Background: CT angiography (CTA) and interventional radiology angiogram (IRA) are used in work-up of acute lower gastrointestinal bleed (LGIB). Method: Retrospective study of patients with active LGIB who underwent CTA. Divided into CTA(+) and CTA(-) groups. CTA(+) was divided into IRA(+) or IRA(-). Results: 24.1% (49/203) had CTA(+) and 75.9% (154/203) had CTA(-). No statistical significant difference was noted for hemodynamic parameters, anti-platelets and anti-coagulants, thrombocytopenia, elevated INR or blood transfusion across CTA(+) and CTA(-) groups. Median decision to test (DTT) time for CTA(+) was 98 compared to 124.5 min for CTA(-)(p= 0.039). Univariate analysis revealed DTT time as the only factor with statistically significant effect on CTA outcome. LR (p< 0.001) and Phi coefficient (p< 0.001) suggested significant difference in distribution and association between number of positive risk factors and CTA(+) respectively. In CTA(+), 81.6% (40/49) had a follow-up IRA with 32.5% (13/40) being IRA(+) while 67.5% (27/40) were IRA(-). Overall, 6.4% (13/203) patients had positive IRA. Majority of CTA were ordered by ER- 39.9% (81/203) and IM- 42.9% (87/203). For emergency department(ER)- 23.5% had CTA(+) and 3.7% had IRA(+) compared to Internal Medicine(IM) category- 25.3% had CTA(+)(p=0.78) and 5.7% had IRA(+)(p=0.53). 57.9% patients in CTA(+) had a follow-up IRA in ER category in contrast to 95.5% in IM (p=0.0038). Conclusion: One in sixteen patient benefits from CTA. IM did better than ER in selecting patients for CTA. Number of positive risk factors correlates with probability of CTA(+). Decreasing DTT time may be the key to improve diagnostic yield.


The H$_2$+H$_2$ system has long been considered as a benchmark system for ro-vibrational energy transfer in bimolecular collisions. However, most studies thus far have focused on collisions involving H$_2$ molecules in the ground vibrational level or in the first excited vibrational state. While H$_2$+H$_2$/HD collisions have received wide attention due to the important role they play in astrophysics, D$_2$+D$_2$ collisions have received much less attention. Recently, Zhou et al. [Nat. Chem. 4 658 (2022)] examined stereodynamic aspects of rotational energy transfer in collisions of two aligned D$_2$ molecules prepared in the $v=2$ vibrational level and $j=2$ rotational level. Here, we report quantum calculations of rotational and vibrational energy transfer in collisions of two D$_2$ molecules prepared in vibrational levels up to $v=2$ and identify key resonance features that contribute to the angular distribution in the experimental results of Zhou et al. The quantum scattering calculations were performed in full dimensionality and using the rigid-rotor approximation using a recently-developed highly-accurate six-dimensional potential energy surface for the H$_4$ system that allows descriptions of collisions involving highly vibrationally excited H$_2$ and its isotopologues.


A method for tangential excision of subdermal and deep intradermal burns has been developed and used on 42 patients. No anesthesia is necessary. Blood loss is minimal. Porcine xenografts or cadaver allografts were used as temporary dressings following the tangential excision in 25 of the patients. The results indicate that the procedure is safe and permits earlier permanent closure of deep burns. The survival in the 20 highrisk patients over the age of 50 years who were treated by tangential excision was particularly encouraging.


During the electro-erosive process, metal particles are gradually removed not only from the machined material but also from the tool electrode. Here, the removal of material from the tool electrode is generally considered to be an undesirable consequence of the electro-erosive process. The extent of this wear can be relatively accurately quantified using several indicators. Of these, the percentage of loss of the working part of the tool electrode has the highest informative value. The resulting quality of the eroded area after die-sinking EDM also depends on the magnitude of the given parameter. Therefore, based on experimental measurements, the paper aimed to describe the performed analysis of the influence of the wear of the shaped tool electrode on the quality of the machined surface after die-sinking EDM in terms of surface roughness parameters. The wear of the shape tool electrode in terms of volume loss was measured by the indirect method through weight loss. Experimental results showed that when machining tool steel with a finishing operation, a much lower wear rate of the shape tool electrode was recorded compared to the roughing operation. At the same time, it was found that when the shape tool electrode wear exceeds the level of about 8%, there is a significant deterioration of all qualitative indicators of the machined surface.


Cholinergic therapies have proven efficacious in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, and recently in vascular and mixed dementia. We set out to evaluate the impact of putative cerebrovascular lesions involving cholinergic pathways in patients with cognitive impairment. White matter signal hyperintensities on magnetic resonance imaging involving cholinergic projections were classified according to a three-point rating scale for 171 individuals with cognitive impairment and 34 normal elderly controls. Medial temporal lobe width was measured, and a neuropsychological test battery was administered. Moderate or severe involvement of cholinergic pathways by white matter signal hyperintensities were identified in 60% of subjects with probable vascular dementia, 30% of subjects with possible/probable Alzheimer's disease, and 40% of subjects with cognitive impairment but no dementia. All control subjects were found to have minimal cholinergic pathway involvement. Medial temporal lobe width and signal hyperintensities on magnetic resonance imaging affecting cholinergic pathways were inversely related. Individuals with moderate and severe involvement of cholinergic pathways by white matter signal hyperintensities had greater impairment of executive function and visuospatial attention, despite equivalent degrees of global impairment and memory dysfunction when compared to those with minimal cholinergic pathway involvement. This is the first study to suggest that cerebrovascular disease may directly affect cholinergic projections and may exacerbate pre-existing cholinergic deficits of a degenerative nature, especially in probable Alzheimer's disease. Cerebrovascular compromise of cholinergic white matter projections may therefore be relevant in understanding the effects of cholinergic therapies.


Introduction: In general, voice therapy is given on one-to-one basis where each individual is provided therapy by the clinician individually. On the other hand, in group therapy, the treatment is provided to a group of individuals with a similar disorder. Need of the Study: There was a need to conduct this study as there are very few studies on finding the efficacy of group therapy for hyperfunctional voice disorder among teachers especially in India. Aim: The primary aim of the study was to find out the efficacy of group voice therapy in hyperfunctional voice disorders among teachers. The secondary aim was to compare the outcome of group therapy and individual therapy in hyperfunctional voice disorder among teachers. Methodology: Totally 16 individuals in the age range between 25 and 45 years who were teachers by profession with hyperfunctional voice disorder were enrolled in the study. Two age and gender-matched groups were constituted. Group A consisted of eight (6 males and 2 females) individuals with a mean age of 35.6 years. Group B was comprised of eight (6 males and 2 females) with a mean age of 34 years. Group A was enrolled into group therapy while Group B was enrolled into individual voice therapy. The participants underwent a clinical voice evaluation including auditory-perceptual and quality of life assessment using Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain scale, Dr. Speech software and Voice Handicap Inventory. Voice therapy protocol included 12 sessions once a week. It consisted of 15 min. of indirect and the rest 45 min. of Lessac-Madsen Resonant voice Therapy. Posttherapy measures were taken for both the groups. Results and Discussion: Results showed significant improvement post voice therapy in acoustic analysis measures, i.e. jitter and shimmer in both the groups. In perceptual measures, there was a significant improvement in Grade, Roughness, and Strain measures in both the groups while in quality of life measures there was significant improvement post-therapy in both the groups. When compared between groups A and B there was no significant difference in all the measures in both pre- and post-therapy assessments. Our study has recruited the control group and found there was no significant difference between the individual versus group voice therapy. Conclusion: Group voice therapy is as effective in the treatment of hyperfunctional voice disorders as individual therapy. There is a need to get data on a larger population to generalize the findings.


Abstract This paper presents both experimental and analytical research results for predicting the enhancement of the flexural capacity of reinforced concrete (r.c.) beams strengthened in flexure with an innovative system based on the use of fabric reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM). The patented system, called FRCM-U-Wrap Joist Tech provides a new methodology for beam strengthening capable of generating a higher internal couple of the cross section with no incisive change of the element weight. Experimental evidence gives back a 100% of increase in flexural strength than the non-reinforced beam. Analytical prediction shows a good accordance with the experimental data. The proposed strengthening system seems to be more effectiveness than the beam strengthened by means of traditional technology consisting in externally bonding the fibers directed to the beam intrados.


A man was evaluated at age 35 years for burning/shooting pain in his left chest and drenching sweats affecting the lower trunk and legs since bilateral T2-T6 sympathectomy at age 22 for palmar and axillary hyperhidrosis. Thermoregulatory sweat test showed anhidrosis above T5/6 (sparing the left T2 dermatome) with rapid and profuse sweating elsewhere (figure). Severe compensatory hyperhidrosis is a known complication of extensive sympathectomy. Limited sympathotomy (disruption of fibers between stellate and T2 ganglia) or sympathectomy (e.g., T4 ganglionectomy) might be preferred for medically refractory palmar hyperhidrosis, maximizing palmar dryness, minimizing compensatory hyperhidrosis, and rarely causing intercostal neuralgia or Horner syndrome.1,2 Medical therapy for hyperhidrosis, whether primary or compensatory, may include topical agents, oral medications with anticholinergic properties, or botulinum toxin injections; all were unsuccessful or not tolerated in this patient.


