When people ask me about Uganda, the first image that comes to my mind is always the pre-dawn drive along he road between Entebbe Airport and the capital city of Kampala. The smell of tropical Africa drifts through the open window, damp and warm, heavy with wood smoke, diesel exhaust, and the lingering scent of the night-blooming Darura. By the roadside, cooking fires and oil lamps illuminate families getting ready for the new day. Children are lit by the headlights, endless lines of children, walking along the verge. In a rainbow of uniforms, often barefoot, carrying books and lunch, they are on their way to school before it gets light. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This scenario is repeated every school day all across Uganda. Dustier and longer in rural areas, more polluted and congested in towns, these walks span up to 8 kin in each direction. It is an enchanting sight. Pink and green and blue shirts and dresses move in and out of the shadows but as the sun rises, it shines not only on the children but also on the biggest problem facing education in Uganda. Twelve year olds outnumber 16 year olds and there are twice as many 6 year olds as 10 year olds. As the children get taller, there are fewer and fewer girls. Actual figures are contested, but everyone agrees that the school dropout rates in Uganda are enormous and that they disproportionally impact girls. In November 2012, Ugandan national newspaper, The New Vision, claimed that 70 percent of the primary school graduating class of 2012 had dropped out in the years since they began kindergarten. There is some argument over whether "ghost" enrollments, children claimed by schools that were never enrolled, inflated this figure, but whatever the truth, for a government committed to the Millennium Goal of providing education for all by 2015, this is an enormous problem. A Struggling Education System Uganda is the youngest country in the world, with a population of almost 35 million, and 52 percent of its citizens under 15. For any nation, this is a huge proportion of its population to educate, and with the third highest birthrate in the world, the challenges for the Ugandan government are going to get more acute. When Yoweri Museveni became president of Uganda in 1986, he took over a country wracked by two decades of war and civil strife. Every sector of the country was suffering. Fuel was rationed, the roads were appalling, and schools, underfunded, understaffed, and in terrible structural disrepair, had to wait their turn. It was almost a decade before the government was able to make major commitments to primary education. My arrival in Uganda in 1987 coincided with that of the new Museveni government, and 10 years later, we both became involved in the schools around Kibale National Park. My initial focus was conservation and it was the introduction of Universal Primary Education in 1997 that brought me face to face with conditions in local schools. Primary education was now free for the first time since independence in 1962. The resultant doubling in enrollment brought already-struggling schools almost to the breaking point. Parents fought to get an education for their children despite absent teachers, enormous classes, and infrastructure that was frankly terrifying. Staggering under a tidal wave of new students, disintegrating classrooms, and unpaid staff, Kasiisi Primary School principal, Lydia Kasenene, asked for help and a partnership was born. The Kasiisi Project was forged, like many small NGOs in developing countries, from overwhelming need on one side, and an urgent imperative to do something on the other. We soon realized that our other concern, conservation, was powerfully linked to the state of education in local schools. Children with no education, lacking options, are more likely to turn to forest resources to make ends meet. A Project Takes Off The Mission of the Kasiisi Project, to "conserve Kibale National Park through programs that promote scholastic achievement, good health, and care for the environment," reflects our dual objectives. …


In this study the method of topological sensitivity (TS) for solving inverse scattering problems, previously supported by a broad set of numerical simulations, is put to test experimentally with the focus on 2D obstacle reconstruction in a thin aluminum plate via elastic waves. To this end, the in-plane measurements of transient elastodynamic waveforms along the edges of the plate are effected in a non-contact fashion by a 3D laser Doppler vibrometer. Using an elastodynamic (time-domain) finite element model as a computational platform, the TS reconstruction maps are obtained and analyzed under varying experimental conditions. The results show significant agreement between the defect geometry and its reconstruction, thus demonstrating the utility of the TS approach as an efficient and robust solution tool for this class of inverse problems. For completeness, the experimental investigation includes a set of parametric studies geared toward exposing the effect of key problem parameters on the quality of obstacle reconstruction such as the (dominant) excitation frequency, the source aperture, and the duration of the temporal record. On the analytical front, it is shown that the use of a suitable temporal windowing function in specifying the L2 cost functional (that underpins the TS formulation) is essential from both theoretical and computational points of view.


The COVID-19 pandemic created new challenges for children including access to education and limiting social and emotional connections to extended family, friends, and the community. Globally, opportunities for sharing children's self-reported experiences during lockdown were limited. The primary aim of this project was to create an art-eBook that reflects children's experiences of life during the COVID-19 pandemic that could be shared with other children around the world. Secondly, we wanted to reflect on the consultation undertaken within the International Network of Child and Family Centered Care (INCFCC) using Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle framework. Children from around the world were invited to submit a piece of artwork that reflected their experience during the COVID-19 pandemic via a Qualtrics-survey in May 2020. The children's artwork and written pieces were transcribed verbatim into an eBook and the artwork was further placed into groups based on similarity of meaning. Fifty-five children from 17 countries submitted an artwork piece. Four groups were evident within the children's artwork including infection control measures, positive experiences and emotions (connection to family, fun activities), negative experiences and emotions (social impact, emotional impact), and uniting children globally. The eBook illustrates how children of all ages can provide meaningful insightful commentary and valuable information on their experiences during an unprecedented pandemic.


The focus of this work is to establish the inherent features of the genre of series and discuss their importance and impact on society, politics and everyday life. We usually tend to address everything related to TV and sequel featured as series and soaps. This common presumption is wrong on so many levels, because the genre of sequels has many subgenres and mixed genres and they are constantly changing in the light of the new technologies of filmmaking, TV broadcast and demands of the market. The societies in transition are subjected to various media contents among which the greatest popularity is bestowed to the melodramatic narrative of telenovelas. The promotion of cultures and deconstruction of cultural stereotypes inherent to the mass audience is one of the values of this media content. How much does the genre of telenovelas differ in the context of cultural nuances and what is the genesis of the human urgency in retelling the melodramatic and tragic narratives? Is this genre based on Turkish production now trespassing into the territory of ancient tragedy, thus returning to the roots of all the fiction? Is so, why is that happening to this genre? Enormous popularity deriving from these stories is reflected in the prime time broadcasting by Croatians, Serbian and Bosnian TV stations since 2010. The paper will explain the ontogenesis of the popularity, reflections and influences on societies and cultures, and features of this hybrid and changing genre of telenovelas produced in Turkey.


Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Center (UKMM C) started neurointerventional service in August 2008. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the immed iate and short term outcome of endovascular treatment (EVT) of cerebral aneurysm during early period of the services. A retrospective study for cerebral aneurysm treated by endovascular technique, fro m the Neurosurgical and Rad iology Depart ment fro m September 2008 till February 2010 was performed. Patient's demographic data, initial clinical presentation and assessment of the aneurysm were performed. The immediate results and short term assessment post EVT were evaluated based on standard criteria. Recurrence and complicat ions during and following EVT procedures, were recorded. Twenty one patients with total of 22 aneurysms were treated. The mean age was 54.52 years with 57% being males and 43% females. The majority (81%) had single aneurysm. The most common site was anterior commun icating artery (28 %). Mean aneurysm sac size was 6.19 mm and 2.55 mm for aneurysm neck. At follow-up, 3 (27.2%) had a small residual neck. Four patients (37.2%) had residual aneurysm filling, but three of them were treated with stent aiming to achieve flow diversion effect instead of complete occlusion during initial treat ment. There was no rebleed or rupture from the immediate to follow-up. Significant co mplications up to 30-days was observed in 4 patients (20%) whereby 2 patients showed improvement and 2 patients died (10 % mortality rate). Endovascular treatment of cerebral aneurysms performed in our centre had early outcome, morbid ity and mortality compared to other higher volume centres. Longer term follow up is needed to evaluate the long term outcome/occlusion rate, morb idity and mortality.


We present a robust null space method for linear equality constrained state space estimation. Exploiting a degeneracy in the estimator statistics, an orthogonal factorization is used to decompose the problem into stochastic and deterministic components, which are then solved separately. The resulting dimension reduction algorithm has enhanced numerical stability, solves the constrained problem completely, and can reduce computational load by reducing the problem size. The new method addresses deficiencies in commonly used pseudo-observation or projection methods, which either do not solve the constrained problem completely or have unstable numerical implementations, due in part to the degeneracy in the estimator statistics. We present a numerical example demonstrating the effectiveness of the new method compared to other current methods.


Mixed phthalocyanine-porphyrin-based conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) are still rare, limited to one sole NN-bridged example. Developing new mixed phthalocyanine-porphyrin-based CMP compounds towards exploring their new functionalities and application potential is therefore of significant importance. In the present case, four ethynyl-linked mixed phthalocyanine-porphyrin-based 2D CMPs, including FePcZnPor-CMP, ZnPcFePor-CMP, FePcFePor-CMP, and ZnPcZnPor-CMP, were fabricated by utilizing a Sonogashira–Hagihara coupling reaction. A series of spectroscopic and electron microscopy methods confirmed the successful fabrication of the as-prepared CMPs with alternate distribution of phthalocyanine and porphyrin chromophores. The electrocatalytic activity of these CMPs for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry, rotating disk electrode, and rotating ring-disk electrode tests. In alkaline media, the two FePc-containing CMPs exhibit excellent ORR catalytic activity with an E1/2 as high as 863–866 mV, making them significantly superior to FePor-containing catalyst ZnPcFePor-CMP and comparable to commercial Pt/C. On the basis of the experimental results and theoretical calculations, the significantly higher ORR performance of the two FePc-containing CMPs than the FePor-containing catalyst ZnPcFePor-CMP originates from the stronger coordination field of the phthalocyanine macrocyclic ligand than porphyrin, which is more favorable for stabilizing Fe2+ species.


