important research area in data security, confidentiality and image integrity. Many watermarking techniques were proposed for medical images. However, medical images, unlike most of images, require extreme care when embedding additional data within them because the additional information must not affect the image quality and readability. Also the medical records, electronic or not, are linked to the medical secrecy, for that reason, the records must be confidential. To fulfill those requirements, this paper presents a lossless watermarking scheme for DICOM images. The proposed a fragile scheme combines two reversible techniques based on difference expansion for patient's data hiding and protecting the region of interest (ROI) with tamper detection and recovery capability. Patient's data are embedded into ROI, while recovery data are embedded into region of non-interest (RONI). The experimental results show that the original image can be exactly extracted from the watermarked one in case of no tampering. In case of tampered ROI, tampered area can be localized and recovered with a high quality version of the original area.


The advent of electronic communication enables professionals in noise and hearing conservation to communicate more effectively than ever before with their colleagues in other nations. This fact, added to the harmonization of noise standards by the European community, enables people to watch the development of trends throughout the world. The trend in nations' noise standards is toward the 3‐dB (equal‐energy) rule, toward A‐weighted permissible exposure limits below 90 dB, and toward more specific requirements for audiometric testing and the wearing of hearing protection devices. In addition to protecting workers against hearing loss, several nations include requirements to protect against other adverse effects of noise. Some nations have issued noise standards for specific workplaces, processes, and equipment. Enforcement of noise standards varies considerably among nations, with some nations viewing noise standards merely as recommendations, and others enforcing them seriously.


A row has blown up over the UK General Medical Council's decision to appoint the campaigner and parents' advocate Penny Mellor to the expert group it has set up to produce new guidance for paediatricians working in child protection.

The GMC, the regulator of doctors in the United Kingdom, announced that it was establishing the group on the day the paediatrician David Southall won his appeal in May against a GMC finding that he had accused a mother of murdering her son and a ruling striking him off the medical register ( BMJ 2010;340:c2448, 4 May, doi:10.1136/bmj.c2448).

Mrs Mellor has admitted playing a part in about 30 complaints against Dr Southall, an expert on fabricated or induced illness, formerly known as Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. She told the BMJ that she had been involved in about 50 complaints to the GMC accusing doctors of misconduct, some of them multiple complaints against the same doctor.

A draft open letter from the steering group of Professionals Against Child Abuse (PACA) to the GMC's chairman, Peter Rubin, says that PACA is "astonished" by the appointment and calls Mrs Mellor's involvement "an affront to paediatricians and other professionals involved in child …


© 2007 Nature Publishing Group Please send trade news information and illustrations to Arveen Bajaj at the BDJ, Nature Publishing Group, The Macmillan Building, 4–6 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW. Trade news is provided as a service to readers using text and images from the manufacturer, supplier or distributor and does not imply endorsement by the BDJ. Normal and prudent research should be exercised before purchase or use of any product mentioned.


This article reviews Catholic theological conceptions of parenthood within magisterial documents since the late nineteenth century and contends that presumptions about parenthood tend to arise as reactions to Western cultural developments related to sex and gender. This reactionary trend creates instability in conceptions of parenthood and inhibits the ability of the institutional church to respond constructively to real challenges that face parents in the present. Pastoral concern for lived realities, as well as the responsibilities of Christian parents to socialize and evangelize children, tend to disrupt this trend, but more adequate theological attention to parenthood qua parenthood is still required.


In this study, we developed a new computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model called Airflow Analyst that deepens the affinity between CFD and geographic information system (GIS). First, a precise simulation of the surface-mounted cube was conducted. Validation testing based on the obtained data confirmed the predictive accuracy of Airflow Analyst. Second, New National Stadium Japan (Tokyo Olympic Stadium) was accurately reproduced in a computer, capturing the latest detailed urban area data for the base. For the target of the constructed 3D models, simulations with a large number of grid points/cells (CFD) were conducted. These simulations reproduced the complex turbulent flow fields both inside and outside the stadium. The experiment successfully reproduced the CFD simulation using a large number of grid points/cells, where the conditions of the wind flow ventilation from the sky were similar to those of the intended stadium design.


The diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited under different deposition parameters by using arc technology. The detailed relationship of sp3 structure with the D peak of the DLC films' Raman spectra is discussed. In aid of the discussion, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to determine the DLC films' C1s binding energy. By comparing the binding energy with the Raman shift of the films, it can be found that the intensity of D peak decomposed from the Raman shift can be increased not only by the graphite cluster, but also by higher content of sp3 bonds. Higher sp3 content of DLC films can be obtained by using 90 degree magnetic filter. The study shows that the C1s binding energy of DLC films, whose Raman spectra have higher intensity of D peak, can be 284.15 or 285.50 eV, which reveals that the DLC films may have higher graphite-like or diamond-like structure, respectively.


A Rhetorical Analysis of Campaign Songs in Modern Elections Lottie Elizabeth Peterson School of Communications, BYU Master of Arts Since the U.S. presidential election of 1800, candidates have selected campaign songs to underscore their political platforms. The literature on politics and music suggests that in modern campaigns, the significance of music rests not in the song itself but in the artist behind the song and the image associated with that particular artist. This analysis sought to convey how the very process of selecting a campaign song is a profound rhetorical act, and that songs chosen even in modern elections have a specific meaning and purpose tied to the political contexts in which they are embedded. Using an adaptation of Sellnow and Sellnow's "Illusion of Life" rhetorical perspective, which analyzes whether the musical score and lyrics of a single song form a congruent or incongruent relationship, this study analyzed the official campaign songs for both Republican and Democratic candidates for the 1972-2016 elections. The adaptation provided the opportunity to examine the intersection of music, rhetoric and politics, and explore evolving patterns and trends in campaign music. The primary findings of this research indicated that both Republican and Democratic candidates have predominantly made use of congruity in their campaign songs, with that congruity only increasing over time — a surprising result considering congruity can often diminish listener appeal. The song analyses also indicated that in general, Republican candidates tend to utilize songs that are positive and patriotic in nature, while their Democratic opponents incorporate songs that offer a critique of the nation. Additionally, findings also revealed a transition that began taking place in the 1970s to hit full stride in the 21 century, as campaign songs shifted from being a direct endorsement of candidates to focusing on universal themes that could appeal to both sides of the political spectrum.


For more than one thousand years the monastic republic of Mount Athos has been one of the most chronicled and yet least accessible places in the Mediterranean. Difficult to reach until the last century and strictly restricted to male visitors only, the Holy Mountain of Orthodoxy has been known in the Eastern Christian world and in western Europe more through representation than through direct experience. Most writing on Athos has focused on its Byzantine history and sacred heritage. Imagining Mount Athos uncovers a set of alternative and largely unexplored perspectives, equally important in the mapping and dissemination of Athos in popular imagination. The author considers Mount Athos as the site of pre-Christian myths of Renaissance and Enlightenment scholarship, of shelter for Allied refugees during the Second World War, and of a botanical and sociological laboratory for early twentieth century scientists. Each chapter considers a different narrative channel through which Athos has entered Orthodox and western European imagination: the mythical, the utopian, the sacred, the scholarly, the geopolitical, and the scientific. Della Dora has assembled a wealth of unique textual, visual, and oral materials without ever having had the opportunity to visit this holy place. In this sense, in addition to making an important contribution to existing scholarship on Mount Athos, the book adds to current theoretical debates in cultural geography and humanities generally about the circulation of knowledge. Imagining Mount Athos's appeal is international and spans Hellenic studies, cultural geography, environmental history, cultural history, religious studies, history of cartography, and art history. The book will be of interest to scholars as well as to a general audience interested in this unique place and its fascinating history.


This article reports the development and exploratory testing of a school-based intervention programme designed to enhance levels of physical activity in adolescents. The intervention is based on social cognitive theory (SCT), self-regulation theory (SRT) and planning as evidence-based mediators of physical activity changes. Two classes, paired on socio-economic variables, were selected from each of eight Portuguese schools and randomly assigned to an intervention or control group (N = 291). Primary outcome was 'moderate to vigorous physical activity' (International Physical Activity Questionnaire) measured pre and post intervention and at three and nine months follow-up. SCT, SRT and planning variables were secondary outcomes measured pre and post intervention. At post test, participants in the intervention group reported 18 min per week more physical activity (PA), adjusted for pre-intervention, age and sex, than those in the control group (95% confidence interval −10 to 46; p = 0.249). This difference increased to 33 min (95% CI–4 to 71; p = 0.082) at three months and to 57 min (95% CI 13 to 101, p = 0.008) at nine month follow-up. Moreover, the intervention resulted in changes of some of the theoretical target variables, including outcome expectancies and coping planning. However, no evidence was found for the changes in theoretical moderators to mediate the intervention effects on behaviour. Implications for theory and for future research are discussed.


We examine how experiential learning affects organizational change and its consequences on firm mortality. We develop hypotheses about the interactions of experiences with a specific type of organizational change on the one hand, and environmental stability, organizational size, and organizational niche width on the other hand. Our findings draw from analysis of the U.S. automobile industry between 1885 and 1981 and support the general prediction that "process" effects of change in the organizational core elevate the hazard of failure. We also find that a dynamic interpretation of organizational environments as comprised of other organizations helps to explicate the interplay between organization and environmental forces that shape the occurrence and outcome of transformation.


