.0 mg for a
bandwidth of 1 kHz which is sufficient for many applications. The second device investigated in this thesis work is a CMOS-MEMS capacitive
force sensor capable of nano-Newton out-of-plane force measurement. Sidewall and
fringe capacitance formed by the multiple CMOS metal layers were utilized and fully
differential sensing was enabled by common-centroid wiring of the sensing capacitors.
Single-crystal silicon (SCS) is incorporated in the entire sensing element for robust
structures and reliable sensor deployment in force measurement. A sensitivity of 8 mV/g
prior to amplification was observed. With a total noise floor of 0.63 mgNHz, the
minimum detection acceleration is found to be 19.8 mg, which is equivalent to a sensing
force of 449 nN.
This work also addresses the design and simulation of an observer-based
nonlinear controller employed in a CMOS-MEMS nano-Newton force sensor actuator
system. Measurement errors occur when there are in-plane movements of the probe tip;
these errors can be controlled by the actuators incorporated within the sensor. Observerbased
controller is necessitated in real-world control applications where not all the state
variables are accessible for on-line measurements


Impulse differential inclusions are introduced as a framework for modeling hybrid phenomena. Connections to standard problems in the area of hybrid systems are discussed. Conditions are derived that allow one to determine whether a set of states is viable or invariant under the action of an impulse differential inclusion. For sets that violate these conditions, methods are developed for approximating their viability and invariance kernels, that is the largest subset that is viable or invariant under the action of the impulse differential inclusion. The results are demonstrated on examples.


During the design and manufacturing processes of electronic packaging, solder joints are fabricated using a variety of methods to provide both mechanical and electrical connections for different applications. They include flip chip, wafer level chip scale packaging (WLCSP), fine pitch ball grid array (BGA), and chip scale packaging (CSP). The solder joint shape prediction methods have been incorporated as a design tool to enhance the reliability of the WLCSP. However, the reliability of solder joints for a large chip size such as 10mmtimes10mm without underfill remains questionable. In this research, a hybrid method combining an analytical algorithm with the energy-based approach is applied to predict standoff heights and geometry profiles of the solder joints. In addition, a hybrid-pad-shape system is proposed to design the solder ball layout, and to enhance the reliability of the solder joints. Next, a nonlinear and parametric finite element analysis is conducted to investigate the reliability issues that result from several design parameters. In addition, an experimental validation is completed to verify the correctness and feasibility of the solder joint shape prediction methods and finite element analysis procedures. The design parameters considered in this study include solder joint layout, solder volume, pad diameter, as well as the ratio and orientation of the elliptical pad. With regards to solder joint layout design, the solder joints located in the corner areas can be considered as structural dummy balls with no electrical signals passing through them. The results reveal that when the WLCSP has large round pads, or properly oriented elliptical solder joint pads at the corner areas underneath the chip, then the maximum equivalent plastic strain of the solder joints will be effectively reduced. As a result, the solder joint fatigue life under thermal loading will be greatly enhanced. Furthermore, the findings of this research can be used as a design guideline for electronic packaging with area array interconnections such as CSP, flip chip packaging, Super CSP, and fine pitch BGA


Solid solutions formed within the Al2O3-TiO2-Fe2O3 (Fe2xAl2(1-x)TiO5) system upon heat treatment were investigated by adjusting the substituting Fe3+ content in the range of x=0.0 to 1.0. X-ray diffraction phase analyses and lattice parameter determinations confirmed that substitution of Fe3+ ions within the aluminium titanate lattice was complete. For this complete solid solution, however, the trends observed for changes in d-spacing values indicated that there were certain discrete compositions to identify with Fe3+ substitution. Within these, Fe0.4Al1.6TiO5 and Fe1.6Al0.4TiO5 crystalline phases were investigated in detail and their X-ray diffraction cards were constructed. Self-healing effect occurring in repeated heating-cooling cycles in Fe3+ doped AT ceramics were proved; it was demonstrated that Fe3+ doped AT ceramics do not decompose even if exposed to repeated thermal shock.


