A study was undertaken at Mercer County Community College (MCCC) in New Jersey to establish a human resources development WO utility role for the college's Office of Institutional Research (OIR). The study involved a search of current literature; a survey of OIRs at 14 New Jersey community colleges; interviews with 24 senior faculty members; and planning meetings with the president and deans at MCCC. Study findings included the following: (1) most of the community college OIRs provided a range of services to full-time faculty (e.g., student profiles, program evaluations, and test score analyses); however, only 5% to 10% of the faculty actually took advantage of these services, and services to faculty amounted to only 2% to 7% of the OIRs' annual activities; (2) faculty members informed of OIR resources felt that these resources could help them in self-development and improve their teaching and their management of the learning environment; (3) a practitioner-based research program would address the needs of faculty as expressed by both faculty members and administrators; and (4) senior MCCC administrators favored the idea of establishing an HRD-utility role for the OIR and were willing to support its implementation. The research produced five guiding principles which were used to develop an HRD-utility role for MCCC's OIR. Initial programs and services have been well received by full-time faculty. These principles can be used as a blueprint for other colleges to establish cost-effective HRD programs. (Contains 40 references, 2 survey instruments, and a 3-year implementation plan.) (KP) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** DEVELOPMENT OF A PLAN TO MAKE THE OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH A HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT UTILITY AT MERCER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE


L The response of Mya to light involves the existence of a latent period. The stimulus consists of the exposure of the animal to the influence of light for a short interval. Following the exposure period, M y a may'remain in the dark for a length of time which is usually greater than the exposure. At the end of this latent period it retracts its double siphon in response to the stimulus. The demonstration of the latent period may be easily accomplished by the use of a photographic shutter. By this means the animal is exposed for very short intervals. At intensities above 3,000 meter eandles, an exposure of 0.01 second is sufficient to produce a response after a latent period of about 1.3 seconds. The sensitization process occurring during the exposure period has already been shown to depend on a reversibl~ photochemical reaction (Hecht, 1919, a). This consists of the decomposition of a photosensitive substance into its two precursors. The dynamics of the decomposition and regeneration of the sensitive material follows closely the peculiarities of the sensory behavior of the animal. The significance of the latent period, however, is still unknown. Of course it must include the time for the transmission of impulses, and for the latent period of the contraction of the muscles used in the siphon response. These are, however, notoriously short intervals of time, and may be almost ignored in the face of a latent period which lasts at least 1.3 seconds, and may be as long as 3 or 4 seconds under certain conditions. In order, therefore, that the photosen-sory process in Mya be understood in its details, it is necessary to investigate the probable nature of the latent period by a consideration of some of its properties.


The need for a multisectoral approach to tackle stunting has gained attention in recent years. Baduta project aims to address undernutrition among children during their first 1000 days of life using integrated nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions. We undertook this cohort study to evaluate the Baduta project's effectiveness on growth among children under 2 years of age in two districts (Sidoarjo and Malang Districts) in East Java. Six subdistricts were randomly selected, in which three were from the intervention areas, and three were from the control areas. We recruited 340 pregnant women per treatment group during the third trimester of pregnancy and followed up until 18 months postpartum. The assessment of breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices used standard infant and young child feeding (IYCF) indicators in a tablet-based application. We measured weight and length at birth and every three-months after that. The enumerators met precision and accuracy criteria following an anthropometry standardization procedure. Among the breastfed children, the percentage of children who achieved the minimum dietary diversity score (DDS) and minimum acceptable diet (MAD) was higher for the intervention group than the comparison group across all age groups. The odd ratios were 3.49 (95% CI: 2.2–5.5) and 2.79 (95% CI: 1.7–4.4) for DDS and 3.49 (95% CI: 2.2–5.5) and 2.74 (95% CI: 1.8–5.2) for MAD in the 9–11 month and 16–18-month age groups, respectively. However, there was no significant improvement in growth or reduction in the prevalence of anemia. The intervention was effective in improving the feeding practices of children although it failed to show significant improvement in linear growth of children at 18 months of age.


OBJECTIVE
To test the hypothesis that the natural history of choroidal neovascularization lesion size is uniform across prior randomized controlled clinical trials of exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with apparent differences arising from different entry times of eyes into clinical trials.

METHODS
We conducted a retrospective meta-analysis of control eye data from 5 age-related macular degeneration trials (Treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration with Photodynamic Therapy; Verteporfin in Photodynamic Therapy; VEGF Inhibition Study in Ocular Neovascularization; Minimally Classic/Occult Trial of the Anti-VEGF Antibody Ranibizumab in the Treatment of Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration; and Phase 3b, Multicenter, Randomized, Double-masked, Sham Injection-controlled Study of the Efficacy and Safety of Ranibizumab in Subjects with Subfoveal Choroidal Neovascularization with or without Classic Choroidal Neovascularization Secondary to AMD Study), which were plotted on a double reciprocal plot of 1 / lesion size (disc area) vs 1 / time (months after enrollment). To account for the different entry times, we introduced a horizontal translation factor to shift each data subset until r2 was maximized for the cumulative trend line.

RESULTS
Cumulative data for untreated control eyes fit a straight line on a double reciprocal plot (r2 = 0.98) after the introduction of horizontal translation factors. Our model predicts that a choroidal neovascular lesion will eventually enlarge to a size of 10.6 disc areas without treatment and that the lesion will reach half of its maximum size within 14.0 months after onset of exudation. The linear expansion rate of untreated lesions is approximately 26.0 μm per day for the smallest lesions and decreases gradually as the lesions enlarge.

CONCLUSIONS
The pattern of choroidal neovascularization lesion size enlargement in AMD eyes is uniform across a wide range of clinical trials, with apparent differences arising from different entry times of patients into various trials. The main determinant of choroidal neovascularization lesion size enlargement is the duration of exudative disease.


From the dry valleys of Antarctica to the depths of a Welsh coal mine, a promised revolution in genome sequencing may finally be catching fire. Just a few years ago, many researchers were skeptical or even outright critical of novel sequencing devices that read the bases in a DNA strand as it threads through a nanometer-sized pore. But last week, at a meeting in London organized by the devices9 maker, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, academic researchers described using the instruments to decipher large genomes, rapidly characterize microbes, diagnose antibiotic resistance, and directly assess gene activity in cells. These portable sequencers have even proved their mettle in remote locations such as the Antarctic and underground, and Oxford Nanopore teased attendees with demos of a device powered by a smartphone. Some researchers caution that nanopore sequencers remain error-prone, and that the technology is still changing too quickly to be widely used. But others have fully embraced them, saying they greatly expand the potential for sequencers to be used by everyone.


The aim of this study is to determine differences in metabolic adaptation in first week after calving between healthy and cows that develop ketosis type I (diagnosed 3-6 weeks after calving) or II (diagnosed 2-3 weeks after calving) after calving. Experiment included 50 healthy cows, 50 ketosis I type cows and 50 ketosis II cows. Animals were selected retrospectively form 435 Holstein cows that were constantly monitored. Monitoring is regular procedures during all season. Blood samples were taken in first week after calving. Concentration of ketone body was measured every two day by test stripes from the end of 1st until the end of 6th week. Any color change in test strip (5 mg/dL, trace, or higher) was indicator of ketosis in cows. Cows were clinically evaluated to determine any clinical symptoms (reduced appetite, rumen atony, behavioral changes). In cows with ketosis type I were noted higher concentrations of NEFA and lower concentrations of glucose and insulin compared to control group. Higher concentrations of BHB, TNF-α and total bilirubin were noted in cows with ketosis type II compared to control group. Value of RQUICKI index was lower, and AST was higher in blood of ketosis II cows compared to ketosis I cows. Prediction of ketosis type I is significant by logistic regression model which include insulin, NEFA and glucose as independent predictor (area under ROC curve, AUC= 0.78, p<0.05). Possibility of ketosis I development increases with NEFA increase and decrease of glucose and insulin concentrations. Prediction of ketosis type II development is significant by logistic regression model which include BHB, TNF-α and total bilirubin where increase of these parameters indicates higher possibility of ketosis II development (AUC= 0.87, p<0.01). Differentiation of ketosis type I and II is significant by logistic regression model which include value of RQUICKI and AST (AUC= 0.74, p<0.05). Proportion of the variance in the metabolic parameters that is predictable from the BHB in first week after calving were significantly higher in ketotic (10.9-18.5%) then in healthy cows (2.5-9.1%). Cows in ketosis type I and II show different metabolic adaptations in first week after calving. These differences allow prediction of development a exact type of ketosis.  Metabolic adaptation in function of ketogenesis was developed in first week after calving, early before manifestation of ketosis.


Integrated agriculture and forestry land-use practices are critical in countries like Sudan, which faces accelerated deforestation, as they can make land-use and agricultural production systems more sustainable. The accelerated loss of forest vegetation is often perceived to result from increased unsustainable exploitation by poor rural populations for their livelihood needs. To explore this critique, we examined smallholder farmers' (SHFs) views on the management and utilization of trees for livelihood improvement and environmental protection. The study involved a cross-sectional survey conducted with SHFs from two villages in Kosti province through questionnaire-based interviews, focus group discussions, and Participatory Learning and Action methodology. Descriptive statistics suggest that forest product exploitation by SHFs has the potential to be sustainable, and is important for both subsistence and income generation. Management strategies adopted by the SHFs to ensure improved yields include (a) the use of drought-tolerant crop varieties; and (b) tree management practices such as assisted natural regeneration, pollarding, and selective harvesting. Such practices are viewed as valuable land-use technologies by SHFs in Sudan to reduce the loss of forest and woodlands that is speeding up environmental degradation. This study concludes that SHFs have a wide range of experience and practical knowledge relevant to ensure and achieve a sustainable management of natural resources and environmental protection alongside livelihood improvement.


