Authors present a retrospective study on 89 cases of pediatric shigellosis detected between 1983-1987. Most frequent isolated strain was S. sonnei with 67.4% and S. flexneri with 31.4% cases. 73.9% of all isolements were marked between the months october-december. Mean age of patients was 4.4 years and 44.9% of them need not to be hospitalized. Only 3.3% of patients presented a clinical syndrome of bacillar disentery with blood and mucus. Strains were resistent to ampicilin in 84.2% and to thrimetoprim-sulphimethosaxol in 80.9% of cases.


Why should we be thinking about the European Public Service and European Public Management now? Don't we have a European Public Service? Isn't this what all those 'Brussels Bureaucrats' in the Commission and the other Community institutions are supposed to be doing? In a sense this is correct. We should not forget that, along with having its own sources of revenue and financial resources and its own legal system, having its own public service is one of the things that distinguishes the EC from other international organizations and gives it a supranational character. But this is only the beginning of the story and not the end. We have now reached an important stage in the process of creating a European Public Service which will contribute considerably to the process of integration if it is well managed. Community development in the 1990s requires much more attention to the management capacities and skills needed to make EC policies work effectively. Since nothing in the European Community is ever simple, we need to see the development of the European Public Service in two perspectives. First, there is the core Community institutions, in particular the European Commission which is responsible for overseeing the management of Community policies. Within the Commission it is possible to envisage the introduction of many straightforward management reforms to improve operational performance and, equally badly needed, coordination. Second, in a broader perspective, there is the design and development of new management systems and administrative networks reaching out to all levels of government in the Member States. In this perspective the European Public Service is built up on partnerships between the Community institutions and the administrations of the Member States. And, in this broader perspective, we probably have to rethink the role of the Community.


The songs in Gravity's Rainbow, especially those seemingly based on popular sources, have been seen as commentaries on reality, as subversive attempts to undermine the system, and even as the creation of a mythic mode through which to understand the universe. Some of the music sung at the Casino Hermann Goering, especially the "Vulgar Song" and "The Penis He Thought Was His Own," and its apparent sources recall a supposedly civilized past, specifically the Gilded Age, and juxtapose it with a rude and chaotic present. Yoking older, romanticized ballads with crude modern lyrics about sex is not as odd as it might seem at first. In the Gilded Age, as any historian or reader of Mark Twain knows, forceful capitalists, like the robber barons, and increasing urbanization were changing common perceptions about the United States as primarily a pleasant agrarian democracy. At the same time, popular music and literature were presenting a sentimental view of life in which behavior was highly codified and ladies and gentlemen had to follow certain patterns of behavior in public. Even deviations from expected behaviors, like adultery and violent crime, were sentimentalized by ballads. This conflict between the representations in popular culture and the harshness of real life is also embodied by Siothrop in his constant reference to songs, films and comic books while being pummeled by forces beyond his control.


: Design theory on the Japanese fashion clothing has been discussed in a range of clothing of "primary nature". The cause of the poor of the international presence will be present in the "secondary nature". Since the analysis is difficult, "secondary nature" has been regarded as unsuitable for engineering design theory. Therefore the concept of "action space of the wearer" is introduced. Though it's incomplete, but the evaluation system exists at that space. In addition, factors of business are added. Given these constraints, "secondary nature" of the clothing can be analyzed than the status quo. It will lead to the improvement of the international presence.


The profession of teaching is defined in Article 43 of the Fundamental Law of National Education no. 1739 as a specialized profession that undertakes education, training and other related administrative duties of the state, and the qualifications of teachers are evaluated under two sections as general qualifications and special field qualifications. Teacher qualifications are competencies that are required to be possessed by all teachers under training to achieve national education goals. In addition to this, teaching one's native language as a foreign language is a task that requires an additional area of expertise. The increasing interest in Turkish, escalating immigration rates and other reasons have caused the importance of teaching Turkish as a foreign language to increase. This growing interest caused certain problems. The lack of expert educators in terms of quality and quantity is one of the main problems. The Ministry of National Education assigns lecturers and teachers every year in order to meet the demand for Turkish educators from abroad. The aim of this study is to determine the field qualifications of teachers who are awaiting assignment after having passed the exam held by the Ministry of National Education to be assigned abroad. The study was designed as a case study. The random purposeful (purposive) sampling method and the purposive criterion sampling method were used to determine the study group. The study group consists of 10 teachers and lecturers awaiting assignment after having passed the foreign lecturing exam held by the Ministry of National Education. The data collection phase of the study was carried out using the interview method. Therefore, an eleven-question interview form was prepared, including questions on the awareness of teachers toward teaching Turkish to foreigners, their educational background and the educational process of teaching Turkish to foreigners. The data were transferred to the MAXQDA 12 qualitative data analysis program and the content analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. Study results showed that most of the teachers in the study group had low awareness toward their assignment and a lack of knowledge on methods-techniques, material and planning, and that most of the participants lacked training in their fields.


Particularly in developing countries, there is a gap between written law and behavior. Comparative research emphasizes that laws go unenforced due to resource constraints or inadequate control of the bureaucracy. I instead introduce the concept of forbearance, or the intentional and revocable nonenforcement of law, and argue that politicians often withhold sanctions to maximize votes as well as rents. Drawing on tools from price theory and distributive politics, I present several methods to separate situations when politicians are unable versus unwilling to enforce the law. I demonstrate the identification strategies with original data on the enforcement of laws against street vending and squatting in urban Latin America. In contexts of inadequate social policy, politicians use forbearance to mobilize voters and signal their distributive commitments. These illustrations thus suggest the rich, and largely neglected, distributive politics behind apparent institutional weakness.


We consider a network comprised of multiple primary users (PUs) and multiple secondary users (SUs), where the SUs seek access to a set of orthogonal channels each occupied by one PU. Only one SU is allowed to coexist with a given PU. We propose a distributed matching algorithm to pair the network users, where a Stackelberg game model is assumed for the interaction between the paired PU and SU. The selected secondary is given access in exchange for monetary compensation to the primary. The PU optimizes the interference price it charges to a given SU and the power allocation to maintain communication. The SU optimizes its power demand so as to maximize its utility. Our algorithm provides a unique stable matching. Numerical results indicate the advantage of the proposed algorithm over other reference schemes.


BACKGROUND
Burnout and medical resident well-being has become an increasingly studied topic in medical degree (MD) and doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) fields and specialties which has led to systemic changes in postgraduate education and training. Although an important topic to address for physicians of all experience levels and fields of practice, there is little research on this topic as it pertains specifically to the podiatric community.

METHODS
A wellness needs assessment (WNA) was developed and distributed to podiatric residents via electronic survey. This was used to assess levels of overall wellness of residents as well as highlight several subdomains of well-being within the training programs of the podiatric profession.

RESULTS
A total of 121 residents completed the wellness needs assessment. Survey respondents indicated that they suffer from high levels of professional burnout with large numbers of them experiencing depression and anxiety. When analyzing the different subdomains of wellness, intellectual and environmental wellness was high, while financial and physical wellness were reported as low. Additionally, free response answers were recorded within the survey regarding well-being initiatives that have been implemented within residency programs, and in many cases no such programs are reported to exist.

CONCLUSIONS
Podiatry residents experience compromised well-being similar to their MD/DO counterparts. These exploratory survey group results are concerning and warrant further investigation as well as organizational introspection. Analysis of well-being and implementing changes that can support podiatric physicians at all levels of training could decrease the deleterious effects of burnout in all its forms.


This paper proposes for the Italian context a governance framework, which relies on training providers' evaluation to regulate the market of agencies and efficiently allocate resources between them. The proposed model is based on three steps, which are described in the paper. The first step consists in the creation of a profiling system that summarizes the level of disadvantage in the labour market of each trainee, based on his probability of (re)employment, estimated on a series of personal characteristics. Such a tool is necessary to correctly evaluate net performance of training operators and to prevent creaming or cherry peaking phenomena. As a second step, the paper proposes the creation of a rating system of providers based on their net performance in terms of employment outcomes; in particular, an econometric approach based on multilevel modelling has been adopted to obtain an aggregation of training providers according to their high, low or medium performance level. As a third step, the paper shows the hypothetical new allocation of resources based on the reward of best performers in terms of employment outcomes, comparing it to the actual one.


Background According to guidelines, all patients with sarcoma must be managed from initial diagnosis at expert sarcoma centers. However, in everyday practice, the time interval to an expert center visit can be long, which delays presentation to an expert multidisciplinary tumor board and increases the risk of inappropriate management, negatively affecting local tumor control and prognosis. The advent of mobile health offers an easy way to facilitate communication and cooperation between general health care providers (eg, general practitioners and radiologists) and sarcomas experts. We developed a mobile app (Sar'Connect) based on the algorithm designed by radiologists from the French Sarcoma Group. Through a small number of easy-to-answer questions, Sar'Connect provides personalized advice for the management of patients and contact information for the closest expert center. Objective This retrospective study is the first to assess this mobile app's potential benefits in reducing the time interval for patient referral to an expert center according to the initial clinical characteristics of the soft tissue tumor. Methods From May to December 2021, we extracted tumor mass data for 78 patients discussed by the multidisciplinary tumor boards at 3 centers of the French Sarcoma Group. We applied the Sar'Connect algorithm to these data and estimated the time interval between the first medical description of the soft tissue mass and the referral to expert center. We then compared this estimated time interval with the observed time interval. Results We found that the use of Sar'Connect could potentially shorten the time interval to an expert center by approximately 7.5 months (P<.001). Moreover, for half (31/60, 52%) of the patients with a malignant soft tissue tumor, Sar'Connect could have avoided inappropriate management outside of the reference center. We did not identify a significant determinant for shortening the time interval for referral. Conclusions Overall, promoting the use of a simple mobile app is an innovative and straightforward means to potentially accelerate both the referral and management of patients with soft tissue sarcoma at expert centers.


