BACKGROUND
The last 50 years have seen a sea change in approaches to health care with children, from a time when children were routinely separated from parents while in hospital, to current recognition of the importance of placing the experiences of children and their families at the heart of care. Yet, there is a gap in the evidence about how children's involvement might be best achieved.This study aimed to synthesize findings of children's experiences of long-term illness and, from this, to identify levers and barriers to patient-centred care with children.

METHODS
A synthesis of studies of the experiences of children living with type 1 diabetes or asthma.

DATA SOURCES
Eight health and social care databases, bibliography searches and consultation with field experts and first authors of included studies.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA
Qualitative studies with children 10 years (mean) and younger on their experiences of living with type 1 diabetes or asthma.

MAIN RESULTS
Findings suggest key 'levers' to patient-centred care with children include: (1) engagement with children's expertise about their own lives: their personal and social experiences of their care, including how these are affected by their relative lack of power in some settings; (2) exploring children's understandings and preferences in terms of their physical sensations and day-to-day experiences; (3) willingness to find resources to engage with even the youngest children; (4) avoiding age-based assumptions about children's contributions to their care.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Action on the above 'levers' may present a range of challenges in healthcare settings not least because it represents a move away from medicine's historical focus on children's developing competencies to engage rather with children's social realities from the earliest ages.


Study Design
Retrospective cross sectional.

Purpose
The purpose of this study was to assess the independent associations between perceived participation in clinical decision making on rehabilitation length of stay, discharge functional status, and discharge setting following inpatient rehabilitation.

Background
Active participation in the inpatient rehabilitation process, which is the most intense post-acute rehabilitation service, should lead to better patient experiences and outcomes.

Methods
Self-reported information from participant interviews was linked with data in administrative medical records for Medicare beneficiaries discharged from inpatient rehabilitation facilities in 2007-2009. The decision making variable assessed participants' perceived participation in decision making during their inpatient rehabilitation stays. The three outcome variables were inpatient rehabilitation length of stay, discharge functional status, and discharge setting.

Results
Among the 41,110 participants interviewed, approximately 89% strongly agreed or agreed, and 12% disagreed that they participated in decision making during their rehabilitation stays. The multivariable regression models showed that greater participation in decision making was associated (p < .05) with slightly longer lengths of stay, higher discharge functional status, and increased likelihood of community discharge.

Conclusions
Nearly nine in 10 Medicare beneficiaries report participating in decision making when receiving inpatient rehabilitation services. Increasing participation may lead to improvements in fundamental rehabilitation outcomes.


Previous, mainly quantitative, research has indicated that information security threats and incidents are having a significant impact on the conduct of electronic business - and office automation in general - both nationally and internationally. However, as revealed by this study's extensive review of the relevant literature, our understanding of the information security situation in Australian organisations has been quite limited. There has been very little detailed research into security threats and incidents and, equally importantly, the strategies the Australian IT industry is using to deal with them.

In addressing that deficiency, this study used a qualitative, case-based research methodology involving a variety of Australian organisations. The case based approach, using in-depth interviews, facilitated a thorough examination of the information security risks (threats and incidents) and enabled assessment and analysis of management actions (countermeasures) to mitigate the identified risks.

The major findings with regard to this study's research issues are:

 The case-study organisations are generally highly reliant on IT for the conduct of their business and therefore would be heavily impacted if it was unavailable
 They face a variety of information security threats with viruses being the most prevalent threat. The hacking threat was not as evident as reported in the literature
 There are some differences between the Australian information security experience and that reported in the literature for international organisations in particular many of the very large business overseas operate on a much larger scale than those in Australia
 The organisations do not believe that they are specific targets for security attacks; rather they believe that are 'targets of opportunity'
 A wide range of countermeasures are employed; generally, the larger the organisation the greater the diversity and complexity of countermeasures. However, the majority do not have a clear link between risks and countermeasures
 The majority of the organisations do not have a specific security budget.

Whilst Australian organisations were generally well prepared and versed on security issues, the findings indicate the need for the application of best practice across the industry as a whole. A degree of cynicism regarding the nature of the hacking threat was evident – with many participants believing that the threat is overstated. Indeed this study uncovered little direct evidence of the organisations involved being subjected to actual hacker attacks.

The framework developed for this study and its findings are readily adaptable for use by industry. By following the process specified in the framework, organisations will be better able to identify both likely and unlikely threats and incidents and deploy appropriate countermeasures.


Jacques Derrida and Jurgen Habermas have long represented opposite camps in contemporary thought. Derrida, who pioneered the intellectual style of inquiry known as deconstruction, ushered in the postmodern age with his dramatic critique of reason; Habermas, on the other hand, has consistently argued in defense of reason, modernity, and the legacy of the Enlightenment. Their many differences led to a long-standing, if scattered, dialogue, evidence of which has been available in only bits and pieces. But now, for the first time, "The""Derrida-Habermas Reader "brings these pieces together, along with a collection of essays documenting the intellectual relationship between two of the twentieth century s preeminent thinkers. Taken together, Derrida and Habermas s writings combined here with contributions by other prominent philosophers and social theorists tell the story of the two thinkers provocative engagement with each other s ideas. Beyond exploring the conflict between Derrida s deconstruction and Habermas s communicative rationality, they show how the Derrida-Habermas encounter changed over the years, becoming more theoretically productive without ever collapsing into mutual rejection or simple compromise. Lasse Thomassen has divided the essays including works on philosophy and literature, ethics, politics, and international law into four parts that cover the full range of thought in which Derrida and Habermas engaged. The last of these sections fittingly includes the thinkers jointly signed work on European solidarity and the Iraq War, highlighting the hopes they held in common despite their differences. The wide breadth of this book, along with Thomassen s lucid introductions to each section, makes "The Derrida-Habermas Reader" an ideal starting point for anyone interested in one of the most dynamic intellectual debates of our time. "


The use of synthetic bone graft substitutes to repair bone defects has dramatically increased over the last decade. Among these materials, calcium phosphates such as tricalcium phosphate or hydroxyapatite are amongst the most effective and the most used. 1 Many chemical and physical factors have been identified to influence their reactivity and degradation rate upon implantation. Recently, we found that a simple thermal treatment at temperatures of 450–600 °C was able to strongly modify the reactivity of α‐tricalcium phosphate powders [α‐TCP; α‐Ca3(PO4)2] with water without significant change of physical properties. 2 The strong decrease of reactivity was attributed to the thermal removal of surface defects. Here, we demonstrate the potential of this treatment to control the onset of this particular setting reaction (defined by the start of the exothermic reaction) from a few minutes to a few hours. Furthermore, we show that the behavior of osteoclast lineage cells cultured in vitro on calcium phosphates is affected by the thermal treatment. We conclude that the presented findings may open up new strategies for engineering bone void fillers.


Kenaf fiber is an environmentally friendly alternative which can be used as important reinforcing filler for thermoplastic composites. Kenaf also can be a good potential to make significant contribution. The main objective of this works is to investigate the possibility of producing new composites with methyl methacrylate (MMA) grafted kenaf as filler by using poly (vinyl chloride)/ethylene vinyl acetate as a polymer matrix. Graft copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) onto kenaf fiber has been carried out. Response surface methodology (RSM) based on centre composite design (CCD) was used to evaluate the effects of process variables (temperature, reaction time and amount of hydrogen peroxide) and their interaction towards the attainment of their optimum condition (grafting percentage). According to statistical analysis, the grafting reaction model proved to be highly significant with a very low probability value (<0.0001). The optimum condition (Pg = 51.85%) obtained at the temperature of 60oC, reaction time, 112 min and the amount of hydrogen peroxide is 7 mL. The presence of the functional group in the grafted polymers was characterized by fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) also confirmed the presence of poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) on the surface of kenaf fiber. Effect of kenaf fiber and kenaf-g-PMMA on mechanical properties of poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) blend were studied. The composites were prepared by blending using HAAKE Rheomixer Polydrive R600/610 at temperature and rotor speed of 150oC and 50 rpm. Effect of different fiber loading (0%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 30%) on their tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural modulus, impact strength and hardness were determined. An increasing trend was observed in the tensile modulus, flexural modulus and hardness while a slight decrease was observed in tensile strength and impact strength was decreased. This observation indicates that grafting PMMA on the surface of kenaf fiber was improved the interfacial adhesion between the matrix and fiber. Differential Scanning Calorimetric (DSC) results show that the EVA crystallization behaviour is significantly influenced by the presence of kenaf fiber. The incorporation of grafted and ungrafted kenaf did not affect the thermal stability of the composites. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) showed an increase in the storage modulus of the grafted composites.


The development of efficient blue donor–acceptor thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters remains a challenge. To enhance the efficiency of TADF-related processes of the emitter, we targeted a molecular design that would introduce a large number of intermediate triplet states between the lowest energy excited triplet (T1) and singlet (S1) excited states. Here, we introduce an oligomer approach using repetitive donor–acceptor units to gradually increase the number of quasi-degenerate states. In our design, benzonitrile (BN) moieties were selected as acceptors that are connected together via the amine donors, acting as bridges to adjacent BN acceptors. To preserve the photoluminescence emission wavelength across the series, we employed a design based on an ortho substitution pattern of the donors about the BN acceptor that induces a highly twisted conformation of the emitters, limiting the conjugation. Via a systematic photophysical study, we show that increasing the oligomer size allows for enhancement of the intersystem crossing and reverse intersystem crossing rates. We attribute the increasing intersystem crossing rate to the increasing number of intermediate triplet states along the series, confirmed by the time-dependent density functional theory. Overall, we report an approach to enhance the efficiency of TADF-related processes without changing the blue photoluminescence color.


