To evaluate bone metastasis from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), both bone and 99mTc-HM-PAO scintigraphies were performed in six patients with clinically and pathologically confirmed HCC. Two patients had a bone scintigram which revealed abnormal accumulation in the skull base, pelvic bone and thoracic spine. The 99mTc-HM-PAO scans of both these patients also showed abnormal accumulation in the same sites. The bone scintigrams in one patient revealed not only abnormal accumulation in the ribs but also photon deficient areas in the sternum, thoracic spine and femur, while 99mTc-HM-PAO scans showed abnormal accumulation in all these sites. In three patients, bone scintigraphy revealed photon deficient areas in the ribs, pelvic bone and femur, and their 99mTc-HM-PAO scintigrams showed abnormal accumulation in the same sites. Thus, it was shown that, in the detection of bone metastasis from HCC by means of bone scintigraphy, it was necessary to pay attention to hot and cold lesions, and that a combination study with 99mTc-phosphorous compounds and 99mTc-HM-PAO was useful in evaluating these lesions.


Abstract : Nearly one million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). More than 15% of Gulf War veterans (GWV) were found to have CFS. The disease significantly reduces work production of civilian patients and combat ability/readiness of US military forces. Increasing scientific evidence suggests that CFS is a biological illness involving pathology of the central nervous system (CNS). However, little is known about how the CNS is affected by CFS. This study will focus on evaluating brain activities of CFS patients during fatigue and non-fatigue muscle exercises. Our hypothesis is that the brain activation pattern in CFS differs from that of healthy controls. Aim 1 of the study is to determine brain activation patterns during motor activity in CFS patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Aim 2 is to examine brain activation patterns during motor activity in CFS patients by analyzing signals of electroencephalograms. Aim 3 is to evaluate signal relationships among different brain regions and between the brain and muscle. Measurements will be made from four groups of participants: a civilian CFS group, a civilian control group, a GWV CFS group, and a GWV control group. We expect that the study will provide objective information for diagnosis of CFS.


Laboratory-reared dogs were fed moose musculature infected with Sarcocystis alceslatrans. These dogs shed sporocysts [15.6 X 11.4 microns (14.4 to 15.8 X 10.8 to 11.5)] 11 to 15 days after inoculation. The prepatent period was 10 to 14 days. Two cats and 1 coyote that also ate infected moose musculature did not pass sporocysts. Histologic examination of intestinal tissue from experimentally infected dogs revealed microgamonts, macrogametes, and oocysts. All stages were present in the lamina propria of the small intestine, usually in the luminal third of the villi. Infections were concentrated in the proximal half of the small intestine. Oocysts were first noticed in dogs killed 7 days after inoculation and a sequence of sporogonic development occurred in dogs killed on subsequent days. Ultrastructural observations were made on the oocyst and sporocyst walls during sporogony.


ABSTRACT The current study aimed to assess the type of content posted on Twitter by British gambling operators and gambling affiliates; third-party firms who are financially incentivized to attract custom to gambling operators. Five thousand and twenty-nine tweets from 5 gambling operators and 8315 tweets from 5 gambling affiliates were collected over a 2-week period. A summative content analysis was carried out whereby each tweet was coded for its main content. Tweets were grouped together into content categories and the percentage of tweets in each content category was calculated for both operators and affiliates. The nine categories of content found were: direct advertising, betting assistance, sports content, customer engagement, humour, update of current bet status, promotional content, safer gambling and 'other'. Gambling operators had a higher proportion of posts in the sports content and humorous content categories, whilst affiliates had a higher proportion of posts within the direct advertising and betting assistance categories. These findings suggest that the affiliates were more direct in their posting style whereas operators followed a more indirect approach, reflective of a branding strategy. Future research should address how interacting with different types of gambling content on social media impacts upon gambling attitudes and behaviour.


As modern breweries began to expand in Africa during the late twentieth century, alcoholism became an increasing cause for concern. Drinking patterns shifted away from traditional norms as relaxed government policies seemed to sanction indiscriminant selling and access to alcohol. Alcohol dependence and problem drinking became increasing concerns as related social problems became more pronounced. Winick's theory of drug/alcohol dependence is used as a framework for illuminating the problematic use of alcohol in Africa during the late twentieth century. Key factors include access to dependence producing substances; disengagement from negative proscriptions about their use; and role strain and/or role deprivation. Measures for addressing these issues are discussed along with future strategies for tackling the continuing problem of alcoholism in Africa.


The Chickasawhatchee Swamp is an expansive palustrine wetland located primarily in western Dougherty, eastern Calhoun, and northern Baker Counties, Georgia, in the Dougherty Plain district of the Coastal Plain physiographic province. The Chickasawhatchee Swamp is underlain by a shallow carbonate aquifer that may have a pronounced effect on the hydrologic signature of the wetland. The Swamp likely functions both as a groundwater recharge area and as a groundwater discharge area for the Upper Floridan aquifer. In the wetlands, the shallow aquifer is overlain by poorly drained swamp-alluvial soils, however, in areas where erosion has removed the overburden the carbonate rocks that comprise the aquifer are exposed. Nine wells tapping the Upper Floridan aquifer were installed in a spatially distributed pattern over the western part of the Swamp. A conceptual aquifer framework was developed and single-well aquifer tests were conducted. Each well was pumped at a low, intermediate, and high pumping rate that ranged from about 5 to 60 gallons per minute to evaluate yield characteristics, well efficiency, and aquifer response. Test results indicate the transmissivity ranges from about 1,140 to 21,300 square feet per day over the study area. The calculated transmissivity did not vary significantly between the three pumping rates which indicates that aquifer response is linear and that low volume, single-well pumping tests conducted in small-diamete r wells can be used to develop representative estimates of aquifer transmissivity.


Measuring reaction times to number comparisons is thought to reveal a processing stage in elementary numerical cognition linked to internal, imprecise representations of number magnitudes. These intuitive representations of the mental number line have been demonstrated across species and human development but have been little explored in decision making. This paper develops and tests hypotheses about the influence of such evolutionarily ancient, intuitive numbers on human decisions. We demonstrate that individuals with more precise mental-number-line representations are higher in numeracy (number skills) consistent with previous research with children. Individuals with more precise representations (compared to those with less precise representations) also were more likely to choose larger, later amounts over smaller, immediate amounts, particularly with a larger proportional difference between the two monetary outcomes. In addition, they were more likely to choose an option with a larger proportional but smaller absolute difference compared to those with less precise representations. These results are consistent with intuitive number representations underlying: a) perceived differences between numbers, b) the extent to which proportional differences are weighed in decisions, and, ultimately, c) the valuation of decision options. Human decision processes involving numbers important to health and financial matters may be rooted in elementary, biological processes shared with other species.


The standard prediction error method (PEM) in system identification for estimating output error models is studied. The PEM has recently been proposed to be formulated in the frequency domain, and in this context it has been pointed out that a periodic excitation signal give many advantages. The most immediate is data reduction when using data averaged over the periods, We will here project the main results onto the time domain, and show how to utilize a nonparametric noise model as a pre-filter to increase accuracy and numerical convergence speed in output error modeling. A possible drawback with using only the averaged data is decreased estimation accuracy when the system and noise model have common parameters. A new result is presented that shows how the nonparametric noise model can be used to recover the original accuracy for ARX models.


To investigate knowledge of current requirements concerning clinical research among researching physicians, and to compare this knowledge among physicians in different research areas, a survey based on twenty-two questions was sent to 1000 hospital physicians in the Copenhagen area. Forty six percent and three hundred and four of these were used for further analysis. Eighty-two percent of the physicians replied that they had knowledge of GCP, nevertheless only 24% were able to recognize the meaning of the terms "monitor", "investigator" and "SOP". When asked about six different fictitious situations concerning making reports to an Ethical Review Board, only 33% replied correctly to all reporting situations. A frequent distinction was seen between physicians who respectively had or had not co-operated with the pharmaceutical industry for trials of medicinal products during the past three years.


This letter extends the concept of the active element pattern method that is used to solve the array radiation problem when scattered fields of large finite arrays are calculated. We name this method the original induced element pattern method (OIEPM). The theoretical derivation of the method is presented. In addition, to overcome the limitation and simplify the operation of the OIEPM, an improved induced element pattern method (IIEPM) is proposed, which transforms the large array calculation problem into two small array problems. Unlike the OIEPM that requires calculation of the induced element pattern (IEP) of all the elements of the subarray, the IIEPM merely needs to calculate the fully scattered field of two small arrays. Meanwhile, the effects of the mutual coupling between elements and the edge diffraction are rigorously taken into account. Compared to other numerical and active (or induced) element pattern methods, the IIEPM can greatly reduce the computational cost and simplify the operational procedure. Examples of microstrip patch antenna arrays are analyzed to assess the accuracy and generality of the IIEPM. Numerical examples show that the scattering patterns calculated by the IIEPM and those simulated by the HFSS are in good agreement.