Functional studies of hands strain covered 2351 women who performed multiple manual maneuvers with absent, mild and moderate efforts. Considered reasons of the functional strain were: number of the maneuvers per shift, applied efforts, work intensity, length of service, previous work hardiness, hand efforts beyond the worktime, specific traits of workers (age, health state). Functional strain of hands was assessed by means of an Articular Pain Index which is general evaluation of severity, intensity and frequency of pain in hand joints. The authors suggest norms for allowable and hazardous quantity of hand maneuvers in accordance with their structure.


In this paper a nationwide power quality monitoring system, which computes and collects PQ parameters and the required waveforms at a power quality monitoring center for both the purposes of early warning and later analysis of power quality of the whole transmission system, is presented. The system consists of three basic units: PQ monitors connected to various transformer substations all over the country; a national PQ monitoring center which communicates with all PQ monitors regularly, receives PQ data and archives them; and finally a client software, which lets individuals connect to the national PQ center and run searches on the PQ archive. The monitors compute PQ parameters based on the IEC Standard-61000-4-30. The client software will be available to the Electricity Transmission System Corporation of Turkey, TEIAS, distribution companies, large industrial plants which are directly supplied from the transmission system, research institutes and the universities. This is a three-year project of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, TUBITAK, which started in March 2006 and the already-developed prototype system is presented in this paper.


In the study, it was demonstrated that whether there was a difference between an affordance condition and a no-affordance condition in the aspect of negative compatibility effect and cognitive workload. In case of the negative compatibility effect, even though the object's orientation and arrow's orientation are corresponded, when a prime object is displayed very briefly motor system is inhibited. Twenty five students volunteered to participate in the experiment. The experimental design was 2 (Affordance condition & No-affordance design) X2 (Congruence & Incongruence) X2 (Task difficulty: High & Low), within subject design. Using RSVP paradigm, first of all, object stimuli presenting for 70ms is followed by arrow's orientations which are right or left for 70ms. As soon as arrow is presented, participants should respond arrow's orientation with keyboard. After then participants memorize numbers, 2-digit numbers or 3-digit numbers for 3500ms or 500ms. Cognitive memory task follows 2-digit numbers or 3-digit numbers. In the last section, subjects are asked subjective effort induced by memory task. Totally 192 trials are repeated randomly. As a result, Negative Compatibility Effect was showed in the affordance and the congruent conditions by a difference between reaction time, not error rates. However, in case of cognitive memory task there are no differences in both of the affordance conditions and the congruent conditions. Therefore, it was confirmed that the Negative Compatibility Effect was determined repeatedly, but the hypothesis of the cognitive workload was not demonstrated.


This paper proposes a correspondence-free method for point cloud rotational registration. We learn an embedding for each point cloud in a feature space that preserves the SO(3)-equivariance property, enabled by recent developments in equivariant neural networks. The proposed shape registration method achieves three major advantages through combining equivariant feature learning with implicit shape models. First, the necessity of data association is removed because of the permutation-invariant property in network architectures similar to PointNet. Second, the registration in feature space can be solved in closed-form using Horn's method due to the SO(3)-equivariance property. Third, the registration is robust to noise in the point cloud because of the joint training of registration and implicit shape reconstruction. The experimental results show superior performance compared with existing correspondence-free deep registration methods.


A disproportional innate immune response underlies the pathogenesis of organ failure and sepsis as seen in trauma patients. It is known that additional inflammatory stimuli, induced by e.g. surgical interventions, augment the risk for occurrence of these complications. Treatment strategies may be beneficially adjusted when we are able to identify patients at risk for these complications. Also, there is an unmet need for immunomodulating therapies to reduce the occurrence of inflammatory complications. Review of the literature showed that inflammatory markers are up to now, insufficient to identify patients at risk for inflammatory complications (Chapter 2). In order to get better insight of the innate immune response we looked at the neutrophil reaction in patients with isolated thorax trauma. In Chapter 3 we showed that a moderate trauma results in a transient systemic neutrophil response (Chapter 3). This was objectified by a transient altered surface receptor phenotype of circulating neutrophils. The neutrophil response was characterized by an influx of young banded cells in the circulation and appearance of different neutrophil (sub)populations. Interestingly, a short-term innate response did not lead to organ failure in patients at risk. In chapter 4 we showed that one of the populations that appears in the circulation after severe injury are neutrophil progenitor cells. These neutrophil progenitor cells had a diminished anti-microbial function. Neutrophil progenitors were able to mature outside the bone marrow in absence of stimulating factors. In chapter 5 we compared the early neutrophil reaction induced by damage associated molecular patterns (DAMP) to the neutrophil reaction induced by pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMP). For this purpose circulating neutrophils were obtained from trauma patients at 3 and 24 hrs after injury and from healthy volunteers at 3 and 24 hrs after intravenous injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). We showed that the early neutrophil reaction was comparable in the two conditions. The human endotoxemia model, in which LPS is injected in healthy volunteers to induce an inflammatory reaction, may not only serve as model for infectious diseases but also for conditions in relation to trauma. The endotoxemia model may be used for further investigations towards the early neutrophil response and may also be used to test potential therapies. Therapeutical interventions designated to modulate the immune response are up till now unable to reduce morbidity and mortality in severely injured patients (Chapter 6). We tested the effect of injection of the endogenous acute phase protein C-1 esterase inhibitor (C1INH) on the inflammatory response (Chapter 7). Administration of C1INH resulted in a reduced concentration of circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α. It also resulted in an increased concentration of the anti-inflammatory IL-10. Interestingly, C1INH did not attenuate the neutrophil response (Chapter 8). From this result we can conclude that the humeral response does not correlate with the cellular response. The potential beneficial effect of C1INH administration will be examined in a placebo controlled randomized study in patients with femoral fracture.


Introduction: PT X is one of the companies in fertilizer production industry. There are two high-risk activities that endanger the safety and health of workers, namely supervision of welding and oil level checking in ammonia plant field of PT X. The purpose of this research was to apply risk management to the activities. Method: This research was a descriptive study which was carried out in observation using a cross sectional design. Variables in this study included hazard identification, basic risk analysis, risk control that has been done, existing risk analysis, and risk reduction assessment. The tools used for the data collection were observation sheets, interview guide sheets, and Job Safety Analysis sheets. Data that has been obtained through observation and interviews was processed using Fine (1971) semi quantitative technique. Results: The results of hazard identification were known to have as many as 6 potential hazards. The assessment results in the basic risk analysis showed that the initial risk level consisted of 3 risks with very high level, 2 risks with a substantial level and 1 risk with priority 3 level. After the risk control effort was applied, the results of the assessment in the existing risk analysis showed that the level of risk has decreased significantly. Conclusion: The value of risk reduction of each potential hazard results decreases by 95%, 88.89%, 85%, 93.33%, 66.67%, and 75%. Keywords: ammonia plant, fertilizer production industry, risk management


Mibefradil, a calcium T- and L-channel blocker developed for use in hypertension, was recently removed from the market after reports of severe drug-drug interactions. Mibefradil is known to inhibit various cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in drug metabolism, particularly CYP3A. However, the extent and the severity of the observed drug interactions in humans suggest that inhibition of additional systems important to drug disposition, such as the drug transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp), may also have contributed to the severity of the mibefradil interactions. A polarized epithelial cell line, LLC-PK1, which does not express P-gp, and the derived L-MDR1 cell line, which overexpresses human P-gp, were used to study the effects of mibefradil on drug transport. A markedly greater basal-to-apical versus apical-to-basal transport of [H3]mibefradil was seen in the L-MDR1, but not in the LLC-PK1 cells, suggesting that the drug is a substrate of P-gp. Using a human intestinal cancer-derived cell line Caco-2, which constitutively expresses P-gp, mibefradil was shown to be a potent inhibitor of P-gp-mediated digoxin transport, with an IC50 of 1.6 microM. Additionally, the effect of mibefradil on CYP3A was assessed using human liver microsomes. Mibefradil inhibited CYP3A-mediated nifedipine oxidase activity with an IC50 of 0.8 microM, and a Ki of 0.6 microM. Thus, mibefradil is not only a P-gp substrate, but also a potent inhibitor of both P-gp and CYP3A. These data suggest that the severity of drug interactions seen with mibefradil use is due to the dual inhibition of both P-gp and CYP3A.


