BACKGROUND Vedolizumab (VDZ), a humanised monoclonal antibody that selectively inhibits alpha4-beta7 integrins is approved for use in adult moderate to severe ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. AIM To assess the efficacy and safety of VDZ in the real-world management of UC in a large multicenter cohort involving two countries and to identify predictors of achieving remission. METHODS A retrospective review of Australian and Oxford, United Kingdom data for UC patients. Clinical response at 3 mo, endoscopic remission at 6 mo and clinical remission at 3, 6 and 12 mo were assessed. Cox regression models and Kaplan Meier curves were performed to assess the time to remission, time to failure and the covariates influencing them. Safety outcomes were recorded. RESULTS Three hundred and three UC patients from 14 centres in Australia and United Kingdom, [60% n = 182, anti-TNF naïve] were included. The clinical response was 79% at 3 mo with more Australian patients achieving clinical response compared to Oxford (83% vs 70% P = 0.01). Clinical remission for all patients was 56%, 62% and 60% at 3, 6 and 12 mo respectively. Anti-TNF naive patients were more likely to achieve remission than exposed patients at all the time points (3 mo 66% vs 40% P < 0.001, 6 mo 73% vs 46% P < 0.001, 12 mo 66% vs 51% P = 0.03). More Australian patients achieved endoscopic remission at 6 mo compared to Oxford (69% vs 43% P = 0.01). On multi-variate analysis, anti-TNF naïve patients were 1.8 (95%CI: 1.3-2.3) times more likely to achieve remission than anti-TNF exposed (P < 0.001). 32 patients (11%) had colectomy by 12 mo. CONCLUSION VDZ was safe and effective with 60% of UC patients achieving clinical remission at 12 mo and prior anti-TNF exposure influenced this outcome.


The work presented here aims at developing an experimental protocol based firstly on the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) method (with stereo-vision) to analyse the exact impact point and deliver full field measurements (strains and displacement) over the specimen area; and secondly on improved boundary conditions that makes it possible a structural accommodation during the impact instead of the usual rigid embedding. Impact experiments are performed on composite stiffened panels in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRPs) using a gas gun and hail projectiles taken from homogenous ice blocks. One should note that ice specimens were produced in collaboration with a laboratory specialised in the elaboration of such specific materials.


History of Tennis * Tennis Around the World * Legends of Tennis * Great Tennis Players * Famous Courts * Momentous Matches * Business of Tennis * History of the Rules of Tennis * Tennis Equipment * Culture and Politics of Tennis * Tennis Scandals and Disasters * Odd Occurrences and Trivia * Tennis Records * Tennis Chronology.


Adolescents/young adults (AYAs) afflicted with cancer face unique barriers to potentially standard curative therapies, such as blood and marrow transplantation (BMT). Transgender AYAs face additional barriers and there is a dearth of published literature regarding their oncology-related experience. We present the case of an AYA male-to-female (MTF) transgender patient on cross-sex hormone therapy, with a history of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) and significant psychosocial barriers, which initially served as a barrier to BMT at two different centers; we modified our standard consent and education process and was able to successfully proceed with BMT and subsequently cure her CML. Despite unique challenges, AYA and transgender patients with significant psychosocial barriers may achieve successful outcomes with BMT. Research is needed regarding guidelines for cross-sex hormone therapy administration for patients undergoing BMT and other issues, which may be unique to the transgender experience.


The high competitiveness in agricultural markets has generated saturation; this situation implies a constant search of innovations to achieve a better commercial performance of agricultural companies. In this sense, to improve the competitiveness of agricultural products, it is basic to know the final demand of them, wich in this case are focused in fresh apricots. Considering this, the main objective of this research is to contribute to fresh apricot industry improvement in the national and international market, through a better knowledge in customer behaviour that could be attractive and promissory for this industry both in Chile and Italy. To achieve this aim, a survey has been applied to a non probabilistic sample of Chilean and Italian consumers, and later the information has been analyzed by multivariant methods, specifically, factorial analysis, cluster and joint. In this sense, this study centres on the scientific analysis of fresh apricots consumers, in the Chilean and Italian market. In this study, the variables related to descriptive aspects of consumption, demographics characteristics, attitudes and preferences in general to the Chilean apricots were analyzed. In relation to the principal results of this study, a preference to the Chilean apricots was observed, specifically in cultivar "Robada" compared to "Castle Brite", both in national and international market.


Formation of a new centriole adjacent to a pre‐existing centriole occurs only once per cell cycle. Despite being crucial for genome integrity, the mechanisms controlling centriole biogenesis remain elusive. Here, we identify RBM14 as a novel suppressor of assembly of centriolar protein complexes. Depletion of RBM14 in human cells induces ectopic formation of centriolar protein complexes through function of the STIL/CPAP complex. Intriguingly, the formation of such structures seems not to require the cartwheel structure that normally acts as a scaffold for centriole formation, whereas they can retain pericentriolar material and microtubule nucleation activity. Moreover, we find that, upon RBM14 depletion, a part of the ectopic centriolar protein complexes in turn assemble into structures more akin to centrioles, presumably by incorporating HsSAS‐6, a cartwheel component, and cause multipolar spindle formation. We further demonstrate that such structures assemble in the cytoplasm even in the presence of pre‐existing centrioles. This study sheds light on the possibility that ectopic formation of aberrant structures related to centrioles may contribute to genome instability and tumorigenesis.


Previous studies have found underestimation of risk, or overconfidence, to be pervasive. In this paper, we model overconfidence as a reduction in perceived variance. We generalize the analysis of Sandmo and examine the effects of competition on firms displaying overconfidence. Cases for both competitive equilibrium and imperfect competition are investigated. We show that overconfidence may strictly dominate rationality in a competitive market by leading risk averse producers to invest greater amounts and produce more. This leads to a higher average profit, and greater variance of profits, leaving the producer a greater probability of surviving competitive pressures. Despite the greater variance of profits, if enough producers underestimate their risk, they should collectively drive more rational decision makers from the market. Our results suggest that overconfidence may be as important a determinant of market behavior as diminishing marginal utility of wealth.


Cloned ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) (EC 220.127.116.11) cDNA was used to investigate the mechanisms which mediate the mitogenic induction of mammalian ODC. Stimulation of quiescent BALB/c 3T3 mouse fibroblasts with purified fibroblast and platelet-derived growth factors and with the tumor promoter 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate results in a rapid and dramatic increase in ODC mRNA, similar to the increase caused by serum stimulation. Using nuclear runoff transcriptional analysis, we demonstrate that an increase in ODC transcription accounts for the mitogenic induction of ODC mRNA, and using cycloheximide together with the stimulating mitogen, we found that the mitogenic induction of ODC is dependent on ongoing protein synthesis in the stimulated cells.


Sudaryanto FX, Hardini J, Kalih LATTWS, Asrori MM, Suana IW. 2019. Bird communities and vegetation composition in Nusa Penida, Bali, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 20: 3676-3683. A study on bird community and vegetation composition in Nusa Penida was carried out to determine its diversity, conservation status, and habitat as an effort to conserve and develop birdwatching ecotourism in Nusa Penida. The study was conducted in Tembeling forest and Ped agroforestry. By using the point count method, we found 80 species of birds: 70 species in Tembeling forest and 79 species in Ped agroforestry. Fourteen species of birds are protected by Indonesian law. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, four species are Critically Endangered and one species is classified as Near Threatened. We also found eight species of migratory birds. Diversity of birds in Nusa Penida was high. Individuals of each bird species was spread evenly, except Hirundo rustica, Hirundo tahitica and Streptopelia chinensis were dominant. Twenty-five species of trees were found in Tembeling, while in Ped were found 22 species. These vegetations were provided birds with good resources for foraging, resting, and nesting.


This article describes the rise of newborn screening in the USA, where it has become a powerful tool to prevent the mortality, morbidity and disability otherwise associated with many undetected rare conditions. In an effort to improve harmonization of newborn screening across the USA, a Recommended Uniform Screening Panel (RUSP) of core conditions was proposed in 2005 that is now near universally screened for. An evidence-based procedure has been developed to assess candidate conditions nominated for addition to the RUSP. Multiple stakeholders must play a role to generate the high-quality evidence required to support successful nomination of a condition for addition to the RUSP. The nomination, and potential addition, of conditions to the RUSP, can be a difficult and lengthy process. Screening newborns for new conditions requires significant effort not only on the part of researchers to develop screening tests and treatments but also on the part of newborn screening programs to implement new testing methodologies, in quality management, follow up, diagnosis and education. Continued advances in newborn screening methodologies and development of new treatments for rare conditions not currently screened for in newborns offer exciting new avenues to prevent mortality, morbidity and disability in newborns affected with rare conditions.


Hysteretic magneto-resistance of point contacts formed between non-magnetic tips and single ferromagnetic films exchange-pinned by antiferromagnetic films is investigated. The analysis of the measured current driven and field driven hysteresis agrees with the recently proposed model of the surface spin-valve, where the spin orientation at the interface can be different from that in the bulk of the film. The switching in magneto-resistance at low fields is observed to depend significantly on the direction of the exchange pinning, which allows identifying this transition as a reversal of interior spins of the pinned ferromagnetic films. The switching at higher fields is thus due to a spin reversal in the point contact core, at the top surface of the ferromagnet, and does not exhibit any clear field offset when the exchange-pinning direction or the magnetic field direction is varied. This magnitude of the switching field of the surface spins varies substantially from contact to contact and sometimes from sweep to sweep, which suggests that the surface coercivity can change under very high current densities and/or due to the particular microstructure of the point contact. In contrast, no changes in the effect of the exchange biasing on the interior spins are observed at high currents, possibly due to the rapid drop in the current density away from nanometer sized point contact cores.


