The purpose of this paper is to review available design data and provide a design procedure for the rudders of high performance small craft. While adequate background is presented to satisfy the user with a theoretical bias the needs of the practical designer are borne in mind and all the required data are presented in graphical form which does not require a full appreciation of the theoretical aspects for its use. A design approach is outlined which basically employs free-stream data together with the relevant corrections for effective aspect ratio, inflow angle of attack and velocity. Free-stream data applicable to the design of small craft all-movable and skeg rudders are presented and reviewed. Applicable design criteria regarding speed, angle of attack and influences of proximity of hull to top of rudder are discussed; data relevant to surface effects as applied to transom rudders, or other types operating near the surface, are considered and the influence of free surface assessed. The data are presented in non-dimensional form whereby comparisons between the various rudder types, or variation in parameters for a particular rudder type, can be made; some worked examples are included in appendices to illustrate the use of the data. General conclusions are drawn from the available data and design recommendations made.


There is an identified need for more effective assessment processes in rural Australia, with prior research revealing little knowledge sharing and even duplication across existing services. This article aims to explore the challenges to more closely integrated assessment processes, drawing on interview data with practitioners from three agencies located in the same rural region. Findings highlight the challenges of rural assessment, both demand-driven (more older people with complex needs, geographic isolation) and supply issues (time and distance, funding formulae, workforce shortages). The need for closer collaboration is recognized but significant systemic issues require addressing if it is to be achieved.


Emergency Issues of Clandestine Production of Drugs: The Case of "Sisa"- The Homemade Crystal Meth in Greece
Socioeconomic situation in a country can also affect the trends in drug use. Homemade methamphetamine appeared recently in Greece under the street name "sisa" and became very popular among drug addicts due to its low cost. It is manufactured mainly in small clandestine laboratories from inexpensive and easily available ingredients. The risk of an explosion in these laboratories is high due to the use of flammable solvents and it can frequently occur. A case of a man injured after an explosion in a clandestine laboratory and its toxicological investigation are described. During the investigation of such cases, toxicological analysis for determination of common or designer drugs of abuse, precursors and volatiles used in clandestine laboratories should be performed in biological fluids obtained from the injured people.


Background: Sarcoidosis is a multi-system disorder characterized by noncaseating epitheloid granuloma in multiple organs. However, granulomatous interstitial nephritis in the absence of extrarenal renal lesions is very rare. Case presentation: A 64-year-old male presented with a weight loss of 10 kg and an increase in serum creatinine from 1.1 to 4.8 mg/dl over a 1-year period. At admission, no proteinuria or hematuria was found, although serum creatinine was 5.1 mg/dl and was associated with slight increases in serum angiotensin converting enzyme and calcium levels. Renal biopsy revealed granulomatous interstitial nephritis with noncaseating epitheloid cells. The patient was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, although no extrarenal sarcoid lesion was found. Oral prednisolone was effective, with normalization of serum creatinine levels 2 weeks later. A review of the literature showed that isolated granulomatous renal sarcoidsosis preferentially affected elderly males, and their serum angiotensin converting enzyme levels were normal or mildly increased in many cases. Conclusions: This paper describes a rare case of isolated renal sarcoidosis with acute granulomatous interstitial nephritis. This case and a relevant review of the literature demonstrate that sarcoid granulomatous interstitial nephritis should be considered as one of differential diagnoses in elderly male patients with suspected tubulointerstitial nephritis irrespective of angiotensin converting enzyme levels.


Simple Summary Improving the sustainability of beef cows involves reducing feed costs and enteric methane emissions and increasing calf production while addressing concerns including animal health and welfare and worker safety. Reducing cow weight can favorably impact feed costs and methane emissions. Cumulative weight weaned observed throughout a cow's productive life directly addresses calf production and indirectly addresses other concerns—cumulative production is higher for cows who wean healthy calves and avoid culling because of reproductive failure, unsoundness, and dangerous behavior. Using functional variant genotypes imputed from the low-coverage whole genome sequence, this examination of cow weight and cumulative weight weaned in a herd of crossbred cattle resulted in additive heritability estimates of 0.57 for cow weight and 0.11 for weight weaned by 8-year-old cows. Corresponding dominance heritability estimates were 0.02 for cow weight and 0.19 for weight weaned. All breeds were represented by cows projected to have high and low cow weights and weight weaned. Heterosis was higher and genomic inbreeding, measured by runs of homozygosity, was lower among high-weight weaned cows. These results suggest selection should be effective in reducing cow weight. Selection to increase weight weaned will be slow but can be hastened with crossbreeding. Especially when pedigree is not available to estimate heterosis, runs of homozygosity may be a useful indicator of heterosis and a predictor of cumulative productivity. Beef cow sustainability can be improved with appropriate crossbreeding and selection, and may be accelerated by incorporating functional variants associated with sustainability-related traits. Abstract Programs for sustainable beef production are established, but the specific role of beef cows in these systems is not well defined. This work characterized cows for two traits related to sustainability, cow weight (CW) and cumulative weight weaned (WtW). Cow weight indicates nutrient requirements and enteric methane emissions. Cumulative weight weaned reflects reproductive performance and avoidance of premature culling for characteristics related to animal health, welfare, and worker safety. Both traits were evaluated with random regression models with records from a crossbred population representing 18 breeds that conduct US national cattle evaluations. The genomic REML analyses included additive and dominance components, with relationships among 22,776 animals constructed from genotypes of 181,286 potentially functional variants imputed from a low-pass sequence. Projected to 8 years of age, the additive heritability estimate for CW was 0.57 and 0.11 for WtW. Dominance heritability was 0.02 for CW and 0.19 for WtW. Many variants with significant associations with CW were within previously described quantitative trait loci (QTL) for growth-related production, meat, and carcass traits. Significant additive WtW variants were covered by QTL for traits related to reproduction and structural soundness. All breeds contributed to groups of cows with high and low total genetic values (additive + dominance effects) for both traits. The high WtW cows and cows above the WtW mean but below the CW mean had larger heterosis values and fewer bases in runs of homozygosity. The high additive heritability of CW and dominance effects on WtW indicate that breeding to improve beef cow sustainability should involve selection to reduce CW and mate selection to maintain heterosis and reduce runs of homozygosity.


The bottom-up assembly of synthetic cell systems capable of recapitulating biological functions has become a means to understand living matter by construction. The integration of biomolecular components into active, cell-sized, genetically programmed compartments remains, however, a major bottleneck for building synthetic cells. A primary feature of real cells is their ability to actively interact with their surroundings, particularly in stressed conditions. Here, we construct a synthetic cell equipped with an inducible genetic circuit that responds to changes in osmotic pressure through the mechanosensitive channel MscL. Liposomes loaded with an E. coli cell-free transcription-translation (TXTL) system are induced with IPTG when exposed to hypo-osmotic solution, resulting in the expression of a bacterial cytoskeletal protein (MreB). MreB associates with the membrane to generate a cortex-like structure. Our work provides the first example of molecular integration that couples mechanosensitivity, gene expression, and self-assembly at the inner membrane of synthetic cells.


Poliomyelitis was introduced in Cuba in the late nineteenth century by American residents in Isla de Pinos. The first epidemics occurred in 1906 and 1909 and increased in intensity between 1930 and 1958. The scope of the paper is to reconstruct the history of the disease and its epidemics in Cuba prior to 1961, the first National Polio Vaccination Campaign (1962) and its results, as well as analyze the ongoing annual vaccination campaigns through to certified elimination of the disease (1994). The logical historical method was used and archival documents and statistics from the Ministry of Health on morbidity and mortality through 2000 were reviewed. Gross morbidity and mortality rates were calculated and interviews with key figures were conducted.


The proposed use of nanocapsules in drug delivery systems promises many advantages over current procedures. The major advantage is the potential for patients to have significantly reduced side effects from taking the drug, especially for highly toxic drugs such as those used for cancer treatments. Nanotubes have been suggested as one such carrier to deliver a drug to a specific site, giving rise to the notion of the 'magic bullet'. The aim of this paper is to determine whether a particular nanotube would accept a particular drug, and to determine the radius of the nanotube that provides the maximum uptake of the drug molecule. In particular, this paper looks at the drug cisplatin, a platinum based anticancer drug widely used in the treatment of tumours. Three orientations of cisplatin, a polar molecule, are investigated as it enters the nanotube. It is shown that, for all three orientations of cisplatin to be accepted into the carbon nanotube, the minimum radius must be at least 4.785 Å, which is slightly smaller than a (9, 5) nanotube and that the maximum suction energy occurs when the carbon nanotube radius is approximately 5.3 Å, which is approximately equivalent to a (11, 4) nanotube. This paper presents for the first time a calculation of this nature, and although the model represents only a first approximation, it constitutes a necessary preliminary calculation which might provide medical scientists with some overall guidelines.


Protein kinase A (PKA) directly mediates several cardiac behaviors in response to β-adrenergic stimulation. However, it remains unclear how PKA makes context-dependent decisions to select between contractile and hypertrophic β-adrenergic signaling responses. We have previously shown PKA activation by isoproterenol is spatially heterogeneous in neonatal rat cardiac myocytes, indicating subcellular β-adrenergic signaling compartmentation. We hypothesize hypertrophic β-adrenergic signaling responses are specifically regulated by nuclear compartmentation of PKA activity. We expressed spatially targeted FRET reporters for PKA activity and found PKA responses to isoproterenol to be slower and less sensitive in the nucleus than in the cytosol. To investigate mechanisms underlying these differences, we constructed a biochemically mechanistic computational model of cytosolic and nuclear PKA activity in rat cardiac myocytes. Using this model, we found that nuclear PKA dynamics are limited by diffusional transport barriers, whereas nuclear PKA sensitivity to isoproterenol is limited by protein kinase inhibitor (PKI) inhibition. Moreover, our model predicts these differences in compartmented PKA activity may help PKA select between different substrates, sensitive to the temporal characteristics of β-adrenergic stimulation. In the model, short, transient isoproterenol treatment fully phosphorylates phospholamban while CREB is only partially phosphorylated. In contrast, long, sustained isoproterenol treatment fully phosphorylates both phospholamban and CREB. To test the model prediction that compartmented PKA can regulate different cardiac behaviors, we over-expressed PKA targeted to the cytosol and nucleus. Myocytes over-expressing PKA in the nucleus were 24.8% larger than control (n = 908 cells, p = 0.0002), while myocytes over-expressing PKA in the cytosol were the same size as control cells (n = 987 cells, p = 0.9971). Together, these results highlight an important role for nuclear PKA compartmentation in selecting hypertrophic responses to β-adrenergic stimulation.