Activated carbons (ACs) from petroleum coke by microwave heating KOH activation are treated by microwave to investigate the effect of microwave−treatment power on AC properties. The electrochemical properties of AC electrodes for supercapacitors were investigated by cyclic voltammetry, constant current charge−discharge and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results showed that specific surface area (SBET) and total pore volume of microwave−treated ACs, specific capacitance and energy density of microwave−treated AC electrodes decreased. The electrical conductivity and stability of AC electrodes for supercapacitors were improved. Fast microwave−treatment is an efficient method to obtain suitable ACs for supercapacitors.


A rapid and easy method for the extraction of total cellular DNA from Cryptococcus neoformans is described. This procedure modifies and considerably simplifies previously reported methods. Numerous steps were either eliminated or replaced, including preincubations with cell wall permeability agents such as beta-mercaptoethanol and dithiothreitol. The commercially available enzyme preparation Novozyme 234 was found to contain a potent concentration of DNases which actively degrade DNA. Degradation and loss of DNA was prevented by maintaining a high concentration of EDTA in the lysing solution. This procedure resulted in high yields (150 to 200 micrograms of DNA from 100 ml of culture) of good-quality (undegraded), high-molecular-weight DNA which was readily digested by restriction endonucleases, making it suitable for use in various molecular applications.


The aim of this study was to characterize the mechanisms underlying pulmonary vascular dysfunction after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) by examining responses of isolated pulmonary arteries to selective endothelium-dependent and -independent activators in control and post-CPB dogs. Adult male mongrel dogs were placed on closed-chest, hypothermic CPB for 2.5 h, and then allowed to recover. Anatomically matched pulmonary arterial rings were isolated and suspended for isometric tension recording. Contractile responses to the alpha1-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine were similar in endothelium-containing arteries from control and CPB animals. Endothelium denudation increased contractions to phenylephrine to a similar extent in both groups. Endothelium-dependent relaxation to acetylcholine was decreased 4 days after CPB compared with controls. In contrast to acetylcholine, endothelium-dependent relaxation to bradykinin or to A23187 were not impaired 4 days after CPB. Inhibition of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) with L-NAME depressed the response to acetylcholine in control vessels, confirming that a component of the response to acetylcholine was nitric oxide (NO) dependent. At lower concentrations of acetylcholine, this component of the response was abolished after CPB. The residual relaxation evoked by acetylcholine in the presence of L-NAME also was impaired in CPB compared with control arteries. This suggests that the CPB-induced impairment of acetylcholine-evoked relaxation may not involve both an NO-mediated and an NO-independent component. L-NAME depressed the response to bradykinin to a similar degree in control and CPB arteries. Vascular smooth-muscle dilatation to the NO donor, SIN-1, or to the K+ATP-channel opener, cromakalim, were similar in endothelium-denuded arteries from CPB and control animals. These results suggest that CPB causes a selective impairment in endothelial dilator function without changing the vascular smooth-muscle response to vasodilator or vasoconstrictor stimuli.


The need to link human actions or paper documents to a moment in time is not new, but the solutions available for the real world do not fit the digital world. Most of the security mechanisms based on key cryptography are short-term solutions and stop working after private keys or algorithms are compromised. The legal requirement of introducing an electronic equivalent for classic paper documents encounters problems, one of them being the difficulty of having secure and trustworthy digital time-stamps. Time-stamping is a relatively new research field which is trying to address the problems related to time and cryptography. But are the currently available time-stamping schemes and standards enough to build secure solutions? Can users rely on the time parameter provided by the time-stamping authority, or can they control its behavior? If not, what design requirements should a new time-stamping scheme consider, in order to fulfill all these goals? Our paper discusses the relationship and interaction between time and cryptography by analyzing all currently available state-of-the-art time-stamping schemes. The article lists a set of design requirements and properties that software developers should consider when implementing secure time-stamping services.


Bardet-Biedl Syndrome (BBS) is a rare autosomal recessive ciliopathy characterized by obesity, post-axial polydactyly, renal abnormalities, mental retardation, pigmentary retinopathy and hypogenitalism. Diagnosis is rare in early childhood, and only few of the features are present at that age. This is because the disease is slow evolving. However, it is possible to find majority of the component of this syndrome in very young children. A 3-year old very obese male presented with clinical features of sepsis and congestive cardiac failure. He is a product of non-consanguineous marriage with unremarkable family history. Both parents are of the Ibo tribe in Nigeria. Polydactyly was noticed at birth. There was delay in some aspects of his developmental milestone. Examination revealed mild hypertelorism and retrognathia, polydactyly of both feet with syndactyly of the big and second toes. Other findings were short broad hands, mottled pigments on the retina, moderate mental retardation, hypogenitalism, nephrotic syndrome, renal tubulopathy, hyperglycaemia and hypopigmented skin lesions. A case of BBS with all the primary features and some secondary manifestations in a very young child is hereby reported. A high index of suspicion for BBS should be shown in any young child with at least one of the features of this syndrome. This will enhance earlier diagnosis and improve disease outcome.


MEASURE Evaluation synthesized the current literature related to quality of HIV services for men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women and proposed a simple easy-to-use definition of and framework for quality. The report provides the health sector and policy makers a step toward a better understanding operationalization and assessment of the quality of HIV services for MSM and transgender women. It incorporates three dimensions of quality that can be operationalized at three different levels: provider organization and health system. It also takes into consideration the perspectives both of HIV providers and clients. Based on the literature reviewed the authors proposed the following definition of quality: Quality HIV services for MSM and transgender women are those that are based on scientific evidence of the appropriate package of services. They are delivered in a culturally and technically competent manner through efficient and effective linkages across a variety of service delivery models that ensure continuity of care (that is facility-based community-based public and private settings) and HIV service types (diagnosis treatment retention and ancillary services supporting these). Quality services are voluntary confidential and timely. They are delivered in a stigma-free environment by providers who are equipped to address HIV and other overlapping health problems and concerns of MSM and transgender women and who understand the culture values and social challenges faced by these populations.


A questionnaire study was conducted in order to identify relevant driver motives and assistance options for environmentally-friendly driving.
Eighteen participants rated items belonging to the three factors time, environment, and consumption, and subsequently evaluated three types of driver assistance
systems. Results concerning the motives showed that older drivers (above the age of 65) focused significantly less on the time motive, whereas high annual mileage drivers tended to focus more on the time motive compared to low annual mileage drivers. Small vehicle drivers emphasized more on the environment motive compared to middle-class/van drivers. In terms of the driver assistance options for
eco-friendly driving, a display of the current consumption rate through colorcoding received the highest number of first place rankings in the category intelligent vehicle information systems. A function that automatically shuts off
the engine after a certain stopping time, as well as optimal gear choice and time to shift, were ranked high in the category intelligent advanced driver assistance systems. In the category intelligent navigation systems, a traffic- and situational adaptive navigation system was ranked the highest most often. Assessment of drivers' preferences additionally showed that most participants preferred the assistance functions to provide visual information as opposed to direct
intervention. The results concerning the driver groups and their underlying driving motives as well as the preference statements will be used to inform the design and development of assistance functions for promoting eco-driving within
the European eCo Move project.


A search of the literature yielded only one other paper concerning the use of ibuprofen for ophthalmic purposes. Marsili and Conte 8 used ibuprofen on a total of 138 patients with a variety of problems, both surgical and nonsurgical. They found an excellent to good response in about three fourths of their patients. This series of patients did as well or better. Three of the 4 were significantly helped with ibuprofen, and were pleased with the results. The fourth patient quite obviously did better while taking ibuprofen than she did without medication, and her visual acuity remained about the same as during steroid therapy. However, the patient herself was not satisfied with the results. It is my conclusion that ibuprofen has merit in the treatment of central serous chorioretinopathy. The concerned ophthalmologist may find the use of ibuprofen preferable to steroids in view of the dangers when these drugs are used at high dosages or for prolonged periods.


Abstract Heat transfer in gas-solid two-phase flow is investigated numerically and experimentally. The numerical computations are carried out using four-way coupling Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The effects of particle rotation and lift forces are included in the model. The gas-phase turbulence is modeled via low Reynolds number k-e turbulence models. The SIMPLE algorithm is extended to take the effect of compressibility into account. The experimental study is performed using crushed limestone to simulate the solid phase. The effects of Reynolds numbers, particles size and temperature on the pressure drop and the temperature of the phases are investigated. The model predictions are found to be in a good agreement with available experimental data for high speed gas-solid flow and present experimental data for low speed flow. The present results indicate that heat transfer in gas solid flow can be modeled using ideal gas incompressible flow model at low conveying speed, while for high speed flow, a full co...


