The main purpose of the thesis was to examine the importance of personality and perceptions of leadership for the development of burnout and occupational self-efficacy. Data was collected from two sources: by questionnaire from middle managers in the public sector involved in the formulation and implementation of a national strategy and from the Office of National Statistics (UK). Multiple regression analyses were conducted to test a series of hypothesized relationships and interactions. The three personality traits considered - conscientiousness, neuroticism and work locus of control, were found to be important factors in the development of burnout and of occupational self-efficacy. Conscientiousness and work locus of control were found to be negatively related to burnout and its three components while neuroticism was found to be positively related. Work locus of control and neuroticism were found to be of similar importance in the prediction of burnout. The findings also supported the role of the three personality traits as moderators in the relationship between job demands and burnout. All three personality traits were found to significantly predict occupational self-efficacy. Conscientiousness and work locus of control were found to be positively related and neuroticism was negatively related. The quality of the individual's leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship with their manager and their communication frequency were also found to be significant predictors of burnout and occupational self-efficacy. LMX was negatively related to burnout and positively related to occupational self-efficacy. Unexpectedly communication frequency was found to be positively related to burnout with a curvilinear relationship. Moreover, LMX and communication frequency were found to interact in the prediction of burnout. As expected communication frequency was found to have a positive linear relationship with occupational self-efficacy which was fully mediated by LMX. The personality of individuals was found to be more important than the quality of their relationship with their superior for the development of both burnout and occupational self-efficacy however, LMX was found to either fully, or partially, mediated the relationship between each of the personality traits and burnout and occupational self-efficacy. Occupational self-efficacy was found to be an important predictor of burnout. A hypothesized three-way interaction between occupational self-efficacy, conscientiousness and work locus of control was found to significantly predict burnout. The study meets the calls for further research into whether personality plays a meaningful role in the development of burnout and provides an additional study to the limited number of previous studies. The findings also demonstrate the importance of the social context of the work place for employee well-being and the important role that leaders play through the quality of relationships with employees and the quality and amount of feedback and support they provide. Strengths and limitations of the study are reviewed, recommendations for future research proposed and practical implications of the findings for organizations, managers and individuals are discussed.


Background Adenosine is involved in several neurological and behavioral disorders including alcoholism. In cultured cell and animal studies, type 1 equilibrative nucleoside transporter (ENT1, slc29a1), which regulates adenosine levels, is known to regulate ethanol sensitivity and preference. Interestingly, in humans, the ENT1 (SLC29A1) gene contains a non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (647 T/C; rs45573936) that might be involved in the functional change of ENT1. Principal Findings Our functional analysis showed that prolonged ethanol exposure increased adenosine uptake activity of mutant cells (ENT1-216Thr) compared to wild-type (ENT1-216Ile) transfected cells, which might result in reduced extracellular adenosine levels. We found that mice lacking ENT1 displayed increased propensity to ethanol withdrawal seizures compared to wild-type littermates. We further investigated a possible association of the 647C variant with alcoholism and the history of alcohol withdrawal seizures in subjects of European ancestry recruited from two independent sites. Analyses of the combined data set showed an association of the 647C variant and alcohol dependence with withdrawal seizures at the nominally significant level. Conclusions Together with the functional data, our findings suggest a potential contribution of a genetic variant of ENT1 to the development of alcoholism with increased risk of alcohol withdrawal-induced seizures in humans.


IMPORTANCE
Retrievable inferior vena cava (IVC) filters were designed to provide temporary protection from pulmonary embolism, sparing patients from long-term complications of permanent filters. However, many retrievable IVC filters are left in place indefinitely.

OBJECTIVES
To review the medical records of patients with IVC filters to determine patient demographics and date of and indication for IVC filter placement, as well as complications, follow-up data, date of IVC filter retrieval, and use of anticoagulant therapy.

DESIGN AND SETTING
A retrospective review of IVC filter use between August 1, 2003, and February 28, 2011, was conducted at Boston Medical Center, a tertiary referral center with the largest trauma center in New England.

PARTICIPANTS
In total, 978 patients. Twenty six patients were excluded from the study because of incomplete medical records.

INTERVENTION
Placement of retrievable IVC filter.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
In total, 952 medical records were included in the analysis.

RESULTS
Of 679 retrievable IVC filters that were placed, 58 (8.5%) were successfully removed. Unsuccessful retrieval attempts were made in 13 patients (18.3% of attempts). Seventy-four venous thrombotic events (7.8% of 952 patients included in the study) occurred after IVC filter placement, including 25 pulmonary emboli, all of which occurred with the IVC filter in place. Forty-eight percent of venous thrombotic events were in patients without venous thromboembolism at the time of IVC filter placement, and 89.4% occurred in patients not receiving anticoagulants. Many IVC filters placed after trauma were inserted when the highest bleeding risk had subsided, and anticoagulant therapy may have been appropriate. While many of these filters were placed because of a perceived contraindication to anticoagulants, 237 patients (24.9%) were discharged on a regimen of anticoagulant therapy.

CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE
Our research suggests that the use of IVC filters for prophylaxis and treatment of venous thrombotic events, combined with a low retrieval rate and inconsistent use of anticoagulant therapy, results in suboptimal outcomes due to high rates of venous thromboembolism.


Energy characterization is the basis for high-level energy reduction. Measurement-based characterization is accurate and independent of model availability and is thus suitable for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, but conventional measurement equipment has serious limitations in this context. We introduce a new technique for the energy characterization of a microprocessor using a cycle-accurate energy measurement system based on charge transfer which is robust to spiky noise and is able to collect a range of energy consumption profiles in real time. It measures the energy variation of the CPU core by changing the instruction-level energy-sensitive factors such as opcodes (operations), instruction fetch addresses, register numbers, register values, data fetch addresses and immediate operand values at each pipeline stage. Using the ARM7TDMI RISC processor as a case study, we observe that the energy contributions of most instruction-level energy-sensitive factors are orthogonal to the operations. We are able to characterize the energy variation, preserving all the effects of the energy-sensitive factors for various software methods of energy reduction. We also demonstrate applications of our measurement and characterization techniques.


The first treatment ever by radio-immunotherapy (RIT) was performed by William H. Beierwaltes in 1951 and was a success. Fifty years later, the main question is to find ways of extending the success of radiolabelled anti-CD20 antibodies in indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to other forms of cancer. Solid tumours are much more radioresistant than lymphomas, but they respond to RIT if the lesions are small. Clinical situations of residual or minimal disease are thus the most likely to benefit from RIT in the adjuvant or consolidation settings. For disseminated disease, like leukemias or myelomas, the problem is different: beta- particles emitted by the radioactive atoms classically used for cancer treatment (iodine-131 or yttrium-90) disperse their energy in large volumes (ranges 1 mm to 1 cm) and are not very effective against isolated cells. Advances in RIT progress in two directions. One is the development of pretargeting strategies in which the antibody is not labelled but used to provide binding sites to small molecular weight radioactivity vectors (biotin, haptens). These techniques have been shown to increase tumour to non-target uptake ratios and anti-tumour efficacy has been demonstrated in the clinic. The other approach is the use of radionuclides adapted to the various clinical situations. Lutetium-177 or copper-67, because of the lower energy of their emission, their relatively long half-life and good gamma emission, may significantly improve RIT efficacy and acceptability. Beyond that, radionuclides emitting particles such as alpha particles or Auger electrons, much more efficient to kill isolated tumour cells, are being tested for RIT in the clinic. Finally, RIT should be integrated with other cancer treatment approaches in multimodality protocols. Thus RIT, now a mature technology, should enter a phase of well designed and focused clinical developments that may be expected to afford significant therapeutic advances.


BACKGROUND
Respiratory signal-guided 4D CT sequence scanning such as the recently introduced Intelligent 4D CT (i4DCT) approach reduces image artifacts compared to conventional 4D CT, especially for irregular breathing. i4DCT selects beam-on periods during scanning such that data sufficiency conditions are fulfilled for each couch position. However, covering entire breathing cycles during beam-on periods leads to redundant projection data and unnecessary dose to the patient during long exhalation phases.

PURPOSE
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of respiratory signal-guided dose modulation (i.e., temporary reduction of the CT tube current) to reduce the i4DCT imaging dose while maintaining high projection data coverage for image reconstruction.

METHODS
The study is designed as an in-silico feasibility study. Dose down- and up-regulation criteria were defined based on the patients' breathing signals and their representative breathing cycle learned before and during scanning. The evaluation (including an analysis of the impact of the dose modulation criteria parameters) was based on 510 clinical 4D CT breathing curves. Dose reduction was determined as the fraction of the downregulated dose delivery time to the overall beam-on time. Furthermore, under the assumption of a 10-phase 4D CT and amplitude-based reconstruction, beam-on periods were considered negatively affected by dose modulation if the downregulation period covered an entire phase-specific amplitude range for a specific breathing phase (i.e., no appropriate reconstruction of the phase image possible for this specific beam-on period). Corresponding phase-specific amplitude bins are subsequently denoted as compromised bins.

RESULTS
Dose modulation resulted in a median dose reduction of 10.4% (lower quartile: 7.4%, upper quartile: 13.8%, maximum: 28.6%; all values corresponding to a default parameterization of the dose modulation criteria). Compromised bins were observed in 1.0% of the beam-on periods (72 / 7370 periods) and affected 10.6% of the curves (54/510 curves). The extent of possible dose modulation depends strongly on the individual breathing patterns and is weakly correlated with the median breathing cycle length (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.22, p < 0.001). Moreover, the fraction of beam-on periods with compromised bins is weakly anti-correlated with the patient's median breathing cycle length (Spearman correlation coefficient -0.24; p < 0.001). Among the curves with the 17% longest average breathing cycles, no negatively affected beam-on periods were observed.