BACKGROUND
We previously reported that febuxostat was more effective for hyperuricemia than allopurinol. The efficacy, however, of topiroxostat (a novel xanthine oxidase reductase inhibitor similar to febuxostat), for hyperuricemia is unknown.Methods and Results:Patients with cardiovascular disease and hyperuricemia, in whom serum uric acid (s-UA) was controlled at ≤6 mg/dL, were eligible for enrollment. Fifty-five patients were randomized to receive either febuxostat or topiroxostat for 6 months and were switched to the other drug for the following 6 months. The primary endpoint was s-UA. Secondary endpoints included serum creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate, urinary albumin, cystatin-C, oxidized low-density lipoprotein, eicosapentaenoic acid/arachidonic acid ratio, lipid biomarkers, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and B-type natriuretic protein. Although s-UA level was similar for both drugs, significantly more patients required dose escalation during treatment with topiroxostat. There were no differences in renal function, inflammatory and lipid markers between the 2 drugs. A biomarker of oxidative stress was significantly lower after 3 months of febuxostat compared with topiroxostat.

CONCLUSIONS
Febuxostat causes more marked and more rapid reduction of s-UA than topiroxostat. With regard to the antioxidant effect, febuxostat was superior to topiroxostat after 3 months. The renal protective and anti-inflammatory effects of both drugs were also similar after 6 months of treatment. Thus, both of these agents were similarly effective for hyperuricemia in patients with cardiovascular disease.


The Universe today is observed to be extremely homogeneous and isotropic on large scales. The dipole anisotropy of the microwave background, due to the relative motion of the Earth, is measured to be less than one part in 10 4. The quadropole component, due to intrinsic anisotropies, is even smaller. Thus, any viable mathematical or physical description of the large scale properties of the Universe must encompass the observational evidence and reflect this large degree of uniformity. The most popular, and certainly the most successful, description of the Universe at the present epoch is provided by the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological models. These spherically symmetric models consider the Universe as an isotropic, spatially homogeneous, perfect fluid matter distribution, which is in a state of dynamic evolution. All of the FRW cosmologies exhibit an expansion, i. e. the volume of the spatial sections varies with time, during some stage of their evolution, in agreement with the observed expansion of the Universe. An important consequence of this behaviour is that it leads to a singularity at a finite time in the past when the volume of the spatial sections becomes zero and matter becomes infinitely dense and infinitely hot (the hot Big Bang scenario). The isotropy and homogeneity of the Universe at the present epoch, cannot necessarily be extrapolated back to these earlier times. Certainly, there must exist inhomogeneities on small scales at all epochs in order to produce the observed structure, such as galaxies, clusters and superclusters. This raises the question of the effect of anisotropy on the initial stages of the evolution of the Universe. In this thesis we consider cosmological models which differ significantly from the FRW descriptions. We consider the effect of a large cosmological constant (vacuum energy term) on the behaviour of a spherically symmetric anisotropic universe, characterised by different expansion rates in the radial and transverse directions. The analysis is simplified considerably by imposing the condition that the model admits a self-similar symmetry. The techniques of similarity and dimensional analysis are employed to obtain a class of spatially inhomogeneous solutions to the Einstein field equations with a non-zero cosmological term. These solutions are found to contain some which tend asymptotically to a de-Sitter FRW solution and thereby extend the cosmological "no-hair" theorems, which state that under certain restrictions any model containing a large positive cosmological term will evolve to a de-Sitter cosmology at late times. Such models are attractive since they tend to isotropic spacetimes. Similarity methods are also applied to the study of an anisotropic spacetime with an imperfect fluid as source. The fluid description of the cosmology is chosen to include the dissipative processes of shear and bulk viscosity but to neglect the effects due to the existence of magnetic fields, heat conduction or acceleration along the flow lines. In order to obtain a self-similar description of such a fluid we must impose certain conditions on the form of the viscous coefficients of bulk and shear. This allows a degree of tractability but restricts the physical significance of the models. Solutions are found for which the matter distribution acts as (i) a 'presureless fluid' with an equation of state given by T11=0 and (ii) a 'stiff' fluid with equation of state, T1 1=-T0 0. The conditions under which the Universe may attain either of these extreme properties are discussed in relation to the physical processes occurring in the matter distribution at different epochs. It is found that the presence of viscosity has a marked effect on the dynamics of the Universe, particularly at early times. The self-similar viscous models with a stiff equation of state are then considered with respect to the formation of black holes in the early Universe. The difficulties of obtaining a smooth continuation of the viscous solutions from the Universe particle horizon to a black hole event horizon are discussed in view of the limitations encountered in the non-viscous black hole solutions. Finally, the possibility of future investigations inspired by the considerations of this thesis are discussed. In particular, the determination of a geometric symmetry corresponding to self-symmetry of the second kind and the formation of a self-consistent similarity treatment of imperfect fluid cosmologies are deemed important. Possible lines of research to these ends are considered.


Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the performance and efficiency of the two most used search engines after Google, i.e. Yahoo & Bing in retrieving internet resources at specific points of time using advance search techniques on single and double word queries. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study starts from an investigation of existing methodologies for evaluating search engines in order to find out the most important factors to decide which search engine to use when searching the World Wide Web. In order to examine retrieval efficiency of a search engine on the bases of various laid parameters like, coverage of a search engine, number of dead, missing & duplicate links retrieved by a search engine by using 20 single & double word queries by adopting advanced search technique. The data were evaluated using MS Excel spread sheet software. Findings: The findings of study reveals an explicatory results which clearly describes that different web search engines use different technology to find a particular web information. The overall analysis of the findings reveals that Yahoo is the leading search engine followed by Bing in terms of retrieving score, however Bing takes the lead in retrieving less number of dead and duplicate links while routing two term queries. Originality/value – The paper will provide important insight into the effectiveness of two major search engines and their ability to retrieve relevant internet resources. This paper has produced key findings that are important for all web search engine users as well as researchers and the web industry. The findings will also assist search companies to improve their services.


Abstract Animals have evolved foraging strategies to acquire blends of nutrients that maximize fitness traits. In social insects, nutrient regulation is complicated by the fact that few individuals, the foragers, must address the divergent nutritional needs of all colony members simultaneously, including other workers, the reproductives, and the brood. Here we used 3D nutritional geometry design to examine how bumblebee workers regulate their collection of 3 major macronutrients in the presence and absence of brood. We provided small colonies artificial nectars (liquid diets) and pollens (solid diets) varying in their compositions of proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates during 2 weeks. Colonies given a choice between nutritionally complementary diets self-selected foods to reach a target ratio of 71% proteins, 6% carbohydrates, and 23% lipids, irrespective of the presence of brood. When confined to a single nutritionally imbalanced solid diet, colonies without brood regulated lipid collection and over-collected protein relative to this target ratio, whereas colonies with brood regulated both lipid and protein collection. This brood effect on the regulation of nutrient collection by workers suggests that protein levels are critical for larval development. Our results highlight the importance of considering bee nutrition as a multidimensional phenomenon to better assess the effects of environmental impoverishment and malnutrition on population declines.


We present a novel technique to separate subpanels from stitched multipanel figures appearing in biomedical research articles. Since such figures may comprise images from different imaging modalities, separating them is a critical first step for effective biomedical content-based image retrieval (CBIR). The method applies local line segment detection based on the gray-level pixel changes. It then applies a line vectorization process that connects prominent broken lines along the subpanel boundaries while eliminating insignificant line segments within the subpanels. We have validated our fully automatic technique on a subset of stitched multipanel biomedical figures extracted from articles within the Open Access subset of PubMed Central repository, and have achieved precision and recall of 81.22% and 85.08%, respectively.


This work examines batch reinforcement learning–the task of maximally exploiting a given batch of off-policy data, without further data collection. We demonstrate that due to errors introduced by extrapolation, standard off-policy deep reinforcement learning algorithms, such as DQN and DDPG, are only capable of learning with data correlated to their current policy, making them ineffective for most off-policy applications. We introduce a novel class of off-policy algorithms, batch-constrained reinforcement learning, which restricts the action space to force the agent towards behaving on-policy with respect to a subset of the given data. We extend this notion to deep reinforcement learning, and to the best of our knowledge, present the first continuous control deep reinforcement learning algorithm which can learn effectively from uncorrelated off-policy data.


Current correctional crowding problems force penal law researchers to rethink sentencing and correctional policies focusing on the form and content of community supervision. Surveillance-oriented community correction programs are emerged as a response to both the demand for alternatives to crowded institutions and the need for more control over offenders who are supervised in community settings. Limited jail and prison resources prompts judges to place an increasing proportion of offenders on traditional community supervision, which is ill-equipped to handle them. In response to this problem it is recommended that the spectrum of criminal sanctions be widened to accommodate intermediate sentences, such as an electronic monitoring. This article provides an overview of offender supervision with electronic technology system including a discussion of some of the terms and concepts. Also some issues of the efficiency of offender supervision in the community with electronic monitoring have been explored. A brief description of the evolution of electronic monitoring was provided and several examples of programs with electronic supervision were highlighted. Also the article examines legal, theoretical and practical possibilities of incorporation electronic monitoring to the national legal system as a kind of new criminal punishment or as new method of pretrial, probation and parole supervision in Lithuania. The number of specific evaluation questions must be answered in order to construct the final conclusion about this issue: do the electronic monitoring provide true diversion from prison, or do they simply widen net of social control; is the electronic monitoring cost really effective, compared with traditional prison and probation strategies, what impact do the electronic monitoring have on offender rehabilitation; is there any evidence that electronic monitoring reduces recidivism and etc. Intensive supervision with electronic technology is generally viewed as an option to relieve prison overcrowding, alleviate the financial burdens of incarceration, and avoid the deleterious effects of imprisonment. It is also touted as a more cost-effective, punitive, and safe alternative for high risk probationers, and it is considered quite compatible with broad changes in correctional policies that emphasize community protection over offender rehabilitation.


