BACKGROUND
Because humoral immunity is believed to play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of IgA nephropathy (IgAN), a prospective placebo-controlled randomized study was started in patients with IgAN using mycophenolate mofetil (MMF).

METHODS
A total of 34 patients with IgAN were treated with salt intake restriction, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition and MMF 2 g per day (N= 21) or placebo (N= 13). After 36 months of follow-up clinical, biochemical, and radiologic data were analyzed using linear mixed models for longitudinal data and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis.

RESULTS
Therapy had to be stopped prematurely in five patients. Two patients (MMF group) evolved to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). There was no difference between groups in the percentage of patients with a decrease of 25% or more in the inulin clearance or with a serum creatinine increase of 50% or more over 3 years. There was also no significant difference between groups in annualized rate of change of serum creatinine, computed by linear regression analysis. No significant difference was noted between groups for inulin clearance, serum creatinine, proteinuria, blood pressure, or other parameters of renal function. Hemoglobin and C-reactive protein were significantly lower in the MMF group compared with the placebo group. As a function of time, a significant decline in both groups was noted of proteinuria, parenchymal thickness of the kidneys and C3d.

CONCLUSION
In patients with IgAN at risk for progressive disease, no beneficial effect of 3-year treatment with MMF 2 g per day could be demonstrated on renal function/outcome or proteinuria. However, larger randomized studies are needed to confirm or reject these results.


NEUROSURGICAL attempts at establishing shunts from the cerebroventricular system to various sites have met with remarkable success in the management of hydrocephalus. In some cases where drainage is from cerebral ventricle to the superior vena cava or right atrium sepsis or thromboembolism, or both, have been observed as serious complications. We have observed a child in whom cor pulmonale occurred in this way and in whom the autopsy findings suggest a pathogenic mechanism to our knowledge not previously emphasized. Report of a Case A white boy was first admitted to this hospital on Oct 25, 1965 at 3 years and 8 months of age, for surgical correction of a right acetabular defect. He was born by breech delivery and required resuscitation (birth weight was 4,091 gm [9 lb]). At 9 days of age a congenital meningomyelocele was repaired and at 2 weeks of age bilateral club feet were corrected surgically.


Fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix, (FRCM) system has shown to be promising for the strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) beams. However, the available experimental investigation on the shear strengthening efficacy of FRCM system is limited, particularly for deep beams. Moreover, to the authors' knowledge, no literature is available on the effect of the stirrups' configuration relative to the FRCM strips on the shear capacity of FRCM-strengthened beams. Studying this effect will aid in a better understanding of the FRCM/stirrups interaction. Thus, in this paper the experimental study on the shear behavior of RC deep beams strengthened in shear using FRCM system is presented. The test matrix involved two unstrengthened and six FRCM-strengthened deep beams tested under three-point bending. The primary test variable was the effect of stirrups' configuration relative to the FRCM strips. The other test variable includes the effect of different types of FRCM fabric (made of carbon, glass, and polyparaphenylene benzobisoxazole, PBO). Experimental results demonstrated an effective application of the FRCM in improving the load capacities of RC deep beams, up to 40.3% increase in the load capacity was achieved.


Introduction Rates of lung cancer diagnosis for two week wait (2WW) referrals are low although referrals are increasing. Many 2WW's are potentially exposed to unnecessary anxiety as the referral requires the G. P. to inform the patient of the possibility of cancer. CATCH (Community Access To CT Chest) is a new protocol of care that has been developed by the Salford lung cancer team in collaboration with the Salford C. C. G. whereby abnormal "low risk" CXR reports are communicated to G. P.s with instructions for them to request a CT scan, which is then fast tracked allowing rapid performance and reporting of the scan with appropriate advice to the GP. Methods A d-base was set up to capture the performance of CATCH from its introduction on 05.02.2014 to 05.07.2014. Demographic details were collected for dates of CXR, CXR report, CT request, CT report, relevant outcomes and 2WW activity for same time (2011–2014). Participating patients were interviewed by telephone using a structured questionnaire (supported by a postal questionnaire for non-responders). Results 53 patients underwent an abnormal CXR with advice to enter into the CATCH protocol and of these 7 bypassed CATCH having been referred directly into the 2WW system by their G. P.s. For the 46 patients completing CATCH, seven (15%) urgent 2WW referrals were recommended. In the remaining 39 patients, 28 required no follow up, 9 non-urgent referral to the chest clinic and 2 repeat community CXRs. Timelines for performance of CT scans were acceptable (see Table) and detected cancer in 5/46 (10.9%) and were normal in 8/46 (17.4%). 23–26 patients interviewed to date rated the service overall as either very good or excellent. During same points in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 2WW numbers were 69, 84, 89 and 81 respectively. Conclusions Our provisional data support the role of CATCH as a new system of care for managing "low risk "CXR reports that might otherwise be referred into growing 2WW clinics. Thus far, the protocol moves at a rapid pace and has been well received by the patient (although we await the results of the postal survey in due course). Abstract P90 Table 1 Mean time for various CATCH outcomes CXR performed to CXR report 3.1 days CXR report to CT request 5.1 days CT request to CT appointment 5.8 days CXR report to CT appointment 13.0 days


It was proposed that the central dense stellar cluster in the Galactic Center, containing the mass of $\sim$4 times larger than that of the central black hole, had been formed as a result of a merging of several massive globular clusters. These globular clusters are expected to provide a large number of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) within the central parsec of the Galactic Center. We propose that the GeV $\gamma$-ray emission observed from the Galactic Center is in fact a cumulative effect of the emission from several globular clusters captured by the Galactic Center black hole. Moreover, the millisecond pulsars in globular clusters accelerate leptons in their wind zones to energies of the order of a few tens of TeV injecting them into the dense infrared and optical radiation region present within the central parsec. We calculate the expected TeV $\gamma$-ray emission produced by these leptons by the Inverse Compton Scattering process in the soft radiation field. It is shown that this emission can be responsible for the multi-TeV $\gamma$-rays observed by the Cherenkov telescopes from the Galactic Center for reasonable densities of the soft radiation, diffusion models for the propagation of leptons, their injection parameters (fluxes and spectral proprieties). If the energy conversion efficiency from the pulsars to the relativistic leptons is of the order of 10%, then about a thousand of MSPs have to be present in the central cluster in the Galactic Center.


AIM OF ABSTRACT/PAPER - RESEARCH QUESTIONThe paper deals with the question: how to understand 'knowledge' in everyday innovation processes in football clubs from a cultural approach? It explores what happens when club management attempts to initiate a number of innovation processes in in a context where there is a mix of professionals and amateurs, employees and volunteers. How are these attempts received? A specific focus is 'knowledge'. What is knowledge in such context? What is constructed as useful or not useful knowledge? The aim is an increased understanding of the nature of innovation in such contexts.THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OR LITERATURE REVIEWAn organization needs to strike a balance between the exploitation of old certainties and the exploration of new possibilities. The former concerns continuing doing what we are doing, while the former concerns searching for and discovering new things, in other words, innovation (March, 1991). Innovation does not only concern new products and services, but organizational and other social processes as well (King, Anderson, & West, 1991). Innovation requires new (useful) knowledge. From a cultural perspective what is understood as 'new' and (useful) 'knowledge' however is socially constructed in the local context. What is interesting is to understand how this construction process develops in practice. What is (socially) 'defined' as 'useful knowledge' and 'not useful knowledge'? What are the processes leading to these definitions? Voluntary (amateur) football clubs represents an interesting context with a mix of professionals and amateurs, employees and volunteers. Also, Gilmore & Gilson (2007) claim that (people in) soccer is notorious for being suspicious to ideas generated outside its own experience base. Together, this forms an interesting case for innovation research. How do you accomplish innovation in such a situation? Is it possible to innovate by bringing in explicit knowledge from the outside? If not, how do such processes leading to failure develop? What are the reasons for failure? Ogbonna & Harris (2013) studies cultural perpetuation in a British Premier League football club, illustrating how a cultural change attempt aiming at increased professionalization is resisted. They do not focus the concept of knowledge and also describes the case from a general level. This paper adds to previous research by focusing knowledge in the microprocesses of everyday innovation in a voluntary football club.METHODOLOGY, RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSISThis is a five year long ethnographic study of a Swedish voluntary football club. On a general level, doing an ethnography means studying culture(s) searching for meanings of different events and things and how these meanings are created. During the study the author was deeply involved in the club in different positions, for example as a member of the board. A broad range of methods was used in order to create a thick description (Geertz, 1973). The empirical material includes documents, interviews, participant observations, observations, introspection, informal talks, and webpages. This article is focusing one aspect in a bigger study concerning voluntary football club management. Here, focus is on understanding knowledge in innovation processes. When attempting innovation, what knowledge was deemed 'useful' and 'not useful' and why?RESULTS, DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS/CONCLUSIONSThe study suggests that the question of knowledge in everyday innovation processes in football clubs is complex. What is understood as 'useful or 'not useful' knowledge is a result of local culture and something not easily discerned from the outside. What in many other contexts is considered as 'useful' knowledge can be framed as 'not useful' in a voluntary football club. The study discusses reasons for this and how this influences the innovation process. This has implications for the education and practice of sport managers.