Objective: To evaluate the association of base deficit (BD) with mortality in traumatized children, and to assess this association in a subgroup of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods: In this cross-sectional study performed prospectively on a convenience sample of patients under 16 years of age with trauma presenting to an academic level ІІ trauma center, we obtained venous BD values initially and followed the patients for in-hospital mortality. Initial vital signs were measured and injury severity score (ISS), randomized trauma score (RTS), and pediatric trauma score (PTS) were calculated. Results: A total of 102 patients were included, with 48 patients diagnosed with TBI. Nine patients (8.8%) died during admission, of which 6 were diagnosed with TBI. Based on the univariate analysis, BD was associated with mortality in the whole group (P = 0.01), but not in the TBI subgroup (P = 0.08). In multivariable analysis, RTS was the only variable independently associated with mortality (P = 0.001, odds ratio [OR] = 0.197). Linear regression model showed that BD was predictive of ISS, RTS, and PTS. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve showed a cutoff point of -7 mmol/L for BD, below which there is a 12 fold increased risk for mortality. Conclusion: BD is a useful parameter in mortality prediction in pediatric trauma like in adult age group, but this predictive role in TBI patients is not supported by our results.


ABSTRACT Understanding spoken language requires the integration and weighting of multiple cues, and may call on cue integration mechanisms that have been studied in other areas of perception. In the current study, we used eye-tracking (visual-world paradigm) to examine how contextual speech rate (a lower-level, perceptual cue) and morphosyntactic knowledge (a higher-level, linguistic cue) are iteratively combined and integrated. Results indicate that participants used contextual rate information immediately, which we interpret as evidence of perceptual inference and the generation of predictions about upcoming morphosyntactic information. Additionally, we observed that early rate effects remained active in the presence of later conflicting lexical information. This result demonstrates that (1) contextual speech rate functions as a cue to morphosyntactic inferences, even in the presence of subsequent disambiguating information; and (2) listeners iteratively use multiple sources of information to draw inferences and generate predictions during speech comprehension. We discuss the implication of these demonstrations for theories of language processing.


Community health in contexts affected by floods, fires or frost, coffee marketing proves to be an example to follow to observe the local entrepreneurship. In this sense, the objective of this study was to perform a non - experimental, transversal and exploratory study with a nonrandom selection of 300 trader's coffee. From a structural model ??2 = 1.335 (5GL) p = 0.935; GFI = 0.982; AGFI = 0.947; RMSEA = 0,000?se established reliability (perception scale enterprise with alpha 0.724) and valid for five allusive to perceptions of economic opportunity (32% of the total variance explained), financial (22% of the variance), sales dimensions (16% of the variance), social (10% of the variance) and environmental (3% of the variance). the fourth factor reflected the construct (? = 0.47), followed by the first (? = 0.30) and the fifth factor (? = 0.16). Based on theoretical and conceptual frameworks the study of entrepreneurial perception vulnerable groups dedicated to the sale of coffee as a way of subsistence is proposed. The findings allow to establish a link between the rational choice theory and human capital theory regarding the theory of the commons and the theory of social entrepreneurship as conceptual frameworks to highlight the intervention of Social Work.


Bolometric luminosities and Eddington ratios of both X-ray selected broad-line (Type-1) and narrow-line (Type-2) active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the XMM–Newton survey in the Cosmic Evolution Survey field are presented. The sample is composed of 929 AGN (382 Type-1 AGN and 547 Type-2 AGN) and it covers a wide range of redshifts, X-ray luminosities and absorbing column densities. About 65 per cent of the sources are spectroscopically identified as either Type-1 or Type-2 AGN (83 and 52 per cent, respectively), while accurate photometric redshifts are available for the rest of the sample. The study of such a large sample of X-ray selected AGN with a high-quality multiwavelength coverage from the far-infrared (now with the inclusion of Herschel data at 100 and 160 μm) to the optical–ultraviolet allows us to obtain accurate estimates of bolometric luminosities, bolometric corrections and Eddington ratios. The kbol- Lbol relations derived in this work are calibrated for the first time against a sizable AGN sample, and rely on observed redshifts, X-ray luminosities and column density distributions. We find that kbol is significantly lower at high Lbol with respect to previous estimates by Marconi et al. and Hopkins et al. Black hole (BH) masses and Eddington ratios are available for 170 Type-1 AGN, while BH masses for Type-2 AGN are computed for 481 objects using the BH mass–stellar mass relation and the morphological information. We confirm a trend between kbol and λEdd, with lower hard X-ray bolometric corrections at lower Eddington ratios for both Type-1 and Type-2 AGN. We find that, on average, the Eddington ratio increases with redshift for all types of AGN at any given MBH, while no clear evolution with redshift is seen at any given Lbol.


This paper shows some achievements at bending of extruded aluminum profiles during the extrusion process. The conventional process for the production of bent profiles involves a successive extrusion, stretching, and bending of the profiles. Conventional bending methods can not meet demands far precision and cost-effective production in some cases, due to cross sectional deformation, irregular decrease of tube wall thickness and a complication of the process design. An estimation of spring-back required for precision of the bending radius can not always be achieved by the over bending of the profile. Since the profile is hot during the bending process, the spring-back phenomenon can be avoided. This means that an additional bending process is not necessary. Consequently, flexible bending can be achieved with cost reduction and quality improvement. Experimental tests were completed to study the relationship between curvature radius of profile and position of guide on the extrusion for vehicle bumper. A7108 is applied as a billet material in order to increase strength. The overall correlation between the experimental and numerical results is good. It is therefore concluded that the present method provides an efficient means for the constant curvature extrusion process.


To the Editor: Among manufactured chemicals, antiandrogenic endocrine disrupters may be especially toxic during fetal life. Indeed, a temporal increase in the prevalence of male genital malformations, including hypospadias and undescended testis, has been observed in recent population-based studies; and geographical differences suggest the role of environmental exposure to antiandrogenic endocrine disrupters. Birth weight has consistently been shown to be higher in boys than in girls. This is apparently due to androgen action: the birth weight of 46 XY individuals with complete androgen insensitivity is similar to that of girls. We hypothesized that if environmental toxicants have disrupted androgen action in male fetuses, the difference between the weight of male and female neonates should have decreased over time. We used graphical methods to examine temporal trends in mean birth weight of all singleton live births from Statistics Canada's database for the years 1981–2003 (N 5,086,550). Because of a strong temporal increase in preterm birth and decrease in postterm birth (both of which would tend to reduce overall mean birth weight), the primary analysis was restricted to term births (37–41 completed weeks). To provide a control comparison, we analyzed the corresponding temporal trends in differences in birth weight between infants of multiparous and primiparous women. We also carried out multiple linear regression analyses with birth weight as the dependent variable; gestational age, gestational age squared, maternal age ( 20, 20 –34, 35 years), fetal sex, parity (multiparous vs. primiparous), and year were the independent variables, along with sexby-year and parity-by-year interaction terms. A negative sex-by-year interaction indicates that the male-female difference has decreased over the study period. All statistical analyses were carried out using SAS version 8.2 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). Between 1981 and 2003, mean birth weight for boys increased from 3391 to 3507 g; the corresponding figures for girls were 3248 and 3375 g. Similarly, mean birth weight in infants of multiparous mothers increased from 3368 to 3494 g, whereas the mean for infants of primiparous mothers increased from 3261 to 3375 g. The Figure demonstrates a steady temporal decrease in the male-female difference contrasting with a slight increase in the multiparousprimiparous difference. The multiple linear regression analysis confirmed the graphical results (interaction between sex and year 0.57 g/yr [95% confidence interval 0.69 to 0.44] and between parity and year 0.17 g/yr [ 0.05 to 0.30]). Recent temporal trends in birth weight seem to differ by infant sex. Control for gestational age and for maternal age and parity in the multiple regression analysis helps ensure that temporal changes in those variables do not confound the declining sex difference in birth weight. Comparisons of temporal trends in the sex difference in birth weight between jurisdictions with variable exposure to endocrine disrupters may help to uncover the biologic mechanisms underlying our findings. Guy Van Vliet Department of Pediatrics University of Montreal, Montreal Quebec, Canada email@example.com


The emission function associated with the economic-emission dispatch problem contains exponential functions that model the emission pollutants. This paper presents a strategy of solving the economic-emission dispatch problem whereby the exponential function is approximated by a rational function that permits reduction to a standard polynomial optimization problem. This is reformulated as a hierarchy of semidefinite relaxation problems using the moment theory and the resulting SDP problem is solved. Different degrees of rational functional approximation were considered. The approach was tested on the IEEE 30-bus test systems to investigate its effectiveness. Solutions obtained were compared with those from some of the well known evolutionary methods. Results showed that SDP has inherently good convergence property and a lower but comparable diversity property.