Current algorithms for decision making in proximal
humerus fractures consider the fracture pattern along with
the patient characteristics and surgeon's experience. Minimally
invasive techniques for reduction and internal fixation of
many types of these fractures have recently been widely
promoted, especially with the use of the newly developed
locking plate systems. Intramedullary flexible nailing is one
of the oldest techniques using minimally invasive reduction
and fixation of proximal humerus fractures. Kapandji technique
uses the "Deltoid V" landmark as entry point for intramedullary
insertion of the flexible nails into the humeral
head. The authors report their experience with this procedure
in twenty-six, relatively young patients with good bone
quality, presenting with displaced 2- or 3-part extra-articular
fracture of the proximal humerus, treated with percutaneous
reduction and intramedullary flexible nailing as described by
Kapandji. Nineteen medical records were available for this
retrospective review, with 9 to 12 months follow-up. There
were 15 excellent and 1 good results when patients were
assessed for pain, function and range of motion of the shoulder.
The authors submit that Kapandji technique is a valuable
procedure for management of extra-articular displaced
2- and 3- part proximal humerus fractures in young patients
with good bone quality.


In this issue of ONCOLOGY, Waner and Suen review their classification and treatment of congenital vascular lesions of the face and neck region. Certainly, from a therapeutic perspective, this is a nice summary of the state of the art of treatment modalities. The uses of surgery, phototherapy, laser ablation, and other modalities (eg, intralesional injection, steroids, embolization, and interferon) are summarized adequately for the general practitioner. The main focus is on cosmesis, with only little attention paid to the life-threatening conditions of intracranial vascular malformations (Figure 1) and massive head and neck vascular lesions (Figure 2).


This thesis describes the growth and characterisation of ZnO thin films and nanostructures grown using the pulsed laser deposition technique. In this technique, a solid state Nd:YAG laser operating at 266 nm and with a 6 ns
pulse width was fired at a sintered, ceramic target to produce an expanding plume of ZnO into a vacuum chamber (pressures in the 10−1 mbar range).
The plume material condenses on various substrates, chiefly sapphire, to form a thin film.
The samples were analysed using a range of structural, optical, and surface analyses to determine the effects that varying pressures, temperatures, and laser energy fluence had on the growth modes of these thin films and
nanostructures. Additionally, a study was carried out to determine the effects a mixed background gas (O2 and Ar) has on the nanostructured growth. A model for this case was proposed.
Finally, a biomedical application of ZnO was investigated to determine the potential of ZnO thin films for the sterilisation of biofilms of the bacterium Staphylococcus epidermidis. It was found that such a biofilm grown atop a
ZnO thin film is inactivated after exposure to UV light while submerged in an aqueous solution.


This paper analyzes the working process of current-mode controlled Boost converter and finds that the system will produce the physical phenomenon of intermittency chaos when the converter works in the period windows of chaos zone and external noise reaches certain intensity. It can observe the phenomenon of noise-induced intermittent chaos and it also analyzes the relationship between noise intensity and induced intermittent chaos, the relationship between the noise intensity threshold and circuit parameters in resulting intermittent chaos from the perspective of numerical simulation. The research has an important theoretical and practical significance to nonlinear science and it can provide a reliable theoretical reference for the stable design of switching power converters.


In this paper we propose an end-to-end learnable approach that detects static urban objects from multiple views, re-identifies instances, and finally assigns a geographic position per object. Our method relies on a Graph Neural Network (GNN) to, detect all objects and output their geographic positions given images and approximate camera poses as input. Our GNN simultaneously models relative pose and image evidence, and is further able to deal with an arbitrary number of input views. Our method is robust to occlusion, with similar appearance of neighboring objects, and severe changes in viewpoints by jointly reasoning about visual image appearance and relative pose. Experimental evaluation on two challenging, large-scale datasets and comparison with state-of-the-art methods show significant and systematic improvements both in accuracy and efficiency, with 2-6% gain in detection and re-ID average precision as well as 8x reduction of training time.


A highly accurate Named Entity (NE) corpus for Hungarian that is publicly available for research purposes is introduced in the paper, along with its main properties. The results of experiments that apply various Machine Learning models and classifier combination schemes are also presented to serve as a benchmark for further research based on the corpus. The data is a segment of the Szeged Corpus (Csendes et al., 2004), consisting of short business news articles collected from MTI (Hungarian News Agency, www.mti.hu). The annotation procedure was carried out paying special attention to annotation accuracy. The corpus went through a parallel annotation phase done by two annotators, resulting in a tagging with inter-annotator agreement rate of 99.89%. Controversial taggings were collected and discussed by the two annotators and a linguist with several years of experience in corpus annotation. These examples were tagged following the decision they made together, and finally all entities that had suspicious or dubious annotations were collected and checked for consistency. We consider the result of this correcting process virtually be free of errors. Our best performing Named Entity Recognizer (NER) model attained an accuracy of 92.86% F measure on the corpus.


An accurate and efficient finite difference method for solving the three dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on curvilinear grids is developed. The semi-staggered grid layout has been used in which all three components of velocity are stored on the corner vertices of the cell facilitating a consistent discretization of the momentum equations as the boundaries are approached. Pressure is stored at the cell-center, resulting in the exact satisfaction the discrete continuity. The diffusive terms are discretized using a second-order central finite difference. A third-order biased upwind scheme is used to discretize the convective terms. The momentum equations are integrated in time using a semi-implicit fractional step methodology. The convective and diffusive terms are advanced in time using the second-order Adams-Bashforth method and Crank-Nicolson method respectively. The Pressure-Poisson is discretized in a similar approach to the staggered gird layout and thus leading to the elimination of the spurious pressure eigen-modes. The validity of the method is demonstrated by two standard benchmark problems. The flow in driven cavity is used to show the second-order spatial convergence on an intentionally distorted grid. Finally, the results for flow past a cylinder for several Reynolds numbers in the range of 50–150 are compared with the existing experimental data in the literature.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


Background T-score discordance between the spine and hip is commonly observed when dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is used to diagnose osteoporosis. However, information is scarce regarding the prevalence and risk factors for this problem in Korea. This study evaluated the prevalence of major/minor discordance and associated risk factors in elderly Korean patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs). Methods This study included 200 patients (37 men, 163 women) treated for thoracic or lumbar compression fractures between January 2015 and August 2021. DXA was performed to examine T-scores and determine the prevalence of discordance, defined as a difference between the T-score categories of the femur and spine in the same individual. The t-tests, χ2 tests, and regression analyses were used to assess the associated risk factors of T-score discordance among the subjects. Results T-score concordance, minor discordance, and major discordance were observed in 137 (68.5%), 59 (29.5%), and 4 (2%) patients with OVCFs, respectively. The spinal T-score was lower than the femoral T-score in all major discordance and 81.3% (48/59) of minor discordant cases. Overall, the only factor related to T-score discordance was the age at fracture (odds ratio, -0.01; P=0.014). Conclusions The results of this study showed that a significant number of subjects (31.5%) showed spine-hip discordance, even with a mean age in their 80s. More attention should be paid to the appropriate evaluation and management of elderly patients with OVCFs. Moreover, a longitudinal study is necessary to verify the clinical importance of T-score discordance in this population.


It is well known that many local graph problems, like Vertex Cover and Dominating Set, can be solved in 2^{O(tw)}|V|^{O(1)} time for graphs G=(V,E) with a given tree decomposition of width tw. However, for nonlocal problems, like the fundamental class of connectivity problems, for a long time we did not know how to do this faster than tw^{O(tw)}|V|^{O(1)}. Recently, Cygan et al. (FOCS 2011) presented Monte Carlo algorithms for a wide range of connectivity problems running in time $c^{tw}|V|^{O(1)} for a small constant c, e.g., for Hamiltonian Cycle and Steiner tree. Naturally, this raises the question whether randomization is necessary to achieve this runtime; furthermore, it is desirable to also solve counting and weighted versions (the latter without incurring a pseudo-polynomial cost in terms of the weights).
We present two new approaches rooted in linear algebra, based on matrix rank and determinants, which provide deterministic c^{tw}|V|^{O(1)} time algorithms, also for weighted and counting versions. For example, in this time we can solve the traveling salesman problem or count the number of Hamiltonian cycles. The rank-based ideas provide a rather general approach for speeding up even straightforward dynamic programming formulations by identifying "small" sets of representative partial solutions; we focus on the case of expressing connectivity via sets of partitions, but the essential ideas should have further applications. The determinant-based approach uses the matrix tree theorem for deriving closed formulas for counting versions of connectivity problems; we show how to evaluate those formulas via dynamic programming.


The use of group work in classroom activities is a method used for motivating learning and increasing the idea of pleasure through learning. The current study investigates the advantages of group work in exams in the English department, in the College of Basic Education. 40 students in two classes of "The Introduction of Phonetics and Phonology" participated in the study. They performed six tasks; two prior to group work, two done in group work (by one group only) and two after group work. The tasks were all practical, and they were based on phonetic transcription. One of the groups participated in group work while the other did not. This was done enable to compare the results. In addition to exam results, a five-open-questions questionnaire on the students' perception of group work was distributed to the participants. Throughout the application of the study, the instructor took notes of her observation of the formation of and participation in group work. It was found that the students who worked in groups did not improve. However, most students reported that they enjoyed the tasks and would like to work in a group more often. The method of forming a group also seemed to affect learning. It was found that social and academic variables of age and GPA affected the formation, engagement and results of group work.


