OBJECTIVE Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with the metabolic syndrome. Decreased omentin-1 levels are associated with obesity and diabetes. To study the effects of metformin treatment on omentin-1 levels in PCOS subjects and effects of omentin-1 on in vitro migration and angiogenesis. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Serum omentin-1 was measured by ELISA. Angiogenesis was assessed by studying capillary tube formation in human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1) on growth factor reduced Matrigel. Endothelial cell migration assay was performed in a modified Boyden chamber. Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) was studied by stably transfecting HMEC-1 cells with a cis-reporter plasmid containing luciferase reporter gene linked to five repeats of NF-κB binding sites. Akt phosphorylation was assessed by Western blotting. RESULTS Serum omentin-1 was significantly lower in PCOS women (P < 0.05). After 6 months of metformin treatment, there was a significant increase in serum omentin-1 (P < 0.01). Importantly, changes in hs-CRP were significantly negatively correlated with changes in serum omentin-1 (P = 0.036). In vitro migration and angiogenesis were significantly increased in serum from PCOS women (P < 0.01) compared with matched control subjects; these effects were significantly attenuated by metformin treatment (P < 0.01) plausibly through the regulation of omentin-1 levels via NF-κB and Akt pathways. CRP and VEGF induced in vitro migration, and angiogenesis was significantly decreased by omentin-1. CONCLUSIONS Increases in omentin-1 levels may play a role but are not sufficient to explain the decreased inflammatory and angiogenic effects of sera from metformin-treated PCOS women.


The study indicated that intravenously administered DF32P was a suitable label for mink erythrocytes. The mean survival time of erythrocytes of 29 adult male mink labelled with diisopropyl phosphorofluoridate32P(DF32P) was 92.2 + 4.1 (SEM) days. Three colour types were tested: standard dark, pastel and sapphire. No significant difference in erythrocyte life span relating to colour type was apparent in these animals.


ABSTRACT Some might fear that the local flavours of education will evaporate when encountering the hegemony of global, cognitive standards of the knowledge economy. This paper, however, shows that the evolution of curriculum can emerge in surprising directions, creating hybrid forms of education. We will investigate forms of meaning that emerge in Norwegian curriculum in the timespan 1988-2020, and show how systems theory can contribute to studying curriculum changes in a temporal perspective. The empirical case for investigation, is a diverse range of material, documenting curriculum changes in the mentioned period. Concepts from the late Luhmann's 'theory of distinctions' will thus be used to give meaning to the emergence of school reforms in Norway. The paper shows that Norwegian policy makers use increasingly complex deparadoxification strategies to deal with an uncertain future, conceptualized as externalization, oscillation, asymmetrisation, and internalization (re-entry). This is most pertinently demonstrated in the latest Norwegian reform LK20, in which a new, hybrid, 'temporal' construct of education, called "new-old-curriculum" or 'competence-Bildung' emerges. We thus contribute to the field of curriculum studies by observing how changing observations of the past and future fuel and legitimize the evolution of new reforms.


The phenomenon of molecular binding, where two molecules, referred to as a receptor and a ligand, bind together to form a ligand-receptor complex, is ubiquitous in biology and essential for the accurate functioning of all life-sustaining processes. The probability of a single receptor forming a complex with any one of L surrounding ligand molecules at thermal equilibrium can be derived from a partition function obtained from the Gibbs-Boltzmann distribution. We extend this approach to a system consisting of R receptors and L ligands to derive the probability density function p(r;R,L) to find r bound receptor-ligand complexes at thermal equilibrium. This extension allows us to illustrate two aspects of this problem which are not apparent in the single receptor problem, namely, a) a symmetry to be expected in the equilibrium distribution of the number of bound complexes under exchange of R and L and b) the number of bound complexes obtained from chemical kinetic equations has an exact correspondence to the maximum probable value of r from the expression for p(r;R,L). We derive the number fluctuations of r and present a practically relevant molecular sensing application that benefits from the knowledge of p(r;R,L).


Studies have been carried out within and around the operational area of the Chirano Gold Mine Ltd of Ghana to ascertain the baseline radioactivity levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials as well as artificial radionuclides in the surface and underground mines. The analysis was carried out by using gamma spectrometry to quantify the radionuclides of interest, namely (238)U, (232)Th, (137)Cs and (40)K in soil, ore, waste rock and water samples. The average activity concentrations of (238)U, (232)Th, (40)K and (137)Cs in the soil/rock samples were 9.79±5.39, 9.18±7.06, 237.40±144.34 and 0.64±0.57 Bq kg(-1), respectively. For the water samples, the average activity concentrations were 0.86±0.67, 0.97±1.33 and 9.05±10.45 Bq l(-1) for (226)Ra, (232)Th and (40)K, respectively. The total annual effective dose to the public was estimated to be 0.13 mSv, which is below the International Commission on Radiological Protection recommended level of 1 mSv for public exposure control. The study also assessed the elemental concentrations of U, Th and K in the soil/rock samples from the gold mine and surrounding communities. The average concentrations of the U, Th and K were 0.82±0.48, 2.18±1.77 µg g(-1) and 0.77±0.47 %, respectively. The concentrations of U, Th and K were variable in soil and rock samples taken from different locations in the study area with values varying in the range 0.28-2.21, 0.24-6.50 µg g(-1) and 0.28-1.87 %, respectively. The concentrations of U, Th and K are far lower than the world average values but comparable with the range of similar studies for different countries. The concentration values of gross-alpha and gross-beta for all the water samples were below the Ghana Standards Authority and World Health Organisation recommended guideline values for drinking water quality. The results obtained in this study also show that radiation levels are within the natural background radiation levels found in the literature and compare well with those of similar studies for other countries including Ghana.


The understanding of the immense and intricate topological structure of the World Wide Web (WWW) is a major scientific and technological challenge. This has been recently tackled by characterizing the properties of its representative graphs, in which vertices and directed edges are identified with Web pages and hyperlinks, respectively. Data gathered in large-scale crawls have been analyzed by several groups resulting in a general picture of the WWW that encompasses many of the complex properties typical of rapidly evolving networks. In this article, we report a detailed statistical analysis of the topological properties of four different WWW graphs obtained with different crawlers. We find that, despite the very large size of the samples, the statistical measures characterizing these graphs differ quantitatively, and in some cases qualitatively, depending on the domain analyzed and the crawl used for gathering the data. This spurs the issue of the presence of sampling biases and structural differences of Web crawls that might induce properties not representative of the actual global underlying graph. In short, the stability of the widely accepted statistical description of the Web is called into question. In order to provide a more accurate characterization of the Web graph, we study statistical measures beyond the degree distribution, such as degree-degree correlation functions or the statistics of reciprocal connections. The latter appears to enclose the relevant correlations of the WWW graph and carry most of the topological information of the Web. The analysis of this quantity is also of major interest in relation to the navigability and searchability of the Web.


Research on human–robot interaction has often ignored the human cognitive changes that might occur when humans and robots work together to solve problems. Facilitating human–robot collaboration will require understanding how the collaboration functions system-wide. We present detailed examples drawn from a study of children and an autonomous rover, and examine how children's beliefs can guide the way they interact with and learn about the robot. Our data suggest that better collaboration might require that robots be designed to maximize their relationship potential with specific users.


Experimental plots were treated with Ametryne, Diuron, Fluometuron, Norea and Prometryne at the rates of 4, 8, 16 and 32 pounds per acre. Terbacil was applied at the rates of 2,4,8 and 16 pounds per acre 13 months prior to soil sampling. Herbicide residues in soil samples collected from experimental plots were bioassayed using oats (Avena sativa L.) as the indicator plant. Residues present in the soil at the 0- to 4-inch depth were found to be relatively low in plots treated with 4 pounds per acre of Ametryne, Diuron, Fluometuron, Norea or Prometryne, or 2 pounds per acre of Terbacil. Residues were found to increase in the 0- to 4-inch depth as the rate of herbicide was increased. Fluometuron and Diuron were detected at rather high concentrations when applied at 16 and 32 pounds per acre. At the corresponding higher rates, only small to moderate amounts of Ametryne, Norea, Prometryne and Terbacil were detected. In general, Fluometuron, Diuron, Ametryne and Prometryne did not penetrate in appreciable amounts beyond the 0- to 4-inch depth regardless of the concentration. However, the greatest amount of Terbacil and Norea were found to accumulate in the 4- to 8-inch and 8- to 12-inch depths, respectively.


Millions of people across the globe invest in financial markets, hoping to increase their wealth or income. Investing is risky of course, but some investors seem to battle not only the market but also themselves. In recent decades behavioural economics has uncovered many patterns of trading behaviour which appear to work against the investors who display them, resulting in lower investment returns. For this reason, these patterns of behaviour are regarded as trading biases.

This thesis investigates two main themes that follow from the observation of trading biases in financial markets, both ultimately related to helping investors make better investment decisions. First, to what extent do individual investors reliably demonstrate trading biases? Second, why do these biases occur and can their impact be mitigated?

With respect to the first theme, is there evidence that some biases have trait-like characteristics, and predict investors' behaviour across a range of situations? This theme is related to the "state vs trait" argument from personality psychology. Applied here, the question is whether variation in trading behaviour is better explained due to environmental differences when decisions are being made (state), or because people differ in their tendencies to behave in certain ways (trait-like). If the latter, investors who tend to express biases would benefit from understanding their own decision-making patterns.

Note that the claim here is not that the biases are literally traits themselves, but that they have trait-like characteristics such as intra-individual stability and construct validity. The evidence presented in this thesis suggests that the biases examined possess these characteristics because their expression depends on some underlying behavioural tendencies; these underlying tendencies may be traits, though they are not directly investigated here.