Abstract We address in this paper the application of a recently proposed MPC performance monitoring method to a rigorously simulated industrial process. The methodology aims at detecting possible sources of suboptimal performance of linear offset-free MPC algorithms by analysis of the prediction error sequence, discriminating between the presence of plant/model mismatch and incorrect disturbance/state estimation, and proposing for each scenario an appropriate corrective action. We focus on the applicability of the method to large-scale industrial systems, which typically comprise a block structure, devising efficient and scalable diagnosis and correction procedures. We also discuss and support the application of this method when the controlled plant shows a mild nonlinear behavior mainly associated with operating point changes. A high-fidelity dynamic simulation model of a crude distillation unit was developed in UniSimr Design and used as representative test bench. Results show the efficacy of the method and indicate possible research directions for further improvements.


Shear modulus, damping ratio and shear wave velocity profiles are important input parameters in site response analysis. For seismic microzonation in south of Tehran, many field and laboratory studies were performed. Field investigations include seismic refraction, down-hole, SASW and SPT while laboratory tests encompass stress controlled cyclic triaxial and resonant column tests on undisturbed samples of low to medium plastic silty materials. This paper presents dynamic properties of fine grained soils in south of Tehran through field and laboratory studies. Based on field geoseismic investigations, new Vs -N(SPT) correlations for fine grained soils are presented. Also laboratory test results reveal that effective confining pressure at stage of consolidation has a remarkable effect on both strain dependent shear modulus and damping ratio of very low plastic soils but by increasing soil plasticity this effect disappears. Evaluation of plasticity effects on deformation properties shows that for PI<12, plasticity index does not have any outstanding effect on these properties, while by increasing PI, shear modulus ratio will increase and damping ratio will decrease.


Siemens Corporate Technology New Technology Fields Healthcare & Technology Concepts (CT NTF HTC) have proposed a novel electrostatic accelerator for nuclear medicine which aims at gradients of up to 10 MV m -1 . With beam currents of 100 μA at ≈10 MeV it might replace cyclotrons whilst being simpler, more reliable and more cost effective. The accelerator concept consists of concentric hemispherical metallic shells spaced by insulators and placed in a vacuum system. The shells are interconnected by high voltage diodes so that they form a voltage multiplier with its highest voltage in its centre. Particle beams can be accelerated towards the centre through a set of holes in the shells. In tandem mode, with a stripper in the centre and a negative ion source as injector, beams of twice the centre voltage can be achieved. This thesis presents several commissioning milestones of a test system for the novel electrostatic accelerator, thus validating the concept for commercial applications. An inter shell insulator has been designed and successfully tested to fields of 12 MV m -1 . A diode protection concept has been devised and validated in realistic breakdown scenarios. An AC drive system including control software has been developed, delivering a sinusoidal input voltage of up to 140 kV peak to peak at 80 kHz. An automatic process to carefully commission the high voltage system in vacuum has been created, implemented in a control system and successfully operated. A 4-shell prototype with these components has been successfully tested with achieved gradients of up to 5.5 MV m -1 . A negative hydrogen ion source has been constructed, commissioned and characterised with a purposely developed wire grid. Beam currents beyond 200 μA have been achieved. Beam transport from the ion source through the 7-shell system has been demonstrated in simulations which are based on experimental data from the ion source characterisation. A stripper system has been designed and constructed.


Studying the resolved stellar populations of the different structural components that build massive galaxies directly unveils their assembly history. We aim at characterizing the stellar population properties of a representative sample of bulges and pure spheroids in massive galaxies (M ⋆ > 1010 M ⊙) in the GOODS-N field. We take advantage of the spectral and spatial information provided by SHARDS and Hubble Space Telescope data to perform the multi-image spectrophotometric decoupling of the galaxy light. We derive the spectral energy distribution separately for bulges and disks in the redshift range 0.14 < z ≤ 1 with spectral resolution R ∼ 50. Analyzing these spectral energy distributions, we find evidence of a bimodal distribution of bulge formation redshifts. We find that 33% of them present old mass-weighted ages, implying a median formation redshift . They are relics of the early universe embedded in disk galaxies. A second wave, dominant in number, accounts for bulges formed at median redshift . The oldest (first-wave) bulges are more compact than the youngest. Virtually all pure spheroids (i.e., those without any disk) are coetaneous with the second-wave bulges, presenting a median redshift of formation . The two waves of bulge formation are distinguishable not only in terms of stellar ages but also in star formation mode. All first-wave bulges formed fast at z ∼ 6, with typical timescales around 200 Myr. A significant fraction of the second-wave bulges assembled more slowly, with star formation timescales as long as 1 Gyr. The results of this work suggest that the centers of massive disk-like galaxies actually harbor the oldest spheroids formed in the universe.