Abstract This study aims to reveal the potential of using pomegranate seed (PS) as an alternative, new and cost-effective adsorbent for the removal of anionic dyestuffs such as Congo Red (CR) and Remazol Brillant Blue R (RBBR) from aqueous solutions. In addition, the PS was activated by a high-energy planetary ball milling. It was seen that the activated PS (APS) has a higher adsorption capacity and mechanical activation has a positive effect on the adsorption process. The effects of experimental factors were evaluated using both conventional univariate methods and multivariate methods such as response surface methodology (RSM) approach. The effects of experimental factors and possible interactions on both dyestuff removal and adsorption capacity were expressed in mathematical equations. The removal efficiencies over 90% were achieved for both dyestuffs at optimum conditions determined by central composite design (CCD). As a result of isothermic, kinetic, and thermodynamic evaluations, the nature of adsorption was best explained by the Temkin isotherm model and the adsorption mechanism was defined as a chemically controlled, exothermic, and spontaneous reaction. The functional groups and the morphological properties of the adsorbent were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to explain the possible interactions between adsorbent and adsorbent molecules.


A key aspect of short term weather forecasting is the ability to provide the public with adequate lead time in the event of severe weather. During severe weather events, it is vital that real time information such as radar data and spotter reports are available to aid National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters in the decision making process. An additional source of information that may prove useful in this regard is lightning data. Until very recently, forecasters have had access only to cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN). However, the utility of CG data as a severe weather forecasting tool is limited. Total (CG plus intracloud) lightning observations from very high frequency systems such as the Lightning Mapping Array (LMA; Rison et al. 1999) may be more useful.
 This thesis utilizes total lightning data from the Oklahoma LMA to assess the effectiveness of total lightning as an indicator of a given thunderstorm's potential to produce severe weather. Specifically, a dataset of 52 thunderstorms (30 severe, 22 non-severe) within the domain of the Oklahoma LMA is analyzed to determine if severe weather is preceded by two features: a threshold total flash rate value which distinguishes severe thunderstorms from non-severe thunderstorms, and the presence of lightning jumps. A lightning jump algorithm was applied to each thunderstorm in the dataset in consideration of this second objective. Additionally, five thunderstorms are analyzed in greater detail to investigate these trends as they pertain to individual thunderstorms.
A threshold flash rate upon which to determine thunderstorm severity is not apparent in the Oklahoma dataset. This is contrary to the results of a study of Florida thunderstorms by Williams et al. (1999), in which a clear threshold value was demonstrated. Lightning jumps are found to often precede the occurrence of severe weather, in good agreement with previous work.


It is necessary to calibrate polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data in order to use the data for science applications. In this letter, we propose an improved algorithm to estimate the calibration parameters based on the Ainsworth algorithm and the Quegan algorithm. Since there is no approximation in the process of the parameter estimation, this algorithm can accurately solve all parameters, even if the crosstalk is high. To verify the effect of the proposed calibration algorithm, this letter analyzes the accuracy of the proposed algorithm with the simulated PolSAR data and Chinese airborne X-band PolSAR data. The results confirm that the proposed algorithm can provide a more stable and accurate solution to the crosstalk parameters.


Individual or organizational sensitive data
and information need to be prevented from unauthorized
access. Several reports of middle man attacks and intrusion
in form of hacking have been reported over the years when
data are sent over wired or wireless media. One of the
ways to prevent these is to either secure the medium
through which information is being sent or to put measures
in place to secure the actual information being sent.
Though implementing both options could be expensive,
however, implementing any of the option could still be
effective. This could be achieved by making the data being
sent meaningless to a third party but meaningful to the
intending recipient. Cryptography is a proven way to
achieve this. It entails using certain mathematical
techniques to make a data unreadable and meaningless to
any other person except the actual recipient who has the
key needed to decrypt the encrypted data. Rijndael
algorithm; which is the Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES) for implementing cryptography is presented in this
paper. It is a symmetric approach to implementing
cryptography as it uses the same key for encryption and
decryption. A detailed analysis of its implementation using
its various 128, 192 and 256 bits key lengths is presented
in this paper. The encryption and decryption process is
made more secured by sending the encrypted text to the
recipients email while the decryption key is sent to the
recipient's phone number. This is done to prevent instances
where the recipients email is hacked.
KEYWORDS: Advanced Encryption Standard,
Cryptography, Encryption, Decryption, Rijndael
algorithm.


This study presents the overall performance of a double-pass solar air heater (DPSAH) with three different configurations: (i) double-pass solar air heater without fins and heat storage (DPSAHWF), (ii) double-pass solar air heater with longitudinal fins and without heat storage (DPSAHLF), and (iii) double-pass solar air heater with longitudinal fins and heat storage (DPSAHLFHM). Five longitudinal fins on the upper channel and granular carbon at the bottom of lower channel as heat storage material were used for the analysis. Each configuration was examined for the following flowrates of air (ṁ1 = 0.008 kg/s, ṁ2 = 0.012 kg/s, and ṁ3 = 0.016 kg/s). The results show an improvement in thermal efficiency with an increase in the air flowrate. The outlet air temperature increases considerably with a decrease in flowrate, for all the three orientations. The lowest and the highest efficiencies during the peak sunshine hours were recorded as 33% and 65% for the conventional heater and the heater with fins and heat storage material, respectively. A maximum of 849 W/m2 of solar intensity was recorded during the test period. The system is also examined for thermal discharge after the sunshine hours to determine the effectiveness of the heat storage material.


We conducted an experiment on chemical discrimination of two saurophagous snakes (the smooth snake, Coronella austriaca and the Seoane's viper, Vipera seoanei) as well as the aquatic Natrix maura, by the mountain lizard Iberolacerta galani. Using terraria, 24 lizards were exposed to scents by the three snakes as well as an odourless control. We quantified fourteen behavioural variables, twelve of which significantly differed among treatments. Lizards are able to recognise the scents of both predatory snakes, and react to them with intense antipredatory responses. The antipredatory behaviour found in I. galani was similar for the scents of the two different predatory snakes, despite differences in their foraging behaviour. The behaviour displayed by lizards confronted with chemical cues suggests an adaptation to minimise the likelihood of being attacked.


This introductory article to the National Conference on Corridor Traffic Management for Major Highway Reconstruction states that the major implication for this conference is that the national highway program is clearly entering a new era, one that will focus more and more on the need to reconstruct many aging and traffic-saturated urban highways. Greater emphasis than ever should be put on preconstruction plans and procedures for work zone safety practices. And once these plans have been made, project sponsors should stress additional monitoring to assure that the desired practices are properly carried out at each work zone site. Most highway departments must also start emphasizing the benefits derived from highway construction and reconstruction. The private sector role can and will expand over the coming years. The private sector has already made important contributions to many urban transportation improvements. A few private sector actions of particular importance are ramp metering, high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes, incident control management, traffic surveillance, and parking regulations. Increased capital will be necessary at all levels of government to meet current and future highway needs. Both public and private sectors must get involved in the money solution, because better highways are among the most effective investments any metropolitan area can make.


Advocates of TOC believe that bottleneck resource restricts an operation's ability to make money, and the best way to maximise income is to fully exploit the bottleneck resource. Almost all TOC literature focuses on situations where 100% bottleneck utilisation is applied. Based on the implementation experience, the finding is that the optimal level of bottleneck utilisation should be less than 100% and any attempt to increase utilisation beyond the optimal level brings disastrous results for a door manufacturing plant. In order to improve and maintain the performance of the plant effective bottleneck management is critical. The experience provides a deeper understanding of how to design such plants, which could be beneficial for practising managers and academics working with TOC concepts.


An adaptive importance sampling scheme is presented which is based on the idea that as one samples, the knowledge of the failure domain increases. If one keeps modifying the importance sampling density to reflect this increasing state of knowledge, one can develop a good sampling density and estimate the failure probability efficiently. The efficiency of one such method is shown through simple component examples. Examples are also used to study the effect of factors like level of failure probabilty, non-linearity of the failure surface and number and relative importance of random variables. The method is also applied to problems that involve intersections and unions of components.


The giant neuron of the abdominal ganglion of Aplysia californica incorporates tritiated uridine into RNA at a constant rate at rest. This rate incrceases under synaptic stimulation, the increase being directly proportional to the number of action potentials produced by the neuron. Multineuronal samples from stimulated ganglia faiiled to show an increase in incorporation.


Based on the definition of WUE and reliable data sources officially published by the government, winter wheat WUE in the Haiheriver is evaluated. The results indicate that the three-year average winter wheat WUE in the Haiheriver is 0.89kg/m3. Less than 0.89kg/m3 winter wheat WUE appears in the seven regions accounting for more than 90% area in the Haiheriver. And it is the lowest in Inner Mongolia, winter wheat WUE is 0.35kg/m3. And 1.77kg/m3 winter wheat WUE comes out in Beijing. Compared with the present national winter wheat WUE in China, 0.8kg/m3~1.6kg/m3, winter wheat WUE in the Haiheriver remains a lower level. And it means winter wheat WUE in the Haiheriver has a great potential to improve in the future. With lower water consuming, higher winter wheat yield and WUE in Beijing, cultivated measures and management way in Beijing should be taken references by the other seven regions in the Haiheriver in order to improve winter wheat yield and WUE with lower water consuming.


Wearied by the hotly contested "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign that unseated the Democratic incumbent, Martin Van Buren, Harrison succumbed to pneumonia after only one month in office, the first chief executive to die in the White House. His death precipitated a governmental crisis, which Vice President John Tyler promptly resolved to the consternation of his Whig Party by claiming the office and title of president, thus setting a precedent that only later was codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Instead of the pliable Harrison, the Whigs confronted in Tyler a tenacious defender of presidential prerogative and a formidable foe of their plan to establish congressional supremacy over the executive branch. Threatened with impeachment, repeatedly exhorted to resign, banished from the Whig Party, abandoned by his cabinet, and burned in effigy, Tyler stood firm and maintained the integrity of the presidential office. Peterson argues that the Tyler administration deserves more credit than it has received for what was accomplished and preserved under difficult circumstances."