In this paper, the discretized Tent map is analyzed as a source of pseudorandom bits. To evaluate the performance of the proposed pseudorandom bit generators (PRBGs), different issues were considered, such as the period length, the statistical characteristics of the generated bit sequences, and the hardware complexity required in digital circuit implementations. The results show that, under proper design conditions, the Tent-map-based PRBGs represent a suitable alternative to other traditional low-complexity PRBGs such as the linear feedback shift registers


The productivity of forage is strongly influenced by cutting height and interval of defoliation. Experiment was conducted at the Research Institute for Industrial Plants and Other Palm (BALITKA) Manado since June 2008 until April 2009. The objective of the experiment was to find out the effects of intensity and intervals of defoliation on dry weight production and the quality of nutrients. The experiment was arranged in factorial RCBD. The intensity of defoliation was based on cutting height, i.e. 5, 10, 15 cm, whereas the intervals of defoliation were 30, 45, 60 day and 456.54 Degree Days (DD). The data of dry weight production, leaf stem ratio, nutrient quality were collected. The results showed that there were significant effects of treatments on all parameters. Productivity of B. humidicolai terms of high dry weight yield, high leaf stem ratio and crude protein, low crude fiber and acid detergent fiber (ADF) content were found in the interaction of intensity 10 cm with the interval of defoliation among the vegetative development stage of 30 and 45 days, as well as the interval of defoliation based on heat unit accumulation of 456.54 DD. The research implies that a cutting height at 10 cm and interval of defoliation as mentioned above is ideal for B. humidicola. Utilization of growing degree days (GDD) to determine the appropriate time for defoliation is considerable under this experiment. Keywords: B. humidicola, defoliation, forage, nutrient, productivity


The effects of longitudinal slope on the estimation of discharge in a 0.762-meter (m) (depth at flume entrance) H flume were tested under controlled conditions with slopes from −8 to +8 percent and discharges from 1.2 to 323 liters per second. Compared to the stage-discharge rating for a longitudinal flume slope of zero, computed discharges were negatively biased (maximum −31 percent) when the flume was sloped downward from the front (entrance) to the back (exit), and positively biased (maximum 44 percent) when the flume was sloped upward. Biases increased with greater flume slopes and with lower discharges. A linear empirical relation was developed to compute a corrected reference stage for a 0.762-m H flume using measured stage and flume slope. The reference stage was then used to determine a corrected discharge from the stage-discharge rating. A dimensionally homogeneous correction equation also was developed, which could theoretically be used for all standard H-flume sizes. Use of the corrected discharge computation method for a sloped H flume was determined to have errors ranging from −2.2 to 4.6 percent compared to the H-flume measured discharge at a level position. These results emphasize the importance of the measurement of and the correction for flume slope during an edge-of-field study if the most accurate discharge estimates are desired.


Student Creativity Program(PKM) of "Lombok Rawit" (Latihan Among Bekso dan Karawitan) is motivated by a will to make traditional Javanese gamelan music and dance as a means of therapy for Mentally Handicapped students. Through this program, Mentally Handicapped children are expected to be familiar with the culture Javanese, while getting a therapy to reduce emotional and behavioral deviations. PKM is applied to Mentally Handicapped children in Special school (SLB) 'E'Prayuwana Yogyakarta. The number of students in special schools was 25 people. Training was conducted in April-July 2014, the results were achieved after the training, namely: (1) the increasing of the value of the post-test by 68%. This percentage is obtained from the tabulated results from the instrument, which showed a reduction in the number of occurrences Mentally Handicapped children characteristics such as hyperactivity, fear, antisocial, and others. (2) The PKM team managed to hold a simple form of collaboration performances of gamelan and dance Mentally Handicapped children. (3) The PKM team managed to compile teaching materials in the form of modules and CD gamelan and dance lessons for children with the barrel so that it can be used widely by teachers and therapists of Mentally Handicapped children. Based ont he results of the PKM, it can be concluded that the training"Rawit Lombok", can be used as a therapeutic tool for Mentally Handicapped children. Based on the effectiveness of thisprogram, a team of the PKM trying to do a follow up in the form of mentoring and socialization, so that a similar program can be applied to Mentally Handicapped children in others special school. Keywords: mentally handicapped children, therapy, Lombok Rawit


Knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities has long been an important area of research. Prior related research has primarily focused on relational virtual community (RVC) where knowledge sharing is regarded as a social exchange behavior, heavily depending on the social concerns such as reciprocity, identification and norms. The objective of our study is to investigate knowledge contributors' satisfaction in a distinct type of virtual communities (transactional virtual communities, TVCs), where knowledge sharing is mainly guided under the principle of economic exchange, and cost-benefit tradeoff is the primary motives for knowledge sharing. Drawing upon the goal attainment theory, we examine the effects of two types of benefits (e.g., extrinsic and intrinsic benefit) and two types of costs (e.g., actual and opportunity cost) on knowledge contributors' satisfaction, as well as the mediating role of perceived net goal attainment. A field survey with 205 subjects in a specific TVC in China was conducted to test the research model. We find that knowledge contributors' perceptions of extrinsic and intrinsic benefits and opportunity cost significantly influence their satisfaction through the full mediation of perceived net goal attainment. Implications and future research are discussed.


In some cases, tests for outliers and robust methods based on the Least Square Estimation (LSE) fail to detect and isolate outliers. LSE 'smears the effect' of an outlier on all estimates of the residuals, the unknowns, and the a posteriori variance of unit weight. Therefore as bias goes to infinity, the Influence Function (IF) also goes to infinity. This study aims to investigate the effect of an outlier on the unknown parameters, etc., compared to the IF concept. Moreover, how the ratio of the resulting outlier effect is related to the redundancy of the geodetic network has been shown through the concepts of Sensitivity Curve (SC) and smearing effect by Monte Carlo Simulation. Also, it has proved that the SC of LSE was almost equal to the 'smearing effect' of LSE, which behaves systematically as a function of the partial redundancy that varies from one residual to another in the geodetic network.


This article aims to approach the relations between the internet, representation of the past, and public history. To do this, it resorts to analyzing the website and the Facebook page "As Mina na Historia" ["Chicks in History"], created in June 2015. In this examination, it explores issues such as the type of representation of the past provided in this virtual space, the profile of its audience, and the language used. In order to move forward in these issues, brief comments are made about the teaching of women's history in Brazil. Finally, we seek, through this approach, to propose some reflections about the public history that has been practiced in the country, beyond the issue of enlargement of the audience 'consuming' history. Keywords: Representation; Public History; Internet; Women.


A major threat to IT security in today's business world is the simple problem of careless employees choosing not to comply with security policies and guidelines. Many studies have been done to track the reasoning behind this problem and try to find a solution. To address this issue, our study proposes to look at the effects of company culture and environment, including relationships among co-workers as well as their feelings toward upper management, in order to determine if a correlation exists between this relationship and an employee's compliance with IT security policies. In order to do so, we designed a survey comprised of various questions dealing with workplace environment and thoughts on IT security policies in order to gain insight on the topic and gather useful data. We administered the survey to an anonymous group of people we assembled, ranging in age and employed by a variety of companies. The survey results were then analyzed and data trends were uncovered in order to see if a correlation does in fact exist. We found that there is a positive correlation between employees' organizational environment and their compliance with IT security policies. We also discovered that there appears to be a lack of employee education on security policies in the workplace, which needs to be studied further in the future. To the best of our knowledge, our method is unique and stands apart from prior work in that the data gathered was not limited to employees from a specific company or of equal job status. We believe that the wide variety of our chosen participants will provide a more comprehensive look at this issue. Additionally, our study does not focus on any specific behavioral theories or try to implement any new methods in the workplace as was done earlier. We merely look at the employees' daily, ordinary feelings and actions, giving a special "real" and "true" quality to our results. Keywords—policy; compliance; security; education


Nowadays, it is widely recognized that the performance of many catalytic materials is closely related to their particle size; however, it is still a great challenge to produce metal particles on a sub-nanoscale at low cost and in a facile way. In this work, uniformly dispersed palladium sub-nanoclusters were controllably decorated on reduced graphene oxide (Pd/rGO) by a facile modified impregnation method without using any protecting agents; a mean palladium cluster size of as low as 0.7–0.9 nm can be achieved by impregnation with PdCl2 as the precursor, ethanol or acetone as solvent and calcination in hydrogen at low temperature. The Pd/rGO catalyst exhibits high activity in the aerobic oxidation of benzyl alcohol, with almost a complete alcohol conversion and selectivity of 100% to benzaldehyde at 60 °C; moreover, it also displays much higher stability against deactivation from the aggregation of Pd particles than the Pd catalyst with active carbon as the support. The superior performance of the Pd/rGO catalyst can be ascribed to the small size and high valence of Pd sub-nanoclusters and the coordination of chloride ions, as well as the strong interaction between Pd species and the rGO support, as demonstrated by various characterization measures. These results help to clarify the relationship between the preparation, structure and performance of the supported Pd/rGO catalyst in the selective oxidation of alcohols, which brings forward an effective approach to obtain metal sub-nanoclusters on rGO with superior catalytic performance.


The visible fast increase in the growth rate of world population occurred during the second half of the twentieth century due to the faster declines in mortality following the medical and public health advances made around the time of World War II. The global population growth rate after peaking of at around 1.7 to 1.9 percent per annum in the 1970s and 1980s has since started declining and is currently around 1.4 percent per annum. The world population more than doubled, recording 142 percent increase, from 2.51 billion in 1950 to around 6.07 billion in 2000 [Hakim (2000)]. Most of the increase has been in less developed countries, from 1.68 billion in 1950 to 4.88 billion in 2000, recording 190 percent. Compared to this, the more developed countries witnessed only a marginal increase of 43 percent from 0.83 billion in 1950 to 1.19 billion population in 2000.


The Dahomey Gap, a savanna corridor interrupting the zonal West African rain forest, did not exist during the mid-Holocene. The pollen diagram from Lac Sélé (7°9'N, 2°26'E) indicates that in southern Benin a semi-evergreen rainforest prevailed between c. 8400 and 4500 cal. yr BP. The mid-Holocene marine transgression caused a spread of mangrove forest along the inland lagoons. Pollen analysis and geochemistry indicate that the Dahomey Gap became established at the onset of the late Holocene due to an abrupt climatic change between c. 4500 and 3400 cal. yr BP. Drier climatic conditions led to a rapid deterioration of the rain forest and subsequent spread of Sudano-Guinean savannas. A return to wetter climatic conditions between c. 3300 and 1100 cal. yr BP resulted in a rise in the lake level and a renewed spread of forests into the savanna. During this time the Dahomey Gap consisted of a forest-savanna mosaic with a high number of pioneer tree taxa including the oil palm Elaeis guineensis After c. 1100 cal. yr BP the lake level dropped again and the Lac Sélé profile indicates drier environmental conditions resulting in the establishment of an open savanna which persists until present. The palaeorecord from Lac Sélé suggests that the role of humans in shaping the West African savannas has been overestimated. The opening of the Dahomey Gap and spread of the oil palm E. guineensis can now be confidentially attributed to climatic change and was not initiated by humans.