Abstract : This sixth annual report of the National Turbine Engine High Cycle Fatigue (HCF) Program is a brief review of work completed, work in progress, and technical accomplishments. This program is a coordinated effort with participation by the Air Force, the Navy, and NASA. The technical efforts are organized under seven Action Teams -- Materials Damage Tolerance Research, Forced Response Prediction, Component Analysis, Instrumentation, Passive Damping Technology, Component Surface Treatments, and Engine Demonstration -- and two Programs -- Test and Evaluation and Transitions (ENSIP). Daniel E. Thomson, AFRL/PRTC Wright-Patterson AFB, is the Program Manager.


We have studied the desorption of negative ions following low energy electron impact (0–15 eV) to ozone condensed in multilayer amounts on a cryogenically cooled gold surface. Intense desorption of O− is observed at low electron energies (below 4 eV) ia pronounced resonances with an estimated desorption cross section of the order of 10−18 cm2 (peak value). The resonant features in the ion yield indicate that O−
 desorption is driven by dissociative electron attachment to O3 molecules at or near the surface. While dissociative electron attachment (DA) from gas phase ozone generates the fragment ions O− and O2− at comparable intensities, desorption of O2− from condensed ozone is strongly suppressed, being only weakly observed within a resonance located at 7 eV. Possible implications for the heterogeneous chemistry of ozone on polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) particles, namely photo-induced dissociative electron transfer from the substrate, are discussed in the light of the effective O− desorption observed at low electron energies.


A self-cleaving RNA sequence from hepatitis delta virus was modified to produce a ribozyme capable of catalyzing the cleavage of RNA in an intermolecular (trans) reaction. The delta-derived ribozyme cleaved substrate RNA at a specific site, and the sequence specificity could be altered with mutations in the region of the ribozyme proposed to base pair with the substrate. A substrate target size of approximately 8 nucleotides in length was identified. Octanucleotides containing a single ribonucleotide immediately 5' to the cleavage site were substrates for cleavage, and cleavage activity was significantly reduced only with a guanine base at that position. A deoxyribose 5' to the cleavage site blocked the reaction. These data are consistent with a proposed secondary structure for the self-cleaving form of the hepatitis delta virus ribozyme in which a duplex forms with sequences 3' to the cleavage site, and they support a proposed mechanism in which cleavage involves attack on the phosphorus at the cleavage site by the adjacent 2'-hydroxyl group.


ABSTRACT Introduction: Cell-based therapies exploit the heterogeneous and self-sufficient biological environment of stem cells to restore, maintain and improve tissue functions. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) are, to this aim, promising cell types thanks to advantageous isolation procedures, growth kinetics, plasticity and trophic properties. Specifically, bone regeneration represents a suitable, though often challenging, target setting to test and apply ASC-based therapeutic strategies. Areas covered: ASCs are extremely plastic and secrete bioactive peptides that mediate paracrine functions, mediating their trophic actions in vivo. Numerous preclinical studies demonstrated that ASCs improve bone healing. Clinical trials are ongoing to validate the clinical feasibility of these approaches. This review is intended to define the state-of-the-art on ASCs, encompassing the biological features that make them suitable for bone regenerative strategies, and to provide an update on existing preclinical and clinical applications. Expert opinion: ASCs offer numerous advantages over other stem cells in terms of feasibility of clinical translation. Data obtained from in vivo experimentation are encouraging, and clinical trials are ongoing. More robust validations are thus expected to be achieved during the next few years, and will likely pave the way to optimized patient-tailored treatments for bone regeneration.


Every agent aspiring to human level intelligence, every AGI agent, must be capable of a theory of mind. That is, it must be able to attribute mental states, including intentions, to other agents, and must use such attributions in its action selection process. The LIDA conceptual and computational model of cognition offers an explanation of how theory of mind is accomplished in humans and some other animals, and suggests how this explanation could be implemented computationally. Here we describe how the LIDA version of theory of mind is accomplished, and illustrate it with an example taken from an experiment with monkeys, chosen for simplicity.


s | 81 University College of Medicine, 103 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110–799, Republic of Korea c Institute of Human Behavioral Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 103 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110–799, Republic of Korea d Department of Psychiatry, Maeumsarang Hospital, Wanju, Jeollabuk-do, Republic of Korea *Corresponding author: Ung Gu Kang, M.D., Ph. D. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110–744, Republic of Korea. Tel: 82-2-2072-2296; Fax: 82-2-744-7241; E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract Traditionally, delusions have been considered to be the products of misinterpretation and irrationality. However, some theorists have argued that delusions are normal or rational cognitive responses to abnormal experiences. That is, when a recently experienced peculiar event is more plausibly explained by an extraordinary hypothesis, confidence in the veracity of this extraordinary explanation is reinforced. As the number of such experiences, driven by the primary disease process in the perceptual domain, increases, this confidence builds and solidifies, forming a delusion. We tried to understand the formation of delusions using a computer simulation based on Bayesian inference. We found that (1) Even if a delusional explanation is only marginally more plausible than a non-delusional one, the repetition of the same experience results in a firm belief in the delusion. (2) The same process explains the systematization of delusions. (3) If the perceived plausibility of the explanation is not consistent but varies over time, the development of a delusion is delayed. Additionally, this model may explain why delusions are not corrected by persuasion or rational explanation and why the antipsychotics have limited anti-delusional effect. This Bayesian inference perspective can be a mathematical model of delusions and also considered a way to understand delusions in terms of rational human heuristics. However, such experiences of "rationality" can lead to irrational conclusions, depending on the characteristics of the subject.Traditionally, delusions have been considered to be the products of misinterpretation and irrationality. However, some theorists have argued that delusions are normal or rational cognitive responses to abnormal experiences. That is, when a recently experienced peculiar event is more plausibly explained by an extraordinary hypothesis, confidence in the veracity of this extraordinary explanation is reinforced. As the number of such experiences, driven by the primary disease process in the perceptual domain, increases, this confidence builds and solidifies, forming a delusion. We tried to understand the formation of delusions using a computer simulation based on Bayesian inference. We found that (1) Even if a delusional explanation is only marginally more plausible than a non-delusional one, the repetition of the same experience results in a firm belief in the delusion. (2) The same process explains the systematization of delusions. (3) If the perceived plausibility of the explanation is not consistent but varies over time, the development of a delusion is delayed. Additionally, this model may explain why delusions are not corrected by persuasion or rational explanation and why the antipsychotics have limited anti-delusional effect. This Bayesian inference perspective can be a mathematical model of delusions and also considered a way to understand delusions in terms of rational human heuristics. However, such experiences of "rationality" can lead to irrational conclusions, depending on the characteristics of the subject. PM497 Epigenetic status of LINE-1 promoters in neurons and non-neurons Risa Watanabe1, Miki Bundo2, Eri Hashimoto3, Takao Ishii3, Kazuya Iwamoto2, Kiyoto Kasai2, Tadafumi Kato4, Yui Murata2, Masaki Nishioka2, Yutaka Sawai2, Siro Simizu1, Junko Ueda4, Wataru Ukai3 1Keio University, Japan, 2The University of Tokyo, Japan, 3Sapporo Medical University, Japan, 4RIKEN BSI, Japan Abstract Human retrotransposon LINE-1 (L1) plays important roles in transcriptional regulation and genome stability. We previously discovered an increase of L1 copy number in the brain tissues of patients with schizophrenia (Bundo et al., Neuron, 2014). To understand the L1 activities in human brains, we investigated distribution of 5-methyl cytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethyl cytosine (5hmC) in the L1 promoter regions of human neurons and non-neurons. We separated prefrontal cortex cells into neuronal and non-neuronal nuclei by NeuN-based nuclei sorting, and performed comprehensive analysis on mC and hmC. We found that full length L1 promoters in neuronal nuclei manifest characteristic mC and hmC pattern in accordance with L1 evolution. Younger L1 subfamilies had less mCs and more possibilities of containing hmCs in their promoters. This pattern was unique to L1 promoters of neuronal nuclei, and independent of the genomic context of L1 insertion. On the other hand, such pattern was not observed in non-neurons or non-full length L1s. Our findings suggest that L1 has distinctive roles in transcriptional regulation in neurons.Human retrotransposon LINE-1 (L1) plays important roles in transcriptional regulation and genome stability. We previously discovered an increase of L1 copy number in the brain tissues of patients with schizophrenia (Bundo et al., Neuron, 2014). To understand the L1 activities in human brains, we investigated distribution of 5-methyl cytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethyl cytosine (5hmC) in the L1 promoter regions of human neurons and non-neurons. We separated prefrontal cortex cells into neuronal and non-neuronal nuclei by NeuN-based nuclei sorting, and performed comprehensive analysis on mC and hmC. We found that full length L1 promoters in neuronal nuclei manifest characteristic mC and hmC pattern in accordance with L1 evolution. Younger L1 subfamilies had less mCs and more possibilities of containing hmCs in their promoters. This pattern was unique to L1 promoters of neuronal nuclei, and independent of the genomic context of L1 insertion. On the other hand, such pattern was not observed in non-neurons or non-full length L1s. Our findings suggest that L1 has distinctive roles in transcriptional regulation in neurons. PM498 Investigation of feelings toward taking blonanserin and risperidone in schizophrenia patients: part 2 Yoshihisa Shoji, Hiroko Yanagimoto, Masayuki Inoue, Youhei Ishii, Yusuke Kato, Kiichiro Morita, Naohisa Uchimura, Yuji Yamashita Cognitive and Molecular Research Institute of Brain Diseases, Kurume


