This paper reports results from the first two years of an effort in 10 high schools to replicate the California Peninsula Academies. The Academy model combines the core academic curriculum with technical instruction in a particular occupational field. Local employers representing that field participate in various ways. The program is intended to improve school performance of students who would otherwise be likely to drop out. Evidence presented here indicates that Academy students generally have compiled better grades and more course credits than students in comparison groups at the same high schools. At three sites in particular, Academy students have consistently out-performed comparison groups in the first two years.


Cigarette smoke (CS)-induced mitochondrial damage with increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production has been implicated in COPD pathogenesis by accelerating senescence. Mitophagy may play a pivotal role for removal of CS-induced damaged mitochondria, and the PINK1 (PTEN-induced putative kinase 1)-PARK2 pathway has been proposed as a crucial mechanism for mitophagic degradation. Therefore, we sought to investigate to determine if PINK1-PARK2-mediated mitophagy is involved in the regulation of CS extract (CSE)-induced cell senescence and in COPD pathogenesis. Mitochondrial damage, ROS production, and cell senescence were evaluated in primary human bronchial epithelial cells (HBEC). Mitophagy was assessed in BEAS-2B cells stably expressing EGFP-LC3B, using confocal microscopy to measure colocalization between TOMM20-stained mitochondria and EGFP-LC3B dots as a representation of autophagosome formation. To elucidate the involvement of PINK1 and PARK2 in mitophagy, knockdown and overexpression experiments were performed. PINK1 and PARK2 protein levels in lungs from patients were evaluated by means of lung homogenate and immunohistochemistry. We demonstrated that CSE-induced mitochondrial damage was accompanied by increased ROS production and HBEC senescence. CSE-induced mitophagy was inhibited by PINK1 and PARK2 knockdown, resulting in enhanced mitochondrial ROS production and cellular senescence in HBEC. Evaluation of protein levels demonstrated decreased PARK2 in COPD lungs compared with non-COPD lungs. These results suggest that PINK1-PARK2 pathway-mediated mitophagy plays a key regulatory role in CSE-induced mitochondrial ROS production and cellular senescence in HBEC. Reduced PARK2 expression levels in COPD lung suggest that insufficient mitophagy is a part of the pathogenic sequence of COPD.


This paper presents a computational framework for the physics-based simulation of light vehicles operating on discrete terrain. The focus is on characterizing through simulation the mobility of vehicles that weigh 1000 pounds or less, such as a reconnaissance robot. The terrain is considered to be deformable and is represented as a collection of bodies of arbitrary shape. The modeling stage relies on a novel formulation of the frictional contact problem that requires at each time step of the numerical simulation the solution of an optimization problem. The proposed computational framework, when run on ubiquitous Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) cards, allows the simulation of systems in which the terrain is represented by more than 0.5 million bodies leading to problems with more than one million degrees of freedom. The numerical solution for the equations of motion is tailored to map on the underlying GPU architecture and is parallelized to leverage more than 1500 Scalar Processors available on modern hardware architectures. As a demonstration of this technology, we present the simulation of a light tracked vehicle that negotiates several obstacles whose dimensions are comparable to those of the vehicle. The number of bodies used to represent the vehicle is larger than 100 and the terrain the vehicle operates on is considered to be made up of gravel.


Learning through problem solving is a pedagogical approach that situates learning in problem-solving contexts. As a form of constructivist learning, problem solving has received increased attention in complex and ill-structured domains such as scientific inquiry and medical education. However, effective learning in problem-solving contexts is difficult to realize because problem-solving tasks often involve complex processes that are inaccessible to learners. It is important to make such complex processes visible for observation and practice, and provide learners with necessary help during the learning process. This study explored the design of a computer-based learning environment that helps medical students to externalize the sophisticated process of diagnostic problem-solving and provides them with adaptive feedback when they work with a number of simulated clinical cases. The proposed approach attempted to utilize expert knowledge to transform open-ended problem-solving experience into systematic and deliberate effort towards expertise development.  https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel.2016.08.034


The Component Process Model posits that attention is appraisal-driven rather than stimulus-driven and that the appraisal of relevance is of critical importance in such a mechanism. This means that any stimulus can attract attention or not depending on how relevant it is appraised. This hypothesis was tested in an implicit border similarity judgement task, in which thirsty participants were presented with bottles and vases that were respectively very relevant and weakly relevant to their goal to quench their thirst. These stimuli were also presented to quenched participants for whom none of the stimuli was relevant. The findings support the idea that our attention is more likely to be appraisal-driven than stimulus-driven, since bottles produced an attentional interference in thirsty participants only. It was also observed that, even if vases were judged weakly relevant by thirsty participants, they produced an attentional interference compared to empty stimuli, which was not the case in the quenched participants group. The concept of goal relatedness was proposed as an explanation for this result, and methodological implications were also discussed.


Abstract. Great efforts have been devoted to the investigation of selective emitters and filters for improving the conversion efficiency of thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems. This work proposes a spectrally selective ultrathin cell with two-dimensional (2-D) metasurface for high-efficiency TPV energy conversion. The cell is composed of Ag substrate, ultrathin gallium antimonide (GaSb) photovoltaic layer, and 2-D metasurface comprising symmetric 2-D metallic grating. The spectral-normal absorptance of the proposed structure is calculated by the finite-element method and the results show significant enhancement in the photon absorption comparing to the free-standing GaSb layer with the same thickness, which is attributed to the excitation of magnetic polariton and Fabry–Perot resonance. The effects of using indium tin oxide and graphene as front electrodes on the absorptance of the proposed ultrathin cell are investigated. The TPV system efficiency is also evaluated using the proposed ultrathin cell. The results show that the TPV efficiency with the proposed ultrathin cell can approach 29.1% with a black emitter at 1500 K and can be further increased to be 35.1% using an ideal selective emitter. This work will facilitate the development of next-generation high-efficiency TPV systems.


Homoplasmy is a feature usually found in the mtDNA of higher animal taxa. On the other hand, the presence of two classes of mtDNA in the same cell or organism is rare and may appear in length or site variation. Data from mtDNA RFLP analysis of Brycon opalinus populations (Cuvier, 1819; Characiformes, Characidae, Bryconinae) revealed site heteroplasmy from endonuclease NheI digestion. Southern blotting hybridization was used to survey a total of 257 specimens with 24 restriction enzymes. Three different restriction fragment patterns of mtDNA were obtained from NheI digestion. Two individuals from hatchery broodstock were found to have two of them. NheI digests of heteroplasmic individuals yielded two fragments of approximately 1180 and 1260 bp. Despite the low frequency of this type of heteroplasmy in the whole B. opalinus population, the presence of site heteroplasmy in this species supports the evidence of this phenomenon in lower vertebrate groups.


This paper evaluates the dynamics of small group persuasion within a large scale randomized deliberative experiment, in particular whether persuasion in this context is driven by the ideological composition of small groups, to which participants were randomly assigned. In these discussions focusing on U.S. fiscal policy, ideological persuasion occurs but does not tend to be polarizing, a result that is inconsistent with the "law" of group polarization identified in small group research. In addition, the results demonstrate the presence of persuasion that is net of ideological considerations, a residual form of preference change that we label "deliberative persuasion." The direction and magnitude of deliberative persuasion are each associated with participants' perceptions of the informativeness of the discussion, but not with the civility or the enjoyableness of the discussion. In addition, informativeness is most closely associated with deliberative persuasion for liberals who come to agree with conservative policies, for conservatives who come to agree with liberal policies, and equally associated for both liberals and conservatives on items that are orthogonal to ideology. The results show that small group dynamics depend heavily on the context in which discussion occurs; that much of the small group experimental work pays little to no attention to this context; and that deliberative institutions are likely to ameliorate many of the pathologies that are often attributed to small group discussion.


Tags have become very popular on the Web 2.0 as they facilitate and encourage users to create and share their own content. In this context, there is a large interest in developing strategies to recommend relevant and useful tags for a target object, improving the quality of the generated tags and of the Information Retrieval (IR) services that use them as data source. Several existing tag recommendation strategies treat the problem as a multiple candidate tag ranking problem, recommending tags that are in top positions of the generated ranking. This motivates the use of Learning-to- Rank (L2R) based strategies to automatically "learn" good tag ranking functions. However, previous work has explored only three different L2R techniques, namely, Genetic Programming (GP), RankSV M and RankBoost, comparing at most two of them with respect to effectiveness. In contrast, we here perform a much more comprehensive comparative study of the use of L2R techniques for tag recommendation. Specifically, we compare eight different L2R techniques, namely, Random Forest (RF), MART, λ-MART, ListNet, AdaRank and the three aforementioned techniques, with respect to both effectiveness (i.e., precision, NDCG) and efficiency (i.e., time complexity). We perform experiments using real data collected from five popular Web 2.0 applications, namely, Bibsonomy, LastFM, MovieLens, YahooVideo and YouTube. Our results show that the best L2R based strategy significantly outperforms the best state-of-the-art unsupervised technique (by up to 29% in NDCG). Moreover, unlike existing comparisons of different L2R techniques in other domains, we find that, for tag recommendation, there is a clear winning group of methods (RF, MART and λ-MART) with a slight advantage of two (RF and λ-MART) over the other, with gains in NDCG ranging from 4% to 12% over the best of the remaining alternatives considered. We also find that recommendation time, despite some variation among the different methods, is under 1.3 seconds, on average (in the worst case scenario), for all L2R methods, which confirms the feasibility of the L2R approach for tag recommendation.


Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) were cultured from 17 B-cell lymphoma specimens derived from patients with predominantly low-grade malignancies. Specimens included 15 lymph-node biopsies, 1 malignant pleural effusion, and PBL from 1 patient with circulating lymphoma cells. The phenotypic and proliferative characteristics of TIL cultured in interleukin-2 (IL-2) were studied, as well as cytolysis and cytokine secretion in response to autologous tumor. Flow cytometry of fresh tumor suspensions showed that 50% of cells (median) were malignant B cells and 36% were infiltrating T lymphocytes. After culture for approximately 1 month, TIL were 75% +/- 8% CD3+ (mean +/- SEM), 47% +/- 8% CD4+ and 35% +/- 7% CD8+. TIL proliferation was modest in most cases: the median maximum expansion was 32-fold in 25 days. Lysis of autologous tumor in 4-hour 51Cr release assays was mediated by 2 of 12 TIL studied, but was nonspecific. However, these same two TIL, when cocultured with various tumor stimulators, preferentially secreted tumor necrosis factor-alpha and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor after autologous tumor stimulation; unstimulated TIL secreted undetectable or barely detectable levels of these cytokines. In one TIL culture, cytokines were secreted by purified CD4+ TIL but not by CD8+ cells, and secretion was completely abrogated by the anti-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II antibody IVA12. Thus, although specific cytokine secretion by lymphoma TIL in response to autologous tumor was observed, it occurred in fewer than 20% of patients studied.


Are typical computer game genres still valid descriptors and useful for describing game structure and game content? Games have changed from simple to complex and from single function to multi function. By identifying structural differences in game elements we develop a more nuanced model to categorized games and use cluster analysis as a descriptive tool in order to do so. The cluster analysis of 75 functionally different games shows that the two perspectives (omnipresent and vagrant), as well as challenges, mutability and savability are important functional categories to use in order to describe games.


Little is known about the inheritance of partial resistance in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] to sclerotinia stem rot, caused by the fungal pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary. This information would be useful to soybean breeders who are developing cultivars with resistance to sclerotinia stem rot. Our objectives were to study the inheritance of partial resistance to sclerotinia stem rot and to present the initial results from mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) that confer this resistance. The research was conducted by testing 152 F 3 -derived lines from a cross between a partially resistant cultivar, Novartis Seeds S19-90 (formerly Northrup King), and a susceptible cultivar, Williams 82, for resistance to sclerotinia stem rot and agronomic traits at two Michigan locations in each of 2 yr. These lines were also evaluated for 123 genetic markers to map resistance genes. The resistance of the lines, measured with a disease severity index (DSI), was normally distributed across environments. Significant (P < 0.05) genotypic variation, genotype × location, and genotype × year interactions were observed for DSI. The broad-sense heritability estimate for DSI across both locations and years was 0.59. More severe disease was significantly correlated with greater lodging, later date of maturity, later R1 date, and greater plant height. Three QTL, explaining 10, 9, and 8% of the variability for DSI across environments, were mapped with genetic markers. Two of these QTL were also significantly associated with disease escape mechanisms such as plant height, lodging, and date of flowering. The other QTL was not significantly associated with escape mechanisms and may map one or more genes involved in physiological resistance to the disease.


BACKGROUND
Extrauterine growth restriction (EUGR; weight ≤10th percentile) affects many infants ≤1500 g birth weight (BW). EUGR is associated with poor neurodevelopmental outcomes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of optimizing nutrition administration in infants ≤1500 g.

METHODS
A retrospective chart review compared infants ≤1500 g before (n = 32) and after (n = 49) implementation of nutrition practice changes designed to decrease EUGR. Changes included early aggressive parenteral nutrition (PN), early enteral feedings, trophic feedings, continuous feeding administration, protein fortification of 24-cal/oz mother's own breast milk, and development of a "feeding intolerance" algorithm. The authors evaluated demographics, growth parameters, secondary feeding, and discharge outcomes. Differences in subgroups of infants ≤1000 g and 1000-1500 g BW were assessed.

RESULTS
Implementation of the nutrition practice changes decreased EUGR as defined by weight ≤10th percentile at discharge from 57% in the preimplementation group to 28% in the postimplementation group (P = .01). Weight percentile ranking at 36 weeks' gestational age increased significantly in infants 1001-1500 g, from the 13th to the 27th percentile (P = .004 and P = .01, respectively). Chronic lung disease decreased significantly (P = .02). There was no increase in necrotizing enterocolitis (6% pre vs 3% post) or in blood urea nitrogen. Days of PN and central line use were decreased (P = .02 and P = .07, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS
Clearly defined changes in nutrition for infants ≤1500 g significantly improved growth outcomes without increasing undesired outcomes.


Seasonal and circadian rhythms control fundamental physiological processes including neural excitability and synaptic plasticity that can lead to the periodic modulation of motor behaviors like social vocalizations. Parental male midshipman fish produce three call types during the breeding season: long duration (min > 1h) advertisement "hums", frequency and amplitude modulated agonistic "growls" (s), and very brief (ms) agonistic "grunts" produced either singly or repetitively as "grunt trains" for up to several minutes. Fictive grunts that establish the temporal properties of natural grunts are readily evoked and recorded in vivo from vocal occipital nerve roots at any time of day or year by electrical microstimulation in either the midbrain periaqueductal grey or a hindbrain vocal pre-pacemaker nucleus. Now, as shown here, the longer duration fictive growls and hums can also be elicited, but are restricted to the nocturnal reproductive season. A significant drop in call threshold accompanies the fictive growls and hums that are distinguished by their much longer duration and lower and more regular firing frequency. Lastly, the long duration fictive calls are dependent upon increased stimulation time and intensity and hence may result from activity-dependent changes in the vocal motor circuit that are themselves modulated by seasonal and circadian rhythms.


In an earlier experiment, participants played a perfect information game against a computer, which was programmed to deviate often from its backward induction strategy right at the beginning of the game. Participants knew that in each game, the computer was nevertheless optimizing against some belief about the participant's future strategy. In the aggregate, it appeared that participants applied forward induction. However, cardinal effects seemed to play a role as well: a number of participants might have been trying to maximize expected utility. In order to find out how people really reason in such a game, we designed centipede-like turn-taking games with new payoff structures in order to make such cardinal effects less likely. We ran a new experiment with 50 participants, based on marble drop visualizations of these revised payoff structures. After participants played 48 test games, we asked a number of questions to gauge the participants' reasoning about their own and the opponent's strategy at all decision nodes of a sample game. We also checked how the verbalized strategies fit to the actual choices they made at all their decision points in the 48 test games. Even though in the aggregate, participants in the new experiment still tend to slightly favor the forward induction choice at their first decision node, their verbalized strategies most often depend on their own attitudes towards risk and those they assign to the computer opponent, sometimes in addition to considerations about cooperativeness and competitiveness.


"Teaching Native Autobiographies as Acts of Narrative Resistance" is written for nonspecialists in Native literature who include a Native-authored work in their classes. This article offers strategies to increase our understanding and appreciation of Native literature by opening up classroom discussions to critical issues in the study of Native literary texts.


The recent Chandra X-ray observations of the nucleus of M31, combined with earlier Very Large Array radio and Hubble Space Telescope UV spectral measurements, provide the strictest constraint thus far available on the nature of accretion onto the supermassive black hole (called M31* hereafter) in this region. One of the two newly detected sources within roughly an arcsecond of M31* may be its X-ray counterpart. If not, the X-ray flux from the nucleus must be even lower than inferred previously. Some uncertainty remains regarding the origin of the UV excess from the compact component known as P2. In our earlier analysis, we developed a unified picture for the broadband spectrum of this source and concluded that M31* could be understood on the basis of the accretion model for Sgr A* at the Galactic center, although with several crucial differences. Contrary to the "standard" picture in which the infalling plasma attains temperatures in excess of 1010 K near the event horizon, the best-fit model for M31*, under the assumption that the UV radiation is in fact produced by this source, appears to correspond to a cool-branch solution arising from strong line cooling inside the capture radius. Starting its infall with a temperature of about 106 K in the postshock region, the plasma cools down efficiently to about 104 K toward smaller radii. An important prediction of this model is the appearance of a prominent UV spike from hydrogen line emission, which for simplicity was handled only crudely in the earlier work. It is our purpose here to model this line emission with significantly greater accuracy using the algorithm CLOUDY and to correctly take into account the attenuation along the line of sight. We show that this level of sophistication reproduces the currently available multiwavelength observations very well. Very importantly, we predict a spectrum with several additional prominent emission lines that can be used to verify the model with future high-resolution observations. A nondetection of the predicted line emission from M31* would then tilt the favored accretion picture in the direction of a hot Sgr A* type of model, although with only a single point remaining in the spectrum of M31*, additional observations at other wavelengths would be required to seriously constrain this system.


Sphingolipidoses are genetically inherited diseases in which genetic mutations lead to functional deficiencies in the enzymes needed for lysosomal degradation of sphingolipid substrates. As a consequence, nondegradable lipids enrich in the lysosomes and lead to fatal pathological phenotypes in affected individuals. In this review, different drug-based treatment strategies including enzyme replacement therapy and substrate reduction therapy are discussed. A special focus is on the concept of pharmacological chaperones, one of which recently acquired clinical approval within the EU. On the basis of the different limitations for each approach, possible future directions of research are discussed.