CONCLUSION
Respiratory signal-guided dose modulation for i4DCT imaging is feasible and promises to significantly reduce the imaging dose with little impact on projection data coverage. However, the impact on image quality remains to be investigated in a follow-up study.


Objective : The at-home bleaching technique leads to the intimate contact of the bleaching gel with gingival tissues, so this study evaluated the immediate inflammatory response, through the edemogenic test, induced by at-home bleaching gels of 10% carbamide peroxide with different desensitizing agents, the quantification of hydrogen peroxide released and bleaching gels pH. Material and Methods : Forty-eight rats were divided into groups (n=12): CTRL-control group, WP-Whiteness Perfect 10% (FGM Produtos Odontologicos, Joinville, SC, Brazil), OPA-Opalescence 10% (Ultradent Products Inc., South Jordan, IT, USA), and PB-Power Bleaching (BM4, Palhoca, SC, Brazil). For the edemogenic test, all rats received an intravenous injection of Evan's Blue; after 30 min, 0.2 mL of each bleaching gels was injected into the subcutaneous tissue of the rats, and the results of the vascular permeability were assessed after 3 and 6h. The amount of HP released and pH of each product was also determined. Data were submitted to statistical test ( p <0.05). Results : At 3h, the PB showed higher vascular permeability than the other groups. At 6h, the PB produced similar vascular permeability than WHI, and higher than OPA and CTRL groups. The OPA group had a higher vascular permeability at 6h compared to 3h; there is no difference in other groups. The PB group had higher HP concentrations than the other groups. Conclusion : In general, the PB caused a more considerable amount of inflammatory edema and higher amount of HP released. This results suggesting that these bleaching gels cause greater aggression in soft gingival tissues that eventually ends up in contact with bleaching products Keywords Tooth bleaching; Carbamide peroxide; Hydrogen peroxide; Capillary permeability.


The allocation of data in distributed database system can significantly affect the response time of the system. This is particularly important when the database supports an operational command, control, and communication C/sup 3/ system. There are several methods for determining where to store the data in a distributed system. These include various optimization algorithms which use linear programming to minimize some cost function, as well as numerous heuristic methods. A decision support system (DSS) is presented that rank-orders various allocation methods based on the relative importance given to such factors as response times in the communication network, resources needed, and execution time of the allocation algorithm. To demonstrate this DSS the US army maneuver control system (MCS) was simulated using SLAM. Two optimal allocation schemes (using linear programming) and three heuristic methods were implemented to assign data location among the MCS nodes. The results of these simulations were then input to the DSS, along with several scenarios to provide importance weights to the decision factors. The results show that these weights affect the choice of allocation scheme, including some scenarios where neither of the optimal techniques were selected.<<ETX>>


This paper describes the results of a field study designed to quantify the effects of various factors on the snow-melting performance of salt. Many tests were conducted in a realistic environment over two winter seasons, covering more than 70 snow events, with temperatures ranging from −14°C to 3°C and snowfalls ranging from ∼0.2 to 21.0 cm. For each snow event, salts were applied to a set of test sections with specific application rates, and time series performance; condition data such as snow coverage or bare pavement status, friction, pavement and air temperature, sky view, and humidity were collected. An exploratory data analysis was performed to identify the key factors influencing the snow-melting performance of salt, such as application rate, temperature, and snow amount. A multiple linear regression model was calibrated for the relationship between the key snow-melting performance indicators: bare pavement regain time and various influencing factors. The calibrated model was then applied to determine the minimum amount of salt required for achieving a given level of service under specific weather events. Although the research was motivated by the need to develop optimal salt application rates for parking lots and sidewalks, the results could be equally applicable for other transportation facilities after factors specific to the facility, such as traffic and dilution, are accounted for.


Following its success in multiple myeloma (MM), proteasome inhibition has become a topic of interest as novel treatment strategy of cancer. By simultaneously affecting multiple pathways in the cancer cell, such as deregulation of the programmed degradation of many cellular proteins, proteasome inhibition causes rapid apoptosis of these cells. Both in rapidly proliferating leukaemic cell lines and in primary leukaemic cells isolated from patients, proteasome inhibition results in antileukaemic activity. The normal counterparts of these cells are much more resistant to proteasome inhibitors (PI), thereby resulting in a favourable therapeutic index. Importantly, while leukaemic stem cells are sensitive to proteasome inhibition, normal haematopoietic stem cells are still viable after drug exposure. Nowadays, many PIs are being identified; bortezomib is the most well known since obtaining Food and Drug Administration approval for clinical use in MM. This review summarises the biological and clinical aspects of proteasome inhibition and discusses the potential role of these inhibitors in the treatment of leukaemia.


The management of urban spaces and environmental health has been growing in recent years, and the sound aspects were highlighted during the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Locations that generally showed noises from vehicle traffic presented a diversity of sounds, generally not perceived in everyday situations before the pandemic. Awareness of the sound impacts generated before the pandemic has provided a broad discussion between the scientific community and managers regarding developing tools to improve urban planning and environmental health in cities. This study aims to characterise the soundscape of two parks in Curitiba by triangulating evaluation methodologies proposed in the ISO/TS 12913-2 (2018). Such triangulation included the descriptive analysis of objective and subjective sound data, analysis and elaboration of sound and perception maps, providing a systemic overview of the sonic environment of the investigated parks.


The feasibility of electrosynthesis involving the use of biocatalysts has been demonstrated in a model reaction of hydrocortisone oxidation to prednisolone catalyzed by Arthrobacter globiformis cells. Electrochemical regeneration of phenazine methosulfate, an artificial electron acceptor, was performed, using electrodes made of different materials. Transformation products were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography.


: Studies of theincidence of ABO, MN and Rh blood groups were carried out in 896 patients aged 40-89 with cardiovascular diseases and in 523 healthy people of the same age. High occurence of cardiovascular diseases was observed in patients having A and MM blood groups. The coefficient of relative morbidity A : 0 and MM:(NN +MN) depends on the age, the degree and the prevailing localization of the pathological process.


Exascale computing systems are being built with thousands of nodes. A key component of these systems is the interconnection network. The high number of components significantly increases the probability of failure. If failures occur in the interconnection network, they may isolate a large fraction of the machine. For this reason, an efficient fault-tolerant mechanism is needed to keep the system interconnected, even in the presence of faults. A recently proposed topology for these large systems is the hybrid KNS family that provides supreme performance and connectivity at a reduced hardware cost. This paper present a fault-tolerant routing methodology for the KNS topology that degrades performance gracefully in the presence of faults and tolerates a reasonably large number of faults without disabling any healthy node. In order to tolerate network failures, the methodology uses a simple mechanism: for some source-destination pairs, only if necessary, packets are forwarded to the destination node through a set of intermediate nodes (without being ejected from the network) which allow avoiding faults. The evaluation results shows that the methodology tolerates a large number of faults. Furthermore, the methodology offers a gracious performance degradation. For instance, performance degrades only 1% for a 2D-network with 1024 nodes and 1% faulty links.


This Note compares the American jury model, where a group of citizens deliberates, with the European model, where citizens and judges deliberate together. It weighs the benefits and detriments of each model and concludes that the American jury model is superior because it works better in practice. It demonstrates that all-citizen juries are competent—they deliver verdicts with which judges agree, handle complex cases, do not demonstrate bias toward or against certain parties, and determine damages reliably. In addition, serving on a jury of one's peers has been linked to increased civic participation, and juries have the power of nullification. In contrast, the European model seems like a good idea in theory but does not work well in practice because judges tend to dominate deliberations, which renders citizen participation meaningless. This Note also addresses one of the disadvantages of the American jury model—the widespread negative public perception of juries, which results, in part, from verdicts that appear not to make sense. Examples include the McDonald's coffee spill case, the acquittal of O.J. Simpson, and, most recently, the acquittal of Casey Anthony. To combat this negative public image, this Note recommends borrowing a feature of many European jury systems called "verdict justification," wherein a jury is required to answer a series of questions or provide a brief rationale for its verdict. This Note argues that this modification to the American jury system could improve a jury's accountability to the public as well as help lawyers and parties better understand a jury's decision.


Reflections on French modernity and modernity in general have customarily been associated with the notion of bourgeois social primacy, outlining a scheme in which industrialization, capitalism, and forms of middle-class sociability and culture have typically served as criteria for mapping the contours of Western modernity. This article seeks to reassess this conventional perspective by examining how the idiom of modernity played a central role in reformulating elite social identity in the midst of the rising democratic political culture taking shape in France during the middle of the nineteenth century. As elites came to terms with mass democracy and colonialism, concepts of modernity and "modern society" became hallmarks of a new public discourse with both inclusive and exclusionary implications, enshrining modernity as a key organizing principle in both the articulation of new social hierarchies and power relationships. This style of representing encouraged a shift toward an identity regime grounded in conceptions of time and temporality which not only broke with established tenets of "bourgeois" liberalism but equally sketched the outline of a new social order in which modernity became the legitimacy for power and domination in a country ostensibly committed to the principles of social equality and pluralism.


As powerful as Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools are in modeling the built environment, current BIM strategies limit the size of facilities that can be modeled while increasing the time needed for modeling and the quality of BIM models produced. In the same way that prefabricated modular construction techniques are improving the speed and quality of construction delivery, a modular approach to BIM modeling substantially increases the scale of facilities that can be modeled while decreasing modeling time and increasing model quality. As a case study of this new approach we will look at Bechtel Civil's Project Planning and Development (PPD) design for a new community in Angondje, Libreville, Gabon where 6,000 dwelling units using 21 different building types for a population of 30,000 people were produced.