To achieve continuous customer satisfaction and sustain competency, a company must identify, evaluate, rank, and manage its supply chain risks. These risk factors and system components are linked in a complicated manner via direct and indirect relationships. This study suggests a systematic way of analyzing supply chain risks using a cognitive map (CM) approach. CMs have proven particularly useful for solving problems in which a number of decision variables and uncontrollable variables are causally interrelated.


We consider the image denoising problem using total variation (TV) regularization. This problem can be computationally challenging to solve due to the non-differentiability and non-linearity of the regularization term. We propose an alternating direction augmented Lagrangian (ADAL) method, based on a new variable splitting approach that results in subproblems that can be solved efficiently and exactly. The global convergence of the new algorithm is established for the anisotropic TV model. For the isotropic TV model, by doing further variable splitting, we are able to derive an ADAL method that is globally convergent. We compare our methods with the split Bregman method [T. Goldstein and S. Osher, The split Bregman method for l1-regularized problems, SIAM J. Imaging Sci. 2 (2009), pp. 323],which is closely related to it, and demonstrate their competitiveness in computational performance on a set of standard test images.


This paper exploits the information content of option markets to offer fresh insight into the Too-Big-to-Fail (TBTF) problem for banks. I employ option prices to construct a forward-looking measure of bank exposure to significant price drops (i.e. tail-risk) and explore cross-sectional differences between large banks with at least $50B in assets identified as systemically important and smaller banks. I document a permanent increase in the average tail-risk of the U.S. banking industry as a whole following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), except for banks above the $50B size threshold. I argue that the stark post-crisis difference in tail-risk for banks above and below the $50B threshold is consistent with the notion that the TBTF status of above 50B banks was reinforced by the series of bailouts targeted at them during the crisis and their subsequent designation as systemically important by the Dodd-Frank Act. This in turn raised investor expectations of future bailouts for above 50B banks and reduced their perceived exposure to downside risk as captured by the tail-risk measure.


The immunogenicities of candidate DNA- and modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA)-vectored human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccines were evaluated on their own and in a prime-boost regimen in phase I clinical trials in healthy uninfected individuals in the United Kingdom. Given the current lack of approaches capable of inducing broad HIV-neutralizing antibodies, the pTHr.HIVA DNA and MVA.HIVA vaccines focus solely on the induction of cell-mediated immunity. The vaccines expressed a common immunogen, HIVA, which consists of consensus HIV-1 clade A Gag p24/p17 proteins fused to a string of clade A-derived epitopes recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). Volunteers' fresh peripheral blood mononuclear cells were tested for HIV-specific responses in a validated gamma interferon enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay using four overlapping peptide pools across the Gag domain and three pools of known CTL epitopes present in all of the HIVA protein. Both the DNA and the MVA vaccines alone and in a DNA prime-MVA boost combination were safe and induced HIV-specific responses in 14 out of 18, seven out of eight and eight out of nine volunteers, respectively. These results are very encouraging and justify further vaccine development.


We report a new strategy to construct a multi-stimuli-responsive fluorescent supramolecular polymer by the strong host–guest interactions between a diselenium bond-bridged pillar[5]arene dimer and an AIE-active tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-containing neutral guest bearing two imidazole terminal binding sites. The resulting supramolecular polymer shows a remarkable fluorescence emission decrease at low concentration. Significantly, the diselenium bonds introduced into the supramolecular polymer serve as redox-responsive building blocks. Upon addition of reductants, the supramolecular polymer depolymerized owing to the cleavage of the covalent diselenium bonds in the system. On the other hand, competitive guests such as adiponitrile, which bind strongly with pillar[5]arenes, could lead the disassembly of the polymer to oligomers without breaking any covalent bonds in the system. These two types of depolymerization approaches can both result in the fluorescence intensity recovery of the system to a certain exte...


Self-harming behavior: complex, but recovery is possible

 Self-harming behavior among adolescents is an alarming phenomenon: it is a sign of underlying suffering and not knowing how to handle this. Often, there are intense and overwhelming emotions which are unbearable for these patients, or emotions can be completely absent. There are indications that the number of adolescents who self-harm is increasing. In contact with these young people the attitude of professionals is extremely important. Self-harming behavior also has a great impact on professionals, in some cases leading to a deterioration of the relationship with the patient who self-harms. In the first part of this article the phenomenon of self-harm will be described, as well as the prevalence of self-harm among adolescents. In the second part, a qualitative study regarding the patients' perspective on recovery from severe self-harming behavior is presented. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 women who had successfully stopped their severe self-harming behavior. Although the participants were adults, their problems started during adolescence, thereby influencing their recovery. The study was executed based on the grounded theory method. The researchers found that the process of stopping self-harm proceeds according to six phases. The bond between professional and patient was identified as key to all phases of the process of recovery. Interventions should focus on strengthening the therapeutic relationship between professional and patient, encouraging patients to develop a more positive self-image and stimulate them to learn alternative behavior for self-harm.


The endemic problem of unemployment poses a serious challenge to the realisation of South Africa's constitutional goals and values. One of the most glaring gaps in the assistance provided to the unemployed in South Africa is the exclusion of the long-term unemployed from any income-replacement measures. While the state's focus, when it comes to people of working age, is on job creation (rather than extending the range of social grant recipients), policy interventions to reduce unemployment tend to operate largely in the absence of a proper legal framework. For example, there is no designated right to work in the Bill of Rights. No legislation deals specifically with employment creation initiatives and few court cases have considered this issue. Without a right to work, there is a real possibility of a successful constitutional challenge to the current situation. Although this article acknowledges indirect ways to give constitutional recognition to such a right, a more direct approach is favoured in the form of the insertion in the Constitution of a limited, qualified right to unemployment security, including the right of access to employment opportunities and work. This would allow the state to limit an unemployed person's right to social assistance - the root of a potential constitutional challenge - on the basis that the state is striving, within its available resources, to progressively take reasonable legislative and other measures to create employment opportunities. In the absence of such an explicit right, the state may find it very difficult to use its attempts to create more jobs as a justification for its failure to pay social grants to the entire uncovered adult population. Significantly, constitutionalising such a right would embody transformative constitutionalism. It is argued that the Constitution should be the starting point in the quest for meaningful social change.


Blood monocytes which differentiate into tissue macrophages, are unique in that they can not only initiate immune responses but can also be effector cells which contribute to the resolution of these responses. There is no single activation phenotype, and macrophages can be induced to differentiate into cells that either exacerbate or inhibit acute inflammation. Similarly, these cells can promote, deviate or suppress adaptive immune responses. This review focuses on the mechanisms that have been implicated in the recruitment, activation and differentiation of inflammatory monocytes/macrophages in chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, i.e. ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. These mechanisms might provide attractive targets for novel therapies.


One possible origin of prebiotic organic material is that these compounds were formed via Fischer-Tropsch-type (FTT) reactions of carbon monoxide and hydrogen on silicate and oxide grains in the warm, inner-solar nebula. To investigate this possibility, an experimental system has been built in which the catalytic efficiency of different grain-analog materials can be tested. During such runs, the gas phase above these grain analogs is sampled using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. To provide quantitative estimates of the concentration of these gases, a technique in which high-resolution spectra of the gases are calculated using the High-Resolution Transmission Molecular Absorption (HITRAN) database is used. Next, these spectra are processed via a method that mimics the processes giving rise to the instrumental line shape of the FT-IR spectrometer, including apodization, self-apodization, and broadening due to the finite resolution. The result is a very close match between the measured and computed spectra. This technique was tested using four major gases found in the FTT reactions: carbon monoxide, methane, carbon dioxide, and water. For the ranges typical of the FTT reactions, the carbon monoxide results were found to be accurate to within 5% and the remaining gases accurate to within 10%. These spectra can then be used to generate synthetic calibration data, allowing the rapid computation of the gas concentrations in the FTT experiments.


PURPOSE
Dysphagia (swallowing difficulty) impacts physical health, quality of life, and mealtime enjoyment. Staff who provide mealtime assistance to people with dysphagia require adequate training to help ensure that the mealtimes are safe and enjoyable. This systematic review examined literature relating to training in dysphagia (e.g., recognizing signs and symptoms) and mealtime assistance, its components, and benefits for people with dysphagia.

METHOD
In July 2020, five scientific databases were searched for papers meeting the inclusion criteria relating to mealtime assistance training. The quality of the studies was evaluated using the Quality Assessment Tool for Studies of Diverse Design, with scores ranging from 38.1% to 83.3%. We completed a qualitative synthesis using the data extracted from the included studies.

RESULTS
Twenty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. Participants in these studies benefited from both group training and one-on-one training. Training programs had many formats including computer-based, face-to-face, individual training, and group training. Each included study demonstrated some level of positive impact to the learners, such as improved knowledge and skills in mealtime management for people with dysphagia. No studies reported negative outcomes. Training duration ranged from 30 min to 5 days.

CONCLUSIONS
The benefits of different components of mealtime training (e.g., group training, or face-to-face training) for mealtime assistance for people with dysphagia were reviewed. Further research is needed to compare the effectiveness of different training formats, involving not only the assistant but also people with dysphagia as both trainers and trainees, and determine the health outcomes of training programs for people with dysphagia.