Wu et al. reported that a significant proportion of adolescents born to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive mothers, who had postnatal hepatitis B immune globulin (HBIG) and hepatitis B vaccine, lost immune memory and developed a HBsAg carrier state. Having maternal hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) positivity was the most important determinant for developing chronic hepatitis B. Vaccination has proved to be highly effective in preventing and controlling hepatitis B, carrier rate, and hepatitis B virus (HBV)related mortality worldwide. Long-term protection studies indicate that vaccine-induced anti-HBs concentrations decline over time, with antibody (Ab) levels falling below the protective threshold (10 mIU/mL) in one third to one half of vaccinees 10-20 years later; however, immunological memory usually persists. This is because Ab maintenance after vaccination depends on the number of longlived plasma cells, whereas booster response is a function of memory B cells. Evidence indicates that memory B cells effectively respond to antigen challenge even when Ab falls below the protective level. Thus, booster doses are not needed in immunocompetent individuals to maintain long-term protection. However, failure to develop postbooster anamnestic response has been reported, raising concern that immune memory may wane during the second decade postvaccination. In his study, Wu et al. show that 15% of adolescents born to HBsAg/HBeAgpositive mothers who received primary infantile vaccination developed chronic HBV infection. In addition, one sixth of vaccinees were unable to respond to booster vaccination, having lost immunological memory. Individuals who lost immunological memory may become vulnerable to HBV infection, especially in highly endemic regions— such as some Asiatic countries—where HBsAg carriers are often positive for HBeAg, then highly infectious. Thus, need for a booster in this setting, where risk of acquiring infection and becoming chronic is high, should be considered. If this were the policy, booster should be given before loss of immunological memory occurs.


The low-frequency profiles of some pulsars manifest temporal broadening due to scattering, usually accompanied by flat polarization position angle (PA) curves. Assuming that the scattering works on the 4 Stokes parameters in the same way, we have simulated the effect of scattering on polarization profiles and find that the scattering can indeed flatten the PA curves. Since the higher-frequency profiles suffer less from scattering, they are convolved with scattering models to fit the observed low-frequency profiles. The calculated flat PA curves exactly reproduce the corresponding observations.


We formulate a new theoretical model for the swimming of a flexible body in a vortex street. We consider the class of periodic travelling-wave body motions, in the limit of small amplitude. We calculate the output power provided to the body by thrust forces, and the input power done against pressure forces, as functions of the aspect ratio and strength of the vortex street. We then formulate two optimization problems. In the first, we determine the body wave which provides maximum output power for fixed amplitude. We find a closed-form solution with a transition from power law to exponential decay of output power as the vortex street widens. In the second problem, we incorporate internal viscoelasticity to the swimming body and compute its contribution to the input power. We find the body wave which maximizes efficiency for a given output power. The body shape and resulting efficiency are found in closed form and simple approximate formulas are given. We find that efficiency scales as the inverse of the damping parameter. Finally, we compare our results with previous experiments and simulations. We find agreement in some aspects and disagreement in others. We give physical interpretations for agreements and disagreements in terms of the phase between the body wave and vortex street.


In this paper we report the results of experimental studies of zero-level, one-level, and two-level search rearrangement backtracking. We establish upper and lower limits for the size problem for which one-level backtracking is preferred over zero-level and two-level methods, thereby showing that the zero-level method is best for very small problems. The one-level method is best for moderate size problems, and the two-level method is best for extremely large problems. Together with our theoretical asymptotic formulas, these measurements provide a useful guide for selecting the best search rearrangement method for a particular problem.


A real-time and effective double-loop feedback control system for underwater flexible manipulators is raised in this paper. The research object is a kind of underwater flexible manipulator driven by McKibben water hydraulic artificial muscle (WHAM) that can grasp, swallow, and disgorge target objects in its interior space. To make up for the lack of flexibility, an underwater flexible manipulator collaborative working strategy is proposed. A more flexible and smaller flexible manipulator is placed inside the flexible manipulator to assist it in performing difficult underwater works. The control system feeds back the position of internal objects through a built-in binocular camera and the working state of the manipulator through displacement sensors. The control system setups including underwater flexible manipulator subsystem, hydraulic drive subsystem, PLC control subsystem, displacement sensor subsystem, built-in binocular vision subsystem, and upper computer subsystem is built. PYTHON-based built-in binocular vision software and C++-based underwater flexible manipulator control software are also developed to facilitate observation and recording. The underwater flexible manipulator collaborative experiment is designed to verify the performance of the control system and the control algorithm.


The recently developed Aerospace Debris Environment Projection Tool was used to project the future debris environment in medium Earth orbit (MEO) over the next 200 years. The entire Earth orbital population was modeled to account for the possibility of cross-coupling between the MEO population and the low Earth orbit (LEO) and geosynchronous populations via objects on highly eccentric orbits that transit through MEO. It was found that a large fraction of the MEO debris originated from collisions in LEO involving satellites and rocket bodies that transit through LEO and MEO. Results showed that world-wide compliance with orbit lifetime reduction will significantly reduce the amount of debris in MEO.


A regimen designed for effective foolproof antituberculosis treatment, acceptable on a routine basis, was applied to all patients newly diagnosed at the Chest Clinic, Hammersmith Hospital, in 1963, 1964, and 1965. During the first three months of treatment patients received daily (six days a week) streptomycin 0.75 g. plus isoniazid 300 mg. plus sodium para-aminosalicylate (P.A.S.) 12 g. The P.A.S. was usually stopped when bacterial sensitivity reports made this possible. For a further 15 months streptomycin 1 g. plus isoniazid 600 mg. was given on three alternate days each week to complete a total of 18 months' treatment. Of the total of 140 patients (66% sputum-positive) 112 (80%) completed the planned 18 months with intermittent streptomycin plus isoniazid and a further eight completed treatment on alternative regimens (a total of 85%). The equivalent figures for one year are 88% and 94%. Excellent clinical and radiological results, together with sputum conversion, were achieved in 138 of the 140 patients (99%). Only two patients were lost from surveillance, because of failure to co-operate, before quiescence was obtained. It is concluded that the total efficiency of supervised intermittent treatment is greater than that of unsupervised daily regimens. Since 100% arrest of tuberculosis is possible with co-operative patients, less should not be accepted in developed countries.


The objective of this study was to examine load-deformation characteristics at different fill layers of a high fill and to determine typical modeling parameters by using plate loading tests in a real construction site. The average value of the modulus of elasticity Eplaxis was found to be 53 MN/m 2 and Poisson's ratio was found to be 0.2 for the dense sand soil of the construction site. With proper compaction, load-deformation characteristics were found to be almost identical in different layers of the fill and very close to that of the natural soil.


AIM
To determine the frequency and clinical and laboratory features of patients with multiple sclerosis characterized by uncommon cerebrospinal findings, ie, negative oligoclonal band or increased number of mononuclear cells in cerebrospinal fluid.

METHODS
The retrospective analysis included medical records of 233 patients (158 women and 75 men) admitted to the Department of Neurology, Ljubljana Medical Center, between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1999 and discharged with the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. We determined clinical features and cerebrospinal fluid parameters of patients with oligoclonal band-negative multiple sclerosis and > or =15 mononuclear cells/mm( 3) in cerebrospinal fluid and compared them with patients with oligoclonal band-positive multiple sclerosis and expected number of mononuclear cells in cerebrospinal fluid, respectively. There were 26 patients with oligoclonal band-negative finding and 26 with > or =15 mononuclear cells/mm(3) in cerebrospinal fluid. The two groups of patients did not overlap, except for one patient, who had 19 mononuclear cells/mm(3) and was oligoclonal band-negative.

RESULTS
The diagnosis was delayed in oligoclonal band-negative multiple sclerosis patients, their cerebrospinal fluid contained less leukocytes, and lower concentration of IgG. The patients with > or =15 leukocytes/mm( 3) in cerebrospinal fluid were diagnosed earlier and had increased cerebrospinal fluid protein and IgG concentrations.

CONCLUSION
Multiple sclerosis with negative oligoclonal band or increased count of leukocytes in cerebrospinal fluid were found in approximately 10% of patients with the disease. Because of the absence of oligoclonal band and less active cerebrospinal fluid, the diagnosis in these patients may be delayed.


In this study, the odors of two types of softwood species, namely southern yellow pine (Pinus spp.) and China fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook.), were identified and extracted with ethanol–toluene for the removal of extractives. The odorous components of neat and extracted wood were identified via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry/olfactometry (GC-MS/O). The results showed that about 40 key identified volatile compounds (peak area above 0.2%) were detected from the GC-MS data, and more than 50 kinds of odorants were identified using GC-O. The time concentrated on was from 15 to 33 min for GC-O, which was different to the time concentrated on for GC-MS. The amounts of both volatile compounds and odorants in pine were more than in fir. After extraction, the amounts and intensities of some odorants decreased, while some remained. However, the extraction process resulted in benzene residue and led to increased benzene odor.


In this review, we highlight state-of-the-art ultrasound techniques that have the potential to shape the current diagnostic algorithm in the pediatric population. Ultrasound has become a useful tool in the workup of pediatric patients because of the highly convenient, cost-effective, and safe nature of the examination. With rapid advancements in anatomic and functional ultrasound techniques over the recent years, the diagnostic and interventional utility of ultrasound has risen tremendously. Advanced ultrasound techniques constitute a suite of new technologies that employ microbubbles to provide contrast and enhance flow visualization, elastography to measure tissue stiffness, ultrafast Doppler to deliver high spatiotemporal resolution of flow, three- and four-dimensional technique to generate accurate spatiotemporal representation of anatomy, and high-frequency imaging to delineate anatomic structures at a resolution down to 30 μm. Application of these techniques can enhance the diagnosis of organ injury, viable tumor, and vascular pathologies at bedside. This has significant clinical implications in pediatric patients who are not easy candidates for lengthy MRI or radiation-requiring examination, and are also in need of a highly sensitive bedside technique for therapeutic guidance. To best use the currently available, advanced ultrasound techniques for pediatric patients, it is necessary to understand the diagnostic utility of each technique. In this review, we will educate the readers of emerging ultrasound techniques and their respective clinical applications.