Graves' disease (GD) is a systemic autoimmune disorder characterized by the infiltration of thyroid antigen-specific T cells into thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSH-R)-expressing tissues. Stimulatory autoantibodies (Ab) in GD activate the TSH-R leading to thyroid hyperplasia and unregulated thyroid hormone production and secretion. Diagnosis of GD is straightforward in a patient with biochemically confirmed thyrotoxicosis, positive TSH-R-Ab, a hypervascular and hypoechoic thyroid gland (ultrasound), and associated orbitopathy. In GD, measurement of TSH-R-Ab is recommended for an accurate diagnosis/differential diagnosis, prior to stopping antithyroid drug (ATD) treatment and during pregnancy. Graves' hyperthyroidism is treated by decreasing thyroid hormone synthesis with the use of ATD, or by reducing the amount of thyroid tissue with radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment or total thyroidectomy. Patients with newly diagnosed Graves' hyperthyroidism are usually medically treated for 12–18 months with methimazole (MMI) as the preferred drug. In children with GD, a 24- to 36-month course of MMI is recommended. Patients with persistently high TSH-R-Ab at 12–18 months can continue MMI treatment, repeating the TSH-R-Ab measurement after an additional 12 months, or opt for therapy with RAI or thyroidectomy. Women treated with MMI should be switched to propylthiouracil when planning pregnancy and during the first trimester of pregnancy. If a patient relapses after completing a course of ATD, definitive treatment is recommended; however, continued long-term low-dose MMI can be considered. Thyroidectomy should be performed by an experienced high-volume thyroid surgeon. RAI is contraindicated in Graves' patients with active/severe orbitopathy, and steroid prophylaxis is warranted in Graves' patients with mild/active orbitopathy receiving RAI.


Background: High intake of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids may protect against age-related cognitive decline. However, results from epidemiologic studies are inconclusive, and results from randomized trials in elderly subjects without dementia are lacking. Objective: To investigate the effect of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation on cognitive performance. Methods: Double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 302 cognitively healthy (Mini-Mental State Examination score > 21) individuals aged 65 years or older. Participants were randomly assigned to 1,800 mg/d EPA–DHA, 400 mg/d EPA–DHA, or placebo capsules for 26 weeks. Cognitive performance was assessed using an extensive neuropsychological test battery that included the cognitive domains of attention, sensorimotor speed, memory, and executive function. Results: The mean age of the participants was 70 years, and 55% were male. Plasma concentrations of EPA–DHA increased by 238% in the high-dose and 51% in the low-dose fish oil group compared with placebo, reflecting excellent compliance. Baseline scores on the cognitive tests were comparable in the three groups. Overall, there were no significant differential changes in any of the cognitive domains for either low-dose or high-dose fish oil supplementation compared with placebo. Conclusions: In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we observed no overall effect of 26 weeks of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid supplementation on cognitive performance.


Multivalent sugar-based materials have attracted attention since the functional role of carbohydrates in biology has been disclosed. The design of artificial systems that mimics the polyvalent carbohydrate organization at cell surface has been envisaged as a strategy to study and intervene in carbohydrate-mediated interactions. One of the first synthetic glycomaterials which appeared in the literature were glycoliposomes, dynamic systems that resemble the glycocalix in the phospholipidic bilayer of cell membranes. Glycoliposomes are non-covalent systems which have been used since the seventies as multivalent tools in carbohydrate-based interactions against pathogens, for enhancing immunity and as molecular carriers in drug delivery. In former years, the advent of nanotechnology has allowed the design and construction of new materials similar in size to biologically relevant molecules (proteins, nucleic acids, etc) and displaying unique physical properties. The bio-functionalization of metallic nanomaterials with carbohydrates generated a new class of glycomaterials, named glyconanoparticles, which present carbohydrates in a highly multivalent way and in high local concentrations. At the same time, the quantum size properties of metallic nanoclusters can be used for biosensing, diagnostics, and (in perspective) therapy. This review focuses on glycoliposomes and covalently-functionalized glyconanoparticles which make use of the "glyco-code" to address specifically pathogens or pathological-related problems.


Abstract The measurement and characterisation of correlation functions has recently become one of the central themes in the studies of ultracold quantum gases. By probing complex many-body states of these interacting systems, correlation functions facilitate the most in-depth understanding of the underlying physics, not accessible through simple density profile measurements. In this thesis, we study the dynamics of second-order correlation functions for atoms created in pair-production processes such as molecular dissociation and atomic four-wave mixing. More specifically, in Chapter 3 we analyse the dynamics of correlated atom pairs created via controlled dissociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of diatomic molecules. The atomic constituents can be either a pair of bosonic or fermionic atoms. The process provides a matter-wave analog of parametric down-conversion with photons, which was pivotal in the advancement of quantum optics by enabling experimental
 demonstrations of the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and violations of a classical Bell inequality. The atom-optics analogues of parametric down-conversion make it possible to envisage similar demonstrations using ensembles of massive particles in quantum gas regimes. In the case of fermionic constituents, molecular dissociation offers the possibility of a new paradigm in fermionic quantum-atom optics. By aiming at experimentally realistic modelling, we examine the role of spatial inhomogeneity of harmonically trapped molecular condensates on the strength and the shape of atom-atom correlations. Using the undepleted molecular-field approximation, we obtain explicit analytic results for the short-time asymptotic behaviour of the second-order correlation functions and for relative number squeezing between the dissociated atoms in one, two, and three spatial dimensions. Comparisons with the numerical results, which incorporate the molecular depletion and s-wave scattering
 interactions, show that the analytic approaches employed here capture the main underlying physics and provide useful insights into the dynamics of dissociation for conversion efficiencies up to 10%. The results show explicitly how the strength of atom-atom correlations and relative number squeezing degrade with the reduction of the size of the molecular condensate. In Chapter 4, we study highly anisotropic molecular condensates in order to quantify the effects of bosonic stimulation and fermionic Pauli blocking on the dissociation dynamics. We show that the difference in quantum statistics of the atomic constituent is manifest as complementary geometric structures in the density profiles of the dissociated atoms. Atomic bosons are preferentially emitted along the long axis of the molecular condensate due to bosonic stimulation, while atomic fermions are preferentially emitted along the short axis due to Pauli blocking. This anisotropy potentially simplifies the measurement of
 correlations between the atoms through relative number squeezing. In Chapter 5 we apply our analytic approaches to a related problem of atomic four-wave mixing and analyze atom-atom correlations in the s-wave scattering halo of two colliding condensates. The results in the short-time limit are in agreement with the first-principles simulations using the positive-P representation and provide analytic insights into the experimental observations of Perrin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 150405 2007]. The final chapter of the thesis, Chapter 6, is devoted to the first application of the Gaussian fermionic phase-space method to a dynamical simulation of a multimode fermion-boson system. As a first-principles approach, the method provides benchmarking of approximate approaches and can be used to validate dynamical probes for characterizing strongly correlated phases of fermionic systems. We have applied the Gaussian phase-space method to the problem of molecular dissociation in the simplest
 uniform case and demonstrated a successful treatment of large molecular condensates containing up to 10^4 molecules and 10^3 distinct atomic modes. Simulating a system in such a large Hilbert space would be impossible using a more traditional exact numerical method based on the number-state representation. Our simulations reveal, in the long-time limit, significant deviations of atom-molecule and molecule-molecule correlations from the predictions of approximate pairing mean-field theories, as well as significant departures of atom-atom correlations from Wick's factorisation scheme. We have examined the accuracy and limitations of the fermionic phase-space results by comparison with the number-state calculations for small-size systems and via the analysis of conserved quantities. Future extensions of this work will have to incorporate spatial inhomogeneity and s-wave scattering interactions in order to enable first-principles dynamical simulations of a broader class of fermionic
 systems of current experimental interest. To this end, we have implemented a phase-space treatment of the Fermi-Hubbard model and present some exploratory simulations of Hubbard dynamics.


The article investigates intertextuality and its translation in the context of frame semantics and R. Schank's dynamic memory theory. The study provides an overview of linguistic and psychological theories examining the role of frames and visualisation in conceptualising reality and discusses their application to the understanding and translation of intertextuality. The theory of dynamic memory is used to explain the nature of textual and intertextual frames and build visual models of their mappings. Based on the analysis of 70 examples of the translation of intertextuality (quotations and allusions) from M. Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale and its Ukrainian translation, six translation techniques are identified. They are outlined on the basis of the transference of linguistic elements and the conceptual information activated by them (frame mappings, mental images). The examples are compared in terms of cognitive equivalence, which is also defined within the presented approach. The study generally adopts a broader view of intertextuality as a cognitive category and translation as a cognitive process to contribute to the development of cognitive poetics and cognitive translatology.


We study the revenue management (RM) problem encountered in airport car parks, with the primary objective to maximize revenues under a continuous-time framework. The implementation of pre-booking systems for airport car parks has spread rapidly around the world and pre-booking is now available in most major airports. Currently, most RM practises in car parks are simple adjustments of those developed for hotels, exploiting the similarities between the two industries. However, airport car parks have a distinct setting where the price per day of a parking space is heavily discounted by the length of stay (LoS) of the booking. This is because the customer decision tends to be made after the length of the trip is already set, and it becomes a choice between parking or alternative modes of transport. Consequently, the LoS becomes a critical variable for revenue optimization. Since customers are able to book the parking by the minute, the resulting state space is very large, making a conventional network solution intractable . Instead, decomposed single-resource problems need to be considered. Here we develop a bid-price control strategy to manage the bookings and propose novel approaches to define such bid prices depending on the LoS, which could be utilized in real-time RM algorithms. Managing stochastic car park bookings by LoS in the decomposed single-resource approximation allowed us to achieve within 5% of the expected revenues for a multi-resource approximation, with a fraction of the computational effort. When expected demand exceeds the available parking capacity, the method increases the revenues by up to 45% relative to the first come, first served acceptance policy.