With respect to the second theme, a suspected cause of many trading biases is the influence of irrelevant emotions on decision making. This thesis investigates evidence for the role of emotions in trading biases. It also investigates the use of cognitive reappraisal as a de-biasing technique (i.e. a method to reduce the level of bias displayed in trading decisions), which works by reducing emotions during trading.

The main bias which this thesis examines is the disposition effect. This occurs when investors are more eager to sell gains than losses, or stated another way, when they hold losses longer than gains. So, it is a bias that affects decisions about selling, based on the profit or loss made on each stock. Although the disposition effect is widely studied in behavioural finance, it has not been demonstrated to be a persistent pattern of an investor's trading behaviour. Experimental studies measure a mathematically defined disposition effect in the lab, but assume that this research can provide insight into the disposition effect observed in financial markets.

Meanwhile cognitive reappraisal, a form of emotion regulation, has been shown to reduce the disposition effect, but only in students and only using lab conditions that lack ecological validity. Furthermore, the mechanism for reappraisal's effect has not been investigated.

As well as investigating whether the disposition effect has trait-like characteristics, it also examines the "constituent biases" of the disposition effect, cutting gains and holding losses. Though the disposition effect is defined as a difference between selling gains and losses, the two are treated as two sides of the same behaviour rather than two separate trading patterns. This thesis argues that these constituent biases should be treated as separate biases, rather than two aspects of a unitary disposition effect. Building on the first theme, the constituent biases are also assessed for trait-like characteristics; building on the second theme, the effect of cognitive reappraisal on each constituent bias is examined.

This thesis contains three studies, two involving retail investors and one with an adult novice sample. All three involve measuring trading biases with an ecologically realistic trading simulation, played multiple times. The two studies with retail investors also include a disposition effect scale. Cognitive reappraisal is tested in one of the two studies with retail investors and in the study with novices.

I contribute to the literature in establishing that the disposition effect has trait-like characteristics aspects, by showing that it can be reliably measured in both an ecologically valid trading simulation and a self-report scale, and that these link to real-world trading behaviour. Furthermore, I show that the disposition effect is not a unitary bias but that its two constituent biases, cutting gains and holding losses, are independent of each other. They too have trait-like characteristics, and can also be reliably measured using the same ecologically valid trading simulation. However, levels of each bias in investors are not associated with each other. This contrasts with the conventional approach to the disposition effect that treats them as opposite sides of a unitary bias. I argue they are independent biases which are measured together in the disposition effect. Furthermore, as independent biases they are likely to be underpinned by different underlying traits.

I build on the existing literature by showing that the disposition effect occurs in retail investors using this trading simulation. I find that cognitive reappraisal reduces the disposition effect, while I make improvements in the external validity of this test in both the measurement of the disposition effect and participants used. I extend knowledge of emotion regulation and trading biases by showing that cognitive reappraisal reduces the disposition effect by decreasing the tendency to hold losses. Lastly, I show that cognitive reappraisal is not effective under the same conditions in novices (as opposed to retail investors). This reminds us of the merit of testing de-biasing techniques with greater ecological validity, and suggests that implementing de-biasing techniques in real world decision making may be more difficult than it first appears.


KËRBIZI, MACAJ Abstract. The aim of this article is to analyze the process of evaluation of Albanian literature in literary periodicals (print or online). The research aims to explain the nature of criticism of Albanian literature in accordance with three main periods of Albanian literary history (1920–1944; 1945–1990; 1991–present). The paper has a short chronological presentation of the main periodicals which deal with literature. It also deals with the reception of Albanian literature in old and new periodicals. Some of the most important research questions of this paper are: Is there a continuation in the critical approaches to Albanian literature from the beginning to the present? Do critics have a 'critical' interaction between them while they express their evaluation regarding literature? Who are the critics? Which is the core role of certain critics and periodicals? The methodology used in this paper embraces a historical, analytical, statistical and interpretative approach. The paper will be developed in two parallel sections. The first one will elaborate quantitatively official data related to the number of periodicals which deal with the evaluation of literature in its theoretical and critical aspects and the other section will describe, analyze and interpret the data. The research results tend to prove that the process of critical evaluation of Albanian literature has experienced similar characteristics with Albanian literature itself. The critical ref lection or criticism has turned out to be a refracting process. The critical evaluations are marred occasionally by low levels of professionalism or political interference.


This work presents the results concerning the application of a Discrete Fresnel Transform algorithm (DFT), which was upgraded for modeling and experimenting with scalar diffraction fields, whose characteristics are analyzed. The MATLAB® software environment was used to implement this algorithm, which allows the user to set the initial conditions, corresponding to the optical information at the input plane, by using a graphic friendly user interface (GUI). Then, by using the DFT algorithm, light propagation from the input to the output plane is achieved. The outputs of the algorithm are the maps corresponding to the 2-D distributions amplitude and phase-modulo 2π, or equivalently, the corresponding real and imaginary parts of the complex analytical field. Also, to assist the analysis, line profiles for these maps are provided. Results allow the user synthesizing Fresnel diffraction in presence of multiple components, like lenses, prisms, diffractive gratings, and holographic elements. Indeed, by implementing a series of successive steps, applications like image forming and spatial filtering can be demonstrated. The basis of the algorithm's architecture and some typical results, which closely resemble those from the experiments, are presented.


Conceding that a great deal has been written about which asset classes are best held in a taxable compared to a tax-deferred account, the author looks at investors who have taxable and tax-deferred accounts of varying size, varying investment horizons, income tax brackets that are less than 39.6% or will decline below 39.6% upon retirement, complex asset allocation strategies using five asset classes, and investors who can hold their asset until death, getting the step-up in cost benefit. Starting with the ultimate goal to recommend asset allocation strategies that maximize after-tax returns, the article proposes a rule of thumb for allocating a variety of asset classes between the tax deferred and taxable portfolios. It concludes with a number of tables that offer a quick means to calculate tax liability without the benefit of a computer model and illustrate the asset allocation strategies discussed within the article.


Trophobiotic interactions between ants and honeydew-providing hemi pterans are widespread and are one of the key mechanisms that maintain ant super-abundance in ecosystems. Many of them occur inside ant nests. However, these cryptic associations are poorly understood, particularly those with hoppers (suborder Auchenorrhyncha). Here, we study tree-dwelling ant and Hemi ptera communities in nests along the Mt. Wilhelm elevational gradient in Papua New Guinea and report a new case of this symbiosis between Pseudolasius emery, 1887 ants and planthoppers. Furthermore, we provide a worldwide review of other ant-hopper interactions inside ant-built structures and compare their nature (obligate versus facultative) and distribution within the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. The novel interactions were observed in nests located at the tree trunk bases or along the whole trunks. Only immature planthopper stages were found inside nests, so full species identifications were not possible. However, nymph morphology and molecular data (18S and COI genes) indicated four related species of the family Flatidae (infraorder Fulgoromorpha) associated with Pseudolasius. Ant-planthopper occurrences were relatively rare (6% of all trophobiotic interactions) and peaked at mid-elevation (900 m above sea level). Pseudolasius was the only genus associated with planthoppers in the communities, with most cases monopolised by a single species, P. breviceps emery, 1887. In contrast, all other ant genera tended various scale insects (Sternorrhyncha: Coccoidea). This apparent partner-specificity is rare: Worldwide, there are only about ten reported cases of obligate symbiosis in ant nests, distributed in five of the thirty-three Auchenorrhyncha families. Those trophobioses are randomly dispersed across the Auchenorrhyncha phylogeny, and thus likely originated multiple times independently. Further research on both adult and nymph hopper life history is needed to answer how these symbioses, notably rare in hoppers compared with other hemi pterans, are maintained.


Following the recovery from an initial infection with SARS-CoV-2, a recent meta-analysis of almost 1 million patients worldwide suggested that an estimated 43% of patients had experienced a variety of sequelae [1].  Furthermore, numerous studies indicate that patients can develop somatic, musculoskeletal, neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular, dermatologic, renal, hepatic and gastrointestinal manifestations that are heterogeneous and vary in intensity and duration (for up to 12 months) [2,3]. The CDC has defined this phenomenon as "long-term symptoms that might be experienced weeks to months after primary infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 [4]" and proposed designations for this syndrome have included long covid, long chronic covid syndrome, chronic covid, post-COVID-19 syndrome, post-acute covid-19 syndrome and long – haulers [5]. On Feb. 23, 2021, Dr. Francis Collins indicated that the persistent symptoms that occur in patients after recovery from the initial infection could be designated, post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), which we will use in this article. Currently, there is no clear or agreed upon definition or diagnostic criteria for PASC. PASC is most likely a post-infectious illness similar to that reported by patients that had long - term sequelae that persisted for up to 14 months after infection with SARS-CoV-1 or the Middle Eastern respiratory SARS virus (MERS) [6].
Read more in PDF: https://www.bjbms.org/ojs/index.php/bjbms/article/view/6901/2437


Similar to some other tissues such as the gut, the skin is colonised by a dense community of commensal microorganisms. Maintaining the balance of this diverse flora may be important for healthy skin. Changes in the composition of cutaneous microbial communities have been linked to several chronic inflammatory skin diseases, including atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and acne. Acne is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the pilosebaceous follicle. The association between Propionibacterium acnes and acne vulgaris has been well established, but very few studies have investigated the total facial skin microbiota of acneaffected patients. Three-dimensional topographic analyses and microbiome profiling have, however, revealed differences in microbiome composition between healthy skin and acne lesions, as well as natural differences in microbial colonisation between the sebaceous gland and surface skin.1 Furthermore, bacterial communities of the skin are involved in immune homeostasis and inflammatory responses important in the development of all acne lesions.2 This improved understanding of the interactions between skin microbiota and the innate immune response in acne may provide a platform to design efficacious treatment strategies, specifically concerning the role of dermocosmetics to protect the skin microbiome.