: The objectives of this survey were to determine which texts were used to teach financial management to pharmacy students, to gather instructors' evaluations of the texts, and to determine which financial management topics were most often covered in pharmacy courses. Data for the study were collected via a mail questionnaire survey sent to a selected pharmacy administration faculty member at each school of pharmacy in the United States and Puerto Rico. A 90 percent response rate was achieved. The results indicated that the most frequently used texts were Effective Pharmacy Management and Principles and Methods of Pharmacy Management. Evaluations of these texts indicated that instructors who used them were, for the most part, satisfied with them. Major points of dissatisfaction were the number and types of problems included. Pharmacy courses covered a wide range of financial management and managerial accounting topics. Bookkeeping topics were much less likely to be covered. None of the available pharmacy texts covered all topics which are usually taught in courses of pharmacy financial management.


Performance modeling under nonuniform traffic is a useful tool to validate simulation accuracy and lend insights to realistic implementation of multihop networks. We present memoryless and independence assumptions based performance models capable of tracking nonuniform traffic for an arbitrary multihop network with the deflection and store-and-forward routing strategies. We also include a description of the efficient numerical algorithms, and provide comparisons to simulation. Our models are a generalization of Greenberg-Goodman (1986, 1992), Greenberg-Hajek (1992), Hajek-Krishna (1990), and Brassil-Cruz (1991, 1993) models.


Political knowledge can affect measures obtained in public opinion research and political science. When asked political knowledge questions, some respondents look up the answers online, inflating political knowledge scores. This response behavior is detectable in web surveys using paradata. This study investigates whether and to what extent respondents switch away from the survey to search for answers online using JavaScript OnBlur functions. Respondents were randomly assigned to device types (PC or smartphone) and response formats (open or closed) and answered a self-report question. The results reveal that about 30 percent of the respondents look up answers, depending on the device type and response format. They also reveal that switching away and correct answers are significantly associated with the response format. These findings provide new insights on looking up answers online and show that paradata are a promising new method to detect response behavior that may lead to incorrect inferences about respondents' political knowledge. The findings also show that paradata and self-reports complement each other and that both measures should be combined in future web surveys measuring political knowledge.


Summary Aim: Existing methods to determine the binding potential in brain receptor and transporter studies with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) show a marked dependence on the physical performance of the scanner and on the regions of interest (ROIs) drawn. We examined the influence of the physical performance on the binding potential. Method: The authors tested three gamma cameras (single-, dual- and triple-head) and two reconstruction techniques (conventional filtered back-projection and iterative reconstruction method) to determine the binding potential in brain receptor studies. Both human and organ-like phantom studies were performed. Results: The binding potential was completely dependent on the imaging resolution, on the reconstruction technique used and on the ROIs drawn. The results of the phantom study revealed that the striatum-to-cerebellum ratio was only 37% of the actual one for the single-head, 63% for the dual-head and 72% for the triple-head gamma camera. Conclusion: The multiple head gamma camera with fan-beam collimators and iterative reconstruction with the attenuation based scatter correction is an imaging system of choice which introduces clinically more relevant images and is able to distinguish smaller differences in radioactivity at early stage of disease. However, for quantitative purposes the improvement without the use of the recovery coefficient is not great enough to restore the binding potentials to those of the true ones.


Download pose: Meningiomas are the most common central nervous system tumors in the population of age d older. WHO defines three grades predictive of the risk of recurrence. Clinical data supporting ogic malignant progression of meningiomas are sparse and underlying molecular mechanisms t clearly depicted. erimental Design: We identified genetic alterations associated with histologic progression of 36 meningioma samples in 18 patients using 500K SNP genotyping arrays and NF2 gene sequencing. ults: The most frequent chromosome alterations observed in progressing meningioma samples are lterations (i.e., present both in lowerand higher-grade samples of a single patient). In our series, ene inactivation was an early and frequent event in progressing meningioma samples (73%). Chrome alterations acquired during progression from grade I to grade II meningioma were not recurrent. ssion to grade III was characterized by recurrent genomic alterations, the most frequent being 2A/CDKN2B locus loss on 9p. clusion: Meningiomas displayed different patterns of genetic alterations during progression acg to their NF2 status: NF2-mutated meningiomas showed higher chromosome instability during ssion than NF2-nonmutated meningiomas, which had very few imbalanced chromosome segprogre ments. This pattern of alterations could thus be used as markers in clinical practice to identify tumors prone to progress among grade I meningiomas. Clin Cancer Res; 16(16); 4155–64. ©2010 AACR.


This is the first special issue that JPHE hosts—and could there be a more suitable forum for an issue dedicated to exploring and encouraging a critical dialogue around transformative intercultural communication teaching practices in higher education (HE)? What has led us to engage with the theme of making intercultural education meaningful is a shared observation that there seems to be an increasing disconnect between recent developments in intercultural communication theory and practice. With so much critique published over the years, we are perplexed as to why traditional notions of culture still prevail not only in mainstream intercultural communication research but also in institutional discourses in HE and in popular discourses as articulated by the people who sit—or have once sat—in our classrooms. In this editorial and Special Issue, we approach intercultural communication from a critical angle, akin to the theorization of interculturality as a discursive and contingent, unstable and contradictory, political and ideological construct. We are thrilled to see this approach gain ground in the field of intercultural communication. However, at the same time, we are worried that the terrain of intercultural communication teaching across HE settings has become quite unruly and is characterized by pedagogical solutions that do not have a stable connection to state-of-the-art theory, and that might lead to naive, simplistic, and essentialist understandings of 'culture' and 'the other'.......


ObjectiveTo assess the HIV-1-RNA response and drug concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum during treatment with saquinavir (SQV)/ritonavir (RTV) or SQV/RTV plus stavudine (d4T) in HIV-1-infected patients. DesignA multicentre, open-label, randomized controlled trial. MethodsA total of 208 protease inhibitor (PI) and d4T-naive, HIV-1-infected patients were treated with RTV 400 mg twice daily and SQV 400 mg twice daily with or without d4T 40 mg twice daily. Intensification with reverse transcriptase inhibitors was allowed if serum HIV RNA remained above 400 copies/ml after 12 weeks. In 27 volunteers, CSF and serum HIV RNA were measured at baseline, weeks 12 and 48, using the Roche Amplicor and the ultrasensitive assay. In 22 patients, serum and CSF drug concentrations were determined at week 12. ResultsThe median baseline serum and CSF HIV-RNA concentrations were 4.81 and 3.21 log10 copies/ml, respectively. A difference in the proportion of patients with a CSF HIV-RNA level below the limit of quantification (< LLQ) after 12 weeks was found: four out of 14 (RTV/SQV) versus 12 out of 13 (RTV/SQV/d4T) (P = 0.001). The same results were found using the ultrasensitive assay. Patients with a baseline HIV-RNA level < LLQ in CSF remained < LLQ, regardless of the treatment regimen. Treatment with RTV/SQV alone was the only independent predictor of a CSF HIV-RNA level > LLQ at week 12 in logistic regression analysis (P = 0.005). CSF RTV and SQV concentrations were < LLQ in most patients. ConclusionRTV/SQV alone cannot suppress detectable CSF HIV-1-RNA levels to < LLQ after 12 weeks of treatment in the majority of patients. CSF drug concentrations of RTV and SQV < LLQ may explain the suboptimal antiretroviral effect in the CSF.


The biological actions of insulin are associated with a rapid reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton within cells in culture. Even though this event requires the participation of actin-binding proteins, the effect of filamin A (FLNa) on insulin-mediated signaling events is still unknown. We report here that human melanoma M2 cells lacking FLNa expression exhibited normal insulin receptor (IR) signaling, whereas FLNa-expressing A7 cells were unable to elicit insulin-dependent Shc tyrosine phosphorylation and p42/44 MAPK activation despite no significant defect in IR-stimulated phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 or activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/AKT cascade. Insulin-dependent translocation of Shc, SOS1, and MAPK to lipid raft microdomains was markedly attenuated by FLNa expression. Coimmunoprecipitation experiments and in vitro binding assays demonstrated that FLNa binds constitutively to IR and that neither insulin nor depolymerization of actin by cytochalasin D affected this interaction. The colocalization of endogenous FLNa with IR was detected at the surface of HepG2 cells. Ectopic expression of a C-terminal fragment of FLNa (FLNaCT) in HepG2 cells blocked the endogenous IR-FLNa interaction and potentiated insulin-stimulated MAPK phosphorylation and transactivation of Elk-1 compared with vector-transfected cells. Expression of FLNaCT had no major effect on insulin-induced phosphorylation of the IR, insulin receptor substrate-1, or AKT, but it elicited changes in actin cytoskeletal structure and ruffle formation in HepG2 cells. Taken together, these results indicate that FLNa interacts constitutively with the IR to exert an inhibitory tone along the MAPK activation pathway.


Nanotechnology has experienced rapid growth over the past 30 years. Since the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope and atomic force microscope in the 1980s, researchers have made exciting discoveries and business professionals have identified the commercial possibilities of nanotechnology. While many people remain unaware of nanotechnology and its applications, these breakthroughs have already made a permanent impression.


A space-based solar power technology that uses networks of small Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites is proposed. Due to the relative motion of these satellites with respect to the earth, multiple power-collecting base stations (PCBS) are implemented on the Earth to allow effective energy collection. Compared to the traditional Solar Power Satellite (SPS), in the proposed technique, satellites fly at a lower altitude. This leads to lower path loss attenuation in transferring energy from space to the earth. In addition, they have lower launching cost, efficient power transmission to the Earth due to lower energy dispersion, and minimal environmental effects due to the low power transmission. Moreover, no "in space" assembly of large structures is required and their maintenance is cost-effective. This paper investigates the orbital management for a specific group of satellites that form a cluster and stay in formation at all times. A wireless local positioning system (WLPS) is incorporated to compute the relative distances between satellites for orbital management. The WLPS enables each satellite to measure the position of other satellites located in its coverage area. An Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is implemented to allow high performance localization, and to maintain satellites in their proper orbit. The effect of the number of satellites in the formation on the relative positions estimation is studied.