The elastic mechanical behavior of elastic materials is modeled by a pair of independent constants (Young's modulus and Poisson's coefficient). A precise measurement for both constants is necessary in some applications, such as the quality control of mechanical elements and standard materials used for the calibration of some equipment. Ultrasonic techniques have been used because wave velocity depends on the elastic properties of the propagation medium. The ultrasonic test shows better repeatability and accuracy than the tensile and indentation test. In this work, the theoretical and experimental aspects related to the ultrasonic through- transmission technique for the characterization of elastic solids is presented. Furthermore, an amorphous material and some polycrystalline materials were tested. Results have shown an excellent repeatability and numerical errors that are less than 3% in high-purity samples.


AIMS
Buprenorphine is marketed in a sublingual formulation for treatment of opioid dependence. A transdermal formulation has been developed that may provide extended relief from opioid withdrawal, reduce required clinic visits and improve adherence, while having less potential for diversion and abuse. This study evaluated the safety and biodelivery (blood levels) of this transdermal buprenorphine formulation (i.e. buprenorphine patch), and its apparent efficacy in suppressing the opioid withdrawal syndrome.

DESIGN
Open-label, first-in-humans trial.

SETTING
A residential research facility.

PARTICIPANTS
Nine physically dependent opioid-users completed the 10-day opioid detoxification study.

INTERVENTION
Each volunteer received a single patch application that remained in place for 3 days. The formulation has shown an average delivery of 1.9 mg/day of buprenorphine over 3 days in pre-clinical evaluation.

MEASURES
Physiological, behavioral, subjective and observer ratings of opioid withdrawal and opioid agonist effects were collected.

FINDINGS
Overall, the patch appeared safe and well tolerated. There were no serious adverse events, and no opioid intoxication following patch application. Oxygen saturation, heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature and pupil diameter remained well within normal ranges. Buprenorphine blood levels peaked 48 hours after patch application at a concentration of 0.60 ng/ml. Volunteers' self-reports of the presence and severity of withdrawal symptoms were reduced by approximately 50% on the 3 days of patch application. Withdrawal symptoms increased marginally upon patch removal. Administration of opioid rescue medication was eliminated within 6 hours of patch application, and increased slightly upon patch removal.

CONCLUSIONS
The significant biodelivery of buprenorphine and the suppression of the opioid withdrawal syndrome during patch application and its reappearance after patch removal indicate clinically useful pharmacodynamic activity. Transdermal buprenorphine may be a useful opioid detoxification treatment that reduces compliance concerns, and delivers buprenorphine in a formulation less likely to be diverted to illicit use.


ABSTRACT This article examines gender differences in optimism about the economy. We measure optimism using Swedish survey data in which respondents stated their beliefs about the country's future economic situation. We argue that this measure of optimism is preferable to common measurements in the literature since it avoids confounding individuals' economic situation with their perception of the future and it can be compared to economic indicators. In line with previous research, we find that men are more optimistic than women; however, men are also more prone to be wrong in their beliefs about the future economic situation. Furthermore, in sharp economic downturns, the gender differences in optimism disappear. This convergence in beliefs can be explained by the amount of available information on the economy.


In Korea, mass mortality occurred among cultured shrimp with visible macroscopic white spots in 2000, and we confirmed the presence of white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) in the tissues of moribund shrimp by electron microscopy. In order to identify the characteristics of this Korean isolate of WSSV, we cloned and characterized its genomic DNA coding for VP24, VP26, and VP28. On the nucleotide level, VP24, VP26, and VP28 of the Korean isolate were found to be 100%, 100%, and 99% identical to those of Taiwan, Thailand and Chinese isolates, respectively. On the deduced amino-acid level, all 3 virion proteins showed 100% identity to those of the foreign isolates. The extent of sequence identity suggests that the Korean isolate originated from the same ancestor as the Taiwanese, Thai and Chinese isolates.


UNLABELLED
These studies were conducted to determine whether men and women differ with regards to their overnight postabsorptive (basal) and postprandial fatty acid kinetics. Systemic oleate turnover ([9,10(3)H]oleate) was measured before and after the consumption of a mixed meal. Leg and splanchnic free fatty acid (FFA) uptake and release were measured, allowing the calculation of upper-body subcutaneous FFA release.

RESULTS
basal oleate flux was virtually identical in men and women (3.0 +/- 3 versus 2.9 +/- 0.4 mumol.kg FFM-1.min-1), however, oleate Ra suppressed more in women than in men following meal ingestion (0.5 +/- 0.1 versus 0.8 +/- 0.1 mumol.kg FFM-1.min-1, P < 0.05). The fractional contribution of basal, regional FFA release to total FFA flux was not significantly different between men and women. In contrast, oleate release by upper-body subcutaneous adipose tissue was significantly greater (30 +/- 5 vs 8 +/- 3 mumol/min, respectively, P < 0.01) in men than in women during the meal nadir of FFA flux, whereas splanchnic oleate release was a greater percentage (39 +/- 7% vs 20 +/- 3%, respectively, P < 0.05) of nadir oleate Ra in women than in men. Thus, normal weight men and women differ significantly in the postprandial regulation of adipose tissue lipolysis in that men's upper-body subcutaneous adipose tissue is more resistant to the antilipolytic effects of meal ingestion. Differential regulation of regional adipose tissue lipolysis could contribute to the gender based differences in body fat distribution.


Introduction: Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the most important factors in children's urinary tract infections. Resistance to routine antibiotics is a major problem in the therapeutic process. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the antibiotic resistance and to investigate the prevalence of bla-TEM gene in K.pneumoniae isolated from urinary tract infections.Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on 120 samples of K.pneumonia isolated from children with urinary tract infection referring to hospitals in Tabriz. Samples were isolated and identified using standard laboratory methods and microbiology and culture in specific environments. Antibiotic resistance patterns of bacteria isolated by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method were performed. In order to identify the bla-TEM gene, the combined disk test was used as a phenotypic method and PCR method was used to identify the genotypes.Results: The highest sensitivity to the antibiotics was Tazocin(88%) and Aztreonam (87%). The combined test results showed that 26 isolates producing Extended-Spectrum beta-lactamases, of which 22 were isolates with the bla-TEM beta-lactamase gene.Conclusions: By increasing the prevalence of resistance to antibiotics, rapid and timely diagnosis of antibiotic-resistant strains is necessary in order to select appropriate treatments and to prevent the spread of resistance.


The misfire of one or more diesel cylinder and the abnormal clearance in the intake valve train of cylinder are common faults which affect the safety and the performance of the engine seriously. A new fault diagnosis method based on EEMD and instantaneous energy density spectrum is proposed here. The IMFs generated by EEMD can alleviate the problem of mode mixing and approach the reality IMFs. The instantaneous energy density of these IMFs can distinguish the faulty impacts clearly. The effectiveness of this method was demonstrated by analysis the vibration signals of misfire fault and abnormal clearance in the intake valve train of 3110 diesel.


The wind industry needs airfoil data for ranges of angle of attack (AoA) much wider than those of aviation applications, since large portions of the blades may operate in stalled conditions for a significant part of their lives. Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are even more affected by this need, since data sets across the full incidence range of 180 deg are necessary for a correct performance prediction at different tip-speed ratios. However, the relevant technical literature lacks data in deep and poststall regions for nearly every airfoil. Within this context, the present study shows experimental and numerical results for the well-known NACA 0021 airfoil, which is often used for Darrieus VAWT design. Experimental data were obtained through dedicated wind tunnel measurements of a NACA 0021 airfoil with surface pressure taps, which provided further insight into the pressure coefficient distribution across a wide range of AoAs. The measurements were conducted at two different Reynolds numbers (Re = 140 k and Re = 180 k): each experiment was performed multiple times to ensure repeatability. Dynamic AoA changes were also investigated at multiple reduced frequencies. Moreover, dedicated unsteady numerical simulations were carried out on the same airfoil shape to reproduce both the static polars of the airfoil and some relevant dynamic AoA variation cycles tested in the experiments. The solved flow field was then exploited both to get further insight into the flow mechanisms highlighted by the wind tunnel tests and to provide correction factors to discard the influence of the experimental apparatus, making experiments representative of open-field behavior. The present study is then thought to provide the scientific community with high quality, low-Reynolds airfoil data, which may enable in the near future a more effective design of Darrieus VAWTs.


The purpose of this study is to improve the science learning outcomes competency in analyzing the relationship between ecosystem components with the Discovery Learning model. The subjects in this study were students of class V SDN 02 Sarwodadi, consisting of 14 boys and 6 girls. Classroom Action Research Methods implemented in 3 cycles. The research design starts from the planning stage, action implementation, observation, and reflection. The learning outcomes of students with the application of the Discovery Learning model have increased in each cycle. In cycle I (75%), cycle II (87.50%) and cycle III (100%). Completeness of learning in cycle I (70%), cycle II (90% and cycle III (100%) while the class average in cycle I (76.50), cycle II (83.00), and cycle III (85, 50) The conclusion that can be drawn is that learning with the use of the Discovery Learning model can improve science learning outcomes competence in analyzing the relationship between ecosystem components in class V SDN 02 Sarwodadi students.


Translational research has fostered significant gains in neuroscience and psychiatry and has been identified by the NIMH as a "priority area" for further funding. As applied to anorexia nervosa (AN), "translational research" describes the application of principles and methodologies employed in related fields to advance the understanding, and ultimately treatment and prevention, of this disorder. Several promising areas of translational research in AN are identified. Such research, particularly when linked to a conceptual framework, offers the potential of lending much-needed novel insight into this challenging and enigmatic disorder.


