Lecture in Bergen 2013, Nov. 30. This essay explores the possible connections between two issues. The first has to do with recent work in experimental psychology on the early development of arithmetical abilities. The experiments I'll be discussing have been designed and performed by the psychologist Karen Wynn, and are part of a series of several somewhat similar experimental studies on infants. (My focus here, however, is on Wynn's now famous 1992 paper 'Addition and subtraction by human infants'). The second issue is a cryptic remark by Wittgenstein, namely, that arithmetical propositions emerge by "hardening" certain empirical regularities "into rules". In a nutshell, the connection I envisage is simply the following: Wynn's empirical discoveries "of certain regularities of behavior, or psychological 'facts'" fit surprisingly well into a certain reconstruction of Wittgenstein's views on arithmetic (due to Mark Steiner and Robert Fogelin), and thus, somewhat surprisingly, increase the credibility of their interpretation of Wittgenstein's insights. I begin with a brief presentation of the experiments, sprinkled with some comments on their methodology and conclusions. Then, after I sketch the Steiner-Fogelin reconstruction, I elaborate on what I take to be the relation between these experimental results and this reading.


The academic literature on open educational resources (OER) and practices in higher education has grown substantially over the past decade. OER is seen to offer endless possibilities for Sub-Saharan African universities by reducing costs of education, improving quality of education, as well as increasing access to quality education for all, among others. Sub-Saharan African universities though, are notably underrepresented in the literature, especially on differentiations, be it on access to or use and sharing of OER. This thesis synthesizes research carried out to develop a representative view of OER in three Sub-Saharan countries: Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. The study, which formed part of the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project, explores differentiation in terms of (i) digital proficiency; (ii) level of use of OER; (iii) awareness of licensing; and (iv) the perceived value of OER. This thesis examines a deliberate selection of twelve universities across the three countries with randomly sampled students and lecturers. Separate questionnaires for students and the lecturers were used, which generated a response from a total of 2249 students and 106 lecturers. Major findings are: (i) that there is a significant digital differentiation among lecturers and students in terms of their proficiency, devices used and internet accessibility; and (ii) that the awareness and appreciation of the OER concept and open licensing is generally low, but from the actual variety and types of processing by respondents of educational resources which may not be open, there is a preparedness towards openness in the future in all the three countries. Therefore, the universities can use these findings in considerating how to restructure their educational policies to incorporate OER in teaching and learning to enhance the quality of education.


Tariff systems of small and medium-sized businesses are mostly poorly structured, which is very often the cause of conflicts in the team, employee dissatisfaction with the wage system due to its incomprehensibility, low productivity. The article presents the mechanism of developing a tariff system for small and medium-sized businesses based on the concept of internal worth, according to which the work/position has value due to its influence on the organization performance, depending on the level of responsibility and competencies required for its implementation. To determine the internal worth the method of a point estimation on compensation factors reflecting the properties and characteristics inherent in all types of work/positions is used. This method described in the scientific literature is widely used by well-known consulting companies (Hay Group, Watson Wyatt and others) to develop personnel remuneration systems in companies around the world. Due to the dissimilarity of the tasks facing each enterprise, its own set of factors with different significance strength of each of them for a particular business is used. In the methodology proposed by the authors, the method of positions distribution by grades is also used. Posts assigned to the same grade have equal worth and the same wage range should be used for them. The authors propose a linear mathematical model for calculating salaries by grades. The approach to the tariff system development and its successful implementation in practice can create a motivational circuit, which will provide the desired message for all other enterprise remuneration subsystems.


Advancement in chemistry holds a great promise in improving drug encapsulation that leads to superior drug delivery efficiency and the therapeutic efficacy of nano/micro-delivery systems. Drugs are being designed to specifically access the infection sites via covalent conjugation to nano/micro-delivery systems. This chapter focuses on techniques for achieving covalent encapsulation of drugs in nano/micro-delivery systems, how conjugation is applied to selectively influence pharmacokinetic profile, intracellular, and extracellular uptake, specific targeting to disease sites, binding to specific receptors, and controlled/sustained release. In addition, the effect of conjugation on drug efficacy and biosafety of the micro/nanoparticulate drug delivery systems are discussed.


The desire to own a pet amphibian is growing, and with it a growth in amphibian trade and in negative impacts on native populations, including disease transmission and invasive amphibian populations. We know very little about how or why people choose amphibians as pets, but amphibian owners share large numbers of videos on freely accessible platforms, such as YouTube. We aimed to use videos of captive amphibians to determine which species are kept, their life-history stage and the types of videos uploaded. We watched and categorized 1162 videos by video type, type of amphibian behavior and amphibian taxonomy (superfamily, family and species). We used data on the amphibian trade from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), on conservation status from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list, and on potential environmental impact from published Environmental Impact Classification of Alien Taxa (EICAT) records, to determine potential conflicts of owning pet amphibians. We recorded 173 captive species in 847 videos with a taxonomic overrepresentation of salamandroids and pipoids, and an underrepresentation of ranoids and plethodontoids. When compared to videos of wild amphibian species, videos of captive animals featured disproportionate amounts of adults feeding, being handled and moving. The videos watched had a smaller proportion of threatened amphibian species, but a higher proportion of invasive species, than would be expected by chance, with the proportion present in CITES appendices (18%) being non-significant. We suggest that such data can be used to profile potential pets for trade and attempt to avoid conflicts with threatened and highly impacting alien species.


New consent management platforms (CMPs) have been introduced to the web to conform with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, particularly its requirements for consent when companies collect and process users' personal data. This work analyses how the most prevalent CMP designs affect people's consent choices. We scraped the designs of the five most popular CMPs on the top 10,000 websites in the UK (n=680). We found that dark patterns and implied consent are ubiquitous; only 11.8% meet our minimal requirements based on European law. Second, we conducted a field experiment with 40 participants to investigate how the eight most common designs affect consent choices. We found that notification style (banner or barrier) has no effect; removing the opt-out button from the first page increases consent by 22-23 percentage points; and providing more granular controls on the first page decreases consent by 8-20 percentage points. This study provides an empirical basis for the necessary regulatory action to enforce the GDPR, in particular the possibility of focusing on the centralised, third-party CMP services as an effective way to increase compliance.


The responses of eleven pairs of crib-biting and non-crib-biting horses (controls) to an arousalinducing stimulus were studied. Video-observation of the horses revealed that crib-biting horses spent between 10.4 and 64.7% of their stabling time performing the stereotypy. During the first 2 days of an experimental period, the horses were conditioned to receive food from a special bucket. On the third day the food bucket was presented, but the horses were not allowed to feed. Arousal behaviour and crib-biting intensity as well as plasma cortisol concentration, heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded at rest, and during and after presentation of the food stimulus. The stimulus induced a significant increase of HR and arousal behaviour in crib-biters and in controls, whereas the crib-biting frequency decreased. Power spectral analysis of the HRV revealed significant differences between crib-biters and controls at rest: crib-biters had a lower vagal tone (high frequency component, HF) and a higher sympathetic tone (low frequency component, LF) than controls. The lower basal parasympathetic activity might be an indication why crib-biting horses, in contrast to the controls, showed neither a significant decrease of the HF component during presentation of the food stimulus nor an increase of the HF component after presentation. Thus, there might be differences in the tuning of the autonomous nervous system and of the stress reactivity in crib-biting and in control horses. The results suggest that the crib-biting horses are more stress sensitive and physiologically and psychologically less flexible than the control horses. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.


Gyrodactylidae and Dactylogyridae (Monogenoidea) are described or reported from three species of Characidium Reinhardt (Crenuchidae), small species of Characiformes, from streams located in southern Brazilian states. Gyrodactylus carolinae sp. n. (Gyrodactylidae) is described from the body surface of Characidium lanei Travassos (type host), C. pterostictum Gomez, and Characidium sp. from streams in the states of Paraná and São Paulo. This new species closely resembles species of Gyrodactylus von Nordmann, 1832 described from species of Poeciliidae, from which it differs by the morphology of the hooks and nucleotide sequences of ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 rDNA. Gyrodactylus inesperatus sp. n. is described from the body surface of Characidium sp. from a stream in the State of São Paulo. The latter new species is characterised by lacking a shield on the superficial bar and by the morphology of the hooks, both unique characteristics for Neotropical species of Gyrodactylus. Marumbius gen. n. (Dactylogyridae) is proposed to accommodate two species, M. dorsivaginatus sp. n. from the gills of Characidium pterostictum (type host) and C. lanei, and M. amplexus sp. n. from the gills of C. lanei (all from the state of Paraná). Both species are characterised by having dorsal vagina, hook pairs 2-4, 6 and 7 composed by two subunits, hook pairs 1 and 5 lacking proximal subunit, and by the length of proximal subunits (when present) varying among hook pairs, completely or partially overlapping gonads, and male copulatory organ (MCO) represented by an incomplete coil of a sclerotized tube articulated to the accessory piece by a copulatory ligament. Cacatuocotyle paranaensis Boeger, Domingues et Kritsky, 1997 is reported from C. lanei at low prevalence in the Rio Marumbi (state of Paraná). The Monogenoidea that parasitize species of Characidium are members of several independent lineages, some of distant evolutionary relationships, suggesting a complex origin for this parasitic fauna.


BACKGROUND
Chronic and recalcitrant wounds present a significant therapeutic challenge. Amniotic tissues contain many regenerative cytokines, growth factors, and extracellular matrix molecules including proteoglycans, hyaluronic acid, and collagens I, III, and IV. Dehydrated amnion/chorion grafts are currently used to treat a variety of wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers and burns.