This paper deals with the hardware implementation of the recently introduced Probabilistic Gradient-Descent Bit-Flipping (PGDBF) decoder. The PGDBF is a new type of hard-decision decoder for Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) code, with improved error correction performance thanks to the introduction of deliberate random perturbation in the computing units. In the PGDBF, the random perturbation operates during the bit-flipping step, with the objective to avoid the attraction of so-called trapping-sets of the LDPC code. In this paper, we propose an efficient hardware architecture which minimizes the resource overhead needed to implement the random perturbations of the PGDBF. Our architecture is based on the use of a Short Random Sequence (SRS) that is duplicated to fully apply the PGDBF decoding rules, and on an optimization of the maximum finder unit. The generation of good SRS is crucial to maintain the outstanding decoding performance of PGDBF, and we propose two different methods with equivalent hardware overheads, but with different behaviors on different LDPC codes. Our designs show that the improved PGDBF performance gains can be obtained with a very small additional complexity, therefore providing a competitive hard-decision LDPC decoding solution for current standards.


The purposes of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Environmental Report 2008 are to record Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL's) compliance with environmental standards and requirements, describe LLNL's environmental protection and remediation programs, and present the results of environmental monitoring at the two LLNL sites - the Livermore site and Site 300. The report is prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by LLNL's Environmental Protection Department. Submittal of the report satisfies requirements under DOE Order 231.1A, Environmental Safety and Health Reporting, and DOE Order 5400.5, Radiation Protection of the Public and Environment. The report is distributed electronically and is available at https://saer.lln.gov/, the website for the LLNL annual environmental report. Previous LLNL annual environmental reports beginning in 1994 are also on the website. Some references in the electronic report text are underlined, which indicates that they are clickable links. Clicking on one of these links will open the related document, data workbook, or website that it refers to. The report begins with an executive summary, which provides the purpose of the report and an overview of LLNL's compliance and monitoring results. The first three chapters provide background information: Chapter 1 is an overview of the location, meteorology, and hydrogeology more » of the two LLNL sites; Chapter 2 is a summary of LLNL's compliance with environmental regulations; and Chapter 3 is a description of LLNL's environmental programs with an emphasis on the Environmental Management System including pollution prevention. The majority of the report covers LLNL's environmental monitoring programs and monitoring data for 2008: effluent and ambient air (Chapter 4); waters, including wastewater, storm water runoff, surface water, rain, and groundwater (Chapter 5); and terrestrial, including soil, sediment, vegetation, foodstuff, ambient radiation, and special status wildlife and plants (Chapter 6). Complete monitoring data, which are summarized in the body of the report, are provided in Appendix A. The remaining three chapters discuss the radiological impact on the public from LLNL operations (Chapter 7), LLNL's groundwater remediation program (Chapter 8), and quality assurance for the environmental monitoring programs (Chapter 9). The report uses Systeme International units, consistent with the federal Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and Executive Order 12770, Metric Usage in Federal Government Programs (1991). For ease of comparison to environmental reports issued prior to 1991, dose values and many radiological measurements are given in both metric and U.S. customary units. A conversion table is provided in the glossary. The report is the responsibility of LLNL's Environmental Protection Department. Monitoring data were obtained through the combined efforts of the Environmental Protection Department; Environmental Restoration Department; Physical and Life Sciences Environmental Monitoring Radiation Laboratory; and the Hazards Control Department. « less


Tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily is composed of at least 26 members in the mouse, three of which exist as a cluster within the imprinted Kcnq1 domain on chromosome 7. Tnfrsf22, 23 and 26 contain typical cystein-rich domains and Tnfrsf22 and 23 can bind ligands but have no signaling capacity. Thus, they are assumed to be decoy receptors. The developmental expression profile of these genes is unknown and knowledge of their imprinting patterns is incomplete and controversial. We found that all three genes are expressed during mouse embryonic development, and that they have a strong maternal bias, indicating that they may be affected by the KvDMR, the Kcnq1 imprinting control region. We found expression of an antisense non-coding RNA, AK155734, in embryos and some neonatal tissues. This RNA overlaps the Tnfrsf22 and possibly the Tnfrsf23 coding regions and is also expressed with a maternal bias. We were interested in exploring the evolutionary origins of the three Tnfrsf genes, because they are absent in the orthologous human Kcnq1 domain. To determine whether the genes were deleted from humans or acquired in the rodent lineage, we performed phylogenetic analyses. Our data suggest that TNFRSF sequences were duplicated and/or degenerated or eliminated from the KCNQ1 region several times during the evolution of mammals. In humans, multiple mutations (point mutations and/or deletions) have accumulated on the ancestral TNFRSF, leaving a single short non-functional sequence.


Hostile environments such as nuclear sites are difficult for men to perform tasks safely. The objective of our work is to construct and test an experimental system of teleoperation oriented to the pick-and-place tasks, using Internet. Two PCs are used, one at the local site and the second at the remote site. The interconnection between these sites is based on the TCP/IP sockets. In the remote site; a webcam sends images manipulator arm through Internet to the control site where a human operator remotely monitors this robot in order to achieve pick-and-place tasks. The camera is horizontally and vertically adjustable. The robot and camera are both controlled remotely via the Internet. A human-centered design has been used to build up the graphical user interface. The task supervision is performed from a local site through an Internet interconnection TCP/IP protocol. The software is mainly written in Java while some low level functions are written with C. Some experiments were successfully realized in local area network, and remotely at a large distance via Internet. The obtained results encouraged us to test other control modes with our system as, mouse-click command, Image-Based Commands and Gesture commands. Therefore, the system can then be used and adapted for various industrial and medical applications. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.24.4.19386


The study deals with the accumulated database of 16 meteorological stations in Hungary during a period of 60 years. The purpose was to reveal the spatial and temporal structure of the appearance of extreme values in the daily distribution of data concerning precipitation. We strived to answer the question whether the frequency of incidences of daily maxima did they change or not during the 60 year-long period in the main growing regions of the country. It is demonstrated on geographical maps how the size and frequency of precipitation episodes ensued, and what are the typical traits of changes in intensity as well as in frequency of happenings projected according to their spatial and temporal distribution. From the point of view of fruit and vegetable growing, it is of prime interest what kind of frequency and intensity of changes occurred in precipitation. The temporal distribution of extremities though did not seem to change signifi cantly in some areas, but the recognition of changes may help conspicuously the planning and the choice between alternatives of species and varieties as well as technologies of horticultural managements for the long run. Extremely intense rains during a short time may cause erosion and stagnant water, thus we have to know what are the odds of risk. The temporary distribution of changes helps us to judge upon the reality of anxieties, which are expected according to the existence of trends. Seasonal or monthly distribution is visualised by maps, what is expected and what is accidental as for a decision in planning. The spatial distribution of coeffi cients of variation help us to decide what is the local chance of extreme happenings at different parts of the country and what is its coeffi cient of uncertainty. The risk of any undertaking dependent on conditions of weather could be expressed numerically by a coeffi cient of risk.


Alongside with the development of Neutron Capture Therapy (NCT) and the use of thermal neutrons for radiotherapeutic purposes, many efforts have been devoted to the characterization of the beam in order to optimize therapy procedures. Reliable dose measurements should be able to determine the various (neutrons and photonic) components of the mixed beam usually employed for therapy. This paper studies the effect of additives such as Bboric and Ggadolinium nuclei on the sensitivity of neutron organic (alanine and ammonium tartrate) dosimeters analyzed through Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) technique (Marrale, 2014). These dosimeters were exposed to a mixed (neutron-gamma) field mainly composed of thermal neutrons. The choice of 10B and 64Gd as nuclei additives is due to their very high capture cross section for thermal neutrons. Also, after the nuclear reaction with thermal neutrons are emitted particles, which in turn release their energy in the vicinity of the reaction site (Marrale, 2008). The irradiation with mixed field (neutron-gamma) were performed within the thermal column of the TRIGA reactor, University of Pavia. Dosimeters readout was performed through the Electron Spin Resonance spectrometer Bruker ECS106 located at the Laboratory of Dosimetry ESR / TL of the Department of Physics and Chemistry University of Palermo. We found that the addition of Gadolinium allows to largely increase the sensitivity of the dosimeters for thermal neutrons. In particular, a low concentration (5% by weight) of gadolinium oxide leads to an improvement of the sensitivity of neutrons more than 10 times. In addition, for this low content of gadolinium the photon tissue equivalence is not heavily reduced. This experimental analyses are compared with computational analyses carried out by means of Monte Carlo simulations performed with the MCNP (Monte Carlo N-Particle) transport code. A good agreement was observed for alanine dosimeters. M. Marrale et al., Exposure of Gd2O3-alanine and Gd2O3-ammonium tartrate ESR dosimeters to thermal neutrons: experiments and Monte Carlo simulations, Radiation Measurements, volume 43, number 2 (2008). M. Marrale et al., Neutron ESR dosimetry through ammonium tartrate with low Gd content, Radiation protection dosimetry, volume 159, number 1-4 (2014).


Background:Situational influences can facilitate or impede stretching exercise behaviours. However, since there is no measurement to assess situational influences among office employees, it might be difficult to understand the role of situational influences on stretching exercises. The current study aimed to evaluate the psychometric characteristics of Short Form of Situational influences Scale for predicting Stretching Exercise among office employers based on the Health Promotion Model (HPM).
Method: By multistage cluster sampling method, this cross-sectional study was conducted among 385 office employees selected from the health networks at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences of Iran (SBUMS) who were assessed through the Short Form of Situational influences Scale. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and Cronbach's alpha were employed.
Results: The mean age of the office employees was 39.4±7.76 years. Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) of each question were greater than 0.79. The result of EFA with principal component analysis showed one factor (Situational influences) with 43.6% cumulative variance and KMO with 90.4% (P < 0.001). This was a good fit index in CFA. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed through acceptable Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.79). Regarding CFA, the result showed REMSEA = 0.048, GFI = 0.978, AGFI = 0.986 confirmed with Cronbach's alpha (α = 79 %) and ICC =0.71 95% CI (0.69, 0.79).
Conclusion: The current study revealed that the Short Form of Situational influences Scale for Stretching Exercise is a valid instrument. Therefore, it can be used as a reliable and valid instrument to investigate Stretching Exercise behaviours among office employers.