The purpose of the following essay has been to identify four men's momentums of their volunteer access to treatment for their disruptive gender-based violence. The questions that have been asked in the entrance of this field have been divided into the following questions: (i) is it possible to identify the processes of change that leads to turning points into the interviewed men's treatment of violence, (ii) how do the interviewed men, themselves, reflect on their turning points into treatment, and (iii) are there other, implicit, interpretations and analyzes of men's access into treatment that I can discern in their stories? As a point of departure of the analysis one theoretical perspective has been used to explain and analyze men's access to treatment, the sociological life course perspective, focusing on the concept of turning points.The method to approach this field has been qualitative interviews with a life story oriented approach which means that, focus has been to let the four interviewed men describe their lives from early childhood to their adulthood and from their histories identify contingent processes to their access of treatment. The study resulted in a division of two parts, one part consisting the processes that have been identified by the men's stories of present tense of violent outbursts. The second part consists of men's own stories and interpretations of the processes that contributed to their access to treatment where I imposed that, the men were in treatment when the interviews were conducted.In the first part, I discovered that the insight of a problematic behavior has occurred when another group of actors have become involved in a specific dispute arising or that the women in the relationship left them. A common expression of events seemed to be fear in different arenas; the fear of losing their partner or the fear of being alone, fear of that other people's views upon them would change, or that they would not be socially accepted. In the second part, it is consistently that the men problematizes blame and shame that they have suffered but this with the discursive understanding of the attributes of a man who batter, as they themselves, are internalized by the process of treatment that they undergo. The result of both parts was that the men seemed to need processes of opportunities for a win to avoid losses in their access to treatment. It took a win for the men, or at least that they have avoided any losses to come to the realization that there are opportunities and possibilities for them. The processes for men's access to treatment that have been found have been a balance between risk and loss and the chance of possible gains and either the risk or chance can be ruled out.


Many developing countries are currently experiencing a rapid expansion of supermarkets. New supermarket procurement systems could have important implications for farming and wider rural development. While previous studies have analyzed farm profit and income effects, possible employment effects have received much less attention. Building on data from a recent survey of vegetable farmers in Kenya, in this article a double-hurdle model of hired labor use is developed and estimated. Farmer participation in supermarket channels increases the likelihood of hiring labor by 13% and overall demand for hired labor by 38%. A gender disaggregation shows that positive employment effects are especially pronounced for female hired labor. Given that agricultural wage labor is primarily an activity of low-income households in rural areas, the poor benefit over-proportionally.


The aim of our study was to compare bilateral erector spinae plane block (ESPB) efficacy on pain management with patient controlled analgesia (PCA) during the perioperative period in patients scheduled for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). After ethics committee approval (2019-7/31 dated 09.04.2019) from the Bursa Uludağ University Medical Trials Ethics Committee, (https://uludag.edu.tr/buuetikkurulu) ASA II-III, 50 patients aged between 18-80 years were included. They were randomly divided into two groups, ESPB (n=25) and control (n=25). In the preoperative period, bilateral ESPB with ultrasonography was applied to both groups with 0.25% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg) + dexamethasone (8 mg) or saline, respectively. PCA prepared with morphine was given to all patients postoperatively. Perioperative opioid use, extubation times, coughing/resting Visual Analog Scale (VAS) scores, duration for first PCA bolus dose requirement, rescue analgesia needs, mobilization times, and opioid side effects were evaluated. In the ESPB group, compared to the control group, intraoperative fentanyl consumption was lower (P=0.001). During the postoperative period; extubation time was shorter, the need for initial PCA was much later, morphine consumption and need for rescue analgesia was less (P=0.001; P<0.001; P<0.001; P=0.009, respectively). The postoperative VAS scores were lower for each measurement period (P<0.05). Opioid-related side effects were more common in the control group (P=0.040). First mobilization time in ESPB group was earlier (P<0.001). As a result, ESPB has a significant analgesic effect in CABG patients. It was concluded that bilateral ESPB reduces opioid requirement compared to intravenous morphine PCA alone and provides better pain management and more comfortable recovery.


Learning is a fundamental component in the creation process of any innovative company. To address this topic, the literature characterizes on the one hand the methods used to learn in an entrepreneurial situation, and on the other the links between types of learning and stages in the entrepreneurial process. These two complementary research currents both tend to agree on the idea that there are many ways of acquiring knowledge, and that learning occurs at all stages of the entrepreneurial process. However, no research has yet empirically classified the different methods of knowledge acquisition during the life cycle of a start-up. This research seeks to partly bridge this deficiency through a two-year study of a couple of emerging innovative companies, in which over one hundred knowledge acquisition situations are identified. The ten generic types that we outline take into consideration the attitude of entrepreneurs when faced with learning situations. The posture is defined through two criteria: the nature of the questions that lead to the acquisition of knowledge (open or closed) and the attitude of the entrepreneur regarding this knowledge (capture or generation). While acknowledging the continuum between these concepts, a typology of knowledge acquisition styles is proposed, comprising the four following categories: focused acquisition, open capture, active generation, and exploratory interaction. This research offers leads for theoretical study - on the links between learning and the performance of start-ups - and methodological analysis - on the uses of intervention research in the context of innovative entrepreneurship. It also leads to reflect on new types of contribution that support structures could bring to entrepreneurs.


CD8+ T cells that recognize virus-derived peptides presented on MHC class I are vital antiviral effectors. Such peptides presented by any given virus vary greatly in immunogenicity, allowing them to be ranked in an immunodominance hierarchy. However, the full range of parameters that determine immunodominance and the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. In this study, we show across a range of vaccinia virus strains, including the current clonal smallpox vaccine, that the ability of a strain to spread systemically correlated with reduced immunodominance. Reduction in immunodominance was observed both in the lymphoid system and at the primary site of infection. Mechanistically, reduced immunodominance was associated with more robust priming and especially priming in the spleen. Finally, we show this is not just a property of vaccine and laboratory strains of virus, because an association between virulence and immunodominance was also observed in isolates from an outbreak of zoonotic vaccinia virus that occurred in Brazil.


Perceived comfort level and ride stability are the two most important factors in the evaluation of passenger's seat in a mobile vehicle. There are many aspects of vehicle that influence these properties, most importantly the primary suspension components, which isolate the vibration. from the axel of the vehicle to the chassis. In the design of conventional primary suspension system there is a compromise between the two quantities of comfort and
vehicle stability. Low damping gives ride comfort whereas high damping provides. better vehicle stability. In a passive suspension system the characteristics of the components such as spring and damper are fixed.
These characteristics are determined by the suspension designer according to the intended application. The parameters of passive suspension are fixed to achieve certain level of compromise between reducing the vibration and increasing the road holding
i._~'"".ftadjustable suspension system with a variable damper characteristic iele body and seat provides better performance in terms of stability of the passenger. A suspension system between the seat -tv-hicle body is called secondary suspension system. In the view of using
e I semi-active with adjustable damping coefficient suspension system, an attempt has been made in this thesis to design and develop a variable damping coefficient hydraulic damper, which can be used as an active or
semi-active damper and an eddy current damper which acts as active suspension system which is very useful for fine turning of the vibration isolation of the suspension system. The basic principle of newly designed hydraulic damper is same as that of existing hydraulic damper used in the primary suspension systems. In this case, a variable pilot valve is provided in the piston rod. The lubricant can flow from one chamber to another of the cylinder as the piston moves to and fro. The restriction to the flow is controlled by the pilot valve, which can be activated externally.
Using the continuity and momentum equations the fluid flow pattern is studied and relevant equation for the damping coefficient is derived for different steps of valve openings. After determination of the parameters of
hydraulic damper to meet the given specifications, a simple computer program was developed and a model was fabricated in the laboratory. To obtain the transient response of the hydraulic damper, a swing type carriage is designed so that the damper with the carriage oscillates with the help of
spring mass system. For different pilot valve openings of the semi-active hydraulic damper, transient responses were recorded for a step input using piezo-electric accelerometer pickup and data acquisition system. The
~ corded data was further analyzed for presentation using LabVIEW and ORIGIN 6 softwares. The damping coefficients obtained by impulse, step and i u80idal force inputs are closely in agreement with the theoretically
computed damping coefficient. In this thesis report, an attempt has also been made to tudy the feasibility of eddy current damping for the vibration isolation
pIa1tfonm.Commonly, passive and semi-active dampers are used in owever, their characteristics are fixed. Since the damping CJ8Ilnot be varied in the passive dampers, many researchers have active vibration isolation system using electro rheological fluid or 1810 rheological fluid. Eddy current effects are used for braking purpose d researchers have reported the use of eddy current brakes. However, till
today there is no work carried on eddy current damping for vibration isolation.
A two degrees of freedom vibration system is visualized to isolate the vibration of one of the masses using eddy current damper. An experimental two degrees of freedom vibration system was fabricated in the laboratory.
Electromagnets are mounted on the. base platform mass with an air gap. Second mass is mounted on the base platform through a spring with an aluminium plate at its bottom. Aluminium plate is freely allowed to move in the air gap of the electromagnet. Depending on the magnetic flux produced in the electromagnet due to electric current, the eddy current damping effect can be varied. Thus for different amplitudes of vibration the second mass can be
brought to constant amount of amplitude of vibration by providing a variable damping.
Theoretical flux density is computed from basic equations and is correlated with experimental value. A Hall effect gauss meter is used to measure the magnetic flux. The relevant equations to compute damping coefficient due to eddy current effect are derived and computed values of
damping coefficient for different current and thickness of the eddy current plate were verified with experimental results. The experiments were conducted and transient behavior of the mass was recorded using a piezoelectric type accelerometer and data logger system. Using the
logarithmic decrement method damping coefficients were computed for different values of current and different eddy current plate thickness. Experimental results are closely in agreement with theoretically computed results
The extension of the work for two dimensional damping of a
passenger's seat is carried out using hydraulic and eddy current dampers
simultaneously. A special seat arrangement is visualized to control the v rtiesl and horizontal vibration of the passenger's seat. The high frequency tion forces are damped through variable semi-active hydraulic damper and fine tuning of low frequency vibration forces is achieved through eddy current damper to provide more comfort. An experimental set up of seat arrangement is fabricated in the laboratory. Seat arrangement is subjected to various types of the tests such as impulse test and multi-mode vibration test. The results obtained through the tests are analyzed and presented. For multimode vibration test, five electric motors with eccentric masses are mounted
on the platform of the seat assembly and analyzed for different operating frequency. The results obtained from the experiments of the seat set up are presented graphically.