Gradual Unpacking Eukaryotic DNA is packaged onto nucleosomes, which form the main constituent of chromatin. This packaging material presents a barrier to accessing the genome by the various machineries that need to deal with the DNA: replication, recombination, repair, and transcription complexes, for example. Hodges et al. (p. 626; see the Perspective by Otterstrom and van Oijen) use single-molecule techniques to analyze how a yeast RNA polymerase II ternary elongation complex copes when it encounters a single nucleosome directly in its path. The polymerase does not actively peel the DNA from the nucleosome's surface but, instead, waits patiently until the DNA fluctuates off the nucleosome and then advances, increment by increment, until the nucleosome is destabilized. Under certain conditions the destabilized nucleosome, rather than being lost entirely from the DNA, can be passed back to the DNA behind the polymerase. RNA polymerase acts as a molecular ratchet to force its way through nucleosome-infested DNA. RNA polymerase II (Pol II) must overcome the barriers imposed by nucleosomes during transcription elongation. We have developed an optical tweezers assay to follow individual Pol II complexes as they transcribe nucleosomal DNA. Our results indicate that the nucleosome behaves as a fluctuating barrier that locally increases pause density, slows pause recovery, and reduces the apparent pause-free velocity of Pol II. The polymerase, rather than actively separating DNA from histones, functions instead as a ratchet that rectifies nucleosomal fluctuations. We also obtained direct evidence that transcription through a nucleosome involves transfer of the core histones behind the transcribing polymerase via a transient DNA loop. The interplay between polymerase dynamics and nucleosome fluctuations provides a physical basis for the regulation of eukaryotic transcription.


Abstract In this research, different optimization models are developed to solve the preventive maintenance (PM) optimization problem in a maintainable multi-state series–parallel system. The objective is to determine for each component in the system the maintenance period minimizing a cost function under the constraint of required availability and for a specified horizon of time. Four genetic models based on the cost associated with maintenance schedule and availability characteristic parameters are constructed and analyzed. They are genetic algorithm (GA), hybridization GA and local search (GA-LS), fuzzy logic controlled GA (FLC-GA), and hybridization FLC-GA and LS. The experiment analyzes and compares the efficiency between them. These experiments investigate the effect of the parameters of the GA on the structure of optimal PM schedules in multi-state multi-component series–parallel systems. Results show that the hybridization FLC-GA and LS outperform the other algorithms.


Dental implants are considered to be effective and predictable treatment options for replacing missing teeth, with good long#term success rates. Peri#implantitis is one of the compl ications of implant treatment, which may lead to implant failure. The etiology of peri#implantitis is multifactorial, with microorgan isms playing a major role in its development. An early diagnosis and intervention should be established for effective management of peri#implantitis. Even though different treatment st rategies may have been employed, some with successful outcomes, long#term evaluation to assess the validity and reliability of the treatment techniques may be needed.


ABSTRACT Drawing on 1508 US secondary teachers' data from Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013, this study examines new and veteran US teachers' needs, support, and barriers for professional development (PD). The results indicated that both veteran and new teachers reported needing PD that addresses implementation of national/state curriculum standards or Common Core standards and technology, teaching students with special needs, and approaches to individualized learning. A larger proportion of each group also reported that they received neither a salary supplement nor non-monetary support for PD activities. However, more new teachers than veteran teachers reported receiving a salary supplement for PD activities outside working hours; veteran teachers reported more barriers for PD participation due to financial cost and lack of incentives and time outside the school contract. This study provided implications for PD design and implementation in the US context.


Defining the concept and the essence of the general principles of criminal law is important for the international law, since such definitions allow laying down the international general principles of the criminal law that should be embodied in the national criminal law. The purpose of this research is to define the essence and significance of the principles of criminal law at the national and international levels, as well as to work out the issue concerning their regulation by the current criminal law of Ukraine. Since the principles of criminal law are important for drafting the most effective criminal regulations, while the very criminal law requires a constitution to be extended to the matter and an enhanced globalization process, we consider it necessary to settle a separate international criminal law establishing the concept and the essence of the principles of criminal law. In particular, we propose to extend the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms with a separate law establishing the general principles inherent in the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. This recommendation is universally applicable, so it may be realized in the national criminal law, including the Criminal Code of Ukraine. This change will contribute to more effective international and national criminal law enforcement, will bring the law enforcement protection to a new level and will open new prospects for further research in the field of criminal law science, particularly on shaping the u


A new tunable laser based on a photoresponsive chiral liquid crystal emulsion is reported. Such a laser can be reversibly photo-tuned in a wide spectral range of 112 nm (566–678 nm), and it simultaneously possesses stable emission performance and quasi-continuous tunability. Typically, unlike the conventional liquid crystal laser, the proposed laser can be fabricated by simply coating the material on a single substrate, which will simplify the production process and broaden the application of liquid crystal laser. In addition, the mechanisms of tunability are explored on a molecular scale. The studies reveal that the molecular conformation transition of a photosensitive chiral switch during isomerization leads to changes in not only the molecular geometry and the direction of dipole moment, but also the molecular interactions and the miscibility of the materials. These changes cause the rearrangement of liquid crystals, thus rendering the variation of helical twisted power and achieving tuning on the photonic band-edge of the chiral liquid crystal, consequently forming a photo-tunable laser.


Objective: to understand the obstacles to entrepreneurship in the public university management of nursing and the strategies to overcome them. Methods: it is a qualitative research with the theoretical-methodological contribution of Grounded Theory. Intensive interviews were conducted with 27 participants divided into three sample groups. Results: the obstacles to entrepreneurship in the university public nursing management are the bureaucratic management model, the lack of resources and infrastructure, the multiplicity of teaching activities, the lack of knowledge in entrepreneurship and university management and the difficulty in managing people. The strategies are the dissemination of entrepreneurship, the search for theoretical knowledge and the incentive to entrepreneurship in the academic community. Conclusion: the obstacles to entrepreneurship in the university public nursing management are organizational and personal and the strategies are education and dissemination of entrepreneurship.


The construction industry is facing increased challenges and becoming more and more complex due to number of factors. Whether it is constructing a Building, Infrastructure or Industrial plant, the challenges remain there in every type of the project. This results in delays, waste, overruns and claims. So we need to develop new ways of doing things to manage the construction process. Adopting lean manufacturing principles in construction industry is an effective approach to bring improvements in design, procurement and construction to reap benefits and add value to the project. Using Technology is critical in the advancement of Lean Construction. This paper aims to discuss the need of Lean for our construction business and how technology is used within our organisation to achieve lean principles.


The optimal control of denitrification system in coal-fired power plants in China has recently received widespread attention. The accurate prediction of denitrification efficiency and formulate control strategy of denitrification efficiency can guide the control and operation of the denitrification system better. Meanwhile, it can achieve the effect of energy conservation and Nitrogen oxides (NOx) reduction. In this paper, we take a domestic 1000 MW unit as an example, consider each of the major factors that affect the denitrification efficiency of selective catalytic reduction (SCR). We put forward a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) model by combining the Long short-term memory (LSTM) model and the Asynchronous Advantage Actor - Critic algorithm (A3C). We first use the LSTM to build a prediction model for denitrification efficiency. We then use the DRL model to obtain a control strategy for SCR denitrification efficiency in coal-fired power plants. The experimental results demonstrate that the accuracy of denitrification efficiency prediction model we established is better than other machine learning models, reaching 91.7%. Our control strategy model is industrially feasible and universally applicable.


This research takes place in the AIDE 1 project [1] and is an extension of the INRETS-LESCOT previous work done in CEMVOCAS 2 project [2]. Synthetically, LESCOT objective in AIDE is to design and develop a Drivers Availability Estimator module (DAE) in charge to assess drivers' ability to receive and process information while driving. In order to study drivers' level of availability, an experiment has been conducted on open road, in real driving conditions. This paper will present the methodology carried out and the data collected. Thirty drivers have participated to this experiment. They had to drive an experimental car by using a guidance system. They also had to describe visual and auditory information displayed by a home made device introduced on the car. After driving, participants were interviewed in order to collect their opinion concerning the message impact on the primary driving task. This paper will present the method used and the main results obtained. Then, we will discuss the concept of "availability" according to the driving conditions (current road infrastructure, goal followed, driving action carried out and event occurrences), and we will present the interest and the validity of this method for "demanding driving situation" classification, witch is the main goal of the DAE module diagnosis.


'Making and working' describes the organization of the Wealth of Nations, which provides an account of economic growth or development that also accounts for the increase in social and individual well-being. Smith identified four types of society, developing through hunter, shepherd, agricultural, and commercial stages. The division of labour is discussed, along with the relation between price and value. Labour, land, and stock comprise the three components of the natural price. In the form of wages, rent, and profit this provides Smith with a basic division of income sources, establishing three corresponding 'orders of people'—workers, merchants or manufacturers, and renters/farmers—each an equal component of society, but with differing relationships to the public or general interest.


The success of laparoscopic cholecystectomy has resulted in the broad application of minimally invasive techniques in many surgery specialties. The theoretical advantages of laparoscopy over conventional open operations, including less postoperative pain, faster overall recovery, and better cosmetic results have been achieved leading to its acceptance by surgeons and the public alike. Numerous abdominal procedures have been adapted to minimally invasive approaches including bowel resection, inguinal and ventral hernia repair, anti-reflux techniques, and solid organ removal such as splenectomy.


