Socioeconomic-related inequalities in health despite gains in extended life spans remain a key equity issue that calls into question society's burden of illness and the role of a universal healthcare system. The extent to which socioeconomic conditions systematically vary with population health has been a matter of empirical analysis aimed at measuring social equity. This paper attempts to measure the dynamics of socioeconomic-related inequalities in health by decomposing contributions of changes in income and health over time.

A long-run measure of socioeconomic-related inequalities in health based on the health concentration index will be constructed following the approach of Allanson, Gerdtham & Petrie (2010) using waves 1 to 5 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. The dynamics of changing inequality will be captured by two indices: the income-related health mobility index and the health-related income mobility index. To further the analysis, the measure will be decomposed to account for both patterns of morbidity and mortality changes as proposed by Petrie, Allanson & Gerdtham (2011).

The study indicates that there has been a positive increase in the concentration index for both males and females in Australia between 2001 and 2005. Upon decomposition, pattern of health changes are shown to favour those with initially higher incomes. Similarly, those in poor health decline from their initial income rankings which further contribute to health inequalities. Accounting for mortality has had a noticeable impact on mobility indices with deaths being biased towards those with lower incomes.

The study concludes that estimates from Australia are akin to estimates from Scotland and England & Wales, while characteristically, greater regressivity in health outcomes is seen for Australian males than for Australian females.


Interaction techniques for handheld mobile Augmented Reality (AR) often focus on device-centric methods based around touch input. However, users may not be able to easily interact with virtual objects in mobile AR scenes if they are holding the handheld device with one hand and touching the screen with the other, while at the same time trying to maintain visual tracking of an AR marker. In this paper we explore novel interaction methods for handheld mobile AR that overcomes this problem. We investigate two different approaches; (1) freeze view touch and (2) finger gesture based interaction. We describe how each method is implemented and present findings from a user experiment comparing virtual object manipulation with these techniques to more traditional touch methods.


We investigated the dependence of valence- and core-level photoemission spectra of amorphous In2O3–ZnO (a-IZO) films on carrier density by using hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (hν=8000 eV). The valence band edge distinctly shifts toward high binding energy with the increase in carrier density from 0.80 to 3.96 × 1020 cm−3, and an abrupt jump for the shift of the valence band edge from high to low binding energy occurs at a carrier density of 4.76×1020 cm−3. After considering the effect of nonparabolic bandstructure, the shifts are still less than the width of the occupied conduction band, providing direct evidence for the band gap shrinkage. Our calculation results indicate that the contribution of the band gap shrinkage increases as the carrier density increases, which accords with the observations in doped conducting crystal materials, such as Sn doped In2O3. Moreover, it is found that the conduction electrons of a-IZO films are strongly perturbed by the ionization of core levels, which leads to ...


This article aims to show that it is impossible to put Cicero's testimonies regarding The Fabius Argument in a consistent inferential order. Either we must suppose that additional premises are tacitly assumed in the text or we must compare it with other sources, which leads to inconsistencies in the proof's reconstruction. Cicero's reconstruction of the progression of the argument has formal shortcomings, and the paper draws attention to some of these deficiencies. He interpreted sources in a revised and intentionally simplified way, with the aim of undermining the views of his opponents, casting them as inconsistent and similar to views held by Diodorus. Rather than being a consistently interpreted argument faithfully transcribed from the Stoic sources, Cicero's Fabius Argument is ultimately anti-Stoic. ,


In this article, we study 19-year-olds in Sweden (n = 2,942) with and without an immigration background (Iran, Yugoslavia, and Sweden). We follow-up on a recent study, which shows that religion and happiness tend to be positively associated at the individual level only in countries with high aggregate levels of religiosity and proposes that what affects happiness is not religiosity per se but conformity to the standard in one's country. We take these results a step further and study the relationship between religion and happiness across immigrant groups that have significantly different experiences of religion. Are we more likely to find a positive association between religion and happiness among young Swedes with parents born in Iran and Yugoslavia than among those with two Sweden-born parents? And do these associations depend on their sense of affiliation with Sweden? We argue that there are strong theoretical reasons to assume that previous results also apply to the observed association between religious networks and happiness, and we study to what extent previous results can be generalized to societies like Sweden, which has a very low aggregate level of religiosity, and whether that effect differs by immigration background. The results show that religion and religiousness per se have little impact on happiness. In particular, we find that social networks tend to be positively associated with happiness, and that this effect is driven by co-organizational membership among friends. (Less)


A novel configuration of CVT that contains two cones located in the same shaft face to face is researched about the traction performance under high speed based on the theory of elastohydrodynamic lubrication(EHL). The effects of load, radii of curvature and slip-roll ratio on the traction characteristics and power transmission are analyzed. The results show that with increasing load the traction coefficient enhances close to linearly where the load is not heavy and the minimum film thickness decreases linearly when the inner wheel radii of curvature less than 0.085m. The leftmost position could transmit higher power. The power transmitted improves slightly as slip-roll ratio enhances in an appropriate range.


Certain behavioural and morphological aspects of cellular transformation have been studied, using baby hamster kidney cells (BHK21/13) and polyoma virus-transformed BHK cells. BHK cellsgrow to monolayer arranged in parallel arrays, whereas the transformed cells show a much greater incidence of crisscrossing and multilayering. Time-lapse cinemicrography and scanning electron microscopy were used to examine the behaviour producing these striking differences in cellular pattern. It was found, contrary to previous thought, that in both cell lines, when contact is made ruffle to ruffle, ruffling is inhibited. When BHK cell contact each other ruffle to side, strong adhesions always occur, as evidence by a large deformation of the contacted cell margin, with accompanying paralysis of ruffling. Then, the contacting cell either changes direction, usually spreading along the side of the contacted cell, or occasionally continues to protrude and underlap the other cell, although the original adhesions are seen to remain. Transformed cells never form strong ruffle-to-side adhesions, and usually underlap each other totally. When the cells were filmed, fixed and the same cells relocated in the scanning electron microscope, neither cell type was seen to move over the surface of another (overlap). Rather, all cells crisscross by underlapping (moving under the other cell). SEM also reveals PyBHK cells to have many fewer side-to-substratum adhesions than BHK cells. The smaller number of these attachments could explain the ease with which PyBHK cells underlap.


Introduction Family-focused nursing has gained ground worldwide, and a range of healthcare systems are now practicing family-focused nursing, which has been shown to increase the quality of care. Even so, a lack of research remains into family-focused nursing for various groups of patients in clinical practice. Objectives The purpose of this study was to explore how family members (FMs) of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) experienced a family-focused nursing intervention in a clinical outpatient setting. Methods This was a qualitative phenomenological interview study employing Reflective Lifeworld Research (RLR) to explore humans' lived experiences. The data reported herein were derived from semi-structured interviews with seven FMs of patients with AF who participated in a clinical trial which tested a family-focused intervention in a Cardiology outpatient clinic treating patients with AF. The transcribed interviews were analyzed in four phases which is an iterative process as proposed by Dahlberg and Dahlberg. Findings The essence of the phenomenon was experiencing less panic and finding peace, which emerged from the following four patterns. (1) The FMs' post-AF experience, (2) Enhanced understanding and knowledge of AF, (3) Personal interaction with a nurse specialist and (4) AF becomes manageable. A space facilitating reflection upon the disease and daily life with the disease was established through group sessions and family conversations. Conclusion A family-focused nursing intervention facilitated by specialized nurses with extensive communication skills filled a knowledge gap related to AF thereby reducing panic and increasing peace among FMs. Furthermore, the intervention facilitated family awareness of their resources to bring about change, regain balance, and enhance well-being in their everyday lives and initiated a healing process in the families. Future interventions for patients with AF should consider FMs as well as patients as an entity of care.


This paper reports on an on-going project to research, develop and evaluate an intervention designed to enhance the subject-specialist pedagogy of trainee vocational science, engineering and technology (SET) teachers in English Further Education (FE) Colleges. For our project, pedagogy describes how teachers explain the decisions they make in relation to particular knowledge (in this case occupational) and in relation to a particular group of students (in this case on vocational SET courses). The intervention is designed to inform these teachers' pedagogical decision-making specific to their own occupational subject specialism. Following desk-based research on subject specialist pedagogy, our study has sought to apply and adapt concepts and approaches to make them relevant and influential for vocational SET teachers in the form of materials and activities.

The main conceptualisations that have been adapted and applied are Shulman's pedagogical content knowledge and signature pedagogies as well as Loughran, Berry and Mulhall's content representation. The intervention has also conceptualised how the workplace can be connected with the college workshop or classroom. Evaluation of the intervention's impact is based on questionnaires and interviews before and after the implementation. Based on analysis of the language used by the participants to discern any difference will enable inference of influence on their decision-making. We also report on other relevant factors including support in the workplace, previous experience and level of education. The impact of the intervention is judged in relation to these other variables.

Persuading vocational teachers that pedagogy is relevant to them and then persuading them to make time for professional development when their workload is so heavy have been extremely problematic during the project. So, we have had to develop new means to access these trainee teachers using entirely on-line resources and through training of their generic teacher educators based in the FE colleges.

The major issue remains that there are not enough teachers in vocational SET subjects in FE colleges, whether or not they are pedagogically proficient. Nevertheless, this project has shown that subject-specialist pedagogy can be made relevant to trainee vocational teachers and the eventual evaluation will indicate if their decision-making benefits from the associated concepts and approaches. Until the working environment, pay and workload of FE teachers are improved, however, such interventions may only have minimal impact.