Using recently published information, we examined the experience of a hypothetical cohort of 1 million children followed up from birth to 6 years of age without and with a pertussis vaccination program. Costs associated with death or lost wages were not estimated. A vaccination program reaching 90% of children would reduce disease incidence and disease-related costs by 90%. Taking into account costs associated with vaccine and vaccine reactions, the costs are reduced 82%. The ratio of overall costs without a program to those with a program is 5.7:1. The benefit-cost ratio is 11.1:1. Because we did not include indirect costs, this is a conservative estimate. Until improved vaccines are available, continued use of our present vaccines, with careful attention to possible contraindications, seems the only prudent course to follow.


We present a system for reenacting a person's face driven by speech. Given a video sequence with the corresponding audio track of a person giving a speech and another audio track containing different speech from the same person, we reconstruct a 3D mesh of the face in each frame of the video sequence to match the speech in the second audio track. Audio features are extracted from such two audio tracks. Assuming that the appearance of the mouth is highly correlated to these speech features, we extract the mouth region of the face's 3D mesh from the video sequence when speech features from the second audio track are close to those of the video's audio track. While retaining temporal consistency, these extracted mouth regions then replace the original mouth regions in the video sequence, synthesizing a reenactment video where the person seemingly gives the speech from the second audio track. Our system, coined S2TH (speech to talking head), does not require any special hardware to capture the 3D geometry of faces but uses the state-of-the-art method for facial geometry regression. We visually and subjectively demonstrate reenactment quality.


deal.II is a state-of-the-art finite element library focused on generality, dimension-independent programming, parallelism, and extensibility. Herein, we outline its primary design considerations and its sophisticated features such as distributed meshes, $hp$-adaptivity, support for complex geometries, and matrix-free algorithms. But deal.II is more than just a software library: It is also a diverse and worldwide community of developers and users, as well as an educational platform. We therefore also discuss some of the technical and social challenges and lessons learned in running a large community software project over the course of two decades.


Unsustainable drug prices in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and cancer may be causing harm to patients. The aim of this multicenter study is to assess the efficacy of generic imatinib mesylate (IM) over Glivec in terms of hematological, cytogenetic, and molecular responses in CML. The data of 120 CML patients, who were treated with generic or original form of IM, were obtained from six different hematology clinics in Turkey between the years of 2009-2014 and analyzed retrospectively. Initial evaluation revealed that only one patient who was using original molecule switched to second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). In this period, hematological response(HR) was observed in 99.2% of the patients, cytogenetic response (CR) was observed in 88.7% of the patients (47 of 53), and molecular response (MR) was observed in 75% of the patients. Clinicians had a tendency to prefer generic molecules in each sequent visit, and this switch rate was statistically significant (p< 0.001). 11 patients, who were using original molecules during all cohorts, switched to second generation TKI. On the other hand, only one patient, who was using generic molecules, switched to second generation TKI. Our paper may help to clarify the doubts about the efficacy of generic IM compared to original molecule. In our study we did not find any significant difference in HR, CR, and MR for original and generic drugs in each visit. Herein, we find low rates of need to switch to second generation TKIs with generic IM and no difference in treatment responses between generic and original molecules that confirms the non-inferiority of generic TKIs over original molecules.


Needle insertion has been used as a minimally invasive technique in many diagnostic or therapeutic procedures such as prostate biopsy or brachytherapy. While the success of these procedures relies on accurate positioning of the needle tip at target positions, the intraoperative movement of the tissue (and consequently the target) has caused physicians some difficulties in acquiring the target. This paper presents a method to estimate tissue movement during a needle insertion task within tissue. The movement of the tissue is valuable information for guidance, navigation, and control of the needle inside tissue towards the target. A needle insertion task was performed using an active needle bending. Ultrasound images were captured at four needle insertion stages of initial needle insertion, bending, unbending, and needle retraction. Ultrasound images were then analyzed to estimate the tissue movement at each stage. The study showed that needle retraction, insertion, bending, and unbending stages correspond to largest to lowest tissue movement, respectively.


Background: Instrumental vaginal delivery (IVD) is one of the signal functions of the basic emergency obstetric and newborn care. Some recent reviews point towards a sustained fall in the performance of this lifesaving procedure. With increasing caesarean section rates, institutional reviews of the practice of IVD are important to improve and sustain this art which is on the path of extinction. Objectives: To determine the IVD rate at the OAUTHC over a 5-year period from January 2013 to December 2017 and to review the maternal and newborn outcomes. Methods: This was a retrospective review. Case records of parturients who had either forceps or vacuum delivery during the study period were retrieved and relevant information were extracted. Data analysis was done with IBM-SPSS version 20. Results: There were 10,286 deliveries and 101 IVDs over the 5-year period giving an IVD rate of 0.98%, with 0.41% for forceps and 0.57% for vacuum delivery. Seventy-one case records were available for review. Mean maternal age was 27.21 ± 5.8 years and 31 (43.7%) of the parturients were primigravidae. Thirty-nine (54.9%) were booked and 66 (93%) of the procedures were performed as emergencies. Senior residents conducted most (94.4%) of the procedures and poor maternal efforts in the second stage of labor was the most common indication (43.8%). All resulted in vaginal delivery with the most common maternal complication being genital tract laceration, most notably first and second-degree perineal tears. Of the 66 livebirths, neonatal ward admission rate was 45.5%. There was an early neonatal death which followed a traumatic vacuum delivery. Conclusion and Recommendations: The IVD rate at OAUTHC is low, with higher preference for vacuum delivery. Appropriate case selection is evident, and poor maternal effort in second stage of labor remained the leading indication. The neonatal admission rate is high. Training and retraining of resident doctors is necessary towards increasing the conduct and ensuring better outcome.


Fractional Brownian motion can be represented as an integral over a family of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. This representation naturally lends itself to numerical discretizations, which are shown in this paper to have strong convergence rates of arbitrarily high polynomial order. This explains the potential, but also some limitations of such representations as the basis of Monte Carlo schemes for fractional volatility models such as the rough Bergomi model.


The two major risk factors of Gastric Cancer (GC) are Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection and Atrophic Gastritis (AG) It is currently possible to diagnose HP-infection and AG by using serological testing with a panel of biomarkers (GastroPanel®, Biohit Oyj, Finland): Pepsinogen I (PGI), Pepsinogen II (PGII), Gastrin-17 (G-17) and HP-antibodies. In this review, an introduction is made to the GastroPanel® test as the first non-invasive diagnostic tool for: i) Dyspeptic symptoms, ii) Screening of asymptomatic subjects for the risks of GC, iii) A comprehensive diagnosis of HP-infection. GastroPanel® test is based on stomach physiology both in health and disease. Accordingly, pepsinogen levels and their ratio is decreased in corpus atrophy (AGC), accompanied by elevated G-17b (basal) G-17b level also sensitively responds to gastric acid output, being low with high acid output and high when the stomach is acid-free (due to PPI-treatment or AGC) In Antrum Atrophy (AGA), G-17b is low and, importantly, does not respond to protein stimulation (G-17s), because the G-cells are disappeared. The results of GastroPanel® test are interpreted by a special software (GastroSoft®) identifying 8 diagnostic marker profiles. Of those, four (profiles 1, 2, 3, and 8) represent purely functional disorders (of acid output), while three others specify structural abnormalities (profiles 5, 6, and 7 for AGC, AGA, and AGpan, respectively) the remaining (profile 4) is typical to HPinfection, with three possible outcomes: a) Active HPinfection, b) Successful eradication, and c) Failed eradication. GastroPanel® test has been validated in both clinical and screening settings. The entire published literature was subjected to systematic review and meta-analysis, including 27 eligible studies that comprise almost 9.000 patients. GastroPanel® was shown to perform better in diagnosis of AGC than AGA, with 70.2% vs. 51.6% pooled SE, and 93.9% vs. 84.1% pooled SP, respectively. This first meta-analysis corroborates the recently launched statement of 16 international experts, advocating the use of this non-invasive serological test as the first-line diagnostic tool for dyspeptic symptoms and for screening of the risks of GC among asymptomatic subjects. The two most commonly used HP tests (UBT and SAT) are prone to false-negative results in conditions with decreased bacterial loads in the stomach: 1) Use of PPI medication; 2) Use of antibiotics; 3) Bleeding peptic ulcer; 4) AG; 5) GC; 6) MALT lymphoma, and 7) Partial gastrostomy. False-positive results do occur in cases where urease-producing bacterial species are colonizing an acid-free stomach (AG or PPI users) it is mandatory that these serious limitations in the use of UBT and SAT are properly acknowledged while these two HP tests are being promoted. Given that this bacteria is the single most important risk factor of GC, it is time to move a step forward also in the diagnosis of HP-infections, and start using the test (GastroPanel®) that is: i) Free from the shortcoming of the conventional HP tests, and ii) Provides an added value by detecting also the other key risk factor of GC, i.e., AG with all its potentially serious clinical sequels.