During electrochemical machining (ECM) of metals, the electrolyte gets polluted by heavy metal ions and compounds. This creates crucial process control problems due to variation in electrical conductivity and is an environmental threat if the solution is discharged without treatment. In this study, an economical, simple multistep treatment system based on ion-exchange was developed to remove metal ions from the polluted electrolyte. We specifically looked at the electrolytic discharge from ECM of copper pieces, which is widely used in biomedical and electronic applications. Three different ion-exchange media were used: (1) a natural zeolite, (2) a special type of adsorbent quantitative filter paper, and (3) a polymer-based synthetic cation-holder resin (Lewatit TP 207) that works well with copper ions. Optimization studies for pH and contact time showed the following: (1) by using zeolite alone, and after 2 h of mixing, 43.2% of Cu2+ could be removed; (2) by using the filter paper alone, and after three times of filtration, 90% of Cu2+ could be removed; and (3) by using Lewatit TP 207 alone, 100% of Cu2+ could be removed. While Lewatit TP 207 allowed for 100% removal of Cu2+, its use alone is costly and troublesome due to constraints from service life and multistep regeneration and conditioning with strong acids and bases, respectively. The most simple and economical scheme for removal of Cu2+ and recycling the electrolyte for reuse was the three-step zeolite-filter-resin treatment system.


The distortion obtained in the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) output due to increasing use of rectifiers in critical loads an effective strategy is needed to control the output of UPS system. Sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) and space vector pulse width modulation (SVPWM) are the most popular PWM techniques for three phase UPS system. As compared to SPWM, SVPWM is much effective in reducing harmonics and distortions caused by highly non linear loads. In this paper space vector based control strategy is presented for three phase UPS system that are operating under highly nonlinear loads. The proposed controller generates gating signals and guarantees high quality output at the load. SIMULINK is used to design and analyse the controller for three phase ups system.


While integrating information flows between internal organizational functions and across partner firms is widely acknowledged as a contributor to organizational competitiveness, there is little empirical research on the effects of situational factors on the success of information integration. Based on contingency theory, we address the following question: Under what circumstances does information integration contribute to better performance outcomes in supply chain management (SCM)? Our results provide a contingency perspective of information integration, which highlights that the performance outcomes of information integration are contingent on both external environmental conditions and internal operational characteristics. We find that information integration improves firms' ability to perform, particularly when they operate under favorable environmental conditions—a highly munificent and a less uncertain environment—and when they offer durable and complex products. Our findings advance contingency research on the performance outcomes of information integration for SCM. Our study provides managers with empirical insights on the effects of information integration on the cost and customer-oriented operational performance of SCM under favorable and unfavorable environmental conditions.


Background/Aim: The aim of the study was to compare echocardiographic parameters and the perfusion index (PI) and plethysmographic variability index (PVI) values obtained by routine pulse oximetry in the diagnosis of hemodynamically significant patent ductus arteriosus (hsPDA). Materials and Methods: This prospective study was conducted between 2016 and 2017 at the HacettepeUniversity Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The study included premature neonates who had a birth weight below 1500 g. Patients were routinely monitored from the right wrist and right foot using a pulse oximeter (Masimo Radical-7® Pulse CO-Oximetry), and PI and PVI values were recorded. The difference between right-hand and right-leg PI values was calculated as the delta PI (ΔPI). A cardiologist blinded to the results evaluated the presence of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) with echocardiography on postnatal days 1th, 3rd, and 7th. Results: Of the 66 preterm neonates included in the study, 23 had hsPDA. On postnatal day 1, the hsPDA group had a significantly greater ductal diameter, PDA/left pulmonary artery (LPA) ratio, and left ventricle (LA)/aortic (Ao) ratio (P < 0.05). On day 7, the hsPDA group had a significantly higher ductal velocity, PDA/LPA ratio, LA/Ao ratio, antegrade PA and LPA diastolic flow, and LV/Ao ratio (P < 0.05). In hsPDA group, the median ΔPI values were 0.85 (25–75 interquartile range [IQR]; 0.62–1.15) on day 1; 1.03 (25–75 IQR; 0.85–1.26) on day 3; and 0.89 (25–75 IQR; 0.64–1.22) on day 7. The median (25–75 IQR) ΔPI values were higher in the hsPDA group than in the non-hsPDA group on postnatal days 1, 3, and 7 (P < 0.001, P < 0.001, and P < 0.001, respectively). The ΔPI cutoff values for the diagnosis of hsPDA were 0.47 on day 1 (91.3% specificity; 90.5% sensitivity), 0.41 on day 3 (100% specificity; 97.3% sensitivity), and 0.47 on day 7 (90% specificity; 100% sensitivity). Conclusions: Our study shows that the difference between PI values (ΔPI) in the right hand and right leg obtained by pulse oximetry has diagnostic value in hsPDA and can assist diagnosis when echocardiography is not available.


This article examines methodological issues of emotion and allegiance in relation to researching, from archival sources, gender representation in mid-20th-century cases of women accused of murder. Through a discussion of four women's cases, I explore this as a deeply ambivalent experience because the research induced both empathic and negative feelings towards the women. This seemed to conflict with my aims as a feminist researcher to highlight derogatory constructions of gender in the criminal justice system. I argue that a reflexive approach is necessary in order to carry out sensitive archival research and conclude that negotiating the attendant ambivalence and complexity deepens ethical engagement.


Video streaming is becoming an increasingly important part of the present Internet. To guarantee a high-quality streaming environment to end users, many video applications require a strict form of network QoS that is not available in the present Internet. Thus, to supplement the best-effort model of existing networks, we study a new video streaming framework that allows applications to mark their own packets with different priority and use multiqueue congestion control inside routers to effectively drop the less-important packets during buffer overflows. We describe priority AQM algorithms that provide "optimal" performance to video applications under arbitrary network loss and study a variation of Kelly's congestion control in combination with our framework. We call the combined architecture PELS - partitioned enhancement layer streaming.


The development of ocularcentric culture can be traced through the modes and history of representation. The omnipotence of form and a visual aesthetic within contemporary architecture parallels this notion of visual primacy. The role of imagery within contemporary design practice is twofold: it is both a tool for investigating spatial realities and the product of a systematic design process. Emotive spaces are created when perceptual phenomena are in the vanguard rather than the aftermath of constructed objects. Through the reconsideration of image, as a multi-dimensional design tool, the spatial realities of the built context are investigated. Within film and contemporary media, architectural imagery combines with the temporal realm to enrich user perceptions of the built environment. The restoration of architecture as a communicative medium is facilitated by restructuring its current model from a formal object generated by a system of abstract geometries into a perceptual model.


The fundamental features of 'colonial modernity' had to be overcome during and after the colonial period can be classified as follows. Creation of a nation-state, eliminating the system of outflow or loss of resources instituted by 'colonial capitalism,' creation of the democratization process, and identification and recovery of its own cultural and historical tradition. Western modernity can be reached more efficiently by exploiting colonies and their accompanying 'colonial modernity' of The Third World. After all, the conquest of modernity in world history originated in the conquest of those contradictions of 'colonial modernity' that all the Third World countries have experienced. This paper has treated briefly the problems of the consequences of 'economic growth and development' under the rule of imperialists or 'colonial capitalism.' By my rough estimate, even though the flow of funds needs more accurate analysis, the amount of funds flowing out of and being lost within Korea were 4-5 times greater than its funds flowing into Korea from Japan. This outflow represents more than half of the estimated GDP of 55 billion yen during the colonial period. But this estimate excludes the exploitation of materials, mineral resources, and human beings, all of which is very difficult to measure quantitatively. Nevertheless, some historians confuse the current form of capitalism with the essence of 'colonial capitalism'. Since the economic prominence of South Korea in the last three decades, Western historians generally have a tendency to limit their focus to certain legacies - railroads, roads, harbors, civil registries, and so on - remained after Japan's withdrawal, never saying that South Korea had been filled with numerous poverty-stricken people for over 20 years after independence in 1945 despite aid from USA and colonial legacies. These interpretations assume that it was impossible for the colony to modernize by itself concealing the actual exploitation. Moreover, it must be considered that even these by-products of exploitation or strategic planning to execute war rather than products of charity, were demolished almost completely during the Korean War(1950-1953) in South and North Korea. And per capita income(it represents productivity or economic growth) of North Korea where the pro-Japanese group was eliminated and the degree of damage during the Korean War was more severe, higher than in South Korea until 1973.


The development of low-affinity fragment hits into higher affinity leads is a major hurdle in fragment-based drug design. Here we demonstrate an approach for the Rapid Elaboration of Fragments into Leads (REFiL) applying an integrated workflow that provides a systematic approach to generate higher-affinity binders without the need for structural information. The workflow involves the selection of commercial analogues of fragment hits to generate preliminary structure-activity relationships. This is followed by parallel microscale chemistry using chemoinformatically designed reagent libraries to rapidly explore chemical diversity. Upon completion of a fragment screen against Bromodomain-3 extra terminal (BRD3-ET) domain we applied the REFiL workflow, which allowed us to develop a series of tetrahydrocarbazole ligands that bind to the peptide binding site of BRD3-ET. With REFiL we were able to rapidly improve binding affinity >30-fold. The REFiL workflow can be applied readily to a broad range of protein targets without the need of a structure, allowing the efficient evolution of low-affinity fragments into higher affinity leads and chemical probes.