Property rights necessarily generate violent, and oftentimes lethal, processes of dispossession. While liberal theorists from Locke to Hayek consider property rights as an essential and emancipatory component of human freedom, they fail to consider societal power asymmetries impeding the ability of property rights to protect the interests of the weak and marginalised. If property rights produce freedom and prosperity, they do so very selectively. More obvious is the ongoing historical process of already propertied classes making 'clever usurpation into an irrevocable right' by extending private property regimes along two key dimensions – type and space. Examining various uses of private property over time reveals processes whereby relatively basic notions of private property, enforced by a Weberian state at the local level in the early era of industrialisation, are extended to encompass new and sophisticated forms of property that are enforced globally via international institutions. Two contemporary empirical cases of using property rights are examined in this paper: land reform in Southern Africa (specifically Zimbabwe) and intellectual property rights. In this context of ongoing dispossession, further privatisation and commodification can only exacerbate contemporary problems of marginalisation and dispossession.


We explore verbalization as a means for quick-and-dirty 3D shape exploration in early design. Our work stems from the knowledge gap that the fundamental principles necessary to operationalize speech as a viable means for describing and communicating 3D digital forms do not currently exist. To address this gap, we present a case study on 3D scene modeling within the context of interior design. For this, we implemented a constrained workflow wherein a user can iteratively generate variations of seed templates of objects in a scene through verbal input. Using this workflow as an experimental setup, we systematically study four aspects of speech-based shape exploration, namely, (a) design-in-context (creating one shape with respect or in relation to the other), (b) order independence (sequence of parts preferred in speech-based shape exploration), (c) multi-scale exploration (study how speech allows overview-then-detail modifications), and (d) semantic regions of interest (effectiveness of speech for modifying regions of a given object). We finally present an observational study with 6 participants selected from diverse backgrounds to better understand shape verbalization.


The Corporation has remained a common asset protection mechanism which serves to successfully externalise risk arising from business and other transactions. The success of this model of risk externalisation is largely due to the legal nature of a corporation being a distinct legal person capable of suing and being sued in its own name. This is enhanced by the concept of limited liability. The paper explores the development of the concept of limited liability in England, the United States of America and Australia. In doing so, it examines the Court's treatment of the ground of fraud as a basis of piercing the Corporate Veil. The Paper seeks to charter the fraud exception and critically examines the statistics attached to circumstances where Courts have readily pierced the Corporate Veil.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article is to review the neuroimaging findings of intradural extramedullary spinal tumors in the pediatric and adolescent population. The differential diagnosis for lesions in this location is limited and can be further narrowed with knowledge of specific imaging characteristics.

CONCLUSION
This article reviews the radiologic and pathologic findings of pediatric and adolescent intradural extramedullary neoplasms. After completing this article, the reader should have an improved understanding of the types of neoplastic processes that involve the extramedullary intradural compartment of the spine in the pediatric and adolescent age groups and should be able to narrow their differential diagnosis according to imaging findings.


Over the last few years, with the introduction of easy-to-use and integrated services such as Windows Live Spaces, blogging has moved into the mainstream in Malaysia, with women making up 64% of bloggers. Blogging has become popular because it provides an outlet for netizens who find blogosphere a liberating place, so unlike Malaysian traditional print which is censored and licensed. This article is an analysis of two blogs written by Malaysian women that show them negotiating in contradictory ways the line between the private and public dimensions of their lives. The idea that the "personal is political" and the importance of experience still retain an important place in feminist contemporary thought. I argue that many seemingly "trivial and personal" issues have produced a politics formed from the bloggers" personal experiences and reflections.


For micro-fiber reinforced strain-hardening cementitious materials, in addition to the basic characteristics and mechanical properties of fiber and interfacial properties between fiber and matrix, mechanical properties of matrix such as strength and crack resistance are essential parameters for material design, too. Therefore, the fracture properties of cement paste and mortar which are two most basal cementitious materials were studied, using three-point bending beams of which strength and depth are varied. Complete load versus crack mouth opening displacement (P-CMOD) curve directly obtained, and double-K fracture parameters ini Ic K and un Ic K were subsequently determined. The initial cracking load Pini was determined using resistant strain gauges. The results show that an apparent stable crack propagation before unstable failure was observed both in cement paste and in mortar. For cement paste, due to the influence of shrinkage crack, the divergence of the unstable fracture toughness un Ic K is more evident than initial fracture toughness ini Ic K .


There are many different professionals who all contribute to the health and support of patients. Understanding each one's different specialty is important, so that support workers know who the patient needs to be involved in their care—and when. The Code of Conduct for Healthcare Support Workers and Adult Social Care Workers in England (Skills for Care and Skills for Health, 2013) identifies that working in collaboration with colleagues is an important part of the support worker's role. Within section three and four it highlights three key areas: support workers must 'recognise and respect the roles and expertise of your colleagues both in the team and from other agencies and disciplines, and work in partnership with them'; 'work openly and cooperatively with colleagues, including those from other disciplines and agencies, and treat them with respect'; and 'communicate effectively and consult with your colleagues as appropriate'. These three keys areas of partnership working, respect and communication wil...


We report a novel 1:1 cocrystal of β-alanine with DL-tartaric acid, C3H7NO2·C4H6O6, (II), and three new molecular salts of DL-tartaric acid with β-alanine {3-azaniumylpropanoic acid-3-azaniumylpropanoate DL-tartaric acid-DL-tartrate, [H(C3H7NO2)2]+·[H(C4H5O6)2]-, (III)}, γ-aminobutyric acid [3-carboxypropanaminium DL-tartrate, C4H10NO2+·C4H5O6-, (IV)] and DL-α-aminobutyric acid {DL-2-azaniumylbutanoic acid-DL-2-azaniumylbutanoate DL-tartaric acid-DL-tartrate, [H(C4H9NO2)2]+·[H(C4H5O6)2]-, (V)}. The crystal structures of binary crystals of DL-tartaric acid with glycine, (I), β-alanine, (II) and (III), GABA, (IV), and DL-AABA, (V), have similar molecular packing and crystallographic motifs. The shortest amino acid (i.e. glycine) forms a cocrystal, (I), with DL-tartaric acid, whereas the larger amino acids form molecular salts, viz. (IV) and (V). β-Alanine is the only amino acid capable of forming both a cocrystal [i.e. (II)] and a molecular salt [i.e. (III)] with DL-tartaric acid. The cocrystals of glycine and β-alanine with DL-tartaric acid, i.e. (I) and (II), respectively, contain chains of amino acid zwitterions, similar to the structure of pure glycine. In the structures of the molecular salts of amino acids, the amino acid cations form isolated dimers [of β-alanine in (III), GABA in (IV) and DL-AABA in (V)], which are linked by strong O-H...O hydrogen bonds. Moreover, the three crystal structures comprise different types of dimeric cations, i.e. (A...A)+ in (III) and (V), and A+...A+ in (IV). Molecular salts (IV) and (V) are the first examples of molecular salts of GABA and DL-AABA that contain dimers of amino acid cations. The geometry of each investigated amino acid (except DL-AABA) correlates with the melting point of its mixed crystal.


We explore novel approaches to the task of image generation from their respective captions, building on state-of-the-art GAN architectures. Particularly, we baseline our models with the Attention-based GANs that learn attention mappings from words to image features. To better capture the features of the descriptions, we then built a novel cyclic design that learns an inverse function to maps the image back to original caption. Additionally, we incorporated recently developed BERT pretrained word embeddings as our initial text featurizer and observe a noticeable improvement in qualitative and quantitative performance compared to the Attention GAN baseline.


A comparative study was made on the physicochemical characteristics of two isozymes of methylcobamide:- coenzyme M methyltransferase (MT2). Both isozymes catalyzed S-methylation of 2-thioethanesulfonate (coenzyme M) and exhibited similar apparent Km values for coenzyme M of 35 μM (MT2-A) and 20 μM (MT2-M). Weak binding to methylcobalamin was indicated by the apparent Km of 14 mM for both isozymes. Cob(I)alamin was established as the major product of the reaction, demonstrating heterolytic cleavage of the methylcobamide carbon-cobalt bond. The isozymes were shown to be zinc-containing metalloproteins. Metal ion chelators strongly inhibited both isozymes. A variety of coenzyme M analogs were tested for activity and/or inhibition. One alternative substrate 3-mercaptopropionate was discovered, with apparent Km 9 mM (MT2-A) and 10 mM (MT2-M). The results suggested an active site geometry in which coenzyme M is bound both by S-coordination to zinc, and electrostatic interaction of the sulfonate with a cationic group on the enzyme. Methanosarcina barkeri genes cmtA and cmtM encoding both isozymes were cloned and sequenced. Both genes encoded proteins with 339 amino acids and predicted molecular masses of 36-37 kDa. Active forms of both isozymes were expressed in Escherichia coli. A conserved segment with the potential for metal binding was found. The possibility of zinc involvement in catalysis of coenzyme M methylation is considered.


The current study focuses on the locations from which people are reported missing repeatedly in a one year period. Some of these locations are individual households but the majority are organisational facilities. Thus, our aim is to highlight issues surrounding the 'duty of care' and 'safeguarding' responsibilities of agencies in relation to people who go missing from organisational addresses (such as mental health establishments and children's care homes); specifically in relation to preventing them from going missing in the first place and the responsibility of the organisations helping to locate them.


The Logic of Subchapter K, A Conceptual Guide to the Taxation of Partners and Partnerships, is one of the most popular resources for students and practitioners trying to decipher the intricacies of partnership tax. With Learning the Logic of Subchapter K, the authors make available a complete set of problems for use in the classroom. Each problem contains assignments to the text as well as the Code and Regulations, and suggested additional reading.