In many applications, investigators monitor processes that vary in space and time, with the goal of identifying temporally persistent and spatially localized departures from a baseline or "normal" behavior. In this manuscript, we consider the monitoring of pneumonia and influenza (P&I) mortality, to detect influenza outbreaks in the continental United States, and propose a Bayesian nonparametric model selection approach to take into account the spatio-temporal dependence of outbreaks. More specifically, we introduce a zero-inflated conditionally identically distributed species sampling prior which allows borrowing information across time and to assign data to clusters associated to either a null or an alternate process. Spatial dependences are accounted for by means of a Markov random field prior, which allows to inform the selection based on inferences conducted at nearby locations. We show how the proposed modeling framework performs in an application to the P&I mortality data and in a simulation study, and compare with common threshold methods for detecting outbreaks over time, with more recent Markov switching based models, and with spike-and-slab Bayesian nonparametric priors that do not take into account spatio-temporal dependence.


Background and Aim: Health is a right for humans. The most health service givers at health organization are nurses. Hence, they have important role at improve health status of community. But, they are exposed with different stressors that decrease health status. Hence, this study has been conducted to examine health status and evaluate correlation between health status and occupaitonal and demographic variables of them. Materials and Methods: This study is a descriptive research that conducted on nurses of hospitals dependent to shahroud medical university. Demographic and occupaitonal characteristics questionnaire and also short form health survey (SF-36) were used to data collection. Nurses respond by self-administered method to questionnaires. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistic with SPSS software, windows version. Results: 158 nurses participated in this study. Upon to result, 75.8% of subjects were female, 24.2% male and average age were 32.48±8.31 year. The range of mean of health status scores in different domains was variants from 38.20±25.26 for bodily pain to 71.94±24.38 for physical functioning. There were significant relations between health status different dimensions and variables of age, recuritment status, work shift, clinial ward and years in profession. The statistical tests didn't reveal significant relations between sex, marital status and educational level with health status different dimensions. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that nurses suffer critically of bodily pains problem in comparison with other health status dimensions. Therefore attntion to health status of nurses especially bodily pains problem and its relations with demographic and occupaitonal variables to improvement health status of nurses is necessary.


In this study we investigated longitudinal associations among parenting, children's temperamental negative affectivity, and internalizing and externalizing behavior. Second, we tested whether findings confirmed the diathesis-stress model or differential susceptibility theory when conducting stringent interaction tests. The sample included 129 children and their families. Parenting quality (age 5) was measured by parent–child interaction observations. Parents evaluated child negative affectivity (age 7) and teachers reported on problem behavior (age 12). Multiple regression analyses revealed an interaction effect of negative affectivity and parenting on externalizing behavior. Visual inspection suggested 'for better and for worse' effects of parenting for children with negative affectivity. However, more stringent tests failed to show convincing evidence for differential susceptibility theory. For internalizing behavior, negative affectivity may render children vulnerable regardless of parenting. Our results point at the importance of further testing interaction effects to distinguish between differential susceptibility theory and the diathesis-stress model.


The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between resource allocation practices in specific categorical functions and student performance in reading and math. This study utilized quantitative research methods to study the effects of spending and performance over four years of analysis. Quantitative data was acquired utilizing information from the Texas Education Agency. The data was collected from 81 campuses and represented over 1,500 students. The study's outcomes reported that little or no correlation could be found between inputs (dollars spent in three categories) and outputs (student results in reading and math). However, subgroup analysis revealed that students from non- low socioeconomic (SES) households started out higher than their low SES counterparts, and low SES students performed worse over time in both reading and math. Math results decreased more dramatically than reading indicating a need for school-level training in data analysis to ensure that limited dollars are spent appropriately. The study recommends that principals and school administrators be especially knowledgeable in critical data analysis skills. The study further recommends that state policy-makers invest more heavily in early math instruction. In addition, the current study found that student achievement, in low-SES students, especially in mathematics is very alarming. Low SES students are starting out behind the non low-SES counterparts and perform progressively worse over time. State policy makers must address these concerns.


The combination of electrochemical, optical, acoustical and other measurement techniques with the specificity of biological recognition systems has resulted in a range of new analytical devices known as biosensors. Biosensors are under intensive development worldwide because they have a multitude of potential applications, in particular, clinical medicine, environmental monitoring and process control of industrial processes. Their basic principles, mode of operation, performance requirements and current trends will be reviewed. A brief description of a novel biosensor developed at Lincoln Technology, the MICREDOX method, is outlined and applications for rapid measurement of biochemical oxygen demand and toxicity measurements are described. Preliminary data obtained using the MICREDOX method are reported for three standard toxic materials, zinc sulphate, 3, 5-dichlorophenol and sodium lauryl sulphate.


This study proposes a new type of greenhouse for water re-use and energy saving for agriculture in arid and semi-arid inland regions affected by groundwater salinity. It combines desalination using reverse osmosis (RO), re-use of saline concentrate rejected by RO for cooling, and rainwater harvesting. Experimental work was carried at GBPUAT, Pantnagar, India. Saline concentrate was fed to evaporative cooling pads of greenhouse and found to evaporate at similar rates as conventional freshwater. Two enhancements to the system are described: i) A jet pump, designed and tested to use pressurized reject stream to re-circulate cooling water and thus maintain uniform wetness in cooling pads, was found capable of multiplying flow of cooling water by a factor of 2.5 to 4 while lifting water to a head of 1.55 m; and ii) Use of solar power to drive ventilation fans of greenhouse, for which an electronic circuit has been produced that uses maximum power-point tracking to maximize energy efficiency. Re-use of RO rejected concentrate for cooling saves water (6 l d-1 m-2) of greenhouse floor area and the improved fan could reduce electricity consumption by a factor 8.


Background Paeoniflorin has been reported to exert antitumor effects on human cancers. However, the role of paeoniflorin in gastric cancer and the underlying molecular mechanism are unelucidated. Therefore, we determined whether paeoniflorin could exhibit anticancer activity in gastric cancer cells. Methods MTT was used to measure the viability of cells after paeoniflorin treatment. FACS was performed to examine cell apoptosis. Wound healing and transwell invasion assays were conducted to examine cell migratory and invasive activities. Western blotting was used to explore the mechanism by which paeoniflorin exerted tumor suppressive effects. Results We found that paeoniflorin suppressed cell growth, enhanced apoptosis, and reduced cell invasion. Notably, we showed that paeoniflorin inhibited the expression of TAZ in gastric cancer cells. The overexpression of TAZ abrogated the antitumor activity of paeoniflorin in gastric cancer cells. In contrast, the downregulation of TAZ promoted the tumor suppressive effects of paeoniflorin treatment. Conclusion Hence, targeting TAZ with paeoniflorin could be a novel approach for the treatment of human gastric cancer.


Summary
Understanding the factors underlying variation in attentional state is critical in a number of domains. Here, we investigate the relation between time on task and mind wandering (i.e., a state of decoupled attention) in the context of a lecture. Lectures are the primary means of knowledge transmission in post secondary education rendering an understanding of attentional variations in lectures a pressing practical concern. We report two experiments wherein participants watched a video recorded lecture either alone (Experiment 1) or in a classroom context (Experiment 2). Participants responded to mind wandering probes at various times in the lecture in an effort to track variations in mind wandering over time. In addition, following the lecture, memory for the lecture material was tested. Results demonstrate that in a lecture mind wandering increases with time on task and memory for the lecture material decreases. In addition, there was a significant relation between mind wandering and memory for lecture material. Theoretical and practical applications of the present results are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Stress accumulation rates along the primary segments of the San Andreas Fault System are computed using a three-dimensional (3-D) elastic half-space model with realistic fault geometry. The model is developed in the Fourier domain by solving for the response of an elastic half-space due to a point vector body force and analytically integrating the force from a locking depth to infinite depth. This approach is then applied to the San Andreas Fault System using published slip rates along 18 major fault strands of the fault zone. GPS-derived horizontal velocity measurements spanning the entire 1700 x 200 km region are then used to solve for apparent locking depth along each primary fault segment. This simple model fits remarkably well (2.43 mm/yr RMS misfit), although some discrepancies occur in the Eastern California Shear Zone. The model also predicts vertical uplift and subsidence rates that are in agreement with independent geologic and geodetic estimates. In addition, shear and normal stress along the major fault strands are used to compute Coulomb stress accumulation rate. As a result, we find earthquake recurrence intervals along the San Andreas Fault System to be inversely proportional to Coulomb stress accumulation rate, in agreement with typical coseismic stress drops of 1-10 MPa. This 3-D deformation model can ultimately be extended to include both time-dependent forcing and viscoelastic response. 2.