OBJECTIVE
There have been no trials in healthcare settings of genetic susceptibility feedback in relation to alcohol consumption. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility and acceptability of conducting a full-scale randomised trial estimating the effect of personalised genetic susceptibility feedback on alcohol consumption in hospital outpatients with risky drinking.

METHODS
Outpatients ≥18 years of age who reported drinking more than 14 standard drinks in the past week or in a typical week were asked to provide a saliva sample for genetic testing. Genetic susceptibility feedback was posted to participants 6 months after recruitment. The co-primary outcomes were the proportion of participants who (i) provided a saliva sample that could be genotyped, and (ii) spoke with a genetic counsellor. Secondary outcomes included changes in patients' weekly alcohol consumption; scores on scales measuring readiness to change, importance of changing and confidence in ability to change drinking habits; knowledge about which cancers are alcohol-attributable; and acceptability of the saliva collection procedure and the genetic-feedback intervention. McNemar's test and paired t-tests were used to test for differences between baseline and follow-up in proportions and means, respectively.

RESULTS
Of 100 participants who provided a saliva sample, 93 had adequate DNA for at least one genotyping assay. Three participants spoke to a genetic counsellor. Patients' readiness to change their drinking, their views on the importance of changing and their stated confidence in their ability to change increased between baseline and follow-up. There was no increase in patients' knowledge about alcohol-attributable cancers nor any reduction in how much alcohol they drank 4 months after receiving the feedback. Most participants (80%) were somewhat comfortable or very comfortable with the process used to collect saliva, 84% understood the genetic feedback, 54% found it useful, 10% had sought support to reduce their drinking after receiving the feedback, and 37% reported that the feedback would affect how much they drink in the future.

CONCLUSION
Results of this study suggest it would be feasible to conduct a methodologically robust trial estimating the effect of genetic susceptibility feedback on alcohol consumption in hospital outpatients with risky drinking.


The yeast retrotransposon Ty1 transposes through an RNA intermediate by a mechanism similar to that of retroviral reverse transcription and integration. Ty1 RNA contains a putative minus strand primer binding site (-PBS) that is complementary to the 3' acceptor stem of the initiator methionine tRNA (tRNA(iMet)). Here we demonstrate that the tRNA(iMet) is used as a primer for Ty1 reverse transcription. Mutations in the Ty1 element that alter 5 of 10 nucleotides that are complementary to the tRNA(iMet) abolish Ty1 transposition, even though they are silent with regard to Ty1 protein coding. We have constructed a yeast strain lacking wild-type tRNA(iMet) that is dependent on a mutant derivative of tRNA(iMet) that has an altered acceptor stem sequence, engineered to restore homology with the Ty1 -PBS mutant. The compensatory mutations made in the tRNA(iMet) alleviate the transposition defect of the Ty1 -PBS mutant. The mutant and wild-type tRNA(iMet) are enriched within Ty1 virus-like particles irrespective of complementarity to the Ty1 -PBS. Thus, complementarity between the Ty1 -PBS and tRNA(iMet) is essential for transposition but is not necessary for packaging of the tRNA inside virus-like particles.


Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based models can help in diagnosing COVID-19 from lung CT scans and X-ray images; however, these models require large amounts of data for training and validation. Many researchers studied Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for producing synthetic lung CT scans and X-Ray images to improve the performance of AI-based models. It is not well explored how good GAN-based methods performed to generate reliable synthetic data. This work analyzes 43 published studies that reported GANs for synthetic data generation. Many of these studies suffered data bias, lack of reproducibility, and lack of feedback from the radiologists or other domain experts. A common issue in these studies is the unavailability of the source code, hindering reproducibility. The included studies reported rescaling of the input images to train the existing GANs architecture without providing clinical insights on how the rescaling was motivated. Finally, even though GAN-based methods have the potential for data augmentation and improving the training of AI-based models, these methods fall short in terms of their use in clinical practice. This paper highlights research hotspots in countering the data scarcity problem, identifies various issues as well as potentials, and provides recommendations to guide future research. These recommendations might be useful to improve acceptability for the GAN-based approaches for data augmentation as GANs for data augmentation are increasingly becoming popular in the AI and medical imaging research community.