High-level C++ source code abstractions such as classes and methods greatly assist human analysts and automated algorithms alike when analyzing C++ programs. Unfortunately, these abstractions are lost when compiling C++ source code, which impedes the understanding of C++ executables. In this paper, we propose a system, OOAnalyzer, that uses an innovative new design to statically recover detailed C++ abstractions from executables in a scalable manner. OOAnalyzer's design is motivated by the observation that many human analysts reason about C++ programs by recognizing simple patterns in binary code and then combining these findings using logical inference, domain knowledge, and intuition. We codify this approach by combining a lightweight symbolic analysis with a flexible Prolog-based reasoning system. Unlike most existing work, OOAnalyzer is able to recover both polymorphic and non-polymorphic C++ classes. We show in our evaluation that OOAnalyzer assigns over 78% of methods to the correct class on our test corpus, which includes both malware and real-world software such as Firefox and MySQL. These recovered abstractions can help analysts understand the behavior of C++ malware and cleanware, and can also improve the precision of program analyses on C++ executables.


Many people in Australia choose to drink rainwater, even in areas where clean municipal water is available. Domestic rainwater is defined here as any water collected from building rooftops subsequent to rainfall events and stored by households for later use. Rainwater has been found in some cases to contain bacteria, or trace metals, or both. As a result, in Australia, the Department of Health and Ageing advises the public to limit rainwater use to outdoor purposes, and to laundry and toilet flushing. In this study, over 12 months, rainwater samples were collected around Adelaide and tested for E. coli and total coliforms. Of 400 samples tested, more than 50% contained E. coli. In Australia, the health guideline for E. coli is 0/100 mL for drinking water. A survey on household drinking water choice was undertaken across the metropolitan area of Adelaide. The aim was to determine drinking water choices and to understand the driving forces behind drinking potentially contaminated rainwater in a city where clean municipal water is supplied. The investigation concluded that a higher proportion of households use rainwater as their primary source of drinking water in the Adelaide Hills and foothills compared with other areas in metropolitan Adelaide (the Adelaide plains). It was found that a higher proportion of households are using domestic filtration systems to improve municipal water quality in the Adelaide plains. Opposition to municipal water chlorination and fluoridation was reported and this was central to peoples' drinking water preferences. Notably, this opposition to municipal water chlorination and fluoridation is not supported by epidemiological evidence suggesting that these chemicals are harmful.


In England, across the whole period of the Great Debasement, the mint issued six different kinds of silver coins and three kinds of gold coins. According to Gresham's Law, coins with the same face value but different intrinsic values can not circulate side by side for too long: only those coins with lower intrinsic values stay in circulation; those with relatively high intrinsic values would be hoarded, exported, or melted down. Neither contemporary sources nor modern research about the disappearance of good money over this period has provided any solid quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of Gresham's Law. This paper intends to produce such an assessment. For this purpose, two types of evidence are examined: the composition of the re-coinage of 1560, and the trend of the exchange rate. The result shows that contrary to popular belief, Gresham's Law was rather ineffective in mid-sixteenth-century England.


This essay aims to foreground the types and patterns of political participation of Asian Indians in the US and the change and continuity thereof since migration of the community began in significant numbers in the 20th century. It shows how immigration reforms and citizenship laws prevented the community, for over half a century (until at least 1965), from achieving a demographic critical mass, which is a crucial factor in becoming an effective player in the political system of the US, and the community's reaction to these restrictions. Surveying the political participation of Indian Americans since the years prior to India's independence in 1947, the essay illustrates how the community could be an example of transnational activism and long distance nationalism even before these terms became fashionable in academia. In the light of various activities of Indian American organizations, including fund-raising for some of the past elections and the creation of congressional caucuses, the essay examines how a diasporic ethnic community sought to make its voice heard in electoral politics in spite of being numerically insignificant, accounting for 2.8 million in the 2010 census, which is only 0.9% of the total population. The community's efforts at lobbying US Congress are seen in the context of diasporic mediations in international relations, a subject increasingly attracting scholarly attention. The essay concludes with an assessment of the political activism of the Indian community. Journal of International and Global Studies 17


A new analytical method has been developed that can predict the stress transfer between fibre and matrix in a uniaxially fibre-reinforced composite associated with either a single matrix crack or a fibre break. Account is taken of thermal residual stresses arising from a mismatch in thermal expansion coefficients between the fibre and matrix. In addition Poisson ratio mismatches are also taken into account. The theoretical approach retains all relevant stress and displacement components, and satisfies exactly the equilibrium equations, the interface conditions and other boundary conditions involving stresses. Two of the four stress-strain-temperature relations are satisfied exactly, whereas the remaining two are satisfied in an average sense. The required non-interface displacement boundary conditions are also satisfied in an average sense. The general representation is used to solve three types of stress transfer problem. A matrix crack and a broken fibre are analysed for the case when there is perfect bonding between fibre and matrix. The third type of problem takes account of frictional slip at the interface governed by the Coulomb friction law. The approximate analytic approach described in this paper, and the preliminary numerical predictions presented, indicate that the stress transfer between fibres and matrix in a unidirectional fibre-reinforced composite, loaded in tension, can now be investigated theoretically in more detail than before. The paper includes some discussion of singularities in the stress fields, which are smoothed by the averaging techniques employed in the analysis. The analytical approach has enabled the development of a micro-mechanical model of frictional slip at the fibre-matrix interface based on the Coulomb friction law, which is more realistic than assuming that the interfacial shear stress is a constant. Predictions are presented of the stress distributions along the fibre-matrix interface and, in particular, it is shown how the length of the frictional slip zone is related to applied strain, friction coefficient, fibre volume fraction and the difference between the test and 'manufacturing' temperatures. An indication is given of many other areas of composite modelling where the new theory will be applied.


In The Protection Against Unfair Competition in the WTO TRIPS Agreement, Christian Riffel offers an account of the potential which Article 10bis of the Paris Convention has for the world trading system. In particular, the author explores what hard law obligations emerge from it.


Reducing environmental pollution via elimination of sulfur compounds from gas condensate was the aim of this research. Whereby oxidative desulfurization from gas condensate with 3200 ppm initial sulfur was accomplished by hydrogen peroxide (30%wt) as oxidant and formic acid as catalyst. The sulfones after generation in the oxidation step were extracted through a method of liquid-liquid extraction by acetone as a polar solvent. The effects of variables: coefficient of oxidant to sulfur molar ratio (O/S), temperature (T), and coefficient of catalyst to oxidant molar ratio (C/O) were investigated. The experiments were designed with response surface methodology based on central composite design (CCD). The results of experiments demonstrated that none of these variables (O/S, T, and C/O) have any interaction, and among these variables, O/S plays a significant role with the most influence on desulfurization and C/O and T are of the second and third primary of importance, respectively. In addition, 86% desulfurization was obtained in the optimum conditions.


Objective: The current clinical case series assess the use of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in correcting residual fracture angulation of distal radius pediatric fractures that occur despite casting Materials and Methods: The patient cohort consisted of 21 consecutive unselected patients with pediatric distal radius fracture all with various degrees of angulation despite initial close-reduction and casting done in government hospitals. All the parents of the patients refused operations and refused further manipulation of the painful wrist of their child. All subjects were given soft wrist braces, together with low-level laser therapy (LLLT) on alternate days for 8 consecutive weeks. Results: All patients on serial X-ray checking not only had solid union of the incompletely consolidated fracture, but all had total or near total correction of their fracture angulation despite no manipulation performed. The calculated p value is statistically significant at p < 0.01 Conclusion: LLLT not only enhance fracture healing, it has the power to help correct fracture angulation to better re-model the partially healed and angulated pediatric fractures.


OBJECTIVE
Evidence supporting the use of public reporting of quality information to improve health care quality is mixed. While public reporting may improve reported quality, its effect on quality of care more broadly is uncertain. This study tests whether public reporting in the setting of nursing homes resulted in improvement of reported and broader but unreported quality of postacute care.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING
1999-2005 nursing home Minimum Data Set and inpatient Medicare claims.

STUDY DESIGN
We examined changes in postacute care quality in U.S. nursing homes in response to the initiation of public reporting on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website, Nursing Home Compare. We used small nursing homes that were not subject to public reporting as a contemporaneous control and also controlled for patient selection into nursing homes. Postacute care quality was measured using three publicly reported clinical quality measures and 30-day potentially preventable rehospitalization rates, an unreported measure of quality.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Reported quality of postacute care improved after the initiation of public reporting for two of the three reported quality measures used in Nursing Home Compare. However, rates of potentially preventable rehospitalization did not significantly improve and, in some cases, worsened.

CONCLUSIONS
Public reporting of nursing home quality was associated with an improvement in most postacute care performance measures but not in the broader measure of rehospitalization.


Networked learning remains a new field and many methodological, theoretical and other perspectives are used to learn more about it. Moreover, there is encouragement for the field's interdisciplinary researchers to take alternative methodological approaches. This paper provides valuable insights into a methodological approach which is little used in networked learning research. It reports an exploratory study to establish the value of a discursive psychology lens to understand uses of technology by international learners, and specifically how the language students' use conveys their practices. The study was prompted when I questioned how multiculturalism might affect an institution's virtual presence and whether students from alternative cultures had varying online learning needs. Discursive psychology was selected as the methodological approach as it has the potential to show how the social world is enacted in a more insightful and sophisticated way than happens when qualitative data are accepted at face value. The study involved secondary analysis of an ESRC-funded dataset and this paper illustrates analysis of talk by four undergraduate learners from Africa and Asia. The paper shows how participants constructed their identities and gave meaning to their talk. It also exemplifies the dynamics of talk and the work undertaken via the expression of thoughts, and how these supplement the descriptive meaning of words. Aspects of what is emotional about participants' talk are highlighted, including their sense of struggle. A gap is found between students' uses of technology for learning purposes and what would be required in a networked learning environment. There is also evidence of threshold moments within learners' positioning. It is clear that educational experiences could be enhanced by educators recognising that students' needs vary, evolving over time. An argument to place the learner at the centre and to design from learners' perspectives to be better able to lead them forward from where they are regarding use of technologies to where learning can take place is made. Given this paper's focus on talk from international students it is particularly relevant that those in global online learning contexts appreciate the extent of meaning suggested by this paper's findings. A lack of such awareness carries with it a risk of not sufficiently appreciating what learners are thinking and this gap will leave educators illprepared to provide optimal learner-centric support structures.


