We present an accurate and efficient algorithm for continuous collision detection between two moving ellipsoids. We start with a highly optimized implementation of interference testing between two stationary ellipsoids based on an algebraic condition described in terms of the signs of roots of the characteristic equation of two ellipsoids. Then we derive a time-dependent characteristic equation for two moving ellipsoids, which enables us to develop a real-time algorithm for computing the time intervals in which two moving ellipsoids collide. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated with several practical examples.


BACKGROUND
Sildenafil, a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, may preferentially improve blood flow to well-ventilated regions of the lung in patients with advanced idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which could result in improvements in gas exchange. We tested the hypothesis that treatment with sildenafil would improve walk distance, dyspnea, and quality of life in patients with advanced idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, defined as a carbon monoxide diffusion capacity of less than 35% of the predicted value.

METHODS
We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of sildenafil in two periods. The first period consisted of 12 weeks of a double-blind comparison between sildenafil and a placebo control. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with an increase in the 6-minute walk distance of 20% or more. Key secondary outcomes included changes in oxygenation, degree of dyspnea, and quality of life. The second period was a 12-week open-label evaluation involving all patients receiving sildenafil.

RESULTS
A total of 180 patients were enrolled in the study. The difference in the primary outcome was not significant, with 9 of 89 patients (10%) in the sildenafil group and 6 of 91 (7%) in the placebo group having an improvement of 20% or more in the 6-minute walk distance (P=0.39). There were small but significant differences in arterial oxygenation, carbon monoxide diffusion capacity, degree of dyspnea, and quality of life favoring the sildenafil group. Serious adverse events were similar in the two study groups.

CONCLUSIONS
This study did not show a benefit for sildenafil for the primary outcome. The presence of some positive secondary outcomes creates clinical equipoise for further research. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00517933.)


The environmental impact of exploratory wastes (drilling muds&cuttings) generated during the drilling of Igbokoda X and Igbokoda Y onshore oil wells, was studied by analyzing its total hydrocarbon (TPH), aliphatic hydrocarbon (AH), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) using gas chromatography-mass spectrophotometry (GC-MS) method and metal contents using atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). The aim was to determine their toxicity and possible impacts on their immediate environments of disposal. These drilled wastes generated from the drilling of Igbokoda X and Igbokoda onshore wells indicated an exceedingly very high values of AH compared with the values of PAHs in both the oil based and water based muds and cuttings respectively. These values of aliphatic is generally >5000 mg/kg in all oil based sample types analyzed for the drilled muds and generally >4000 mg/kg in all the sample types analyzed for the drilled cuttings. However, these values of the AH varied according to sample types with the water based drilled mud collected at the depth of 4121-10171 feet having values of >6000 mg/kg while the value in the water based drilled cuttings is generally <5000 mg/kg. Both the oil based drilled mud and cuttings have higher values of PAHs at the drilled samples collected between 0-4121 feet than deeper depth and composite samples. Iron (Fe) has the highest concentration followed by calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) with varying level of toxic metals like lead (Pb), Nickel (Ni), Manganese (Mn) and Chromium (Cr) in both the oil and water based drilled mud and cuttings from Igbokoba X and Igbokoba Y wells. Most of the analyzed parameters (AH, PAHs, TPH) and metals like Pb, Mn, Cr, etc. generally have values higher than that of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Environmental Protection Agency and Directorate of Petroleum Resources Standards in some cases thereby implying possible negative impacts on the immediate environments.


About 9,800 yr ago a major pulse of andesitic volcanism lasting about 100 yr began in the Tongariro volcanic center at the southern end of the Taupo volcanic zone in North Island, New Zealand. Immediately following the onset of this intense period of andesitic volcanism, two voluminous rhyolitic eruptions from the Taupo volcanic center, located a few kilometres northeast of the Tongariro volcanic center, occurred after a period of quiescence of about 10,000 yr. The andesite volcanism marks a change in composition of titanomagnetite, which shows lower vanadium, chromium, cobalt, and nickel contents when compared with older andesites. Titanomagnetites analyzed from fresh rhyolite lapilli erupted from the Taupo volcanic center show a similar change in vanadium, nickel, and cobalt contents. Their composition falls into two distinct chemical groupings, which correspond to an older (about 9,800 to 8,850 yr) and younger (about 6,300 to 1,820 yr) rhyolitic Taupo magma previously distinguished on the basis of major-element glass chemistry and iron-titanium oxide equilibration temperatures. It is suggested that the timing of eruption of the andesite at about 9800 B.P. is related to that of the older Taupo rhyolitic magma, or that both were initiated by the same external trigger. Subsequent large-scale rhyolitic eruptions of the younger Taupo magma, however, showed no obvious temporal relationship to the later intermittent andesite activity.


Lichenoid drug reaction is termed as a condition of the oral cavity having an identifiable etiology, which is clinically and histologically similar to oral lichen planus. A number of drugs have been described as a causative factor of those reactive lesions. The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review on the role of causative drugs in oral lichenoid lesions (OLLD) and the clinicopathological features of this entity which still has uncertainty in diagnosis. Bibliographic searches were carried out to identify articles published in English on PubMed® Online electronic databases from 1993 to 2013. Available clinical, histological and treatment methods were recorded. A total of 25 articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria with 37 patients. OLLD were detected frequently in patients with a history of zidovudine and imatinib mesylate medication. OLLD occurred significantly in subjects over the age of 30 (p<0.01), mostly on buccal mucosa (42.37%). The most preferable treatment is withdrawal of the drugs and administering a topical steroid regimen. Thirty OLLD cases were confirmed by biopsies which were characterized by diffuse inflammatory infiltrate through the deep side of the lamina propria. Medical history and histological features are the two basic criteria for the differential diagnosis of OLLD.


In this paper, a new training method for robotic rehabilitation aids is proposed, in which only one neural network (NN) is simultaneously used in order to identify the dynamic properties of a human-robot system and give an assist to the trainee. The model used for identification of the dynamics of the human-robot system consists of the NN and a reference model which represents the main characteristic of a skilful operator. This paper explains the working principle of the training method and shows the validity of the proposed method through experiments by non-skilled operators.


In this article we discuss bookmaker margins embedded in odds for "1X2" bets in the European football betting markets operated by bookmakers. Bookmaker margins are adjustments applied to fair odds, for the purpose of ensuring profits and compensation for risks undertaken, and to cover overall operational costs. They are observable on a per match basis as the excess of the sum of the reciprocals of odds over one, which is popularly referred to as overround. In this article we study the margins from a risk point of view. We derive the expression for the expected variance of a portfolio of bets, in order to study risk-based determinants of margins. Risk of a portfolio of bets is shown to be particularly sensitive to the presence of low probability bets (longshots). We propose a new, risk-based measure for quantifying balancedness of a match. Using this measure along with the standard entropy measure, we investigate variations of overrounds between matches of different levels of balancedness. Our analysis shows that there is no a convincing empirical evidence that overall overrounds are dependent on the match balancedness. Similarly, the study of variations of overrounds by the levels of disagreement in probabilities between different bookmakers, does not show any significant interdependence. On the other hand, our study confirms the pervasiveness of a well known Favourite-Longshot Bias (FLB) in the European football betting markets. The odds have been more favourable for bets on favourites than for longshots. These conclusions suggest that margins are determined on a match-per-match basis. Long odds on longshots are being adjusted more aggressively downwards than short odds on favourites, while overall margins are being kept roughly at bookmaker-specific target levels. Empirical studies were performed using the historical data on 116,150 football matches, containing results and odds from 13 major bookmakers. The data set covers 19 major European football divisions during the last 17 years. Using this rich and recent data set, we also investigated the time evolution of overall margins, and variations of margins between the different bookmakers and football divisions.


Business or any other activity in agriculture is at higher risk comparing with other sectors. Accordingly, agricultural risk is associated with negative outcomes stemming from imperfectly predictable biological and climatic variables. These variables include natural adversities (for example, pests and diseases); climatic factors are not within the control of agricultural producers. So in agriculture it is very important to identify, evaluate and manage risk, only then decisions made in a farm will bring profit and other positive results. Consequently, this article presents the main steps for making effective decisions in agriculture. Secondly, it introduces one of the most effective risk management tools – insurance. This article presents insurance types and systems, their advantages and disadvantages. And, finally, it illustrates how the scenario analysis method for making decisions in agriculture can be used. The main advantage of the scenario analysis method is that it can evaluate qualitative and quantitative information. Using the scenario analysis method, it is possible not only to evaluate each risk or group of risks, but also to evaluate the performance of management tools and to decide which insurance type is the most useful.

Raktažodžiai: decision making, agriculture risk, insurance, scenario analysis method


Abstract During current research being carried out into the role of women in the history of geological study in Ireland, interesting social and cultural factors are emerging. A list of people who contributed to data gathering, and the unravelling of the complexity of Ireland's geology would characteristically contain only male names. Yet when one begins to look more closely, important roles were played by women. The story is one of women carrying out many and varied supporting roles, including stone-workers, illustrators, tutors, assistants, collaborators, wives, mothers, and later, curators, cartographers and technicians. From 1950 onwards, women begin to occupy professional roles as geologists, particularly in the Geological Survey of Ireland, but more slowly in academic circles. This paper concentrates on women now deceased, who paved the way for others, and only briefly indicates their legacy with selected examples leading to the present day.