Background: Plant biomass is a promising feedstock to replace fossil-based products including fuels, chemicals and materials. However, the high resistance of plant biomass to either physicochemical or biological deconstruction has been hampering its broad industrial utilization and, consequently, the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy. The gut system from herbivores are formidable bioreactors in nature for lignocellulose breakdown and the diverse ecological niches where herbivores are found have led to the rise of a myriad of molecular strategies to cope with the sheer complexity of plant polysaccharides. This study illuminates how the underexplored microbiota of the largest living rodent, capybara, found in Pantanal wetlands and the Amazon basin, can efficiently depolymerize and utilize lignocellulosic biomass.Results: Here, we have elucidated the gut microbial structure and composition of the semiaquatic herbivorous capybara through multi-omics approaches. Metabolic reconstruction of this microbiota showed that cellulose degradation is likely performed by Fibrobacter bacteria, whereas hemicelluloses and pectins are processed by a broad arsenal of Carbohydrate-Active enZymes (CAZymes) organized in polysaccharide utilization loci (PULs) identified in the multiple metagenome-assembled genomes from the phylum Bacteroidetes. Furthermore, metabolomics analysis showed short chain fatty acids as major fermentation products, which are key markers of digestion performance of plant polysaccharides. Exploring the genomic dark matter of this gut microbial community, two novel CAZymes families were unveiled including a glycoside hydrolase family of β-galactosidases (GHXXX) and a carbohydrate-binding module family (CBMXX) involved in xylan binding that establishes an unprecedented three-dimensional fold among associated modules to CAZymes. Conclusions: Our results reveal how the capybara gut microbiota orchestrates the depolymerization and utilization of dietary plant polysaccharides, representing an untapped reservoir of new and intricate enzymatic strategies to overcome the recalcitrance of plant polysaccharides, a central challenge toward a circular and sustainable economy.


The complex three-dimensional organisation of the human brain, as well as the numerous variables involved in modern imaging techniques, make it necessary to introduce guidelines for the interpretation of the topographical localisation and allocation of normal cerebral structures and pathological processes. In a historical overview of the methods used for precise localisation we introduce some models that can be used as diagnostic aids. As supporting means in the MRI we suggest the standardisation of the imaging by application of this model. The methodological procedures of its use in the MRI are shown in detail. Finally the advantages and disadvantages of this model are discussed with regard to its possible applications in imaging systems such as MR. The imaging standards for intra-interindividual and inter-methodologic comparison in routine investigations are emphasized in particular.


Aims. The aim of this study is to understand the chemical conditions of ices around embedded young stellar objects (YSOs) in the metal-poor Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Methods. We performed near-infrared (2.5-5 μm) spectroscopic observations toward 12 massive embedded YSOs and their candidates in the LMC using the infrared camera (IRC) onboard AKARI. We estimated the column densities of the H 2 O, CO 2 , and CO ices based on their 3.05, 4.27, and 4.67 μm absorption features, and we investigated the correlation between ice abundances and physical properties of YSOs. Results. The ice absorption features of H 2 O, CO 2 , 13 CO 2 , CO, CH 3 0H, and possibly XCN are detected in the spectra. In addition, hydrogen recombination lines and PAH emission bands are detected toward the majority of the targets. The derived typical CO 2 /H 2 O ice ratio of our samples (~0.36 ± 0.09) is greater than that of Galactic massive YSOs (~0.17 ± 0.03), while the CO/H 2 O ice ratio is comparable. It is shown that the CO 2 ice abundance does not correlate with the observed characteristics of YSOs: the strength of hydrogen recombination line and the total luminosity. Likewise, clear correlation is not seen between the CO ice abundance and YSO characteristics, but it is suggested that the CO ice abundance of luminous samples is significantly lower than in other samples. Conclusions. The systematic difference in the C02 ice abundance around the LMC's massive YSOs, which was suggested by previous studies, is confirmed with the new near-IR data. We suggest that the strong ultraviolet radiation field and/or the high dust temperature in the LMC are responsible for the observed high abundance of the CO 2 ice. It is suggested that the internal stellar radiation does not play an important role in the evolution of the CO 2 ice around a massive YSO, while more volatile molecules like CO are susceptible to the effect of the stellar radiation.


In this paper, we consider CCL-N (Cooperative Cross Layer Network) topology based on the cross layer (both centralized and distributed) environment to form network communities. Various performance metrics related to the IEEE 802.16 networks are discussed to design CCL-N Topology. In CCL-N topology, nodes are classified as master nodes (Master Base Station [MBS]) and serving nodes (Relay Station [RS]). Nodes communities are organized based on the networking terminologies. Based on CCL-N Topology, various simulation analyses for both transparent and non-transparent relays are tabulated and throughput efficiency is calculated. Weighted load balancing problem plays a challenging role in IEEE 802.16 network. CoTS (Concurrent Transmission Scheduling) Scheme is formulated in terms of three aspects – transmission mechanism based on identical communities, different communities and identical node communities. CoTS scheme helps in identifying the weighted load balancing problem. Based on the analytical results, modularity value is inversely proportional to that of the error value. The modularity value plays a key role in solving the CoTS problem based on hop count. The transmission mechanism for identical node community has no impact since modularity value is same for all the network groups. In this paper three aspects of communities based on the modularity value which helps in solving the problem of weighted load balancing and CoTS are discussed. Keywords—Cross layer network topology, concurrent scheduling, modularity value, network communities and weighted load balancing.


Traditional design development processes have come a long way from the use of drawing boards. The accelerated use of ICT-based digital systems means that the industry has steadily moved towards a digitized future. A future where increasingly unstructured information is created, shared, manipulated, stored, and archived in various digital media support the four pillars of visualization, integration, communication, and intelligence on which typical construction projects currently stand. The ICT field's growth, combined with the unprecedented advances in communication and network media usage, has resulted in hyper-interconnectivity globally. This hyper-connectivity through developments such as the Internet of Things (IoT) creates global opportunities for collaboration, which was not previously possible. It links 'human' and 'social' networks with 'technical' systems. With the vast volumes of digitally connected systems and the systems' data, new opportunities for learning have surfaced in the construction domain. The special issue targeted the state-of-the-art developments of next generation ICTs in the global arena. As with any new developments, new opportunities emerge and new challenges surface. The cautious late majority and the laggards, adopt a skeptical approach, that which is reserved and strewn in doubt. The innovators and the early majority on the other hand pave the way to technology adoption and help drive change in the industry. This special issue recognises that the emergence of next-generation ICTs, combined with developments in ubiquitous computing, presentopportunities that challenge the current status quo of the construction sector. This special issue recognizes that for an industry to remain truly competitive, due consideration need to be given to the ongoing and emerging technological developments, and a deep understanding of which would lead to novel responsive approaches for their significant uptake.
The collection of papers in this special issue gives a comprehensive overview of research and developments in the field of next-generation ICTs. It bridges the gap between the two domains of construction and computer science. Of the ten papers in this collection, two (by Akamu et al, and Karmarkar and Delhi) were invited papers and include a world view on thewider applicability of next-generation ICTs in the construction domain, the opportunities they present and the challenges that emerge. The remaining papers, amongst other aspects, cover theinnovative application of next-gen ICTs in specific industry sectors(e.g., in the water industry by Alani et al, 2021)or in meeting specific project goals such as to manage energy consumption (Watfa et al), improve information retrieval (Wang et al), integrate AR and BIM for specific building submission processes (Schranz et al), identify challenges to collaborative working within globally dispersed virtual project teams (Anderson and Ramalingam), and ontology for robot navigation and data fusion (Karimi et al).


Games allow players to experiment and play with subject positions, values and moral choice. In game worlds players can take on the role of antagonists; they allow us to play with behaviour that would be offensive, illegal or immoral if it happened outside of the game sphere. While contemporary games have always handled certain problematic topics, such as war, disasters, human decay, post-apocalyptic futures, cruelty and betrayal, lately even the most playful of genres are introducing situations in which players are presented with difficult ethical and moral dilemmas. This volume is an investigation of "dark play" in video games, or game play with controversial themes as well as controversial play behaviour. It covers such questions as: Why do some games stir up political controversies? How do games invite, or even push players towards dark play through their design? Where are the boundaries for what can be presented in a games? Are these boundaries different from other media such as film and books, and if so why? What is the allure of dark play and why do players engage in these practices?... Download ebook, read file pdf Controversial Issues in Playful Environments


Inflammatory bowel diseases are characterized by disabilities in gastrointestinal system and defects in mucosal immune system. Statins are 3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor and are used to treat hypercholesterolemia in patients with coronary artery and atherosclerotic diseases. Recent studies have demonstrated that statins have immunomodulatory role by effecting different pathways in immune system. In this study, we investigated the effect of atorvastatin and its mechanism on systemic immune response in treatment of trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (TNBS)-induced colitis mice. We observed that atorvastatin significantly suppressed the severity of TNBS-induced colitis in BALB/c mice. This was manifested in reduced rectal bleeding, decrease in colon length, reduction of histological damage, and improved survival. Concurrently, we investigated the immunomodulatory role of atorvastatin on systemic immune system. We investigated the proinflammatory (IL-1α, IL-6, TNF-α), Th1 (IFN-γ, IL-2), Th2 (IL-4, IL-5, IL-10), and Th17 (IL-17, IL-23) cytokine levels in serum samples of colitis and atorvastatin-administered mice. We discovered that administration of atorvastatin significantly down-regulates systemic TNF-α level and Th17 cytokine levels. Furthermore, atorvastatin treatment switches Th1 type T-cell response toward/to Th2 (IL-4, IL-10) type response.