Objective: Main issues of treatment of patients with cicatricial stenosis of trachea (CST) are to increase its efficacy and safety, as well as to determine indications and contraindications for surgery on the trachea in patients with extended lesions of respiratory tract, with stenoses involving subvocal cords part of larynx and well as multifocal narrowing of the trachea which could improve treatment results and quality of life of patients. Methods: 98 patients with CST were surgically treated. Localization of CST: in the upper third of the trachea in 42 (45.6%) patients, intrathoracic part in 14 (15.2%), laringotraheal lesion in 22 (23.9%), larynx and intrathoracic part in 6 (6.5%), cervical and thoracic trachea (7.6%) in 7, obliteration of the trachea over tracheostomy cannula in 6, postoperative anastomotic stenoses of the trachea (5 patients came from other centers). length of CST varied from 0.3 to 7 cm. Results: Resection of the trachea was performed in 24 patients. In case of contraindications, 28 patients underwent reconstructive surgery with T-shaped stent. After removing of T-shaped stent, plasty of anterior tracheal wall and of soft tissues of the neck defects was performed using local tissues and grafts. Conclusions: Patients with CST should undergo multimodal approach depending on degree and localization of narrowing, length and levels of restriction, taking into account severity of associated pathologies using complex of endosurgical, resection and reconstructive treatments. When an extended CST involvement in the process is more than 30–50% of the trachea up to 5-6 cm, it9s possibly to perform tracheal resection provided that mobilization of necessary levels is sufficient.


This article presents 2 longitudinal studies designed to assess the relationship between variability in narrative identity and trajectories of mental health over several years. In Study 1, core scenes from 89 late-mid-life adults' life stories were assessed for several narrative themes. Participants' mental health and physical health were assessed concurrently with the narratives and annually for the subsequent 4 years. Concurrent analyses indicated that the themes of agency, redemption, and contamination were significantly associated with mental health. Longitudinal analyses indicated that these same 3 themes were significantly associated with participants' trajectories of mental health over the course of 4 years. Exploratory analyses indicated that narratives of challenging experiences may be central to this pattern of results. In Study 2, similar longitudinal analyses were conducted on a sample of 27 late-mid-life adults who received a major physical illness diagnosis between the baseline assessment and 6 months later and a matched sample of 27 control participants who remained healthy throughout the study. Participants' mental health and physical health were assessed every 6 months for 2 years. In this study, the themes of agency, communion, redemption, and contamination in participants' life narratives collected at baseline (before any participant became sick) were significantly associated with mental health in the group of participants who went on to receive a medical diagnosis, but not in the control group. Taken together, the results of these 2 studies indicate that the way an individual constructs personal narratives may impact his or her trajectory of mental health over time.


BackgroundSingle Incision Laparoscopic Surgery (SILS) is attractive because it uses 1 umbilical incision for preparation and extraction of the specimen. However, the procedure is technically demanding compared to conventional laparoscopy, and it is unclear if it is possible to adopt this procedure in an isolated community like Bermuda with a small hospital.MethodsSince the introduction of SILS in Bermuda by an experienced SILS surgeon, 230 patients who underwent SILS colon procedures from 2012-2018 were reviewed. The data were analyzed according to intra- and postoperative events and outcomes. The results were compared to internationally published data.ResultsThere was a low operative time of 127.8 (40-305) minutes. There were only 4 conversions to open surgery (1.7%). The overall complication rate was 11.7% (27 patients). There were 2 postoperative deaths (0.9%). These data are within the range of internationally published data. ConclusionInitiated and guided by an experienced SILS surgeon, the adoption of single-port colon surgery in Bermuda was successful, and the SILS procedure now belongs to the standard procedures for colonic operations in Bermuda.


Since 1980, financial globalization has gradually become the main theme in the international financial field. But at the same time, financial security issues have followed. So far, there have been many serious financial crises in the world, impacting the world's financial and economic systems. However, in contrast to China, there has never been a financial crisis in the process of promoting financial internationalization. The conclusions at home and abroad make us wonder: whether financial internationalization is a good or bad for a country's finances, and if there is no financial openness, there is no financial security problem. Therefore, this article will explore the general relationship between financial internationalization and financial security from the five dimensions of international finance. And it gives corresponding suggestions to China in the process of promoting financial internationalization.


OBJECTIVE
To review the radioisotope studies in Nephrourology that are frequently performed in the Nuclear Medicine Department, their clinical applications and diagnostic yield.

METHODS/RESULTS
Radionuclide studies in Nephrourology allow evaluation of different aspects of renal function after intravenous injection of radioisotopes by blood volume/time (ml/min) measurements (glomerular filtration rate, effective renal plasma flow) or visualization in the form of images or graphic display (renal scintigraphy, sequential study, renography) that permit determination of the differential renal function. A sequential study, diuresis renography or angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor renography can be performed to evaluate the changes in renal function induced by the diuretics or ACE inhibitors. Radionuclide cystography permits detecting vesicoureteric reflux. These radioisotope studies are commonly utilized in detecting reflux nephropathy and renal scarring (renal scintigraphy and radionuclide cystography), obstructive nephropathy (diuresis renography), renovascular hypertension (ACE inhibitor renography) and in evaluating renal transplantation (sequential study, renography, diuresis renography and ACE inhibitor renography).

CONCLUSION
Radionuclide studies have different applications in Nephrourology, some of which are considered to be diagnostic gold standards, such as renal scintigraphy with DMSA to detect cortical anomalies, ACE inhibitor renography to identify hypertensive patients that will not benefit from revascularization surgery and to determine the glomerular filtration rate. Other studies, such as diuretic renography, are not considered to be gold standards due to the lack of standardized protocols.


Abstract Background: The Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, serves a largely remote, rural population of 330 000. The aim of this study was to report the treatment and survival figures for patients treated for laryngeal cancer at this centre. Methods: The study included 209 consecutive patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx diagnosed between 1996 and 2010 at the Cumberland Infirmary. Results: Disease-specific survival was 100 per cent for stage one, 76 per cent for stage two, 87 per cent for stage three and 46 per cent for stage four. In total, 76 patients (36 per cent) had a laryngectomy, either as primary treatment or as a salvage procedure. Conclusion: Our tumour-specific survival rate was very high, and this success may be due in part to high rates of surgical intervention. Survival data compared favourably with other centres, despite less radical radiotherapy regimes. Laryngeal cancer can be managed effectively in a small, relatively remote, multidisciplinary team setting.


The hot bands of non-oriented electrical steel were cold rolled by asymmetric rolling with speed ratio of 1.125 as well as conventional symmetric cold rolling to investigate the effects of cold rolling mode on through-thickness texture variation. Asymmetric rolling shows a marked weakening effect on α fiber (RD//<110>) running from {001}<110> to {112}<110> through sheet thickness, especially at the side contacting with faster roll. Asymmetric rolling increases {111}<112> component while decreases {111}<110> component through sheet thickness except for the surface layers. The through-thickness texture variation due to asymmetric rolling was explained in terms of shear strain distribution.


Around the world, the focus of copyright policy reform debates is shifting from the protection of copyright owners' rights towards defining their appropriate limits. There is, however, a great deal of confusion about the legal ontology of copyright "limits," "exceptions," "exemptions," "defenses," and "user rights." While the choice of terminology may seem to be a matter of mere semantics, how we describe and conceptualize lawful uses within our copyright system has a direct bearing on how we delimit and define the scope of the owner's control. Taking seriously the role of rhetoric in shaping law and policy, this Paper critically examines the recent embrace of the language of "users' rights" to frame fair use, fair dealing, and other non-infringing acts. This terminology has been adopted to varying degrees by courts in Canada, Israel, and the United States and is increasingly employed by public interest advocates and policy-makers at the domestic and international level. In this Paper, I ask whether the rise of "user rights," thus cast, is a positive development that will help to rein in some of copyright's excesses, advancing the cause of content users and the public at large — or whether it is, perhaps, something of a false friend. Drawing on lessons from critical legal theory, I caution that "rights" may be a double-edged sword with the potential to undermine or obstruct the public interests, social values, and relationships that should inform copyright's development in the digital age. As a rhetorical tool, "user rights" should therefore be wielded carefully if public interest advocates are to avoid self-inflicted injury.