OBJECTIVE
The investigators hypothesized that processing methodologies, dehydration, and hypothermic processing and storage of amniotic tissues would affect overall quality of wound healing; they compared dehydrated amnion/chorion (dHACM) grafts to a novel hypothermically stored amniotic membrane (HSAM) graft in a full-thickness rat wound model.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sprague-Dawley rats were anesthetized and prepped for surgery; four 1.5-cm diameter full-thickness wounds were created and treated with either: (1) dHACM, (2) dHACM meshed, (3) HSAM, or (4) wound left ungrafted (sham). After 9 or 21 days, wounds and surrounding areas were collected and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Blinded quantitative analysis of quality of wound healing was completed by evaluating hair follicle/gland formation, dense/scar-like matrix, and basket-weave matrix.

RESULTS
At varying time points following placement of the grafts into full-thickness defects, the authors found that all amniotic-derived tissue grafts appeared to stimulate improved healing over sham wounds, evidenced by more normal-appearing dermal matrix architecture, epidermal structure, and maturity. In addition, the HSAM grafts promoted greater tissue regeneration than the dHACM meshed grafts, as measured by the presence of basket-weave collagen matrix and formation of follicles and glands.

CONCLUSIONS
In sum, this study builds on the amassing literature supporting amniotic tissues for wound repair and demonstrates the importance of tissue processing on the quality of wound healing.


This paper describes a low-distortion Class E power amplifier which is suitable for integrated circuit implementation. Both N-type and P-type transistors are employed to achieve a balanced circuit operation thereby reducing the significant distortion of the conventional Class E power amplifier. The power amplifier operates at 1.8 GHz and is simulated with a 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS process at a supply voltage of 2.5 V.


"This historical data review is part of the Lavaca Bay/Chocolate Bay (Segment 2453) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Project. The data generated will be used to identify areas within the segment for further investigation, assess the segment for Dissolved Oxygen (DO) exceedences, and support the development of a TMDL for DO. Segment 2453 was listed on the 305(b) list because DO concentrations are occasionally lower than the criterion established to assure optimum conditions for aquatic life in a 13.7-square mile area near the Alcoa Ship channel. "Aquatic life use" is a term used in Texas water resource management to characterize water bodies and specify water quality criteria for those bodies. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) has identified four aquatic life use categories: exceptional, high, intermediate, and limited. The TNRCC criteria for DO varies with the Aquatic life use designation of a water body (Table 1; Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, 2000). For Texas estuaries designated with exceptional aquatic life use, DO criteria are 24-hr mean < 5.0 mg 1⁻¹ and 24-hr minimum < 4.0 mg 1⁻¹. Lavaca Bay (segment 2453) is designated for exceptional aquatic life use. Estuaries designated for high aquatic use must meet less strenuous criteria of 24-hr mean < 4.0 mg 1⁻¹ and 24-hr minimum < 3.0 mg 1⁻¹. Dissolved oxygen is a parameter used to evaluate aquatic ecosystem health. Dissolved oxygen is a useful indicator because it is required for organism respiration and microbial sediment decomposition processes (Strobel and Heltshe 2000). In addition, low DO (i.e., hypoxia) can be caused by excess nutrient inputs into the aquatic system (e.g., sewage outfalls, non-point source pollution, etc.)"--Introduction.


The close link between socioeconomic status (SES) and health can already be observed in childhood and adolescence. Although the vast majority of children and adolescents grow up healthily in Germany, social inequalities in health exist. The results of the second wave of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS Wave 2) demonstrate that children and adolescents with a low SES have a poorer level of general health and face health constraints more frequently than their peers with a higher SES. Social inequalities in mental health are significantly more profound than in the 12-month prevalence of bronchial asthma and allergic rhinitis. The odds of being affected by mental health problems or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were 2.8 to 4.4 times higher for children and adolescents with a low SES compared to their peers with a high SES. Therefore, in order to enable all children and adolescents to grow up healthily, health promotion and disease prevention measures need to be put in place early in a child's life and need to be tailored to the needs of particular target groups.


The atmospheric aerosol scattering is considered as a major distortion mechanism in laser detection. Its influence on the target-reflected signal in incoherent frequency-modulation continuous-wave (FMCW) short-distance laser detection, which has not yet been well addressed, has been theoretically and experimentally studied in this paper. Assuming intensity of one-particle backscattering as an interference signal, the expression of this interference signal is calculated based on the model of one-particle backscattering and the Mie theory. Only single scattering is considered when optical thickness of the particle group is low. Broadenings of the hybrid signal formed with the particle group backscattering signal and the target-reflected signal are emulated, combining the model of particle group backscattering with the particle distribution function. The broadening time caused by the particle group is far less than the minimum response time of the photodiode. Experimental results confirm that the output voltage of the hybrid signal is identical to the output voltage of the target-reflected signal, except for attenuation in amplitude. Therefore, the incoherent FMCW short-distance laser detection shows a good capability of antiaerosol interference, which is very important for signal processing and target identification.


We prove that moduli spaces of semistable vector bundles of coprime rank and
degree over a non-singular real projective curve are maximal real algebraic
varieties if and only if the base curve itself is maximal. This provides a new
family of maximal varieties, with members of arbitrarily large dimension. We
prove the result by comparing the Betti numbers of the real locus to the Hodge
numbers of the complex locus and showing that moduli spaces of vector bundles
over a maximal curve actually satisfy a property which is stronger than
maximality and that we call Hodge-expressivity. We also give a brief account on
other varieties for which this property was already known.


Context: Anatomical knowledge of vasculature is essential for successful thyroid surgery. Vascular anatomy of thyroid artery may vary. Study design: Descriptive type of study. Place & Period of study: Department of Anatomy, Dhaka Medical College from July 2003 to December 2004. Materials: Present study was performed on 57 thyroid gland. The samples were collected from unclaimed dead bodies that were under examination in the Department of Forensic Medicine of Dhaka Medical College, Dhaka. Methods: The samples were divided in groups. All samples of thyroid arteries were studied morphologically. Five (5) samples were transferred into aided dissection by common vermilion mixed melted paraffin wax. Result: Superior thyroid artery was most commonly originated from external carotid artery (male- 76.5% both right and left, female-91.3% right, 73.9% left), followed by bifurcation of common carotid artery (maleright 14.7%, left 20.6%, female- left 13%, right 0% and from common carotid artery (male 8.8% right, 2.9% left, female- 8.7% right, 13% left) at the level or above the level of upper border of thyroid cartilage. On the right side in 100% and 94.7% cases superior thyroid artery and inferior thyroid artery were originated as a single artery respectively. On the left side in 94.7% and 87.7% cases superior thyroid artery and inferior thyroid artery were originated as a single artery respectively. On the left side, double superior thyroid artery was present in 5.3% cases, double inferior thyroid artery was present in 1.8% cases. Inferior thyroid artery was found to be absent in 4.3% right side, 9.5% left side in female cases and 5.9% both right and left side in male cases. There was no significant (P>0.05) difference between the length of superior thyroid artery on the right and left side. But the length of inferior thyroid artery showed significant (p<0.001) difference between the right and left side. Inferior thyroid artery was most commonly originated from thyrocervical trunk (right 47%, left 90.2%), followed by subclavian artery (right 13%, left 9.80%). It most commonly originated at the level of 8th-10th tracheal ring in (right 50%, left 52.95%) cases followed by 6th-8th or 10th-14th tracheal ring (right 27.8%, left 27.45%), 10th - 14th tracheal ring (right 22.2%, left 19.6%). Thyroidea ima artery was present in 6 out of 57 cadaver (10.52%), most commonly it was originated from brachiocephalic trunk (50%) but it was also originated from arch of aorta (33.3%) and right common carotid artery (16.7%). Conclusion: It is important to know the arterial pattern of thyroid gland for successful thyroid surgery in our country. This artery can help to understand the arterial pattern of thyroid gland in our country and there by may help to reduce the complication during thyroid surgery. Due to small size of sample in our study, further study with large samples from different zones, especially in endemic zone of the country using polyester resin cast and more sophisticated micro-anatomical technique with multivariant analysis is recommended. Keywords: Thyroid arteries, Postmortem, Bangladeshi. doi: 10.3329/bja.v7i1.3014 Bangladesh Journal of Anatomy January 2009, Vol. 7 No. 1 pp. 26-33


This paper focuses on the forecast of wind shear and turbulence at the Hong Kong International Airport. It presents a mesoscale prediction model that uses chaotic oscillatory-based neural networks (CONN) to forecast the evolution of wind fields along the glide path in the vicinity of the airport. This model makes use of accurate Doppler velocities measured by light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system and afterward collected by the Hong Kong Observatory. Simulation results show that the CONN model with a new learning algorithm is able to capture the occurrence, evolution, and sudden changes of the winds representing turbulence incidences in the region. Research findings show that Doppler velocities forecast using CONN can be transformed into headwind profiles and processed with the developed algorithm to identify the wind shear occurrence. These are shown to match actual observations made using LiDAR in terms of time, locations, and size of wind shear events with considerable accuracy. The model has better performance compared with that of the traditional multilayered perceptron model neural network. The results encourage further exploration and experimentation in the use of machine learning and chaotic neural network in weather forecast and alerting.