STUDY DESIGN
Cross-sectional international survey with literature review.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the evidence for these strategies and to understand the current trends in prophylactic antibiotic use during ASD surgery through an international survey.

METHODS
An online survey was conducted among international AO Spine members regarding the peri-operative management of patients with ASD. The details of perioperative systemic and topical antibiotic use were solicited. Descriptive data were summarized for the responding surgeons who perform at least 10 long-segment fusions of >5 levels extending to the pelvis annually.

RESULTS
The literature supports the use of prophylactic antibiotic effective against gram positive organisms. The use of topical vancomycin remains debated, and there is limited evidence for topical tobramycin use. A total of 116 responses were received. 74 (64%) surgeons use topical vancomycin, most usually deep to the fascia only 45 (61%). The most usual dose used is 1-2 g. 4 (3%) surgeons use topical tobramycin deep to fascia. Following surgery, 90 (78%) surgeons use prophylactic cephalosporin with 3 (3%) using cloxacillin, 5 (4%) using ciprofloxacin and 9 (8%) using vancomycin and 6 (5%) using clindamycin either in addition or alone.

CONCLUSIONS
The present survey identifies a trend towards systemic and topical antibiotic prophylaxis primarily targeted at gram positive pathogens. The use of topical tobramycin, proposedly effective against gram negative infections, remains uncommon. There is a lack of consensus in the selection of perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis, thus a prospective study of the rates of infection with each strategy would be useful to inform guidelines.


ABSTRACT A central issue in spoken word production concerns how activation is transmitted from semantic to phonological levels. Recent evidence from studies of speakers of Western languages supports a cascaded view, according to which under certain circumstances, lexical candidates other than the target can activate their corresponding phonological properties. In the current study, we investigated possible differences between English and Mandarin speakers concerning the degree of cascadedness in the production system, based on the broader recent claim that properties of word form encoding might differ according to languages. With English speakers (Experiment 1), we found that when activation of targets and semantic competitors was boosted via a manipulation of semantic context, then concurrently presented "mediated" distractor words (which were phonologically related to a semantic competitor) generated interference. However, no such mediated priming was found in a parallel experiment with Chinese materials and Mandarin speakers (Experiment 2). These results suggest potential fundamental differences across the target languages in how activation is transmitted during lexical access.


The using synthetic chemical insecticide to continue and not prudently can be to come negative effect. So, to needed alternative controlling technic like as insecticide botanic. Insecticide botanic such as betel nut seed powder. Research aims to found a concentration of betel nut seed powder (Areca catechu L) wich is appropriate to killed sweet corn cob borer (Helicoverpa armigera Hubner). This research was conducted in the Laboratory of Plant Pests Agricultural Faculty University of Riau using a completely randomized design (CRD) with 5 treatments and 4 replications. The treatment will be used is the concentration of betel nut powder 0 g / l water, 30 g / l water, 40 g / l water, 50 g / l water, 60 g / l water. The result showed concentration betel nut seed powder 50 g / l water is able to kill the larvae of H. armigera is much as 90%.


Aging is characterized by a progressive decline of cellular functions. The aging liver appears to preserve its function relatively well. Aging is associated in human liver with morphological changes such as decrease in size attributable to decreased hepatic blood flow. Ultrastructural analysis of the human liver has revealed that the integrity of mitochondria and enzymatic activity remain mostly unchanged with aging. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are involved in the aging process and result mainly from nonenzymatic processes in the liver. Endogenous free radicals are generated within mitochondria and suspected to cause severe injury to mitochondrial DNA. This damaged DNA accumulates with aging. In addition, polyunsaturated fatty acids, highly sensitive to ROS, decrease in liver mitochondria from human centenarians, a feature acquired during evolution as a protective mechanism to favor longevity. Diet is considered the main environmental factor having effect on lifespan. It has a major impact on aging liver, the central metabolic organ of the body. The ubiquitin proteolytic pathway in the liver serves to destroy many proteins, among them p21 which is encoded by abundant mRNA in senescent cells, can inhibit cell proliferation and favors DNA repair. Drug therapy in the elderly may be complicated by several factors such as decline in body weight, renal function, liver mass and hepatic blood flow, making adverse drug reactions more frequent. Hepatic drug metabolism is mainly mediated by the cytochrome P450 system and drug interactions in the elderly are likely related to the progressive decline of this system after the fifth decade of life and another decrease in individuals aged >70. Antihypertensive therapy in the elderly depends upon either hepatic or renal function and should be adjusted accordingly. Finally, telomerases are the biological clocks of replicative lifespan. Shortening of telomeric ends of chromosomes correlates with aging and decline in the replicative potential of the cell: replicative senescence. Telomere DNA of human somatic cells shortens during each cell division thus leading to a finite proliferation. Transfection of the telomerase reverse transcriptase gene results in elongation of telomeres and extension of lifespan. This also applies to humans. Replicative senescence in human cells evolved as a mechanism to protect them from continuous divisions leading to multiple mutations. Longer-lived species such as humans had to develop replicative senescence to ensure that they would have the increased protection that their longevity necessitates.


Parallel policy developments driven in the USA by the Clean Water Act and in Europe by the Water Framework Directive have focused attention on the need for quantitative information on the fluxes of faecal indicator bacteria in catchment systems. Data are required on point and diffuse source loadings, fate and transport of these non-conservative parameters, on the land surface, within soil systems, in groundwater, streams, impoundments and nearshore waters. This new information is needed by regulators to inform Total Maximum Daily Load estimates in the USA and Programmes of Measures in Europe both designed to prevent impairment of water quality at locations where compliance is assessed against health-based standards for drinking, bathing or shellfish harvesting. In the UK, the majority of catchment-scale activity in this field has been undertaken by physical geographers although microbial flux analysis and modelling has received much less attention from the research and policy communities than, for example, the nutrient parameters. This paper charts the policy drivers now operative and assesses the evidence base to support current policy questions. Finally, gaps and priority research questions are identified.


Inclusion of drugs in cyclodextrins (CDs) is a recognized tool for modifying several properties such as solubility, stability, bioavailability, and so on. The photoreactive behavior of the β-CD/ketoprofen (KP) complex upon UV exposure showed a significant increase in photodecarboxylation, whereas the secondary degradation products by hydroxylation of the benzophenone moiety were inhibited. The results may account for an improvement of KP photophysical properties upon inclusion, thus better fostering its topical use. To correlate the structural details of the inclusion with these results, an NMR spectroscopic study of KP upon inclusion in β-CD was performed. Effects of the magnetically anisotropic centers of KP, changing their orientations upon inclusion and giving chemical shift variations, were specifically correlated with the results of the molecular dynamic simulations and ab initio calculations. In the large variety of papers focusing on the structural analysis of β-CD complexes, this work represents one of the few examples in which a detailed analysis of these simultaneous upfield-downfield NMR shifts of the same aromatic molecule upon inclusion is reported. Interestingly, the results demonstrate that the observed upfield and downfield shifts upon inclusion are not related to any direct magnetic role of β-CD. The conformational change of KP upon the inclusion process consists of a slight reduction in the angle between the two phenyl rings and in a remarkable reduction in the mobility of the carboxyl group, the latter being one of the main contributions to the NMR resonance shifts. These structural details help in understanding the features of the inclusion complex and, eventually, the driving force for its formation.


We investigated how root hydraulic conductance (normalized to root dry weight, Lo ) is regulated by the shoot. Shoot topping (about 30% reduction in leaf area) reduced Lo of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.), soybean (Glycine max L.) and maize (Zea mays L.) by 50 to 60%. More detailed investigations with soybean and grapevine showed that the reduction in Lo was not correlated with the reduction in leaf area, and shading or cutting single leaves had a similar effect. Percentage reduction in Lo was largest when initial Lo was high in soybean. Inhibition of Lo by weak acid (low pH) was smaller after shoot damage or leaf shading. The half time of reduction in Lo was approximately 5 min after total shoot decapitation. These characteristics indicate involvement of aquaporins. We excluded phloem-borne signals and auxin-mediated signals. Xylem-mediated hydraulic signals are possible since turgor rapidly decreased within root cortex cells after shoot topping. There was a significant reduction in the expression of several aquaporins in the plasma membrane intrinsic protein (PIP) family of both grapevine and soybean. In soybean, there was a five- to 10-fold reduction in GmPIP1;6 expression over 0.5-1 h which was sustained over the period of reduced Lo .


This essay approaches The Counterlife (1986) in the context of Philip Roth's ongoing treatment of contemporary literary theory. Figures from Roth's later works, such as Coleman Silk and Amy Bellette, express hostility towards deconstruction and other recent critical practices. However, The Counterlife engages directly and receptively with Jacques Derrida's essay "Living On—Borderlines," Derrida's contribution to the seminal 1979 volume Deconstruction and Criticism. Though The Counterlife should not necessarily be read as an endorsement of deconstruction or post-structuralism, its author does seem inspired by, or in agreement with, Derrida's concepts of "unreadability" and "invagination" in his characterization of a figure that I identify as the novel's spectral reader-scholar. A method of reading informed by post-structuralism cannot only be applied to The Counterlife, it is inscribed at the borders of a novel that is among the most formally experimental of Roth's works.