Sorghum and millet grains are generally rich in phytochemicals, particularly various types of phenolics. However, the types and amounts vary greatly between and within species. The food-processing operations applied to these grains, i.e. dehulling and decortication, malting, fermentation and thermal processing, dramatically affect the quantity of phenolics present, most generally reducing them. Thus the levels of phytochemicals in sorghum and millet foods and beverages are usually considerably lower than in the grains. Notwithstanding this, there is considerable evidence that sorghum and millet foods and beverages have important functional and health-promoting effects, specifically antidiabetic, cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention, due to the actions of these phytochemicals. Also their lactic acid bacteria-fermented products may have probiotic effects related to their unique microflora. However, direct proof of these health-enhancing effects is lacking as most studies have been carried out on the grains or grain extracts and not the food and beverage products themselves, and also most research work has been in vitro or ex vivo and not in vivo. To provide the required evidence, better designed studies are needed. The sorghum and millet products should be fully characterised, especially their phytochemical composition. Most importantly, well-controlled human clinical studies and intervention trials are required.


In this study, the growing behaviors of some cool season cereals (bread
 wheat, rye, durum wheat and barley) cereals were modeled simultaneously
 during the two growing seasons. For this purpose, Cox Regression was
 proposed as an alternative to the preferred regression methods in previous
 studies. In the study, based on the seasonal data of two different season
 growing seasons (2012-2013, 2013-2014 and both), each of which has 5
 replicates 27 samples, growth rates of these cereals via dry matter
 accumulation quantities were explained in three different models. For this
 purpose, the dry matter accumulation amounts were fitted to the survival
 data and Cox Regression method, which uses the hazard function, the rate of
 occurrence of a particular event, was preferred. As a result, each model was
 found to be very important (p <0.000). It was determined that i) the fastest
 growing species was barley, ii) dry matter accumulation decreased as
 temperature increased, and iii) dry matter accumulation in crops changed
 during each growth season.


In this paper, we present significant improvement to frame-by-frame noise reduction methods which are based on spectral domain processing. This work mainly focuses on the analysis stage of the noise reduction process. It is common knowledge that better performance is obtained by increasing the spectral resolution. However, effective spectral resolution depends directly on the number of samples in the processing frame. This leads to the well-known tradeoff between spectral and temporal resolution. Our approach is to use a novel discrete signal extrapolation method to prolong the given signal frame, resulting in increased spectral resolution without losing any temporal quality. The improvement in the noise reduction is tested with objective and subjective evaluations. The effect of the human auditory system is taken into account in the objective measures. Subjective tests are performed to determine the quality improvement in a perceptual sense.


Short-gate AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors (HFETs) with extremely thin AlGaN barrier layers were fabricated and characterized from the viewpoint of millimeter-wave applications. The devices showed good direct current and small-signal characteristics; however, the 30-GHz power characteristics were degraded due to frequency dispersion caused by the SiNx/AlGaN interface states. The dispersive behavior of the thin barrier devices measured in pulse I-V curves was different from the commonly observed one for the devices with normal AlGaN barrier thicknesses of 20-30 nm. The first characteristic point was that it happened only for structures with extremely thin barrier layers. As another unique point, the drain current collapse in the pulsed modes was observed only at a positive gate bias. We consider that the unique dispersion of the thin barrier HFETs was caused by the different charging paths related to hot electrons accelerated in a high electric field region of a 2-D electron gas (2DEG) channel. It seems reasonable to suppose that, for the extremely thin barrier structures, the AlGaN surface states can be charged not only by injected electrons from the gate metal through the SiNx/AlGaN interface but also by the hot electrons overcoming the barrier from the 2DEG formed at the AlGaN/GaN interface.


Interactive flow cytometry analysis software allows users to make binary decisions on immunomarker status of single cells through arbitrary placement of one- and two- dimensional gates. However, manual gating through a point-and-click graphical user interface (GUI) is impractical for large datasets. Here we describe SYLARAS, a suite of experimental and computational tools for the systematic and chronological evaluation of lymphoid tissue architecture. SYLARAS takes multiplex single-cell data as input, bins cells in n-dimensional orthant space, and returns schematized summary statistics on immunophenotypes of interest. We programmatically curated data on 33 immunophenotypes constituting primary and secondary lymphoid tissue of immunocompetent mice bearing syngeneic, orthotopic glioblastoma (GBM) at 3 stages of tumor growth. SYLARAS permitted the discovery of tumor-induced immune signatures whose divergence from mock engrafted, age-matched controls was quantified and statistically analyzed. By integrating information on peripheral immune composition with the levels of 111 blood cytokines of the same mice, we uncovered novel cell types, cytokines, and correlation networks perturbed by the mouse GL261 glioma model. SYLARAS facilitates the discovery of immune regulatory mechanisms and their response to therapy and is broadly applicable to the fields of immuno-oncology, autoimmunity, and infectious disease. Citation Format: Gregory J. Baker, Sucheendra K. Palaniappan, Jodene K. Moore, Stephanie H. Davis, Peter K. Sorger. Systemic lymphoid architecture response assessment (SYLARAS): Application to system-wide immunophenotyping of glioblastoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 5670.


In this paper, we consider the problem of recovering a binary phase shift keying (BPSK) modulated signal in a massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system. The recovery process is done using the box-relaxation method, in which the discrete set $\{\pm 1\}^{n}$ is relaxed to the convex set $[-1,\ +1]^{n}$ and solved by a convex optimization program followed by hard thresholding. We assume that the system has a Gaussian channel matrix with one sided left correlation. The entries of the noise vector are assumed to be independent and identically distributed (iid $\rangle$ zero-mean Gaussian. In this work, we precisely characterize the mean squared error (MSE) and the bit error rate (BER) of the box-relaxation decoder in the asymptotic regime where both dimensions grow simultaneously large at a fixed ratio. Numerical simulations validate the theoretical expressions derived in this paper.


The rachitogenic diet causes an inhibition of cholesterol synthesis in rat skin. Intensity of 2-14S-acetate incorporation into cholesterol precursors (matastenol, lathosterol, 7-dehydrocholesterol) and cholesterol drops considerably. UV-irradiation of animals suffering from rachitis intensifies cholesterol synthesis in skin. Simulteneously an increase is detected in the metabolic fund of cholesterol synthesis precursors, including 7-dehydrocholesterol, which is necessary to form antirachitic compounds in the organism.


JASMIN is a functionally distributed database system running on multiple microcomputers that communicate with each other by message passing. The software modules in JASMIN can be cloned and distributed across computer boundaries. One important module is the intelligent store, a page manager that includes transaction-management facilities. It provides an optimistic, multiversioning concurrency control scheme. This scheme allows read-only transactions to run almost without conflict checking; this is important in some real-time database applications like telephone switching and routing services. The initial implementation of the intelligent store deals with centralized database only. Experiences in modifying the JASMIN intelligent store module to handle distributed databases are described. Design principles and system implementation techniques in the following areas are explored; process structure, data structures and synchronization on data structures. The process structure is aimed to provide high throughput and the data structures are designed to facilitate fast response time. >


Antibodies to hapten 2-phenyloxazolone (phOx) of all BALB/c and DBA/2 mice have the same idiotype and the same major (public) isoelectric focusing pattern whose main spectrotype is called Ox-1. Neither of these characteristics could be readily demonstrated in anti-phOx antibodies of C57BL, C3H or LP mice; these antibodies were heterogeneous, and lacked public spectrotypes. Also, a fine specificty difference could be demonstrated between anti-phOx antibodies of BALB/c and C5MBL mice; the latter have a higher relative affinity than the former for a structural analogue of phOx (2-o-iodophenyloxazolone). The three BALB/c characteristics were inherited in congenic and recombinant inbred strains as an allotype-linked block, defining a new VH marker, VHphOx. Murine anti-phOx antibodies were found to exhibit three types of conservatism: (a) Every individual mouse of strains BALB/c, DBA/2 or BAB-14 had an almost indistinguishable IEF pattern. (b) These patterns (and the cross-reactive idiotype) remained virtually unchanged during an immunization course of 70 days. (c) An identical idiotype (and in some cases IEF pattern) was present in mouse strains of five different allogroups.


An approach to partition power system simulations formulated in mesh currents as variables is presented. Time-domain simulations of large-scale power systems are notoriously slow owing to the system order and amount of time-varying components. A common approach to reduce simulation run-time is to partition power systems using Bergeron's travelling-wave model and to simulate the subsystems on a distributed computer. In this study, power systems are partitioned using a new mesh tearing approach, and the subsystems distributed across the cores of a quad-core computer. A notional shipboard power system model was partitioned using the proposed partitioning approach, which is used to show how the simulation run-time reduces as a function of the number of partitions and number of power converters.