. In the so-called reverse proportional reading (Herburger, 1997), the truth conditions of statements of the form many/few f y appear to make reference to the ratio of the individuals that are in the extensions of both f and y to the individuals that are in the extension of y . The analysis of such readings is controversial. One prominent approach (B¨uring, 1996; de Hoop and Sol`a, 1996; Romero, 2015, 2016; Solt, 2009) assumes that they are a symptom of many and few making reference to a context dependent standard of comparison. Elaborating on remarks in Partee (1989), we observe that this initially attractive approach systematically un-dergenerates, failing to capture pervasive reverse proportionality in environments that remove context dependency of the standard. Instead, we propose that reverse proportionality in such cases reflects the underspecification of the measure function underlying the meanings of many and few (Bale and Barner, 2009; Wellwood, 2014; Solt, 2018).


iAbstract This was a cross-sectional study to evaluate the degree of awareness and practice of oral medicine by all final-year medical students of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences (69 cases) in 2010. The data was analyzed by chi-square test and T test. According to our findings, the level of knowledge and practice were found to be insufficient in 58 and 55.1% of medical interns, respectively. There was a statistically significant relationship between the level of awareness and practice (P=0.04). Re-evaluation of medical curriculum regarding the oral medicine seems to be necessary for medical students.


Evaluation of trauma systems has matured over the last few decades. US trauma systems routinely undergo clinical and operational evaluation to ensure optimal care of the injured from the time of injury through reintegration with society. Assessments are carried out with the intent of defining optimal elements and rendering strategic recommendations for the trauma system. The framework for trauma system assessment was adopted from the Trauma Care Systems Planning and Development Act of 1990 which sought to create a consistent process and core functions to ensure a reproducible trauma system from prehospital through rehabilitation. Applying the core function of a public health model to trauma systems provided a process for enhancement of clinical care along the continuum through a framework that accentuates assessment, policy development and assurance while holding to the highest standards in trauma systems performance. A review of contemporary and evidence-based information regarding key strategies and processes related to the evaluation of trauma systems' performance improvement was undertaken. The intent was to identify measurable metrics for trauma systems performance improvement and patient safety. There is a paucity of data related to specific metrics to evaluate the impact of trauma systems on performance and outcomes. The majority of publications focused on quality of trauma registry data, integration of prehospital data, and the core functions of a trauma system but lacked specific quantitative metrics to measure these core functions. The qualitative responses of "met or not met" can be subjective and equivocal. The American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS COT) Trauma System Evaluation Committee has also developed qualitative minimal trauma system standards and implemented a comprehensive trauma system evaluation process. Trauma system-wide, risk adjusted, qualitative and quantitative metrics are recommended to address the full spectrum of injury which are essential to the advancement of the care of the injured patient.


Eurasian brine shrimp (genus Artemia) have closely related sexual and asexual lineages of parthenogenetic females, which produce rare males at low frequencies. Although they are known to have ZW chromosomes, these are not well characterized, and it is unclear whether they are shared across the clade. Furthermore, the underlying genetic architecture of the transmission of asexuality, which can occur when rare males mate with closely related sexual females, is not well understood. We produced a chromosome-level assembly for the sexual Eurasian species Artemia sinica and characterized in detail the pair of sex chromosomes of this species. We combined this new assembly with short-read genomic data for the sexual species Artemia sp. Kazakhstan and several asexual lineages of Artemia parthenogenetica, allowing us to perform an in-depth characterization of sex-chromosome evolution across the genus. We identified a small differentiated region of the ZW pair that is shared by all sexual and asexual lineages, supporting the shared ancestry of the sex chromosomes. We also inferred that recombination suppression has spread to larger sections of the chromosome independently in the American and Eurasian lineages. Finally, we took advantage of a rare male, which we backcrossed to sexual females, to explore the genetic basis of asexuality. Our results suggest that parthenogenesis is likely partly controlled by a locus on the Z chromosome, highlighting the interplay between sex determination and asexuality.


Recent growth in the area of model-based product development in the automotive industry means that system models in electronic form become increasingly more available as they progressively find more applications in the course of the development process. Such models, Matlab-Simulink models for example, are currently used for simulation, fault injection and source code generation. In our work, the utility of such models is pushed further into a hitherto unexplored area that of safety and reliability analysis. We propose a design process in which techniques for semi-automatic safety and reliability analysis of such models are combined with multi-criteria optimization techniques to assist the gradual development of designs that can meet set reliability and safety targets within pragmatic cost constraints. The proposed process relies on tools to automate some aspects of the design that we believe could be automated and thus simplified without any loss of the creative input in the process by designers.


Avoiding immune destruction is a hallmark of cancer. Natural killer (NK) cells contribute to tumor immune surveillance and protection from tumor metastasis. The cell surface Ig superfamily molecule CD96 has recently been shown as a negative regulator of mouse NK cell activity, and we have demonstrated that blocking CD96 with a monoclonal antibody inhibited experimental metastases in multiple tumor models. The anti-metastatic activity of anti-CD96 was dependent on NK cells, CD226 (DNAM-1) and IFN-γ, but independent of activating Fc receptors. Anti-CD96 was more effective in combination with anti-CTLA4, anti-PD1, anti-TIGIT, or doxorubicin chemotherapy. Development of additional anti-mouse and anti-human CD96 mAbs will be discussed. Overall these data demonstrate that blocking CD96 is a new and complementary immunotherapeutic strategy to reduce tumor metastases. The activity of NK cells is also governed by the cytokine IL-15, foreign and self-ligands, and a variety of immunosuppressive factors. We have identified CIS (Cytokine-inducible SH2-containing protein; Cish gene) as the critical negative regulator of IL-15 signalling in NK cells and shown the critical intrinsic role of CIS in suppressing NK cell control of tumor initiation and metastasis. The combination of Cish-deficiency and relevant immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint blockade antibodies, IL-2, and type I interferon revealed further improved control of metastasis. The data clearly indicates that targeting CIS promotes NK cell antitumor functions and CIS holds great promise as a novel target in NK cell immunotherapy. The relative importance of mechanisms that tumors adopt to evade NK cells remains ill defined. Using mice with NK cells that either constitutively, or are unable to, signal via the TGF-β receptor, revealed that TGF-β signaling induces the transdifferentiation of conventional NK (cNK) cells into ILC1. Functional analysis revealed that host protection from tumor initiation and metastasis is mediated by cNK cells, whereas tumor resident ILC1 and ILC1-like cells appear to offer no host protection. These data indicate the plasticity of cNK cells under pathophysiological conditions and a potential new escape mechanism for tumors from innate immunity. Citation Format: Mark J. Smyth, Eva Putz, Stephen Blake, Aaron Gao, Fernando Guimaraes, John Miles, Bill Dougall, Michele WL Teng, Nicholas D. Huntington. Novel natural killer cell targets for cancer immunotherapy [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr IA27.


We show that political uncertainty surrounding elections can affect how corporate investment responds to stock prices. In a large panel of elections around the world, investment is 40% less sensitive to stock prices during election years compared to non-election years. The decrease in investment-to-price sensitivity appears to be due to stock prices becoming less informative during election years making them noisier signals for managers to follow. Further, the drop in investment-to-price sensitivity is larger when election results are less certain, in countries with higher corruption, large state ownership, and weak standards of disclosure by politicians. Finally, we show that election uncertainty leads to inefficient capital allocation, reducing company performance.


Characterizing the drivers of flow in non-perennial streams is increasingly important for understanding the effects of variable flow regimes on local communities and ecosystems. Regime shift theory has been used to explain changes in other hydrologic systems, but the theory as it applies to non-perennial streams has yet to be fully explored. Here, we use the Arkansas River basin near Larned, Kansas, to determine whether changes between flow and no-flow conditions can be described using a regime shift framework. We combined hydrological, meteorological, and ecological time series data to test for the presence of statistical "hints" commonly associated with regime shifting systems and used a sequential t-test analysis of regime shifts (STARS) algorithm to test for regime shifts in the time series of weekly and monthly no-flow days. Although flow data exhibited hints such as critical slowing down and asymmetry of flow rates, evidence for increased variance and autocorrelation was weak. STARS identified at least five shifts between dry (predominantly no-flow conditions), intermediate (alternating flowing and no-flow conditions), and wet (predominantly flowing conditions) regimes in the river between 1998 and 2021. The intermediate regime appears to be a transitory phase between the stable wet and dry regimes observed at Larned. Regime shifts at the site are likely driven by a complex interaction between climate, pumping, and stream-aquifer interactions.


ABSTRACT Destination loyalty has become a crucial concept in both academia and practice. Numerous studies have revealed the antecedents of destination loyalty to discriminate from other rival destinations. Although increasing destination loyalty is anticipated as the key milestone to achieve from both practical and academic purposes, previous research lacks understanding of the characteristics and profile of loyal travellers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to segment the profile of active international sport tourists by their perceived destination loyalty and to reveal the differences among three segments of their destination loyalty: low, high, and extremely high. Using a paper–pencil questionnaire, data were collected from international tourists who visited the Niseko ski resort in Japan (N = 298). The results of the confirmatory factor analysis, chi-square test using residual analysis, and ANOVA with post hoc analysis implies that there were significant differences among the three segments. The more loyal tourists feel toward the destination, the more involved with and familiar with a sport they perceive themselves to be, and the more they have visited the destination previously. These results of this study contribute to destination marketing organizations, in particular for snow resorts, to understand their loyal customers, which will be the fundamental material to build their management strategy.


Activation of inflammatory pathways represents a central mechanism in multiple disease states both acute and chronic. Triggered via either pathogen or tissue damage-associated molecular motifs, common biochemical pathways lead to conserved yet variable physiological and immunological alterations. Dissection and delineation of the determinants and mechanisms underlying phenotypic variance in response is expected to yield novel therapeutic advances. Intravenous (IV) administration of endotoxin (gram-negative bacterial lipopolysaccharide), a specific Toll-like receptor 4 agonist, represents an in vivo model of systemic inflammation in man. National Institutes for Health Clinical Center Reference Endotoxin (CCRE, Escherichia coli O:113:H10:K negative) is employed to reliably and reproducibly generate vascular, hematological, endocrine, immunological and organ-specific functional effects that parallel, to varying degrees, those seen in the early stages of pathological states. Alteration of dose (0.06 - 4 ng/kg) and time-scale of exposure (bolus vs. infusion) allows replication of either acute or chronic inflammation and a range of severity to be elicited, with higher doses (2 - 4 ng/kg) frequently being used to create a 'sepsis-like' state. Established and novel medicinal compounds may additionally be administered prior to or post endotoxin exposure to appreciate their effect on the inflammatory cascade. Despite limitations in scope and generalizability, human IV endotoxin challenge offers a unique platform to gain mechanistic insights into inducible physiological responses and inflammatory pathways. Rationally employed it may aid translation of this knowledge into therapeutic innovations.