In recent years the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries have increased the usage of camphene, an intermediate for the manufacture of, for instance, camphor, anti-swelling drugs and K vitamin. Therefore, recent research efforts have been focused on developing new reaction paths towards a higher selectivity to camphene while avoiding other terpene by-products, such as p-cumene and limonene, which are of little industrial value. The aim of the present work was to study the structure and catalytic performance of Al- and Ga- substituted MCM-41 mesoporous materials for the α-pinene isomerization reaction. Both, Al and Ga, enhance the Brönsted and Lewis acidity of the parental MCM-41 material. At low conversion (± 10%) there was little deactivation, mainly due to the absence of secondary reactions; at higher conversion (± 50%) considerable amount of cyclic products are obtained.


UNLABELLED Lectures and demonstrations have been the teaching and testing strategies most often employed by the American Heart Association in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) training. I compared the abilities of interactive videodisc (IVD) courseware and ACLS instructors to evaluate airway management skills. METHODS & MATERIALS Twenty-two subjects were simultaneously tested during 30 attempts at endotracheal (ET) intubation and 34 attempts at esophageal obturator airway or esophageal gastric tube airway (EOA/EGTA) insertion. The instructors were blind to the visual and auditory messages produced. RESULTS The IVD program and the ACLS instructors showed high agreement in their evaluation of student performance for time of intubation (95.5% ET; 100% EOA/EGTA), proper tube placement (91% ET; 93% EOA/EGTA), appropriate tube assessment (95.5% ET; 100% EOA/EGTA), and correct EOA/EGTA cuff inflation (100%). Lower levels of agreement were noted with ET and EOA/EGTA appropriate head positioning, and the evaluation of tooth pressure with ET intubation (60.5%, 76.5%, and 66.0%, respectively). The IVD system was unable to detect certain procedural errors associated with appropriate intubation procedure--syringe attachment, syringe removal after cuff inflation, and control of tube after intubation. The low agreement for tooth pressure suggests that the sensor-equipped manikin may better evaluate tooth pressure than does the observer. CONCLUSIONS Although the IVD system shows promise as an adjunct method for instruction and testing, it cannot be considered suitable for 'stand-alone' instruction. Further research is needed to explore costs, skills retention, and possible impact of the medium for training hospital and prehospital-care personnel.


PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 μm in diameter) is considered as a harmful carcinogen. Determining the precise relationship between the chemical constituents of PM2.5 in the air and cancer progression could aid the treatment of environment related disease and establishing risk reduction strategies. Herein, we used transcriptomics (RNA-seq) and an integrated microfluidic system to identify the global gene expression and differential target proteins expression induced by ambient fine particles collected from the heavy haze in China. The results clearly indicated that cancer related pathways exhibited the strongest dysregulation. The ambient fine particles could be uptaken into the cells by pinocytosis, mainly promoting the PI3K-Akt pathway, FGF/FGFR/MAPK/VEGF signaling, and the JAK-STAT pathway, leading to evading apoptosis, sustained angiogenesis, and cell proliferation, which are the most important hallmarks of cancer. And fine particles also have been demonstrated to create intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and mitochondrial ROS, change intracellular free Ca2+, and induce apoptosis, which are all key players in mediating cancer progression. It was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that the particles from the haze could enter the mitochondria, resulting in disturbance of the mitochondrial membrane and disruption of the mitochondria, and these particles can even enter inside the nucleus. It was also found in our study of organics (OC, PAHs) and metals (Zn, As, V) that compounds of fine particles were more closely associated with the exacerbation of cancer and secondary aerosols generated by traffic had the largest impact on cancer related signal transductions.


Summary: The present study explores the amphipod assemblages of six marine caves on the Mediterranean coast of southern Spain. Replicate samples were taken both inside and outside each marine cave in order to characterize the amphipod fauna and the physicochemical properties of the sediment. As a result, 44 amphipods species were identified. The high number of species found in a relatively limited area highlighted the richness of the Alboran Sea fauna, which is mainly due to the mixture of species from different biogeographic areas. Harpinia genus was the dominant amphipod taxa inside marine caves and Perioculodes longimanus was also very abundant in the caverns. On the other hand, external communities were dominated by Siphonoecetes sabatieri, Metaphoxus fultoni and Photis longipes. There was a high degree of variability in both the internal and the external stations. Only the external station situated at low-medium depth showed a relatively homogeneous amphipod assemblage. The structure and behaviour of soft-bottom communities inside marine caves is difficult to predict because their environmental conditions depend on a particular combination of factors such as topography, depth and orientation. Therefore, no constant patterns were observed for species richness, Shannon diversity and abundance of amphipods in marine caves in comparison with open habitats. According to canonical correspondence analysis, sediment granulometry, organic matter and nitrogen concentration were the parameters that best explained the distribution of amphipods. Species were also classified by their tolerance to environmental pollution according to criteria followed by the Azti Marine Biotic Index and the BENTIX index. The great abundance of sensitive species at both the internal and external stations indicates the good ecological quality of the soft bottom studied. However, the suitability of biotic indices in marine caves should be tested in future studies.


Metabolic encephalopathy is a rare but serious complication of valproic acid (VPA) therapy that usually presents with impaired consciousness or increased seizure frequency. Although it has been suggested that topiramate (TPM) increases the risk of VPA‐induced encephalopathy, the additional risk in patients receiving TPM therapy has not been evaluated. We reviewed all adult patients who took VPA between January 2005 and February 2009 at the Seoul National University Hospital and identified patients with VPA‐induced encephalopathy based on clinical and electroencephalography (EEG) data. Information on sex, age, serum ammonia level, serum VPA level, liver function test, and EEG was collected from patient registry and medical data. We enrolled 8,372 patients who received VPA therapy and 1,236 patients who received VPA/TPM combination therapy. We identified 11 patients with VPA‐induced encephalopathy (0.13%), 7 of whom received a combination therapy of VPA and TPM. The odds ratio of VPA‐induced encephalopathy with TPM over that without TPM was 10.16. There were no significant differences in sex distribution, number of antiepileptic agents, ammonia level, VPA serum level, underlying diseases, dosage of VPA, duration of VPA treatment, treatment of encephalopathy, and outcomes between the two groups. Our study showed that the prevalence of VPA‐induced encephalopathy is approximately 0.1% among patients treated with VPA and that the risk of this condition, although still low, can increase by approximately 10 times in the presence of TPM therapy. Based on these results, we suggest that TPM should be carefully used in patients receiving VPA treatment.


A sociological analysis was conducted into the collective nature of coaching as manifest in the triangular interaction between coach, athlete, and context within English professional youth soccer. The work of Pierre Bourdieu is predominantly used to interpret data collected ethnographically over the course of a 10-month season. Findings show how an authoritarian discourse is established and maintained, how it is structured by and subsequently structures the coaching context, and how accompanying behaviors are misrecognized as legitimate by both coaches and players. We conclude by reflecting on the limits of such work and its implications for future coaching education.


Carbon isotope data from Upper Cambrian sections in three Laurentian basins in northern Utah, central Iowa, and western Newfoundland record a large positive d 13 C excursion (SPICE event) of up to 1 5‰. Peak d 13 C ratios are well dated by trilobite collections to the middle of the Steptoean Stage (Dunderbergia Zone) and occur during maximum regression associated with formation of the Sauk II- Sauk III subsequence boundary on the North American craton. Max- imum regression was marked by an influx of quartz sand into carbon- ate-platform settings in all three widely separated basins. In northern Utah, this quartz sand formed a thick sequence known as the Worm Creek Quartzite, which marks a conspicuous interruption of carbonate deposition during the Middle to Late Cambrian in the region. In west- ern Newfoundland, the thickness of the quartz sand unit is much re- duced but still marks a brief shutdown of the carbonate factory that is unique to the Cambrian shelf succession of the area. In the central Iowa area of the cratonic interior, an upward-shallowing carbonate succession culminates in cross-stratified trilobite grainstones at the peak of the SPICE in Dunderbergia Zone time, and the lowest point on the relative-sea-level curve is associated with the occurrence of coarse quartz sand derived from the encroaching shoreface. Although it is difficult to determine precisely the departure from baseline d 13 C that marks the beginning of the SPICE excursion in the stratigraphic successions analyzed, our results are consistent with a rise and subsequent fall in d 13 C tracking a major regressive-transgressive event recorded across northern Laurentia. The correlation of a major d 13 C excursion with regression is similar to that described for the Late Ordovician, for which the pattern has been attributed to either in- creased carbonate relative to terrigenous weathering rates as ice sheets covered up organic-matter-containing silicates at high latitudes or high productivity and organic-carbon burial driven by oceanic overturn. The lack of known Steptoean-age ice sheets that could have affected the ratio of carbonate to silicate weathering rates suggests that organic- carbon burial was the likely cause of the SPICE event. We suggest that increased weathering and erosion rates during relative sea-level fall (Sauk II-III) increased the burial fraction of organic carbon in an expanded region of fine-grained siliciclastic deposits in shelf and upper slope environments during the Steptoean.


This article identifies how from their textual properties and from the pragmatic dimension of language the historical and the fictional have distanced and again found in cultural production. The text synthesizes and relates conceptual elements that have been exposed as constituting two modes of discursive production: the fictional writing and the historical writing. The text addresses issues such as the alleged distinction between history and fiction, the overlap in the use of textual and rhetorical resources and the boundary of the two domains in accordance with the covenants of reading that they have developed historically. The text aims to highlight that concepts like verisimilitude, veracity, narrative, subjectivity and relationship sign-historical order have been taken as criteria approach and differentiation between the two.