Treatment of rabbits with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibiting drugs increases Na(+)-K+ pump current (Ip) of isolated cardiac myocytes when intracellular Na+ is at near-physiological levels. To examine if effects of ACE inhibitors are related to angiotensin metabolism, we measured Ip in myocytes isolated from rabbits treated with the AT1 receptor antagonist losartan. Ip was increased to levels similar to those after treatment with ACE inhibitors. Exposure of myocytes from captopril-treated rabbits to 10 nM angiotensin II (ANG II) for 45 min in vitro reduced Ip to levels similar to those of myocytes from untreated control rabbits. This rapid response to ANG II suggests that treatment with captopril had induced a functional change in preexisting pump units rather than synthesis of a new population of pumps. Consistent with this, we could not detect a change in Na(+)-K+ pump subunit mRNAs during treatment with captopril. The decrease in Ip of myocytes from captopril-treated rabbits induced by ANG II in vitro was blocked by pertussis toxin, bisindolylmaleimide I, and staurosporine. Exposure of myocytes to phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate induced a decrease in Ip similar to that induced by ANG II. Thus ACE inhibitors regulate the Na(+)-K+ pump in myocytes via an effect on angiotensin metabolism. The regulatory mechanism appears to include the AT1 receptor, a G protein, and protein kinase C.


Forty thousand men on the coastline of Alang, India, dismantle a large portion of the world's discarded ships in a process referred to as shipbreaking. The discarded vessels are dismantled piece by piece, with no more than a gas torch and physical labour in a country with little to no regulations on the rules of labour or environmental protection. Workers of the shipbreaking yards live in slum dwellings, within a toxic landscape of petroleum hydrocarbons, heavy metals, lead paint and asbestos; all are toxic by-products of globalised industrialisation. As a result of the extreme work and poor housing conditions, the impoverished inhabitants are at high risk of life threatening diseases which commonly result in death. On the shipbreaking yard alone, an average of sixteen deaths per year occur as a result of the extremely hazardous working conditions. While the need to dismantle and recycle ships will not disappear any time soon, it is imperative that current practices become safe to both workers and the environment.  This thesis outlines a design project that introduces the creation of an ecosystem within the shipbreaking community of Alang by introducing many interconnected systems that allow for self-sufficiency. Inspired by concepts of bio-mimicry, the project provides the means to capture toxins safely using naturally produced materials; creates community, family based housing that replaces the current housing slums; and modernises the shipbreaking process by implementing a cyclical ecosystem that capitalises on the regions natural resources. By making the process of shipbreaking environmentally safe and creating a hazard free, more productive work environment, this project suggests that a business practice that is unwanted and hidden can be productive and economically viable.


Two picture-matching-game experiments investigated if lexical-referential alignment to non-native speakers is enhanced by a desire to aid communicative success (by saying something the conversation partner can certainly understand), a form of audience design. In Experiment 1, a group of native speakers of British English that was not given evidence of their conversation partners' picture-matching performance showed more alignment to non-native than to native speakers, while another group that was given such evidence aligned equivalently to the two types of speaker. Experiment 2, conducted with speakers of Castilian Spanish, replicated the greater alignment to non-native than native speakers without feedback. However, Experiment 2 also showed that production of grammatical errors by the confederate produced no additional increase of alignment even though making errors suggests lower communicative competence. We suggest that this pattern is consistent with another collaborative strategy, the desire to model correct usage. Together, these results support a role for audience design in alignment to non-native speakers in structured task-based dialogue, but one that is strategically deployed only when deemed necessary.


Abstract Necla Acik-Toprak, University of Manchester, Doctor of Philosophy, 21 September 2009Title: Civic Engagement in Europe: A Multilevel Study of the Effect of Individual and National Determinants on Political Participation, Political Consumerism and Associational Involvement. Active and engaged citizens are the backbone of a strong democracy and a vibrant civil society. Yet recent trends of low electoral turnout in Europe and decreasing levels of civic engagement have called into question the legitimacy of governments and the stability of democracy in the long term, particularly in Europe. Against the background of such developments this research sets out to provide a comparative study of civic engagement and analyse the variations in civic engagement between countries. The study is mainly based on the analysis of the European Social Survey 2002, covering 35,000 individuals from 19 European countries and applies advanced statistical modelling techniques including Multiple Correspondence Analysis MCA) and Multi-level modelling.Although there is a good deal of research examining civic engagement using individual level data or aggregate level data, very few studies have combined both approaches. This study addresses this gap and applies multi-level modelling to examine the relative importance of an individual?s socio-demographic characteristics and his/her country in determining levels and types of civic engagement. Thus, it has the advantage of identifying whether civic engagement is significantly affected by country characteristics or the converse, whether a person?s characteristics (age, education, social class etc.) are all that is needed in order to account for the variations in civic engagement. The innovative application of MCA to explore indicators of civic engagement has led to the identification of three dimensions of civic engagement; political activities, political consumerism and associational involvement. Moreover, by projecting all activities on a two-dimensional map it become evident that citizens who tend to carry out ?individual? types of political consumerism such as ?buycotting?, boycotting and signing petitions are also more likely to be involved in New Social Movement organisations. These significant results shed new light on activities usually regarded as ?individualistic? type of activities and suggest viewing them in the context of a wider array of collective actions. Furthermore, in addition to the standard contextual measures such as economic development, welfare regime, income inequality, and levels of democracy, this study introduced two innovative policy measures. To consider the impact of government policies on levels of civic engagement measures of governments? support of the voluntary sector and civic education at school (comparing the education policies of 19 European countries from 1945-2002) were developed. The results confirmed the importance of both individual level characteristics as well as country level characteristics in explaining civic engagement in Europe. However, differences between countries were reduced to a greater degree when contextual factors were introduced. Particularly the welfare state, showed the greatest effect. This implies that socio-economic conditions and in particular social policy and the degree to which it reproduces egalitarian structures determine to a great extent citizen involvement. In other words the results of this study suggest that the national context matters and that governments can and do shape the nature and levels of civic engagement.


Concerns about the state of decline of the North American monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) have prompted their consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Data suggest a substantial decline (> 80%) in overwintering numbers for both eastern and western monarch populations. Making an accurate status assessment is difficult due to highly variable density estimates in the eastern monarch overwintering sites. We have developed a novel application of terrestrial LiDAR scanning (TLS) which creates a scene using millions of LASER-based distance measurements in the landscape. In this technology report we discuss the use of TLS and development of Subtractive Volume Estimation (SVE) methodology for estimating overwintering monarch butterfly populations. The principle proposition of the SVE method is to compare volumetric differences between two TLS surveys, a reference scan that records roosting monarch butterflies in their overwintering environment and a derivative scan, that records the same site without butterflies. Using paired long-range laser scanners, we collected data from four overwintering sites; two in California and two in central Mexico. To help estimate the number of butterflies, we developed an accurate 3D model of an individual monarch. To test the SVE method, we created digital 3D models of bare tree trunks and distal branches, based on laser scans at two sites and combined them with our monarch model to create virtual reference and derivative point clouds. To convert from volume to number of butterflies, we introduce a scaling factor, n, which represents the estimated volume occupied by one butterfly and a correction factor, f, which accounts for variation in clustering behavior and scanner position. While work is ongoing, we confirm that TLS combined with SVE is a suitable technique for surveying clusters of overwintering monarchs at overwintering sites in Mexico and the US.


The Deliverance of Others is a compelling reappraisal of the idea that narrative literature can expand readers' empathy. What happens if, amid the voluminous influx of otherness facilitated by globalization, we continue the tradition of valorizing literature for bringing the lives of others to us, admitting them into our world and valuing the difference that they introduce into our lives? In this new historical situation, are we not forced to determine how much otherness is acceptable, as opposed to how much is excessive, disruptive, and disturbing?

The influential literary critic David Palumbo-Liu suggests that we can arrive at a sense of responsibility toward others by reconsidering the discourses of sameness that deliver those unlike ourselves to us. Through virtuoso readings of novels by J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ruth Ozeki, he shows how notions that would seem to offer some basis for commensurability between ourselves and others—ideas of rationality, the family, the body, and affect—become less stable as they try to accommodate more radical types of otherness. For Palumbo-Liu, the reading of literature is an ethical act, a way of thinking through our relations to others.


This paper presents a framework to segment and extract key features automatically in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scans. One of the main features to be detected is the Lamina Cribrosa (LC), which is an optic nerve head structure believed to play a crucial role in glaucomatous optic neuropathy. Detection of the LC aids in understanding pathogenesis and detection of glaucoma. Automatic segmentation allows a quick and objective way of identifying the LC. In previous work, LC segmentation has been manual; hence, the aim is to achieve automatic and accurate segmentation. Automatic detection is a novel approach, and very important as it provides an objective and fast way to identify the features. The method consists of three steps: automatic detection of the Bruch's membrane opening, definition of LC Region of Interest (ROI), and feature detection in the ROI using local and inter-frame information. The best-fit curve representing the anterior LC was obtained by optimizing parameters to minimize the inter-frame gradient and local gradient change. The algorithm was applied to OCT images captured by Spectralis OCT machine (Heidelberg Engineering GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany). The results were compared and verified against manual segmentation of the key features, coefficient of 0.74. The generally accurate results indicate that the approach is highly promising, and could potentially be expanded across detection in other image types. 