Mobile devices are more powerful and portable nowadays with plenty of useful tools for assisting people handle daily life. With the advance of mobile technology, the issue of mobile learning has been widely investigated in e-learning research. Many researches consider it is important to integrate pedagogical and technical strengths of mobile technology into learning environments. This review study focuses on the investigation of add-on impact of mobile applications in learning strategies. We surveyed recent researches including context awareness, pedagogical strategy-enhanced learning scenarios, as well as collaborative and socially networked mobile learning. Through this review study, essential characteristics of mobile learning were identified and discussed. With the essential characteristics, we emphasized on the add-on impact of mobile learning and elaborated mobile learning model in learning strategies.


We present a novel efficient adaptive sensing and monitoring solution for a system of mobile sensing devices that support traffic monitoring applications. We make a key observation that much of the variance in commute times arises at a few congestion hotspots, and a reliable estimate of congestion can be obtained by selectively monitoring congestion just at these hotspots. We design a smartphone application and a back-end system that automatically identifies and monitors congestion hotspots. The solution has low resource footprint in terms of both battery usage on the sensing devices and the network bytes used for uploading data. When a user is not inside any hotspot zone, adaptive sampling conserves battery power and reduces network usage, while ensuring that any new hotspots can be effectively identified. Our results show that our application consumes 40- 80% less energy than a periodic sampling system for different routes in our experiments, with similar accuracy of congestion information. The system can be used for a variety of applications such as automatic congestion alerts to users approaching hotspots, reliable end-to-end commute time estimates and effective alternate route suggestions.


The hepatic secretory protein a1-antitrypsin, a member of the serpin family of serine proteinase inhibitors, is the most abundant proteinase inhibitor in human plasma. a1-Antitrypsin plasma deficiency variants include the common Z variant (Glu342→Lys) and the rarer Siiyama (Ser53→Phe) and MMalton (Phe52 deleted) a1-antitrypsins. These variants form hepatic inclusion bodies within the endoplasmic reticulum and may predispose individuals to the lung disease emphysema, and to the development of liver cirrhosis. It has been proposed that the accumulation of these abnormal proteins occurs by a common mechanism of loop-sheet polymerization, with the insertion of the reactive centre loop of one molecule into a β-pleated sheet of another. Oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to reconstruct these mutations. In vitro transcription of the PCR templates produced messenger RNA that was microinjected into Xenopus oocytes to investigate the biosynthesis, glycosyiation, and secretion of normal (M) and abnormal variants. All three deficiency variants duplicated the secretory defect seen in hepatocytes. Digestion with Endoglycosidase H localised all three deficiency variants to a pre-Golgi compartment, suggesting a common site for the accumulation of nonsecreted inhibitor. Two complementary approaches were taken to investigate in detail the loop-sheet polymerization process. This involved: (a) mutations in the hydrophobic core underlying the A sheet to prevent loop insertion and (b) mutations in the loop which would restrict loop mobility and impede insertion into the A sheet, a necessary prerequisite to polymerization and protein aggregation. The non-inhibitory serpin ovalbumin is unable to undergo the conformational change, typical of inhibitory serpins, because of sequence differences in the reactive centre loop. Mutants of ovalbumin were constructed in an attempt to increase loop mobility and induce inhibitory activity, and also to investigate the association between loop mobility and secretory capacity. a1-Antitrypsin and ovalbumin mutants were also constructed by expression-PCR with the 5'-primer incorporating a SP6 RNA polymerase promoter, to allow direct transcription without the need for cloning into a transcription vector. These transcripts translated efficiently in vitro but not in oocytes. A decrease in the intracellular accumulation of a1-antitrypsin Z and Siiyama variants was achieved with the mutations designed to restrict loop entry into the A sheet, and lends supports to the principle of loop-sheet polymerization.


The DNA sequences for 17 plant genes for alpha-amylase (EC 18.104.22.168) were analyzed to determine their phylogenetic relationship. A phylogeny for these genes was obtained using two separate approaches, one based on molecular clock assumptions and the other based on a comparison of sequence polymorphisms (i.e., small and localized insertions) in the alpha-amylase genes. These polymorphisms are called "alpha-amylase signatures" because they are diagnostic of the gene subfamily to which a particular alpha-amylase gene belongs. Results indicate that the cereal alpha-amylase genes fall into two major classes: AmyA and AmyB. The AmyA class is subdivided into the Amy1 and Amy2 subfamilies previously used to classify alpha-amylase genes in barley and wheat. The AmyB class includes the Amy3 subfamily to which most of the alpha-amylase genes of rice belong. Using polymerase chain reaction and oligonucleotide primers that flank one of the two signature regions, we show that the AmyA and AmyB gene classes are present in approximately equal amounts in all grass species examined except barley. The AmyB (Amy3 subfamily) genes in the latter case are comparatively underrepresented. Additional evidence suggests that the AmyA genes appeared recently and may be confined to the grass family.


Abstract Fused deposition modeling deposits a filament layer by layer and according to a trajectory. Based on stress criterion for filament deposition, this work suggests reproducing the principal directions of the stress in the sample through the control of the filament direction. A number of compact-tension (C-T) specimens have been printed with and without respecting this criterion. The fracture toughness test of these specimens was realized to compare the results. The results show that the suggested criterion leads to an improvement of 30% in the fracture toughness. Digital images correlation has been extensively used to study the local strain field in the specimens. Strain mapping reveals an important change in fracture behavior. The modification of filament direction leads to "ductile-like behavior" in crack extension, which is characterized by a large deformation zone associated with a slow crack growth rate during crack propagation.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Because major depressive disorder (MDD) is often chronic and recurrent, even pediatric patients who are treated successfully during an acute episode may need longer-term treatment. Yet, data on long-term treatment with antidepressants in pediatric MDD are limited. Objective: To evaluate long-term effectiveness and safety of treatment with venlafaxine extended-release (ER) in children and adolescents with MDD. Methods: Subjects (n=86) 7–17 years of age with MDD entered a multicenter, open-label study of flexible-dose venlafaxine ER for 6 weeks of acute treatment, followed by continuation treatment for up to 6 months total treatment. The primary efficacy variable was the Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R) total score (intent-to-treat population). Results: Mean CDRS-R total score decreased from 60.1±10.0 at baseline to 36.3±13.1 at week 6, and to 33.8±15.0 at 6 months (last observation carried forward). Among completers (n=36), the mean CDRS-R total score was 24.3±7.6 at the end of 6 months of treatment. The most frequent treatment-emergent adverse events were headache (53%), nausea (26%), infection (24%), abdominal pain (22%), vomiting (21%), and pharyngitis (19%). Fifteen (17%) participants discontinued due to adverse events, 9 of whom did so within the first 6 weeks. Serious adverse events (suicide attempt [two], hostility [two], hallucinations, depression, and pharyngitis) occurred in seven patients. There were no suicides. Conclusion: Most improvement with venlafaxine ER occurs during the first 6 weeks of treatment. Prescribers should be alert to signs of suicidal ideation and hostility in pediatric patients.


The introduction of steam not only enhanced Australia's transport links within the empire. It also altered attitudes towards the feasibility and desirability of transpacific connectivities, and brought new prominence to the Pacific-orientations of Australia's eastern colonies. By envisioning steam-age connections across the Pacific, first to Panama and then to San Francisco, Australia sought to imagine and situate itself in a transpacific sphere. The routes shaped cultural sensibilities and political ideologies across the Pacific, expressed in affinities and allegiances between Australia and North America. This article examines transpacific steam from the mid- to the late nineteenth century, a fractured and indeterminate period which nevertheless laid the ground for Australia's sense of itself as an autonomous white nation, relating across the Pacific and within a wider Anglo world beyond Britain and empire.


Vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is a well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that is crucial for transportation and logistics systems. Even though the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is originally designed to solve continuous optimization problems, in this paper, we propose a set-based PSO to solve the discrete combinatorial optimization problem VRPTW (S-PSO-VRPTW). The general method of the S-PSO-VRPTW is to select an optimal subset out of the universal set by the use of the PSO framework. As the VRPTW can be defined as selecting an optimal subgraph out of the complete graph, the problem can be naturally solved by the proposed algorithm. The proposed S-PSO-VRPTW treats the discrete search space as an arc set of the complete graph that is defined by the nodes in the VRPTW and regards the candidate solution as a subset of arcs. Accordingly, the operators in the algorithm are defined on the set instead of the arithmetic operators in the original PSO algorithm. Besides, the process of position updating in the algorithm is constructive, during which the constraints of the VRPTW are considered and a time-oriented, nearest neighbor heuristic is used. A normalization method is introduced to handle the primary and secondary objectives of the VRPTW. The proposed S-PSO-VRPTW is tested on Solomon's benchmarks. Simulation results and comparisons illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the algorithm.


Genetically modified (GM) crops involve transferring a specific stretch of DNA into the plant's genome and giving it new or different characteristics. Since the first industrial application of transgenic crops in the United States in 1996, GM crops are becoming increasingly common in the market. At present, not all crops in the Chinese market are clearly marked as to whether they are GM crops or not. In order to protect consumer's option to select their preferred products, we decided to conduct experiments to identify soybeans on the market. We hypothesized that soybeans on the market with unknown origin were GM soybeans. Then we established a detecting method using genetic technology and screened the soybeans. In this study, we used GTS 40-3-2 as a positive control, which contains genomic DNA, foreign DNA enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) and other exogenous elements, and GTS 40-3-2 SOYA BEAN (blank) as negative control, which contains genomic DNA only. To amplify the foreign DNA, we optimized the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedure by attempting different annealing temperatures to establish the PCR detection method. According to the electrophoresis results, in the samples from a local store, only genomic DNA lectin could be amplified, which indicated the samples were non-GM soybeans. Our study not only provides a detection method but also lays a foundation for testing soybean and processed soybean products of unknown origin.