The authors computed the correlation dimensions of the synchronous 12-lead ECG of 30 healthy persons and 30 coronary heart disease (CHD) patients. They found that the D/sub 2/ of the same person is different for different lead ECG signals. Therefore, it is not appropriate to describe the human heart, a nonlinear dynamic system with complex structures, by only a single fractal dimension. Synchronous 12-lead analysis of correlation dimension can present a more detailed description of the heart's dynamic characteristics than can a simple one-lead analysis. It is important to specify the particular lead position when one refers to the D/sub 2/'s of the ECG signal. The authors also find that the differences among D/sub 2/'s of 12-lead ECG signals are relatively small for healthy people, compared with the same lead for CHD patients. For CHD patients, the situation is complicated. The differences among D/sub 2/'s for 12-lead ECG signals of some patients are large. Correlation dimensions of chest-lead ECG signals are obviously smaller than those of limb-lead ECG signals. This suggests that the complexity of the ECG attractor is reduced with cardiac muscle ischemia, It may be that D/sub 2/'s of synchronous 12-lead ECG signals may be able to provide valuable diagnostic information about the location of ischemia or infarction. The authors' research shows that the correlation dimension is a valuable parameter in analyzing nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the ECG signal and may provide new insights and methods in diagnosis of cardiac disease.


Sri Lanka has one of the oldest traditions of irrigation in the world. The economy and human settlements of early Sri Lankan society were organized around the ancient water tank (water storage reservoir) irrigation systems. These traditional tank systems thus form a vital component of both the natural and manmade landscape in Sri Lanka. This study of the Kala Oya Basin, carried out collaboratively by the IUCN Sri Lanka Country Office and the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka, quantifies the benefits associated with tank goods and services, and underlines their high economic and livelihood value to local communities. It also looks at the economic returns to different options for restoring and maintaining the traditional tank system. The study concludes by making recommendations about economic and financial instruments to strengthen tank management.


Speech-to-speech (S2S) translation has been of increased interest in the last few years with the research focused mainly on lexical aspects. It has however been widely acknowledged that incorporating other rich information such as expressive prosody contained in speech can enhance the cross-lingual communication experience. Motivated by recent empirical findings show-ing a positive relation between the transfer of emphasis and the quality of the audio translation, we propose a computational method to derive a set of acoustic cues that can be used in transferring emphasis for the English-Spanish language pair. In particular, we present an iterative algorithm that aims to discover the set of acoustic cue pairs in the two languages that maximize the accurate transfer of emphasis. We find that the relevant acoustic cues can be constructed from a diverse set of features including word/phrase level statistics of spectral, intensity and prosodic cues and can model the acoustic information related to emphasized and neutral words/phrases for the English-Spanish language pair. These features can in turn enable data-driven transformations from source to target language that preserve such rich prosodic information. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach through experiments on a specially constructed corpus of 1800 English-Spanish words/phrases.


Virtual patient cases (VPs) are used for healthcare education and assessment. Most VP systems track user interactions to be used for assessment. Few studies have investigated how virtual exam cases should be scored and graded. We have applied eight different scoring models on a data set from 154 students. Issues studied included the impact of penalizing guessing, requiring a correct diagnose, different grading levels, and the effect of using weighted diagnose metrics. Controlling the random-guessing approach is necessary and can be accomplished by a rubric that measures a relative efficiency of the learner's inquiries and the total number of inquiries. Using a straight percentage score versus a curved exam score had a major impact on grades. Significant differences were found when using different metrics as only one of the eight rubric models resulted in a Gaussian distribution. Course directors need to analyze expected learning outcomes from a course to determine a scoring metric to assess those particular needs; the grading rubric must also control for guessing.


In this best-of-breed study guide, two leading experts help you master all the topics you need to know to succeed on your CISSP exam and advance your career in IT security. Their concise, focused approach explains every exam objective from a real-world perspective, helping you quickly identify weaknesses and retain everything you need to know. Every feature of this book supports both efficient exam preparation and long-term mastery: Opening Topics Lists identify the topics youll need to learn in each chapter, and list (ISC)2s official exam objectives Key Topics feature figures, tables, and lists that call attention to the information thats most crucial for exam success Exam Preparation Tasks allow you to review key topics, complete memory tables, define key terms, work through scenarios, and answer review questions. All of these help you go beyond memorizing mere facts to master the concepts that are crucial to passing the exam and enhancing your career Key Terms are listed in each chapter and defined in a complete glossary, explaining all the fields essential terminology The companion website contains the powerful Pearson IT Certification Practice Test Engine, with two practice exams and access to a large library of exam-realistic questions. The compansion website also includes memory tables, lists, and other resources, all in a searchable PDF format. This study guide helps you master all the topics on the latest CISSP exam, including: Access control Telecommunications and network security Information security governance and risk management Software development security Cryptography Security architecture and design Operation security Business continuity and disaster recovery planning Legal, regulations, investigations, and compliance Physical (environmental) security


This thesis aims to make a comparison between the efficacy of three prominent multivariate outlier detection algorithms, and in addition compare the efficiency of the methods (methods with outliers removed) with common robust estimation methods. This is done by comparing estimates of their relative efficiency based on estimates of multivariate mean in Monte Carlo simulation. The number of samples generated for these simulations is chosen to ensure reliable estimates yet avoid excessive computing times. Efficacy in comparison of multivariate outlier detection is judged by examining performance in terms of power in finding outliers in simulated data from contaminated distributions, as well as size for uncontaminated distributions, as well as looking at power in real-world data sets with known or planted outliers. Comparisons of time elapsed for various routines are briefly investigated, albeit on an ad hoc basis.

A particular motivation for this study is the focus on a specific adaptive method known as the adaptive trimmed likelihood algorithm (ATLA). ATLA is the multivariate version of a method which developed out of adaptive univariate location estimation first explored in Clarke (1994) and later related in terms of asymptotic theory in Bednarski and Clarke (2002). The asymptotic theory for the trimmed likelihood estimator was countenanced in Bednarski and Clarke (1993). A numerical routine using what is termed forward search and various comparisons made using ATLA are also described in Schubert (2005). The routine was later slightly modified by Robert Hammarstrand for completeness and is available in the supplementary materials of Clarke (2018) at the website:

https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Robustness+Theory+and+Application-p- 9781118669303

Also available at that website is an algorithm called Onesample written by Brenton R Clarke and Betty Mouchel that implements the initial algorithm used to evaluate the estimator described in Clarke (1994) in the case of univariate estimation. For multivariate estimation, ATLA serves as an outlier detection method based on the use of the minimum covariance determinant (MCD) (Rousseeuw; 1983) used in an adaptive way.

Simulations and resulting output given in this thesis are presented with software in R and MATLAB, calling on new and pre-established functions available in downloadable packages. The code is presented in the appendix, together with supporting information that details the respective tasks of the associated functions along with the various functions and/or packages that are required.


Until recently, little has been known about what exactly happens in the seconds
leading up to a car crash. Due to the emergence of naturalistic driving data, e.g.
video data of the forward roadway and of the driver combined with various
sensor readings from real traffic incidents, it is now possible to research
underlying crash causation mechanisms with much greater detail. An analysis of
a 100 different rear‐end events, 70 crashes and 30 near‐crashes, was performed
with the aim of replicating the findings of the SHRP2 naturalistic driving study
performed by SAFER. The findings were in correspondence with those of the
SHRP2 study; that rear‐end crashes usually occur due to a combination of glance
duration and change rate of the situation kinematics, and that a short glance
usually requires a rapid change in the situation kinematics while a longer glance
could cause a crash even if the kinematic situation changes relatively slowly. The
key mechanism behind crashes was found to be the timing of the last glance off
the road relative to the change in urgency, represented optically by looming cues,
during the glance. Brake lights were frequently ignored and the act of missing
the brake light onset (BLO) in itself was not found to be a key mechanism in
causing crashes and near‐crashes. Drivers that ended up in a crash were twice as
likely to have looked away from the road after having seen the last BLO as those
who ended up in a near‐crash.


Background: Androgens appear to play a role in the development of acne, and presence of acne is a potential marker of hyperandrogenism. Objective: The authors evaluated androgens and insulin sensitivity markers before and after treatment with isotretinoin in women with post-adolescent severe acne who do not have hirsutism and/or ovulatory dysfunction. Methods: Androgens, lipids, glucose and insulin levels were measured in 26 patients and 21 controls during oral glucose tolerance test. Homeostasis model assessment for insulin resistance, area under curve (AUC)glucose and AUCinsulin were calculated. Twenty patients completed a minimum of 6-month isotretinoin treatment. Results: All studied parameters were similar in patients and controls at baseline. Isotretinoin therapy increased body mass index and triglyceride levels without any effect on androgens or insulin sensitivity. Conclusion: Severe acne itself is not associated with hyperandrogenemia and/or insulin resistance. Isotretinoin treatment does not alter serum androgens or insulin sensitivity, although it increases body weight and serum triglycerides.


We study values for transferable utility games enriched by a communication graph (COgames) where the graph does not necessarily a¤ect the productivity but can in‡uence the way the players distribute the worth generated by the grand coalition. Thus, we can envisage values that are e¢ cient instead of values that are component e¢ cient. For CO-games with connected graphs, e¢ ciency and component e¢ ciency coincide. In particular, the Myerson value (Myerson, 1977) is e¢ cient for such games. Moreover, fairness is characteristic of the Myerson value. We identify the value that is e¢ cient for all CO-games, coincides with the Myerson value for CO-games with connected graphs, and satis…es fairness.