The study examined farmers' adoption of improved plantain technologies in Anambra State, Nigeria. A structured questionnaire was administered on one hundred and eighty six (186) adopters of the technologies. A multistage random sampling technique was employed in selecting the adopters. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multiple regression analysis and Pearson product moment correlation (PPMC). The study showed a high level of awareness among the farmers. The adoption of these technologies was relatively low. The results revealed that farmers' age, farm size, household size, educational status, farmers' income and extension visit are significantly related to the farmers' level of adoption of the technologies. The socio-economic characteristics of plantain farmers were thus found to have significant effect on the adoption of the technologies. Farmers' awareness level was significantly related to the adoption of the technologies. Based on the findings, the study therefore recommends aggressive awareness campaign, farmers adult education programme and farm income expansion policy be put in place.


Security and privacy issues in healthcare data management play a fundamental role in the widespread adoption of medical information systems. As a consequence, it is very important to define the right means for expressing and managing policies in order to comply with privacy-related standards and regulations.
 In this work, we extend an open source hospital information system in order to provide support for expressing and enforcing privacy-related policies, using as a starting point a conceptual model the authors developed in a previous work.


This paper presents a model that is then simplified to explain the temperature dependence of fixed pattern noise (FPN) in logarithmic complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors. The simplified model uses the average dark response of pixels, which depends only on temperature, to help predict the FPN in the light response, which depends on temperature and illuminance. To calibrate a logarithmic camera, one requires images that are taken at different temperatures and illuminances, which need not be measured, of a uniform stimulus. To correct the FPN in an arbitrary image, one uses the simplified model parameters, which are estimated once by the calibration, and the average dark response, which is infrequently determined by closing the aperture. Through simulation (using mismatch data from a real CMOS process) and experiment (using a commercial logarithmic camera), an improvement is shown in the residual error per image, after calibration, when the proposed method is compared with a related method in the literature that does not account for temperature dependence.


Examination of hemoglobin levels influenced leukocytosis sianmethemoglobin method that causes increased absorbance measurements of hemoglobin levels increased significantly and the false blood sample that has been diluted with a solution Drabkins in centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 10 minutes and then the absorbance of the supernatant was measured with a photometer at λ 546 nm. This study aimed to analyze the differences in hemoglobin level examination siamethemoglobin method with and without centrifugation at sample leukocytosis. This type of research is observational research laboratory. The study design was cross-sectional study. Samples were taken from the remaining blood samples of patients who have been examined leukositnya number more than 20,000 / uL with Hematology Analyzer (CEL-DYN Ruby) February-April 2014, and were divided into 4 groups based on criteria that group 1. leukocyte count of 20,000 / uL-29 999 / mL, group II. 30,000 / uL-39 999 / uL, the group III. 40,000 / uL-49,999 / uL, the group IV. More than 50,000 / uL. The number of samples taken were 20 samples of each group, a total sample of 80 samples. The analysis showed no significant difference in hemoglobin levels siamethemoglobin method with and without centrifugation at sample leukocytosis with a value of p = 0.000 less than 0.05 α. Leukocytosis Turbidity affects the difference in hemoglobin levels with and without centrifugation, the higher the number the greater the difference in leukocyte levels of hemoglobin, hemoglobin level examination results of the study based on the criteria of the number of leukocytes obtained by the difference in hemoglobin levels with and without centrifugation in group I. 0.22 ± 0.07 g / dL, group II 0.40 ± 0.22 g / dL, a group III. 0.44 ± 0.14 g / dL, Group IV. 0.85 ± 0.41 g / dL. The level of hemoglobin in the sample sianmethemoglobin method leukocytosis with more than 20,000 / uL need a centrifuge so that appropriate hemoglobin levels over the patient's clinical condition.


This research aimed to describe how the study of the Function of Invers through cooperative learning model of STAD and to get empirical data about learning achievement and learning student's activityof Grade XI of SMA 4 Probolinggo in studying of the Function of Invers through co-operative learning model of STAD. The approach used in this research is qualitative approach. The type of qualitative approach is survey action because the researcher
conducts action to the research subject specified at theact of expression of meaning and learning process as the effort to improve student's learning achievement and also learning activity through co-operative learning. This research is conducted on May-June 2009 at even semester of 2009/2010 school year in Grade XI of SMA 4 Probolinggo. The subject of this research is 40 students in Grade XI of IPA (mathematical and natural sciences) 2. The instrument used is test, perception sheet, field note, and documentation. The technique performed within data collectionis test, perception sheet, and field note. The data analysis used is descriptive qualitative.
The result of this research shows: a) Study of function of Invers through co-operative learning model of STAD is very effective, start from giving a brief orientation about the material, teacher point out one of the group to present the previous material. After finishing group presentation
then the teacher conducts group discussion to study from what have been presented, to facilitate student in group discussion, teacher exemplify related to the material to be taught. In the end of group discussion, teacher conducts the evaluation by giving the student's individual test which is later used for determining of group score. This matter is seen from amount percentage of the students who complete the learning at the 1st meeting that is 82,5 % rise to become 95 % at the second meeting. b) Study of Function of Invers through co-operative learning model of STAD isvery effective in improving student's learning activity. From 4 indicator by 12 descriptor perceived, there area rising-up of from 87,50 % at the second step becoming 92, 71 % at the third step. c) Study of function of Invers through co-operative learning model of STAD is effective in improving student's learning achievement. It is seen from amount of students who complete the
learning at the 1stmeeting that is 33 people of grand total 40 people with percentage 82,5 % then rising up at the second meeting becoming 38 people who complete learning with percentage of 95 %.


In this paper the O-WBANs (Optical Wireless Body Area Networks) is presented as an alternative to the radio and microwave BANs which are plagued with issues like interference, power hungry, hazardous and costly spectrum. Various experiments performed in this work demonstrate the feasibility of LED (Light-Emitting Diode) based optical systems to be used for BANs. The system cost is kept as low as possible. Mainly the effects on the optical link are observed under ambient light and with different modulation schemes by varying link distance and line of sight in this paper. Experimental results reveal the satisfactory link availability up to the distance of 7 feet (around 2m, the optimum range of WBAN) and within the field of view of 30-60o. The low cost solution presented in this paper meets the WBANs data rate requirement for physiological data (i.e. 10-100 kbps). As IR (Infra-Red) signals do not provide any interference with the signals generated by the medical equipment of hospitals which is the problem in case of RF or microwave signals, additionally the IR signals are confined within a room hence IR signaling can prove to be potential candidate for WBAN fulfilling its security and limited access requirement.


In the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry it is essential to manage security. It is of outmost interest of any network operator to secure the network infrastructure and subscriber data. Failing in ICT security is not an option. The e-crime scene utilizes modern tooling to address this very lucrative business. BotNet infrastructure is more and more used to perform e-crime. So far, Network operators are not highly impacted - but this situation will definitely change in the near future. The paper consists of three parts: Part 1 describes how BotNets differ from other types of malware. The principle of a BotNet is outlined and explained. Statistics and real examples are listed to illustrate the potential of a security threat. Part 2 focuses on the BotNet ecosystem by describing the existing roles and providing a quantified revenue flow between the players. It explains why the BotNet threat will be more important for a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) than for a Fixed Network Operator (FNO) incl. quantification of impact on the existing MNO business model. Finally Part 3 describes the CSP (Communication Solution Provider) solution to address the threat successfully. A modular approach ensures that the solution is flexible and adaptive: The analysis module evaluates multiple information sources to dynamically build up specific knowledge in order to identify BotNet activities. The detection module uses this knowledge to monitor the traffic in a mobile operator network for potential BotNet attacks. If such attacks are detected, further actions are triggered. The mitigation module cares about the cleaning of elements infected by the BotNet. The prevention module limits the impacts of BotNet attacks, e. g. by quarantining the victims.


Deep learning has achieved overwhelmingly better accuracy than existing methods in various fields. To further improve deep learning, a deeper and larger neural network (NN) model is indispensable, but graphics processing unit (GPU) memory is not large enough to train such NN models. One promising method to reduce GPU memory consumption is data swapping, which eases the burden on GPU memory by swapping out intermediate data from GPU memory to central processing unit (CPU) memory while the data are not necessary. However, this method introduces communication overhead in transferring data between GPU and CPU memory. Another method is recomputation, which discards intermediate data once and then computes them again when necessary. Unlike the data-swapping method, the re-computation method introduces additional computation but does not require CPU-GPU communication. Therefore, it may reduce CPU-GPU communication by introducing it effectively in the data-swapping method. In this paper, we developed a faster training method for large NN models by combining the re-computation and the data-swapping methods. This method edits the graph of TensorFlow automatically. We developed heuristics about which part of the graph should be recomputed. The heuristics divides the graph into sub-graphs and applies the re-computation in the decreasing order of the amount of swapping data in the sub-graphs. This heuristics is intended to reduce maximal communications by re-computing minimal sub-graphs. Our hybrid method improves performance by up to 15.5% in image size 8000×8000 of ResNet50, 15.3% in image size 7500×7500 of ResNet152, and 12.4% in image size 1000×1000 of DeepLabV3+ compared with the existing data-swapping method.