Whereas reasonable rewarming is the successful treatment in the Alpine regions of Europe, rapid rewarming in a whirlpool at a water temperature of 35 degrees C is given preference in the Soviet Union and in the U.S.A. Subsequently, perfusion of the tissue must be maintained by sympathetic blockades, infusions of low-molecular-weight dextrans and improving the microcirculation. Since no third-degree or fourth-degree local cold injury will heal without sequelae, particular attention should be focused on preventive measures.


3003 Background: The KRASG12C mutation is found in approximately 13% of lung adenocarcinomas and 1–3% of other solid tumors, but there is no approved therapy that targets this mutation. AMG 510 is a novel small molecule that specifically and irreversibly inhibits KRASG12C by locking it in an inactive GDP-bound state. Methods: This phase 1, first-in-human, open-label, multicenter study (NCT03600883) is evaluating the safety, tolerability, PK, and efficacy of AMG 510 in adult patients (pts) with locally-advanced or metastatic KRASG12C mutant solid tumors. The primary endpoint is safety; key secondary endpoints include PK, ORR (assessed every 6 weeks [wks]), DOR, and PFS. Key inclusion criteria: KRASG12C mutation identified through DNA sequencing, measurable or evaluable disease, ECOG PS ≤2, life expectancy >3 months (mo). Key exclusion criteria: active brain metastases, myocardial infarction within 6 mo. A dose exploration will determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) or recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D). A dose expansion will enroll pts with NSCLC, CRC, and other advanced solid tumors carrying the KRASG12C mutation. AMG 510 will be given PO until disease progression, intolerance, or withdrawal of consent. Results: 22 pts (8 men, 14 women; median age 55.5 y) were enrolled in the first 3 dose cohorts. Tumor types: 6 NSCLC, 15 CRC, 1 other. Most pts (n=17) had ≥3 prior lines of treatment (tx). Median tx duration was 28 d (range: 8–134). 5 pts reported 10 treatment-related AEs (grade 1, n=9; grade 2, n=1); there were no DLTs. Tumor response was evaluated in 9 pts (4 with ≥2 assessments); 13 pts have not reached their first assessment.1 pt had a PR (NSCLC at wks 6 and 12, tx ongoing), 6 pts had SD (4 CRC and 2 NSCLC; median tx duration 9.7 wks [range: 6.3–19.1], tx ongoing), 2 pts had PD. 20 pts are continuing to receive AMG 510. A second PR (NSCLC at wk 6, tx ongoing) was reported after data cutoff. Conclusions: AMG 510 has been well tolerated at the dose levels tested and has shown antitumor activity when administered as monotherapy to patients with advanced KRAS G12C mutant solid tumors. MTD has not been determined, and enrollment into the dose exploration is ongoing. Clinical trial information: NCT03600883.


Extracting knowledge about the movement of different types of mobile agents (e.g. human, animals, vehicles) and dynamic phenomena (e.g. hurricanes) requires new exploratory data analysis methods for massive movement datasets. Different types of moving objects share similarities but also express differences in terms of their dynamic behavior and the nature of their movement. Extracting such similarities can significantly contribute to the prediction, modeling and simulation dynamic phenomena. Therefore, with the development of a quantitative methodology this research intends to investigate and explore similarities in the dynamics of moving objects by using methods of GIScience in knowledge discovery. This paper presents a summary of the ongoing Ph.D. research project.


Objective To evaluate lowest mean arterial blood pressure during the first 24 h of life (minMAP24) in very-low-birthweight (VLBW) infants and to identify associations between hypotension and short-term outcome. Design Retrospective cohort analysis of the minMAP24 of 4907 VLBW infants with a gestational age <32 weeks in correlation with clinical data. Hypotension was defined as minMAP24 being lower than the median value of all patients of the same gestational age. Results MinMAP24 values correlated with gestational age. Median minMAP24 values of VLBW infants ≤29 weeks' gestation were 1–2 mm Hg lower than gestational age in completed weeks. Hypotensive infants had a higher rate of intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH, 20.3% vs 15.9%, p<0.001), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD, 19.2% vs 15.1%, p<0.001) and death (5.2% vs 3.0%, p<0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analyses, including potential confounders, confirmed these data. MinMAP24 was an independent risk factor for IVH (OR 0.97/mm Hg, 95% CI 0.96 to 0.99, p=0.003), BPD (OR 0.96/mm Hg, 95% CI 0.94 to 0.98, p<0.001) and mortality (OR 0.94/mm Hg, 95% CI 0.90 to 0.98, p=0.003). Conclusions Hypotension during the first 24 h of life is associated with adverse outcomes in VLBW infants. This underlines the need for randomised controlled trials on the use of vasoactive drugs in this vulnerable patient cohort.


The aim of sentiment classification is to automatically extract and classify a textual review as expressing a positive or negative opinion. In this paper, we study the sentiment classification problem in the Arabic language. We propose a method that attempts to extract subjective parts of document reviews. In addition, a lexicon is used to find implicit opinions and sentiments in reviews. We combine the extracted opinions with the sentiment words returned by the lexical approach. Finally, a feature reduction technique is applied. To evaluate the proposed method, support vector machines (SVM) classifier is applied for the classification task. The results indicate that our proposed approach provides superior performance in terms of classification measures.


The influence of the cross-shelf oceanographic front occurring between the Brazil Current (BC) and the Brazilian Coastal Current (BCC) on the local Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer (MABL) is investigated here. This front is typical of wintertime in the Southern Brazilian Continental Shelf (SBCS) and this is the first time that its effects are investigated over the above MABL. Here we analyze variability, vertical structure, and stability of MABL as well as heat fluxes at air-sea interface, across five oceanographic transects in the SBCS made during a winter 2012 cruise. Local thermal gradients associated with mixing between distinct water masses, play an essential role on MABL modulation and stability. Although weaker when compared with other frontal regions, the cross-shelf thermal gradients reproduce exactly what is expected for open ocean regions: Stronger (weaker) winds, lower (higher) sea level pressure, and a more unstable (stable) MABL are found over the warm (cold) side of the oceanographic front between the BC (warm) and coastal (cold) waters. Our findings strongly support the coexistence of both known MABL modulation mechanisms: the static and hydrostatic MABL stability. This is the first time that these modulation mechanisms are documented for this region. Turbulent fluxes were found to be markedly dependent on the cross-shelf SST gradients resulting in differences of up to 100 W.m−2 especially in the southernmost region where the gradients were more intense.


Two aspects of using eye drops of a nonsteroid antiinflammatory drug Naclof (sodium diclofenac) are analyzed: maintenance of mydriasis during an intervention (extracapsular cataract extraction with implantation of an intraocular lens and trabeculectomy and arrest of postoperative inflammation. The study was carried out in 40 patients, 20 of which were controls. In the naclof group the diameter of the pupil during the intervention was reliably larger, exudative inflammatory reactions were rarer, and the postoperative vision acuity higher. Hence, naclof is effective in combined interventions for cataract and glaucoma.


Objective: To use principal component analyses (PCA) of Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) PET imaging to determine whether the pattern of in vivo β-amyloid (Aβ) in Parkinson disease (PD) with cognitive impairment is similar to the pattern found in symptomatic Alzheimer disease (AD). Methods: PiB PET scans were obtained from participants with PD with cognitive impairment (n = 53), participants with symptomatic AD (n = 35), and age-matched controls (n = 67). All were assessed using the Clinical Dementia Rating and APOE genotype was determined in 137 participants. PCA was used to 1) determine the PiB binding pattern in AD, 2) determine a possible unique PD pattern, and 3) directly compare the PiB binding patterns in PD and AD groups. Results: The first 2 principal components (PC1 and PC2) significantly separated the AD and control participants (p < 0.001). Participants with PD with cognitive impairment also were significantly different from participants with symptomatic AD on both components (p < 0.001). However, there was no difference between PD and controls on either component. Even those participants with PD with elevated mean cortical binding potentials were significantly different from participants with AD on both components. Conclusion: Using PCA, we demonstrated that participants with PD with cognitive impairment do not exhibit the same PiB binding pattern as participants with AD. These data suggest that Aβ deposition may play a different pathophysiologic role in the cognitive impairment of PD compared to that in AD.


In this article I will argue that we need to create new archival models in order to preserve and share knowledge of historical, 'hidden' television professions and production cultures. Oral history traditions of recording life stories give us a useful starting point. Engineering 'encounters' between skilled television technicians, and the now obsolete equipment they operated in the 1970s and 80s, is challenging for a myriad of reasons, but videoing the interaction of man and machine provides us with a rich insight into how analogue television was produced and broadcast. Social media enables us to disseminate these histories in new and innovative ways. .


Whilst large organisations need foresight, they are also notorious in their bias for short term thinking, sometimes rejecting or even suppressing foresight. This paper describes a variety of 'stealth' techniques to embed foresight methods and models within mainstream business and strategy-development processes as a means to support internal innovation and summarises experience gained in applying these techniques in Australia across a range of industries and government portfolios.


This paper estimates a model of the United Kingdom's monetary sector comprising supply and demand functions for various types of monetary assets including currency, bank reserves, demand deposits, time deposits, and total deposits. The model is "closed" by a simple distributed lag version of the quantity theory of money. Since the matrix of endogenous variables turns out to be triangular, the model is superficially recursive and thus OLS may be a consistent, FIML estimator of the system. In case the other conditions for recursiveness are not met and the system is genuinely interdependent, TSLS estimates are also presented. Various interest rates and income elasticities are calculated. They conform broadly with previous single equation estimates of their magnitude.