Zambia ranks as one of the lowest cost producers of sugar. However, Zambia"s domestic sugar price has been high and volatile and is substantially higher than the world price. This has raised concern among stakeholders and further raises questions about the efficient functioning of the market. The study sought to determine and explain efficiency and integration in Zambia"s sugar value chain by analysing price spreads, price formation, and price transmission through a price transmission and partial equilibrium model. The study hypothesised that the Zambian sugar market is both inefficient and it is not integrated with the world market. This was tested through the price transmission and partial equilibrium models. Price transmission is conceptually premised on the Law of One Price (LOP) which postulates that in a frictionless undistorted market, the difference between markets spatially separated should only be explained by transaction costs. To test the hypothesis long-run equilibrium between prices was tested through a series of cointegration tests and an Error Correction model (ECM) was built for cointegrating price series. Model simulations were run and tests for asymmetry for cointegrating price series were conducted. A partial equilibrium framework was developed to determine price formation for Zambia"s sugar market from a number of behavioural equations. - v - The study establishes cointegration in the spatial price transmission (between world sugar prices and Zambia"s wholesale prices) and vertically (between the domestic wholesale prices and sugarcane prices). The ECM for the spatial price transmission reveals low integration and efficiency evidenced by the low speed of adjustment, the Error Correction Term (ECT) of -0.09 and the model simulation, which shows that it takes approximately 3 years for the markets to revert to long run equilibrium after experiencing a price shock. The study also establishes that the spatial price adjustment is asymmetric. The vertical price transmission analysis reveals that it is relatively more integrated and efficient as it has a higher speed of adjustment (ECT of 0.199) which is twice that of the spatial price transmission. The model simulation reveals that it takes about 1 year and 6 months to revert to long run equilibrium after experiencing a shock. The vertical price adjustment is also found to be symmetric. A negative short-run elasticity of -0.29 is found for the spatial price transmission while the long-run transmission is found to be inelastic (0.91 ) which is close to unitary elasticity. The short-run vertical transmission is found to be very inelastic (0.009 ) while the long-run transmission of 0.94 is similar to the spatial transmission (inelastic but close to unitary). Farm to Retail Price Spreads are found to be widening with growing volatility owing to the volatile nature of the Retail Value. While the Farm Value has been increasing, recent spikes experienced in the Retail Value have resulted in an overall widening of the Farm to Retail Price Spread. The partial equilibrium analysis indicates that the price formation in Zambia"s sugar market is determined by the world price through the export parity price, domestic demand, supply conditions as well as policy. The elasticity between Zambia"s sugar price and the export parity price is found to be unitary (1.09). The price space analysis reveals that although Zambia"s domestic price is correlated with the export parity prices it is trending closer to the import parity price. This suggests that there are distortions in the sugar market, which may include high transaction costs, high concentration in the market structure as well as inappropriate policies such as high taxation, high interest rates and a policy requiring fortification of all sugar with Vitamin A, which are driving the domestic price upwards to exceed the export parity price. The sugar baseline for Zambia is generated for 2012 to 2015 based on a number of assumptions in the exogenous variables. - vi - Sugar production domestic use and exports are on the rise while the domestic price rises in 2011, falling between 2013 and 2014 then rising in 2014 to 2015. Model simulation of the removal and/or modification of the policy requiring sugar fortification reveals that there is an increase in the flow of imports to about 25,000 tons per year. This results in a 3.2 per cent loss in production and a 6.1 per cent gain in exports while the domestic sugar price falls by 23.9 US Cents/kg (18.8 per cent). Thus Zambia gains in terms of increased consumer welfare and producer welfare because production losses are offset by revenue gains through exports since the world price also increases. The study recommends that transaction costs which include transportation costs, energy, taxation which are pushing the domestic price upwards need to be lowered. The study emphasises the need to promote investments in the sugar industry especially for smaller emerging sugar mills by lowering interest rates and taxes as well as a need to strengthen competition laws governing the industry which will protect consumers,would-be- investors and cane producers from uncompetitive pricing. It further recommends the lifting and /or modification of the barrier on imports of unfortified sugar but stresses that government can allow raw sugar imports which can be fortified in Zambia. A more open and undistorted sugar market in Zambia will result in a competitive, efficient and integrated market governed by market dynamics. MSc. Agric (Agricultural Economics) Department: Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development. Degree Supervisor : Dr Ferdinand Meyer


Positing the implementation of evidenced-based policies to manage the informal economy, our paper employs, in a novel way, the multiple-indicator, multiple-cause model and primary data, to identify the determinants of the Nigerian informal economy. Building on previous literature, relevant determinants of the informal economy were constructed from participants' responses to questions designed to solicit such information. We found the factors responsible for the origin and expansion of the Nigerian informal economy to include: unemployment, a need to be autonomous/self-employed, corruption of government officials/agencies, participants' desire to pay less tax, and participants' need to survive. The greatest influence, in terms of magnitude and impacts, comes from the 'participants' need to survive' factor, followed by corruption. Our policy recommendations follow these identified factors, and recognise the positive and important role played by the informal economy. Although country-specific, our findings/recommendations may be used to inform policy in other countries with similar economic structures as Nigeria.


A food systems approach (FSA) is a useful interdisciplinary conceptual framework for research and policy aimed at sustainable solutions for the sufficient supply of healthy food. An FSA analyses the relationships between the different parts of the food system and the outcomes of activities within the system in socio-economic and environmental/climate terms. Feedback loops are a distinguishing factor in systems thinking: they occur between parts of the food chain (production, processing, distribution and consumption) and from the socio-economic and environmental outcomes of food production and consumption (such as food security and soil depletion) back to that production and consumption. The FSA sheds light on non-linear processes in the food system, and on possible trade-offs between policy objectives. Systems thinking also broadens the perspective when seeking solutions for the root causes of problems such as poverty, malnutrition and climate change. The framework offers at least three benefits. First, it provides a checklist of topics that should at the very least be addressed when it comes to improving food security, certainly in relation to other policy objectives. Second, FSA helps to map the impact of environmental and climate changes on food security by pointing to the various vulnerabilities of the food system. In that sense the approach can contribute to the search for possibilities for strengthening the system's resilience to climate changes. Third, it helps to determine the most limiting factors for achieving food security, and hence identify effective interventions aimed at improving food security


Abstract Different herbicide-application strategies may serve as part of an integrated weed management (IWM) system. In 1987 and 1988, ten field trials were initiated in the south-central part of Sweden, with the objective of studying the long-term effects of herbicide-application strategies on the development of weed populations and productivity of spring-sown cereals. Each year until 1997, herbicides were applied at 25, 50, 75, or 100% of the full recommended dose. Treatments included herbicide exclusion every second year and herbicide application at 25 or 50% of a full dose during two out of three years, with a full dose applied in the third year. An untreated control was included. In 1998, weed densities in 25, 50, 75, and 100% of a full dose were reduced 43, 58, 64, and 67% compared with the control. At seven sites, the exclusion of herbicides every second year resulted in 43 to 178% higher weed densities than in 50% of a full dose, although the same amount of herbicide was applied when summarized over 2 yr. At four sites, herbicide application each year at 50, 75, or 100% of a full dose increased the density of difficult-to-control species by 24% compared with the untreated control. Averaged over sites, the untreated control contained 30% more weed species than herbicide application at 75 or 100% of a full dose. At three sites in 1996, the full dose resulted in 520 kg ha–1 (pooled over sites) higher barley yields than in the control. Neither in 1996 nor in 1997, was there any difference in crop yield between herbicide application at 25 and 100% of a full dose. This study demonstrates the potential of reducing the input of agrochemicals for weed control by using herbicides at reduced rates in competitive crops. Nomenclature: Spring barley, Hordeum distichon L.


In this article, we demonstrate a broadband tunable feedforward amplifier design.For any frequency between 1.2 and 3 GHz, the third order intermodulation distortion (IMD) is reduced up to 18dB and the circuit maintains the spurious free dynamic range over 60 dBc at the output. This technique utilizes the combination of a broadband distributed‐element phase shifter (DPS) and a radio frequency feedforward approach to achieve a wideband linearization. The key element is a low‐loss, broadband and 360° changeable DPS. Because of its broadband tunable IMD cancellation capability, the proposed design will be very useful in multimode and multi channel wireless communication systems where the high power output with minimized distortion is needed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:250–254, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26445


BACKGROUND
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is defined as the spontaneous movement of the limbs (mainly legs) associated with unpleasant, sometimes painful sensation which is relieved by moving the affected limb. Prevalence of RLS among people on dialysis has been estimated between 6.6% and 80%. RLS symptoms contribute to impaired quality of life and people with RLS are shown to have increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.Various pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions have been used to treat primary RLS. However, the evidence for use of these interventions in people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is not well established. The agents used in the treatment of primary RLS may be limited by the side effects in people with CKD due to increased comorbidity and altered drug pharmacokinetics.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of this review was to critically look at the benefits, efficacy and safety of various treatment options used in the treatment of RLS in people with CKD and those undergoing renal replacement therapy (RRT). We aimed to define different group characteristics based on CKD stage to assess the applicability of a particular intervention to an individual patient.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Kidney and Transplant Specialised Register to 12 January 2016 through contact with the Information Specialist using search terms relevant to this review.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised controlled trials (RCT) and quasi-RCTs that assessed the efficacy of an intervention for RLS in adults with CKD were eligible for inclusion. Studies investigating idiopathic RLS or RLS secondary to other causes were excluded.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two authors independently assessed studies for eligibility and conducted risk of bias evaluation. Results were expressed as risk ratios (RR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) for dichotomous outcomes, and mean difference (MD) and 95% CI for continuous outcomes.