Locomotor Ataxia is the most frequent affection of the spinal cord. The preataxic stage, although easily recognized, is easily overlooked as the result of a hasty diagnosis. During this stage the disease is curable if appropriate treatment is instituted, otherwise the patient gradually drifts into the second or ataxic stage, when the derangement of the nervous system is so manifest that a mistake in the diagnosis is then hardly possible, for he falls into the hands of a specialist in diseases of the nervous system, only to be told that he is beyond the possibility of a cure. The elements that enter into the diagnosis of the praetaxic stage, therefore, are of momentous importance, and are: first , sensory disturbances, as lightning pains; second , disturbances in patellar-tendon reflex; third , disturbances in pupillary reflex; fourth , disturbances in vesical reflex; fifth , disturbances in sexual condition; sixth , disturbances in gastric functions; seventh , disturbances in


There is a lack of an objective performance evaluation method for quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) algorithms. We present a novel approach to an accurate and objective performance evaluation. A simulation tool used to generate synthetic angiograms of a single coronary artery with a known centerline and diameter function is developed. It is used for an objective comparison of two QCA algorithms,.


The analysis of circuits in the retina revealed by three-dimensional reconstructions (Sjöstrand, 1958, 1974, 1976,1978, 1990) is presented in a simplified way by series of schematic drawings illustrating each individual step in the sequence of synaptic transmission between the neurones. In addition, the analysis has been extended further compared to earlier presentation (Sjöstrand, 1998a). The circuit of the synaptic ribbon complex controls transmission between cones and bipolar cells by the inhibitory input from horizontal cells being controlled by the cone. At low light intensity, horizontal cell inhibition blocks transmission between cones and bipolar cells because of high concentration of transmitter at the critical synapse, explaining fading of cone vision. The requirement for maintaining a low transmitter concentration at the synapses to secure proportionality between input and output signals is established by horizontal cell inhibitory input both at the cone-bipolar cell and the cone-horizontal cell synapses. How one bipolar cell can transmit information regarding average light intensity over a large area of the retina is discussed in detail.


Phosphine is now well-established as a biosignature, which has risen to prominence with its recent tentative detection on Venus. To follow up this discovery and related future exoplanet biosignature detections, it is important to spectroscopically detect the presence of phosphorus-bearing atmospheric molecules that could be involved in the chemical networks producing, destroying or reacting with phosphine. We start by enumerating phosphorus-bearing molecules (P-molecules) that could potentially be detected spectroscopically in planetary atmospheres and collecting all available spectral data. Gaseous P-molecules are rare, with speciation information scarce. Very few molecules have high accuracy spectral data from experiment or theory; instead, the best current spectral data was obtained using a high-throughput computational algorithm, RASCALL, relying on functional group theory to efficiently produce approximate spectral data for arbitrary molecules based on their component functional groups. Here, we present a high-throughput approach utilizing established computational quantum chemistry methods (CQC) to produce a database of approximate infrared spectra for 958 P-molecules. These data are of interest for astronomy and astrochemistry (importantly identifying potential ambiguities in molecular assignments), improving RASCALL's underlying data, big data spectral analysis and future machine learning applications. However, this data will probably not be sufficiently accurate for secure experimental detections of specific molecules within complex gaseous mixtures in laboratory or astronomy settings. We chose the strongly performing harmonic ωB97X-D/def2-SVPD model chemistry for all molecules and test the more sophisticated and time-consuming GVPT2 anharmonic model chemistry for 250 smaller molecules. Limitations to our automated approach, particularly for the less robust GVPT2 method, are considered along with pathways to future improvements. Our CQC calculations significantly improve on existing RASCALL data by providing quantitative intensities, new data in the fingerprint region (crucial for molecular identification) and higher frequency regions (overtones, combination bands), and improved data for fundamental transitions based on the specific chemical environment. As the spectroscopy of most P-molecules have never been studied outside RASCALL and this approach, the new data in this paper is the most accurate spectral data available for most P-molecules and represent a significant advance in the understanding of the spectroscopic behavior of these molecules.


Title: "But no one wants to wear clothes: Oh mother, let us always go naked!" Mollie Faustman's Portrayal of Naked Children The Swedish modernist artist Mollie Faustman (1883–1966) depicted the child throughout her artistic practice as a painter, as a writer for adults as well as for children, and in her narratives she made picture and text interact. The focus of this article is the nude and the naked child in Faustman's writing for adults (causerie) and children (cartoons) for the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter in the 1920s. The preschool girl Tuttan and her younger brother Putte appear in both types of narrative. The article discusses the naked child body in terms of vitalism and naturism, and within the context of both literary and art criticism. The iconotext reading shows the complexity of how Faustman uses the naked body to embrace a vast spectrum of feelings. In the cartoons, she portrays and visualizes the siblings' rivaly and play in the portrayal of their naked bodies. In her texts for adults, on the other hand, the naked and naive body functions as an image of mother love.


The private and the social functions of contracts and of contract law are examined in this entry. In section 1, on the basic theory of contracts, the topics considered include contract formation, why contract enforcement is valuable, the incompleteness of contracts, the interpretation of contracts, remedies for breach, renegotiation of contracts, and judicial overriding of contracts. In section 2, the economic literature on production contracts is reviewed, and in section 3 other types of contract are discussed.


Introduction The cholesterol profile is an important modifiable risk factor for CAD and our understanding of atherosclerosis has helped develop drugs that have significantly impacted treatment outcomes of CAD by lowering cholesterol levels. A study to find a correlation between the cholesterol profile and the number of vessels involved with CAD was our objective. Hypothesis Patients with significant CAD (defined as >50% stenosis on coronary angiography) in 2 or more vessels had worse cholesterol profiles compared to single vessel. A subset of the study looked to see if the use of statins affected the severity of CAD. Methods A retrospective review of 498 patients from our hospitals cardiac registry was done. The cholesterol profile of these patients done either during the admission for cardiac catherization or the most recent one was used to correlate. The catheterization reports were reviewed to find the number of vessels involved with >50% stenosis and a CAD severity score was calculated using the gensini scoring system. We also reviewed the patients medication reconciliation forms to see if they had been on statins. Results We could not correlate between the number of vessels affected with significant CAD and the cholesterol profile. Using One way ANOVA analysis neither the Tc/HDL ratio ( p value 0.692) or LDL (p value=0.458) or the HDL levels( p value=0.588) had any association to the number of coronary vessels affected with CAD. In our study subset, the use of statins did not lower the gensini scores significantly as compared to patients who were not on statins (p value 0.95). Conclusions The cholesterol profile bears no correlation with the number of vessels affected by CAD. Based on our findings, taking statins did not significantly influence the severity of CAD.


Spent mycelia of Blakeslea trispora recovered from a previous fermentation enhanced carotene production by mated cultures of the same organism. Peak yields of 107 to 142 mg of carotene per 100 ml of medium were achieved in 6 days. β-Carotene constituted 92% of the total carotenoids produced. The enhancing substance was found present in an aqueous extract of the mycelium. Part of its activity was due to an organic acid fraction. Other microbial cells, molds, yeasts, and bacteria were also capable of enhancing carotene production.


This paper provides an analysis of aggregate behavioural outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects. We study generalized logistic models of individual choice which incorporate terms reflecting the desire of individuals to conform to the behaviour of others in an environment of noncooperative decisionmaking. Laws of large numbers are generated in such environments. Multiplicity of equilibria in these models, which are equivalent to the existence of multiple self-consistent means for average choice behaviour, will exist when the social interactions exceed a particular threshold. Local stability of these multiple equilibria is also studied. The properties of the noncooperative economy are contrasted with the properties of an economy in which a social planner determines the set of individual choices. Finally, a likelihood function based on the theoretical model is given and conditions for the econometric identifiability of the model are established.


Two series of mullite single crystal plates of thicknesses between 0.9 and 1.9 mm were exposed up to 12 h to a slowly flowing water rich gas mixture (O2/H2O = 80/20; 100 ml/min) at temperatures of 1670°C. The heat treated samples show up to about 50 μm into the mullite a partial surface decomposition. Decomposition products are sodium containing silicon-rich aluminosilicate glass and α-alumina within melt cavities. Concentration profiles through the plate cross sections show the effect of inward and outward diffusion of OH forming species and Na and Mg impurity enrichment on ppm level in the bulk.


Studies in our group have shown that α'-oxy enones react in the presence of Bronsted base catalysts with 3-substituted oxindoles, cyanoesters, 5H-oxazol-4-ones, 1H-imidazol-4-(5H)-ones and azlactones to give the corresponding 1,5-dicarbonyl Michael adducts with a fully substituted carbon center in high enantioselectivity. For example, the reaction between azlactones 2 and enone 1 is efficiently promoted by catalyst C1 to led, after desilylation, to the corresponding products 3 with good yields and ee's. In each case, reactions proceed with high site selectivity and no products from reaction at the C2-possition of the azlactone ring are observed. Besides their utility for the installation of aldehyde and ketone functionality, α'-oxy enones, through simple oxidative cleavage of the ketol moiety in the resulting adducts, act as α-β-unsaturated carboxylic acid surrogates for which successful methodologies are notably deficient.