This review is a study of how the idea of spin ice has evolved over the years, with a focus on the scientific questions that have come to define the subject. Since our initial discovery of spin ice in 1997, there have been well over five thousand papers that discuss it, and in the face of such detail, it must be difficult for the curious observer to 'see the wood for the trees'. To help in this task, we go in search of the biggest insight to have emerged from the study of spin ice. On the way, we identify highlights and outstanding puzzles, and celebrate the inspirational role that Roger Cowley played in the early years.


We use matched employer-employees data for Italy to study the joint response of wages and employment to firm-level shocks. We construct a simple dynamic general equilibrium model of labor demand and supply that allows us to identify separately firing (or internal) and mobility (or external) adjustment costs. We show that the two type of costs cannot be discriminated empirically by looking at labor or wage adjustment separately. Mobility costs have distinctive implications on wage response to firm-level employment changes but they can only be identified with worker-level information on wages. We find that both types of costs are present, but the internal component accounts for a large share of total adjustment costs. Our results are consistent with a labor market where workers are fairly mobile within locations but scarcely mobile across them


Background Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious health threat to people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This study aimed to identify the characteristics, unsuccessful TB treatment rate, and determinants of unsuccessful TB treatment outcome among patients with TB-HIV coinfection in Kuala Lumpur. Methods This was a cross-sectional study. The data of all patients with TB-HIV in the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur from 2013 to 2017 were collected and reviewed. The data were retrieved from the national database (TB Information System) at the Kuala Lumpur Health Department from 1 March 2018 to 31 May 2018. Results Out of 235 randomly selected patients with TB-HIV, TB treatment outcome was successful in 57.9% (cured and completed treatment) and unsuccessful in 42.1% (died, failed, or lost to follow-up). Patients who did not receive DOTS (directly observed treatment, short course) (adjusted odds ratio: 21.71; 95% confidence interval: 5.36–87.94) and those who received shorter treatment duration of <6 months (aOR: 34.54; 95% CI: 5.97–199.93) had higher odds for unsuccessful TB treatment outcome. Conclusions Nearly half of the patients with TB-HIV had unsuccessful TB treatment outcome. Therefore, it is important to ensure that such patients receive DOTS and continuous TB treatment of >6 months. It is crucial to strengthen and widen the coverage of DOTS, especially among high-risk groups, in healthcare settings. Strict follow-up by healthcare providers is needed for patients with TB-HIV to gain treatment adherence and for better rates of successful TB treatment.


The Dunmore lode is localized along a persistent fissure zone over two miles long and averaging nearly 100 feet in width along the length of the Dunmore claim. The fault in which the lode is located offset the pre-Cambrian quartzite and slate walls about 4,500 feet prior to deposition of the overlying thick San Juan tuff. Late Tertiary faulting extended the fissure into the San Juan tuff, dropping the south side about 80 feet. Although most of the lode crops out in the pre-Cambrian rocks, it extends upward across the profound unconformity into the tuff. The lode is complex, containing sharply marked fissure veins, sheared slate dragged into the fault zone, a sheared dike, breccia chimneys, and pebble dikes. An assemblage consisting of quartz, sericite, kaolin, and pyrite appears to be of early Tertiary age. The more productive part of the lode, however, is late Tertiary and consists of a hematite chimney inclosing a copper shoot, a tungsten chimney, and compound base-metal fissure veins. These chimneys and veins are mostly localized along early Tertiary structures, but their mineral sequences correlate them with the second stage of late Tertiary deposition recognized by Burbank in the adjoining Red Mountain and other districts. The Dunmore lode, however, is believed to have been deposited at greater depth and higher temperature and nearer to a source of supply than the lodes of these districts. In structure as well as mineral assemblages the Dunmore lode shows a connection between the chimneys and veins of the region.


In Marius von Senden's Space and Sight, a newly sighted blind patient describes the experience of a corner as lemon-like, because corners"prick"sight like lemons prick the tongue. Prickliness, here, is a dimension in the feature space of sensory experience, an effect of the perceived on the perceiver that arises where the two interact. In the account of the newly sighted, an effect familiar from one interaction translates to a novel context. Perception serves as the vehicle for generalization, in that an effect shared across different experiences produces a concrete abstraction grounded in those experiences. Cezanne and the post-impressionists, fluent in the language of experience translation, realized that the way to paint a concrete form that best reflected reality was to paint not what they saw, but what it was like to see. We envision a future of creation using AI where what it is like to see is replicable, transferrable, manipulable - part of the artist's palette that is both grounded in a particular context, and generalizable beyond it. An active line of research maps human-interpretable features onto directions in GAN latent space. Supervised and self-supervised approaches that search for anticipated directions or use off-the-shelf classifiers to drive image manipulation in embedding space are limited in the variety of features they can uncover. Unsupervised approaches that discover useful new directions show that the space of perceptually meaningful directions is nowhere close to being fully mapped. As this space is broad and full of creative potential, we want tools for direction discovery that capture the richness and generalizability of human perception. Our approach puts creators in the discovery loop during real-time tool use, in order to identify directions that are perceptually meaningful to them, and generate interpretable image translations along those directions.


Background The purpose of this scoping review was to ascertain how 'telehealth' is utilised within health care, from pre hospital to admission, discharge and post discharge, with patients who have suffered major trauma. Methods A scoping review of the literature published in English since 1980 was conducted using MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, Austhealth, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; Cochrane library) and Web of Science MEDLINE and MEBASE to identify relevant studies. Results We included 77 eligible studies with both randomised controlled trial and cohort design methodology. A variety of trauma was included such as traumatic brain injuries (n = 52; 67.5%), spinal cord injury (n = 14; 18.2%) and multi-trauma (n = 9; 11.7%) to both adult (n = 38) and paediatric (n = 32) participants. Telehealth is used in pre-hospital and acute-care settings (n = 11; 14.3%) to facilitate assessment, and in rehabilitation and follow-up (n = 61; 79.2%) to deliver therapy. Effects on health were reported the most (n = 46), with no negative outcomes. The feasibility of telehealth as a delivery mode was established, but coordination and technical issues are barriers to use. Overall, both patients and clinicians were satisfied using this mode of delivery. Conclusion This review demonstrates how telehealth is utilised across a spectrum of patients with traumatic injuries and to facilitate delivery of therapy, specialist consultations and assessments, with many studies reporting improvements to health. There is a paucity of high-quality rigorous research, which makes replication of findings and uptake of the intervention problematic. Future telehealth and trauma research should focus on the quality and reproducibility of telehealth interventions and the economic feasibility of using this platform to deliver trauma care.


Background Recently, a clone of MRSA with clonal complex 398 (CC398) has emerged that is related to an extensive reservoir in animals, especially pigs and veal calves. It has been reported previously that methicillin-susceptible variants of CC398 circulate among humans at low frequency, and these have been isolated in a few cases of bloodstream infections (BSI). The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of S. aureus CC398 in blood cultures taken from patients in a geographic area with a high density of pigs. Methodology/Principal Findings In total, 612 consecutive episodes of S. aureus BSI diagnosed before and during the emergence of CC398 were included. Three strains (2 MSSA and 1 MRSA) that were isolated from bacteremic patients between 2010–2011 were positive in a CC398 specific PCR. There was a marked increase in prevalence of S. aureus CC398 BSI isolated between 2010–2011 compared to the combined collections that were isolated between 1996–1998 and 2002–2005 (3/157, 1.9% vs. 0/455, 0.0%; p = 0.017). Conclusions/Significance In conclusion, in an area with a relative high density of pigs, S. aureus CC398 was found as a cause of BSI in humans only recently. This indicates that S. aureus CC398 is able to cause invasive infections in humans and that the prevalence is rising. Careful monitoring of the evolution and epidemiology of S. aureus CC398 in animals and humans is therefore important.


Significance Hypertension affects one in four adults in the United States and is a major risk factor for heart failure. A plasmonic nano-gold platform with excellent reproducibility and sensitivity is developed to address the currently unmet need of profiling circulating cardiovascular autoantibodies in hypertensive patients. We observed that patients with early-stage hypertensive heart diseases displayed a higher level of cardiovascular autoantibodies than hypertensive patients with normal cardiac function. Autoantibodies to troponin I, adrenergic beta-1 receptor, and annexin-A5 could best discriminate hypertensive heart disease. Ultimately, this nanoscience-based platform could be deployed to facilitate screening autoantibodies and identify at-risk patients for early stages of heart failure. Furthermore, this platform could have broad applications in myocarditis, heart transplantation, and other autoimmune diseases. The role of autoimmunity in cardiovascular (CV) diseases has been increasingly recognized. Autoimmunity is most commonly examined by the levels of circulating autoantibodies in clinical practices. Measurement of autoantibodies remains, however, challenging because of the deficiency of reproducible, sensitive, and standardized assays. The lack of multiplexed assays also limits the potential to identify a CV-specific autoantibody profile. To overcome these challenges, we developed a nanotechnology-based plasmonic gold chip for autoantibody profiling. This approach allowed simultaneous detection of 10 CV autoantibodies targeting the structural myocardial proteins, the neurohormonal regulatory proteins, the vascular proteins, and the proteins associated with apoptosis and coagulation. Autoantibodies were measured in four groups of participants across the continuum of hypertensive heart diseases. We observed higher levels of all 10 CV autoantibodies in hypertensive subjects (n = 77) compared with healthy participants (n = 30), and the autoantibodies investigated were related to each other, forming a highly linked network. In addition, we established that autoantibodies to troponin I, annexin-A5, and beta 1-adrenegic receptor best discriminated hypertensive subjects with adverse left ventricular (LV) remodeling or dysfunction (n = 49) from hypertensive subjects with normal LV structure and function (n = 28). By further linking these three significant CV autoantibodies to the innate and growth factors, we revealed a positive but weak association between autoantibodies to troponin I and proinflammatory cytokine IL-18. Overall, we demonstrated that this platform can be used to evaluate autoantibody profiles in hypertensive subjects at risk for heart failure.