An efficient organic sensitizer (JK-306) featuring a planar indeno[1,2-b]thiophene as the π-linker of a bridging unit for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was synthesized. The sensitizer had a strong molar absorption coefficient and a red-shifted absorption band compared with JK-305, which resulted in a significant increase in the short-circuit photocurrent density. We incorporated a highly congested bulky amino group into the 2',4'-dihexyloxybiphenyl-4-yl moiety, an electron donor, to diminish the charge recombination and to prevent aggregation of the sensitizer. Under standard AM 1.5G solar conditions, JK-306-sensitized cells in the presence of co-adsorbents chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) and 4-[bis(9,9-dimethyl-9H-fluoren-2-yl)amino]benzoic acid (HC-A), which afforded an overall conversion efficiency of 8.37% and 8.52%, respectively. Upon changing the I(-) /I3 (-) electrolyte to the Co(II) /Co(III) redox couple, the cell gave rise to a significantly improved conversion efficiency of 10.02% with the multifunctional HC-A, which is one of the highest values reported for DSSCs with a cobalt-based electrolyte. Furthermore, the JK-306-based solar cell with a polymer gel electrolyte revealed a high conversion efficiency of 7.61%, which is one of the highest values for cells based on organic sensitizers.


In this paper, we study the problem of 3D object detection from stereo images, in which the key challenge is how to effectively utilize stereo information. Different from previous methods using pixel-level depth maps, we propose to employ 3D anchors to explicitly construct object-level correspondences between the regions of interest in stereo images, from which the deep neural network learns to detect and triangulate the targeted object in 3D space. We also introduce a cost-efficient channel reweighting strategy that enhances representational features and weakens noisy signals to facilitate the learning process. All of these are flexibly integrated into a solid baseline detector that inputs monocular images. We demonstrate that both the monocular baseline and the stereo triangulation learning network outperform the prior state-of-the-arts in 3D object detection and localization on the challenging KITTI dataset.


Insight into the biogenesis of peptide hormones has grown explosively by elucidation of gene, mRNA and prohormone structures. In addition, information about prohormone processing enzymes is rapidly accumulating. Prohormones vary in size and organization from poly- to monoprotein structures. According to their structural organization and sequence homology, hormones are grouped in families. Prohormones are processed to bioactive peptides by multiple modifications during the transport from the endoplasmic reticulum to secretory granules. The modifications comprise different proteolytic cleavages and amino acid derivatizations. By constitutive secretion, the processing is less pronounced. The same prohormone may be expressed in several cell types that process the precursor in different ways. Awareness of cell-specific processing patterns is important for understanding the tumour synthesis of peptides and for appropriate diagnosis of peptide-producing tumours. These tumours comprise not only well-known neuroendocrine neoplasias. An increasing number of common carcinomas also expresses peptide hormone genes. However, the translation and post-translational processing in tumours are generally attenuated. Consequently, the expression is often functionally and clinically silent. A new diagnostic tool, processing-independent analysis (PIA), seems promising in quantitation of hormone gene expression at peptide level irrespective of the degree of processing. Studies of progastrin expression and processing in tumours illustrate the diagnostic superiority of PIA.


This article provides an overview of the book Lost in Translations, which examines the lives and work of five twentieth century American Roman law translator-scholars: Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Fred H. Blume (1875-1971), who single-handedly translated Justinian's Code and Novels; gentleman-scholar Samuel Parsons Scott (1846-1929) and classics professor Clyde Pharr (1883-1972), both of whom created massive translations of ancient Roman law; Charles Phineas Sherman (1874-1962), a lawyer-professor who translated some Roman law and wrote prolifically about it; and, finally, Charles Sumner Lobingier (1866-1956), a judge-professor who wrote about Roman law, translated a little, championed the publication of Scott's work, and was connected to all of the others. All of these men were prominent during their lifetimes but are largely forgotten now. It is hoped that Lost in Translations will draw attention to the work these extraordinary men did and stir an interest to our classical past.


Our laboratory has previously developed a tumor-targeting double-auxotrophic mutant of Salmonella typhimurium termed A1-R. The present report demonstrates that S. typhimurium A1-R destroys tumor blood vessels and this is enhanced in tumors with high vascularity. Red fluorescent protein (RFP)-expressing Lewis lung cancer cells (LLC-RFP) were transplanted subcutaneously in the ear, back skin, and footpad of nestin-driven green fluorescent protein (ND-GFP) transgenic nude mice, which selectively express GFP in nascent blood vessels. Color-coded in vivo imaging demonstrated that the LLC-RFP ear tumor had the highest cell density and the footpad tumor had the least with the ear tumor having more abundant blood vessels than that on the back or footpad. The tumor-bearing mice were treated with A1-R bacteria via tail-vein injection. Tumors in the ear were the earliest responders to bacterial therapy and hemorrhaged severely the day after A1-R administration. Tumors growing in the back were the second fastest responders to bacterial treatment and appeared necrotic 3 days after A1-R administration. Tumors growing in the footpad had the least vascularity and were the last responders to A1-R. Therefore, tumor vascularity correlated positively with tumor efficacy of A1-R. The present study suggests that bacteria efficacy on tumors involved vessel destruction which depends on the extent of vascularity of the tumor.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
Our understanding of plant responses to biotic and abiotic drivers are largely based on aboveground plant traits, with little focus on belowground traits despite their key role in water and nutrient uptake. Here, we aimed to understand the extent to which above and belowground traits are coordinated, and how these traits respond to soil moisture gradients and plant intraspecific competition.

METHODS
We chose seedlings of five tropical tree species and grew them in a greenhouse for 16 weeks under a soil moisture gradient (low (drought), medium, and high (well-watered) moisture levels) with and without intraspecific competition. At harvest, we measured nine above and five belowground traits of all seedlings based on standard protocols.

KEY RESULTS
In response to the soil moisture gradient, aboveground traits are found to be consistent with the leaf economics spectrum whereas belowground traits are inconsistent with the root economics spectrum. We found high specific leaf area and total leaf area in well-watered conditions while high leaf dry matter content, leaf thickness and stem dry matter content were observed in drought conditions. However, belowground traits showed contrasting patterns with high specific root length but low root branching index in the low water treatment. The correlations between above and belowground traits across the soil moisture gradient were variable. That is, specific leaf area was positively correlated with specific root length, while it was negatively correlated with root average diameter across moisture levels. However, leaf dry matter content was unexpectedly positively correlated with both specific root length and root branching index. Intraspecific competition has influenced both above and belowground traits, but interacted with soil moisture to affect only belowground traits. Consistent with functional equilibrium theory, more biomass was allocated to roots under drought conditions, and to leaves under sufficient soil moisture conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that the response of belowground traits to plant intraspecific competition and soil moisture conditions may not be inferred using aboveground traits suggesting that multiple resource use axes are needed to understand plant ecological strategies. Lack of consistent leaf-root trait correlations across the soil moisture gradient highlight the multidimensionality of plant trait relationships which needs more exploration.


Problem statement: As a professional mix of Science and Art, Urban Design always needs skillful people in order to submit suitable results with artistic and functional values. For this purpose, specialists of urban design managed to develop different patterns about designing process. Creative Designing is one of the mentioned processes. Research objectives: The real objective of this paper is to define a process of creative urban design in an urban scale. It may not only consider general steps of creativity but also respect the common process of urban space designing. For this purpose, the main question of this research is: "What are the various steps of creative designing of urban space?" This paper intends to examine the extant ideas in the field of creative process and also urban design process and compatibility of these two concepts. Research method: Upon a comprehensive evaluation of current ideas about creative designing in different fields, in this study, the relevant process and upgrading techniques have been extracted with a qualitative method and analytical attitude. Then its compliance with the urban space designing process by the use of focus group was examined. Finally, the steps of the creative designing process of urban space were extracted accordingly. Conclusion: Some of the major factors in the complexity of creativity in urban space designing are complexity and various dimensions of urban space, variety of stakeholder groups, a great number of visual elements and effects of other involved fields in the creation and upgrading the qualities of urban space. Creative designing of urban space is different from other creative designing methods and is applicable in five major steps including


Transportation costs of energy resources are important when determining the overall economics of future energy infrastructure. The majority of long distance energy transmission occurs via merchant ships and pipelines carrying oil or natural gas. In contrast, future energy scenarios often envision vastly altered energy transportation scenarios including very high degrees of grid electrification and widespread installation of hydrogen pipelines. The unit cost of energy transportation varies by over two orders of magnitude. In particular, the costs of electricity and hydrogen transmission are substantially higher than the cost of oil and natural gas transportation. If carbon pricing is to be used to incentivize alternative energy systems, these differences in costs will need to be reduced and used when making meaningful technology comparisons.


Discharge as an integrated representation of all hydrological processes is the most common response variable used in sensitivity analyses. However, due to overlaying effects of all hydrological processes, the sensitivity signal of certain parameters to discharge can be masked. A more informative form of sensitivity analysis can be achieved by investigating how parameter sensitivities are related to individual modeled hydrological components. In our study, the TEDPAS (TEmporal Dynamics of PArameter Sensitivity) methodology is used to calculate daily sensitivities to modeled hydrological components and to detect temporal variations in dominant parameters. As a further enhancement to consider both magnitude and dynamics, temporal variations in parameter dominance are analyzed, both for magnitudes and rates of change of hydrological components. For this purpose, regime curves for parameter sensitivities are constructed. The results demonstrate that sensitivities of parameters increase when using the corresponding hydrological component instead of discharge as response variable. For each hydrological component, seasonal patterns of parameter dominance are detected using both magnitude and rate of change as response variable. Major differences are detected for certain capacity parameters, which are less pronounced using rates of change. Overall, we show that disentangling the diagnostic information hidden in the integrated signal of discharge can lead to a more informative signal regarding the sensitivity of hydrological components. Such advancements in sensitivity analysis can lead to a better understanding of how model parameters control the individual hydrological components in time.