Purpose: Aim of the paper is to provide an ex-ante valuation model to address risk and uncertainty in real estate investment decisions. We propose a model for risks assessment that helps to evaluate risks and opportunities of real estate assets taking into consideration different aspects of the project and related risks (market risk, valuation risk, market growth risk, operating risk, etc.). Our main objective is rather to provide research tools that reveal the riskiness of a property investment than to provide an interpretative model.Design/Methodology/Approach - Rigorous risk assessment measures, based on mathematical algorithms, are here presented. Specifically, we propose an overall risk scoring model to classify real estate investments' riskiness and we propose a procedure for a synthetic risks assessment that, based on the AHP model, will help investors to manage risk exposure and opportunities in property investments.Findings - We define the risk components and relative measures according to the literature and experts in real estate investments. We determine each risk component by implementing the mathematical algorithms provided. Then, according to a pool of experts and financial managers' judgments, we define the thresholds to classify each risk component as conservative, moderate, aggressive and finally we aggregate them into a synthetic overall risk index. Numerical examples on urban development projects are presented in order to test the effectiveness of the AHP model in supporting decisions and adapting strategies to a permanently changing environment.Research limitations/implications - We provide mathematical algorithms, adaptable and interpretable, that can be generally applied in real estate investments. The proposed model can be easily understood by third parties and applied to different property types. Risk measures and relative thresholds may be dependent on the investment (e.g. new development, renewal, etc.) and the property type (e.g. office vs residential building, etc). As far as the scoring model is concerned, the weighting has been identified with reference to the Italian scenario, and similarly the classification of risks.Originality/values - The risk assessment model here proposed may have interesting effects in terms of risk management strategies. Results are transparent and easy to be understood.


Here, we consider the memory management designs of a sampling of six recent processors, focusing primarily on their architectural differences, and hint at optimizations that someone designing or porting system software might want to consider. We selected examples from the most popular commercial microarchitectures: the MIPS R10000, Alpha 21164, PowerPC 604, PA-8000, UltraSPARC-I, and Pentium II. This survey describes how each processor architecture supports the common features of virtual memory: address space protection, shared memory, and large address spaces.


In the 1970s and 1980s, a small group of American engineers recognised the importance of the graph-colouring ideas studied by mathematicians and the potential for these ideas to be used in practical radio frequency assignment procedures. Some groundbreaking work led to a long period of study in academia where many variants on the Frequency Assignment Problem have been considered and some advanced algorithms developed. This thesis has investigated the Frequency Assignment Problem for microwave fixed links and, taking account of the constraints experienced in professional practice, extended this to include the problem of Equipment Selection.
For a particular data-rate, standard radio equipment using relatively lower-or higher order modulation schemes can be deployed by the fixed link operator. While the higher-order options use less bandwidth, they radiate at higher powers and require more protection in the radio interference environment. That is, they are more potent interferers and present a greater challenge to distant interferers. Therefore, when the assigner's objective is to minimise the span of frequencies used by a network, the higher-order modulation radio is not always the most spectrally efficient. The thesis has hypothesised that by doubling the bandwidth requirement on selected links, the assigner can actually reduce the overall span of frequencies used to support a frequency assignment for the entire network.
With a minimum span objective, fixed link deployment scenarios have been exposed to a standard IP Solver that gives exact solutions. Using graph-theoretic methods, equipment selection heuristics have been developed and tested in offline and online environments. This work has gathered significant evidence in support of the hypothesis.


One hundred forty-eight cases of orthognathic surgery were evaluated for incidence of infection; 68 had antibiotic prophylaxis and 80 did not. Only three instances of infection occurred, all in the group that had received antibiotics. Results of this study disprove the necessity for routine prophylactic use of antibiotics in most types of orthognathic surgery.


Introduction: Pelvic and acetabulum fractures are commonly caused by high impact injuries, increasing the risk of patients developing thromboembolic diseases such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). Therefore, this study was performed to determine the incidence of lower extremity DVT in patients with pelvic and acetabulum fractures and the importance of preoperative screening with Doppler ultrasound prior to surgical intervention. Materials and methods: This retrospective study involved 78 patients with pelvic and acetabulum fractures requiring surgical intervention from January 2015 until December 2019. Patients who underwent surgical interventions were screened pre-operatively with Doppler ultrasound to detect lower limb DVT and later compared with the incidence of lower limb DVT post-operatively. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 24. Results: The participants of this study consisted of 30.8% females and 69.2% males. Pre-operative screening with Doppler ultrasound showed that three patients (3.8%) were diagnosed with lower limb DVT, whereas one of them (1.3%) was symptomatic and diagnosed with PE. Postoperatively, one patient developed DVT, and one patient developed PE. Both patients were negative for DVT preoperatively. Conclusion: The incidence of DVT in patients with pelvic and acetabulum fractures requiring operative intervention was significant despite the initiation of mechanical and pharmacological thromboprophylaxis upon admission. Despite the low incidence of DVT in our study, it has a high impact on patients' morbidity and mortality; thus, preoperative screening is important for early detection and the subsequent reduction of the risk of developing PE. The compulsory use of Doppler ultrasound of bilateral lower limbs as a part of pre-operative screening is highly recommended because it is cost-effective, efficient and readily available in most tertiary hospitals nationwide.


This thesis presents a novel technique for the quantitative characterisation of bathymetric data sets. The technique integrates three main geomorphometric methods: morphometric attributes and their statistical analyses, feature-based quantitative representation, and automated topographic classification. These methods allow useful morphological information to be extracted from bathymetric data and can significantly enhance submarine geomorphological investigations. The methods are applied to bathymetric data from the Storegga Slide, one of the largest known submarine landslides, to investigate three aspects of submarine mass movements: spreading, fractal statistics and morphology and slide development. The morphological signature of spreading, in the form of a repetitive pattern of ridges and troughs, covers at least 25% of the Storegga Slide scar. Two modes of failure can be identified for submarine spreading. The first involves retrogressive slide development via the unloading of the headwall. The second entails the extension of a thin coherent slab of semi-consolidated material downslope by gravity. Both modes of failure involve the break up of surface sediment units into coherent blocks and their displacement along planar slip surfaces. The block movement pattern entails an exponential increase of displacement, and thinning of the failing sediment, with distance downslope. Loss of support and seismic loading are the main potential triggering mechanisms of submarine spreading. Analysis of headwall morphologies within the Storegga Slide reveals the occurrence of spatial scale invariance. One explanation for this scale invariance is that the Storegga Slide is a geomorphological system that may exhibit self-organised criticality. Spatial scale invariance may also be linked to the retrogressive nature of the Storegga Slide. The shape and fractal dimension of headwalls, on the other hand, can be used as a proxy for the type and number of the formative mass movements. A detailed reconstruction of the development of the north-eastern Storegga Slide shows that after the initial evacuation of the surface sediment as turbidity currents, the area failed as an extensive spread. The spreading blocks subsequently underwent higher displacement and remoulding, and were partly removed by debris flows and turbidity currents. The renewed instability within the spreading areas may have been related to gas hydrate dissociation and pore pressure increases due in response to the changing overburden, and the distribution of contourite drift deposits within underlying palaeoslide scars.


To meet a variety of needs in information modeling, software development and integration as well as knowledge management and reuse, various groups within industry, academia, and government have been developing and deploying sharable and reusable models known as ontologies. Ontologies play an important role in knowledge representation. In this paper, we address the problem of capturing knowledge needed for indexing and retrieving art resources. We describe a case study in which we attempt to construct an ontology for a subset of art. The aim of the present ontology is to build an extensible repository of knowledge and information about artists, their works and materials used in artistic creations. Influenced by the recent interest in colours and colouring materials, mainly shared by French researchers and linguists, an ontology prototype has been developed using Protege. It allows to organize and catalog information about artists, art works, colouring materials and related colours.


Pastures, forages, and grasslands dominate the landscape across the United States and support a large ruminant population that supplies the nation with value-added animal products. A historical perspective is presented of the innovations as they occurred in the Journal of Animal Science over the past 100 yr in pasture and forage research. Consideration was given to both animal and pasture perspectives. Areas given consideration from the animal perspective were schemes for feedstuff analysis, experimental design and statistics, forage sample preservation, indirect methods of measuring intake and digestion, TDN and energy, nutritive value, harvested forage, and innovations in the grazing environment. Areas given consideration from the forage perspective were a framework for forage-animal interface research, determining pasture yield, choice of stocking method, grazing management, partitioning of forage DM, near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy technology, antiquality constituents, and forage sample preservation. Finally, the importance was discussed of applying research results from the forage-animal interface to general ruminant nutrition research beyond the interface that is focused on altered diets.


Abstract We studied V-shaped twins of chrysoberyl (BeAl2O4) from Rio das Pratinhas pegmatites near Arataca in the Bahia state of Brazil. The local structure of the twin boundaries was determined using powder X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) methods, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. To provide the most reliable model for DFT and HRTEM simulations the structure of chrysoberyl was first refined in the orthorhombic space group 62 (Pmnb) with unit-cell parameters: a = 5.4825(1) Å, b = 9.4163(2) Å, and c = 4.4308(1) Å, with 0.5 at% of Fe3+ present on the Al(2) sites, suggesting an average composition of BeAl1.99Fe0.01O4. TEM study of V-shaped twins showed that the twin boundary lies in the (130) planes, and the angle measured between the crystal domains related by mirror twin operation is ∼59.5°. Rigid structural model of (130) twin boundary in chrysoberyl was refined by DFT calculations, using a pseudo-potential method. The twin boundaries show local enrichment with Ti. Bulk chrysoberyl contains numerous nanosized TiO2 precipitates with a distorted rutile structure, following the orientation relationship of [001]Ch{120}Ch||[010]R{103}R. The increase of Ti at the twin boundaries and the formation of rutile-type TiO2 precipitates in bulk chrysoberyl suggest a transient Ti-exsolution that took place after the twin formation.