Teledyne-e2v designs and manufactures a wide range of sensors for space and astronomy applications. This includes high performance CCDs for x-ray, visible and near-IR wavelengths. In this paper we illustrate the maturity of CMOS capability for these applications; examples are presented together with performance data. The majority of Teledyne-e2v sensors for these applications are back-thinned for highest spectral response and designed for very low read-out noise; the combination delivers high signal to noise ratio in association with a variety of formats and package designs. The growing Teledyne-e2v capability in delivery of sub-systems and cryogenic cameras is illustratedincluding the 1.2 Giga-pixel J-PAS camera system.


Saline-alkali stress (SS) is a common abiotic stress affecting crop cultivation worldwide, seriously inhibiting plant growth and biomass accumulation. Melatonin has been proven to relieve the inhibition of multiple abiotic stresses on plant growth. Therefore, soybean cultivars Heihe 49 (HH49, SS-tolerant) and Henong 95 (HN95, SS-sensitive) were pot-cultured in SS soil and then treated with 300 μM melatonin at the V1 stage, when the first trifoliate leaves were fully unfolded, to investigate if melatonin has an effect on SS. SS increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation in soybean leaves and thereby induced DNA oxidative damage. In addition, SS retarded cell growth and decreased the mesophyll cell size, chloroplast number, photosynthetic pigment content, which further reduced the light energy capture and electron transport rate in soybean leaves, and affected carbohydrate accumulation and metabolism. However, melatonin treatment reduced SS-induced ROS accumulation in the soybean leaves by increasing antioxidant content and oxidase activity. Effective removal of ROS reduced SS-induced DNA oxidative damage in the soybean leaf genome, which was represented by decreased random-amplified polymorphic DNA polymorphism, 8-hydroxy-20-deoxyguanine content, and relative density of apurinic/apyrimidinic-sites. Melatonin treatment also increased the volume of mesophyll cells, the numbers of chloroplast and starch grains, the contents of chlorophyll a and b and carotenoids in soybean seedling leaves treated with SS, thereby increasing the efficiency of effective light capture and electron transfer and improving photosynthesis. Subsequently, carbohydrate accumulation and metabolism in soybean leaves under SS were improved by melatonin treatment, which contributes to providing basic substances and energy for cell growth and metabolism, ultimately improving soybean SS tolerance.


ABSTRACT Chromatin reorganization governs the regulation of gene expression during preimplantation development. However, the landscape of chromatin dynamics in this period has not been explored in bovine. In this study, we constructed a genome-wide map of accessible chromatin in bovine oocytes and early embryos using an improved assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq) which revealed unique features of the accessible chromatin during bovine early embryo development. We found that chromatin accessibility is low in oocytes and 2-/4-cell embryos, followed by a significant increase in embryos during major embryonic genome activation (EGA), and peaked in elongating day 14 embryos. Genome-wide characteristics of open chromatin showed that ATAC-seq signals in both transcription start sites (TSS) and transcription end sites (TES) were strong. Additionally, the distal ATAC-seq peaks were enriched in repeat elements in a type-specific and stage-specific manner. We further unveiled a series of transcription factor (TF) motifs with distinct variation of enrichment from distal ATAC-seq peaks. By integrated analysis of chromatin accessibility with transcriptomes and DNA methylomes in bovine early embryos, we showed that promoter accessibility was positively correlated with gene expression, especially during major EGA, and was strongly correlated to DNA methylation and CpG density. Finally, we identified the critical chromatin signatures and TFs that differ between in vivo and in vitro derived blastocysts, which provides insights to the potential mechanisms leading to low quality of embryos produced in vitro. Together, this comprehensive analysis revealed critical features of chromatin landscape and epigenetic reprogramming during bovine preimplantation embryo development.


My dissertation analyzes the government provision of education. The first chapter evaluates how state performance-based funding affects student outcomes and other intermediate measures. I find significant increases to completion rates, retention rates and student's future income attributed to these programs. Further, the improvements increase with the amount of state funding allocated based on college performance. My second chapter uses a quantitative equilibrium model of the market for higher education to evaluate the impact of performance-based federal financial aid. The model reveals that basing a rating system entirely on one measure may lead to minor increases in the incentivized area and considerable decreases in other areas. My final chapter develops a majority voting model with both K-12 and post-secondary education to gain insight into how the education budget is allocated in the presence of heterogeneous agents with conflicting preferences. The model predicts an inverted U-shape relationship between income inequality and the education fund allocation within a state. This prediction is confirmed by the data.


The aim of the present study was to determine the seroprevalence of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in 343 well maintained horses belonging to 11 horse stables located in northern Tunisia with indirect immunofluorescence test. Overall, 16.3% (56/343) of tested animals were positive. Anti-A. phagocytophilum antibodies were present in horses located in all studied governorates except the governorate of Ben Arous. Nine horse stables out of 11 contained positive animals, the seroprevalence of each one varied from nought to 50%. Seroprevalence varied according to gender, breed and type of activity, contrary to age. Seroprevalence was higher in females than males (21.4 and 9.5% respectively). Similarly, seropositive animals belonging to the English thoroughbred breed was significantly higher (30.2%) than other breeds. According to the utilization of horses, the highest positivity rate (21.1%) was observed in brood mares. Our results demonstrate that A. phagocytophilum infection is widespread in well maintained horses from northern Tunisia, so equine granulocytic anaplasmosis should be suspected by veterinarians in front of suggestive clinical signs like fever, ataxia and reluctance to move.


The magnetic Co nanoparticle was prepared by coprecipitation route in aqueous solution and Figlarz's polyol method which consists of refluxing a solution of the metal precursor in polyol. As the former method, the Co nanoparticle was synthesized by reduction of cobalt chloride with sodium borohydride in aqueous solution. And the latter method, the polyol method can be applied to the production of Co nanoparticle by reducing cobalt chloride and cobalt acetate with polyol such as ethylene glycol, trimethylene glycol. The size of nanoparticle was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy images and scanning electron microscopy images, according to the different methods The crystal structure of nanoparticle according to reaction condition was characterized by X-ray diffraction data. The magnetic properties were characterized with saturation magnetization from hysteresis loop by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM).


Barley endoproteolytic enzymes are important to germination because they hydrolyze endosperm storage proteins to provide precursors for new protein synthesis. We recently developed an electrophoretic method utilizing gel-incorporated protein substrates to study the endoproteinases of 4-d-germinated barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv Morex) grain. This work extends those findings to determine the temporal pattern of the appearance of the endoproteinases during germination, the sensitivities of the proteinases to class-specific proteinase inhibitors, and where, in germinating caryopses, the proteinases reside. Six endoproteinase activity bands (representing a minimum of seven enzymes) were present in 5-d-germinated barley grain extracts subjected to electrophoresis in nondenaturing gels at pH 8.8. The activities of two of the enzyme bands ("neutral" proteinases) increased as the pH was increased from 3.8 to 6.5. The activities of the remaining four ("acidic") bands diminished abruptly as the pH increased above 4.7. Two proteinase bands hydrolyzed gelatin but not edestin, four of the proteinases hydrolyzed both gelatin and edestin at nearly the same rates, and one enzyme degraded only edestin. One neutral endoproteinase was sensitive to diisopropyl fluorophosphate inhibition, and the other was not inhibited by any of inhibitors tested. Four of acidic enzymes were cysteine proteinases [inhibited by trans-epoxysuccinyl-l-leucylamido(4-guanidino)butane and N-ethylmaleimide]; the other was an aspartic acid endoproteinase (sensitive to pepstatin). Only the aspartic proteinase was detected in either ungerminated or steeped barley grain. During the germination (malting) process, the aspartic endoproteinase activity decreased until the second day of germination and then increased until germination day 5. The first endoproteinase(s) induced during germination was a neutral enzyme that showed activity on the 1st day of the germination phase after steeping. Most of the endoproteinases became active on the 2nd or 3rd germination day, but one cysteine proteinase was not detected until the 5th day. Acid cysteine proteinases were present in the aleurone, scutellum, and endosperm tissues but not in shoots and roots. The aleurone layer and endosperm contained almost exclusively band B1 neutral proteinases, whereas the scutellum, shoots, and roots contained both B1 and B2 bands. This work shows that germinating barley contains a complex set of proteinases whose expression is temporally and spatially controlled. But, at the same time, it also shows that this electrophoretic method for separating and studying individual enzymes of this complex will allow us to more readily characterize and purify them.


Code generation methods for DSP applications are hampered by the combination of tight timing constraints imposed by the performance requirements of DSP algorithms, and resource constraints imposed by a hardware architecture. In this paper we present a method for register binding and instruction scheduling based on the exploitation and analysis of resource and timing constraints. The analysis identifies sequencing constraints between operations additional to the precedence constraints. Without the explicit modeling of these sequencing constraints, a scheduler is often not capable of finding a solution that satisfies the timing, resource and register constraints. The presented approach results in an efficient method of obtaining high quality instruction schedules with low register requirements.


The sustainable mitigation of human–wildlife conflicts has become a major societal and environmental challenge globally. Among these conflicts, large marine predators feeding on fisheries catches, a behaviour termed "depredation," has emerged concomitantly with the expansion of the world's fisheries. Depredation poses threats to both the socio‐economic viability of fisheries and species conservation, stressing the need for mitigation. This review synthesizes the extent and socio‐ecological impacts of depredation by sharks and marine mammals across the world, and the various approaches used to minimize it. Depredation was reported in 214 fisheries between 1979 and 2019 (70% post‐2000) and affected fleets from 44 countries, in all sectors (commercial, artisanal and recreational), and in all major fishing techniques (nets, traps and hook‐and‐lines). A total of 68 predator species were involved in depredation (20 odontocetes, 21 pinnipeds and 27 sharks), and most (73%) were subject to either by‐catch and/or retaliatory killing from fishers when interacting with gear. Impacts on fishers were primarily associated with catch losses and gear damage but often lacked assessments. Deterrence was a major mitigation approach but also the least effective. Gear modifications or behavioural adaptation by fishers were more promising. This review highlights the need for improved monitoring, and interdisciplinary and integrated research to quantify the determinants and impacts of depredation in the socio‐ecological dimension. More importantly, as the conflict is likely to escalate, efforts directed towards changing perceptions and integrating knowledge through adaptive co‐management are raised as key directions towards coexistence between fisheries and large marine predators.


Purpose: There is a lack of reported data on imaging dose from Novalis ExacTrac use for image guided radiotherapy. This investigation is to assess the imaging doses to patients resulting from a variety of clinical default imaging acquisition protocols in the ExacTrac x‐ray imaging system. Methods: Novalis TX ExacTrac x‐ray system (BrainLab, Feldkirchen, Germany) is investigated. This system consists of two floor‐mounted kilovoltage X‐ray tubes projecting obliquely onto two flat‐panel detectors mounted on the ceiling. The dose measurements were performed using an ion chamber inserted in a phantom. The air kerma calibration factor of the ion chamber for x‐ray beams specified by the half‐value layer was obtained from an Accredited Dosimetry Calibration Laboratory. The imaging dose from clinical default protocols including Cranium, Thorax and Abdomen were studied. The phantom, in the size of 30×12×30 cm3, was made from slabs of water‐equivalent materials for low energy x‐rays, PW‐LR (CIRS, Norfolk, VA). Results: The field size of x‐rays from each tube is 20×20 cm2 at the isocenter. Small differences of 5–10 % in measured radiation dose at the isocenter between two x‐ray tubes were observed. The doses measured in the phantom at a depth of 1 cm from the treatment table were 0.05 cGy, 0.16 cGy, and 0.19 cGy resulting from a pair of obliquely beams of Cranium‐heavy, Thorax‐Heavy and Abdomen‐Heavy clinical protocols respectively. It was found that there was up to 77% dose reduction by selecting Abdomen‐Light instead of Abdomen‐Heavy acquisition protocols. Conclusion: Although the imaging doses to patients resulting from a single pair of beams are low, the sum of multiple acquisitions (10‐20 pairs) is still significant, which can be common for one treatment fraction if non‐coplanar beams are used. The imaging doses strongly depend on the image acquisition protocols. During treatment, the low dose protocols should be chosen, given that image quality is not compromised.


In models of aspiration-based reinforcement learning, agents adapt by comparing payos achieved from actions chosen in the past with an aspiration level. Though such models are well-established in behavioural psychology, only recently have they begun to receive attention in game theory and its applications to economics and politics. This paper provides an informal overview of a range of such theories applied to repeated interaction games. We describe dierent models of aspiration formation: where (1) aspirations are xed but required to be consistent with longrun average payos; (2) aspirations evolve based on past personal experience or of previous generations of players; and (3) aspirations are based on the experience of peers. Convergence to non-Nash outcomes may result in either of these formulations. Indeed, cooperative behaviour can emerge and survive in the long run, even though it may be a strictly dominated strategy in the stage game, and despite the myopic adaptation of stage game strategies. Dierences between reinforcement learning and evolutionary game theory are also discussed.


Meningioma 1 (MN1) gene overexpression has been reported in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients and identified as a negative prognostic factor. In order to characterize patients presenting gene overexpression and to verify if MN1 transcript could be a useful marker for minimal residual disease detection, MN1 was quantified in 136 AML patients with different cytogenetic risk and in 50 normal controls. In 20 patients bearing a fusion gene transcript suitable for minimal residual disease quantitative assessment and in 8 patients with NPM1 mutation, we performed a simultaneous analysis of MN1 and the fusion-gene transcript or NPM1 mutation during follow-up. Sequential MN1 and WT1 analysis was also performed in 13 AML patients lacking other molecular markers. The data obtained show that normal cells consistently express low levels of MN1 transcript. In contrast, high levels of MN1 expression are present in 47% of patients with normal karyotype and in all cases with inv(16). MN1 levels during follow-up were found to follow the pattern of other molecular markers (fusion gene transcripts, NPM1 and WT1). Increased MN1 expression in the BM during follow up was always found to be predictive of an impending hematological relapse.


Abstract The OH speciation of 18 palygorskite samples from various localities were evaluated by near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) and compared to the corresponding octahedral composition derived from independent, single-particle analytical electron microscopy (AEM). NIR gives evidence for dioctahedral-like (AlAlOH, AlFe3+OH, Fe3+Fe3+OH) and trioctahedral-like (Mg3OH) species. Therefore, palygorskite can be approximated by the formula yMg5 Si8O20(OH)2·(1 - y)[xMg2Fe2·(1 - x)Mg2Al2] Si8O20(OH)2, where x is the Fe content of the dioctahedral component, and y is the trioctahedral fraction. The values of x estimated from the NIR data are in excellent agreement with the Fe/(VIAl + Fe) ratio from AEM (R2 = 0.98, σ = 0.03), thus suggesting that all octahedral Al and Fe in palygorskite participate in M2M2OH (dioctahedral-like) arrangements. Furthermore, y values from AEM can be compared to NIR (R2 = 0.90 and σ = 0.05) after calibrating the relative intensity of the Mg3OH vs. (Al,Fe)2OH overtone bands using AEM data. The agreement between the spectroscopic and analytical data are excellent. The data show that Fe3+ for Al substitution varies continuously in the analyzed samples over a broad range (0 < x < 0.7), suggesting that fully ferric dioctahedral palygorskites (x = 1) may exist. On the other hand, the observed upper trioctahedral limit of y = 0.50 calls for the detailed structural comparison of Mg-rich palygorskite with sepiolite.


The growth of social enterprises in Kenya has been constrained hence they have had limited impact on both the business sectors and the society. Thus the purpose of the study was to investigate challenges affecting the growth of social enterprises in Kenya with reference to Nairobi County. Specific objects of the study included examining the influence of financing, governance, strategy, entrepreneurial skills and regulation on the growth of social enterprises in Kenya. The study used survey research design while the target population was thirty six (36) respondents drawn from social enterprises in Nairobi County. The study used census sampling technique which involved taking the entire thirty six (36) respondents as a sample. The primary data for the study was collected using the questionnaires. Quantitative data was analyzed using correlation and regression statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 21.0), while qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis. The study established that capital affect the growth of social enterprises,operation strategy affect the growth of social enterprise; entrepreneurial skill affect the growth of social enterprises; governance affects the growth of social enterprise and that government regulations affect the growth of social enterprises. The study recommends that social enterprises need to develop and implement business growth strategies so as to be able to effectively cope with business changes as they are easily affected even by smallest changes in the marketplace; to establish governance structure that fits social enterprises and tailored to enterprise needs; for management of social enterprises to leverage on social partners assistance, opportunities for training of staff in requisite specialized competencies and for the government to ensure a health trade-off between costs and benefits of regulation that promote enterprise growth


The research and development on a novel capacitive pressure sensor with an elastic pressure-sensitive element are presented in this paper. As a coaxial cylinder capacitor converter, it uses a circuit cylinder as its stationary anode and the piezo gauge's shell as its moveable cathode with the electrode distance of 0.5 mm. The device's principle and structure are given, and its mechanical characteristics are theoretically simulated by using the finite element software ANSYS. The read-out circuitry was developed. Various physical properties were experimentally tested. Results show that its capacitance is approximately linear to the subjected pressure. Its sensitivity is 0.0099 pF/Mpa, pressure measuring rang is 0-600 Mpa, By using the sensor's shell as its elastic sensitive element, its volume is reduced and its applications are increased, thus it can be used to measure the chamber pressures of various different caliber guns. In addition, its lower cost is helpful to promoting its applications.


Outward currents through Kir2.1 channels play crucial roles in controlling the electrical properties of excitable cells, and such currents are subjected to voltage-dependent block by intracellular Mg2+ and polyamines that bind to both high- and low-affinity sites on the channels. Under physiological conditions, high-affinity block is saturated and yet outward Kir2.1 currents can still occur, implying that high-affinity polyamine block cannot completely eliminate outward Kir2.1 currents. However, the underlying molecular mechanism remains unknown. Here, we show that high-affinity spermidine block, rather than completely occluding the single-channel pore, induces a subconducting state in which conductance is 20% that of the fully open channel. In a D172N mutant lacking the high-affinity polyamine-binding site, spermidine does not induce such a substate. However, the kinetics for the transitions between the substate and zero-current state in wild-type channels is the same as that of low-affinity block in the D172N mutant, supporting the notion that these are identical molecular events. Thus, the residual outward current after high-affinity spermidine block is susceptible to low-affinity block, which determines the final amplitude of the outward current. This study provides a detailed insight into the mechanism underlying the emergence of outward Kir2.1 currents regulated by inward rectification attributed to high- and low-affinity polyamine blocks.


This paper re-examines Hayek's insights into the problem of knowledge in markets, and argues that his analysis remains pertinent but has serious flaws. His central thesis—that the market price system is essential for communicating information and coordinating transactions wherever knowledge is dispersed and innovation renders the future uncertain—remains a potent explanation for the failures of central economic planning. His analysis that aggregate statistics necessarily abstract from contextual and tacit knowledge has important but widely ignored implications for the contemporary use of statistics in financial risk models. The recent financial crisis, however, shows that market prices can give very misleading signals for long periods, and it represents a key example of ways in which Hayek's thesis is incomplete. In particular, Hayek's analysis falls short by ignoring the role of dominant narratives, analytical monocultures, self-reinforcing emotions, feedback loops, information asymmetries and market power in distorting the wisdom of prices.


Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA

Gadd45a, Gadd45b, and Gadd45g encode for small (18 kD), evolutionarily conserved proteins that play a pivotal role in diverse cellular functions such as cell cycle arrest, DNA repair, and are regulated by the nature of the stress stimulus encountered, its magnitude, and the cell type. Here, we show that Gadd45b negatively regulates stress-induced senescence. By using the 3T3 growth protocol to study tissue culture-induced senescence; we observed that Gadd45b KO MEFs display reduced growth rates at early passages (by passage 5) compared to wild type (WT) MEFs. Notably, this is in contrast with Gadd45a KO MEFs that show enhanced growth rate and escape senescence. Furthermore, senescence associated (SA) βgal staining showed increased blue stained cells at earlier passages in Gadd45b KO MEFs compared to WT MEFs. When MEFs were cultured at 3% oxygen, Gadd45b KO MEFs at 3% oxygen showed increased growth rate compared to MEFs at 21% oxygen, but growth was still retarded compared to WT MEFs at 21%, indicating that Gadd45b KO MEFs have increased sensitivity to oxidative stress leading to increased senescence. Additionally, we also observed that Gadd45b levels in WT MEFs increased with increasing passage number. Propidium Iodide staining and FACS analysis showed that Gadd45b KO MEFs arrest at the G2M phase of cell cycle. At passage 7, the majority (75%) of Gadd45b KO MEFs were observed to arrest at the G2M phase, whereas only 15% of WT MEFs arrested at G2M. This finding is in striking contrast to other senescent MEFs, which normally arrest at G1. Furthermore, FACS analysis of phospho-histone H3 (ser10) stained cells (mitotic) showed that, Gadd45b KO MEFs have less phospho-histone H3-positive cells than WT MEFs indicating that Gadd45b KO MEFs are arrested in G2 phase rather than M phase. Recent data also indicate that Gadd45b KO MEFs show increased phospho-histone H2Ax and phospho-p53 staining compared to WT MEFs, suggesting that loss of Gadd45b leads to increased DNA damage signaling. Interestingly, other stressors such as sub-lethal H2O2 as well as UV irradiation, known to increase oxidative stress, were observed to trigger increased premature senescence in Gadd45b KO MEFs compared to WT MEFs. Notably, staining embryos for SA βgal, we show that embryos from Gadd45b KO mice exhibit increased SA βgal staining compared to WT embryos, thus providing in vivo evidence for increased senescence in Gadd45b KO mice. Taken together, these data provide the impetus to further elucidate the role of Gadd45b in G2 arrest and premature senescence.

Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting.

Citation Format: Andrew Magimaidas, Barbara Hoffman, Dan Liebermann. Gadd45b deficiency impairs G2/M cell cycle progression leading to premature senescence. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 2252. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-2252


Educators consider the video learning approach an effective method to deliver educational content as compared to the traditional method of books and written materials. This paper presents a project that involves student-generated videos to learn internal control in an undergraduate accounting information systems course. We believe that this video learning approach is an engaging way for students to be self-directed learners in learning internal control and complements the written materials in the textbook. The survey results show that most of the respondents viewed the learning experience of the video project positively. The results also indicate that the video project was effective in helping students to learn internal control. Students also commented that they will recommend other courses to adopt video learning.


ABSTRACT Fluoroquinolone resistance in members of the Enterobacteriaceae family is mostly due to mutations in the quinolone resistance-determining regions of the topoisomerase genes. However, transferable genes encoding quinolone resistance have recently been described. The current methods for susceptibility testing are not adapted to the detection of new resistance determinants, which confer low levels of resistance. The aim of this study was to compare the ability of the screening of the different quinolones by disk diffusion assays and MIC determinations to detect fluoroquinolone resistance. Sixty-nine Escherichia coli strains and 62 Salmonella strains, including strains fully susceptible to quinolones, nalidixic acid-resistant strains, strains with resistance to fluoroquinolones (resistant to nalidixic acid), and strains showing low-level resistance to fluoroquinolones conferred by transferable quinolone resistance genes, including qnrA, qnrB, qnrS, and aac(6′)Ib-cr, were selected. Disk diffusion assays and MIC determinations by the agar dilution method were performed, according to CLSI standards, with nalidixic acid, flumequine, oxolinic acid, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, marbofloxacin, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin. The MIC of levofloxacin was determined by an Etest. The results showed a trimodal distribution of the MICs for both E. coli and Salmonella. The MIC distributions for the isolates varied with the compounds tested. Screening for nalidixic acid resistance by MIC testing or disk diffusion assay was not efficient for the detection of some of the isolates carrying qnr and aac(6′)Ib-cr. Transferable resistance genes would best be detected by testing for the MIC of ciprofloxacin or norfloxacin, as testing for the MICs of the other compounds would fail to detect isolates carrying aac(6′)Ib-cr because the enzyme produced is able to reduce the activities of these two compounds only due to their chemical structures. In conclusion, screening with nalidixic acid is efficient for the detection of mutants, but it is not so efficient for the detection of qnr and aac(6′)Ib-cr. Detection would be maximized by screening with either ciprofloxacin or norfloxacin by both MIC determination and disk diffusion assays. Furthermore, a low concentration of ciprofloxacin (1 μg) in the disks seemed to increase the sensitivity of the disk diffusion assay.


Two-dimensional (2D) human skeletal muscle fiber cultures are ill equipped to support the contractile properties of maturing muscle fibers. This limits their application to the study of adult human neuromuscular junction (NMJ) development, a process requiring maturation of muscle fibers in the presence of motor neuron endplates. Here we describe a three-dimensional (3D) co-culture method whereby human muscle progenitors mixed with human pluripotent stem cell-derived motor neurons self-organize to form numerous functional NMJ connections within two weeks. Functional connectivity between motor neuron endplates and muscle fibers is confirmed with calcium transient imaging and electrophysiological recordings. Notably, we find epsilon acetylcholine receptor subunit protein expression and activity in our 3D co-culture demonstrating that the system supports a developmental shift from the embryonic to adult form of the receptor not previously reported in 2D culture. Further, co-culture treatment with myasthenia gravis patient sera demonstrates the ease of human disease studies using the system. This work provides the first method to model and evaluate adult NMJ development and disease in culture.


Over two decades ago, it was discovered that the human T-cell repertoire contains T cells that do not recognize peptide antigens in the context of MHC molecules but instead respond to lipid antigens presented by CD1 antigen-presenting molecules. The ability of T cells to 'see' lipid antigens bound to CD1 enables these lymphocytes to sense changes in the lipid composition of cells and tissues as a result of infections, inflammation, or malignancies. Although foreign lipid antigens have been shown to function as antigens for CD1-restricted T cells, many CD1-restricted T cells do not require foreign antigens for activation but instead can be activated by self-lipids presented by CD1. This review highlights recent developments in the field, including the identification of common mammalian lipids that function as autoantigens for αβ and γδ T cells, a novel mode of T-cell activation whereby CD1a itself rather than lipids serves as the autoantigen, and various mechanisms by which the activation of CD1-autoreactive T cells is regulated. As CD1 can induce T-cell effector functions in the absence of foreign antigens, multiple mechanisms are in place to regulate this self-reactivity, and stimulatory CD1-lipid complexes appear to be tightly controlled in space and time.


Two-dimensional (2-D) interference channels with inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-track interference (ITI) exist in the magnetic recording systems at high areal density. A number of 2-D detection methods have recently been proposed for the multi-track processing of the 2-D channels. Graph-based detector with the belief propagation algorithm appears as an alternative method, but at a degraded performance and high complexity level. In this work, we propose two methods to modify the graph-based (GB) detector. One applies a serial scheduling to the GB detector, while the other modifies the GB detection by ignoring some connections during one direction of the reliability updates in the factor graph leading to the reduction of short cycles. The simulation results show that the proposed GB detectors give better bit error rate performances than the other GB detectors.


Further to the review by Roberts et al 1 and the letter by Ellis et al ,2 we report another case of intracranial placement of a nasopharyngeal airway.

The patient was an adult who had been shot in the head and dumped by the roadside in Baghdad in 2006. The patient was found by a military patrol who gave first aid. The medic on scene noted that the patient was deeply unconscious, had facial injuries and an obstructed airway. A nasopharyngeal airway was placed and rapid transfer undertaken to the US combat support …


The proliferation of wireless technologies in today's everyday life is one of the key drivers of the Internet of Things (IoT). In addition to being an enabler of connectivity, the vast penetration of wireless devices today gives rise to a secondary functionality as a means of tracking and localization of the devices themselves. Indeed, in order to discover and automatically connect to known Wi-Fi networks, mobile devices have to scan and broadcast the so-called probe requests on all available channels, which can be captured and analyzed in a non-intrusive manner. Thus, one of the key applications of this feature is the ability to track and analyze human behaviors in real-time directly from the patterns observed from their Wi-Fi-enabled devices. In this paper, we develop such a system to obtain these Wi-Fi signatures in a completely passive manner and use the Wi-Fi features it captures within a set of adaptive machine learning techniques to predict in real-time the expected length of stay (LOS) of the device owners at a specific location.


Background: Stomach traction done to expose the pancreas is still a problem in laparoscopic left pancreatic resections. We developed a simple hanging maneuver to retract the stomach rapidly and effectively. Methods: After dividing the gastrocolic ligament, the stomach was encircled with a tape, turned along its horizontal axis and pulled with an epigastric trocar, which was later removed. This technique was used in all patients who underwent laparoscopic left pancreatic resections including 165 distal pancreatectomies (DP), 35 central pancreatectomies (CP) and 18 enucleations (En). Demographics, surgical and postoperative outcome data were recorded. Results: There were no mortalities. The mean operative time for DP, CP and En were 174, 191 and 104 min, respectively. The transfusion (0-4%) and conversion (0-3%) rates were low for all procedures. Morbidity was mainly represented by pancreatic fistula and grades (B + C) for DP, CP and En were observed in 26, 22 and 17%, respectively. No complication related to hanging of the stomach, like gastric perforation, was observed. Re-intervention and the mean hospital stay for DP, CP and En were observed in 5, 11 and 0% and were 16, 22 and 12, respectively. The readmission rate was low (0-9%). Conclusions: Hanging maneuver of the stomach is a simple procedure to rapidly, safely and effectively retract the stomach during left laparoscopic pancreatic resections.


IMT-2000 appeared in order to satisfy the desires of the uses who wish to supply through wireless most of the services being provided through wire, such as Internet services and multimedia high-speed data information. However, during global roaming, the signal data and the user data get transmitted through the networks of other users. Also, it is judged that with the provision of high speed data communication the amount of data communication necessary for confidentiality protection will increase. It is planned that the recent IMT-2000 Project will begin its commercial service in 2002. From this viewpoint, wireless contents, due to their special characteristics, are greatly exposed to illegal actions by third persons. As a result, it can be said that security and certification issues in the mobile telecommunication environment are indispensable matters. For this purpose, it is intended that in this thesis through an analysis of the existent IMT-2000 certification method, a more safe and efficient authentication method is presented and, at the same time, a security protocol necessary in the provision of wireless contents is designed.


A combination of tumor necrosis factor (INI) and the topoisomerase I inhibitor, camptothecin, or the topoisomerase II inhibitors, teniposide and amsacrine, produced dose-dependent synergistic cytotoxicity against the murine L929 fibrosarcoma cells. Similar synergy was not observed with a combination of TNF and bleomycin. To define the role of TNF in the augmentation of tumor cell killing by topoisomerase I or II inhibitors, the effect of TNF on the production of enzyme-linked DNA strand breaks induced in cells by topoisomerase inhibitors was investigated. L929 cells incubated for l h with the topoisomerase inhibitors contained proteinlinked strand breaks. In contrast, INI alone did not induce DNA strand breakage. However, when cells were incubated simultaneously with TNF and camptothecin, amsacrine, Adriamycin, actinomycin D, teniposide, or etoposide, increased numbers of strand breaks were produced. Preincubation of the cells with INI for 30 min or 3 h before the addition of camptothecin or etoposide resulted in no more strand breaks than that observed in cells incubated with the drugs alone. TNF treatment of L929 cells produced a rapid and transient increase in specific activity of extractable topoisomerases I and II. These increases were maximum at 2-5 min of IM treatment and by 30 min the activities of extractable enzymes were equal to or less than those detected in extracts from untreated cell controls. The transient nature of the increase in extractable topoisomerase activity may explain the kinetics and significance of the order of addition of TNF and inhibitors for maximal synergistic activity. These data are consistent also with a role for topoisomerase-linked DNA lesions in the TNF-mediated potentiation of killing of L929 cells by topoisomerase inhibitors.


Porcelain has been made in Worcester since 1751. Unlike many other porcelain factories established in Britain from the mid-18th century, the Worcester factory seems, after the first few years, to have concentrated on mass-production and much survives for collectors to enjoy. The use of blue and white decoration and the technique of transfer printing capitalised on the taste for Chinese-inspired scenes and topical, rustic or classical subjects while keeping production costs in check. More lavish hand-decorated pieces had coloured grounds and were often painted with birds. Some was decorated in London at the Soho workshop of James Giles. The British Museums extensive collection of Worcester from the period 1751-83 stems largely from that formed in the early 20th century by Mr and Mrs Frank Lloyd, and is now amongst the most representative to be found anywhere; it includes many pieces decorated by the Giles workshop. This lavishly illustrated book showcases 100 of the most important, attractive and interesting pieces, many of which are published here for the first time, and places them in their historical context. It serves both as an enlightening introduction to the subject for the non-specialist and as an essential source book for the collector.


The incidence of antibiotic resistance among bacteria to synthetic drugs is on the increase, as such there is the need for new and safer antimicrobials especially, from natural sources like plants. Leaves of Bryophyllum pinnatum and Aspilia africana are among the many that have been used by rural dwellers as medicines to treat infections. Methanol, hot water and ethanolic extracts of the leaves of Bryophyllum pinnatum and Aspilia africana were obtained and their antimicrobial activity testing against three microorganisms isolated from wound which includes Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The results indicated that the methanol extract of both plants had higher antimicrobial activity against the test isolates as compared with their ethanol extracts; while the hot water extracts had no antimicrobial activity against the isolates. Ethanol extracts of both plants showed little antimicrobial activity against the test isolates. S. aureus was more susceptible to methanolic extract of B. pinnatum with a zone of inhibition of 4 mm, E. coli was 3.0 mm while that of P. aeruginosa was 1.0 mm. Susceptibility pattern of the isolates to A. africana showed that P. aeruginosa was more susceptible with a zone of inhibition of 6.0 mm; that of S. aureus was 5.0 mm while that of E. coli was 3.0 mm. This shows that methanolic extracts of Bryophyllum pinnatum and Aspilia africana can be used against pathogenic organisms including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa which can cause slow healing of wounds.


Polycrystalline Co-ferrite was produced by modified citrate gel method. Samples were afterward heat treated at different temperatures upto 1300°C. The XRD pattern shows that all samples exhibit a single phase spinel structure and improvement and sharpness in intensity of peaks with increasing annealing temperature. Measurement of hysteresis loops demonstrate that after the heat treatment a saturation magnetization of 60- 84 emu/gis obtained. Measurements of the longitudinal magnetostriction gave values between 20 ppm and 130 ppm. Magnetostriction increases gradually with increase in annealing temperature and becomes highest when the saturation magnetization values are larger.


The rotordynamic behaviour of a hydraulic turbine is influenced by fluid-rotor interactions at the turbine runner. In this paper computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to numerically predict the rotordynamical excitation forces due to the flow through a hydraulic turbine runner. The simulations are carried out for three diffferent boundary conditions. One axi-symmetric inlet boundary condition, and two axi-periodic boundary conditions. The two latter are obtained from separate simulations of wicket gate and spiral casing flow. It is found that the inlet boundary condition significantly affects the rotordynamical forces and moments.


The effects of compacting methods, heat treatment and chemical additives on the magnetic properties of NdFeB particles have been studied, Five sets of NdFeB powder particles, doped with different amounts of Dy from 0.1-2.9 wt%, were prepared in powder form by gas atomization and annealed at 650-750/spl deg/C for 600 seconds under an inert argon atmosphere. These were then bonded in epoxy, either in isotropic form, or aligned during fabrication under the action an applied magnetic field. Their magnetic properties were measured using a vibrating sample magnetometer. The results showed that the combined effects of the addition of Dy and heat treatment could dramatically improve the coercive force, remanent magnetization and maximum energy product. The results have been interpreted using a model of hysteresis which takes into account energy losses, anisotropy and texture of a material. The modeling showed that these effects alter the magnetic properties by increasing the hysteresis loss via the loss coefficient and by reducing the reversible component of magnetization through the reversibility coefficient. The compacting process influences the density of the particles in the bonded magnet which alters the magnetic properties through the coupling coefficient. The major influence of particle alignment can be interpreted as a change in the texture which can be described by a texture parameter.


We introduce a novel approach to neural learning: the Feature-Imitating-Network (FIN). A FIN is a neural network with weights that are initialized to reliably approximate one or more closed-form statistical features, such as Shannon's entropy. In this paper, we demonstrate that FINs (and FIN ensembles) provide best-in-class performance for a variety of downstream signal processing and inference tasks, while using less data and requiring less fine-tuning compared to other networks of similar (or even greater) representational power. We conclude that FINs can help bridge the gap between domain experts and machine learning practitioners by enabling re-searchers to harness insights from feature-engineering to enhance the performance of contemporary representation learning approaches.


This study explored issues surrounding the validity of Pennsylvania's Alternate System of Assessment (PASA) for students with visual impairments. The PASA is a performance-based assessment that assesses a sub-set of math and reading skills delineated by the State's alternate standards. Data from 286 students with visual impairments who took the 2005 Level A PASA at grades 3/4 or 7/8 were analyzed. Descriptive and statistical analyses compared achievement on the PASA between three groups of students with visual impairments at different levels of functional vision as well as to a matched group of peers without visual impairments. The latter comparison investigated differential item functioning (DIF) on each individual test item using the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test. In addition, types of accommodations made for students with visual impairments to provide access to the assessment and potential factors contributing to test bias were documented. Overall, the study confirmed expected patterns of accommodation selection by functional vision level with layout/set-up accommodations being the most frequently used. It also revealed a set of test items flagged for DIF statistically that did not always coincide with the test items judgmental reviewers would expect to be problematic or different for students with visual impairments. Among the three functional levels and the students with visual impairments as a whole, 29 instances of DIF in which a test item may have been potentially harder were found. In addition, there were 12 instances where a test item may have potentially been easier. A qualitative logical analysis highlighted a variety of variables that interact with the decision-making process to pinpoint potential reasons for the presence of DIF. Under-accommodation, the frequency of lucky guesses, score change patterns, and experience level with content were all factors suspected of contributing to performance on different types of test items. Discussion of these variables as well as interesting patterns in accommodation selection or the absence of accommodation selection is included. Challenges of and recommendations for adapting the PASA for students with visual impairments are provided as well as general discussion regarding aspects of assessing this population of students.