This paper presents a sign language recognition system based on color stream and skeleton points. Several approaches have been established to address sign language recognition problems. However, most of the previous approaches still have poor recognition accuracy. The proposed approach uses Kinect sensor based on color stream and skeleton points from the depth stream to improved recognition accuracy. Techniques within this approach use hand trajectories and hand shapes in combating sign recognition challenges. Therefore, for a particular sign a representative feature vector is extracted, which consists of hand trajectories and hand shapes. A sparse dictionary learning algorithm, Label Consistent K-SVD (LC-KSVD) is applied to obtain a discriminative dictionary. Based on that, the system was further developed to a new classification approach for better results. The proposed system was fairly evaluated based on 21 sign words including one-handed signs and two-handed signs. It was observed that the proposed system gets high recognition accuracy of 98.25%, and obtained an average accuracy of 95.34% for signer independent recognition.


This case involves the decision to move investment funds to a new fund manager. The new fund has high percentage of its assets in nontraditional assets such as hedge funds and private equity. The learning objectives of the case are to provide background on the different types of assets available for investment by large endowment portfolios. The case also provides an opportunity to discuss market efficiency and the risk return trades involved with nontraditional assets.


When faced with imbalanced domains, practitioners have one of two choices; if the imbalance is manageable, sampling or other corrective measures can be utilized in conjunction with binary classifiers (BCs). Beyond a certain point, however, the imbalance becomes too extreme and one-class classifiers (OCCs) are required. Whilst the literature offers many advances in terms of algorithms and understanding, there remains a need to connect our theoretical advances to the most practical of decisions. Specifically, given a dataset with some level of complexity and imbalance, which classification approach should be applied? In this paper, we establish a relationship between these facets in order to help guide the decision regarding when to apply OCC versus BC. Our results show that sampling provides an edge over OCCs on complex domains. Alternatively, OCCs are a good choice on less complex domains that exhibit unimodal properties. Class overlap, on the other hand, has a more uniform impact across all methods.


Robots operating in human-centered environments should have the ability to understand how objects function: what can be done with each object, where this interaction may occur, and how the object is used to achieve a goal. To this end, we propose a novel approach that extracts a self-supervised visual affordance model from human teleoperated play data and leverages it to enable efficient policy learning and motion planning. We combine model-based planning with model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) to learn policies that favor the same object regions favored by people, while requiring minimal robot interactions with the environment. We evaluate our algorithm, Visual Affordance-guided Policy Optimization (VAPO), with both diverse simulation manipulation tasks and real world robot tidy-up experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our affordance-guided policies. We find that our policies train 4 × faster than the baselines and generalize better to novel objects because our visual affordance model can anticipate their affordance regions.


Redhaven' peach trees (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch.) on their own roots or budded to seven rootstock ('Bailey', 'Siberian C', 'Lovell', 'Halford' (seedlings), GF 655.2, GF 677 ('Amandier'), or 'Damas' (GF 1869) (clonal)) were evaluated for root- stock influence on flower bud hardiness, live pistils at bloom, thinning requirements, marketable yield, and production efficiency after exposure to temperatures lower than - 23C in 1987 and to - 26C in 1988. In 1987, flower bud hardiness was as great on 'Siberian C' as on own-rooted 'Redhaven' and greater than on the other rootstock. Fewer live pistils were observed during bloom on GF 677 than on 'Siberian C', 'Lovell', 'Damas', or self-rooted trees in 1987. In 1988, flower bud hardiness was greater on 'Siberian C' and 'Bailey' than on GF 677. At bloom, 'Lovell' and 'Siberian C' rootstock carried more flowers with live pistils than 'Damas'. 'Siberian C' and 'Lovell' required significantly greater fruit thinning than all other rootstock and self-rooted trees. GF 677 produced a larger marketable crop than GF 655.2 or 'Damas'. In addition, 'Bailey', 'Lovell', and self-rooted trees produced a significantly larger crop than 'Damas'. No significant rootstock effect on production efficiency was detected in either year. Tree vigor during the growing season preceding each freeze did not significantly influence flower bud survival or productivity.


Konrad H. Jarausch studies the social structure of the German university and the mentality of its students during the Imperial period as an example of a wider European academic desertion of liberalism. He finds that German higher education combined scientific world leadership and competent professional training with an eroding liberal education (Bildung) to create an educated class that was tragically susceptible to the appeal of the Third Reich.Originally published in 1982.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Random effects are implemented for aster models using two approximations taken from Breslow and Clayton [J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 88 (1993) 9–25]. Random effects are analytically integrated out of the Laplace approximation to the complete data log likelihood, giving a closed-form expression for an approximate missing data log likelihood. Third and higher derivatives of the complete data log likelihood with respect to the random effects are ignored, giving a closedform expression for second derivatives of the approximate missing data log likelihood, hence approximate observed Fisher information. This method is applicable to any exponential family random effects model. It is implemented in the CRAN package aster (R Core Team [R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (2012) R Foundation for Statistical Computing], Geyer [R package aster (2012) http://cran.r-project.org/package=aster]). Applications are analyses of local adaptation in the invasive California wild radish (Raphanus sativus) and the slender wild oat (Avena barbata) and of additive genetic variance for fitness in the partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata).


We provide achievability as well as converse results for the degrees of freedom region of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) X channel, i.e., a system with two transmitters, two receivers, each equipped with multiple antennas, where independent messages need to be conveyed over fixed channels from each transmitter to each receiver. The inner and outer bounds on the degrees of freedom region are tight whenever integer degrees of freedom are optimal for each message. With M = 1 antennas at each node, we find that the total (sum rate) degrees of freedom are bounded above and below as 1 les eta*x les 4/3. If M > 1 and channel matrices are nondegenerate then the precise degrees of freedom eta*x = (4/3)M. Thus, the MIMO X channel has noninteger degrees of freedom when M is not a multiple of 3. Simple zero forcing without dirty paper encoding or successive decoding, suffices to achieve the (4/3)M degrees of freedom. If the channels vary with time/frequency then the channel with single antennas (M = 1) at all nodes has exactly 4/3 degrees of freedom. The key idea for the achievability of the degrees of freedom is interference alignment-i.e., signal spaces are aligned at receivers where they constitute interference while they are separable at receivers where they are desired. We also explore the increase in degrees of freedom when some of the messages are made available to a transmitter or receiver in the manner of cognitive radio.


at all excessive. A working-class family of ten niight have a dozen towels; I have known as few as four. When, therefore, we encounter a disease so infectious that its very name means ""a rushing on," the first thing to do is to order separate towels. This may sound faddy to some people, but if, instead of thinking in terms of ointments and tablets, we apply our surgical knowledge of infection, the niecessity is obvious.-I am, etc.,


There is a growing concern about secondary school students' poor performance in geography, a subject that is prerequisite for many professional pursuits. To enhance their performance in the subject, several strategies have been adopted. This study is an intervention, which investigated relative effects of computer instructional modes (computer graphics and animations computer) on secondary school students' achievement in geography. The moderator variable was mental ability. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The pre-test, post-test control group quasi-experimental design, involving 3x2 factorial matrix was adopted for the study. One hundred and four senior secondary two geography students from three secondary schools in Lagos state constituted the sample for the study, which lasted for eight weeks. Two procedural instruments (computer graphics and animation instructional packages) and two measuring instruments, namely Geography Achievement Test r = 0.79, and Mental Ability Test r=0.88 were used. The data collected were analysed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The magnitude of the students' post-test achievement scores was determined using Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA), while Scheffe post-hoc analysis was used to explain the direction and source of significant effects. Findings showed that there were significant main effects of instructional mode on the students' achievement in geography (F (2, 91) = 14.414, p< 0.05). There was no significant interaction effect of treatment and mental ability on students' achievement in geography. Consequently, it was recommended that the computer instructional modes be used alongside with conventional method in the teaching of geography.


Summary
Endamoeba histolytica cysts, NRS strain, were exposed to temperatures of 45° to 54.5°C. in a thermostatically-controlled water bath for varying time intervals. The cysts were suspended in a concentration of 2,000 per ml. in 15 to 35 ml. of distilled water at a pH varying from 6.5 to 7.0. The criterion for cyst destruction was the subsequent inability of heated cysts to establish growth in culture. Some estimate of the amount of cyst destruction by heating was obtained by a comparison with growth results of known numbers of unheated control cysts. Failure to obtain cultures in any of 5 tubes inoculated with 1,000 treated cysts each was taken as indicative of 100 per cent destruction.
In experiments at 45°C., the time required for complete cyst destruction was variable, but in all instances was more than 2 hours. At temperatures of 46°C. to 47°C., all cysts were destroyed within 1 hour. At a temperature of 48°C., cyst destruction was complete by 30 minutes. At 49° to 50°C., complete cyst destruction was effected within 10 minutes. At 51°C., all cysts were destroyed within 5 minutes. At temperatures of 52°C. and 54.5°C., all cysts were destroyed within 1 minute.
It was noted that, at the lower temperatures, the time required for complete destruction was considerably in excess of the time required for approximately 99 per cent destruction. At the higher temperatures, this lag was proportionately less marked.


Objective To investigate the relationship between vascular endothelial dysfunction and serum homocysteine (HCY)level in patients with coronary lesions.Methods Serum HCY, serum nitric oxide (NO), plasma endothelin-1 (ET-l), and circulation endothelial cell (CEC) were measured in 76 patients who received coronary angiography. Fifty-four patients with a stenosis of 50% or more at least in one coronary atery were as coronary artery disease (CAD) group. Other 22 cases with no recognizable plaque and/or stenosis were as control group. HCY level was detected using an enzyme immunoassay kit. NO concentration was measured using a nitrate reductase kit. Radio-immunoassay was applied to analyse the ET-1 level, and CEC was measured by flow cytometry.Results The levels of HCY, ET-l, and CEC in patients with coronary lesions were significantly increased in comparison with control group (P < 0.01), while NO level in CAD group was significantly lower compared with that in control (P <0.01). Using a multivariate stepwise regression analysis, HCY level had a positive correlation with ET-1 level (r = 0.420, P <0.05) and CECs number (r = 0.423, P < 0.05); and had a negative correlation with NO/ET-1 (r = -0.403, P < 0.05). But there was no significant correlation between HCY and NO levels.C, onclusions HCY might lead to endothelial cell injury, which would provide a plausible mechanism for the relationship between hyperhomocysteinemia and development of coronary artery disease. HCY can be considered as a predictor for preliminary or active coronary lesion.