To construct models and choose parameters for recommended lung dosimetric models, it is necessary to integrate many sets of experimental data. Information is not always useful, and appropriate quantitative data are often lacking. Therefore, available data from animal experiments and human clinical studies are often used as substitutes; this is the case, for example, for values of mechanical clearance pathways and factors. On the other hand, multiple and diverse data sets can help to evaluate the influence of individual variations, such as sex differences, age, exercise state, waking or sleeping state, and various abnormal conditions, so models will be suitable to describe conditions in a large number of people. When precise values cannot be estimated from existing data, it may be necessary to investigate a particular mechanism, such as material solubilization, by means of in vivo and in vitro techniques. However, it is difficult to extrapolate from such studies to humans. In this paper we discuss construction of an interspecies model of Co3O4 lung clearance from data for several animal species and a few human subjects.


Many neurons are unable to regenerate after damage. The ability to regenerate after an insult depends on life stage, neuronal subtype, intrinsic and extrinsic factors. C. elegans is a powerful model to test the genetic and environmental factors that affect axonal regeneration after damage, since its axons can regenerate after neuronal insult. Here we demonstrate that diapause promotes the complete morphological regeneration of truncated touch receptor neuron (TRN) axons expressing a neurotoxic MEC-4(d) DEG/ENaC channel. Truncated axons of different lengths were repaired during diapause and we observed potent axonal regrowth from somas alone. Complete morphological regeneration depends on DLK-1 but neuronal sprouting and outgrowth is DLK-1 independent. We show that TRN regeneration is fully functional since animals regain their ability to respond to mechanical stimulation. Thus, diapause induced regeneration provides a simple model of complete axonal regeneration which will greatly facilitate the study of environmental and genetic factors affecting the rate at which neurons die.


The Rusitec System was used to evaluate apparent in vitro degradation of organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), neutral and acid detergent fibers (NDF, ADF), and production of methane and ammonia in silage and hay of two legumes, tannin-containing, Calliandra calothyrsus and, non-tanniniferous, Vigna unguiculata, and mixtures of both legumes. There were eight experimental treatments, each replicated four times, in a randomized complete-blocks design. The four treatments based on silages were: T1, Calliandra 100%; T2, Vigna 100%; T3, Calliandra/Vigna 67/33%; T4, Vigna/Calliandra 67/33%; and in analogous fashion the four treatments based on hays, T5, T6, T7, and T8. Analysis of initial chemical composition showed lower CP content in the silage than in the hay of both legumes; higher NDF and ADF in silage than in hay of Calliandra, but the reverse situation in Vigna. Calliandra hay was much higher in tannin content than the silage. In OM and CP degradability, silages surpassed hays and Vigna surpassed Calliandra; production of CH4 and NH3 followed the same pattern. Degradabilities of NDF and ADF were lower in Calliandra and its 67% mixtures, for which even some negative values were obtained. The possible use of Calliandra in appropriate proportions to protect dietary proteins from ruminal degradation, thus becoming bypass protein, is suggested.


A 7-strand Nb3Sn superconducting cable, which consists of three pre-bent CuNb/Nb3Sn strands, three stainless-steel (SS) strands, and a center SS strand, was fabricated. 2.5 turns of the cable was wound on a 262-mm diameter GFRP bobbin A triplet consisting of three pre-bent CuNb/Nb3Sn strands was also tested for comparison. The reinforcement effect of stainless-steel strands in a cable was investigated to develop a high-strength large-current superconducting cable. The hoop stress test result indicated that the stainless-steel reinforced CuNb/Nb3Sn cable showed better performance than the CuNb/Nb3Sn triplet under the hoop stress, because the stainless-steel strands reduced the hoop stress on Nb3Sn strands. Furthermore, the solder impregnation of the cable, which made the seven strands a monolithic conductor, improved its performance.


A strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) is formed in an MgO/CoFeB/Pd unit structure for an MgO-based magnetic tunnel junction. The most important factors for a strong PMA are the composition and the thickness of the CoFeB layer. A strong PMA is observed for the samples fabricated using the CoFeB target with a high Co/Fe ratio and annealed at 300 °C for 1 or 2 h. The PMA is formed up to a CoFeB layer thickness as thick as 2.5 nm, although the strongest PMA, with an out-of-plane coercivity of 1068 Oe and a PMA energy density of 2.7×106 erg/cc, is seen at a CoFeB thickness of 2.0 nm. The systematic study indicates that the PMA is attributed not to the interface effects but rather to the bulk effect of forming a Pd-rich, Co–Pd alloy, as confirmed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profile and x-ray diffraction experiments. The thick CoFeB layer is expected to reduce the template effect from the Pd layer during the annealing, and therefore increase the tunneling magnetoresistance of the MgO-bas...


During our work, we developed a new, simple method to show the effects of fertilization on yield, which can both be applied over the long term as well as in series of independent experiments.During the testing of this method, at the experimental farm of the Debrecen University Center for Agricultural Sciences at Latokep on a chernozem soil with lime deposits, we examined the fertilizer reaction of maize hybrids between 1989 and 1994. The treatments were: winter tillage, plant density of 70-80 thousand, unfertilized, N 120, N 240 kg/ha fertilized treatments, long term experiments using Dekalb 524 and Volga SC hybrids in long term experiments.Four parameters are shown in the model. In the examined period TRmax represents the greatest yield in the fertilized treatments, NT the yield in unfertilized treatment, k the "efficiency of fertilizer" to NT and b the depression-coefficient, where the expected value is zero. The expected grain yield of the fertilized treatments (Y), in the function of the unfertilized grain yield (x) is the following:

The parameters were determined using the Monte Carlo method, in the optimizing process the sum of deviation square was minimized. The correct conformation of the functions was determined by the greatness of the R-value and the standard error. We found that during six years of testing, the tendency of fertilization efficiency was similar in the case of both hybrids. There was an unfavorable weather interval and, in these years, the yields were low, fertilization did not have an effect and moreover, in extremely bad conditions resulted in an obvious yield decrease. With the  improvement of conditions, which in the case of our country means an increase in precipitation, the efficiency of fertilization increases and reaches its peak at 13-14 t/ha. At this point, the yield increasing effect of fertilization is 4-4,5 t/ha. If the yield of the unfertilized treatments increases from 8-9 t/ha, then the efficiency of the applied fertilizer decreases.Most likely, the k and b parameters depend on the soil of the experimental location (nutrient and water management) and on the amount of  pplied fertilizer and the characteristics of the  hybrid. With the increase of fertilizer dosage the k-parameter also increases. The greater value though does not obviously mean a more favorable situation. It is true that in medium and good years this means great fertilizer efficiency, but in low or extreme precipitation conditions it also means greater risk. With the increase of the k-parameter, the yield deviation also increases which, from a cultivation point of view, is quite unfavorable. If the value of the b-parameter is other than, zero then the effect is clearly unfavorable, because with the increase of this value, the yield decrease is also greater. The fertilizer reaction of the two examined hybrids can be well characterized by these two hybrids.Examining the six years, our created model estimated the effect of fertilization on the yield accurately and with a high degree of safety. Both in highly unfavorable and extremely good years, it gave an exact estimate. In our opinion, it can be used well to evaluate the effects of fertilization on yield in the future.


Estimating 3D human pose and shape from 2D images is a crucial yet challenging task. While prior methods with model-based representations can perform reasonably well on whole-body images, they often fail when parts of the body are occluded or outside the frame. Moreover, these results usually do not faithfully capture the human silhouettes due to their limited representation power of deformable models (e.g., representing only the naked body). An alternative approach is to estimate dense vertices of a predefined template body in the image space. Such representations are effective in localizing vertices within an image but cannot handle out-of-frame body parts. In this work, we learn dense human body estimation that is robust to partial observations. We explicitly model the visibility of human joints and vertices in the x, y, and z axes separately. The visibility in x and y axes help distinguishing out-of-frame cases, and the visibility in depth axis corresponds to occlusions (either self-occlusions or occlusions by other objects). We obtain pseudo ground-truths of visibility labels from dense UV correspondences and train a neural network to predict visibility along with 3D coordinates. We show that visibility can serve as 1) an additional signal to resolve depth ordering ambiguities of self-occluded vertices and 2) a regularization term when fitting a human body model to the predictions. Extensive experiments on multiple 3D human datasets demonstrate that visibility modeling significantly improves the accuracy of human body estimation, especially for partial-body cases. Our project page with code is at: https://github.com/chhankyao/visdb.


Federated learning with differential privacy, i.e. private federated learning (PFL), makes it possible to train models on private data distributed across users' devices without harming privacy. PFL is efficient for models, such as neural networks, that have a fixed number of parameters, and thus a fixed-dimensional gradient vector. Such models include neural-net language models, but not tokenizers, the topic of this work. Training a tokenizer requires frequencies of words from an unlimited vocabulary, and existing methods for finding an unlimited vocabulary need a separate privacy budget. A workaround is to train the tokenizer on publicly available data. However, in this paper we first show that a tokenizer trained on mismatched data results in worse model performance compared to a privacy-violating"oracle"tokenizer that accesses user data, with perplexity increasing by 20%. We also show that sub-word tokenizers are better suited to the federated context than word-level ones, since they can encode new words, though with more tokens per word. Second, we propose a novel method to obtain a tokenizer without using any additional privacy budget. During private federated learning of the language model, we sample from the model, train a new tokenizer on the sampled sequences, and update the model embeddings. We then continue private federated learning, and obtain performance within 1% of the"oracle"tokenizer. Since this process trains the tokenizer only indirectly on private data, we can use the"postprocessing guarantee"of differential privacy and thus use no additional privacy budget.