EPTD and FCND Discussion Papers contain preliminary material and research results, and are circulated prior to a full peer review in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment. It is expected that most Discussion Papers will eventually be published in some other form, and that their content may also be revised. Impacts of Agricultural Research on Poverty: Findings of an Integrated Economic and Social Analysis


In this paper, we present some foundational elements related to argument extraction in opinion texts with the objective to further analyse and synthetise user preferences and value systems as they emerge in such texts. We show that (1) within the context of opinionated expressions, a number of evaluative expressions with a 'heavy' semantic load receive an argumentative interpretation and (2) that the association of an evaluative expression with a discourse structure such as an elaboration, an illustration, or a reformulation must also be interpreted as an argument. We develop a conceptual semantics of these relations and show how they are analyzed using the Dislog programming language on the platform, dedicated to discourse analysis.


Dynamic hardware generation reduces the number of FPGA resources needed and speeds up an application by optimizing the FPGA configuration at run-time for the exact problem at hand. Because of the large overhead associated with dynamic hardware generation, it is important to minimize the number of reconfigurations. In this work, we present a technique to maximize the reuse of a configuration by means of loop transformations. Our approach builds on similar work on temporal data locality optimization. Our experiments on a matrix multiplication benchmark show that we can reduce the number of reconfigurations by an order of magnitude, making dynamic hardware generation techniques much more useful in practice. When we combine our approach with a dynamic hardware generation tool with a very low overhead, so called parameterizable configurations, we can obtain a significant speed up over generic counterparts.


Ti-Ga co-doped ZnO thin films (TGZO) have been successfully prepared on glass substrates by DC magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns show that all the deposited films are polycrystalline with a hexagonal structure and have a preferred orientation along the c-axis perpendicular to the substrate. The distance between target and substrate was varied from 41 to 75 mm. The crystallinity increases obviously and the electrical resistivity decreases when the distance between target and substrate decreases from 75 to 46 mm. However, as the distance decreases further, the electrical resistivity increases. It is obtained that the lowest resistivity is 2.0610-4cm when the distance between target and substrate is 46 mm. In the visible region, the TGZO films show a high average transmittance of above 90 %.


An unusual case of a large complex odontoma associated with unerupted maxillary molar of a 16-year-old Thai female patient is reported. This patient had no symptoms apart from a non-remarkable swelling at the left upper jaw bone. The lesion was accidentally detected during a radiographic investigation prior to orthodontic treatment. Upon clinical examination, the left upper second and third molars were absent. She had a bony hard swelling on the buccal and palatal sides of the left maxillary region without tenderness. The overlying mucosa appeared normal. The radiographic study revealed a homogeneous radiopaque mass at the left maxilla involving the maxillary sinus with a displaced molar tooth. This lesion was surgically removed after the histopathologic report confirmed it to be an odontoma. The result of treatment was satisfactory at the following check-up. The details of the treatment of this odontogenic tumor, and the literature reviewed, are discussed.


Gravitational-wave (GW) astronomy is transforming our understanding of the Universe by probing phenomena invisible to electromagnetic observatories. A comprehensive exploration of the GW frequency spectrum is essential to fully harness this potential. Remarkably, current methods have left the μHz frequency band almost untouched. Here, we show that this μHz gap can be filled by searching for deviations in the orbits of binary systems caused by their resonant interaction with GWs. In particular, we show that laser ranging of the Moon and artificial satellites around the Earth, as well as timing of binary pulsars, may discover the first GW signals in this band, or otherwise set stringent new constraints. To illustrate the discovery potential of these binary resonance searches, we consider the GW signal from a cosmological first-order phase transition, showing that our methods will probe models of the early Universe that are inaccessible to any other near-future GW mission. We also discuss how our methods can shed light on the possible GW signal detected by NANOGrav, either constraining its spectral properties or even giving an independent confirmation.


Alcohol was the cause of nearly five million deaths globally in 2010, an increase of over one million deaths recorded ten years earlier. It was the leading risk factor for disease in southern sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), fifth in the East and West, and sixth in the Central African region. Several factors account for the increasing harm associated with alcohol in Africa among which are the availability of a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, rising urban populations, more disposable income to purchase alcohol, and unrestrained marketing and promotion of alcohol. Using a variety of strategies, producers of alcohol target young people and women with aspirational messages and other exhortations in an unprecedented onslaught of marketing and promotion which is increasingly being recognized as detrimental to public health and social welfare. Missing in the discussion on alcohol in most African countries is a clear understanding that alcohol marketing is not an ordinary economic activity and that the business of alcohol (an addictive substance with high potential for harm) can subvert the rights of individuals and the principles of democracy which many African societies are struggling to enthrone. This paper discusses these issues with particular attention to the harms caused by alcohol (to drinkers and non-drinkers alike), the potential for far-reaching harms to individuals and the society at large if the present scenario continues, and how these harms can be averted or minimized with the implementation of evidence-based policies. Key words : Alcohol marketing, alcohol promotion, Africa, alcohol advertising


MiniArc® Sling for the Treatment of Female Stress Urinary Incontinence
Treatment of female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) has been revolutionized over the years and many corrective procedures have been described showing varying degrees of success. A recent development in this direction has been the introduction of MiniArc® sling which avoid blind needle passage in the retropubic space and the groin. Despite of its surgical principle, MiniArc® did not avoid the known complications associated with other mid-urethral slings (MUS). In addition, the data regarding MiniArc® effectiveness was insufficient and conflicting. We recommend the use of MiniArc® sling in the setting of clinical trials till it proves its safety and longterm efficacy relative to MUS.


Toenail tinea is a very recalcitrant dermatosis. Griseofulvin at > or = 500 mg/day is the current medication of choice, but it is minimally successful. In a controlled open trial ultramicrosize griseofulvin (UMSG) at doses of 660 and 990 mg/day was compared with itraconazole at 100 mg/day in 109 patients. At 4-week intervals, the patients were evaluated for their clinical and mycological statuses and adverse reactions. Treatment was given for up to 18 months. Compliance was checked by tablet counting. Response (cure, partial cure, marked improvement) was analyzed by the intent-to-treat method. Cured and partially cured patients were followed up. Except for one early dropout, the toenails (mean, 6 to 7) were involved. Cure or partial cure was found in 6% (UMSG at 660 mg), 14% (UMSG at 990 mg), and 19% (itraconazole at 100 mg) of patients (P = 0.2097); marked improvement was found in 36, 44, and 39% of patients in the three treatment groups, respectively. Most patients had to be treated for 18 months. Failure was related to short medication periods (adverse drug reactions, dropout). While stable cure was not obtained with UMSG at 660 mg, the higher dose of UMSG and itraconazole gave stable cures in the other patients. Side effects of nausea, diarrhea, and headache were found in 20, 26, and 11 patients, respectively (P = 0.0028), and the numbers in whom medication had to be discontinued differed, too (P = 0.0137). While there was no major difference with glutamic-pyruvic transaminase and gamma-GT, total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels declined slightly in the itraconazole group (P = 0.0357 and P = 0.0639, respectively, at 3 months). More than 70% of the patients had an average compliance of > or = 90%; four patients (two dropouts) were poor compliers. In conclusion, it appears questionable whether griseofulvin can continue to be considered the "gold standard" in the treatment of toenail tinea. At present, itraconazole at 100 mg shows better efficacy and is better tolerated.


Live sequence charts (LSCs) have been defined recently as an extension of message sequence charts (MSCs; or their UML variant, sequence diagrams) for rich inter-object specification. One of the main additions is the notion of universal charts and hot, mandatory behavior, which, among other things, enables one to specify forbidden scenarios. LSCs are thus essentially as expressive as statecharts. This paper deals with synthesis, which is the problem of deciding, given an LSC specification, if there exists a satisfying object system and, if so, to synthesize one automatically. The synthesis problem is crucial in the development of complex systems, since sequence diagrams serve as the manifestation of use cases -- whether used formally or informally -- and if synthesizable they could lead directly to implementation. Synthesis is considerably harder for LSCs than for MSCs, and we tackle it by defining consistency, showing that an entire LSC specification is consistent iff it is satisfiable by a state-based object system, and then synthesizing a satisfying system as a collection of finite state machines or statecharts.


Classical works dealing with the possibility of mother-child incompatibility with regard to basic ABO blood groups give contradictory conclusions. Bioreproductive and population-genetic indicators have been studied in a sample of live births and in two pregnancy samples with different "a priori" and "a posteriori" risk assessment. The analysis points out that ABO blood groups can influence fertility of different parental pairs, and consequently--assessment of the individual pregnancy risk.


This report describes three experiments to develop an easy to use car phone interface. In the first experiment, 19 people at two local secretary of state driver licensing offices gave their preferences for button labels and abbreviations. The second experiment with seven participants concerned label abbreviations. The following labels (and abbreviations) are recommended: power (Pwr), Call, End, delete (Del), memory (Mem), and recall (Rcl). Twelve drivers (six under 35 years, six over 60 years) participated in the third experiment, a laboratory study, in which they operated a simple driving simulator and used a car phone. The phone was either manually dialed or voice-operated, and the associated display was either mounted on the instrument panel (IP) or was a simulated head-up display (HUD). Phone numbers dialed were either local (7 digits) or long distance (11 digits), and could be familiar or unfamiliar. In addition, there were four conversational tasks, two of which were fairly ordinary (listening, talking) and two of which required some mental processing (loose ends, listing). Driving performance (voice--5.7 inches (14.48 cm); manual--6.1 inches (15.49 cm)) and dialing times (voice--9.2 seconds; manual--10.7 seconds) were better with the voice-operated phone than the manual phone using either the IP display or HUD. In addition, younger drivers outperformed older drivers with regard to both driving (younger--5.6 inches (14.22 cm); older--6.0 inches (15.24 cm)) and dialing performance (younger--7.4 seconds; older--12.6 seconds). Thus, voice appears to be an effective way of improving the safety and performance of car phone use, but the location of the display is not important. The benefits of voice are particularly noticeable for older drivers.