Collective classification in relational data has become an important and active research topic in the last decade, where class labels for a group of linked instances are correlated and need to be predicted simultaneously. Collective classification has a wide variety of real world applications, e.g. hyperlinked document classification, social networks analysis and collaboration networks analysis. Current research on collective classification focuses on single-label settings, which assumes each instance can only be assigned with exactly one label among a finite set of candidate classes. However, in many real-world relational data, each instance can be assigned with a set of multiple labels simultaneously. In this paper, we study the problem of multi-label collective classification and propose a novel solution, called Icml (Iterative Classification of Multiple Labels), to effectively assign a set of multiple labels to each instance in the relational dataset. The proposed Icml model is able to capture the dependencies among the label sets for a group of related instances and the dependencies among the multiple labels within each label set simultaneously. Empirical studies on real-world tasks demonstrate that the proposed multi-label collective classification approach can effectively boost classification performances in multilabel relational datasets.


This article explores the development of a course for teaching a language in a virtual world. In particular we evaluated the' Course entitled, "Social English for Doctoral Students" that took place in the spring semester of 2007. This course activated learners and educators using a variety of support media including Marratech, an online conferencing system, and Second Life, a virtual world platform. The pilot course formed part of a one year project sponsored by The Norwegian University program(NUV) entitled "A Virtual Platform for Life Long Learning". In addition to the description of the course framework, we contribute with the development of an evaluation framework that may be applied to other courses taught in Second Life as well.


Effects of low protein consumption on the renal excretion of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in four female goats were studied by means of clearance methods. During periods of low protein consumption the 2,4-D clearance values are lower than during periods of normal protein consumption. The average reduction of 2.4-D clearance varies between 20 and 50 per cent.


: The receptors (FcR, C3R) and functional activity, determined by the nitroblue tetrazolium (NRT) test, of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PML) of low and normal density were studied in erysipelas patients. The leukocytes were obtained by sedimentation on the 2-stage gradient of Ficoll-Verographin (1.077 and 1.119 g/cu cm). No statistically significant difference in the average group indices between "light" and "normal" PNL of erysipelas patients were detected. In comparison with donor PNL, higher expression of C3R, a high spontaneous NBT(+)-PNL level and poor response to stimulation with IgG in the NBT test were observed on granulocytes of the patients. The short-term treatment of the whole blood obtained from the patients with Streptococcus haemolyticus allergen led to a significant increase in the output of "light" PNL. As negative control, brucellin treatment was used, which produced no essential effect. The treatment of donor blood with the above-mentioned antigens did not significantly affect the density of PNL. These facts suggest that in erysipelas the presence of "light" PNL is linked not with the release of granulocytes from the marrow, but with the activation of leukocytes by the products of infective inflammation.


In modern video coding standards, motion compensated prediction (MCP) plays a key role to achieve video compression efficiency. Most of them make use of block matching techniques and assume the motions are pure translational. Attempts toward a more general motion model are usually too complex to be practical in near future. In this paper, a new Block-Matching Translation and Zoom Motion-Compensated Prediction (BTZMP) is proposed to extend the pure translational model to a more general model with zooming. It adopts the camera zooming and object motions that becomes zooming while projected on video frames. Experimental results show that BTZMP can give prediction gain up to 2.25dB for various sequences compared to conventional block-matching MCP. BTZMP can also be incorporated with multiple reference frames technique to give extra improvement, evidentially by the prediction gain ranging from 2.03 to 3.68dB in the empirical simulations.


The effects of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) induced oxidative stress in rats were determined by the generation of isoprostanoids. These are known to be robust biomarkers to evaluate nonenzymatic and free radical related oxidation. Other oxidative stress biomarkers such as hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid products (HETEs) and cholesterol oxidation products (COPs) were also determined. The rodents received a control diet, high-fat diet (20% w/w) composed of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), corn oil (CO), or lard, and high-fat diets with CCl4 insult throughout the experimental period. The EVOO diet was found to suppress the formation of isoprostanoids and COPs compared to that of the control. EVOO also had a high total phenolic content and antioxidant activity compared to those of CO and lard and may be contributed to by the hydroxytyrosol component conjugated to fatty acids (HT-FA). This is the first study to identify HT-FA in EVOO, and it was 4-fold higher than that of olive oil, whereas none was found in corn oil. Furthermore, the EVOO diet showed reduced liver lipid vesicles in CCl4 treated rats compared to that of the control. However, liver toxicity measurements of AST (aspartate transaminase) and ALT (alanine transaminase) activities showed augmentation with CCl4 treatment but were not alleviated by the diets given. Our findings suggest that EVOO is a daily functional food capable of enhancing the antioxidant system for liver protection; the effect is potentially attributed to the phenolic and lipophenolic (phenol conjugated by fatty acids) content.


New crop varieties often have been promoted in developing countries based upon superior yield vis-a-vis locally available varieties. This research presents a hedonic model for upland rice by drawing upon the input characteristics and consumer good characteristics model literature. Model specification tests determine that a combination of production and consumption characteristics best explains the willingness to pay for new upland rice varieties. This non-separable household model specification determined that four traits explain the willingness to pay for new rice varieties: plant cycle length, plant height, grain elongation/swelling and tenderness. Yield was not significant explanatory variable for the willingness to pay for seed. The implications of this model are two-fold. First, varietal development and promotion must include post-harvest characteristics in addition to production traits when determining which varieties to promote for official release. Secondly, non-yield production characteristics such as plant height and cycle length are significant factors in producers' assessments of the value of a new variety. Overall, this paper provides an alternative explanation for limited adoption of modern upland rice varieties in West Africa: varietal evaluation programs have focused too narrowly on yield evaluation and have not promoted varieties with superior non-yield characteristics than locally available varieties.


In this paper, the design for a new piezoelectrically transduced hybrid resonator is proposed. The frequency stability problem is improved by using two different thin films with a negative and positive temperature coefficient of sound velocity, respectively, where the main vibrating structure is constructed by the SiO2 and ZnO thin films. This new hybrid resonator combines the advantages of piezoelectric and capacitive resonators together and can be implemented by the simple fabrication technique utilizing surface micromachining.


STUDY QUESTION
How effective is ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC)?

SUMMARY ANSWER
In our cohort of patients who underwent OTC, premature ovarian failure (POF) rates, return rates and pregnancy rates after autotransplantation were 31.5, 4.4 and 33%, respectively.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY
OTC for fertility purposes has been performed for >20 years now. With over 86 live births reported worldwide and success rates of ~30% after autotransplantation of frozen-thawed ovarian cortex, the procedure should no longer be considered experimental. However, very few publications report the efficacy of this procedure.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION
Cases of ovarian tissue cryobanking for fertility preservation performed between 1997 and 2013 in a single institution were reviewed by analysis of the cryobank database and a prospective questionnaire sent out in March 2015.

PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS
There were 545 patients who underwent OTC during this period. The analysis included indications for OTC, survival rates, ovarian function and spontaneous pregnancies after OTC, come-back rates for ovarian tissue transplantation, pregnancy rates after transplantation, and complication and satisfaction rates.

MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE
OTC was performed in this cohort at a mean age of 22.3 ± 8.8 years for oncological indications (79%), benign gynecological pathologies (17.5%) and genetic risks of POF (3.5%). Of the 545 patients, 29% were under 18 years of age at the time of OTC and 15% were prepubertal. While 10% of patients died from their disease, 21 patients (3.9%) underwent autotransplantation, 7 of whom delivered a healthy baby, yielding a post-transplantation live birth rate of 33%. Of 451 patients who were sent the questionnaire, 143 agreed to respond (32%). Nevertheless, ovarian function could not be evaluated in 36% of those who answered. Of 92 evaluable patients, 31.5% were menopausal and 68.5% showed persistent ovarian function. Of 52 women who attempted to conceive naturally, 37 were successful (71%). Among 140 patients who answered the questionnaire, 96% were satisfied with the procedure and only 1 major complication (intra-abdominal hemorrhage) was encountered. Among all the patients, 12% have donated their ovarian cortex for research purposes or have had it destroyed.

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION
The questionnaire participation rate (32%), limited follow-up (mean 7.6 ± 3.5 years) and use of only clinical criteria for evaluation of ovarian function made it difficult to accurately assess the risk of POF and efficiency of OTC.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
Our findings confirm a 30% pregnancy rate after ovarian cortex autotransplantation but also stress the difficulties of evaluating the real efficacy of OTC.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)
No funding was sought for this study and none of the authors have any conflict of interest.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER
ClinicalTrials.gov Registration ID: CRYOFONOV01.


Ever since its introduction some two decades back, the style classification system of nine boxes has served as a well-accepted and useful tool in fund selection and asset allocation. For financial advisors incorporating exchange-traded funds (ETFs) into client portfolios, style boxes are an important consideration in ETF selection. In this paper we point out some of the limitations of this approach. First, different fund data providers may classify an ETF differently, and the same provider may classify ETFs belonging to the same investment opportunity set differently. Different style evaluation techniques may also lead to differing style box classifications. This leads to problems in peer universe comparisons and peer group rankings. Furthermore, the nine style boxes do not easily accommodate strategies encompassing all sizes of market capitalization, or distinguish between relative style and deep style. These limitations do not mean that the style boxes should be completely avoided. However, they do suggest avoiding rigid or mechanistic uses of the style boxes, or using them as a centerpiece of asset allocation.