2H (two-histidine) phosphoesterase enzymes are distributed widely in all domains of life and are implicated in diverse RNA and nucleotide transactions, including the transesterification and hydrolysis of cyclic phosphates. Here we report a biochemical and structural characterization of the Escherichia coli 2H protein YapD, which was identified originally as a reversible transesterifying "nuclease/ligase" at RNA 2′,5′-phosphodiesters. We find that YapD is an "end healing" cyclic phosphodiesterase (CPDase) enzyme that hydrolyzes an HORNA>p substrate with a 2′,3′-cyclic phosphodiester to a HORNAp product with a 2′-phosphomonoester terminus, without concomitant end joining. Thus we rename this enzyme ThpR (two-histidine 2′,3′-cyclic phosphodiesterase acting on RNA). The 2.0 Å crystal structure of ThpR in a product complex with 2′-AMP highlights the roles of extended histidine-containing motifs 43HxTxxF48 and 125HxTxxR130 in the CPDase reaction. His43-Nε makes a hydrogen bond with the ribose O3′ leaving group, thereby implicating His43 as a general acid catalyst. His125-Nε coordinates the O1P oxygen of the AMP 2′-phosphate (inferred from geometry to derive from the attacking water nucleophile), pointing to His125 as a general base catalyst. Arg130 makes bidentate contact with the AMP 2′-phosphate, suggesting a role in transition-state stabilization. Consistent with these inferences, changing His43, His125, or Arg130 to alanine effaced the CPDase activity of ThpR. Phe48 makes a π–π stack on the adenine nucleobase. Mutating Phe28 to alanine slowed the CPDase by an order of magnitude. The tertiary structure and extended active site motifs of ThpR are conserved in a subfamily of bacterial and archaeal 2H enzymes.


From the Publisher:

Untitled
Excel X for Mac OS X is the model OS X app, from its Aqua interface to its complete support for OS X's modern architecture. In Excel X for Mac OSX: Visual QuickStart Guide, author Maria Langer, veteran Mac writer andconsultant, walks you through all that's new and noteworthy in Microsoft'sspreadsheet powerhouse, dispensing lots of expert tips along the way.
Maria knows you're a busy professional. That's why Excel X for Mac OS X:VQS was designed to let you learn as you work. Use it as aquick-reference guide: Just look up a topic in the index—or use the pagetabs to thumb to it—then follow the simple, concise steps and check yourresults against the accompanying screenshots. Newcomers can treat the book as a step-by-step introduction to Excel, starting with the basics, thenmoving on to more advanced techniques, such as inserting objects andmultimedia events, creating charts and graphs, and publishing spreadsheets to the Web.


The aim of this article is to highlight the legal characteristics of the concept of refugeehood, the concomitant problems of interpretation and the need for the use of binding rules of interpretation that should be consistently put into effect by domestic fora. The international refugee definition (contained in the UN Refugee Convention) is identified as a stipulative, synthetic one that, depsite its polarised historical background, is imbued with a unique, inherent dynamism founded on its own notional 'porousness' and the drafters' express wish for an application of the Refugee Convention that 'exceeds its contractual nature'. The article attempts to lay down and examine the potential for a contemporary, dynamic construction of refugeehood by domestic fora in the context of the Refugee Convention, the latter being viewed as a law-making treaty aimed at the effective protection of human rights and human dignity. The study puts forward Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties as a prototype that may well provide a sound and principled legal tool for interpretation, on condition that it is placed in the appropriate context of a humanitarian/human rights treaty that prescribes a dynamic interpretation of its terms. The author, using as examples case law from Germany and the United Kingdom, concludes showing the lack of an established, systematic contextual application by domestic fora of the Vienna Convention canons. He highlights the vital role that judicial fora may play in national asylum procedures and notes that they should realise their long-term potentials and responsibilities in the area of refugee protection and the need to use a principled framework for legal textual construction.


We first doped europium (Eu) ions into WO3 using a hydrothermal method. The effects of Eu ions on the structure, morphology, and electrochromic and photoluminescence performances of WO3 films have been systematically investigated. It is found that a WO3 film doped with Eu ions exhibits the bi-functionality of electrochromic switching and red emission. Compared with an undoped WO3 film, a WO3 film doped with 10%Eu ions shows a remarkably enhanced optical contrast of 80.7% at 680 nm, a faster coloration response of 7.2 s, and more than 3 times higher coloration efficiency of about 57.85 cm2 C−1. Moreover, a WO3 film doped with Eu ions could be excited by 260 nm ultraviolet light and exhibit a tunable red emission as a response to the applied electric field. This novel and bifunctional WO3 film shows potential in preparation of illuminable "smart windows".


Purpose. Hesperetin and naringenin are naturally common flavonoids reported to have antioxidative effects. This study was performed to investigate whether either hesperetin or naringenin has a protective effect against apoptosis on retinal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. Methods. Retinal I/R was induced by increasing the intraocular pressure to 150 mmHg for 60 minutes. Thirty-three male Wistar albino rats were randomised into 5 groups named control, I/R + sham, I/R + solvent (DMSO), I/R + hesperetin, and I/R + naringenin. Animals were given either hesperetin, naringenin, or the solvent intraperitoneally immediately following reperfusion. Thickness of retinal layers and retinal cell apoptosis were detected by histological analysis, tunel assay, and immunohistochemistry assay. Results. Hesperetin and naringenin attenuated the I/R-induced apoptosis of retinal cells in the inner and outer nuclear cells of the rat retina. Retinal layer thickness of the naringenin treatment group was significantly thicker than that of the hesperetin, sham, and solvent groups (P < 0.05). Conclusions. Hesperetin and naringenin can prevent harmful effects induced by I/R injury in the rat retina by inhibiting apoptosis of retinal cells, which suggests that those flavanones have a therapeutic potential for the protection of ocular ischemic diseases.


Electronic monitoring utilizing process-specific Ring Oscillators (RO) is explored as a means of identifying, quantifying, and modeling sources of variation in circuit performance due to manufacturing and layout design parameters. This dissertation contains the first measured silicon results for the utilization of parameter-specific modification of ring oscillator layouts to electronically monitor particular process variation. Design and testing for this work were made possible through the Berkeley Wireless Research Center. The working circuits were fabricated by ST Micro in a 45 nm fabrication process that was under development. The design was based on a process design kit provided by ST Micro. The lithography simulation was carried out using generic models in Mentor Graphics Calibre. Five systematic process effects were considered: etch, focus, misalignment, and capping layer and Shallow Trench Isolation (STI) stress. In all cases, inverter layouts were modified in order to increase sensitivity to a particular parameter within design rule constraints. For monitoring etch, the presence or absence of adjacent dummy gates and pre-correction for residual lithographic effects were used. For monitoring gate focus, spillover functions and Pattern Matching were used as an initial guide to place added surroundings to the gate; this was followed by systematic optimization via Mentor Graphics Calibre simulations. A focus sensitivity of 1.5 times that of a dense gate was achieved. For monitoring gate-to-active misalignment, a set of 5 pre-programmed offsets on an `H-shaped diffusion' was designed. The RO frequency versus offset relationship in design showed a parabolic shape with a speed up of 3.2% for 15nm misalignment. The capping layer and lateral STI stress monitors were designed based on changes in the lateral size of the source and drain, including those of asymmetrical source/drain areas. Seventeen chips were received, packaged, and automatically tested. The measured range of the across-wafer variation was 11.1% for control-case RO with minimum sized gate area. For a given monitor on a typical chip, the variation among the 36 RO instantiations normalized to its mean is 0.2-0.3 %, with the larger value occurring for the smaller gate areas. When these values were multiplied by the square root of the product of 36 instances time 26 transistors per RO, the average threshold slope (AVT) of 2.3mV/um was obtained in an equivalent Pelgrom model.The measured RO frequency sensitivity to gate focus monitors shows that they are about 4% slower than the control ROs. This decrease is attributed to parasitic effects as well as the non-uniform `hour-glass' shape produced at the top and bottom of the gate from the horizontal extensions used to increase focus sensitivity. The pre-programmed gate-to-active misalignment monitors show a 2-4 nm overlay error for 17 chips. The fact that the experimental measurements are less sensitive than predicted during the design stage is in part attributed to the fact that the wafer was run under unusually good control without any programmed treatments such as defocus. This observation is supported by the fact that the measured range of RO frequency was typically centered and 1/6-1/4th of the SS-FF guard band. The unanticipated requirement to apply strong OPC techniques with scatter-bars to the monitor designs in order to guarantee that they would not impact product yield also resulted in considerable sensitivity loss. The Nitride Contact Etch Stop Liner (CESL) strain-induced monitors show a ring oscillator frequency increase of 5.3% and 13.9% for 1.8X and long length source/drain diffusion (LOD) respectively as compared to minimum LOD, after the normalization of raw data to simulation data so as to correct for parasitic effects. This increase is due to increased CESL-induced strain for large LOD. For the same LOD, asymmetrical designs show a 3% ring oscillator frequency increase for larger source LOD than that of larger drain LOD, indicating transistor injection velocity as well as mobility is important. The random variation of RO circuit performance for a given layout monitor within a chip is examined for 3 sources of variations: changes in gate length (L), gate oxide thickness (Tox), and channel doping (Nch). The strategy here is to make a linear approximation of the measured RO frequency sensitivity to these 3 parameters under 5 distinct combinations of operating voltages and temperatures using the 45nm PDK BSIM4/PSP models. The strategy is implemented using least mean square (LMS) analysis. For all of the blocks, the LMS results indicate that the source of random within-chip variation is dominated by random dopant fluctuations in comparison with changes in L and Tox.