Introduction Socioeconomic conditions are rarely considered in the epidemiology of subfertility. Objectives Access the effect of current and past socioeconomic conditions on the occurrence of subfertility in women with a successful pregnancy. Methods Women were recruited in 2005/6 for Geração XXI, a Portuguese birth cohort. Personal interviews were conducted to collect socio-demographic and pregnancy-related data. Life-time subfertility was self-reported and defined as trying to conceive for more than 1 year with no success. Education, income, working condition and marital status were proxy indicators of social class. The childhood circumstances of the women were accessed by parents' education and amenities at age 12. The analysis considered 7916 mothers. Logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the odds (OR) of being subfertile according socioeconomic circumstances, stratified by number of previous pregnancies (1 vs >1) and age (<30 vs ≥30 years). Results Subfertility was reported by 9.1% of the women (n=719). Prevalence was 8.7% among primigravidae and 9.5% in multigravidae (84% of the multigravidae were multipara). Almost 2/3 sought for medical help. Among young primigravidae, subfertility decreased with education (>12 vs ≤6 years: OR 0.20 95% CI 0.11 to 0.39), and was lower among single (OR 0.27 95% CI 0.12 to 0.59) and smokers (OR 0.60; 95% CI 0.40 to 0.94). Only education presented a significant association with subfertility in older primigravidae. Within multigravidae higher education increased the odds. Maternal childhood conditions were no longer significant after adjustment for current social circumstances. Conclusions Age and the number of previous births modified the effect of social conditions on subfertility which was stronger among younger and primigravidae women.


When the paper on stoichiometry-driven protein folding by Mittal et al. (1) was published, I knew that it would become a controversial publication, bordering on revolutionary. The ideas, such as (i) no preferences are related to sidechain chemistry and (ii) notwithstanding size and 3D fold, the probability that two amino acids will be close together depends mainly on their percent populations, go against what is being currently practised and taught in biochemistry and molecular biology. Preferential interaction between amino acids is the basis of the development of knowledge-based potentials, which in turn form the underpinning of protein structure prediction by modeling and simulation, now routinely performed in many laboratories across the globe.


Though the titles and acronyms of policies differ from one country to another, throughout the world a political project has taken root with the assumption that to reduce poverty and inequality, governments should privatize school systems, alter teaching from a career to contract labor, use standardized tests to make students and teachers accountable, and curtail the power and legal rights of teachers unions. This article explores how teacher activists might help reverse neoliberal educational politics by developing mutually-respectful collaborations among teachers, parents and youth in poor communities, in school-based and system-wide partnerships that involve teachers unions. Analyzing events as they were experienced and influenced by a New York City-based NGO of teachers committed to educational justice, the author examines the landscape of educational reform politics and the creation of new spaces and organizational forms not confined by collective bargaining jurisdictions and traditional bargaining demands. The study suggests that development of a social movement of teachers that might edge teachers unions in the direction of social movement teacher unionism may not occur in a linear fashion. Rather, a complex push-pull dynamic occurs with each change, opening and retracting space, remaking networks and influencing longstanding personal ties among activists.


Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) with phacoemulsification in the vitreous cavity for treatment of complete posterior dislocation of the lens without any damage to the lens capsule. Methods: We evaluated factors such as cause of dislocation, scleral fixation of an intraocular lens (IOL), preoperative and postoperative visual acuity, corneal endothelial cell density, and intraoperative and postoperative complications. Results: Displacement in the eleven eyes studied was mostly caused by ocular trauma and was idiopathic (four eyes each). Scleral fixation of the IOL was performed in seven of the eyes during first-time PPV. Visual acuity was improved in two eyes, unchanged in eight eyes, and worse in one eye. Mean corneal endothelial cell density was 2485 cells/mm 2 preoperatively and 2301 cells/mm 2 postoperatively. No significant differences were seen before and after the surgeries (P = 0.15, paired t-test). Intraoperative complications included retinal detachment and suprachoroidal hemorrhage in one eye each. The most common postoperative complication was transient ocular hypertension, which occurred in three eyes. IOL dislocation and vitreous incarceration of the anterior chamber in one eye required a second operation, while retinal detachment in one eye required a third operation. Conclusion: When treating a completely dislocated lens, prevention of retinal detachment which subsequently can affect the visual prognosis is the most important factor to be addressed after PPV with intravitreal phacoemulsification.


LPI Radars use continuous wave, wide bandwidth low power signals of the order of a few watts making its detection difficult. The important advantage of LPI radar is to go undetected, while maintaining a strong battlefield awareness. Common spectral analysis and conventional methods fail to detect emissions of LPI radars and even normal radars in noisy environments. This leads to use higher order spectral analysis (HOSA) techniques enabling us to extract much more information from the same intercept and hence facilitating detection. This paper reports the results of HOSA techniques (bi-spectrum, bi-coherence and tri-spectrum) and artificial neural networks (ANNs), applied to LPI radar signals. Bi-phase barker coded signals of different lengths, P1, P2, P3 and P4 Polyphase coded signals and Frank signal are analyzed using HOSA techniques to produce 2-D signatures of these signals. An artificial neural network (ANN) is trained on these signatures so that it will be able to detect and identify the LPI radar signal whose type is unknown when received. The results obtained clearly indicate the promising capability of these techniques to identify the type of LPI signal even with SNRs as low as -3 dB.


Nigeria's land registration programmes are beset with challenges. The linkage between land, the government and the people create a complex system with unique obstacles. This research investigates the challenges of land registration in Nigeria with an in-depth study of Kaduna State. The objective is to ascertain the frequency of land registration and the factors that stand as challenges to it from the perspectives of households, consultants in land transactions, and the Kaduna Geographic Information System (KADGIS). The results indicate a low level of land registration in which challenges include ignorance, affordability problems, inefficient registration processes, corruption, and inadequate skilled workforce with the human capital to implement the programmes. The research has implications for both land and housing markets in Nigeria and throughout Africa.


This article presents the advances in wafer-level processing and integration techniques for CMOS image sensor module manufacturing. CMOS image sensors gave birth to the low-cost, high-volume camera phone market and are being adopted for various high-end applications. The backside illumination technique has significant advantages over the front-side illumination due to separation of the optical path from the metal interconnects. Wafer bonding plays a key role in manufacturing backside illuminated sensors. The cost-effective integration of miniaturized cameras in various handheld devices becomes realized through the introduction of CMOS image sensor modules or camera modules manufactured with wafer-level processing and integration techniques. We developed various technologies enabling wafer-level processing and integration, such as (a) wafer-to-wafer permanent bonding with oxide or polymer layers for manufacturing backside illuminated sensor wafers, (b) wafer-level lens molding and stacking based on UV imprint lithography for making wafer-level optics, (c) conformal coating of various photoresists within high aspect ratio through-silicon vias, and (d) advanced backside lithography for various metallization processes in wafer-level packaging. Those techniques pave the way to the future growth of the digital imaging industry by improving the electrical and optical aspects of devices as well as the module manufacturability.


There are projected to be over 200,000 Muslim tourists will visit Japan due to expected Tokyo Olympics 2020. But the previous study showed that the level of understanding about Muslim needs such as Halal terms still low among Japanese people. There is a technique and approach such as gamification that need by the Japanese people to fulfill this requirement. Gamification which integrating game thinking and games element has been proven to help in learning new knowledge. That is why the objective of this study discusses how to develop an application of MJHG in a smartphone-based on the android system. The MJHG was design based on a well known visual novel concept that combining with multimedia elements included audio,   animation,   graphics, and image to make it more attractive and alive. All of these elements blending with the gamification elements such as quiz, rewards, badges, and feedback to make it as gamified applications. Based on all of these capabilities of MJHG, it, therefore, can help the potential users not only Japanese people but also non-muslim to increase their level of understanding and awareness toward Halal terms.


In this paper an analysis of two planar transformers designed for high-current switching applications is presented. Typical converter application is represented by fuel and electrolyser cell converters. The transformer designs are based on E+I and ER+I planar cores while the analysis focuses on winding resistance and leakage inductances which represent the main concerns related to low-voltage high-current applications. The PCB winding design has a one to one turn ratio with no interleaving between primary and secondary windings. The main goal was to determine if ER planar core could provide a significant advantage in terms of winding losses compared to planar E cores. Results from finite element analysis highlight that low frequency winding resistance is lower for the ER core since it is dominated by the lower mean turn length however, as the AC-resistance becomes dominating the winding eddy current losses increases more in the ER core than in the E core design. Calculated and simulated leakage inductances for the analyzed cores do not show relevant differences. A laboratory prototype based on E64 planar core is used as reference. Laboratory measurements highlight that FEM analysis provides more realistic results when computing the winding AC-resistance.