The observation of sub-GeV antideuteron in the cosmic ray flux could be a very strong signature of dark matter annihilation in our galaxy. The goal of the Anti Deuteron Helium Detector (ADHD) project is to study the signatures offered by an high pressure Helium calorimeter for the identification of antideuterons in space. The performance of an high pressure (200 bar) Helium scintillator prototype, capable of fast timing, will be shown.


Tourism and leisure activities have increased continuously all over the world during the past decades, exerting a growing pressure upon naturally fragile ecosystems, such as mountainous habitats. Recent studies have established that disturbance by outdoor winter sports (e.g. skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing) is a source of stress for wildlife. This may in turn affect its abundance, but we still lack quantitative evidence. We tested the effect of outdoor winter sports (ski lifts and related recreational activities) on the abundance of the alpine black grouse Tetrao tetrix, a vulnerable indicator species of the timberline ecosystem, the favoured habitat for outdoor winter sports in the European Alps. Generalized linear models and a model selection approach were used to rank environmental factors influencing black grouse abundance and to make predictions about population status in the theoretical absence of ski resorts. We modelled the number of displaying cocks along census transects in spring, as a function of habitat characteristics (vegetation structure and typology), ski lift density and hunting pressure at 15 natural sites (none or a very low level of anthropogenic disturbance) and 15 ski resorts in the south-western Swiss Alps. Ski lift density and habitat typology were the principal determinants of black grouse abundance, whereas hunting pressure had no discernable effect. Ski lifts and related winter sport activities had a strong negative effect on the number of displaying cocks, which may have led to a mean 36% reduction of local abundance in ski lift areas, as determined after controlling for the confounding effect of habitat type. Synthesis and applications. Conservation action plans for black grouse should aim at reducing the multiple negative effects generated by outdoor winter sports (ski facilities and related winter sport activities). First, vegetation patchiness (i.e. a mosaic of grassy shrubland with scattered trees) should be maintained along ski runs. Secondly, wintering preserves where human access is banned or strictly limited should be promoted within ski resorts. Spatially explicit human–wildlife conflict maps can be constructed from the present model to allow delineation of those areas likely to become effective protection areas.


Purpose Tricuspid regurgitation contributes to right ventricular failure (RVF) and is associated with worse clinical outcomes in patients undergoing left ventricular assist device (LVAD) treatment. However, whether tricuspid valve repair (TVR) at the time of LVAD implantation improves outcomes is not clear. Methods We identified all patients undergoing initial implantation of a long-term continuous-flow LVAD at our institution from March 2006 to August 2011. We assessed the impact of TVR on survival and incidence of RVF using Kaplan-Meier curves and proportional hazards regression adjusted for age, gender, baseline tricuspid regurgitation, RV function, MELD score, albumin, and indication (bridge vs. destination). Results A total of 101 patients were included in the analysis, of which 14 patients underwent TVR concomitant LVAD. All TVR patients had moderate or severe baseline regurgitation. Crude survival was not different between groups. In multivariable models adjusted for confounding factors, TVR showed a significant association with improved survival (HR = 0.1, p = 0.049). Adjusted models showed no difference in RVF. Conclusions In this cohort of patients, TVR at the time of LVAD implantation appears associated with better survival. Additional larger studies are needed to verify the effect of TVR at the time of LVAD implantation, and whether it should be utilized more frequently.


ABSTRACT State rescaling, policy experimentation and path dependency in post-Mao China: a dynamic analytical framework. Regional Studies. This paper evaluates the applicability of the state rescaling framework for framing politico-economic evolution in China. It then presents an analytical framework that examines institutional change as driven by the dynamic entwinement of state rescaling, place-specific policy experimentation and institutional path dependency. The framework problematizes simple 'transition' models that portray a mechanistic 'upward' or 'downward' reconfiguration of regulatory relations after market-like rule was instituted in 1978. It emphasizes, instead, a more established pattern of development marked simultaneously by geographically distinct (and enduring) institutional forms and experimental (and capricious) attempts to transcend them.


To harvest biological resources sustainably, it is first necessary to understand what "sustainability" means in an ecological context, and what it means to the people who use the resources. As a case study, we examined the extractive logging of the mangrove Rhizophora mangle in the Rio Limon area of Lake Maracaibo, in western Venezuela. The ecological definition of sustainable harvesting is harvesting that allows population numbers to be maintained or to increase over time. In interviews, the harvesters defined sustainable harvesting as levels permitting the maintenance of the mangrove population over two human generations, about 50 yr. In Rio Limon, harvesters extract a combination of small adult and juvenile trees. Harvesting rates ranged from 7-35% of small adult trees. These harvesting levels would be sustainable according to the harvester's definition as long as juvenile harvesting was less than 40%. However, some harvesting levels that would be sustainable according to the harvesters were ecologically unsustainable, i.e., eventually causing declines in mangrove population numbers. It was also determined that the structure of mangrove forests was significantly affected by harvesting; even areas harvested at low, ecologically sustainable intensities had significantly fewer adult trees than undisturbed sites. Western Venezuela has no organized timber industry, so mangrove logs are used in many types of construction. A lagging economy and a lack of alternative construction materials make mangrove harvesting inevitable, and for local people, an economic necessity. This creates a trade-off between preserving the ecological characteristics of the mangrove population and responding to human needs. In order to resolve this situation, we recommended a limited and adaptive mangrove harvesting regime. We also suggest that harvesters could participate in community-based management programs as harvesting monitors.


Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century (Carnegie, 1989) contained recommendations for improving middle level education. These recommendations included: (a) creating small communities for learning, (b) teaching a common knowledge core, (c) ensuring success for all students, (d) empowering teachers and administrators, (e) preparing teachers in middle grades, (f) improving academic performance through health and fitness, (g) re-engaging families in the education o f adolescents, and (h) connecting schools with communities. The objectives o f this study were to determine, according to middle school principals, the extent to which the Carnegie recommendations have been implemented in the public schools o f Louisiana that serve students in grades six, seven, and eight. The study also sought to determine if the perceived level o f implementation has a positive effect on student achievement as reported by Seghers (1995). Principals o f 139 public middle level schools in Louisiana responded to the Middle Level Practices Questionnaire. Statistical analyses utilizing Analysis o f Variance revealed significant differences in the perceived level o f implementation o f Carnegie's recommendations by grade configuration in the Health Promotion subscale and by school setting in the Governance and Decision-Making and Safety and Resources subscales. There were no significant differences by socioeconomic status. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated significant relationships between Iowa Test of Basic Skills and Louisiana Educational Assessment Program index scores and the perceived level o f implementation o f the Carnegie recommendations in the Ability Grouping subscale. There were no significant relationships between student attendance and suspensions and the perceived level o f implementation. A significant relationship between Governance and Decision-Making and student expulsions existed. A significant negative relationship existed between Health Promotion and teacher turnover. Conclusions: (a) Louisiana middle level schools have not fully implemented Carnegie recommendations; (b) school demographics do not make an overall significant difference in the perceived level o f implementation; and (c) the implementation o f selected components contributes to school and student success. Recommendations: (a) determining the most effective methods o f staff development concerning implementation o f the Carnegie recommendations; (b) comparing the level of implementation and student and school outcomes in states that have specialized middle level certification and those that do not; and (c) replicating this study utilizing a different survey instrument.


Recently Kifer introduced the concept of an Israeli (or Game) option. That is a general American-type option with the added possibility that the writer may terminate the contract early inducing a payment not less than the holder's claim had they exercised at that moment. Kifer shows that pricing and hedging of these options reduces to evaluating a stochastic saddle point problem associated with Dynkin games. Kyprianou, A.E. (2004) "Some calculations for Israeli options", Fin. Stoch. 8, 73-86 gives two examples of perpetual Israeli options where the value function and optimal strategies may be calculated explicity. In this article, we give a third example of a perpetual Israeli option where the contingent claim is based on the integral of the price process. This time the value function is shown to be the unique solution to a (two sided) free boundary value problem on (0, ∞) which is solved by taking an appropriately rescaled linear combination of Kummer functions. The probabilistic methods we appeal to in this paper centre around the interaction between the analytic boundary conditions in the free boundary problem, Itô's formula with local time and the martingale, supermartingle and submartingale properties associated with the solution to the stochastic saddle point problem.


We design an efficient on-line approach, FlowMate, for partitioning flows at a busy server into flow groups that share bottlenecks. These groups are periodically input to congestion coordination, aggregation, load balancing, admission control, or pricing modules. FlowMate uses in-band packet delay measurements to the receivers to determine shared bottlenecks among flows. Packet delay information is piggybacked on returning feedback, or, if impossible, flow (e.g., TCP) round trip time estimates are used. We simulate FlowMate to examine the effect of network load, traffic burstiness, network buffer sizes, and packet drop policies on partitioning correctness. Our results demonstrate accurate partitioning of medium to long-lived flows even under heavy load and self-similar background traffic. Experiments with HTTP/1.1 flows demonstrate difficulties in partitioning bursty foreground traffic. We also study fairness of coordinated congestion management when integrated with FlowMate.


Adults of Maritrema obstipum (Digenea: Microphallidae) were found in the intestines of 4 species of migratory birds, including the sanderling (Crocethia alba), Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrines), Mongolian plover (Charadrius mongolus), and red-necked stint (Calidris ruficollis), collected from Yubu Island, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea. The worms of were 451×265 µm in size, and were easily identifiable as Maritrema species by the presence of the cirrus sac, and the ring-like distribution of the vitellaria. More specifically, the ejaculatory duct curved posteromedially, and the 2 parts of vitelline follicles were found to be distinct at the posterior end. The eggs were brown-colored, and 19.8×12.3 µm in size. All these findings implicated M. obstipum as the pertinent species of the worms. Beside these, adult worms of Gynaecotyla squatarolae, Parvatrema duboisi, and Acanthoparyphium sp. were also discovered. This is the first report establishing migratory birds as the natural definitive hosts for M. obstipum.


Land applications of manure from confined animal systems and direct deposit by grazing
animals are both major sources of nutrients in streams. An understanding of the overland transport
mechanisms from land applied waste is needed to improve design of best management practices
and modeling of NPS pollution. Release and transport plots were established to study in-field
nutrient release and transport from pasturelands receiving phosphorus based livestock waste
applications. The release plots determined the concentrations available to be transported to the
edge of the field in runoff. Four manure treatments (turkey litter, liquid dairy manure, standard
cowpies, and none) and three pastureland type treatments: previous poultry litter applications,
previous liquid dairy manure application, and no prior manure application were studied. Pastureland
plots with a history of previous manure applications had a higher percentage of sediment bound
phosphorus contributing to total phosphorus. Transport plots were developed on pasture with no
prior manure application to measure the concentrations of nutrients present in overland flow at the edge of the field. The flow weighted phosphorus concentrations were highest in runoff samples from
the plots treated with cowpies (1.57 mg/L of TP). Restricting grazing cattle access to streams will
reduce direct loading, but the results from this study indicate that a buffer zone or other management
might be necessary to reduce nutrient and bacteria losses to waterbodies.


8 plate-reinforced connections are manufactured at 1/2 scale and then tested under low-cyclic loadings to study their hysteretic behavior, and numerical simultation with ANSYS are applied based on the experimental results. Failure patterns, energy dissipation, hysteretic behavior and skeleton curves are comparatively studied by changing the dimensions of the reinforced plates. Results show:(1)the plastic hinge be formed 1/3-1/4 beam depth from the end of reinforced plate and is obvious, there are serious local buckling in the flange and web, and there is no fracture in the beam-to-column welding;(2)The geometric parameters of reinforced plate have important effect to the bearing capacity and ductility of connections. With the increase of length and thickness of reinforced plate, the bearing capacity increases and hysteretic behavior and ductility factor decreases;(3)When the length of reinforced plate is bigger than the design requirements, there is brittle failure in the panel zone, which lead to decrease of capacity of energy dissipation and equivalent viscous damp coefficient;(4)Recommended parameter scope: the recommended length of reinforced plate(flange-plate and cover-plate) is defined as 0.5-0.8 times beam depth, the recommended thickness of flange-plate is 1.2-1.4 times flange and the recommended thickness of cover-plate is 0.7-1.2 times flange.


High-throughput label-free single cell screening technology has been studied for noninvasive analysis of various kinds of cells. We tackle the cell identification task in the cell sorting system as a continuous skyline computation. Skyline Computation is a method for extracting interesting entries from a large population with multiple attributes. Jointed rooted-tree (JR-tree) is continuous skyline computation algorithm that manages entries using a rooted-tree structure. JR-tree delays extend the tree to deeper levels to accelerate tree construction and traversal. In this study, we proposed the JR-tree-based parallel skyline computation accelerator. We implemented it on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). We evaluated our proposed software and hardware algorithms against an existing software algorithm using synthetic and real-world datasets.


In this paper we propose a synchronization protocol for resource sharing among independently-developed real-time systems on multi-core platforms. The systems may use different scheduling policies and they may have their own local priority settings. Each system is allocated on a dedicated processor (core). In the proposed synchronization protocol, each system is abstracted by an interface which abstracts the information needed for supporting global resources. The protocol facilitates the composability of various real-time systems with different scheduling and priority settings on a multi-core platform. We have performed experimental evaluations and compared the performance of our proposed protocol (MSOS) against the two existing synchronization protocols MPCP and FMLP. The results show that the new synchronization protocol enables composability without any significant loss of performance. In fact, in most cases the new protocol performs better than at least one of the other two synchronization protocols. Hence, we believe that the proposed protocol is a viable solution for synchronization among independently-developed real-time systems executing on a multi-core platform.


With the continuous increase in fossil fuels consumption and the rapid growth of atmospheric CO2 concentration, the harmonious state between human and nature faces severe challenges. Exploring green and sustainable energy resources and devising efficient methods for CO2 capture, sequestration and utilization are urgently required. Converting CO2 into fuels/chemicals/materials as an indispensable element for CO2 capture, sequestration and utilization may offer a win-win strategy to both decrease the CO2 concentration and achieve the efficient exploitation of carbon resources. Among the current major methods (including chemical, photochemical, electrochemical and enzymatic methods), the enzymatic method, which is inspired by the CO2 metabolic process in cells, offers a green and potent alternative for efficient CO2 conversion due to its superior stereo-specificity and region/chemo-selectivity. Thus, in this tutorial review, we firstly provide a brief background about enzymatic conversion for CO2 capture, sequestration and utilization. Next, we depict six major routes of the CO2 metabolic process in cells, which are taken as the inspiration source for the construction of enzymatic systems in vitro. Next, we focus on the state-of-the-art routes for the catalytic conversion of CO2 by a single enzyme system and by a multienzyme system. Some emerging approaches and materials utilized for constructing single-enzyme/multienzyme systems to enhance the catalytic activity/stability will be highlighted. Finally, a summary about the current advances and the future perspectives of the enzymatic conversion of CO2 will be presented.


Abstract Recent European Union regulations on packaging waste have resulted in a trend towards light-weighting and greater use of recycled materials in the packaging of consumer goods. This has impacted particularly upon the folding carton industry, and has necessitated greater fundamental understanding of the machine-material interactions that take place during carton production. One way to achieve this is through the use of simulation models. Such a model has been created to simulate the behaviour of a folding carton during the critical transition between flattened and erected states. The model is able to simulate process failure (buckling) and investigate the effect of changes in pack, process, material, and tooling parameters. The model is applied here to investigate the effect of variation in two key machine settings. These are the relative orientation of tooling, and the contact points between tooling and carton. The results of the simulation reveal a strong correlation between theoretical and practical results, and as a consequence provide a means for determining the optimum tooling position(s). The study demonstrates the ability of simulation to support the set-up and operation of complex packaging machinery. It is arguable that such tools will be essential for machinery and consumer goods manufacturers to compete in today's highly competitive global markets where quality, efficiency, and flexibility are critical.


Neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are pentamers composed of alpha and beta subunits. Different molecular compositions of these subunits constitute various receptor subtypes that are implicated in the pathophysiology and/or treatment of several disease states but are difficult to distinguish pharmacologically. Alpha-conotoxins are a group of small, structurally defined peptides that may be used to molecularly dissect the nAChR-binding site. Heteromeric nAChRs generally contain either a beta2 or beta4 subunit in addition to an alpha subunit at the ligand-binding interface. Alpha-conotoxin BuIA kinetically distinguishes between beta2- and beta4-containing nAChRs, with long off times for the latter. Mutational studies were used to assess the influence of residues that line the putative acetylcholine-binding pocket but differ between beta2 and beta4 subunits. Residues Thr/Lys59, Val/Ile111, and Phe/Gln119 of the respective beta2 and beta4 subunits are critical to off-rate differences. Among these residues, Thr59 of nAChR beta2 may interfere with effective access to the binding site, whereas Lys59 may facilitate this binding.


In order to simply and accurately measure the realistic motion of balls in a ball bearing, a method called the static oblique coordinates is proposed to measure the 3D motion of balls in an angular contact ball bearing. This measuring method utilizes Hall elements as the sensors which are assembled on the side of outer race and cage of the ball bearing with magnetized balls. The voltage signals of the Hall sensors are collected online and applied to calculate and analyze the variation of magnetic axis of the magnetized ball, from which the 3D motion of the balls can be calculated. The basic principles and experiment method of the measuring method are illustrated. This method has simple structure without damaging the bearing, by which the bearing's real motion can be studied consequently with a high precision. The magnetization and magnetic pole detection methods in this study effectively solved the problem of magnetized balls' magnetism un-uniformity which causes the measure signal chaos.


: We used oral cyclosporine-A (CyA) (5 mg/kg/day) initially in a double blind study for 6 mos. 10 patients received CyA and 10 placebo. At the end of this study it was observed that CyA improved subjective xerostomia, while subjective xerophthalmia, parotid gland enlargement, Schirmer-I-test and parotid flow rate did not show any significant differences in the two study groups. 9 of 10 patients who had received CyA for 6 mos and 9 of 10 in the placebo group continued in an open trial (CyA at the same dose) for an additional 6 mos. At the end of the study the only efficacy of CyA observed was improvement of subjective xerostomia. The side-effects observed were hypertrichosis (14 persons), mild hypertension (4), infections (5) and 3 dropped out because of nausea, tremor, paresthesias and infections. In conclusion, small doses of CyA for 12 mos are rather ineffective for Sjogren's syndrome.


Tooth root and root trunk surface area measurements were made on 20 permanent fourth maxillary premolar (P4) teeth randomly harvested from canine cadaver specimens. Mean root surface area for all 20 teeth was 562.8 +/- 124.9 mm2. Cumulative surface areas of the mesiopalatal, mesiobuccal, and distal roots were 113.8 +/- 29.0 mm2, 138.5 +/- 34.6 mm2, and 180.8 +/- 39.9 mm2, respectively. The mesial root trunk and distal root trunk surface areas were 60.0 +/- 17.5 mm2 and 72.1 +/- 33.2 mm2, respectively. There was not a significant difference between the root surface area of the mesial root trunk and distal root trunk; however, all other root surface area measurements were significantly different (P less than 0.01). Cumulative individual root surface area (distal root + mesiobuccal root + mesiopalatal root) was 76% of total root surface area. The distal root surface area contributed most to total root surface area (32.1%) and cumulative individual root surface area (41.7%). Observation of the linear variation of percentage of root surface area revealed 40.8% of the total root surface area to be in the portion located between 5 and 9 mm apical to the most coronal aspect of the cementoenamel junction. The mesiobuccal root and distal root were cylindrical compared with the flattened, concave shape of the mesiopalatal root.


In April 2013, Oxford Archaeology North was commissioned by the University of Manchester to undertake an archaeological investigation of land situated on Booth Street East in Manchester (centred on NGR 384598 396909). The work was carried out prior to the development of the new National Graphene Institute, the construction of which will inevitably necessitate considerable earth-moving works.
An archaeological desk-based assessment that was carried out to support and inform the planning process demonstrated that the site had been developed initially between 1824 and 1831 as part of the growth of Chorlton-upon-Medlock as a suburb of Manchester. The earliest buildings on the site comprised workers' housing and a building at 26 Clifford Street, which in the nineteenth century was variously a villa, a social club with an association with Friedrich Engels, an early example of a Victorian Turkish baths, and a hospital for women and children. The assessment concluded that whilst the site did not contain any known archaeological remains that would merit preservation in-situ, there was considerable potential for buried remains of local interest to survive.


Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films produced by rolling and tentering have biaxial orientation and thus exhibit anisotropic mechanical properties such as yielding, hardening, and fracture. The anisotropy of film makes it difficult to analyze deformation and failures occurring during processing such as metal forming of polymer-coated sheet metals. In this work, the anisotropic yielding and hardening of the PET film were measured and an anisotropic constitutive model is developed to represent the anisotropic behavior. In addition, fracture limits of the PET film were measured using the Nakajima test. To describe anisotropic fracture behavior of the film, an anisotropic fracture criterion based on the strain energy density and the theory of isotropic equivalent material was proposed. For validation of the developed constitutive model and the fracture criterion, a deep drawing test of the PET-coated sheet metal was conducted. The film cracking predicted by the anisotropic fracture criterion agreed well with measurements.


In order to determine sleep habits in bus drivers and their relationship to accidents in the city of Arequipa, Peru, a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a non-probabilistic sample of 166 drivers. Driving hours per day were 9.4 ± 3.7. 54% (89) drive over 4 hours without stopping; 74% (123) drive at night; and 87% (145) sleep on the bus. 75% reported fatigue while driving (124). 27% (45) had drowsiness; 24% (40) reported having been in or on the verge of an accident while driving. Sleepiness or fatigue while driving was common in this population and their driving and rest habits could contribute to this.


BACKGROUND: Prone positioning is a therapy utilized globally to improve gas exchange, minimize ventilator-induced lung injury, and reduce mortality in ARDS, particularly during the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Whereas the respiratory benefits of prone positioning in ARDS have been accepted, the concurrent complications could be undervalued. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the adverse events (AEs) related to prone positioning in ARDS and, secondarily, to collect strategies and recommendations to mitigate these AEs. METHODS: In this scoping review, we searched recommendation documents and original studies published between June 2013 and November 2020 from 6 relevant electronic databases and the websites of intensive care societies. RESULTS: We selected 41 documents from 121 eligible documents, comprising 13 recommendation documents and 28 original studies (involving 1,578 subjects and 994 prone maneuvers). We identified > 40 individual AEs, and the highest-pooled occurrence rates were those of severe desaturation (37.9%), barotrauma (30.5%), pressure sores (29.7%), ventilation-associated pneumonia (28.2%), facial edema (16.7%), arrhythmia (15.4%), hypotension (10.2%), and peripheral nerve injuries (8.1%). The reported mitigation strategies during prone positioning included alternate face rotation (18 [43.9%]), repositioning every 2 h (17 [41.5%]), and the use of pillows under the chest and pelvis (14 [34.1%]). The reported mitigation strategies for performing the prone maneuver comprised one person being at the headboard (23 [56.1%]), the use of a pre-maneuver safety checklist (18 [43.9%]), vital sign monitoring (15 [36.6%]), and ensuring appropriate ventilator settings (12 [29.3%]). CONCLUSIONS: We identified > 40 AEs reported in prone positioning ARDS studies, including additional AEs not yet reported by previous systematic reviews. The pooled AE proportions collected in this review could guide research and clinical practice decisions, and the strategies to mitigate AEs could promote future consensus-based recommendations.


We consider estimating multiple transmitter locations based on received signal strength measurements by a sensor network of randomly located receivers. This problem is motivated by the search for available spectrum in cognitive radio applications. We create a quasi expectation maximization (EM) algorithm for localization under lognormal shadowing. Simulated performance is compared to random guessing and to global optimization using constriction particle swarm (CPSO). Results show that the proposed quasi EM algorithm outperforms both alternatives given a fixed number of guesses, and the performance gap grows as the number of transmitters increases.


We investigate the evolution of filamentation in air by using a longitudinal diffraction method and a plasma fluorescence imaging technique. The diameter of a single filament in which the intensity is clamped increases as the energy of the pump light pulse increases, until multiple filaments appear.


We estimate a three-country model using 1995-2013 data for Germany, the Rest of the Euro Area (REA) and the Rest of the World (ROW) to analyze the determinants of Germany's current account surplus after the launch of the Euro. The most important factors driving the German surplus were positive shocks to the German saving rate and to ROW demand for German exports, as well as German labour market reforms and other positive German aggregate supply shocks. The convergence of REA interest rates to German rates due to the creation of the Euro only had a modest effect on the German current account and on German real activity. The key shocks that drove the rise in the German current account tended to worsen the REA trade balance, but had a weak effect on REA real activity. Our analysis suggests these driving factors are likely to be slowly eroded, leading to a very gradual reduction of the German current account surplus. An expansion in German government consumption and investment would raise German GDP and reduce the current account surplus, but the effects on the surplus are likely to be weak.


We describe the application of a hybrid symbolic/connectionist machine learning algorithm to the task of recognizing important genetic sequences. The symbolic portion of the KBANN system utilizes inference rules that provide a roughly-correct method for recognizing a class of DNA sequences known as eukaryotic splice-junctions. We then map this "domain theory" into a neural network and provide training examples. Using the samples, the neural network's learning algorithm adjusts the domain theory so that it properly classifies these DNA sequences. Our procedure constitutes a general method for incorporating preexisting knowledge into artificial neural networks. We present an experiment in molecular genetics that demonstrates the value of doing so.


OBJECTIVES We describe the cardiovascular manifestations of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. BACKGROUND Carbon monoxide poisoning is a common cause of toxicologic morbidity and mortality. Although the neurologic sequelae of CO poisoning have been well described, the cardiovascular consequences are limited to isolated case reports. METHODS We reviewed the cardiovascular manifestations of 230 consecutive patients treated for moderate to severe CO poisoning in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), a regional center for treatment of CO poisoning. RESULTS The mean age was 47.2 years with 72% men. Ischemic electrocardiogram (ECG) changes were present in 30% of patients, whereas only 16% had a normal ECG. Cardiac biomarkers (creatine kinase-MB fraction or troponin I) were elevated in 35% of patients. In-hospital mortality was 5%. CONCLUSIONS Cardiovascular sequelae of CO poisoning are frequent, with myocardial injury assessed by biomarkers or ECG in 37% of patients. Patients admitted to the hospital with CO poisoning should have a baseline ECG and serial cardiac biomarkers. (J Am Coll Cardiol 2005;45: ublished by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2005.01.044


This is a program evaluation study of an interest group (IG) that advances public engagement by STEM researchers and provides opportunities to develop science communication skills. The study addresses these questions and observations: 1) Members of biomedical/biosciences disciplines are more common participants in the IG's science communication activities than members from other STEM disciplines. 2) What are the characteristics of STEM disciplines that are more resistant/less amenable to participating in science communication activities?


This chapter explores some of the ways in which prose fiction texts can be thought of as manipulating readers because of different kinds of inferential processes they encourage. It focuses in particular on ways in which texts can make it hard for readers to derive inferences from representations of the texts as a whole. The discussion focuses in particular on two novels: Rachel Cusk's (2014) Outline and Eimear McBride's (2013) A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, contrasting these with a novel which does not pose such difficulties (Elif Batuman's The Idiot). Both Cusk's and McBride's novels have features which make it difficult for readers to represent them as a whole. While it is not hard to understand individual parts of Outline, it is hard to grasp it as a whole, partly because it mainly consists of fairly unmediated representations of what other characters say to the narrator. Readers of A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing find it hard even to understand what is happening in individual parts of the novel. In the case of McBride's novel, these difficulties encourage a sense of immersion in the text and a sense of the reading experience as relatively 'realistic'. Cusk's novel can be understood as realistic in some ways (in that the narrator does not do much to mediate what others say to her) and unrealistic in others (our daily experience is not reducible to what we hear others say). The chapter argues that we can understand responses to the novels partly by considering the nature of inferential processes they give rise to and that this can help to account for aspects of the experience of reading them. Evidence from readers' and reviewers' responses can also help us to understand how readers treat fictional texts as acts of communication. Within the terms of relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986), they provide evidence that the texts raise fairly specific expectations of relevance and that readers notice when these seem not to be satisfied.


The information explosion and increasing business demands have put heavy pressures on information systems (IS) management almost to the point of creating an identity crisis. For competitive advantage, successful businesses have been able to integrate the changing IS environment into the business environment. To accomplish this required a bonding of business and IS goals which literally turned out to be an organizational revolution resulting in a philosophical change for managers at all levels in the organization. For IS the challenges could be likened to the days of yore search for the Holy Grail or the "fountain of youth." Successful managers in search of excellence can no longer expect to find magical solutions to technical problems; in fact, the problems may be more management and people oriented requiring solution by both non-technical and technical resources working in concert. The challenge is sharpened by statements such as one made by Peter Drucker in 1991 that, "within the next 10 years, both the structure of organizations and the jobs of the senior people within organizations will be drastically changed, primarily because of information. " There is little doubt that change, and with it flexibility, is the key to success in IS management. The rapid proliferation of emerging information technologies drives home the point that IS cannot run in place without losing ground. Even the traditional classes of architecture for data processing, word processing, data management, spread sheets, and data communications are changing at a greater pace than current IS organizations can absorb. To meet today's and tomorrow's challenge requires that IS executives and managers must look at the entire enterprise--not just the technical. This involves the business environment and processes and then deftly fitting in a reengineered IS and information technology (IT) to meet increasing demands in an environment of greatly reduced budgets. Taking this broader view does not lessen the impact of automation and high technology but shifts some of the emphasis in other directions. The focus can remain on the computer but, in the final analysis, values to the organization are in the business processes. Only with the shift to a business philosophy can bridging the gap between research and practice become a reality in the 21st Century. The rapid proliferation of emerging information technologies drives home the point that IS cannot run in place without losing ground. Even the traditional classes of architecture for data processing, word processing, data management, spreadsheets, and data communications are changing at a greater pace than current IS organizations can absorb. To further analyze this in the presentation, ten major emerging technologies that must be recognized by IS will be identified as critical and trendy developments. This presentation will concentrate on how these IS challenges can be met, how resistance to change can be overcome, why IS design is more of an art than a science, why must the IS/MIS be user oriented, what should a successful information technology platform look like, what are the critical emerging technologies, and what are the major issues facing IS. Business climate and integrating methodologies will be at the forefront.


Self-powered photodetectors operating in the UV-visible-NIR window made of environmentally friendly, earth abundant, and cheap materials are appealing systems to exploit natural solar radiation without external power sources. In this study, we propose a new p-n junction nanostructure, based on a ZnO-Co3O4 core-shell nanowire (NW) system, with a suitable electronic band structure and improved light absorption, charge transport, and charge collection, to build an efficient UV-visible-NIR p-n heterojunction photodetector. Ultrathin Co3O4 films (in the range 1-15 nm) were sputter-deposited on hydrothermally grown ZnO NW arrays. The effect of a thin layer of the Al2O3 buffer layer between ZnO and Co3O4 was investigated, which may inhibit charge recombination, boosting device performance. The photoresponse of the ZnO-Al2O3-Co3O4 system at zero bias is 6 times higher compared to that of ZnO-Co3O4. The responsivity ( R) and specific detectivity ( D*) of the best device were 21.80 mA W-1 and 4.12 × 1012 Jones, respectively. These results suggest a novel p-n junction structure to develop all-oxide UV-vis photodetectors based on stable, nontoxic, low-cost materials.


Idealized gene therapy of autoimmune diseases would mean getting the right drug to the right place at the right time to affect the right mechanism of action. In other words, a specific gene therapy strategy needs to have functional, spatial and temporal specificity. Functional specificity implies targeting the cellular, molecular and/or genetic mechanisms relevant to the disease, without affecting nondiseased organs or tissues through mechanisms that cause adverse effects. Spatial specificity means the delivery of the therapeutic agent exclusively to sites and cells that are relevant to the disease. Temporal specificity is, in principle, synonymous with controlled on-demand expression of the therapeutic gene and thus represents a major safety feature. This article reviews recent advances in strategies to use gene therapy in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.


After the conquest of Mexico, colonial authorities attempted to enforce Christian beliefs among indigenous peoples-a project they envisioned as spiritual warfare. The Invisible War assesses this immense but dislocated project by examining all known efforts in Central Mexico to obliterate native devotions of Mesoamerican origin between the 1530s and the late eighteenth century. The author's innovative interpretation of these efforts is punctuated by three events: the creation of an Inquisition tribunal in Mexico in 1571; the native rebellion of Tehuantepec in 1660; and the emergence of eerily modern strategies for isolating idolaters, teaching Spanish to natives, and obtaining medical proof of sorcery from the 1720s onwards. Rather than depicting native devotions solely from the viewpoint of their colonial codifiers, this book rescues indigenous perspectives on their own beliefs. This is achieved by an analysis of previously unknown or rare ritual texts that circulated in secrecy in Nahua and Zapotec communities through an astute appropriation of European literacy. Tavarez contends that native responses gave rise to a colonial archipelago of faith in which local cosmologies merged insights from Mesoamerican and European beliefs. In the end, idolatry eradication inspired distinct reactions: while Nahua responses focused on epistemological dissent against Christianity, Zapotec strategies privileged confrontations in defense of native cosmologies.


Diarrhea-associated hemolytic uremic syndrome (D+HUS) is characterized by endothelial injury and activation of inflammatory cytokines. Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is an angiogenic peptide released in response to vascular damage. The plasma concentrations and urinary excretion of bFGF during the course of D+HUS were determined, in comparison with the levels of various inflammatory cytokines, and changes were correlated with clinical and laboratory features of the disease. Serial plasma and urine samples were collected from 31 children with D+HUS, during the acute (days 1 to 7 of hospitalization) and recovery (through day 60 after discharge from the hospital) phases of the disease. The patients were enrolled in the multicenter trial of SYNSORB Pk (SYNSORB Biotech, Calgary, Alberta, Canada) treatment for D+HUS. bFGF, interleukin-1alpha (IL-1alpha), IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels were determined with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. bFGF was detected in urine and plasma samples more frequently than were IL-1alpha, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. There was an acute increase in urinary bFGF excretion, which returned to normal during convalescence. Urinary excretion of bFGF during the acute phase was higher among patients who required dialysis, compared with those who did not (48.9 +/- 15.0 and 28.9 +/- 9.0 pg/ml, respectively; P < 0.05). Plasma bFGF concentrations were persistently elevated throughout the period of hospitalization and the follow-up period among patients with D+HUS. Urinary excretion and plasma levels of bFGF were comparable for the SYNSORB Pk-treated (n = 19) and placebo-treated (n = 12) groups. Measurements of urinary and plasma concentrations of bFGF among patients with D+HUS may be useful indices for assessment of the severity of acute renal disease and the timing and adequacy of the systemic angiogenic process during early convalescence.


The MFG test is a family‐based association test that detects genetic effects contributing to disease in offspring, including offspring allelic effects, maternal allelic effects and MFG incompatibility effects. Like many other family‐based association tests, it assumes that the offspring survival and the offspring‐parent genotypes are conditionally independent provided the offspring is affected. However, when the putative disease‐increasing locus can affect another competing phenotype, for example, offspring viability, the conditional independence assumption fails and these tests could lead to incorrect conclusions regarding the role of the gene in disease. We propose the v‐MFG test to adjust for the genetic effects on one phenotype, e.g., viability, when testing the effects of that locus on another phenotype, e.g., disease. Using genotype data from nuclear families containing parents and at least one affected offspring, the v‐MFG test models the distribution of family genotypes conditional on offspring phenotypes. It simultaneously estimates genetic effects on two phenotypes, viability and disease. Simulations show that the v‐MFG test produces accurate genetic effect estimates on disease as well as on viability under several different scenarios. It generates accurate type‐I error rates and provides adequate power with moderate sample sizes to detect genetic effects on disease risk when viability is reduced. We demonstrate the v‐MFG test with HLA‐DRB1 data from study participants with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and their parents, we show that the v‐MFG test successfully detects an MFG incompatibility effect on RA while simultaneously adjusting for a possible viability loss. Genet. Epidemiol. 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


A new method for an accurate characterization of the ordinary refractive index profile of proton-exchanged waveguides is presented and discussed. The method is based on the measurement of the power coupled into radiation modes of the waveguide as a function of the corresponding effective indexes, and allows the determination of the depth and of the film refractive index of the ordinary profile by a least squares fitting of the experimental points. The depth and the film refractive index have been experimentally obtained with an accuracy of 0.005 /spl mu/m and 0.0001, respectively.


Creating diverse and high-quality 3D assets with an automatic generative model is highly desirable. Despite extensive efforts on 3D generation, most existing works focus on the generation of a single category or a few categories. In this paper, we introduce a diffusion-based feed-forward framework for synthesizing massive categories of real-world 3D objects with a single generative model. Notably, there are three major challenges for this large-vocabulary 3D generation: a) the need for expressive yet efficient 3D representation; b) large diversity in geometry and texture across categories; c) complexity in the appearances of real-world objects. To this end, we propose a novel triplane-based 3D-aware Diffusion model with TransFormer, DiffTF, for handling challenges via three aspects. 1) Considering efficiency and robustness, we adopt a revised triplane representation and improve the fitting speed and accuracy. 2) To handle the drastic variations in geometry and texture, we regard the features of all 3D objects as a combination of generalized 3D knowledge and specialized 3D features. To extract generalized 3D knowledge from diverse categories, we propose a novel 3D-aware transformer with shared cross-plane attention. It learns the cross-plane relations across different planes and aggregates the generalized 3D knowledge with specialized 3D features. 3) In addition, we devise the 3D-aware encoder/decoder to enhance the generalized 3D knowledge in the encoded triplanes for handling categories with complex appearances. Extensive experiments on ShapeNet and OmniObject3D (over 200 diverse real-world categories) convincingly demonstrate that a single DiffTF model achieves state-of-the-art large-vocabulary 3D object generation performance with large diversity, rich semantics, and high quality.


This commentary interprets the development of upscale American suburbs in terms of the changing political economy associated with distinctive phases of political-economic development. The current outcome, it is suggested, is "Vulgaria:" the emblematic cultural landscapes of contemporary American suburbia. They are landscapes of bigness and spectacle, characterized by packaged developments, simulated settings, and conspicuous consumption, and they have naturalized an ideology of competitive consumption, moral minimalism, and disengagement from notions of social justice and civil society. These landscapes are examined as an expression of modernity, focusing on the interdependence of consumption and production within the political economy of modern urbanization, on the roles of suburbia in terms of consumption and, in particular, on the "enchantment" that is necessary to sustained consumption and capital accumulation under successive phases of capital development and waves of metropolitan growth.


: The growth specific rate, cells dimensions, the number of cells gemmation, juvenile and postjuvenile development phases duration have been measured on the yeast turbidostate culture Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain 14 growing under different temperature conditions. 33 degrees C has been found to be the optimum temperature. Cells surface area is minimum at that temperature. The number of cells gemmation is the same at suboptimum and optimum temperature but it decreases at supraoptimum one. It has been concluded that the culture growing at 33 degrees C is in the least steady state with dependence typical of the system enduring phase transition.


White light-emitting diodes represent the future generation of domestic and public lighting, substituting the currently favored (compact) fluorescent lamps. Research on improving the performance and costs leads to a focus on processing constraints. The optimization of the grain size is judged to be an important tool for minimizing the necessary amount of (expensive rare-earth containing) phosphors. Using only one type of phosphor that emits white light instead of a mixture of three phosphors (one for blue, green, and red, respectively) will significantly improve the characteristics of future light-emitting diodes. Small, 6-8 nm-sized particles emit intense white light observable by the naked eye. The emission color has been studied by varying the dopant ion concentrations as well as the excitation wavelengths, yielding white light close to standard daylight.


Active networking adds programmability to the network infrastructure to promote service introduction. One approach involves active packets that carry programs rather than standard passive headers. To date, no one has proposed an active packet system that is truly practical: providing added flexibility over passive packet schemes without sacrificing either safety or efficiency. In this work, we propose a new system, SNAP (Safe and Nimble Active Packets), that strikes a useful balance.
First, SNAP is safe. We use a combination of language design (limited expressiveness) and safe interpretation techniques that allow us to show that SNAP exhibits robustness (resistance to malicious or buggy code), isolation (non-interference with other packets), and resource predictability. In particular, we prove that each execution of a packet program consumes at most an amount of CPU and memory resources that are linearly proportional to the program's length; we also show the total number of packet executions that can be caused by a packet or its descendents is bounded.
Second, SNAP is efficient. We designed the SNAP packet format to minimize memory overhead: most packets can be executed in-place in kernel network buffers. We show experimentally that SNAP latency and bandwidth microbenchmarks perform within a few percent of their IP-family counterparts in software routers connected by 100 Mb/s Ethernet links. SNAP incurs extremely low overhead: IP-like functionality is available at IP-like performance.
Finally, SNAP is flexible, despite the fact that we have limited its expressiveness. We briefly describe a compiler that translates PLAN (an earlier active packet language) into SNAP using a combination of function inlining and sending copies of the current packet over a node's loopback interface to emulate backward branches. Since this loopback technique consumes one unit of resource bound, we find that the resource bound field of the packet is a convenient knob for trading off tight bounds on global resource usage for increased flexibility (in terms of the amount of looping available to the packet). We also describe two new native SNAP applications: distributed denial-of-service attack detection and active video-on-demand.


This paper discusses the growth and increasing significance of e-mail in the business and personal environment, and how unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail, also known as spam, has become a significant drain on technical and economic resources. It analyzes the statutory and self-help efforts to combat spam, focusing on block lists and automated spam filters, and how alleged spammers have brought lawsuits in U.S. courts claiming they had been wrongfully included within block lists and filters. Finally, it describes possible claims under U.S. law, then argues for a higher standard of care among block list vendors and the need for recourse to courts when self-help remedies for mistaken block listing fail.


We aimed to analyse the relationship between sperm parameters and International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) score, the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) score, the testosterone (T) level in infertile men and between FSFI score and partners' fertility. Patients were divided into three groups; (group 1: azoospermia [n = 57], group 2: sperm count <15 million [n = 41], group 3: sperm count >15 million [n = 81]). Patients and their partners filled the IIEF and FSFI forms. The normality of the tests was analysed with Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Shapiro–Wilk tests. Spearman's rho test, a nonparametric test, was used to correlate the data. A value of p < .05 was considered statistically significant. There was a positive correlation between the sperm count, other sperm parameters, morphology and motility and IIEF score, FSFI score and T (p = .037, .028 and .041 respectively). We found a positive correlation between IIEF score and FSFI score (p = .182). Infertile partners' FSFI score was lower than fertile partners' scores (p = .023). Male infertility causes severe sexual dysfunction in couples, and female sexual dysfunction increases in parallel to that of men. Male sexual function also tends to decrease with low sperm count. While the clinician evaluates infertile couples, psychological and sexual functions should also be evaluated and patients should not be deprived of appropriate treatment.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the effects of sinus surgery on the production and perception of speech.

DESIGN
Vocal recordings were performed before, 1 week after, and at least 1 month after sinus surgery. Acoustic spectra were analyzed for nasal consonants /m/ and /n/, nasalized vowels, and nonnasalized vowels. Results for nasal consonants were compared with similar recordings obtained from a group of normal subjects with no history of sinus disease. Perceptual analysis of nasalized vowels was conducted by trained phoneticians.

SETTING
Private practice at an academic medical center.

SUBJECTS
Five patients who underwent endoscopic sinus surgery and 3 normal subjects.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The spectral characteristics and perceptual attributes of nasal sounds.

RESULTS
Significant differences in spectral properties were observed for the consonants and nasalized vowels recorded before and after surgery (P < .001). Perceptual experiments for nasalized vowels demonstrated a postoperative decrease in nasality for the high vowel /i/, as in "beep," and an increase in nasality for the non-high vowel /ae/, as in "bad." These perceived changes correlated well with acoustic measures of nasal peak amplitudes and the lowest resonance peak amplitude of the vocal tract.

CONCLUSIONS
Sinus surgery results in measurable effects on the produced acoustic signal and the perceived nasality of a patient's speech. The identified acoustic correlates may be useful for preoperative counseling of patients concerning expected changes in speech quality following surgery.


1. Effects of preservation method (drying or air-tight storage of whole grain and ensiling of rolled high-moisture grain) and β -glucanase supplementation (Econase®) on apparent ileal amino acid digestibilities and metabolisable energy content of barley were evaluated with Ross broiler chickens. In addition, the effect of barley preservation method was assessed using Leghorn cockerels. 2. Birds were given either a semi-purified soyabean meal basal diet or a mixture of the basal diet and barley (50:50 on dry matter basis). Apparent ileal digestibilities (AID) of nutrients were assessed using the slaughter technique. AID of nutrients and nutrient digestibility measured using excreta (AED) were determined using chromium mordanted straw as an indigestible marker. 3. In broilers, AID of amino acids, dry matter and organic matter were lower for dried than air-tight stored barley, particularly for diets based on ensiled barley. In cockerels, barley preservation method had no effect on amino acid AID. The AED of nutrients and nitrogen corrected apparent metabolisable energy content (AME n ) was highest for ensiled barley across both experiments. 4. β -glucanase supplementation increased nutrient digestibility, phosphorus retention and AME n content of airtight stored and dried barley diets in particular but had only negligible effects on ensiled barley. β -glucanase improved the AID of amino acids in dried barley but not in air-tight stored or ensiled barley. 5. Amino acid digestibilities were lower in broilers than cockerels and the effect of barley preservation on feeding value of barley was different for broilers and cockerels.


Newton formed his laws of motion, but still had to assume a law of gravity in order to determine the motions of bodies interacting through gravitational forces. Newton gave a prescription of how to find the dynamics produced by gravity. Einstein sought to determine the motions of gravity without using a force. Rather, he sought a system of equations by which the dynamics of bodies interacting through gravity were determined by the least distance between two points in a curved space. In both of these approaches gravity was basically independent of other forces of nature. Newton's approach was to provide a system of equations that determined the motion of bodies interacting through forces in any choice of geometry. Einstein's approach was to require that the force of gravity determine the geometry since he sought to find the motions without using a force. Newton gave three laws of motion in equations that could be used to find various types of energy such as potential energy or kinetic energy. This arrangement has the forces determining the energy of interactions. The approach presented here basically reverses these roles of energy and forces. It starts with a law stating the conservation of energy which states how any exchange of energy between a system and its surroundings affects the system's energy and the work it can perform. It is a law stating how these three energies, exchange energy, system energy and work, can interact. The expression for work, force acting through a distance, must be a path dependent term which also makes the exchange energy path dependent. However, the system's energy is not path dependent. The difference between the path dependence of the work and the path independence of the system's energy is shown to be crucial to the law's determination of dynamics.


ABSTRACT For centuries women have been subordinated, repressed, and intimidated in different ways. However, women in the contemporary world are trying to reclaim their natural rights. Ireland is a complex case, because in the wake of nationalism, Catholicism, and some other socio-historical conventions, Irish women's movements were forced into the background until the last decades of the 20th century. Accordingly, Irish women have been constrained and daunted by the male discourses of nation, religion, and gender. Intriguingly, women in Taiwan have also been overburdened with pressures related to its unique political, social, and cultural legacies over the past few centuries. However, an increasing number of Taiwanese women have attempted to undo the patriarchy-driven phobia imposed on them to secure and consolidate their female identity. The traditions and transformations of women in both countries are well represented in works by Edna O'Brien and Li Ang. This paper is a comparative study of women in O'Brien's and Li's fiction. The focus is on investigating the ways in which women are subordinated in different historical and socio-cultural milieus, exploring how women react and fight against patriarchal discourses, and discussing the meanings and implications relevant to both writers and their fiction.


ABSTRACT Ren, D. and Du, J., 2018. Marine foreign trade economic zone industry investment risk evaluation model under the background of the belt and road. In: Liu, Z.L. and Mi, C. (eds.), Advances in Sustainable Port and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 83, pp. 212–216. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. For the conventional investment risk assessment model with stochastic simulation method to evaluate investment risk, it is difficult to calculate the weight of risk evaluation index, which is with a low accuracy of investment risk and benefit evaluation. To address this problem, a risk assessment model for industry investment in marine foreign trade economic zone based on support vector machine (SVM) is proposed in this paper. The evaluation index system of industry investment risk is constructed from two aspects of systematic risk and nonsystematic risk. The weight of each investment risk evaluation index is calculated by analytic hierarchy process, and the 3 industry investment projects are empirically analyzed by using the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model realizes the analysis and evaluation of risk through empirical analysis.


In wetland rice ecosystem, sowing of pulse either blackgram or greengram is generally performed either by broadcasting seeds manually in standing crop of rice fields at 7 to 10 days before harvest or dibbling manually immediately after rice harvest as traditional practices, a low cost technology which involves only sowing and seed cost. Nonetheless, these practices causes constraints like uneven distribution of seeds at shallow depth in broadcasting method and randomly placed seeds with improper depth and loss of moisture in manual dibbling after rice harvest which in-turn leads to poor contact between seeds and soil, low germination, more weed growth, unhealthy plants and lower yield. Of the field conditions followed, sowing in the standing crop condition at 7-10 days before rice harvest has advantage of more moisture content rather after harvesting rice at which residual moisture content is less. However, for effective utilization of residual moisture besides other resources like light, space and nutrients, placing seeds at proper spacing and at optimum depths is a must so as to better growth and development and yield of crop. As sowing seeds at proper spacing by manual means in standing crop condition is technically not feasible and economically unviable, machine sowing would offer a coping mechanism to accomplish the situation. Being a challenging task, a "Rice-fallow pulse planter" was designed and developed in such a way that it sow rice fallow pulse at proper spacing of 25x10cm with optimum depths of 3-4cm in line sown standing rice crop fields in wetland rice ecosystem with no or negligible damage. The machine has two large tread M.S wheels each having 1760mm dia with six spokes joining at hub mounted over bearing positioned at center of the wheel. These wheels were mounted on the mid-point of 2250cm shaft leaving 50cm distance between each wheel and 75cm on right and left side beyond each corresponding wheels. These designs were made considering the average height of the standing rice crop which is normally three feet from ground level above which the center axle position coincides so as to move freely without obstruction by the standing crop. Likewise, the position of large tread wheels fixed at narrow distance between each as to reduce the angle of coverage that could save the crop from damage while the machine takes turn reaching tail end of field /near bunds. The machine has a steel made cell type seed metering mechanism with 15 cells on the periphery of each solid wheel totaling 9 Nos. accommodated @ 3Nos. in each seed hopper numbering 3 which are mounted on the center axle. Shoe type furrow openers 9 Nos. provided at a spacing of 25cm between each. A single wheel driven unit powered by a 4.0 HP diesel engine is attached for operation of the machine by an operator provided with seat. As observed on the performance results of the Ricefallow pulse planter, the cost of operation was 76% higher in manual random dibbling method of sowing over sowing by Rice-fallow pulse planter. Whereas, it was Rs 1250/higher in Sowing by Ricefallow pulse planter when compared to conventional practice of Broadcasting method of sowing.The results of the field crop experiment revealed that the crop sown with Rice-fallow pulse planter significantly increased the growth parameters viz., germination (93.66 %) crop stand (32.37 Nos. m) besides registering the grain yield to the tune of 839 kg ha which was 20.72 and 55.66% higher than rill placement and broadcasting respectively. KeywordsLine sown rice, Rice-fallow pulse planter, Standing rice crop condition, Wetland rice ecosystem


Background: Family based interventions for childhood obesity has been demonstrated to be effective over the past several decades but parents are difficult to engage. Internet-based family intervention could be an alternative to face to face family intervention in meeting the barriers identified from parents. Objectives: This review provides an overview of internet-based family intervention for obese children, focusing on effectiveness and attrition rates. Methods: Randomized controlled trial studies published between January 2004 and March 2014 were selected from six electronic databases. Intervention using internet or web-based which involved parents of 2 to 17 years old and lifestyles and behavior modification were included. Intervention characteristics were reviewed and salient features were extracted. Results: Five related randomized controlled trials were included. Four of five studies found significant adiposity and behavioral changes. Attrition rates ranged from 2% to 47%. Intervention characteristics that could contributed to intervention effectiveness were
theory based, used of more behavioral techniques and interactive features like online self-monitoring and e-mail
contact with counselors. One of the factors that could have influence on attrition rates was monetary incentives. Parents' empowerment and parenting aspects were lacking in the internet-based family intervention for parents.
Conclusions: internet-based intervention has a short term impact on adiposity and behavioral changes and has the potential to minimize parents' attrition in family based intervention. Improving the intervention elements in internet-based family intervention might improve effectiveness and attrition rates.


Recently, there has been an increasing interest on bridging simulation and performance due rising concerns on the observed discrepancy or gap between green building targeted performance and the actual performance of buildings-in-use, especially in terms of energy performance in buildings. As energy is the primary component of carbon emission from buildings in the tropics due to dominant air conditioning loads, an integrated rating system of both carbon and sustainability assessment for tropical buildings which focuses its scoring weightage on energy reductions is proposed. The system will be implemented firstly in government buildings and then later to be launched for commercial buildings. The aim of this paper is to highlight the main principles, methods and process of assessment,
certification and awards, system based on the proposed rating system. The fundamentals of the rating system is presented including how the system creates incentives to encourage future and existing building owners lower carbon emissions,
and how the system integrates carbon impact assessment through calculators and the efforts in attempts to bridge, design, performance and operations and introduce life cycle concepts in operational and embodied carbon into a more holistic rating
system for green buildings in the tropics.


Background & Study Aim: The optimum level of the endurance-strength abilities is necessary to perform professional activities, and many other daily tasks. The objective of this study was the correlations between anthropometric indicators, BMI, heart rate and endurance-strength abilities of young sedentary women. Material & Methods: Seventy-two female students of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Poland) with the mean age 20.6 ±0.66 years were tested. The participants' body mass, body height, length of upper and lower limbs, and BMI were determined. Their endurance-strength abilities were measured in the 3-minute Burpee Test (3MBT). The students' heart rate (HR) was measured immediately before and after the test, and 30-, 60and 90 seconds after the test. The results were processed statistically and correlation coefficients r were calculated to determine the relationships between anthropometric indicators, HR and the number of completed 3MBT cycles. Results: The average 3MBT result was 48.58 cycles/3 minutes, the participants' HR increased to 181.92 b*min–1, with average increment of 71.88 b*min–1. Heart rate values in successive measurements (T2 – T5) were significantly (p<0.05) higher than resting HR (T1). Heart rate values decreased significantly (p<0.05) every 30 seconds after the test (between T2:T3, T3:T4 and T4:T5) to reach 150.96 b*min –1 on average after 90 seconds. The number of completed 3MBT cycles was significantly negatively correlated with the participants' body mass, height and BMI. Conclusions: An increase in anthropometric indicators, including body mass and height, and BMI contributes to a significant decrease in endurance-strength abilities of young women performing the 3MBT. The significant increase in HR and high HR values immediately after exercise indicate that the test involves very high levels of physical exertion.


Abstract Agriculture poses a threat upon wildlife worldwide and particularly to reptiles. However, the effects of many crop types on reptile diversity remain unknown. In this field study, we examined the local effects of two understudied common crop types in Mediterranean regions, intensively cultivated vineyards and intensified-traditional olive plantations, on reptile diversity patterns. We compared measurements of diversity among an array of study plots representing each crop as well as plots in adjacent patches of natural habitat. We developed a new index, the Average Specialization Index, in order to compare the degree of habitat-specialization of the species in the different habitats. Among the habitat types examined, the natural patches were the most structurally heterogeneous and contained the greatest species richness and diversity. In contrast, the intensive vineyards were structurally homogeneous and were uninhabitable areas for reptiles. The more-traditionally cultivated olive plantations were intermediately heterogeneous and provided a unique habitat occupied by a community with a high proportion of reptile species considered to be habitat specialists. Despite showing high abundance and eveness, the reptile community within the olive plantations still contained a lower species richness and diversity compared to natural patches. In light of our results, we recommend implementing a more wildlife-friendly management strategy in landscapes converted to agricultural cultivation.


Although Ionic Liquids still represent a hot topic in Green Chemistry, many practical applications for the development of Green Processes have been hampered by limitations associated with their cost and the (eco)toxicological properties identified for some of them. The incorporation of ILs or structural fragments related to ILs in solid materials allows the development of the so-called Supported Ionic Liquids (SILs, SILPs, or SILLPs), which exhibit many of the features and advantages of ILs while overcoming many of the above limitations. This chapter describes the general approaches reported toward the development and full characterization of advanced materials based on ILs and some of their more relevant applications in the development of Green Synthetic Processes.


Teaching and learning practice in higher education (HE) should incorporate educational evaluation, both for the purpose of external and internal quality assurance and to monitor and improve the student experience. Methods used to evaluate education vary, but the majority of literature on course evaluation is based on quantitative surveys of the learner experience. One alternative to survey evaluation is 'nominal group technique' (NGT), which has been used with some success in curriculum development. This multi-method study aimed to (1) compare the nature and quality of data gathered using NGT with standard written questionnaires, (2) assess the usefulness of the feedback for an individual teacher and institution and (3) consider the appropriateness and feasibility of widespread use. Both the standard written questionnaire and NGT generated data on similar topics. The structured nature of the questionnaire tended to generate short answers which were similar to the results of the NGT ranking exercise. However, in contrast to the questionnaire data, the NGT discussion phase allowed in-depth exploration and interrogation of students' views. Whilst the specific data gathered via NGT are unlikely to be useful for quality assurance purposes within an institution, since they is not easily comparable, they can provide teachers with in-depth information on how to improve the learning experience and improve the efficacy of teaching. It is likely that NGT evaluation will be particularly useful when evaluating new courses, identifying problems in poorly performing courses, and identifying good practice in high-performing courses. Institutional investment in selective NGT evaluation may be more feasible than routine use.


Canine mammary carcinoma (CMC) has been used as a model to investigate the pathogenesis of human breast cancer and the same grading scheme is commonly used to assess tumor malignancy in both. One key component of this grading scheme is the density of mitotic figures (MF). Current publicly available datasets on human breast cancer only provide annotations for small subsets of whole slide images (WSIs).
We present a novel dataset of 21 WSIs of CMC completely annotated for MF. For this, a pathologist screened all WSIs for potential MF and structures with a similar appearance. A second expert blindly assigned labels, and for non-matching labels, a third expert assigned the final labels. Additionally, we used machine learning to identify previously undetected MF. Finally, we performed representation learning and two-dimensional projection to further increase the consistency of the annotations.
Our dataset consists of 13,907 MF and 36,379 hard negatives. We achieved a mean F1-score of 0.791 on the test set and of up to 0.696 on a human breast cancer dataset.


If he [the man] lifts himself upwards and touches the stars with his forhead, the soles of his feet dangle in mid-air, and he becomes a plaything of the clouds and the winds. Johan Wolfgang von Goethe: "Grenzen der Menschheit" `(Limits of Humanity.Transl. my own). Martin Heidegger, the "eminent "German philosopher of our time, was a great admirer of Goethe. This fusion of the philosophical mind with the poetical and psychological orientation of the poet turns out to be a terrible "con-fusion". In the poem cited above, Goethe's appeal is not to the "Volksgeist" i.e. the collective psyche, but rather to the individual thinker who rises so high that his head touches the sky while his feet "dangle" footloose as a plaything of the clouds and the winds. Goethe's warning is not only the load-star of Nietzsche's "over-man" in the figure of Zarathustra, but also the guiding principle of modern psychology. Both Goethe and Nietzsche steer clear of a transcendence of the individual towards the "Volksgeist" (Collective unconscious), and modern psychology equally stresses that the problem of the human psyche cannot be overcome by a total immersion of the individual in the collective psyche. Freud, Jung and others agree that dissension in the human psyche can be overcome only by the effort of the individual to restore the psychic balance by summoning the chaotic contents of the unconscious psyche in a meaningful symbiosis with the conscious aspirations of the rational psyche. That Goethe did not think of elevating the "Volksgeist" in any undue manner is expressed in his "Venetianische Epigramme" (Venetian Epigrams) where he states: "Works of the mind and of art are not created for the masses." (Translation my own). The fact of the matter is that Heidegger was motivated by the "Volksgeist" (collective psyche) or the "Volksseele" (collective soul), and having lost himself in the clouds of philosophical abstractions, brushed aside the psychological aspect of Goethe's classical rejection of mass mentality in a tour de force which finally ended in Heidegger's "Con-Fusion". In order to clarify this point further, let me briefly mention here the painting of the German artist Spitzweg. In this well-known painting, the scholar stands on the top of a ladder facing the book shelves. He holds one book in his left hand, another book in his right hand, a third book under his arm, pressed to his body, and a fourth book between his knees. It is apparent that this scholar is so steeped in his studies that he will forget his precarious position on the top of the ladder, and will any moment step away from his narrow platform and fall to his death,--a familiar version of the "Humpty" rhyme. In this short paper, it is not my aim to diminish the essence of Martin Heidegger's philosophy per se. My attempt here is to confront the highly intellectual profile of Heidegger's potential with the incredibly immature residue of the same philosopher's personality. Heidegger's premise is his indefatigable harping on the theme of the "Volksgeist" or "Volksseele" by elevating these concepts to the sanctified level of apotheosis. In so doing he fell victim to the inherent allusion of Germany's cultural superiority which is expressed in the well known German national anthem, "Deutschland uber alles!" (Germany above all). It is precisely at this crossroad of Heidegger's development that this gifted philosopher was waylaid and overcome by an onslaught of unresolved psychological conflicts that catapulted him to assume the clownlike role of the Humpty-Dumpty figure. To claim that Heidegger was unaware of Goethe's classical orientation is probably far-fetched. Goethe's appeal is to the conscious individual that is able to recognize human limitations and emerge on the apex of a psychological symbiosis of divergent psychic trends. It would not suprise me to find out that Spitzweg's painting depicts the dilemma of Goethe's footlose thinker whose head is in the clouds. …


Globally, hydrometeorological hazards have large impacts to agriculture output, as well as human well-being. With climate change derived increasing frequency of extreme weather conditions, the situation has becoming more severe. This study strives to evaluate both dry and wet conditions in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD), also known as the rice basket of the Southeast Asian region. Different meteorological parameters from the last three decades were used to develop drought indices for Ca Mau province to investigate their impact on agricultural output. For this purpose, the standard precipitation index (SPI), the agricultural rainfall index (ARI), and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) were used in this study. Results highlight that Ca Mau has a peculiar characteristic of the whole VMD in that dry periods persist well into the wet season extending the duration of drought events. The role of storms, including tropical storms, and El Niño cannot be ignored as extreme events, which both change humidity, as well as rainfall. It is also found that the drought situation has caused significant damage to both rice and shrimp outputs in almost 6000 hectares. The assessment contributes to an improved understanding of the pattern of unpredictable rainfall and meteorological anomaly conditions in Ca Mau. The findings of this paper are important for both policymakers and practitioners in designing more robust plans for water resource management.


This paper describes an adaptive digital predistorter (ADP) for RF power amplifier (PA) linearization using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The ANFIS predistorter (PD) employs the advantage of real-time modeling of the PA's responses in determining the PD's functions. The amplitude and phase corrections for the PD are represented in an easy-to-understand fuzzy if-then rule, while the parameters involved in the fuzzy representation are trained using neural networks algorithms, namely gradient-descent and least squares estimate (LSE). Experimental results show that a 26.3-dB improvement in linearity for a two-tone signal is obtained, while a distorted WCDMA signal is suppressed by at least 12 dB. The adaptability of the ANFIS PD to instantaneous variation in PA responses through time is also demonstrated, and results show that the ANFIS PD is capable of adapting to simulated environmental changes, which is a topic often omitted by researchers in this area. Further testing demonstrated that the tuning parameters involved in the training could be reduced by more than half for a fairly nonlinear PA without significantly degrading the suppression capability.


The main aim of this study is to try to understand modernization attempts of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through reforms in the legal field and to reveal reforms' effects on the state-society relationship through state perception of the women marginality. Although questioned reforms in the legal field was covering a range of changes from new courts to the constitution of police service, limited scope of the study is restricted to focus on reforms in the penal law. By examining 1840, 1851 and 1858 penal codes, the study aimed to focus on changing state mindset which lies behind the codification activities during the questioned terms. In order to understand how reforms in the legal structure and formal law change the relationship between the state and society, state perception of the women marginality is taken as an epitomic case. In a more detailed way, the questions of abortion, prostitution and incarceration practices of women inmates are taken as specific case studies. At this point this study mainly argues that, while until the nineteenth century the Ottoman sui generis legal structure and culture was recognizing a legal freedom to women marginality in a quite extensive private manner, during the modernization attempts of the empire, legitimately private women marginality was redefined and repositioning within the boundaries of public and subjected to state intervention through reforms in the penal field. In other words, the women marginality and criminality was redefined and constructed through reforms in the legal and especially penal field during the late Ottoman era.