The banning of bromates and the substitution of ascorbic acid as flour improver in 1997, generated a lot of controversy among bakers and flour milling industries in Ghana. This research was carried out to investigate the effects of ascorbic acid on wheat-bread characteristics. Various levels of ascorbic acid and bromate were used in the bread production to compare critical functional properties of bread. The results showed that the specific volume of the loaves increased from 2.80 cm3/g (control) to 3.86 cm3/g at ascorbic acid concentration of 250.0 mg/kg beyond which no significant increases were observed. Loaf tenderness was found to increase with increasing ascorbic acid concentration registering the least value of hardness (2.2 N) at an ascorbic acid level of 500.0 mg/kg. Capillarity, which is an inverse measure of vesicular size of the loaves, decreased with increasing loaf volume registering the least value (3.40 gWater/gLoaf) at the highest loaf volume of 481.70 cm3 at ascorbic acid level of 250.0 mg/kg. Crust thickness of the loaves also followed an inverse relation with loaf volume. The use of ascorbic acid as a flour improver was found to correlate well with the controversial potassium bromate within its accepted levels in terms of the various bread characteristics at correlation coefficient values of 0.85, 0.95, 0.99 and 0.80 for the specific volume, capillarity, tenderness, and crust thickness registered, respectively. JOURNAL OF THE GHANA SCIENCE ASSOCIATION Volume 2 No. 2 (2000) pp. 10-15


The purpose of this research is to know the impact of packaging and labeling on consumer buying behavior and how such factors are behind the success of brand recognition. The research is based in Karachi (Pakistan). The packaging is the most important tool to attract the customer towards the brand. The dependent variable is consumer buying behavior. Packaging elements like color, material, design and font style, and printed information is as predictors or independent variable. Due to increasing self-service and bring change in consumer life style the interest in package as a tool of sales promotion and stimulator of impulsive buying behavior is growing increasingly. So package performs an important role in marketing aspects, especially in the point of sale and could be treated as one of the most important tool influencing consumer's purchase decision. A sample of 120 was taken to assess the relationship between consumer buying behavior and packaging color, material, design and font style and printed information. Result of the study shows that the impact of labeling and packaging influence on packaging color, material, design and font style and printed information Keywords: Consumer Behavior, Packaging color, material, design and font style and printed information.


Electrochemical machining (ECM) is a non-traditional machining method
for the metal material based on the principle of anode electrochemical dissolution which has been
used in micro/nano fabrication with advantages as not influenced by materials intensity and hardness,
no residual stress and no heat treatment born on the surface of the workpiece. Several researches and
applications have shown that the surface quality can be improved effectively during the electrochemical
machining by using ultrashort pulse power supply.

 This paper presents a potential of electrochemical machining at the nanometer scale. First, a
transient charging double layer mathematical model is developed to describe electrochemical
nanostructuring of metallic materials with ultrashort (nanosecond) voltage pulses. And then, by using
finite element method (FEM), the analysis model of electrochemical interface between poles is established
to give a more realistic analysis of the comparison of transient currents at different separations
between the tool and workpiece. Second, a nanoscale electrode is an essential tool in electrochemical
nanostructuring. In this paper, electrodes with diameters of several ten to hundred nanometers are
successfully prepared by the liquid membrane electrochemical etching. Finally, by using the nanometer
scale electrodes above and the ultrashort pulse power supply, several nanostructures with
physical dimension of several hundred nanometers are fabricated on nickelbased superalloys.

 Using the optimal machining parameters, a tool electrode with 230 nm in diameter is obtained
from the initial tungsten rod radius of 100 μm. By using 0.05 M H2SO4 solution, the pulse
generator with 1μs in period, 100 ns in pulse on-time and 4 V in voltage, a micro/nano groove with
the depth of 150 nm and maximum entrance width of 3 μm is obtained.

 Nanoscale electrodes with diameters of several ten to hundred nanometers is obtained
successfully demonstrating that the liquid membrane electrochemical etching is a very effective
method to fabricate nanoscale electrode. Several nanostructures with physical dimension of several
hundred nanometers can be fabricated successfully demonstrating that ECM with ultrashort pulses is
a highly promising nanostructuring technology.


The temperature of the active region crystal lattice, frequently referred to as the junction temperature , is a critical parameter. The junction temperature is relevant for several reasons. Firstly, the internal quantum efficiency depends on the junction temperature. Secondly, hightemperature operation shortens the device lifetime. Thirdly, a high device temperature can lead to degradation of the encapsulant. It is therefore desirable to know the junction temperature as a function of the drive current. Heat can be generated in the contacts, cladding layers, and the active region. At low current levels, heat generation in the parasitic resistances of contacts and cladding layers is small due to the I 2 R dependence of Joule heating. The dominant heat source at low current levels is the active region, where heat is created by non-radiative recombination. At high current levels, the contribution of parasitics becomes increasingly important and can even dominate. There are several different ways to measure the junction temperature, which include micro-Raman spectroscopy (Todoroki et al ., 1985), threshold voltage (Abdelkader et al ., 1992), thermal resistance (Murata and Nakada, 1992), photothermal reflectance microscopy (Epperlein, 1990), electroluminescence (Epperlein and Bona, 1993), photoluminescence (Hall et al ., 1992) and a non-contact method based on the peak ratio of a dichromatic source (Gu and Narendran, 2003). Most methods are indirect methods that infer the junction temperature from an easily measurable parameter.


Background: Previous studies in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have shown an association between high serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels and decreased inflammatory activity. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between 25(OH)D levels and axonal injury in MS. Cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light (CSF-NFL) was used as a marker for axonal injury. Methods: Patients were identified through clinical practice at the Department of Neurology in Umeå University Hospital, Sweden. Blood draw, magnetic resonance imaging, scoring of disability and lumbar puncture were performed at inclusion in 153 patients, and also at median 12 months follow-up in 87 patients. For analyses of serum 25(OH)D levels and CSF-NFL, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were used. Results: There was an inverse association between serum 25(OH)D and CSF-NFL levels in categorical (dichotomized at 75 or 100 nmol/l) analyses. A dose-response effect for 25(OH)D levels on CSF-NFL levels (p for trend=0.034) was also present. Serum 25(OH)D levels above 100 nmol/l were associated with lower CSF-NFL levels independently of ongoing MS treatment. Conclusion: High 25(OH)D levels are associated with decreased axonal injury in MS.


ObjectiveIn a partnership between the Public Health Division of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), our objective was develop an analytic fusion tool using streaming data and report-based evidence to improve the targeting and timing of evidence-based interventions in the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic. The tool is intended to enable practical situational awareness in the ESSENCE biosurveillance system to target response programs at the county and state levels. Threats to be monitored include emerging events and gradual trends of overdoses in three categories: all prescription and illicit opioids, heroin, and especially high-mortality synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and its analogues. Traditional sources included emergency department (ED) visits and emergency management services (EMS) call records. Novel sources included poison center calls, death records, and report-based information such as bad batch warnings on social media. Using available data and requirements analyses thus far, we applied and compared Bayesian networks, decision trees, and other machine learning approaches to derive robust tools to reveal emerging overdose threats and identify at-risk subpopulations.IntroductionUnlike other health threats of recent concern for which widespread mortality was hypothetical, the high fatality burden of opioid overdose crisis is present, steadily growing, and affecting young and old, rural and urban, military and civilian subpopulations. While the background of many public health monitors is mainly infectious disease surveillance, these epidemiologists seek to collaborate with behavioral health and injury prevention programs and with law enforcement and emergency medical services to combat the opioid crisis. Recent efforts have produced key terms and phrases in available data sources and numerous user-friendly dashboards allowing inspection of hundreds of plots. The current effort seeks to distill and present combined fusion alerts of greatest concern from numerous stratified data outputs. Near-term plans are to implement best-performing fusion methods as an ESSENCE module for the benefit of OHA staff and other user groups.MethodsBy analyzing historical OHA data, we formed features to monitor in each data source to adapt diagnosis codes and text strings suggested by CDC's injury prevention division, published EMS criteria [Reference 1], and generic product codes from CDC toxicologists, with guidance from OHA Emergency Services Director David Lehrfeld and from Oregon Poison Center Director Sandy Giffen. These features included general and specific opioid abuse indicators such as daily counts of records labelled with the "poisoning" subcategory and containing "fentanyl" or other keywords in the free-text. Matrices of corresponding time series were formed for each of 36 counties and the entire state as inputs to region-specific fusion algorithms.To obtain truth data for detection, the OHA staff provided guidance and design help to generate plausible overdose threat scenarios that were quantified as realistic data distributions of monitored features accounting for time delays and historical distributions of counts in each data source. We sampled these distributions to create 1000 target sets for detection based on the event duration and affected counties for each event scenario.We used these target datasets to compare the detection performance of fusion detection algorithms. Tested algorithms included Bayesian Networks formed with the R package gRain, and also random forest, logistic regression, and support vector machine models implemented with the Python scikit-learn package using default settings. The first 800 days of the data were used for model training, and the last 400 days for testing. Model results were evaluated with the metrics:Sensitivity = (number of target event days signaled) / (all event days) andPositive predictive value (PPV) = (number of target event days signaled) / (all days signaled).These metrics were combined with specificity regarded as the expected fusion alert rate calculated from the historical dataset with no simulated cases injected.ResultsThe left half of Figure 1 illustrates a threat scenario along Oregon's I5 corridor in which string of fentanyl overdoses with a few fatalities affects the monitored data streams in three counties over a seven-day period. The right half of the figure charts the performance metrics for random forest and Bayesian network machine learning methods applied to both training and test datasets assuming total case counts of 50, 20, and 10 overdoses. Sensitivity values were encouraging, especially for the Bayesian networks and even for the 10-case scenario. Computed PPV levels suggested a manageable public health investigation burden.ConclusionsThe detection results were promising for a threat scenario of particular concern to OHA based on a data scenario deemed plausible and realistic based on historical data. Trust and acceptance from public health surveillance of outputs from supervised machine learning methods beyond traditional statistical methods will require user experience and similar evaluation with additional threat scenarios and authentic event data.Credible truth data can be generated for testing and evaluation of analytic fusion methods with the advantages of several years of historical data from multiple sources and the expertise of experienced monitors. The collaborative generation process may be standardized and extended to other threat types and data environments.Next steps include the addition to the analytic fusion capability of report-based data that can influence data interpretation, including mainstream and social media reports, events in neighboring regions, and law enforcement data.References1. Rhode Island Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS) Case Definition for Emergency Medical Services (EMS), http://www.health.ri.gov/publications/guidelines/ESOOSCaseDefinitionForEMS.pdf, last accessed: Sept. 9, 2018.