Purpose: Several small studies have indicated that the ATM rs1801516 SNP is associated with risk of normal tissue toxicity after radiotherapy. However, the findings have not been consistent. In order to test this SNP in a wellpowered study, an individual patient data meta-analysis was carried out by the International Radiogenomics Consortium. Material and methods: The analysis included 5,456 patients from 17 different cohorts. 2,759 patients were given radiotherapy for breast cancer and 2,697 for prostate cancer. Eight toxicity scores (overall toxicity, acute toxicity, late toxicity, acute skin toxicity, acute rectal toxicity, telangiectasia, fibrosis and late rectal toxicity) were analyzed. Adjustments were made for treatment and patient related factors with potential impact on the risk of toxicity. Results: For all endpoints except late rectal toxicity, a significantly increased risk of toxicity was found for carriers of the minor (Asn) allele with odds of approximately 1.5 for acute toxicity and 1.2 for late toxicity. The results were consistent with a co-dominant pattern of inheritance. Conclusion: This study convincingly showed a significant association between the ATM rs1801516 Asn allele and increased risk of radiation-induced normal tissue toxicity.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Despite advances in surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, grade 4 astrocytoma, the commonest primary brain tumour, remains incurable with a dire prognosis related to its diffusely infiltrative nature. With photodynamic therapy, pre-treatment with a photosensitising drug and subsequent exposure to light of a specific wavelength can mediate selective tumour destruction. However, it is limited by light penetration. Bioluminescence results from conversion of chemical energy into light. This thesis explores whether bioluminescence generated inside astrocytoma cells in vitro and in in vivo can mediate PDT: light generation by target cells requires no knowledge of the exact location of every cell, thereby potentially overcoming the diffuse, infiltrative nature of astrocytomas.
METHODS: in vitro: genetically modified U87 glioma cells expressing firefly luciferase (U87-luc) were generated, pre-treated with the photosensitisers hypericin or mTHPC, then incubated with d-luciferin to induce bioluminescence. Cell viability was assessed by MTT assay, haemocytometry, and a growth assay. Inhibition by lycopene, an antioxidant that suppresses PDT, was assessed. Control studies used untransfected U87 cells. METHODS: in vivo: U87-luc cells were xenografted subcutaneously and intracranially into CD1 nu/nu mice. Mice were pre-treated with intraperitoneal mTHPC then given a 7 day infusion of d-luciferin (subcutaneously implanted pump). Tumour response was followed by bioluminescence imaging, volume measurements, and survival. Tumours were harvested for pathological examination and BrdU immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: in vitro: bioluminescence-mediated PDT produced significant cell death with both photosensitisers in U87-luc cells, which was suppressed by lycopene. There was no effect in untransfected cells that could not generate bioluminescence. RESULTS: in vivo: in 3 out of 4 trials, including one in an intracranial model, a treatment effect was demonstrated by a significant reduction of proliferation, as assessed by the proportion of BrdU positive cells in the 'treatment' group compared to controls. CONCLUSION: Bioluminescence-mediated PDT kills tumour cells in vitro. Preliminary evidence of an effect in vivo supports the concept being explored further.


The paper is a womanist study based on African-American novelist Alice Walker's 1970 novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland. The study uses content analysis method, Walker's theory of womanism, and Judith Butler's theory of undoing gender performativity to explore how Walker's women characters dismantle gender specificity and establish women's space/voice. Walker's women characters perceive womanism as a defensive strategy and a healing force as they find it self-healing in restoring their mental health, self-respect, and identity. They do not believe in separation from their male partners; they stand victorious over the racist-sexist society by taking men as partners and by taking their own decisions regarding life and death. Womanism, as their philosophy of life, allows them space for raising voice, forming identity, uplifting status, and finding wholeness of their lives accompanied by men. Their womanist identities reflect a conscious/subversive act of transfiguring differentiation and give them a vision of women's space, a sense of hidden possibilities, and a sense of wholeness. They exercise their sexual freedom which poses a threat to the ideological and political basis of male supremacy. Their womanist performativity questions heteronormativities and stimulates social change. As such, their womanist identities speak more of a political preference than a mere sexual/non-sexual preference. The study explores how Ruth idealizes her womanist foremothers as her role models and takes her grandfather as her partner. She creates women's space/possibilities, weaves her future, and journeys towards wholeness. In fact, she defines herself as one of those possibilities which womanism opens up.
Spectrum, Volume 16, June 2021: 148-158


In January 2001, the National Coordination Center, which brought tissue and organ procurement and transplantation under the Turkish Health Ministry, was established in Turkey. The main aims of this organization are to expand cadaveric donation and increase the number of transplantable organs supplied by cadaveric donors. We compared the proportions of cadaveric organ transplantations that were performed in Turkey before and after the national coordination system was established. Of all the cadaveric transplantations completed to date, 91.6% of kidney and 71.5% of liver procedures were done before implementation of the new system, and 8.4% and 28.5%, respectively, were performed after the system was established. The data show that the frequency of cadaveric donation has increased, as well as the number of cadaveric organ transplantations performed annually. The new national transplantation coordination system is making a good start at increasing cadaveric transplantation in Turkey. This system will hopefully lead to a larger organ pool and shorter waiting lists in future.


We present two interference alignment techniques such that an opportunistic point-to-point multiple input multiple output (MIMO) link can reuse, without generating any additional interference, the same frequency band of a similar pre-existing primary link. In this scenario, we exploit the fact that under power constraints, although each radio maximizes independently its rate by water-filling on their channel transfer matrix singular values, frequently, not all of them are used. Therefore, by aligning the interference of the opportunistic radio it is possible to transmit at a significant rate while insuring zero-interference on the pre-existing link. We propose a linear pre-coder for a perfect interference alignment and a power allocation scheme which maximizes the individual data rate of the secondary link. Our numerical results show that significant data rates are achieved even for a reduced number of antennas.


Abstract. Unmanned aerial and submersible vehicles are used in an increasing number of applications especially for data collection in misanthropic environments. During a mission, such vehicles generate multiple spatio-temporal data streams suitable to be processed by data stream management systems (DSMS). The main approach of a DSMS is limiting the elements of a stream by using sliding and tilting windows with time intervals as temporal condition. However, due to varying vehicle speed and limited on-board resources, such temporal windows do not provide adequate support for spatio-temporal problems. For solving this problem, we propose a set of six new spatio-temporal window operators in this paper. This set comprises of sliding distance, tilting distance, tilting waypoint, session distance, jumping distance and an area window to limit stream elements based on spatial conditions. Each of the listed operators provides an individual behaviour to support sophisticated applications like spatial interpolation and forecasting. An evaluation based on an example trajectory shows the benefit of the presented operators for spatio-temporal applications.


Most pediatricians recognize and treat acute otitis media several times each day. Yet there is wide disagreement about certain aspects of its diagnosis and treatment, despite a large and growing literature on the subject. This review attempts to summarize what is known about acute otitis media in children.
 DEFINITION
 Acute suppurative otitis media is distinguished from secretory (serous) otitis media by the presence of purulent fluid in the middle ear. Pathogenic bacteria may be cultured from the majority of needle aspirates of this purulent fluid. In secretory otitis media, relatively few polymorphonuclear cells are present in the middle ear fluid, which is either thin and straw-colored (serous) or thick and translucent grey (mucoid). The fluid has the chemical characteristics either of a transudate of plasma or of a mucoid secretion, presumably produced by goblet cells and mucous glands which are greatly increased in the middle ear mucosa of patients with secretory otitis media. Cultures of this middle ear fluid are usually negative for pathogenic bacteria and viruses. Suppurative otitis media can be diagnosed positively only by aspiration of purulent fluid from the middle ear, but this procedure is rarely necessary for initial diagnosis and management. Clinical findings helpful in distinguishing suppurative from secretory otitis media are discussed below.
 INCIDENCE
 In a study of 847 British children during the first five years of life, 19% had at least one episode of otitis media; one third of these had more than one episode. This was considered to be a minimal estimate in these children, since otorrhea was the chief criterion for diagnosis.


Traditional X-ray and endoscopy methods of research have limited abilities in expotion of the all parameters of the esophagus tumor. It becomes clear, that this method is not satisfactory enough. It's clear that without information about all parameters of cancer infiltration surgical and combined (operation + radiotherapy) treatment do not give desired result. With an objective to study this matter, 290 X-ray pictures of 150 patients with cancer of the middle and lower mediastinum sections of esophagus and were getting treatment, were studied and analyzed. It was identified, that correspondingly to the filling defect with the esophagus cancer on the phone of the light stripe of mediastinum the external contours give the full picture of the tumor infiltration. Rehabilitation of esophagus function during the process of X-ray therapy in parallel with the deduction of the shadow of the tumor infiltration the phone of mediastinum, give a floor to our suspecion, that abovementioned shadow is the anatomic substrate of the esophagus tumor. It is very important to reveal all tumor's parameters in diagnostics and radiation therapy of the esophagus cancer.


Summary Used extensively by the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, the mechanical-vapor-recompression (MVR) process is viewed as a reliable method for recovering demineralized water from concentrated brines. Devon Energy has supported the operation of an advanced MVR system at a north-central Texas (Barnett shale region) treatment facility. At this facility, pretreatment included caustic addition and clarification for total-suspended-solids and iron control. Pretreated shale-gas flowback water was then sent to three MVR units, each rated at 2,000–2,500 B/D (318–398 m3/d). Data were collected during a 60-day period in the summer of 2010. Distilled-water recovery volume averaged 72.5% of the influent water to the MVR units. The influent total dissolved solids (TDS) fed to the MVR units averaged just under 50 000 mg/L. More than 99% of the TDS were captured in the concentrate stream. The fate of multivalent cations; total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH); and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) throughout the treatment system was determined. Most of the iron and TPH removal (90 and 84%, respectively) occurred during pretreatment. The total removal of iron, magnesium, calcium, barium, and boron from the distillate exceeded 99%. BTEX removal from the distillate exceeded 95%. Electric power at the facility was provided by two natural-gas generators, and compressors associated with the MVR units were driven by natural-gas-fueled internal-combustion engines. Energy requirements at the entire treatment facility were tracked daily by total natural-gas use. Best-fit correlations between treated water and distillate production vs. total plant use of natural gas indicated that there was a base power load throughout the facility of approximately 120 to 140 Mscf/D (3400 to 3960 m3/d) of gas. Approximately 48 scf natural gas/bbl influent water treated (270 m3/m3 influent) or 60.5 scf/bbl distillate produced (340 m3/m3 distillate) was required; this represents an energy cost of less than USD 0.25/bbl treated (USD 0.04/m3 treated) and approximately USD 0.30/bbl of distillate product generated (USD 0.048/m3 distillate), assuming a natural-gas cost of USD 5/million Btu (USD 4.72/GJ). Performance in terms of water recovery and product-water quality was stable throughout the 60-day test.