A random sample of herds and cows within herds was used to determine the prevalence of Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection in Puerto Rico.The sample included only adult lactating or non-lactating animals on the sampling date.The number of samples per herd varied from 25 to 150, according to herd size (25 in herds with fewer than 150 cows or 25% of the larger herds) for a total of 2,053 cows in 28 herds. All adult animals (241) of the two herds of the University of Puerto Rico were sampled in order to compare the prevalence of MAP in these herds relative to the prevalence in the herds where only a sample of the animals was evaluated. The diagnosis of MAP was based on the ELISA seologic test of blood samples, according to the manufacturer's instructions, and the results were categorized as positive or negative. On the basis of the serologic test, the prevalence of MAP in herds and cows was 96.00 and 5.77%, respectively. No difference in the latter criterion was detected between the herds in which all the adult animals were tested and those where only 25% of the animals were tested (5.39 vs. 5.87%, respectively). The cows with positive ELISA test for MAP had numerically lower daily milk yield (17.64 kg) and yield adjusted to 305 days (5,489 kg), and significantly higher somatic cell counts (1,262,000 cells per milliliter) than those negative to the test (with respective values of 18.33 and 5,894 kg and 288,000 cells per milliliter).


Abstract
Regular biochemical measurements were made in 4 babies, each of whom had one parent with familial hypophosphataemic, hyperphosphaturic rickets. Hypophosphataemia developed by 2 months and levels of alkaline phosphatase had increased by 3 months in all four. Decreased tubular reabsorption of phosphate and x-ray changes of rickets did not develop until 6 months in 3 of the babies. In the fourth these abnormalities developed at 9 days and 3 months. The babies were treated with oral phosphate and small doses of 1-alpha-hydroxy-cholecalciferol. The rickets healed readily in 3 babies and their linear growth kis within the normal range. Healing took much longer in the remaining child and his linear growth is below the 3rd centile. Hypercalcaemia has not been a problem of treatment.


Background Socio-demographic factors and area of residence might influence the development of esophageal and gastric cancer. Large-scale population-based research can determine the role of such factors. Methods This population-based cohort study included all Swedish residents aged 30–84 years in 1990–2007. Educational level, marital status, place of birth, and place of residence were evaluated with regard to mortality from esophageal or gastric cancer. Cox regression yielded hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusted for potential confounding. Results Among 84 920 565 person-years, 5125 and 12 230 deaths occurred from esophageal cancer and gastric cancer, respectively. Higher educational level decreased the HR of esophageal cancer (HR = 0.61, 95%CI 0.42–0.90 in women, HR = 0.71, 95%CI 0.60–0.84 in men) and gastric cancer (HR = 0.80, 95%CI 0.63–1.03 in women, HR = 0.73, 95%CI 0.64–0.83 in men). Being unmarried increased HR of esophageal cancer (HR = 1.64, 95%CI 1.35–1.99 in women, HR = 1.64, 95%CI 1.50–1.80 in men), but not of gastric cancer. Being born in low density populated areas increased HR of gastric cancer (HR = 1.23, 95%CI 1.10–1.38 in women, HR = 1.37, 95%CI 1.25–1.50 in men), while no strong association was found with esophageal cancer. Living in densely populated areas increased HR of esophageal cancer (HR = 1.31, 95%CI 1.14–1.50 in women, HR = 1.40, 95%CI 1.29–1.51 in men), but not of gastric cancer. Conclusion These socio-demographic inequalities in cancer mortality warrant efforts to investigate possible preventable mechanisms and to promote and support healthier lifestyles among deprived groups.


Objectives To identify the number and current location of all children receiving long-term ventilation (LTV) in the UK, and to establish their underlying diagnoses and ventilatory requirements. Design Single time-point census completed by members of the UK LTV working party using an electronic-based questionnaire Subjects All children in the UK at home or in hospital who, when medically stable, continue to need a mechanical aid for breathing following a failure to wean beyond a 3-month period. Results 933 children under the age of 17 years in 30 regional centres were identified as receiving LTV. 88 children (9.5%) required continuous positive pressure ventilation by tracheostomy over 24 h, while 658 received ventilation while asleep only. Most children are ventilated by a non-invasive mask (n=704; 75%) or tracheostomy (n=206; 22%). Underlying conditions included neuromuscular disease (n=402; 43%), chronic respiratory (n=343; 37%) and central nervous system conditions (n=168; 18%). 129 (14%) children were aged 16 or over. 844 (91%) children were cared for at home with only 49 children listed as being in acute hospital units (n=34) or paediatric intensive care units/high dependency units (n=15). Conclusions The last 10 years has seen a very significant increase in the number of children requiring LTV in the UK with an increasing number cared for at home. This reflects both improving technology and increasing clinical expertise in paediatric non-invasive ventilatory support, and a continuing change in attitude towards long-term support, particularly in children with neuromuscular diseases. There are a substantial number of children who soon will require transition to adult services, yet few such services currently exist.


We introduce and investigate several state-of-the-art shape deformation methods for their use in evolutionary design optimization problems. Starting from classical free-form deformation (FFD) we broaden our investigation to more flexible methods such as direct manipulation FFD and deformations based on radial basis functions. We integrate the different methods into a framework for evolutionary design optimization and apply them in a passenger car optimization scenario improving the drag of a simplified Honda Civic model. We evaluate the aerodynamic performance of different design variations utilizing computational fluid dynamics simulations. Based on this scenario we analyze and compare the strengths and weaknesses of the individual methods.


Transposable elements (TEs) are a tremendous source of genome instability and genetic variation. Of particular interest to investigators of human biology and human evolution are retrotransposon insertions that are recent and/or polymorphic in the human population. As a consequence, the ability to assay large numbers of polymorphic TEs in a given genome is valuable. Five recent manuscripts each propose methods to scan whole human genomes to identify, map, and, in some cases, genotype polymorphic retrotransposon insertions in multiple human genomes simultaneously. These technologies promise to revolutionize our ability to analyze human genomes for TE-based variation important to studies of human variability and human disease. Furthermore, the approaches hold promise for researchers interested in nonhuman genomic variability. Herein, we explore the methods reported in the manuscripts and discuss their applications to aspects of human biology and the biology of other organisms.


A summary of experimental results from nanoindentation, strain rate-controlled tension, in-situ bending and high pressure torsion on bulk electrodeposited nanocrystalline nickel, focusing on the effects of grain size on the mechanical behaviour and deformation mechanisms is presented. The interaction between dislocations and grain boundaries was locally examined by studying the dependence of nanohardness on grain size and indentation size; this is done by always performing nanoindents in the center of individual grains and by varying the grain size and indentation depth systematically. The grain size effects on the different deformation mechanisms of nanocrystalline nickel were revealed by strain rate-controlled tension and nanoindentation experiments, which show that with decreasing grain size the strain rate sensitivity increases and the activation volume decreases, indicating increased grain boundary mediated deformation processes in nanocrystalline nickel. Creep experiments at room temperature revealed that in nanocrystalline nickel grain boundary sliding or diffusion along the interface may dominate at lower stress levels, but with increasing stresses the deformation process is mainly controlled by dislocation creep. In-situ bending experiments in an atomic force microscope revealed directly that grain boundary mediated deformation processes play a significant role in nanocrystalline nickel, which is also supported by the observation of grain coarsening and softening of nanocrystalline nickel caused by high pressure torsion.


This paper presents a novel planar compact integrated four-sector antenna for sub-6GHz 5G indoor access and content distribution over 2.45GHz/ 5.5GHz dual-band WiFi in 2x2 MIMO configuration. The four sectors, for 5G applications, are obtained via Vivaldi antennas with ground reuse for achieving very compact dimensions. A compact two-port slot antenna with a cross separation for reducing the mutual coupling is incorporated in the Vivaldi center for WiFi applications. All the antenna's ports cover the entire 2-6GHz band with good isolation and radiation efficiency. The antenna's different parameters are presented and thoroughly analyzed revealing a satisfactory performance.


Taking its starting point in the often debated subject of Swedish compulsory school students' performance scores in surveys such as PISA and a lack of motivation towards schoolwork that transfers to low performance and does not facilitate a good learning climate, this study aims to investigate how teaching practice can affect this. The study is partly connected to formative assessment in that it focuses on one of the key strategies of the process; making the objectives and goals of schoolwork transparent to students and sharing these with them. Grounded in research both on formative assessment but also on motivation in connection to foreign language learning, it is hypothesised that sharing the objectives of a task with students will improve not only their performance on it, but also their motivation level and their perceptions of the task being of value to them and of benefit for their learning.The study employed a quasi-experimental approach where a group of 50 students were given five pairs of tasks out of which five were given without any explanation of the objectives (the A version) and five were given with an explanation of the objectives (the B version). Accompanying each task was a questionnaire and the answers to the questionnaires together with performance scores on the tasks served as the raw data for analysis. The study can be said to have strong ecological validity since it investigates teaching practice that commonly occurs in classrooms as teachers on an everyday basis choose to either share the objectives of schoolwork with their students, or do not.The analysis of the data gathered showed that there was no general improvement in performance scores on the B-version tasks where students were given an explanation of the objectives beforehand. Neither were they more motivated, nor felt that the tasks were more valuable or perceived they had learnt more. The findings thus pointed to the opposite of the hypothesised outcome. However, there proved to be a correlation between performance scores and motivation which in turn could encourage further research on the motivation of students in foreign language learning. A discussion of the manner in which the objectives and goals of tasks are communicated to students further opened up for a possible research angle to pursue where the focus would be not only on sharing the objectives with students but on discussing these and making them meaningful to students on a personal level.