Sweden can be characterised as a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. One of the most prominent actors in interreligious relations is the Church of Sweden. However, such involvement is also open to criticism, both within the church and in public debate. Different expectations concerning cooperation with the Swedish Muslim community became visible in the public media and in the national church media when a congregation in Stockholm engaged an imam for a multi-religious youth project. This paper examines the arguments relating to the mission of the church as a church for Swedish people in a pluralistic society, and discusses some of the consequences of these arguments for interreligious relations and dialogue. The material is based on articles published in Swedish public media and Swedish church media between March and September, 2011. The debate, analysed through five sub-themes, focuses on the borders of what should be included and excluded by a national church in a multi-religious society and the national church's responsibility for caring for religious minorities. The paper concludes with a discussion about issues of power regarding the church as an initiator of dialogue, and how different actors are represented in the media.


The University of Hertfordshire, funded by MAFF and in collaboration with ADAS and IACRRothamsted, is currently developing a computer-based decision support system to encourage and enhance best practice within arable agriculture such that environmental protection can be given a high priority without jeopardising profitability. A significant part of this system is focused towards the use and management of pesticides to ensure that protecting the crop does not conflict with protecting the environment. The software system aims to assess the farmer's use of pesticides. Using a multi-criteria approach, field techniques, pesticide choice and management practices such as storage, waste management and machinery calibration are all assessed. Although the system concentrates on field applications for crop protection, it also examines non-crop pesticides such as biocides and rodenticides. The eco-rating is derived by comparing actual practices with rules and heuristics describing best practice. Simple ranking and scoring techniques are used to derive an indicator of environmental performance with respect to the farmers use of pesticides.


Continual enhancements and innovation in the mobile computing industry have redesigned and simplified the way businesses and individuals can communicate and conduct their everyday professional and social interactions. So significant are these technological contributions such as PDAs, media players, and wireless sensor networks that it has deeply impacted and influenced nearly every industry in modern societies.Mobile Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications advances the emergent field of mobile computing through a substantial six-volume set of highly developed entries from over 400 leading researchers. This key reference collection contains over 300 chapters of fascinating approaches, observations, and models in topic areas such as mobile devices, surveillance technologies, and wireless communications. Mobile Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a must-have for practitioners, academicians, and learners in the field of mobile computing and a valuable resource for any library.


Neurodegenerative Diseases (NDDs) are a group of disorders that cause progressive deficits of neuronal function. Recent evidence argues that sphingolipid metabolism is affected in a surprisingly broad set of NDDs. These include some lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs), hereditary sensory and autonomous neuropathy (HSAN), hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy (INAD), Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA), as well as some forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Many of these diseases have been modeled in Drosophila melanogaster and are associated with elevated levels of ceramides. Similar changes have also been reported in vertebrate cells and mouse models. Here, we summarize studies using fly models and/or patient samples which demonstrate the nature of the defects in sphingolipid metabolism, the organelles that are implicated, the cell types that are initially affected, and potential therapeutics for these diseases.


Human ovarian carcinoma A2780 cells resistant to VM-26, a topoisomerase II-targeting drug, were cloned. Cross-resistance test showed that the resistant cells were 300 fold more tolerant toward VM-26 than were parental cells, whereas tolerance towards other drugs increased only 3 to 10 fold. VM-26 triggered apoptosis in a variety of cells including rodent cells, but not in resistant cells. This resistance might not be due to multidrug resistance (MDR). The topoisomerase II mRNA levels showed only a slight variation between VM-26-treated and -untreated resistant cells, and the difference in protein levels was about 2 fold. This implies that the level of topoisomerase IIβ expression may be unrelated to drug resistance. The DNA strand-passing activity of topoisomerase II affected by VM-26 was measured by K-SDS precipitation of the topoisomerase II-DNA complex, and topoisomerase II decatenation of kinetoplastic DNA (K-DNA). The results showed that the VM-26 influence on topoisomerase II cleavable activity was much less in resistant cells. Alteration of drug targeting sites in topoisomerase II might be a factor contributing to VM-26 drug resistance in these resistant cells.


Objective: Peri-implantitis is an irreversible inflammatory reaction in the soft and hard tissues around a functional implant. One of the treatment approaches of this disease include smoothing and polishing the rough surface and removing threads on the implants using rotary instruments, which is called implantoplasy. Clinicians should perform implantoplasty with caution because it may raise the temperature of the implant body as well as the surrounding bone. This study aimed to compare micromorphology and thermal changes obtained with different rotary instruments and piezoelectric device after implantoplasty. Methods: In this in vitro study 48 Intra Lock fixture surfaces were processed in 60 seconds with six polishing procedures using 6,12 bladed carbide burs, 90, 30 µm mean-particles-size diamond burs, and piezosurgery inserts OT1 (grain size= 91 µm) and OP5 (grain size= 30 µm). These instruments were applied in single or sequences procedures. Variations in temperature were recorded every 5 seconds. The roughness of treated surfaces was evaluated with a profilometer for Ra1, Rz1 (single polish procedures), Ra2, and Rz2 (sequence polish procedures) parameters. Also, surfaces were observed using a field emission scanning electron after each step of implantoplasty. Results: The piezosurgery group showed statistically significant differences with the other two groups (maximum temperature 1.2°C). No statistically significant differences were observed between the carbide and diamond burs regarding the temperature changes and the temperature decreased from the start point in both groups. The mean Ra value in piezoelectric group (1.53 (0.23)) was significantly lower than diamond (2.45 (0.40), p<0.05) and carbide (2.10 (0.28), p<0.05) groups. Besides, this measure in the carbide group was significantly lower than that of the diamond group (p<0.05). Rz1 value was significantly greater in diamond and carbide groups compared to piezoelectric group. The results revealed significant differences among the three groups concerning Rz2. The minimum Rz2 value was seen in piezoelectic group, while the diamond group showed the highest Rz2 parameter. Conclusion: This in virto study showed that in suitable cooling conditions, implantoplasty with rotary and piezoelectric devices does not produce excessive heat increases which can damage the soft tissue or bone around the affected implant. The piezoelectric device produced smoother surfaces in single or sequence procedures compared to the burs and can be useful for implantoplasy.


Abstract Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the efficacy of Limosilactobacillus reuteri (formerly Lactobacillus reuteri) DSM 32203 as a zootechnical additive for dogs. The additive is a preparation of viable cells of L. reuteri DSM 32203 and it has not been previously authorised as a feed additive in the European Union. The additive is intended for use in complete feed for dogs at a minimum use level of 6 × 109 colony forming units (CFU) per animal and day. In a previous opinion, the FEEDAP Panel could not conclude on the efficacy of L. reuteri DSM 32203 for dogs. The applicant has provided supplementary information to support the efficacy of the additive to dogs. Based on the data provided, the FEEDAP Panel concludes that L. reuteri DSM 32203 has the potential to improve faecal consistency by reducing the moisture content of stools from dogs receiving the additive at 1 × 1010 CFU/kg feed. However, the Panel has some reservations on the effects in the moisture content of stools, which if maintained over time might cast doubts on the benefits on the long‐term use of the additive since it could lead to constipation.


A 55-year-old male was referred to our hospital after complaining of a sore throat for a month. Physical examination revealed a disturbance in consciousness, nuchal rigidity, painful multiple ulcers in the oral cavity, and erythema, the size of rice grains on the body. Hematological examination showed the following results: white blood cells, 7,910/µl (abnormal lymphocytes 2%), LDH, 203 U/l, corrected calcium, 11.2 mg/dl, soluble IL-2 receptor, 11,800 U/ml, and cytomegalovirus antigenemia assay (C10, C11) 43/49. Abnormal lymphocytes (CD4+CD25+) were discovered in the peripheral blood, bone marrow, and skin samples. Southern blotting of peripheral blood revealed monoclonal integration of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) provirus DNA; and consequently, he was diagnosed with adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL). Multiple tumors with ringed contrast effect were observed in the brain parenchyma using contrast-enhanced computed tomography. The cell number in the cerebrospinal fluid was 1,320/mm3 (ATLL cells were 79% in flow cytometry), and the protein level was 244 mg/dl; moreover, the examination revealed a positive result for human herpesvirus 6 DNA. Despite herpesvirus genus treatment and modified LSG15 therapy combined with intrathecal chemotherapy, the patient became comatose and died on day 21 of hospitalization. A better understanding of the pathogenesis of ATLL, and the involvement with the central nervous system is needed along with the development of standard treatment.