Pediatric patients with cancer are at high risk for severe infections and delayed treatment increases mortality. Infections can trigger changes of vital signs long before clinical symptoms arise. Continuous recording may detect such changes earlier than discrete measurements. This is the protocol for an investigator-initiated, single-center observational pilot study on the feasibility of continuous monitoring of health data with a wearable device (WD) in pediatric patients undergoing chemotherapy of cancer. A total of 20 patients will be included, including at least 4 patients <6 years. Each patient will wear the WD for 14 days and we expect study duration of three to four months. The protocol had been registered at www.clinicaltrials.com (NCT04134429) and was approved by the local Ethics Committees (Ethikkommission der Universitätskinderkliniken Bern, "Gesuch 1912", Kantonale Ethikkommission Bern, BASEC-No.: 2019-01919).


Three different artificial hands have been designed in the framework of collaboration between the INAIL/RTR Centre and the Arts of Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSA) with the aim of developing a novel generation of prosthetic hands with increasing performance in restoring grasping functionalities in case of hand amputation. After having illustrated the philosophy and the methods of the biomechatronic approach to the design of prosthetic devices, the three different artificial hand prototypes are presented and described. A novel experimental protocol to assess hand performance has been conceived in order to provide quantitative parameters to analyze and compare various hands. The most important physical quantities to be rigorously measured and compared are the forces exerted on the object in different locations on the hand and in different grasping conditions. In particular, the test protocol is composed of six different experimental tests intended to measure the grasping force during the precision grip, the power grasp and the lateral pinch. The results obtained by applying the test protocol to the three prototypes are presented and discussed. In conclusion the paper presents the specifications of a novel prosthetic hand coming out from analysis presented in this paper.


Islamphobic is a mind-set of fear about everything about Islam. The countenance of Islam as 'rahmatan lil alamin' (bringing peace to all people), is affected by acts of violence and terror that are often displayed by a group of radical Muslims. The purpose of this research is to find out how the description of the understanding of Islamophobic among Christians, especially the millennial generation in Indonesia. It is related to the countenance of violence that is often done by some Muslims who in fact do not reflect the overall attitude of Islamic Teachings in Indonesia. Through phenomenography study the data was collected from all interviewees, related to certain conceptions or conceptions expressed by each individual. Data collection was carried out by structured interviews with 21 selected research subjects. The characteristics of the informants are those who are a generation of Christian millennial who have easy access to information. The findings of this study propose that Islamphobic is conceptualized as a form of fear. It is because of the countenance of Islam which is portrayed as full of violence, radical acts, discriminatory, hatred and raises fear among non-Islamic Followers. The attempt to de-radicalize was conceived successfully by the government because it was considered the right way to reduce feelings of fear and anxiety among non-Muslims. In addition, through the process of communication and multicultural education, it is expected to bridging the meeting of different views and is very relevant for diversity in Indonesia.


Blends of a thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer, LCP, (4,4′-dicarboxy diphenyl ether modified poly(phenyl-1,4-phenylene terephthalate)) with polycarbonate and polysulfone were prepared and characterized with respect to their thermal properties, viscoelastic behavior, processability and mechanical properties. The processability of the thermoplastics was significantly improved by the addition of small amounts of LCP. This was also reflected by decreases in the steady shear viscosities, though the dynamic complex viscosities of the blends were generally similar or higher than those of the individual component polymers. Composite fibers were spun from the blends and the tensile moduli and strengths were consistent with a morphology of highly oriented LCP microfibrils with high aspect ratios dispersed in the thermoplastic fiber. The properties increased with increasing draw ratio.


Crack will occurs when concrete structure under external load, temperature change, the crack may reduce the service life of concrete structure, to the macrocrack, there are many mature repair method, but microcrack is difficult to detect and repair. Self-healing techniques provide reliable and effective choice to microcrack repair. The paper reviewed the development of self-healing techniques, and analyzed the prospect of this field.


Tailor welded blanks had been widely used in automobile industries. In this paper, the formability of tailor-welded blanks with curved seams had been studied in experiments, and compared with that of tailor-welded blanks with straight seams. For tailor welded blanks with curved welded seams, the effects of thickness ratio on the limited forming height are the same under various welded seam shape, and the limited forming heights are decreased and then increased with the increase of thickness ratio, which different to that obtained from tailor-welded blanks with straight seam. The reasons that the shapes of welded seam how to influence the formability of tailor welded blank are deduced in the paper. Results show that the shape of the welded seam can change the blank's deformation condition, which one of the main factors of determining the sheets formability.


Increase of economic and productivity efficiencies intensifies environmental pressures, too. Agriculture is one of the most common examples of this phenomenon. The sector is lacking proper management, which is especially prominent in Mediterranean areas. To address the situation, a holistic modeling approach, combining hydrological, economic and water quality aspects, is recommended for implementation in a Greek watershed. The broader area is degraded regarding its water availability, quality, and management. The model provides insights into water balance, net profit from agricultural activities, presents water quality data from simulations, and introduces two useful parameters informing the decision-maker's knowledge and understanding: the deficit irrigation water's value and a hydro-economic index which estimates (socio-)economic benefits over environmental balance. A combined demand-management plan is also examined considering the above outputs in investigating the multiple effects of the suggested policy measures. Furthermore, to discuss the optimal approach depending on data availability and scope, we compare two different settings of the proposed model. The results of the study confirmed the continuous quantitative and qualitative water resources' deterioration and economic overexploitation of the watershed. The study reveals the immediate need for management actions, integrated modeling approaches, and provides future recommendations on hydro-economic modeling.


Islamic banking is an abstract concept until the first half of the twentieth century. In Malaysia, it has been almost three decades when the first Islamic bank makes its debut. Islamic banks have to compete with its rival, conventional banks which have longer history than Islamic banks. For this competition, Islamic banks have to know the awareness, understanding and perceptions of Malaysians towards it. Islamic banks not only available for Muslims, but it also available for non-Muslims as well. In Malaysia, 40% of the population is non-Muslims and hence non-Muslims market is equally important to Islamic banks. The purpose of this study is to examine the level of awareness, understanding, perceptions and quality of Islamic banking products and services among young adults in Selangor and their intention to adopt the Islamic banking products and services. A total of 384 respondents from different areas in Selangor responded to the questionnaire in this study. In general, The results show that more most of the respondents are aware of the Islamic banking in Malaysia with an average level of understanding of the Islamic bank concepts. However they do not understand most of the Arabic terms. Both the descriptive and inferential analysis was carried out on the data collected. The correlation analysis showed that: (i) awareness is positively and significantly related to the intention with a weak
realtionship (r = .114, p = < 0.025);
(ii) perception is positively and significantly
related to intention with weak relationship
( r = .206, p = < 0.01); (iii) understanding is positively and significantly related to 1). Through the multiple regression analysis, the intention factors has an effect of 22% (R2 = 0.22) on the intention to adopt the Islamic banking products and services with quality has the highest influence
(β = 0.321, p = < 0.000) followed by perception
(β = 0.200, p = < 0.000) on the intention to purchase the Islamic banking products and services among young adults in this study. The perceptions of young adult towards Islamic banks varied among
themselves. This study also provides theoretical and managerial implications for the Islamic bankers on recommendations to attract young adult towards Islamic Banking products and services in the future.


Mre11 is a critical participant in upkeep of nuclear DNA, its repair, replication, meiosis, and maintenance of telomeres. The upkeep of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is less well characterized, and whether Mre11 participates has been unknown. We previously found that high NaCl causes some of the Mre11 to leave the nucleus, but we did not then attempt to localize it within the cytoplasm. In the present studies, we find Mre11 in mitochondria isolated from primary renal cells and show that the amount of Mre11 in mitochondria increases with elevation of extracellular NaCl. We confirm the presence of Mre11 in the mitochondria of cells by confocal microscopy and show that some of the Mre11 colocalizes with mtDNA. Furthermore, crosslinking of Mre11 to DNA followed by Mre11 immunoprecipitation directly demonstrates that some Mre11 binds to mtDNA. Abundant Mre11 is also present in tissue sections from normal mouse kidneys, colocalized with mitochondria of proximal tubule and thick ascending limb cells. To explore whether distribution of Mre11 changes with cell differentiation, we used an experimental model of tubule formation by culturing primary kidney cells in Matrigel matrix. In nondifferentiated cells, Mre11 is mostly in the nucleus, but it becomes mostly cytoplasmic upon cell differentiation. We conclude that Mre11 is present in mitochondria where it binds to mtDNA and that the amount in mitochondria varies depending on cellular stress and differentiation. Our results suggest a role for Mre11 in the maintenance of genome integrity in mitochondria in addition to its previously known role in maintenance of nuclear DNA.