Instructions are a common resource used by behavioral therapists to assign therapeutic homework. However, understanding how clients learn with instructions is better known in laboratory research than in clinical research. The present study aims to explore changes in the way of instructing and reviewing the client's compliance throughout the therapeutic process. We analyzed the therapist's verbal behavior during 211 recorded sessions corresponding to 19 cases treated by 11 behavioral therapists (53% male and 47% female). The sessions were divided into four stages according to the timing of the intervention and coded by using a previously validated coding system (SYST-INTER-INSTR). Results show that instructions become less specific towards the last stage of the intervention. However, therapists assess task compliance in the same way towards the end of the therapeutic process. The change in specificity suggests that the client's behavior changes from being controlled by instructions to being controlled by natural contingencies. However, to make sure the clinical change remains; therapists assess and reinforce the client's compliance until the end of the intervention. Although clinical implications of the results, some limitations (i.e., not considering the type of task instructed) should be addressed in future studies.


Nanomaterials (NMs) have found extensive commercial use in industries, healthcare and household applications however, their ecotoxicological effects remain elusive. Since, microbial communities play beneficial role in ecosystem like element cycling, bioremediation, nitrogen fixation, etc., effect of NMs over beneficial microbe's physiology and viability remains to be studied in detail. Some beneficial microbe communities are severely affected by the release of NMs in the environment. Deinococcus radiodurans is known for its tolerance to oxidative stress caused due to irradiation. In this study, we have used metal, metal oxides, quantum dots (QDs) and carbon based NMs to assess their effect on the cell viability, uptake and ROS generation in D. radiodurans cells. The present study demonstrates in real-time by flow cytometry the internalization of different metal, metal oxide, QDs and carbon based NMs in D. radiodurans. Results show that all the tested NMs are significantly internalized in to the bacterial cells however, carbon based NMs exhibited highest internalization. Toxicity studies revealed that AgNPs exhibited maximum toxicity and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation followed by QDs, CuO NPs and GO but, AuNPs and TiO2 NPs shows no toxic response in bacterial cells. The oxidative stress and uptake studies will provide insight about the mechanism of oxidative stress tolerance of D. radiodurans. Copyright © 2018 VBRI Press.


The cost of producing complex formwork or moulds for precast concrete and GRC (glass reinforced concrete) is perhaps the most significant limitation when constructing architectural intentions from prefabricated concrete elements. Our contribution, FreeFABTM Wax 1 , employs a 6-axis gantry robot with interchangeable end effector tooling to coarsely 3D print and subsequently mill finish complex moulds for concrete at a construction scale. Significantly, FreeFAB moulds can be up to 30m x 4m x 1.5m with significant time and cost savings relative to traditional formwork. Furthermore, FreeFAB's print material approaches 100% reusability, virtually eliminating waste and material costs within the process. This paper presents an overview of our method for construction scale 3D printing and its realisation. Our findings suggest a construction scale 3D printing is businessviable and significantly expands the feasibility of the wide spread use of bespoke moulds.


Timely and accurate identification of tree species by spectral methods is crucial for forest and urban ecological management. In this study, a total of 394 reflectance spectra (between 350 and 2500 nm) from foliage branches or canopy of 11 important urban forest broadleaf species were measured in the City of Tampa, Florida, USA with a spectrometer. The 11 species include American elm (Ulmus americana), bluejack oak (Quercus incana), crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica), laurel oak (Q. laurifolia), live oak (Q. virginiana), southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), red maple (Acer rubrum), sand live oak (Q. geminata), American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), and turkey oak (Q. laevis). A total of 46 spectral variables, including normalized spectra, derivative spectra, spectral vegetation indices, spectral position variables, and spectral absorption features were extracted and analysed from the in situ hyperspectral measurements. Two classification algorithms were used to identify the 11 broadleaf species: a nonlinear artificial neural network (ANN) and a linear discriminant analysis (LDA). An analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicates that the 30 selected spectral variables are effective to differentiate the 11 species. The 30 selected spectral variables account for water absorption features at 970, 1200, and 1750 nm and reflect characteristics of pigments and other biochemicals in tree leaves, especially variability of chlorophyll content in leaves. The experimental results indicate that both classification algorithms (ANN and LDA) have produced acceptable accuracies (overall accuracy from 86.3% to 87.8%, kappa from 0.83 to 0.87) and have a similar performance for classifying the 11 broadleaf species with input of the 30 selected spectral variables. The preliminary results of identifying the 11 species with the in situ hyperspectral data imply that with current remote sensing techniques, including high spatial and spectral resolution data, it is still difficult but possible to identify similar species to such 11 broadleaf species with an acceptable accuracy.


This letter describes a general solution to the parallax correction issue concerning the collocation of measurements of the same object from different satellites that use different viewing geometries. Two examples in cloud remote sensing are described with case studies. The applicability of the parallax correction is also discussed. Correct collocation of data collected by multiple satellites is needed in order to avoid introducing incorrect information in the data fusion of multiple sensors on different satellite platforms.


Organisational structure and the locational behaviour of small and medium scale firms in Metropolitan Colombo, Sri Lanka This research focusses on the behaviour of small and medium scale firms in Metropolitan Colombo, Sri Lanka. It argues that the more recent emphasis on organisational structure offers an appropriate conceptual and methodological frame for studying the locational behaviour of small manufacturing firms in Sri Lanka. In firms in developing countries family ownership, small size, labour intensive technologies and lack of organisation are main characteristics of small and medium scale industries. However, it has been recognised that there exist fundamental structural differences among the firms in this sector in Sri Lanka. Small and medium scale industrial sector consisting of so-called registered and unregistered firms, different structural features reflect differences in size, capital investment, ownership pattern, family participation, raw material utilisation, export orientation and the relationships with government organisations. These structural differences go some considerable way towards explaining the behaviour of small and medium scale manufacturing firms in Colombo, and the general hypothesis is that the nature of the interactions of small enterprises depend upon their internal organisational structure. The study focussed on three types of industries (textile, rubber and metal) in identifying the organisational structure of firms and in analysing the relationships between organisational structure and functional linkages, attitudes of entrepreneurs, patterns and degree of locational adjustments and the different responses of small firms to change in government policy. The study uses a sample of I36 firms and data and information were based on a questionnaire survey and extensive fieldwork in Sri Lanka, conducted during the period from January to July, 1984. Principal components analysis has been used to define the structure of firms and to identify the significant characteristics of industries. The extent to which the organisational structure of firms is reflected in their behaviour was investigated by means of correlation and stepwise multiple regression analyses. The study also recognises the importance of government policies which are important in terms of spatial pattern and structure of small and medium scale industries in Colombo and the way in which industries have perceived these policies and responded to them.


PURPOSE: To compare the effectiveness of a general plyometric training (GP) and a GP plus transfer exercises (GP + TE) on kicking time (KT) in cadet and junior taekwondo athletes. METHODOLOGY: Volunteers were 33 athletes between 12 and 17 years old and taekwondo practice experience of 3.0 ± 1.2 yr. Participants were randomly assigned to GP, GP+TE, or a control (CON) group, and underwent a 3-week intervention, training 3 times per week. The training session was divided into a stretch, a general warm-up and the treatment phase, according to the specifications for each group, each lasting approximately 10-min. Following the intervention, the athletes completed their regular training. The exercises performed by the participants only differed in the 10-min lasting the intervention. The GP group completed 8 sets of 6 repetitions of countermovement jumps (CMJ), the GP+TE completed the same exercise exercises as the GP group immediately followed by a taekwondo kicking technique on a kicking pad. The CON group only performed static stretching. A Fitlight Trainer System was used to measure before and after KT performance. For the KT drill, the athlete was instructed to use the dominant leg in a circular kick ("Bandal Chagui") and in a frontal kick ("Mirot Chagui"). The front leg was used for both kicks, and the first sensor of the measurement system was located at ankle height to start the time and a second sensor was located at the height of the performer's navel to stop the time and register the KT. A 3 x 2 (groups x measurements) general linear model ANOVA was used to analyze KT. RESULTS: No significant interaction or main effects were shown on circular kick KT scores (p > 0.05). A significant measurement main effect was found on frontal kick KT (F = 4.743, Pre =0.354 ± 0.004s vs. Post = 0.344 ± 0.004s; p < 0.037) regardless of the experimental group. CONCLUSION: The GP and the GP+TE training elicited similar improvements in frontal kick KT in cadet and junior taekwondo athletes. Circular kick KT was unaffected by training.


The water quality index (WQI) has emerged as a central way to convey water quality information to policy makers and the general public and is regularly used in US EPA regulatory impact analysis. It is a compound indicator that aggregates information from several water quality parameters. Several recent studies have criticized the aggregation function of the EPA WQI, arguing that it suffers from "eclipsing" and other problems. Although past papers have compared various aggregation functions in the WQI (usually looking at correlation), this is the first paper to examine these functions in the context of benefit-cost analysis. Using data from the 2003 EPA CAFO rule, the present paper examines four aggregation functions and their impact on estimated benefits. Results indicate that the aggregation method can have a profound effect on benefits, with total benefit estimates varying from $82 million to $504 million dollars. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis does not find convincing evidence to substitute the current aggregation function, although several changes to the underlying WQI methodology may be warranted.