This study was conducted under the CGPRT sponsored project on "Prospects of Feed Crops in South Asia-Pakistan (Feed)" to generate information on historical dynamics, future trends of demand and supply for feed crops/products, evaluation of potentials, weaknesses, opportunities and constraints for expanding feed crop farming in Pakistan, proposing possible schemes for trade and development of feed crops among Asian countries and the formulation of policy options to promote sustainable development of feed crop farming in Pakistan. In Pakistan, feed crops, which are being used in livestock and poultry feeding as grains, are mainly wheat, maize, sorghum and millet. These cereal crops are basically grown to meet human dietary requirements with a primary focus on wheat and rice. The milling by-products of wheat and rice i.e. brans, rice polish and rice tips are used in animal feeding. This study concludes that to achieve self-sufficiency in feed crops, there is a strong need to accelerate research and development to evolve appropriate and cost effective technologies.


Reducing sedentary behaviours can help prevent non-communicable diseases, particularly among young adolescents with long term illnesses or disabilities (LTID). Much of young people's voluntary sedentary time is related to screen-time behaviours (STBs) such as TV viewing, playing computer games, and using the computer for other activities. Although public health data on adolescents' STB is growing, information about adolescents with LTID is currently lacking in a European context. The purpose of this study is to compare time on STBs between adolescents with and without LTID in European Countries through the HBSC 2013/14 study. Young adolescents (n = 61,329; boys 47.8%) from 15 European countries reported the time spent on TV viewing, playing computer games, and using the computer for other purposes on weekdays and the weekend. STBs were dichotomised based on international recommendations of less than 2 h per day, and Chi-square tests of independence were performed to investigate differences. STB time was combined to produce a sum score as dependent variable in multiple analysis of covariance with age and family affluence as covariates. There were statistically significant differences in computer gaming among boys and other computer use among girls for both weekdays and weekends, whereby adolescents with LTID reported higher use. In addition, both boys and girls with LTID spent more time on STBs than their same sex peers without LTID (Boys, F = 28.17, p < 0.001; Girls, F = 9.60, p = 0.002). The results of this study indicate a need for preventive strategies to address high levels of STB among young adolescents with LTID and reduce the risk of poor health outcomes associated with higher levels of sedentary behaviour.


Gallium nitride, aluminum nitride and indium nitride are basic materials for blue optoelectronic devices. The essential part of the technology of these devices is annealing at high temperatures. Thermodynamic properties of the Ga–N system and their consequences to application of high nitrogen pressure for the annealing of GaN based materials are summarized. The diffusion of Zn, Mg and Au in high dislocation density heteroepitaxial GaN/Al2O3 layers will be compared with the diffusion in dislocation-free GaN single crystals and homoepitaxial layers. It will be shown that high dislocation density can drastically change the diffusion rates, which strongly affects the performance of nitride devices. Inter-diffusion of Al, Ga and In in AlGaN/GaN and InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) structures will be also considered. It will be shown that in contrast to stability of metal contacts, which is strongly influenced by dislocations, the inter-diffusion of group III atoms in QW structures is not affected strongly by the presence of high dislocation density. This is related to the different rate controlling slow process in these two diffusion processes. This feature of interdiffusion processes explains the success of heteroepitaxial techniques in the technology of nitride based light emitting diodes.


In order to test whether there is the change of mechanics performance cleaned by ultrasonic and deruster, the experiments on mechanics performance and sensitivity of hydrogen embrittlement have been conducted. During the experiments, 20Cr2Ni4A steel are selected as the materials, which endure the relatively great concussion load in the bad condition, and the gaps' long-time permanence experiments and short-time tension and concussion experiments have been done. Through the compare of mechanics performances and the SEM analysis of tensile fracture surface of the samples, it can be proved that the mechanics performances and rupture mechanism are the same, no matter whether the materials are cleaned by ultrasonic and deruster or not. These indicate that it doesn't bring the change of mechanics performances and hydrogen embrittlement to clean the materialss by ultrasonic and deruster.


Low-temperature direct wafer bonding was successfully performed under medium vacuum level. A mathematical model was developed based on the qualitative understanding of the bonding mechanisms. The model combined the diffusion-reaction model of water in SiO/sub 2/ and the diffusion theory in porous media. It is found that the model agrees well with the experimental data. This model can be applied to predict the effects of annealing time, annealing temperature, ambient vacuum, wafer orientation, and wafer dimension on the bond strength.


Turbulence is generally characterized by random, chaotic motion and has always been a challenging problem for fluid dynamists. Several methods for generating turbulent boundary conditions for computational fluid dynamics are in use today. One of the methods is by adding random white-noise to the averaged velocity profiles to generate turbulence in the flow field, which can be considered as the simplest and inexpensive method. Recently, another method has been introduced, which is based upon a digital filter to generate turbulent inflow data. This paper presents a comparison of the digital filter-based turbulent inflow data generation technique with three different methods within the framework of the large eddy simulations technique using the fifth- and second-order accurate methods in space and time, respectively. The case for comparison/analysis is a sonic jet of air injected transversely into a supersonic (Mach 1.6) stream of air, for which experimental and classical large eddy simulation data were available. It is demonstrated that the random white-noise-based turbulent inflow data dissipate immediately in the computational domain, giving incorrect velocity and pressure profiles. At the same time, the importance of two-point Exponential correlation used in the digital filter-based technique is demonstrated by scaling the random white-noise with the Reynolds stress tensor and ignoring the correlation. This improved the results compared with pure random white-noise, but still exhibits a high initial dissipation rate because the energy is not distributed over the required range of wavenumbers. It is demonstrated that the digital filter-based turbulent inflow data generation technique provides a reliable, accurate and consistent turbulent boundary layer in the flow field, which is required for the capture of correct flow physics. It is also demonstrated that the computational cost involved in all the methods presented is almost identical.


The NADYA Group, integrated in the Spanish Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (SENPE), and made up of professionals dedicated to Artificial Nutrition, and specifically, to Artificial Nutrition in the home, annually undertakes the task of collecting data on diagnosis, type of support, follow up characteristics, complications, and quality of life, of patients included in programs of at home artificial nutrition in Spain. In the Annual Register corresponding to 1994, 17 hospitality groups have participated, providing 369 patients with Home Enteral Nutrition, and 30 with Home Parenteral Nutrition. Home Enteral Nutrition is mainly applied in patients with neoplasias (36%) or neurological alterations (35%). The most commonly used access route in the nasogastric tube, although there is an observed increase in the application of Percutaneous Gastrostomies (21%) in relation to previous data of the Spanish population. There is an observed complications index of 0.07 episodes/patient-year, a mortality of 30% (neoplasias) and 20% (neurological alterations), and low rehabilitation indexes in this group. In Home Parenteral Nutrition, post-radiation enteritis, neoplasias, and mesenteric ischemia, are the main diagnostic groups. The majority of the patients have a tunneled tube (63%), with 37% using an implanted tube. With an index of hospitalizations of 0.83 hospitalizations/ patient-year, catheter septicemia justifies the majority of the re-hospitalizations derived from nutritional treatment (0.56 hospitalizations/patient-year), note the mortality of 37%. There are complete rehabilitations, continuing the previously normal activity in 80% of the cases.


Terahertz imaging finds more and more applications in homeland security, medical, and life sciences applications. While THz sources and detection systems are gaining ground, the ability of electronics conversion systems to keep up with the development of these systems seems to be lagging behind. The THz domain is largely dominated by thermal noise and material characteristics altered by individual and collective modes of molecular vibrations and rotations. Currently, analog-to-digital (ADC) conversion systems are seen as the bottleneck for THz applications. ADC systems available to date have to down-convert the THz frequency into GHz domain and then digitize the signal, adding to the complexity, weight, size, and power requirements of any such system. Using a series of electromagnetic input resonator that selects the band and polarization in series with a plasmon resonator-amplifier the detected electromagnetic signal is applied to a very low current FET. The detection is based on the nonlinear carrier perturbation process that makes the function of a downconverter. A fast ADC is digitizing the detected signal applying it to a set of fast memories. The detection chain repeated for various frequencies and grouped in a single multiband module eye unit, is further integrated into the imager.


This article investigates the idiosyncratic risk of investing in Islamic capital market equities. It aims to answer the question: do stocks included (excluded) in the Shari'ah Index have higher (lower) idiosyncratic risks? We used the FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Shari'ah Index (FBMEI) launched in 2007 to investigate whether stocks added and deleted from this Shari'ah-compliant index had higher or lower idiosyncratic risks. The estimation results show that the idiosyncratic risk of stocks added to the FBMEI was high during the bearish market and low during the bullish market. Our estimation results from a rolling regression show that, on average, idiosyncratic risk for the stocks deleted from the FBMEI is relatively higher compared to idiosyncratic risk for the stocks added to the FBMEI.