This research examined alternative mechanisms in the etiology of attachment disorganization. The authors hypothesized that negative intrusive parenting would significantly predict children's attachment disorganization at age 12 months within a diverse community sample. Of more substantial interest, the authors tested moderational mechanisms in the association between negative intrusive parenting, parental strong belief in discipline and control, child difficult temperament, and children's attachment disorganization. Using a multiple regression analytic approach, this research found that negative intrusive parenting significantly predicted children's attachment disorganization. This prediction was more significantly related to children's levels of attachment disorganization when it was paired with stronger rather than weaker parental beliefs in discipline and control. In contrast, when children had difficult temperament at 6 months, it was only when parents held very weak beliefs in discipline and control that children were at higher risk for attachment disorganization. Implications of the findings were discussed accordingly.


The use of biomarkers that show an association with the development of cardiovascular disease needs a careful evaluation in regard to the quality of evidence that establishes their relationship. Although observational studies have been paramount to establish the importance of the traditional risk factors, we can only screen and intervene on biomarkers when there is demonstrated benefit in well-designed randomized clinical trials.


The immune system plays an important role in the development of, and progression of cancer. Macrophages exhibit a variety of responses according to varying stimuli, and express different functions depending upon the microenvironment surrounding them. Macrophages can be pro-inflammatory (M1) or anti-inflammatory (M2). Research studies have shown that infiltration of macrophages can account for >50% of the tumor mass in some cancers, aid in metastasis by inducing angiogenesis, and signify a poor prognosis. Macrophages that migrate to the tumor site, remain there, and aid in angiogenesis and metastasis are termed tumor associated macrophages (TAMs) and are thought to express an M2 phenotype. This review will examine the polarization states of macrophages, their functions and role in cancer, their activation pathways and metabolism, and potential approaches to cancer immunotherapies using macrophages.


This study is designed to describe the HIV related stigmatizing attitude and practice among the health care workers in Nasarawa State, Northern Nigeria. This study is an analytical cross-sectional study. Multistage sampling technique was used to obtain a representative sample and structured selfadministered questionnaire was used to collect relevant information. About half (40.9%) of the health care workers do not know their HIV status, 0.5% were positive and 5.2% refuse to disclose their HIV status. Only 1.7% of the health care workers reported giving confidential information to a patient's family member or relatives without the patient's consent in the last 6 months and 3.1% of health workers supported mandatory HIV testing for all health care providers. HIV related stigmatization attitude was highest among the Medical Doctors (OR = 2.21, C.I = 0.90 to 5.4) and the hospital orderlies (OR = 1.90, C.I = 0.83 to 4.40), those who work in tertiary hospitals OR = 2.39 (C.I = 1.37 to 4.18), female gender (OR = 0.92, C.I = 0.55 to 1.53), private hospitals (OR = 1.06, C.I = 0.61-1.83), urban areas (OR = 1.48, C.I = 0.83 to 2.66) and those that had recent HIV/AIDS related training or workshops (OR = 3.39, C.I = 0.34 to 34.13). The study concludes that HIV related stigmatization is mostly prevalent in tertiary facilities among the health care workers in Northern Nigeria. Interventions to address attitudes and cultural beliefs not necessarily scientific matters may be the key towards reduction of HIV related stigmatization among the health care workers in Northern Nigeria and other similarly low income populations.


Colonization at expanding range edges often involves few founders, reducing effective population size. This process can promote the evolution of self‐fertilization, but implicating historical processes as drivers of trait evolution is often difficult and requires an explicit model of biogeographic history. In plants, contemporary limits to outcrossing are often invoked as evolutionary drivers of self‐fertilization, but historical expansions may shape mating system diversity, with leading‐edge populations evolving elevated selfing ability. In a widespread plant, Campanula americana, we identified a glacial refugium in the southern Appalachian Mountains from spatial patterns of genetic drift among 24 populations. Populations farther from this refugium have smaller effective sizes and fewer rare alleles. They also displayed elevated heterosis in among‐population crosses, reflecting the accumulation of deleterious mutations during range expansion. Although populations with elevated heterosis had reduced segregating mutation load, the magnitude of inbreeding depression lacked geographic pattern. The ability to self‐fertilize was strongly positively correlated with the distance from the refugium and mutation accumulation—a pattern that contrasts sharply with contemporary mate and pollinator limitation. In this and other species, diversity in sexual systems may reflect the legacy of evolution in small, colonizing populations, with little or no relation to the ecology of modern populations.


