The aim of this study was to detect differences in odds ratio in potential risk factors at the time of the injury among ACL injured competitive alpine skiers. 33 elite and sub-elite ACL injured alpine skiers participated in the study and answered at an internet-based questionnaire referring to personal data, training, type of injury, how the injury occurred and conditions during the incidence.Of 33 alpine skiers, 11 sustained their injury after 3-4 consecutive days of training. Eighteen alpine skiers injured their ACL after 1-4 runs. The majority of the injuries occurred in the slalom events (SL and GS). Forty-eight percent reported that the weather was clear at the time of the incidence, while 21 practitioners reported that they slept eight or more hours the night before the injury.The main finding of the present study was that the majority of the ACL injuries in among alpine ski racers occurred after 3-4 consecutive training days. No differences were detected in odds ratio of the rest of the variables (number of runs, type of discipline, weather, light setting and snow conditions) which seem not to be related to the ACL injury rate of the rest of the variables.


Metal org. frameworks (MOFs) are cryst. materials that contain metal-ions or metal-ion clusters as nodes and org. ligands as linkers to form 1-, 2-, and 3-D structures. In addn. to their convenient modular synthesis and chem. tunability, this class of materials has been under intense investigation for gas storage and sepn. applications due to the discovery of many 3-D frameworks with high internal surface areas. Through careful selection of the ligand and metal, which control pore size / shape and MOF-adsorbate interactions, their uptake properties, such as gas selectivity, can be tuned. Despite these desirable properties there is still a bottleneck in the field assocd. with the deliberate design of materials for targeted applications. Theor. efforts focused on the development of structure and property prediction tools could be a means this end; however, exptl. validation of the tools is necessary for them to be accurately applied to as-yet-synthesized materials in the future. As such, we have carried out a comprehensive exptl. and theor. study of the CO2 adsorption properties in a well-known series of metal-org. frameworks M2(dobdc) M= Mg, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn). In situ structural studies carried out in tandem with gas adsorption measurements have been used to identify the host-guest interactions that lead to significant differences in isosteric heats of CO2 adsorption. Neutron and X-ray powder diffraction and single crystal X-ray diffraction expts. are used to unveil the site-specific binding properties of CO2 within the materials while systematically varying both the amt. of CO2 and the temp. D. functional theory calcns. including van der Waals dispersion quant. corroborate and rationalize observations regarding intramol. CO2 angles and trends in relative geometric properties and heats of adsorption in the M2(dobdc)-CO2 adducts.


Abstract Background: Concomitant hyperthermia has been shown to improve response rate after cisplatin in recurrent cervical cancer in previously irradiated patients. It is unclear whether similar response rates can be obtained in patients with a recurrence after previous platinum-containing chemoradiation. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the outcome of cisplatin-based chemotherapy with concurrent hyperthermia in patients with recurrent cervical cancer after radiotherapy and cisplatin. Methods: Patients with recurrent cervical cancer after cisplatin-based chemoradiation or neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery and radiotherapy who were treated with concurrent platinum-based chemotherapy and hyperthermia were eligible for this retrospective analysis. All patients received six or eight weekly platinum-based chemotherapy cycles in combination with six or eight weekly hyperthermia sessions. The time-to-event variables were estimated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. P-values less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: All 38 evaluable patients were selected from the hyperthermia database in the Academic Medical Centre (Amsterdam) and the Erasmus Medical Centre (Rotterdam). Mean age at relapse was 45.7 years (range 27–74). Median time to recurrence after first-line treatment was 15 months. A total of 27 patients had a local and/or regional recurrence; 11 had disease beyond the pelvis. All planned courses of cisplatin chemotherapy and hyperthermia were administered in 17/38 patients. Median follow-up was 6.5 months. One patient died during treatment; response rate was 4/37 (14%), with one complete response. Overall survival was 23% at 12 months and 4% at 24 months. The incidence of grade 3–4 haematological complications did not exceed 10%. Conclusion: In this retrospective study, concurrent cisplatin and hyperthermia after first-line cisplatin-containing chemoradiation showed poor response and survival. We do not recommend this treatment for recurrence of locally advanced cervical cancer.


The linear accelerator of the European Spallation Source (ESS) will deliver proton beams of 50 mA and 2.5 GeV onto the 5 MW neutron production target. The Proton Source for ESS (PS-ESS) [1] is based on the experience of TRIPS and VIS developed at LNS Catania [2,3]. A two solenoid Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT) is foreseen to match the beam into the first acceleration stage, the Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) [4]. Beam production means also detailed characterization of produced beam, with this scope the LEBT houses many instrumentation devices and use different techniques that will be described in this work. The LEBT will be also equipped with an electrostatic chopper in order to remove the unwanted part of the beam pulse during the natural rise and fall times of the ion source. Beam dynamics calculations of the LEBT have been carried out considering also the Space Charge Compensation (SCC) produced by the interaction of the beam with the residual gas, and its effect on beam transport and chopping. Particular emphasis has been put on the evaluation of the beam transient behavior, due to the chopping process, at the entrance of the RFQ, results of the study are presented in this paper.


Purpose: The purposes of this study were to identify the rate of reversion from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to normal cognition (NC) among the community-dwelling elderly and to determine if there were differences in cognitive function, leisure activities, and exercises between the group with MCI-maintained and the groupwith reversion to NC.Methods: This study utilized a longitudinal descriptive comparative design. A total of 346 subjects over age 65 was recruited from public health center at baseline. Finally 152 elderly were enrolled at 1 year follow-up. Data were collected throughMoCA-K, K-MMSE, KDSQ-C5 and questionnaires on leisure activities and exercises. Data were analyzed by IBM SPSSStatistics 21.0 using descriptive statistics,x test, and t-test.Results:The rate of reversion from MCI to NC among the subjects was 44.1%. At baseline, the group with MCI-maintained had lower cognitive function than the groupwith reversion to NC. At 1 year follow-up, the group with reversion toNChad higher subjective cognitive function than the group with MCI-maintained. Regarding leisure activities, there were differences between the groups at baseline and 1 year follow-up.Conclusion: It is suggested that age, education year, subjective cognitive function, and leisure activities should be considered at planning a nursing intervention for MCI.


Sequence-to-sequence models have proven to be highly successful in learning morphological inflection from examples as the series of SIGMORPHON/CoNLL shared tasks have shown. It is usually assumed, however, that a linguist working with inflectional examples could in principle develop a gold standard-level morphological analyzer and generator that would surpass a trained neural network model in accuracy of predictions, but that it may require significant amounts of human labor. In this paper, we discuss an experiment where a group of people with some linguistic training develop 25+ grammars as part of the shared task and weigh the cost/benefit ratio of developing grammars by hand. We also present tools that can help linguists triage difficult complex morphophonological phenomena within a language and hypothesize inflectional class membership. We conclude that a significant development effort by trained linguists to analyze and model morphophonological patterns are required in order to surpass the accuracy of neural models.


Preface. 1. Function and Nature of the Preliminary Ruling Procedure. 2. Scope of Article 234 EC. 3. National Courts or Tribunals. 4. Participation in the Preliminary Ruling Procedure. 5. Entitlement of National Courts to Refer Preliminary Questions. 6. Facultative and Obligatory References. 7. The Decision to Refer. 8. Preliminary Interpretation and Appreciation of Validity. 9. The Court of Justice and the Preliminary Questions. 10. Limits to the Competence to Give a Preliminary Ruling. 11. Obligation and Refusal to Give a Preliminary Ruling. 12. Preliminary Judgment. 13. Article 68 EC and Article 35 TEU. Annex: 1. Treaty Provisions on the Preliminary Ruling Procedure. 2. Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice. 3. Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice. 4. Information Note on References from National Courts for a Preliminary Ruling + Supplement.


Background Whether patients presenting with mild stroke should or should not be treated with intravenous rtPA is still controversial. This systematic review aims to assess the safety and outcome of thrombolysis in these patients. Material/Methods We systematically searched PubMed and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for studies evaluating intravenous rtPA in patients with mild or rapidly improving symptoms except case reports. Excellent outcome (author reported, mainly mRS 0-1), symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH) and mortality were analyzed. Results Fourteen studies were included (n=1906 patients). Of these, 4 studies were comparative (2 randomized and 2 non-randomized). The remaining were single-arm studies. On the basis of 4 comparative studies with a total of 1006 patients, the meta-analysis did not identify a significant difference in the odds of excellent outcome (OR=0.86; 95% CI: 0.64–1.15; I2=0) between IV rtPA-treated minor stroke and those without rtPA treatment. Eleven studies involving 1083 patients showed the pooled rate of excellent outcome was 76.1% (95% CI: 69.8–81.5%, I2=42.5). Seven studies involving 378 patients showed the mortality rate was 4.5% (95% CI: 2.6–7.5%, I2=1.4). Twelve studies involving 831 patients showed the pooled rate of sICH was 2.4% (95% CI: 1.5–3.8, I2=0). Conclusions Although efficacy is not clearly established, this study reveals the adverse event rates related to thrombolysis are low in mild stroke. Intravenous rtPA should be considered in these patients until more RCT evidence is available.