BACKGROUND: Diagnostic tools to identify incipient or subclinical TB stages will be helpful for preventive intervention. A simple biomarker to predict TB may be the monocytes to lymphocytes ratio (ML ratio) in peripheral blood.METHODS: We assessed the relationship between multiple time-updated ML ratio measurements and incidence of TB in people living with HIV (PLWH) after antiretroviral therapy (ART) was initiated. The ML ratio was updated at least every 6 months. TB incidence with corresponding 95% confidence intervals stratified according to time-updated ML ratio was calculated using ML ratio in quartiles.RESULTS: A total of 1305 PLWH were included in the analyses: 46 had incident TB and 1259 remained TB-free. The TB incidence rate was 10.3 (95% CI 7.1-14.9) cases/1000 patient-years (PYR) among participants with ML ratio ≥0.25 compared with 1.1/1000 PYR (95% CI 0.4-2.9) among those with ML ratio <0.15. At cut-point 0.23, the ML ratio provided a diagnostic area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AROC) of 0.849 (95% CI 0.784-0.914) and a sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 71%.CONCLUSION: Increased ML ratio was predictive of incident TB among PLWH on or after ART. The ML ratio can be a simple tool to stratify the risk of TB in PLWH.


Summary

Neonicotinoid insecticides are routinely used as seed treatments on most grain and oilseed crops in the USA, yet the extent and likelihood of spread of insecticide residues during planting has not previously been quantified.

Honey bees, Apis mellifera, are highly mobile and highly sensitive to neonicotinoid residues, presenting an opportunity to estimate non-target exposures to neonicotinoids in mobile insects. We measured neonicotinoid dust drift during maize sowing and used sites of maize fields, apiary locations and honey bee foraging radii to estimate likelihood of forager exposure. We performed a concurrent multi-year field assessment of the pest management benefits of neonicotinoid-treated maize.

Our results indicate that over 94% of honey bee foragers throughout the state of Indiana are at risk of exposure to varying levels of neonicotinoid insecticides, including lethal levels, during sowing of maize. We documented no benefit of the insecticidal seed treatments for crop yield during the study.

Synthesis and applications. We demonstrate movement of neonicotinoid residues well beyond planted fields occurs during maize sowing in Indiana. Based on locations of maize fields and apiaries in the state, the likelihood of neonicotinoid exposure for foraging honey bees is high. Other non-target organisms are also likely to encounter neonicotinoid residues; we conservatively estimate that deposition of neonicotinoid residues on non-target lands and waterways will occur on over 42% of the state of Indiana during the period of maize sowing. However, we also demonstrate that the risk to pollinators and other non-target organisms may be rapidly and dramatically reduced without yield penalties, by aligning use rates of neonicotinoid insecticides with pest incidence.


Optimizing performance using low cost scalable processing and substrates is critical if functional oxide thin films are to achieve commercialisation. Here, we present a comprehensive investigation of the role of low cost Al2O3, SrTiO3, and MgO substrates in the structure, microstructure and electrical properties of SrTiO3 (ST) thin films, deposited by sol–gel processing. We demonstrate that the dielectric properties of polycrystalline ST films depend on the strain/stress induced by the substrates. ST films deposited on Al2O3/Pt substrates under a high tensile stress possess the smallest grain size and present the lowest value of the relative permittivity, er, with the lowest dielectric tunability. In contrast, ST films deposited on MgO/Pt substrates, under the highest compressive stress, have the highest value of er, tunability and polarization. It is thus demonstrated that for polycrystalline ST films the relative permittivity and dielectric tunability may be optimised through an induced compressive stress state.


: The theory of image recognition was used to design clinico-statistical models of patients with neurotic disorders and healthy persons. 535 patients with neuroses and 204 mentally healthy persons were used as material for investigation. Based on a complex of anamnestic, psychological and clinical characteristics the assessment function developed makes it possible to distribute the examined into groups of a high risk for the disease development and of healthy persons. The diagnostic algorithm ensures proper recognition of patients with neurotic disorders (in 93-95% of cases). The use of the diagnostic algorithm for automated screening of neuroses enables the increased demonstration of the pathology and reduction of expenses for conduction of mass prophylactic screenings.


The paper is concerned with the study of 86 patients from 9--18 years who suffered from hysterical, affective-shock reactions and reactive depressions, accompanied by suicidal acts. Suicidal tendencies in these conditions appeared following acute psychic traumas. Their formation was facilitated by different unfavourable factors. As the children become older there is a complication not only of the clinical picture of the psychogenic disorder, but of the suicidal syndrome. The suicidal act in children proceeds impulsively, while in adolescency there is a presuicidal period. The stability of suicidal tendencies depends upon the depth of depressions; repeated suicides from the expressiveness of psychopathical personality traits and the existence of unsolved psychotraumatizing situations. Language: ru


With rapid economic development in recent years, Yantai city's comprehensive strength has been significantly enhanced. Meanwhile, such problems as environmental and ecological protection has become increasingly prominent, which forms barriers preventing it from further growth in long run.The sustainable economic development vigor of Yantai has a strong practical significance. By building an evaluation index system with no quantitative treatment of data, this paper obtains economic development index of Yantai including social development, resource development, environmental development and comprehensive economic development index, and accompanied by analysis of its sustainable development. Finally, the author points out problems of economic development of Yantai, and puts forward related measures.


Rapid growth in urbanization and industrialization leads to an increase in air pollution and poor air quality. Because of its adverse effects on the natural environment and human health, it's been declared a "silent public health emergency". To deal with this global challenge, accurate prediction of air pollution is important for stakeholders to take required actions. In recent years, deep learning-based forecasting models show promise for more effective and efficient forecasting of air quality than other approaches. In this study, we made a comparative analysis of various deep learning-based single-step forecasting models such as long short term memory (LSTM), gated recurrent unit (GRU), and a statistical model to predict five air pollutants namely Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Ozone (O3), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), and Particulate Matter (PM2.5, and PM10). For empirical evaluation, we used a publicly available dataset collected in Northern Ireland, using an air quality monitoring station situated in Belfast city centre. It measures the concentration of air pollutants. The performance of forecasting models is evaluated based on three performance metrics: (a) root mean square error (RMSE), (b) mean absolute error (MAE) and (c) R-squared (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{R}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). The result shows that deep learning models consistently achieved the least RMSE compared to the statistical models with a value of 0.59. In addition, the deep learning model is also found to have the highest <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{R}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> score of 0.856.


Tetrachloroethene (PCE) is one of the grave environmental pollutants. Certain anaerobic bacteria have the ability to dechlorinate PCE as an electron acceptor for their respiration (dehalorespiration). Previously, we accumulated PCE-dechlorinating culture in the presence of Fe(III)-EDTA. In this study, we have described the regulation of dehalorespiration by electrolytic control of the Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratio using a potentiostat (electrochemical cultivation). PCE-dechlorinating culture was cultivated under H2 conditions at constant redox potentials ranging from –0.1 to –0.8 V. After electrochemical cultivation for 3 weeks, PCE-dechlorinating activity of the mixed culture varied at different redox potentials. At –0.6 V, the culture showed the highest activity and the highest ratio of Desulfitobacterium/total bacteria. Electrochemical cultivation is a useful method for regulating PCE-dechlorinating bacterium.


This work introduces an efficient and accurate interconnect simulation technique. A new formulation for typical VLSI interconnect structures is proposed which, in addition to providing a compact set of modeling equations, also offers a potential for exploiting sparsity at the simulation level. Simulations show that our approach can achieve 50 /spl times/ improvement in computation time and memory over INDUCTWISE (which in turn has been shown to be 400 /spl times/ faster than SPICE) while preserving simulation accuracy.


Based on years of input from the four geodetic techniques (SLR, GPS, VLBI and DORIS), the strategies of the combination were studied in SHAO to generate a new global terrestrial reference frame as the material realization of the ITRS defined in IERS Conventions. The main input includes the time series of weekly solutions (or fortnightly for SLR 1983–1993) of observational data for satellite techniques and session-wise normal equations for VLBI. The set of estimated unknowns includes 3-dimensional Cartesian coordinates at the reference epoch 2005.0 of the stations distributed globally and their rates as well as the time series of consistent Earth Orientation Parameters (EOPs) at the same epochs as the input. Besides the final solution, namely SOL-2, generated by using all the inputs before 2015.0 obtained from short-term observation processing, another reference solution, namely SOL-1, was also computed by using the input before 2009.0 based on the same combination of procedures for the purpose of comparison with ITRF2008 and DTRF2008 and for evaluating the effect of the latest six more years of data on the combined results. The estimated accuracy of the x-component and y-component of the SOL-1 TRF-origin was better than 0.1 mm at epoch 2005.0 and better than 0.3 mm yr−1 in time evolution, either compared with ITRF2008 or DTRF2008. However, the z-component of the translation parameters from SOL-1 to ITRF2008 and DTRF2008 were 3.4 mm and −1.0 mm, respectively. It seems that the z-component of the SOL-1 TRF-origin was much closer to the one in DTRF2008 than the one in ITRF2008. The translation parameters from SOL-2 to ITRF2014 were 2.2, −1.8 and 0.9 mm in the x-, y- and z-components respectively with rates smaller than 0.4 mm yr−1. Similarly, the scale factor transformed from SOL-1 to DTRF2008 was much smaller than that to ITRF2008. The scale parameter from SOL-2 to ITRF2014 was −0.31 ppb with a rate lower than 0.01 ppb yr−1. The external precision (WRMS) compared with IERS EOP 08 C04 of the combined EOP series was smaller than 0.06 mas for the polar motions, smaller than 0.01 ms for the UT1-UTC and smaller than 0.02 ms for the LODs. The precision of the EOPs in SOL-2 was slightly higher than that of SOL-1.


Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies and a leading cause of cancer deaths in the worldwide (1). Liver transplantation is the only treatment option to cure both HCC and hepatic dysfunction simultaneously; however, because of limited availability of donor organs, transplantation is applied in a minority of patients who meet the Milan criteria (2). Hence, surgical resection is recommended as the first treatment option, although less than 30% of HCC patients are eligible at diagnosis owing to functional status, comorbidities, extent of disease, or hepatic decompensation in the setting of underlying liver disease (3). For unresectable HCC, patients are treated with various local ablative modalities, including radiofrequency ablation (RFA), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), microwave ablation, cryoablation, and percutaneous ethanol injection.


Estimating species abundance via transects and quadrats has the advantage over other methods (such as mark‐recapture) that they can be less expensive and do not require handling the animals. Transect–quadrat sampling along habitat boundaries with complex geometry often leads to uneven selection probability over the sampling region. These uneven selection probabilities must be properly taken into account in constructing unbiased estimates of abundance. This requires that the selection probabilities be known by design or be computable. We discuss the implications of this requirement on sampling design and introduce a computational method based on a cubic‐spline approximation to the habitat margin for estimating the selection probabilities. We present the method in the context of a study of Pacific herring ( Clupea pallasi) egg abundance along coastal southeast Alaska, and show that an unbiased estimate constructed based on the computed selection probabilities (the Horvitz–Thompson (H‐T) estimator) corrects for a potential bias in the estimate for egg abundance relative to the unweighted sample mean estimate. The sampling strategy used in the herring study, together with our method for computing the sampling probabilities, provides an economical and effective way to study species abundance along curvy habitat boundaries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


During the last 20 years, processes of social, spatial or economic exclusion suffered by a growing number of people identified as ʻRoma' in Europe were progressively investigated and better documented, as, for instance, legal (or para-legal) measures implemented against Roma migrants living in precarious settlements in Western Europe. Over the same period, international or European institutions, national authorities and many NGOs significantly developed local or regional initiatives for ʻRoma inclusion'. From ethnographic investigations conducted during several years in two French cities which have implemented social support and housing projects toward Roma immigrants families (Bulgarian in one case, Romanian in the other), this article firstly aims to highlight the effects of the contradictions and paradoxes characterizing the launch and running of many ʻinclusion policies' which, like exclusion policies, are frequently based on stereotypical conceptions of ʻRoma' as well as of ʻsocial integration'. Reversing the point of view, we will secondly light the way the ʻtarget families' of these projects may nevertheless succeed to preserve leeway and to develop different forms of local insertion, using (or not) resources provided by public policies as well as personal and family resources. In so doing, this paper proposes to address the role and value of informality and ʻproductive misunderstandings' in these dynamics of emancipation and effective integration taking place in a strongly binding context.


This work aims to characterize the hydrodynamic and thermal behaviors in an innovative scraped surface heat exchanger (SSHE) equipped with helical ribbon by means of the numerical simulation approach. In this study, the conservation equations of continuity, momentum, and energy in the laminar, steady-state and isothermal conditions are resolved using a specific computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code based on the 3D finite volume method. The effects of the gap between the exchanger wall and the tip of the ribbon, the ribbon width, and the number of turns in the ribbon on the hydrodynamic and thermal behaviors are studied. Varying the gap values leads to reveal an optimum value giving the highest heat transfer coefficient. Moreover, numerical results have shown that increasing the ribbon width improves the heat transfer. Furthermore, the influence of the number of turns is carried out for Reynolds number ratios (Rer/Rea) inferior and superior to 1. Results revealed that increasing the number of turns avoids the back-mixing phenomenon and thus improves the heat transfer. In this study, the establishment of correlation is determined with the introduction of dimensionless and geometrical groups to predict the heat transfer coefficient in SSHE.


Germ cell tumours (GCT) are the most common testicular neoplasms, seen mainly in young adults. Rarely they can affect extragonadal tissues, either as primary tumours or as metastases, most commonly to retroperitoneal lymph nodes. A 'burned-out' testicular tumour is a metastatic GCT with a relatively occult primary testicular tumour, which has histologically spontaneously regressed. We report a case of a 26-year-old man who presented with an acute history of lower back pain and leg swelling. CT demonstrated a large retroperitoneal soft tissue mass causing right-sided hydronephrosis with inferior vena cava and iliofemoral vein thrombosis. Although clinical examination of the testis was normal, ultrasound imaging of the scrotum identified a burned-out testicular primary. Orchiectomy confirmed the diagnosis and the patient responded well to chemotherapy, with no viable residual tumour on follow-up imaging. However, despite nephrostomy insertion, a dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) scan demonstrated loss of function of the right kidney after treatment.


The world in recent times has leaned towards increased use of renewable energy which is because of spiking cost of fossil fuels, environmental impact etc. Solar energy from the sun has seen a lot of application recently mainly due to its availability and scalability. Sunlight is composed of photons--packets of solar energy. When photons strike a photovoltaic (PV) cell, they may be reflected or absorbed, or they may pass right through. The absorbed photons generate electricity. The energy of a photon is transferred to an electron in an atom of the semiconductor device. An array of solar cells converts solar energy into a usable amount of Direct Current (DC) electricity. This paper presents a PV solar farm system using electricity usage data obtained from a utility provider in a rural area (Prairie View) in Texas, while examining factors that may affect solar energy integration in the area. The results of the power and voltages generated at different temperatures are analyzed and compared.


This monograph certainly fills a need. The fact that a second edition was necessary after such a short time, speaks for the demand. The text is designed to serve the needs of the emergency-room physician, whether he or she is a surgeon, a family practitioner, an intern, or a first-year resident in ophthalmology. The material is presented in a clear and concise form that can be easily digested. The book should be available in every emergency room.


Radius Angle Histogram (RAH) is useful method of retrieving 3D mechanical models. This method, however, not completely uses the information of radius angle histogram of the model. As a result, the retrieval precision is not very high enough. To improve the retrieval efficiency, K-means clustering method (KMM) is proposed in this paper. The radius angle histograms of the models are established first and then be served as inputs as KMM, respectively. By using KMM, the models can be classified and the results can be obtained. To validate the proposed method, an experiment is given. The results show that the retrieval precision of the proposed method is higher than that of single using RAH method.


The capacity of the channel defined by the stochastic nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which includes the effects of the Kerr nonlinearity and amplified spontaneous emission noise, is considered in the case of zero dispersion. In the absence of dispersion, this channel behaves as a collection of parallel per-sample channels. The conditional probability density function of the nonlinear per-sample channels is derived using both a sum-product and a Fokker-Planck differential equation approach. It is shown that, for a fixed noise power, the per-sample capacity grows unboundedly with input signal. The channel can be partitioned into amplitude and phase subchannels, and it is shown that the contribution to the total capacity of the phase channel declines for large input powers. It is found that a 2-D distribution with a half-Gaussian profile on the amplitude and uniform phase provides a lower bound for the zero-dispersion optical fiber channel, which is simple and asymptotically capacity-achieving at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). A lower bound on the capacity is also derived in the medium-SNR region. The exact capacity subject to peak and average power constraints is numerically quantified using dense multiple ring modulation formats. The differential model underlying the zero-dispersion channel is reduced to an algebraic model, which is more tractable for digital communication studies, and, in particular, it provides a relation between the zero-dispersion optical channel and a 2 × 2 multiple-input multiple-output Rician fading channel. It appears that the structure of the capacity-achieving input distribution resembles that of the Rician fading channel, i.e., it is discrete in amplitude with a finite number of mass points, while continuous and uniform in phase.


In several design codes and specifications, simplified formulae and charts are given for determining the effective lengths of frame columns. It is shown that these formulae may yield rather erroneous results in certain cases. This is due to the fact that, the code formulae utilise only local stiffness distributions. In this paper, a simplified procedure for determining approximate values for the buckling loads of braced frames is developed. The procedure utilises a fictitious load analysis of frames and yields errors less than 10%, which may be considered suitable for design purposes. The proposed procedure is applied to several numerical examples and it is shown that all the errors are in the acceptable range.


In continental collision zones, the indentor is of approximately the same vertical dimension as the material being deformed, thereby allowing material to move over the indentor and out of the deforming orogen. This simple constraint on the height of the indentor differs from that imposed by the bulldozer model of wedge deformation and results in the formation of an orogen with two opposite-dipping topographic slopes. These two wedges are mechanically coupled, and the mechanics are strongly influenced by the erosion conditions imposed on the wedge. Where the growing mountains perturb prevailing, moisture-laden winds, the erosion pattern is highly asymmetric, erosional work being concentrated at the toe of the steep wedge facing the indentor (the inboard wedge). Concentration of erosional energy results in concentration of mechanical energy in the same region and produces the distinctive geological and geophysical patterns associated with continental collision. These include rapid uplift and exposure of deep crustal assemblages adjacent to the indentor accompanied by high crustal heat flow and anomalously low seismicity. The outcrop pattern along the inboard wedge evolves from that of a crustal cross section currently exposed in the Southern Alps to one dominated by repetitive nappe structures consisting predominantly of lower crustal units, as in the western Alps of Europe. The other wedge (the outboard wedge) undergoes relatively little erosion, is broad with a more gentle surface slope, and maintains an outcrop pattern consisting of upper crustal material.


The article discusses the creation of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (idndr, 1990–1999), a global observance event that emanated neither from within the United Nations – for whom until then disaster management or rights of disaster victims had not been a real priority – nor from within civil society organizations or governments. In actuality, it was primarily a scientist-led initiative. This article suggests that this episode is a rare example of a joint effort on the part of a scientific community to create international scientific institutions to deal with the issue of disaster risk. The framing of the issue as "scientific" by earth scientists led the UN Secretariat and governments to embrace an issue that they had hitherto neglected. However, archival evidence also suggests that the eventual takeover of the project by the UN bureaucracy weakened the role of earth scientists in the idndr and changed its orientation.