The amount of data and information in the field of medical sciences is increasing at a tremendous rate. PubMed comprises more than 21 million citations from biomedical literature. There are various new discoveries and researches carried out in the field of biomedical sciences almost every year. All this information is really important and useful for the patients as well as medical practitioners and should reach them on time so that they can carry on the correct treatment for a particular patient based on the new knowledge. The project is an attempt to carry out the match-making of a patient's profile with the various medical publications and ranking them based on the semantics involved. INDEX WORDS: Semantics, Ontologies, PubMed, Match-making, Ranking, and Biomedical. SEMANTIC MATCH MAKING AND RANKING OF MEDICAL LITERATURE


For the case of a two-dimensional strain field the usual concepts of direct and of shear strains are developed in terms of the principal strains and of the orientations of the elements in question. These expressions are used to form a Mohr's circle, which permits the transformation of strain from one axis of reference to another, irrespective of the magnitude of the strain, and leads to the evaluation of the principal strain components from the measurement of direct strain in three directions. A numerical example of application to the mechanics of metal cutting is given. The paper may be of interest to metal-forming engineers and to specialists working in areas involving the analysis of large plastic strains.


Nowadays, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas. Since this proportion is expected to keep rising, the sustainable development of cities is of paramount importance to guarantee the quality of life of their inhabitants. Environmental noise is one of the main concerns that has to be addressed, due to its negative impact on the health of people. Different national and international noise directives and legislations have been defined during the past decades, which local authorities must comply with involving noise mapping, action plans, policing, and public awareness, among others. To this aim, a recent change in the paradigm for environmental noise monitoring has been driven by the rise of Internet of Things technology within smart cities through the design and development of wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs). This work reviews the most relevant WASN-based approaches developed to date focused on environmental noise monitoring. The proposals have moved from networks composed of high-accuracy commercial devices to the those integrated by ad hoc low-cost acoustic sensors, sometimes designed as hybrid networks with low and high computational capacity nodes. After describing the main characteristics of recent WASN-based projects, the paper also discusses several open challenges, such as the development of acoustic signal processing techniques to identify noise events, to allow the reliable and pervasive deployment of WASNs in urban areas together with some potential future applications.


We use idealized subduction megathrust models to examine aseismic, frictional fault creep throughout the interseismic period. We consider rate-dependent and rate- and state-dependent friction. When there is significant post-seismic creep surrounding locations of coseismic slip, the creep rates surrounding an asperity may be lower than the plate convergence rate late in the seismic cycle. This lowering of the creep rates is due to stress shadows forming around the interseismically locked asperities. The size of the stress shadows increases as there is more transient post-seismic creep. Larger asperities produce larger interseismic stress shadows, and multiple asperities can act together to produce a stress shadow larger than the sum of the effects of the individual asperities. For rate-state frictional megathrusts, there is a wide range of transient post-seismic creep that occurs: from pulses of post-seismic creep with decreasing creep rates through time, to delayed post-seismic creep. Delayed post-seismic creep may occur well into the interseismic period, with transient creep lasting over a significant portion of the seismic cycle. Delayed post-seismic creep is generally favoured in velocity strengthening regions with either a larger magnitude of the frictional direct effect or a larger effective normal stress. In addition, regions of the fault undergoing delayed post-seismic creep must be above steady state following coseismic slip.


Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the major cause of vision loss in the developed world. AMD is a chronic progressive disorder of the outer retina leading to vision loss from atrophy (geographic atrophy) and/or the development of choroidal neovascularisation (CNV). Mounting evidence indicates the importance of innate immunity in its pathogenesis. This thesis describes a programme of work conducted with the aim of further understanding the role of innate immune cells in AMD.
Analysis of mouse cell suspensions by flow cytometry demonstrated significantly greater densities of innate immune cell populations in the RPE-choroid than in the neurosensory retina. Dendritic cells accumulated in both tissues with increasing age, and this process was accelerated in mice deficient in a chemokine upregulated in the aged choroid - CCL2. Innate immune cells were recruited to CNV lesions in mouse models of laser-induced and spontaneous CNV. Increasing age was found to correlate with the extent of laser CNV lesion size but not with recruitment of innate immune cells. Impaired recruitment of innate immune cells in CCL2-deficient mice was associated with a smaller laser-CNV lesion size, which nonetheless increased with age. Attenuation of CNV lesion size by targeting key angiogenic pathways using the small molecule pazopanib or by direct targeting of innate immune cells by induction of alternative activation using a CD200R agonist was associated with subtle increases in the recruitment of innate immune cell subpopulations to CNV lesions.
Findings did not support the hypothesis that age-related vulnerability to laser CNV is a consequence of age-related changes in innate immune cell populations. However, the results indicated that CCL2 controls dendritic cell migration in the ageing retina and the recruitment of innate immune cells to CNV lesions. Further investigation of these pathways may lead to better treatments in the prevention and management of AMD.


Pyrenemethyl laurate (PMLes), a fluorogenic substrate for determining in vitro lipase activity [Nègre, Salvayre, Dagan and Gatt (1989) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1006, 84-88], has been administered to cultured lymphoblastoid cells from normal subjects and from a patient affected with Wolman disease, which is characterized by a deficiency of lysosomal acid lipase. The intracellular degradation of PMLes was dependent on the mode of administration of the substrate into the cells, and occurred by two separate pathways involving lysosomal and extra-lysosomal hydrolases. PMLes incorporated into LDL was taken up by normal lymphoblastoid cells through the apolipoprotein-B/E-receptor-mediated pathway and degraded in the lysosomal compartment, as suggested by the degradation block in Wolman cells. In contrast, when PMLes dissolved in 2% dimethyl sulphoxide was added directly to the culture medium, its hydrolysis was similar in lymphoblastoid cells from controls and from patients affected with Wolman disease, neutral lipid storage disease or familial hypercholesterolaemia. This suggested that the administered PMLes was degraded by a non-lysosomal enzyme which is not deficient in Wolman cells. This enzyme also differs from the neutral lipase system which is deficient in lymphoblastoid cells from patients with neutral lipid storage disease. When pyrenemethanol was administered directly to the cell culture, it was only poorly acylated and was rapidly released into the culture medium. These results and the fluorescence properties of PMLes ('monomeric' emission in a hydrophobic environment and 'excimeric' emission in a hydrophilic environment) and pyrenemethanol ('monomeric' emission in a hydrophilic environment) allowed us to design a 'direct reading' procedure by monitoring (without any lipid extraction) the fluorescence of intact living cells and that of the culture medium during pulse-chase experiments. This method allowed the direct evaluation of the time course of in situ degradation of PMLes. In pulse-chase experiments with LDL-PMLes, the fluorescence of normal cells decreased relatively rapidly with time whereas the fluorescence of the culture medium increased concomitantly. With Wolman cells, the cellular fluorescence decreased only very slightly, whereas that of the culture medium remained at the basal level; this demonstrates the catabolic block in intact living cells from patients with Wolman disease. In vitro degradation of PMLes indicated the existence of two PMLes-degrading enzymes in lymphoblastoid cell homogenates: one is the acid lipase which is involved in PMLes degradation in the lysosomal compartment (and is deficient in Wolman cells), while the second is a cytoplasmic enzyme (not deficient in Wolman cells).


Pulsed thermography is gaining wide acceptance in the aerospace, automotive and power generation industries, owing to its quickness of inspection, repeatability and sensitivity. Recently, advancement in pulsed thermographic data processing has been made by Thermal Wave Imaging Inc (TWI) in USA. A technique called thermographic signal reconstruction (TSR) has been devised. By approximating the raw data sequence with logarithmic polynomial function, this technique produces three types of images, namely: the synthetic image and first and second time derivative images. These images facilitate detection of smaller and/or deeper defects, which are undetectable on the raw data sequence. In this work, qualitative and quantitative assessments of the TSR images have been conducted using aluminium, CFRP and GFRP composites and mild steel samples. Results have validated the significant enhancement of the TSR process. A quantitative study performed using CFRP composite has shown that an improvement of 60% in detection depth has achieved for defects greater than 4 mm diameter. Defects have been imaged at depths greater than 5 mm in composites.


The purpose of this analysis is to identify, characterize, and explain patterns in the distributions of artifacts on the floors of three housepits at the Keatley Creek site. This site, located on the east side of the Fraser River, about 30 km north of Lillooet, B.C., is one of the last large pithouse villages in British Columbia's Interior Plateau region which has remained relatively undisturbed since its abandonment. Between 1986 and 1989, excavators working here uncovered most of the floors of three housepits which appear to have been last occupied just before the site was deserted about 1100 years ago. The data collected in the course of these excavations and the subsequent analysis is probably the largest, most complete, and most accurately recorded body of data ever amassed on material culture distributions within B.C. housepits. The patterned use of space on pithouse floors in the last occupation can be a major source of artifact patterning observed in archaeological floor deposits. Co-residential groups which were organized differently in social terms should also have organized their use of space differently, producing different patterns in the distributions of artifacts on the floors where they lived. Previous research has suggested that, during the Kamloops Phase of the Plateau Pithouse Tradition (c.1200-200 B.P.), the largest pithouses at large pithouse village sites in the Mid-Fraser River region of British Columbia's Interior Plateau may have been occupied by groups which were more hierarchical in their social organization than contemporary groups in smaller houses. Three housepits of varying sizes were excavated from this period at the Keatley Creek site in the Mid-Fraser River region. The distributions of lithic artifacts on the floors of these housepits, all of which date to the Kamloops Phase, are examined in this analysis. Statistical analysis and visual inspection of the distributions of firecracked rock, debitage, and modified artifact types revealed clear patterns. Notably, three concentric zones divided into radial segments by the hearths were distinguished in the largest pithouse both by the distributions of several classes of artifacts and by the ... 111 arrangement of features on the floor. In the two smaller houses, the clearest distinctions were between opposite sides of the floors. The possible contribution of a variety of cultural and non-cultural processes to the formation of these assemblages was considered. It was concluded that the observed patterns were best explained as the products of cultural processes related to the social organization of space during the periods when the houses were last occupied. Differences between areas of the floors in terms of the quantity and kinds of artifacts they contained were interpreted as evidence that different areas were used for different purposes. Some of the differences were attributed to sex specific activities, craft specialization, or status distinctions. The radial segments which cross-cut the concentric zones in the largest house were interpreted as evidence for the division of space among several somewhat independent domestic groups within a hierarchically-organized corporate group. The bilateral patterns on the smaller floors could not be interpreted in this fashion.