A comparative study of polypeptide composition and freeze-fracture morphology of chloroplast membranes isolated from different, but photosynthetically active, regions of a romaine lettuce shoot is presented. Chloroplasts prepared from outer dark-green leaves possess a fully developed light-harvesting chlorophyll-protein complex, have low chlorophyll a:b ratios and display fracture faces similar to those found in other higher plant chloroplast membranes; chloroplasts from leaves more to the interior of the shoot, have a much lower content of chlorophyll, show high chlorophyll a:b ratios, are depleted in components of the light-harvesting chlorophyll-protein complex, and exhibit extensive modifications of their fracture faces. We have also re-examined the freeze-fracture morphology of chloroplast membranes from a barley b-deficient mutant that lacks the light-harvesting chlorophyll-protein complex. A tentative interpretation of our findings suggests correlating the assembly of the light-harvesting chlorophyll-protein complex into the chloroplast membranes with the appearance of large freeze-fracture B face particles in the stacked interior-membrane region, and differentiation of typical fracture faces.


John Macaulay's model study of Unitarianism in the antebellum South reestablishes the denomination's position as an influential religious movement in the early history of the region. By looking at benevolent societies, lay meetings, professional and civic activity, ecumenical interchange, intellectual forums, business partnerships, literary correspondence, friendships, and other associations in which southern Unitarians were engaged with other southerners on a daily basis, Macaulay sees a much greater Unitarian presence than has been previously recognized. Instead of relying on a count of church steeples to gauge numbers, this volume blurs the lines between southern Unitarianism and orthodoxy by demonstrating how their theologies coexisted and intertwined. Macaulay posits that just beneath the surface of organized religion in the South was an "invisible institution" not unlike Franklin Frazier's Black Church, a nebulous network of liberal faith that represented a sustained and continued strand of Enlightenment religious rationalism alongside and within an increasingly evangelical culture. He shows that there were in fact two invisible religious institutions in the antebellum South, one in the slave quarters and the other in the urban landscape of southern towns. Whereas slave preachers rediscovered in music and bodily movement and in themes of suffering a vibrant Christian community, Unitarians witnessed the simple spiritual truth that reason and belief are one unified whole. In offering this fresh argument, Macaulay has chipped away at stereotypes of the mid-19th-century South as unreservedly "evangelical" and contributed greatly to historians' understanding of the diversity and complexity in southern religion. John Allen Macaulay is an independent scholar educated at Erskine College, Duke University Divinity School, and the University of South Carolina.


Vulnerability management constitutes a crucial activity within autonomic networks and systems. Distributed vulnerabilities must be assessed over a consolidated view of the network in order to detect vulnerable states that may simultaneously involve two or more devices. In this work, we present a novel approach for describing and assessing distributed vulnerabilities in such self-governed environments. We put forward a mathematical construction for defining distributed vulnerabilities as well as an extension of the OVAL language called DOVAL for describing them. We then define a framework for assessing distributed vulnerabilities in autonomic environments that exploits the knowledge provided by such descriptions. We finally show the feasibility of our solution by analyzing the behavior of the proposed algorithms and strategies through a comprehensive set of experiments.


A theoretical study of the time behaviour of the electron transport in an RF field, E exp(i omega t), has been executed for the electron nonconservative case in molecular gases from the Boltzmann equation. The velocity distribution is expanded by Legendre polynomials in velocity space and Fourier series in time. In this study, the collisional relaxation times for electron energy and momentum are introduced in order to understand the time-modulation of the distribution. The authors have investigated the influence of the reduced angular frequency of the field, omega /N, both on the energy distribution and on the swarm parameters over a wide range 2.827*10-12<or= omega /N<or=2.827*10-7 cm3 s-1 in CH4. The appearance of the spike-like component in the RF energy distribution is pointed out at low energy less than the vibrational threshold. It is noted that the remarkable characteristic is proper for a Ramsauer molecular gas, which has a large vibrational cross section comparable to the elastic momentum transfer cross section at low energy. It is also emphasised that a maximum in a swarm parameter, such as the ionisation rate, appears by changing omega /N at a constant value of the effective reduced field strength (E/ square root 2)/N.


This paper is about changing policies at the OED towards words which have come into English from languages outside Europe. It examines how, as global varieties of English emerged and stabilized, lexicographic practice changed to meet the demands of the language. Using archival material never before accessed, this paper examines editorial work on World English from the beginning of the dictionary in the mid nineteenth century through to the current third edition, focusing on editors' inclusion policy and the practice of distinguishing World English from other vocabulary, often with a marker || denoting it as 'alien or not yet naturalized'. It shows that the OED has now incorporated World English without any distinguishing label. This is not perhaps a surprising practice. What is more surprising is that this practice is occurring for the second time: the paper argues and demonstrates that the OED did this at other times in its history too, in particular in 1933, and that the early editors were ahead oftheir time in giving World English a legitimate place in the OED.


Summary Thrombopoietin (TPO) isolated from thrombocytopenic plasma of various animal species has previously been shown to comprise only truncated forms of the molecule, presumably generated by proteolysis. Native TPO has now been partially purified from normal human plasma by immunoaffinity chromatography and was confirmed to be biologically active. Gel filtration in the presence of SDS revealed that TPO eluted in two peaks: a major peak corresponding to the elution position of fully glycosylated recombinant human TPO (rhTPO) consisting of 332 amino acid residues, and a minor peak corresponding to a smaller molecular size. Immunoblot analysis also revealed that most plasma-derived TPO migrated at the same position as fully glycosylated rhTPO, corresponding to a molecular size of ~80 to 100 kDa. Furthermore, the size distribution of circulating TPO in patients with various haematologic disorders did not differ markedly from that of plasma-derived TPO from healthy individuals. These results indicate that the truncation of circulating TPO is not related to disease pa-thophysiology, and that the predominant form of TPO in blood is a biologically active ~80- to 100-kDa species. The size distribution of TPO extracted from normal platelets was similar to that of TPO in plasma; the proportion of truncated TPO was decreased by prior incubation of platelets with hirudin, indicating that the endogenous truncated TPO, at least in platelet extract, was generated by thrombin-mediated cleavage.


This paper describes an efficient Web page change detection system based on three optimizations that were implemented on top of the Hungarian algorithm, which we employ to compare trees that correspond to HTML Web pages. The optimizations attempt to stop the comparator algorithm that employs this O(n3) algorithm before it completes all its iterations based on criteria having to do with properties of HTML and heuristics. Analysis and experimental results prove the effectiveness of these optimizations and their ability to render O(n2) performance, where n denotes the number of nodes in the tree. A complete system was implemented and used to carry out the performance experiments. This system includes functionalities and interfaces for processing user requests, fetching Web pages from the Internet, allowing users to select zones in Web pages to monitor, and highlighting changes on the Web pages being monitored


Abstract. We report the average properties and small-scale variation features of the mesospheric Na and Fe layers at 30° N from extensive simultaneous and common-volume Na and Fe lidar measurements at Wuhan, China. The annual mean Na and Fe density profiles are derived in terms of an averaging method taken from an early literature. The mean Na and Fe profiles preserve the sharp gradients present in most individual density profiles near the layer bottom. Near the bottommost of the layers the mean Na and Fe scale heights are respectively −0.42 and −0.30 km. The mean layer parameters coincide well with the previous report. The Na and Fe densities in the lowest several kilometers of the layers consistently exhibit nearly the same time variations. A clear-cut distinction between the Na and Fe time variations always appears in an altitude range near 90 km. A relatively weak positive correlation between them persistently occurs also in an altitude range near 100 km. The mean increase and decrease rates for both Na and Fe are altitude dependent and have a single-peak structure. The time constant of the layer variation is ~0.07–2.0 h for Na and ~0.02–1.7 h for Fe, suggesting that the variability is dominated by small-scale processes. However, there is also a slow net increase in each of the annual mean column abundances (Na and Fe) during night.


Seventy-five ground meat and fat samples of pork with varying composition of sodium chloride (0% to 16%), fat (1% to 82%), protein (1% to 46%), and water (13% to 76%) were scanned by X-ray computed tomography (CT) at 110 kV. The dependency of CT value on chemical composition and the linear relationships between sodium chloride (NaCl) and CT value were modeled. When all ground samples were used for modeling and no information of chemical composition was included in the model, the prediction error for NaCl was 2.8%. Adding information on fat or protein content to the model reduced the error to 1.6%. A minimal prediction error of 0.2% for NaCl was found when the variation in chemical composition was strongly reduced. In addition, 22 samples of dry-cured ham lean and fat tissues at different processing stages were CT scanned; their chemical compositions were 0% to 14% NaCl, 1% to 85% fat, 5% to 33% protein, and 7% to 76% water. The NaCl content in dry-cured ham samples was modeled with prediction errors of 0.6% to 2.1%, depending on which chemical component was included in the models. In general, predictions were improved if either the range of concentrations was reduced or information of chemical composition was included in the models. Important sources of error in the models were the reproduction error for ground samples, and for ham samples the analytical errors in determining the chemical composition.


In this paper, we extend some spectral properties of regular Sturm-Liouville problems to those which consist of a Sturm-Liouville equation with discontinuous weight at two interior points together with spectral parameter-dependent boundary conditions. By modifying some techniques of (C. T. Fulton, Two-point boundary value problems with eigenvalue parameter con- tained in the boundary conditions, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 77 (1977) 293-308; O. Sh. Mukhtarov and M. Kadakal, Some spectral properties of one Sturm-Liouville type prob- lem with discontinuous weight, Siberian Mathematical Journal, 46 (2005) 681-694), we give an operator-theoretic formulation for the considered problem and obtain asymptotic formulas for the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions.