1 Abstract: This paper presents improved thresholding method called "Multi-Scale Adaptive NICK thresholding method" for Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) System. By applying Connected Components Labelling (CCL) algorithm on the Binary image, license plate characters candidates will be determined. Improved thresholding method is vital to approach all the license plate characters on the binary image otherwise we might lose license plate characters under various illumination conditions and different weather conditions like rain, snow and fog. Most advantages of this method in compare with Niblack and Savola thresholding method is that it could be adapted for both types of degradation: interfering degradation and intensity degradation depends based on scale or window size, therefore you can improve all types of degradation. The interfering degradation will be restored on high scales size to cover sufficient data from the original input imag. In compare, intensity degradation needs very small scales to deal with disjoint and broken characters in the license plate. In this method we don"t miss any object in the binary image as license plate character"s candidate.


We present an example of a remote-access laboratory comprising real experimental apparatus, accessed remotely via the internet. The experiment, in Mechanical Engineering, involves analysing the performance of a servo-motor and was designed to be particularly suitable for remote access. Students were provided with individualised experimental parameters to minimise plagiarism. However, they were also able to choose their working environment and work in the presence of peers or individually. They were able to access the experiment repeatedly as required. Automated submission and grading of students' results provided immediate, quantified, formative feedback. The experimental design allowed students' results to be combined to generate a collaborative, emergent result giving a full frequency response analysis of the servo motor. This outcome could not have been achieved with a traditional lab access mode. Students were furthermore able to assess their performance against their peers, and learn from their own mistakes and those of others, with anonymity. Remote labs have supporters and detractors; we argue that when used appropriately they have a valid place in the curriculum, and have demonstrated unique advantages over traditional lab access methods.


Background Uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among black individuals in the United States is low and may be associated with the limited availability of clinics where PrEP is prescribed. Objective We aimed to determine the association between spatial access to clinics where PrEP is prescribed and willingness to use PrEP. Methods We identified locations of clinics where PrEP is prescribed from AIDSVu.org and calculated the density of PrEP clinics per 10,000 residents according to the ZIP code. Individual-level data were obtained from the 2016 National Survey on HIV in the Black Community. We used multilevel modelling to estimate the association between willingness to use PrEP and clinic density among participants with individual-level (HIV risk, age, gender, education, income, insurance, doctor visit, census region, urban/rural residence) and ZIP code–level (%poverty, %unemployed, %uninsured, %black population, and density of health care facilities) variables. Results All participants identified as black/African American. Of the 787 participants, 45% were men and 23% were found to be at high risk based on the self-reported behavioral characteristics. The mean age of the participants was 34 years (SD 9), 54% of participants resided in the South, and 26% were willing to use PrEP. More than one-third (38%) of the sample had to drive more than 1 hour to access a PrEP provider. Participants living in areas with higher PrEP clinic density were significantly more willing to use PrEP (one SD higher density of PrEP clinics per 10,000 population was associated with 16% higher willingness [adjusted prevalence ratio=1.16, 95% CI: 1.03-1.31]). Conclusions Willingness to use PrEP was associated with spatial availability of clinics where providers prescribe PrEP in this nationally representative sample of black African Americans.


The Canterbury Plains are the major cropping area, and an increasingly important dairying area, in New Zealand. Irrigation is necessary on most of the Plains to achieve high productivity. However, competition for limited water resources means that farmers increasingly have to justify their demands for water. Farmers need to know when to irrigate, how much water to apply, and the yield penalty if the crop is not irrigated. For annual arable crops, we have used the maximum potential soil moisture deficit (MPSMD) model and a large rainshelter to answer these questions. Total or economic yield of nearly all the crops tested decreased linearly as MPSMD increased, regardless of the timing of drought. The slope of the regression line is the yield loss with increasing MPSMD. For ryegrass dairy pastures, which grow throughout the year, the model has been adapted to simulate actual soil moisture changes. As most farmers do not measure pasture production directly, we have developed a model for potential pasture production, and a simple relationship between grass growth restrictions and actual soil moisture deficits, that fits experimental farm data. Farmers can also reduce the amount of water they apply by improving the water application efficiency of their irrigation systems. Protocols had been developed to identify causes of poor performance in the field, and how these may be addressed. This information is being used by farmers to improve their irrigation decisions, and irrigation system performance, and has been included in decision support systems for arable and vegetable farmers, and is being developed for dairy farmers.


In Arrow's seminal analysis of optimal risk bearing in which he introduced contingent claim securities, he assumed preferences were representable by a state independent Expected Utility function. Although the classic contingent claim setting assumes agents choose over contingent consumption vectors conditioned on a fixed set of probabilities, later work on information economics suggested that allowing probabilities to change across contingent claim spaces could be an interesting extension. However the set of axioms that are necessary and sufficient for the existence of an Expected Utility representation for the classic contingent claim space with a fixed set of probabilities does not ensure that this form utility extends across multiple contingent claim spaces. In this paper, we derive a set of axioms on preferences which are necessary and sufficient for the existence of an Expected Utility representation when probabilities change. We also consider the incremental axioms which are necessary and sufficient for Expected Utility preferences to extend to the classic lottery setting of von Neumann and Morgenstern, where agents choose not only over consumption vectors but also over probabilities vectors.


The Nivkhi are a native people isolated in the Nogliki region of Sakhalin, Far East Russia, where our group recently recognized human T-cell lymphoma virus type I (HTLV-I) infection. In order to trace the Nivkhi's ethnic background and the HTLV-I carriers, we investigated HLA class I and II allele types of 53 Nivkhi (including four HTLV-I carriers). Major HLA class I alleles of the Nivkhi were A*24, A*02, B*40, B*48, B*27, B*35 with allele frequencies similar to the Orochon, a native people isolated in Northeast China. Major Nivkhi class II alleles were DRB1*0901, DRB1*1401, DRB1*1201, DRB1*1106 with allele frequencies similar to the Ainu in Hokkaido, Japan, but dissimilar to other Asian Mongoloids, including the general Japanese population. The same HLA class I and II allele frequencies are found in both Nivkhi HTLV-I carriers and the background population. A dendrogram of HLA class I alleles showed that the Nivkhi were closely related to the Orochon and Yakut, and remotely related to the Japanese, Ainu and other Asian Mongoloids. Interestingly, the Nivkhi were intermediately related to the Amerindians (Inuit, Tlingit and Andeans), a relationship closer than to the Japanese and Asian Mongoloids. These results suggested the Nivkhi might be related to some genetic group of Northeast Asian Mongoloids like the Orochon and Yakut, being infected with HTLV-I in the distant past before diverging into the current major Mongoloid ethnic groups.


Studies were carried out to use the charge-transfer reactions of sumatriptan (SMT), extracted from neutralized sumatriptan succinate (STS), as n-electron donor with the π-acceptor, 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) and σ-acceptor, and iodine (I2). The formation of the colored complexes was utilized for the development of simple, rapid, and accurate spectrophotometric methods for the determination of SMT in pure form as well as in its tablets. The quantification of colored products was made spectrophotometrically at 585 nm for the CT complex formed between SMT and DDQ (DDQ method) and at 375 nm for the CT complex formed between SMT and I2 (I2 method). Beer's law is obeyed over the concentration ranges of 4.0–56.0 μg mL−1 and 2.0–28.0 for DDQ and I2, respectively, with correlation coefficients () of 0.9997 and 0.9998. The analytical parameters such as apparent molar absorptivity, Sandell's sensitivities, and limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) are also reported for both methods. The described methods were successfully applied to the determination of SMT in tablets. No interference was observed from the common excipients present in tablets. The reaction stoichiometry in both methods was evaluated by Job's method of continuous variations and was found to be 1 : 1 (donor : acceptor).


The flagellum of Trypanosoma brucei contains calmodulin, and a separate family of antigenically related EF-hand calcium-binding proteins which we call calflagins. The following study evaluates the structure and genomic organization of the calflagin family. Genomic Southern blots indicated that multiple copies of calflagin genes occurred in T. brucei, and that all of these copies were contained in a single 23 kb XhoI-XhoI fragment on chromosomes 15 and 16 mRNAs of 1.2 and 1.6 kb were identified in bloodstream and procyclic life-cycle stages. Genomic fragments of 2.5 and 1.7 kb were cloned that encoded calflagin sequences. The calflagin genes were arranged tandemly along the genomic fragments. Three new members of the calflagin family were sequenced from a cDNA clone and the two genomic clones. Two unrelated families of 3' flanking sequences were downstream from the calflagin genes. An open reading frame that was unrelated to any calflagin sequence was at the 5' end of the 2.5 kb genomic fragment. The deduced amino acid sequences of the genomic clones (called Tb-24 and Tb-1.7g) were similar to the previously described Tb-17. Each encoded an approximately 24 kDa protein which contained three EF-hand calcium-binding motifs and one degenerate EF-hand motif. The cDNA encoded a protein (called Tb-44A) which was approximately twice as large as the other calflagins. The large size resulted from a nearly direct repeat of 186 amino acids. In general, variability among the T. brucei calflagins was greater than observed for related proteins from Trypanosoma cruzi. We demonstrate that this variability resulted from amino acid substitutions at the N-terminus, C-terminal extensions, and duplication of internal segments.


The distributed operation of parts of the system, denoted as microgrids or, more generally, as local energy communities, could be an effective answer to the issues posed by the increasing complexity of the modern power distribution systems facing the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources and the electrification of urban transportation.
The results of the research activities described in the thesis can be divided into three main parts. The first one is the modeling and analysis of low voltage power distribution networks feeding residential, commercial and small-scale industrial consumers including distributed generation units and storage systems. It focuses on an optimization model that has been applied to the energy management system of an experimental microgrid. A mixed integer linear programming model is developed and presented, which takes into account the unbalanced operation of the LV network.
The second part focuses on the day-ahead operational planning of a local energy community, which is assumed able to implement transactive energy control actions with allocation of the network power loss. The problem has been addressed by means of two different optimization procedures, namely a centralized mathematical programming model and a specific distributed optimization procedure based on the adoption of the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM).
The third part is the day-ahead optimization of the operation of a local energy system consisting of photovoltaic units, energy storage systems and loads aimed at minimizing the electricity procurement cost, considering the uncertainties in the load and generation forecasts. Two mixed integer linear programming models are adopted, each for a different representation of the battery: a simple energy balance constraint and the Kinetic Battery Model. The chapter describes the generation of the scenarios, the construction of the scenario tree and the intraday decision-making procedure based on the solution of the multistage stochastic programming.


Background: The current study aimed to analyze the sex differences in cancer mortality rates in Japan via an age-period-cohort (APC) analysis. Methods: We used data about cancer mortality rates from 1995 to 2015 in Japan based on the Vital Statistics survey. In addition to the data about mortality from all sites of cancer, we specifically used data about stomach, lung, colorectal, and liver cancers. A Bayesian APC analysis was performed to identify changes in mortality rates based on three effects, which were as follows: age, period, and cohort. Then, we finally calculated the mortality rate ratios for each effect between men and women. Results: The sex differences in age-adjusted mortality rates for all-sites cancer, lung cancer, and liver cancer were decreasing from 1995 to 2015, and the mortality rate ratios in terms of sex decreased from 2.17 in 1995 to 1.93 in 2015. Based on the results of the APC analyses, only minimal changes were observed in the mortality rate ratios for all types of cancer between men and women during the analyzed periods. The cohort effects began to decrease from the early 20th century in all types of cancer in both men and women, and the mortality rate ratios for all types of cancer between men and women began to increase in the cohorts born from 1926 to 1935. For all-sites cancer, the ratio increased from 0.49 (0.44, 0.57) in the cohort born from 1926 to 1930 to 0.81 (0.60, 1.03) in the cohort born from 1971 to 1975. Conclusion: The sex differences in cancer mortality rates were decreasing in the more recent born generations in Japan. If this trend continues, there will be a minimal difference in the morality rates in the following generations.


Causal reasoning is a critical part of everyday cognition. We ask how people reason about causes when faced with inconsistent sources of knowledge. Causal models arise from multiple sources of information regarding their constituent parameters. Knowledge sources may be inconsistent both within parameters (when one source says a variable should appear often and another says it should appear rarely), and between parameters (when dependencies among parameters result in an internally inconsistent causal model). We provide a normative model for resolving both these sources of conflict. An experiment found that our model of belief integration predicted the qualitative pattern of adults causal inferences under uncertainty.


Abstract Background Papillary carcinoma is the most common type of thyroid cancer and if it is not treated early, it can spread throughout the body. Therefore, the first line of treatment for papillary thyroid cancer is the surgery by removing part of or the entire thyroid. Our study aims to establish the most effective surgical procedure (total thyroidectomy or partial thyroidectomy) to achieve better survival for stage I and II papillary carcinoma and evaluate the effect of the ethnicity, sex and age on patients' survival undergoing these surgical techniques. Methods We extracted the data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) 18 registries. We retrieved data of 3691 patients diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer in 2010. We evaluated the 5-year overall survival of patients using the log-rank test. Patients were grouped into two groups. The first one underwent thyroid lobectomy (242) and the second underwent total thyroidectomy (3449). Patients were further grouped according to ethnicity (white, black, American or Asian), sex (female or male) and age group. Results We found that total thyroidectomy was associated with better 5-year overall survival rates in patients with early stage papillary carcinoma, compared to lobectomy (98.1% and 96.5%, respectively, P = 0.021). Moreover, total thyroidectomy showed better survival rates in females than males (98.6% and 95.7%, respectively, p = 0.000) and in young patients aged between 20-39 years (99.8%, p = 0.000). Meanwhile, surgical techniques were not significantly associated with patients' ethnicity. Conclusions Total thyroidectomy was superior to lobectomy in early stages papillary thyroid carcinoma. Legal entity responsible for the study Sara Ahmed. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


The tourism industry is the second largest contributor to North Carolina's economy. The traditional thrust behind many national and state tourism policies has focused on the industry's employment potential and opportunities for economic growth. However consumer demand is shifting toward a more sustainable approach to tourism that balances economic growth with environmental and social-cultural enhancement and equity. Given the growing pressure placed on legislators to address tourism development and specifically sustainable tourism there is a clear need to better understand legislators' perceptions of tourism and enhance communication between legislators and tourism practitioners.  By identifying the perceptions of elected leaders at the state level; destination marketers advocates of sustainability and consumers will have a better understanding of how to effectively communicate with and lobby their local legislators. This study replicates and extends a previous study. Using a multi-method approach data were collected through a web-based survey mail survey and face-to-face interception; this study seeks to measure and analyze North Carolina legislators' knowledge of and attitudes towards the tourism industry and sustainable development within the industry.


The ultrastructural features of five mandibular ameloblastomas were investigated. The morphological comparison between ameloblastoma and enamel organ was made, and the cause of the appearance of granular cells in the tumor was discussed. The peripheral columnar cells were morphologically similar to the inner enamel epithelium of the enamel organ. The central cells were similar to the stellate reticulum cells. There were not stratum intermedium-like cells in the tumors. This implied that the tumors were developed earlier than the enamel organ of bell stage. The squamous cells were sometimes found in the central part of the tumor cell masses. These cells were flat with a few organelles in the plasma, but had a lot of tonofilaments. This suggested that these cells were not active. Upon the ultrastructure, however, it could not be determined whether the appearance of these cells reflected a low differentiation or a degeneracy. Granular cells contained a lot of lysosomes, but no autophage was noticed. We thought that the appearance of these cells was due to accumulation of some unusual substances in the cells, the substances might be related with the glycosaminoglycan.


When Ellie's father dies she has to return to Kenya after twenty-five years to wind up his affairs. She becomes embroiled in trying to discover the secret at the heart of his life and her parents' marriage in 1960's Kenya. It was a time of keeping up appearances, stiff whiskies, English gardens amidst the African Bush, and reined in violence. Told through three voices and set against the poignant backdrop of a changing Africa, this is a wonderfully atmospheric novel about fathers, daughters and Africa.


: The expediency of application of a term "an acute complicated pancreatitis", as well as the terms "biliary pancreatitis" and "necrotic pancreatitis", was substantiated, basing on analysis of the literature data and results of surgical treatment in 125 patients, suffering an acute pancreatitis (AP).A profound characteristic of an AP local complications in accordance to morphological, toporgapho-anatomical and quantitative features with their further systematization was accomplished. The methods of operative correction of various complications of the disease were adduced. The investigation results obtained would promote realization of the unified treatment-tactical approaches for an AP.


The author defines the problem of male impotence and then discusses the etiology which is predominately of functional origin. Patients complaining of this disorder are found to have significant organic lesions in only ten per cent of instances. Discussion of these lesions then follows, and there is sly humor that the first of these is absence of the penis. I found the exposition of the functional causes less satisfying, less clear, based on "common sense," and at times almost antipsychiatric. All who deal with this problem agree that "sexuality among humans... is a very complicated psychocultural performance." The physician's apostolic function must be utilized to the fullest. However, as fever may be indicative of a simple abscess or metastatic dissemination of a malignancy, so the doctor must determine whether sexual impotence arises from ignorance of sexual matters, etc., or from a concealed psychiatric disturbance. The author extends excellent advice to


Long acting injectable antipsychotic (LAI) medication has been shown extensively to reduce relapse rates in schizophrenic patients previously treated with oral antipsychotics (OA). This study seeks to determine whether the long acting injectable mechanism, despite the drug-type being administered, is an effective treatment for all mental health (MH) disorders associated with psychosis; and moreover, whether it has the potential to improve patient suicidal ideation and overdose rates. Methods: This was a retrospective chart review conducted on all patients being treated for a MH disorder with OA medication at a mid-sized community hospital in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Patients who switched from OA to LAI regimens between June 2014 and June 2015 were identified and included in the study. Relapse rates and patient outcomes were measured by a means of hospitalizations (ward admissions and emergency room (ER) visits) due to relapse, suicidal ideation, or intentional drug overdose. Data was collected in the form of frequencies for consecutive one-year periods on OA and LAI medications and then compared using descriptive statistics. Result: Collectively, 92 patients met the inclusion criteria. The number of patients who were hospitalized at least once (ER visits and ward admissions) decreased by 54%, the frequency of suicidality by 60% and the number of drug over dose events by 71%. The median number of patients who visited the ER at least once decreased from 2 (0- 16), to 0 (0-19), and the median number of patients who were admitted to the hospital at least once decreased from 1 (0-12), to 0 (0-10). Conclusions: This study found that the LAI drug-delivery mechanism, in comparison to OA treatment, is associated with reduced relapse rates, and frequencies of suicidal ideation and overdose events in patients with MH disorders associated with psychosis. This article investigates the relationship between antipsychotic delivery methods (OA and LAI) with respect to hospitalization rates and suicidal ideation to better determine methods for improving patient prognoses. Specifically, patients were switched from OA to LAI treatment regimens, and to our knowledge, this is first investigation of its kind to examine health services outcomes associated with suicidality in such a population. study: age, sex, diagnosis, medication type and date of LAI initiation. Data were collected by chart review of the following information in the health system: 1) health care utilization of inpatient, emergency and outpatient services; 2) notes in charts about patient self-reports of suicidal ideation and attempts; and 3) medication type and date of LAI initiation. Utilization was computed by manual chart review - this included MH and non-MH services. Patients who met the inclusion criteria had been formally diagnosed with a MH disorder associated with psychosis upon routine clinical assessment by multiple psychiatrists at LHO. Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and other disorders consistent with psychotic features were included in the study population. Patient privacy was maintained by removing patient identifiers. An independent data collector, a registered nurse on the hospital's Mental Health and Crisis Intervention Team.


This article examines Japanese visual novel games, an under-researched game genre whose main feature is character-driven prose storylines in light of existing scholarship on characters and manga/anime aesthetics (Azuma 2007 & 2009; Galbraith 2009 & 2011; Nozawa 2013; Kacsuk 2016). It offers a brief overview of the visual novel game genre as a game genre where the presence of characters constituted by what Azuma (2007; 2009) defined as 'database elements', character building blocks which, by virtue of their commonality within fan culture, constitute each an access point and an expression of the wider fan culture as a whole. In turn, fans develop enthusiastic reactions to these fantasy elements, the so-called moe phenomenon (Galbraith 2009). Moe is an open-ended phenomenon which runs as the basis for the development of emphatic bonds with characters within visual novels.Examining visual novel games under the framework provided by Espen Aarseth (2012) for the analysis of narrative within games, characters' constitutive database elements are examined, exploring them as being present at both the representational level and, due to the open-ended nature of the bond of empathy developed between the character and the player, the simulation level. The constant presence of database element-constituted characters on the screen makes visual novels' narrations dependent on characters, whose database elements are each an open window through which the setting and narration of the game is conveyed to the player through character identity.This process is demonstrated through the examination of Sokō Akki Muramasa (Nitroplus 2009), a visual novel game whose various storylines turn the player's expected consumption of characters against them, and by doing so reinforce both the character's identity and the importance of the game's narration.


Cognitive Ergonomics is a discipline that contributes with its knowledge to construct better machines in the sense of being easier to use by human beings. Cognitive Ergonomists perform a cognitive analysis of interaction to: (1) shorten the time to accomplish interaction tasks; (2) reduce the number of mistakes made by humans; (3) reduce learning time; and (4) improve people's satisfaction with a system. An appropriate methodology for performing this cognitive analysis of interaction could be based on what I call the "Principle of Mutual Dependency" (Canas et al 2004). This principle determines that: (1) The optimal interface functions will be those that fit the human cognitive functions involved in the task; (2) The human cognitive functions that are involved in the task depend on the interface functions; (3) The modification, replacement, or introduction of a new interface function implies the adaptation of the human cognitive functions; (4) The development (e.g., learning) or limitation (e.g., Elderly users) of the human cognitive functions will imply limitations on the possible interface functions. I will describe this principle with examples from research projects in which our research group participates.


Perceptional similarities of academic fraternity on workplace ethics at higher education institutions is discussed in this paper. Mainly the high disparities and proximities in perceptions referring to three variables of workplace ethics such as ethical compliance, fairness, and trust are deliberated. Survey of 115 teaching and academic administration staff at ten universities in Saudi Arabia revealed that the academic staff positively perceived the ethical practices at workplace that associated with the three variables. However, high discrepancy and less propinquity ensued in their overall optimistic perceptions. Extra high disparities in perceptions resulted with regard to trust at workplace than regarding ethical compliance and fairness. Teaching staff had few additional high differences on ethical compliance and trust. Academic administration staff highly differed regarding fairness related ethical practices. Both male and female staff spared high differences regarding trust related ethical practices. Those tenured less than 10 years largely more conflicted in their views on trust and ethical compliance. Whereas tenured 10 years or more exhibited few extra high variations on trust and fairness related workplace ethics. Conversely, great proximity in the opinions was experiential among the teachers and female staff with regard to three variables. No contiguity within the academic administrators and those tenured 10 years or more. Implication of this study is to realize and fetch the unanimity in the academic staff for the successful implementation of ethical practices at workplace to sustain the ethical work culture.


Both pro- and antiapoptotic activities of NF-kappaB transcription factor have been observed; however, less is known about the mechanism by which NF-kappaB induces apoptosis. To elucidate how NF-kappaB regulates proapoptotic signaling, we performed functional analyses using wild-type, ikk1(-/-), ikk2(-/-), rela(-/-) murine fibroblasts, MDAPanc-28/Puro, MDAPanc-28/IkappaBalphaM, and HCT116/p53(+/+) and HCT116/p53(-/-) cells with investigational anticancer agent doxycycline as a superoxide inducer for generating apoptotic stimulus. In this report, we show that doxycycline increased superoxide generation and subsequently activated NF-kappaB, which in turn up-regulated p53 expression and increased the stability and DNA binding activity of p53. Consequently, NF-kappaB-dependent p53 activity induced the expression of p53-regulated genes PUMA and p21(waf1) as well as apoptosis. Importantly, lack of RelA, IKK, and p53 as well as expression of a dominant negative IkappaBalpha (IkappaBalphaM) inhibited NF-kappaB-dependent p53 activation and apoptosis. The doxycycline-induced NF-kappaB activation was not inhibited in HCT116/p53(-/-) cells. Our results demonstrate that NF-kappaB plays an essential role in activation of wild-type p53 tumor suppressor to initiate proapoptotic signaling in response to overgeneration of superoxide. Thus, these findings reveal a mechanism of NF-kappaB-regulated proapoptotic signaling.


Our understanding of debris-flow initiation by slope failure is restricted by the challenge of acquiring accurate geomorphic features of debris flows and the structural setting of the rock mass in the remote mountainous terrain. Point cloud data of debris flows in Sabino Canyon, Tucson, Arizona, July 2006, with initiation by joint-controlled rock slope were obtained using multitemporal LiDAR scanning. Topographic changes were detected by comparing historical LiDAR scanning data of this area since 2005 by adopting open-source CloudCompare software. The results showed persistent scour and erosion in the debris flows after 2006. Point cloud data of joint-controlled rock in the initiation zone were generated by the means of photogrammetry using Pix4D software. The joint planes, the dip direction and the dip value of the joint plane, the joint spacing, and the joint roughness were therefore acquired by point cloud processing. Our study contributes a foundation for analyzing the relationship between the rock features, the generation of slope failure, and the initiation of debris flows.


Crop grains accumulate significant amounts of nitrogen in the form of storage proteins. Grain storage proteins are not only important in the aspects of germination but also, storage proteins are a valuable food source in human and animal nutrition. This chapter will give insight into genotype and growing conditions influencing the quantity and quality of storage proteins, primarily maize storage proteins the leading cereal by world production. Main storage proteins in cereals are prolamins, and in maize prolamins are called zeins located within the endosperm in protein agglomerations called protein bodies. Four main classes of zein proteins are: alpha, beta, gamma and delta zein. Each of four zein classes has a distinctive position and role within protein bodies. Prolamin proteins define nutritional value of maize grain not only via amino acid quality but also via starch availability. Starch, the most important energy component of maize grain, is located within starch-protein matrix. Within this matrix, starch granules are surrounded by protein bodies that limit starch availability. In this chapter, we will describe how zein proteins influence characteristics of maize grain and nutritional value of maize.


Long-term use of sulfonylureas including chlorpropamide, is known to potentiate the antidiuretic action of arginine vasopressin (AVP), predisposing to hyponatremia.The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of long term use of glibenclamide on serum and urinary levels of sodium and potassium in Type 2 DM patients in Iraqi DM centers. Ninety eight patients with Type 2 DM who were maintained on different doses of glibenclamide for at least 1 year, attending the centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology in Al-Rusafa, Baghdad, were enrolled in the study, in addition to 15 normal healthy subjects. Patients were allocated into three groups according to the dose of glibenclamide that they received. Blood and urine samples were obtained for evaluation of sodium and potassium levels in these samples by flamephotometry. The results indicated that glibenclamide use resulted in significant elevation in serum levels of sodium and potassium compared to controls, while urinary excretion of these cations was not significantly changed. Stratification of patients according to the dose of glibenclamide revealed that this effect on sodium and potassium was not dose dependent. In conclusion, long term use of glibenclamide impairs normal values of Sodium and potassium independent of the administered dose.
Key words: Glibenclamide, sodium, potassium.


Background Osteoarthritis is the commonest cause of disability at older ages and it is a huge burden on primary care (Peat, McCarney, & Croft, 2001). The knee joint is one of the most affected in elderly, influencing directly physical function and affecting physiological and social parameters. Therefore, it is imperative to development strategies that help individuals to change the way the disease affect their lives. International recommendations reinforce educational and exercise programs as the core of non-pharmacological approaches to enhance physical functional and relieve pain and others osteoarthritis symptoms. Objectives The purpose was to assess the effectiveness of three months educational program for older adults with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Methods Participants recruitment was done in the community using various marketing strategies. Forty individuals with 60 years or more, bilateral or unilateral KOA diagnosed according to clinical and radiological criteria of the ACR (1) and independently mobile and literate participated in the program. Educational sessions regarding exercise and joint protection strategies were offered. Telephone calls were done 15 days after each educational session. Patients received a book (2), with a core exercise section. Patients in the first attendance session were taught to do registration in an exercise training diary. Self-reported measures were pain, other symptoms, activities of daily living (ADL), and quality of life assessed by Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) questionnaire (3), Patient Global Impression of Change Scale (PGICS). Results Final sample included 32 adults (age: 67.8±5.3 years; bilateral KOA: 93.8%; female, 59.4%; BMI: 30.1±5.3 kg/m2). Eight participants did not complete the program (3 due to health problems and 5 for personal reasons). KOOS pain improved 10% (p=.042), and other symptoms 8%. Improvement in KOOS ADL (-8.7±13.6) and quality of life (-8.2±18.0) were also observed. 47% of the participants reported significant changes (scores 5–7) after intervention and a decrease in medication use of 31.3%. Conclusions The educational program can be an effective and suitable way for osteoarthritis management and to improve pain and health-related quality of life, leading individuals with KOA to better control their pathology and consequently living better. References Altman, R., Asch, E., Bloch, D., Bole, G., Borenstein, D., Brandt, K., Brown C, Cooke TD, Daniel W, Feldman D, et al. (1986). Development of criteria for the classification and reporting of osteoarthritis. Classification of osteoarthritis of the knee. Diagnostic and Therapeutic Criteria Committee of the American Rheumatism Association. Arthritis Rheum, 29(8), 1039–1049. Espanha, M., Priscila, M., Yázigi, F., Marques, A., Machado, M., Campos, P., & Carrão, L. (2015). Guia para viver em PLENO: com menos dor e mais qualidade de vida. Lisboa: FMH-ULisboa, Lab. de Biomecânica e Morfologia Funcional. Roos, E. M., & Lohmander, L. S. (2003). The Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS): from joint injury to osteoarthritis. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 1, 64–64. doi: 10.1186/1477–7525–1-64. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Abstract Gum exudate was obtained from Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC., which is abundantly available in north-west, central, west and south India. It was analysed for its phytochemical composition in aqueous extract and as well as by LCMS, GCMS, TGDTA and SEM to validate it's potential for use as an excipient (Fig. 1).


Eighty Muturu cattle were grazed on rangeland, twice daily for two years to determine their grazing pattern. Twenty bulls and cows each between two to four years and forty calves between one to three months were used. The field grazing time (FGT), active grazing time (GT) and grazing travel time (GTT) were monitored. The density of the grazing area was also determined. The result showed that as the body increase, GT increased significantly, while travel distance (TD) decreased. The body weight (BW) correlated positively with GT, with expression BW = 39.14 + 11.31Gt and BW = 7.12 + 8.76Gt for morning and afternoon respectively. The grazing time (GT) increased while TD decreased with increase in forage density. However, GT and TD decreased significantly at higher density with D+326.2 + 114Gt, r =4.7 and D=203.15 + 156GT,r= 3.2 for morning and afternoon respectively. The results showed that TD was highest when the forage species are scarce (Jan and Feb in South East, Nigeria). The grazing pattern of Muturu cattle was affected by the age of animal, forage availability and temperature of the day.


Bulk n-type Bi2Te3 single crystals with optimized chemical composition were successfully prepared by a high temperature-gradient directional solidification method. We investigate the influence of alloy microstructure, chemical composition, and growth orientation on the thermoelectric transport properties. The results show that the composition of single-crystal Bi2Te3 alloy, along the c axis direction, could be slightly tuned by changing the growth rate of the crystal. At a rate of 18 mm/h, the formed Bi2Te3 crystal exhibits good thermoelectric properties. At 300 K, a maximum Seebeck coefficient of −245 μV/K and an electrical conductivity of 5.6 × 104 S/m are acquired. The optimal power factor is obtained as 3.3 × 10−3 W/K2m, with a figure of merit of 0.74. It can be attributed to the increased tellurium allocation in the Bi2Te3 alloys, as verified well by the density functional theory calculations.


Polyethylene single crystal lamellae and lamellar stacks were deformed on an extensible substrate after exposure to doses of γ-irradiation from 0 to 210 Mrad in vacuo, and examined in the electron microscope. Unirradiated crystals deformed affinely with the substrate by a variety of crystallographic processes including slip, twinning and a strain-induced phase change. Irradiation produces intra-lamellar crosslinking which inhibits affine deformation by the suppression of slip, but deformation by (110) twinning persists because it involves only very small movements of the molecular chains. A new deformation mechanism was found in irradiated crystals, namely the nucleation and growth of micro-cracks by shear on the (200) and (020) planes of the lamellar crystal. This phenomenon is tentatively attributed to dislocation pile up at crosslinking sites.


Every now and then an author and a book appear that must be read widely but are threatened with neglect and oblivion because of their unconventional approach, and lack of easy disciplinary classification. The late Japanese scholar, Professor Morio Ono, the founder of Japanese rural fieldwork in Asia, and his magnum opus, Kheyarbad-nameh (The 25 Year Drama of Iranian Agriculture) belong to this category.
This paper is an attempt to persuade a wider group of readers to read this book by foregrounding some of its hidden treasures. No such book has ever been written about a village in Iran. It is the first book to chronicle the history of an Iranian village over a span of more than a quarter of a century. The story begins with a state-sponsored agrarian revolution under the last shah of Iran in early 1960s and ends with the establishment of an Islamic state on the wake of a grass roots revolution in 1979. It meticulously records the villagers' struggle to get ahead in the midst of a harsh climate and the no less cruel forces of modernization and globalization that hail from a distant and capricious capital, Tehran. Nevertheless the story of Kheyrabad is a story of triumph and hope. Ono's humanistic and micro-political approach allows us to see the growing effervescence of an entrepreneurial spirit in the Iranian countryside that points to the possibility of a prosperous and democratic Iran if only the government in Tehran did not stand in its way. With Kheyrabad-nameh, the political history of Iran, especially the history of the tempestuous upheaval we call the Islamic Revolution, is no longer merely known by the names of kings, courtiers and mullahs. From now on that history might as well be known by such villagers' names as Mash Gholam Reza, Masht Ali Mirza, Abbas Qoli and Ali Reza. No doubt Ono saw their story in no less epic proportions as national histories are often narrated.
A fundamental change of perspective is enacted in this narrative displacement. It is now Tehran that is inakamono, beyond the mountains, remote and unfathomable. The Iranian village finally, and perhaps in the last moments of its long millennial historical existence, is rescued from the tyranny of an urbanist symbolic violence, and placed at the very center of our national history and consciousness.


This exploratory study provides insights into the utility of telecommuting in times of adversity such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is still active globally, and also locally, as Nigerian institutions were shut down since March 2020, avoiding physical, in person contacts within the campuses. Telecommuting, or Working From Home (WFH) is becoming the new normal in pedagogy, as academic staff in some universities continue to exercise their roles in terms of Teaching, Research and Community Service. Utilising the benefits of Contingency Theory, the paper analysed the nature of telecommuting in the context of the unexpected events, the changing dynamics of the workplace and the new future of work. The paper is largely qualitative, relying largely on secondary sources of data and some primary information for analysis. The difficulties and challenges faced by several Public and Private Universities in Nigeria, like inadequate classroom spaces, hostels, infrastructure can be overcome by the introduction of a hybrid form of learning that incorporates Telecommuting and Virtual Online Learning as part of the pedagogy in the academic activities of Universities.


Ordered sequences of univariate or multivariate regressions provide statistical models for analysing data from randomized, possibly sequential interventions, from cohort or multi-wave panel studies, but also from cross-sectional or retrospective studies. Conditional independences are captured by what we name regression graphs, provided the generated distribution shares some properties with a joint Gaussian distribution. Regression graphs extend purely directed, acyclic graphs by two types of undirected graph, one type for components of joint responses and the other for components of the context vector variable. We review the special features and the history of regression graphs, derive criteria to read all implied independences of a regression graph and prove criteria for Markov equivalence that is to judge whether two different graphs imply the same set of independence statements. Knowledge of Markov equivalence provides alternative interpretations of a given sequence of regressions, is essential for machine learning strategies and permits to use the simple graphical criteria of regression graphs on graphs for which the corresponding criteria are in general more complex. Under the known conditions that a Markov equivalent directed acyclic graph exists for any given regression graph, we give a polynomial time algorithm to find one such graph.


Values are enduring beliefs that impact human actions and behavior. They are conflated with norms, morals, traits, and attitudes, but they are different. Worldviews, held consciously or unconsciously, are interpretive frameworks or a set of presuppositions about the basic constitution of reality that provides the foundation for people's lives. Religious values can be specific to a religion or universally shared. In the developed world, religious values are losing their potency, but in developing countries, where people are existentially insecure, these values still guide individual and social action and behavior. Although people have had religious worldviews from times immemorial, a conscious effort to develop and present such worldviews to counter more secular worldviews was first initiated in the late 19th century. It was thought that religions, particularly Christianity, could better withstand the onslaught of secularization and modernization by presenting themselves as worldviews. Since then, the presentation of religions as worldviews has gained momentum, and the initiative by a few Protestant evangelicals has spawned hundreds of articles, books, courses, and workshops that cover almost all major religious worldviews.


A 2009 oceanographic expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences collected the anterior region of a single acorn worm (phylum Hemichordata, class Enteropneusta) by trawling at a depth of 5560 m in the Romanche Trench (equatorial Atlantic). The specimen was a ripe female with numerous, relatively small oocytes in each ovary. Phylogenetic analysis of rDNA sequences robustly placed the worm in the family Spengelidae. In addition, morphological features of the proboscis, collar, and anterior trunk region indicated that the worm was Glandiceps abyssicola, a species previously represented solely by the holotype, which had been dredged from the equatorial Atlantic in 1873 by the HMS 'Challenger' and subsequently sent to Germany for description by Spengel (1893). The holotype was presumably destroyed by World War II bombing; therefore, we here designate the Romanche Trench specimen as the neotype of G. abyssicola and supply an augmented species diagnosis.


Skin biopsies of uniform location and surface area (7 mm diameter) were obtained from the extensor aspect of the forearm of 147 patients with progressive systemic sclerosis (PSS) (107 with diffuse scleroderma, 40 with the CREST syndrome variant) and 58 individuals with normal skin. After careful removal of all subcutaneous fatty tissue, the skin cores were weighed and their water and hydroxyproline content determined. Despite recent claims to the contrary, it was found that there is a marked and highly significant increase in the thickness of the skin during the indurative phase of PSS, and that this is associated with a proportionate increase in total dermal collagen content. A similar degree of thickening was found in the skin of patients with eosinophilic fasciitis and acromegaly. A close correlation was observed between clinical estimation of the degree of skin thickening and the weight of the skin biopsy cores. Change in the weight of skin cores was observed during the course of illness of the patients with PSS and may serve as a useful measurement of alteration in the degree of skin thickening.


This paper evaluates the role of rural infrastructure on the performance of some agricultural crops in Colombia. The study utilizes geo-referenced cross sectional data of four crops, coffee, rice, beans and plantains, collected for the majority of municipalities. Using genetic matching models, we find that both having access to irrigation and drainage systems and better infrastructure for marketing –rural roads and nearby retail and wholesale centers– significantly increase crop yield as well as planted and harvested areas. Results are robust to a suitable set of matching algorithms. The positive and significant impact on agricultural development provides support to reorient agricultural policy towards the supply of public goods that pushes up productivity.


Mn4+-activated red phosphors have attracted considerable attention as promising red components in the spectra of white light emitting diodes (WLEDs) to achieve warm white light with superior performance. Herein, a novel red phosphor based on Mn4+-doped dodec-fluoride Li3Na3Al2F12:Mn4+ (LNAF:Mn) with microcubic morphology was obtained at room temperature. To elucidate the underlying relationship between the crystal structure and photoluminescence of LNAF:Mn, a phosphor LiNa2AlF6:Mn4+ with similar composition has been prepared, and their morphology and optical properties were comparatively investigated. The emission of the red phosphor LNAF:Mn is blue shifted compared to LiNa2AlF6:Mn4+ suggesting that the chromaticity coordinates of LANF:Mn are closer to the ideal red point (0.67, 0.33). The luminescence properties of LNAF:Mn have been improved by optimizing the synthetic conditions. This work exhibits a strategy to explore a novel Mn4+-doped fluoride except for the identified hexa-fluorides. Employing the as-prepared red LNAF:Mn as a red component, a high-performance WLED with a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 3874 K and a color rendering index (CRI) of 90.6 was obtained. This suggests the phosphor is a potential commercial red phosphor in warm WLEDs.


Abstract Fossilized hackberry (Celtis) seeds were found within the shells of two Stylemys individuals excavated from Oligocene sediments from South Dakota. The presence of in situ skeletal elements indicates that the tortoises were buried without extensive disarticulation. Abiotic transport of the seeds into the carcasses is unlikely given the anatomically correct placement of both skeletal elements and seeds and the comparative settling velocities of the encasing sediment versus modern Celtis seeds. Ecological evidence from modern Celtis and Stylemys analogues suggests that tortoises are commonly seed dispersal agents. The fossils are therefore interpreted as enterolites, providing the oldest reliable evidence of tortoise frugivory.


Introduction Apollo (Penumbra Inc, Alameda, CA) is a low profile irrigation-aspiration system designed for the evacuation of intracranial haemorrhage. We demonstrate the feasibility of using Apollo through a minimally invasive approach using angiographic CT guidance. Methods Parenchymal (n = 1) and mixed parenchymal-intraventricular hematomas (n = 1) were created in cadaver heads using a transvascular (n = 1) or transcranial (n = 1) approach. Hematomas were then imaged with angiographic CT ((ACT), dynaCT, Seimens Medical Imaging, Erlanger, GE) and the long axis of the hematoma defined. The ACT data were then used (iGuide, Siemens Medical Imaging) to guide transcranial access to the hematoma-defining the location of the burr hole and the path to the leading edge of the hematoma. A 8F vascular sheath was then placed under live fluoroscopic guidance into the hematoma. A second ACT was performed to confirm localization of the sheath. The hematoma was then demarcated on ACT and the Apollo system was introduced through the 8F sheath under live fluoroscopic guidance (iPilot, Siemens Medical Imaging). Following irrigation-aspiration with Apollo, repeat ACT was performed to document reduction in hematoma volume. Results Both transvascular and transcranial techniques were successful in creating intracranial hematomas. Hematomas could be defined with conspicuity sufficient for localization and volumetric measurement using ACT. Live fluoroscopic guidance was effective in navigating a sheath into the leading aspect of a parenchymal hematoma and guiding irrigation-aspiration with the Apollo system. Irrigation-aspiration with Apollo reduced the intracranial haemorrhage volume more than 80% in both cases. The Apollo system was activated for 189 seconds and 300 in the first and second subjects, respectively. Conclusions The described cadaver model is a useful means by which to study interventional techniques for intracranial haemorrhage. It seems feasible to use ACT to guide the evacuation of parenchymal and intra-ventricular haemorrhages using the Apollo system through a minimally invasive trans-cranial access. Disclosures D. Fiorella: 1; C; Siemens, Penumbra. A. Arthur: 1; C; Siemens, Penumbra.


In this work the reliability of the hole-drilling technique (HDT) for measuring welding residual stresses was analysed. HDT residual stress results were systematically compared with those determined by X-ray diffraction. A systematic overestimation of the residual stresses determined by HDT was observed, which was mainly attributed to the possibility of the so-called plasticity effect occurring. Experimental results were discussed taking the measurement principles of both techniques into consideration. In addition, preliminary results of a numerical study, using the finite element method, will be presented for a better understanding of the plasticity effect on HDT residual stress results.


This thesis seeks to understand Russia's foreign policy behaviour since the end of the Cold War. The primary objective is to discover whether there are grounds for considering Russia to be a values actor. A review of the Foreign Policy literature reveals the necessity of grounding any foreign policy analysis within the international and domestic contexts. Perceptions of Russian behaviour, however, too often lack any understanding of the specific circumstances of the Russian situation and this can result in a flawed analysis that reveals more about prejudices of Russia than Russia itself. This thesis seeks to correct this by providing a fully contextualised analysis. This objective requires new ways of analysing Russia. I first of all consider the possibility of applying a values approach to any actor. In a chapter on Values, I consider the role that values play in any actor's foreign policy, how they are formulated and at what level and what happens when there is a conflict between the values of the international community and those of one actor. With the significance of context already established, the research there shows that international-level values today cannot be understood without reference to the debate on whether we are now living in a modern or post-modern era. In another chapter, therefore, I juxtapose the values of the modern world with those of the post-modern and attempt to answer the question of whether Russia is modern or post-modem. These two chapters lead to a third one on Marginality. The Marginality framework is treated crucial to understanding the choices that lie before Russia and the West. Here, I show that despite its weakness and the failure of many of its post- Cold War objectives Russia has won gains that we would not normally associate with a 'defeated' state. Despite attempts to marginalise Russia within the European space, Russia has found much room for manoeuvre. In its relations with the EU particularly it has shown itself capable of adhering to certain standards of behaviour, which suggests the values gap between the EU and Russia is not as insurmountable as some analysis suggests. Finally, I apply each of these to Russia's behaviour throughout the Kosovo Crisis, testing hypotheses raised in the previous chapters to conclude that Russia does indeed show that it can be an important partner for Europe and that a discernible value set underpins many of its actions. The analysis is important in the context of perceptions of a stronger, more aggressive Russia that resulted in 2007-8 in much talk about whether a New Cold War was occurring. Since 1991, too many opportunities have already been lost to ensure that Russia commits to western values and conducts itself in a manner consistent with that of a European actor. This thesis shows that, when properly engaged, Russia has proved itself capable of being a reliable and cooperative partner and even of adhering to post-modern, European values.


Near the end of the story of Sarah's adventure in the house of Abimelech in Genesis 20, Abimelech is said to give Abraham a thousand pieces of silver. Addressing Sarah, Abimelech claims that the silver will be a "covering of eyes" (כםות צינים) for her and all that is with her. The majority of interpreters have chosen a theological paradigm for the interpretation of Abimelech's actions and words. The gift is seen as an expiatory offering, absolving Sarah from the guilt of having been taken in as a concubine while she was in fact married to Abraham. This article attempts an alternative interpretation of the metaphor against the background of the ancient Near Eastern belief in the evil eye and the prophylactic qualities of silver. It is suggested that Abimelech may have believed the silver to have protective value against the baleful look of others.


To address the important issue of how kinetic energy of collimated blast waves is converted into radiation, Pohl and Schlickeiser [1] have recently investigated the relativistic two-stream instability of electromagnetic turbulence. They have shown that swept-up matter is quickly isotropized in the blast wave, which provides relativistic particles and, as a result, radiation. Here we present new calculations for the electrostatic instability in such systems. It is shown that the electrostatic instability is faster than the electromagnetic instability for highly relativistic beams. However, even after relaxation of the beam via the faster electrostatic turbulence, the beam is still unstable with respect to the electromagnetic waves, thus providing the isotropization required for efficient production of radiation. While the emission spectra in the model of Pohl and Schlickeiser have to be modified, the basic characteristics persist.


Each year the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) arranges a worldwide programming contest. This contest has two rounds: the regional contests and the World Final. The teams with the best results in the regional contests advance to the World Final. The contest showcases the best programmers in the world to representatives of large companies who are looking for talent. When practicing for programming competitions, remember that all your efforts should be directed at improving your programming skills. No matter what your performance is in a contest, don't be disappointed. Success in programming contests is affected by factors other than skill, most importantly, adrenaline, luck, and the problem set of the contest. One way of getting immediate feedback on your efforts is to join the Valladolid Online Programming Practice/Contest or the online judge hosted by Ural State University (USU). Successfully solving problems increases your online ranking in the respective competitions.This article is for beginning programmers who are new to programming contests. I will discuss the common problems faced in contests, the University of Valladolid online judge, and the USU online judge. The suggestions are divided into three parts: General Suggestions, Online Contest Suggestions, and Valladolid-Specific Suggestions. Throughout this paper, please note that in real-time contests, the judges are human and in online contests, the judges are computer programs, unless otherwise noted.


Variability has been shown to be a reinforceable dimension of behavior. One procedure that has been demonstrated to increase variability in basic research is the lag reinforcement schedule. On this type of schedule, a response is reinforced if it differs from a specified number of previous responses. Lag schedules are rarely used, however, for increasing response variability in applied settings. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of a lag schedule of differential reinforcement on varied and appropriate verbal responding to social questions by 3 males with autism. A reversal design with a multiple baseline across subjects was used to evaluate the effects of the lag schedule. During baseline, differential reinforcement of appropriate responding (DRA) resulted in little or no varied responding. During the intervention, a Lag 1 requirement was added to the DRA (Lag 1/DRA) resulting in an increase in the percentage of trials with varied and appropriate verbal responding for 2 of the 3 participants. In addition, an increase in the cumulative number of novel verbal responses was also observed for the same 2 participants. These results are discussed in terms of reinforcement schedules that support variability, generalization, and potential stimulus control over varied responding.


Cisplatin is a widely used chemotherapy drug with notorious nephrotoxicity. Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are a class of novel anti-diabetic agents that may have other effects in kidneys besides blood glucose control. In this study, we demonstrate that canagliflozin significantly attenuated cisplatin-induced nephropathy in C57BL/6 mice and suppressed cisplatin induced renal proximal tubular cell apoptosis in vitro. The protective effect of canagliflozin was associated with the inhibition of p53, p38 and JNK activation. Mechanistically, canagliflozin partially reduced cisplatin uptake by kidney tissues in mice and renal tubular cells in culture. In addition, canagliflozin enhanced the activation of Akt and inhibited mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis during cisplatin treatment. The protective effect of canagliflozin was diminished by the PI3k/Akt inhibitor, LY294002. Notably, canagliflozin did not affect the chemotherapeutic efficacy of cisplatin in A549 and HCT116 cancer cell lines. These results suggest a new application of canagliflozin for renoprotection in cisplatin chemotherapy. Canagliflozin may protect kidneys by reducing cisplatin uptake and activating cell survival pathways.


Undergraduate students are highly valued by the nation because they are able to contribute to the development of the country, both economically and socially. It is important for the higher education institutes to produce competitive students for the global markets by furnishing them with awareness about leadership skills. This study explores the leadership skills among the student leaders in the higher learning institutions of Malaysia. This study also explores the factors that influence the students to become a leader and the challenges faced by the student leaders. This is a qualitative study. Data was collected via interview approach. Purposive sampling and snowball sampling were used to select 14 undergraduate student leaders from universities in Selangor, Malaysia. Findings indicated that the most stated leadership skills of a student leader are (1) self-enhancement, (2) presentation and confidence, (3) decision – making and problem solving, (4) responsibility and commitment, (5) time management, (6) communication and collaboration and (7) inspiring and motivating others. Most of the student leaders agreed that self-satisfaction, as well as support and encouragement are two main factors that influenced the student to become a leader; whereas time constraints, management support and group members have been the main challenges faced by student leaders. This paper clearly shows that respondents gained their leadership skills via participation in organizations and being active outside classroom which then enhances student leadership skills through experience.


The superconducting wires are generally made of several hundreds or thousands of fine superconducting filaments embedded in a metallic matrix. Several relevant properties of the superconducting wires depend on the transverse resistances between filament bundles. In Nb3Sn wires realized with Bronze Route or Internal Tin technology, the presence of the bronze matrix can determine a significant increase of the transverse interfilament resistance with respect to wires with copper matrix. This increased resistivity in turn plays a role in determining the ac losses, thermal stability, and sensitivity to mechanical bending of the wire. The direct measurements of the transverse electrical resistances give useful information both for stability computations and to analyze the mechanical performance of the wire. The complexity of these measurements is however remarkable, due to the current distribution phenomena that occur among superconducting filaments during these tests. This paper presents the application of a 2D FEM model of the wire cross section and of a 3D electrical circuit model of the wire sample to derive qualitative and quantitative information about the transverse electrical resistance matrix. The paper shows that a detailed qualitative and quantitative description of the measurement results can only be obtained by means of a 3D model, that allows computing the current distribution along and across the sample length during the measurements.


Transportation sector is one of the core parts of modern civilization. Proper utilization of energy and exergy in this sector is necessary to ensure energy loss and environmental sustainability. Increasing exergy efficiency will reduce carbon emissions from this sector. Since 1970, Reistad estimates have been widely used to determine the energy and exergy efficiencies of this sector. However, the modern transport sector has undergone significant changes in recent decades. Hence, it is necessary to apply new Reistad estimates in determining the energy and exergy efficiencies. This is the first study to apply updated Reistad estimates to explore the energy and exergy efficiencies in the transportation sector of Bangladesh based on the data from 2000 to 2017. The overall exergy efficiency is significantly lower than the energy efficiencies as it ranges from 27.7% to 30.0%. Efficiencies are lower as the maximum portion of input exergy is lost to the environment. The road subsector needs major improvements as it is responsible for major amount of exergy loss. A comparison is made between conventional and updated estimates which highlights that the updated estimates provide more accurate results. Thus, it is recommended to apply updated Reistad estimates in determining the energy and exergy efficiencies of the transport sector.


This paper analyzes various institutional responses to homelessness among children and youth as a means of better understanding the workings of the neo-liberal state, both in the developing and the developed world. This is a fruitful exercise because the culture of the street is unique and is difficult to reconcile with the predominant values of state-sponsored institutions. In making this argument, the American and Brazilian cases are specifically discussed, as they are seen as representative of neo-liberalism in the developed and developing world. Although each case includes signific differences, a major contradiction of neo-liberalism, with particular reference to its promotion of symbolic political and social inclusivity, while simultaneously relying upon coercive and exclusionary institutional practice, is highlighted.


Expression Quantitative Trait Loci (eQTLs) are critical to understanding the mechanisms underlying disease-associated genomic loci. Nearly all protein-coding genes in the human genome have been associated with one or more eQTLs. Here we introduce a multi-variant generalization of allelic Fold Change (aFC), aFC-n, to enable accurate quantification of the cis-regulatory effects in genes with multiple conditionally independent eQTLs. Applying aFC-n to 458,465 eQTLs in the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project data, we demonstrate significant improvement in accuracy over the current tools for estimating the eQTL effect size and predicting genetically regulated gene expression. We characterize some of the empirical properties of the eQTL data and use this framework to assess the current state of eQTL data in terms of characterizing cis-regulatory landscape in individual genomes. Notably, we show that 77.4% of the genes with an allelic imbalance in a sample show 0.5 log2 fold or more of residual imbalance after accounting for the eQTL data underlining the remaining gap in characterizing regulatory landscape in individual genomes. We further contrast this gap across tissue types, and ancestry backgrounds to identify its correlates and guide future studies.


The mammalian auditory system is a more robust and versatile sound analyzer than any artificial system that has been developed to date. Nature found a simple yet elegant solution for the hearing mechanism. Incorporating some key aspects of the functional organization of the mammalian auditory system into artificial signalprocessing systems may drastically simplify problems of auditory representation and scene analysis such that capabilities for acoustic signal separation, detection, classification, recognition and identification can be greatly improved. The objective of the thesis is to mimic the functionality of the mammalian peripheral auditory system in a digital computer by developing a synchrony capture filterbank (SCFB) algorithm. This thesis is primarily inspired by two aspects of the peripheral auditory system: (1) synchrony capture, a phenomenon observed in the auditory nerve which involves the preferential synchronization of the discharges in a given frequency region of the cochlea to a single dominant frequency component in that region. In other words, a strong dominant frequency component suppresses any interfering weaker tones. (2) the spatial arrangement of the mammalian cochleae. The SCFB algorithm is used to track the frequency components of a speech signal, extract the pitch or fundamental frequency of quasi-periodic sounds. To emulate synchrony capture, the proposed filterbank is designed as a two step process, which includes a coarse and a fine analysis. The first stage is a broad filter, followed by a bank of three adaptively tunable narrower bandpass filters, which resembles the basilar membrane and the three rows of outer hair cells in the inner ear. This filterbank attempts to emulate synchrony capture-like behavior using these adaptive filters, by creating a competition for different channels amongst frequency components that not only accurately reflect their relative magnitudes, but is also invariant with respect to absolute signal amplitude. These bandpass filters are tuned by using a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) whose frequency is steered by a frequency discriminator loop (FDL). The resulting filterbank is used to process synthetic signals and speech, and it is shown that the VCOs can track the individual low frequency harmonics and the strongest harmonic present in each formant region. Finally, these SCFB outputs are used to compute fundamental frequency or pitch, f0 of quasi-periodic sounds present in the signal. Currently, auto-correlation based models are widely used for pitch extraction. Although there is overwhelming neurophysiological evidence for auto-correlation-like representations of sounds in the temporal firing patterns of neurons in the auditory nerve and brainstem, how the central auditory system makes use of these representations is still not well understood. Although neuronal populations that carry out a binaural crosscorrelation operation have been long identified in the auditory brainstem, no obvious analogous neural time-delay architectures for monaural auto-correlation have yet been found. This motivates the search for an alternative signal processing strategy. An approach based on SCFB is proposed as a possible alternative to autocorrelation computation. The outputs of the SCFB are adaptively phase aligned with respect to a common time reference and added to compute a summary phase aligned function (SPAF), from which fundamental frequency or pitch, f0 can then be extracted. Results show that component frequencies are f0 are faithfully tracked.


This paper looks at the regulation and evaluation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the People's Republic (P.R.) of China as a means to build trust with the public, the government and the corporate sector. It puts special emphasis on the analysis of NGO certification systems in different countries and regions, with reference to the principles and good practices laid out by the International Committee on Fundraising Organizations (ICFO). NGO self-regulation accompanied by third-party evaluation and monitoring is a trend increasingly embraced in both developed and developing countries. Taking into account the situation in mainland China, it seems that having the government taking the lead in steering and providing initial support to such a certification scheme is unavoidable. In the P.R. China, the likely scenario for the NGO sector is that state authorities will take the lead in designing NGO evaluation and certification systems. However, the relevant authorities seem inclined to engage in a process of consultation and draw on academic expertise and international experience.


Application of the adiabatic model of quantum computation requires efficient encoding of the solution to computational problems into the lowest eigenstate of a Hamiltonian that supports universal adiabatic quantum computation. Experimental systems are typically limited to restricted forms of two-body interactions. Therefore, universal adiabatic quantum computation requires a method for approximating quantum many-body Hamiltonians up to arbitrary spectral error using at most two-body interactions. Hamiltonian gadgets, introduced around a decade ago, offer the only current means to address this requirement. Although the applications of Hamiltonian gadgets have steadily grown since their introduction, little progress has been made in overcoming the limitations of the gadgets themselves. In this experimentally motivated theoretical study, we introduce several gadgets which require significantly more realistic control parameters than similar gadgets in the literature. We employ analytical techniques which result in a reduction of the resource scaling as a function of spectral error for the commonly used subdivision, three- to two-body and $k$-body gadgets. Accordingly, our improvements reduce the resource requirements of all proofs and experimental proposals making use of these common gadgets. Next, we numerically optimize these gadgets to illustrate the tightness of our analytical bounds. Finally, we introduce a gadget that simulates a $YY$ interaction term using Hamiltonians containing only ${X,Z,XX,ZZ}$ terms. Apart from possible implications in a theoretical context, this work could also be useful for a first experimental implementation of these key building blocks by requiring less control precision without introducing extra ancillary qubits.


The national reimbursement decisions of new medicines in European countries are based on multiple criteria, such as the relative effectiveness, value for money, costs, social and ethical considerations. The relative effectiveness is the extent to which an intervention does more good than harm compared to already available treatment(s). Although reimbursement criteria differ per country, the relative effectiveness is very relevant in many European countries. For this reason, multiple countries simultaneously write their own relative effectiveness assessment (REA) report of the same medicine. There are potential quality and efficiency gains for European countries to collaborate in the production of these REAs. Since more harmonisation is a prerequisite for collaboration, we have studied the possibilities for harmonising REAs in Europe. There is general willingness to cooperate in the development and standardisation of methods for REAs in Europe and it is expected to lead to an increase of quality and expertise throughout Europe. But, the willingness to produce and use joint REAs is not yet shared by all countries, and increases with potential efficiency gains. The potential efficiency gains are highest for smaller/middle-sized European countries and also European countries with less developed HTA systems. We found that important methodological aspects for REAs are approached in a similar way in many European jurisdictions. Nonetheless, there are also differences that should be considered when jointly producing REAs (hereafter referred as joint REAs). In order to cover the needs of multiple jurisdictions joint REAs should be comprehensive in terms of relevant comparators, endpoints, studies included and the uncertainty of the evidence. If there is a lot of variation in treatment patterns between countries or if multiple comparators are available indirect comparisons are likely to play a relevant role in joint REAs, as it is highly unlikely that direct evidence is available for all comparisons. Although available pilot joint REAs seem to cover the needs of multiple jurisdictions from a methodological point of view, the actual use is still limited. Other factors seem to play a relevant role such as timing of the joint REA and not optimal alignment with national procedures. More emphasis needs to be put on these issues in order to realise national use of the reports. Harmonisation of REAs in Europe is feasible, but the production and use of joint REAs follows rather an evolutionary path instead of disruptive introduction. It is driven by jurisdictions that have the highest efficiency gains. Further alignment of methods and procedures is required to enhance harmonisation. The need for alignment of evidence requirements before and after market approval goes beyond national efficiencies and requires a multi-stakeholder debate between regulatory agencies, HTA agencies, and pharmaceutical companies. A common understanding and common policies of evidence requirement for a new medicine will improve the drug development and thus help patients in need for effective, safe and affordable treatments.


This paper estimates the relationship of corporate social responsibility, financial performance, market value of the share and financial leverage . In this particular study, 156 listed companies on Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) from textile sector, chemical sector, cement sector and the tobacco sector are taken. The observations are taken for the entire period of 2010 and 2011 from the published resources of state bank of Pakistan. In aggregate, the results of the study conclude that corporate social performance (CSR) has no effect on financial performance (CFP) . It is obvious from the results that CSR has negative effect on the market value of the share but no relationship to D/E behavior of the firm, significantly. Moreover, the investors do not have the same level of information as the information is captured by the management about the company affairs. In addition, the debt singling hypothesis indicates that the further incorporation of debt into capital structure should influence the behavior of the investor, regarding to the investment in the shares positively, but due to information asymmetry, it is negative. This study further provides the room to test the model of effect of CSR on stock returns in a portfolio construction. Key words: Corporate Social Responsibility, Financial Performance, Market Performance, Market Value.


There are a few areas of science and technology which are only as challenging, emerging
 and promising as computational biology. This area is looking for its mathematical foundations,
 for methods of prediction while guaranteeing robustness, and it is of a rigorous
 interdisciplinary nature. In this paper, we deepen and extend the approach of learning
 gene-expression patterns in the framework of gene-environment networks by optimization,
 especially, generalized semi-infinite optimization (GSIP). With respect to research done previously, we
 additionally imply the fact that there are measurement errors in the microarray technology
 and in the environmental data likewise; moreover, the effects which exists among the genes and
 environmental items can seldom be precisely
 quantified. Furthermore, we present the well-established
 matrix algebra for our extended model space, and we indicate further new approaches.
 Based on data from DNA microarray experiments, nonlinear ordinary differential equations
 are extracted by least-squares and, then, time-discretized dynamical systems are derived.
 Using a combinatorial algorithm which constructs and observes polyhedra sequences, the
 region of parametric stability is detected. This supports the testing of the quality of data
 fitting. For the parameter estimation we apply a GSIP problem; we characterize its structural
 stability.
 Hopefully, this pioneering study will serve and lead to a more realistic understanding and
 forecast in biomedicine, food engineering, and biotechnology. The inclusion of error
 and imprecision intervals may lead to a more careful evaluation of the experimental data in
 the forthcoming years, especially, when the microarray technology becomes more and more refined.


Along the rapid development of large-scale quantum computers, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) has drawn significant attention from research community recently as it is proven that the existing public-key cryptosystems are vulnerable to the quantum attacks. Meanwhile, the recent trend in the PQC field has gradually switched to the hardware acceleration aspect. Following this trend, this work presents a novel implementation of a High-performance Polynomial Multiplication hardware Accelerator for NTRU (HPMA-NTRU) under different parameter settings, one of the lattice-based PQC algorithm that is currently under the consideration by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) PQC standardization process. In total, we have carried out three layers of efforts to obtain the proposed work. First of all, we have proposed a new schoolbook algorithm based strategy to derive the desired polynomial multiplication algorithm for NTRU. Then, we have mapped the algorithm to build a high-performance polynomial multiplication hardware accelerator and have extended this hardware accelerator to different parameter settings with proper adjustment. Finally, through a series of complexity analysis and implementation based comparison, we have shown that the proposed hardware accelerator obtains better area-time complexities than the state-of-the-art one. The outcome of this work is important and will impact the ongoing NIST PQC standardization process and can be deployed further to construct efficient NTRU cryptoprocessors.


The protein import translocon at the inner envelope of chloroplasts (Tic complex) is a heteroligomeric multisubunit complex. Here, we describe Tic40 from pea as a new component of this complex. Tic40 from pea is a homologue of a protein described earlier from Brassica napus as Cim/Com44 or the Toc36 subunit of the translocon at the outer envelope of chloroplasts, respectively (Wu, C., Seibert, F. S., and Ko, K. (1994)J. Biol. Chem. 269, 32264–32271; Ko, K., Budd, D., Wu, C., Seibert, F., Kourtz, L., and Ko, Z. W. (1995)J. Biol. Chem. 270, 28601–28608; Pang, P., Meathrel, K., and Ko, K. (1997) J. Biol. Chem. 272, 25623–25627). Tic40 can be covalently connected to Tic110 by the formation of a disulfide bridge under oxidizing conditions, indicating its close physical proximity to an established translocon component. The Tic40 protein is synthesized in the cytosol as a precursor with an N-terminal cleavable chloroplast targeting signal and imported into the organelle via the general import pathway. Immunoblotting and immunogold-labeling studies exclusively confine Tic40 to the chloroplastic inner envelope, in which it is anchored by a single putative transmembrane span.


We investigate the state complexities of basic operations for prefix-free regular languages. The state complexity of an operation for regular languages is the number of states that are necessary and sufficient in the worst-case for the minimal deterministic finite-state automaton (DFA) that accepts the language obtained from the operation. We know that a regular language is prefix-free if and only if its minimal DFA has only one final state and the final state has no out-transitions whose target state is not a sink state. Based on this observation, we reduce the state complexities for prefix-free regular languages compared with the state complexities for (general) regular languages. For both catenation and Kleene star operations of (general) regular languages, the state complexities are exponential in the size of given minimal DFAs. On the other hand, if both regular languages are prefix-free, then the state complexities are at most linear. We also demonstrate that we can reduce the state complexities of intersection and union operations based on the structural properties of prefix-free minimal DFAs.


Cloud computing has become a dominant computing paradigm to provide elastic, affordable computing resources to end users. Due to the increased computing power of modern machines powered by multi/many-core computing, data centers often co-locate multiple virtual machines (VMs) into one physical machine, resulting in co-tenancy, and resource sharing and competition. Applications or VMs co-locating in one physical machine can interfere with each other despite of the promise of performance isolation through virtualization. Modelling and predicting co-run interference therefore becomes critical for data center job scheduling and QoS (Quality of Service) assurance. Co-run interference can be categorized into two metrics, sensitivity and pressure, where the former denotes how an application's performance is affected by its co-run applications, and the latter measures how it impacts the performance of its co-run applications. This paper shows that sensitivity and pressure are both application-and architecture dependent. Further, we propose a regression model that predicts an application's sensitivity and pressure across architectures with high accuracy. This regression model enables a data center scheduler to guarantee the QoS of a VM/application when it is scheduled to co-locate with another VMs/applications.


A state-of-art regional climate modelling system, known as PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies) developed by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, is applied for India to develop high-resolution climate change scenarios. The present-day simulation (1961-1990) with PRECIS is evaluated, including an examination of the impact of enhanced resolution and an identification of biases. The RCM is able to resolve features on finer scales than those resolved by the GCM, particularly those related to improved resolution of the topography. The most notable advantage of using the RCM is a more realistic representation of the spatial patterns of summer monsoon rainfall such as the maximum along the windward side of the Western Ghats. There are notable quantitative biases in precipitation over some regions, mainly due to similar biases in the driving GCM. PRECIS simulations under scenarios of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and sulphate aerosols indicate marked increase in both rainfall and temperature towards the end of the 21st century. Surface air temperature and rainfall show similar patterns of projected changes under A2 and B2 scenarios, but the B2 scenario shows slightly lower magnitudes of the projected change. The warming is monotonously widespread over the country, but there are substantial spatial differences in the projected rainfall changes. West central India shows maximum expected increase in rainfall. Extremes in maximum and minimum temperatures are also expected to increase into the future, but the night temperatures are increasing faster than the day temperatures. Extreme precipitation shows substantial increases over a large area, and particularly over the west coast of India and west central India.


Background: The unwanted side effects associated with antidepressants are key determinants of treatment adherence in depression; propensity to experience these adverse drug reactions (ADRs) may be influenced by genetic variation. However, previous work attempting to ascertain the genetic variants involved has had limited success, in part due to the range of ADRs reported with antidepressants. Method: ADRs reported with antidepressant treatment were categorised using their likely pharmacological basis; adrenergic, cholinergic, serotonergic and histaminergic. To identify genetic predictors of susceptibility to each group of ADRs, a candidate gene analysis was performed with data from 431 depressed patients (from a total sample size of 811 patients) enrolled in the Genome-Based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression (GENDEP) project, who were randomly allocated to receive treatment with escitalopram or nortriptyline. Data from 474 patients treated with citalopram or reboxetine in the GenPod project (total sample of 601 patients) were used for replication of significant findings. Results: We found no significant predictors of presumed adrenergic, cholinergic and histaminergic ADRs. Putative serotonergic ADRs were significantly associated with variation in the gene encoding the serotonin 2C receptor (HTR2C, rs6644093, odds ratio (OR)=1.72, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.31– 2.25, p=7.43×10–5) in GENDEP. However, this finding was not replicated in GenPod. Conclusions: The association between serotonergic side effects and variation in the HTR2C gene in the GENDEP sample supports the hypothesis that serotonin receptor-mediated mechanisms underlie these adverse reactions, however this finding was not replicated in GenPod.


Countless organizations around the world have developed commercial and educational applications for the World Wide Web, the best known example of a hypermedia system. But developing good Web applications is expensive, mostly in terms of time and degree of difficulty for the authors. Our study tries to predict the effort needed for the development of web pages of a particular category, here we have restricted our self to the domain of news web sites. We try to forecast the average effort required to code a page of a new site belonging to the same category based on the analysis of the data available from the existing sites. Here we have considered the data from Top Ten News Sites. The number of pages in the site, Average Number of Lines per Page, Average Number of Scripts per Page, Link Density, and Media Density are taken into account while predicting the effort required to code a page of the site. We consider the effort required to be directly proportional to the number of lines of code. It can be expressed to be in man hours only when we have information about the actual effort in man-hours required to code the site. We use Multiple Linear Regression, Stepwise Regression and Polynomial Regression to analyze the data and obtain the graphs which a be used to predict the approximate effort required to code a web page of a news site. Finally we devised a method to estimate the effort required or the number of lines of code required for a webpage of a news site. These results can be used to devise a standard for the coding of newer news web sites. If they are incorporated in to a web authoring software it would help the author to stick to the guidelines and the standards automatically.


Presentations on multiview and lightfield displays have become increasingly popular. The restricted number of views implies an unsmooth transition between views if objects with sharp edges are far from the display plane. The phenomenon is explained by inter-perspective aliasing. This is undesirable in applications where a correct perception of the scene is required, such as in science and medicine. Anti-aliasing filters have been proposed in the literature, and are defined according to the minimum and maximum depth present in the scene. We suggest a method that subdivides the ray-space and adjusts the anti-aliasing filter to the scene contents locally. We further propose new filter kernels based on the ray space frequency domain that assures no aliasing, yet keeping maximum information unaltered. The proposed method outperforms filters of earlier works. Different filter kernels are compared. Details of the output are sharper using a proposed filter kernel, which also preserves the most information.


Author(s): Kim, Henna | Advisor(s): Tetradis, Sotirios | Abstract: Objectives: The human craniofacial skeleton demonstrates considerable phenotypic variation. Half of all birth defects involve the skull and face, with the mandible being very commonly affected in a variety of syndromes. Heritability and genes responsible for craniofacial phenotypes are poorly understood and studied due to the complexity of the region and confounding environmental effects. The objective of this project is to assess and identify regions of significant variation in shape of the human mandible by utilizing reliable methods of morphometric analysis, particularly in 3D. The long-term goal of this project is to characterize genetic determinants of craniofacial phenotype. Three specific aims are proposed: 1) Define the parameters for each of the three skeletal growth patterns.2) Analyze mandibular shapes of the skeletal patterns using morphometric methods to identify differences among the three groups.3) Verify and establish methodology of salivary DNA collection and extraction for future down-stream applications. Methods: Pre-treatment CBCTs of forty-five adult patients from the Orthodontic Clinic at the UCLA School of Dentistry were analyzed for measurement of craniofacial traits, 15 cases for each of the three skeletal growth patterns – brachyfacial, mesofacial, and dolichofacial. Inclusion criteria encompassed healthy adult non-growing patients at least 18 years old, male or female. Exclusion criteria comprised syndromic patients, alveolar/palatal cleft patients, individuals with hemimandibular or hemifacial asymmetry, history of orthodontic treatment involving orthopedic movement, and systemic disease that affects bone metabolism. All subjects had a high-resolution head CBCT scan obtained prior to orthodontic treatment as part of their diagnosis and treatment planning. The axial image slices were reconstructed and converted into DICOM format then exported into modified orthodontic analysis software for craniofacial analysis. Each hemimandible was segmented from the whole craniofacial structure, and three-dimensional anatomical landmarks were chosen to best describe its shape. Procrustes alignment of the landmark points was performed for both principal component analysis (PCA) and elliptical Fourier function analysis (EFFA) to identify where the variation in shape occurs between the averages of each of the three groups. Statistical significance was examined with ANOVA and Tukey's HSD test. Extraction of high-quality genomic DNA of subjects was begun for future genome-wide association studies (GWAS) utilizing a non-invasive method of saliva collection and a DNA isolation kit. The purified DNA has been stored in -80?C for future experiments. Results: Statistically significant area of variation between the three skeletal growth patterns was found with Procrustes and principal component analysis, and the results were further substantiated with elliptical Fourier function analysis. Additional trends were evident from the elliptical Fourier analysis. Target human gene was amplified and visualized on gels upon collection of saliva and DNA extraction following a troubleshot protocol.Conclusions: Landmark-based analytical methods as the industry standard in morphometrics are useful in identifying shape differences. However, coupling with outline-based morphometrics is an even more powerful and informative tool in elucidating significant areas of variation in shape. Whole saliva can be effectively utilized for human DNA collection and isolation for future gene studies.