Physical keyboards have been peripheral input devices to electronic computers since early 1970s and become ubiquitous during the past few decades, especially in professional areas such as software programming, professional game playing, and document processing. In these real-world applications, key bindings, a fundamental vehicle for human to interact with software systems using physical keyboards, play a critical role in users' productivity. However, as essential applications of artificial intelligence research, research on intelligent user interfaces and recommender systems barely relates to key bindings on physical keyboards. In this paper, we develop a recommender system (referred to as EKBRS) for intelligently recommending key bindings with demonstration in Emacs, which we use as a base user interface. This is a brand new direction of intelligent user interface research and also a novel application of recommender systems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the world's first intelligent user interface that heavily exploits key bindings of physical keyboards and the world's first recommender system for recommending key bindings. We empirically show the effectiveness of our recommender system and briefly discuss the applicability of this recommender system to other software systems.


As representatives for our entire team, we thank Jhaveri et al. (1) for their insightful comments on our recent study investigating the increased expression of programmed cell death protein-1 (PD1) in kidneys during aging and FSGS.(2) In our manuscript we showed that PD1 was predominantly increased in podocytes and kidney tubular epithelial cells in both mice and humans. Moreover, in humans, age-elevated glomerular PCDC1 (gene encoding human PD1) levels were associated with a lower eGFR, increased segmental glomerulosclerosis, and reduced arterial intima-to-lumen ratio. We also demonstrated a mechanistic link between increased PD1 levels in podocytes and their shortened lifespan. Finally, specifically antagonizing the PD1 pathway with a specific anti-PD1 antibody (similar to humanized Pembrolizumab or Nivolumab) in aged mice and mice with experimental FSGS had major benefits on kidney histology, podocyte life- and health-span, and tubular epithelial injury.(2)In their response, Jhaveri and colleagues, experts in onco-nephrology, eloquently discuss the clinical kidney-specific adverse events (AEs) when using immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) in cancer patients.(1) They provide important clinical insights and an up-to-date summary of the incidence and types of glomerular lesions, acute kidney injury and acute interstitial nephritis observed in patients receiving ICI for cancer treatment.(3,4) Importantly, complete or partial remission of kidney-specific AEs upon discontinuation of ICI treatment in a subset of patients suggests a causal link.(3, 4) We unreservedly agree with Jhaveri et al. that caution is warranted when using ICI clinically. In fact, we have not advocated the clinical use of anti-PD1 treatment to limit or reverse kidney aging, nor to be used as a therapy for FSGS.The clinical data highlighted by Jhaveri et al. underscore the importance of gaining a better understanding of the mechanism(s) underlying kidney complications in patients. While T cell activation, proliferation and subsequent kidney infiltration is the leading hypothesis,(3, 4) how this cumulates into kidney dysfunction is unknown. ICIs block the CTLA-4 and/or PD1 pathways. CTLA-4 acts early in tolerance induction, stopping potentially autoreactive T cells at the initial stage of naive T-cell activation, while PD1 acts late to maintain long-term tolerance, primarily in peripheral tissues.(5) Typically a lower incidence of AEs is associated with PD1 blockade compared with CTLA-4 blockade.(3, 4) Interestingly, in our study mice Ctla4 mRNA levels in contrast to PD1 were not elevated in podocytes with age.There are also several differences between humans and mice that may influence the response to anti-PD1 treatments. To reconcile these, one needs to experimentally align the animal studies with the therapeutic scenario in human cancer patients. Possible considerations include: (i) the duration of therapy - in our study mice received 8 weeks of treatment, while human patients typically receive a 13-week median drug exposure before glomerular disease is first detected; (ii) the presence of comorbid conditions is oftentimes present in humans (e.g., patients receiving additional medications or already exhibiting altered kidney function before receiving ICI agents), but was absent in our mice; (iii) sex and age - the median age of patients developing glomerular disease after ICI treatment is 63 years and 75% thereof are male,(4) while our mouse study was based on males only; (iv) drug dosing - the therapeutic doses of ICIs used in humans might be much higher than the doses of the mouse-specific anti-PD1 antibody yielding beneficial effects in mouse podocytes; (v) finally, genetic variation in humans may influence the response to anti-PD1 treatments, while mice strains are genetically very homogenous.We believe that our study has provided some exciting new considerations that has moved us ahead scientifically. First, the PD1 signaling is a new pathway contributing to the aging of podocytes and other kidney epithelial cells, as well as the response of podocytes in disease. Second, podocyte aging and diseased-induced podocyte injury share a new common pathway - PD1. This raises the possibility that PD1 signaling is one of the pathways responsible for the more severe kidney injury when FSGS is superimposed on an aged kidney. Third, the effects of the anti-PD1 antibody treatment are not restricted to the kidney, but also reduced some aspects of liver aging. This suggests that it might be a common aging pathway, that needs to be studied further. Fourth, the unexpected discovery of PD1 signaling in aging leads us to predict that there will be additional surprises in new pathways contributing to kidney aging and disease that will translate into new druggable targets.


The IEEE802.15.4 wireless technology is one of the enablers of the Internet of Things. It allows constrained devices to communicate with a satisfactory data rate, payload size and distance range, all with reduced energy consumption. To provide IoT devices with a global Internet identity, 6LoWPAN defines the IPv6 adaptation to communicate over IEEE802.15.4. However, this integration still needs additional protocols to support other IoT requirements, which makes the IP stack in IoT devices more complex and therefore shows the limitations of the IP model to support the needs of future Internet. Named Data Networking represents an alternative that can natively support IoT constraints including mobility, security and human readable data names. This paper is a synthesis of an ongoing work that investigates the integration of NDN with IEEE802.15.4 for constrained IoT devices. The proposed design has been implemented in a real-world smart agriculture scenario, and evaluated by simulation focusing on energy consumption and network overhead in comparison to IP-based protocols.


Geriatric psychiatry will be increasingly important in years to come as the care of the elderly becomes a health problem in India. Those aged 60 and over contribute to 6% of the country's population at present. The life expectancy of an average Indian has increased from 24 years in 1900 to 53 in 1971. Improved health care promises longevity, but social and economic conditions like poverty, breakup of the joint family system and poor services, specifically for the aged, pose a psychiatric threat to them. Organic diseases and effective disorders form the bulk of psychiatric illness in the aged. Suggestions for research in areas such as social, cultural and changing attitudes, and national economics, have been suggested as a promising field for preventive geriatric services. Adding life to years is more important than adding years to life. The paper offers some references to the studies on geriatric psychiatry in India and discusses cultural factors affecting the aged.


This paper aims to discover benefits and challenges faced by English teachers along their involvement in Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programs in Yogyakarta. There were 73 senior high school English teachers in Yogyakarta city and Sleman regency as the participants in this research. The data were obtained through both quantitative and qualitative methods, distributed questionnaires and followed by in-depth interviews to five participants. The results of this paper firstly showed that some TPD programs were found to be beneficial perceived by the English teachers. Secondly, there were two major challenges faced by the participants, namely teachers workload time management and also the lack of effective follow up programs.DOI:doi.org/10.24071/ijiet.2019.030212


Despite significant interest in developing extracellular matrix (ECM)‐inspired biomaterials to recreate native cell‐instructive microenvironments, the major challenge in the biomaterial field is to recapitulate the complex structural and biophysical features of native ECM. These biophysical features include multiscale hierarchy, electrical conductivity, optimum wettability, and mechanical properties. These features are critical to the design of cell‐instructive biomaterials for bioengineering applications such as skeletal muscle tissue engineering. In this study, we used a custom‐designed film fabrication assembly, which consists of a microfluidic chamber to allow electrostatic charge‐based self‐assembly of oppositely charged polymer solutions forming a hydrogel fiber and eventually, a nanocomposite fibrous hydrogel film. The film recapitulates unidirectional hierarchical fibrous structure along with the conductive properties to guide initial alignment and myotube formation from cultured myoblasts. We combined high conductivity, and charge carrier mobility of graphene with biocompatibility of polysaccharides to develop graphene–polysaccharide nanocomposite fibrous hydrogel films. The incorporation of graphene in fibrous hydrogel films enhanced their wettability, electrical conductivity, tensile strength, and toughness without significantly altering their elastic properties (Young's modulus). In a proof‐of‐concept study, the mouse myoblast cells (C2C12) seeded on these nanocomposite fibrous hydrogel films showed improved spreading and enhanced myogenesis as evident by the formation of multinucleated myotubes, an early indicator of myogenesis. Overall, graphene–polysaccharide nanocomposite fibrous hydrogel films provide a potential biomaterial to promote skeletal muscle tissue regeneration.