Phase-retrieval based wavefront sensors have been shown to reconstruct the complex field from an object with a high spatial resolution. Although the reconstructed complex field encodes the depth information of the object, it is impractical to be used as a depth sensor for macroscopic objects, since the unambiguous depth imaging range is limited by the optical wavelength. To improve the depth range of imaging and handle depth discontinuities, we propose a novel three-dimensional sensor by leveraging wavelength diversity and wavefront sensing. Complex fields at two optical wavelengths are recorded, and a synthetic wavelength can be generated by correlating those wavefronts. The proposed system achieves high lateral and depth resolutions. Our experimental prototype shows an unambiguous range of more than 1,000 x larger compared with the optical wavelengths, while the depth precision is up to 9µm for smooth objects and up to 69µm for rough objects. We experimentally demonstrate 3D reconstructions for transparent, translucent, and opaque objects with smooth and rough surfaces.


A facile, eco-friendly, and industrially viable melt mixing method was introduced to incorporate sepiolite (SP) clay into ethylene methyl acrylate (EMA) matrix for the fabrication of transparent, highly flexible, and mechanically/thermally stable composites. The structural information was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV) study also indicates the transparency of the composites. The electron micrographs were employed to characterize the dispersion of SP clay inside the EMA matrix and also revealed proper dispersion of SP clay in EMA matrix. The strong polymer-filler interaction is responsible for enhanced properties of EMA composites with SP clay content, that evaluated by both bound rubber content and dynamic mechanical analysis. The proposed composites demonstrate the improved thermal, mechanical properties as compared to pure EMA matrix. The significant deterioration of oxygen permeability and water absorption performance of EMA/SP clay composites may be attributed to the well dispersion of SP clay inside the EMA matrix and improved restriction of the free movement of EMA molecular chains. Thus, the proposed EMA/SP composites show a high potential in the membranes and packaging application


Today, the term "flow" stands as an established metaphorical expression for the dynamic flowing nature of experience that follows the optimal functioning of consciousness. Such expressions are most likely to be associated with the perspective of positive psychology, wherein there has been a thematic shift in discourse concerning flow theory with contemporary proponents predominantly referring to the existing flow framework, channelling their efforts into furthering the scope of its application. This shift has diverted researchers from seeking answers to more fundamental questions, such as gaining an understanding of the experiential nature and significance of what goes before and after flow. This article documents the first research to focus on flow as a broader experiential whole and, more specifically, on flow as a process-experience. The aim of this research was, through phenomenological inquiry, to bring clarity to the experiential, conceptual and theoretical uncertainty surrounding what goes before and after a state of flow, to provide a more complete, holistic and systematic understanding of the flow experience. More specifically, this research is situated within serious leisure [Stebbins, R.A. (1992). Amateurs, professionals, and serious leisure. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen's University Press; Stebbins, R.A. (1992). Loisir et société/Society and Leisure, 15, 375–386; Stebbins, R.A. (2007). Serious leisure: A perspective of our time. New Brunswick, NJ: Aldine]. An experience-process perspective of flow-based serious leisure was developed building upon the key findings of the research to depict flow as the focal state of mind in a broader, more expansive, multi-phased and multi-dimensional experiential process comprising three distinctive phases of experience, identified as pre-flow experience; flow-in-action; and post-flow experience.


Byzantine-robust federated learning aims at mitigating Byzantine failures during the federated training process, where malicious participants may upload arbitrary local updates to the central server to degrade the performance of the global model. In recent years, several robust aggregation schemes have been proposed to defend against malicious updates from Byzantine clients and improve the robustness of federated learning. These solutions were claimed to be Byzantine-robust, under certain assumptions. Other than that, new attack strategies are emerging, striving to circumvent the defense schemes. However, there is a lack of systematic comparison and empirical study thereof. In this paper, we conduct an experimental study of Byzantine-robust aggregation schemes under different attacks using two popular algorithms in federated learning, FedSGD and FedAvg . We first survey existing Byzantine attack strategies and Byzantine-robust aggregation schemes that aim to defend against Byzantine attacks. We also propose a new scheme, ClippedClustering , to enhance the robustness of a clustering-based scheme by automatically clipping the updates. Then we provide an experimental evaluation of eight aggregation schemes in the scenario of five different Byzantine attacks. Our results show that these aggregation schemes sustain relatively high accuracy in some cases but are ineffective in others. In particular, our proposed ClippedClustering successfully defends against most attacks under independent and IID local datasets. However, when the local datasets are Non-IID, the performance of all the aggregation schemes significantly decreases. With Non-IID data, some of these aggregation schemes fail even in the complete absence of Byzantine clients. We conclude that the robustness of all the aggregation schemes is limited, highlighting the need for new defense strategies, in particular for Non-IID datasets.


This paper evaluates how adaptive learning agents weight different pieces of information when forming expectations with a recursive least squares algorithm. The analysis is based on a renewed and more general non-recursive representation of the learning algorithm, namely, a penalized weighted least squares estimator, where a penalty term accounts for the effects of the learning initials. The paper then draws behavioral implications of alternative specifications of the learning mechanism, such as the cases with decreasing, constant, regime-switching, adaptive, and age-dependent gains, as well as practical recommendations on their computation. One key new finding is that without a proper account for the uncertainty about the learning initial, a constant-gain can generate a time-varying profile of weights given to past observations, particularly distorting the estimation and behavioral interpretation of this mechanism in small samples of data. In fact, simulations and empirical estimation of a Phillips curve model with learning indicate that this particular misspecification of the initials can lead to estimates where inflation rates are less responsive to expectations and output gaps than in reality, or "flatter" Phillips curves.


Half-metallicity and spin-crossover behavior are predicted for two well-defined Prussian Blue (PB) analogues using periodic density functional calculations with GGA + U and hybrid exhange-correlation potentials. Fully oxidized PB possesses a narrow spin-polarized band through which it should be possible to control the spin conduction by oxidative/reductive doping. Fully reduced PB is also a half-metal in its high-spin phase and exhibits an Fe2+ spin-crossover. A simple model is used to rationalize the electronic properties of these systems which may have potential applications in spintronics.


Objective: The Food and Drug Administration (USA) approved the transurethral administration of prostaglandin (alprostadil in January 1997), which had an efficacy of approximately 50% in clinical trials. We studied its effectiveness in clinical practice. Methods: Patient and partner education was followed by an initial office trial of a medicated urethral system for erection (MUSE® ) after other medical risk factors were corrected during a 2-to 4-month period. The initial titration dose of alprostadil was usually 125 or 250 μg. Further titration, if needed, was instituted by the patient at home. Success was determined as the satisfactory completion of sexual intercourse in more than 66% of attempts, with a minimum of two being required. Results: Two hundred and seventy patients entered the trials, and follow-up information was available in 229 (85%). The overall success rate was 56%. The dose required was 500 μg in 49.2% and 1,000 μg in 42.2%. Of the 44% in whom treatment failed, 61.4% did so because of lack of efficacy and 38.6% because of side effects (genital pain or urethral bleeding). Minor urogenital symptoms, which did not interfere with treatment, occurred in an additional 40% of patients. Conclusions: The efficacy of transurethral administration of alprostadil (56%) is higher than the initial published clinical trial data and higher than recent reported clinical experiences, although higher doses were required in our study. Men over 50 years of age, having an organic cause for erectile dysfunction, had better responses. Patient and partner education is important for successful treatment, and the in-office initial titration is an integral part of this success. Prior correction of medical risk factors may enhance the success rate.


This article tries to analyse, with the use of cluster analysis techniques, the relationship between economic growth and the social structure at a regional level in Western Europe. It is argued that the process of socioeconomic restructuring has rendered the connection between growth and the underlying social structure more visible. The results show that this association is not only evident in the so-called "new growth spaces", as pinpointed by most of the literature on structural change, but also in different sets of European regions. Moreover, the results reveal that there is not a unique social structure associated to low or high growth, and that similar levels of economic growth might be achieved under very different social conditions.


A business process displays complexity as a result of multiple interactions of its internal components and interaction between the process and its environment. To manage complexity and foster flexibility of business process management (BPM), we present the DCAR architecture for developing complex BPM systems, which includes decomposition of complex processes (D); coordination of interactive activities (C); awareness of dynamic environments (A); and resource selection and coordination (R). On the other hand, computing technologies, such as object-oriented programming, component-based development, agent-oriented computing, and serviceoriented architecture have been applied in modeling and developing complex systems. However, there is considerable ambiguity involved in differentiating between these overlapping technologies and their use in developing BPM systems. No explicit linkage has been established between the requirement of complex BPM and the supporting technologies. In this study, we use the DCAR architecture as the foundation to identify the BPM requirements for employing technologies in developing BPM systems. Based on an examination of the both sides (BPM requirements and supporting technologies), we present a clear picture of business process complexity with a systemic approach for developing complex BPM systems by using appropriate computing technologies. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-669-3.ch001


Firewall policies are notorious for having misconfiguration errors which can defeat its intended purpose of protecting hosts in the network from malicious users. We believe this is because today's firewall policies are mostly monolithic. Inspired by ideas from modular programming and code refactoring, in this work we introduce three kinds of modules: primary, auxiliary, and template, which facilitate the refactoring of a firewall policy into smaller, reusable, comprehensible, and more manageable components. We present algorithms for generating each of the three modules for a given legacy firewall policy. We also develop ModFP, an automated tool for converting legacy firewall policies represented in access control list to their modularized format. With the help of ModFP, when examining several real-world policies with sizes ranging from dozens to hundreds of rules, we were able to identify subtle errors.