We present a novel video stabilization method which models camera motion with a bundle of (multiple) camera paths. The proposed model is based on a mesh-based, spatially-variant motion representation and an adaptive, space-time path optimization. Our motion representation allows us to fundamentally handle parallax and rolling shutter effects while it does not require long feature trajectories or sparse 3D reconstruction. We introduce the 'as-similar-as-possible' idea to make motion estimation more robust. Our space-time path smoothing adaptively adjusts smoothness strength by considering discontinuities, cropping size and geometrical distortion in a unified optimization framework. The evaluation on a large variety of consumer videos demonstrates the merits of our method.


Geochronological studies in northern Wedel Jarlsberg Land, southwestern Svalbard (Norway), showed that the Tonian (c. 950 Ma) igneous rocks were subjected to metamorphism during the Torellian (c. 640 Ma) and early Caledonian (470–460 Ma) events. Predominant augen gneisses, derived from a Tonian protolith, are intercalated in that area, with schists comprising two distinct metamorphic mineral assemblages. The M1 (Torellian) assemblage containing garnet-I + quartz + plagioclase-I + biotite-I + muscovite-I was formed under amphibolite-facies conditions at c. 550–600 °C and 5–8 kbar (1 kbar = 100 MPa). The M2 (Caledonian) assemblage comprising garnet-II + quartz + plagioclase-II + biotite-II + muscovite-II + zoisite + chlorite crystallized at c. 500–550 °C and 9–12 kbar, corresponding to epidote–amphibolite facies conditions. The M2 mineral assemblage constitutes the pervasive Caledonian fabric of the schists that was subsequently reactivated in a left-lateral strike-slip shear regime. The subsequent c. 70° clockwise rotation of the original structure to its present position was caused by a large-scale passive rotation during the Paleogene Eurekan orogeny. The new pressure–temperature estimates suggest that metamorphic basement in the study area was consolidated during the Torellian middle-grade event and then overprinted by Caledonian moderate- to high-pressure subduction-related metamorphism. A following sinistral shear zone assembled the present structure of basement units. Our results pose a question about the possible extent of Torellian precursor to the Caledonian basement across the High Arctic and the scale of its subsequent involvement in early Caledonian subduction. In conjunction with previous studies, the results suggest a possible correlation between southwestern Spitsbergen and the Pearya Terrane in Ellesmere Island.


This paper studies the infinite-time and finite-time synchronization of coupled harmonic oscillators with distributed protocol in the scenarios with and without a leader. In the absence of a leader, the convergence conditions and the final trajectories that each harmonic oscillator follows are developed. In the presence of a leader, it is shown that all harmonic oscillators can achieve the trajectory of the leader in finite time. Numerical simulations of six coupled harmonic oscillators are given to show the effects of the interaction function parameter, algebraic connectivity and initial conditions on the convergence time.


This study adds to the empirical evidence of information and communication technology (ICT) use by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study draws on qualitative data collected from eight focus groups segmented by gender and consisting of adult farmers in two villages, in central Mozambique. Special attention was given to the types of ICTs that farmers have access to and the dissemination of agriculture information through various ICTs. Findings indicate that the characteristics of ICTs explain why cell phone and radio use is prevalent, while access to television remains limited. The type of information accessed also varied by ICT type, implying that innovation characteristics affect not only their diffusion, but practical use. Drawing from the Diffusion of Innovations theory, the characteristics and extent of use for each ICT were examined to understand ICT diffusion better.


OBJECTIVES
Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is the most common nosocomial infection in intensive care patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of previous antibiotic therapy on the incidence of VAP, mortality and spectrum of bacterial pathogens.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The retrospective, observational study comprised patients over 18 years of age meeting the clinical criteria of VAP. Controls were patients requiring mechanical ventilation for more than 48 hours with no signs of VAP. Each group was divided into two arms according to previous antibiotic therapy. Tracheal aspirates and oropharyngeal swabs were taken from all patients. Cultured isolates were identified using standard microbiological techniques. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed according to the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing guidelines. In both groups, 28-day mortality, 90-day mortality and multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial pathogen frequency were evaluated.

RESULTS
The study included 49 patients (32 patients with previous antibiotic therapy, 17 antimicrobial-naive patients). The proportion of individuals with previous antibiotic therapy was significantly lower in VAP patients (34%) than among controls group (66%; p = 0.02). The VAP criteria were met by 23 patients (11 with previous antibiotic therapy, 12 without the therapy). The Enterobacteriaceae including extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing strains and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were the most common pathogens isolated. MDR pathogens were statistically significantly more frequent in patients with previous antibiotic therapy (77% vs. 33%; p = 0.047). In patients with previous antibiotic therapy, 28-day mortality was lower (18%; n = 2) than in antimicrobial-naïve patients (33%, n = 4; p = 0.640). The difference was more pronounced in 90-day mortality, albeit with low statistical significance (18%, n = 2 vs. 58%, n = 7; p = 0.089).

CONCLUSIONS
Previous antibiotic therapy was associated with a lower incidence of VAP and a higher frequency of MDR bacterial pathogens. VAP antibiotic therapy modified according to knowledge of previous antibiotic therapy and cultured isolates was correlated with lower 28-day and 90-day mortality rates.


The biological synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) was conducted using date palm pit aqueous extract. The first visible sign of the synthesis of AgNPs was the change in colour of reaction mixtures from yellowish to reddish brown. The resulting synthesised AgNPs were characterised using UV-visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The UV-visible spectra gave surface plasmon resonance at 428 nm. XRD confirmed that the silver particles formed in our experiments were in the form of nanocrystals. TEM images revealed the formation of AgNPs with spherical shape and sizes in the range between 1-40 nm. DLS showed nanoparticles with an average size of 27 nm. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy indicated the role of different possible functional groups (carboxyl, amine, aromatic and hydroxyl) in the formation of AgNPs. AgNPs were stable at 28°C in vitro for over a year without any precipitation or decreased production of antimicrobial effect. Then, the antifungal and antibacterial activities of synthesised AgNPs were investigated. The synthesised AgNPs showed significant inhibitory effects on Rhizoctonia solani (AG2_2) cultures, so that the concentration of 25 µg/ml prevented approximately 83% of the mycelium growth of the fungus. Then, the broth macro-dilution method was used for examining antibacterial effect of AgNPs. The minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericide concentration against Klebsiella pneumonia (PCI 602) and Acinetobacter baumannii (ATCC 19606) were recorded as 1.56 and 3.12 µg/ml AgNPs, respectively.


Stock prices show a reference for investors in making investment decisions, stock prices often change according to supply and demand teams. period 2017-2019. Sample selection was done by using purposive sampling technique. In this study, the sample used was the Financial Sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the 2017-2019 period as many as 52 companies with the amount of data processed for 3 years, namely 156 companies. The type of data used is secondary data obtained from the Indonesia Stock Exchange website, namely www.co.id in the form of company financial statements. In this study using multiple analysis tools using the SPSS program with version 21.0. The regression equation of this study is Y = -1.523 + 0.863 X1 + 0.603 X2. The results of this study indicate that ROA has no effect on stock prices. while Roe has a positive and significant influence on stock prices. Meanwhile, Roi has no effect on stock prices and Size has no effect on stock prices.


It is widely believed that a little flexibility added at the right place can reap significant benefits for operations. Unfortunately, despite the extensive literature on this topic, we are not aware of any general methodology that can be used to guide managers in designing sparse (i.e., slightly flexible) and yet efficient operations. We address this issue using a distributionally robust approach to model the performance of a stochastic system under different process structures. We use the dual prices obtained from a related conic program to guide managers in the design process. This leads to a general solution methodology for the construction of efficient sparse structures for several classes of operational problems. Our approach can be used to design simple yet efficient structures for workforce deployment and for any level of sparsity requirement, to respond to deviations and disruptions in the operational environment. Furthermore, in the case of the classical process flexibility problem, our methodolo...


Manufacturing of large steel tube structures is faced with excessive welding, fit-up and rework times in tube joints, due to various types of deviation from nominal shape of the tubes. This article presents a procedure and geometry calculus for generating cutting and welding paths based on measured geometries. The procedure poses the two measured meshes as per construction specification and invokes a mesh intersection procedure to get the mesh intersection path; performs an optional smoothing; interpolates the smoothed path to a specified angular resolution; estimates the two surface normal vectors and the two surface tangents in the plane spanned by the normals at each interpolation point; calculates the cutting tool and welding tool approach directions for obtaining the specified welding groove geometry at each interpolation point; and finally stores all the data parameterized by the interpolation angle. Illustrations of results with both synthetic, representative meshes and meshes obtained from scanning of actual tubes at the shop-floor at a manufacturer are presented. The reference implementation for the developed software tool is based on Python and uses the mesh modeller from the 3D creation suite Blender as platform.


The design of high power ultrasonic cutting devices is based on tuning a blade to a longitudinal mode of vibration at a low ultrasonic frequency, usually in the range 20-100 kHz. To achieve the required cutting amplitude, gain is designed into the blade via profiling. It is expected that the use of higher-gain blades could enable longitudinal-mode guillotine-type cutting of a range of materials traditionally difficult to cut using this technology. Using a conventional high-gain blade, a feasibility study of ultrasonic cutting of bone is conducted using compact tension specimens of bovine femur. Finite element (FE) models are created, based on the assumption that the ultrasonic blade causes a crack to propagate in a controlled mode 1 opening. The models are compared with the experimental data collected from ultrasonic bone cutting experiments. Although the proposed cutting mechanism is supported by the data, the blade gain is insufficient to enable through cutting of long bone or other difficult to cut materials. Consequently, the paper examines the relationship between gain, profile, stress and nodal position for a range of ultrasonic cutting blades with increased gain.