In this paper, a novel perfect tracking control method based on multirate feedforward control is proposed. The advantages of the proposed method are that: (1) the proposed multirate feedforward controller eliminates the notorious unstable zero problem in designing the discrete-time inverse system; (2) the states of the plant match the desired trajectories at every sampling point of reference input; and (3) the proposed controller is completely independent of the feedback characteristics. Thus, highly robust performance is assured by the robust feedback controller. Moreover, by generalizing the relationship between the sampling period of plant output and the control period of plant input, the proposed method can be applied to various systems with hardware restrictions of these periods, which leads to higher performance. Next, it is shown that the structure of the proposed perfect tracking controller is very simple and clear. Illustrative examples of position control using a DC servomotor are presented, and simulations and experiments demonstrate the advantages of this approach.


This book represents the first comprehensive effort to analyze informal finance in Peru. We gathered data from a survey designed to capture formal and non-formal credit and savings transactions. We surveyed rural households, urban micro entrepreneurs, and wholesalers from three regions: Junin, La Libertad and Lima. Overall, we find high loan (65%) and savings rates (above 70%). Moreover, interestingly, while the number of non-formal credit transactions account for 81.5% of the total, they also represent 58.2% of the total loaned amount. As a result, average loans are significantly smaller in the non-formal sector (besides having shorter terms). The 48 case studies conducted to examine the anatomy of non-formal intermediaries show us the importance of the formal-informal financial linkage.


Due to the increasing demand of deep drawing applications for magnesium alloys in the future magnesium sheets with good mechanical and forming properties are required. These properties depend on the processing route of the sheet material. The deformation behavior of magnesium alloys is strongly influenced by the texture. Extruded magnesium sheets exhibit a different texture than rolled magnesium sheets. Therefore, the forming properties of the extruded magnesium sheets are supposed to be different compared to rolled sheets. Thin extrusion of the magnesium alloy AZ31 with a thickness of 1.5 and 2 mm were performed. Adjacent the extruded sheets were tested for their microstructure, texture and mechanical properties. The texture stability and evolution after the rolling of extruded magnesium sheets were investigated. Thus some of the 1.5 mm sheets were rolled to 1.0 mm and analyzed by OIM, X-Ray and mechanical testing. Concluding the results were compared to the properties of the just extruded 1.5 mm sheet and conventionally rolled sheet of 1 mm thickness.


In research on the development of a nineteenth-century 'science for the people', initiatives by scientists or people well-trained in science has been emphasised, while the writings, roles and initiatives of elementary teachers are normally just mentioned in passing. In this study the development of nineteenth-century elementary science textbooks is analysed. While practitioners and popularisers of science established the genre as such, writing the first textbooks on elementary science and arguing for its place in elementary education, elementary teachers were prime movers in developing the genre both pedagogically and scientifically. In doing this they not only contributed to further strengthening the cultural status of science in late nineteenth-century Sweden but most probably strengthened the elementary teaching profession as a whole, formulating the expertise of the teacher in relation to elementary science.


Numerical climate models are complex and combine a large number of physical processes. They are key tools in quantifying the relative contribution of potential anthropogenic causes (e.g., the current increase in greenhouse gases) on high impact atmospheric variables like heavy rainfall. These so-called climate extreme event attribution problems are particularly challenging in a multivariate context, that is, when the atmospheric variables are measured on a possibly high-dimensional grid.
In this paper, we leverage two statistical theories to assess causality in the context of multivariate extreme event attribution. As we consider an event to be extreme when at least one of the components of the vector of interest is large, extreme-value theory justifies, in an asymptotical sense, a multivariate generalized Pareto distribution to model joint extremes. Under this class of distributions, we derive and study probabilities of necessary and sufficient causation as defined by the counterfactual theory of Pearl. To increase causal evidence, we propose a dimension reduction strategy based on the optimal linear projection that maximizes such causation probabilities. Our approach is tested on simulated examples and applied to weekly winter maxima precipitation outputs of the French CNRM from the recent CMIP6 experiment.


Marketing, as it is known today, is supposed to be underpinned by the philosophy known as the marketing concept. The marketing concept can be described as a consumer-oriented philosophy which suggests that, by satisfying consumer needs, a firm can realise its own goals (Woodside, Frey and Daly, 1989; Schiffman and Kanuk, 1987; Bearden and Teel, 1983). Hence, the satisfaction of consumer needs is deemed to be central in successfully implementing the marketing concept, which ought to ensure long-term survival and profitability.


A procedure for the dynamic simulation analysis of the globoidal indexing cam mechanism is presented. Fist of all, the 3D model of globoidal indexing cam mechanism is established. Then, the virtual model needed by ADAMS is directly achieved by converting the 3D assembly model through the interface of SimDesigner in CATIA. In ADAMS, the tendency curves of angle velocity, acceleration of the indexing plate and contact forces between the roller and cam are made by dynamic simulation. It is very obvious to see the influence of the thickness of preload plate and assembly error on the maximum acceleration of indexing disk from the simulation result, and it will contribute to the design and assembly the globoidal indexing cam mechanism.


An ultrasonic wire was developed that can be threaded through the blood vessels to disintegrate or liquefy occlusive material by cavitation. Using an entry point at the groin, the wire, varying in size from 0.018 to 0.032 in., is flexible enough to reach well below the knee as well as the coronary arteries. It is important to prevent transverse whipping motion in the long wire (2–4 1/2 ft.), which reduces the needed linear motion, and tends to break the wire. Here, 110 dB of sound, mostly ultrasound, can be detected coming off the side of the wire at transverse vibration. There is only a small reduction in tip amplitude as the wire is bent. Most heating is at node points when the wire is straight, and at antinodes when the wire rubs against the surrounding catheter. To date, actual in vivo human tests have been more encouraging than in vivo bench top evaluations. There are several interesting reasons for this.


We demonstrate the cost-effective and facile method of fabricating close-packed microlens arrays using photoinduced two-dimensional (2-D) surface relief structures as original templates. 2-D surface relief structures are produced by successive inscription of two beams interference patterns with different grating vectors on azopolymer films. The employed exposure dose of 1st inscription stage and 2nd inscription stage are optimized to obtain symmetrical modulation heights. These photoinduced 2-D surface relief structures on azopolymer films are used directly to mold PDMS, and PDMS molds were then transferred onto photopolymer to imprint microlens arrays. Using this method, tetragonally and hexagonally close-packed microlens arrays are successfully fabricated in rapid and cost-effective way.


A statistically based enquiry into recruitment into the British Army over the period 1987-2000 shows that two factors tend to induce young men to enlist: high levels of unemployment in the civilian sector and positive signals from the authorities that the Army is in a recruiting phase. The same result obtains, broadly speaking, in the context of both white and non-white (ethnic minority) recruitment, although the willingness of ethnic minority young men to contemplate an Army career is only about a quarter of that of white men, other things being equal. Correspondingly, the Army shows no signs of reaching the target agreed with the Commission for Racial Equality in 1997 for a 1 percentage point increase annually in the percentage of recruits being drawn from the ethnic minorities. This article has something to say about how the Army might improve its performance in this regard by offering more in-service training and education to otherwise underqualified recruits and concentrating recruitment effort on regions of high ethnic minority unemployment.


In recent decades, OT scholarship has witnessed the emergence of undercurrents of what may be called a fourth paradigm. In contrast to the three familiar faith-based "paradigms," this one is essentially atheistic. Scholars working in the fourth paradigm do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God, God's Word in human speech, or human words about God. On this view, the texts are just human words and have no transcendental signified. In addition, a plurality of atheistic approaches to the text is operative within the varieties of atheism that can be distinguished. Ultimately though, this paradigm too has its pros and cons, both of which have implications with regard to future prospects for local atheist OT scholars. This article aims to present only a brief, personal, and introductory take on a controversial subject.


Getting Gametes Together Despite decades of research, the molecular basis of sperm-egg recognition in mammals remains unresolved. Models in which a glycan ligand in the zona pellucida (ZP) surrounding ovulated eggs binds to a sperm surface receptor have been widely embraced. A more recent model proposes that the cleavage status of a ZP protein, ZP2, renders the structure of the zona matrix either permissive or nonpermissive for sperm binding. Gahlay et al. (p. 216) tested predictions of each model by replacing endogenous zona proteins with either a mutant form of ZP2 that could not be cleaved or of ZP3 that lacked O glycan attachment sites. Sperm-egg recognition depended on the cleavage status of ZP2 rather than on glycan ligands released following fertilization. The cleavage status of the egg protein ZP2 regulates the recognition of sperm and prevents adherence of sperm to the two-cell embryo. At fertilization, mouse sperm bind to the zona pellucida (which consists of glycoproteins ZP1, ZP2, and ZP3) that surrounds eggs. A ZP2 cleavage model of gamete recognition requires intact ZP2, and a glycan release model postulates that zona glycans are ligands for sperm. These two models were tested by replacing endogenous protein with ZP2 that cannot be cleaved (Zp2Mut) or with ZP3 lacking implicated O glycans (Zp3Mut). Sperm bound to two-cell Zp2Mut embryos despite fertilization and cortical granule exocytosis. Contrary to prediction, sperm fertilized Zp3Mut eggs. Sperm at the surface of the zona pellucida remained acrosome-intact for more than 2 hours and were displaced by additional sperm. These data indicate that sperm-egg recognition depends on the cleavage status of ZP2 and that binding at the surface of the zona is not sufficient to induce sperm acrosome exocytosis.


Using data collected in the Community and Family Survey of the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region, this study estimates the level of child malnutrition and identifies the factors associated with chronic malnutrition among children in the five densely populated zones of the Region. A total of 850 children aged 3 - 36 months were included in the present study. Both bivariate and multivariate techniques were employed in order to identify risk factors of child malnutrition. The results indicate that about 45% of children are stunted, 42% underweight, and 12% wasted. The search for the factors affecting long-term nutritional status point to both socio-economic and demographic factors. Among the socio-economic factors, household economic status and women's education were important in explaining the variation in long-term nutritional status of children. From the demographic variables included in the analysis, age, preceding birth interval and number of under-five children were associated with stunting. Moreover, number of antenatal care visits the mother had during the pregnancy of the child and age at weaning are linked to chronic malnutrition. The study recommended the need for programs related to income-generating activities for poor households and family life education, including appropriate child care for women in reproductive age groups.