Rescuers who drown sacrifice their lives so that another might live; these drowning deaths are a particular challenge to prevent. In this research from Australia and the literature, we dissect and discuss the elements of "rescue altruism." This 18-year critical incident population study identified 103 victims who drowned while attempting a rescue. In 74% of cases, the primary "victim" (rescuee) survived; 50% of rescuers were visitors not familiar with the water hazard; 67% of the drowned rescuers were related to the primary victim. None were professionally trained in aquatic rescue. We propose that rescue altruism is composed of (a) an ethos based on the Good Samaritan or Golden Rule ethic; (b) a subjective identity of the rescuer with the victim, intensified by a perceived duty-of-care relationship; (c) perception of risk in which the potential of rescue-resuscitation success is greater than zero; and (d) personal courage that ignores degree of risk. The unmet challenge therefore is to ensure all members of the public are equipped with lifesaving drills and skills to ensure their safety and those in their care.


We consider the control of decentralized learning dynamics for agents in an anti-coordination network game. In the anti-coordination network game, there is a preferred action in the absence of neighbors' actions, and the utility an agent receives from the preferred action decreases as more of its neighbors select the preferred action, potentially causing the agent to select a less desirable action. The decentralized dynamics that is based on the iterated elimination of dominated strategies converge for the considered game. Given a convergent action profile, we measure anti-coordination by the number of edges in the underlying graph that have at least one agent in either end of the edge not taking the preferred action. The maximum anti-coordination (MAC) problem seeks to find an optimal set of agents to control under a finite budget so that the overall network disconnect is maximized on game convergence as a result of the dynamics. We show that the MAC is submodular in expectation in dense bipartite networks for any realization of the utility constants in the population. Utilizing this result, we obtain a performance guarantee for the greedy agent selection algorithm for MAC. Finally, we provide a computational study to show the effectiveness of greedy node selection strategies to solve MAC on general bipartite networks.


Non Crimp Fabrics (NCF) are promising new generation composite materials. They are now being used in some sections of composite industry, for example in wind turbine blades and boat hulls. The aerospace industry also shows an increasing interest in this material, thanks to the low cost of its manufacturing process. NCFs are special types of textile composites, made of layers of parallel fiber bundles oriented in different directions and separated by resin. Due to the manufacturing process the fiber bundles are not perfectly straight. They show a certain degree of waviness which decreases the stiffness and the strength of the material. The heterogeneous mesostructure affects the mechanical properties of the material and the failure mechanisms. This was studied using both numerical and experimental methods. In our experimental approach, a carbon fiber/epoxy resin laminate with uniform fiber distribution was manufactured by voluntarily introducing waviness to simulate the NCF composites. The displacement map was studied against the thickness of a sample loaded in tension, using ESPI (Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry). This can give us a primary idea of the micro damage initiation and the cracks' shapes.


Canadian courts use simple probability reasoning inconsistently in personal injury litigation, subjecting litigants to irregular legal principles and potentially improper compensation. Turning to foundational principles of tort litigation, I suggest a new framework for the availability of simple probability that would promote greater coherence. Simple probability reasoning is understood as an alternative standard of proof that enables compensation for a loss proportional to the likelihood that the loss will occur. Accordingly, the availability of simple probability is thought to depend on which types of facts (past vs. future vs. hypothetical facts) are amenable to balance of probabilities proof versus simple probability. This is the 'type of fact' framework, but it is not applied consistently. Part 1 argues that the inconsistency is rooted in the mischaracterization of simple probability reasoning as a standard of proof. It is better conceived of as a method of enabling chances, in their own right, to become legally relevant facts. Understood this way, simple probability is available only where chances are relevant to the legal determination at stake. I apply this characterization in Part 2, concluding that while simple probability reasoning is irrelevant to liability determinations, it is crucial in appropriately assessing damages.


We exploit an optional colocation upgrade at NASDAQ OMX Stockholm to assess how speed affects market liquidity. Liquidity improves for the overall market and even for noncolocated trading entities. We find that the upgrade is pursued mainly by participants who engage in market making. Those that upgrade use their enhanced speed to reduce their exposure to adverse selection and to relax their inventory constraints. In particular, the upgraded trading entities remain competitive at the best bid and offer even when their inventories are in their top decile. Our results suggest that increasing the speed of market-making participants benefits market liquidity.


Abstract Aims A high number of alcohol units required to feel a subjective effect of alcohol predicts future alcohol use disorders (AUDs). The subjective response to alcohol can be measured using the validated retrospective self-rated effects of alcohol (SRE) questionnaire. Few studies have investigated the specific relationship between SRE and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in an experimental setting. Methods Twenty healthy young adult male volunteers who had experience with binge drinking, but did not have AUD, filled out the SRE-questionnaire and were served with a fixed amount of alcohol per body weight. BACs were measured throughout a 12-hour period, reaching a maximum BAC of ~0.13%. Median split of SRE-scores was utilized to compare BACs among participants with relatively high effects (low SRE) and relatively low effects (high SRE) of alcohol. Results Participants reporting a relatively low SRE-score had a statistically significant higher measured BAC at all time points until alcohol was eliminated. This was especially pronounced during the first 2 hours after alcohol (P = 0.015) without a significant difference in the alcohol elimination rate being detected. Conclusion The study indicates that a self-ated SRE-score is related to BACs after the ingestion of a standardized amount of alcohol per body weight. Reporting a higher number of alcohol units before feeling an effect was related to a lower BAC. As the differences in BAC between relatively high and low self-rated effects appeared rapidly after intake, this could be interpreted as an effect of presystemic metabolism of alcohol.


Abstract The crystallization of scale forming minerals is an important problem in a number of processes. Calcium sulfate dihydrate (CaSO4·2H2O, gypsum) is the most unwelcome deposit in the production of oil and gas, in water cooling systems and in hydrometallurgical processes. Additives have been used in these processes to prevent the formation and deposition of scaling salts. In this study, the effects of additives on the spontaneuos precipitation of CaSO4·2H2O were investigated in aqueous solutions at 30°C. Conductive copolymers with different vinylphosphonic acid (VPA) contents were used as additives. The degree of inhibition of cystallization was measured as an increase in induction time and the reduction in crystallization rate. The crystallization reactions were interpreted in terms of the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The cystals were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). The VPA content of the copolymer and the supersaturation of the solution were found to be effective parameters on CaSO4·2H2O crystallization.


Image hashing is one of the fundamental problems that demand both efficient and effective solutions for various practical scenarios. Adversarial autoencoders are shown to be able to implicitly learn a robust, locality-preserving hash function that generates balanced and high-quality hash codes. However, the existing adversarial hashing methods are inefficient to be employed for large-scale image retrieval applications. Specifically, they require an exponential number of samples to be able to generate optimal hash codes and a significantly high computational cost to train. In this paper, we show that the high sample-complexity requirement often results in sub-optimal retrieval performance of the adversarial hashing methods. To address this challenge, we propose a new adversarial-autoencoder hashing approach that has a much lower sample requirement and computational cost. Specifically, by exploiting the desired properties of the hash function in the low-dimensional, discrete space, our method efficiently estimates a better variant of Wasserstein distance by averaging a set of easy-to-compute one-dimensional Wasserstein distances. The resulting hashing approach has an order-of-magnitude better sample complexity, thus better generalization property, compared to the other adversarial hashing methods. In addition, the computational cost is significantly reduced using our approach. We conduct experiments on several real-world datasets and show that the proposed method outperforms the competing hashing methods, achieving up to 10% improvement over the current state-of-the-art image hashing methods. The code accompanying this paper is available on Github (this https URL).


I have never seen Bill Bean treating the sick, pursuing research, or even bicycling to work. But at least I can say why I admire him as a communicator—a writer. Communication is no small part of Medicine. Communication with patients: communication with colleagues: communication with ourselves. And even for self-communion we need words. For without them we cannot think. To most people, words, of a kind, come so naturally that their use is not seen as a technique to be mastered. But without conscious labour few write clearly. Bill has long practised the necessary discipline, and he therefore writes precisely. This obliges him-unlike less lucid authors—to find out what he means to say. A preliminary often advantageous to the reader. Anyone who takes pains can ensure that what he writes, whether useful or not, is intelligible. The trouble is that it may also be rather dull. From even the most


Concern for climate change has not yet been integrated in protocols for reserve selection. However if climate changes as projected, there is a possibility that current reserve‐selection methods might provide solutions that are inadequate to ensure species' long‐term persistence within reserves. We assessed, for the first time, the ability of existing reserve‐selection methods to secure species in a climate‐change context. Six methods using a different combination of criteria (representation, suitability and reserve clustering) are compared. The assessment is carried out using European distributions of 1200 plant species and considering two extreme scenarios of response to climate change: no dispersal and universal dispersal. With our data, 6–11% of species modelled would be potentially lost from selected reserves in a 50‐year period. Measured uncertainties varied in 6% being 1–3% attributed to dispersal assumptions and 2–5% to the choice of reserve‐selection method. Suitability approaches to reserve selection performed best, while reserve clustering performed poorly. We also found that 5% of species modelled would lose their entire climatic envelope in the studied area; 2% of the species modelled would have nonoverlapping distributions; 93% of the species modelled would maintain varying levels of overlapping distributions. We conclude there are opportunities to minimize species' extinctions within reserves but new approaches are needed to account for impacts of climate change on species; especially for those projected to have temporally nonoverlapping distributions.