An olfactory projection area was studied in monkeys anesthetized with Nembutal. 1. Evoked potentials were recorded when the olfactory bulb (OB) was electrically stimulated in the lateroposterior portion of the orbitofrontal cortex (LPOF). However, those potentials disappeared when the anterior pyriform cortex (AP) (probably together with the medial portion of the amygdala (MA)) was aspirated or electrically destroyed. 2. In nearly the entire hypothalamic region, evoked potentials were recorded by the same stimulation of the OB. When the hypothalamic region was stimulated, evoked potentials were recorded in the LPOF. 3. The evoked potentials in the LPOF due to the OB stimulation never disappeared even when the thalamus was extensively aspirated or destroyed electrically, but they did disappear when the anterolateral and dorsoposterior portions of the hypothalamus were absorbed or electrocoagulated. 4. Evoked potentials in the mediodorsal nucleus (MD) of the thalamus were recorded when the OB was stimulated. When this nucleus was stimulated, evoked potentials were observed in the broad extent of the orbitofrontal cortex anterior to the LPOF, but never in the LPOF itself. 5. Monkeys were conditioned to discriminate two odors. When the LPOF was removed, such ability strikingly decreased; but when other areas in the prefrontal cortex were removed, the ability decreased only slightly. 6. It was concluded that there exists an olfactory pathway from the OB to the LPOF through the AP (and probably the MA) and the hypothalamus, but none through the thalamus, and that the LPOF plays an important role in the discrimination of odors. 7. It was proved that the entorhinal cortex (ER) is neither located as an intermediate olfactory area nor is it situated as a higher area than the LPOF in the newly found olfactory pathway stated above. It may be a link between the high olfactory area and the limbic system.


A new control scheme of freewheeling current control is proposed for switching DC-DC converters. The output voltage is regulated by a comparator operation, and in the main current loop, the freewheeling current is feedback-controlled to a reference level in average. The converter control loop is no longer dependent on the values of the inductor, output capacitor, or the load equivalent resistance. The design of a loop compensator is therefore greatly simplified and the loop response can be very fast approaching that of a hysteresis converter. As an example, a single-inductor bipolar-output DC-DC converter with the proposed freewheeling current control is implemented in a 0.5 mum BiCMOS process. The converter has one positive output of 4 V and one negative output of -4.8 V. A maximum efficiency of 81% is achieved at a total output power of 250 mW with a switching frequency of 800 kHz.


Vitamin B6 content, percentage total moisture, and ether extract of freshly roasted turkey breast muscle; muscle reheated in either an electric or microwave oven; and muscle sliced and held after roasting were evaluated. Reheating times were recorded, and losses were calculated. Reheating time was less (p smaller than 0.01) and total reheating loss greater (P smaller than 0.05) for quarters reheated in the microwave oven. Muscle reheated in the microwave oven had greater volatile (P smaller 0;05) but less drip (P smaller than 0.05) loss than did that reheated in the electric oven. Moisture content was greater (P smaller than 0.05) in freshly roasted muscle. When vitamin B6 was calculated on the basis of cooked weight, no significant differences were observed among treatments. However, when calculation was on a moisture-free and fat-free basis, freshly roasted samples contained the most (P smaller than 0.05) vitamin B6. Although we found significant differences due to treatment variation among birds was greater than among treatments.


The propagation and switching of fundamental solitons in three-core fiber nonlinear directional coupler with three cores in an equilateral-triangle arrangement have been investigated with two methods. Firstly, by using variational method, we obtained the equation of transmission coefficient with respect to distance. Secondly, we used the split-step Fourier method (SSFM) to solve the nonlinear Schrdinger equations. The results of both variational method and SSFM indicate that the energy of optical pulses transfer periodically between the three cores and have sharp switching characteristics when the first order intermodal dispersion coefficient is small. Otherwise, the periodicity of the coupling transmission characteristics of optical solitons in fiber coupler and the sharpness of switching are destroyed. The second order intermodal dispersion coefficient and initiative chirp reduce the coupling length, shorten the periods of the energy transfer of optical pulses between the three cores, and increase the threshold switching power. Though the cross phase modulation coefficient has weaker impact on transmission characteristics, it increases the threshold switching power of couplers.


Although the Korean War is an important part of contemporary history, the American veterans of that conflict, until recently, have been rendered invisible in the national pantheon of war commemoration. This analysis identifies the conjunction of factors that caused those who supported the memorialization of the contribution of American veterans in other foreign conflicts to remain silent when confronted with the war in Korea. This essay argues that experience of these Korean War veterans offers a case study that can shed an important light on the paradigms that underpin current memory studies.


Malaria remains one of the major contributors to the global burden of disease with
approximately 70% of the clinical malaria attacks occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-
Saharan Africa has the highest risk as ideal climatic conditions for transmission coincide with
occurrence of some of the most efficient malaria vectors, namely Anopheles gambiae s.s.,
Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles funestus.. Even though it is estimated that by the year
2030 more than 50% of the African population will live in towns and cities, relatively little is
known about urban malaria epidemiology, larval ecology and adult mosquito behaviour.
Although integrated malaria control programs including environmental management and
larviciding have proven successful before the Global Eradication Campaign started in 1955,
they were neglected after the invention of DDT. Lately interest into these control measures
has revived but it remains to be determined whether they are feasible and cost-effective in
urban Africa.
The overall goal of the research presented in this thesis was to enhance current understanding
of urban malaria epidemiology and ecology and to take an in-depth look at the effectiveness
of larviciding with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bti) in the context of the Urban Malaria Control
Program (UMCP) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Our findings are based on data derived from
the first 3 years of the UMCP, where data collection started in March 2004. The project area
includes 5 wards in each of the 3 municipalities which consist of 67 mitaa covering an area of
55 km2 in which 611,871 people lived during the population census of 2002. Achieving the
UMCPs objectives fundamentally relies on three component activities: 1) Mapping and
surveillance of potential Anopheles breeding sites, 2) Monitoring of adult mosquito densities,
and 3) Household surveys with questionnaires and blood smears testing for malaria parasite
infection. In the third year of the UMCP, beginning in March 2006, the routine application of

the microbial larvicides Bti in open habitats and Bs in closed habitats was initiated in 3 of the
15 wards in the study area, adding to existing interventions such as bednets, house screening,
ceiling boards, repellents, spray and coils. At the same time a detailed survey of mosquito
biting behaviour, human behaviour and domestic protection measures was conducted in 12
Ten Cell Units (TCU), the smallest subunit of local government in Tanzania, which presented
the highest An. gambiae s.l. densities during the early period of the UMCP surveillance
system. Human landing catch (HLC) was conducted in 216 houses on an hourly basis indoors
and outdoors from 6 pm till 7 am and residents were interviewed about their sleeping
behaviour, where they spend their evenings and what kind of preventive measures against
malaria they use. Personal protection of an insecticide treated net (ITN) was evaluated using
an extension of a recently developed mathematical model.
Overall An. gambiae s.l. exhibited a classical hourly biting pattern. In contrast one of the
complex's component sibling species, namely An. arabiensis, had an early biting peak before
10 pm. Both sibling species, namely An. gambiae s.s. and An. arabiensis, as well as An.
funestus and An. coustani were highly exophagic. This behaviour led to a reduced personal
protection against exposure to An. gambiae s.s. by ITNs which conferred 59% reduction of
exposure in Dar es Salaam compared to 70% in rural Tanzania. An. arabiensis is a vector of
only modest importance in Dar es Salaam which is fortunate because ITNs only conferred
38% protection against exposure to this species of mosquito. ITNs conferred slightly less
protection against exposure to malaria vectors in good quality houses. This is mainly because
people living in good houses tend to spend more time indoors before they go to bed.
An. gambiae s.l. is the most important vector in Dar es Salaam , responsible for an EIR
(entomological inoculation rate) of 1.00 infectious bites per person per year whereas An.

funestus has an EIR of 0.13. Surprisingly, An. coustani also acts as a notable vector in Dar es
Salaam with an EIR of 0.20 infectious bites per person per year. Malaria transmission is
seasonal with two peaks of malaria prevalence during and after the two rainy seasons. Malaria
prevalence was only related to EIR in children under 5 years of age, with a classical ageprevalence
distribution similar to most of rural Africa. Malaria prevalence steadily declined
from 2004 onwards as the use of window screenings, ceiling boards and more effective drugs
like amodiaquine and artemisin-based drugs increased. ITNs (prevalence reduction estimate
20%, 95% CI 0%-36%; P=0.060; year 1) and ceiling boards (prevalence reduction estimate
22%, 95% CI 3%-38%; P=0.026; year 2) conferred modest personal protection and reduced
malaria prevalence by approximately one fifth. By comparison, a much greater reduction
(prevalence reduction estimate 50%, 95% CI 20%-64%; P=0.002) of malaria prevalence was
achieved by larviciding with Bti. This was mainly achieved through major reductions of An.
gambiae during July and August when most of the sporozoite infected mosquitoes were
caught, combined with all-year-round suppression of the secondary vectors, namely An.
funestus and An. coustani. This major achievement was only possible through the novel
surveillance and staff management procedures developed by the UMCP to enable effective
community based implementation in a decentralized manner. Standards of the surveillance
improved greatly after the onset of the program with realized reaction times to vector
surveillance at observations being one day, week and month at ward, municipality and city
level, respectively.
These results of changing biting behaviour of the main malaria vectors in urban settings and
the therefore lower but still useful personal protection offered by ITNs call for additional
complementary vector control methods such as environmental management or larviciding.
The UMCP demonstrated that major reductions in malaria prevalence can be achieved

through routine application of microbial larvicides with its new practical management and
surveillance system. As these represent the early results of the program, we expect substantial
improvement with time and investment. Here we demonstrated for the first time since before
the Global Eradication Campaign era, a success story of a malaria control program integrating
larviciding, which could be easily adapted by other African cities as a cost-effective option for
malaria prevention.