The existence of adversarial examples has been a mystery for years and attracted much interest. A well-known theory by \citet{ilyas2019adversarial} explains adversarial vulnerability from a data perspective by showing that one can extract non-robust features from adversarial examples and these features alone are useful for classification. However, the explanation remains quite counter-intuitive since non-robust features are mostly noise features to humans. In this paper, we re-examine the theory from a larger context by incorporating multiple learning paradigms. Notably, we find that contrary to their good usefulness under supervised learning, non-robust features attain poor usefulness when transferred to other self-supervised learning paradigms, such as contrastive learning, masked image modeling, and diffusion models. It reveals that non-robust features are not really as useful as robust or natural features that enjoy good transferability between these paradigms. Meanwhile, for robustness, we also show that naturally trained encoders from robust features are largely non-robust under AutoAttack. Our cross-paradigm examination suggests that the non-robust features are not really useful but more like paradigm-wise shortcuts, and robust features alone might be insufficient to attain reliable model robustness. Code is available at \url{https://github.com/PKU-ML/AdvNotRealFeatures}.


The relationship between River Ammer flood frequency variability, extreme summer climate over Europe, and solar forcing is investigated. First, we used observational data to evaluate extreme weather and climate anomaly patterns associated with flood and solar forcing as well as the possible dynamical mechanisms behind them. Then, the annual resolution flood layer record from the Lake Ammer sediments is analysed to evaluate millennial‐scale variability of floods and possible related extreme climate patterns back to 5,500 years BP. A composite analysis reveals that observed River Ammer flood frequency variability at interannual to multidecadal time scales is connected to large‐scale extreme precipitation and temperature patterns. From a synoptic‐scale perspective, the extreme precipitation pattern associated with floods is related to an increase in the frequency of high upper‐level potential vorticity (PV) events over western Europe and a decrease over eastern Europe and western Russia. Increased (decreased) frequency of upper‐level high PV events is related to more (less) surface extreme precipitation occurrence. Furthermore, we show that increased frequency of upper‐level high PV events over western Europe is associated with enhanced blocking activity over eastern Europe. Therefore, the out of phase interannual to millennial‐scale variations of River Ammer flood frequency and solar irradiance, as presented in previous studies, can be explained by a solar modulation of eastern European‐western Russia summer blocking and associated upstream upper‐level wave breaking activity. In addition, we identify two distinct quasi‐periodic signals in both frequency of Lake Ammer flood layer and solar irradiance records with periods of ~900 years and ~2,300 years. We argue that similar cycles should dominate millennial‐scale variations of blocking activity in eastern Europe‐western Russia as well as extreme precipitation and flood frequency variability over central and western Europe during the last ~5,500 years.


This research was based on the phenomenon preference to mass media in literature of newspaper or magazine, movie, television, advertising and books that show a harmful of a woman sterotype. The illustration that appear is a pasif woman and very depend on a man, dominated, except the end of decision that making by a man. Generally mass media shows a very little issue about woman. Event there the media hanging over to give some space for a tradisional thing or concern to a woman thing like a house keeping, mode, carrying a family and children through to bring an image a carrier woman which is success in a public area. Therefore , the researcher have formulating the formula is all illustration of a carrier woman that found in a SWA Sembada magazine. This research use a quantitative descriptive type, the purpose for making a description according to systematic about the facts of a empiric phenomenon to examined, which is just report the situation or the event and not explain the relation, not testing the hypothesis or making a prediction. Then all the data have brought together classified into a coding sheet to input the data based on the categories that have been decided. Then data presentation do by construct it can secutively and mentioned each frequency. Based on the result of this research fit with issue formation that researcher present, the conclusion are: 1. The carrier woman by their job department, are more take part in business field. This based on appearance frequency result about 27 times or 32,5% from total 83 work field categorization. Where as for manufacture take the second position with 21 times appearance or 25,3% followed by service department about 19 times appearance or 23% and for government instantion for about 16 times appearance or 19,2%. 2. The carrier woman that works in public area and domestic. Most of them are work in public area. This could seen by the appearance frequency about 36 times or 88% from entire total 41 job area categorization. 3. The carrier woman with high education, that could support her work credibility. It seems from the appearance frequency of education background categorization, where carrier woman who were finish their college out of state was more dominating, its about 17 times appearance or 60,7% and another who were go through college in country is about 11 times appearance or 39,3% from total 28 educational background categorization. 4. The carrier woman in this research most of them has been married. The appearance frequency result for for married sub-category is about 26 times or 96,3% from total 27 marriage status categorization. 5. The carrier woman that work in family company. It could seem from appearance frequency about 14 times or 70% from entire total 20 for company background categorization. The result above perform shows that SWA Sembada magazine could offer double role in carrier woman profile which adopted balancely. Its not only as a successful carrier woman, but they also take a role as a good house wife. And it doesn?t relevan with common image of carrier woman as an ambitious figure in work and neglecting their familY. Keyword : Penggambaran Wanita Karier; Majalah Link terkait : http://skripsi.umm.ac.id/files/disk1/310/jiptummpp-gdl-s1-2009-fatmawaty0-15455-PENDAHUL-N.pdf


The clinical utility of a biomarker depends on its ability to identify high-risk individuals to optimally manage the patient. A new biomarker would be of clinical value if it is accurate and reliable, provides good sensitivity and specificity, and is available for widespread application. Data are accumulating on the potential clinical utility of integrating imaging technologies and circulating biomarkers for the identification of vulnerable (high-risk) cardiovascular patients. A multi-biomarker strategy consisting of markers of inflammation, hemostasis and thrombosis, proteolysis and oxidative stress, combined with new imaging modalities (optical coherence tomography, virtual histology plus IVUS, PET) can increase our ability to identify such thombosis-prone patients. In an ideal scenario, cardiovascular biomarkers and imaging combined will provide a better diagnostic tool to identify high-risk individuals and also more efficient methods for effective therapies to reduce such cardiovascular risk. However, additional studies are required in order to show that this approach can contribute to improved diagnostic and therapeutic of atherosclerotic disease.


Reaction of armed forces to protests in revolutions: a regional study in North Africa and the Middle East. This is my doctoral thesis at Charles University. The analysis of the revolution of 1979 in Iran, the process of regime changes in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Syria during the uprisings, known as the Arab Spring, indicates that the armed forces have been one of the main players in all these revolutionary changes. The armed forces in the countries reacted differently to the popular uprising and protests. I attempt to answer, the following issues: Why the process of revolutionary changes in the some of these countries lead to a collapse of the whole state structure, rather than a peaceful transition, as well as the reasons behind the increase in violence levels in these countries. How does the process of revolutionary change affect the armed forces in the post-revolutionary period? It aims to offer a comparison between the process of pre-revolutionary, revolutionary and post-revolutionary change in five Middle East countries with a focus on the role and the actions of the armed forces. It attempts to understand different behavioral principles of the armed forces and their effects on the formation and dimension of violence during the process of revolutionary change and the consequences of the changes on the armed forces.


Background Successful kidney transplantation is associated with reduced cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality compared to patients who remain on dialysis but is higher than in the general population. Longitudinal data reporting changes in uremic cardiomyopathy after renal transplant are conflicting; studies with echo have reported regression of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and improved systolic function but have not been replicated using cardiac MRI which is volume independent and does not depend on geometric assumptions. The CV response early after transplant with restoration of normal renal function have not been reported. The aim of this study was to assess changes in LV structure and function before and acutely (<8 weeks) after renal transplantation in patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Method All subjects were prospectively recruited prior to live-donor kidney transplantation. Patients had no history of CV disease or diabetes and underwent cardiac MRI pre-operatively and within eight weeks post-operatively. Stress echocardiography or a myocardial perfusion scan was performed to exclude ischaemic heart disease. Haemodialysis patients were scanned on the day after dialysis, and peritoneal dialysis patients were scanned at their dry weight. Cardiac MRI data were analysed using CVi42 (Calgary, Canada). Results In total 10 patients were studied (male gender 70%, age 45 years [30-60], dialysis 40%). Cardiac MRI data is presented in Table 1. Pre-operative studies demonstrated; median left ventricular mass 82 g/m2 with 6 patients reaching criteria for LV hypertrophy. Increased segmental wall thickness >11 mm in 8 patients. Mean LV ejection fraction (LVEF) 66%±10, only 2 patients had mild LV impairment (LVEF 50%–55%). The mean estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) increased from 11 ml/min/1.73 m2 to 53 ml/min/1.73 m2 after transplantation without a change in body weight. Left ventricular and atrial volumes decreased at follow up without a change in LV mass. The reduction in indexed left ventricular diastolic volume (LVEDVi) was associated with an increase in ejection fraction (EF) (r=−0.810, p<0.001), and with an increased MAPSE (r=−0.868, p=0.001). Discussion A reduction in LV volumes acutely after renal transplantation is associated with improved prognostic markers of LV function and atrial size. Patients with ESKD are chronically fluid overloaded even at dry weigh. Cardiac MRI is the method of choice for longitudinal studies in defining the natural history of uremic cardiomyopathy after renal transplantation. Values are expressed as mean±SD or median (interquartile range). P Value <0.05 demonstrates significance in change of variable following transplantation.Abstract 10 Table 1 Cardiac MRI data for the change in left ventricular volumes, mass and function between pre-operative and follow up scan (<8 weeks post-transplant) Pre-operative Post-operative Change P Value LVEDV (ml) 167±79 72±17 −95±66 0.001 LVEDVi (ml/m2) 91±33 72±17 −19±19 0.012 LVESV (ml) 65±41 40±20 −25±29 0.025 LVESV (ml/m2) 33±20 21±9 −12±16 0.044 LV Mass (g) 160 (124 to 189) 164 (113 to 180) −9 (−25 to 9) 0.305 LV Mass Indexed (g/m2) 82 (60 to 91) 77 (64 to 94) −6 (−13 to 5) 0.185 EF (%) 66±10 72±8 6±7 0.028 MAPSE (mm) 13±2 13±3 0±4 0.813 Left Atrial Volume Indexed (ml/m2) 51±18 34±12 −14±15 0.012 Global Longitudinal Strain (%) −17.7±5.3 −17.7±1.8 −0.01±4.4 0.994 Segmental Wall Thickness (mm) 14±4 14±2 0±3 0.916 Values are expressed as mean SD or median (interquartile range). P Value >0.05 ?demonstrates significance in change of variable following transplantation.