This article provides a detailed examination of how the safety and cost-effectiveness elements of Australia's drug regulatory system will respond to nanomedicines. The case study investigated involves Abraxane, a newly developed anti-cancer agent. The article concludes by proposing some responses to the challenges which nanomedicines are likely to present to international and domestic agencies. Additionally, it considers whether the recommendation of the Australian Productivity Commission to allow parallel submissions to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is appropriate when applied to new nanotherapeutics.


An investigation was carried out to determine the possibility of preparing coatings of synthetic zeolites on stainless steel from mixtures containing natural zeolite. Hydrothermal synthesis was applied and the coatings obtained were characterized by various techniques. It was observed that crystalline zeolite A coatings could be prepared from natural clinoptilolite, which provided the silica necessary for zeolite synthesis in the alkaline reaction mixture containing alumina. Zeolite coating formation was affected by synthesis conditions, such as temperature, time, alkalinity, and alumina content of the reaction mixture. The involvement of two simultaneous processes, namely, dissolution/transformation of clinoptilolite in the mixture and reaction on the substrate by the help of dissolved reagents, presents a new approach for zeolite coating preparation. This method may especially provide a means for more economical mass-scale production of zeolite coatings since the synthetic reagents may be replaced with much cheaper natural resources.


NF-κB plays a major role in the pathogenesis of B-cell neoplasms. A broad array of mostly extracellular stimuli has been reported to activate NF-κB, to various degrees, in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells. Because CLL cells harbor high levels of unphosphorylated STAT-3 (USTAT-3) and USTAT-3 was reported to activate NF-κB, we sought to determine whether USTAT-3 activates NF-κB in CLL. Using the electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), we studied peripheral blood low-density cells from 15 patients with CLL and found that CLL cell nuclear extracts from all the samples bound to an NF-κB DNA probe, suggesting that NF-κB is constitutively activated in CLL. Immunoprecipitation studies showed that STAT-3 bound NF-κB p65, and confocal microscopy studies detected USTAT-3/NF-κB complexes in the nuclei of CLL cells, thereby confirming these findings. Furthermore, infection of CLL cells with retroviral STAT-3-short hairpin RNA attenuated the binding of NF-κB to DNA, as assessed by EMSA, and downregulated mRNA levels of NF-κB–regulated genes, as assessed by quantitative PCR. Taken together, our data suggest that USTAT-3 binds to the NF-κB p50/p65 dimers and that the USTAT-3/NF-κB complexes bind to DNA and activate NF-κB–regulated genes in CLL cells. Mol Cancer Res; 9(4); 507–15. ©2011 AACR.


Cerebral metastasis occur in 10 to 20% of patients with choriocarcinoma. We describe the twelfth patient with oncotic aneurysms from choriocarcinoma verified by cerebral angiography. The importance to consider this disease in a woman of childbearing age who develop an intracerebral hemorrhage or a lesion with mass effect is emphasized, as well as laboratorial and radiological characteristics. Therapeutic approaches with chemotherapic agents, surgery and irradiation are discussed.


The objective of this paper is to assess the need and the importance of Islamic fashion in the world. The issues highlighted are the evolution of Islamic fashion, the acceptance of modest fashion globally as well as Muslims' spending on clothing. In this study, it elaborated on the growth of Islamic lifestyle globally, the top-ranking countries for all Halal sectors as per Global Islamic Economy Index, the position of Malaysia as compared to other Muslim countries in Islamic fashion and further explained the opportunity of Malaysia that has taken on board to create job for consumers and designers. The methodology used is the review of published dissertation and literature to generate the foundation and to elicit relevant information for the issues covered by this study. Findings shows that both international designers and high street brands empower the modest fashion given the new modern modest fashion fresh attire since it does not just celebrate faith but develop a fashion-conscious society, especially among Malaysian women. With its current growth, modest fashion has created diversity, celebrated inclusion and redefined modesty as less religion. In fact, the Islamic fashion in Malaysia has becoming a new phenomenon such as the brand like dUCk, Naelofar, to name a few. Muslim fashion is a lucrative global industry with countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey are leading the way outside the Western countries. Islamic fashion has been supported by the development of internet technology which is increasingly advancing and causing an eye-opener for customers to shift to online shopping. With the high density of Muslims in Asia Pacific, Islamic clothing will be expected to be one of the promising markets in the business. In conclusion, Islamic fashion industry is becoming more diverse and inclusive, and the demand for modest-wear is gaining momentum. With a growing Muslim population, there is an increased demand for modest but also fashionable clothing for the youth, who have significant spending power. As a recommendation, Muslim-owned brands should be aware of the development of technology and the diversity of demand for Islamic fashion which not only covers Muslims' spending but also non-Muslim.


Lighting is responsible for the consumption of more than 2650 TWh of energy per year, corresponding to about 20 of the global electricity consumption. All the strategies and international policies pushing for the adoption of more efficient light sources are assuming a real important role for energy saving and for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper will illustrate technological approaches that can contribute at improving the performance of low-pressure mercury lamps and high-intensity-discharge lamps. Advancements and optimization of materials, such as getters, active amalgams, and starting amalgams, can allow to produce light sources with superior characteristics. Concerning the aspect related to innovative materials, it is worth underlining that many of the fluorescent lamps today available on the market are using advanced technological solutions based on stable mercury compounds for accurate and reliable Hg dosing, down to very low levels.


The quality of sputtered-deposited piezoelectric films used for integrating bulk acoustic wave (BAW) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices with semiconductor circuitry depends on several deposition parameters including substrate temperature, background pressure, gas composition, gas flow rate, and deposition rate. It is desirable to establish the fabrication process based on a a selection of the controllable parameter values that optimizes the film quality. It is common practice to perform a number of deposition experiments by varying the controllable parameters to determine the optimal film growth conditions. The films are grown under a number of different conditions within this space and a response parameter related to film performance is measured. Then a multiple linear regression model is fit to the data. By optimizing the fitted response the best growth conditions can be obtained. This approach is illustrated with data from recent work on the development of very high quality magnetron sputtered aluminum nitride (AlN) films whose acoustic characteristics are like those of epitaxial films grown at considerably higher substrate temperatures. Because the resource cost involved can be high depending upon the number of deposition runs made, it is desirable to minimize the number of experiments and maximize the amount of information gained from them. A discussion is given on how the statistical theory of experimental design can be used to obtain this goal.


The demographic transition that swept the world in the course of the last century has been identified as one of the prime forces in the transition from stagnation to growth. The unprecedented increase in population growth during the early stages of industrialization was ultimately reversed and the demographic transition brought about a significant reduction in fertility rates and population growth in various regions of the world, enabling economies to convert a larger share of the fruits of factor accumulation and technological progress into growth of income per capita. This Paper examines various mechanisms that have been proposed as possible triggers for the demographic transition, assessing their empirical validity, and their potential role in the transition from stagnation to growth.


Cost reduction is one of the main targets in power industry due to economic load dispatch problem and allocating loads to plants for minimum cost. The principal objective in economic dispatch of thermal generators in a power system is to determine the economic loadings of the generators so that the load demand can be met and the loadings are within the feasible operating regions of the generators. This study presents an optimization approach for fuel cost and power loss minimization based on genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization methods. To demonstrate the global optimization power of the presented techniques, these methods are applied to the IEEE 30 bus test system with highly non-linear generator input/output cost curves and the results compared to those obtained using OPF method based on mathematical programming approaches. The results demonstrate that PSO and GA method show great promise for minimum cost when it contains highly non-linear devices.