100 strains of pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from June, 1986 to Sept. 1989. Results of antibiotic susceptibility test indicated that resistance to convenient antibiotics was serious. Minimum inhibitory concentration showed pseudomonas aeruginosa was more susceptible to ceftazidime, norfloxacin and amikacin. Typing investigation indicated that pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in this burn ward was mainly serotype P 11, cross-infection was existent, so isolation measure should be strengthened.


INTRODUCTION The role that Advanced Placement (AP) credit plays in an honors education is increasingly significant. More high school students have the opportunity to take AP courses and successfully complete the AP exams. As a result, they arrive on campus with credits toward some and often many of their early core-focused college requirements. This widespread bypass of early requirements often leaves honors programs scampering to find strategies for a robust experience in the early years of an honors education. This essay emerges from our experience at Northeastern University, where the number of AP credits applied to our undergraduate degrees has increased dramatically over the last several years. We have developed a number of curricular responses to this phenomenon, and, in order to understand how students perceive the role of AP credits and plan to use them, we developed a survey instrument administered to our fall 2007 entering class. This paper has several goals. First, as a backdrop for the larger discussion, we present a brief description of our honors program and an overview of AP credit. Second, we present the findings from our survey and a series of comments we received regarding AP credit through the NCHC listserv. Third, we situate the discussion within the larger concerns and challenges of honors education. The essay argues that the impact of AP credit directly affects many honors programs by presenting challenges to general education requirements as they are currently conceived and delivered at colleges and universities. BACKGROUND Northeastern University's Honors Program Northeastern University (NU) is a five-year cooperative education institution located in Boston, Massachusetts. The twenty-three-year-old honors program provides a comprehensive approach that emphasizes curriculum opportunities throughout the five years on campus, a commitment to a living-learning community model, and numerous opportunities to interact with faculty through seminars, dinners, and social activities. The honors program offers three types of academic distinctions: Course, Junior/Senior Project, and University. Students cannot use AP credit to waive the requirements for Course Distinction. Currently students are required to take six honors classes (including an interdisciplinary seminar) in order to receive Honors Course Distinction recognition (students may take more than six courses and many do). Students joining after the freshman year have fewer course requirements. Students may complete two courses for Honors Junior/Senior Project Distinction (usually a thesis or thesis-equivalent project). Students completing both Course and Project Distinction receive University Honors Distinction. If students meet all the requirements of the program, they take eight course equivalents (the equivalent of one academic year) in the program. The majority of our courses match a typical general education curriculum. The number of entry-level courses far exceeds advanced classes in a particular major although, depending on the number of students in a major, some advanced honors courses are offered. Students may also do honors independent studies in their major, sign up for honors credit as teaching assistants, and use study abroad experiences as equivalents to honors courses. Advanced honors work in the major primarily occurs in the Junior/Senior Project. Five years ago, we developed a number of interdisciplinary honors seminars. These courses are open to all upper-class students and have been offered by faculty in five of our six colleges. Currently we offer approximately fifteen honors seminars each year, with enrollment capped at nineteen students. The seminars are a unique honors requirement not mirrored in the university at large. In 2006, the university underwent a revision of the academic core (general education) requirements. Prior to the academic year 2007-08, each college had different core requirements, with the College of Arts and Sciences requiring the most courses in its core. …


Spore maturation occurs during normal development in when environmental influences induce a migrating slug a fruiting body. As the amoeboid prespore cells turn spores there is a burst of enzyme accumulation, epimerase, and at a later stage the exocytosis of of the spore coat. Evidence is presented here that triggered by an elevated intracellular cAMP number of rapidly developing (rde) mutants, whose cAMP been investigated previously, are shown to be able to submerged monolayers, whereas wild-type strains are of these mutants are best explained by a derepression transduction pathway utilizing intracellular cAMP. direct, it is shown that the permeant cAMP analogues


Delivery of drugs through the skin has been an attractive as well as a challenging area for research. Compared to other conventional routes of drug delivery such as oral, injection and inhaler, transdermal delivery has a variety of advantages. Transdermal systems are non-invasive, convenient, and inexpensive and can be self-administered. They can provide sustained plasma concentration profile for long periods of time. There are many transdermal formulations like lotions, creams, ointments, patches, etc. out of these gel is preferred. Transdermal gels are becoming more popular due to ease of application and better precutaneous absorption. The term gel are semi-solid, three dimensional, polymeric matrices comprising small amounts of solid dispersed in relatively large amount of liquid, yet possessing more solid like character. These system form a three dimensional, polymeric matrix in which a high degree of physical reticulation has been compromised. Gel formulations provide better application property and stability in comparison to cream and ointments. In these study methods, advantages, gel forming substances, structure of gel, their properties, their absorption mechanism, evaluation and future perspective are discussed to improve the permeability and bioavailability of gels.


Background Thymic epithelial tumours are rare and highly heterogeneous. Reports from the United States suggest an overall incidence of 0.15 per 100,000/year. In contrast, the incidence of these tumours in Latin America is largely unknown and reports are scarce, somewhat limited to case reports. Methods Herein, we report a series of 38 thymic tumours from a single institution, retrospectively incorporated into this study. Patient characteristics and outcomes including age, sex, stage, paraneoplastic syndromes, treatment regimens and the date of decease were obtained from medical records. Results Most cases in our series were females and young age (<50 years old) and early stage by Masaoka-Koga or the Moran staging systems. Also, a 34% of patients had myasthenia gravis (MG). Next, we analysed overall survival rates in our series and found that the quality of surgery (R0, R1 or R2), MG status and staging (Masaoka-Koga, Moran or TNM) were prognostic factors. Finally, we compared our data to larger thymic tumour series. Conclusions Overall, our study confirms complete surgical resection as the standard, most effective treatment for thymic epithelial tumours. Also, the Masaoka-Koga staging system remains as a reliable prognostic factor but also the Moran staging system should be considered for thymomas.


: Homogenous yeast (Endomycopsis sp. 20-9) glucoamylase was isolated from cultural medium. The homogeneity of the enzyme preparation is demonstrated by means of polyacrylamide gel disc electrophoresis, isofocusing and ultracentrifugation. Amino acid composition, molecular weight (53 000), sedimentation constant (4.3S) and isoelectric point (pI 3.80-3.82) of the enzyme are determined. Glucoamylase is found to be glucoprotein.


Although limpets are common in rocky intertidal shores, little is known about drilling predation on them. Drilling intensity and preferences by Nucella (Muricidae) on three Lottiidae species (Lottia pelta, L. digitalis, and Tectura scutum) were explored in a modern limpet death assemblage from False Bay (San Juan Island, Washington, USA). Of the 1,531 shells, only 61 (4%) were drilled, with drilling frequencies of 5.9% (L. digitalis), 2.4% (L. pelta) and 0.5% (T. scutum). The higher drilling frequency observed for L. digitalis may reflect spatial differences in prey distribution within the intertidal zone. Hole diameter correlated positively with limpet size, suggesting that larger predators drill larger prey. No differences in drilling frequency were observed due to prey ornamentation or size; however, drill holes were never observed on the largest and thickest L. pelta shells, suggesting a possible size refugium. The majority of holes occurred near the apex, indicating stereotypic attack behavior. Uniform frequency distributions across taphonomic grades and similar central tendencies between drilled and undrilled shells suggest that holes were not affected by taphonomic bias. The preservation of drilled and undrilled shells differed significantly, however; thus, drill holes may have negatively affected the preservation potential of shells, possibly by weakening the shell. Poor shell preservation indicates that biostratinomic effects may play a larger role in preservational biases and underestimation of predation frequencies than previously thought. Studies using drilling frequencies demand careful identification of predatory traces when shells are poorly preserved. In addition, careful evaluation of predation frequency is needed when predatory strategies that may not leave visible traces are possible.


Product variants with similar architecture but different functional requirements may have common parts. We define a product family to be a set of such products, and refer to the set of common parts as the product platform. Product platforms enable rapid adjustment to changing market needs while keeping development costs and time-cycles low. In many cases, however, the individual product requirements are conflicting when designing a product family. The designer must balance the tradeoff between maximizing commonality and minimizing individual product performance deviations. The design challenge is to select the product platform that will generate family designs with minimum deviation from individual optima. We propose a methodology that combines two previous approaches developed for making commonality decisions. In the first approach optimal values and sensitivity information from the individually optimized variants are used to indicate components that are probable candidates for sharing. In the second approach a relaxed combinatorial problem is formulated to maximize sharing among variants subject to bounds on performance reduction for the individually optimized values. In the combined methodology the first approach is used to identify an initial set of shared components and define the candidate platform to be considered by the second approach. The computational load is reduced significantly and the platform-selection problem is solved in a more robust manner. The proposed methodology is demonstrated on the design of an automotive engine family.


Nurses in every continent engage in social action. This, the author argues, has been a fact throughout the ages. The major social issues which contribute to health today are economic, energy, environmental and social welfare problems. Other major issues affecting health are population growth, poverty, education, clean water supply, and family planning. The author shows how individual nurses and nurses' associations can, and should, exercise their influence and power in promoting health at local, national and international levels, making primary health care a priority. By using their levers of power, together with technology and communications, nurses can help create a new world health order, the author concludes.