In this work, in situ luminescence analysis was applied for the first time for monitoring the phase transitions of calcium phosphate (CaP) and confirmed by synchrotron in situ X-ray diffraction in addition to in situ infrared spectroscopy, with simultaneous measurements of pH and ion conductivity. Applying doped Ce3+ and Eu3+ as local coordination sensors, the high sensitivity of their emission spectra upon the changes in the coordination sphere of the doped cation sites enabled to detect the formation of amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP) and Ca5(PO4)3OH, besides their subsequent transitions to CaHPO4·2H2O and Ca8H2(PO4)6·5H2O under real reaction conditions. Calcium phosphates are widely present in mammals and understanding their phase transitions is important to comprehend the conversion between healthy and diseased tissues. In situ luminescence measurements are advantageous for allowing monitoring these phase transitions in a fast and sensitive fashion also in conventional laboratories, independent of synchrotron radiation.


Objectives: The aim was to compare the effectiveness of intra-articular lidocaine (IAL) versus intravenous Demerol and Diazepam (IVS) in reduction of acute anterior shoulder dislocation. Design: This is a prospective randomized study. Setting: Emergency room setting. Patients: Thirty-one dislocations reduced with IVS, whereas 32 patients were reduced using IAL. Main Outcome Measurements: The visual analog pain scale was used before analgesic administration and during the closed manipulative reduction. Length of time since dislocation, frequency of dislocation, ease of reduction, patient satisfaction, adverse effects, and duration of hospitalization were recorded. Results: The IVS group had a 100% success rate, whereas the IAL group had a 19% (six of 32) failure rate (P = 0.024). However, there was no significant difference in terms of pain relief (P = 0.23) or patient satisfaction (P = 0.085) between both groups. In addition, patients in the IAL group had a shorter duration of hospitalization and no reported complications, whereas the intravenous group had a longer hospital stay and a 29% complication rate. The cost of IAL was 32% less than the cost for IVS. Conclusion: IAL was more cost effective than the IVS method. IAL provided adequate pain relief and fewer complications and is a viable option for analgesia during reduction of acute shoulder dislocation.


OBJECTIVEThe aim of this study was to report the results of a consecutive series of patients undergoing pituitary surgery using a pure endoscopic endonasal approach and to evaluate the efficacy and safety of this procedure. PATIENTS AND METHODSWe reviewed 200 consecutive patients with pituitary adenoma who underwent purely endoscopic transsphenoidal resection of their lesions. The patients' clinical outcomes, including remission rates, degrees of tumor removal, and complications, were evaluated and compared with a previous microscopic series. RESULTSThere were 111 nonfunctioning adenomas and 34 growth hormone-secreting, 27 adrenocorticotropin hormone-secreting, 25 prolactin-secreting, and 3 thyroid-stimulating hormone-secreting adenomas. The degree of gross total removal for tumors with suprasellar or parasellar extension and without cavernous sinus involvement was 96% and for intrasellar lesions was 98%. After a median follow-up period of 19 months, the remission results for patients with functioning adenomas were 71% for growth hormone-secreting, 81% for adrenocorticotropin hormone-secreting, and 88% for prolactin-secreting adenomas, with no recurrence at the time of the last follow-up. This compares with similar results reported from series using a standard microsurgical approach (growth hormone-secreting adenomas, 67%; adrenocorticotropin hormone-secreting adenomas, 78%; and prolactin-secreting adenomas, 62%). Endoscopic surgery for recurrent or residual nonfunctioning adenomas that had been previously treated using a microscopic approach revealed in the majority of cases a more limited exposure during the initial surgery, frequently with incomplete tumor removal. Complication rates have been low, and the average length of hospital stay was reduced. CONCLUSIONA purely endoscopic approach for pituitary adenoma treatment is a safe and effective alternative to the traditional microscopic procedure. Although our results reveal excellent tumor-removal rates, comparable remission rates in functioning tumors, and a very low rate of complications, additional studies with longer follow-up periods are required to confirm whether this approach should be considered the preferred procedure for pituitary surgery.


Coalbed methane is produced from naturally fractured strata in the lower Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation in the eastern part of the Black Warrior basin, Alabama. Major fracture systems include orthogonal fractures, which consist of systematic joints in siliciclastic strata and face cleats in coal that strike northeast throughout the basin. Calcite and minor amounts of pyrite commonly fill joints in sandstone and shale and, less commonly, cleats in coal. Joint-fill calcite postdates most pyrite and is a weakly ferroan, coarse-crystalline variety that formed during a period of uplift and erosion late in the burial history. Pyrite forms fine to coarse euhedral crystals that line joint walls or are complexly intergrown with calcite.Stable-isotope data reveal large variations in the carbon isotope composition of joint- and cleat-fill calcite (10.3 to +24.3 Peedee belemnite [PDB]) but only a relatively narrow range in the oxygen-isotope composition of this calcite (16.2 to 4.1 PDB). Negative carbon values can be attributed to 13C-depleted CO2 derived from the oxidation of organic matter, and moderately to highly positive carbon values can be attributed to bacterial methanogenesis. Assuming crystallization temperatures of 2050C, most joint- and cleat-fill calcite precipitated from fluids with 18O ratios ranging from about 11 to +2 standard mean ocean water (SMOW). Uplift and unroofing since the Mesozoic led to meteoric recharge of Pottsville strata and development of freshwater plumes that were fed by meteoric recharge along the structurally upturned, southeastern margin of the basin. Influxes of fresh water into the basin via faults and coalbeds facilitated late-stage bacterial methanogenesis, which accounts for the high gas content in coal and the carbonate cementation of joints and cleats.Diagenetic and epigenetic minerals can affect the transmissivity and storage capacity of joints and cleats, and they appear to contribute significantly to interwell heterogeneity in the Pottsville Formation. In highly productive coalbed methane fields, joint- and cleat-fill calcite have strongly positive 13C values, whereas calcite fill has lower 13C values in fields that are shut in or abandoned. Petrographic analysis and stable-isotope geochemistry of joint- and cleat-fill cements provide insight into coalbed methane reservoir quality and the nature and extent of reservoir compartmentalization, which are important factors governing methane production.


The aim of this study is to design and test a new high-resolution hybrid depth of interaction (DOI) detector for a dedicated breast PET/CT scanner. Two detectors have been designed and built. The completed detectors are based on a 14 × 14 array of 1.5 × 1.5 × 20 mm3 unpolished lutetium orthosilicate scintillation crystals, with each element coated in a 50 μm layer of reflective material. The detector is read out from both ends using a position-sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT) and a large active area (20 × 20 mm2) avalanche photodiode (APD) to enable acquisition of DOI information. Nuclear instrumentation modules were used to characterize the detectors' performances in terms of timing, intrinsic spatial resolution (ISR) and energy resolution, as well as DOI resolution with a dual-ended readout configuration. Measurements with the APD were performed at a temperature of 10 °C. All crystals were identified at all depths, even though the signal amplitude from the PSPMT decreases with depth away from it. We measured a timing resolution of 2.4 ns, and an average energy resolution of 19%. The mean ISR was measured to be 1.2 mm for crystals in the central row of the array for detectors in the face-to-face position. Two off-center positions were measured corresponding to 26° and 51° oblique photon incidence, and the mean ISR at these positions was 1.5 and 1.7 mm, respectively. The average DOI resolution across all crystals and depths was measured to be 2.9 mm (including the beam width of 0.6 mm). This detector design shows good promise as a high-resolution detector for a dedicated breast PET/CT scanner.


Most programmers rely on visual tools (block-based editors, autoindentation, bracket matching, syntax highlighting, etc.), which are inaccessible to visually-impaired programmers. While prior language-specific, downloadable tools have demonstrated benefits for the visually-impaired, we lack language-independent, cloudbased tools, both of which are critically needed. We present a new toolkit for building fully-accessible, browserbased programming environments for multiple languages. Given a parser that meets certain specifications, this toolkit will generate a block editor familiar to sighted users that also communicates the structure of a program using spoken descriptions, and allows for navigation using standard (accessible) keyboard shortcuts. This paper presents the toolkit and a first evaluation of it. While the toolkit allows for full editing of code, we chose to focus strictly on navigation for this evaluation, using the navigation-only study design of Baker, Milne and Ladner. Visually-impaired programmers completed several tasks with and without our tool, and we compared their results and experience. Users had improved accuracy when completing tasks, were significantly better able to orient when reading code, and felt better about completing the tasks when using the tool. Moreover, these improvements came with no significant change in task completion time over plain text, even for experienced programmers who navigate text using screen readers set to high words-per-minutes.