The relative efficacies of pyrantel tartrate and of pyrantel citrate against Oesophagostomum sp in swine were evaluated in a controlled-critical study and the efficacy of pyrantel citrate in a field trial. In the controlled-critical study, pigs naturally infected with Oesophagostomum dentatum were either not treated or were treated with pyrantel citrate or pyrantel tartrate at a dosage of 510 mg of free pyrantel base/kg of feed. Six days later, the pigs were necropsied, adult O dentatum was recovered and counted, and fecal samples were examined for helminth eggs. The efficacies of pyrantel citrate and pyrantel tartrate were each 100% based on fecal egg counts and numbers of adults at necropsy. The field trial was conducted in a similar manner except that pyrantel citrate only was tested against a control group on the basis of fecal egg counts made both at the beginning and at the termination of the trial. In this study pyrantel citrate was found to reduce Oesophagostomum sp egg counts by 89.4%.


We present an end-to-end neural approach to generate English sentences from formal meaning representations, Discourse Representation Structures (DRSs). We use a rather standard bi-LSTM sequence-to-sequence model, work with a linearized DRS input representation, and evaluate character-level and word-level decoders. We obtain very encouraging results in terms of reference-based automatic metrics such as BLEU. But because such metrics only evaluate the surface level of generated output, we develop a new metric, ROSE, that targets specific semantic phenomena. We do this with five DRS generation challenge sets focusing on tense, grammatical number, polarity, named entities and quantities. The aim of these challenge sets is to assess the neural generator's systematicity and generalization to unseen inputs.


Crosslinked Carboxymethyl Konjac Glucomannan(CMKGM) with substitution degrees ofcarboxymethyl group(DS)0.265, 0.457 and 0.586 were prepared through reaction of monochloroacetic acid, konjac glucomannan(KGM) and epichlorohydrin and used to adsorb Cu(II) from the aqueous solutions of copper nitrate. The effects of pH, adsorbent dose, initial concentration of Cu(II), adsorption time and temperature on adsorption capacity were investigated. The results showed that adsorption capacity increased with an increasing DS of the carboxymethyl groups. Equilibrium adsorption time was 20 min or so and was independent on DS. The adsorption followed Langmuir isotherm equation. Ligand ion adsorption between carboxymethyl group and Cu(II) was thought to be predominate in the process of adsorption according to the relationship between DS and thermodynamic parameters. CMKGM can be used as cheaper and more effective adsorbents.


ABSTRACT Bugchasers are gay men who fetishize HIV infection and use the internet to discuss their fetish. Previous research considered bugchasers' online engagements as proof of their sexual identities. This paper contests that view the through the exploration of three cases: Scott, a committed bugchaser; Marvin, who uses the internet as 'bugchasing entertainment' but is not a bugchaser; and Milo, whose bugchasing feelings are blurry and evolving. All three men use the internet in diverse significant ways from pure entertainment to it being a key part of their daily life. In presenting and analysing these three cases, this paper complicates identity-based assumptions of bugchasing, and presents ways in which gay men engage with social media in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.


Respiratory viruses, including rhinoviruses, infect respiratory epithelium and induce a variety of cytokines and chemokines that can initiate an inflammatory response. Cytokines, such as interferon (IFN)-gamma and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, could enhance epithelial cell activation by inducing virus receptors. To test this hypothesis, effects of IFN-gamma or TNF-alpha on expression of intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1, rhinovirus binding, and virus-induced chemokine secretion on A549 and human bronchial epithelial cells (HBEC) were determined. The results varied with the type of cell. IFN-gamma was a stronger inducer of ICAM-1 and viral binding on HBEC, whereas TNF-alpha had greater effects on A549 cells. In addition, IFN-gamma, but not TNF-alpha, synergistically enhanced regulated on activation, normal T cells expressed and secreted (RANTES) mRNA expression and protein secretion induced by RV16 or RV49. To determine whether IFN-gamma could enhance RANTES secretion independent of effects on ICAM-1 and RV binding, HBEC were transfected with RV16 RNA in the presence or absence of IFN-gamma. RV16 RNA alone stimulated RANTES secretion, and this effect was enhanced by IFN-gamma. These results demonstrate that IFN-gamma can enhance rhinovirus-induced RANTES secretion by increasing viral binding, and through a second receptor-independent pathway. These findings suggest that IFN-gamma, by upregulating RANTES secretion, could be an important regulator of the initial immune response to rhinovirus infections.