One of the widely acknowledged consequences of global climate change is sea-level rise. Sea-level rise has predictable impacts on human welfare and the environment. Indeed, these impacts are potentially so severe that, in a policy briefing organized by the U.S. Geological Survey, both federal and state officials advised Congress in March 2008 that the federal government should be providing assistance to coastal states for climate change-induced sea-level rise and storms.Sea-level rise requires coastal states and communities to plan adaptation strategies. Sea-level rise is already occurring, as the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in Massachusetts v. EPA, and the oceans will continue to rise for some time, regardless of the climate change mitigation measures that the countries of the world decide to take. Therefore, some adjustment to sea-level rise - adaptation - is inevitable.However, sea-level rise poses two challenges for leaders trying to formulate adaptation plans. First, sea-level rise is slow, measured in millimeters per year, and the full extent of climate change-driven sea-level rise is expected to take centuries to manifest. This is a planning horizon outside the political ken of most governmental bodies; indeed, planning horizons longer than a few decades are extremely rare. Second, scientists are still uncertain as to the extent of the problem. Specifically, how high will the oceans rise?For both reasons, adaptation to sea-level rise requires some form of adaptive management - an ability to react to new information regarding the extent and speed of sea-level rise as that information becomes more certain and precise for different areas of the country. Moreover, an adaptive management approach to sea-level rise allows current governmental officials to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the uncertainties and time frames involved into inertia. Instead, recognition of the need for an adaptive approach necessarily counsels governments to implement initial adaptation measures that will be beneficial to coastal communities regardless of how far the oceans encroach and how fast they do so.This Article suggests that taking a public health approach to sea-level rise can provide governments and planners with immediately implementable and no regrets adaptation measures that will be beneficial to coastal communities regardless of the eventual actual impacts of sea-level rise in particular areas of the country. Specifically, this Article suggests that planners should begin by looking at three specific concerns: (1) availability of drinking water supplies; (2) potential changes in disease exposure, with possible resultant changes in medical infrastructure and training needs; and (3) the potential for the toxic contamination of sea water as it comes ashore, with resultant changes in allowable land uses in the coastal zone.


As attention to health literacy grows as an area for policy intervention,policy discourse continues to draw on skills deficit and patient compliance, buttressed by the dominant political discourse of individual responsibility. But for patients, the health domain is interwoven with linguistic challenges, significant affective issues, underlying cultural dimensions, political and economic exigencies, variable access to resources, and cognitive and situated complexity. From these perspectives, this article reports on findings of an ongoing study of health literacy demands in the Midlands region of the North Island of New Zealand, an area of high ethnic and socio-economic diversity.The study focuses on patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease - two chronic areas strongly associated with 'failure to care' and identifed as having reached epidemic proportions. It analyses work to date:health professionals' conceptions of and responses to perceived patients' health literacy needs, and health information documents for patients. Implications of the study support the need for improvement in language and literacy skills among patients, but also the recognition of complexity and a collective responsibility for effective health communication.


An inverse problem to determine an unknown velocity in two-dimensional, time-independent advection-diffusion equation from data observed at a depth-level is discussed, motivated by an ocean circulation inverse problem. A procedure by which the velocity is reconstructed from the observed data is established and, as a consequence, the uniqueness of the velocity realizing the prescribed data is proved. The procedure involves a modification of the Marchenko method in the inverse scattering theory, based on the Wiener-Hopf factorization and the Riesz-Schauder theory.


All companies face challenges designing a governance system that works best for their particular situation and structure. Even the owners of privately held companies sometimes struggle with issues of separation and control. The challenges can be particularly acute when a company founder has considerable influence over the organization and its culture, and third-party investors have been brought in to share ownership.We examine the interesting case of AXA Rosenberg, a joint venture investment management firm founded and run by legendary finance professor Barr Rosenberg. Although successful for a time, the firm eventually collapsed due to a failure in risk management. We examine the governance structure, unique personalities, and series of events that led to the breakdown of the firm, and the SEC investigation that resulted in Barr Rosenberg's lifetime ban from the securities industry. We ask: Is it possible for a board to monitor a renowned executive with extremely specialized knowledge? How can the board satisfy itself that risks are appropriately known and monitored? How does an executive's personality affect a company's risk management practices?Topics, Issues and Controversies in Corporate Governance and Leadership: The Closer Look series is a collection of short case studies through which we explore topics, issues, and controversies in corporate governance. In each study, we take a targeted look at a specific issue that is relevant to the current debate on governance and explain why it is so important. Larcker and Tayan are co-authors of the book Corporate Governance Matters, and A Real Look at Real World Corporate Governance.


The data collected by a gravitational wave interferometer are inevitably affected by instrumental artefacts and environmental disturbances. In particular, for continuous gravitational wave (CW) studies it is important to detect narrow-band disturbances (the so-called "noise lines") during science runs, and to help scientists to identify and possibly remove or mitigate their sources. The NoEMi (Noise Frequency Event Miner) framework exploits some of the algorithms implemented for the CW search to identify, on a daily basis, the frequency lines observed in the Virgo science data and in a subset of the environmental sensors, looking for lines that match in frequency. A line tracker algorithm reconstructs the lines over time, and stores them in a database, which is made accesible via a web interface. We describe the workflow of NoEMi, providing examples of its use for the investigation of noise lines in past Virgo runs (VSR2, VSR3) and in the most recent run (VSR4).


The formation of an electrochemically active biofilm is critical to the function of a Microbial Electrolysis Cell (MEC). We used Illumina 16S rDNA sequencing to analyse the formation and composition of anodic biofilms of two pilot-scale MECs, operated in continuous flow mode on domestic wastewater for over six months, and inoculated with that same wastewater. We observe: (i) a clear correlation between the frequency of detection of taxa in the MECs and their abundance in the metacommunity, (ii) the existence of a "core community" that was present across sites and (iii) the percentage of Geobacter tended to increase with longevity of retention time of the wastewater in the reactor. This suggests that: (i) community composition was largely governed by stochastic processes, (ii) that the technology should work on most if not all domestic wastewaters, as long as the anodes are seeded with the target wastewater and (iii) that deterministic factors may also play a role in establishing the anodic community. Geobacter, the archetypical electrogen in bioelectrochemical systems, comprised only 1.0 ± 0.7 % of the sequences recovered from a functioning pilot-scale MEC anode. Our results imply that influent flow rate may need to be optimised separately for start-up and for operating conditions for maximal performance.


The size of a disk encodes important information about its evolution. Combining new Submillimeter Array observations with archival Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array data, we analyze millimeter continuum and CO emission line sizes for a sample of 44 protoplanetary disks around stars with masses of 0.15–2 M ⊙ in several nearby star-forming regions. Sizes measured from 12CO line emission span from 50 to 1000 au. This range could be explained by viscous evolution models with different α values (mostly of 10−4–10−3) and/or a spread of initial conditions. The CO sizes for most disks are also consistent with MHD wind models that directly remove disk angular momentum, but very large initial disk sizes would be required to account for the very extended CO disks in the sample. As no CO size evolution is observed across stellar ages of 0.5–20 Myr in this sample, determining the dominant mechanism of disk evolution will require a more complete sample for both younger and more evolved systems. We find that the CO emission is universally more extended than the continuum emission by an average factor of 2.9 ± 1.2. The ratio of the CO to continuum sizes does not show any trend with stellar mass, millimeter continuum luminosity, or the properties of substructures. The GO Tau disk has the most extended CO emission in this sample, with an extreme CO-to-continuum size ratio of 7.6. Seven additional disks in the sample show high size ratios (≳4) that we interpret as clear signs of substantial radial drift.


Purpose: In dose painting, functional imaging is used to identify and target radiotherapy‐resistant regions of the tumor. It is important to know if target locations remain stable during radiotherapy, otherwise dose plans will need to adapt to mid‐therapy changes. This study investigated the spatio‐temporal stability of FLT and Cu‐ATSM PET after a few fractions of radiotherapy.Methods: Nineteen canine patients with nasal tumors (12 carcinoma and 7 sarcoma) were imaged prior to accelerated hypofractionated radiotherapy with [F‐18]FLT PET/CT for proliferation and [Cu‐61]Cu‐ATSM PET/CT for hypoxia. FLT scans were repeated after two fractions (8.4 or 10 Gy) and Cu‐ATSM scans after three fractions (12.6 or 15 Gy). Patients were immobilized with custom bite blocks and vacuum mattresses for reproducible positioning. Mid‐treatment scans were rigidly registered to pre‐treatment scans. Spearman correlation coefficients quantified the voxel‐by‐voxel SUV correlations between pre‐ and mid‐treatment scans. Population and histology averaged correlation coefficients were determined using Fisher transformations. SUVmax, SUVmean, SUVpeak, and SUVtotal were also compared between pre‐ and mid‐treatment scans using paired t‐tests. Results: Pre‐ and mid‐treatment scans were highly correlated, for both FLT and Cu‐ATSM PET distributions. The Fisher‐weighted mean Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.87[range: 0.57–0.95] for Cu‐ATSM and 0.79[0.18–0.90] for FLT. On average, sarcomas had slightly higher correlations (0.88) than carcinomas (0.78). We observed significant reductions (p 0.20) were observed in sarcomas.Conclusion: Spatial distributions of hypoxia and proliferation were stable after a few fractions of radiotherapy. The magnitude of proliferation reduced significantly in both sarcoma and carcinomatumors. The magnitude of hypoxia only reduced significantly in carcinomatumors. With high spatial stability early during radiotherapy, pre‐treatment FLT and Cu‐ATSM PET are potential candidates for dose painting targets.