Abstract A moderately diverse crinoid fauna from the Early Mississippian, Tournaisian, part of the Bahram Formation is reported from exposures in the vicinities of Hutk and Shams Abad, north of Kerman in southeastern Iran. Conodonts from the crinoid-bearing beds represent two faunas and indicate an age of Upper Siphonodella crenulata Biozone to Gnathodus typicus Biozone. Recognition of a Tournaisian age for this part of the Bahram Formation revises the previously assigned Famennian age and indicates that Famennian strata are much thinner, if present, in southeastern Iran. The fauna occurs in thin-bedded marls and limestones at the top of a shaley slope-forming sequence that grades upward into resistant cliff-forming limestones. Most crinoid specimens are crowns (many retaining part of the proximal stem) that have been flattened by compaction. At the genus level the crinoids include five camerates, three cladid dendrocrinids, ten other cladids, three flexibles, and one articulate. In addition, loose arm fragments and occasional cup fragments are common, along with abundant pluricolumnals and columnals in the fauna. Dominance of cladids over camerates probably reflects the argillaceous sediment in the mixed carbonate/siliciclastic platform environment of the fauna. This is the most diverse Tournaisian fauna reported from the northern margin of Gondwana and represents an equatorial fauna living at approximately 20°S latitude. Stronger affinities are with North American and European crinoid faunas than with Chinese and Australian faunas. Shallow-shelf conodonts from the crinoid-bearing beds are dominated by species of Polygnathus. Palaeoniscoid fish remains and shark teeth from the same beds support a shallow-shelf environment. New taxa proposed are Dichocrinus shamsensis new species; D. labyrinthus new species; Springeracrocrinus conicus new species; Atelestocrinus hutkensis new species; Zangucrinus abadensis new genus and species; Glossocrinacea new superfamily; Gelasinocrinus revimentus new genus and species; Amabilicrinidae new family; Amabilicrinus iranensis new genus and species, A. bahramensis new species; Derorhethocrinus elongatus new genus and species; Corematocrinidae new family; Lorocrinus zanguensis new genus and species; Blothrocrinus yazdii new species; Culmicrinus cylindratus new species; Paracosmetocrinus delicatus new species; Taxocrinus quadribrachiatus new species; Meristocrinus ovatus new species; and Hutkocrinus kermanensis new genus and species. Revision of the Glossocrinidae also resulted in designation of two new genera not present in the Iranian fauna: Bufalocrinus new genus (type species Catactocrinus? torus Webster and Hafley, 1999, from the Late Devonian, Famennian, of Colorado) and Nudalocrinus new genus (type species Culmicrinus jeffersonensis Laudon and Severson, 1953, from the Tournaisian of Montana).


* Background and Purpose:
Carotid endarterectomy has been shown to be beneficial in symptomatic patients with a severe stenosis (70-99%) of the internal carotid artery (ICA). Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) is the standard of reference in the diagnosis of carotid artery stenosis, but has a relatively high complication rate. In this thesis in a diagnostic study and a cost-effectiveness analysis we investigated whether DSA could be replaced by non-invasive testing.
* Methods:
In a prospective diagnostic study we performed duplex ultrasound (DUS), magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), and DSA on 350 consecutive symptomatic patients. Stenoses were measured with the observers blinded for clinical information and other test results. Separate and combined test results of DUS and MRA were compared with DSA. Only the stenosis measurements of the arteries on the symptomatic side were included in the analyses. A cost-effectiveness analysis, integrating diagnostic accuracy, acute complications, long term outcomes, costs and quality of life was performed by means of a diagnostic and prognostic model. Additionally, in this thesis further test specific characteristics of MRA were studied and patients preferences for DSA, MRA, and DUS were investigated.
*Results:
DUS analysed with previously defined criteria resulted in a sensitivity of 87.5% (95%CI, 82.1%-92.9%) and a specificity of 75.7% (95%CI, 69.3%-82.2%) in identifying severe ICA stenosis (70-99%). Stenosis measurements on MRA yielded a sensitivity of 92.2% (95%CI, 86.2%-96.2%) and a specificity of 75.7% (95%CI, 68.6%-82.5%). Combining MRA and DUS results, agreement between these two modalities (84% of patients) gave a sensitivity of 96.3% (95%CI, 90.8%-99.0%) and a specificity of 80.2% (95%CI, 73.1%-87.3%) for identifying severe stenosis. The use of DUS, MRA, and the combination of DUS and MRA resulted in comparable outcomes in terms of QALYs and total lifetime costs, whereas DSA resulted in QALY loss and higher costs.
* Conclusions:
Both DUS and MRA are accurate diagnostic tests to detect carotid artery stenosis. Particularly if DUS and MRA are in agreement, the combined test result has a high sensitivity and specificity, making DSA redundant for the decision whether carotid endarterectomy should be performed. In the event of disagreement DSA may be considered. In the majority of patients it is more effective and less expensive to replace DSA by the combination of DUS and MRA.


Various empirical studies in developing countries showed that economies led by the private sector achieved better economic performance than the one led by the state. Pakistan has a very sluggish growth in private sector which is a major cause of slow economic growth in the country, private investment in Pakistan is effected by many internal and external factors, these factors determined the private investment in Pakistan. For clear understanding of the private investment fluctuation in Pakistan, study on the factors is very important. Therefore, this research is designed to find out major economic determinants which can stimulate or hinder the private investment in Pakistan. In this study for estimation, ARDL approach was applied on time series secondary data (i.e. from 1975 to 2015). The empirical evidence confirms that long run relationship between the variables is present. Furthermore, result confirms that public investment is proportionally related to private investment and has significant relationship. Whereas, inflation rate and exchange rate have significantly negative impact on private investment. Results also recommended that in the short run, the disequilibrium is rapidly adjusted. Based on study results, it is recommended that policy makers develop more effective policies to improve private investment through macroeconomic stability in Pakistan.


y We introduce a new paradigm for the integration of functional and logic programming. Unlike most current research, our approach is not based on extending uniication to general-purpose equation solving. Rather, we propose a computation delaying mechanism called residuation. This allows a clear distinction between functional evaluation and logical deduction. The former is based on the-calculus, and the latter on Horn clause resolution. In clear contrast with equation-solving approaches, our model supports higher-order function evaluation and eecient compilation of both functional and logic programming expressions, without being plagued by non-deterministic term-rewriting. In addition, residuation lends itself naturally to process synchronization and constrained search. Besides uniication (equations), other residuations may be any ground-decidable goal, such as mutual exclusion (inequations), and comparisons (inequalities). We describe an implementation of the residuation paradigm as a prototype language called Le Fun|Logic, equations, and Functions. 0y This document is extracted from 5], with the addition of a simpler Le Fun uniication algorithm based on (serial) combinator reduction.


Natural grasses in semiarid rangelands constitute an effective protection against soil erosion and degradation, are a source of natural food for livestock and play a critical role in the hydrologic cycle by contributing to the uptake and transpiration of water. However, natural pastures are threat- ened by land abandonment and the consequent encroach- ment of shrubs and trees as well as by changing climatic conditions. In spite of their ecological and economic impor- tance, the spatiotemporal variations of pasture production at the decadal-century scales over whole watersheds are poorly known. We used a physically based, spatially distributed eco- hydrologic model applied to a 99.5 ha semiarid watershed in western Spain to investigate the sensitivity of pasture produc- tion to climate variability. The ecohydrologic model was run using a 300-year-long synthetic daily climate data set gen- erated using a stochastic weather generator. The data set re- produced the range of climatic variations observed under the current climate. Results indicated that variation of pasture production largely depended on factors that also determined the availability of soil moisture such as the temporal distri- bution of precipitation, topography, and tree canopy cover. The latter is negatively related with production, reflecting the importance of rainfall and light interception, as well as wa- ter consumption by trees. Valley bottoms and flat areas in the lower parts of the catchment are characterized by higher pasture production but more interannual variability. A quan- titative assessment of the quality of the simulations showed that ecohydrologic models are a valuable tool to investigate long-term (century scale) water and energy fluxes, as well as vegetation dynamics, in semiarid rangelands.


In 1919, J. W. Appiah, a Methodist catechist in the Gold Coast, sought the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and began to prophesy and pray for the sick. He and his followers were expelled from the Church, and formed both a new community and a denomination known as the Musama Disco Christo Church (MDCC). It has often been argued that African Independent Churches result as a reaction to Western domination of land or people, but it is shown that this was not the primary issue with the MDCC. The initial quest was for spiritual empowerment, which resulted in prophetic revelation and the formation of a church with distinctively African characteristics. Following Appiah's death, his son (Akaboha II) became the head of the growing church, which was affected by two contemporary developments. The first was the nationalist movement led by Nkrumah, which stimulated the MDCC to a mission of the spiritual liberation of Christianity from remaining Western elements. This was achieved through the innovation of rituals and practices based upon traditional African forms. The second was revivalist teaching brought to Ghana by Pentecostal evangelists, which the MDCC adopted as "instantaneous healing". Although the church continued to grow after the fall of Nkrumah and the death of Akaboha II, in the late 1980s it started to decline. This thesis argues that the innovation of African traditions resulted in a form of contextualization that was inflexible, so the church was unable to adapt to social change and has become less relevant. Former members are now seeking a more relevant charisma of the Holy Spirit in other churches. The illiterate members prefer the Pentecostal churches, and the educated younger generation are attracted to the newer Charismatic churches.


Objective To assess feasibility of transcutaneous electromyography of the diaphragm (dEMG) as a monitoring tool for vital signs and diaphragm activity in the delivery room (DR). Design Prospective observational study. Setting Delivery room. Patients Newborn infants requiring respiratory stabilisation after birth. Interventions In addition to pulse oximetry (PO) and ECG, dEMG was measured with skin electrodes for 30 min after birth. Outcome measures We assessed signal quality of dEMG and ECG recording, agreement between heart rate (HR) measured by dEMG and ECG or PO, time between sensor application and first HR read-out and agreement between respiratory rate (RR) measured with dEMG and ECG, compared with airway flow. Furthermore, we analysed peak, tonic and amplitude diaphragmatic activity from the dEMG-based respiratory waveform. Results Thirty-three infants (gestational age: 31.7±2.8 weeks, birth weight: 1525±661 g) were included. 18%±14% and 22%±21% of dEMG and ECG data showed poor quality, respectively. Monitoring HR with dEMG was fast (median 10 (IQR 10–11) s) and accurate (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) 0.92 and 0.82 compared with ECG and PO, respectively). RR monitoring with dEMG showed moderate (ICC 0.49) and ECG low (ICC 0.25) agreement with airway flow. Diaphragm activity started high with a decreasing trend in the first 15 min and subsequent stabilisation. Conclusion Monitoring vital signs with dEMG in the DR is feasible and fast. Diaphragm activity can be detected and described with dEMG, making dEMG promising for future DR studies.