Kojin Karatani's Transcritique introduces a startlingly new dimension to Immanuel Kant's transcendental critique by using Kant to read Karl Marx and Marx to read Kant. In a direct challenge to standard academic approaches to both thinkers, Karatani's transcritical readings discover the ethical roots of socialism in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and a Kantian critique of money in Marx's Capital. Karatani reads Kant as a philosopher who sought to wrest metaphysics from the discredited realm of theoretical dogma in order to restore it to its proper place in the sphere of ethics and praxis. With this as his own critical model, he then presents a reading of Marx that attempts to liberate Marxism from longstanding Marxist and socialist presuppositions in order to locate a solid theoretical basis for a positive activism capable of gradually superseding the trinity of Capital-Nation-State.


This article analyzes problems associated with police officers' training process. There we discuss sambo wrestling positive influence on the development of physical features of police officers. Sambo also has a positive influence onto psychophysical readiness of officers, their ability to act in extreme situations. We analyzed the last three years evolution of student sambo sport in Lithuania, compared the specificity of judo and sambo fights. We tried to prove that sambo helped to achieve better results in police officers' professional activity. We drew a conclusion that: 1. The popularity of sambo among Lithuanian university students' is growing. The number of competing teams and sportsmen at Lithuanian student sambo championship each eyar is increasing about 20 percent. That is because of the growing popularity of all combat sports and reasonable activity of Lithuanian student sport association and sambo federation. Nowadays 9 from 15 Lithuanian state universities have sambo teams. 2. The results of Lithuanian student sambo championship and sambo federation cup show that nowadays in Lithuania there are several teams with good sportsmen skills and competition between them increases all sambo sportsmen's skill level. 3. Sambo competitions are also very useful for judo sportsmen. Sambo and judo have a lot of similarities and some differences. Student sambo and judo competition analysis shows that the highest results are achieved by such students who take part in both competitions. 4. Sambo competitions help police officers to achieve very important professional skills. We think that sambo is one of the best ways to train police students physically. Police students have not only to undergo sambo trainings and study sambo techniques, but they have to take part in sport competitions too. Sambo techniques used at the time of sambo competition fights are much more important from psychological point of view than technique elements carried out during the usual training. Sambo fight is a situation similar to the real extreme situation when a police officer must act very quickly and unhesitatingly, rationally share own potential and demonstrate maximal physical efforts to achieve victory.


The CONSTANS (CO) gene plays a central role in the regulation of flowering time in Arabidopsis, and is the founding member of a family of 17 CO homologues. CO and CO homologues have been found in flowering plants, but not in yeast and animals. To address the question of the origin of CO, this gene family was analysed in the moss Physcomitrella patens, a phylogenetically distant organism. In Arabidopsis and rice, three classes of CO homologues exist. The same three classes were found in Physcomitrella, suggesting that this gene family has ancient origins in the plant kingdom. In Arabidopsis, CO and 5 other genes belong to Group 1. Since only three Group 1 genes were identified in Physcomitrella, the family of CO homologues appears to be smaller in Physcomitrella than in Arabidopsis, in agreement with observations made with other gene families. Further analysis demonstrated that the Physcomitrella Group 1 genes are most similar to Arabidopsis Group 1 genes COL3/COL4/COL5, which are closely related to, but distinct from CO. An essential feature of CO function in Arabidopsis is a circadian controlled rhythm of transcript abundance. The three closely related Physcomitrella Group 1 genes have diurnal expression patterns that are distinct from the pattern of CO expression, and that are mainly caused by direct light induction. Distinct diurnal expression patterns are also observed for CO homologues that are not involved in control of flowering time. Consistently, the Physcomitrella CO homologues are unable to promote flowering upon expression in Arabidopsis. Together, the findings indicate that the CO branch of Group 1 genes does not exist in Physcomitrella. The role of CO in flowering time control was possibly derived from an ancestral function of Group 1 genes in light signal transduction. The function of the three Physcomitrella CO homologues was studied by exploiting the feasibility of gene targeting. A disruptant was generated for each Group 1 CO homologue in Physcomitrella, whereas in Arabidopsis only CO has been inactivated to date. Phenotypical analysis of the disruptants revealed no developmental defects, nor an alteration of the phototropic growth response. The high degree of sequence conservation between the three genes and the similar expression patterns suggest redundancy. Therefore, simultaneous inactivation of all three genes may be necessary to elucidate their function.


The prevalence of a wide range of risk-taking behaviour among high-school students in the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, was investigated. In this article, the findings for road-related behaviour are presented. Cluster sampling techniques produced a sample of 7,340 students from 16 schools in the three major education departments. A self-administered questionnaire was completed in a normal school period. Estimates for each education department were weighted to produce an overall estimate. During the previous year, 8.5% of the students had been involved in a motor vehicle accident, and 7.4% had been injured in a pedestrian accident. Of those who had driven a vehicle, 63.2% reported driving without a licence; 16.1% drove an overcrowded vehicle; and 8% reported driving under the influence of alcohol or cannabis. Of those who had been on a motorcycle, 47.9% reported riding without a helmet. Despite the availability of seat belts, 37.3% had failed to wear one on the last occasion they were in the front seat of a vehicle. Variations according to gender, standard, and home language(s) were identified. The prevalence of risk behaviour was higher in males, who also showed a more pronounced increase in such behaviour with age. The need for accident prevention programmes remains urgent.


Major depression has been associated with mortality from ischemic heart disease (IHD). In addition, a symptom of depression—hopelessness—has been suggested as a determinant of health status. We studied the relation of both depressed affect and hopelessness to IHD incidence using data from a cohort of 2,832 U.S. adults age 45–77 years who participated in the National Health Examination Follow-up Study (mean follow-up = 12.4 years) and had no history of IHD or serious illness at baseline. We used the depression subscale of the General Well-Being Schedule to define depressed affect and a single item from the scale to define hopelessness. At baseline, 11.1% of the cohort had depressed affect; 10.8% reported moderate hopelessness, and 2.9% reported severe hopelessness. Depressed affect and hopelessness were more common among women, blacks, and persons who were less educated, unmarried, smokers, or physically inactive. There were 189 cases of fatal IHD during the follow-up period. After we adjusted for demographic and risk factors, depressed affect was related to fatal IHD [relative risk = 1.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.0–2.3]; the relative risks of fatal IHD for moderate and severe levels of hopelessness were 1.6 (95% CI = 1.0–2.5) and 2.1 (95% CI = 1.1–3.9), respectively. Depressed affect and hopelessness were also associated with an increased risk of nonfatal IHD. These data indicate that depressed affect and hopelessness may play a causal role in the occurrence of both fatal and nonfatal IHD. (Epidemiology 1993;4:285–294)


Introduction: Phaeochromocytomas are neuroendocrine tumors of the adrenal medulla or extra-adrenal chromaffin tissue. Diagnosis of phaeochromocytoma is based on measurement of catecholamines and metanephrines in plasma or through a 24 hour urine collection. Plasma and urinary catecholamines can be normal in episodically secreting tumours, when measured between paroxysmal attacks. Case report: A 38 year old patient was admitted with acute onset of shortness of breath of 3 days duration, associated with orthopnoea. On examination there were bilateral extensive fine inspiratory crepitations in lung bases. His BP was 170/100 mmHg. Cardiac apex was heaving in nature and shifted to left. His ECG and 2D echocardiogram revealed left ventricular hypertrophy. His ejection fraction was 42%. Ultra sound scan and contrast CT of the abdomen showed a solid mass compatible with a left suprarenal tumour. His 24 hour urinary metanephrines were 8.9 micrograms (25-312). Phaeochromocytoma was diagnosd, despite having normal urinary metanephrines. This could be explained by the fact that certain phaeochromocytomas secrete catecholamines only intermittently. In such patients phaeochromocytoma can exist with normal urinary metanephrines. Discussion: He was started on antihypertensives. Resection of the tumour was done under the cover of alpha blockers at National Hospital of Sri Lanka and histology of the tumour confirmed the diagnosis of phaeochromocytoma. This was one of the rare cases of a symptomatic phaeochromocytoma without elevated urine catecholamines and metanephrines. Plasma free metanephrines would be the ideal test for biochemical detection of the tumour. But tumours can exist even with normal metanephrines.


4H Silicon Carbide (4H-SiC) has a great potential for low-loss power devices due to its superior electrical properties. However, the increase in demand for the power devices requires high quality SiC substrates and epitaxial layers. Mercury probe Capacitance Voltage (Hg CV) measurement is a well known procedure to characterize epi layers grown on SiC substrates, due to its non-destructive technique. However, careful calibration of the tool is very important for repeatable and accurate measurements. Here we present very close repeatability of Hg CV within 2.4% (standard deviation 0.7%), between different Solid State Measurements (SSM) setups compared with Ni Schottky (NiS) CV. In addition to growing uniformly doped epi layers, high surface quality of the epi layer is also needed for improved device performance. Improved process conditions resulted in a smooth epi with a surface roughness Ra 1.2 nm for a 6 µm thick epi layer. Molten Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) etching analysis also revealed a significant correlation between the surface roughness and epi defects.


This paper introduced a pattern recognition method based on auto-regression (AR) model and bayes taxonomy. The proposed methodology consists of three steps. In the first step, the paper designs a circuit to collect surface electromyography (SEMG) signal. In the second step, Auto-regressive (AR) modeling in time series has been applied on people's forearm muscle. So, EMG signal is preprocessed using AR-Model to extract features from MES. After calculated the coefficients of and AR model, we distill the AR coefficients as its eigenvector. In the third step, a bayes statistics algorithm is designed to classify the muscle movement of forearm. This paper finds this method has many advantages such as reducing error recognition rate and has a relative good result. It proves that there are some relations between motion pattern and AR coefficients. At the same time, this paper adopts virtual instrument technology to raise accuracy of measurement, reduce the cost and workload.