Objective This paper articulates a need for the nurse entrepreneur working as a surgical assistant. Negatively impacting on the role are the complex factors of: • lack of professional support from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia; • lack of a process for remuneration through the Medical Benefits Schedule; and a • lack of guidance to navigate the bureaucratic system. Setting Australian healthcare system. Subjects Clinicians who are a registered nurse or nurse practitioner surgical assistant in the Australian healthcare system private sector. Primary Arguments • A need exists for the perioperative nurse entrepreneur working in the private sector for specialty surgical assisting skills; adding a dimension of cost saving; and enhancing patient safety. • The same mechanism for remuneration to medical practitioners, as surgical assistants, via the Medical Benefits Schedule is not available to nurse surgical assistants undertaking the same role. A contributor to this is the lack of support by the Nursing Midwifery Board of Australia. • Lack of remuneration through Medicare exposes the patient to out of pocket expenses. Conclusion Absence of recognition of nurses (including Nurse Practitioners) as surgical assistants by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia is not conducive to recognition of these roles by other government entities such as Medicare. Specialty advanced practice roles like that of the nurse surgical assistant enhance patient safety. While support for these specialty roles from the medical profession is applauded, it is an indictment on the peak Australian regulatory body for the nursing profession that support for the nurse surgical assistant including the nurse practitioner surgical assistant is not yet evident.


The establishment of enclosures has been recognized as an effective strategy for the rehabilitation of degraded rangelands in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While numerous approaches to restore degraded rangelands have failed, the continuous adoption and adaptation of enclosures in Chepareria, a ward in West Pokot County in Kenya indicates the success of enclosures as a management tool for the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded areas in the arid and semi-arid landscapes of East Africa. There are two main forms of enclosures namely communal and private enclosures found in East African rangelands. However, most studies and research have focused on communal enclosures within pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of Africa. With increasing adoption and adaptation of private enclosures, the influence of enclosure management systems within private enclosures is not well understood. This study aimed to assess the influence of private enclosure management regimes on rangeland rehabilitation and was conducted in Chepareria ward, West Pokot County, Kenya.
The specific objectives of the study were to (a) characterize enclosure management regimes and identify reasons for their continued establishment among agro-pastoralists; (b) assess the impacts of enclosure age and management on herbaceous layer characteristics and woody species density; and (c) assess the benefits derived from rehabilitating degraded semi-arid rangelands through private enclosures. The study area was divided administratively into three locations namely: Ywalateke, Chepkopegh and Morpus. Socio-economic data were collected using a questionnaire, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Ecological data were collected randomly at six points in each of the three identified enclosure management systems. Sampling was carried out at the peak of both the wet (August) and dry (January) seasons in 2014-2015. Secondary data were obtained from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), and West Pokot County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2013-2017.
Enclosures were mainly established to demarcate boundaries, provide grazing reserves, enable proper land management, and facilitate crop cultivation in a pastoral set-up and to restore degraded land. Agro-pastoral households in Chepareria were diversifying their livelihood and income sources beyond the conventional livestock and crop production activities. Although livestock production was still the main source of livelihood, we found that it was supplemented by other land use and income generating activities such as trade, wage labour, employment, agroforestry and cultivation (crops, fruits, or hay). In terms of management, there were livestock and crop-based enclosure management regimes whose adoption was mainly influenced by agroecological zonation, land tenure, number of livestock and household income. The dominance of livestock-based management regimes in the semi-arid rangelands indicated that enclosures were mostly established to provide livestock grazing reserves and enable pastoralists to cope with drought. On the other hand, the presence of crop dominated regimes on the wetter regions pointed to the increasing recognition and uptake of alternative land use and livelihood strategies in order to diversify household income.
This study showed that vegetation attributes were mostly influenced by enclosure management (p ≤ 0.005) while enclosure age was not significant. Among the different management regimes, grazing dominated (GD) regime had the highest aboveground biomass (688.2 ± 860.7 kg DM ha-1) and plant species cover while cultivation dominated (CD) regimes exhibited average biomass production and lower density of woody species due to clearance and deforestation for the establishment of crop and pasture fields. Contractual grazing (CG) regimes were characterized by severe overgrazing, high species dominance, lower plant species cover and low herbaceous aboveground biomass production.
The qualitative benefits derived from the establishment of private enclosures included dry-season grazing reserves, healthier livestock, improved livestock productivity, better livestock management, food security, reduced animal losses, ecosystem services, land ownership, independence and improved standard of living. Quantitative benefits were manifested through various enclosure enterprise combinations, income generating activities and diverse marketable products from enclosures. They included sale of livestock and livestock products, maize, wood cutting, grass cutting, contractual grazing, grass seeds, poultry, fruits and honey, among others. There was a positive correlation between enclosure income and enclosure age (years) and acreage (ha). The increased reliance on enclosure tangible (quantitative) benefits underpins the rapidly changing reasons for enclosing communal land from environmental conservation to diversification and economic benefits over time.
Overall, private enclosures have the potential of contributing to resilience building or offer pathways towards resilience building in dryland ecosystems and communities as attested from the reasons for enclosure establishment, utilization and benefits reported in this study. This study concluded that private enclosures offer a framework for additional flexibility in land use, pasture, livestock management and the uptake of other income generating activities. By promoting effective and sustainable management of formerly degraded rangelands, private enclosures have emerged as an effective tool for the rehabilitation of degraded grazing lands. However, proper and appropriate management of enclosed areas will be critical to foster successful restoration of degraded rangelands. The thesis further, pin-points areas of research and offers suggestions on how the success of private enclosures in the restoration of degraded rangelands in East Africa can be improved.
Keywords: Drylands, enclosures, land degradation, rangeland restoration and rehabilitation, West Pokot


TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized from a triethylene glycol solution of titanium isopropoxide (Ti(O-iPr)4) by refluxing at 270°C for 12 hrs. The as-prepared sample was heated at 600 °C for 3 hrs in order to study the thermal stability of the sample. The X-ray diffraction patterns of the samples were well indexed to the anatase phase. The field emission TEM images show uniform spherical morphologies with average sizes of 25 nm. The electrochemical measurements revealed that the discharge capacities of the heated sample exhibited high capacities and good rate performances without capacity fading during extended cycles, due to their electrochemically beneficial highly crystalline structures, nano-sized particles, and uniform distribution.


Jumping spiders have a highly specialized visual system for the detection and analysis of prey. The retina of each of the anterior medial eyes has a compact, high-resolution, three-dimensional array of receptors that can scan, saccade, and engage in slow tracking. Qualitative study, computer-controlled data collection, and randomized stimulus presentation were used in an electrophysiological study of the properties of high-order visual neurons.

Receptive field mapping revealed neurons with well-defined, positionally stable, receptive fields. Some of these receptive fields had an angular extent greater than that of the static retinal array. The stability with respect to the cephalothorax and the angular extent of these receptive fields suggest integration of retinal information and eye position, to yield position constancy. Most neurons had receptive fields of constant angular subtense as the distance to the tangent screen varied. Some neurons have receptive fields that remain relatively constant in absolute physical size (changing in angular extent) as screen distance varies. Such size constant cells may be useful in assessing prey suitability. These characteristics require integration of depth information. These cells are driven monocularly, ruling out disparity cues. Jumping spiders do not use muscular accommodation. Instead, the retina has a layered, tiered structure. Depth of focus cues are probably the source of this information, as hypothesized previously by Land (1969a).

Quantitative assessment of velocity preferences revealed cells with medial eye input responding optimally to velocities of 16°/second, and other cells responding to higher velocities. Tuning for direction of movement orientation was also observed and quantified. The degree of tuning correlates with a measure of latency.

Results are also presented in a separate section from a primate behavior study on the vocalizations of the owl monkey, in which the vocal repertoire of two populations was recorded. Field recordings were analyzed for temporal and spectral properties of both the vocalizations and the acoustic context. We found no systematic variations of calls between populations, except for the number of syllables in the loud call. We examined behavioral context and probable function of inter and intragroup vocalizations. We found that the loud call may carry gender information, with a bimodal distribution of the spectral bandwidth of the fundamental.

This work was supported in part by a National Research Service Award (T32 GM 07737) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and a Lawrence A. Hanson Fellowship.


It is a phenomenological study that attempts to determine the educational problems of secondary school students migrating from Ukraine to Erzincan according to their teacher and student opinions. For the study, 10 teachers and 17 students have been consulted in schools where Ahıskan students are educated. The research data gathered with the help of the semi-structured questionnaire was uploaded to the NVivo 11 program and its content analysis was conducted following the descriptive analysis. Encodings made by the researchers during the analysis were categorized by two researchers in cooperation under the headings of program, discipline in school, difference of leveleducation in the same class, friendship relations, language, family structure and indifference. As a result of the study, Ahiskan Turks migrating from Ukraine to Uzumlu and having been in secondary school have experienced myriad educational problems and many of these problems have been tried to be solved but it was found that they should be more selfless in order to plan the future better and avoid raising lost generations.


In combination with the practice of a pumped storage hydropower station, a 3-D nonlinear finite element method on the preloading filling spiral case is carried out to compare and analyze stresses of the steel spiral case and hoop reinforcement, the stress and bearing ratio of the surrounding concrete, the contact state between the spiral case and concrete in different precast water head. The results indicate that the stress of the surrounding concrete will get better with the increasing of precast water head. But there is a distance between the spiral case and the surrounding concrete when the water head is excessive, which is unhelpful for operating of the unit. When the precast water head of the spiral case is 439m or so, it can play a greater degree of mechanical characteristics of steel and concrete under the premise of operating stably of the unit.