Background: Evodiamine, a compound isolated from the Evodia rutaecarpa Bentham (Rutaceae), is known to have a potential anti-proliferative activity in human cancer cells. However, the growth inhibitory activity against lung cancer cells and the underlying molecular mechanisms have been poorly determined. The present study was designed to examine the anti-proliferative effect of evodiamine in A549 human lung cancer cells. Methods: A549 cells were treated with the compounds from Evodia rutaecarpa, and the anti-proliferative activity was evaluated by the sulforhodamine B assay. The mechanisms of action for the growth inhibitory activity of evodiamine on A549 human lung cancer cells were evaluated using flow cytometry for cell cycle distribution, and Western blot for assessment of accumulation and phosphorylation of potential target proteins. Results: Evodiamine exhibited a potent anti-proliferative activity against A549 human lung cancer cells. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that evodiamine induced cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase and apoptosis in the A549 cells. The cell cycle arrest was well correlated with the inhibition of cyclin B1, cyclin A, cdk2 and p-cdc2 (Tyr15) and increase of p-chk1 (Ser345) and p-chk2 (Thr68). Evodiamine also significantly increased the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 and decreased procaspase-3, suggesting evodiamine-induced apoptosis via the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. In addition, evodiamine inhibited the expression of p-ERK and ERK. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the anti-proliferative effect of evodiamine was associated in part with the induction of G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, and down-regulation of ERK in human lung cancer cells.


A technique for inkjet-printing of graphene saturable absorbers (SAs) for ~2-μm bulk and waveguide lasers is presented. Based on distillation-assisted solvent exchange to fabricate high-concentration graphene inks, this technique is capable of producing few-layer graphene films of arbitrary shape. Absorption saturation of graphene printed on glass is demonstrated at ~1.56 µm for picosecond and femtosecond pulses indicating a large fraction of the saturable losses. Inkjet-printed transmission-type graphene SAs are applied in passively Q-switched nanosecond thulium (Tm) microchip and planar waveguide lasers. The Tm microchip laser generates 136 ns / 1.2 µJ pulses at 1917 nm with a repetition rate of 0.37 MHz with a Q-switching conversion efficiency reaching 65%. The planar waveguide laser generates 98 ns / 21 nJ pulses at 1834 nm at a repetition rate in the MHz-range. The inkjet-printing technique is promising for production of patterned SAs for waveguide lasers.


Objectives: To investigate the use of metabolic parameters as early prognostic factors during concomitant chemoradiotherapy for locally advanced cervix carcinoma (LACC). Materials and Methods: Between February 2008 and January 2012, 34 consecutive patients treated for LACC (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Staging System stage IB2-IVA) were included in a retrospective study. Treatment was standard of care: total dose of 45 Gy in 1.8 Gy per fraction with concurrent cisplatin followed by brachytherapy. 18F-FDG PET-CT modalities were performed before treatment and per-treatment (at 40 Gy). The analyzed parameters were: maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), SUVmax variations of the primary tumor between the 2 investigations (DSUVmax), metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and total lesion glycolysis (TLG). Survival was assessed according to early metabolic changes during chemoradiotherapy. Results: Median follow-up was 16 months (range, 5.3 to 32.4 mo). Median SUVmax before treatment was 13.15 (5.9 to 31) and was 5.05 (0 to 12) per-treatment. Median DSUVmax was 63.97% (0% to 100%). Median MTV before treatment was 44.16 mL (3.392 to 252.768 mL) and was 5.44 mL (0 to 69.88 mL) per-treatment. Median TLG before treatment was 249.82 mL (13.40 to 1931.10 mL) and was 20.14 mL (0 to 349.99 mL) per-treatment. At 40 Gy, SUVmax≥6, DSUVmax⩽40%, MTV≥5.6 mL, and TLG≥21.6 mL were significantly associated with overall survival and progression-free survival reduction. MTV predicted progression with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 87.5% and TLG with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 83.3%. Conclusions: PET-CT imaging could be useful as an early prognostic factor during treatment for LACC. MTV and TLG seem to provide better prognostic information than SUVmax and DSUVmax.


This article reevaluates the political dimension of the work of Mesmer, showing the involvement of the founder of animal magnetism in the conflicts of his time. The first part of the article is devoted to his action during the Revolution. During his stay in the Austrian capital between 1790 and 1793, Mesmer played an important role in the 'jacobin plot" of Vienna. His return to Paris in 1798 marked his return to the political scene. Mesmer attempted at this time, without any success, to make his conceptions known to the public not only his doctrine of animal magnetism, but also his theories about the nature of man and organization of society. These ideas were finally published in German translation in 1814, and greeted with general indifference. The second part of the article, focusing on the period before the Revolution, examines the genesis of Mesmer's political and moral ideas; these were developed in stages, even if his doctrine of animal magnetism still appeared confined to the medical sphere. Born within the framework of Viennese medicine, influenced by enlightened despotism, Mesmer's ideas took a critical turn during his stay in Paris, when animal magnetism became a public passion. It was then that the unifying theme of harmony developed as an essential part of the doctrine of animal magnetism. Finally, the last part of the article investigates the precise content of Mesmer's moral and political theories, as these were expressed first in the lessons of 1784, then expanded in his later publications.


Fuzzy logic systems with approximation capabilities provide effective control for nonlinear and uncertain systems. Due to the characteristics of photovoltaic (PV) and the PWM method, a grid-connected PV system is a considerably nonlinear system with unpredictable parameters. In this study, a new adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy approximation-based controller (AIT2FAC) was developed to control a three-phase grid-connected PV system. The proposed controller can be implemented without any prior knowledge of the system mathematical model. In the presence of both parametric and modeling uncertainty, the developed controller can achieve the control objectives. The proposed controller utilizes the principle of input-output feedback linearization and the approximation capability of fuzzy systems to the control inverter current components to track prescribed reference values. The proposed AIT2FAC controller is capable of handling system uncertainties due to the interval type-2 fuzzy logic system capability to cope with a high level of uncertainty. Lyapunov analysis is used to determine the closed-loop system stability and the updating laws of the proposed controller parameters. The effectiveness of the designed controller to achieve the required tracking is validated for different operating cases, including system disturbances, modelling, and parameter uncertainties. For evaluation, the proposed type-2 fuzzy controller is compared to a type-1 fuzzy controller in terms of some performance measures. The comparison results demonstrate that the proposed type-2 fuzzy controller has better tracking performance than the type-1 fuzzy controller in terms of the settling time, the maximum overshoot, the integral absolute error (IAE) and the integral time of absolute error (ITAE).


Poultry provides an important protein source consumed globally by human population.
Simultaneously poultry act as a substantial reservoir of antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli
(E. coli) strains including commensal with beneficial roles on poultry health and
productivity, and pathogenic not only to poultry but zoonotically to man. This study
investigated the role of phytochemicals as possible alternatives to antibiotics and natural
anti-bacterial agents to control E. coli; carvacrol oil (the active ingredient of oregano) and
oregano oil. The possible anti-E. coli roles of these phytochemicals were associated with
missense mutations in marR and cadC genes, mutations in acrA and TolC genes and in
ampC, ampH, pbpC and pbpG genes, which are bacterial strategies to overcome antibiotics.
A total of 31 representative E. coli strains from 3 different sources of poultry (12 APEC
strains, 9 commensal chicken strains, and 10 commensal turkey strains) were shown to be
phenotypically and genotypically diverse, and sequentially differentiating between types
proved to be difficult. These phytochemicals inhibited the growth and biofilm formation at
very low concentrations (MIC values ranging between 0.2 - 0.5µg/ml) in comparison with
antibiotics. At sub-MIC levels, these phytochemicals did not induce metabolic changes
(SCFAs production) in the E. coli strains, but synergistic interactions between carvacrol
and ampicillin were observed in controlling the most ampicillin-resistant E. coli strains.
Though, when this combination therapy was investigated using batch culture with chicken
caecal content challenged with an ampicillin-resistant APEC strain, it showed an adverse
effect. Carvacrol treatment showed positive impact on the bacterial population by
enhancing the growth of probiotic bacteria (Lactobacillus sp. and Lactobacillus salivarius)
and bacteria with anti-Salmonella activity (Streptococcus sp. and Coprococcus sp.). Thus, providing evidence that carvacrol as a feed additive might enhance avian gut health by
controlling antibiotic-resistant APEC strains, but this needs to be supported by in vivo
studies.


Estimating a semantically segmented bird's-eye-view (BEV) map from a single image has become a popular technique for autonomous control and navigation. However, they show an increase in localization error with distance from the camera. While such an increase in error is entirely expected -localization is harder at distance - much of the drop in performance can be attributed to the cues used by current texture-based models, in particular, they make heavy use of object-ground intersections (such as shadows) [10], which become increasingly sparse and uncertain for distant objects. In this work, we address these shortcomings in BEV-mapping by learning the spatial relationship between objects in a scene. We propose a graph neural network which predicts BEV objects from a monocular image by spatially reasoning about an object within the context of other objects. Our approach sets a new state-of-the-art in BEV estimation from monocular images across three large-scale datasets, including a 50% relative improvement for objects on nuScenes.


Force model of tire uniformity testing system and data analysis method are fundamental to a tire uniformity testing machine. Based on theoretical analysis, this paper proposes a two-dimensional force model to calculate tire's radial and lateral force, confirm the mechanical structures of the existing tire uniformity testing machine's testing system and verify the validity of its testing method by the model. According to this two-dimensional force model and FFT data analysis method, the YLJ series tire uniformity testing machine is developed. It is mainly applied for fully auto online uniformity test and size deviation. The authors also explained the operational principle, data measurement and analysis procedure of the YLJ series tire uniformity testing machine.


In IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs current standard MAC layer protocols do not provide any error correction scheme for broadcast/multicast. In our previous work, we enhanced a Leader Based Protocol (LBP) and proposed a Beacon-driven Leader Based Protocol (BLBP) for the MAC layer multicast error control. In this paper, we combine BLBP and packet level Forward Error Correction (FEC) and propose a Hybrid Leader Based Protocol (HLBP). HLBP transmits the original data packets using raw broadcast and retransmits parity packets using an improved BLBP which is based on block feedback. To guarantee the required Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) under strict delay constraints, we analyze HLBP, develop formulas to optimize its performance and evaluate its performance via simulation experiments. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that HLBP is much more efficient than LBP and BLBP especially for large multicast groups and is even more efficient than the best application layer multicast error correction scheme.


Fatigue crack growth (FCG) behavior of two martensitic steel grades was investigated using a single edge-notched bend specimen fixed beyond the notched section in cantilever bending under displacement control. This task was made possible by a new and original testing methodology developed on the basis of finite element analyses to define valid boundary conditions and the corresponding stress intensity factor K-expression for the test specimen. The behavior has been described including the nearthreshold zone and the second zone of relatively high FCG rates. Results for the two steel grades were found to correspond well with the empirical models reported in the literature. This confirms the validity of the methodology proposed in the present paper, which can be attributed to: (1) the accurate K-expression for the test specimen, (2) the proper definition of the boundary conditions adopted during testing, and (3) the validity of the adopted boundary conditions.


The least squares method is very sensitive to outliers, one of the simple alternative is the least absolute deviation, i.e. L1 regression, which is less sensitive to outliers, so which is more suitable the small sample and much noise situation. In this paper, the L1 problem of linear model is discussed, the previous work is reviewed systematically, different algorithms is compared, it is proved that the dual forms of different algorithms are the same.


Has the unprecedented financial globalization of recent years changed the behavior of capital flows across countries? Using a newly constructed database of gross and net capital flows since 1980 for a sample of nearly 150 countries, this paper finds that private capital flows are typically volatile for all countries, advanced or emerging, across all points in time. This holds true across most types of flows, including bank, portfolio debt, and equity flows. Advanced economies enjoy a greater substitutability between types of inflows, and complementarity between gross inflows and outflows, than do emerging markets, which reduces the volatility of their total net inflows despite higher volatility of the components. Capital flows also exhibit low persistence, across all economies and across most types of flows. Inflows tend to rise temporarily when global financing conditions are relatively easy. These findings suggest that fickle capital flows are an unavoidable fact of life to which policymakers across all countries need to continue to manage and adapt.


Background Adverse drug events (ADEs) can lead to increased morbidity, mortality and costs. Previously, the analysis of ADEs in North Denmark Region (NDR) has not led to comprehensive initiatives, and no preventive regional strategies had been developed within the medicines area. To ensure the learning potential of reported ADEs, a thorough analysis needs to be performed. Purpose To re-categorise the reported ADEs in the NDR, and to assess whether the current classification system did identify the underlying causes of the ADE. Materials and methods The project was designed as a retrospective, descriptive study. The ADEs were from January 2012 to January 2013. The ADEs were re-categorised according to the WHO classification system by a clinical pharmacist, and the ADEs related to 'prescribing' were also categorised according to the Ferner and Aronsons (FE) classification model. Results Of the 463 ADEs, all were categorised by the rapporteur within the 'prescribing' process, whereas the distribution of ADEs categorised by the clinical pharmacist included seven categories: prescribing (88.7%), prescription management (0.9%), dispensing (1.7%), administration (3.2%), documentation (3%), monitoring (0.02%) and other process (1.5%). Categorising according to FE showed that the majority (91.8%) of ADEs, were categorised as 'Good rules misapplied' (40.2%), 'Knowledge-based errors' (30.9%) and 'Action-based errors' (20.7%). Within 'Knowledge-based errors', the most common ADE (14.6%) was 'Ignorance of drug/dose/treatment'. Within 'Good rules misapplied', 12.4% of the ADEs were categorised as 'medicines reconciliation not performed/performed incorrectly'. 'Wrong dose' (7.8%) was the most common ADE within 'Action-based errors'. Conclusions The categorisation according to WHO classification system was not consistently performed by the rapporteur and by the clinical pharmacist. The WHO classification system points out where ADE happens within the medication process, but it does not identify the underlying cause of the ADE. The FE classification model provides more detailed information on the underlying cause of the ADE and is recommended for future use in NDR. No conflict of interest.


Zeolite catalysts are widely used in oil refinery and petrochemical industries. Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalysts used in a refinery consist of Y zeolite, a silica–alumina matrix and a binder. In this study, spent FCC catalysts were prepared by cracking sour imported heavy gas oil (SIHGO) in a microactivity test unit. The total amount of coke and the hydrogen-to-carbon ratio (H/C) in the coke for spent FCC catalysts contaminated with metals were determined using temperature-programmed oxidation (TPO). Total H/C ratios of the coke on FCC catalysts were found to be in the range of 0.4 to 1, indicating the majority of the coke consists of polyaromatic species. H/C ratio decreased with increasing coke contents on the catalysts. This ratio was found to be higher for the catalyst with high metal concentration compared to the catalyst with relatively low metal concentration. The high H/C ratio for highly contaminated FCC catalyst was attributed to the formation of hydrogen rich coke by hydrogenation reactions catalyzed by the contaminant metals on the catalyst. After hydrogen pretreatment both coke amount and H/C ratio decreased significantly. This was due to the decrease in the hydrogenation activities of the contaminant-metals in their reduced forms.


This review essay discusses the relatively meager scholarly output in the humanities and social sciences in post-Soviet Azerbaijan in its institutional and political context. Publications often aim to contribute to a new Azerbaijani identity, yet much of Azerbaijani academia remains organized along Soviet lines. Most of its output is normative, lacks scholarly rigor, and is poorly disseminated, as is that sponsored by Western foundations and local NGOs. Historians have debated the ethnic history of Azerbaijan, the context of the Karabagh conflict, and 20th-century political history. The study of Azeri identity and mentality form a separate domain of research, and there is related work on religious attitudes and ethnosociology, which includes the study of ethnic minorities. Analyses of topics such as labor migration or the formation of a middle class are rarely based on empirical research. There is also a considerable literature on religions in Azerbaijan, especially Islam and politics. In Russian, summary in English.


Using data from a experimental supportive intervention to India's malaria control program, we study the impact of local capacity on mosquito net usage and fever care seeking patterns. The intervention was conducted simultaneously by three NGOs in two endemic districts in the state of Orissa, and we find that program impact varies significantly by district. Examining three potential sources of this variation (differential population characteristics, differential health worker characteristics, and differential implementer characteristics), we provide evidence that the implementing agency can significantly affect both the success of a program and the external validity of RCT results.


Abstract An experiment to investigate the critical mass of 237Np was performed at the Los Alamos Critical Experiments Facility. The critical configuration consisted of a 6.07-kg neptunium sphere surrounded by 62.555 kg of highly enriched uranium hemispherical shells. The experiment was performed in order to decrease the large uncertainty in the critical mass of 237Np for criticality safety and nonproliferation issues. The critical configuration had an experimental keff of 1.003. Comparison of the experimental results with computational methods used to predict the keff of the system led to identification of a large discrepancy in the 237Np cross-section data from ENDF/B-VI used by the analysis performed with the MCNP code. In an effort to bound the uncertainty on the experimental keff, a sensitivity analysis was performed. This analysis systematically examines uncertainties associated with the critical experiment as they affect the calculated multiplication factor. The systematic analysis is separated into uncertainties due to mass measurements, uncertainties due to geometry of materials, and uncertainties due to impurities. Each type of uncertainty is analyzed individually, and a total combined uncertainty is derived. The sensitivity analysis on this experiment yielded a total combined uncertainty on the measured keff of ±0.0032.


To make use of full capability of Electrochemical Micro-Machining (EMM), a meticulous research is needed to improve the material removal, surface quality and accuracy by optimizing the various EMM process parameters. Keeping this in view, an indigenous development of EMM machine set-up has been considered to carry out a systematic research for achieving the satisfactory control on EMM process parameters to meet the micromachining requirements. In this study an EMM machine has been developed and experiments were conducted to study the influence of some of the major process parameters such as machining voltage, electrolyte concentrations, pulse on time and machining current on machining rate and accuracy. The effect of shape of the tool electrode tips on EMM has been investigated experimentally with 304 Stainless Steel (SS) sheets. The machining rate and overcut are significantly influenced by the shape of the tool electrode tips.


The bag filter is a kind of important de-dusting equipment in the power, metallurgy, chemical and building materials industry. Its operation efficiency and running state are two technical indexes of great importance. As for detection of the two indexes, current existing detection methods have various defects. This paper mainly introduces a bag filter on-line monitoring system based on AC charge induction. By using the international advanced AC charge-coupling technology and digital signal processing technology, it can accurately monitor the bag breaking state of filter and put out alarm. In the bag filter on-line monitoring process, the system well solves the technique difficulties of the measuring equipment in such aspects as anti-blocking, wear resistance, low pressure losses, accuracy and reliability, etc. It has the advantages of high measuring accuracy and easy installation and maintenance, therefore, it can bring certain economic benefits and have the prospect of popularization and application.


ABSTRACT This study uses quarterly EU Labour Force Survey data for 30 countries over the period 2000 to 2016 to examine the relationship between changes in the composition of educational attainment and overeducation rates among new labour market entrants holding post-secondary and tertiary qualifications. We find that tertiary education expanded rapidly across our sample, while the proportion of young people with lower levels of education fell gradually throughout the period. Despite the significant increases in the percentage of young people educated to tertiary level, overeducation among new tertiary graduates fell. The descriptive evidence also suggests that some of the greatest declines in overeducation of young tertiary graduates occurred in the countries experiencing the most significant expansion in tertiary education. Overeducation rates among young graduates with upper-secondary and post-secondary (non-tertiary) education were lower in magnitude than overeducation of tertiary graduates and declined slightly over the period. Our GMM results confirm the negative relationship between educational expansion and overeducation for both tertiary and post-secondary graduates, and reveal a number of other factors potentially explaining cross-country variation in youth overeducation rates.