MAIN RESULTS
We included nine studies enrolling 220 dialysis participants. Seven studies were deemed to have moderate to high risk of bias. All studies were small in size and had a short follow-up period (two to six months). Studies evaluated the effects of six different interventions against placebo or standard treatment. The interventions studied included aerobic resistance exercise, gabapentin, ropinirole, levodopa, iron dextran, and vitamins C and E (individually and in combination).Aerobic resistance exercise showed a significant reduction in severity of RLS compared to no exercise (2 studies, 48 participants: MD -7.56, 95% CI -14.20 to -0.93; I2 = 65%), and when compared to exercise with no resistance (1 study, 24 participants: MD -11.10, 95% CI -17.11 to -5.09), however there was no significant reduction when compared to ropinirole (1 study, 22 participants): MD -0.55, 95% CI -6.41 to 5.31). There were no significant differences between aerobic resistance exercise and either no exercise or ropinirole in the physical or mental component summary scores (using the SF-36 form). Improvement in sleep quality varied. There was no significant difference in subjective sleep quality between exercise and no exercise; however one study reported a significant improvement with ropinirole compared to resistance exercise (MD 3.71, 95% CI 0.89 to 6.53). Using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale there were no significant differences between resistance exercise and no exercise, ropinirole, or exercise with no resistance. Two studies reported there were no adverse events and one study did not mention if there were any adverse events. In one study, one patient in each group dropped out but the reason for dropout was not reported. Two studies reported no adverse events and one study did not report adverse events.Gabapentin was associated with reduced RLS severity when compared to placebo or levodopa, and there was a significant improvement in sleep quality, latency and disturbance reported in one study when compared to levodopa. Three patients dropped out due to lethargy (2 patients), and drowsiness, syncope and fatigue (1 patient).Because of a short duration of action, rebound and augmentation were noted with levodopa treatment even though it conferred some benefit in reducing the symptoms of RLS. Reported adverse events were severe vomiting, agitation after caffeine intake, headaches, dry mouth, and gastrointestinal symptoms.One study (25 participants) reported iron dextran reduced the severity of RLS at weeks one and two, but not at week four. Vitamins C, E and C plus E (1 study, 60 participants) helped the symptoms of RLS with minimal side effects (nausea and dyspepsia) but more evidence is needed before any conclusions can be drawn.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Given the small size of the studies and short follow-up, it can only be concluded that pharmacological interventions and intra-dialytic exercise programs have uncertain effects on RLS in haemodialysis patients. There have been no studies performed in non-dialysis CKD, peritoneal dialysis patients, or kidney transplant recipients. Further studies are warranted before any conclusions can be drawn. Aerobic resistance exercise and ropinirole may be suitable interventions for further evaluation.


In July 2010, more than 5 billions of Earth inhabitants (out of 6.8) had a cell phone (Ericsson Study) with more than 2 millions of new subscribers a day in 2010. We expect 3.3 billion of Smart phones in 2015, Google just announced mid November 2010 that their Nexus "S" smart phones will be NFC (Near Field Communication, [1], [2], [3]) by the end of 2010. This changes drastically the landscape of information service engineering. RFID tags and NFC standard in cell phones will be cornerstone of the ICT future in this new paradigm of "local wide web": "Smart objects with smart phones on …smart LOCAL places is a summary of our digital future, digital divide will not be on infrastructure but on SERVICES" [5]. In this paper we give an overview of a portfolio of NFC innovative services prototyped at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis since the inception of the standard in 2004, infer some architectural and economics lessons, and propose a key research contribution based upon a genuine generic framework for multi-mode NFC applications within a SIM card.


A BSTRACT : The bulk of the replacive dolomite in the Lower Carboniferous (Dinantian) of Ireland is characterized by planar texture and (C, O) isotope signatures that are consistent with a modified Dinantian seawater origin at near-surface temperatures. Only a volumetrically minor (~ 5%) part of the dolomite is characterized by nonplanar texture. Petrographic evidence for fabric-preserving neomorphism of mimetic replacement planar dolomite is the preservation of concentric ooid textures and planar dolomite zonation (in plane-polarized light) retained within mosaics of mainly planar/nonplanar and nonplanar crystals. Neomorphosed dolomite commonly forms an interlocking mosaic of planar/nonplanar crystals and appears to have slightly increased crystal size relative to fine crystalline planar dolomite. In cathodoluminescence, neomorphosed dolomite tends to possess a uniform medium-intensity red color that lacks zonation. The oxygen isotope data from the planar and neomorphosed dolomites (planar and planar/nonplanar morphologies) further supports the petrographically defined division of the two dolomite types.


One of the mysteries in contemporary world politics is why in recent years Australia has been leading the world in its hawkish approach to China, its largest trading partner. More than most of its allies, the Australian government seems to regard the China emergency — fuelled by threat perceptions ranging from foreign in fl uence operations to economic coercion — as more pressing than, say, climate change. This article extends and supplants existing explanations of this puzzle by providing a more theoretically oriented account. Situating Australia ' s China emergency in the context of its ontological (in)security, this article traces the rise of such insecurities and Australia ' s responses through the conceptual frameworks of state transformation and neoliberal governmentality, which together offer a more socially and historically grounded account of the dynamics of ontological (in)security. The article argues that the China emergency narrative, as a speci fi c routinised form of neoliberal governmentality, both helps sustain Australia ' s dominant identity construction as a free, democratic, and resilient state, and provides a raison d ' être for the national security state that has become part and parcel of the evolving techniques of neoliberal governmentality.


Abstract. Ontologies (in computer science and information science) represent the essential tool for a formalised description of concepts, data, information, knowledge and other entities as well as relations among them. Their history is relatively old. The idea of ontologies in informatics started in the mid-1970s, but ontology as the philosophical discipline connected to existence and nature of reality came from the Ancient Greek. The ontologies as a part of knowledge-based systems were discussed in the 1980s. In 1993 Thomas R. Gruber defined ontology in information science as "a specification of a conceptualisation". After that, the first languages and formats coding ontologies have been developed, and massive construction process of ontologies began. For example, the Basel Register of Thesauri, Ontologies and Classifications presents about 700 ontologies and more the 1000 other tools with a similar character. The theory of ontologies and development as ontologies are entirely on a high level. However, their implementation (especially in several domains) is in its infancy. For example, in the geographical domain, there are many ontologies (called geo-ontologies) such as FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Geopolitical Ontology, ontologies of USGS (United States Geological Survey) or ontologies of Ordnance Survey. However, their implementation is usually limited by home organisations, which provide for the management, development and updating of ontologies. In many cases, they are not an integral part of Linked Open Data (LOD). This fact can be considered as the critical shortcoming because only in connection with Linked Open Data and free data sharing and combining the main benefits of ontologies (emphasis on a semantic description, derivation of new knowledge or complete independence) can be fully appreciated. This document has to describe opportunities for the implementation of ontologies in cartography. The purpose of the implementation of an ontology depends on various types of ontologies. There are defined four essential types of ontologies - upper ontologies, domain ontologies, task ontologies and application ontologies. Upper and domain ontologies contain general terms (in the case of upper ontologies) and domain-specific terms (in case of domain ontologies). Annotation properties (labels, definitions or comments) usually describe these terms, interconnected by data properties and/or object properties and restricted by logical axioms. Such ontologies are usually provided as vocabularies or thesauri. They can be used in two ways. Domain ontologies can describe cartography as a science or human activity. In previous years several paper and articles were discussing the term "cartography" and its position in Linked Open Data space, including various ontologies, ontological description of cartographic knowledge or ontological comparison of various definitions of the term "map". These activities can aim for the development of a cartographic knowledge base or building of semantic tools such as multilingual thesauri or vocabularies. The second way consists in the exploitation of domain ontologies containing semantic information about data visualising by a map. In this case, such domain ontology can be used as a tool for development of a legend of a map, especially in a case where a map is focused on particular issues. If such ontology is published as Linked Open Data, it is possible to generate such legend automatically as well as to reflect any changes. Such solution enables an efficient interconnection of cartographers and domain experts. Domain ontologies can be used for a definition of logical rules restricting and describing data, information and knowledge. These rules and knowledge extracted in the reasoning process can be applied during the map development. They can provide information on possible combinations of data or a hierarchy of objects visualising by a map and described by a map legend. The task ontologies are not focused on a complicated system of classes (representing types of object) as domain ontologies. They are usually based on instances (individuals) representing concrete data objects. Therefore they can be used as data resources. However, the overwhelming majority of geo-ontologies does not contain any geometry (coordinates) to enable a visualisation in a map. This apparent disadvantage shows the importance of LOD. If a task ontology is published as 5-star LOD (RDF /Resource Description Framework/ data with interconnection to external data resources published on the Web under an open license), and identity relation (links to equivalent object published in other data sets) are filled, it is possible to find in LOD space geometries as well as other additional information and attributes for visualization. The remaining type of ontologies is called application ontology. It is a combination of both previous kinds – domain ontology and task ontology. Application ontologies usually provide vocabularies as well as data stored in an ontological structure. Such a combination allows controlling data correctness and integrity by a set of logical rules. This functionality is emphasised by the rich possibilities of the Description Logic (quantifiers or types of relations). Their implementation in cartography corresponds with methods discussed in previous paragraphs. The main advantage of the approach using an application ontology consists in a homogeneous interconnection of data and semantics. The real implementation of ontologies, other semantic resources and Linked Open Data principles in cartography can make web mapping development process more efficient, because the normalised semantic description enables to automatize many activities, including a derivation of new data and knowledge or checking of data as well as cartographic processes. Such an approach can bring the cartography closer to knowledge bases and systems and realise ideas of real-time cartography. The research reported in this paper has been supported by the following project – Sustainability support of the centre NTIS – New Technologies for the Information Society, LO1506, Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.