ABSTRACT Plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) coatings on commercial pure titanium (Cp-Ti) and hot-dip aluminised Cp-Ti surfaces were prepared in an alkaline electrolyte. The morphological, structural, wear, and corrosion characteristics of the coatings were studied by using SEM, EDS, XRD, electrochemical polarisation, and dry sliding wear tests. The experimental results showed that the main compositions of the PEO coating on Cp-Ti are TiO2 and Al2TiO5 phases, while the PEO coating on hot-dip aluminised (HDA'ed) Cp-Ti mainly consists of the Al2O3 phase. The single PEO coating exhibited more porosity with small diameter micro-pores compared to the PEO coating on the HDA'ed sample. Electrochemical polarisation tests revealed that the PEO coating on the HDA'ed sample exhibited approximately 4.6 times more polarisation resistance than the single PEO coating and 10 times that of the bare Cp-Ti sample. According to the wear test results, the wear resistance of the bare Cp-Ti was doubled by hot-dip aluminising (HDA) and PEO treatments, while the single PEO treatment resulted in better resistance against dry sliding wear.


Objective To compare mean birth weights and gestational age at delivery of infants born to Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and white British mothers in Luton, UK. Design Retrospective analysis using routinely recorded secondary data in Ciconia Maternity information System, between 2008 and 2013. Setting Luton, UK. Participants Mothers whose ethnicity was recorded as white British, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Indian and living in Luton, aged over 16, who had a live singleton birth over 24 weeks of gestation were included in the analysis (n=14 871). Outcome measures Primary outcome measures were mean birth weight and gestational age at delivery. Results After controlling for maternal age, smoking, diabetes, gestation age, parity and maternal height and body mass index at booking, a significant difference in infants' mean birth weight was found between white British and Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi infants, F(3, 12 287)=300.32, p<0.0001. The partial Eta-squared for maternal ethnicity was η2=0.067. The adjusted mean birth weight for white British infants was found to be 3377.89 g (95% CI 3365.34 to 3390.44); Indian infants, 3033.09 g (95% CI 3038.63 to 3103.55); Pakistani infants, 3129.49 g (95% CI 3114.5 to 3144.48); and Bangladeshi infants, 3064.21 g (95% CI 3041.36 to 3087.06). There was a significant association in preterm delivery found in primipara Indian mothers, compared with Indian mothers (Wald=8.192, df 1, p<0.005). Conclusions Results show important differences in adjusted mean birth weight between Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and white British women. Moreover, an association was found between primipara Indian mothers and preterm delivery, when compared with Pakistani, Bangladeshi and white British women.


the most urgent problems of today. Ensuring the environmental safety of food raw materials and food products is one of the main tasks that determine the health of the human population and the preservation of its gene pool.

Analysis of recent research and publications. Toxic effects of Pb on human bodies have been confirmed by numerous clinical studies that have shown the negative effects of heavy metals on the nervous, cardiovascular, immune systems and oncology. The works is devoted to the development of detoxification techniques, in which scientists proposed to reduce the content of heavy metals in chernozems by detoxifying soils by growing battery plants on them, which will «extract» heavy metals from soils disinfecting them. The disadvantage of the proposed technologies is the economic costs borne by farmers, producers and consumers. Farmers will suffer financial losses due to idle sown areas and the cost of seed. Producers will be forced to raise prices for the final food product as a result of reduced consumer purchasing power.

Formulation of the purpose of the article. The aim of the article is to determine ways to optimize lead-contaminated chernozem soils in the system «soil – plant» (on the example of chernozem soils within the test sites on the territory of the collection nursery «Agrotek» in Kyiv region).

Presentation of the main research material. The article presents the results of a study of ways to optimize lead-contaminated chernozem soils in the system «soil – plant». The objects of the study were soybean and chickpea varieties of different vegetation varieties, namely: ultra-early varieties, maturation period 95… 105 days. Мedium, maturation period 100…115 days. Мedium-ripe varieties maturation period115…125 days. Early ripening varieties of chickpeas growing period 95…115 days, and medium-ripe sotu chickpeas, growing period 115…125 days. Experimental studies were conducted during 2019 – 2021 within the test sites on the territory of the collection nursery «Agrotek» in Kyiv region. The method of ion exchange and liquid chromatography on the liquid chromatograph Shimadzu LC-20 (Japan). Studied the variability of nutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates) in soybeans and chickpeas of different vegetation varieties. With the help of the MATLAB program, mathematical optimization was carried out and the five-year dynamics of protein, fat, and carbohydrate content in legumes grown on chernozem soils of the «Agrotek» collection nursery in the Kyiv region was determined. By the method of inversion-voltammetry with the help of voltammetric analyzer «ABA-3» (Russia) which is equipped with an indicator electrode for the determination of lead, the concentration of Pb in chernozems and soybeans and chickpeas with different protein content was studied. Concentrations of Pb in soybean and chickpea grains depending on the chemical composition of soils for cultivation were grown and studied at the test sites of the «Agrotek» collection nursery.

Conclusions. As a result of experimental studies, it was found that the contamination of chernozem soils Pb and subsequent processes of its translocation in the system «soil – plant» have negative consequences and are manifested in the accumulation of toxicants in plants. It is significant that the largest metal-accumulating properties have cultivated early-ripening legumes, and the smallest – medium-ripe. It was determined that the indicators of Pb concentration in the storage organs of legume assimilants are influenced to a greater extent by the protein content in them than by mobile forms of Pb, which come due to translocation from soils contaminated with Pb. It is established that with the increase of protein in the organs of plant assimilators, the indicators of accumulation of toxic concentrations of Pb increase. Given that the genetic characteristics of chernozems allow us to consider them the most environmentally friendly soils in terms of anthropogenesis, however, they deposit contaminants and, accordingly, require optimization and development of detoxification methods. It has been experimentally established that when growing legumes of different vegetation varieties on chernozems contaminated with Pb, the intensity of their detoxification to obtain environmentally friendly plant products can be distributed as follows: N180P180K180 + Pb + lime + manure > N360P360K360+ Pb > N180P180K180 + Pb + lime > N180P180K180 + Pb + manure. The obtained laws provide an opportunity to develop recommendations and propose ways to detoxify contaminated Pb soils. Which will provide an opportunity to significantly reduce budget expenditures, which is socially necessary and cost-effective.


Brazilian sardine, the most important resource along the southeastern Brazilian coast, presented great variations and declines in its stocks. The main factors contributing to this are: oceanographic structure changes; recruitment failures; excessive catches of juveniles and increase in fishery effort. In spite of this, no alterations in the density-dependent parameters were detected. Consequently, methods analysing the condition of the larvae coupled with methods determining growth using sagittae otolith increment width were applied to evaluate growth under experimental conditions. The results of the readings on the sagittae were compared with the age of the laboratory-reared sardine larvae and confirmed that increments are formed on a daily basis. Under poor feeding conditions, sardine larvae showed a low growth expressed by dry weight, RNA/DNA ratio and tryptic enzyme activity and by the narrow and low contrast increments in the otoliths. The results of the biochemical indices showed an unexpected decline in the feeding group coupled with a decrease in width of increment numbers 8 and 10. Other factors than food availability were affecting the condition of the larvae and might be indicative of physiological processes and ontogenetic changes occurring in sardine larvae.


Current National Kidney Foundation Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative staging criteria for chronic kidney disease (CKD) are intended to apply to all age groups. However, it is unclear whether different levels of estimated GFR (eGFR) have the same prognostic significance in older and younger patients. The study cohort was composed of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) patients who were aged 18 to 100 yr and had at least one outpatient serum creatinine measurement between October 1, 2001, and September 30, 2002 (n=2583,911). Patients with ESRD were excluded. GFR was estimated using the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease equation using each patient's first outpatient creatinine measurement during the study period. The association of eGFR with survival was measured by age group. Twenty percent of cohort patients had an eGFR<60 ml/min per 1.73 m2, ranging from 3% among 18- to 44-yr-olds to as high as 49% among 85- to 100-yr-olds. Fifty-two percent (n=266,421) of cohort patients with an eGFR<60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 had "very" moderate reductions in eGFR into the 50- to 59-ml/min per 1.73 m2 range. The association of eGFR with mortality was weaker in the elderly than in younger age groups: Whereas severe reductions in eGFR were associated with an increased risk for death in all age groups, "very" moderate reductions in eGFR (50 to 59 ml/min per 1.73 m2) were associated with an increased adjusted risk for death only among patients who were younger than 65 yr. Age-related attenuation of the association of eGFR with mortality was also present among women and black patients. In the clinical setting, mortality risk stratification in elderly patients should not be based on the same eGFR cut points as for younger age groups and would benefit from finer categorization of the 30- to 59-ml/min per 1.73 m2 eGFR group.