This article is written by five women from different settings in social work and academia, who are all qualified social workers. Their personal experiences and sexual identities are also different, but they hold a coherent commitment to improving social work practice by addressing sexuality issues in their work. The article considers a number of areas of relevance and interest to social work practitioners, managers and researchers, all focusing on issues around sexuality. Using an amalgamation of personal narratives and practice reflections, the authors combine these with evidence from the literature, to raise a number of key difficulties about reflection as a tool for social work practice. By including heterosexual perspectives alongside lesbian ones and by highlighting some of the parallel difficulties, the paper begins to uncover some of the pathologising and patronising perspectives often adopted in social work practice.


Soil hydraulic properties play an important role in determining the level of crop productivity and the extent of environmental loading. Consequently, measurement of near-saturated soil hydraulic conductivity (K(h)) by tension infiltrometer (TI) is an interesting technique. To provide reference values for near-saturated K(h) in arable mineral topsoils of Finland and to investigate variability in these values caused by tillage, antecedent soil moisture content and earthworm burrows, field measurements were conducted in south-western and central-eastern Finland using the TI technique, at supply pressure head –6, –3, and –1 cm. The range of near-saturated K(h) values obtained was 0.02–12.6 mm h-1 at –6 cm, 0.30–85.9 mm h-1 at –3 cm, and 2.55–250 mm h-1 at –1 cm. At –6 cm pressure head, clay soils tended to show lower values than coarser-structured soils, but the order was reversed at –1 cm. The spatial variation in near-saturated K(h) was moderate and was exceeded by the temporal variation.


High-performance object detection relies on expensive convolutional networks to compute features, often leading to significant challenges in applications, e.g. those that require detecting objects from video streams in real time. The key to this problem is to trade accuracy for efficiency in an effective way, i.e. reducing the computing cost while maintaining competitive performance. To seek a good balance, previous efforts usually focus on optimizing the model architectures. This paper explores an alternative approach, that is, to reallocate the computation over a scale-time space. The basic idea is to perform expensive detection sparsely and propagate the results across both scales and time with substantially cheaper networks, by exploiting the strong correlations among them. Specifically, we present a unified framework that integrates detection, temporal propagation, and across-scale refinement on a Scale-Time Lattice. On this framework, one can explore various strategies to balance performance and cost. Taking advantage of this flexibility, we further develop an adaptive scheme with the detector invoked on demand and thus obtain improved tradeoff. On ImageNet VID dataset, the proposed method can achieve a competitive mAP 79.6% at 20 fps, or 79.0% at 62 fps as a performance/speed tradeoff.1


The veterans benefits system that we have today is, with modest changes, the same one that was created in 1917 for the veterans of World War I. We have advanced since then, however, from the Industrial Age to today's Information Age, which has ushered in huge changes for the fields of law, medicine, government, and information technology. Nevertheless, the veterans benefits system remains trapped at the start of the previous century. Today's challenge for the system is two-fold. First, we must recognize the many ways in which the system is outdated. Second, we must make conscious, strategic decisions as to how to structure the system among all the new possibilities. There is no definitive way in which a modern veterans benefits system must be structured. However, the current out-dated process is certainly not the solution that best handles today's challenges and opportunities.


The thesis evaluates the GAP, Gas Analyze Prototype, which uses MEMS (Microelectro-mechanical-system) technology to quantify up to four different concentrations in an unknown gas mixture. The GAP is based on independent bulk equations and uses density, viscosity and specific heat constants together with measurements extracted from transducers to determine the concentrations of gas elements in a gas mixture. Experiments were made where humidity, temperature, pressure and different concentrations compositions of air where tested in order to extract data for further evaluation and understanding of the limitations of the GAP. The conclusion drawn from the experiments is that it is possible to determine the concentrations of the constituents of air with the GAP. It was also found that the basic equations tend to result in unrealistic concentration values. Therefore, to get correct concentration values more complex equations should be used. Due to inadequate software, the full capacity of the prototype was not tested, i.e. only the gas-mixture of air could be tested. Further work is needed to grasp the full capacity of the GAP.


INTRODUCTION
The developments in hypospadias surgical techniques and materials are intended to improve surgery outcomes and patient comfort. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of the Zaontz urethral stent (ZUS) (Cook Medical) on patient comfort and surgical success rates in children undergoing hypospadias surgery.

METHODS
A feeding tube was used to repair 46 cases of primary distal hypospadias, and ZUS (6F, 8F, and 10F in diameter) was used to repair to 31 cases of primary distal hypospadias between December 2009 and June 2011 in our clinic. ZUS was compared with the feeding tube in terms of surgical success rates and patient comfort in assessments made during postoperative periods.

RESULTS
The patients with ZUS were followed with a stent for seven days postoperatively, as were the patients with the feeding tube. There was no statistical difference between the two groups in terms of fistula formation (p>0.05). Patient comfort was evaluated by the Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability (FLACC) scale on the first and third postoperative days, and a statistically significant difference was observed in favour of ZUS on the third postoperative day (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Compared with a feeding tube in hypospadias repair, ZUS does not make any contribution to the urinary fistula rates. However, ZUS may have an advantage in terms of patient comfort in the postoperative followup. On the other hand, the small number of patients and the high price of the ZUS were the most important limitations. Prospective, randomized trials are needed to assess efficacy and cost.


Aqueous organic redox flow batteries are promising candidates for large-scale energy storage. However, the design of stable and inexpensive electrolytes is challenging. Here, we report a highly stable, low redox potential, and potentially inexpensive negolyte species, sodium 3,3',3'',3'''-((9,10-anthraquinone-2,6-diyl)bis(azanetriyl))tetrakis(propane-1-sulfonate) (2,6-N-TSAQ), which is synthesized in a single step from inexpensive precursors. Pairing 2,6-N-TSAQ with potassium ferrocyanide at pH 14 yielded a battery with the highest open-circuit voltage, 1.14 V, of any anthraquinone-based cell with a capacity fade rate <10%/yr. When 2,6-N-TSAQ was cycled at neutral pH, it exhibited two orders of magnitude higher capacity fade rate. The great difference in anthraquinone cycling stability at different pH is interpreted in terms of the thermodynamics of the anthrone formation reaction. This work shows the great potential of organic synthetic chemistry for the development of viable flow battery electrolytes and demonstrates the remarkable performance improvements achievable with an understanding of decomposition mechanisms.


Understanding environmental processes begins with mental conceptualizations of system components and interactions. Conceptualizing rivers begins with adopting one of two reference frames for observing movement: Eulerian, wherein the flux of objects is observed in a spatially bounded area, or Lagrangian, wherein specific objects are tracked through time. Mechanistic studies include Eulerian and Lagrangian data, with some negotiation of how much Eulerian and Lagrangian information may be needed to maximize the accuracy of understanding processes and the efficiency of data collection. Most studies rely on a presupposed reference frame, yet we suspect breakthroughs lurk in explicit alterations of presupposed reference frames. We analyze the importance of reference frames by contrasting the extent to which alternative reference frames have been used and combined in studies of sediment transport, fish migration, and river biogeochemistry. We show how adopting alternative or nonintuitive reference frames can facilitate novel research questions and observations, potentially triggering new research trajectories.


Research on nonmarital fertility has focused almost exclusively on unmarried mothers, due in part to a lack of fertility information for men. Cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth allows exploration of nonmarital fertility for both genders. We compare the characteristics of unmarried first-time mothers ( n = 2,455) and fathers ( n = 797), use event history techniques to model second birth hazards, and examine the distribution of men's and women's second births across types of relationships. Our analysis is motivated by questions about how selection into nonmarital fertility relates to subsequent fertility behavior and by theories of mate selection and the "relationship" market. We find that unmarried mothers are more likely to have a second birth than unmarried fathers, driven largely by a higher hazard of having a noncoresidential second birth.


The article reveals an attempt to create an integrated information system for energy security monitoring, for instance in Yakutia, in terms of a vivid and typical representative of isolated areas with extreme temperature conditions. The analysis of area assessment of renewable energy and energy security strengthening of decentralized power supply systems is given. The research considers the worked out algorithm which determines the renewable energy attractiveness coefficient in connection with energy security assessment indicators. The document includes the results of the analysis of the energy situation in Yakutia with the help of geoinformation software product, the illustrative fragment of integrated information system modules. The implementation of the developed system results in fast analysis of occurring issues, indicators calculating as a foundation for strategic platform to manage energy security positions. The system assists to tackle the problems in advance.


Introduction: We aimed to explore IBD related outcomes in a cohort of IBD patients affected by COVID-19. Methods: We performed a retrospective case series of patients with IBD who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and seen in a single tertiary care referral center from March 2020 to March 2021 after IRB approval. COVID-19 diagnosis was made based on a combination of symptoms and positive rapid antigen, PCR test, and/or SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. We assessed the need for escalation in IBD treatment as defined by need for hospitalization, new steroid use, escalation or addition of immunosuppressive maintenance therapy, and/or surgery at 3 months after a diagnosis of COVID-19. Disease activity was estimated based on routinely measured clinical disease severity indices documented in office visit notes and/or routinely measured endoscopic scoring documented in the procedure notes. When such data was not available, disease activity and remission was determined by Physician Global Assessment. Continuous variables were compared between groups using student t test. Categorical variables were compared using Chi square test. Results: We identified 57 eligible patients. At the time of diagnosis, 30 (52.3%) were in remission, 21 (36.8%) had moderate disease activity, and 2 (3.5%) had severe disease activity. A comparison of baseline characteristics and COVID-19 outcomes of those who required escalation of therapy post COVID-19 diagnosis and those who did not are detailed in Table. Patients who did not require escalation in management were more likely to have a higher body mass index and be in remission at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis than those who did require escalation in treatment. Patients who required escalation in treatment were more likely to have moderate disease activity at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis as well as be on corticosteroids including prednisone than those who did not require escalation. IBD patients with moderate disease activity at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis were more likely to need escalation in treatment than those in remission (OR 12; CI 2.75-52.35, P50.0009). Conclusion: IBD patients in remission at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis did better than those with moderate disease activity in terms of need for additional IBD therapy. Whether the need for escalation of IBD therapies in patients with moderate disease activity is related to the natural progression of the disease or influenced by COVID-19 infection warrants further exploration.