The term culture has increasingly been used in the discourse of public health, for example, with respect to issues of health disparities in the U.S., the development and implementation of 'culturally competent' or 'culturally appropriate' programs, and in many other ways. What exactly is culture, however? Published in partnership with the American Public Health Association, this newest offering in the Essential Public Health series examines what is meant by culture, the ways in which culture intersects with health issues, how public health efforts can benefit by understanding and working with cultural processes, and a brief selection of conceptual tools and research methods that are useful in identifying relationships between culture and health. Essentials of Health, Culture, and Diversity includes practical guidelines for incorporating cultural understanding in public health settings, and examples of programs where that has occurred. Looking for more real-life evidence? Check out Cases 3, 5-11, 13, 18, & 20 in Essential Case Studies in Public Health, Putting Public Health into Practice./


We examined the importance of cis-acting regulatory elements of the human gamma-globin gene promoter in a cell line (K562) where this gene normally functions. A gamma-Globin promoter fragments were fused to the neomycin phosphotransferase (neoR) gene in a plasmid-based vector and transiently transfected by electroporation into K562 cells. Correctly initiated "A gamma-neo" transcripts were detected with an S1 nuclease protection assay that was internally controlled for transfection efficiency and RNA content. We first optimized the conditions for electroporation, and then determined input DNA concentrations that permitted study of gamma-promoter function in the linear range of the assay. We discovered that a gamma-globin promoter fragment extending from -299 to +36 (with respect to the transcription initiation site) was active in this transient transfection assay, and that the expression of this promoter was increased by the SV40 enhancer. Deletion of the gamma-globin promoter to position -199 did not significantly affect gamma-globin promoter function. However, deletion to -160 reduced gamma promoter strength to 70% that of control, deletion to position -130 to 19% that of control, and deletion to position -61 to 8.7% that of control. Three gamma-globin promoters containing mutations associated with hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin (-202 C----G, -196 C----T, and -117 G----A) were not overexpressed in the K562 cell environment, consistent with the hypothesis that these promoters are not overexpressed in fetal erythroblasts, only adult erythroid cells. This system will allow us to further dissect the roles of regulatory globin cis-acting DNA elements in fetal erythroid cells.


Bacteriophage T4 lysozyme (T4L) has been used as a paradigm for seminal biophysical studies on protein structure, dynamics, and stability. Approximately 700 mutants of this protein and their respective complexes have been characterized by X‐ray crystallography; however, despite the high resolution diffraction limits attained in several studies, no hydrogen atoms were reported being visualized in the electron density maps. To address this, a 2.2 Å‐resolution neutron data set was collected at 80 K from a crystal of perdeuterated T4L pseudo‐wild type. We describe a near complete atomic structure of T4L, which includes the positions of 1737 hydrogen atoms determined by neutron crystallography. The cryogenic neutron model reveals explicit detail of the hydrogen bonding interactions in the protein, in addition to the protonation states of several important residues.


The aim of this paper was investigating the effects of organic knowledge, perceived consequences, subjective norms, price, and green trust, perceived consumer effectiveness, avail- ability, relative advantage, and organic purchase intention on organic purchase behavior among Iranian consumers as the consumers in a developing country.The survey questionnaire was administered to the customers of large chain stores and organic food stores in five provinces of Iran that had branches for producing and selling organic food products. Given the very few number of organic food consumers in Iran, only 192 out of 240 questionnaires were filled and then used as samples of study. In order to analysis the data and test the hypotheses, multiple regression analysis method was used using by SPSS software. Results showed strong support (R 2 =0.51) for the impact of price, consumer effectiveness, and perceived consequences on intention to purchase organic food products. Organic knowledge, green trust, price, consumer effectiveness, and intention were found to have influenced purchase behavior. This paper will discuss the implications of these results for agricultural practitioners and marketers.


A localisation of the category of~$n$-manifolds is introduced by formally inverting the connected sum construction with a chosen~$n$-manifold~$Y$. On the level of automorphism groups, this leads to the stable diffeomorphism groups of~$n$-manifolds. In dimensions~0 and~2, this is connected to the stable homotopy groups of spheres and the stable mapping class groups of Riemann surfaces. In dimension~4 there are many essentially different candidates for the~$n$-manifold~$Y$ to choose from. It is shown that the Bauer-Furuta invariants provide invariants in the case~$Y=\overline{\CC P}^2$, which is related to the birational classification of complex surfaces. This will be the case for other~$Y$ only after localisation of the target category. In this context, it is shown that the~$K3$-stable Bauer-Furuta invariants determine the~$S^2\!\times\!S^2$-stable invariants.


Forward seismic modeling of outcrop analogs has been used to characterize the seismic expression of clinoforms in different deltaic depositional environments, and thus constrain uncertainty in interpretation of intra-reservoir clinoforms imaged in seismic data from the Troll field, Norwegian North Sea. Three outcrop analogs from the Cretaceous Western Interior seaway, United States, were studied to quantify the geometry, distribution, and lithologic character of clinoforms in fluvial-dominated and mixed-influence deltaic deposits. Outcrop-derived geometric data were calibrated to sedimentological and petrophysical data from the Krossfjord and Fensfjord Formations in the Troll field, and then used to create a suite of forward seismic models for comparison with real seismic reflection data from the Troll field. Clinoforms were imaged in the forward seismic models in which they were (1) spaced wider than the tuning thickness (>10 m [>33 ft]); (2) marked by pronounced interfingering of facies associations with different acoustic properties; and/or (3) lined by relatively thick (>50 cm [>20 in.]) carbonate-cemented layers. However, where clinothems are thinner than the vertical resolution limit of seismic data, destructive interference occurred creating misleading geometrical relationships. Furthermore, our ability to image clinoforms is dependent on (1) the frequency of the seismic wavelet; (2) the overburden velocity; and/or (3) the acoustic impedance contrast at the boundary between the overburden and the clinoform-bearing target. The established methodology has allowed characterization of deltaic clinoformal architectures in reservoir seismic data from the Troll field, and has facilitated a more robust interpretation by bridging the critical gap in resolution between well and seismic data.


We present the case, clinical following and successful therapy of a patient undergoing maintenance hemodialysis that presents hyperthyroidism secondary to Jod Basedow phenomenon associated to multinodular goitre previous. This case is an unusual complication for subjects in regular hemodialysis (in the bibliography revised only three cases were described in the past years) and of difficulty therapeutic management being our limited experience. In our patient, the antiseptic application with iodo solutions in the arteriovenous fistula could be representing the main cause for the hyperthyroidism. Conventional carbimazole doses keep controlling the thyroid hyper-function. Afterwards the definitive treatment with radioiodine was a safe and effective method for a long-term control.


In order to appraise fixed property, local governments in Japan annually investigate taxable buildings on January 1, but the efficiency of the investigation is an issue. With this context, change extraction methods of buildings have been studied using various data. However, labor and time optimization for change extraction methods remains an issue. With this in mind, the authors have concentrated on developing a change extraction method for buildings that uses only photomaps of two separate times. This paper describes the extraction method using color and texture, which can be obtained from photomaps. In order to evaluate effectiveness, the proposed method was investigated using photomaps of two separate times on various locations. It was confirmed that the proposed method extracted the changed buildings. It was also verified that the change of buildings cannot be extracted by color information only; rather, the change extraction of buildings was accomplished by using both color and texture. It should be noted that all changed buildings include extracted regions so that the change extraction of buildings is effectively performed without oversights. The proposed method could extract all changed buildings. In conclusion, the proposed method can reduce over-extraction of changed buildings by intensively visually checking extracted regions that have changes in color or texture rather than by visually checking all regions of photomaps. It is concluded that the proposed method has the ability to effectively extract changed buildings by using only photomaps.


Changes in ocean circulation are often credited as the primary control on large-scale climate change during the Miocene. This study investigates the latest Oligocene to middle Miocene evolution of Southern Ocean circulation by evaluating stable isotopic trends of shallow- and deep-dwelling planktonic foraminifera, as well as ep records reconstructed from the carbon isotopic composition of diunsaturated alkenones in the southwestern Altantic Ocean (Deep Sea Drilling Project site 516). Changes in ep at site 516 closely paralleled the opening and deepening of the Drake Passage as inferred from seafloor magnetic anomalies. A large negative shift in ep at ∼20.3 Ma is interpreted to reflect an increase in upper water column nutrient concentrations, caused by the onset or strengthening of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Measurable alkenone concentrations disappear by ∼17 Ma, prior to a collapse in surface-to-thermocline δ18O and δ13C gradients. This is interpreted as reflecting a severe decrease in mixed layer nutrient concentrations and reduced proto-Antarctic Intermediate Water influence. The δ18O gradient was reestablished by 14.5 Ma, coincident with the hypothesized East Antarctic ice sheet expansion, suggesting a direct relationship between increased strength of the ACC and the largest climate shift of the middle Miocene.


The programme of advanced training of scientific and pedagogical workers is intended for their professional development in accordance with the state policy in the field of education. The programme is based on the European strategy for the development of education and effective practices of the leading PISA countries in the EU to develop key competencies and basic skills for lifelong learning. The programme is focused on improving the performance of Ukrainian students


As one of the geological disasters, rockburst is often generated in underground engineering under excavation unloading conditions in high geostress areas. Taking advantage of the simulation test especially for the rock mass under high hydrostatic stress, the dynamic failure rockburst style resulted from instantaneous unloading in one direction was studied, whose peak velocity and acting time are analyzed. The results indicate that the formula for calculating peak velocity and the kinetic energy is proper and the kinetic energy is little portion of the recovery strain energy, most of which is dissipation in different ways; the unloading time at different positions apart from the free surface is nearly the same and more larger than the unloading wave's disturbance time.