Abstract While child poverty is a significant risk factor for poor mental health, the developmental pathways involved with these associations are poorly understood. To advance knowledge about these important linkages, the present study examined the developmental sequelae of childhood exposure to poverty in a multiyear longitudinal study. Here, we focused on exposure to poverty, neurobiological circuitry connected to emotion dysregulation, later exposure to stressful life events, and symptoms of psychopathology. We grounded our work in a biopsychosocial perspective, with a specific interest in "stress sensitization" and emotion dysregulation. Motivated by past work, we first tested whether exposure to poverty was related to changes in the resting-state coupling between two brain structures centrally involved with emotion processing and regulation (the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex; vmPFC). As predicted, we found lower household income at age 10 was related to lower resting-state coupling between these areas at age 15. We then tested if variations in amygdala–vmPFC connectivity interacted with more contemporaneous stressors to predict challenges with mental health at age 16. In line with past reports showing risk for poor mental health is greatest in those exposed to early and then later, more contemporaneous stress, we predicted and found that lower vmPFC–amygdala coupling in the context of greater contemporaneous stress was related to higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. We believe these important interactions between neurobiology and life history are an additional vantage point for understanding risk and resiliency, and suggest avenues for prediction of psychopathology related to early life challenge.


From the 1930s to the 1980s, Swedish politics was based on the assumption that social change could be accomplished through a specific political and administrative process. National politicians decided the aims of policy, government commissions of inquiry engaged experts who compiled available knowledge, Parliament turned the resulting proposal into law, a civil service agency implemented the policy and local authorities put it into effect. This rationalistic model of social steering can be called 'the strong state'. This article documents the fall of the strong state. It also argues that these changes to the output side of government have troubling im-plications for the operation of democracy. The reason is that the strong state model provided citizens with a reasonably clear idea of how public policies were – or should be – produced and implemented. As a result of the strong state's decline, the link from elections to policy is partly obscure, partly broken. The question for the future is whether the strong state will be replaced by some new model that provides the necessary focal points for debates on public policy, or whether stable norms will remain absent due to an inherently obscure division of labour within Sweden's policy-making and administrative structures.


Past software engineering literature has firmly established that software architectures and the associated code decay over time. Architectural decay is, potentially, a major issue in Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects,since developers sporadically joining FLOSS projects do not always have a clear understanding of the underlying architecture, and may break the overall conceptual structure by several small changes to the code base.This paper investigates whether the structure of a FLOSS system and its decay can also be influenced by the repository in which it is retained: specifically,two FLOSS repositories are studied to understand whether the complexity of the software structure in the sampled projects is comparable, or one repository hosts more complex systems than the other. It is also studied whether the effort to counteract this complexity is dependent on the repository, and the governance it gives to the hosted projects.The results of the paper are two-fold: on one side, it is shown that the repository hosting larger and more active projects presents more complex structures. On the other side, these larger and more complex systems benefit from more anti-regressive work to reduce this complexity.


The relationship between the pattern of distribution of lipoproteins and morphological features of atherosclerotic lesions was demonstrated by histoautoradiographic and histochemical methods in experiments using perfusion in vitro of aortas from atherosclerotic rabbits with atherogenic lipoproteins (LP) labeled in various positions. Accumulation of glycosaminoglycanes (GAG) in the time course of the atherosclerotic process was shown to be the factor contributing to the retention of LP in the vessel wall. At the same time, no GAG accumulation was found in sites of the greatest permeability. Irrespective of the stage of the process, formation of foci of increased permeability was, as a rule, associated with accumulation of poorly differentiated cells. The evidence of primary increase of permeability of the endothelial barrier in the form of activation of the proliferative processes and GAG accumulation was obtained.


Experiments on 10 right-handed subjects were carried out to study the topographic organization of cortical activation processes by means of toposcopy of synchronous electric activity in hypnotic analgesia. The authors demonstrate the priority role of the anterior cortical areas of the left hemisphere in analgesia effects, which is connected with their importance in data realization and formation of the motivation affective component of painful sensation. Experiments have shown different manifestations of the functioning of diffuse nonspecific and local specific activation processes maintaining sensory analysis of painful stimuli and their affective cognitive estimation in the systems responsible for individual tolerance to painful sensations and analgesia effects and demonstrated a possibility of observing at the level of objective electrophysiological parameters of the phenomenon of pain components dissociation as one of the mechanisms of hypnotic analgesia.


Many experiments have been performed globally to investigate ways of improving adhesion to polymers. This paper discusses current atmospheric surface activation systems, appropriate measurements of wettability and adhesion, over-treatment effects and surface analysis techniques relative to optimizing the adhesion of inks, paints, coatings and adhesives to polymer surfaces. Recommendations for improved activation by substrate and application are discussed.


Cytosine-rich DNA strands, due to their distinct i-motif structure, are often used as stabilization templates for the formation of silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs). DNA i-motif conformation and stability are largely determined by the DNA loop region. Therefore, the optimal loop sequence contributes to the DNA template, forming a stable i-motif structure, thus promoting the formation of Ag NCs. In the present work, we prepared Ag NCs stabilized by a set of DNA sequences CCCC-X1X2X3X4-CCCC (C denotes cytosine, X denotes adenine or thymine) and investigated the loop sequence dependence of the fluorescence quantum yields (QYs) of Ag NCs. In all of the template DNA, the sequence 5′-CCCC-ATAT-CCCC-3′ was screened to be the most optimal template which stabilized clusters and could emit the brightest red fluorescence with a quantum yield (QY) of 0.78. However, for the reversed template sequence 5′-CCCC-TATA-CCCC-3′, the QY of the Ag NCs is lowered to 0.15. Such a significant difference in QYs indicates that even for the same base sequence, a different base alignment direction (starting from the 5′ or 3′ end) can have an important effect on the fluorescence of nanoclusters. Additionally, to optimize the preparation conditions of Ag NCs, the effects of reductants and pH environment on the clusters stabilized by the template sequence 5′-CCCC-ATAT-CCCC-3′ were further examined by using CD, UV and fluorescence spectroscopy, respectively.


Session-based Recommendations recommend the next possible item for the user with anonymous sessions, whose challenge is that the user's behavioral preference can only be analyzed in a limited sequence to meet their need. Recent advances evaluate the effectiveness of the attention mechanism in the session-based recommendation. However, two simplifying assumptions are made by most of these attention-based models. One is to regard the last-click as the query vector to denote the user's current preference, and the other is to consider that all items within the session are favorable for the final result, including the effect of unrelated items (i.e., spurious user behaviors). In this paper, we propose a novel Dual Sparse Attention Network for the session-based recommendation called DSAN to address these shortcomings. In this proposed method, we explore a learned target item embedding to model the user's current preference and apply an adaptively sparse transformation function to eliminate the effect of the unrelated items. Experimental results on two real public datasets show that the proposed method is superior to the state-of-the-art session-based recommendation algorithm in all tests and also demonstrate that not all actions within the session are useful. To make our results reproducible, we have published our code on https://github.com/SamHaoYuan/DSANForAAAI2021.


This paper addresses the issue of the gender gap in young people's work preferences and intentions within the context of changing gender relations in urban Indonesia. A survey of senior university students in Jakarta and Makassar in 2004 provided evidence on the interplay between labour market and marriage role preferences among the young educated elite in Indonesia (n = 1761). Along with ongoing demographic transitions and socio-economic change, the study hypothesised that shifting gender norms have created a preference for a more egalitarian, dual-earner marriage among the target population. However, findings indicate that neo-traditional ideals placing men as the breadwinner and women as secondary earners are widely prevalent. Qualitative insights highlight how the universality of marriage and having children entail women to assume a role to satisfy increasing economic needs without relegating their noble role to maintain family harmony.


The aim of this project is to get insight how Real-time Ethernet behaves with respect to the field bus called Locbus. By writing a benchmarks for both systems the characterisations of both buses is performed. The transmission is time, the time which necessary to get the data to and of the card. Variability of measured data or so-called jitter is also determined. From the research it becomes clear that Ethernet is faster than Locbus. Locbus however is assumed more stable because the protocol is generated in the hardware. The test for this statement could not be performed because interrupts are not supported by the Locbus hardware. For large quantities of data Real-time Ethernet is recommended using, because then the speed will play a larger role.
To get a better insight if it is realisable for a field bus to be replaced by Real-time Ethernet it is advised to build a test set-up which uses Real-time Ethernet.