Background:Activity pacing is a common intervention for patients with chronic pain. Over the past decade a number of instruments have been developed to measure this construct, but their comparative psychometric properties have not been examined. Objective:To review the psychometric properties of existing measures of activity pacing, and provide suggestions for future research in this emerging area of pain research. Methods:A narrative review of current measures of activity pacing followed by a discussion of the conceptual and psychometric challenges in this area. Results:Although there is evidence supporting activity pacing as a unitary construct, important differences remain among the various measures in terms of their item content and assumptions. All existing activity pacing measures include items that assess activity regulation, but vary in their specific content. Most importantly, questionnaire items often reflect different purposes of pacing behaviors. Discussion:Current measures of activity pacing are inadequate. New measures are needed that are based on specific theoretical models; these measures should also make the goal or intent of pacing behaviors explicit. Improvements in the assessment of activity pacing will likely lead to a better understanding of the pacing construct and the effects of pacing interventions.


Sedimentation, predation and visible light are cited as causal factors to explain the pref- erential recruitment of coral larvae to shaded habitats in shallow water. Here I examine the effects of ultraviolet radiation (UVR, 280 to 400 nm) on settlement of Pocillopora damicornis (Linnaeus) larvae, and the role of UV-absorbing compounds, mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs), in 3 field experi- ments. Larvae were obtained from adults of 4 origins: shallow (<0.5 m), deep (2 to 3 m), acclimated under UV-transparent (UVT) filters, and under UV-opaque (UVO) filters. Larvae were then exposed to UVT or UVO conditions in specially designed larval settlement chambers placed on the reef at 0.5 m depth. UVR had a negative effect on total settlement. However, UVR did not significantly increase mortality. High performance liquid chromatography analyses revealed significantly higher concentrations of MAAs in adults incubated in UVT conditions compared to those in UVO, and in shallow larvae compared to deep larvae. Despite the differences in MAA concentrations, larval ori- gin did not significantly affect survival or settlement. Lack of an 'origin' effect suggests that either MAAs may not be important to the larval ecology of this species, or that the deep and UVO larvae had at least the minimum amount of MAAs required for UVR protection. Regardless of MAAs, these experiments indicate that larvae may delay settling to the substrate when UVR levels are high (behavioral response), or that UVR is inhibiting the settlement process in some way (physiological response).


Practice has shown that the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer astonishing opportunities for innovation in customer relations management by offering businesses the potential to extend their markets beyond their nations, regions, continents and enable them reach and serve any customer in the global market place, and thus increase their revenue base. Consequently the application of e-business methods in Electronic Customer Relations Management (e-CRM) provides such an opportunity for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Unfortunately, the adoption of e-CRM by SMEs has been slow and uneven between regions. It is for this reason that this paper investigated, the factors that can influence e-CRM adoption by SMEs to enable them enjoy the same benefits like the large companies of being enabled to reach and serve customers in any part of the globe.


Synapsin I (SynI) is a synaptic vesicle (SV) phosphoprotein playing multiple roles in synaptic transmission and plasticity by differentially affecting crucial steps of SV trafficking in excitatory and inhibitory synapses. SynI knockout (KO) mice are epileptic, and nonsense and missense mutations in the human SYN1 gene have a causal role in idiopathic epilepsy and autism. To get insights into the mechanisms of epileptogenesis linked to SYN1 mutations, we analyzed the effects of the recently identified Q555X mutation on neurotransmitter release dynamics and short-term plasticity (STP) in excitatory and inhibitory synapses. We used patch-clamp electrophysiology coupled to electron microscopy and multi-electrode arrays to dissect synaptic transmission of primary SynI KO hippocampal neurons in which the human wild-type and mutant SynI were expressed by lentiviral transduction. A parallel decrease in the SV readily releasable pool in inhibitory synapses and in the release probability in excitatory synapses caused a marked reduction in the evoked synchronous release. This effect was accompanied by an increase in asynchronous release that was much more intense in excitatory synapses and associated with an increased total charge transfer. Q555X-hSynI induced larger facilitation and post-tetanic potentiation in excitatory synapses and stronger depression after long trains in inhibitory synapses. These changes were associated with higher network excitability and firing/bursting activity. Our data indicate that imbalances in STP and release dynamics of inhibitory and excitatory synapses trigger network hyperexcitability potentially leading to epilepsy/autism manifestations.


We propose single-shot multiwavelength digital holography with an extremely large incident angle and show the digital recording of multiple object waves at multiple wavelengths with an angle of more than 40 degrees and no beam combiner to generate interference light. Both the avoidance of the crosstalk between the object waves at different wavelengths and the space-bandwidth extension are simultaneously achieved with a single-shot exposure of a monochromatic image sensor and a reference beam even when the wavelength difference between the object waves is small. An extremely large angle can be set by utilizing the signal theory. An angle of up to 40.6 degrees was introduced, interference fringes with an 818 nm period at the wavelength of 532 nm were generated, and an image sensor recorded a two-wavelength-multiplexed hologram. Resolution improvement was experimentally demonstrated using two-wavelength digital holography with the wavelengths of 640 and 532 nm.


The design of the control laws governing the behavior of individual agents is crucial for the successful development of cooperative agent teams. These control laws may utilize a combination of local and/or global knowledge to achieve the resulting group behavior. A key difficulty in this development is deciding the proper balance between local and global control required to achieve the desired emergent group behavior. This paper addresses this issue by presenting some general guidelines and principles for determining the appropriate level of global versus local control. These principles are illustrated and implemented in a ``keep formation'''' cooperative task case study.


Rational choice theory holds that the alternative with largest expected utility in the choice set should always be chosen. However, it is often observed that an alternative with the largest expected utility is not always chosen while the choice task itself being avoided. Such a choice phenomenon cannot be explained by the traditional expected utility maximization principle. The current study posits shows that such a phenomenon can be attributed to the gap between the expected perceived gain (or loss) and the expected perceived value. This study mathematically analyses the relationship between the expectation of an alternative's gains or losses over the reference point and its expected value, when the perceived gains or losses follow continuous probability distributions. The proposed expected value (EV) function can explain the effects of loss aversion and uncertainty on the evaluation of an alternative based on the prospect theory value function. The proposed function reveals why the expected gain of an alternative should exceed some positive threshold in order for the alternative to be chosen. The model also explains why none of the two equally or similarly attractive options is chosen when they are presented together, but either of them is chosen when presented alone. The EV function and EG-EV curve can extract and visualize the core tenets of the prospect theory more clearly than the value function itself.


Driving is a complex activity that requires multi-level skilled operations (e.g., acceleration, braking, and turning). Analyzing driving behaviors can help us assess driver performances, improve traffic safety, and, ultimately, promote the development of intelligent and resilient transportation systems. While some efforts have been made for analyzing driving behaviors, existing methods can be improved via representation learning by jointly exploring the peer and temporal dependencies of driving behaviors. To that end, in this paper, we develop a Peer and Temporal-Aware Representation Learning based framework (PTARL) for driving behavior analysis with GPS trajectory data. Specifically, we first detect the driving operations and states of each driver from their GPS traces. Then, we derive a sequence of multi-view driving state transition graphs from the driving state sequences, in order to characterize a driver's driving behaviors that vary over time. In addition, we develop a peer and temporal-aware representation learning method to learn a sequence of time-varying yet relational vectorized representations from the driving state transition graphs. The proposed method can simultaneously model both the graph-graph peer dependency and the current-past temporal dependency in a unified optimization framework. Also, we provide two effective solutions for the optimization problem: (i) a joint optimization solution of representation learning and prediction; and (ii) a step-by-step solution of representation learning and prediction. Besides, we explore two strategies to fuse the learned representations from multi-view transition graphs: (i) simple alignment and (ii) collective fusion. Moreover, we apply the developed framework to the two applications of quantitative transportation safety: (i) scoring of driving performances, and (ii) detection of dangerous regions. Finally, we present extensive experimental results with big trajectory data to demonstrate the enhanced performances of the proposed method for quantitative transportation safety.


Whorlbury camp is a considerable Roman station situated just above Weston-super-Mare on a high and well defended promontory that projects into the Severn sea. At the foot of the promontory, and at its northern extremity, is a small island, connected to the main land by a bank of rocks, and always accessible at low water. The island contains about three acres of green sward, the remainder of the surface consisting of limestone rocks, which are deeply excavated. It serves during the sprat season as a place of resort for fishermen, who have extended their sprat-hangs from the island-to the main land. A narrow horse road forms the descent from the downs in the island to the level of the sea, and it is just where the road begins to quit the sward on the left hand side opposite the sea, that a narrow stratum of soft red sandstone appears. This sandstone is of the consistence of schist at its surface, and has its laminæ divided by a hardened ochreous marl. Its whole thickness is about 6 feet, and it dips at an angle of about 47°. In the marly part of this stratum a fossil is found resembling a cane or jointed bamboo. It is rarely obtained more than five inches long, generally curved, but sometimes straight, and of all degrees of thickness from a quarter of an inch to five inches. These fossils lie in great disorder, and are apt to separate at their joints on extracting them from