Abstract Based on an accurate numerical solution of the kinetic equation using well-resolved spatial and velocity grids, the separation of rarefied gas flow in a microchannel with double rectangular bends is investigated over a wide range of Knudsen and Reynolds numbers. Rarefaction effects are found to play different roles in flow separation (vortex formation) at the concave and convex corners. Flow separations near the concave and convex corners are only observed for a Knudsen number up to $0.04$ and $0.01$, respectively. With further increase of the Knudsen number, flow separation disappears. Due to the velocity slip at the solid walls, the concave (convex) vortex is suppressed (enhanced), which leads to the late (early) onset of separation of rarefied gas flows with respect to the Reynolds number. The critical Reynolds numbers for the emergence of concave and convex vortices are found to be as low as $0.32\times 10^{-3}$ and $30.8$, respectively. The slip velocity near the concave (convex) corner is found to increase (decrease) when the Knudsen number increases. An adverse pressure gradient appears near the concave corner for all the examined Knudsen numbers, while for the convex corner it only occurs when the Knudsen number is less than $0.1$. Due to the secondary flow and adverse pressure gradient near the rectangular bends, the mass flow rate ratio between the bent and straight channels of the same length is a non-monotonic function of the Knudsen number. Our results clarify the diversified and often contradictory observations reported in the literature about flow rate enhancement and vortex formation in bent microchannels.


A tail-pipe burner with a variable-area exhaust nozzle was investigated. From five configurations a fuel-distribution system and a flame holder were selected. The best configuration was investigated over a range of altitudes and flight Mach numbers. For the best configuration, an increase in altitude lowered the augmented thrust ratio, exhaust-gas total temperature, and tail-pipe combustion efficiency, and raised the specific fuel consumption. An increase in flight Mach number raised the augmented thrust ratio but had no apparent effect on exhaust-gas total temperature, tail-pipe combustion efficiency, or specific fuel consumption.


A new set of multichannel adaptive filtering algorithms containing a feedback convergence function is described. The algorithms represent an extension of the Kalman filtering approach to the linearly constrained multichannel adaptive filtering. In essence, the convergence function in the adaptive filtering algorithm, which is designed to control stability and rate of adaptation, is modified to fashion the Kalman gain structure. Through adaptive feedback schemes, the algorithms are capable of tracking not only the prediction errors with respect to the input multichannel signals, but also the performance errors in the estimated filter weights by means of updating the error covariance matrix. Thus, with double monitoring capability, the revised adaptive filtering algorithm is shown to be more effective in suppressing coherent noises than the previous one, and is well suited for processing the highly time-varying nonstationary data.


The earthquakes of 23 May 2007 (Mw5.6) and 29 October 2009 (Mw 5.7) that occurred in the southern continental margin of the Gulf of Mexico were studied by conducting a full wave inversion of teleseismic P waves. In this region, there is a band of shallow seismicity along the continental margin that extends from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the city of Veracruz, Mexico. The focal mechanism of the 2009 event shows reverse faulting at a high angle and is very similar to that of the 1959 Jaltipan earthquake (Mw 6.4) and to the 1973 Veracruz event (Mw 5.3). The focal depths between 22 and 27 km of these three earthquakes are unusually deep for continental events. The location of this band of seismic activity and the focal mechanisms suggest a process of crustal shortening of the southern margin of the Gulf of Mexico. This compressive regime appears to be induced by the subduction of the Cocos plate to the south, in a manner that is reminiscent of the crustal shortening process observed in the Andes. The 2007 earthquake took place north of this region, seaward of the city of Tuxpan. The focal mechanism shows strike slip faulting and the hypocentral depth obtained from the body wave inversion is approximately 7 km. The source mechanism of this earthquake and the depth in the upper crust where it took place suggest a different tectonic process than the one observed near the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.


Sacral projections of neurones located in the C6 segment of the spinal cord were electrophysiologically investigated in alpha-chloralose anaesthetized cats. The cell bodies were found mainly in lamina VIII and in the ventromedial part of lamina VII of the C6 segment. At the thoracic level their axons descended in lateral funiculi, mostly on both sides and only exceptionally contra- or ipsilaterally. However, bilateral projection to sacral segments was less frequent (25 neurones). It is concluded that axons terminate at different levels on both sides of the spinal cord and only part of them project bilaterally to S1/S2 segments. Conduction velocities calculated for all the axons varied from 38 to 80 m/s and were significantly slower for their distal parts. Therefore it is suggested that descending axons send collaterals at various spinal levels. The presented data indicate the importance of these neurones for interlimb coordination.


Real-time Blade Tip Timing (BTT) in rotating machinery enables condition-based maintenance and blade failure prevention. In this paper, we propose a new 6 GHz microwave sensing system suitable for BTT in gas and steam turbines. The system working principle is similar to the short range radar technique, using probes mounted in the turbine wall, in direct view of the passing blades. The front end of the system consists of a miniature open-ended coaxial resonator sealed by a ceramic cap. Its principle of operation is simple and robust, thus well-suited for the turbine harsh environment, while the radiated TEM mode allows for insensitivity to mounting orientation. The probe was validated through simulation and prototypes were successfully tested. Measurements on prototypes showed improved spatial resolution on the waveform compared to an existing 6 GHz patch antenna probe, and superior resolution and measurement range compared to Eddy current probes used for BTT.


We present new 3D source fault representations for the 2019 M 6.4 and M 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence. These representations are based on relocated hypocenter catalogs expanded by template matching and focal mechanisms for M 4 and larger events. Following the approach of Riesner et al. (2017), we generate reproducible 3D fault geometries by integrating hypocenter, nodal plane, and surface rupture trace constraints. We used the southwest–northeast-striking nodal plane of the 4 July 2019 M 6.4 event to constrain the initial representation of the southern Little Lake fault (SLLF), both in terms of location and orientation. The eastern Little Lake fault (ELLF) was constrained by the 5 July 2019 M 7.1 hypocenter and nodal planes of M 4 and larger aftershocks aligned with the main trend of the fault. The approach follows a defined workflow that assigns weights to a variety of geometric constraints. These main constraints have a high weight relative to that of individual hypocenters, ensuring that small aftershocks are applied as weaker constraints. The resulting fault planes can be considered averages of the hypocentral locations respecting nodal plane orientations. For the final representation we added detailed, field-mapped rupture traces as strong constraints. The resulting fault representations are generally smooth but nonplanar and dip steeply. The SLLF and ELLF intersect at nearly right angles and cross on another. The ELLF representation is truncated at the Airport Lake fault to the north and the Garlock fault to the south, consistent with the aftershock pattern. The terminations of the SLLF representation are controlled by aftershock distribution. These new 3D fault representations are available as triangulated surface representations, and are being added to a Community Fault Model (CFM; Plesch et al., 2007, 2019; Nicholson et al., 2019) for wider use and to derived products such as a CFM trace map and viewer (Su et al., 2019).


GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT Abstract The reactions of dialkyl [(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-oxo-2,5-cyclohexadienyl)methyl]phosphonates with N-nucleophiles (aminoacetaldehyde dimethyl acetal and diethyl [(2,2-dimethoxyethyl)aminomethyl]phosphonate give new aminophosphonates containing the 3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl substituent, in addition to the acetal group. The crystal structure of diethyl {(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)[(2,2-dimethoxyethyl)amino]methyl}phosphonate is elucidated. The presence of a chiral carbon atom and prochiral phosphorus atom in the aminophosphonate products is responsible for the complicated pattern in the 1H NMR spectra, the features of which are discussed.


Augmented Reality (AR) can provide to a Human Operator (HO) a real help to achieve complex tasks, such as remote control of robots and cooperative teleassistance. Using appropriate augmentations, the HO can interact faster, safer and easier with the remote real world. In this paper, we present an extension of an existing distributed software and network architecture for collaborative teleoperation based on networked humanscaled mixed reality and mobile platform. The first teleoperation system was composed by a VR application and a Web application. However the 2 systems cannot be used together and it is impossible to control a distant robot simultaneously. Our goal is to update the teleoperation system to permit a heterogeneous collaborative teleoperation between the 2 platforms. An important feature of this interface is based on the use of different Virtual Reality platforms and different Mobile platforms to control one or many robots. The first aim with this work is to develop collaborative robot teaching with the use of virtual or real robot.


In the current work, an incompressible thermal flow in a micro-Couette in the presence of a pressure gradient is investigated utilizing the analytical solution of the Burnett equations with first-order and second-order slip boundary conditions, for the first time. The lower plate of this micro-Couette is stationary while the upper plate moves with a constant velocity. Both non-dimensional axial velocity and temperature profiles were obtained using two types of the slip boundary conditions and compared in transition flow regime (0.1≤ Kn ≤10). The results show that the effect of the rarefaction is considerable on both velocity and temperature profiles in this regime. Because of the presence of pressure gradient in direction of the flow, both the non-dimensional velocity and temperature profiles are obtained parabolically and become flatter as the Knudsen number increases. Besides, both Poiseuille number and Nusselt number were obtained using analytical solution. The obtained results show that the Poiseuille number and Nusselt number decrease with increasing the Knudsen number. It should be noted that at the absence of an axial pressure gradient, velocity profile is obtained linearly and show a good agreement with the other works in literature.