Preferences are present in many real life situations but it is often difficult to quantify them giving a precise value. Sometimes preference values may be missing because of privacy reasons or because they are expensive to obtain or to produce. In some other situations the user of an automated system may have a vague idea of whats he wants.
In this thesis we considered the general formalism of soft constraints, where preferences play a crucial role and we extended such a framework to handle both incomplete and imprecise preferences. In particular we provided new theoretical frameworks to handle such kinds of preferences.
By admitting missing or imprecise preferences, solving a soft constraint problem becomes a different task. In fact, the new goal is to find solutions which are the best ones independently of the precise value the each preference may have. With this in mind we defined two notions of optimality: the possibly optimal
solutions and the necessary optimal solutions, which are optimal no matter we assign a precise value to a missing or imprecise preference. We provided several algorithms, bases on both systematic and local search approaches, to find such kind of solutions.
Moreover, we also studied the impact of our techniques also in a specific class of problems (the stable marriage problems) where imprecision and incompleteness have a specific meaning and up to now have been tackled with different techniques.
In the context of the classical stable marriage problem we developed a fair method to randomly generate stable marriages of a given problem instance.
Furthermore, we adapted our techniques to solve stable marriage problems with ties and incomplete lists, which are known to be NP-hard, obtaining good results both in terms of size of the returned marriage and in terms of steps need to find a solution.


Lactoferrin (LF) is a member of the transferrin family that is a cationic iron-binding protein. It is an 80-kDa glycoprotein that is found in many secretions in the body and is highly present in milk and colostrums. It exerts antibacterial effects and has a wide range of biological activities. Moreover, it is considered as a precursor of different peptides that have multifunctional bioactivities. During the last decade, several applications of LF and its peptides have been discovered, which has led to its commercial production. Therefore, LF and its peptides can offer a variety of specialized ingredients that can be tailored to meet the needs of natural food preservatives and functional food ingredients.


elsewhere.) My motto for surgery in cases of perforated diverticulitis is "do as much -as necessary but as little as possible," and I regard resection of the colon as rarely necessary. The diagnosis of perforated diverticulitis is notoriously difficult. I would like to draw attention to two clinical features: right-sided abdominal pain and rectal pain. In onethird of cases in the published23 and also in my own series symptoms and signs were mainly right-sided. I believe the explanation for this is as follows. In diverticulitis omentum and small bowel loops adhere and surround the inflamed colon. When perforation occurs pus and faeces drain mainly towards the relatively empty right iliac fossa and irritate the unprotected parietal peritoneum there. Severe rectal pain may be the presenting symptom in perforated diverticulitis, but it soon passes off or is overshadowed by more widespread symptoms. By the time the patient is seen in hospital direct questioning may be needed to bring it to light. Rectal pain is probably due to irritation of the pelvic peritoneum and consequent reflex spasm of the perineal muscles.-I am, etc.,


It is now well documented that individuals, on average, change their behavior when their actions are observed by others. Yet, there is no systematic way of measuring this dimension of preferences at the individual level. In this paper, we propose a novel experimental game to measure the individual sensitivity to image concerns. We test it experimentally and provide several justifications for the validity of our measure. We find a large heterogeneity in the population: one third of the sample appears totally insensitive to perceptions by others, while one third appears strongly imaged concerned. Members of ethnic minorities seem to be more imaged concerned, in particular when observed by a member of other groups. We also show that more image concerned individuals tend to be less cooperative. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence suggesting that individuals do not only care about the absolute image they convey, but also about how far this image is from reality.


Fucking Law is an urgent call for everyone, not just academics and researchers, to find inventive ways to question the ethics of sexuality. Since a sex life is full of so many diverse moments of joy and suffering, for each and everybody, the book attempts to bridge a gap between philosophical and non-philosophical questioning. Central to the book is the reality that everyone can challenge the ethics and laws of sexuality and ask questions, even where they seem frightening, or worse, even when we are told not to – by institutions and lovers alike. Non-philosophical and accessible, Fucking Law is risky, explicit and provocative as it bridges the gap between academic and every-day questioning of sexual encounters.


Background Mobile technology for health (mHealth) interventions are increasingly being used to help improve self-management among patients with diabetes; however, these interventions have not been adopted by a large number of patients and often have high dropout rates. Patient personality characteristics may play a critical role in app adoption and active utilization, but few studies have focused on addressing this question. Objective This study aims to address a gap in understanding of the relationship between personality traits and mHealth treatment for patients with diabetes. We tested the role of the five-factor model of personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) in mHealth adoption preference and active utilization. Methods We developed an mHealth app (DiaSocial) aimed to encourage diabetes self-management. We recruited 98 patients with diabetes—each patient freely chose whether to receive the standard care or the mHealth app intervention. Patient demographic information and patient personality characteristics were assessed at baseline. App usage data were collected to measure user utilization of the app. Patient health outcomes were assessed with lab measures of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c level). Logistic regression models and linear regression were employed to explore factors predicting the relationship between mHealth use (adoption and active utilization) and changes in health outcome. Results Of 98 study participants, 46 (47%) downloaded and used the app. Relatively younger patients with diabetes were 9% more likely to try and use the app (P=.02, odds ratio [OR] 0.91, 95% CI 0.85-0.98) than older patients with diabetes were. Extraversion was negatively associated with adoption of the mHealth app (P=.04, OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.51-0.98), and openness to experience was positively associated with adoption of the app (P=.03, OR 1.73, 95% CI 1.07-2.80). Gender (P=.43, OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.23-1.88), education (senior: P=.99, OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.32-3.11; higher: P=.21, OR 2.51, 95% CI 0.59-10.66), and baseline HbA1c level (P=.36, OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.47-1.31) were not associated with app adoption. Among those who adopted the app, a low education level (senior versus primary P=.003; higher versus primary P=.03) and a high level of openness to experience (P=.048, OR 2.01, 95% CI 1.01-4.00) were associated with active app utilization. Active users showed a significantly greater decrease in HbA1c level than other users (ΔHbA1c=−0.64, P=.05). Conclusions This is one of the first studies to investigate how different personality traits influence the adoption and active utilization of an mHealth app among patients with diabetes. The research findings suggest that personality is a factor that should be considered when trying to identify patients who would benefit the most from apps for diabetes management.


In today's world, security forms an integral part in every aspect of life. The detection of weapons concealed underneath a person's clothing is very much important to the improvement of the security of the general public as well as the safety of public assets like airports, building and railway stations, etc. Manual screening procedures for detecting concealed weapons are common in controlled access settings like airports, entrance to sensitive buildings and public events. It is desirable sometimes to be able to detect concealed weapons from a standoff distance, especially when it is impossible to arrange the flow of people through a controlled procedure. In this project we propose an automated weapon detection using millimeter wave imagining method. The millimeter wave scans the entire body, without causing any side-effects, for concealed weapon. We enhance the millimeter wave image and follow it up with segmentation. The system has built-in intelligence to detect the concealed weapon after segmentation. We also use wavelet based fusing techniques to pin-point the position of the concealed weapon General Terms Image Denoising, Algorithms et.


CONTINUOUS use of veterinary antimicrobials can lead to antimicrobial resistance (Asai and others 2005). Macrolides (MLs) such as erythromycin (intramuscular) and tylosin (oral) are administered more frequently in pigs than other food animals (Tamura 2003, MAFF 2012).

Campylobacter species are among the most frequently reported foodborne pathogens in human beings worldwide (Allos and Blaser 1995, Mead and others 1999, NIID 2010). Although campylobacteriosis is most commonly caused by Campylobacter jejuni , Campylobacter coli is also an important foodborne pathogen (Tam and others 2003). Campylobacter isolated from pigs is predominantly C. coli (Weijtens and others 1999). Most cases of Campylobacter infection are self-limiting and do not require intervention with antimicrobial agents. However, antimicrobial treatment may become essential for recovery in cases of severely invasive disease. The MLs (e.g., azithromycin or erythromycin) are the first-choice drugs for treating campylobacteriosis because of prevalent resistance of Campylobacter to fluoroquinolones (Allos 2001). However, the rate of resistance to MLs in C. coli derived from pigs and pig products is approximately 50 per cent in Japan (NVAL 2011). Previous studies have shown that in European countries, the ML-resistant rate of C. coli derived from pigs and pig products ranged from 0 per cent to 67 per cent (Little and others 2008, EFSA 2013). The high rate of ML resistance in C. coli poses a major problem for …


This paper aims to explore the causes of financing difficulties of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises and give out corresponding solutions for handling the problem. Through building up the theoretical analytical framework of SMEs' financing difficulties, and discussing the development of Chinese real economy in recent years and the characteristics of SMEs in China, this paper will analyze the causes of SMEs' financing difficulties, and put forward some possible solutions to mitigate the current problem.


Contract enforcement risk has become more prevalent in build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects. Recent trends in Southeast Asia have shown that non-enforcement of contract rights by the public sector have common characteristics such as: introduction of competitors into a contractual relationship believed to have been already awarded as a monopoly, opportunistic behavior of a public-sector joint venture partner, and attempts to void or renegotiate a contract on the grounds that it provides excessive profit to the private sector. The Philippines, in particular, traces non-enforcement of contract rights back to weak enforcement of property rights. The author's recommendations for the Philippines include the establishment of a private-sector investment fund by a multilateral agency, from which amounts could be drawn while disputes between the sovereign and the private sector were under settlement in the International Commerce Court; the formation of a bureau for monitoring official development assistance (ODA) and BOT projects by a multilateral agency; the assumption by equity investors of debt positions in their projects to ensure pari passu status with other lenders in negotiations with the sovereign; and empowerment of the informal sector to promote contract rights enforcement.


OBJECTIVES.
To assess how and in what extent the electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) use substituted the consumption of traditional combustible cigarettes (c-cigarettes, c-cig).

MATERIALS AND METHODS.
We performed a systematic review of the literature up to August 2019 in scientific databases. Primary outcomes were proportion of complete or partial substitution of conventional to electronic cigarettes and related economic aspects. Secondary outcomes were odds ratio of substitution and country-wise time trends.