The conventional experimental techniques used for performance evaluation of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) chemicals, such as polymers and surfactants, have been mostly limited to bulk viscosity, phase behavior/interfacial tension (IFT), and thermal stability measurements. Furthermore, fundamental studies exploring the different microscale interactions instigated by the EOR chemicals at the crude oil/water interface are scanty. The objective of this experimental study is to fill this existing knowledge gap and deliver an important understanding on underlying interfacial sciences and their potential implications for oil recovery in chemical EOR.
 Different microscale interactions of EOR chemicals, at crude oil/water interface, were studied by using a suite of experimental techniques, including an interfacial shear rheometer, Langmuir trough, and coalescence time measurement apparatus at both ambient (23°C) and elevated (70°C) temperatures. The reservoir crude oil and high-salinity injection water (57,000 ppm total dissolved solids) were used. Two chemicals, an amphoteric surfactant (at 1,000 ppm) and a sulfonated polyacrylamide polymer (at 500 and 700 ppm) were chosen because they are tolerant to high-salinity and high-temperature conditions. Interfacial viscous and elastic moduli (viscoelasticity), interface pressures, interface compression energies, and coalescence time between crude oil droplets are the major experimental data measured.
 Interfacial shear rheology results showed that surfactant favorably reduced the viscoelasticity of crude oil/water interface by decreasing the elastic and viscous modulus and increasing the phase angle to soften the interfacial film. Polymers in brine either alone or together with surfactant increased the viscous and elastic modulus and decreased the phase angle at the oil/water interface, thereby contributing to interfacial film rigidity. Interfacial pressures with polymers remained almost in the same order of magnitude as the high-salinity brine. In contrast, a significant reduction in interfacial pressures with surfactant was observed. The interface compression energies indicated the same trend and were reduced by approximately two orders of magnitude when surfactant was added to the brine. The surfactant was also able to retain similar interface behavior under compression even in the presence of polymers. The coalescence times between crude oil droplets were increased by polymers, while they were substantially decreased by the surfactant. These consistent findings from different experimental techniques demonstrated the adverse interactions of polymers at the crude oil/water interface to result in more rigid films, while confirming the high efficiency of the surfactant to soften the interfacial film, promote the oil droplets coalescence, and mobilize substantial amounts of residual oil in chemical EOR.
 This experimental study, for the first time, characterized the microscale interactions of surfactant-polymer chemicals at the crude oil/water interface. The applicability of several interfacial experimental techniques has been demonstrated to successfully understand underlying interfacial sciences and oil mobilization mechanisms in chemical EOR. These techniques and methods can provide potential means to efficiently screen and optimize EOR chemical formulations for better oil recovery in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs.


This explanatory sequential mixed method study aims to determine the students' attitudes toward the main inhibiting factor of English writing activity and skill development supported by the teacher's perception. Beyond writing being one of the most complex languages and communication skills to be mastered, the success or failure of students in writing could also be influenced by various factors. This study discusses five factors: affective factor, writing apprehension, linguistic factor, writer's block, and tactical factor. The eleventh-grade students and a senior English teacher of one public school in Malang became the participants in the study. This study has two types of data: qualitative and quantitative. The quantitative data are collected first, then qualitative data to support explaining or elaborate on the quantitative result. This research uses two instruments:  1) a closed-ended questionnaire to obtain quantitative data on learners' perceptions, and 2) a semi-structured interview to draw the teacher's perspective. The qualitative data analysis was conducted using statistical analysis and supported by statistical software, SPSS. A descriptive analysis was applied to analyze and describe the qualitative data. The main inhibiting factor in English writing activity faced by the eleventh graders of Senior High school 1 Malang was the writer's block factor related to students' motivational block at the beginning or during the writing process and their difficulties in developing and connecting different ideas.


Emile de Girardin (1806-1881) is a key figure in the history of the French press. In 1836 he revolutionised the French newspaper market with the launch of La Presse, one of France's first affordable daily papers. Its low subscription price was made possible by the paper's heavy reliance on advertising revenue. Girardin also harboured political ambitions. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies during the July Monarchy, he claimed to have personally advised Louis-Philippe to abdicate during the February revolution of 1848. But Girardin's relationship with the newly-established republic - and its leaders - was often problematic. This article examines representations of Emile de Girardin and his politics in republican caricature and satire during the Second French Republic. It argues that Girardin's criticism of the Republic, and his frequently shifting political allegiances, made him a prime target for republican ridicule. However, this article also explores how the ridicule meted out to Girardin and others by the republican satirical press was part of a wider effort to use caricature and satire to define the meaning of quarante-huitard republicanism.


In 1930, the Olmsted Brothers and Harland Bartholomew & Associates submitted a report, "Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region", to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. After a day or two of coverage in the newspapers, the report dropped from sight. The plan set out a system of parks and parkways, children's playgrounds, and public beaches. It is a model of ambitious, intelligent, sensitive planning commissioned at a time when land was available, if only the city planners had had the fortitude and vision to act on its recommendations. "Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches" has become a highly valued but difficult-to-find document. In this book, Greg Hise and William Deverell examine the reasons it was called for, analyze why it failed, and open a discussion about the future of urban public space. In addition to their introduction and a facsimile reproduction of the report, Eden by Design includes a dialogue between Hise, Deverell, and widely admired landscape architect Laurie Olin that illuminates the significance of the Olmsted-Bartholomew report and situates it in the history of American landscape planning.


Introduction Acute acoustic trauma (AAT) is a sensorineural hearing impairment due to exposure to an intense impulse noise which causes cochlear hypoxia. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) could provide an adequate oxygen supply. The aim was to investigate the effectiveness of early treatment with combined HBO and corticosteroid therapy in patients with AAT compared with corticosteroid monotherapy. Methods A retrospective study was performed on military personnel diagnosed with AAT between November 2012 and December 2017. Inclusion criteria for HBO therapy were hearing loss of 30 dB or greater on at least one, 25 dB or more on at least two, or 20 dB or more on three or more frequencies as compared with the contralateral ear. Results Absolute hearing improvements showed significant differences (independent t-test) between patients receiving HBO and the control group at 500 Hz (p=0.014), 3000 Hz (p=0.023), 4000 Hz (p=0.001) and 6000 Hz (p=0.01) and at the mean of all frequencies (p=0.002). Relative hearing improvements were significantly different (independent t-test) at 4000 Hz (p=0.046) and 6000 Hz (p=0.013) and at all frequencies combined (p=0.005). Furthermore, the percentage of patients with recovery to the functional level required by the Dutch Armed Forces (clinical outcome score) was higher in the HBO group. Conclusions Early-stage combination therapy for patients with AAT was associated with better audiometric results at higher frequencies and better clinical outcome score.


GPU activity prediction is an important and complex problem. This is due to the high level of contention among thousands of parallel threads. This problem was mostly addressed using heuristics. We propose a representation learning approach to address this problem. We model any performance metric as a temporal function of the executed instructions with the intuition that the flow of instructions can be identified as distinct activities of the code. Our experiments show high accuracy and non-trivial predictive power of representation learning on a benchmark.


Media users exercise control over their information and entertainment environments. Selective exposure to media allows individual to choose channels and messages that satisfy their interests and motivations. A variety of selective exposure studies have assessed selective exposure to messages about ingroup versus outgroup members. Relevant theoretical perspectives include information seeking, confirmation bias, informational utility, self and affect management, reinforcing spirals, boundary expansion, exemplification, and social comparison. Each of these theories of selective exposure identifies an attitudinal or self-conceptual basis for media use yet also allows for the role of social identity or beliefs about intergroup members and interactions. In addition, the distinction between selective exposure and selective avoidance is critical for understanding intergroup media contact, as is the distinction between positive and negative portrayals of relevant social groups. Applicable findings from survey and experimental studies illustrate that age identity, sex and gender identity, and race and ethnicity all produce patterns of selective exposure in which ingroups are generally favored. Information about outgroups is more likely to be selected if it suits the situational or dispositional needs of the individual. Partisan selective exposure is also examined from an intergroup perspective, as is selective exposure to information about aspirational future selves and self-expansion. Depictions of persons that exemplify social groups or allow for social comparison are also discussed, yet little direct evidence exists about exposure to outgroup members in these processes. Finally, interpersonal new media are considered with regard to intergroup contact. Immersive media such as virtual reality provide interactive contact with outgroups, and social identity plays an important role in the distribution of user-generated content, the cultivation of online social networks, and the ongoing convergence between mass and social media. Selective exposure researchers are increasingly considering intergroup contact as an important type of media content relevant to their theories, and intergroup contact researchers are increasingly accounting for the selectivity factor in media processing and effects. Integrating key findings and building a more programmatic approach to this topic will enhance the understanding of individuals' self-selected exposure to media about (and produced by) outgroups. Indeed, for intergroup media contact to be successful in producing less stereotyping, more positive attitudes, and more intergroup harmony, media users must first choose to come into contact with messages about outgroup members, specifically messages that can convey and produce beneficial effects for intergroup relations.


A collaborative effort at Texas Tech University on high power RF transmitters has directly translated to the development of phased array pulsed ring down sources (PRDS). By operating an array of PRDS, peak radiating power on target can theoretically be multiplied by the number of sources. The primary limitation on the application of the array concept is the jitter with which the individual sources can be fired. An ideal jitter of a small fraction of the risetime is required to accurately synchronize the array to steer and preserve the risetime of the radiated pulse. This paper describes in detail the implementation of a GPS based timing system that will synchronize the individual antennas to operate at different geo-locations to function in a coordinated fashion to deliver the peak power of each element to a single position. Theoretical array performance is shown through Monte Carlo simulations, accounting for switch jitter and a range of GPS timing jitter. Each module will include a control unit, low jitter pulser [1], low jitter spark gap, antenna element, as well as a GPS receiver. The location of each module is transmitted to a central controller, which calculates and dictates when each element is fired. Low jitter in the timing of the GPS reference signal is essential in synchronizing each element to deliver the maxim power. Testing using a preliminary setup using GPS technology is conducted with both 1 pps and 100 pps outputs. Jitter results between modules are recorded to ∼10 ns without any correction factors. With the timing and geospatial [2] errors taken into account, the proposed concept will show usable gains of up to several hundred MHz.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of the study was to determine the protective effect of curcumin against ionizing radiation-induced cataract in the lens of rats.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Rats were divided into six groups. Group 1: Control, Group 2: Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), Group 3: DMSO+curcumin, Group 4: Irradiation, Group 5: Irradiation+DMSO, Group 6: Irradiation+DMSO+curcumin. A 15 Gy total dose was given to 4, 5, 6 groups for radiation damage. Curcumin (100 mg/kg) was dissolved in DMSO and given by intragastric intubation for 28 days. At the end of the experiment, lenses were graded and enucleated. The lenticular activity of the antioxidant enzymes, total antioxidant and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and the malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured.