The proposal to burn coal in Mayagüez fails to address important facts that may affect human health. In the first place, the pattern of winds prevailing in Mayagüez is simply excluded and arbitrarily substituted by a pattern prevailing twenty kilometer north of Mayagüez. The fact that pollutants in compliance with the air standards may, nevertheless, affect human health is entirely disregarded. Also is the episodic accumulations of pollutants by meteorological conditions, such as thermal inversions coupled by low winds. The remarkable effect of exercise amplifying ozone harmful action is ignored, in spite of the athletic activity at the Mayagüez Campus of the UPR. The effect of chronic exposures of nitrogen dioxide on children living in houses with gas stoves is also ignored. These and other omissions raise serious human health concerns about the burning of coal in the setting already existing in Mayagüez.


Chagas disease (CD) is a parasitic infection that originated in the Americas and is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. In the last few years, the disease has spread to countries in North America, Asia and Europe due to the migration of Latin Americans. In the Brazilian Amazon, CD has an endemic transmission, especially in the Rio Negro region, where an occupational hazard was described for piaçaveiros (piassaba gatherers). In the State of Amazonas, the first chagasic infection was reported in 1977, and the first acute CD case was recorded in 1980. After initiatives to integrate acute CD diagnostics with the malaria laboratories network, reports of acute CD cases have increased. Most of these cases are associated with oral transmission by the consumption of contaminated food. Chronic cases have also been diagnosed, mostly in the indeterminate form. These cases were detected by serological surveys in cardiologic outpatient clinics and during blood donor screening. Considering that the control mechanisms adopted in Brazil's classic transmission areas are not fully applicable in the Amazon, it is important to understand the disease behavior in this region, both in the acute and chronic cases. Therefore, the pursuit of control measures for the Amazon region should be a priority given that CD represents a challenge to preserving the way of life of the Amazon's inhabitants.


Incorporation of natural fibres into polymers to manufacture biocomposites is a way of limiting the environmental impact of these materials. However, the fibres quality is essential to fulfil their assigned role as reinforcement in biocomposites. The extraction of fibres from hemp stems requires a retting step. Retting is a bioprocess applied to plant stems to easily separate fibres from the central woody part. Nowadays, this process is carried out directly on the field in an empirically way due to its dependence on environmental conditions which could cause problems of the inconsistency of the hemp fibres quality.During few weeks of retting, odours are generated by the degradation of plant material by microorganisms. The modification of these odours can be correlated with the progress of the retting degree of hemp stems. This change in odour is obviously combined with a change in the type and quantity of VOCs emitted. Identifying odours and VOCs emitted when the retting is optimal can lead to make sensors able to survey the progress of this biological process. Then, if this process is well controlled, much higher quality with more uniform fibres could be produced.This article will focus on the identification of the odour emitted when the optimal retting of the stems is reached as well as the identification of the VOCs analysed at this stage.


Preserved production is caused by wastewater pollution which has become a serious environmental problem in chaoshan district of one. Through the research KangHui group Chao'an cool fruit factory integrated nature of emissions from wastewater integrated wastewater, treat preserved fruits wastewater with activated sludge. In order to strengthen the cultivation of acclimation wastewater treatment, domestication was studied the best training domesticated aeration time. Experiments show that: The best treatment of preserved fruits wastewater is Acclimation of 38 h, and the wastewater CODcr removal rate reached 98.0%, then the effluent CODcr can be reduced in the 95 mg/L or so. Activated sludge treatment cool fruit production waste water, the training domesticated aeration and h of wastewater treatment after best effect.


In this paper, we devise a novel method that incrementally learns pseudo-data, which represent the whole training data set for Gaussian Process (GP) regression. The method involves sparse approximation of the GP by extending the work of Snelson and Ghahramani. We call the proposed method Incremental Sparse Pseudo-input Gaussian Process (ISPGP) regression. Unlike the Snelson and Ghahramani's work, the proposed ISPGP algorithm allows for training from either a huge amount of training data by scanning through it only once or an online incremental training data set. We also design a likelihood weighting scheme to incrementally determine pseudo-data while maintaining the representational power. Due to the nature of the incremental learning algorithm, the proposed ISPGP algorithm can theoretically work with infinite data to which the conventional GP or Sparse Pseudo-input Gaussian Process (SPGP) algorithm is not applicable. From our experimental results on the KIN40K data set, we can see that the proposed ISPGP algorithm is comparable to the conventional GP algorithm using the same number of training data. It also significantly reduces the computational cost and memory requirement in regression and is scalable to a large training data set without significant performance degradation. Although the proposed ISPGP algorithm performs slightly worse than Snelson and Ghahramani's SPGP algorithm, the level of performance degradation is acceptable.


An index-based approach to indicate the outcome of Occupational Health and Safety management has been commonly used in the implementation of the International Safety Management Code and the operation of Occupational Health and Safety management systems in the international shipping industry. Although the index-based approach is asserted to be a convenient way to measure and quantify the outcome of Occupational Health and Safety management, it is not justified in the wider literature and further empirical research is suggested by various authors. The aim of this study is to explore the role of an index-based approach in managing Occupational Health and Safety in the shipping industry.
 This article investigates the effectiveness of indicators in Occupational Health and Safety management in two Chinese chemical shipping companies. A qualitative approach is applied to examine the views of seafarers on safety reporting practice. The study reveals that, although the need for reporting is understood by most of the crew members, the reporting practice is significantly affected by different factors such as the crew's concerns for their own interests, Chinese cultural factors and management's dominant power over the crew's performance evaluation. The findings suggest that there is a significant gap between what is required by the rules and what really occurs in terms of safety reporting practice. The study highlights the emerging problems of using Occupational Health and Safety indicators as benchmark for measuring the outcome of Occupational Health and Safety management in Chinese shipping. The conclusion is drawn in a Chinese context, and although the findings may not be similar to other industries or the shipping industry in other countries, they provide valuable indications for re-thinking and re-shaping maritime regulatory strategies.


Many real-world problems, such as robot control and soccer game, are naturally modeled as sparse-interaction multi-agent systems. Reutilizing single-agent knowledge in multi-agent systems with sparse interactions can greatly accelerate the multi-agent learning process. Previous works rely on bisimulation metric to define Markov decision process (MDP) similarity for controlling knowledge transfer. However, bisimulation metric is costly to compute and is not suitable for high-dimensional state space problems. In this work, we propose more scalable transfer learning methods based on a novel MDP similarity concept. We start by defining the MDP similarity based on the N-step return (NSR) values of an MDP. Then, we propose two knowledge transfer methods based on deep neural networks called direct value function transfer and NSR-based value function transfer. We conduct experiments in image-based grid world, multi-agent particle environment (MPE) and Ms. Pac-Man game. The results indicate that the proposed methods can significantly accelerate multi-agent reinforcement learning and meanwhile get better asymptotic performance.


Pain associated with cancer is of widespread concern. We conducted a systematic review to evaluate the best available evidence on the efficacy of treatments of cancer-related pain. The sources used were MEDLINE, CancerLit, and the Cochrane Library from 1966 through April 2001, as well as bibliographies of meta-analyses and review articles. We selected randomized controlled trials (RCTs) reporting on cancer pain treatment. We recorded the study characteristics, patient and disease characteristics, treatment comparisons, outcome measures, and results. The methodological quality, applicability, and magnitude of treatment effect for each study were graded. We screened 24 822 titles and selected 213 RCTs to address specific questions. RCTs of cancer pain control often enroll few subjects, have low methodological quality, offer little detail about pain characteristics and mechanisms, and involve heterogeneous interventions and outcomes. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), opioids, selected adjuvant medications, bisphosphonates, radionuclides, external radiation, palliative chemotherapy, and neurolytic celiac plexus block are each efficacious in relieving cancer pain. However, the retrieved RCTs indicate no difference in the analgesic efficacies of NSAIDs versus other NSAIDs, NSAIDs plus opioids versus NSAIDs alone, or NSAIDs versus opioids. Studies of adjuvant medications and behavioral therapies are too few and varied to synthesize. RCTs of the analgesic effects of corticosteroids were not retrieved in our review, although we did conduct supplemental evidence reviews concerning pain control in oral mucositis, acute herpes zoster, or postherpetic neuralgia. RCTs confirm the efficacy of diverse interventions in relieving cancer pain. The optimal initial and subsequent sequence of choices among analgesic drug types cannot be inferred from the retrieved RCTs. Patient preferences, the relative efficacy of different routes of drug administration, the side effects of analgesics, and the relation of pain control to quality of life have not been studied comprehensively. The quantity and quality of scientific evidence on cancer pain relief compare unfavorably with evidence related to treatment of other high-impact conditions, including cancer itself. One contributor to this gap is the heterogeneity of outcomes instruments employed: of 218 retrieved trials, there were 125 distinct pain outcomes assessed. In the current era of patient-centered care, improving the quality and combinability of trials on cancer pain relief should be a high research priority.