Creating animations for robotic characters is very challenging due to the constraints imposed by their physical nature. In particular, the combination of fast motions and unavoidable structural deformations leads to mechanical oscillations that negatively affect their performances. Our goal is to automatically transfer motions created using traditional animation software to robotic characters while avoiding such artifacts. To this end, we develop an optimization-based, dynamics-aware motion retargeting system that adjusts an input motion such that visually salient low-frequency, large amplitude vibrations are suppressed. The technical core of our animation system consists of a differentiable dynamics simulator that provides constraint-based two-way coupling between rigid and flexible components. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method through experiments performed on a total of five robotic characters including a child-sized animatronic figure that features highly dynamic drumming and boxing motions.


Innovative solutions with HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) and FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) have the potential to cope with the system planning and operational challenges of global climate developments and the call for changes in the way electricity is supplied. New power electronic technologies with self-commutated converters make advanced technical features possible, such as independent control of active and reactive power, and the capability to supply weak or passive networks. As part of the overall planning considerations, this paper presents the fundamental system planning, modeling and operational challenges of connecting large wind farms (both onshore and offshore) via long transmission systems, as well as the practical applications of traditional and new power electronic technologies.


ABSTRACT Spontaneous Rayleigh-Brillouin (RB) scattering experiments have been performed in air for pressures in the range 0.25–3 bar and temperatures in the range 273–333 K. The functional behaviour of the RB-spectral profile as a function of experimental parameters, such as the incident wavelength, scattering angle, pressure and temperature is analysed, as well as the dependence on thermodynamic properties of the gas, as the shear viscosity, the thermal conductivity, the internal heat capacity and the bulk viscosity. Measurements are performed in a scattering geometry detecting at a scattering angle and an incident wavelength of , at which the Brillouin features become more pronounced than in a right angles geometry and for ultraviolet light. For pressure conditions of 1–3 bar the RB-spectra, measured at high signal-to-noise ratio, are compared to Tenti-S6 model calculations and values for the bulk viscosity of air are extracted. Values of are found to exhibit a linear dependence on temperature over the measurement interval in the range . A temperature dependent value is deduced from a collection of experiments to yield: . These results are implemented in model calculations that were verified for the low pressure conditions (p<1 bar) relevant for the Earth's atmosphere. As a result we demonstrate that the RB-scattering spectral profiles for air under sub-atmospheric conditions can be generated via the Tenti-S6 model, for given gas-phase and detection conditions (p, T, , and θ), and for values for the gas transport coefficients. Spectral profiles for coherent RB-scattering in air are also computed, based on the Tenti-S6 formalism, and the predictions are compared with profiles of spontaneous RB-scattering. Finally data on RB-scattering in air, obtained under a variety of pressure, temperature, wavelength and scattering angles, are analysed in terms of universal scaling, involving the dimensionless uniformity parameter y and the dimensionless frequency x. Such scaling behaviour is shown to be well behaved for a wide parameter space and implies that RB-scattering spectra can be generated for a wide range of atmospheric applications of RB-scattering. The verification of this dimensionless scaling also shows that air can be treated as an ideal gas in the atmospheric regime, where . GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


The HMG box encodes a conserved DNA binding domain found in many proteins and is involved in the regulation of transcription and chromatin conformation. We describe HMG20A and HMG20B, two novel human HMG box-containing genes, discovered within the EURO-IMAGE Consortium full-length cDNA sequencing initiative. The predicted proteins encoded by these two genes are 48.4% identical (73.9% within the HMG domain). The HMG domain of both HMG20 proteins is most similar to that of yeast NHP6A (38% to 42%). Outside of this domain, HMG20 proteins lack any significant homology to other known proteins. We determined the genomic structure and expression pattern of HMG20A and HMG20B. Both genes have several alternative transcripts, expressed almost ubiquitously. HMG20A maps to chromosome 15q24 (near D15S1227) and HMG20B to 19p13.3 (between D19S209 and D19S216). The HMG20 genes define a distinct class of mammalian HMG box genes.


The accurate assessment of creep-fatigue interaction is an important issue for industrial components operating with large cyclic thermal and mechanical loads. An extensive review of different aspects of creep fatigue interaction is proposed in this paper. The introduction of a high temperature creep dwell within the loading cycle has relevant impact on the structural behaviour. Different mechanisms can occur, including the cyclically enhanced creep, the creep enhanced plasticity and creep ratchetting due to the creep fatigue interaction. A series of crucial parameters for crack initiation assessment can be identified, such as the start of dwell stress, the creep strain and the total strain range. A comparison between the ASME NH and R5 is proposed, and the principal differences in calculating the aforementioned parameters are outlined. The Linear Matching Method framework is also presented and reviewed, as a direct method capable of calculating these parameters and assessing also the steady state cycle response due to creep and cyclic plasticity interaction. Two numerical examples are presented, the first one is a cruciform weldment subjected to cyclic bending moment and uniform high temperature with different dwell times. The second numerical example considers creep fatigue response on a long fibre reinforced Metal Matrix Composite (MMC), which is subjected to a cycling uniform thermal field and a constant transverse mechanical load. All the results demonstrate that the Linear Matching Method is capable of providing accurate solutions, and also relaxing the conservatisms of the design codes. Furthermore, as a direct method it is more efficient than standard inelastic incremental finite element analysis.


Predicting the fire resistance of structures has been significantly advanced by full scale fire tests in conjunction with improved understanding of compartmental fire. Despite the progress, application of insulation is still required to parts of structural steelwork to achieve over 60 minutes of fire rating. It is now recognised that uncertainties on insulation properties hinder adaptation of performance based designs for different types of structures. Intumescent coating has recently appeared to be one of most popular insulation types for steel structures, but its design method remains to be confirmed by empirical data, as technical difficulties on the determination of the material properties at elevated temperatures exist. These need to take into account of further physiochemical transitions such as moving boundary and endothermic reaction. The impetus for this research is to investigate the applicability of the conventional differential equation solution which examines the temperature rise on coated steel members by an inorganic intumescent coating, provided that the temperature-dependent thermal/mechanical insulation properties are experimentally defined in lab scale tests.


We present CompoSuite, an open-source simulated robotic manipulation benchmark for compositional multi-task reinforcement learning (RL). Each CompoSuite task requires a particular robot arm to manipulate one individual object to achieve a task objective while avoiding an obstacle. This compositional definition of the tasks endows CompoSuite with two remarkable properties. First, varying the robot/object/objective/obstacle elements leads to hundreds of RL tasks, each of which requires a meaningfully different behavior. Second, RL approaches can be evaluated specifically for their ability to learn the compositional structure of the tasks. This latter capability to functionally decompose problems would enable intelligent agents to identify and exploit commonalities between learning tasks to handle large varieties of highly diverse problems. We benchmark existing single-task, multi-task, and compositional learning algorithms on various training settings, and assess their capability to compositionally generalize to unseen tasks. Our evaluation exposes the shortcomings of existing RL approaches with respect to compositionality and opens new avenues for investigation.


Objective: To evaluate the mode of delivery of monochorionic twins (MC) in a tertiary center with a strict policy of late preterm delivery. Methods: Retrospective evaluation of all MC twin pregnancies delivered at Sheba medical center between 08/2005 and 08/2008. Complicated MC pregnancies were defined as patients with TTTS or sIUGR. Uncomplicated MC pregnancies were delivered between 35 to 37 weeks of gestation. The control group consisted of 1234 twin dichorionic (DC) pregnancies delivered between 2005–2007. Results: The study group included 140 pregnancies. 81 (58%) were uncomplicated and 59 (42%) were complicated. Gestational age at delivery of all MC twins was similar to controls. Complicated MC pregnancies were delivered significantly earlier than uncomplicated MC pregnancies. The rate of CS of MC twins was slightly higher compared with DC pregnancies, mainly due to the group of complicated MC pregnancies. Patients with uncomplicated MC pregnancies were more likely to attempt vaginal delivery compared to complicated pregnancies (OR = 2.23, p = 0.03) but the rate of successful vaginal delivery was similar in both groups. Complicated MC twins had a significantly higher rate of CS due to non reassuring fetal condition (7/81 vs. 15/59, p = 0.007). Newborns delivered to the complicated pregnancies had significantly lower mean 1and 5-minutes Apgar scores compared with the uncomplicated group (7.3 vs. 8.7, 8.7 vs. 9.8, both p < 0.01). Conclusions: With the above policy, gestational age at delivery of uncomplicated MC pregnancies was not lower than, nor CS section rate higher than for DC pregnancies.