The use of landfills as means of disposal of municipal solid waste is a very common reality in developing countries, resulting in consequences such as contamination of natural resources and public health problems. Thus, it is urgent to improve the effectiveness of public policies, in order to promote the proper disposal of municipal solid waste and remediation of landfills. In this sense, this paper aimed to develop a tool for decision support intended to assist municipalities in assessing its landfills in order to establish remediation priorities. The tool was developed in three stages: 1) development of a field survey to diagnose dumps sites; 2) establishment of a scoring system for the field survey, aiming to measure the level of impact of each diagnosed dumpsite; 3) Codification of the tool into a program and validation test. The user input information from the field form, then the program calculate the punctuation, establish the level of impact and generate the dumpsite's diagnostic. The tool was applied in four open dumps, which served as case studies. The results showed that the tool is able to achieve its goals, contributing to the improvement of waste management in Brazil, even with the limited information available on the diagnosed dump sites.


In this foundational text for the large scale project that produced several major works, including 1889: Un état de discours social, Marc Angenot describes the project of amassing and assessing every French text written, and every utterance uttered in 1889, as a way of establishing a range of topics, opinions, argumentative strategies, current usages, in short, the "social discourse" of a single year. As ambitious as it is monumental, this article offers a program for understanding an era in our history, while providing a series of guidelines for studying any utterance and any text, which demands nothing less than the need for it to be considered against the backdrop of discourses within which it was made, and which made it possible.


We report unusual jamming in driven ordered vortex flow in 2$H$-NbS${}_{2}$. Reinitiating movement in these jammed vortices with a higher driving force and halting it thereafter once again with a reduction in drive leads to a critical behavior centered around the depinning threshold via divergences in the lifetimes of transient states, validating the predictions of a recent simulation study [Reichhardt and Olson Reichhardt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 168301 (2009)] which also pointed out a correspondence between plastic depinning in vortex matter and the notion of random organization proposed [Corte et al., Nat. Phys. 4, 420 (2008)] in the context of sheared colloids undergoing diffusive motion.


The requirements for active resistive wall mode (RWM) feedback control have been systematically investigated and established using highly reproducible current-driven RWMs in ohmic discharges in DIII-D. The unambiguous evaluation of active RWM feedback control was not possible in previous RWM studies primarily due to the variability of the onset of the pressure-driven RWMs; the stability of the pressure-driven RWM is thought to be sensitive to various passive stabilization mechanisms. Both feedback control specifications and physics requirements for RWM stabilization have been clarified using the current-driven RWMs in ohmic discharges, when little or no passive stabilization effects are present. The use of derivative gain on top of proportional gain is found to be advantageous. An effective feedback control system should be equipped with a power supply with bandwidth greater than the RWM growth rate. It is beneficial to apply a feedback field that is toroidally phase-shifted from the measured RWM phase in the same direction as the plasma current. The efficacy of the RWM feedback control will ultimately be determined by the plasma fluctuations on internal diagnostics, as well as on external magnetics. The proximity of the feedback coils to the plasma appears to be an important factor in determining the effectiveness of the RWM feedback coils. It is desirable that an RWM feedback control system simultaneously handles error field correction at a low frequency, along with direct RWM feedback at a high frequency. There is an indication of the influence of a second least stable RWM, which had been theoretically predicted but never identified in experiments. A preliminary investigation based on active MHD spectroscopic measurement showed a strong plasma response around 400 Hz where the typical plasma response associated with the first least stable RWM was expected to be negligible. Present active feedback control requirements are based on a single mode assumption, so the investigation of the second least stable RWM is of high interest.


Background Dynamics of incident traumatic accidents, a case in point being traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI), have changed over the past forty years in many high income countries due to changes in demographic structure, lifestyle and policy. Rehabilitation following a TSCI can result in significant improvements and prolongation of life and reduced societal and personal burden. Monitoring contemporary and historical trends can help inform future projections for targeted interventions towards prevention and resource allocation. Methods TSCI cases admitted for first rehabilitation between 1970 and 2014 were identified in four specialised rehabilitation centres in Switzerland included in the Swiss Spinal Cord Injury (SwiSCI) cohort. Multinomial logistic regression was used to determine relative risk ratios (RRR) of admission to first rehabilitation. Incidence rate ratios (IRRs) were calculated using Poisson regression with reference to the Swiss general population. Results There were 4,095 incident cases of TSCI. Between 1971–2000 there was an overall 2.1% increase in patient admission, followed by a 1.2% decrease in 2000–2014. The relative proportion of the elderly patient population increased from 1990 onwards in comparison with 1970–1974 (RRR range compared to the youngest: 4.2–14.6). Relative to the youngest patients, the oldest patients had a nearly 18-fold increase in odds for falls in comparison with transport-related accidents. Assessment of IRRs revealed an increase in risk of admission for sports-related accidents TSCIs among the youngest ages; risk of falls among older ages appeared to increase, especially after 2000. Conclusions This study provides evidence for increasing admission to first rehabilitation of the elderly for TSCIs, which can in part be attributed to an increase in risk of TSCI with increasing age. Potential lifestyle changes among the youngest, especially for sports and leisure-related TSCIs, as well as the oldest, possibly due to increase in activity, could contribute to the observed increase in risk.


After much of the financial market was immersed in a severe credit crunch caused by U.S. subprime mortgages, a theme that is most opportune for proper discussion is the absence of the role of banking system regulation. Technological enhancements, financial innovations and deregulation have over the last two decades exerted intense pressure on the financial system, with the result that banks now bear no resemblance to banks of the past, and actually seem to have very little in common with banks of a decade ago. These changes occurred not only in regard to actors and the speed of change, but mainly in the banking business profile and have generated a number of different approaches which highlight various causes, such as the characterization of market structure with a degree of banking concentration, or the effective participation of regulatory provisions with a view to correcting inherent systemic weaknesses and their effects. This article aims to examine the role played by these phenomena in the banking industry to help the understanding of the different attempts at regulation.JEL codes: G21, G28, G32


In this paper, we are reducing the PAPR for the existing method which estimates the channel parameters like in-phase and quadrature-phase imbalances (IQI), carrier frequency offset (CFO) through channel response for multiple- input multiple output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems. By utilizing a new concept called channel residual energy (CRE), without finding the channel response we can estimate both the IQI and CFO by minimizing the CRE. The proposed method single carrier-frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) reduces the PAPR approximately equal to one.


Inclusion of up to 0.38% S in diets that contain 30% distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) has no negative effect on growth performance of growing-finishing pigs, but there is no information about the effects of dietary S on accumulation of S in tissues in pigs. Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to determine if the concentration of S in diets containing DDGS affects carcass characteristics, loin quality, or tissue mineral concentrations in growing-finishing pigs. A total of 120 barrows (34.2 ± 2.3 kg BW) were allotted to 3 dietary treatments with 10 replicate pens and 4 pigs per pen in a randomized complete block design. Pigs were fed grower diets for 42 d and finisher diets for 42 d. At the conclusion of the experiment, the pig in each pen with the BW closest to the pen average was slaughtered. The control diet was based on corn and soybean meal and the finisher diet contained 0.14% S, 0.19 mg/kg Se, and 15.3 mg/kg Cu. The DDGS diet was formulated with corn, soybean meal, and 30% DDGS and the finisher diet with DDGS contained 0.16% S, 0.32 mg/kg Se, and 14.0 mg/kg Cu. The DDGS plus S (DDGS-S) diet was similar to the DDGS diet, except that 1.10% CaSO4 (16.2% S) was included in this diet, and the finisher diet with DDGS-S contained 0.37% S, 0.35 mg/kg Se, and 13.8 mg/kg Cu. Results indicated that organ weights and loin quality, 24-h pH, drip loss, loin subjective color, marbling, and firmness did not differ among treatments, but loin a* was greater (P < 0.05) for pigs fed the control diet than for pigs fed the DDGS-S diet. Concentrations of S in hair, liver, heart, loin, and all other tissues did not differ among treatments, but urinary S concentration was greater (P < 0.05) for pigs fed the DDGS-S diet than for pigs fed the other diets. Pigs fed the DDGS diet or the DDGS-S diet had greater (P < 0.01) concentrations of Se in hair, liver, heart, and loin than pigs fed the control diet, but liver concentrations of Cu did not differ among treatments. In conclusion, inclusion of 30% DDGS in diets fed to growing-finishing pigs did not influence carcass characteristics or tissue S concentrations regardless of S concentration in the diet, and excess dietary S was excreted in the urine. However, because of the greater concentration of Se in DDGS than in corn and soybean meal and, therefore, greater concentrations in DDGS-containing diets, tissue concentrations of Se were increased in pigs fed diets that contained DDGS. In contrast, dietary DDGS did not influence liver concentrations of Cu.