Several groups of people, representing owner, contractor, designer and consultant, and supervisor of a proposed tunnel, are involved in tunnel construction. As a complex and extra long tunnel is constructed in a tight time schedule, the influence of non-technical factors on the construction of the tunnel is generally much significant. Friendly and effective cooperation between the involved groups are vital to a successful tunnel project. In this paper, we examine the impact of non-technical factors in tunnel construction, in terms of the working procedure of the involved groups in China. The non-technical problems encountered in tunnel construction may be coped with by following a well planned quality controlling cooperation pattern. The improved education of tunnel engineers, in terms of both technical and ethical thoughts, can help to bridge and smooth the interests of the involved groups and technological know-how.


Designed for use in law schools, business schools and schools of management, this casebook outlines the determination and administration of U.S. income tax liabilities resulting from international transactions. Textual discussion, cases, rulings and problems, guides students through the basic tax considerations that confront foreign individuals and entities participating in the U.S. economy, and U.S. individuals and entities seeking to derive income abroad. Covers both the U.S. tax rules applicable to international transactions and the tax policy considerations underlying those rules.


For the first time, the complete collected short stories of the author of 'Empire of the Sun', 'Cocaine Nights' and 'Super-Cannes' -- regarded by many as Britain's No. 1 living fiction writer. With sixteen novels over four decades -- from 'The Drowned World' in 1962 to his highly acclaimed 'Super-Cannes' in 2000 -- J.G. Ballard is firmly established as one of Britain's most highly regarded and original novelists. For all that time he has also written short stories; in fact, many people consider that he is at his best in the short-story format. These stories have appeared in magazines such as 'New Worlds', 'Amazing Stories' and 'Interzone', and in several separate collections, including 'The Voices of Time', 'The Terminal Beach', 'The Day of Forever', 'The Venus Hunters,' 'The Disaster Area', 'Vermilion Sands', 'Low-Flying Aircraft', 'Myths of the Near Future' and 'War Fever'. Now, for the first time, all of J.G. Ballard's published stories -- including four stories that have not previously appeared in a collection -- have been gathered together in one volume and set out in the order in which they were originally published, providing an unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest writers.


Due to the increased volume of national, international, and even intercontinental transportations, it has been a critical responsibility for the road and transport authorities to ensure the safety of the transits. Bridges, in particular, require special maintenance because these are typically built in strategic locations, are more vulnerable to natural disasters, and can inflict more damage to life and property if collapsed. In addition to being expensive and time-consuming, manual structure health monitoring (SHM) is also error-prone, but this is still the standard practice in many countries, especially in Bangladesh. This paper presents a deep learning approach to detect cracks in concrete bridge surfaces from images using Dense Convolutional Network (DenseNet) with 99.83% detection accuracy to automate SHM, making it less expensive, efficient, and accurate.


This study investigates face recognition with partial occlusion, illumination variation and their combination, assuming no prior information about the mismatch, and limited training data for each person. The authors extend their previous posterior union model (PUM) to give a new method capable of dealing with all these problems. PUM is an approach for selecting the optimal local image features for recognition to improve robustness to partial occlusion. The extension is in two stages. First, authors extend PUM from a probability-based formulation to a similarity-based formulation, so that it operates with as little as one single training sample to offer robustness to partial occlusion. Second, they extend this new formulation to make it robust to illumination variation, and to combined illumination variation and partial occlusion, by a novel combination of multicondition relighting and optimal feature selection. To evaluate the new methods, a number of databases with various simulated and realistic occlusion/illumination mismatches have been used. The results have demonstrated the improved robustness of the new methods.


"Necessity is the mother of invention:" An adage was brought to life with the emergence of the mRNA vaccine against the backdrop of the foreboding and mercurial COVID-19 pandemic. Considering a negligible adverse-effect profile and a break-neck manufacturing speed, it shone bright as the ideal vaccine candidate. However, "all that glitters is not gold," as was evidenced by the significant reactogenicity, a host of multi-systemic side-effects, that are being reported by the vaccine recipients; which is palpably resulting in a shift of emotions for the vaccine, accounting for vaccine hesitancy. Anaphylaxis, antibody-dependent enhancements, and deaths, comprise the most serious side-effects, albeit occurring in sparing numbers. Storage and transportation require fastidious temperatures, rendering it substantially inaccessible to a country like India. The biggest jolt, however, was the unfolding of the biases in reporting vaccine efficacy, as only the attractively high numbers of the relatively equivocal relative risk reduction were reported while keeping at bay the meager numbers of the more forthright absolute risk reduction. Notwithstanding the fallacies, the mRNA vaccine still promises hope; and with the right precautions and finesse, can be potentiated, as "a watched pot never boils."


Weakly supervised temporal action localization is a challenging vision task due to the absence of ground-truth temporal locations of actions in the training videos. With only video-level supervision during training, most existing methods rely on a Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) framework to predict the start and end frame of each action category in a video. However, the existing MIL-based approach has a major limitation of only capturing the most discriminative frames of an action, ignoring the full extent of an activity. Moreover, these methods cannot model background activity effectively, which plays an important role in localizing foreground activities. In this paper, we present a novel framework named HAM-Net with a hybrid attention mechanism which includes temporal soft, semi-soft and hard attentions to address these issues. Our temporal soft attention module, guided by an auxiliary background class in the classification module, models the background activity by introducing an ``action-ness'' score for each video snippet. Moreover, our temporal semi-soft and hard attention modules, calculating two attention scores for each video snippet, help to focus on the less discriminative frames of an action to capture the full action boundary. Our proposed approach outperforms recent state-of-the-art methods by at least 2.2% mAP at IoU threshold 0.5 on the THUMOS14 dataset, and by at least 1.3% mAP at IoU threshold 0.75 on the ActivityNet1.2 dataset.


Breath analysis provides great potential as a fast and non-invasive diagnostic tool for several diseases. Straight-chain aliphatic aldehydes were repeatedly detected in the breath of patients suffering from lung diseases using a variety of methods, such as mass spectrometry, ion mobility spectrometry, or electro-chemical sensors. Several studies found increased concentrations of exhaled aldehydes in patients suffering from lung cancer, inflammatory and infectious lung diseases, and mechanical lung injury. This article reviews the origin of exhaled straight-chain aliphatic aldehydes, available detection methods, and studies that found increased aldehyde exhalation in lung diseases.


Despite the Supreme Court's 1977 ruling in Coker v. Georgia declaring use of the death penalty for rape unconstitutional, there has been a recent explosion of state statutes making the death penalty available for the rape of a child. Numerous articles have tried to discern whether using the death penalty for child rape comports with the Coker holding,often reaching divergent conclusions, but none has focused first on the socio-political setting that brought about these laws to inform their constitutional analysis. This Article attempts to begin contextualizing capital child rape statutes within a social movements framework. I argue that capital child rape statutes can be attributed to three movements: the popular movement to shame, fear, and isolate sex offenders; the feminist movement for harsher punishment of sexual and intra-familial violence; and the legal and political movement to punish attacks against vulnerable victims with death. Understanding these statutes in a richer way helps shed light on their potential constitutional problems.


This thesis outlines the implementation and commissioning of a LabVIEW based, dual axis solar tracking system located within Murdoch University's Renewable Energy Outdoor Test Area.

An electrical system that is capable of supplying power to the solar tracking hardware and protecting it from the effects of overcurrent has been designed, installed and tested according to several Australian Standards including the AS3000 Wiring Rules. The testing of the electrical system proved that the installation was both safe and reliable and as such it was connected to the existing Murdoch University electricity grid.

The commissioning of the solar tracking hardware proved to be problematic with various issues delaying the progression of the project including damage to one of the main servomotors resulting in the need for a replacement motor, corruption of VSD parameter files and the transposition of phases during the connection of one of the motors.

A plan for testing the accuracy of the solar tracking LabVIEW program was developed using a pyrheliometer. Extensive testing was carried out on the tracker which ultimately confirmed the accuracy of the solar positioning algorithm. However, it was discovered that further angle conversions will need to take place in order to make the software useable on a fixed east-west primary axis solar array.

Overall the project has been taken from a bench tested prototype to being implemented in a real world environment. A major step forward in the progression of this project has occurred during this thesis and it is for this reason that the project has been considered successful by both the current project holder and the project supervisor.


IoT data collection networks have recently become one of the important research areas due to their fundamental role and wide application in many domains. The establishment of networks of objects is based essentially on the deployment of connected objects to process the collected data and transmit them to the various locations. Subsequently, a large number of nodes must be adequately deployed to achieve complete coverage. This manuscript introduces a distributed approach, which combines the Voronoi Diagram and the Genetic algorithm(VD-GA), to maximize the coverage of a region of interest. The Voronoi diagram is used to divide region into cells and generate initial solutions that present the positions of the deployed IoT objects. Then, a genetic algorithm is executed in parallel in several nodes to improve these positions. The developed VD-GA approach was evaluated on an experimental environment by prototyping on a real testbed utilizing M5StickC nodes equipped with ESP32 processor. The experiments show that the distributed approach provided better degree of coverage, RSSI, lifetime and number of neighboring objects than those given by the original algorithms in terms of the suggested distributed Genetic-Voronoi algorithm outperforms the centralized one in terms of speed of computing.


One objective of seismic signal processing is to identify the layered subsurface structure by sending seismic wavelets into the ground. This is a blind deconvolution process since the seismic wavelets are usually not measurable and therefore, the subsurface face layers are identified only by the reflected seismic signals. Conventional methods often approach this problem by making assumptions about the subsurface structures and/or the seismic wavelets. In this paper an alternative technique is presented. It applies blind channel identification methods to prestack seismic deconvolution. A unique feature of this proposed method is that no such assumptions are needed. In addition, it fits into the structure of current seismic data acquisition techniques, thus no extra cost is involved. Simulations on both synthetic and field seismic data demonstrate that it is a promising new method for seismic signal processing.


The overgrowth of gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) on calcite (CaCO3), used as a substrate, has been obtained in order to verify the hypothesis of a crystallographic fit between the two phases. Lattice coincidences show that many orientations of gypsum with respect to calcite can occur. Experimentally, only two among these are fulfilled during the early stages of growth, the selection criterion reasonably being the adhesion energy. Moreover, it has been shown that the presence of calcium carbonate as a specific surface impurity in solution modifies the growth habit of gypsum acting on the growth rate and surface morphology of some gypsum forms. At high concentration, the calcium carbonate in solution promotes the twinning of gypsum according to the Montmartre law.


Having determined the quality problems in mass production in a medium-size firm chosen as a pilot study, all the processes from casting to machining were investigated. The problem of low quality arising during production was eliminated by the statistical quality control of a given product. The procedure to eliminate the problem of low quality followed a specified procedural sequence. The beginning stage of the problem was analyzed, the type of the quality problem was identified, some short-term corrective measures were sought and the required means of measurement and control were prepared. Samples were chosen randomly during the production process. X-R control charts were used with the support of statistical calculations for the problem of low quality concerning the part and undesired size causing high costs. The underlying reasons for parts not meeting the desired quality were identified and the correct parameters presented.


A shaped charge for wellbore perforation includes a solid metal or powder liner pressed onto a case, sandwiching high explosives which may have varying thermal stability, dictated by the expected time of exposure and bottom hole temperature (BHT). It is common knowledge that post detonation, the liner-jet punctures the gun body and casing, continuing forward to perforate the formation until its eventual collapse. The jet debris is deposited on the crushed zone forming an impermeable skin and a slug at the end of the perforation-tunnel. This reduces fracture conductivity, and thus, production. Here we present a game changing innovation, the development of a shaped charge with a novel responsive liner. The jet created from our novel degradable liner, post detonation punctures the casing and progress to penetrate the formation until an eventual collapse. However, this system is designed so that, during detonation, a water disintegrable reaction product, bulk metallic glasses (BMG) and/or high entropy alloys (HEA), are formed. These degradable BMG/HEA or complexions decorate the grain boundaries and domain interfaces of the impermeable skin lining the crushed zone of the perforation tunnel as amorphous intergranular films (AIFs) and plug at end of the pathway. Interacting with flowback fluids the BMG/HEA promotes grain dropping, disintegrating the liner and carrot leaving behind a clean perforation tunnel, improving fracture conductivity thus enhanced productivity. In addition, a clear perf tunnel has zero skin value. As such, compared to a coated tunnel with gun and charge debris, it needs little or no acid to clean-up. This results in a demarked reduction of formation breakdown pressures with improved economics for the client. Last but not least this leads to cost reduction of authorized field expenditure (AFE) to support optimized performance of completion design allowing for increased production. CLEAR shaped charges have been qualified to customer specifications in field conditions and are ready to be commercialized. An extension of this technology is being applied to design charges for "Big-Hole" perforations, for the Plug and Abandonment (P&A) market where an effective cement squeeze, anchoring a plug effectively seals the wellbore, preventing the leakage of residual hydrocarbon and associated contamination and emissions.


A new ion Doppler diagnostic has been constructed to measure ion temperature profiles in the presence of multi-component flow during magnetic reconnection experiments. The inversion technique and diagnostic setup are applicable to axisymmetric plasmas with two-component flow across the measurement cross section, which occurs during magnetic reconnection. The particular design discussed here is optimized for operation on the Magnetic Reconnection eXperiment (MRX) at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. To prove the viability of this diagnostic for MRX and the future Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments, measurements have been taken and ion temperature and perpendicular flow profiles have been obtained. The radial velocity on MRX does not contribute to the Doppler shift of the measured spectra but does contribute to the broadening of the spectra, while toroidal flow contributes to both. It is shown that neglecting the radial velocity for vR = 20 km/s leads to an error in the ion temperature inversion of 20%. Results from MRX discharges are shown, and the impact of radial velocity on ion temperature inversions is discussed.


Human capital is an economic category which is increasingly applied in the models of economic growth and development. Many studies have demonstrated its positive effect on economic development at the national and regional levels. The level of development of rural areas is also strongly correlated with the human factor. The objective of the study was to carry out a quantitative and qualitative diagnosis of the situation of human capital across rural areas in Poland and to indicate the main challenges associated with the shaping of this capital in the context of economic growth simulation. The method used to meet the objective was a review of source literature and an analysis of statistical data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS) with the application of dynamics and structure indices. In the course of research, it was established that the main trends affecting the situation of human resource capital across rural areas in Poland are: the ageing of the rural population, as a dominant negative trend, and a systematic, though slow, increase in the level of education, as a dominant positive trend. It was determined that unfavorable demographic transformations of rural communities involve the risk of limiting economic activities of the elderly, and at the same time, also a decrease in their economic independence and an increase in the social burden resulting therefrom. On the other hand, the observed rise in the level of education and economic activity may accelerate the beneficial transformations of the area structure of agricultural farms, for it contributes to the acceleration of migration of the rural population to other, non-agricultural professions. In this context, taking actions, both nationally and regionally, aiming at increasing qualifications of rural (including agricultural) populations constitutes a vital opportunity, which increases intellectual potential and competitiveness across the country and its individual regions. Keywords: human capital, rural areas, economic development Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2017.133


Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related death. Currently, the average 5-year survival rate is only about 15 % and new modalities are under investigation to increase the patient survival as well as to improve the patient quality of life. Among the new modalities developed for the treatment of lung cancer, we find hadron-therapy and radio-immunotherapy both using charged particles. However, the studies performed about the potential benefit of such treatments emphasize that more data and fundamental works are needed to better understand the cellular response. In this work, the results obtained after the irradiation of A549 lung cancer cells with different types of charged particles (beta particles, protons, alpha particles and carbon ions) were compared to the standard X-ray irradiation. On one hand, the beta particles irradiations were performed with a liquid source at a low-dose-rate as found in actual radio-immunotherapy. On the other hand, a broad beam in vitro irradiation station was developed to perform heavy charged particles radiobiological experiment. For that purpose, the incident beam must be mono-energetic, uniform and stable. Although this can be obtained with the 2 MV Tandem accelerator of the LARN laboratory, one needs a system to check these requirements before performing the irradiation. The setup developed in this work allows visualising the beam to adjust the accelerator parameters in order to obtain a uniform beam. This system enables us to check the dose-rate and uniformity of the irradiated area before to proceed to the irradiation. Moreover, an online monitoring system has been developed to assess the dose-rate during the irradiation. The entire irradiation system has been validated by establishing the surviving fraction curves of A549 lung cancer cells after irradiation with protons, alpha particles and carbons ions. The results obtained have shown an increased efficiency of heavy charged particles in comparison to X-rays. The experiments carried out on A549 lung cancer cells with 10 keV/µm proton broad beam and with low-dose-rate beta particles have highlighted a hypersensitive response at low doses. This result is very interesting for the new modalities under development. Indeed, unlike cancer cells, normal cells have efficient repair mechanism and take the required time to repair. Hence, work with a lower dose-rate and/or dose, may lead to lower complication and a better patient's quality of life with a same local control of the tumour.


Human beings revel in social approval and social connection. For example, individuals want to be liked, and frequently surround themselves with people who provide such positive reinforcement. Past work highlights a "common currency" between social rewards like social approval, and non-social rewards like money. But social and motivational contexts can reshape reward experiences considerably. Here, we examine the boundary conditions that deem social approval subjectively valuable. Participants received feedback about their attractiveness from others. Neural activity in reward-related brain structures (e.g., ventral striatum) increased in response to positive feedback, but only when such feedback came from well-liked targets. These heightened reward responses predicted increases in subsequent attraction to well-liked targets. This work suggests that motivational contexts amplify or diminish the value of social approval in a target-specific manner. The value of social approval is thus defined by the extent to which these experiences bring us closer to people we like.


A perceptual learning experiment provides evidence that the mental lexicon cannot consist solely of detailed acoustic traces of recognition episodes. In a training lexical decision phase, listeners heard an ambiguous [f-s] fricative sound, replacing either [f] or [s] in words. In a test phase, listeners then made lexical decisions to visual targets following auditory primes. Critical materials were minimal pairs that could be a word with either [f] or [s] (cf. English knife-nice), none of which had been heard in training. Listeners interpreted the minimal pair words differently in the second phase according to the training received in the first phase. Therefore, lexically mediated retuning of phoneme perception not only influences categorical decisions about fricatives (Norris, McQueen, & Cutler, 2003), but also benefits recognition of words outside the training set. The observed generalization across words suggests that this retuning occurs prelexically. Therefore, lexical processing involves sublexical phonological abstraction, not only accumulation of acoustic episodes.