Alternative splicing is a major source of diversity of gene expression. Multiple products, some of which have antagonistic activities, are generated from the same gene. Redirecting gene expression through antisense oligonucleotide (AO)-induced modification of splicing patterns could be applied to a range of conditions including: (a) correcting gene defects arising from splicing mutations, (b) by-passing serious disease-causing mutations through induced exon skipping, and (c) redirecting gene transcript splicing patterns as a potential anticancer therapy. We are evaluating the potential of AOs to by-pass defects in the dystrophin gene that preclude the synthesis of a functional protein and result in the severe Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In-frame dystrophin gene re-arrangements typically result in a milder form of muscular dystrophy, clearly demonstrating that some regions of the dystrophin protein can be lost with relatively minor consequences. The huge size of the dystrophin gene, its complex expression patterns and the fact that the predominant isoforms are expressed in nondividing cells, have hindered gene replacement therapies for DMD, but render the dystrophin gene an ideal candidate to evaluate AO therapies directed at splicing intervention. An international consortium between researchers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Australia is planning clinical trials to evaluate AO intervention in DMD. In a relatively short space of time, exon skipping has progressed from some interesting in vitro experiments to the planned commencement of first-time-in-human trials later this year. Despite much optimism in this area, caution must be advised. Exon skipping cannot ''cure'' DMD but may reduce the severity; exon skipping cannot be applied to all cases of DMD and complete coverage of many dystrophin mutations would require a large battery of different AOs. Each AO must be regarded as a different drug and the extensive safety and toxicology testing will be a massive undertaking that must be addressed.


This paper chronicles the game preferences of American children during the twentieth century, documenting the results from four studies between 1898 and 1998. These studies are used to compare the popularity of particular activities (e.g., hopscotch, baseball) and types of activities (e.g., board games, games of individual skill) by gender over a one-hundred-year period. With this longitudinal, multistudy comparison, it is revealed that the game preferences of boys and girls have become markedly more similar. This pattern of increased play preference convergence throughout the twentieth century suggests an erosion of gender-determined institutionalized norms related to games. The dominance of electronic games and organized sport in the most recent of the four surveys not only reflects the technological advances of American society; it also indicates an increased desire for games that demand greater skill and promote role specialization.


Objective: Several biomarker have shown associations with severity, vasospasm, ischemic events or outcome in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Yet no biomarker is used in daily clinical routine. Previously encephalin peptides were described as new biomarkers in ischemic stroke and traumatic brain injury. We sought to evaluate the usefulness of Proenkephalin A, a precursor protein of encephalin peptides, as biomarker in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Method: Eighteen consecutive patients with aSAH had plasma PENK A levels measured with a validated chemiluminescence sandwich immunoassay. The association of PENK A levels at admission with severity of SAH according to the World Federation of Neurological Surgeons (WFNS) grade after resuscitation was the primary endpoint. Levels of PENK A are analyzed with respect to different clinical and radiological scores as well as between patients with ICH, intraventricular hemorrhage, hydrocephalus, brain edema, vasospasm and ischemia.

Results: Good grade patients showed median PENK A levels of 73.9pmol/l (IQR 69-80.4) and poor grade patients 117pmol/l (IQR 86-149). PENK A levels are significantly associated with severity of SAH as graded on the WFNS scale (p=0.03). No other parameter had a significant association.

Conclusions: PENK A might be a useful serum marker in aSAH. Yet, larger trials also with serial PENK A assessments are needed.


The basic 12-disk Minitek system (14 tests) and the API 20E system were evaluated for identification of Yersinia enterocolitica strains isolated at various locations in the world. The API 20E system correctly identified all the Y. enterocolitica strains while the Minitek system identified 80% (20/25) of the strains. Four of the five cultures misidentified by Minitek were atypical strains isolated from vacuum-packaged meats. These four cultures were identified as Citrobacter freundii by Minitek due to a rhamnose-positive reaction. Minitek and API 20E are rapid and convenient systems which could prove to be beneficial for identifying Y. enterocolitica strains.


An 82-year-old man treated with phenytoin for the prevention of symptomatic epilepsy was hospitalized to treat consciousness disturbance, seizure, and hypocalcemia (serum calcium: 4.6 mg/dL). Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level was very low (5.4 ng/mL), whereas serum calcitriol level was normal (27 pg/mL) and serum intact parathyroid hormone level was increased (369 pg/mL). He was finally diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency associated with low sunlight exposure and long-term phenytoin use for symptomatic epilepsy: phenytoin is shown to accelerate catabolism of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. Combination treatment with eldecalcitol and maxacalcitol ointments successfully normalized corrected serum calcium level: both eldecalcitol and maxacalcitol are vitamin D receptor activators used for osteoporosis and psoriasis, respectively. Our case illustrates the importance of periodic serum calcium level monitoring in patients receiving anti-epileptic drugs and the usefulness of eldecalcitol and maxacalcitol ointment as a therapeutic option for hypocalcemia, especially in countries where native vitamin D and 25-hydroxyvitamin D are not available.


An epilepsy syndrome is a disorder characterized by a cluster of symptoms and signs customarily occurring in combination. A syndromic approach to the epilepsies would be of practical value for diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic purposes. However, despite considerable efforts by leaders in the field of epileptology and the improved knowledge of the clinical, genetic, imaging, and biologic aspects of epilepsy, there are no measurable objective criteria for recognizing seizure types and epilepsy syndromes as separate diagnostic entities with well‐defined prognostic and therapeutic aspects. The lack of pragmatic, evidence‐based instruments to devise a syndromic classification useful for clinical practice can be explained by the evolving concept of epilepsy syndrome, its dynamic characteristics, the poor prognostic predictivity, and the extremely complex genetic and pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying the epileptic phenomena. In addition, the results of the published reports on epilepsy syndromes are mostly biased by flaws in the study population, design, and statistical analysis. The Classification Core Group of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), which is working on a new classification of the epilepsies, stated that the process of syndrome identification requires that an evidence‐based approach be applied to the published literature and future studies.


The use of intercropping sorghum-palisadegrass for grain and straw production has become an advantageous cultivation option, can provide improvements in physical and chemical soil properties, maximizes production and income to the growers. There are still many management gaps to be improved in this intercropping in order that grower has the best outcome. Considering this, the objective of this study was to evaluate different sowing dates of palisadegrass in relation to sorghum, and evaluate the yield of soybean cultivated in succession. Palisadegrass was sown in monocrop and also between the lines of sorghum at different times (0, 15 and 25 days after sowing sorghum), as well the sorghum in monocrop. Soybeans were grown in succession on the straw of the mentioned treatments. It was evaluated biomass production and grain yield. Sowing palisadegrass and sorghum on the same day reduced sorghum grain yield and the palisadegrass biomass production. However, if palisadegrass are sowed 15 days after sorghum sowing, did not reduce the sorghum grain yield. Also, if the producer aims to produce sorghum grains, it is better to delay the sowing of palisadegrass in relation to sorghum. Although, if the producer aims to produce residual dry biomass, it is better to sow palisadegrass on the same day as sorghum or monocrop palisadegrass. Soybean yield did not differ among treatments when grown on different straws in the first year of cultivation.


The name of E. J. Allen will always be associated with the Marine Biological Association and its Laboratory at Plymouth. It was to this institution that he devoted almost the whole of his working life, and it was under his wise guidance that it grew from small beginnings, through long years of anxiety and disappointment, to the established position it ultimately attained. He was the second son of the Rev. Richard Allen of Liverpool, and he was born at Preston in Lancashire on 6 April 1866. His father had been ordained as a Wesleyan Methodist minister in 1859 and it was while serving at Bideford in Devon that he met and married Emma Johnson, the daughter of a shipbuilder of that town who was descended from a freeman of Exeter, long connected with ships and shipping. There were eight children of this marriage, five sons and three daughters. The sons were all educated at John Wesley's school, originally founded in 1748 at the village of Kingswood, near Bristol, and transferred in 1851 to a site on Lansdown Hill, overlooking the city of Bath. The eldest son, Dr H. N. Allen, was Professor of Engineering and afterwards Principal of the College of Science at Poona; the third son, C. B. Allen, became Assistant General Manager of the Midland Bank; the fourth, E. L. Allen, was Headmaster of the School of Art at Redditch; and the youngest, Dr H. S. Allen, F.R.S., is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of St Andrews. E. J. Allen was at school at the Grove (near Leeds) and at Kingswood (Bath) from 1876 to 1882, and here he came under the influence of T. G. Osborn, who was headmaster of both schools and achieved great success. It is said that 'he infused a marked enthusiasm into his upper boys; an extraordinary zeal for work took possession of the major part of them'. At Kingswood during his last two years he had as a contemporary Arthur Willey, who also attained distinction in zoological research.


In waveguide measurements on dielectric slabs, small air gaps between the guide walls and the dielectric sample are found to be capable of radically altering the complex reflection and transmission coefficients of the excitation mode. The modal-analysis representation is used to compute these coefficients for low-loss and high-loss samples with air gaps. The 'gap effect' is explained quantitatively by considering the influence of the dominant 'slab mode,' which focuses its energy into the dielectric slab, and the dominant 'gap mode,' which focuses its energy into the air gap. An experimental approach, which consists of filling the air gap with conducting paste, is shown to essentially correct the problem. >


Gamification has gained currency in the recent past and has widely being deployed in various disciplines such as health, education, marketing amongst others. The main driving factor of deploying gamification is due to its motivational element. Gamification, particularly in education, has been used to motivate and elicit engagement in learners. However the implementation of gamification within e-learning platforms has been of the "One size fits all" i.e., uniform application of gamification elements to all learners, albeit learners possess different characters which are distinct from each other. The need to embrace the "One size does not fit all" approach necessitates introduction of adaptive gamification. This study sought to develop an adaptive gamification model. The study used the Design science research methodology (DSRM) using the problem instantiation approach to develop the adaptive gamification model, which can be used to guide and implement adaptivity within e-learning platforms. In the development of the model the study reviewed 15 adaptive gamification studies from which the key components of an adaptive gamification model were synthesized and a final model proposed.