Abstract Derivation of the bathymetric model from satellite imaging for non-navigable coastal waters has been developed. It is the purpose of this presented paper to assess the depth accuracy of the bathymetric model derived from such optical satellite imagery. The study domain is situated in the Semak Daun reef platform, Java Sea, Indonesia. The area represents shallow suband inter-tidal water with various benthic covers. Satellite imagery used here is retrieved from the European Space Agency Sentinel-2 satellite observation system. Two methods in deriving bathymetry from optical imagery are used. The first one is the empirical band ratio transform algorithm and the second one is the analytical approach. Coefficients involved in both models are obtained from means of calibration against sounding data from a single-beam echo-sounding survey. About 9% of sounding data are used for the calibration, while the rests are used to validate the resulting bathymetric models. It is found that both methods can successfully be applied at depth of up to 10 m. The root mean square errors indicated by both models are comparable. Accuracy measures in the order of 1.9 m are obtained with a coefficient of determination of 0.7. The results presented here confirm the applicability of satellite-derived bathymetry for mapping shallow seabed complying to the category zone of confidence C as of the International Hydrographic Organization standard. It should be bear in mind that such an assessment is typical for the environmental condition considered in this study.


The investigations described here are related to the unstable behavior of crash-simulations due to minor changes in the model. As a consequence the received simulation results become in some way unpredictable, whereby the causes can be various: e.g. modeling failure, contact issues, numerical instabilities, physical instabilities, etc.. To identify and separate these scatter sources the results are analyzed by means of visualizing the standard deviation of scatter itself and computing scatter-modes for selected parts of interest. Latter computations are based on the principle component analysis (PCA), and deliver new virtual crash results representing the most extreme geometrical shapes of the scatter-modes. This improves and speeds up the process of identifying scatter causes. For illustration a realistic application case based on the freely available Chrysler Silverado from the National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) of The George Washington University is analyzed by means of robust design of the crash model. Therefore 25 simulation runs were performed based on small random part thickness changes (representing production tolerances). The part of interest for the investigations is the variance at the fire-wall. As an outcome major scatter sources in the interaction of power-brake and suspension as well as at the longitudinal rail are found which are strongly correlated to the firewall scatter. Approving the software based prediction exemplary design adaptations lead to a significant reduction of scatter on the firewall. The described mathematical methods are part of the software DIFFCRASH, which was used in this study. Additionally a perspective regarding the integration of these analysis methods into a simulation data management system is given.


Either quality sorting or the presence of a specific cost (the so-called Alchian-Allen effect) is considered to be the main mechanism for the positive relationship between product quality and the distance to market. However, the reduced-form regressions found in the literature generally fail to reveal which of these two mechanisms (or even whether both are) is the main driving force. In this study, we employ unique Japanese individual goods price data to identify separately the effects of quality sorting and specific costs. Our empirical analysis shows that while high-cost producers produce high-quality goods, as suggested in Baldwin and Harrigan (2011), the quality-sorting mechanism solely is not sufficiently strong to account for the purported positive link between quality and distance. Moreover, we do find that the technology parameter that relates costs to quality is overestimated in the absence of specific costs. On this basis, we confirm that the presence of specific costs is significant, which may generate the positive relationship between quality and distance. We also find that the specific-cost components in transport costs are more distance elastic than any ad valorem components, a finding qualitatively consistent with the trade cost specification in Hummels and Skiba (2004). Finally, our results are robust with respect to various measures of distance and specification.


The calibration of the engine control unit is increased for the development of the whole automotive system. The aim is to calibrate the electronic engine control to match the decreasing emission requirements and increasing fuel economy demands. The reduction of the number of tests on vehicles represents one of the most important requirements for increasing efficiency of the engine calibration process. However, the definition of the design of experiment is not straightforward because the data is not known beforehand, so it is difficult to process and analyse this data to achieve a globally valid model. To reduce time effort and costs the virtual calibration can be a valid solution. This procedure is called software in the loop (SIL) calibration able to develop a process to systematically identify the optimal balance of engine performance, emissions and fuel economy. In this work, a virtual calibration methodology is presented by using a two-stage model to get minimum exhaust emissions of a diesel engine. The data used are from a GT-Power model of a 3L supercharged diesel engine. The model is able to calculate the engine emissions for different engine parameters (such as the start of injection, EGR fraction and rail pressure) and from optimisation process, new injection start maps that reduce pollutant emissions are created.


ABSTRACT The Lower Cambrian Lontova claystones contain well crystallized authigenic 1M illite mixed with detrital 2M illite. Part of the authigenic illite probably precipitated during sedimentation and subsequently experienced a temperature up to 140°C, despite a limited burial to 500-1000 m. The difference between the Rb-Sr and K-Ar dates of this authigenic illite are attributed to preferential loss of radiogenic 40Ar induced by a short-lasting thermal pulse. This interpretation is based on an Ar-diffusion model suggesting that the Lontova blue clays were heated to around 140°C for 2-5 Myr. This thermal pulse could have occurred in relation with hot-fluid migration induced by either tectonic dislocations in the basement rocks during the Late Silurian-Early Devonian, or rifting conditions during the Permian. By comparing Rb-Sr and K-Ar data, evaluation of radiogenic 40 Ar losses by small authigenic illite particles at low temperatures could be a powerful tool for reconstruction of evolutionary histories of sedimentary successions that were either shallowly buried, or percolated by migrating fluids released during tectono-thermal activities.


In the era of the information society, the impact of the information systems on the economy of material and immaterial is certainly perceptible. With regards to the information resources of an organization, the annotation involved to enrich informational content, to track the intellectual activities on a document and to set the added value on information for the benefit of solving a decision-making problem in the context of economic intelligence. Our contribution is distinguished by the representation of an annotation process and its inherent concepts to lead the decisionmaker to an anticipated decision: the provision of relevant and annotated information. Such information in the system is made easy by taking into account the diversity of resources and those that are well annotated so formally and informally by the EI actors. A capital research framework consist of integrating in the decision-making process the annotator activity, the software agent (or the reasoning mechanisms) and the information resources enhancement.


Sociomateriality (or sociomaterialism) allows us to approach the information technology (IT) capability research from an angle that has been rarely visited by information systems scholars. While relevant studies presume that humans and materials are distinct and largely independent, sociomateriality emphasizes agency that represents the relational, emergent, and shifting capacity realized through the association of actors (both humans and materials). The objective of this paper is to explore the value of conducting IT capability research through the theoretical lens of sociomaterialism. For this, we expand the imbrication metaphor introduced in an early study to explain the formation and advancement of a firm's IT capability from the sociomaterial perspective. Then, the key building blocks of IT capability of an organization are conceptualized based on the combination of existing studies and the expanded imbrication metaphor. Lastly, the effectiveness of formulating IT capability as a third-order construct that substantiates the entanglement concept of sociomaterialism is examined in comparison with that of traditional modeling approaches. We confirm the value of sociomaterialism in conceptualizing IT capability and subsequently in unraveling the true contribution of IT capability toward strengthening business performance. The findings also have practical implications in which IT capability is a function of IT management capability as well as IT personnel capability and IT infrastructure capability.


As a part of the increasing interest in 'popular' culture, historians have become more conscious of the presence of witchcraft after the witch trials. Most of the time their attention, however, is restricted to simply indicating witchcraft occurrences. For newcomers in the field a methodological trap also looms. The name of that trap is 'superstition' and its character is an often undeclared but determining element in the history of witchcraft studies. The self-educated Dutch folklorist, Tiesing, writing in 1913, tackled the problem openly: 'people did not consider as superstition everything they do now, because they were firmly convinced of things and events . . . and that which is considered as conclusive, is no superstition for those who believe it'. This practical and relativising remark did not take root. The civilising offensive, in which Tiesing participated himself, overgrew it. 'Who in witches and ghosts believes, is of his mind bereaved,' a schoolteacher rhymed in 1949, and his opinion met with increasing approval. In Drenthe, as in other provinces of the Netherlands, it was the local elite, consisting of schoolteachers, physicians and ministers, who joined in battle against 'superstition' or 'misbelief '. They constituted an echelon of the Society for the Public Welfare, who had already held a competition in 1798 to eradicate the 'prejudices about Divinations, as well as those about Charming of Devils, Witchcrafts and Hauntings'.1 In this chapter I want to not just proceed beyond the witch trials, but also beyond superstition. For witchcraft should not just be considered as an idea, but also as an action. Using a local case study I will chart the complex of expressions and actions concerning witchcraft and, through the reconstruction of the social, economical and political backgrounds of those involved, relate it to various contemporary contexts. I am furthermore interested in the channels of communication through which the reports about witchcraft have been transmitted. I want to stress at the start that generalising statements and conclusions will only be possible after a synchronic and diachronic comparison between several studies have been conducted in a similar manner.


Optimization has been a central topic in most scientific disciplines for centuries. Continuous optimization has long benefited from well-established techniques of calculus. Discrete optimization, on the other hand, has risen to prominence quite recently. Advances in combinatorial optimization and integer programming in the past few decades, together with the improvement of computer hardware have enabled computer scientists to approach the problems in this area both theoretically and computationally. However, obtaining the exact solution for many discrete optimization problems remains is still a challenging task, mainly because most of these problems are NP-hard. Under the widespread assumption that P 6= NP, these problems are intractable from a computational complexity standpoint. Therefore, we should settle for near-optimal solutions. In this thesis, we develop techniques to obtain solutions that are provably close to the optimal for different indivisible resource allocation problems. Indivisible resource allocation encompasses a large class of problems in discrete optimization which can appear in disguise in various theoretical or applied settings. Specifically, we consider two indivisible resource allocation problems. The first one is a variant of the vehicle routing problem known as Skill Vehicle Routing problem, in which the aim is to obtain optimal tours for a fleet of vehicles that provides service to a set of customers. Each of the vehicles possesses a particular set of skills suitable for a subset of the tasks. Each customer, based on the type of service he requires, can only be served by a subset of vehicles. We study this problem computationally and find either the optimal solution or a relatively tight bound on the optimal solution on fairly large problem instances. The second problem involves approximation algorithms for two versions of the classic scheduling problem, the restricted R | |Cmax and the restricted Santa Claus problem. The objective is to design a polynomial time approximation scheme (PTAS) for ordered instances of the two problems. Finally, we consider the class of precedence hierarchies in which the neighborhoods of the processors form Laminar families. We show similar results for a generalization of this model.


The grammar, or syntax, of human language is typically understood in terms of abstract hierarchical structures. However, theories of language processing that emphasize sequential information, not hierarchy, successfully model diverse phenomena. Recent work probing brain signals has shown mixed evidence for hierarchical information in some tasks. We ask whether sequential or hierarchical information guides the expectations that a human listener forms about a word's part-of-speech when simply listening to every-day language. We compare the predictions of three computational models against electroencephalography signals recorded from human participants who listen passively to an audiobook story. We find that predictions based on hierarchical structure correlate with the human brain response above-and-beyond predictions based only on sequential information. This establishes a link between hierarchical linguistic structure and neural signals that generalizes across the range of syntactic structures found in every-day language.


This study demonstrates the capability and performance of the developed state-of-the-art hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing platform based on the real-time digital simulator (RTDS). The evaluations of (i) the effects of thyristor-controlled series compensation (TCSC) on the feeder protection first main (unit protection) and (ii) the performance of feeder protection second main (distance protection) of multi-ended transmission circuits with adjacent TCSC are carried out. Realistic parameters of transmission lines and TCSC are used for system modelling, and practical physical relays are used for the testing. The potential impacts of TCSC on both unit protection and distance protection are analysed based on the simulation results and relay measurements from the developed RTDS-based HIL testing platform.


The results of treatment in 22 patients with anal carcinoma are reviewed. The overall results are disappointing with only five (28%) surviving more than 5 years. The commonest form of treatment during the study period was an abdomino-perineal excision of rectum (APER). For patients with tumours less than 2 cm in diameter local excision is an acceptable alternative. The majority (76%) of tumours were diagnosed as common benign conditions by the referring practitioners leading to a delay in initiating definitive treatment. Most tumours (81%) were greater than 2 cm in diameter and therefore unsuitable for local excision. There was a high recurrence rate (76%) amongst the group treated by APER. This along with the poor overall survival is probably due to late presentation.


Advances in technique development and data interpretation have greatly improved our ability to visualize the Earth subsurface. Total field magnetic data on the Olugere Area of Ijero Ekiti, Southwestern, Nigeria were acquired using the ground based magnetic technique with the aid of portable proton precession magnetometer G-856AX which implores total components of the ground magnetic anomaly data running through six profile lines. A total of six geophysical traverses, numbering aa to ff, were established in an E-W direction in the study area. The acquired total magnetic intensity (TMI) data were corrected for drift; the derived residual anomaly, which involves the removal of the regional gradient from the observed data from the field of linear trend analysis, was presented as profiles and maps. The residual magnetic values varied between a minimum negative peak value of about -223.1nT and a maximum positive peak value of about 536.7nT. Qualitative interpretation of the ground magnetic maps and profiles were adopted with an intention of determining the geologic structures that are suitable for mineral potential, ground water accumulation and establishing the competence of the survey area in hosting high rise structure and industrial site. Our results have demonstrated that careful analysis of magnetic data can delineate with fair to good precision the geological structures of the subsurface, which gives vital information about the mineral potential, ground water accumulation and the ability of the study area to hold high rise building.


The combined use of ultrastructural morphometry and X-ray microanalysis in conjunction with biochemical analysis is one approach to elucidating mechanisms of metal nephrotoxicity at the cellular level. Ultrastructural morphometry conducted on proximal tubule cells of rats exposed to low levels of methyl mercury for prolonged periods of time showed statistically significant increases in the volume densities of the lysosomal and mitochondrial compartments. These findings were associated with marked changes in lysosomal marker enzymes and mitochondrial heme biosynthesis enzymes leading to the detection of a renal porphyrinuria that occurred before changes in standard tests of renal function. Ultrastructural morphometry, X-ray microanalysis, and biochemical studies of the low-molecular-weight tubular proteinuria produced by injection of cadmium metallothionein (CdMT) showed a rapid proximal tubule cell lysosome uptake and degradation of the CdMT complex, which led to a subsequent decrease in the numerical density (Nv) and average diameter of lysosomes and to an increase in the Nv of apical pinocytolic vesicles with time. The data indicate disruption of the normal primary lysosome-pinocytolic vesicle fusion process and related development of tubular proteinuria. Ultrastructural techniques may provide information useful in elucidating mechanisms of ongoing metal-induced nephrotoxic processes when consideration is given to sampling strategies for morphometric analysis and the inherent detection limits, elemental volatility, translocation effects, and limitations of quantification for X-ray microanalysis in soft biological tissues.


This paper presents an integrated system for the breast cancer detection from mammo- grams based on automated mass detection, classification, and retrieval with a goal to support decision-making by retrieving and displaying the relevant past cases as well as predicting the images as benign or malignant. It is hypothesized that the proposed diagnostic aid would refresh the radiologist's mental memory to guide them to a precise diagnosis with concrete visualizations instead of only suggesting a second diagnosis like many other CAD systems. Towards achieving this goal, a Graph-Based Visual Saliency (GBVS) method is used for automatic mass detection, invariant features are extracted based on using Non-Subsampled Contourlet transform (NSCT) and eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix in a histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and finally classification and retrieval are performed based on using Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Extreme Learning Machines (ELM), and a linear combination-based similarity fusion approach. The image retrieval and classification performances are evaluated and compared in the benchmark Digital Database for Screening Mammography (DDSM) of 2604 cases by using both the precision-recall and classification accuracies. Experimental results dem - onstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system and show the viability of a real-time clinical application.


Advances in quantum computation for electronic structure, and particularly heuristic quantum algorithms, create an ongoing need to characterize the performance and limitations of these methods. Here we discuss some potential pitfalls connected with the use of hardware-efficient Ansätze in variational quantum simulations of electronic structure. We illustrate that hardware-efficient Ansätze may break Hamiltonian symmetries and yield nondifferentiable potential energy curves, in addition to the well-known difficulty of optimizing variational parameters. We discuss the interplay between these limitations by carrying out a comparative analysis of hardware-efficient Ansätze versus unitary coupled cluster and full configuration interaction, and of second- and first-quantization strategies to encode Fermionic degrees of freedom to qubits. Our analysis should be useful in understanding potential limitations and in identifying possible areas of improvement in hardware-efficient Ansätze.


Abstract Environmental adult education (EAE) combines environmental education and adult learning theory to provide meaningful educative experiences to learners with the purpose of bringing about genuine environmental change. The field is relatively new, but its body of literature is growing in the twenty-first century. This paper conducts an historical analysis of EAE literature to date. The resulting summary provides scholars and practitioners in the fields of environmental adult education, environmental education, and adult education a platform to engage in dialogue about future directions for the field based on historical trends and lessons. Introduction Environmental adult education (EAE) is a relatively new and unique field of practice and study (Clover, 1997; Karlovic and Patrick, 2003), recognized as "a hybrid outgrowth of the environmental movement and adult education, combining an ecological orientation with a learning paradigm to provide a vigorous educational approach to environmental concerns" (Sumner, 2003, p. 41). EAE first appeared in the literature as a distinct field of study in the mid- 1970s (Emmelin, 1976). In the one hundred years prior, EAE scholars assert that environmental educators often taught factual information and focused on individual behavior change to stop environmental degradation, and made few efforts to reach diverse adult learners. Instructors' messages were received over and over by the same students from the same socio-economic classes. Educators rarely reached new audiences resulting in little genuine change and learners feeling hopeless about their ability to impact environmental degradation (Clover, 1995a; Jansen, 1995). The EAE movement was born when environmental educators paired environmental education with adult education in order to reach new populations and to facilitate broader, more genuine change. Since it was first conceptualized in the 1970s the study of environmental adult education has seen certain trends. In the late 1980s EAE focused mostly on learner experience. In the late 1990s and early 2000s the focus shifted more toward how to teach EAE. More recent EAE articles reveal a desire to better conceptualize environmental adult education theory, and how to best implement EAE practices. Additionally, later work in the field stresses activism and social change as a by-product of EAE, an element not emphasized in earlier literature. This paper conducts a historical analysis of relevant research in the field of environmental adult education, including extensive document review and text analysis. According to Lang and Heiss (1998), the purpose of historical research is to create an "integrative narrative based on a critical analysis and synthesis of sources" (p. 66). This analysis will attempt to create such a narrative for environmental adult education by identifying concepts, trends, and themes of EAE. The text is based on an extensive literature review process where the following questions served as a framework when examining each environmental adult education text: * How is environmental adult education conceptualized or defined by the author? * What other philosophies, educational models, practices, or principles does the researcher cite as contributions to EAE study and practice? * How does the piece outline or contribute to the history of the EAE movement? The following report is a chronological synthesis of the textual analysis. This narrative offers a platform for both scholars and practitioners to engage in dialogue about future directions for the field based on historical trends and lessons. The Foundations of Environmental Adult Education Environmental adult education literature is almost nonexistent until the mid-1970s. In 1976, Emmelin published an article titled, "The Need for Environmental Education for Adults". This is one of the first works that makes a distinction between environmental education and environmental adult education. …


We apologize for any misunderstanding of our commentary. We did not make a mistake in presenting the occlusion rates in the table. We purposefully included only the total occlusion rate in the entire population, and we noted in a footnote that some patients were undergoing additional endovascular treatments. It is quite possible that some of these patients might go on to be cured by endovascular means, but it is also possible that additional morbidity and mortality might occur. We are cautious in our interpretation and suspect that further embolization of these arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) might not result in much improvement of the overall cure rate. The footnote was purposefully used to avoid misleading the readers. We believe that the table provides the reader with a satisfactory overview of the published data. We did not dismiss partial embolization of AVMs in general, but we did specifically state that there is not convincing evidence of benefit for partial embolization of small AVMs. We specifically focused our discussion on small AVMs because it is precisely the aggressive endovascular therapy of these AVMs that we wanted to bring to attention. We appreciate Katsaridis et al now telling us that their complication rate was quite low and the success rate was quite high in small AVMs. Although this may be true in their series (and their letter now makes this known), not much data are available in this regard in the literature. We realize that this is an important point. It would be enormously helpful if reports describing attempts at endovascular cure of brain AVMs would specifically comment on Spetzler Martin grades so that readers were able to compare "apples and apples." We hope that Katsaridis et al will soon collect the results of subsequent endovascular procedures in their patients and publish them in a peerreviewed journal. With regard to the reference of the report from van Rooij et al, we wish to only point out the table in our commentary, which we believe outlines reasonably well the risks and cure rates of endovascular therapy with Onyx. If Katsaridis et al are able to embolize small AVMs with high cure rates and low complication rates, then it would seem that a prospective trial comparing embolization with surgery or radiosurgery would be an appropriate next step to determine the optimal therapy for these challenging lesions. We could be more effective in our counseling of patients and treatments offered if studies were done that allowed careful, valid, unbiased comparison of outcomes. Patients generally want the safest, most effective treatment available, and they look to us to recommend and provide evidence-based therapy. Long-term outcome is generally of greater concern to them than whether they spend 1 day or 5 days in the hospital.


Phosphatidylcholine (PC) liposomes were used to deliver their entrapped ions into spontaneously contracting cultured heart cells (reaggregates) prepared from 15-day embryonic chick ventricles (superfused at 8 ml/min). With slowly rising action potentials (AP) (+Vmax less than 30 V/s), when Na+ liposomes were added (13.2% vol/vol), there was a progressive decrease in slope of the pacemaker potential and in firing frequency. Recovery on washout was rapid. When vesicles containing Ca2+ (6.6% vol/vol) were added, there was an immediate decrease in AP duration. Within 10 min, +Vmax, overshoot, maximum diastolic potential, and frequency decreased, and all spontaneous activity stopped within 30 min. Electrical stimulation could not elicit AP responses. Partial recovery of APs occurred after 60 min of washout, but the recovering APs initially were abnormal. Lower liposome concentration (3.3%) had a similar but slower effect. The rapidity of the effects depended on the Ca2+ concentration inside the vesicles (0.15 and 1 M). K+-containing liposomes had no effect. This difference between liposomes containing Na+, Ca2+, and K+ suggests that the effects observed were due to the ions and not to the phosphatidylcholine. Injection of Ca2+ could cause depolarization by the Ca2+-activation of a nonspecific Na+-K+ channel (i.e., gNa, K, (Ca]; inhibition of automaticity by injection of Na+ or Ca2+ could be due to diminution of the electrochemical gradient for inward background depolarizing current. Thus PC liposomes provide a good means for delivering substances inside the cells without altering the electrical properties of the membrane by the lipid vehicle.


Abstract In this contribution we explore the preservation potential of offshore tsunami deposits. The application of linear wave theory and flat-bottom conditions allows a simplified representation of the physical environment. In such an environment it is possible to compute the boundary water depth, below which the influence of storm waves on tsunami deposits is negligible. The majority of the tsunami deposits described in the literature were deposited onshore where the tsunami wave is transformed into bores and rollers. These deposits differ from tsunami sediments of the deeper shelf, where the water-sediment interaction corresponds more to wave influences. We define the boundary depth db as the depth below which tsunami deposits cannot be reworked due to storm waves. This is based on the assumption that the wave base coincides with the seabed. If the wave base is below the bed, a reworking of bed sediments occurs. If it is above, no energy is transferred to the bottom. As an example, we use tide-gauge records at Pointe de La Rue, Seychelles, and ca. 50 km offshore from Brisbane, Australia, at a water depth of 70 m, to derive the major wave parameters of the Sumatra tsunami and a Category 1 Cyclone that occurred from 4–6 March 2004 in Brisbane. The Brisbane storm wave reached the maximum wave height of 14.3 m. Wave periods varied between 6 s and 14 s and the computed maximum wavelength was 237 m. The largest height of the Sumatra tsunami was 3.01 m. Periods of between 24 min and 61 min were computed for the time between two subsequent peaks. The combination of our hydrodynamic considerations with information from a simplified Hjulstrom-Sundborg diagram implies that the most powerful storm and tsunami waves produce conditions near and at the sea bed that allow the transport of sediment grains from decimeters to meters in diameter. That means a sandy tsunami deposit in the area of the Brisbane tide gauge would be reworked by storm waves. Assuming the highest wave amplitude during the 2004 March storm at Brisbane as such a boundary wave, the water depth below which preservation of tsunami deposits is most likely is greater than 65 m.


Section 211(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 provides that no recognition of customary norms may be upheld if such norms are in conflict with either the constitution or any other law that deals specifically with customary law: "The courts must apply customary law when that law is applicable, subject to the Constitution and any legislation that specifically deals with customary law." The current Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 deals explicitly with the recognition of customary marriages which are concluded in accordance with customary law (s 1). Customary law is defined as the "customs and usages traditionally observed among the indigenous African peoples of South Africa and which form part of the culture of those peoples". It follows from a further reading of section 1 that a customary marriage is reserved for those indigenous African peoples who observe such customs and usages. It is provided in section 10(4) that "[d]espite subsection (1), no spouse of a marriage entered into under the Marriage Act, 1961, is, during the subsistence of such marriage, competent to enter into any other marriage". This must be read with the definitions contained in section 1: "'customary law' means the customs and usages traditionally observed among the indigenous African peoples of South Africa and which form part of the culture of those peoples; 'customary marriage' means a marriage concluded in accordance with customary law". Without the requisite legal competency, no legal subject can enter into any relationship to which the law may attach any consequences. Nobody can enter into a customary marriage if any of the presumed future spouses is already in a civil marriage according to the Marriage Act 25 of 1961, not even if the two parties are married to each other. According to the custom of various indigenous nations, if a man enters into a valid customary marriage with a woman who had never been married before but who is the mother of children born out of wedlock (spurii), the metaphor applies that he "who takes the cow also acquires the calf". He will as part and parcel of the lobola ceremony be seen as the adopting stepfather of his wife's children, with all the accompanying consequences. He will automatically be responsible for the future maintenance of those children as his adoptive children and they will acquire all rights and privileges that are bestowed on a child, including the right to inheritance and the right to his family name. As a consequence of this new relationship, all legal ties with the biological father of the adopted child are severed and the biological father will no longer be responsible for the maintenance of his offspring. In January 2019 an erstwhile law professor from UNISA who still retained his German citizenship, was gravely ill and cared for on life-support at a hospital in the Pretoria district. While in hospital, he tied the marriage knot with Miss Vilakazi, a Zulu woman with whom he had been in a relationship for the past five years. Miss Vilakazi was a spinster, but she had a Zulu daughter who was born out of wedlock more than eight years previously out of a relationship with an erstwhile Zulu lover. This child had been in the care of her maternal grandmother in Natal and, according to Zulu customary norms, was considered part of the house of her maternal grandfather, Vilakazi. She consequently carried the name Vilakazi as her registered surname on her official birth certificate. The marriage, which was conducted on 29 January 2019 in the hospital in Pretoria, was concluded with adherence to all the requirements of Act 25 of 1961. The civil marriage was duly registered as such. The late professor passed away in the hospital barely three weeks later on 19 February 2019. Less than 24 hours before the demise of the professor a purported customary marriage was concluded, apparently on behalf of the professor with the recently married Mrs Schulze by proxy by a friend of his in the Newcastle district in Natal after having paid R60 000 as ilobolo. The ceremony was concluded with the ceremonial slaughtering of the prescribed goat. However, during this ceremony the groom was not present but on life support in a Pretoria hospital and not necessarily compos mentis – the court was told that he was represented by a friend. Zulu customary law, however, does not recognise a marriage concluded by proxy with a substitude bridegroom as was known in Roman-Dutch law as "a wedding with the glove". Neither the Marriage Act nor the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, however, recognises a second marriage after the conclusion of a civil marriage by any of the purported newly weds – even if both "spouses" had been present in person. The mother of the late Professor Schulze, after his demise in South Africa, amended her last will in Germany and appointed her lifelong partner as sole beneficiary of her significant estate. She passed away in Germany in October 2019. In November 2019 the recently married Mrs Schulze, on behalf of her minor daughter, successfully approached the high court in Pietermaritzburg, where Zaca AJ issued an order compelling the South African department of home affairs to issue the daughter with a new birth certificate that reflects the late Professor Schulze as her father. Notwithstanding the unease of the officials at home affairs with this court order, the minister of home affairs, Mr Motsoaledi, personally intervened in August 2020 and the new birth certificate was issued as requested. Relying on this newly issued birth certificate, the applicant claims an amount of not less than R8 million in Germany from the estate of the late mother of Professor Schulze. For this purpose, the applicant relies on a principle in German law, the Pflichtteilsanspruch, according to which any descendant of the deceased has a right to a prescribed portion, a so-called legitimate portion of the estate, if not mentioned or sufficiently bestowed in the last will. This raises a number of seriously flawed legal arguments that are analysed in this article. It is submitted that the perceived lobola marriage ceremony conducted on behalf of the late professor on 18 February 2019 in Newcastle, less than 24 hours before his demise, is void because of the explicit constitutional provision and the relevant section 10(4) of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998, which excludes any competency to enter into a customary marriage if any of the parties involved is already married. At the date of the perceived lobola ceremony, Mrs Schulze had already been civilly married to Professor Schulze for more than three weeks and thus both spouses lacked the necessary competency to enter into a valid customary marriage. Whether a valid customary marriage could have been concluded at all with a man who did not live according to the customs and usages of the Zulu, is also highly questionable. Because the perceived lobola marriage is a nullity, no legal consequences can flow from this nullity and the so-called customary adoption of the daughter ("the calf with the cow") is a nullity too. At no stage was any of the requirements for a valid adoption as governed by the Children's Act 38 of 2005 adhered to. The minister of home affairs should have immediately given notice of appeal after the unconvincing judgment of Zaca AJ was handed down in January 2020. As the responsible minister, he should guard the upholding of the constitution and the applicable legal provisions unambiguously contained in the relevant section 10(4) of Act 120 of 1998. It is a pity that the so-called adherence to the principles of the "rule of law" is not even paid lip service in this case. Bennett, as a renowned expert on customary law, correctly pointed out that the legal orders are not unconnected. It may never be assumed that the people concerned are unaware of how to manipulate the resources offered them by legal pluralism (A Sourcebook of African Customary Law for Southern Africa (1991) 50).


The purpose of this open-label, crossover study was to determine the safety and efficacy of recombinant insulin-like growth factor-1 (rhIGF-1) using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and clinical measures of disease activity in seven multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Monthly clinical and MRI examinations were performed during a 24-week baseline and a 24-week treatment period with rhIGF-1. The primary outcome measure was contrast enhancing lesion (CEL) frequency on treatment compared to baseline. Secondary outcome measures included clinical and MRI measures of disease activity including: white matter lesion load (WMLL), magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), T1-Hypointensity volume, cervical spine cross-sectional area and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging for determining regional metabolite ratios. rhIGF-1 (Cephalon) was administered at a dose of 50 mg subcutaneously twice a day for 6 months. rhIGF-1 was safe and well tolerated with no severe adverse reactions. There was no significant difference between baseline and treatment periods for any MRI or clinical measures of disease activity. Although rhIGF-1 did not alter the course of disease in this small cohort of MS patients, the drug was well tolerated. Further studies using rhIGF-1 alone or in combination with other therapies may be of value because of the proposed mechanism of action of this growth factor on the oligodendrocyte and remyelination.


Combining two-photon calcium imaging (2PCI) and electron microscopy (EM) provides arguably the most powerful current approach for connecting function to structure in neural circuits. Recent years have seen dramatic advances in obtaining and processing CI and EM data separately. In addition, several joint CI-EM datasets (with CI performed in vivo, followed by EM reconstruction of the same volume) have been collected. However, no automated analysis tools yet exist that can match each signal extracted from the CI data to a cell segment extracted from EM; previous efforts have been largely manual and focused on analyzing calcium activity in cell bodies, neglecting potentially rich functional information from axons and dendrites. There are two major roadblocks to solving this matching problem: first, dense EM reconstruction extracts orders of magnitude more segments than are visible in the corresponding CI field of view, and second, due to optical constraints and non-uniform brightness of the calcium indicator in each cell, direct matching of EM and CI spatial components is nontrivial. In this work we develop a pipeline for fusing CI and densely-reconstructed EM data. We model the observed CI data using a constrained nonnegative matrix factorization (CNMF) framework, in which segments extracted from the EM reconstruction serve to initialize and constrain the spatial components of the matrix factorization. We develop an efficient iterative procedure for solving the resulting combined matching and matrix factorization problem and apply this procedure to joint CI-EM data from mouse visual cortex. The method recovers hundreds of dendritic components from the CI data, visible across multiple functional scans at different depths, matched with densely-reconstructed three-dimensional neural segments recovered from the EM volume. We publicly release the output of this analysis as a new gold standard dataset that can be used to score algorithms for demixing signals from 2PCI data. Finally, we show that this database can be exploited to (1) learn a mapping from 3d EM segmentations to predict the corresponding 2d spatial components estimated from CI data, and (2) train a neural network to denoise these estimated spatial components. This neural network denoiser is a stand-alone module that can be dropped in to enhance any existing 2PCI analysis pipeline.


On March 4th 2016 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published a consultative document where a new methodology, called the Standardized Measurement Approach (SMA), is introduced for computing Operational Risk regulatory capital for banks. In this note, the behavior of the SMA is studied under a variety of hypothetical and realistic conditions, showing that the simplicity of the new approach is very costly on other aspects: we find that the SMA does not respond appropriately to changes in the risk profile of a bank, nor is it capable of differentiating among the range of possible risk profiles across banks; that SMA capital results generally appear to be more variable across banks than the previous AMA option of fitting the loss data; that the SMA can result in banks over- or under-insuring against operational risks relative to previous AMA standards. Finally, we argue that the SMA is not only retrograde in terms of its capability to measure risk, but perhaps more importantly, it fails to create any link between management actions and capital requirement.


A reduced, scalar magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) description for linear perturbations of arbitrary aspect-ratio, fully three-dimensional plasma configurations is derived for perturbations with short scale-length perpendicular to the magnetic field. The application of the scalar wave equation to ballooning modes is presented. It is shown that coexistence of toroidally extended and toroidally localized unstable ideal hydromagnetic ballooning modes occurs in an interchange–unstable equilibrium case modelling the Large Helical Device (LHD) with a broad pressure profile. The toroidally extended modes can be understood on the basis of a ripple-averaged ballooning equation, whereas the toroidally localized branch corresponds to modes localized along a flux tube. A new three-dimensional ray phase space is introduced in which the periodicity properties are simplified.


Many organisations depend heavily on having professional employees become capable leaders, but very little research has been done to ask leaders themselves about the learning involved in this very significant change of roles. In this study, a group of senior executives in large public and private sector organisations identified the most important leadership related insights and skills they had acquired as they made the transition from professional specialist to senior leader. Six male and six female executives each participated in approximately three hours of in-depth interviewing during which they shared narratives describing the events and experiences that had led to these key areas of learning. Participants began their careers in fields as diverse as police service, engineering, corporate law, nursing, economics and teaching, and they worked in organisations ranging from hospitals, to universities, to government agencies, to a variety of large corporations. Even with this notable diversity, and with the freedom to speak without prompting, there was substantial common ground in the insights and skills they determined to be most important to their performance as leaders, and there were shared patterns in the types of learning experiences they described. At the same time, these executives were distinctly different individuals with unique backgrounds, and it was notable that they had each made sense of leadership in their own personal way. Their career stories also revealed that becoming a senior leader involved three types of profound personal change. Implications and recommendations for further research and for leadership development are discussed.


OBJECTIVES: Clinical and pathological study of eight cases of localized amyloidosis of the seminal vesicles. Review of the literature. METHODS: Immunohistochemical and histochemical study in surgical specimens. RESULTS: Two of the eight cases studied for amyloidosis in seminal vesicles, were obtained from radical prostatectomy specimens; patients had prior androgen deprivation therapy for two months. Four cases were obtained from radical cistoprostatectomy specimens because of urothelial carcinoma and the last two cases were diagnosed by transrectal prostatic needle biopsy which including a portion of seminal vesicle. Amyloidosis of seminal the vesicle is permanganate-sensitive; A-Amyloid, laminin, amyloid P protein and collagen IV negative. CONCLUSION: Localized amyloidosis ot the seminal vesicle is not an unusual finding. The incidence increases with age. The histochemical and immunohistochemical features are different from other amyloid deposits.


Background Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a microvascular complication of diabetes mellitus. Considering that the burden of diabetes mellitus is rising in Nigeria, there is a need to ascertain the burden of one of its most common complications. The objective of the meta-analysis was to determine the pooled prevalence of DKD in Nigeria and identify its risk factors. Patients and methods The study is a meta-analysis and it followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Google scholar, PubMed, AJOL, SCOPUS, medRxiv, and the gray literature were systematically searched using appropriate key terms. Statistical analysis was done with MetaXL. The inverse-variance heterogeneity model was used for the meta-analysis and heterogeneity was determined using the I2 statistic and the Cochran's Q test. Publication bias was checked with the Doi plot and LFK index. Results Nineteen studies met the eligibility criteria. The total sample size was 56 571. The pooled prevalence of DKD in Nigeria was 28% (95% confidence interval 3–58). The Cochran's Q was 747 (P<0.001), while the I2 statistic was 97.6%. The Doi plot was drawn and the LFK index was 6.22. The most common risk factors for DKD were suboptimal glycemic control, hypertension, obesity, duration of diabetes, male sex, and advancing age. Conclusion The prevalence of DKD in Nigeria is high and greater attention should be focused on managing the risk factors so as to alleviate the burden of the disease.


B cells mediate multiple functions that influence immune and inflammatory responses in rheumatoid arthritis. Production of a diverse array of autoantibodies can happen at different stages of the disease, and are important markers of disease outcome. In turn, the magnitude and quality of acquired humoral immune responses is strongly dependent on signals delivered by innate immune cells. Additionally, the milieu of cells and chemokines that constitute a niche for plasma cells rely strongly on signals provided by stromal cells at different anatomical locations and times. The chronic inflammatory state therefore importantly impacts the developing humoral immune response and its intensity and specificity. We focus this review on B cell biology and the role of the innate immune system in the development of autoimmunity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.


This paper looks at China's civilizational and modernization heritages. Its ancient civilization is described as the first phase of China's civilization. In the first phase, China's Civilization was stellar, and creative, possessing well–structured bureaucratic institutions with phenomenal capacities for artistic production and the advancement of high sciences. The second phase of China's civilization reflects its current modernization, one inspired and operationalized by Marxism and Maoism. The earlier phase of China's Civilization was aloof, benign, self-sufficient, reticent and reluctant to attract untoward global attention. This ancient civilization, rooted in the organic soil of China itself, was holistic, robust on its own merit. China's civilization was inspired by its ancient religions and social formations. From such fountainheads, China's institutional framework at the village, community, district, and regional levels responded to bureaucratic authority to produce creative and organically legitimate governance for centuries. The ancient civilization of China represented a multidimensional grandeur. At its height, it combined scientific rationalizations with productive outputs in material science. There was a seamless integration of ancient technical and scientific differentiation. These were ancient, but their scientific characteristics were rather modern. If we average and standardize variation to account for epochal setbacks and institutional aberrations, such as misguided actions by the emperors, it is not farfetched to say that the level of scientific maturity that Great Britain reached in its industrial revolution by the 16 and 17 centuries matched China's scientific output of two thousand years before. China's scientific output in ancient days represented functionally relevant and exquisitely adaptive features in their effects and utility. Pre-modern China showed to the world mastery of the hard sciences. Its engineering excellence testified to China's mastery of metallurgy, chemical sciences, physics, astronomy, medicine, and structural engineering. Its socio-cultural development were the foundations of ancient China's highly matured political development. Political maturity of ancient China valued human freedom with hierarchical order, revealing one of the oldest and most creative civilizations in the world. 1 Isaac: In China's Vanguard Civilization: Is there Shelter for the Third Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2019 72 Number 80, Spring 2019 China's coming status as a superpower is unmistakable. As China's superpower status consolidates in the next few decades, Third World states are asking, naturally: "Is China going to introduce celebratory developmental alternatives to the neocolonial structures of the West?"


Abstract The present investigation aimed for the development and characterization of ethosomes-based hydrogel formulations of methoxsalen for enhanced topical delivery and effective treatment against vitiligo. The ethosomes were prepared by central composite design (CCD) and characterized for various quality attributes like vesicle shape, size, zeta potential, lamellarity, drug entrapment and drug leaching. The optimized ethosomes were subsequently incorporated int Carbopol® 934 gel and characterized for drug content, rheological behavior, texture profile, in vitro release, ex vivo skin permeation and retention, skin photosensitization and histopathological examination. Ethosomes were found to be spherical and multilamellar in structures having nanometric size range with narrow size distribution, and high encapsulation efficiency. Ethosomal formulations showed significant skin permeation and accumulation in the epidermal and dermal layers. The fluorescence microscopy study using 123 Rhodamine exhibited enhanced permeation of the drug-loaded ethosomes in the deeper layers of skin. Also, the developed formulation showed insignificant phototoxicity and erythema vis-à-vis the conventional cream. The results were cross-validated using histopathological examination of skin segments. In a nutshell, the ethosomes-based hydrogel formulation was found to be a promising drug delivery system demonstrating enhanced percutaneous penetration of methoxsalen with reduced phototoxicity and erythema, thus leading to improved patient compliance for the treatment against vitiligo.


To minimize the wind buffeting effect on the primary mirror figure, the Gemini primary mirror cell is designed to provide additional mirror stiffness by coupling the mirror to the cell structure through a six-zone hydraulic support system. Therefore the cell structure is designed as though it were a light weight mirror for minimum top surface distortion. This paper describes the design requirements, the design features, and the detail predicted performance of this cell structure, particularly the effects on the primary mirror figure. As the cell structure supports the primary mirror with a six-zone hydraulic system, the mirror is coupled to the cell structure with three degree of freedom overconstraints. These overconstraints induce the possible distortion on the mirror figure due to the cell deformation. This paper presents a solution to eliminate this effect by supporting the mirror cell on the telescope structure through four bipods. The locations of the bipods are so arranged that the cell deformation will not distort the mirror figure as the telescope rotates from zenith to horizon pointing.


This is a Design for Interaction (DfI) master project of the Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) Faculty of TUDelft. In collaboration of Oorzaak (a Dutch company) and the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University, Centre for Linguistics this research has been developed. The main topics are communication between hearing impaired (HI) and hearing (H) people in a meetings context and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology. Since Oorzaak is developing a tool (augmented reality (AR) spectacles) that help POD in every day's communication. This topic is also taken into account. For this research it is important to understand that the group of hearing impaired (HI) people is divided in pre-lingual (PED): people who born deaf and did not learn the spoken language. They use sign language (SL) and post-lingual (POD): people who became deaf after the age of six which means that they learned to speak and read well. For this project special attention to PED that can read and talk well and POD people was taken into account. The main goal of this project is about improving communication between HI and H people in meetings, using automatic speech recognition technology. Accordingly, the project was divided in a research phase in which the social aspect, the needs of the user and their experiences are important insight to determine design guidelines. And a design phase which main goal was to design a product-concept that uses voice recognition technology and helps to improve communication between POD and hearing people (H) in meetings. The final concept is MEETING UP a product composed by Meeting Point (a physical device) and Meeting App (an application) is intended to improve communication between POD and H people in meetings by creating structure, order and awareness. Meeting Point a product which is placed on the center of the table is intended to provide order during meetings, its main tasks are: (1) managing the ASR system with array and wireless microphones, (2) provide WIFI connectivity with external displays (iPads and AR spectacles), (3) create order in meetings by providing feedback about who is the speaker and (4) create awareness by controlling the speaking speed and avoiding multiple speakers at the same time. On the other hand Meeting App is intended to provide more structure to the meetings by: (1) providing a chairman responsibility, (2) guiding him to create a more structured meetings by preparing the meeting before hand, creating an agenda, being aware of time, creating responsibilities for participants and providing all participants with the text of the main conclusions at the end of the meeting.


Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption presents an innovative reinterpretation of the forces that have shaped the remarkable growth of ethical consumption. Develops a theoretically informed new approach to shape our understanding of the pragmatic nature of ethical action in consumption processes. Provides empirical research on everyday consumers, social networks, and campaigns. Fills a gap in research on the topic with its distinctive focus on fair trade consumption. Locates ethical consumption within a range of social theoretical debates –on neoliberalism, governmentality, and globalisation. Challenges the moralism of much of the analysis of ethical consumption, which sees it as a retreat from proper citizenly politics and an expression of individualised consumerism.


We study the effect of disorder symmetry in a disordered s-wave superconductor. We begin with an attractive Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice in the presence of diagonal- and off-diagonal disorder. The model is studied numerically using Bogoliubov-deGennes mean-field approach. We find that the off-diagonal disorder is much more efficient in destroying superconducting order. A detailed analysis brings out very distinct qualitative pictures in the two cases: diagonal disorder leads to formation of small scale isolated superconducting islands separated by large region of normal metal, whereas off-diagonal disorder leads to a connected network of superconducting region. Naively, it seems that the connected network of superconducting regions should have a large average value for superconducting order parameter, but this does not hold true for large disorder, as we demonstrate explicitly. Our qualititive picture is supported by real-space data on local order parameters.


Elderly implies that the answers which may be produced by this large multinational, hospital-based trial will be no more clearcut than the ones we reported from our small single-centre trial. If so, we share the hopes of ProfessorW S Peart and his colleagues (p 1397) that a further "trial of antihypertensive treatment in people aged 65-74 may be mounted attempting to determine the balance between the benefits of pressure reduction and any adverse effects." M E SPRACKLING


This paper using finite elements (FE) an approach to determine the contact stresses in a flexible pavement under landing aircraft loads is presented. The proposed 3-Dimensional model simulates the behaviour of flexible runway pavements during the landing phase. A study on the impact of a rubber solid on the free surface of a granular plate is presented, simulating an aircraft gear system landing on with a flexible surface. This study is performed considering two tires on the structural pavement, with the real loads applied directly on the two wheels of the gear system. The application takes in account the frictional phenomena developed between rubber solid and the surface of the pavement during the lockwire.


Let $\Sigma$ be a compact connected oriented 2-dimensional manifold with non-empty boundary. In our previous work, we have shown that the solution of generalized (higher genus) Kashiwara-Vergne equations for an automorphism $F \in {\rm Aut}(L)$ of a free Lie algebra implies an isomorphism between the Goldman-Turaev Lie bialgebra $\mathfrak{g}(\Sigma)$ and its associated graded ${\rm gr}\, \mathfrak{g}(\Sigma)$. In this paper, we prove the converse: if $F$ induces an isomorphism $\mathfrak{g}(\Sigma) \cong {\rm gr} \, \mathfrak{g}(\Sigma)$, then it satisfies the Kashiwara-Vergne equations up to conjugation. As an application of our results, we compute the degree one non-commutative Poisson cohomology of the Kirillov-Kostant-Souriau double bracket. The main technical tool used in the paper is a novel characterization of conjugacy classes in the free Lie algebra in terms of cyclic words.


In this paper, we investigate the problem of designing graphical geographic database user interfaces (GDUIs) and of integrating them into a database management system (DBMS). Geographic applications may vary widely but they all have common aspects due to the spatial component of their data: Geographic data are not standard and they require appropriate tools for (i) editing them (i.e., display and modify) and (ii) querying them. The conceptual problems encountered in designing GDUIs are partly due to the merger of two independent fields, geographic DBMSs on the one hand, and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) on the other hand. Although these areas have evolved considerably during the past ten years, only little effort has been made to understand the problems of connecting them in order to efficiently manipulate geographic data on a display. This issue raises the general problem of coupling a DBMS with specialized modules (in particular, the problem of strong vs. weak integration), and more generally the role of a DBMS in a specific application. After giving the functionalities that a GDUI should provide, we study the possible conceptual integrations between a GUI and a DBMS. Finally, a map editing model as well as a general and modular GDUI architecture are presented.


We show an alternative way to optimize join sequences in a shared nothing architecture of the distributed relational DBMS HEAD. The hardware resources are also used for database independent applications in concurrency, for database access. To achieve a better hardware utilization we span a complete search space involving all intermediate shapes between left deep, right deep and bushy trees, but without join sequences including cartesian products. The approach is based on any combinatorial search engine and a complex cost function. The cost function involves the actual load of the processors, the network load, and the memory capacities. The new technique has free access to any join sequence in the whole search space. The approach is not restricted to acyclic join conditions.


This paper describes a new and efficient method of defining an annular region of a curl-free magnetic field with specific physics and coil properties that can be used in stellarator design. Three statements define the importance: (1) Codes can follow an optimized curl-free initial state to a final full-pressure equilibrium. The large size of the optimization space of stellarators, approximately fifty externally-produced distributions of magnetic field, makes success in finding a global optimum largely determined by the starting point. (2) The design of a stellarator is actually improved when the central region of the plasma has rapid transport with the confinement provided by a surrounding annulus of magnetic surfaces with low transport. (3) The stellarator is unique among all fusion concepts, inertial as well as magnetic, in not using the plasma itself to provide an essential part of its confinement concept. This permits reliable computational design, which opens a path to faster, cheaper, and more certain achievement of fusion energy.


Objectives: To assess the impact of routine transplacental fetal treatment (TFT) for anti-Ro antibody-mediated complete heart block (CHB) ± endocardial fibroelastosis (EFE). Maternal dexamethasone from CHB diagnosis until birth, β-stimulation for fetal bradycardia < 55 beats/minute, and intravenous immune globulin for EFE has been routinely used at our institutions to improve outcomes of these babies. The benefit of this approach has been questioned by 2 retrospective studies (Lopes Circulation 2008; Eliasson Circulation 2011). Methods: We reviewed 88 consecutive fetuses with isolated CHB in a multicenter setting (1997–2010) and compared the findings with Eliassons' and Lopes' studies. Results: The table compares our CHB cohort (''current'') with the 2 prior studies with inconsistent fetal therapy. Median follow-up of our patients is 6 years. Conclusions: We demonstrate that routine TFT was associated with significantly better survival rates when compared to occasionally treated fetal cohorts with CHB ± EFE. TFT improves outcomes and lowers the rate of late-onset cardiomyopathy likely by limiting the maternal anti-Ro antibody-mediated insult on the fetal heart.


In Chicago, the afternoon of 26 October 2016, I attended a showing of Hearts & Minds in the Electronic Visualization Lab of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Scott Rettberg, in collaboration with Roderick Coover, Arthur Nishimoto, and Daria Tsoupikova, created this 3D virtual reality theatre enactment of recollections by American soldiers who were active in the torture of political prisoners during the Iraq War. The project was based on interviews with soldiers conducted by collective violence researcher John Tsukayama. Though the identities of the soldiers were protected and their recorded words spoken by actors, the recollections took on a distinctive immediacy against the backdrop of desert landscapes interleaved with domestic American environments such as a boy's bedroom, a back yard comfortably contained within a white picket fence, as well as a kind of mosque-like space. Clips from the work can be viewed at http://www. crchange.net/hearts-and-minds/. Scott and I first met in Chicago in 1998 when he was a graduate student at the Universty of Cincinnati. We were put in touch with one another by his then dissertation director, Tom LeClair. We met near my apartment on Division Street in the Wicker Park neighborhood at Leo's Lunch Room (now long gone). Scott showed me some scribbled documents he was putting together for a not-for-profit enterprise he was calling the Electronic Literature Organization (ELO). Rettberg at the time was collaborating with Dirk Stratton and William Gillespie on a hypertext novel, The Unknown (1998-2001). It occurred to me, that day in October watching Hearts & Minds, that my friendship with Rettberg had extended over a literary period, from the era that novelist Robert Coover would eventually periodize as the "golden age" of hypertext fiction through the CAVE projects that Coover at Brown University would oversee and on to the present systematic archiving of the print and emerging, born digital literary corpus. With this shared history in mind, I suggested (over dinner later that evening at The Twisted Spoke on Ogden Avenue), that we might record our recollections of some of the formative events of the e-lit field and discuss our various projects—notably the Electronic Literature Directory (ELD) that Rettberg and Ewan Branda and I rebuilt for the ELO in 2010; and Rettberg's European "Electronic Literature Knowledge Base," the Electronic Literature as a Model for Creativity in Practice (ELMCIP). That evening, Scott and I discussed the way that the visualization of domestic and war zones managed to bring live remembrances (recorded by Tsukayama in his 2014 disseration) into a setting distinct from reportorial media, where viewers provided with 3D lenses and an instrument for clicking on objects could contemplate the actuality of events experienced by participant soldiers. Two weeks later, at an electronic literature conference in Bremen organized by Daniela Cortez Maduro, our conversation continued, this time on the topic of our respective literary databases and how they each could be seen as alternatives to the commodification of academic scholarship in for profit, subscriber platforms. In our respective presentations in Bremen, we each addressed a certain instrumentalist tendency in contemporary Digital Humanities which will be the default unless we ourselves in the academic institutions provide an alternative. Though we recognized the corporatist slant of much "digital" development, we'd also read an early draft of Henry Turner's essay, "Love Your Corporation." In Bremen, our conversation turned toward the idea, expressed by Turner that you don't supplant corporate power with anti-capitalist and anti-network rhetoric. You resist the incorporation of literary canons (and academic freedoms) by forming alternative, not for profit and Open Access networks.


ABSTRACT This paper studies the indicators of public procurement efficiency as perceived by procurers and suppliers and what barriers must be overcome to consider procurement efficient. The authors used an online survey of Russian procurers and suppliers conducted in 2020 as the main data source. Methods based on comparison of descriptive statistics and distributions of answers for different subsamples were exploited. The analysis reveals that, despite the importance of fighting corruption and increasing competition, most participants consider the supply of high-quality goods and timely contract execution the most important criteria. COVID-19 has mitigated the rigidity of the regulation but exacerbated the ambiguity problem. During the pandemic, contract execution worsened. To improve procurement efficiency, the regulator should clearly specify requirements and consider the main participants' interests.


Title: Implementation Strategy Of Waterfront Concept In Kupang CityThe vision of development of Kupang City is to develop is as the Centre of National Activities with sustainable waterfront city concept. It intends to solve problems resulting from the development of Kupang City seashore areas by orienting the development to establish seashore areas as the front gate of the city and avoiding construction of settlement building on riparian zones and seashore areas.bThe relevance of this vision is discussed using qualitative descriptive method based on data of the areas' profiles. The discussion concludes that Kupang City needs Detail Planning on Priority Areas' Spatial for riparian zones and seashore areas with development concept.


A combined methodology is presented for specifying abstract synchronous data types and proving the correctness of systolic network implementations. It is shown that an extension of the Parnas trace method of specifying software modules containing distinct access programs yields a natural method of specifying abstract synchronous data types that possess distinct access operators and are intended for implementation in VLSI. Associated systematic proof techniques are presented, and the correctness of several novel systolic network implementations of familiar data types is established. The methodology appears to be naturally suited to systolic network implementations with their associated rippling of control flow and data flow. The important distinction between systolic control-flow networks and systolic data-flow networks is presented. >


Background and aims: Terpenoids are one of the largest groups of natural compounds and is generally used for the treatment of human diseases e.g. taxol (anticancer drug) and artimesinin (antimalarial drug). Thus, these agents (terpenoids) derived from medicinal plant products that are effective against intracellular or extracellular infections and these are urgently required. Therefore, this research was directed to assess its immunosuppressive activity of crude terpenoids on hepatitis B vaccine containing surface antigen (HBsAg) on human whole blood. Methods: In this study, crude terpenoids (6.25-25 mg/ml; 50 µl) extricate from the leaves of these medicinal plants and evaluated its immunosuppressive activity on HBsAg (20 µg/ml) using human whole blood in order to determine the analysis of blood counts (flow cytometry), cytotoxicity assay (MTT (3-4,5-dimethylthiazol–2-yl-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and nitric oxide (NO) production from cell culture supernatant. Results: The results showed that these terpenoids showed drastic decrease in monocytes and granulocytes count but increased in lymphocytes count and inhibited NO production at higher doses (25 mg/ml; 50 µl). Conclusion: These terpenoids exhibited immunosuppressive activity and could be a promising source of medicinally important natural compound.


Bulk holding tanks for the storage of juice and concentrates are becoming a way of life in the Florida Citrus Processing Industry. Most of the processors in this industry either have now or are considering some form of bulk tank system. These tanks vary from a few hundred gallons up to one hundred thousand gallons capacity. Outside the State of Florida there are fruit juice holding tanks which approach three hundred thousand gallons, and the wine industry exceeds even this in tank capacity. Tanks of both vertical and horizontal structure are in use. These tanks may be made of stainless steel, coated mild steel, fiberglass reinforced resin or coated concrete. Reinforced, collapsible neoprene "cushion" tanks of up to forty thousand gallons capacity are in use.Paper published with permission.Compilation Copyright © 2018 ASME


The residual stress in thin coatings of yttria stabilised-zirconia produced by Low Pressure Plasma Spraying were measured by X-ray Diffraction, using laboratory as well as synchrotron radiation sources. The specific microstructure, with absence of texture and fine distribution of nearly equiaxed grains, point out that despite the markedly anisotropic nature of cubic zirconia, coatings can be considered as macroscopically isotropic. This picture is also confirmed by the results of a parallel study, where the X-ray elastic constants were measured in-situ along two crystallographic directions ([440] and [620]): measured values agree fairly well with those calculated from single-crystal data under the Neerfeld-Hill assumptions. SR XRD provided a detailed information on the stress field across the thickness of the zirconia coatings. In particular the presence of a stress gradient was observed and modelled. The average stress is compressive, and increases with the coating thickness. Compression tend to increase from the surface toward the inside of the coating reaching a maximum of ~-1.0 GPa in a 24 µm coating.


Environmental qualification (EQ) is a process to ensure that equipment will be capable of withstanding the ambient conditions and executing specific function that the equipment is actually called upon to be performed under accident conditions. The main purpose of EQ is to provide reasonable evidence to ensure that common cause failures will not occur. Electric penetration assemblies (EPAs) belong to EQ components and perform safety-related functions. The time limited aging analysis (TLAA) of EQ components includes all long-lived, passive and active electrical components and commodities located in a harsh environment that are important to safety. This paper takes the electric penetration assembly (EPA) of a early domestic M310 NPP as the research object, based on the components, materials, environment, aging mechanisms and effects of EPA, combined with domestic and foreign standards, specifications and latest research results of equipment qualification and operation license extension, the time limited aging analysis key method of EPA of a early domestic M310 NPP is studied, the test scheme is designed, the test sample is selected, the key parameters are determined, the supplementary environmental qualification of EPA of a early domestic M310 NPP is finished. At the same time, combined with the current management status of EQ equipment at home and abroad, some management suggestions are proposed to maintain the validity of the qualification status during the period of operation license extension.


The ability of orange peels (OP) and almond peels (AP) as adsorbents for the removal of a dyestuff, namely methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions has been studied. After their characterization by different techniques (elemental analysis, biochemical analysis, IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, mercury porosimetry), adsorption kinetics of the dye have been investigated using common kinetic models cited in the literature: first order and pseudo-second order. The correlation coefficient has showed that the pseudo-second order kinetic equation best describes the adsorption kinetics for the tested materials. The experimental equilibrium data have been analyzed using linearized forms of Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The Langmuir isotherm was found to provide the best theoretical correlation of the experimental data whatever the biosorbents tested. Using the equilibrium coefficients obtained at different temperatures, various thermodynamic parameters such as ΔG°, ΔH°, ΔS° have been calculated. The thermodynamics of MB/OP and MB/AP systems indicated spontaneous and endothermic process. It was concluded that an increase in temperature results in a higher MB loading per unit weight of OP or AP.


This paper examines the dynamic causal linkages between electricity consumption and economic growth in Nigeria within a trivariate VECM, for the period 1971-2012. The paper obviates the variable omission bias, and the use of cross-sectional techniques that characterise most existing studies. The results show that there is a distinct causal flow from electricity consumption to economic growth: both in the short run and in the long run. This finding supports the electricity-led growth hypothesis, as documented in the literature. The paper urges policy-makers in Nigeria to implement policies which enhance the generation of electricity in order to engineer economic growth. Appropriate monetary policies must also be put in place, in order to moderate inflation, thus enhancing growth.


Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) require students' motivation either intrinsically or extrinsically to complete any of its courses. Even though MOOCs enjoy great popularity and bring many benefits to the educational community, some concerns arise with MOOC advancement. In fact, MOOCs are affected by low completion rate and face issues with respect to interactivity and student engagement along MOOC duration, which may convert student excitement to boredom and then drop out at any stage. A key result of research in the past couple of years has proved that students' engagement in MOOCs is strongly related to their activities online. These activities are related to the interaction between student and logging in the MOOC, reading and writing in the MOOC discussion forum, watching videos and doing quizzes. In this research paper, we present our research in deploying a gamification mechanic in MOOCs to increase student engagement. The gamification approach relies on weekly feedback to drive student intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Following learning analytics on students' data from a MOOC offered in 2014, 2015, and 2016, the outcome of this approach showed an obvious increase in students' activity and engagement in discussion forums, login frequency and quiz trials. The active students' cohort allotment has increased in comparison with previous versions of the same MOOC as well as the completion rate has incremented up to 26% of the total number of participants.


By drastically reducing the bulk strength of crustal materials, partial-melting is one of the main parameter controlling the rheological behaviour of the continental crust. With more than ca. 50% of the outcropping surface characterised by migmatites and granites, the coastal South Armorican domain, offers an opportunity to study deep-orogenic processes and more particularly, to understand the role of partial-melting for the late-evolution of the Variscan belt. To date, time-constraints are scarce hindering the understanding of this crucial stage in the Variscan belt evolution. This paper provides 29 new U-Th/Pb chemical ages on monazite collected over five sampling areas consisting in migmatite domes and late regional classic plutons. Based on structural, textural and chemical criteria, three main U-Th/Pb age-groups are distinguished. The first group, settled at ca. 335–330 Ma concerns samples of restites and core-domains of the monazite crystals for most of the granite massifs. Its significance is ascribed to inherited crystallisation ages probably recording the crossing of prograde monazite forming reactions (i.e. metamorphic isograds) during increasing P-T conditions in an overall nappe-stacking context. The second group that clusters at ca. 325–320 Ma corresponds to newly formed monazite grains that crystallised from juvenile silicate melts. Ages of this group are interpreted as crystallisation ages of leucosomes after a major partial-melting event that affected the whole domain. The last ca. 320 Ma group corresponds to rim-domains of monazite crystals. It is interpreted as the emplacement age of most of the large-scale granite massifs and therefore fixes the end of the partial-melting event.

The inception and drastic generalisation of partial-melting at peak-P conditions therefore coincides with a major change in the tectonic regime recorded at regional-scale. In the lights of these results, this implies that (1) either continuous stacking of continental crustal units, rich in radiogenic elements, led to an increase of temperature within the orogenic wedge provoking partial-melting, the resulting drop in the crustal strength inducing collapse and lateral expansion of the belt, or (2) a drastic change of the boundary conditions has induced hot asthenospheric upwelling which in turn led to coeval extension and partial-melting. At a more local scale, strain benefited of the low-strength of the magmatic bodies prior to complete crystallisation promoting intense strain localisation within the South Armorican domain large-scale laccoliths often referred to as synkinematic plutons.


Context. The current generation of ground-based Cherenkov telescopes, together with the LAT instrument on-board the Fermi satellite, have greatly increased our knowledge of γ -ray blazars. Among them, the high-frequency-peaked BL Lacertae object (HBL) PKS 1424+240 ( z ≃ 0.6) is the farthest persistent emitter of very-high-energy (VHE; E ≥ 100 GeV) γ -ray photons. Current emission models can satisfactorily reproduce typical blazar emission assuming that the dominant emission process is synchrotron-self-Compton (SSC) in HBLs; and external-inverse-Compton (EIC) in low-frequency-peaked BL Lacertae objects and flat-spectrum-radio-quasars. Alternatively, hadronic models are also able to correctly reproduce the γ -ray emission from blazars, although they are in general disfavored for bright quasars and rapid flares. Aims. The blazar PKS 1424+240 is a rare example of a luminous HBL, and we aim to determine which is the emission process most likely responsible for its γ -ray emission. This will impact more generally our comprehension of blazar emission models, and how they are related to the luminosity of the source and the peak frequency of the spectral energy distribution. Methods. We have investigated different blazar emission models applied to the spectral energy distribution of PKS 1424+240. Among leptonic models, we study a one-zone SSC model (including a systematic study of the parameter space), a two-zone SSC model, and an EIC model. We then investigated a blazar hadronic model, and finally a scenario in which the γ -ray emission is associated with cascades in the line-of-sight produced by cosmic rays from the source. Results. After a systematic study of the parameter space of the one-zone SSC model, we conclude that this scenario is not compatible with γ -ray observations of PKS 1424+240. A two-zone SSC scenario can alleviate this issue, as well as an EIC solution. For the latter, the external photon field is assumed to be the infra-red radiation from the dusty torus, otherwise the VHE γ -ray emission would have been significantly absorbed. Alternatively, hadronic models can satisfactorily reproduce the γ -ray emission from PKS 1424+240, both as in-source emission and as cascade emission.