We generate nondiffracting Bessel beams whose polarization state varies with propagation distance. We use a reflective geometry where a single parallel-aligned spatial light modulator device is used to spatially modulate two orthogonal linear polarizations with two axicon phase profiles. Then, by adding an extra phase retardation radial profile between these linear states, we are able to modulate the state of polarization along the line focus of the axicon. We provide experimental results that demonstrate the polarization axial control with zero-order and higher order Bessel beams.


WO3 and Ti-doped WO3 electrochromic films were prepared by mid-frequency dual-target magnetron sputtering method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and spectrophotometer were used to characterize the structure, morphology, composition and transmittance properties of the films, respectively. The results show that this method is available to deposit WO3 and Ti-doped WO3 electrochromic films. The as-deposited films prepared at room temperature are amorphous and display good transmittance. The difference value of transmittance between the bleached and coloration states of WO3 film is above 60% at 633nm. Ti-doped WO3 films have smoother surface and smaller grains than undoped ones. Moreover, the crystalline temperature increases after doping titanium, because the titanium atoms influence the lattice distortion of the WO3 films. So it is more convenient for Li+ ions to inject into films and can enhance the response speed and stability of Ti-doped WO3 electrochromic films.


This article is the result of our inquiry into two proximate fields in which issues of law, custom and markets arise in sociolegal scholarship and praxis: the mid-20th century jurisprudence of the legal realist Karl Llewellyn and the contemporary debates surrounding efforts by tribal governments in the U.S. to issue tax-exempt bonds. Both are sites for efforts by legal scholars and practitioners to grapple with the convergence of social categories that, until very recently, are normally held apart – Native Americans, law, and commerce. We first explore Llewellyn's efforts at drafting the Uniform Commercial Code, and the extent to which in this and his The Cheyenne Way (written at virtually the same time), he drew considerable influence from the American pragmatist philosophical tradition. In so doing, we find that his jurisprudence and lawmaking (often maligned for its circular reasoning) can be better understood as an effort to announce a philosophy of law and enact commercial legislation that was more a method for doing legal analysis and taking legal action than it was an expression of legal principles. Once understood in this way, we suggest it offers a fresh way of accounting for the performative force of law that can move sociolegal research beyond certain constructivist impasses. We then offer how such an approach can be brought to bear on the unfolding relationships among custom, law and commerce in the back and forth between scholars, law-makers, and tribal leaders around tribal tax-exempt bonds and their regulation.


The layers of ZrO2-Al2O3 were coated on the surface of SiC fibers (Tyranno SA fiber) by dip-coating process. The citric acid-ethylene glycol solution containing Al and Zr ions was polymerized at 150oC to obtain a polymerized complex precursor. The 2D-woven SiC Tyranno SA fibers were dipped into this precursor few times. Heat treatment for coated fiber was conducted at 800-1200oC for 1 h in air. Thin film of mixed zirconium/aluminum oxides on SiC fibers were successfully elaborated using the sol-gel process. The coated zirconium/aluminum oxides layer of SiC Tyranno SA fiber was about 200-1000 nm. The coated fibers were stable in an oxidizing environment even at high temperatures.


We propose a novel shared control and active perception framework combining the skills of a human operator in accomplishing complex tasks with the capabilities of a mobile robot in autonomously maximizing the information acquired by the onboard sensors for improving its state estimation. The human operator modifies at runtime some suitable properties of a persistent cyclic path followed by the robot so as to achieve the given task (e.g., explore an environment). At the same time, the path is concurrently adjusted by the robot with the aim of maximizing the collected information. This combined behavior enables the human operator to control the high-level task of the robot while the latter autonomously improves its state estimation. The user's commands are included in a task priority framework together with other relevant constraints, while the quality of the acquired information is measured by the Shatten norm of the Constructibility Gramian. The user is also provided with guidance feedback pointing in the direction that would maximize this information metric. We evaluated the proposed approach in two human subject studies, testing the effectiveness of including the Constructibility Gramian into the task priority framework as well as the viability of providing either visual or haptic feedback to convey this information metric.


The author describes the neoclassical restoration, which, from the 1970s onwards, took a radical approach to the search for a theory of development by attempting to fuse the particular characteristics of developing economies with the central ideas of economic theory. Intervention with the aim of furthering development was perceived not as a solution but as part of the problem, and adjustment programmes were oriented not so much towards correcting imbalances as towards establishing an economic structure close to neoclassical precepts. Several East Asian economies were chosen as examples of the application of correct policy, since they were seen as being market-driven, but closer analysis revealed that behind their export success lay the firm guiding hand of the State. Aside from the market-State dichotomy, however, the discussion has overlooked the main actors: the companies. The perception of companies as agents who simply react to a series of opportunities suffers from limitations, as it fails to analyse how companies learn and how they may change when faced with different situations. In this sense, it would be appropriate to reexamine the costs and benefits of industrial promotion in developing countries. It would also be appropriate to analyse in more detail the current process whereby companies are seeking a new identity, in the context of new conditions. The author concludes that it is necessary to study companies more closely: they have never been the puppets of public policy and will not be mere automata in the marketplace.


The GEEQBOX toolbox analyzes correlated data via the method of generalized estimating equations (GEE) and quasi-least squares (QLS), an approach based on GEE that overcomes some limitations of GEE that have been noted in the literature. GEEQBOX is currently able to handle correlated data that follows a normal, Bernoulli or Poisson distribution, and that is assumed to have an AR(1), Markov, tri-diagonal, equicorrelated, unstructured or working independence correlation structure. This toolbox is for use with MATLAB.


Disasters cause deaths and serious disruptions in society, which call for the global community to take drastic steps to address and reduce the impacts of these inevitable calamities. That is why the government, through the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Management Act of 2010, requires the integration of disaster risk reduction in the school curriculum to strengthen the awareness and practice of personnel and students on calamity preparedness. Hence, the paper assessed the level of awareness and extent of practice on disaster preparedness before, during, and after the disaster of public junior high school students in Antique. Likewise, it sought to establish a difference in awareness and practice on disaster preparedness relative to sex, residence, and grade level and the relationship between awareness and practice.


Whitman v. American Trucking Association was one of the most eagerly awaited regulatory decisions in many years. But the Court's understated, steady, lawyerly opinion was a bit of an anticlimax, representing a return to normalcy and leaving many open questions. The Court was correct to say that the relevant provision of the Clean Air Act forbids consideration of cost; it was also correct to refuse to invoke the nondelegation doctrine. Importantly, the Court left in place a set of important lower court decisions, allowing agencies to consider costs unless Congress expressly concludes otherwise. The Court also raised some new questions about the constitutional status of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Perhaps most important, the Court has not ruled out nonconstitutional challenges to the particulates and ozone standards, or to ambient air quality standards generally. In suggesting that some of those challenges should succeed, especially against the new ozone regulation, this essay urges that Justice Breyer's concurring opinion in the case may well be the most influential in the future, because it fits most comfortably with other trends in the law of risk regulation, signaling the emergence of a kind of "cost-benefit state."


The present study aims to formulate a common synthetic strategy for preparing quantum dots (QDs) in a greener way by using combination of popular methods, viz. a colloidal method with suitable capping agent and low molecular weight gel based synthesis. Pyridine dicarboxylic acid (PDC) in presence of AlCl3 forms a stable metallogel, which serves as an excellent medium for selective ZnS QD synthesis. The aromatic pyridine moiety, well known for being a capping agent, indeed plays its part in the run up to QD synthesis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of a metallogel based doped ZnS QD synthesis. Altering the doping material and its composition changes the properties of the QDs, but herein we also tried to establish how these changes affect the gel morphology and stability of both gel and QDs. We further demonstrate, by using live cell confocal microscopy, the delivery of QDs Cu ZnS and MnZnS nanomaterials in the nucleus and the cytoplasm of human breast cancer cells (MCF7), implicating the use of metallogel based QDs for bio-imaging and bio-labeling.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


The bio compatible organic polymers are nowadays become a number one contender for the plastic manifolds. Owing to its excellent load accepting and withstanding nature, capability to less retardation to temperatures and good strength: weight ratio made them the first choice to go for selection along with its eco-friendly nature. Even though possessing several impacts the boundaries have been fixed which have less strength and high cost. The proceeding work will investigate the pre and post nature of the bio composites when binded with a natural filler as an additive. With keeping the ASTM standards in mind, the mechanical properties have been analyzed and the impact is noted. The study suggests that the mechanical property on adding the natural fibre slightly increased initially but reduces on further addition. Keywords— Biodegradable, Polylactic Acid, Sansevieria.


PURPOSE
The goal of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, reliability, and validity of a computer-based geriatric assessment via two methods of electronic data capture ( SupportScreen and REDCap) compared with paper-and-pencil data capture among older adults with cancer.

METHODS
Eligible patients were ≥ 65 years old, had a cancer diagnosis, and were fluent in English. Patients were randomly assigned to one of four arms, in which they completed the geriatric assessment twice: (1) REDCap and paper and pencil in sessions 1 and 2; (2) REDCap in both sessions; (3) SupportScreen and paper and pencil in sessions 1 and 2; and (4) SupportScreen in both sessions. The feasibility, reliability, and validity of the computer-based geriatric assessment compared with paper and pencil were evaluated.

RESULTS
The median age of participants (N = 100) was 71 years (range, 65 to 91 years) and the diagnosis was solid tumor (82%) or hematologic malignancy (18%). For session 1, REDCap took significantly longer to complete than paper and pencil (median, 21 minutes [range, 11 to 44 minutes] v median, 15 minutes [range, 9 to 29 minutes], P < .01) or SupportScreen (median, 16 minutes [range, 6 to 38 minutes], P < .01). There were no significant differences in completion times between SupportScreen and paper and pencil ( P = .50). The computer-based geriatric assessment was feasible. Few participants (8%) needed help with completing the geriatric assessment (REDCap, n = 7 and SupportScreen, n = 1), 89% reported that the length was "just right," and 67% preferred the computer-based geriatric assessment to paper and pencil. Test-retest reliability was high (Spearman correlation coefficient ≥ 0.79) for all scales except for social activity. Validity among similar scales was demonstrated.

CONCLUSION
Delivering a computer-based geriatric assessment is feasible, reliable, and valid. SupportScreen methodology is preferred to REDCap.


The passage of a beam trawl across the seabed leads to the direct mortality, or indirect mortality through subsequent predation, of some benthic species. In addition, animals retained in, or those that pass through, the cod end may also die as a result of the fishing process. The extent of this additional mortality needs to be quantified to calculate total mortality of non-target species associated with this type of fishery. Hence, we investigated the survival of animals caught by a 4 m beam trawl, in order to identify those species most sensitive to capture. Starfishes, hermit crabs and molluscs were highly resistent to the effects of capture (>60% survived in all cases). Fishes (except dogfish), sea urchins and swimming crabs suffered higher mortality after capture. Generally, the majority of the animals that passed through the meshes of the cod end survived. Experimental investigation of the cause of damage to certain species concluded that the chaln matrix fitted to the gear was largely responsible for the injuries sustained. The types of injuries and then extent were species-specific, and were related to the fragility and physical characteristics of each species. Our experiments revealed that whlle some species are highly sensitive to capture, others are capable of surviving the effects of capture


Inhibition of photosystem II (PSII) activity by atrazine was investigated in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii during different states of the cell cycle. The algal cultures were maintained under continuous light or under light/dark cycle (16/8 h) to obtain homogenized cell cycle distribution. The cycle state of algal population was determined by the DNA content using flow cytometry and defined as newly divided cells before the initiation of DNA replication (G0/G1) and cells at the end of the replication cycle with fully duplicated DNA content (G2/M). Under different synchronized states of the cell population, the photosynthetic activity was investigated after treatment at 10, 100, and 1000 µmol L−1 atrazine exposed for 24 h by using fluorescence parameters related to PSII activity measured with a plant efficiency analyzer and pulse-amplitude modulated methods. In this study, we found that the atrazine effect was different depending on cell cycle phases and the period of illumination. Algal cells under light–dark cycle showed inhibition of the PSII electron transport leading to an increase of heat energy dissipation by the PSII reaction center. Algal cells grown under continuous light was shown to be more resistant to atrazine than the cells grown under light–dark cycle.


We present a rotated hyperbolic wrapped normal distribution (RoWN), a simple yet effective alteration of a hyperbolic wrapped normal distribution (HWN). The HWN expands the domain of probabilistic modeling from Euclidean to hyperbolic space, where a tree can be embedded with arbitrary low distortion in theory. In this work, we analyze the geometric properties of the diagonal HWN, a standard choice of distribution in probabilistic modeling. The analysis shows that the distribution is inappropriate to represent the data points at the same hierarchy level through their angular distance with the same norm in the Poincar\'e disk model. We then empirically verify the presence of limitations of HWN, and show how RoWN, the proposed distribution, can alleviate the limitations on various hierarchical datasets, including noisy synthetic binary tree, WordNet, and Atari 2600 Breakout. The code is available at https://github.com/ml-postech/RoWN.


This article argues that SoTL may draw on and inform other scholarships—of discovery, application and integration—by bringing them into a classroom- and community-based scholarship of communal inquiry. In so doing, SoTL will resist teaching being regarded and evaluated as transmission and delivery of knowledge made elsewhere, reasserting the classroom as the place for the development of knowledge- and meaning-making, the site and focus of 'teaching-led research'.  It outlines a scholarship of communal inquiry which includes students, community and academics, as well as 'Discovery' and Teaching and Learning scholars: a boundary-crossing community creating, evaluating and publishing disciplinary knowledge, including from open data and curriculum- and assessment-change processes.  Further, that a scholarship of inquiry that is developed in partnership with community interest groups (through scholarship of application projects), grounding and re-valuing the research agenda of higher institutes and professions while reimaging the curriculum, will prepare the student to become that lifelong, practitioner-scholar so needed for our future.


We quantize prisoners dilemma, chicken game and battle of sexes to explore the effect of quantization on their strategic form. The games start with Werner-like state as an initial state. We show that for the measurement in entangled basis the strategic forms of these games remain unaffected by quantization. On the other hand when measurement is performed in product basis then these games could not retain their strategic forms.


The northern Voring volcanic margin was initiated by late Campanian–Paleocene rifting, culminating with massive breakup-related igneous activity near the Paleocene-Eocene transition. Paleocene uplift of the central rift zone led to subaerial erosion and deposition in a restricted basin west of the Fles fault complex. The western source area was active toward the end of Eocene time. In the east, the low-relief land surface underwent modest relative uplift, which led to the construction of an early Oligocene delta system on the Trondelag platform. This event was followed by a period of margin subsidence and modest sedimentation until late Pliocene time. Although Miocene and early Pliocene biosiliceous hemipelagic sediments dominate on the outer margin, the influx of ice-rafted detritus records the climatic deterioration and the establishment of glaciers in late Miocene and early Pliocene time. Since ca. 2.6 Ma, ongoing epeirogenic uplift of Fennoscandia and the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation increased the erosion potential. A huge prograding wedge of glacial sediments was constructed from ca. 2.6 to 1.0 Ma, when the glacial mode changed from moderate, relatively stable icecaps to distinct glacial-interglacial cycles. The wedge overlies the base of the late Pliocene horizon, which marks pronounced changes in lithology and physical sediment properties, and corresponds to a distinct, regional velocity inversion. The differential glacial sediment load over unconsolidated and mobile biosiliceous oozes may have caused abundant small-offset faulting and diapirism in the western Voring basin.


Agricultural grasslands are often cultivated as mixtures of grasses and legumes, and an extensive body of literature is available regarding interspecific interactions, and how these relate to yield and agronomic performance. However, knowledge of the impact of intraspecific diversity on grassland functioning is scarce. We investigated these effects during a 4-year field trial established with perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and red clover (Trifolium pratense). We simulated different levels of intraspecific functional diversity by sowing single cultivars or by combining cultivars with contrasting growth habits, in monospecific or bispecific settings (i.e. perennial ryegrass whether or not in combination with red clover). Replicate field plots were established for seven seed compositions. We determined yield parameters and monitored differences in genetic diversity in the ryegrass component among seed compositions, and temporal changes in the genetic composition and genetic diversity at the within plot level. The composition of cultivars of both species affected the yield and species abundance. In general, the presence of clover had a positive effect on the yield. The cultivar composition of the ryegrass component had a significant effect on the yield, both in monoculture, and in combination with clover. For the genetic analyses, we validated empirically that genotyping-by-sequencing of pooled samples (pool-GBS) is a suitable method for accurate measurement of population allele frequencies, and obtained a dataset of 22,324 SNPs with complete data. We present a method to investigate the temporal dynamics of cultivars in seed mixtures grown under field conditions, and show how cultivar abundances vary during subsequent years. We screened the SNP panel for outlier loci, putatively under selection during the cultivation period, but none were detected.


The availability of synchro-phasor data has raised the possibility of a linear state estimator if the inputs are only complex currents and voltages and if there are enough such measurements to meet observability and redundancy requirements. Moreover, the new digital substations can perform some of the computation at the substation itself resulting in a more accurate two-level state estimator. The main contribution in this paper is that this two-level processing removes the bad data and topology errors, which are major problems today, at the substation level. In Part I of the paper, we describe the layered architecture of databases, communications, and the application programs that are required to support this two-level linear state estimator. In Part II, we describe the mathematical algorithms that are different from those in the existing literature. As the availability of phasor measurements at substations will increase gradually, this paper describes how the state estimator can be enhanced to handle both the traditional state estimator and the proposed linear state estimator simultaneously. This provides a way to immediately utilize the benefits in those parts of the system where such phasor measurements become available and provides a pathway to transition to the "smart" grid of the future.


The problem of finding patterns of interest in time series databases (query by content) is an important one, with applications in virtually every field of science. A variety of approaches have been suggested. These approaches are robust to noise, offset translation, and amplitude scaling to varying degrees. However, they are all extremely sensitive to scaling in the time axis (longitudinal scaling). We present a method for similarity search that is robust to scaling in the time axis, in addition to noise, offset translation, and amplitude scaling. The method has been tested on medical, financial, space telemetry and artificial data. Furthermore the method is exceptionally fast, with the predicted 2 to 4 orders of magnitude speedup actually observed. The method uses a piecewise linear representation of the original data. We also introduce a new algorithm which both decides the optimal number of linear segments to use, and produces the actual linear representation.


Single-compartment hydrogen peroxide fuel cells have recently emerged as a promising energy conversion platform since H2O2 is a high energy-density liquid that functions as both fuel and oxidizer. Finding suitable electrocatalysts is challenging since most metallic electrodes also catalyze the disproportionation reaction of H2O2 into H2O and O2, representing a significant loss mechanism in peroxide fuel cells. Herein we demonstrate that the conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), PEDOT, is a versatile electrocatalyst for peroxide fuel cells without generating losses due to disproportionation. We find that PEDOT is a cathodic catalyst for reduction of peroxide to water, performing at a level on par with the best reported inorganic catalysts. Using PEDOT as the cathode and nickel as the anode material, open circuit potentials in the range of 0.5-0.6 V are possible, with power densities of 0.20-0.30 mW cm-2. We provide evidence to understand mechanistically how PEDOT functions as a catalyst for hydrogen peroxide reduction to water. The result of our efforts is a scalable hydrogen peroxide fuel cell cathode, which serves to demonstrate also the capabilities of organic semiconducting materials as electrocatalysts.


In young democracies with weak parties, there is some evidence that partisan identification may shift in response to short-term government performance. The massive protests that erupted in Brazil in June 2013 sharply increased the salience of, and public attention to, poor government performance and took most observers by surprise. They were also widely depicted as nonpartisan or even antipartisan. We use two well-timed surveys to examine the effects of the protests on mass partisanship. We find that the protests led to increased nonpartisanship and decreased attachment to the governing Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party, PT) among the public as a whole. We also show that small leftist parties were more broadly represented among protesters than has been previously recognized.


Objective To determine whether longitudinal change in white matter structural network integrity predicts dementia and future cognitive decline in cerebral small vessel disease (SVD). To investigate whether network disruption has a causal role in cognitive decline and mediates the association between conventional MRI markers of SVD with both cognitive decline and dementia. Methods In the prospective longitudinal SCANS (St George's Cognition and Neuroimaging in Stroke) Study, 97 dementia-free individuals with symptomatic lacunar stroke were followed with annual MRI for 3 years and annual cognitive assessment for 5 years. Conversion to dementia was recorded. Structural networks were constructed from diffusion tractography using a longitudinal registration pipeline, and network global efficiency was calculated. Linear mixed-effects regression was used to assess change over time. Results Seventeen individuals (17.5%) converted to dementia, and significant decline in global cognition occurred (p = 0.0016). Structural network measures declined over the 3-year MRI follow-up, but the degree of change varied markedly between individuals. The degree of reductions in network global efficiency was associated with conversion to dementia (B = −2.35, odds ratio = 0.095, p = 0.00056). Change in network global efficiency mediated much of the association of conventional MRI markers of SVD with cognitive decline and progression to dementia. Conclusions Network disruption has a central role in the pathogenesis of cognitive decline and dementia in SVD. It may be a useful disease marker to identify that subgroup of patients with SVD who progress to dementia.


The experimental method is a most powerful means of the empirical sciences that combines the theory-based asking of questions with the readiness to register surprises. From the days of Galileo (1564-1642) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) various models have conceptualized the tension between doing something with nature and observing it, between deductive reasoning and inductive experience, between modeling artificial set-ups and being in complex environments, between control and understanding. For a long time, the philosophy of science made experimentation subservient to theory. Recent studies from history (Gooding, 1990), sociology (Pickering, 1995), and the philosophy of science (Hacking, 1983 ; Rheinberger, 1997) have strongly modified this view. It is now widely accepted that experimentation has a living space of its own with strikingly different relations to conceptual work in various fields of research. But in each case the tension that the experimental method constitutes between intervening into reality and understanding it is what makes experimentation an uniquely powerful learning strategy, even if the tension itself is still open to philosophical reflection. If it is so successful, why then is it restricted to the artificial world of the laboratory? Obviously, because the method is paved with surprises, failures, errors, and exceptions that people most likely do not want to experience in real life. The institutional set-up of the laboratory confines all outcomes to a special world, making it easy to start anew if something bad happens. If new knowledge is achieved, the costs of trial and error can quickly be forgotten. But mistakes imply no dangers for anyone in real life. No one except the "mad scientist" movie star would accept the risks associated with this kind of knowledge production. The laboratory symbolizes an exclusive social reality where these risks are welcome. For nature too, the laboratory provides a degree of control, of boundary and initial conditions, of the instrumentation of observation and measurement of effects, so that the causal analysis of surprises can be much better accounted for than those experienced in nature at large. It would be pointless to deny these social and epistemic advantages of laboratory science. But the argument can be made that these advantages are achieved by ideals of constraint, abstraction, simplicity, and purity at odds with the course of nature and society. Moreover, these ideals have given rise to a world-view that interprets the space, time, things, and people of the world as faint approximations of the abstractions that make up the laboratory world. Philosophers of science have only started to deconstruct this worldview (cf. Cartwright 1999; Frodeman, 2003). Contemporary society increasingly faces research strategies that, despite their experimental features, cannot be restricted to the special world of the laboratory. Release experiments with genetically modified organisms, which are paradoxical in character, are a good example. The question as to whether the risks of releasing GMOs are acceptable can only be answered by releasing them. Even if small scale and simulation studies serve to restrict the risks, they eventually can only serve to sharpen the hypotheses surrounding experimental action in the open field. (For an interesting example see Levidov, 2003.) An even more extreme case occurs with the analysis of high-risk technologies such as nuclear power plants. They are built and run according to carefully developed safety measures and security plans. But whether or not these cover all relevant factors of potential technological and organizational malfunctioning is an open question, to be answered only by putting the installations into operation (Krohn and Weingart, 1987; Weyer 1994). An almost opposite ensemble of cases can be made of landfills. These have been built more or less carelessly, with the only goal being to get rid of waste as cheaply as possible, only to discover that they are "wild bio-chemical reactors" (expert opinion) nobody can control. …


Microwave-heated plasmas in convergent nozzles are analyzed using a coupled Maxwell and Navier-Stokes solver to examine relevant issues associated with microwave thermal propulsion. Parametric studies are conducted to understand the effect of power, pressure, and plasma location with respect to the nozzle throat. For nozzles in the 0.5 to 3 N range with helium flow, results show that specific impulses up to 550-650 seconds are possible, with further increases being limited by severe wall-heating. Coupling efficiencies of over 90% are consistently obtained, with overall efficiencies ranging from 40% to 80%. Size scale-up studies--done by scaling the frequency from 2.45 GHz to 0.91 GI-Iz-indicate that plasma migration toward the walls occurs more frequently for the lower frequency. Increasing the cavity aspect ratio and deuming the cavity are found to be effective ways of keeping the plasma onaxis.


An artificial neural network (ANN) model was employed on erosive wear result of aluminium 7034 T6 reinforced with different weight percentage of Al 2 O 3 and SiC with tungsten carbide cobalt (WC-Co) coated composites. WC-Co in the form of powder was pretreated before coating, to identify the inflence of pretreatment on the substrate. The WC-Co coating was deposited with high velocity oxy fuel (HVOF) sparay method. The microstructural examination was carried through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and to identify the elemental composition of coated specimens, energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) was used. These material charecterisation shows that pretreated WC-Co coated Al 7034 T6 composites at 500 µm size exhibit thick closely packed, low porosity and good adhesion of membrane, while specimen at 400 µm size showed properties opposite to the 500 µm size speciemen. To predict the erosive wear behaviour of WC-Co coated Al7034 T6 composite, neural network model uses the parameters such as impact velocity, stand-off-distance, erodent temperature, impingement angle, the weight percentage of reinforcement and coating thickness. It is found that predicted values from the artificial neural network can be compared with the experimental result values.


Large cloud providers such as AWS and IBM now provide managed blockchain platforms, showcasing an active interest in blockchains. Unfortunately, blockchains provide poor performance and scalability. This is true even for the Execute-Order-Validate (EOV) style of blockchains which improves over the traditional Order-Execute architecture. We experimentally show that EOV platforms scale poorly using both vertical and horizontal scaling approaches. We find that the throughput is bottlenecked by the Validation and Commit phases, which poorly utilize the resources, limiting performance and scalability. We introduce three ideas to improve the performance, scalability, and cost-efficiency of EOV platforms. We first propose a provably correct way to pipeline the Validation and Commit phases. We then introduce a new type of node called sparse peer that validates and commits only a subset of transactions. Finally, we propose a technique that makes it possible for these systems to elastically scale as per the load. Our implementation provides 3.7x and 2.1x higher throughput than Hyperledger Fabric and FastFabric for the same infrastructure cost while providing their peak throughputs at 87% and 50% lower cost. It also makes dynamic horizontal scaling practical by providing 12-26X faster scale-up times.


We present an investigation of a coronal cavity observed above the western limb in the coronal red line Fe x 6374 Å using a telescope of Peking University and in the green line Fe xiv 5303 Å using a telescope of Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, during the total solar eclipse on 2017 August 21. A series of magnetic field models is constructed based on the magnetograms taken by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) one week before the eclipse. The model field lines are then compared with coronal structures seen in images taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board SDO and in our coronal red line images. The best-fit model consists of a flux rope with a twist angle of 3.1π, which is consistent with the most probable value of the total twist angle of interplanetary flux ropes observed at 1 au. Linear polarization of the Fe xiii 10747 Å line calculated from this model shows a "lagomorphic" signature that is also observed by the Coronal Multichannel Polarimeter of the High Altitude Observatory. We also find a ring-shaped structure in the line-of-sight velocity of Fe xiii 10747 Å, which implies hot plasma flows along a helical magnetic field structure, in the cavity. These results suggest that the magnetic structure of the cavity is a highly twisted flux rope, which may erupt eventually. The temperature structure of the cavity has also been investigated using the intensity ratio of Fe xiii 10747 Å and Fe x 6374 Å.


This chapter aims to examine how samhandling and concurrent learning work together. "Concurrent learning" is a form of simultaneous learning, where many learning processes related to samhandling take place at the same time. Samhandling and concurrent learning are also functional processes, in the sense that learning also occurs through daily interaction activities or actions. At the same time, concurrent learning and samhandling are interdependent and they are, therefore, in a sense part of the same process (hence concurrent learning). The chapter identifies five factors identified as important to samhandling and concurrent learning. These are: (1) Awareness of basic assumptions regarding people; relations and teamwork are essential; (2) Space, (3) Giving of themselves, (4) Making processes transparent and addressing problems as early as possible, and (5) Reflection as a key to samhandling and concurrent learning. Samhandling and concurrent learning represent a mindset, a way of working and a form of learning, which together help to meet and/ or develop the skills needed to tackle the challenges of flexible organizations.