INTRODUCTION: Obesity is a health problem related to diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis events. Metabolic syndrome includes some of atherosclerosis risk factors and has a fat accumulation as one of its main physiopathologic mechanisms but its assessment changes among criteria used for its diagnosis. OBJECTIVE: Aim of this study was to define the contribution of different variations of overweight/obesity on diagnosis of metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction. METHODS: We designed an observational and cross-sectional study to study a group of patients presenting with metabolic syndrome according to the Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP) criteria, and were compared considering three different assessment examinations of overweight/obesity. Moreover, results of flow vasodilatation test were correlated. RESULTS: Abdominal circumference criterion was fulfilled in 85,7 % of cases, that of the waist/hip rate in 100 %, and body mass rate in 69 %. There is a strong correlation (r: 0, 86) between abdominal circumference and the body mass rate. Endothelial dysfunction was more closely correlated with abdominal circumference and in a lesser level with the body mass rate. CONCLUSIONS: Measurement of abdominal circumference is a useful variable to assess metabolic syndrome and its relation with endothelial dysfunction.


We report the synthesis of a series of indacenodithieno[3,2-b]thiophene (IDTT) based conjugated polymers by copolymerization with three different electron rich co-monomers [thiophene (T), thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (TT) and dithieno[3,2-b:2′,3′-d]thiophene (DTT)] under Stille coupling conditions. The resulting all-donor polymers show very good solubility in common solvents and exhibit similar optical, thermal and electronic properties. However, the performance of these semiconductors in thin film transistor devices varied and was highly dependent on the nature of the co-monomer. All polymers exhibited unipolar p-type charge transport behaviour, with the mobility values following the trend of IDTT-TT > IDTT-DTT > IDTT-T. The peak saturation mobility value of IDTT-TT was extracted to be 1.1 cm2 V−1 s−1, amongst the highest mobility for all-donor conjugated polymers reported to date.


The present study investigated the effects of assertiveness on compliance in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. In contrast to what was expected, U. S. Americans overall were the least assertive. The study found that females in Japan and Taiwan were more assertive than their male counterparts. In addition, Americans were significantly more compliant with the request of a work supervisor than either Japanese or Taiwan-Chinese. In general, similar compliance was found between men and women. Participants offered more opposition to high imposition requests. While the discomfort factor of assertiveness accounted for significant variance for females in the equal status condition, situational factors such as imposition and status provided a better overall explanation for variance in behavior.


Manufacturing processes (e.g., forging, rolling, extrusion, and forming) rely on heat to reduce the forces associated with fabricating parts. However, due to the negative implications associated with hot working, another more efficient means of applying energy is desired. This paper investigates material property changes of various metals (aluminum, copper, iron, and titanium based alloys) in response to the flow of electricity. Theory involving electromigration and electroplasticity is examined and the implications thereof are analyzed. It is shown that, using electrical current, flow stresses are reduced, resulting in a lower specific energy for open-die forging. It is also shown that an applied electrical current increases the forgeability of materials, allowing greater deformation prior to cracking. Moreover, the changes caused by the flow of electricity are significantly greater than those explained by resistive heating. Additionally, elastic recovery is decreased when using electrical flow during deformation. Finally, for most materials, these effects were dependent on strain rate. Overall, this work demonstrates that substantial increases in the forgeability of metals are achieved by deforming the material while applying an electrical current. These improvements exceed those achieved through comparable increases in workpiece temperature and demonstrate that this method provides a viable alternative to warm/hot working.


This article provides a First Nations standpoint on climate change, informed by human rights law and legal education. It is co-authored by a Yuin woman who is a law academic, a Wirdi man who is a Queens Counsel, and a human rights law academic. The article argues that for any responses to climate change to be effective, they must be grounded in the perspectives, knowledge, and rights of First Nations peoples. The utility of human rights instruments to protect First Nation interests in a climate change milieu is explored at the international and domestic levels. Concomitantly, structural change must begin with the Indigenisation of legal education and the embedding of legal responses to climate change into the law curriculum. A holistic approach is necessary.


ABSTRACT The performance of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms like the Metropolis Hastings Random Walk (MHRW) is highly dependent on the choice of scaling matrix for the proposal distributions. A popular choice of scaling matrix in adaptive MCMC methods is to use the empirical covariance matrix (ECM) of previous samples. However, this choice is problematic if the dimension of the target distribution is large, since the ECM then converges slowly and is computationally expensive to use. We propose two algorithms to improve convergence and decrease computational cost of adaptive MCMC methods in cases when the precision (inverse covariance) matrix of the target density can be well-approximated by a sparse matrix. The first is an algorithm for online estimation of the Cholesky factor of a sparse precision matrix. The second estimates the sparsity structure of the precision matrix. Combining the two algorithms allows us to construct precision-based adaptive MCMC algorithms that can be used as black-box methods for densities with unknown dependency structures. We construct precision-based versions of the adaptive MHRW and the adaptive Metropolis adjusted Langevin algorithm and demonstrate the performance of the methods in two examples. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


Cloud storage systems to protect data from corruptions, redundant data to tolerate failures of storage and lost data should be repaired when storage fails. Regenerating codes provide fault tolerance by striping data across multiple servers, while using less repair traffic than traditional erasure codes during failure recovery. In previous research implemented practical Data Integrity Protection (DIP) scheme for regenerating-coding based cloud storage. Functional Minimum-Storage Regenerating (FMSR) codes and it construct FMSR-DIP codes, which allow clients to remotely verify the integrity of random subsets of long-term archival data under a multi server setting. The problem is to optimize bandwidth consumption when repairing multiple failures. The cooperative repair of multiple failures can help to further save bandwidth consumption when multiple failures are being repaired. Key Terms: Cloud computing, Minimum storage, Bandwidth consumption.


The mobile crowdsensing paradigm facilitates a broad range of emerging sensing applications by leveraging ubiquitous mobile users to cooperatively perform certain sensing tasks with their smart devices. As this paradigm involves data collection from users, the issue of designing rewards to incentivize users is fundamentally important to ensure participation in crowdsensing. In this paper, we revisit this issue in the context of socially-aware crowdsensing which integrates crowdsensing into social networks. For example, in healthcare-based crowdsensing services, the fun of tracking daily nutrition information for a certain user can be promoted by comparing her nutritional information with that contributed and shared by her socially-connected friends. To be more general and practical, we study the incentive mechanisms in presence of multiple crowdsensing service providers and multiple users. Understanding the behaviors of users and service providers in socially-aware crowdsensing is of paramount importance for incentive mechanisms. With this focus, we propose a multi-leader and multi-follower Stackelberg game approach to model the strategic interactions among service providers and users, where the social influence of users and the strategic interconnections of service providers are jointly and formally integrated into the game modeling. Through backward induction methods, we theoretically prove the existence and uniqueness of the Stackelberg equilibrium. We conduct extensive simulations to investigate game equilibrium properties, and the real-world dataset is applied to evaluate and demonstrate the performance effectiveness of the proposed game model.


We measured the distribution of hydrographic parameters, currents, phytoplankton flu- orescence, suspended sediments and zooplankton in axial transects through the Chesapeake Bay estuarine turbidity maximum (ETM) seasonally (May, July and October 1996) and over tidal cycles within seasons. Zooplankton abundance was estimated with a 6-frequency, Tracor Acoustical Profil- ing System (TAPS-6) at the same vertical (0.25 to 0.50 m) and horizontal (0.5 to 1.5 km) resolution as hydrographic parameters and suspended sediments. The general pattern exhibited in axial transects through the Chesapeake Bay ETM is that sediments, fluorescence and zooplankton are in higher concentrations up-Bay of the salt wedge (defined as the intersection of the 1 isohaline with the bot- tom). The salinity front appears to trap these particles in the upper portion of Chesapeake Bay. The highest acoustically determined zooplankton biomass generally occurred near the bottom, at the toe of the salt wedge. The convergence zone associated with this feature concentrates sediments and zooplankton (primarily the copepod Eurytemora affinis). Advection appeared to dominate changes in zooplankton abundance during time series studies at a fixed station in the ETM. Zooplankton bio- mass at the fixed ETM station increased/decreased with the tidal excursion of the salt wedge. Water column zooplankton concentrations and the vertical distribution of zooplankton biomass appeared to be influenced by currents. We often found that during maximum ebb and flood tidal currents, zoo- plankton biomass and sediments in the mid and upper water column increased. Thus the hydrody- namic processes that resuspend, advect and trap suspended sediments in the ETM likely have the same effects on zooplankton. The ETM of the Chesapeake Bay appears to act as an entrapment zone for zooplankton. The lack of diel vertical migration, carrying eggs until they are ready to hatch, pos- sible reduced predation by visual predators in the turbid waters, and the ability to consume phyto- plankton, protozoa and detritus all may allow Eurytemora to persist at high concentrations in the Chesapeake Bay ETM.