On an increase in demand of vehicular transportation, the vehicular traffic has increased. This resulted in need for constant alertness of the drivers, especially for the four wheel drivers. They have to maintain their proper state of driving to maintain safety of goods and people. In this paper we are studying about the driver's condition for driving and driver's safety. The general reason for the road accident are the drowsy condition of the driver and the blind spot region while lane changing or overtaking. These two are the main highlighted things to be considered in this paper. Firstly, for the detection of drowsiness the eye blink detection is used, in which the eye blink rate is taken as parameter for determining the drowsiness of the driver. The drowsiness detection system is implemented using Android App. In our project we are going to use Ultrasonic sensors, as image processing will take more time for processing than sensor processing. We are going to check whether there is vehicle in the sensor range or not. If vehicle is detected, immediate alert will be given to the driver, from which side there is chance of crash if we try to change lane. In addition we are implementing a safety system in the vehicle which will detect the accident of the vehicle. And if accident is detected then immediately vehicles location will be sent to the number so that family members and Ambulance service provider will come to know about accident and both can take proper action.


Eutrophication (nutrient over-enrichment) is the primary worldwide water quality issue often leading to nuisance cyanobacterial blooms. Climate change is predicted to cause further rise of cyanobacteria blooms as cyanobacteria can have a competitive advantage at elevated temperatures. We tested the hypothesis that simultaneous rise in nutrients and temperature will promote cyanobacteria more than a single increase in one of the two drivers. To this end, controlled experiments were run with seston from 39 different urban water bodies varying in trophic state from mesotrophic to hypertrophic. These experiments were carried out at two different temperatures, 20°C (ambient) and 25°C (warming scenario) with or without the addition of a surplus of nutrients (eutrophication scenario). To facilitate comparisons, we quantified the effect size of the different treatments, using cyanobacterial and algal chlorophyll a concentrations as a response variable. Cyanobacterial and algal chlorophyll a concentrations were determined with a PHYTO-PAM phytoplankton analyzer. Warming caused an 18% increase in cyanobacterial chlorophyll-a, while algal chlorophyll-a concentrations were on average 8% higher at 25°C than at 20°C. A nutrient pulse had a much stronger effect on chlorophyll-a concentrations than warming. Cyanobacterial chlorophyll-a concentrations in nutrient enriched incubations at 20 or 25°C were similar and 9 times higher than in the incubations without nutrient pulse. Likewise, algal chlorophyll-a concentrations were 6 times higher. The results of this study confirm that warming alone yields marginally higher cyanobacteria chlorophyll-a concentrations, yet that a pulse of additional nutrients is boosting blooms. The responses of seston originating from mesotrophic waters seemed less strong than those from eutrophic waters, which indicates that nutrient control strategies –catchment as well as in-system measures– could increase the resilience of surface waters to the negative effects of climate change.


ZNF341 is a newly characterized transcription factor controlling baseline and inducible transcription of the human STAT3 gene. Fingers on the trigger Hyper–immunoglobulin E syndromes (HIESs) are rare genetic immunodeficiency diseases characterized by bacterial infections, chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis, allergies, and skeletal abnormalities that are associated with excessive TH2 responses and impaired TH17 immunity. Béziat et al. and Frey-Jakobs et al. have studied patients with an autosomal recessive form of HIES and identified mutations in the zinc finger transcription factor ZNF341 as the culprit. Loss-of-function mutations encoding truncated forms of ZNF341 interfered with its ability to recognize a bipartite binding site located in the promoter of STAT3, the transcription factor mutated in most cases of autosomal dominant HIES. ZNF341-supported transcription of STAT3 is a key upstream regulatory step needed to trigger the normal induction of the TH17 differentiation pathway. These findings reveal a previously unappreciated layer of transcriptional regulation controlling JAK-STAT signaling. Heterozygosity for human signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) dominant-negative (DN) mutations underlies an autosomal dominant form of hyper–immunoglobulin E syndrome (HIES). We describe patients with an autosomal recessive form of HIES due to loss-of-function mutations of a previously uncharacterized gene, ZNF341. ZNF341 is a transcription factor that resides in the nucleus, where it binds a specific DNA motif present in various genes, including the STAT3 promoter. The patients' cells have low basal levels of STAT3 mRNA and protein. The autoinduction of STAT3 production, activation, and function by STAT3-activating cytokines is strongly impaired. Like patients with STAT3 DN mutations, ZNF341-deficient patients lack T helper 17 (TH17) cells, have an excess of TH2 cells, and have low memory B cells due to the tight dependence of STAT3 activity on ZNF341 in lymphocytes. Their milder extra-hematopoietic manifestations and stronger inflammatory responses reflect the lower ZNF341 dependence of STAT3 activity in other cell types. Human ZNF341 is essential for the STAT3 transcription–dependent autoinduction and sustained activity of STAT3.


Development and progression of many human diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), are hypothesized to result from interactions between genetic and environmental factors. Current approaches to identify and evaluate interactions are limited, most often focusing on main effects and two-way interactions. While higher order interactions associated with disease are documented, they are difficult to detect since expanding the search space to all possible interactions of p predictors means evaluating 2p − 1 terms. For example, data with 150 candidate predictors requires considering over 1045 main effects and interactions. In this study, we present an analytical approach involving selection of candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and environmental and/or clinical factors and use of Logic Forest to identify predictors of disease, including higher order interactions, followed by confirmation of the association between those predictors and interactions identified with disease outcome using logistic regression. We applied this approach to a study investigating whether smoking and/or secondhand smoke exposure interacts with candidate SNPs resulting in elevated risk of SLE. The approach identified both genetic and environmental risk factors, with evidence suggesting potential interactions between exposure to secondhand smoke as a child and genetic variation in the ITGAM gene associated with increased risk of SLE.


This paper investigated AUE students" practice of the speech act of compliment while they were communicating in English; it also investigated the most common positive adjectives adopted by them and the effect of the topic of the situation on the compliments. The participants of this study were 15 female and 15 male students at AUE. To gather the required data for the study, the researcher designed a questionnaire in the format of a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which had eight situations, provoking the speech act of compliment. The results of the study revealed that the factor of gender among AUE students had almost no effect on their compliment forms, on the adopted positive adjectives, nor on their interest in the topic of the compliment. The participants did not compliment properly: They ignored some of the most common forms of compliment in English, they used a lot of compliments that are not common in English, and they used jokes and Arabic words transcribed in English to convey compliments. The most two frequent positive adjectives adopted by the participants were "nice" and "good". Finally, the results revealed that the topic of the setting was not a crucial factor to enhance the participants to convey the compliments. In conclusion, the researcher recommended that the speech act of compliment must be taken into consideration while teaching English language courses to enable students to use them more properly.


High density of defects and stress owing to the lattice and thermal mismatch between nitride materials and heterogeneous substrates have always been important problems and limit the development of nitride materials. In this paper, AlGaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were grown directly on a single-layer graphene-covered Si (111) substrate by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) without a metal catalyst. The nanorods was nucleated by AlGaN nucleation islands with a 35% Al composition, and included n-AlGaN, 6 period of AlGaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs), and p-AlGaN. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) showed that the nanorods were vertically aligned and had an accordant orientation along the [0001] direction. The structure of AlGaN nanorod LEDs was investigated by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Raman measurements of graphene before and after MOCVD growth revealed the graphene could withstand the high temperature and ammonia atmosphere in MOCVD. Photoluminescence (PL) and cathodoluminescence (CL) characterized an emission at ~325 nm and demonstrated the low defects density in AlGaN nanorod LEDs.


This paper describes a method developed by Pennsylvania Power and Light Company (PP&L) for applying programmable logic controllers to control tap change under load (TCUL) power transformers. Equipment was identified, and a set of software programs developed, to completely replace the existing analog-based TCUL control systems. There is a significant cost savings from this approach, and PP&L expects an increase in the reliability of the TCUL controls from this design, as well as fewer operations of the TCUL equipment. Several additional functions and alarms were implemented in the new design which will enhance the operation of these transformers. >


During the first millenium AD metal rich sites begin to appear in the archaeological record of Northern Europe. These specialized sites reflect structural and functional changes in settlement patterns, and in the social, political and economic structures behind them. While these sites began to appear in numbers from the 1980s, with the advent of the metal detector, it would be wrong to say that we fully understand the functional and spatial patterns of these sites. Inspired by methods from social and health sciences, this paper presents an attempt to model a social landscape index for central places of Danish Late Iron Age. By retrogression from later historical maps, a GIS model is developed to indicate the potential geographic distribution of central places across the landscape. This model is correlated to the already known finds.


[1] The great 27 February 2010 Mw 8.8 earthquake off the coast of southern Chile ruptured a ∼600 km length of subduction zone. In this paper, we make two independent estimates of shear stress in the crust in the region of the Chile earthquake. First, we use a coseismic slip model constrained by geodetic observations from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and GPS to derive a spatially variable estimate of the change in static shear stress along the ruptured fault. Second, we use a static force balance model to constrain the crustal shear stress required to simultaneously support observed fore-arc topography and the stress orientation indicated by the earthquake focal mechanism. This includes the derivation of a semianalytic solution for the stress field exerted by surface and Moho topography loading the crust. We find that the deviatoric stress exerted by topography is minimized in the limit when the crust is considered an incompressible elastic solid, with a Poisson ratio of 0.5, and is independent of Young's modulus. This places a strict lower bound on the critical stress state maintained by the crust supporting plastically deformed accretionary wedge topography. We estimate the coseismic shear stress change from the Maule event ranged from −6 MPa (stress increase) to 17 MPa (stress drop), with a maximum depth-averaged crustal shear-stress drop of 4 MPa. We separately estimate that the plate-driving forces acting in the region, regardless of their exact mechanism, must contribute at least 27 MPa trench-perpendicular compression and 15 MPa trench-parallel compression. This corresponds to a depth-averaged shear stress of at least 7 MPa. The comparable magnitude of these two independent shear stress estimates is consistent with the interpretation that the section of the megathrust fault ruptured in the Maule earthquake is weak, with the seismic cycle relieving much of the total sustained shear stress in the crust.