RESULTS
100% Cataract was seen in the irradiation group. Cataract rate fell to 40% and was limited at grade 1 and 2 in the curcumin group. In the irradiation group, antioxidant enzyme levels were decreased, MDA levels were increased. There was an increase in antioxidant enzyme levels and a significant decrease in MDA in the group which was given curcumin.

CONCLUSION
Curcumin has antioxidant and radioprotective properties and is likely to be a valuable agent for protection against ionizing radiation. Hence, it may be used as an antioxidant and radioprotector against radiation-induced cataractogenesis.


In this paper, we attempt to give a theoretical underpinning to the well established empirical stylized fact that asset returns in general and the spot FOREX returns in particular display predictable volatility characteristics. Adopting Moore and Roche s habit persistence version of Lucas model we nd that both the innovation in the spot FOREX return and the FOREX return itself follow "ARCH" style processes. Using the impulse response functions (IRFs) we show that the baseline simulated FOREX series has "ARCH" properties in the quarterly frequency that match well the "ARCH" properties of the empirical monthly estimations in that when we scale the x-axis to synchronize the monthly and quarterly responses we find similar impulse responses to one unit shock in variance. The IRFs for the ARCH processes we estimate "look the same" with an approximately monotonic decreasing fashion. The Lucas two-country monetary model with habit can generate realistic conditional volatility in spot FOREX return.


Economic diversification is an incessant theme threading policy discussion in Trinidad and Tobago, although with an ebb and flow over time. This topic is once again at the forefront of policy discussions following the recent oil price decline and subsequent to the new administration that took office in September 2015. This policy brief discusses the potential role that the exchange rate plays in diversification, fiscal adjustment and economic growth. In doing so we use a new estimation of the real effective exchange rate that better captures competitiveness of the country's non-oil exports. The evidence assembled in this policy brief suggests that the exchange rate could have an important role in fiscal adjustment, economic growth, and diversification. We find that a major change in the exchange rate would reduce the size of the fiscal adjustment in the short term. It would boost diversification of non-energy
export products and their markets over the medium term, hence spur economic growth and employment. Presumably, there are perceived short-term downsides. These include (i) an inflationary effect which implies reduced household real income and hence a possible increase in poverty, and (ii), increased cost of imported material used as inputs in production, which compounded by microeconomic level balance sheet effects that arise in the presence of liability dollarisation that also leads to negative impacts of real exchange rate devaluations on firms' performance.


Abstract. A key challenge for numerical weather prediction
models is representing boundary layer clouds in cold air outbreaks (CAOs).
One important aspect is the evolution of microphysical properties as
stratocumulus transitions to open cellular convection. Abel et al. (2017)
have shown, for the first time from in situ field observations, that the
break-up in CAOs over the eastern Atlantic may be controlled by the
development of precipitation in the cloud system while the boundary layer
becomes decoupled. This paper describes that case and examines in situ
measurements from three more CAOs. Flights were conducted using the UK
Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) British Aerospace-146
(BAe-146) aircraft in the North Atlantic region around the UK, making
detailed microphysical measurements in the stratiform boundary layer. As the
cloudy boundary layer evolves prior to break-up, increasing liquid water
paths (LWPs) and drop sizes and the formation of liquid precipitation are
observed. Small numbers of ice particles, typically a few per litre, are also
observed. Eventually LWPs reduce significantly due to loss of water from the
stratocumulus cloud (SC) layer. In three of the cases, aerosols are removed
from the boundary layer across the transition. This process appears to be
similar to those observed in warm clouds and pockets of open cells (POCs) in
the subtropics. After break-up, deeper convective clouds form with bases warm
enough for secondary ice production (SIP), leading to rapid glaciation. It is
concluded that the precipitation is strongly associated with the break-up,
with both weakening of the capping inversion and boundary layer decoupling
also observed.


Employers are becoming increasingly aware of the risks to employee wellbeing associated with the traumatic incidents that occur in the workplace. Despite this increased organizational awareness of the need to protect employees from the damaging effects of traumatic events, there has been little provision to help organizations to evaluate their management systems and post trauma interventions. This problem of a lack of evaluation has become more important as a growing body of evidence has provided evidence that suggests that trauma debriefing, the widely used approach to traumatic stress may be ineffective or damaging. The problem for an organization is to have a means of assessing the impact of a traumatic incident on exposed employees soon after the event and at regular intervals as a way of tracking the effectiveness of the treatment and rehabilitation programme. This paper examines the development and validation of a traumatic stress questionnaire designed to be used by trained practitioners working with traumatized employees. The extended impact of events scale (IES-E), took the 15 items from the impact of events scale (IES) and added eight new items which had been chosen on the basis of existing theory and clinical experience to represent the traumatic stress symptom of hyperarousal. Two studies are reported which examine the structure and reliability, and then the discriminant validity of the extended scale when used with a working population. The first study involved a factor analysis of the IES-E items using data collected from 105 subjects who had formally reported exposure to stressful work events to their employing organization. The second study then used the IES-E to compare employees self-reporting of the impact of either a major positive or a major negative life event. The results of the first study confirmed the presence of the re-experience and avoidance symptoms as a response to a traumatic event (as in the IES) but, in addition, identified a new factor, arousal and a new measurement model based on a single general factor. The reliability coefficients for all three scales and the general factor were found to be good. The second study showed that IES-E scores on re-experience, avoidance, arousal and the general factor could be used to discriminate between the subjects reporting major positive and negative life events. Two measurement models can therefore describe the impact of stressful events, the first based on three orthogonal factors, and the second based on a single general factor. The theoretical implications of these findings are explored.


We study asymptotic dynamical patterns that emerge among a set of nodes interacting in a dynamically evolving signed random network, where positive links carry out standard consensus, and negative links induce relative-state flipping. A sequence of deterministic signed graphs defines potential node interactions that take place independently. Each node receives a positive recommendation consistent with the standard consensus algorithm from its positive neighbors, and a negative recommendation defined by relative-state flipping from its negative neighbors. After receiving these recommendations, each node puts a deterministic weight to each recommendation, and then encodes these weighted recommendations in its state update through stochastic attentions defined by two Bernoulli random variables. We establish a number of conditions regarding almost sure convergence and divergence of the node states. We also propose a condition for almost sure state clustering for essentially weakly balanced graphs, with the help of several martingale convergence lemmas. Some fundamental differences on the impact of the deterministic weights and stochastic attentions to the node-state evolution are highlighted between the current relative-state-flipping model and the state-flipping model considered previously.


The paper used the method of iron copper catalyst reduction to degrade low concentrations of bromochloracetonitrile (BCAN) to lighten the damage to human being, which is a kind of disinfection by-products (DBPs) produced during the chlorination process of drinking water. The removal efficiency of BCAN and its influencing factors were investigated. The mechanism of degradation and kinetics were also explored. The results indicated that iron copper had a greater degradation ability towards BCAN, and the degradation rate of iron copper (mass ratio of 10:1) was 1.5 times that of the zero-valent iron. The removal of BCAN increased obviously with the increase of Fe/Cu dosage. When the initial concentration was set at 20 microg x L(-1), after a reaction time of 150 min, removal of BCAN was improved from 51.1% to 89.5% with the increase of iron copper (mass ratio of 10:1) dosage from 5 g x L(-1) to 10 g x L(-1). The temperature also had great impact on BCAN removal and the removal increased with the increase of temperature. However, BCAN removal did not change a lot with the variation of the initial concentration of BCAN when it was at a low level. The BCAN degradation by iron copper catalytic-reduction followed the first-order kinetics model.


Abstract The clinical significance of measuring central arterial blood pressure has been recently discussed. Although the postprandial reduction in blood pressure is well known, postprandial changes in central blood pressure have not been intensively studied. The present study investigated differences in the reduction of central and peripheral arterial blood pressure after administration of an oral glucose load. An oral glucose tolerance test (75 g) was performed in 360 participants in our physical checkup program. Brachial and central systolic blood pressures were assessed before and after the glucose load. Central arterial blood pressure was measured noninvasively using an automated device. The mean age was 53.6 ± 8.2 years. Both brachial (127.9 ± 17.7 to 125.0 ± 16.3 mm Hg) and central arterial blood pressures were significantly decreased after an oral glucose load (118.9 ± 17.9 to 112.8 ± 16.8 mm Hg). The reduction in blood pressure was greater in central (7.3 ± 11.5 mm Hg) than in brachial blood pressure measurements (3.4 ± 11.3 mm Hg, P < .001). Extreme blood pressure reduction (>20 mm Hg) was recorded more frequently in central (n = 43, 12.3%) than brachial blood pressure measurements (n = 20, 5.6%). An oral glucose load decreases both central and brachial systolic blood pressure, with more pronounced effects on central blood pressure. Postprandial reductions in blood perfusion of the important organs such as the brain may be underestimated when postprandial BP reduction is assessed using brachial BP measurements.