Aim: The aim of the study is to evaluate Clinical profile & Prescribing Patterns of Drugs in patients with gastrointestinal disorders. Materials and Methods: Patients who were diagnosed with gastrointestinal disorders of either gender and with an age of above 18 years were included in this study. Results: Among the 240 study participants, In our study, we have observed over 120 cases of Gastro-Intestinal Disorders. Among 120 control subjects, all of them were suffering from either of the Gastrointestinal Disorders. 63.33% of the subjects were Male and 36.66% of the subjects were Female. Among the subjects belonging to age group 20-40 years, 14.16% were Male and 6.66% were Female. Among the subjects belonging to age group 40-60 years, 32.5% were Male and 11.66% were Female. Among the subjects belonging to age group 60-80 years, 17.5% were Male and 6.66% were Female. Among the subjects belonging to the age group above 80 years, 8.33% were Male and 2.5% were Female. Conclusion: In our study, we noticed that the incidence of GI disorders was more in males (63.33%) compared to females (36.66%) and also the people who were in the age of 40 to 60 years were more affected compared to the younger ones. We have also reported the alcoholics (45.83%) and smokers (46.66%) were more prone to gastritis (44.16%) and pancreatitis (24.16%) than the normal population


Multiple imputation (MI) is a popular method for dealing with missing values. One main advantage of MI is to separate the imputation phase and the analysis one. However, both are related since they are based on distribution assumptions that have to be consistent. This point is well known as congeniality. In this paper, we discuss congeniality for clustering on continuous data. First, we theoretically highlight how two joint modeling (JM) MI methods (JM-GL and JM-DP) are congenial with various clustering methods. Then, we propose a new fully conditional specification (FCS) MI method with the same theoretical properties as JM-GL. Finally, we extend this FCS MI method to account for more complex distributions. Based on an extensive simulation study, all MI methods are compared for various cluster analysis methods (k-means, k-medoids, mixture model, hierarchical clustering). This study highlights the partition accuracy is improved when the imputation model accounts for clustered individuals. From this point of view, standard MI methods ignoring such a structure should be avoided. JM-GL and JM-DP should be recommended when data are distributed according to a gaussian mixture model, while FCS methods outperform JM ones on more complex data.


Piscirickettsia salmonis is a fish bacterial pathogen that has severely challenged the sustainability of the Chilean salmon industry since its appearance in 1989. As this Gram-negative bacterium has been poorly characterized, relevant aspects of its life cycle, virulence and pathogenesis must be identified in order to properly design prophylactic procedures. This report provides evidence of the functional presence in P. salmonis of four genes homologous to those described for Dot/Icm Type IV Secretion Systems. The Dot/Icm System, the major virulence mechanism of phylogenetically related pathogens Legionella pneumophila and Coxiella burnetii, is responsible for their intracellular survival and multiplication, conditions that may also apply to P. salmonis. Our results demonstrate that the four P. salmonis dot/icm homologues (dotB, dotA, icmK and icmE) are expressed both during in vitro tissue culture cells infection and growing in cell-free media, suggestive of their putative constitutive expression. Additionally, as it happens in other referential bacterial systems, temporal acidification of cell-free media results in over expression of all four P. salmonis genes, a well-known strategy by which SSTIV-containing bacteria inhibit phagosome-lysosome fusion to survive. These findings are very important to understand the virulence mechanisms of P. salmonis in order to design new prophylactic alternatives to control the disease.


The amount of digital data we produce every day far surpasses our ability to process this data, and finding useful information in this constant flow of data has become one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Search engines are one way of accessing large data collections. Their algorithms have evolved far beyond simply matching search queries to sets of documents. Today's most sophisticated search engines combine hundreds of relevance signals to provide the best possible results for each searcher. Current approaches for tuning the parameters of search engines can be highly effective. However, they typically require considerable expertise and manual effort. They rely on supervised learning to rank, meaning that they learn from manually annotated examples of relevant documents for given queries. Obtaining large quantities of sufficiently accurate manual annotations is becoming increasingly difficult, especially for personalized search, access to sensitive data, or search in settings that change over time. In this thesis, I develop new online learning to rank techniques, based on insights from reinforcement learning. In contrast to supervised approaches, these methods allow search engines to learn directly from users' interactions. User interactions can typically be observed easily and cheaply, and reflect the preferences of real users. Interpreting user interactions and learning from them is challenging, because they can be biased and noisy. The contributions of this thesis include a novel interleaved comparison method, called probabilistic interleave, that allows unbiased comparisons of search engine result rankings, and methods for learning quickly and effectively from the resulting relative feedback. The obtained analytical and experimental results show how search engines can effectively learn from user interactions. In the future, these and similar techniques can open up new ways for gaining useful information from ever larger amounts of data.


Samarium ions of 200 keV in energy were implanted into highly-resistive molecular-beam-epitaxy grown GaN thin films with a focused-ion-beam implanter at room temperature. The implantation doses range from 1 × 1014 to 1 × 1016 cm−2. Structural properties studied by x-ray diffraction and Raman-scattering spectroscopy revealed Sm incorporation into GaN matrix without secondary phase. The optical measurements showed that the band gap and optical constants changed very slightly by the implantation. Photoluminescence measurements showed emission spectra similar to p-type GaN for all samples. Magnetic investigations with a superconducting quantum interference device identified magnetic ordering for Sm dose of and above 1 × 1015 cm−2 before thermal annealing, while ferromagnetism was only observed after thermal annealing from the sample with highest Sm dose. The long-range magnetic ordering can be attributed to interaction of Sm ions through the implantation-induced Ga vacancy.


"Organisations continually use integrated marketing communications to achieve a competitive advantage and meet their marketing objectives. This 5th edition of Integrated Marketing Communications emphasises digital and interactive marketing, the most dynamic and crucial components to a successful IMC campaign today. Incorporating the most up-to-date theories and practice, this text clearly explains and demonstrates how to best select and co-ordinate all of a brand's marketing communications elements to effectively engage the target market. Chapters adopt an integrative approach to examine marketing communications from both a consumer's and marketer's perspective. With a new chapter on digital and social marketing addressing the development of interactive media in IMC and new IMC profiles featuring Australian marketer's, along with a wide range of local and global examples including: Spotify, Pandora, Snapchat, Palace Cinemas, Woolworths, KFC, Old Spice, Telstra, Colgate and QANTAS, this text has never been so relevant for students studying IMC today. Each new copy of the text also offers 12 month access to a wealth of student online revision and learning tools: CourseMate Express + Search me! Marketing. Unique to the text is a series of new student and instructor IMC videos showing students how key objectives in IMC theory are applied by real businesses."-- Publisher website


The production and use of energy places a wide range of pressures on the environment and on public health, some of which have been decreasing. Enhancing renewable energy is another key factor for reaching the dual goals of security of supply and reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution emissions. In addition, a more mature market for renewable energy technologies is expected to bring about a number of social and economic benefits, including regional and local development opportunities, export opportunities, social cohesion and employment. The paper is divided into 3 parts. Within the 1st part the energy-related environmental issues are discussed. The 2nd part is focusing on analyzing the trends related to renewable energy sources, using data collected from Member States and reported by the European Environment Agency and energy statistics for the period 1990–2005 covering the whole European Union. The 3rd part presents the renewable energy sources in Romania and the current situation in the country.


Background: Many disorders of pregnancy, which are associated with a high perinatal morbidity and mortality, are accompanied by gross pathological changes in placenta. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are common, and form one of the deadly triads along with hemorrhage and infection that greatly contribute to maternal mortality and morbidity. In addition, they are strongly associated with fetal growth restriction, prematurity, and contributing largely to perinatal mortality and morbidity. A study of placentae was done to find out the morbid and histological changes in placentae of hypertensive mothers and to correlate the findings with the birth weight of new born babies. Materials and Methods: Ninety placentae were studied. The weight of the placenta, placental fetal ratio, retroplacental hematoma, infarction, and histopathological findings were noted. Placental findings were correlated with fetal outcome. Results: The placental weight and fetoplacental weight ratio (5.38:1) was decreased in the hypertensive group. There was an increase in the incidence of infarction (28.8%) and retroplacental hematoma (15.5%) in the hypertensive group. Percentage of cytotrophoblastic proliferation of villi, >30% syncytial knots formation (64.5%), basement membrane thickening of villi (37.8%), and fibrinoid necrosis of villi (46.7%) increased in the placentae from pregnancy-induced hypertension group as compared to the normal group. Conclusions: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy adversely influence the morphology of placenta. Fetal outcome is poor in the presence of infarction, retroplacental hematoma, basement membrane thickening of villi, and fibrinoid necrosis of villi. The pathological changes observed in the placentae of patients with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy adversely influence the perinatal outcome.


Blood in the urine (hematuria) can originate from any site along the urinary tract and may be the only sign of renal or vesical malignancy. Therefore, literature recommends for the evaluation of any case of macroscopic or microscopic hematuria. Our aim was to define the diagnostic role of multidetector CT urography (MDCTu) in the evaluation of this symptom through the analysis of 181 consecutive patients from January 2003 to March 2006.


In the last decade, multi-hop cooperation has evolved bringing several advantages including coverage
improvement, more reliability of wireless links, and power consumption reduction. Still, its application
has raised several challenges, such as the need for secure transmission at each hop, algorithms to
perform relay selection and the accurate models to facilitate performance analysis. This paper addresses
the problem of physical layer (PHY) security in a multi-hop wireless cooperative network, where
communication at each hop is assisted by multiple relays forming a cluster, each cluster being surrounded
by multiple eavesdroppers which together may tap transmissions from both the source and the relays. The
main focus of the study is on analyzing the benefits of various relay selection schemes for protecting the
source-destination transmission against the eavesdroppers, which can collude and combine information
via diversity combining techniques. To be specific, four relay selection schemes, which differ in the
way they employ available measures link quality, are considered to deliver the source information to
the destination via a decode-and-forward (DF) strategy. To evaluate the security performance of the
multi-hop cooperative link in the presence of colluding eavesdroppers, we derive novel closed-form
analytical expressions for the secrecy outage probability (SOP) with consideration of special cases of
practical interest.


A real-life study (N = 1299) into brand images during and after the 2006 FIFA World Cup football tournament showed that the event was a good platform for the creation of brand images through 'take-up' advertising in which the brand was associated with the event. Exposure level and involvement with the event had a positive effect on image transfer from event to brand. A measurement of brand images three months post-tournament showed that the positive effects had endured.