Administration of the relatively organ specific antibody, so called nephrotoxin, present in anti-kidney serum, is followed by a diffuse glomerulonephritis. This is characterized early by swelling of the intercapillary substance of the glomerular tuft and by tubular degeneration. Fibrin thrombi are only present in the glomerular capillaries when the injection of anti-kidney serum results in a severe anaphylactoid reaction, and are due to factors other than nephrotoxin. The urinary abnormalities which develop in all rats after a suitable injection of nephrotoxin usually continue until the animal dies or is sacrificed. Microscopic renal lesions of the early phase merge into scarring of the glomeruli and tubules. Histological study of those animals which die from 3 to 11 months after treatment reveals a chronic progressive glomerulonephritis with generalized vascular lesions.


The paper is concerned with the determination of minimal third-order expressions of Boolean functions. Up to the time of presenting this paper, a few methods which were available for obtaining third- or higher-order minimal expressions could, by no means, be considered as a general approach to the solution of the problem. The method suggested in the paper of Meo utilizes basically the same concept as is used for the simplification of Boolean functions in the minimal two-level form. The simplification procedure as suggested is carried out successively in three distinct stages. In the first step, the ps maximal implicants of the given function are determined. These ps maximal implicants form the basic building blocks in three-level mini mization, just as the prime implicants constitute the basic blocks in conventional two-level minimization, and are thus analogous to the prime implicants. No direct method of determina tion of the ps maximal implicants being available, the problem is solved in an indirect way through


In the present paper, the ability and accuracy of an Adaptive Neuro–Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) was investigated for the process evaluation of thermal cracking to light olefin. The main objective of this research is to predict product yields as a function of Coil Outlet Temperature (COT), steam ratio, and feed flow rate, at the reactor tube outlet. Temperature, flow rate and steam-to-hydrocarbon ratio were in the range of 1023–1173 K, 3–7 g g−1, and 0.5–1.4 g min−1, respectively. The Adaptive Network-Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) technique was trained using historical data to generate the membership functions and rules that best interpret the input/output relationships of the process. Four fuzzy inference systems were independently developed for four output parameters, each of which consisted of three inputs and 27 rules. In order to better understand the capability of the present technique, an extensive comparison test was applied to the ANFIS, kinetic modeling, and response surface methodology. The obtained results demonstrate that these three models are in good agreement with the experimental data. The NF model showed the best results of all.


http://www.the-aps.org/. Copyright © 1987 by International Union of Physiological Sciences. ESSN: 1548-9221. Visit our website at December by the American Physiological Society, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda MD 20814-3991. physiological developments. It is published bimonthly in February, April, June, August, October, and (formerly published as News in Physiological Science) publishes brief review articles on major Physiology by gest on N ovem er 8, 2016 http://physioline.physiology.org/ D ow nladed fom


Students' performance at the lower secondary level in Uruguay is examined on the basis of the mathematics scores compiled by the Programme for International Student Assessment (pisa) for 2003 and 2006. An effort is made to analyse the differences in score distributions, to identify the variables influencing students' performance and to trace the trends over that period and weigh their significance. In order to do so, a production function for educational achievement is defined and a number of different decomposition methodologies are applied. The findings indicate that the small increase in scores between 2003 and 2006 is the net result of differing changes, most of which are primarily the result of an across-the-board increase in the school system's efficiency, especially in the case of public schools. However, this improvement is partially offset by reduced resource endowments and, in particular, unfavourable socioeconomic and cultural conditions in many of the students' households. Most of the changes that are analysed in this study are found to be of a redistributive nature


We show that for a special class of probability distributions that we call contoured distributions, information-theoretic invariants and inequalities are equivalent to geometric invariants and inequalities of bodies in Euclidean space associated with the distributions. Using this, we obtain characterizations of contoured distributions with extremal Shannon and Renyi entropy. We also obtain a new reverse information-theoretic inequality for contoured distributions.


This paper presents a general trainable framework for fast and robust upright human face and non-human object detection and verification in static images. To enhance the performance of the detection process, the technique we develop is based on the combination of fast neural network (FNN) and classical neural network (CNN). In FNN, a useful correlation is exploited to sustain high level of detection accuracy between input image and the weight of the hidden neurons. This is to enable the use of Fourier transform that significantly speed up the time detection. The combination of CNN is responsible to verify the face region. A bootstrap algorithm is used to collect non human object, which adds the false detection to the training process of the human and non-human object. Experimental results on test images with both simple and complex background demonstrate that the proposed method has obtained high detection rate and low false positive rate in detecting both human face and non-human object. Keywords—Algorithm, detection of human and non-human object, FNN, CNN, Image training.


Aims. Since 2011, the SOPHIE spectrograph has been used to search for Neptunes and super-Earths in the northern hemisphere. As part of this observational program, 290 radial velocity measurements of the 6.4 V magnitude star HD 158259 were obtained. Additionally, TESS photometric measurements of this target are available. We present an analysis of the SOPHIE data and compare our results with the output of the TESS pipeline.
Methods. The radial velocity data, ancillary spectroscopic indices, and ground-based photometric measurements were analyzed with classical and ℓ1 periodograms. The stellar activity was modeled as a correlated Gaussian noise and its impact on the planet detection was measured with a new technique.
Results. The SOPHIE data support the detection of five planets, each with m sin i ≈ 6 M⊕, orbiting HD 158259 in 3.4, 5.2, 7.9, 12, and 17.4 days. Though a planetary origin is strongly favored, the 17.4 d signal is classified as a planet candidate due to a slightly lower statistical significance and to its proximity to the expected stellar rotation period. The data also present low frequency variations, most likely originating from a magnetic cycle and instrument systematics. Furthermore, the TESS pipeline reports a significant signal at 2.17 days corresponding to a planet of radius ≈1.2 R⊕. A compatible signal is seen in the radial velocities, which confirms the detection of an additional planet and yields a ≈2 M⊕ mass estimate.
Conclusions. We find a system of five planets and a strong candidate near a 3:2 mean motion resonance chain orbiting HD 158259. The planets are found to be outside of the two and three body resonances.


The idea of this book has been with me since the height of the Look East Policy [LEP in short] conceived by India. Although India conceived the ideology of Look East Policy way back in 1991, not much has been achieved through it. It is argued through this book that in foreign policy procedure and execution of most of the South East Asian, Buddhism has acted more as a 'culture' than as a religion. The dynamics of South east Asia metamorphosed through tremendous economic and financial growth, resulting in global political attention. From that retrospect, it was my idea that religion per say, does affect the foreign relations, whatever be the basic tenets and that hypothesis required to be tested on the ground. Cultural diplomacy, or the deployment of a state's culture in support of its foreign policy goals or diplomacy, has not attracted the level of scholarly attention it warrants, given its long history, the substantial investment by some practitioners, and its relevance to a number of related subjects in International Relations.


Streptococcus mutans is one of the dominant bacteria in the oral cavity. These bacteria are the main bacteria that cause dental caries. Toothpaste containing fluoride is important for preventing tooth decay. The use of fluoridated toothpaste poses a dilemma because it can cause side effects in the form of fluorosis when used in concentrations that are not recommended. However, there is an alternative way, namely by using a toothpaste that contains essential oils and plant extracts (herbs).
The type of research used is the experimental method. The samples in this study were Streptococcus mutans (ATCC) bacteria, cinnamon bark ethanol extract toothpaste, negative control (toothpaste base) and positive control (Enzyme toothpaste). All toothpaste samples were put into TYC media which contained Streptococcus mutans. Incubation for 1x24 hours, then the size of the inhibition zone was calculated and repeated 4 times. The results showed that the cinnamon bark ethanol extract toothpaste formula made in three concentrations of 3.125%, 6.25% and 12.5% ??had antibacterial activity against Streptococcus mutans (ATCC). The results obtained showed that there was a significant difference for the two test groups p < 0.05.    Two test groups showed great potential as antibacterial. These results are expected to be information to the public that the ethanolic extract of cinnamon bark can be used as an active ingredient in toothpaste.


Since its opening on the place Vendome in Paris in 1906, renowned jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels has played a leading role in setting style and design trends in luxury jewelry and in the development of the art of jewelry design. Van Cleef & Arpels pieces have been worn by such style icons as the Duchess of Windsor, Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, and the company's prestige has spread throughout the globe, thanks to an unending list of prominent commissions issued by royal and imperial courts and the world's rich and famous. "Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels" explores the historical significance of the firm's contributions to jewelry design in the twentieth century, including the establishment of Van Cleef & Arpels in New York in 1939. The book features more than 350 of Van Cleef & Arpels' most celebrated works from museum and private collections worldwide, including jewels, timepieces, fashion accessories and objets d'art, focusing on those created exclusively for the American market. Six accessible essays accompanied by nearly 400 photographs, including previously unpublished design drawings from the Van Cleef & Arpels archives, examine the precious pieces through the lenses and themes of innovation, transformation, nature, exoticism, fashion and personalities.