The increasing demand for energy, coupled with concerns over pollution and climate change, has led governments to establish policy frameworks to reduce CO2 emissions. Moreover, rises in energy price and increasingly greener customer behaviour are pushing the manufacturing industries to develop more sustainable processes. As a major source of energy consumption in manufacturing systems, machine tools have been the focus of sustainability research communities worldwide. This paper provides a survey of manufacturing industry's sustainability trends and presents a technology-foresight-based methodology for gathering key information on the research development in this topic. Furthermore, a correlation between real world aspects, such as legal, economic and environmental, and the development of research on energy consumption and efficiency of machine tools is provided. The results highlight the leading countries, institutions, authors and subject areas in this field. Research and development shows a high correlation with governmental actions, and appears to be of core importance to meet CO2 reduction targets.


Soft-attention is regarded as one of the representative methods for image captioning. Based on the end-to-end CNN-LSTM framework, it tries to link the relevant visual information on the image with the semantic representation in the text (i.e. captioning) for the first time. In recent years, there are several state-of-the-art methods published, which are motivated by this approach and include more elegant fine-tune operation. However, due to the constraints of CNN architecture, the given image is only segmented to fixed-resolution grid at a coarse level. The overall visual feature created for each grid cell indiscriminately fuses all inside objects and/or their portions. There is no semantic link among grid cells, although an object may be segmented into different grid cells. In addition, the large-area stuff (e.g. sky and beach) cannot be represented in the current methods. To tackle the problems above, this paper proposes a new model based on the FCN-LSTM framework which can segment the input image into a fine-grained grid. Moreover, the visual feature representing each grid cell is contributed only by the principal object or its portion in the corresponding cell. By adopting the pixel-wise labels (i.e. semantic segmentation), the visual representations of different grid cells are correlated to each other. In this way, a mechanism of fine-grained and semantic-guided visual attention is created, which can better link the relevant visual information with each semantic meaning inside the text through LSTM. Without using the elegant fine-tune, the comprehensive experiments show promising performance consistently across different evaluation metrics.


John K. DiBaise, MD Professor of Medicine Tisha N. Lunsford, MD Assistant Professor of Medicine Lucinda A. Harris, MD Associate Professor of Medicine Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, AZ Postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is one of the most common causes of orthostatic intolerance and is being increasingly recognized in clinical practice. A variety of non-orthostatic symptoms including gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are also reported commonly in patients with POTS and pose a considerable management challenge, occasionally resulting in problems maintaining hydration and nutrition. The available evidence suggests that GI dysmotility occurs in POTS and may represent an important pathogenic mechanism. At present, the evaluation and treatment of POTS remains largely empirical. General lifestyle modifications to treat POTS may lead to improvement in both GI and non-GI symptoms, at least in the milder form of POTS. Symptoms refractory to these measures should prompt further diagnostic evaluation and appropriate dietary, pharmacologic and nutrition support management options. This review includes a brief background on POTS, conditions associated with POTS, and an overview of management including nutrition and hydration support. Lucinda A. Harris John K. DiBaise Tisha N. Lunsford


Communication and development are perceived as closely intertwined phenomena in which one is believed to guarantee the other. This paper argues that, sustainable development initiatives are those that guarantee the participation of those who have some interest in the intended change. The paper further argues that, communication facilitates community participation in development projects. However, development interventions at the community level seem to ignore the important role communication play in sustaining development projects. This paper highlights the importance of communication in sustaining development projects in the Ejura Sekyedumase Municipality in Ghana. The research adopted the exploratory case study approach using four communities and three purposively selected projects. The data for the study were obtained from a survey of institutional and household heads and focus group discussions. The results show that development communication facilitated the participation of communities in development projects and increased their willingness to commit resources such as money, accommodation, information, labour etc. to sustain projects. Also, projects with effective communication had good operations and maintenance culture with better prospects of sustainability than those without effective communication. Therefore, Development Communication facilitates the effective operations and maintenance of development projects which ensures that the intended benefits of the projects are realised over the entire project life. Development communication is also effective in building local capacities through training and sensitisation to initiate, implement and take ownership of local level projects. The study recommends that communication should take center stage in the planning, implementation and monitoring of rural projects for their sustainability.


Introduction Both surgical resection and endovascular embolization are important tools in the treatment of arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). Prior to surgical resection of AVMs, pre-operative embolization is often selectively employed for large or high-flow AVMs, to reduce risk of intra-operative hemorrhage and mitigate the potential for bleeding related to "normal perfusion breakthrough" in the peri-operative period. A primary goal of the embolization is to sequentially and gradually reduce flow in the AVM; the success in achieving this goal is primarily determined through subjective and qualitative assessment of the angiographic runs pre and post embolization. We sought to directly measure the effects of embolization on AVM flow using Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Angiography (QMRA). Methods Medical charts, cerebral angiograms, and flow measurements were reviewed in patients with QMRA measurements of AVM flow pre and post embolization. Total AVM flow was calculated based on the aggregate flow within the primary arterial feeders, or flow measured from single draining veins. AVM flows were compared pre and post embolization. All sessions of embolization were performed with N-BCA glue except three sessions where Onyx was used. Results 51 AVM patients were evaluated with QMRA. Among those, 17 patients had flow measurements pre and post embolization. A total of 42 sessions of embolization were performed (range 1–6 per patient). Average AVM flow prior to treatment was 439 cc/min, ranging from 129 to 952 cc/min in AVMs from 2.3–32 cc in size (median 6.4 cc). The median number of pedicles embolized per session was 3 (range 1–5). Flow dropped by a mean of 133 cc/min (range 14–410 cc/min) per each session of embolization, representing an average 40% flow decline per session relative to flows immediately prior to the embolization. In larger AVMs, overall flow changes were sometimes not evident until the second or third sessions of embolization, suggesting re-channeling of flow through remaining compartments of the nidus. As compared to the baseline, there was an overall 67% (range 27%–99%) reduction in AVM flow at the end of multiple sessions of embolization, with mean AVM flow dropping to 103 cc/min (range 5–300 cc/min) before the surgery. Interestingly, the number of pedicles embolized per session did not correlate with the flow drop, which also correlated poorly with subjective determinations of the extent of embolization at time of angiography. Conclusion Flow alterations induced by embolization can be quantified, and may provide a more robust strategy to determine the number and efficacy of preoperative embolization sessions. Competing interests A Alaraj: ev3, Cordis-Codman. V Aletich: Micrus. ev3, Cordis-Codman. A Ivanov: None. A Carlson: None. G Oh: None. F Charbel: VasSol Inc. S Amin-Hanjani: None.


Due to the geological and hydrochemical characteristics, the majority of the ground waters in the Vojvodina possess an unusual chemistry. Mainly this concerns their high alkalinity, low hardness and high contents in natural organic matter. Moreover the concentrations of arsenic, boron, ammonia and methane are elevated in many waters. Arsenic is present in the inorganic species arsenate(III) and arsenate(V), which are toxic to humans. Complex and expensive technology is required for these types of waters to produce drinking water for the public supply. Amongst others, the treatment process would have to include flocculation with high dosages of chemicals and for some waters also reverse osmosis, resulting in waste water amounts of up to 30%. The latter is critical since the exploited aquifer recharges very slowly. The Tisza River is an alternative resource, especially in the case that bank filtrate extraction could be implemented.


In this paper we study a mathematical model that represents the concentration polarization and osmosis effects in a reverse osmosis cross-flow channel with porous membranes at some of its boundaries. The fluid is modeled using the Navier-Stokes equations and Darcy's law is used to impose the momentum balance on the membrane. The scheme consist of a conforming finite element method with the velocity-pressure formulation for the Navier-Stokes equations, together with a primal scheme for the convection-diffusion equations. The Nitsche method is used to impose the permeability condition across the membrane. Several numerical experiments are performed to show the robustness of the method. The resulting model accurately replicates the analytical models and predicts similar results to previous works. It is found that the submerged configuration has the highest permeate production, but also has the greatest pressure loss of all three configurations studied.


This report is about postgraduate training in big science — particle physics, space science and astronomy — and whether any significant differences exist in training outcomes, for the two discipline areas. It comprises a survey of PhD students at a number of universities which showed similarities between big and small science in terms of academic abilities, personal characteristics and motivation for taking a PhD. Employer case studies similarly highlighted few differences between PhD recruits in big and small science in the range and quality of their work-related competences.


Heterotopic ossification (HO) is the most common extrinsic cause of elbow contracture. However, associated ulnar neuropathy at the elbow due to HO is uncommon. The purpose of the study is to describe the surgical management and investigate the effect of operative treatment of HO about the ulnar nerve on neuropathic symptoms. A retrospective review of all patients treated with bony encasement of the ulnar nerve secondary to HO over a 13-year period was performed. All patients underwent surgery for clinically symptomatic or debilitating HO of the elbow. Each patient received HO prophylaxis postoperatively. Subjects underwent regimented physical therapy and utilized a continuous passive motion machine in the postoperative period. Eighteen elbows with complete bony encasement of the ulnar nerve were identified (13 burns, 4 trauma, 1 closed head injury). There was a statistically significant decrease in ulnar neuropathy symptoms, as evidenced by a reduction of mean McGowan grade (1.5 to 1, P<0.02). Twenty-five percent of symptomatic patients (4/16) had complete resolution of their neuropathy symptoms. The mean arc of motion improved from 14 to 98 degrees following surgery and rehabilitation. Comparison of preoperative and postoperative motion demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in elbow extension, flexion, and total arc of motion (P<0.01). Average time from initial visit until surgery was 266 days (range, 76 to 797 d), while mean postoperative follow-up was 16 months (range, 1 to 51 mo). Surgical management combined with postoperative HO prophylaxis may be an effective treatment for treating patients with HO of the elbow with bony encasement of the ulnar nerve, resulting in superior range of motion and improved or resolved ulnar neuropathy. Level of Evidence: Level IV.


Abstract The recent IT improvements in areas such as CPU speed, memory, parallel computing and programming languages have allowed more complex physical models to be created for reservoir simulators. One of the issues that is still not fully resolved is the non-local equilibrium. Indeed, it is not possible to model subgrid heterogeneities causing the thermodynamic phase equilibrium between oil and gas to not be reached at the coarse scale: we can not reduce the scale of the grid enough because it will take too much computational time. Thus, we developed new models in Total's In-House Research Reservoir Simulator (IHRRS) for both Black-Oil and compositional cases. We focused on two different topics: the delay of vaporization and dissolution of light and heavy components as well as the underestimation of residual oil saturation to gas flooding. Indeed, even if the oil is not able to move due to its saturation being below oil-to-water and oil-to-gas residual saturation, unless restrictions are applied it keeps vaporizing into the fresh gas during simulation, which is not physical due to trapped oil in dead-end pores. We implemented local relaxation models on Rs and Rv in IHRRS, materialized in ECLIPSE by keywords DRSDT and DRVDT. Then, we have adapted them to compositional simulations by applying the relaxation to Ki instead of Rs and Rv. Afterwards, we made a new model assuming that equilibrium is instantaneous but dependent on oil saturation for both Black-Oil and compositional cases, materialized in ECLIPSE 100 by the keyword VAPPARS. We extended this model, allowing it to prevent oil from vaporizing into the gas phase if the saturation is below a defined value. In miscible or nearly-miscible gas flooding compositional simulation, it is possible to use alternative methods, such as alpha-factors, but it is quite complicated to compute the coefficient tables when it comes to non-miscible fluids. We benchmarked the results given by IHRRS with Eclipse for the relaxation models on Rs and Rv, as well as for the oil-saturation-depend Black-Oil equilibrium model. Then, we created equivalent 2-components data sets for both Black-Oil and compositional simulation. We used it to benchmark the new compositional models in IHRRS. Finally, we compared the results given by our new compositional model to ensure a non-zero residual saturation to gas flooding with alpha-factors or SOR in ECLIPSE 300.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the ratio of soluble transferrin receptor to ferritin in different stages of chronic kidney disease.

METHODS
This case-control study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital and the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, from January to September 2014, and comprised chronic kidney disease patients and healthy controls. Group 1 comprised controls, whereas groups 2, 3 and 4 had patients based on their mean glomerular filtration rate. SPSS 19 was used for data analysis.

RESULTS
Of the 170 participants, 126(74.1%) were cases and 44(25.9%) were controls. The overall mean age was 55.87±3.48 years and the mean body mass index was 24.25±2.9 kg/m2. Decreased levels of iron and haemoglobin were observed in cases compared to controls (p<0.001), while high serum ferritin was seen in cases compared to the controls (p<0.001). Correspondingly, the soluble transferrin receptor-to-ferritin ratio was significantly decreased in groups 2, 3 and 4 (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
The ratio of soluble transferrin receptor to ferritin was lower in higher stages of chronic kidney disease.


The emerging ISO/IEC 15504 standard provides a framework and a model for software process assessment and improvement. There are two requirements for reliable process assessment: internal reliability and external reliability. The objective of the study is to provide an empirical case of external reliability, i.e. the interrater agreement in ISO/IEC 15504-based software process assessment. Interrater agreement implies the extent to which independent assessors agree in their ratings of software process attributes. Our dataset was from two assessments conducted using the ISO/IEC 15504 standard. The results showed "substantial" to "excellent" agreement. This implies that the two assessments acquired external reliability.


We performed a prospective clinical audit in hospitalised patients with suspected pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) with the objective of evaluating the accuracy and clinical utility of Xpert® MTB/RIF in induced sputum in an intermediate-burden setting. Of 450 patients audited, 61 (13.6%) were diagnosed with PTB based on positive culture. The sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values for Xpert in smear-negative cases for induced sputum were respectively 75%, 99.5%, 94.7% and 97.0%. Xpert in induced sputum may facilitate diagnostic yield and expedite treatment in up to a quarter of PTB patients.


Several soft-tissue imprints and attachment sites have been discovered on the inside of the shell wall and on the apertural side of the septum of various fossil and Recent ectocochleate cephalopods. In addition to the scars of the cephalic retractors, steinkerns of the body chambers of bactritoids and some ammonoids from the Moroccan and the German Emsian (Early Devonian) display various kinds of striations; some of these striations are restricted to the mural part of the septum, some start at the suture and terminate at the anterior limit of the annular elevation. Several of these features were also discovered in specimens of Mesozoic and Recent nautilids. These structures are here interpreted as imprints of muscle fibre bundles of the posterior and especially the septal mantle, blood vessels as well as the septal furrow. Most of these structures were not found in ammonoids younger than Middle Devonian. We suggest that newly formed, not yet mineralized (or only slightly), septa were more tightly stayed between the more numerous lobes and saddles in more strongly folded septa of more derived ammonoids and that the higher tension in these septa did not permit soft-parts to leave imprints on the organic preseptum. It is conceivable that this permitted more derived ammonoids to replace the chamber liquid faster by gas and consequently, new chambers could be used earlier than in other ectocochleate cephalopods, perhaps this process began even prior to mineralization. This would have allowed faster growth rates in derived ammonoids.


Purpose

This study was designed to explore the library and information science research on international students and information literacy published between 1990 and 2014.

Design/methodology/approach

Systematic review was used to identify and analyze publications from a 25-year period. Three major library information science (LIS) databases were searched for publications meeting the study criteria, and then manual bibliography searches were performed on all those included.

Findings

Twenty-one of the 23 included publications were papers published in scholarly journals. There was a slight growth in number of publications by year between 1990 and 2014. Most of the research was conducted in the USA, Australia or Canada. Surveys and interviews were the most commonly used research methods, and nine of the studies used mixed methods. "Library experience" and "information seeking" emerged as the most common research topics. Key findings presented in these papers were often related to library and non-library resources, library instruction, language issues and research difficulties experienced by international students. Author recommendations were generally related to campus collaboration, staff training, assessment, cultural awareness and library instruction.

Practical implications

The findings of this study will be of value for LIS practitioners who wish to develop or improve information literacy training for the international student populations on their campuses.

Originality/value

Systematic review is a useful and rigorous method that can be of value in LIS research. This paper provides a thorough review and assessment of the original research related to international students and information literacy, and summarizes the resulting recommendations.


Long-term results (>5 years) for synthetic substances used to repair facial lipoatrophy have not been published. We performed a cross-sectional study to evaluate the 10-year safety of polyacrylamide hydrogel (Aquamid) among the 751 patients from our unit who received facial infiltrations at least 10 years ago. Epidemiological and clinical data such as complications and patient satisfaction were collected. We also identified those patients who presented a facial infection at any time after infiltration. A total of 104 patients had received Aquamid at least 10 years ago. Before infiltrations, 24.0%, 41.3%, and 34.7% presented very severe, severe, and moderate facial lipoatrophy, respectively. After a mean (SD) of 10.3 (0.5) years since the infiltrations, 19.2%, 47.7%, and 31.7% of patients reported moderate, mild, and no signs of facial lipoatrophy. The values reported by physicians for the same categories were 1.9%, 10.6%, and 87.5%. Indurations were detected in 6.7% of patients and nodules in 3.8%. Five patients (4.8%) had a local infection. A further 15 patients with a shorter follow-up (less than 10 years) presented local infections (overall incidence considering the 751 patients who received infiltrations of Aquamid, 2.7%); the product had to be withdrawn in three cases. The majority of patients were highly satisfied (74.8%) or satisfied (23.4%) with the cosmetic results; among patients with severe or very severe lipoatrophy at baseline, 31.4% were satisfied and 65.7% were highly satisfied. Infiltrations with polyacrylamide hydrogel (Aquamid) are a safe strategy for the treatment of facial lipoatrophy in the long term. The rate of severe complications was low, and patient satisfaction with the cosmetic results was high. However, facial infections may appear in the long term. Therefore, HIV-infected patients who received synthetic substances should be carefully monitored over time.


The production technologies development of thermonuclear reactors is a actual problem of today. The work researches zirconium goods used in the atomic industry – thin-walled tubes for the fuel elements shells, thin-walled tubes for the channels of watery and boiling reactors, rods for lock – plugs of fuel elements; mechanical properties of zirconium and zirconium alloys, production methods and technologies as well. The power approach is used in the work. The potential energy of the elastic deformation is regarded as a part of the plastic deformation energy and a portion of the energy used for residual stresses formation. Using these methods the distributions of residual stresses are determined by the volume of a product depending on the main technological parameters of a process and mechanical properties of the material. The results have shown that hoop stresses take maximum values. The activity of residual stresses can lead to the elastic deformations and to the departure from the rated dimensions of a product, subsequently, that is inadmissible for the precision parts. These methods are used to determine the influence of residual stresses on mechanical properties, precision and operating strength of tube products made of different zirconium alloys.


With 351 charter school campuses, Arizona has developed the first statewide free market in education. The authors report on Arizona's five-year experiment, noting both promising findings and causes for concern. WHILE MANY public educators are more preoccupied with vouchers for private schools, an estimated 1,700 charter schools in 31 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico educate 350,000 students, dwarfing the number of students in all the public and private voucher schemes combined. Charter schools are choice-based public schools. Unlike magnet schools, charter schools in most states are free from local school district control and cannot restrict admission to the academically talented. While vouchers are available only to low-income families, charter schools serve rich and poor alike. Voucher programs are kept small, but expansive charter laws such as those in Michigan, Arizona, and the District of Columbia allow for vast numbers of charter schools. This makes charter schools icebergs of education reform, with far more impact than is readily apparent.1 No state has more charter schools than Arizona. Virtually every school district in the state is within commuting distance of a charter school. We interviewed 31 Arizona educators, policy makers, and teacher union officials from December 1997 to November 1999 to explore the rapid spread of charters, to learn how district schools react to the competition, and to find lessons for other states considering the charter school version of free-market education. The School Improvement Act (HB 2002) passed the Arizona state legislature in June 1994 as a compromise between supporters of school district interests and proponents of vouchers, a popular idea in heavily Republican and lightly unionized Arizona.2 A state policy maker recalled that, while the voucher proposal was capped at 8,000 students and limited to low-income students, vouchers were really the top issue that drew all the fire. As this debate was raging and you had editorials being done and talk radio and TV news were really focusing on this issue, you had a lot of people who were opposed to vouchers but didn't want to seem like they were totally anti-reform who said, "You know, we could go with those charter schools . . . we just couldn't go with those vouchers because that's too extreme." Similarly, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, strong charter laws were passed to ward off pressure for vouchers.3 Why So Many Charters? The unparalleled flexibility of Arizona's charter school law permitted a huge charter movement. Both charter supporters and critics believe that other states would have similar numbers of charters had they passed similar laws. Republican state legislators, including Lisa Graham Keegan (elected Arizona superintendent of public instruction in 1994), wrote the charter law with input from the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank. Learning from other states, Keegan realized that school districts generally charter few schools, because they tend to see charter schools as competitors. As of December 1995, only 14 charter schools were open in the (then) five states with "weak" charter laws, as compared to 222 charter schools in the five states with laws placing chartering authority outside local school districts.4 The Arizona charter law allows charters to be granted by local school boards, the Arizona Board of Education, or a charter board composed of gubernatorial appointees. Applicants can apply to whichever authority they choose and can reapply the next year if rejected. While the two state-level authorities are limited to 25 new charters annually, a member of the charter board boasted that it "is not a fuddy-duddy, do-nothing group. We've done a lot of analysis looking for loopholes" to foster expansion of charters. "Loopholes" include: 1. Allowing one charter holder to open multiple campuses. …


The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of anticipated task duration on ratings of perceived exertion during treadmill running. Male subjects.(N = 15) completed two separate runs on a motor-driven treadmill at 85% V02 max. During one trial, subjects ran for a period of 20 minutes, while for a second trial, subjects were led to believe that they would be running for 30 minutes. In each case, the trials were terminated at the 20-minute mark. Ratings of perceived exertion, heart rates, respiratory rates, and ventilatory minute volumes were collected across each trial. Results supported the supposition that the anticipation of continued performance mediated ratings of effort expenditure. This effect was obtained only during moderate work levels and was in contrast to research examining mental fatigue.


The artistic challenge, one I accept, is to use the tools of Western progress and communicate messages of African heritage. Francis Bebey The artistic challenge, one I accept, is to use the tools of Western progress and communicate messages of African heritage. Francis Bebey (Re)constructing African music In the interconnected global ethnoscape of the late-twentieth century, the aesthetics of 'art' and popular music alike increasingly bore the mark of hybridity and cultural crossover. It is a world in which once-secure musical boundaries became highly porous; in which transnational cultural exchanges produced an array of richly intersecting multicultural musical forms; indeed, a world in which 'polystylism' was itself considered a representative hallmark of a post-modern condition that challenged the very concepts of cultural authenticity and artistic originality. Collaborative avant-garde projects, like that between Philip Glass and the West African griot Foday Musa Suso, resulted in music that smoothly overlays discrete musical styles, in this case Glass's distinctively minimalist additive rhythms (already indebted to Indian classical music) with the cyclic patterning of the kora . Elsewhere, European composers with minimalist leanings, like Gyorgy Ligeti, extended the dense textures created by Central African polyphonic techniques by drawing out acoustically produced 'inherent rhythms' in the context of Western musical instruments. Relatedly, American postmodernists, like Mikel Rouse, wrote operas (such as Failing Kansas (1995) and Dennis Cleveland (1996)) that sound like creative transcriptions of the African rhythmic processes found in A. M. Jones's Studies in African Music .


Hill, J. W., Whitehead, W. S., Cameron, J. D., and Hedgecock, G. A. (1973).British Journal of Industrial Medicine,30, 174-179. Glass fibres: absence of pulmonary hazard in production workers. Seventy fibreglass workers with a mean of 19·85 years in the industry are compared with a control group having no exposure to glass fibre but otherwise matched for age, sex, height, and weight, and residing in the same geographical area. Comparison was made by radiography, the administration of the modified Medical Research Council Short Questionnaire on Respiratory Symptoms (1960), amplified to include a detailed occupational history, and measurement of peak expiratory flow, FEV1, and FVC. Statistical analysis showed the control group to be at a slight disadvantage compared to the subject group in respect of complaints of phlegm and FVC. No evidence of any respiratory hazard due to glass fibre is shown.


In a comparative framework this paper examines how ordinary citizens in Bulgaria view the developmental levels of European countries and certain states outside of Europe. It analyzes how Bulgarians scale countries on development and how that scale is related both to historical discourses about a civilizational slope from east to west in Europe, and to contemporary linear measurements of societal development and economic well-being. The paper also assesses what internal mechanisms this hierarchical understanding of development may have and how it may be related to national identities. We also consider how the views of the developmental hierarchy vary across subgroups of Bulgarian respondents. The empirical data for this paper come from a 2009 nationally representative survey of Bulgarian adults. Each respondent was asked to rate European countries and certain countries outside Europe on their levels of development. We analyze how ordinary Bulgarians rate countries on development and consider whether their assessments form a descending slope from west to east. We also link the assessments of ordinary Bulgarians to assessments of development made by outside agencies such as the United Nations and to GDP per Capita in order to see how the ratings of international organizations and the evaluation of ordinary Bulgarians are related.


Cloud computing offers the flexibility to dynamically size the infrastructure in response to changes in workload demand. While both horizontal and vertical scaling of infrastructure is supported by major cloud providers, these scaling options differ significantly in terms of their cost, provisioning time, and their impact on workload performance. Importantly, the efficacy of horizontal and vertical scaling critically depends on the workload characteristics, such as the workload's parallelizability and its core scalability. In today's cloud systems, the scaling decision is left to the users, requiring them to fully understand the tradeoffs associated with the different scaling options. In this paper, we present our solution for optimizing the resource scaling of cloud deployments via implementation in OpenStack. The key component of our solution is the modelling engine that characterizes the workload and then quantitatively evaluates different scaling options for that workload. Our modelling engine leverages Amdahl's Law to model service time scaling in scaleup environments and queueing-theoretic concepts to model performance scaling in scale-out environments. We further employ Kalman filtering to account for inaccuracies in the model-based methodology, and to dynamically track changes in the workload and cloud environment.


This paper derives generalized sheet transition conditions (GSTCs) for the average electromagnetic fields across a surface distribution of electrically small scatterers characterized by electric and magnetic polarization densities. We call such an arrangement of scatterers a metafilm-the two-dimensional (2-D) equivalent of a metamaterial. The derivation is based on a replacement of the discrete distribution of scatterers by a continuous one, resulting in a continuous distribution of electric and magnetic polarization densities in the surface. This is done in a manner analogous to the Clausius-Mossotti-Lorenz-Lorentz procedure for determining the dielectric constant of a volume distribution of small scatterers. The result contains as special cases many particular ones found throughout the literature. The GSTCs are expected to have wide application to the design and analysis of antennas, reflectors, and other devices where controllable scatterers are used to form a "smart" surface.


Oxford Archaeology North (formerly Lancaster University Archaeological Unit) undertook an archaeological building investigation of St Paul's Church, Stony Lane, Shireshead, Forton, Lancashire (NGR SD 3502 4512), in August 2001, on behalf of Low Fold Professional Audio. The survey was a condition of planning consent, and was undertaken in advance of the conversion of the building into a recording studio. The aim of the survey was to analyse the plan, form, function, age, and development of the damn church.
The church was built in 1805 on the site of an earlier church which was in existence by 1562. The 1805 church comprised an open nave, with a chancel against the northern wall. This went through several phases of enlargement, not least an extension of the east end and the addition of a gallery. An outshut was added some time later to the north side of the church, probably in conjunction with the installation of a boiler in 1930, and most recently the building was used for Venture Scout meetings, which resulted in the addition of several cinder brick partitions in the nave and chancel to form store rooms, offices and toilets.
Present within the church was a series of inscriptions which recorded all the major episodes in the construction and alteration of the church. It is recommended that these should be preserved, either by being incorporated into the proposed conversion, or passed to an appropriate museum.


Osteoarthritis is a joint disease involved in articular cartilage, subchondral bone, meniscus and synovial membrane. This study sought to examine cartilage degeneration, subchondral bone mineral density (BMD) and meniscal mineral density (MD) in male Hartley, female Hartley and female strain 13 guinea pigs to determine the association of cartilage degeneration with subchondral BMD and meniscal MD. Cartilage degeneration, subchondral BMD and meniscal MD in 12 months old guinea pigs were examined with histochemistry, X-ray densitometry and calcium analysis. We found that male Hartley guinea pigs had more severe cartilage degeneration, subchondral BMD and meniscal MD than female Hartley guinea pigs, but not female strain 13 guinea pigs. Female strain 13 guinea pigs had more severe cartilage degeneration and higher subchondral BMD, but not meniscal MD, than female Hartley guinea pigs. These findings indicate that higher subchondral BMD, not meniscal MD, is associated with more severe cartilage degeneration in the guinea pigs and suggest that abnormal subchondral BMD may be a therapeutic target for OA treatment. These findings also indicate that the pathogenesis of OA in the male guinea pigs and female guinea pigs are different. Female strain 13 guinea pig may be used to study female gender-specific pathogenesis of OA.