RESULTS.
We retrieved 3,628 references and included 49 studies, providing economic and epidemiological data. Economic studies of cross-price elasticity showed that combustible cigarettes are partially substitutable for electronic cigarettes. Most studies reported that electronic cigarettes consumption prevalence increased over time. Three studies reported a significant reduction of combustible cigarettes consumed per day among dual users (combustible- plus electronic- cigarettes users) versus combustible-cigarettes users. The pooled adjusted odds ratio of quitting combustible cigarettes among electronic cigarettes users versus never or past electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes, e-cig) users was 1.19 (95% confidence interval 1.09 to 1.30; heterogeneity score 0%). Longitudinal studies showed globally a growing prevalence of electronic cigarettes use, mainly in adolescents. A negative relationship between consumption and price increase of electronic and combustible cigarettes was found.

CONCLUSION.
The chance of quitting smoking combustible cigarettes among current electronic nicotine delivery systems users was increased with respect to never- or past- electronic nicotine delivery systems users. Economic studies reported that electronic cigarette is partially substitutable for combustible cigarettes.


Squash inhibitors of serine proteinases form an uniform family of small proteins. They are built of 27-33 amino-acid residues and cross-linked with three disulfide bridges. The reactive site peptide bond (P1-P1') is between residue 5 (Lys, Arg or Leu) and 6 (always Ile). High resolution X-ray structures are available for two squash inhibitors complexed with trypsin. NMR solution structures have also been determined for free inhibitors. The major structural motif is a distorted, triple-stranded antiparallel beta-sheet. A similar folding motif has been recently found in a number of proteins, including: conotoxins from fish-hunting snails, carboxypeptidase inhibitor from potato, kalata B1 polypeptide, and in some growth factors (e.g. nerve growth factor, transforming growth factor beta 2, platelet-derived growth factor). Squash inhibitors are highly stable and rigid proteins. They inhibit a number of serine proteinases: trypsin, plasmin, kallikrein, blood clotting factors: Xa and XIIa, cathepsin G. The inhibition spectrum can be much broadened if specific amino-acid substitutions are introduced, especially at residues which contact proteinase. Squash inhibitors inhibit proteinases via the standard mechanism. According to the mechanism, inhibitors are substrates which exibit at neutral pH a high kcat/K(m) index for hydrolysis and resynthesis of the reactive site, and a low value of the hydrolysis constant.


Background: The mechanisms underlying oxygenation improvement after prone positioning in COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome have not been fully elucidated yet. The authors hypothesized that the oxygenation increase with prone positioning is secondary to the improvement of ventilation-perfusion matching. Methods: In a series of consecutive intubated COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome patients receiving volume-controlled ventilation, the authors prospectively assessed the percent variation of ventilation-perfusion matching by electrical impedance tomography before and 90 min after the first cycle of prone positioning (primary endpoint). The authors also assessed changes in the distribution and homogeneity of lung ventilation and perfusion, lung overdistention and collapse, respiratory system compliance, driving pressure, optimal positive end-expiratory pressure, as assessed by electrical impedance tomography, and the ratio of partial pressure to fraction of inspired oxygen (Pao2/Fio2; secondary endpoints). Data are reported as medians [25th to 75th] or percentages. Results: The authors enrolled 30 consecutive patients, all analyzed without missing data. Compared to the supine position, prone positioning overall improved ventilation-perfusion matching from 58% [43 to 69%] to 68% [56 to 75%] (P = 0.042), with a median difference of 8.0% (95% CI, 0.1 to 16.0%). Dorsal ventilation increased from 39% [31 to 43%] to 52% [44 to 62%] (P < 0.001), while dorsal perfusion did not significantly vary. Prone positioning also reduced lung overdistension from 9% [4 to 11%] to 4% [2 to 6%] (P = 0.025), while it did not significantly affect ventilation and perfusion homogeneity, lung collapse, static respiratory system compliance, driving pressure, and optimal positive end-expiratory pressure. Pao2/Fio2 overall improved from 141 [104 to 182] mmHg to 235 [164 to 267] mmHg (P = 0.019). However, 9 (30%) patients were nonresponders, experiencing an increase in Pao2/Fio2 less than 20% with respect to baseline. Conclusions: In COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome patients, prone positioning overall produced an early increase in ventilation-perfusion matching and dorsal ventilation. These effects were, however, heterogeneous among patients. Using electrical impedance tomography, the authors assessed the percent variation of ventilation-perfusion matching before and after 90 min of the first cycle of prone positioning in 30 intubated, sedated, and paralyzed adult COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome patients along with additional secondary pulmonary physiologic endpoints. Overall, prone positioning improved ventilation-perfusion matching significantly with a median difference of 8% with no change in dorsal perfusion. Lung overdistention was also significantly reduced. Pao2/fraction of inspired oxygen improved overall, although 30% of the cohort were classified as nonresponders (less than 20% increase from baseline).


Most cultivated rice is white all over the world; however, pigmented rice varieties could be preferable, as they have the potential to promote human health because containing antioxidative compounds inhibiting/reducing reactive cell-damaging free radicals - even if few in vivo studies have been reported about bioactivity of red rice on humans. Previous studies demonstrated that, generally, dehulled red rice shows a total antioxidant activity more than three times greater than dehulled white rice, due to the presence of proanthocyanidins, which accumulate as colourless compounds during the early steps of maturation and subsequently give the seed its pigmentation after oxidative reactions along maturation and desiccation process. Rc gene, which codifies for a bHLH (basic helix-loop-helix) protein responsible for proanthocyanidins' accumulation into the inner seed coat below the pericarp, was here studied from the point of view of expression, developing and applying a RTq-PCR (quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) assay to all the grain filling phases. Results showed that proantocyanidins are present into the caryopses since the milky stage. This study confirmed the key role of the 14bp deletion in Rc-bHLH in the suppression of rice pigmentation and precisely showed that the maximum Rc gene expression was detected at an early stage of grain-filling, i.e., at the elongation period. Moreover, starting from this specific knowledge of the Rc expression timing, targeted highthroughput experiments (transcriptomics and RNA-seq) could be greatly facilitated for expression analyses in seeds of all pigmented rices and presumably of different small grain cereals.


The multidrug resistance (MDR)–associated protein, P‐glycoprotein (Pgp), is expressed on the bile canalicular surface of hepatocytes, where it is thought to function in the detoxification of xenobiotics or in the transport of specific metabolites. Several studies have shown that Pgp expression in rat liver can be perturbed in vivo and in vitro; however, it is not known which of the 3 Pgp genes (class I, II, or III) are involved. In rodents, the class I and II Pgp genes have been shown to mediate MDR while the class III gene apparently does not. In this eport, we have used gene‐specific probes generated from the 3′‐untranslated regions of the three rat Pgp genes (Deuchars et al.: Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1130:157–165, 1992) to investigate Pgp gene expression in primary rat hepatocytes. We observed that the class II Pgp mRNA, the least abundant in the intact liver, is dramatically increased in culture over a 48 h period, while the class I Pgp showed only a modest increase in mRNA level. In contrast, the class III Pgp mRNA, which is the most abundant in the intact liver, exhibited a gradual decline. In rat liver hepatocytes, different culture conditions, as well as drugs such as cytochalasin D and colchicine, appear to affect the level of the class II Pgp gene expression. Moreover, under all these conditions, there is a strong correlation between the level of the class II Pgp and cytoskeletal (actin and tubulin) mRNAs. Thus, there may be a common mechanism regulating the expression of cytoskeletal protein genes and the class II Pgp gene. These findings have implications for our understanding of the regulation of Pgp gene expression in normal and malignant tissues. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Approximately 500000 individuals in Germany are chronically infected with hepatitis B of which most have been still not diagnosed or adequately treated. Patients with chronic hepatitis B are at risk to develop advanced liver fibrosis and cirrhosis and subsequently hepatocellular carcinoma. National and international guidelines should be valued as a practical help in the management of these patients. By the end of 2007 a national German hepatitis B guideline has been published, followed by a Clinical Practice Guideline of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) in 2009. An update of the National German guideline was published in the mid of 2011. The recommendations of these guidelines are delineated. Most importantly the management of hepatitis B remains complicated and needs very experienced hepatologists.


The sensing floor is a smart textile application that supports Ambient Assisted Living as it introduces smart functions unobtrusively in the user's daily living environment. The technology is based on textile sensor areas and microelectronic modules, which are integrated invisibly in the textile underlay of carpets or laminates. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was carried out to support environmentally conscious decision-making in the course of product development. The results suggest that the system's electricity consumption during its use phase is the most relevant environmental aspect and that a 2.5 mm thick polyester fleece has the highest environmental burden of the materials in the product. The paper also reports about experiences with conducting a LCA in the context of the SME that develops and manufactures the sensing floor system.


The paper estimates the political connection premium for Italian cities tracked during the second half of the 1900s, when the role of the state in the economy was very widespread. It leverages the peculiar features of the gridlocked political landscape in place between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin wall, during which most influential politicians remained in charge for a very long time. We compare connected cities - small areas surrounding birthplaces of both prime ministers and leaders of the parties in power - with very similar, but unconnected
municipalities, and find that politically connected cities gained a population premium of 8% over 40 years. When the connection ends, the difference in growth rate fades away. We document that birthplaces of powerful politicians benefited from both infrastructure investments and the location of plants by state-owned enterprises. Not surprisingly, the connection favored industrialization, raised employment and wages, but crowded out private entrepreneurship. Finally, our empirical evidence indicates that agglomeration economies in treated municipalities were not higher, thus suggesting that, if anything, place-based interventions linked to political connections have not been output-enhancing from a nationwide point of view.


Using the C57BL/6/EL4 tumor model, studies were carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of administering Adriamycin (ADM) in therapeutic doses and schedules such that the host antitumor defenses would not be suppressed and in some cases might be stimulated by treatment. ADM treatment caused prolongation of survival and, in general, either stimulated host cytolytic activities above untreated control levels or had no effect. These effects by ADM were observed with the ADM-sensitive parent EL4 line as well as with an ADM-resistant subline, indicating that the effects did not result entirely from direct antitumor activity. The cytolytic activities examined were those of cytolytic T-lymphocytes, lymphokine-activated killer cells, and splenic and peritoneal macrophages. All activities were assessed against the syngeneic EL4 target line. The information obtained in this investigation provides a rational basis for the future development of curative protocols with ADM plus biological response modifiers, which would depend on a functional immune system for optimum efficacy and would also exploit synergistic immunomodulating effects of the agents used in combination.


Introduction
 Philadelphia chromosome-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph-like ALL) is a high-risk subtype of ALL associated with high relapse rates and poor survival. Rearrangements of Janus kinase 2 (JAK2r) are present in approximately 5% and 14% of pediatric and young adult Ph-like ALL cases respectively. The resultant JAK2 gene fusions drive leukemogenesis through constitutive activation of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway and are associated with very poor outcomes in patients with Ph-like ALL. All JAK inhibitors in clinical development are type I inhibitors, which bind in the ATP-binding site of JAK2. A phase II clinical trial is currently assessing the only FDA-approved JAK1/2 inhibitor, ruxolitinib in high-risk B-cell ALL cases harboring JAK2 alterations. The development of treatment resistance to targeted inhibitors in other diseases is well documented and often results in disease relapse. Elucidating mechanisms of ruxolitinib resistance in JAK2r ALL will inform approaches to monitor the emergence of resistance in ongoing clinical trials and enable the development of therapeutic strategies to overcome or avert resistance.
 Methods
 JAK2r B-ALL was modelled in the pro-B cell line, Ba/F3, by expressing the high-risk B-ALL fusion, ATF7IP-JAK2. Ruxolitinib resistance in three independent ATF7IP-JAK2 Ba/F3 cell lines was achieved following dose escalation to a clinically relevant dose of 1 μM ruxolitinib. Sanger sequencing of the RT-PCR amplified JAK2 fusion revealed each resistant line had acquired a different mutation within the JAK2 kinase domain. Therapeutic sensitives were assessed by staining with Fixable Aqua Dead Cell Stain (Invitrogen) and Annexin V, and analysis by flow cytometry. Alterations in signaling pathways were determined using phosphoflow cytometry and western blot analysis. Computational modelling of acquired JAK2 mutations and subsequent influence on ruxolitinib binding was performed using ICM-Pro (Molsoft L.C.C.).
 Results
 In addition to the identification of two known ruxolitinib resistant mutations, JAK2 p.Y931C and p.L983F, a novel p.G993A mutation was identified. All mutations localized to the ATP/ruxolitinib binding site and conferred resistance to multiple type-I JAK inhibitors, including ruxolitinib, BMS-911543, and AZD-1480 (Table 1). JAK2 p.G993A ATF7IP-JAK2 Ba/F3 cells were also resistant to the type-II JAK inhibitor, CHZ-868, which binds in an allosteric site of JAK2 in addition to the ATP-binding site. Ruxolitinib resistance correlated with sustained downstream STAT5 activation in the presence of 1 μM ruxolitinib compared with non-mutant ATF7IP-JAK2 Ba/F3 cells. Intracellular phosphoflow cytometry of ruxolitinib-resistant ATF7IP-JAK2 Ba/F3 cells confirmed constitutive activation of JAK/STAT signaling in the presence of 50 nM ruxolitinib, in contrast to non-mutant ATF7IP-JAK2 Ba/F3 cells. Computational modelling suggested that JAK2 p.L983F (Fig. 1D) sterically hinders ruxolitinib binding, while JAK2 p.Y931C may reduce ruxolitinib binding affinity by disruption of a critical hydrogen-bond (Fig. 1B). The novel JAK2 p.G993A mutation is predicted to alter DFG-loop dynamics by stabilizing the JAK2 activation loop (Fig1C).
 Conclusions
 This study demonstrates that the JAK2 ATP-binding site is susceptible to JAK inhibitor resistant mutations following ruxolitinib exposure in the setting of JAK2r ALL, highlighting the importance of monitoring the emergence of mutations within this region. In addition to previously described mutations we identified a novel JAK2 p.G993A mutation that conferred resistance to both type-I and type-II JAK inhibitors. The JAK2 p.G993A mutation was postulated to modulate the stability of a conserved domain. Understanding mechanisms of ruxolitinib resistance, as modelled here, has the potential to inform future drug design and the development therapeutic strategies for this high-risk cohort.

 White: Amgen: Honoraria; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Honoraria, Research Funding.


A data set consisting of pooled cross-sectional and time series data is used to examine the demand for teachers by public school districts under three separate treatments of the supply side of the markets. The data describe Maryland public school districts for the 1955-1956 through 1979-1980 school years;School districts are assumed to maximize the average educational services produced per student given their budget for current educational expenditures. An educational production function, one argument of which is the teacher-student ratio, describes the production of these educational services;The demand for teachers is first estimated under the assumption that school districts face a perfectly elastic supply curve of teachers. The demand for teachers is found to be price inelastic using the average of actual teacher salaries to capture the price of teacher services. Alternative measures of the price of teacher services constructed from published salary schedules did not perform as expected in explaining teacher demand. Similar results are obtained when the demand functions for elementary and secondary teachers are estimated separately. Previous studies have found the price of teacher services to have a positive effect on the demand for teacher experience and education levels. Here, the data allow for the construction of price variables and dependent variables which are consistent with the model. The demand for teacher experience and for teachers with bachelor's degrees responds negatively to their prices;Next, a hedonic model is used to describe the determination of the price of teacher services. When the market for teacher services is in equilibrium, teachers are allocated among school districts and prices are determined for both teacher and school district characteristics. Teacher demand and a price-characteristics function are estimated using two-stage least squares. Weak evidence of a trade-off between class sizes and teacher salaries is found among school districts which have collective bargaining agreements with teachers' unions;Finally, school districts are assumed to possess a degree of monopsony power in the market for teacher services due to the occupational and/or geographic immobility of teachers. Estimation of the supply function of teacher services is performed using two-stage least squares yielding evidence of such power among nonunionized school districts but not among unionized school districts. This evidence is not conclusive as the source of teacher immobility could not be positively identified.


In recent years mobile ad hoc networks have become very popular and lots of research is being done on different aspects of MANET. Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET)-a system of mobile nodes (laptops, sensors, etc.) interfacing without the assistance of centralized infrastructure (access points, bridges, etc.). There are different aspects which are taken for research like routing, synchronization, power consumption, bandwidth considerations etc. This paper concentrates on routing techniques which is the most challenging issue due to the dynamic topology of ad hoc networks. There are different strategies proposed for efficient routing which claimed to provide improved performance. There are different routing protocols proposed for MANETs which makes it quite difficult to determine which protocol is suitable for different network conditions .This paper provides an overview of different routing protocols proposed in literature and also provides a comparison between them.


NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STRESS DISTRIBUTIONS FOR MULTIPLE BACKFILLED STOPES Over the past three decades, technological innovations with respect to cemented paste backfill (CPB) as a means of ground support has allowed for increased production within the mining industry, management mine waste costs, as well as the improvement of the overall health and safety of underground mining operations. Despite the extensive use of this relatively new ground support material, many fundamental factors affecting the design of safe and economical CPB structures are still not well understood.Recently, a significant amount of academic and industry research has been conducted to better understanding the distribution of stress with respect to primary-secondary extraction sequencing for stope-and-fill mining operations. While current, as well as past research, as provided a wealth of knowledge on the distribution of stress through the fill material itself, it lacks in providing an examination into the mechanism by which stress is able to redistribute itself through the backfill material as well as within the surrounding rockmass. The scope of this work is to optimize stope-and-fill extraction sequencing through the analysis of stress distributions as well as local and global stability of multiple narrow verticalfully-drained backfilled stopes. Scientific investigations into the behavior of the CPB material and surrounding rockmass will result in animproved understanding of how to better implement engineered paste-fill materials as a means of ground support for underground mining operations. Numerical simulations (FLAC3D and RocScience) were utilized in analyzing hypothetical (literature) as well as site-specific (field) case studies. While these simulations confirm generalized stress behaviors within the backfill material for single and adjacent stopes, stress redistributions within the surrounding rockmass as well as the rock-pillarindicate the development of tensile and compressive zones. From these results, one is able to better approximate ground and CPB instability with respect to site-specific conditions, geometries, and material properties. These simulations have been validated with respect to published analytical solutions, numerical simulations, and site-measurements for single (isolated) and adjacent narrow vertical fullydrained backfilled stopes. Keyword: Mining, Stope, Backfill, Stress Distribution, Numerical Modeling Christopher Newman_________________________


In the Pacific Ocean, the taxonomy of the family Zosimeidae Seifried, 2003 is poorly understood and to date only five species of the genus Zosime Boeck, 1873 are known. During oceanographic cruises exploring the species diversity of harpacticoids, two undescribed zosimeid copepods were sampled from shallow Korean waters and the deep northwestern Pacific. A detailed morphological examination has led us to propose two new genera, Heterozosime gen. nov. for the Korean zosimeid H. tenuis gen. et sp. nov. and Acritozosime gen. nov. for the deep-sea zosimeid A. spinesco gen. et sp. nov. Both new genera exhibit a distinctive feature in that the first thoracic leg has a two-segmented exopod, in contrast to the three-segmented exopod of this leg in all known zosimeid genera. Furthermore, Acritozosime gen. nov. can also be discriminated from other genera by the two-segmented endopod in second to fourth thoracic legs and the reduced setal armatures of the second exopodal segment of antenna, the first endopodal segment of first to third thoracic legs and the third exopodal segment in second to fourth thoracic legs. A comparison of the fundamental structures of appendages suggests that A. spinesco gen. et sp. nov. experienced a unique evolutionary history within the Zosimeidae.